by Ronald Malfi
A bolt of pain rushed up through her legs and ripped through her groin. She felt her bladder burst, felt a burning heat engulf her. Similarly, she was forced into the awareness of her entire body—felt every crevice of her being, every pore, every spasmodic muscle and throbbing nerve.
“You’re fading,” he said, his voice much stronger now. “Do you see how it is to fade? It’s worse than your pain.”
She gasped for breath but could not inhale. Could not remember. Her arms broke out in welts of burning pain, but the sensation was fleeting, as she quickly disremembered how to pinpoint such pain and transmit it to her brain. Frozen, her brain could process nothing, could do nothing. A second groundswell of pain wracked her groin, this time branching through her pelvis and into her abdomen, her chest, stretching into her shoulders and the small of her back. Yet again, the feeling did not last; it withered to a dim blur before she had time to catalogue it.
Turning from her, Simon moved closer to the bed and inspected Becky’s meager form. “I’ll take whatever’s left in her too,” he said more to himself than Kelly, and began peeling back the girl’s bed sheets.
Like a child shaken and beaten, Kelly opened her eyes and managed to pull her head up high enough to see Simon’s body, bent over Becky’s bed, his body regenerating with the rapidity of sped-up video footage. He was feeding off her mind, sucking the last of her power from her. And with it went everything else: her ability to dream, to think, to rationalize, to recollect, to perceive. At that moment, even the most mundane autonomic reflexes were lost to her, and she found she could not breathe, could not hear, could not force her heart to beat. Fear did not exist; she no longer understood the complexities of simple emotions.
And then it returned.
In a single numbing shudder, she felt her mind flood with energy and sensation, filling in every empty crack and fissure of her mind. It was different, somehow altered in a way, but she devoured it as if starving. Her mind replenished, she wasted no time pushing herself from the floor and righting her body against the wall. Other than her own thoughts, she was faintly aware of the clutter of more foreign ones, bizarre and almost irrational: a smoking handgun; a pack of cigarettes; the contemplation of suicide; an adroit wit; a cultivated sense of compassion. And although she possessed many of these qualities herself, she understood them to be the property of someone else—some stranger who’d somehow managed to slip into her mind and offer her a chance at survival.
And retaliation.
Simon reached down and yanked the IV tube from Becky’s arm. The girl stirred soundlessly in the bed. He appeared to smile—to grimace—to himself moments before looking up and seeing Kelly standing against the wall. A look of perplexed disquiet drew a crease down the center of his forehead. He looked as if he were about to speak, his lips trembling, but no sounds came out.
“I said don’t touch her,” Kelly said. She moved around the side of the bed, her eyes alternating between her sister and the monster that loomed above her. “What do you do now?” she taunted.
Simon slipped around the opposite side of the bed and began pacing slow circles around Kelly, like a lion examining a carcass. The gaping wound at his chest was now nothing more than scarred, raw-looking flesh. “You have no control over me,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. If you don’t give in to me, you’ll spend—”
Fresh blood began seeping from the wound at his chest.
“You’ll spend the rest of your life fighting me off,” he continued, unabashed.
“No,” she said, “you’re wrong. I can’t touch you…but I don’t need to.”
The windowpane beside the bed popped as more cracks fractured the glass. Despite the stillness of the air, the curtains on either side of the window puffed out, their corners draping lazily overtop the bed. There was the rushing sound of metal—of the bolt sliding shut on the bedroom door—followed by a number of eerie breaks along the bedroom’s ceiling and walls. In the corner, Becky’s rocking chair broke into motion, its wooden runners creaking on the floor. Like a trapped animal, Simon glanced around and backed toward the rear of the room. His face toyed with a smile; his lower lip split down the middle and exuded a dribbling yellow discharge.
“What does it feel like to hurt?” she said, advancing. “What does it feel like to be real? You enjoy the pain?”
His eyes blazed. “I want it all,” he whispered.
The small lamp beside Becky’s bed flickered.
“All,” said Kelly, taking another step forward.
