314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy)

by A. R. Wise

  “On it,” said Jacker as he sped up.

  The tires squealed as they turned sharp corners on their way back to Cada E.I.B.’s facility on the north side of Widowsfield. Jacker wasn’t concerned with stop signs, and within minutes they were pulling into the only place in Widowsfield that showed any signs of life other than the eerie silhouettes of mannequins staring out of other buildings in town. He parked beside the side entrance where Michael had taken Ben through earlier and then Alma quickly jumped out, explaining that she’d run inside to get help and that Paul and Jacker should stay with the van. She was more than happy to get away from Ben the first chance she got.

  Alma felt relieved to be leaving Ben, but as soon as she entered the quiet, dead building, she wasn’t sure how confident she was that it was better inside. The emergency lights were on, bathing the halls in red light, but it was eerily silent. She’d been groggy when they’d left, and had trouble remembering how to get back to where Rachel and Stephen were at.

  She did her best to find her way, but then she heard a woman call out, “Rachel?”

  Alma turned and saw the portly nurse that worked for Cada E.I.B. leaning out from one of the rooms. “Oh,” she said when she recognized Alma. “In this light you looked like someone else.”

  “Where is Rachel?” asked Alma. “Isn’t she with you?”

  “No,” said the older nurse. “She went looking for Oliver.”

  “She did?” asked Alma, surprised. “Did Stephen go with her?”

  “Oh no,” said the nurse as she approached. “I’m sorry, I thought you meant the other Rachel. The nurse that I was working with is named Rachel too. Your friends are in the room to the right, just down the hall.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Alma. “We need your help outside.”

  “Me?” asked Helen. “Why?”

  “One of our friends was stabbed. She’s in the van outside and needs your help. She’s bleeding badly.”

  “Oh my gosh,” said Helen. “Are you parked in the lot?”

  Alma nodded and said, “Do you have a wheelchair or something?”

  “We can use one of the gurneys. Come with me.”

  “Let me go tell Rachel and Stephen what’s going on,” said Alma.

  “Don’t bother. They’ve got the door locked,” said Helen. “I went in to check on them a little while ago and it looked like they were filming something.”

  Alma imagined that Stephen and Rachel were filming something for their internet show, and was mildly annoyed that they would still be thinking about that venture in the midst of everything that had happened to them. She shrugged off the concern and went to help Helen with one of the gurneys from the sleepers’ room.

  They hurried back to the exit that led to the parking lot. Jacker was waiting with the exit door propped open. He waved at them to hurry and said, “She’s fading fast. Come on.”

  Alma and Helen guided the gurney over the threshold of the door, causing the metal bed to rattle before its wheels grinded on the concrete sidewalk outside. They were under a humming external light and large, flying shadows were cast from it by the moths that spun above.

  Rosemary’s door was open, and Paul was standing beside her, doing his best to help although his expression revealed his helplessness. His hands were covered in Rosemary’s blood.

  Helen was quick to command the group on how they could help. Her years as an ER nurse were evident as she calmly and decidedly dealt with the situation. Within only a couple minutes, Rosemary had been transferred to the gurney and Helen had her hands pressed against the wound, the blade still protruding forth. Paul and Alma took opposite sides of the gurney to push it along as Helen insisted that they get back down to the sleepers’ room, where her supplies were at.

  Alma and Paul both realized that they would be leaving Jacker alone to stay with Michael and Ben. They looked at him in concern, but he was quick to say, “It’s okay, just go. I’ll stay with the psychos. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Alma. “Whatever Ben says, just ignore him.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jacker. “I’m shutting the two of them in that van alone. I’ll wait out here. Fuck those freaks.”

  Ben overheard Hank Waxman say that he would leave the van’s occupants alone, and his heart fluttered at the prospect of being left with Michael. He stayed silent and waited for the fat man to close the doors. He locked eyes with Jacker, and smiled at him. Jacker flipped Ben off, and then slammed the van’s door shut, leaving Ben alone with his father.

