by Sergio Gomez
“What do you want from me?” she asked, relaxing her grip, letting the strangeness of this meeting wash over her.
“Don’t you know?” Lucas shook his head. “Momma, I’ve come seeking your help. We are on the same side.”
“Same side?”
Lucas jutted his chin in the general vicinity of the closest window. “They have betrayed both of us. Those down in the town. Those who reject us both.”
“What do you mean?” The guilt she’d felt when the dummy brought up the Megan Hamilton incident was slowly being replaced with anger. “How did they betray you?”
“The children who pulled me out onto this Earth… They’ve turned their backs on me when I needed them most.” Lucas held up his broken arm for emphasis. “Now they are coming to finish me off.”
“So you’ve come here…for my help?”
Lucas nodded.
Before either one of them could say anything more, Glenn woke up. He had to blink away the sudden sting of lights in his eyes. Then he said, “Momma? You okay?”
Cassandra turned to the floor on the opposite side of the bed where her son was. Glenn saw her face was gray as ash. He sat up in the sleeping bag, knowing something was wrong.
“Quiet, Glenn,” she told him, waving a hand at him. “Stay put.”
“There is no one else for me to turn to, Momma,” Lucas continued. “I am as alone in this world as I was in the dark world. Rejected by the very people who brought me here. Rejected, Momma, just like you.”
“Just like me…” Cassandra said, recalling the eyes of judgment that had been cast on her over a joke that had gone too far.
That’s what she’d thought of the incident then, and what she’d thought of it since, until now. Because now, this was no joke.
“And if I refuse?” Cassandra finally said.
“Then you have turned yourself into a plague,” Lucas said, his voice taking on a stiff edge. “Those against me are plagues of this Earth. The True Father knows this, and will grant me my wish if I eradicate you for refusing.”
“Mom?” Glenn asked, his voice full of rising anxiety.
“What are you talking about?” Cassandra asked, ignoring her son’s question.
“I have been sent by the True Father to this Earth to get rid of the plagues that infect it. As a reward, I will be turned back into a real human.” Lucas said it matter-of-factly. It was the truth. The True Father had promised him.
Cassandra looked down at Glenn, then at this wretched, blood-stained thing standing in front of her that existed because of her. Everything from that day was being dragged up again—the guilt, the fear of possibly being sentenced to death, the shame—and she wanted nothing more than to go back to her quiet existence out here where no one remembered her.
“No. No, I don’t want any part of this,” Cassandra said, raising her voice. “This is nuts. This is crazy. Get the hell out of here! Go!”
She reached over the bed and grabbed Glenn’s hand.
Lucas pulled out the gun and pointed it between her eyes. “Everyone betrays me. Why? Why does everyone betray me? You will die, Momma. Then that fool out there. Then your other son.”
“Momma, I’m scared!” Glenn whined.
“No! No, please,” Cassandra pleaded. “Fine, I’ll help you. I’ll help you.” She let the bedsheet drop. “I’ll help. But you have to promise me something…you...you spawn of evil.”
“Lucas,” the doll corrected her in a calm voice. “That is the name Father gave me. What is the promise?”
She swallowed. “That once this is done, you’ll leave me and my family alone.”
Lucas considered this. With each kill he’d grown stronger, and there were five children down there in town waiting for his justice. He had no doubt that all five would come for him, and all he needed to do to confirm this was open up the connection to them.
Five kills to make. That would make him immeasurably more powerful than he was even now.
Then again, he could lie to Momma, and tell her what she wanted to hear, before killing her, too.
Yes. He liked that idea very much.
Reconnecting with Momma was only a part of the bigger plan. He didn’t need her. And in fact, if he had to sacrifice her, he would be okay with that, too.
Father had already been sacrificed, after all.
“That is something I can do,” Lucas said.
“Okay,” Cassandra said. “So you can put the gun down now.”
Lucas had almost forgotten he’d drawn it out and nodded to her as he put it back in his jacket. “Yes, yes. I apologize that it came to this.”
Glenn, who’d been frozen with a mixture of horror and confusion, finally managed to breakout of his trance and said, “Momma, what is going on?”
It would take her a long time to explain everything to him, so instead Cassandra just shook her head and said, “We have a lot to talk about, sweetie. But now’s not the time.”
Perhaps it would never be the time.
If Ricky had known how bad things were going to get, he would have tried fighting that damn dummy outside.
Hindsight was 20/20, and one hundred per cent useless, so here he was. Waking up with a giant lump forming on the back of his head where he’d been hit hard enough to be knocked out cold, in which time the dummy had used some bedsheets from the bathroom linen closet to tie him up. His hands were behind his back and tied to the backrest. His feet were bound by multiple knots to the front legs of the chair. The dummy had even gone as far as to tie a bedsheet around his neck, and then looped that around the back of the chair, so that he couldn’t move his head. There was a gag in his mouth. An old sock, by the taste of it.
