Rolled over onto her back, Kit saw a shadow move in the attic, but discarded it as imagination. Something pulled my hair.
Nonsense. My hair got caught on something.
She pulled herself up, caught her breath, and ran back to the basement, mindful of the crossbeam this time.
She saw Mercy off to the side of the stairs.
“Are you okay?” Kit asked, still winded from her fall.
“No, something’s got my leg and I can’t move,” Mercy said. “It’s pinned. I think my ankle’s broken.”
Kit saw her friend in the dying light of her torch and went to her. A cylindrical object the size of a large man pinned Mercy to the ground. There were cuts all over her friend, and her hair was no longer a dark blonde from the blood. The scents of copper and iron hung in the air, and something else. Something akin to spoiled meat. It left a greasy, metallic taste in the back of Kit’s mouth.
“You have a head injury. I’ve got to get you to hospital.” Kit said to her, rummaging through the first-aid bag. “Here, press this to your head, hard. It’ll stop the bleeding.”
“I’ll be okay,” Mercy said. “I need to know if my ankle’s broken.”
“Yeah, hang on, let’s get this—whatever it is—off of you,” Kit said, putting the weapon back in its scabbard. She leaned forward, bending her knees. The object shined back at her.
When she grabbed it, it was cold and wet, and the odor of fetid meat and something musky, like a skunk’s spray, hit her nose. It felt sticky under her hands. Her lip curled.
The object moved, dragging Mercy with it.
“Help! It’s got me!”
Kit stepped back and grabbed Mercy’s arms to pull on her. Whatever had grabbed her wasn’t letting up, and Kit saw that the large cylinder wasn’t some kind of furniture. It was attached to something.
Like a tentacle to an octopus. Kit’s eyes widened. That would have to be an enormous octopus. For a moment, all she could envision was a giant sea creature, bigger than ten blue whales. But where was it coming from, anyway?
The darkness. It came from the darkness.
She let go, grabbed her shotgun back out from its scabbard, and took aim. This was nothing like shooting clay pigeons. While whatever-it-was dragged Mercy away, Kit took aim. The shotgun slid in her sweaty palms. Hands shaking, heart pounding in her ears, she pointed the sight as far from Mercy’s body as she could and still hit the beast-thing. Mercy reached out, clinging to whatever she could hold. She grasped at a support beam, putting her arms around it as the thing pulled her in the other direction. Mercy cried out in pain as the tentacle stretched her in the other direction.
The gun went off and there was nothing but the resounding ringing in her ears from the shot. Her face and hands felt sticky, and she looked at them, discovering a thick, amber goo left behind. It was cold.
The thing let Mercy go, and Kit rushed to holster her shotgun, and check Mercy for bleeding. She pulled her doctor’s bag off her back and put her stethoscope in her ears. It didn’t help—her ears were ringing too much to be useful. They weren’t in a safe place—and though it was risky to move her, and drag her up the stairs, it would be better to get her out of the basement.
She put her instrument away and slung the bag back over her shoulder. Mercy slipped from Kit’s sweating palms and she gripped her friend harder. “Hey, stay awake. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Mercy shook her head. She said nothing.
Kit got a better grip under Mercy’s arms, careful of her neck. She slipped her arms under Mercy’s legs and carried her up the stairs.
The ringing was subsiding as she brought Mercy out of the house to the front porch. She laid her friend down and gave her a better assessment.
“Can you stand?” she had to shout to hear herself.
Mercy shook her head and pointed to her ankle. Kit looked at it. It was swelling, and would need an x-ray.
“I’ll carry you home,” Kit said over the ring in her ears. There were screams coming from inside the house—they echoed in her head, sounds that were either an animal being tortured, or something that wasn’t human.
No, that’s your imagination, Kathryn, stop it.
“Come on, darling, stay with me.” Kit lifted Mercy off the ground and cradled her as she walked towards the main road.
“I’m here,” Mercy said. “What happened?”
