Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (27 page)

92. Tightening

It takes me a while, but thankfully the old mill where Uncle Robert was staying is still on the map. It’s not like the Crag’s Inn, which disappeared until finally reemerging on the day I hit the lottery and won my license. I’ve ridden out here to see if I can talk to Uncle Robert again. Or at least see how he’s doing. But after checking out the house and the surrounding area, I realize that Uncle Robert is long gone.

It’s a pretty little place even if it is an abandoned property. I hear birds chirping away and crickets buzzing and bees flying.

In another life, I might decide to settle down here.

I’d fix this place up and bring in animals and then do something. Like milking the cows and making cheese and baking fresh bread.

Who are you trying to fool? Farming? You’re an idiot.

I walk across a field of grass, through weeds that come up to my shins. The sun beats down on me on this Saturday late morning.

I wonder if Uncle Robert is really gone for good. If he spoke his piece and couldn’t do anything else and just left.

Like the coward that he is.

I don’t want to hate Uncle Robert. Nor do I want to think that he is a coward. But I still don’t get it. I don’t understand how someone can just hide and wait.

What are you doing with Kelsey then? Aren’t you hiding just a bit? Aren’t you forcing her to wait?

Maybe.

It’s April 28, and Memorial Day is a month away exactly.

I know because I’ve been looking. I know the date by heart.

I need to find Uncle Robert before then. If he’s around to find.

I need to see Aunt Alice, too.

As I get on my bike, a list of other to-dos goes off in my head.

Time is beginning to tighten around me like a noose.

I just hope I can figure out what in the world I’m supposed to do before they open the trapdoor and I’m left to plunge to my death.

93. Return of the Beast

I’m skipping school with Brick.

Yes, I’m such a rebel.

It’s ten in the morning, and we’ve made sure that Gus is at school and Staunch has left the house. Nobody else should be there. Nobody except Walter Kinner.

“Told you it’d be open,” Brick says.

Brick worked with a landscaping team one summer and helped build the small waterfall behind us. That’s how he came to find out about some of the creepy things happening on the Staunch property.

There’s a wooden door in the side of the hill, well camouflaged but, as Brick predicted, easy to open. I shine my flashlight and see a tunnel just like all the others. The hole dug deep into the earth.

“That heads into the basement.”

“You know this?” I ask.

“Yep. Tried it out myself.”

“But you didn’t see anything?”

“I didn’t stay around for long. Thought I heard some stuff, but I don’t know. Maybe I just psyched myself out.”

“And you’re cool with everything?”

Brick lights up a cigarette and nods. “Any sign of a car or anything, I call you. No problem.”

“I have a text ready to send. If anything—anything—gets sent, you come after me.”

He nods and then points at the ground. “That’s why I brought my shotgun.”

“Let’s don’t shoot anybody, okay?”

“Not unless I have to.”

I think of what’s inside my backpack.

A hammer and, yeah, a wooden stake that’s sharp at the point.

I don’t really want to use it.

But I will.

I know that if I spot Kinner sleeping in a coffin—well, I have to do what I have to do.

“You going?” Brick asks me.

“Yeah.”

“Be careful.”

Things start to go funky midway through the tunnel. I know this because my flashlight starts to go off and on. It’s not the batteries, because I just put new ones in. But the temperature suddenly drops and my light starts to flicker, and I know that I’m getting close.

Maybe something doesn’t want you closer.

When I arrive at another wooden door with a rusted handle, I pause for a minute.

It’s not only cold, but I’m having a hard time breathing.

The light keeps going out, then going back on when I click the switch. I finally test the door handle and feel a bit disappointed that it actually turns. I really don’t want to go in. I really don’t want to look inside this basement and in that room that was pitch black when I first came here.

Chrissssss.

That’s just my imagination. So shut up. Stop the hissing.

The first thing I notice is the musty smell. And the cold breeze blowing through the basement as if the air conditioner is set on maximum. The room is dark, and I scan with the flashlight, expecting to see the same surroundings as before.

