by Rick Hautala
Dead!
“No, I, uhh—”
“Hey, you don’t have to,” his father said. His voice was calm, soothing, but still Brian couldn’t shake the thought that reality was suddenly going to rip open right there in front of him and he’d catch a glimpse of the horror that was lurking behind it.
“Let me get you a glass of water,” his father said, getting up from the bed. “Be back in a jiffy.”
He glanced back at Brian for a second before leaving to go down the hall to the bathroom. As soon as he was out of sight, Brian had a powerful urge to shout for him not to leave, but his throat closed off as if there really was a bony hand wrapped around it, strangling him to silence.
When his father came back—mere seconds that had seemed like several minutes later—Brian nodded his thanks as he took the glass and drank most of the water down in three huge gulps. Some water dribbled down his chin, but what he did swallow didn’t even come close to soothing the painful rawness in the back of his throat. Once the glass was empty, he smiled at his father and, smacking his lips, handed the glass back to him.
“Yeah—” Brian said. His voice sounded paper-thin. “That’s—I feel a lot better now.”
“So, are you all set now?” his father asked. He was smiling down at him, but Brian could still see a trace of concern clouding his eyes. “You know, if you want me to—”
“How come you never told me about it?” Brian said. The words seemed to leap out of his mouth before he had even thought them.
“Told you—? About what?”
“That big, old building … out by the river.”
His father’s eyebrows contracted. His lips tightened, and the light in his eyes seemed to dim momentarily. He took a step away from the bed, his eyelids fluttering as he glanced up at the ceiling and cleared his throat.
“The old mill, you mean,” he said.
Brian tried his best to convince himself that he hadn’t detected a slight tremor in his father’s voice. He slowly nodded and replied, “Yeah … that.”
A thick silence filled the room for several seconds as Brian looked at his father, fighting back the surge of panic that rose up inside him again.
Was it his own fear he was seeing, projected onto his father? he wondered. Or was there really something wrong here—something his father didn’t want to talk about? He found himself wishing he had kept his mouth shut about the whole thing.
“I—uh, you know, today, when I left you at the work site, I guess I kinda lost my way, and I found this road that goes out to an old building.” He turned his gaze to his hands, which were folded tightly in his lap. “I—I didn’t mention it at supper because I figured—you know, that you had never told me about it ’cause you … you didn’t want me to know about it or something.”
“Didn’t want you to know about it—?” his father said, shaking his head and laughing. “Whatever gave you that idea?” His laugh was high and tight, and sounded completely forced.
Brian glanced up, about to speak, but the choking sensation around his throat suddenly increased, silencing him. He squeezed his folded hands together so tightly the knuckles began to hurt, and his mind filled with the shocking images of his dream of decomposing corpses crawling out of the darkness and reaching toward him.
“Did you see … was there anyone else out there today?”
The tone of his father’s voice did nothing to allay his steadily rising fear. His pulse throbbed rapidly with a dull ache in his neck.
“I … well, no—not really.” He took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out in a slow whistle. “But I had this—this feeling, like I was—I dunno, like someone was—” Before he could say more, he recalled seeing what had looked like fresh traces of footprints on the dirt floor in the cellar, and for the first time it all came together in his mind. He shivered as he shook his head, realizing that the floor in his dream hadn’t been his bedroom floor at all; it had been the mill floor, cracked and weakened with age; and the burned, disfigured people he had seen, including his real mother—not Dianne, his ugly, bandaged stepmother—had burst up out of the mill’s cellar. Trembling wildly, he grabbed his head with both hands and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t stop the horrifying rush of images.
“Look here, son,” his father said, leaning close and forcing him to make steady eye contact. “The truth is, I never told you about that old place because—well, frankly because I just never thought to mention it to you. But now that you know where it is, I have to tell you that I’d really appreciate it if you stayed away from there.”
“Why?” Brian said, his voice no more than a whisper.
