The Haunted

by Bentley Little

  His cell phone rang. Julian picked it up, glanced down at the number of the caller, then automatically answered and said, “Hello,” before it registered that the call was coming from their house.

  “I’ll get both of them next time. Megan and James. And your little wifey, too. Did you get my note? I’ll rape her good and hard. In the ass, the way she likes it best—”

  Julian clicked off, threw the phone on the passenger seat next to him. He didn’t recognize the voice, but he thought it might have been John Lynch’s. Whoever it was, it did not scare him off but cemented his resolve to return to the house as quickly as possible.

  That’s the intention, a small, logical part of his brain told him, but he ignored it and, moments later, turned onto Rainey Street. He pulled into his driveway—

  déjà vu

  —and got out of the car.

  He went through the front door this time. Inside, the house was dark, like a cave. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, and when they finally did, he saw that the interior had changed. Not only had the furnishings been moved and swapped, but the location of the rooms themselves was different. He should have been in the entryway, facing the living room and the hall. Instead, he was looking into his office. Through a doorway in the opposite wall, he could see the kitchen.

  He stepped into the room. It was a mess. Books and papers, records and CDs had been strewn all over the floor. The walls were smeared with wide streaks of brown that he hoped to God were chocolate. On his desk, amid a small mound of rubble, his computer was on. The monitor glowed white in the dimness, and there appeared to be words written on it, though when he drew closer, he saw that it was merely a random collection of letters. Nonsense.

  Or maybe not. There seemed to be a kind of pattern in the arrangement of the vowels and consonants, and it occurred to him that maybe it was another language, the true language of the being that lived here.

  Yesssss.

  Julian looked up, startled. Had the word actually been spoken, or had he heard it only in his head? Either way, it had accompanied a rush of wind that blew out from the fireplace, which for some reason was now in his office across from his desk, rather than in the living room. Squinting into the gloom, he tried to see what was in the fireplace, which seemed to stretch back far beyond the width of the house, though that was only an impression, as the darkness within the square opening was complete.

  Another rush of air blew out from the fireplace, only this one he could see. It was not smoke, exactly, though it had a billowing quality that reminded him of smoke. Rather, it resembled an arm or a tentacle, one of the liquid, flowing protuberances of an amoeba, perhaps. It had no color of its own but matched precisely the hue and shading of its surroundings, its lower portion the same color as the floor, its upper half corresponding precisely to the appearance of the wall, down to those unexplainable brown streaks.

  It was the same formless entity that had assaulted him in the living room before he had moved out, the same evil creature that had tried to get him to kill himself. It didn’t look like a fat man’s shadow anymore, and he had the feeling that this was closer to its true appearance. Although maybe not. He remembered from the cold touch of that shadowy arm that this being was constantly evolving, was always in the process of becoming, that it took on the properties of its latest acquisition. Maybe it had changed since the other day. Maybe this was what it looked like now.

  Was Claire’s dad part of it?

  “Roger?” he said tentatively.

  There was no answer, no change. The breeze kept blowing, and the billowing, liquidy tentacle kept moving forward, causing Julian to back up until he was against the wall and had no place left to go.

  He smelled the familiar odor of mold and dirt, and then the creature touched him. Cold. Once again, he sensed the age of it. And the newness of it. The ghost of John Lynch was there, although it wasn’t as dominant this time. It was being assimilated. He detected no sign of Claire’s dad. He wondered why, and an answer was given to him: because Roger had been killed; he had not committed suicide.

  Julian understood now why the entity had revealed itself to him, why it had given him a glimpse into its makeup. It had been trying to lure him, letting him know that if he killed himself and joined with it, he would become top dog, offering him power as an incentive.

  Of course, once again, his first instinct was to say no, but …

  But he paused, pulling himself away from that cold touch and moving around to the side of the desk. It could have held on to him, could have maintained contact, but it knew the direction in which his thoughts had been heading and gave him space, let him think.

  His mind was racing. It was a kamikaze solution that had just occurred to him, a flash of either brilliance or insanity, but he thought that if he could be the one driving the bus, if he could take control of this thing, he could kill it. He could make it commit suicide. He had no idea whether that was even possible or how it would be done, but it was worth taking the chance. He certainly didn’t want to die. He had too much to live for. But this thing had already murdered his father-in-law and attacked his kids. He had to stop it. Besides, Julian remembered the last time he had been presented with this choice. He had been pressured into trying to kill himself, and when he had refused, he’d been attacked unmercifully. This creature wanted him for some unknown reason, but he knew that it would not allow him to escape a second time. If he refused again, it would finish him off.

  He was going to die today no matter what.

  He was going to die.

  Intellectually, James understood what that meant. But emotionally it didn’t really register—which was probably a good thing.

