“Normally, the vorghost will be at the highest point of the house,” Maynard said as they walked back to the house. “Top floor, or the attic, if there’s an attic. Since vorghosts used to be gifteds, they’re generally open to talking with us. Regular people they just scare away – or, rather, the vortex scares away. We know not to be scared, however.”
Steven glanced at Roy. Roy had a wide smile on his face, as though he was looking forward to what they were about to do. Steven didn’t share his enthusiasm.
They walked to the house and through the front door, Maynard first, then Steven. Roy pulled the door closed behind them.
The ground floor was dark. Little light made its way through the boarded up windows. Steven’s eyes began to adjust, and Roy and Maynard used their flashlights, shining them around the large living room that was completely empty of furniture. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls.
Steven glanced down a hallway and tried to see into neighboring rooms, but since he didn’t have a flashlight, he was only able to catch a glimpse of things when light from the other two made it his way. Seems normal, he thought. Nothing strange. Just an abandoned house.
“Come on,” Maynard said once he found the stairwell. “There’s no point to spending time down here. It’s upstairs.”
Steven saw carpet tack strip on the sides of the wooden stairs, the boards creaking under their weight as they ascended. Maynard and Roy had gone first, so Steven was left without much light to see by. He noticed dark stains on the walls of the stairwell. Blood? he wondered. They had a splatter to them that made him think someone had thrown something at the wall that had exploded. With each step they seemed to become larger.
“Guys,” Steven said. “You’re seeing this? On the walls?”
“It’ll get worse,” Maynard called back. “Just ignore it.”
The bouncing light ahead of him occasionally illuminated some of the wall he was passing, and now Steven could see it glistening – dark, red. He stopped and reached out, touching the large stain next to him. When he pulled his fingers back, they too contained the stain. He didn’t want to wipe it on his clothes, so he wiped them on a bare spot of the wall. They left a trail of dark matter. Definitely blood, he thought.
As he reached the second floor landing, Steven heard a scream coming from the hallway to his right. He glanced down it, but again, without his own flashlight, he couldn’t see much. There was an open door down there, and he could hear a commotion coming from it, as though someone was struggling. A metal screech filled the air, the sound of a rotary saw starting, and then another scream as the saw bit into something.
“Ignore everything,” Maynard said, looking for the stairway to the third floor.
Steven turned from the hallway and saw Maynard and Roy moving away from him, further down a different hallway. He hurried to catch up with them, noticing more blood stains on the walls. My god, he thought, the walls are practically covered with them! Another scream came from behind him, but he resisted the temptation to turn and look. He heard the saw becoming louder, as though the person holding it had left the room behind him and entered the hallway. Following me, he thought.
Maynard located the next stairway and began going up. Roy and Steven followed. Steven felt his foot slide when he placed it on the first step, and he glanced down – more blood. The stairs were covered in it.
“Guys,” Steven said. “There’s blood all over the stairs.”
“Not really,” Maynard said. “Just push through.”
Steven reached out for the handrail and felt a warm stickiness. He wanted to pull his hand from it, but was afraid he might slip on the stairs.
Maynard and Roy were several steps ahead of him. When he looked straight ahead, he could see the stairs Roy was stepping on. In horror he watched as a sheet of dark liquid fell from the step above Roy’s feet and poured down onto the stair where Roy was standing, covering his shoes. The liquid was moving rapidly and soon fell to the next step, and then the next. Steven braced himself as he continued to walk, knowing it would reach the step he was standing on within seconds. When it hit and he felt the warm thickness of it, he yelled out.
Roy turned to check on him.
“Are you seeing the same things I’m seeing?” Steven asked nervously, prying his hand from the sticky handrail and reaching further up to take another step.
“It’s too dark to see anything,” Roy replied.
“It’s not real,” Maynard called back.
“Feels real on my feet,” Steven said, trying to secure a solid foothold on the next step. “Real warm.”
“Keep moving, you two!” Maynard called from above. “Keep going, no matter what you see!”
