Kill Creek

by Scott Thomas

  The very air in the house seemed to compress, to push in on Sam like a phantom fist clutching him, and a thousand voices screamed in his ears.

  In the shadows of the elevator car, something stirred.

  “Go!” he yelled, barely able to hear his own voice over the cacophony.

  Ignoring his throbbing ankle, Sam crawled across the foyer, pulling himself forward with his left arm while dragging Moore along with his right.

  He glanced back over his shoulder.

  The movement in the elevator intensified, a black form wriggling higher and higher, as if it were being birthed from the shadows. A smaller black blob rose from the larger form, twisting out of the elevator to hover in midair. At its center, two eyes opened. Milky white orbs stared out.

  “We have to get out of the house!” Sam dug his elbow into the floor and gritted his teeth as he pulled them faster. They were only a few yards from the front door.

  Behind them, the thing was crawling out of the blackness of the elevator. It slipped past the gate, and the shadow swirled off into the air like smoke, revealing arms of pale dead flesh. Thick saliva crisscrossed its gaping maw like wet spiderweb.

  Digging its grimy fingernails into the wood floor, it began to drag itself into the room. Its fingertips thumped against the floor as it took hold, nails biting into the weathered wood. The thing’s twisted body slid farther into the foyer.

  A ghostly wind snaked down the staircase, whipped around Sam and Moore, and blew off the last of the shadow from the creature before them.

  “Oh my God,” Sam heard himself say.

  The thing crouching on the floor craned a neck like twisted rope, and they found themselves staring into the face of a witch. Decaying flesh hung in loose clumps from exposed bone. Where once there had been lips, strips of ragged skin stretched over teeth as gray and split as rotted wood. Her thin black hair, what hair hadn’t been tugged free, was pulled into a tight bun. Tiny insects scurried across her scalp, the white heads of maggots poking out of a spongy, necrotic wound.

  Her legs stretched out behind her, useless, like two dead, gray eels. Her jagged fingernails bit into the floor as she dragged herself closer.

  The image of the ancient wheelchair in the third-floor bedroom flashed across Sam’s mind. This was Rebecca Finch, former owner of the house on Kill Creek.

  The Rebecca-thing opened its mouth wider and an awful sound spilled out, somewhere between a scream and a death rattle. Her dead, opaque eyes glanced around. She grinned, and a raspy chuckle worked its way from her collapsed lungs. She trained her sightless eyes on Sam.

  “Sammy,” she said mockingly.

  “Open the door,” Moore said.

  Sam could not move. The front door was completely forgotten as he stared wide-eyed in horror.

  The Rebecca-thing cackled louder. A slick black beetle scurried out of her mouth and along the white sliver of her cheekbone.

  “Sam, you came all this way to see us?”

  “Open the door, Sam,” Moore pleaded.

  “We knew you would bring the others,” the Rebecca-thing croaked. “You’re so weak, so afraid, so guilty, that you rounded them up, one by one, like a good little boy.”

  Moore groaned angrily and reached out for the doorknob, but it was too far. They had to get closer.

  Rebecca Finch crawled toward them, her head bobbing loosely on her neck. Her cloudy eyes glanced from the terror-stricken face of Sam to Moore, arm outstretched, clothes still dripping with a mixture of water and blood.

  “Your friend doesn’t seem happy, Sam. But why would she be? You only bring misery. To your family. To Erin.”

  Sam moaned at hearing this abomination say her name.

  “You destroy everyone around you. You bring nothing but pain.”

  Moore lunged for the doorknob, but she was still too far away. She collapsed to the floor, wincing as she clutched the bloody wound in her stomach.

  The Rebecca-thing dragged itself closer to Sam. “Why don’t you stay?” it asked, its tongue clicking with excitement. “Your other friends are here. They’re upstairs, in our bedroom. They’re staying forever.”

  Around them, the house began to undulate, boards splintering as a wave rippled through the floor and walls.

  The Rebecca-thing shook with laughter, the sound growing louder and louder until it became a scream. Thick gray saliva dripped from its tongue as it shrieked with demented joy.

  “Sam.”

