314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy)
Read 314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy) Online
Authors: A.R. Wise
314
Book 3
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2014 Aaron Wise
Cover art by Lauren Patrick and AR Wise
Kindle Edition, License Notes
This
ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CHAPTER 1 – Suffer the Children
CHAPTER 4 – No Such Thing as Truth
CHAPTER 6 – Practice Makes Perfect
CHAPTER 21 – Beneath the Cords
CHAPTER 23 – Wherever That Takes Us
CHAPTER 24 – Are They All Dead?
CHAPTER 27 - Lambs to the Slaughter
CHAPTER 28 – Cogs in the Machine
CHAPTER 29 – 3:14 on March 14th
PART ONE – A New Game
March 15
th
, 2012
“So you don’t believe in ghosts?” asked Wendell.
Pierce groaned and shook his head. “Look man, we’ve been through this before. Sorry, but I don’t believe in that sort of
thing. Never have, never will.”
“Even after all the stuff I sent you?” Wendell loaded his paper plate with the pizza that had jus
t been delivered. He’d invited his friend over to drink beers and watch a bad movie, a tradition they’d shared ever since they were in high school.
“Those videos can be manipulated, bro,” said Pierce. He was standing in front of the fridge, grabbing a couple of the beers he’d brought over. “You can’t believe everything you see online.”
“All right, all right,” said Wendell as he licked sauce off his thumb after setting his paper plate down beside the pizza box. “Then I’ve got another one I want you to see.” Wendell was determined to convince his friend. He grabbed his laptop and flipped it open.
Pierce sighed and then laughed as Wendell’s computer booted. “There’s no video you’re going to show me that’s going to convince me of anything, man. I mean, come on, that shit’s all fake.”
“Most of it,” said Wendell as he nodded in agreement. “But not all of it.”
“
No, all of it is,” said Pierce. “Those shows they’ve got on TV, with those jackasses running around haunted places, jumping every time the wind blows and saying it’s proof of ghosts – you’re really telling me you believe that shit.”
“I’m saying there’s more to life than we know,” said Wendell. “That’s all. You can go around pretending like you know everything, or whatever, but I’m just saying you should keep an open mind.”
“An open mind’s one thing,” said Pierce as he used the bottle opener on his keychain to pop the tops off both beers. “Letting yourself get lied to is a whole other story.”
Wendell just responded with a half-hearted “Sure,” as he waited for his computer to boot.
Pierce set Wendell’s beer down beside the computer and then walked around to the other side of the island in the kitchen, opposite his friend. Wendell’s face was illuminated by the computer screen, and was changing color as he navigated the web.
“This is the site I wanted you to see,” said Wendell.
“All right,” said Pierce. “Let’s get it over with.”
“They’ve got a video on here where this hot chick is touring this old, abandoned place, and you can totally see a ghost in the background.”
“Okay,” said Pierce as he made his way back around to stand beside Wendell. “Let’s see it.”
“Yeah,
hold on a sec,” said Wendell, preoccupied as he read something else on the site. He pointed at the screen and said, “This is new. This just popped up. They haven’t had anything new on the site in a while, but they just posted this video.”
“Click it,” said Pierce.
Wendell pressed play.
“Hi, my name’s Rachel Knight,” said the woman in the video.
“You were right,” said Pierce. “She’s hot.”
Wendell hushed his friend.
Rachel continued, “We’re recording this on March 13
th
, 2012, in the basement of a facility owned by a company named Cada E.I.B.”
– Suffer the Children
Widowsfield
March 14
th
, 1996
Ben was lost in the fog.
He cried out, but no one answered. He yelled his sister’s name, but she didn’t remember him anymore. He even tried to call for his father, but he knew Michael wouldn’t come looking for him.
There was a constant din of metallic sound, like the grinding of gears as a great machine fell apart somewhere far off. Ben was walking through something wet, but he couldn’t see the ground through the thick, swirling fog. For a moment he thought he saw the glow of a sunrise in the distance, but then, as if in response to his glance, the clamor of machines grew more intense and the fog swelled to block out the light.
The grind of metal revealed a sudden, familiar rhythm that might’ve been words. Ben tried to walk towards the noise, but he never seemed to get any closer. And every time he caught a glimpse of the warm glow of the sunrise, the fog would move to intercept him. He felt like he was tumbling through the ether, despite being able to feel the ground beneath his bare feet.
Again, the metallic grind came in the rhythm of speech, and this time he thought he heard his name. At the same moment, his face began to tingle, as if something wet and warm had fallen on it. He touched his cheek and felt a hot wetness that confused him. When he looked at the tip of his finger, he saw blood there.
“I’m hurt?” asked Ben, but his confusion quickly turned to fear as the pain came back. It wasn’t just the pain that returned, but also his memory of what had happened. He felt his cheeks burning as blisters formed, and
he tasted the caustic soup he’d poured into the tub to try and burn away the corpse of the woman his father told him he’d murdered.
Ben screamed in pain, but his voice was nearly lost, an echo from far off, barely heard through the fog that shrouded everything. His teeth began to chatter from the pain, and his hands were shaking as he watched the blisters form on his arms. As the pain grew worse, he began to see a break in the fog ahead. He ran to it, hoping for any sort of salvation from the agony he was being forced to endure.
At first, the only thing he could perceive within the fog was a square of darkness, but as he got closer he began to make out shapes. He was within a massive, rectangular room, but the edges were distorted by the fog. He could feel the cold wood beneath his feet, and he looked down to see that the mist had begun to dissipate. Far in the distance he saw what appeared to be a bed with a young boy sitting at the edge, and in front of him was a man.
The metallic grind finally formed words, “Would you bleed the lamb?”
A crash of metal silenced the scene and the fog swelled again, blinding Ben as he tried to run forward. It felt like he’d fallen face first into a fire pit and was struggling to push himself free as the flames licked at his eyes. The skin on his arms continued to bubble from the heat and he watched as the boils burst, leaking bloody pus that dripped down to his elbows. He clawed at his face, desperate to peel away the fire, desperate to be free of this agony.
“You must bind him,” said the voice again, but this time it sounded closer than before.
Ben cried out, “Daddy, help!”
“Ben?” asked Michael Harper.
Ben tried again to call out for help, but this time a sudden crash of metal silenced him. The fog swept in and grasped at Ben, like a cold rush of air from a freezer on a scorching, summer day. The fog soothed his pain. It covered his face and pulled away the agony, giving Ben a reprieve from his torture.
Then the fog cleared again, but this time in a new direction. He couldn’t see the bedroom anymore, but was instead staring out at rocky terrain that was dotted with scant, wiry brush. The white fog continued to dominate the area, as if intent
on blocking out the sun’s warmth, and as Ben walked, the fog stayed beneath him.
There was a path that led through the brown rocks that dotted the parched earth, and Ben followed it until he caught sight of something moving ahead. There was a lamb cowering in a bush ahead, and it stopped and stared down at Ben. The creature became taut, as if ready to flee, but stayed where it was and waited for Ben to make the first move.
Ben tried to comfort the frightened creature, but his words were lost within the fog.
Then he heard his own voice cry out from far off, “Daddy, no!” He looked up the hill and saw a man with a knife stabbing down at a bound shape on an altar. The man was at least fifty feet ahead of where the lamb was hiding, but the frightened animal reacted to the thrusts of the knife as if it were the one being stabbed. The creature yelped in pain, but stayed where it was in the bush. The man ahead stabbed back down a second time, and again the lamb reacted as if pained, but didn’t flee. The creature stayed where it was, screaming in pain, and its off-white wool suddenly bloomed with bright red blood.
The lamb quaked where it stood as its body burst blood that quickly streamed across the dusty earth. Ahead, the man on the hill continued his sacrifice to appease his vengeful God.
Ben couldn’t look away. He wanted to turn and flee, but he was trapped within the fog. He was forced to stare at the lamb as it continued to bleed.
The creature’s eyes locked on Ben, but then blood began to seep from its nostrils. Its glassy eyes were gushing fluid that started clear, but quickly turned to blood. The lamb’s eyes bulged and popped forth from its skull. The bulbs dangled from the creature’s head by white cords that suddenly snapped and let the eyes plop down into the blood that fed the thirsty dirt.
As if suddenly freed, the lamb finally began to walk. It shambled forth, weak and feeble, and its front legs crumpled, sending the creature’s face slamming to the blood-wet dirt. It let forth a deep howl of pain as it pushed itself back to its knees and then tried to get back to a standing position. Its quivering legs finally found the strength to stand, but Ben noticed that the creature didn’t have hooves; it had human hands. The bloodied hands looked like they belonged to a child. Then the animal collapsed again, but this time with its front legs stretched out in front of it. The tiny hands clawed at the ground and pulled the shambling mass of wool and flesh
forward. As it moved, parts of the creature were being torn away and left behind, and as the wool was ripped away, Ben saw a naked, human boy pulling himself away from the corpse.
The child’s head was down, and his dark hair was mop
ped with the blood of the creature he was crawling free of. Then the boy looked up at Ben, and revealed that his eyes were missing. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but his jaw continued to extend until he was a grotesque impression of a human face that had been warped and broken.
A child’s voice whispered in Ben’s ear, “Suffer the children.”
The fog released Ben and he turned in shock and fear to try and see who it was that had spoken to him. As he turned, the fog swept back in, blinding him from everything but its presence. He tried to scream out, but his voice was barely audible.
A black cord pierced the fog ahead and shot out at him. It grasped his wrists and then quickly bound them together. He felt himself being pulled forward rapidly, and the fog zipped past him as he found himself suddenly sitting again on the edge of Terry’s bed as his father wr
apped the black wire around Ben’s wrists.