by Alan Spencer
Chapter Seven
It wasn’t the God-awful smell or the strange red color of the room that forced Morty out of a deep sleep. It was the chills raking his body. Every muscle ached and throbbed, as did his head. The sheets were soaked in feverish perspiration. Morty was curled up on his side shivering so hard his shoulder blades were in pain. His throat was sore from a cold? The flu? Or some other sickness he didn’t know about, maybe? Whatever was attacking his immune system, it kept him paralyzed on the bed facing the bedroom doorway.
Morty couldn’t look away from it.
It was like a force compelled him.
What the fuck do you want from me? Goddamn you! What have you done with my wife? Am I going insane? Tell me, am I going crazy?
Morty thought he said those words out loud, but they only echoed in his mind. The charcoal tracings around the doorway burned. The charcoal black became a bright cinder-red. A heat emanated from the outline of the door.
Tell me what you want with me or else leave me alone? Did you take her away? Do you have Glenda? Give her back to me! Give her back, or, or, or I’ll kill you!
God help me, I’ll—
Show yourself so I can—
Tell me what this doorway means, and I will—
The room was thick with the smell of burning things. He could’ve been inside of a giant toaster oven. Glenda had overcooked a Thanksgiving turkey one year, and the bird was crispy black and inedible. The damn thing was nearly on fire. The gray smoke was something you could choke on. What was coming from the outline of the doorway was so much worse.
The doorway had crippled him. It had injected a sickness into his weary bones. Weighed down with these afflictions, Morty couldn’t shout for help.
Cheyenne, run! Call the police, and get away from here fast! It’s dangerous. The doorway. It’s evil!
Morty was coughing up smoke. His insides were being cooked by an intense heat. He could feel fluids boil inside his stomach.
Run, Cheyenne, run!
“—she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead…OH GOD SHE’S DEAD!!!”
“Dad, wake up! Daaaaaaaaaad!”
Cheyenne was shaking him hard by both shoulders. The force was knocking aside the sheets and pillows. He snapped out of the dream, the fugue state. Whatever he was going through, he didn’t know the difference between dreams and reality or sleep and insanity. He was about to point at the wall, to say the doorway was dangerous, so get out of the room, but the perimeter of the doorway wasn’t burning anymore.
Morty’s throat was ragged.
How long had he been yelling?
She’s dead.
She’s dead.
She’s dead.
How many times had he shouted those words at the top of his lungs? Poor Cheyenne. Morty considered how it must’ve been for her to wake up with her father shouting those horrible things. He kept apologizing to her. He was so, so sorry.
Cheyenne told him to breathe and not say a word.
She pressed her hand against his forehead. “Oh my God. You’re burning up, Dad.”
Cheyenne took his temperature. “You’ve got a fever. You need rest. This has been too much for you. You poor thing.”
“It’s been too much for everyone.” Every syllable made his throat seize up in pain. “Glenda needs me. There’s so much we don’t know. I should be scouring the streets. I should be doing more than just—”
“We’re doing everything in our power to find Mom. You can’t keep on like this. You have to rest. I know it’s the last thing you want to do. But look at you. You sound awful, and you’re so pale. You have to keep yourself healthy.”
Cheyenne gave him whatever over-the-counter fever and cold medicine Morty had in the medicine cabinet. Cheyenne brewed some hot tea. He sipped on it. Every little bit he forced down made him wince in pain.
“Sleep, Dad. Try not to think about anything else for now. We’ll see how you feel in the morning. Deal?”
“Yes. Okay.”
Morty checked the digital clock beside the bed. It was three in the morning. He did need rest. An overwhelming fatigue suddenly hit him. Whether it was the cold medicine kicking in or his body forcing him to close his eyes, Morty was fast asleep in minutes.
Cheyenne returned to bed.
She was very worried about her father.
Chapter Eight
Morty wanted to scour the earth for Glenda. He would search every house, question every citizen and replay the events of that night until he came up with something he missed. The problem: Morty simply couldn’t move. Dr. Hillman, a doctor who lived four houses down from Morty’s, was summoned by Cheyenne to check in on her ailing father. The doctor’s assessment: he was overstressed, and he had succumbed to a mean virus. Dr. Hillman wrote a prescription for some antibiotics and medicine that would knock him out. Rest was what he needed, the doctor kept emphasizing. Cheyenne drove to the local Walgreen’s to fill the prescriptions, while Dr. Hillman kept talking to Morty.
“I know you’ve had a hard few days, but you have to take care of yourself. Stress can do very bad things to the body. It’s obvious you’re not in a good place in your head, Morty, and it’s perfectly understandable why. Everybody wants to see Glenda back home safe and sound. But you can’t go against what your body is telling you. Cheyenne is doing a wonderful job with things here. She’s going around town putting up flyers with that woman, what’s her name? Hannah, yes, that’s right. Everybody in town is doing their part. Everything is being done that can be done. You’ve already worried yourself sick, Morty. There’s no need to make it worse. Rest. That’s an order.”
Morty promised he’d stay in bed. Not that he had a choice. The swelling in his head, the skull-compressing migraine, the burning hot fever, how he ached from head to toe, it kept him anchored down in bed.
