Noel gulped. "Okay," he said weakly.
"Where's your coat?" Emily asked.
"It's downstairs."
"Okay. When we go down there, put on your coat and your boots and then we'll find your dad. I saw a light on in the den. I think he's in there."
Noel nodded.
The two of them set out into the hallway. They moved slowly at first, trying to see who was around, and then they headed for the stairs.
A loud moan came from the master bedroom at the end of the hall behind them. They stopped briefly out of surprise, glancing in that direction. They could see Mary lying in bed, sick, twisting and moaning.
They hurried down the stairs.
Harvey stood in the kitchen, cutting a large slab of meat. He minded his own business, chopping it apart with a meat cleaver.
Noel paused at the base of the stairs, too frightened to move, and Emily tugged on his arm. "Come on!" she whispered.
Harvey glanced at them, suspicious. Then he returned his attention to his work in front of him.
Noel moved at last, breaking his gaze from the giant and heading to the peg where his coat was hung. He put it on and slipped on his boots, then he pulled a pair of mittens out of his pocket and put them on too.
Harvey stopped what he was doing. He looked at the two of them and glared just like Mary had.
"Don't look at him," Emily urged. "Come on, let's go."
They hurried along the hallway toward the living room and Noel cast a glance over his shoulder.
Harvey stared at them the whole way.
The three brothers were hanging out in the living room. The oldest had one foot propped on the seat of the armchair, resting his arm on his knee. He twirled his knife around in his hand, pulling at his mustache with the other. All three of them watched Noel carefully.
Walter sat at the bar in the den. Noel hurried over to him and tugged on his shirt sleeve. "Daddy! Can we go?"
He didn't respond.
"Daddy!" Noel said in a harsh whisper, tugging hard on his sleeve.
Walter groaned and laid himself against the bar. He let out a slurred, unintelligible sentence.
"Oh no," Noel uttered.
Walter was drunk.
Noel poked and prodded, but Walter brushed him off, his lips pressing against the bar top and drooling.
Noel's heart sank completely. He looked at Emily. "What do I do?!"
The brothers in the living room leaned around the corner, staring at them.
"You need him," Emily said. "You have to get him out of here somehow, even if it's just off of the property where the others can't influence him anymore."
"But how?" he asked.
"I don't know!" she said. She glanced around nervously. "Is there some way you can move him? Like a wheelbarrow or something?"
Noel's mind raced. His eyes lit up. "There's a sled outside!"
"You'll have to hurry."
"Okay," he said. He raced for the front door. The oldest of the three brothers was now leaning in the archway between the den and the living room, and Noel almost had to press himself against the wall to get past him. They craned their necks and watched him go. Harvey was back to chopping meat, but as Noel approached, he stopped and watched him. Noel raced past, not looking at or thinking about him, and opened the door. More snow spilled into the house. Harvey grunted and took a step forward.
The snow was piled high at the front door, up to Noel's chest now. But he didn't waste any time and launched himself into the frozen drift. His legs churned and his feet slipped as he slowly made his way through the final result of the storm.
The ghosts around the house were on edge, but they weren't yet attacking him. If he could just get to the sled and get his father on it... if Emily was able to help him or he could coax his father into complying well enough, he might be able to get him out. He remembered it was sitting against the side of the house where Walter had returned it after using it as a stool for Noel to help board up the front window.
Noel glanced over his shoulder to see if Harvey was pursuing him this time, but no one came out of the cottage. He worked his way through the snow, tiring himself out already as he rounded the corner.
The ladder still stood against the house, its base buried somewhere deep in the snow. Noel knew the sled was somewhere next to it. He sank down and started brushing the tall snow away.
After a minute, he felt something hard below.
The sled.
He smiled.
He brushed another layer of snow away, and when he saw what was underneath, he fell backward in shock.
A face stared up at him, its eyes half-open and blank. Its flesh was gray, frozen. He recognized it right away.
It was his father. Walter's body lay buried beneath the snow. He was dead.
Broken Taillights
Noel's mind reeled. He stood in the snow staring at his father as Walter's lifeless eyes stared back at him. He shook all over. Panic engulfed his body and he felt like he was about to pass out. He stumbled, and then the strength in his legs gave out and he collapsed. A vision flashed before his eyes.
He found himself in the same place, but as he looked down, he saw that his own body wasn't there, like he was just a floating consciousness. The ladder creaked in front of him and he looked up and saw Walter standing at the top, stringing up Christmas lights. All of his movements were clumsy and drunken, and then the string of lights slipped out of his hand. He watched as his father reached for it, leaning more and more off the side of the ladder. Then he fell.
More than ten feet Walter plummeted through the air. The back of his head hit the ground first, the snow doing nothing to cushion his fall. A loud crunch escaped from his neck as the rest of his body hit the ground like a ragdoll. An arm splayed out to the side and his head rolled until it was looking directly at Noel. He didn't move.
