Kill Creek

by Scott Thomas

  Wainwright sucked the last drag from the cigarette, then stubbed it out on the doorjamb and flicked it into the yard. It landed halfway between him and the trailhead, a sliver of white in the deep green carpet, like the protruding tip of a fractured bone.

  He was turning back toward the kitchen, his hand reaching to pull the back door shut behind him, when he caught a glimpse of the girl. It was only that—a glimpse—but in his mind he could still see it, the deep brown skin, the dark hair, obscured by the thick curtain of leaves. He paused. Glanced back. She was gone.

  You saw nothing, he told himself. No one was there. He wanted to believe this because his first instinct had been something different. His first thought had been, There’s Kate.

  He started to back into the house as he watched the wall of trees for any sign of the girl. The rain pelted the leaves, giving the woods a strange sense of movement, the branches nodding, as if encouraging him to explore.

  There she was again, farther down the trail this time, barely visible through the cover of green. In an instant, she was gone again, lost to the dense forest.

  Wainwright moved out from under the roof’s overhang and into the sprinkling rain. His wild hair was instantly wet, clinging like curling fingers of ivy to his forehead. He blinked as the raindrops collected on his eyelashes, wiping at them to keep his vision clear.

  It wasn’t her, his mind insisted. But it had looked like her. Even in the fleeting glimpses, he had noticed that this woman carried herself like Kate. Except there was an odd stutter to her movements, like a film with random frames removed.

  Pulling the overgrown branches away from the trailhead, Wainwright stepped through the rip in the forest and onto the path. The branches snapped back into position behind him, blocking his way. The message was unintentional but nonetheless clear: there was no turning back.

  At first he did nothing. He simply stood at the edge of the trail and continued to scan the area for the girl. The tops of the trees provided momentary relief from the growing storm, their bushy branches deflecting the rain.

  “Kate?” he called out, feeling instantly foolish.

  It isn’t Kate. It can’t be. It’s the bloody house. Or it’s nothing. It’s your imagination.

  But what if . . .

  A sound worked its way to him, beaten down by the steady patter of the rain. He cocked his head, trying to force his ears to separate the noises like audio tracks on a computer, the falling rain on one track, the bristle of blowing leaves on another. And on a third track, a sound he may have imagined, a woman’s voice from farther down the trail.

  “O . . . here.” He heard it this time, he was sure of it. Over here, she had said. Even the voice sounded like Kate’s, playful yet commanding, each word warmed by that Southern twang.

  He began to walk, hesitantly at first, then driven forward, his feet moving faster as he rounded the first curve in the path.

  “Over here!” the voice said. “Hurry it up!” It was closer, just around the next bend.

  Raising an arm to shield his face from the overgrowth, Wainwright burst into a clearing. He expected to find her waiting for him, smiling warmly. But the clearing was empty save for the creeping vines that seemed to be overtaking the countryside.

  “Kate?” There was no hesitation now; he called the name with confidence, sure she must be nearby.

  Only the rain responded, growing in intensity, pounding the cover of trees in an effort to break through.

  Wainwright walked the edge of the clearing, a complete circle no more than forty feet in circumference. On one end, opposite where he had entered, was the next leg of the trail, its entrance barely discernable. She must have slipped through just before he arrived, pushing deeper into the woods.

  He decided to follow the path until he found her. But as he took his first step, something creaked underfoot. He bounced lightly in place, finding that the ground had an unusual give. The creaking became a crack, the sound of weak wood splintering.

  The well, he thought, remembering his own warning from their first visit. If I’m not careful, these boards will snap and I’ll fall—

  It came at him in a flash of light, what little sunlight remained in the day glinting off of metal. The image was too confusing to process. A flashlight? A star? A coin? The possibilities rushed by, unfiltered by reason. Then instinct kicked in, his face flinching, his hand swinging up to block the incoming object.

