by Ron Ripley
"I will take an eye out in a minute," Shane said. "First one, and then the other. So you better lower your tone and remember what we need to do."
Ollie's face paled, the blood rushing out of his cheeks. Without another word he stalked over to the breakfast nook and sat down.
"So your wife and kids have left," Shane said.
Ollie nodded.
"Good. Pete, did you call your ex again?" Shane asked.
"Yes," Pete said, his voice soft as he pulled apart a paper napkin, piling the bits up on the table.
"What's going on with that?" Shane said.
"We have twenty rooms at our disposal, with the ability to get more, if we need them," Pete said, not looking up at him.
"Good," Shane said. He looked to Frank.
"I sent a text to Asa," Frank said. "He'll be coming along soon. Wants to get Emma settled in."
"When do we go into Gaiman?" Mason asked.
"As soon as we get word that Asa's at the hotel," Shane answered. "That way you can begin shuffling people out if needed and he'll be there to treat them."
"Can't we just pass this on to the State Police?" Pete asked, his voice anxious. "They can deal with all of this, we won't even have to worry about Kurkow."
Shane pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He kept them shut as he spoke.
"Listen to me, Peter," Shane said, keeping his voice flat. "We are all going to go to Kurkow Prison. We are going to secure the inner doors. Then, we are going to secure the outer doors. Afterward, we will go to Mulberry Street and take care of whoever remains."
"I'd really rather not," Pete whispered.
"Let's not get into a whole discussion about rather nots, okay?" Mason said, stepping in. "From what I understand, we're in this situation because of you. So shut your mouth, get a hold of yourself, and get ready to go in and do whatever damage needs to be done."
Pete kept quiet and looked down at the table.
"You still want to do this?" Ollie asked, his voice thrumming with anger. "You still want to go in there with only what, you three and us keeping watch?"
Shane grinned. "I have gone into worse places, with a whole lot less."
He kept his gaze fixed on Ollie until he, like Pete, looked away and at the table.
When neither of the brothers said anything, Shane walked over to the cabinets and began to open them. After a moment Ollie asked, "What are you looking for?"
"Whiskey," Shane answered. "I'm thirsty."
"We're going to go into a prison full of the dead," Ollie said.
"All the more reason to not be sober," Shane replied, and continued his search of Ollie's cabinets.
Chapter 52: Dazed, Confused, and Angry
When Emma woke up, it was to excruciating agony. She had no way to equivocate the pain, no marker. Emma had literally never hurt so much in her life.
A piercing beep, repeated at short intervals, caused her head to ache. As she looked around the room, the memories of Kurkow Prison and the nightmare she had suffered returned to her. Panic welled up inside her, and she fought it down, forcing herself to sit up in spite of the pain.
The door to the room opened, a low light spilling in from the hall beyond. She saw the man named Asa, a concerned look on his face as he stepped in.
"You should lie back down," he said, his voice low and soothing. "You suffered quite a bit of physical trauma. I'd rather not have to treat you for anything else."
Emma groaned and let herself flop back onto the bed. She inhaled sharply as the pain spiked for a heartbeat. Asa came and stood by her side.
"I'm sorry the pain medication wore off," Asa said, "but I am leery of giving too much. I can offer you a little more, however, to make the ride to the hospital bearable."
"That'd be good," she said between clenched teeth.
Asa turned away, went to a small sink and poured a glass of water for her before he took down a bottle of pills from a shelf. He brought a single, small pill and the glass to her.
"Slowly," he said. "Don't rush it."
She nodded and kept herself under control. Her mouth was dry, her throat burning. The water was cool, and the pill was washed down with ease.
"Thank you," she managed to say after a moment.
He smiled at her. "You're quite welcome. I'm sorry, but all I have are hospital scrubs to put you in."
"What hospital are you bringing me to?" she asked.
"Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Lebanon," Asa answered. "It is the closest, and they are quite excellent. I will also be able to continue on to Gaiman from there."
"Gaiman?" Emma asked. "Why are you going into Gaiman?"
"To help whoever Frank and Shane manage to rescue," Asa answered.
"Wait," she said, shaking her head, trying to fight off the effects of the medication as they took hold. "Who else is hurt?"
"I'm not sure," Asa said.
"I want to help," Emma said, struggling to sit up. "I need to help. My friends."
"Shh," Asa said, putting a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder. "You need to rest. You are in no place to help anyone, not physically. Who knows what you will be able to do in a few days, but you need more extensive treatment than I can offer from my humble home."
"I need to help," Emma whispered, closing her eyes. "I have to help."
"And you will, in your own way," Asa said. "Now rest. I will have you in the hospital soon. I have friends at Dartmouth. They will take care of you."
His words drifted away, as did Emma's worries, and through the haze of narcotics, the removal of her IV was nothing more than a pleasant tug.
Chapter 53: No Good News
Fear had blossomed in Edmund's stomach, spread to his spine and crawled up his back to nestle in his skull. He had begun to ignore the steady, insistent destruction of his home. But he found himself focusing on the pistol in his lap.
