by A. R. Wise
Kyle looked at Jacker and smiled. A flash of green light illuminated the night sky as the teen started to laugh. “I see you now, Hank Waxman.”
Jacker slammed the boy into the wall again and heard his skull split. Dark red blood sprayed out of the gaping wound on the side of Kyle’s head, but the boy still laughed.
“I see you, Hank Waxman!”
Again, Jacker crushed the boy’s skull against the wall, and again the boy laughed. There were specks of white bone in the pulp of flesh on the side of Kyle’s head now, and Jacker sent the teen’s skull into the wall to do even more damage.
“I see you, Hank Waxman!”
Kyle’s voice was marred by the flaps of skin that drooped off the side of his head. Meat and bone, broken teeth and a swollen tongue, molars and blood, and two eyes still staring up at him.
“I see you, Hank Waxman!”
Jacker backed away.
“I see you, Hank Waxman!”
Kyle crawled toward him, his head broken and dripping, his brain pulsing beneath the gore. He reached out for him, but Jacker turned and ran.
“I see you, Hank Waxman!”
Jacker awoke, his head mopped with sweat, and struggled to breathe. He gasped and clutched his throat, then reached down to wake Aubrey. She was startled and turned to see what was wrong.
“We’ve got to go,” said Jacker. “Now. Right now.”
“Has the sun gone down?” she asked and looked over at the drawn shade.
“I don’t care. We have to go, right now.” Jacker got out of bed and started to put his clothes on.
Aubrey was nude, and pulled the cover over herself. “What’s got you so spooked?”
“This place,” said Jacker. “We’ve got to go. I’m going with or without you.”
“Boy, you’re a real love-them-and-leave-them type,” said Aubrey in a frail attempt to make a joke.
“Look, babe,” said Jacker as he tried to compose himself. He was sweating profusely, and wiped his brow off on his sleeve. “I’m not an idiot. I know Stephen paid you to sleep with me. So you can quit the charade.”
“You knew?” asked Aubrey as she slipped her bra back on.
Jacker rolled his eyes as he searched the pockets of his jacket for a Valium. “Girls like you don’t go for guys like me.”
“That’s not true,” said Aubrey as she continued to scavenge for her clothes. “You look a lot like my fiancé.”
Jacker cringed and scowled down at her. Aubrey was on her back on the bed, with her butt raised as she pulled her underwear on.
“You’ve got a fiance? Christ.” He shook his head before popping a pill and swallowing it without anything to drink. “I’m going downstairs.”
“Okay, for crying out loud. Give me a second to get my clothes on.”
“Hurry up,” said Jacker as he left the room.
He went downstairs and found the others. Paul and Alma were in the living room, while Stephen and Rachel were in the kitchen.
“Hey big guy,” said Stephen. “Did you unwrap your present up there?”
“I’m leaving.” Jacker wasn’t interested in Stephen’s banter. He grabbed his wallet and keys, which he’d left on the counter, and headed for the door.
“Jesus,” said Rachel. “What happened.”
Jacker stopped and looked at Alma. “You need to leave.” Then he looked at the rest of them. “You all need to leave. Don’t stay here. You don’t want to be here when he comes for you.”
“Who?” asked Paul.
“I don’t know!” Jacker was still sweating and swiped his brow. He was panicked, and his heart thumped hard enough that he could feel it in his throat. The Valium had scratched its way down his throat, and he could still taste it as he tried to turn the water on in the sink to no avail.
Paul came over to him and pointed to the door. “Go outside with me. I want to talk to you.”
“Be careful, guys,” said Stephen. “The sun’s not all the way down. Don’t get caught.”
Paul walked with Jacker out into the yard. Then he took his friend by the arm and spun him around in anger. “What have you been using?”
“What?” asked Jacker.
“You’re high. What did you and that slut do up there?”
“I’m not high.”
“Bullshit,” said Paul. “I can fucking smell it. What was it? Meth? Were you two smoking meth up there?”
