Haunted Air rj-6

by F. Paul Wilson

  The nape of Gia's neck tightened. "What are you doing?"

  The relentless singing and the blank look in the child's eyes were all disturbing enough. But now this... opening her top...

  Was she demented?

  "Please don't do that," Gia said.

  The air in the room thickened as the last button popped free of its hole and the child gripped the two edges of the blouse and spread them, revealing a bare flat chest with a wide, ragged red gash down its center-

  No-no-no, not a gash, a gaping bloody hole, a gaping bloody empty hole with nothing where her heart should be-

  10

  Jack was in the middle of describing his doubling back on Madame Pomerol's variation of the Spanish handkerchief scam when he heard Gia's scream. Before he knew he was moving he found himself up and racing for the stairs, leaving behind his rapt audience.

  He pounded down to the first floor, his feet barely touching the stairs, and found her in the middle of the waiting room, doubled over, face buried in her hands, sobbing.

  Jack spun, saw no one else about, then grabbed her wrists and pulled her to him.

  "Gia! What's wrong? What happened?"

  Her tear-stained face was the color of a freshly shucked oyster when she looked up at him. "She had no heart! She opened her blouse and her heart was gone!"

  "Who?"

  "The little girl!"

  "The one you saw yesterday?"

  Gia nodded. "She... she-" Her eyes widened and she pointed toward the hall. "Look! There's her blood!"

  Jack turned just as Lyle and Charlie piled down the stairs. He saw a glistening red trail on the hardwood floor of the hall, saw Charlie's sneaker land in it and slip. Charlie went down but bounced back up again, staring in horror at his bloody hands.

  "Blood! Dear Lord, where-?" He looked at Jack. "Who?"

  Lyle, poised on the bottom step, pointed toward the kitchen. "It runs that way!"

  He and Charlie moved down the hall, gingerly sidestepping the red splatters. Instinctively Jack started to follow, but Gia clutched his arm.

  "Don't leave me!"

  Jack wrapped an arm around her back and held her closer, trying to absorb her Parkinsonian shakes.

  "I won't. Don't worry."

  But within him every angry cell was pulling toward the hall to follow that wet red trail. He wanted-needed-to find whoever had frightened Gia like this. He didn't know how they'd done it-faking up a little girl so it looked like she had no heart-and he didn't care. Anyone who terrified Gia like this was going to answer to him.

  He watched Lyle and Charlie enter the kitchen and follow the trail to the left, heard Lyle say, "It goes down the steps." Jack heard their feet on the cellar stairs, their voices crying out in shock.

  "Jack!" Lyle called. "Jack, you've got to see this! It's... it's..." Words seemed to fail him.

  Jack glanced at Gia but she shook her head. "Don't you leave me alone here! Please!"

  He had to see what they were talking about. He turned and called out, "How about Gia? Is it all right for her?"

  "No... yeah... I don't know if it's all right for anyone, but I guess so. Just come quick! I don't know how long it will last!"

  He looked at Gia again. "Come on. I'll be right at your side, holding on to you."

  "Damn right you will," she muttered. She shuddered, then straightened. "All right, let's go. But if it's awful, we get out of here, promise? We head home and we never come back."

  "Promise."

  They moved like Siamese twins, edging down the hall hip to hip, avoiding the blood on the floor. Stepped into the kitchen, then made the turn and stopped at the top of the cellar steps. A single bulb lit the narrow stairwell. A two-inch railing ran along the right wall. Below, near the bottom steps, he could see Lyle and Charlie, their postures tense, hunched, as they stared into the basement. The steps made a turn where they stood, putting the basement out of Jack's line of sight.

  "I'll go first," he said, and started down. He felt Gia close enough behind him to be riding piggyback, a hand on each of his shoulders, squeezing. He steadied himself by gripping the wobbly railing.

  Below, the Kenton brothers looked up at him. Lyle's face was tight with strain, Charlie's was slack and beaded with sweat. They looked like frightened kids. Jack wondered what could put these two grown men in such a state.

  A few more steps and he found out.

  "Holy..."

  "Oh, dear God!" Gia said into his ear and she leaned against him and peered over his shoulder.

