It was Riggs who spoke first.
“Wait…you thought I poked your wife?”
Ellen was impatient, having heard most of this information before. “I have questions about this latest incident. How you answer will determine how I want to proceed.”
Peter looked to Hannah for her reaction. She was silent, watchful. He turned back to Ellen. “How did you find me?”
“You gave me your address before our interview, of course,” Ellen said, perturbed. “Are you sure you didn’t hear anything the woman said when she marked the child? Anything?”
Peter took Hannah’s hands in his. “You must think I’m nuts.”
“Shut up.”
“I just don’t want you to think—”
“Peter,” she said sternly. “I don’t know what to think.”
Riggs fidgeted. “Look, if you don’t mind, I think I’m gonna head on home. I’ve got…stuff I’ve got to get done.”
Ellen shoved her phone in Peter’s face, an illustration of a demon hanging from a tree on the screen. “Does this look familiar?”
“Enough!” Hannah kicked the seat in front of her, jolting Ellen and silencing Riggs. “I need to talk to my husband. And since I don’t know what the hell is going on, I need backup. Riggs, drive.”
“Where are we—”
“Anywhere but here.”
“Time out,” Ellen cried. “I can’t leave Kevin here.”
“Kevin?” Hannah was at the end of her rope.
“My ride,” Ellen said. “I don’t drive.”
Hannah shoved open her door and stepped into the pouring rain. She opened Ellen’s door for her.
“You two follow us.”
“Jeez,” Riggs said to Peter. “She’s starting to scare me. What was that you said about the haunted house at the fair?”
A flash of lightning illuminated Hannah and Ellen, the latter attempting to argue her way back into the car. Hannah was having none of it.
She jumped back into the front passenger seat and turned to Riggs.
“Take us to Oak Street.”
“What about my Jeep?”
The glare Hannah gave Riggs shut him up, and he quickly steered the Prius down the drive.
* * *
Peter’s parents’ house was lit up. As they pulled up, Peter could see painters working overtime both upstairs and down. The college moved quickly.
Riggs checked the rearview mirror. “Are they still back there?” Another car pulled up behind him, answering his question.
“Shit,” Hannah said. “Where else could we go?”
“Not my place,” Riggs said. “It’s smaller than this freakin’ car of yours.”
Peter reached over the seat and squeezed Hannah’s shoulder.
“Go straight,” he said.
* * *
The Intermission Motor Lodge had added a new neon vacancy/no vacancy sign since the Peter had last seen it, complete with tragedy/comedy masks. Tragedy for no—comedy for yes.
Riggs pulled up next to the office, and Hannah dashed inside. The rain had dwindled but still fell steadily.
“They’re reopening the bar out here,” Riggs said, eyes on the dark windows of the small lounge section of the motel. “At least, that’s what I hear.”
Hannah was back. “Pull around back.” Instead of getting back into the car, she hoofed it through the interior courtyard toward the back.
Riggs considered saying something and thought better of it. After looping around the building, he parked in the space in front of an open room. Hannah stood framed in the doorway, arms crossed.
“This should be fun,” Riggs said under his breath.
* * *
The room connected by means of a double door to the adjoining room.
“I told the guy at the desk there were five of us,” Hannah said, tossing the keys on the bed. “He gave me a deal.” She set a bottle of whiskey on the desk. “And, for an extra thirty bucks, he gave me this.”
Ellen stepped into the room. “Kevin wants to stay in the car.”
“Fine,” Hannah said. “Peter, come with me.” She disappeared into the second room.
“What are we supposed to do?” Riggs moaned.
Peter picked up the whiskey and tossed it to Ellen.
“I don’t drink,” she said.
Peter nodded toward Riggs as he headed for the adjoining room. “He’ll teach you.”
Hannah was sitting on the bed waiting for him. “Close the door, please.”
Peter did as he was asked.
“Sit.”
He sat, noticing that their sides of the bed had switched for this conversation. Hannah was in charge—no doubt about it. Peter was prepared to do whatever she wanted, recant the whole thing if need be. But with her first words, he had to reassess his position.
“I thought I heard a boy,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“In the basement.” She waited for him to press her on the statement, and when he didn’t, she continued. “Last night. I was so mad at you, Peter. You left me stranded. You lied to me. I wasn’t thinking straight, I know that. But…”
Peter wrestled with the impulse to jump in, to apologize for everything. For marrying her, for dragging her away from the city. For poisoning her whole life.
“No,” Hannah said, staring at her hands as if they held the answer. “I heard a boy’s voice in the basement. Just as sure as I hear my own.” She was crying now. “I can’t wrap my head around your story, Peter. I’m trying to. Maybe if you’d told me what was happening while it was happening…I don’t know.”
They both looked up as the sound of murmured voices bled through the adjoining door.
“This girl. How does she figure into this?”
“She’s an expert,” Peter said, trying to convince himself as much as her. “The only expert I knew to call, anyway. I thought if I could deal with this on my own, put an end to it, I could protect you. You’ve been through so goddamn much. I thought I owed you at least that.”
