by Rick Hautala
If that was the case, why would he leave his bed to look like he was still in it?
She shivered, remembering the voices she had imagined hearing just a little while ago.
Yes, imagined! They hadn’t been real! They couldn’t have been real!
But another doubt she had concerned those voices and what they might have been saying—or trying to say—to her.
Why couldn’t she remember?
Were they nothing more than elusive dream fragments that wouldn’t make sense, no matter how hard she tried to recall them? Or in some way, on some level had they been real, and she simply had not received them. Or—and this thought struck her nerves like lightning had she understood them? At least subconsciously, did she already know what they had been telling her to do?
“Something’s got to be done,” she whispered, pacing back and forth and slapping her fist repeatedly into her open hand. She stopped short and shivered, feeling as though, in a way, she had just replied to an unspoken, unheard request from someone.
Trembling with panic, she looked around the kitchen, wishing to God she didn’t feel so threatened, so vulnerable. She felt suddenly as though she was standing on center stage, with hot, white light burning down on her. Sweat broke out on her brow. Her breath caught in her throat. She could imagine dozens—maybe hundreds—of unseen eyes watching her, stripping her down to her soul as she paced back and forth.
With a low, strangled cry, she turned to the door, flung it open, and raced out into the back yard. The muggy afternoon air wrapped around her like a wet blanket. She was swept up by the intense illusion that she was swimming in slow motion rather than running. She didn’t feel at all in control of herself as she ran, propelled against her will, across the back yard and into the woods. Without even thinking, she started along the path that led to the construction site.
Edward will be there! she kept telling herself. I’ve got to find him and tell him what happened! I’ll be safe with him!
As she ran, she couldn’t get rid of the unnerving sensation that she was being followed. Afraid of what she might see, she didn’t dare chance a look behind. She wasn’t entirely sure which path was the right one, so she just kept running, swept up by the pure physical release of doing something!
Even in the shade of the woods, everything seemed threatening. Tree branches lashed her face and reached out, clawing at her like skeletal hands. Deep green shadows vibrated with menace, and at every turn she expected something to leap out at her. The slanting sunlight shone red through the afternoon haze and played fiery tracks across her vision, confusing her with wavering afterimages that tripped her up on the uneven ground. In several places where the path branched out, Dianne didn’t hesitate even a moment. She just kept running.
Sweat was streaming down her face, glistening on her arms with a cold, clammy touch. Her vision was blurred from the tears that filled her eyes and shattered the light into thousands of dazzling diamonds. Her whole body ached. The thought crossed her mind that she would have to keep running until she either found Edward or else dropped dead from fear and exhaustion. She wasn’t ready for it when she careened around a curve in the path and saw up ahead the slouched roof of the abandoned mill.
“Jesus Christ!” she shouted, drawing to such an abrupt stop that she wrenched her back and neck. Bracing her hands on her knees, she leaned forward and panted heavily, all the while staring up at the gray, battered building and thinking What the hell? How did I end up out here? Through the summer heat haze, the building looked like a mirage.
“That’s it!”
The voice whispering inside her head didn’t sound at all like her own mental voice, but she took another deep, burning breath and focused on the building.
She shuddered when she recalled the vivid dream she’d had about this place—the vigilante crowd, the torchlights flickering in the night, the policemen, and the violent eruption of flames from the mill. It all still seemed so real she felt as though, in some ways, she had somehow lived it.
Nearly blind with panic, she looked around her. The trees seemed to hiss and vibrate in the pressing heat. The afternoon seemed distant, ethereal. In spite of the hot sun beating down on her and the clammy feeling of sweat plastering her hair to her face and neck, she was overpowered by the feeling that this, too, might all be a dream.
Is it? she wondered. Could it be?
What if she was still sitting at the kitchen table?
What if she had never even gone upstairs to check on Brian?
What if she was dreaming all of this, and Brian was sleeping safe and sound upstairs or else he was out at the construction site, helping his father?
