by Ania Ahlborn
When Richard realized Jeff wasn’t backing off, he grabbed Avis by the arms and shoved her forward, hopeful that the sudden move would throw Jeffrey off. Or, perhaps, that she’d impale herself on Claire’s biggest kitchen knife. In the throes of such tragedy, he and his wife would be able to make a break for it.
But Jeff simply sidestepped Avis as she tumbled to the floor with a muffled cry. He caught Richard by the forearm and sank the blade into his neck, just below his Adam’s apple.
Claire’s scream was at full volume as Avis scrambled away from the arterial spray like a cat spooked by a loud and sudden noise. Richard collapsed onto the floor as Avis scurried toward the hall, gasping, unable to believe her eyes.
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Jeffrey spoke calmly, ignoring Claire’s wailing. “Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed.” His attention shifted to Claire. “And have pierced themselves through . . .” He jerked the knife out of Richard’s throat. A lake of blood bloomed at his feet.
Claire fell to her knees, groping at her husband’s neck, trying to put the blood that was pouring from his wound back into his body. Richard’s mouth opened and closed as he gasped for air, each attempt only drawing more blood down his throat. Within seconds, his gasps turned into wet gurgling. Claire’s screams grew worse—bad enough to have Jeff shooting his brothers and sisters a look. If she kept howling the way she was, someone was liable to hear her.
“Shut her up,” he told them. The girls were the first to fall upon her. Sunnie and Lily tore at her hair. Clover held her arms. Gypsy shoved a wadded-up dishrag into Claire’s mouth. They dragged her away from Richard’s body, his blood streaking across the carpet in wide, impressionistic arcs.
And then Jeffrey turned to Avis and held out the knife.
“Your turn,” he said.
Avis stared disbelieving at the blade. Richard’s blood dripped from its razored edge. She shook her head, not understanding, refusing to understand. There was no way. Jeff couldn’t be asking her to do this. But before she could convince herself that she was seeing things, that she was making the whole scenario up in her head—nothing but a side effect of skipping her meds—Jeffrey grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her to her feet, forcing the knife into her hand.
“We sacrifice ourselves for each other,” he said. “Our lives mean nothing separately. Together, we are eternal.”
She shook her head frantically, jerked her arm out of Jeff’s grasp, and threw the knife down, revolted by the blood that was now smeared across her palm. “No,” she whispered, her gaze jumping to the girls, to Claire, to the way her struggle had gone from panicked strength to resolved weakness. Claire was giving up. She had hardly fought, and already she was ready to fold, much like Avis. She had struggled to be part of the family, and now she was ready to run as fast and as far away from them as her legs would allow. But she wouldn’t manage to make it through the front door. Shooting a wild-eyed glance at her surroundings, she saw that the boys had moved to block off potential points of exit. She looked to Deacon, imploring him for help. From the first day she’d met him on the beach, she’d always considered him a friend. And yet Deacon didn’t make a move to protect her. How could he allow this to happen? What had happened to peace and love? What had happened to the euphoria he’d promised her she’d find? She wasn’t Avis, she wasn’t.
“Why are you doing this?” Her gaze jumped from one face to the other. “Why are you doing this?!” She spun around to look back at Jeffrey only to find that Maggie was next to him again. She had picked up the knife.
“Maggie . . .” She wept the name. Maggie, her one true friend. The friend that should have been enough but wasn’t. The friend Audra would have abandoned had Maggie not forced her way into the group. The friend she resented despite all she had done.
“Maggie,” she whispered again. Maggie gave her a sad sort of smile and stepped forward. She took Audra by the hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“This is what you wanted,” Maggie reminded her. “You have to have faith.”
“No.” She shook her head again. “No. I don’t want it anymore.”
Maggie looked to Jeff. Audra turned her attention to him as well.
“I don’t want it anymore!” she cried. “You can’t make me do th—”
She didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. Maggie turned back to her in a flash, pressed the knife into Audra’s hand, and shoved Audra toward Claire. The blade sank into Claire’s shoulder, giving rise to a muffled scream. Claire thrashed against her captors, choked against her gag. Audra tried to reel away, her own scream now mingling with the home owner’s dampened one. But before she could wrench her arm out of Maggie’s grasp, the boys swept in. Kenzie and Noah grabbed her left arm while Deacon aided Maggie on the right.
Jeff stepped into Audra’s view, canted his head to the side, and gave her a thoughtful look.
“You’re weak,” he said. “But fear is to be expected, Avis. You’ve always been weak, and the weak are afraid of everything.”
She fought against the hands that held her, but it was useless. She couldn’t move.
“You see, they were all weak,” Jeff said, motioning to the people who surrounded her, who held her and the thrashing, sobbing Claire. “But the weak can be taught to be strong. You have to push through the fear, Avis, push through the darkness. We’re all born weeping and afraid. Sometimes we must be thrust into fearlessness by the hand of another. Only then will we truly learn to live.”
She could hardly breathe. Jeffrey reached out and wrapped his fingers over her own, securing the knife she so desperately wanted to toss aside a second time, forced to keep it in her grasp by Maggie’s unwavering hand. His fingers closed tight over Audra’s fist, the hilt of the knife biting into the meat of her palm.
