Southern House

by Mark Deloy

  “You’ll be safe here,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I slammed the trunk and ran as fast as I could back to the house, praying the whole way it hadn’t moved half way across the forest again.

  The house was still right where I left it. I breathed a sigh of relief between gasping for breath, with my hands on my knees. I then slid the key out of my hiking boot, holding it in one hand. It felt like metal, but also had a light plastic feel to it. There was a hole in one side where, I imagined, Shift had it fastened to himself somehow. It must have come loose when he was struggling with the boy scouts on that summer morning, long ago.

  I went up the ladder and reached the top. Shift, Lisa and Connor were still standing at the far side of the room, looking down at the shifting designs. They all looked up as I pulled myself through the opening.

  “Do you have it?” Shift asked greedily.

  “Yes,” I said. “Lisa, you and Connor go, get out of here. Don’t stop until you reach my house. I’ll catch up.”

  I expected a protest, but Lisa led Connor over to the ladder and helped him down. Then she went down as well, but before she disappeared I saw her mouth the words “Be careful.” I nodded, and she was gone.

  I held the key out to Shift and he took it from me with his impossibly large hands.

  “Remember our deal,” I reminded him.

  “You and your woman can go, and as a gesture of good faith, I’ll even give you the souls of the children still alive,” Shift said, raising one hand. As he did I saw about a dozen soul suits which had been hanging on the racks beneath us begin to shoot up like old coats. They flew down the ladder after Lisa and Connor. “But I cannot simply give up this world for good. Its bounty is too rich. As I have said, the children here are like dowsing rods for other worlds. Be grateful I left you alive.”

  He stepped into the vortex and was gone.

  “I figured you wouldn’t keep your word,” I remarked as I lifted my shirt, took out the flare and popped it to life. I could hear Shift laughing his phlegmy laugh from the other side of the portal.

  I held the flare out so the flames were spitting against one dry wooden wall. It went up as if it were made of paper instead of wood. Flames rushed along the wall to the ceiling and lit that as well. I barely made it down the ladder before it burst into flame. The soul suits were scattered around the bottom of the ladder. I did my best to gather them up as I ran, but I know I left a few. I just hoped I’d been able to grab Anni, Mike and Jacob’s.

  By the time I reached the front door, I could feel the intense heat on my back as if I was at the beach in August with my shirt off. Shift was still laughing from deep inside the inferno. Lisa hadn’t run to the house. She and Connor were standing at the edge of some trees about fifty yards away, watching the house burn to the ground. There was only one problem, and I knew it was why Shift had been laughing from his side of the vortex.

  The swirling mass was still there. I could see it through the flames. Small sparks were coming off it, but it looked intact and was swirling even faster than before, as if the inferno had given it even more power. I rushed over to where Lisa and her son were standing and dropped the soul husks at their feet like a load of dirty laundry. She had one hand up, trying to block some of the intense heat and had pushed Connor behind her legs to protect him.

  I wanted to tell them to run to the car, to get out of there, but we were all hypnotized by the flames and the swirling mass of color at the center of the inferno. I hoped, as the house collapsed in on itself, it might take the vortex with it, but the wooden structure just burned around it.

  “Look,” Lisa said. “It’s all colored now. There are no black openings.”

  “He probably changed it so nothing from the burning house would pass through,” I said, feeling sick.

  “It was a good try, Hick,” Lisa responded, probably sensing how I felt.

  “Not good enough, though, I’m afraid. I’m sorry. You and Connor need to get out of here before he comes back.”

  The house was destroyed in five minutes, reduced to a few smoldering boards and dark gray ash. The ruins surrounded the vortex, which rotated and gave off a soft hum. Small darker places had begun to appear in the patterns once again. Then they grew larger until the vortex looked as it had before, a swirling Mandelbrot pattern.

  “Look!” Lisa screamed and pointed to where my gaze was already transfixed.

  The portal changed once again. It stopped spiraling and was now completely black. Rising from the darkness was Mr. Shift. His arms were straight out at his sides like a mockery of the crucifixion. His strange shifting face was now a dark violet color and black flames rose up from his neck, mimicking the fire that had consumed the house. He was laughing once again and the flames on his face rose and fell with each guffaw.

  I knew he was coming back to kill us, and I also knew there was nothing we could do about it. We had tried to fight something not of this world—a monster who steals children. We had tried and we had failed. And now we were going to pay for it. I pushed Lisa and Connor behind me. The guns that were in the upstairs room were now probably melted. I looked around for something, any kind of weapon. I had nothing to fight him with, not even a tree branch.

  “Do you have anything to say before I wipe you from this world?” Shift taunted. His face was now opening and closing around his jagged mouth full of teeth.

  “I do!” came a voice to our left. “You should have killed me when you had the chance!”

  I looked and Jensen was standing at the edge of the burnt house. He was still dressed in his hospital Johnny. His right arm was wrapped in bloody gauze. In his left hand was the other flare from the trunk. He took the striker off the top with his teeth and then scraped the end against it. The flare roared to life, probably burning the hell out of Jensen’s face in the process. He didn’t seem to mind though. He was smiling.

