Peter rushed the stairs, taking them two at a time. The Old Man was caught off guard for a split second but quickly recovered. His face reddened, and he whipped his belt toward Peter’s head, the buckle catching him in his wounded cheek.
Peter responded by grabbing hold of the leather strap and yanking it from the man’s hands. He tackled the Old Man, knocking him backward on the stairs, and when the man struck the shattered step, it gave way underneath him. His ass sank into the gaping hole, lodging him there.
There was a mighty rush of wind behind him, and then Peter felt the boy’s fingers digging into his cheek. He didn’t try to turn or throw him off—this was the demon’s doing. The boy was its puppet. His mind was not his own.
Peter, on the other hand, was in full control. He looped the belt around the Old Man’s neck and pulled. A debt was owed, and this man’s death was the payment. But not at the boy’s hand. He would spare the child that stain. The Old Man’s death was on him.
The man was wiry and strong, and he fought back with a madman’s fury, but with every thrust of his fists, he sank even deeper between the steps.
“You shit! You damn shit!”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “You got that right.”
With the boy’s nails clawing at his eyes and the Old Man punching at his groin, Peter gripped the belt in both hands and let his weight fall back.
There was a snap as the Old Man’s neck gave way, and a cry as the boy awoke, realizing that he was falling.
The belt slipped from Peter’s grip, the friction burning his hands. He twisted as he fell, trying to keep from landing on the boy, managing to spare him only partially. It was his time to snap as he felt his forearm crack beneath him. The boy squealed as they fell in a tumble, coming to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.
Peter breathed heavily. He eased himself to the side, relieving the boy of his weight and sending shockwaves of pain up his injured arm.
No matter.
He rolled his head back, taking in the upside-down view of the basement. The swirling mass was poised and angry, ready to pounce.
Peter shook the boy with his good arm.
“Hey!”
The child gazed at him, and Peter finally saw himself in the boy. Not just his features, but his fear. He had to get him moving.
“Go!” he yelled and shoved the boy with all the strength he had left.
The blackness struck, crushing him in its oppressive grasp. Peter laughed as it swarmed inside him, for he had broken the rules, changed the past and broken the loop.
“I guess we’re meant to stay together.” The demon heard the thought—for now it was its thought as well—and was terrified. The darkness flowed into Peter as he flowed into it—both of them possessing each other. Peter devoured all its black intent, leaving none for the boy. He felt the severing of Willa’s bond. The child was released. He would grow up unfettered, untouched. The boy would live and thrive—free from the demon, free from the darkness. Free to follow his own path.
And the price was Peter Larson’s doom.
The demon’s nightmarish mind merged with Peter’s own, and they solidified, becoming something new. An insane coupling.
As the night folded in on them, sweeping them into shadow, they screamed in tortured oneness.
“We’re messy! We’re messy! I’M MESSY!”
The boy waited at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at the Old Man wedged in the steps. Not daring to pick his way past him lest he leap back to life.
He stayed there all day as his thirst and his hunger grew. He remained seated on the cold floor through the night, eyes locked on the body. Watching intently, willing the man to stay still.
It was the next morning when he heard the call from upstairs.
“Albert, where the hell are you? Boss is pure-D pissed you played hooky yesterday. Albert? Albert!”
An oversized shadow appeared at the top of the stairs, and with it, the burly man who cast it.
“Jesus,” the man said as he took his first tentative step down the stairs. “Jesus.”
The boy could see that the man was wearing the same clothes that the Old Man wore to work—one-piece coveralls with the decal over the left chest pocket that read Maple City Sanitation. The man hovered over the gruesome scene before noticing his presence.
“You,” the man called. “Can you stand?”
The boy rose, legs quaking.
The man weaved past the Old Man’s body as he descended the stairs. He walked up to the boy, towering over him a moment before kneeling. He placed his enormous hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Look at you. You’re her spitting image.”
The boy spelled out the name monogrammed on the man’s chest and wondered at its meaning. Big Bear.
“Close your eyes, son.”
The man took the boy in his arms, hugging him close before picking him up and heading for the stairs. The boy felt as if he were floating above the world—up over the broken man, the broken step.
Bill Larson paused and turned back. With his free hand, he loosened the belt around the Old Man’s neck and pulled it free.
“The man slipped, is all. The man slipped.”
The boy didn’t open his eyes again until he smelled the sweet scent of soybeans rising from the fields and felt the warmth of the sun on his face.
Peter smelled the town before he saw it—a rich, meaty musk that had always reminded him of Purina Dog Chow. Later in life, he would learn that it was the smell of burning skin and hair as workers blasted the pig carcasses with gas-guns. The Primeland pork processing plant employed a large number of Maple City residents. And saw thousands of hogs to their deaths.
He passed the sign stating Welcome to Maple City! Home of…and that was it. The rest of the greeting had been painted out.
His phone jingled, and he hit the speaker.
“What’s up, beautiful?”
“Vacancy sign to your left,” Hannah said, country radio in the background.
“Roger that.”
Peter flipped his blinker and turned into the parking lot of the Intermission Motor Lodge. The place was open for business but was still under construction. The windows to the attached restaurant were papered over.
There used to be a large cow on top of the roof of the restaurant. A black Angus.
He parked, taking up three spots with the Ryder truck and peeked in the rearview mirror to see the Prius zip in behind him. Before he had a chance to get out of the cab, Hannah scurried up to the truck and opened his door.
“Do you have the good card?” she asked, dancing from foot to foot.
