“Sure,” Deem replied, walking into the house. Carma left Deem in the hallway, disappearing deeper into the house, and soon returned with a large wooden box covered in carvings. She opened the top, and Deem could see a rich silk lining inside. Deem placed the journal in the box and Carma closed it. “I’ll keep this in the drawing room. Feel free to take it wherever you want in the house, but not outside. Try to keep the book inside the box when you read it.”
“Alright,” Deem agreed.
“So you talked with Lorenzo, did you?” Carma asked.
“Yes. I asked him about the house. I told him something was wrong with David, and I wanted to know if he knew anything about that. He started to answer me when it faded out.”
“If it’s what I think it is,” Carma said, “the connection between Lorenzo’s mirror and the drawing in the book was reinforced when you found the mirror fragment. After all these years it’s likely that it only has enough energy to last for a few moments every day. The moon may recharge it. Try again tomorrow night, and use economy with your words. It’ll probably only last a few moments.”
“If I’m going to go see him in that house,” Deem mused aloud, thinking, “we’ll need to arrange a meeting place. He’ll have to meet me at the first duplicate, something like that. The copies go on and on; I could be wandering for hours otherwise.”
“Winn and David will be back tomorrow,” Carma said. “Let’s see what they find out before you go back there. And for heaven’s sake, please don’t go alone again. Really.” Carma gave her a disapproving look, but Deem could tell she was nevertheless excited by the news.
▪ ▪ ▪
Winston Talbot disappeared into another room, and David turned to Winn, holding the bandage against his arm where Winston had just drawn blood. “I’ve never seen so many records.”
“Me neither,” Winn replied, gazing up to the shelves that lined the cavernous room they were in. Thousands and thousands of vinyl LPs lined the shelves, covering each wall and running in freestanding racks that sliced the room into smaller aisles. “He said wholesale, so he must supply them to record stores.”
Winston reappeared. He was wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt that was too small for his large belly. “It’ll take a few moments for the blood to process,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to you, while we wait?”
David began the story. Winn browsed the shelves, occasionally seeing an artist he knew. David finished by relaying the events of the night before.
“We’ll wait on the blood,” Winston said, “but from what you’re describing to me, it sounds like some kind of paralytic. They’re often accompanied by memory loss. Further paralysis can occur when the memories return, and they’re often accompanied by hallucinations, making it hard to know if they’re really memories or not.”
“What could cause that?” David asked.
“Many different things,” Winston replied. “I could speculate, but it would probably just freak you out. I’ll wait for the blood on this one.”
Winston turned to look at Winn, who had removed an album from the shelves. He was inspecting a large black and white newspaper that he’d pulled from the sleeve.
“Ah, I see you found Thick as a Brick,” Winston said. “1972 US release, on Reprise, not Chrysalis.”
“The CD didn’t have all this in it,” Winn said, marveling at the dozens of fake news stories on the full-size newsprint. “I’m feeling a little ripped off. Are all LPs like this?”
“Not all, but many,” Winston said. “CD cases couldn’t accommodate anything like that. Album artwork and packaging was a much bigger deal back then. Of course, now with digital downloading, there’s practically no artwork at all. It’s a shame.”
“Yeah, this is like a collector’s item,” Winn mused, folding the newspaper back together so it could slide back into the album.
“You were raised on CDs, I take it?” Winston asked.
“My mother had some LPs, but we had no way to play them,” Winn replied. “So, yeah, just CDs.”
A soft buzzing erupted from the other room. “That’ll be the blood,” Winston said, turning to leave the room once again. “We’ll have some answers here in a moment.”
David joined Winn, watching as he tried to fold up the newspaper correctly. “What are CDs?” he asked.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Winn replied, suddenly feeling old, trapped between the nostalgia all around him and David, who only knew music played through an iPod.
“Yeah, I’m kidding,” David replied. “I know what CDs are. My parents had a few.”
Winston returned from the other room, looking at a small scrap of paper. “I was right, I’m afraid.”
Winn slid the album back onto the shelf and the two of them walked to Winston.
“It’s a type of paralytic that delivers an initial burst of paralysis and memory loss,” Winston said, “then responds to an outside force and grows like a poison in the system. It’s reproducing in you right now, becoming stronger. As your memories return, it’ll increase in strength until you’re completely paralyzed and your heart stops.”
Winn saw David turn white at the news. He was afraid the kid might throw up.
“What’s the cure?” Winn asked.
“Stop the outside force that’s causing the replication,” Winston replied. “That might be something you can ingest, or something that can shield you from whatever the force is. You say you remember being stabbed by something?”
“Yes,” David replied. “Something pierced my chest.” He illustrated by reaching up to his torso with his hand.
“Like a spider,” Winston said, “biting its prey, immobilizing it so it can devour it. Something in that house bit you and injected this substance into you, I expect.”
“Then why is he here, and not still in the house, immobilized?” Winn asked.
“No idea,” Winston replied.
“What can he take?” Winn asked. “As a cure?”
Winston looked down at his piece of paper. “With this chemical makeup, there’s a thousand different possibilities. Each would take time to make. Your best bet isn’t to look for an antidote; it’s to stop whatever force is causing the pathogen to replicate inside him. His body’s natural defenses can clean it out if it stops growing.”
