by A. R. Wise
Ben watched as his father came over to reposition the wheelchair. Michael wheeled his son so that the chair was beside the bed, with Ben facing the television. Then Michael flopped back down on the bed and started to click through the channels.
Ben stared at his father, ignoring the television. His right hand moved weakly to the side, and fell off the armrest of his chair to the bed beside him. He groaned as he reached out to his father.
Michael felt his son’s fingertips brush against his arm and he looked over at the invalid. “Hey there, pal.” He brushed his boy’s hand away after giving him a smile.
Ben continued to try and grasp his father’s arm.
“Ben, quit it,” said Michael before moving further away, out of his son’s reach. “Don’t worry kiddo, I’m fine. I just fell asleep in the tub is all. Gave us both a good scare, didn’t I? But I’m fine.”
Ben grit his teeth and scowled as best he could. His fingers still reached out to touch his father, but Michael was too far away.
Inside Cada E.I.B.’s Compound
March 13th, 2012
2:30 AM
“I forgot you,” said Alma. Her eyes were smeared with a mix of tears and the salve that the nurses put over the sleepers’ eyes to keep them from drying out. She wiped away the sludge and blinked rapidly. Then she reached out and pulled Paul closer to the gurney she was laying on. “I lost you.”
“I’m right here, babe,” said Paul as he embraced her.
“Wait,” said Rachel as she wiped her eyes. “Was that real? Was I dreaming?”
“We were in Widowsfield, in 1996,” said Alma.
“Right,” said Jacker as the group tried to get their bearings. “So we all had the same dream? How’d we end up here?”
“It wasn’t a dream,” said Alma.
“Some of it had to be,” said Stephen. “I dreamed about some of you dying.”
“Did we really drive off that cliff?” asked Rachel.
“No,” said Paul. “We were in the cabin when some guards brought Jacker and Aubrey back. They had shotguns loaded with salt pellets, and hit us with them. I’m not sure what happened after that, but there was something in the cabin with us – it said it was Ben, but the guy here called him something different. He called him…”
“The Skeleton Man,” said a stranger’s voice. Paul turned to see that the door was open and a tall, black woman was watching them. Her hair was in dreadlocks, with what looked like twine interlaced within, and a purple handkerchief around her neck that covered several beaded necklaces. Her clothes looked handmade out of simple, one-color fabrics and thick thread. She was carrying a satchel that was partially open, revealing a thick pad of paper and several paintbrushes within. She had on black, leather gloves and was holding a Glock with both hands that she was pointing down at the ground. Her wrists were adorned with a plethora of beaded bracelets that were the same style as the necklaces she wore.
“Who are you?” asked Paul as he set his hand on the grip of the pistol tucked in his waistband.
The woman eased her stance, and holstered her weapon. “I’m a friend.”
“Not my friend,” said Paul, suspicious.
The woman ignored Paul and looked to Alma. “Did you meet the younger version of yourself? Is she the one that told you to drive off the cliff?” The stranger had obviously been eavesdropping.
“Yes,” said Alma. “How do you know about the witch?”
“The witch?” asked the stranger.
“That’s what the children called her,” said Alma. “She said she created a lie about me dying.”
“Yes, that was me. I didn’t know the children had started calling me a witch though.” She smirked. “I guess that’s appropriate.”
“Wait,” said Paul as he began to understand who he was speaking with. “Are you Oliver’s assistant? The one that drew the pictures in his book?”
“Yes. My real name’s Rosemary, and I’m here to help put an end to what Oliver’s done here.”
One of the nurses in the other room, where the awakened sleepers were writhing, screamed, “We need help. Please!”
Rosemary looked back into the other room as Paul turned to Alma and said, “Stay here. I’ll go see what they need.”
Rosemary and Paul headed back into the large area where the female sleepers had suddenly and violently awoken. The women had been in a near-coma state for sixteen years, and their muscles had atrophied to the point of uselessness. When they’d rolled off their beds, they smashed onto the unforgiving floor, cracking their brittle bones and leaving them helpless and in pain. The women’s faces lay against the tile, their mouths opening and closing as vomit and spittle leaked forth – all of their eyes were open and searching.
“Only the girls,” said Rosemary as she walked to stand beside a male sleeper that still stared helplessly at the ceiling, lying on his bed and not writhing like his female counterparts.
The two nurses, Helen and Rachel, were hoisting a woman off the floor and onto one of the gurneys. The frail, thin sleeper’s head rolled back and forth as she moaned. “Help us get them back on the beds,” said Helen.
Paul and Rosemary went to the nearest fallen sleeper and began to gingerly lift her. As Paul situated himself at the fallen woman’s upper half, he asked, “Why is it that only the girls woke up?”
“The Skeleton Man would use the boys in the town to help him create his lies,” said Rosemary before they lifted the quivering sleeper to her bed. Then they latched her down with restraints that hadn’t been used to hold the sleepers down in quite some time. “When I created a lie about…”
“Wait,” said Paul as he shook his head in disbelief. “Sorry, but this is all a bit confusing. You created a lie?”
