So last night I did an event. It was my own bright idea. Details
here.
Before I started taking my writing seriously, I used to do lots of things that taxed my endurance, like long-distance canoe races and high-altitude hiking. I gave those hobbies up to chase this dream, and I wanted to get a bit of that feeling back. And I also wanted to try writing a horror story on Halloween.
This is what emerged. It's dark. Really dark. And it's gruesome and heavily laden with profanity. Forewarned is forearmed. I wrote it in one burst between 6:45 p.m. last night and 7:45 a.m. this morning.
I hope that it's nonetheless enjoyable, if horror is your thing.
I'll post more about the experience tomorrow. Right now I need to sleep.
-Jeff
--
What
Lies in Darkness
by
Jeff Seymour
Chapter
One
Fingers
in the Dark
I DIDN’T SLEEP A LOT when I was
fourteen.
It was the
darkness above my bed. Not the lack of light but what was in it, lying there,
waiting for me. I could feel it. Every night it would drip down from the
ceiling and into my mouth. It would seep down my shirt and over my chest and my
stomach and thighs. It would squeeze.
The school psychologist
told me it was just night terrors, but it wasn’t. I know that now. I was never
asleep before the darkness came.
The summer storms
were especially bad that year, and that didn’t help. They were big rollers that
came crashing across the plains and broke on our little suburb like it was a
rock out on the ocean. The rain drummed on the roof like an army of gnomes with
gnarled fingers, and the wind pushed against the side of the house as though it
wanted nothing more than to roll it over and crack open its belly to get at the
good stuff inside.
Me and my little
sister Georgie, we were the good stuff.
My uncle was
staying with us that summer. His bedroom was right above mine, and he didn’t
sleep much either. I could hear the floorboards creaking as he paced, night
after night. Even when the storms were going on, I heard his feet on the floor.
Pacing. Turning. Pacing. Turning. While my heart raced and the darkness tried
to strangle me in my sheets.
That’s all the
setup you need. The rest I’ll tell like it happened.
You asked me about
darkness. About what’s inside it.
I’m going to tell
you about the summer I found out, and I cut my uncle’s fingers off, and my best
friend died.
***
I’M TRYING TO BREATHE.
The
darkness is in my mouth, and it feels like a handful of fingers. It’s pulling
my cheeks out, pinching my tongue and trying to push it to the side so that it can
go deeper. It feels so real—like there’s a man wrapped in it, floating up in
the dark spaces near the ceiling, and his arm’s behind the fingers, pushing. If
he gets them to the back of my tongue, he’s gonna tear it out and eat it, and
then he’s gonna stick his arm down my throat, rip a hole in my esophagus, and yank
out my heart through my mouth.
So
I grab the sides of my bed and I fight it.
Creak.
Uncle
George is still awake, somewhere up above me. The red lights of the clock by my
bed read 2:30 a.m. My parents have been asleep for hours; I heard their voices
stop arguing around midnight.
Creak.
There’s
a storm outside too—a real rager by the sound of it. The gnome fingers are
hammering, hammering, hammering on the roof. Even in the basement, I can hear
it. The house feels like it’s about ready to give up the ghost, and me and
Georgie with it.
Georgie’s
the reason I can’t let the darkness win. Sometimes I want to. Sometimes I wish
I could let it tear out my heart and stop feeling, stop hurting, stop
struggling, but I don’t.
’Cause
if it gets me, it’ll go for Georgie next, and I won’t let that happen.
Our daughters, Frank. It’s not right… My
mom said that before my dad hushed her for the last time.
Most
nights I beat the darkness. The feeling of the man and his fingers gets weaker,
and then he goes away, and I can breathe and sleep.
Creak.
Uncle
George must be pacing real slow. There’s only one board in his room that
creaks: the one by the door.
The
fingers have got hold of my tongue pretty good now. One of them grazes the
dangler in the back of my throat, and I choke.
Some
nights it feels like the darkness is gonna beat me, and I give up on trying to
sleep and go stand in the living room to watch the storms roll through ’til
dawn.
This
is gonna be one of those nights, I think, and I might as well just admit it.
I
roll over and slip off the bed, and I spit out the darkness’s fingers. I feel
them trying to work their way back in until I’m standing up and walking away
from the bed, the bottom cuffs of my pajamas dragging on the cold wood floor.
Creak.
Uncle
George rattles the door upstairs, and I freeze. My heart jumps into my throat.
Creak.
The
door doesn’t open.
I
sigh in relief.
GEORGIE’S NOT IN HER ROOM across
the hall. I can tell ’cause her door’s cracked. She’s only five, and half the
time when she thinks she’s got the door closed she doesn’t.
She
gets up in the middle of the night sometimes too. I think it must run in the
family, ’cause my mom and dad take pills for it. Although a lot of people do
that. So maybe it’s not just us.
Our
house is a split level, and the living room’s on the middle floor. I bet that’s
where Georgie is. She likes watching the storms too. My heart’s still pounding
from my fight with the darkness, so I take my time walking down the hall, let
my toes squish in the brand-new carpet Mom made Dad put in down here last
winter. It’s the nicest thing in the house. I’ve heard her say so.
The
new carpet ends at the bottom of the stairs though. I sigh and put my toes on
the old stuff. It’s rough. Feels like a cat’s tongue. I hate that feeling. Like
the stairs are tasting you, trying to decide whether to eat you or not.
Georgie’s
not in the living room.
There
are two big picture windows in the front wall. Just as I get up the stairs, the
lightning flashes and the street lights up behind them. Everything’s stark
white and black for a split-second—the crabapple tree in the yard, the Dawsons’
house across the street, everything. The sheets of rain are so thick I can see
them.
When
the lightning’s gone, I catch a flash of something white near the front door.
Georgie’s nightgown, I think.
The
floors up here are hardwood. Better than the licking cats on the stairs, but
cold at night, even in the summer.
The
thunder rattles the windows. I flinch, close my eyes, take a deep breath. I’m
old enough I should be used to the storms by now.
When
I open my eyes, I see Georgie.
She’s
standing by the front door. Two little windows run up next to it, and she’s
pulled the gauzy curtain that covers one of them aside and is peeking out at
the rain. I join her.
“Whatcha
doin’, Georgie?” I whisper.
My
parents wouldn’t hear a freight train come through, but I don’t want Uncle
George to know we’re up if I can help it.
“Watchin’,”
she says. Her voice always sounds like it’s coming out of a toy or a cartoon.
“Watchin’
what?”
Her
hair’s brown, and it curves down around her ears. Mom gave her a bowl cut last
week, and she loves it. Georgie giggled while Mom tickled her neck with one
hand and worked the scissors with the other.
“Nothin’.”
I
squat next to her, ruffle her hair, and plant a kiss on her cheek, like Mom
does. She squirms when I do it, but I don’t care. It’s more for me than for
her.
The
street looks pretty much the same through the little window as it does through
the big one, ’cept you can’t see the Dawsons’. Their porch light casts long
shadows at night, though, and you can see those. I’ve watched them from the
living room. They sort of look like people sometimes, if you catch ’em from the
wrong angle.
