314 (Widowsfield Trilogy)

by A. R. Wise

  “Quiet,” said Claire. “Don’t move. He’s here.”

  “Who?” asked Nancy.

  “The one the children call The Skeleton Man. If he remembers us, he’ll lead the children here. He’s right outside.”

  “Claire, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but there’s…” Nancy looked outside where she had just been, confident that there was no one there hiding in the fog. She was wrong.

  Standing outside the front door, seeming to hide from someone across the street, was a tall, dark figure. The fog shrouded him, but he was pressed against the glass, affording Nancy a view of his skeletal frame. He had long arms draped in a suit coat, and blood was dripping from the bone tips of his fingers. His face was a mask of sunken skin, pulled taut against a skull to reveal chattering teeth beneath. There were strips of wet flesh slapped against his skull and one of them slid down the side of his head. He had a hole where his nose once was, and his eye sockets were wide and black. Within the sockets sat two lidless eyes, smaller than the skull they dwelled in, bobbing in the blackness as they stared across the street.

  Then he looked at Nancy.

  The sound of his chattering teeth seemed to explode in her mind. She cried out and clasped her ears just as every pane of glass in the building exploded. The fog rushed in as The Skeleton Man turned his focus back on his victims. The children came to punish them, running on their bloodied paws and snapping their jaws. The adults would pay for what The Skeleton Man remembered.

  CHAPTER 17 - Way Past Sanity

  March 12th, 2012

  Alma had no trouble finding the cabin. Despite how hard she tried to forget this place, Widowsfield was burned into her memory, and every street looked exactly as it did the night her father and she had fled.

  “This is it.” She stood on the walkway that led to the front door. She stared at the picture window where her brother and she used to sit and watch the children come home from school. They would walk down the thin road, past the cabin that was mostly shaded by the encroaching woods. Some of the children would wave at them, but most snickered and laughed at the two young faces that peered at them.

  A sense of sorrow and loneliness swept through Alma.

  “Let’s get inside,” said Stephen.

  “Are you okay?” asked Rachel as she stood beside Alma.

  “No,” Alma stated matter-of-factly. “Not at all.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Rachel. “I want to leave too. I want to get the hell out of this town.”

  Alma broke her gaze at the cabin to look at her friend. She felt an intense sorrow for Rachel, though she didn’t know why. “You should go.” Alma didn’t want Rachel to get hurt.

  “Are you serious?” asked Rachel, excited. “Do you want to just go home?”

  “No,” said Alma. “I’m staying, but you should go. All of you should go.”

  Paul put his hand in Alma’s. “I’m with you to the end, babe. Who else is going to protect you from the ghosts here?” He smiled and squeezed her hand.

  “It’s not locked,” said Stephen as he opened the cabin’s front door.

  The gaping maw seemed to draw Alma’s attention inexorably inside. She knew that the cabin wanted her back.

  “Don’t go,” said Rachel.

  “I have to. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

  “Why?” asked Rachel. “What do you think you’re going to find in there?” She held Alma by the crook of her arm to stop her from going in.

  “The truth,” said Alma. “Something happened here sixteen years ago that I’ve blocked from my memory. It has something to do with the number 314, and the last time I was here I was able to remember my brother just by staring at the symbol for pi. I was too scared then to learn everything, but not anymore.”

  “This place is fucked,” said Rachel. “The whole town is a nightmare. I don’t know if the government has something to do with it, or if this is some portal to hell, and I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I just want to go home, and I want you to come with me.”

  “Guys, you have to see this,” said Stephen from the entrance of the cabin. He had gone inside, and came back out to call them in. He waved at them, excitement lighting his features, like a mischievous child beckoning his siblings after discovering where their parents hid the presents.

  “Don’t go in,” said Rachel.

  Alma pried her friend’s fingers from her arm. “I’m going. It’s time for this to end. Whatever I’ve forgotten, I can handle it now.”

