Hag Night, page 14
“What?”
Reg lifted up his head, staring into the fire. “I thought…I thought about ten minutes ago I heard him scream. Maybe I didn’t. The wind is making weird sounds. Maybe I imagined it…but it sounded like him screaming.”
“Don’t think about it.”
Reg shook his head. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
Doc wished he could tell him, but there was no way to wipe it from his mind. He supposed if they survived this entire ordeal Reg would be hearing the screams thirty years from now in his dreams.
He wondered if they were missed by now. It was past midnight. Somebody had to have been asking a few questions and ringing a few bells by this point. With a storm like that out there, though, it was unlikely that the police would make a special run way out here. There was a good chance the highways were closed by now and the secondary roads that brought them to this godawful place were probably drifted over.
If we can make it through the night, we have a chance, he thought. Even if we have to hike out tomorrow, we’re doing it. Another night in this place and we’ll loose what little remains of our minds.
He lit a cigarette as he watched over Bailey, listening to the storm rage, the house creak. This was their cage and there was no getting around that. They had these rooms and floors and not much else. Water, but no food unless you counted the expensive wax fruit in the dining room. The house was much, much larger than most prison cells, but ultimately it was just as confining and just as prone to drive them out of their collective skulls. He needed to sleep, but he didn’t dare. It was only Reg and himself now, and it looked like Reg was drifting off so he had to stay awake.
If not to be wary of those outside, then to be wary of Bailey.
She didn’t have much time left. She’d simply lost too much blood and it was only a matter of time before she stopped breathing. Then…then what exactly? That was a good question. How long before she rose from the dead? An hour? Two? Six? Or did it take a day or two? Doc remembered that in The Brides of Dracula it took like seven days. He seemed to recall Peter Cushing saying something like that on Chamber of Horrors.
But that was TV, movies.
What about in reality?
He had to suppress a cold, grim chuckle. Reality? You call this reality? The walking dead? But unfortunately it was and he had decided some hours ago he would not sit around trying to make sense of it all. That was for later. For now, he would ride it out.
Still…the question remained: how long? How long did it take?
Looking down at Bailey he felt the sour bile of fear rise in his gullet and he had everything he could do not to whimper. He breathed in and out, clearing his head. He bunched his hands into fists and clenched his teeth until the fear went away and he could think rationally because never had that been so important.
His mind turned away from darker realms and to Bailey herself.
When Morris had first brought him on board Chamber of Horrors and he had met Wenda, he had been amazed at how striking she was. He remembered thinking, this show will be a hit because of her looks if for no other reason. When she was just Wenda Keegan she seemed uncomfortable and aloof, but as Vultura she embodied the fantasies of every teenage boy. He met Megga next. She had dark good looks and an almost sinister feline undercurrent that was scary and exciting at the same time. My God, look at that black hair and that pale skin, those huge intense eyes…like a Goth pinup. The boys’ll love her and the girls will want to be her. Then he met Bailey and, had he been much younger, he would have been smitten. With the blonde hair and blue eyes and flawless skin, she was like central casting’s idea of a Nordic prom queen. She was diametrically opposed to Megga in looks and personality. But somehow, someway, they complimented each other: the dark side and the light side, bad and good, moonlight and sunshine. Which was why Morris took to calling them Jekyll and Hyde.
And now, seeing Bailey lying there, so close to death…he hoped when she returned she would not victimize Reg. He hoped she would only go after him because he felt he had let her down and deserved her kiss of death as punishment.
Maybe, subconsciously, you old fool, it’s more than that. Maybe you want her to kiss you first and maybe you’ve always wanted that.
He did not entirely dismiss the idea because the subconscious mind was such a tar pit of base desires and impulses. It was where the animal drives were housed, where the greed and lust and hungers waited sharpening their teeth. It was also where the conscious mind threw all its baggage and repressions that it could not face nor accept. Maybe down there in the basement, yes, he wanted her to kiss him. But up in the light where his thinking mind, morals, and ethics ruled the roost, he was only concerned with Bailey’s welfare and how he had let her down.
Though he was not aware of it in his physical and emotional exhaustion, his eyes had closed and he was remembering, as a child, the cold farmhouse in Iowa where he grew up. How, each night, his mother insisted that he pray for thirty minutes before bed. To disobey her was to incur her wrath. And to incur her wrath was to get the switch. Sometimes just on the ass when you’d did something bad like the time he and his sister Fran had lit Shaky Papineau’s outhouse on fire as a Halloween prank. Their asses had been tenderized red and hurting over that one. But if ma caught you cutting your prayers short, you would know the switch on your back because, according to his mother, you needed to be flogged as Jesus was flogged by Pilate so you would know the suffering of the heretic. Which, even then, Doc knew made no sense but he wasn’t about to debate biblical interpretation with his foul-tongued mother. Once she had been sweet like apple cider, then his father left with another woman and that cider had gone to vinegar and its taste had been forever burning and bitter. So, Doc prayed for thirty minutes each night and it was his mother’s soul he asked forgiveness for. She who abused his sisters and tormented him because he was the image of his father. His mother had shown cruelties to children which were God’s lambs and he figured she would burn in hell for it.
