He’s just a friend. I promise. My only friend, apart from you. You said I should meet people. I wasn’t going to do anything. I would never do anything like that, Carly. Don’t be nervous. He’s just a friend. Barely even that. You are the most important thing to me, okay? That will never change.
72
30 days until the incident
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Monday, 3 January 2005, 2:12 am
Forgotten Garden
I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, trying to figure out how to write it down.
I never intended it to happen—I never meant to take this from Carly. DAMNIT. Does smacking my face into the wall make it better? No, because it’s Carly’s face. Carly’s hands and her legs, her heart. Her virginity too. I had no right. But I did it anyway.
She asked me to tell her if I ever—when I decided—if there was a chance—
She wanted warning.
How many times can I say I’m sorry, Dee? I’m sorry—I’m so sorry! But I’m happy—I’m happy, and I’m sorry, and I hate this so much!
I took Ari to the Forgotten Garden—on top of the old crypt, so sad and broken. I wanted to show him me, which is what the graveyard is. The remnant of something, like the husk of some exotic fruit once the bird has had its fill. The shadow on the wall of the flickering object.
Don’t look at me like that, Dee. Because you have no idea what I’m going through. Ari was… Ari is… the only thing I have. Now. The kiss was just as sweet, especially outside in the dark with the wind tickling our faces and the moisture in the air gifting tiny droplets on our skin, like uncanny tears. It was cold, which is so familiar, so safe. Like an old friend, Dee… you can understand that.
When his hands fell from my hair to run down my back and take in my thighs and then frantically up to my breasts—I was on fire. I crossed a line I never let myself cross when I haunted the streets of Chester. I don’t know why. Maybe because I could. Maybe because I had no choice—I was compelled. My dark nature brought me to it. I needed it.
Do you remember? That the thing I long for the most is breath on my neck, arms wrapped around me, telling me I’m wanted. Needed. Do you?
Ari knows me now, more than anyone. He’s seen the darkest side of me and he’s been me. And he’s not afraid. It was inevitable as soon as his lips fell on mine again, his hands on me—our bodies urging us forward like an unstoppable tide. Sure, it was sore, and I don’t know if you could call it “making love.” It was more like “falling alive.”
Ari and I had sex tonight.
Sex. God, I wrote it. Sex.
Thanks to me, Carly is no longer a virgin. I have a confession, Dee, and it’s so vile and disgusting that I’m retching as I write it. I think, in some subconscious and demeaning part of me, I was hoping that this would hurt her enough to make her come back. That she would be so repulsed and appalled and angry by what I had done to her that she would just tear her way back into our body, and I would suddenly, painfully, be complete.
Dee, I feel like I just raped Carly. I know—it’s stupid. But I feel like that. She didn’t give me her consent. I don’t know…
I’ve never felt more alive than I did in his arms. It was such an amazing thing… more wonderful than anything else I’ve ever experienced. And that just makes me feel even worse!
I can’t stop feeling Ari all over me. His lips on mine, his hands in my hair, his breath—harsh and full of passion—on my neck. The feeling of the stone crypt under my back, hard and moist and cold, like the Dead House, which I felt descending all around us.
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: The Prisoner Finds Ink and Parchment
Naida supplied the caged bird with a little window. What do you think of it?
Confessional Girl
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: The Prisoner Finds Ink and Parchment
I am beyond ecstatic that Rapunzel has found her window. That the muse has been released. I am nothing without you, Caged Beauty.
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Our Secret
I can’t stop thinking about… our secret. Did that really happen only a few hours ago? Did I dream it? I don’t know what’s real anymore.
Confused, alone, needing you.
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: Our Secret
You’ll never be alone again. You have me.
It was real. It happened.
It was the best moment of my life.
Do you regret it?
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: Re: Our Secret
A little.
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Our Secret
Ah.
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Our Secret
Only because of Carly! I don’t regret you. You saved me. You came into the dark with me, and you showed me that there was life. You pulled me into the light.
I think I love you.
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Our Secret
Get some sleep. We had a late night, and the breakfast bell will ring any moment. Try to rest, beautiful caged Rapunzel. Things will seem less uncertain after you rest.
PS—I love every little molecule in your body. I love every hair on your head.
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 3 January 2005
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Our Secret
I don’t deserve this happiness.
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Tuesday, 4 January 2005, 6:25 am
Basement
It started with footsteps. Footsteps coming slowly towards my room. The sound is so heavy, like the footsteps of a Moloch, and they echo down the hall.
Step. (BOOM.) Step. (BOOM.) Step. (BOOM.)
I can’t move.
My heart throws itself against my ribs as though telling my lungs: Inflate! Inflate now! We need air! Breathe! BREATHE!
