by J. L. Drake
If only you knew, lady, I thought with a smile. “Wow. That is amazing!” I exclaimed, being fake as hell. “Ruth was just telling me last night about Hank and his daughter, Jennifer. Is that the granddaughter you’re talking about?” I inquired sweetly.
“She is!” the woman exclaimed. “I know spending time with an old woman isn’t much fun, but would you like to come inside? Maybe have a glass of iced tea?” she offered politely.
“Sure,” I said, following her inside. I probably should’ve been frightened of entering this stranger’s house, but she was old and frail, after all. Surely I could defend myself against this old broad.
As soon as I walked in, I immediately recognized the front living room I’d sat in that day when Jed brought us, but the furniture had completely changed. The long sectional had been replaced with a modern couch and two matching ottomans. My eyes darted around the room nervously, making sure Jeanna wasn’t inside.
I thought about Jeanna sitting there so many years ago, toking her meth-filled pipe. We passed by the sitting area, and she led me into an eat-in kitchen. This wasn’t the same room where I’d dined with Jeanna on that day she let me go, and the house didn’t seem large enough to be the house of horrors.
But this was somewhere Jeanna once lived, with her father and grandmother. That seemed important for some reason. Another small piece to the puzzle.
“I forgot to ask your name,” I admitted embarrassingly. “It’s Margie,” she said, filling two tall glasses with ice.
“I’m Elsie,” I said, wandering around the kitchen as she poured the tea. There weren’t any pictures I could see, at least not in this room or the front sitting area. “You have a nice home. Have you lived here a long time?” I pried innocently.
“Oh, yes. The Garretts have owned this home for generations. My mother raised me in this house, and I raised Hank here. He got a girl pregnant when he was a teen, and I had to help him take care of Jennifer until he met Ruth and moved in with her and her son,” she said, traces of bitterness in her tone.
The tea was sugarless, and my mouth blanched. I forced myself to swallow the watery, flavorless substance. “Did you say your last name was Garrett?” I asked, pushing the drink aside. “Yes, that was my father’s name and it became mine and my son’s,” Margie proclaimed proudly.
I thought about the man who was with Jeanna all the time, overseeing things. I heard her and a couple others refer to him as ‘Garrett’ on several occasions. He’d looked older than Jeanna, but not old enough to be her father. But I pondered over Margie’s story. If Hank Garrett was a teenage father, then that would explain the narrow age difference. It would also explain why I’d thought ‘Garrett’ was Jeanna’s boyfriend, since they looked so close in age, and both seemed to be running the show.
I had no doubt now: Garrett and Jeanna were the same as Hank and Jennifer. I could feel it in my bones. Margie stood with her back to me, washing out her cup in the sink. I wondered if she knew what her son and granddaughter had been up to. I wondered if she was involved. That brought me around to my next question: my landlord Ruth had been Hank’s wife and Jennifer’s stepmother. Ruth had also been the mother of the two boys that lured us to the house of horrors. How could she not be involved too?
They’re all guilty, I realized, standing up from the table. Margie stood facing the kitchen counter, filling her glass with more tea. Her back was to me, and I stood so close to her I was surprised she didn’t feel me breathing down her neck. She was so old and fragile; all I had to do was wrap my hands around her neck and I could squeeze the life out of her with ease. God knows I had enough pent up rage to go through with it.
But it’s not time yet, I decided. I didn’t have all the answers yet, and maybe I never would. But I needed more certainty before I acted out, and before I harmed an elderly woman. “Thanks for the drink. Nice to meet you,” I said, heading for the door.
Chapter 40
As soon as I was out of Margie’s field of vision, I took off down the sidewalk, sprinting. I ran until my lungs felt like they were going to burst and my side ached painfully. The afternoon sun drifted behind the clouds. A storm was coming in. A real storm and a metaphorical one, I thought bitterly. By the time I stopped running, I was wheezing slightly.
