Providence Place

by Matthew Tait

  When Alyssa lifted her arm this time, Jason saw the hand attached shaking. She held it out toward the camera as if beseeching Dillion – or just trying to make him understand her plight. ‘I screamed and I pleaded with her, said it wasn’t my fault. But of course it was, wasn’t it? It was all our faults. Sure, we may not have set up the gallows to literally hang her, but we were culpable for not really giving a shit. I know I didn’t. Do you know what the first thing to come into my mind was when the ambulance showed up? That it would be good publicity for the play. That it would be good for me. That this tragedy would finally get me noticed, and I could ship out to Hollywood post haste and finally get away from this shitty town and even shittier school with its never-ending parade of misfortunes.’

  She paused, now breathing in ragged gulps. Though Dillion’s expression foretold he wanted to say something, for the moment his trap was shut. So was Jeff’s. Carolina was also looking at the floor, her cheeks screwed up as if she were in the process of swallowing something unpleasant.

  ‘But everyone knows nothing like that happened. If there’s one thing teenagers do well, it’s overachieving in the art of self-delusion. No one came calling to whisk me away to greener pastures, no one except Sadie, that is. I knew, seeing her, that she wanted me to join her. She wanted me to suffer on the other side. Although not straight away, either, no siree. I had a very long weekend to look forward to.’

  The next part Jason was somewhat familiar with. The aftermath of her ordeal, anyway. No mention of ghosts in the newspaper articles – just a story about a girl who had been trapped in one of the buildings for a few days before anybody raised the alarm. And Jason thought he even knew the reason why that was. Though it was possible she may have been close to her parents, Alyssa Asterious had carried a reputation. One of late nights and loose antics. Taking off for a few days at a time on a weekend without notifying anyone wouldn’t have been all that uncommon … not for a girl who was chauffeured around the area by boys who played on the football team. Like Alyssa had stated, this was the era before Facebook updates. None of her close friends would have had any means of monitoring her absence.

  Her eyes had moved back to the mirror. ‘Anybody read that book Cujo? Seen the movie? Strangely it was that stupid story my mind kept circling around to as I lay huddled here. I was trapped in a theater … but I may as well have been trapped in a busted Pinto with a rabid dog circling me. That first night, the lights eventually came back on for a long time, and I somehow managed to fall asleep. I had to go to the bathroom, of course, and after filling up an empty cup I found in the trash I started going in the corner. And I was thirsty, too. So thirsty I can’t even describe it. When I awoke, I could hear faint birdsong outside so I knew it was morning. I kept hoping someone playing sports across the road would hear my screams. Or maybe just some of the maintenance people. Then Sadie came back.’

  Dillion had moved closer so his viewfinder was within eyeshot. Through the screen, Jason could see Alyssa’s Adam’s-apple filling the frame and bobbing up and down as she swallowed … as though she were recalling her long ago thirst. Or perhaps what her pee had tasted like. Which wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Though, of course, she wouldn’t admit to such a thing. Which was a welcome relief after everything –

  ‘I’d read about Poltergeists,’ Alyssa said. ‘Who hasn’t? Who hasn’t seen that movie? A malevolent force able to access the physical world we live in. Able to pick stuff up and throw shit around. But it was me being thrown around. I felt my hair being pulled when it went dark – pulled out by the root on some occasions. I felt my face being slapped. I could hear whispering too, so loud it seemed to go up into my ear canal. And do you what kind of things it said? That I was a cunt. That I was a slut. That I was a no-good fucking whore who should be strung up by a rope for existing. By late afternoon, what I assumed was afternoon, I was pacing around like an animal in a cage. And then the mirrors started to come alive.’

  ‘You started hallucinating?’ Carolina asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. Her voice was tinny with dread.

