This face stared down at me from between sparse locks of silver hair, and was carried on a body of pasty white flesh which I now saw was completely bereft of clothing. Swaying against a skeletal chassis were two misshapen breasts, and below, a rotund stomach that brought to mind the quivering engorgement of a well-fed snake.
I convulsed so awfully that I nearly toppled over, and for an instant every sound—those grating gasps, the chatter of the creek, the night birds—was buried beneath the scream of my pulse.
As the figure drew nearer, half-way down the hill now, my mind ceded control to my body and my legs began to move of their own accord. They were numb, felt like popsicle sticks as they plunged in and out of the muck in heavy steps, but they carried me from the base of the hill into a sprint.
Tears welled in my eyes, fouling up my vision.
From behind, the ghoul's footfalls sounded close.
Racing through the mud and barely staying upright, I fled towards the familiar—towards the creek.
I hadn't intended to fall in, though. Nearing the disintegrating bank and turning quickly to gauge the distance of my pursuer, I drew too close to the edge and did exactly that.
The last thing I saw before tumbling into the water was not the monstrous thing, but Jared, scrambling towards me, arms outstretched in warning.
He didn't make it in time.
I hit the water with a splash and immediately the current rushed over me. Like a piece of flotsam I was whisked downstream.
Twelve
Gasping, choking.
Never been much of a swimmer, and the current's too rough to get much of a rhythm going.
Being carried off by the undertow, barely able to stay above water.
Then I sink.
Vanishing under the surface and there's only cold now. A darkness more complete than that of the night-soaked woods. I can feel the water gurgling into my ears. I fail to shut my mouth in time and get a throatful of the surf; the dissolved solids, the roiling sediments, have a pre-Cambrian sweetness to them.
Then I'm heaved back to the surface just long enough to spit up and take another gasp.
I can feel the edge of the bank with my hands as I'm carried past; my arms are battered against the stones, tangled in the protruding tree roots.
Slipping underneath again, I realize something.
Those aren't tree roots.
They're hands, and they're grabbing at me as I pass. I feel them elsewhere, tugging at my legs, my waist, my neck. They're pulling me deeper in, trying to keep me submerged till all my fight is gone.
They're winning, too.
Batting blindly through the water, I touch the things and get a good feel for them. The flesh is ice-cold and soft to the point of disintegration under the slightest pressure—wrists with all the give of overripe stone fruits; wriggling fingers that flake apart as readily as baked fish. Still, they keep reaching, keep tugging.
I'm over, then under again, in the space of a labored gasp.
By some miracle I roll onto my back and return to the surface with water streaming out of my ears and nose. Bobbing on the creek like a cork, the light seems too bright; maybe the moon has found its second wind, or else I've been drowning for hours now.
I'm reaching out, looking for something I can use as an anchor.
Still gasping, still choking. The stem of a dead leaf has found its way into my mouth; I can feel it wrapped around one of my tonsils.
Eyes flashing open as I bump against the gelatinous bank, I'm stunned by the midday sun barreling down at me through the trees. And there's more. People milling around the waterfront, carrying baskets of fishing gear and washing. Women pacing about in long dresses and bonnets, looking like Whistler's Mother; men with muskets in hand and an assortment of furs tied to their belts. I know they aren't seeing me—not really. They just watch the creek flow with pleasant looks on their faces, glance past me like I'm some prize carp drifting by.
The current changes. My body folds and I sink once again.
This time, I don't resurface for awhile—can't gain any purchase against the banks and can't so much as feel the creek bed below. I'm just suspended there, helpless, like a fetus in utero.
I manage to thrust my head out of the water and steal a little oxygen, and I see the night has returned and all the pleasant actors have withdrawn. Caught in the flow, I'd temporarily surfaced in the old world; in the past. The world is unraveling all around me and the laws of physics don't seem so concrete as once. Anything can—and will—happen. For all I know, when next I open my eyes, I'll find myself looking out into the world of the future. Maybe the creek will have dried up by then and someone will fetch me as they cruise past in their flying car.
The unseen hands claw at the hem of my poncho, dragging me down. I sink like a rock.
This time, I don't remember resurfacing.
Thirteen
Pain.
There was pain radiating through my arms and legs. Vague aches in my abdomen where I knew all of my most important bits were. My head was home to an awful pain, like it had been crushed in a vise.
So much pain.
Though I hadn't opened my eyes yet, I could feel the world spinning all around me, and I shrank into myself in the hopes that I wouldn't tumble off the side. Mired in the pain-slog, it occurred to me that this wasn't the movement of water I was sensing, it was all internal, and that, furthermore, the cold ground I presently cowered on was solid.
Finally, I opened my eyes.
A cool blade of grass brushed my cornea as I blinked blearily. A darkness held sway over my surroundings—richly powerful—but I could see enough to remember where I was. And I was with it enough to sob, too, at that realization. Huddled into a shaking heap, I clasped at my legs, felt the pains of the day course through me in a fresh wave and had a good, long cry.
The woods. You're still in the woods.
