Robert grimaced at the pain in his leg, then hurried after the lumbering monster, his hand closing on Dr. Mansfield’s keycard that was still tucked away in his pocket.
***
Under normal circumstances, Robert would have had no problem catching the shambling beast, especially given the man’s uneven legs. But his own leg started to ache the further he went up the embankment behind the hospital. And the cold wind biting into his skin in the dark only seemed to accentuate the feeling.
It was almost as if he could feel Leland’s fingers still gripping his flesh, searing it with his poisonous grasp.
George had stumbled out of sight some time ago, but it wasn’t difficult to follow his path; he was large and ungainly, and even if he didn’t make obvious tracks through the overgrown vegetation, the sound of him crashing through would have led Robert to him.
The moon shone brightly overhead as Robert crested the top of the hill at the back of Pinedale Hospital, huffing and breathing heavily, rubbing the sore back of his leg where a chunk of his calf was missing. Thankfully it was late fall, and the moonlight shattered through the leafless trees like misty splinters.
Robert’s pace was slow now, the back of his leg seizing every few steps. It took nearly a half hour before he saw it, and if it weren’t for the broken trees and thick footprints, he probably would have walked right by.
Buried in the side of a small hill, barely visible amidst an outcropping of rocks and thick vegetation, was the door to a small, dilapidated shack.
Robert recalled what Dr. Mansfield had said to him, about being dragged from the hospital and then tortured in a shack in the woods.
This was that shack, he knew.
And George was inside.
Robert shuffled as quietly as his aching body would allow to the side of the cabin. Then he chanced a look in the window. The glass was scratched and filthy, and he had only a small clear area by which to make out the interior.
There was blood everywhere; brown smudges on the walls, on the floor, on the side of the ceramic basin. As if that weren’t enough, there was a large pile of rags in the corner that were completely soaked with the stuff. Robert also caught sight of a small table—a modified picnic table—with what looked like a pile of extension cords sitting atop it.
And tools: there were various surgical tools strewn haphazardly about the place, filling nearly every square inch of dusty counter space.
Robert’s breath caught in his throat when his eyes finally fell on George, who was curled into a mountain of a ball in the corner.
He appeared to be weeping.
Robert swallowed and then stepped into the cabin.
Chapter 40
It was Justine that snapped Cal and Shelly out of their paralysis.
The woman groaned, and tried to lift her head off the floor. Her first attempt failed; her hair was gummy with blood and it clung to the floor before pulling her back down again. She was successful on her second attempt.
Shelly elbowed him in the side, indicating that now was the time to enact his master plan. He could tell by the grimace on her face that she wasn’t hopeful. As if to reinforce this point, she grabbed the flashlight from his hand and gripped it tightly, poised to brain Justine again.
“Point it at her,” Cal ordered.
The light was so bright that Justine hissed and turned her face away from them.
“Get up,” Cal ordered. “Get the fuck up.”
Justine spat a thick glob of blood onto the floor and then groaned as she made it to her knees. Cal could barely look at her with the holes in her back that wheezed and hissed with every breath.
How is she still alive?
With a labored grunt, Justine pulled herself to her feet, only then turning to face them. Justine wasn’t shy; on the contrary, she knew that she looked hideous, her scarred body a mess, and she held her arms wide to show them her nude form in all its bruised and battered glory. A leer started to form on her face, revealing cracked front teeth that were stained a deep crimson.
“George is gonna get you,” she said. Her voice was nasal, her nose bent a quarter inch to the left. “He’s gonna get you, and then he’s gonna fuck you up.”
Shelly raised the flashlight and aimed it directly into her eyes. Justine hissed again, and brought her forearm up to cover her face. While she was distracted, Shelly looked over at Cal.
Cal nodded, as if to say, I got this.
Somewhere on the other side of the ward, George cried out, and Cal smiled.
“Looks like your friend Frankenstein is occupied.”
Justine laughed.
“He’s gonna get you. After he’s done with your friend Robert, he’s gonna get you.”
Cal cleared his throat.
“Danny, you still here?”
The smile suddenly fell off Justine’s face.
“Danny?”
Shelly shot him a look, but he ignored her.
Cal thought he knew what Danny and the other quiddity wanted most, what meant something to them.
And they all had it in common.
There was a flicker of movement behind Justine as Danny stepped forward, his mangled face bathed in shadows.
“I’m here,” he said softly.
“Good. And what about your friends? They here too?”
Justine lowered her arm and glanced around nervously. For a second, Cal thought she might run, and he prepared himself to step in her way if she bolted toward the door.
As an answer, more of Justine and Dr. Shaw’s victims stepped out of the shadows.
“No,” Justine moaned softly. “No.”
“Oh, yes,” Cal replied with a smile.
And then he felt Shelly’s hand on his shoulder. He looked at her, and she was smiling now too.
She understood.
The one thing that these quiddity wanted most of all was the life that was stolen from them prematurely. And while Cal couldn’t provide them with that, he could give them someone living. Someone that meant something to them, that they could bind to, something that they could ride all the way to the Marrow.
