Dead Voices (15 page)

“I promise I’ll bury you here in the woods,” the man said as he jammed the dead hand as far as he could into Barney’s mouth. “And from now on, I’ve learned my lesson; if I want something done right, I’m just going to have to do it myself.”

Barney’s mind formed words, but there was no way they could make it out of his mouth. He wanted to cry out, to plead for his life, to beg for mercy, to promise that he’d do it again and do it right this time; he’d get Caroline Myers’s left hand — anything!
anything
! — if the man would just let him live!

But the decayed flesh filled his mouth and throat. The darkness of the surrounding woods was gradually replaced by a deeper darkness, a darkness that reached in from all around him and wrapped around his mind like black velvet gloves as it squeezed and squeezed. His stomach revolted as the rotting taste filled his mouth. When the hot vomit tried to surge out, the dead hand pushed it back. The pressure squeezing Barney’s chest intensified until it was a blazing iron band, pressing tighter and tighter. The last thing Barney Fraser ever heard was a loud pop that crazily reminded him of when, as a boy, he had been climbing a tree and the branch he had been standing on had suddenly given way. It was different this time, though, because Barney never knew it when he hit the ground.

FIVE

“
Hey, ouija! We need yah!”

1.

Elizabeth swept the bedcovers aside, got out of bed, and walked over to her bureau. Looking around her bedroom, she was mildly surprised by the faint violet glow that edged everything, making the bedroom furniture look watery and dark, almost insubstantial. The gauzy curtains on the windows drifted back and forth with a whispery flutter, and the soft glow of moonlight covered the sills like a skimming of frost.

“I should have thrown this thing away long ago,” she said, walking over to the bureau. Looking down at the ouija-board box; she reached out tentatively, fighting back the dizzying sensation she had that she was merely a spectator, watching her hands move. The soft glow of moonlight made the box appear illusory, and, like that time in the attic, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see her fingers pass clear through the box.

She took hold of the box, surprised by the weight of it, and held it up close to her face in the dark.

In spite of the darkness, she could easily see and read the one word on the box —

ouija
.

The letters, like the window sills, were edged with a faintly pulsating violet light. Elizabeth got the funny notion that each letter was somehow alive and, if she didn’t watch them carefully, would slide off the box to the floor and scurry away from her. Carefully balancing the box to keep it level, she folded her legs and, in one smooth motion, sat down cross-legged on the floor.

—
Hey, ouija! We need yah!

The words came to mind, making her chuckle as she remembered the old television advertising line for the game ...

—
No, not quite a game!

With just the soft moonlight filtering through her window, she thought there shouldn’t be enough light to see by, but she had no problem making out the letters and numbers on the game board as she removed the box cover and carefully balanced the board on her knees.

Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought as she took the teardrop-shaped pointer and placed it in the center of the board. Touching the tips of her fingers to the edge of the pointer, she pushed it around in several wide circles, as if it were an engine that needed to be revved up.

“I don’t even know what I want to ask it,” she said aloud.

Suddenly her eyes snapped into focus as she stared at her hands running the pointer around in wide circles. In an instant, as clear and as sharp as if someone had thrown on a megawatt spotlight, she no longer felt as if she alone was moving the pointer; the pointer was either moving under its own power or else someone ... someone she couldn’t see, was pushing the pointer, dragging her hands along with it. The felt pads on the legs of the pointer rasped against the board with a gritty sandpaper sound.

What to ask? What to ask? she wondered; but even as she formed her first question in her mind, she was aware that the pointer had already started spelling out a message. She squinted, trying to catch each letter the pointer paused over before darting to the next one.

W-H-E-R-E-H-A-

Whenever Elizabeth and Pam had played with the ouija, they always had to pause to write down each letter as it came; but now Elizabeth wasn’t at all surprised that she immediately connected the letters into words that made sense.

V-E-Y-O-U-B-E-E-N

“Where have you been?” she repeated aloud. “Why — I’ve been right here, at home. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d see if maybe Max was still around.”

Without pause, the pointer began making wide loops again, spelling out another message.