Soon after Dr. Hillman wished him well and left the house, Cheyenne returned. She gave Morty the proper doses of pills from three different bottles. She assured him he would soon be asleep. Before he did slip back into a pharmaceutical slumber, the knock at the door concerned him.
It was Detective Larson.
Morty heard the detective talk at the front door to Cheyenne.
“Can I visit with Morty? Apparently he talked to a reporter the other day. The article is in the morning newspaper. It goes on about a doorway in this house. There’s a whole supernatural slant to the case now. I’m getting all kinds of weird calls down at the station. People who think they have leads when all they have is a fabricated story to tell. I really need to talk to Morty and find out exactly what he told that reporter.”
Cheyenne remained calm against the detective’s urgency. “He’s sick in bed. He’s not well. I can give him a message later.”
“Are you sure he can’t talk now? It’s really important that I—”
“My dad’s stressed himself out to the point he’s got a fever. He’s asleep. If there’s anything you need to tell him, you can tell me. The poor guy’s been through enough already. We’ve all been through hell lately. Go easy on us, if you can. Please, Detective.”
A long silence followed Cheyenne’s response.
“Yes, you’re right. I apologize. It’s just that talking to press can complicate things. Even talking to the small-time local papers can cause a media firestorm. I’ve made a statement to the press about the case, and that’s all the media needs to know. Please tell Morty not to give any more statements to anybody. Everything I’m doing is on the behalf of your mother. I’m doing everything I can to bring her home. I can’t let a dumb reporter get in the way of finding Glenda safely.”
Cheyenne thanked him, and said she understood his position. They went on to say a few things about arranging a voluntary search party to cover more ground tomorrow. By then, Morty had fallen into a deep medicated sleep.
Cha
pter Nine
Morty tossed and turned in bed. He wasn’t in any better shape when he woke up, however many hours he had snoozed away. Tears streamed down from his eyes. Had he been sobbing? How did someone cry when they were asleep? His throat was so dry. When he coughed up mucous from the pit of his throat, his vision went double, and his skull tightened around his brains. Such agony!
Unable to will his body to get up from the bed for a drink of water, it was a matter of seconds after being awake that it didn’t matter how much his body ailed him. The room was cast in that awful red color again. The room was a hot box of fire and cooking blood. Awful smells betrayed his nostrils of things that shouldn’t be burned.
The outline around the bedroom doorway was so blaring bright he squinted against its powerful intensity. Morty shouted many things: questions, accusations, horror. The outline kept burning brighter with every word Morty spat in its direction. Then with all the power Morty could muster in his weakened state, he threw aside the blankets and sheets, lifted himself up off the bed, lunged for the wall and—
“—I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me! I only wanted to ask you some more questions. Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let myself into the house. Please don’t call the police. I didn’t mean any harm. I only want to help your wife. Everybody in the community has good things to say about your wife. Hey, let me go you son of a bitch. What are you doing? You’re HURTING me!”
The blonde woman in Morty’s clutches slipped from his grip and hit the floor hard. Her face was scrunched up in horror. A scream was about to leave her lips. Arms shielded her body from harm. Harm from him. Morty had been clutching her in one hand, and the other hand had torn a streak down her sweater, parting her bra, and revealing one of her breasts. Appalled, angry and terrified of the sickly man who suddenly sprang alive to assault her, Janet Ranscombe got back to her feet and fled the house. A collection of curses escaped the reporter’s lips during every step of her fast retreat.
Morty collapsed back into bed and fell asleep again.
He would forget this moment ever happened.
The colors burning around the bedroom doorway were gone.
Chapter Ten
Janet Ranscombe buttoned her pea coat over her torn sweater to protect her decency as she fled Morty’s house. Nail marks raked down her sternum and across her right breast. One of the bastard’s nails had split her nipple. The wound stung, issuing a small amount of blood. The shock of it was still setting in. Janet stayed in her car parked across the street and collected herself. Her breath was starting to even out again. Her boss told her she needed a follow-up to her first story on the disappearance of Glenda Saggs. One just as sensational. People loved ghosts stories and missing persons cases, and put them together, it was investigative gold.
Looking in the rearview mirror, she saw her long blonde hair was undone. Morty had yanked on her ponytail as if to rip it from her scalp. Morty slapped her face and almost got a hold of her neck after clawing her chest.
What else would he have done to me if I didn’t escape?
It was clear there was something wrong with Morty Saggs. He was psychotic and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. When psychotic people had breakdowns, innocent people were in danger. The burning question on her mind was, was his breakdown because of Glenda Saggs’s strange disappearance, or was it because the man had something to do with her vanishing?
Was Morty Saggs a killer?
The possibility was strong.
More troubling still, when Janet knocked on the man’s door earlier, she heard Morty call out to her from his bedroom. He said it was okay for her to come inside for a talk. He apologized for being sick and told her to keep his distance if she didn’t want to catch his virus. Janet felt guilty exploiting him, but Morty was so friendly and welcoming. He said he’d do anything to have Glenda back home safe and sound. He was genuine. How could she not let her guard down? The man let her ask any question on her mind. Most of those questions pertained to the burning doorway he mentioned the other day. She asked him where this burning doorway had appeared. Morty pointed right behind her at the bedroom’s doorway. She traced the edges of the doorway with her hand, merely grazing the surface. There was nothing special there. She felt like an idiot during that moment, then she was screaming. Morty rose up from bed and assaulted her. The altercation had happened in seconds.