They’re
sort of doing it now.
’Cept
one of the shadows is moving. The thing that casts it is a telephone pole. It’s
windy as hell outside, but it’s been that way before and that telephone pole
doesn’t move. Not like that. The shadow’s coming toward us, strolling across
the street like a human being.
“Georgie,”
I whisper, “get away from the door.”
It’s
just a feeling, but Georgie’s only five, and she doesn’t care if what I tell
her to do doesn’t make sense. Thank God for that.
She
moves away from the door.
Creak.
I
hear Uncle George’s door open, down the hall that leads to my parents’ room.
“Ellie?”
he whispers. “That you? You girls need something?”
My
heart jumps into my throat. My tongue sticks when I try to answer him, and for
a second I feel the fingers again, pinching it, trying to reach inside me and
pull out my heart.
I
open my mouth and croak out nothing.
“Ellie?”
Creak. The other foot. He’s about to
leave his room and come out into the hallway. Our space, mine and Georgie’s.
“No.”
The word comes out in a gasp. “We’re fine. Just getting some water.”
Uncle
George stays silent for a second.
“Okay,”
he says.
Creak. Creak. The door shuts.
The
fingers in my mouth float away.
I
stalk back to Georgie, grab her by the arm, and yank her toward the living room
and the stairs. We’ll spend the night in her room, and I’ll sit in the rocking
chair and read while she sleeps. I don’t want to watch the storm, and I don’t
want to be alone upstairs with Uncle George.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I
freeze. It feels like something cold cracks open on the top of my head and
oozes down my neck. The feeling’s so real I touch my skin. My fingers come up a
little clammy, but it’s just from sweat.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Before
I can tighten my grip on Georgie’s arm, she snatches it away.
“I’ll
get it!” she sings.
Mom
just taught her to answer the door last week. It’s her new favorite game.
“Georgie,
no!” I whisper.
But
she’s fast as hell when she wants to be. She gets to the door before I’m even
all the way turned around. Flicks the deadbolt over while I’m closing the three
feet between us. Opens the door.
The
chain stops it. It’s too high for her to reach.
There’s
a man outside, wearing a black double-breasted suit and a hat. I can’t see his
face. I’m looking straight at it, but I can’t see it. All I see is darkness.
“Hello,” he whispers. The sound feels
like the edge of a knife in my ears. “Can
I come in?”
My
palm hits the door and slams it. I flick the deadbolt back and tug the curtain
over the windows. I bundle Georgie up in my arms, and I run like hell back
downstairs. When we get behind her door, I prop the rocking chair against the
knob—We don’t have locks we don’t have
locks why the hell don’t we have
locks?—and drag her dresser over, and then I sit cross-legged on the ground
and listen.
Georgie’s
got a window that’s half above the ground, just like me.
No
footsteps.
No
one coming.
No
one trying to get in.
Just
the sound of Georgie crying because she doesn’t understand and the storm
thundering away outside.
And
the feeling of fingers, trying to rip out my tongue and get down my throat.
Chapter
Two
The
Good Friend
I PUT GEORGIE’S FURNITURE back in
place around the time the sun’s coming up the next morning. She’s been asleep
for hours; I’ve been reading children’s books, because I didn’t want to break
down the barricade and go get something more interesting.
I’m
glad Georgie sleeps so well with the lights on.
At
breakfast, I’m tired as hell and I’m sure everyone can see it, but nobody says
anything. Uncle George looks at me a little funny, but he doesn’t say anything
about seeing me up last night. My mom asks whether he’s got any leads on a new
job and place to live yet. My dad tells her it’s too early in the morning to
start that shit, but Uncle George just nods and says he’s going to spend the
day making follow-up visits to places he’s dropped off resumes at. I pour
myself a cup of coffee as everybody’s getting up to leave. My mom glares at me,
but that’s as far as the scolding goes.
I’m
drinking my coffee on the sofa, watching Georgie watching bad cartoons on TV
and wondering how long it’ll be before I can take a nap, when someone knocks at
the front door.
The
handle of the coffee mug snaps off in my fingers. My palm slides along the edge,
but it doesn’t draw blood. It just leaves a long white scrape that looks like a
road, bisecting one of the lines between my thumb and my index finger.
“Anyone
going to get that?” Mom calls from the kitchen.
Georgie
shakes her head. I don’t blame her.
Slowly,
carefully, I look outside.
There’s
a girl my age with dark-brown hair at the front door. She’s wearing a green
sweater and tight jeans, and she’s rubbing her arms and looking miserable, even
though the storm’s gone and all that’s left of it are some puddles in the
street and the yard.
It’s
Charlie, my best friend.
I
leave Georgie to her cartoons and open the door.
Charlie’s
big brown eyes are full of tears, and she’s bobbing up and down on her heels,
looking like she’s about to cry.
“Have
you seen my dad?” she whimpers.
FIVE MINUTES LATER we’re sitting on
my bed. Charlie’s got her head in her hands and her long hair hanging over her
face, and she’s sobbing.
“He’s
gone!” she moans.
I
rub her back. He’s done this before. My mom didn’t even bother leaving the
kitchen when Charlie started crying in the entry.
“I
bet he’ll be back soon,” I say. “He always comes back.”
She
shakes her head and wipes her nose. “Not this time, Ellie. He didn’t just leave this time. Something got him.”
For
a second, I feel the fingers in my mouth again, and I remember staring at the
face of a man in a suit and seeing nothing but shadows.
“Why
do you say that?” I ask. It feels like someone else is asking it, and I’m just
sitting in her head, listening.
“I
heard a knock,” she sobs. “At the door. And he got up to answer it—”
Her
chest is heaving now, and I feel like there’s cold ooze running down my spine
this time, dripping toward the edge of my jammy pants.
“And
then I didn’t hear anything for a
while, and when I got up the door was open
and he was gone…”
She
breaks down completely.
I
sit very, very still. Even in the daylight, there are shadows on the ceiling in
my room—in the corners, behind the light fixture, hiding in the tiny spaces
behind the ridges in the spackle.
I
feel like I can hear them laughing.
“Charlie—”
I whisper, as brave as I’ve ever been in my life, “—someone knocked on my door
last night too.”
CHARLIE GOES ABSOLUTELY RIGID, frozen,
pale as the inside of a pear while I’m telling her what happened.
But
her eyes are feverish.
“I
think we should call the police,” I say. “Maybe he got into trouble with the
Mafia—”
“Our
family’s English, Ellie.”
“I
know—”
“Dad
wasn’t in the Mafia.”
Her
fingers start crawling up and down her arms like little spiders, as if she’s
not even aware of them.
“I
know what this is,” she whispers.
I
feel the shadows on the ceiling leaning out, growing.
Coming
to get me.
“There’s
a story. My uncle used to tell it to me, back before the accident. Farmers
around here in the frontier days said there was a shadow man who lived in the
woods. Every few summers he’d come around, pick a house and take people from
it, one by one.”