“I just don’t want you out there, that’s all.”
“Does anyone live out there or something?”
“No,” his father said with a quick shake of his head. “It’s on my property. It’s an old lumber mill my grandfather used to run. Did you see someone out there today?”
Brian shrugged tightly and shook his head. “No, not really. I don’t think so. I mean—I dunno.” He shrugged and slapped his legs. “I kinda checked the place out—”
“You went inside?”
Brian bit his lower lip and nodded. “Just for a quick look around, but it looked like maybe someone’s been out there recently.”
“Probably some kids from around town. They still go out there now and then to hang around; but I told you, I don’t want you going out there, got it?”
“Sure, but I don’t see why not?”
“Because when I was a kid, I used to play out there with my friends, and my mother used to tell me not to go out there. Then one day … something happened. One of my friends fell down into the cellar and broke his neck.”
“Did he die?” Brian asked.
In a flash, Brian remembered seeing—or thinking he saw—a dark figure that sure as heck looked like a person standing—or hanging!—in one of the windows.
His father grunted and shook his head. “No, he didn’t die, but he’s paralyzed from the waist down, and he’ll be like that for the rest of his life.” He looked away and swallowed noisily. “And I—well, in some ways, I feel responsible for what happened. We never should have been out there, and I—just like I’m warning you—should have listened to my mother’s warning. It’s a dangerous place.”
“Then why don’t you just get rid of it? Why not tear it down or burn it or something?”
Brian watched his father’s gaze shift from him to the black rectangle of the bedroom window and the night beyond. It might have been the light or just his imagination, but for just an instant, he thought his father’s face paled. He swallowed again and took a deep breath before continuing.
“Good question,” he said at last. “I don’t know why. Lord knows I’ve thought about doing just that plenty of times, but I—” He shrugged helplessly. “I just never got around to doing it.” He suddenly stiffened and turned back at Brian. He shook his forefinger at him and said, “But I’m telling you this: I don’t want you going out there—ever! Understood?”
“Yeah,” Brian said, in a sheepish voice. “Sure thing. Don’t worry.”
Goddamn it! Brian starting to sound just like Mikie did, back when we were kids!
Edward couldn’t get that thought out of his mind as he opened the back door and stepped out into the night. A fingernail moon rode low in the western sky, illuminating the gauzy, blue mist that twined like smoke through the woods. Only the brightest stars shined through the overcast. The night was alive with the sounds of crickets, and from far off came the ruffling hoot of an owl. Absolutely no breeze stirred the hot air, but still, a ripple of goose bumps broke out on his arms.
Feeling his way in the dark, Edward entered the side door of the garage and walked to the back of his truck. He snapped open the lid of the large metal toolbox and rifled around blindly until he found what he was looking for—his high-powered flashlight. He snapped it on and, after giving the light a few quick shakes, a feeble beam shot out. The circle of ligh
t looked like a distorted, pale eye as it danced over the garage wall. Positive there were no fresh batteries in the toolbox, and not wanting to take the time to drive downtown to get some at the 7-Eleven—or chance disturbing Dianne’s sleep—he decided to make do with what he had. He gently closed the toolbox lid and followed the circled beam back out into the night.
The hike out to the mill took longer than he had thought it would. Because of the darkness and disuse, the path wasn’t quite as easy to follow as he remembered it. He stumbled through thick overgrowth, unsure, at times, if he was even on the right track. The further he went, the more everything seemed … different, somehow. The trees surrounding him seemed to close in on him, muffling the heavy sounds of his breathing. His sneakers scuffed the earth with a dull, plodding sound.
It had been at least twenty-five years since he had sneaked out of the house at night, and he realized that he was looking at this night-stained world through different eyes. Childhood memories were being filtered through an adult perspective. He encountered trees and rocks and brush that he didn’t remember ever being there, and he had to fight back the steadily rising panic that he had gotten himself lost on his own property. But then the path led over a slight crest, and he recognized the stone-covered slope that led up to the old dirt road. Feeling a slight measure of relief, he followed the road for a short distance until the dark hulk of the old mill appeared, rearing up tall and solid against the misty night sky.