Making matters worse, he was still facing the back of the trailer. He wouldn’t be able to see what was coming or what the dummy would do next.
As if his thoughts had commanded the situation, he heard activity coming from the bedroom. The springs on the mattress moving as someone got off the bed (Cassandra, please, please let it be her), then there were footsteps.
Heading this way.
One set heavy, and wooden.
But there were two other pairs walking along with the ones that belonged to the dummy.
Chapter 10
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He was dreaming of Lucas chasing him, only the dummy wasn’t three feet tall, he was thirty feet.
He chased Twist through the streets downtown, each step thumped louder than the last.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The dummy’s shin hit a powerline, knocking over the poles between it. Electricity sparked through the air as they crashed to the ground. One crushed a car underneath it. The other smashed against the side of a building and rested there against it like it was a new addition of the façade.
Cars parked at the side of the road had their alarms going off and blaring as Lucas’ footsteps shook the ground around them. In the distance, there were sirens of rescue squads coming—but Twist knew they wouldn’t do him any good.
Twist cut to the left and jumped behind Lou’s Arcade. This wasn’t the part of town where Lou’s Arcade was, but he knew it was the building because of the neon thunderbolt on the rooftop. The one that lit up to make it look like the word ARCADE was constantly being struck.
The thumping stopped, and Twist peeked around the corner of the building to see if Lucas had given up. He hadn’t. Instead, he was lifting the rooftop off a building—Penny’s Bakery from what the sign on it said, which also didn’t make geographic sense, but that was how dreams went. The dummy peered into, his eyes scanning inside the building left and right, like a child looking for bugs underneath a rock.
Not finding Twist inside, Lucas tossed the roof away. It crashed against the side of the church downtown (yet another geographic impossibility). The impact knocked the spire where the bell was hanging from, and Twist expected to hear the bell ring as it fell to the ground, but instead the sound it made was a loud bang.
BANG. BANG.
It was so loud that it sounded like it was coming from outside the world—
BANG BANG BANG.
Twist’s eyes flew open. He was covered in sweat, his heart racing, and his mind wide awake.
It all came to him at once. Jamie said he’d be here tonight. He looked over at the alarm clock on his nightstand: 2:40am.
Twist got up and made his way over to the window. There was someone in their backyard but the darkness and the height from the second floor made it harder to see who it was. All he knew for sure was it wasn’t a three-foot-tall ventriloquist dummy.
He opened the window and stuck his head out. “Jamie?”
“It’s me,” Jamie said, and stepped closer to the light at the side of the house. Twist saw him drop a handful of chunky rocks. “Thought I was going to have to break your fucking window to get you up.”
“Sorry,” Twist said.
“You comin’ down or what?”
Twist nodded. “Give me a second.”
“Ah, sure. What’s another second after how long I’ve already been waiting.” Even underneath the cover of the shadows, Twist recognized the sly grin that formed on his brother’s face.
Chapter 11
They were outside of the trailer, while the doll—Lucas, as Ricky had just learned it called itself—was inside with Glenn. The boy was the dummy’s insurance that he and Cassandra wouldn’t just split. It took some convincing, but the dummy finally agreed to let them outside to talk things over between themselves.
Ricky was sitting on the chair where Cassandra had been smoking and drinking the last of her beer earlier. It’d been only a few hours, but it seemed like a lifetime ago that things in their life weren’t upside down.
Cassandra was on the grass, her legs up close to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins, curled into a tight ball that made her skinny frame seem even smaller. She felt smaller, too. Not just physically, but mentally.
She’d just finished telling Ricky about the conversation with Lucas and what they had to do.
Ricky ran his hand through his hair and let out a deep sigh. “This is insane.”
“I know,” Cassandra said, and looked at the grass between her feet. “But if we don’t…”
She’d thought the worst was over after the trial; the guilt, the worry of being put into jail to rot for life, the cruel looks from the public, the nightmares, all of it. She thought it was all over when she got off with a light sentence and moved out into the wilderness with Ricky to have her baby thirteen years ago.
Little had she known back then, that the worst of the consequences she’d pay for what she’d done were yet to come.
Somehow it was even more terrible that this was coming to bite her in the ass years later, when she had a family and was finally starting to be happy for the first time in a long time.
“It’s our family or those five kids, right?” Ricky said.
Cassandra looked up at him and nodded. Tears were building up in her eyes. “How the hell could we even get away with this?”
Ricky shook his head. “I don’t think we can.”
“Then what do we do?”
Ricky peered over his shoulder to make sure the dummy hadn’t snuck out to eavesdrop on their conversation while they weren’t paying attention. It seemed he hadn’t, but even still, he leaned in close and whispered to her, “We turn on it—on Lucas—when the time comes.”
“That won’t work, honey.”
He scowled. “How do you know?”
“He’s…connected to me, through some supernatural means. He’ll know what we have planned.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He can read my thoughts, Ricky. He did it when we were in the bedroom.” Now she did start to cry.
