by A.R. Wise
CHAPTER TWENTYONE
Alma’s Lost Truth
March 14th, 1996
Alma was still in the kitchen, watching the water boil, when she heard Terry scream. Then Ben started to wail even louder and Alma refused to stay downstairs any longer. She took a steak knife out of the butcher’s block on the counter and headed for the stairs.
The green electricity outside crackled again and she thought she heard her name, but wasn’t sure who was speaking. When the light flashed, there was a tall shadow in the room with her, as if an adult were standing at her side. She spun and swiped through the air, but there was no one in the room with her other than the whimpering dog in the cage.
Alma went to the stairs and paused, terrified. Ben was crying out in pain, and Alma knew her father was killing him. If she didn’t do something, her brother would die. She started to hum a tune, a trick her mother had taught her to help stay calm when bad things were happening. She took each step slowly and listened as Ben continued to cry out in pain.
She heard her father speak, “Hold the towel over your face, Ben.”
“It hurts!” Ben cried out.
“Get back in the tub, bitch!” Her father hit something, and Alma heard water splash. Then she heard several wet thuds while Ben continued to cry, his voice now muffled by what Alma assumed was a towel.
She held the knife out in front of herself, ready to kill Michael to save Ben. If her father was hurting him, Alma was prepared to stop him any way she had to. She had to protect him, because they only had each other to depend on.
Alma walked down the hall and then pushed the door open. Ben was on the bed with a towel over his face, and Alma could see her father in the bathroom, hunched over the tub. Ben was shaking as he held the towel.
“Ben?” asked Alma. “Are you okay?”
Ben dropped the towel and his lip snagged on the fabric. When the towel fell, a portion of his lower lip went with it. His face was scarlet red, and his eyebrows were missing. Blisters had formed on his cheeks and his eyes were wide and unblinking. His teeth were chattering as if his body couldn’t stand the agony he was suffering. “Alma,” he said and pointed to the door. “Get out!”
“Alma?” asked her father from the bathroom. He got up from the tub and walked back into the room. “What did I tell you about coming in here?”
Alma looked at him and held the knife out, still prepared to protect Ben no matter what. She saw Terry rise up from the tub behind her father. The woman’s entire body was slathered in a putrid mess of blood and thick, syrupy liquid. Terry screamed in pain and pushed Alma’s father out of the way as she rushed for the door. Alma’s father tried to grab the nude woman, but when he gripped her arm a strip of flesh peeled off her. Alma closed her eyes and held the knife out.
Terry was blinded by the chemicals in the tub, and ran directly into Alma’s outstretched blade. The force of Terry’s lunge was enough to knock Alma back as the blade pressed into the nude woman’s abdomen. Terry fell down on Alma and the stench of the chemical soup stole the young girl’s breath away.
Terry was slick with the chemical sludge, and when Alma tried to push the woman away her hands slid through the muck. Terry sputtered and finally rolled off Alma as she clutched the blade in her stomach. She tried to get away, but Alma’s father was already over her. He pulled the blade free, which caused Terry’s body to lurch up before falling back down again.
“Die, you stupid bitch!” Alma’s father stabbed the woman over and over just within the threshold of the room. He wouldn’t stop, and soon his fist was plunging into a large cavity in the woman’s stomach.
When his madness subsided, Alma’s father stood up, his hands dripping with blood and chunks of flesh, and panted as he stared down at his daughter. “What did I tell you about staying out of my room?”
There was a sucking noise from the hall. It sounded as if all the air in the cabin was being pulled away, then a boom shook the building as electric light flashed all around them. The fog swept in and enveloped them as shadows ran past. The creatures in the mist danced and spun, holding each others hands as they went. The shadows were hunched over and sometimes howled as if canine. From within the mass of creatures came a tall figure, and Alma thought she saw the shadow of horns on the top of his head, but then realized that part of the man was connected to the walls by what looked like long strands of wire. He held his hand out to Ben, and Alma heard him whispering. The shadow then glanced at Alma, but ignored her as he led Ben away.
“I love you, Alma,” said Ben. “I’ll never stop loving you.”
Paul was there in the fog, and he saw everything that Alma and Ben had endured. The Skeleton Man had revealed himself, and was whispering to Paul as the creatures danced around them.
“I met the Devil, and he ended my pain,” said The Skeleton Man. “He gave me a chance to save Alma.”
“How?” asked Paul. He couldn’t see Ben, but could hear the man’s chattering teeth.
“You should know that right now Alma is dying.”
“What happened? Did someone shoot her?”
“The men that stayed in Widowsfield are murdering you both. Look at your chest.”
Paul glanced down and saw three bullet holes, each oozing blood, in his chest. He put his finger in one and then glanced up at where he thought Ben’s voice emanated from. “Why?”
