Window in the Earth Trilogy

by Fish, Matthew

  “Why?” she asks herself. Hasn’t she been through enough? The thought crosses her mind again that she is in some form of hell. After all, what purpose could being back at this shed be? What greater good could this situation bring her other than torment?

  It takes every semblance of courage she has to open the door. She takes a small step in; her hands grip the glowing rock ahead of her as though it is a ward to scare off the fear that threatens her. She feels like a child again, stepping into her father’s work shed. The smell of spent powder, the burning and tearing of flesh and acrid smoke fill her nostrils. She first notices the shotgun on the floor. It is stained with a splattering of blood. Through the doorway, the stone illuminates the body of her father. It is just as she remembers it: the lifelessness, the odd contorted angle in which his body has fallen. The unrecognizable parts of what he used to be, the careless damage of a shotgun blast—it is a carbon-copy scene.

  A wisp of blue smoke escapes the barrel of the shotgun and covers her father in a strange dim glow, and, where his face used to be, a new face forms, one that is featureless and in a constant state of change.

  “Emma…,” the voice says, sounding just like her father.

  Emma quickly backs away in horror.

  “Emma, go and fetch your mother—we have to cover the flowers from the frost,” the voice continues, sounding broken and monotone. “Emma, go and find something to cover us… I’ve fallen down—I need a hand to get back up. Go and tell your mother I’ll break her fucking head open if she looks at that man the way she did at the grocery store again.”

  “No…,” Emma whispers in dread. She backs away as slowly and cautiously as she can, her eyes fixed on her fathers’ body.

  “Don’t go, Emma,” the voice continues, “I’m sorry, my little flower. Stay by me…. You remember how we used to… You go tell your mother I love her. I just…”

  Emma shuts the door. She can still hear her father’s voice, although most of it is nonsense. She falls to her knees and the rough stones bruise her bare legs. She begins to cry; she can no longer hold anything back. She covers her eyes with her hands, rubbing at them violently in an attempt to wake herself from this nightmare. She lets out a scream of anguish.

  “Don’t cry, my little flower,” the muffled voice comes through the door.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Emma screams, striking her fists against the ground. “You’re dead! You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore!”

  Emma begins to sob uncontrollably. She strikes out at the door, hitting it with all her might and causing it to shake upon its hinges.

  “You remember when we used to sit beneath the tree… watch the leaves blow in the wind? I remember… you said the most beautiful thing once… that it was sad—the leaf that falls in spring. “

  “Please…,” Emma cries out, “please just stop!”

  “How many sunsets have you seen? You weren’t supposed to be the one to find me. I was playing hide-and-seek with your mother,” the voice continues, ignoring Emma’s requests completely and going on in a mad fashion. “Sometime, I’d like to fuck her again.”

  Emma pounds her fists against the door.

  “I don’t understand why no one will help me up,” the voice continues, “Help me out here, flower, won’t you? I hear it’s going to freeze tonight.”

  Emma reaches into the pocket of her hospital gown. Her tears have turned to anger and a deep resolve grows within her. There is no reasoning with that which cannot be reasoned with. There is no point, she decides. No reason beyond torment. Emma pulls out the half-empty pack of cigarettes she found in the nurse’s station, and digs for the lighter. She sets a pile of cigarettes against the door, along with some fallen leaves. She cracks the door a small way open so that her makeshift burn-pile is in direct contact with the wood. She flicks the lighter a few times and then a flame is produced. She holds it beneath the leaves for a few moments before it catches fire. She spots an old magazine just past the doorway; it is rolled up in a rubber band. She cautiously reaches in, careful not to burn herself, and places the magazine upon the fire.

  “What are we doing now, flower?” the voice asks, sounding neither concerned nor genuinely curious.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma says as she tries to hold back tears that threaten to escape from her eyes.

  “Why are you sorry, flower?”