Every little movement—from raising my head up from the grass, to actually sitting upright—hurt a great deal, but after some effort, I managed. Swallowing down the pain, I massaged my brow and tried accessing my memories—tried to grasp at the last ribbon of consciousness. Rocking back and forth on the ground, I found the only thing I could immediately recall was the water.
I'd fallen into the creek, had been in the process of drowning in that dirty, surging stream.
Now, I was on land.
I panned about slowly, wondering how that was possible.
To my right and left were trees. Scattered among them were shrubs, shadow-grown ferns, the odd stone. The element I'd most expected in my surroundings—that is, the creek itself—was nowhere to be seen, however.
The moon bore down on me like a staring eye as I took stock of my body and questioned my circumstances. Perhaps I'd been plucked out of the water by someone—by Jared—and he'd carried me here to rest. That was the only thing that made sense.
Studies of my clothing shut down that hypothesis, though.
I'd come to in the damp grass, and so had ended up with wet spots on my clothing, but for all intents and purposes I was otherwise dry. I brought a hand up to my head and calmly ran my fingers through my hair. In doing so, I came to evict a small, black insect that'd cuddled up to my scalp, but my hair proved dry as straw. I probed my ears with my fingers, recalling the way the creek water had poured into me, but no shaking of my head could produce the uncomfortable fullness that accompanies swimmer's ear. My mouth was plagued by sourness—a taste I'd undoubtedly acquired after lying unconscious in the grass and huffing the night air through an open mouth. The taste of the creek was distant now; so distant, like a sensation from a dream, that I couldn't be sure I'd ever tasted it at all.
The fright this discovery gave me is hard to overstate, but suffice it to say it was enough to get me on my tired feet.
Where reality began and delusion ended was difficult to say. I had only the here and now, and the evidence of my present circumstances, to go off of. All signs pointed to my having hallucinated
the trip down the creek. I was dry, wasn't I? And to boot, the creek itself was nowhere in sight. Perhaps I'd staggered off in fright or confusion, passed out in this small clearing, and had dreamt the terrifying ordeal. But this explanation left much to be desired as well. Where was Jared, then, and why hadn't he stopped me from wandering off?
Standing in the cursed woods, I realized the answer would not be revealed to me. Things functioned differently here, outside of sound logic. Working through the nightmarish highlight reel that had been this trip, I understood that this was not the first time my cognizance had been violated by the wiles of this place. The fear and disorientation I felt was the region's defining characteristic, in fact—and it had been so for more than a hundred years. All I could be certain of—and the pain I felt was convincing enough to assure me—was that I was alive.
And I was only alive, I supposed, because Ellie Pomeroy had wanted me that way.
I was in no mood for highfalutin explorations into the nature of the supernatural, and even at my calmest could scarcely hope to grasp the mechanics behind something like a curse. I doubted that the spirit of Ellie Pomeroy was wandering behind the scenes like an imp and pulling levers, and yet I maintained, as I'd done for awhile now, that she was very much alive and active in these woods in some capacity; and what's more, that my present sufferings were owed fully to her lingering will.
For the present, at least, I was alone.
Alone, and at a complete loss.
Jared and I had struggled through the woods, and his attempts at navigation had yielded little. Even so, the two of us had been together, and there'd been security in that. Now, there was no telling where he was. The thought occurred to me—not without the skipping of a few heartbeats—that something had happened to him, but I brushed it aside. I prayed he was all right, and that he was faring better in this hellish forest than I was.
I began pacing into the woods ahead, wanting to call out for my boyfriend but afraid of the other things my voice might summon. I recalled with a shudder the ghoulish vision that'd chased me into the creek prior to my awakening. It had to have been a vision, of course—I refused to believe that something so awful could really exist, even here. Regardless, I kept my voice to myself. There was no sense in risking it.
Instead of making a ruckus and drawing undue attention, I listened. I listened for Jared, I listened for the sounds of pursuit, and of the creek. What's more, I kept my eyes peeled for anything that could help me better gauge my location. The woods were dark and vast, and though we'd spent the day lost in them, every tree and clearing seemed to me a carbon copy of the last. It was my hope that some other feature might rise up out of the night to act as a signpost—a ruin or sign of civilization I could cling to in my hopeless wandering.
I listened to the conversations of insects. They whirred and clicked and sang amongst themselves, and as I pressed on without a clear path, I wondered if they were mocking me. The shrill voice of a cricket rose from a thicket nearby, and to my addled mind it possessed a measure of sass. “Oh, I wouldn't go that way if I were you, dear...” In the trees above, I sometimes heard the settling of birds in their nests, and their conspiratorial coos as I walked past. “The poor thing is never going to make it. She's hopeless.”
I was down on myself, drinking deep from my misery, when I spotted something in the distance that made my spirits soar in triumph.
A light.
It was not an especially bright light, nor especially close, but in a narrow crevice beyond the trees a yellow glow pierced the night. I rubbed at my eyes to make sure I wasn't imagining it, and as I took off towards it, I half-wondered if it wasn't merely a reflection of the moon. My mind teemed deliriously with bizarre fancies—maybe it was a cluster of light-bearing fairies, or a bumbling will-o'-the wisp waiting to show me the way out of the woods. Perhaps it was a search party, led by Jared, or else a streetlamp signaling the border of civilization.