She’s
been remarkably calm since I started talking, but now she’s starting to unravel
again. Her eyes are getting bigger, and her mouth is turning down, and I can
see the waterworks getting ready to bust out.
“One
by one, Ellie, everyone in the house, one by one, oh, God he’s picked the house and he’ll come back—he’ll come back—”
“It’s
just a ghost story, Charlie. Farmers in the woods freaking each other out.”
“He
eats their hearts, Ellie! Their hearts! My heart! My dad’s heart! Oh, my
God! Oh, my God!”
“Calm
down, Charlie.”
I
glance at the ceiling. I swear the shadows are twice the size they were when
she came in. They look almost like they’re quivering, but it’s probably just
the light, shaking because Charlie’s shaking while she cries and that’s making
the bed shake and that’s making the wall shake.
Charlie
grabs my arm.
It
hurts. Her fingers dig deep, into the muscle, all the way down to the bone. Her
eyes are wide and shot with blood and soaked with tears, and her pupils look as
big as dimes.
“Tonight!”
she says. “He’ll come back tonight! You have to come stay with me, Ellie. Oh, God my mom’s on those pills like your
parents and she’ll sleep like a rock and I’ll be alone. You have to come,
Ellie! You have to come!”
I
open my mouth to tell her she should come stay with me instead, if she’s so
worried.
Creak.
Uncle
George’s door closes above me. I hear his bed squeak as he sits on it.
I
turn back to Charlie. Her other hand’s in her hair now, and she looks like
she’s about ready to tear it out.
“I’ve
got family dinner,” I whisper. “But I’ll try.”
Chapter
Three
Family
Dinner
WE HAVE ROAST BEEF that night. My
dad spends ten minutes sharpening the knife before he carves it, chatting with
Uncle George the whole time about his day. Things went pretty well with the
resumes, he thinks. A couple people might be interested.
“You
tell them the things you have to?” my mom asks from above a bowl of half-mashed
potatoes.
“For
Christ’s sake, woman. He doesn’t have to tell them that shit. If they want to
know, they can goddamn look it up themselves!”
“’Sallright,
Frank,” Uncle George mutters. He looks at me over top of his beer, then glances
down at Georgie. I shiver.
A
storm rolls in while Dad’s carving the beef. The knife looks sharp as hell.
It’s good steel, he tells George, heirloom steel. One day either my husband or
Georgie’s—whoever gets married first, he says with a look in my direction—is
gonna love it. Goes straight through the rib in the beef as he’s talking, and
he has to pick it out of the slice before he loads it onto my plate.
The
beef’s pretty raw in the middle. Just barely warm, and the juices run red. But
that’s how Dad likes it, so that’s how we eat it.
It
makes me feel a little nauseous as it slides down my throat.
WE ALMOST GET THROUGH DESSERT
before the fight breaks out. Mom stays quiet the whole meal, drinking glass
after glass of white wine. Dad has three beers. Uncle George switches to tap
water after the one.
He
keeps looking at me over his food though. I cross my arms over my chest and
wish I could slink under the table or get up and leave. The beef isn’t sitting
well in my stomach anyway, and I think for a second about saying I’m sick and
going to the bathroom and shoving my finger down my throat to make it come up.
But
the thought of fingers in my throat makes my heart hammer, so I don’t.
Mom’s
watching Uncle George and getting madder and madder. I can see it. She holds
her tongue though. Everything’s all right. We just have to get through the ice
cream and then Dad and Uncle George will go watch sports highlights in the den
and I’ll be able to ask Mom about spending the night at Charlie’s.
Uncle
George glances at Georgie.
She’s
squirming on her chair, bouncing up and down and looking at Mom like she wants
to ask if she can be excused but she knows she’s not supposed to.
Mom
explodes.
“Don’t you look at her you sonofabitch, I
sweartoGod I’ll—”
Dad
slams his hand on the table. Mom clams up. Now everybody’s looking at me and
Georgie. Georgie’s face is screwed up like she’s about to cry, but she’s not
going to, not at the table just because Mom yelled. She’s supposed to be tough
about that.
I
told her so.
“Ellie,
Georgie, bed.”
I
can feel the shadows in the room congealing. There’s a crack of lightning and a
blast of thunder hard enough to rattle the windows. The rain starts up. Fingers
kneading, knocking, looking for a way in.
“But
Dad—”
He
slams his hand on the table again. His eyes look like the pits of a plum picked
in hell.
I
get up and lead Georgie downstairs by the hand. The shadows on the ceiling down
there follow me around while I’m helping her brush her teeth. When I turn,
they’re not there, but I know they’re just hiding, waiting for me to lie down
and turn off the lights.
I
tell Georgie she did good. I put her to bed, read her a story, kiss her on the
forehead. The shouting’s going on full-bore upstairs, and it’ll probably keep
up for hours.
I
floss, spit, brush my teeth, check on Georgie, anything to keep out of my room
for a little longer. I’d call Charlie, but my phone’s on lockdown after 9:00
p.m. because Dad thinks if it’s not I’ll spend all night texting boys. I think
about risking the TV in the den, but there’ll be hell to pay if Dad catches me
down there, and if the fight with Mom ends early for some reason, he’ll still
head down to watch TV before bed.
There’s
a book in my room. A nice book, about families where shit like this doesn’t
happen. I’ll just read it all night, even if I have to start over again to keep
reading. I won’t even get under the covers. Charlie will be all right tonight.
It was just the Mafia.
I
crack the book open.
The
lights go out.
I FIGHT IT. God, how I fight it.
The darkness is stronger than usual tonight, maybe because there’s no light at all
in the whole goddamn house, but maybe I’m stronger than usual too. I toss and
turn, flail, twist and buck the darkness off my chest every time it gets too
heavy, gnash my teeth on its fingers, spit and shout. I fight it like it’s
real, like it’s a person and I can hurt it. I want to hurt it real bad.
And
while I fight, so do my parents.
“…fucked
up, Frank! These are your daughters,
for Chrissake!”
“…wouldn’t
do that, Jess, not to us…”
“…other
people think?”
“…no
need…”
“…dammit,
Frank!”
“…you
shut your mouth, Jess…”
“…want
him out!”
“…blood,
goddammit!”
Uncle
George went to bed an hour ago. I heard him lie down. It’s 11:07 p.m., and I’m
fighting like hell.
Uncle
George’s bed squeaks.
Footsteps
in his room. Heading toward the door.
I
can’t do this. I can’t fight all these things at once. The darkness gets its
fingers into my throat and I gag and spit them back up, but they’re right back
in again. I can’t breathe…can’t breathe…can’t breathe…
Creak.
Uncle
George’s door opens.
I
lose my shit completely.
I
fly out of my bed and run for the door. The darkness is still in my mouth, my
throat, my chest, but I don’t give one flying fuck about that because Georgie is sleeping across the hall and she
doesn’t know and she wouldn’t understand even if we told her.
