314 Book 2 (35 page)

“The witch,” said
The Skeleton Man.

“We thought you died, but that wasn’t the truth,” said the creature. “Now you’re here, and we’re ready to start over. Everything will be different this time, Alma Harper. I want to try so many new things
with you.”

“He loves your pain,” said
The Skeleton Man.

“I don’t love anything,” said the creature as his strands were drawn back into the walls of the room. “It’s not in my nature.
I have a desire to make things whole again, and to recreate the pain I witnessed here when we were born.”

Then the walls flashed with green light. The wires grew thick and seemed to shimmer, as if coated by slime. The creature made of wire that floated in the room had changed to flesh. He was a taller version of Michael Harper, and he sneered as he hovered above.

The Skeleton Man hissed, and then stomped on the floor as he screamed out, “Back away, we’re lost to you! Leave us be.”

Alma felt the floor beneath her feet change. At once it had been carpet, but now it was wood. The tentacles grew thin again until they were just black wires grinding through the walls, and the vision of Michael Harper turned back to the wire angel.

“Do you love your brother?” asked The Skeleton Man once the room had taken on its new shape. “Do you want to save the children?”

“Yes,” said Alma.

“Then do what Daddy tells you. He’s waiting in the bathroom. Take the water to him.”

There was a young boy
standing in the bathroom where The Skeleton Man claimed Alma’s father should be. The boy was carrying a spoon that dripped blood, and he was weeping.

Alma turned to look back at
The Skeleton Man, but he held her face forward and pointed back at the bathroom.

Now Michael Harper was there, and Alma shuddered in fear.

“Take the water to him.”

Alma knelt down and picked up the pot of water. It was no longer boiling, bu
t still steamed as she lifted it. Her actions felt somehow manipulated, as if she was a participant in a choreographed recreation, and she was merely playing her part. She walked to the bathroom, but the room around her altered as she did. The walls were covered in dirt and cobwebs one minute, and then clean the next. The floor beneath her was carpeted, but then became wood, as if the house itself couldn’t decide what time it existed in. The creature made of wire faded in and out as the cabin altered.

“She’s holding on to something,” said the voice of the creature that had gone back to the walls.
His voice was loud one moment, and distant the next.

“It’s okay,” said
The Skeleton Man. He sounded further away now, and Alma looked over her shoulder to see that he was standing at the entrance of the room. He was holding a butcher knife with both hands. “Just keep going, Alma.”

She walked into the bathroom.

“All right,” said Michael Harper, although he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The bathroom was dark and filled with trash. It appeared as if some animal had made a nest of discarded papers in the corner, beside the toilet. There were cobwebs in the corners, and the stench of animal urine was overwhelming. A line of dirty cleaning supplies had been lined up on the floor.

“Listen to Daddy,” said
The Skeleton Man.

“Good job, kid. Set the pot on the toilet and get the bleach. That’s the white jug over there, with the blue cap,”
said Michael Harper, although he was still invisible. Not even the child with the spoon was still there.

Alma did as he said and then
reached for the correct bottle. The label was old and tattered, peeling away because the glue had lost its grip.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Go ahead and push down on the cap and turn it. There you go, you’re doing good,” said Michael as his daughter followed his instructions. “Now bring it over here and pour it in the tub. We’ll figure out how to do this. You and me, kid. We’ll figure it out.”

Alma lifted the white container, which was heavier than she expected, and set it on the edge of the tub. That’s when she saw who was in the basin of the clawed tub.

Aubrey was in the bottom, her short blonde hair stuck in a thick, clear gel that pooled around her. Her skin was pale, and the studs in her cheeks had been pulled out, leaving behind bleeding holes. She was nude, and Alma saw the extent of the tattoo on her chest. It was a pair of serpents that curled over her rib cage, around her breasts, and then up over her shoulders. For a moment, they looked more like tentacles than snakes. That’s when Alma saw the black wires within the liquid in the tub, curling in and out of one another as Aubrey lay in the muck.

