XII
Vanessa slid closer on the couch. Corey didn’t remember sitting down. Now he was too damned close to this woman and her autumn-scented madness. “Where’s Sam?” His arms were shaking. Vanessa reached out, ran her hands up and down them. Rather than pull away, Corey found an odd comfort in her touch, forgetting for the moment she’d just threatened to kill his wife. He probably had misheard her. Had to have.
Abby!
“She’s fine, and so is your wife.”
He tried to pull away but her hands tightened around him. The grip hurt his arms. She leaned in, drew Autumn around his face and heart. “Listen to me very carefully, Corey Union. Your wife, and your daughter, are gone. They’ve been gone for two years.” Vanessa doubled again. He tried to blink away one of the images, focus only on one but the figures fought for the same space. The illusion flittered away, leaving only the one, softly-smiling woman.
“What are you talking about?” His vision blurred again, but this time it was his doing. He tried not to cry, wanted to be strong, defiant. “Where are they?”
Something exploded outside the house, rattling the windows. One of the removable sashes fell loose, tilted in with a soft thud on the back of the couch. The shaking subsided but the rumble continued, fading but never completely dissipating. Outside, the sky darkened, lightened again. Corey wondered if the sun had exploded and was fighting to hold itself together. Stupid thought, but… When the thunder—it’s not thunder you know it’s not thunder where is Abby where is Sam—moved on a new one took its place. Sound of a weed whacker outside, someone cutting along the house. Then tap-tap-tap against the metal flue behind him. The bees had come back.
“I have to wind the clock,” he said, not meaning to say it out loud, knowing he’d just stepped over some line. Hank Cowles was right. He had to stop whatever was happening. He could do it.
The hands squeezed his arms again. “Don’t pay attention to that sound, my love.” Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. “You have to let the clock wind down. The only way to save the ones you love is to stop what the old man has started. You have to - ”
“– remember, Corey.” The ghost head broke off, separated, this woman’s face less distinct and less menacing.
Corey muttered, “Hank Cowles said, he said…”
“He murdered your family, Corey.” A monstrous crash outside; something slammed into the side of the fireplace. The brickwork cracked. The man trimming the weeds outside might be hurt. “Focus, for God’s sake! The cab, remember? They got into the cab and he - ”
Corey screamed, threw himself forward— a desperate surge exploding out of him like the storm outside. Rage and fear so hot his face felt like it would melt. His forehead slammed into Vanessa’s, both versions of her. She tumbled backwards off the couch.
Corey shouted, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
XIII
“I want to go home,” Abby said, standing alone in the middle of the room. Her new friend was currently wrapped in her mother’s arms. She’d run there after the last, terrible thunder clap. Everything was getting dark. She’d stayed too late; now it was night and she was trapped. Honey’s mother was crying, pulling her daughter against her breast. Were they afraid of Abby? Strange and confusing pictures danced on the television, sometimes overlaid with bursts of frightening static. More people came into focus, news people, only to be lost again when the screen glowed white, whiter still, then dark. Nothing showed now. Not even static.
The world went boom!
Abby held her fists against her ears in the growing dark and screamed, “I want to go home!”
Honey’s mother looked up, remembering she was there. “What? Oh God, I’m sorry, Sweetie. Get me the phone.” She looked towards a small table beside her chair. She could have reached for it herself, but both arms were busy around Honey, wrapping her up. It wasn’t fair! They were supposed to be playing. Abby ran over, picked up the phone and held it out. It took another few seconds for the woman to untangle herself and take it. She sniffed, wiped her face, said, “What’s the number, Dear?”
Abby couldn’t remember. She stared at the woman, couldn’t remember the number. “In your pocket, girl. Hurry.”
My name is Abby, she wanted to scream, but reached into her pockets until she found the paper in the right front. After staring at the slip of paper for an eternity, Honey’s mother finally pushed the numbers.
The house began to shake.
