314 Book 2 (22 page)

The little girl was ill-defined to Nia, unlike the boy who she could’ve described in great detail. His sister was a shade of a presence, as if Nia was trying to recall the features of a childhood friend she hadn’t seen in a decade. The house longed to know her better, to experience more of her. Nia was aware of a sense of longing in herself to be with the little girl, a feeling transferred from the house itself, and something she’d never experienced before. In all her years coping with the ‘gift’ of psychometry, she’d never once been struck by an object’s desires – in fact, it never occurred to her that such a thing was possible. The memories that the objects held were like recordings of past events, simply revealed to Nia as if she’d been witness to a secret taping. Never had those memories been accompanied by an emotion.

Whatever reason the house desired this little girl, Nia felt a responsibility to prevent it from finding her.

I thought about burning Widowsfield down. In fact, the first time I returned to the town, I planned on doing exactly that. I loaded my car with cans of gasoline, intent on setting the ghost town aflame. But then I remembered that it wasn’t just The Watcher in the Walls and The Skeleton Man hiding in that town. There were other souls as well.

I’m not even certain burning the town would have any effect anyhow. Hell, what if t
he smoke from the fire carried the Watcher with it? What if it freed him, and The Skeleton Man, to be blown to some other unsuspecting town where they could start a brand new sort of horror? Perhaps it was better that they were trapped in Widowsfield.

God help us if they got out.

Widowsfield

March 14th, 1996

Michael Harper watched the fog rush down the hall and into the room. Alma was caught up in it, her dress billowing out as the fog pushed at her back. Her hands were dripping with Terry’s blood, and the liquid seemed to collect within the fog itself, mixing and swirling as if they had suddenly been thrown into a pool of cloudy water. Then the green light began to burst from down the hall; electric blasts that illuminated the otherwise blackened depths of the fog itself. A silhouette became visible as the electricity crackled downstairs, but Michael wasn’t sure of what he was looking at.

Alma closed her eyes and began to hum, a trick that her mother had taught her to do a few years earlier to help the girl with her fear of the dark.

“Just close your eyes and hum a song,” Amanda had said. “Pretty music makes the monsters run away.”

Michael wanted to flee, but he couldn’t move. The shock of what he was witnessing cemented him in place, his bare feet wet with his girlfriend’s blood. The fog crawled along the walls, pooling in the corners as it began to devour the fresh air. It looked as if the fog was made of liquid, drawn to the corners as if gravity itself had been upturned, then sliding across the crown molding to the other side before swallowing the opposite wall as well. The room was filling with the white fog, leaving a bubble of
air where Michael stood.

That’s when the tentacles began to sneak in.

They were shadows in the white, no longer hidden in the hall but now daring to reveal themselves, sliding in through the door in every direction. Each snaking arm varied in size, some a foot wide at their base and others merely inches, like the crown of Medusa’s head was rising through the threshold, black snakes writhing along the walls. Michael felt himself being drawn in, like a fish caught by a squid and being pulled into its maw. He looked down and saw that he wasn’t moving, but the fog had swelled across the floor and now shrouded his feet.

A shadow of a man walked within the
dark recesses of fog down the hall. As the green lightning flashed, his presence was revealed, mixed with the undulating mass of tentacles that leapt from the doorway. He pierced the edge of the room, breaking through a barrier that had protected Michael, and a loud inhalation shook the entire house. It sounded like a dying man wheezing, but was loud enough to cause Michael pain. He cringed but kept his eyes on the approaching figure.

The man stepped through the fog and tentacles chased him into the light. The black wisps of
mist seemed to be destroyed by the bubble of air that surrounded Michael, and they dissipated every time they tried to come through. Yet the man in the mist was unfazed, and he was revealed as he left the blackness behind.

Michael Harper was staring at himself.

“Hello, Mr. Harper,” said the doppelganger. His voice was deeper and more commanding than Michael’s, and he stood at least a foot taller. He was a menacing figure, strong and dominant.

“What’
s going on here?” asked Michael.

“
Turn around and face your son.”

“Answer me!” Michael tried to sound angry, but his shrill plea came out pathetic and fearful.

The doppelganger stepped closer, and he seemed to grow in size, nearly doubling in girth. He loomed over Michael now, and his body was not entirely corporeal. Michael could see a swirling mass of tentacles within him, writhing around one another in an endless mess of knots that never seemed to tighten. The cords within him looked like wires that wanted to reach out for the walls, like snakes slithering toward the safety of tall grass.

“Ben will die.”

“No,” said Michael, displaying regret and sorrow at the thought of his boy’s death.

“If he leaves this place, he will die of his injuries.”

“He’s a tough boy,” said Michael.

“
How would you fix him?” asked the demonic presence that now stood like a giant over Michael. “How would you explain his injuries?”

The man carried the fog with him, as if it were smoke trailing a flame. When he moved, the fog billowed out behind him as the black tentacles continued to reach out from the doorway.

“I’ve been watching you, Michael Harper,” said the doppelganger. “I like what I see, but you’re not the one I want. Now turn around and face your son. Let him see you for who you truly are.”

Michael did as he was told. He could hear his daughter still humming somewhere nearby, although he couldn’t see her anymore. As he turned, her sweet, terrified
hum was replaced by the chatter of Ben’s teeth.

The boy was seated on the edge of the bed, the bloody towel in his lap, and he stared directly at Michael. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and his cheeks
had burst into crimson flowers. Boils were forming on his severely burned skin. His lips were bleeding, the thin skin ripped away by the rough fabric of the towel. He was a horror to behold, once a sweet child now tortured and dwelling in an agonizing moment of time, stuck in the pain and lost innocence.

