Sick House

by Jeff Strand

  She's not dead she can't be dead there's just no way she's dead.

  Boyd got up.

  Something sliced across the back of his arm, elbow to wrist. He didn't think it cut him too deep, but it stung like hell.

  Did the ghosts have weapons now?

  He always rolled his eyes in movies when characters said, "What do you want from me?" But now that he was fighting monsters with unknown motives, it was, in fact, a very good fucking question.

  "What do you want from me?"

  The ghosts did not respond.

  He could hear footsteps moving away from him, almost definitely toward Adeline's fallen body.

  Then he heard the patter of something dripping on the floor. He touched his arm. He'd been wrong; the cut was deep and bleeding badly.

  Something stabbed into his left thigh.

  It felt like a knife, plunging in all the way to the hilt. He didn't want to frighten Naomi and Paige, but it was the worst pain he'd ever experienced in his life, and he couldn't stop the scream.

  It hurt almost as much when it was wrenched out.

  The door upstairs slowly began to swing open.

  Boyd staggered toward the stairs. The ghosts were slow. Even with a bloody hole in his leg, he could escape them. He just needed Adeline to wake up.

  The door continued opening. He didn't see anybody doing it. It was probably swinging open on its own; a result of the damage from the ghost breaking the lock.

  With the light, he could see that Adeline remained motionless on the floor. He could see a thin line of blood running from the side of her mouth all the way down to her ear.

  Something stabbed into the back of his left arm, going so deep that it hit bone.

  He spun around as the weapon was yanked out of his flesh.

  The bruised ghost was right behind him. It wasn't holding a knife. In fact, it wasn't holding anything. How had it stabbed him?

  It held up its arm. A jagged bone, the radius, broke through the skin.

  The ghost lunged forward with the bone. Boyd was almost too shocked to move, but he stepped back in time to narrowly avoid having the broken bone plunge into his chest.

  The bone disappeared back into the ghost's arm, and the wound sealed up.

  The ghost held up its other arm. It seemed to be gritting its teeth, bracing itself for the intense pain. Another jagged bone burst through its arm. A flap of transparent flesh dangled from the tip.

  Boyd knew he should run—not that he'd be able to run very well after getting stabbed in the thigh—but he was stuck on trying to comprehend what he was seeing. You had to really, really want to harm somebody to purposely let a broken bone rip through your skin.

  Blood dripped from the ghost's arm. Boyd couldn't see the basement floor clearly enough to know if it left a trace.

  The dismembered ghost grabbed Boyd's shoulder. It should have been too far away to reach him, so Boyd had the red ooze connecting its limbs to thank. It pulled Boyd closer to the bruised ghost, who immediately crouched down and stabbed him in the leg.

  Boyd jerked himself away, snapping off the bone. The ghost let out a shriek of agony; the intensity was clear but it didn't make much sound, like a heavy metal album played at low volume.

  The bone faded away.

  Somehow Boyd hadn't fallen over again, though it was clear that if he did escape, he'd be crawling, not walking. He looked over at Adeline. She was still unconscious. God, he hoped she was just unconscious...

  The bruised ghost had recovered quickly from its pain. Its expression was back to pure rage. It stood up and stretched its arms out to the sides. It was breathing deeply, apparently psyching itself up for what was about to happen.

  Several broken rib bones burst through its chest.

  Boyd's legs finally gave out. He hit the floor, landing in his own blood.

  The ghost looked down, as if horrified by the sight of its mangled torso. Then it returned its attention to Boyd. As Boyd frantically tried to scoot away, the ghost walked over to him, and then dropped to its knees.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Adeline opened her eyes at the sound of Boyd's scream.

  She remembered exactly where she was and what had happened, so the ghosts were not a surprise. She was not, however, expecting to see broken rib bones protruding from one of their chests, or for the ghost to be hovering over Boyd as if preparing to give him an innards-mangling horizontal hug.

