Текст книги "Within These Walls"

Автор книги: Ania Ahlborn

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“This is what you wanted,” Maggie reminded her. “You have to have faith.”

“No.” She shook her head again. “No. I don’t want it anymore.”

Maggie looked to Jeff. Audra turned her attention to him as well.

“I don’t want it anymore!” she cried. “You can’t make me do th—”

She didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. Maggie turned back to her in a flash, pressed the knife into Audra’s hand, and shoved Audra toward Claire. The blade sank into Claire’s shoulder, giving rise to a muffled scream. Claire thrashed against her captors, choked against her gag. Audra tried to reel away, her own scream now mingling with the home owner’s dampened one. But before she could wrench her arm out of Maggie’s grasp, the boys swept in. Kenzie and Noah grabbed her left arm while Deacon aided Maggie on the right.

Jeff stepped into Audra’s view, canted his head to the side, and gave her a thoughtful look.

“You’re weak,” he said. “But fear is to be expected, Avis. You’ve always been weak, and the weak are afraid of everything.”

She fought against the hands that held her, but it was useless. She couldn’t move.

“You see, they were all weak,” Jeff said, motioning to the people who surrounded her, who held her and the thrashing, sobbing Claire. “But the weak can be taught to be strong. You have to push through the fear, Avis, push through the darkness. We’re all born weeping and afraid. Sometimes we must be thrust into fearlessness by the hand of another. Only then will we truly learn to live.”

She could hardly breathe. Jeffrey reached out and wrapped his fingers over her own, securing the knife she so desperately wanted to toss aside a second time, forced to keep it in her grasp by Maggie’s unwavering hand. His fingers closed tight over Audra’s fist, the hilt of the knife biting into the meat of her palm.

“You are the mother of The Child,” he said.

“The child is the key,” the group called back in unison, making Audra jump at their communal response.

“You cannot fear what must be done,” Jeffrey told her.

“Life brings death brings life,” they chanted.

“Life brings death,” Jeff repeated. “Death brings life. Bring death,” he said, guiding the knife in Audra’s hand toward Claire, who was being hefted up onto her knees by the girls.

“Bring death,” he said as Claire began to scream again, Gypsy and Clover drawing the woman toward Audra while Avis was forced forward by the boys. “Bring death,” he said a third time, his own hand guiding hers as the blade cut the beginning of a blooming red line just beneath Claire’s left ear. “Death is the beginning of eternity, Avis. Life is merely temporary.”

47

LUCAS SPENT A good fifteen minutes on the phone with the emergency dispatcher. He described the vandalism inside the house and reported the Maxima as stolen.

“I’m sorry, what year did you say the car was manufactured?” The 911 operator sounded unsure of herself.

“Jesus Christ, it’s a 2011.”

“. . . 2011,” she said steadily. “Sir, is everything all right?”

“No, everything is not all right,” he snapped. “How could it possibly be all right? I told you, someone was in my house. Someone may still be in my house. And my car has been stolen. How does that sound all right?” Jeanie made eyes at him. Dad, cool it. He took a breath and tried to take it down a notch. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I’m freaking out. Are you sending someone or what?”

“An officer will be out shortly to take a statement and file a report.”

“What about the people?”

“The people, sir?” The connection was bad. Tinny. The dispatcher sounded far away, underwater. Fucking phone, he thought. Maybe if it wasn’t such a cheap piece of crap, he would have gotten Mark’s messages. Lucas was sure that his cell’s shitty quality was the reason Mark’s dozen or so voice mails had been lost to the void.

“The people who may still be in the house,” Lucas clarified, trying to keep it together. He pressed his phone so hard against his ear it was a wonder it didn’t affix itself to his skull.

“Please do not go inside the home until an officer arrives, sir,” the dispatcher told him. Lucas seethed and ended the call.

Jeanie watched him with wary eyes. “You really think they’re still in there?” she asked, shifting her weight from one bare foot to another. Something about the way she was standing rubbed him the wrong way. It was almost as though she didn’t believe him despite how amped up he was. I’m not fucking crazy, he thought. Someone had stacked the furniture up to the goddamn ceiling, and unless they’d also spiked his coffee with LSD, he hadn’t hallucinated it.

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Probably not if they’re smart.” And they had to be, because how did someone get around an installed alarm like that? Maybe you didn’t hear it go off, just like you didn’t hear your phone ring for the past week or so. No, that was ridiculous. The problem wasn’t him, it was whoever had broken into the house. These were professionals. Or maybe the alarm install guy missed one of the windows? Who knew what kind of Mickey Mouse certification was required to wire those things. There were all sorts of possibilities, none of which had anything to do with him.

