The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman (11 page)

"Oh," he said. She had told him before about
going to the old house, walking around the town. Apparently,
according to his madness, she couldn't be seen by most people, only
those she chose to see her. "Has it changed, then? The new family,
have they made changes?"

"Some," she said. "They have a young child so
they have added a swing and things to the yard like your parents
did for you." She looked up at him though he was still staring into
the fire. "Does that bother you?"

He nodded. There was no reason to lie. A part of
him wished the house would remain untouched, a time capsule; it was
easier to remember if he knew it was still the same, and if he
didn't remember he felt like it would just disappear. "It will
never be a part of my life again, still..."

"Still," she said. She pointed outside. "I like
that color."

"Pink?" he said. "I guess pink is for little
girls."

"Will you go with me?" she said. "To see the
house?"

"No," he said. She seemed to ask him that
question quite often even though his answer was always the same. He
stood up and walked around nervously, his eyes focused on the
ground in front of him. "I've asked before, but what connection do
you have to the house?"

"Blue is for boys, right?" she said. "Pink is
for girls; blue is for boys."

"I can't go there," he said. "The only undefiled
thing I have left is that memory."

"Do you remember how your mother smelled?" the
little girl said.

He hadn't thought about it, not since he was a
child, that smell. He nodded. "I do now," he said. "I
remember."

She held out her hand and he was confused. He
didn't know what she wanted him to do. He had never touched her
before.

"Smell," she said.

He bent over and smelled her hand. It was his
mother's smell; locked away for most of his life, but he recognized
it; it was her. "But how?" he whispered. "Have you seen her? Does
it come from the house? Something of hers there?"

"Will you go with me?" she said. She withdrew
her hand and placed both in her lap.

"No," he said.

"I saw her little
beasties
today," she
said. "They're displayed on the board above the fireplace."

He was shocked. He tried to make it to the
bench, but ended up dropping to his knees. He was staring directly
into her eyes. "Only my mom would use those words... for her glass
animals," he said. "How..."

"Your fire is dying," she said.

He took a breath and tried to remember he was
simply talking to a make-believe phantom. Of course she would know,
because
he
knew. "I'll push the bigger pieces back into the
middle," he said as he stood up. But as he stepped across the
bench, she was gone.

He felt drained; with every visit the little
girl made, she seemed more real. Who and what was she, really? A
madman's waking dream? Angel? Ghost? He allowed the fire to die and
stretched out on the bench and closed his eyes for the night.

****

He opened his eyes to the sound of birds... a
noisy mockingbird, several cooing doves, and an untuned orchestra
of unknown chirps and whistles. It would be dawn soon. He yawned
and sat up but was then startled to his feet. She was there. She
was never there in the morning, but she was there today. He coughed
thinking that might make the hallucination go away. But it didn't.
She sat on the dirt floor, silently, her long black hair falling
across her face and eyes, her knees up and embraced in her folded
arms. She was a poor-looking child, dirty and ragged, homeless like
him, he imagined. Created in his own image, he thought.

"You startled me," he said. "Have you been there
long?"

She stood up and dusted the dirt off her butt.
"Not long," she said. "I'm going to your mother's house again
today."

"Oh," he said. "Don't wait for me. I'm not
going."

"You have to go sooner or later," she said. "You
know that, don't you?" She headed toward the darkness of the cave
and then stopped and looked back at him. "You can't keep avoiding
the truth." She disappeared into the darkness.

He wasn't sure what she was talking about but
she seemed stranger than usual. "Hey, I thought you were going to
our family house?" He pointed toward the entrance of the cave. He
shook his head and prepared for the day, what little preparations
were actually required. He needed to sweep up the floor and fire
area and carry the food scraps and refuse away from the cave to
keep wild animals from following the rotten smell, and he thought
he would go gather enough muscles out of the creek for dinner. He
looked back into the cave again. "If you're going out today, be
careful! There's a lot of bad people out there who might want to
hurt you if they see you!" There was no answer. There never was.
The cave must go back miles, he thought. It probably opened up on
the other end and that was where she stayed. Then he caught
himself. He was forgetting more and more often that she wasn't
real. He wasn't sure if that was a sign of sanity or insanity.

She was suddenly standing beside him again and
he jumped as she touched his arm with her small, cold hand. She was
real. "You don't need to fight it, you know," she said. "It has
been long enough. I just saw her. Your mother worries so about
you."

He sat down on the bench and held his face in
his hands. "She is the only reason I need to keep living. I'm the
only one who remembers." There was no answer, and he looked up to
see the girl's face only inches away from his own as she bent over
toward him.

"She wants you to come home," she said. "It's
ready for you. She fought me as hard as you have, but she's all
right now." She straightened up and seemed to float across the
ground and toward the darkness. "Will you go with me?"

"When did she die? My mommy."

The little girl smiled. "A few weeks ago," she
said. "Right after you did."

He nodded. "I should go, then," he said.

"Yes," she said.

He stood up and walked toward the darkness and
the little girl grabbed his hand. He was her size, now, a little
boy again. "No one will remember I ever lived, will they."

She shook her head. "Does it matter now?"

He thought for a moment. "No, I reckon not."

Based on no
known
or even questionable
scientific principles, no known belief system or religion, not even
a good hunch, seven year old Theodora Livingston believed the
cellar of her family's nineteenth century farmhouse was full of
evil creatures. And not only that, she had, with much deliberation
over the last several months, decided there was probably a gateway
to hell there, too. Her big sister, Junie, had tried many times to
convince her otherwise, even offered to take her down into the
cellar to check it out when she first formulated the belief, but
Theo couldn't be convinced... that there were no demons,
and
to go down there and see for herself. But, as the months passed and
she grew braver, the lure of the cellar was starting to consume her
even more and outweigh her fears. She
would
go down there;
she was
ready
to solve the puzzle.