I
can’t find the door, and my fingernails scrape the drywall and I don’t have to
worry about not screaming because I can’t even fucking breathe and then my fingers hit the knob and I twist and the door
pops open. It’s six steps down the hall to the right to get to Georgie. I count
them and then I turn left and try her handle and it’s dark as Dad’s eyes in her
room but I run to her bed and snatch her up and thank God, she’s there.
“Ellie?”
she mumbles against my shoulder, but I don’t say a goddamn thing because the
shadows are still on my chest and they’re squeezing
now and my head’s starting to pound and I still can’t fucking breathe.
I
race up the stairs and the cats lick my toes but they can lick my ass for all I
care because I’m out, I’m out, and I’m never coming back I swear to God, I’m
never coming back and I’m taking Georgie with me and they can all go straight
to hell.
The
front door’s not locked.
I
go straight through it, out into the storm, and slam it behind me.
Georgie
and I are soaked in an instant, but the Dawsons’ porch light is on. Their power
never goes out when ours does.
There’s
light out here on the street, even if it’s washed out by lightning and
surrounded by thunder and drowning in rain.
I
can breathe again.
I
take two breaths, and then I start to run.
It’s
only two blocks to Charlie’s house.
Chapter
Four
The Shadow
Man
CHARLIE’S NOT HAPPY to see me.
I
sprint almost the whole first block carrying Georgie, who’s now soaked and
screaming and squirming. But then she starts to feel like a bag of concrete,
and even though my legs are happy to keep on going, my arms just give up. I have
to put her down and just tug her with me. I dunno what the hell’s wrong with
the Gershins and the family nobody talks to on the corner, because we go right
by their houses and nobody notices shit.
Charlie’s
house looks like it could’ve been built in the 1800s. It’s all red brick, both
floors and the basement. It wasn’t built in the 1800s though. It was built in
the 1970s and made to look like a barn with a face on it from the front. Two
big upstairs windows make the eyes, and the mouth’s the door. When we get to
it, Georgie quiets down a little.
All
the lights are on at Charlie’s house except the one in her mother’s bedroom.
I
pound on the front door. There’s light on the street, but the shadows are moving
at the edges of it, and the wind is howling and Georgie’s still sniffling and I
want to get inside and the hell out of the rain and warm up and dry off and
have a cup of coffee and figure out what the fuck I’m going to do next.
I
pound on the door a second time.
“Fuck off!” Charlie’s voice shrieks from
inside. “You get the fuck away from
here!” She sounds hysterical. “I
swear to God, I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you, you hear me?”
The
darkness creeps up behind me. I can feel its fingers on the back of my neck.
They’re reaching for my mouth already.
“Charlie,
it’s Ell! You have to let me in! I’ve got Georgie with me!”
“I’ll fucking kill you! Fucking cut your
heart out and eat it, I swear to God!
What did you do to him you bastard? You fucking bastard!”
“Charlie!
Charlie, please!”
But
she’s just screaming obscenities now, totally lost it, gone, and the darkness
is sticking its fingers into my mouth and soon I won’t be able to talk at all.
Charlie’s
house has windows next to the door, just like ours. Her foot smashes into the
glass from the other side of one. A little shard flies out and hits Georgie in
the face and cuts her cheek. She shrieks and sits on the stoop. The cut’s not
bad though—just a tiny thing that oozes a bit of blood.
Charlie
stops screaming.
So
do I.
A
second later, Charlie seems to get her shit together again.
“Georgie?
Georg—oh, Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
I
hear the deadbolt turning, and the chain being unhooked, and something heavy
being dragged over the slate tiles on Charlie’s landing.
The
door opens.
Charlie
looks like shit. Her mascara’s running down her face in streams, and her eyes
are worse than they were this morning, and she’s shaking. She’s got a huge
kitchen knife in one hand.
“Ell,
you came. Oh, God, you came and I almost—but why’d you bring Georgie?”
“Can
we come in?” I ask. “It’s freezing as shit out here.”
“Jesus,
you’re soaked. What the fuck, Ellie? Why’d you come like this? Yeah, you can
come in. Of course you can come in.”
The
fingers in my mouth disappear. I take Georgie’s hand and walk inside. The rain blows
in behind me. I reach back to close the door.
It
resists.
A
voice like a knife says, “How very kind. Thank
you.”
THINGS HAPPEN FAST. Charlie drops
her knife and runs into her house. I turn around and grab Georgie and see that
the thing behind us is the man in the double-breasted black suit with darkness
for a face. The thing reaches out, and I surge forward.
Its
hand grazes Georgie’s cheek.
Charlie’s
running for her room, I know it. I follow. Her
house has fucking locks on the doors, and her room’s closer than the back door.
Ahh… I hear.
The
sound echoes all around me.
Charlie
slams her door. I hear the lock click.
Shit, shit, shit. There’s no fucking way
she’s gonna open it.
The
bathroom next to it has a lock too. I throw Georgie in and peek back at the thing
in the front door as I join her.
It’s
not chasing us.
It’s
standing in the door jamb, with the finger that touched Georgie’s cheek in its
mouth.
THE BATHROOM DOESN’T FEEL NEARLY AS
SECURE as I thought it would. The door seems light enough that even I could bust it down if I tried hard,
and there’s no other way out. At least Charlie’s room has a fucking window.
Jesus, we’re gonna die in here.
Outside,
the lightning flashes, and thunder rolls over the street.
The
front door slams.
The
lights go out.
Again.
I SCRABBLE FOR GEORGIE IN THE
DARKNESS. I can’t tell if she’s crying and screaming or not, because next door,
Charlie’s doing it loud enough for all three of us. I clutch Georgie to my
chest, and I feel her fingers close on my soaking-wet shirt.
I meant that, says the knife-edge voice.
It’s in my mind now, not my ears. It’s cutting my fucking mind.
I needed the invitation. You should have
paid more attention to the street.
It’s
not talking to me. It’s talking to Charlie. Jesus Christ, it’s talking to
Charlie.
She
screams something incoherent back. I hear something crash against the wall.
People doing good deeds die all the time,
sweetheart. Would you like to know what I did to your father?
The
screams get shriller.
There
are no dark fingers in my throat, though. I can breathe.
In time, Ellie, all in time, the voice
says.
Charlie
bangs on the wall in her room. The knife-edge voice sucks in a deep breath,
then lets it out. It feels like the whole house is breathing.
Charlotte. I ate your father’s heart, yes,
but first I hurt him. I plucked his
fingernails and fed them to him. I removed his tongue and ate it. I broke his
teeth with my fingers and ground their fragments into his eyes.
Charlie’s
not shouting anymore, and she’s not throwing things. She’s just sobbing. I can
hear her on the other side of the wall.
Charlotte, he wanted it that way. He had to
hurt before he died. You want to know why he invited me in?
“No!”
Charlie shrieks at the top of her lungs.
Another
inhale, another exhale, like Mrs. Bradley the gym teacher when she finally gets
her first cigarette after school’s over and she can get away from it.
He thought I was just a dream. The house
rattles, but I don’t hear any thunder.
It
almost sounds like the windows are laughing.
He thought if he invited me in, he would
finally beat all his bad dreams and wake up next to his wife the next morning,
happy for the first time in 15 years.