They will be through the walls soon, Edmund told himself. He opened the cylinder on the pistol, looked at the way the dull brass of the shells glowed in the firelight, and then closed the cylinder.
He repeated the action several times, unable to stop himself.
Edmund knew it for what it was, an attempt to feel safe.
Something he had done as a child and as a teenager. Never as an adult, not even after all of the accidental deaths.
He put the pistol down on his lap and then picked it up. He returned it to his lap and sat on his hands to keep them still.
The front door creaked under an unseen weight, one of the hinges popping loudly as it broke. A cheer went up from the dead and Edmund risked a glance towards the door. It had been pushed partially out of the upper portion of the frame, cold air hissing in.
He wasn't worried about the door, though. The threshold had been salted. Now, the fear he had was focused on the walls.
The dead had ripped down the old siding earlier, and they had begun to work on the old wood clapboard beneath. Soon they would make their way through that, then it would only be a matter of time before they tore into the insulation.
How long do you believe the wallboard will last? Edmund asked himself. Five minutes? Perhaps as long as ten? You did not salt the walls, Edmund. They are coming for you.
He looked down at the pistol, the weight of it comforting. Each chamber held a round, but he would need only one. In the end, it would come down to a matter of speed. Can I pull the trigger faster than they could reach me once they break through?
Should I even wait? he wondered.
Edmund hesitated before he nodded.
Yes. Who knows, he thought. Perhaps those children might yet buy me some time until help comes.
Edmund smiled at the thought, took his hands out from under his legs and picked up the pistol.
He whistled and checked the cylinder again.
Chapter 54: Going into Kurkow
Asa was on his way to the hospital with Emma, with the information about the hotel.
The Dawson brothers were in Pete's Jeep,
the engine running and the headlights illuminating the front of Kurkow Prison.
Shane, Mason, and Frank stood off to one side, two of them ignoring the cold while the third didn't feel it at all.
"Are you ready?" Shane asked.
Mason nodded.
"You up to this?" Shane asked, directing the question towards Frank.
The former monk grinned. "Sure I am."
"Pretty straightforward," Shane said, and he repeated the plan. "In order to clear the dead out of Mulberry Street, we need to secure the prison with iron, the way it was before. With that done, any ghosts we get rid of outside of Kurkow’s walls will be forced back inside and won’t be able to get out again. So, we go into the foyer together. You two keep the dead off of me. I loop the chain back through, we fall back to the outer doors, and I take care of those. With the chains back in place, and the iron still on the window frames, we should be good to go. And we have to do all of this, theoretically, without being killed."
"What about locks?" Frank asked. "Did we ever figure out what to do about them?"
"Someone will have to come back and take care of the locks," Shane said. "No place is open. Not with all of the snow we got."
"Send Pete back here," Mason said. "He needs to grow some backbone. Maybe it'll help."
"Doubt it," Frank said. "Kid never had one."
"Alright," Shane said. "Let's just worry about this and not how much of a coward Pete is or isn't."
Mason checked the shotgun he had taken with him from Shane's car and Frank looked hard at the prison.
"See anything?" Shane asked, a nervous flutter in his stomach.
"No," Frank said after a moment. "Kind of worries me. I know most of them are supposed to be on Mulberry Street from the radio chatter, but I still expected at least one or two to be here, you know?"
"Yeah," he nodded. Reaching up, Shane flicked on his headlamp. "Okay, lights on."
"You sure you're okay without a weapon?" Mason asked, turning on his own light while Frank did the same.
"Yeah," Shane said. "I've got an iron knuckle-duster if push comes to shove."
"Okay," Mason said. "Let's hope it's enough."
"You and me both," Shane said.
Frank led the way, shotgun on the ready, and Shane felt uncomfortable as they walked along the caged in path again. The last time they had come through it, they had been searching for the women. And they had found them, of course.
Remembering the scene brought a bitter taste to his mouth and he shoved the memory away.
You'll die if you don't pay attention, he snapped.
Frank approached the open door well ahead of Shane and Mason, the two men pushing their way through the thick snow. A moment after he had slipped into the prison, Frank reappeared.
"We're good," he said in a low voice.
Shane and Mason entered Kurkow, Mason hissing.
"Christ," he muttered. "This place is terrible."
Shane nodded his agreement. "Just be happy we're not going inside."
"Who says you're not?" a voice asked.
Shane drew his knuckle-dusters out while the shotgun roared, the flash momentarily blinding him.
But a moment was all it took for the unseen speaker to attack.
Chapter 55: Free Advice
A soft knocking at the door woke George.
He sat up and looked around. Merle and the girls were asleep on the floor. The fire had burned low, and there was a distinct chill in the room, one that reminded George of the twin ghosts who had attacked him.
He listened, straining his ears for another knock, and when he didn't hear it, George shook his head. With a sigh, he stood up, went to the stacked wood beneath the window and carried a few logs over to the fireplace. He made sure each step was soft, not wishing to disturb the delicate sleep of either Alison or Rachel. It was a miracle that they were asleep as far as he and Merle were concerned.