There was a pulling sound, like heavy cloth being torn down the middle, as the carpet buckled beneath their feet, rising in a series of mounds from the floor.
“All,” he repeated. She was close enough to breathe him in now: imaginary stink. “I want it all.”
“Then you get my memories,” she said, and stopped just in front of him. He looked ravenous, his eyes glowing like twin lamps, his grin splitting his face in half. “You get everything I have—my memories, my nightmares, my fears.” She grinned. “My illusions.”
There was a moment of perfect silence then. It filled the room like liquid, heavy and dense, soaking up all sounds, all movements, all stray thoughts. And then, in a single sweeping crash, the silence was obliterated.
A crash.
Simon turned at the sound, just in time to see Becky’s closet door swing open and crash against the wall. Through the exposed rectangle of darkness, a suffocating current of energy exploded, flooding the room. Two sets of arms, like black-blue tendrils of smoke, sprung out and grasped Simon’s arms, his head, around his chest, one of his legs. The suggestion of faces and the outline of bodies appeared within the closet, along with the strong, pungent odor of decay. Strands of seaweed hair whipped. Torn clothes…a bare shoulder, blue and knobby…the smoldering pupils of sightless eyes…
It was Mouse’s voice that filled her head: They died in here, Kelly. Those two girls came up here to love each other and they died. What do you think it would be like to die like that?
Simon attempted a groan, but his mouth was quickly stuffed with a clawing hand. He struggled, turned to pull himself away, but the girls’ hands clutched at him, their fingernails driving deep into his flesh. He hit the ground face-first, his bones rattling inside his skin, and clawed at the carpet. His eyes were blazing and alight, his enormous pupils darting wildly around the room. He met Kelly’s eyes just for a split second—
—hurtsafraid—
Fuck you.
—before the clawing hands defeated him, pressed his face against the rippling carpet, and dragged his squirming body into the closet with a tremendous jerk. The shadows of the closet surrounded him, engulfed him, and when he finally did scream, all Kelly could see of him were the silver pinpoints of his eyes.
The closet door slammed shut and Kelly collapsed to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Josh fell back against the wall, the sill of the window cracking smartly against the back of his head. His hands slipped away from Nellie’s, his fingers stiffened into fishhooks, the hairs on the back of his hands and lower part of his arms stood up like wire bristles. The bandage that he’d wrapped around his one wounded hand had burned and flaked off.
Timid and afraid, Carlos stepped around the side of Nellie’s bed and bent to one knee beside Josh’s body. The boy’s eyes were closed, his mouth slack. Carlos’s eyes traced down to Josh’s hands, noticed the spiky hairs on his arms. One hand had fallen into Josh’s lap, palm up. The flesh of his palm was scored with dark carbuncles, as if he’d grabbed a live electrical wire and hadn’t let go. Afraid to touch him, Carlos only bent his head to Josh’s face, listened for his breathing. It was faint but there.
“Josh.” Carlos touched his shoulder. Josh’s flesh was warm, burning up through his shirt, but not charged. He felt Josh’s pulse at his neck. It was steady. “Come around, Josh.”
Josh’s eyes fluttered. His lips pushed together, smacked against each other. His face was waxen and sick-l
ooking, as if he were in the throes of a particularly virulent flu. In his lap, Josh’s hands moved, shifted, balled up on themselves. Carlos could hear the charred skin crackle.
“Kelly,” Josh breathed once then opened his eyes. Carlos could see confusion swimming in them as Josh slowly regained comprehension of his surroundings. He turned his head to face Carlos and winced in pain. He had to have one hell of a bump, Carlos thought.
“You all right?”
“I found her,” Josh said. His lips were dried and cracked. He looked as though he’d just spent a week walking through the Sahara. “I saw her, felt her…”
“I’m just glad you came back.”
“I don’t think she’s out yet.”
“Out where?”
“Out of the house.”
“Okay,” Carlos said. “Come on, sit up.”