The closer I got, the more detail I was able to make out about this strange light issuing from the shadowed wilderness. It was not artificial; artificial lights don't skip and weave the way this one did. I was seeing natural light of some sort—a fire, I presumed. The only thing I couldn't clearly make out yet was its source.
I halted, unsure whether I should run straight for it or take a more cautious approach. If it was a campfire, then who did it belong to? Then, in the same breath, came a counter-point: Does it really matter whose it is? There were few things in the world more appealing to me just then than a campfire. I was awfully desperate for comfort and warmth—so much so that my resistance proved short-lived and my curiosity won out. Maybe it's Jared, I thought. It could be that he's set up a new camp, and is waiting there for me. Pleased enough by this sham theory, I pushed towards the light, watching as it shifted lazily through a spectrum of deep yellows and oranges. I dreamt of its warmth, prayed it wasn't too much further.
But I was not prepared for what I encountered as I broke through the trees.
The light was indeed that of a fire—the light of numerous fires, in fact. The glow had been coming from perhaps dozens of lit candles arranged in neat rows. I lost my balance and thumped against a tree, feeling as though I might pass out, such was my despair. Fear seized my legs and sent me scrambling for cover. It was not the sight of the candles themselves that inspired this fit of terror, but rather, the place in which they sat.
The porch and windows of a certain old house had been lined in these lit candles. An arrangement that had likely been intended to make the place inviting had the exact opposite effect. Hot bile stung my throat, and I was overcome with revulsion. From deeper in came still more light; the hardy glow of what looked to be a hearth had set one of its vacuous windows shining brightly.
It was the house.
The very same one Jared and I had fled from.
A house choked in darkness and left wallowing in decrepitude. A house that had swallowed us up in the day, only to spit us out—shaken and defiled—by night. A house where I had felt my mind slip, and had stood laughing in the dark with my fingers tangled in the plumage of a dead bird, and where Jared had groped about in the darkness, touching the face of a silent standby.
It was this house, couched between dense clusters of trees and fronted by a pool of stagnant water, that I looked out upon. It appeared that someone was home.
Fourteen
Did it make sense to cry at the sight of that tottering house? No—and I'd done enough of that already. I stood there, staring at it from a distance, and wondered if it was any more sensical to try and run from it. So long as I remained in these wicked woods, I was playing by someone else's rules—was forced to tolerate a different breed of reality—and I damn well knew it by then. Running away from the house was the expected move, the rational thing, but in this place where my waking life had been filled with nightmarish hallucinations—in this wretched place where reason simply didn't exist—the futility of retreat was painfully clear to me.
I didn't have to go into that house, didn't have to subject myself to whatever lurked within its walls, but avoiding it didn't ensure my safety, either. The spirit of these woods would descend upon me in some other way if I fled, in its own time, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I still wasn't in any rush to go near it, but the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't-edness of the situation tempered my terror somewhat. I watched as tendrils of white wax spilled from the lit candles and streamed down the steps of the porch, the windowsills. All that while, the animal in me clamored for warmth. I focused longingly on that orange-yellow window, dreaming of the fire that awaited me inside if only I could muster the courage to enter.
There was no telling whether Jared was looking for me at that moment, but if he was, then it only made sense for me to wait for him in a place the two of us knew. Notable landmarks in this sprawling wilderness had been few and far between. If I waited in the house, perhaps he'd see the lights in his wanderings and would investigate, upon which we
'd be reunited. I fostered more ludicrous ponderings, too: Maybe Jared is the one who lit the candles—maybe he's waiting inside, and he lit these all as a signal for me. I knew how stupid a notion that was, but I couldn't dismiss it altogether.
I counted the passage of several minutes on the breath of the wind, on the staggered timpani-beats of my heart, noting no perceptible change in the scenery. The candles flickered on, the tongues of flame waving this way and that cartoonishly, like beckoning fingers. The cold, which had long sunk its teeth in me, only locked out its jaw in the interim. The allure of a fire proved irresistible.
After stopping to make sure I was still alone in the woods—that no strange figures lurked in the thickets surrounding the house—I began a slow walk towards the place. On the way, I was conscious of every step, conscious of the noise my boots made as they crunched leaves and twigs, conscious even of the steady swish I made as I passed through the grass. Since my awakening, the night had seemed so quiet that my advance now struck me as cacophonous, profane. I paused as I drew near the house, before that wide, stagnant pool, and when the silence rolled back into place I thought I could hear the burning of the candle wicks.
The worm-eaten building seemed more robust now than it had before, and I knew that the darkness was hiding its most egregious defects. But even accounting for the profusion of shadow, after a careful survey there was no denying the fact that the place was in a marginally fitter state than it had been during my last visit, and I paused to marvel at this change. Fevered thoughts ran through my mind as I sought to pin down a reason for this sudden enrichment.
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