by Amy Cross
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, trying to push Kate back. “Are you insane, we're going to -”
“Stop!” Kate hissed, still trying to turn the wheel. Her voice was filled with anger, and she let out a guttural groan as she tried to slam Sarah into the door.
Pushing her back, Sarah forced Kate away from the wheel and took control for a moment. When Kate attacked again, Sarah instinctively swung her elbow in defense, striking Kate's head and sending her slumping back.
Breathlessly, Sarah straightened the car's path and kept her foot on the pedal, sending them roaring along the abandoned road.
“Are you okay?” she stammered, glancing at Kate.
She waited, but she'd struck Kate's head hard, and she was starting to worry that she'd done more than just knock her out.
“Don't worry,” she continued, “I'm going to get you to a hospital. Not here, though. We'll get to the next town, where it's safer. I don't trust this place.”
Keeping her eyes on the road ahead, she tried to stay calm. Abandoned cars flashed past on either side as she kept the car going at top speed, but after a moment she realized a fresh sensation was starting to rumble in the pit of her belly. A kind of excitement, a teasing realization of what might be possible. She was still watching the horizon, still trying to drive out of town as fast as possible, but now her mind was filled with thoughts about what it would be like to just spin the wheel and send the car crashing into one of the large oak trees that lined the road.
“It's okay,” she whispered, trying to focus on getting the hell out of town. “Everything's going to be fine, we're just going to -”
She flinched as her mind's eye filled with an image of carnage. For a fraction of a second, she couldn't help but imagine turning the wheel and crashing the car head-on into one of the trees, or perhaps driving across the sidewalk and straight into one of the nearby houses. She realized she hadn't buckled her safety belt, and that both she and Kate would likely be sent flying out through the windshield. Swallowing hard, she tried to put these thoughts out of her mind, but they grew stronger and stronger until her hands began to twitch on the wheel.
“Do it,” a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
Her own voice.
Not the voice she used for everyday, mundane things.
Not the voice she used when she was having fun.
A third voice, still hers but long-buried, rippling up through her thoughts and telling her to crash the car as fast and as hard as possible.
“No,” she whispered, “please...”
“Do it!”
She shook her head, as tears welled in her eyes.
“Do it!”
Gripping the wheel tighter, she kept her stare fixed on the road ahead. She knew she was almost at the edge of town, that soon she'd pass the limits and be on her way past the farms and fields, but right now she felt as if a hand was reaching up from her chest and wrapping its fingers around the base of her skull.
“Do it!”
“No!” she gasped.
“Do it!”
For a fraction of a second, her hands twitched again, as if they were trying to turn the wheel. Holding steady, Sarah saw a large oak tree up ahead, on the very edge of the sidewalk. All she could think about was how it would feel to aim the car straight at that tree, to drive into it at over 100mph, and it took every remaining ounce of strength for her to keep the car on the road. As the tree came closer, she felt a burning sensation in her chest, as if her heart was filling with blood and preparing to explode.
“Do it!” the third voice shouted, rattling her skull. “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
“No!” she screamed, closing her eyes as the car raced past the tree, heading toward the town limits.
“Do it!” the voice yelled, angry now and overwhelming all her other thoughts. “Do it now!”
***
“It was so crazy,” Kate said later, as they sat parked at the side of the road a few miles out of town. Her cheeks were dry now, although tear-trails glistened slightly when she turned to Sarah. “Like, it came on so suddenly, while I was sitting there. It was just like... immense, traumatic grief. And a voice, in my head, telling me that the only way to feel better was to cut myself.”
“And that voice is gone now?”
Kate nodded.
Sarah turned and looked back along the road. The town was still just about visible in the distance, but she couldn't help noting that there was no movement at all. It was as if somehow Constance was the only person left in the whole place. Her own mind, meanwhile, felt strangely calm now, with the third voice having faded as soon as she'd driven the car past the town's limits. She was still scared that she might relapse, that those awful thoughts might come trickling back into her mind, but so far she felt like herself again.
“I don't know what's going on,” she said finally, turning back to Kate, “but we're gonna have to call the police when we get to the next town, and the ambulance people too. Someone needs to go figure out what the hell is going on. There's some kind of... I can't figure it out. We need to get help.”
With that, she started the engine again and eased the car back onto the road, as Kate took a series of deep breaths and tried to work out what had caused her to suddenly burst into tears. Keeping the car a little below the speed limit, Sarah focused on getting them to the next town along.
Eight
“There's no-one left, Constance,” the voice whispered. “Not really, anyway. That was your last chance, I told you there'd be two more, but you blew it. Your niece turned out to be surprisingly resilient. No-one has ever resisted me before, but I didn't really have much time. Another few seconds, and she'd have succumbed.”
“We had a deal,” she replied through gritted teeth, as she sat slumped on the garden path at the front of the house, where she'd fallen as Sarah's car had sped away. “You can't break the deal!”
