by Ron Ripley
The first few pages were slow and boring. He learned of the family’s move from Dunstable to what was known as 'Narragansett Number 3.' Isiah Coffin had been rewarded with a land grant there for his service in Dummer’s War. Sarah, his third wife, was twenty-six years his junior, but the marriage was a good one. She cared for the children of his second wife, who had died during childbirth, as his second wife had done for the children of the first.
Sarah and Isiah had a child as well, Samson, who was five years old when they made the move.
Samson, Shane discovered, had been born with a caul. Not only did Sarah keep this information from the new settlement, but from her husband as well. She feared the superstitions of some of the more religious-minded in her community.
On February 2nd, 1734, Shane read a line that caused him to close his eyes. He was sure it had caused his mother to do the same.
On this day, I found Joseph dead. He had cut out his stomach and removed that which God had placed inside. Samson alone saw his half-brother do this thing. I asked if Joseph had said why, but Samson had told me that they had wanted to see the unseen.
We buried Joseph in the evening.
Shane stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and poured himself another drink.
He read the journal quicker, his eyes darting over words that became more crowded together. It was as though Sarah was scrawling her thoughts out onto the page.
At the end of March, Shane read how a local indentured servant, a German girl by the name of Henrietta, had gorged herself to death on the warm flesh of a sow she had butchered.
The horrors marched on across the pages.
Isiah, her husband, was found sitting beneath the chestnut tree in front of their house.
Sarah had written, with her words hardly legible,
He was naked. Long strips of his skin lay in coils about his legs. His body gleamed with blood, and when I found him, he was cutting out an eye. Samson sat with him, watching each move his father made with an intensity that frightened me.
I started to ask Isiah why he had done it. What devil had made him do it? His answer had been to grin at me in a most hideous and savage way, and to hold up his left hand, in which he held his own tongue.
Samson turned to me then, nodding and saying, ‘You see, mother, your husband has learned that if he cannot keep a civil tongue in his head, he will not keep it there at all.’
Shane closed the journal and put it down on his lap. He tapped his fingers on the cover, the leather smooth beneath his skin.
After a moment of hesitation, he stood up and carried the journal back to the bookcase. He searched among the books and letters until he found a notebook. Its cover was blue and faded. In his mother's bold handwriting the words, Atherton Family Tree, were written.
Shane put the journal down and opened the notebook. In it was a long, folded piece of paper taped to the inside of the cover. He stretched the paper out, revealing the well-diagramed family tree his mother had come close to completing. Shane searched the individual branches. By following the matrilineal lines, he was able to trace his family back to Samson.
The names and dates were all written in neat, block letters.
All except for Samson’s.
His were scrawled. As if Shane’s mother had felt compelled to write the information in, but wanted nothing more to do with it afterward.
Shane looked at the date of death for the young sadist.
June 12, 1739.
Shane sat down on the floor and opened the journal again. He leafed through the pages until he came to the right date, and he read his relative, Sarah’s entry.
No one would blame me for what I have done. Had they known what he was, what foul acts he had committed, they would have done far worse. By his mother's hand, he is dead, and it is right. He lies with them all. His body shall return to the dust from whence we have all come, and I will play the grieving mother.
Samson is dead, and I shall sleep well because of it.
Chapter 27: Setting Up a Cordon
Clair was unsure of how the One could exert his will over such distances. So, lacking any firm information, she started by doing the obvious.
Members of the organization from around New England were tasked with salting the area around the One’s house. They worked in teams of three. Each person was equipped with a pair of industrial headphones to reduce noise intake. One person was responsible for spreading the salt while in a harness similar to the one Linda had worn. Should the one establishing the barrier pull away, the other two would reel them back.
Or that was the theory.
By the third day, they had lost four teams.
On the fifth day, they had lost another two, and Clair realized it was time to send in Linda and Shirley.
Linda had been compliant, eager to please as always. A doctor in the organization had written a prescription for Oxycodone for her, not only for the pain she suffered from, but also for the additional injuries she was sure to sustain.
Shirley had been less than enthusiastic. While she had not been violent in her protests, she had sought to have the ‘privilege’ passed on to someone else.
Clair had not allowed her to defer.
The organization had few individuals left who could be spared, and Shirley was one of them.
Clair had also learned of the death of another member. Elliot Bretford, who had been tasked with observation of Shane and Frank, had been found dead a few streets away from Berkley. Shot from behind in his rented vehicle.
Which meant she would have to dispatch someone else to cover the house.
Shane and Frank had also struck at two more buildings owned by the organization. Each structure had been a total loss. The dead expelled from it and the buildings, being abandoned and in desolate locations along the ley lines, had been burnt to the ground.
Clair wanted to swoop down on the two men. To drag them outside, stand them against the wall of their house and execute them.
But she didn’t have the time or the manpower to do so.
Events were happening far faster than she had ever believed they could.