Edward sucked in his breath as he directed his steps through the knee-high weeds toward the building. The sound of crickets in the weed field was nearly deafening. Above the building, small black dots—bats out hunting—flitted in crazy spirals. It had been years, he realized, since he had been out here even during the daytime. Maybe it was just the altered perception of seeing things at night, but the building seemed to be much larger than he remembered it. He had expected it to seem shrunken down to fit his adult perspective, but its solid, black walls blocked off his view of the woods like a dimensionless hole in reality.
“Holy shit,” Edward whispered, feeling a stirring of trepidation. His grip tightened on the flashlight handle as he swung the beam back and forth, trying to push back the darkness.
But the darkness wouldn’t stay back.
As soon as he looked away, it closed back around him like a blanket, pressing closer, tighter.
He moved nearer to the building. The night seemed to swell and pulsate, vibrating with shadowy menace. The closer he got to the mill, the better he could make out the hard edge of the roof line and the darker rectangles where the windows and doors had been. The stone foundation glowed, an iridescent white line that followed the gentle curve of the land. A shiver raced up his back, and he almost cried out when, for just an instant, he thought he detected a fluttering of motion in one of the windows. He dropped to one knee and shined the flashlight at the window, but saw nothing except the gaping hole with its rotting wooden frame.
“Come on, man!” he whispered harshly. His throat felt as dry as sand. “Get a grip, will yah?”
He straightened up and brushed off his knee, but the tension coiling inside his stomach didn’t ease up; it only got stronger as he ran his flashlight beam across the gray flank of the building and recalled the horrible events that had happened out here when he was a kid.
Thirty years ago! God, how can it have been that long?
He tried to shut out the chilling rush of memories, but then, like a stainless steel spike, a thought suddenly hit him:
What if that’s Sandy in there? … Or Sandy’s ghost?
The image of his friend, lying sprawled and bleeding on the rotting pile of sawdust in the cellar while curious rats sniffed at him, licking the blood from his face, grew sharper in his mind with every hammering beat of his heart. He sucked quick sips of air through his teeth, wishing to hell he could permanently blot from his memory the events of that day in 1963; but it was clearer in his memory than where he was when, a month later, he’d heard President Kennedy had been shot.
“But that can’t be Sandy in there!” Edward hissed through tight, dry lips. “Sandy can’t even walk. Besides, I didn’t—he’s not dead! Sandy didn’t die!”
Edward’s hands were sweating and shaking so badly the flashlight beam jiggled back and forth like a strobe light. The metal tube almost slipped from his grip. He suddenly had a strong impulse to run away, but something else urged him to move forward. He clicked off his flashlight and moved up to the side of the building on legs that felt as stiff as boards. He was close enough to reach out and touch the weathered siding, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was more than half-convinced that, the instant his hand touched the mill, a bolt of blue electricity would flash out and strike him dead, so he just stood there, listening to the rapid flutter of his pulse.
But then he heard—or thought he heard—something else.
From far off, blanketed by the steady chirring of crickets, there came a low, hitching cry, like someone sobbing.
“What the hell?” Edward whispered.
His eyes widened and he held his breath as he strained forward, moving alongside the building until he came to one of the glassless cellar windows. The sound seemed to be coming from down in there, so he dropped onto his hands and knees, leaned forward, and listened.
The sound was maddening. It wavered in and out of hearing—teasing and taunting, like a radio signal fading with distance. First it was there … then it was gone then—was that it again? … or was it merely his memory of the sound?
