by Glen Krisch
She glanced at the window and noticed Burkhart watching her. Their eyes met. He might have given her a slight nod, or maybe she only hoped as much. Regardless, he turned away as if disinterested.
Edgar’s head whipped forward and back, but he continued to laugh.
This set her over the edge. She wheeled back and slapped him hard across the face. Edgar’s eyes boggled and his laughter died off, but his wide smirk remained. She’d forgotten how close they were, but it became evidently clear when he grasped both of her forearms. He tightened his grip as their eyes met.
“You’re a pathetic piece of shit,” she said, glaring at him.
Burkhart was half a second away, but she didn’t want to end this visit, not when she hadn’t gotten the information she had come for.
“I know.” His grip on her arms weakened and his hands dropped away.
“Where is she?” Krista said, hating how pathetic she sounded.
He shook his head, wiped his lips on his sleeve, still with that damn smirk on his face.
She shot out her knee and caught him in the balls.
Edgar let out a choked sob and leaned over to brace himself against the table.
Krista checked the window in the door, but Burkhart hadn’t moved. The little red lights on the video cameras continued to shine. If someone was monitoring the feeds, her visit would soon come to an end, and she would most likely wind up arrested. Either that, or they enjoyed watching her punishing a child killer and so had given her some leeway.
She gripped his right ear with her left hand and twisted until it verged on tearing from his skull. Edgar cried out hoarsely, barely above a whisper, and didn’t fight back. Through his pain, he met her gaze. And smirked. Krista again slapped his face, this time so hard her hand stung with pins and needles.
Krista wrenched him by his ear, forcing him to his feet. “Why do you look so happy?”
“Because it’s over.” His smile, now flecked with blood, widened.
“What’s over?”
She shoved him hard until he fell back into the chair.
“The work I was set to. It’s complete by now, for sure. What, with you here. With you here and unable to protect that sweet little girl of yours.”
“What are you talking about?” Krista said, feeling faint. She paced the room, trying to steady her wobbly legs.
“Your daughter, of course.”
“How do you know about her?” She stopped pacing and glared at him.
“The old man, he stopped me, in a fashion, from completing my work. But all he did was put pause to my final actions.”
She came close to clobbering him again, but a low buzzing started in her ears, and she didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep her wits together.
“What can you do to me or my family if you’re locked up for the rest of your life?”
“Not me. It was never just me.”
“What? Did you have a partner?” She had never considered the possibility, and now that it was in the open, the notion horrified her.
“Not exactly. Sure, I had my urges, my perversions you might call them. Sure, I did things I still won’t admit aloud. Horrible, horrible things. But those horrible things brought me a sense of calm, let me sleep at night. Once I lost my way and found myself near enough to the Little Whisper to feel its gentle pull … it took me under its wing. This darkness, this vileness, became my own. I reveled in it. Oh, Lord, how I reveled in it.”
“You’re saying you weren’t responsible for your actions? That girl, the one they found in your suitcase … Tanya Williamson … you didn’t kill her?”
“Every action was my own, sure. It was me, sure, but … amplified. Supersized. I was a … a host, I guess you could say. A host for a demanding guest. Pierce removed me from the equation, but the guest remains.”
“What, like a ghost?” Krista felt a sudden overwhelming sense of dread.
“I don’t know the proper name of things such as these. All I know is that its powers of persuasion are exquisite. And it finds its own playthings, just like I found mine in those damaged little girls. This … guest wheedles its way inside, turns everything sour, corrupt. Noncompliance can be … fatal.”
The door opened and Burkhart filled the space with his tremendous bulk.
“Everything okay in here?”
He must have noticed Edgar’s swollen face, the trail of blood from his nose down to his lips, but he didn’t acknowledge it.
Burkhart stared at Krista.
“Yes, everything is fine,” she said. “We’re just talking.”
“Edgar, everything square with you?”
“Of course! Like young Krista here said, ‘We’re just talking.’”
Burkhart looked from Edgar to Krista and back again. He knew something was happening between them, but he obviously didn’t see the harm in it continuing.
“I’ll be right outside.” It sounded like a warning to the both of them. He closed the door and glanced through the window before blotting it out with his back.
“Is my family in danger?” Krista asked, her voice a whisper.
Again, that cocky smile. “Are they at the Little Whisper?”
“Yes. They’re staying at my grandfather’s summer house.”
“Then of course they’re in danger.”
Terror coiled in her gut.
“What? How …?”
“I’m done talking. If you want real answers, go ask your Poppa.”
With her pulse throbbing at her temples, Krista waited for him to continue, but he merely turned away from her and stared at the wall, as if transfixed by the rough cinderblock. After it was evident he wouldn’t say anything more, she reached for the door.
Edgar chuckled, and said, “While you’re there, make sure you thank the old man for me.”
Burkhart gave Krista a wide berth as she exited and slammed the door.
Edgar’s laughter echoed long after she left the prison yard.
