The Hag

by Erik Henry Vick

The man got to his knees, one foot flat on the ground as if getting ready to start a track meet. His wild, crazy gaze bounced from feature to feature on Martin’s face. “Are you a demon?” he shouted.

  “No, I’m a cop. I told you. Pete Martin.” Pete got his legs underneath him, in case he had to flee. “Is she…” He cut his eyes toward the body on the car. “Is that your wife, sir?”

  The man hopped forward, snarling, and he flung the gravel away. “Prove it! Prove it!”

  Prove I’m a cop? Pete swallowed hard. “I need you to answer my questions, sir.”

  The man threw back his head and screamed. “Prove it! Prove it! Prove it, or I’ll kill you, you bastard!”

  Holding the AR-15 in front of him as if it were a shield, Martin scrambled away from the man he believed was Stephen Canton. Once he was ten steps away, he released the death grip he held on the AR-15’s foregrip and thumbed his radio. “Chief, this is Martin. I think we’ve got a problem down here.”

  4

  As he heard the radio call, Joe kneeled and picked Greg up with a one-handed grip, holding the M1 away from his body with the other hand. He glanced at Tom, then turned and sprinted toward home.

  “Grandpa! Grandpa, was that my daddy?” Greg asked in a breathless voice. “What’s happened to him? What’s wrong?”

  Joe grunted and kept running. Behind him, Tom and the others followed.

  He rounded the bend, gaze darting from the string of police cars, to Martin’s back, to Stephen…Stephen crouching in the gravel, screaming at the morning sky.

  In Joe’s arms, Greg began to cry.

  Joe skidded to a stop and flung the M1 into the grass on the side of the road. He longed to put his grandson down and go to his son, go comfort Stephen, but Greg had his arms locked around Joe’s neck.

  Pete Martin shot a glance over his shoulder. “Don’t bring the boy any closer,” the cop said, cutting his eyes toward the row of police cars. “Keep him back.”

  He was trying to communicate something to Joe without saying it outright, but Joe did not understand what it was. There was something on the hood of the lead car, but Joe couldn’t tell what it was from his vantage point.

  Stephen stopped screaming, and when Joe returned his gaze to his son, Stephen’s gaze was on him. “Son…are you… Are you okay? Where is Mary? Where’s your mother?”

  At the sound of his wife’s name, Stephen’s eyes cut toward the rental car, and something cold and ugly uncoiled in Joe’s guts. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice failed him. His throat spasmed as he swallowed, then he tried again. “And your mother?”

  Stephen’s eyes cut toward the house, and then zipped back, but he wouldn’t meet Joe’s gaze. Instead, he stared at his knees.

  Joe staggered as his knees tried to come unhinged. He squeezed his eyes shut, but nothing could deny what he’d seen in his son’s face. Elizabet is gone. Without opening his eyes, Joe turned and faced the lake.

  “What is it, Grandpa?” asked Greg in a tremulous voice. “Where’s Mommy? Where’s Grandma?”

  Joe didn’t have the words to answer, even if he had been able to control his voice, which he couldn’t. Behind his closed lips, his teeth trembled, and a lump of raw, burning pain rested against the back of his throat. He hugged Greg close.

  “Where are they? Where are they, Grandpa?” Greg asked, but by the cheerless nature of his tone, Joe thought he knew the answers.

  “Mr. Canton, is that your son, Stephen?”

  Joe opened his mouth, but still couldn’t find his voice, so he settled for nodding. He heard the crunch of boots on gravel as the other officers arrived, and Tom started issuing orders.

  “Demons!” shouted Stephen. “Dad! Dad, demons!”

  Mason burst into derisive laughter.

  Joe half-turned at the sound of Stephen’s voice—the insanity in it, the brokenness—then turned to glare at Mason.

  The kid stood on the other side of the car Pete Martin had warned them about. His eyes opened wide, and a vast grin cracked his face. “Cool!” His gaze locked on something on the hood of the car.

  Stephen lunged to his feet, wild gaze ripping from Officer Martin to the boy from next door, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Demons!” he shrieked.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” shouted Greg. “What’s wrong?”