  Alyssa flashed her eyes toward her. ‘It wasn’t just Sadie I saw staring back at me, there were … others. People I didn’t recognize. Small children for the most part. They promised me relief – said that if I walked into the mirror and joined them I could escape the bad girl tormenting me. Because she was trapped in here, in the theater. Part of me knew I was probably experiencing the onset of cabin fever … or even, yes, hallucinating. But another part knew of me knew better. These children, some of them wore the school uniform. Others were garbed in get-up from last century. I swear I even recognized one – Stacy Marshall who’d died of Leukemia when I was in fourth grade. They whispered, they cajoled, but I knew it wasn’t really them so I didn’t listen. I knew if I walked up to that mirror, if I walked through it, then I really would join the bitch who was haunting me.’

  Stacy Marshall who had died of Leukemia in fourth grade …

  Though Jason didn’t remember any Stacy, what Alyssa had just said carried more dark weight than anything thus far. Taking into account her disease, the girl would have died far away from Providence Place; in all likelihood she would have died in a hospital surrounded by her parents and loved ones. To consider the possibility, however remote, that a soul educated here eventually returned here like a bird to its nesting grounds was something Jason wouldn’t contemplate. Couldn’t. Such a thing was anathema to his entire belief system.

  Why not? Kristen remarked. You’ve never seen any evidence for your own God whatsoever. But you’ve seen plenty of evidence for life after death. And it’s all taken place right here in Providence Place. Glenn Frey knew what he was singing about there, don’t you think? You can check out anytime you like, hon, but you can never leave.

  Alyssa said, ‘Not a very nice thought, is it? Spending eternity in this place.’ She hiccupped up a laugh, and Jason came to the sudden realization she hadn’t sparked a single cigarette since they had entered the building.

  ‘My second night was even worse, but by that stage I’d convinced myself I had the fortitude to see things through until Monday. My little prison stank, too. Holy God did it stink. This blue carpet here is new. After I escaped, they had the old one uprooted and replaced. Like they do in houses if a cat or a dog pisses too much on the floor over the span of its life. So I slept and I pissed, pissed and then slept some more. When I woke, there were purple bruises on my face and calves. When I looked into the mirror, I saw myself on the end of a rope, swaying by its tether. Sometimes the children called my name; sometimes they came right up to my side. But I held on, somehow I held on. On Sunday night, just over forty-eight hours after becoming locked in, one of the music teachers came by spur-of-the-moment to pick up a guitar he’d accidently left over the weekend. I didn’t hear him, though. He heard me. Heard my crying. When he opened the door, he claimed it wasn’t locked. Can you believe that? What he saw when he walked in probably has him going to a therapist for life.’

  And there it was: Alyssa’s eventual rescue after two days of being locked in a theater dressing room. Dehydrated and carrying substantial bruises, she was otherwise physically fine. After her mother had picked her up (the woman and Principal Hague exchanging fierce entreaties that had included threats from both parties), Alyssa had gone home to stand in her shower stall for over two hours. Both her mother and father had concluded the bruises to be self-inflicted, despite evidence to the contrary. On Monday morning, now clean but only speaking in muted whispers, Alyssa had made clear her intentions of parting ways with Providence Place. There would be no returning to the school that had made her a local star; there would be no tearful farewells to teachers and student friends she had spent her childhood and adolescence accruing.

  ‘I ended up coming clean for the same reason you did, Carolina,’ Alyssa said. ‘I needed tuition money for college. So two years later, I approached the trashiest of trashiest – that piece of shit magazine known as The Star. The
y put me on the front page and did an expose featuring mostly bullshit, stuff that jived more with Carolina’s story and made their headline more of a sensationalist scream. Then I got on with my life and tried to forget it ever happened.’

  Now, finally, a cigarette was lit. With both smoke and voice trembling, Alyssa said, ‘Until Dillion, that was. Until Dillion-fucking-Cook here called me out-of-the-blue three weeks ago and offered me the returning role for a sequel.’

