by Paul Seiple
“See anything?” Norma asked from below.
Ben flashed the light from side to side a few times. The attic was empty. No visible signs of a squirrel infestation. “Hard to tell,” Ben said. “I need to get a ventilation mask before I spend any more time up here. Could be mold. I’m coming down.”
A chill tickled Ben’s wrists as he reached for the first step. The cold froze him. He tried to speak, but something held his mouth shut. A flurry of dust spun against Ben’s face as if a strong wind approached, but the air behind him remained still. The dust took the shape of a small child. Ben struggled to scream, but he was completely paralyzed. A little girl with a dark veil over her face stood above Ben as he crouched. The girl wore a white nightgown soaked in blood. The flesh on her arms was pale, almost translucent. She lifted the veil. Her eyes were deep, black holes. She placed a finger against her lips, a gesture for Ben to stay silent.
“Ben, are you OK?” Norma asked.
The little girl placed her finger against her lips again and smiled, giving Ben a glimpse of the horror that lurked behind her lips. She had no teeth, her gums were black, and her tongue was fork-shaped. It danced around her index finger like two tiny serpents. “You’re not OK, Ben,” the little girl said. “You’ll never be OK again.”
Ben watched in helplessness as his feet lifted from the wooden floor. He floated just to the edge of the attic opening.
“Tag, you’re it,” the little girl said. She giggled and placed her hand on Ben’s chest.
A numbing sensation bit into Ben’s fingers and toes. It spread across his body until he felt as if he were being devoured by fire ants. The girl reached into Ben’s chest. Pain made him suck in the dust as an invisible force clutched his heart. The force tightened its grip. Ben struggled to breathe. It lessened its grip. He took a few deep, desperate breaths, inhaling more dust before the grip tightened again. Something shoved him from the attic. He tumbled down the ladder, nearly crushing Norma, who fell against a wall.
“Ben.”
Ben didn’t answer.
The sound of a loud crash jarred Sara, who lay on the couch downstairs napping while watching cartoons. She sat up and saw the teddy bear that Ben threw in the trash on the pillow next to her head.
A little girl’s voice whispered, “Friends keep secrets.”
“We are not friends. You told me you wouldn’t hurt anyone else. You lied,” Sara said, stepping behind the couch to put some distance between the mist forming in front of her.
Jessica no longer looked like an innocent little girl. Her face was a blur. One moment it was a child, the next something that resembled a snake with a flickering tongue sending spittle in Sara’s direction. She bent down to shield herself. The room filled with an odor that made Sara dry-heave.
“Ben,” Norma screamed from upstairs.
Jessica giggled. “You’re right. I lied.”
The television changed channels at a rapid pace. It stopped at a channel where a little girl who resembled Jessica before she turned into a monster was running through the woods, screaming, as a man chased her. He jogged at ease, just keeping the girl in his sight. She turned back. He grew closer. The shadow of something with huge horns overtook her. The screen went black.
Norma hobbled down the stairs. Each movement sent shock through her aching ankle. Adrenaline hadn’t kicked in. The pain made her nauseous. She lost her balance and slammed against the wall, grabbing the banister to save herself from a tumble. The commotion caused Jessica to disappear. The smell lifted. The television switched back to cartoons.
“Where the hell is my phone?” Norma asked.
“I’m scared,” Sara said.
“Honey, your dad had an accident.” Norma took a deep breath, trying to keep a semblance of composure. “Help Mommy find her phone.”
Sara searched the room for Norma’s phone before turning back to the couch. The phone was on the pillow in the exact spot the stuffed bear was earlier.
“Here,” Sara said, handing the phone to Norma, who dialed 9-1-1.
A sensation latched on to the back of Sara’s neck like a spider crawling on her skin. She swatted at it, but it continued around to her ear.
“Friends keep secrets.” The voice was barely above a whisper, but it was much deeper than Jessica’s. “You broke the rules. You let others in on our secret. Now you all will have to take this secret to the grave.”
