314 Book 2 (23 page)

He placed the wire against his son’s wrist and
the cord seemed to do the rest for him. The wire wrapped Ben’s wrists, without Michael’s help, and tightened until the boy’s flesh was torn. Then the wire became taut, as if someone above was pulling it back into the mist on the ceiling. Ben’s body lifted and he began to scream in pain. Suddenly, what had been a horrific visage of the boy transformed back into the child Michael knew. Ben looked undamaged, even by the boiling water and chemicals that had been in the tub. He was nude, and unaffected except for the tightening wire that bound his wrists.

“Daddy, no!”

“Ben!” Michael tried to grab the boy, but the child was being dragged up. Blood streamed down his arms, splashing on Michael’s face as he tried to hold his boy down. “Let him go! You tricked me! No!”

The boy screeched, the pain insufferable as he was lifted off the bed. Michael’s grip slipped,
wet with blood, and his son’s nude form was dragged into the mist above until he disappeared, although his screams continued to reverberate within the room. Then came the horrific sound of skin being ripped away before Ben’s wailing ceased. The coils that grinded in the mist were now colored with fresh, vibrant blood.

Michael fell to his knees and cried as blood began to drip from the mist above, as if a
crimson rain had started to fall.

The Watcher in the Walls
laughed.

“Bleed the lamb,” said the legion of creatures in the mist.

“You bastard,” said Michael. “You tricked me.”

“Don’t worry, Michael Harper,” said the doppelganger as he appeared again, this time sitting on the bed where Ben had been. “You’ll forget all of this, but you must never return to this place. I’ll fulfill my side of the deal, but you must never tempt me again.
Remember that it would be better to die than ever come looking for me again. Flee, and take your daughter with you. From this moment on, you have no son. He belongs to us.”

Michael could hear Ben’s teeth chattering from somewhere in the fog.

“Shut up, Alma!” Michael stared a
t his daughter through the rearview mirror. “Just shut up.”

She had been humming as they drove through the fog and the sound was
grating on his nerves. He was traveling by memory, unable to see anything but the vague shape of the road as they went through the fog. Twisted creatures ran alongside the car, allowing only glimpses of their hideous shapes as they howled. Tentacles slid through the mist and seemed to be writhing on the car as Michael sped along. The tires careened off the road, grinding through the gravel shoulder and he overcompensated as he jerked the wheel in the other direction. They swerved across the road and he tried to get them back on course, causing the car to fishtail.

“Shut up!”

He wasn’t even sure if Alma had been humming anymore, but still felt the need to scream at her. He checked his watch, then the clock on the dash of the car; both read 3:14. The time hadn’t changed since they’d left the cabin, and he was certain that had been far longer than a minute ago.

Michael rubbed his eyes and then gripped the steering wheel tight as he pressed even harder on the gas. The car caught air over a hill, causing Alma to yelp before the tires met the road again, jolting them up and nearly causing him to fishtail
a second time.

Feet began to descend from the mist above, piercing the fog as they slowly fell. Blood dripped from the toes of the hanged, but their heads were hidden by the fog
above. Then the wires draped, writhing like they had in the cabin’s bedroom, as if the tails of snakes were reaching down from the sky. Michael closed his eyes, terrified to see what he’d done, certain that the multitude of dangling feet all belonged to his dead son. The Watcher in the Walls was mocking him.

Teeth chattered, and he could hear Ben laughing in the mist.

Then the wires began to scrape along the top of the car and Michael clenched his eyes even tighter. Meanwhile, Alma continued to hum from the back seat. Her song was all but drowned out by the sound of the wires scraping on the roof.

They were out of the fog minutes later, but it felt like hou
rs. Michael’s sanity was frayed; what little he had at the beginning of the day had been ravaged. Flop sweat soaked him, causing his t-shirt to cling to his chest. In his rearview he saw the fog fading and he screamed in triumph.

“You and me, kid!” Michael sat up straight so he could see his daughter’s face in the rearview. She had her eyes closed and was humming to herself.

