The filth in here is unimaginable.
His eyes burned. His skin itched. He needed to get out of this cloud of grime.
Another hallway appeared to lead to the back. A door nearby promised more filth.
Dennis knew these people harbored more than simple stench and refuse.
Something evil had happened here. He could feel it. He could see it. And he could smell it.
And without thinking, he called out her name.
“Audrey!”
Saying it weakened him, made this seem more real, more finite.
“Audrey?” The strange echo of his voice made his skin crawl.
As he left the room, he noticed something he could barely make out on the floor in the corner.
That’s not—
He squinted his eyes and leaned forward, studying it.
Then he jerked backward and fell on his back, wiping his face and nose with his forearm and coughing.
No, not here. Don’t do it. Don’t throw up.
He stood and felt like he couldn’t move. He wanted to simply vanish, to take a long, hot shower.
Is that really what I think it is?
But Dennis didn’t want to find out. He didn’t want to see if that belonged to someone. Because if it did, that meant the person was most surely dead.
He didn’t bother turning off the lights.
As he hastened down the hallway, his eyes glanced around him uncontrollably. As he moved to swing open the front door, the hatchet still in hand, he glanced back to make sure someone wasn’t following him.
His only mistake was not looking ahead to see if somebody was in the doorway.
2.
He saw blank eyes and a terrifying smile.
I’ve seen you before.
And then something moved and struck him into darkness.
3.
Breathe.
It jerks and moves and shifts and shakes.
Breathe, Den.
He tries. He isn’t sure if his eyes are opened or closed. All he sees is blackness. He hears a rumbling.
Breathe.
He swallows and coughs and takes in air.
Then he breathes.
And nauseous pain comes back, and this time the darkness is from blacking out.
3:05 a.m. Halloween
He knows someone is in the house.
So he waits outside.
And he watches.
And then he goes and stands by the door. He pulls it shut.
He is patient.
His hands and arms are covered in their blood, his fingernails torn, the skin on his knuckles shredded like beef, the veins in his forearms sticking out.
It was messy with the two of them.
He won’t be as messy this time. This time it will be easier.
He waits, the wrench in his hands.
And when the door opens, he strikes methodically, carefully, hitting the side of the man’s head and then striking his shoulder.
His neighbor, the author, falls to the ground. The big guy thinks of the kid, the one fascinated by this man, the one who talked about the writer, who dreamed about being one himself, who now comes to him only in whispers and screams.
The writer will be joining the kid very soon.
Empty Spaces
1.
His eyes opened to darkness.
A murky shroud wrapped itself around him. Dennis couldn’t see anything more. His forehead beat like a mallet, and he tasted blood in his mouth. His body shook.
A wave of nausea hit him. But then his eyes grew heavy again and closed.
2.
This time he sucked in a breath first, warm and stale. He inhaled and tried to move. But his back ripped in pain, his hands burning, his legs lifeless.
Dennis moved his head, something—a tarp?—pressing against it. He lay on something cold and hard and grooved. He trembled but couldn’t move. His hands and feet were tied together. He tried to scream but couldn’t muster up enough strength to make much of a sound.
The darkness surrounded him. His eyes grew stronger, but they couldn’t discern anything.
“Hello?” he screamed, but his voice grated against his dry throat.
It felt like the word echoed into nothing.
The pain in his back seared. Then came the jutting throb in his head.
He forced himself to breathe slowly, calmly. But he couldn’t think. He couldn’t figure this out.
Darkness fell over him again.
3.
Something jerked him up. And awake.
It was his hands. He couldn’t feel his hands. They were still bound, still immobile.
Another jerk propelled Dennis forward. He couldn’t feel anything below his waist, but he struggled until he fell into dirt.
He felt rain against his already wet, sweaty hair.
Wake up, Dennis. Wake up.
A bolt of lightning illuminated everything around him. Then all he could see was darkness. Flat, straight, empty darkness.
Where am I?
A towering figure came out of the darkness, gripping the wire that bound his hands. He crawled forward, his face crashing down into a puddle of mud.
A curse echoed around him.
The blackness swallowed him. For a moment that was all he knew. His hands and wrists burned as something yanked him up. He couldn’t feel his legs but tried to shuffle on them anyway.
As Dennis was led somewhere—an empty path, a dirt road, an open, wet field?—he saw it.
At first his mind couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at.
But then he did, and it cleared his mind, tore his heart.
The white Mustang.
It was Mitch’s car. Audrey’s Mitch. The car was latched to the back of a large truck.
And that means…
But he couldn’t think that.
Just like in Sorrow… after killing them, after killing both of them and disposing of their bodies, he drove the car out here.…
Something pounded the back of his head, sending him to the ground. He lay there for a moment, able to think of only one thing.
