They’d won, after all. Everybody made it out alive. The others got home safe, and he would join them as soon as he was healthy enough, or if they found him before then. She was gone, and for now, at least, they’d succeeded in thwarting her.
The second day, he stood up with the aid of a tree. Everything changed in that instant. He saw the body. Christian’s bloodied, broken frame, crushed among the rocks, in pieces. Michael could do nothing but stare for minutes on end.
Christian was dead, and there was a growing seed of doubt about their “victory.” That things were different. If they hadn’t won, he had more work to do. He couldn’t go back yet. He had wanted to fight on his own in the first place, and now he would have to. There was no other choice.
Michael let out a terrible scream, breaking the air and moving the treetops. He fell to his knees and buried his head, clawing at the ground and leaving tiny indentations. Staring at the small holes he had made in the dirt, a thought came to him. He began to scratch and dig at the wet soil, slowly making a larger hole.
All through the day, he clawed at the earth, adrenaline pushing him forwards through the pain and broken bones. He knew he’d been fortunate to survive the bridge collapse. For the large pieces of stone to fall just right, it was a miracle. But he was alive.
By the next morning, he was delirious and layered in dirt, but the grave was finished. The grave for Christian. His fingers were raw, bloody, and stinging every second.
That night, Michael was stumbling through the forest, using two large branches to support himself just as they had on the way to the bridge. More things were hurting, now, but he managed to get through the trees and make it near the town, following the creek bed. It eventually led him up near the border of Hardy. Christian’s tomb was far behind, a shallow hole in the ground with rocks on top of the dirt.
Sleeping in the forest every night, he would make excursions to Hardy and pick up newspapers, food thrown away, and any loose change he could find. A few times, he would meet a homeless man and try not to think of himself the same way. He wasn’t without a home. He just chose not to go there. He had to do this, for others.
It was by way of the papers that he found out about Grace and Lily dying. After the initial emotional shock, he made a plan. They hadn’t won at all. That was for sure. Now, he would have to find the lady, to research her and learn as much as possible. Then he would attack, before the twenty years were up and She struck again.
It wasn’t long after when he found out about his mother’s suicide and attended the funeral. By now, he was at full strength or close to it. He disguised himself as a common person, avoiding everybody’s eyes at the graveyard. He saw Brandon there, and Crystal too. They never once talked to each other, and he could sense something wasn’t right.
Immediately after the funeral, he went to his home and gathered all the money he could find. He considered taking the car, but that would draw more attention to himself and the police would start looking for it. Instead, he pumped up the old bike in the garage, packed all the food he could fit in a backpack, and grabbed anything else he thought would be essential. Then he left Hardy, heading East.
Michael found work in miniscule towns, only staying for a year at most. He would do whatever jobs were lowly and shady enough so that people didn’t ask for his paperwork or for anything other than his name. He was always paid in cash, and always paid for food and rent in the same way.
From town to town, he hopped and found what he could about the woman and about any similar stories. It seemed her reach was far greater than over just Hardy. The entire Midwest and some of the Eastern states had ghost stories that sounded exactly the same. Slowly, the realization dawned on him how much power and fear the lady had controlled for years.
Despite his best efforts, he could never find whether She was a supernatural monster or a human one. Hardy was the only legend that mentioned the baby being stolen and being brought up as the heir to the evil. Whether it was true or not, Michael gathered what he could and then set about trying to pinpoint her whereabouts.
It became obvious that she didn’t just “disappear” when she wasn’t killing or taking. There were stories of her from all over the place, all times of the year except for summer. Every summer, the stories stopped. Because every summer, she returned to Hardy, to Marcy, to her home. There were no patterns of kidnappings anywhere else. It was all up to her and how she was feeling, who she wanted to take. The bodies always turned up elsewhere, mutilated. But in Hardy, everything was different.
Five years before Daniel came back, Michael returned to Hardy and found that his old home was abandoned and falling into disrepair. He broke in one night and set up where his room used to be on the top floor. After making the place habitable, he lived off of mainly cans and always kept an eye out for suspicious events. He knew the signs that always preceded the lady: the children would see her and begin acting strangely, they would be followed by her, and most of the time would start drawing unusual pictures.
But She knew he was alive still. She came after him, time after time. Using a gun he’d bought illegally to protect himself, he was able to fend her off. Eventually, they stopped hunting each other. He stopped looking to attack her and She stopped trying to kill him.
It was about a month before the disappearances when the attacks stopped. Michael figured they had resigned themselves to a war of the mind: She would attack the children, and he would try to stop her.
Then Daniel came into the picture, and Michael was horrified. The instant he heard wind that the former detective was back, he knew why the signs hadn’t been present. There were no children from Hardy being taken this time. They were from elsewhere. She had been quiet for so long because She had been in another town, preparing.
But when Daniel came back to Hardy, his month of peace ended. And everything else began.
<><><> <><> <>
Crystal was curled around Michael, crying. He stroked her hair and tried to soothe her, but nothing seemed to help. She clutched at his shirt, soaking him.
