by A. I. Nasser
He wanted it to stop, but there was nothing he could do. Try as he might, he was numb to the world around him. He could hear Karen laughing from far away, as if he had been torn from this reality and were swimming in a different one where nothing existed except a myriad of memories and emotions.
He tried to break free of the hand around his neck, slamming his free hand against it, but there was no use. The grip was firm, and he slowly felt his eyes grow heavy as the world around him darkened.
“Karen!”
Walter felt the grip on his throat loosen, then break away completely, and he drew in deep breaths as he fought to stay alive.
“Karen, we’re leaving! Now!”
Walter recognized John Krik’s voice immediately, and as he looked up at his captor, he could see the look of anger on her face. Karen got up quickly, forgetting about the gun as she grasped a kitchen knife in her hand and made for the bedroom door. Walter watched her leave, and as she turned into the dark hallway, he could smell something else mixed with the already familiar stench. The scent was vaguely familiar, and it took him less than a few seconds to realize what it was.
Walter looked at the cuffs holding him prisoner, and then at the thumb of his bound hand. There was only one thing to do.
***
“What are you doing, John?”
John stood in the threshold of the kitchen door, hands held out, staring at his wife as she slowly walked towards him. He could see the knife in her hand, stained with what he could only assume was June’s blood. Her eyes were wide and crazed, her lips pursed as she frowned at him in disapproval, and for a moment John felt like he had bitten off more than he could chew.
Still, he had to try. Karen had come here because of him. She was in this state because of what he had done. He owed it to her to at least try.
“Karen, we have to go,” he said softly.
“We’re not going anywhere,” she replied, her tone firm as she edged closer to him. “I thought I had made that clear.”
John nodded. “You did, but I’ve changed my mind.”
Karen laughed, her knife raised so that her weapon was pointing straight at him. “You act like you have a say in this, baby.”
“I do,” John said. “I’m your husband, and I’m telling you, we’re leaving.”
Karen stopped, the look on her face changing from one of disapproval to anger and hate. “My husband?” she sneered. “You lost all privileges the moment you jumped in bed with little Miss Green.”
John held his ground. “Now, Karen,” he said. “Put the knife down, pack your things, and let’s go. I’m not going to ask you again.”
Karen smiled. “I’m not going –”
“Karen, now!”
His sudden anger resonated through the house, his voice loud and harsh, and it had the desired effect. Karen screamed in fury, raised the knife high and charged at him. John quickly retreated into the kitchen, his eyes locked on hers as she raced towards him. As soon as she was past the threshold, he watched Hank swing his shotgun around and slam its butt against the back of her head, sending her sprawling to the floor.
The knife fell out of her hand, and as she tried to push herself up, Hank brought his gun down again, harder, and she fell motionless to the ground.
“Quick,” John said, helping Hank lift his wife up. “We need to go now.”
The lights in the kitchen flickered and went out.
Hank looked up at John, and quickly turned around to follow his gaze.
A dark figure stood at the end of the hall.
John instantly recognized her. The woman from the attic, her face shifting as she stood motionless in front of them. John knew that the back door would be locked, and he wasn’t even going to consider the basement. Hank slowly stood up next to him, and John felt a little relief knowing that he wasn’t going to face this on his own.
“No one leaves,” the woman said, her voice like nails against chalkboard as she floated towards them. “No one will ever leave.”
John began to panic, unsure as to how he was going to handle this. He had hoped that taking Karen out would put the house to rest and give them a chance to escape, but apparently, he had been wrong. Hank raised his gun and fired, the shotgun’s sound echoing across the house and rattling the glass.
The woman kept coming.
Hank was about to shoot again when a voice rang out from the darkness.
“Ana!”
The figure stopped its motion, its eyes shifting as its head slowly turned to look behind it. John could see Sheriff Garland standing at the foot of the stairs, one hand holding his gun, the other limp at his side. He glanced at Hank in confusion, and the man simply shrugged at him.
“Ana, I knew,” Walter said. “I knew all along, and I did nothing.”
The lights in the kitchen began to flicker, and John suddenly began to realize that the attention was no longer on them. The house was concentrating on the Sheriff.
“Benjamin,” Walter was saying. “I knew Alexander Green killed him, and I did nothing.”
John motioned to Hank, and together they began to back towards the kitchen door. They moved slowly, holding Karen between them, and John prayed that the Sheriff could keep the house occupied long enough for them to get out.
“Benjamin,” the woman gasped.
Walter nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “I knew Alexander started that fire. I knew.”
The figure suddenly screeched, the sound piercing as glass shattered around them. John rushed to the door and flung it open. He looked back over Hank’s shoulder, and in the darkness of the hallway, he could see Walter Garland wrestling with the wraith, the woman’s screams making the hair on the nape of his neck stand.
“Get out!” Walter screamed, and in his hand, John could see the glint of a lighter.
John Krik turned and raced out into the night, throwing his wife’s limp body over his shoulder and shoving Hank in front of him.
There was a sudden whoosh, an instant intense heat, and the Victorian exploded in flames behind them.
