314 Book 2 (30 page)

Alma was ten-years-old again.

She was in front of Terry’s cabin, but couldn’t fathom how she’d been transported to this moment in time. All she knew was that she had to get away.

Alma ran through the overgrown weeds and to the hot asphalt road as the sun blazed above. It was a
blistering March day in Widowsfield, and Amanda Harper’s sedan was approaching from up the road.

The window wasn’t broken yet because Amanda hadn’
t thrown the brick through it; she was only just now arriving.

Alma dashed to the other side of the road to avoid being spotted.
She was surprised to see that her feet were soaking wet as she went.

“This isn’t right,” said Alma as she looked at her feet in the grass. She was across the street now, but the grass here had been recently mowed. She looked back down the street in the direction the car had been coming from, but saw no sign of it. Then she heard the humming girls again, and looked in the other direction to see the parade of children walking away from her.

The little girl with black hair that had been watching Alma was now at the back of the line of children. She didn’t appear like a corpse anymore. Instead, she looked exactly like Alma had when she was that age.

The girl waved at Alma, and then vanished along with the rest of the children, as if they had
been apparitions all along.

Alma closed her eyes and sat in the grass. Her hands were no longer bleeding, and she
wasn’t in the body of a child. Alma was herself again, but nothing made sense anymore. She was lost, in every conceivable meaning of the word, and began to weep.

“Just kill me,” said Alma as she sat on the lawn. “Go ahead and get it over with. I don’t care anymore. I’m done trying to make sense of this.
I give up.”

The sunshine was blotted out by the fog that appeared over the cabin. It swelled and drifted down to form a circle around her, blocking everything except Terry’s cabin, a short stretch of road, and the lawn that Alma was sitting on.

Green electricity sparked within the cloud, and what appeared to be massive, black ropes were winding within the grey, as if all of Widowsfield had been caught within a tightening noose. It was an image that should’ve terrified Alma, but she’d been deadened by the horror of this place.

She reached into the pocket of her jeans and took out her keys. She he
ld onto the teddy bear keychain. It inexplicably calmed her.

“Alma, come on!” Jacker screamed from across the street. He was running to Terry’s house, and waving for Alma to follow. She knew it was a false image, a recreation of the moment when they had fled the twisting corpse of the woman that lived in the house behind her. It was as if the town was showcasing memories of what had occurred here; just short glimpses of the various horrors that had transpired throughout the years.

As soon as he had appeared, Jacker was lost, another victim of the medley of time. Alma felt like a joker slipped into a deck of cards, allowed to wander among the other suits as the dealer shuffled. Even she was changing, flipping between ages, at one moment young and the next sixteen years older.

The only constant was the keychain.

The only sanity was in the smile of the teddy bear that dangled on the ring.

“No matter how many times you break my heart,” said a stranger from somewhere in the mix of wavering reality. “
You’re still my girl, for as long as you want to be.”

Alma’s heart raced, and a sense of hopefulness returned. She felt as if the world had stopped spinning and she broke into a smile even as tears cascaded down her cheeks. She gripped the keychain and spoke a name that she hadn’t realized she’d forgotten.

“Paul?”

The only memory that returned to her was a name, but that was all she needed to find the strength to carry on. Just the name sufficed, at least for now.

Widowsfield

Just before midnight

March 12
th
, 2012

Michael Harper was able to follow the security trucks back to a facility on the north side of town, near the Jackson Reservoir. The van had parked at an entrance near the back, past a row of cars that were covered by tarps. Nurses were transporting the bodies out of the van, and were taking precautions by strapping the victims to the gurneys first.

Michael lifted the tarp on one of the cars, a 1986 Chevy Nova, and opened the back door. He crawled in and then waited until he heard the van drive off again.
Before they left, Michael heard one of the guards talking about an intruder on the north side of town, near the reservoir. He breathed a sigh of relief, because he’d snuck in on the south side. They weren’t searching for him.

After
waiting a few more moments to make sure it was safe, he got out of the musty car and crossed the lot. The door where the bodies had been taken through was unlocked, and he did his best to stay quiet as he went in.

The halls within the building were only lit by caged emergency lights, casting an orange hue over everything. He could hear the rickety clatter of a gurney’s wheels as it was pushed along somewhere far away, but the pervading noise was the hum of the lights above. His boots squeaked on the tile floor and he cursed as he glanced down at the footst
eps he was leaving behind. He’d traveled through a lot of mud on his trip through Widowsfield, but he didn’t have time to worry about the trail he was leaving.

He turned a corner too fast and was startled to see two nurses standing over a parked gurney. They were
standing at an elevator and Michael waited for them to enter before daring to approach. Once the doors closed, he hurried to watch the digital counter to see what floor they went to. They were headed down, and the elevator stopped at B2. He didn’t want to risk taking the elevator himself, so he went to the nearby stairwell.

The stairs stopped at B2, and Michael was cautious as he opened the door in time to see the nurses moving the body down the hall and into a room on the right. He gripped his pistol tight and then followed behind the two women.

“They moved the other one upstairs already,” said one of the nurses as she opened the door.

Michael froze, his gun pointed at the woman
, as he debated shooting her. She was older, perhaps in her late fifties or early sixties, and was overweight. Her hair was tied up in a bun, and she reminded Michael of his mother before she’d succumbed to lung cancer and lost a vast amount of weight. The nurse backed into the hall, oblivious to the man with the gun pointed at her.

“I’ll go check on him.”

“All right,” said the other nurse from inside the room. “Tell Oliver that the blonde haired one might not be stable.”

