"You...you never brought him to the hospital?"
Sam rubbed his tired eyes. "You're not listening to me, doctor. The hospital is in Ellenville. I couldn't even get my car out of the fucking driveway."
I was going to ask him why he hadn't tried calling another town, even the city. But I'd had the frustrating experience of trying just that, and it'd gotten me nowhere.
"Jesus, this doesn't make sense to me...I mean, how is it that the whole outside world is conspiring against Ashborough. What about the fucking government? Jesus, let's call the goddamned national guard and have the fuckers smoked out of here."
Sam folded his hands on his lap. "You have a drink?" he asked.
I nodded, went to the cabinet, retrieved two shot glasses, and poured us both some brandy.
He sipped it gingerly, then continued, "It's a buffer effect. There are five towns within fifty miles surrounding Ashborough. Ellenville, Claybrooke, Townshend, Beverly, and Beauchamp. Between here and all those towns lies thousands of acres of woodland. Within those woods live the Isolates. I'm assuming you've been to their den by now."
I nodded. "Yeah, I've had the pleasure."
"The den...the one you've been to, here in Ashborough, is the largest. But there's dozens of smaller ones all over between here and those towns. It's a great labyrinth, they're all interconnected and they can travel between them with amazing ease. The Isolates keep eyes on the people living on the outskirts of the towns. These are the town 'officials', who make sure that all order is kept and that no information about the Isolates leaves Ashborough. They keep track of who goes in, and make sure that no one comes out."
"Are you saying that the Isolates have spies? Human spies?"
Sam nodded. "Like you and I, they are under strict watch and constant threat by the Isolates. They have no choice but to adhere to their demands, otherwise they and their loved ones will fall victim to their savagery."
"I've heard that before."
"And undoubtedly, you've seen it. These aren't animals we're dealing with. They're a cunning, intelligent race of, dare I say, people who for hundreds of years have had things done their way. They live by a strict set of mores and practice them with utter purpose and determination. There's no escaping them, doctor. I suggest that if you wish to live as normal a life as possible, simply go about your duties as you normally would, and do as they demand, when they demand it. And most importantly, remember that their laws are not tolerant of any discussion of their existence."
"So...why are we talking about them now?" I asked.
"You threatened to kill me."
I nodded, again feeling remorseful. "I'm sorry..."
"Don't apologize, doctor, I know where you're coming from. I've been here for five years now. I do the best I can, given the situation with my son, but frankly I'm tired of seeing him the way he is. I'm wondering whether he might be better off as...as..."
"Don't say it," I said. Sam Huxtable was talking because he wanted the Isolates to come take his son. But who's to say, I thought, as to whether they might come and torture the poor kid even further? Or perhaps lay claim to his wife.
His wife...
"You mentioned to me that when you tried to leave you didn't think at the time that your wife and son knew anything about the Isolates. What did you mean by that?"
He took another sip, then downed the rest and grimaced. I refilled his glass. "Just as I'd been keeping my knowledge of the Isolates a secret from my family, wholly terrorized from their threats, my wife Janice had also come in extreme contact with them. She too had been threatened by Old Lady Zellis and had been keeping it all pent up inside, doing only what had been instructed of her. For three years the Isolates had separately manipulated myself and my wife, both of us having no knowledge of the other's torment, keeping the quote-unquote existence of the Isolates a secret for fear of them hurting Josh. Eventually Janice broke down, tried to overdose on the anxiety medication Farris had given her, which simply made her vomit for twenty-four hours. At this point we came to the discovery that each of us had had a run-in with Old Lady Zellis and were duly being tormented by the Isolates, had been for quite some time, and found no alternative but to ignore their threats and leave. As you now know, they lived up to their threats."
Lauren Hunter's words shot back to me like a missile, now, suddenly, making sense: They have Christine...
"So what you're saying," I said, the horrible truth of the matter setting dread deep into me, "is that I may not be the only one being tormented by the Isolates?"
Sam nodded, then stood up. "I believe it's time for me to go."
I was too stunned to speak. I gazed up at Sam, a sudden underdog in this conflict. "Why did you come here?" A sharp ache shot through my neck muscles, which made me wince, and for a moment I considered it a mental shot of retribution from Sam Huxtable.
He looked at me, dark eyes pinning me like bullets. "The Old Lady told me to."
And then, he walked out.
29
The trees were a great shifting shape against the cloud-filled sky, backlit by a sun whose rays found it difficult to warm the air. A threat of rain loomed, cool wind rippling at my shirt as I went outside.
I stood at the entrance to my office, wondering which way Sam Huxtable had gone: either home to the left or right into the woods to report his confrontation with Ashborough's good doctor. He'd left about a half-hour ago and I spent that time glued to the chair behind my desk, seeking out the strength to accomplish what I'd originally set out to do.
