Phillip.
Seeing Phillip here, like this, introduced me to a powerful new emotion, one which pooled all my sentiments, my perceptions, and submerged them deep into a sea of devastation, creating a feeling that I could only interpret as dreadfully stagnant, and lifeless.
Fenal approached me, cracked bulbous lips inches away from my face. He whispered, "Savior." His dirty breath stank of decay. "Maltor..."
The entire clan repeated the foreign gesture, hushed, yet deep and caustic. Hundreds of golden lights glowed in the distance. Confusion beset my tortured mind.
Maltor?
Phillip's eyes, what little life remained in them, pleaded with me. His bloodied lips trembled, the voice coming from them cracking with fatigue and fear. "I shouldn't have told you anything, Michael."
Jesus. The Isolates were punishing him for breaking their law. That night on the porch to my house, when we spoke, Phillip had told me about their keen ability to spy on people, to listen in on others' conversations. He'd also shown me what they'd done to Rosy, and that was much more than they could ever allow above and beyond his attempts to get me to make the sacrifice.
They'd been in the woods listening to our entire conversation. And they didn't like what they'd heard.
Now, Phillip would pay.
And so would I.
Fenal slithered over. He came within inches of my face. His breath stank of rotting flesh. He forcibly handed me a club of wood which looked as though it had been crudely carved from a woodland tree. I grasped it, suddenly aware of their dreadful intentions for myself and for Len.
Maltor. Kill. They wanted me to kill Phillip Deighton.
I held the wood club in both hands, sweat pouring from my palms, my mind circling in vain attempt to find the logic behind their perverse request. But I could not. A thing such as logic did not exist down here. The golden-eyed breed is pure evil, ungracious and malevolent, unknowing of such a philosophy. Without Neil Farris here, they would become sick and lame with injury and disease. Enter the new doctor. They kidnap me, hold me and my family hostage until I cure each and every God-damned one. Make them strong, what they thrive to be. Evil beings, God's impropriety of creation, revived and brimming and anxious to live life as they only know how.
Savior. Yes, that's what they call me. Now I understand why. I am here to save their race from extinction. And soon, from what I can fathom, they'll be done with me. As they were at the time with Neil Farris.
Maltor! Fenal screamed. The breed repeated his demand, the roar of it deafening.
"No," I said, feebly, knowing very well I was simply prolonging their game by not cooperating.
A demon appeared from just behind Fenal, groveling towards me on its knees, a great tormentive grin pulling its lips wide.
In one dirty, twisted claw it held Jessica's teddy bear, its one button-eye still dangling from withered threads.
Dear God... They had violated my asylum, the one place where I find my only peace of mind. The place of my purest and most precious possession, the only place still sacred in my life. My daughter's room.
My God, how did they get in?
The demon dug its claws into the teddy bear and shredded it with one swift motion. Soft white stuffing fell out, so alien here in this befouled place.
"Maltor," it said.
I had no choice, their threat was clear. Kill Phillip or they would kill my daughter.
I set my eyes upon Phillip He was crying, tears pouring down his bruised face, through the blood, the dirt, the pain.
I closed my eyes, raised the club, and swung.
With barely the strength to stagger up the stairs, I looked up, pondering the grisly sight: my precious beauty torn from limb to limb, her innocents splattered on the walls of her so-called sanctuary.
My heart tottered as I took each step, my muscles screaming in pain. I reached landing, turned and entered Jessica's room. My nerves flared the moment I saw her.
Turning in bed, Jessica faced me. She rubbed her eyes, her golden locks partially covering her face.
"Hi Daddy." Her voice, sweet, tender, innocent.
I smiled, sat next to her on the soft mattress.
She sat up. Her hair fell away from her face, revealing a smear of blood on her forehead.
Shivering, I held her close and cried, knowing I must come up with a solution, some way to leave Ashborough without further injury or harassment. My body and mind cannot go on any longer, can no longer endure any further anguish. I must find a way, must protect my family from the Isolates.