“Oh, fuckin’ A,” Ricky said. “This just gets better and better, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” Cassandra leapt up out of the grass and threw her arms around him. “I’m sorry for putting you and Glenn through this.”
Ricky rubbed her back. “It’s okay, babydoll. It’s okay.”
That seemed to be the magical words to get her to stop sobbing. She stepped back and sat on the grass again. With the back of her hand, she wiped away the snot running down her nose.
“We’re in this together no matter what,” he continued. “We’ll get through this. You, me, Glenn. Unscathed.”
“How, though?”
He gulped, hoping she didn’t notice. “We’ll help the doll kill those kids. Then we’ll move the hell away from here. Far, far away from here where no one will find us. And start over. Again.”
His tone was so hopeful that it convinced her, even though there was still doubt in her heart. This was the man she’d married, and this was one of the reasons. He was willing to do this for her and Glenn—a child who wasn’t even his. The thought almost made her want to cry again, but this wasn’t the time.
Maybe later. After (“if”, the doubt in her mind said) they survived this and got away with it, she would again cry then.
But not now. Now was the time to own up to what she’d done and be strong.
“Let’s do it,” she said to Ricky.
Ricky nodded, and got up out of the chair. “Let’s go inside and game plan how we’ll go about doing this and getting away with it.”
He reached out with his hand for her to hold it. She did. With their fingers interlaced, they went back into the trailer.
Chapter 12
“Your head is… very shiny.” Twist said, observing Jamie’s lack of hair.
He’d shaved his head completely down to the scalp, and grown out a thin beard that he dyed red. This was the “disguise” he’d teased over the phone.
They were standing at the back of the house, near one of the backlights hanging off the corner of the porch. They didn’t dare go up on the deck. Jamie didn’t want to get too close to the house. The memory of seeing Big Bob on the floor, covered in blood, was enough. He didn’t need to ever see the inside of that house again.
Plus, they didn’t want to wake up their mom.
Jamie leaned against the porch railing, the closest he would come to touching anything attached to the house, and put his hands into his pockets.
“Told ya, I’m undercover.” He winked at Twist.
“It’s better than I imagined.” Twist said. He could barely recognize him, and he’d known him his whole life.
“Yeah,” Jamie sighed. “Let’s get right to it, Twist.”
“Yeah, let’s.”
“What’re the chances you’ll be able to get the others together to go hunt this dummy down with us?” Jamie asked.
“I think one hundred per cent.”
Jamie turned up an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah, Jamie. When we were down at Myers Park, after Jack and Gina left Lucas there, none of us could turn around even if we tried. It was like some force was keeping us on track, making sure we followed where it was leading us.”
“And you think that’s true even now?”
Twist nodded. “I think until we kill Lucas, we’re tied to this force. I also think that this force is the same thing that connects us to him, but that’s beside the point.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about this, Ollie.”
This time he shook his head. “It’s not that I know, Jamie, it’s that I can feel it. That’s the only way I can really describe it.”
“You think we’ll be able to find him?”
Twist nodded again.
“How sure of that are you, Ollie?” Jamie asked. “One hundred percent?”
“Yes.”
“This connection thing…it’s that strong?”
“You know when you come home, and you can tell that no one is in the house with you? Or the other way, when you can feel someone is in the next room without seeing them?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s like that, but even weirder. More…out of this world.”
&nbs
p; “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever been a part of,” Jamie said.
The sly grin that appeared on his face made Twist relax. His big brother was with him. What had seemed hopeless before was a lot less so now.
“I know. But you don’t have to be, this is meant for us to fight, Jamie.”
“Shut up. Like I told you, I’m going to lead the charge on this. You and the other kiddies are just there to send it back—or however you put it.”
“Thanks,” Twist said.
Screw if I look like a punk to him, he thought, and hugged Jamie tightly.
Jamie hugged him back for a few seconds, then pushed him away. “Before we do anything, though, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before.”
“What?” Twist asked. He knew that look in his eyes meant he was thinking up something bold.
“Going to the local library,” Jamie grinned at him. “It was Sun Tzu who said, ‘know thy enemy’…or maybe it was the Bible. I forget which.”
“Why the library?”
“Cassandra and the other girls had to have gotten that Tome of Evil from somewhere, right?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“It’s worth a shot to see if I can find it. To find out what we’re up against.” Jamie unfolded his arms. “It’ll make it easier to plan, got it?”
“Right,” Twist said. His brother never ceased to impress him.
“You be in charge of letting the others in on this,” Jamie said. “I’ll call you tonight to touch base.”
“Okay, sounds like a plan,” Twist said.
Jamie stuck his hand out and Twist gave him five. Then Jamie started for the street, back toward the woods.
“I’m going back to get some shuteye.” He called behind him as he jotted toward the tree line at the back of the yard.
“Where’s ‘back’?”
“Somewhere that smells like shit,” He said, stopping right before he would be entering the backwoods, and turning to look at his brother. “Trust me, you don’t wanna know, Twist.”