“You have a concussion, I’m sure, and your ankle might be broken,” Kit said, puffing out air as she walked. “I need to get you home so we can drive you to hospital.”
“I’m in no condition to drive,” Mercy said.
Kit chuckled. “I didn’t mean you, dear, I meant I’ll drive you, okay?”
Mercy’s breath shook as she spoke. “Oh, I hit my head when I backed away from—erm—something. I don’t remember.”
“Keep talking, Mercy. Tell me where we are.” Kit said.
“Silver Hollow,” she said.
“What day is it?” Kit asked.
“Saturday. We were at Dubbs House looking for something. I think we found it.”
“What’s your full name?” Kit asked. The ringing in her ears was still steady, but at least she could make out what her friend was saying.
“Mercy Evelyn Endicott Harris, PhD. I’m a professor of history at Veritas University,” she said.
“Excellent. Stay with me and keep talking. Tell me how you feel.” Kit asked, still walking down the road. She wobbled as she walked.
The quick whoop of a siren and flashing of lights got Kit to turn around and sigh with relief as the old prowler pulled up behind them. She turned around to avoid jostling Mercy.
The deputy got out of the vehicle. “Doc? Is that you?”
“Yes, and we need a ride to Mercy Hospital,” Kit said.
“Well, what were you doing to get all banged up like that?” He asked, jaw slack.
“I’ll explain later. Get us to hospital,” she said, barking at him.
Postman. His name is Postman. She tried to still her mind. “Deputy Postman, we need your help.”
“Yeah. Let’s put her in the back,” he said, coming over to relieve Kit of the lightweight burden.
He kept the lights on and Kit tried to check her irritation to avoid slapping him. If he ran the siren, she’d hit him hard. He sped along as she buckled herself in, catching a glance of the small bruise threatening to erupt on her forehead, and the amber goo splatter pattern on her face.
“What happened, Doc?” Postman asked the three-quarter profile as she stared out the window.
“We were taking a night hike when we heard screams at Dubbs House. I couldn’t call for anyone, so I said we should investigate and go to the station to report what we saw. If anyone was injured, well, I wanted to provide aid, first.”
Postman handed her a handkerchief and Kit wiped sweat and goo off her face and neck before speaking again.
“Thank you, Deputy. Anyway, we found nothing and Mercy fell down the stairs. I thought someone in the basement grabbed her. When I followed, I guess in the chaos I didn’t pay attention and my weapon went off. Lucky for us all it didn’t hurt anyone.”
She pocketed the handkerchief, attempting to hide the goo.
“Yeah, Doctor. You don’t strike me as the gun-carrying type, and accidents like that are bound to happen,” he said. If he saw the goo, he said nothing, and Kit noticed from previous encounters he was a man who announced his observations. She might bring that goo over to pathology and have a look at it.
Kit checked a sigh of irritation and looked out the window. “You’re right. I should be more careful. It’s not like shooting clay pigeons, is it?”
It wasn’t. Kit didn’t need him to tell her that. She saw the coiled tentacle wrapped around Mercy’s body again and shuddered inside. She focused back on the deputy.
“No, ma’am,” he said. He paused for a moment, seeming to consider something. “But what was that yellowi
sh stuff on you?”
“Sap,” Kit said without a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know where I ran into it out in the forest, but I’m sure one of those trees got me with something. What do you think it might be?”
“I don’t know, but some of those trees are sick. Seen none of them running sap so heavy, though,” the deputy said.
He was young, eager, but far from stupid, and Kit realized she’d underestimated him. Instead of trying to continue the deception, she turned her attention to her friend in the backseat.
“How are you feeling, Mercy?” Kit asked, checking the wounded woman’s pulse. It was strong and steady.
“I’m feeling okay, just a headache,” Mercy said. “Fogginess, too, like early in the morning, before coffee. My ankle hurts.”