  Wind blew out of the fireplace again, and the billowing tentacle approached him, apparently deciding that he’d had enough time to think. He moved away, stepping on papers, stepping on books, stepping on records. It followed him, the color of his desk, the color of his computer, the color of the debris.

  He might not be able to kill it, but at the very least he’d be able to prevent it from attacking his family.

  I’ll get both of them next time. Megan and James. And your little wifey, too.

  That would never happen. He’d make sure of it.

  In fact, he could stop it from going after anyone. He could make sure the entity stayed dormant, didn’t touch another person, didn’t haunt another house.

  He had no choice. There was no other way to do it, no one else who could do it.

  It was worth the sacrifice.

  The tentacle touched his arm, colder than ice, and the second it sensed his decision, the house was back to normal. Better than normal. It was if a professional cleaning service had instantly gone over every inch of their home. Everything was in its place, the windows were clear, the wood gleamed, the metal shone. He was no longer in that cockeyed version of his office but was standing in the entryway, looking at an idealized version of their living room. Nothing was coming out of the fireplace, and he sensed no other presence in the house. If he had not known better, he would have thought this was the model home of a model family and there were no such things as ghosts or monsters or things that went bump in the night.

  On an impulse, he moved into the living room, peeked out the front window. The grass on the lawn was green; the tree was leafy and shadier than it had ever been.

  The yards across the street had been restored as well.

  Julian turned around, seeing the spotless dining room and kitchen beyond. Now that he had made his decision, he was reluctant to carry it out. The emotional weight of what he was about to do came crashing down on him, and the only thing he wanted was to see his family. But if he tried to leave, he would be killed. He knew that intuitively and for a fact. Despite the deceptive calm in the eye of this storm, the picture-perfect fiction surrounding him now would be maintained only as long as he cooperated, as long as he did what he said he would do. Any deviation would result in death.

  Still, he had a little time, and
he went over to the cupboard in the dining room where Claire kept the boxes of photos that she had not had time to put into albums. He pulled out the top box and put it on the table, sorting through the pictures. He saw a photo of Megan when she was five, dressed as Princess Jasmine for Halloween; saw James at three, standing proudly in front of a fort he had built out of couch cushions. There were photos from a visit with Santa, from a trip they’d taken to the Albuquerque Zoo, from various birthday parties. He found one he’d forgotten about: himself and James at the county fair, going down the Super Slide side by side. Julian’s vision blurred as the tears came, and he’d never loved his wife or his children as much as he did at that moment.

  He would never get to see Megan and James grow up, he realized, never get to go to their weddings, never get to show them these photos when they were adults, never get to see their children. It was a whole world he was going to miss, a whole life, and he was overwhelmed by a sense of loss so profound that he dropped the picture on the table, refusing to look at any more photos.

  It was time, he decided.

  He just had to figure out how to do it.

  Hanging was out. He was afraid to go that way, and it was probably the rudest, cruelest thing he could do to his family. One of them would have to find his body, and that would be an image that would remain with the person for the rest of his or her life.

  Likewise stabbing himself, which he probably wouldn’t even be able to get through.

  The old M*A*S*H song was wrong, he thought. Suicide wasn’t painless.

  Poison was probably the best. Or an overdose. He went into the kitchen, looking through the cupboard where they kept the medicine and vitamins. There were a couple of leftover prescription bottles from some of the kids’ winter illnesses, but they weren’t a family that kept sleeping pills around or had any heavy-duty medications. Under the sink he found Drano, and in the laundry room was bleach, but both of those would be nasty, and he wasn’t sure whether they would kill him or he would throw them up and find himself in the hospital with a lot of explaining to do.

  He returned to the cupboard to check again and found a full bottle of Advil as well as a bottle of the baby aspirin that Claire had him take with his vitamins. Could he overdose on those? He read the Advil warning label: “The risk of heart attack or stroke may increase if you use more than directed.”

  Yessss.

  It was the voice he’d heard before.

  Apparently, he was being watched more closely than he thought.

  Julian picked up the Advil bottle, then paused. Was his mind being read? It seemed that way. Which meant that it knew what he was planning to do and wasn’t worried about it. Did that mean his scheme wouldn’t work?

  He didn’t dwell on it, thought about something else, the price of gas, the president’s poll numbers, trying to keep his mind clear so he wouldn’t be found out. Briefly, he considered running away, dashing out of the house and hauling ass down the street. But he knew that wouldn’t work. He’d felt the power of that thing. It had grown so strong that it had physically changed the interior of his house. It would kill him before he got out the door this time.

  Then it would go after Claire, Megan and James.

  He needed to put an end to it once and for all.

  Julian got a glass out of the dish rack, filled it with water and opened the Advil bottle. It was almost new. The label said it contained a hundred tablets. He poured several into his hand, washed them down with water. Did it again. And again, and again, until the bottle was empty. Feeling nothing yet, he wandered through the dining room and into the living room.

