“Crap.” He started rowing back to shore. This can’t be happening; we can’t go back. His muscles screamed as he hauled on the oars to turn the now unwieldy boat back the way they had come. “Kids we’re gonna get wet. Stay together. We’ll be fine.” He had to keep calm, but inside he was screaming, terrified that Lauren may be dead and terrified of going back to the cabin and the horrors that awaited them there. As his arms fought the weight of the cumbersome boat, he fought the despair that threatened to drag him down with it.
He pulled hard on the oars, but the boat was slowing down. It felt like his arm and shoulder muscles were being yanked from their sockets, and they cried out with anguish against the searing pain. Sweat ran down his back and made his hands slippery, still he rowed harder, grunting with effort, but it was too late they were going down, fast. “Chase, you okay to swim?”
“I think so,” Chase had a tremor in his voice. “But Dad... has it gone?”
“Yes, but get out of the water as fast as you can.” Steve pulled Lucy to him. The cold water was climbing the sides of the boat and was already halfway up his leg. Lucy had her feet on the bench and clung to the edge of the wood. He tried to lift her, but she held on so tight that she would not move. Panic seized him he pulled, but she would not let go. In desperation, he released his hold and pried her fingers loose. At last she released the boat, and he pulled her close, she felt warm against the cold night.
Chase hesitated, before the dark, cold water his fear showed in his eyes, and the tension of his shoulders. He took one last look and then stepped into the lake. He sank down, beneath the water, Steve felt momentary panic, but the yellow life jacket bounced him back above the surface, and he struck out for the shore.
As the boat, went down Steve hoisted Lucy up onto his shoulders. The water was shockingly cold against the warmth of his sweaty skin. It sucked out his breath and iced his lungs. He breathed deeply and stepped forwards just as the boat hit the bottom. He stumbled and plunged into the water. His head was just above the surface. Lucy kicked into his sides, rocking and flapping. He held on tight as she swayed almost taking him down. He steadied himself and took a step. The boat rolled beneath him. “Lucy keep still.” And then it settled, he took another step across the uneven wood, and it moved away from his foot. Steady, just take it steady, you can do this.
The night seemed darker as he set off towards the shore. He was panting, not sure whether it was panic, he took in a slow breath. It wasn’t that far to shore and the apparition, spook, body thing seemed to have gone. Lauren? He could not think of her now; he had to get Lucy out of the water. He stepped off the boat and his foot sunk into the slime of the lake. He ducked under water and took in a mouthful of stagnant water, but then he was upright again, spitting and coughing he inched towards the shore.
“Keep going son,” he shouted after Chase. “Get out of the water and stay out.”
Steve searched the lakes surface as he got closer and closer to the shore. The water wasn’t deep, but it was cold. Lucy had relaxed her grip on him and seemed to be enjoying the ride.
“Daddy this is fun,” she said waving Bunkie about his face.
He slipped again and ducked her legs into the water. She squeezed tight and clutched onto this hair, pulling out a clump as she lost her balance. He raised an arm and pulled her back level. “Not so much, actually.” He took another careful step towards the shore.
“I’m scared,” Lucy almost shrieked into his ear.
Steve strode out quicker; there was less resistance against him as the water got shallower the closer he got to shore. He watched as Chase walked out of the shallows and turned to look at them. He was safe.
“We’re nearly there, and you’re safe. Just a ride on daddy’s shoulders, and then a nice bath and a hot chocolate.”
Steve spotted movement at the water’s edge just behind Chase. Something white emerged from the lake. He felt his body tense, and he raced onwards. Val trudged out of the water, a bedraggled figure in white. As she stepped onto the shore, the wraith dress shimmered and was replaced with the old fashioned skirt and blouse. She turned to him; her face a mask of anger that her plan had been thwarted.
“Thank God,” Steve said as they stepped onto the shore.
“What?” Chase asked.
“Nothing, just... we’re all safe and ALL alive.” He placed Lucy down on the shoreline and pulled both of the children to him. He hugged them tight delighting in the feel of their warm bodies through the freezing wet clothes.
“Were not leaving?” Lucy asked.
