by Amy Cross
"Don't rush," Elizabeth says, brushing my hair away from my face. "You look pale, Holly. Did he leave you in the ice bath too long? Your leg wound isn't properly stapled. It's as if he was in a rush."
"I had a..." I think back to the moment I felt the syringe slip through my skin. "I had a heart attack," I say eventually. "After the ice bath. I had a heart attack. He injected me with something and the pain went away. It was the most intense thing I've ever felt." I reach up and put a hand on my chest, feeling the spot where the pain was focused. Right now, I feel strangely numb, as if all the pain has been sucked out of my body and I'm left with a hollow, vibrating nothingness at my core. "I'm okay," I say eventually. "He saved me. He saved my life."
"We need to get you to a doctor," Elizabeth continues. "I was always scared that something like this would happen. Those ice baths cause a massive shock to the system. Thank God they're over."
"Over?" I ask wearily.
"You never, ever have to go through anything like that again," she says with a smile. "None of us do. It's all over. We're out."
Looking around, I see that we're in a messy, crowded room filled with old, faded furniture and bags of what appear to be newspapers. I'm resting on a grubby, hole-pocked sofa, with a tatty blanket covering my legs, and Elizabeth and Natalie are kneeling next to me on the floor. It's a strange scene, peaceful but imbued with the knowledge of everything that has gone on in this place. I can't help looking down at the floor, and thinking of the basement deep below.
"It's okay," Elizabeth says, putting the back of her hand against my forehead to check my temperature. "We're upstairs. We're free."
"Upstairs?" I look over at the door that leads to the kitchen.
"We're still in the house," she continues, "but he's not in control. When you were gone for so long, we started to panic, so we decided to try the doll when he opened the door to bring you back down. We thought maybe... Well, we were able to disable him with the pain, and we took the chance to get out. He's secured upstairs, but you looked so weak, we didn't think we could move you. It was hard enough just getting you to the sofa. For a moment, I actually wondered if we might lose you."
"We need help," I say, startled by the thought that we might actually be getting out of here. I've got a killer headache developing, but pure adrenalin seems to be helping me through. "Have you called for help?"
"There are no phones," she replies, "but we're confident we can follow the road and find a town or another house. I mean, the road has to lead somewhere, doesn't it? Don't worry about all of that, Holly. You just need to recover your strength a little first. Trust me, you look very pale and weak. Natalie and I have talked about it, and we think it'd be better to wait here for a day or two and allow you to rest, rather than forcing you to move. In your current state, there's no way you could survive the journey."
"I'll be fine," I say, flinching with pain as I try to move my legs. "It can't be far."
"You don't know that."
"We can't wait here," I say, starting to panic. "Are you fucking insane? We have to get out of here!" I try to get up, but my head immediately starts feeling dizzy and I have to settle back down on the sofa. "We're not safe here," I say. "We have to get out of the house!"
"We're perfectly safe," Elizabeth says calmly. "He's not a danger anymore. We've got him chained up and subdued. Don't you think we've taken every precaution? We're not idiots."
"But the others," I say. "What about the others?"
"There are no others," Elizabeth replies. "We've double-checked every room. It's like I said all along. He was working alone. Rather than running out of here like headless chickens, we need to rest a little and let you recover. Sometimes it's important to follow logic and intellect, rather than letting emotions rule the day."
"She's right," Natalie says. "We've been here for years. What's one more day?"
"You're just scared," I reply. "Both of you. You're scared of going back to the real world."
"We're not," Elizabeth says, shaking her head.
"I am," Natalie adds. "A bit."
"You're in no fit state to move," Elizabeth continues, smiling at me with motherly concern. "If you were fit and healthy, we'd be out the door immediately. As things are, we have to wait for you to recover. I know you want to get going, but really, we're not the ones holding us back. We could have left you here, but we didn't."