Hannah put her arms around him, and now it was his turn to cry—to expose his confusion and fear and sorrow. To her. To Hannah.
“That’s not how we do things, you big dope,” she said, drawing him closer. “We don’t do things alone. Not this—not Michael. None of it. You hear me?”
He did. As he sat there with Hannah—embracing and embraced—he felt the tiniest nudge of something so foreign he barely recognized it.
Hope.
Ellen held an untouched glass of whiskey in her hand. Riggs was drinking straight from the bottle.
A gawky teenager with blue hair sat on one of the beds flipping through TV channels with the remote. Apparently, Kevin was no longer content to wait in the car.
Hannah approached Ellen.
“Peter seems to think that you can help us. What’s next?”
“First, I need some time alone with Mr. Larson,” Ellen said, setting down the whiskey. “Then, I’ll need to assess the exact nature of this situation. Masterson outlines eight steps in order to—”
“Fine,” Hannah said. “Why don’t you take the other room?”
“I’ll need my backpack.”
“All right.”
“It’s in Kevin’s car.”
Hannah scowled. “Then I suggest you go get it.”
* * *
Peter paced about the room in bare feet—his soaked socks draped across the heater. Ellen sat at the desk rummaging through her backpack.
“Your pacing is making me nervous,” Ellen snapped.
“Sorry. It’s not every day that I get to take part in an exorcism or intervention or whatever you want to call this.”
Ellen looked up, annoyed. “This is just research. I’ll find out what I can. If it helps you, good—if not, too bad.” She dug deeper into the pack. “Where is it?”
An image snuck into Peter’s head, and he tried to bat it away—the grey man glaring at him, knowing him.
And now Peter knew him.
Albert. Albert Carver. The name on his adoption papers.
“Here we go,” Ellen said. She pulled a small prescription box from her backpack and proceeded to pop pills from their foil container like they were candy.
“What’s that?”
“Methylphenidate.”
“And that is…?”
Ellen let loose an exasperated sigh. “It’s Ritalin, all right? I’ve found that high doses help me see things better. And before you ask, yes, by things I mean things of a spiritual nature. Do you have any more questions? Maybe you’d like to write them down.” She downed another two pills and dry swallowed them like a pro.
He held up his hands. No questions.
“Now we wait,” Ellen said. “Eight minutes tops.”
Peter slipped into the bathroom while Ellen sat stoically awaiting the arrival of her buzz. He filled the sink with cold water, submerged his face and held his breath. Fourteen…fifteen…sixteen. When he rose, he grabbed a hand towel and wiped his face, careful not to rip the bandage free.
He looked in the mirror. The light above it blinked once.
Probably the storm. Probably a short.
Probably not.
His eyes were bloodshot. Not only were they red, but fine, spidery veins stood out in sharp relief. He hadn’t shaved in days. Early on in their marriage, Peter had sworn to Hannah that he would never come to bed without ridding himself of his whiskers first, but that was a different Peter Larson.
He peeked back at Ellen Marx.
You might as well have picked her out of the phonebook for all you know about her.
True. But when you’re drowning, do you really stop to check the pedigree of the lifeguard?
“It’s kicking in!” Ellen bellowed from the other room. “We can start.”
Peter found the woman standing in the middle of the room, snooping about as if she’d lost something.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just gotta scoot this little one outta here.”
“Little?”
“Shh!” Ellen hissed.
She elbowed past him on her way to the closet, making shooing motions with her hands.
“Okay,” she said. “He’s gone. I didn’t want to scare him off, but I can’t have him distracting me.”
Peter scratched at his bandage. “I’m not asking a question. But I think I’d be safe to assume that there’s something in this room.”
“There was.”
“Something connected to me.”
Ellen snorted. “No. Not everything’s about you, Mr. Larson,” Ellen said. “This is an old motel. It’d be strange if it weren’t at least a little active, don’t you think?”
She was starting to get on his nerves.
Starting? No. She’d managed that the moment I met her.
“Is it all right if I sit?”
“Knock yourself out,” Ellen said, turning her attention to the ceiling. “I’ve just got to tune out the euphoria.”
The woman finally pulled up a chair and set it in front of him. It was her show now.
“I’m going to take your hand now,” she said, obviously not happy with the prospect. “I want you to clear your mind. Whatever you might be feeling, turn that off as well.”
Easy for you to say.
“And no talking.”
“I didn’t—”
“Easy for you to say. Jeez, you’ve got a loud brain.”
Ellen swiftly gripped his right hand in hers and gave it a meaty squeeze.
“Unghh,” she burbled. Her eyes lolled, and her mouth went slack. If Peter didn’t know any better, he might have feared she was having a stroke.
He remained silent as Ellen spasmed, her hand kneading his.
“Zz-zzz…” she buzzed. “Z’anyone nee-ee…”
The faucet in the bathroom turned itself on. Peter heard it distinctly. And as Ellen rocked and moaned, he listened as the water reached the top of the sink and began dripping onto the tiled floor.
Ellen’s breathing turned rapid. The huff-huff-huff rhythm of one destined to hyperventilate. Her eyes fixed on his. They had gone jet black.
