Kill Creek

by Scott Thomas

  Daniel sucked in a mouthful of air. It was impossibly pure. Almost alpine. The crisp, cool air one would find at higher elevations, far above the timberline. The clarity of it excited him, tickling his lungs with the hint of frost.

  Along the wall to his right was a wooden shelf lined with picture frames. Each frame was turned away from the room. Carefully, Daniel flipped the first frame around. It housed a black-and-white photograph of two young girls, around eight or nine years old, with identical flower-print dresses and black hair pulled into ponytails. They were mirror images of each other, right down to their dour expressions.

  Daniel turned the next frame. This photograph was beginning to yellow and fade. It was of the girls again, now women in their thirties, flanking an ancient man with a face like cracked, weathered leather. The man had the same gray eyes that they did. This must be their father.

  The third photograph was more familiar—the sisters posing in front of the house on Kill Creek. One of them was now in a wheelchair, her mysterious accident happening sometime between the second and third photo. So these were the Finches. Rachel and Rebecca.

  Daniel moved farther into the room. The sunbeam that drifted in through the bedroom window fell warmly on a silver jewelry box. Daniel lifted the lid, and instantly the tinny strains of music flooded out. He recognized it as Bach, although he could not place the concerto. As the tune played, Daniel explored the interior of the jewelry box. It was lined with red velvet, several necklaces hanging from the top portion, a series of small compartments in the lower section housing rings. It was not flashy jewelry—no diamonds or precious stones. Almost all of it was silver, although not a single piece was tarnished. They were as bright and smooth as if they had been polished only moments before.

  At the edge of the box, where the lid was hinged to the back, something white peeked out. Daniel gave it a light tug. It was paper, yet thick and glossy. His pulse quickened; the excitement, so unexpected, seemed to course through his veins. Each new discovery in this room was his and his alone. While the rest of them pounded stupidly on the other side of the wall, Daniel was inside. Entry to this secret place had been granted only to him.

  Grasping the sides of the jewelry box with his fingers, he lifted out the inside tray. There, beneath it, was a stack of pictures, devoid of color, their grainy quality harkening back to the early days of photography. They were candid shots of a white-haired woman, her eyes clouded by cataracts, her mouth open slightly as if about to speak. She sat at a round table, hands clasped in those of a man and woman on either side of her. They looked on expectantly, waiting.

  A medium, Daniel realized. This is a séance.

  There were only four pictures, all from the same angle, each capturing the same moment with very little time elapsing between them. In each progressing photograph, a smoky, serpentine line emerged farther and farther from the old woman’s mouth, stretching out over the table like a ghostly arm.

  Daniel flipped the last picture over. Penciled at the bottom in small, deliberate print was the word “grandmamma.”

  What a strange lineage the Finches had come from. Finding this house, a place of so much potential power, must have been terribly exciting. Living under this roof, walking these halls each day and night—surely it did not take them long to realize what they owned. Harnessing its energy would have been their first priority, awakening the slumbering entity that rumor and gossip had invited in.

  Daniel set the photos back into their secret hiding spot and replaced the inner tray of the jewelry box. He closed the lid, the classical tune that emanated from within instantly snuffed out.

  Something squeaked behind him. The wheelchair, being nudged forward just a bit. He heard the light scrape of shoes on the floor as feet shuffled in place. Suddenly Daniel had the overpowering sensation of someone standing behind him, watching him, waiting for him to turn. He felt eyes on him. He listened closely and believed he could hear the whisper of breath being drawn.

  Balling his hands into fists, preparing for a confrontation, Daniel spun around. His fists instantly unclenched. His heart skittered abruptly, like a needle scratching across a bumped record.

  At first, the person before him was simply a shadow, silhouetted against the brilliant light of the window. But even before she stepped forward, even before the reflected sunshine fell upon her face, he knew who it was. He could tell by the way the hair fell across her shoulders, by the hint of curves on her budding body, by the trace of perfume—a mix of spice and flowers—that permeated the air.

  The challenge was not guessing the young woman’s identity but believing that it could be true. His mind tried desperately to reject it. There was no way it could be real. It was a trick of the light. A hallucination projected by his grief-stricken mind.

  His tears convinced him otherwise. They sprang from his eyes like deep, long-hidden water from a cracked stone, washing freely and uncontrollably down. His entire lower jaw began to tremble as if from some abrupt, intense chill. A bubble of saliva popped between his lips as he fought to form the single word that would make it all come true.

  “Claire.”

  A warm smile lit up her face. And now the sunlight began to shift, freeing itself from the sun outside to rotate around her, brightening her, bringing her away from the shadows and into perfect view. It was as if the sun orbited her. She was the center of everything.

  It was her, his daughter, his Claire, alive. She held out a hand, and on her pinkie Daniel saw the ring he had given her two Christmases before, a silver band with a cutout of a cross in the middle. A rosy hue rose to her cheeks, the color of life.

  Daniel slipped his hand into hers. The warmth confirmed what he already knew, that his beautiful daughter was no longer dead, that she had come back to him, snatched from the cold darkness of the grave by this glorious house.

  “Claire,” he said again, the name now leaping freely from his tongue. Still the tears came, his wet cheeks shimmering in the sunshine. She wiped them dry with her thumb. Her lower lip stuck out in a slight pout, poking innocent fun at her emotional father.

  When she spoke, her voice was not the frog-like croak of the undead but the sweet, tender song he never thought he would hear again. She said, “Daddy,” and the word was pure Claire, love tinged with a hint of teenage sarcasm. Daniel pulled her close to him, hugging her, feeling her arms wrap around his waist. The last of many walls constructed since her death collapsed to rubble, and Daniel sobbed into her shoulder, dampening the lacy white dress—

  Her funeral dress. We buried her in that dress!

  —that hung lightly on her petite body.

  “I love you,” Daniel cried. “I love you so much. So much, baby. Oh my God, I’ve missed you. It hurt so bad.” He was rambling, he knew. But there was so much to tell her. So much he had held inside, thoughts he could not share with his own wife, emotions reserved only for the daughter he thought he would never see again. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you.”

  “I know,” Claire cooed into his ear. “But I’m back. Everything could be just the way it was. I could come home to you and Mom. It’ll be like nothing ever happened, like I never went away.”

  Daniel tightened his grip on her. Her use of “could” scared him. It sounded speculative rather than certain. “I want you to come home, sweetie. I’d do anything to have you back. Anything. Anything.”

  He felt her lips against the side of her face. “That’s good, Daddy. That’s perfect.”

  Daniel frowned. The movement of her lips did not exactly match the sound of her voice. The words were lagging behind by a half second or so. And that wasn’t the only strange thing. Her voice seemed to be coming from behind her, as if someone were crouching down and speaking in her voice.

  “Daddy? Are you listening to me?” she asked.

  Daniel scolded himself for thinking this moment could be anything but miraculous. It’s Claire. It’s your daughter!

  “I can come home. But I need you to
do something first.” Her parted lips did not even seem to move as she spoke.

  “Anything,” Daniel repeated. And he meant it. In his soul, awakened from its comatose state after nearly a year, he meant it.

  “I can leave this house, Daddy, but you have to do exactly as I say. If you don’t, you’ll never see me again.”

  The sharp stab of terror tore through Daniel’s body. Every molecule threatened to spin free. The thought of losing her again was too much. He couldn’t bear it. Not again.

  Claire pressed her mouth up to his ear, as if fearing the secret words would be sucked away into the vacuum of the bedroom. At first, his mind rejected what she said. It was too strange, too unexpected. He could not do that. Anything but that. Then she raised a hand to his face, her fingers tracing the edge of his hairline, running through his sandy hair, and that fear sprang back like a striking snake—You’re going to lose her again! And this time it will be forever!

  She repeated the instructions over and over; each time, the sting of shock subsided a bit more until they were just words. Ordinary words. He closed his eyes. The only sound he could hear was her voice, Claire’s voice, and it was like music, a heartbreaking song recalled from another life.

  The instructions began again, and now she was slipping something into his hand. A handle. Heavy on one end. Like the hammers they had used to attack the brick wall at the top of the staircase. The weight of it forced his hand down suddenly and, as if from far, far away, he heard a sound—chink!—like metal biting into wood.

  Once more, she told her father what he must do. And then she pulled away, kissing him lightly on the forehead. Her lips were soft and wet. She was so real. So real.

  Daniel looked into his daughter’s eyes, and she gave him an encouraging smile.

  “Do it, Daddy,” she said, her head cocked, her eyes wide. She smiled, and the words filled his ears, even as her grinning lips remained motionless. “Do it for me.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  3:18 p.m.

  THE LIGHT WAS gone in an instant. One moment, the warm afternoon sunshine threw a mosaic of colors on the lower half of the staircase; then it vanished, a gloom overtaking the steps.

  Sam glanced at Wainwright, who had stopped chipping at the mortar around one particular brick. He set his hammer and chisel down on the top step, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “I can barely see anything up here,” he said.

  It was true. Without the sunlight from the alcove window, they were practically working in the dark.

  “What’s going on out there?” Sam called down to the others.

  Moore was standing at the window, peering through the stained glass, out to the west of the house. “Looks like rain,” she announced. “Big, fat black cloud just passed in front of the sun. Where the hell did that come from?”

  There was a sound. Fingers tapping. All over the house.

  “What is that?” Sam shouted.

  They all listened. Not fingers. Rain. The soft pitter-patter on the roof. Raindrops began to spit at the windowpane, obscuring the glass.

  “This is pointless,” Wainwright said, motioning to the wall. His voice was little more than a whisper. “These bricks must be held in place by something more than cement.” He sighed. “We’re not going to get through with these tools.”

  “Yes, we will,” Sam said.

  “I don’t know, Sam. . . .”

  “We will!” The sudden anger surprised even Sam. He glanced away, embarrassed.

  Wainwright cleared his throat and waved at the dust swirling about them. “I need to step outside for a second.”

  “We don’t have time.”

  “I can’t breathe up here,” Wainwright said pointedly.

  Clenching his teeth, Sam tightened his grip on the cast-iron skillet—

  Hammer, his mind corrected him.

  But it wasn’t. It was the skillet from his mother’s stove. He held it by the handle. Its blackened body glistened. Blood. His mother’s blood.

  Sam looked up, startled. Wainwright was hurrying down the stairs. Moore called after him as he passed, “Check on Daniel, will ya? He’s been gone awhile.”

  Sam looked down at the object in his hand. It was a hammer. It had always been a hammer. Its head was dented from bashing the hard brick.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Moore was talking to Sebastian, somewhere in the hall, out of sight. With both hands, she wiped the dust from the sides of her shaved head and stepped out of the alcove.

  Sam was alone.

  That was when he heard it, a voice through the wall. He turned and stared at the bricks.

  It was a woman’s voice, muffled by the barrier between them.

  “Sammy?”

  There was a rush of air, and he was back in that kitchen, in his childhood home, the storm raging overhead, his brother and mother fighting, his awful, drunk mother yelling abominations, the ugliest words in the English language. Little Sammy was there by the stove, frozen in place, watching helplessly as his mother suddenly slapped Jack, slapped him so hard, he fell to the ground. She was on her son in an instant, straddling him, hands around his throat. She was saying what she had said so many times when she was drunk, that she wished she had never had them, that they had ruined her life, that they were a curse. They took her happiness. They deserved nothing but misery. But her words had never felt more potent, more real. Jack’s eyes bulged in disbelief. His lips lapped the air stupidly. There was no breath. His mother had made sure of that. Just as she had given the boy breath, she planned to stop it. She was going to kill him.

  And there was Sam, ten years old, watching his mother strangle his brother. His beloved Jack, who had taught him to throw a baseball and smoke a cigarette. His brother, who called him names and gave him noogies and wet-willies, his brother, who stood up for him when older boys called Sam a pussy and a fag.

  Jack’s bulging eyes stared desperately at Sam. Burst blood vessels shattered the whites of his eyes into pieces of red-stained glass.

  End her misery, they pleaded. End her awful life that she hates so much. End it. Kill her.

  Kill our mother.

  Jack’s face was turning purple.

  Sam reached for the nearest object and his fingers found the handle of her cast-iron skillet.

  He swung it. He knew the second his arm came down that it was too hard. The dull thud of metal on skull was the most horrible sound he would ever hear. The back of his mother’s head caved in. Blood splattered little Sammy McGarver’s face.

  Sam stared in horror at the gore-soaked cast-iron skillet in his hand. The impact still reverberated up his arm and into his shoulder.

  But it wasn’t a skillet.

  It was a hammer.

  And he hadn’t bashed in his mother’s head.

  He had swung the hammer hard against the wall, and a single brick had jostled loose. He pushed the brick with his index finger, and it moved slightly in place.

  “Moore!” he yelled down the stairs.

  Moore hurried into the alcove. “What’s the matter?”

  “One of the bricks.” Sam stared down at her, his eyes wild. “It moved.”

  Bounding up the stairs, Moore grabbed the chisel and planted its sharp head against the mortar. With her other hand, she whipped the smaller hammer around in a powerful arc and brought it down hard on the butt of the chisel.

  The sound of the impact was like the chain of a millennia-old beast snapping in half.

  The brick inched out from the wall.

  Moore froze. She wasn’t sure she could believe what she had just seen. She pounded the back of the chisel again, and again the brick jumped.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered. “We’re getting through. This bastard is coming down!”

  A thin layer of cold sweat swept across Sam’s body. Suddenly he didn’t want the wall down. He wanted to pack up the tools and drive far, far away from this house.

  Because you know what’s on the other side. You know she
’s there, waiting for you.

  Moore was digging excitedly at the mortar bordering the brick. Grasping it by its edges, she gave it a little tug. It wiggled in place like a loose tooth.

  A rare smile rose to Moore’s face. “Don’t just stand there. Help me,” she said.

  Leave the wall, Sam’s mind warned. Leave this house.

  But Sam knew that he could not do that.

  Whatever was on the other side, it would end here.

  At first the lighter did not strike. Wainwright tried again, flicking the little metal wheel. This time the lighter came alive, a flame flickering in the light breeze. He held it to the end of a cigarette. Heard the faint sizzle as it lit. Sucked in sharply to get the tip nice and red. He exhaled the first puff of smoke, watching it waft out into the cool drizzle.

  Wainwright leaned against the frame of the back doorway and smoked. The sleeves of his slim-cut linen shirt were rolled up to the elbow, and his arms were covered in a gray dust. He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair, and more dust drifted into the air.

  Although he was sheltered here, nice and dry, he could sense the coolness of the afternoon rain, driving the oppressive heat down into the soil. He cocked an ear, trying to make out the sound of Sam’s hammering. It appeared the attack on the wall had stopped for the moment. All he heard was the soothing rhythm of raindrops as they spattered the trees and bushes surrounding the house.

  He had a perfect view of the woods to the south and the hint of a trail snaking through them. The opening to the path had been obvious last October; now the foliage was overgrown, making the trailhead difficult to pick out.

  He took another drag and savored the hint of sweetness in the smoke, rolling it slowly over his tongue before expelling it. His nerves were fried, like the exposed wires of an old garage sale lamp. The cigarette helped, but not much.

  He was beginning to doubt if coming to Kill Creek would result in the answers they sought. The house had offered nothing since their arrival, not even a supernatural display to confirm their fears. No orbs of light. No ghostly apparitions. Nothing. Only a wall that refused to come down. Nothing unexplainable about that. They had rushed back to the middle of nowhere expecting a confrontation with ultimate evil and had found good masonry instead.