  Without answering, Emma gets back to her feet. She collects the glowing moonstone from the ground and begins to walk away, into the woods. Soon the shed is engulfed in flames, brilliant reds and yellows fill the air with color, and white glowing smoke dances amongst the leaves of the trees. Emma begins to walk farther and farther away until she can no longer hear the voice. Instead, all she can hear is the roaring of the fire, all she can smell is the burnt wood. She fights an urge to look back, instead keeping her gaze on the way ahead, which is not a way in any particular sense, other than just being the direction in which she is now headed. With no path to lead her or moon to float upon, she wanders off. She is sure now that there is no purpose to this place after all. Part of her has given up, the other part walks along, not knowing, not caring for what lies ahead. After what she has just done, been forced to do, ultimately, what does it matter?

  A low growl comes from the distance of the burning shed. Emma whirls at the familiar sound. In the light of the raging fire, she can make out not one, but four of the wolves resembling the one she and Jack Olen had encountered earlier. Encased in shadow and smoke, their bright blue eyes stare her down.

  Oh, god… not this, too. Her mind shrinks in terror. She begins to run, carrying the moonstone in one arm like a football. She glances over her shoulder—the wolves have begun to give chase. They gain more and more ground on her, yet Emma manages to stay ahead. Her lungs are burning and her legs are still in pain from all that she has suffered, yet the adrenaline keeps her running, despite her body pleading for a break that she cannot afford. She looks back once more: the wolves have begun to leap into one other like children playing hopscotch, only instead they are sticking together, forming a much larger creature. An ear-piercing howl comes from behind her. She can feel the warmth of the smoke upon her feet, as though the creature is at her heels.

  With every ounce of energy she can find within herself, Emma runs as fast as she possibly can.

  Jack Wolfe III

  Jack steps away from the window, Bill leading him away. His hand burns in pain, blood runs down his wrist. Bill grabs the cloth napkin from beneath the fancy silverware and begins to wrap Jack’s hand up.

  “This might hurt a bit,” Bill says as he pulls free a small shard of glass from his hand, placing it on the white table cloth next to the dead police officer. He finishes wrapping Jack’s hand, any doubt that Jack has gone mad like his father having been erased from his mind. For, if Jack was mad, then surely he was just as lost to madness as well.

  “What does it mean?” Jack quietly asks as he looks once more to the window.

  “I don’t know,” Bill says with a heavy sigh. “I wish I did, though… for the both of us.”

  “Do you think she’s dead?”

  “Do you think my Jack is dead?” Bill asks, looking into Jack’s eyes and seeming like a man who has lost all hope.

  “We should check the rest of the house,” Jack quickly answers, dodging the question. He removes his pistol from his pocket, glad that his left hand is the one that is injured.

  “What’s beyond those doors?” Bill asks as he points to a heavy set of old, heavily-weathered, French-style doors—they are latched closed by iron bars located at both the bottoms and tops of the frames.

  “The family room, and the staircase to the upper floors,” Jack answers as he eyes the doors nervously. After all that they have come across, he wonders what horrors lie behind this door, it is as though each door reveals another nightmarish scene.

  “And upstairs?”

  “The bedrooms: my parents bedroom, mine, my brother Danny’s—there’s a small storage
room that has a staircase that leads to my father’s office—it’s the small room that overlooks the entire field. It’s where he does most of his writing,” Jack says, picturing each room in his mind, how the layouts would look on a normal day, or should look. He is sure, however, that this is will not be the case. The house has changed—the air, the feel of it. It has grown to accommodate the horrors it holds within, almost as though they are not horrors at all, yet scenes and trophies proudly laid out.

  “You take the bottom, I’ll grab the top latch,” Bill says as he places his weight against the left-side door, his rifle ready in his free hand. He pulls down, releasing the top lock with a loud click, just as Jack does the same to the bottom latch.

  The doors creak open upon their hinges, revealing the family room.

