Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (15 page)

48. Babysitter

The only thing worse than finding a crying baby at the bottom of a deserted bridge in the woods is getting off the motorcycle and not hearing a sound from it.

There’s no way it fell asleep.

I carefully walk up the steps to my cabin and unlock the door. I’m finally inside where it’s warm and dry. I turn on a light and look at the wet blanket, wrapped like a burrito.

I breathe in and then touch the outside of the blanket. My hands are shaking. No, make that my entire body is shaking.

Part of me doesn’t know if I can open it up.

I kneel on the carpet next to the fireplace and gently put the baby on the floor. Then I peel off the first layer of the blanket. Then another.

And then I see its eyes. They’re black and lifeless.

Then I see the hole in the cheek, and I jerk up and away and plow into the lamp on the side table.

On the floor is not a baby but some really old doll that looks like it’s been rotting in the woods.

A doll.

I’m losing my mind.

My heart is racing and my mind is doing cartwheels and I’m looking at a doll on the floor as if it’s going to sit up and ask what’s for breakfast.

This is insane insane crazy insane.

I curse out loud just so I can hear something, anything.

Outside, the rain keeps falling.

I heard that thing crying. I know I did.

It takes me like five minutes to finally go back over and get rid of the wet blanket covering it.

It’s a doll with eyes open, and it looks very, very freaky. Half of its dark hair is gone, and other parts besides its cheek have been chewed away.

It seems like there should be a note on the doll, like a prank note from Pastor Marsh.

Of course, around here there are no pranks. Everything is real. Every nightmare is true. Every horror story is something coming to life.

Part of me wants to burn the thing right here and now.

I take off my wet hat and then wipe my wet hair and face. Then I take the wet blanket and wrap the baby back up. I leave it there on the floor.

Maybe it will be crawling up my stairs later. Which will be fine.

There’s no way I’m getting any sleep tonight.

No way.

49. Solitary for Starters

So let’s see here.

Let’s say you just picked up the saga right here with the screaming baby turned to a decaying doll.

What have you missed?

Oh, where can I begin?

It’s three in the morning, and so far baby dearest hasn’t managed to crawl up the stairs with a steak knife.

There’s still time, Chris. There’s still time.

Let’s see—I move to Solitary and fall in love with the girl that the evil people have decided to sacrifice on New Year’s Eve.

Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I thought too.
Come on, for real, there’s no way!

But it was real, and there was a way.

Before this sacrifice happened I met my mother’s creepy aunt Alice with her selection of mannequins. Perhaps this doll escaped from her house.

I saw a weird mountain man with a big German shepherd who ended up being my uncle in costume. The man, that is. Not the dog.

There were the nightmares my mother had.

There were the tunnels underneath our cabin.

Oh yeah, don’t forget the cabin in the woods. Or the mannequin maker.

There’s the creepy pastor and the ignorant bully. But both answer to a twisted man name Staunch who answers to my great-grandfather.

And they all say I’m special and that somewhere down the road I’m going to get a special key that does something special for a special reason.

I don’t want to be special. I want to be normal.

Will a key unlock a land full of wild dogs and smiling mannequins and screaming babies?

Thanks, I’ll pass.

I could go on, but this makes my head hurt. I would love to sleep, but I don’t want to wake up cuddling the baby doll downstairs.

What exactly were those men out there on the bridge?

I’m assuming men, because they were all big. Ghosts maybe? Possibly the dead Indians that haunt the bridge? Or maybe demons guard it?

Or maybe there’s another answer I haven’t thought about. Something that makes even less sense.

They’re magical elves guarding the road to Frodo and Bilbo.

Yeah.

They’re Jedi Knights with double-edged light sabers that are just waiting for a chance to get back at George Lucas for creating Jar Jar.

Yeah.

They’re shadows of all the things you fear the most made into physical form.

Wait a minute—I was on a roll, but that’s not funny.

I don’t feel funny at all.

I feel alone.

For a long time I toss and turn and can’t tell whether my eyelids are opened or closed.

Sometimes it just doesn’t matter.

