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  “How?” asked Paul. “Tell me what I need to do.”

  “The same that I did,” said The Skeleton Man. “Sacrifice yourself to keep the truth hidden. Alma can’t handle what she saw. No one could. She’s fragile. She’ll break if she remembers. You have to let her go.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Paul. “I’ll do whatever I have to.”

  “Will you?” asked Ben. “Do you love her as much as I did?”

  “I’ll die for her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Ben laughed. “You’re already dead, Paul. I’m asking for more than that.”

  “Then get to the point,” said Paul. “What do I have to do?”

  “You have to let her forget you.” There was malice in Ben’s voice when he explained the proposition. “Stay here with me, and let Alma go. She’ll forget you ever lived, and that she ever loved you. She’ll never know of your sacrifice, and will never lament your loss. That’s the deal I was given, and I can offer you the same. Alma will never remember you, but she’ll be safe.”

  “There’s got to be another way,” said Paul.

  “There is,” said Ben. “You’re stuck here now, and if you want you can try and find a way out of Widowsfield. No one ever has, but you’re welcome to try. If you refuse my offer, then you’ll awake in Widowsfield, moments before the event occurred that opened the doorway. Alma will be with you, but she’ll remember what happened here when she was a child. All of her memories will come flooding back, just like they did of me the last time she was here. She’ll remember what happened in that bedroom when her knife plunged into the whore’s stomach. I don’t think anyone could be expected to handle that realization, bit it gets worse.”

  “What?” asked Paul. The demon seemed to be enjoying this more than a loving brother should. The Skeleton Man was a twisted creature, and Paul assumed there were more spirit’s than just Ben’s that made up this demon.

  “She used the number to remember, just before she was shot dead in the kitchen. She knows what happened, and she’ll be forced to remember over and over again. Widowsfield lives perpetually within only a few minutes of time. The short window of time that the door was open now plays itself over and over again, and the tortured souls in the town are forced to live that moment for eternity. Now Alma will join us, and every time the moment starts again, she’ll be flooded by the agonizing memory of what happened here.”

  The Skeleton Man materialized in the mist. He was tall, and his face was a mask of stripped flesh that covered a skull. He had eyeballs that were placed within a skull’s sockets and his teeth chattered as he spoke, as if his voice wasn’t emitted from his mouth but telepathically.

  “Make your choice,” said The Skeleton Man as he held out his hand to Paul. “Join me, and let Alma forget you. Or torture her for eternity with the memory of what happened here.”

  Paul was given insight to what The Skeleton Man knew. There was too much to understand in such a short moment, but Paul knew that the boy had allowed his final few minutes to dictate what hell he wrought on the residents of Widowsfield that were trapped in the mist with him. Ben was a malevolent force whose pain and suffering in his last moments of life defined the existence of every soul left trapped in Widowsfield. He was their Devil, a mere child who learned of hatred and pain at the very moment that a doorway was unlocked.

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Paul. “Why is this happening?”

  “Evil has a home, Paul,” said The Skeleton Man. “Its name is Widowsfield. Now make your choice.”

  * * *

  Jacker was driving the van as they left Widowsfield.

  Stephen was in the passenger seat and was toying with his camera. Rachel, Alma, and Aubrey were in the back, crunched together on the middle seat. The entire rear seat of the van was loaded with Stephen’s equipment, which required the girls to all sit together.

  “I can’t wait to get home,” said Rachel. “I’m going to sleep for, like, twelve hours straight.”

  Alma had her hands in her coat pocket and was rubbing her thumb against a small piece of soft fabric on her keychain. The sensation soothed her.

  “I know the feeling,” said Aubrey. “I am zonked.”

  Alma stared out the front window as they drove away. It was foggy out, and it looked like it was going to rain.

  “Whoa,” said Jacker as he pulled the van over to the side of the road. A car zipped by them on the left and disappeared into the fog ahead. “What an asshole. I wonder where he was off to in such a hurry.”

  Alma stopped rubbing the fabric on her keys and pulled them out. She stared at the miniature teddy bear.

  “I don’t know,” said Stephen. “And I don’t care. I just want to go home.”

  “Same here,” said Rachel. “I don’t ever want to go back to that place.”

  “Widowsfield,” said Alma as she stared at the teddy bear. She loved it, and knew that she could use it to focus on when she was frightened. It was a source of happiness for her.

  “Don’t even say the name,” said Aubrey. “I don’t ever want to remember that place.”

  “Jacker,” said Alma.

  “What is it, beautiful?” asked Jacker as he started to pull the van back onto the road.

  “Wait,” said Alma.

  Jacker and Stephen turned to look at her.

  She stayed silent for a moment as she continued to stare at the teddy bear keychain. She couldn’t remember where she got it.

  “Guys,” said Alma. “It’s happening again.”

  “What is?” asked Aubrey

  “Widowsfield. 314. It’s the same as before. Do you remember going into town?” she asked. “We came all the way here, but I don’t remember anything about the town. Do you?”

  They all looked at each other, and finally Rachel spoke up. “I’m officially creeped out you guys. Alma’s right. I can’t remember shit.”

