The Haunting of Pitmon House (22 page)

I’m in!
she said, wondering if either Robert or Granger would notice, their
attention on Dominic.
I’ve cracked it!

Robert was in the River, and turned to her.
Then this wall
is toast!
he said, smiling. He dropped from the flow and raised the
sledgehammer. Behind him, Eliza could see Dominic’s red eyes. He’d seen her; he
knew she’d penetrated the wall.

Eliza pulled her head back inside. It was pitch black;
remaining in the River was of no use now that she’d broken the barrier; she returned
to her body and ran to join the others. As she turned the corner, joining
Granger and Robert, the floorboards shook as the first of Robert’s swings
against the wall struck with consequence and began to devastate the brick. He
swung repeatedly.

Granger yelled in pain. Eliza turned, and saw that Dominic
was behind him, some kind of knife in hand. He’d abandoned his ineffective
blowtorch and was slashing at Granger’s back.

Another swing of the sledgehammer caused several brick to fly
away, opening a small hole. Eliza rushed to Granger’s side, not sure how to
help. Dominic turned to her, raising the blade. She saw it glowing; a faint
blue dagger that he brought down again into Granger’s back. The man sunk to his
knees in agony. She felt helpless, not knowing how to help or save him.

A final swing and bricks began to collapse like toy blocks,
spilling out onto the floor, dust rising in the air. The hole was now big
enough to crawl through; light from a nearby dormer streaked inside. Robert
raised the sledgehammer again, knocking out another huge section of brick.

The opening in the wall caused Dominic to stop. He moved back,
and from around a stack of boxes Tena appeared, floating in the air, her toes
dragging on the floorboards.

“Eliza!” Robert called. “The legend shelf! Turn it off!”

She ran toward the hole created in the brick. Tena raced over
the floor toward the opening too, a race to see who could get there first.

No way,
Eliza thought.
She’s not getting in there before me!

She launched herself through the air, diving into the open
hole in the wall, hitting the floor on the other side. She felt a sharp cold
pass over her body as Tena followed her and reached her back.

Robert swung again, knocking down more brick, enlarging the
opening so that more light could enter the room.  

Just as she got to her feet, she felt the icy-cold grip of
Tena’s hand around her wrist, and the tip of a blade nicked the back of her
shirt.

Dominic!
she thought.
He’s behind me with the knife!

Robert, watching from outside, dropped the sledgehammer and
entered the room. “The legend shelf!” he yelled. “Turn it off!”

Eliza tried to wrestle Tena’s arm from her wrist and turned,
searching. The legend shelf was big, and should have glowing lines. There was a
small table with nothing on it, and in the corner was a long box that looked
like a coffin.

She felt the tip of Dominic’s blade pierce the skin of her
back, and she pulled away quickly, limiting the damage. Her left arm was being
held in place by Tena; they were coordinating, working together. Tena was
holding her so that Dominic could slice into her.

She pulled herself free, feeling the frozen fingers lose
their grip on her wrist, and ran to the coffin in the corner. It was made of
pine, and she lifted the lid easily.

Inside was a slab of stone, about three feet long, covered in
a cloth. She ripped the cloth from the surface, and saw the glowing lines of
the legend shelf. Unlike the one she’d seen at Aceveda’s, the lines were
blinking and changing colors randomly. She reached down to the edge of the
slab, feeling for the controls.

Something bit at her fingers. She pulled them away and looked
at them — she was bleeding.

She turned. Robert had drawn the attention of Dominic, who
was raising his blade to attack. Tena saw her at the coffin, and moved quickly
through the air, her face sliding up next to Eliza’s. She could feel the cold
breath of the ghost, chilling her face. Her breath was rancid, and her lips
curled up to reveal rotted teeth.

This time Tena’s icy hand went around Eliza’s neck. Eliza immediately
felt suffocated, unable to breathe.

“Turn it off!” Robert yelled. “Eliza!”

She turned back to the coffin, feeling Tena’s fingers sliding
on her neck. She couldn’t see what had bit her when she reached under the edge
of the legend shelf; there was no movement, no hint of anything animal.

If I don’t turn this thing off,
she thought,
Tena and Dominic will
win. They’ll find our bodies up here eventually, like they found Nick.

She reached down, fear welling up in her. Few things scared
her more than the idea of reaching into a space where something was waiting to
bite.

It’s like her stick,
she thought.
I know it’s coming, and I know it’s going to
hurt. I can’t let that stop me.

She reached down, her fingers finding several dials. She
remembered the ones Aceveda had taught her.
This one is an axis dial,
she thought.
Move higher.

Something pierced the skin of her fingers, the feeling of a
razor slice into the tips of the skin, just below the fingernails. She winced,
wanting to remove her hands, but continued feeling along the edge.

She was beginning to lose her eyesight; constriction from
Tena’s hands around her throat had cut off oxygen, and she wanted desperately
to abandon her search for the legend shelf’s controls, wanting instead to reach
up and pull on Tena’s hands and allow herself to breathe.

She continued to the top edge of the shelf. The lines on the
stone display blinked and shifted rapidly, indicative of some error or fault
that had caused the shelf to malfunction. The feeling of something soft and
furry crawled over her fingers, and she felt her entire body shudder in horror
as she resisted pulling her hand back.

When she touched the rocker switch that she guessed would be
the main switch, something sliced deeply into the pad of her index finger and
wedged into the bone. She screamed, and pushed on the rocker, feeling it drive
something even deeper into her finger.