“Get the fuck off me.” Jacker pushed Paul away. “I’m not high.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? I can smell it. I smelled it ever since you went up there. I know you were cheating with her.”
Jacker was confused and angry. “What? I’m not high.” He took Paul’s sobriety coin out of his pocket and threw it at his friend.
Paul caught the token and clasped his fist around it. “You’re a cheater.”
“I had some drinks with Stephen,” said Jacker. “There. You happy? You caught me. I’m not as good as you. Okay? And I’ve been taking pain meds too. I’m an addict. Okay? I can’t stop. I’d kill for a fucking drink right now.”
“I’m not talking about drinking,” said Paul. “You cheated on her.”
“On who?” asked Jacker, abashed.
Paul stopped and his posture relaxed. “I don’t know,” he admitted as if worried by his own addled thoughts. He put his hand on his head and backed away as he repeated, “I don’t know.”
“It’s this place, man,” said Jacker. “I don’t know what’s going on in there, but it’s not good. That place screws with your head. Do yourself a favor and get as far away from it as you can.”
“I’m not leaving Alma,” said Paul. “I have to protect her.”
“Then you’re going to have to figure out a way to get her away from here. You’ve got to. You’re not ready for what’s happening here. No one is.”
The front door opened as Aubrey came out. “Everything okay?”
Jacker chuckled and shook his head. “No, not at all. Come on, we’re leaving.”
Paul grabbed Jacker’s shoulder. “Come here, man.” They embraced, and Paul placed his sobriety token back in Jacker’s hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. Be careful out there. I love you, man. I need you safe and sound, and sober.”
“Thanks brother,” said Jacker. “I’ll be fine.”
Aubrey took Jacker’s hand as they headed up the hill, away from the cabin. Jacker saw Paul going back inside, and felt sorry for him. As much as he wanted Paul safe, he knew that his friend would never leave Alma. He’d worked too hard to get her back, and loved her too much to leave her here.
Aubrey and Jacker ran back toward the elementary school. Aubrey led the way, promising that she knew another way out of the cursed town.
They stayed quiet as they went, and reached the middle school quickly. They weren’t worried about the figures in the building now that they knew someone had set up mannequins around town. They stayed close to the school to use it as cover as they snuck toward the park on the other side of the high school. A few security trucks passed, still blaring the warning to Hank Waxman about involving the police, and about how they knew he was a wanted man.
“This is it,” said Aubrey as they reached the park. There was a small playground that was now dilapidated, the once colorful plastic slides weathered and dingy. Past the playground stretched a wide, grassy park.
“It’s on the other side of the park,” said Aubrey. “There’s a ditch that runs up to the fence. We’ll have to crawl through the drainage pipe, but then we’ll be out. The grass is pretty tall out there. If the security trucks come, we can just lay down to stay out of sight.”
They stayed low as they ran across the playground and into the grassy park. They had to lay down once as a truck drove along the road near them, but it passed without incident and they quickened their pace through the field.
“This is it,” said Aubrey as they got closer to the fence. “I can’t believe we made it.” She pulled Jacker down so that she could ki
ss his cheek. “Let’s get out of this place.”
Someone pumped a shotgun.
“Thought you might try to get out this way,” said a man’s voice. Three men rose up from the weeds near the ditch, each holding a gun.
“Oh fuck,” said Aubrey as she put her hands in the air.
“Turn around and get on your knees,” said the tallest of the three men. He had a grey beard and a barrel chest. His gruff voice sounded tortured by a lifetime of smoking.
“Fuck you,” said Jacker. “Go ahead and call the cops. You can’t threaten us.”
“Son, I’m ten seconds away from shutting you up for good,” said the guard. “You found your way onto private property, boy. By law, I can put a bullet in you. Hell, kid, that’s my job. Now do as I say and get on your knees.”
Jacker and Aubrey obeyed and the guards swiftly patted them down. After the men were convinced that the trespassers weren’t armed, the older guard put a pistol to the back of Aubrey’s head. The girl cringed and started to weep as she pleaded for her life.