They have Christine.
But is that realistic? The barriers have proved worthless. Attempts by others to leave have gained only injuries and death for their efforts. And now, with the breed healthier, stronger...
It is not whether they will harm my family, it is a matter of when. Possibility has become probability.
Leaving is not the answer. In this playground of good and evil, my only solution is to fight back.
My only hope.
"Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"Where's my teddy?"
I stayed silent, watching the sunrise behind the woods. I hugged Jessica in response, running my fingers through her hair as I regarded the woods from the window, trying desperately and not succeeding in formulating my next move.
Part 3
For The Infestation Of Maggots
33
Everyday I'd wanted to give up. Twice, maybe three times, I actually considered suicide. But that, I told myself, might act as an expressive form of murder—certainly they'd take my decision to selfishly escape as a strike against them, and they would respond by killing my family, making me, in theory, a murderer of my own family. It takes the old adage 'what goes around comes around' and contorts it into something horridly incomprehensible.
So I gave up on the suicidal thoughts and tried dearly to find some degree of contentment despite the odd circumstances inflicting me on a daily basis. My days, where I'd see (or hear) Christine leaving to take Jessica to school, where I'd see two or three unspeaking patients during the day who never seemed to have anything worth seeing a doctor about (I've come to the assumption that the Isolates were sending them here to keep tabs on me, just as they had with Sam Huxtable; paranoid? me? You'd be too). I'd eat, shit, catch an hour or two of sleep, then slip into my office to wait out their signal. During this time Christine would return home and every time I'd wonder just where the hell she spent her days, what she did. We still weren't speaking; this seemed to be a mutual concession, leading me to believe even more so that she harbored some Isolate-induced deceit under tight wraps. This, too, I gave up on trying to unveil. In time, I told myself, it would all come out in the open. And then the shit would hit the fan.
Sooner or later, it would have to happen.
Three weeks after the death of Phillip Deighton, it did happen.
And it was all my doing.
34
I awoke to a strong gale of December wind that'd rattled the windows in my office so hard I mistook it for a misguided flock of birds. Startled, I sat up from the couch and peered around the office, which had taken on the alarming appearance of a madman's junkroom: books pulled down from the shelves; dirty plates piled high; papers littering nearly every inch of the wood flooring. I'd taken up permanent residence here about two weeks prior, my contact with Jessica and Christine now limited to a random crossing of paths en route to the bathroom or refrigerator. At this point I've come to assume that my patients have dropped off completely, although I don't answer the door anymore; the knocks are as infrequent as one or two a day, and the phone has stopped ringing altogether.
I hear Christine leaving every day, beginning with her footsteps in the kitchen, the cold and limited conversation with Jessica, then the slamming of the front door and the eventual starting of the minivan with its tires that crunch over the gravel driveway as it backs away. My days are spent wondering whether the Isolates in fact have Christine under their control, and
what dark tasks they might have her carrying out; have they threatened the safety of Jessica, or even perhaps our unborn child, hence forcing her to maintain utter silence and commit grisly tasks? The answers to this remain deeply buried.
Eventually, when thoughts of my broken family fade from my mind, I stare into the woods and wonder just when they will call on me again.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since I swung the club and murdered my closest neighbor, Phillip Deighton. Every day I envision his tortured eyes, swollen and bruised and shuttered tight while anticipating the blow that would shatter his skull and disperse blood and skull and hairs out in an organic spray. I can still see his body so clearly...how it fell in a lifeless heap at my feet, twitching, creeping, the blood and the brains spilling from the crushed portion of his skull like porridge, the thick warmth of it soaking through my boots to my feet. Every day I see this scene played out in my mind like a recurring nightmare, and my skin immediately moves on my body—it feels as though insects are crawling feverishly beneath my skin. Eventually I force myself to sit silently in my office and clutch myself tightly in an effort to prevent lunacy from taking full control of my mind and body. And then, when the hours pass and nighttime falls, I find it in me to rise from my paralysis and take seat at my desk, my medical bag close by as I wait out their call.
