He cried out and dropped the gun just as a second coil struck his neck with a fierce snapping sound. Jack ran across the room, holding the disk he’d called the brand in front of him. A strip of flesh from the gory mound in the corner snaked out and coiled around his ankle, sending him crashing to the hard stone floor. He rolled over, tried to get to his feet, but three more strips of bloody skin shot forward, wrapped around his ankles and wrists, pulled him into a spread eagle, and dragged him high into the air. The brand fell from his hand and clacked on the marble floor.
Doug struggled with the coil at his throat, digging his fingers into his own skin to get under the constricting noose. A rope of twisting dust formed above his head like a slender tornado and dipped down to join the end of the noose. Once the two coils touched, they fused together, and Doug was jerked toward the ceiling.
Both men hung in the air like marionettes. Their bodies dipped and swung as they struggled, but they could not break free of Mark’s bonds.
“Stop it!” Lindsay screamed from her place in the closet. “Mark, you have to stop this.”
He swung his head toward her furiously, like a starving wolf catching her scent. “You think you can tell me what to do? You think you command me? I’ve owned you and controlled you since the moment I saw you.”
“No,” Lindsay said, but her throat was as dry as the dust.
“You were so easy to manipulate,” Mark said. “So desperate to be necessary.”
Lindsay’s fear and misery hardened behind her ribs, turned to anger. She stepped forward, but Jack shouted “Don’t.”
Mark looked into the air at Jack’s bound form.
“He’s trying to lure you out from behind the icons. He can’t hurt you if you stay behind them.”
“That’s not true,” Mark said. “Not true at all.”
He stomped toward the closet, his blue eyes fixed on Lindsay. With a flourish he waved his left arm. Above him, the strips of skin holding Jack rippled. Then they whipped out, sending the burly man through the window. He screamed as the glass shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, and Jack disappeared into the darkness.
“Night Jack,” Mark said, walking faster across the floor. “Night Dougy.”
With another flourish, this time of his right arm, a dozen dirt devils spun across the room. When they reached Doug, they wrapped themselves around his kicking body like pythons. He dropped to the floor with a hard crack.
“Just the two of us,” Mark said, reaching the closet door. He glared at her, his eyes like blue flames. “Just the way you wanted.”
Lindsay hugged the back wall of the closet. “You son of a bitch.”
“More accurate than you know,” Mark said. “Now, about that pain?”
“Get away from me!” Lindsay cried.
“Or…,” he said, taking a step back. He threw his arms out, again in that pose of surrender. The tinkle of glass filled the room behind him. Something glimmered in the air over his shoulder, like a firefly. Then it seemed the air was full of fireflies, with lights flashing and fading. Only the swarm she witnessed was not living; it was made from the shards of glass. Like the dust, they defied gravity, moving like twinkling ghosts.
“Oh no,” Lindsay whimpered.
“Those don’t look terribly stable,” Mark said, pointing at the low corners of the door. Lindsay looked down at the icons, their imperfect placement. “Little Jacky wasn’t being very careful. I’ll bet the glass will find a way in. All it takes is a tiny break in the veil, like when Jack fell over the threshold of my room. Such a minor thing. The glass will slip in, and then it will start its work. The shards will spin and cut and gouge. You’ll feel like you fell into a food processor.
“Or, you can just come on out now, and we can do away with the gratuitous violence. I’ll snap your neck. You won’t feel a thing.”
Lindsay couldn’t answer. She searched Mark’s face for any sign of humanity and found none.
“No?” Mark asked. He balled his fists and struck the doorframe with a deafening blow.
Lindsay screamed.
Mark pounded the jamb again. He was trying to knock the icons loose. If even one came free, Lindsay was dead. She knew it. She knelt down and crawled across the closet floor. She reached out to hold the metal corner pieces in place. When her fingers touched the icons, a flare of fire met her fingertips. She yelped in pain and crawled away.
Mark stared in at her. A look of confusion spread across his brow. He took a step back.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Lindsay gazed up. Mark looked scared, though why she didn’t know. The boy next door took another step back.