The place looks familiar, but it doesn’t belong to Staunch’s basement.

What happened, and how did I end up here?

I see a small table with chairs around it. A small kitchen area. Then I move my light to the other side, and sure enough, I see a bed in the corner of the room.

The bed is no longer old and run-down and rusty. It actually looks new.

Someone is on it.

I’ve had this dream or vision or nightmare before.

“Daddy,” a voice says.

The voice belongs to a boy. Just a kid. Maybe nine or ten years old. He’s under blankets, and it sounds like he’s shivering.

“Daddy?”

I can hear the wind outside this little cabin, the same cabin that’s just above ours, the one that’s run-down and contains the hole in its center. The floor here is intact from what I can see.

The boy is crying. Or more like whimpering.

Then I hear it. A deep moaning sound. At first I think it’s the boy himself or the wind, but then I realize it’s something else, something different.

At first it just goes “Waaaaaa” for a long time. Then I make out a “Walter.” Like a low, grumbling moaning sound that’s saying
Walter
.

The boy starts to cry again, but this time louder.

Figures begin to rise out of the floor.

I turn off my flashlight but can make out faint light coming from a candle in the kitchen.

Three figures emerge from the center of the cabin, the place where the hole was located. I can’t tell if there’s a hole or an entrance that’s been opened or if they’re coming through the floor itself.

Anything is possible at this point.

The tall, hulking figures remind me of the ones I saw at the bridge in the dark. Ominous, scary people bathed in shadows, but getting closer and closer with every second.

These three things don’t walk; rather they seem to hover closer to the bed.

Then I hear the boy screaming.

Is this Walter Kinner? Is it a younger version of him?

“Make it stop make them go away Daddy Daddy make them stop please!”

The sound hurts me to even hear. I want to help, but I can’t tell if my feet can’t move or won’t. I’m freaking out from fear, but I also want to help this boy.

Suddenly I see one of the shapes start to fade away. No, make that start to bend and lean over the bed.

The screams continue. I try to run, but I can’t.

The boy is howling. Terrified and in pain and trying to get away. I hear the sound of chains grinding against each other.

Then the figure over the bed disappears.

My eyes have adjusted, and I see the kid—tall and skinny—lying on the bed. An arm and a leg shackled.

All of a sudden he begins convulsing. Shaking like a cartoon character. It’s crazy ridiculous, and I try to shut my eyes but I can’t.

Then suddenly everything stops.

The two figures continue to stand over him like the last ghost in
A Christmas Carol
. Standing as if they’re watching and waiting.

No, not like the ghost in
A Christmas Carol,
but like those dead creatures that attacked Frodo in
The Lord of the Rings
.

I can’t think of what they’re called, but I also can’t think of where I am. For a second I think I need to get out of this cabin and go home.

Then I hear a shotgun blast and remember where I am.

I blink, and the picture in front of me is gone. Boom, just like that.

I hear another gunshot go off, and I stand there, looking at an empty finished basement.

If I keep going down the hall, I’ll spot him.

But Brick’s shooting at something.

I breathe in and know I only have minutes. Seconds even.

Just look. Just peek.

I sprint down the hall and go to the last door, the one I was led to and then brought inside.

I open the door expecting to see darkness and feel cold, but instead the room is empty. No coffin. No Walker Kinner hanging upside down. Nothing.

A third shotgun blast goes off. I can’t help but curse.

Where is he if he’s not here?

Turning around, my legs move as fast as possible back to the door. I get through and close it and then haul down the tunnel without even bothering to turn on my flashlight. I can see a small circle of light that keeps getting bigger as I get closer.

Soon I’m outside and sucking in air and shutting the door. I call out Brick’s name, but I don’t see anything or hear anyone.

I climb up the hill, slipping a bit but managing to break my fall. When I get to the top of the hill I look out on the lawn of Staunch’s property.

