by Scott Thomas
“It’s like you think you don’t deserve to be happy,” she told him bluntly.
She’s here to reconcile, Sam realized. She wants to put it all out on the table to see if there’s any shred of hope of saving what we once had.
But the more Erin spoke, the more Sam found his mind drifting back to his book, to the characters he had left at home, saved on the hard drive of his computer. He tried to listen to Erin, but the voices of his characters crowded into his brain. They were screaming at each other, a frenzied moment in his story, as they tried to make sense of the horror that was overtaking their lives.
“Are you even listening to me?” Erin’s voice broke through the cacophony.
Sam nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I’ve been writing something new. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written.”
He tumbled into a rambling explanation of the plot, leaping randomly from character to character, from beat to beat, spinning a haphazard web of half-thoughts. Erin watched him, her eyelids glistening with a rim of tears, as he became lost in the rhythm of his own voice. He was no longer speaking to her; he was reliving the now six-hundred-plus pages he had written since the first week of November. New ideas spiraled from his lips. He paused to ask a passing waitress for a pen, then snatched up a napkin and hunkered over it, scribbling down notes. When he had filled both sides of the napkin, he looked up for something else to write on.
Erin was gone.
Outside, the snow was falling harder.
By the middle of January, Sam decided he needed a break. He had written almost a thousand pages. It was too long, he knew. The story was threatening to spin out of control. He needed to read through what he had written and make sure it wasn’t incomprehensible madness. So he printed out the first three hundred pages, flicked the wall switch to ignite the gas fireplace in his living room, and settled into a worn leather chair with a red pen.
Flames sprang up between deliberately placed ceramic logs.
He was somewhere around page thirty when Sam became aware of a log crackling.
He looked up from his manuscript and found the flames devouring wood—actual wood—as they danced within a large stone fireplace. Intricate carvings of vines and leaves adorned the fireplace mantel. To his right, an archway opened to a dark, narrow hall. To his left, the last of the evening’s purple light drifted in through a large picture window, through which Sam could see the rickety railing of the porch and the twisted body of a beech tree.
The hanging tree.
The pages fell from his hand and fluttered to the floor.
He was back in the house on Kill Creek.
The fire roared, the intense light casting harsh shadows against the living room walls. Smoke was drifting not up the chimney but out into the room. Sam gasped, and that harsh black smoke bit into the back of his throat. He coughed, trying to force the smoke out, but it was all around him, burning his lungs, stinging his eyes. Through the haze of smoke and tears, Sam saw something twist in the fire’s belly.
It was not a log.
It was an arm. The charred skin was peeling back to expose bloody red muscle beneath. At one end, incinerated fingers curled into a terrible black claw. White bone poked through the fingertips. The embers beneath the arm shifted, the obscene thing tilting forward. And then the hand opened, fingers stretching through the flames to touch Sam, to burn him like it had been burned.
“Sammy?” a woman’s voice called from the darkness behind the crackling fire.
Sam had fallen to the floor, pushing himself desperately away from the stone fireplace. The house was dark now, the only light coming from the fire and a pale glowing object at the far end of the room.
His laptop.
The cursor blinked steadily at the end of the last sentence.
Something inside him told Sam that returning to his story was the answer.
“Sammy . . .” the voice called.
In the fire, the arm shifted again, revealing the curve of an elbow. It was not a severed arm. It was connected to something deeper within the fireplace.
A face hid in the darkness beyond the fire. Sam could see the light of the flames reflected in the glistening surface of its boiling eyes.
Sam leapt up and raced toward the computer. As he reached it, he spun around.
He was in his own living room again. The low flames of the gas fire burned steadily above fake logs.
The edge of his little finger touched one of the computer keys. The story he had been writing for the past three months rushed back to him, and with it an overwhelming sense of calm.
A day later, he tried once more to stop. Again, his home began to transform around him. Again, the burned thing called his name.
He drank, but alcohol would not keep his mind from drifting back to that old house in the countryside. He doubled his antidepressants, then tripled them, and still the voice called from behind a wall of flames:
“Sammy. Sammy . . .”
There was only one way to keep his madness from overtaking him.
As long as he was writing, he was safe.
That had been January.
It was now April, and the story was not yet complete.
The sound of fingers on keys rattled like machine-gun fire, sentences racing unimpeded across the glowing computer screen. The scene he was crafting was the most important of all. The climax. It was the reason for his obsession with this story. The instant when his characters would open the door and discover the secret that had been waiting for them for ages, readying itself to be unleashed upon the world once again.
Rarely did a story flow without a moment of hesitation. It was as if every single word was already written in his mind; all he had to do was get the words out:
The hammer was a nice one from Buckwood’s Hardware Store at the corner of Walnut and Sixth, just south of the Lutheran church where Pastor Charles had led a sermon about the evils of adultery a mere forty-five minutes before. Pastor Charles had tobacco-stained teeth and pit stains on his striped short-sleeved shirts. He had cancer in his lungs and heaven on his mind, and as he prepared for the late service at quarter past eleven, he had no idea that a hammer had been purchased from the hardware store around the corner, a hammer that was now pounding into the unshaven cheek of Roscoe Trout.
