None of that mattered. All that mattered was his pose. His upright position, sitting sturdily in the chair.
Alyssa had thought the children wore a harness that kept them upright. Perhaps bound – even nailed to wooden frames.
She was wrong. So wrong.
The picture she held was different than the others. More honest, showing the tragedy and the anger and violence of the deaths. No chance to pretty up the death, and the death itself had not been pretty. Perhaps the others had been smothered or poisoned. But Matthew Jr. had been caught by his father. Hunted down, captured, slaughtered. A dog already wounded, finally put out of his misery – though from what Ralph had shown her, the misery hadn't really ended. Just shifted, just changed to an eternity of abuse at the hands of a father who gloried in hurting those too small to save themselves.
Is that why he went for Blake? Because of what Blake's father did to him?
Or what Blake finally did back?
Either way, the further truth was beneath the boy in the picture. The posing was not because of straps or harnesses or frame. It was because of that strange black covering.
Matthew Jr. sat atop the shroud. And this time, for the first time, there was a mistake in the picture. A glimpse at the truth behind the cloth. A three-fingered hand, barely visible under a fold of the dark fabric, holding Matthew Jr. upright.
The pictures weren't just of the children. They were also self-portraits.
And that meant…
PLAYIN' A GAME
... when the cloth fell from Matthew/Blake/Blake/Matthew, it felt both wonderful and terrible. As always. It was birth, it was death. Under the cloth was where he-Matthew held the children, the place he-Matthew allowed himself the greatest pleasure. His-Matthew's ecstasy was under that darkness. Leaving was agony.
But the only way to find more happiness was to leave the darkness, to explore the light. Always the way.
So Matthew/Blake stood.
Looked at the hole in the floor.
They had no idea what the woman was doing in there. Nor did they care. They sensed – a small part of them even worried – that she was scheming something. That she intended something dangerous.
But what could hurt them? The only thing that had ever done so was their fathers. With whips and belts and ping-pong paddles and kisses and caresses secret and scorching and painful in the night.
And look what happened to those men. Those bastards, dead both, gone both, unmourned and damned both.
Blake/Matthew walked toward the hole.
(C'mere, kid. Daddy's gonna play a game.)
Only it was barely Blake at all now. More and more just Matthew Sr. But he liked that last fleeting thought.
C'mere, kid. Daddy's gonna play a game.
He had never played a game with a full-growed woman. He bet it would be sweet.
He smiled. Smiled big, and felt himself stand tall and tough like his Pa always stood.
"Daddy's gonna play a game," he said. And smiled like a centipede about to breed and then eat its mate all up.
He looked behind him.
Nothing there just a moment before. But now… a familiar camera. He knew there would be a film plate, loaded and ready. A mechanism he had designed hisself that would allow him to take the picture while sitting in the chair and holding a child in his lap. Feeling the love for them, the warmth replacing their coolness.
Only this time it would not be a child. It would be a woman. The only woman he'd ever had was Matthew Jr.'s momma, and she'd failed him in the end. She'd threatened to turn him in, to tell on him. She hadn't loved him at all.
This woman, though… she would love him. And he would love her. Forever.
His centipede smile got bigger and wider and his face near split in two. Maybe it did: things were different now, and he could do things he never done before. He was bigger and stronger and nothing were goin' to leave him now.
Toward the hole he went. Toward pictures and love and soft black cloth.
"Daddy's gonna play a game."
SETTING THE LIGHTING
Alyssa hoped she was wrong. Knew she wasn't.
Didn't matter.
There was no way out through the crawlspace but one: back the way she came.
Maybe he's not on the chair.
Maybe it's just the black cloth.
Maybe there's nothing else.
She pulled herself and the remains of Matthew Sr. backward as fast as she could. Hoping it was fast enough.
Hope was all she had, so hope would have to suffice. Hope was a thin thread, but even thin threads could be enough sometimes.
What if he is there?
The thread frayed.
What if this won't even work?
It popped a bit further.
What if it does work, but I don't have all this bastard's remains?
And it separated.
A three-fingered hand slammed through the hole in the floor of the room above – the ceiling over her head – and grabbed her feet. She had almost made it out of the hole, but she had never had a chance to get out of the room. The whole house was a pitcher plant, designed to allow unwary creatures entrance. But once in they slipped deeper and deeper into the cuplike shape and were digested within.
The hand on her calf had fewer fingers than it should have, but they were incredibly strong. They yanked her out of the hole with ease. She slammed backward, her body pinballing back and forth on the sides of the hole, leaving bits of flesh behind with every impact. Then the sideways motion switched to vertical as she was yanked upward into the room above.
She came out still clutching bone, screaming as the fingers flipped her over and yanked her to her feet.
The remains of Matthew Sr. fell from her hands. She was numb with terror. The burns where the centipedes had bitten her, the abrasions and cuts from the crawlspace, even her plan to take the bones away – all were forgotten in that moment. Fallen into the deep crevasse of insanity that opened before her.
