Within These Walls (37 page)

56

L
UCAS COULDN’T BRING
himself to believe what he was seeing. A young Jeffrey Halcomb stood at the top of the stairs. And despite Lucas thinking through all the possibilities, the
crazy fucking possibilities
, seeing Halcomb on the second-floor landing undid every scrap of remaining logic in Lucas’s head. He wanted to accept it, but, staring twelve feet up at a rejuvenated dead man, his brain rebelled. A stubborn denial.

But his refusal to acknowledge the warped reality that had somehow taken over his life was rebutted by Echo twisting to look at him from where she stood. She craned her neck and gave Halcomb a wide, delirious smile.

She can see him, too.

It meant Lucas wasn’t imagining things. Except that when he looked away from Echo and back to where Halcomb was ­standing—directly in front of Jeanie’s door—Jeff was gone and Jeanie had replaced him. She stood motionless at the upstairs banister, her face blank, her eyes empty.

Something about her stasis kept Lucas cemented in place. There was something different about his daughter, something he couldn’t put his finger on. Like when Caroline had dyed her hair a half shade lighter and expected him to notice, waiting for him to pick up on the minuscule change.

“Vivi,” Echo murmured from the couch.

“
My
Vivi,” Jeffery Halcomb said, nearly making Lucas jump out of his skin.

His gaze darted from his daughter to the dead man now on his left. Halcomb looked like he’d stepped out of the thirty-year-old photographs tucked into Lucas’s desk drawer.

“As in, ‘long live,’ ” Jeffrey mused. “A perfect moniker to reflect her true purpose, don’t you think?”

Lucas opened his mouth to speak but he couldn’t find his breath. If he
had
breath, there would have been no words. Halcomb looked so real. So alive
.
So
young
.

“You look surprised, Lou,” Halcomb said, a wry half grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I’d think that you, a true-crime writer with
such
an imagination, would have expected this. You, Lucas ­Graham, the man who knows so much about me and my little family.” The ghost of a smile faded. Halcomb frowned, as if disappointed. “It always surprises me. For what if some were without faith? Will their lack of faith nullify the faithfulness of God?”

Faith.

The word rolled around in his head.

Faith.

His eyes darted back to the stairs.

Jeanie was descending the staircase with a weird sort of slowness, like a VHS tape running at half speed. Halcomb’s cross was in her hand. How the hell had she gotten ahold of it? He’d stuck it in his desk drawer, had seen it just hours before.

That was when the memory of being locked in his study hit him; the way he hadn’t been able to open the door. The way it had burst open and shut on its own only moments later, as though some unseen force had run inside and locked their self in with him. He remembered the drawers of his desk flying open, the top one with the broken rails crashing to the floor. It was the drawer he’d dumped
Halcomb’s cross into among a myriad of paperwork and Post-it Notes. Lucas swallowed against the possibility.

It had been Jeanie all along.

Somehow, in some impossible way, she had been in his study at the very same moment he’d been scrambling to get out.

Lucas squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, refusing to believe it. “No,” he murmured. None of it made sense. None of it was fucking
right
. But nothing had ever been right here. His kid had grown distant, more defiant, the moment they had moved in. He had become more indifferent than ever, hardly able to think about anything but Halcomb, the book, the research—
obsessed
with the case. He’d pushed aside all his doubts and allowed a stranger into their lives, had snapped at his daughter and hissed through the phone at his best friend to leave him alone. Doors opened onto rooms that shouldn’t have existed. Dead people ran through the yard like a group of gallivanting kids. A man who had killed himself earlier that day was standing not ten feet away, looking three decades younger, twice as dashing as he did in photographs.

Faith
.

Sometimes faith didn’t make sense. It simply was what it was. And yet Lucas couldn’t accept it.

“No,” he said again. “It isn’t possible.”

Halcomb gave him a thoughtful glance, that chilling smile crossing his lips again. “With men this is impossible, but with God,
all
things are possible.”

The shadows in the corners of the room began to shift. They stepped out of various parts of the room and into the dim light; Georgia Jansen with her long dark hair and her hardened features. Derrick Fink with his cowboy boots and mother-of-pearl snaps. Dead-eyed Chloe Sears. And the rest of them.

All save for the victim.

Audra Snow was missing.

