314 Book 2 (26 page)

Michael tried not to question his blocked memory of the boy, but then the night terrors came. He would dream of a boy sitting at the edge of Terry’s bed, his hands bound by black wire, and his teeth
would chatter even as he smiled. He bled black blood from his gums and the corners of his mouth, and when he smiled up at his father, his teeth would fall out and to the wood floor of Terry’s bedroom.

Alma had returned to Widowsfield once before. Despite Michael’s warning to Amanda to stay away, his ex-wife brought their daughter here to try and force her to remember what had happened by using something called Chaos Magick. She insisted that by focusing on a number or a symbol, Alma would be able to reignite a lost recollection. Michael was certain Amanda would fail, and didn’t try to stop them. That had been a mistake.

Not long after, Amanda Harper was dead, another victim of the cursed town. Ever since that day, Michael was cursed by the number that Amanda had been obsessed with. Every time he saw 314, he felt drawn in, as if being hypnotized. And every time it happened he grew more scared of the repercussions of revealing the secret of Widowsfield. It became an obsession for him, and when the reporter and her husband came to Pennsylvania, he pleaded with them to let the past die. They revealed their intention to seek out Alma, and he knew he had to do whatever it took to stop them.

A
fter confronting Alma, Michael knew he had to get to Widowsfield. He would go back to Terry’s cabin and wait, confident that the paranormal investigators were planning on being there for the anniversary of the disappearance of the townsfolk. He would chase them off, but would kill them if necessary.

For reasons he couldn’t quite understand, he felt like everyone would be safer if Alma died. Then there would be no escape for the demons that haunted this place.

He was surprised to find the town walled off and patrolled by security guards. Michael followed the fence to the south and found a storm drain that he was able to crawl through to get into town. It entered not far from the high school, which helped Michael get his bearings. Terry’s cabin was on Sycamore, just down the street from the school, so he headed that way.

He expected Widowsfield to be in worse shape than it was. As he passed the houses on the way to Terry’s cabin, he was struck by how well maintained they appeared. The yards were mostly overrun with weeds, but the structures themselves seemed oddly manicured, certainly not what a sixteen year abandonment should look like.

Headlights gave away an approaching van long before Michael was in danger of being seen. He hid beside a grey house on Sycamore and waited for the guards to pass. They were in a hurry, and were headed in the same direction that Michael was. He hoped they weren’t going to the cabin.

It didn’t take long to discover that they were. Michael stayed low and tried to be quiet as he moved on. There was already a security truck parked in front of Terry’s cabin, and the van stopped there as well. The yellow lights on top of the vehicles spun as several men conversed on the overgrown lawn. Michael snuck through the backyard of Terry’s neighbor’s house and eavesdropped on the guards.

“Sleepers,” said one man.

“Yeah, but it’s different than before,” said a man with a deep, gravelly voice. “They passed out when we started shooting.
For a second I thought we accidentally loaded the guns with bullets instead of the salt. Weirdest damn thing I’ve ever seen. They all dropped to the floor like we killed them.”

“Did you see what they did inside?”
asked a third man.

“The numbers?”

“Yeah. That’s a bit freaky.”

“Let’s get them back to base and figure out this mess. If they’re sleepers, then we’ll have to make them disappear,” said the man with the deep voice.

“The nurses were briefed. Just take the bodies to the secondary station until we’re sure they’ve been stabilized. Don’t do anything until we get a chance to examine them, please? I know you want to shut this whole place down, but Vess is going to want to know about this. We could be looking at a major breakthrough here.”

“Ye
ah, yeah, we’ll see about that. I pulled the north patrol off, but they said there was a car lurking near the road to the reservoir. I’m going to send them back up that way. We’re going to be short-staffed until tomorrow. We don’t usually get this much attention around here this far ahead of the anniversary.”

Michael waited as the guards loaded the bodies into the van. He wasn’t able to get a good look at the victims, but he thought he recognized his daughter among them.

Once the guards left, Michael followed as best he could. They headed north, and he was determined to track them down.

I read about a condition that researchers believe has affected millions of people through history, but has onl
y recently been identified. It’s a developmental topographical disorder in which sufferers can easily get lost, even in their own homes. They have a problem with spatial alignment, where objects they thought had once resided in one spot suddenly shifted, and now sat somewhere else. One patient explained it by saying that he could live his entire life knowing, beyond any doubt, that the door to his bathroom was to the left of his kitchen. Then, one day he would stand in front of the kitchen and be shocked that the bathroom was on the right.

You see, it wasn’t just objects that would move around. We have all experienced the confusion of setting our keys down in one spot, and then finding them gone when we need them. We might even complain about how we swear we put the keys on the counter, or on the hook, as we search for them. Many of us, myself included, end up finding our keys in our coat pocket, but rather than admit to our foolishness, we blame someone else, or even a supernatural force. But try to imagine if your entire world would shift, where actual landmarks changed position on you. Now realize that, even if you don’t suffer such a disorder, there’s a distinct possibil
ity that hundreds, or thousands of people around you do suffer from it, but have just never known it was a disorder.

Our perception of reality is so very fragile. In fact, it’s so fragile that human beings have been identifying mental disorders, and illnesses, for hundreds of years, and we never got around to discovering a disorder that reportedly millions of people have suffered; a disorder where the entire world shifts around them. Perhaps we never discovered it because it never seemed that important. Perhaps we’re all just innately aware that reality itself has a tendency to lie to us.

Humans are such fragile creatures.

Widowsfield

January 23rd, 2007

“I’m starting to figure this out,” said Nia.