Roy turned and continued up. Steven followed, and after a few more steps they reached the third floor landing, which was an open area. It was dark, but Steven could sense movement.
The sound of a saw starting up once again caught Steven’s attention. Roy happened to swing his light around and landed on its source. To their right, a tall man wearing a blood-soaked apron stood in front of a table saw, shoving pieces of small white wood through the spinning blade. When the wood hit, blood spattered in all directions, hitting the man in the apron, covering his face. Roy held the flashlight on the apparition long enough for Steven to see that he was mistaken about the white pieces of wood – they had small hands on one end. The man was sawing arms in half.
More screams came from down the stairwell behind him, and Steven took a step closer to Roy, not wanting to be too far from the light source. Maynard was walking into the open space, his light shining up at the ceiling, looking for access to the attic.
“Jesus Christ,” Steven said. “I’ve never seen anything this gruesome.”
Fresh splatters of dark liquid appeared on the walls of the room, without any apparent source. Steven heard a growling coming from a corner on his left, and he turned his head to see a man on his haunches, his hair matted with blood, holding a severed head between his hands. There was just enough light from the other flashlights for him to see the man raise the head to his mouth and bite out a section of the cheek, pulling the flesh until it snapped. Then he hungrily chewed it, snarling.
“Come!” Maynard called. “This way!”
Roy turned his flashlight toward Maynard, mercifully but unnervingly leaving the haunched man in the shadows. Maynard had opened a closet door. The walls inside were drenched in blood, flowing down from some indistinguishable source at the top. A wooden ladder was affixed to the wall, and it led up to a hole in the ceiling.
“Up we go,” Maynard said. With Roy’s light shining on Maynard, Steven could see Maynard’s trucker hat was soaked red. Maynard reached for the rungs of the ladder and began to climb up.
“Watch your step on this thing,” Maynard called back.
“You go,” Roy said to Steven. “I’ll follow you.”
Steven reached for the rung and felt the warm liquid under his hand, making it hard to gain a grip. He held on and pulled, stepping onto a lower rung and feeling his foot slip. Blood was pouring down the sides of the ladder, and some of it was washing over to the rungs, keeping them slick. He forced himself to climb.
Once he neared the top, he saw Maynard’s blood-covered hand extended to him, and he reached for it. He felt himself pulled up. That old man’s got some strength, Steven thought as he landed on the attic floor.
Maynard pulled Roy up the same way, and the three of them stood next to the opening. Then they turned to examine the attic.
“Lights off,” Maynard said, and took a few steps into the darkness.
Steven didn’t see anything, but then he realized that both Maynard and Roy had dropped into the River. He joined them, and was greeted by a menagerie of twisting blue and grey shapes, swirling slowly around them, counter-clockwise.
This isn’t normal, Maynard said. A normal vortex doesn’t look like this.
Steven tried to wipe his hands on his pants, but the pants were covered in blood and wou
nd up adding more blood to his hands than they removed. He glanced down at his shirt and saw it was soaked, too.
Maynard walked into the vortex, the blue and grey swirls moving through his legs. They looked like streaks of a thin cloth, without substance. It knows we’re here, Maynard said. It’s here somewhere.
Steven and Roy followed Maynard, but Steven stopped in his tracks as suddenly the dark ceiling overhead was lit with thousands of specks of light. They flashed once or twice, then remained on.
The night sky! Roy said, looking up and marveling. The stars looked bright and crisp, and almost as though you could reach up and touch them. Then they disappeared, and Steven saw the roof of the house.
Completely unstable, Maynard said, walking through a blue mist that had started to form on the ground. Steven stepped forward, heading to where Maynard was standing.
I think we’ve found it – her, that is, Maynard said, looking down at something hidden in the mist. Steven and Roy joined him.
Maynard removed a small object from his shirt pocket and flipped it open – it was a small mirror. He asked Steven to hold it at a particular angle, pointed down at the figure under the fog.