But it doesn’t work that way, Charlotte.
I have been here since the hearts of man
first came to this place. I have hunted, and I have fed, and I will continue to
hunt and to feed until there is nothing left of your species, and that will be
a very, very long time from now.
The
lock on Charlie’s door snaps. I hear it through the wall.
Charlie
whimpers. She gets up, crashes into something. She must be going for the window.
Too late for that, Charlotte. Much, much too
late for that.
Charlie
shrieks.
Everything
goes silent.
I
grab Georgie and unlock the bathroom door, and I run like hell.
IT’S A STRAIGHT SHOT TO CHARLIE’S
FRONT DOOR. Even in the dark, I know that. I don’t know where the Shadow Man
is, but I’ve got a death grip on Georgie and it’s only ten steps or so. I covered
it in a few seconds flat before. I can do it again, and we’ll get back out on
the street and go home and maybe for once in their miserable fucking lives Mom and Dad will stop
fighting over us and just help us.
Clever, clever, Elizabeth…
The
voice hurts more when it hits my mind this time, like there’s a bit of anger to
it. The happy smoker’s gone, and in its place is the edge of Mrs. Bradley if
someone interrupts her while she’s enjoying that first cigarette.
But not clever enough.
I
bang my shins on something and fall forward, smash my head on a piece of wood.
A
coffee table. Charlie’s fucking coffee table that she dragged in front of the
door. Jesus Christ.
You’ll never escape, Elizabeth. I hear
crunching sounds from Charlie’s room, and snapping. The raw roast beef in my
stomach comes up all over the coffee table.
But
if I’m at the table, I’m almost at the door, and if I’m almost at the door, I’m
almost out.
Never so simple, Elizabeth. Never so simple
as that.
I
scramble over the coffee table and get to the door.
The
knob’s gone. And the deadbolt lever’s sheared clean off.
Georgie’s
silent, but I can feel her shaking.
The
windows upstairs rattle again. The voice in my head starts laughing. It sounds
like its mouth is full.
It’s the house, I realize. That thing. It’s not just in the house. It is the house.
Charlie’s
house has a back door in the kitchen, but it’s not gonna work either. None of
the doors will work. None of the windows will open. I’m sure of it.
My
foot hits the knife that Charlie dropped in the entry. I reach down and pick it
up with the hand that’s not holding Georgie.
“You
want to do this the hard way?” I whisper. It’s what my dad used to say, before
he punished me. “Then we do this the motherfucking hard way.”
CHARLIE’S GRANDFATHER COLLECTED
CLOCKS. Old, broken-ass clocks. There are two of them in her living room, and
they’re made of marble. They weigh a fucking ton.
Charlie’s
house is nicer than mine, but there’s not a window in this whole fucking neighborhood
that one of those clocks wouldn’t break.
I
drag Georgie into the living room. It’s not far; it’s just past the coat rack,
where my fingers drag over Charlie’s coat and I grit my teeth and refuse to
think about her sobbing or shrieking or the sound of things snapping and a
house with a full mouth.
Georgie’s
still alive. Georgie’s arm is in my hand, and she’s breathing, and she’s all I
fucking have in the world and this goddamn thing
isn’t going to lay another fucking finger
on her.
I
know I’ve hit the living room when I bump into the sofa and nearly drop the
knife. The clocks are on the mantle above the fireplace, which is a few steps
to the left of the sofa if I remember right.
My
shin crashes into a brass bucket, and then I do drop the knife.
Oh… says the voice.
Oh, I see, Elizabeth. Clever, clever Elizabeth. Now the voice sounds really angry.
Like it’s not fucking playing. You want
to do this the hard way? The motherfucking
hard way?
The
house inhales. The house exhales.
The
knife-edge voice is in my ear. “You don’t
know hard, Ellie.”
There’s
a fire poker in the brass bucket. I grab it, and I jab it where I think the
Shadow Man’s stomach would be.
He
grunts. I hear that, but on top of it I hear the house wheeze. A gust of wind
runs over me and shoots out of the chimney. Something breaks upstairs.
I
get up and start swinging the poker at the place where I hit him before.
Hurt this motherfucker hurt this
motherfucker hurt him hurt him hurt him!
“You
like that?” I shout. “You like that, motherfucker? You like it when we fight
the fuck back?”
The
windows upstairs rattle. The rattling gets louder, until it shakes the ones
down here too, and the doors.
“Yes,” his voice says. Gloved fingers
close around my throat and lift me off the ground. A second hand reaches into
my mouth and grabs my tongue.
I
scream, but I also swing the poker as hard as I can between his legs.
Nothing
happens.
And
then he screams too, and he drops me.
IT’S LIKE GETTING MY BRAIN BORED OUT by a power drill. I let
go of the poker and grab my head. But for a second the darkness clears, and I
realize that there’s light coming in through the windows from the street. The
stairs into the basement sound like they’re collapsing. The Shadow Man’s on the
ground, clutching his knee in one hand.
In the other
hand, he’s got Georgie.
She’s
holding Charlie’s knife, and it’s covered in something black that looks like
blood.
The lights
go out again.
“DON’T YOU TOUCH HER YOU SONOFABITCH! I swear to God, I’ll
cut your fucking dick off and feed it to you!”
I wind up to
swing the poker at the place I saw the Shadow Man, then stop.
I don’t know
where Georgie is.
Oh you will, will you?
There’s a
steady breeze flowing into the house now. I wind up again. Stop again.
I don’t know
what to do.
Tell me, Elizabeth Mailer, who hasn’t even seen
a dick, how will you do that?
He sounds
angry. Plum pits from hell angry.
With this?
A light in the
hall comes on. He’s standing in it, holding the knife in one hand and a
squirming Georgie in the other. He waves the knife at me, and then the light
blinks off again.
I don’t need a dick to hurt you, Elizabeth.
“I know just how to do that.” His voice
again, right in my ear.
I turn and
swing, my best softball swing, the one my mom taught me.
The poker
whiffs completely and sails out of my hand.
I hear glass
shatter.
The Shadow
Man spits something out. It hits me in the forehead.
It’s a
tooth.
The front
door opens. The lights come on. The Shadow Man is nowhere to be found.
Go ahead, the knife edge whispers in my
brain. Go ahead and try to save her.
Bring help. Bring others here to die. Or run away, and live with the guilt of
knowing you brought me into your best friend’s home and left your beloved
sister with me here alone.
I breathe,
and I stare at the door.
I’ll be waiting, Ellie, right here. And I’ll
hurt you, and I’ll hurt whoever you bring with you.
I hear the
sound of snapping from Charlie’s mom’s room. When the voice speaks again, it
sounds like its mouth is full.
And then I’ll eat your heart.
Chapter
Five
Home
Again
THE LIGHTS ARE BACK ON at home too,
at least on the outside of the house. The bedrooms are dark, like everybody
just fucking went to sleep.
Maybe
they did. Mom and Dad were yelling loud enough not to hear a door slam, and
maybe Uncle George just wanted another beer.
