by Harper Lin
“We still have to go back. But let’s get what we came here for.”
I got to my feet and went over to Bea. Extending my hand down to her, I helped her to her feet and watched as she pulled the bag from the can and dropped it in the biohazard disposal. No one would find it.
With the camera in plain view of the door, we followed the cable with a pen flashlight I swiped from the doc’s office. It led to a closet at the back of the office not far from where we had entered.
Thankfully, it wasn’t locked, and we all let out a sigh of relief.
“I don’t think I could have passed through that door too,” I muttered as I turned the knob.
There it was. Above a metal shelving unit stacked with towels, boxes of rubber gloves, bags of cat litter, and old newspapers was an old television hooked to a VCR.
“I’ll say another thank heavens that the doc isn’t high tech.” I grabbed a step stool and proceeded to press the buttons on the machine. Yes, there was a tape in there. Yes, it looked as if it had recorded.
“Okay. I’m going to rewind it a bit and see what we get.”
There was no way of telling if what we were watching was before or after I came into the office. The only thing we could do was rewind the entire thing and sit and watch it all. I grabbed a folding chair for Aunt Astrid, and Bea wheeled Bunny’s chair back. I sat on the step stool. The screen was cut up into four areas—the front door, the room with the animals and supplies, the back door, and finally, the doctor’s office.
My head was still hurting, and I could tell from Bea’s complexion that she wasn’t feeling well, either. The only one who looked good was Aunt Astrid.
“I’m hungry,” she muttered.
The thought of food made my head throb and sent Bea dashing back to the small bucket.
“Better keep that with you,” I called, wincing as my teasing caused me more pain in my head.
Finally, I saw myself on the screen. It was a grainy black-and-white image, but we all could tell it was me.
“He came in just before me.” I hit Rewind and gritted my teeth as the flashing and ribbons of black and white assaulted my eyes. “There!” I panted. It was him. Otto Clare. He walked in as though he owned the place. What did he do? Why didn’t anyone else see him? Bunny was right there at the desk! He walked right past her!
“What did he want? He went into the doctor’s office and…” I rubbed my pounding head and snapped my fingers. “The drugs are kept there.”
Sure enough, Otto Clare went up to the medicine cabinet and began to help himself, filling a bag he had pulled out from his pocket.
“Guys.” Bea wobbled back to the closet door, holding the trash can in her arm. “There’s something outside.”
“So now we know where the horse tranquilizers came from,” I muttered through my veil of pain.
“Guys? Did you hear what I said?” Bea put her hand on my shoulder to steady herself. “There’s something outside.”
“Something or someone?” I asked, squinting.
“Something,” she whispered. “Listen.”
When I heard it, my heart turned to ice in my chest.
“Where are you? Let me in. Let me in.”
Rotmirage
“What is that thing doing here? This isn’t on Clare property!” I hissed, hoping it couldn’t hear through the walls.
“Oh dear.” Aunt Astrid was the only one of us not suffering from some kind of ill effect of travelling through solid matter. “I wonder if it can move through objects, too.”
“If it could, I think I would have seen it in the forest, right?” I asked, hoping my aunt would give me a nod and a sigh of relief. Instead, she had an expression similar to one that said, “Sorry, but I accidentally burnt your house down.”
“What is it doing?” Bea held a tissue to her lips and nearly gagged on the words she was saying.
“It’s trying to get in the same way we did.” Aunt Astrid was staring at the back door we had passed through. Her vision of other dimensions was telling her something. Then I heard it and knew what was happening.
“Oh no. It’s digging for a way in.” I could hear the Rotmirage scratching and clawing at the door, as it had at the window of Tom’s truck and Tamara’s car.
“It knows we passed through there,” my aunt whispered. “Any minute, it’s going to pass through the same seam we slipped through.”
“How can that be?” Bea asked as she stiffened her back. I saw her trying to pull herself together to help, but it was a struggle. I knew the feeling. My head was pounding so hard I could feel it in my gums.