“The deal ran its course,” the voice continued, “and that's just as well. I was getting tired of this little back-street hick town anyway. I think I'd like to hit the city next, really get lost in the noise and the fury of it all.”
“We had a deal!” she hissed, putting her palms on either side of her head and pressing hard. “You promised! You came to me and you promised I'd never have to feel it!”
“That's not what I said, Constance. I said that you could transfer your grief and pain to other people, so long as they were somewhere in this town. And that's exactly what happened, until you ran out of people to use. The town's empty now. Everyone else either died or left. So the deal is over.”
“No,” she stammered, feeling a growing sense of anticipation in her chest. “Please, I'll do anything...”
“You should have been more careful with those two girls. If you'd been smart, Constance, you might have held onto them.”
“I was going to keep them in the basement,” she explained, feeling a hint of tears behind her eyes for the first time in more than six months. “I was going to keep them alive, I... I had a plan, I was going to make it so they could never leave.”
“And that would have worked perfectly, but you didn't act fast enough.”
“Please,” she continued, trying to hold back the tears. “Don't make me think about my poor Julie. You said you'd take it all away!”
“I didn't say it wouldn't come back,” he replied. “So long, Constance. It was fun while it lasted, but there are other towns out there, other deals to make. I'm getting itchy feet anyway.”
“No!”
Spotting movement nearby, she turned and saw to her shock that a middle-aged, handsome man was wandering past, heading out to the street.
“Come back!” she shouted, trying to crawl after him, only to suddenly feel a heavy choking sensation in her chest. A fraction of a second later, she saw her daughter Julie's face flashing through her mind. “You can't do this to me,” she whispered, gritting her teeth again and trying to force the bad thoughts away. “I'm happy!” she yelle
d, sitting up and smiling manically. “Look! You were wrong! I'm not sad, I'm happy!”
“Adios, Constance,” the man said, glancing back at her with a grin. He began to walk away, before stopping for a moment, as if lost in thought. Finally, he turned back to her. “You know, there is one other person left in town. Even if you don't want to admit it. I'd hate to leave you without any hope at all, so...” His smile grew. “You know who I'm talking about, and you know where to find him. I even kept him alive for you, just so you'd have this opportunity. I sent cockroaches for him to eat over the past few months, and I let just enough rain water dribble through the cracks in his cell wall. I made the rest of the world forget about him, too, so that he'd be all yours. Good luck with whatever choice you make.”
“Come back!” she yelled again, filled with anger. “You can't leave me here like this! We had a deal!”
***
Pushing open the door to the police station, Constance immediately spotted Gary's body twisting as it hung by a rope from the light-fitting. A little further along, Cowley was slumped against the wall, with half his head shot away and a revolver gripped in his right hand.
She paused for a moment, considering turning back, before hearing a faint shuffling sound from the direction of the cells. Still she hesitated, but when she heard the shuffling sound again she realized she had to at least see the man's face. Stepping into the room, she let the door swing shut as she looked up at Gary's dead face. She flinched as she saw his bulging, bulbous eyes, which had almost popped out of the sockets.
A moment later, she saw a set of keys hanging from his belt.
Reaching up with a trembling hand, she took the keys. Then she made her way around the desk and looked at Cowley's body, before reaching out and slipping the revolver from his stiff fingers. She hesitated for a moment longer, before turning and making her way through the far door and toward the cells.
“The Devil's kingdom is what I want,” she heard a voice whispering up ahead. “Gotta have a fanfare, though. Gotta confess to your crimes.”
Reaching the first cell, Constance saw a man sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“Did you know that?” he asked, smiling at her. “They say confession is for God, to show that you're sorry for what you did. But that ain't true. If you're sorry, you keep it to yourself and work quietly to fix things without asking other people for their attention. Confession is for the Devil, so you can show that you're owning your sins. It's a form of pride.” He licked his lips. “I murdered that girl,” he added after a moment. “And lots more besides, but that girl here... She was the one who caught the Devil's eye. Or his ear, as she screamed.”
Barely even able to think straight, Constance looked at the keys in her hand. For a moment, she considered unlocking the cell.
“Are you her mother?”
With tears in her eyes, Constance turned to him.
“I see the family resemblance,” he continued. “You're pretty like her, or you used to be. I bet you scream the same way, too. I bet you beg for your life the same way. I bet you feel the same, when I'm pounding at you, or when I'm -”
He froze suddenly, as a tear began to trickle down his face.
“Huh,” he muttered, “that's weird. Never done that before.”
He wiped the tear away, but another immediately appeared in the other eye.
“God damn it,” he continued, “this is embarrassing. You'll have to beg my pardon, M'am. I've never ended up bawling like a child before! Never knew I had it in me! I thought it had all been beaten out a long, long time ago.”
Turning, Constance tossed the keys far away, before looking back at John Spencer Baxter as fresh tears ran down his face.
“I can't seem to turn the waterworks off,” he said, with an unconvincing smile. “Maybe it's because I've been storing them for so long, but I just -”
He let out a sudden gasp, and his whole body started trembling.