The full-length mirror next to the dresser cracked, splintering from head to toe. The TV flickered on and off.
Ellen pulled back her hand. She glanced at the water pooling on the bathroom floor.
“No!” she said fiercely.
She rose from her chair and stalked over to the sink, sloshing through the standing water.
“No!”
She turned off the faucet and stepped back into the room.
“It’s playing with me,” she said, disgusted. “I hate games.”
“It’s here?”
“Of course it’s here. You’re here—it’s here.”
“But I thought…I thought it was in the basement.”
“It is.”
“Right now?”
“Of course.”
Peter grimaced. “You’ve lost me.”
Ellen scrunched up her face, the effort of translating thoughts into words apparent. “It doesn’t understand concepts like when or where. It’s not bound by time. When is always now to it—it exists in the past, present and future all at once.”
Visions of A Christmas Carol popped into Peter’s head. “So, it lives outside of time. I can wrap my mind around that. Isn’t easy, but I can do it. But you said it’s here with me, but it’s also there at the house? How can that be?”
Ellen looked annoyed. “If I’m going to answer that, I’m going need a little taste.”
She took a step forward, her eyes locked on his.
Peter felt suddenly exposed. “What are you doing?”
The woman rushed toward him, and for a second he thought she was going to strike him. Instead, she took his head in both of her hands and pressed her mouth over his. Peter felt her inhale abruptly—a reverse resuscitation.
She drew back and loosed a howl that rode upon his stolen breath.
The room was plunged into sudden darkness. The same must have occurred in the other room—someone was pounding at the door.
“Stop this,” Peter said.
Ellen only howled.
“Stop!”
He felt the woman swoop in close, her mouth on his ear, and he tried to push her away. Strong fingers gripped the front of his shirt, digging into his collarbones, pulling him in.
No stopping. No, never. Not for Whisper. Not for Mr. Tell.
“Get off me!”
No stopping. No stopping, boy.
Peter shoved hard and broke free of the grasping hands.
The next moment, the door between the room burst open, wrenching its hinges loose.
The lights blinked on in the other room first. For a moment, Peter saw silhouetted figures clambering into the room, rushing toward him, and he was certain he was a dead man.
Then Hannah’s arms were around his neck, and he heard Riggs say, “Damn, Pete. You clocked her?”
Peter looked. Ellen Marx lay sprawled on the floor. She was out cold.
Hannah sent Kevin to the office for some coffee. Ellen had no interest in coffee or in talking. Once she came around, she shoved aside all attempts to tend to her and escaped to the bathroom.
“You or me?” Hannah asked.
Peter walked to the bathroom door and knocked. “Ellen?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m worried about you—”
“Not yet!”
The young woman launched into a rapid-fire dialogue with herself. Peter pressed his ear to the door to try to catch her words, but her pace was too high and her volume too low. The schizophrenic conversation continued for a minute before the door opened slightly.
“Just you,” Ellen insisted. “No one else.”
Peter looked back to Hannah and slipped into the bathroom.
Ellen cowered under the sink, seemingly unaware of the pool of water in which she sat.
“Close the door.”
Peter shut the door and sat on the toilet facing her.
“I need to be sure that you’re okay,” he said.
“Not okay. No.” Ellen ran a trembling hand across her lips, and Peter recognized the two-fingered grip of an invisible cigarette.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you—”
“Not important,” Ellen said, waving him off. “This thing—your thing—is bad. Fascinating but bad. Could easily fill three books. Maybe five.” Even in the throes of near paralysis, the woman was still mapping out her next book series.
“My thing. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“It’s a duality, of course. Can’t teach a dog new tricks. Is that a proverb or an idiom? What’s the difference between them anyway?”
“Ellen—”
“Don’t interrupt me,” she spat. “I’m processing.”
“Can I get you some water?” Peter rose and made a move for the stack of wrapped plastic cups on the shelf.
“Not helpful!” Ellen complained.
“Ellen, please, stop.” Peter’s voice was firm but pleading, and it caught Ellen’s attention. “I’m lost. And if you learned anything that could help me, I’m begging you—help me.”
The strange woman on the Ritalin high shifted gears immediately. She straightened up.
“It’s bound to you. By blood. But it doesn’t want to be, you see? I don’t have a clear picture of how it happened, but your mother—this Willa—had some freakin’ gift.”
“How so?”
“You can’t control something this dark—you just can’t. But she did. At least to some extent. And now it’s acting up. Rebelling.” She grabbed his wrist. “It’s like something out a nightmare, Mr. Larson. I don’t ever want to feel something like that again.”
“I need to know what you found out when you...took a taste of it,” Peter said, taking advantage of her momentary focus.
“Help me up. My ass is wet.”
Peter lent her his arm, and the squat woman rose. She turned back to the sink, unwrapped a small, complimentary hand soap. “Here’s your answer to how it can be here and there at the same time.” She drew a soap X on the mirror. “This is the moment your mother bound the demon to you,” she said. “From that moment until now, you two have been inseparable.”
The Nightmare Room (The Messy Man Series Book 1) Page 16