“Not tonight Sweetie.” He felt something move across his foot and looked down. Bugs writhed below them on the stone beach. Thousand of squirming, crawling, skittering black things were beneath and on top of their feet. He controlled a shudder and shook his foot. The kids didn’t need to know.
“We have to get you warm.” He guided them off the beach.
Chapter Thirty
Steve hustled the children off the shore and across the sparse grass towards the cabin. Fatigue dragged him down as the adrenaline spike that had spurred him out of the water left. The muscles across his chest and arms throbbed and his legs felt like stone.
He watched Val as she reached the deck and sat down, then she changed it was Lauren her head hung forward exhausted in the rocker. She was dripping wet, and a cough racked from her lungs. Her head between her legs, her long curls almost on the deck, lake water streamed from her as she choked and coughed and spluttered. But she was alive and If he could get to her, get her out of the chair while she was Lauren?
He picked up the pace his sore legs complaining as he pushed the kids towards the deck. Lauren sat up and stared right at him, her warm blue eyes pleaded. She reached out her arms, imploring him, as if he could save her, prevent her from drowning in the horror that was Val. Letting go of the children, he raced towards the cabin.
The image shimmered, and Val was back. Steve stopped in his tracks and Lucy and Chase almost slammed into him. Ahead of them a Raven cawed and landed on Val’s shoulder.
“Chase look down. Lucy Loo, eyes closed, or no ice-cream for a month.”
He felt Chase take his sister and pull her to him, her back to the deck. Steve glanced at them and then walked towards the deck. He wanted to run up and shake the woman before him, and he wanted to run away. Next to the chair the paper flapped as if stirred by the wind until it settled on a page. The chair rocked backwards.
Besides the chair the paper showed a faded photo of a young girl with dark hair and serious eyes, she was Lucy’s age. Val sneered at him, her confidence unnerving.
The chair rocked backwards, and a young girl stared at him. Her dark hair framed a drawn face, with sunken eyes and swollen lips. The chair dwarfed her petite body. Her eyes, so young so innocent, pleaded as tears traced lines down her blood smeared face. The raven hopped onto her shoulder. Steve stepped onto the deck, and the chair rocked forwards. Val sat there. She laughed at his expression and pushed the chair back with her toes to speed in on its way. He tried to grab it but to no avail.
The girl was back, her face blue from bruising and decomposition. Her lifeless eyes were a green white and wide open. The oily black raven turned towards him. It opened its beak and squawked silently and then leaned over and pecked into the dead girl’s eye socket, peering back as it pulled out the glutinous eye.
Steve covered his mouth, desperate not to scream. He felt like he had been punched in the stomach as if he would drop to his knees and scream for this to stop. He stood there frozen with fear and revulsion, the tiny broken figure, a father’s worst nightmare. A brief gust of wind flattened his wet shirt to his back, and the cold snapped him out of his misery. The children were freezing he had to make it safe for them and get them warm.
The chair rocked forwards. Val’s vindictive lips curled back from her teeth, like a snarling dog that threatened to bite.
Steve moved to within a foot of the chair and screamed, “Lauren, help me.”
&nb
sp; The chair started to rock back, he stepped onto the runner and stopped it mid flow. “The children need you Lauren. Help me, fight.”
Val kicked his foot away. The oil black raven appeared on her shoulder. Something heinous hung from its beak. Like a slimy red shoelace, it swung from side to side. The bird opened its grave black beak and squawked, the shoelace swung and then dropped to land on the deck as the squawk came from behind Steve. The shock sent heat up his spine and pinpricks down his arm, but he stepped on the chair and held it still. He could smell corruption, and decay. It scorched his throat and stung his eyes. It made him want to run but, Lauren was alive and fighting, she would help them.
“I don’t have children,” Val said, as she kicked at his foot, it bruised but after what they’d been through he was ready, and she could not move him.
He stared at her face, ignoring the bird, willing Lauren to hear him. “Damn it Lauren fight this bitch. You’re better than her, do it for our babies, our Pumpkins need you.”
Val licked her lips obscenely. “Yummy pumpkin pie.”
“Lauren, please.” His legs ached holding the chair, but he could not bear to see any more horror, would not let it rock back.
