by A. R. Wise
Nia put her hand on a window that overlooked the soccer field. She was always careful about what she touched, and often reacted as if burned. “He fell through the glass.”
Ever since her visit to the cabin, Nia had been unable to shut off her psychic gift. Everything she touched told a story, and few of them seemed plausible.
“That can’t be right,” said Oliver. “The glass is still here. We never repaired it.”
“It didn’t break,” said Nia. “Not until the hounds came.”
Lee scribbled furiously as he tried to keep all of the information straight. He was keeping notes along with the drawings as he struggled to capture everything that Nia revealed. “What hounds?” he asked.
Nia ignored him as she continued. “His name was Jacob, and he saw the red-haired woman crying out on the other side of the window. He put his hands here,” she placed both hands on the window and leaned forward. “Then he placed his forehead here. Everyone else was staring at the fog that came across the field. Although I don’t know if the others could even see the red-haired woman, or if they were in a different time frame than Jacob was. The fog is a constant though.”
“The fog,” said Oliver. “Stay with that. You’re confusing the hell out of me with all the other stuff. What did the fog look like?”
“I’m not sure,” said Nia. “The fog is always lost to me. I’m aware it’s there, but I never see it.”
Oliver nodded, but kept his attention on Lee’s notebook as he continued to write. “Go on.”
Nia placed her forehead against the glass, cringing as she did, as if fearing it would burn. “He was here, and the red-haired woman reached through the window and pulled him. She grabbed onto him and pulled him through the glass, but no one else saw her. All they saw was that he was hanging halfway in and halfway out, as if he’d become part of the glass. I think there might be a time when the others saw the red-haired woman, but the memory of him going through the glass sticks to more than one time frame. It’s like the event reverberates more than the others.”
Oliver looked up at the psychic. “That doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure…”
“I’m sure,” said Nia. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but you asked me to tell you what I saw. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Okay, it’s just all so jumbled and confusing,” said Oliver. “I can’t keep up with all of it.”
“The boy named Jacob was here over and over again,” said Nia. “Every single time was different for him, until the red-haired woman caught him. Then, after that, it was as if he’d become a target for something else, something darker and more powerful. He was always hunted and murdered, usually by the hounds, but sometimes by the…” she paused and took her hands away from the glass. She shivered and stepped back.
“By the what?” asked Oliver.
“By the children,” said Nia quietly. “They hated Jacob after the red-haired woman touched him. They said he was one of the dead ones, and hunted him. They wanted to kill all of the dead ones before the red-haired woman saw through their eyes.”
“Through whose eyes?” asked Oliver.
“This is bonkers,” said Mindy.
Oliver hushed her and then looked back to Nia. “Whose eyes?”
“The red-haired woman was looking for someone,” said Nia. “She wanted to kill the person… no, the people, there was more than one of them. She wanted to kill the people that killed her.”
“How do you know that?” asked Oliver. “Did something in here belong to her?”
“No,” said Nia. “Not exactly, but in a way it feels like everything belongs to her. Everything in this place seems to have a memory of her, as if the walls themselves are scared of her. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before she catches up with them. The children are scared of anyone that the red-haired woman touched. They know that she can watch through the dead ones’ eyes.”
“And what about the other one?” asked Oliver. “The Skeleton Man? Is he here too?”
She looked around and crossed her arms as if trying to stay warm. “He’s everywhere.”
“Where is he standing?” asked Oliver.
“He’s here without being here,” said Nia. “I know that doesn’t make any sense. He’s sort of like the fog for me. I’m aware of his presence, but I couldn’t tell you where he was at any point in time. Not even at the moment where everything is the same.”
“What moment is that?” asked Oliver.
“Right before the split,” said Nia. “Everything that happened in this town is as it should be, almost right up until a singular moment in time. Then, right at that second, everything splits off into a million directions. There are conflicting memories before that point, almost as if the divergence happens earlier, but then explodes all at once. And there’s nothing after that. That’s what I mean about Jacob having different fates depending on what strand I’m remembering. There are a thousand different fates for him.”
Lee shook his head and sighed. Then he handed the notebook to Oliver so that his boss could inspect the notes. Oliver looked at the picture that Lee had sketched, and then took the pencil so that he could write notes in the margins.
“I’m having trouble following you,” said Oliver.
Nia tried to think of how to explain what she was experiencing. “Let me have the pencil.”
Oliver stopped writing and held the pad and pencil closer to his chest. “What for?”
“I think I can explain it better with a drawing. I’ve always been better at drawing the things I can remember instead of explaining them.”
“She’s a great artist,” said Mindy.
Oliver flipped the page he was writing on over and then handed the notebook to Nia with an unmarked page on top.