But I can’t breathe, because the footsteps have stopped outside my door and they squeeeeeaaakkk as the monster turns towards me—or is it a devil, Dee? I can’t tell. All I know is that there is nothing but a strip of wood between us, and all I can think is
Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God
And
then
The walls were bleeding. Not just bleeding, Dee. They were raining blood. I could smell that copper scent like old pennies, and I could feel the warm, sticky, squishiness of it in between my toes.
As the blood rose in the Dead Rooms, I grew more and more panicked, sure I would drown in whatever the blood concealed. Dee, I did; I drowned in my sleep tonight, and when I woke, I found blood and stitches and skin caught in my teeth, and my arms had been ripped open anew.
73
29 days until the incident
Naida Camera Footage
Tuesday, 4 January 2005, 7:45 AM
Basement
Naida enters the basement with a tote bag slung over her shoulder as the motion camera is clicked on. Kaitlyn sits huddled in the shadows and doesn’t stir.
“Up, up, up,” Naida sings, dropping a bag by the foot of the mattress. “I’ve got something for you, but you’ve got to be awake to get it.”
The shadow that is Kaitlyn still doesn’t move, and even with the night vision on the camera, it is difficult to see what Kaitlyn is doing under the blanket draped across her.
“Don’t make
me shine a flashlight in your face,” Naida warns, bending over to pull one out of the bag. “I was courteous enough not to flip on the overhead light, but I’ve got limits. Three seconds. Two. One! You leave me no choice, Johnson.”
She clicks on the flashlight and shines it on Kaitlyn. We get a brief image of Kaitlyn hunched over her arms, legs curled tightly to her and blood pooled on the mattress before Naida drops the flashlight and the room is flooded with black once more. The camera takes a moment to adjust to the darkness again.
“Kaitie,” Naida breathes, “what happened?”
“The Dead House tried to drown me in blood.” Kaitlyn’s voice shakes and jumps as though she is very cold. “Or the thing in the Dead House—I’m not sure.”
Naida runs over to the light and flips the switch. The bulb illuminates very little of the room, but it is enough to see that Kaitlyn has been bleeding profusely. She is a chalky gray color, and her eyes are drooping.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Naida demands, tearing off her shirt and clambering onto the mattress. “That’s what I gave you the laptop for!” She presses the material to Kaitlyn’s arms, shaking her head.
“M-mustn’t b-be s-seen.” Kaitlyn shudders.
“I have to call an ambulance—”
“No!” Kaitlyn wrenches backwards, tearing her arms away from Naida.
“Kaitlyn, you’ll bleed to death!”
“Then h-help me. S-sew it up ag-gain.”
“I can’t do that. You’ll get some kind of infection—Kaitlyn, I have to go now!”
Kaitlyn attempts to grip Naida’s arms as she tries to get up, but her hands are weak.
“Th-they’ll lock m-me away forever—and Carly—N-Naida, please. Please h-help me. Help me—” Her head shakes, dipping lower and lower, but her eyes never leave Naida’s face. They are hollow, piercing like the gaze of disease. “P-promise me. P-please, promise me!”
“I… Okay. Okay, Kaitie.”
Kaitlyn nods once and slumps against the wall. Her eyelids flutter closed.
“Gorro, help me,” Naida mutters, then crawls off the mattress and dashes from the room.
It is more than ten minutes before she returns, by which time the motion-activated camera has clicked off. When it comes back on, registering the time difference, Kaitlyn—who had been slumped against the wall—is now standing against the perpendicular side, her forehead pressed to the concrete. It is unclear how she got there without the camera picking up the movement.
Naida sees her standing like a mannequin, hesitates a moment, and then rushes over.
Kaitlyn is lackluster and pliable in her hands.
“Sit down,” Naida says, leading Kaitlyn back to the mattress. She slumps, leaning against the wall.
Naida unscrews the cap from what looks like a bottle of clear alcohol and wets a white cloth with it. She cleans out the wound, and Kaitlyn hisses through her teeth.
“You have to be strong if you want me to do this,” Naida warns. She is the picture of calm focus; only her shaking hands give her away. She ties a bandage around Kaitlyn’s left arm and secures it in place, then removes a needle and thread from what looks like a little sewing bag.
“God help me,” she mutters, and then begins the long process of sewing up Kaitlyn’s arm.
Kaitlyn tries not to scream, but eventually it becomes too difficult. Naida has to wad up another bandage and put it into Kaitlyn’s mouth. When the right arm is done, it is a butchered mess—all black thread and bunched flesh, but it is no longer bleeding. Naida douses it in alcohol again and then bandages it in place.
“One down.”
Kaitlyn passes out before the second arm is finished, and then Naida checks her pulse, feels her forehead, and carefully pulls her more firmly onto the bed. She then covers the unconscious form with the blanket and sits on the edge, bows her head into her hands, and sobs.
10:02 AM
Kaitlyn sits wrapped in the blanket, a cup of warm tea cradled between her palms. She seems barely able to hold it. Naida watches her carefully.
“Won’t they miss you?” Kaitlyn asks.