“She’s not here Sweetypie.” Val pushed the chair forwards, taking Steve off balance, his foot slipped, and it was free, it started to rock backwards.
Lucy ran onto the deck. “Mummy, please help me. I’m so cold.”
It looked as if the chair would rock backwards, but it slowed and stopped. Val changed subtly. Her hair lengthened, her face relaxed and then she was Lauren. The Raven flapped its wings and alighted into the air before disappearing into smoke. Steve grabbed Lauren’s hand and pulled her from the chair. She was distant for a second, confused. She looked down at Lucy, soaking wet and shivering. Her face cleared, and she grabbed Lucy's tiny blue hand and hurried into the cabin.
Chapter Thirty-One
Wrapped in a huge fluffy towel Chase leant against the bathroom wall. He looked exhausted, and a little shell shocked and his eyes would flick from the floor to his dad and back again. Lucy sat in the bath, covered with bubbles. She bounced Bunkie up and down, in and out of the froth singing happily. Steve pulled his towel around him trying to dry out his clothes as he knelt on the floor next to the bath. He still felt cold but knew it was just shock, the cabin was warm.
He winked at Chase but got no smile in return. “Well, kids that was some day.” He was doing his best to keep their spirits up, or maybe his own, they had to get through the night.
“Bunkie’s tired, but he likes skiing on the bubbles.” Lucy was oblivious to the tension in the room, as she played with the soaked toy diving him in and out of the water. “Mummy’s seems better.”
“Yes she does.” Steve’s words were positive, but his face couldn’t hide the fear he felt. The door opened, and he jumped up as Lauren walked in, he was ready for anything. She still wore the skirt and blouse, old fashioned clothes that looked out of place, but she was his Lauren, not that thing that what? Had possessed her?
“The fires glowing, why don’t you two boys go get warm?” She moved tentatively over to the bath, to wash Lucy’s hair.
Steve grabbed her hand and took the shampoo. “Chase you go. I’m staying right here.”
Lauren looked down ashamed and maybe a little afraid.
“Where’s my Sim card?” Steve asked.
“What?” She looked genuinely surprised.
“We walked all that way, the kids are exhausted and were stuck here. Where’s the bloody Sim card?”
Lucy had stopped splashing, catching onto the growing tension.
“I don’t know. I’ll make dinner, do you all want pie?”
“No. No more bloody pies. Let’s just stay together.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
A warming fire roared in the hearth, but the ambience in the room was anything but toasty. Chase and Lucy lay in front of the fire, both in their dressing gowns. They were like dolls, so small and fragile and so easily broken. Lucy was almost asleep; Bunkie clutched in her hands as she chewed on a tattered blue ear. She looked exhausted, and Steve found it hard to take his eyes from her, they had been so lucky today.
She seemed to have recovered from the shock, and had been complaining about her legs but for now she rested. Chase had him more worried. The boy was always quiet, but he usually had his head in a book, now he just lay there and stared into space.
Steve glanced up from the children to the other end of the sofa. Lauren sat upright. She had been wringing her hands constantly and kept biting her lip until she had drawn blood. It was driving him crazy.
“Okay kids, time for bed.” He got up and for once there were no moans. He scooped Lucy from the floor. “Stay there,” he said to Lauren as he carried her through to her room. She never stirred, and he tucked her into bed, making sure that Bunkie, toweled off but still a little damp was in her arms.
He checked on Chase before returning to the living room. Lauren had opened a bottle of wine. She passed him a glass.
The dark red liquid made him feel queasy. It looked like blood. He raised the glass to the light and swirled it round, checking for surprised before taking a long swig. The wine felt good. It was a strong red, and it warmed him as it travelled lower.
He slumped down at the opposite end to Lauren and turned to his wife. “Do you know what is going on?” He could see she was confused, and he felt an overwhelming urge to hold her. He started to shift across the sofa but stopped short.
“I don’t know.” Her eyes were wide, vulnerable and confused, and he could see the fear she fought to hold back.
“Your clothes, your hair, you look so different. Was that you, or... Val?”
She ran a hand through her now long, curly hair, a desperate move as she tried to understand what had happened. “It felt so real at the time, but now it's just crazy. I have felt funny ever since we got here.” She looked away as a tear burst over her eyelids and slid down her face.
The silence stretched. Steve could feel a lump in his throat as he tried to articulate what he had seen. “Me too. I keep seeing things.”
Lauren looked up at him, hope in her eyes. “Awful things?”
“Yes. I thought I saw Lucy covered in blood, but it wasn’t her.” He was almost sobbing too. It was someone’s baby, someone’s precious child that had her life ripped away in the cruelest manner he could imagine. A shudder ran down his spine at the remembered image.
“Sometimes I think it’s me, those people, in my... what my visions? Steve what is happening? You know me. I would never hurt you or the Pumpkins. Am I going mad like my Mum?”
“If you are, so am I.” He reached out and took her hand.
The silence stretched between them as Lauren tried to say the mad things she had been feeling. “I feel like him.”
“Who?”
“Eric. It’s hard to explain. I feel like him, yet I want to protect you all. He was trying to protect her, I think. He knew he was wrong but, he just kept doing it. He couldn’t stop.”
Frustration made Steve's head throb and he was scared. Everything was spinning out of control again. “Lauren, you’re not making any sense. Who is Eric?”
She pulled her hands away and rubbed them through her hair. It was driving her crazy too. The lost time the glimpses of terrible things and the fear of what she was doing. “I don’t know. I sit down, and... it’s as if I’m somewhere else, someone else.” She looked at Steve.
This was crazy, but he believed her. She had been someone else. He had seen it with his own eyes, but surely it had to be a symptom of his illness, or something. None of this was possible.
She rushed on, the words spilling from her like water from a jug. “Eric hurt me, the other me and now I ... she wants to hurt him back, it consumes her.”
His heart pounded, and his ears filled with blood. It was just stress, for both of them. “Honey there’s no Eric, just us and the Pumpkins.”
“I understand," she sai
d. "Let’s go home, and things will change. I want to spend more time with them. Suddenly I see Chase, he’s growing up before my eyes. Steve take me home.”
He nodded, but he needed the Sim card to get them away from here, and no way was he taking the kids back up the pass. “I need the Sim card.” Anger was growing inside him like a swarm of bees after their hive had been kicked. It swarmed around and around and settled in his stomach like a bucket full of desperation. “You must have taken it. And the food, the insects the first pie and what was in tonight’s pie?”
“I didn’t make a pie today.”
He got up and walked out of the room, returning with a pie and a small knife.
She stared with shock. “The thing is I sit down, and it seems like minutes and then you’re back.”
Steve shoved the pie towards her. “You don’t remember making this?”
“No. I had hardly sat down when you came home. It was like five minutes.”
“It was dark when we came back.”
She struggled with the logic. “No... Well yes it was, but how?”
He shook his head and cut into the pie. He removed a piece of the golden crust. It smelled delicious, and his stomach rumbled. It looked fine, maybe he could have some he had done toasties for the kids, but had run out of bread before he had any.
He poked the pie with a knife and a mouse’s foot flipped out of the meat. His face turned to thunder, and he wanted to throw the damn thing at the fire. He walked to the kitchen and dumped it into the bin.
Lauren came in behind him. He waved the knife at her. “The children come first. You don’t go near them without me.”
She nodded. “I think you should tie me up again.”
For a second, she thought he would disagree and then he nodded back. “I think you’re right.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Steve lay on the bed fully clothed listening, waiting. He had tied Lauren to the headboard and watched her settle down. They had said little, both embarrassed, both scared. Her eyes were full of guilt or accusation she had smiled a wan smile and turned away from him. He had made sure the ropes were loose and that she had plenty of movement, but still guilt churned his stomach and made rest impossible. Then he had listened for some time, with a tension in his shoulders and an ache in his chest, but eventually her breathing had slowed down and become even, she was asleep at last. She occasionally twitched as if Val chased her down into her dreams. He shook his head to clear the thought, he needed to be steady. He knew what he had to do, but he had waited to be sure that she slept as this would be easier with her out of the way.
Daddy Won't Kill You (An Occult Horror) Page 11