“You mean, find the thing inside the house that bit him,” Winn said. “And kill it.”
“Precisely,” Winston replied.
▪ ▪ ▪
Winn pulled into Carma’s driveway. David had been asleep since they got in Winn’s Jeep at the airport and was still out. As he parked the car and turned off the engine, Winn looked over at David, feeling sorry for him. David had passed out twice on their trip back, thankfully not during the security line at the airport in Missoula. Winn had been there to catch him each time he dropped, keeping him propped up until they could find a place to sit. David usually regained his senses within a few minutes, apologizing and looking a little flush each time he found himself saved by Winn. Then he’d relate more visions of a figure crawling over him, stabbing his chest with something sharp. Each time David seemed weaker. Now, lying against the inside of the Jeep, the kid looked wiped out. Winn reached out to shake him, but he didn’t wake. He felt for a pulse and was relieved to find it normal and strong. Winn walked around to the passenger side of the Jeep and opened the door, then lifted David out of the vehicle and walked him to the house. Winn remembered how irritated he’d been with David when they left, and was a little surprised to find that he wasn’t nearly as irritated with him now, as they returned. A football player, David was plenty heavy — but Winn wasn’t minding. He tapped the door with his foot, and in a few moments Deem opened it, letting them in.
“How’d it go?” Deem asked.
“Let me get him up to bed,” Winn replied, carrying David past her and up the stairs. Deem saw that Winn hadn’t been able to close the door on his Jeep, so she walked outside and shut it, noticing the bats flying overhead. Then sh
e walked back inside.
Carma was waiting inside the entryway. “How’s David?” she asked.
“Winn took him straight up to bed,” Deem replied. “He wasn’t awake.”
“Oh, this isn’t good,” Carma said, wringing her hands. “Not good at all.”
Winn returned after another minute and the three of them made their way into the drawing room. It was dusk, and the large hill beyond the back yard was perfectly framed by the large windows of the room, looking almost black and white in the fading light.
“How’s he doing?” Deem asked.
“Pulse is fine, breathing seems normal,” Winn replied. “But the blackouts are increasing, and each time he recovers from one, he seems a lot weaker. Tells the same story each time, about his chest being pierced or stabbed by something that crawls on top of him.”
“When you called with the diagnosis,” Carma said, “I did some studying in my medical books. There’s clear precedent for eliminating the infection by killing the source.”
“Is that what this is?” Deem asked. “An infection?”
“Winston called it a poison,” Winn replied. “Like a spider bite, designed to paralyze the victim.”
“Except that there’s an ongoing connection between the spider and David that’s making it worse,” Carma said. “The spider continues to draw energy from him. In this case, you can kill the spider, and David will recover because the energy drain will stop.”
“I went back into the house,” Deem said.
Winn looked at her, shocked. “You did what?”
“I went back in,” she replied. “I needed to find that glass from the mirror. I did.”
“By yourself?” Winn asked.
“Yes.”
“Come on!” Winn replied, irritated. “When did we start doing stupid shit?”
“I had to do something!” she replied. “I couldn’t just sit on my ass down here waiting for you two, doing nothing.”
“You’re lucky you’re not up in bed, like David.”
“I found the glass, and it made some kind of connection to Lorenzo,” Deem said. “I can talk to him. Through the book.”
Winn shook his head, attempting to clear it. “You did what?”
“I made my way through the houses until I found one that had some of the mirror intact. I found a piece of it, big enough to look at. I could see something in it. And when I dropped out, the drawing in the book had changed. It was glowing, and I was able to speak to Lorenzo. It was only for a minute. He’s trapped there. He wants us to release him.”
“Does he?” Winn said, exasperated. He turned to Carma. “Any of this sound bad to you?”
“Very bad,” Carma said. “And there’s more. Tell him, Deem.”
Winn turned back to look at Deem. She had a sheepish look, as though she didn’t want to talk, but knew she had to.
“When I found the glass, I was forced to drop out,” she said. “I was cornered in the room, and something was coming in. I don’t know if it was Willard Bingham or not.”
Winn saw Carma shudder. “You know of Bingham?” Winn asked her.
“I remember the news stories about him,” Carma replied. “Very violent and brutal. The entire Wasatch front was quaking in their boots until he was caught. If that’s him in the house, you’re lucky to be alive, Deem.”
“And there’s more,” Deem said.
“More?” Winn asked.
“Something was in the room with me,” she replied. “At first I thought I might have imagined it, but I’m sure I didn’t. It was a man, hanging from the ceiling. He looked long dead, like a mummified corpse.”
“Just hanging there?” Winn asked.
“Yeah. He wasn’t hanging from a rope. There was some kind of substance attached to his head that stretched up to the ceiling.”
Winn sighed and fell back in his seat. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Fuck me,” he said. “I’m lost. Do you have any idea what any of it means?”
“No, but I think Lorenzo knows,” Deem replied. “I was only able to talk to him for a minute last night. Carma says it’s a once-a-day thing, that the book recharges with energy from the moon. I’m hoping we can use it again tonight to try and contact him.”
