Eric released his grip, stared at the stranger briefly, and then rolled to the floor, sobbing.
CHAPTER 19
“Eric?” John spit out, still trying to catch his breath. His eyes still a bit hazy. “Is that you?”
Eric, sobbing hysterically like a little girl who just found out her only puppy had died, looked wanly at the stranger lying beside him. Even through the discrepancies in the stranger’s tone, he could now recognize the voice. He felt even worse. Even in the darkness, Eric could recognize the dark, curly mop top of the stranger. It was John. Son of a bitch! It was John all along. Why hadn’t Eric known? How could he have not known?
The sobs escaping Eric’s lips elevated momentarily as he realized on some level he had known it was John before now, before lying back down long enough for him to speak. “Yeah,” he muttered through heaving gasps. “It’s me.” He wanted to apologize—intended to—but struggled to find the words. I’m sorry, John, he thought of saying, but I was possessed. It would never work...not even in this house. Just be glad I didn’t kill you ’cause now that gives him a chance to kill the both of us, to satisfy his lust for blood.
“Thank God,” John muttered; his exterior returned to its own lightly tanned natural shade. “I thought you were—” He lets his head fall back to the hardwood floor. It was surprisingly comfortable. Perhaps it was just the exhaustion, though. Anything would feel comfortable now. “Never mind,” he said to the ceiling.
“Who?” Eric asked. He already knew the answer, but he could not resist. It was the only way to determine just how much John actually knew. He knew he hadn’t mentioned Raymond to John, so he needed to figure out how John knew about him, who had told John, what all did John know. The questions coursed in his mind much like they had while talking with Isabella, but this time, Eric kept them to himself. He remembered the frustration all too clearly on Isabella’s face when he bombarded her with a different but seemingly similar line of questioning. She was a spirit, incapable of certain human emotions, and she had been disappointed; in John’s startled state, the questions would more than likely cause him a breakdown and leave him groveling on the floor next to Eric in a matter of seconds.
“It doesn’t matter,” said John.
“You know something, John,” Eric blurted, “and so do I. So we can get down to business and tell each other what we know and get the fuck out of here, or we can sit here and wait.”
The words pierced through John’s heart and mind as his stomach rolled into knots. He knew Eric was right. “Let’s do it and get the fuck outta here.”
Both boys shared their stories with each other (of course, stories being a bit of a mild exaggeration). What they actually told was more like a compilation of events, out of order and missing several pieces like one of the puzzles that each of their mothers liked to buy at garage or yard sales for fifty cents or a quarter. In their excitement and fear, they simply (and accidentally) jumbled the order of events, always interrupted by the other blurting out some insignificant happening completely irrelevant to what the one was telling. However, the missing pieces were not necessarily accidental in all cases. They each forget certain and several details, all intentionally; details alone that were not that important, but combined with the stories and intertwined throughout the entire night, they could have been vital.
In any case, the details were not that important because neither boy had told of their actual encounters. John knew nothing of Isabella. Eric knew nothing of Jeff Cahill.
John never mentioned a word about Jeff Cahill because, frankly, he saw no point in doing so. Raymond, on the other hand, was a different story. He had wanted to inform Eric so badly of the things Jeff Cahill had told him about Raymond. He wanted to spill the beans about all of it but wasn’t quite sure of how to break it gently to Eric. If there was even a way to break it gently. He had no clue. Besides, he knew Eric would not believe him. He knew that anything Eric had read on the net was indisputable. He knew Eric would accuse him of lying until the day he died, which may be tonight.
On the other hand, Eric maintained the secrecy for slightly different reasons. The fear factor, for the most part, was not fear for himself but for John. John was the scaredy-cat of the two boys to begin with, and after tonight’s events, it would only make matters worse. If he told John about Isabella, or about Raymond (the real culprit), John would be rendered fearfully useless. John would probably freeze up and not move until...well, he wasn’t quite sure of how long, but he had seen it before.
Eric had seen it before a few years back at the swimming area of the Riverton Campgrounds. That was the day they had seen the alligator—which they would later find out after some game wardens trapped it that it was every bit of thirteen feet long, maybe more—on the bank opposite of the swimming area. It was no new phenomenon to see an alligator on that side. They were there nearly every day, sunbathing mostly. But this was different. This particular alligator splashed into the water and swam towards them. It was a long swim, even for a gator, but it made it quickly and effortlessly. John and Eric hadn’t been the only two watching that day. Of course, panic didn’t break out until the alligator’s eyes disappeared beneath the water with the rest of its body next to the NO SWIMMING buoy which was about twenty feet beyond the row of buoys that marked the end of the actual swimming area. The panic was heightened even more so since this had been roughly only a year after one of the permanent residents of the campgrounds had discovered a group of alligators—all different sizes—in the water just off the bank in his backyard. They had humanely captured most and killed the larger ones that showed resistance. The swimming area had all but cleared in a matter of seconds. Only a few smaller children screaming as their parents or siblings raced frantically out to save them remained. Them, and little John Parker, frozen in terror and unable to move. The steady flow of screams of “ALLIGATOR” and “GET OUT OF THE WATER” all but stifled Eric’s shouts to his friend. No one got hurt that day, but if it hadn’t been for the quick and intuitive thinking of Sid Parker, John’s father, running back out into the water and literally lifting his son up and carrying him safely to the bank, then John Parker wouldn’t have existed anymore.