Eleven
“You know, this is just crazy,” Terrence said, turning onto Lampkin Road.
“Crazier than me seeing demons?” Kim asked.
“Well...no... but...”
“Don’s right. If someone has cursed the families associated with the Hayes case, the best place to start is with them. The Lloyd family is gone. There’s no one left in the Barton family. No one has heard from the Carpenters in years. The Challis family moved away, and Lonnie Weilden is in a retirement home in Winston. That only leaves Mary English.”
Terrence shrugged his shoulders. “How are we going to do this? Go up to the door and ask her if she’s seen her son who’s been dead for forty years?”
“I know it sounds insane, Terry. But this really is happening,” Kim said.
“I believe it. But this is something they didn’t teach us at the academy. I’ll let you do the talking.”
“How gentlemanly of you,” Kim said.
Terrence and Kim exchanged a brief but nervous laugh to lift the tension, even if only for a moment.
Lampkin Road was part of the Haddington neighborhood—middle to upper-middle class families. With pristine landscaping and a nearly non-existent crime rate, it was hard to believe a possible evil lurked within such a peaceful community.
“So why do you think you’re seeing them?” Terrence asked.
“If Mason is right, six demons were conjured. Maybe since the Carpenters disappeared, the demon is focused on my family. My dad was the one who caught Hayes. It makes sense that whoever conjured this would want revenge on the man who sent Hayes to death row,” Kim said.
Terrence thought back to the conversation with Sam Strode. Sam blamed the Carpenter boy for stealing the journal. Terrence wrestled with telling Kim but decided to hold on to it until later. “It just doesn’t add up, Kim. Why would one of these demons go after the Tates? They have nothing to do with The Silent Six.”
“I don’t know. They moved into the Challis house. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know.” Kim changed the subject. “That’s it, on the left, 433 Lampkin.”
Mary English stared out the window as she did every weekday at two o’clock, waiting for the school bus to drop off the children. She kept this routine for over forty years. Every day, she hoped she would see her son, Bradley. And every day, the pain tugged at her soul a little harder. Bradley disappeared from his room three days before Halloween in 1973. He was Elvin Hayes’s third victim.
Mary’s husband, Leo, used to beg her to stop looking out the window. He accepted that Bradley was gone, but Leo died a few years ago after suffering a heart attack. Loneliness, pain, and hope were all Mary had left.
She watched the last child jump from the steps of the bus and playfully tackle another kid. Mary smiled. Mary teared up as the bus drove away and the children went in different directions to their homes. Another day and no Bradley. She remembered her son’s smile as he ran into the house, pleading for chocolate chip cookies. She would tell him, “Only one, or else it will ruin your dinner.” Mary would always let Bradley have two cookies.
The pain stabbed at her heart. Mary had given thought to suicide a few times. There was no one left who would care if she ended her life. Her sister passed away the same year as Leo. But Mary never acted on the thought. She was a firm believer that committing suicide revoked your place in Heaven. Bradley and Leo were there. She would see them again one day; she just had to be patient for death to call upon her. Mary was startled by a knock at the front door. She wiped the tears away and straightened her apron adorned with sunflowers.
“Just a minute,” Mary said, trying to regain composure.
Mary opened the door just as there was another knock.
“Bradley?”
A boy carrying a Planet of the Apes backpack and wearing a blue baseball cap smiled at Mary.
“Can I have some cookies...please.”
Mary grabbed the boy and hugged him. He was ice cold to the touch.
“Oh, honey, you’re freezing. Get in here, and let’s get you warm.”
Charlotte was in the middle of a rare ninety-degree fall heatwave. Mary didn’t think about Bradley being so cold. She was too consumed with the image of her son. Too wrapped up to realize that it had been over forty years since she had seen Bradley, and he hadn’t aged at all.
“Can I have a cookie?” Bradley asked.
“Of course you can, honey.”
