Peter Swift’s Fright Files
Beware the Author #1
The Broken Thing
By Peter Swift
Copyright © 2011 by Peter Swift
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. Though this book is copyrighted, the author, grants permission to distribute it free of charge and complete. In other words, give it, email it, send it, share it, but please don’t change it! You may do so only for entertainment and noncommercial use. The file must be unchanged and include copyright and cover/title pages.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All associated art and logos are trademarks of Peter Swift.
Peter Swift claims moral ownership of this work.
_____________________________________________
Go haunt the official Fright Files website at:
www.frightfiles.com www.peterswiftbooks.com
_____________________________________________
ISBN-13: 978-1-4657-6579-6
Release 1.0
October 2011
Peter Swift’s
The Broken Thing
Cover by Craig Pirrall
Interior art by Christopher Tupa
To my mother, for a lifetime of love and support.
...and...
To my wife. Everything is for you, hon.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Lend me your ear, friend. You don't really need two. This is the first book in the Fright Files: Beware the Author series. It is almost completely free. I don't want any money or donations. I only ask, in return, a favor.
'Tis a small favor. No signature in blood required. Nor magic words to chant, or secret deals in dark places. My request is simple: If you like this book, share the terror with a friend. Or better yet, lots of friends. Email them the book, or a link to my webpage where they can download it for themselves. Give it freely and happily with a gleam in your eye because you know you'll also be giving them a nightmare tonight. Add Peter Swift on Facebook or Twitter, and twit about Fright Files to your friends. Get the word out. You, dear reader, are the magic that will breathe life into these pages!
And, as icing on the cake, if you'd like to email me and tell me how much it terrified you, please do so at:
www.frightfiles.com
www.peterswiftbooks.com
Prologue: The Author Arrives
From the shadows, as always, The Author watched the world drift past. His chauffeur guided the ancient black Cadillac down the winding country road that cut through Newhope—a disgusting little Vermont town that would be but a single stop on their way to a much farther destination. A destination at the end of a journey they had started long before Newhope, Vermont, or even America had ever existed.
On the outskirts of the town, they passed a school. A group of worthless junior high-school girls were crossing the quaint tree-lined street. One of them swung a red purse, and The Author couldn't help but notice how it resembled a bull’s-eye on a target. He grinned and struck his silver corbra-headed cane against the back of the chauffeur's seat.
"Speed up, Arzkelik!" he hissed excitedly through sharp, yellowed teeth. The driver did as commanded, and The Author roared with raspy laughter as the front of the car approached the line of giggling girls.
There was no impact. The young girls looked around nervously—confused by the sudden cold wind and sense of dread that choked their laughter to silence—but they saw nothing. The Author's laughing subsided, and he tensed with a twinge of disappointment at the lack of a satisfying thud, or the strangled screams he had long ago forced from the throats of strangers.
"Always from the shadows," he said, his voice wistful. "For now."
He leaned heavily against the door, sulking as he gazed through the window. The blood red leather seat oozed a stale scent of past eons when he pressed into it. Beside him rested a tall black top-hat with a long embroidered black silk ribbon that matched his ancient silk suit.
"The boy!" he told the driver, and the car slowed, drifting unseen in the street. The Author pointed one of his long, gnarled claws at a boy running on the sidewalk. His smile returned, his eyes narrowed.
"Ah, now this child has promise, Arzkelik," he said, his eyes riveted to the boy. "Don't you agree?"
"Indeed, sir," the driver replied, his voice like dust from a forgotten tomb.
The Author wiped the back of a hand across wet, cracked, quivering lips. He hungrily watched the running boy. "Run, Steven. Oh yes, do run. Run as if your soul depended upon it. Perhaps it does."
1.
"Don't be such a killjoy, Stevie," Angie Lewis said as they walked home together after school. Since the third grade, Stevie and Angie had been best friends. "A quick stop at the library won't kill you. I want to see if they have the October issue of Tuneage Magazine. There's a new interview with ZombieRox!"
They both agreed that ZombieRox was the awesomest band in history.
"Tempting." Stevie hesitated, torn between what he'd promised his father, and some quality time in the fiction section at the library. Then he shook his head. "But if I don't rake the leaves before Dad gets home, he's gonna ground me for the weekend."
Angie fowned. "Yeah. And that means you'd miss trick-or-treating with me this Halloween and I'd hate your guts forever." She pulled up the sleeve of her black coat and checked her watch. It was pink with a black cartoon skull and crossbones on the face. She held it up to Stevie. "But look, it's only 3:20. Come to the library, hang for half an hour or so, and you'll still have plenty of time to buy me an ice cream and rake the yard before your dad gets home."
"Yeah, I guess," Stevie said. He really did want to go to the library. "Hey, what do you mean buy you an ice cream?"
Angie grinned and then turned her head, letting her shoulder length straight black hair hide her face. "Caught that, huh?"
They walked along Main Street toward the Newhope Public Library, talking about their classes and their day at school—which teachers were cool, and which ones were completely dorkish. Who Todd Carver's mystery girlfriend was. And why was Sarah Jennings so annoying, anyway?
Angie had a couple of inches on Stevie even though he turned twelve in July and her birthday was in September. A good looking boy, Stevie had short light brown hair and was athletic, but always a little bit on the small side.
Angie, meanwhile, was thin and a little taller than most of the other girls. She had a small face and an easy smile. Known to be a bit of a tomboy, and outspoken, too. She almost always got her way, and when she didn't, everyone knew it.
Stevie watched the ground while they walked, so he didn't see the lumbering bulk of Victor Plotts walking toward them.