  He heard the impact before he felt it—a sickeningly dull thud, like the smashing of a pumpkin. The force of the blow caused him to stumble back a few steps, the rotten boards protesting loudly beneath him. His tongue licked wildly at something that was wedged between his teeth, through his teeth, a metallic object, cold and sharp at its edge. His mouth was wet, too wet, filling with a gushing liquid.

  Blood.

  His mind raced, panic shorting out his senses, keeping him from making sense of what was happening. Through this, through the throb that was quickly enveloping his face, through the confusion as his tongue lapped stupidly at the metal edge in his mouth, another sound came to his attention. A whimpering from off to his side.

  “I’m sorry,” the new voice was saying. It was a man’s voice, pathetic and grief-stricken. “I’m sorry,” he said over and over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Without warning, Wainwright was pulled forward, his feet stumbling as the metal object was yanked from his face. His mouth was overflowing with blood; he could feel it coursing down his chin, soaking his shirt.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice insisted at a near-hysterical pitch. “I have to! I’m sorry!

  For an instant, the whimpering ceased, replaced by a grunt, as if the man were putting all of his energy behind one action. Wainwright’s wild eyes caught a glimpse of the glint again. This time it came at an angle, allowing him to make it out, to see the awful thing that was about to strike him. A blade, flat and tapered, like a sharpened stone. An ax. No, smaller.

  A hatchet.

  There was only time for this single thought, and then the impact jerked his head back, his neck bending at an unnatural angle. Something sloughed off the top of his head and it hit the ground with a terrible, soggy splat. Blood was drenching the back of his shirt. And then the darkness consumed him. It was not as he had imagined it. He had expected death to occur in the snap of a finger. But this was the sensation of his mind powering down, like a computer hard drive spinning to a stop. There was only blackness, and then . . . there was nothing.

  Daniel stared down at the mess he had made, his chest heaving with each breath.

  The second strike had taken Wainwright’s scalp clean off. The clump of hair and flesh lay on the forest floor, wetted by the occasional raindrop. Where the hair had once been, the top of his skull was caved in, the pinkish-gray tone of brain visible through jagged bone.

  Letting the hatchet slip from his hand, Daniel dropped to his knees, his body quivering as he began to weep. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the lifeless body. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Wainwright’s face was split straight down the middle, the nasty work of the hatchet’s first blow. The blade had bitten deeply into his head, creating a canyon from just below his hairline down to the middle of his mouth. His two front teeth had been knocked in; one was folded up like the landing gear of an incoming plane while the other hung loosely by a thread of nerves.

  The blood was more than Daniel could have ever expected. It soaked the earth around Wainwright’s head, turning the already mushy ground into a reddish-black swamp.

  Sitting on his legs, his knees digging into the dirt, Daniel stared at Wainwright’s mutilated face, the glazed eyes parted by that terrible slash in the skin. Daniel couldn’t look away. He had done this. He had murdered this man, with no warning, with no obvious motive.

  The light touch of fingers grazed Daniel’s shoulder. He peered back at the girl standing behind him.

  Claire. Even as the storm above grew in strength, she was a beacon of light, a shinin
g star in the gloom.

  She bent her neck, her head turned down at an odd angle, and her voice seemed to rise up and over her, cascading down her shoulders like mist over a mountain ridge.

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  The sensation of her hand on his shoulder gave him strength, strength to get back on his feet, to pull the wood planks from the top of the well, to drag Wainwright by the feet and slide him, headfirst, into that man-made hole in the earth.

  The body, Daniel thought. That’s all it is now. A body. No life. Nothing to mourn. It was simply a means to an end.

  She was smiling down at him, and the sight warmed his soul. His body stopped shivering. The tears dried up.

  He was strong again. He could do this. He could finish the job. For her.

  Daniel shoved over the boards covering the well to expose about three feet of the mouth. It was just enough to fit the body through. Wainwright was heavier than he looked, but with some effort, Daniel managed to drag the limp corpse closer so that its feet dangled over the edge. He gripped the young man—

  Body, he corrected himself. It’s nothing more than that.

