by Amy Cross
"This isn't necessary," I say, stepping back.
"Turn around!" he shouts. At that moment, there's a bright blue flash from his hands and he lets out a pained cry as the handcuffs drop to the floor, with smoke rising from the metal.
Before I can react, half a dozen cops come storming into the room, pointing guns at us while Regan looks down at his scalded hands.
"What the hell was that?" one of the cops shouts.
"I don't know," Regan says, his voice trembling, "just -"
Before he can finish the sentence, the cops' guns all do the same thing as the handcuffs: they flash with a bright blue light, causing the cops to drop them and step back.
"You're getting in our way," Elizabeth says, stepping toward the cops as they retreat to the door. "We've got things to do, and we don't have time to deal with you, so I think the best thing would be if you all just go to sleep." As the words leave her mouth, the cops drop to the floor, as if they've all simultaneously fainted. "There," Elizabeth says, turning to me with a smile. "Sometimes the more direct approach is necessary."
"What did you do to them?" I ask, as Regan backs against a nearby wall with a look of terror on his face.
"They're having a nap," Elizabeth says. "They'll wake up when I want them to wake up. As for you..." She turns to Regan. "I'm afraid you're going to have to go to sleep as well. We've got enough on our hands without having to worry about being followed and chased. Don't worry, it won't hurt. It's one of the little skills I've been practicing over the years, so I've got it worked out rather well. I'll just reach into your head and squeeze a few synapses."
Without saying anything, Regan runs to the door, but he drops to his knees after just a couple of meters, and finally he topples over and stops moving.
"How long have we got?" I ask, staring down at the prone bodies.
Elizabeth shrugs. "As long as we need. They're not a problem."
"So it's true," I reply, turning to look at Natalie and Holly. "I mean, I believed it, but it's another thing to actually see it happening."
"The media called us witches," Elizabeth replies. "That's not a term that any of us embrace. We're just three women who were locked together in the basement of a very unusual house, and we gained a little something extra from the experience. If you want to call us witches and claim that we had some kind of coven going on in that basement, then that's fine. Do and say what you want, but the term 'witch' makes the whole thing seem a little melodramatic, don't you think?"
"We're pretty cool," Natalie adds, unable to hide the huge grin on her face.
Over by the sofa, Holly doesn't look to be enjoying this experience very much. In fact, there's a look of genuine fear in her eyes.
"We don't have much time," Elizabeth continues. "The creature in the house must know by now that we're coming. It can sense us, so it'll be ready. We have to work out a plan, and then we have to do what we swore we'd never do. We have to go back."
"I'm scared," Natalie says.
"Me too," Elizabeth replies, "but we don't have a choice. As long as the three of us are together, we're strong enough to defeat this thing." She turns to Holly, who's still keeping a little distance from the rest of us. "You're going to come, aren't you? Please tell me that you understand how important this is."
"I don't know if..." Holly starts to say, and I can see that her hands are trembling. After a moment, she reaches up and touches the side of her head, as if she's in pain. "I mean, isn't there some other way? Can't we just go and burn the place down from the outside?"
"We have to go in," Elizabeth says. "We have to go right to the heart of this thing and rip it out for good. If we don't do the job properly this time, we'll end up back here in five, ten years. Whenever. But this isn't going to go away. I don't know why we ended up with these powers, but we did, so we have to use them. That creature has hidden for long enough. It has to die."
"Maybe we just weren't strong enough," Natalie suggests.
"No," Elizabeth replies, "there must have been something else. Something was holding us back, or reducing our power." She turns to me. "We don't need you to come, Mr. Lawler. You've already done enough by bringing us back together and helping Samantha. There's nothing you can do once we're in the house."
"There's nothing I can do back here either," I say. "At least if I come with you, I might be able to help. Unless you think I'll be too much of a distraction."
"He'll get in the way," Holly says. She clearly doesn't like me very much, and I can't shake the feeling that she blames me for the fact that this whole situation has been brought back to the surface. After everything that happened to her, she must find it hard to trust new people.