  “Neither do I,” said Stephen. “Did we get footage for the show?”

  Jacker pulled a purple coin out of his pocket and stared at it as the others spoke.

  “We’re going through the same thing that I did,” said Alma. “Somehow or another we got tricked. The town turned us around. It stole something from us.”

  “Jacker,” said Stephen. “Turn the van around. We’re going back.”

  “What about the fence?” asked Aubrey.

  Jacker turned the wheel and hit the gas. Gravel spit up behind them as they headed back to town. “Fuck the fence,” he said as he sped up. “If there’re no guards then I’ll plow right through the fucker.”

  “There’s no fence,” said Stephen. “Look, there’s a sign right there.”

  There was a large, bright billboard on the side of the road that exclaimed, “Welcome to Widowsfield.”

  Jacker drove the van into town and turned left on Main Street. They pulled up to a stop light and looked around. The town wasn’t abandoned like they’d been told it was. There were people on the sidewalk, cars on the road, and even a UPS truck parked in front of the Anderson Used Book Store.

  “This isn’t right,” said Aubrey. “I’ve been here a ton of times. All of these buildings were boarded up before. I’m serious, none of this should be here.” She watched a man with long hair walking on the sidewalk. He had a walkman clipped to his belt and was in the process of changing CDs.

  “Look at the clock on the bank over there,” said Jacker as he pointed at the bank that shared a parking lot with the Widowsfield Emergency Services building.

  3:13

  “Guys,” said Stephen. He looked ashen as he stared at the UPS truck outside of the book store. “This is Widowsfield, in 1996.”

  Alma saw the bank’s clock change time.

  3:14

  AFTERWORD

  Michael Harper followed the fence that surrounded Widowsfield until he found a sewer drain on the south side. He cursed under his breath as he got on his hands and knees to crawl through the slime. The pipe stank of mold and he held his breath as he made hi
s way through. Once on the other side he climbed up a slight incline and found himself in a field with the middle school within sight.

  He checked his pistol to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber. If his daughter and the reporter thought they were going to reveal what happened in Widowsfield, they’d have to go through him to do it.

  It was one day until March 14th, and Michael knew just where his daughter would be staying. “Time to join your brother, Alma.”

  He would finish what he should’ve done sixteen years ago. Alma Harper had to die.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  And now you’ve officially been cursed! If you’re anything like me, you’ll start to see the number 314 everywhere.

  The curse of 314 was something that started with one of my friends in high school. We worked at a fast food restaurant, and after tax several of the meals we served cost $3.14. All day long my friend would have to say to people, “That will be $3.14.” We all hated our job, and this monotonous repetition of a price started to haunt us. Before we knew it, the number 314 started to show up everywhere in our lives. It appears with such frequency that it has become a 20 year long joke between all of us.

  That’s the origin of the number, and how it became a theme for this book. However, there’s a lot more to it than that. In this book, the characters just barely made a dent in the mystery that surrounds Widowsfield and what it was that caused the town to descend into such chaos. This book was focused on Ben and Alma, and what happened to them at the cabin at the exact moment that the 314 curse began. Ben was forced to stay, while Alma was saved. Ben’s spirit was haunted by what he’d experienced, and the creatures in the mist (The Devil?) used him to craft all of the horrors that were unleashed upon the populace time and time again afterward.

  In the next book, the role of Cada EIB will be revealed. Were they the ones that “opened the door” and caused the event to take place? Why did they purchase the land and then try to rebuild Widowsfield with mannequins? Those questions will be answered in the next book.

  In each of my books I try to challenge myself to do something different. In 314, I played with the book’s structure in an attempt to mimic the idea of the town being stuck in a constant recurring nightmare. There’s a lot of talk of circles, or coils, in this book. The structure of the book itself is a sort of recurring spiral. It is split into three parts. In the first part, each chapter begins in 1996, and then switches to 2012. In part two, all of the chapters take place in 2012. In part three, each chapter begins in 2012, and then switches to 1996, opposite of what it was in the first part. I wanted to play with this idea of switching time frames in an attempt to make the reader feel like they were going in circles, as well as to push the idea that all of these events were happening simultaneously. I thought it was an interesting way to make the story-telling mirror the story itself.

  I hope you enjoyed this book, and I also hope you’ve had a chance to read my other series, the zombie apocalypse books, Deadlocked. I love to discuss my books with readers and welcome you to join in the conversation. You can find me at arwisebooks.com, as well as on the AR Wise Fan Page on Facebook. I would definitely suggest liking the fan page, because I give away quite a few things to people there. Currently I am offering free signed covers of my books! Go ‘Like’ the page so you can find out how to get one! I can also be reached by email at aaron@arwisebooks.com.

  Finally, if you enjoyed 314, please consider leaving a review on whichever site you downloaded it from. Customer reviews are incredibly important to independent writers like myself. Every time a good review is posted, not only do more people learn about my books, but I am also given a chance to be inspired to write more by knowing that people are enjoying my work!

  Thanks to everyone that has supported me, and I look forward to creeping you out with more horrific books in the near future!