All pretense of bravery fled me and I took off running into the dark. I darted through the shadowed room with the moldy rug and rusted stove, and crashed into the foyer, where my erratic steps sent the floorboards cracking under my weight. From some other room—close, and getting closer—I heard Jared's voice calling out to me afresh. It didn't sound like it had before; rather, it sounded like an imitator. It was at once too deep and not deep enough; too masculine, and yet somehow boyish. And what's more, there was amusement in it.
“Penny,” called out my pursuer. “Penny, where are you?”
The laid-back, entertained quality of the voice was at odds with the charging footfalls that set the house rattling on its foundations. I wasn't hearing a mere man running after me. This was the punishing stride of some many-legged beast, something infernal.
Bumping into one of the walls hard enough to crack it, I rushed through the foyer and out onto the porch, where I mashed several dwindling candles underfoot and nearly slipped face-first into the pool of water that stood out front. Splashing into the slough, I felt cold water soaking into my pant legs, sloshing over the tops of my boots, but I ignored it. When I'd broken through the massive puddle, I fell, heaving, onto solid ground, my knees striking the grass and a jarring pain shooting up through my legs. Even this was not afforded much thought; within seconds I was up again, limping into the distance.
The calls didn't stop after I left the house.
From the open doorway, as though it were the house's own mouth, I heard my name being howled repeatedly. “PENNY. PENNY. PENNY.” The voice had shed its every familiar quality; it was unabashedly guttural now, beastly. The call of some wild animal. Finally, when I did not answer, it changed tack. A different voice—familiar but wholly out of place in these surroundings, called out to me. “Penny, come back! Where are you going?” It was my friend Diana's voice.
The witch was mimicking the voices of my loved ones.
I had made it some thirty yards or more from the house when I finally paused. My lungs were burning and the pains of my escape had left my limbs aching. I turned around, looking to the house that had finally fallen silent, and discovered a lone, naked figure standing upon the eaves of that old structure.
Ellie Pomeroy stood upon the roof, staring at me as I resumed my flight into the wilderness.
Sixteen
My legs scarcely felt like a part of me as I ran. They shot off like pistons as I mashed my soggy feet against the ground. I had no idea where I was headed, if safety awaited just beyond the next copse of trees. With a roiling gut and a thrashing heart, I kept on until the house was no longer visible, till the sound of that animal-like voice was only a memory. I weaved through clearings and dense patches of woodland alike, not caring where I ended up so long as it was distant from that horror.
In the space between gasps, I tried listening for the sounds of the chase. Is she after me? I couldn't find it in myself to slow down, to turn and look. It was too risky, and the very thought that the hag might keep pace with me was enough to stamp out my last vestiges of hope.
Several minutes into my flight, the tip of my boot caught a protruding tree root and I landed on the cold ground with a thud. Though instinct commanded me to get up and keep moving, I remained on my back like a dying insect, my legs wheeling about confusedly, until finally I gave into my fatigue and just stayed down. The moon cut through the jagged canopy overhead, and against the navy tapestry of sky, its light proved bright enough to make my eyes water.
Shuddering with pain and cold, I eased myself up onto my elbows and listened to the gossiping coos of a nearby bird. I searched my immediate surroundings for signs of the witch but, thankfully, found her absent. The shadows of other things crowded in, however; spilled amongst the trees were the decaying ruins of Newsom's Landing. A partially-standing wall in the distance, the remnants of a paved road half-covered in moss and debris, and what looked to be an old well all greeted me as I became acquainted with the area.
Of all these crumbling ruins, the one that most arrested my attention was the well, because as I panted there, a dozen feet from it, I heard a stirring from its depths. This stirring was proceeded by a whisper, sharp and incessant. The voice sounded weak and parched.
“Penny... Penny, are you there?”
The call from deep down in the earth chilled my blood. I didn't recognize the voice. It was generically masculine, but thirst and exposure had seemingly robbed it of its more defining characteristics. It occurred to me that it might be Jared; that he'd fallen into the well and was now in need of rescue, but the recurrence of the refrain instilled some doubt.
“Penny... Penny, are you there?” It was a voice like dust.
Crawling towards the voice, I remained silent. I could make out the wellhead, reduced to misaligned rubble, and sat beside it a few moments before I gained the courage to look down. The moon was right, and its brightness filled out the immense hollow in its entirety.
There was nothing at the bottom of the well. Stones and debris had accumulated down there over many seasons, but the presence I'd been expecting was nowhere to be found.
No sooner had I pulled away from the thing did I hear the voice make a reprise, however. The well shaft was filled with dry, wheezing laughter, as though the passage were a sore throat. I doubled back on my hands and knees, accidentally bumping the stacked stones and sending a portion of the tottering wellhead tumbling down.
Another illusion. “Just leave me alone!” I demanded. The laughter died down, but the voice still drifted up from the bottom of the well. “Penny... Penny... Penny...” It sounded more meager than before, and had a petulant edge to it. “Pennnyyyy,” whined the occupant of the well.
