But he didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on that. Sully was fairly sure his third attempt to get into the attic would have to be his last of the night. It was now dark outside. Any minute, sleep would take him. Then he would have to restart tomorrow.
And he couldn’t wait. He had to know.
Sully opened the closet door again. This time, there was no sound. He would have thought that would have made it less frightening. But it made it worse. It was as if the rattlers were trying to hide their presence. He would open that flap, and they would strike from every direction. But he told himself that was ridiculous.
They’re not real. They can’t hurt me.
Sully got back on the chair. He reached up to the latch and then just held his position. Seconds passed, then minutes, with him trying to work up the nerve. This, for him, was like driving at night had come to be. He had to face the fear that logic said was only in his head. He had to face the fear that all of his consciousness outside of logic said was warranted.
Or did he have to face this fear? Did he really need to know what was up there? Was there some other way?
Sully thought of running. He could go get Monica, and the two of them would never have to return. But then what? Then this thing would just toy with his mentality from far away, ever wanting him, ever pulling him back to it. It had toyed with him while he was on the road, many miles away. Maybe there was no distance it couldn’t reach him at. He couldn’t run. And if it were possible that he could stop this thing, then he needed to know what was in the attic. At least, that was what he thought.
The answers were above. He was sure of it. Once up there, he would know for sure if it were Anna. With so many things pointing her way, Sully still didn’t want to believe it was her, and he suspected what was up there might very well tell him it wasn’t Anna. It would tell him what benefited from him, what fed on his many lives.
“Holy shit!” Sully whispered, his hand still gripping that latch.
He remembered what his dad had said to him, the very last thing the old man had said on that night. He had to think of what would benefit from his condition. He had thought about that last night. His condition was life in abundance. Something could benefit from that if life was what that something fed upon.
Sully remembered the time his mother had sneaked meat into Anna’s salad and Anna had become violently ill. She had said she couldn’t handle dead flesh in her mouth. But was it more than that? Was it that Anna could not feed on dead flesh because Anna could only feed on life?
Sully whipped the latch open. He moved over to let the flap fall. He stood up straight and shined the flashlight inside.
He ducked down and leaped from the chair again, this time jumping far enough that he landed on Monica’s bed, then bounced to the floor on the other side. He lay there, pulling himself into the fetal position, as if he could hide from them that way.
It wasn’t rattlesnakes in the attic. They might or might not have had rattles at the end of their bodies. But they were definitely not rattlesnakes.
They sat on that attic floor with their heads propped up above their bodies. Their fangless mouths hung open in their threatening posture. Their heads were the size of baseballs.
And now they would make him into a zombie, Sully thought. Just like they had done to the investigators in Anna’s story.
Sully realized that he had to move now. Because if he didn’t, they would come down for him. He got up off the floor. It took everything he could muster to move up on that bed. There, on his stomach, he looked over the edge at the carpet on the other side. He didn’t see any of them slithering across the floor. He lifted up the blankets, so he could peek under the bed. There were none there either.
He got on the floor. He moved a few feet toward the closet. He could see the open flap. No, that was too much. He wouldn’t be able to get that far. He wouldn’t be able to close the flap. But he was able to shut the closet door. He backed out of the room and into the study. He shut the glass door to Monica’s room.
He wanted to leave, to just run from the snakes. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave because, when he left, people died. When he left, other horrifying things came to him. There was no easy escape.
Sully went back to his room, and now he did get his shotgun. He held it in front of him, cocked and ready, as he made his way back through the house. He went to the study. He had to watch the glass doors between Monica’s room and the study. Because if any of them had made it out of that closet, that’s where they would come next. They would try to crash through that glass to get him.
Logic was there. He wanted to shut it off. He just wanted to stand there all night and watch that door. He didn’t want to hear logic saying that he would soon go to sleep and they would have their way with him.
And there was more from logic, as it became more refined. The higher logic said that the snakes weren’t real. It said that his questions were answered. He wanted to tell logic to go away. He didn’t want its conclusions today. But he was a mathematician, and he couldn’t deny logic for too long. He put it into words.
“You put them there. They’re your snakes, and you put them in my head, so I would be afraid to go into your attic. My God, Anna! What the hell are you?”
With that, he heard the car coming up the road.
Sully thought he knew whose car it was. But he still held hope that it would just drive by. Maybe it would just drive past his house, the last one on the road, and into the country. But that car did not hear his will. It pulled right into the driveway.
#
When Anna walked into the study, Sully still had the shotgun trained on the glass doors. He turned to her, lowering the gun to his side.
For a few seconds, she stared at him, her face in quiet disbelief.
“Sully,” she said in a whisper. “What are you doing?”
He could not speak to her, not right now. He was too afraid, and his breath would not let him. Raise the shotgun, he thought. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know if it was his fear of this woman who had been in his head so many times now, or if it was his old feelings for her, the one he had admired, the one he had trusted.