Stiffly, Josh pushed himself up against the wall to a proper sitting position. He groaned, his body obviously wracked with pain. Situated, he brought his hands to his face, palms up. He stared at the ringlets of blackened skin.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, the pain clearly evident in his voice. “No masturbation for a while, huh?” He brought his eyes up to Nellie’s bed. From the floor, only the woman’s right hand was visible, hanging lifeless over the side of the bed. Josh suddenly tried to push himself off the wall, his body in sharp protest, his muscles popping audibly.
“Easy, Josh.”
“She’s not out of the house yet,” he said, his voice shaking. “She’s still in trouble. She has to get out of the house.” He staggered toward Nellie’s bed. “Nellie has—”
“Josh, she’s dead.”
“She—”
“She’s dead, Josh. Nellie’s dead.”
“Damn it.” He reached down and grabbed the old woman’s lifeless hands, held them tight inside his own. “Damn it, Nellie, come on—bring me back—”
“Josh.” Carlos moved behind him.
“She’s not.”
“Josh—”
He craned his head around to face the doctor. His eyes were blazing. “I’m telling you! She’s weak now, but still there. I can feel it in her.”
Carlos came up behind him. From over Josh’s shoulder he could make out the old woman’s face, skeletal and inert, the creases and lines of her face exaggerated in the darkness.
“Josh, listen to me, she’s—”
Josh grabbed him around the wrist, startling him. His grip was fierce and Carlos was helpless to pull away. And then he felt it—a subtle, lingering charge pulsing like undertow against the palm of Josh’s hand, rippling into his own hand, wrist, up his arm and toward his shoulder. The power was nowhere as intense as it had been with Nellie, but it was still there. He still pulsed with Nellie’s leftover power.
“Nellie’s hanging on,” Josh said. “She’s doing it for Kelly. We need to hang on too.”
Carlos didn’t know what to say. Stammered: “I…all right, okay…okay…”
Josh released Carlos’s wrist and delicately picked up Nellie’s hand again, turning away from the doctor. Rubbing his wrist, Carlos could see a red tincture to the skin where Josh had touched him, and a faint bloody thumbprint. The irritated area tingled. Like a thousand antennae prickling in awareness, the hairs along his arm stood at attention.
Beside him, Josh closed his eyes, his exhalations coming through his flared nostrils as if in meditation, his lips pressed tightly together. Not wanting to be in the way, Carlos stepped back around to the other side of the bed. He groped for his medical bag and held it against his chest.
She was dead at one point, Carlos thought. I’m certain of it. No one looks like that and still lives.
Josh’s head slipped slowly back. He stood there waving like a sunflower in a mild breeze.
Be careful, Carlos thought.
Josh’s body jerked and the stink of burning tires filled the room.
Around her: the soft din of a world about to crumble.
Kelly opened her eyes. Before her, Becky’s closet door remained closed…but she could now make out fine hairline fractures working up through the door toward the top of the frame. Likewise, the frame itself was now splintered and pockmarked. And above the door, the wall appeared to protrude slightly, to bulge, as if someone were pushing on it from the other side. Kelly began shuffling back on her hands and feet, unable to peel her eyes away from the closet door. The image of Simple Simon being dragged to his death by the two imaginary dead girls resonated in her head, like a chord strummed on an electric guitar. Something tickled her face, burned her eyes. She glanced up and saw that the ceiling too was riddled with cracks. Powdered plaster billowed out and floated to the floor, her face, her eyes.
Simon is dead, she thought, but this house is still alive. This house is the heart of Never.
Continuing to back away from the closet door, she could see more places in the walls beginning to bulge, as if infested by living things. The molding around the ceiling cracked and separated. Framed pictures against the walls began to rattle like steady applause. Beside her as she crawled, the windowpane—now a web of spreading cracks and fissures—began to clatter in its frame. The curtain rod above the window pushed from the wall and toppled to the floor, the sheer curtains flaring out and settling to the carpet.
Something was going to happen.
“Help me,” a small voice said from behind Kelly. Startled, she spun around, not knowing what to expect, and saw a moonglow shape half-propped against the wall at the head of Becky’s bed. The shimmer of pale skin and haunted eyes briefly glowed. “Help me.”
