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  “It’s on the other side of the park,” said Aubrey. “There’s a ditch that runs up to the fence. We’ll have to crawl through the drainage pipe, but then we’ll be out. The grass is pretty tall out there. If the security trucks come, we can just lay down to stay out of sight.”

  They stayed low as they ran across the playground and into the grassy park. They had to lay down once as a truck drove along the road near them, but it passed without incident and they quickened their pace through the field.

  “This is it,” said Aubrey as they got closer to the fence. “I can’t believe we made it.” She pulled Jacker down so that she could kiss his cheek. “Let’s get the fuck out of this cursed town.”

  Someone pumped a shotgun.

  “Thought you might try to get out this way,” said a man’s voice. Three men rose up from the weeds near the ditch, each holding a gun.

  “Oh fuck,” said Aubrey as she put her hands in the air.

  “Turn around and get on your knees,” said the tallest of the three men. He had a grey beard and a barrel chest. His gruff voice sounded tortured by a lifetime of smoking.

  “Fuck you,” said Jacker. “Go ahead and call the cops. You can’t threaten us.”

  “Son, I’m ten seconds away from shutting you up for good,” said the guard. “You found your way onto private property, boy. By law, I can put a bullet in you. Hell, kid, that’s my fucking job. Now do as I say and get on your knees.”

  Jacker and Aubrey obeyed and the guards swiftly patted them down. After convinced that they weren’t armed, the older guard put a pistol to the back of Aubrey’s head. The girl cringed and started to weep as she pleaded for her life.

  “If you hurt her, I swear to God…”

  “What?” asked the guard. “You’ll try to fight me? Who do you think’s going to win that little scuffle? Huh, Mr. Waxman?”

  “So you know who I am? Big deal. Call the cops and get this over with,” said Jacker.

  “Not yet. First, I want to talk about your friends. Where are they?”

  “It’s just us,” said Jacker. “We came alone.”

  “Now you’re just pissing me off,” said the guard. “We found you’re van, and the motorcycle. We know there’re more of you here. We’ve got everyone’s luggage. Unless you’re trying to tell me you wear a lot of lady’s underwear.”

  Jacker sneered back at the guard. “What can I say? I’m a freak.”

  “Aw fuck it,” said the guard as he put his pistol to the back of Jacker’s head. “Say good night, fat ass.”

  “I’ll tell you where they are,” said Aubrey. “Just don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt any of us.”

  “Aubrey, shut up,” said Jacker.

  “No! This isn’t worth dying over. Don’t be crazy.”

  “All right,” said the guard as he lowered his gun. “You should thank your little girlfriend. She just saved your life. Now get up. We’re going to go get your friends.”

  Widowsfield

  March 14th, 1996

  “Why are they coming back?” asked The Skeleton Man.

  “Who?” asked Raymond.

  “The fat one and his whore. They’re coming back.”

  Raymond looked down the road, in the direction that The Skeleton Man pointed, and saw nothing but fog. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “We have to do something. We have to save my sister.”

  Raymond looked in through the window at the crying girl in the kitchen of the cabin. He suddenly understood who it was that he’d been watching. “That girl is your sister? Then, is the boy you?”

  The Skeleton Man was crying, the tears seeping through the mess of blood and sagging flesh that decorated his skull – skin pulled from past victims that the demon had put over his face.

  “If they take her, I’ll never be free.”

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “I have to find the one that loves her. He’s here, I can feel how much he cares for her. He’s the only one that can stop this.” The Skeleton Man took Raymond’s hand. “We’re going to have to go inside. You’re going to have to find your sister while I talk to the one that loves Alma. You have to keep your sister away from me.”

  The door of the cabin creaked as the fog pressed into it. Then the wood warped and the door blew backward as the children inside screamed. The Skeleton Man went in first, and then disappeared within the surging fog. Raymond ran in after, still unsure what he was supposed to do.

  “Raymond?” asked Ben when he saw the boy enter. “What are you doing here?”

  “Where’s my sister?” asked Raymond.

