by Rick Hautala
What’s there to worry about? he asked himself. It will just be a short walk through the woods. No sweat!
He sniffed with repressed laughter as he started slowly out across the clearing toward the trail. Beneath the loud sputtering of the chainsaw, he knew his father couldn’t hear him when he said, “Actually … quite a bit of sweat.”
As he walked along the narrow trail, shivers raced up Brian’s back. He wondered if the day was actually getting cooler, or if he had caught a chill from sweating so much as he worked. Overhead, the sky looked pale and impossibly distant through the thick tangle of branches. The shadows beneath the trees seemed to deepen with every step he took. As the sound of his father’s chainsaw faded away steadily, his tension rose. Several times he thought he saw something—a person or a crouching animal—lurking in the shade of the woods, but after a few cautious steps, his heart thumping heavily in his throat, the shadow would shift and reveal itself as … nothing but a shadow.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said aloud, hoping to find courage in the sound of his own voice. Although he had been born in Maine, he had been raised mostly in Arizona, so he told himself it was normal for him to feel claustrophobic in the woods. The woods were unnatural to him, threatening. He needed wide open sky and a long, flat expanse of land to feel comfortable … or better yet, the arrow-straight streets and sidewalks of his hometown.
The path wove through the green-shadowed woods like a thin, brown stitch of yarn. Brian followed it up a slight, wooded crest, but at the top of the crest, where the path angled off to the right, he noticed something off to his left. Although he couldn’t be sure, it looked like a road. He stopped for a moment, confused, and looked back and forth between his two options. The road, his house was on, when and if he saw it, should be off to the right; he knew that.
So what was this? Another road? Or had he gotten disoriented by the twists and turns of the path and was now heading in the wrong direction.
His father hadn’t said anything about a road; he’d said the path led straight to the house. Brian knew he should stay on the path, but he couldn’t push aside the rush of curiosity about this road. Where did it lead? Was it a better and faster way home?
He held his breath and listened for the sound of his father’s chainsaw but could hear nothing except the whispered sighing of the pines overhead and a chorus of bird song. For just an instant, he had the overwhelming sense—just like that afternoon outside his grandmother’s house … and then that day in his father’s back yard—that he was being watched. His hands went sweaty as his gaze darted back and forth as he tried to pierce the dense foliage.
“No,” he told himself. “I’m just imagining things … That’s all!”
But it didn’t make the feeling go away. Should he stay on the path like his father said, or try the road to see where it went?
He made his decision in an instant. He cut through a dense knot of scrub brush and then scrambled up a stony embankment and onto the single lane, dirt road. As soon as he was standing on it, he knew he’d made the wrong choice. Through the trees off to his left, he could see the silvery sparkle of water that had to be the Saco River. It was obvious this road, whatever it had once been, hadn’t seen any traffic in a lot of years.
Brian was about to turn around and head back to the path again when he saw through a break in the trees up ahead the sagging roof line of a building. Its harsh, black line cut across the pale sky like the sharp edge of a knife.
“What the—” Brian muttered. He took a few cautious steps forward to get a better view. That was when, for the first time in his life—but not for the last—Brian Fraser saw the old mill.
Why didn’t my father ever tell me about this place? Brian wondered as he cautiously approached the decrepit building. He moved slowly, continually glancing around as if he expected at any moment to see someone come screaming toward him from the woods or from behind the building.
The well-worn road ended in a wide, flat area in front of the building. Brian figured it must have been the loading area at one time for this mill or factory or whatever it used to be. The empty lot was choked with knee-high weeds—Queen Anne’s lace, cornflower, and gold-tasseled grasses. Old wrappers and rusted beer and soda cans littered the roadside. The humid wind swayed the tall grass and kicked up a tornado swirl of yellow dust.