  The voice was barely a whisper, yet somehow through the maelstrom, Sam heard her.

  He looked down at Moore, her face pale, her skin slick with sweat.

  You can save her, he told himself.

  Suddenly the Rebecca-thing fell silent.

  There was something at the top of the stairs. A tall, thin shadow. A woman. Black hair billowed around her pallid flesh.

  Rachel, Sam realized.

  She reached out to them with a gnarled, ancient hand.

  “You’re all a part of the story!” she called down to them. “They’ll remember you forever, and the things that happened in this house! And they’ll say your name in a whisper as they pass!”

  Sam’s hand found the doorknob.

  It won’t open. We’re trapped. We can’t escape.

  He twisted the knob, and it turned.

  The latch clicked, hinges squeaking angrily as the door swung inward.

  The boards of the front porch groaned, and the Rebecca-thing shifted its dead eyes to the doorway behind them.

  “Ah, there you are.”

  Sam spun around, but it was too late. With an angry howl, Daniel burst over the threshold and whipped the hatchet down. The blade split Sam’s collarbone and wedged deeply into his shoulder. Sam cried out in agony.

  “Kill him,” Rebecca Finch cooed.

  At the top of the stairs, Rachel joined in. The chanting voices of the Finch sisters echoed off the walls of the foyer. “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

  “Kill him, and your daughter will be free!” Rebecca roared.

  With a sudden yank, Daniel pried the hatchet from Sam’s shoulder, the blinding pain sending black streaks across Sam’s vision.

  Daniel mumbled something unintelligible. With one hand, he shoved Sam’s head to the side, exposing his neck.

  With his other hand, Daniel lifted the hatchet high into the air.

  “Kill him!” the sisters sang. “KILL HIM!”

  It won, Sam thought. The house beat us.

  Images flashed through his mind: Erin in their house in Lawrence, the day they moved in; smiling, gorgeous, on their wedding day; staring sadly at him in the coffee shop last January; Moore smirking back at him in the VW bus on their way to Kill Creek; Sebastian in the hotel bar; playing one-on-one with Jack at the park in Blantonville, the court overgrown with weeds.

  Memories.

  He refused to lose them.

  He had to hold on.

  Daniel mashed his hand down harder against Sam’s head, pressing his cheek to the ground. Sam could hear the house whispering through the floorboards.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw Daniel’s foot, stretched awkwardly behind him.

  Sam kicked, and the bottom of his shoe collided with Daniel’s lower leg. There was a sickening crunch as Sam’s ankle split farther. His entire body was on fire, the pain unbearable.

  Don’t stop!

  He kicked again, even harder. The force of the impact sent Daniel’s leg flying out from under him, just as he swung the hatchet down. The giant man gave a startled cry, thrown off balance, arms flailing wildly as he tumbled forward. Sam managed to roll out of the way just as Daniel hit the ground with a thud.

  The hatchet slipped from Daniel’s hand and went skittering across the wood floor. Sam scrambled after it, ignoring the throbbing pain in his ankle, ignoring the searing agony of his savaged collarbone, thinking only of getting that hatchet into his hand.

  Behind him, Daniel was pushing himself up. He swatted at Sam’s leg, gripping his broke
n ankle and giving it an excruciating twist.

  Sam’s fingers grasped the handle.

  You’re a killer, his mind told him.

  No. I’m not.

  He flipped the hatchet around, the blade now to the back, the flat side forward, and he swung it, hard. The blunt steel bashed Daniel in the side of the head and he collapsed to the floor.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. Even the house grew quiet.

  Rolling onto his back, Sam watched as Daniel struggled to get to his feet. But his body would not cooperate; each time he tried to rise, he collapsed back down to his knees. Gripping the edge of the doorframe, he was finally able to stand. He lumbered out onto the porch like a drunk, each step an effort to retain his balance. When he reached the porch railing, he paused as if to admire the twisted form of the beech tree. And then he slowly turned, his back to the rail.

  There was the sound of splitting wood as the railing gave way. The rusty nails holding the top plank in place snapped free, and the large man went sailing over the side, splashing down to the muddy earth.

