314 Book 2 (12 page)

Aubrey reached out of the vehicle, her arms bloodied as she pushed through the remaining
shards of glass. Then a third arm reached over the sill, and then a fourth.

Stephen’s gaze
was locked, the horror stealing his senses. The others ran, and Rachel came back to grab her husband.

“Come on
! Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m coming for you!” said Aubrey and another woman’s voice simultaneously. She pulled her shredded limbs out of the van. She was a shambling mess of flesh and clothes, her face split down the nose to her upper lip, a second face sprouting from within.
Her body slunk out of the van’s broken window and hit the ground, then rose up using four hands, her two legs crawling behind. A spurt of blood escaped her side, coloring pavement and shards of glass. White foam spewed from the emerging mouth, and Stephen could smell the acrid stench of drugs that he’d experienced in the cabin.

The demon started to chase them, darting across the pavement like a spider, nimbly covering the space in a matter of seconds.
Stephen finally turned and started to run toward the others, back into town.

A sign on the left seemed to mock them.

“Welcome to Widowsfield.”

I don’t know how old The Watcher in the Walls is. At first, I thought he was born on March 14
th
, 1996, but I was wrong about that. Now I think he’s existed forever, an entity that resides in the memories that the world holds onto. However, he was altered by the events of that day, and I can’t get the thought out of my head that he’s only a piece of the sentience that had been hiding in those walls. He exists now, free of the constraints that tied him down, and is crafting his lies carefully over all his fractured timelines.

He lost control though, and didn’t know
it until it was too late. When The Skeleton Man started weaving his own lies, a different entity chased after him. She’s wreaking havoc in his lies, constantly seeking revenge and watching through the eyes of her victims. Everyone in The Skeleton Man’s manufactured timelines is terrified of the red-haired woman. She is a threat to him, and thus to everyone he controls.

She’s killing people, and
The Skeleton Man can’t stop her.

Inside of Terry’s Cabin in Widowsfield

January 20
th
, 2007

Nia was alone.

The room that she’d been led to was musty, smelling like many basements throughout the Midwest despite being on the second floor. It was once a bedroom, with an attached bathroom, but all of the furniture had been taken out. The ceiling
had yellowed, a sign that whoever had lived here was a smoker. She gazed up at the popcorn ceiling, the ridges made brighter by the yellow within the divots, as if a maid had once attempted to clean the grime, but gave up after a rudimentary wipe. The carpet felt damp on Nia’s bare feet, probably a result of the abnormally warm day.

When they’d left Chicago, it was bitterly cold, but a warm front was sweeping through Missouri, melting the snow and leaving the air as sticky and humid as it would be four months from now, when spring would turn to summer. Even the birds seemed fooled, chattering outside as if preparing for a lush rebirth. It felt like a lie – as if the entire world was playing a hoax on Nia as she padded through the room, the sunlight dappling the carpet through the
tree branches outside the window.

She marveled at how the shadows of the tree looked like outstretched claws on the wall beside her.

Someone knocked at the door, startling Nia enough to cause her to yelp.

The door creaked open to reveal Oliver peering in. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s okay,” said Nia, her hand over her breast. “You just startled me.”

“Any luck?” He walked in as quiet as possible, as if there were a sleeping baby in the room that he didn’t want to disturb.

“No, sorry,” said Nia as she glanced around the empty room. She put her hands in the pockets of her jeans out of habit as Oliver approached. “I wish I had better news for you, but I just don’t pick up anything.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Oliver as he moved away from the blinding light shining in through the window. “I’d rather you be honest with us than make something up. We’ve had others out here that tried to pretend they could pick up on spiritual energy, but it was all bullshit.” He seemed flippant and dismissive about the subject.

“You don’t strike me as the type of person that would believe in the paranormal,” said Nia. “I would’ve pegged you as a stodgy, scientific type.”

He grinned and then shrugged. “Guilty as charged. If I may be frank,” he looked at her for approval and Nia urged him to go on. “I’m used to dealing with people like your friend downstairs. Please don’t take offense, but people like her ruin it for people like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for instance, she’s downstairs right now, telling Lee that this house was used for satanic rituals.”

Nia pursed her lips, but couldn’t conceal her emerging smile.

Oliver pointed at her as he laughed, inciting her to do the same. “You know what I mean. She’s doing her best, God love her, but she’s totally full of it.”

“Well, maybe I am too,” said Nia. “I have no idea how I know the things I do; the way the past just sort of sneaks into my head. It doesn’t feel paranormal or anything, and it most certainly doesn’t feel like a gift.”

“I think that’s a good sign,” said Oliver. “I’m always suspect of people that parade around a sixth sense. It always seems like a plea for attention, or a desperate attempt to stand out in a crowd.” He walked around the room, avoiding the sun, with his hands behind his back, like a real estate developer inspecting a possible purchase. “I always figured that if we found a person with a true gift, they would be ashamed of it. After all, it’s a basic human trait to want to fit in. Conformity is in our DNA, and anything that pushes us away from normal has a tendency to haunt us.”

“The way you talk reminds me of one of my math teachers from high school,” said Nia.

“Me?
Math? No, I faked my way through school. The company might refer to me as a scientist, but it’s little more than a title. Are you in college?”

“Not yet,” said Nia. “My mom couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage, let alone send any of her kids to college.”

“Well, maybe you can use some of the money from helping us to go to college. What would you major in?”

Nia considered it for a moment before answering. “Something artistic. I’m never happier than I am when drawing. I find it a lot easier to draw something than to explain it, if that makes sense.”