“Look what you’ve done,” said the doppelganger. “He was a child when he came here, but you changed all of that. You’ve twisted him into this monster.”

“No,” said Michael. Smoke drifted from his mouth when he spoke, and he recognized the smell of burning meth as it wafted up his nostrils.

“
All hope for a normal life has been shattered for him, Michael. Even if he were to survive, he would be twisted into a demon by what you’ve done. His agony is so very pure. His pain is exquisite. When we devils sought a savior, you delivered our sacrifice. Such horror, Mr. Harper, so much pain.”

“I didn’t…”

“Hush now, before we change our minds on this.” The doppelganger now walked between Michael and Ben. He was enormous, and had to crouch down within the room, his shoulders pressed to the ceiling. His arms reached out and meshed with the fog that clouded the corners, and the black tentacles whipped out where his fingers should’ve been.

“What are you?”

“Just a watcher,” said the massive entity.

“What do you want?”

The shape was pulled into the walls, mixing with the fog again, and the tentacles seemed to calm as it did. Now they simply wavered amid the mist, snakes of black coiling around the room and tightening.

“We want Ben,” said a thousand voices in unison, none of them the same as the creature that had been speaking moments earlier.

Michael glanced around in desperation. He was terrified as he searched for a sign of the man among the twisting shapes. The fog seemed to breathe, expanding and retracting, the coiled black snakes like ribs with Michael stuck within the lungs. He kept seeing shapes within the fog that resembled a human, but then melted away into the mire just as soon as he discerned them. Faces seemed to push away from the ribs, like a screaming man wrapped in cellophane, crying out as he suffocated.

Still, Ben’s teeth chattered through the madness.

“Oh to forget,” said the doppelganger’s voice in longing. “Oh to leave such horrors behind, unscathed, free, without sin. Oh to have a second chance. Would you seize upon that chance, Michael Harper?” It was as if the house itself was speaking.

“Let me leave,” said Michael.

“Would you bleed the lamb?”

“What?” Michael screamed and spun as he put his hands to his head, afflicted by the insanity surrounding him.

“Bleed the lamb,” said the legion of voices in the mist.

“Bind him,” said the doppelganger. “Let him know betrayal. Let the father bleed the lamb.”

“Daddy,” said Ben.

Michael turned to his boy and saw the child’s scathed face.
Ben’s boils pulsed, his lips sagged, his lidless eyes stared, his teeth chattered even as he spoke.

“A doorway lies open for you, Michael Harper,” said the doppelganger from the shadows. “We’ll let you forget this. We’ll give you your daughter. Both of you will be free of this day. You can flee this hell.”

“What about Ben?” asked Michael.

“Bind the lamb,” said the other creatures hiding in the mist.

“He must be forgotten,” said the doppelganger. “He must be given to me, a soul for the soulless. I’m with him now, just as I am with you. He’s willing to be forgotten. He’s willing to be sacrificed.”

“Bind me,” said Ben.

Michael watched as the skin on his son’s face began to melt away. Ben lifted his hands from beneath the towel and Michael saw that they were already skinned and dripping with black blood. The liquid fell from his fingertips and into the mist on the floor where it swirled into the grey. All the while, the ribs of black pulsed and grinded against one another.

“He would love you,” said the
doppelganger. “He would be your willing sacrifice, but you must bind him.”

Strands of black wire began to descend from the ceiling. There were hundreds of them, stretching out from the dark mist like vines in a rainforest. They were made of metal, but wavered like living things. Then the green electricity popped and a wave of light ignited the mist for a moment, revealing two boys on the bed instead of just one.

“Daddy, help,” said the version of Ben that had become momentarily visible.

“Ben?” asked Michael.

The vision evaporated, leaving only the skeletal figure with the chattering teeth behind. He held out his hands to his father and pleaded, “Bind me.”

“Sacrifice the child,” said the doppelganger.

A wire draped from the ceiling and rested in Ben’s lap.

“I’m dead already,” said Ben through his chattering teeth.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Michael.

Ben lifted the wire and held it out for his father. “Tie my wrists.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Michael wept.

“You’ll be allowed to leave,” said the doppelganger. “We only want Ben.”

“You can’t have him,” said Michael as he took the wire from his son. “He needs me to protect him.”

Ben raised his hands and clasped them above his head. He was nude now, his shirt
had melted into his bloody chest. The boiling water and chemicals seemed to be eating away at him, revealing his rib cage as his flesh sizzled.

“Bind me,” said Ben.

“Bind him,” said the legion of creatures within the mist.

“Bind the lamb,” said the doppelganger, “and you shall be free of
our madness.”

“And if I don’t?” asked Michael.

“Then you’ll be lost in the hell that surrounds us,” said the doppelganger. “All of the madness you’ve only begun to comprehend will become your every waking moment. You’ll swirl among the souls in the mist.” The snaking ribs began to writhe feverishly as the doppelganger grew angrier. “I’ll spend eternity stripping your flesh from your bones, and I’ll force you to watch your children die over and over. I’ll grant you no solace but for the sound of your daughter’s singing just before I boil her alive. All the horror you thought you knew will be a memory of heaven compared to just the first minute you’ll spend as the focus of my ire.”

A thousand tortured voices wailed from far off, their pain a chorus behind the tightening coils that wrapped the room.

“I am the Watcher, Michael Harper. I’ve seen all of hell.”

Ben stretched his arms into the air and said again, “Bind me.”

Michael looked at the wire in his hands. It writhed like a snake as it hung from the ceiling. He stepped closer to his boy and muttered, “I’m so sorry.”