"Bullshit," I say, trying again to get off the sofa. This time, I manage to get to my feet, but my first attempt to start walking is a failure and I start to fall. Elizabeth reaches out and grabs me, and she carefully manhandles me back onto the sofa. I want to push her away, but it's clear that she's right about one thing: I'm in no fit state to move.
"See?" she says. "You can't do it. Your leg is bad and you're recovering from a heart attack."
"Fuck!" I shout, trying to get up again. This time, once I'm on my feet, I stay completely still for a moment, swaying slightly. "The second I can walk properly," I continue, "we're out of here, okay? I don't want to spend another second in this place if I don't have to." I take a step forward, but as soon as I put any weight on my left leg, I feel hot pus ooze out from between the staples in my flesh. The pain is deep, and I'm forced to stop.
"Holly -"
"Fine," I mutter, still swaying a little as I stand next to the sofa. It's insane to realize how badly my body is damaged after the heart attack, and I honestly feel worse than I've ever felt before. I know that Elizabeth is right, but I can't shake the feeling that it's a mistake to still be in the house. Looking up at the ceiling, I remind myself that they've checked every room and found no-one else here, but I know they're wrong: there's something else in the house, something that's watching us, and we won't be safe until we get as far away from this place as possible.
"We should check on him," Elizabeth says. "Wait here, Holly. We'll be back in a moment."
"Check on who?" I ask as she and Natalie head to the bottom of the stairs.
"Him, of course," Elizabeth replies, glancing back at me. "I told you, he's not dead. We disabled him with the doll, and then we chained him up, but he's still alive. We've got him in one of the rooms upstairs. To be honest, we're not quite sure what to do with him yet, but we have to check every hour, just to make sure he hasn't made any attempt to get free."
"He hasn't," Natalie says. "I can tell. He's calm. He's just waiting."
"Waiting for what?" I ask, feeling my skin start to crawl at the thought of that man still being in the house with us.
"We're going to get the police here as soon as possible," Elizabeth replies. "I'm sure they'll have plenty of questions for him. They'll want to know everything about him."
"And who he was working with," I suggest.
"He wasn't working with anyone," Elizabeth says. "It was just him." With that, she turns and heads up the stairs, leaving Natalie loitering uncomfortably in the doorway.
"You know there's someone else here, don't you?" I ask, leaning against the wall as I try to regather my strength.
"Elizabeth says -"
"You know," I continue, interrupting her. "You can feel him, can't you?"
"I can feel a lot of things," she replies. "It's not -"
"But you can feel him," I say, refusing to let her change the subject. "He's in this house. Not the guy with the cattle-prod. That's someone else. There's another presence here. Watching us. Listening to us. I don't know if Elizabeth genuinely doesn't notice it, or maybe she just refuses to acknowledge its existence like she did with the power, but it's here, and you can feel it."
Without replying, Natalie turns and hurries off up the stairs. Like an obedient puppy, she has to go and join in with whatever Elizabeth's doing. It's clear that their little double-act is going to survive all my interruptions, and it's hard to believe that they'll separate once we all get back to the real world. For better or for worse, they're stuck together for life. I can't help feeling, though, that they're not fully acknowledging the true nature of this house. Th
ere's something here, something far more powerful than the man with the cattle-prod. Despite what Elizabeth and Natalie believe, we're not safe yet.
Ben Lawler
Today
"Please," Natalie whimpers, curled up at the top of the steps and scraping her fingernails against the metal door. "You have to open the door. Holly, please. I can't take this. Not again."
"Fifteen years," Elizabeth says, standing at the bottom of the steps. "It's been fifteen years since we got out of here. Fifteen years back out there in the real world, believing that this part of our lives was over. Fifteen years with the sun on our faces and the freedom to go anywhere, do anything... And now we're back in this basement, behind that locked door." She turns to me. "We're right back at the beginning. Do you realize that? It's like the day before Holly arrived. We were never really free. We were just away for a while, but now the house has pulled us back. Everything's been undone. It was always going to be like this."
