314 Book 3 (Widowsfield Trilogy) (41 page)

“Michael,” said Alma seductively. He refused to open his eyes, but he could hear his daughter rustling on the bed.

“Daddy,” said Alma again, but this time she had the voice of the child that Michael remembered from so long ago.

He finally opened his eyes to see.

Alma was on the bed, but she was no longer the adult that she’d been moments earlier. Now she looked to be only eight years old, if not younger. She was lying flat on the bed and her eyes were bulging and wide. Her mouth was open, and it was clear she was choking. White foam bubbled up and dripped from the corners of her mouth.

Michael screamed and ran. He ran across the hallway and to the front door as he kept an eye on the room behind him. He was terrified of what had happened and wanted to get away. He needed to get out as fast as possible. He grabbed the handle of the door and tried to open it, but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked to see if it was locked, but found that the door was fused to the wall itself. There was no gap between the door and the threshold, and he pounded on it in anger and fear.

He looked back down the hall and saw that Alma was standing in Terry’s doorway. The foam and vomit was cascading down her chin and dripping to the floor. She had her hands reached out to either side of her, gripping the doorframe as she watched her father try to escape.

The room around him seemed to shrink. At first he thought it was an illusion, but then the walls began to groan and shudder. Pictures of Desmond’s family fell to the floor and shattered as the walls cracked and shifted. The entire house was becoming smaller, and despite his best efforts, Michael was being pulled closer to Alma. She didn’t even have to move for him to be drawn to her. The walls were crumbling around him, and as the plaster fell away he saw wires within the wall that were pulling everything tighter.

“Oh Daddy,” said Alma, though her voice had become twisted and deep. When she spoke, it sounded like the world was coming apart at the seams. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”

Widowsfield

March 14
th
, 2012

2:45 AM

“It’s almost
time,” said Paul as he looked out the window at the cabin across the street. “We should probably start bringing everything back over there.

“Last chance to back out of this,” said Rachel.

“Not me,” said Alma. “I’m looking forward to getting it over with.”

“Okay then,” said Stephen as he picked up Rosemary’s bag. “Let’s do this.”

Jacker carried Ben, and everyone agreed again that Paul would have the easiest time carrying Michael. He’d carried the sleeper over to this house when they came across, and he was angry that he had to do it again, but he eventually relented.

They’d taken Michael’s gag out, and now his tongue was lashing around inside of his mouth. His eyes stared straight up, and Paul avoided their gaze as he walked as fast as he could across the street.

“Put him upstairs,” said Alma when Paul came in with Michael in his arms. Paul grumbled, but did as he was asked. Michael wasn’t a heavy man, but the dead weight of a grown man is still hard to carry. He took each step slowly as he ascended and then saw that Jacker had laid Ben out on the bed.

“Where am I putting him?” asked Paul as he strained to keep a grip on the sleeper.

“I don’t know,” said Alma. “Maybe on the floor, right where he killed Terry.”

Paul got to the spot and unceremoniously dropped Michael to the floor. Alma’s father thumped down hard and
Jacker grimaced as Paul shrugged.

“Fuck it man,” said Paul. “That guy can rot in hell for all I care.”

“Cool by me, brother,” said Jacker as he pat Paul’s shoulder on his way out of the room.

Stephen was setting up the circle of candles in the kitchen like Rosemary had instructed. As he was laying them out, Alma picked one up. “What’s wrong?” asked Stephen.

“This is the same candle,” said Alma as she inspected the glass, pillar candle. The wax inside was white and rose up along one side where it had once spilled out. On the opposite side the glass was marred by smoke from when it had tipped over with the flame still burning inside. She studied the picture of Saint Francis of Assisi standing beside a lamb that was licking at a wound on his leg.

“She must’ve done her homework,” said Stephen.

“No,” said Alma. “This is the exact same one that my mother used. I remember when it tipped over. How did she get this?”

“Who knows?” said Stephen as he took the candle back and set it in its spot on the floor.

“Mark that down as number one thousand five hundred and seventy of creepy ass things about this town,” said Jacker, making a joke of the seemingly random number.

“Should we take our stuff back now?” asked Stephen as he took Alma’s teddy bear keychain out of the bag. She saw that he was holding the gun that Rosemary had left them.

“I guess so,” said Alma as she took the bear from him. She rubbed her thumb over the soft fur belly of the memento, and she smiled. She was happy to have it back. Stephen handed Paul his keys, and gave Jacker the purple sobriety coin. Then he retrieved his wedding band and slipped it on. He got up and brought Rachel her ring, but she frowned and shook her head.

“Keep it,” said Rachel.

“No, you’ve got to put it on,” said Stephen. “At least for now. At least until this is over.”

Rachel snatched the ring from him and paused before putting it on. She grimaced, but relented, and pushed the tight ring over her finger. It didn’t seem to fit easily now.

“Should I put the mannequins back on the couch?” asked Rachel as she regarded the two figures they’d placed on the floor.

Alma shook her head. “No need. We’re both really here this time.”

“Oh crap,” said Jacker. “That just made my stomach drop when you said that. Guys, do I need to say that I’ve got a bad feeling about this, or is that just a given at this point?”

“It’s a given,” said Paul.

Stephen pulled a red, felt-tipped marker from Rosemary’s bag and handed it to Alma. “Do you want to do the honor?”

Alma took the marker, and then uncapped it as she scooted closer to the circle of candles that Stephen had set out. She took a deep breath and then looked up in confusion. “I don’t remember if she wrote the number or the symbol for pi.”

“Does it matter?” asked Jacker.

“I think you wrote the number last time,” said Paul.

“Hold on, let me get the camera ready,” said Stephen, but then he glanced around at everyone. “Is that okay?”