So yeah, Eric had seen it before, and if he could help it, he would never see it again...especially not tonight.
*****
The boys summed up their narrowing, dull conversation. Agreeing to run like the wind, down the stairs (“carefully,” John stressed), down the second staircase and out the front door. The duffle bags had produced a question mark in the flawed plan and caused a mild argument between the two, but Eric was finally able to convince John they may need them (mostly because of the phone Eric’s mom had given him). They needed to get the duffle bags first, and then out the front door. Run like banshees to the front gate. Then they would hop on their bikes and ride off on their trusty steeds.
It seemed simple enough and would have to suffice.
CHAPTER 20
They relaxed a few more moments, going over their plan repeatedly as if one might actually forget it. They check their pockets for anything of use. Nothing between the two of them. Eric had lost both the Old Henry and the flashlight at some point or another; John lost one but had managed to hold on to his flashlight up until he fell and hit his head on the stairs. Neither bothered explaining how they had come to lose these items. There need to had gone by the wayside. They both knew the answer. They somehow managed to hold on to the batteries, but what good were those?
“So hit the lights, Eric,” John said, bemused. “There has to be something useful up here.”
“They’re broke. I found some candles but no matches or lighter.” There had been matches, but he could not tell John Isabella used them, could he? And now he had no clue as to where she put them.
John sighed. “So what do we do now?”
Back to square one, Eric thought. But he supposed they had never left that square. The flashlights or pocketknives meant nothing during their planning, so why d
id they matter so much now?
They don’t, a voice answered in his head. They don’t matter at all.
He rose to his feet, after which pulling John to his. Even through the relentless darkness, Eric could see the look of bewilderment on his friend’s face. Eric knew why, too, and so he expressed himself clearly. “We’re getting out of here.”
“But—”
“Never mind the flashlights,” Eric blurted out. “We can make it just fine without ’em.”
“You sure?”
Of course, he was not sure. He had never been so undoubtedly unsure of anything in his entire life, but he couldn’t tell John that, could he? No. Of course not. To make matters worse, the voice escaping John’s lips now was odd. It no longer sounded like John Parker, but rather the stranger at the top of the stairs; that unrecognizable voice. And all at once, Eric understood why he had not recognized it then. It sounded nothing like the John Parker he had grown to know and love because it wasn’t. Technically, it was, but it represented more of a trapped inner child fearing for its life as it struggled to survive.
The irony, both of the boys had been reduced to; frightened inner children searching for an escape (not out of body but out of this place; this manor). It terrified Eric, but he could not let John know.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Eric lied.
The second floor definitely presented a bit of a problem, mostly because Eric couldn’t remember having turned on any lights there (or seen any light switches for that matter). He supposed it irrelevant since the staircase leading to the first floor stood only a few feet away from the bottom of this one. As long as they steered clear of the piece of crumbling banister, they would be fine. He just knew it.
“You ready?” Eric asked hesitantly.
John reached his arm up and entwined it within Eric’s, much like a homecoming queen would do her court. Normally, Eric would have punched him for or cursed him out over, but not now… not tonight.
What was the point? Right now, it felt comforting to Eric also, so Eric did not question it; he welcomed it. Besides, no one was around to see it, and at the least, it would prevent them from getting separated… again.
“I’m ready,” John said with some surprising enthusiasm.
“Let’s go.”
The boys tiptoed down the staircase with their arms still entwined together like some grotesque prom couple. Both tried their hardest to conceal their heavy, erratic breathing, but neither fared well.
CREAK. The stairs echoed, creepily.
CREAK. No matter how hard they tried, how lightly they stepped, it made no bearing in the noises.
CREAK. Every step made it, every damn step.
CREAK.
Eric stopped. He glanced over to John, who now trembled and sweated bullets. “You good,” he asked, predetermining the answer already.
John, who never for even a brief nanosecond took his eyes off the stairs in front of them, nodded in approval. Shortly after realizing they were in total darkness and his gesture went unseen, he spoke. “Yeah… yeah, I’m good.”
Eric, unsure of the clarity in his friend’s voice, said, “Alright, man. That creaking is starting to get to me. Let’s say we get off these steps.”
John nodded again. “Quickly.”
They made haste with the second half of the staircase, ignoring the faint creaking and feeling more and more victorious by the second.
Stepping back out onto the second floor landing felt like entering a new world. The light was surprisingly bright, brilliantly reflective. Eric had forgotten to switch on the lights, but the chandeliers that both of them had switched on from the first floor were much brighter up here since they are closer to them now.