Peter searched through his wallet and pulled out a fresh credit card. “Hold on a sec.” He fished a pen from his pocket and scribbled his name on the back. Hannah grabbed it from his hands. “You sure you don’t want me to go?”
“I’m a better negotiator. We both know that. Besides, I have got to pee.” His wife made a dash for the front office, the wind whipping her hair as she went.
Peter hopped out of the truck and into a puddle of water. Ah, Illinois in autumn—a grey, raining mess. A muddy splatter coated the sides of the truck. He’d have to run it by the carwash before returning it. Hannah was of the mind that rental vehicles could be returned as grimy as all get out, but his father had raised him otherwise. Rent a car—return it clean. Maybe that was because he had once owned a carwash, or maybe it was just that Bill Larson was a stand-up guy.
As he approached the Prius, he discovered he’d be pulling double-duty with the soap and water. The car was all mud from front to back.
He glanced over at the office where he could see Hannah in the midst of negotiations through the window. If she couldn’t get them a cut rate for the next few days while they sorted everything out, no one could.
The call from Gina about their father’s failing health had come not long after Hannah had first mentioned the idea of getting out of the city. Uprooting would be a bitch, but something about the way the st
ars had aligned told them both it was time to make the leap.
Peter walked to the passenger side door and knocked on the window, which lowered instantly.
“I’m going to need to see your license and registration,” he said in his best cop voice.
Michael giggled. “I don’t have any.”
“Well, in that case, do you mind if I get in? It’s a bit chilly out here.”
Peter slipped into the back seat.
“You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever sat back here.”
“I like the front,” Michael said, pulling his blanket closer around him. “You can see better.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He tugged on the brim of Michael’s new Cubs hat. If the boy was going to live in Illinois, he’d make sure he was a Cubbies fan.
Last winter had been hard on the boy. His prognosis had soured and the pain from his cancer had increased, and Peter had resolved to give his son peace if necessary. He had even gone so far as hoarding an extra dose of morphine.
When the day came that Michael’s agony was unbearable, he sent Hannah on a trip across the Hudson to her family and gathered the needle and bottle.
But when he stepped into Michael’s room, he paused. His mind flitted back to that moment in the basement when he’d thought all was lost. When the shadows were closing in, there had come a man who fought them back—a spark of light in the darkness. A spark of hope.
It was time to cash in on the old house. With his father’s decline, it was ironic that his purchase of the place made it possible for Peter and his family to return to Maple City. To care for Big Bear in his waning days. It would be good for Michael too—get him out of the city and into the fresh air, even if it did occasionally smell like burnt pig.
“What stinks?” the boy yawned.
“That’s the pork processing plant.”
“Ewww.”
“You’ll get used to it, kiddo.”
Hannah returned waving a key in her hand. She jumped into the car and glanced back at Peter. “What am I, your chauffeur?”
“What’s a chauffeur?” Michael asked.
“Like an Uber driver but fancier,” Peter said.
“We’re around back. You want to follow me in the truck?”
Peter smiled and leaned back, arms over his head. “I’ll get it later, Jeeves.”
Michael mimicked his father, arms above his head as well. “Yeah, Jeeves.”
Hannah shook her head. “Why I put up with you two is a mystery.”
She pulled out of the parking lot and circled the motel, coming to a stop before their room.
“We’ve got a kitchenette,” Hannah said proudly. “At no extra cost.”
“That’s my girl,” Peter said.
While Michael checked out the TV channels, Peter and Hannah lay on the bed, shoes kicked to the corner.
It was no Manhattan apartment, but it would do for now. They were all together. And that was what was important.
“You ready for our new adventure, Mrs. Larson?”
“No. But when did that ever stop me?”
They kissed and snuggled close, content to watch as Michael flipped from channel to channel, surfing through his options.
* * *
The dark figure peered at the family from the shadows, hidden in the corner. Half of it longed to join them on the bed—the other half yearned to lash out, to strike.
To hurt.
The deadlock held it in place.
It would make itself known in time. But not yet. For now, the Messy Man was content to watch.
And wait…
Last week, I told my wife that our house—and in particular the side that contains my office—was waking up. There was a time when we couldn’t walk down the hallway without feeling the urge to glance over our shoulder or quicken our pace. But for the past few years, things have been relatively quiet.
That changed once I hit the home stretch of this book. I won’t go through the laundry list of thumps and bumps and cold spots that cropped up—you’ll just have to take my word when I say that writing this book has made this house once again…unquiet.
I’ll leave you with the following unedited except from one of my last writing sessions. It seems that someone—or something—wasn’t content to let me do all the typing:
“As Peter crouched, helpless to stop the boy’s progress, a notion struck him that was so simple and pure that0000000 0000000000 00 000000 0000000000000 00 000000000 00000”
I sincerely hope that my ethereal companion’s addition of fifty-four zeroes was simply its desire to collaborate and not a message of a more nefarious nature. Time will tell.
Chris Sorensen
January 19, 2018
Chris Sorensen spends many days and nights locked away inside his own nightmare room, having narrated over 200 audiobooks (including the award-winning Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix). He is the recipient of three AudioFile Earphone Awards, and AudioFile singled out his performance of Sent as one of the ‘Best Audiobooks of 2010.’ The Butte Theater and Thin Air Theatre Company of Cripple Creek, Colorado have produced dozens of his plays including Dr. Jekyll’s Medicine Show, Werewolves of Poverty Gulch, and The Vampire of Cripple Creek. He is the author of the middle grade book The Mad Scientists of New Jersey and has written numerous screenplay including Suckerville, Bee Tornado and The Roswell Project.
The Nightmare Room (The Messy Man Series Book 1) Page 19