“Who ... Who am I speaking to?” Elizabeth asked, feeling a subtle stirring of tension. She knew she would scream out loud — loud enough to wake up her parents-if the board spelled out M-A-X. Maybe there was a connection between Max and her Uncle Jonathan; maybe even back when she was a kid, she had picked up-subconsciously-that Uncle Jonathan had killed himself.

Or maybe, she thought, with a tingling chill, this was Jonathan.

But the ouija board didn’t spell out Max or Jonathan or any other name. After one more lazy loop, it started jerking back and forth, and up and down with the jittery intensity of a seismograph. The letters followed rapidly one after another, with only a slight pause to mark between words.

Y -O-U-S-H-O-U-L-O-B-E-T -R-Y -J-N-G-T-O-H-E-L-P-H-E-R

“You should be trying to help her ... “ Elizabeth said. “Who — ? Who should I be trying to help?” Before she could concentrate on the question to direct it toward the ouija board, the pointer again darted from letter to letter.

S-H-E-S-B-E-E-N-T-R-Y-I-N-G-T-O-G-E

Elizabeth’s eyes and mind strained to absorb it all as the pointer darted like an angry bee from letter to letter.

T-I-N-T-O-U-C-H-W-I-T-H-Y-O-U

Elizabeth was beginning to feel as though the message was going to be completely lost when it snapped into her mind with near photographic clarity.

“She’s been trying to get in touch with you!” she whispered. “Who’s been trying to reach me?” Her voice echoed with a hollow reverberation. Elizabeth had the distinct impression there was someone leaning close to her ear, behind her, whispering.

The pointer zipped over to
yes
, in the corner of the board.

“Is this the someone I should be trying to help?” Elizabeth asked aloud.

The pointer shifted over to
no
, in the other corner.

“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth said, feeling a disorienting mixture of fear and confusion. “Do I need help?”

She stared down at the pointer, waiting tensely for it to begin to move, but it seemed to be glued to the board. Elizabeth gave the pointer a little nudge, but her fingers slid off the edge and came down hard on the board. The pointer didn’t move. The board teetered on her knees, and she grabbed to steady it. Even that much motion failed to dislodge the pointer, which was stuck as though welded to the surface.

“Is someone I know in trouble?” Elizabeth asked, repositioning her fingers on the pointer and, gritting her teeth, trying to force it to move. She was tingling with expectation, but the pointer remained motionless.

A cold shock slammed into Elizabeth’s body when, looking down, she saw not only her own hands, but someone else’s reaching out of the darkness and resting on the other side of the pointer. Long, thin fingers, with dirt-encrusted fingernails that clicked on the plastic pointer, materialized from the elbows down out of the darkness, as if the night had suddenly solidified. Too frightened to look up, Elizabeth watched the skin on the backs of the hands as it peeled and curled away, shrinking as though melting or ...

Burning!

Elizabeth watched the pale skin slough away like wet cardboard, exposing gray, brittle bones. She felt a violent tug on the pointer. The rasping sound began again, much louder. It sounded like the whining buzz of a chainsaw. Elizabeth watched, dumbfounded, as it spelled out another message.

Y-O-U-R-E-I-N-T-R-O-U-B-L-E-A-N-D-Y-O-U-D-O-N-T-K-N-O-W-I-T

The letters flew by so fast, her fear-numbed brain couldn’t absorb the message. All she could do was stare, horrified, at the bony hands that reached out of the darkness of her bedroom and guided the pointer.

“Stop this! Stop it right
now
!” she yelled, but her voice was no more than a whisper lost in the roaring wind of terror whipping icy circles inside her.

No! Not wind, she thought, through the rising shrieks.

“Stop it! ...
Please
,” Elizabeth whimpered. She tore her hands away from the ouija pointer and covered her face, pressing hard against her eyes until they hurt. Flaming spikes of light jabbed her retinas.

“Stop it! ... Stop it! ... Stop it! ... “

Elizabeth tried to stand up; she had to get away from the ouija board and those skeletal hands controlling it, but her body was paralyzed, caught in an iron grip that wouldn’t let her go. Her mind was filled with horrifying thoughts of what those hands might do next —

... Reach out! ... Grab her by the throat! ... Strangle the life out of her
!

