by J. D. Barker
“Thad, please. . .”
He finally stood and made his way back to the door, carefully stepping over the strange piles. “Maybe call Jeff? I think we should have him come out and take a look.”
“He’ll blame us,” she replied. “Remember when I planted those lilacs on the west side of the house instead of the east? I got a three-hour lecture on the effects of evening sunlight.”
Thad shrugged. “It’s his job, Rachael. Maybe he can figure out what happened. Try to keep Ashley and Buster out of the yard until we know everything is safe.”
“What about when he needs to use the bathroom?”
“Toilet training for Buster!” Ashley sang.
He gestured to the newspaper. “Remember when he was a puppy?”
She frowned. “Oh boy. This is going to be a fun day.”
“Mommy, you teach him to get up on the seat and I’ll show him how to flush,” Ashley suggested.
“See, she’s got a plan.” A horn beeped outside and Thad glanced down at his watch. “Crap, my cab’s here. Are you okay dealing with this?”
She nodded,wrapping her arms around him. “I’ll figure something out.”
Thad gave her a peck on the cheek and rubbed her belly. “How’s he doing?”
“She’s doing fine,” his wife retorted. “Kicking like a champ.”
“I hate leaving like this but this is a huge opportunity, for both of us,” Thad said.
“Did you pack your meds?” she asked.
“I haven’t needed them for months. I’m fine,” he snapped.
She squeezed his arm. “I’ll feel better knowing you have it with you, just in case. Do you?”
His eyes met hers and held them. “In my bag. I have an appointment next week with Doctor Horton, and I’m going to ask him to take me off. I don’t need it anymore and it keeps me from writing. Shuts off the creativity like a breaker switch. I don’t think I ever needed to be on that stuff.”
“I only want you to be okay.”
He gave her a gentle hug. “I’m fine. I’m more worried about you. Promise you’ll play nice with Carmen?”
She sighed. “Ah yes, Carmen.”
They had been searching for a live-in housekeeper for months without success. Thad had lost count of the various candidates who had passed through their front door. Even with the help of an agency, finding someone with the right amount of experience and skill was tough. Personality clashes and language barriers further complicated the task.
How do you trust a stranger to take care of your family?
Carmen Perez had a spotless résumé and an extensive list of references, perhaps the best of the bunch, but unfortunately Ashley had not taken to her and she made Rachael uneasy, even though she had been with them for nearly three weeks now.
Thad ran his hand through his wife’s hair. “I don’t want the two of you to be alone, not with the baby this close. Deal with her a few more days? I’ve got the agency working on a replacement.”
Rachael nodded. “I’m not sure what specifically bothers me about her; something just feels off.”
He kissed her forehead. “We’ll find someone, I promise. Don’t run her off until I get back. I’ll sleep better knowing you have her here.”
“No need to worry, Daddy. I’ll take excellent care of her,” Ashley told him, hugging his leg.
Thad lifted her off the ground. “You do that, Pumpkin. I love you both lots and lots!” Twirling her around twice, he placed her back in her chair. “I hope you work things out with Zeke,” he said softly at her ear. “I hate when you kids fight.”
Rachael frowned. “Come on, Thad.”
The horn beeped again with an impatient double tap.
“I’ve got to go.” Scooping up his briefcase and overnight bag, Thad headed for the door. “I’ll call you tonight from the city—I wanna hear how things went at the doctor.”
“Bye, honey. I love you,” Rachael told him.
Within her belly, the baby kicked.
A stale scent crept past her from outside as Thad raced toward the awaiting taxi.
Buster whimpered, eyeing the yard nervously.
CHAPTER FIVE
Day 1 – 11:00 a.m.
RACHAEL PULLED THE THIN gown tight at her neck and shivered.
Why does it always have to be so cold in here? she asked herself.
Sitting on the aluminum table with nothing more than a flimsy paper covering didn’t help much, either. Rachael shifted a little to her left and let out a sigh.