Her legs trembled, threatening to fold up under her as she took a few steps out of the fringe of the woods toward the mill. The field was alive with the buzzing of insects. Butterflies and bees darted like comets from flower to flower. The intoxicating scent of high grass and goldenrod filled the air, making it difficult to breathe.
She wanted to keep running but didn’t know where to go. She wanted to scream, but her voice felt bottled up inside her. She wanted to shake or pinch herself—do anything to snap out of it, to wake herself up, but she moved forward, step by step toward the mill, drawn as if caught in the irresistible grip of some invisible force a force that was pulling her, dragging her toward the dark, shadowed building.
This can’t be happening!
She fought back wave after wave of swelling fear, wishing she could blink her eyes or shake her head and or do something to make it all go away; but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the building … and from one particular window opening. She remembered what she had seen there that night, and she dreaded what she might see there now!
A body, hanging from the rope! What if it’s there again? Like in the dream. Only this time it’s …
Brian!
She almost choked on her fear as her feet brought her closer to the building. The swelling sound of insects was almost deafening, but beneath it, Dianne thought she could hear something else. She strained to make out what it was, then shivered when she did.
“Please … Please! … No!” she said.
Her voice was nothing more than a low, gravel grind, buried deep beneath the rising, warbling wail of a baby, crying.
When Brian opened his eyes, he had no idea what time it was.
The pain in the back of his head had become a sharp, steady throbbing that made glowing curtains of red light shift across his vision. When he closed his eyes again, squeezing them tightly, he could imagine that the pain was shaped sort of like an octopus, only it was an octopus with at least a hundred arms, all of which were twitching and probing deeper into his nerves, sending messages of burning pain deep into his brain. Again, he opened his eyes and looked around, but the room—wherever the hell he was—was as black as night. He tried to remember what had happened, but his memory—like his surroundings—were shrouded in darkness.
His face felt crusty, but he had no way of knowing if it was crusted with blood or mucus or dust. He wanted to wipe his face, but when he tried to bring his arm from behind his back, it wouldn’t move. He let out a yelp of pain as something stung his wrist like a snake bite.
“Hey, what’s the matter? You ain’t scared, are you? Can’t you take a little pain?”
The voice came to him out of the darkness, thick with sarcasm, but Brian recognized it instantly.
Uncle Mike!
Blinking rapidly, Brian looked around, trying his best to focus his eyes, but still everything around him was list in darkness. Then, off to his left, he heard the dull scraping sound of something being dragged in the dirt.
He immediately recognized the sound, and when he did, his breath caught in his throat. A cold tickle of sweat ran down his sides from his armpits.
That scraping sound was Uncle Mike, opening the door to his secret room in the mill cellar. A thin haze of gray light momentarily filled the room, dazzling Brian’s eyes; then the light shut off as Mike entere
d the room and closed the door behind him.
Oh, shit! Brian thought.
He started pulling more frantically with both his arms and legs, unable to admit that it was useless. His wrists and ankles were tightly bound. The rope chafed at his bare arms like sandpaper. He cringed and listened as the shuffle of feet on the dirt floor came closer to him.
“That wasn’t you I heard down here, crying like a little baby, now, was it?” Mike asked. His voice was a low, purring growling.
“No,” Brian said as unseen hands reached out of the darkness, felt until they found him, and then poked him painfully in the ribs. A hot spike of pain shot through his chest.
“What? You scared, being left all alone down here in the dark? Huh? Is that it, you little crybaby?”
Brian cleared his throat, wanting desperately to say Fuck you!, but the best he could muster was a feeble, “No.”
“Well then, that’s good, that’s good, because you don’t have to be scared, you know,” Mike said. His voice dropped to a low, almost rational sounding tone, but Brian knew that this wouldn’t last for long.
“Didn’t your momma ever tell you that? That you were never really alone … even here in the dark? Especially out here! Well—? Didn’t she—?”
