Robin’s body twitched violently as the chill night wind gusted across her from the gaping maw of the violated window. Outside, she could hear the creature moving and chuckling, running its bony fingers along the aluminum siding with an almost playful gentleness. Blood continued to drip from the bed, collecting on the floor with a metronomic popping sound that echoed strangely in the relative silence. Now she could smell the rotting thing through the miasma of blood and death, could hear it just outside the window.
It was coming in.
Turning toward it, she lost the ability to move as her entire body went rigid in shock. With a low, animalistic growl, it clambered over the sill and shambled toward her, its rotted clothing barely covering its emaciated figure. Glancing down from its leering expression, she began to detect other movements upon it—the movements of fat, grayish maggots and shiny beetles crawling over its putrid, exposed entrails. Reaching out, its bloody talons grasped and clutched for her as it sidled closer.
“I have come for you,” it purred in its repellent voice. “You must let me in! Let me in, Robin...”
With that, it brayed out another laugh, spraying her with blood and sticky debris as its fetid breath washed over her. She tried to back away but her legs refused to work, and she knew then that there could be no escape. Its bony claws snaked around her to clutch at her back, descending, kneading, pinching, and circling down to firmly grasp at her buttocks. Drawing her close, it leaned its unwholesome face down to hers as if for a long, repugnant kiss...
She awoke screaming. Her mother was there, holding her, saying, “It’s all right, honey; it was a dream... only a dream...”
But her mouth still burned with the memory of its vile lips.
“Oh, Mom!” she sobbed, trembling against her. “It was so... so real!”
Her mother held her close for the rest of the night, coaxing her back to stability with a gentle touch and a consoling voice. During that time, not once did she notice the strangeness in her mother’s eyes, nor the way she kept glancing toward the bedroom window.
3
Day Two
Thursday, April 28th, 1988
Power seemed to swell around him in the dusty air of the house as he moved upward from the places beneath. The stairs were rickety and the railings had long since rotted away, but he didn’t notice the decrepitude around him. He was in a fine mood. Trailing a gnarled, dirt-encrusted hand along the gray, flaking wall, he chuckled as he made his way toward the attic above.
Zacheriah Tate, or Zak, as his friends had once called him, was quite mad. Not the type of everyday insanity that many people suffer from, but an all-consuming twisting of the mind and body that he was quite aware of. In fact, he was grateful for it – it deadened the pain he carried, turning it from a vortex of inner emotional turmoil to a harmless background throbbing that did little more than annoy him.
He smiled, a twitch of thin lips pressed tightly together under his filthy, brownish-gray beard. Yes, the pain was always there, and he had carried it for a long time. The dangerous amounts of alcohol and illicit drugs he had taken over the years had helped some, but even they could not completely kill the memories or return the happiness he once had known. That would change, he knew, and soon; his new friends had promised him that. He smiled again, a low moan escaping his lips as he once more traveled the familiar pathways of haunting memory.
He no longer tried to repress the memories as he once had done. It never worked; the thoughts would always betray him, conveying him into the past to repeatedly add to his torment. He would never forget, could never forget.
He’d been eighteen at the time, working for Grizzly Advertising. They were a small, Seattle-based shop, but he’d been quickly rising in popularity within the company. Working as a freelance artist had seemed like a dream. The hours made themselves and he was doing something he was extremely good at. The workload steadily increased as clients started asking for him by name, and his preoccupation had let him concentrate on something besides his heartfelt loneliness. He not only lacked many of the qualities that women found attractive, but he was also painfully shy at the time. He was what some would call a ‘late bloomer’. His experience with relationships had consisted of several broken dates and much outright disdain.
He was not a lucky guy.
Then, that had all changed. His uncle died, leaving him with a small personal fortune consisting of several thousand dollars. Women began to take notice, and one in particular. It was Barbara Sanders, a girl who worked part-time in the same building. She was beautiful; a stunning blonde with ice blue eyes and a devastating body. For the better part of three months, he’d been trying to get her to notice him. Not in any overt way, but in subtle, shy little hints and innuendos. None of that had worked, of course, until he’d received his inheritance. That’s when she decided to take an interest.
Imagine his surprise when she called him out of the blue one Friday afternoon, crying and asking to come over to ‘talk’. Of course, he’d readily accepted; they had spoken fleetingly enough for him to know that her current boyfriend was no prince. She was always saying what an insensitive jerk he was. So, hanging up the phone in a state of happy bewilderment, he had gone to meet her and bring her back to his small, out of the way apartment.
Their talk was enlightening, to say the least. She had broken it off with her current lover, and by the end of the evening, he had received the first kiss of many in their soon-to-become whirlwind relationship.
Snarling at the memory, he reached the top of the stairs. Turning, he headed down a large hallway, kicking piles of rotted cloth and old broken-down cardboard boxes out of the way. Sinking back again into his musings, he assaulted the next stairwell leading upward.
Oh, yes! She had really wound him around her little finger. In two short weeks, she’d turned him from a shy introvert into a thriving sexual animal and outgoing socialite. In the space of the following months, they had acted out every fantasy that he’d ever envisioned and he had made many friends in the popular, drug-imbibing crowds.