“You and me, kid. We made it!” He punched the ceiling of the car joyously and then started to laugh. “We went to Forsythe. Went to Forsythe, Alma. We went to Forsythe, and drove straight on through Widowsfield. We never did stop in that place. Never did stop.” He shook his head and whispered over and over. “Never did stop. Never saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just a bit of fog, and an electrical storm or something. Right, Alma?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before continuing his rant. “We were fishing in Forsythe. That’s all. You can stop humming now. Alma? Are you listening to me? Stop humming. Tell me where we were. Tell me where we were, Alma. Stop humming and tell me where we were!”

“Forsythe.” She spoke as a victim, timid and apologetic.

“That’s right,” said Michael. “Good job. And did we stop in Widowsfield?”

“Yes,” she said, unsure of her own words.

“No!” He screamed and glared at her in the rearview. “No we didn’t. We drove straight through. Okay? Straight through that fog. Never stopped. Never stopped. Don’t go lying to anyone. If you lie about what happened, we’re both going to get in trouble. You tell them the truth. You tell them we went to Forsythe, and then drove through Widowsfield on the way home. Okay? Just you and me, father and daughter. Just you and me.”

Every time he said the lie, it felt truer than the time before. He had taken his daughter to a cabin in Forsythe to go fishing, and then drove through Widowsfield on the way home. There was a lot of fog in the town, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Terry never showed up in Forsythe like she was supposed to, and he decided to h
ead home early. They never met The Watcher in the Walls.

Michael would leave that hell behind. He allowed everything he knew about Widowsfield to drift away, like the fading memory of a dream, and with it went his boy. His son was lost in Widowsfield.

What was his name?

Michae
l couldn’t recall.

He looked through the rearview and saw that Widowsfield, and the fog, was far behind them. He’d escaped, and would never return.
He would do whatever was necessary to leave the past forgotten, trapped in that horrible place.

Michael Harper had no son.

He looked at his watch and saw the time change.

3:15

The scenes in Widowsfield were nearly impossible to describe, and were much easier to draw. I had always wanted to be an artist, so when Oliver handed me the notebook I was able to fully flesh out the details of the various events that happened in the town. He was more interested in the events preceding the horrors as opposed to the violence itself. I was thankful for that, because I don’t like drawing death and destruction.

Oliver would stand over me and watch as I drew the scenes. He would comment when he thought I missed a detail, and I did my best to please him. He never suspected my deception, at least during the time that I worked for him. I wonder if he still believes all my lies, or if he’s started to peel them apart.

Widowsfield

January 21
st
, 2007

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Oliver as he struggled to keep up with Nia’s description of what had happened in the school library. He was standing beside Lee, watching as his assistant drew what Nia was recounting. Lee furiously sketched the room in a small, spiral notebook that Oliver had given him.

Widowsfield High had been
gutted after the townsfolk disappeared. All of the books, furniture, and equipment had been sent to other, nearby schools after it became apparent that Widowsfield would never be reinvigorated.

Cada E.I.B.
, in conjunction with the FBI, had frozen all land assets within the town, declaring that the ongoing investigation prevented anyone from making any claims. That temporary fix lasted a couple years, at which time the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of the land owners. Cada E.I.B. and the United States government colluded to pay off anyone with rights to property within the town, and families were contacted privately to discuss the terms. Lawyers got involved, but the settlements were high enough to buy silence from just about all of the plaintiffs. Luckily, the few families that refused the agreements were beset with other concerns, ranging from family illness to unfortunate accidents, and the offer of large settlements left on the table suddenly became much more attractive.

Through that extensive process,
Cada E.I.B. was able to eventually claim ownership of the town, where-upon they set about securing it. Unfortunately, time had taken its toll, and the already aged buildings were far beyond disrepair, succumbing to the will of nature and beasts, leaving the homes and businesses stinking of urine and crumbling on their foundations.

Nia put her hand on a window that overlooked the soccer field. She was always careful about what she touched, and often reacted as if burned. “He fell through the glass.”

Ever since her visit to the cabin, Nia had been unable to shut off her psychic gift. Everything she touched told a story, and few of them seemed plausible.

“That can’t be right,” said Oliver. “The glass is still here. We never repaired it.”

“It didn’t break,” said Nia. “Not until the hounds came.”