  Both Bill and Jack are relieved that there is no blood, no visible bodies, or sign of maliciousness other than the fact that the axe that Jack was carrying is now lodged into the flat-screen television. The windows here, like before, are covered. The floor has been covered in dirt, piled up in the corners as if someone had tried to form hills. The amount of soil is astounding. It looks as though it must have taken months to amass. Short clumps of grass continue to grow in spots. A corner of the couch is barely visible, covered in English ivy; it has become part of the reclamation of nature. The wallpaper is peeled and covered in mud and moss. A tree sprouts from beneath the large, dirt-covered picture window at the far end of the room.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bill says as he surveys the room. Pebbles and stones are placed in intricate circles around plants and a small muddy pond fills the center of the room.

  Jack is startled as a sparrow flies from one end of the room and roosts on the banister to the upstairs, which are also covered in thick ivy. He points his gun in the direction of the bird, ready to fire, before realizing that there is no threat.

  A muffled sound comes from a room to the far left.

  “What the hell was that?” Bill asks as he cautiously approaches the red door at the far end of the room.

  “It sounded like it came from the laundry room,” Jack answers as he follows carefully behind Bill.

  “Cover me—if anything comes out of here that looks wrong, shoot,” Bill says as he places a hand to the door. He pushes hard with his enormous height and leverage, and the door flies open. There, against the washer, is the body of a woman. She is stripped down naked and, like before, her uniform is folded and set beside her. She has a wound in her left side, her interlocked hands attempting to keep the escaping blood within her.

  “Wolves…,” she mutters as she reaches out a hand to Bill. Her eyes are glazed over, and her feet are covered in lacerations. Her knees show signs of being dragged against a hard surface.

  “What happened to you?” Bill asks as he kneels before the woman.

  The woman appears to be in her early thirties. Long dark hair frames her face, and she looks terrified. “Wolves at the door,” she answers quietly. “You keep quiet, and the leader leaves you alone. You make too much noise like my partner, and he comes and sinks his teeth into you. I tried to save him, but I got the spear.”

  “Who was it, the leader? Was it a man?” Bill asks, already knowing that this is more of Landon’s doing. “Have you seen anyone else? Another man, or a young girl, perhaps?”

  “Not man, not a wolf, but not a man either,” the woman whispers. “I was young once—beautiful.”

  “What is she talking about?” Jack asks, holding his gun out before him for reasons he cannot fathom, other than fear.

  “She’s in shock,” Bill replies as he moves her hand away from her wound—it is deep, and blood is flowing out and pooling on the floor. He is sure that it is a fatal wound. He places both of his hands against the wound, attempting to hold back the flood of red, but it leaks between the cracks of his fingers.

  “Not a man, not a man,” the woman says in an almost sing-song tone. Her head falls to one side, looking past Jack. Her eyes fall upon the sparrow that sits upon the staircase banister. “You’re beautiful,” she says, and, with one final breath, the woman dies, her eyes transfixed on the sparrow. She lies there, motionless, the blood still flowing.

  Bill lowers his hands from her wound. There is no longer any point. He looks over to a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. He picks it up and pulls it open. He notices the title, My Lover, and then Landon’s name beneath it. He crumples the paper once more and tosses it to the floor.

  “What did it say?” Jack asks, wondering why Bill has so carelessly tossed it aside.

  “Nothing that matters,” Bill replies as he rises to his feet and retrieves his rifle from its resting position against the wall. “Let’s stop giving him an audience for his bullshit.”

  Jack nods in agreement, just as something on the stairs catches his eye as the sparrow suddenly flies away. In its place, leaning on the banister, stands a man. He wears the face of a wolf, like a crude mask made from an actual wolf’s head. His body is covered in dirt; bright spots of blood are spread about his naked chest in a cheetah-like pattern. His teeth are bared beneath the nose of the wolf mask. All of his front teeth are missing, save for the molars, which look like they have been filed down into sharp-pointed fangs. The man holds a spear in one hand, crudely made from a tree branch; tied and duct-taped at the end is a long carving knife—a few feathers hang from it, fastened by leather rope. In his other hand he holds the carcass of a fox, the same fox from before. He lets out a low warning-growl and then places the carcass of the fox into his mouth, as though readying himself to flee.