Epilogue
Derrick Fern slumped into the chair behind his desk and ran a tired hand across his face.
He had spent the last few hours in meetings with the board members, partaking in mundane bureaucracy and watching as they gawked over graphs and numbers displayed across the large boardroom screen. He hated quarterlies, and if it hadn’t been for the sales of John Krik’s recent book, he would have had some very bad news to share.
Derrick wrapped his fingers on the small package his secretary had placed on top of his desk. The return address said California, with no name attached, but Derrick knew who it was from.
He hadn’t heard from John since his call from Cafeville two months back, after Karen had been released from the hospital. He had told him about the house, the gas leak, and how it had almost killed them and their visitors had it not been for the Sheriff’s quick thinking. Derrick had offered to help in whatever way he could, but John had politely declined, saying that he would take a long, much-needed vacation.
Derrick grabbed his letter opener and cut the package open, pulling out a small wooden box from within. The top lid slid off easily. Inside were a note, a blank check signed by John Krik, and a key.
Derrick recognized the key instantly, holding it up and smirking as he read the note.
Sorry about the house. Fill in the check with whatever you need.
Derrick chuckled to himself as he tossed the key back into the box.
He took out the check, looked at it for a moment, then ripped it in half and threw it on top of the manuscripts he was never going to read.
* * *
Bonus Scene Chapter 1
Audrey Fern covered her eyes and looked away.
No matter how many times she had dreamt of this day, no matter how much she had imagined looking into the dying man’s eyes as he shook and writhed in his chair, bolts of electricity racing through him, she still found it hard to experience the rea
lity. She could almost smell the flesh burning, the man’s muffled screams as he shook in the chair hauntingly resounding in her mind, his eyes wide as he gazed back at the witnesses.
Then it was over.
Audrey got up quickly, not bothering with any hands that tried to comfort her, hurrying out of the witness room and escaping into the fresh air. She ran to the side of the road, belching loudly as she emptied her stomach into the ditch, the taste of acid on her tongue and lips.
She felt a hand on the small of her back and jumped, looking back to see Henry Pollard eyeing her kindly, the smile on his face one of pity rather than satisfaction. She could see it in his eyes; he hadn’t been comforted by the execution either.
“I’ll drive you home,” Henry said, waiting for Audrey to straighten herself and breathe before walking her to where his car was parked.
Audrey looked back at the prison, the walls dark and looming, the sounds of the dead man’s muffled screams still echoing through the architecture.
It was going to haunt her forever.
***
Sheriff Walter Garland walked down the halls of the Sanctuary Park Asylum with a frown on his face. He was flanked by two orderlies, closely following Doctor Hammond as the man led him to cell 4A. The doctor was whistling a tune he couldn’t make out, the sounds echoing off the walls amidst screams and shouts coming from behind the locked doors they passed. It took every ounce of energy in Walter not to tell him to stop. He had no jurisdiction here, and it was only through the doctor’s good nature that he was allowed entry.
Not that he really wanted to be here in the first place.
Sanctuary Park had always scared him, the irony of its name enough to keep any sane man away. He hadn’t been here much, but the few times he had been required to visit were enough to give him a picture of what happened behind closed doors. He had seen the almost vegetative state of patients out in the yards or in the ‘playroom’, and he had a pretty good idea what kind of healing methods were being used at Sanctuary Park.
Still, it wasn’t his place to say anything.
“I still don’t understand what it is you hope to achieve with this conversation, Sheriff,” Doctor Hammond said, almost a little too cheerfully given the circumstances. Sometimes Walter wondered if the man was high.
“It’s more of a courtesy call, doctor,” Walter answered. “I have to let her know that her husband’s dead.”
“And you believe that this will be wise, given her current condition?” Hammond asked, looking back at Walter with a smile that showed he didn’t really care. “First her son, and now her husband.”
Walter shrugged. “I’m not the one who makes these decisions, doc. I’m just following protocol.”
“Ah yes, protocol,” Hammond muttered. “Sometimes I ask myself for whose benefit we have them.”
Walter didn’t answer.
When they reached 4A, Hammond pulled out a key and pushed it in place. Just before turning it, he turned to Walter and smiled. “We have her, how should we say, tamed,” Hammond said, “for your conversation. An orderly will be with you in case she causes any unforeseen troubles.”
Walter nodded, not entirely comfortable with using the word tamed in any context that involved Hammond. Still, he had no idea what Ana Dean would be like after he told her the news, and maybe tamed was better than the alternative.
He remembered when she had first found out what her husband had done, laughing hysterically when news of Alexander and Martha Green’s death reached her. It was one of the deputies who had given her the news that her husband had been arrested and charged for murder, and when he called Walter in, Garland couldn’t hear the man over Ana Dean’s laughter.
They had picked her up from home when she had tried to set fire to the Dean house where the children had been staying with their aunt. Henry Pollard had stopped her just in time, Ana scratching his face and kicking at him as she escaped back into her own house and locked herself in. When Walter had broken down the door to get to her, he had to fight through a stench that made him gag, a darkness that was uninviting despite the sunlight coming in through the front door, and a madwoman swinging knives at him as she screamed at him to get out.