  “Daddy,” said Ben, his voice a menacing hiss. “I’m feeling stronger.”

  Michael Harper was bound and gagged, and the noises he made were pitiful. Ben turned, and set his hands on the seat that separated him from his father. The Skeleton Man stared at his prey, and laughed through his chattering teeth.

  CHAPTER 17 – No Witnesses

  Widowsfield

  March 1st, 1996

  7:00 PM

  Helen parked outside of the abandoned Salt and Pepper Diner. She was whistling as she got out of her car and went around to the back. She glanced around, making certain no one was near, but Widowsfield was a ghost town, just like it’d been for years. She opened her trunk, convinced no one was watching.

  Inside was a stack of firewood that had been wrapped in oiled rags. The dingy rags were tied to the pieces of wood, and the kindling was placed inside of a large blue, plastic bag that her friend had brought back from an Ikea trip. On top of the bag was a hammer and a sign that read ‘Out of Order’. Helen hoisted the heavy back up and over her shoulder, and then picked up the jerry can that was full of gasoline from the trunk as well.

  The spout on the can of gas was open, and the liquid splashed out onto her smock. “Son of a gun,” she muttered as she saw the liquid soaking into her shirt. Luckily, she always had a spare smock in her car. As a nurse, she’d quickly learned the value of a change of clothes. There was no telling what sort of horrific things could dirty up a smock during a day of work.

  Helen carried the firewood and gas into the diner and then headed for the men’s bathroom. It seemed as good a place as any to hide the tinder.

  She wondered if she’d get to watch Widowsfield burn. She’d always hoped to see that.

  Widowsfield

  March 14th, 1996

  3:13 PM

  The tugboat that Oliver was on had been detached from the Eldridge, and was floating about fifty yards away from the battleship. Oliver was standing on the back of the tug, and kept checking his watch in anticipation of the time when he knew that Vess would cut the cord.

  The tug captain was leaning back in his seat, his feet on the dash. He had a folded newspaper in one hand and a pencil in the other and he was mulling over a crossword, ignorant of the important event that was about to occur.

  3:14 arrived, and Oliver anxiously glanced up at the ship. He knew that Vess’s watch would be set to the same time. Cada E.I.B. and The Accord were very particular about their employees all sticking to the same time. Before Oliver had known about the significance of 3:14, he’d assumed this was a discipline issue. Now he knew the reason they’d been so stringent about everyone keeping to the same time schedule was because of the importance they placed on the number 314. He wondered how many other project leads had been instructed to activate their experiments at precisely 3:14 in whatever time zone they were located.

  A hollow bang came from the Eldridge the moment that Oliver’s watch displayed 3:14. Ripples appeared along the side of the boat and chased away from it, revealing that the entire ship was vibrating. Then a flash of green light reflected off the surface of the water and Oliver looked up in time to see another arc of lighting emit from the ship’s bow. It was like watching a storm cloud, except that the lightning was distinctly green.

  The captain of the tug had swiveled in his seat so that he was facing the back of the cabin. He kicked the door open while remaining seated and screamed out, “Did you see that?”

  Ol
iver nodded as he lowered his notebook. He didn’t dare look away to write down what he was seeing.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” asked the captain. “Do we need to get out of here?”

  “No, keep us right here,” said Oliver.

  “Ain’t too smart to be on a boat when there’re Goddamned bolts of lightning shooting around.”

  Oliver turned to look at the captain and yelled, “Stay here!”

  A crack of thunder exploded from the Eldridge, but when Oliver turned to look back at the boat, it was gone. The battleship had vanished, and in its place was just a faint, white smoke.

  “What the fuck?” asked the captain as he forced his wide frame out of his seat and gazed at where the ship had been. He made the sign of the cross and kissed his knuckle before staring in wide-eyed fear at Oliver. “What did you insane pricks do? What happened to that boat?”

  Oliver shook his head and blinked as if coming out of a daze. He murmured an answer, “I don’t know.”