A sudden pressure caught both of her wrists, and, as much as she tried to resist, her hands were pulled inexorably away from her eyes. The darkened bedroom snapped back into view, but what she found herself staring at was the ouija board. The skeletal hands were still guiding the pointer as it darted rapidly back and forth, spelling out the message:

M-O-M-M-Y-H-E-L-P-M-O-M-

The sound the pointer made on the board rose steadily louder until Elizabeth finally realized it wasn’t metal on metal, or stone against stone ... No! It was the sound of car tires, spinning frantically to gain purchase on a snow-slick road!

M-Y-H-E-L-P-M-O-M-M-Y-H-E-L-P

“
No!
” Elizabeth wailed as hot tears flooded her eyes, blurring her vision. “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?”

The letters on the game board melted like chocolate on a sidewalk in August; but through the dizzying haze. Elizabeth’s eyes followed the pointer as it spelled out over and over ...

H-E-L-P-M-O-M-M-Y-C-A-R-O-L-I-N-E-H-E-L-P-M-O-M-M-Y-H-E-L-P-M-O-M

Elizabeth was spiraling down into a dizzying whirlpool of darkness when she snapped back to wakefulness. With a sputtering gasp that smoothly blended into a scream, she opened her eyes to find herself sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor, the ouija board and pointer propped up on her knees.

2.

“I think there are two things you’re going to have to do,” Rebecca said, pointing her forefinger at Elizabeth. “Do you want to know what they are?”

It was a little after 3:00 A.M., and Rebecca was facing Elizabeth across the kitchen table. They each had a steaming cup of tea in front of them, but neither had taken a sip yet. The sky outside the kitchen window was black, and the dim light of the kitchen just barely kept the pressing darkness at bay.

Elizabeth’s head was pounding, and even though it had happened over an hour ago, she still felt pale and drained after her nightmare.

Nightmare? she wondered. How can I call it a nightmare when I woke up doing exactly what I had dreamed I was doing?

Rebecca went on. “I think the first thing you have to do is give Doug a call. No, no — not now,” she said, when Elizabeth glanced over at the phone. “But first thing in the morning. You’ve got to talk to him and try and patch things up between you. I think a lot of what’s upsetting you is because —”

“It has
nothing
to do with what’s happened between me and Doug,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was low and surprisingly steady, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up at her mother. All she could do was focus on her own hands, cradling the cup of hot tea, and remember those other hands she had seen — those skeletal hands that had materialized out of the darkness and guided the Ouija-board pointer.

“I think it has
everything
to do with you and Doug!” her mother said sharply. “I think you’re feeling guilty that you’ve left him, and you’re feeling-”

“I may have been the one to leave
physically
,” Elizabeth said, “but
he’s
the one who wanted me to leave. I never wanted a divorce.”

“Make that three things I think you’ve got to do,” Rebecca calmly said. “The first is to call Doug —”

“I can’t do that,” Elizabeth said sharply. “I can’t! I won’t!”

“Well, that may be,” her mother replied. “But the second and most important, I think, is you have to stop lying to me.”

“What are you talking about?” Elizabeth said. She sat up and looked squarely at her mother, even though the motion sent spikes of pain through her head and neck.

“You know
exactly
what I mean,” Rebecca said firmly. “Look, Elizabeth-you’re my daughter, and for that I’ll love you unconditionally and forever; but if you’re going to live here in my house, and if we’re going to have any kind of honest, open relationship as one friend to another, not just mother to daughter, then you can’t be telling me half-truths or outright lies.”

“When have I ever — ?”

Her mother cut her short by making a quick chopping motion with the edge of her hand. She grazed the side of her teacup and almost spilled it.

“You started lying to me and your father the night you showed up here on the doorstep, asking if you could spend the night. You told us that Doug had told-you to get out of the house ... that he told you he wanted a divorce.”

“He did,” Elizabeth said weakly.

“He most certainly did
not
!” Rebecca snapped.

“How do you know that?” Elizabeth asked, even as she flushed with embarrassment.

“Because I talked with him again this evening,” Rebecca said matter-of-factly.

“He called again?” Elizabeth asked.

Her mother’s voice had a steely, no-nonsense edge to it. “Doug told me that
you
were the one who started this talk about divorce, and that
you
were the one who walked out the door. So now I’m asking you to tell me the truth. Did you leave him?”