50. A Smell, a Taste, a Touch

Before I head to see Pastor Marsh to give him the sweet little decomposing baby I found by the bridge last night, I decide to check the mail.

Real stories, true stories, don’t follow a rhyme or a reason. Bad things happen. Life moves on. People leave. Others come.

Sometimes you find yourself wet and cold battling something that may or may not be alive.

Then you find yourself opening a letter that has a $25,000 check inside.

Chris:

You do not know me, but I know you.

I’m not a part of your life in Solitary but hopefully am a part of your future.

This check is for your first year at college. More will be coming.

William Faulkner said this: “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

This is just a little help at making that happen.

A friend and distant relative
MG

I just laugh.

I laugh because I don’t even think I’m going to make it to graduation. If I do, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.

I think of the famous clip from an NFL coach during a press conference: “Playoffs? Playoffs? I just hope we win another game!”

That’s how I feel about college.

College? Don’t talk about … college? Are you kidding me? I might be the High Priest of Puppy Chow by then, so don’t talk about college!

I laugh in a sad, cynical sort of way.

I love cracking myself up.

It’s either that or I’ll be crying.

At least I have a baby to console me now.

That’s just so wrong.

I decide to take the wrong baby to Pastor Make-It-Right.

I’ll think about the check from the anonymous friend and “distant relative” later.

Much later.

Jeremiah Marsh’s office at church looks like any ordinary office some bigwig at a company might occupy. There’s a desk for his secretary or assistant right when you enter, but I guess they don’t work on Saturdays. A sliver of light shows beneath the closed door next to the empty desk.

I know Pastor Marsh is in there, because I called him on his cell phone.

I don’t knock but open the door and see him at his desk with his laptop on. He looks up just as I toss the doll onto his desk, and it slides onto the floor by his side.

“There’s my special present I got last night.”

He leans over and picks the doll up, then studies it. “I didn’t expect this.”

“What
did
you expect?”

Marsh puts the doll down next to a stack of books on his desk. “I try not to expect anything around here. Expectations can be a bad thing when you’re constantly being surprised.”

“What’s that doll supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t,” he says, imitating my voice.

“That bridge is haunted, right?”

Marsh smiles his deviant, snotty little smile. “It’s not a favorite place to visit at night.”

“But have you ever seen things there?”

“Be more specific.”

“People. Beings. Ghosts.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“That’s the second time I’ve seen them.”

“And as I’ve told you—you have a gift, Chris.”

“That’s not a gift. Seeing monsters in the middle of the night is not a gift.”

“It is when you learn how to control them.”

“I don’t think there’s a way to control them.”

“No?”

He leans back in a leather chair that looks expensive. Everything looks expensive, from the dark wood desk to the plaques on the wall and the portraits of his family.

Portraits that include children.

“I think Kinner might disagree with you on that,” Marsh continues.

“I heard a baby crying. I picked it up.”

“Has anybody ever told you about the suicides in Solitary? There’ve been quite a few of them. Young kids, too, not just older people. And it all comes from people who see something that disturbs them, that completely freaks them out. Some people just can’t handle it.”

“What’s finding a baby supposed to mean?”

“I do not know. I have ideas.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“It could have something to do with your mom. You don’t have a sibling. But maybe your parents tried to have a child, and your mother miscarried. Or maybe you’re a father and don’t know it.”

“I’m no father.”

“You sure? Something didn’t happen with the skinny little blonde you’ve been running around with?”

“No.”

“Sometimes you see a part of the past, Chris. Sometimes you see the future. Sometimes you see something that is ailing you. Sometimes you see something that will save you.”

“The baby was real.”

“Terror is real,” Marsh says. “Hopelessness is real. It has a smell, a taste, a touch. Despair and horror. They’re very real.”

“But you’ve never seen those men around the bridge?”

Marsh shakes his head.

“But if I can see them—who are they?”

“They’re the ones who go out to deliver the terror and despair. They’re loaded down with it, like Santa Claus coming on Christmas Eve. The difference is they don’t slide down your chimney. They sink into your soul.”

“What was the number for? Why 1820?”