  Jack slowly turns, raising his pistol in the direction of the man—his father.

  “Landon!” Bill shouts as he fires a round from his rifle—he misses, the shot going low and striking the staircase, sending splinters of wood flying.

  Landon Wolf darts toward Jack, spear in hand. With lightning-fast speed, he slashes at Jack’s leg, sending him to the ground. He then lunges toward Bill, who is only a few feet behind Jack, spear-tip raised far out ahead of him.

  “Die, you piece of shit!” Bill screams as he fires a second shot, which grazes Landon’s arm and sends blood flying out in a short spray. Landon, unfazed by the shot, pierces Bill’s arm and quickly withdraws. He turns away from both Jack and Bill, darting away in a zigzag fashion with all the grace of an actual wolf on the hunt till he has cleared the stairs, being gone in mere seconds.

  “Are you all right?” Bill asks as he rushes over to Jack.

  Jack checks his leg, his jeans have been cleanly cut and only a small wound lies beneath, merely less than a fourth-of-an-inch thick. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he exclaims, still surprised. “Are you… are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Bill replies as he checks his arm: he has a small puncture wound from the tip of the knife on his left arm; a little blood oozes, but it’s nothing serious. “I think the bastard was toying with us.”

  “You got him, though,” Jack says as he attempts to get back to his feet, unsteady after the encounter. “I couldn’t even get a shot off.”

  “Just a graze,” Bill says as he reaches out a blood-stained hand to Jack and helps him back up. “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. It was like he was just showin‘ us what he’s capable of.”

  “Or warning us not to continue,” Jack adds, now fearing the worst much more than before. “Now to go and see what is upstairs….”

  “Either way, really, what choice do we have?” Bill asks, as he releases his spent rounds and refills the chamber of his hunting rifle.

  “No choice,” Jack says, shaking his head. He has become so exhausted and numb to the fear that he has found a new sense of courage buried underneath it all. He no longer cares for his own safety, mostly for he is now sure that Emma is no longer alive. Just like he believes, but will not speak it, that Jack Olen is dead as well. Although, given Bill’s grave, resolute face, Jack is pretty sure that Bill already believes this as well. “No choice but to end it.”

  �
��Stay behind me,” Bill says as he reaches the staircase. He kicks away some of the debris from his missed shot. “However, if anything happens to me and you get the opportunity, do not hesitate to take the shot.”

  “I won’t,” Jack replies confidently. After everything he has seen, the horrors at the hands of his father, he can honestly now tell himself that if it came down to it he could pull that trigger, ending his father’s life. After all, how much of his “father” is really left in there, anyway? All he saw was madness, an animal-like cruelty. “He is not my father anymore.”

  “I scarcely believe he’s even human anymore,” Bill adds, “That’s what terrifies me most.”

  The pair ascend the staircase at a snail’s pace. As they reach the main hall to the second story, they find all of the doors shut. Each door bears a note handwritten by Landon, each note simply saying “Do not enter”—n o fancy words or mad stories here.

  “Whose room?” Bill asks, as he places his hand on the knob for the first room on the left.

  “Mine,” Jack replies, gripping his pistol tightly.

  Just as Bill begins to turn the doorknob, the entire house begins to shake, as though in protest. Bill and Jack are nearly knocked to their feet. They hang on to the doorframe for support. The entire house groans and rattles violently for about a minute, and then the shaking finally subsides.

  “What the hell was that?” Jack asks, feeling as though he’d just taken a whirl in a clothing dryer.

  “I think it was an earthquake,” Bill says as he places his hand back on the doorknob, half-expecting the same result—however, it does not come. “Just our kind of luck today, I suppose. Now, same as before: anything fucked up comes at us, cover me.”

  “Right,” Jack says, readying his gun.