“I think it can see it. Like I can.” Aunt Astrid stood up and walked dangerously close to the door. “I see the split in the part through the dimensions. It’s coming in here. There’s no stopping it now.”
That singsongy voice that was a twisted and diseased version of a child’s voice was becoming clearer and clearer from the other side of the door. Its frantic scratching was relentless. Any other being would have bloody stumps by now. But what did I know? Maybe its fingers were bloody but that didn’t matter. Maybe it was using those gnarled claws and gnawing at the door with its teeth, too. All I knew was that any second, that hideous thing was going to push itself through the solid door and I’d be staring into those milky-white eyes again.
“We can’t just stand here.” Bea set her bucket down and looked around. Without hesitating, she pulled the fire extinguisher off the wall. There was a yardstick against the wall and a stapler on the small table in the corner. I took one in each hand and joined my cousin, standing in front of Aunt Astrid. Before we could launch our ruthless assault, I heard another sound that made my heart break.
“Meeeoooow!”
I dropped my “weapons” and dashed to the small window on the left side of the door we all passed through. Yanking the blinds up, I looked out. My eyes suddenly filled with tears. It was Treacle.
His black fur was standing straight up, making him look at least twice his size. With an arched back and raised tail, he hissed and growled at the Rotmirage as fiercely as any lion would toward a hyena.
The Rotmirage stopped its frantic scratching and whirled around to face my cat. It crouched down and leaned on the tops of its curled claws and obscenely bounced on its haunches.
But Treacle didn’t back down. I didn’t know if the Rotmirage understood what my cat was saying, but it couldn’t mistake his tone. It growled and peeled its lips back from its teeth, licking them as a hungry dog would.
“No.” I could barely find my voice. “I’ve got to help him.”
Aunt Astrid took hold of my arm and held it tightly. She saw something.
“What’s he doing?” I began to cry. “Aunt Astrid, what do you see?”
She shook her head but said nothing.
Before I could charge for the door and yank it open, Treacle jumped at the Rotmirage. His green eyes were wide. His mouth was open, baring every tooth he had. Every claw was extended. He was ready for battle and took it right to the face and neck of the Rotmirage. When he landed, I could see him sink his claws and fangs deep into the flesh of the creature. A howl like nothing I had ever heard in my life filled my ears, and my disgust and terror made my skin ripple.
I watched as it grabbed my cat and tore him from its face and neck, leaving deep wounds that oozed and bubbled. With enough force to rattle the frame, it threw Treacle into the door it was trying to get into and disappeared.
As if reading my mind, my aunt took both Bea and me by the hand, and we were wrenched through the door without it or anything else being disturbed.
My head felt as if it had been pounded with a mallet. Bea had fallen to her knees and was throwing up again. With blurry eyes, I looked and saw Treacle. He was on the ground, not moving. Quickly, I knelt down and scooped him into my arms. Instantly, his purring machine whirred into action.
“Oh, thank God.” I sobbed, pulling the cat close to my face, holding him like a newborn baby, close and tightly to my c
hest.
“Let’s get out of here.” Aunt Astrid touched my shoulder. She was nervously looking around.
I stood and went to Bea, offering her my elbow to use to steady herself and get up. We hurried to my car. I handed Treacle off to Aunt Astrid, who gently stroked his head. Bea, who fell into the backseat and was drenched in sweat, reached a hand up to touch him.
“He’ll be okay, Cath. There is nothing attached to him or any broken bones. Bruises, maybe,” she whispered before lying down on the backseat with her arms over her stomach.
I rubbed my aching head and let out a sigh of relief.
“What do we do now?” I started the engine and, without a look back, gunned my little car as fast as it would go, kicking up dirt and gravel behind me as I left the Wonder Falls Veterinary Clinic behind.
“I need to get home,” Bea mumbled. “I think some chamomile-and-mint tea might do the trick.”