  The basement floor was awash in bright red liquid. It rose to the level of the bottom stair tread and lapped at the one above it. And it moved, circulating in a slow, counterclockwise rotation.

  Jack said, "That's not..."

  "Damn right it is," Lyle said. "Can't you smell it?"

  Gia's fingers suddenly turned into talons, digging into Jack's shoulders.

  "There's someone in there!" she cried.

  Jack leaned forward, squinting at the surface of the red lake. "Where?"

  "There!" An arm speared over his right shoulder, finger pointing. "Dear God, don't you see it? Right there! A hand, reaching up from the surface! It's a child! That little girl! She's in there!"

  "What you talking 'bout?" Charlie said. "Ain't nobody in there."

  Jack had to agree. Barely a ripple on the surface from wall to wall.

  "I don't see anything either, Gi."

  "Are you all blind?" Her voice was taking on a panicky tone. "That little girl is drowning! There's her arm, reaching up for help! Can't you see it? For God's sake, somebody grab it! Please!"

  Lyle turned to her. "I don't see a thing. I'm not saying you're not, okay, but even if somebody were in here, it's only a foot deep, tops."

  Her eyes wild, Gia began trying to squeeze past Jack. "I can't stand this, Jack! I've got to do something!"

  Jack wouldn't let her pass. "Gia, no. We don't know what's going down here, and you're too close already." He didn't know what effect whatever was happening might have on the baby.

  "Jack-"

  "You know what I'm talking about. You shouldn't-"

  "The level's rising!" Charlie cried.

  Jack turned and saw that the blood had reached the tread of the next to last step.

  "Let's all back up a little," Lyle said.

  But as he stepped up, his foot slipped. He let out a startled cry as he fell back, arms out, one hand clawing for purchase on the wall, the other reaching for his brother. But Charlie had turned his back and by the time he responded it was too late.

  With pinwheeling arms, Lyle hit the pool and sank from sight. Charlie shouted and crouched to jump in after him, but Jack reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

  "Wait!"

  Jack stared in mute shock at the crimson froth where Lyle had disappeared.

  What the hell? Even though the level continued its rise, faster than ever now, the pool couldn't be more than two feet deep. And was it his imagination or was the blood circulating faster too?

  Seconds later Lyle broke the surface, splashing and gasping, his head and face coated with blood.

  "Praise God!" Charlie cried. He gripped the rickety railing with one hand and leaned out over the pool, reaching with his other. "Get up here!"

  But Lyle continued to splash about, trying to shake the blood out of his eyes as the flow pulled him away from the stairs.

  "Lyle!" Jack called. "Stand up!"

  "Can't! Floor's gone! No bottom!"

  "Jack!" Gia said. "The little girl-I don't see her arm anymore! She's gone!"

  The blood was lapping at the fourth step now. The flow had rotated Lyle to the far side of the cellar, and as Jack watched he saw an eddying depression begin to form in the center of the blood. The velocity of the rotation accelerated.

  "A whirlpool!" Charlie shouted. He leaned further out over the blood, stretching his arms, reaching toward his brother. "Lyle! Grab hold when you come 'round!"

  A bottomless whirlpool of blood, Jac
k thought. Turning counterclockwise. With the level rising instead of falling. In a cellar in Queens.

  Not the weirdest sight he'd ever seen, not by a long shot, but he knew of only one thing that could be behind something like this.

  He'd deal with that later. Right now he had to get Lyle out of that pool and Gia out of this house.

  He gripped Charlie's arm as Lyle started to float toward them. "I've got you. Grab him as he comes by."

  But as Lyle rotated their way, the sucking center of the whirlpool pulled him closer to it and further from the walls. He tried to swim toward Charlie's outstretched hand; Jack could see the desperation in his blood-soaked features as he reached for it, heard his cry of dismay as his fingers fell short by inches and he swirled away.

  "Swim!" Charlie shouted. "Swim toward the walls!"

  Jack could see Lyle struggling in the thick fluid, doing a crude dog-paddle. He was a lousy swimmer.

  "Can't!" he gasped. "Current's too strong!"

  "We need rope!" Jack told Charlie. "Got any?"

