The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman (22 page)

"She's not a demon," Anna said. "She's just a
frightened little girl."

"Right, all little girls float around and throw
full-grown men across rooms," Jennifer said.

"Do you think she'll stay locked in there?" Jack
said.

Anna thought for a moment. "She wrote in the
diary, didn't she? The wet spot on the floor... I think the diary
was in there until she moved it to Linda's room as she saw us
coming in." She walked close to the door and listened for a moment.
"Judith?"

"Yes?"

"Can we help you?" she said. "Can we help you
move on?"

There was silence. "Unlock the door."

"No way, mini-bitch!" Brice said. "I don't know
what's going on, but I know you're staying in there and we're
staying out here." He looked at the others. "What
is
going
on?"

"Judith is
evil
," Jennifer said. "She
killed her family and is cursed to stay here at the scene of the
crime. I don't know how I know that, but it's true."

"She's a ghost?" he said.

Everyone shrugged.

"Come on," Jack said. "I'm ready to face redneck
rapists on the road instead of staying here."

"Me too," Jennifer said.

"Not to put too much stress on it, but we
are
wearing dresses," Brice said. "How about we just go back
to Linda's room and get our clothes first?"

"Uh..." Jennifer pointed to the floor in front
of Judith's door. Water was running out from underneath the door.
"That can't be good."

"Shit!" Jack said. "This is crazy! Does she use
water to do magic or something?"

"Judith?" Anna said. "Please tell me what you
want? I want to help you."

"Linda is fighting against the restraints," she
said. "In the cellar. Momma and Papa are trying to save her, but
they can't fight me."

"But, Linda died a long time ago," Anna said.
"You too. Sixty-five years ago. Are you just reliving the
tragedy?"

"The people came," Judith said. "They came and
disturbed our slumber. They found my secret. I had forgotten until
they came."

"What people? Us?" Anna said.

"She means the realtors, probably, cleaning up
the old place so they could put it on the market," Brice said. "One
of them must have found the diary."

"Yes, and you, now," she said.

"You have to move on, Judith," Anna said. "No
matter what happened, you were too young to know better. You have
to forgive yourself."

The water was flowing heavier now from under the
door as if the entire room behind it were filling with water. But
there was no sound of water except for the rain outside.

"I can be saved if I can go to the cellar,"
Judith said, almost whispering.

"Yeah, right," Brice said. "Like we'd let you
out of there."

"I think she's way more than just a lost little
girl ghost," Jennifer said.

"Come on," Jack said, "let's get out of here. We
can figure out what has happened later."

Suddenly there was a voice behind them. "But I'm
already out."

"Judith!" Anna said. The child was standing in
the hallway in a large puddle of water but she didn't seem to be
wet at all.

"So, she could move from her room to Linda's?"
Jennifer said. "We shoulda closed that door back, huh?"

Judith looked around, as if seeing a place long
forgotten but somehow familiar. She turned, graceful and slowly,
floating still, and looked up and down. "It has changed," she said.
"But I have not. My plans have not."

"We're not changing either," Brice said.
"Run!"

They all headed down the stairway but before
they got to the bottom, Judith was waiting there.

"What do you want from us?!" Jack yelled.

"Take me to the cellar," she said.

"Why can't you go yourself?" Anna said.

"Great, let's just stand around chatting with a
ghost-demon-witch-thing," Jennifer said.

Judith glared, and then smiled, or perhaps she
was just showing her teeth. She held out her hand, pointed, and
Jennifer rose off the floor and several feet into the air, then
suddenly a powerful downfall of water slammed her body down, and
against the balled end of one of the staircase finials. The water
stopped and there was a grotesque sound of breaking bones and as
Brice ran toward her, the balled end of the post came through her
chest, spraying blood all over him. She died instantly, still
draped over the post.

Brice stood motionless. "Babe? Jen? Sweetie?" He
grabbed her face and tried to rub the little bit of blood from her
lips, but his fingers opened them which caused blood to literally
pour out of her mouth. "Oh god." He turned and pointed at Judith
with his bloody hand but there were no words he could speak,
nothing to describe how he felt or what he felt. It was simply a
silent gesture of defiance.