Mary made a batch of chocolate chip cookies every week in the hope Bradley would come home. It was more of a security thing. She never ate the cookies and tossed them out on Sunday night before starting a new batch. Baking was one of the only comforts for Mary.
“Come sit at the table. I’ll get you a plate and some milk,” Mary said.
When Mary turned, she dropped the plate. The glass of milk followed, shattering on the linoleum floor, splattering her ankles. Bradley sat at the kitchen table. His look had changed drastically. The pale skin on his face drooped. The baseball cap was ragged and covered in dirt.
“What happened to you, honey?” Mary asked.
The boy didn’t answer. He reached into the backpack and pulled out a handgun.
“Where did you get that?” Mary asked.
The boy placed the gun on the table with the barrel facing Mary.
“Don’t you want to be with me and Daddy?”
Mary sat down at the table opposite of the boy.
“I miss you so much.” She reached for his hand but pulled away in horror when his touch singed her flesh. The coldness turned to heat.
“You can be with us again.”
“What happened to you?” Mary asked, rubbing the tips of her burning fingers.
“The bad man hurt me. You didn’t protect me from him.”
Mary gasped as sorrow tightened around her throat. She reached for her son again, pulling back after remembering the fire in her fingertips.
“He took me to the woods and did bad things to me,” the boy said.
“You shouldn’t have this.” Mary reached for the gun.
The boy grabbed her wrist and shook his head. A chill gripped Mary’s bones, causing her arthritis to explode in her joints. “Make it better, Mommy. Join me and Daddy. He misses you.”
“I can’t. Believe me, I thought about it. I’ve been so lonely, but if I kill myself, I will not be allowed into Heaven.”
The boy smirked. The rancid odor of death escaped his lips. “Who said anything about Heaven?”
“What’s wrong with you, honey?”
“We’ve covered this. You let that bad man take me away.” The boy’s voice was much deeper and loud. Loud enough to rattle the potted plants on the window by the sink. “Do you know what he did to me, Mommy?”
“I’m so sorry, Bradley.”
“You can still save me, Mommy.” The voice returned to that of a boy. “Erase the memories of the bad man. Take the gun and pull the trigger.”
The handgun moved closer to Mary without anyone touching it. Mary took a deep breath and turned away.
The voice grew deeper again. “Heaven’s overrated, Mommy.”
An overwhelming sense of guilt flooded Mary’s emotions, washing away the joy she felt when she first saw Bradley again. She picked up the gun and studied it, buying herself a few extra moments to decide if this was the right thing to do.
“You can take away all the pain the bad man caused me. All you have to do is join me and Daddy.”
Mary closed her eyes and put the gun to her temple. Years of pain erased any doubt that Mary had about suicide.
“No one’s home,” Terrence said after the fifth knock.
Kim walked around the side of the house, following the rows of red tulips. She peeked through a window into the living room. Pale yellow walls, white furniture accented with orange and green flowers, and a television encased in a wooden cabinet made the room look untouched since the seventies. Kim moved to another window. She wedged herself between shrubs and peered into the kitchen.
Mary English sat at the kitchen table. Her lips moved as if she were talking to someone, but she was alone. She held a pistol to the left side of her head. The gun trembled in her uneasy hand.
“She’s in there,” Kim yelled, banging her fist against the window, trying to get Mary’s attention. But Mary never flinched.
Terrence raced around the corner.
“She’s in the kitchen. She’s got a gun,” Kim said, still banging on the window.
“I’ll try the back,” Terrence said.
The screen door was unlocked, but the wooden door was locked. Terrence channeled his days at Alabama. He hit the door with a shoulder as if it were a linebacker keeping him from gaining the one yard needed for a first down. The door frame splintered. The door swung open. Terrence stumbled into the kitchen.
Mary opened her eyes and leapt from the table in a manner not common for most seventy-year-old women.
“Shit,” Kim said as Mary pointed the gun at Terrence and fired.
Terrence dove beside the refrigerator. The bullet barely missed him and lodged into the trash can.
