314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy) (42 page)

Somewhere, far through the fog, was the glow of light, but Paul was too close to The Watcher’s world to see past it. The fog clustered around the illumination, and it was growing thicker each second, blotting out the glow.

“Paul,” said a woman’s voice from nearby. “This way.”

He turned and saw a sliver of light appear beside him. It was a doorway that he hadn’t been able to find before, and someone was opening it for him. The world seemed to spin, as if he’d been floating one second and was now lying on the ground again. The tumult caused his stomach to lurch and he felt dizzy as he reached out for the exit.

Someone grabbed his hand and pulled. He gripped the stranger’s hand with both of his own and reoriented himself to the truth of where he was. Above, The Watcher screeched, its voice the sound of grinding metal, and its arms opened to allow the cords to descend again. They lashed out at Paul, and some tied themselves into nooses that hung down around him.

He was nearly free, but then one of the cords wrapped around his neck. The Watcher caught him, and he felt the rope scratch his flesh as it constricted. He felt the world kicked out from beneath him and suddenly he was hanging from a noose in his own apartment.

He knew where he was, and how this had happened. The noose was hanging from one of the rafters that made up the ceiling of his studio apartment. He could hear the steady beat of the music being played in the tattoo parlor below, and his mind was muddied by the drugs he’d consumed that evening. It was the high that had finally driven him to commit suicide.

Paul had struggled to stay sober since Alma left. He wanted to become a new man for her, so that he could win back her heart, but every day was a struggle that he wasn’t prepared for. He’d assumed sobriety would be easy, and that making the decision would signal a change in his life that would make everything better. That’s how it had been at first, but the malaise of sobriety was something he hadn’t been prepared for. The slow creep of depression came back, and temptation haunted every waking moment. When he finally succumbed, it seemed easier to just end it.

The rope choked him as he struggled and kicked. He tried to worm his fingers between his flesh and the cord, but it was too tight. He could feel it crushing his windpipe, and no air reached his lungs as he felt his eyes begin to bulge.

Paul reached for his pocket in desperation. He found the key that Rosemary had given him and pulled it out. He held it tightly in his hand as he closed his eyes. He concentrated on Alma, and how much he wanted to hold her in his arms again.

The rope lost its grip. Paul fell to the floor, but when he opened his eyes he was no longer in his apartment above the tattoo parlor. Instead, he was lying halfway out of the machine they’d discovered in the basement of the Cada E.I.B. facility.

He felt safe, but that feeling was lost when he heard The Watcher screech from behind him. Paul crawled away from the machine and through the blood that covered the floor. He looked behind and saw black cords snapping from within the door of Oliver’s machine. They reached out of the doorway and gripped the edges as if using it for leverage to draw forth an even larger
shape. The eyes began to peer through the tangle, and they focused on Paul as The Watcher came forth.

“Go,” said Rosemary, although Paul didn’t know where she was. “Get to Alma.”

Paul tried to get up, but the slick blood nearly felled him. He saw the nurse’s body on the floor, but noticed that she wasn’t dead. She was staring at him as he got up, although she didn’t move anything but her eyes. Oliver was lying just past the nurse, and he was awake and staring as well. He started to move, but Paul was faster. Paul got to his feet and headed out of the room. He kicked Oliver hard in the face as he passed, and then looked back in time to see the cords lashing out from the machine. He never turned back again, and ran as fast as he could to get out of the lab.

He had to make it back to the cabin.

He had to get to Alma.

Paul got to the door of Oliver’s lab, opened it, and ran through without hesitation. However, he stalled as he found himself running through an alley instead of a hallway. He looked up and saw a starry sky above, and he could smell the distinct scent of laundry nearby. In the distance he heard the steady rhythm of traffic going by. He was somewhere in the city again, although he didn’t understand how he’d gotten there.

“Fuck you, Kyle,” said Jacker from somewhere nearby.

Paul looked ahead and saw his friend standing on the stoop outside of what looked like a loading bay for a grocery store.
Jacker was standing over the body of a young man that he’d beaten nearly to death.

“
Jacker,” said Paul as he approached from behind.

Jacker
turned, startled, and asked, “Paul? What are you doing here?”

“This isn’t real,” said Paul. “
Jacker, none of this is real.”

Jacker
looked at the blood on his hands, and then back at his friend in confusion. He shook his head and said, “No, I did this, Paul. This is real. I did this.”

“Reach in your pocket,” said Paul as he took cautious steps toward his friend. “Look for the coin I gave you.”

“What coin?” asked Jacker.

“The purple sobriety coin.
It’s in your pocket. Trust me.”

Jacker
trusted his friend, and he reached into his pocket. He pulled the coin out and marveled at it. “How did you know?”

Paul got to his friend and said, “You’re just going to have to trust me. We’ve got to get to Alma.”

“Your ex?” asked Jacker, his recollection of the past few days was muddied by The Watcher’s lies.

Paul wasn’t sure where to go next, but he remembered transitioning from the lab to this alley after opening a door. He grabbed
Jacker’s arm and pulled him up the steps, and over the body of Debbie’s lover. He gripped the handle of the back door of the grocery store where Debbie worked and opened it, hoping to again pass through The Watcher’s illusion.

Beyond the doorway they could see Sycamore Street, across which was Terry’s cabin. Paul was sure Alma would be there, and he pulled
Jacker along with him. “Come on, we’ve got to finish this.”

3:14

Vess saw the formerly blue electricity turn green. He raised his hands in jubilation and cried out in joy. He’d won. After all this time, he was finally going to uncover the secret that had been lost to him for so many years.

“
Vess,” said a voice behind him. He turned his wheelchair to see who had spoken and saw a familiar figure standing near the door.

“Lyle?” asked
Vess as he saw the younger version of the man he’d taken on as an assistant so many years ago. “Is that you?”