This morning I felt somewhat different, for lack of a better word. I'd fallen asleep at my desk prior to midnight—my usual point of turning in—and awoke at some dark hour at which point I carried myself lifelessly to the couch where I slept the entire night soundly for the first time in months.
The clock read six A.M. Christine had yet to get up. With a strangely enthusiastic burst of energy, I stood up and went into the kitchen where I drank a glass of milk and ate a peanut-butter sandwich. The good night's sleep had revived my senses, making the food taste much better than usual.
The weather outside this morning was typical for December in New England. Cold, blustery, with a dusting of snow. I retrieved a sweater from the laundry basket on the dryer and pulled it on, realizing now that I, all of a sudden, had plans to undertake the one task I hadn't any energy for in the past. In the closet by the front door, I retrieved my coat, and as I shrugged into it I heard Christine moving around upstairs, her tired footsteps sounding like hammer knocks against the hardwood floor. Blood surging with anxiety, I slipped out the front door and paced briskly to the minivan.
Before getting in, I peeked up at the windows of the house, forgetting for a moment that they were still barricaded, although the wind had loosened the board in front of the extra bedroom, causing it to dangle like a pendulum from one corner. My mind played games with me in this moment of indecision, and I ignored it as best I could as I realized there was nothing much left to lose by unearthing what really went on in Christine's life during the day. Logic told me, as demented as the logic was here in Ashborough, that her days had consisted of much more than just dropping off Jessica at school and shopping for groceries. I decided that today, I would find out.
They have Christine...
I opened the back hatch to the minivan, closed myself in, then nestled down behind the seat and covered myself with the wool blanket there, not only to conceal my presence, but to also keep warm.
About a half hour later, I heard the front door to the house slam shut.
Christine was coming. She and Jessica walked in silence up the path, each of them taking a seat up front. For a moment I anticipated one of them coming back here to get something, or to investigate the strange odor (I hadn't showered in a week), but instead Christine started the car and backed out of the driveway.
I winced at the aches in my joints as I shifted a bit, the jostle of the car sending flares throughout my body. I was sweating like a horse despite the cold, and I pretty much smelled like one too. I closed my eyes to block away all the discomforts, and waited out the ride.
The hum of the engine was stagnant, Christine apparently keeping the car at a very slow and steady speed. A few turns were made, all hard lefts and rights, but it was difficult to tell exactly how many she made after the first few. We all rode in silence, the only sounds outside of the engine being a few random gales against the rear windshield or a kicked up pebble striking the car's body.
At last the car slowed, made a sluggish right turn, and pulled onto a long, shaky, unpaved road. For a fleeting moment I assumed that we'd arrived at the school, but having been there once before when registering Jessica, I could not recall an unpaved road or driveway leading to the grounds. No, we weren't at the school. We were someplace else.
But where?
The car made a soft left turn, then stopped. Christine shut the engine.
Sweat flowed over my body, sticking to my clothes. All was silent except for the naked sway of nearby trees. The car door opened and Christine exited it in silence. It slammed shut and I heard her footsteps circling the front of the car. Through the muffled barrier of the car, I heard her say, "C'mon, honey." Her tone was stagnant and demanding, as though they'd performed this routine a hundred times before.
Jessica's door opened, then closed. Their footsteps crunched gravel and stopped. The creak of something riding metallic hinges—a gate, perhaps—sounded, closing out their footsteps which quickly faded away into the distance.
I waited. Ten minutes or more passed, and when I came to the assumption that they weren't coming back right away, I leaned up and peeked out through the rear window.
