She then noticed the faceless girl standing at the end of the platform.
She was no longer faceless, though.
She had become a mirror image of herself!
But that wasn’t possible . . .
Suddenly, she realized who the little girl was. It was Grandma Katherine!
Tears were flowing from Katherine’s eyes as she stood and stared at her in an expression of pity.
Emily knew she was on the brink of death as her father continued slamming himself into her faster and harder. Her blood was splattered all over the place; she was nearly split in two. She started to close her eyes to await her imminent death when something suddenly caught her eye: Grandma Katherine had picked up the pitchfork and was now standing over the two of them. She raised the pitchfork high over her head with both of her hands; then, with all her might, brought it down into the back of her father’s head.
His head exploded into a million pieces . . .
Emily awoke with a scream. She continued to scream until she finally realized that she was lying in her bed and that she had been dreaming.
She trembled uncontrollably. The sheets were soaked with perspiration. In spite of her relief that it had only been a dream, she was still absolutely terrified. She turned over and stared at the glowing red numerals of the clock radio. It read 3:37 A.M. She pulled the covers down to her waist to cool herself off but this only made her tremble more. She pulled the covers back up over her and began crying softly to herself.
Lying back against the pillow, fragments of the nightmare came back to her. It had begun the same way as they always began: her father fondling her while she slept. She had just turned eleven a few weeks before and had come home from school for Christmas vacation.
In essence, the dream had been an accurate reenactment of what had actually occurred on that horrible night. Up until the part where she’d escaped from her father by falling through the hole in the floor and landing in Hell. That of course, had never happened. Instead, her father had raped her right there in her bed. Then he had stormed out of her bedroom, leaving her alone, crying and in pain. Later, he’d come back and threatened her—made her promise him that she would never tell anyone what had happened. Otherwise, he had warned, he’d make her sorry that she’d ever been born. Emily had sensed that this was his way of saying that he would kill her. As she lay in bed crying herself to sleep, she had tried to figure out why her father had done what he had and why she suddenly felt so dirty and disgusted with herself. She knew that she must have done something awfully bad to be treated like that by her own father but had no idea what it could have been. She only knew that she would never be the same little girl she used to be anymore . . .
The nightmares always began the same way, but through the years had evolved into a number of varying scenarios that always ended with a different and more horrifying climax each time. And ever since Miss Rutledge had revealed to her the story about Grandma Katherine ten years ago, Katherine herself had begun making an appearance at some point of every dream—usually to rescue her from her father. Her great-grandfather, John Hoffman, appeared randomly—always with the featureless white eyeballs . . .
Suddenly, the image of her father climbing on top of her flashed through Emily’s mind and she shuddered. With that vision came the flashbacks: the freaks pawing all over her body, her great-grandfather lapping her chest like a dog with his long raspy tongue, her father splitting her wide-open as she lay flat on her back, chained-up and utterly defenseless; the pain, the horror, the blood . . .
Emily screamed bloody murder. Her eyes fluttered open in an attempt to make the images go away. But they wouldn’t. In a panic, she reached over and fumbled for the lamp. Finally, she found the switch and flipped it on. Light filled her bedroom. The flashbacks went away.
Emily breathed a long sigh. She was safe now . . . for the time being, anyway.
But how many more times was she going to have to go through all of this? she thought. How much longer was she going to have to live this nightmare over and over again? How many more nights was she going to wake up screaming in a cold sweat, wracked in mortal fear?
When would the nightmares go away?
Never, she thought. They were never going to go away. In fact, they had only increased in frequency through the years. She’d only had them occasionally when they first started; maybe once or twice a month. Then she’d started having them two or three times a week. And now, ever since her father’s death, she’d had them nearly every night of the week.
She simply couldn’t go on living like this.
She felt exhausted and weak. She wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew that her mind wouldn’t let her. She was going to have to just lay there and wait, just as she had all the other times, until her fatigue became so great that her body would finally shut down and allow her to fall into a deep, deathlike slumber.
Emily suddenly threw off the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Before stepping out, she instinctively checked the floor for holes. Then, grabbing her robe and hastily throwing it over her shoulders, she fled the bedroom and ran downstairs.
She went to the kitchen and flicked on the lights. She strode determinedly over to one of the cupboards and opened the door. There behind the neatly arranged rows of glasses, she spotted the bottle of scotch. With a decisive shrug of her shoulders, she grabbed the bottle by the neck and took it out.
The bottle was still sealed and had sat in the cabinet since before her father’s death. She took out a glass, opened up the scotch, poured in a few ounces.
She hadn’t had a drink in over ten years. Not since that Sunday afternoon when she and Ted had gone on the picnic from Hell. She’d made a vow to herself later that day to never drink again; and she’d stuck to it faithfully all this time.
“But that was then, and this is now.” Emily said aloud then brought the glass to her lips and drained it dry. The liquor felt good and warm going down—perhaps a little too good, she thought to herself.
With a smirk, she poured herself another glass and drained it. She poured herself yet another one before taking bottle and all into the den with her.