  Alma was sobbing as she pointed up the stairs. “I’m so sorry, Raymond. Our dad made Ben do it. Please don’t be mad. Don’t be mad at us.”

  “What? Why?” asked Raymond.

  Ben had on a pair of oven mitts and was holding a steaming pot of boiling water.

  “What’s going on down there?” asked a man’s voice. Raymond recognized the hateful voice, but it had been a long time since he’d heard it.

  A gaunt man, soaking wet with sweat, appeared on the stairs. His beady eyes caught sight of Raymond and he froze.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Run, Raymond!” Alma screamed.

  Her father was faster and Raymond collapsed onto the concrete as the man tackled him. Michael Harper had grabbed a knife off the kitchen counter and started to cut at Raymond with it. Raymond felt himself being turned, and then an intense pressure in his gut. The knife entering his stomach was a surprise, but no worse than the pain Raymond had experienced any of the other times he died. He felt his hands grow cold as Alma’s father dragged his body back into the cabin.

  “Shut up, Alma!” he screamed as he dragged Raymond inside.

  That’s when the altered past dissipated, and Raymond saw The Skeleton Man again. He was standing near another man, who was tall and had a shaved head. The Skeleton Man had his hands on the stranger’s shoulders and was whispering in his ear. There was a tattoo of a snake on the side of the man’s head, right beside where The Skeleton Man was whispering.

  A woman’s voice screamed from upstairs and Raymond shifted his head to look. He recognized his sister’s pained cries. “Terry?” asked Raymond as he looked up the stairs. “Did he kill you too?”

  “Keep her away from me,” said The Skeleton Man.

  The fog thickened, and the electricity zapped the walls. Raymond was living in two times at once, and saw both visions independently. He could see Alma as a child, and as an adult, and he knew that his sister was dying upstairs, while at the same time existing as a tortured soul, just like everyone else in the town. He looked up the stairs and saw his sister’s mangled corpse begin to crawl down.

  She was nude, and she was soaked with water and blood. Her innards slid down the wooden steps, slopping down each step as she descended on her belly. Her face was shredded, and her hair was falling out in clumps of gooey blood, revealing her white skull beneath. Her left eye was falling from its socket, and her face looked like it was melting. She wailed, and continued down the stairs, focused on The Skeleton Man.

  “Terry!” Raymond was no longer trapped inside his body, but was a member of the mist, swirling and experiencing every emotion that existed in every mind among those gathered in the cabin. He could look down at his corpse and the children that cried as their father murdered another person, and he could see his sister’s wailing spirit sliding down the stairs. “You have to stop, Terry.”

  “Murderer!” Her teeth were loose in her gums, as if someone had been trying to pry them free. “I’ll slaughter them, all of them. I found them again!”

  Raymond wrapped himself around Terry to keep her from going down the stairs any further. He was able to hold her back, but her skin was sliding off her bones. He had to hook the mist through her rib cage to restrain her.

  “I love you, Terry,” said Raymond. “Dad and I loved you so much. It hurt us so bad to watch you do this to yourself. We never stopped lovin
g you.”

  “Let me go!” Terry’s bones cracked as she continued to try and crawl down the stairs.

  “Stay with me, Terry.”

  “I hate them!”

  “I love you.”

  “Hate…”

  Raymond held his sister close. “Love.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ben’s Secret

  March 12th, 2012

  Paul saw the security truck first and warned the others to get down. The yellow lights illuminated the living room, casting their eerie shadows throughout the cabin, but didn’t pass this time. They truck had parked in front of the cabin.

  “Oh shit,” said Stephen. “They must’ve found Jacker and Aubrey.”

  A loud, gruff voice crackled to life outside, amplified by a loudspeaker on the security truck. “Alma, Paul, Stephen, and Rachel, please exit the house. We know you’re in there. We don’t want any trouble. If you come out, we’ll escort you off the premises. No harm no foul. Okay?”

  “Game’s up,” said Rachel. “We don’t have a choice.”

  “I need to stay,” said Alma. “I need to find out what happened to Ben.”