Through the trees off to his left, Brian could see a wider stretch of the Saco River. It sparkled in the sunlight like hammered metal. He thought for a moment about the great fishing spots his father had said were out here, but then his gaze was drawn back irresistibly to the building that towered above him. Black, glassless windows gaped like toothless mouths in the flat, gray wall. The roof on the river side of the building had collapsed inward, exposing rotting rafters that looked like decayed, broken ribs. What had once been a small addition on the other side of the building was now a flattened mass of charred timbers, worn to a dark, polished gray by time and weather.
Right away, Brian noted a few places where he would be able to enter the building, but something—a dull sense of danger or menace—told him to stay back. Once again, he was filled with the sensation that he was being watched, but this time it felt … different somehow, as if he realized that it might be okay for him to be here, that whoever might be watching him meant him no harm. He suddenly froze. He thought he saw, in the corner of his eye, someone moving under the shadow of the trees off to his right; but when he looked, there was no one there.
Why didn’t my father ever tell me about this place? he wondered again.
He cupped his hands to his mouth, surprising himself when he suddenly shouted, “Hey! … Hello!”
His voice echoed back from inside the building with a dull reverberation. He waited a few seconds but got no response. Scanning both sides of the road, he picked up a baseball-sized rock, cocked his arm back, and threw it at the building. The rock sailed through one of the second-story windows and landed on the upper floor with a clatter that sounded like a distant roll of thunder. Brian jumped and yelped with surprise when a dozen pigeons fluttered up from their roosts in the attic and started circling the building. They were tiny white dots against the hazy blue sky. Brian’s hands clenched into fists as he tracked the birds for a moment; then he tensed and looked around again, fully expecting someone to reveal himself. But the building and surrounding woods remained silent … perhaps too silent, he thought.
He took a few shuffling steps forward. As soon as he was inside the shadow of the building, a wave of chills skittered up his back. Other than a couple of dumb pigeons, the place seemed totally deserted, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone—somewhere—was watching him.
He knew he should leave this place and head straight home. There had to be a good reason why his father had never mentioned this place to him, since it was so close to where they lived. It was probably a really dangerous place to play, or maybe the owner was a real nut case who didn’t want any kids fooling around out here.
But the pull of the old building was steady and strong, and Brian was caught helplessly in its grip. He had to check it out at least a little to find out what—if anything—was inside there.
Moving quickly to the side of the building, he reached up to the edge of the door frame and hoisted himself up onto the first floor. His breath came fast and thin as he took a few steps inside, all the while looking around. Deep shadows closed down around him like a flow of cool water. The bright sunlight outside made the interior of the building seem all the darker as his eyes tried to adjust to the gloom. The walls had been stripped bare, and the floors were littered with rocks, deed leaves, and other debris. The corners up near the ceiling were clogged with thick clots of spider webs and bird nests. The air was stale and carried a curious blend of age and rot. Brian shivered when he imagined hundreds of fat-bodied bats, hanging upside down in the darkest corners of the rafters overhead.
But in spite of the subtle currents of caution and fear that he felt, Brian was
also intrigued by the building and felt drawn farther into it. There was a vague, almost dizzying sense of familiarity to this place, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been here before. He took a few more steps into the cavernous building, cringing at the hollow echo made by his footsteps. Through jagged holes in the ceiling, he could see all the way up to the roof which was riddled with fist-sized holes. Golden bars of sunlight shot through the dusty air, striking the floor around him like spotlight beams. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out more details of the place and could see where there had once been interior walls and doors.
How long has this place been like this? And why is it even still standing? Why hasn’t someone torn it down … or burned it flat by now?
He jumped when a floorboard creaked loudly underfoot, crackling like thin ice. Then, from down in the cellar, he heard a dull thumping sound. Freezing where he was, he looked down at the floor. It was old and rotting, and lined with inch-wide gaps between shrunken planks. He knew the boards might be brittle and could give out beneath his weight at any moment. Ever so cautiously, he started moving back toward the door; but before he was halfway there, he heard the sound repeated from down below. It was a dull, heavy thud that sounded a little like someone dragging something across the floor.