And here was Jeanie at the foot of the stairs among Halcomb’s believers, as if to take Audra’s place.

Lucas seemed to be the only one disturbed by this unnatural reunion. He clawed at the front of his T-shirt, his fingernails scratching at well-worn cotton, trapped inside his own skin. When the Doors’ “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” came blasting out of the living room speakers, every nerve in his body buzzed with the electricity of a pent-up scream. He reeled around to see Echo having just put a vinyl record down on a player that didn’t belong to him. Because nothing in this house truly did—everything belonged to
them
. They were in their rightful place. It was Lucas who, somehow, was the intruder.

Echo began to sway back and forth, her mug of whatever it was she’d been drinking discarded. It was gentle at first, as she waited for the music to build. Then there was something terrible about her movement, unnatural, like a puppet with its strings yanked tight. She flailed her arms, her hair whipping right and left. Her eyes met his as she danced, flashing with an alarming eagerness.

Lucas couldn’t look. He turned away from her, his gaze tumbling across the room until it stopped on his daughter. Jeanie was swaying to the music on the opposite side of the room, her mouth turned up in a dreamy smile. Her eyes were closed, and her hair was longer than it should have been. Straighter, having grown a good six inches in the last ten seconds. Just as Jeff Halcomb appeared younger, there was something about Jeanie’s movements that promised Lucas his little girl wasn’t his anymore.

And when she looked up at him and gave him a coy smile, the air in his lungs vaporized to nothing. Jeanie’s eyes were no longer green. They were blue.

Blue like Audra Snow’s.

“Oh my God.” He twisted where he stood, grabbed Halcomb by the arms, only to shove him away, as though having grasped fire.

How can I touch him? How is he really here?

The culmination of three decades of Jeffrey’s intricate planning, of unwavering faith, had been set in motion. He was about to repeat the ritual, set what had been interrupted right after all this time. He needed another Audra, a vulnerable girl who was full of contradictory emotions. Love and hate and hurt and confusion. All the shit Lucas and Caroline had shoved into their now broken daughter with their fighting, their refusal to let either party win.

Echo’s dancing transformed into an erratic spasm. Lucas winced as she convulsed yet somehow stayed on her feet. Foam collected in the corners of her mouth. The eight ghosts that had stood throughout the room had shifted, and were now lying in the center of the room, convulsing in the form of a human star. Red plastic cups littered the ground next to them. Echo shook in the center of the formation, then crashed to her knees with a choking gasp, seizing in the center of the dead.

Lucas lunged for his daughter. Grabbing her by the arm, he yanked her toward him, ready to run, sure that if he was only able to make it out of the house Jeanie would come back to him. She would, by some miracle, be herself again. But rather than stumbling toward him, Jeanie stood still, stuck in place just as she had been upstairs in her room. She stared at him with blank, disbelieving eyes, unable to comprehend why he would deny her happiness. Why would he insist she continue living with
his
misery.

Don’t you want me to be happy?

All that came of Lucas’s seizure of her arms was Halcomb’s cross coming loose from her hand. She let go of it, and it transferred into his own grip. He stared at it—a token of the past brought into the present. Or was the present now the past? It was a beacon, the thing
that had led Halcomb back to the house. Just as Lucas had agreed to live in Pier Pointe without so much as a second thought, he’d brought that cross into the house once more. Just as Jeff had expected him to. Just the way he wanted.

That was when Jeff darted forward so quickly that Lucas didn’t have time to react. Halcomb snarled as he squeezed his hands around Lucas’s throat. A violent forward pull sent both men crashing into each other, leaving Lucas to gasp for air as if nearly drowned. He tumbled onto the living room floor, the cross still in his grasp. Giant swallows refilled his deflated lungs. The air was redolent of sweet smoke. Red fruit. It was like tasting a scent, like walking into an overly perfumed room and smacking your tongue against the roof of your mouth.

The room became brighter. More real, like a yellowed photograph coming clear.

The room was brighter and Jeff was gone.

57

March 14, 1983

Twenty Minutes Before the Sacrament

A
UDRA TRIED TO
run. She caught a break and made for the trees behind the house, but she could hear them behind her, whooping and laughing as though it was all just a game. They cornered her, grabbed her by her arms and legs, and carried her back to the house while she wept for mercy. But she knew no clemency would be given, because this wasn’t about her. This was about the baby. She was little more than a host, and could mercilessly be disposed of.