“That’s when the bridge was built,” Marsh says. “If you go there during the day, you can see a marking with a date.”

“What if the card said 1945?”

“I don’t believe there’s a card that says that.”

I let out a sigh. “So why did you want whatever it was that I got last night?”

“I wanted to make sure you went through with it. And to learn what sort of strange things you might have seen. As always, Chris—you never disappoint me.”

51. Hundred-Year-Old Grandmother

I waste the rest of the weekend away.

After going to see Marsh, I come back home and don’t leave again until Monday morning. I shut off my phone and don’t go online. I just curl up on the couch with Midnight at my side and watch television and eat junk food and drink soda.

When Monday arrives, I am surprised to see that Kelsey never tried contacting me. No texts or emails or phone calls. Nothing.

I just go through the motions of school.

I’m exhausted.

Thinking hurts. Feeling hurts. Being anxious and scared hurts.

Maybe things are finally starting to catch up to me. I’ve slowed down enough to realize what is happening and why.

It’s all just very, very tiring.

I don’t see Kelsey at all on Monday. Not that I was looking for her. The day tick tocks away, and I expect nothing remotely interesting to happen.

Nothing interesting except coming back home and finding Mom there.

Her car is in the driveway, and she’s standing in the kitchen when I open the door.

I rush over to her and give her a hug.

Yet a weird thing happens.

She doesn’t hug me back.

“I can’t believe you’re back,” I tell her.

But I spoke too fast.

The lifeless, expressionless face that stares at me isn’t Mom. Physically she’s here, but she looks different.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

She nods slowly. “Yes.” Her voice is a whisper.

“You don’t look okay,” I say.

You look a bit like you’ve been having shock therapy.

“I’m just tired.”

I want to ask how she got out and what happened at the place she was staying, but I can tell she won’t be able to answer.

“What are you doing?” I ask her, looking around the kitchen.

“I was just straightening up some things.”

“There’s nothing that—Mom, let’s just sit down, okay?”

It’s crazy. Mom has come back a feeble old woman. I’m surprised her hair isn’t white. She doesn’t walk back to the couch with me. It’s more like a slow hobble.

“Mom—what’d they do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“But what—what’s wrong?”

She looks up at me and forces a smile. “I’m just really tired.”

Her eyes look puffy, the way they might after crying a lot. They’re also red with dark lines under them.

“Do you want anything? Want me to get you anything?”

But she only shakes her head. Very s-l-o-w-l-y.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“I’ve been on medication for a while.”

“Are you still?”

“I don’t think so.”

I can feel my heart knocking on my chest. I’m angry and elated at the same time. Angry about what they did to her and elated that she’s finally back home.

“Mom, who brought you back here?”

“A man.”

“Who? What’s his name?”

“J—,” she starts to say.

“Jared?”

“Yes.”

Ah, the dear long-lost cousin who turned out to be a lying snake.

I’ve wondered what happened to him.

I’ve been waiting to pay you back for what you did to Iris and the Crag’s Inn.

“Are you in pain anywhere? Physically?”

She only shakes her head.

Everything about her seems …

Gone.

She looks thinner than she was, and she had already been looking a little too thin.

Dad needs to know about this. Somehow. Some way.

For a few minutes I sit there beside her, not saying anything. I can see her eyelids closing.

“Do you want to take a nap?” I ask her.

“Yeah,” she says, about ready to do it sitting up.

“Here,” I say as I help her up and guide her to her bed.

When I tuck her in, I feel like this is my hundred-year-old grandmother lying before me.

She’s out, and I just study her.

In a strange way, she looks peaceful now that she’s sleeping.

I glance out the window and see the overcast sky.

God, please help her to be okay. Help her to be okay, and help us get out of here one day.

Mom is home. That’s good.

But the evil that infected her is right outside our door. Down the street, up the mountain, through the woods …

I think back to Marsh telling me about how I could control those creatures in the woods.

What if I could control the terror and fear going on around here?

What if I could make it all go away?

My destiny and fate and legacy and all those big-time words are suddenly starting to seem clear.

I know who I need to stop and why I need to stop them.

The only question is how.