Eventually reality took over and I rose from my desk and went outside. I paced across the yard with all the energy and enthusiasm of a man who'd just broken the finish line of a marathon. For the millionth time I mustered some hidden strength to stave off the loom of insanity, then made my way into the garage where I planned to spend the next hour or so wrenching down the slats of wood piled up on the loft. The garage proved a vital breeding ground for mice and insects seeking warmth from the cold air, and they all let me know how pissed they were to have their dwelling unsettled. I also let them know that I was in town to do business, and took out my aggressions on as many of the skittering devils as I could with a healthy chunk of two-by-four.
The store of wood here led me to believe that Neil Farris must've planned to shutter up his house at some point but never came around to doing it. In addition to the collection on the loft, a stack of four-by-eight planks leaned neatly against the rear wall alongside an agglomeration of new and used beams. I also found a few sets of nails still in their clear packages, plus a fairly new claw hammer with the price string attached.
Hastily I began shifting the wood planks around, finding it easy enough to move them until I tripped on an errant slab and took a splinter of wood the size of a shish-kebob skewer deep into my palm. The pain and ilk of injury at once reminded me of the nail that had lanced my foot the day we moved in; now, suddenly, that episode seemed a long-lost forewarning of the shapes of things to come. Plucking the wood from my hand proved no less painful or gory.
Instead of treating it, I set right back to work, wincing through the pain that exploded beneath the work gloves I put on. I started the formidable task of replacing the two steel security doors at either ends of the hallway, both of which I was now thankful to have not thrown out. The two panel doors that came down ended up across the left half of the front window. A couple of closet doors from the bedrooms fitted perfectly over the other half.
I wore out a path between the house and the garage, carrying all the wood planks and beams outside and spreading them out the on the grass like a collection, examining the sizes and shapes of each piece and carefully considering which windows they would adequately barricade.
As I worked, the day grew cooler and a gray mist formed at the foot of the woods, like a great white capsule. I'd stopped many times during the course of the day to gaze into the woods, realizing for the first time, strangely enough, that the woods had become a sentient force, a mercenary of n
ature coalescing with alien beings whose purpose it was to make me feel insignificantly and substantially mortal.
Plus, there were sounds in the woods. Errant bustlings, twigs cracking, leaves swishing. I went about my work, ignoring the sounds despite the fact I shivered uncontrollably every time I turned away, as though invisible eyes bulleted icy gazes into my back. I worked for hours under these paranoid circumstances, wondering if they might leap out from their hidings to rip away my efforts.
Many hours later, and many minor injuries later, every possible entrance to the house had been barricaded except the solid oak front door, on which I added four bolt locks, my office windows, and the office entrance. The steel doors now back in place would keep the beasts from entering the remainder of the house—they've already proved themselves quite capable of permeating the office through the chimney, which I also left clear. I was the one they wanted, and as long as I kept myself available to them, my family would be safe.
In an odd instant, Sam Huxtable's words flitted back to me, like a snapping dream-bubble bursting with insight: I suggest that if you wish to live as normal a life as possible, simply go about your duties as you customarily would, and do as they demand, when they demand it.
Then I was reminded of our conversation about his wife, how, unbeknownst to him, she'd been under a similarly enduring threat by the Isolates, how all along she too had been forced to commit ghastly deeds in order to ensure the safety of her family, just as they'd done to him. All this had eventuated for years without the other's prior knowledge. Examining the possibility of this scenario occurring with Christine brought some issues out into the clear: it very well explained her sudden anger and suggestive resentment towards me, as well as the ongoing frustration riddling her arguments and how she'd treated the pregnancy as an ill-fated event.
Jesus, Michael, she'd said, you were wearing a goddamned condom!
I was. And we hadn't done it much prior to that, perhaps three or four times, if that. I shuddered at the sudden dark mystery that had become of my wife, and wondered if she too had played some role in the Grand Scheme. She'd shunned me (not unlike I had her, but I had an inarguable reason; was her reason for doing so effected by identical causes?) Then her pregnancy, how she seemed to treat it as a curse. Jesus, when we had Jessica (thinking of the past, the happy past, really fucks with my head) she acted like the Cinderella princess she presumed herself to be, a woman reveling on cloud nine and taking every precaution to ensure the safe delivery of her baby. Now? She claimed to be visiting an OB/GYN in town, yet I saw no evidence of such. No prenatal vitamins. No motherhood literature. Nothing to convince me that she had done the right thing for her unborn child. Damn, she never even tried to talk about it.
Why should she? You closed yourself off from her months ago.
They have Christine.
Suddenly, and perhaps irrationally, I considered confronting her again. This time, instead of confessing my knowledge of the Isolates as I had done rather futilely many months ago, I would insist on her confession, as to whether she withheld any personal secrets, whether she too lived under their constant threat.
The sun began to set behind the cloak of gray clouds, dimming the environment to a starkly gray tone. I paced about the back yard, gazing at the upstairs windows that used to look through into my bedroom and master bath. Now sloppy wooden barricades faced me, like blinded sockets gutted of their sight. I took a deep breath, turned to face the woods.