George put the wood down on the floor, knelt beside it and arranged the logs on top of the embers. When he finished, he added a small bit of kindling and a twisted piece of newspaper, which quickly caught fire. He sat back and watched as the flames curled the edges of the paper, the newsprint blackening before the kindling began to burn. George adjusted the flue, and a soft knock sounded on the front door again.
With his hand frozen above the flue knob, George looked at the door, his heart racing inside of his chest. His mouth was suddenly dry as he thought, Please, please let me have imagined that.
Another knock told him he hadn't.
George got to his feet, glanced at Merle and the girls to make certain they were still asleep, and then walked to the front door. He paused at it, stared at the lock and then reached out and turned it. George lifted the doorknob a little, putting slight pressure on it to keep the hinges from squealing in the stillness. When he did get the door open, he gasped, his breath ripped out of him from the cold and by the sight of the person on the doorstep.
Laura looked at him, a pained expression on her face. She was dressed only in her bra and pants. Her hair was in an untidy mess, strands and locks having freed themselves from the tight bun at the base of her skull. And George realized, she was dead.
Undeniably so.
He could see through her, more so than the others who had been assaulting the house for days.
"Laura," he whispered.
She nodded, a haunted look in her eyes.
"How did you," he said, shook his head and couldn't finish the question.
"Hypothermia," Laura answered. "I couldn't get away fast enough."
"They didn't kill you?" he asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
"No," she said, but her tone became bitter. "Although one helped convince me that I would feel much better if I undressed."
"What?" George asked, confused.
"Common side effect of hypothermia," Laura said. "Your body becomes so disorientated that you think you’re too hot when you're on the verge of freezing to death. But I'm not here for that, George. I'm here to tell you that you're going to need to leave, in the morning, and as quickly as possible."
He looked over at the others, still sleeping through his strange conversation with Laura. "We can't. If you couldn't make it, how can we?"
"Because you're going to get bundled up in everything you have," she said, her voice firm. "You are going to follow my tracks and not let the girls see my body. Then you will continue on to the main road. I drifted that way for a little. There are plows running on it. Once they've cleared the main thoroughfares, then they'll come down Mulberry. You won't have that long, though."
"We won't?" George asked.
Laura shook her head. "No. Not at all. Soon they'll be through the house at the end of the street. When that happens, they'll look for anyone else who can entertain them. And they haven't forgotten about you."
"What if they come after us?" George whispered.
"You'll have your iron," Laura said, a soothing tone coming into her voice. "And you'll have me. I'll do what I can to stop them. Alright?"
He nodded.
"Good," Laura said, and her body seemed to thicken, become less translucent. "Now go start to get ready. It will be dawn soon enough."
Chapter 56: Trouble
Shane was thrown to one side, his light shattering and his head and shoulder smashing into the wall. He groaned and collapsed to the floor, vomiting from the force of the blow. A shotgun roared again, and Shane went deaf. His vision was gone, filled with lights that danced and obscured the foyer. Something cold struck him across the face, and he felt his skin burn.
Spitting bile, Shane lashed out with the knuckle-dusters and grunted with satisfaction as it passed through something cold.
A hand grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to his feet, and Shane realized he was held upright by Mason.
"Secure the God-damned door, Gunny!" Mason yelled, pushing Shane towards the doors. A guard rushed out, faintly illuminated by Mason's red lamp, and Shane took a
stab at the ghost.
He missed, by a wide margin, and the blast of Mason's shotgun filled the air. Shane saw more ghosts in the hall, all of them racing towards the doors.
Oh hell, Shane thought, I’ve got to get the chains through it, or else they’ll keep coming out. Gritting his teeth, Shane threw himself against the open door. Something broken in his shoulder exploded in pain, but he managed to close the door. Hands reached through, grabbing at his clothes and pulling him against the metal. Shane slashed at them until he was free, if only for a moment, and he looped the iron links back through the handles.
He fell back, gasping for breath. The pain in his shoulder increased exponentially.
Mason fired the shotgun again, and Shane looked to see what he was firing at.
Ghosts were coming in through the front doors, and Frank was fighting them with his iron-fingered hands. Someone had wrenched the shotgun away.
"We need to get the outer doors," Shane yelled, struggling to his feet.
Mason nodded as he reloaded the weapon. Frank threw a punch into a ghost, and the prisoner disappeared.
"I'll take the walkway," Frank said, but the words were faint, difficult for Shane to hear above the ringing in his ears.
Shane could only nod as he picked up the length of chain he had left on the foyer floor from when he had beaten back the first ghost. From when Pete Dawson had let all of them out.
With his left arm hanging limp and throbbing in pain, Shane held onto the cold iron links and dragged them out. Mason followed behind him, firing twice more.
Ahead of him, Shane saw Frank attacked by a trio of prisoners, and as Shane cleared the threshold, Frank went down to his knees.
Chapter 57: The View from the Safe Spot
Ollie heard the gun blasts from inside the prison. Then he saw Frank come outside and watched as he was ambushed.
"Ollie," Pete whispered, pointing at Frank.
"Yeah," Ollie said, "I see him."