XIV
Corey paced the room, unsure what to do, always coming back to the clock, the ugly fucking clock that had been hiding with his family for years and never worked. And now the world was breaking apart and he was supposed to do something about it, but what? He took a step towards it, then another. Wind it; wind it. From the chimney. the tapping of the bees continued. Trying to get in, to make him wind the doomsday clock one more time.
On the floor, Vanessa curled her legs under her like a snake, eyes intense when he finally turned his attention back to her. At least now there was only one of her, though her outline was vague, as if that other ghost waited just under the surface. He wanted her to stop him, needed her to make sense of all of this. “Leave it alone, Corey. If you wind it, then there’s nothing more I can do for you; do you understand? Think of your wife.” Which one was speaking? Which one was real?
The phone rang from the kitchen wall, its shrill scream battling for attention with a new explosion outside. The living room darkened further. Were the clouds burning through the sky overhead? He did not want to look out to see.
The rumbling faded. The world held together for another minute. He stared at the phone, wondering if he’d only imagined it when it rang again. A tall man stepped into view from the kitchen. Hank Cowles still wore his long plaid sleeves buttoned to the wrist. He lifted the handset from the wall, said without expression, “Hello?”
“Give me that!” Corey stepped forward, though his feet seemed to want to stay behind. Hank raised his hand, palm out. The air solidified. Corey pushed forward, could not move any closer. The old man tilted his head into the phone, said, “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll let Mister Union know you called. Die well.” He giggled and hung up.
The air thinned. Corey stumbled forward and landed on one knee.
“Your daughter is at her little friend’s house. She’s about to die, unless you wind that clock as I’ve instructed.”
“He’s lying, Corey! He wants you dead, wants to finish what he started two years ago. Don’t you see? None of this is real!” Vanessa’s hair was short again. She knelt beside the couch, looking up at him with eyes full of tears, eyes that no longer mocked but cared about him. Loved him.
The tapping from the fireplace stopped, replaced by a droning whine that surrounded the house. No sign of them, yet. Maybe they were flying off, giving up.
Vanessa screamed, “Corey, focus! Look at me!”
“Charlie, shut this bitch up, please.”
With a yip of delight, Nurse Charles padded into view from the kitchen, ran towards Vanessa on its little legs. Vanessa shook her head. “There is no dog, Corey. It’s just you and me. Hank is not here! He can’t hurt you any more than he already has. That day. Remember that day?”
The white dog stopped beside her, raised its lips. Small white teeth Corey thought would look more menacing if the damn dog wasn’t so small. But it was dangerous! Old man and dog were terrible things, destroyers of worlds.
Vanessa said, more quietly, “Yes. Yes, they are.”
“Time’s wasting, Charlie,” Hank said. “Hurry along.”
The dog lashed out. It sank its teeth into Vanessa’s arm, shook back and forth with a growl. Vanessa became indistinct again, fuzzy around the edges. She lashed out with the arm, her own face a snarl. The dog couldn’t hold on, tumbled across the rug and stopped against the chair. It righted itself, growing a little larger in its rage as it moved towards her again.
An explosion outside slammed hard onto the roof, twisting the hous
e against its frame. Corey stumbled sideways, heading into the kitchen. “And where are you going, young man?” But Hank did not move, merely folded his arms across his chest and followed Corey’s progress. “The clock is that way!”
Corey didn’t answer, too intent on a single purpose now that he’d gotten past. The back door was propped open to the world outside but he ignored what he saw, trees bending towards the ground, the red glow in the sky. Vanessa screamed in pain from the living room. Corey reached for one of the white-marbled handles emerging from the butcher block. The blade was long and wide. He turned back, ready to shove it though Hank’s chest if he tried to stop him.
The old man did not, merely lowered his arms to his side as if offering himself. Corey ran past him, back into the living room.
The dog’s white fur splashed in red from Vanessa’s torn and bloody arm. She thrashed at it, trying to shake it off but it would not let up. It released the arm only to close over the other. A piece of flesh the size of a dinner roll hung from her left bicep and blood poured from a hundred thin gashes in both arms and one leg, blood running like paint. Nurse Charles kept at her, trying to find a way past her flailing and mangled arms looking for her throat. Vanessa saw Corey approaching and shouted, “The dog can’t hurt us, Corey! Look at me! It’s not real.”
