Kim could hear the maniac footfalls of the figure as it followed her, could hear the way those flopping white feet smacked the earth and trampled the tall grass underfoot. The pursuer's cry echoed through the otherwise quiet night, cutting through the air and leaving Kim partially stunned. The sound hit her ears like a dizzying punch, and in tandem with her tears she found it difficult to see straight. It was only an animalistic automatism that saw her through and kept her from collapsing due to sheer, debilitating fright. As she sprinted she could all but feel the grasping white hands upon her. Had she slowed for even an instant, it would have taken hold.
But she did not slow down, did not look back. And in the space of some few seconds, she'd rounded the corner, leaving the unmarked grave behind her, and could now see the back of the house, its windows lit up like welcoming beacons. Invigorated by this sight, she loosed a scream and charged onward, her leg muscles contracting so hard they quaked beneath her skin. She balled her fists and knocked a string of tears from her face, panting and listening for the sounds of her pursuer.
At some point, as the border of her property neared and she could no longer hear the footsteps behind her, she glanced back at the wall of trees. There, buried amidst the shadows, she saw the crooked, bone-white form of the monstrous crone, the body being drawn back into the black growth as if it were leashed. It lingered in the air for a time like a puppet and then disappeared altogether into the shadowy morass. The awful cry resounded once more, pained, jarring. And then silence returned.
Kim stumbled through the back yard, through the fire pit, and fumbled with the back door. When she'd managed to unlock it, she dove inside and bolted it, sobbing as she knelt down upon the kitchen floor. She crept away on all-fours, grasping at the edge of the kitchen table and hoisting herself up. She was a shuddering mass, a mess of spit and tears running down her face. Her lungs burned as if she'd inhaled hot smoke, and it was some time before she managed to regain her breath.
Kim had never been this scared before. The house had frightened her in the past with its creaky floors and dense shadows. Roller coasters, car accidents had all shaken her up before, too. But she'd never experienced anything like this. She placed a hand to her breast and felt her heart throttling in overdrive. Whether it would ever slow down again she was unsure.
She was a half hour in composing herself, and even when the tears stopped flowing the fear refused to dissipate. Cradling herself, her sweatshirt ringed in cold sweat, she fought her way through the house on sore legs and went upstairs. Slowly, she eased open the door to their bedroom, finding Julian snoring on the bed. As the hall light flashed across his sleeping form, he stirred and looked out at her sleepily. “Hey, close that, will you?” he asked, licking his lips. “My head's killing me, babe.”
Shuddering, Kim did as she was told. She said nothing, but simply closed the door and slumped against the wall outside.
Julian hadn't led her outside to the woods. He'd been asleep in bed the whole time. Something else was at work here. The house, some energy she hadn't accounted for, had taken advantage of her and led her there, posing as her husband.
She palmed at her eyes, gritting her teeth.
This was a new development.
Whatever was at work in this house was through with games.
The ante had been upped.
Twenty-Three
She wanted to wake him, to tell him everything that'd just happened.
But Kim knew that this was her fight. Convincing Julian that the house was haunted or that the possessed property had fooled her into going out into the woods was an exercise in futility. Julian had seen things there, been scared, but ultimately hadn't gotten worked up enough to act or even to ask the necessary questions. He was comfortable simply putting it out of his mind and letting her do all of the fretting.
So be it, she thought as she laid down in bed beside him. She'd taken a brief, hot shower and changed out of her sweat-soaked clothes. Kim wasn't feeling calm enough to sleep, but her body craved rest and the bed seemed to her the only secure place in the house. She didn't want to linger around downstairs, where she might peek through a window and find some monstrosity looking back at her. No, here in bed, she could do like Julian did and simply pretend everything was fine. Bumps in the night could go ignored, curious sounds from the woods could be blocked out by the pillow and she could emerge from the packet of covers when the sun was up.
Fatigued and shaken, she couldn't help but laugh at herself. In what now felt like a past life, Kim had always been critical of the characters in stereotypical haunted house movies. “Why don't they just leave the house, move somewhere else if they're so spooked?” she'd always wonder of the protagonists. Of course, in reality, things weren't that easy. She wondered if she couldn't convince Julian to leave the house and stay in a hotel for a while, but then, what would such a move solve? The presence surrounding this house, the bad vibes, would continue even without the two of them. She was sure. Moreover, this was their house, the asset they'd poured their time and money into for the past weeks. Though they could probably manage a short stint in a hotel, they'd have to come back eventually. Their only other alternative was homelessness. Staying with family wasn't much of an option, especially not in the long-term. The pair needed a place to live, and like it or not, the Beacon estate was it.
She wondered if leaving the house would be sufficient to break its hold over her anyway. No, it wouldn't be... She realized that it was her own curiosity that had allowed the property's potency to deepen, and it was ultimately this same curiosity that would keep her leashed to the property. Had she not prodded so much, had she not wondered about the former owners and sought to indulge her inquisitiveness at every chance, then perhaps she could have bought into the “old, unremarkable house” hypothesis that Julian believed. But she'd learned too much, had gone far too deep. The house, the property, had its claws in her. Even though she wished to flee, to never set her sights on this accursed, cupola-crowned abode again, she knew she couldn't do so until the mystery had been solved. And when you finally know what's going on around here... what happened to the previous owners, then you'll finally be at peace here.