I slowed down to a walk and started making my way toward Ruth’s house on Merribeth Avenue. I wasn’t going to her house, but I was going somewhere close. Ruth said that her youngest son lived on Weston Street, and I had to see with my own eyes if Zach was actually the boy, Zeke, from my youth. If given the chance, I wouldn’t hesitate to snap his neck.
Thinking about those boys’ trickery and all of the adults who were involved in hurting me and ultimately killing Claire, I felt so angry that I was seriously homicidal. But I wasn’t sure if my thoughts could really be translated into action. I’d never physically harmed another person in my life. It reminded me of the psychiatric aides at the rehab clinic, always asking me and the other patients there if we were suicidal or homicidal. Like we’d really tell them if we were.
I rounded the corner of Hampton Street, looking for more street signs. Specifically, I was looking for Clemmons and Weston Street. When I spoke on the phone to Ruth the other night, she’d revealed that Hank and Jennifer had eventually moved to a house on Clemmons Street. But I wasn’t sure where that was. I wondered if it was somewhere nearby. I sensed that it was.
There was something about this entire town that quickened my pulse and made me uneasy. It was like there was this inexplicable eeriness in the air, an invisible cloud of evil surrounding me, pressing down on my chest and making it hard to breathe.
Pellets of rain were starting to fall, but I ignored the wetness and the chill. The icy drops felt great on my raging hot skin. Weston Street was nearly five streets back from Ruth’s house. By the time I made it there, it was pouring. I didn’t give a damn if I was getting soaked, or if anyone saw me scoping out the neighborhood.
I could see heavy puffs of smoke in the distance, pouring out of a grey factory on the other side of a river. I wondered if that was where Zach worked, but then I remembered Ruth saying her son was a plumber. I wasn’t sure what kind of hours plumbers worked, or if he would even be home. I wasn’t even sure about the house number. All I knew was that he lived on Weston Street. I was hoping that Clemmons Street was nearby too.
The houses on Weston Street were quiet and dark, with most of its occupants gone to work for the day, presumably. Even though it was still daylight, the cloudy skies created the illusion of nightfall. I crept down the street slowly, trying not to look suspicious, but also taking my time and being observant.
A few of the houses had names displayed in the front: The Johnsons and The Carpenters. But I didn’t see any signs that said Garrett, and I saw no signs of Zach. I was seriously considering opening mailboxes again when I saw something that made my blood run cold. Parked behind one of the houses, pulled beneath a carport and under a rust-stained tarp was the unmistakable shape of that hideous limousine.
Chapter 41
I took off running frantically, darting through people’s yards. I don’t know why, but I was suddenly fearful, and I imagined that monstrous limo, charging down the black, deserted streets behind me. I was convinced it was chasing me home, but by the time I made it to my house on Saints Road, the streets were empty.
I let myself in and collapsed onto the couch, pulling my green comforter up to my chin. I shivered uncontrollably. I was terrified. What was I doing back in Flocksdale? If they found out, I was dead for sure. There was no way they would let me get away a second time.
My clothes were soaked, but I didn’t care. I hid under the covers like a scared child, and bawled into the couch cushions until they were saturated with my tears.
Rain drops were beating down on the roof and I could hear howls of the wind in the distance. A loud clap of thunder made me jump, and then suddenly, the power went out. I sat there, frozen in terror, not sure what to do.
I di
dn’t have any flashlights or candles in the house to provide light. I sat there, perfectly still for hours, listening for sounds in the dark, convinced that someone was coming for me. I even went so far as to creep over to the window and peer down the street, making sure no one was actually out there, hiding in the darkness.
The fear I felt deep inside reminded me of those horrific experiences when I was taking meth. There were so many nights when I’d sat home alone, afraid of every sight and sound, and seeing things that weren’t really there.
But this time, my fears were real and warranted. I had every reason to be afraid. It wasn’t just the house of horrors that frightened me; it was the entire town of Flocksdale, filled with horrible, depraved people.
