A Place So Wicked

by Patrick Reuman

  “I was hopin—”

  “He’s a little under the weather right now. He can’t come to the door.”

  Toby was stumped. Everywhere they turned, they were hitting barriers. And back at home, his family was in some house that may or may not be harming them even as he spoke to these people. With the other houses they visited, Addison’s and Eli’s, part of his motivation was to get away from his own house, away from whatever evil he feared lurked within. But unlike then, he had been terrified of coming here. But now that he was there, he didn’t want to leave with nothing.

  “But sir, your wife said something about somebody taking him.”

  “No!”

  Toby thought he was going to deny she ever said that, but he didn’t.

  “She just misspoke.”

  “How?”

  “Listen.” He stepped forward, entering the doorway. “I’m not sure what she was talking about. But Robert is upstairs. He’s fine. Everything is fine.”

  “But—”

  “I need you to leave.” Toby tried to talk, but the man cut in again, his veins surfacing on his arms as he spoke. “Now!”

  30

  They were only one street away from their house, so they got back home quickly. On the way, Toby gave Paisley the rundown. She only caught bits and pieces of the conversation on her own and was eager to hear the rest the moment the man was safely behind the door again.

  Toby recounted the conversation between him and Robert’s mother and then Robert’s father. Her eyes perked up, just as he had, when he explained how Robert’s dad had tried to backtrack for his wife. Neither of them believed a word the man said.

  “Someone took him,” Paisley said, her words tapering off at the end. “But who would do that? And why?”

  Toby shook his head. He had no idea. Further, he wasn’t sure if this new information made things better or worse. His gut told him worse. Sure, one person that didn’t like him much was gone, but that opened things to more new questions than it did answers.

  They stood out front, staring at the entirety of their house, or, how it felt now, their prison. Toby wondered what it said of them that they were about to willingly go back into a house that they knew was hurting them somehow. Brave, or perhaps stupid. Inside the house was still very quiet when they entered. The lowering sun behind them cast long shadows across the whole front half of their house.

  “They must still be in bed,” Paisley whispered, as if afraid to interrupt the stillness.

  “I’m going to go check on them,” Toby said.

  “I’ll look in on Trevor and Robbie,” Paisley offered.

  They headed upstairs. Paisley wasn’t sure their uncle was even alive, not at first, when she entered into the silence that lacked everything, even the gentle hum of breathing. Robbie’s continuing life wasn’t confirmed until Paisley rested her hand on his chest and felt it raising and lowering with his breaths. She let out her own breath, relieved.

  Down the hall, Toby was tapping on their parents’ door. All he got in return was a muffled mumble. When he peeked in, all he saw were the lumps formed by bodies lurking under the blanket.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  They both came up for air, looking at him in the doorway. They stared at him for a moment as if unsure of who he was.

  “Is everything all right?” Toby asked.

  His parents both had blue around their eyes like someone had just punched them. Their skin appeared thin, like it was only hanging loosely tethered to their bones, as if they were both approaching a hundred years old.

  His mother smiled. “Yes, we’re okay. A little under the weather but we’ll be fine. All we need is some rest. We’ll see the doctor tomorrow.”

  Toby noticed the putrid stench engulfing the room. But it was different than the one they were growing used to, the one stemming from the basement. Instead, it was exactly like the one that filled his brother and Robbie’s rooms earlier. He spotted the bucket alongside his dad’s side of the bed. He recognized it all too well from his own childhood, from his days of being sick. It was a vomit bucket.

  Just the mere thought of it made his stomach churn. He looked away from it, back to his mother.

  “Do you want me to make dinner tonight?” he asked.

  “I’m not hungry, I don’t think,” his mom answered.

  “I’m not, either,” his dad said. “But you can make yourself some food, if you want. Maybe the others are hungry. We’re just going to stay in bed for now.”

  Paisley stood over Robbie’s bed. She could only see half his face because he was facing the wall, but what she could see haunted her. He looked like a zombie straight out of the eighties, his face shaded white like it was done with makeup, his eyes sunken in deep, the skin around them a nasty mix of black and blue.

  Paisley startled at a sound and jerked around, her heart thudding as she did so. Toby stood in the door, startled, too, by her reaction. She put her hand on her chest and took in a deep breath.

  “You scared me,” Paisley said.

  “I’m sorry.” He looked at Robbie, not really able to see his face. “Is he okay? What about Trevor?”

  “I’m not sure.” She stepped to the side, signaling for Toby to come forward and look for himself. “They both look like zombies.”

  “Mom and Dad, too,” Toby said.

  “What should we do?” Paisley asked.

  It was the same question circling his own mind since the moment he saw their parents. What do a sixteen-year-old and his thirteen-year-old sister do about their family in peril and an evil house? He was torn. On one hand, he thought maybe he should try and get them all to the hospital. But his mother had very clearly told them that they wouldn’t be doing that because they were going to see the doctor in the morning. He knew they were low on money and an emergency room visit was expensive. But they all looked like they were in such bad shape. He tried to push a thought away but was failing, that thought being that they, his parents, brother, and uncle, didn’t simply look sick; they looked like they were dying.