When he left home and went to war, he and religion parted ways. But now, in the midst of this nightmare, he was child again behind his closed eyes and he could hear the voice of a ten-year old Iowa farm boy asking the Lord to deliver them from this horrible place, from this nest of vipers where pale abominations had crawled forth from hell to claim the Earth as their own. And as he prayed, he thought of his flat in Albany, the fine brass bed that he would often fall into, more often drunk than not. The fire flickering, the hoarfrost on the windows. It was like none of this had ever happened. He was home and he was safe and in safety his mind fell back in time to the farmhouse and his mother and his sister, long hot summers of planting and chill autumns of harvest, watching Shaky Papineau stagger from his stillhouse up the hill to his bed after a solid day of drinking, his nerves burnt out like old fuses from corn liquor. He felt peaceful. He was in his bed up in the loft and the fire down in the hearth would throw crazy shapes over the plank ceiling and sometimes he would think they were ghosts come in the night to suck his blood and—
Wake up!
The child inside him jumped out of bed and then the old man he now was opened his eyes, sweating and shivering, and, dear God, he’d been asleep. Asleep. That was when they came: when you were harmless and dreaming. That’s when they crawled in your window and sipped from your throat. Doc rubbed the slumber from his eyes. Bailey was still out, trembling slightly like a dog in a dream. The fire was burning low and Reg was snoozing in the chair and…and what was that smell? That awful smell like dead things washed up to spoil on toxic beaches?
A shadow. Two shadows…
Children.
Two children, the firelight reflective in their eyes like silver coins, shining off their teeth. They had wanted him asleep. They had compelled him to sleep so they could do what their kind always did. Doc saw them, a bright white terror exploding in his chest, and he tried to move but it was like he was drugged. He fell from the chair and the sound of it brought Reg awake and he saw them, too. He made a gasping/whimpering sound. The children were gone…no, they were crawling up the walls and moving across the ceiling like shadows thrown by the fire. Their shadows crept down the door and disappeared in the vicinity of the keyhole.
Gone.
Disturbed at their play and frightened off.
Bailey chattered her teeth in her stupor.
Doc got to his feet and tuned up the kerosene lanterns until the room was bright with even yellow light and the shadows had been pushed into the corners and under the furniture where they belonged.
You’re not welcome here. Go away, just go away…
“They were here, Doc,” Reg said, still loopy from it all. “I dreamed…I dreamed there were two kids lost in the storm and they were calling out to me. I found them and held their hands and they were so cold, so damn cold…and…”
“Just a dream,” Doc told him, checking his neck and wrists for signs of the bite. He found nothing. “We got lucky. But we won’t get lucky twice.”
Bailey’s teeth continued to chatter.
8
As the tension inside her increased, Wenda felt herself growing rigid. She took one of the lanterns and went to the door. Morris was curled up on the floor by the fire, Megga had fallen asleep in a chair. Now was the time to do things. But she would have to be quick before something happened because something was going to and she could feel it building around her. Whatever it was, it froze her with fear. It seemed to be self-generating and almost electrical. It felt like static rising in the air around her, a negative charge of voltage that was going right up her spine and making the hairs on her arms stand up. It was a cold sort of energy, cold like auroras flickering above ice caps.
Accept it and die, or fight against it.
Yes. She sucked in a breath of cool air and opened the door. There was nothing out there and she didn’t really think there would be. Not yet. But soon. Once that energy in the house—or whatever it was—reached its peak, then she would see things. But not before. She went into the kitchen and dining room, gathering candles until she had an armload. She paid no attention to anything she saw out the windows, directing her vision to what was in front her. She ignored the shadows, the funny…impulses in her head that demanded she look at the windows and see what was looking in at her.
I will not. You cannot make me.
I will not look in your eyes.
It was working very well until she made to leave the dining room and abruptly dropped a candle. She could have left it, but candles meant light and flame and these things were life and death now. So she set her candles on the table and stooped down to pick up the one she had dropped. She found it quickly enough, but as she stood, her eyes looked over at the window and she saw what they wanted her to see: what looked at first like a blowing sheet that filled her with a stark, childlike terror. But it was no sheet but a drifting wraith clawing at the glass in its blowing shroud, its white face hooked in a grin of defilement, its eyes like glowing moonstones. Whether it had been male or female in life, she could not tell. It was a vulpine ghost and no more.
But the eyes.
It was not easy to look away from them.
That cold electricity she had felt in the sitting room was directed by them. It moved through her veins and across the backs of her arms. It made her fingers and toes tingle. It flowed up into her skull and filled her head with a low buzzing that seemed to rise in pitch every time she tried to turn away from the face and the tapping ghost fingers at the window. There was an unspeakable dominion in those eyes that she did not dare look away from…they were drawing her in and she knew they were drawing her in. That was the worst part. They were taking apart her willpower block by block, unmaking it and creating a pocket of blackness in its place that was spreading inch by dark inch and when it was finished she knew there would be no more Wenda Keegan…just a mindless slave, a deadhead zombie that would stumble over to the window and open it.