“You are the mother of The Child,” he said.
“The child is the key,” the group called back in unison, making Audra jump at their communal response.
“You cannot fear what must be done,” Jeffrey told her.
“Life brings death brings life,” they chanted.
“Life brings death,” Jeff repeated. “Death brings life. Bring death,” he said, guiding the knife in Audra’s hand toward Claire, who was being hefted up onto her knees by the girls.
“Bring death,” he said as Claire began to scream again, Gypsy and Clover drawing the woman toward Audra while Avis was forced forward by the boys. “Bring death,” he said a third time, his own hand guiding hers as the blade cut the beginning of a blooming red line just beneath Claire’s left ear. “Death is the beginning of eternity, Avis. Life is merely temporary.”
47
* * *
LUCAS SPENT A good fifteen minutes on the phone with the emergency dispatcher. He described the vandalism inside the house and reported the Maxima as stolen.
“I’m sorry, what year did you say the car was manufactured?” The 911 operator sounded unsure of herself.
“Jesus Christ, it’s a 2011.”
“. . . 2011,” she said steadily. “Sir, is everything all right?”
“No, everything is not all right,” he snapped. “How could it possibly be all right? I told you, someone was in my house. Someone may still be in my house. And my car has been stolen. How does that sound all right?” Jeanie made eyes at him. Dad, cool it. He took a breath and tried to take it down a notch. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I’m freaking out. Are you sending someone or what?”
“An officer will be out shortly to take a statement and file a report.”
“What about the people?”
“The people, sir?” The connection was bad. Tinny. The dispatcher sounded far away, underwater. Fucking phone, he thought. Maybe if it wasn’t such a cheap piece of crap, he would have gotten Mark’s messages. Lucas was sure that his cell’s shitty quality was the reason Mark’s dozen or so voic
e mails had been lost to the void.
“The people who may still be in the house,” Lucas clarified, trying to keep it together. He pressed his phone so hard against his ear it was a wonder it didn’t affix itself to his skull.
“Please do not go inside the home until an officer arrives, sir,” the dispatcher told him. Lucas seethed and ended the call.
Jeanie watched him with wary eyes. “You really think they’re still in there?” she asked, shifting her weight from one bare foot to another. Something about the way she was standing rubbed him the wrong way. It was almost as though she didn’t believe him despite how amped up he was. I’m not fucking crazy, he thought. Someone had stacked the furniture up to the goddamn ceiling, and unless they’d also spiked his coffee with LSD, he hadn’t hallucinated it.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Probably not if they’re smart.” And they had to be, because how did someone get around an installed alarm like that? Maybe you didn’t hear it go off, just like you didn’t hear your phone ring for the past week or so. No, that was ridiculous. The problem wasn’t him, it was whoever had broken into the house. These were professionals. Or maybe the alarm install guy missed one of the windows? Who knew what kind of Mickey Mouse certification was required to wire those things. There were all sorts of possibilities, none of which had anything to do with him.
“What did they do?” Jeanie glanced to the wide-open front door. The house alarm had silenced itself after its ten-minute earsplitting screech, but the panel continued to blink red in warning just inside the foyer. Lucas couldn’t stop staring at it. If he had been a superstitious man, he may have taken that flashing red light as a sign—don’t go back in there. Instead, each bright blink was like a matador waving a flag in front of an ornery bull. He felt violated. Threatened. The panel’s insistence was only making him want to rage that much more. He wanted to tear it from the wall and stomp it beneath his feet. Lousy, worthless piece of shit. Maybe the alarm was on the fritz just like his phone. Or this place sat on some weird magnetic ley line that screwed with all the electronics.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, turning his attention from the door to his kid. “It’s going to be okay. The police will be here soon.” But his response did little to satiate Jeanie’s curiosity. She frowned at him, then crossed her arms over her chest.
“How did you know someone was in the house, Dad? Did you see them?”
There it was again, that doubt. Don’t question me, he wanted to sneer. Her sudden lack of faith ticked him off. But the longer he stayed silent, the more aggravated she appeared. He exhaled and rolled his eyes up toward the star-spangled sky.
“Did they, like, steal something? Other than the car, I mean?”
“I don’t know, but they rearranged the furniture for some stupid reason. Stacked it up to the ceiling.”
Jeanie’s eyes went wide. She blinked a few times, went pale as milk. A second later she was squaring her shoulders and trying to disguise her surprise. “Well, if they didn’t come after us . . . that means they aren’t going to, right? Besides, if they took the car, the cops are going to be looking for them. They’d be stupid to come around here again.”
She made a move toward the front door, but Lucas caught her by the wrist to stop her. “Jeanie,” he said. “Don’t.” She gave him a look that he read easily. Didn’t you just hear what I said? She was fearless, unconvinced. Again, Lucas wanted to bark at her. Since when was she so goddamn defiant? But he managed to steady his nerves. Whoever had broken in must have taken off. The police would be arriving at any minute. Staying inside would have been insane.
Reluctantly, he followed Jeanie back into the house, but he stopped short just beyond the foyer. Jeanie was staring ahead at the living room. It was in perfect order. Not a stick of furniture was rearranged. Nothing was out of place.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he murmured.
