314 Book 2 (34 page)

They heard footsteps in the hall and realized that Oliver was coming. Then Nia heard Lee as he continued to tell Oliver about a murder/suicide that had occurred in Widowsfield. The two of them seemed obsessed with the story.

I knew that The Skeleton Man wanted to find Alma Harper. As soon as I understood that, I realized that it was up to me to protect her. Whatever Oliver was up to in Widowsfield, Alma was a key he didn’t realize he needed. I had to keep it that way.

Sneaking off to stare at the house on Sycamore inspired me to begin my lies. After that, I worked tirelessly to keep Oliver from ever seeking out poor little Alma Harper.
I needed to do whatever I could to make sure she didn’t fall into his grasp.

Lost in Widowsfield

“We have to hurry,” said Ben.

Terry’s cabin was damp and smelled of mold, a victim of abandonment. Yet, in the very next moment, Alma was struck by the scent of her father’s drugs, as if the cabin couldn’t decide what year it was and was flipping through memories in time. Steam rose from a pot on the stove, and Ben was standing in front of it, his back to Alma.

Was this a dream or a memory? What’s the difference?

The plastic dog crate shook as Alma approached. Killer growled at her, and she moved aside to stay as far from the vicious creature as possible.

“Is Dad upstairs?” asked Alma as her mind accepted her situation.

No one questions a dream when they find themselves stuck in the middle of it. Reality is subject to interpretation. Alma was a child again, conscious of her life after this moment, but still trapped within the structure of the memory. What use are memories if not as anchors of perception?

Ben was boiling water to take upstairs, but Alma didn’t know why. She’d never been invited into their father’s room. She had no recollection of the horrors that occurred there.

Or did she? Was there blood on her hands?

“Here,” said Ben, still standing at the stove, faced away from her.

Another Ben was sitting on the couch, staring at the television as a seemingly random series of pictures flashed on the screen. The child on the couch never moved, but she thought she heard him breathing. The faint sound of teeth chattering came from somewhere in the house.

Alma glanced down at Killer’s cage. She hated the dog, and had nearly been bitten by him on several occasions. He stayed in his small cage, behind the metal, barred door, and growled at them every time they walked through the kitchen. He only had enough room to spin around, and slept on a urine soaked towel.

The cage shook, and small, human fingers protruded from the air vents on the side of the plastic case. The fingers beckoned Alma closer, but she walked away from them in disgust. Again, this was something her mind refused to accept, just like the sight of a second Ben on the couch. Surely this was a dream that Alma was stuck in.
That must be why the cabin smelled different every few seconds, alternating between a musty, forgotten home and the cabin she recalled from her youth.

“What do you want?” asked Alma as she approached her brother.

“Do what Daddy asks,” said Ben. He stood rigid, refusing to look at his sister.

Alma stood at his side and leaned over the counter beside the stove so she could look at her brother’s face. Ben shied away, turning so that he was looking to the right as she stood on his left.

The side of his face was scarred, a mess of scratches and scabs, and it appeared to glisten, as if a layer of gel had been placed over him. She reached out to touch him, but he pushed her away with his left hand, which was hidden within an oven mitt. Yellow pus dripped from the glove and down his arm, hanging from his elbow as if ready to drip, but too thick to do it.

“Do what Daddy asks,” said Ben again.

Someone tapped at the window in the den. Alma glanced back at it and was surprised by the way the room had changed from how it had been moments ago. She could’ve sworn the den had two couches in it, one in front of the television and another pressed against the wall, just under the window. However, the couch beneath the window had disappeared. The drapes fluttered as wind came in from outside, but the window had been closed before.

Alma approached warily. It was dark in the cabin, and she didn’t see the glass on the ground before it crunched under her feet. The window was broken, and a red brick sat on the floor where the couch had been.

The Ben that had been sitting on the couch was gone now, but the television was still on. All that was on the screen was a large eyeball that was turned her way.

“Come to the lake,” said a young girl’s voice from outside. “We died there.”

“What?” asked Alma as she tried to avoid the glass on the floor to get to the window.

“You have to be dead, Alma. Otherwise they’ll come for you. If they come for you, then they’ll give you to
The Watcher in the Walls.”

It was dark outside, which didn’t seem right. This was supposed to have occurred during the day, but only the stars and the moon lit up the street. She tried to see who had been speaking, but only caught a glimpse of a procession of young girls walking down the sidewalk, headed toward the lake on the north side of town.

“Don’t listen to the witch,” said Ben. “All she does is lie. You can’t trust the liars.”

“Alma, we never meant to lie,” said Rachel.

Alma was shocked to hear her friend’s voice. She’d almost forgotten that Rachel and Stephen had brought her back to Widowsfield. She looked at the couch where Ben had been watching television and saw the couple sitting there, both dressed impeccably, as if ready to start a newscast at any moment. Rachel tried to smile, but it was obvious that she’d been crying. Stephen sat with his legs crossed and twirled Rachel’s wedding ring in his hand.

“What are you doing here?” asked Alma, confused as to why two people she knew from adulthood had shown up in a memory
from her past.

“We wanted to apologize,” said Stephen as he focused on the ring. Then he looked up at her and shrugged. “You know, for lying to you.
I paid Aubrey to have sex with Jacker.” He closed his fingers over Rachel’s wedding ring. “I manipulated the footage so I could be famous. I’m a liar. You can’t trust me.” He was wearing a white dress shirt, and a spot of blood began to expand on his chest. Alma watched as it got larger before he put his hand over it. He stood up and said, “If you’ll excuse me.”

“They killed us,” said Rachel. “They shot us for being here.”

“I’m the only one you can trust, Alma,” said Ben. “I’m the only one that loves you.”

