Beaconfield

by Bri R. Leclerc

  “What?” Ridge asked, leaning toward me.

  “She said the reason they wouldn’t let me come back here was because it wasn’t not safe. I thought she was crazy, but maybe there’s some truth to what she said. And the bus driver wouldn’t even bring me into town. I don’t know—this is all too much to be real. It’s overwhelming.” I held my head in my hands.

  “How would your mom have known about this?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it has something to do with what happened the last day I was here.” I paused and then said, “Ridge, you believe in ghosts, right?”

  Ridge laughed and looked at me. “Ghosts? Do you think what’s happening is paranormal?” His eyes were wide with shock.

  “It’s definitely not normal!” I raised my voice slightly.

  “Okay, but I don’t think this a ghost situation. I don’t even know if I believe in ghosts.” He said the last part quietly, as if he didn’t want me to hear it.

  “You don’t believe in ghosts?” I asked. “What happened to all the ghost hunting we did when we were kids? What about what happened at Billy Johnson’s house?”

  “Billy Johnson?”

  “Yes! You saw that ghost—the sailor!” Did he really not remember?

  “That’s just it, Mari. We were kids,” he said.

  “You saw something that night. I know you did.” I glared at him.

  He averted his gaze, picking at his fingernails. “Maybe I just thought I did . . .”

  “Well, I know that I saw my grandmother looking pretty possessed back there.”

  “I’d tell you that it’s going to be okay, but obviously that seems a little bit unlikely at this point,” Ridge said with a hesitant smile.

  “Oh, come on, It’s not funny,” I whined.

  “I’m kidding. I’m just trying to cheer you up,” he said, rubbing my back.

  A tingle shot up my spine and a small gasp escaped me.

  In that moment, a noise echoed inside the pantry. Ridge and I looked at each other, not sure what we were hearing. I crept to the door and kneeled in front of it, putting my ear against it. Ridge followed, crouching behind me. There were two voices in the room: a woman’s voice and a male’s voice that sounded like West’s.

  The woman was speaking and West was responding. I listened closer and could tell that the woman’s voice wasn’t Mrs. Abbott’s.

  “W—?” Ridge began to say, but I threw my hand over his mouth and shushed him. He looked at me, confused.

  I pushed the door open and peered in, Ridge hovering over my shoulder. West was standing at the open back door, staring out into the rain. He was nodding and listening to the woman speak.

  But there was no woman. West was alone.

  I let the door close slowly and turned to Ridge. “Who is he talking to?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, he’s probably just having an episode. It’s best to leave him alone when he’s like this.” Ridge sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.

  “It seems like he’s talking to someone, though. A voice is responding to him . . . there’s someone in the room.” I pushed open the door again and looked at West. The conversation he was having had grown louder.

  “You never said that anything like this would happen,” West said with anger in his voice.

  A low voice answered him, barely a whisper, and I couldn’t distinguish what was said.

  Ridge slid closer to me to hear the response. When he did, he stepped directly on my fingers. I hissed and pulled my hand back, letting the door swing shut.

  “Shit,” Ridge said under his breath.

  He reached out and pushed the door open slowly. I expected to see West looking at us, but the pantry was empty. I stood up, using the doorframe to help me, and looked around the small room.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked. Then I saw the door to the backyard hanging open.

  “He’s gone. I’m sorry about your fingers.”

  I shook out my hand. “That’s okay. Did you see where he went?”

  Ridge stepped into the pantry and ran outside and looked around. “He’s not out here,” he said as he came back inside, closing the door behind him. “Who was he talking to?”

  “I’m not sure, but he seemed upset,” I said as I massaged my hand.

  We turned back to the kitchen and saw West standing in the doorway. I jumped back.

  “Jesus,” Ridge gasped. “West, man, where did you go? We were looking for you.” He approached his brother but stopped after a moment.

  West stared at the ground. He wasn’t wearing any shoes and his feet were covered in mud and grass, his hair hanging in greasy strands over his forehead.

  “West?” he asked.

  West’s head snapped up, and I felt my skin twitch when I saw his eyes. They were white, as if he was looking into the back of his skull. I backed up through the doorway.

  “Are you tracking me, boy?” asked the voice that we’d heard before, but this time it was coming from West.

  “Tracking you? What’s going on?” Ridge took a step toward his brother.

  West reacted by jumping forward and letting out a guttural growl.

  “Whoa, okay,” Ridge said, putting his hands up. He glanced back at me. “Mari,” he whispered, “back up and go into the pantry. I’ll come in after you.”

  “I’m scared,” I said.

  “Do it now,” Ridge hissed.

  I scrambled back and ran into the pantry. Behind me, I heard a quarrel as Ridge and West crashed into each other. I tried to yank the door shut but it remained open. I pulled again, harder, but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if something was pulling it out of my hands.

  Ahead of me, Ridge pushed his brother away. West was making guttural and animalistic noises, his eyes still white. West fell backward, and once he hit the ground, Ridge ran to the pantry and helped me pull the door closed against the tension. Finally, we managed to close it.