Fight it…fight it…fight it…
But as those thoughts went through her mind, that awful droning rose up to blanket any defiance. And she knew, somewhere in the depths of her brain, that she either threw that dominance off now or faced defeat.
So she started talking. “What I’m going to do is bring these candles back to the room and I’m going to light it up in there and if one of those fucking things tries anything, I will stick my stake through its black heart.”
In her skull, she could hear something like a cheated screech.
Then she looked away, her hands going for the stake and the silver knife on her belt and there was strength in these objects. She could feel it flowing through her, opening her up and filling her with warmth, driving away the shadows in her mind until they had evaporated.
She hesitated no more.
“Where have you been?” Megga asked when she came back.
Wenda showed her the candles.
“You think that’s going to help?”
“Light always helps,” she told her. Then, almost ritualistically, she lit the candles one by one, dripping wax in puddles to hold them upright. She went around the room and lit five of them. The light was good and it would save on the lanterns which were getting down on fuel.
“We’re going to need more kerosene,” she said.
Megga grunted. “Fresh out.”
Wenda knew there was a maintenance shed or building somewhere outside the town. But there was no way of getting to it, of course. She wondered if there might be kerosene in the house, maybe in the cellar. They were going to need some. If it came to it, they would have to go down below and see.
“We’ll be dead by morning,” Megga said.
Wenda wanted to give her a good, hard slap across the face because she had it coming, but she didn’t. Looking into Megga’s eyes she saw something that she had never seen before: vulnerability and innocence. That stopped her. In fact, it deflated her. She had never seen it before and never would have expected it.
Is this the person that’s been hiding behind the mask all this time? she wondered. Is this the real Megga I’m seeing?
This Megga looked scared. This Megga did not look like the one she knew who courted morbidity, suffering, and angst. This Megga looked like she could be hurt. In fact, it looked like she was suffering right now, fathoms deep in personal pain.
She stood up and walked over to Wenda. Her arms were folded and she would not meet Wenda’s eyes. “Something’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
“I think so, yes.”
“All I want is to be is safe,” Megga said, her eyes wet. “That’s all. That’s all I want.”
Wenda was moved. She put a hand on Megga’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “That’s what we all want.”
Megga came into her arms then, sobbing, and Wenda could do nothing but hold her. She pulled away slightly at first, but she couldn’t turn her back on her. Not now when Megga was finally exhibiting symptoms of being human. Megga held onto her tightly, her face buried in Wenda’s hair…then she looked up and kissed her. Wenda pulled back and Megga kissed her again, this time her tongue tracing a hot trail over her lips.
“Stop it!” Wenda told her, pushing her back.
“Why?”
“Because…because I don’t like that.”
Megga moved in again. “Yes, you do. I see the way you look at me. You want this. You’ve always wanted this.”
Wenda shook her head. “Stop it, Megga.”
But she wouldn’t stop. She took hold of Wenda and tried to kiss her again and Wenda shoved her back. When Megga fought to kiss her, Wenda slapped her across the face and Megga dropped to the floor.
So that’s what this was. Those outside were using Megga again. Probably as a distraction, Wenda figured, and she did not doubt that Megga was a willing participant. She crouched down by her and her eyes were open, staring up. “What happened?” Megga said. “Why am I on the floor?”
Sighing, Wenda helped her up. “I think you fainted.”
“I’ve never fainted in my life.”
“Well, you have now.”
Megga did not seem to believe her. She knocked aside Wenda’s helping hands and sat back in her chair. She looked suspicious like maybe Wenda was up to something and that was how Wenda knew that none of it had been voluntary. Maybe Megga wasn’t entirely innocent because she had opened herself up to those things out there, but she wasn’t totally guilty either.
Wenda turned.
She heard something. Maybe not with her ears exactly, but with some other finely tuned sense.
Megga said, “What are—”
“Shut up,” Wenda told her, pressing a finger to her lips.
She was straining to hear something, anything. They were in the house and she knew it. Maybe they had been all along. Regardless, they were here now. The very fabric of the house had been disrupted by their presence. They were out there in the darkened corridors, moving around, gliding forward like midnight shadows, pressing in for attack. Maybe that had been their plan all along: get Megga to seduce her and then in they would come.
Maybe.
“Get over by the fire,” Wenda told Megga. “Wake up Morris.”
Megga, for once, did not argue. She went over to the hearth and shook Morris awake none too gently. She fed two logs into the fire and the flames greedily rose high, brightening the room but also filling it with countless moving shadows.
Wenda got in front of Megga and Morris with her stake and knife.
They were coming now. She could hear them slithering out there like snakes, silently sliding down floors and over walls and creeping over ceilings. That there were many of them she did not doubt. And at any moment now, the door would burst open and they would fill the room: forked-tongued serpents with massive, glossy midnight-blue bodies, the kind that could wrap up a human being in writhing coils and squeeze them until their guts came squirting out of their mouths.
But that was subjective and she knew it.
She did not really expect snakes. That was a simple phobia of hers. Whenever she was frightened of something, her brain converted the fright into slinking serpentine shapes; a childhood fear.
