"This is right where the tree branch impaled me!" he said with a sick delight. "And when I woke up, I realized I could never leave this place again."
Noel was horrified. His mouth hung open as he glanced over at the door, hearing banging noises on it, hearing the doorknob turn.
"They're here!" Barry exclaimed, his voice unraveling into hideous laughter.
Noel pressed his feet off the floor as hard as he could and finally he lurched away from Barry. The grip on his collar was broken and he turned around, fleeing for the closet. He sank to his knees and crawled through the darkness as he heard his door open with a whine behind him.
He removed the panel at the end of the closet and crawled into the cubbyhole, sliding the wooden door shut behind him. He flicked the light on so he could see, then he reached out and held the door shut. He sobbed openly, the most horrible fear he'd ever experienced thumping in his chest like a sledgehammer hitting a metal stake.
The light bulb flickered. Then there was more laughter on the other side of the door, laughter he recognized all too well.
He gasped.
The door to the cubbyhole began to pull against his grip and he frantically held it shut. The force on the other side toyed with him, laughing and tauntingly tugging at the door.
Then the door stopped moving and long, clammy fingers extended through the door as if it hadn't been there at all.
Noel jumped back and clambered to the opposite corner of the small space, pressing his back against it. He watched as Samantha crawled through the door. When her head was through, she snapped it up and looked at him with her leering face. Pure malevolence and murderous intent was painted on it. She pulled the rest of her body into the small space as Noel sat in the corner, breathless.
His fingernails dug into the floor below him as if to brace himself against what was to come. They felt the edges of the sheet of particleboard beneath him. Then he remembered.
Samantha crawled forward.
Noel moved off the board and tossed it out of the way as quickly as he could. He twisted the latch in the trapdoor and it fell open, revealing the darkness of the pantry below.
Samantha reached out for him, something shining in her hand. A scalpel.
Without a moment's hesitation, Noel dove into the hole headfirst.
And his head hit the tile floor in the dark pantry hard, knocking him out cold.
Hell
The first thing he saw were sheets of orange in varying hues surrounding him. They created walls like those of a small room. He felt intense heat as the flames danced high and licked all around him. But there was something else in the room, too.
It was death. He could smell the blood, sense the fear and the torment.
Looking around, he saw that there were others in the room with him. It was difficult to see; the intense light and heat made him squint his eyes, barely able to look at all. But he could make out a woman and a young girl cowering at the side of the small space, the young girl in the woman's arms, the woman's back pressed against the wall of flame. The floor was flame and the ceiling was flame, too. And there had been others in the room, but they were gone now. The stench of iron was in the boiling air.
Noel felt queasy. Beyond the feeling that his skin was blistering as he sat there, he had a horrible feeling inside of him like darkness had been born in the center of his body and it was eating its way out.
Phantom ghouls lay just beyond the veil of flame all around him. There were red eyes, demonic smiles and faces. Leering, tormenting souls. He couldn't see any of them, but he knew they were there.
The woman and the young girl began whimpering and Noel glanced at them, feeling deep sympathy for them.
There was a sound ahead of them and part of the flame turned away like a door opening. More flame stood beyond in the distance and something dark moved into the gap. A huge shape stood there, completely black. The only feature were eyes that emanated the same flame as everything else around them.
Noel gasped. He thought it was a mountain at first, but now, getting a good look at it, he saw that it truly was a monster.
The shrouded figure walked into the room and the floor shook with every step it took. The woman and the young girl screamed. The girl turned her face away and buried it in the woman's stomach, wrapping her arms around her.
The black shape was holding something in its hand.
Noel couldn't make it out. But he turned his head away when the screaming started, unable to look at the slaughter. He felt like he had to throw up.
The screams went silent immediately as unimaginable sounds filled Noel's ears. The smell of iron intensified. He kept his eyes squeezed shut.
The floor rumbled beneath him, fading in intensity. The sound of a closing door came from in front of him, and then he peeled open his eyes.
The nightmarish room was empty. Only him left.
The sweltering heat flared. He felt like he'd been in the sun for a thousand hours, his cracked and leathery skin ready to slough off like a snake. He cried but no tears came out; the painful heat evaporated them before they could roll down his cheeks.
Then the door opened again and the monster stood in the threshold, staring at him.
It was this moment that Noel realized he was in Hell. Not some dream, not some twisted fantasy of the place, but Hell itself.
Noel stared at the monster and the monster stared at him. He knew it was his turn.
Noel's eyes snapped open and he found himself in darkness. He gasped for air and found that he already had plenty; the heat hadn't siphoned what was in his lungs. His skin wasn't about to fall off; it was cool. He looked around trying to find something, waiting for his vision to adjust, but it did not. Crawling forward, he came to a wall and then a door. He twisted the handle and spilled out into the hallway running past the kitchen.
The house was dark and it was nighttime. The last thing he remembered, it had been morning. But hours had passed and now he was alone in a state that he wasn't convinced was reality.