All of a sudden, there came a sound, and I remembered it clearly from my journey into the den of the Isolates: a laugh. A shrill cackle that could have been a cry. It was cut short by a chunk of silence, then returned again to rise maniacally and freeze my blood. The wind picked up at this moment and lifted the fog to the branches of the trees, swirling it about in ghostly tendril-like eddies. The laugh descended into a wheeze, then faded away...but its resonance continued on, penetrating me, tearing my senses to pieces.
"Fuck you," I said, my voice barely a crack. "I'll beat you."
I hesitated for a moment, then walked around to the side of the house, this time keeping my sights on the woods, and seeing for the briefest instant two glowing golden eyes fifty feet back beyond the perimeter of the woods.
Fuck you.
I kept on walking, around to the front of the house, where I saw Christine pulling the minivan into the driveway.
She stared at me from the driver's side window.
I stared back for a second, then turned away, suddenly afraid of her. And completely unsure of what to do next.
30
Today I rediscovered fear. Again. It came at me from a completely different angle, one I'd known existed all along but had been ill-prepared on a mental level to confront. The enduring threat of the Isolates had been directed against my family since the day we'd moved in, but I had been the only one, to my knowledge, who'd witnessed any of their horrors first-hand. Now, the possibility of Christine having also experienced their horrors had become conceivable, but to this point remained unconfirmed.
And then there was Jessica. Would my five year-old be capable of recovering from experiencing even a fraction of what truly existed out there?
Daddy, are there such things as ghosts?
I wondered—quite seriously this time—if Jessica had ever witnessed the existence of the Isolates, had perhaps seen the golden eyes hovering in the woods? If Christine had indeed been held hostage as it is now surmised, on what occasion had she confronted them without Jessica present? Was she too spending her nights in the woods as I had? Had she been forced herself to secretly perpetrate a sacrifice as well? So many questions, and no answers.
Despite the threats, I decided to confront Christine.
She exited the minivan and paced along the walkway to where I was standing, Jessica following the path a few feet behind, empty eyes staring soullessly to the ground. Christine angled her course, attempting to walk around me. I shadowed her move, blocking her. She kept her eyes away from mine, shifting back to her right.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward me, our faces inches apart.
"Let me go," she snarled. She was immediately angry, yes, but it was overthrown by the pain and mixed-up trepidation in her eyes. I could read her mind: I don't want to talk about it, Michael. I can't talk about it, and you know why. "Please let me go," she said again, this time quieter, more desperate.
"We need to talk," I replied demandingly. These were the first words I'd spoken to her in more than a month. It felt incredibly strange, as if I'd just committed some highly unlawful act.
She remained defiantly silent and tried to tear away from me, but I held on, pulling her arm. We wrestled back and forth like this for ten or fifteen seconds, and then she began to scream. "Let go of me! You bastard!"
That's when Jessica ran away, around the side of the house.
While we'd argued Jessica had forged a safe distance from us. It was only after Christine had yelled that she bolted. I called after her, and so did Christine, but she didn't answer.
Finally, by default I suppose, I let go of Christine. She pushed me away roughly, crying hard, tears coursing down her face. I ignored her and paced quickly around the side of the house, calling out Jessica's name. When I didn't see her I raced into the back yard, my feet seeming to move by themselves.
I saw her running. Far back into the gathering darkness of the woods, and disappearing fast.
I screamed her name, then ran after her like a madman fleeing the grasp of the law. But she kept on running, blond curls bobbing playfully about before dipping behind a crest in the land a hundred feet ahead. Brutal horror grasped me in the moment she slipped from my sight, taking my susceptibility to fear far, far beyond even that of my trip into the den of the Isolates. I pursued her as quickly as humanly possible, calling out her name as thoughts of her coming face-to-face with one the demons tortured my mind. I could hear the faint echoes of her distant footsteps crunching leaves and snapping twigs, and they helped guide me
along her chosen path, where the canopy above blanketed me in shadows as I continued yelling, Jessica! Jessica!, looking for any sign of her.
I heard her scream.
I sped forward, sidestepping reaching roots and scattered brush, wondering how in God's name her little footsteps had taken her so far, so fast. I climbed hills, skidded down peaks, again calling Jessica! Jessica! over and over again. Twigs poked my skin. Wet leaves made the going treacherous and I slipped full-length on the ground. A stab of intense pain lanced my lower back and for a moment I didn't think I'd be able to get up, but then I heard Jessica yell Daddy! and that was enough to help me climb back up and move on.
I pressed on. Pine needles jabbed the skin beneath my clothes. I kept on yelling Jessica's name, again and again, but my voice was weakening, and here in the darkening woods the critters were bustling to welcome the night, serenading in the millions and making it virtually impossible to hear. The land sloped further upwards.
Even in the darkness, the environment I approached took on an alarming familiarity.
Jesus...
I climbed over a hill, crossed a flat of land thick with trees, and saw it.
The circle of stones.
I finally found her. She was standing motionless within the arena of ten-foot stones, knee-deep in a blanket of dead leaves alongside the blood-stained altar. A disemboweled raccoon lay on the stone. She stared at it, eyes bulging, jaw hanging.
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