by Joe Hart
The door to the room split in two, and Erwin’s spider-like form clawed its way inside. The ghost walked up the incline of the floor with apparent ease and sank one of the knives through the meat of Mary’s shoulder. Lance watched the silver blade appear through the front of her shirt, just above her breast, and her eyes go wide in shock.
“No!” Lance yelled, and pulled with all his remaining strength.
Mary slid off the knife and clutched at the windowsill. A dark stain rapidly ate at the cotton of her shirt. Lance slid behind her, shielding her body with his own the best he could. His free hand found the ghost’s scarred face and shoved. Erwin’s head merely rocked back, and he slashed at Lance, the cutting edge missing his cheek by a breath. Lance brought a foot up and kicked out at the sagging stomach of the ghost. His shoe sank into the softness there, but he felt the spindly body skid away. Erwin righted himself and stepped closer again. Lance knew then what he had to do.
With a shout, he released his tenuous hold on the sill and launched himself at the dead thing below him. He felt his good hand lock around the ghost’s throat, and then they were both falling toward the open doorway and the steep plunge beyond.
Erwin dropped both knives and reached outward, grasping the doorjamb before it could pass, halting his descent. Lance landed on top of him, his hand still fastened to the cold flesh of the ghost’s neck. He leaned his full weight into the thing below him as he tried to shove them both through the doorway, but Erwin held strong. Lance’s face rested just inches from Erwin’s, and when the ghost spoke, he could smell the stench of the thing’s corporeal decay.
“There’s no getting away, boy. I’m forever. No matter where you go, I’ll be there when you close your eyes.”
Lance’s earlier thoughts flitted through his mind and he knew he had made the right decision. There was no escaping the thing that gnashed its teeth beside his neck and struggled against him. It would follow him to the ends of the earth and beyond, it appeared. The only solace he felt came from the chance that Mary might escape and live past this afternoon. All other thoughts were lost as Erwin braced his gnarled feet against the floor and let go of the doorjamb.
Lance prepared himself for the fall, and nearly all the death scenes he had ever written raced through his mind. He wondered in that split second if it would be like anything he’d imagined, or if it would be wholly new and horrible in its own right. To die, to end all thought and function. As he surrendered to the idea, he couldn’t deny the spark of relief he felt, waiting only for the moment of promise, of release.
They did not fall.
The ghost reached up with both hands and wrapped its crooked fingers around Lance’s throat and squeezed.
“No more running away. It’s finally time,” the ghost rasped.
Lance saw its blue-flinted eyes bleed to black, and it drew back one hand, which returned holding another knife from the belt around its waist. Lance saw its muscles flex in a stabbing motion and stop short, the point of the knife hovering like an enraged hornet a few inches away. The ghost’s ebony eyes moved down to its arm in disbelief, and Lance followed its gaze.
A transparent hand composed entirely of lake water grasped Erwin’s thin bicep in a death grip. As Lance watched, the hand solidified until it was opaque gray, ripe with splotches of rot.
“I can’t hold on much longer!” Mary cried from above him.
Lance struggled against Erwin’s other hand until its vice-like grip broke and he fell to the side of the doorway, gasping for air. The ghost strained against the newly formed aggressor until it was forced to turn around completely.
The water rose and sloshed to and fro, still caught in a contained tempest at the top of the stairs. Lance saw shapes there again, and soon they became clearer. Faces peered out of the water. Their expressions were distorted and full of anguish as they floated in and out of sight in the frothing liquid. Shifting eye sockets, full of blame and hatred, expanded and contracted along with gaping mouths caught in screams of fury. More hands began to surface, and soon there were dozens reaching for the pale white of Erwin’s skin. The ghost struggled in vain against the disembodied fingers and palms, until its bent form was barely visible amidst their writhing numbers.
Erwin’s feet began to slide on the steep floor as the water surged and turned below him. Lance saw his own hand reach out and grasp the rictus face of the dead thing. He turned it toward him and stared into the once-more blue eyes. There was no fear there, only blind rage. Lance leaned close, as he felt his grip slipping and the things in the water straining harder.
“I’m not running anymore.”
Erwin’s disfigured mouth hissed, and then he was gone. The water roiled as if it were boiling, and Lance watched the last traces of white skin sink into the clutches of the dark liquid.
“Lance!” Mary’s voice trembled with her scream, and he turned to see her body hunched and scrabbling to hold on to the windowsill.
Lance crawled to the edge of his bed, which now sat almost upright on its end, and pulled himself slowly up its frame. Each foot gained felt like eight hours of hard labor, and by the time he reached the headboard, he feared his heart would simply detonate within his chest.
Lance climbed onto the back of the headboard, and grabbed Mary’s foot while wrapping his remaining fingers into the stubs, forming a sling.
He looked through the stinging rain that fell through the open window above him. “When I say go, pull yourself up and out. Okay?” He barely discerned a nod, but readied himself anyway. “Ready? Go!”
