by Ike Hamill
“I think we have to know,” Bo said. “I think it’s our only chance at finding a solution. Does anyone believe that things will actually get worse?” He looked around to the others. James stood there, with his arms propped up on the counter and his shoulders hunched. Danielle chewed on one of her fingernails and then tucked her hands under her armpits. Chloe’s eyes blazed—jumping from person to person.
“Then if nobody objects, tell us what you know,” Bo said.
James nodded.
# # # # #
When James finished, Danielle stood and walked between the columns of boxes. She kept her hands to herself and inspected the stacks with wide eyes.
“Yeah, but how do you know?” Chloe asked. “How can you say for sure that if you didn’t transcribe a story each night that you would be forced to act one out.”
James couldn’t look at her when he answered. “Because of what happened to my best friend, and my dad, and his friend, Ron. And because I did miss a night. Before that, I had a sliver of doubt. Since then, I know the consequence.”
Bo sat down on one of the stools while Chloe paced back and forth.
“So this is some kind of malevolent force, right? Where did it come from? What does it want?” Bo asked.
“He told us where it came from,” Chloe said. “His father picked it up from that jail cell. What’s there now? Maybe we can go back there and figure this out.”
“Are you crazy?” Danielle said. “That’s the last place we should go.”
“It doesn’t matter,” James said. “The prison was closed in the seventies. Shortly after that, the property was sold off to a developer and there’s a shopping center there now. As far as I can figure, the location of the cell is now in the middle of a parking lot. I haven’t found any reports that people have gone crazy while parking there.”
“From the story, you’d have to be there on a specific date,” Bo said. “And maybe you’d have to be locked up all night in that one spot, right?”
“This is impossible,” Chloe said. “The details we do have are tiny, and they don’t make any logical sense. His father was possessed by this killing spirit, the same as other career criminals, but somehow he satisfied the urge just by writing about it. Then, magically, the curse moves to the son. And Danielle gets infected just by reading a story? There aren’t even enough things that make sense for us to form a theory of what’s happening.”
“Maybe it’s nitpicking,” Bo said, “but Danielle didn’t get the curse. She was a conduit for that one story, but if she had gotten the curse, she would have had to have written about something every night, right? Either that or she would have been out committing crimes.”
They all looked to Danielle. She had found the box with the initials “RG” on the side. She was circling it when she realized that they were waiting for a response.
“I’ve been locked inside every night. And, no, I haven’t been writing,” Danielle said.
“So then she doesn’t technically have the curse. That’s still only with James,” Bo said.
“Maybe James had the right idea,” Chloe said. “Maybe you guys should have let him commit suicide.”
“Chloe!” Danielle said.
“What? Can you really say that the world needs this guy around? Is he benefitting humanity in any way? He’s just stuck in here, generating nightmares,” Chloe said.
“It’s not his fault,” Bo said. “Besides, after his dad died, the curse didn’t go away, it just moved. What if one of us gets it?”
“Why the hell didn’t you move to the middle of nowhere? Why did you have to stay around a populated…” Chloe didn’t finish her question. She stopped when they heard more gunfire. This was much closer to the building. Bo moved to the curtains across the screen door. With one finger, he moved it to the side.
“What is it?” Chloe asked.
Bo put his hand up, signaling her to stop, and then put his finger to his lips. He backed away from the curtain and made sure they all understood to be quiet.
Outside, at another apartment door, they heard banging and then a muffled voice.
Everybody remained frozen, listening.
Danielle was closest to the door. She moved another tiny step closer and then froze with a jolt when the banging erupted on James’s door.
BANG. BANG.
They heard a muffled voice in a conversational tone.
The next voice they heard was shouted through the door.
“This is the police. There is a fire coming. We’re ordering everyone to evacuate to the high school. Leave all your possessions and bring only one change of clothes.”
Bo shook his head and motioned for everyone to stay quiet.
They heard the muffled conversation again and then everything was quiet. Bo moved towards the center of the room and called everyone to him.
Bo whispered, “That wasn’t the police. They’re probably just trying to get everyone to leave so they can loot the place.”
“There was a fire in Charlotte,” Chloe said. “I heard about it on the radio. What if they were telling the truth.”
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t get out of here,” Bo said, still whispering. “But those men are dangerous and we should wait for them to…”
POP!
The sound was from right outside the door. Something crashed down the stairs. Danielle jumped when the door handle jiggled. The deadbolt was engaged and the door didn’t move.
Bo moved back to the curtain. He carefully pushed it aside, just enough so he could see outside. After a minute, he returned to the others.
“They’re leaving, but we should give them a few more minutes before we try to go.”
Chloe nodded.
“I can’t leave,” James said. “I have to stay here, with the stories.”
“What good is it going to do if you’re here with the stories when the place burns to the ground?” Bo asked.
“Let him stay,” Chloe said.
“What if the answer is in these boxes?” Danielle asked.
Bo frowned and Chloe tilted her head.
“What do you mean?” Bo asked.