Audrey.
She had gone off with Mitch. She had snuck out for the night.
But why?
There could be any number of reasons. Because she was in love. Because she wanted to blow off steam and talk about visiting her mother’s grave earlier that day. Who knew?
But now…
He tried to say something, but he couldn’t. His voice and tongue wouldn’t cooperate.
A crack of thunder sounded. And again the world lit up, and he saw the hulking figure with white hair and a long glistening coat standing over him. And he was sure he saw the white Mustang.
No no no no no.
He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t. He wanted to run but couldn’t feel his legs. He wanted to reach out and protect himself, but he couldn’t move his hands.
No.
His body shook as everything in him started to die.
4.
The storm that smothered the night lit up the stall he’d been thrown into.
He was in a barn in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of flat nothing. And as the cold, pale light slipped in through the cracks, he took in his surroundings.
His heart and soul felt nothing. Slowly ticking away to nothingness.
He lay in a barn stall filled with dead bodies.
Even as he recognized where he was, and what surrounded him, he refused to let his mind go there.
I will get out of here. This is only temporary. This is only made up. This is not real.
But it felt and looked and sounded and smelled and tasted real.
His body shook and shivered. He was cold. But more than that, he was without hope.
She can’t be dead. She can’t be gone. Not like this. Not like this.
He couldn’t think it. It couldn’t be.
She left with him and now the car’s there and it’s all led to this. This is exactly what Cillian wrote a
bout, what he said I could have prevented.
This was it. The end. The last book that would ever have his name on it, Empty Spaces, the book he stole from Cillian, the novel that ended with the protagonist dying in a barn…
This was Cillian’s plan and always had been.
But his own life didn’t matter. Not anymore.
“It’s not my daughter. It can’t be,” he said to the darkness.
For the monster to hear. For the bodies around him to hear. For God or Lucy or Audrey or someone, anyone, to hear.
God, get me out of here. Help me, Lucy. Help me, God. Please. I can’t, and I won’t. I cannot do it alone, not without her.
He opened his eyes and saw the back of a head, dark short hair spilling out of the pile.
That’s not her, but maybe just maybe…
But he stopped. He had already thrown up and there was nothing left inside him. His hands were bloody and wounded, his legs tied and useless.
I’m useless and have always been useless and I couldn’t save her, not even after a dozen warnings. I’ve never had control, not ever.
He started to cry. Blood filled his mouth and dripped down his cheek as he wailed. Dennis Shore cried out, but his voice was frail. He pressed his arms against his chest to try to keep warm, and he knew that this would be the last night of his life.
I have so much more to do and say and so much more to give. So why was it so hard to find the words? Why? I have so many left.
He tasted salty tears.
This was death and hell and horror.
This is what you wanted, Cillian, and you won. You got it. Are you happy now? Are you happy, you evil waste of a life?
He bit his lip, mouthing the words, his voice gone, his life almost gone.
“Help me. Please help me.”
And unseen in a small, square stall in a locked-up barn, surrounded by death and rot, Dennis curled into a ball and closed his eyes and cried.
5.
The last time he’d cried out like this was in an empty field west of his house, off a side road where he had stopped and parked the car and ripped open the door and finally dealt with his pain.
There wasn’t any God above to yell at.
There wasn’t a heaven above to dream about.
And there was no Lucy around anymore to protect.
Dennis held the picture he had given her.
Some kinda nonsense about this is what heaven should be, what our heaven should be. Nothing but a lie, a terrible awful deluded lie.
He was finally going to do something about it.
Us and Them.
That’s what he had called it.
That’s our heaven.
That’s what he said before she died, but now she was dead and the photo meant nothing.
He cursed out loud and gritted his teeth and took the picture of the old couple and ripped it in half.
This doesn’t exist and isn’t real, and love is gone. Love is gone. Love is forever and ever gone.
And he took out the matches he had brought and tried to light the picture.
The first one went out. He cursed the wind.
The second one went out. He cursed the skies and the grass and didn’t even realize he was barking at nobody and that tears streamed down his face.
The third one went out. This time he threw the matches across the field and took the picture in his hands and crumpled it.
On his knees, he looked at what he had done.
No, no. Don’t, Dennis. Don’t do this. This is a memory. This is what you gave her. This stands for something more, for something deep.
But he cursed at himself and his weak, sorry, sappy soul.
Dennis stood up and found the matches and this time was very careful and deliberate, guarding the match until it lit and caught the edge of the photograph.
And then it burned, flickering in flames, the color bleeding away, the edges turning to black lifeless ash.
He left it there. Scattered in the wind.
And back in the car he cried and cried and cried.
But nobody saw.
