A squeaking sound came from above and the small gathering. It came from the landing above them. Kyle shook his head, refusing to look up. He stood and quietly cursed in at least two languages.
“This is not real,” Kyle said. “It isn’t. Now, I can maybe accept some of what’s happening. But I know I fired at that horse. I hit it. I didn’t dream that. Ammunition cannot reload itself.”
The rocking horse squeaked and rocked and whinnied softly. Then it laughed. It was the most evil sound any of them had ever heard. And it was taunting.
“Navy puke!” the words came to them. “Slime. Baby killer.”
“Shut up!” Kyle yelled.
Laughter echoed around the great mansion.
Lucas stepped out of the hallway and looked up. The rocking horse was looking down at him, its head sticking through the bannisters. It grinned its yellow grin.
“I’ll destroy you,” Lucas said.
The horse’s lips moved. “How?” it taunted him.
Before Lucas could speak, Louisa said, “It’s getting stronger. Very much stronger.”
“How?” Tracy asked.
“I don’t know,” the woman admitted. “But I can sense that it is.”
“It’s feeding off our minds and other human minds,” the girl’s voice came from behind the group.
They turned to look at Jackie.
“It’s what?” Tracy asked.
“Feeding off human minds,” the girl repeated. “Randolph told me all about it. I can remember it now.”
“And Anna told me,” Johnny said. “We couldn’t leave now if we tried.”
“You want to explain that last bit, son?” Lucas asked the boy.
“I can’t,” the boy said. He looked at his sister. “Can you?”
“No,” she said. “But I know that from the moment we entered this house, we were unable to leave even if we had tried.”
“How would it have stopped us?” Lucas asked. “I mean—”
The horse’s laughter stopped his question.
Lucas again glanced up at the evilly grinning hobbyhorse. He spun around to face his friends and family. “Pack,” he said tersely. “Pack it up. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
“Yes, yes!” the rocking horse cried. “Let’s all pack! Pack, pack, pack.”
Then it rocked and laughed and rocked and laughed.
Panic struck them all. They collided with one another in the rush to get to their rooms and pack and get out.
They jerked out overnight bags and suitcases and boxes. They tossed the suitcases on the bed. The suitcase lids slammed shut and could not be opened. Keys broke off in the locks.
The rocking horse laughed and squeaked and rocked and yowled in glee.
Panic built in the people, and the more it grew the more infectious it became, until it finally reached nearly uncontrollable levels. They flung clothing on the bed. The clothing sailed from the bed to the floor to land in piles around the room. The suitcases leaped and jumped on the beds, falling and crashing to the floor.
The rocking horse rocked faster and faster, its laughter howling throughout the house. It whinnied and hooted insanely.
Dresser mirrors suddenly cracked and splintered. Dresser drawers opened and banged shut. Carpets rippled like oceans, causing the people to grab at bedposts for security. Doors in the mansion slammed shut and could not be opened. Beds and dressers were moved, dancing dangerously around the rooms. Clothes hangers became lethal weapons as they were violently ripped from rods and sent hurling about the rooms.
“Enough!” Lucas shouted, his voice rising above the panicked clamor.
The strange movements of inanimate objects ceased. The people froze in their places in the littered rooms.
Lucas went to his bedroom door and tried the frozen doorknob. It turned easily in his hand. Taking a deep breath, Lucas slowly opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
“And now? . . .” the whispered voice drifted to him.
“We’re staying,” Lucas said softly.
“But of course.”
Lucas walked to the stairwell and looked up toward the landing.
The rocking horse was gone.
Sitting on the floor in Jackie’s room, Johnny took his sister’s hand in his as the sound they had both been hearing since first entering the mansion breathed again.
“I’m sure now,” Jackie said. “Are you?”
“Yes. But I wish Anna would come back and tell me what to do.”
“Anna and Randolph will contact us,” his sister assured him. I hope, she thought.
* * *
Sunday dawned peacefully, the violence of the storm having blown on eastward, leaving the land behind it sparkling clean, the moisture washing the earth. The greenery lay fresh and vibrant under the breaking sun.
Those in the house slept on, mentally exhausted from the past night’s ordeal. Since Lucas had announced his intention to stay, there had been no more incidents caused by the rocking horse.
Tracy was the first out of bed. Quietly, she showered, dressed in jeans, blouse, and tennis shoes, and walked to the kitchen. She made toast and coffee, and took the tray outside to the veranda just off the kitchen area. She sat in a rocking chair and looked out over the quiet estate grounds. Everything looked so peaceful. Baby stuck her head around the corner of the house and Tracy whistled softly. The mastiff came to her side and lay down with a soft wuff of air.
They had straightened up the bedrooms as best they could before falling exhausted on the beds. All had slept hard and, speaking for herself, dreamlessly. Now, as she looked out over the fresh and green calmness, it was difficult for the woman to believe that what had happened the previous night had really occurred.
But she knew it had.
And it began to sink into her mind that they were trapped.
They couldn’t leave.
Perhaps they could sneak away?
But she knew they couldn’t.
It was all so . . . so incredible.
She had to somehow warn her friends in New York not to come down for their planned visit. That thought almost caused her to break out in hysterical laughter. How to warn them? What to tell them?
Should she tell them the house is haunted? Possessed? By what? A rocking horse?
They would have her committed in the nearest funny farm.
Trapped.
And Jackie and Johnny . . . they seemed to be taking all this so calmly. Frightened, yes; but with a certain, a certain . . . knowing quality about them both.
How much did they know they were not telling? That they couldn’t remember? And why, why, was all this happening to her family? Why?
Questions without answers.
Her rocking chair began rocking of its own volition. Tracy tried to rise from the chair. She could not; some invisible force held her in place. The coffee mug fell from suddenly numb fingers, to shatter on the deck. She felt her mind begin to fragment. Memories seemed to spring forth with vivid clarity, but yet all of them were jumbled. She was conscious of Baby looking at her strangely. The chair began rocking faster and faster. Tracy tried to scream, but no sound could push past her lips. Then the jumbled memories became as one. The memories of her friend’s father violating her returned in exact detail, as if it had occurred only yesterday.
She began weeping silently.
Faster and faster the chair rocked, becoming a blur on the porch. Those young men returned to her mind. The assault. The humiliation. The secret she had never told.
The rocking chair slowed, slowed, then stopped. Her mind began to clear. She looked around her. Saw the shattered coffee mug, the liquid staining the veranda floor. She felt weak, drained, exhausted . . . and helpless.
She half slid, half fell from the rocking chair. She put her head against the bannister. On her knees on the damp, rain-washed deck of the veranda, she tried to think of some prayer, some supplication to a higher power, some way of conveying her wishes to be free of this awful place.
Some message of hope for help.
Her mind drew a blank.
She could think of nothing. It was as if all former traces of God and His help were forbidden from entering or leaving her mind.
“It’s not fair!” she whispered. “I want to ask for help. Please!”
Nothing.
Then the awful thought came to her: were they alone in this? Did they have to fight this by themselves. Had He abandoned them? Why? Why?
She looked up, tears streaming from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks, misting her vision. She saw someone walking toward her, from out of the woods. No, not walking. Gliding, she first thought. No, not gliding. More a lurching type of movement. Not fluid at all. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The man lurching toward her was naked from the waist down. And he was filthy. As she recognized the shape, she tried to scream. No sound would come from her throat. The . . . thing drew closer. Closer. It opened its arms and held out its dirty hands, beckoning to her.
“Help,” the apparition said, breath from its mouth fouling the air. “Help.”
Tracy shook her head. Scurried away. Her back hit the wall. Baby was on her feet, snarling horribly at the sight.
“Help me!” Ira said.
He reached through the railing and tried to touch her.
Tracy fainted.
* * *
“Easy, honey,” Lucas’s voice drifted through the fog in her brain. “Easy, now. It’s gonna be all right.”
“What happened, Tracy?” Kyle said.
“Ira,” she managed to croak. “Rocking chair. It rocked faster and faster. I couldn’t get out of the chair. Memories came to me. Awful. Then Ira came lurching out of the woods. He kept saying ‘help.’ He tried to touch me.”
“What kind of awful memories?” Lucas asked.
She refused to answer.
Lucas and Kyle looked at each other, then shifted their eyes to the staggering, wavering line of bare footprints in the wet grass.
“Jesus!” Kyle said.
“Something is very wrong here,” Louisa said.
The men looked at her. “What do you mean?” Lucas asked.
The woman’s face held an expression of alarm. She clutched at her throat. “I . . . I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand my feelings. My . . . I’ve never experienced anything like this. I can’t explain it. It’s as if my ability to convey thoughts into words is somehow blocked.”
“The same thing happened to me,” Tracy said, getting to her feet. “I tried to pray, but found I couldn’t.”
“What if we all just ran off,” Kyle said. “I’m no coward, God knows that, but I don’t know how to fight this thing.”
“Yes,” the voice came to them. “Try to run. Try to run. I won’t try to stop you. I promise. Tell all your friends you are afraid of a wooden hobbyhorse. Tell them the house is filled with evil spirits. Booooo!”
From inside the house, from its place on the landing, the rocking horse began laughing. Its laughter was taunting, ugly, evil, mad, nasty. It laughed and laughed.
And rocked.
19
No one wanted to go into that attic that Sunday. No one wanted to get that close to the rocking horse on the landing. Only Lucas.
“Why are you so insistent on going into the attic?” Tracy asked her husband.
“The key to it all is in the attic. I don’t know how I know. I just do.”
The rocking horse laughed.
Lucas flushed and started out of the den. Tracy’s voice stopped him and turned him around.
“You’re that sure?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m that sure. I’m going to the attic. You coming?” He smiled as the old joke came to his mind.
Tracy caught it and said, “Remember the children, Lucas.”
“What about us?” Jackie asked.
“Never mind,” her mother said. “Yes. All right. I’ll go with you.”
“Can we go, too?” Jackie asked.
Johnny wasn’t all that damn sure he wanted to go up there.
“I’d rather you wouldn’t,” Tracy said. “You understand, don’t you?”
“Not really, mother,” the girl said. “I think the horse—or something—can keep us trapped here, yeah. And maybe it can hurt you grownups. But I don’t believe our friends out in the woods will let the horse really hurt us. Johnny?” She looked to her brother for support.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. That’s what I think, too. But just don’t ask me how I know that.”
The rocking horse was silent on its place on the landing.
“Let’s all go, then,” Lucas said. “Be careful and don’t touch that rocking horse. It seems to have more powers than we realize.”
The rocking horse was just that this time around: a wooden rocking horse. Nothing more. It sat on its runners on the landing like the non-living lump it was supposed to be. Kyle commented on that.
“Me and Lucas beat that damned thing to bits before we buried it,” the cop said. “Now it’s all back together. But it’s wood. We all know that. How can it be alive?”
No one would venture an opinion.
Lucas said, “I don’t trust the damned thing.”
Tracy laughed, more than a note of hysteria in her laughter. “Can you believe what you just said, Lucas? Anybody? We’re all grown people and we don’t trust a damned wooden rocking horse. It’s hysterical!” She started to laugh, and the laughter was just on the edge of becoming uncontrollable.
Louisa stepped forward and slapped Tracy’s face. The pop brought the woman up short, the bubbling hysteria cut off in her throat.
“Get a grip on things, Tracy,” Louisa said. “Don’t you see? That’s what that thing,” she pointed to the rocking horse, “wants us all to do: lose control. Even when it looks like nothing more than what it’s supposed to be, it’s working on us all. You’ve got to understand that.”
“It’s just a damned rocking horse!” Tracy said. “And all this . . . all that’s happened to us, is some sort of sick game being played on us. That’s all. Somebody’s put LSD or PVC in our water—or something like that.”
“Plastic pipe?” Kyle said, a confused look on his face. “Oh! Right. PCP. Angel Dust. I wish it was that simple, Tracy. I thought along those lines at first. But had you been with Lucas and me last night, you’d think different. I am wondering about one thing, though.”
They waited.
Kyle looked at the horse. “I just wonder if that thing is going to let me go to work on Tuesday?”
“Sure,” Jackie said.
Eyes shifted to the girl. “How can you know?” Kyle asked.
The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Why wouldn’t it? I mean, it’s just logical. Even if you told somebody what was happening here—who’d believe you?”
The rocking horse began rocking slowly back and forth. It seemed to be smiling arrogantly.
No one had much enthusiasm about working in the attic that afternoon. And that fact showed up early on. Finally, the six of them sat on crates and boxes and talked.
All were conscious of the fact that the rocking horse had, unnoticed, shifted positions on the landing. It had turned so it now faced the attic steps.
“That thing,” Kyle said, cutting his eyes to the rocking horse on the landing just below them, “has us in a box. All of us.”
Tracy fought back the hysterical giggle that threatened to erupt from her throat. Jackie saw her mother’s hand go to her mouth, her change of expression, and came to her mother’s side, sitting close. Mother and daughter drew silent comfort from each other.
“Yes,” Louisa said. “That is true. But one positive thing has been accomplished here, Kyle. Now you are a believer. One hundred percent. I knew it would be this way when we came her.”
“And you have been a . . . believer all your life?” Lucas asked, curious to know more about this quiet, petite lady. He thought that perhaps another key to the puzzle lay within her.
She met his eyes
and her smile was unreadable in content. “Oh, yes. As a child I used to play with the Woods’ Children. Not often, but occasionally.”
Kyle shook his head. His sigh was as audible to the adults as the other breathing was to the kids. “Honey, just who are these Woods’ Children?”
“They are children of early settlers from the coast,” she began. “They were born of witches and warlocks and fought their way free of the evil that surrounded them at birth. But to do so they took a vow to forever stay on the side of Light. They were very young when they did that. Their parents discovered what they had done and killed them. Killed them horribly. Their blood was then poured over the rocking horse. The horse is afraid of them because of that. They may leave these woods only when the Dark One’s Brotherhood is finally driven out, or killed. Only then may they go home.”
“That’s sad,” Johnny said. “And unfair, too, I think.”
“Why unfair, son?” Lucas asked.
All were very aware of the rocking horse having shifted itself closer to the attic stairs. Listening.
It did not seem to bother Jackie or Johnny.
“Well,” the boy replied, “didn’t the Woods’ Children repent of the sins they were born with?”
“So the story goes,” Louisa said with a gentle smile.
“That doesn’t seem right, either,” Jackie said. “Why would they have to repent of sins they had nothing to do with?”
No one could answer that.
“All right,” Jackie said. “Then why are they being punished?”
“Perhaps they aren’t being punished,” Kyle said.
“I don’t understand,” Jackie and Johnny said in unison.
The rocking horse suddenly spun around, the movement sharp as its runners rubbed the floor.
“They are not being punished,” the voice came from the landing.
“Who said that?” Tracy said, her heart pounding in fear.
Professor Siekmann and his associates stepped into view on the landing below the attic.
All those in the attic breathed a sigh of relief.
“We are truly sorry to have frightened you,” Nancy said. “But we blew the car horn and hammered on all the doors. We were afraid something awful had happened to you.”
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