“One of these stories started this problem, right? What if there’s an answer in one of them? Maybe we can figure out a way to stop the progress, or restore everyone’s confidence in society.”
“That’s crazy,” Chloe said. “How would that work?”
“I don’t know. I guess the same way it began. We take one of the stories, put it online, and let everyone read it.”
James shook his head. “I’ve been through all these boxes, and all I’ve ever found was terror and grief.”
“You’re looking at it one story at a time though,” Danielle said. “What if we could combine the stories somehow? What if we could bounce one plot against another and somehow make the overall into a positive?”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Bo said. He pushed the curtain aside again.
Danielle kept going. “You know how some stories are about grim things but then the moral of the story is uplifting? What if we put something like that together and got it out in the world. Couldn’t we uplift everyone?”
“The first big problem is that you’d have to make the thing go viral,” Chloe said. “You can’t just decide that your story would go viral. You should know that better than anyone, Danny. You remember how hard you had to work just to get a few hundred readers cobbled together?”
“But this would be the sequel to Torture-cise. I’m sure that some people would read it just because of that,” Danielle said.
“That’s the other problem,” Chloe said. “Nobody is reading anything anymore. Some people are afraid to even listen to the news, because they heard that there’s a story that’s hypnotizing people. They don’t want to fall under the same spell that made everyone else go crazy, so a lot of people have just locked themselves away.”
“We don’t have to get everyone,” Danielle said. “Just enough people.”
When J
ames spoke, everyone looked to him. “If you did have the right story,” he said, “they don’t have to read it.”
“Okay,” Bo said from the curtain. “They’re gone. I just saw them go into building eight. We can sneak out the back.”
“I can’t leave,” James said again.
“Fine,” Chloe said. She was already over at the door, looking out the peephole. “They killed Mr. Dilton.”
“What?” Danielle said. She hurried to Chloe’s side. After they’d both looked out the hole, they opened the door a crack and peeked through.
Chloe turned back to Bo and James. Panic was beginning to bloom across her face. “The building is on fire.”
Danielle opened the door a little more. James smelled the smoke.
Bo tugged at James’s arm. “Come on, man, we have to get out before this place burns down.”
James glanced around at the stacks of boxes.
Chloe and Danielle were already moving through the door, carefully looking at every angle before they committed to leaving the apartment.
“Come on,” Bo said.
Instead of following, James turned to the stack nearest his desk. He threw open the lid to the box and began to paw through the contents.
“Come on!” Bo repeated. He was giving up on James, following the women to the landing. James shot a glance and saw the corpse out here. The old man was draped down the stairs, left to stare blankly up towards the heavens. Danielle was stepping over him to see if the way was clear down the staircase.
James found what he was looking for. It was the story for October 8th—that night. He also grabbed some paper and a couple of pens. When he left his apartment, James turned and locked the door behind him. It was mostly habit, but also a feeble attempt to keep locked inside the horror that had flowed from his hand. A deadbolt wouldn’t bottle it up, but it was the best he could do.
James stepped over Mr. Dilton and tried not to look into the old man’s eyes. The glassy pupils had lost their spark, but not their wisdom. As he ran down the steps, James folded the papers around the pens and stuffed them into his back pocket. The front of the building was on fire. Through the glass doors, he could feel the heat from the flames. He saw Bo, down the stairs, waving to him. James continued down. Their building sat in the side of a hill. Bo’s apartment was below the front entrance, but still above ground as the hill fell away.
Bo was standing in the doorway when James came down.
“The back exit is blocked. We have to go out through my window,” Bo said.
As James followed Bo through the living room of his apartment, he saw the smoke through the windows. In the back bedroom, Chloe was making her way through the window while Danielle stood in the lawn below. Chloe jumped. It was only a few feet to the ground.
Bo leapt out after her. James climbed over the sill.
After he was out, Bo reached up and closed the window behind them.
“Now where?” Danielle asked.
“My car is up in the lot, but those guys…”
“Are in eight,” Bo finished. “I’m not sure we have much of a choice. We could go on foot.”
James poked his head around the corner of the building to see how far the flames had advanced.
“We have to get far away from here before my apartment goes up. We don’t want to be anywhere near that smoke,” James said.
“Let’s go for the car,” Chloe said.
Danielle nodded.
The men followed the women up the hill and to the other corner of the building. From there, James saw that his own balcony was engulfed in flames. Soon, the interior of his place would catch.
Chloe turned back to them. “I’ll draw less attention if I go on my own. You guys stay here and I’ll swing through here for you.”
“No,” Bo said. “We should stick together. We’ll have a much better chance if we stick together.”
“Don’t let me slow you down,” James said. “I don’t run fast anymore.”
Chloe nodded. She pulled out her keys and put her finger through the ring, with her finger on the fob that would unlock the doors. She took a deep breath, nodded to everyone, and then turned to sprint. Chloe moved fast. Danielle was right on her heels. Bo couldn’t keep up with the women, and James surprised himself. He was huffing and puffing as they ran, but he had no trouble keeping up with the younger man. Adrenaline coursed through him and made him feel like he was gliding over the ground.
