He looked to his left, up the rest of the steps. It looked a long way up, and had no candles along the floor at the top so that it seemed too dark to him. He held the dog’s head up near his ear and cocked his head slightly to the side. Kazi nodded, and began walking to the dark at the top of the steps.
2
Inside his head, the voice of Dog told him all:
This is your house now, Kazi. I know all about how the kids have treated you. But I’m your friend. I’m a boy’s best friend. I know about how you’re feeling, but there’s nothing to be scared of. Can you give me your loyalty, like I’m giving you mine? Because I know what great power you have in you— power you don’t even know. That babushka of yours knew, didn’t she? Didn’t she pull you aside when you were three years old and tell your mother that she thought you had the Sight? Didn’t she? If I’m lying, I might as well be dead. She knew, and maybe you don’t even know that it’s going to erupt in you in another year when your body changes and you start moving toward manhood. It doesn’t come when you’re a kid. It arrives full-blown when you’re twelve or thirteen, when your voice changes, when you grow hair in places you didn’t think you’d ever grow hair, Kazi. That’s when it jumps out at you and suddenly you start understanding things that you would not have understood a week before. That’s when you start seeing things that might happen, or dreaming them, and then when they happen, you gradually understand you have this ability.
You aren’t even feeling it yet, but your journey has already begun. We like to call it a Hunch. You have a Hunch, don’t you? You came into this house not because you really were scared of Mr. Spider outside with his funny way of talking— he was nervous around you, kid. Nervous as hell. Because you’re coming here makes him wonder how much value he offers any of us here. You have more potential Hunch in your little finger than he has in his entire body. Hell, he has to raise demons sometimes to get his power, and you and I know there ain’t no such thing as demons or angels or all that imaginary friend baloney.
You got the Hunch big, my boy. It’ll hit you hard soon enough, but it’s already started coming through. We knew it the moment we saw you. You got a big talent on the way, and it goes back centuries in your clan, maybe back to when people lived in caves and worshipped bears and bulls. Your mama don’t got it. Your daddy definitely was running on empty. But babushka had it and babushka’s grandpa and you got the talent coming your way like a piano player has it or a singer has it or a one-trick pony has it.
Even you and me talking right now. It means you have it, because I don’t just talk to anybody. Only my best friend. My pal.
You.
And your Hunch led you here, and into those rooms where you saw what crazy people do when they stay here too long. But you won’t end up like that. Your best bud won’t let it happen, Kazi. I see big things in your future. I see you maybe taking on a whole new life once we get this engine going.
Did I say engine? You can take the dog out of the pound, but you can’t take the pound out of the dog. I meant to say, this machinery. It’s vast here. Your being here helps grease the wheel a bit and get things moving. And that’s all for the good.
Okay, see how it’s all dark up here? Let’s hang a louie. You know, take a left. You want to meet Mrs. Fly—that’s her name, honest—she’s down this way, and she probably is in a pickle right about now.
You may be afraid of what you’ll see. Don’t be. There are tricks of the eye and of the mind here, but you just keep on track. Listen to me if you need guidance. I’ll make sure you navigate the rooms here.
When you see Mrs. Fly, I want you to ignore anything she says that might make you think she’s afraid of you as well.
3
Kazi took one cautious step after another. The floor was slick, and his footsteps echoed as he went. He passed several closed doors, following the suggestion of the dog’s head about where to go. He stopped and listened to the dog’s head every few feet, and as he continued walking, he began to see better in the dark and it scared him less and less.
Finally, he came to the one room on this floor that still had a closed door.
He brought the dog’s head up to his face and kissed it on top of the nose. “Okay,” he said. “I will.”
Then he opened the door.
4
The room was lit the way a doctor’s office was lit—bright, with flickering fluorescent tubes in the overhead ceiling lamps, and with other long wiry lamps that stood near the two small windows. It was a fairly small room compared to others he’d seen in the house.
Inside was a narrow bed with four posts and a headboard. The mattress was stripped bare, and Kazi could see dark stains along it.
Mrs. Fly lay in the bed, her wrists strapped to the posts at the headboard, and her legs strapped to the lower posts.
She was completely naked, and shiny with sweat.
He had never seen a naked woman before, and it nearly scared him, but as he listened to the dog’s head, he felt a little better.
There was dried blood along her stomach, and a strange incision running from her lower belly down to a thatch of hair at the place where her legs met.
Her mouth had a strip of cloth tied fast, and he could see her teeth over it.
A blindfold, wrapped around her eyes.
He heard a gentle humming as he stepped into the room, clutching the dog’s head a little too tightly. He looked up at the lights—they might’ve caused the humming, but he wasn’t sure.
He went over to help her. He thought of Mr. Spider, and wondered if he had done this terrible thing to his wife. Kazi didn’t understand why Mrs. Fly was tied up like this, but he wanted to undo her blindfold and her gag and try to help her.
