by Hart, Jerry
“What’s going on?” Erin asked.
“Conner’s always been afraid of storms. Me too, a little, but not nearly as much as him. I think now’s our best chance of leaving the house. He won’t follow.”
“Are we still going out the window?”
“No. We can get to the front doors. He won’t bother us.”
“How do you know?”
Jordan suddenly wondered that same thing. Conner could easily be waiting for the perfect opportunity to grab them as they passed. But he wouldn’t be. Conner always went somewhere safe during storms. Somewhere the lightning could never reach him.
Once, he had found Conner hiding in a hole he had dug in Jordan’s closet, one Jordan had never told Dad about—
“Oh, Jesus!” Jordan said as he turned.
“What?” Erin asked just as the closet door banged open.
A snarling creature rushed out of it and toward them. Jordan had just enough time to grab the chair from the door and slam it against Conner. Jordan opened the door, grabbed Erin’s hand, and raced out of the room, slamming the door behind them. They ran down the long hall, to the stairs. Jordan could hear the bedroom door opening again, the hands and feet—the claws—on the hard non-carpeted floor. By then, however, the two teens were already moving the dining table away from the front door. Jordan looked up and saw Conner hopping down the stairs on all fours. The table moved at an unbelievably slow pace, but it was enough to crack the door open.
“Go!” He shoved Erin through the crack. That was all he had enough time to do before he was yanked away. He saw Erin lying on the porch just before the door slammed shut between them.
Chapter 15
Erin jumped to her feet, only vaguely aware of the torrent of rain falling behind her. She tried to open the front door but found it locked. She ran to the bay window next to it but could see nothing of the inside of the house because of the thick curtains. “Jordan!”
She looked around for something to break the window with when she saw a car driving up the street toward her. The rain was thick, and she could only see the car’s headlights. She felt a ray of hope for some reason, though she had no idea who was driving the car.
It was coming toward her, however.
She ran into the street, waving her arms to get the driver’s attention. The car stopped in front of her, directly in the center of the circle, and the driver’s-side door opened. The streetlamps seemed dim because of the rain, so she still could not tell who was standing there.
“Erin?” the driver called.
It was Mr. Scott, Jordan’s father.
She ran to him, gripping him tightly around the waist. She was so relieved, she couldn’t speak. Finally, she regained her voice and said, “Conner tried to kill us. Jordan is trapped inside.”
She looked up at his face and saw him staring directly at the house, as if she wasn’t even there. She let him go and he immediately ran toward his house, first trying the front door and finding it locked, same as she. He then grabbed a potted plant hanging from the porch canopy and hurled it into the bay window.
Mr. Scott turned to her and said, “Stay in the car!”
She barely heard him because of the rainfall, but she heard enough. She jumped into his car and locked the doors.
* * *
Don stepped into the house and immediately smelled the rotten odor of decay. It was the same smell he noticed at the hotel, and in the cave of the beasts. He breathed through his mouth as he stepped through the living room, the broken glass crunching beneath his feet. That sound was like fireworks in the quiet house. He waited for someone to come barreling toward him.
No one came.
“Jordan? Conner?” No response. He took a few steps toward the den below. He thought he saw a shadow walking away.
He took the few steps down into the den and looked right, toward his office. His door was open, so he made his way toward it. Inside, he saw his file cabinet standing in the middle of the office. The fireplace partition was open and covered with blood. What in the hell happened here?
“Jordan!” he screamed into the seemingly empty house. He greatly feared for his son’s safety and not finding him—only his blood—made his heart hammer in his chest.
He heard something just then. It sounded like air coming from the vent in his office. It was as soft as a...whisper. It was a whisper. He ran to the vent, leaned down, pressed his ear to it.
“Daddy.”
Jordan. Upstairs. In Conner’s room.
Don raced out of the office and headed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.
* * *
Erin grew colder the longer she waited in Mr. Scott’s car. The rain slowed, the lightning pretty much ceased, and all the windows fogged up. She shivered, but not from the cold. She would never forget the events of tonight. Though Jordan had told her his family secrets, she still couldn’t believe what she’d seen. She couldn’t make sense of any of it.
As much as she cared for Jordan, she also cared about Travis. Conner did something to him and only he could undo it. No matter what happened to her tonight, she would make sure Travis was cured. Even if it meant hurting Conner.
She wished she had her cell phone, but she didn’t want to go back in that house just to look for it. The car’s headlights shone on the front of the house, on the broken bay window, but she couldn’t see anything inside because of the fog and the curtains. The windshield wipers were on but did nothing for the fog, so she turned on the vents. The fog slowly lifted, but not fast enough, so she wiped the windshield with her sleeve.
That was when she noticed something standing just outside the driver’s-side door. She screamed and then cut it short by covering her mouth. Someone was staring back at her, but she couldn’t tell who. She didn’t want to wipe the window to see, so she waited.
The figure began walking away, toward the house. Once it got to the front of the car, she saw it in the headlights.
