314 Book 2 (28 page)

She sparked the lighter and took a drag.

“Can we go home?” asked Alma.

Alma saw a signpost beside the cliff that warned drivers to put their car’s emergency brake on. Then another that said, “Caution – Steep Drop”.

“Michael was a real piece of shit. But I wasn’t so bad. I was a good Mom, back before we lost Ben.
” She gazed out as smoke trailed away from her lips. “When you and your father came back, and pretended like you didn’t know Ben, I almost lost my mind right then and there.” Her mother laughed when she looked at Alma, as if they were sharing a humorous account of pleasant memories. “But I didn’t go nuts, not then at least. I mean, I went a little crazy, of course. What mother wouldn’t? My son was missing, but I did my best to keep it together. I let the police do their job. I let them investigate Michael’s claim about being in Forsythe, and I trusted that they would find the truth. I waited and waited and waited. I prayed for Ben to come back to me.”

“Mom, why are we here?” asked Alma.

“And I waited and waited and waited,” said Amanda.

“Mom?”

“But even when Michael was cleared of all charges, I still didn’t go crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I was well on my way, but I wasn’t there yet. Your father left town, went out to Pennsylvania with one of his other whores, and I tried to keep it together for you.” She tried to smile at Alma, but there was malice evident in the way she bit her lip. “That’s when I realized what the real problem was. Alma, you were the problem.”

“What?” asked Alma.

“Don’t get me wrong, sweetie,” said Amanda. “I don’t think it’s your fault. I don’t think you ever did anything wrong, but there’s one thing I think we can count on. In all the insanity, in all the horror, in all the ways the devil tries to trick us, there’s one thing that you can be sure of.” She held up her index finger as she leaned her back against the door so that she was facing Alma. “A mother loves her children.”

Then she pointed at Alma.
Her smile became a scowl. “And I stopped loving you.”

“What?” Tears streamed down Alma’s cheeks.

Amanda pointed at her, a Wicked Witch of the West venom to her snarling lips. “From the day you came back, I never loved you. I tried, I pretended, I did what a good mother should. I hugged you, kissed you, held you, but I never loved you. And I just now figured out why. Do you want to know why, Alma?”

“I want to go home,” said Alma.

“Do you want to know why?”

“I just want to be home.”

“You’re not my little girl.”

“Yes I am,” said Alma.

“Bullshit. You’re just like Michael is now. You’re some sort of monster.”

Alma closed her eyes and started to hum as she wept.

“I’m not even sure if you realize it. I bet you think you’re innocent, and I feel sorry for you, but deep down you’re just a monster. An awful demon.”

Alma hummed louder.

“You let Ben die.”

Alma shook her head and pressed her hands to her ears as she continued to try and drown out her mother’s accusations.

“You came back to me tainted. I always suspected it, but it took us returning to this place for me to realize it. You’re the devil, or something like it. You’re not my beautiful little girl.”

Amanda grabbed Alma’s wrist and pulled her hand down. Alma yelled
at her mother to stop, and tried to cover her ear again. Amanda wrestled with the girl and forced Alma’s arm down. They started to scream at one another and Alma pleaded for all of this to end.

“You listen to me,” said Amanda. “You listen, you devil, or demon, or whatever you are. I know you killed both of my babies, and I’m not going to let you get away with it. I’m going to kill you for it! I’m going to kill you!”

Alma grasped the door handle with her right hand and tried to pull it, but Amanda jerked the girl over the center console. Alma felt the gear shift at her side as she struggled to get free.

“We’ll die together, Alma,” said Amanda. “We’ll see Ben in heaven!”

“Let me go.” Alma clawed at her mother and they wrestled more. Amanda revved the engine, but Alma was over the shifter, preventing the car from moving. “Please let me go!”

Amanda let go of Alma, and the girl desperately tried to get out. She opened the door, but was still strapped in by the safety belt.

Amanda shifted the car into drive as Alma tried to unlatch her belt.

“Help!” Alma screamed out to anyone that could hear. She desperately tried to get the belt free, but wasn’t quick enough. The car’s tires squealed for less than a second before they plowed forward, bouncing over the concrete slab at the front of the parking spot and into the short expanse of grass that separated the lot from the feeble
guard rail that was meant to keep people from falling off the edge. It did nothing to stop Amanda’s car.

Alma’s door slammed shut as they crashed through th
e railing. Then the sky was all the girl could see in front of them. She screamed as her stomach lurched. It felt as if she were rounding the peak of a roller coaster before staring straight down at the water of Jackson Reservoir.

The reservoir was
about fifty feet down and the car plunged rapidly towards it. Alma was pressed against the back of her seat and watched as the crystal blue water flew up at her until they collided. The windshield flowered with cracks as the steel around them crunched. The airbags deployed and Alma lost her breath as the sound of flowing water grew louder than the hiss of nitrogen escaping the bag in front of her.

She looked at her mother, who was lying unconscious against the deflating bag that had sprung from her steering wheel. Alma wanted to get out, but the door wouldn’t open. She struggled with it, but the water had all but swallowed the car and she was forced to watch as the frothing wave ascended over her
view. Water spewed in through her mother’s partially open window and the car lurched to the side so that Alma was on the bottom as the water rolled over her. She got the belt loose just as the water reached her chin. She took a final gulp of air before the invading water covered her face.

The quiet of the reservoir, that world-escaping hymn of otherworldly echoes and the inner workings of her own body, was the same as it had been when Alma was in the tub that morning. Such a quiet, personal death. As Alma’s breath ran out, and her body was forced to swallow the first gulp of water, she heard her heart beat.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump.

And then she closed her eyes.

The car hit the bottom of the reservoir, and both mother and daughter died down among the catfish.

Inside Cada E.I.B.’s Compound

March 13
th, 2012

“Amanda Harper killed her daughter,” said Oliver.

Paul shook his head. “That’s impossible. I’m telling you, I’ve known Alma for years. We went to school together. I’ve been dating her since…”

“Alma Harper is dead,” said Oliver. “They dragged her body out of the reservoir with her mother. It was all over the news. Trust me, if Alma Harper was still alive, I would be the one to know.” He seemed amused by that. “If anyone would know, it’d be me.”

“Why?” asked Paul as he laid
strapped to the upturned gurney. He felt like Hannibal Lecter as he was wheeled around the facility.

“Just trust me,” said Oliver. “I know everything about this town. I was devastated when I found out Alma and her father were dead.”

“Her father?” asked Paul. “He’s not dead either.”

Oliver smirked and shook his head. “
Someone’s been filling your head with lies. Michael Harper was shot dead by his ex-wife just before she drove out to Widowsfield and then into the reservoir on the far side of town. Police said she was distraught over the loss of her son, and blamed her husband for it. It was a murder suicide. The story was all over the news for weeks. A real tragedy.”

“Mother fucker.” Paul was fed up with the situation. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Take me to my friends and I’ll show you which one of them is Alma. You’re the one that’s been lied to, not me!”

“Calm down,” said Tom from the other side of the room. They’d taken Paul to what looked like a cafeteria, although the building they were in seemed almost abandoned. Tom was booting up a laptop that had been stored in a case in this room.

“Why else would we be here?” asked Paul. “We came here because Alma wanted to go back to the cabin where Ben disappeared.”

“What?” asked Oliver, suddenly intrigued.

“Don’t start with this again,” said Tom as he sat in front of the computer at one of the cafeteria’s long tables.

Oliver hushed the man and then looked at Paul. “You mean the house they found you in? What do you know about that place?”

“That’s where
Alma’s brother died,” said Paul. “That’s where Alma’s father tried to kill Terry in the bathtub. That’s how her brother got disfigured.”

“I’m telling you,” said Tom, “don’t start up with this shit again.”

“How would he know that?” asked Oliver of the old guard. He was excited by what Paul was saying and turned back to the restrained intruder. “How do you know about that?”

“Alma wanted to come back here because she couldn’t remember what happened that day. She wanted to know…”

“All right,” said Tom as he stood up. “That’s enough.”

“How would he…” Oliver started to debate, but Tom shouted over him.

“I said that’s enough. I’ve had it with this bullshit of yours and I’ve had it with this fucking town. No more! We’re shutting it down. We’re burning this fucking place to the ground.”

“You’re insane!” Oliver and Tom confronted each other in the middle of the cafeteria. “
Why won’t you people listen to me? Why can’t you understand how important this is? The only person that’s ever been on my side was Lee, and now you won’t even send him back here. I don’t know where you sent him off to, but if he were here he could back me up on this.”

“We’ve been trying to track him down, but he moved out to the middle of nowhere,” said Tom. “Lee’s off the grid. Hell, this mystery assistant of yours probably got a glimpse of how fucking insane you are and got the hell out of here. Can’t say I blame him.”

Oliver stammered as he argued, “This is the most important scientific discovery in all of history and you’re going to…”

“I’m going to burn it the fuck out of existence!” Tom spit as he screamed. “I’m going to put an end to what you started, once and for all. No more of this shit. It’s over. Do you hear me? Over!”

Tom and Oliver glared at one another for a few seconds before the grizzled guard turned away to return to his laptop. “I’m going to contact Vess and get the okay to move forward with closing this place down. No more experiments. No more bullshit. No more people sitting around in comas. We’re ending this, here and now.”

“I can’t let you do that,” said Oliver.

“Oh really? And just what are you going to do to stop…” Tom turned to see that the scientist was pointing a pistol at him. “You mother fucker.”

“This
gun doesn’t shoot salt pellets,” said Oliver.

Tom stood in front of his computer, stoic and unflinching. Then he smiled and said, “Your hand’s shaking, Ollie.” He winked before sitting down. “Think you’ve got what it takes to kill a man? Because I doubt it.”

“Don’t make me do this, Tom.”

“You’ll have to kill me. I’m not going to let you endanger more people by…”

“Get off the computer!”

“I’m putting an end to this.” Tom started typing.

“I said get off the computer!”

Tom kept typing. The back of the computer was facing Paul and Oliver as the guard kept his head down.

Oliver fired, but missed on purpose. The shot hit the wall behind Tom, causing a burst of grey dust to spew forth. The shot echoed in the cavernous room.

Tom had stopped typing, and glanced up at Oliver with a grin. “You don’t have it in you.” He started typing again.

Oliver gripped the pistol with both of his shaking hands. “The other guards are up at the reservoir. I could blow you away and no one would know. The nurses are two floors down, with the sleepers. They’ll never hear the shots. I can kill you and get away with it. I’ll just say you fell in the reservoir, like all our other catfish bait. I’ll do it.”

“Then stop being such a pussy and get it over wi…”

Oliver shot the back of the computer. The force caused the screen to flip shut as sparks leapt from the hole left behind. Tom stayed motionless for a moment, but then groaned as he reached for his stomach. The bullet had passed through the computer and into the old guard, and he grimaced as he stood up. He looked down at his palm to reveal a splotch of blood, and then growled as he lifted his shirt. There was a small hole in his abdomen that was gushing blood, and he pressed his palm against it before snarling at Oliver.

“You piece of…”

Oliver shot again, this time winging the guard’s left ear. Then the scientist found his mark the fourth time he pulled the trigger and the back of the guard’s head exploded. Blood and brains splattered on the wall behind Tom. He fell backward and gasped as he died.