He did look, saw the kindness in her and knew he needed to save her.
“Stop!”
Corey focused only on the dog, slammed the blade of the knife through the Shih-Tzu’s back. It yelped in surprise and pain, little legs flailing against the blade which pinned it flat against the carpet. Vanessa crawled back, left a red path in her wake. Corey pulled the knife free but as soon as he did the dog wriggled back to its feet. He slammed the blade down again. This time the point embedded into the floor. “There!” he screamed. “It’s dead. It can’t hurt you!”
Nurse Charles did not yelp this time, nor show any sign of pain. She thrashed under the knife, snarling and nipping towards Vanessa’s ankle and Corey’s bloodstained hand.
Hank stood by the phone and laughed, holding his hands to his sides, leaning back like a melodramatic stage actor.
As the dog thrashed, the knife sank deeper. White curly fur soaked red with blood. No, Corey realized, the knife isn’t sinking. The dog was growing. Two fleshy bubbles pressed outward along its neck, on either side of the snapping head. The dog curled its long legs, too large now to be pinned to the floor. It rose up, the new twin growths taking form and opening their own mouths. When the monster shook itself, the knife flew free, landing harmlessly against the far wall. Nurse Charles was the size of a Saint Bernard, still growing. Its three heads dripped saliva and loomed over Vanessa as she crawled backwards towards the door, bleeding from dozens of small violent bites. The hem of her dress had risen up her legs, twisted around her. She screamed, “Stop it, Corey! The yellow! Remember the yellow! The cab! They got into the cab!” One of the heads closed over her calf, pulling her back into the room. She screamed. The second head bit into her belly, ripping the dress to tatters then chewing into the soft skin beneath. The third closed around her throat. Her head fell back, a strange noise escaping between her lips, half choke, half laugh. Corey stood motionless, seeing it all as a dream which he could wake from if he only rode it out. Vanessa’s bare, free leg kicked against the couch.
She gurgled something.
Hank Cowles finally stepped forward—the smiling old man trots from the driver’s side to open the rear passenger door, waving Corey’s family into its depths with a dramatic flourish. Abby points at the passenger side window, Look, Mommy, he has a little dog. Small pink tongue, stub of a wagging tail. Sam laughs at the sight and Abby scrambles into the back seat, the girl no longer wary of the fat yellow car with the large bee on the door. Samantha kisses Corey on the lips. See you in a couple of days, Honey. Corey kisses her back as the old man waits beside the open rear door, his smile dropping a little. Corey leans towards the squirming bundle in his wife’s arms, touching the… kissing the… and Abby in the back waving Bye, Daddy! and Corey waving, Say hi to Mickey and don’t have any fun until I get there, and Abby nods in mock seriousness as if to say Of course not, Father, and the old man is now confused. Aren’t you coming, too, sir, aren’t you coming, too, sir, aren’t you—
The dog, or dogs, were hunched over the twitching remains of his neighbor. Her free arm gripped one of the heads only to have another curl towards it, take it by the elbow and bite down, crushing the bones. Her fingers splayed, swelling, fingernails bursting loose in a spray of blood.
Smoke poured into the room from the kitchen, smell of burning wood and curling paint. For a moment, Corey thought the swarm had found its way in. The buzzing of the wasps outside was louder, only to be drowned by another explosion. His house was burning. He didn’t know what to do. A new sound joined the chorus—too many sounds, too many things happening—the ticking of the clock behind him, once, twice, each like a gasp. It was dying. The world was dying and it was his fault. The floor shook constantly now. Smoke rolled across the ceiling and filled the room.
“Time’s up, Mister Union. I cannot force you, but you need to wind it. Now or never. If you want to save them, you have to hurry!”