“What did they do?” Jeanie glanced to the wide-open front door. The house alarm had silenced itself after its ten-minute earsplitting screech, but the panel continued to blink red in warning just inside the foyer. Lucas couldn’t stop staring at it. If he had been a superstitious man, he may have taken that flashing red light as a sign—don’t go back in there. Instead, each bright blink was like a matador waving a flag in front of an ornery bull. He felt violated. Threatened. The panel’s insistence was only making him want to rage that much more. He wanted to tear it from the wall and stomp it beneath his feet. Lousy, worthless piece of shit. Maybe the alarm was on the fritz just like his phone. Or this place sat on some weird magnetic ley line that screwed with all the electronics.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, turning his attention from the door to his kid. “It’s going to be okay. The police will be here soon.” But his response did little to satiate Jeanie’s curiosity. She frowned at him, then crossed her arms over her chest.

“How did you know someone was in the house, Dad? Did you see them?”

There it was again, that doubt. Don’t question me, he wanted to sneer. Her sudden lack of faith ticked him off. But the longer he stayed silent, the more aggravated she appeared. He exhaled and rolled his eyes up toward the star-spangled sky.

“Did they, like, steal something? Other than the car, I mean?”

“I don’t know, but they rearranged the furniture for some stupid reason. Stacked it up to the ceiling.”

Jeanie’s eyes went wide. She blinked a few times, went pale as milk. A second later she was squaring her shoulders and trying to disguise her surprise. “Well, if they didn’t come after us . . . that means they aren’t going to, right? Besides, if they took the car, the cops are going to be looking for them. They’d be stupid to come around here again.”

She made a move toward the front door, but Lucas caught her by the wrist to stop her. “Jeanie,” he said. “Don’t.” She gave him a look that he read easily. Didn’t you just hear what I said? She was fearless, unconvinced. Again, Lucas wanted to bark at her. Since when was she so goddamn defiant? But he managed to steady his nerves. Whoever had broken in must have taken off. The police would be arriving at any minute. Staying inside would have been insane.

Reluctantly, he followed Jeanie back into the house, but he stopped short just beyond the foyer. Jeanie was staring ahead at the living room. It was in perfect order. Not a stick of furniture was rearranged. Nothing was out of place.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he murmured.

Jeanie’s face was a reflection of how he felt. But rather than staying at his side like a feeder fish, she stepped farther into the living room, as if wanting to make sure what they were seeing wasn’t a trick of the light.

Lucas followed his daughter’s lead, but he did so with a decent amount of hesitation. He was trying to keep his suspicions grounded in reality, doing his damnedest not to let his mind wander toward the kind of stuff his twelve-year-old kid had been researching at Barnes & Noble.

This wasn’t paranormal. It was nothing but an asshole or two not having anything better to do. But the more he inspected the room for flaws, the more mind-bending the whole thing became.

Crouching down next to one of the armchairs, he gave it a little shove. The chair skipped on the carpet, leaving a perfect indentation of its footprint on the rug. If this was the work of a bunch of stupid kids, they had been pretty damn careful when it came to putting everything back the way they had found it. Except that it had been dark in the living room. How the hell had they been able to match up those indentations without any light?

And Lucas and Jeanie had been right outside.

Lucas shook his head. He pulled his cell out of his pocket, stared at a missed text message he hadn’t heard come in. Josh Morales.

We should talk.

Halcomb’s dead.

See you soon? J.

Lucas’s mouth went dry.

“Dad?”

Josh was working Marty’s beat. That put Josh next to Halcomb during the time of his death. What if Josh had seen the body? What if Josh had been there, and now he was home by himself, drinking, thinking about how an inmate had killed himself on his watch? What if he had done what Marty had sarcastically suggested and quizzed Halcomb on his beliefs?

What if it’s true? The stuff Halcomb is saying, the stuff about eternal life?

“Dad?”

“What?!” He shot her a glare.

Jeanie gaped at him, took a backward step. “Jeez, I just wanted to know if I can go back upstairs.”

“No.” His reply was instant. He cleared Morales’s text and reconnected his most recent emergency call.

“God,” he could hear his kid mutter. “Why are you suddenly such a jerk?”

The dispatcher was different this time. She sounded clearer, more alert than the first. “Nine one one, what’s your emergency?”