"He won't slow us down," Elizabeth replies, "and you never know, it might be useful to have him around. As long as you know the risks, Mr. Lawler, and as long as you agree that you'll do what we say. If we tell you to leave, you have to leave, is that understood?"
I nod.
"Then there's nothing to wait for, is there?" she says, turning to the others. "I know none of us thought this moment would ever come, but it seems our work isn't finished yet. We have to go back to the house, and we have to kill the creature. And this time, we have to make sure it has nowhere to hide."
Holly Carter
15 years ago
"Whatever you want," I say slowly, staring into the darkness, "I'll give it to you. I don't care anymore. You have to listen to me. I'll give you anything. All you have to do is tell me. You don't need to hurt me. Just talk to me. Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
Silence.
"Please don't hurt me," I say, unable to hold back the tears. "I just want to go home. I don't want to die. I want to go home to my family. Just let me go."
"Anything?" asks a voice from nearby. It's a deep, small voice, and it seems strangely hesitant.
"Anything," I continue, pulling gently on the manacles that are still strapped around my wrists. "I swear to God, I'll give you anything you want."
Silence.
"Any... thing?" the voice asks.
"Anything."
"Or any... one?"
"Any one?" I pause for a moment. "What do you mean? Who do you want?"
Silence.
"Who do you want?" I shout. "You can have it! You can have anyone! Just tell me what you want me to do!"
"What if I told you that I wanted one of the others," he says. "Would you give me one of them, or both of them, in order to save your own life?"
"No," I reply instinctively.
"Are you sure?"
"We're in this together."
"What if it was the only way you could ever get out of here alive? What if I told you that it's the only way to avoid a slow, lingering death?"
I shake my head.
"But you must," the voice continues. "If it means you can get out of here, and live without pain, isn't it worth sacrificing them? They're nothing to you. They're just two random people. If you could save your life by letting them die, wouldn't you do it?"
I pause for a moment. "Yes," I say, immediately hating myself. The truth is, I would sacrifice Elizabeth and Natalie in order to save my own life. I know that makes me a terrible person, but I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to get out of here. I've only know the others for a few days, and I can deal with the guilt later. Right now, I just want to get away.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I'd give them to you. I'd let them die." I sniff back some tears.
"What's wrong?" he asks. "Do you feel guilty?"
I nod.
"Good," he says, "but I don't want them. It's someone else I want."
"Who?"
"If you give this person to me," he continues, "I'll set you free in return, as a sign of my gratitude."
"Who?" I ask.
After a moment's silence, I hear him shuffling closer, until finally I can feel his breath on the back of my neck.
"Who do you want?" I ask, my voice trembling.
"You
, Holly," he says calmly. "I want you. Forever."
Ben Lawler
Today
"It hasn't changed," says Elizabeth as we stand outside the house. "It still looks so normal and innocent. It's hard to believe that it could be so..." She pauses for a moment. "I never thought I'd see it again."
We waited until dawn before making the drive out here. None of us particularly wanted to come to the house during the night, so we all took the opportunity to get some sleep before setting off at dawn. Well, we tried to get some sleep, although I certainly didn't manage to relax for a moment and I'm sure it was the same for the others. Finally, as the first rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon, we got into my car and made our way out here. The journey was silent, and now we're standing here, staring at the house that caused so much pain.
"There's the window," Natalie says, pointing at a small, letterbox-shaped gap in the wall just above the grass.
"That was how we hoped to get out at first," Elizabeth says, turning to me. "It was our only contact with the outside world while we were in the basement. We used to stare out at the sky and imagine what it'd be like to be free again." She turns to Holly. "Do you remember when you broke the perspex, and then you tried to -"
"I remember," Holly says firmly, clearly determined to shut the conversation down. Of the three women, Holly seems to be by far the most nervous. Whereas Elizabeth appears to have made a pragmatic decision to return, and Natalie is scared but determined to push ahead, Holly is staying very quiet and I can't shake the feeling that she might turn and run at any moment. I don't know exactly what happened all those years ago - no-one knows, since the women have never talked about it in detail - but it's clear that Holly is far more scared than the others.
"It looks so peaceful," Natalie says, almost as if she's in a trance.
"There are surveillance systems in place," I say. "The Mayor doesn't want people trespassing. They've installed motion sensors and cameras."
"That's okay," Elizabeth says, "we'll just cut the power. Natalie?" She reaches out and takes Natalie's hand, and they stare at the house for a moment. Just when I'm about to ask what they're doing, they let go of one another's hands. "It seems the fuses have just blown," Elizabeth explains with a smile. "All those wonderful security features have been knocked offline."
"You can really do stuff like that, huh?" I ask.
She nods. "We don't know the true extent of our powers, but we can achieve a great deal when we focus. Of course, we need all three of us for the really big jobs." She turns and looks over at Holly, who seems to be loitering unenthusiastically a few meters away.
"So what now?" I say. "If you're ready to go inside, one of the metal plates over the windows is loose."
"First we need some ground rules," Elizabeth says, turning to the others. "Remember, the creature is devious. It knows we're here, it knows what we're planning to do, and it probably has some ideas about the methods we're planning to use. It'll fight back. It's probably already started to set traps for us. The main thing it'll want to do is divide us. It knows that our powers are diminished if we're separated. It might even try to turn us against one another. Once we go inside, we all have to be on our guard."
"Let's just get on with it," Holly says sourly, stepping past us and walking up the steps to the front door. She tries the handle, but it's locked. "I want to be out of here in a couple of hours," she continues, turning back to face us. "Maybe the rest of you don't have anything better to be doing with your time, but I've got a life, and it doesn't involve running around old houses looking for ghosts."
Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth walks over to the nearest boarded-up window. She pulls at the sheet of metal and manages to peel it away with very little effort. "There," she says. "Now we should be able to see once we're inside. The last thing we want is to go stumbling around in the dark."
"It's alive in there," Natalie says, with tension in her voice. "I can hear it reaching out to us. It knows we're here and it's..." She pauses for a moment, as if she's listening to something that the rest of us can't here. "It's..." Her voice trails off, and she seems dumbstruck by some kind of hidden message.
"Be careful," Elizabeth says, stepping toward her. "It'll try to get into your mind, Natalie. Don't let it go too deep. Just enough to hear its voice, but don't no further."
"It says we're welcome," Natalie continues after a moment. "It says we're welcome back. It says it didn't expect us to return, but that it's glad we're here. It wants to know if we've missed it."
"Who are you talking about?" I ask. "You keep referring to someone being in the house, but who do you mean? The man who kidnapped you?"
Elizabeth shakes her head. "Not the man who kidnapped us. He was as much a victim as the rest of us. Natalie's hearing the voice of the creature that lives in the house and controls everything. It's the creature that's behind the whole thing. The man who put us in the ice bath, the thin-faced man... they were all part of the creature's game."
"When you say 'creature', do you mean human?" I ask. "Or..."
"It might have been human once," Elizabeth replies. "Sometimes I think it was probably just some poor soul who wandered into the house and became trapped. Other times, I think it's the root of all the evil in this place. Whatever it is and whatever it wants, it knows all about us. It wants us to -"
"It's asking why we haven't gone inside yet," Natalie says suddenly. "It's promising not to hurt us. Do you think it's telling the truth?"
"Of course not," Elizabeth replies, "but we have to go in. We have to kill this thing."
"Bullshit," Holly mutters, still standing a little way behind the rest of us.
"Do you have a problem?" Elizabeth asks her.
"Me? Hell, no. I'm not the one who thinks she can hear voices from the house. I'm not the one who thinks that thing's still alive in there. You told me a long time ago, Elizabeth, that it was important to protect poor, frail little Natalie. And now look at you. You're indulging her fantasies. You're prolonging her pain. What's wrong with you? After all these years, do you still get off on playing Mommy?"