If there was a God above—if—then why would he take her? She was the stronger of the two, the cog behind the wheels, the one that gave so much to so many others. She believed in God while he didn’t. If her faith was real, then why did that faith end up biting her?
I don’t and will never, ever, ever understand.
In the car his body shivered, but he wasn’t cold. His hands shook, but he wasn’t nervous. He was sad. Bitterly, angrily, spitefully sad.
And the tears were different. They were desperate, vicious. Stored up for too long, tears gushed out.
All alone, he wept, his stomach clenching, his body numb, his eyes blind, his emotions spent.
And if God existed and heaven existed and Lucy floated around with them right now, Dennis hoped she could see him, hoped she could see how much he still loved her and missed her. Not to make her feel sad, but to make her know the sort of life she led, the sort of impact she left behind.
6.
And now, alone again, he dealt with the horrible, horrific truth that Lucy wasn’t the only one gone.
That the only reminder of her left on this planet was gone too.
Shivering in the darkness, Dennis cried out for it not to be so.
7.
Lying in the cold black with all hope gone, Dennis heard a whisper. Even with the wind and the storm outside and his shivering breaths, Dennis could hear the voice clearly.
It wasn’t Lucy or Audrey.
It was Cillian.
“None of us has control, Dennis. There is only one Creator. And one day, Dennis, one day, you’ll find yourself on your knees, not cursing him but asking for forgiveness.”
The voice didn’t mock him, nor did it sound sympathetic. It simply stated the words as facts.
There was a pause, then Cillian spoke again.
“But it looks like I’ll get there before you do.”
4:45 a.m. Halloween
He ties the bag at the top, then loops it around to make another knot. The bag is light, about as light as the arm of someone twenty years old.
Bob sits in a chair in the middle of the room. His pants and shirt are soaked through. Even the leather of his boots is damp. All around him on this floor are plastic bags—hundreds of them, tied tightly and piled one on top of the other. On a wall behind him hang dozens of knives. Daggers, swords, carving knives, and cooking knives and stilettos and saws and scalpels.
Some are used. He likes to pick and choose. He keeps them all sharp.
The writer is in the barn, tied in the stall with the rest of them.
Bob will deal with him in a few moments. The sun will be coming up soon.
First he will clean this up. He will take all these bags— every one of them—and drop them off. All in different areas, all around the state. Nobody will know, and even if they’re found, nobody will have an idea.
They will find Dennis and his daughter missing, and steps will lead them here. But he will be long gone.
The white bags all look clean, unlike his clothes and his hands.
He will do one more tonight, and then he will be finished.
Us and Them
He opens his eyes and sees the sky moving, the brilliant white plumes of clouds coating the tranquil blue. There is a cobblestone road in front of him, the walls of ancient buildings on each side. And in the distance, some hundred yards or so, an open window.
I know this place. I recognize this place.
Dennis starts to walk, wondering where he is, wondering what’s happening.
I’m dreaming, and this is the place I’ve chosen to rest in.
But that doesn’t feel exactly right. This doesn’t feel like a dream.
He looks at his hands, and they look slightly different.
They don’t look old and torn.
But of course they don’t. This is his dream. He doesn’t have the bandages on his hands and they look younger
and he feels younger. He is desperately trying to cling to something, anything he can.
“Hello, down there,” a voice says.
It’s the voice of an angel. He looks up toward an open window and sees the unmistakable smile of his wife.
“Lucy?”
“You found me.”
“I don’t think I was exactly looking.”
“Tell me something—what are you feeling? Right now?”
He looks up and sees the colors and the shape of the open window and he seems to remember something but he can’t exactly say what.
“Déjà vu.”
She nods. Her hair is much longer than he remembers it. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
And in a minute she is down, opening a door and greeting him with a beautiful smile.
“It’s okay.”
He can’t remember where he was or what he was just doing, but he knows it was bad. He knows it was bad, and he doesn’t want to return.
“Where am I?”
“You are safe, that’s where you are.”
And as hard as he tries, he can’t remember. He can’t think back.
All he knows is that this place—this is not his place. It’s not his dream. It’s not his reality.
“Take my hand.”
She is the woman he married. She acts like she always did, but she resembles the twenty-something woman he couldn’t keep his hands off of. The eyes look vibrant and young but also wise and wonderful.
This is my dream, and I’ve created her to be something more than she ever was or could be.
“You didn’t picture me,” she answers his thought.
“Then how come—what—”
“Take my hand,” she says again, so he does.
And she leads him down the winding cobblestone street to an opening in the wall. There he sees plush trees and deep blue and sun reflecting off the giant lake. Wind blows flowers. Butterflies bounce around a field of gold.
“I’m imagining this, aren’t I?”
“No.”
“Then where am I?”
Ghostwriter Page 25