Although it was the middle of the morning, the cloud-filled sky and dense clustering of trees set everything around me in a wing of darkness. I could see a thin dirt driveway veining away from the minivan to a back road perhaps a hundred yards away. Thick pine trees on both sides of the driveway insulated it from any traffic that might pass by. I popped open the hatch and crawled outside. The wind was strong today, and it almost ripped the door from my hands as I exited the car; I had to push down on it hard to get it to shut. Pulling my jacket up around my neck, I jogged around the rear of the car and hid behind a large elm that stood next to a wrought-iron fence marking the perimeter of someone's property. The high fence marched in a semi-circle around a single tattered dwelling. I looked for a Beware Of Dog sign, but didn't see one. Still, this was the kind of property that stereotypically housed a foam-jawed pit-bull or Doberman, so I remained on close guard.
A minute passed. I kept myself pinned to the tree. I didn't want to be seen, especially by Christine, or a dog, or the owner of the house which was set back a hundred or so feet from the fence. Then, when I became convinced that all was clear, I quickly rushed along the fence to the gate, nestling my freezing body alongside an old oak whose branches groaned restlessly in the wind. My jacket rippled, chilling my bones which were already gripped in a cold tide of apprehension.
I peered at the single-story house. Even older than mine, and much smaller, it had a wrap-around porch with a railing that lacked more than half its supports. Most of the others were whittled and rotting with age. The shingles hung crookedly, withered and gray, and the shutters were mere skeletons of their former selves. The porch itself was slanted and littered with holes and broken glass.
Christine and Jessica were in there, I told myself, unrighteously detained against their will and being forced to perform unjust acts as a means to save themselves, and perhaps me. I'm gonna get you out of there, I thought. Gonna save you both, and then we're gonna get out of here. Forever. Even if it means my life.
I reached through the iron slats and flipped the latch to the gate, peering up at the fancy cathedral shape running eight feet high. The gate creaked anciently as it moved, not unlike the wind. I slipped through it and shut it behind me, suddenly thankful that I didn't have to tackle the pointed staves running the length of the rusty fence. Last thing I needed now was to end this dangerous parade skewered like a loin of lamb at a Brazilian barbecue.
I hurried forward and pressed up against the trunk of an elm in the middle of the yard, feeling the
sweat pouring from my body.
Silence dominated except for the wind and the sway of the trees.
Deciding against the porch, I darted from the tree and circled the house into the back yard. There were more trees here, shutting out even more sunlight. It was unusually dark. And cold. Almost like night. Almost like Alaska.
I took a deep breath, wondering if what I was about to do made any sense in the grand scheme of things. My common sense pointed out to me that very little was tolerated by the 'law' here, and that there would be no second chances because the Isolates were probably out there right now, watching me, waiting to see what tricks their good doctor had up his sleeve. So...if I didn't do this now, then I'd never find out what Christine was doing here at this strange house. She would never tell me. And the Isolates wouldn't allow me back...if they let me live.
Right here and now was my only opportunity to uncover some truth in my life...what little was left of it.
I took a moment to survey the surroundings. Not much of a yard, perhaps twenty feet leading into a sea of woodland which more or less went on forever until someone else's home peeked out into existence.
At the periphery of woods was a tombstone.
In the instant I saw the marker, a dead man's words came back to me: There's a grave in her backyard that's supposed to be that of her mother. It's right at the edge of the woods, you can see it from the road.
The cement marker was weathered with age, the top smooth and rounded. It jutted crookedly from the ground, the soil frozen and swollen at the base. Crudely carved on its face was one word:
Zellis
From the woods came a sudden rustling sound. I hid behind the closest tree, pressing my face against the rough bark. A wash of golden light splayed over the tree, and then kept moving, like a spotlight in search of lost ships. My heart expanded in my chest, squeezed painfully against my ribs; I hoped like mad that the demon would miss me. The golden light, bright in the shade, ran across the edge of the woods, then tailed back as though retracing its footsteps. I put my face down and tucked my hands in my pockets in an effort to conceal the white of my skin. It passed over the tree again and kept going before dimming out completely. I waited, continuing to press my body against the tree.
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