He slowly made his way up to his feet, his head aching. Memories slowly came back to him, and he recalled escaping from the ghosts through the cubbyhole. The last thing he remembered was jumping down through the trapdoor into the pantry, and he looked back at the open door, realizing what had happened. He hadn't actually been to Hell, but he had been given a window to it. It terrified him.
The cottage was silent and still. Noel was suspicious of it, knowing that the ghosts weren't lurking far behind the rolling shadows. He knew now that he couldn't trust any of them and that if he wanted to get out of here he would need his father's help. He also knew that Heinz had been wrong in his estimation of Walter. Whatever failings his father had, whatever mistakes he'd made, they weren't comparable to what Heinz or anyone else trapped here did.
Alone, Noel crept through the dark.
Quiet Confessions
For a while it seemed like he was walking through the Twilight Zone. All the lights in the house that were usually on at nighttime were off. Only faint moonlight came in through the windows in the kitchen and dining room, heavily diffused by the dark, clustered clouds of the storm going through its final volleys outside.
Heading to the living room, Noel saw something. A dancing orange light stretched and retracted on the walls in the distance. When he entered, he saw Walter still sitting in the armchair where he had left him. At first he thought he'd killed him with the sleeping pill, but, stepping into the room and making noise on the floor, Walter turned his head and cast his eyes upon him.
"Son!" he said, shocked.
Noel said nothing at first. He judged his father, trying to determine how venomous his reaction would be.
But there was none of that; Walter twisted in the chair and held out his arms. "Noel, come here." There was a bottle of bourbon sitting on the side table next to him.
Noel stepped forward. The living room was absolutely silent save for the muted wind outside and the crackling fire. Even the lights in the
den and the game room were off, giving domain to an eerie presence throughout the house. But in the midst of his father and the warming fire, Noel felt safe. He sat down on the couch to the side of the armchair, his feet dangling off the floor and his hands neatly folded in his lap.
Tears came down Walter's face. "I thought I'd lost you," he said. "I thought you... ran away."
Noel tried to clear the jumbled words out of his throat. "I did," he admitted.
Walter gave a halfhearted laugh. "Why'd you come back?" Though the bottle of alcohol sat at the ready next to him, he wasn't drunk; he seemed a little out of sorts, but not drunk.
Noel worked his fingers together. "I didn't have a choice," he said. He surprised himself by how honest he was, but he didn't know what else he could say. "I tried to drive the car, but I had an accident. I'm sorry." The sobering confrontation brought tears to his eyes. He knew his father was going to be angry with him.
But still he wasn't. "It doesn't matter about the car," Walter said dismissively. "I'm just glad that you're okay. I couldn't bear the thought of losing you." He broke down sobbing.
As Noel gazed at his father, he suddenly questioned whether he'd gotten everything wrong. Here was a man that seemed to genuinely be baring his soul to him. All the hatred, all the resentment and bitterness... maybe it had been a twisted illusion in Noel's mind.
"I don't blame you," Walter said. "I've been a terrible father."
The light of the fire danced and reflected off their tears. The wood hissed and cracked softly.
"I'm sorry," Noel said.
"For what?" Walter asked.
"I... I was really mean to you," he replied.
Walter nodded. "I deserved it. And I loved Mommy."
Noel's face strained.
"I did," he continued. "She was a hell of a lady. And she was the best mother on the planet. I wish I could've been a tenth of the parent she was.
"I know you'll always hate me for what happened. But I want you to know that I didn't crash on purpose. We were coming home from a party and I had two drinks. I never told you that before. So there it is. But I was sober. I was fine to drive, or at least I thought I was. But I was tired. It was after midnight, I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and I was really stressed at the time. I know you don't really understand this, but Mommy and I were arguing a lot then. The roads were icy, and... Noel, I made a horrible mistake. If I could go back and take it all away, if I could change places with Mommy, I would. Believe me, I would."
"Why didn't you tell me that before?" Noel asked, wiping away tears.
"I didn't know how. You're very smart for a six-year-old, but there's a limit to what you can understand. Maybe I was just using that as an excuse so I didn't have to tell you. But she loved you, you know."
"Mommy?"
"Mhmm. She loved you more than anything in the world and I know she's watching you from above."
Noel sobbed, half in joy, half in crushing sadness. His shoulders shook and his chest heaved.
"It's okay, shh..." Walter said soothingly. He was filled with remorse. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he couldn't say them all. "You deserve so much better than me."
"I don't understand," Noel said, wiping his eyes.
"What?"
"How can you say that and still keep me here?"
Walter looked at the floor. Sadness came over his face like the tide washing over a beach. "You're right," he said. "Everything I did, I thought I was doing the right thing. For you. But I can see now that I just made a mess of the whole thing. I'm sorry, kiddo. I'm so sorry." He pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes and doubled over in the chair. He cried quietly in the silence of the room.