They moved to the next fallen sleeper and Rosemary tried to explain. “I don’t understand all of it either, but I’ve spent the last five years trying to sort through the things I saw in this town.”
“Oliver said you were a psychic of some sort,” said Paul.
“Where is he? Is he still in the facility?”
Paul looked over at Helen and Rachel and asked, “Where did Oliver go?”
The two nurses looked puzzled and then Helen answered, “I’m not sure. He couldn’t have gotten far.”
Paul grumbled and looked at Rosemary. “He was here. I put a bullet in his foot, so he shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“I can find him easily enough,” said Rosemary, unconcerned. “I have a feeling I know where he went.”
They moved to the next sleeper as Paul pressed the stranger for more information. “You still haven’t explained what you meant by ‘creating lies.’”
“This will be a bit hard to believe,” said Rosemary.
“I’ve given up on disbelief, at least as far as this crazy fucking town goes.”
“I think Oliver and his company discovered another dimension, and there’s intelligent life there.”
“You mean like aliens?” asked Paul, absently allowing a skeptical tone to infect his words.
“No green guys in flying saucers or anything,” said Rosemary. “They’re all around us, inside of inorganic objects.” She rattled the edge of a sleeper’s gurney. “Like this bed. They don’t exist like you and I; they don’t eat and breathe. They’re entities that normally can’t interact with us.”
“And Cada E.I.B. figured out a way to talk to them?”
“No.” Rosemary shook her head as the two of them walked over to another woman that was writhing on the floor. “Oliver and his company just discovered that they existed. I don’t know how, or why, but they did something here sixteen years ago that brought the creature closer to us. It took control of the town, and the people in it.”
“Is that The Skeleton Man?”
“I don’t think so,” said Rosemary. “I think The Skeleton Man was created by the other one, the one they call The Watcher.”
“Why do they call it that?” asked Paul.
“Because it’s always watchin
g.” Rosemary tapped another of the beds, clicking her nail on the metal railing. “The Watchers are in everything. They’re in the walls, watching us, studying us. And Oliver figured out a way to bring them closer. I’m fairly certain of that part, but the rest is more conjecture than anything else.”
“Well, clue me in,” said Paul. “Because I haven’t got even the slightest clue as to what the fuck is going on.”
“I think The Watchers speak to us through dreams. When we’re awake, we have no knowledge of their presence, but when we’re asleep they can reach out to us. I don’t think they have much of an influence over most of us, but whatever Oliver did here in Widowsfield gave one of The Watchers a tighter grip. All of the people in the town on March 14th, 1996 fell unconscious, and they were put into The Watcher’s version of reality.”
“Into his dream?”
“Yes,” said Rosemary as the two paused. “Although, he was careful to trick them into thinking it was real. The dream only lasts about fifteen minutes, and it always starts just before 3:14 on March 14th, 1996. When he first started creating these dreams, he made them similar to how life would’ve normally played out for the people that lived here. Then he started changing things, just slightly, and turning the dream into a nightmare. With each new change he was able to twist their recollection, just like I did with Oliver’s book. And that’s where The Skeleton Man came in.”
“You mean Ben, right?” asked Paul.
“Not exactly,” said Rosemary. “But, speaking of Ben, we need to hurry up and find him. Hopefully he’s here, with the other sleepers somewhere.”
“No, he’s not,” said Paul.
Rosemary became concerned as she asked, “Do you know where he is? Is he dead?”
“No, Alma’s dad showed up and took him.”
Rosemary walked away from him, and headed back towards the room where Alma and the others were. She was clearly upset by Paul’s revelation. He followed behind and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” said Rosemary as they made their way through the maze of gurneys and crying women. “I have to find out more about what happened to your friends.”
They got back to the other room where Alma, Stephen, Rachel, and Jacker were standing by the bed that Aubrey was laying on. Alma looked up at Paul as they came back in the room and said, “She’s gone. Aubrey’s dead.”
Paul nodded, having already come to the realization that Aubrey was gone. He didn’t know the girl very well, but she didn’t deserve to die in Widowsfield this way. No one did.
Rosemary was undeterred by Aubrey’s death. “Alma, you need to tell me what happened to you. I need you to try and remember everything you can.”
“It’s…” Alma struggled to remember, and closed her eyes to try and bring the dreams back, but she shook her head and said, “It’s all a jumble.”
“Try harder,” said Rosemary impatiently.
Alma appeared offended, but did what she could to recount what had happened while she was unconscious. “We kept appearing in the van, on our way into Widowsfield. Sometimes we would make it into town, but it was always in 1996, like we’d traveled back in time.” She looked at Rosemary for approval.
“Go on,” said Rosemary while motioning for Alma to continue.
“After being in the town for a few minutes, fog would roll in. It was thick, and slid across the ground like it was heavy.”
Rachel interrupted, “And there were green lights flashing inside of the fog, almost like there was a storm in it.”
“Right,” said Alma in agreement. “And I think the children were in there too. They went in there to die.”
Rosemary shook her head in disagreement. “No. The Skeleton Man tricked them into thinking he cared about them. They would go to him, hoping that he’d protect them from the red-haired woman.”