Jack appeared at Mark’s shoulder. His face was lined with red cuts and his black shirt was torn in a dozen places. The brand rested in his palm. Jack shot out a hand and grasped Mark by the back of the neck.
“Burn,” Jack whispered, and flames exploded across the top of the metal disk. He thrust the brand forward with a punching motion, driving the searing metal into Mark’s cheek.
Mark’s eyes grew wide. His mouth fell open to scream, but no sound escaped. In fact, the only thing Lindsay heard was the crackling of burning skin. Lines like black veins traced over Mark’s face, down his neck, and over his chest. In moments, his arms, his torso, every exposed inch of skin was marred with the black lines, like a ragged mesh.
Jack backed away. He dropped the brand and watched in awe as Mark fell to the floor. The lines blossomed into black flowers of charred skin. Mark’s eyes, once as beautiful as a summer sky, turned white and cold and empty.
“Is he dead?” Lindsay asked. “Really dead this time?”
Jack looked up from Mark’s charred remains. “I think so,” he said, as if confirming a UFO sighting.
“I thought he couldn’t die,” Lindsay said.
Jack had no answer. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking like a fireplug. Slowly he shook his head back and forth. “Is it possible?” he asked.
From the back of the room, Doug Richter moaned. Jack ran to him and knelt down. The man’s entire body was covered in dust. Lindsay couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, but he wasn’t dead, and she was grateful for that.
“I think it’s over,” Jack said, helping Doug sit up. A shower of dust fell from the tall man. He shook his head and coughed, raising a cloud around himself. “He’s gone.”
“He can’t die,” Doug said, his voice a thin and pained squeak. He wiped the remnants of filth from his face. “You know that. He will always walk among us.”
“But look,” Jack insisted, pointing toward the closet door.
Lindsay stood up. The blackened skeleton, which was all that remained of Mark, did not move. The flesh did not re-form. He was gone. Truly gone. It was time to get away from this place and find her parents, to hug them and tell them how much she loved them.
She stepped forward. Orange light flared, and her skin erupted with pain as if someone had set it on fire. Lindsay yelped and leaped back from the doorway. She searched her blouse and body for the source of the searing ache, but neither fabric nor flesh was scorched.
“You see?” Doug said. “Always among us.”
“Oh no,” Jack said, his face crumbling to an expression of utter despair. “That poor, dear girl.”
“What’s happening?” Lindsay cried. Panic replaced her pain. It sparked throughout her entire system, making her skin tingle and twitch disturbingly. Desperate to be free, she tried again to step over the threshold, and another sheet of burning agony pressed against her body. This time her scream was piercing. She danced anxiously from foot to foot, unable to understand what was happening to her.
“Jack?” she shrieked. “What’s going on?”
And for the second time that night, Lindsay felt something move low in her abdomen, like a worm twisting to make itself comfortable.
Mark?
Always among us.
17
A boy named Chris Herren wandered through the woods, swatting
at the ground and the occasional shrub with a thick tree branch. Snow crunched beneath his boots. A chill wind worked its way beneath his scarf.
Get some fresh air, his father said. You’re not going to enjoy the trip if you just sit inside.
Yeah, like this festival of nettles and poison oak was going to improve if he immersed himself in it. He didn’t know what the hell to do in the woods. He knew what bears did in the woods, which made his current trek all the more disturbing, but Chris had grown up in a co-op in Midtown Manhattan. He didn’t even like to be close to nature, let alone surrounded by it. They were supposed to be skiing, but there wasn’t enough snow. Oh, there was enough to make walking a chore, but not enough good powder to justify waiting in the lift line. They didn’t even bother driving to the resort that morning.
He swung the tree branch, connected solidly with a fir trunk, and dropped the stick. Chris looked back down the trail the way he’d come, and then up the hill. A glimmer of light caught his eye, and he peered through the trees to get a better look. More than likely, he was seeing a bit of sunlight catching the top of a discarded beer can. But as he focused on the place from which the glint came, he noticed more movement. A slender tendril of smoke rose through a break in the trees.