For a moment, lying there in the dark, I imagined I was back in the house of horrors. The sights and sounds of it invaded my senses, making it hard to breathe. I was on my couch, but I was there too, smelling their sweaty skin and feeling their flabby skin touching mine as I lay in the darkness.
“You’re so soft,” said a voice in my ear. It was Charlie. I leapt to my feet, running through the house, trying to escape my stress-induced hallucination. I fiddled around in the dark until I’d found the front door. I burst through it, sucking in deep gulps of cold air, bent over at the waist on my porch.
I knew it was all in my head. Charlie wasn’t in my house. But the flashback had felt so real, and I now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Charlie was, in fact, one of those men in that horrific house.
I sat outside for an hour, my only light coming from the moon. It was full and luminous, a giant disk in the sky providing me cool relief from my dark fears. I chain smoked, rocking back and forth until I felt okay again. Finally, at nearly midnight, I crept inside and laid on the couch. The power was still out, but I was too tired to care.
My dreams were riddled with frightening images. Claire’s face morphing into my mother’s, and the picture with the words, ‘Have You Seen This Girl?’, only the face on it was distorted, changing into images of people that looked vaguely familiar, but not. I imagined that limo speeding down the roads of Flocksdale, Jeanna laughing maniacally behind the wheel.
Chapter 42
When I woke up the next morning, the lights were back on and the sun was shining warmly through the flimsy curtains that covered them. I got up from the couch begrudgingly. My body ached from the previous fear-filled night.
I slipped on my work clothes and ran a comb through my hair. On the walk to work, I felt tired and depressed. But then, out of nowhere, I was hit with a brilliant idea. I picked up the pace, humming the whole way to work.
***
McDonald’s offered free Wi-Fi, and even though I didn’t own a computer, my coworker let me borrow her laptop on my lunch break. I told her I was applying for college and needed to do some research. What a stupid lie, I thought, pulling up a popular search engine, and edging my chair closer to the table.
I looked around nervously, making sure no one was behind me or close enough to see what I was doing. I entered the words, ‘Wendi Wise’ and ‘missing’ and ‘Flocksdale’ in the search engine’s empty space. I waited.
Suddenly, I was bombarded with images of grainy newspaper articles. My parents were on the front page, their faces twisted and contorted into painful masks, begging the public for information. At first, the police worried that I’d been kidnapped, and questions about possible motives and ransom demands were thrown around in the articles. But later articles revealed speculative reports of me being a runaway. Again, more pleading from my mom and dad, asking me to please come home. There was even a short blurb in one of the articles about my recent troubles with shoplifting and lying to my parents.
At first, I was this poor, innocent girl who was ripped away from her parents unjustly, but then I was painted as a troubled youth, who no one was surprised to find missing. I wanted to kill whoever wrote these shitty articles. I couldn’t imagine my parents’ reaction. Did they really believe I was a runaway? Did they really think I would just up and leave them, regardless of what sort of trouble I was in? Did they consider me to be “troubled,” like the papers claimed? It broke my heart to consider it.
“Have You Seen This Girl?” it said at the top of one article, and it featured the same school picture I’d seen on the flier at the skating rink. I stared at my own face in the picture. I hadn’t seen that innocent girl in a very long time. Not even when I looked in the mirror. She really was gone. Just not in the way everyone thought.
There were dozens of photographs of me, more school pictures that were awkward and old. Surely, no one could recognize me, even if they saw the missing poster or these images…or would they? All of the articles were at least five or more years old; I’d grown and changed since then, and the townspeople had probably forgotten after the initial excitement of my disappearance died down.
I was worried that someone in the restaurant might peer over my shoulder and see my face online, so I quickly X’ed out all of the screens, deleted the search history, and closed the laptop noisily.
“Thanks,” I said, walking back behind the line, handing the laptop to the girl who let me borrow it. Strangely, her name was Sunshine, and ironically, she was always beaming from ear to ear.