Nia drew a line across half the page. “Think of this as a time line. Every memory that this place is holding onto can be found somewhere on this line. Then, all of the sudden the line feels bloated.” She made the line thicker by tracing over it several times. “And it’s like there’s more than just one line stuck in here, diverging and muddying my memories.” She continued to draw the line thicker as it went, causing it to become conical. “Then boom.” She stopped the line and started to swipe the pencil across the page like a river splitting into multiple tributaries. Nia continued to draw new lines until the page was filled with them, and then handed the notebook back to Oliver.
“I guess I understand.” Oliver looked at the page for a moment and then started to write again.
“It’s as if time itself split into a thousand strands, but none of those new time lines survived more than fifteen or twenty minutes. None of the objects around here are giving me any memories of what happened after that day. It’s almost as if… I know this sounds insane, but it’s almost like the walls lost their lives – like they died with everyone else. Or maybe everything here lost the desire to remember anything after that day – after that short period of time.”
“Do you know when it started?” asked Oliver. “At what time did all of the diverging memories happen?” He pointed the pencil at the bloated line that Nia had drawn, right before all of the various lines split away. “You said everything was normal up until this specific time. Do you know what time that was?”
Nia nodded. “3:14.”
Oliver was silent as he stared at her.
“Is that a surprise?” asked Nia.
Oliver started taking notes again, but wrote slower now. “No, it makes sense.”
“Why?” asked Mindy.
“The first reports of strange activity started at about a quarter after three.”
“You need to tell me what you know about that day,” said Nia. “I don’t know if I can help you if I can’t figure out the truth here. Somewhere in that mess of time lines is a true one, but I can’t find it because the objects around here can’t remember anything past that day.”
“I want to be open with you about everything,” said Oliver. “But my hands are tied to a
certain extent. Give me some more time, and I’ll find out what I can and can’t talk about. For now, let’s try to focus on what happened right before the divergence; right before 3:14.”
“3:14 on March 14th,” said Mindy. “That’s a weird coincidence.”
“Yes it is,” said Oliver and quickly moved on, “What I’d like to do is try to find the constants.” He showed them the line that Nia had drawn and used the pencil to point at the place where she had started to make the line thicker, an inch before the radical split. “I want your help figuring out exactly what was going on in Widowsfield right before the divergence.”
Oliver then handed the notebook back to Lee. The quiet assistant took the pencil as well, and then prepared to swiftly record any details that Nia gave them.
“I’ll do what I can,” said Nia. “How much detail do you need?”
“As much as you can give me,” said Oliver. “I want to put this place back together again. I want to set the rooms up to look like they did when the event happened, and I want it to be as accurate as possible.”
“Why?” asked Mindy.
The phone clipped on Oliver’s belt started to vibrate. “Think of it as a sort of crime scene recreation.” He looked at the phone and then said, “You’ll have to excuse me, ladies. It’s my boss, Vess. I’ve got to take this.” Oliver answered the phone and then walked into the hallway outside of the library.
Lee followed his boss.
“I don’t trust him,” said Nia.
“Yeah, I’m starting to agree with you,” said Mindy. “Hey, can I ask you something that might be a little touchy?”
“Sure,” said Nia.
“Are you bullshitting him or what?”
Nia was surprised by the accusation. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve known each other for a while, and I’ve never seen you so…” Mindy tried to think of a word to describe Nia. “So psychically charged. I mean, just a couple days ago you were debating with me whether or not you even had a gift. I was the one pushing you into this, and now you’re like fucking Sylvia Brown or something.”
Nia cringed and shook her head at the comparison. “Don’t say that. Yuck.”
“You know what I mean. You’re either pulling a scam here to collect some cash, which I’d totally understand if that’s the case, or you’re suddenly a super-psychic.”
“I’m not a scam artist,” said Nia. “I’m not sure if I’ve just gotten better at reading things, or if it’s just this place. It feels like this whole town wants to tell me what happened here.”
“What the fuck did happen?” asked Mindy. “I can’t make heads or tails of what you’ve been talking about. I sure hope you’ve been keeping good notes.”
Nia ignored the question and walked across the gutted library. She kept her hands in her pockets as she studied the short bookcases that were attached to the wall under the window that looked out on the hallway that Oliver was in. She knelt down and gazed into the empty book shelf.
“Ever since I discovered my ability, I’ve been more aware of the world around me. It’s fascinating to think that everything we touch remembers us. Kind of comforting, in a weird sort of way.”
“How so?” asked Mindy.
“It makes us immortal. Doesn’t it? To think that everything you do, and everything you say, is remembered.” She took her hand out of her pocket and tapped the bookshelf. “Here. Memories trapped in the world around us.”
“I guess,” said Mindy, clearly disturbed by the thought.
“But there’s something else,” said Nia as she stood back up and turned to Mindy. “Something I never thought of before we came here. It has to do with the fog, and the creature they call The Skeleton Man. The one that Oliver is so interested in. For the first time, after all this time knowing that the things around us are remembering what we’ve done, I had a really scary thought.”
“What’s that?” asked Mindy.
Nia stared at the wall. “Who is it that remembers us? Who is it that’s watching?” She walked over to the bare wall and placed her hand against it. “What if they want out?”