  I saw Shift’s face change to a mask of pure terror. His mouth full of teeth changed into a comical, ‘Oh no’, face. Jensen threw the flare clumsily with his left hand. Shift howled with rage.

  The flare slid through the blackness and out of sight. A second later bright yellow flames spat up from where Shift was standing. He turned and quickly dove back through the opening, apparently in an attempt to try and put out the fire, which was now consuming his house on the other side.

  Yellow lightning streaked across the surface of the black portal. We could see more flames shoot up, along with a dazzling array of sparks and thick black smoke.

  Then the vortex started spinning again, faster than I’d ever seen it go. It was making a loud buzzing sound, like a set of gears stripping. Its speed kept increasing until the designs were just blurs of red, yellow, black and blue. To me, it looked like a shimmering, colorful whirlpool. The motion kicked up ash from both fires, swirling it into the air like a tornado. I could hear Shift hacking from the other side.

  I saw and felt the portal begin to suck at the air, drawing in first the ashy tornado, the flames, and charred remnants of the house and then nearly everything around it. I could feel it pulling on my clothes. Leaves, tree branches and a few animals were all being pulled toward it.

  “Back up!” I screamed over the buzzing which had grown even louder. “It’s going to suck everything in.”

  I hoped I was wrong. If this turned into a black hole, it really would envelope everything in our world. Nothing could escape it, not even light.

  A huge boom of thunder roared from all around us. The vortex bulged at its center and then turned concave, like a huge black bowl. Finally, it collapsed in on itself, leaving nothing except smoky air.

  “What happened?” Lisa asked.

  “Jensen saved us. The fire must’ve destroyed the house on the other side, plus the key panel, destroying the vortex on both sides.”

  We rushed over to Jensen. He’d fallen to the ground.

  “Is he okay?” Lisa asked through tears.

  “He’s breathing, but the b
last knocked him out,” I said, trying to lift him. “We need to get him back to the hospital. Go get whatever car he came here in and get it as close to the edge of the woods as you can. Hopefully he didn’t crash it into the crevice like we did with his patrol car.”

  I grabbed Jensen beneath his arms and Lisa took his feet.

  “Is Uncle Jensen gonna be okay?” Connor asked, looking up at his hero.

  “Yes, he will be. We need to get him to a hospital, though.”

  We managed to get Jensen to the edge of the field. Lisa ran ahead to get Jensen’s vehicle. I had to laugh when I saw what he used to get here.

  Lisa beeped the horn on the ambulance and then got out and opened the doors in the back. I slid Jensen inside and then onto the stationary bed along one of the walls. There were no gurneys inside. I imagined he escaped from the hospital and hijacked one of the ambulances as they were taking a patient in through the ER entrance.

  “How did he know to grab the flare?” Lisa asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Other than the fact he talked about burning the house down. I’m just glad he thought quickly enough to throw the flare into the portal and burn the other house as well. We can ask him all the questions we want when he gets better. Let me get Girl out of the car. She can ride up in the front with me if you want to sit back with Jensen. I’ll get my car when we get to the house.”

  44

  We rushed Jensen back to the hospital and his doctors were very glad to see him. He regained consciousness as they placed him on a gurney to get him out of the ambulance.

  “That was some serious save the day shit back there huh?” he joked weakly.

  “Yeah, but you throw like a girl with your left hand,” I teased him, smiling.

  “Asshole,” he said and took both my hand and Lisa’s. “I’m glad you two are all right. And Connor, is he okay? I mean, is he like the others?”

  “Connor is fine,” Lisa reassured him. “We’ve got a lot to tell you, but for right now, concentrate on getting better.”

  I turned to Lisa as they wheeled Jensen away.

  “I need to go back to the farm and get those suits.”

  “Who’s were they?”

  “I’m not sure,” I confessed. “Shift said they were from all the kids who were still alive. I hope no one saw the smoke and called the fire department. If they get there before I do and see those kid’s skins, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

  I took my car and drove back to the house. No fire trucks had shown up as yet. By the time they did, I had safely tucked the soul suits away inside one of the caves nearby. I’d saved five. I had no idea how I was going to figure out who belonged to each one. In the end, Lisa figured out the best way to match them up.

  45

  We visited Talbot Simms and told him all about what happened. He listened and I could tell two things by the look on his face. One, he was amazed we had all lived through our encounters with Mr. Shift, and two, he was very jealous he wasn’t there with us to defeat his old nemesis.

  We also visited Leslie and Talbot distracted the orderly, talking about last night’s Predator’s game just long enough for Lisa to open her purse and let Leslie see what was inside. She looked like an old lady searching through her bag for a Kleenex, or a pack of Lifesavers. Lisa had crammed all six suits into her large purse, which looked more like a bag you pack towels in to go to the beach than a pocketbook. The skins had no more weight than dry cleaning bags, so it wasn’t that difficult to fit them all.

  Leslie’s face instantly brightened and a huge smile came across her face as she pulled herself out of the tote bag. She held the skin out in front of her as if it were some sort of hideous wedding dress and then hugged it to her chest. It was instantly absorbed. I made it a point to watch her face as her soul melted back into her. The old woman’s face grew calm and her mask of wrinkles disappeared. Her eyes, which had the beginning of cataracts, grew bright and clear again. Even her posture changed, from being slightly hunched over, to being as straight as a model.