“Oh, my god,” Erin whispered. She wanted to honk the horn to warn Mr. Scott. Instead, she simply waited.
* * *
Don made his way up the stairs to the second floor. That long hallway seemed more imposing than ever before. He passed his room, on his way to his son’s and nephew’s rooms. Conner’s was on the right, just above Don’s office. Jordan’s, which was across the hall, had the door wide open.
Don heard a voice coming from that room.
He peeked into the room and saw his son facing away from him, crying and mumbling. Jordan rocked back and forth. Conner was lying on his back just in front of his cousin, his eyes closed.
“Boys?” Don called.
They didn’t respond. Not at first, anyway.
“Why, Daddy?” Jordan said between sobs. “Why didn’t you tell me what was wrong with us?”
Don felt like his heart was breaking. “I didn’t want to scare you. I tried to fix it. I thought I had. I’m sorry.”
Conner’s eyes were still closed. Don couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or...dead.
“I know what you did to your brother,” Jordan said. “I know you killed him because you thought there was still something wrong with him. Even though he said he was all right. You still killed him.” Just then, a large kitchen knife appeared in Jordan’s hand. He placed it just above Conner’s heart. “I need to kill Conner so he can’t hurt us anymore.”
Don’s breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak. His eyes grew so wide they almost popped out of his head. “No!” he barely managed to say. He couldn’t move.
Jordan turned his head slightly so that Don could see his face in profile. “But you did it to Uncle Ethan. Conner tried to kill Erin and me. You can’t save him.”
Don couldn’t believe it was his son speaking, didn’t believe it. These weren’t his words. That wasn’t his face. Those weren’t his eyes. “Which one are you?” he asked the thing in front of him. The thing controlling his son.
The right side of the boy’s lips lifted up. “Does it m
atter? I have your son, and there’s only one reason why.”
Don knew that reason. “He killed someone.”
The boy’s head nodded. “Your neighbor Mr. Leper.”
That hit Don hard. “Mr. Leper was a murderer,” he whispered.
“Really? Your son didn’t know that. But he still killed him. Because we whispered in his ear that he should. The rest was up to him.”
Don didn’t want to hear this confession, but he also couldn’t stop himself from listening.
A noise behind caught his attention from this horrible scene. He turned his head and saw someone standing there.
The woman actually had a recording device held in front of her. Diedre Marshall had heard everything, and she had proof. Don felt rage suddenly come to life in his gut. He was about to reach out to her, to hurt her, to do something to her, but Jordan blurred past him, ramming the reporter over the railing.
She fell out of sight.
“No!” Don shouted as he raced to the rail and looked down.
Diedre had fallen onto one of the couches. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. But she was breathing.
He turned back to the room and just saw the closet door closing. He raced to it, jerked the door open.
The closet was empty.
Don pushed clothes around and saw a large hole in the wall. He heard scuttling inside. Jordan was inside the walls. Don closed the closet door and pushed a chair against the knob. If Jordan came back, he wouldn’t be able to escape this way. Hopefully.
Don looked around the room. With the layout of the house in his mind, he knew it would be difficult to get downstairs from this side of the house; the den was directly below this room. The only real place his son could go was...up. Into the attic.
Don looked at his unconscious nephew. He didn’t know what had happened to him, but he prayed the boy stayed asleep. He then raced out of the room, closing the door behind him. He reached up to the chain to bring down the attic steps, which dropped down between Jordan’s and Conner’s rooms.
He climbed the ladder, his heart hammering in his chest.
There were a few lightbulbs set up throughout the long attic. Since he was at one end and saw nothing in that corner, he looked to the other end. He saw no one and wondered if he underestimated his son’s ability to move throughout the walls. But then he saw a hole to his right, over where Jordan’s room was. Don walked on the rafters to get to it, saw it was empty.
When he looked back to the other end of the attic, he saw his son standing there, staring at him.
“Please let my son go,” Don said.
“Why should I? He forfeited his life when he took someone else’s. I’ve earned this.”
“Time means nothing to you. Why can’t you just stay in your world? We’re not allowed in yours, and you aren’t allowed in ours.”
“We don’t truly believe that. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been provided this lovely way out. We wouldn’t have been given a chance to live other lives. Am I right?”
“You can’t have my son’s life,” Don said flatly. It was just a statement of fact.
“Well, if you want it,” said Jordan, taking a few steps back, “come and get it.”
Something took over Don at that moment. He darted toward his son. The boy simply stood there, waiting. They collided and fell backward, through the floor. Don closed his eyes and only heard the crashing around him. As they fell, he twisted in midair and landed with his back to the floor. He felt a body on top of him, and when he opened his eyes he saw his son there.
He held Jordan close to him, expecting a fight. There was none. The boy was unconscious. Don held him anyway, but not as tightly.
“You have your boy back,” said a harsh voice near the stairs. “For now, anyway.”
Don looked upside down at the figure standing at the end of the hall. He turned right-side up when he realized who it was.
