by Michael Bray
“She has to die, don’t you see? She has to die,” Pam screamed it over and over.
Bill wasn’t listening. Everything hurt, the pain in his back radiating out from his shoulder all the way across his back and to his chest. He couldn’t breathe or think, all he could hear were Pam’s shrieks and the wind howling around the room. He saw the knife she had dropped, and rolled away from her to reach it, every second he couldn’t see her feeling like eternity. His fingers brushed the handle of the knife, half spinning it towards him, but the few seconds reprieve was over and Pam was now clawing at his eyes from behind, digging her nails into his face.
“Death is the only way, death is how it has to end,” she screamed at him. His fingers brushed the handle of the knife, and for a sickening second he thought he was going to lose it, but then he managed to grip it. Without thinking he thrust it behind him, overcome with absolute rage. She stopped fighting, but still he attacked, stabbing her over and over again until he had no strength left. He sat beside her, listening to the wet rasps of her breathing and starting to come to terms with what he had done. He looked at her, and no longer saw the cruel woman he had grown to hate. He saw a frail thing of flesh and bone surrounded in blood, mouth moving as she tried to speak. He leaned close, struggling to hear her over the wind, the words she said enough to finally break him.
It never left her.
He knew he would never forget those words, no matter what happened from then on. He stood, watching her final shallow breaths until they stopped.
“Dad?”
He looked to the door and saw Vanessa standing there. She looked so small, so weak, and it occurred to him how he must look to her, covered in blood, not all of it his own. “It’s okay; everything’s going to be okay,” he said from some faraway place.
“Is she dead?”
He didn’t want to lie, not after everything they had been through, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually say the words for the fear that they would shatter the last remaining shred of sanity he had left. Instead, he nodded, glancing down at Pam.
“What will happen now?”
“I need to contact the police. Tell them what I’ve done,” he said, still numb and unable to take it all in.
“What about me?”
He considered the question, unsure how to answer. “You’ll be fine, I think,” he said eventually. He believed it, too. She was still young, she could adapt. She could recover.
“You did the right thing. I’m glad she’s dead.”
Bill looked at her, and for a moment was sure he had seen something, a flicker of a sneer, like the brief glimpse of something hiding inside her. “Don’t say that, it’s your mother,” he said eventually, unable to shake the unease at the expression he’d seen.
“Not really,” Vanessa said, and this time, there was no mistake. A smile, however faint, appeared on her lips, and then she turned and headed off down the hall. He listened to her descend the steps, then looked down at Pam’s body on the floor, staring at the finger shaped bruises on her wrists. For the first time, he wondered if he might have made a mistake. Either way, he knew there was no possible way they were staying another night in the house. He would drive to the village and contact the police from there and let them deal with what would happen next. Even with all that had happened, the thing that terrified him most wasn’t that he had murdered his wife, or that some kind of demonic force had taken over their lives and destroyed them in just a matter of weeks. It was that smile he had seen on Vanessa’s face, the smile that wasn’t like her usual one, but the smile of something wearing a Vanessa mask that had succeeded in manipulating a family to its own ends.
No.
After that, prison didn’t seem so bad. The bars would at least keep him safe.
EPILOGUE
My wrist hurts, but I’m glad I wrote it all down. I don’t know how therapeutic it was, a lot of the stuff I put down on paper I had deliberately forgotten until I started digging around in that particular pile of memories. Some of it was pieced together from my own experiences, other parts I picked up years later when I really developed an interest in that house, those lands. The actual bulk of my experience was a blur, a hazy half remembered vivid dream. I know it was real though, I know it happened. No matter what, I know I was one of the lucky ones who lived to tell the tale. With the Donovan murders and the stuff with Henry Marshall afterwards, I know that for whatever reason, fortune is on my side. I did consider reaching out to Melody Samson, the other survivor of that place, but I was too afraid. It was all so long ago now and I’m not sure what would be gained by bringing it all up again. Either way, the decision was taken out of my hands last year when she passed from cancer. She has a son, but I don’t want to trouble him with this. I’m sure he has ghosts of his own about that place.
As for my father, he did as he promised. He called the police and turned himself in. I’ll never forget that conversation we had in my bedroom, the way he looked at me like I was some kind of animal. I knew things would never be the same. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to thirty years in prison for murder. He seems to actually like it in there; I think the security of the walls helps him to get through.
God, I just realised he’ll be sixty two this year. Where has all the time gone?
I really should visit him more often but it’s just too hard. The first few times were awkward and I got the feeling he was uncomfortable around me. He told me once that he thought I might still be carrying that thing from the house around with me, and maybe that’s it. It’s true that it’s something I considered, and sometimes even now when the wind blows I sometimes think I can hear voices on the edge of it, little whispered words begging me to listen closer. I don’t think so though. I’ve read enough to understand that whatever evil exists, it’s in that house, those lands, that clearing. I don’t think it’s possible for it to leave. My father might not know that though. Maybe to him I’m still that kid spewing obscenities and writing on the walls in her own shit. The other explanation could be, that as I’ve grown older, I’ve started to get more of my mother’s features. Maybe that’s the thing he can’t handle. Looking at me reminds him of her and what he did. In the end, it was easier just to stop visiting him. I think that was the best solution for both of us.
I don’t want to end this on a sour note, and I don’t want you to think this is all a big sob story. Trust me; I know how fortunate I am. I have a wonderful life, an amazing husband and children I adore. Even so, sometimes I still wake up in the night and think he’s there, that man with the paint, standing there and watching through the window. I suppose that’s just one of the scars I have to bear, and if that’s the case, then so be it. I can do that. When I started writing this, I considered throwing it away if it looked like the ramblings of a crazy woman. As I skim the pages, I see that it’s not. It reads like a semi unbelievable ghost story, but the difference is it was all true, it all happened. I know it and that’s all that matters. The therapist can have them and analyse them if she wants, she can knock herself out. I’ve dealt with this my own way and over time learned to exist.
It’s getting late, and I’m tired. The act of writing has drained me, and I need some sleep. It’s a weird way to live, knowing how close you came to death. It gives a person a new outlook on life and fills it with optimism. I’ll take that. Hell, if this is a semi believable ghost story, this one at least has a happy ending. Considering what happened to some of the other people who lived in that place, things could have worked out very, very different. And besides, if this is like the scary movie, the one we rent and know from the cover what is going to happen, maybe, just maybe this story has one of those false endings, the ones where everything seems happy and resolved until we get one last scare as the dormant demon makes its triumphant return just to justify another sequel to the franchise. I like to think not, but you never know.
I suppose time will tell.
Vanessa.
Michael Bray, Hope House Chronicles volume II: The Possession