Noel calmed down. His father was showing a side of him that he'd never seen before, and it disarmed Noel completely. "I forgive you."
Walter looked up suddenly. "What?"
"I forgive you," Noel repeated. The words were hard to get out, but he did it. And he meant them.
They made Walter cry even harder. Over a year of pent-up emotions on the subject, feeling like an enemy to his own son, it all came crashing out like the dam had finally broken.
"I want to leave," Noel insisted. "I want both of us to leave."
Walter nodded in the throes of his crying fit. "You're right. This is no place for you at all. I can't keep you here. But I also can't take care of you anymore."
"What do you mean?" Noel asked, surprised.
"Look around," Walter said. "I've just made one bad mistake after another. I'm not fit to be your parent."
"But if you know that, you can change, right?" Noel asked.
Walter shook his head. "No. I screwed up far too big this time. There's no coming back from this one. I was always a screw-up and I'll always be a screw-up."
His words stung and confused Noel. He didn't know what they ultimately meant, but he came back to his first point, clinging to it like oxygen for a drowning man. "But we can leave, right?"
Walter nodded.
"Tonight?"
"No, the blizzard's still bad outside. But it's supposed to wrap up later tonight. We'll go in the morning. I promise."
After that, Walter seemed very detached and introspective. Noel watched him carefully, wanting to implore him, but he knew when to take a concession. He nodded slowly and left his father alone.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow they would finally be leaving this place. That was all that mattered to him.
Exodus
Noel stayed up all night. The morning seemed like it would never come as time itself warped and twisted until the gears that moved it ground to a standstill. He sat awake in his bed staring at the wall. He tried counting sheep, tried counting the hours and minutes until morning, but nothing put him to sleep. He listened to the final hours of the storm outside as it waned into nothing. He looked out the window and saw the landscape filled with white. There was so much of it outside that with the moon's glow reflecting off of it it almost looked like it was daytime. But he knew he would have longer to wait, still.
He sighed, turning his head to the side and spotting the marble that Emily gave him sitting on his dresser. He got out of bed and grabbed it then slipped under the covers, resting his head on the pillow. He held it up and spun it in his fingers. The faint bit of light coming in from under the blind illuminated the twisting colors trapped inside the glass.
It reminded him that even though he and his father would be leaving once the sun came up, Emily would not. As much as her betrayal had stung him, now he couldn't find anything in his heart for her but pity. He understood now why she did it. It didn't make the pain go away, but at least he understood.
As he twisted the marble, the changing colors in the glass mesmerized him. His eyelids became heavy. They drooped, and before he knew it, he finally fell asleep.
When he opened them again, Mary was standing over him. She glared at him with mean, sallow eyes. The sharp features of her face frightened him.
Noel jumped and scurried underneath the covers, trying to get away from her.
A hand grabbed her wrist and tugged her away. "Mom! Come on, get out of here!"
Mary was pulled out of the bedroom, her gaze fixated on Noel as she went.
Emily closed the door behind her and faced Noel. "I hope you're not too angry with me," she said. She walked over and pulled up the blind, letting the morning sunlight spill into the room.
Noel rubbed his eyes, excitement rising in his chest. "No," he said. "I'm not mad at you. I know why you did it."
"I'm really sorry. I don't know how to tell you that enough. But I want to make it up to you. I know how lonely it's gonna make me, but I want to help you get out of here."
Noel eyed her. He felt it hard to trust anyone anymore, but he knew now that his distrust had only kept him trapped here.
"How?" he asked.
"I heard you talking to your dad last night. I know you're doing it this morning. But I'll need to watch out for you."
"Why?
"
"Because all the other ghosts heard you talk to your dad, too. They know that you're going to try to leave again. And they won't let you. So we have to be careful, and we have to hurry."
Noel thought of Mary standing over him, glaring at him with those damning eyes. He shivered. "But they can't kill me," he reasoned. "Because then I'll go away, right?"
"Right," she agreed. "They're not going to kill you."
"Then what?"
"They've been trying to make you do something," she said ominously.
"Like what?"
"I... never mind about that," she said. "If we get you out of here, you won't have to think about it at all. Pack whatever you want to take with you. I'll be right back." She walked through the wall and disappeared.
Noel looked around, expecting another apparition to come through one of the walls. He knew he didn't have much time like she said, and he felt that familiar pressure in his chest.
He changed out of his pajamas into a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. After he pulled on a pair of thick socks, he went over to the box that his father packed from their old house, rooting through it to see if there was anything of meaning to him. Most of it was useless toys and junk, but he pulled out the framed picture of his mother that sat next to his old bed. She smiled at him in her beige cardigan and he began to cry. He wiped the tears out of his eyes and turned his attention to the door just as Emily came back in.
"They're all around today," she said, her voice quiet. "They know what you're going to do. So just follow me and try not to look at any of them."
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 34