  “Alma, we don’t have a choice,” said Paul. “They caught us.”

  “No!” Alma pushed her way out of Paul’s arms and ran to the kitchen. She pulled a steak knife out of a butcher’s block. It was old and rusted, but she placed it against her palm and cut herself.

  “Alma, stop it!” Paul tried to run to her, but she swiped the blade at him.

  “No, you’re not stopping me from doing this. No one is!” She fell to her knees as her palm gushed blood, and pressed her hand against the white tile. Alma scrawled 314 in blood on the floor and then sat back as she stared at it. “I don’t care if it’s too soon. I have to try.”

  “Holy shit,” said Stephen. “What is she doing?”

  “Alma, stop it,” said Paul.

  “Get away from me! Leave me alone.” She stared down at the number and started to hum in an attempt to focus. She rocked back and forth on her knees as her hand bled in her lap.

  Paul was going to try and stop her. He reached out, but then stopped. He caught sight of the number on the floor and his body froze. He felt a bone-chilling cold on both shoulders. Something had its hands on him, and he could feel the fingers wrap around his clavicles. Then the chattering began, a sound so distinctive that Paul could almost sense the teeth hitting one another.

  “I’m going to show you,” said the voice beyond the chattering teeth.

  The world around him was silenced, although he could see the chaos happening without him. He saw Alma on the floor, rocking as she stared at the number, and felt Stephen try to pull at his arm as he headed outside with Rachel. Paul turned to watch Stephen leave, and then saw the flash of gunfire.

  Stephen fell dead as Rachel screamed, though Paul heard nothing but the chattering teeth as time slowed to a crawl. “I’m going to let you see the truth. You’ll know why we have to protect Alma,” said the voice behind the teeth.

  Widowsfield

  March 14th, 1996

  Ben got up to answer the door as his sister stayed on the couch. Terry’s dog, the mangy, one-eyed creature that she insisted was a good dog but just hated kids, was in his cage in the kitchen. The dog barked and growled as someone knocked on the front door.

  “Shush, Killer,” said Ben as went to the door, but his command seemed to incite the dog rather than calm it.

  “Hello?” he asked as he opened the door.

  “Hello there little man,” said the chubby stranger. He was older, with a buzzcut and beady eyes. His lower jaw jut forth and when he talked his lower teeth stuck out like a cartoon of a dumb dog. “My name’s Desmond, and this is Raymond.” He put his hand on the back of a boy that was standing slightly behind him.

  “Hi,” said Raymond, who looked remarkably similar to his father.

  “I’m looking for my daughter, Terry. Is she here?”

  “Who is it?” asked Ben’s father as he descended the stairs. He saw Desmond at the door and exhaled as if disappointed. “Oh.”

  “Hello, Michael,” said Desmond, his tone darker.

  “What do you want?” asked Ben’s father.

  “I need to talk to Terry.”

  “Well, she’s busy.”

  “I’m not trying to pester her, or you. If you two want to rot away in this place, I just don’t have the energy to care anymore. I just need the keys to our cabin in Forsythe. I’m taking my boy out there for a fishing trip.”

  “Yeah, well, I think she’s already planning on heading out there tomorrow,” said Ben’s father. He stayed on the stairs, and Desmond stayed outside. Ben was caught between the awkward standoff.

  “Well, she’s just going to have to change her plans.”

  Ben’s father smelled his fingers, and then wiped them off on his already dirty t-shirt. “Maybe you’re going to have to change yours.” He put his hand on the wall, where the alcove from the stairs met the ceiling of the first floor. He tilted forward and then back again as he spoke. “We were going to take my kids fishing out there.”

  “No you weren’t,” said Desmond. “All you two ever do is sit in her room and smoke dope. Don’t try to pretend like there’s anything else going on here than that.”

  “You know, you’ve got a big mouth old man.”

  “Raymond,” said Desmond to his son, “go to the car. We’re going to leave soon, just wait for me.”

  “No, Daddy,” said Raymond. “Can we please just go? We can use the key in the rock, out by the river. We don’t need Terry’s key. Please, Daddy, I just want to go. Can we please go?”

