One by One
Page 18
She was falling.
The world slowed. Her mind reeled. All of the voices inside her cried out at once, each and every one of them knowing, understanding, that this was the point in time they’d all cease to exist.
Alice fell.
And in the blink of an eye, Frank’s hand darted out to catch her. He snatched her by an arm, and with a single, powerful motion, he pulled her back to the top of the step, where she melted into him, sobbing.
“Alice, Jesus…what are you doing?” he asked.
Once again, she had no words.
“You can’t do that,” he added. “You could have killed yourself…and…and…”
Frank squeezed her tighter. “I can’t lose you too.”
He patted her back, and for a moment Alice could believe that the world wasn’t upside down. There were parts of it, small slivers, that still existed as she had known them before. After a few moments, Frank spoke again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice watery. “I’m just…I’m looking for answers. I’m trying to fix it. But I don’t know how.”
He straightened up suddenly, as if overtaken by some urge to be the man of the house, someone who didn’t cry, even if the situation called for it.
“Let’s go back downstairs,” he said plainly.
Alice went without any hesitation. She was still dazed, still lost in the woods after everything that had happened, so she went along, holding her daddy’s hand like the little girl she was. It wasn’t until he had taken her back to her room that she began to sense something was amiss.
“Dad?”
Frank walked her in and sat her down on the bed.
“Dad, I need to ask you something.”
He looked annoyed, as if he had better things to be worried about. All the same, he entertained her question. “What is it, honey?”
“What happened in this house?”
Frank didn’t look surprised at all. “Your mom doesn’t give you enough credit,” he said with a tired smile. “She’s always surprised when you figure things out. I don’t think she understands how clever you are.”
“Dad?”
He shook his head. Alice could tell he was wondering how much she knew and how she figured it out. And she could tell he was too exhausted to really care.
“A girl died here. She fell down the stairs.” He looked at Alice, his eyes searching her face. “But you already knew that, right? Your mom tell you?”
She nodded, and Frank shook his head again, eyes closed in frustration. He took a deep breath. “We agreed we wouldn’t say anything to you kids. I guess that doesn’t matter now.”
“What happened to the family?” she asked.
“Same thing that would happen to most families when something that awful happens. They split up. The mom moved away with their son. And the dad stayed for a while. Then he stopped paying the mortgage, and the bank took over.”
He managed a pathetic smile. “Deal of the century.”
“There’s more to it,” she said. “I know there is.”
Frank was clearly done talking about it. “Maybe. But it’s gone. Past. All of it. And we got bigger things to worry about.”
“But the girl—” Alice said.
“No buts,” he replied. “She’s dead. That’s the end of it.”
Alice tried to talk, but he wouldn’t let her. He looked haggard and spent, like a man who hadn’t slept in a week. “I need you to stay here,” he said calmly. “I need to keep looking. I need to find your mom and Dean, but I can’t let anything happen to you.”
“No, I…I…”
“Look,” he said, turning around to the bedroom door. “These are strong doors. Solid. If you lock it when I leave, no one will be able to get in. I won’t go far, I promise. I just need to keep looking around. Hopefully, the cops will be here, and we’ll get all of this sorted out.”
Alice wanted to protest again, but she let herself sink into her bed, let it almost swallow her. The truth was she was tired of trying to figure everything out. She was just a kid after all. And the bed, god help her, was so inviting. She nodded as Frank leaned in and kissed her forehead.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said.
For once she believed him.
She closed the door behind him and locked it tight, checking it twice to make sure it wouldn’t open. Then she fell into her bed and let the world drift away.
Chapter Seventeen
The world was silence.
Had the house ever been so utterly devoid of sound?
Had any house?
Alice, still in her boots and jeans, crept out of bed and approached the door. It was dark outside by then. Even through the blinds, she could see that the sun was gone, and that somehow, through some impossible turn of events, the cops still weren’t there. She opened the door and peered out. Frank was nowhere in sight. The wind had died down, and all she could wonder was how much snow had fallen.
The hall between her room and Dean’s was dark enough to make bile rise in the back of her throat. More than ever, her room seemed to be a little haven in the midst of a cloud of ink, a lighthouse on a black sea. Light had become a commodity, something precious and rare, and she hated herself for wasting it. The thought of going out there, of venturing into that abyss of empty gloom, was more than she could bear. She slipped back inside, closing the door behind her and locking it once again.
She was alone.
No.
Yes. She’d never felt more alone in her entire life.
No, not alone. Mary is here.
Alice glanced over at the bedside table, at the book she had set there, the diary, her diary. There was nothing left to do. She was all alone in the world, floating at the edge of the universe with nothing more than a book to keep her company.
She read.
The last third of the book told more of the story, more of the tragedy that was Mary’s family. She was older now, maybe in her late teens, but the wounds of what had happened were still raw, still burning in her mind.