She heard a tapping at the window again and turned to look, but saw nothing outside.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” said Rachel. “That’s just Hank.”

“Who?” asked Alma.

“Hank Waxman,” said Stephen.

“Jacker?” asked Alma. “Why is he outside?”

“You kicked him out,” said Rachel as if Alma should’ve known that.

“I did? Why?”

“Because he lied,” said Ben. “And now you need to do what I’m asking. You have to hurry. Daddy’s here, and he’s not going to be able to help me unless you take this water up to him. He’s trying to protect me again.”

Ben lifted the boiling water off the stove and set it on the counter, all without turning to look at Alma. He slipped off the oven mitts and the yellow, gluey liquid clung from the mitt to the tips of his fingers before lazily
falling in a loop towards the floor.

“He told me not to go upstairs,” said Alma.

“If you love me, then you’ll do this,” said Ben. “Just take the water up to the bedroom.” He walked along the counter until he was beside a butcher’s block where he took out one of the knives. “I’ll be up right after you.”

Alma wasn’t scared of Ben, despite his odd appearance and actions. She felt a
n abiding love for him that drove her to do as he asked. Alma put on the oven mitts, and her hands squished in the gelatinous liquid within. She put her hands on either side of the pot and noticed for the first time that she wasn’t a child in this recollection, but her adult self. She was standing tall over Ben, and he kept his head turned so that she couldn’t see him. He was crying.

“It’ll be okay, Ben,” said Alma. “I’m here now. I’ll never leave you again.”
She felt as if she were comforting one of her students as the child wept.

Ben nodded, and whimpered an answer, “Thanks.”

Alma lifted the pot and walked out of the kitchen. The dog in the cage growled as she passed, but when Alma looked down there was nothing in the cage except for the urine soaked towel that lined the bottom. Rachel and Stephen had disappeared as well. The television flickered with light as a thousand pictures flashed one after another, pausing only momentarily as an eye stared out at the den, glancing back and forth as if desperately searching for something.

Alma went to the stairs and looked up, expecting to see light coming from the bedroom. Instead, the second floor was shrouded by a thick, grey cloud. The fog receded when she too
k her first step up the stairs. It pulled back in the direction of Terry’s bedroom.

“Hurry up,” said Michael Harper.

Alma froze when she heard her father. She was terrified of the man, both as an adult and as a child, and remembered the one time she’d stood up to him. It was in the parking lot outside of the awful Chinese restaurant where she’d met with Stephen and Rachel. She remembered holding her keys in her hand, the keys like knives sticking out between her fingers, and striking her father.

“
Come on, move it,” said her father.

Alma walked down the wet hall. Cold liquid squished between her toes and the fog receded with every step, leaving behind a slimy residue on the walls as it went.

“You’re doing good, pal,” said Michael Harper, but his voice sounded far away. “Daddy came back for you. Daddy loves you. Daddy’s going to take you home.”

“Dad
?” asked Alma as the fog parted to reveal the doorway to Terry’s bedroom.

A tall figure stood in front of the bed, but Alma wasn’t certain she saw him correctly. His form was a twisting mass of black cords, all grinding against one another like a spool of wire being pulled taut. He
lifted his arm and held his hand out to her, welcoming her in, and the fog formed smoky wings that sprouted out behind him. The wings spread out over the entire ceiling, pooling above as if Alma was staring into a tub of water. The cords were within the fog as well, fainter and lost deeper within the haze, but Alma could see that the man was attached to the ceiling by the black wires. The wings now reminded her of a harp and its mirror image, with dark strings that were slick with blood.

“It’s so good to see you,” said the winged creature that stood in the center of the room.
“I thought Ben might sneak you past me.”

Alma dropped the pot of water, but the fog shot out across the floor to catch it. The pot settled within the mist as if gently landing in a soft cushion. Then the fog dissipated and the pot was left safely on the floor.

“Is this a nightmare?” asked Alma.

“
Only at first,” said the creature. “You learn to find happiness here. We should wait for all of us to find our way here. Many of us are lost now, because this little girl is clinging to something. This little fly is making a mess of our web.”

She heard the chatter of teet
h behind her and turned to see The Skeleton Man standing at the end of the hall, at the top of the stairs. He was quivering as if cold or scared, and his face was draped in layers of skin that he’d ripped off of fresh victims. Alma knew he’d murdered Stephen and Rachel, and had used their flesh to cover his bones. He watched with stolen eyes that sat within the black sockets of his skull. Then he reached out to the wall and pinched it before drawing out a long cord, similar to the ones that extended from the wings of the creature in Terry’s room. The Skeleton Man pushed the wire up through his lower jaw and then out through a hole in his cheek before looping it around again, tying his jaw so the chattering would calm.

“I want to go home,” said Alma.

“I want to go home,” echoed The Skeleton Man.

“You are home, my dear,” said the
wire creature. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to come back.”

“Who are you?”

“Let’s not waste time with names,” said the creature. “What is a name but the first attempt to control something; to bend a thing to your will? If you heard a dog howl outside your window, doesn’t it lose all sense of mystery and danger once you’ve given the dog a name?”

“What do you want with me?”

“To start over,” said the creature. “Ben sacrificed himself for you, and now it’s time you returned the favor. Things in Widowsfield have been very tense since the last time you were here. Your mother did you no favor by peering in at us. Your brother has been yearning for you ever since.”

Alma
heard the chatter of teeth as The Skeleton Man walked up behind her. He set his hands on her shoulders and she felt ice cold where he touched her.

“I missed you so much,” said
The Skeleton Man, his wired jaw beside her ear.

“Someone lied to us about you, Alma,” said the creature made of wire that was now hovering in the center of the room. The wires that formed his body were receding into the walls, leaving gaps in his midsection like a wool sweater being slowly
unthreaded.