  Ridge and I braced ourselves against the door as West’s full weight slammed into it. I reached up and flipped the deadbolt. I looked to Ridge as the door continued to rattle and watched a tear slide down his cheek. He brushed it away quickly.

  Suddenly, the door stopped shaking. We both slumped against the wall and sighed.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him quietly.

  He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  Bang.

  My head snapped up and I stared into West’s white eyes. He was glaring at us through the window of the back door.

  I screamed and grabbed Ridge tighter.

  West grabbed the door handle and turned it. When he found it locked, he turned and slowly walked away.

  “What the fuck?” Ridge whispered.

  I shook off the adrenaline and squeezed Ridge’s hand. “Ridge?”

  “Yeah?” He looked at me.

  “He’s acting like everyone else.”

  “I know.”

  “You haven’t seen him since all of this started, have you?” I asked, and he shook his head. “And how was he acting when you got here?”

  “He was acting weird. I had told him that I was going to be home for break, but when I got here, it was like he was surprised to see me. My mom, on the other hand, was completely fine,” he said, picking at his fingernails.

  “Has West ever done that thing with the . . . ?” I gestured to my eyes.

  “What? The white eyes? No, of course not. But he does sleepwalk. That could’ve been it.”

  “His bed didn’t look like it’d been slept in for a while,” I said quietly.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, letting our heartbeats return to normal. I stared at the tiled floor and focused on my breathing. Ridge sat with his head in his hands. I could only imagine what he was going through right now. While I was watching his back move up and down with his breath, he sat up straight and looked me directly in the eyes. The look was so intense that I needed to look away.

  “Mari?” Ridge asked. “What happened?”

>   I spun quickly back to him, confused. “What do you mean? Your brother just attacked us!”

  Ridge shook his head. “No, I mean the last time you were here. What happened?”

  I thought for a moment and realized he was talking about the last time I’d been in Beaconfield. It was a foggy memory. I’d tried not to think about it for years. I mulled it over in my mind and tried to picture the day.

  “I remember being in the lighthouse. I don’t know where you were, but I was up there by myself. I was in the beacon. Remember how we’d watch the light?” Ridge nodded. “I was watching the light going around the horizon—it was mesmerizing. I don’t fully know what happened, but the next thing I knew, I was hanging over the edge of the spiral staircase and felt like I was being held and forced. Someone was pushing me. I screamed and then I guess I blacked out.

  “I don’t remember this part, but my mom told me afterward that she’d come upstairs just in time to drag me to back onto the platform and save my life. She and my dad had come up to Maine for the weekend to spend time with us. After that, my parents didn’t let me come back. They put me in the car and drove me away . . .” I trailed off, looking at my hands. With my story over, I turned to look at Ridge.

  He was looking at me with such intensity, my heart squeezed. He frowned slightly. “Wow,” Ridge exclaimed. “Did your mom tell you what she saw up there?”

  I shook my head.

  “You didn’t say goodbye,” he whispered.

  I let out a breath. “I know. I wanted to, but my parents packed me into the car and brought me home right then. They didn’t even let me talk to my grandparents for over a year.”

  “I missed you, Mars,” Ridge said.

  My heart jumped into my throat. “I missed you, too.” I leaned into him, smiling.

  The last few hours had been the craziest of my whole life. I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. My grandmother was acting like she was possessed, and now West was doing the same.

  What had I walked into? Was this why my parents hadn’t wanted me to come back to Beaconfield? If it was, why didn’t they just tell me that this would happen?

  That couldn’t be it, though. There were times when I was able to talk to my grandparents on the phone, and they’d never sounded this strange. This had to be something new.

  I kept going over scenarios about what to do next. Most of them ended in us being attacked by my grandmother again, or the whole town turning into actual zombies and killing us without us ever knowing what was happening. I knew that we couldn’t call the police or my parents because none of the phones had service, and if everyone else in the town was acting like this, then the cops may have been acting strange too.

  I let out a heavy sigh, my fists clenched tight, fingernails digging into my palms. “What’s going on?” I whispered into Ridge’s shirt. I started crying again, fear bubbling over. “This is ridiculous. This can’t actually be happening. This is like a goddamn horror movie. Things like this don’t happen in real life. I just . . . I don’t know what to do. What do we do?” I babbled, and Ridge suddenly groaned.

  “I don’t know what to do either.” Ridge stood up and held out a hand for me, pulling me with him, and wrapped me in a warm hug.

  I sighed and let myself melt into him, feeling my tears seep into his T-shirt. I wished in that moment that we could stay like this forever, wrapped in an embrace, and that everything had just been a dream.

  “Let’s leave,” I said into Ridge’s chest.

  He chuckled. He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me away from him to look at me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We should leave. Let’s get out of here,” I said, getting excited about the prospect of leaving.

  Ridge just looked at me with a blank expression and shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “We get your keys and we drive the hell out of here,” I said as I squeezed his arms.

  He thought it over and then nodded. “I’ll get the keys. Let’s do it,” he said, clapping his hands together, getting himself psyched up.

  We sped to the entryway of the Abbott’s home and Ridge grabbed the keys from the dish by the front door.

