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Alma was certain he was lying to try and get
Rachel to go to the cabin.

“I told you,” said Rachel. “I’m not
going.”

“Don’t be stupid, babe,” said Stephen. “This
is our chance to get to the cabin where it’s safe.”

“It’s not safe here! It’s not safe anywhere
in this fucking town,” said Rachel.

“So what?” asked Stephen. “Are you just
going to go walk right up to the security here?”

“I didn’t see any trucks back there.”

“Trust me,” said Stephen. “I saw them. Now
let’s get to the cabin and if you’re still set on going home we can
figure it out there. Let’s at least get out of the open.”

“You’re going to get us killed,” said Rachel
as she let Stephen lead her away.

Widowsfield

March 14th, 1996

Nancy staggered back inside of the
Widowsfield County Emergency Services building. The fog had swept
in too fast to be natural, and the crackling electricity zinged
across the metal handle of the door.

“What the fuck is going on?” Nancy fell
against the wall as she stared out the building’s door. There were
dogs barking, and the clock on the bank’s sign seemed brighter than
it should’ve been. As the fog rolled into the parking lot, the time
continued to blaze through it, the light penetrating even the thick
white cloud.

3:14

“It’s different now,” said Claire. The old
woman stood up from her chair and took off her headset. “Nancy, get
away from the door.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Get away from the door!”

Claire reached out and took Nancy’s arm to
pull her back. The two women stared at the entrance for a minute,
but nothing happened.

“What’s the matter up there?” asked Darryl
from his seat in the middle of the room.

“Shut up, Darryl,” said Claire.

Nancy smirked, satisfied to hear the sweet
old woman be nasty to Darryl.

“Nancy, this is all different,” said Claire
as she looked down at her seat. She rubbed her thigh and then her
head.

“I think there was an explosion or something
outside.”

“Would you two get back on your damn
phones,” said Darryl. “The lines are lighting up. I need some help
here.”

Nancy glanced at her station and saw that
every line was lit up red. “Oh shit, Claire. We need to get on the
phones.”

“No,” said Claire. “Don’t do it.” The portly
old woman grabbed Nancy’s arm to prevent her from getting to her
desk.

“Claire, what’s the matter?”

“Do you hear that?”

“The dogs barking?” Nancy could hear dogs
reacting to the strange fog outside, barking from far off.

“No,” said Claire. “Not the children. Can
you hear the chattering teeth?”

“You’re starting to scare me,” said
Nancy.

“I think there’s someone else in my head,”
said Claire. “Darling, I know that sounds crazy, but it’s
true.”

“Maybe you need to sit down,” said
Nancy.

“No, absolutely not.” Claire seemed suddenly
frightened of her chair.

Nancy tried to get out of Claire’s grip, but
the old woman held fast. “I need to get some of these calls.”

“Quiet,” said Nancy. “Don’t move. He’s
here.”

“Who?” asked Nancy.

“The one the children call The Skeleton Man.
If he remembers us, he’ll lead the children here. He’s right
outside.”

“Claire, I don’t know what’s gotten into
you, but there’s…” Nancy looked outside where she had just been,
confident that there was no one there hiding in the fog. She was
wrong.

Standing outside the front door, seeming to
hide from someone across the street, was a tall, dark figure. The
fog shrouded him, but he was pressed against the glass, affording
Nancy a view of his skeletal frame. He had long arms draped in a
suit coat, and blood was dripping from the bone tips of his
fingers. His face was a mask of sunken skin, pulled taut against a
skull to reveal chattering teeth beneath. There were strips of wet
flesh slapped against his skull and one of them slid down the side
of his head. He had a hole where his nose once was, and his eye
sockets were wide and black. Within the sockets sat two lidless
eyes, smaller than the skull they dwelled in, bobbing in the
blackness as they stared across the street.

Then he looked at Nancy.