“Hi,” he said through gritted teeth. “My name is Lucas Graham, I called a few minutes ago. One oh one Montlake Road. Where are you guys?”

He heard the clackity-clack of a computer keyboard, and then the dispatcher spoke up again. “Are you calling from the same location, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a cell phone?”

“Yes.” He was trying not to yell. “Same location, same phone.”

More tapping, a long pause, then: “I’m not showing any record of you calling dispatch regarding this location.”

“What?” Lucas glared at the carpet. “How incompetent can you . . . look, I just hung up with you guys.”

“What’s the situation, sir?”

He clenched his jaw, hating her nonchalant tone. He knew dispatchers were trained to sound cool under pressure, but he was angry at her for it nevertheless. He was angry at everything, everyone.

“There’s been a break-in,” he explained once more, feigning patience, his tone edged with contempt. “My car has been stolen. It’s a white Nissan Maxima with New York plates. Is someone coming out here or not?”

“I’ll send out an officer to take a statement and draw up a report.”

“The first dispatcher already did that.”

Clickity-clack. Silence. Then: “Yes, sir.”

“What?”

“Yes,” she repeated. “An officer will be there soon.”

Lucas shook his head, confused. “Another one, or just—okay, never mind. I just wanted to add to my original call, so I can aid you people in understanding what the hell is going on. Someone broke into my house and then came back inside and undid what they did.”

“What they did, Mr. Graham?” He could hear her confusion growing just like his. “Sir,” she said. “Has there been an accident?”

He almost laughed. This was ridiculous. “No. A break-in and a stolen car.”

“And they . . . undid something?”

“They undid the vandalism.”

“The vandalism is gone, sir?”

Jeanie stared at her dad, listening to only one side of the conversation. Lucas shoved his fingers through his hair and exhaled a rough sigh. “Yes, just . . . send someone over as soon as possible, all right? There may still be someone on the property. Actually, I’m almost positive there is.”

“Then you should leave the property, sir.”

“And go where?”

“I suggest you at least get in your car and lock the doors, turn on the headlights, and keep your cell phone charged.”

“Are you not hearing me? They stole my car.”

“Are you alone, sir?”

“No, I’m with my daughter.”

“Is she a minor?”

“She’s twelve. I don’t see what that has to—”

“Sir?” She cut him off. “In the interest of your daughter’s safety, you should head to your nearest neighbor’s residence and wait for dispatch to arrive.”

That’s it. Enough.

He let fly.

“My nearest neighbor lives over a mile away,” he snapped. “I live in a house that draws these . . . these freaks to it, see? It’s the house Jeffrey Halcomb lived in . . .” He didn’t know why he was going into detail, only that he couldn’t help himself, that he’d held it in too long. It didn’t matter that Jeanie was staring at him with her big green eyes or if she got scared because they were leaving. His life was over. All that was left was to pack up his shit and go. “Halcomb is dead.” He spit the words out like something foul. “He killed himself in prison today and I think they know, and now they’re here for us, do you understand? They’re here because of the house and I don’t know what the fuck to do.”

Jeanie stiffened beside him, but he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to see the look on her face. He was afraid that, upon seeing it, his inexplicable anger would combust inside his chest. Anger, not sympathy for his kid. Why am I so goddamn pissed off? This isn’t me. This isn’t the way I am . . .

“Sir,” the dispatcher said, as if calling him that would somehow soothe his nerves. “I understand that you’re upset, but I need you to remain calm, okay? An officer will be there soon, but we want you and your daughter to stay safe. Please leave the house and find a safe place to wait for us to arrive.”

Lucas opened his mouth to argue, to say something that would possibly hurry whatever cop was on the way up. But he fell silent when he saw Jeanie standing in the open front door, staring into the front yard.

There, just beyond her shoulder, was the Maxima. Parked exactly where it was supposed to be.

48

VIVI FELT LIKE she was about to explode. She kept out of the way while her dad—who was acting seriously weird—gestured with his hands and explained to the arriving officer exactly what he had seen. She believed him—boy, did she believe him—but she wasn’t about to let him know. On top of the fact that she wasn’t thrilled to be interacting with him, she was supposed to keep what she knew to herself. A secret, just like Echo had said.

He’ll ruin everything.

She tried to imagine the furniture stacked the way he had described, an impossible feat, like the towers of rocks people piled on beaches and mountaintops. But rather than their furniture, she kept picturing what didn’t belong to them at all—an ugly plaid-patterned couch, a crappy old armchair, a TV stuck in an odd-looking wooden chest. And on top of the pile was a knotted tapestry, its dangling beads tap-tap-tapping in the dark, blown by a nonexistent breeze.