A chimney? Neighbors?
Chris wondered if anyone his age lived up there. Or even better, maybe some college kids had rented a cabin for the Christmas break. Thoughts of keg parties and scantily clad coeds flitted into his mind.
It was worth a look.
The cabin, a large log structure, appeared slowly. Each step Chris took revealed another row of logs, then the break of the porch on the right. A window came into view, dark as night. Then he saw the porch railing and the rest of the window.
Chris hugged a tree, not wanting to get caught sneaking up on the place. He just wanted to see what his neighbors looked like. If they seemed cool, he’d wander up, pretending to not even notice the cabin until he was standing right next to it. The place looked empty, but he saw a car parked in the drive. Sunlight shimmered off a perfectly polished bumper. That’s what had caught his eye on the trail.
To his left Chris noticed a slight rise that would put him above the cabin’s foundation. He walked to it and climbed up. When he reached the top of the mound, he peered at the cabin and was shocked to see a face in the window.
She was a pretty girl, though a bit plump in the face. Maybe she’s just built a little thick, Chris thought. He couldn’t be sure, because from where he stood, he only saw her from the breasts up, which was cool. They looked nice. And she was definitely cute.
He tried to look busy, tried to look cool. He tried to look like anything but a stalker who was trying to sneak a peek into the house, but he was right out in the open on the rise. He smiled.
The girl waved at him, and Chris felt a tingle of excitement in his belly.
The family vacation is looking up, he thought.
Then another face appeared. The man was only slightly taller than the girl. His face was thick and strong-looking. Maybe he was the girl’s father or husband, but Chris didn’t think so. At least, he hoped not. She was about his age, and the guy looked as old as his granddad. He also looked pissed off.
The man wrapped an arm around the girl and guided her away from the window. Chris’s sense of disappointment flared, then went out completely. He saw the bulge of the girl’s stomach when she turned to the side.
No way, he thought. Pregnant is so not hot.
So Chris walked off the snowy mound. He picked up the trail where he’d left it and began the walk down.
EPILOGUE
A mournful rumbling shook the old Georgian deeply. The sound was like thunder, but last night’s storm was over, and the way Shirley rolled up on her knees with her jaws stretched open made it seem as if, somehow, it had come from her.
She panted, shivered, exhaled, and grinned giddily. The moonlight picked up a patina of ghostly sweat on her face that made her pale skin glisten. She blinked a few times and noticed how the others were staring. Then she began to sob.
“I told you it was horrible,” she said, collapsing forward. “That poor girl, trapped with that thing inside her.”
A nonplussed Anne rolled her eyes. “Please. That overprivileged brat got just what she deserved. She made it with a guy she barely knew without any protection. Like she didn’t know about the birds and the bees?” She rolled closer to the whimpering Shirley in a predatory fashion. “But the big question is why you got all Rainman to try to keep from telling it.”
Anne looked up and melodramatically scanned the ceiling, where flecks of fraying plaster jutted from darkness. “Hmm. No Christmas lights or angelic hordes. I’m guessing it wasn’t your story. Why the fuss?”
Shirley tried to slow her breathing. “When it first came to me, I didn’t know it wasn’t mine. I was…I was just afraid it might be, I guess.”
“Right,” Anne said. “But that’s never happened before. Did it hit too close to home? Were you maybe not a virgin when you died?”
Shirley looked nervously around. “No, I would never! I mean, I don’t know! That’s not fair! You know I don’t remember! None of us do!”
Her objections were loud, bringing Daphne and Mary out of the story’s haze.
“What are you on about now, Anne?” Daphne said, her brow twisted deeply in disapproval.
“You’ve no heart at all,” Mary chimed in. “Lindsay was in love. It was tragic.”
“Well, I did like her spirit, if not her taste in men,” Daphne said. “She was a fighter. Thought on her feet. Guess you can’t always help what the heart wants.”