“Becky,” Kelly managed, although she wasn’t certain if she had spoken the words aloud or not.
Becky moved slightly toward the side of the bed, struggling to set herself onto the floor but too weak to complete the task.
Kelly rushed to her side, the walls of the room vibrating around her. “No,” she said to the girl, “don’t hurt yourself.”
“Kelly.” Becky paused and stared at her sister, her slight feet dangling like props over the side of the bed. Her nightgown was hitched up to her waist, exposing attenuated thighs peppered with bruises. Seeing her like this now, awake and alive, Kelly felt something flood throughout her body. It had nothing to do with power, hers nor anyone else’s, nor was it residual trauma, lingering about her body, her mind. No, this was something deeper—deeper than she could have ever imagined feelings could reach.
“How could I have forgotten?” she whispered to herself.
“Kelly,” Becky repeated.
Kelly snapped from her daze. “Are you all right? We need to get the hell out of here fast.”
The bedposts began vibrating, knocking against the wall and shaking all the way down to the floor. The mattress started to ripple in waves, from top to bottom, as if attempting to roll Becky off. Becky screamed and pushed herself forward off the bed. Kelly caught her in her arms, thankful the girl did not weigh much, and dragged her away from the bed. The mattress thumped against the frame, the posts trembling like tuning forks. Behind them, the windowpane exploded in a shower of glass shards. Becky screamed again and buried her head into Kelly’s chest.
“Come on!” Kelly shouted and dragged the girl toward the bedroom door. It was closed, and looked as if the frame was eating it, crushing it from the center and spreading to all four corners. Initially reluctant to touch the knob, Kelly finally reached out, grabbed it, yanked. The door came apart at the force of the pull: it splintered into a kaleidoscope of wooden shards and dust, the heavier pieces crashing to the floor, the lighter shreds blowing out in a plume of raining dust.
Kelly pushed her sister through the doorway and into the hall. Even out here the walls were bent and twisted like the corridor of a circus funhouse; oil paintings had been sucked flush against the walls; the floor appeared to be coming apart in sections, with individual floorboards snapping and cracking under some invisible weight. Candelabras flickered and buzzed down the length of the corridor. It was the whole
house, Kelly knew. Simon was only a part of it. Over the years and with her mind, with her powers, she had managed to turn her childhood home into what she always feared it might really be: alive. It was the true heart of Never, the one vital organ responsible for keeping the terror alive.
Kelly tried not to look—tried only to make it down the stairwell and out the front door as quickly as possible. But Becky, terrified into submission, refused to move from her bedroom doorway.
“Come on!” Kelly shouted. “Becky!”
Frozen by fear, the girl could not respond. Her eyes seemed glued to the shambling, capering framework of the house coming down all around them.
“Becky, please, you have to come with me! I’m not going to leave you here again!”
She looped her arms around the girl’s waist and hoisted her into the air. As quickly as she could manage, Kelly hustled down the corridor toward the winding stairwell. Becky screamed again just as the wall of closed doors bulged, and the doors sprang open along the hallway, swatting at them as if they were insects, intent on knocking them down. One of them swung with such force that it tore from its hinges and shattered in a spray of wood against the opposite wall.
Peering over the stairwell, Kelly saw the risers themselves were beginning to break apart. Several of them sank in the middle, like grinning mouths. There was no way she’d be able to carry Becky down the stairs.
“Come on, Becky!” she urged.
Becky looked at her face, her eyes wide and terrified. “Is he gone?”
“Becky—”
“The Pie Man!” Becky screamed. “Simple Simon the Pie Man!”
“Yes! Yes, honey, he’s gone! He’s gone! Now come with me, okay? Please, Becky! Please come with me!”
Crying, Becky nodded and quickly followed Kelly as she began climbing down the stairs. At one point, it felt as though the entire staircase would give way, sending them both toppling to the marble floor below. But it held, and Kelly thundered down the steps as quickly and as carefully as she could manage, one hand squeezing Becky’s the entire time.