“I’m glad one of us is.” Cigarette smoke drifted from Mindy’s lips as she spoke. They were outside of the facility that Oliver had been letting them sleep in for the past few days. They’d been asked not to smoke inside, which seemed like an odd request considering it was an abandoned facility, but they complied anyhow.

The parking lot was
illuminated by just one caged light that hung above the front entrance. It buzzed incessantly, and attracted a swarm of bugs that circled it. Mindy swatted her arm and then flicked the squashed moth corpse off.

“Let’s move down a little, to get out of the light,” said Nia.

They moved down the wall, towards the covered cars in the back of the lot. There was a constant hum of the insects and frogs that inhabited the woods that surrounded the facility, but Nia enjoyed the sound of nature. To her, the natural world was calm. Nothing living ever had the chance, nor the interest, to absorb the hatred and sorrow that plagued the permanent parts of the world. The inanimate objects were much more eager to hold onto the darkness. Where nature abided the laws of life and death, the constructs of men denied such rhythms, subsisting like constant gravestones. Cities were bleak graveyards, blackened by the hatred they witnessed.

“What is it you’ve figured out?” asked Mindy.

It had been a few days since their arrival in Widowsfield. Oliver and Lee had taken Nia around town, touring the abandoned buildings and streets and exploring their past. Nia was bombarded with horrors, especially along Main Street where the residents there had befallen a thousand terrible fates. Nia explored at least ten different ways that a little boy was forced to scoop his father’s eyes out in the Salt and Pepper Diner; sometimes with spoons, and sometimes with his fingers.

Oliver
wasn’t interested in the variations that the townsfolk had suffered, but rather the moments just before. He wanted to know what the town looked like, to exacting detail. What color had the barber shop sign been? Where were the people standing? Where was the fire truck parked? He wanted to know as much detail as possible about the minutes leading up to 3:14 on March 14
th
, 1996.

Lee sketched out everything that Nia described, staying nearly silent as he did. The quiet artist seemed to have little interest in Nia and Mindy, but had become Oliver’s right hand. He did whatever his boss asked, without offering any argument. Lee constantly sketched scenes in his blue notebook, while Oliver stared over his shoulder, critiquing the pictures and then asking for more detail in spots that were lacking.

Nia glanced around to make sure they were alone. She knew there were others here besides Oliver and Lee. There were Cada E.I.B. employees wandering the town, sometimes delivering items to the facility where Nia and Mindy were staying.

Once certain they were alone, Nia whispered, “They’re trying to recreate whatever happened here.”

“Well yeah,” said Mindy, unimpressed. “Oliver told us that right off the bat.”

“No, not just like a crime scene,” said Nia. “They’re trying to recreate everything exactly as it was, or as close as they can get it, because they want to do it again.”

“Do what again?” asked Mindy.

“Whatever the
heck happened that day in 1996. I’m convinced they’re the ones that caused everyone to disappear. It wasn’t any mafia crap. The company that Oliver works for has something to do with it. They were performing some sort of experiment or something. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” said Mindy as a caveat t
o her next statement, “but that’s pretty hard to believe.”

“Why? You’ve never heard of a corporation doing something that hurts an entire town? Haven’t you ever seen Erin Brokovich?”

Mindy chuckled and then groaned. “I saw it over at Becky’s place, but we were only half watching it. That was before we had our falling out.”

“And before her accident,” added Nia.

Mindy gave a slight scowl. She seemed annoyed that Nia had chosen this moment to bring up the painful memory. Nia silently admonished herself, promising to be more careful about when she brought up Becky’s accident in the future. Mindy had become very sensitive about the subject.

Nia rolled her eyes. “Think about it. They practically bought off everyone involved, and now they own the whole town. If they’re not the reason those people disappeared, then they sure the hell are interested in this place
. I think they’re trying to do it all again.”

“What sort of experiment would cause everyone to vanish?”

“Who says they vanished?” asked Nia. “That’s what the rumor was, but Oliver won’t tell me anything about what really happened. I’m stuck sifting through a thousand different memories stuck in the walls. I can’t figure out a way to isolate the truth from what I’m remembering. I have no way of locking down which of all the various memories I get is reality. For all we know, they might’ve been testing some new weapon that made everyone’s head explode.”

“Scanners,” said Mindy as she nodded.

“What?” asked Nia.

“Nothing, it’s an old horror flick.”

Nia ignored Mindy’s comment and continued with her theory. “I think Oliver’s company figured out a way to use spirits or demons as a weapon. The memories I keep getting are of people being terrorized by something called The Skeleton Man, although he hates being called that. He hates being named. Then there’s also the red-haired woman, but she doesn’t have a name, at least that I know if. Everyone runs from her.”

“She’s the one that pulls people through the walls and glass and stuff?” asked Mindy.

Nia nodded. “I’m not sure what that’s all about. It’s like she’s always reaching out and trying to grab hold of people.”

Mindy finished her cigarette and flicked it into the middle of the lot. “Any other monsters hiding in
this place?”

“Just one,” said Nia. “But I’m not really sure what the deal is with him. He’s only there every now and again, but then it feels like he’s always in the background.
The Skeleton Man listens to him.”

“Does he have a name?”

“I think so,” said Nia. “The Skeleton Man called out to him once. He called him The Watcher in the Walls.”

Mindy shivered for effect. “You know, if they weren’t paying us a shitload of cash I’d be so out of here by now. This place is fucked.”

“Do you want to sneak out with me tonight?” asked Nia.