“You killed my daughter,” Constance whispered, watching him with brutal dispassion.
“She screamed,” he sobbed, breaking down in wave after wave of wretched grief and sorrow. “She begged me to let her live. You should have heard her, she was desperately offering me anything I wanted.” Despite the sobs, he was starting to giggle now, as if torn between pride and remorse. “She was weeping and moaning, and trying anything she could think of! Even while I was torturing her, while I was poking those sharp things up inside her -”
“Stop!” Constance shouted, grabbing the bars. “I don't need to know!”
“While the blood was slopping out of her pink meat,” he continued, “she was gurgling and groaning, and her weakening hands were grabbing me, imploring me to -”
“Stop!”
“She just wanted to live!” he shouted, with tears streaming down his face. “That was all! At the end, she was just an animal desperately trying to save itself! She didn't even look human, not right at the very end! She was -”
Letting out a sudden gasp of pain, he slumped forward, clutching his head.
“She was so beautiful,” he stammered after a moment. “Even in death, even covered in blood and ripped open, she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my whole miserable life! And I killed her! I took that sliver of life that remained, and I sliced it apart, and then I stared at her body as the Devil himself came to me. And do you know what he said? He told me he wanted to make a deal!”
“You made a deal?” she asked, raising the revolver through the bars and aiming at him.
“He led me to the edge of town,” Baxter replied with a grin. “He told me he could kill every man, woman and child here, but he said that wouldn't be fun. He was bored, he wanted to make it interesting again, so he told me he could make the whole town go crazy. I said he couldn't, I said no-one could do that, but he laughed and told me it'd be easy. He even said I could have ring-side seats.”
He turned and looked toward the window.
“I watched it all from here, and he was right. The craziest part, though, is that I think it wasn't the first time I'd heard his voice. I think I heard him years ago, when I was just a kid, and he's been whispering to me on and off ever since. Maybe he's even why I did all those awful things. He was in the basement with me, back at home, whispering through the wooden figures, telling me what to do. Then he told me I had to leave the basement, he said I had to hit the road and find new people to hurt. That's why I did it, you know. He said the world would burn if I let people live! And that girl I killed just outside this town...”
His voice trailed off for a moment, before he turned back to Constance.
“I think that was his fault too. Not mine, it was him. You can't blame me, I was just saving the world and -”
Before he could say another word, Constance pulled the trigger, shooting him square in the forehead and sending his body slumping back against the floor of the cell.
She stood in silence for a few minutes, waiting in case Baxter showed any sign of life, and then finally she stepped back and looked at the gun in her hand. All she could think about was Julie; all the thoughts she'd avoided for the past few months were finally rushing into her head, and tears streamed down her face as she imagined her daughter's agonizing, terrified final moments. Turning, she stumbled toward the door, before finally her knees gave way and she fell, hitting the wall and then slithering down to the floor. Letting out a wail of grief, she turned and leaned against the door jamb, with the gun in her trembling hand. She wanted to end the misery, but she couldn't bring herself to raise the gun to her temple.
All alone on the floor, all alone in the town, she waited for the voice to return.
“Tell me what to do,” she sobbed, as her finger constantly twitched against the revolver's trigger. “Come back and tell me what I'm supposed to do next...”
“Why should I?”
She spun around, but deep down she already knew that she recognized the voice that had just popped into her head.
It was the oldest voice
she knew.
Her own.
“Shoot the bastard again,” the voice continued. “Make sure he's dead, and then blow out your own heart.”
She shook her head, but after a moment she realized that she'd involuntarily tightened her grip on the gun.
“Shoot him,” the voice said again. “You asked me what I wanted you to do. Now I'm telling you. You're the last person left in this miserable town, so shoot the bastard just to make sure he's gone, and then put the gun in your mouth. You can figure the rest out yourself.”
After pausing for a moment, she turned and aimed the gun at Baxter's lifeless body. As soon as she pulled the trigger, she flinched, but she kept her eyes open and watched as the man's corpse twitched slightly. This second shot blew one side of his face clean away, splattering blood as far as the wall.
Slowly, Constance turned the gun and slipped it into her own mouth.
“Shoot yourself,” the voice said.
“Please, no,” she replied, barely able to get the words out as she slid the barrel of the gun further and further toward the back of her throat.
“It's either shoot yourself now,” the voice continued, “or I'll make you go to the next town, to a school, and then I'll really let loose. Would you like that, Constance? Would you like it if we took a trip together? Would you like -”
The gun's blast filled the room, as Constance's body slumped back and landed hard against the floor. At the same time, the gun slipped from her hand and slid over to the wall, leaving Constance's hand to twitch a couple of times before falling still. Her eyes, wide open and shocked, stared up at the ceiling as pieces of skull and brain slopped out from the back of her head.
“That's right, Constance,” the voice whispered, as her mind faded to nothing in the moment between her heart stopping and her brain dying. “It's been a fun ride, but there are other people for me to visit now. I think I might go to the -”