Ol’ Roscoe fought at first, the way simple men did. He balled up an arthritic fist and tried to take a whack at Tommy’s kisser. But with each blow of the hammer, Roscoe became less and less interested in landing a punch. He just wanted what teeth hadn’t rotted out from years of neglect to stay put in his head.
Tommy couldn’t make any promises. He was having way too much fun swinging that twenty-ounce rip claw into the side of the old drunk’s face. It made a real pretty window through which he could see the side of the man’s exposed jaw and those nasty purple sinkholes where teeth had once been.
It was nothing against Roscoe. Sure, he was a loudmouth who sucked down moonshine like a yellow-bellied watersnake sucks down pond frogs, but most people in town found him harmless enough.
Yeah, Tommy would have left him well enough alone if Roscoe hadn’t taken it upon himself to stand in front of the wall.
It was the wall Tommy wanted. It was the reason he bought the hammer in the first place.
There were a lot of people to blame for the messy deed in which Tommy now found himself engaged. There was the man who built the house in the first place. There were the people who owned it after that man died and chose to seal off the door with a nice stack of burnt clay bricks. And, perhaps most of all, there was the little girl with the jet-black hair who thought she could throw Tommy off the scent. But Tommy was a coonhound. Tommy never lost a scent once he took hold.
Pretty soon the hammer drove itself all the way through Roscoe’s head and hit brick. The sound made Tommy’s heart leap like fireflies shaken from the mouth of an open jar. Roscoe’s lifeless body slid down to the hardwood floor, and spatters of blood swept across the
far wall as Tommy arced the tool up over his head and down again.
The flat nose of the hammer collided with the wall, and the first brick broke free.
Without warning, the flow of words ran dry.
Sam stopped with a lurch, his joints locking, his knuckles curling his hands into grotesque claws.
“Shit,” he said aloud. What happened? Where did it go?
Reading back through what he’d just written, he tried to rediscover the path that would lead him to THE END. It was no use. His mind was a dense thicket of thorny vines. There was no moving on. He would have to find another route, or else . . .
Or else what? Quitting was not an option. He would crack it. He had to crack it. This was his masterpiece. Everything was riding on it. He had to finish.
Sam shuffled like a zombie into the kitchen, oblivious to the mounds of detritus littering the floor, his eyes looking only inward, searching in vain for that nonexistent train of thought. He grabbed a beer from a barren shelf in the fridge and twisted off the cap. The cold liquid soothed his scratchy throat, and Sam suddenly realized how intensely thirsty he was.
When was the last time I stopped for a drink? Or food, for that matter?
On the kitchen counter, his cell phone buzzed. Another missed call. He punched in his password and saw the number hovering over the Phone app. Forty-two missed calls. Impossible. He couldn’t recall the phone ever ringing. Yet it must have. He couldn’t remember the last time he checked his voicemail.
He opened the app, tapped Speaker, and pressed Play. The most recent message began:
There was nothing, only the crackle of an open line. Then, from the audible wasteland, the voice of a woman spoke, clearly and loudly, “Sammy?”
Sam froze.
“Sammy, I know you’re there.”
It was his mother’s voice. Her words were slightly slurred. The alcohol was a lubricant for her hate and resentment.
“I can see you, you little shit.”
Sam pressed Pause, but the message continued to play:
“I can see you standing in the kitchen, like the dumb little puppy you are!” He pounded his fingers against the phone’s touchscreen. There was no response. The phone was frozen, yet the message would not stop.
“You look at me when I’m talking to you!”
His head jerked up. She was no longer just a voice through the speaker on his phone. She was right there in front of him. He knew it.
He glanced frantically around the empty kitchen.
“You’re pathetic. How could I make such a worthless thing as you? I should have drowned you and your no-good brother in the pond when you were babies. Put you in a sack like stupid mewing kittens and sunk you to the bottom.”
A horrible moan escaped Sam’s lips, full of the fear and despair he had felt every day as a child in that little house in the country, outside that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Kansas town. He reached blindly for an object—any object—and his hand found a metal handle. He gripped it and swung the object down with all his strength onto the phone. Plastic and glass shrapnel went flying as the phone shattered. He brought the object down again and again until the phone was a mess of scattered parts. He stepped back, chest heaving, trying to catch his breath. He glanced at the object in his hand, realizing for the first time that he held the handle of a cast-iron skillet. Just like the one in his mother’s kitchen. He flinched, his fingers slipping from the handle, the skillet clanking to the kitchen floor and coming to rest beside the crown molding that ran along the base of the wall, that beautiful molding with hand-carved details of leaves and vines.
No. That wasn’t in his house. That was in the house on Kill Creek. That couldn’t be here.
You’re not here. You’re back there. You’re in that house because you NEVER LEFT!
He closed his eyes tight.