  “Yeah, Daddy,” said Ben’s father in a mocking tone. “Go see Grace.” He flipped Desmond off with both hands as he bit his lower lip.

  “You’re scum,” said Desmond.

  “Get the fuck off Terry’s property,” said Ben’s father as he kept his middle fingers raised.

  Desmond walked away, and Ben closed the door while Killer continued to bark. “Sorry about that, Daddy,” said Ben.

  “What did I tell you about answering the door?” asked his father.

  “You never told us not to answer the door,” said Alma from the couch. She put her hands over her mouth after daring to speak up. Their father glared down at them both, his eyes wide and his fists clenched.

  “Do you guys want me to make you walk the dog?” he asked with a malicious grin.

  “No,” said Ben as he looked at the growling beast behind the bars. “He bites us.”

  “Then don’t disobey me again,” said their father. “And don’t come upstairs. Terry and I are busy. Understand?”

  “Yes,” said Ben.

  “Yes what?” asked their father.

  “Yes, sir,” said Alma and Ben simultaneously.

  “You’d better understand,” he said as he slowly went back up the stairs.

  They waited for the bedroom door to close, and then sighed in relief.

  “I hate him so much,” said Alma.

  Ben went back to the couch where they had a hoard of snacks and empty juice boxes. He hopped on the cushions and a mess of pretzel pieces flew into the air. “Don’t say that,” said Ben. “He’s our Dad. You only get one Dad.”

  “Well, I wish we got a different one.”

  Ben reached across their mountain of wrappers and juice boxes to take his sister’s hand. She was younger than him by two years, and suffered their father’s rage more frequently than Ben. Over the years, he’d tried to protect Alma, but their father seemed intent upon scrutinizing the girl’s every move. Nothing Alma ever did was good enough for their father, and Ben was always trying to convince the eight-year-old that she wasn’t worthless like their father said.

  “You’ll always have me.”

  “Thanks, Ben.”

  Killer continued to growl as he spun in his cage, trying to get comfortable on the worn towel that he was given as a blanket.

  “Do you want to watch Toy Story
again?” asked Ben.

  “Sure,” said Alma, forlorn and distant.

  “It’ll only be forty five minutes until the school lets out,” said Ben. “Aren’t you happy about that?”

  “I guess so,” said Alma.

  “I wonder if Jim and Laura are going to be holding hands,” said Ben as he got the video tape out of the basket beside the television stand.

  “You don’t even know if that’s their real names,” said Alma.

  Ben always knew when Alma was upset by the way she refused to play along with his games. Their annual vacation in Missouri was a boring exercise for them, spent watching the same movies over and over while their father stayed upstairs with the red haired girl named Terry.

  “What’s bugging you, Alma?” asked Ben. “You’re acting weird.”

  “I’m just sick of it,” said Alma. “I hate him so much. I’m going to tell Mom that I don’t want to come out here anymore.”

  Ben finished loading the VHS tape and returned to the couch. “No, Alma, you can’t do that. You know what he’ll do. You can’t tell Mom.”

  “I don’t even care anymore. I don’t care if he does kill me.”

  “Don’t say that.” Ben pushed the refuse off the couch between them and scooted over to sit beside his sister. He put his arm around her and set her head on his shoulder. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be able to survive in our crazy family. I need you, little sis.”

  “I need you too,” said Alma as she hugged Ben.

  The movie started and they settled into their seat. They’d seen the movie far too many times already, but it was the only new movie in the basket this year. All of the others had been here the last time they were forced to camp on the couch for a week, and they’d watched all of them more times than they cared to remember.

  Alma was the first to notice the fog outside.

  “Ben, look,” she said and got off the couch.

  She went to the window and he glanced outside to see what she was looking at. A thick smoke was billowing forth from something down the street. It was a light grey cloud, but swelled as if made of foam or liquid. Then the cloud flashed with green light and the hair on Ben’s arms stood straight up as if he’d been shocked. “Alma, get away from the window.”