  The other ghost noticed that she was conscious and walked toward her, moving like somebody who was still getting used to how his arms and legs worked. Its head swayed with each step, almost threatening to flop backwards.

  Adeline stood up.

  The split-ribcage ghost noticed her as well.

  It was only distracted for a moment, but that was enough time for Boyd to scoot away some more, leaving a trail of blood. The ghost crawled after him.

  The other ghost reached for Adeline. It was much too far away to actually grab her...but the red ooze connecting its limbs to its body stretched like cheese on a pizza. It should have looked silly, and if she were a casual observer rather than the person the severed arm was stretching toward, it might have. But right now, in this moment, it did not look silly at all.

  "Go help the girls!" Boyd shouted. "Don't worry about me!"

  The ghost raked its broken bones over Boyd's leg as it crawled on top of him.

  The dismembered ghost's arm dropped to the floor right before it reached the staircase. So the ooze didn't stretch forever, but the ghost still had a good ten-foot reach. It gave a tug with its shoulder, and its arm snapped back into place. Mostly; the limb still hung almost to the floor.

  "I said go! I'm okay!"

  Boyd was most assuredly not okay, not with a ghost about to jam its entire broken ribcage into his chest. The choking ghost was upstairs with Paige and Naomi, and Adeline was terrified for their safety, but she was going to sacrifice ten seconds to get Boyd out of immediate danger.

  She ran over to Boyd and grabbed him by the underarms. She dragged him out of the way almost in time to save him from the rib bones cutting into his belly. He had several deep gashes and a ruined shirt, but at least he hadn't been disemboweled.

  The ghost grabbed Boyd's foot before he could slide completely out of the way.

  Adeline yanked hard, and Boyd's foot popped out of the ghost's grasp. She hurriedly dragged him to the stairs.

  "Can you walk?" she asked.

  "Don't worry about me. I'll get up there. Leave me here, please!"

  Adeline couldn't spare any more time. She had to make sure their daughters were safe. There wasn't even time to give Boyd a kiss, so she ran up the stairs. "I'm coming back for you!" she promised. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but "I love you" felt like final words, an acknowledgement that she might be leaving her husband to die. So she didn't say them.

  She ran into the kitchen, which was empty.

  At the far end of the hallway, she saw the choking ghost.

  "Hey!" she shouted.

  The ghost turned toward her.

  Adeline ran halfway down the hallway. As far as she knew, she still had a speed advantage, so she could get relatively close to the ghost as she tried to lure it away. She wanted to call out to the girls, but also didn't want them to give away their hiding spot if they'd found one.

  The ghost stepped out of sight.

  "Come and get me!" Adeline shouted. "I'm the one you want!"

  Presumably she was not the one it wanted, because the ghost did not return to the hallway. Cautiously but quickly, Adeline walked to the end of the hallway.

  The ghost stood underneath the trapdoor to the attic. It swiped at the cord but its hand passed harmlessly through it. The ghosts were good at kicking and pounding, but not at things like working doorknobs or pulling cords.

  Adeline didn't like the idea of the girls being trapped anywhere, but it honestly seemed like the most secure place to be. If Paige and Naomi were safe in the attic, Adeline could go back a
nd help Boyd, and then maybe try to get up there with their daughters until help arrived.

  The ghost swiped again. The cord swayed a bit.

  Maybe that didn't mean anything. Maybe the air conditioner was blowing on it.

  One more swipe. The cord swung. There was no way to blame this on anything except the ghost getting better at object manipulation. How long until it could actually yank on the cord? Could it then lower the folded ladder? How much danger were Paige and Naomi in if she abandoned them right now?

  The ghost got a hold of the cord. It yanked, but though the cord jiggled, its hand passed through before it could actually open the door.

  Adeline wished there was something she could do to hurt the ghost. What kind of weakness could it possibly have? How could she stop it if everything passed harmlessly through its body?

  Oh, sure, it was conceivable that it did have a weakness, like silver or sunlight or prayer, but how the hell would she ever discover that? Just start throwing everything in the house at it and hope that something revealed its one hidden vulnerability, like a video game character?