Lee
scribbled furiously as he tried to keep all of the information straight. He was keeping notes along with the drawings as he struggled to capture everything that Nia revealed. “What hounds?” he asked.

Nia ignored him as she continued. “His name was Jacob, and he saw the red
-haired woman crying out on the other side of the window. He put his hands here,” she placed both hands on the window and leaned forward. “Then he placed his forehead here. Everyone else was staring at the fog that came across the field. Although I don’t know if the others could even see the red-haired woman, or if they were in a different time frame than Jacob was. The fog is a constant though.”

“The fog,” said Oliver. “Stay with that. You’re confusing the hell out of me
with all the other stuff. What did the fog look like?”

“I’m not sure,” said Nia. “The fog is
always lost to me. I’m aware it’s there, but I never see it.”

Oliver nodded, but kept his attention on
Lee’s notebook as he continued to write. “Go on.”

Nia placed her forehead against the glass, cringing as she did, as if fearing it would
burn. “He was here, and the red-haired woman reached through the window and pulled him. She grabbed onto him and pulled him through the glass, but no one else saw her. All they saw was that he was hanging halfway in and halfway out, as if he’d become part of the glass. I think there might be a time when the others saw the red-haired woman, but the memory of him going through the glass sticks to more than one time frame. It’s like the event reverberates more than the others.”

Oliver looked up at the psychic. “That doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure…”

“I’m sure,” said Nia. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but you asked me to tell you what I saw. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Okay, it’s just all so jumbled and confusing,” said Oliver. “I can’t keep up with all of it.”

“The boy named Jacob was here over and over again,” said Nia. “Every single time was different for him, until the red-haired woman caught him. Then, after that, it was as if he’d become a target for something else, something darker and more powerful. He was always hunted and murdered, usually by the hounds, but sometimes by the…” she paused and took her hands away from the glass. She shivered and stepped back.

“By the what?” asked Oliver.

“By the children,” said Nia quietly. “They hated Jacob after the red-haired woman touched him. They said he was one of the dead ones, and hunted him. They wanted to kill all of the dead ones before the red-haired woman saw through their eyes.”

“Through whose eyes?” asked Oliver.

“This is bonkers,” said Mindy.

Oliver hushed her and then looked back to Nia. “Whose eyes?”

“The red-haired woman was looking for someone,” said Nia. “She wanted to kill the person… no, the people, there was more than one of them. She wanted to kill the people that killed her.”

“How do you know that?” asked Oliver. “Did something in here belong to her?”

“No,” said Nia. “Not exactly, but in a way it feels like everything belongs to her. Everything in this place seems to have a memory of her, as if the walls themselves are scared of her. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before she catches up with them. The children are scared of anyone that the red-haired woman touched. They know that she can watch through the dead ones’ eyes.”

“And what about the other one?” asked Oliver. “
The Skeleton Man? Is he here too?”

She looked around and crossed her arms as if trying to stay warm. “He’s everywhere.”

“Where is he standing?” asked Oliver.

“He’s here without being here,” said Nia. “I know that doesn’t make any sense. He’s sort of like the fog for me. I’m aware of his presence, but I couldn’t tell you where he was at any point in time. Not even at the moment where everything is the same.”

“What moment is that?” asked Oliver.

“Right before the split,” said Nia. “Everything that happened in this town is as it should be,
almost right up until a singular moment in time. Then, right at that second, everything splits off into a million directions. There are conflicting memories before that point, almost as if the divergence happens earlier, but then explodes all at once. And there’s nothing after that. That’s what I mean about Jacob having different fates depending on what strand I’m remembering. There are a thousand different fates for him.”

Lee shook his head and sighed. Then he handed the notebook to Oliver so that his boss could inspect the notes. Oliver looked at the picture that Lee had sketched, and then took the pencil so that he could write notes in the margins.

“I’m having trouble following you,” said Oliver.

Nia tried to think of how to explain what she was experiencing. “Let me
have the pencil.”

Oliver stopped
writing and held the pad and pencil closer to his chest. “What for?”

“I think I can explain it better with a drawing.
I’ve always been better at drawing the things I can remember instead of explaining them.”

“She’s a great artist,” said Mindy.