“I faked a note. It’s only PE, anyway.”
Kaitlyn glances up at her. “Thank you. Not just for the tea.”
Naida gives a weak smile. “Well, I’ve never done that before. Too bad you couldn’t stay for the whole show.”
“It was getting tedious.”
Naida grins at Kaitlyn’s weak attempt at humor. “God damn, Johnson.”
Kaitlyn takes a sip of her tea, and her skin seems to warm a bit, the gray alabaster flushing with a little peach. She glances up, towards the door, where a short, knotted rope wound with numerous materials that the camera cannot differentiate hangs.
“What is that?”
“A bind. Protection for you. It’ll stop the dreams.”
“Will it work?”
“Should. It’s got my own blood in there, so it’d better.”
Kaitlyn flinches. “Was that necessary?”
“Wouldn’t do it otherwise.”
Kaitlyn nods and sips her tea again.
“What’s up, sugar?”
“How much longer?”
Naida sighs and pressed her hands to her face. “I don’t know. I’m getting closer, I think. This is new for me—I’ve never conjured or done root work before. There’s a lot to learn, to go through… And I’m tailing Mike… I’m trying my best.”
“It’s just…” Kaitlyn shudders. “Whatever’s going on inside me, it’s getting worse. I don’t know, closer. It’s getting harder to cope.”
Naida says nothing, and Kaitlyn continues.
“And I was thinking… maybe… maybe medication will help. Maybe all I need is the right kind, the right dose—maybe… maybe I am—”
“Crazy? You can’t really believe that, can you? What about that house you keep dreaming about? And where’s Carly, huh? And why did I find this”—Naida pulls out a stiff knot of… something from her bag—“outside my dorm this morning, huh?”
Kaitlyn leans away from it. “It reeks—what is it?”
“Oh, just the intestines of some poor creature, knotted into a conjure to keep me immobile.”
“What?”
“It’s a warning. From whoever’s doing this.”
Kaitlyn swallows. “It’s easier not to believe.”
“We will get through this.”
Kaitlyn dashes away a tear. “I feel alone, Naida. I don’t know if I feel Carly anymore. It’s like she’s locked away where I can’t get at her. I don’t have anyone else.”
Naida takes her hand. “You have me.”
Kaitlyn bites her lips and nods, blinking hard. “I’m scared.”
“I know. But this isn’t going to get easier before it gets better. I need you strong. So drink up that tea.”
Kaitlyn eyes the cup suddenly. “What did you put in it?”
“Something to make you strong.”
Kaitlyn nods, and then drinks.
[END OF CLIP]
Naida Camera Footage
Tuesday, 4 January 2005, 9:00 PM
Naida’s Dorm
Naida kneels on the floor before her camera and clasps her hands, bowing low over them. A candle, lit somewhere below the screen, casts an orange light on her face, accentuating her angular features. She looks tired, worn, and scared. But there is a fire in her bright eyes as she looks up, hinting at her determination.
“Blessed Gorro, guide me,” she whispers. “Mother Karrah, hold me close. By your powerful intercession, hear me.” She lifts a small brown root for the camera to see and snaps it in half. “Here is earthroot, to break conjures against me. Devil’s heart”—she lifts a small purple flower—“to protect me from those who work against me. Master root”—she lifts a bark-like formation—“to aid my psychic powers. And currency”—a silver coin—“to plow over my enemies and the enemies of my friends.”
She bows her head for a moment, then opens her Bible and begins to read.
&nbs
p; “‘Arise, O Lord, in thine anger, lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded… My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.’” She flips through a few pages. “‘Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.… God shall likewise destroy thee forever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living.’”
She lifts her gaze into the camera; she is looking directly at us.
“I curse you, dark worker and thief. I lift up a mighty shield against you and point a knife at your neck. You will relent, you will fall, and we will find Carly and bring her back. I hope you’re afraid, you son of a bitch. You should be.”
She reaches forward and switches off the camera.
74
28 days until the incident
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Wednesday, 5 January 2005, 9:51 pm
Attic
I think I was beginning to lose myself to despair. I kept thinking, Did I dream her? Did I imagine her? Was she ever here at all?
But the dead girl came to me. I opened my eyes, and there she was, standing in the doorway. I never noticed before, but she’s wet. She raised one thin arm and motioned me to follow with her finger; her eyes were wide and sad, but she was still grinning. So I felt afraid.
But I didn’t care what happened, because what could be worse?
She took me upstairs, step by creaking step. I was a little dizzy and unsteady on my feet, and in quite some pain, but followed nonetheless. We haunted the corridors of the school, two specters of nothing, and I forgot to question where she was leading me.
The walls seem sad, which scares me. They seem to cry; I want to scream. But then I was in a classroom and the grinning girl was standing on a desk, her dead flesh dripping everywhere, and I knew I had to look inside.
The Dead House Page 19