He went over to her, setting the dog’s head on the floor near his feet. First, he tugged at the cloth in her mouth— she nearly bit off his fingers as she felt him touching her lips. He decided to try to get it off from the side instead, but it was all knotted and twisted and damp from her spit sliding down her face.
He listened to the dog’s head, which seemed to know where things were.
Kazi followed the dog’s instructions and went over to a metal table near the window. On it were a small saw that had hair on it, a little mallet, a little metal pick with a wooden handle, a box cutter, and a small tube of some kind of glue with its cap off.
He picked up the box cutter.
Returning to Mrs. Fly’s side, he sliced the cutter through the gag, and it fell away.
Her lips looked parched and her teeth were scummy as she rasped, “Please. Hurry. Please. Another one. Another one. Coming.” Her voice was like a rattle from her throat, but he could understand her well enough.
Then he took the box cutter and sliced the blindfold down the side, also, being careful not to cut her.
He drew the blindfold off.
Her eyes were closed in a way that looked as if someone had glued them shut. She made efforts to open them, but there seemed to be a thin seam of glue between the upper and lower lids.
“Stay still,” he whispered. “You have to stay still. I can help you.”
She nodded.
“I can cut your eyes open so you can see. But you have to stay still. If you don’t, I might hurt you. By accident. I don’t want to. I’m here to help you.”
The humming he’d heard before grew a little louder, and it sounded like someone was in the next room humming—it droned and droned, and he didn’t know what to make of it, nor did the dog’s head tell him what the humming might be.
He knew he had to be very careful with the box cutter, or he might slice into Mrs. Fly’s eyes. He grasped the box cutter close to the razor edge of it. He brought it to her right eye, which was nearest to him. It looked as if she was still trying to force her eyes open.
“Stop it,” he said.
Her right eye still twitched beneath the glued lids.
“I mean it,” he said. “I can’t help you unless you stay still.”
She swallow
ed, groaning a little. She nodded again.
He brought the box cutter blade to the edge of her eye. He sliced a little above the lid, and a tiny trickle of blood appeared, but she remained still.
He put his face as close to her eyelid as possible so he could see exactly where the lids met. He pressed the blade there, and drew it across the eyelid.
Her eyelids parted.
Kazi gasped, stepping back and dropping the box cutter to the floor.
It clattered as it hit the floor.
She doesn’t have any eyes.
Where her right eye should’ve been, he saw a small pit. The flesh from around her eye socket had sunken and formed around the hole that had been left when her eye had been extracted.
Her lips parted. “There are other ones,” she said, her voice as dry as a desert wind.
“Other ones?” Kazi asked.
“Other Mrs. Flies,” she said.
5
After he cut through her restraints, Mrs. Fly touched his face with her hands. “I have a baby,” she whispered. “Here. Somewhere. He took my baby.” Kazi backed up and bent down to pick up the dog’s head.
6
In the hall again, listening to the dog’s voice, Kazi went room to room, opening doors, and in each one, there was another woman blindfolded, gagged, her wrists tied in some manner, her clothes either torn from her, or ripped on her. Some of them seemed asleep; others seemed dead; they all had the cut down their lower belly that he could not bring himself to look at. There were perhaps seven of them that he saw, but there might have been more. The humming sound grew louder. It sounded like locusts.
7
Don’t be afraid, Dog told him. Mrs. Fly is not in any real pain. She signed on for this.
“How can there be so many?”
Mr. Spider catches them. He had one original Mrs. Fly, but he went out some nights to catch more of them. He likes to wrap them up in his web. But he loves them all. He really does.
“But they’re in pain.”
All life is pain. You have to somehow change the pain into something else, Kazi. When you were born, you gave your mother great pain. She spent three days in pain and felt as if a bayonet were being shoved out of her body. But she changed the pain to something purposeful. You understand that, don’t you? Mrs. Fly—all the Mrs. Flies—they are here for good reason. The same good reason you’re here.
“What’s the sound?”
Sound?
“It’s like people are humming.”
I don’t hear it. Maybe it’s only in your head, kid.
“It’s here. It’s like it’s in the walls.”
Well, maybe you’re imagining it. Sometimes, we can imagine things that aren’t real, the dog’s head told him.
“No, it’s real. It’s getting louder. It sounds like those locusts. The kinds that come out in the summer and you can hear them all night.”
Ah. Cicadas. Well, I doubt there are many of them in here, not this time of year. It’s getting too chilly for the little buggers.
“I think it’s coming from down there,” Kazi said, pointing with his free hand to the end of the hall.
Ah, the tower room. Sure. I bet there’s some cool stuff up there. Want to go?
8
Kazi went up a winding staircase, lit by the Mason jar candles he’d seen on the floor below. As he went, the humming increased and it tickled his ears a little.
At the top, an open door. As soon as he stepped through the doorway, the humming stopped.
Inside the curved room of the tower, there were piles of small brown sacks. Kazi remembered a sack like this in one of the rooms. Where? he thought. Then, he remembered— the room that looked as if someone had set it on fire. There had been a trash can, and near it had been a brown sack that was tied shut and wriggled slightly.