She had been waiting on the doctor for almost twenty minutes in the small examination room—it never took this long and she had so much to do today. She reached for another pamphlet from the rack beside her and flipped through “Your Normal Life With Herpes.” It was almost as entertaining as the three-month-old People magazine she had finished a few minutes ago.
Rachael was grabbing at yet another pamphlet when Dr. Roskin poked his head through the door.
“So, how’s my favorite mother-to-be doing?”
Her frustrations disappeared at the sight of him. (She had grown quite accustomed to sudden mood changes over the past eight months.)
She had known Dr. Edward Roskin for nearly nine years and couldn’t imagine someone else caring for her. He had delivered Ashley, and the moment she knew she was pregnant again Rachael was certain he would be delivering this one, too.
He was an odd-looking man—short and overweight, with pink rosy cheeks and a pudgy face. He reminded her of a mall Santa who had forgotten his fake beard and mustache back at the North Pole. His thin wire glasses never seemed to stay where he wanted them; even now he was pushing them back up the bridge of his nose only to repeat the process again a moment later when they slipped back down.
“He’s been kicking up a storm lately,” Rachael exclaimed.
Dr. Roskin grinned at her. “What makes you think you’ve got a boy?”
“A girl?” Rachael beamed.
The doctor smiled. “My lips are sealed.”
He placed a stethoscope under her gown. Rachael tensed as the cold metal found her skin.
“Now relax and breathe deeply,” he told her.
Rachael did as he asked.
“Want to see what she looks like?” he asked.
“She?”
Roskin chuckled. “Or he.”
“You’re worse than Thad,” Rachael laughed.
“How is Thad doing?” he asked her while tugging at the ultrasound, pulling the machine closer to the table.
“He’s good. He wanted to be here today but had to go to New York again to wrap up a few things on the new book,” Rachael said.
The doctor let out a sigh. “Oh boy. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bookstore…”
Rachael laughed. “He’s really proud of this one—thinks it’s his scariest one yet.”
“I’m still trying to get a good night’s sleep after reading the last one. I can’t bring myself to go down to my basement anymore, either. He spooked me with that ending. I make Liddy do all the dirty work down there.”
“Don’t feel bad; I haven’t been down in ours for about three months—he’s got the whole floor stuffed full of props he stole from his last movie set. We’ve even got our very own coffin down there somewhere.”
“Now that’s something no home should be without,” Roskin pointed out, fumbling with his glasses.
One of Dr. Roskin’s nurses stepped into the room and nodded a hello, then opened Rachael’s gown, exposing her belly. She applied a thin layer of jelly.
The doctor went on. “What about you? Are you sleeping well?”
Rachael nodded, even though it was a lie; she hadn’t slept well in months. How did he know? Was there something in her eyes?
“Are you eating well? No cravings for ice cream with a little motor oil or a nice jar of Vick’s Vapor Rub with your morning toast?”
Rachael laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shook his head. “I had anot
her patient in here the day before yesterday. She’s on her fourth child and can’t get enough of the stuff. Some expecting mothers tend to crave oil-based products every once in a while; it’s fairly common. As you can imagine, not a very healthy dietary choice.”
Rachael turned to the nurse. “He’s not for real, is he?”
The nurse shrugged her shoulders, fighting back a smile.
“I kid you not,” he told her. “Nurse Korbin, can you please switch on the ultrasound?”
Dr. Roskin placed the sensor on her belly and gently moved the device around, staring at the monitor. The soft sound of a heartbeat filled the room. “There he is,” the doctor said.
“Or she,” echoed the nurse.
Rachael rolled her eyes. “Oh God.”
He began working the ultrasound around in slow, tight circles until a white object appeared.
Rachael smiled at her baby.
“Looks good,” the doctor said. “Two feet, two hands, all twelve toes. He’s a little large for thirty-six weeks, but that’s nothing to worry about.”