Jeanie’s face was a reflection of how he felt. But rather than staying at his side like a feeder fish, she stepped farther into the living room, as if wanting to make sure what they were seeing wasn’t a trick of the light.
Lucas followed his daughter’s lead, but he did so with a decent amount of hesitation. He was trying to keep his suspicions grounded in reality, doing his damnedest not to let his mind wander toward the kind of stuff his twelve-year-old kid had been researching at Barnes & Noble.
This wasn’t paranormal. It was nothing but an asshole or two not having anything better to do. But the more he inspected the room for flaws, the more mind-bending the whole thing became.
Crouching down next to one of the armchairs, he gave it a little shove. The chair skipped on the carpet, leaving a perfect indentation of its footprint on the rug. If this was the work of a bunch of stupid kids, they had been pretty damn careful when it came to putting everything back the way they had found it. Except that it had been dark in the living room. How the hell had they been able to match up those indentations without any light?
And Lucas and Jeanie had been right outside.
Lucas shook his head. He pulled his cell out of his pocket, stared at a missed text message he hadn’t heard come in. Josh Morales.
We should talk.
Halcomb’s dead.
See you soon? J.
Lucas’s mouth went dry.
“Dad?”
Josh was working Marty’s beat. That put Josh next to Halcomb during the time of his death. What if Josh had seen the body? What if Josh had been there, and now he was home by himself, drinking, thinking about how an inmate had killed himself on his watch? What if he had done what Marty had sarcastically suggested and quizzed Halcomb on his beliefs?
What if it’s true? The stuff Halcomb is saying, the stuff about eternal life?
“Dad?”
“What?!” He shot her a glare.
Jeanie gaped at him, took a backward step. “Jeez, I just wanted to know if I can go back upstairs.”
“No.” His reply was instant. He cleared Morales’s text and reconnected his most recent emergency call.
“God,” he could hear his kid mutter. “Why are you suddenly such a jerk?”
The dispatcher was different this time. She sounded clearer, more alert than the first. “Nine one one, what’s your emergency?”
“Hi,” he said through gritted teeth. “My name is Lucas Graham, I called a few minutes ago. One oh one Montlake Road. Where are you guys?”
He heard the clackity-clack of a computer keyboard, and then the dispatcher spoke up again. “Are you calling from the same location, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a cell phone?”
“Yes.” He was trying not to yell. “Same location, same phone.”
More tapping, a long pause, then: “I’m not showing any record of you calling dispatch regarding this location.”
“What?” Lucas glared at the carpet. “How incompetent can you . . . look, I just hung up with you guys.”
“What’s the situation, sir?”
He clenched his jaw, hating her nonchalant tone. He knew dispatchers were trained to sound cool under pressure, but he was angry at her for it nevertheless. He was angry at everything, everyone.
“There’s been a break-in,” he explained once more, feigning patience, his tone edged with contempt. “My car has been stolen. It’s a white Nissan Maxima with New York plates. Is someone coming out here or not?”
“I’ll send out an officer to take a statement and draw up a report.”
“The first dispatcher already did that.”
Clickity-clack. Silence. Then: “Yes, sir.”
“What?”
“Yes,” she repeated. “An officer will be there soon.”
Lucas shook his head, confused. “Another one, or just—okay, never mind. I just wanted to add to my original call, so I can aid you people in understanding what the h
ell is going on. Someone broke into my house and then came back inside and undid what they did.”
“What they did, Mr. Graham?” He could hear her confusion growing just like his. “Sir,” she said. “Has there been an accident?”
He almost laughed. This was ridiculous. “No. A break-in and a stolen car.”
“And they . . . undid something?”
“They undid the vandalism.”
“The vandalism is gone, sir?”
Jeanie stared at her dad, listening to only one side of the conversation. Lucas shoved his fingers through his hair and exhaled a rough sigh. “Yes, just . . . send someone over as soon as possible, all right? There may still be someone on the property. Actually, I’m almost positive there is.”
“Then you should leave the property, sir.”
“And go where?”
“I suggest you at least get in your car and lock the doors, turn on the headlights, and keep your cell phone charged.”
“Are you not hearing me? They stole my car.”
“Are you alone, sir?”
“No, I’m with my daughter.”
“Is she a minor?”
“She’s twelve. I don’t see what that has to—”
“Sir?” She cut him off. “In the interest of your daughter’s safety, you should head to your nearest neighbor’s residence and wait for dispatch to arrive.”
That’s it. Enough.
He let fly.
“My nearest neighbor lives over a mile away,” he snapped. “I live in a house that draws these . . . these freaks to it, see? It’s the house Jeffrey Halcomb lived in . . .” He didn’t know why he was going into detail, only that he couldn’t help himself, that he’d held it in too long. It didn’t matter that Jeanie was staring at him with her big green eyes or if she got scared because they were leaving. His life was over. All that was left was to pack up his shit and go. “Halcomb is dead.” He spit the words out like something foul. “He killed himself in prison today and I think they know, and now they’re here for us, do you understand? They’re here because of the house and I don’t know what the fuck to do.”