Morty’s wicked facial expression was etched into her memory. She feared the man. She feared for Glenda’s whereabouts. Sure, she had done bad things in the past to get a story. Those were matters of bending the rules, but this, THIS, was morally reprehensible.
Janet had to do the right thing and tell the police that Morty Saggs could very much be a killer.
Chapter Eleven
Judging by the color of the drawn window shades in Morty’s bedroom window, it was nighttime. Morty had slept through the entire day. He didn’t feel much better after so much sleep. Morty would’ve slept longer if it weren’t for the sound of the front door opening and closing and the sound of Hannah and Cheyenne talking to each other. Hannah checked in on Morty, peeking her head through the bedroom doorway. The woman looked absolutely exhausted. Hannah said there was a wide-scale search party happening, and everybody was hoping new facts pertaining to the case might surface. That Glenda would come home safe. He could only thank Hannah over and over again for everything she was doing for Glenda. Hannah told him to rest and to get better as soon as possible. When Hannah left the house, Cheyenne came into the room and checked his temperature.
“The fever’s gone down a little bit. It’s still too high. How do you feel?”
“About the same,” Morty said, looking at his daughter, who was very tired. “This isn’t just hard on me. It’s hard on you too. Are you taking care of yourself?”
Cheyenne gave him that smile that said she was fine even though everything in her eyes said the very opposite.
“I bought you some egg drop soup. I know how much you like it.”
Morty was starving. The very mention of egg drop soup had him perking up in bed. He ate the soup while Cheyenne took a shower.
When Morty ate the food, he noticed there was a speck of red under his pointer finger’s nail. The red flaked away when he rubbed his fingers together.
Odd, he thought. Where did that come from?
Cheyenne was asleep in the other room. After eating, Morty too had fallen asleep for a few more hours. His dreams were empty and black, unlike his bedroom. The room was bright with that intense red. It stayed that color for minutes, painting Morty with its strange firelight color. Morty came out of his sleep only when the smell intensified. Sulfur infused with burning wood. He stared at the burning outline of the doorway. He had to understand it. The outline was cooking, smoldering and reeking. Morty wanted to make the pain in his eye sockets stop, but he couldn’t draw his eyes from what was happening. Daggers of heat soldered his retinas. The room was burning his skin. The room was an oven, and he was being cooked alive.
Make it stop make it stop make it stop oh my God MAKE IT STOP!
He shielded his face with his hands. It didn’t help, because the intensity of the light bled right through his hands. He could see his bones, like he was viewing a CAT scan picture.
Cheyenne! Cheyenne, are you out there? Stay away from this house. It’s not safe here. Something is very wrong. I don’t know what it is, but it’s done something to Glenda. I just know it.
Morty, trying to escape the room, collapsed onto the floor. He was so weak. As he lay splayed on the ground, the red light eased up enough he could see more of the room again. He was facing underneath the bed. Morty saw it within arm’s reach. The item had been hidden under the bed this whole time.
He reached out and touched it.
Glenda’s slipper.
It was covered in dried blood.
Chapter Twelve
Morty wo
ke in bed feeling like he never had a fever. In fact, he felt refreshed. That relief was curtailed when he remembered last night. The burning doorway. The horrible red color. And Glenda’s bloody slipper under the bed. Morty shot up out of bed, lowered onto his stomach, and reached under the bed. He couldn’t look. He was so afraid what he thought he recalled could be true. It would mean so many new things. Terrible, horrible things.
Uncovering the mystery, Morty gasped when his finger touched the slipper. When he retrieved it and put it up to the light, it was in fact Glenda’s slipper. The toe was covered in three wild spots of blood.
Oh no, Glenda.
His heart sank. This proved foul play. Glenda was in danger. It wasn’t speculation. It was fact. Something terrible had happened to Glenda. She wasn’t just missing. She could be dead. Before Cheyenne woke up, Morty called Detective Larson with the startling news.
Detective Larson asked Morty to step outside when the crew arrived on the scene. Cops were canvassing the house and treating it like an actual crime scene. Detective Larson kept telling Morty it was only a formality. Simple procedure. It means nothing against you. It’s to find your wife, Morty. And we all want to find her in a safe and good way.
Cheyenne stayed at Morty’s side while this was happening. She was horrified to learn one of Glenda’s slippers was found covered in blood. The lab was going to test the blood and confirm or disconfirm that it was actually Glenda’s blood. People were coming and going in the house, like cops, investigators and anybody else who was involved in this type of investigation. Morty and his daughter stood there as quiet, concerned spectators.
Forty-five minutes into the home search, Cheyenne didn’t like it when Detective Larson asked if Morty would go down to the police station to answer some more questions.
“It’s only some questions. There’s no need to worry. I’m only trying to piece together my investigation with this new evidence.”