CHAPTER 32
Night fell faster than Clara expected. One moment seemed to be the earliest minutes of dusk, and the next pitch-black skies blanketed one horizon to the other.
A wavering brightness drew her attention from the window in Poppa’s library, from where she watched the driveway. Her copy of The Hobbit remained open in her lap. She couldn’t focus on the words when the sun was still up, and now it was beyond pointless to try in the dark.
Uncle Jack entered with two candles. He set one on the table next to her.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m worried.”
“Me too, kid.” He looked like he’d exhausted the topics they could share. “Do you have a flashlight?”
She pressed the button on the heavy flashlight resting on her lap. Turned it off again.
“Your Aunt Leah will be okay. Your dad is with her, and you know nothing can go wrong when he’s around.” Uncle Jack tried to laugh, but it fell flat.
“I know,” she said, noticing the candle light reflected in his eyes. He looked different. Sharper, perhaps. More alert. She hadn’t seen him have a drink since the beer at breakfast. Perhaps she hadn’t seen him sober before now.
“Trevor and Robby are playing Connect Four in the kitchen. You can join them, you know.”
“I know.” Clara sighed. “I’m just waiting for my mom.”
“Okay, kid. Do you need anything?”
“Just quiet.” She immediately regretted her tone. “Please.”
“Sure thing. Poppa’s resting. Probably out for the night. I need to go take care of something. Something a long time coming.”
“Do you need any help?” she asked.
“Thanks, but this is something I need to do myself,” he said. He stared at her for a long intense moment, as if he were memorizing her feature
s. Finally, he smiled. “Good night.”
Candle in hand, Uncle Jack walked away, halving the visible light with his absence. Clara stared out at the driveway, feeling lost, like a stranger in her own skin.
~
Someone shook Clara’s shoulder, but sleep was reluctant to let her go. Her eyes flickered open. Robby and Trevor stood shoulder to shoulder, watching her wake.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice thick and groggy. The boys remained mute, their eyes wide with fright while, their mouths agape as if in mid-scream.
She forced her mind through the morass, forced it to focus. The boys swayed together from side to side, their posture bending to and fro like dune grass caught in a capricious breeze. Their eyes spasmed and rolled back to full whites. Foamy spittle gathered on their lips.
“Robby, Trevor, what is it?” She stood from the chair and her book fell to the floor, forgotten. “You’re starting to scare me.”
She grabbed the candle from the table next to her and brought it close to Robby’s face. The muscles beneath his cheeks quavered, as if he fought to control his movements.
Both boys began chanting jumbled words through parted lips.
No, not jumbled, she realized. Backward. And they came so quickly she couldn’t decipher them.
The boys took one stride in reverse, then another, as if rewound.
Clara followed them as they stepped in reverse, until they backed into the kitchen. They sat at the island and began to intone the methodical humming from their séance game the night before. The boys swayed and hummed, swayed and hummed.
Clara’s candle revealed shadows that should not be there. Silhouetted bodies danced across the walls—a half dozen, a dozen, more—even as the boys’ mesmerized humming picked up in pitch and intensity. The silhouettes leapt from the walls to the center of the island where they swirled, funneling, drawing all the air from the room until Clara struggled to breathe.
When she thought she couldn’t take any more of this madness, the swirling shadow shot out at the sliding deck door, pried it open, and streamed out into the night. The door slammed shut, and the boys tipped over on their stools until they fell to the floor, unconscious.
Clara hurried to them as someone desperately knocked on the back door. She crawled around the island, using it for cover.
Two people stood at the threshold.
Clara gasped and pulled back, hoping she hadn’t been noticed.
“We know you’re in there, Clara,” Breann said.
Trevor began to shake, and then Robby. She had never seen a seizure in person, but couldn’t think of anything else it could be. Their bodies vibrated, arms curling up toward their chests, and more sticky foam leaked from between their lips.
“Please come to the door so we can talk,” Melody said.
“I … I don’t know who you are,” Clara said.
What she truly meant was: I don’t know what you are.
She didn’t know what was happening to her cousins, but she felt a helplessness that terrified her. She felt penned in, incapable, and for the first time in a long time, exactly her twelve years of age.
Breann chuckled, but with little mirth. “We’re your friends, silly.”
“You left me in the woods.” Clara’s voice cracked on the last syllable. “Anything could’ve happened to me.”
“We couldn’t help it,” Melody said. “We … we had to leave you, or you would’ve been in terrible danger. It was for your own good.”
A sudden anger rose through her. She wasn’t about to cower from the unknown, and so she stood and turned toward the sliding glass door, then clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling a scream.
Breann’s skin was so bloodless-gray that even her freckles had faded. Both girls had black bags under their eyes, and the eyes themselves shot through with lightning bolts of black veins. Their throats had been slit, and their gaping wounds pulled wide, exposing flesh, bones, and cartilage …
“We didn’t want you to see us like this … how we really are,” Melody said. “It takes so much to hold the darkness at bay.”