  Eight

  Exiting through a backdoor, the five made their way across a small overgrown carpark before coming to another set of buildings for sports equipment storage. Beyond these rose the back fence, a serrated enclosure that would not be out of place in a prison. Past the fence were the ovals of Providence Place, three conjoined football fields where every sport imaginable had once played host. During his early researches, Dillion had scoured hundreds of photos of the area during its prime. Looking at it now, it was easy to believe they were two separate environments, as completely disparate from each other as the surface of the moon and the innards of a forest. The grass, neglected for over a decade now, was more in keeping with an everglade swamp. Everywhere hung the smell of bore water, a metallic miasma like freshly pumped sewage.

  It was Jeff who noticed the second school bus.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ was all Dillion heard the man say. Then he was away at a trot, trench coat flapping behind him like an ill-fitting cape.

  Like most things seen on this night, Dillion’s shaky-cam found the bus before his eyes. Following Jeff, its dirty side was as visible as a yellow smudge against the night. Behind him, his three other subjects quickly caught up, Alyssa giving voice to some trademark expletives.

  Should’ve pushed her further back there, he thought. In the end she didn’t give me what I needed: a complete submission to her fears. None of them did. There’s still time, though. Still lots of time to get that final –

  ‘Wait!’ Jeff called from up ahead. He had come to a standstill ten feet from the front of the bus, one hand held up high. He did not turn around as Dillion approached.

  ‘What is it now?’ Dillion asked. Despite the darkness, an ominous (and entirely concealed) light source seemed to sketch out the scene in stark relief; Dillion could see the bus’s front bumper and headlights as if they were superimposed on a projectionist’s screen. Surrounding the vehicle was all manner of detritus – newspapers, beer bottles, and even food packaging. To the left, the black outline of what appeared to be a couch.

  ‘Shhh,’ Jeff whispered, bringing down his hand to touch his lips. Never breaking eye contact with the bus for a second, he said, ‘Tell the others to hush when they get here.’

  But there was no need to tell them anything. Advancing lightly as though on a tightrope, Dillion filmed them purveying the trash, then swung his camera back to the bus.

  ‘There’s a small fire back there,’ said Jeff. He took two steps forward, paused, then reached down and gingerly unsheathed his gun. As he began moving again, Dillion followed closely behind like a shadow.

  Just what does a small fire mean?

  That you’re not alone, of course, a voice whispered in reply. And you never were. Who do you think arranged all those mannequins in the children’s library? Who do you think authored the graffiti? Someone, or something, is living in the school – someone a lot more interesting than any homeless stew bum or nightmare animal …

  Past the bus’s one open door now, and the evidence for this was mounting. Leading up to the driver’s seat were three steps, each of them festooned with more food items: empty candy wrappers and milk cartons – production value if Dillion had ever seen it. Although they had passed a lot of similar refuse on this sojourn, some of this stuff appeared fresh, the hoarding remnants of a hermit. For a moment he was assailed by an image, horrid in its simplicity: Sadie Whitmore living on in this abandoned bus. She would still have her rope, of course, and unresolved business with a leading lady …

  In front of Jeff came a sound: the snap and crackle of burning. It was a fire, all right. And it lay just out of sight beyond the barrel end of the bus. Smoke plumes eddied over the roof and disappeared into the sky.

  Jeff turned around. ‘Stay here. I’ll go up ahead first.’

  Jason whispered, ‘Shouldn’t we check inside the bus first?’

  Jeff’s head shook in the negative, pointed to his gun as if that was all the reasoning he needed. ‘Just stay here,’ he said.

  More rubbish lay piled underneath the vehicle, Dillion saw; the flotsam and jetsam of a parade. Angling his camera down, the iPhone’s meager light illuminated a banner bearing Providence Place’s many totems: the lion and the scroll. Underneath these an open book and the front façades glaring windows and obelisk turrets. He bent down, trying to see in further, and felt a hand cup him from behind. He was about to shrug it off when footsteps began at the back of the bus.

  Footsteps.

