“Who blew out that candle?” It was a man’s voice who asked, but I couldn’t tell which one.
An awful groan emanated from Lika again, and then she collapsed onto the table, arms flailing outward, making her look like an Egyptian painting on the pyramid walls. “Is she dead?” Lisette asked.
“No, she’s just—stunned.” Thomas stepped forward and helped Lika to the settee. She was unconscious.
I looked around again at the group, my eyes better adjusted to the darkness. There were only four figures in front of me. “Someone’s missing,” I said.
Ice gripped at my entire body and I did a mental roll-call. Diana and Thomas were standing together at that point, his arms around his wife. Mary was in my peripheral vision. I couldn’t see her but I could smell her perfume. That left—
“Where’s Lisette?” Max’s voice sounded strained. “Lisette, where are you?”
A scream for help came from the basement. Mary took off for one door that led to the cellar.
I followed on her heels and Max Callfield followed me. “What happened?” he asked.
“Mary, check the fuses,” I said, trying to open the basement door. The heavy oak slab wouldn’t budge. I pulled harder, and nothing.
Max pushed me out of the way and I didn’t protest. That was his wife screaming down there.
He banged on the door as Mary opened the faux curio cabinet which hid the fuse box. I ran out to the kitchen, through the back door, grabbed a hatchet used for splitting wood, and ran back inside.
“Out of the way,” I said. Max moved.
If anyone would break down that door, it would be me. But as I raised the ax over my head to crack it into it, the door popped open.
At the bottom of the stairs were two shapes in the shaft of moonlight beyond our shadows. The first looked like the figure of a woman, and next to that figure sat an enormous dog or wolf. Only their outlines were visible.
“Don’t come down,” Lisette’s voice carried up the stairs, just above a whisper. “If you do, we’ll all be cursed.”
Max shook his head. “Come up here, Lissie,” he said.
“No, I can’t. They’re holding me back.”
Mary got the lights back on, but the basement was still dark, and only their silhouettes were still visible, casting elongated shadows off the dim chandelier’s golden light.
Max grabbed the ax from my hand and ran down the stairs to hack up the wolf-dog-shape thing. I turned away to beckon the rest of them to follow, but they didn’t. They were further away, and Mary was standing by the fuse box.
“Lissie? Where’d you go?”
I turned to the sound of Max’s voice and saw that both the wolf-thing and Lisette’s shadow were gone. Max turned back to look at me. “She disappeared right in front of me,” he said. Now his voice sounded small and shaky.
“There’s a secret passage for the servants that leads to the upstairs rooms,” I said. “Lisette might have gone through it.”
The doubt in my voice sickened me. Everything about this evening sickened me.
The group searched everywhere for her, well into the night. Mary and Max explored both ends of the passageway until they met in the middle, and Thomas and Diana went down to the basement with me once the lights were on to search there.
Poor, dear Lisette. Her husband was beside himself, so much so that at first I wondered if he was just acting. Perhaps he had done away with her and was playing up a scene for the rest of us.
I was about to open my mouth when the group met again in the sitting room and accused him of it. He became pale, then fainted. A real faint where a person falls forward, rather than a theatrical one. Max hit his head on the round, solid oak table, hard enough to make it shake.
Mary called for a doctor, and for the constable. Thomas and Diana left for home. We didn’t argue. No one gave thought to making them stay or worrying if they paid their incidentals.
The constable (the same one who called me hysterical) let them go after brief questioning. They questioned Max, Lika, Mary, and me, and they cleared the four of us. They trusted Max. He was their boss. If he had harmed Lisette they wouldn’t have pursued it. That’s how it works in small towns—they protect each other.
That’s because no one was involved in Missus Callfield’s disappearance. The house would be the only suspect, and the constable insisted it was just a prank by Lisette. Max didn’t argue with his deputy—the bereavement swallowed him whole. The man took one punch after another, even when the deputy implied that we were doing it for publicity.
I would not dignify that with a response.
Neither Mary nor I knew what to say to Max. Neither of us have spoken to him since, and I think none of us will ever be the same.
This happened only a few nights ago but it feels longer. The constable didn’t question us again, and there will be a service for Lisette next week up in Terrace Lake. If Max will allow it, we’ll go to pay our respects.
No one has mentioned the house, and it’s as if the people in town, even the constable, know it was the house, but what could they do about it? What could any of us do about it?
I don’t understand this town, and the people in it. No one got arrested that night, and no one has been since. The lot of them act as if nothing happened, as far as we can tell. Though they play dumb, they seem to be the ones hiding something. Such a strange place.
The night when Missus Callfield disappeared, I sent Lika Lesko away with a hamper full of food, refusal of money, and her promise not to so much as mention this place. I know she won’t mention it, not for our sake, but because she believes in those curses.
As do I.
Not that I know Gypsy people that well, but I’ve never known one to refuse money. She said the money was tainted because it was tied to the house, but there was something else she said when I asked why the food wasn’t tainted, then.
“The food belongs to the cooks and the cooks are clean. That money has touched cursed hands.”
I shook my head. “Missus Lesko, I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
Lika left into the darkness, and her band moved on, I suppose.