“You’ll have to tell Lee,” said Oliver as he thumbed back at the stairs down the hall. “He’s an artist too. I’ve had him sketching some of the buildings around town and he’s pretty amazing. You’ll have to check out his work.”

Nia looked down at her toes as they pressed into the carpet. “This carpet’s been here a long time.”

“Are you getting a vision?” asked Oliver, excited.

Nia laughed and shook her head. “No, I’m just saying that it’s dirty as hell.”

“Oh, gotcha,” said Oliver, his excitement deflated. He wandered across the room, toward the window.

“Are you ever going to tell me what this is all about, and what you’re trying to do here?” asked Nia.

He stopped at the window and turned to her, but the sun prevented her from looking directly at him. “We’re just trying to solve a mystery. That’s all.”

“You’re putting an awful lot of resources into it.”

“It’s important to us,” said Oliver.

“And who is ‘us’? Who is it that you work for?”

“Just a European investment firm,” said Oliver. “Nothing terribly exciting. One of our facilities is located near here, and we’re trying to find out what happened to some of our employees. That’s all.”

She didn’t believe him. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” said Oliver with a chuckle. “Do you suspect a dastardly, ulterior motive?” he asked in the voice of an old-time villain, then twirled an imaginary mustache.

“Don’t
be offended. I don’t trust anyone,” said Nia.

“I imagine someone with your talents would find it hard to trust people. You know, they say the average person tells 200 lies over the course of a single day.”

“I believe it,” said Nia as she stroked her toes across the carpet.

“I wonder how often you end up knowing the truth as someone lies to your face.”

Nia sighed and nodded. “One of the many reasons I’m single.”

“I can only imagine,” said Oliver.

She felt like an animal at the zoo, being stared at by a curious patron as the thin man stood beside the window. “You’re making feel awkward.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Oliver. “I can leave, if that’ll help.”

“I don’t know if it will or won’t,” said Nia. “That’s sort of the problem with this. I don’t know how to turn it on and off. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Oliver.

“What’s that?”

“How about you and Mindy stay here overnight, by yourselves? We’ve got security, so you don’t have to worry about anything, but some time alone here might help jog something in your head.
And even if it gets creepy here, that might just do the trick. Kind of like what we did to instigate your ability back in Chicago.”

“That sounds absolutely miserable,” said Nia, a chill running through her and bringing goosebumps to her arms.

“It won’t be so bad,” said Oliver. “I’ll spring for pizza for you girls. Think of it like camping.”

“I hate camping,” said Nia.

“Do you hate it when you’re getting paid ten grand a week to do it?”

She smiled. “That makes it a bit more tolerable, I guess.”

“I thought it might.” Oliver walked over to Nia and put his hands on her shoulders. He massaged her, which was an oddly intimate gesture and made her uneasy. “I’ll leave you alone and go tell Mindy the plan. I’m sure she’s got a bunch of stories to tell about devil worshipers and goat sacrifices.”

Nia forced a grin as he left, and then shivered, perturbed by his touch. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, but she didn’t like it when anyone touched her, much less a near stranger like him.

She stared at the clawed tub through the open door to the bathroom.

The carpet felt damp.

The tub was speckled with dirt, and the waning light coming in through the window danced along strands of cobwebs that fluttered in the threshold. Her toes felt wet, yet warm, and she assumed that the sunlight was touching her feet. She looked down and saw that it wasn’t, but before she could ponder the odd heat, a pain stung her gums. She licked at her right incisor, convinced that she’d started bleeding, but found no source for the sudden pain.

Nia’s skin crawled.

“This sucks,” said Mindy as she held up a slice of the rubbery pizza. She let the thin slice fall back into the box. “I’d give anything for a deep dish right now.”

“Oh stop complaining,” said Nia from the other side of the kitchen. She was seated on the counter, eating beside the sink. There were no chairs in the house, and all Oliver had provided them with, besides the food, was a pair of sleeping bags and a few extra blankets. “You’re getting paid a ton to eat shitty pizza and camp out for a couple days.”

A breeze fluttered a plastic tarp that covered a window in the living room that had been broken. Nia guessed that looters or squatters had brok
en into the house at some point.

Mindy drank her soda and then set the empty can on the counter. “So what are you going to do with your cash?”

Nia shrugged, her mouth full of pizza. “I don’t know,” she said once her mouth was only partially full. “I guess it depends on how long they keep us here.”

“Do you think it’ll be longer than a week?”

“I don’t know,” said Nia. “Oliver didn’t say, but the waiver I signed was for a month’s worth of work.”

“I know!” Mindy made an excited noise, a sort of whistling wheeze as she pursed her lips. “I figured we’d get the can after a day or two, not because I don’t believe in you, but just because this is all so crazy. Can you imagine if we stick it out a full month? Forty grand in a month? That’s seriously life changing money.”

“Yep,” said Nia.

“I don’t want to think about it,” said Mindy, her speech increasing in speed as she got more and more excited. “What would you do with forty grand?”

“I thought you didn’t want to think about it,” said Nia with a chuckle.

“I know, but for real, how can I not? So,
spill it. What would you do with forty fucking grand?”

“Nothing exciting,” said Nia.

Mindy rolled her eyes and groaned in disappointment. “Don’t be like that, Nia. Are you seriously telling me there’s not a single interesting thing you’d splurge on?”

“Honestly, I’d pay off some of my mom’s debt.”