“Terry,” said Alma. “The red-haired woman was my father’s girlfriend, a meth-addict named Terry. She owned the cabin, and she had a dog named Killer that she used to tell us was a werewolf.”
“She’s the one that died there?” Rosemary asked Alma, who nodded in response. “She got trapped while she was dying.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jacker. “Like her soul got trapped?”
Rosemary nodded and said. “Yes. There was another woman that died right when the fog first swept over the town. Her name was Amelia Reven, but The Watcher and The Skeleton Man didn’t trap her. She died before the fog got to her, before it blotted out the light. Terry, on the other hand, was stuck in the town with everyone else, but she wasn’t controlled by The Watcher.”
“Who’s The Watcher?” asked Stephen.
“He’s the one that controls everything that happened in your dreams,” said Rosemary.
“I thought The Skeleton Man was,” said Alma.
Rosemary shook her head. “No. He was just a guardian. I think The Watcher used your brother’s experience at the cabin to create the nightmares that you saw, but then he kept changing things to make the dreams worse. I’m not sure I’m right, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. I’m a psychic, or more specifically I’m a psychometric. That means that I can pull memories out of physical objects, but I was never able to do it consistently until I came here to work with Oliver.”
“Who’s that?” asked Rachel.
“He’s the one in charge of this place,” said Paul.
“In the real world, right?” asked Jacker, which at first came off as a bizarre question, but which Paul then realized was astonishingly cogent.
“Yes,” answered Rosemary, relieving Paul of the responsibility of discerning what was and wasn’t real anymore. She continued, “I helped him recreate what happened here leading up to March 14th, 1996.”
“So you’re the reason there were mannequins everywhere,” said Rachel as the rest of the group also began to understand Rosemary’s role in what had happened in the town.
“Yes. He wanted my help putting the town back together, like the whole place was just a puzzle waiting to be finished.”
“What happens when he finishes it?” asked Rachel.
“Let’s hope we never find out,” said Rosemary. “I did what I could to make sure he never put everything back together exactly as it was, but I don’t think the inanimate things matter as much as…” she looked at Alma and added, “the living things.”
“My brother and I?” asked Alma.
Rosemary nodded. “When I was at the house on Sycamore, I realized that The Skeleton Man was fixated on you. You distracted him, and you’re the reason he started changing the dreams.”
“How did I do that?” asked Alma.
“When your mother brought you back here, when you were ten; not long before she tried to kill you.”
Alma shook her head. “She didn’t try to kill me.”
Rosemary looked warily at Alma, as if certain she were lying. “Yes she did.”
“No,” said Alma, eager to correct the stranger. “She brought me here, but then took me back to my grandmother’s before she came back here and…” Alma stopped, unwilling to continue.
Rosemary was silent for a moment as she looked at Alma, and then said, “Our minds can play tricks on us sometimes, honey. When you want to know what really happened, just let me know and I’ll…”
“I know what really happened,” said Alma with obvious anger that she tried to mask with a laugh. She glanced at Paul, and her burgeoning fury subsided into embarrassment. She looked away and said, quieter, “I know what happened.”
“Okay,” said Rosemary, willing to leave the subject alone. “That part doesn’t matter. What matters is what happened at the house.”
“We broke in and that’s when my mother wrote the numbers on the floor. That’s when I remembered Ben.”
“And that’s when he remembered you as well,” said Rosemary. “Until then, The Watcher had stolen you from him. But when you went back, you reminded your brother of what he’d lost. He saw you again, and The Watcher had to try a
nd get rid of you. He did what The Skeleton Man didn’t think was possible. He broke out of the dream and spoke through you. He threatened your mother, and that’s what convinced The Skeleton Man that he could get out as well.”
“When I talked to this thing,” said Paul, “he was acting like he was Ben.”
“He might think he is,” said Rosemary. “Everything The Watcher created was inspired by what happened to Alma’s brother. I was never able to see how things started; there’re too many timelines laid out on top of one another that it was like picking through a thousand pieces of multiple puzzles that had all been thrown together. It wasn’t until just before I left that I figured out this all started with some sort of fog or smoke that came from the reservoir.”
“What happened to your brother?” asked Rachel of Alma.
“He got burned by chemicals and boiling water while trying to help my father kill Terry.”
“Oh my God,” said Jacker. “Seriously?”
“That was the part that I couldn’t remember,” said Alma. “Remember how I told you that I could recall everything up to when the fog showed up? And how the next thing I could remember was leaving the town?”
“Yeah,” said Rachel.
“Well, I think I can remember some of it now. Although,” she put her hand over her eyes as she tried to recall the dream that was slipping away. She could remember being at the sink, with Ben beside her, and how he was goading her into taking a pot of water up the stairs. “I’m not sure which parts are lies.”
“Ben,” said Paul, but then he corrected himself, “or I guess The Skeleton Man, showed me what happened. The red-haired girl was overdosing, and Ben walked in as it was happening. Then his father asked Ben for help, and went to get water when the girl fell unconscious. Your dad thought she was dead, and told Ben that he was the one that killed her. He made Ben go boil water and get cleaner so they could melt her down in the bathtub.”