"Fuck!" Jack yelled as he backed away.

"Oh god, no," Anna said as she reached out for
Jennifer but couldn't make herself move toward the lifeless mess.
"Jen!"

But Judith wasn't finished. She pointed at Brice
and he also rose into the air.

"No!" Anna screamed. "Please, Judith, he's my
brother! I'll help you!"

Judith seemed to pause for a moment, and then
lowered Brice back to the stairs.

Jack grabbed him by the shoulders. "I..." he
cleared his throat. "I'm sorry." He looked at Brice and nodded, an
attempt to show his sorrow, but Brice was emotionless. Shock,
probably, or some sort of spell Judith had cast, but he simply
stared past Jack, as if focused on something in the far
distance.

"Take me to the cellar," Judith said again.

"I'll take you," Anna said as she wiped tears
from her eyes with the backs of her hands. "Just please, no more
killing."

"I'm not letting you go alone," Jack said. He
shrugged. "Should we just die, now? I... nothing makes sense,
now."

Anna held his face in her hands. "It's okay,"
she whispered. "No matter what happens, it's okay. Right? In the
next world, we'll meet again, okay?" She looked over his shoulder.
"Right Brice?"

They both walked the rest of the way down the
stairs and Judith pointed through the house. "The entrance is in
the kitchen."

Anna looked back. "Will Brice be okay?"

He had sat down on a step beside Jennifer and
was holding her hand and seemed to be talking to her.

"I don't think any of us will be okay," Jack
said. "I just..."

"Here's the door," Judith said. "Open it."

It was an ordinary wooden interior door, painted
white to match the country kitchen, and had an old brass knob.
There was no lock.

"I don't understand," Jack said. "Why do you
need us to open the door?"

Judith held her hand toward the door and a blue
wall of light appeared, apparently a barrier of some sort. "Because
god hates me."

Anna touched the knob and nothing happened. She
grabbed it. "What are we unleashing on the world?" She turned the
knob and the door swung open and she and Jack passed through with
Judith following closely behind. There were several rickety wooden
steps leading down to the dirt floor of the cellar. The walls were
lined with old tools, farming equipment, and canned goods, broken
furniture, crates and boxes. There was a naked light bulb hanging
from a wire which provided the only illumination. It was an
ordinary cellar apart from three impressions in the ground, all
grave-like, as if the areas had been dug up a long time ago, and
then filled, and the filled dirt had settled, leaving the
shapes.

"Anna," Jack said. "I wish... and poor Jennifer,
I just don't..."

"The story should have ended better," she said.
"I'm sorry for not trying harder to be someone you could love. I
really
was
trying to re-write my character."

"Touching," Judith said. "Now, move those boxes.
There are things I need from back there. Things I hid a long time
ago." She pointed over the boxes to a wall full of old shelves and
cabinets.

"Can't you just fly over there and get them?"
Jack said.

"My powers are slightly limited down here, at
least for the moment," she said. "This body is imperfect and not
suited to someone with my powers. But, that will change. Soon, you
will see the birth of a new god. Feel privileged!"

They started lifting the boxes, mostly filled
with other boxes or old and broken toys and household items. Judith
was supervising every move, occasionally pointing to the exact spot
she wanted things to be placed.

"That okay, demon?" Jack said.

"Jack, be careful," Anna said.

"She's going to kill us anyway," he said. "Why
not call the evil little bitch what she really is?" He winced,
expecting the worst to happen. But it didn't. Judith seemed to be
busy stepping out measurements and placing odd objects around on
the ground. "Is she in a trace?"

"No, I hear you," she said. "Just don't give a
shit about you, now. I'll have your souls soon enough. I'm almost
ready to begin the ritual."

On the ground she had scratched out a circle
with a pentagram inside. In three of the star sections she had
placed objects, a cross in one, an old rag doll in another, and
another held what seemed to be salt. She stood so that each foot
was in one of the other sections. For a moment her entire body sort
of flickered, disappeared, then re-appeared, surrounded by a dark
purple aura.