  The ghost was still choking.

  Its face was bloated.

  Drowning?

  It might have a ghostly chicken bone stuck in its throat, but it could also be forever drowning. How would something that was stuck in an eternal loop of drowning react to water?

  Adeline darted past the ghost into the bathroom. She turned on the faucet and cupped her hands under the water. When they were full to overflowing, she stepped out of the bathroom and flung the water in its face.

  The water passed through and splashed onto the floor.

  The ghost turned to look at her. It didn't speak, but its expression read What the hell was that supposed to be, lady?

  Okay, the ghost did not have a magical vulnerability to water. Duly noted.

  It tugged on the cord, and the trapdoor popped open.

  Adeline shoved the trapdoor back up.

  The ghost punched her in the face. Adeline struck the wall, then fell to the floor, blood filling her mouth. She hadn't just bitten her tongue; she'd taken off a piece of the side. A front tooth may have been knocked loose.

  She stood back up as the ghost lowered the trapdoor again.

  It would be an unfair fight even if they were both flesh and blood. Since it could hit her but she couldn't hit it back, fighting it was impossible. Her only choice was to get into the attic first and keep it out.

  Paige peeked down. "Mom!"

  "It's okay, honey! I'm coming!"

  Adeline could definitely climb a ladder faster than the ghost. But she'd have to pass through it first, and that came with a huge energy drain. So she'd have to hope that she could beat the ghost up there even in a weakened state. Since this goddamn ghost was standing between a mother and her children, Adeline was confident that she'd win the race.

  She moved away from the ladder, into Naomi's bedroom, to get a running start.

  The ghost took a wobbly step onto the first rung of the ladder.

  Adeline sprinted for the ladder.

  She passed through the ghost and instantly felt faint, yet scrambled up most of the way. She collapsed as she grabbed the top rung. But she fell forward instead of backward and kept her spot on the ladder.

  Paige reached down and grabbed Adeline's arm. "Help me!" Paige told Naomi, who reached down and grabbed her other arm. The ghost, meanwhile, grabbed her foot.

  Adeline had to call up every last reserve of strength. She wasn't going to be pulled down the ladder (or, worse, torn in half between the two) when she was this close to getting to her daughters.

  She violently shook her leg to get it free while Paige and Naomi tried to pull her up.

  This would be so much easier if she could just kick the ghost in the face.

  Naomi was losing her grip.

  Then Adeline's foot came free. She ran up the rest of the ladder, then turned around, grabbed the top rung, and started to pull it up. The ghost was on the ladder but had no weight, so there was no resistance. Was it going to be pulled right up into the attic with her?

  When the ladder started to fold, Adeline released it. It fell back to the floor. Unfortunately, the impact was gentle and didn't knock off the ghost.

  She pulled up the ladder again, bringing the ghost with it.

  This time, when she released it, she used her feet to give the ladder more momentum. It slammed against the floor. The ghost didn't fall, but it did put its arms out for balance and step off the ladder. Adeline pulled the ladder up again. The ghost quickly grabbed for the ladder, and its arms passed right through.

  Adeline pulled the ladder all the way up, closing the trapdoor.

  One of the girls had turned on the light, but the attic was still eerie, illuminated only by a single weak bulb. Paige and Naomi both threw their arms around Adeline. She wanted to tell them that she loved them and reassure them that everything was going to be all right, but she thought her words would lose their ability to soothe if blood spewed out of her mouth while she spoke them.

  She turned away and spat the blood onto some fiberglass insulation.

  "Are you hurt?" Paige asked. A lot more blood had soaked through the washcloth she held over her eye.

  "I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Adeline wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  "Where's Dad?"

  "He's also fine." Maybe this was the truth. Maybe it was a lie. Either way, the girls didn't need to know that their father was badly injured in the basement with the ghosts.

  "Can it get up here?" asked Naomi.

  "It's not good at it, but it can pull the cord. I think I'll be able to hold the door shut."