“If you hurt her, I swear to God…”
“What?” asked the guard. “You’ll try to fight me? Who do you think’s going to win that little scuffle? Huh, Mr. Waxman?”
“So you know who I am? Big deal. Call the cops and get this over with,” said Jacker.
“Not yet. First, I want to talk about your friends. Where are they?”
“It’s just us,” said Jacker. “We came alone.”
“Now you’re just pissing me off,” said the guard. “We found your van, and the motorcycle. We know there’re more of you here. We’ve got everyone’s luggage. Unless you’re trying to tell me you wear an awful lot of lady’s underwear.”
Jacker sneered back at the guard. “What can I say? I’m a freak.”
“Aw screw it,” said the guard as he put his pistol to the back of Jacker’s head. “Say good night, fat ass.”
“I’ll tell you where they are,” said Aubrey. “Just don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt any of us.”
“Aubrey, shut up,” said Jacker.
“No! This isn’t worth dying over. Don’t be crazy.”
“All right,” said the guard as he lowered his gun. “You should thank your little girlfriend. She just saved your life. Now get up. We’re going to go get your friends.”
Widowsfield
March 14th, 1996
“Why are they coming back?” asked The Skeleton Man.
“Who?” asked Raymond.
“The fat one and the whore. They’re coming back.”
Raymond looked down the road, in the direction that The Skeleton Man pointed, and saw nothing but fog. “I don’t see anyone.”
“We have to do something. We have to save my sister.”
Raymond looked in through the window at the crying girl in the kitchen of the cabin. He suddenly understood who it was that he’d been watching. “That girl is your sister? Then, is the boy you?”
The Skeleton Man was crying, the tears seeping through the mess of blood and sagging flesh that decorated his skull – skin pulled from past victims that the demon had placed over his face to hide the bone.
“If they take her, I’ll never be free.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
“I have to find the one that loves her. He’s here. I can feel how much he cares for her. He’s the only one that can stop this.” The Skeleton Man took Raymond’s hand. “We’re going to have to go inside. You’re going to have to find your sister while I talk to the one that loves Alma. You have to keep your sister away from me.”
The door of the cabin creaked as the fog pressed into it. Then the wood warped and the door blew backward as the children inside screamed. The Skeleton Man went in first, and then disappeared within the surging fog. Raymond ran in after, still unsure what he was supposed to do.
“Raymond?” asked Ben when he saw the boy enter. “What are you doing here?”
“Where’s my sister?” asked Raymond.
Alma was sobbing as she pointed up the stairs. “She’s up there, but you can’t go up.”
“What? Why?” asked Raymond.
Ben had on a pair of oven mitts and was holding a steaming pot of boiling water.
“What’s going on down there?” asked a man’s voice. Raymond recognized the hateful voice, but it had been a long time since he’d heard it.
A gaunt man, soaking wet with sweat, appeared on the stairs. His beady eyes caught sight of Raymond and the man froze.
“What are you doing here?”
“Run, Raymond!” Alma screamed.
Her father was too fast and Raymond collapsed onto the concrete as the man tackled him. Michael Harper had grabbed a knife off the kitchen counter and started to cut at Raymond with it. Raymond felt himself being turned, and then an intense pressure in his gut. The knife entering his stomach was a surprise, but no worse than the pain Raymond had experienced any of the other times he died. He felt his hands grow cold as Alma’s father dragged his body back into the cabin.
“Shut up, Alma!” he screamed as he dragged Raymond inside.
That’s when the altered past dissipated, and Raymond saw The Skeleton Man again. He was standing near another man, who was tall and had a shaved head. The Skeleton Man had his hands on the stranger’s shoulders and was whispering in his ear. There was a tattoo of a snake on the side of the man’s head, right beside where The Skeleton Man was whispering.
A woman’s voice screamed from upstairs and Raymond shifted his head to look. He recognized his sister’s pained cries. “Terry?” asked Raymond as he looked up the stairs. “Did he kill you too?”
