314 Book 2 (Widowsfield Trilogy)

by A. R. Wise

  “Red,” said Mindy before she pulled her hand away from Nia. “She had red hair.”

  “That’s right,” said Nia.

  Mindy staggered back and nearly tripped over a concrete slab at the front of an empty parking spot. She shook her head and furrowed her brow as she said, “You must’ve told me that. You must’ve told me about her.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Nia. “At least not verbally.”

  “You must be wrong,” said Mindy. She seemed on the verge of tears.

  Nia sympathetically reached out to her friend, but Mindy pulled away. “I know how it feels,” said Nia as if in apology. “I know exactly what you’re going through. Your head starts to fight it, and you’ll try to convince yourself that it’s just a dream, or that there’s some other reason for you knowing it. I think it’s a defense mechanism that our brains have. You’ll refuse to believe…”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Mindy grasped the side of her head as if suffering a migraine.

  “Honey, I know. I know.”

  “I feel like, like…”

  “Like you’re going nuts,” said Nia.

  Mindy nodded.

  “Trust me, I know all about it. I spent most of my childhood feeling that way.”

  “I don’t want this,” said Mindy. “Why am I remembering this awful shit? How do I get rid of it?”

  “You don’t,” said Nia. “It never goes away.”

  “It feels so real,” said Mindy.

  “It is real,” said Nia.

  “Do I have the same gift you do?” asked Mindy.

  Nia looked at her hands. “I don’t think so. I think I gave you those memories. I was thinking of Grace when I held your hands. I think I transferred that to you.”

  “You can do that?” asked Mindy.

  Nia shrugged. “I never knew I could before today. I think this place is making my ability stronger. Something in Widowsfield wants me to know what happened here, and wants me to let others know.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing,” said Mindy. “What do you think is causing it?”

  “Honestly, I think something in Widowsfield is trying to use me. I don’t know if it’s The Skeleton Man, or The Watcher, or what it is, but I think something, or someone, is excited that I’m here. It’s as if they realize they can use me to tell their story.”

  “And they’re making your ability stronger?” asked Mindy.

  “I guess so,” said Nia. “I think they’re focusing on me. When we first got here, it felt like they were everywhere around Widowsfield. But the longer we stay, the more focused they become on me. I can feel them watching.”

  “Watching from the walls?” asked Mindy.

  Nia nodded. “I think they want people to know what happened here.”

  “What if that’s not what they want?” asked Mindy as she got out another cigarette. Her hands were shaking.

  “What do you mean?” asked Nia.

  Mindy shrugged as she sparked her lighter. She took a long drag before answering. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust them. Widowsfield isn’t a fucking paranormal zoo or something, where we get to peek in at the horror and insanity. You know what I mean?” she asked before taking another drag.

  “No,” said Nia, perplexed by her friend’s implication.

  “Where’s the cage keeping the lions from killing us?” asked Mindy. “What’s keeping them in?”

  Chapter 18 – Murder/Suicide

  Most people will admit to a bad memory. As we age, it becomes harder and harder for the neurons in our brains to fire the way they should. We end up stopping mid-sentence as we struggle to recall something that we shouldn’t have forgotten. It’s part of the human experience, and we’ve all gotten used to it.

  However, there are intense moments in our lives that we swear we can remember every detail of. Sometimes these moments of clear recollection were spawned by fear or terror, and other times they’re just a random, pleasant moment in our lives that has been carved in stone in our minds. These few shining examples of our ability to recall our past can help to shape our personalities. We cling to those few moments as if our sanity depended on them.

  Yet our recollections are false. They’re almost always warped and altered. As bits and pieces of the memory crumble away, our brain tricks us by filling them in, like different colored bricks used to patch a decrepit wall.

  You don’t need to look any further than every courtroom in the world to see that I’m right. It used to be that eyewitness testimony was considered to be ironclad evidence in a trial. When a person witnessed a crime, or was beaten, or mugged, or even raped, the court held their accounting of the incident above all else. That has changed in recent years.

  DNA evidence has forced us to alter what we accept as truth in the legal system. Thousands of cases where an offender was jailed based on being fingered by a witness have been thrown out after DNA proved their innocence. This isn’t a rare occurrence. In fact, it’s startlingly common. Even in cases of violent attacks, where the victim was face to face with their assaulter, we’ve discovered that their recollection of the details is often dramatically wrong. The victim’s brain, in a desperate attempt to seek closure and revenge, struggles to rebuild the wall of memory. Those multi-colored bricks that have no business in the wall manage to find their way in. And before the victim ever realizes it happened, they’ve created a new wall all together. As the victim stands behind the one-way glass and points at a perp in a line-up, they’re basing the accusation on a memory that their mind pieced together.

  You can’t trust memories.

  Widowsfield

  March 14th, 1998

  Alma woke up in the front seat of the sedan. Her mother was smoking beside her, with the window down, staring plaintively at the woods outside of where they were parked. The radio was on, and a Motown singer promised of better days, better days, oh those better days. The song served as a transition between a pleasant dream and a terrible reality.