  The sun seemed to provide no heat, the wind held no sway, and the cabin dominated Alma’s every sense. Even the sound of her friends’ voices seemed lost as if in a cavern, far off and echoing. She walked to the threshold, and stepped through.

  Her senses returned to normal once inside, although a moment of time seemed lost to her. Now everyone was inside, and Stephen was closing the door behind her. The cabin’s door closed like the lid of a tomb, loud and with heft.

  “Look at this shit,” said Stephen as he walked to a couch in the living room where two mannequins had been set up.

  The cabin was the same, eerily accurate. It was different from when Alma had come here with her mother, and had been reverted back to what it looked like on March 14th, 1996. It was as if someone had stolen Alma’s memories to recreate the room exactly as it was.

  The couch was brown and musty, with a pattern of waving lines that looked Native American. The area rug was green and plain, with a hole in it where a dog had eaten through while chewing on a bone.

  That dog, the one with the missing eye and yellow teeth; the dog that belonged to the red-haired girl whose father owned the cabin.

  Alma staggered and Paul caught her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as he steadied her.

  “How crazy is this?” asked Stephen loudly as he knocked on the head of a mannequin that was sitting on the couch.

  Alma stared at the child-sized mannequin. It was a boy in overalls and a red shirt with a pair of sneakers on that had been scuffed from playing in the dirt out back. There were two mannequins on the couch, one a boy and the other a girl.

  Alma recognized the clothes that the girl mannequin wore. It was the same outfit she’d worn sixteen years earlier.

  “This must’ve been what we saw at the school,” said Stephen. “There must be mannequins like this all over town.” He slapped the boy’s head and the yellow mannequin slouched to the side.

  “No,” said Alma. “Don’t hit it.”

  “Why?” asked Jacker as he set the gear he was carrying down. “What’s wrong? Do you know what this is all about?” There was an edge of fright to his tone, as if he was struggling to maintain composure in the bizarre setting.

  “That’s my brother.” She looked around at the familiar room. “Someone set up this place to look exactly like it did when I was here with my father. Those mannequins are dressed in the clothes that my brother and I were wearing.”

  “I think we should go,” said Aubrey. She had her arms crossed and was backing away, toward the front door. “This is fucked up.”

  “I agree,” said Rachel. “Stephen, we need to leave.”

  “I can’t believe you guys want to leave,” said Stephen. He was exasperated, but his anger was unmistakable. “We’ve stumbled into one of the biggest paranormal stories of all time, and you guys want to just take off? You’re insane.”

  “This reminds me of the towns they built while testing nuclear weapons,” said Paul.

  A yellow light pulsed outside.

  “Get down!” Stephen knelt low and moved toward the kitchen.

  The picture window’s curtains were pulled back, revealing the street outside as a security truck came near. The group moved into the kitchen, which was to the right of the entrance, and ducked beneath the counters. The rotating yellow light on top of the truck illuminated the cabin with ghastly shadows for a moment, and then faded away.

  Alma would’ve sworn the shadows cas
t by the mannequins were taller than they should’ve been. She was on her knees on the kitchen floor, exactly where the dog’s crate used to be. It was also where her mother had written the symbol for pi on the ground and then circled it with lit candles. This would be where Alma would try it again, but this time she wouldn’t be confused by the mathematic symbol. This time she would just write the numbers.

  314

  “Do you think they’re looking for us?” asked Jacker.

  “I don’t know,” said Paul. “But we’re sure the hell not going to be able to get the van and my bike in here.”

  “There were never this many security guards before,” said Aubrey. “When I used to sneak in here with my friends, there was never more than a few guards at the posts. Nothing like this.”

  “Did you ever come down here two days before March 14th?” asked Alma.

  Everyone turned their attention to Alma as Aubrey answered, “No.”

  “Do you think the date has something to do with this?” asked Rachel of Alma.

  Alma looked at all of their faces, stunned that they were surprised by this. “Of course it does. Don’t you guys get it?”

  “Get what?” asked Stephen.