“You need to let us in, Clara,” Breann demanded.
“Why … what are you going to do?” Clara glanced at Trev and Robby. At least their seizures had faded. They gave off an occasional twitch, nothing more.
“You know what we need to do,” Breann said. “What we all need to do.”
Clara gasped.
Faces of other dead girls filled the windows, children with wounds identical to those of Melody and Breann. They clamored at the glass, scratching with splintered fingernails, whining for entry.
“Is it Poppa?” Clara asked. “Is it Poppa you need?”
She removed Breann’s heart-shaped charm from around her neck. She considered giving it back to Breann, that perhaps she would go away, that they would all go away, if she made that simple offering.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Breann said. “Your Poppa saw the monster and didn’t act. At least, not right away.”
“What monster?” Clara said. “Do you mean, Edgar?”
“Yes … and something else,” Melody said, her voice low, “his guiding hand.”
Tears trailed down Clara’s cheeks.
“Poppa’s sick. He’s dying. There’s no point.”
“It’s the only way we can move on,” Melody said. “It’s nothing more, and nothing less.”
“You don’t know that,” Clara said. “You can’t possibly know that. You’re just angry, and you want to place blame.”
“You can’t stand in our way,” Breann added.
Clara felt torn between cowering on the floor with her cousins and rushing to Poppa’s side to protect him. She wrapped the charm’s chain around her wrist, then twice, and a third time, until the heart rested in her palm.
“I don’t understand!” Clara shouted through tears. “What did he ever do to you? He’s just an old man. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
Moans and gasps issued from the milling spirits, but it didn’t seem like they were reacting to her words. Little fingers tapped against the window panes, as if to warn her.
Melody’s eyes went wide as she called out Clara’s name.
“What is it,” Clara said, confused. “What’s wrong?”
“You been here this whole time,” Uncle Jack said from the doorway leading to the front of the house. “The whole fucking time …”
Clara jumped at his voice and reluctantly turned her back on the dead girls.
While it looked like Uncle Jack, his posture was too erect, and his eyes twin pools of pitch glimmering in the candlelight.
“I didn’t even realize you are exactly what I need,” he said, his voice deeper, full of menace. “Thank goodness for the curiosity of children. Sometimes they open your eyes to what’s standing right in front of you.”
“No!” Breann shouted, and banged on the glass.
Other children joined in, forming of chorus of discontent.
“Uncle Jack, what’s … what’s going on?”
The kitchen island was to her back. The ghosts stood at the threshold to the deck. She had nowhere to run, and even if she did, she couldn’t leave her cousins, unconscious and defenseless.
“Your loneliness …” Uncle Jack whispered, stepping closer. “You never realized how alone you were. Not until you came to the summer house. Not until you experienced life, exhilaration, nature passing beneath your feet. That was your awakening.”
“Please, Uncle Jack, you’re scaring me,” she said, her muscles tensing.
“You should be scared.”
She made a break for the hallway, but he shifted into her path and gripped her around the throat with one hand. She bucked against him, but he held fast. She could barely catch a breath.
“Your pain … it’s exquisite.” Uncle Jack leaned in close unti
l their noses nearly touched. “It’s just what I need. Just one more soul. One more soul bursting with pain … beautiful, beautiful pain.”
“Melody … Breann …” she gasped. “Please help me.”
Uncle Jack chuckled, the wide span of his fingers pressing hard against her throat, dimming her vision, sending her into a spastic panic. She kicked out her legs, but couldn’t connect with anything.
Uncle Jack … Uncle Jack is killing me.
With a heartbroken crack in her voice, Melody said, “I wish we could help you. Oh, how I wish I could.”
Breann laughed morbidly, the sound slurring, distorting.
ok-si-juhn … Clara’s mind drifted, fogging. I need oxygen …
The candle flames seemed to retreat, to dim to nothing. The only details that had yet to succumb to the shadows were the glowing faces of the dead girls.
Clara’s limbs weakened, and before she could collapse into unconsciousness, the hand at her throat lifted her off the ground. Her vertebrae shifted and loosened, as if her neck might snap with the slightest additional pressure.
“Puh … puh … Please …” she choked out.
Blood throbbed in her head. Her face and her lips pulsed from the blinding pressure.
“That’s it. Go to sleep, little one,” he whispered into her ear. “We have much to learn. So very much to learn. But first, you must go to sleep.”
Clara’s arms became so heavy she could barely get them to twitch at her sides. Her mind fogged as she felt her body lifted parallel to the ground. Her head and feet dangled until she was placed onto something wide and flat.
The kitchen island, she thought.
She blinked and her vision momentarily brightened as he released his grip on her throat.
“We’re going on a trip, you and me.” Not-Uncle Jack hefted something onto the counter next to her. A cylindrical roll. He pulled from one end, and plastic sheeting gave off an agonized shriek as it unraveled. He tucked one end underneath her body, then lifted her knees to her chest. “I need you to … just hold, right there. Perfect.”