  In the foyer, the Rebecca-thing howled furiously. Her maw was open impossibly wide. Her white eyes bulged from her skull.

  Movement at the top of the stairs caught Sam’s eye.

  Rachel Finch was on all fours, thrashing like a mad beast. Her thin lips were pulled back in a hideous snarl.

  Sam winced as he scooped Moore up with his good arm, the hatchet still held in his hand.

  “There’s nowhere to run!” Rebecca shrieked after them. “SOON EVEN THIS HOUSE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HOLD US!”

  As they stumbled over the threshold, Sam glanced back.

  The foyer was empty. The Finch sisters were gone.

  FORTY

  7:22 p.m.

  ALTHOUGH THE RAIN had not let up, the storm clouds that stained the sky a yellowish green at midday were showing hints of purple dusk as Sam struggled to help Moore down the porch steps and onto the front lawn. The wind whipped around them, tearing at their clothes with renewed ferocity. A few yards away lay Daniel, faceup, his chest rising and falling slightly with each shallow breath.

  He’s still alive, Sam thought. He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake.

  When they reached the SUV, Sam gently set Moore down on the ground, her back against the door. He gripped the side mirror for balance as he set the hatchet on the roof of the car.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, frowning.

  Sam nodded toward the house. “We can’t leave it like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Intact.” In all of Sam’s life, in the hundreds of thousands of sentences he had written, never had a single word held so much power. “This house is over a hundred and fifty years old. If we can get a fire going, it should go up like dry brush, even in the rain. It won’t take long.”

  “No,” Moore said. A bit of color had returned to her face. The hand on her stomach was still caked with blood, but even that was beginning to dry. For now, the bleeding was under control. “Just forget it. Let’s just go.”

  Rainwater dripped from Sam’s face as he bent down beside her. “Moore, there’s something in that house, something that made Daniel go mad, something that doesn’t want to be forgotten.”

  “But we’re out now. We made it.”

  He took her hand in his. “You know that doesn’t mean we’re safe. If we leave the house intact, once word gets out about what happened here, whatever is in there will be stronger than it’s ever been. And there’s no telling what it will do. To us.”

  The fear was trying to take hold of her again. But she seemed to push it back, at least for now.

  With one hand on the side of the SUV, Sam hobbled around to the back and opened the hatch. The two gas cans were still there, right next to the splitting maul Wainwright had insisted on buying and never even removed from the car. Sam grimaced, fighting through the pain as he carefully lowered each plastic can to the ground.

  Suddenly a wave of panic washed over him; he had nothing with which to start the fire—no match, no lighter, nothing.

  He called over to Moore. “You have a lighter?”

  Moore shook her head apologetically. “Don’t know where mine is.”

  “Shit,” Sam growled. He closed his eyes, trying to picture their arrival. Wainwright had been driving. He remembered the kid smoking. He usually had his lighter on him, but maybe if he had a spare . . .

  Once again using the SUV for support, Sam moved to the driver’s-side door. He opened it and ran a hand over the seat, his fingers digging into the cracks. He found nothing. He leaned across the seat and twisted the knob on the glove compartment. The door popped open. Inside was their rental agreement, a map of Kansas City, and the SUV owner’s manual. He ruffled through the contents, unaware of the little prayer he whispered under his breath. The glint of metal caught his eye. He shoved the map aside, revealing a pack of smokes and a silver Zippo lighter. He let out a sharp breath, took the Zippo in his hand, and flicked the flint. A healthy orange flame sprang forth.

  “Wainwright, you wonderful asshole.”

  The wind was blowing even harder, the rain falling in diagonal sheets. Each drop was like a beesting as Sam dragged the first gas can across the yard and up the front steps. Above him, dark clouds swirled angrily, as if the storm itself disapproved of his intentions.

  By now his ankle was almost completely numb. He stepped on it as lightly as he could, but the pain was nowhere as intense as before. Either the nerves in his foot were fried, or the part of his brain that warned him of his injury had decided to close shop for the day. His shoulder, on the other hand, was a live wire, but he did his best to minimize the movements of his arm as he hobbled across the front porch.