Another hard jab in the ribs made Brian cry out.
“I asked you a question!”
Brian licked his lips and shook his head no, not caring that the motion was wasted in the darkness. More of what had happened last night was coming back to him, and with it came the cold, sinking feeling in his stomach—the numbed certainty that Uncle Mike was a certified loony, and that he was in very serious danger.
Last night … he’d been trying to fall asleep, hoping to forget all about what had happened up in the attic. The storm had passed, and the house had gotten quiet, but the image of that woman’s face in the old portrait—and it’s haunting similarity to his stepmother—hovered like an unseen bird of prey in the darkness, ready to drop on him and rip him apart with razor-sharp claws. He’d had trouble falling asleep because he feared the dreams that might come.
And then the argument had started—his father and stepmother going at it again. He couldn’t help but hear everything they said and had silently sided with his father, but their voices had been so loud that he hadn’t heard anything else—not until it was too late. Then the feeling he’d had in the attic, that there was someone else in the room with him, returned again. Only this time, he was right!
Before he knew what was happening, much less call out for help, a dark shape had loomed over him as he lay in bed. A powerful hand had clamped down hard over his mouth, almost suffocating him. He had struggled hard but had soon realized, even then, that his father wouldn’t have heard any sounds he might make short of screaming at the top of his lungs. He had bucked and twisted on his bed, trying to throw off the weight that was pressing down on him, but the person had taken hold of his arm and had bent it back, forcing him to roll over onto his stomach. Then something—either a fist or a weapon—smacked him hard on the back of the head. White light and a high, ringing buzz exploded in his head, and he was lost … lost in impenetrable darkness until he had woken up here …
Back in the mill … with his crazy Uncle Mike!
“Wha—what do you want?” Brian asked, forcing as much strength as he could into his voice. “I never did anything to hurt you! Why’re you … why’re you doing this to me?”
“Why—? Why—?”
Hysterical laughter filled the darkness, drilling into Brian’s ears.
“Because I need you … you’re my bait, my lure to help me finish things off out here once and for all! That’s why!”
He expected another poke in the ribs, but a hand grabbed him roughly by the shirt and twisted it into a tight ball. He felt himself being pulled forward. Hot, sour-smelling breath blew across his face as Uncle Mike yanked him up close and whispered heatedly, “And no one’s gonna screw it up, understand? Not you! Not your father! Not your stepmother! No one!”
Pain exploded in the darkness again as something solid slammed into the side of Brian’s face. The buzzing came back, a steady, high-pitched note in the center of his head. Dazed and almost unconscious, Brian felt weightless as he was lifted and dragged across the floor, his feet flopping crazily as if he had no control over them. His arms and shoulders screamed in agony, but soon all sensation was lost in a single, consuming blaze of pain. He heard the rough scraping sound as the door opened. A watery, gray haze of light washed across his closed eyelids, but he was too far gone to register much else. The pressure released from his wrists and ankles as the ropes came away, but he was too weak to get up much less to fight back. Then he felt himself being thrown like a limp ragdoll onto the dirt floor of the cellar.
From far away, he heard a deep snicker of laughter. Then a voice that rumbled like a cascade of rocks rolling downhill said, “Don’t you worry. Someone’ll be along to see you. Real soon. You just get comfortable and wait right here …”
“Brian!”
The shout echoed with a strange dullness from inside the cavernous building.
Oh my God! He’s hurt! Dianne thought.
Almost against her will, she had walked right up to the building and bent down to peer in through the cellar window. That’s when she had first seen the motionless form sprawled facedown on the dirt floor at the back of the room against the wall. It had taken her a moment to realize that it was Brian. His arms and legs were stretched out wide as though he were trying to hug the floor. Dianne’s first impression was that he had fallen from a great height. His head was cocked to one side, looking away from her, so she couldn’t see his face; but she could easily imagine that he was covered with blood, and that his body was already cold and lifeless.