Cassie was curled up on the hearth and stirred briefly when Emily entered. She glanced into the fireplace and was startled to discover that the embers were still burning. She already felt lightheaded from the scotch as she strolled over to the picture window and gazed outside.
The snowfall had tapered off to flurries, but not before dumping a good seven inches of fresh snow on the ground. The scene outside was breathtaking. Millions of twinkling ice crystals topped the blanket of snow. Beyond the tree line of her yard, the moon shone randomly through the windswept clouds, delicately illuminating the entire mountaintop. Tall pines were covered in a blanket of white, their branches sagging under the weight of the snow.
Emily felt herself glowing. She took another sip of scotch and continued to stare out at the winter wonderland before her. Her senses were numb now, and it occurred to her that she had absolutely no regrets about breaking her vow. She could justify this occasion by her own admission that she had been entirely too hard on herself in the past; too strict in the rules and guidelines she had established for herself that were supposed to help her cope with a dilemma which she had absolutely no control over.
She grinned and took another drink. What harm could there be in drowning a few sorrows once in a while? she thought. There was a clinical purpose to this drink; it had therapeutic value. She needed to get some goddamn sleep! She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in what seemed like ages and it was beginning to take its toll on her. She was tired of feeling flat-out exhausted all the time.
Emily drained the rest of the glass and prepared to pour herself another one. All of a sudden she felt dizzy and nearly lost her balance as she tried removing the cap off the scotch bottle while holding the glass between her arm and side at the same time.
“Seem to be losing my motor skills,” she giggled, fumbling wi
th the bottle cap.
She finally managed to remove the cap successfully without the glass falling to the floor. Smiling triumphantly, she poured herself a generous drink then set the bottle down on the windowsill. Another sip later, she realized that she was quite sloshed. Her eyes wouldn’t stay focused and her head was spinning like a top. The notion of going back to bed and passing out suddenly appealed to her. In fact, she had to admit, it was becoming more like a necessity.
She clumsily set her glass down on the windowsill then went over to where Cassie was lying on the hearth.
“I love you, girl,” she said, patting her puppy on the head and kneeling down to give her a kiss.
Emily then fled the den in haste and stumbled her way up the long flight of stairs to the second floor. When she reached the top, she had to balance herself by running her hand along the wall of the hallway as she staggered toward the bedroom door. She made a beeline for her bed, slipped out of her robe, and jumped in under the covers. Switching off the bedside lamp, Emily closed her eyes and within seconds, was sound asleep.
CHAPTER 5
When Emily awoke the next morning, her head ached and she felt sick to her stomach. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and gasped when she saw the time—12:17. She hadn’t slept in this late since she’d been in college.
Slowly, she got out of bed and made her way to the bedroom door and opened it. Cassie was lying on the hallway floor and jumped up to greet her master. Emily petted her for a moment before ambling down the hall to the bathroom.
She went over to the medicine cabinet and took two aspirins out of a bottle then closed the door. She was shocked when she saw herself in the mirror; her eyes were bloodshot with dark lines underneath and her skin was alabaster. She heaved a heavy sigh then popped the aspirins in her mouth and washed them down with a glass of water. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she left the bathroom, resisting the lingering urge to throw up.
Her legs felt wobbly as she descended the stairs and went into the kitchen. After feeding Cassie, she prepared a pot of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to wait for it to brew.
She stared blankly at the kitchen table and recalled the night before. Another nightmare. And it had been the most frightening one she’d had yet. Why, she thought, wouldn’t they just go away? And why did they seem to be increasing in frequency? She’d long ago accepted the fact that they were apparently going to be a part of her life, like it or not, but she now feared that they were beginning to run her life.
And now, as an indirect result of the nightmares, she’d broken her long-standing vow not to drink alcohol. Ever since the day she’d nearly been raped by Ted, she’d blamed alcohol for the entire incident. She felt that the wine he’d guzzled down had made him aggressive and knew that had he not drank so much, he most likely would never have done what he’d done.
She wondered how much scotch she’d downed last night. Enough to do the trick, she thought to herself with a smirk. And although she was paying the price today, she had to admit it was worth it—she’d slept like a baby.
The coffee pot ceased brewing so she stood up and went over to pour herself a cup. She glanced out the window before sitting back down and smiled weakly when she saw the bright sun shining in a deep blue sky. At least the weather was going to be nice today, she thought.
She took a sip of coffee and felt her stomach growl. She was hungry, but decided to put off eating because she wasn’t sure she could keep anything solid down. Perhaps after a long walk, she thought to herself. She hadn’t taken her traditional Sunday walk out to the old house in weeks, but today she decided, she wasn’t going to let the snow stop her as she had the last few weekends. Besides, maybe the exercise would perk her up a bit.
She finished her coffee then went upstairs to dress. After throwing on a pair of jeans and a turtleneck sweater, she found her hiking boots in the closet and put them on then went back downstairs. After donning her heavy wool winter coat and gloves, she called Cassie and the two left the house by way of the back door.