Suddenly, there was the familiar sound. It was the same sound that had brought him from sleep the nights before. The dogs were barking. Now he was awake enough to realize that they were barking from the wrong direction. Their noise wasn’t coming from inside the addition, from the houses. They were coming from the opposite direction, from the relatively bare countryside.
Anna stepped further into the room, and Sully took a step back. Anna looked directly at the shotgun and moved slowly to the side, as if she wanted to circle him, a bird circling its prey. Sully pivoted around with her. She kept moving on the perimeter of a circle, until he had his back to the very door that he had been guarding. Anna stopped. She then backed up to the wall, her eyes still on the shotgun. Sully backed up until he was nearly touching the glass door. Raise the shotgun, he thought. But he still could not.
Anna continued to stare at the gun, like she was debating something in her mind. Then she finally looked up, slowly. “No, Sully. It’s not what you think. It’s just made you believe what it wants.”
Anna started to move in on him and Sully raised the gun, but just a little, not actually pointing it at her, but it was enough, because Anna stopped in her tracks. At that, Sully let the gun drop back down.
Anna began to cry. “No, Sully. I love you. Don’t do this. It’s not me. It just has you.”
Sully held firm. He sucked it up. He had to speak. He gathered enough air to say, “Move at me, I kill you.”
At that, Anna cried harder, moving her hands to her face. Sully could still feel it. A part of him wanted so badly to wrap his arms around her, to say all was fine. Even if she was a monster, all was fine, and he still loved her. But he pushed that back. It was the way she wanted him to think. But she was a monster, and he could not let a monster exist under the same roof that Monica slept under. And what had she
done to Monica already? The sand monster. He had thought that came from a mixture of his dad’s playful stories and the vivid imagination of a four-year-old girl. But had Anna put that there too? Had she been in Monica’s head? Raise the shotgun, he thought. He still could not.
“It has you, Sully!” Anna said, pleading through her hands. “Please believe me!”
It was easier to speak now. He had thought of his daughter, of protecting her, and it was easier to be brave now. “And how would you know that, Anna? How would you know that there is anything at all to have me?”
Anna dropped her hands and looked at him. Sully tried to read her face. Was she thinking about it, trying to find some false answer to set him at ease? He wasn’t sure.
“Because it had me too. It put the thought in my head. It made me think that if I came back here, you and Monica would die. It showed me things that would happen.”
Anna took a step forward. Sully nudged the gun up again.
Anna sobbed, then she looked up at the ceiling and thought. She stepped back again. “I realized what it was trying to do last night. I realized that it had been in my head for a long time. I noticed things I hadn’t before. Things I should have easily seen. I saw that all those people had died when you left. I got in the car and drove here.”
Sully wanted to believe her, but could not. She was right. As a horror writer, she should have been attuned to horror in her environment. There was no way it could have gotten past her. It would have never been able to get in Anna’s mind. Not into the Anna he had known.
“You had me read that story, Anna. You put those snakes in my head. You put a lot of things in my head, didn’t you?”
Anna came at him, two steps, and Sully raised the shotgun all the way, and trained it on her. She stopped again.
A part of him couldn’t believe it. He was now pointing a gun at what was, a few days ago, his favorite woman in the world. And it was no pellet gun he was holding. It wasn’t a rifle either. At this distance, squeezing the trigger of the shotgun would practically cut her in half.
“No, Sully,” was all she said as she stood there. Sully thought it was because he had her. He had figured her out and now she knew it. There was one last question.
“What’s in the attic?” Sully asked.
Anna’s eyes grew big.
That was about the time Sully noticed that the dogs were close.
Anna’s big eyes scanned the ceiling. On her face was a terrified thoughtfulness. Then she seemed to find inside of her head what she was looking for. “Oh my God, Sully! We have to get out of here!”
Sully realized that he would not be able to shoot her. Not unless she rushed him. Even then, if she attacked, he wasn’t sure he could do it. “No, Anna,” he said. “Just you. You have to get out of here. As you know, I have many lives inside. You won’t be able to kill me, but I’ll eventually be able to kill you. So you better just go.”
“Many,” Anna sputtered. “Many. . . Many. . . Many lives.” Her eyes glossed over. “My God, Sully. If I’d only knew. If I’d only knew.”
“You did know!” Sully shouted. “Now go!”
Anna didn’t seem to hear him. Suddenly, she was looking in his direction, but not at him. She was looking past him.
“Sully,” she said, her voice shaking. Her body began to shiver. “Sully,” she said again.
“What?” Sully snapped.
“It’s behind you.”
Sully’s mind went to the closet. His mind went to the open flap door. He thought of the snakes. But it was a trick. He was sure. She wanted him to turn around, so she could rush him.
Sully heard the glass door behind him creak open. He turned around.
#
There wasn’t the sound of Anna’s feet rushing at him from behind. And he didn’t see the snakes on his daughter’s bedroom floor. What he saw when he looked down were the white feet of the monster.
Those feet stayed motionless as Sully slowly moved his head up to look at the body of the beast. It was small, about Anna’s size. It wore a black gown that covered its body from its neck to its ankles. On its hands were black nylon gloves. Its straight black hair stretched down past its waist. Its face was that of a woman, only as white as paper. Its eyes were as white as its skin. Its lips, which were curled into an angry grin, were black.