“We’ll melt this bitch down to bones if we have to. Okay? Good, good. Just pour it in the water like that. You’re doing great. You’re a real adult now, a big boy.”

“What?” asked Alma. She hadn’t poured out any of the jug’s contents yet.
Her father seemed to be speaking to someone else.

“Just do what he says,” screamed
The Skeleton Man.

Alma reacted as a child would, tensing and fearing retribution if she didn’t do as she was told. It was the fear of the belt, of spankings and admonishment, a distinctly child-like emotion.
That’s when she realized that she was a child, and not the adult she’d dreamed of being. Alma was only eight years old, and her father was standing beside her, instructing her what to do. The bathroom was no longer dingy, dusty, and covered in cobwebs. Instead, the room stank of chemicals and the woman in the bathtub was Terry. Her red hair floated on the water that halfway filled the tub.

“All adults have to do this kind of thing from time to time. There’s no need to cry, just keep pouring. Yeah, all of it. The whole thing.”

Alma poured the bleach in and it splashed on Terry’s face, washing away the white foam that lined her lips. Alma expected the bleach to stink, or to burn her eyes, but it didn’t.

“Go ahead and get the purple stuff. The bottle with the yellow cap. Twist it off the same way you did the bleach and then pour it in too.”

Alma set the bottle of bleach aside and went back to the line of cleaners that had been set up on the floor. She found the purple one with the yellow cap and opened it.

“That’s a good boy. You’re a pro. You’re making me proud.”

“Boy?” asked Alma.

Michael ignored her. “Go ahead and pour all of the bottles in. Fuck it, just pour them all in there. One of them’s got to do the trick.”

Alma emptied the purple bottle and then grabbed the next. She opened it and tried to pour out the contents, but only a trickle of sand fell. She tossed the bottle to the side and heard it clatter as it bounced across the wood floor. Wasn’t the bedroom carpeted? She didn’t have time to worry about the details as she reached for another bottle of cleaner. If she didn’t do what her father told her, then she would be punished.

“Is that everything that you could find downstairs?” asked Michael.

“I don’t know,” said Alma. “I didn’t…”

“Yeah? Okay, well I guess it’ll have to do,” Michael spoke as if ignoring Alma entirely. “Pour the hot water in. Just do it. Don’t even think about it, just pour it in.”

Alma looked at the bottle of cleaner and saw that it was old, dirty, and contained only a small bit of sand. She dropped it and went to the toilet to get the pot of water. Her hands were slimy from the oven mitts she’d taken from The Skeleton Man and she struggled to keep her grip of the pot’s two black handles. She set it on the edge of the tub and looked at Aubrey’s nude body.

Aubrey?

“Where’s Terry?” asked Alma.

“Just do what Daddy says!”
The Skeleton Man wailed and the wire that held his jaw snapped free, causing his teeth to chatter even louder. He pressed his hands to his chin to keep his jaw from moving, and the butcher knife he was holding sliced across a strip of flesh that covered his skull. Black fluid oozed from the cut.

“
Why are you hiding from me?” asked the winged creature that had been temporarily lost.

“Come on, Ben!” Michael Harper’s voice shook the house. “Wake up, buddy. Wake up.”

“Pour the water in, Alma, before it’s too late,” said The Skeleton Man as he tried to hold his face together.

“Look what you’ve done!” Aubrey cried out from the tub and Alma screamed as she looked back down at the young girl.

Fingers protruded from Aubrey’s gaping mouth and the young bartender’s body writhed in the thick fluid that filled the tub. Alma let go of the pot, and it teetered on the curled edge before falling forward, pouring its contents over Aubrey.

Terry and Aubrey cried out at the same moment,
and then rose from the tub with flailing arms in an attempt to grab ahold of the girl. The women were a myriad of flashing moments, and Aubrey was all but lost amid the glimpses of time. It was like trying to make sense of the rapidly changing pictures on the television downstairs as it flicked through images. Alma backed up until she hit the threshold of the bathroom, and then reached into her pocket to get the keys. She would use them to defend herself, like she had against her father, if she needed to.