  Stephen’s gaze snapped to meet Joe’s. “Get him away! Can’t you see? They’re demons, Dad! Evil! For Chrissake gimme your gun!”

  Something inside Joe stretched and stretched until he felt sure it must snap. He longed to rush to his son, to stand by his side and calm him, but he dared not. One glance into his son’s eyes told him that. Instead, he squeezed Greg tighter and took a few steps back.

  Confusion flashed in Stephen’s eyes for a moment, then he was in motion, sprinting toward Pete Martin with his hands curled into claws, his mouth open as if he were a wild animal about to rip the policeman’s throat out with his teeth. At the last second, he flung himself away, rolling in the grass on the side of the road.

  “Stephen!” Tom Walton’s voice cracked like a whip. “You cut this out, right now!”

  Stephen came up into a crouch, his body hunched over something. “I won’t let you get her!” he shouted. “Not again! I won’t let you have her!”

  “Stephen! Son, I‍—‍” Joe’s mouth snapped shut as he watched his son stand tall, the M1 carbine held at his waist, his finger wrapped around the trigger. “Stephen, no!”

  Stephen turned his head toward Joe, his manner lackadaisical and unconcerned. “Are you one of them, too?” He asked in a matter-of-fact tone. “Are you a demon, Dad?”

  “What?” Joe took a step another back, another step away from his son and the madness in his eyes. “Demon? Son, I don’t understand.”

  For a moment, Stephen looked as young as Greg, his expression one of great sorrow and loneliness. His eyes cleared and filled with tears. “They…” He shook his head as if to deny his own thoughts. “A demon came, Dad. It…it…” Stephen slung his head back and wailed.

  “Stephen, put your father’s rifle down,” said Tom, just as calm as you please. By his tone, he might’ve been at a church picnic, or having a beer down to the Legion Hall.

  With his head still flung backward, Stephen laughed. “Gary Dennis is dead,” he said. “The demon ripped his head off. He tried… Gary tried to give us time to get away, and I tried to give…to give…Muh-muh-muh…” His head snapped forward, and his gaze sought his father’s. “Why didn’t she run? Dad, why didn’t she use the time to get away? I tried to keep it inside…the demon, I mean…told her to…to run, but…”

  With a sinking feeling, Joe realized that something horrible had happened while he’d been in the woods. Beyond murder, beyond a physical assault…something had broken his son's mind—maybe for good. “I don’t know, Son. I don’t… I don’t have any answers, Stephen.”

  Stephen’s gaze drifted away from his own, but not before Joe saw his eyes empty of conscious thought, of willpower. Not before he saw something dark and ugly command them. Again, Stephen threw his head back, gazing into the heavens.

  “Stephen! Look at me, Son. I’ve got Greg here, with me. Greg is safe, I’ve kept him safe all night, and I will keep him safe as long as I’m able.” Joe took a step toward his son but hesitated at taking another. “Stephen, just put that old M1 back in the grass. You have no need of it.”

  An inarticulate howl rose in Stephen’s lips, and it made the hairs on the back of Joe’s neck stand up straight. Stephen’s head came forward, occupied by the same empty eyes as before, and his gaze danced between the police officers, but it always came back to rest on Mason Harper, growing darker and darker. “DEMONS!” he shouted.

  “No, Son! They are just men, just people, same as you and me. They are no threat‍—‍” Joe’s jaws slammed together as Stephen turned his gaze on his father. His face contorted with insane rage, hurt, and betrayal.

  “DEMONS!” he screamed, sending such a look of hatred at his f
ather that Joe stepped back and averted his gaze.

  “Yes, Stephen,” said Tom Walton. “It does look as if demons paid you a visit. If the things you say happened, who could say whether it was a demon or a man?”

  “What?” Stephen growled.

  Tom sighed. “If you only knew, Stephen, of the things that happened around here in the late seventies. People said Owen Gray was a demon, but he wasn’t. Not in truth. He was a sick bastard, that’s all, but at the time…at the time, everyone was too close to the heinous things that he did. Same as you’re too close to the events of this past night. Don’t make any rash decisions, son.”