Now, looking back on the past few days as I sit here in a now quiet Dubbs House, I understand. I allowed the evil of the house to work through me and let it harm Lisette. The Gypsy is right—my hands are tainted.
I wish I could take it back. I wish I had listened to Mary.
Lisette Callfield’s disappearance is my fault, because I insisted. I pushed and got my way because that’s what I do. Max will never forgive me, and I don’t deserve forgiveness.
If there is an abyss—Perdition, as the old religious cult says, then I’ll be cast there upon my death and face eternal torments, but they can’t be as bad as the ones I’m facing right now. With what I’ve seen and endured in this place, maybe death will spare me by bringing me peace.
But I doubt it.
— Elizabeth Maxwell-Hunter
MERCY HOSPITAL
Paul slipped in and out of consciousness as the ambulance wailed and whined its way through the narrowing streets of Terrace Lake. “You’re doing great, Paul. Stay with us,” they said as they hooked him up to tubes through his nose, mouth, and arms. “We’re going to Mercy Hospital. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
The young man didn’t answer and slipped into the dark water that kept surrounding him.
With a sticky little noise, Paul opened his eyes when the ambulance slowed down. Out the back window, he could see the enormous stone building looming on a steep hill. The place looked like a giant bat, with multiple floors and a spread out configuration, with the ER entrance making up the body of the bat.
Nurses in classic white uniforms and hats greeting him on the gurney, the noise they made sounded like squawking and trumpeting. Paul moaned.
They were talking underwater—he could almost understand them, but couldn’t answer them. Paul opened his mouth, heard the buzzing of bees, and looked away, wishi
ng his body would stop hurting through every pore. Or he could at least lift a hand to say yes or no.
Nurse whites turned red as they leaned over him to stop the bleeding. A man in white scrubs asked him questions about allergies, about medical history and other things. Through the commotion, Paul nodded and shook his head. Sometimes he answered with nods and shakes when they were talking to each other.
The voices became clearer, sharper. They asked what happened, and Paul struggled to give a small shrug that made his shoulders burn like they were full of glass shards. The last thing he remembered was working the back patio of that house, refinishing the wood, and seeing something that surprised him. Could have been that a board snapped. If that was it, he thought, he would sue the Silver Hollow Historical Society for a fortune. Injury on the job had to be worth a claim against them. If he made it.
The team asked him to hold still. Paul did. Every joint seared with pain as if he’d stayed out in the sun for too long. When he was eighteen, he’d fallen asleep at the beach when he was visiting the Southeast territory, and didn’t wake until five hours later—and the reward for that was burnt skin that pulsed tight over his body. Paul put boiled lobsters to shame with his reddened self, and the blisters that erupted all over him were the size of half-dollars. Had to go to the hospital then, too.
This was worse.
Paul slipped back into the darkness just as a nurse spoke to him, another one talking underwater.
A woman’s voice—a different woman—spoke to him.
“Can you wake up? Sir?” the voice was deeper, more authoritative, and tinged with an overseas accent. Proper sounding.
His sticky eyelids peeled open once more, and he focused on narrowed blue eyes, looking at him with concern, but distance.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Paul Ingersoll.” His voice sounded rough and faint.
“Good. And do you know where you are?”
Paul didn’t move his head, but his eyes examined the room he was in, and he cleared his throat. “Mercy Hospital.”
“Yes. Do you know what day it is?”
“Wednesday.”
The woman nodded. He tried to sit up, but the doctor put her hands out on his shoulders and pushed downward.
“Don’t move, Mister Ingersoll. I’m Doctor Kathryn Cross, and I’m going to be treating you today.”
She asked him more questions, who was the leader of the country, did he recall what had happened, and stuff like that.
“Don’t remember,” Paul said when she asked about what had happened. “I was just doing some sanding and restoration on house—the back porch that leads to the kitchen. There was…” he squinted as if he could see what he’d seen then and shook his head. “I saw something, but I don’t know what, and then I don’t remember anything after that.”
The doctor nodded. “That’s okay. Just try to relax for right now. We’ll give you something for your pain and more fluids and blood. Don’t try to sit up until I tell you to, okay?”
She excused herself for a moment and a nurse came in and injected something into his IV line. A warmth spread over his body and he sighed in relief, then a more pleasant darkness washed over him
The angry bees that were stinging his body went away, and the sounds of beeps and boops faded into the background, like the rhythm of a heartbeat.
The rhythms called his name. “Mister Ingersoll, Mister Ingersoll, Mister Ingersoll.”
There was a badge staring him in the face when he stirred: KATHRYN CROSS, MD. He looked over the badge and at the person behind it. A tall, white woman with fine bones, prominent cheekbones, full lips and blue eyes that made him think of cloudless summer days at Terrace Lake. Those eyes were deep-set but had a hardness to them—the way a person looks when their environment has toughened them.
“How are you?” she asked. When she opened her mouth, he heard the Albion accent. That explained the hardened appearance. Oh yeah, she was the same doc from earlier.
“Better already, but I thought I’d died.”
“Oh?” Doctor Cross said.