“You gave me hope,” she sobbed. “I thought that maybe if you were alive, so was Christian.”
“Crystal, it’s okay. It is. I’m back now, and we can’t save Christian, but we can still save the others. Everything that’s gone wrong for you can go right.” He lifted up her chin so that they were eye-to-eye.
“Michael, we lost so much time. We’re twenty years older now. How can things ever go back to how they were?”
“They can’t,” he said, “but we can make a future that we want. If we beat her, then there’s no reason we can’t be… I mean, that we can’t do what we want in life.”
She smiled, still choking on tears. “You always were amazing.”
“We can go meet the others tomorrow,” Michael said, “but for now I’ll stay here. With you. I don’t have money to pay for a different room, anyways.”
“It’s late,” Crystal said. “You said you were tired.”
“I don’t mind staying up. I’ve been up a lot later than this before.”
They both stood up and she began walking towards her bags. She threw them onto one bed and dumped out the clothes, not bothering to put them away.
“Where am I gonna sleep?” he asked, looking at the two beds, one with clothes all over it.
She leapt onto the bed, sitting on her knees so that they were even. Crystal put both hands on his chest. “I missed you.”
He leaned down and kissed her, with all the passion they had as teenagers and all the sadness of twenty years apart. It was electric, and as he pressed closer to her it only increased.
“I missed you, Crystal Moore.”
“I love you, Michael Walker.”
With a grin, they crawled under the covers together.
Chapter 21
Alexander
Michael stepped out of the bathroom that next morning, bright and early. Crystal was laying in bed, awake and smiling at the ceiling. He walked over and leaned down to k
iss her.
“It’s beautiful outside,” she said, turning towards the window.
“It is. Nice day, too.” He yawned. “Running in the morning is nice during the summer, but so early.”
“We should probably get going,” she said, crawling out from under the covers. “We need to meet up with the others still, and they’re gonna want to hear your story. I think the plan was for us to check all the different locations the lady messed with us. Something like that.”
“Why’s that?” Michael asked.
Crystal started pulling on her clothes and went to the mirror to do her makeup. “She left us a letter. A clue. I don’t remember what it said, but Brandon took a picture of it and Daniel has the original.”
“Maybe I’ll know more about it when I see it.” He sighed. “You ready yet?”
She turned around and grinned at him. “Well I know you haven’t stayed the night with many ladies.”
“Only you.”
After she set her makeup down and turned away from the mirror, she grabbed her phone and started typing out a message. “I need to tell Brandon I’m gonna be at his house soon, and for Daniel to meet us there,” she explained. “And that I have a surprise.”
“How’s Brandon doing?” Michael asked. “I heard he was pretty well-off.”
“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “I’ve been in Indianapolis. College.”
“Hmm.” He opened the room door and let her walk out first. “College in your thirties?”
“I got started late.” She turned around and hugged him. “I’m so glad your back, Michael.”
“Let’s hope everything stays that way.”
<><><> <><> <>
Crystal knocked on Brandon’s front door, with Michael standing beside her. They waited there for a minute, and heard faint footsteps on the wood floor. Then the door was pulled back and Brandon’s jaw dropped.
“Oh. My. God.”
Michael grinned and stepped forward, embracing his long-time friend. Brandon pulled away and stared in awe, taking in every inch of the other man’s face.
“How did you… Where have you…”
“I’ll tell you everything once Daniel gets here,” Michael said. “You can fill me in on yourself meanwhile. I know some already, but I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to for twenty years.”
Brandon nodded and invited them into his house. They were all sitting down in his living room a few minutes later, and Michael heard all about the past twenty years.
“My family left town after the funeral,” Brandon said, looking uneasy about the subject. He glanced up from the floor to make sure Michael was alright. “Anyways, I was in the Army for a bit after that. I thought it would help me with everything, to get my mind off it, but turns out I wasn’t even suited for it. I never left the country, and did maintenance jobs mostly, or whatever else was needed.
“I served for a few hours, never left the country. When I was released with the injury, I came back here and made a home and a name for myself. I started a business, made some money as the city grew with me, and had a nice life. I even got married. Had a kid.” He gulped.
“The real reason I came back was to see, and to be here when everything happened again. I wanted to do whatever I could. I guess it was a sort of morbid curiosity.
“My wife thought I was insane, the way I talked about what happened and was going to happen. I didn’t catch on… Until she left. I never got to see the kid. She was pregnant when she left, and got scared that things would happen to the baby and that I was really a nut job. She never told me she was leaving. She just… left.”
Michael nodded and moved forwards nervously, patting his friend’s knee in an awkward way. “I’m really sorry… It seems everybody’s been hurt by her after all these years.” He turned to Crystal. “Do you wanna tell me your story, too? Since Daniel isn’t here.”
She shifted awkwardly in her chair and looked at the two of them. “I’ll tell you, but you can’t… can’t judge me.”
They both shook their heads and promised not to.