A scream caught in Corey's throat like a tumor. He wanted to curl into the corner and let someone else stop it all. But if he gave up, everyone would die. Everything would be gone. He turned around and lifted the clock. It weighed nothing. The ticking grew louder as it slowed down, no longer keeping time, merely struggling to stay alive. Each tick was like a small explosion, a child to the thunder of the world’s death. Vanessa’s wet gurgles and the growling and gnashing of the dog’s three heads. The key still protruded from the back. All he had to do…
A sudden movement across the room. Vanessa had somehow tossed the dog - Cerberus rising to devour—aside. Her dress was a mass of shredded cloth, soaked in blood, stomach and chest were flayed open, bright blue and red organs, still pumping, still squirming with life, still working. Her right leg miraculously remained untouched but her left was flattened above the knees, peppered with bites and tears. Her head lolled along the floor to face him, held to the body by a few strips of flesh. How was she alive? Eyes clear, opened wide above two shredded cheeks, the voice that bubbled from her mouth was distorted, gargled. “Don’t; he’s a liar,” the head said. “Let it die; let the clock die. You’ll be free and all of this will end… He killed them…”
Nurse Charles recovered from the attack and bore down on her face with two of its heads, shaking, tearing. A gurgled scream, then nothing. The other head buried its snout into the open chest, chewing on a heart that would not stop beating…
“Corey!” Hank shouted from his place by the phone. “Now! Your wife is in the shed at the back of the property, stabbed and bound by our friend here. She will die, alone, if you don’t stop this.”
The remaining window behind the couch exploded. Glass shards cut through the curtain and cascaded across the floor in front of him. The curtains curled in flames, blackening the window frame with fire. The smoke was a swirling gray ceiling above him, falling, curling around his face but now vented outside where the lawn twisted black like the curtains. Corey tightened his throat, not wanting to cough, afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Then the bees poured in through the shattered window, long black wasps mixing and swirling with the smoke, a tornado circling the old man. “Now!” Hank screamed.
Corey turned the key, once, twice, the ticking at first becoming louder, then fading, softer.
Vanessa’s body flipped up and down, rebuilding itself only to be beaten down by the hellish dog. Corey hesitated.
The old man closed the cab’s door, sealing Corey’s family inside. They pressed against the window, screaming, Help us! Help us!
No, they were waving, smiling, the driver asking again if Corey was sure he wouldn’t come, Corey wondering why he kept asking such a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t coming; he had to work, had to wor
k, had to stay and work for two more days and would meet them on vacation, Sam and Abby and… and his family was carried away, little dog in the front seat, laughing at him, wagging its tail—
“You killed my family,” he said, hardly seeing Hank through the tears. “You killed them!” He lifted the clock over his head, praying he hadn’t wound it enough, praying he could save his family some other way.
Hank raised his hands. “Stop, Corey! I warn you, if you don’t finish -”
Corey screamed and fought against the thickening air around him, forcing every bit of strength like running from the monster in a dream. Only this time he was struggling towards it, straining his arms to throw the clock. The resistance finally broke. He tossed the ugly, terrible thing to the floor. It smashed among the broken and melted window glass, blue porcelain boy shattering into a dozen irreparable shards. The clock popped free of its housing, rolled a few inches, then stopped against one of Vanessa’s discarded shoes.
The dog raised its red-stained faces towards him, baring teeth the size of fingers, pieces of Vanessa hanging between them, blood and saliva in syrupy globs dripping to the carpet. The smell of its breath overpowered the smoke, nauseating Corey enough that he turned away, swallowed his terror back down. What did he just do?
The world fell into silence so suddenly that the echoes of its destruction rolled on in his head. The bees were gone. Vanessa was nothing but strips of skin and ribbons of intestine, white stomach having popped and excreted a stinking clear liquid. Yet the parts still twitched, twisted together, tried to become the whole again.
The world outside was dark as midnight, but silent.
Hank shook his head, stuck out his lower lip in a pout and raised his left hand with the index finger extended. One lone black bee perched atop it. He whispered, “Tell the ones in the shed to kill his wife.” The wasp lifted off his finger and disappeared into the kitchen. Hank followed its progress, then turned back to the living room. He whispered, more to himself than Corey, “I’ll deal with the girl.”
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