A warm, fetid breeze wafted up out of the cellar, carrying with it the heavy aroma of damp earth and rot as it stirred his hair and raised goose bumps on his arms. The smell had an instant familiarity that reminded him of all those times he had played out here with his friends. He wondered if Ray Saunders’s copy of Playboy was still hidden somewhere down there, moldering away in the dark just like the young women pictured within its pages, now more than thirty years older and, no doubt, much the worse for wear. His body shivered with apprehension—and a deep, stinging sense of loss. He and all his childhood friends were grown-up now. What they’d had back then, and what they’d all shared was lost … forever.
Why? Goddamnit! he wondered. Why couldn’t he and his friends and all those naked women he had lusted over all stay permanently fresh and young, like their photographs, frozen forever in time?
Although with the flashlight off he couldn’t see much of anything down in the cellar, a feeble wash of moonlight shined through a hole in the wall, illuminating the slouched pile of rotting sawdust at the far end of the cellar. A trick of the moonlight and shadow made it look like a giant, lying sprawled facedown on the floor. But while Edward couldn’t see it, he definitely sensed there was something else down there … something that was hiding from him in the pitch darkness. He could feel it as much as hear it, shifting about like the sluggish flow of dark water deep underground.
Is it just my imagination getting carried away, or could there really be someone down there?
A thin current of panic rippled through him. He wanted more than anything to snap on the flashlight and sweep the inside of the basement with its beam, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to—or dared—to because of what he might discover.
And if there is someone down there, who could it be? Sandy … or maybe Michael?
“No! No way,” he whispered.
If he had heard anything down there, it probably had just been some kind of animal. What would anyone be doing out here this late at night? Sandy, obviously, could never have made it even in the daytime, not in his wheelchair … and Michael?
No!
Although he had run away from the hospital and was listed as missing, Edward didn’t think it very likely that his brother could have made it all the way back here. And even if by some miracle he had, why would he be staying out here in the cold, damp mill instead of coming home? No, he hated to think it, but in all likelihood, Michael probably had died days or weeks ago, lost and
lonely somewhere probably not very far from the hospital that had been his home for the past thirty years.
Edward’s throat felt feverishly raw. He swallowed and licked his lips, preparing to call out; but before he could do that, the faint sound came again, drifting to him like a thin tendril of fog. He froze as he strained to catch it, warbling up and down the scale like a police siren heard far off in the distance. After a few seconds, he realized that it sounded like a baby … crying.
“He pushed him! I saw him do it! The retard pushed Sandy down into the cellar!”
Edward’s mind echoed with those angry words and the long, sniffling sobs of Charlie Costello as they crouched on the edge of the trapdoor and looked down at their motionless friend, absolutely convinced that he was dead.
Bullshit! That’s not Sandy, lying down there on the floor! Edward thought, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the pile of old sawdust.
He pressed his thumb against the flashlight switch, but he still didn’t dare flick it on. A cold rush of panic rose up from his stomach to his chest.
What the hell is down there? What could be making that sound?
His vision blurred as he focused on the rounded pile of sawdust. The sound disappeared before he consciously realized it, fading away as subtly as it had begun. Edward shook his head as though dazed, but as much as he strained to hear it again, the sound was definitely gone. The night seemed to explode with the swelling song of crickets.
“Ahh, fuck it!”
—fuck it!
Edward’s voice sounded unnaturally loud as it echoed from inside the cavernous cellar.
“There’s nothing down there!”
—down there!
“’Cept for maybe a couple of lousy rats!”
—lousy rats!
He straightened up and snapped on the flashlight. The sudden harsh glare stung his eyes, but as soon as there was even this single beam of artificial light, whatever spell had held him was broken. The eerie sense of foreboding that had spooked him so badly instantly evaporated. He shined his flashlight beam all around inside the cellar, pausing a moment to study the sawdust pile. And he saw it for what it was—just a pile of rotting sawdust, riddled with rat holes. He scanned the outside of the mill as well and saw it for exactly what it was, too—nothing more than an old, rotting, deserted hulk of a building surrounded by a rank tangle of weeds.