They dropped her onto the floor in the center of the living room, and through her frantic, hysterical tears, Audra saw Maggie emerge from the kitchen. She was carrying what looked like party cups. “Drink,” she said, distributing the cups among the group. Kenzie and Nolan took turns holding Audra down as they gulped whatever it was Maggie had concocted.

Maggie paused next to Jeffrey. She placed a hand on his forearm in a thoughtful way. “Hard to believe we’re finally here,” she said.

“It is,” Jeffrey agreed. “But here we are.”

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Maggie said with a chuckle. “Just think of how far we’ve come since meeting in Veldt.”

Audra couldn’t put it together, didn’t understand what they were talking about, but she remembered then—Jeff had mentioned that they needed Maggie to take care of things.
What things?

That’s when it hit her: they were really going to do it, they were going to kill her.

And what would become of the baby? What would become of her mother? Her father? How long would it be before her parents knew she was dead?
Please,
she thought,
I take it back. I take it all back. I don’t want them to find me like this. Let it be the mailman, the meter reader, the police—anything but them.

Deacon approached her, and for a split second, Audra’s soul was ignited by hope. Maybe he was remembering the connection they had made on the beach, or felt pity for her and would somehow talk the group out of doing whatever it was they had planned.
This isn’t the girl we want. We’ve made a mistake. Let’s move on, forget the whole thing.

Deacon knelt next to her, and for a moment she was sure he was her salvation. But his words brought promise of something else. “I always knew you were the one,” he said. “You’re scared now, but death is only temporary. Trust in this, Avis. Have faith.”

No.
The word screamed through her head.
They’re all crazy.
She cried out, struggling against Noah’s and Kenzie’s grip.
I have to get out of here, I have to save my baby.
She opened her mouth to scream—one more attempt at protest. But she was gagged before she could pull in enough breath.

Deacon pressed a rag over her mouth. It was wet, choking her with the scent of alcohol, or maybe it was acetone. She continued to fight, trying to kick out her legs to get Deacon away. Except they were suddenly too heavy to move. Her hearing went fuzzy, as though she were drowning. Her vision blurred. She heard Shadow bark, watched Maggie’s fading figure catch him by the
collar and pull him back while her dog yipped and tried to get to his owner.

The last thing she ever saw was Jeff leaning over her. He was smiling. And all she could think was that he was
still beautiful.
If she had just tried harder, maybe it would have been different.

Maybe it would have all worked out in the end.

58

V
EE COULDN’T MOVE,
couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away as Jeffrey Halcomb grabbed her father and, in a shimmer of light, seemed to vaporize right before her eyes.

Astral projection,
she thought.

Out-of-body experience.

Etheric travel.

But there was something about her father, something different. His eyes. His posture. The way he was now looking at her, a faint smile tugging at a single corner of his mouth.

“Do you trust me, Vivi?” His words released her from her stasis. The cross glinted in his hand. That nickname . . . her dad would never call her that.

“I do.”
What?
She listened to the words come out of her throat—words that she wasn’t saying but couldn’t stop.
What’s happening to me?
She fought against herself as she moved forward. Her hand extended out to reach for the man who looked like her father but was no longer her dad. She knew then; her father was gone, replaced by the one who had promised her happiness if she’d only forget.
Forget he ever existed.

“Then don’t be afraid,” he said, catching her hand in his. The moment their fingers touched, Vee swayed on her feet. A sharp scent overwhelmed her. It smelled like a salon. Like nail polish remover. Suddenly she was tired, so tired, as though some inexplicable toxin
had entered her bloodstream. Her tongue flicked out across her bottom lip, tasting sweet cherries, bitter almonds. Her gaze drifted to the kitchen, to the cherries that littered the orange-topped kitchen island. The mortar and pestle. The cherry pits she knew were there, ground into powder. Why would anyone grind cherry pits for cider? Why would anyone do that? Why?

“Close your eyes, Vivi,” he whispered, drawing her closer. “Long live, remember? Long live into forever.”

He drew his hand down her back, and Vee’s legs gave way. Her feet left the ground as the man with her father’s face lifted her up into his arms, moving into the circle of the dead.

She couldn’t have fought him if she wanted to. Her body, limp now, felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds.