Horror Thriller Box Set 1

by Amy Cross

  "He's coming to join me," I stammer, although in my heart I am rapidly losing faith.

  "He sent you to die," my uncle replies. "He saved you from one death, so that he could deliver you into another. His job is to rebuild Devil's Briar, or to die trying. Personally, I do not think he will succeed. That town was on the brink of failure anyway. Those poor remaining fools will spend a few days trying to get started, and then they will undoubtedly freeze to death. Even if they huddle together for warmth, their work is doomed."

  "You are wrong," I say. "Albert will set off after me."

  "No," my uncle says, "he will not, and you know he will not. I'm not claiming that his love for you is anything other than strong and true, Victoria. But he's a pragmatic man, and he understood finally that he could not keep you with him. He knew that you had to die, and he chose to send you away. You still have faith in him, my dear, but his faith in you has faltered, and justifiably so. Sometimes, faith should die."

  I take a deep breath. I know, deep in my soul, that my uncle is correct. I wish it were not so, but I cannot argue with the cold, hard truth.

  "And what of your faith in me, Victoria?" he continues. "Do you still believe my work was good? Do you still believe that I will return from the grave?"

  "I..." I pause, not knowing what to say. Up until I saw his body on the forest floor, I was certain that my uncle would eventually complete his journey and return to me. Now, I am not so sure.

  "Perhaps I was just a fool," he says. "Perhaps I was just an idiot who came up with some crazy ideas and then made the ultimate sacrifice in an attempt to prove a theory that could never have worked. Then again..." He sighs. "Then again, maybe everything is going according to plan. Maybe I succeeded in creating the loop I required in order to travel. You remember when I told you of the loops, don't you? The only way in which a man might travel through time, beyond his own death, is to find the points where time itself loops back, and then to draw elements of those loops together so that it becomes possible to step from one point to another. That is what the cross was designed to do. At some point, maybe far in the future, the cross will be destroyed, and it is at that moment that the loop will be completed, as the two ends of its existence become anchored together. When you read my diaries, you suspected as much, but you misunderstood one crucial element. I did not want you to destroy Devil's Briar, Victoria. I wanted you to destroy the cross."

  I take a deep breath, realizing the depth of my folly. "Then it is all my fault," I say, shaking with shock. "Why did you not explain this to me fully before you left? Why did you leave me to make my own determinations based on your notes?"

  "You wish to blame me?" he asks. "You destroyed a whole town without cause, Victoria. People died, burning to death in agony. None of that needed to happen. Meanwhile, you prolonged my journey. That cross will stand, alone and unnoticed, for so many years. One day, some force will rip it down, and my work will be complete. Until then, I will be lost in the ether, sleeping in infinity."

  "I can go back," I say, although I realize immediately that my words are weak and futile. I can no more go back to the ruins of Devil's Briar, than I can keep walking to Florence. A cold, hard feeling fills my soul as I realize the truth. "I shall die out here," I say quietly.

  "What death would be better?" my uncle asks. "Would you like to freeze to death under the stars? Or would you prefer a pack of ravenous wolves to tear you apart?"

  "I want a death that hurts," I say. "I deserve to know true pain."

  He smiles. "Do you mean that, Victoria?"

  "I do," I say firmly.

  "Then you shall have it. A slow, agonizing, painful death. A death that befits one who has hurt so many people. Those men and women and children who died in the flames of Devil's Briar were at least able to die quickly, but your demise will be a great, long agony. Just keep walking, and you'll meet your fate."

  I take a deep breath, knowing that he is right. I deserve nothing but misery and pain in my final moments. I deserve to suffer all the agony of the people of Devil's Briar. Although my feet are cut to pieces from the long journey so far, I start walking forward. No longer do I hope to see the first signs of civilization ahead of me; instead, I hope to see the face of death, and to know that my suffering is coming to an end.

  "There is one more thing you should know," my uncle says, keeping pace with me as I stumble across the forest floor. "Although Devil's Briar has been destroyed, it will be seen again. One of the unintended side-effects of my experiments is that there will be ghosts and impressions of the past. Every second that cross stands, a thousand tears are ripped in the fabric of the town's existence. When the conditions are perfect, Devil's Briar will rise from the soil and appear as new. I am sure that this will be of little comfort to you, my dear, but at least know that the flames you spread have not entirely erased the place from the world. It is no longer anchored to its physical reality."

  "I can only hope that -" I start to say, before seeing something up ahead. It is as if the forest floor is giving way to some other form, and although at first I assume I have stumbled across a small river, eventually I get closer and realize that it is in fact a road. A narrow, rough road running between the trees. "Where does this lead?" I ask, turning to find that my uncle's image is no longer with me. Despite everything that he said to me, I cannot deny that I feel a small glimmer of hope that perhaps this road could lead me to Florence. Perhaps death would be too easy for me; perhaps I must instead atone for my sins by facing up to the consequences of what happened. If I can read Florence, I can arrange for a rescue party to go back and help those who are left at Devil's Briar.

  Several hours later, however, I am still walking along the same barren road, with no sign that I am any closer to Florence. As the sun dips below the horizon and night draws closer, I feel the temperature drop and it becomes clear that I have no hope of surviving the next few hours. When my uncle's voice told me to expect a truly painful death, perhaps this is what he meant: a moment of hope, followed by a cold night during which I shall slowly freeze. Nevertheless, I refuse to give up just yet, and I keep walking. Hours pass, and my body aches to stop, but I am determined to keep going. While there is even the slightest chance I could get help for Albert and the others, I must keep forcing myself along this road, hoping against hope that I shall find salvation for those whose souls I have damned.

  Finally, however, my body can no longer support my soul, and I collapse to the cold, hard ground. I try desperately to get up, but the pain is intense. It is as if I have already begun to freeze. I manage to crawl for a few more meters, still hopeful of reaching Florence, but eventually I have to stop, and finally I curl up and await death. I had hoped that maybe I could find some way to help Albert and the others, but God is denying me such a chance. Now that my final moments are here, I am filled with sorrow at the lives I have destroyed. My last thought is that God will surely forgive Albert and the others their sins, and that they will be raised to Heaven even as I am cast into the fires of Hell. I remember when I was a young girl and I was so certain that I would live a long and happy life; now those dreams are cast aside and made to seem ridiculous. Death is a cold comfort as it wraps its icy fingers around my body and sweeps me away into eternal darkness. As I die, snow begins to fall.

  Chapter Seven

  Today

  "When this thing was erected," Bill explains as he finishes setting the dynamite around the base of the cross, "it became an anchor point in time. When it's destroyed, there'll be a second anchor point. A loop will be created between those two points, and the loop will - should - be navigable. Are you with me so far?"

  I stare at him. I've known Bill since we were teenagers, and we've been married for years; he's always been kind of excitable and a little unstable, but I'm starting to think that he's completely lost his mind.

  "I've worked it all out," he continues. "I had notebooks. I should have brought them with me, but I wasn't sure... I know it seems to you that I only went
missing a few hours ago, Paula, but from my point of view it's been more than a decade. I've been back in the past. I was in the year 1925 and I -" He pauses, suddenly closing his eyes and gasping as if he's in pain.

  "Bill?" I ask, starting to seriously worry about how I'm going to coax his out of these delusions. Whatever's going on here, it seems as if Bill has started to retreat into some kind of fantasy in which he believes he's been traveling through time. He's pulled together aspects of Devil's Briar and constructed this complex, completely ludicrous reality in which he actually thinks he's been traveling from one age to another.

  "I'm okay," he replies after a moment. "It's just a little strange. Maybe the journey messed with my head a bit. I've spent the past decade living under another name. I was known as Thomas Paternoster, and I traveled the country with my niece, searching for Devil's Briar. It took me so long to find the damn place, to get back here, but finally..." He pauses again, and this time it's clear that something's very wrong. "I'm fine!" he gasps eventually. "I've just been through a lot. Trust me, Paula, this will all make sense in a few minutes."

  "We have to leave," I say, desperately hoping I can get through to him. "We have to leave right now and go back to Boston."

  "Not yet," he says. "We have to finish what I started, except... Except I don't know where I'll end up." He sits on the ground next to the cross, and he rests his arm on the pile of dynamite. "Do you want to know the craziest thing, Paula? We've been around and around in this loop so many times, things have started to get out of shape. It's a paradox. I wouldn't have gone back in time and become Thomas Paternoster if Thomas Paternoster hadn't already set up all these things a hundred years ago. Then again, Thomas Paternoster never would have existed if I, Bill Mitchell, hadn't come to Devil's Briar in 2013. That's the part I don't understand. Two time periods, each dependent upon the other, but one of them has to have existed first, even if..." His voice trails off.

  Sighing, I kneel next to Bill and put a hand on his shoulder. It's pretty obvious that he's lost his mind. I need to get him out of this place, to take him back to Boston so that he can get some help. All's not lost, and I'm certain that some proper psychiatric work will end this insanity.

  "I don't know if I'm a man named Bill Mitchell who went back and became Thomas Paternoster," he continues, "or a man named Thomas Paternoster who came forward and became Bill Mitchell." He smiles. "Maybe it made sense once, but the loop has repeated hundreds of times, and now the details are starting to blur. The cause and effect have become detached from one another and they've merged into this mess of time and space. That's why everything's leaking from one point to another, and it's why we've been seeing things here, but we can fix all of that by destroying the cross."

  "Let's go," I say. "We have to get out of here, Bill. Devil's Briar is just a town. It's a strange place, but it's just a town. The cross is just a cross, put up by a community that wanted to show its religious devotion."

  "You're part of it too," he says, as if he can't even hear what I'm saying. "You've been to Devil's Briar hundreds and hundreds of times, trapped in the loop that I've created. Something's different this time, though, and I can't..." He looks down at my belly, and finally a grin spreads across his lips. "It's the baby. The baby is keeping you outside the loop this time. The past and the present are blurring together, but the baby is anchoring you to -"

  "You have to listen to me -" I start to say.

  "No!" he replies excitedly. "Think about it. We've lived this experience hundreds and hundreds of times. They were all the same, but eventually something changed. Against all the odds, in one of the loops, you finally became pregnant. And it's the pregnancy that's interrupting everything."

  "Bill," I say, "we have to leave. Whatever's happened to you, we can fix it, but we need to get you some help. You must see that this is all just a fantasy you've created in your head."

  "I have to finish my work," he replies. "This whole place is in flux, and it's my fault. I have to connect everything back together so that the loop becomes a finite thing rather than spinning out of control. If I don't, more people might get hurt. Like me. Like Lawrence Evans." He turns and plugs the fuse of the dynamite into a small controller, and then he presses a button. "You have to go, Paula," he says, turning back to me. "I have to stay with the cross, because I'm part of the paradox, but you have to go. When this is all over, you'll understand. You just have to trust me."

  "Stop it," I say, starting to panic as I watch the timer start to flash. "Bill, what did you just do?"

  "I set the timer," he explains, as if it's the most natural and normal thing in the world. "It'll go off in exactly two minutes. You have to run."

  "Turn it off," I say, trying to grab the timer from his hand.

  "It's too late," he replies, pulling away from me. "I won't die, Paula. I'll just be sent back to where I came from. I wish it could be another way. I wish I could stay with you, but I can't. Trust me, I already used a pistol to blow my brains out. That was how I started my journey. Now I'm going to destroy the cross and go back to the old town. It's my destiny. I don't know where I'll end up. The paradoxes have become too extreme. Two different eras are bleeding into one another."

  "You have to come with me," I say, trying to pull him away from the cross. "Bill, you've lost your mind! All this stuff you're saying, it's complete madness. There's no loop! There's no Thomas Paternoster, or if there was, he was a man who lived a long, long time ago. You're Bill Mitchell, and you're my husband, and you're -"

  "One minute," he says. "You're got one minute before this all goes up. Don't put yourself in danger, Paula. Don't put our baby in danger. Get away from here."

  I shake my head. "I'm staying right here. If you want us to survive, you have to switch off that timer, otherwise you'll kill us both."

  "You don't understand," he replies. "We've lived through Devil's Briar so many times, but now it's time to end the loop. Would you really prefer to just keep experiencing the same thing over and over again. The baby offers you an opportunity to escape, and I'm going to make damn sure that you leave." He smiles. "You can't argue with dynamite, Paula. Save yourself and the baby, and trust me when I say that I know exactly what I'm doing." He checks the timer. "Thirty seconds."

  I stare at him. After everything we've been through together, I can't leave him here to blow himself up, but at the same time there's no way I'm going to sacrifice my life, and the life of our unborn baby, just because he's got some kind of insane delusion lodged in his mind. I'm not going to let a madman kill me just to prove a point.

  "I love you," he says.

  "I love you too," I reply, with tears in my eyes. "But Bill -"

  "Ten seconds," he says. "Go, Paula. I won't turn it off."

  "I know you won't," I say, and that's when I make the decision. Getting to my feet, I turn and run across the town square. Just as I reach the steps of the hotel, there's a huge explosion behind me and the ground shakes, knocking me down. Steadying myself, I look back just in time to see the huge cross come crashing down amidst a cloud of dust and smoke. Smashing into one of the buildings, the cross finally comes to rest and a strange calmness starts to settle over the town.

  "Bill!" I shout, turning and heading back into the thick, dusty smoke. I can't see a thing, and eventually I find that I can't even breathe properly. I have to turn and go back over toward the hotel, but suddenly I find that the whole of Devil's Briar seems to have disappeared. Looking around, I see nothing but a few ruined timbers, many of them with burn marks. It's as if the entire town burned down while I wasn't looking. Although the dynamite destroyed the cross, the rest of the town seems to have just vanished into thin air. The burned timbers seem old, as if they've lain like this for decades.

  For the next few minutes, I continue to search for Bill, even though I'm quite sure he stayed at the base of the cross until the dynamite exploded. Whatever madness drove him to do this, he was certain in his mind that he had no choice. Finally, with tears in my eye
s, I realize that it's over. The smoke begins to clear and I'm left standing in a large patch of barren land, surrounded by the collapsed ruins of a town that moments ago seemed so real. All I can do is turn and run to the truck. Starting the engine, I floor the throttle and start the long drive back to Florence. I glance one final time into my rear-view mirror, seeing smoke from the explosion still rising up into the sky. Finally, as tears continue to pour down my face, I have to pull over for a moment and take my shaking hands off the wheel. I start sobbing uncontrollably, unable to stop thinking about Bill's final moments. I should never have turned and run. If I'd stayed with him at the base of the cross, he'd have switched off the timer at the last moment. This is all my fault. If only I'd been able to find a way to help Bill, none of this would have happened.

  All I can hope now is that, wherever he is, Bill has found peace.

  Chapter Eight

  Today

  I'm bathed in the most intense light, blasting down from above, and as I regain consciousness I realize there are people talking nearby.

  "Can she see?" asks a woman's voice.

  "The cataracts cover 98% of her field of vision," replies a man.

  I turn toward the direction of the woman, but something is wrong. I can barely see anything at all. Instead, everything is a burning, intense white, and I can make out only the most vague impression of the woman's face as she stares down at me. I seem to be in some kind of bed, but this is a place like no other. I am not in Devil's Briar, nor I think in Florence.

  "She -" the man continues, before pausing. "She's never done that before," he adds after a moment.

  "Never done what?" the woman asks.

  "She's never looked at anyone," he says, and suddenly something passes directly in front of my face. I narrow my eyes a little, trying desperately to work out what is happening; all I can see, however, is a blurry figure. "She's never shown any awareness of people being in the room with her," the male continues, as something flashes past my eyes.