His wife stood there, that jackal grin on her face. He got to his feet, leaving his son on the floor. “You’re leaving my family?” he asked, looking to his right, into Jordan’s room where Conner still lay out cold.
“No,” said Monica. “I told the others to depart so I could talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Things have gone very badly for you tonight, Donovan. We’re partly to blame, but there have been things done over the decades that had nothing to do with us. You know what I mean.”
And Don did, though he didn’t want to admit it. He’d always had a temper as a kid and had hurt people. He was not a good man, though he tried to be. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“Your life can’t go on the way it used to, not after tonight. Lives have been ruined.”
“Whose? Who else’s, I mean?”
“The friends of your children. Travis and Erin.”
“Erin is safe.” Wasn’t she?
“Not after what I did to her on the way here.” The jackal grin left Monica’s face. “I sent her to our world the way Conner did to Travis. She’ll never recover.” She shook her head slowly.
“That was you, not Monica.”
“The cops won’t see it that way, Donovan.” The grin returned. “Your only chance is to take your family and start over. But you can’t do that without us.”
At that moment, Conner and Jordan appeared behind Don. They stared at him, grinning.
“What do you want?” Don asked Monica.
“We want you back,” she said. “We can’t grab hold of you like Machiska used to when he started this whole thing. Conner hasn’t killed yet. He started to kill his mother’s boyfriend but didn’t finish, so Ivy took over. We’ve been trying to get him ever since. Him and you. You have to give yourself up willingly.”
Don was overcome with relief at that revelation. He’d been wrong about his nephew all these years. But he couldn’t think about that now. “And then what?” he asked the demon in front of him.
“We start over. As a family.”
Don looked over the railing, down at Diedre. Her eyes were still closed, but he felt as if she was listening to the entire conversation. “What about the reporter?” he asked.
“If you come with us, she’ll live. If you don’t...well, she won’t.
Don saw Diedre’s head tilt slightly when Don mentioned her. She was indeed listening. As much as he hated her, he couldn’t let her die.
But he couldn’t condemn his family to this life either.
Lightning flashed outside, thunder rumbled. He looked to the broken bay window below, the curtains flapping in the wind. He made his decision.
“I’ll give myself to you.”
Monica and the kids laughed in an alien way: a mix of human and monster.
Though he meant his words, Don didn’t know how to let them into his mind, his body. Monica’s love had saved him from being taken over all those years ago, and though Ivy’s love had done the same for Ethan, Don had seen a trace of the taint in his brother’s eyes the night he killed him.
He was about to ask the creatures how to go about letting them in when he suddenly felt a jab in his mind. His instinct told him to fight the invasion, but he forced himself to allow it in. He had to, for the sake of his family.
“For the sake of your family?” Monica asked. “How can you save your family by letting us in?”
She was reading his mind. Now that she was in, she could do that. Don had to guard his thoughts. “I was afraid you would harm them if I refused,” he said.
“We wouldn’t have done that. Do you really think that terribly of us? We would have hurt the reporter, but not your family.”
Don didn’t care for her words so he merely nodded. The intrusion spread from his brain and down his spine, infecting the rest of his body. He grew so cold he started shivering. He could smell ammonia and decay, the smell that had been with him ever since childhood.
He could hear voices in his ears. They were the voices that told him to do awful things when he was younger. He regret
ted the fact he couldn’t blame the voices for every bad thing.
Don had many regrets, his biggest being how he couldn’t undo those other regrets. He was an angry man, not unlike any other human being, but there were decisions he’d made that poisoned his soul. He deserved this punishment, but his family did not.
Don started toward Monica and the kids. Monica opened her arms, and he let her embrace him. Into her ear he whispered, “Let them go and take me.”
“We’ve missed you, Donovan,” she whispered back. She let him go and stared into his eyes. “We don’t want your family; just you. We can start over with just you.” She sounded like a mother soothing her child.
At that moment, Monica, Jordan and Conner collapsed to the floor. Don stared at the three of them for a whole minute before walking down the stairs into the living room. Once he got there, he looked to his left and saw Diedre sitting up on the couch. She looked frightened and excited at the same time.
“Your face....” she muttered.
“I know you’re going to write about this,” he said to her, ignoring her words. He knew what his face looked like—that jackal grin. “Leave my family out of it. Write what you want about me, but leave my family out of it.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m sorry I laughed at you when you tripped on that tree root in high school.”
He could tell she had no idea what he was talking about. He nodded and headed for the front door. He pushed the dining table out of the way and reached for the door knob. Before he could, something stopped him.
What are you doing? a voice asked in his ears.
“Going outside,” he answered out loud.
Wait for the storm to pass.
“No.”
The sky demons are still about.
“They’re called gods, and I know they’re still out there.”
Don twisted the knob and opened the door. The street was flooded with rain, now that the storm had started up again. Lightning laced the sky. He stepped onto the porch, though his steps felt sluggish. It was like walking in a pool.
Stop!