Until It Sleeps

by Val Crowe

  “You don’t need anyone,” said Cheyenne. “You don’t care about me.”

  “I do need you,” said Tex. “Of course I do. Like I said, you belong to me.” Tex snatched up her hand and made her grab the handle of the gun. “You’d die without me.”

  “No, Tex,” she said. “Please, no.”

  “I have to,” said Tex, sounding annoyed about it. “I can’t let you live. You’ll leave.”

  “Just… let Kadan go,” said Cheyenne. “Please.”

  “No,” said Tex. “I’ll keep Kadan. I’ll keep him forever. He’s mine now. He’s mine. I want that to be the last thing you think of as you die. That you’ll never leave me, and he won’t either.” And he pulled the trigger.

  Energy exploded everywhere. I could see it, radiating out of Cheyenne’s body as the bullet entered her. It was dark purple and an unearthly green. It penetrated the gun and it burst up the stairwell, hitting little Kadan full in the chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I gasped, coming back to myself and swaying on my feet.

  No wonder Cheyenne was obsessed with this idea that Tex had taken her son. That was what Tex had said to her in her dying moment.

  And no wonder Kadan could see Mads. He’d been hit with some kind of supernatural energy at the moment of his mother’s death. He had been changed by that.

  But something was wrong.

  I wasn’t holding the gun anymore. I had gotten this vision from touching it, but now it wasn’t in my hands anymore. I looked down at my empty palms dumbly.

  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that there was no one lying at the bottom of the steps.

  Philip was gone.

  “Deacon,” said that unearthly chorus of voices from directly behind me.

  I whirled.

  There was Philip with the gun, pointing it right at me. He smiled like a satisfied cat. “Let us through.”

  I wished he would stop talking. The way that all those voices chorused together, it was a thing I was convinced that I wasn’t supposed to hear. It wasn’t made for human ears. The longer I listened to it, the more certain I was that it would rob me of sanity. I trembled. “Philip, you remember your wife? Your pregnant wife?”

  Philip moved the gun back and forth from one hand to the other. Then he handed it to me, still grinning widely. “Wouldn’t want you damaged, Deacon,” said all the voices in his throat. “This incarnation in this house wants to shoot and shoot and shoot, but you have called us to cross through, and we can’t do that if you’re dead.”

  I backed away from him. “Nothing’s crossing over anything. What are you?”

  “Ask Madeleine,” said Philip, and his grin widened.

  Mads?

  He threw back his head and laughed. But the laughter was jarring and discordant. It was an inducement to madness. And I raised the gun over my head and pulled the trigger just to make it stop.

  Nothing happened.

  The gun apparently wasn’t loaded. I tossed it aside and leaped onto Philip. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him and I began to scream at him to stop making that awful noise, because if he didn’t, I was going to—

  Something was coming out of Philip’s mouth.

  I couldn’t tell if it had an actual shape or if it was just some kind of unfathomable darkness that was seeping out, but I knew that I didn’t want it to touch me, and so I let go of Philip and staggered backwards, a scream ripping against my throat. I put up my hands in a futile attempt to keep that out, whatever it was.

  I kept moving backward until I collided with the washing machine.

  It jarred me and I looked at Philip again, at whatever it was that was pouring out of his mouth and filling the air—that cold, empty darkness. That emptiness.

  I shrieked again. I couldn’t see this. I needed it to stop.

  I covered my face with my arms and curled up in a ball, shaking with soundless sobs, even though my eyes were dry. My body spasmed, and I felt as though everything inside me was on the verge of ceasing to understand how to function, as if my mind was being robbed of its ability to govern my muscles and internal workings.

  My eyeballs were starting to expand, and my tongue was swelling, and I couldn’t breathe, and all of my organs were very likely going to explode.

  And I was stuck there in that sensation, suspended in this moment in which I was breaking down for what felt like several eternities.

  But then my eyes opened, and I was in the basement, and the gun was lying on the ground, and it was pulsing energy at me, and Philip was lying on his back, clutching at his eyes and muttering something to himself.

  Mads was on the steps and she looked at me with horrified eyes. “It got out,” she said softly.

  “What got out?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  I crawled over to Philip. Why I went near him, I didn’t know, but I did. I pried his hands away from his face.

  He looked at me, but he didn’t see me. He looked through me.

  Shit.

  Well, I couldn’t leave him here, even if he was broken like that. Whatever had been in him, it had probably snapped his mind like a twig. I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t snapped mine. I got my arms under Phil’s armpits, and I dragged him across the basement floor to the steps.

  He didn’t resist.

  My back wasn’t pleased with this because of whatever wrenching I’d done to it earlier, but I forced myself to pull him up the steps and through the kitchen and living room. And then I dragged him outside and deposited him on the grass.

  He lay there, looking up at the clouds. He smiled. “Easier to breathe out here.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I collapsed on the grass and panted.

  It took me a while to catch my breath, but eventually, I was breathing evenly. I looked at Philip again.