  Something caught Oliver’s attention in the water. He glanced down and saw a flash of green light coming from deep below them. He went to the edge of the boat to investigate and saw that the cord that had formerly been attached to the underside of the Eldridge, and was used to feed electricity to the stopgap mechanism on the CORD, was still floating where it had been, as if it was still attached to the boat. The thick wire was crackling with the same green lightning that the Eldridge had been, and the light was pushing its way toward the shore.

  Oliver looked up at the small building on shore that the cord led to. The green energy flowed into the building, and the cord that it traveled across vanished as soon as it had passed, as if Oliver was watching a bomb’s wick receding. He didn’t know what would happen, and he braced himself as if expecting the shack to explode. It didn’t, and both Oliver and the captain were left staring at the building in wonderment.

  Then the water near the shore splashed as the cord that the green energy had followed suddenly reappeared. At the same moment, a groan of steel echoed out over the reservoir and the water around the tugboat was pushed upward. Oliver and the captain struggled to stay standing, and then turned to see that the Eldridge was back where it had been. The only evidence of its disappearance were the waves it created when it had appeared again. Then a thick white smoke began to pour over the edge of the ship. The mist was growing at a shocking rate, and flooded the sky above them like the canopy of a tree or a mushroom cloud. Then the fog pressed forward out over the reservoir and in the direction of Widowsfield.

  “What the fuck?” asked the captain as he waddled back into the cabin. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  “No, wait,” said Oliver. “Take me back to the Eldridge.”

  “Hell no,” said the captain with a roar of laughter. “You must be out of your damn mind.”

  “I’m serious,” said Oliver as he went to the cabin to argue with the portly man. “Get me over there or…” He paused and then said with emphasis, “Or you’re fired.”

  “Go ahead,” said the captain as he turned on the boat. “Fire my ass. I don’t give a shit.”

  The fog was coming their way, skirting the surface of the water as it reached out for them.

  The tugboat shot forward, knocking Oliver back. He fell to his rear in the back of the boat. He debated going to shore with the captain, but he realized that the man owned the tugboat, and he probably wouldn’t be willing to allow Oliver to drive it back to the Eldridge. There weren’t any other boats on the reservoir except for the Eldridge and the two tugs, which meant Oliver would either have to swim back to the Eldridge or go down to a nearby lake and try to rent a boat that he could haul back here.

  After weighing his options, Oliver decided that he needed to get onto the Eldridge as quick as possible. He grabbed the life preserver that the captain had ordered him to get earlier, and then dove off the side of the tugboat.

  Hitting the water was more painful than he’d anticipated, and Oliver struggled to breathe as he swam over the waves left by the tug. He grasped the preserver, and then pulled himself onto it so that he could catch him breath. After cursing at the captain of the tug a few more times, he started to swim in the direction of the Eldridge. The fog that had bloomed from the ship sat a foot higher than the water, giving Oliver enough room to swim without touching it. From within the fog he saw the flash of green electricity.

  After an exhausting swim, he finally reached the ladder that he’d taken down when he boarded the tugboat. The rope ladder was arduous to ascend, and he took each wrung slowly until he was finally pulling himself onto the deck. By the time he made it to the boat, the fog had moved on. The cloud was headed towards town, leaving the boat behind.

  “Hello?” he called out but got no response.

  Oliver wiped his face and then tried to shake off some of the water from his clothes, but it didn’t do much good. His shoes squished as he walked, but he ignored the discomfort as he made his way across the deck to the door that he had to go through to get down to where the CORD was located. As he approached the door, he caught sight of something sticking out of the wall. The shape made no sense to Oliver at first. The steel wall was grey and smooth, with only the occasional rivet marring its surface, but then there was an odd series of lumps sticking out of it that he was certain hadn’t been there before. It looked like cloth.

  He reached the odd mass and cautiously reached out to touch it. It was a triangular shape that stuck out of the wall, and it seemed to be made of a white, cotton fabric. He gripped the top of the triangular expulsion, unsure what he expected to discover, and was horrified when it squished in his hand.