“Yeah, I’m surrounded by beautiful angels,” he said with a grin. He felt his face get a little warm, and he looked away, shame-faced for the cheesy line.
“That’s just your medicine talking. Enjoy it while it lasts. We’re going to run a few tests and make sure you won’t surprise us with anything.” Cross’s voice was clipped and professional, but her lips twitched in a slight smile.
“Okay. So I’m not gonna die, though, am I, Doc?”
Doctor Cross shook her head. “Someday you will, but not today. Although you came close, your numbers are remarkable now. I believe you’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” he said. That accent of hers was silky smooth. The woman sounded like a queen to him.
Doctor Cross looked over at the screen displays that were monitoring his condition. Paul looked at them for a moment, unable to interpret them, and watched her instead. Her swan-like neck curved as she jotted something down on a tablet using a stylus. He giggled to himself then quieted, biting his bottom lip and his head swam a little.
She turned those blue eyes on him again and he tried to make his face return to its neutral state.
“Well, your vitals are stabilizing, and you seem to be improving,” Doctor Cross said. “But we’re going to keep you, run a series of tests, and if everything looks okay, we’ll let you go home either tomorrow or the day after. How does that sound?”
Paul gave her a goofy, drug-addled grin. “That sounds nice.”
Doctor Cross smiled. “Okay. Glad you think so.” She took his hand and squeezed it. Paul believed he’d fallen in love. “I’ll be back to check on you later. If you need anything, Lauren Gilley is your nurse.”
Paul didn’t speak, but just kept smiling up at her.
Doctor Cross left the room. Paul slept.
He woke up to the noises and interruptions of blood tests and scans, then fell into a smooth, drug-induced sleep.
Paul was in Dubbs House. The aroma of wood oil and old must was familiar to him although where he was inside the house was foreign. The room was dim, and the moisture in the air settled into his skin, giving him a shiver. Lit in a blue-gray light, he could see nothing but walls swollen with water damage.
There were sounds in the distance—cries from the dark of fear, pain, and despair. Disembodied whispers called out to him, too. Pleas for help and nonsensical raving.
Madness whispered in the darkness. Some in complete gibberish.
Paul scratched his head in wonderment and tried to bring the room into focus. He had been lying in bed at Mercy Hospital, and now he was somewhere in Dubbs House. Swallowing a lump in his throat, his heart raced, and he had to sit for a moment on the cold concrete floor to get it to slow down.
Once his heart calmed, Paul rose from the floor, exploring this empty, yet claustrophobic room. How it could be so huge and seem so close to him made his stomach churn and his breath come in quick gasps.
It’s a basement—it must be a basement. So where was that light coming from? There were no doors nor windows he could see. He approached the walls.
They were thick with some kind of slime. Paul examined the floor. This wasn’t concrete. In fact, it was slimy. He touched it. The walls were pulsing. Cold and pulsing.
Face twisted with disgust, he wiped his hand on his pants and fought the urge to vomit.
Something was wrong, and Paul looked for the exits. A door, window—anything to get out of this room.
That’s when he saw the man.
The guy who had lured him into the house in the first place—tall, sinewy, and blond. It clicked—that’s what he’d seen out of the corner of his eye while he was working. But this time, he didn’t go near him. Paul backed away, back toward the walls as the beautiful man smiled at him and unzipped his pants.
That’s when a rope of flesh snaked its way around Paul’s arm. It burned him like acid, and he felt like his skin would tear off
his bones. He screamed. Another rope grabbed him, snaking around his trunk, then his legs, and his arms.
When he looked up, he saw the lights of the hospital’s ceiling. This is just a memory.
The man, godlike beauty with chiseled features walked over to him, moving first like smoke, then speeding up as he got closer, faster—becoming a blur in front of Paul’s eyes.
“You’re stuck here, bastard,” he said, now in complete focus, sticking an accusatory finger in Paul’s face, heavy jaw jutting out in defiance. “You should have helped those women. Now you’re stuck here with the rest of us.”
Paul opened his mouth, but all he could do was cry out in pain. Another rope grabbed him, then lashed out at the other man, wrapping a tentacle around the man’s neck. Paul watched, unable to move, as the tentacle squeezed tighter and tighter, then pulled back in another blur. The force and the acid, or whatever combination it was separated his head nearly all the way off.
Blood gushed over Paul, and he threw up, mixing yellow bile into the dark red spattering all over the coveralls. His bowels and bladder let go, and the smell of his excrement made him retch again.
As he grew weaker, he felt something like teeth breaking through his skin. Something in the house would devour him, and he couldn’t do anything to resist. He screamed for help, his voice hoarse, and then growing with strength as he willed himself to not give up and let whatever this thing was take him. He screamed for his mother, for his father, and for any god that might be listening.
A siren screamed in the distance.
Everything went black.
The hospital ceiling greeted him, and his body responded by pouring out sweat—his heart hammered so fast and so hard he thought it might rupture. Tears mixed with the sweat and he sobbed. He tried to put it away—to blame it on hallucinations from the medicine they’d given him. The images wouldn’t fade.
Doctor Cross entered the room with Nurse Gilley, making him forget about his problems for the moment. The two came up to him on either side of the bed.
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