  “They’re trying to recreate the event. Whatever happened on March 14th, 1996, they’re trying to make it happen again. Or at least they tried, at some point. It looks like it must’ve been years ago, maybe when Cada E.I.B. first purchased the land. I don’t know how they got it so perfect,” said Alma as she stared at the back of the mannequins’ heads while they sat silent on the couch. “But if the mannequins were in the school, then I bet they’re set up like this in every house around here.”

  Rachel punched Stephen in the arm several times. The first seemed playful, but the next was with more force, and then by the third hit she started to slam both fists into him. “You dragged us into this, you bastard.”

  “Settle the fuck down, Rachel. Jesus Christ! Stop it.” He grabbed her wrists and she struggled to get free.

  “It’s not his fault,” said Alma. She looked around the cabin and felt a sudden chill. “Something wanted me back here. I think it’s been trying to pull me back here for years.”

  “Well, it doesn’t need me here,” said Aubrey. “Sorry guys, but I’m getting the fuck out of this insane place.” She stood up and headed for the door. “Jacker, it was good meeting you. If you ever get out of this place alive, give me a ring. Stephen, I’ll call you later.”

  Aubrey opened the door and they all heard a distant, booming voice. Aubrey stopped in the threshold and looked back at them. “Do you hear that?”

  The group went to the door. They were cautious to make sure no security trucks were nearby as they went outside. A grey wisp of cloud moved over the sun, and its shadow was cast over the cabin for a moment as the group listened to a man’s voice in the distance.

  “They must be playing some sort of message on a speaker or something,” said Paul.

  “Maybe on the security trucks,” said Stephen. He then hushed the others as the voice grew louder.

  “Come on,” said Rachel as she pulled at Stephen’s shirt. “Get back inside. The truck must be headed back this way if the sound is getting louder.” Everyone else ran back into the cabin, but Stephen was intent on hearing the message. Rachel continued to pull at him.

  “I can almost hear what they’re saying,” said Stephen. “Something about Hank? Hank Waxman, does that make any sense?” He relented and went back inside with Rachel. They closed the door and stayed low as a security truck rolled down the street, again illuminating the cabin with flashing yellow light.

  The message was muffled, but they could make out some of it as the truck went by. “…if you leave now, we can forget that you were ever here. Hank Waxman, we will contact the police if necessary…”

  “Well, at least they’re not looking for us,” said Stephen after the truck passed.

  “Yes they are,” said Jacker. He scratched his thick, wavy hair and grimaced before admitting, “My real name’s Hank Waxman.”

  “Fuck me,” said Rachel. “They must’ve found the van. Goddamn it.” She stood up and started to pace.

  “Calm down, babe,” said Stephen.

  “No, I won’t calm down. We’re fucked. We don’t have a choice. We have to go out there and hope they just give us a slap on the wrist and let us go. That’s the only option we’ve got now.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Jacker. “I can’t risk them calling the police.”

  “Look,” said Rachel as she tried to be reasonable. “We’re just going to have to take that chance. If they do end up calling the cops, then we’ll just get some minor trespassing charges. I know it sucks, but we don’t have any other choice here.”

  “No,” said Jacker. “You don’t get it. I can’t risk them calling the cops.”

  Rachel stopped pacing and stood stone still as she stared at the big man. “What are you saying?” She obviously already suspected Jacker’s secret.

  “I’m wanted for a few things back home.”

  “Oh for crying out loud,” said Rachel. Her cheeks burned red as her anger swelled. “Do you see, Stephen? What did I say about background checks? Goddamn it.” Her frustration boiled over and she balled up her fists, ready to hit something in anger.

  “What did you do?” asked Stephen. “Was it that bad?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” said Jacker.

  “Well, you’d better start fucking talking about it,” said Rachel. She emphasized her curse as an expression of her anger. “What did you do?”

  “I hit a guy,” said Jacker in a near whisper, as if he were shrinking away from the conversation. Even his posture slouched as he leaned against the kitchen counter.

  “You must’ve hit him pretty damn hard,” said Rachel. “Am I right?”