I
honestly don’t give a fuck.
They’re
not going to believe me, and I don’t have fucking time to try to make them believe me or call the cops to a dark
house where the front window will probably be fucking fixed by now anyway because
that thing was eating Mrs. Halloway’s heart and I bet that’s where it gets its
fucking juju or whatever from.
I
go straight to Georgie’s room.
She
got a flashlight for her birthday this year. It’s a cheap-ass plastic one in
the shape of a big smiling bear, but she loves it, and we play games with it
sometimes when I can’t sleep. If that bastard has Georgie when I go back in
there, then I want something of hers with me. And I want a light too. My light.
Our light. That he can’t put the fuck out with his black magic.
And
I want a knife. A big, sharp knife. An heirloom knife that no fucking husband
of mine will ever use for shit because
I’m going to use it to chop the fucking Shadow Man into tiny pieces.
The
carving knife is right where it was the last time I saw it, sitting on the
chopping block on the kitchen counter next to a rib roast that’s already got
flies crawling all over it.
It’s
lighter than it looks. But it went right through that bone. Right through it,
like butter.
“Ellie?”
Uncle
George’s voice. My heart jumps into my throat. I whirl around.
He’s
reaching toward me.
The
knife goes through the fingers on his right hand at the first knuckle. Bone and
all.
Like
butter.
I
didn’t even mean to do it. I was just turning around.
Blood
spurts from the top of Uncle George’s fingers, and he yanks his hand back. The
fingertips fly across the room and smack against my mother’s white kitchen
cabinets. They leave bloody trails down them.
“Fuck!” Uncle George shouts. I’ve never
heard him raise his voice before. “Jesus tittyfucking Christ! My fingers! My
fucking fingers! My goddamn motherfucking fingers!”
There
are pits in his eyes too now. It’s in our blood.
“Jesus—aagh!”
He stomps in a circle, holding his spurting fingers in his other hand. “You
fucking bitch! My goddamn fingers!”
“You
deserve it!” I shriek. The words have been there all along, waiting to come
out. “You fucking deserve it for what you did to those girls!”
Uncle
George smashes his head into the wall. His eyes look wild. “Did my time,” he
grunts. He only half sounds like he’s talking to me. “Did my fucking time
already. Not gonna fucking do it again. Not gonna fucking do it again. Not
gonna fucking do it again.”
The
words have a rhythm.
It
matches the creaking of the floorboards above my bed.
I
push past Uncle George and out the front door with the flashlight in one hand
and the knife in the other. He’s rocking back and forth, eyes squeezed shut,
one hand clamped around the other so hard it leaves his skin pale as paper.
He’s still muttering his mantra.
My
parents don’t even fucking wake up.
Chapter
Six
What
Lies in Darkness
CHARLIE’S HOUSE LOOKS MUCH TOO
NORMAL. All the lights are on except the one in her mom’s bedroom. The living
room window’s fixed, just like I figured it would be. The door’s closed. If it
wasn’t for the knife and the flashlight and the bruises on my throat, I might
be tempted to think I’d dreamed all this shit.
I
walk up to Charlie’s door. I’ve got something of a plan, but I have no idea how
to put it into action.
Where
the fuck is the heart of a house, anyway?
The
front door opens for me. The furniture’s all where it was when I left.
I
step inside.
The
lights go out. The door shuts.
The
hunt begins.
I SWITCH ON THE FLASHLIGHT. It
flickers and dims, but it doesn’t go out. I could kiss it.
Thanks, Georgie, I think.
Sweet thought, Elizabeth, the knife-edge
voice says. But it’s not so simple. Never
so simple.
The
flashlight dies, then comes back to life.
You have light because I want you to,
says the voice. I can hear the house breathing great gusts of air in and out
through the chimney. And when I want you
to have darkness, you can be sure you’ll have that too.
I
step gently over the coffee table, shining the dim light of the flashlight down
the hall toward Charlie’s room. There’s nothing there, and I sure as hell don’t
want to go that direction, or up the stairs at the end of the hall that lead to
her mom’s bedroom. Not if I don’t have to.
The
flashlight goes out, and I freeze.
He
can take away my light, fine, but I’ve still got my knife, and I’ve got my
other senses. And if I hear him coming I’ll stab him in his fucking heart or
cut off his fucking head.
There’s
a thought—where’s the brain of a
house?
Clever, clever Elizabeth. Can’t solve a
problem one way, so find another, is that it?
He’s
trying to distract me, so that means I’m on to something. Have to be. What’s a
brain do? Sends signals to the body. Where do the signals that run a house come
from?
Yes, Elizabeth. Where do they come from?
It
wouldn’t be that hard for him to sneak up on me if he just talked to me in my
head while he did it. I’d never hear him coming.
“Georgie?”
I call out. “Georgie, are you there?”
The
lights flash back on. There’s blood all over the wall, and a knife’s stuck
through Georgie’s head, pinning her just above the door to Charlie’s room. The
lights flash back off.
“No!” I shriek. I scramble forward. “You
motherfucker! I’ll kill you! Kill you!”
Something
crunches under my feet. A cold, oozy substance squeezes up around my ankle.
It
feels like raw roast beef.
The
lights come back on.
The
thing over the door to Charlie’s room is a doll in Georgie’s clothing. I look
down at my feet.
Charlie
looks back up at me.
I YANK MY FOOT OUT OF HER CHEST and
slam my back against the wall. My heart thunders. The lights stay on. Charlie’s
eyes are open. They don’t look much different than they did when she was alive.
She
looks scared.
And
in pain.
Her
fingernails are broken. The tips of her fingers are bloody.
He did that after. He did that after to
scare me. She shrieked and then stopped, she—
Lost consciousness a few seconds after I
tore the heart from her chest. Died shortly thereafter.
The
lights go back out except for one overhead that’s illuminating Charlie’s face.
There’s blood all over her chin and cheeks. I think her tongue is missing.
I don’t know if you heard, the Shadow
Man says, but she blamed you for what
happened to her. “I was just trying to help Ellie!” his voice sounds exactly
like hers. That’s what she told me while
you were cowering in the bathroom, not bothering to try to help her.
Focus.
I have to focus. Find the brain. Where do the signals come from? What runs the
house?
Do you know what I am, Ellie? What I really
am?
Who
runs the house?
I’m a fly, Ellie. A cosmic fly. I follow the
smell of shit. There’s a lot of shit on this street to draw a fly like me. A
fly who eats blackened hearts.
I
know. I know who runs the house. Who runs every house.
And what shit stank the worst, Ellie? Where
did I start? Where did I go first?
The
staircase that goes up is about twelve steps down the hall from Charlie’s room.
Whose fault is it that I’m here at all,
Ellie? Who drew me here and made all these people die?
Houses
are run by the people who own them. And the people who own them live in the
master bedroom.
THE STAIRCASE squeaks as I walk up
it in the dark, knife in one hand, flashlight in the other.
When
I’m about halfway up, my flashlight flickers to life again.
There’s
a big toe at the top of the stairs. It’s painted purple.