  The group froze, animals in headlights. The footsteps

  (oh yes that’s footsteps, all right. Boots, if I’m not mistaken)

  reverberated off the bottom of the cab and seemed to travel through the spine of the bus before settling into the windows. Now they were in the middle. Now gaining steadily toward the front. Dillion peered upward through dark glass and could see nothing but a carnival reflection of their own bulbous heads. Ahead, Jeff had swiveled back around, his gun pointed directly into the maw of Dillion’s camera.

  Whoever the footsteps belonged to stopped at the apex, presumably in the cab, next to the driver’s seat. Ignoring the gun, Dillion trained his view-finder on his mismatched cast, each one of them now trained in a ridged stance. About to call out, the owner of the boots saved him the trouble by traversing the last few strides and stepping out into the smoke-addled night.

  Standing around six-foot-two, a long-haired denizen sporting a black trench coat held a sawed-off shotgun in both palms. The amber glow of a cigarette floated in the shadow of his face. With his entrance had also come his smell … a scent, Dillion now realized, that seemed to embody the school itself: purple chewing gum and molding attics; the earthen, somehow sweet aroma of crushed leaves left to rot.

  For a second the moment stretched, a stand-off punctuated by silence. Then the man spoke, ‘You, put down your weapon.’

  Behind Dillion Jeff didn’t hesitate. There came a metallic thump as he lowered his pistol.

  He sees your camera. Now would probably be a good time to lower it, too.

  But doing so somehow went against the grain of everything Dillion knew. Events didn’t happen unless they were documented. That was the awful truth of the modern world. He had been counting on a surprise twist, and now a pun called providence had shown him the way. Here stood the fifth business and change agent; a joker in the deck to herald in the McGuffin. Instead of dropping the camera, Dillion palmed the zoom button.

  Inside the viewfinder, Jeff’s gun had been replaced by an even bigger one.

  The stranger looked closely at them, reserving his core attention for Carolina. Then he lowered the butt of his shotgun.

  ‘Mom,’ the vagrant said. ‘You’ve finally come home.’

  It was the kind of reveal Dillion could not have foreseen even if the night had been scripted. Certainly not the kind reserved for a category of film belonging in the found-footage niche. A prodigal son, born of a virgin, decides to return home to the place of his conception. A family reunion in the offing … reunification of both mother and son set on the blasted landscape of a school. And where was Daddy in the equation? Why, he was everywhere, of course – he was in every lost corner and abandoned hallway. He was the black, malformed tide of a dark cloud.

  The others don’t get it; they haven’t made the connection yet. And neither has Carolina.

  But slowly they did. Alyssa, her head moving from Carolina to the stranger, simply mouthed the words: No.

  Then all at once Carolina’s deportment changed; she seemed to shrivel inside herself. Taking a step cl
oser, she peered at the newcomer as though addressing a familiar. Though no telltale features were evident, of course. In this light, there was no way to discern any physical similarities. But, as any twin or mother would no doubt know intuitively, sometimes parallels weren’t needed.

  Sometimes people just understood blood was thicker than water.

  ‘Maddox?’ she asked. And took another staggering step forward. ‘Maddox?’

  Dillion filmed the stranger’s Adam’s-apple working as he rose to form a reply. Then he shifted his bodyweight and raised the shotgun again, suddenly taking aim at something to the left of the group.

  An explosion of shotgun pellets rang out, each recoil like an avalanche of sound. Dillion ducked, cowering. Three shots later he slowly raised his head again.

  Bent-backed and twisted, another strange animal had wandered into their midst, only to be cut down by the stranger. Far larger than Jeff’s victim, its wounded flank grouted in blood. Bullets had gouged four ragged holes, each of them wide enough to display slick transparencies.

  ‘They’ve started coming out at night,’ the vagrant said matter-of-factly. Striding toward his kill, he moved like a man in need of a cane. ‘There was a time they only moved during the day. Moved in packs, too, just like regular dogs. Back then they still looked like normal dogs, too. Enough so you could tell them apart, anyway.’

  Bending over his considerable weight, the man grabbed the animal by its neck and hoisted it. A squelching sound could be heard as whatever made up the things anatomy went through its stealthy mode of decay. For a moment