Lance pulled up as pain shot through his dismembered hand, but he felt Mary’s slight weight lessen, and then her foot lifted completely from his makeshift sling. He looked up and saw her legs and feet vanish through the rectangle of light. Relief settled over him and he crumpled to his knees. He looked up again and saw Mary’s head and reaching arms appear again in the opening.
“Jump!”
Lance shook his head. “Leave me, get off the house!”
A look of disbelief gathered on Mary’s face, visible even in the waning light and the distance between them. “Get up! Jump and reach, dammit!”
He pushed himself away from the floor, which was now a wall, and looked up. Mary’s extended arm appeared to be miles away and his vision dimmed at the edges, tunneling his sight. He would try once and then he would make her leave. He would force her to go and he would sit down. It would be nice to sit and close his eyes for a while. Lance tilted his head back and stared at her hand. I think I’d like to hold that again, he thought, as he bent his legs and pistoned upward as hard as he could.
An alien strength surged through his muscles at the moment his feet left the bed frame. He shot upward and reached, his arm stretched out so far he was sure it would dislocate.
Then Mary’s palm was clasping his, and his butchered fingers were wrapped solidly around the window’s border.
“Yes!” Mary cried, and stood on the uneven surface as she heaved him fully outdoors. His body slid free of the structure and he lay on his back, panting into the falling rain.
“I shouldn’t have made that,” he said between breaths.
Mary knelt beside him and closed her eyes as she let her tears begin to flow. Lance turned his head and risked a last look into the bowels of the house.
A watery form was dissolving into the waves that were now well inside the room. For a moment Lance thought the blood loss had finally caught up with him, but then the shape shifted, and he saw eyes gaze up at him through the darkness.
Rhinelander’s rippling face stared at him, and then the barest of smiles pulled at the corners of his watery mouth. A heartbeat later the apparition was gone, enfolded back into the grave it shared with so many others.
The house vibrated and uttered a human-like groan. A sound like static built into a cacophony around the house. Lance rolled to his stomach and, with Mary’s help, pushed himself to his feet.
The face of the house was almost level now, and Lance coul
d see more and more of the bay surrounding them. The waves continued to crash against the rock and soil, and as he watched, chunks of land the size of pickup trucks crumbled into the water. The house shifted again and nearly sent both he and Mary back to their knees. Lance grasped Mary’s hand and looked into her eyes. It was impossible to tell the rain from tears.
“We have to jump,” Lance said, as he led her to the house’s foundation. They peered over the edge together and he felt her fingers clamp down over his.
The four vehicles sat twenty feet below them on soaking ground that was fractured with fault lines. The house itself had sunk into the soil as it tipped, but the drop still looked as if it could easily snap an ankle or vaporize a knee upon impact.
“Oh God, I don’t know if I can,” Mary said, wavering on the foundation’s stonework.
“We have to. This whole place is going to be gone in a minute or two.”
Mary’s frightened eyes flickered toward him and then back down to the awaiting ground.
“Did I ever tell you I’m afraid of heights?” she asked.
Lance blinked, and then barked out laughter. He turned toward her and saw a frightened smile on her lips.
The house began to move beneath their feet, the gap between the edge and the ground widening. Lance’s heart pounded and his legs nearly unhinged, but he managed one last look in Mary’s direction before he jumped, pulling her with him.
The ground ran up to meet them, and a shock wave that sent icy nails of pain through his body greeted Lance’s feet. His breath rushed out of him, and he was rolling over. His right shoulder struck wet gravel, and then the blustering clouds were above him once again. A sharp crack resounded louder than the constant thunder, and he raised his head just off the ground.
The house’s substructure was toppling out of sight. It hung on the cusp of the newly formed cliff, like a gargantuan beetle ready to trundle down a hill, and then it was picking up speed and falling away. The last fringe of the house disappeared and an enormous splash issued from the other side of the drop. Lance stared at the place where it had been, in awe. The crescent of ground gaped like an exposed jaw, and he wondered if they should move farther away from the edge when he felt a hand pull at his arm. He rolled toward it, still trying to reclaim the air that had been expelled from his lungs.
Mary lay next to him in the mud, her eyes luminous in the afternoon that was gradually becoming an early dusk. He felt a pleasant numbness spreading throughout his body, and smiled at her pretty face. A dark line formed on the upper edge of his sight and he saw Mary begin to yank on an arm that he could no longer feel. She was yelling something, but her voice was soft in his ears. Soft like the ground he lay upon. The rain was warm, and it was finally time to sleep.
The line in his vision dropped lower, making the wind, the rain, and the woman before him no more.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Christopher Porter, Duluth Explorer
The events that took place nearly a week ago in the small town of Stony Bay, north of Duluth/Superior, have finally been brought to light.
At approximately 3:15 p.m. CST, the seismograph unit located in the University of Minnesota Duluth began to record vibrations echoing from some 46 miles away. The exact location of the activity was officially documented yesterday by scientific authorities from the United States Geological Survey office. Many historians know this point north of Stony Bay as the original shipping port of the area, and is in fact its namesake. Currently it is the private property of New York Times best-selling author Lance Metzger. The seismic activity was centralized around an area just inside the original port area of the bay.