I
swallow a lump of bile and keep walking.
The
toe points to the right, down the hall toward the master bedroom. A few feet
later there’s a finger, then an ear.
Don’t let him see you’re afraid, I tell
myself.
I don’t need to see that, the knife edge whispers. The house breathes in and out, Mrs.
Bradley inhaling her first cigarette again. I
can smell it.
The
door to the master bedroom’s closed. I pause in front of it. There’s gonna be
something awful inside, I’m sure.
But
there’s also gonna be a chance to hurt the Shadow Man.
And
I’m gonna start right now.
I
rear back and kick the door as hard as I can, right under the knob.
It
shivers a bit, but otherwise it doesn’t budge. So I kick it again, and again.
The
windows clatter.
I am
gonna hurt you, motherfucker, I think.
You’re going to try, says the knife edge.
And it’s not going to work. How’s your
toe?
It
hurts. Like a motherfucker. Kicking the door was a dumb idea.
I
open up the master bedroom and head inside.
IT TAKES ME A SECOND TO FIND the
nasty thing. The flashlight catches the reflection of Mrs. Halloway’s head
sitting at her vanity, staring at itself in the three mirrors. It’s missing an
ear, and there’s blood on its mouth. I bet its tongue’s gone too.
Why the tongues? I wonder.
We all have hobbies, dear, says Mrs. Halloway’s
voice. Prim and proper. First-generation English immigrant. Used to throw the
best birthday parties for Charlie, back before her dad left the first time.
Her
body’s on the bed, and the sheets are ripped around it. Her chest is split open
like Charlie’s was, but her fingernails aren’t broken.
God—he was telling the truth, I think. Charlie was alive, and I just ran away.
It hurt, Ellie. Jesus Christ, it hurt so
bad. Why didn’t you help me? I told
you it was gonna happen. I told you…
I
grit my teeth. I set the knife and the flashlight down next to Mrs. Halloway’s
head on the vanity. The light goes out immediately. The vanity chair’s pretty
heavy, but I’ve got my dad’s arms. I pick it up, whirl around in a circle, and
chuck it through the windows behind Mrs. Halloway’s bed.
Oh, dear! My brain! My precious brain! Oh,
curse my arrogance, why didn’t I kill you when I had the chance? Now you’ll get
your sister back and I’ll waste away to nothing!
Mrs.
Halloway’s voice, but sarcastic like she never was. The lights come back on.
Georgie’s
standing in the door to the master bath.
There’s
no sign of the Shadow Man.
I
grab my knife and my flashlight, and I run for her.
“Ellie?”
she asks. She sounds sleepy.
The
lights turn off. I slip on something thin and slimy on the floor, and I hit the
ground so hard that my chin bounces and I bite through my tongue.
“Careful,” whispers the knife edge in my
ear. “I don’t want that part damaged if
it can be helped.”
“Ellie?”
calls Georgie’s voice. It sounds a little afraid this time, like she’s waking
up.
It’s
coming from the stairs.
“I’m
coming!” I shout. “Georgie, I’m coming!”
THIS TIME, Georgie keeps calling my
name.
Please, God, I think. He didn’t rip her tongue out and eat it. It’s
not him, it’s her. It’s really her.
I
thump around the Halloways’ upstairs hallway, upsetting a vase on an end table
and sending little bits of Mrs. Halloway skittering along the hardwood. I slow
down when I hit the stairs, because if I fall and kill myself with the knife,
then Georgie’s really fucked.
“Ellie!
Ellie!” It’s coming from the kitchen.
At
the bottom of the stairs, my flashlight blinks to life again. The kitchen’s
just down a back hall opposite Mr. Halloway’s office. I’ve got enough light to
run, and I run like hell.
Georgie’s
voice is coming from the middle of the room, and my flashlight’s getting
brighter as I get closer to it.
Right
above the oven, there’s a sign.
The kitchen is the heart of the home, it
reads.
I
tighten my hand on the knife. A kitchen’s gonna be hard to kill. What do I
break? What does it really need?
And
more importantly, where the fuck is
Georgie?
When
I get into the kitchen, the lights come on.
Georgie’s
in the oven.
And
it’s set to start preheating to 450 degrees in about ten seconds.
I
drop all my shit. I know that’s what he wants. I know that’s just what he wants.
But I don’t give a fuck. Georgie’s screaming my name now and banging on the
inside of the oven’s glass door with her fists. I get there with eight seconds
left on the timer, and I yank for all I’m worth.
Nothing.
The oven’s his. Right. I look around for something I can break the glass with.
Anything I can break the glass with.
An
arm slides around my neck from behind. Another clamps down on the back of my
head. They both start squeezing, and my neck feels like it’s about to pop.
“Oh, Ellie, Ellie,” the Shadow Man says.
“Not that simple. Never that simple.”
I
try to turn around, but his weight’s bearing down on me, and I can’t do it. The
timer’s at three seconds now.
“Sometimes I like my food well done,” the
Shadow Man says. “Shall we watch?
Together? You can tell me when you think she’s ready.”
The
oven beeps. The heating element turns on. Georgie screams and ducks away from
it.
I
squirm. I flail. I fight. The Shadow Man just holds me while the windows
upstairs chatter. Georgie’s crying now, really crying, and I think the bottom
of the oven is starting to hurt her.
“Feel familiar, Ellie? Can you answer my
question yet?”
I
don’t give a fuck about his question.
My
legs are free, and I kick the glass door of that oven as hard as I can. Again,
and again, and again.
It
cracks on the third kick.
The
Shadow Man flinches.
On
the fourth kick, the glass breaks.
Georgie
tumbles out onto the kitchen floor, and she looks mad as hell. Her nightgown’s
browned in a few places. The top of her bowl cut’s singed and fraying. Her
knees are bright red.
She
picks up a piece of glass. The lights go out.
The
Shadow Man screams, and there’s an enormous crash from upstairs.
Like
part of the wall has fallen away.
The
lights come back on. The Shadow Man’s holding a piece of glass shoved into his
eye. Georgie’s gone back for another. I grab one too.
“Get
him, Georgie! Get him!” I shout. The lights go back out, but this time I’ve got
hold of the Shadow Man, and he’s not going fucking anywhere. He screams again,
then again. My hand’s bleeding, but I’m stabbing him anywhere I can, and so is
fucking Georgie. There’s black blood everywhere. It smells like the mold in
shower drains. The Halloways’ house goes bat shit. Windows breaking, drywall
cracking. The sink blows sky high. The other oven door shatters, and the whole
unit falls out of the wall. The lights flicker on and off, enough for us to see
that the Shadow Man is trying to get the fuck away.
He
stops trying to escape and bites my face.
It
hurts. It hurts enough that I stop stabbing him and push him away. Georgie’s
got hold of him, but she’s not strong enough to keep him from weaving to his
feet and charging out of the kitchen. The back door opens and shuts.
The
lights come on.
Georgie
crawls into my lap and gives me a big hug, and I sit there, covered in my blood
and the Shadow Man’s, and I hug her back.