  He was still grinning at the clouds.

  “Philip?” I said.

  No response.

  I felt sick to my stomach. I had no idea what had just happened in that house. I’d honestly never experienced anything like that. Even when I had been out of my mind in Point Oakes, I’d never felt anything like that before. I had never been so freaking scared in my entire life. It had reduced me to…

  I shuddered.

  I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

  I looked back at the house.

  I was never going back in there.

  Mads appeared in the doorway. She motioned for me to come to her.

  I shook my head.

  “Deacon,” she whispered, but I heard her voice in my head.

  I shook my head again.

  “Deacon.”

  I got to my feet, but I wasn’t even sure why I was doing that. I crossed the lawn and slowly climbed the steps. But I stopped at the door.

  Mads was on the other side of the threshold.

  I looked her over. “You know what it was, don’t you?”

  “I told you I don’t know,” she said.

  “It said your name.”

  Her gaze shifted from mine nervously. “It might have something to do with… with what we did.”

  I clenched my jaw to keep from shuddering again.

  “We shouldn’t have… melded like that.”

  “You mean when I let you possess me,” I said woodenly. “What are you, Mads?”

  She gazed up at me, earnest. “I’m just a girl, Deacon.”

  “What am I?” I said, feeling like I wanted to start crying. “Why did it say I was a bridge?”

  “Cheyenne is still attached to that gun, Deacon. You need to go and get it.”

  She was deliberately changing the subject. For the first time ever I felt distrust toward Mads, and it broke something inside me. If I didn’t have Mads, then I was going to be all alone.

  Mads was still talking. “This is why you came here. To stop this haunting and clear the house. The spirits are attached to that gun, not to the house, so just go and get it and bring it out h
ere, and it will be done.”

  “I’m never going in that house again.”

  “It got out, Deacon,” she said. “It’s not in there.”

  “What got out?” I said it so harshly it hurt my throat.

  “Get the gun.”

  “You do know what it is,” I said. “You know, and you’re not telling me.”

  “Get the gun, Deacon.” And, infuriatingly, she disappeared.

  I kicked the side of the house and muttered a string of swear words. Then I turned back to the lawn to look at Philip, who was still lying on the grass.

  What the hell did it matter if I got that damned gun? Philip was still screwed. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be doing anything more than drooling and grinning at clouds from now on. I had failed. Wren needed her husband, and I’d let him be….

  Well, I didn’t even know what. None of it made sense. When I’d left before, Philip was in a bad way, but he was being controlled by the spirit of Tex, something I understood. That other thing that had spoken through him, all the voices at once, that hadn’t come from the house.

  It had come from Mads and me somehow. She said that, anyway.

  So, why was it in Philip?

  I kicked the side of the house again.

  And then I went through the doorway. Because… I don’t know. Because what the hell else was I going to do?

  * * *

  And after all of that, it was almost anti-climactic. I went back downstairs and the gun was lying there, and I picked it up. When I touched it, it was full of power. It felt like an electric shock, and carrying it with me, I could feel the energy thrumming through me. I took it back up the stairs and out of the house.

  All of this time, it was this easy. All I had to do was get this gun out of this house, and Wren and Philip would have been safe.

  I went to my truck and stashed the gun in the glove compartment.

  I hesitated there, door open, and looked back at Philip. I couldn’t just leave the guy there. Sighing, I went back over to him and knelt down.

  “Hey, Philip, you think you can stand up?”

  He hummed to himself, not looking at me.

  Shit, I was going to have to drag him again. I groaned, and then I went around to haul him up by his armpits.

  “You know, it would be a lot easier if you could just help a little,” I said. “I know you’re not going to be able to be a father or a husband anymore, but if you could walk, that would be something.”

  “Wren,” murmured Philip.

  I let go of him. “Did you say Wren?”

  His head hit the ground hard. He grimaced.

  I peered down at him. He was upside down from my vantage point.

  He furrowed his brow.

  “Hey, Philip, who’s Wren?” I said.

  He shut his eyes. “You’re blocking my light.”

  Excellent. Just fucking excellent. I reached down and hooked under his armpits again.

  As I touched him, words radiated through me. HELP!

  I dropped him again.

  Ouch, Jesus, said the words in my head.

  “What the fuck?” I said.

  I looked down and now it was like there were two Philips. They were superimposed over each other. One was humming and smiling like an idiot. The other was gazing up at me, looking really pissed off.

  What did you do to me, Deacon?

  “Do? I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Why are there two of you?”

  You’re supposed to be the expert. You’re supposed to know what’s going on here.

  “Yeah, okay, well, I don’t.” It was not normal for me to be seeing two Philips or for me to be hearing one of them talking in my head. I’d never heard anything talk in my head before. I mean, I’d had dreams about things at Sunny Day Campgrounds, but the dreams had sort of been astral projection, so for all I knew, I had abilities I didn’t even know about. Usually, however, when I saw something abnormal, it was a spirit.

  Huh.

