“Don’t let her have me—don’t let Anne have me!”
The woman shrieked as her eyes rolled back and her body started to convulse.
The fire was all around them now, and Martin realized that the air had gotten so hot that it hurt to breath.
“No!” Martin shouted when she stopped screaming. “No!”
Jennifer’s concave chest stopped rising and falling.
She was dead—the fire had turned her face black and crispy, like overcooked bacon. Her eyes had gone completely white and smoke spilled from her open mouth.
Martin began to cough, the acrid smell of smoke burning his throat and chest. He rolled off the woman, trying to get away from her burning body and to somewhere cooler. It was impossible; the fire had spread throughout the small apartment.
Somewhere amidst the crackling of the flames he heard the sound of a fire alarm going off; an incessant beeping that reminded him that if he didn’t flee the burning apartment now, it would only be moments before he was rendered much the same as Jennifer, starting with his already blistering hands.
Martin, still crouched low, grabbed the blue notepad, which, unbelievably, seemed to be the only item untouched by the fire. Coughing hard now, he used the notepad to grasp the sizzling doorknob and fled into the hallway, the thick, black smoke following him like an obedient pet.
Several of the doors to other apartments were open now, concerned faces peeking out.
“Get out!” Martin yelled as he made his way to the stairwell. “Get out now! The whole place is going to burn!”
He waved his arms, gesturing madly for them to flee.
There was a scream, then a mother jumped out of her doorway a toddler in her arms.
Martin followed the woman down the stairs, doing his best not to bowl her over, and together they made it out into the cool night.
When the cold air hit his throat, he inhaled deeply. Martin kept moving, stumbling by several people who had gathered and stared up at the building, which now had flames licking out of several fourth floor windows.
Firetruck sirens cut through the night.
He made his way to his car, throwing the door wide and tossing the blue notepad on the seat before collapsing.
A coughing fit hit him then, and he spasmed until his mouth filled with phlegm. Eyes burning, he spat onto the grass.
There was another sound, he realized, one that was slightly muted compared to the alarm from the building, the sirens from the approaching fire trucks, and the blood rushing in his ears. It took him a moment to place it: his phone.
It took three attempts to click the green icon with his burned fingers.
“Hello?” he croaked.
A female voice answered, and although it was one he hadn’t heard in many years, he recognized it immediately.
“Martin—she took our baby girl, Martin. They kidnapped Hope,” the woman said. Then she added, “Coverfeld Ave,” and Martin’s blood, nearly boiling from the burning apartment building, ran icy cold.
“Arielle?” he shouted into the phone, his throat raw, his head spinning. “Arielle?”
But Arielle had already hung up, once again leaving him in the dark.
Chapter 42
Arielle sped along the highway, her mind racing faster than her Audi. With the city lights fading into her rearview, she tried to recall the events that had preceded her first going out to Coverfeld Ave.
First, there was the girl, a girl that didn’t look that much unlike Hope, now that she thought about it—a girl with long blond hair and a missing front tooth—playing Frisbee. Then she had found the poster and had dialed the number.
Could the girl have put the poster there? It was possible…
There was something else about the girl, too, something that she couldn’t quite place. It was like trying to see out a frosted window; she knew things were there—shapes, shadows, colors—but when she tried to bring them into focus, they just blurred into unrecognizable forms.
Fuck, why can’t I remember?
The temperature had cooled considerably from the warm afternoon. Still, despite the plunging temperatures, she had the window down, and the cool air whipped her in the face. It felt rough on her skin, like sandpaper assaulting her raw eyes and cheeks. But she let it burn; she was feeling tired again, and she couldn’t afford to sleep. Not yet.
Hope needs me.
Arielle’s foot pushed the gas pedal just a little harder and her Audi jumped forward, pealing down the nearly empty highway. At this rate, she would be back at Stumphole in less than two hours.
And then what?
Arielle wasn’t sure.
I’ll think of something. I’ll think of a way to get my daughter back.
* * *
Arielle switched off the lights even before she turned onto Coverfeld Ave, despite the fact that the house—something that, oddly, she could remember—was still a couple of miles down the road.
It was better this way; quiet, stealthy. She needed any advantage she could get. Even though she had spent the better part of nine months in this fucking place, she had no recollection of what it was like inside or out.
The only things she remembered were the milk, the mice, and the gray—she remembered that everything about the place was a dull, monochromatic gray.
She cut the engine early, letting the car just coast closer to where the house lay in the swamp. Just before it finally came to a rest in the mud, the tires slipped into some old treads—tire treads that had been made a long time ago, ones that were deep in places, then shallower…
A vision suddenly hit her, a memory of—
A giant of a man, a tall, spindly beast telling her to get out of her car. To head inside.
“Shouldn’t I park the car?”
The man shook his head.
“No, Mother needs to see you now.”
“Well, what are you going to do with it? You can’t just keep it here… and I doubt you can fit inside.”
The man grunted.