  Joe dared to hope that Tom’s smooth, placid voice would have a calming effect on his son. He looked at Stephen, gazing into his face, but his son didn’t return his regard. He still held Joe’s M1, his finger still curled inside the trigger guard, but his expression had gone slack, his eyes distant.

  “Why don’t you let me hold that, Stephen?” asked Tom as he took a step toward the distraught man. He twitched his chin at the rental car. “There’s been enough death here, don’t you think? There’s been enough wasted life.” He stopped three paces from Stephen and held out his hands.

  Stephen’s mindless expression cleared. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears tracked down both cheeks. His throat convulsed as he swallowed, and the keening wail sounded from behind his closed lips. He took his finger out of the trigger guard, but he didn’t give the rifle to Tom.

  “Look at her legs! It’s like one of them is snapped clean off at the hip,” said Mason. “Cool!”

  In rapid succession, emotions chased each other across Stephen’s face. He twisted the rifle to put the barrel underneath his chin and slipped his thumb inside the trigger guard.

  “No, Stephen!” shouted Joe.

  Moving with the reflexes of a much younger man, Tom threw his shoulder into Stephen’s chest, knocking the rifle to the side with one arm, and driving the younger man back, both of their feet scrabbling for traction in the gravel.

  Stephen bellowed and growled, and the M1 went off, its report thundering across the lake and back.

  The other six men that made up the Genosgwa Police Department rushed forward, Michael Arnold wrestling the M1 away from Stephen, and the others trying to help Tom control him.

  They all fell in a heap, all except for Michael Arnold who stood to the side, holding the M1.

  “Get out of here!” yelled Greg, looking at Mason. “Go home!”

  Mason lifted his gaze to Greg’s face. “Dude, your mom got her ass kicked. You should see it!”

  “Mason Harper!” snapped Joe without looking at him. “You get out of here while you still can.” His tone oozed threat—all the anger, sadness, confusion of that long night poured into two sentences.

  Mason laughed but took a step away from the car just the same. “I wonder what Elizabet looks like…”

  With an inarticulate growl, Joe took a single step toward him, and Mason ran home.

  5

  As Joe Canton led him down the gangway to their waiting jet, the horror of the events of the summer overcame Greg for a moment. His father couldn’t travel with them, not yet. Not until the doctors said he was stable, and not until the drugs had more of a chance to get him under control.

  A lump formed in Greg’s throat at the thought of his father, and how he ranted and raved about demons at every opportunity. No one believed Stephen, of course. No one but Greg.

  No one believed Greg about the Lady in the Lake, either.

  When Greg remembered his mother or grandmother, a horrible, aching pit, as black as hell, opened within him. He didn’t dare look at the darkness for long, because it seemed the darkness stared back. He had the feeling the darkness would always stare back at him.

  That she would always be looking back at him.

  And no doubt she will, champ.

  Greg shivered as the thought—the voice—sounded in his mind. It felt so…oily, so diseased. Greg didn’t understand how he’d ever mistaken it for his own mental voice. The voice sounded nothing like him.

  It’s not too late, boyo. Just slip your hand out of your Grandpa’s and scramble through that door at the end of the gangway. Outside, steps lead down to the tarmac. Just sprint around the end of the building and—

  Greg shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to have an invisible friend any longer. He wanted the thing to leave him alone.

  Ah, Greggy, that hurts my feelings. Besides, we have such fun—

  His grandfather squeezed his hand and gave him a little shake. “It’ll get easier, Greggy,” he said. “I promise you. And in the meantime, don’t you worry. I’m right here, I’m with you. We’ll get through this.” He gave Greg’s hand another squeeze. “And before you know it, the two of us will be three, and you’ll have your Daddy back, too. Ayup, we’ll get through this together. The three of us.”

  The four of us!

  Greg shivered at the force of the scream in his mind, but he decided not to pay any attention to the voice. Never again.

  He gazed up into his grandfather’s face and smiled. The smile wasn’t very big, nor a happy one, but it was a smile.

  6

  He wasn’t supposed to be there. His grandmother had forbidden him to set one foot on the Canton property, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t kill her. At least not yet. Mason cackled at the idea.