It took a few seconds for the shock to wear off, as the monster stood there quiet and motionless in front of him. When Sully was finally able to move, he stepped backward to where Anna stood. He lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Glass from the closed door exploded in the deafening blast. The gown she was wearing was disturbed by the pressure of the pellets. But the monster didn’t even flinch.
Sully was frozen again. But Anna ran from the room. He was eternally glad that the beast didn’t pursue her. Because he had no idea what he would have done then. What could he have possibly done to protect Anna from this beast that didn’t die when it was shot at pointblank range?
Anna wasn't gone long. She reappeared, rushing through the doorway and at the beast, a long knife in her hand.
It all happened very fast. Anna screamed like some ancient female warrior as she brought the knife down. But the monster caught her wrist. Anna brought her empty fist around. The monster let that ineffective fist hit her. Then she let go of Anna long enough to adjust her grip. She lifted Anna by the arms into the air.
Sully moved forward, still not knowing what he could possibly do, just wanting to save Anna, somehow. When he saw the monster thrust Anna, he actually made a motion to catch her, but she was moving too fast. Anna hit hard against the wall in the corner of the room, then fell to the floor.
Sully had never felt rage like he did now. Out of control, he didn’t think to try and shoot the monster again. No, he wanted to beat the bitch to death with his bare hands. He dropped the gun to the floor and rushed her. She caught him, with one powerful hand, by the throat, and held him in place. Choking, Sully tried to pull away, but could not. The monster opened its mouth and showed him long, sharp incisors. Suddenly, Sully knew what it was and what it was going to do. The sand monster was a female vampire. And she wanted his blood.
The vampire pulled him to her and sunk its teeth into his neck. At first there was a piercing pain. Then Sully felt like every drop of blood in his body came rushing to the holes where she sucked on him. Then, after just a few seconds, he felt nothing at all.
#
The coma men were there, but only for a little while. He felt himself ripped away from them. Pulled back. Consciousness came in a flood, and then Sully knew what it was like to be held alive in a body that was supposed to be dead. Inside him was a physical protest, muscles and organs calling out for blood that was not there to give. With each breath there was sharp pain, what felt like razors in his veins, a pain he had felt before, but that he now realized was simply a void.
He could not move at all, other than his meager breath, but he could see clearly. He was in the center of the study on his back. In the corner, where the vampire had thrown her, Anna was curled up. She had hit the wall hard, and now she was still. She was dead. And for what? Trying to save him. Trying to save the man who had not trusted her, the man who had claimed to love her, only to threaten her with a gun. Anna had to have known the knife would fail. She had seen the gun do nothing. Yet, for him, in her desperation, she had done all she could. Sully now felt much more than physical pain.
The vampire was a few feet from Anna but not looking at her. She was looking at him, smiling, and Sully knew that she had brought him to this unnatural state. He was dying, but she had restored his vision.
He could still make out the sounds of barking outside.
Against the wall, right by where the vampire stood, was Sully’s large hanging mirror. With a motion of her hand, the vampire made an image appear in that mirror.
And there was Monica, asleep in bed at her mom’s house, just as Sully thought she actually was.
Sully thought it a bargain. He tri
ed to speak but could not. He wanted to accept that bargain.
Take me anytime you want. And I’ll stay here and never travel again. I’ll always be here for you to feed on. Don’t take her.
But it didn’t matter. The vampire spoke to his thoughts. “Too late,” she said, in a voice that was female, but still horrid, wicked. “You could have let it be. But now it’s too late. I can never kill you, but I can make you wish you were dead. I’m leaving, and I will feed on your child tomorrow.”
The vampire turned to Anna. “But first.”
Sully realized that Anna was still alive, and the vampire would soon take that. Then the next night, the vampire would take all that was left. There was nothing he could do.
Why hadn’t he seen this before? He could have sent them both away. He would have lived out his existence alone. But at least they would have been safe. It didn’t matter now. There was nothing he could do.
Sully became acutely aware that the dogs had stopped barking. And it had been sudden. It had been when they reached the apex of sound in his low sensory world. It had been when they were right outside, he thought.
He thought about the nights before. Had they come this close? Why hadn’t his neighbors said anything? Why did Anna not seem to notice them earlier? Why did the vampire not seem to notice them? Was it a message meant for him?
He remembered the nights he had come to and mistaken the creature for Anna. Then he had not known. Now he knew. The vampire had been feeding on him. That was why he had been so weak. But on one of those nights, he had been able to speak.
He didn’t know how long the vampire would wait before it would suck the life from Anna. He went into the pain. He went hard into the pain. He stored it up. It felt as if little razorblades were cutting him on the inside. When he thought it could get no worse, and when he thought he could sense himself enough, Sully let out his cry.
“Help us!”
The vampire, still standing by the mirror, smiled down on him, a little shocked. It moved right up to his prone body.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 27