"But you've got powers now," I say. "You're stronger than last time. You know how to get out of here." I wait for one of them to answer, but they both seem locked into some kind of trance, as if their spirits have been crushed. "Right?"
"We need all three of us to be together," Elizabeth continues. "That's the whole point. The power of three. With just two of us, there's nothing we can do except..." She looks over at the cracked sink in the corner. "There's nothing we can do except go back to how we were before. The old life."
"Holly?" Natalie says, still up by the door. "Are you there? It's me. It's Natalie. Can we talk?"
"She's not there," Elizabeth says sternly. "Why would she sit out there and listen to you whining?"
"Holly?" Natalie continues, close to tears. "Please let us out. I can't stand this again. I can't be down here. Please, Holly... I'll do anything, but you have to let us out. Why are you doing this to us?"
"Don't be pathetic," Elizabeth snaps, before pausing for a moment. "I'm sorry. Natalie, come down here."
"I want to talk to her," Natalie replies.
"Natalie, come down here!"
Obediently, almost like a well-trained dog, Natalie gets to her feet and scurries down the stairs to join Elizabeth in the middle of the room. Wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt, Natalie cuts a sad figure, and it's clear that the thought of being trapped down here again has crushed her spirit.
"Why would she do this?" I ask. "Why the hell would she lock us down here?"
"She's been turned," Elizabeth says. "I don't know how we could have been so stupid. All those years ago, we thought we'd defeated this thing. Looking back, it's hard to believe we were so gullible. It seemed so easy. Too easy, it turns out. We didn't kill the creature. We just beat it back, and then we left it to recover. It must have been waiting all these years."
"What creature?" I ask. "The guy who kidnapped you is dead. You killed him, the police found a body..."
"He wasn't the real danger," Elizabeth continues. "He was just another poor soul, caught up in this whole mess. He must have wandered into the house by accident, long ago, and ended up becoming the latest in a long line of puppets. The real danger was in one of the rooms upstairs, controlling everything, hiding, waiting..." She smiles sadly. "All my life, Mr. Lawler, I've assumed that I'm intelligent. Not a genius. Not brilliant, by any means. But reasonably intelligent. And now I realize I'm a fool. I allowed myself to believe what I wanted to believe. The creature tricked us and he led us back here, and we followed like sheep until it had got us back where it wanted us, and then it slammed the door shut again!"
Above us, there's a banging sound, followed by a set of footsteps crossing the room directly over the basement.
"It's him!" Natalie shouts.
"Don't be stupid!" Elizabeth replies. "Of course it's not him! It's her! It's Holly. She's in charge of this place now. She's his eyes and his ears. It's taken a few years, but the creature finally has its new puppet."
"But you escaped last time," I say, starting to panic as I search through my pockets for my phone. When I pull it out, I find that I've got no signal. "You got out last time, so you just have to do the same thing again, right?"
"There were three of us back then," Elizabeth says. "That's the whole point. The creature made a mistake last time by putting three of us down here, and that's how we were able to form the coven. It forgot that the number three has a certain power, and it didn't realize that we'd gain power from being together. It won't make the same mistake again. With Holly up there, the power of three is no longer available to us. I guarantee that the creature will never again allow three women to be in this basement together."
"What about me?" I ask. "I'm down here. There are three of us right now!"
Elizabeth smiles. "No offense, Mr. Lawler, but you're a man. I really don't think it would work. It needs to be three women, or the power won't respond."
"That's insane," I reply. "We have to try!"
She shakes her head. "The power is much more sensitive to the female soul. As far as the power is concerned, men are just objects in a room. It's drawn to women."
Hurrying over to the far side of the basement, I grab a chair and push it against the wall before climbing up and holding my phone next to the letterbox-sized window just below the ceiling. I wait for some kind of signal, but there's nothing; it's as if, this far out of town, there's just no way I can manage to call anyone. Either that, or the house is somehow insulated against mobile phone signals. We're not that far out of town, so I can only assume that someone has deliberately shielded this patch of land.