  He backed away in surprise and stared at the lump in disgust. The base of the triangle, where the fabric looked to be fused with the steel wall, became wet with a red liquid. That’s when Oliver realized what he was looking at. This triangular shape protruding from the wall was a man’s elbow, covered in the white sleeve of his shirt. It was exactly as Vess said had happened in 1943, where sailors were fused to the Eldridge itself, as if their skin were a part of its hull. The red liquid gushing from the quivering mass was blood, and it was dripping down the side of the wall as Oliver watched.

  Oliver rushed to the door and wound the crank that would open it. He pulled the massive door open and passed through the half-foot wide threshold. To his left, sticking out of the thick wall, was the head of one of the unfortunate men that had been on the ship when Vess cut the cord. The man seemed to be dead already, but there was no blood dripping down from where his neck was sticking out of the ship. He realized that the reason the man’s elbow outside had started bleeding was because Oliver had ripped the skin away from the hull when he touched it.

  Oliver gawked at the bizarre sight. The sailor’s other arm was hanging limply from the wall, as was one of his legs. The rest of his body was lost within the wall itself.

  Then a pathetic whine came from deep within the ship, and Oliver realized that someone was in pain nearby. He cautiously slid along the opposite wall from where the dead sailor sprouted, fearful that the man might suddenly wake and give Oliver new fuel for the nightmares this would certainly inspire. After passing the grotesque sailor, Oliver ran down the hall and to the stairs. The sound of the crying man grew louder as he went. Then, as Oliver turned the last corner that would lead to the door to the CORD’s room, he saw who it was that had been crying.

  One of Vess’s guards was fused to the floor from the waist down. It was clear that he’d been trying to free himself, but his movement had ripped his skin away from the steel, causing him to bleed profusely. The blood pooled at his waist, and he was crying in pain and helplessness when Oliver found him.

  “Help me!” The man reached out to Oliver. His pale face was contorted in agony as he held out his arms.

  Oliver halted and offered no help. He just stared in horror at the doomed man.

  “You have to help me. I don’t know what happened. It hurts. It hurts.” He continued to
repeat himself as Oliver stood helplessly before him. The guard was blocking Oliver’s way.

  “I can feel my legs,” said the guard. “Does that make any sense? How’s that possible?” He pushed his hands against the floor, raising himself up again and causing his skin to rip further. “It hurts!”

  “Stop…” Oliver felt his stomach turn at the sight. “Stop moving.”

  “Help me get out!” The guard reached out to Oliver again, but received no aid. “It hurts, but I think we could pull me out. Help me, Goddamn it!”

  Oliver shook his head.

  The guard groaned in pain and anger as he planted his hands on the floor again. He pushed, and then screamed as more blood gushed out. A flap of pink intestine emerged from under him, and he grabbed it as he said, “How…”

  The guard was dazed from pain and blood loss. Oliver wasn’t certain if the man knew what he was holding, or if he pulled on it in confusion, but either way, the man was eviscerating himself. Then the guard coughed, and blood spurted out over his chin.

  He looked up at Oliver and said, “It hurts.”

  With that, the hulking guard slumped backward as he finally fell unconscious. The force of his body leaning back caused his stomach to rip further, and his intestines spilled out in front of Oliver like a bag of cooked spaghetti that had been slit open. The red blood and pink intestines stretched out as Oliver jumped backward in disgust.

  Oliver had no choice but to wade through the gore as he made his way to where Vess and the CORD were at. He stared at the ceiling as he passed the dead guard, and then ran the rest of the way without looking back.

  He didn’t know what to expect when he got to Vess, and he hoped that the CORD’s founding scientist wasn’t partially fused to a wall somewhere. He opened the door that led to the catwalk above the bay, and saw Vess lying on the ground.

  “Vess!”

  He ran down the stairs while watching the CORD as its silver rings spun. The device was still on, but it wasn’t creating electricity anymore.