“Keep her away from me,” said The Skeleton Man.
The fog thickened, and the electricity zapped the walls. Raymond was living in two times at once, and saw both visions independently. He could see Alma as a child, and as an adult, and he knew that his sister was dying upstairs, while at the same time existing as a tortured soul, just like everyone else in the town. He looked up the stairs and saw Terry’s mangled corpse begin to crawl down.
She was nude, and she was soaked with water and blood. Her innards slid down the wooden steps, slopping across each step as she descended on her belly. Her face was shredded, and her hair was falling out in clumps of gooey blood, revealing her white skull beneath. Her left eye was falling from its socket, and her face looked like it was melting. She wailed, and continued down the stairs, focused on The Skeleton Man.
“Terry!” Raymond was no longer trapped inside his body, but was a member of the mist, swirling and experiencing every emotion that existed in every mind among those gathered in the cabin. The fog was terrified of Terry, and avoided her as it swelled within the rest of the cabin.
Raymond looked down at his corpse and then at the children that cried as their father murdered another person. He could see his sister’s wailing spirit sliding down the stairs. “You have to stop, Terry.”
“Murderer!” Her teeth were loose in her gums, as if someone had been trying to pry them free. “I’ll slaughter them, all of them. I found them!”
Raymond had to force himself away from the rest of the fog, undeterred by their fear of his sister. A wisp of mist flung out of the fog like a tentacle from beneath the waves, and Raymond willed himself to reach out to Terry. The tentacle of mist wrapped around his sister to keep her from going down the stairs any further. He was able to hold her back, but her skin was sliding off her bones. He had to hook the mist through her rib cage to restrain her.
“I love you, Terry,” said Raymond. “Dad and I loved you so much. It hurt us so bad to watch you do this to yourself. We never stopped loving you.”
“Let me go!” Terry’s bones cracked as she continued to try and crawl down the stairs.
“Stay with me, Terry.”
“I hate them!”
“I love you.”
“Hate…”
CHAPTER 20 - Ben’s Secret
March 12th, 2012
Paul saw the sec
urity truck first and warned the others to get down. The yellow lights illuminated the living room, casting their eerie shadows throughout the cabin, but didn’t pass this time. The truck had parked in front of the house.
“Oh shit,” said Stephen. “They must’ve found Jacker and Aubrey.”
A loud, gruff voice crackled to life outside, amplified by a loudspeaker on the security truck. “Alma, Paul, Stephen, and Rachel, please exit the house. We know you’re in there. We don’t want any trouble. If you come out, we’ll escort you off the premises. No harm no foul. Okay?”
“Game’s up,” said Rachel. “We don’t have a choice.”
“I need to stay,” said Alma. “I need to find out what happened to Ben.”
“Alma, we don’t have a choice,” said Paul. “They caught us.”
“No!” Alma pushed her way out of Paul’s arms and ran to the kitchen. She pulled a steak knife out of a butcher’s block. It was old and rusted, but she placed it against her palm and cut herself.
“Alma, stop it!” Paul tried to run to her, but she swiped the blade at him.
“No, you’re not stopping me from doing this. No one is! I don’t want to be protected from this.” She fell to her knees as her palm gushed blood, and pressed her hand against the white tile. Alma used her blood to scrawl ‘314’ on the floor and then sat back as she stared at it. “I don’t care if it’s too soon. I have to try.”
“Holy shit,” said Stephen. “What is she doing?”
“Alma, stop it,” said Paul.
“Get away from me! Leave me alone.” She stared down at the number and started to hum in an attempt to focus. She rocked back and forth on her knees as her hand bled in her lap.
Paul was going to try and stop her. He reached out, but then stopped. He caught sight of the number on the floor and his body froze. He felt a bone-chilling cold on both shoulders. Something had its hands on him, and he could feel the fingers wrap around his clavicles. Then the chattering began, a sound so distinctive that Paul could almost sense the teeth hitting one another.
“I’m going to show you,” said the voice behind the chattering teeth.