  Jacker nodded.

  “Did you kill him?” she asked. “Are we traipsing around the country with a murderer?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Jacker. “Last I heard he was in the hospital. He hadn’t woken up yet.”

  “Oh, well, that’s reassuring,” said Rachel.

  “Calm down.” Stephen walked into the center of the group and held his arms out between Rachel and Jacker. “Let’s just try and be rational for a second. Okay? Running out there now and begging for forgiveness is a stupid plan, especially if we’re risking Jacker going to jail. Our best option is to just stay here and wait until after the 14th.”

  “What?” asked Aubrey. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “She’s right,” said Rachel. “That’s a stupid fucking plan, Stephen.”

  “Do you have a better one?” asked Stephen.

  Paul stepped in and put his hands on Stephen’s shoulders. The argument was getting out of hand, and Paul tried to calm everyone down. “Let’s be smart, guys. If we wait here until nighttime, we can try to sneak out after that. Then, if we come back tomorrow we can go try to get the van. If they already got to it, then we can say we never went into Widowsfield. The van wasn’t on their property, so they’ve got no right to keep it.”

  “What if they call the cops on me?” asked Jacker.

  “You don’t have to come with us. I can tell them that you let me borrow the van. Even if they call the cops, they can’t prove you were here.”

  The group was quiet as they considered Paul’s plan. Aubrey stood near the door, far from Jacker, and Stephen reached out to hold Rachel’s hand. The tension had calmed, and everyone agreed that Paul’s plan was the best option they had. Still though, the fractures in their group weren’t mended, and everyone seemed ready to separate, even if it was just to opposite corners of the small cabin.

  Alma held Paul’s hands and stood on the tips of her toes to whisper to him. “I’m not leaving.”

  He was surprised, and scowled at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I told you, I need this.” She spoke in a whisper to avoid pulling anyone else into their conversa
tion. “I want you all to leave, but I’m going to stay.”

  “I’m not leaving without you, Alma,” said Paul.

  “Yes you are.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re coming with me. I know you want to stay here, and I’ve tried to be supportive of this whole insane thing, but now it’s gone too far. I don’t know what’s going on in this place, or why they’ve set it up to mimic the past, but I do know that if you stay here, you’re going to get hurt. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “If I leave, I’ll never know the truth.”

  “Alma, you’re being ridiculous. Listen to yourself. You don’t even know that this is going to work. Do you really think if you just stay here until the 14th that you’ll suddenly remember everything?”

  “This place is trying to put us in order,” said Alma. “It wants me to figure this out. I can feel it, Paul.” She looked down at the kitchen floor. “I just have to try and calm down, and focus on the number. Maybe if I do it on the 14th, at 3:14…”

  “Maybe what?” asked Paul.

  “Maybe that’s how I can complete the circle.”

  “Do you hear yourself?” asked Paul. “Do you hear how insane you sound?”

  “Look around, Paul,” she said. “We’re way past sanity.”

  Widowsfield

  March 14th, 1996

  Raymond stood in front of his father to protect him from The Skeleton Man. The Salt and Pepper Diner had been enveloped in the fog, and a brick had been thrown through the front door, shattering the glass. This moment was similar to every other time it had occurred, but Raymond sensed a change. He hadn’t been asked to kill his father yet, but The Skeleton Man would emerge from the fog to make a request soon. This was the way it always was, although sometimes the demon chose a different part of Raymond’s father to covet. Would it be the eyes again? The tongue this time?

  Raymond could never remember the past instances of this event until The Skeleton Man arrived, and then the memories would sneak in. During the scant minutes before the clock struck 3:14, and before the fog rolled in, Raymond was always given a chance to enjoy a brief respite, where there was no violence. Every time the events of March 14th started over, Raymond would forget everything that The Skeleton Man had done, but a sense of dread had grown in him over the years. His desire to flee the town before 3:14 struck, although never successful, was a result of him slowly beginning to understand the nature of the demon that controlled him.