“I’ll push it,” he said, and she made a face. “I’ll push it. Mother will see you now.”
Arielle shook her head, clearing the fog.
It still bothered her that she had found the house in the first place… after all, she had only the street name to go on. This should have tipped her off that something was up when she had come four, nearly five years ago. How could a person find a gray house on a mud road adjacent a foul swamp without ever having been there before? A house that was tucked away, hidden from sight. And all this based only on a street name.
The mailbox; she found the house again this time because she caught a glimpse of the mailbox poking out of the mud. The one with 1818 written crudely on the side.
Just like before.
Arielle sat in her car in the dark, trying to make out where exactly the house was through the maze of trees that dotted the lawn. Moonlight sent slivers of glinting steel through their trunks, but this was of little help; all it served to do was to give her the impression that she was looking into a smashed mirror.
Still, she knew the house was there, just sixty or so yards up the mud trail.
A toad belched from somewhere to her left, and she jumped.
Keep it together, Arielle, keep it together. Hope needs you.
She reached into her purse and grabbed her cell phone, and as she did, her eyes caught a small container, one that she had seen earlier in the day when she had been tossing things onto the police officer’s desk.
Pills.
Arielle brought the bottle close to her face and inspected it.
Promethazine – 25 mg.
The word was foreign to her, but the transparent orange container stirred a memory. They were the pills that Dr. Barnes had given her for her nausea back when she had first been pregnant. Which meant that they were more than four years old, and had probably lost some of their efficacy. Still, the bottle was full…
A part of her wanted to take one herself, right now, to help rid or at le
ast alleviate the anxiety that twisted her intestines.
Arielle decided against taking one. She needed to be sharp… for whatever happened when she left the safe confines of her car and braved the mud. Despite her lack of memory, she had a feeling that Mother would not give Hope back easily.
Mother. Now that was someone she remembered clearly, what with her heavily painted eyelids and pale pink lips. The nicotine-stained fingers, the tendrils of gray and white hair.
A life for a life.
A shudder rattled the pills in the orange container.
She had made a deal with someone worse than the devil.
She had made a deal with Mother.
Even though she decided against taking one of the pills herself, that didn’t mean that they might not be still be useful.
She rattled the pill container again.
The problem was, her sounding like a maraca was not going to facilitate a stealthy approach. Arielle pulled the cap off and stared at the pills.
Crush them, I can crush them and…
She reached over and rustled through her purse, her searching fingers finding another photograph. This time, however, it was the photo of Hope she had taken just a few months back. Hope, with her soft, blue eyes and long blond hair.
Where the fuck…?
Arielle shook her head, trying to focus.
…I can crush the pills and fold them into the photograph—that could work.
And then Arielle set about doing just that, somewhere in the back of her mind realizing that she must have seen this on a TV show a while back. She used her car keys to grind the white pills against the bottom of the container, extracting a modicum of satisfaction with every crunch. When the entire bottle had been reduced to a fine white powder, she bent it carefully and poured the powder into it. Then she folded it again, made sure that the powder wouldn’t spill out, and tucked the small square into her bra.
A deep breath, a quick moment of silence with her eyes closed, and her hand fell to the door handle where it rested briefly.
A life for a life.
I will get my daughter back.
With that, Arielle opened the door and stepped into the cool, dark, and foul-smelling night, her hands unconsciously balling into fists.
Chapter 43
Martin tried calling the number again and again, but it always ended with the same robotic voice telling him that the mailbox of the person he was trying to reach was full.
He sped down the highway at breakneck speed, his mind full of images of burning flesh, be it the melting photographs of the smiling girl plastered around the apartment, Jennifer burning and dying beneath him, or the demon, Anne LaForet in the swamp, burned at the stake, her four-year-old daughter screaming in agony beside her.
“Fuck!” Martin swore, slamming his hands down on the steering wheel. He cried out in pain as the blisters that had formed there during the fire burst.
Please, Woodward, be ready.
His estranged friend had sounded confused on the phone, so utterly shocked that Martin had called him after so much time without speaking, that he had stammered through the conversation.
Please be ready, he pleaded again. And please have something for me…
When Martin pulled up to Woodward’s house, sweat was dripping from his face. Three times he had to brush it away from his eyes from fear of it blinding him and causing him to veer off the road, and all three times his fingers had come back dark with soot.
He was too frightened to look at his reflection in the mirror.
Martin hadn’t even put the car into park before the door to Woodward’s ranch-style home swung open and a figure lumbered out.
A second later, the passenger door swung outward and Woodward heaved his large body into the car. Martin noticed that the man held a folder in one hand and he was wearing his service revolver in a holster on his hip.
Both of these were good signs.
With the door closed, Woodward finally turned to him and stared directly into his face.
“How nice of you to call,” he said, his voice hushed, his small mouth and tight. “And you look like shit, by the way.”
Martin put the car into drive and the vehicle shot forward.
* * *
They had been driving for a good ten minutes before Woodward finally broke the silence.