Instantly she could breathe. She turned; Robert’s arms were
covered in blood, reaching out into the air where the ghost of Dominic no
longer appeared.

She raised her hands; the tips of her index and middle finger
on her right hand were shredded, and blood was pouring down them, dripping from
her palm.

Robert looked at her, and she could tell he intended to come
to her, but she stopped him. “Where’s Granger?”

Robert turned and crawled out the hole in the wall. She
followed, and they found Granger on the floor, bleeding from wounds in his
back.

“Dad!” Robert yelled. He knelt next to his father.

“We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” Eliza said. “Those cuts
look deep.”

Robert tried to pull his father up, but the big burly man was
too much for him. “I’m not going to be able to carry him out.”

Eliza stepped to his side and reached for one of Granger’s
arms, wrapping it around her neck. They both lifted, and Granger rose from the
floor, hanging between them.

“Let’s get him as far downstairs as we can,” Eliza said, and
they began to haul the man through the attic.

It took several minutes to move Granger down the stairs and
out of the house, onto the front lawn.

“Do you want to call an ambulance?” Eliza asked.

“Yeah, but from what phone?” Robert asked. “It might be
faster to drive him there, like we did with Rachel.”

“Alright,” Eliza replied. “Let’s get him to the car.”

She helped Robert maneuver Granger to the Fiat, and placed
him into the back seat.

“Can you drive him to the hospital on your own?” Eliza asked.
“Your arms look bad.”

“They look worse than they are,” Robert said. “You need to
see a doctor, too. Your hands!”

“I didn’t go through all that to have it seal up again,” she
replied. “I’m going to move whatever’s in that room out of it. Come back for me
once he’s been cared for.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you here alone. What if
Tena or Dominic come back?”

“Their energy dissipated the second that legend shelf turned
off,” Eliza said. “Go. Get your dad the help he needs. I’ll be waiting when you
come back.”

Robert started up the car and looked at her skeptically.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, reassuringly. “I’m a big girl.”

He put the car in gear and pulled out.

She turned, walking back to the house. They’d left the gate
and doors open as they hauled Granger out of the house; she didn’t have the key
to lock the gate behind her, so she tried to make it look as closed as
possible.

Inside the house she pulled one of the dust covers from the
furniture and tore at it, ripping up makeshift bandages for her hands. Her
fingers stung with the pain of the deep cuts, and she winced as she tried to
stop the flow of blood.

Then she ascended the stairs, making her way back to the
attic, wondering as she passed Reid and Agnes’ rooms if they were aware of the
battle that had just occurred.
Probably the most action this place has seen
in decades,
she thought.

Climbing the narrow staircase to the attic, she saw blood smeared
along the wainscoting, and wondered which of the three of them it came from.
She hoped the old man would be OK, but the weapon Dominic had been using wasn’t
normal, and she was fearful some kind of inexplicable damage had been done to
him that might confound the doctors at the hospital. She felt a small tingling
in her back where the tip of Dominic’s blade had nicked her, and she wondered
if she might have the same problem.

They’ll deal with the stabs at least,
she thought.
But I hope he’s not
like Shane.

Shane. There’s got to be something up there that can help him
.

A thin trail of blood led her back to the smashed wall. Dust
still roiled in the air, making her want to cough. Light from a nearby dormer dimmed
as clouds outside darkened the day, and it wasn’t enough to reach inside the
hole in the wall and fully illuminate it to her liking. She switched on her
flashlight and stepped over the collapsed brick, entering the room.

The small table was overturned;
must have happened while I
was fighting with Tena,
she thought. She could still feel the sensation of
the cold fingers around her throat.

The coffin sat at the other end of the room against a wall.
She walked toward it, shining the flashlight into it, hoping to see whatever it
was that had bitten her fingers.

The stone surface of the legend shelf was dark, its formerly
chaotic lights turned off. It looked so simple and unremarkable without the
lights; she wondered if anyone would even think of it as anything other than a
piece of flat slate if they didn’t know its power.

Only two other things were in the coffin with the shelf: a
collection of bones, including a malformed skull, and a spindle that looked
like a giant wooden spool. She reached for it, lifting it out of the coffin. It
was about six inches high, and wrapped around it was a thin cord that was
composed of multiple colorful threads, braided together.

“I need to get this stuff out of this room,” she muttered to
herself.
I can wrap the bones and this spindle in one of the dust cloths and
carry it down inside that. But the legend shelf…

She’d never tried to lift one, so she wasn’t sure how heavy
it was. She wanted to reach down and find out, but she was concerned that she
might be bitten again.

She leaned down into the coffin and angled her flashlight so
she could look under the right edge of the shelf. The controls were there,
subtle, worked carefully into the underside of the device. There was no
movement; no scuttling of feet or gnashing of tiny teeth.

They’re gone,
she thought.
Whatever was under there, it’s gone now.

She slipped the flashlight into her back pocket and reached
under the legend shelf, carefully lifting.

Thirty pounds?
she thought, knowing the weight of boxes that arrived at the
gift shop.
Maybe thirty-five?

She raised it out of the coffin and started walking, carrying
it carefully through the house. While the giant empty structure still kept her
senses on alert, she didn’t feel the nervousness she’d always felt before; transporting
the legend shelf, she felt like a conqueror, carrying away the treasure. She
felt like she had defeated the place.

Robert arrived an hour later, a couple of large bandages on
his arms. She was waiting for him on the lawn, just outside of view from the
iron gate. She had the umbrella, the legend shelf, and the sack of bones on the
lawn next to her.

“How is he?” she asked.