Mindy shivered and scowled at her friend. “Stop saying stuff like that. That’s messed up.”
The walls of the gutted library seemed a little more menacing to them both now.
Nia looked at her friend and then over to the entrance of the library, toward where Oliver was still talking on the phone. Lee was staring back at her, as if merely a reflection in the glass.
“I think they caused this. They did something that caused everyone in the town to disappear.”
“Are you sure?”
Nia shook her head. “No, I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling I have.”
“Well, I can’t make heads or tails of your feelings these days.”
“Me neither,” said Nia. She stood up and stretched, reaching her hands high as she arched. “Although I know one thing for sure, my ability is getting stronger. I don’t think it’s because I’m more confident, or anything like that. Honestly, I think the moment in that house, when I freaked out and crawled outside, it let something in this town know that I could hear them. It’s like they spent the past eleven years screaming at people that paid no attention to them, and then, all of the sudden, a stranger wanders in that listens. Now they can’t shut up.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Mindy took a picture of the library with her phone, and then turned to take a picture of the window that Nia had said Jacob fell into.
“At first, I thought they just wanted to tell their story, sort of like a book that’s forcing me to read it. But now I’m not so sure.” She crossed her arms, a passively defensive gesture.
“What is it you think they want?” asked Mindy.
“I think they want out, and they think I can help them.” She looked back to the entrance where Oliver was. “The thing we need to figure out is what he wants. I don’t believe for a second that he just wants to know what happened.”
“Yeah, no shit,” said Mindy, equally distrusting of their host.
“The question is: Do they want to keep these things stuck in this town? Or do they want to get them out?”
“I don’t understand,” said Mindy. “Are we talking about the big fucking Twinkie?”
Nia looked quizzically at her friend. “What?”
“You know, like from Ghostbusters, where the tank in the basement explodes and all the ghosts shoot out. Is that what you’re talking about?”
Nia was going to shake her head, but then chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, I guess – sort of. Christ, I don’t know. This all sounds crazy.”
“How do you want to deal with him?” asked Mindy as she looked in Oliver’s direction.
“Whatever happened has something to do with that house he took us to first. I think we should keep feeding him information about the rest of the town, and I’ll pretend like I can’t stomach the idea of going back to that house. Then you and I will try to figure out a way to sneak out and go there alone.”
Mindy frowned. “For real? You sure you want to go back there?”
“No, of course I don’t, but we’ve got to. It’s the only way to figure all this out.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” said Mindy. “Maybe nobody should. Maybe some things are better left dead.”
Nia had no response for that.
Chapter 16 – Is Alma Harper Dead?
I worked with Oliver for a couple months. He was hesitant to reveal much about his involvement with the experiment that Cada E.I.B. was responsible for, but I didn’t need to hear him say it to know he was part of the conspiracy that led to the disappearance of the people in the town. Every time I drew another picture in that notebook of his, I learned a little more. As he stared over my shoulder, and pointed at the things he was interested in, I started to put the pieces together.
When we first started working together, he didn’t fully trust me, but over time he stopped questioning every picture I sketched in his notebook. He stopped st
aring over my shoulder as I drew the scenes, and that’s when I was able to begin altering things.
Whatever reason he had to rebuild Widowsfield exactly as it had been in 1996, I knew that I had an opportunity to stop him from achieving his goal. I thought there was no way he could know the sketches were wrong, so I filled that notebook with slightly varied versions of reality. I was careful not to alter things too much, and I was thankful I did because I would later learn that they’d taken pictures of several areas immediately after the event. That made it harder to perfect my false sketches, because I didn’t want Oliver to discover the deception.
Still though, it was easy to change minor details, like the way a lawn ornament sat in the yard, or what type of flooring a particular room had before the looters ripped everything away. I hoped that these minor variances would be enough to drive a wedge between the Watcher’s world and the re-creation Oliver was hoping to create.
I had to do whatever I could to keep the demons in their prison.
Widowsfield
March 14th, 1998
Amanda Harper stood outside of the house that her husband used to take their children to during their spring break. Widowsfield was a ghost town, the homes broken and falling apart, with vines creeping along the sides and paint flaking away. The yards were overcome with weeds that had long ago choked out the grass, and even the sidewalks sprouted waist-high vegetation between their cracks.
“So this is it,” said Amanda as Alma stood on the sidewalk behind her. The sun was directly above them, blazing summer-hot even though it wasn’t even officially spring yet. “This is where he used to take you so he could fuck that whore?”
Alma stayed quiet. Her mother’s darkness seemed to swell the closer they got to this place, and now the woman hardly resembled who she’d once been. Even her face had become twisted, constantly scowling and hateful. Her arms displayed numbers and symbols, each stretching in a line from her shoulder down to her fingertips. Alma had been similarly decorated, except she’d tried to fight the graffiti, leading to a mess of scrawled numbers on her chest and back.