A low whimper sounded deep in her chest as she looked around for some way to get down to him. To her left was a narrow flight of stone steps leading down into the cellar. Without stopping to consider the situation, Dianne raced over to them and went down. The shadowed darkness vibrated with a subtle energy within the vast room. At first she was nearly blinded as her eyes tried to adjust to the sudden lessening of light. She was frantic to run over to the motionless boy, but she had to pick her way carefully through the debris that littered the cellar floor.
Please don’t be dead! Please don’t be dead!
She chanted the words in her mind, shivering as each shuffling step brought her closer to Brian. She was unable to tear her gaze away from the boy, and kept stumbling over fallen stones and old lumber, feeling her way blindly. She held her breath and prayed desperately to see some slight motion, some indication of life.
Please don’t be dead! Please don’t be dead!
And yes!
She saw his head move, and she heard a low, bubbling moan accompanied by a soft scraping sound as he shifted about on the floor. His arms slid underneath his chest, and his back humped up as if he were struggling to stand.
“Hey, Brian! Don’t worry!” she called. “Just hang on a second. I’ll be right there!”
Brian moaned again, louder as he raised his head and looked around, looking for all the world like a turtle, timidly poking his head out of its shell. His face looked thin and pale; it floated like a white balloon in the darkness. His eyes were rolling crazily in his head, unable to focus on anything. For a heart-fluttering instant, Dianne had the impression that he wasn’t even there—that he was nothing more solid than a movie projection. Her feet scraped loudly on the dirt floor as she closed the gap between them, not daring to look away from him, not even for an instant, because she was afraid he would disappear.
He continued to struggle to get up and succeeded—finally—in rolling over onto his back. Dianne could tell by the way his head rolled back and forth that he was nearly unconscious. She only hoped that he wasn’t hurt too badly!
“Hey, hey,” she said, as she came up to him and knelt down beside him. She reached out and touched his forehead, surprised by the solid reality of
him. “Just take it easy, all right? I’ll get you out of here. Did you fall or something? Do you think anything’s broken?”
Brian’s eyes were still shifting back and forth, looking for something solid to latch onto. At last, when his eyes locked onto hers, the expression of terror that filled them gave her a sharp twist of anguish.
He still hates me! she thought. He still resents me!
“Just lie back and relax a minute,” she said, fighting hard to keep her voice steady. She continued to rub his forehead gently and could feel a solid lump about the size of a golf ball on the side of his head, just above the left ear. Looking at him lying there in the dirt, obviously in pain, made her remember the horror of her own fall from the cliff last spring. The thought filled her with an icy terror that gripped her and wouldn’t let go, but she forced herself to take a steadying breath.
Can’t lose it now, she told herself. Got to stay in control … at least until I get him the hell out of here!
“Are you hurt bad? Do you think you can get up and walk?”
She slid her hands under his armpits to help him if he indicated that he wanted to get up. His eyes were still riveted to her, crazy and unfocused, but they widened suddenly, and his mouth sagged open.
“Behind—”
That was all he got to say before Dianne sensed a sudden flurry of motion behind her. She started to turn around, but it was already too late. Something whistled through the air behind her and slammed into the side of her head with a loud ringing, metal sound. The shattering explosion of white light soon faded along with everything else as Dianne sank down … down into the thick blackness of unconsciousness. The last thing she heard was a rough voice say, “Two down and one to go.”
Consciousness came back slowly … painfully.
For the longest time, Dianne imagined that she was sitting below-decks in a boat as it tossed up and down on huge, roiling waves. She was only vaguely aware that her head was rocking back and forth in time with the swells. A hot line of pain shot from behind her left ear down her neck to her shoulders, but she kept grinding her head against the wall or the floor or whatever the hell it was, trying to pull herself back. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was leaning against something hard, something that felt more like stone than wood.