Desperate to separate myself from the ruins of the cursed town, I returned to my feet and tried in earnest to put it all behind me. I staggered onward, the crowded trees feeling as suffocating as the bars of a jail cell window. Yes, that was apt. I was imprisoned in these hellish woods and trying to orchestrate a jail break. The warden had lost my scent for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before the two of us crossed paths again.
Knees aching and back sore, I descended a small slope and continued through the forest. My feet were pounding in my boots, the cadence of their agony as quick and sharp as the beating of my heart. More than once I considered screaming out into the night, but each time I threw a hand over my mouth before I could summon my voice. I wanted to cry out to Jared; God willing, he was still out here, looking for me. I wanted to curse the witch, too—would have hurled every conceivable insult into the night in the vain hope they might reach her ears—but couldn't allow myself that pleasure for fear of being found out and tracked. And so I marched on silently, jaw tensed, while looking for a way back to established trails and rescue.
I wanted to scream something else, too.
What do you want from me?
I felt I'd earned the right to ask that question. After all I'd been put through, all the horrors I'd witnessed, I wanted to know what it was all for. Ellie Pomeroy had kept vigil over these woods for over a century, and had tortured countless wanderers in that time without rhyme or reason. Perhaps she was merely a creature that delighted in the splendor of fear; a monstrous thing that relished in the propagation of suffering, but there were other possibilities, too. I wondered if her soul hadn't remained anchored to these woods for another reason—because she was bound here against her will. Was it possible that her spirit remained tethered to this place because certain conditions had not yet been fulfilled? Had her death been so traumatic that the circumstances surrounding it had to somehow be set right before she could rest?
Maybe it was so, but in my present state I couldn't entertain the thought of assisting her. If anything, after all she'd put me through, I'd have liked to extend her suffering—to increase it a hundredfold. To know why she remained would have sated my curiosity, but my only real desire was to get out of the park and back to my life. The witch's problem was hers alone.
Groping my way through the trees, I felt a change in the terrain beneath my boots. The ground was intermittently firm here, and when the clouds passed by the moon and allowed it to shine unencumbered I saw why. I'd found my way back to the town graveyard and was presently standing atop a weatherbeaten grave marker. With silent apologies, I paced over the memorials of countless dead, trying to recall how Jared and I had approached this site the first time around.
I was encouraged at finding the cemetery; it was familiar ground, and provided I moved in the right direction I'd be able to relocate the Creek. I limped over the uneven stones with renewed vigor, trying to ferret out the best route back to camp, and in following the staggered monuments I discovered another dip in the terrain, which led to a sparser patch of forest. It was my hope that, a little further on, I'd find the waterfront.
Something else entered into view as I slid through the grass and arrived at the bottom of the hill. I braced myself against a tree—both out of need for support, and so that I might hide behind it—and watched as someone passed. The narrow clearing was filled with the shadow of a passing form—sickly thin and all too familiar to me. The moonlight complimented the figure's ivory skin and brought out its paperiness, as well as the cyan vasculature underneath. The individual's every breath was hard and ragged—more of a beast's snorting than a human inhalation—and their naked body sagged like a pillar of melting wax.
It was her.
My heart went off like a jackhammer as I watched her drift past. That she was on the hunt for me seemed a certainty. Pressing myself against the tree trunk and holding my breath, I prayed she'd wander away without seeing me. I was immensely thankful that my noisy descent of the hill had gone unnoticed, but trembled all the same, sure that I was on the verge of discovery. Several breathless moments passed wherein I shrank against the tree, eyes shut, acting as though this were a bad dream I could will myself out of.
Time passed. It must have only been thirty seconds, but it felt much longer. Finally, I opened my eyes, fearing that the specter would be staring me full-on in the face. Instead, I found she had gone off a bit further without noticing me. It was early days to court relief, but steeled by this, I peered out from around the large trunk to watch the hag's movements more closely.
Despite my terror, the utter lightness of her tread piqued my curiosity, and I stole a glance at her feet—feet which I now saw did not touch the ground. The witch's long toes writhed unusually in the cold air like the sense organs of an insect, but did not so much as graze the grass. As though she were a balloon without a string—as though the hollows of her emaciated body were filled with helium—she floated over the ground, casting an impressive shadow. Where she was headed remained to be seen, but the glazed fixedness with which she stared into the distance telegraphed a kind of purpose.
Finally, the shadow dissipated. Her sagging form fell out of view. The two of us had passed like two vessels on a dark sea; she, deeper into the wilderness from whence I'd come, and I—hopefully—to calmer waters.
When I felt sure I was no longer within her line of sight, I stepped out from behind the tree and prepared to continue on my way. It was an incessant desire for caution that saw me pause and verify her whereabouts, however—I didn't want to rush ahead only to encounter her further on, and would feel better if I knew she'd really gone in the opposite direction. Creeping several paces through the underbrush, my gaze managed to grasp at the coattails of her withdrawing shadow, and I began stalking her through the woods. I'd be lying if I said I didn't exact a certain delight for the role-reversal.