The man standing above her was Blake. But it wasn't. Her husband, but not.
His hand had changed. Three fingers, the ones she had seen in the picture, had thought she saw in the motel. The fingers that pulled her out of the crawlspace. Those were the ones on his hand, on his body.
But that wasn't all that had changed.
His clothing had become a weird amalgam of his normal wear and the late eighteen hundreds outfit of Matthew Sr. Jeans melted into wool pants. T-shirt and vest were woven roughly together. Not sewn, but woven, as though they came from the factory that way, the deranged invention of a designer gone mad.
Two times came together on the man she had known and loved, and where they joined there was a crust, a suppurating excrescence that reeked of corruption. It was all that should not be.
The face had traces of her Blake, but as she watched, her husband faded away and the face became wholly that of Matthew Sr. His mouth open in a smile so wide it unhinged his head and tilted back the top half like the lid of a trash can before slamming closed with a loud clack of crashing teeth.
"You should have stayed out of my business," he said.
He didn't sound mad, though. He sounded happy. Thrilled.
He slapped her, the same place Blake had done/not done in the motel. Only this was worse: a vicious smash that sent her reeling against the wall. She didn't know where she was, what she was doing. No terror any more, just the radical disorientation of someone who has suffered a sudden concussion.
Then she felt her scalp yanking away from her skull. She screamed as Matthew Sr. grabbed a wad of her thick hair and threw her face-down on the floor.
"Please! Blake, please, don't do this!"
"Blake's gone, missy." Matthew Sr. knelt on her back. He leaned toward her and his cold breath washed over her cheek. It stank. Rotten meat, a rotten soul.
"And you'll be gone soon, too," he said. "Just your picture left to love."
His knee stayed on her back, but she felt his weight shift as h
e moved. There was a low click, then her body felt warm and cold at the same time as she heard the music box begin to play and remembered it playing as he took each and every picture.
He wrapped his hands around her throat. Pressed them together.
It felt like every atom of oxygen disappeared from her body all at once. In movies, television, books, all manner of media, people always gasped out last words when being choked. She realized now those people weren't really being choked. Because really being choked meant not a sound. Not a whisper, not a gasp. She couldn't pull in the smallest wheeze, couldn't push out the tiniest hiss.
Her vision blackened. Not just at the edges, either: someone took a thick brush and started painting directly over her eyes. Watercolor at first, stuff she could see through, but rapidly thickening to acrylic.
She had seconds.
She bucked, trying to get the dead man off her.
He rode her like a horse. He would break her.
Gonna kill me.
Picture me.
Bury me with the bugs.
Exterminator did a lousy job.
Get your money back, Lyss!
Her thoughts spiraled.
Full refunds from Pest in Peace!
She shoved herself forward. Choking, losing consciousness. Her hand thrusting under her body and only gradually realizing what she was doing.
Pest in Peace. Shitty bugs.
Bug on top of me.
The hole was nearby. She thought.
She kept bucking. Pushing. Blacking out to the sound of Matthew Sr.'s mad laughter.
Having a grand ol' time, you monster?
Her vision disappeared. She was moving by touch.
No sight, but she saw…
… herself loading up the kids.
Blake arguing with the exterminator. Older guy. But firm. "I've already cut it to the bare minimum for you. We're going to saturate your house with phosphine. You want to come home to everyone puking and explosive gas pooled on your floors?"
And still pushing forward, remembering the taste in her mouth, the gagging as she fought her way forward in the crawlspace. She had thought it was revulsion, terror, rot.
But what if it wasn't? If there was more to it?
She bucked forward another inch, one hand still groping beneath her. Hard to do with Matthew Sr.'s weight on her.
The other hand swept in front, wide arcs that supported her worm-like motions. But also searched.
She found something. Hard, long, wrapped in cloth.
Bones.
Which meant she was near the hole.
Something writhed on her hand. More than one. The centipedes. They knew what she was going to do.
And then Matthew Sr. knew as well.
He let go of her throat. Air blasted back into her body with such exquisite joy it hurt. But she had her strength again, so when the weight above lurched forward she was able to keep pace.
"Don't!" shouted the thing that had stolen her husband. Tried to kill her family. To kill her.
"You died in there once," she said. Her voice sounded like it had been run over a cheese grater. She didn't care. She knew she had him.
Her vision flooded back to her. And it was her turn to grin as she shoved the bones back into the crack. Back into the hole, back into his grave.
Ralph had said she could bury him properly – mourners, priest, proper grave.
She had none of that.
But she did have pooled phosphine.
She opened her hand and showed Matthew Sr. the lighter that Ralph had given her. The flame was already dancing.
"And you can die in there again," she said.
She threw the lighter into the hole. Matthew Sr. dove after it. He was halfway in and she wondered if there was enough of the gas – or any. Wondered if he would snuff out the flame.
Wondered if any of this struggle was worth it.
WHOOMP.