“Just pump me full of drugs when he’s ready to come out and we’ll all get along fine,” Rachael stated.
“Not a fan of natural child birth?” he asked.
Rachael shook her head. “I got enough of that with the first one. This time I don’t even want to know what’s going on down there. Hand me a healthy baby when this is all over, and I’ll be fine.”
The doctor smiled. “No reason we can’t do that.” Reaching back, he flicked off the ultrasound machine. “Why don’t you go ahead and get cleaned up and dressed? We’ll set you up with some more vitamins and send you on your way. Nurse Korbin, mind giving Mrs. McAlister here a hand?”
“Not at all, Doctor,” she replied, already wiping away the remaining jelly.
Deep within Rachael’s belly, the baby kicked.
CHAPTER SIX
1692 – The Journal of Clayton Stone
I HEARD THE SHACKLES before I saw her. So did the others, evidenced by the hush which filled the small church. As they led her into the room, all eyes fell upon her. She looked so small and frail, her tiny frame hunched over, her flowing dark hair draping her face, long enough to nearly reach her hands bound at her waist. Her clothing was tattered and torn, borne of the jailer’s filth. She had been imprisoned for five nights now, guarded at all hours by both armed men and men of faith. Not only for fear of her but also those who followed her. To this day they remained unknown, safely hidden among us, her faithful ready to free her at the first chance. Glancing around the small church, I imagined them here now, here in numbers. The hunt for her sisters proved to be ongoing. Some believed they had fled, somehow finding passage back to the Old World, but something told me they were still close, unwilling to abandon their blood.
I had been told not a word had escaped her lips since capture, even though the use of torture was suspect on each of her nights. She admitted to none of her crimes, nor had she denied. In fact, it is rumored that she had laughed at the magistrate throughout, unwilling to show even the slightest weakness. Now as they led her to a bench at the front of the assembly, shackling her securely to the seat, I found it clear she walked with her head down not out of shame but only because of the restraints. This proved true, for when the men finished binding her and stepped back, she raised her head and glared at the crowd from behind piercing blue eyes and the angelic smile of a teenage girl.
—Thad McAlister,
Rise of the Witch
CHAPTER SEVEN
Day 1 – 3:27 p.m.
THAD SOMETIMES THOUGHT HE missed the city, but those feelings seemed to disappear the moment he set foot back in New York. The moment he stepped off the plane, the smog and pollution crept into his lungs. It brought on a coughing fit matched only by the older gentleman who had been sitting three rows behind him. Ten minutes later, his asthma began dropping hints that it may be time for a long overdue comeback. Thad wanted nothing more than to crawl back onto the 737 and fly it home all by himself, if he had to.
The overcrowded terminal did little to ease his tension. An overweight businessman almost knocked him over when reaching for his luggage on the conveyor belt, while an elderly woman took it upon herself to tell him of the city’s fortunes.
“You must visit the Statue of Liberty while you’re here,” she said. “And the museums, you mustn’t forget about the museums—they’re world famous, you know. People come from all around…”
Thad had politely dismissed her back at the terminal, but now she had somehow ended up back at his side while waiting for her bags.
“Do you have family here?” she asked him. “I have a son about your age; he lives in Philly now. Him and that hussy, Krista or Kristi—it’s all the same to me. She told my boy she was on the pill and wouldn’t you know, five months later she’s crying at our front door, telling me how my boy did this to her and she needs a man in her life to help her raise the damn thing. Well, we raised our son good, George and I, so he knew what he had to do. George was one lucky fella; he wasn’t around to see all this, he died back in ’98. . . Cancer from the asbestos in the buildings. He worked in construction. . .”
When his bag came around, Thad scooped it up and nodded politely before briskly walking toward the taxi stands outside. Behind him, the old woman went on. Not until the thick glass doors closed automatically at his back did he finally escape her.