The cold air nipped at her nose as she stepped off the porch into the backyard, and Emily welcomed the sobering sensation. She watched Cassie as she bolted into the vast expanse of deep snow and began sniffing and rolling around playfully. She headed directly for the tree line in the far corner of the yard and could feel her hangover abating as she made her way through the brilliant span of winter whiteness.
Cassie was well ahead of her when she reached the tree line and entered the path that cut through the woods. She noticed her springer spaniel pointing at something in the brush to the right of the path and quickened her pace to catch up with her. When she reached her though, Cassie suddenly bolted into a flat-out sprint and darted up the path, apparently no longer interested in whatever it was she’d been pointing at.
Emily slowed her pace and began ambling along, taking in the beauty and splendor of the winter landscape. She observed the way that the snow was nestled neatly in the nooks of the trees and marveled at the sheer magnificence of this mountain—how breathtakingly beautiful it was no matter what the season. Nothing in the world, she knew, could ever draw her away from this place she loved so much. It was the only thing in her life that she could count on to always be there and never let her down. It gave her a sense of security that otherwise was lacking in her reclusive existence and she felt at times that it was the only driving force keeping her plugging along life’s meandering path.
She was well aware of the fact that the entire village of Ashland Falls thought her odd; living alone on top of this mountain as she did. They couldn’t understand why an attractive young woman would want to live alone—as opposed to finding a man and settling down to raise a family like she was “supposed to do.” She also knew that they were no doubt aware of her personal wealth and that it boggled their minds why she would stick around here in the middle of nowhere running an antique shop, which for all intent and purposes was little more than an exhibit of old furniture and knickknacks from days gone by.
But what the locals didn’t know, and never would know, was the truth—why things were the way they were. And how her life had seemingly been destined for the skids long before she’d even been brought into this world. It was all due to the Hoffman legacy, for lack of a better term. In essence, she’d been born into a family whose past had been rife with greed, lust, and tyranny—a family whose past had never quite caught up with its individual members.
Until now . . .
Emily had hiked nearly a mile until she finally came within sight of the burned-down house that once was home to her grandmother Katherine as an infant. When she neared the clearing surrounding the house’s foundation, she spotted Cassie sniffing busily around the remains. Almost immediately, she could feel the familiar sensation of being drawn into the house and the mystery concerning its former occupants.
She brushed off the snow from a log lying near the old well with a gloved hand then sat down. This is where it all began, she thought as she stared blankly at the snow-covered rubble. No one, herself included, would ever know the truth about Grandma Katherine. Katherine herself hadn’t even known; and that was a tragedy in itself. In spite of Miss Rutledge’s implication that Grandma Katherine had felt confident she was the biological daughter of Clem and Nancy Porter, Emily felt certain that she’d had her doubts about it. Her grandmother had refused to believe John Hoffman’s story—and why the hell shouldn’t she? To think that her father-in-law was actually her father, and that her husband was actually her half-brother would be a hard pill for anyone to swallow.
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
What if Grandma Katherine had actually accepted John Hoffman’s claim that he was her father? It would have destroyed her! So she had opted for the alternative instead. To save herself. And her marriage to Grandpa Warren. And all their dreams for the future . . .
Emily swallowed hard. Why couldn’t she do as her grandmother had done and get on with her life; instead o
f letting this all consume her as she was?
One of the answers was obvious. Her father. He’d been insane; no doubt about it. His insanity had directly influenced her life. And it seemed more than obvious that his insanity had stemmed from the fact that his father and mother had been brother and sister—they’d shared the same father at any rate. The result: a genetic short-circuit.
Of course she wasn’t positive of this; she never could be. But it seemed likely the more she pondered what Miss Rutledge had told her. John Hoffman had slept with Katherine’s mother, Nancy Porter, and there was little doubt about that. Whether he’d raped her or not; the fact still remained. Why else would her great-grandfather willingly confess to his son that he’d committed an act of adultery if it wasn’t true? There would be absolutely no reason for him to do so, otherwise.
But the pertinent question was whether or not he’d actually conceived Katherine. The odds pointed to that being the case. Clem and Nancy Porter had tried for ten years to have a child without any success. Then suddenly, Nancy gets pregnant with Katherine in her womb at around the same time her great-grandfather was having his way with her. Sheer coincidence? Perhaps, but highly unlikely.
All of this troubled her more than she cared to admit. She realized that she could, theoretically, shrug the whole thing off as her grandmother had supposedly done if things were different. But her life was a living nightmare—literally—and the recurring nightmares were a constant reminder of both her own past as well as her family’s. People who were long dead and buried and whom she had never known had become living characters in her dreams; interacting with her and ultimately influencing the outcome of each horrifying episode.
Why was this so? she thought. Why couldn’t she have some peace?
Emily glanced over at Cassie who was now digging furiously around a charred wooden beam lying near the middle of the house’s foundation. Her thoughts shifted to yet another unanswered question.
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