  “Thank you,” she responded, hugging all of us— even the orderly, who looked horrified. I saw his hand go to his can of mace, but then stopped when he realized the woman was being genuine.

  “You’ll want to get her re-evaluated,” I suggested. “I believe Ms. Leslie is back to normal.”

  “What did you do?” the orderly asked, obviously stunned.

  We just laughed and shrugged.

  46

  Anni, Jacob and Mike were a bit harder to get some time with. Especially Anni, who was in the Murray County Juvenile facility for killing Jim. We had to wait for Jensen to get out of the hospital and take Anni her suit himself. She would have to continue to be evaluated, but her doctors eventually released her into her parent’s care after her miraculous recovery.

  Jacob was next. His parents had been so overjoyed to have their boy back they’d invited us to stay for supper. They knew we had somehow caused the miraculous change in their son, but they had no idea how it had happened. They left us with the boy for only a second when the coffee Jacob’s mother had offered us was done. When she came back, the boy was up, playing with his Halo action figures.

  Jacob looked up and said, “Hey momma,” when she came back in, and I thought Mrs. Holst was going to drop the tray of hot coffee all over herself.

  Mike Harris was the last and the easiest. His parents were happy to grant us some time with the boy after they had heard of the other recoveries. When we came out of Mike’s room after a few minutes and the boy was back to normal, we expected dozens of questions, but instead, they just covered Mike with kisses and kept asking him if he was okay.

  That left one just suit. It had to belong to the boy who had killed his aunt in the cow barn, before slaughtering his parents and disappearing into the woods. Bennie Dent. That meant he was still alive somewhere. I imagined a deranged serial killer somewhere. He had to be in his eighties now. Maybe he had been caught and was rotting away in some prison somewhere. I had no way of knowing and no real way of finding out. I decided to just let it be for now. The suit was now in a box up in my attic for safe keeping, just in case Bennie was ever sighted and we could give it back to him.

  47

  Lisa and I met Jensen at Breece’s Café for coffee and pie a week after reuniting the final child with their missing self. We all sat in one of the overstuffed red booths, Lisa and I on one side, Jensen on the other.

  “How’s Connor?” Jensen asked.

  “Doing good,” Lisa said. “He still misses Becky a lot. I don’t think he was awake when Shift… When he did what he did to her— at least I hope not. I told him she had an accident, and he hasn’t asked any more questions about it.”

  “And how are you doing?” Jensen asked her, taking her left hand in his one remaining good one.

  “Better. Hick has helped. I don’t know what I would do without him,” she answered, smiling at me.

  “We’re trying to move on from what happened,” I interjected. “I’d like to sell the farm, but I don’t trust anyone else to have it. We have no idea if Shift will find some way to come back. I know I couldn’t do much against him, but at least I know what to look for.”

  “Have you seen anymore weird animals?” Jensen enquired.

  “Yeah, a few, but I think they’re just leftovers from before. When you burned the key panel, I think it closed all the portals and thin places, not just the main vortex. At least that’s what I’m hoping anyway. I’m pretty sure I could still start a P.T. Barnum exhibit with just the critters that were leftover. Thanks again, Jensen. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, we’d all be dead.

  “I’m just glad I had the idea of burning the house down stuck in my head when I went out there. One of my deputies came to see me right after I was admitted and told me Connor had been taken and Becky was killed. I knew it had to be Shift, and I knew you two would try to go get Connor, no matter what.”

  “I’m just glad he’s gone,” I sta
ted.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Jensen agreed, and we all raised our glasses.

  What amazes me about the whole thing, now that I look back upon everything that happened, is that I never thought fighting an inter-dimensional being would be the help I needed to kick a prescription pain medication addiction. You never know where help will come, or in what form.

  Epilogue

  Fall 2016

  Bennie Dent crouched, naked and filthy, in the cave he had called home for the last few years. It was just a dozen yards from where the man stashed the soul suits for a short time after the big fire. After the man left that day, Bennie went into the other cave and looked through the suits until he found his own, but he didn’t want his soul suit back. He just wanted to look at it, and see what a weak little thing he had been so long ago. He liked the way he was now, and when he was like this—free of that clean skin—the master spoke to him. He could hear the master’s voice almost daily now and it got even louder since the fire. Bennie missed the house, though. He used to visit it and sleep there from time to time whenever he could find it, just to be close to the master.

  There was something special he had to do. After waiting for nearly seventy years, eating bugs, and squirrels, sleeping huddled in caves trying to stay warm, the master had finally come back into his head as clearly as when Bennie killed his aunt and his parents. He told him it was time to be important again.

  The rocks on the hillside scraped into his feet as he climbed. The master told him which cave Bennie was to go into and what to do when he got there. He reached the opening, which was not much bigger than Bennie himself. He felt warm air coming from inside and wedged himself inside, scraping his belly and arms, but he didn’t mind. If the master wanted Bennie to go somewhere, it was for a good reason.