It was such an effort get to her knees that she felt that anything else was beyond her capabilities. Her brain was a confused whirl of thoughts that were unable to complete themselves and seconds slipped by as she simply stared at the floor of the landing. As she stared she noticed a small movement on the floor just below her face. It took all of her will, but she managed to focus on that little thing…it was water. Little drops of water were hitting the floor right in front of her.
Rain? She thought thickly, but then her vision blurred and she knew they were tears. It took her a moment to remember why she was crying: her family had left her alone in the house with some sort of monster. However, monsters were only in the movies, weren’t they? She didn’t really know just then.
"Why are you just sitting here?" Strangely it was her own lips that asked the question, but she didn’t remember thinking it. How odd? But the question had been a good one…why was she just sitting there? And why couldn’t she think of an answer? The truth of course was that her brain had been sloshed around the inside of her skull and she had a concussion, but Gayle didn’t know that and she could only kneel crying in the dark.
What about Katie? What about your promise? The thought seeped in through the fog of her thinking.
"No, Katie is long gone. She left with the rest of them."
She's in the box, remember?
But that had been a dream and this wasn't a dream, this was the…movies?
That didn't make any sense "What?" Gayle said aloud.
Katie!
Yes, Katie. Gayle focused on her daughter and the confusion slowly drained away and she remembered where she was…and what had happened.
"I'll get Katie. I'll get her and run," Gayle said to the floor of the landing.
With a tremendous effort, she struggled to lift her head and when she did she saw it was too late for Katie and far too late for herself.
3
The stairs at the bottom were pitch black, beyond any natural explanation.
It was a darkness through which no light could penetrate, and it was the source of all fear. It was powerful and eternal and awake.
And it was Evil.
The malevolence of it came off in waves. It was beyond Gayle's ability to comprehend or to cope, and her mind was taken up with it—independent thought became impossible. She wilted back onto the stairs and looked down between her frozen feet in dreadful fascination.
It seemed deep in its blackness, as if she were just seeing the initial layers of it and a part of her screamed, RUN! However, she couldn't; physically and mentally it was an impossibility. She simply stared, hypnotized as black tendrils crept up the wall and railings toward her. They seemed hungry for her, for her heat, for her life.
The blackness would have engulfed her whole had she not been rescued then— it wasn't William, swinging in at the last minute that saved her—but a little girl's scream from far away.
"Mommy!"
Her mind clung to that scream as a drowning cat would to a stick. She clawed onto it and held it with maniacal fervor. Gayle needed that scream, it was real, and it was natural. Her mind had been completely taken up by the black creature creeping slowly toward her, but now she latched onto the scream and analyzed it, refusing to think past it. It felt like a scream from years gone by, but she recognized it at once, it was Talitha.
But it sounded like a very young Talitha. Maybe it was Katie? No, Gayle didn't think so. Katie was a practiced and accomplished screamer; she had heard her youngest scream so often that it was unmistakable. Conversely, she couldn't remember Talitha ever screaming, not like this at least. Confusion reigned over her, but she knew that scream one way or the other, and she used it to focus her thinking—she had to get out of there. There was only one direction left to her, down the hall toward Katie's room.
Gayle struggled to get up using the railings to support her shaking legs. She refused to look at the blackness, but instead stared at the wall. As inconspicuously as possible, she hugged it and barely breathing, slipped around the corner and into the hall.
Out of sight of the blackness, the fog that had clouded her mind seemed to lift and Gayle suddenly knew what she had to do. She took off in a dead sprint for Katie's door. As she passed the great stair, she eyed it longingly and with tremendous shame. It was so tantalizingly close…all she had to do was forget Katie and she could be out the door and halfway to the ferry in moments.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to look away.
She was at Katie's door and through it in the next second. Foolishly, she expected the room to be full of empty moving boxes, but it looked the same as it had three hours before when she had kissed Katie good night. It was the same with only one small item missing…Katie.
Her bed was empty. This wasn't heart breaking to Gayle, like when she had seen Talitha and Willy J's beds empty. No, after so much disappointment this was what she had thought she would see. Yet determined to at least try to find her daughter before she fled from the house, Gayle went to the toy box and ripped back the lid. She fished about in it for a second, before jumping up and running to the closet. This she tore open so savagely that it made her realize her panic was creeping up into her throat again. She yanked the clothes hanging there, back and forth giving the closet a quick but thorough inspection…no Katie.
There! No one could say she hadn't at least tried. Now she could run away. Gayle dashed to the door, but just as she gripped the knob a small whimper sounded behind her. At the sight of the empty closet she had experienced a tiny feeling of relief but it died a quick death at the sound.
Slowly she spun about and saw the one place that Katie could be…under the bed…across the room. This meant that Gayle would have to leave the door and the safety it promised to get to her daughter. This brought back the panic almost full-fledged but it wasn’t a total feeling. She also felt shame as her hand refused to come away from the knob. Her rebellious hand knew where safety lay and it wasn’t across the room. Gayle had to mentally pry her fingers away and only then was she able to throw herself to the carpeted floor in front of the bed. In the dim light, she saw the little blonde girl curled up far back against the wall, Katie had her thumb corked square in her mouth while tears ran around it as though it were a rock jutting from a river.