“Actually,” Carma said, “I think the time is at hand.” She pointed to the box containing the book. A weak glow emanated from its edges, from under the lid. “I think it wants to talk.”
Deem rose from her seat and walked to the box. “I’m going to open it, alright, Carma?”
Carma and Winn were right behind her, looking over her shoulder. “Go ahead,” Carma said. “But keep the book down inside the box. Don’t lift it out.”
Winn watched as Deem raised the lid. The light emanating from the page of the book illuminated the interior of the box. Deem twisted the book sideways, and then opened the cover, turning quickly to the drawing of the mirror.
Winn knew Deem had dropped into the River, so he joined her. He was shocked to see Lorenzo’s image in the mirror, covered in hideous boils. He felt Carma stiffen next to him as she also saw the disturbing vision.
Deem! Lorenzo said. You’re still there!
Yes, I’m here, she replied. With friends.
I don’t have much time, Lorenzo said. You must come to the house and find me.
We’re not going anywhere until you explain a few things, Winn said over Deem’s shoulder.
There’s not enough time to explain this way, Lorenzo said. The mirror will fade in a few seconds, we don’t have a strong enough connection yet. I have much to tell you, but you must come to the house.
How do we find you? Deem asked.
Five times out the front door, two out the hallway door, and nine out the kitchen door. Will you remember?
Five, two, and nine, Deem repeated. Got it.
And Deem, if you see something moving in the house, something that looks like a man but has changed, leave the River immediately, don’t…
The glow faded and Lorenzo was gone. They dropped from the flow.
“Fuck!” Winn said, turning to walk away from the book. “You can’t get back in touch with him?”
“Not unless we wait until tomorrow night,” Carma replied.
Deem closed the book and lowered the lid of the box. Then she turned to face Carma and Winn. “I say we go there, now. Talk to him. We know exactly how to reach him.”
“What was all that about something moving in the house?” Winn asked. “Something that looked like a man?”
“I believe that was what trapped me in the room,” Deem replied. “And I presume it was the thing that attacked David.”
“Fuck!” Winn said again, angrily.
“I know you’re upset, Winthrop, but really,” Carma chided. “Such liberal and unnecessary use of the f-word!”
“You want to go now?” Winn asked.
“Yes, now!” Deem replied. “Paragonah is only an hour up the interstate. I say we go now, find Lorenzo, and have him explain what’s going on so we can figure out a way to save David.”
Winn stared back at her. He knew she was right, but he had a bad feeling about the plan. Everything about Blackham house had been barreling forward so fast, outside of his control. He hadn’t signed up for it in the first place, he just found himself roped in to help save Deem and David. He’d felt the warning in the air when he first entered the place; now they were about to enter the house again, and delve deeply into it. It bothered him that Deem didn’t seem to recognize the danger.
“You don’t want to go?” Deem asked, seeing the reluctance on his face.
“No, it’s not that, Winn replied. “The house is fucked up, Deem. I know it, in my bones. You need to listen to me; we might make things worse. Suppose another one of us is attacked, like David.”
“If you see the Creepsis, just drop out,” Deem replied.
“Creepsis?” Carma asked.
“That’s what the kids of Paragonah call it,” Deem answered, “according to Professor Cloward.”
“Do you remember how to find Lorenzo?” Winn asked.
“Five, two, nine,” Deem replied with confidence. “Front door, kitchen door, hallway door.”
“Um,” Carma interjected, “I think it was front, then hallway, then kitchen.”
“Fuck me!” Winn said, turning away again in frustration.
“Again with the f-word!” Carma said, her lips pursing. “So unnecessary!”
“No, you’re right, Carma,” Deem said, “it was front, hallway, kitchen. You’re right.” Deem reached for a pen that was sitting on a table in the corner and scribbled the sequence onto the flesh of her palm.
“So as long as you don’t slip up and wash your hands, we’ll be fine,” Winn said as he watched her write.
Deem walked up to him. “Listen. We will never know what to do about David if we don’t talk to this guy. We go in, we follow the route, we drop out if we see the Creepsis.”
“And if we have to drop out?” Winn asked. “What then?”
“We wait for a while and try again,” Deem said. “Unless you can think of something better to try.”
Winn racked his brain for an alternative, Deem and Carma watching him. Carma’s perturbed look was changing to one of pity, and it pissed him off even more.
“No,” he said finally. “I don’t have an alternative.”
“You’d better get going,” Carma said. “I’ll keep an eye on David.”
Chapter Seven
Deem handed the flask to Winn and he took several large mouthfuls, swallowing them down with ease. Then he watched as Deem struggled to swallow the two gulps she took for herself.
“I think that’s got more alcohol in it than your father’s recipe,” Winn replied, getting out of Deem’s truck, shutting the door quietly.
“He was a better Mormon than me,” Deem replied, stowing the flask in her backpack. They both walked to the house in the dark. The moon hadn’t yet risen, and Blackham mansion sat before them as a dark silhouette against the starry night. Winn shivered looking at it, knowing it wasn’t just the empty, abandoned house it appeared to be.
The Blackham Mansion Haunting (The Downwinders Book 4) Page 7