It was only once, she wrote. He knows better. He knows I’ll tell, knows that everyone will know if he tries to take his little girl back to his fucking shed.
And the truth is I know better. I used to be afraid that someone would find this book, would use it against me. But nothing scares me anymore. I made the first mistake when I went back there, when I walked in on him in that place.
His place.
The thought that it was ever something pure. That I even wrote his stupid name on it. I was too young to know what he was doing in there. I walked in there like a lamb into the slaughterhouse.
Most of the pages toward the end were like this. The story became a once-living thing, something that had been brutalized, stabbed, beaten, left for dead. Now, all that remained was the blood smeared onto the page.
One entry simply said the following:
You won’t touch me again.
You won’t touch me again.
You won’t touch me again.
Dozens of times, across the page, crazed, zigzagging patterns of the same phrase over and over again. Alice realized she was crying as she dove deeper in, as the truth she tried to conceal from herself came crashing down. In this silent house, unspeakable things had happened, and in her hand, she held the screams, the pain, the torment of a girl like herself, agony made solid.
She could have stopped it. I know she knows; I just fucking know it. But she never did, and here I am.
Fuck.
Pieces. That’s what I am. Broken glass. A porcelain doll. A china plate, always in the cabinet, keep the dust off!
I’ll use it, do you understand? I won’t let it grind me down, make me like him, like both of them, I’ll let that fire burn me down to nothing, let it swallow me, let it change me, and when I’m gone, when I’m nothing
, I’ll be more than both of them combined, because I’ll be free of it, free of him, free of what he did.
Alice didn’t want to keep reading. She knew it was wrong, knew it wasn’t her place to unearth this past, a past that was never hers to begin with, but she couldn’t stop. A part of her felt as if all of this, every moment, every single step she had taken, had brought her here, to this place in time to be the single person on this planet to bear witness to the crime that happened in this house.
She turned the page and saw an entry with a single line.
I know what I have to do.
The line stared up at her, threatening her, taunting her. This was the moment that Mary decided. The moment where she made her final stand, if only in her mind. Alice reached down with a trembling finger and turned the page. And there it was. The plan.
He can’t get away with it.
I won’t let him get away with it.
I was a kid then, but I’m not anymore.
I’m telling.
Everything.
She can hate me if she wants.
But I WON’T let him get away with this.
Alice leaned back on the bed, her breath catching in her throat. There it was. The end of the story. The reason for her accident. The reason for everything.
An unspeakable crime had been committed, and Walker had snatched away the only hope for justice, along with his daughter’s life. A faulty staircase was an easy thing to blame it all on. An accident. Unfortunate, but these things happen from time to time.
And with the truth, a terrible weight was lifted. It wasn’t over, at least not in any way that Alice could imagine, but the puzzle looked clear, finally. One question was answered, and another remained.
Why?
Why was her family missing, taken from her one by one? Why was the cat killed? If Mary still existed in this house, why was she doing this?
More than ever, she felt the malevolence of the place pushing down on her, that the house wanted her dead, wanted all of them dead. And the book in her hand felt dirtier than ever, a living infection. With a sneer, she dropped it onto the bedspread. The book fell open to a page she hadn’t yet read.
Alice lifted the book and studied the page. The handwriting was different, cruder, more scrawled. It was near the back of the book, the same section that her mother had pointed out earlier. There were a handful of blank pages in between, but Alice turned to the first page with the new handwriting and began to read.
I’m fine. The fall hurt, but I’m fine. Daddy was there. Daddy caught me. Daddy always catches me.
I feel fine.
I feel fine.
I feel fine.
Alice flipped to the next page and the next. She found more of the same, a complete and utter change from the earlier pages. She flipped through them, frantically, picking up pieces here and there as she went.
Daddy loves me. Daddy always loves me. When everyone else leaves and the house is quiet and I’m all alone, Daddy is the only one there for me.
I’ll always love my Daddy.
* * *
Daddy never hurt me. People lie all the time. Mommy lies. Brother lies. The world lies, but Daddy would never do anything to hurt me.
I thought something happened, but it didn’t. What I thought was real was fake. What I thought was hurt was love.
Daddy loves me forever.
No hurt.
No hurt.
Never, never, never, never, never.
* * *
I never fell. Daddy was there. Daddy caught me. Daddy made me safe. Daddy made me whole. Daddy was there. Daddy chased the monsters away. Daddy is all I have. Daddy is all I need. Daddy wouldn’t let me fall, so I never fell.