Without hesitation, Gayle reached in but her arms were too short to reach that far back, so she had to wiggle in after her daughter. She felt terribly exposed in that position— half under the bed— unable to run or fight, fearing what might be behind her. And now the trapped panicky feeling began to build up in her so that she unceremoniously grabbed her daughter by the arm and dragged her out.
The second they were free of the bed, Katie jumped up and immediately hugged her mother tight and fierce, but Gayle's mind was screaming that her time was up. She had spent too many precious seconds in the room already and with a hard desperate heart, she pried her daughter off of her and set her on the ground, a little shivering bundle of pink.
Yet when she turned to the door, the hard feeling left her. It was replaced by the renewed sensation of being trapped and this grew beyond her ability to overcome. Escape was within reach. Gayle had only to take two steps and reach out for the knob but she couldn't force her feet onward. She became convinced that the thing was right on the other side of the door—blocking their way—preparing to wrap its darkness around them—preparing to eat her and Katie at its leisure.
This image froze her feet to the floor.
"Mommy," Katie whined imploringly, shaking like a leaf. Her little teeth began to clatter against themselves.
"We gotta get out of here," Gayle said partially to Katie and partially to herself and she knew in her heart that it was true. However, she still shied from the doorknob. What lay beyond the door held so much terror for Gayle that, impulsively, she jumped up on the bed and went to the window. "It's not that far. I can make a rope out of the sheets." She envisioned an easy get away, sliding down knotted sheets and running off into
the night.
Only the window, like those in the attic wouldn’t open. She beat at the frame, but saw that it had been painted shut. Briefly, she considered breaking the window, but the thought of the noise, and what it would attract, squashed that idea.
"Where's daddy?" Katie asked in an urgent whisper.
"I don't know...he's...he's. I don't know where." Saying this made her miss him terribly. This was the kind of situation he was built for and she knew if he were there, she could turn to him and say, 'What to do we do?' And he would know. As it was she didn’t have a clue. Escape through the window seemed impossible. While to chance the door seemed like certain death, and after seeing those black tendrils on the staircase, she knew that hiding was out of the question. She came to stand squarely between the two options: window and door.
"Do the signal, Mommy. Do the signal!" Katie began blubbering and hissing as quietly as she could and then the little girl started pulling on the ducky pajama shirt, pulling Gayle back to the window. Just then, there was a muffled noise from the hallway and Katie hushed immediately.
They both backed away from the door, staring at it with wide eyes. Seconds slipped by and the two just stood there, waiting, but for what Gayle didn't know. The only thing she did know was that she would not be able to open that door now. Not for anything. She was not a hero like William, she was small and weak and inadequate. Her mind started to freeze up and she could do nothing but stare blankly at the door. Katie however, started to jump up and down, uncontrollably shaking her hands just in front of her chest as if to dry them.
"Call daddy! Please, please, please!"
"I can't the phone is downstairs."
A terrible thought occurred to her: if she left Katie, there was a chance she could make it out alive. The thought just slipped out of the dirty cracks in her mind and presented itself for consideration as though it had every right to…as if it were a legitimate idea. The thought continued: you could both die, being eaten alive, or...
She gasped at her own selfishness. Hot tears streamed down her face in shame and she bent down and hugged her daughter, who hugged her back, but surprising didn't cling and it was she who pushed Gayle away.
"Not the phone! The signal! Daddy said if I was ever afraid, I could put a red blanket over the window, and he would come." She started to jump up and down again in terror and Gayle worried that Katie might be close to panicking.
"Ok. Ok. I'll do it."
Gayle went to the closet that she had just ransacked. She was pretty sure that...there it was…a red blanket. It was sitting on the top shelf. Without losing a second, she yanked it down and hopped onto the bed. Quickly she had the blanket up over the drape rod and the two of them backed away from the window looking at the blanket expectantly, hopefully. Nothing happened. After a second, Gayle felt stupid and disappointed all at once. Katie ran to the switch and started turning it on and off in quick succession, and as she did this, Gayle's dream came back to her, but there was something different. In the dream, there were red and white lights flashing, but in the room just then it was only a white light turning on and off.
Moreover, in the dream there had been a smell, and...and an overwhelming sense of being trapped, with no way out. Realizing the foolishness of pinning their hopes on the blanket, she came to a quick decision. They were both going out the door, and no matter what Gayle had to do, Katie would make it outside.
4
Thankful for the big old-fashioned knobs and locks on all the doors, Gayle bent to look through the oversized keyhole. Down the hall, she could see the It in the light streaming in from Talitha's open door. Amazingly, the thing was still on the landing at the other end of the house and Gayle decided they could make it.
Fearful curiosity had her pause just a second to eye the thing. It was huge and black, but what it was, Gayle hadn't a clue. It seemed at least partially made from a chaotic black smoke that swirled and drifted about it and it emanated an intense dire cold. It was evil through and through, whatever it was, and Gayle didn't need or want to see anymore but just as she began to pull away from the keyhole, a flash of white in the blackness caught her eye.