The floating nightmare meandered between the trees, her noxious shadow staining the already uninviting wilderness and her bestial inhalations intruding upon the silence. Her thin arms remained plastered to her sides, though the fingers—like those queer toes—wriggled sluggishly, as though privy to some environmental data. The crone never turned her head, and if not for her forward progress I'd have thought her catatonic. Her withering gaze remained fixed on the distance, and as I skulked at her rear I swear that the bush itself parted and shuddered for her soundless passage. The trees—so deeply-rooted and immovable at first glance—seemed to give her a wide berth, as though she were too noxious for association.
And then, with a nerve-rattling suddenness, she halted.
For this pause, the witch had chosen a gap between the trees that was characterized not merely by its openness, but by an air of staggering decay. The ground there, in stark contrast to all that surrounded it, was bare. That is, where trees should have grown—and in substantial number—none did. Those in close proximity to the small clearing were malformed, with withered limbs and leafage whose color and shape had deviated most markedly from the autumnal norm and approached putrefaction. As though it were a blast crater, the patch of bare earth, some ten feet in circumference, dipped very slightly at its center. Under normal circumstances, rain water would have gathered in such a formation, but as best I could tell none had pooled there after the rains we'd had. In fact, the ground seemed preternaturally parched, stony.
The witch proceeded to linger in this spot, hovering over the cracked soil, in the shadow of a fetid canopy knit together by distorted constituents as if to hide the decaying glade from the eyes of heaven. I watched the specter float there for a long while, and would have turned back while I was still ahead if a sudden movement in her bony frame hadn't distracted me.
Slowly, the cadaverous thing sank to the ground. Upon meeting the cracked earth, she lowered herself onto hands and knees and pressed her face down into the dirt. And she remained there, perfectly still, curled like an animal in its den.
What had drawn the monster to this spot? Why did she linger there, behaving so strangely? Whether the witch remained in meditation, or was in a state of rest, I couldn't tell. As she lay there in the concave feature, she didn't stir; the wiry silver locks on her head resisted even the flirtation of the breeze. She resembled a creature in hibernation, a thing preserved in amber. Perhaps the crone had come to gather her powers here—or else this was her resting place, the locus she retired to when the calendar flipped past September 14th and her reign of terror was put on ice for another year.
I paused, staring, wondering.
So, maybe this is it. Maybe I'm free now. I licked my chapped lips and took a single step forward. Maybe Ellie Pomeroy is shutting down till next September...
It was a curious thing, what happened next.
I'm quite certain that I hadn't made any perceptible noise as I observed her from afar; rather, when she took notice of me, peeking from between the trees, her scrutiny must have been initiated by some other cue. It may have been at the very passage of her name through my mind.
Whatever the cause, the witch's head snapped up and I found those drooping, empty eyes secured on me. From between her thin lips, held closed for the hardware in her jaw, there came a low, dusty, “Penny,” followed by a growling laugh.
Before the shock of this initial discovery had completed its initial circuit through my mind, the witch was scrambling towards me. Crawling, clawing through the grass on hands and feet, the specter broke into a steady, snarling gallop.
I fell back on my heels, nearly losing my balance, and then turned to run.
Whatever my plans had been prior to the chase, my sole objective now was simply to evade the witch. My previous direction was all but forgotten as I rushed through the trees, smacking into trunks and branches. The woods came to life with the sounds of her fevered pursuit; I could visualize her hands clawing at the underbrush, could imagine her steely gaze as it zeroed in on me and bore directly into my back. Groans and snorts and other feral noises reached my ears as she drew nearer, and though it may have only been my mind playing tricks on me, I thought I could smell her damp, repellant breath as it hissed out of that slit of a mouth.
By some luck I happened upon that previous declivity in the landscape, the very same I'd hoped would take me towards the creek, and as I ran downhill the
momentum carried me to dizzying speed. It was all I could do to keep my legs from buckling beneath my giant strides, and to avoid the muckier patches that might see me stumble.
“Penny. PENNY. PENNY.” The voice that called out from the woods was not that of a woman—nor of a human being at all. It was a demon's. I could read all sorts of emotions into her urgings; amusement, annoyance, but most of all, desire. I was being hunted, chased like a prey animal, and if the hag caught up to me I knew it would be the end. Those cold, dead hands would touch me, her warped face would enter into view, and I'd be forced to stare straight into those miserable eyes as it all spiraled to a horrific end.
I blocked out the sound of the witch's voice with my hands, but not before I heard something else in the background—something so hopeful it provided a counterweight to the wretched rabble of my pursuit.
The gurgling of a creek.
I was close. Close to the water. Close to camp. Close to Jared, maybe.
But then, so was Ellie Pomeroy.
Barreling through the trees, I lost my footing and slipped, rolling the rest of the way and banging myself up on an assortment of roots and trunks. Dizzying though the pain was, I continued my escape on hands and knees, and then gained my feet when the first signs of the creek came into view. The bank was visible just beyond the next wall of trees—and my heart skipped a beat when I saw that the water level had fallen. The thing could be forded.
As I burst through the treeline and stumbled onto the bank, the clamor in the woods promptly ceased. I didn't dare turn around to see why, but rather set my sights on the opposite bank. Heedless of the water's chill or depth, I planted my feet in the muddy ground and sprang across the stream for all I was worth.
The Splendor of Fear Page 11