And then, as Cal had feared, Justine tried to run, but Danny was too quick. He reached out and his hand dug into Justine’s shoulder. The woman screamed and tried to squirm away, but George’s brother leapt from the shadows and wrapped a heavily muscled arm around her waist. Her nails scraped at the limb, but unlike the marks that they had made on Cal’s face, they did little damage to the heavily muscled arm.
More arms and limbs appeared from the darkness, and soon all of the trapped souls of the Seventh Ward that Justine and Dr. Shaw had tortured for nearly a decade now came forward.
And they all wanted a piece of her.
They dragged her to the ground, their hands gripping and pulling, punching and grabbing. She continued to scream, but Cal blocked out the sound.
Something yanked Justine toward the dark recesses of the cell, and Shelly lowered the flashlight a few inches. Before she was pulled completely away, however, Danny turned to him and stared into his eyes.
The man’s whites were gone, replaced by simple black orbs.
Thank you, he mouthed.
And then they receded into the darkness.
“Come on,” Cal said, turning to Shelly. He grabbed her arm and gently spun her toward the doorway. “Let’s go find Robbo.”
Arm in arm, they left to the room to the sound of tearing flesh and a woman’s screams.
You got what you deserved, bitch.
Chapter 41
“Is he really gone?”
Robert nodded.
“Sent him back— he won’t hurt you anymore.”
The beast towering over him seemed to smile…if such a facial expression was possible on his mangled features. George’s eyes were solid black orbs in his head. Even the one on the left side, the one that had a sutured flap of skin that wasn’t his own, was solid, unblinking.
“He made me do those things…he has a way…” His sentence tr
ail off.
Robert swallowed hard.
“You have to go now,” he said, trying to sound calm and assertive at the same time.
George’s answer was immediate and unrelenting.
“No.”
Robert had thought it might come to this. He racked his brain for ideas, a notion of how to send this man on his way to the Marrow. His eyes darted about the room, but nothing seemed to have any personal value at all…just surgical tools and bloody rags. There wasn’t even a toilet, just a rusted, foul-smelling basin in the corner.
“You have to go, George.”
Something flickered over the man’s face, and Robert knew in that instant that the man was thinking about Leland Black; the man in the hat and the faded jean jacket, the one with a face so horrible that it seemed to have all but erased itself from Robert’s memory.
Slowly, the beast shook his head.
“They call me George, but that’s not my name.” He raised his left arm, the thin, black one, then flicked at the hole in the side of his face. “I don’t know who I am anymore. Dr. Shaw…he…I’ve had it just doing as I’m told. I won’t go.”
“You have to—”
“No,” George repeated, a little louder this time. He began to stand taller, too, stretching to his full height. A culmination of others or not, he was an impressive, if repulsive, sight.
Robert tried to stand firm, not to flinch, but his heart had started to race in his chest. And his calf—by God, his calf ached.
What can I use? What can I use?
George stretched his lower jaw, causing the last of the stitches holding that side of this face together to tear. He was left with a gash that ran nearly to his temple, giving him an even more horrific smile.
“If I go,” he threatened in his airy voice, his hands balling and starting to make fists, “I’m taking you with me.”
Robert felt his heart skip a beat.
There was no way Robert was going back to the Marrow…not now, at least. One day for Amy, but not today.
A sudden, stabbing pain in his ankle brought him to one knee. He cried out, his hand immediately going to the spot.
George didn’t seem interested.
“You have two choices, Robert Watts: one, you leave me here now and never return to the Seventh Ward or Pinedale Woods; or, two, I grab your puny shoulders and take you with me on a journey from which you will never return.” His eyes did the impossible and seemed to darken even more. Then George took another step forward, closing the distance between them to less than four feet. The stench emanating from him was truly foul. “And trust me, it’s not a place you want to go.”
Grimacing, Robert raised his gaze and his eyes fell on the blood trickling down the back of George’s leg—from his calf.
Robert’s calf.
And in that moment, he knew what meant something to George; or, more specifically, what meant something to him. After all, George had a part of Robert sutured to him—he was part Robert.
So what meant something to Robert was important to George, too.
“What’s your decision, Robert?”
Robert slowly forced himself to his feet again. Then he slowly snaked a hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pinched the picture therein between two fingers.
“Robert?” George shouted again.
Robert pulled the photograph out of his pocket and brought it up to eye level. The sight of his daughter’s heart-shaped face drew a tear to his eye. He sniffed and wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“That’s it, then? You’re going to give up this world?” George said, misinterpreting his gesture.
Robert took a deep breath.
“I have—” His chest hitched. “—I had a daughter,” he corrected himself. He turned the square photograph around and showed it to George.
It was impossible to tell if the man smirked or not given his mangled face, but Robert thought he might have.
“I don’t give a shit about your daughter.”
“Please, just take a look.”
George growled, but for some reason, he reached forward and snatched the photo from his hand.
And now it was Robert’s turn to smile.
“I don’t—” George started to say as he flung his massive hand to one side, intent on throwing the photo away. But it seemed to be stuck to his fingers. “What the fuck?”