  "I didn't want to trap us up here, but there was nowhere else to go," said Paige.

  "No, no, you did the right thing. If you shut yourself in a closet there'd be no way to escape. If it gets up here, we can still get away."

  "How?" asked Naomi.

  Adeline hesitated. It wasn't a good escape plan.

  "I'm going to need you to crawl over those planks," said Adeline, pointing to her left. "All the way to the wall. You're going to wait there while I guard the trapdoor."

  "It can still come after us there," said Paige.

  Adeline shook her head. "If you go where I direct you, you'll be right over the couch. If you have to—and I'm sure you won't, but if you have to—you can break through the ceiling and you'll land on the cushions."

  Paige frowned. "Are you sure you know exactly where the couch is?"

  Adeline decided not to lie. "I'm pretty sure. Ninety percent."

  Paige and Naomi looked at each other. She expected them to protest. Instead, Naomi gave a solemn nod. "Okay."

  "Do it now. You go first, Paige."

  It wasn't safe for them to be crawling across the narrow beams, and the girls might be taking an unnecessary risk if the ghost never did get up here. But the light bulb in the basement had shattered, and if the same happened to the attic bulb they'd be crawling in the darkness, which would be infinitely more dangerous. Better to do it while they still had light.

  Paige, more fearless than Adeline would have thought, began to crawl along the beam. She moved quickly, pausing only to brush a cobweb out of her face. Within a few moments she was on the other side of the attic, right above where Adeline hoped the living room couch rested.

  "Your turn," Adeline told Naomi.

  "What if I fall off?"

  "You won't."

  "But what if I do?"

  "You're tiny," said Adeline. "You won't break through. It'll be okay. Just crawl over to Paige."

  There was a thump on the other side of the trapdoor. Naomi screamed.

  "Go!" said Adeline.

  Naomi crawled out onto the beam, far more tentatively than Paige had done. Adeline wanted her to hurry, but didn't want to urge her to hurry; if Naomi got too scared and slipped off the beam, she might very well break through the ceiling and crash onto the hardwood floor below.

&nb
sp; "C'mon!" said Paige. "It's easy! The wood is sturdy. Nothing's going to happen to you."

  Naomi kept crawling, slowly but steadily.

  "See how easy this is?" asked Paige. "You're doing great!"

  "Be quiet!" said Naomi. "You're making me nervous!"

  Paige stopped offering moral support.

  The ghost kept pounding, and the trapdoor shook with each blow, but the impact wasn't nearly enough to knock Adeline aside. If she stayed in place, in theory the ghost couldn't pound its way into the attic.

  When Naomi was halfway across, Adeline noticed a shadow falling across the beams.

  No, not a shadow.

  The wood was discoloring.

  Rotting.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Boyd dragged himself up the stairs, leaving a significant amount of blood behind. He couldn't figure out why the ghosts were letting him get away.

  Just as his hand clutched the very top step, one of the ghosts grabbed his foot and pulled him all the way back down the stairs. His chin struck one of the stairs so hard that he thought he split it wide open.

  The ghosts laughed.

  Great, they could laugh now.

  "Go kill..." said the bruised ghost. The sentence stopped as if its mouth went dry. "Go kill his family." Its voice had a distant sound, like it was coming from another room, and it was like two recordings of the same person played almost simultaneously but just a split second off.

  The dismembered ghost, whose arms had retracted most of the way, went up the stairs and into the kitchen.

  The bruised ghost sat on the bottom stair. It raised its right hand in a fist. A transparent bone ripped through the skin of its index finger, and it held up the bone to Boyd's eye.

  "Wanna look like your daughter?" it asked.

  Boyd moved his head out of the way.

  "Relax," said the ghost. "I can't be that precise. I'd just poke your eye out."

  "Leave my family alone," said Boyd.

  "Why tell me? I'm not the one going after them. You're talking to the wrong person. My attention is on you." It gently dragged the index finger bone across the back of Boyd's neck. "My complete, undivided attention."