He paid for everything, of course. The food, the wine, the copious amounts of coke, marijuana, LSD, and whatever else they could get their hands on. Also, he paid the rent, the car insurance, and all the bills.
It was the single most electrifying year in his life. He could not have cared less that the money was dwindling, and that they’d both lost their jobs due to an accumulation of absences. It did not matter to him that he no longer even looked at his art supplies. He was, for the first time in his life, deeply in love and beyond happy. The world was a great place to be, and he lived on the edge, every moment a new adventure, every precious second in her arms, an explosion of ecstasy. And he thrived on it.
Then, the money ran out.
He was forced into one dead-end job after another, trying hard to make ends meet and still keep up with their rapidly moving lifestyle. She, of course, did nothing in the way of work; it was no longer something she cared to do. Then, one day, he came home to an empty flat. She had finally snuck away, off to find bigger and more lucrative game.
His life was shattered. Bleakness and despair descended on him like a shroud, cloaking him in misery that would be with him for the rest of his life. Here was the root of his pain, the event that started him over the edge. His friends had tried to help, bringing him drugs and alcohol to blunt the icy stabs of loneliness that forever besieged him. Nothing worked. Even his parents knew something was wrong and tried to find him help, but it was a losing battle. Finally, in desperation, he borrowed some cash and decided to follow her.
He had a pretty good idea of where she’d gone, and he was right. She’d washed up in a little hole-in-the-wall town near Arizona called Plentsville. Her parents lived there, and it was only a matter of time before she went looking for a free handout.
Reaching the second-story landing, he chuckled to himself. Oh, yes! Good old Plentsville! The very town that he was now visiting again over ten years later. They had never caught h
im, and they never would. His new friends had assured him of that!
Yes, he had followed her here, all those years ago. It had taken him almost six months to find her, and he was about out of money by the time he did. She was staying with an older man in a house not too far from the graveyard. When he’d finally pinpointed her exact location, he’d waited patiently for the opportunity to confront her.
Finally, he got his chance.
The older man – he never did find out his name – always went out at the same time each day, leaving Barbara all alone. So, he waited until the man had left, and then entered the house from the garage. He found her in the bedroom, curled up in front of the T.V.
It was good to see her again, he remembered, the effects of the last ten hits of acid he’d taken just kicking in as he confronted her. She was surprised to see him, yet unafraid. When he demanded an explanation, she had scornfully showed him her belly. At first, he didn’t comprehend, the colors and angles of the room swelling and contorting within his drug-filled mind, but then it hit him:
She was pregnant.
As he stood in shocked amazement, she began taunting him. She started by telling him that it was his child she carried but he would never see it, then went on to say that he might as well slink back to his nonexistent life and leave ‘them’ alone. After that, she’d reached for the phone, and that was her final mistake.
Something snapped in him that day. The pain, the loss, the fear, all of it mixed within him, seething through his drug-befuddled frame with torturous paroxysms of pure and unbridled rage. It was an agony so exquisite that he began to gibber and laugh as it took hold of him, a puppet tensing on the strings of his inner turmoil.
He could no longer contain it.
The phone cord he used to tie her to the bed. She was screaming, so he slammed a footstool up the side of her lovely face. She never knew what hit her. The stool shattered as he repeatedly slammed it against the wall above her unconscious body, screaming out her name over and over again. Then, grasping the splintered, jagged leg of the stool, madness raging through him, whirling in and out of his blurred vision like living cellophane paper, he’d torn open her womb, wresting the child from her body with eager hands. Awakening, she had let out a gasping cry, her clear, blue eyes swiftly clouding over in agonizing pain. Then, stroking the fetus and chuckling, he’d held it out, showing it to her as only a proud father would. As the last, feeble light was dimming from her eyes, he had taken his son and fled.
Now, as he climbed the last flight of steps in the deserted house, he thought about the years he’d spent since then. They were a blur, a living hell that he himself had imposed upon his tortured soul. He had wandered aimlessly from town to town, stealing when he could, always drinking himself into a stupor when the booze was there, and living the life of a vagrant that was really no life at all.
He had never stopped loving her, could never stop. As the years went by and he learned to suppress the pain, he slowly crossed the gap from one of the living to one of the walking damned. Somehow, all these years later, he had found himself drawn back to this little piss-hole of a town, the town that had never succeeded in capturing him. It was more than just that, however; now he had a purpose.
Something had led him back to Plentsville, something stronger than life itself, and he was a part of it. He laughed again as he thought of what his new life would bring. They had promised him that, promised him a great many things! But he knew his new friends wouldn’t let him down. Hadn’t they given him back some of his lost happiness already?
A soft scrabbling sound came to him from behind the walls, pacing him as he made his way toward the attic, and he smiled.
Opening the door, he was just in time to see something crawling from a hole near the baseboards. It was thin and brown, like an old, crinkly, paper sack, its small, rodent-like claws scratching at the floorboards as it came scuttling toward him. He saw that a dead rat hung from its festering mouth, and it was chewing noisily as it advanced on him across the shadowy, paper-strewn floor.