“Okay, I will,” said the nurse in the hall as she let the door close and turned to face Michael. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth when she saw him.

“Keep your mouth shut or so help me God I’ll put a bullet right in the middle of your head.”

The nurse kept her hands over her mouth and nodded.

“You’ve got my daughter in there. Her name’s Alma Harper.”

The nurse whimpered and then shook her head.

“If she’s not in there, then where did you take her?” asked Michael.

The nurse was frightened to move her hands and answer, but did so when Michael urged her to. “Alma Harper is dead,” said the overweight woman.

“You killed her,” he asked, uncertain if he should be relieved or angry.

“No, she’s been dead for years.”

“Bullshit,” said Michael as he grimaced and aimed down the barrel of his gun.

“I swear,” said the frightened lady. “But Ben’s here. I can take you to Ben if you want.”

Michael lowered the gun. “What?”

“
If you’re looking for one of the Harper children, Ben’s been here for sixteen years,” said the woman. “I’ll take you to see him if you want.” She was near tears and her hands were shaking as she spoke.

Michael felt sick as he considered the possibility that the child he’d allowed himself to forget was still alive. He struggled to speak, but couldn’t formulate a coherent sentence as the nurse waited.

“Do you want me to take you to him?” asked the nurse.

Michael nodded.

“Okay, I will, just please put the gun away. They make me nervous,” said the woman. “I’m Helen. What’s your name?”

“Michael,” he said in a whisper. “Michael Harper.”

She looked at him queerly. “Ben’s father? I was told you were dead.”

He frowned and then shook his head. “Clearly not. Who told you that?”

“Oliver, the one in charge here. He said your wife killed you before she drove her car into the reservoir.”

“Well, Oliver doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Now take me to my son. Take me to Ben and I won’t hurt you.”

She walked past Michael and motioned for him to follow as she went back the way he’d come. There was one other door on the left, and she opened it for him.

“He’s in here, with the others.”

“You first,” said Michael as he held the door behind her.

Helen was about to go in, but then stopped and said, “I should warn you. Ben’s not well. None of them are.”

Michael looked in past her and saw a large, rectangular room filled with beds. Bodies were laid out, white sheets pulled up to their necks, and tubes snaked down from IV bags perched on metal stands beside them. The tubes reminded Michael of black wire, although he wasn’t sure why.

“What did you people do to them?” asked Michael.

“Nothing,” said Helen. “They never woke up after what happened here, sixteen years ago. Their muscles have atrophied. They’re barely alive.”

“
Take me to my boy.” Michael was conflicted. He wanted to see the child that had been stolen both from his life and his memory, but was equally frightened of the implications. For the first time in several years, Michael had to wonder if he wanted Ben to be alive or dead.

Helen led Michael through the room, between the beds that were occupied by sickly wraiths. The men and women in this room were near skeletal, and all of them stared at the ceiling as if viewing horrors they couldn’t look away from. Their eyes were smeared with gel to keep them from drying out, and
the patients breathed as if suffering bronchitis, wheezing and sputtering. The room stank of sterility, that distinct odor of bleached sheets and overused sanitizer that, thanks to hospitals, had become synonymous with death.

Michael thought of his mother, staring up at the ceiling of her sister’s house, dying as she ignored her only child’s farewell, every tortured breath a veiled curse.

“Here he is,” said Helen as she stood at the last bed in the third row. Ben Harper stared at the ceiling as his father approached.

“Is this really him?”
asked Michael as he took a tremulous step closer.

Ben’s face was scarred, a result of the severe chemical burn he’d suffered sixteen years ago. His eyes seemed wider than the rest of the near-corpses that filled the room, and his pupils were fully dilated. Vaseline was smeared over his eyes, just like the others, and sealed in his tears. His lips were covered in sores as his mouth sat agape. A wet clicking sound came from his throat and Michael stepped back in fear.

“Don’t worry,” said Helen. “They move their tongues sometimes, as if they’re speaking, but they never say a word.”

Michael Harper stared into his son’s eyes, and suddenly remembered him.

All of the emotions of having a boy flooded into him and he took a step back as he struggled to catch his breath. “My boy,” he said over and over, looking alternately between Helen and the adult man on the gurney. “He’s right there. That’s my boy.” Michael was assaulted by the emotions. All of the happiness, sorrow, love, fear, uncertainty, and adoration that comes with a lifetime of fatherhood swelled within him all at once. The pictures that he’d been shown of the boy now returned as true memories, laden with all the emotions he’d forgotten he ever experienced. Christmas mornings, a first bike, Amanda’s labor, catching the boy kissing a neighbor girl in the shed, along with a slew of other memories all rattled Michael’s sanity as he stared down at the boy that had grown into a man.

“This is my boy,” said Michael again as tears began to fall, tracing the deep wrinkles beside his eyes.

“Hello?” another nurse entered the room from a different door. She was younger than Helen, and thinner, with short blonde hair and red glasses. “Oh my God.” She gasped when she saw Michael and Helen.

“Get over here,” said Michael as he pointed the gun at the second nurse. “Right now
. Get over here and no one gets hurt.” He wiped away tears as he threatened the stranger.

“Helen?” asked the second nurse as if seeking her elder’s permission.

“He says he’s Michael Harper,” said Helen.

“What?” asked the second nurse.

“Nevermind,” said Michael. “Just shut up and get over here. I’m going to need your help. Both of you.” He continued to point the gun at the younger nurse. “I’m taking my boy back. Hurry up.”