He had brought her to Sanctuary Park himself, and the words coming from her mouth were enough to make the Devil blush.
Doctor Hammond unlocked the cell door and opened it for Walter, smiling as he gestured for him to enter. Walter walked in, closely followed by the orderly named Ethan, and looked back at the cell door as it closed and locked behind them. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, the silhouette of Ana Dean barely visible as she sat in the corner on her cot.
“Mrs. Dean?” Walter said, his voice barely above a whisper.
The figure in the corner shifted but said nothing.
“Mrs. Dean, it’s Sheriff Walter Garland. I’m sure you remember me.”
“Of course,” came the reply, a raspy voice that sounded nothing like the Ana Dean he knew.
“Ma’am, I’m here on behalf of the state to inform you that your husband, Samuel Dean, died at three o’clock this afternoon.”
A chuckle. A cough.
“Mrs. Dean?”
“My husband didn’t die, sheriff,” Ana said. “He was executed.”
Walter hesitated. “I would also like to inform you that the Greens are pressing a whole bunch of other charges. We were wondering if there were any relatives you’d like us to contact to handle these matters.”
“Are the children okay?”
John was taken aback by the question. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dean, I’m not quite following.”
“The Green children, are they okay?”
Walter winced at the mention of the children that had been left orphaned by Samuel Dean. “Yes, they are okay, all things considered.”
“Good,” Ana chuckled. “I’d hate to see anything happen to them before I leave this place.”
Walter felt a chill run down his spine as he glanced at the orderly, who just shrugged.
“Mrs. Dean, if you do get out of here, your stunt at the house will put you away for a very long time,” Walter said. “Not to mention you just threatened two children in front of a sheriff and another witness.”
Ana shifted again, standing up slowly as she stretched. It was then that Walter noticed one of her hands had been tied to the bed. Ana moved a bit into the light, her hair falling around her face, her eyes barely visible, only her smile shattering the distance between them.
“The house will get them, Sheriff,” Ana hissed. “It always does.”
Walter noticed the rope tied to her hand hanging loosely by her side, blood streaming down her arm to the floor. She looked down to where his eyes were focused, and then looked up again. Her smile widened and she suddenly jumped at him, screaming, hands outstretched as she went for his eyes.
The orderly stepped in immediately, and with a quick swing of his hand, had her lying still on the ground. He quickly banged on the cell door three times, and Walter finally let out the breath he was holding as he was quickly dragged outside.
Bonus Scene Chapter 2
Audrey Fern woke up to the sound of her son playing in the living room, already awake and wreaking havoc. She groaned, her body aching from the strain she had been under the past few weeks. She rolled out of bed, slowly, barely looking at the side where Sebastian had slept less than a month before.
The night Walter Garland had knocked on her door still flashed in her mind. The way he had looked at her, uncomfortable as he had told her the news of her husband’s murder, how he had sat with her for hours as she had wept. Explaining to her son what had happened, that had been even harder
Audrey walked out of her room and watched her only son play with a makeshift sword his father had made him. He was the striking image of her husband, and looking at him made her miss him even more. At least the boy was handling it better than she was.
“Breakfast, sweetheart?” she asked, walking into her small kitc
hen as she opened the shelves and scanned them for anything she didn’t have to spend too long making.
The boy didn’t answer, swooshing his sword as he jumped across the couches and coffee table. Audrey couldn’t help but smile.
She walked him to school and waved as he raced inside with the rest of the kids, immediately jumping in line next to a little girl in his class. He turned around and waved back, the girl doing the same, and Audrey’s heart ached at the thought that one day they would grow up and face misery and pain of their own.
Audrey made her way back into town, slowly, taking her time as she counted her steps. She almost laughed at the irony of her life. Working for both the Greens and the Deans, the two households that had helped keep her own home afloat, had been the same thing that had torn her life apart.
Sebastian Fern had worked hard ever since their son came to the world, but they had soon realized that his pay alone would not be enough to keep them going. He had asked Alexander Green if he needed a helping hand at home, Martha eagerly welcoming Audrey in and making her feel like part of the family. She had loved that woman, although she had never felt comfortable around Alexander.
She didn’t know if there was any truth behind his involvement in the fire that had taken the life of the Deans’ son. She had asked her husband about it several times, Sebastian always shrugging it off and telling her to stop asking questions she didn’t want answers to. Eventually she did give up asking, but only when he had assured her that he had had nothing to do with the fire. He never denied Alexander Green’s involvement, and the entire town supported his innocence.
Samuel Dean had obviously thought otherwise.
Audrey made her way down Gale Street, looking at the windows for any sign of help needed. She had called her sister in Boston and had already made plans to send Derrick there. She was in no condition to provide for both of them, and her sister was more than willing to help. She had a soft spot for her nephew that Audrey had been counting on. Telling Derrick would be the real problem.