“Oh, you’re welcome! Did you find some great colleges?” she asked gleefully.
“Changed my mind,” I said, heading back to my work station.
***
I was still waiting on my first paycheck from this new location, but I had some money left over from my partial deposit. After work, I went to the drugstore across the street and perused the aisles, looking for something in particular.
I finally found a small flashlight and a package of cheap tea light candles. I didn’t want to get stuck in the dark again, not if I could help it. I also found a small boombox on one of the shelves. It wasn’t as nice or big as the one I’d had before, but it would work just fine.
***
By the time I left the store with my boom box and flashlight stuff in hand, it was nearly dark outside. I walked home, taking my time and enjoying the fresh, cool air. There was a gentle breeze floating up from the river, and despite my hatred of this town, I had to admit that the weather here beat the weather in Albuquerque any day of the week.
I let myself inside the rental house, still joyfully humming a song. I was in a terrific mood. I had a quick bite to eat, and then I dialed Ruth’s number. She answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Elsie! Is everything going okay?”
“Well, actually, I have a problem. My toilet overflowed on the bathroom floor and I can’t get it unclogged. Getting a plumber out this late may prove to be impossible. But you said your son, Zach, was a plumber, right? Is there any way you can send him over here to help me?”
Chapter 43
I was strangely calm as I waited for him to arrive. Ruth hung up with me, and then called me back, to inform me that Zach was on his way. It would take him a while to get here, she said, because he was coming on foot.
Like Claire and I, Zach and James were children at the time all of this happened. In truth, the young boys probably weren’t to blame. But I honestly didn’t care. I still held them responsible for the role they played in hurting my friend, and for hurting me too, of course.
I imagined Zach’s face, pudgy with a little bit of fuzz, smiling at my best friend, conning her all along. Zach’s actions ultimately led to the death of my friend, and for that, I blamed him wholeheartedly.
I stood in the kitchen, calmly eating Salisbury steaks straight out of the package they’d come in, staring out the window at the bluish-black night sky. I’d just finished my last bite when I heard a knock at the door. I opened it without hesitation.
A heavyset, older version of Zeke/Zach stood on my front porch, carrying a chunky bag of tools. He didn’t look as scary as I’d imagined, not even standing out there in the pitch dark. “Come in,” I said, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. “The problem is upstairs.
Your mom said you used to live here, so you know where the toilet is, right?”
“I know where it’s at,” he answered quietly, heading straight for the stairs. He seemed different, shyer, and he barely even glanced at me. He was dressed in dark jeans and heavy boots. I watched him walk up the stairs, burning holes into his backside with my eyes.
Instead of following him, I slipped down the stairs into the earthy-smelling basement. The knives were displayed on a cardboard box, along with my brand new boombox. It was show time. I pressed play on the CD and immediately, a familiar, haunting tune filled the cavernous space. I turned up the volume as high as it would go, and then I flipped off the main breaker to the house.
The power outage last night was terrifying, but it had inspired me. The house was now filled with darkness, and in my hand, I felt the rubbery handle of the knife.
Chapter 44
I walked stealthily, creeping slowly for two reasons: I didn’t want Zach to hear me coming, and I also didn’t want to fall and break my neck in the dark. I walked up the basement steps, the sounds of the music thumping, rocking my very soul. The familiar lyrics of Jim Morrison resounded through my head and reverberated in my chest. It was a song I’d never forget.
Despite the horror I’d originally associated with the song, its words held a new meaning for me now. It was the end of me initially, but now it was the end of them, the monsters who had kidnapped me and stolen my best friend’s life. Wendi Wise was back. I was ready to take them on and put an end to the misery they’d caused me and so many others for so many years…
Zach hadn’t moved a muscle or called out in the dark, or if he had, I hadn’t heard him. I crept upstairs, feeling my way along the walls through the darkness, heading toward the small bathroom above.