“Well? You gonna tell me what the fuck happened to you? You been drinking, Marty?”
The blisters on Martin’s hands had started to throb, and the sensation was slowly creeping up his singed forearms.
He swallowed hard.
“Did you look for what I asked? Did you find anything?”
Woodward gently waved the folder in his hand.
“Read it to me,” Martin demanded.
Woodward shook his head.
“No fucking way. You call me after what, three, almost four years? And you tell me that Arielle called… and that you have a daughter? What the fuck, Marty?”
Martin just stared straight ahead, jaw clenched. He knew that if he even tried to offer a retort, he would likely break into tears.
“Then you show up looking like you just fucked a fireplace, and you’re giving me orders?”
Martin pushed the gas pedal just a little bit harder and his car shot down the dark highway.
“Nuh-uh. No way. You spill the beans, man. And you spill them right now.”
Martin took a deep breath and then he started to speak, going way back to when he had bumped into the woman from the church after leaving the cafe, and ending with her burning to death beneath him.
By the end, he was crying. Just he suspected.
For a while, Woodward didn’t say anything. He just sat there in the passenger seat, breathing heavily, eyes trained on the increasingly darkening road.
“She died?”
Martin nodded.
“I tried… I tried to save her, Woods. Fuck—her fucking eyes were white, and there was smoke,” his voice hitched, “there was smoke coming out of—”
Woodward hushed him.
“That’s fucked up—really fucked up. And then Arielle? She called you? Told you that you have a daughter?”
Martin nodded and sniffed, wiping black snot from his face with the back of his hand.
Woodward didn’t press anymore, at least not for the moment. The man was struggling to take it all in. In the end, he just left it alone, and changed subjects.
“I got what you asked,” Woodward said after a brief pause, “Want me to read it?”
Martin nodded again, and Woodward started to read from the folder in his lap.
“Janice Dankins, four-years-old; missing in 1976. Emma Story, four-years-old; missing 1982. Fran Smith, five-years-old; missing 1986. Chelsea Pickett, four-years-old, 1990.”
Woodward flipped through a few pages.
“Fifteen girls, Martin. Fifteen young girls, either four or five years of age in and around Stumphole have all gone missing over the last 30 or so years.”
Martin felt his chest tighten.
Could it be true? Could what Jennifer told him about Anne LaForet be true?
“Never a clue, never a trace. None confirmed, either, mind you; no birth certificates for any of them. What the fuck, Martin? How could I not have heard about this?”
“Open the blue notebook,” he instructed, ignoring the man’s question, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to provide an adequate answer. Woodward did as he was told.
“Old newspaper clippings,” the police officer said, flipping through the pages, “Some about more missing children, something about a tree—some burnt tree by the swamp—another about—”
“—go back,” Martin interrupted, “tell me about the tree.”
Woodward flicked back to the page and started to read.
“Three vandals were arrested when they were caught defacing a tree out at Stumphole Swamp—at 8181 Coverfeld Ave. The three kids, all in their mid to late teens, were caught urinating on a tree that they claimed had once
been the spot where Anne LaForet had been tied and burned to death… the teenagers said that—”
“Okay,” Martin interrupted.
“—that they wanted to piss on the—”
“—okay, Woodward, that’s enough. Stop reading.”
Woodward obliged.
Another moment of silence ensued as his friend’s words weighed on him. If nothing else, the article meant that Jennifer had not been completely bullshitting about the woman in the woods. It didn’t mean that her story was true of course, but his mind kept wandering back to the man that they had seen when they had first made their way to the rundown house on Coverfeld.
The man that had gripped him by the throat.
The man named Jessie.
Filia obcisor.
Filius obcisor.
They drove in silence for a long while, but when Martin turned onto Coverfeld Ave, Woodward broke it.
“You don’t believe any of this shit, do you?”
Martin took a deep breath and turned to face his friend. Woodward’s eyes were wide, but his mouth was characteristically tight.
“I don’t know,” Martin replied honestly. He reached up and wiped more soot from his forehead. “I really don’t know. I just want to find Arielle… and I want to find my daughter.”
Chapter 44
Moonlight only penetrated the top layer of fog leaking off the swamp, coating it in an eerie blue glow. The rest of the woods were nearly completely dark, making it slow going for Arielle McLernon. This was compounded by the fact that with every step, her feet sunk further into the mud, and pulling them back out again was getting more and more difficult. To top it off, her feet felt heavy, as if the mud that coated her loafers was slowly solidifying into a block of concrete.
Arielle knew the house was back here somewhere, even if she couldn’t see it yet. It was back here, and she just knew that Hope was somewhere inside. That was all that mattered.
This knowledge drove her forward.
The smell, which she recalled from her very first visit, a blast of rank, hot, sulfurous stench, didn’t bother her as much this time, for reasons she didn’t completely understand. She thought that maybe it was that she had just become accustomed to it, the way a fart only smelled offensive in the elevator for the first few floors. Or maybe it was because her mind was preoccupied.
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