Lyle
Everman nodded as he approached. “Yes, it’s me. It’s the man you sacrificed almost seventy years ago.”

Vess
gazed at the young man, and then over at the sleeper on the gurney. Lyle walked closer, and stopped beside the husk that he’d once resided within. He set his hand over the sleeper’s eyes, and pulled the lids closed. The sleeper shook, and his weak arms tried to reach out, but Lyle kept his hands over the skeletal man’s eyes. The sleeper reacted as if being suffocated, and his writhing eased until he finally stopped. Lyle retracted his hand, and then focused his attention back on Vess.

“I sent you to meet God,” said
Vess. “What did you find? Tell me what you saw.”

“I’ll do better than that,” said Lyle. “I’ll let you see for yourself.”

Black cords snaked their way out of Lyle’s sleeves, whipping and snapping below his fingers as he grinned. He stepped forward, but parts of his body were stuck where they’d been, as if he were a man stepping forth from a cast of himself. His skin pulled away, ripping as the bones protruded. He didn’t bleed as he broke free of the skinsuit he’d worn. From the shape of Lyle Everman stepped the creature that had been warped by The Watcher. A skull with chattering teeth emerged, and Lyle’s eyes stayed in their sockets as they stared down, lidless, at Vess. He grew taller than he’d been, and the cords that had been hiding under his clothes now swirled around his form, keeping his bones in place as he approached.

The Skeleton Man spoke, and the walls seemed to tremble with his words.

“Suffer with me.”

Cords shot out from The Skeleton Man’s extended arm. They pierced
Vess as the old man wailed in agony.

Then the metal walls of the CORD began to groan, and the door burst open as white fog poured out. The cords that had attacked
Vess now pulled back, releasing the old man.

A figure emerged from the mist. Her silhouette in the fog was splayed and broken, but the cords quickly collected to form The Watcher’s new guardian. Rosemary
Arborton emerged from the fog within the CORD, and The Skeleton Man backed away from her in uncertain fear.

“Lyle,” said Rosemary, although her voice had taken on the mechanical grind that of The Watchers. “You’re time is at an end.”

“No,” said The Skeleton Man. “I’m not finished yet. I haven’t had a chance to torture him.”

“He’s not yours to torture,” said Rosemary. “Lyle, I’m giving you a gift. I’m letting you leave. I’ve taken your place here.”

The door of the lab was open, and there was light coming in from the hallway. The glow intensified, and the source seemed to be drawing nearer. The shadow cast by the doorway was receding, and soon Lyle Everman was caught by the beam. He turned and put his arm over his eyes, but he couldn’t avoid the blinding light. The door slammed shut, blocking out the blooming glow, and Lyle Everman was no longer standing in the room.

Vess
was beginning to remember. The shroud of lies that had made him forget meeting The Watcher before was lifted, and he tried to pull on the joystick of his chair to make it wheel away. The motor grinded, but the wheels were caught in a mess of wires that had risen from the ground. Rosemary turned her attention to him.

“You need me,” said
Vess. “I’m the only one that knows how to reach you. Without me, you’ll never get more sacrifices.”

“But we took care of that, didn’t we?” asked Rosemary.

“No.” Vess shook his head in a panic to convince The Watcher’s new pet that it needed to keep him alive. “You need me. I’m the only one that knows how to turn the CORD on.”

“We don’t need you,” said Rosemary. “Your friends are making these machines as we speak. They’ve got Tesla’s notes, and now they’ll have yours as well.
Vess, your time has come.”

Vess
knew that his chair was trapped, and he tried to get out, but the cords slung themselves up and over his arms, tying him down. Then they slithered around his neck as others reached over the back of his head and hooked into his eyelids before pulling back so hard that he felt the lids tear back. Blood cascaded down over his eyes, and he couldn’t blink the liquid away. He was forced to see through the red haze as Rosemary advanced.

“You were right about one thing though,” said Rosemary. Cords were descending from the ceiling and connecting to Rosemary’s arms as she held them out in a Christ pose. She looked like a marionette, just a puppet dangling from its wires. Her voice was cacophonous, like the sound of a crumbling building that somehow formed into words. “It’s human nature to be guided by someone else’s strings.”

Vess cried out in agony as the wires pierced him.

3:14

Raymond was hiding in his sister’s closet and praying that he wouldn’t be found. He knew that he was trapped in this hell, but he didn’t know why. The Watcher had been exploiting Raymond’s fears, but he continued to focus more on Michael Harper, often forgetting all about Raymond as the boy hid. The Watcher was fascinated with the man, and seemed to be using Raymond as bait.

The nightmares kept starting similarly, with Raymond hiding in the closet as Michael searched the house. Eventually, The Watcher would arrive, sometimes in the form of Raymond’s sister, Terry, and other times as a woman that Raymond recognized as an older version of Michael’s daughter.

This time, however, Michael never came. It was as if both The Watcher and Michael had forgotten where Raymond was hiding, but he was wary of believing that was possible. He kept hiding, certain that if he opened the door The Watcher would be there waiting for him. He knew he was doomed.

“Ray?”

He heard his father’s voice, but it felt like it had been years since he’d heard it. He didn’t want to fall for what was certainly a trick.

“Raymond, are you here?”

Raymond eased the door open. He was scared to reveal himself, but the chance of seeing his father again seemed worth the torture he might have to endure. Just the promise of being held in the safety of his father’s arms was worth the risk.

“Daddy?”

Desmond came running down the hall, yelling his son’s name. He burst through the bedroom door and stopped in sudden shock and joy as he saw his son standing there. He fell to his knees and pulled Raymond in for a hug before beginning to inspect him. “Are you okay? Raymond? Oh my God, Raymond. I love you so much. Are you okay?”