“You better do the same, Cath. Get this kitty some milk, and both of you go right to bed.”
“You’re not going to get an argument from me.” I looked in the rearview mirror, expecting to see the Rotmirage hobbling after us, but there was nothing.
Every street light and stoplight along the way home felt like a searchlight shining right in my eyes, making my head hurt. We drove in silence, although all of us were thinking the same thing. How did that thing find us? How did Otto Clare get in and out of the veterinary office with drugs and no one seeing him? And what in the world was he doing with those drugs?
None of us were in any condition to discuss the night’s events. Except maybe Aunt Astrid, who was alert and still hungry. She said so as we drove past a Taco Bell, making me shudder at the thought of all those bright fluorescent lights and poor Bea groan at the idea of fast food. Actually, Bea always groaned at the idea of fast food on account of the additives and such. But this was a sickened groan at the idea of any kind of food. The poor girl was in bad shape.
“How about it? Do you want some milk when we get home?” I looked quickly at Treacle then back at the road.
“Yes. That would be nice.” He waved the tip of his tail at me lazily. The speedometer needle showed I was going ten miles over the limit. I wanted to be home as badly as everyone else.
Once at Bea’s house, I watched my cousin pull herself out of the backseat.
“It’s been fun, girls.” She waved as if she were drunk and hurried to her front door. Once inside, she turned, waved quickly, and slammed the door shut behind her.
I dropped off my aunt and waited until she was also safely inside before driving across the street to my home. I picked Treacle up from the passenger seat and held him like a baby over my shoulder as we got inside. The cold fall air, the slight breeze, even the stars in the black sky made my head pulse painfully.
“A little milk for you and some aspirin for me.”
Treacle purred happily as we entered the house and I gently closed the door and locked it behind us.
Enzo
“How in the world did you know we were at the vet’s office?” I asked, pouring Treacle’s milk by candlelight. It might as well have been a blazing inferno, minus the heat, the way the tiny flame hurt my eyes.
“I stopped by to see Marshmallow. She told me where you guys were headed. I knew you were going to need help.”
I set the small saucer of milk on the counter in front of him.
“How did you know that?”
Treacle looked up, licking his whiskers, and backed up on his haunches to sit and groom his paws. His green eyes looked at me intensely.
“I heard it from Enzo. He’s a stray and a survivor of the Clare Farm.”
My heart ached at those words.
“He was there?”
“Yes. And that creature.”
“The Rotmirage?”
“If that’s what you call it. It’s picked up on your scent. Tom’s too. It won’t forget until it’s gotten to you both.”
“Did it follow my scent to the vet’s office?”
“It did. But it couldn’t figure out how you got in. Lucky for you I showed up.”
That was the truth. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened to all of us had that thing gotten in. Treacle continued to tell me more.
The Rotmirage fed on energy from mammals. Plant life or fish didn’t do anything for it. That would’ve been like dropping in a grain of sand to fill the Grand Canyon.
So the more complex the mammal, the stronger the energy, the more the Rotmirage ate.
According to Enzo, the farmers of that land were not good people. They never had been. Enzo knew for a fact that they had a history of incestuous relationships in their family tree and multiple accounts of family members practicing the black arts.
“They picked up Enzo when he was chasing after a mouse in their barn. Otto Clare’s son grabbed him by his tail and yanked him into his arms. Before he knew what was happening, he was in a rusted old cage in the house. There were a lot of cages and various animals in them, all in various stages of emaciation.”
Treacle’s eyes displayed the sadness and terror that his friend Enzo experienced while on the Clare farm.
It was only blind luck that his cage got kicked and the latch unhinged.
Enzo said he could still hear the crying and wailing of the other animals as they cheered and encouraged him to run. There was nothing he could do for them. He couldn’t open their cages, or else he would have. But instead, he slunk around the house, finding an open window that he jumped from, and ran off the property, never looking back.