With a sigh, Clair picked up her phone, dialed Jenna's number, and waited for the woman to pick up. When she did so, Clair asked, "Are you ready?"
"Yes," Jenna replied. "We'll have the link up to you in a minute. Send a confirmation text, and we'll get them on their way."
“Good,” Clair stated, and she hung up the phone.
Clair relaxed into her chair and looked at her monitor. As she waited for the signal to upload, she wondered where she would find a replacement for Ms. Coleman.
Chapter 28: Success at Last
For the better part of the week, Frank had argued with Eloise. In the end, he decided to go to the newest member of the house’s dead residents, Mrs. Henderson.
She had taken up a permanent place in an empty bedroom on the second floor, and both Eloise and Thaddeus were known to be with her more often than not.
The bedroom's windows were hidden by thick draperies, and the air had a brutal chill to it. In the dim light, Frank could make out a bed and other items of furniture, but nothing distinctive.
“Mrs. Henderson?” Frank asked the silence.
“Yes?” the dead woman responded. Her voice had a regal air to it, a sense of power and authority.
“My name is Frank, ma’am,” he said. “I was wondering if I might ask you for your help.”
“Certainly,” she answered.
He quickly explained the situation to her, and when she spoke again, there was a hard and brittle tone to her words.
“And Eloise knows of this you say?” Mrs. Henderson asked.
“Yes,” Frank confirmed.
“Please wait here a moment,” she said, and the room warmed up slightly.
Several minutes passed, and then the temperature plummeted, causing Frank's skin to erupt into goose bumps. Shivering, he waited for her to speak.
But it wasn’t Mrs. Henderson who spoke.
It was Eloise.
“Frank,” Eloise said in a small voice. “Will you follow me?”
Before he could ask where, a door opened on the right side of the room. It was tall and thin, the doorway a sliver of darkness. Not certain where Mrs. Henderson was in the room, Frank said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the older woman replied, close to his left side. “Be careful when you speak with her.”
“I will be,” Frank assured her. He stepped over to the wall and slipped into the narrow passage behind it. A hard, unpleasant smell washed over him as cobwebs struck his face and hands. He felt a spider scurry across the back of his neck, and then vanish. Frank ignored the uncomfortable sensation it left him with and asked Eloise, “Left or right?”
“Right,” she answered. “You’ll know when we arrive.”
Frank took small steps, his hands outstretched to guide him along the wall. They brushed against studs and old wires and items for which he had no name. A curious sense of claustrophobia tried to take control, but he fought it back. He focused on his steps, counting each one he took.
By the time he had reached two hundred, he understood that he shouldn't have been able to go as far as he had, considering how small his steps were.
At three hundred, he spoke up.
“Eloise,” he said.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“On our way to Lisbeth,” Eloise replied.
“How can we even be in the house anymore?” Frank said. “It’s not this big.”
“The house doesn’t want you to get to her,” Eloise said.
“Why not?” he asked, trying to understand how a house could want anything at all.
“It doesn’t want Shane to be mad,” she answered.
The appearance of a faint light cut off his reply. It took another one hundred steps to reach the source of it, an open, oval doorway. Frank had to get down and crawl through it, entering a circular room. The toys and possessions of a little girl were scattered about, and a single, tall mirror stood among them.
“This was my secret place,” Eloise whispered. “I would hide here and play.”
Frank sat down and looked around.
“She’s in the mirror?” he asked after a minute.
“Yes,” Eloise answered.
“How do I talk to her?” he said.
“Just say her name,” Eloise said.
Frank nodded. He took a deep breath and thought about what he was about to do.
“Hello, Lisbeth,” he said.
The reflection within the mirror’s depths roiled and churned. A heartbeat later, Lisbeth was peering out at him, a look of surprise plain on her face.
Then the expression was replaced by one of wary expectation.
“Frank,” she said. “Where’s Shane?”
“Busy,” Frank replied. “He’ll be along shortly.”
Her eyes flicked past him to the door and then back to his face.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Why are you here? Don’t you trust, Shane?”
“I trust Shane implicitly. Unfortunately he hasn’t been exactly in his right state of mind lately,” Frank said. “However, I do question what he might and might not share with me. Especially when it comes to what information he might get from you.”
“So what do you want?” Lisbeth asked.
“Information,” Frank answered. “The same you gave to Shane.”
“And what will you give me in return?” Lisbeth demanded.
“What do you want?” Frank retorted.
“Freedom,” she hissed. “I want to be let go.”
He nodded. “I can do that for you.”
Her eyes widened in shock even as Eloise spoke up from behind Frank, saying, “You can’t! Shane wouldn’t like it!”
At the mention of Shane's name, Lisbeth winced within the glass, and Frank wondered what his friend had done to her.
“Shut up, girl!” Lisbeth snarled, pressing herself close against the mirror.
“Yes,” Lisbeth said to Frank. “Yes, I’ll tell you, if you let me out.”
“Then it’s a deal,” Frank said. “Tell me.”
Lisbeth did so.
She explained to him the significance of the houses on the ley lines, and how there was a juncture, somewhere in southern New Hampshire. The buildings with the most deaths attributed to them were the strongest, and those further along the lines were more powerful still.
Frank listened to it all intently, forcing himself to remember everything she said.
The telling didn’t take long. Perhaps ten minutes. Maybe twenty. And when she was done, Lisbeth looked at him with painful hope.
When he straightened up and moved toward the mirror, Eloise whispered, "Don't!”
Frank ignored the dead girl and smashed his fist into the mirror.
A rush of cold air slammed into him, catching him off balance, and knocking him onto the floor. Shards of glass raced towards him as he curled away, shielding his face with his forearms. From the depths of the shattered mirror came a deep, tremendous roar followed by pure silence.
Blood spilled from his arms, face, and scalp. A glance at his forearms revealed that multiple pieces of glass protruded from his flesh. Wincing, Frank got to his feet and resisted the urge to pull the shards from his arms. Instead, he staggered towards the exit, bent down, and made his way out.
The trip back to Mrs. Henderson’s room took only a few minutes, the house evidently eager to expel him from between the walls.
When he stumbled into the open space, he sat down hard on the floor. The overhead light came on, and he blinked, tried to focus, and finally saw Shane. He stood in the doorway, his face a mask of anger. Eloise stood beside him.
Shane’s lips moved, but Frank couldn’t hear them.
He couldn’t hear anything at all.
Chapter 29: Without Options
Terror gripped Shirley, squeezing her heart and threatening to cause her to faint.
She stood between the twin killers, the sisters who had brought her godfather to what they had thought was his death. If they knew what she had done, the information she had passed on to him, they would torture her to death.
That realization did nothing to help her calm down.
She had seen what the One had tried to do to Linda. Shirley had seen the dead and the dying around the boy as well.
She had no illusions as to what her chances were of surviving the encounter.
There was a slim possibility she might live. The One might decide he approved of the message Clair had crafted, but Shirley doubted it.
“Are you ready?” Jenna asked.
Shirley looked at the woman. “No.”
Gabby snorted with laughter. “At least you’re honest. What’d you do to deserve this?”
“Clair called it an honor,” Shirley said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Neither of the twins scoffed at that.
“We thought you had volunteered,” Jenna said after a moment. “Thought you were one of the sheep.”
Shirley didn’t beg them not to send her in. They took their orders from Clair, as she did.
"No," Shirley explained. "I've been loyal and true. There was no choice here. She made that abundantly clear. I was going. She put it politely and made it sound like a reward for my faithful service, but it's not."
“You’re right,” Gabby agreed. “It’s not.”
“Well,” Jenna said in a gentle tone that surprised Shirley, “ready or not, it’s time for you to go in.”
“Yeah,” Shirley whispered. She leaned forward and vomited onto the ground, the remnants of her meager breakfast splashed onto her running shoes.
But she had nowhere to run. Even if they did let her go, which she knew they wouldn’t.
She straightened up, and one of them handed her a napkin. Shirley wiped the tears out of the corners of her eyes, scrubbed the vomit off her lips and spat on
the ground.
She stuffed the napkin into her pocket, cleared her throat and said, “Alright, let’s get on with it.”
Chapter 30: Following the Leader
Linda didn't know who the woman was in front of her, and she didn't care. In a short time, Linda knew the woman would be dead, and the best that could be hoped for was that the One would listen to the message before he tried to kill the messenger.
One of the twins stepped away from the unknown woman and withdrew a small, flat black, semi-automatic pistol. She showed it to Linda and carefully mouthed the question, Do you know how to use this?
Linda did. She nodded.
The twin turned, put her finger to the back of her own head, placing the tip of it at the junction of her neck and skull. Then she dropped her hand and turned back to Linda.
When it is time, the twin mouthed, you put her down.
Linda felt her eyes widen.
The twin nodded and pressed the pistol into Linda’s hand. Linda checked to make sure the safety was on and pocketed the weapon.
When the messenger started forward, Linda followed. The pain of the injuries she had sustained in the previous encounter with the One was dulled by medication. She was able to keep up with the messenger’s stumbling, frightened gait.
Linda was equipped the same way she had been on the first attempt to see the One. A full, five point harness and a helmet. And, like the time before, she had a camera live-streaming the event to Clair.
Soon the two of them came to the giant tree and passed beneath into the shadow of its boughs. In a moment, they were at the edge of the burial ground. There were fresh mounds of dirt around the house, and the dead bodies that had laid there before were gone.
More people sat around the dead boy, staring at him. Linda didn't bother to count them. Instead, she put her hand on the pistol and slipped the safety off. She could see the One's lips moving, but she forced herself to keep her attention on the messenger. Linda could see the woman's jaw work, muscles tightening and relaxing in her neck and along her temple.