  “Mom?” asked Alma as she groggily stirred. Her hands stung, and her head pounded.

  Amanda Harper was startled by her daughter. She flicked the cigarette out of the car and then hit the switch to roll the window up. She allowed an inch of space to remain so the smoke could drift out. “Hey sweetie, how’re you feeling?”

  “Where are we?” asked Alma. Her stomach rumbled and she was afraid that she might vomit.

  “We’re still in Widowsfield,” said Amanda before pointing out in front of the car. “That’s the Jackson Reservoir.”

  Alma looked forward at the expanse of water. The car was parked at a scenic view, one of the places where drivers were beckoned to come sit in a specially designated area meant to reveal a beautiful scene. The parking lot that sat beside the cliff was all but empty, leaving them with a prime spot overlooking the reservoir and dam below.

  Widowsfield was partially powered by a hydroelectric dam, which Alma could see in the distance. They were parked on the upper portion of the reservoir. It was a man-made lake whose flow was controlled by a dam which pulled off the water to pour into another lake further down.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Amanda again.

  Alma looked at her hands, and discovered that they were wrapped in bloody bandages. She recalled fighting with her mother at the window of Terry’s cabin, but the rest of the day was a blur of confusing memories. Her mind seemed to struggle with the recollection, as if she’d been assaulted with too many memories and needed time to sort them out.

  “Are you feeling better?” asked Amanda after Alma refrained from answering the first couple times.

  “I’m scared,” said Alma as she started to cry.

  “I know, baby,” said Amanda. “But you don’t have to be scared anymore. Okay?”

  “Why not?” asked Alma. “Why are we here?”

  Amanda smiled at her daughter, and it was the most unsettling moment Alma had ever experienced – or at least that she ever remembered experiencing.
/>   “What are we doing here?” asked Alma.

  “I think I know when I lost my mind,” said Amanda.

  “Mommy, you’re scaring me,” said Alma as she thought about trying to get out of the car.

  Amanda continued with her story, ignoring her daughter’s fear. “For a while I thought it was Michael that turned me into this. You know, he was always a bad father, and a worse husband. Always.” Amanda got out another cigarette.

  Her hands were shaking.

  She sparked the lighter and took a drag.

  “Can we go home?” asked Alma.

  Alma saw a signpost beside the cliff that warned drivers to put their car’s emergency brake on. Then another that said, “Caution – Steep Drop”.

  “Michael was a real piece of shit. But I wasn’t so bad. I was a good Mom, back before we lost Ben.” She gazed out as smoke trailed away from her lips. “When you and your father came back, and pretended like you didn’t know Ben, I almost lost my mind right then and there.” Her mother laughed when she looked at Alma, as if they were sharing a humorous account of pleasant memories. “But I didn’t go nuts, not then at least. I mean, I went a little crazy, of course. What mother wouldn’t? My son was missing, but I did my best to keep it together. I let the police do their job. I let them investigate Michael’s claim about being in Forsythe, and I trusted that they would find the truth. I waited and waited and waited. I prayed for Ben to come back to me.”

  “Mom, why are we here?” asked Alma.

  “And I waited and waited and waited,” said Amanda.

  “Mom?”

  “But even when Michael was cleared of all charges, I still didn’t go crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I was well on my way, but I wasn’t there yet. Your father left town, went out to Pennsylvania with one of his other whores, and I tried to keep it together for you.” She tried to smile at Alma, but there was malice evident in the way she bit her lip. “That’s when I realized what the real problem was. Alma, you were the problem.”

  “What?” asked Alma.

  “Don’t get me wrong, sweetie,” said Amanda. “I don’t think it’s your fault. I don’t think you ever did anything wrong, but there’s one thing I think we can count on. In all the insanity, in all the horror, in all the ways the devil tries to trick us, there’s one thing that you can be sure of.” She held up her index finger as she leaned her back against the door so that she was facing Alma. “A mother loves her children.”

  Then she pointed at Alma. Her smile became a scowl. “And I stopped loving you.”

  “What?” Tears streamed down Alma’s cheeks.

  Amanda pointed at her, a Wicked Witch of the West venom to her snarling lips. “From the day you came back, I never loved you. I tried, I pretended, I did what a good mother should. I hugged you, kissed you, held you, but I never loved you. And I just now figured out why. Do you want to know why, Alma?”

  “I want to go home,” said Alma.

  “Do you want to know why?”

  “I just want to be home.”

  “You’re not my little girl.”

  “Yes I am,” said Alma.

  “Bullshit. You’re just like Michael is now. You’re some sort of monster.”

  Alma closed her eyes and started to hum as she wept.

  “I’m not even sure if you realize it. I bet you think you’re innocent, and I feel sorry for you, but deep down you’re just a monster. An awful demon.”

  Alma hummed louder.

  “You let Ben die.”

  Alma shook her head and pressed her hands to her ears as she continued to try and drown out her mother’s accusations.

  “You came back to me tainted. I always suspected it, but it took us returning to this place for me to realize it. You’re the devil, or something like it. You’re not my beautiful little girl.”