Promise
Promise
Promise
* * *
I NEVER FELL
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
LIES LIES LIES LIES
MY BRAIN TELLS ME LIES
NEVER TRUST MY LIES
THE STAIRS ARE DANGEROUS
DANGEROUS STAIRS MAKE LITTLE GIRLS FALL, MAKE LITTLE GIRLS DIE, BUT IT’S OKAY BECAUSE DADDYS ARE THERE, DADDYS ALWAYS THERE TO MAKE LITTLE GIRLS NOT DIE
NOT DIE
NOT DIE
NEVER FELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
There was no air in the room. Alice clutched at the collar of her shirt, opening it up, pulling it away from her neck, trying to breathe as her mind wrapped around the madness that was spilling out of the page in front of her. The diary was alive in her lap, she was sure of it, but as much as she wanted to stop reading, she couldn’t; if she closed the diary, she’d never open it again.
She turned the page.
A bit of the madness had died down. The handwriting, still scribbled, still messy, was more controlled now.
I watched them come in.
Why are they here?
They’re not the same. They aren’t supposed to be here. But…maybe they are. Maybe they’ve come home. After all this time, they’ve come home.
My family.
Mine to rebuild.
One by one.
It was like reading her own gravestone, and yet, in some way, it wasn’t a surprise at all. She’d known it had to lead somewhere, that all of this madness had to lead to some conclusion. And this seemed to be it.
Mary. The dead girl. Rebuilding her family.
Alice turned the page again and gasped aloud.
Alice.
Little Alice.
What will we do with you?
The diary slipped through her fingers and fell to the floor, an electric, burning thing, and the moment the cover closed, her mind was swirling with excuses, with rationalizations. It was all she had to hold on to, to keep her mind from splitting, fracturing, breaking beyond repair.
That’s not what it said, the dark voice insisted, just as afraid as all the other voices. You read it wrong. You had to have read it wrong.
Then pick it up. Pick it up and see, prove yourself right or wrong.
The moment stretched, endlessly, the voices arguing, her heart throbbing in her ears so loudly that the silence of the house was temporarily defeated, pounding, pounding, pounding.
Alice held her breath.
She bent down, and she picked up the book.
The pounding continued as she flipped through and found the page again.
Alice.
Little Alice.
What will we do with you?
She didn’t drop it this time. Instead, she closed her eyes and steadied herself, waiting for the world to settle, for the pounding to stop.
But it didn’t stop.
The noise wasn’t inside her, not anymore. It had escaped somehow, gotten free, become…something else. It was above her, high above her, upstairs, on the roof, somewhere.
Thump…thump…thump.
Steady. A tree branch against the house. Yes, of course, the wind. She cocked her ear and listened, eyes still closed.
Thump. Thump.
Not steady. The wind is never steady. Why should it be? The wind did as it pleased. There was a long pause, and she stayed, frozen, silent.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…
It was a violent sound. A living sound. The sound of a struggle. There was no denying it. Someone or something that was very much alive was making that noise. It could just be her pounding heart, but…no, there was no more room for lies, no more room for games. Something was up there, upstairs.
Was it her father? It was impossible to know for sure, but her heart told her it was, told her that the sounds she was hearing were the final, desperate gasps of her family dying in some strange, horrible way.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…
With every passing second, the sound grew worse, and her mind showed her awful t
hings that she didn’t want to see. Animals stuck in traps, gnawing at their limbs. People strapped to tables, operated on, helpless to do anything but flail. And worst of all, her father, the man who loved her, who took care of her, who moved them into this nightmare in an attempt to make them all happier, to fix them. She saw unutterable atrocities carried out on him, and she knew they were true, every one of them.
You’ll die up there.
And that was true too; she knew it as surely as she knew her own name, but it didn’t matter. Alice placed the diary down on the bedside table. She was afraid of it, afraid of what it might mean to have it in her hands when she finally found the source of that steady thumping, as if it were a bottle rocket that had already been lit.
She was opening the door, she was going up there, and whatever fate awaited her and her family, she would face it with him while there was still time. It wasn’t noble or brave. It was an act of pure terror, of unimaginable fear because she knew she was next, and the thought of being alone, of facing the night, the darkness, the utter silence of that house by herself, was a fate worse than death. And so, Alice stepped out of her bedroom, walking away from that small beacon of safety and into the darkened hallway.
One step. Another. Still, the noise carried on upstairs, unending and tireless.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…
She left the light of the bedroom behind, and walked around the corner. She knew what she would find, what would be waiting for her there. She didn’t need to look, but she did anyway.
The picture on the wall was nearly complete now. Three Xs in a row where the cute little family had once been. Only the little girl with dark pigtails remained.
Thump…thump…
The sound was growing weaker now.
He’s almost dead.
Alice turned toward the stairs, shuffling up to the bottom step. There she stood, at the place where Mary died, where her blood surely soaked into the floorboards, already a deep, dark red. She couldn’t do it. It was impossible. Walking up those stairs would be like a cow walking into a slaughterhouse, a conveyor that her family had already been fed to. It was more than she could even begin to consider.