The sound of his chattering teeth seemed to
explode in her mind. She cried out and clasped her ears just as
every pane of glass in the building exploded. The fog rushed in as
The Skeleton Man turned his focus back on his victims. The children
came to punish them, running on their bloodied paws and snapping
their jaws. The adults would pay for what The Skeleton Man
remembered.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Way Past Sanity

March 12th, 2012

Alma had no trouble finding the cabin.
Despite how hard she tried to forget this place, Widowsfield was
burned into her memory, and every street looked exactly as it did
the night her father and she had fled.

“This is it.” She stood on the walkway that
led to the front door. She stared at the picture window where her
brother and she used to sit and watch the children come home from
school. They would walk down the thin road, past the cabin that was
mostly shaded by the encroaching woods. Some of the children would
wave at them, but most snickered and laughed at the two young faces
that peered at them.

A sense of sorrow and loneliness swept
through Alma.

“Let’s get inside,” said Stephen.

“Are you okay?” asked Rachel as she stood
beside Alma.

“No,” Alma stated matter-of-factly. “Not at
all.”

“You don’t have to do this,” said Rachel. “I
want to leave too. I want to get the fuck out of this town.”

Alma broke her gaze at the cabin to look at
her friend. She felt an intense sorrow for Rachel, though she
didn’t know why. “You should go.” Alma didn’t want Rachel to get
hurt.

“Are you serious?” asked Rachel, excited.
“Do you want to just go home?”

“No,” said Alma. “I’m staying, but you
should go. All of you should go.”

Paul put his hand in Alma’s. “I’m with you
to the end, babe.”

“It’s not locked,” said Stephen as he opened
the cabin’s front door.

The gaping maw seemed to draw Alma’s
attention inexorably inside. She knew that the cabin wanted her
back.

“Don’t go,” said Rachel.

“I have to. I’ve never been more certain of
anything in my life.”

“Why?” asked Rachel. “What do you think
you’re going to find in there?” She held Alma by the crook of her
arm to stop her from going in.

“The truth,” said Alma. “Something happened
here sixteen years ago that I’ve blocked from my memory. It has
something to do with the number 314, and the last time I was here I
was able to remember my brother just by staring at the symbol for
pi. I was too scared then to learn everything, but not
anymore.”

“This place is fucked,” said Rachel. “The
whole town is a nightmare. I don’t know if the government has
something to do with it, or if this is some fucking portal to hell,
and I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I just want to go home, and
I want you to come with me.”

“Guys, you have to see this,” said Stephen
from the entrance of the cabin. He had gone inside, and came back
out to call them in. He waved at them, excitement lighting his
features, like a mischievous child beckoning his brothers after
discovering where their parents hid the Christmas presents.

“Don’t go in,” said Rachel.

Alma pried her friend’s fingers from her
arm. “I’m going. It’s time for this to end. Whatever I’ve
forgotten, I can handle it now.”

The sun seemed to provide no heat, the wind
held no sway, and the cabin dominated Alma’s every sense. Even the
sound of her friends’ voices seemed lost as if in a cavern, far off
and echoing. She walked to the threshold, and stepped through.

Her senses returned to normal once inside,
although a moment of time seemed lost to her. Now everyone was
inside, and Stephen was closing the door behind her. The cabin’s
door closed like the lid of a tomb, loud with heft.

“Look at this shit,” said Stephen as he
walked to a couch in the living room where two mannequins had been
set up.

The cabin was the same, eerily accurate. It
was different from when Alma had come here with her mother, and had
been reverted back to what it looked like on March 14th, 1996. It
was as if someone had stolen Alma’s memories to recreate the room
exactly as it was.

The couch was brown and musty, with a
pattern of waving lines that looked Native American. The area rug
was green and plain, with a hole in it where a dog had eaten
through while chewing on a bone.

That dog, the one with the missing eye and
yellow teeth; the dog that belonged to the red-haired girl whose
father owned the cabin.

Alma staggered and Paul caught her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he steadied
her.

“How fucking crazy is this?” asked Stephen
loudly as he knocked on the head of a mannequin that was sitting on
the couch.

Alma stared at the child sized mannequin. It
was a boy in overalls and a red shirt with a pair of sneakers on
that had been scuffed from playing in the dirt out back. There were
two mannequins on the couch, one a boy and the other a girl.