And then there was Jeff. The moment her dad had announced his death to the dispatcher, Vivi had been desperate to sprint up the stairs and lock herself inside her room. Her father derailed her impromptu Ouija session by busting into her room unannounced. But before she had heard him stomping up the stairs, she had whispered to Jeff’s dearly departed:

I know you’re here. I’m going to help.

A second later, her dad—who it felt as though she hadn’t seen in weeks—was throwing open her door. She scrambled to push the Ouija board out of view, but he was too busy snatching her up by the arm to notice. Downstairs, the furniture was supposedly screwed up and the car was missing—a car that, somehow, magically reappeared as soon as their backs were turned. How did they do that? They. The people living within the walls. Jeff’s brood. She knew it was them. Positive. One hundred percent.

But the longer she waited for her dad to give her the go-ahead to return to her room, the more she was starting to suspect there was something more to this house than the ghosts that haunted it. There was something broken here. Something that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the world. It was as though there had been a shift that had never quite managed to reset itself. Like switching the channel on the radio, where you could still hear the station you’d been searching for, but there would be another song playing ever so faintly beneath the first. Transference—it was how ghosts traveled from the real world to a place beyond the living. Either Jeff’s family was stuck in a constant state of travel or the house had somehow been stripped of the boundary between here and nowhere.

The officer didn’t say much, and because everything was back in order and the car was where it had always been parked, he couldn’t do much, either. When the cop finally pulled his cruiser out of the driveway, her dad waved his hand at the door as if dismissing the guy as a phony.

“Whatever,” he muttered, then turned around and gave Jeanie a defeated look. “Get your stuff.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

He shook his head at her. “I didn’t ask you what you want, kid. We’re going.”

Her only hope was to reason with him. She couldn’t possibly leave. Not now. Not with Jeffrey on the other side, waiting for her to reach out to him.

“If we leave, they win, Dad. They’re just trying to scare us.” If he wanted to believe in intruders, she’d let him. “I’m not going to Seattle . . . I’ll go back to New York to be with Mom before I move in with Uncle Mark.”

That statement brought a change to her father’s expression, as she knew it would. Even though he still loved Mom, the thing that would hurt her father the most was for Vivi to pick her mother over him. It was something he would never say, but she understood regardless.

“I want to stay here with you.” It was a lie. She didn’t give a damn about staying with him anymore, just as she didn’t care about being with her mom, either. As far as she was concerned, both her parents could disappear off the face of the earth; she’d be happy without them. After all, she was going to have a new family by then. A bigger family that understood, that actually cared. “You wanted to move here to work on your book,” she reminded him, “so that’s what you’re gonna do. Work on your book.”

“No, Jeanie.” Her dad’s shoulders fell, and for a second she thought he was going to cry. Jeanie. The name was so foreign, as though she hadn’t heard it in years. “It’s over,” he told her and looked away, as if considering something.

“No, Dad. It’s not over.” She walked over to him, determined to do whatever it took to get him to agree to stay, if only for one more night. She didn’t just want to reach Jeff, she needed to. He was dead, but she could still meet him. Jeff had said it himself when he had written “see you soon” on the back of the photo that was now pushpinned to her closet wall. And maybe that would take her dying like those other kids, maybe that’s why they had killed themselves . . . but why they had done it was beyond the point. If that’s what it took to be with Jeffrey Halcomb, perhaps death wasn’t as bad an idea as it initially seemed.

“Let’s call Echo, get her to stay here for a few nights,” she suggested. “That way you won’t be worried that people are breaking in. They wouldn’t dare break in if there are more people here, right? I’ll have someone to watch me, just like you want . . . and I’ll get to stay here, like I want. A compromise.” Echo would keep him busy if needed. Echo knew what Vivi had to do.

“A compromise,” he repeated.

“Exactly. How did I get so smart?” she asked him, feigning a silly grin—a smile she knew he loved. And while he still looked sad and worried and freaked-out, he couldn’t help but smile weakly in return. She felt a momentary pang of love for him, faint and fleeting, like the last chord of a song. That feeling vanished not a second later, vaporized beneath a succeeding thought:

It’s not you, it’s him.

Because if it hadn’t been for her father, her mother, her parents’ mutual failure, she could have been happy. She wasn’t going to let her second chance at happiness slip away.