The crowd surrounding the taxi cabs pushed forward like one large snail across the earth. Thad found himself in a line more than eighty deep, moving with the group toward the awaiting cars with little sense of urgency. He tightened his grip on his briefcase and pressed forward, his mind attempting to monitor the wallet in his back pocket and the cell phone in his jacket—both of which were ripe targets for the many pickpockets who undoubtedly made a living on this sidewalk.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed into a cab with his bag in tow and instructed the driver to take him to the Four Seasons on the Upper East Side.
Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out his iPhone and pressed the power button, thankful for the couple hours of call-free time he had been granted while aboard the flight from Charleston.
No voicemails, no texts (yet another reason to give thanks). He paused for a moment, then dialed home. When he heard the steady tone of a busy signal, he disconnected the call and dropped the phone back in his pocket. That’s odd. He couldn’t recall the last time he had heard a busy signal. He’d try again later, maybe from a landline.
He rested his briefcase on his lap and settled his hands on top.
He could almost feel the manuscript inside, as if the stack of papers were somehow generating heat, a heartbeat. This was his greatest work; he had no doubts. This novel would define him; he would be remembered long after he was gone, thanks to this book.
Each page had flowed from the last with no editing to speak of. No rewrites, no drafts. It just poured from him.
There was no other way to describe it.
Poured.
He had watched the basket beside his laptop fill up like a glass of water under the tap, quick and steady without pause, until he laid down the final sheet bearing the two last words.
With that, the nightmares had stopped.
For almost a decade, She had haunted his dreams with her scarred face, guttural voice, and nails like long blades.
Clickity, click, click, click.
Even now, in the back of a cab bathed in daylight, the thought of that sound made his heart race.
Clickity, click, click.
The manuscript seemed to pulsate with heat.
He would share Her with the world.
Her.
He still couldn’t bring himself to speak her true name aloud. Some might find that funny; he did not.
They pulled into the Four Seasons and Thad glanced down at his watch. He would have just enough time for a quick shower before his dinner meeting with Del and the production company on this day of days.
Day 1 – 4:32 p.m.
RACHAEL NODDED WORRIEDLY, STARING out across their dead lawn.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Jeff Paskin said, scratching his head. “You say it was just like this when you got up this mornin’? No waterin’ with chemicals or fertilizers from one of them depot stores?”
“Nope,” Rachael said. “I swear, Jeff, we didn’t touch anything.”
“What about the sprinklers?”
“They’ve been running every other evening since you programmed them,” she assured him.
Kneeling down, he scooped up one of the mounds of dirt, sniffed, then dumped the soil in a glass masonry jar. “Smells like roadkill…dirty.”
“Like dirt?”
Paskin shook his head. “Not like dirt. Like something else, something filthy.”
“What do you think they are, those piles?” Rachael asked. “I don’t see any holes. Where did it all come from?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Could the water be bad?”
“Doubtful,” he replied. “You’ve got city water; if that were contaminated, they’d be talking all over the news—boiling rules and whatnot. Nope, this is something different. Got to be some kind of poisoning, but I can’t put my finger on the cause. You do anything to piss off the neighbors?”
“I hope you’re kidding,” Rachael frowned.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The wind kicked up and Rachael wrapped her arms around herself, brushing off a shiver.
“You’d better get back inside; it’s a little chilly out here for a woman in your condition. I’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said, holding up the jar to the sun for a moment before sealing the contents inside with a metal cap. “Meanwhile, I wouldn’t walk barefoot out here or let your little one play outside. The dog neither, not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Rachael glanced at the large oak in the corner of the yard, branches now dry and bare. “What about the tree? Can it be saved?”
“Dunno, not yet, anyway,” he told her. “Once we get the soil sample back, we’ll have a better idea. Don’t hold your breath, though. That old lass looks pretty far gone and if she ain’t gonna live, we need to cut her down quick. A big tree like that can be dangerous once she goes. I’ve seen them topple right on over.”