“Yeah,” Anne said. “That’s why we have laws. And agreements. Things that people can stick to when it’s not in their selfish best interests. You know, like agreements about how games should be played?”
Daphne sighed loudly. “That again. How much longer are you going to drag our noses through it? We gave you your three tries and you lost. Now you’re taking it out on Shirley? Can’t you let anything go?”
Anne’s face wrinkled. “Maybe I just can’t stomach the way Shirleykins whines even when she wins. She’s the only one who’s never even been in the Red Room, right? What’s that about?”
“Can I help it if I’m sensitive?” Shirley shot back. Then she curled into a little ball and started fidgeting with her hair again.
Daphne rose, walked over, and patted Shirley’s shoulder. “The old dame probably just figures it’d drive her crazy permanently. She wants to keep us afraid and, well, Shirley’s already afraid.”
Shirley pulled out another strand of her hair and stared at it. “I know I’m a little jittery sometimes, but, really, I can’t help the way I am, even if I’m not sure who that is exactly. After all, what if it had been my story? What if I’m here because I committed suicide just to avoid giving birth to a monster?”
“Oh, please. Turn the drama volume down,” Anne said. “What if Mary was a serial killer or I was a nun?”
“Ha! That’d be the day,” Daphne said. “But all this talk’s got me thinking. Anyone ever wonder why we don’t remember?”
“The shock of passing, I always supposed,” Mary said wistfully. “Isn’t that final breath bad enough, no matter how gentle?”
“No way,” Anne said. “If that was it, this place would be full up. We’d have enough for a million spirit march.”
“Maybe it’s some trick of the Headmistress, a way she has to keep us all here,” Daphne said. “She could be that powerful, I imagine.” She rose and stretched.
“Or maybe our deaths really were particularly terrible,” Shirley added.
“Whatever. We don’t have a clue. Deal with it,” Anne said.
Daphne sighed. “Well, ladies, I hate to admit, but Anne was right when she said we were pushing our luck. Unless we want to risk discovery again, I’m thinking we should call it a night.” She turned and looked at the raven-haired girl. “Anne, let’s try to start over, okay? Since we skipped
you last night, you hide the Clutch tonight. All right?”
“Fine,” Anne said. Just fine.
She sat on her knees, put her long thin arms out on the floor, and scooped all five bones toward her. Then she took the vermilion bag, the Clutch, loosened the top, and one by one placed the bones inside. Straightening, she tightened the cord and tied a loose knot in it.
“Well?” she said, looking at the others. “You three going to gawk at me all night? I thought the idea was that only one of us knows where the bones are, so that if the others get caught, they can’t tell what they don’t know.”
“Very well,” Mary said, rising. “But where shall we gather next?”
Shirley shrugged. “We haven’t been in the kitchen in a while. I like all the pots and pans, and there’s lots of exits and hiding places.”
“Whatever,” Anne said. “Such a little housewife.”
“The kitchen will be fine,” Mary said.
“Tomorrow night then, in the kitchen,” Daphne said, heading off. “Don’t be too long, Anne. The Headmistress will be up soon, and we wouldn’t want her to find you wandering where you’re not supposed to.”
“Chill,” Anne said, rising.
Mary’s eyes wandered to the red bag in Anne’s hand. It looked like a bloody wound against her black T-shirt.
“Anne,” Mary began.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Until tomorrow eve,” she said, turning away.
With that, the three girls faded off into the cracks and corners, leaving Anne behind.
She smiled, looked around, then stuffed the bag beneath the loose floorboard she’d considered pushing the skull under with her toe. Satisfied that all the red cloth was covered by wood, she straightened her shirt and looked up and down the hall.
It was long and dark and seemed to go on forever. The moonlight was fading, leaving only the wavering dark.
“Mary?” Anne called in a quiet voice. “Daphne?”
There was no response. She looked up at the ceiling and eyed it wryly. “Shirleykins?”
Again, nothing.
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