The explosion tossed Matthew Sr. into the air. Slammed him against the ceiling, even as the floor beneath rose up to meet him.
Alyssa heard a soft, high-pitched whistle.
What's –?
And she knew. The centipedes. Screaming as they turned to ash. Impossible for such things to make a sound, but for creatures kept alive for centuries, kept so long as guardians to the damned…. Perhaps they were given this last moment to scream their anguish.
Or maybe it was final relief. Ultimate release.
A second explosion lifted the floor again. This time it was under Alyssa. It tossed her back and she knocked into the camera. The heavy contraption – wood and metal – toppled. She was on her back, watching helplessly as it fell toward her.
The lens stared at her angrily as it fell. Black with rage and the souls it had captured. A silent eye that had been blinded at last.
The camera box fell on her head.
And with that Alyssa, too, fell silent and sightless and knew no more.
EXPOSURE
Alyssa woke up screaming.
At first it was the moment of memory that clings after a terrible dream that cannot quite be remembered.
Then it was a moment – worse – where she did remember.
And then it was the demon leaning over her. Large, backlit by fire. All she could see was his eyes, bouncing with reflected flame, the lights nearly in time with the notes of the music box that played on in endless circles.
The notes began to warp. The demon leaned toward her.
She screamed.
"It's me! It's me!"
And she knew the voice. Blake. Bloody, bruised, singed.
Alyssa screamed again. "Show me your hand!"
He did. Five fingers. Normal. His clothes had returned to normal. No afflicted melding of old and new, just the usual too-casual-for-work outfit he always wore as though to subtly say he didn't ever want to leave his family.
He helped her up. His fingers curled around her hands, and as soon as she was upright he held her. Tight. The aches that played her body like a melting music box disappeared for just that moment.
Then a blast of heat hit them. "Come on," said Blake. "We have to go."
The room was Mal's again. Bed, toy box, small desk, window. But fire blazed everywhere.
It spouted from a hole in the floor. Rolling out from under their son's bed, consuming all.
Blake guided her toward the door.
Out the hall. Flames following them. She looked back and knew the house was going to burn. What had started there would only truly end when it was all ash.
"Think insurance will cover it?" she said.
"I don't much care," said Blake. He smiled as he spoke. Her pains disappeared again. Just for a second. Just enough for a bit of hope to filter through and give her the promise of light in the future.
"What about the other one?" said Blake suddenly.
"The other one?"
"The little boy."
Alyssa was about to say, "I don't know," but then she did.
Phone ringing: bedroom, living room, entry. Bedroom, living room, entry.
"He was leading us to the front door," she said.
"What?" said Blake.
In the bedroom, Ruthie's mobile was spinning….
And a voice screamed. "LEAVE!"
The mirror on the vanity cracked. Then fell. The glass exploded in tiny pieces. But the explosion happened before the mirror touched the floor. In the next second something hit the big bed so hard it moved a good foot.
Alyssa grabbed Mal and ran all the way into the hall.
The second they were out, the bedroom door slammed shut behind them. They ran.
Inside the closed-up room, it sounded like a fight was happening.
Alyssa looked at her husband. "I don't think the boy was ever trying to hurt us. He was trying to save us."
A single word on the picture that fell from the memorial book.
"The whole time, he was trying to lead us out of that house," she said. The heat at their back was stronger now. But
she felt it as a comfort. Every degree was another ash made out of the bones of the man who had done all this. "Trying to save us from his father."
They were at the front door. Blake opened it.
"Mal!"
Their boy was waiting. Standing just at the bottom of the porch, looking up at the house. She could see light reflecting into the night, firelight already crawling through the walls and into the upper floor of their home.
Blake ran out of the house, arms outstretched. Mal cringed.
"It's okay!" shouted Alyssa. "It's okay, Mal. It's him, it's Daddy again!"
Blake enveloped the boy in a hug, and she was only a step behind. Both kneeling, both holding their son. Feeling him, realizing how close they had come to losing each other.
"What happened?" said Mal. Still trapped in Blake's embrace, but looking over his father's shoulder at the house. Alyssa could feel heat at her back. They'd have to move farther away in a second.
"It doesn't matter," said Blake. "It's over."
"You stopped him?" said Mal.
"Stopped him for good," said Alyssa. She looked around, though she knew what she would – wouldn't – see. "Where's Ruthie?"
"Safe," said Mal.
"With the Thayers?"
"Safe," he repeated. His voice was strange.
His skin felt cold.
Alyssa was about to ask him again. Something trilled inside her. Something was wrong.
Blake coughed.
Blood dribbled out of his mouth. He looked down. So did Alyssa.
A knife stuck out of Blake's stomach. Something big, judging by the handle, but she couldn't tell for sure because the entire blade was completely buried in her husband's flesh. A moment later even the handle was obscured by spurts of blood, pumping out in time with Blake's heartbeat.
She looked at Blake, her mind blanked by what had just happened.
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