Oliver flipped the page he was writing on over and then handed the notebook to Nia with an unmarked page on top.

Nia drew a line across half the page. “Think of this as a time line. Every memory that this place is holding onto can be found somewhere on this line.
Then, all of the sudden the line feels bloated.” She made the line thicker by tracing over it several times. “And it’s like there’s more than just one line stuck in here, diverging and muddying my memories.” She continued to draw the line thicker as it went, causing it to become conical. “Then boom.” She stopped the line and started to swipe the pencil across the page like a river splitting into multiple tributaries. Nia continued to draw new lines until the page was filled with them, and then handed the notebook back to Oliver.

“I guess I understand.” Oliver looked at the page for a moment and then started to write again.

“It’s as if time itself split into a thousand strands, but none of those new time lines survived more than fifteen or twenty minutes. None of the objects around here are giving me any memories of what happened after that day. It’s almost as if… I know this sounds insane, but it’s almost like the walls lost their lives – like they died with everyone else. Or maybe everything here lost the desire to remember anything after that day – after that short period of time.”

“Do you know when it started?” asked Oliver. “At what time did all of the diverging memories happen?
” He pointed the pencil at the bloated line that Nia had drawn, right before all of the various lines split away. “You said everything was normal up until this specific time. Do you know what time that was?”

Nia nodded. “3:14.”

Oliver was silent as he stared at her.

“Is that a surprise?” asked Nia.

Oliver started taking notes again, but wrote slower now. “No, it makes sense.”

“Why?” asked Mindy.

“The first reports of strange activity started at about a quarter after three.”

“You need to tell me what you know about that day,” said Nia. “I don’t know if I can help you if I can’t figure out the truth here.
Somewhere in that mess of time lines is a true one, but I can’t find it because the objects around here can’t remember anything past that day.”

“I want to be open with you about everything,” said Oliver. “But my hands are tied to a certain extent. Give me some more time, and I’ll find out what I can and can’t talk about.
For now, let’s try to focus on what happened right before the divergence; right before 3:14.”

“3:14 on March 14
th
,” said Mindy. “That’s a weird coincidence.”

“Yes it is,”
said Oliver and quickly moved on, “What I’d like to do is try to find the constants.” He showed them the line that Nia had drawn and used the pencil to point at the place where she had started to make the line thicker, an inch before the radical split. “I want your help figuring out exactly what was going on in Widowsfield right before the divergence.”

Oliver then handed the notebook back to Lee. The quiet assistant took the pencil as well, and then prepared to swiftly record any details that Nia gave them.

“I’ll do what I can,” said Nia. “How much detail do you need?”

“As much as you can give me,” said Oliver. “I want to put this place back together again. I want to set the rooms up to look like they did when the event happened, and I want it to be as accurate as possible.”

“Why?” asked Mindy.

The phone clipped
on Oliver’s belt started to vibrate. “Think of it as a sort of crime scene recreation.” He looked at the phone and then said, “You’ll have to excuse me, ladies. It’s my boss, Vess. I’ve got to take this.” Oliver answered the phone and then walked into the hallway outside of the library.

Lee followed his boss.

“I don’t trust him,” said Nia.

“Yeah, I’m starting to agree with you,” said Mindy. “Hey, can I ask you something
that might be a little touchy?”

“Sure,” said Nia.

“Are you bullshitting him or what?”

Nia was surprised by the accusation. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve known each other for a while, and I’ve never seen you so…” Mindy tried to think of a word to describe Nia. “So psychically charged. I mean, just a couple days ago you were debating with me whether or not you even had a gift. I was the one pushing you into this, and now you’re like fucking Sylvia Brown or something.”

Nia cringed and shook her head at the comparison. “Don’t say that. Yuck.”

“You know what I mean. You’re either pulling a scam here to collect some cash, which I’d totally understand if that’s the case, or you’re suddenly a super-psychic.”

“I’m not a scam artist,” said Nia. “I’m not sure if I’ve just gotten better at reading things, or if it’s just this place. It feels like this whole town wants to tell me what happened here.”

“What the fuck did happen?” asked Mindy. “I can’t make heads or tails of what you’ve been talking about. I sure hope you’ve been keeping good notes.”