He whipped his hand again, but it still wouldn’t come off. The man’s black eyes shot up.
“What did you do to me?”
It was only then that George lowered his gaze to stare at the photograph that seemed fused to his fingers.
“Amy?” he whispered. The words sounded foreign to him, and the fact that this thing knew his daughter’s name caused Robert’s brow to furrow.
As he watched on, George started to shudder, his form, his quiddity, becoming more and more transparent. The man threw his head back and howled so loudly that it made Robert’s molars tremble.
His eyes darted to the photograph that had seemingly glued itself to the man’s hand.
This was the second time that Amy had saved him, and for that he was forever grateful.
He was brought back to Amy’s voice he had heard in the Marrow, begging him, telling him that he had promised that she would be safe. And that was only moments before the man in the hat had appeared, sitting atop Patricia’s tombstone.
Anger suddenly flooded over Robert, and he leaned in close, staring into George’s coal-black eyes.
“Give a message to the Goat for me when you see him. Tell him—tell him that this is my picture,” he hissed, jabbing a finger at the photograph in George’s fading hand, “and this time I’m coming for him.”
Chapter 42
“How’s that for a Sunday afternoon?” Cal asked as he pulled the door open to the Harlop Estate.
Exhausted, he veritably stumbled over the threshold, with Robert and Shelly in tow.
“Wait…it’s Sunday?” Shelly asked as she collapsed onto the couch.
“No fucking clue.”
Cal went straight to the liquor cabinet, but stopped halfway there and clutched his chest. Robert watched him closely, thinking that maybe he was having a heart attack.
“Cal?”
He was way too young for one, but given what they had seen…
Thankfully, Cal shook his head and started walking again, muttering something about being out of shape. As he poured two glasses of Glenlivet, the good stuff, the 30-year-old bottle, he addressed Robert.
“Man, it’s about time I got back into shape…you interested, Robert? You know, pump some iron?”
Robert limped his way to the loveseat and flopped down on it. It felt so good to be sitting somewhere comfortable, even if it was a dusty, sixty-year-old suede loveseat.
“Back into shape?”
“Yeah, that’s right, back. Don’t you remember me in high school?” He walked over and handed the drink to Robert, who took it and sipped. Cal’s eyes flicked to Shelly.
“Oh, yeah, you were jacked.”
“Whatever,” Cal said, finding his own seat. “Just for that comment, we are going to start with leg day.”
Robert sighed and instinctively rubbed his calf.
“Very funny,” he grumbled.
“What about me? No drink for me?” Shelly asked, reminding them that she was also present.
Cal didn’t immediately answer, so Shelly reached out and promptly took the glass from him.
“Hey!”
She ignored him and smelled the liquid dramatically before taking a sip.
“I prefer beer, but this shit ain’t bad.”
Cal laughed and started to stand, intent on getting himself a new drink.
“Robbo, one thing I learned from this whole thing is that you do not want to fuck with this girl. Man, she was lethal with that flashlight. I mean, she wanted to…” As his words bordered on the serious, on reflecting the horrors that they had all experienced, he let his sentence trail off.
They needed some time off, time in which their thoughts weren’t imbued with dead people.
Cal poured his scotch in silence, and they sat on their respective seats silently drinking for some time. Exhaustion engulfed them like a thick fog.
It was Cal who finally broke the silence.
“That was fucked up,” he said simply.
Robert felt himself nodding.
“Is that it, then? Are we done with all this ghost shit?” he continued.
No one answered.
Robert wanted to say, yeah, we’re done, but his thoughts kept turning back to Amy’s voice coming from the fiery sky above.
No, I’m not done with this just yet.
“Maybe,” Shelly answered, finishing her scotch. “I’m going to bed,” she said, then pointed at Cal. “You better put something on those cuts on your face or it’ll scar, and then I’ll start calling your ass George.”
With that, she left the room, leaving Cal to finger the scratch marks that Justine had raked across his cheek.
“Hilarious,” Cal grumbled.
“I’m—” Robert started, but a knock at the front door interrupted him. He stood quickly, too quickly, and he immediately fell back down again, pain flaring up his leg. “I’ll get it,” he said between clenched teeth.
Cal eyed him suspiciously, but let him to go to the door by himself. It was, after all, technically his house.
It would have been a lie if Robert said that he was surprised to see Sean Sommers standing on the porch, wearing the same stupid suit and jacket and navy peacoat. His firm, thin-lipped expression was also predictable.
“Robert,” the man said simply, holding out an envelope. Robert took it and looked inside. There was a check for 100k, as promised, written on a check for a bank he didn’t immediately recognize.
Damn, you’re quick.
“Thank you,” Sean said with a curt nod, and then turned to leave.
Robert reached out for him, but the man pulled away.
Not so fast.” Robert glanced back into the estate, and even though Shelly was upstairs and Cal was still in the front room, he was concerned about sensitive ears. He stepped onto the broken cement steps and closed the door behind him. “You promised to answer some of my questions.”
The Seventh Ward (The Haunted Book 2) Page 17