"Your little sister is so weird," Susan said.
She was sitting in front of Junie's television, playing a video
game. "Ack! The zombie boss!" She leaned toward the TV, her fingers
feverishly clicking the controller buttons.

"She's not weird," Junie said as she rolled over
on her bed and closed the manga she was reading. "She's just a
little kid who watches too many scary movies. And now she's decided
she's ready to go down in the cellar and hunt demons." She pointed
at the screen. "Aim for his head! Aim for his head!"

"Ha! Take that, undead scum!" She had cleared
the level and was busy saving the game. "You should just take her
down there and let her look around."

"Yeah, I know," Junie said. "But that place is a
filthy mess."

"She told
me
she had started hearing
something scratching on the cellar door, now." She put the
controller down and got up off the floor, and then plopped down on
the bed beside Junie.

"I know," Junie said. "I checked; there are no
scratch marks or anything at all on the inside of the door."

"Hey, let's all go down there," Susan said.
"We'll pretend we hear demons and stuff and scare the shit out of
her."

"You're mean," Junie said. "She's a little girl;
she can't be traumatized like that." She rolled off the bed and
onto her feet, and then walked to the bookshelf behind her desk and
pushed the comic book she had just finished back into its place. "I
think she'll eventually get tired of the whole idea and move on to
something else."

"She'll have other interests once she loses her
virginity," Susan said.

"Well, that's going to be a while, she's only
seven."

"I lost my virginity when I was seven," Susan
said.

"Oh, you did not!" Junie said.

"Yep, lost it to your dad."

They both burst out laughing. "You goof," Junie
said. "Let's raid the fridge!"

"Good idea!"

They walked out of Junie's room and down the
hall, past Theodora's room. Susan stopped, scratched her
fingernails on her door, and then caught up with Junie. Theodora
yanked her door open, looked one way, and then spotted the two
girls walking past in the other direction. "Very funny!"

"
I
thought so, weird kid!" Susan
said.

"We're making sandwiches, Theo, you want one?"
Junie said.

The child quickly caught up with the teenagers
and they all gathered around the refrigerator as Junie opened the
door. "Let's see, we've got turkey loaf, some horrible meat product
spread, and chicken salad."

"Chicken salad!" Theodora and Susan said at the
same time.

"I'll take the turkey," Junie said. "We'll save
the meat product shit for mom and dad."

"I'm telling!" Theodora said.

"No you're not," Junie said. "'Cause if you tell
on me for cussing, I'll
never
take you down into the cellar
to look around. Ever!"

"So, have you figured out what's down there,
weird kid?" Susan said. "Demons, ghosts, giant killer mutant zombie
rats?"

"You're making fun of me, aren't you?" Theodora
said.

Susan nodded as she smeared a slice of bread
with chicken salad, and then slapped another slice on top and
handed it to her. "Eat! You demon hunters need to keep your
strength up."

"Ha ha! You won't be making fun when those
monsters down there finally get through the cellar door and are
loosed upon the world!"

"'
Loosed upon the world
'? Who talks like
that?" Susan said.

"It was in a movie she saw last week," Junie
said. "Invasion of the something-or-others from space."

"Brain-Sucking Fiends," Theodora said.

Susan shook her head. "What kind of seven year
old watches movies like that? I'm sixteen and even
I
can't
watch that stuff without having nightmares!"

Theodora took a bite of her sandwich and sat
quietly observing the two teenagers. They were pretty scrawny, not
the good stout material of demon-fighters, but they were the
closest thing available and might make a good backup team, or at
least good bait. "We should go down there and look around."

"Why would we want to do that," Junie said.
"According to you, there are things down there that would rip us
apart, steal our souls, eat our brains... did I miss anything?"

"Turn us into zombies?" Susan said.

"That's where mom and dad put all their old
clothes," Theodora said. "There's probably really cool eighties
stuff down there that's back in style, now."

"Free vintage?" Susan said.

"You're being manipulated by a seven year old,"
Junie said. "Okay, okay, let's go down and look around." She
pointed at Theodora. "This should put an end to all this stupid
shit about demons and stuff, right?"

"Well, unless she's right," Susan said.

Junie sighed and shook her head. "They don't
have to
turn
us into zombies, you guys are already
there."

"Do you really mean it? We're going down there?"
Theodora said. "Hold on a sec!" She took off running back to her
room.

"She chicken out already?" Susan said.

Junie shrugged. "Who knows."

"Okay, let's do this!" Theodora said. She walked
back into the kitchen with a big backpack on, a yellow hardhat with
a built-in flashlight, and some sort of small hammer in her hand.
The other two just stared at her. "What? It's a demon fighting
kit," she said.

"What if they're ghosts?" Junie said.

"Got it covered," Theodora said. She reached
into a small pocket on the side of her pack and pulled something
out. "EMF detector."

"Emergency food?" Susan said.

"A dozen packs of cheesy crackers and a six-pack
of peanut butter cups."

"Garlic and wooden stakes for vampires?" Susan
said.

"Uh, no," Theodora said. "Don't be stupid; this
is serious business."

"Okay, come on," Junie said. She walked into the
smaller pantry off the kitchen, and put her hand on the cellar
door. "So, anyone want to guess what we find?"

"Dirt. Spiders. Rats. Old crap. Canned green
beans from 1993," Susan said.

"Theo?"

"I hope you guys are right," she said. She
shrugged. "But I know what I know."

"Which is?" Junie said.

"There's something evil down there that is
trying to find a way to get out, and it's getting closer every
day."

Junie opened the door, then closed it, then
opened it again. "It's not locked. They could just open the door
and
walk
out. Or do demons not understand how doorknobs
work?"