"This is your last chance to go back," Elizabeth says, turning to me. "I don't know what's going to happen once we're inside, but I can't guarantee your safety. There's no reason for you to come with us, Ben. I'm worried you're putting your life at risk for nothing."
"I've come this far," I reply. "I want to see it through."
"Once the creature has been seen," she says, "it can't be unseen, no matter how hard you try. You can't forget that it exists. A lot of people talk about evil, Mr. Lawler, but it's another thing entirely to come face to face with a creature that has pure evil burning in its soul." She pauses for a moment. "You're either very brave, or very foolish."
"Let's get this over with," Holly says, pushing past us and climbing through the window.
Glancing over at Elizabeth, I see a look of concern in her eyes.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "Nothing. I was just thinking back to the last time we were here. I was trying to work out how the creature could have survived, but..." She pauses. "It's nothing. Let's just go inside." With that, she follows Holly through the window.
Holly Carter
15 years ago
I don't know how much time passes while I'm in that room, but it feels like an eternity. I drift in and out of consciousness, occasionally rousing myself just long enough to listen out for any sign of life. The voice seems to have fallen silent, and I'm filled with a kind of tiredness that prevents me from sitting up. I'm just here on the floor, still shackled, waiting as time continues to pass. I want to get up and run, to get out of this place, but I feel as if I'm weighed down by my own body.
Eventually, I hear a noise nearby. I try to turn my head, but the effort is too great. Instead, I focus on the noise itself: it sounds like two pieces of metal scraping against one another. It's a familiar sound, but at first I can't quite place it until, finally, I realize that it sounds like someon
e very slowly turning the handle of a door. As I stare ahead, I realize that the darkness is beginning to fade, and there seems to be a source of light off to one side. The door's being opened, which means someone is coming in, which means I might be able to get out of here. All I want is to be free, to be outside again, to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin...
"Mom?" I mutter.
Rough hands reach down and unlock my manacles, before grabbing my arms and dragging me out to the bright hallway. I hear the noise of the door being shut, and then I'm dragged toward the top of the stairs. Finally able to summon up a little energy, I turn and look over at the wall, and I watch as I'm dragged to the room with the ice bath. This time, there's water and ice overflowing from the tub and spilling onto the floor, and I'm laid in a patch of freezing cold water on the floor while the man gets his tools together.
"I'm not..." I try to mutter, but the pain in my left arm is becoming worse and worse. "I'm not who you think I am," I manage to say eventually, but it's too late: the man hauls me up and drops me into the ice bath, before reaching down and pushing my face firmly under the surface.
"I'm not who you think I am!" I try to shout underwater, but there's no way he can hear me. I reach up and try to grab his arms, remembering that I have to get a piece of his body to take back down to the others. All I can think of right now is that I mustn't disappoint Elizabeth and Natalie. No matter how hard I try, however, I can't seem to get a grip on his skin, and gradually I start losing consciousness once again, and I barely even register the pain on my leg as he cuts out another piece of bone. Just as I think I might be about to drown, however, I'm pulled up out of the water and thrown down onto the cold, wet wooden floor. Like a fish tossed up onto land, I gasp and struggle to get back to safety.
"It hurts," I whisper, realizing that despite the fact that I'm freezing cold, I also seem to be sweating. I try to get up, but my arm is throbbing with pain and my chest feels tight. Slowly, the tightness becomes a kind of crushing, agonizing pain that slowly radiates to my armpits and then to the tops of my arms. I try to call out for help, but all I manage to do is roll onto my side. As the pain gets worse, I try curling up into a ball and then I try rolling onto my back, but nothing helps. My upper chest starts to tingle and become numb, and the feeling spreads rapidly to my neck. Finally, I'm filled with the overwhelming need to vomit, but I've eaten so little over the past day that nothing comes up other than a small amount of bile.