“My son!” Zak exclaimed joyfully, opening his arms to the putrid thing.
4
Dr. Barnaby Williams had always considered himself a competent man, but running a small counseling office in Plentsville often gave him challenges that were not so easy to resolve. Although his results tended to be successful, his next patient presented him with somewhat of a conundrum. The more he delved into her particular case, the fewer answers he seemed to find. Now he sat twirling a pen through his fingers, scowling down at the file laid open on his desk.
Noticing the agitated motion of his hand, he stopped the pen’s rotation and placed it on the desk with a small grimace. This was one client that he hadn’t been able to fathom. She seemed in perfect health, was well liked at her work, and looked to have a bright future ahead of her. He picked up the folder, turning it over and tapping the spine of it against the palm of his other hand.
There was a certain bleakness about this patient he just didn’t understand. However, she was still fairly new to him, and perhaps in a few more sessions she would feel comfortable enough to talk about what was really bothering her. Until then, he’d just have to focus on what little she did offer and hope to gain some insight into the cause of her actual distress. Sighing, he reached over and pushed the intercom button on the phone system.
“Terry, would you send in Ms. LePrade, please?”
“Dr. Williams,” replied the warm, professional voice, “we have a special visitor today. I’ll bring them right in.”
Williams was grateful for his secretary’s cleverness. Terry Bradford was a bright, young woman who’d become invaluable to him over the last few months. She was studying at the nearby university with courses that included psychology and other related topics. Now, in her own fashion, she’d let him know to expect more than one person, thereby keeping him from the awkwardness of surprise. It gave him a sense of calm satisfaction as he prepared to receive his next client and her somewhat mysterious guest.
The first thing Robin noticed on entering the doctor’s office was the extensive collection of books. They lined the walls in rows of thick, hardbound volumes, some of them appearing quite old. The receptionist handed a clipboard with her new paperwork to the man behind the desk and then gave her a reassuring wink as she left. The man smiled warmly as he got up to shake her mother’s hand.
“Good afternoon, Ms. LePrade. Who’s our young visitor?”
“This is my daughter, Robin,” her mother said, motioning her forward. “I’ve brought her in because she’s been having some terrible nightmares. They’ve lasted for over a week now, and I was wondering if you might be able to help?”
He peered at her through rounded glasses, his expression, combined with his neatly trimmed facial hair, reminding her vaguely of an owl.
“Hmm, well, I’ll certainly give it a try. Why don’t you wait in the reception area and I’ll call you in when we’re through, okay? Please, make yourself comfortable, Robin, and I’ll try to evaluate the cause of these dreams as best I can.”
She sat down in a comfortable black leather chair, shifting around a little as her pulse fluttered and her hands became clammy with sweat. Once her mother left, the doctor looked at her with genuine concern. Mom may have a few minor problems, she thought, but it looks like she’s getting decent help. These people seemed so professional, there was really no reason for her to be nervous.
So far, anyway.
Meanwhile, the doctor had resumed his seat, where he leaned back, fiddling with a pen. When he realized what he was doing, he set the pen down, and then came straight to the point.
“So, what sort of dreams have you been having, Robin?”
Easing back in the chair, she tried to relax as she began to tell the doctor about the nightmares. He took notes on the clipboard, asking her to go into more detail on several occasions. When they were through, she asked him what he thought was causing them.
“Well,” he said, “m
ost bad dreams are caused by anxiety or stress, or even an unresolved problem within the subject. Sometimes, nightmares can even be caused by trauma –”
“But, doctor,” she cut in, “I don’t have any problems. Well, not any serious ones, anyway...” Heat crept across her cheeks as she shifted her gaze to the floor, then marshaled enough courage to glance back up at him.
His regard was so compassionate that it made her feel somewhat foolish. What bothered her was of a personal nature and she’d hoped that she wouldn’t have to go into it. Well, he was a doctor, and she was here to get help. Straightening her shoulders, she met his eyes with a boldness that she didn’t quite feel.
“There’s this boy I like,” she began, “but he doesn’t seem to notice me and I think he likes my best friend instead. I guess I get a little jealous of her sometimes. But, that wouldn’t make me have all these nightmares, would it?”
“Robin,” he said gently, “these feelings are quite normal. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The dreams you’re experiencing are far too vivid to be caused by your attraction to a suitable boy your own age.”
“Well,” she ventured, regaining her composure, “if not that, then what?”
“There are several reasons for this phenomenon,” he began, leaning back in his chair, “I’ve had patients with repressed rage who’ve experienced similar visions, the terrifying images boiling up from unreleased, pent-up emotions. Another reason could be abuse, and I don’t say that lightly, believe me. If there’s anything you’d like to tell me, understand it will be kept in the strictest of confidence. I’m only here to help you, Robin, but, in order to do so, you must tell me everything about yourself. Can you do that?”
“But I’ve never been abused! And my mom and I always talk out our problems. I admit, sometimes we do fight – Who doesn’t? But she’s never beaten me or anything.”
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