“We’ll run a CT scan and x-rays tonight after I do a full exam,” Kit said. “Then we’ll check you later with an MRI to make sure there’s no bleeding or complications.” She smiled. “You might not recall this conversation later, so I’ll explain it again if you need.”
“That’s okay. I don’t even remember how I fell,” Mercy said. “Or what I was doing before it happened.”
Kit looked into her eyes. Mercy winked. Kit turned around in her seat and stared straight ahead.
The doctor would run the test just the same. She didn’t have to tell the deputy anything about Mercy’s care, except that she had a concussion and situational amnesia. Then her friend could return to Grace City, out of their reach, protected by her lawyers. Not that they could do anything to either of them. Kit had her own army of attorneys. She was sure that would be the end of it. It was never a good idea to get on your town’s doctor’s bad side—plus, it might get them unwanted attention. The townsfolk never liked much attention.
Kit flashed back to everything that happened—not just the tentacle thing in the basement, but the hanging body in the attic. It was there, in front of her—tangible enough so she could smell the rotted flesh—and then it vanished. She went down the stairs, and something grabbed her ponytail. She examined the memories with skepticism, even as the screams echoed in her mind.
Perhaps something they’d eaten had contained psilocybin. Or something outdoors got into their systems, causing hallucinations. She refused to believe it was anything other than that. There were no giant tentacle creatures waiting inside houses, posing as people to bait outsiders into entering the house. It was no enormous Venus fly trap. There must have been something around the house they inhaled, and the inhalant had been a hallucinogen.
Satisfied with that explanation, she decided that later, she would bring it to SHHS so they could hire someone to check and decontaminate the area. They would be wont to make fun of her if the recommendation came with another fat check.
“Something’s wrong with that place,” the doctor said.
“Everyone says it’s haunted,” Postman scratched his nose and watched the road.
“No, it’s not supernatural, it’s likely something like a plant or fungus that’s causing a kind of inhaled hallucinogen to be released into the air,” she said.
“Really? I didn’t know that could happen,” Postman said.
“It’s rare, but it occurs,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll be certain to raise Doctor Langelier, and I’m keeping your handkerchief to examine the amber stuff. It might be in the sap.”
That seemed believable enough, she gathered, because Postman didn’t skip a beat. She believed it herself. It was a logical conclusion.
“I think they’ll be grateful for that, Doc; and don’t you worry—you won’t get in trouble for trespassing. You were just trying to help.” Postman gave her a grand grin, pleased with himself for this magnanimous decision.
“Indeed,” she said. “I’m certain Langelier will be cooperative.”
She sighed to herself. To point out that a ten-thousand-dollar donation to SHHS was a surefire way to keep from being arrested for illegal trespass would have been gauche.
But Langelier’s cooperation was the only thing she was sure of—nothing else about this evening made sense. What if there wasn’t any hallucinogen? Her scalp still ached from the hair pull. The sticky substance all over her—that wasn’t sap. Then there was the hanging corpse in front of her she bumped into, and that felt as real as its odor still clinging to her nostrils.
The cold, sticky tentacle that wrapped around her friend and pulled—how could that be just her imagination? A rat settled into her brain and gnawed away at her logic.
“Do you believe in Alastor, Doc?”
Kit started at the deputy’s voice and looked over at him, scowling. “Of course I don’t. Those are old tales and superstition. Absolute nonsense.”
“Me either, Doc.” He shrugged. “It’d be nice, though. To have a kind of savior to rescue us from the bad things.”
Kit’s scowl softened, and she raised an eyebrow at him. “What bad things, Deputy? Like the things that’ve happened here?”
Postman swallowed, making a series of clicking sounds in his throat. His voice warbled when he answered. “Well, I guess all the bad things in the world, Doc. If Alastor was real, then maybe—I don’t know.”
Kit looked out the window again, and the deputy said nothing else. If Alastor were real, then maybe that house wouldn’t be standing, she thought. What nonsense.
Something happened, though, didn’t it? Doubt crept in once more, smothering her till she had to open the window for fresh air.