John got right down to business and searched the floor. It had to be here, but he could not find it. “Shit.” Eric was lost in his own world and didn’t even hear John. “It’s gone, Eric. The fucking flashlight ain’t here.”
When Eric did not respond, John glanced in his direction. He saw nothing fascinating. In fact, he saw nothing at all except for the remainder of the desolate hallway, the small end table in the middle of nowhere, the mirror, and Eric moving slowly and hypnotically towards the latter two. He had noticed them on his way up, had even stopped in front of them, but saw nothing fascinating then either. But Eric did. Eric saw something that had him hypnotized, drawing him up the hallway. But what?
Probably nothing, John thought.
Although, hadn’t John been under the same type of hypnosis before?
Possibly.
John cleared his throat abruptly, loud enough to give off the faintest of echoes, but Eric’s concentration remained elsewhere. “Eric?” he shouted. “I said ‘the flashlight ain’t here’.”
It still did not phase Eric in the slightest.
John took off up the hallway after him. Luckily, Eric continued moping dazed, lagging lackadaisically up the hallway. It was rather easy for John to catch up. The fact he stopped in front of the table and now stared hypnotically into the mirror hanging above it helped as well. John reached out and grasped Eric’s shoulder, but it did not disrupt his focus.
“The papers,” Eric said softly. “The table. The banister. The wall. It’s not right. Not like I left it.”
John didn’t comprehend a word (nor did he try to) of what he considered to be merely incoherent babbling brought about by fear. Instead, he shook Eric’s shoulder violently, with enough force to make Eric sway back and forth, nearly causing him to lose his footing altogether.
Eric looked away, blinking repeatedly as if he had stared directly at a light bulb or the sun. John feared it was not light that his friend has been focusing on, though, but rather darkness. A darkness that he experienced previously as well.
“What?” Eric grumbled, disgusted.
“Umm… the flashlight… is gone. I-I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Never mind the flashlight.”
“What?” John asked, confused. “We need it… for outside.”
“We’ve got bigger problems, my friend.”
John glanced hesitantly into the mirror, and his mouth dropped open in horror.
*****
Eric’s incoherent babbling as John had deemed it meant everything.
The papers! The two pieces of paper—possibly more, he was not sure—that had fallen out of the end table, he slipped on, and skated across the floor on were gone. Probably back in the table’s drawer where I found them.
The table! The end table located beneath the mirror that undoubtedly saved his life was no longer overturned, no longer broken in half. It stood identically to the way it had when Eric first discovered it.
The banister! The banister he crashed through and left destroyed, that had ultimately aided in saving his life as well, that he had pulled a piece from and tossed it right there next to the wall was no longer broken but just as beautiful and intact as ever. The broken piece no longer rested against the wall but once again part of the whole.
The wall! The wall just beyond where the table stood that he had crashed through, that his feet had been implanted in momentarily, was no longer flawed. The holes were now gone, but this was no spackling or cover-up job. It was as if the holes never existed.
It’s not right. None of it is. It’s not like I left it.
It definitely was not, but all of that paled in comparison to what lay in front of them.
Printed on the bottom of the mirror, written the length of it in some red substance were the words:
I KNOW UR HERE
Blood, they both thought simultaneously. It’s written in blood. However, upon further investigation, on some level, they both suspected it was not quite dark enough to be blood, and whatever the substance was, played little to no importance in the matter.
Who is I? That was what mattered.
Who was I? It was the simplest and most direct question either boy had encountered. Also, it was the first one that either of them had an answer to. Both knew who I was but neither e
xpressed it.
The look on each of their faces suggested much of the same. Both boys could read the other’s facial expressions like a book, and it didn’t take a second look or a vivid imagination to comprehend the looks of panic, fear, misfortune , and amongst all, guilt and betrayal, on their faces. They could have easily crossed this bridge up in the attic, put their knowledge of him out into the open, and used their combination of knowledge to devise a better, more efficient plan. But no. It was too late for that now. They were still young enough to care about each other in a plutonic way, and out of respect for one another, they hadn’t mentioned him. But yet, here he was.
I KNOW UR HERE
*****
“So what now?” John asked, finally breaking the awkward silence.
“I’m not sure. I’m all out of answers. All out of plans. I just don’t know anymore.” The words had a haunting chill behind them.
A sense of inevitable, impending doom hovered over the boys. While they had no clue as to his whereabouts or what his next move may be, they felt trapped. He was real, he was here, and they were trapped. They felt as if Raymond was playing with them, watching them like they lab rats in a maze searching for the piece of cheese at the end; they felt trapped like mice with two of their legs stuck to a glue trap. While the mice, only half-trapped, two legs dwindling towards freedom, it wasn’t strong or keen enough to pull free (at least not without ripping its legs off). And while the boys were only half-trapped—mentally but not physically (not yet anyways, at least not that they actually know of), loosely held by what they still considered a figment of their imaginations due to a lack of evidence—the front door and freedom was right down the stairs; so close. Unfortunately, they felt they were neither strong nor keen enough to make it there safely.
Huff Bend Hell House Page 17