  Amanda grabbed Alma’s wrist and pulled her hand down. Alma yelled at her mother to stop, and tried to cover her ear again. Amanda wrestled with the girl and forced Alma’s arm down. They started to scream at one another and Alma pleaded for all of this to end.

  “You listen to me,” said Amanda. “You listen, you devil, or demon, or whatever you are. I know you killed both of my babies, and I’m not going to let you get away with it. I’m going to kill you for it! I’m going to kill you!”

  Alma grasped the door handle with her right hand and tried to pull it, but Amanda jerked the girl over the center console. Alma felt the gear shift at her side as she struggled to get free.

  “We’ll die together, Alma,” said Amanda. “We’ll see Ben in heaven!”

  “Let me go.” Alma clawed at her mother and they wrestled more. Amanda revved the engine, but Alma was over the shifter, preventing the car from moving. “Please let me go!”

  Amanda let go of Alma, and the girl desperately tried to get out. She opened the door, but was still strapped in by the safety belt.

  Amanda shifted the car into drive as Alma tried to unlatch her belt.

  “Help!” Alma screamed out to anyone that could hear. She desperately tried to get the belt free, but wasn’t quick enough. The car’s tires squealed for less than a second before they plowed forward, bouncing over the concrete slab at the front of the parking spot and into the short expanse of grass that separated the lot from the feeble guard rail that was meant to keep people from falling off the edge. It did nothing to stop Amanda’s car.

  Alma’s door slammed shut as they crashed through the railing. Then the sky was all the girl could see in front of them. She screamed as her stomach lurched. It felt as if she were rounding the peak of a roller coaster before staring straight down at the water of Jackson Reservoir.

  The reservoir was about fifty feet down and the car plunged rapidly towards it. Alma was pressed against the back of her seat and watched as the crystal blue water flew up at her until they collided. The windshield flowered with cracks as the steel around them crunched. The airbags deployed and Alma lost her breath as the sound of flowing water grew louder than the hiss of nitrogen escaping the bag in front of her.

  She looked at her mother, who was lying unconscious against the deflating bag that had sprung from her steering wheel. Alma wanted to get out, but the door wouldn’t open. She struggled with it, but the water had all but swallowed the car and she was forced to watch as the frothing wave ascended over her view. Water spewed in through her mother’s partially open window and the car lurched to the side so that Alma was on the bottom as the water rolled over her. She got the belt loose just as the water reached her chin. She took a final gulp of air before the invading water covered her face.

  The quiet of the reservoir, that world-escaping hymn of otherworldly echoes and the inner workings of her own body, was the same as it had been when Alma was in the tub that morning. Such a quiet, personal death. As Alma’s breath ran out, and her body was forced to swallow the first gulp of water, she heard her heart beat.

  Thump thump.

  Thump thump.

  Thump.

  And then she closed her eyes.

  The car hit the bottom of the reservoir, and both mother and daughter died down among the catfish.

  Inside Cada E.I.B.’s Compound

  March 13th, 2012

  “Amanda Harper killed her daughter,” said Oliver.

  Paul shook his head. “That’s impossible. I’m telling you, I’ve known Alma for years. We went to school together. I’ve been dating her since…”

  “Alma Harper is dead,” said Oliver. “They dragged her body out of the reservoir with her mother. It was all over the news. Trust me, if Alma Harper was still alive, I would be the one to know.” He seemed amused by that. “If anyone would know, it’d be me.”

  “Why?” asked Paul as he laid strapped to the upturned gurney. He felt like Hannibal Lecter as he was wheeled around the facility.

  “Just trust me,” said Oliver. “I know everything about this town. I was devastated when I found out Alma and her father were dead.”

  “Her father?” aske
d Paul. “He’s not dead either.”

  Oliver smirked and shook his head. “Someone’s been filling your head with lies. Michael Harper was shot dead by his ex-wife just before she drove out to Widowsfield and then into the reservoir on the far side of town. Police said she was distraught over the loss of her son, and blamed her husband for it. It was a murder suicide. The story was all over the news for weeks. A real tragedy.”

  “Mother fucker.” Paul was fed up with the situation. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Take me to my friends and I’ll show you which one of them is Alma. You’re the one that’s been lied to, not me!”

  “Calm down,” said Tom from the other side of the room. They’d taken Paul to what looked like a cafeteria, although the building they were in seemed almost abandoned. Tom was booting up a laptop that had been stored in a case in this room.

  “Why else would we be here?” asked Paul. “We came here because Alma wanted to go back to the cabin where Ben disappeared.”

  “What?” asked Oliver, suddenly intrigued.

  “Don’t start with this again,” said Tom as he sat in front of the computer at one of the cafeteria’s long tables.

  Oliver hushed the man and then looked at Paul. “You mean the house they found you in? What do you know about that place?”

  “That’s where Alma’s brother died,” said Paul. “That’s where Alma’s father tried to kill Terry in the bathtub. That’s how her brother got disfigured.”

  “I’m telling you,” said Tom, “don’t start up with this shit again.”

  “How would he know that?” asked Oliver of the old guard. He was excited by what Paul was saying and turned back to the restrained intruder. “How do you know about that?”