Looking for a signature? Steven asked.
Right you are! Maynard replied. Roy, if you would, I’ll need this fog disrupted so I can get a look. Would you take off your jacket and try to fan some of it away, while I look through the mirror?
Roy sat the flashlight down on the ground. It disappeared into the mist as it went below his ankles. He pulled off his jacket and held it over the figure, and began to move it back and forth, causing the mist to slowly disperse. Small drops of blood flew from it as he swung it.
The fog dispersed, and Steven gasped. The figure underneath was a milky white woman, lying on her back. Her hair was white, tangled and stretched in all directions, as though she’d been tearing at it with her hands. She was so white that for a moment Steven thought she might be a statue, made of white stone. But as they watched, she moved, twisting in agony on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and she reached up to pull at her hair, her face contorted with pain. She lowered one of her hands, and slowly reached down below her waist, her arm disappearing into the fog. When it returned, it contained a white mushy substance which she raised to her mouth, and her white tongue emerged to lick at it.
Angle the mirror a bit more, please, Maynard said, who was now sketching a pattern onto a small notepad. Roy continued fanning at the mist, and he shifted lower on the body of the woman.
The fog separated again, offering a view of the woman’s lower half. It didn’t exist. She ended just below the navel, and as they watched she again lowered her hand and dug her fingers into herself, scraping off part of her white body, and raising it to her mouth, feeding the material to herself.
Steven stifled a gag.
Don’t move, Maynard said. I’m almost done.
Roy moved his jacket higher, allowing the mist to once again hide the woman’s lower section, mercifully removing the self-cannibalization from Steven’s view.
She twisted her body back and forth, and as she finished feeding the latest fingerful to her mouth, she reached up once again to pull at her hair. She was pulling so hard Steven thought it might come out at the roots.
Done, Maynard said. Steven lowered the mirror and handed it back to Maynard, who slipped it back into his shirt pocket, and the small notepad slipped into a pocket on his pants.
Can you hear me? Maynard said to the woman, leaning down next to her, trying to get her attention. Can you hear me?
The woman moaned in response and opened her eyes. They were entirely white, filmed over.
I don’t think she can see us, Maynard said quietly to Steven and Roy. But she might be able to hear us. He turned back down to the woman and addressed her loudly. Can you hear me?
Get out! the woman hissed, and Steven felt a shock go down his spine. He saw that Roy felt it too. Maynard stood up.
It’s time to go, Maynard said.
But we haven’t found the other rods yet, Roy said.
No time for that now, Maynard said, walking to the opening in the floor where the ladder led down to the third floor. She gave us a warning. She could have easily killed us with that shock.
Maynard stood over the hole and turned his flashlight back on, dropping out of the River. “Down you go, both of you. Beeline down to the bottom floor and out the door. Don’t stop.”
Steven placed his foot on the rung of the ladder, feeling the slick surface once again. Carefully he lowered himself, then he waited while Roy and Maynard came down, assisting them as they reached the bottom.
“Come on,” Maynard said, racing across the open space of the third floor toward the stairwell. Steven and Roy followed. Steven could hear the sound of the table saw somewhere in the darkness to his left as he ran. It was chewing through another arm.
They went down the steps. Steven lost his footing at one point and slipped a stair, but caught himself with the sticky handrail. They continued down and Maynard led them to the next stairwell, not stopping to observe any of the horrific menageries Steven could hear all around them.
As they descended the next set of stairs, the going got easier, and the blood diminished. Steven was relieved when they reached the ground floor and the simple, bare, unstained walls. Maynard led them to the door and they all walked outside.
Clouds had rolled in and the sun was now obscured, but it was still bright enough for Steven to shield his eyes. He glanced down at his clothing, expecting to see gore – but there was none. He looked at Roy and Maynard – they looked exactly as they had before they’d gone in.
“I’m assuming you have some idea what that was,” Roy said as he followed Maynard to his truck.