Brick is walking toward me, limping. He keeps looking back, again and again, his shotgun in his hand and a pained look on his face.

Then I see his legs. Both of them look muddy, like he was ankle-deep in sludge.

He stops at the edge of the woods and starts screaming profanities.

“What?”

Brick yells and says something about a rabid animal. He scowls in pain and sits down on the grass. “Take my shotgun,” he says.

“What happened?”

“This dog came out of nowhere. I mean, I think it was a dog. I don’t know. A wolf or something. I mean—it just ran up on me and starting biting—” He curses again as he looks at his legs. “Man, I got bit like a dozen times.”

“Where is it?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I shot it three times, last time in the face. In the face. And then it just—it was chewing at my leg, and I shot it point-blank in the brain and then the thing just blew up like a balloon.”

The demon dog.

“You find what you were looking for inside?”

I’m about to say no, but that’s not entirely true. “Yes.”

I say it more to make sure this doesn’t feel like a complete waste of his time.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says, adding a few more colorful words.

94. What’s Your Deal?

“You know what that thing was?” Brick asks. We’re on the deck of my cabin, and he’s cleaning the blood off his ankles and feet.

“No.”

I got some bandages from a first-aid kit inside. Thankfully Mom is working and the house is empty.

“But you’ve seen it before?”

“Yeah.”

I’m a bit dizzy from the whole experience. I haven’t had time to make sense of the vision I saw, and meanwhile I’m trying to keep Brick from completely freaking out.

“Man, I feel like I’m tripping, you know?” he says.

I can’t really tell him anything.

All I know is that the person I went to see was missing.

While Brick was attacked by the wild beast that mysteriously vanishes into thick and stinky air, leaving behind a coating of goo.

“Man, you’re into some weird stuff,” Brick says. After he wraps up both of his ankles, he takes a cigarette out of the pack and lights it. “Sorry—my last one.”

“And I might have said yes.”

We sit there on the deck under the warm noon sun and stare at the trees below.

“Well, that pretty much tops the weird stuff I’ve seen around here,” he says. “And I’ve seen my share.”

“I think everybody has,” I say.

“What’s your deal, Buckley?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. What’s the scoop with you? Weird stuff has been happening around you ever since you came to town.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Just tell me you’re a good guy.”

“What’s that even mean?”

“That you’re not part of them. The ones who dress up and play Ku Klux Klan.”

“You’ve seen them?”

He nods but doesn’t act like it’s some big information.

“I’m not a part of them.”

“Good.”

And that’s all he says.

I’ve already gotten him involved enough. Neither of us wants any more.

“Thanks for looking out for me,” I tell him.

“No problem, man. Anytime.”

I wonder if he seriously means that.

Staring at him, I think he really does.

95. Sweet Dreams Part 2

Do they wait for when you’re weakest?

Hovering in the dark, hidden in the shadows. Hiding and waiting to prey.

Do they see when you’re confused and angry?

Do they hear when you’re asking God why?

Do they laugh when you cry?

Do they strike when you start to wave the white flag?

What do you do?

Where do you go?

Where can you run?

You don’t run, Chris. Not anymore.

Is fear like a pot of stew, something that can be stirred?

Is guilt like a shackle, tying you down and making you unable to move?

What if you could not only see them but do something about them?

But I can’t.

In the silence of night I think about these visions and nightmares I’ve witnessed. Time after time I’m just a spectator.

I wonder what would happen if I could strike back.

If I could throw some light on the shadows. If I could stop these things in their tracks.

Are they really, truly real? And if so, what can be done against them?

Pray, Chris.

So I do.

Believe.

Okay.

Sooner or later, I think the time is going to come that those figures will stand in front of me and attack me.

But I’m not shackled down, and I’m not going to give in.

Those nightmares are going to turn into sweet dreams.

Maybe that will be my ability. I’ll be the first and only one in this bloodline to do something about the darkness and madness and sickness that keeps building and growing.

It’s going to come to an end.

I’m going to make it come to an end.