“My family moved after that summer. Because it was only us three. I was depressed through high school and even after that, and anxious to get away from my parents. I was emo and a cutter, and my parents never even knew. Never even suspected.
“I moved to Indy because it was a big city, but other things came with that. I got some bad jobs. Prostitution, and that. I never did much. I hated the job, so I moved onto other things and just hid for years, until finally I went back to college and got support from my parents. It was a bad time for me, and Daniel showed up just as things were getting on track.”
Michael leaned over and hugged her. “It’s alright now.”
“I don’t get a hug?” Brandon smirked.
“Did you just make a joke?” Michael asked with a wide smile. “I guess you haven’t changed so much after all.”
“Daniel should be here by now…” Crystal said nervously. “Where could he be?”
“He went without you guys,” Michael said darkly. “He had to. When you all discussed where to go, did he give you much feedback? Was he vocal?”
“I guess not really,” Brandon muttered.
“We did most of the talking,” Crystal agreed.
Michael rubbed his eyes wearily. “We need to go back to my house. I just… I haven’t been there in a week. I need to check something. And if he was thinking like I’d expect, he’d go back there, too.”
“What house?” Brandon asked. “You bought a house?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Michael said, standing up. “Let’s go. We need to hurry.”
Crystal followed shortly after, and Brandon grabbed the keys to his car. Minutes later, they were blazing down the road, with Brandon driving.
<><><> <><> <>
They approached the house warily. It was daytime outside, but nobody lived on the country road anymore. There hadn’t been anyone in the area for a long time. Twenty years, in fact.
Michael pressed his back against the garage, peering around the corner towards the front door. All the ragged curtains were drawn, and it was covered in shadow by the large tree standing to the right of the house. It was much bigger than when he was a kid, but he shook that thought out of his head.
“I can’t see anything out of the ordinary, but that doesn’t mean anything. There’s no sign of her…”
Brandon coughed into his elbow. “This whole place is disgusting. Too much dirt.”
“You’re allergic to dirt?” Michael asked incredulously.
“I’m not allergic,” Brandon snapped. “It just makes me cough.”
“Michael,” Crystal said frantically, tugging on his sleeve. “I smell smoke.”
He whipped his head towards her and they all silenced. The smell wafted to his nose, and immediately he dashed around the corner and towards the front door. The other two followed behind; he could hear their footsteps on the pavement.
As he smashed into the door, knocking it off the hinges the rest of the way, he looked in horror as his house was glowing with fire. It was small, for now, and only certain areas were completely ablaze. What really took his breath away were the three crosses in the living room, and the man on the center one.
“Fitting, don’t you think?” called out a raspy voice from inside the house. Everything was dark, with all the windows covered in black cloths. Only the fire gave light, and the sun streaming in through the open doorway.
“Michael!” Crystal yelled. “The-”
“Your Jesus,” the voice shouted again. “That’s why I put him in the center, after all. He was your savior last time.”
“It’s my turn to be his.” Michael ripped off a large piece of the rotten wood from the door and began smacking at the flames. He rushed into the kitchen, where he could survey the whole house better.
The lady was standing by a window, smiling at him in the darkness. Her arms were crossed, and a taunting expression was on her face. “It’s been awh
ile since I’ve been in this house,” she cackled. “I believe it was about three months ago when you woke up to this horrid face of mine?”
“Get the kids,” Michael muttered to Brandon and Crystal. “Get them out, then get Daniel. It’s what he would want.”
A large wall of flames suddenly leapt up at them, and they all took a step back. There was a loud scream, and the lady jumped through the flames, holding a knife in the air. Michael kicked his leg through the air and she flew to the right, smashing against the wall.
Grabbing the large wood-piece, he swung down at her but she scurried towards his leg and sliced at his knee. He let out a scream as she cut deep, and tried to kick her off. He heard the knife scurry across the floor, but then her teeth sunk deep into his calf.
With his fists, Michael punched down and connected with her jaw and cheek. She fell back for a second, and he scrambled away, trying to find the knife as he left the comforting light of the door. A thought suddenly came to his mind, and he remembered the gun upstairs in his bedroom.
He heard a shrieking sound as the lady jumped for him, but he shoved her out of the way and ran towards the steps. He briefly noticed they were also pitch black, and goose bumps rose on his arms as he began to sprint up them.
The lady chased him, scratching at his legs. He tried to kick her away, but only managed to trip himself near the top. As he smacked his head against the wall, another burst of pain shot down his spine. She leapt for his face and began to bite at it. Managing to grab hold of her, Michael flung her against the wall, where she hit with a thud and began to slide down the steps.
He took the advantage and ran into his room, finding the spot where he always kept his gun. Throwing off the pillow, he grabbed the weapon and turned towards the door. It was completely dark. He could see just the outline of the door, as he waited for her to come in. If a silhouette moved there, he would shoot.
She never came. There was a creak outside the door, and finally he sprang forwards and turned the corner to face the stairs. Fire was leaping up towards the second story of the house, and he could see nothing below.
She Watches: A Horror Novel Page 13