"There has to be a way out of here," I say, staring intently at the screen of my phone. "We're not trapped down here!"
"I'm afraid we are," Elizabeth continues with a calm, flat voice. "Unless the creature makes a mistake and sends another woman down here, there's nothing we can do. It's not stupid. It won't do that again. With just the two of us, we can barely summon the power at all. Besides, Holly knows how it works. Last time, we had an advantage, but now we're starting from the beginning again. There's nothing we can do. We had our chance, and we allowed ourselves to be tricked into walking back through the door of our prison."
"Why did she do this?" Natalie asks, with tears streaming down her cheeks. "Why does Holly hate us?"
"She was taken by the creature," Elizabeth replies. "She had no choice."
"But when?" Natalie continues. "When did it get into her mind?"
"I don't know," Elizabeth says, "but I suspect it was a long time ago. Probably when we were here the last time. She's probably been manipulating us for a very long time. Do you remember when she was upstairs for so long, shortly before we escaped? If I had to guess, I'd say the creature has been in her mind ever since, waiting for the opportunity to grow strong and trap us again. All those years, just lurking in her head. The only thing I don't understand is how we were so stupid. Why didn't we realize she'd changed?"
Holly
15 years ago
It takes me forever to get up the stairs. Each step is a separate agony, and I constantly feel as if my legs are about to give way. Blood is trickling down over my ankles, as the staples from the most recent ice bath session begin to fall out, and every step forces a little more pus out from the wound. I don't share Elizabeth's belief that I'll just start healing up in time to get out of here in the next day or two. If anything, I think I might be going to get worse and worse. Finally, however, I make it to the top of the stairs, where I have to pause for a moment to catch my breath.
Nearby, there's another cry of pain. I don't know what Elizabeth and Natalie are doing to the man, but it sounds like he's in excruciating pain.
I hobble along to the nearest door, and as soon as I look inside I see the full extent of the madness that has descended upon this place. The man is chained to the wall; Elizabeth and Natalie have clearly gone way overboard, wrapping chain after chain around his torso and arms, even going so far as to pass the chains out through one of the windows and in through another. It's q
uite clear that no-one could ever get free from such a position, but they've gone further still: the man is completely naked, his body covered with cuts and scratches, and his face is barely human, with two fierce, wide-open white eyes staring out from a bloody, pulpy mess. I still recognize him, though; he still has the same expression he had back when he was pushing me into the ice bath.
"You shouldn't be up here, Holly," Elizabeth says, standing in the middle of the room and facing the man. "You need to rest. It's a waste of energy for you to -"
"What are you doing to him?" I ask, hobbling over to join her. My head is hurting more and more, and I'm starting to feel nauseous; I also feel strangely heavy, as if something's dragging me down.
"We're practicing," she says calmly.
I look over at Natalie, who's sitting on the floor in the far corner.
"Practicing what?" I ask cautiously.
"The power," Elizabeth says. "You were right when you said that we didn't fully understand it. Fortunately, fate has dropped a live specimen into our laps, so we can test things out and try new ideas." She pauses for a moment. "Relax, Holly. We're not going to kill him. We're just going to hurt him. After everything he's done to us, I think we deserve that opportunity."
"You're torturing him," I say, shocked that Elizabeth could be so callous, and that Holly could sit around and watch.
"Ten years," Elizabeth replies. "I spent ten years in that basement, living in fear of this man every single day. Natalie spent five years. You've been here for a week. Do you really think you're in any position to tell us how to deal with him?"
"But you can't torture him," I continue. "You can't do this. You're just -"
"Watch," Elizabeth says, staring at the man. Slowly, the flesh on his chest starts to stretch, and finally it tears open, causing him to let out another anguished cry as blood drips down from the wound. "Did you see that?" Elizabeth asks. "I did that with the power of my mind. I didn't even need any help from you two. I did it all by myself. I'm getting stronger. We all are. Now that there are three of us, together, we're learning how to use the power properly."