  Okay, if Philip had been traumatized really badly, maybe that trauma had created a spirit Philip. Maybe that spirit Philip was what I was seeing and hearing now. Maybe he was attached to his own body but not in control.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” I said to him.

  You coming into the house today. I was out of it. The spirits kept making me do things I didn’t want to do. When you came in, something else came with you. I remember seeing it, and I know it was… bad. And then I was out here on the lawn. But I can’t move. And why am I humming?

  Yeah, okay, this was fitting with my theory. So, if spirit Philip couldn’t remember being possessed by that monster, then maybe he wasn’t traumatized at all. And maybe he could just possess himself. Then it would be like he was normal again, and he could go to his wife, and everything would be fine.

  The problem with that was that spirits were just copies of themselves. They weren’t extensive.

  “Philip?” I said.

  What?

  “Do you remember your mother’s first name?”

  Philip was quiet, thinking about it. I don’t actually remember anything about my mother. Nothing at all.

  Damn it.

  “What about your job?” I said. “Do you know what you do for a living?”

  Well, sure. I’m work in IT.

  That was something anyway. “You think you could go back to work doing that? You remember how to do that?”

  Uh… maybe. It’s all a little fuzzy.

  Yeah, okay, that sucked too. “But Wren, you remember Wren?”

  Of course I remember Wren. Where is Wren? She’s nine months pregnant. She could go into labor at any time.

  This could work. He had been through something awful. We would just say that he had amnesia. He’d forgotten things. But he still loved his wife. He was still somewhat there. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was better than the alternative.

  I threw back my head. “Mads!” I bellowed. “Get your ass down here, now!”

  I waited.

  What did you just do? Philip asked me.

  “Mads!” I screamed.

  She flickered into existence next to me. “Deacon, I’m in the middle of something important.”

  What the fuck is that? Philip said.

  I pointed at Philip. “Teach him how to possess himself.”

  Mads raised her eyebrows. “You really think that’s going to work?”’

  “I don’t see why not,” I said.

  She cocked her head to one side, thinking it over. “Well, all right. I guess I can try that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I still don’t see why Philip can’t drive me,” Wren was saying. She was sitting in the middle of the cab of my truck. I was driving and Philip was on the other side, clutching her hand. Every couple minutes, she would start breathing really heavily, like a steam engine. That was apparently a contraction.

  “I told you,” I said. “Philip went through a really bad experience in the house. He’s having trouble right now. You’re going to notice he’s got some… missing spots. It’s just amnesia.” I had no idea whether this was going to work or not, but I figured Philip would do fine once he had gotten control of his own body. Right now, he was having trouble with fine motor skills, so I didn’t want to risk having him drive. It was nothing out of the ordinary for a possession. Spirits were always clumsy right off. But he was progressing much more quickly than in a normal possession, probably because he was used to inhabiting his own body.

  “That’s it,” said Philip to Wren. “Squeeze my hand.”

  Wren started to breathe loudly again.

  Contraction, I guessed.

  If I thought about the Philip stuff too much, it hurt my head. Was the Philip in control of Philip now fundamentally different than really real Philip? Like, did this Philip have a soul? Would he be able to function like a human being? Would he burn through this body and make it fall apart like Negus had?

  Mads said she didn’t think so to th
e last question. She thought that Negus had been too much for a human host because he wasn’t human and had never been human.

  I asked her how she knew this, when she hadn’t known such things with certainty before about Negus. She said that she was remembering stuff, but she wouldn’t say anymore when I pressed.

  She’d disappeared after getting Philip situated inside his body and said she wouldn’t be around for a while, and that she probably wouldn’t hear me if I called for her, so not to bother. She wouldn’t say why either.

  That was really annoying to me.

  “I’m okay,” said Philip, contradicting me. “I’m fine. I’m here for you, Wren. We’re having this baby.”

  “And the house?” said Wren. “It’s okay now?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “But you said that before,” said Philip.

  Wren started to do another loud-breathing session.

  “Oh, you remember that?” I said. “That’s good.”

  “How do we know it really is okay?” said Wren. “We can’t bring the baby back there unless we’re sure.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well, I’ll make sure.” Mads would have to help me. If she ever came back, that is.

  I pulled the truck into the hospital parking lot.

  “You were sure before,” said Philip.

  “This time will be different,” I said. “Listen, you guys need to concentrate on delivering this baby right now, not on the house. Let me worry about the house. Wren’s in labor here.”

  “I’m fine,” said Wren. But then she started to breathe heavily again.

  “You’re going to be great,” I said. “But concentrate on the baby for now.” I pulled the car up to the door of the Emergency Room and let them both out there.

  Philip helped Wren out.

  I gave them a little wave, and I waited until they’d gotten inside the front door before pulling out of there.

  I had fucked up again. This was bullshit thinking I could help people. All my abilities did was make shit worse for people. What had I left Wren and that baby with? A soulless, one-dimensional copy of Philip? Fuck everything.