  The foyer was just as they had left it—streaks of Daniel’s blood across the wood floor, but no trace of the things that had been Rebecca and Rachel Finch.

  Sam stepped cautiously into the house. Except for his labored footfalls echoing lightly around him, all was still.

  He crossed to the staircase and placed the gas can on the fourth step, removing the cap. Reaching between the balusters, he carefully tipped the can over. Gasoline gurgled from the opening and cascaded down the stairs, pouring out across the floor below.

  Careful not to lose his balance, he took a few steps back toward the open doorway. With his breath held, Sam flicked the lighter. The flame danced before his eyes.

  “Sam?” a weak voice called down from above. “Sam, help me.”

  Sam glanced up. From within the curtain of darkness at the top of the stairs, the voice spoke again, soft and pathetic: “Help me, please.”

  Sebastian!

  But he knew it wasn’t. Sam had seen the geyser of blood that had erupted from the Sebastian’s neck. The old man must have bled out in seconds.

  But what if . . .

  It wasn’t Sebastian. It was the house. It had always been the house.

  “Sammy, what are you doing?” the darkness asked. It was his mother, her voice commanding. “You stop that. Stop it right now.”

  Pushing the voice out of his mind, Sam bent down and held the flame to the shiny pool of liquid still spreading over the foyer floor.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The thing in the shadows was furious now, no longer the sweet voice of Sebastian or the hateful voice of Sam’s mother, but a thousand overlapping voices shouting from another world.

  “STOP!”

  The gasoline ignited in a flash. Sam snapped the lighter shut, extinguishing the flame, and stumbled backward onto the porch. His eyes remained on the floor inside, on the blue-tipped flames that coursed hungrily across it.

  The fire. Jack had started the fire. Their mother was dead inside. They knew she was gone. Their father would be home soon. Sam had saved Jack. But Jack knew the price his little brother had paid. No one else needed to know. Jack would make it look like an accident.

  Jack. Beautiful Jack, who had taught Sammy to throw a baseball and smoke a
cigarette.

  Inside the house, the flame reached the east wall and attempted to crawl up it. Sam’s face began to glow orange in its light.

  Panic. His mother was in there. The woman who cursed her children’s names, who blamed them for every one of life’s miseries. But his mother, all the same. He ran. Into the burning structure. Tried to pull her body out. Jack was grabbing Sammy by the back of his shirt. Sammy was screaming, “Mommy! I’m sorry! Mommy! Wake up, Mommy! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  The entire kitchen was in flames. A beam was falling. Onto his mother. Onto the bloody mass that had been her head. Part of the doorframe collapsed, and Sam was pulled to the ground. He recoiled at the smell of his own burning flesh as the flames devoured his left arm.

  And Jack was once again dragging him by his shirt. The sound of ripping cotton. The roar of the fire as the flames raced through the old house.

  The foyer was engulfed now. The flames were beginning to creep up the stairs to the second floor.

  The flickering orange light.

  Jack had taken off his own shirt to wrap Sammy’s burned arm. They stood side by side, watching their home burn. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.

  The flame hit the mouth of the plastic gas can. There was still a good amount of gasoline inside, ready to be devoured.

  The thousand voices of Kill Creek cursed him, transforming into something guttural, bestial, like a record slowing on a turntable until the words became inhuman.

  Sam stumbled down the front steps as, inside, the flames shot into the plastic tub. First there was a flash, and then the gas can exploded in a ball of fire. Plastic shards slapped wetly against the walls, the molten fragments sending tendrils of flame across the wallpaper like fiery snakes.

  Sam limped over to where Moore sat with her back against the side of the SUV.

  “Do you think the rain will put it out?”

  Sam shook his head. “By the time it does, it’ll be too late.”

  The ground seemed to shift beneath them, Sam’s foot catching momentarily on the grass.

  “I need to get Daniel,” he said.

  “No,” Moore was saying. “Leave him.”

  Another clump of grass hooked Sam’s shoe, nearly tugging it off. He glanced down in time to catch a glimpse of a furry green vine slipping through the weeds.