They pulled into the cul-de-sac of the emergency room, and Kit ran inside. She grabbed a nurse and a gurney, then fetched Mercy out of Postman’s patrol car.
Summer couldn’t end fast enough.
ELLA & HER CHILDREN
1868
Constable Platt surveyed the crime scene with an indigo handkerchief over his nose and mouth. The coroner sent from Jeffries gazed up at Platt, unaffected by the copper tang and rotten meat in the air.
The five bodies of the children were laid out side to side, holding hands. Palms missing fingers.
“Never seen a butchery like this,” the coroner stood up and mopped droplets of sweat away. “The three boys and two girls have been disemboweled, intestines are missing in places. Looks as if they’ve been—well—chewed out.”
That’s when the constable vomited. The coroner just stared, face dispassionate. As the constable wiped off his mouth, the man from Jeffries stood back and waited.
“The intestines were removed postmortem, and the hearts are missing. But those were cut out.” Jeffries shrugged. “The bodies are butchered and eaten in places, and none of the bite marks look human. The teeth marks are serrated, and unlike any animal I’ve ever seen.”
Constable Platt’s mouth popped open, eyes widened. “What?”
“Don’t know what else to say, but that’s what it is. She set an animal to rip them open and feast.” He shook his head and looked back at the bodies.
“Cause of death? The stabs to the chest, most likely,” the coroner shrugged. “While sleeping, as there are no signs of struggle. This happened about six to eight hours ago.”
Turning gray as a storm cloud, the constable muttered thanks to the coroner for his time. As the man left back to Jeffries, Platt remained with the crime scene, which included the mother, Ella Smith.
Ella was a small, thin woman with sallow cheeks, hair the color and texture of straw. Dirty, matted, caked with blood now, but most of the woman was bloody—her hands, dress, and body covered with spatters of the red mess, congealing as the minutes passed.
Huddled up in the chair, she’d been that way for several hours until a neighbor came by to visit. Ella stared out into space, whispering things that just sounded like nonsense to Platt.
The neighbor had come to Platt screaming. The constable had to shake her to get the woman to calm down and say what happened.
“Dead—all the children, dead—Ella—,” tears rolled in fat drops on her cheeks, a runner of clear mucus fall
ing from her nose. Platt ran and found the mess. Despite the strange November heat, Platt shivered.
That frigid hand over his heart crawled to his eyes as the constable stared at the madwoman. Five children, dead, because of one crazy woman. No sympathy for Ella. Not from Platt. Not now.
Platt wasn’t a killer at heart, even getting upset when eating meat, if he thought on it too much. But this time, for this woman, Platt would see her hang. He’d bring Ella to the courthouse and turn the murderess over to the marshals. Good.
He moved forward to get Ella and go to the holding cell at the constabulary. This would be her chance to tell what happened, if possible. The woman was in pieces—not like the children, but a babbling mess of a person. Ella’s whispers in the gloom of the house gave Platt a sick feeling, stinging his gut with tiny needles.
“You’re under arrest, Ella.” Platt’s voice didn’t sound real to his ears.
“There are stars in my eyes.”
The constable shook his head. “What, Missus Smith?”
No response. Platt sighed.
“Well, you’re coming along to the jail.” Platt leaned forward and the odor of rotten meat got stronger. The constable’s stomach churned and curled as if punched from the inside.
Ella wasn’t hearing him. Her head cocked to the side as if listening to something far away. Her eyes were distant—looking beyond the constable and out the window to who-knew-where.
“Jail? Why am I going to jail?”
She looked down at the blood on her hands, face contorted in horror, eyes widening. Platt smelled urine as the woman’s bladder let go.
The woman’s screams would keep Platt awake for years after.
***
Platt locked Ella Smith up in jail for the night, sure the marshal would arrive in the morning to take her into custody. She stopped screaming on their return to the office. The faraway look had returned to her face, and she obeyed Platt without protest. She sat on the bench in the back of the cell, staring at nothing.
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