Above him, from deeper in the house, came the sound of whispers, of voices collapsing over each other like the churning tide in a pitch-black sea.
“What do you want?” Sam yelled to the house.
He knew what it wanted.
A key turned in Sam’s mind, the click of a lock releasing a flood of irrational terror. He had to keep writing, or the thing would come for him. Every time he stopped, it came closer.
Sam opened his eyes. The skillet was gone. His cell phone was on the counter, in perfect condition.
The voice croaked out of the phone’s tiny speakers: “I’m sorry, Sammy. Give me a hug, Sammy. Hug your mama. Please. Turn around so I can see your face.”
Sam did not turn around. He raced into the living room and threw himself down into the chair at the desk. He placed his fingers properly on the center row of the laptop’s keyboard.
“Come on,” he ordered under his breath. “Write.”
He typed a few words, nothing special, a sentence he had no intention of finishing. The wave of inspiration he had ridden up to this point had broken. He was now simply a kid splashing in puddles. But he had to keep writing. Because that was what kept the thing away.
As he had hoped, quiet settled through the house; the phantom noise, for the moment, silenced.
Sam sighed, trembling. His next thought terrified him:
You’re losing your mind.
“No,” he said aloud. “No. No, no, no.”
Sam’s head throbbed. He buried his face in his hands, his elbows planted on the keyboard, sending a constant stream of gibberish across the computer screen.
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked, his voice quavering. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in weeks. It was his voice, pure and sane. The threat of tears caught him by surprise. “What the hell’s happening?”
A new sound jolted Sam to his feet.
Pounding.
This is it, he thought. It’s finally come to take me. It’s going to end this right now.
After a couple minutes, reason came to him.
Someone was knocking on the front door.
Sam peered through the curtains at the man on the porch. From that angle, he could not see the man’s face, but something about him seemed frustratingly familiar. The way he stood with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped; the pristinely laundered suit; the way he rolled up on the tips of his toes as if trying to add inches to his short frame.
Without warning, the man cocked his head to the side and his face came into plain view.
“Eli?”
The agent yelped, startled, as Sam threw open the door.
“Hey, Sam.”
Eli smiled, embarrassed, as if to say, I need to stop flying all the way to Kansas just to talk to you. Then, as he took in Sam’s appearance, Eli’s lips turned down, and his eyebrows followed. Eli’s eyes drew over a rough, patchy beard. The rumpled and stained clothes. The greasy, unwashed hair. The bloodshot eyes that begged for sleep yet never closed.
“Sam, what’s going on?”
Don’t tell him anything, he warned himself.
“Nothing,” he said to Eli.
“Bullshit. You look . . .”
“I look what?”
“You look horrible,” he said bluntly.
Sam faked incredulity. “Eli, cut me some slack. I’ve been writing nonstop for days. I’m trying to finish a book. You should be happy.”
“Yeah. The book. Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He tapped his toe as if he really didn’t have time for the house call. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Sam pushed the front door open wider, stepping aside to let him by.
No, what are you doing? Don’t let him in!
The moment Eli was inside, Sam knew it was a mistake. His brow furrowed further. His eyes scanned the room with a horrible mixture of shock and disgust. Sam had been so consumed with his novel that he hadn’t bothered to take a really good look at the place. Now, through Eli’s eyes, he saw it.
Drinking glasses, half-full of unidentifiable liquid, sat perched on end tables, on bookshelves, on the stairs. Dirty plates crusted with foo
d were placed on the floor as if to be cleaned by a dog he did not own. Discarded clothes were draped over the banister, over lampshades, in dank, mildewing piles, a mass grave of unwashed laundry. There was an identifiable trail, clear of debris, leading from the kitchen to the computer desk, then around in a lazy arc to the staircase. Instinctively, Sam began to snatch up the rubbish, knowing he was only making the situation worse.
“What in the hell is going on here, Sam?” Eli’s tone was cold, the accusation unmistakable: What is wrong with you?
“I told you, I’ve been writing.”
“Looks like that’s all you’ve been doing. Have you even showered lately?”
Sam’s skin prickled as a furious anger gripped him. “Eli, what the hell do you want?”
Eli took a half step back. He offered up an apologetic smile, sensing that he was pushing Sam close to the edge. “Let’s have a beer,” he said.
Sam did not respond.
“Come on.” Eli nodded toward the kitchen doorway. “Go grab a couple beers, something local and undrinkable. Let’s you and me sit outside and talk.”
The spring air was cool with just a hint of the humidity that would weigh down the summer to come. A gentle breeze from the north brought with it the earthy scent of the Kansas River half a mile away.
Sam sipped his beer in silence, trying to keep his attention on the vagueness of the quiet street he lived on.
Eli turned his beer bottle around in his hands. He had yet to take a drink. “You don’t return my calls. You don’t respond to my emails or texts. Sam, I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be,” Sam said, running a hand through greasy hair that had sprouted, uncut, into a four-inch mop.
“But look at you. You’re a mess. Your house is a disaster area. What’s going on, man?”