Kim was shaken by the incident in the woods, and the mere thought of that hideous, screaming specter was enough to chill her blood. But she put it out of her mind. This was a house of secrets, tightly kept, and she wouldn't be able to make progress without first weathering her share of frights. She was safe and sound in bed now, could plan her future moves with more care so as to avoid that kind of set-up in the future. She'd been lured, tricked out into the woods. But it wouldn't happen again. She half-wondered if it hadn't been a fated encounter, too. Maybe the property was leading her down this track for a reason, feeding her clues one at a time. This, possibly, had been an educational incident, something meant to bring attention to a fresh clue and to get her back onto the right track. She'd hit a wall after discovering the rest of the journal was illegible, but then she'd picked up on a new trail. That grave near the woods. She would have to revisit it during daylight hours.
And, possibly, if she wanted some real answers, she would take a shovel with her.
Pursing her lips, Kim shoved the thought from her mind and fought to sleep. Her tired limbs pounded against the mattress. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply and curled up against Julian, who grumbled in his sleep.
The dreamscape opened up before her like a projector screen. She was shown the basement stairs, glowing in an ethereal light. Then, descending as though disembodied, the hidden door came into view. Slipping into the inky depths of the chamber, Kim could see her surroundings with more clarity than she could in her waking life. The table of Virgin Mary statues sat to the right, near the strange control panel on the wall. The fractured crib, the moldy changing table.
There was something in this scene that didn't quite fit, however.
Standing in front of the far wall was the silhouette of an old woman. Naked, sprigs of coarse silver hair dra
ping her bare shoulders, she seemed hard at work before the mural. The painted sun, even in this dream, seemed to grin back at Kim with great energy, and the colors appeared brighter, more vivid than they did in real life.
The sight of the woman, hunched and working at the mural, inspired caution in Kim, who stopped at the threshold of the room and merely watched. Her eyes were drawn to the painting, whose blank, open spaces had since been filled in. The woman was drawing, had some painting instrument in hand, and was making additions to the work she'd presumably started in life. Tall, black columns were sketched in, somewhat bent. She knew what the woman was drawing in an instant.
The woods.
Kim hated the sight of those trees, wanted to step forward and erase them, but she stopped in her tracks, not daring to move even a single inch. The woman at the mural had stopped, seemingly taking notice of Kim. This woman, naked and hunched, was fast becoming a fixture of her dreams. Kim had first seen her in the kitchen, making tea. The most recent sighting of the hag in the woods had taught her to use caution.
The woman was turning around to face her.
Kim tensed, looked away and wished she could hold up her hands in defense. She wasn't possessed of a proper body here, however. She was merely drifting through this environment, a spectator. The woman was going to look at her again with those dense, shadow-filled sockets where her eyes had been. She'd open her large and hideous mouth to loose that dread scream she now knew so well.
But instead, Kim saw Dakota's smiling face. The old woman had turned, growing several decades younger in the space of an instant. Dakota Reed, with her long, brown hair hanging low over her shoulders, turned, set down her brush and smiled at Kim warmly. She looked exactly like she did in the photographs Kim had seen. So... this mural is Dakota's work, then?
Kim remained silent, did not approach. For her part, Dakota, too, was silent. She continued to smile, still as a statue, until some other expression began to creep into her face. Kim recognized this, too, even if she'd never seen it with her own eyes before. Dakota's eyes began to widen, greatly, and her smile grew to exaggerated proportions. Her pearly teeth showed through her lips like the fangs of some savage animal, and her shoulders stiffened from their previously relaxed posture. This was what Dakota Reed really looked like. This was the Dakota from the journal; obsessed, hysterical. The Dakota that Edwin and Enid had never known.
Before Kim could even process the movement, Dakota was sprinting at her, face red and eyes ablaze. The effect was terrifying. She sprinted through the dim, dusty room like a demon, her bare feet smacking into the floors with thunderous steps that made their surroundings shake. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, screaming so loud that the dreamscape shuddered. Her teeth were bared, lips curled back. With every passing moment she appeared less and less human.
Kim stepped back into the blackness, was surrounded by it. Dakota disappeared in the next instant, just as she was about to reach the doorway of the chamber. Sighing with relief, Kim felt the dream ending and her mind ushered into a deeper phase of sleep. She'd been released from the dream, and just in time.
Kim awoke just before dawn. With some difficulty she managed to check the time. She hadn't been in bed long enough to get a full night's sleep, but somehow she found herself awake, the fragments of her dream clinging to her mind like a thin film. Sitting up in bed, she was pulling back the covers before she even realized it.
There was only one thing for her to do.