"What's going to happen?" Jack said.

"So
long
I've waited," Judith said, her
arms out-stretched. Blood from Jennifer's body on the floor above
had began seeping through the ceiling and was dripping down on her
face. She opened her mouth and drank it. "The perfect night, the
perfect fools. Yes, Linda, yes, you are right. There's something
wrong with little Judith, but soon now there will be something
wrong with the entire world!"

Water started coming from the walls and floor,
not a flood, but enough so that in only seconds it was up to their
ankles and in a few more, it was calf-high and nearly waist-high on
Judith. A dark stain started to drift out of the places that looked
like graves, and then what appeared to be air bubbles. Then
suddenly, three perfectly preserved bodies floated out of the
holes, a man, a woman, and a teen-aged girl. They remained floating
just under the surface, but their eyes opened and blinked.

"Shit!" Jack said.

"Jack?"

"Yes!" Judith said with a loud laugh. "Arise, my
stupid family! Give me the power of your sacrificed souls!" The
purple glow around her began to pulsate, and small bolts of
lightning began to strike the top of her head. She waved her arms
around as if gathering energy. But then, suddenly, Judith's
expression changed. Her face became twisted. "What?! What's
happening?!" Another bolt of lightning hit her head and she began
to smoke, then her entire body coursed with arcs of electricity,
and as she floated up in the air, she exploded in a plume of
dust.

"What happened?" Jack said. "Was that part of
the ritual?"

"I don't know," Anna said.

"I do," Brice said as he walked down the stairs.
He held up the diary. "I made a new entry." They both ran to the
stairs and read the page, scrawled in blood, the only thing that
would have marked on the wet, fragile paper. "Judith died at 8:35
today, forever!"

"Brice!" Anna said. She grabbed him and hugged
him.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here."

"Best idea, yet," Jack said. "Let's just huddle
in the woods tonight, and then we can call the authorities in the
morning." He patted Brice on the cheek. "I really am sorry about
Jennifer."

"Why?" Jennifer said, standing at the top of the
stairs.

Anna and Jack were speechless. "Huh?!"

"This diary is really cool," Brice said.
"Whatever you write after Judith wrote in it, happens." He turned
the page. "Jennifer was only scratched on the arm."

"And it hurts like hell!" she said. "Why
couldn't you have written that I landed on pillows?"

"Sorry, I was afraid the blood would disappear
from the page."

"You did good," Anna said.

He tossed the book into the water on the cellar
floor and it disintegrated immediately. "Too much power for us
regular mortals to keep, right?"

They all stood for a moment and stared at the
scene, and then walked up the steps and stepped back into the real
world as Jennifer started singing. "The water is wide, I can't
cross o'er; nor do I have light wings to fly; give me a boat that
can carry two; and both shall row, my love and I."

"What's it like to be dead?" Anna said.

"Stings a little," Jennifer said.

Behind The
Wall

Very little bothered Violet Marcum. She had sat
in the same wheel chair for years, apparently paralyzed, unable to
speak, and though no one was completely certain, unable to hear or
experience anything in the sensory world. Her eyes were always
open; her mouth accepted the spoonfuls of food, mostly pasty
cereals, when offered. But, otherwise, she was a warm corpse. She
required constant attention, not the least of which was emptying
her potty, fitted beneath her chair, several times a day. Victoria
Marcum hated her with every fiber of her being. It wasn't a
personal hate, really, she had not even met the old woman, her
great grand mother, until her seventh birthday. Her mother, Stella,
unable to stand her father any longer, was offered her family home
in the sleepy, park area of Huntston, West Virginia, as refuge with
the one caveat that she care for her grandmother until her death.
Victoria was now a few months short of her ninth birthday and
couldn't fathom the thought of the smelly old woman any longer. She
had had enough.

"Victoria!" her mother yelled. She pounded on
her bedroom door. "Get up, it's nearly eight!"