  I snatched the keys from his hand, “I’m driving,” I said, determination dripping from my words.

  Ridge shrugged, giving me his blessing, and let me through the door ahead of him and then pulled it shut, making sure it was closed tight.

  Even with the headlights on high beam, the light was still weak. A heavy fog covered the roads, and I was squinting just to see a few feet in front of me. Ridge sat next to me, bouncing his knee and looking around.

  I was driving slower than necessary and found myself extra jumpy. I was just waiting for someone to jump out of the woods and run right into the car.

  As we drove through downtown, the streetlights were on but they were weak as well. The fog was worse at the bottom of the hill where it rolled off the water. I kept my eyes peeled for anything of note. I could feel my throat closing up with panic.

  Then I saw the first person.

  They stood outside the pharmacy on Main Street. Another person stood next to them, and another. They were standing in a line along both sides of the street. As we drove by, they turned toward our car, their eyes following us until we were out of their sight.

  The line ran the length of the strip. Each person was someone I recognized from my childhood. They all stood there, unmoving, mouths hanging open, blank stares on their faces.

  “What the fuck?” Ridge asked from his seat next to me.

  “You could say that again.” I felt myself both wanting to speed up and slow down at the same time. I wanted to study the townspeople, but I also wanted to get away with my life and the last shred of sanity I had left.

  I shivered in the driver’s seat and continuously checked my surroundings as we drove past the old coffee shop and out of town.

  I gripped the steering wheel, so tight that each bump the car went over rattled my whole body.

  The “Now Leaving Beaconfield” sign was just ahead of us. As we approached, Ridge reached over and put his hand on my knee. Taking this as a note to slow down, I eased up on the gas and brought the car to a stop about a hundred yards from the sign.

  “When I tried to walk over the line yesterday, I couldn’t do it. There was a voice in my head that was telling me not to go back and I continued ahead even though I knew that something was wrong.” I took a deep breath. “I have a really bad feeling about this, but I want to get the hell out of here, so . . .” I paused, and Ridge smirked at me.

  “Let’s do it.”

  I gripped the steering wheel harder and took a deep breath. Ridge squeezed my leg, and I slowly pressed the gas pedal to start the car moving, and then I pressed harder. I gritted my teeth as the car sped toward the town line.

  A cool breeze blew over us like the air conditioner was on, causing me to shiver. We were almost there, almost out of town, when a brown figure flashed across the headlights.

  I screamed and jerked the wheel.

  I tried to steer it back and correct myself, but the damage had already been done. I slammed on the brake as a large maple came closer.

  Tires screeched.

  Brakes grinded.

  I looked down and gnashed my teeth as we skidded toward the tree.

  The car slammed into it, tossing Ridge and I forward. The sound of the car crunching was deafening. I groaned as the airbag exploded, shoving me backward with unbelievable force.

  Then everything came to a stop. It was completely silent.

  My brain felt like it exploded in that moment. A burst of colors expanded across the backs of my eyelids like a kaleidoscope, and there was a terrible ringing in my ears. My neck snapped back into headrest behind me. I whimpered and clutched at my necklace—it seemed to be burning me.

  There were tears in my eyes and a hint of blood in my mouth.

  “Are you okay?” Ridge asked quietly besid
e me.

  “Yes,” I groaned, clutching at my head.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. I looked out the cracked windshield. Steam was coming from the hood of the car and one of the headlights was out.

  “I think it was a deer,” Ridge said and then unbuckled his seat belt. He opened the door and it creaked loudly as he stumbled out of the car.

  I pushed on my door but it didn’t budge. I threw my weight into it, hissing at the pain when my shoulder hit, but it still swung open. It was a bit too quick, though, and I fell out of the car. The breath got knocked out of me as I hit the dirt. I groaned and rolled onto my back.

  Ridge came around the car and picked me up under the armpits. The blood rushed from my head and made me stumble, so Ridge held on tighter.

  “That didn’t go as planned,” I said, rubbing the side of my head. The air smelled strongly of burnt rubber.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Ridge sighed and leaned backward, holding his back.

  “Screw it.” I stormed in the direction of the line and gritted my teeth at the pain in my legs, lower back, and ankle.

  Ridge followed me. We were both angry now—I could feel it coming off of him in waves. As we approached the line, I felt that sense of dread wash over me again. This time, not only did it make me feel sick, but bile rose in my throat. I winced and swallowed.

  But I continued on.

  The steps were getting harder to take. My feet felt heavy. That only lasted for a few moments before I fell to my knees. I gagged. The vomit came up and my stomach heaved. My head was pulsing and my vision was going in and out. I leaned forward and relieved myself in the middle of the road.

  I felt someone pull at my jacket and I moved backward. As I inched back, the feeling began to subside. My stomach was still tight with sickness. I smacked at the hand behind me and rolled over to throw up again.

  Once I was done, I pulled myself to my hands and knees and crawled away from the line. A mere foot felt like a marathon.

  Finally, the feeling left, and I let out a breath and collapsed onto the cool asphalt. I drew in deep breaths and felt the ground dig into my face. I heard the distant noise of someone yelling to me.