  "Rope?" Charlie's panic seemed to ease as he concentrated on the question. "No... we've got string but-"

  "Never mind," Jack said. The solution had been right in his hand. He turned to Gia. "I need you to go back up to the kitchen for a minute."

  "I'm not leaving-"

  "Just stand in the doorway. Please. I need you out of the stairwell to do this. Hurry. We may not get another shot."

  She turned and padded back to the top step and turned, watching him with frightened eyes. Jack followed her a few steps, then grabbed the railing with both hands.

  "Charlie-help me rip this out of the wall."

  Charlie frowned, then brightened. "Right!"

  Ten seconds later Jack was easing toward the red pool with the ten-foot railing in his hands. The blood had risen past the halfway mark on the walls and was moving faster. Lyle had rounded the far side of the whirlpool and was coming their way again, but now he was even closer to the black-hole center.

  "Quick!" Jack said to Charlie as he stepped onto a blood-covered step. His stomach clenched-it was warm. "Grab my belt so I don't go in too."

  "Oh, Jack, please be careful!" Gia called from above.

  With Charlie steadying him from behind, Jack gripped one end of the railing and thrust the other toward Lyle as he swirled by. The far end struck the surface, splashing blood into Lyle's face. He whipped his arms about blindly, slapping his hands on the surface, grasping only air. Jack leaned farther out and felt a tearing pain in his right flank but kept trying to steady the railing against the current and push it closer to Lyle. He hoped he hadn't popped his stitches.

  And then one of Lyle's flailing arms made contact. His fingers clutched the wood, then wrapped around it.

  "You've got it!" Jack said, feeling himself tilting toward the pool by the extra pull on the railing. Over his shoulder he said to Charlie, "And I hope you've got me."

  "Don't worry," Charlie said, then raised his voice. "Get both hands on it, Lyle!"

  Lyle did just that, and then Jack and Charlie began hauling him in.

  But the pool didn't seem to want to give him up. The maelstrom turned faster and the level began to drop as a loud sucking sound echoed from the center. It took all of Jack and Charlie's combined strength to hold onto the railing, but they were losing this tug of war. Jack tried to put more of his back into it but the pain in his side worsened. He shifted and that caused his feet to slip on the blood.

  No! With the speed of that whirlpool now, if he went in too they'd both be lost.

  Gia cried, "Jack!"

  He heard a thumping behind him and then a slim arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him back.

  With Gia hanging on as ballast, Jack and Charlie were able to pull Lyle clese enough so he could grab Charlie's hand. Jack tossed the railing into the pool and helped Charlie drag Lyle out. As his brother lay gasping and retching on the steps, Charlie placed his hands on him and bent his head. He seemed to be praying.

  Jack slumped back against Gia. "Thanks."

  She kissed him on the ear and whispered, "You saved him."

  "And you saved me."

  As Jack watched the level of the blood fall, he noticed something.

  "Look at the walls," he said. "They're dry... and no stains."

  "Not quite," Gia said, pointing over Jack's shoulder. "What about those?"

  Jack saw them too. Halfway up the pecan paneling... oddly shaped blotches, evenly spaced around the room. They reminded him of-

  "Crosses!" Charlie cried. "Praise God, my prayers have been answered! He's driven the evil from this house!"

  Jack wasn't so sure about that.

  He watched the current slow and stop as the sucking center of the maelstrom stretched and lengthened into a line. An orange concrete floor slowly appeared as the blood rushed down through the large crack in its center.

  "I'll be damned," Jack said. "It split the floor wide open."

  "No," Charlie said. "That already there. It cracked in the Friday night quake."

  Jack saw Lyle uncoil his blood-soaked body from its exhausted slump into a sitting position.

  "The floor wasn't there a couple of minutes ago. I swear, the floor was gone when I was in there."

  "We believe you," Jack said.

  The remaining blood seemed to evaporate, leaving the concrete dry and unstained.

  Lyle moved down a couple of steps and poked the toe of his shoe against the orange floor. Apparently satisfied with its solidity, he stepped onto the concrete and walked around in a tight circle that did not cross the large crack.