A moment later, Walter stood up. An exact duplicate of him had crawled out of his own body and was now standing in it. He groaned and reached for the back of his neck. His eyes squinted and he looked every which way, disoriented. He didn't spot his own body underneath him as he stumbled away from the site of his accident, heading around the house for the front door. He kept wincing and groaning the whole way, his gait stilted and sloppy. Noel followed him as he stumbled through the front door and made his way to the armchair in the living room.
The scene around him changed and Noel found himself in the cramped space of the cubbyhole behind his closet. He watched as he and Emily sat there in front of him. He had déjà vu as they repeated their encounter.
Emily grabbed the juice box from his hand and took a sip. Both Noels watched as the juice fell through her mouth.
"Noel... I'm dead. I'm a ghost like all the rest."
Now Noel saw the top of the stairs looking down. His consciousness descended them to find Walter standing in the kitchen pouring himself a glass of wine. He held the bottle and glass in his hands, giving the wine a sniff. He brought the liquid up to his lips, moving his arm slowly from the pain of his neck injury, and he let it drain into his mouth. He savored it for a moment, allowing it to roll over his tongue. Then it all spilt onto the floor. He took a step back and looked down in surprise and confusion. He set the glass down on the counter and ran his hand along his front, feeling for stains on his clothing. But there were none. He picked up the glass and took another sip, shrugging it off. He swallowed the wine, and it went down into his belly. Nothing unusual about it. He relaxed, letting the stress roll off and the alcohol spread through him. But then he felt it. He felt the liquid falling through his own body and splashing on the hardwood floor. He stared down at the mess, his whole body trembling. His eyes darted to the window overlooking the side of the cottage as the snow came down in the night. His mind went back to the accident and he suddenly realized, standing up straight and moving his neck around, that it didn't hurt at all. Nothing hurt.
He screamed and dropped the bottle and the glass. They shattered on the floor and he sta
red down at the mess, at himself, and was visited by a more potent fear than he ever was before.
Noel's consciousness whipped back into his body like a yo-yo returning to a finger. The jolt made him topple over. He began to cry as he crawled through the snow toward the cottage. He couldn't understand what was happening; he refused to understand.
He struggled to the front door. He spilled inside, his head pounding.
All the residents of the house lined up along the edge of the kitchen and the dining room like a long gauntlet. Noel crawled past them as they all watched like sentinels.
Harvey stood by the front door with the three brothers next to him, then Samantha, Barry and Heinz. Mary stood by the living room, but Emily and... his father... were not in sight.
Noel threw up on the floor. He pulled himself forward, not knowing where his body intended to take him. He was rocked by convulsions and another vision came to him.
He was in a very familiar place now. It was his old house. A brief moment of joy came over him in his disorientation before his mother and father walked in the room in the middle of an argument.
"I don't want to hear it anymore, Walt!" his mother said.
"Honey, it's just till the end of the month!" he reasoned. "Hank will come through for me. The contracts will come in, I promise! After that, it'll be smooth sailing."
"That's what you said the last time!"
"Come on, cut me some slack, okay? You're always stomping on my balls!" There was a noise upstairs and they both looked up. "See, we shouldn't be fighting like this. You don't want Noel to hear."
"Don't drag him into this!" she warned. She lowered her voice a little. "You can't keep doing this to us... to Noel and me... we don't deserve it."
"I'm doing the best I can!" he snapped. "You know work is scarce these days."
"Because you never do the work!" she said. "That's why they don't give you contracts anymore. You keep telling them 'My writer's block! My writer's block!' Baby, we have to put food on the table. My job alone can't keep us afloat for much longer."
Walter got angry. He let his hand ball up into a fist for just a second, then he let it go.
The room in front of him blurred and Noel found himself in the kitchen now. He had the sense that some time had passed—a few days, maybe weeks or months.
His mother was at the counter cooking dinner, chopping some leeks while his father stood behind her, his hands in his pockets.
"I called the lawyer," Walter said. "He'll swing around with the wills on Saturday."
"Good," she said. "And the life insurance payment?"
"I paid it," he said, putting a hand on her back. "I had to scrounge a little, but it's done."
She set the knife down, turned around and kissed him. She linked her fingers behind his neck. "I'm glad, honey. It's important, you know."
"I know," he said. He kissed her forehead.
"I know I shouldn't really think about it, but if something were to happen to us, I don't want Noel to have the same problems we're having. At least get a leg up in life, you know?"
"Nothing's going to happen to us, baby," Walter replied. "Nothing at all."
Noel felt a sudden pull and found himself on his hands and knees. Not on the hardwood floor of the cottage, but on hard and icy asphalt. He expected to see taillights in the distance, but he found himself in a parking lot.
Doors to a reception hall flung open and his parents walked out. They were dressed up and both of them stumbled a little.
"Are you okay to drive?" he watched his mother ask, her words a little slurred.
"Yeah, I'm okay," Walter replied. As he took his next step he staggered, but she didn't notice.
They got into the car and backed out of the parking space. As they rolled out of the lot, Walter glanced over at his wife in the passenger seat. She was already asleep, or at least she looked that way.