Pressure built up in his bladder, and he had to struggle hard to resist the impulse to turn and run. In an odd way, though, he felt as though he was the one who belonged here, and that the real intruder was whoever—or whatever—was making that noise down in the cellar.
Taking one slow, careful step at a time, he made his way back to the doorway, then turned and jumped down to the ground. He landed hard. His knees buckled beneath him, and he rolled once before standing up and quickly beating the dust off his pants. Crouching low, he ran to the front of the building where he remembered seeing some windows that opened into the cellar. He dropped onto his hands and knees, and eased his face around the window edge to peer inside.
The stale, rotten smell was much stronger down here; it almost gagged him. For a few seconds, it was too dark for him to see much of anything; but as his eyes adjusted to the light, he could make out a hard-packed earth floor and a series of tumbled-down interior walls. Close to him, where a stray beam of sunlight illuminated the floor, he could see that the floor was scored and pitted with footprints and other scuff marks. Piles of broken, rotting lumber, stone blocks, and old barrels and wooden boxes were scattered about on the floor. At the far end of the cellar, there was a single low doorway, and for just a flickering instant, Brian thought he saw something dark melt back into the opening. He tried to dismiss it as a trick of the eye.
He watched for a while longer, trying to figure out what could have made the sounds. He knew he hadn’t imagined them, but everything looked so quiet and undisturbed down there. He finally decided that it must have been a raccoon or squirrel or something, maybe a rat scurrying away to hide from him. Sighing deeply, he got up and turned to leave. Just as he did, he caught another blur of motion off to the side of the building. This time he was positive he had seen someone duck back out of sight behind the building.
Brian was filled with a stronger urge to start running, but he was determined to find out if someone was following him. He certainly didn’t want to let whoever it was know he suspected or feared them. The palms of his hands were clammy as he slipped them into his jeans pockets. Straightening his shoulders, he started whistling an off-key tune as he walked away from the building, heading back to the road. As soon as he was out of the shadow of the building, the sunlight spread a glorious warmth across his back that started to relieve the knotted tension in his shoulders.
“Nothing in there but bats and cobwebs,” he whispered to himself, but he only half-believed it. When he turned to take a final look at the building, his heart gave a heavy thump in his chest. Through one of the lower story windows, he saw a dark shape—black against black—suspended in the air, framed by the window. It hadn’t been there before. He knew that much.
He’d just been inside. He swallowed hard, but his tongue felt like a swollen slug in his mouth, blocking his throat as he stared at the object, horrified. The dark bulk seemed to sway gently back and forth. Then it started to turn.
He had no idea where the thought came from, but Brian was suddenly—absolutely convinced that he was looking at a person, hanging from a rope. Uttering a low, trembling cry, he turned and started running down to the road. He wasn’t exactly sure where he should strike out into the woods to find the path he had been following, but all of a sudden he didn’t care.
All he knew was, he had to get as far away from this old building as he could … as fast as he could!
Chapter Thirteen
Spooked
The night suddenly ripped apart.
Old pinewood floorboards snapped like balsa wood. Dagger-shaped chunks of wood exploded into the air in a shower of splinters and swirling dust. Hands—twisted and gnarled with decay, some stripped of all flesh—reached up from inside the floor, flailing wildly for something to grab onto and hold. Harsh beams of blazing red light shot up like glowing iron bars through the holes in the floor, cutting through the dark backdrop of coiling, black smoke. Bright orange sparks corkscrewed into the air like crazy comets. The room was filled with deep, rumbling groans and high, keening shrieks.
Then heads and shoulders thrust into view, pushing up through the smashed flooring. In the crazily flickering light, faces appeared—mutilated wrecks with charred strips of skin and scalp flapping like rotting flags. Eyes glowed with dull, lambent fire as they shifted back and forth, scanning the darkness. Lips black with rot peeled back, exposing dirt-crusted teeth and pale, swollen tongues.