Alma recognized the clothes that the girl
mannequin wore. It was the same outfit she’d worn sixteen years
earlier.

“This must’ve been what we saw at the
school,” said Stephen. “There must be mannequins like this all over
town.” He slapped the boy’s head and the yellow mannequin slouched
to the side.

“No,” said Alma. “Don’t hit it.”

“Why?” asked Jacker as he set the gear he
was carrying down. “What’s wrong? Do you know what this is all
about?” There was an edge of fright to his tone, as if he was
struggling to maintain composure in the bizarre setting.

“That’s my brother.” She looked around at
the familiar room. “Someone set up this place to look exactly like
it did when I was here with my father. Those mannequins are dressed
in the clothes that my brother and I were wearing.”

“I think we should go,” said Aubrey. She had
her arms crossed and was backing away, toward the front door. “This
is fucked up.”

“I agree,” said Rachel. “Stephen, we need to
leave.”

“I can’t believe you guys want to leave,”
said Stephen. He was exasperated, but his anger was unmistakable.
“We’ve stumbled into one of the biggest paranormal stories of all
time, and you guys want to just take off? You’re insane.”

“This reminds me of the towns they built
while testing nuclear weapons,” said Paul.

A yellow light pulsed outside.

“Get down!” Stephen knelt low and moved
toward the kitchen.

The picture window’s curtains were pulled
back, revealing the street outside as a security truck came near.
The group moved into the kitchen, which was to the right of the
entrance, and ducked beneath the counters. The rotating yellow
light on top of the truck illuminated the cabin with ghastly
shadows for a moment, and then faded away.

Alma would’ve sworn the shadows cast by the
mannequins were taller than they should’ve been. She was on her
knees on the kitchen floor, exactly where the dog’s crate used to
be. It was also where her mother had written the symbol for pi on
the ground and then circled it with lit candles. This would be
where Alma would try it again, but this time she wouldn’t be
confused by the mathematic symbol. This time she would just write
the numbers.

314

“Do you think they’re looking for us?” asked
Jacker.

“I don’t know,” said Paul. “But we’re sure
the hell not going to be able to get the van and my bike in
here.”

“There were never this many security guards
before,” said Aubrey. “When I used to sneak in here with my
friends, there was never more than a few guards at the posts.
Nothing like this.”

“Did you ever come down here two days before
March 14th?” asked Alma.

Everyone turned their attention to Alma as
Aubrey answered, “No.”

“Do you think the date has something to do
with this?” asked Rachel of Alma.

Alma looked at all of their faces, stunned
that they were surprised by this. “Of course it does. Don’t you
guys get it?”

“Get what?” asked Stephen.

“They’re trying to recreate the event.
Whatever happened on March 14th, 1996, they’re trying to make it
happen again. Or at least they tried, at some point. It looks like
it must’ve been years ago, maybe when Cada EIB first purchased the
land. I don’t know how they got it so perfect,” said Alma as she
stared at the back of the mannequins’ heads as they sat silent on
the couch. “But if the mannequins were in the school, then I bet
they’re set up like this in every house around here.”

Rachel punched Stephen in the arm several
times. The first seemed playful, but the next was with more force,
and then by the third hit she started to slam both fists into him.
“You dragged us into this, you bastard.”

“Settle the fuck down, Rachel. Jesus Christ!
Stop it.” He grabbed her wrists and she struggled to get free.

“It’s not his fault,” said Alma. She looked
around the cabin and felt a sudden chill. “Something wanted me back
here. I think it’s been trying to pull me back here for years.”

“Well, it doesn’t need me here,” said
Aubrey. “Sorry guys, but I’m getting the fuck out of this creepy
ass place.” She stood up and headed for the door. “Jacker, it was
good meeting you. If you ever get out of this place alive, give me
a ring.”

Aubrey opened the door and they all heard a
distant, booming voice. Aubrey stopped in the threshold and looked
back at them. “Do you hear that?”

The group went to the door. They were
cautious to make sure no security trucks were nearby as they went
outside. A grey wisp of cloud moved over the sun, and its shadow
was cast over the cabin for a moment as the group listened to a
man’s voice in the distance.