The dark road stretched ahead of them. The windshield wipers brushed large flakes of snow away. His wife had a good time at the party, but he didn't. Too many things were on his mind. Paramount was their financial situation. Every time he blinked he saw dollar signs behind his eyelids sinking lower and lower until they were gone. But he tried to worry about that later; right now he needed to focus on the road.
They were still twenty minutes out from their house, and there were no lights on this highway except for the moonlight. His wife began to snore and he rubbed the back of his neck to get the stress out. His own eyes started to droop and he shook himself awake. The tires began to cross the yellow paint in the middle of the road before he righted them.
They came up to a bend. His mind raced about bills and taxes. Ice.
Before he knew what happened he was slamming on the brakes and jerking the steering wheel. But they were already off the road by then, tumbling down a small hill and hurtling headlong toward a tree. She woke up just in time to scream as she saw the big oak barreling toward them.
Noel crawled along the ground, the horrendous crash ripping his eardrums apart. He began crying and his warm tears dripped into the snow. "No..." he croaked. Shakily, he found his way up to his feet and stumbled toward the wreck.
The red taillights glowed as the soft and gentle snowfall drifted around him. He walked up to the driver's side and peered in the window, terrified of what he might find.
Walter groaned and opened his eyes, blinking and looking around as he tried to figure out what happened. He moved his limbs and found that he was okay.
He looked over at his wife.
She was slumped sideways in her seat. Her eyes were barely open, rolling around in her head as blood poured out of her throat. She gagged on it as she struggled to get air into her lungs.
"Oh, Jesus!" Walter exclaimed. He reached over and pressed his hand to her throat, trying to stem the flow. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. If he acted quickly enough, the paramedics might get there in time to save her.
"Hold on, honey!" he said. He used both hands to punch 911 into the virtual keypad, smearing her blood on the screen. His finger hovered over the Call button. He glanced over at her.
She was staring somewhere ahead, her eyes swimming. She gagged and choked. He watched in the moonlight as the blood ran down her throat.
Walter's stomach churned. A thought came into his mind, so quiet. He didn't know why, but all he could think of was their life insurance policies. The dollar signs slipped down and down behind his eyelids, almost gone for good now. He imagined Noel living in squalor and it crushed him. The heart-wrenching love of his son filled him.
He moved his finger away from the Call button. He set the phone down and watched her as she bled.
Tears stung his eyes and he found it hard to breathe. The minutes ticked away in agonizing silence. When only the last vestiges of life remained in her, she found the strength to turn her neck and glance at him out of the side of her eye. She couldn't speak any words, but he saw something in her gaze like a plea for help.
"I'm sorry!" he whispered. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry..."
And then she was gone.
Walter laid his head against the headrest and moaned loudly.
Every negative feeling in existence cobbled together into an overwhelming force and surged through Noel. It rocked him and he gasped and he found himself crying and slobbering on the floor of Winterlake.
He looked up and saw all the ghosts along the gauntlet. Their faces were solemn.
He weakly climbed to his feet and braced himself against the wall as he stumbled past them. When he got to the living room, he turned to face the den.
Walter wasn't drunk and slumped over the bar; he was standing next to it, wide awake. He looked at Noel, apology in his eyes.
Initiation
"Daddy?"
"Yes, kiddo, I'm here."
"Daddy, what did you do?" Noel stared up at him, crying.
Walter looked at his feet. "I guess I really screwed up, huh?"
"You... you let Mommy die.
.." He searched for some kind of meaning in his father's eyes. Something that would make all the pain go away, or at least make it worthwhile.
But Walter had nothing to give him. "I'm sorry, son," he said, pain in his voice. "I thought I did it all for the right reasons. All I wanted was to give you a good life. I'd screwed up my own, so if I could just do that, maybe I would be some kind of success. But I just pissed that money away, too. And now I couldn't spend a single dollar if I wanted to."
Noel's face twisted up. "How are we supposed to get out of here if you're... dead?"
Walter sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't go anywhere, kiddo. God, I didn't want you to find out like this."
"What about me?" Noel asked. "You said we could leave in the morning. It's the morning, so let's leave!"
Walter's heart was broken. All his love and passion for his son rushed out to him in that moment. As terrible of a father as he had been, he still loved Noel. "I'm afraid it's not that simple," he said. "I'm sorry, Noel. I never meant to do any of this. I just made one big screw-up after another." He looked away. "I'm sorry I dragged you into all this."
There was noise behind Noel. He turned and saw the ghosts file into the den, surrounding him in a circle. Heinz closed it, sitting in the archway between the den and the living room. His wheels squeaked as he brought his chair to a stop.
Noel searched the leering faces of the spirits enclosing him. None of them moved or said anything at first, and he cowered down, afraid of what they were going to do to him.
Harvey towered over the rest of them, his gruesome, bullet-riddled body making Noel nauseous. He held his meat cleaver tightly in his hand. Samantha gave Noel a demented smile. She flashed her yellowed, uneven teeth. Her body swayed back and forth, like she could barely maintain herself without lunging forward and attacking him.
Barry spoke behind Noel and made him jump. "We've finally come to the crossroads, Noel," he said. "It's time that you joined us."
"I don't want to join you!" Noel said, his voice shaking.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 35
