“Time to wake up, Connie.” Walker wrapped on the door as he closed it. Usually a noise like that would wake her.
“Constance? Connie? Wake up, love. Please. Please wake up.”
But she didn’t stir. Her husband took a step closer to the bed. “Connie?”
Walker reached out and touched her face—sometimes his wife slept so hard that he had to caress her to wake her—but he recoiled. Icy as the winter morning. Walker cried out and bit into his hand. “This can’t—no. Connie. Connie, please wake up!”
The room spun out from his feet and Walker fell backward, putting a hand behind himself to gain ground. No ground to gain. A snap of old kindling rang out as pain shot up his arm, wrist breaking. The man howled.
Outside, scarlet dotted the blanket of fresh snow, leading to a bright red cardinal on the ground, wings fluttering, then stopping. Walker held onto his wrist and looked around, trying to decide where to go. Platt? No help there, not after the incident happened with Ella. What would he say? That the house killed his wife, and that it would kill him, too? The townspeople would think he’d gone mad, as Ella had.
The neighboring house was empty. No one dared live in it after Ella’s incident. That left the meeting hall and church, and the Preacher. Walker shook his head at the idea of getting any help from a charlatan and cultist. Walker rejected the myths of Alastor or the Timeworn.
His eyes roved over the broken bird. There was nowhere to go. No one would believe him and the ones who did would say that he was cursed or tainted, and they would kill him.
Walker ran back into the house.
Thoughts raced through his head. Bury Constance in the cellar, if he dared to go there again, and say she wandered into the woods on a walk. He’d have to create tracks in the snow. Her shoes. Yes, he’d use a good pair of shoes, stamp out a trail and then—the ravine was a long drop. If she were to slip—
“I didn’t kill her,” Walker said to the house. “You killed her. You did and you know it.”
The reply was a groan of creaking boards and rats scurrying in the walls. Walker slammed his good fist into it, sending throbbing pain into his knuckles as the wall remain unmoved.
Before he could bury her, he had to set his broken wrist.
The arm throbbed with each step back up the stairs, jarring his body with bolts of lightning. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead yet the chill gripped him with greater force.
As he opened the door, Walker refused to look at the bed where Constance slept, focused instead on the nurse’s kit she carried with her wherever she went. In the small township of Silver Hollow, she was the only person with any medical knowledge.
Walker set the broken wrist on his left hand with a sickening crack. His stomach rolled, and he vomited, nearly missing the chamber pot with his yellow, watery bile. The room began spinning again, and he rolled forward, away from the chamber pot, head between his knees.
Was he hearing chanting?
Chants, in a chorus of whispered, distant voices. Walker closed his eyes and tried to focus on it. No, it couldn’t be a chant—just the rats in the walls, or a family of squirrels nesting for the winter.
It isn’t otherworldly. It isn’t. It isn’t.
The paper he’d written on blew off his desk in a strong gust of wind and landed at his feet. He could read it from his position.
In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor. In vitae dolor est. In dolor sit amor.
Something cold touched his forehead, and he looked up to see Constance hovering over him. She was smiling, leaning closer. Smiling. Closer. Her eyes a milky blue, face sallow and drawn. The grin wide and unreal. This wasn’t his Connie. She was still in bed, in her eternal sleep.
“What’s happening? Please—what’s happening?”
His screams unheard outside the walls, then silenced by the life draining out of him.
END
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