“No,” said
The Skeleton Man as he rushed to the bathroom. He grabbed Alma’s shoulder and pulled her back, sending her violently to the floor. “She was supposed to grab you. It’s my turn for this.”

He turned and thrust the knife into the shifting image of the woman that was crawling out of the tub. “I’m coming, Daddy!”

Terry wrapped her arms around
The Skeleton Man and the two of them spun as they fought, appearing almost like a couple dancing before they fell to the floor in the bedroom. The butcher knife was stuck in the nude woman’s belly.

“What have you done?” asked the creature in the walls. Suddenly the room began to twist as wires became visible in the walls. They ground against one another an
d then sprung forth to lash at The Skeleton Man, but the wicked creature just laughed, his teeth still chattering as the tentacles that reached out from the walls tore him apart. The wires tried to grip him, but his bones cracked at the merest pressure, turning to dust and falling to the floor.

“
The Watcher in the Walls can’t see me anymore,” said The Skeleton Man as his body crumbled.

“You lied to me!” When the Watcher screamed, the world shook.

The wires thickened again, becoming the black tentacles that they’d been before. The Watcher in the Walls had discovered the deception of his brood, and was desperate to repair the damage. The Skeleton Man had been hiding his intention. The Watcher had hoped to draw Alma in so that he could keep both of Michael’s children, but The Skeleton Man knew that he could use her to escape. She was a sacrifice, and he’d carefully crafted a lie that the Watcher would be forced to adhere to. Alma took Ben’s place in Widowsfield, and the Watcher would be forced to accept it or risk undermining his entire web of reality.

Alma held the keys in h
er hand and backed away from Terry’s still breathing body. She heard tiny footsteps on the stairs, and the familiar bark of Terry’s dog. A crowd of young boys had come into the cabin and were watching from the hallway. They were all crying as the sound of Killer’s barking got louder. Fog swelled at their feet and then ballooned up to envelop the children just before the dog found them. Alma heard their shrill cries as Killer attacked.

Before she could even consider helping, the fog dissipated and the children were gone. That’s when she heard the sickeningly unique sound of a blade slicing flesh.

Michael Harper straddled the bod
y of his lover, and had pulled the butcher knife out of her stomach. He was about to stab it back in when Alma felt the hot blood on her hands. She glanced down at them, and saw that she was a child again, but knew this wasn’t a dream anymore. She wasn’t a child, and the blood wasn’t on her hands. Instead, she was holding her keys, with the teddy bear keychain in the center of her palm and the keys sticking out between her fingers.

Alma Harper suddenly remembered everything that happened on March 14
th
, 1996. She remembered her brother carrying the bottles of cleaners up the stairs, and then coming back down for the boiling water. She remembered Terry’s screams, and the sight of Ben sitting on the bed with the towel over his severely burned face. The poor boy’s teeth were chattering as he took the towel off and stared at his horrified little sister, all while the dog continued to bark downstairs, seemingly aware of what was happening to his owner.

“Get off her!” Alma rushed to Terry’s aid and slammed her fist
into her father’s side. He fell back and into the wall of twisting cords. For a moment he looked angry, but then his flesh caught in the grinding wire. He screamed out as the wires pierced him, their sharps ends stabbing out like hooks and drawing him in. Then the vision of Michael Harper shifted back into the little boy with the buzzcut. The child dropped his bloody spoon and screamed in pain, but his cries lasted only seconds before his body was being sewn into the thread that wound throughout the room, carrying his flesh into the machine, sucking his blood and bones into the maelstrom.

“Do you see what you did?” asked Terry.

Alma realized that the red-haired phantom that haunted Widowsfield had been Terry all along. Her soul was trapped in this awful place, and her torture had lasted for what should’ve been sixteen years, but was a near eternity in this hellish dimension.