  On the other hand, if they did go to the hospital, they would probably miss Paisley’s friend Eli, and he might have some answers. The kid didn’t say what time he would be there, just later. But Toby felt like their time was running low.

  But if it were the house that was doing all this, taking them to the hospital wouldn’t solve the problem at all. Once they were back, they would simply get sick again, just like Trevor did. There was one other option. He could try and force everybody into the car and just drive. It didn’t matter where they went as long as it was away. But they would have to go somewhere eventually. And with very little money, somewhere could end up nowhere. He imagined them all sleeping on the side of the road, using every corner of their vehicle as a bed.

  “Let’s wait,” Toby said. “They’re going to the doctor tomorrow anyway, and your friend should be here soon.”

  Toby sat on the couch, staring straight ahead. He wasn’t looking at anything, though, his mind lost in thought. He needed to do something. He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the search engine. Thankfully, with everything else going to shit, their internet was still working just fine.

  He started simple, and straight to the point, typing in “house making family sick.” Results popped up. Lead paint, pesticides, gases, mites, and mold. He felt pretty confident the sickness had nothing to do with any of those things, but he couldn’t be sure, not technically. This house was old, after all, and could be harboring any number of hidden problems, especially black mold.

  He wasn’t going to search for mold, though, because he didn’t think that was what the problem was. He erased what he had and typed in the town’s name, Black Falls, New York. As he clicked enter, Paisley spoke.

  “That must be why we aren’t sick. We’ve been leaving the house, going out to hang out with people and whatnot. We aren’t spending enough time in the house for the effects to take hold.”

  Toby had put that together a while ago
; he just hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. That would mean admitting that the house and its effects were real. But Paisley had no such fear.

  “You’re right,” he said, staring down at his phone as results relating to the town name came up.

  One of the first results was a Wiki page. Promising. He clicked the link, and it opened to a surprisingly barren webpage. It discussed, only briefly, the general location of the town and mentioned in one sentence some falls that resided just inside the city limits that lent the place its name Black Falls. Or at least the falls part because Black Falls wasn’t the name of the falls themselves. He stared at the name, wondering who in their right mind would give them the name Dead Falls.

  He wasn’t sure if the title was corny or terrifying. He tried to search for the falls themselves, curious as to why they were called that, but nothing came up. Frustrated, he went back to his search of the town name. He scrolled through the results, coming up with almost nothing that he didn’t already know. Black Falls was on multiple lists for the quickest up-and-coming towns in New York, a couple lists for all of America, best rising economies, and even a list for the safest places in the country to raise a family.

  He scoffed at that last bit. Safest his ass. Paisley was sitting up against him, looking over his shoulder at the phone screen, not saying a word. Toby considered what he could search for next. His fingers hovered over the screen, just millimeters from the touch keys.

  Then he typed “Black Falls, New York ghosts.” The search yielded multiple lists of “the most haunted places in New York.” In the short descriptions below the links, none of them mentioned Black Falls, and some of them were nearly a hundred locations long.

  A tap echoed out from the back of the house. Both their stomachs sank. Toby was about to ask if she heard it when Paisley beat him to it.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  He wanted to say it was probably nothing, but the taps had been methodical, too deliberate sounding to be the cries of the house shifting. They came again. Tap, tap, tap. Toby jumped to his feet. He remembered the woman in the attic, struggling to open the window.

  The room grew cold. He shivered once, quickly, a sporadic spasm. But when he looked at Paisley, she seemed fine, leaving him to wonder if the sudden cold was in his head. He started toward the room’s exit.

  “Wait! I’m coming,” Paisley said, hurrying to get behind her brother.

  Toby led, his sister in tow, down the hall. As they passed the stairs, the taps came again, this time very slightly louder. He begged that they not be coming from the basement. He pleaded for any other thing. But that direction was exactly where the sound seemed to be coming from.

  As they neared the end of the hall, the corner just ahead, and the basement just around that corner, the knocks returned. The taps were quicker this time, as if the entity behind them was getting frustrated with how slowly they were moving up the hall.

  They went around the corner, stopping in front of the door that led down. He wasn’t going to open it unless he had to. Even if the knocks came again, right then, right next to him, from the other side of the door, he wasn’t going to answer it.

  TAP, TAP, TAP. They jerked to their left, away from the basement door. They weren’t coming from the basement, but rather, just past the basement, from the back door. Just seconds later, as they stepped further along the way, they saw Eli standing on the other side of the back door, his face peering in through the glass.

  31

  Relief washed over the both of them at the sight of Eli. Toby turned the deadbolt with a light click then eased the door open slowly. He whispered for Eli to come in. They hadn’t told their parents anybody was coming over. He wasn’t sure they would even care, but in their present state, he really couldn’t be certain.

  Eli entered sounding exhausted, like he was stepping inside from a wild rainstorm, except the skies were clear and there was no rain. He immediately clenched his nose upon entering and shrieked a quiet grunt.