He went to one of the piles and lifted one of the sacks. It moved, as if a kitten was inside it.
When he opened it, he couldn’t see it clearly, but it looked like a large hairless rabbit at first.
He drew it from the sack, and held it in his hands.
Kazi had seen maggots before, in trash cans behind the school and once inside the torn open body of a dead squirrel.
But he had never seen one quite like this.
Its face was almost like a human baby, but its eyes were large and shiny white. It reminded him of a doll’s face, all shiny and slick and unpainted. The baby’s body was white-pink, and he could see through the skin a little to the pumping blood and what might’ve been the heart of the baby. It didn’t quite have arms, but had several bumps and ridges along what should’ve been its shoulders and side, and its body ended without any legs at all, just a stump. On its back, what looked like shriveled fly wings, with little veins in them, but not separate from its knobby spine—the wings were coated with the slick white of the body, and seemed to be melted into its back.
It wriggled in his hands and felt to him as if it moved more beneath its skin than on it. It began humming, and as it did, all the sacks around him began humming, too, and wriggling again as the children tried to get out of their sacks.
All those Mrs. Flies have been busy, said the dog’s head, on the floor near the empty sack. Are you scared of them?
Kazi shook his head, looking at the baby’s round white eyes that seemed to not see anything.
You’re part of them, Kazi. Your mind can control them, if you want. You have the ability to speak the language of the flies, my boy. All the Mrs. Flies gave birth—I watched them. Mr. Spider put me on the metal table as he helped their labors. He cut them open to make the passage easier, so that the Mrs. Flies wouldn’t feel pain at all. And they gave birth to multitudes, kid. They brought forth Harrow’s true children.
“Why?” Kazi asked, as the baby slipped from his fingers, and fell with a thud to the floor. The maggoty thing landed on its back and tried to roll side to side to right itself, but could not.
Because what exists in this place, Kazi, wants to live in the flesh. It is the will of all that have being—to come through into flesh and blood and bring forth its offspring. Like Mr. Spider, you will help, won’t you? You can midwife the entrance into this world with what’s inside you. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, kid. Light your little candle in the dark and let it glow. This may seem like a nightmare, but it’s really a wonderful dream made flesh, isn’t it? The marvel of life coming through those Mrs. Flies, coming from their wombs, their souls, mingled with the seed of Harrow itself, with the rituals of Mr. Spider and of all who have ever given their light to the house.
Will you give your light to the house, Kazi? If you do, you will be opening yourself to another world that is more fun than the one you live in outside these walls. If you do, you will be a god here, and all doors will be opened unto you.
Others will come tonight. Some will join you. Some will not.
“Who?”
A witch. A girl who sees truth in her dreams. A man who is called here by the dead.
They will be fuel for you. For us. But Harrow is ready. Go to the window. Go. You can see the light of others.
Kazi crossed the room, careful to avoid the wriggling, humming sacks. At the curved window, he pushed the panes back, and they opened onto what seemed at first to him to be daylight.
But the sky was dark.
The light came from the trees that lined the driveway— they were ablaze. And when he looked closer, he saw what seemed to be people in the trees, bound to them with rope and cloth, painted black, burning.
They are the dreamers set afire, the dog s head told him from across the round room. Their dreams continue, even while they light the way for others.
Along the edges of the driveway, he saw people from town—even some classmates he hated were there—all of them were on their knees as if praying to the burning people in the trees.
Are you one of us? the dog asked.
Now, further inside Kazi’s head, deeper than even Dog could dig, he felt as if he were at
home in his bed, sleeping, and all of this was some nightmare that had turned wonderful after it began very scary for him. It felt to that inner little boy that he was now in a dream that, as strange as it got, didn’t really frighten him. It excited him a little, actually. And that dreaming boy in his head didn’t mind that Kazi Vrabec, standing at the tower window of Harrow, nodded to the dog’s head that was back by the doorway, on the floor.
Didn’t mind watching people burning as torches in the thick branches of trees.
Didn’t mind seeing what looked like kids he knew from school on their knees along the long driveway up to the house.
“Who are they praying to?”
You, the dog’s head told him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1
In her shop on Main Street, Alice struggled to break free from Thad Allen’s chokehold on her. Sam had rushed over and jumped on Thad’s back, wrapping his arms around his neck, but Iliad would not let go of Alice’s throat. Alice brought her knee up to his groin in one quick motion, and even though she felt it smush right into his balls—the force so hard she had pushed one of them back up inside his body—his grip was like a vise, closing ever more tightly. She fought for breath. Sam dropped off Thad’s back, and she hoped that he was going to find another way to knock Thad out.
But as she lost breath, a vision came to her in a way that hadn’t happened in years:
She was inside Thad’s head.
It had never happened like this before. She had touched objects people had held and had seen things that told her what the objects meant. She had even had a sense of spirits that could communicate their emotions to her—in the past.
The Abandoned - A Horror Novel (Thriller, Supernatural), #4 of Harrow (The Harrow Haunting Series) Page 25