There was something in the swirling smoke—the outline of a person. A moment later a strong gust of the strange wind blew back the edge of the driving madness and Gayle saw a girl standing a foot or two in front of the enormous creature. Talitha.
Gayle suddenly couldn't breathe, her lungs hitched but her throat had tightened to such an extent that airflow was impossible. Her heart fluttered in her chest in a crazy staccato rhythm; it was the only part of her that she could feel.
She saw it all clearly: Talitha at the end of the hall with her back to Gayle, arms outstretched to ward off the creature, but Gayle could see that it was no use. The thing was enormous and seemed to take up the entire landing and looked about to swallow Talitha whole. As she watched, her daughter backed up to the wall and tried to flatten herself out, as if to let the thing pass by. She turned her head in Gayle's direction and the light of the full moon shone on her perfect profile. Gayle was amazed at the look on Talitha’s face; it was one of determination and not of fear.
The thing did not pass her by however, but enveloped her in a cloak of blackness until Gayle could no longer see her daughter. Then at the foot of the creature, she saw movement…and there was Talitha…lying on the floor…twitching, and jerking…nearly completely covered in the smoke. As Gayle watched in horror, Talitha was pulled into it.
"No!" Gayle shrieked at the top of her lungs and threw herself back away from the door. She kicked out with her feet, propelling herself to Katie's bed where she thumped up hard but unfelt against it. Tears streamed down her face and she shook her head back and forth in misery.
She had just killed Talitha. It was her fault that her daughter was dead. It had been Talitha's scream and not Katie's that she had heard on the backstairs. Even as she had been wallowing in self-pity about being abandoned, she left her daughter alone to deal with that horrible creature.
Her brain began to shut down and all she could manage was to cry and look at her feet sticking out of the stupid ducky pajamas without really seeing them. The light above her stopped flicking on and off, and when she looked up, she saw Katie bending down to the keyhole to find out what had so upset her mother.
"No, Katie! Don't. Don't."
Katie pulled away and looked ashen faced at her mother. The little girl's pert soft lips quivered and her hands gripped themselves against her chest, trembling as they did.
"Mommy, I'm so ascared, I..."
Gayle scrambled up and went to her daughter, finally feeling steel enter her backbone. Katie needed her to be strong and so she would be. She crouched down to Katie's level and smiled grimly at her. "There is... there is something out there, something bad, right? We can't stay here any longer. I am going to go out first and distract it. Ok? Then you count to three and then you make a run for it. Can you do that? Run outside, to the Green?"
Poor Katie began to blubber and cling to Gayle. "No, let's wait for daddy, please? I don't want to be here all by myself, please. Please, Mommy?"
"No Katie. We can't wait. Now is our only chance, look at me..." here she stared intently at her daughter. "It will be ok."
"But daddy is coming to save us and I don't want to be alone."
"You are never alone, you hear me? I'll always be with you, right here," Gayle poked Katie's skinny chest. "But now it’s time to move and Captain Mommy is giving the orders around here, so let's go!"
Bolstered by her mother’s energy, Katie nodded through her tears.
Gayle went to the door and amazingly her resolve began to overpower her fear. Taking one big breath, she then bent down to the keyhole, but flinched back. Where five seconds ago she could look down the hall with ease, now all she could see was blackness. This time, the thing was truly just on the other side of the door.
"Oh my God! Oh my God. Please Lord, don't let it in. Please...please," she said, praying for the
first time in years, as she backed away from the door. Her vision tunneled on the knob, knowing that if it began to turn she would crack. Her mind would most certainly break in half and there would be no stopping her from throwing herself through the window. If that knob turned she would go stark-raving mad. If that knob...
Just then, Katie grabbed her shirt and began to cling again. With a little frightened jump, Gayle looked down and the sight of her daughter’s pitiful tear-streaked daughter, made her realize that they couldn't just stand there and wait for the knob to turn, they'd have to get out the only other way there was: the window.
Unaware that her eyes were wide and wild, or that she had begun hyperventilating, Gayle dashed around the room, searching for something heavy. She needed to break the thick glass in the window, but everything Katie owned was stamped with "Fisher-Price" and was made from light plastic.
Then it would have to be her fists, she decided.
Leaping onto the bed, she looked over her shoulder. "Katie! We're going out the win..." she stopped—struck speechless by the sight of the door. The black smoke of the creature was slipping around the edges of it as if searching for a way in. Gayle still felt in charge of her emotions, even if just barely, but Katie was in a terrible state and let out a terrific high-pitched wail of hopeless fear.
The room was starting to turn bitterly cold and Gayle jumped down and grabbed Katie who was almost literally freezing in place. The little girl was simultaneously stiff with fright and shivering with the sudden cold. Gayle put her on the bed—as if the extra two feet would make any difference—and went to the window.
She wasn't fooling herself anymore; the drop from the window was a good twenty feet and the likelihood of impaling herself on one of the bushes below was very great, yet the alternative was far worse. There was no more time for hesitation or indecision and she hauled her right arm back to strike the glass with all her force, not realizing that her radius, one of the two slim bones in her forearm, was broken long before the strike.
The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set Page 19