  "What happened here?" he said to no one in particular. "Why? What does it mean?"

  Jack thought he had an answer, one he didn't like. If he was right, he wanted Gia far, far away from here.

  "We'll try to figure it out later, Lyle," he said, then turned to Gia. "Let's get out of here."

  "No, wait," Gia said, rising and moving past him down the stairs. "I want to see those crosses."

  "Gia, please. This isn't a healthy place, if you know what I mean."

  She gave him one of her smiles. "I know what you mean, but this involves me."

  "No, it doesn't. It-"

  "Yes, it does," Lyle said.

  Jack gave him a hard look. "Would you mind staying out of this, Lyle?"

  "I can't. I'm in it up to my neck. And Gia's in it too. She's the only one who's seen the little girl. Doesn't that say something?"

  "It says she should get the hell out of here."

  Gia stepped out onto the floor. "I just want to look at these crosses, okay?"

  "No," Jack muttered, rising and following her. "Not okay. But I don't seem to have much say in the matter."

  Jack joined her where she'd stopped before one of the glistening red cross-shaped stains on the cheap paneling. The upright part ran about two inches wide and maybe ten inches high; the eight-inch crosspiece flared upward at each end and was set high, almost at the top of the upright. Jack counted eleven of them ringing the cellar wall, maybe six feet apart and about five feet off the floor.

  "What a strange kind of cross," Gia said. "And they're the only things in the room still wet."

  "Not the only thing," Lyle said. His clothes and dreads were still drenched in thick red blood. "I've got to go change and take a shower." He started to turn away, then swiveled back to them. "That's known as a tau cross, by the way. Named because it looks like the T in the Greek alphabet; it's also the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet."

  Jack stared at him. How did he know all this stuff?

  "Tau..." Charlie said. "I remember reading in the prophet Ezekiel how the faithful of God would all be signed on the forehead with the letter tau" He looked around, nodding. "Yes, this definitely shows that we were saved by the hand of the Lord."

  Jack took a closer look. "But the cross piece doesn't quite make it all the way up." Each showed a little nubbin of the upright on top. "Not quite a capital T."

  As if on cue, a
ll the bloody crosses faded away.

  "Look!" Lyle cried, holding out his arms. His clothes were clean and dry, and not a trace of red on his skin or hair. "The blood! It's gone! As if it never happened!"

  "Oh, it happened," Jack said, pointing to the banister railing on the floor. "And now it's time to go."

  "No, you can't," Lyle said. "We need to talk about this. Everything that's been happening here since the earthquake-"

  "'Everything'?" Jack said. "You mean there's more?"

  "Yes. Lots more. And I believe it's all connected to Gia. Maybe even the earthquake."

  Jack glanced at Gia and saw her startled look. He turned back to Lyle. "Look, I know you just had a bad experience, so-"

  "Listen to me. It's all starting to fall into place. We've been living here almost a year now and in all that time we've experienced not one strange thing." He looked at his brother. "Am I right, Charlie?"

  Charlie nodded. "True that. But since Friday night it been one thing top another."

  "Right. All the weirdness started Friday night when Gia stepped into this house. The instant she crossed the threshold we had an earthquake, for Christ sake!"

  "I crossed with her. We entered together, if you remember. Maybe it's me."

  Jack knew it was him, but didn't want to go into that now. He wanted Gia out of here.

  "But you're not the one who's seen the little girl. On any other day in my life I'd say Gia's arrival with the earthquake was pure coincidence, but not today. Not after what I just went through. And she's the only one who's seen this little girl. I'm telling you, I feel it in my gut: that child is connected to what's been going on, and Gia's connected to the child. I want to know how."

  "So do I," Gia said. "I mean, that is, if it's true. Because I saw a hand sticking out of that pool. It was right in front of you three but none of you could see it. So either I'm crazy or I'm connected. Either way, I want some answers too."

  "Okay, fine," Jack said. He knew Lyle was wrong, but could see from the way this conversation was going that he wasn't going to get Gia home any time soon. "We'll discuss it. But not here. I don't think this house is a healthy place for Gia. There's got to be a restaurant or someplace where we can get a booth and hash this out."