But before that, Enzo witnessed the Clares’ daily rituals, which included summoning the Rotmirage.
They walked about the property with starving animals all around them, without the slightest acknowledgement they were there. It was as if they were just ghastly lawn sculptures or bits of furniture that were only noticed when they were no longer useful.
“How did they summon the Rotmirage? Was it always there, or was it called?”
Enzo said that the monster seemed to appear whenever Otto Clare wanted. It drained the life out of the animals a little at a time. But the Clares would lure humans there every so often under the guise of land for sale or handyman jobs or even houses for rent. They’d get them to come down County Line Road 63 and lead them into the winding roads, where the Rotmirage would get them lost or confused or tired. The next thing they knew, they’d be at Suicide Bridge. Then life would be too much to bear. Finding a way out would seem impossible. There was no hope anymore.
All of it looked conveniently like a suicide. But it wasn’t.
Treacle went on to say that as Enzo got farther away from the house, he thought he’d feel safer, but that wasn’t the case. He came to the old bridge and saw a man hanging from his neck. The Rotmirage was hobbling toward the body, giggling and rubbing its twisted and deformed hands together.
“Whatever it was going to do, Enzo didn’t know. He was too afraid and ran in another direction, finding his way to the main road and slinking stealthily back to the safety and familiarity of Wonder Falls alleys and streets.”
“Were any of the Clares around when Enzo saw the man at Suicide Bridge?” I had to ask.
“No. They were probably conducting their business from the old farmhouse. Enzo said they had several men who visited the farm for a short spell and then left. But they’d return in a week, maybe two, maybe a month.”
“Did Enzo see them use any kind of book? Something with spells that can be destroyed?”
“Not that he ever saw. But he said it would be hard to find anything in the main house where they kept him and some other animals. The place was a mess of garbage. They didn’t tend to their housekeeping, nor did they mind the acres of farming land they had. It was all just going to waste. It was almost as if they didn’t want any life there, nothing growing or producing. But they lorded over every inch of the place like kings. Enzo said they were trapped there but that they liked it.”
I shivered.
“You took a big chance coming to the vet’s office like that. What if the Rotmirage had gotten you and started sucking your life right out of you? What would I do without you?”
Treacle’s pink tongue swept over his whiskers again, and his eyes looked directly into mine.
I know there are “dog people” and “cat people.” Don’t get me wrong—I love animals, and it’s just that plain and simple. But when a cat looks at you like Treacle was looking at me after such an upsetting ordeal, I could see the trust and the love there. He was a good cat, and I’d risk my life for him the same as I would for Bea or Aunt Astrid.
I nodded, but the motion made me cringe.
“Head still hurt?”
“I don’t know how Aunt Astrid does it. Passing through doors or walls into other dimensions and back again. I feel like someone bashed me on the head with a brick.”
“I’m pretty tired, too.”
“Some rest is what we need. Then we have to figure out what to do next. I have a feeling the Clares aren’t going to stop, and there will be future generations of them. That is if they can find any women who would want to be part of all that.”
Treacle jumped off the counter and walked quietly with me to the bedroom, where he hopped up on the bed and waited as I put on pajamas. I almost skipped the whole evening ritual since pulling my shirt over my head hurt so badly.
Finally, I slowly laid my head down on the pillow, which was normally soft and welcoming but this time felt as if it were made of marble. Treacle encircled my head with his body. The warmth and his gentle purring were like a scalp massage. We were both asleep within minutes. But if it weren’t for Aunt Astrid suffering a little insomnia while keeping an eye on Bea’s house and mine, none of us would have known that a large, familiar truck covered in mud drove down our street four times throughout the course of the night.
Help
As if the universe had heard my subconscious plea, the Brew-Ha-Ha did not have its normal line of customers waiting for us to open and pour their steaming cups of coffee. There were a few regulars, but they were low-maintenance patrons, and we loved them for that. Especially today.