Huddled on his bed, his body frozen with fright, Brian watched as the figures—he had no idea how many—struggled to their feet and then, fixing him with their burning, unblinking gazes, began to shuffle and crawl toward him. Skeletal fingers clicked on the floor and sliced like vicious cutting shears as they reached out for him. Groans blended into deep chortles of laughter, and just at the edge of hearing, Brian caught the warbling sound of a baby crying.
Brian’s mind went blank with terror as one of the figures climbed up over the edge of the bed. The face loomed close to him and, beneath the grave mold and rot, he recognized the face—his mother’s. She grinned at him as worms twisted inside the holes that pocked her face. When she opened her mouth to speak, a shower of maggots rained onto the bed and floor, splattering like heavy rain. When she spoke, her voice was low and sludgy, as though every syllable were an effort.
“Hell-o … Brian,” she said. “I’ve … come … back … for …you!”
The scream that had been winding up inside of him suddenly burst forth so loud it felt as though it ripped the flesh of his throat. As the ghoulish figures closed in on him, chittering and snarling, he cowered back, pressing so hard against the headboard of his bed it creaked like a tree branch about to snap.
No … No! … NO!!!
The shrill cry gathered strength inside his mind like an onrushing tide. It lifted him up, carrying him forward in a blinding, head-over-heels spiral. He lost all sense of direction and had no idea if he was screaming out loud or if the long, piercing wail he heard was only in his mind. He tried to close his eyes, but even the darkness behind his eyelids was alive with flickering light and twisted, tormented figures that lunged at him.
“NO!—NO!—NO!—NO!—NO!”
Suddenly another light filled his vision—a brilliant but somehow soothing yellow burst. He heard more than saw the dark figure silhouetted against the light as it leaned over him, growing to an unimaginable size before strong, rough hands seized him and began to shake him.
“Hey! Brian! Come on! Wake up!”
The words seemed to come from far away. They had an odd reverberation, as if the person were speaking down at the bottom of a deep, stone-lined well.
“Come on, Brian! Wake up! It’s only a dream! It’s just a dr
eam!”
The hands clamped his shoulders hard, almost painfully. He felt his head roll loosely back and forth as if his neck was broken. With a sudden, roaring intake of breath, he opened his eyes and found himself staring up at his father. He sputtered, trying to say something, but the tightness in his chest made it all come out as a long, anguished groan.
“Hey, take it easy there, champ,” his father said. One side of his mouth was twisted up into a half-smile. “Come on. You’ve got yourself all worked up.”
Brian felt tears burning in his eyes, but he struggled not to let them fall as he sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. He nodded his head quickly, like a brave little boy trying not to cry after he’d skinned his knee, but still his voice wouldn’t work.
“Boy, it must’ve been a doozy, huh?” his father said.
He released his grip on Brian’s shoulders, then sat down on the edge of the bed. The bedsprings squeaked under his weight. The sound set Brian’s teeth on edge. Still wide-eyed with fear, he looked at his father and nodded again.
“Yeah,” he said with a ragged gasp. He wiped the flats of his hands over his face and sighed. “It sure as heck was!”
Again, his father’s hand touched him on the shoulder, lighter this time as he rubbed in small, gentle circles. Brian tried to ease the tension that was bunching up his neck and shoulder muscles, but his whole body still felt all wound up and ready to explode.
“Do you want to talk about it?” his father asked mildly. “You know, sometimes it helps if you talk about it.”
Brian looked his father straight in the eyes but could only hold the gaze for a second or two before another dizzying wave of nervousness swept over him. He was suddenly filled with the vague panic that this wasn’t really his father—that this was still part of his dream, and all of a sudden, his father’s face was going to start peeling away in raw, red chunks of flesh. His hand would suddenly transform into a bony, white skeleton that would grab his throat and squeeze, unrelentingly, until he was