“Put the gun down, Mrs. English. I’m a police officer,” Terrence said, holding his arms out, palms facing Mary.
“You’re going to try to take Bradley away from me. I can’t let you do that. No one is ever taking my baby from me again.”
“I’m only here to check on you. I’m not going to take anyone away.”
“Liar.” Mary fired another shot. The bullet pierced the side of the refrigerator.
Kim, watching in horror as the old woman used her partner for target practice, smashed the window with the butt of her gun. The distraction drew Mary’s attention toward the sound of the glass shattering. The break allowed Terrence to get to his feet and tackle Mary. The gun flew across the room and landed in the kitchen sink.
“Get off of me, you son-of-a-bitch.” The guttural voice wasn’t Mary’s.
“Calm down,” Terrence said, trying to secure Mary in a way that wouldn’t snap her feeble old bones.
“I said get the fuck off of me.” Mary swung her arm, launching Terrence into the kitchen cabinets.
“Mary, stop,” Kim said, pointing her revolver at the old woman’s chest. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Mary faced Kim, the wrinkles on her face smoothed. There was blur that caused Kim to blink fast. When her eyes readjusted, she wasn’t looking at Mary. Her faced has transitioned to a little boy’s.
“Shoot me, please do.” Mary’s voice was now that of a little boy. “I’m in so much pain. Set me free.”
Mary ran toward Kim, leaving her no choice but to pull the trigger. Kim fired one shot into the woman’s chest, stopping her in her tracks. Mary’s faced morphed again to an old woman in agony. Mary clutched her breast and dropped to her knees before falling face first onto the pale green linoleum floor.
Kim braced herself against the sink.
“What the hell was that?” Terrence asked, rubbing the back of his head.
A pool of blood formed to the side of Mary. Kim watched the crimson liquid distort and form the word MAYHEM.
“Kim,” Terrence said.
Kim didn’t hear him. The sight of the word MAYHEM paralyzed Kim. Her breathing slowed to match the old woman’s, who was taking her last breath. Kim sucked her stomach in and let out a gasp. The force jumpstarted her heart. Kim’s breathing regulated. She watched MAYHEM drown as the pool around Mary English’s body grew wider.
“She left you no other choice,” Terrence said, touching Kim’s shoulder.
“I saw it again,” Kim said
.
Terrence bent to a knee and placed his fingers against Mary’s neck to check for a pulse. He drew his hand back. “She’s frigid.”
“We were too late. It wasn’t her. The demon was here,” Kim said.
Twelve
Sara played a word game on Norma’s phone as Norma stared vacantly at the television in the waiting room of Carolina Medical. The game required the player to make words based off of a group of letters assigned to her. The object was to have the most points when the tiles ran out, sort of like Scrabble. Sara was waiting for her opponent to play a word when the doctor approached.
“Mrs. Tate?”
“How’s Ben?”
“Let’s talk over here,” the doctor said, stopping at the nurses’ station.
Norma patted Sara’s knee. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“How is he?” Norma asked.
“We are waiting on blood tests. Unfortunately, at the present time, I cannot tell you what’s going on with your husband.”
“Can I see him?” Norma asked.
“He’s in a medically induced coma.” The doctor paused. “Mrs. Tate, your husband’s vitals are very erratic. I reviewed his history, and there’s nothing to suggest an event like this. You just moved into a new home, correct?”
Norma nodded.
“Did you have the home inspected for toxins before moving in? The reason I ask is because your son’s illness could very well be food poisoning, but with this incident, I’m afraid there is something in the house making people sick.”
“Nothing was found in the inspection,” Norma said.
“To be safe, I’d check your family into a hotel and get a second inspection.”
We don’t need an inspection. We need an exorcism, Norma thought.
“Your husband was in the attic before he took ill. Your son’s room is on the top floor of the house. Get it checked out for black mold. Check again for carbon monoxide as well,” the doctor said.