Kim stepped out of bed quietly, walked out of the bedroom and began downstairs. Then, in the kitchen, she unplugged her phone from its charger, activated the flashlight setting and stood before the cellar door. Sucking in a deep breath, she opened it and looked down the stairs at the darkened basement, at the shadows cast by the hulking door, still ajar.
She needed to go down there and check.
Last time Kim had dreamt of the woman, she'd come down to the kitchen only to discover the tea kettle and other assorted items out on the counter. Would it be the same thing with the mural? Would the dark trees be painted in where they didn't exist previously? There was only one way to find out. Bolstering her courage, she reached out and flipped on the cellar light. Then, slowly, she took the first step down. Then the next. Holding her phone firmly, she hopped down the last couple of steps onto the concrete floor.
She was standing outside the hidden chamber now, sticking the light through the narrow opening. Already she was sure of what she'd find, but she simply had to see it with her own eyes. She had to know whether Dakota Reed was really trying to reach out to her, and that her fevered dreams had contained some kernel of substance. Slipping inside, Kim blasted the far wall with light, giving a sharp whimper as the mural came into view.
“Oh... holy shit...” She staggered forward a few paces, studying the piece from end to end.
Sure enough, scrawled messily and repellently where before there'd been only empty space, was a wall of black, leafless trees. Perhaps it was simply the darkness of the chamber or the haphazard way in which they'd been thrust upon the wall, however the trees seemed to her nauseously life-like.
She walked up to it, gulping down dust and dread in equal parts, and canvassed the painting in disbelief. The light shook as she took in the bright yellow sun, still grinning eerily, the blue sky. And then those damnable trees. The paint still looked wet, the streaks of black not yet fully dried. They'd been painted very recently indeed.
As Kim approached the mural, she stepped on something. Recoiling immediately and thinking it a large insect, she jumped back and looked downward, lifting her bare foot and examining the sole. There was a smudge of reddish blood upon it. Thinking it strange, she brought the flashlight's beam to the floor and examined the soiled concrete.
There, on the floor before her, was a severed fingertip. It was still moist, runny, the blood nearly obscuring the pearly blue nail polish on the nail bed.
She moaned and tumbled back, dropping her phone. It flickered for a moment before stabilizing, sitting a few feet away from her. What is that doing down here? she thought, her heart thundering in her ears.
Then, from behind her, her light a bit too far for her to easily reach, Kim heard something.
The sound of a palm striking the cold, concrete wall. It came from the corner directly at her back, where the table full of statues was situated.
She could feel eyes on her. Dozens, maybe hundreds of eyes all converging on her trembling body from somewhere in the darkness. Shaking, she lurched forward and took hold of her light. Then, scrambling away so that her back was up against the broken crib, she flashed it into the corner.
Her scream rang throughout the house.
Twenty-Four
Behind her, the shadows seemed to churn.
Looking up into the blackness, to the dim corner of the concrete chamber, something appeared to creep along the wall. A statue fell from the table, splintering at once. Like the beating of some shadowy heart, the writhing blackness along the walls began to expand and contract. Kim wasn't sure what she saw in it, if anything, but it was sufficient to make her scream. She struggled to her phone on all fours and then hopped to her feet, springing out across the room and exiting. She stomped her way up the cellar stairs, arriving in the kitchen where the first stirrings of dawn could be seen to peek in through the windows. She shut the cellar door behind her and slumped against it feebly. She was sweating profusely, shaking.
She needed to calm her nerves, to slow the racing of her heart. If she failed to do so, she felt somehow certain she would die. Hand on her chest, she paced for a moment in front of the basement door, her other palm pressed against it as if to ensure it was sealed and solid. Panting, she tried to make sense of what she'd seen down there. It was early morning, of course. Perhaps some lingering bit of sleep had blurred her vision, made things appear downstairs that weren't really there.
No.
There was no use in denying it.
A nervous wreck, Kim ambled to th
e sink and washed her face. Then, licking at her lips, she looked out the window at the new day, the sun breaking through the thin cover of clouds. The woods were still heavy with night, casting their usual shadows. Tendrils of black, like smoke, seemed to waft up from the inner depths of the woods. She turned away, pawing at her bandaged finger and milling around furtively. After starting the coffee maker, she took a seat at the table, sniffing at the cool air as it was scented by the fresh brew. The familiar scent was soothing, but it did little to efface the air of malevolence that'd settled over her. In that inky mass of shadows she'd sensed something intense, perhaps hatred.
She heard a thump from the upstairs. Then another. Fearfully, she looked to the doorway, tensing up. Someone was coming. Kim gripped the edge of the table till her knuckles grew white and her heart picked up once more, seizing rapidly as loud, clumsy footfalls issued from the nearby living room.
It was Julian.
Wiping sleep from his eyes, he coughed and looked over at Kim dully, his pajamas thoroughly wrinkled and a crust of drool along the corner of his mouth. “How long you been up?” he asked, apparently missing the terror in her expression by a mile. He switched on the kitchen light, blinked hard, and then walked over to the coffee maker. He set up two mugs and dumped a few teaspoons of sugar into his.
Black Acres- The Complete Collection Page 14