“Go fuck
yourself,” said Rachel.

Stephen ignored her and asked the others. “Do you mind if I film this?”

“No, go ahead,” said Alma when no one else offered any answer. “It’s fine by me.” Her hand was trembling as she held the marker.

“It’s almost
time,” said Paul.

Alma set the tip of the marker on the tile and heard the familiar squeak as she began to write ‘314’ for what she hoped would be the last time.

Beneath
Cada E.I.B.’s facility

March 14
th
, 2012

2:50 AM

Vess
was getting ready to start the CORD when two of his guards came in with Lyle Everman on a gurney. They wheeled the decrepit sleeper in and approached the machine.

“Do you want him inside?” asked one of the guards.

“No, you can leave him there,” said Vess. “He was just a backup in case our new psychic didn’t do as she’d been told. Luckily, she’s a good listener.” He grinned back at them and then waved them off. “You can leave us. Shut the door on your way out.”

He waited for them to leave before he wheeled himself over to Lyle’s side. His chair put his head at the same level as Lyle’s, and he sat there staring at the sleeper for a few moments. Lyle had suffered the same aging curse that
Vess had, and their temporary immortality had failed following the 1996 experiment.

Lyle’s body had suffered worse that
Vess’s. The elasticity in both of their skin had been challenged by gravity, but Lyle was confined to the bed, meaning that his skin had always been pulled backward, causing his skull to become pronounced. His eyes had sunk back into his skull, seeming to shrink even though they were always open, and lips had grown wider, now revealing the extent of his upper and lower jaws as his tongue flicked within.

“It’ll all be over soon,” said
Vess as he touched Lyle’s head with compassion. “We’ll find our way to Heaven one way or another.”

Vess
wheeled himself over to the CORD and waited until his watch struck 3:00 before he pulled the lever that would begin drawing power from the hydroelectric dam straight to the machine. The lights in the lab began to dim immediately, and the old, familiar grind of the silver rings started. This would be the end. This would be when Vess finally answered the questions that plagued him.

Blue arcs of lightning cascaded up through the spinning rings and over the orb atop each pillar. The electricity crossed the width of the CORD and seemed to compete with the other
side. The crooked lines of blue zapped at one another before finally meeting in a single dance that undulated up and down, but kept a central beam intact.

With every minute that passed, the electric current seemed to grow stronger.
Vess watched in agonizing impatience as time slowly inched onward until finally the time to cut the cord had arrived. First, he flipped the final switch on the base of the machine that allowed it to draw in the maximum amount of power. Then he got out of his chair and carefully knelt in front of the stopgap mechanism.

Vess
set his finger on the switch that would send the uranium into the machine. He gazed at the watch on his left wrist as his right index finger was poised to flip the switch.

“There’s no barrier that man’s ingenuity can’t break down.”

The minute hand clicked over.

3:14 had arrived.

Vess flipped the switch.

3:14

Paul woke up in a haze of smoke. He got to his knees and tried to search for Alma, but there was no one beside him. He cried out her name, but his voice echoed through the nothingness that was hidden by the white smoke. Or was it fog?

As he reached out, his hand touched something cold and hard. He flattened his palm against the object and realized that it was a metal wall. He could see his hand pressed firmly against the surface, but it appeared as if all he was touching was the fog itself. Paul searched his prison, and discovered that he was inside of a metal box of some sort that was barely more than five feet across in either direction. He continued to search the space, but then the corners seemed to vanish. It was as if the room had become circular; as if it was shifting while Paul stood within it.

Electricity crackled within the fog, and Paul saw a darkness emerge above. The shade grew thicker, and he began to see shapes sliding through the mass. The black cords began to slither across the invisible walls that trapped Paul in, and then a new shape came into view. Globes of white began to emerge from the mass of wires, and then they turned to reveal pupils staring down. There were hundreds of them, like stars in the sky that were focused solely on him.

That’s when The Watcher finally revealed itself.

From within the tangle of cords a shape began to emerge. An arch curled through the mass of wires, like the spine of a mythical sea creature rising above the waves. It had spines and it slithered through the cords before disappearing behind them again. The space that Paul was trapped in resounded with the sudden explosive noise of metal screeching as it was torn apart. He covered his ears and got on his knees to stay far from the lashing cords above.

The small cords that had writhed above now began to retreat, and when they pulled back, the shape of The Watcher was revealed. The large form that had been slithering within the cords was one of eight similar appendages, and each of them was reaching out to gather up the loose cords. The eyes watched from within the mass of smaller cords as the larger arms gathered them up.

The Watcher was enormous, and towered above Paul’s prison. The fog began to dissipate, and the scope of what he was looking at became apparent. The mass of collected cords that hung above him was just one part of an enormous collection of similar appendages. It was as if the whole sky was suddenly revealed to be one, single, living entity. The eight larger arms clasped the mass of cords, and the eyes continued to watch from the space between. It looked like an eight-fingered hand had reached down and gathered up a ball of twine, and the eyes were watching from between the strings. The fingers of the creature were scaled and adorned with spikes, and they connected above to a singular base. Paul was reminded of a tree, except the trunk was made of the earth instead of rooted in it.

Seeing the extent of the creature caused Paul to finally understand the futility of what they’d been trying to do. This wasn’t an entity that could be defeated. It was like staring at the Earth itself and hoping to destroy it. The appendages sprouted from the pulsing land above like trees, and he could see hundreds of them across the horizon. The other arms were splayed, and the wires that the eight arms had set free were striking down at the same plain where Paul was trapped, but far from where he was. Echoing through the void were the screams of tortured souls. It seemed as if each of the arms that sprouted from the singular mass high above was focused on one soul, and for some reason the one above Paul had released him for long enough to allow him to see the truth of where he was.