  He thought of leaving a detailed note, being completely clear and unambiguous, because he didn’t want there to be any questions or misunderstandings, didn’t want Claire or the kids to blame themselves. This was going to be tough enough for them without the added burdens of guilt and confusion. There was no time to sit down and write a letter, however. He needed to act quickly before it figured out his plan. That was why he was still trying to shield his thoughts, trying not to think about what he was thinking, trying to concentrate on superfluous matters. His plan would work only if he was allowed to carry it out, if he maintained the element of surprise. He couldn’t waste time penning a letter to his family—and he couldn’t explain in the letter what he wanted to explain, because then it would know, too.

  Besides, Claire and the kids wouldn’t know he had committed suicide. They would think that the creature in their house had killed him. As hard as that would be for them to accept, it was still better than the truth.

  He looked to his left. On the sideboard was a photo he had taken of Claire and the kids at the hot-air-balloon festival a few years back. Claire had had longer hair, and was wearing jeans shorts that no longer fit her and a T-shirt that her sister had brought back from Santa Fe. James was missing his two front teeth, and Megan was smiling in that innocent way she used to have but that she’d lost sometime in the past few years. The picture made him sad, not only for what he was going to miss but for what was already gone.

  He took out the picture of Miles he’d been carrying in his pocket, leaning it up against the balloon-festival photo. Miles was next to James, and when seen together, it was obvious the two of them were brothers.

  Julian started crying. The tears burned hot on his cheeks, and he plopped down on the couch, feeling an odd lurch in his chest as he did so.

  What was the last thing he had said to Claire? he wondered. It hadn’t been, “I love you,” though it should have been. It was something more mundane, like, “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” or, “Is there anything else you want me to bring back?”

  He should call her now, say it to her, tell her that he loved her, but his cell phone was still in the car, where he’d thrown it on the seat, and even if the phones in the house worked, which was doubtful, his fingers weren’t up to the task of dialing. They felt fat, like overstuffed sausages, and when he tried to wiggle them, he found that he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t move his left arm at all.

  As his vision blurred, as he started to fade, he looked over at the pictures of his wife, his daughter, his sons. A final tear rolled down his cheek.

  Good-bye, he thought.

  Thirty-five

  Struggling.

  He was not himself anymore. There was no himself anymore. He grasped for purchase, trying to remember what he had been and figure out what he was now. He was a part of something but he was lost in it, sightless, adrift, with only the most rudimentary senses to guide him. Then he was touched and touching, energy flowing into him, through him, connecting him to everything, to all of it. The form he had taken was enormous and powerful, and he could sense within it the competing wills of the thousands who had come before him. He was them, they were he, and while this new form was unwieldy, almost ungovernable, he was determined to take charge, to be in control. It was imperative that he do so, though he could not remember why it was so important.

  He stretched out.

  There was no time here. Seconds could have passed or minutes or hours or days or months or years. It could be today, tomorrow or yesterday.

  And suddenly …

  He could see the house. He was in it, around it, part of it. He knew where he was and what he was and why he was here. In the living room, his body was still on the couch, where it had died, and he took care of it, made it disappear so no one would be able to find it, so his family would not have to see his corpse.

  His family.

  Claire.

  Megan.

  James.

  He knew instantly what had been done to them and what was planned for them. For the first time since becoming, he understood what he was supposed to do, what he had to do.

  He remembered.

  But he didn’t know how to go about it. He couldn’t shoot himself, couldn’t jump off a bridge, couldn’t even take pills or poison, the way he had before.

  How powerful was he? he wondered. He reached out, s
aw the street outside, felt the other houses on the block. A police car drove by, and he touched the man inside, made sure that as he drove on he thought there was nothing unusual in the sight of all these empty homes and dead yards.

  How far could he spread out? Could he reach all the way to the hospital? Of course he could. Megan had been made to cut herself and James had been taken, both in their grandparents’ house. So he needed to go farther than that, needed to stretch as far as he could.

  To the breaking point.

  That was it. He knew from everything he was and everyone who was here that it was the link to this spot that kept his form alive, that granted it power. He needed to leave, to sever all ties. If he could move from this location, he could break the connection off at the source. It would be like pulling the plug on an appliance. Whatever was left would dissipate, float away.

  Already he felt resistance. John Lynch. Jim Swanson. The man before him. And the man before him, and the man before him …

  He needed to maintain control. It was hard, but it was possible. He was the newest and the strongest, and what he had become was what it had become. They were one and the same; that was how it worked, and he tamped down the other voices even as he moved away from the house, away from the neighborhood, through the town.

  Stretching.

  Thirty-six

  The lights in the hospital flickered.