James heard a yell from across the lot and turned to see two men come out from one of the other buildings. They waved to Chloe with their arms over their heads and shouted something that James couldn’t hear. It sounded like they were calling a warning.
Chloe got to the car first as the lights flashed. She ripped open her door and Danielle ran around to the passenger’s side.
One of the men across the lot ducked back into the building. The other started at a trot towards the women. He hadn’t noticed Bo or James yet. The car started and jerked backwards.
Chloe angled the nose towards Bo and James. The tires barked as she darted towards them. She was also closing the distance to the man across the lot.
James could finally hear what he was shouting.
“… can’t go that way. All the roads are blocked. Y’all should come in here with us,” the man said. Bo was slowing down, waiting for Chloe to pull up.
The other man came out of the building. He held a rifle.
James grabbed Bo and pulled him between two cars.
“Get down,” James said.
Just as Bo and James ducked down, they heard a gunshot. Chloe screeched to a stop at the trunk of the car they were hiding behind. Bo and James moved fast, hunched over. Bo opened the door and practically dove inside. James followed. The door was barely shut when Chloe gunned the engine again. James peeked up over the seat and through the rear window. He heard a second shot and saw that the man was pointing up in the air.
“Jesus,” Danielle said. “What the fuck?”
Chloe skidded around a corner and blew through the stop sign at the end of the lot. They were out on the main road.
“Be careful,” Bo said. “He said the roads were blocked.”
“I think he was trying to trick us into staying,” James said.
“Still.”
The road was empty. When they passed by a car that was halfway off the road, Chloe moved into the left lane, giving it a wide berth. Danielle practically pressed her face to the side window when they heard sirens in the distance. They couldn’t see the source of the sound.
“Where is everyone?” Chloe asked.
They passed under a traffic signal. The amber light was flashing for nobody but them.
“I imagine they’re all holed up, trying to wait this thing out. It’s too dangerous to be out on the street. Chloe, look out!” Bo yelled.
She had taken her eyes off the road to look at a convenience store. The front window of the place was smashed, and there was movement inside. When Bo yelled, she looked around to see a roadblock up ahead. It was two police cars, sitting nose to nose across the road. With a ditch on one side and a guardrail on the other, there was no way around.
Chloe dragged the wheel to the right. The car swayed as she pulled it into a wide turn onto Route 193. They were headed west.
“There was nobody in those cars,” Danielle said. “Why would they set up a roadblock and then abandon it?”
“Maybe they’re trying to contain something,” Bo said.
“They can’t block all the roads,” Chloe said. “There are about a million old dirt roads that go up through these hills. My brother used to use them exclusively before he got his license.”
“It only takes a chainsaw to block a dirt road through the woods,” Bo said.
“Yeah, but first you have to know that the road exists,” Chloe said.
She slowed down and crossed over the double-yellow line. Chloe kept her speed for a few seconds while she studied the woods. Without notice, she slammed on the b
rakes and turned the wheel. Soon, her little car tipped over the side of the road, down a slight bank.
“Chloe! What are you doing?” Danielle asked.
The tires spun on the grass for a second before they caught traction. Once she started up the hill, they saw what she already knew about. The low tree branches were masking the entrance to a dirt road. It was only as wide as her car, but it was flat and well-packed. Chloe drove a bit slower through the woods.
“This comes out near the Macomber farm,” Chloe said. “My brother used to pick tobacco, back when Mr. Macomber still grew it.”
“Then what?” Bo asked.
“There’s a country road that heads out towards my parents’ cabin. They’re still out west, so the place will be empty,” Chloe said.
# # # # #
“Don’t slow down,” Danielle said.
Chloe stole quick glances at the road, but her attention was through her window. She sat up high in her seat as she attempted to see past the bushes to the old farmhouse.
“I just want to…” Chloe said.
She stabbed the brakes, and the car came to a scraping halt on the dirt road. Dust washed past them, kicked up and then carried off by the breeze.
“What?” Bo asked.
The car bonged a warning at Chloe as she took off her seatbelt, put the vehicle in park, and got out.
Looking out his own window, Bo spotted what had drawn Chloe’s attention.
“Oh, shit,” Bo said. He jumped out and followed Chloe.
When James caught up, Chloe and Bo were standing over the figure of a man. His fingers were clawed into the grass. His head was turned with his right ear pressed to the ground, like he was listening to some secret the dirt was whispering.
His eyes were missing, and there was a ragged hole in his cheek. Crusty black blood had dried around his ear.
Chloe hugged one arm close to her chest. Her hand cupped the lower half of her face. Silent tears pumped down her cheeks.
James kneeled and touched the old man’s hand. It was ice cold.
“His legs were broken,” Bo said.
“It was Torture-cise,” Danielle said, approaching the group. “God, what a stupid name for a horrific attack.”