“I’ll
never let you go again,” I whisper. I hug my little sister tighter. “Never.”
IT’S NOT OVER.
Not that simple, the Shadow Man told me,
over and over again. Never that simple.
The
kitchen is the heart of the home?
Not
my home.
I
give Georgie back her flashlight and tell her the Shadow Man couldn’t stop it,
even though that isn’t true. But he was dumb enough to play with it, and that
still helped me. I pick up my knife too, because I think I’m still going to
need it.
Then
I head to the garage, Georgie in one hand, knife tucked into my belt.
I
find a sledgehammer.
THE HEART PUMPS BLOOD. And blood’s
the thing that keeps us alive. It brings everything in our body the shit it
needs to survive, and it takes away the shit that would poison us if it built
up. That’s what people do for a house. They bring in the good shit and take
away the bad shit. And what pumps people in and out of a house?
The
front door.
Not
that simple. Never that simple. I don’t think the Shadow Man can just leave a house once he’s in it, any more
than a person can just leave someone’s heart once they’re in it. He comes to
the heart of the house and he asks to be let in, and once he’s there he eats
away whatever’s inside the house until, I bet, it collapses, and then he’s free
to do the whole thing again.
I
think he disappeared to lick his wounds, and he opened and shut that door to
fake us out. And I think he’s counting on us to just leave.
But
I said I was gonna kill this motherfucker. And I am.
“Go
outside,” I say to Georgie. The storm rolled through a while ago. The streets
are wet and glistening in the porch lights.
She
shakes her head. Doesn’t want to leave me. I don’t blame her. I take my knife
out of my belt and give it to her. She’s had better luck hurting the Shadow Man
than I have from the start anyway.
“If
he shows up…”
She
nods.
We
step outside the house, but I leave the door open. I pick up the sledgehammer
and wind up for a swing.
Couldn’t…just leave…
I
hit the door as hard as I can, right on the hinges. The whole house shakes, and
the Shadow Man gasps in my head.
Could…you? The knife edge still sounds
sharp when he speaks.
I
hit the door again. The top hinge squeals and bends.
Do you…know…
Boom.
The top hinge breaks.
…how…we get…started?
Boom.
Bottom hinge bends. It’s easier going now, because the weight of the door’s all
screwed up and the hinges don’t like it.
Didn’t…need an…IN-vitation…
I
knock the door all the way off its hinges as he says the last word. The door
falls onto the stoop like a tombstone. Bricks are dropping out of the house’s
walls like rain now. It’s almost over.
…to get…to you…Ellie…
I
go to work on the door jamb. First the right side.
Not when it’s…in the…blood.
Left
side. If he’s gonna come, I bet he’s gonna do it—
He
hits me like a truck barreling down the Halloways’ front hall at a hundred
miles an hour.
His
hand goes right for my heart. I think if he’d hit me like this the first time
we tangled, it would’ve gone straight through my rib cage.
But
this time he’s weaker, and it just hurts like hell.
The
sledgehammer goes flying, and I land on my back in the grass in the Halloways’
front yard. The Shadow Man’s hand rises for another strike, and I reach up to
gouge his sightless black eyes with my thumbs.
He
freezes, perched atop me. A gout of dark, moldy blood spurts onto my face.
Ah… his voice says in my mind.
The
Halloways’ house collapses in a cloud of brick dust and mortar. The Shadow Man
turns to dust along with it.
Through
the dust I see Georgie, the carving knife held in two hands, her bottom lip
quivering.
I
sit up and take the knife out of her hands. I hold her against my throbbing chest.
I can’t believe the fucking neighbors haven’t woken up.
It’s
like every adult on this street is a goddamn walking corpse.
Georgie
cries a little, but not as much as I think she oughta.
When
she falls asleep, I tuck the knife back into my belt, pick her up, and carry
her home.
Chapter
Seven
Dawn
IT’S STILL HOURS BEFORE THE SUN
COMES UP when I get home. There’s a light on in the living room. Uncle George’s
room is dark. The garage door’s open, and my dad’s truck isn’t there.
I
can see my mom, sitting in the living room, staring out of the windows with a mug
in her hands.
She
sees me too, and she’s out the front door and running toward me before I even
get onto our property.
“Ellie?”
she asks. “Jesus God! Is that Georgie?”
She
runs forward to take her from me, but I turn my shoulder and don’t let her.
“She’s
fine,” I say. “Just asleep.”
Mom’s
eyes narrow. “Don’t you fucking act like you’re her mother, Elizabeth Mailer.
Where the fuck have you been? What the fuck
have you been doing?”
I
look at my mother, really look at
her, maybe for the first time ever. She’s short and stocky. Her hair’s pulled
back in a ponytail so tight it looks like it hurts. Her unit tattoo’s
stretching on her sagging arms. She’s got so many freckles nowadays she looks
almost like she got a really spotty fake tan.
But
more than that, she looks small, and she looks hurt.
I
could push her buttons. I could really
fucking hurt her, if I wanted. I’m her eldest daughter, and she’s done me
wrong, and she knows it.
“Protecting
Georgie,” I say quietly. “Someone has to.”
I
walk inside with my sister in my arms and the carving knife hanging down over
my thigh. My mother doesn’t stop me. She follows me.
“I
don’t want to live here anymore,” I say.
I
walk to the sofa and sit down. Mom sits next to me.
She
stares at her coffee.
“Your
dad took George to the hospital,” she says. “His fingers…” She shakes her head.
“He said he slipped while he was trying to cut a late-night snack. Said he was
a little drunk.”
Mom
looks up. I remember the blood on the cabinets. Mom’s not stupid. No way she
bought that story.
“Ellie,”
she says, “what the fuck happened tonight?”
“I
don’t want to live here anymore,” I say again.
Mom
heaves in a deep breath, lets it out.
“I’m
sorry, baby,” she says.
I
nod.
By
dawn, we’re in her car, driving toward Grandma’s.
***
UNCLE GEORGE DISAPPEARED from the
hospital as soon as his fingers were sewn on. I think he knew what that shit
would look like, and that even if I said he never tried to touch me, people
would draw their own conclusions. Mom told Dad what she thought happened, and
Dad said if he ever saw Uncle George again, he’d kill him. He probably wasn’t
lying.
Things
were better between Mom and Dad for a while after that, but they still split up
before I finished high school. It was probably for the best. They sold the
house and moved us first though, as a favor to me, I think, and I never had to
go back to that fucking street. I hear nobody found any bodies in the wreckage
of the Halloways’ house, and nobody ever figured out why it fell down that
night either.
Georgie
says she doesn’t remember what happened. I hope for her sake it’s true.
Me?
I
still sleep with a carving knife by my bed. It’s my heirloom.
You
want to know what’s inside darkness? Deep, deep inside? At the heart of it?
We
are. Every time we know what’s right and don’t do it, a little more of the
black builds up around us. And if we let enough of it stack up, it’ll draw
things to us. Things that feed on darkness. Things that need it.
And
God have mercy on your soul if that shit ever happens to you.