  —by the shoulders and, lifting with his legs as he had always been taught, he tipped the body up until it slid easily over the lip of the well. It plunged into the darkness. As he had with his cell phone six months earlier, Daniel listened for the object to splash into the water below.

  There was no sound. Wainwright was swallowed by the earth.

  Nearby, Claire giggled.

  Daniel turned to her.

  Her head was bobbing with laughter, her lips pulled into a tight grin, but once again he had the feeling that the sound was not coming from her but from something behind her.

  Like a puppet.

  No! his mind roared. That is your Claire!

  Yes, it was his Claire, and her laughter was like breath in his lungs.

  Daniel bent over and grabbed the carpenter’s hatchet by its blood-streaked handle. He wiped the gory blade on his pant leg and started toward the trail that would lead him back.

  To the house.

  To them.

  THIRTY-TWO

  3:50 p.m.

  HE WAS BACK in his bedroom.

  Not the cozy, rustic room in his house in upstate New York, but the place he had called home for one night last Halloween.

  Sebastian sat down on the bed, just as he had six months before. Through the door, he could hear the muffled voices of Sam and Moore on the stairs, followed by the pounding of hammers. He should be out there, helping them.

  What help could you possibly be, old man? You don’t even want to be here.

  “None of us want to be here,” he said aloud, but the sound of his own words embarrassed him.

  You’re a coward.

  It was true, although he had no real reason to fear the house. Like the others, Sebastian had returned home only to be struck by inspiration. Like the others, he had spent the past few months pounding away on a keyboard, his fingers barely able to keep up with the story racing through his mind.

  But it was different for you.

  “Yes,” Sebastian said to the empty room.

  He was not driven by terror as Sam, Moore, and Daniel had been. As he wrote, he became aware of a presence in the house, a figure that lurked at the corner of his vision. But he was not afraid. The further he got into the new book, the closer the figure approached, until one day it put a hand on his shoulder and said in that warm, rough voice, “It’s good, Sebastian. It’s really good.”

  Richard.

  He knew it couldn’t be true. Yet every day when he returned to his computer, Richard was there, standing behind him as if waiting for pages to read, just as he had done when he was alive.

  Listen to yourself, his mind ordered. The thing in the house with you was not Richard. Richard is dead. There’s no coming back from that.

  I thought it was my imagination, he insisted.

  You were lying to yourself.

  “I know,” he said.

  He’d gotten more than just Richard back, though. His mind had returned to him, the lapses into dementia growing rarer until they ceased entirely. Sebastian felt more alert than he had in years. He was operating at peak performance, all cylinders firing, as he passionately wrote what could be the best novel of his career.

  He got up from the bed, his hand on the footboard to steady himself. Slowly, he crossed to the bathroom and stepped inside. He flicked the light switch, remembering only when the bulb above did not react that there was no electricity. The bathroom was a cocoon of shadow, the only light falling in through the open doorway.

  Gripping the pedestal sink with both hands, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He was a silhouette against the backlight of the bedroom, a featureless black curtain.

  “Why are you here?” he asked the shapeless form before him.

  He already knew the answer, no matter how badly he wanted to avoid it.

  Because I know it wasn’t right. Because I know it wasn’t really Richard.

  It was the house.

  That was the reason why, once he had written the last page of his book, he had driven four hours into Brooklyn to visit Dr. Adudel. He had to find out what was truly happening to him. Perhaps whatever lurked in the house empathized with Sebastian. After all, they were both old. They were both being forgotten. Maybe what the house was doing wasn’t bad. Maybe it was trying to help him. He made the trip to Adudel’s three times before the day the others arrived. Only then did Sebastian finally get his answer.

  I’m the storyteller.

  “I never asked to be,” he said to his faceless self.

  “You didn’t have to ask,” a voice said from the darkness behind him. “You were chosen.”

  A second form was reflected in the mirror, a shadow among shadows. It was moving closer.