“Earthquake is too strong of a word,” Alan Jarvis, a geophysicist with the USGS, was quoted as saying. “Right now we know that there was some movement deep below the lake’s bed. At this time the data is inconclusive as to whether or not what we are seeing is an undiscovered fault line in the area.” Jarvis went on to say that the area is not currently active and sensors set up within the lake have registered no further vibrations.
But what authorities found after being alerted by several students from UMD was nothing less than astounding.
“The house is completely gone,” said Dennis Johnson, a State Trooper that was one of the first to arrive on the scene after the emergency calls began to stream in. “When I pulled up to the place, there was just a hole in the ground and a few boards floating in the water, nothing else. The entire house had been swallowed by the lake.”
Sources indicate that Metzger was inside his home at the time of the activity with several guests, whose identities have not been disclosed. He and one female that is not being named at this time were able to escape before the house collapsed into the waters of Superior. At least two people were killed after being trapped within the falling wreckage. No bodies have been recovered. Metzger remains in intensive care from injuries incurred during the escape, and at this time no statements have been made by his representatives.
Epilogue
“A man’s character is his fate.”
—Heraclitus
One year later
A gentle but insistent breeze pushed at the browning grass that lined the river’s bank. Several blue jays that hadn’t heeded the nearing fall’s warnings still called out their shrill, pulsing cries across the flowing waters. The winch’s moaning hum overshadowed nature’s accents, along with the sound of the cable attached to it being drawn tight. The steel creaked like an over-tuned guitar string as the two divers who had emerged moments earlier from the muddy water began to pull off their gear on the nearby slope.
All was reflected in the silver lenses of the uniformed man who stood chewing on an unrecognizable toothpick. His brow was pulled nearly below his sunglass frames, and his black baseball hat threw his lean face into shadow.
“Think there’s someone in there, Sheriff?” the young man said as he stepped up to the edge of the riverbank. The deputy’s uniform was rumpled and his hair was an unruly mop that hung lankly over his forehead.
The older man merely shrugged and watched the swirling currents of the deep water where the cable of the tow truck disappeared. The surface closer to the shoreline began to bulge, and then an oblong shape appeared in the cool sunlight of the September afternoon.
It took the sheriff’s aging eyes a moment to discern what he was seeing, but then the red of a taillight and the flicker of chrome became clear.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I guess I didn’t think there’d be a car, but look at that,” the deputy said. The older man walked down to the edge of the river, and after a moment the younger officer shrugged and followed.
Water rushed from the emerging vehicle, and just from a glance, the sheriff could tell it was an early-model Chrysler. None of the paint was visible through the grime and refuse that had collected and eaten into the doors, hood, and trunk of the small car. He searched the rear end for a license plate but could see none, not because of the accumulated grime but because it had been removed.
The winch’s groan stuttered and then fell silent as the tow-truck driver flipped a switch, leaving the valley in a peaceful silence.
“Thank you, Jerry,” the sheriff said as he passed the truck. The driver nodded and opened the door to the cab, and began scribbling on an invoice pad.
The sheriff ran his hand along the seam of the trunk until his fingers met an outcropping. He knelt and rubbed the mud and slime from the area until he could see the letters there, upraised, offering themselves for all to see.
“Caravelle? When the fuck did they stop making those? Christ himself drove one, didn’t he?” the younger man crowed as he peered over the sheriff’s shoulder.
“Deputy?” The sheriff remained kneeling, but his voice snapped like a whip in the autumn air. “Conduct yourself as though this is a crime scene.” He heard the deputy clear his throat, but no other sounds came from behind him. He stared at the letters lined in cheap chrome for another moment, and then walked to the driv
er’s-side door.
The window was down and years of submersion had remade the interior into an exaggerated version of its original state. The seats had expanded to twice their normal size, and the dashboard’s features were muddled but still recognizable—a stereo knob here, a shifter there, and a rigid steering wheel that refused to relinquish its identity.
The sheriff’s eyes traveled over everything, and settled onto the occupant in the driver’s seat.
The skeleton was unmistakably female. Its delicate bones and small teeth were the first things that jumped out to him, which he catalogued and stored away in his mind. The arms and hands rested close to the corpse’s lap, and he could see something dark there—wire. The wrists were wrapped together, and only death and decay had loosened the wire’s former hold. Leaning forward into the car, he confirmed what he already had been thinking. The ankles were also bound.
The sheriff straightened and noticed his deputy sidling closer behind him to get a look.
“Fuck me. We got a murder here, Sheriff,” the younger man said.
The sheriff exhaled and focused on keeping his temper in check. The kid had only been on the job for six months. He’d straighten out. He hoped.
“Uh, Sheriff? We got company.”
The sheriff turned and looked where the disheveled deputy was pointing.
A man stood on the slight rise that marked the beginnings of nearly sixty acres of field that bordered the winding river. He was tall and had dark hair. He was dressed in loose jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Dark glasses obscured his eyes.
“Hey, crime scene! Get the fuck out of here!” the deputy yelled, and began to close the distance between himself and the lone man.