“They went up the stairs,” said Ben. “They opened a door that should’ve stayed shut, and now we’re all paying the price. You had to be silenced, but they don’t know the truth about our little town. Widowsfield will never be quiet. It’s still alive, trapped in a place between Hell and Earth. But we can make it better, Paul. We can save Alma.”
“How?” asked Paul. He looked down at Alma as she lay face up on the floor, partially covering the bloody numbers she’d scrawled on the tile. When he first looked down at her there was no blood on her chest, but then it suddenly began to pour out from under her until a pool formed and hid the rest of the number she was laying over. “Tell me what I need to do.”
“The same that I did,” said The Skeleton Man. “Sacrifice yourself to keep the truth hidden. Alma can’t handle what she saw. No one could. She’s fragile. She’ll break if she remembers. You have to let her go.”
“Okay, fine,” said Paul. “I’ll do whatever I have to.”
He looked over at Stephen and Rachel’s corpses, and saw that their wounds had disappeared. They looked like they were asleep, but then blood began to pool beneath them as well before the fog covered them, shielding Paul’s friends from his view.
“Pay attention to what I say,” said The Skeleton Man.
Paul’s chest ached, and he glanced back down at the wound on his chest. The Skeleton Man’s hand was pressed over his gun shots, and blood seeped out between his skeletal fingers.
“I just want to save Alma,” said Paul. “I’ll do whatever I have to for her.”
“Will you?” asked Ben. “Do you love her as much as I did? Would you do anything to protect her?”
“I’ll die for her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Ben laughed. “You’re already dead, Paul. I’m asking for more than that.”
“Then get to the point,” said Paul as his patience waned. “What do I have to do?”
“You have to let her forget you.” There was malice in Ben’s voice when he explained the proposition. “Stay here with me, and let Alma go. She’ll forget you ever lived, and that she ever loved you. She’ll never know of your sacrifice, and will never lament your loss. That’s the deal I was given, and I can offer you the same. Alma will never remember you, but she’ll be safe. If you really love her, if you really want to protect her, then you’ll do the same thing that I did.”
“There’s got to be another way,” said Paul.
“There is,” said Ben. “You’re stuck here now, and if you want you can try and find a way out of Widowsfield. No one ever has, but you’re welcome to try. If you refuse my offer, then you’ll wake up in Wido
wsfield, moments before the event occurred that opened the doorway. Alma will be with you, but she’ll remember what happened here when she was a child. All of her memories will come flooding back, just like they did of me the last time she was here. She’ll remember what happened in that bedroom when her knife plunged into the whore’s stomach. I don’t think anyone could be expected to handle that realization, but it gets worse.”
“What?” asked Paul. The demon seemed to be enjoying this more than a loving brother should. The Skeleton Man was a twisted creature, and Paul assumed there were more spirits than just Ben’s that made up this demon.
“She used the number to remember, just before she was shot dead in the kitchen. She knows what happened, and she’ll be forced to remember over and over again. Widowsfield lives perpetually within only a few minutes of time. The short window of time that the door was open now plays itself over and over again, and the tortured souls in the town are forced to live that moment for eternity. Now Alma and your friends will join us, and every time the moment starts again, they’ll be flooded by the agonizing memory of what happened here.”
The Skeleton Man materialized in the mist. He was tall, and his face was a mask of stripped flesh that covered a skull. He had eyeballs that were placed within a skull’s sockets and his teeth chattered as he spoke, as if his voice wasn’t emitted from his mouth, but telepathically. There was black wire sewed through the strips of skin on his face, and they bored through his jaw to tie his face together. It appeared as if the creature had tried to use the wire to stop his chattering teeth, but it hadn’t worked.
“Make your choice,” said The Skeleton Man as he held out his hand to Paul. “Join me, and let them forget you. Or torture her for eternity with the memory of what happened here.”
Paul was given insight into what The Skeleton Man knew. There was too much to understand in such a short moment, but Paul knew that the boy had allowed his final few minutes to dictate what hell he wrought on the residents of Widowsfield that were trapped in the mist with him. Ben was a malevolent force whose pain and suffering in his last moments of life defined the existence of every soul left trapped in Widowsfield. He was their Devil, a mere child who learned of hatred and pain at the very moment that a doorway was unlocked.
Paul had no way of knowing if what the demon said was true, or if this were all a lie. But as he looked down at Alma, he had no other choice than to try and protect her. He would do anything for her, even if it meant saying goodbye to her forever.
A tear fell down his cheek as he focused on Alma’s face. The Skeleton Man’s teeth chattered incessantly beside his ear.
“Why are you doing this?” asked Paul.
“I’m the only one that can protect her, Paul,” said The Skeleton Man. “She has to see that if we’re going to get out alive.”
“Why is this happening?”
“Evil has a home,” said The Skeleton Man. “Its name is Widowsfield. Now make your choice.”