“Come on, let’s get out of the vortex,” Maynard said as he opened the door to his truck and got inside. “She’ll see that we followed her wishes.” He started up the truck.
“What was she doing?” Steven asked as Maynard backed his truck and trailer out of the driveway. “Eating herself?”
“Disgusting,” Roy said.
“Never seen that before,” Maynard said. “I’ve seen some FUBAR things, but that surprised me.”
“She was eating herself, right?” Steven asked. “Tell me I’m not the only one who saw that.”
“We saw it,” Maynard said.
“She was the vorghost?” Roy said. “What was wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” Maynard answered. “Every vorghost is different. The vortex each of them makes is customized, suited to their needs and purposes. The blue mist is a hallmark of a vortex, but usually it’s much thicker, and swirling, like a whirlpool. The stars are usually visible – it’s the star pattern you’d see right now if the sun wasn’t out. But you saw how it blipped in and out. Her whole system is on the fritz.”
“And she didn’t seem very well suited to do anything about it,” Roy said.
“No,” Maynard replied. “It almost seemed as if she was destroying herself. She probably doesn’t give two shakes about the missing rod.”
“What do we do?” Steven asked.
“Well, I want to find out who she is,” Maynard said. “Or, was. The signature will help. When we get to a phone I’ll give my friend Dixon a call. He knows most signatures.”
“You know Dixon?” Roy said, lighting up. “He’s a good friend of mine!”
A light bulb went off for Maynard. “Roy? Roy… are you that Roy, the one he went into business with years ago?”
“That’s me!” Roy said proudly.
“I heard that didn’t end very well,” Maynard said.
“We had some trouble with a supplier, yes,” Roy said. “All resolved now. But we decided we weren’t businessmen.”
“I’ve used Dixon’s help for years,” Maynard said. “He’s got the best knowledge of signatures and patterns of anyone around. Can’t say I approve of his morals – he’s a little too friendly with women.”
“You Mormons are
always so uptight about that stuff,” Roy replied. “Aren’t you the ones with all the multiple, underaged wives?”
“Not me,” Maynard replied indignantly. “One wife, thirty-eight years.”
“What about your ancestors?”
“Well, my great-grandfather had three wives.”
“See, that’s what I mean, talking about morals.”
“But he… ”
“Can we get back to the vorghost?” Steven interrupted.
“Right,” Maynard said, clearing his mind. “Anyway, we’ll check with Dixon, and hopefully that’ll point us in some kind of direction.”
“Dixon’s in Hawaii,” Roy said.
“Did he sail? Or fly?” Maynard asked.
“We don’t know,” Steven replied.
“Well, we’ll try anyway,” Maynard said. “If he sailed, he’ll have all his reference materials with him. And if he flew, it’s still worth a shot, since he has most of them memorized. Once we know who she is – or was – we can see if she had any children. They’re probably gifted, too, and they might talk to us. That might help us figure out why she’s in the state she’s in.”
“So we can do what?” Steven asked. “Stop her degeneration? Get her back on her feet? She hasn’t got any feet!”
“Vorghosts don’t need feet,” Maynard replied. “Or a body, really. There’s nothing in her, no organs or anything like that. You saw it was just a white substance, right? There’s nothing there. It’s almost symbolic. I think she wants out, and she doesn’t know how to end it.”
“How to end it?” Steven asked. “You mean, move on? Stop being a vorghost?”
“Yes,” Maynard replied. “It’s rare, but it happens. When a vorghost wants to end things, it shuts down its vortex. The loss of power drains the vorghost, and it eventually dies. There have been a couple of cases of vortexes without a vorghost, however. No one knows how they moved on, but the vortex kept running, using a power source. I did it once. I helped my father shut down an abandoned vortex many years ago. You have to control the rods while you shut down the power source. It’s tricky. When we were done, he could have sold the rods for a lot of money, but he kept them. Used them to make his own vortex later.”
The Haunting at Grays Harbor (The River Book 8) Page 10