  “Oh my god, what the hell is that?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s the basement, we think,” Paisley said.

  “Come this way,” Toby said.

  He led them to the living room where the smell wasn’t better but merely slightly less intolerable. When they were safely around the corner, Toby offered Eli a spot on the couch, which he took. They sat there for a moment in silence, the living room in darkness. They hadn’t had the light on a few minutes ago because it was still light out, the sun still hanging above in the sky, but, as if out of nowhere, everything had plunged into darkness.

  “So,” Eli said, clearly fighting not to be bothered by the smell of the place. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  Toby nodded. “Do you know Robert? He lives on the next road over, Cherry Hill.”

  “I’m not sure. Do you know his last name?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “I’m not sure, then. Why?”

  Toby retold the story to Eli, in the finest detail he could manage. Staring into the distance, into the darkness of their living room, he allowed the emotions he felt earlier when first hearing Robert’s story to surge through his body as he recounted everything. When he finished, Eli looked almost as bad as Toby felt. Eli just stared at them for a very long minute.

  “We were hoping you could help us,” Paisley said.

  Eli looked both surprised and as if everything Toby had just said was yesterday’s news. The boy shifted uncomfortably, inching himself back into the corner of the couch like a scared animal. When he finally met Paisley’s eyes, he looked like he was near tears.

  “Yes.” The word came out dry, like he was on the edge of death, stranded out in a desert, his lips cracked from the scorching heat.

  “Yes, what?” Toby said.

  Eli’s eyes were glistening now, his face a light shade of red. He was struggling to meet either of their eyes but especially Paisley’s. He tried to wipe his eyes discreetly, even though the other two were watching him.

  “Everything you just said, I think, is all true,” Eli said, looking down at the floor. “About the house, and everything else.”

  “So, we’re sacrifices?” Toby blurted out.

  “You knew?” was all Paisley could manage before tears started to flow. She stood. “I told you that my brother was sick, and you knew?! And you didn’t say anything?”

  “I don’t know!” Eli said. “I really don’t. I—I—”

  Toby stood as well. “We have to get everybody out of here!”

  Eli reached and grabbed Toby’s arm as he turned. “No! You can’t!”

  Eli rose, looking out the window, and in every direction, as if expecting something to materialize out of the walls.

  “What the hell do you mean, I can’t?” Toby realized how loud he was being and hushed himself. “You just said our house is literally killing us!”

  “I know. I know.” Eli stepped out of the light’s path, where streetlamps cascaded their yellow hue through the window’s glass. “But you can’t just leave. They won’t let you.”

  Toby froze, his anger quickly replaced by an emotion somewhere between fear and foreboding. They. Eli hadn’t said it yet, but Toby was already sure that Eli’s they was the same they that Robert’s mother had talked about. But who exactly “they” were, he didn’t know yet.

  “Who is they? What do you mean?” Paisley asked.

  “I—” Eli stuttered again. “I’m not entirely sure. But as soon as you try to leave, as soon as they know that you know what is going on, they—”

  “They’ll come,” Toby said. “Like they did for Robert when they somehow found out he had told me. They’ll come for us.”

  Eli nodded his head, his eyes completely expressionless. “That’s why I didn’t tell you, Paisley. I was scared.”

  Paisley tried to talk, but Eli quickly pushed on. “I know! It’s a terrible excuse. The worst. And I’m so sorry. But bad things happen to people who talk here.”

  Toby could see that Eli
was in a manic state and sat him down. He just had to think. There had to be a way out of all this.

  “Okay, Eli,” Toby started.

  Paisley eased herself back onto the couch as well, slowly. “That’s why you came to the back door,” Paisley said. “I was wondering why you’d come to the back door instead of the front door like a normal person. It was because you were afraid someone was watching.”

  Eli didn’t say anything, but Paisley knew it to be the truth. She was angry with Eli, but she felt that even in the short time she had gotten to know this boy he wasn’t a bad person. Despite knowing the risks, knowing that coming here to help them could be life-threatening, he still came. For that, she was thankful.

  “Okay, Eli.” Toby took in a deep breath. “For us to figure out what to do, first, we need to know what exactly is going on. Is there anything at all that you can tell us that might help? What exactly do you know about this house?”

  “Not a lot. They do what they can to keep things a secret. Everybody knows that something is going on. But I don’t think very many know exactly what that something is. They don’t like it when you ask questions. They find out. They always find out.”

  “How do you know they find out?” Paisley said.

  Eli looked at Paisley, his eyes appearing as though they had aged years since entering the house. “When I first moved here, I looked into the town a bit. Not because I thought there was anything wrong with the place, I just enjoy history. We’ve moved a few times and I’ve always looked into the new town’s history. It’s just a hobby of mine.” He paused, still hesitant, as if unsure if the walls could hear them. “But somehow they found out.”

  “What happened?” Paisley asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know. Two men came to the door one day to talk to my mom. I have no idea what they said, but I remember my mom coming into my room—she was crying—and she demanded that I stop. I’m not sure she even knew what she was telling me to stop doing. I’m not sure she wanted to know.”