  Sebastian closed his eyes tight. “Leave me alone,” he said.

  He felt fingers brush his neck.

  “I gave you everything you wanted,” Richaid said. “But I can take it back. Unless you leave. Leave this place. Now.”

  It isn’t Richard.

  “Go home, Sebastian. Go home, my love.”

  It’s isn’t him!

  Sebastian opened his eyes again.

  It wasn’t a mirror before him but a window, and through it he saw warped wooden planks set into the forest floor, beside which lay the crumpled form of Wainwright. He saw the basement, flooded knee-deep, and in the black water floated the body of T.C. Moore. He saw the hallway, just outside this bedroom, and sprawled across the ground was Sam McGarver, his face and torso mutilated, a dark lake of blood pooling around him. He saw the front yard and the flashing lights of police cars as bullets ripped through Daniel Slaughter.

  He saw himself, in his garden at home, Richard by his side.

  “Leave this place,” Richard said.

  Sebastian gasped and pushed away from the sink, away from the mirror.

  The mirror. It’s only a mirror.

  So it was. A simple mirror over the pedestal sink, reflecting his dimly lit face.

  He looked so old. The color that had warmed his cheeks was gone. Liver spots peeked through thin receding hair.

  Sebastian felt something tug at his mind, like fingers pulling a loose thread, threatening to unravel his memories.

  Sam stood over Moore as her sweaty hands tugged at the brick, inching it slowly away from the wall.

  “Just pull the thing out!” he barked.

  “I’m trying!”

  “Let me do it!”

  “I’ve got it, McGarver! I’ve got it!”

  Moore adjusted what little grip she had, her fingertips slipping as she wiggled the brick back and forth, trying desperately to work it free. It was right smack at the center of the wall.

  If we can get this one out, Sam thought, we could get a crowbar through. We could pry more bricks loose. Bring this whole damn wall down.

  His hands quivered slightly as he watched, his fingers
twitching as Moore tried to draw the brick out.

  “Just get your goddamn fingers around it and pull!” he said, his impatience getting the better of him.

  “Sam, what do you think I’m trying to do? I’ve got a quarter of an inch to work with. Just back off, okay?”

  Sam did as she said. He glanced around, realizing for the first time that they were completely alone. “Where are the others? Where’s Sebastian?”

  “Fantastic,” Moore snapped. “We’re about to open Tut’s tomb, and they’re all off playing grab ass.”

  There was the loud, abrasive scrape of brick on cement. Sam peered over Moore’s shoulder as the chipped red block came out a full inch. It was enough for her to wrap her fingers around each side. Planting a foot against the base of the wall, she leaned back. She sensed Sam there, ready to break her fall should the brick slide easily out. Taking a deep breath, she shoved off from the wall, the brick held tightly in her hands.

  There was no fear of falling; the wall gave up another two inches but refused to let the brick go just yet.

  “Shit!” Moore barked.

  She released her grip just long enough to wipe her damp fingers on her pants. As she did, the brick began to wiggle by itself, drawn back into the wall by some phantom force. Her hands were around the brick at once, pulling desperately at it, trying not to lose ground. Each tug was equally matched from the other side as something attempted to keep the wall from coming down.

  “Grab my shoulders,” she called back.

  Sam did, his hands grabbing Moore roughly.

  She called out the instructions, her voice rising to a near yell. “On three, you pull as hard as you can. I’ll do the same. One.” She planted her heel into the top stair, the tip of her shoe pressed hard against the wall. “Two.” The veins in her hands bulged, her fingertips bone white. She clamped her fingers around the brick like a vise. “Three!”

  It happened in one fluid motion, Sam heaving Moore back just as she pushed off from the wall. And then they were falling, tumbling down the stairs, the edges of steps scraping their shoulders and backs. They landed at the base of the stairs in a heap, Moore a jumble of arms and legs beneath Sam, all eyes on the object in Moore’s hand, so ordinary in any other situation, so extraordinary here.