  He glanced toward his grandmother’s cottage, then to the other side of the Canton lake house. No one was watching as he ducked under the police tape and slipped into their screened porch. That he might get in serious trouble for breaking into a crime scene only heightened the pleasure he felt at his defiance.

  The back door was locked, but Mason had come prepared. The big bald man—Red Bortha, he’d called himself—had come for a visit the day after their escapade in the woods. He’d brought a present—a shiny set of lock picks—and he had taught Mason the rudiments of their use.

  Mason slipped the black leather case out of the back pocket of his jeans and ran the zipper open. The sound made him think of other zippers and of other visitors in the days since the murders, and an erection thundered to life behind the zipper of his jeans. He worked the lock, ignoring the sensation in the pit of his stomach and the old lock opened with a soft click. He pushed the door open, unable to contain a predatory grin.

  The short hall that led from the back porch to the main living area of the Canton house was painted maroon with blood. “Elizabet,” he breathed. He dropped to his knees, hoping the blood was still wet, but it had all dried. He ran his hands across it nonetheless, then sniffed his fingertips and palms. “I wish I could have been here,” he murmured. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  There will be other nights, sport, said the voice of his invisible friend. My daughter and I are well pleased with you.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Happy to do my part.”

  Indeed. I’ve got other things for you, boyo. Give it a few days—time for things to settle a bit—and then little Candice up the shore might warrant your…attention. You know her, don’t you?

  “Candice Sebastian? I call her the Ice Princess because her shit don’t seem to stink. Yeah, I know her.”

  Ah, good. Maybe we can…educate…young Candice.

  Mason smiled and climbed to his feet. “Happy to help.”

  I knew you would be, kiddo.

  Mason wrinkled his nose. “I’m not a kid.”

  No. No, of course, you aren’t. I apologize, Mason. Habits are hard to break, and old habits are perhaps the hardest of all.

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind ‘sport’ and ‘boyo’ and stuff like that. I just don’t enjoy being called a kid.”

  Noted. Now, why don’t you go through the kitchen and see if the police missed any of the old man’s guns?

  A wide grin distended Mason’s cheeks, and a feverish glint shone from his eyes. “Yeah.” He sucked in a deep breath and whistled as he exhaled.

  Chapter 8
/>   2007

  1

  “Okay, we’re here, Benny,” said Toby, putting the Caddy into park. “Now what?”

  “Inside,” said Benny. “We’ve got to go inside.” He opened his door and dragged Shannon out.

  Scott shook his head, but Toby popped open his door and got out. “Come on, Scott,” he said.

  “At least the terminal’s a small one,” said Scott. “It won’t take us long to cover every square inch of the place.” He climbed out of the car and closed his door. “Then can we get back to rescuing Mike from the nurses?”

  “Come on, doubting Thomases,” said Benny.

  They followed Benny across the pick-up lanes and into the terminal. He led them upstairs and to the left wing where he stopped, staring at the people from the red-eye. Scott nudged Toby and pointed at the bank of information monitors. The arrivals screen listed the flight as originating in Orlando, Florida.

  “Who are we waiting on, Benny? Mickey Mouse?” asked Scott with a smile.

  Benny didn’t answer, he just stared into the face of each person who came down the hallway. He’d attracted a little attention and more than a few hidden smiles, but no one seemed to be the person he wanted.

  “Are you sure this is the right flight?” asked Toby. “Maybe we’re on the wrong side.”

  Benny ignored him, taking several steps away from the group. He kept scanning the faces of the crowd, until the rush died to a trickle and then died out. Benny shook his head and turned toward Shannon. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Well, that just makes it unanimous,” said Scott.

  “But I was so sure…”

  “It’s okay, Benny. All of us make mistakes from time to time.” Shannon threaded her arm through Benny’s and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  Toby raised his hands to shoulder height, palms up. “So…can we head on over to the hospital now?”

  With slumped shoulders, Benny nodded.

  2

  Toby parked the rented Cadillac in what Benny referred to as “the wart,” which was nothing more than a behemoth concrete parking structure attached to the main hospital. They walked across in the covered walkway, into the lobby of the hospital that was still busy, despite the hour.