"Uh, oh. Ogre alert," Angie said, and quickly pulled Stevie into Earl's Hardware Store. The place smelled like metal and lumber. "Plotts."
Stevie shifted into evasive action. Had they been spotted? They moved quickly, ducked down behind the display of chainsaws and leaf blowers in the front window, and watched for Victor to pass. There was a big sign that read October Special! 10% off! which provided extra cover they could peek around. The scent of metal, oil, and rubber was strong.
"Man, that guy hates me," Stevie said. "What's his deal? I never did anything to him except try to stay out of his way."
"Two reasons," Angie said. Victor's slouching mass meandered into view along the sidewalk. "One, you're smart, and he's not. Two, he's big, and you're not. Both of those factors make you an easy bully-magnet."
"He's so much bigger than me because he was held back for two years. A shame he isn't two years smarter, too!"
Angie laughed, but choked on it when Victor and his two flunkies stopped and turned toward the hardware store's glass door.
Stevie didn't breathe. Earl wouldn't let there be any trouble in his store, but Victor was just vicious enough to wait outside, knowing they'd have to leave sooner or later.
Victor looked at his reflection in the glass, pulled a black plastic comb from his back pocket, ran it through his greasy hair, and walked on.
"Comb all you want Victor. You're still ugly," Stevie said, and Angie nodded in agreement.
2.
The town library was ancient and creepy. The perfect place to read the scary stories Stevie liked so much. Long ago it had been a church, and then a schoolhouse, but when the town outgrew it, they converted the place into the Newhope Public Library. Additions were added, but the main reading area stayed the same old stone building, with its tall arched windows and vaulted ceiling. The windows were never opened and the place smelled faintly of stale vomit, wet fur, and old paper. Stevie didn't like to consider the cause of the first two odors.
Stevie stopped in front of the New Release shelf. He couldn't believe his eyes. He excitedly grabbed the book and sat down next to Angie at one of the long tables. She was already reading the ZombieRox interview.
"They have the new Swift book already!" Stevie whispered. "These things are so unbelievably scary."
"Love 'em. Don't tell me spoilers," Angie said. "I'll read it when you're finished. You gonna check it out?"
"Can't." Stevie looked disappointed. "My card is full-up. Can I put it on yours?"
Angie shook her head and said in rhythm, "I owe, I owe, the books they won't let go." Then she added in her normal voice, "I lost a CD I borrowed and have to pay for it."
"Harsh," Stevie said, then shrugged. "I'll come back after dinner, return some books, and get this. You can borrow it from me. Unless you plan on losing it."
Angie nodded with a grin that foreshadowed a zingy comeback, but just then her cell phone vibrated in her backpack. "Mom," she said, looking down at the screen. "I'll take it outside. Watch my bag. That's where I keep all the treasure."
Stevie smirked a whatever at her and then cracked open the book, the spine still fresh and new. He turned to chapter one and started reading. The story began with a bang—terror and mystery from the first page. He was so excited by the new story that he'd almost finished the first chapter by the time Angie returned.
"Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to take a rain check on that ice cream," Angie said. "Mom wants to go to the mall and buy me new clothes. Who am I to argue?"
"Uh-huh," Stevie mumbled, not taking his eyes from the book.
"Don't stay too long," Angie said. "If you get grounded, I'll have to make you dead."
"Uh-huh," Stevie said again. He was lost in the story, and not really paying attention.
Angie grabbed his chin and twisted it up so Stevie was forced to look directly into her eyes, which she narrowed at him dangerously. She spoke very precisely, enunciating each word clearly. "You. Watch. Clock. Don't. Get. Grounded. Me. Kill. You."
"Okay already!" Stevie said. He smiled and turned back to the book. "Geesh, Mom."
Angie picked up her backpack. It accidentally slammed into the back of Stevie's head when she turned to leave.
Stevie hardly noticed.
3.
Two hours later, at the end of chapter eighteen, Stevie glanced up through the library's dusty windows. He saw the absence of sunshine and the blue-gray of twilight.
"Oh no! I'm late!" he said too loudly. A few annoyed patrons glared at him.
Stevie ran down the library steps and turned onto the sidewalk. He shot past Earl's Hardware, Kathy's Café, and the Good as New Secondhand Shop. The storefronts were all a blur, though, and he didn't notice them any more than he noticed the black Cadillac limousine keeping pace silently beside him. At one point, he felt a sensation that something was watching him, something terrible and wicked, but when he looked nothing was there. Just a figment of his imagination left over from his visit to the fiction section of the library, he guessed.
He checked his watch. Five-thirty! The yard should have been raked by now. He had promised his father he'd do it yesterday, but instead spent the afternoon playing video games.
"If it isn't done when I get home tomorrow," his father had told him, "you'll be grounded for the weekend."
"But Dad," Stevie had objected. "Saturday is Halloween!"
"Then you'd better make sure I come home to a clean yard tomorrow."
Hard to argue with that logic.
Halloween was Angie's favorite day of the year, and they planned to go together dressed as the two lead singers of ZombieRox. Angie would be Sissy Zombie, and Stevie was going to be her dead brother, Tox. If Stevie was grounded, how could Angie go by herself? Sissy and Tox were inseparable! Would anyone even know who she was?
She'll never forgive me, Stevie thought. And he was right. Not after all the work Angie had done on their costumes.
The row of small shops along Main Street gave way to homes of different colors—some with picket fences, some without. He zigzagged down a number of side streets and eventually came to the entrance of a small mountainside forest the townsfolk nicknamed The Grove, though the official name was Machooksis Woods, from the Mohican word for owl.
Stevie usually avoided The Grove when alone. Its tall trees and strange sounds gave him the creeps, but it shaved five minutes off of his trip home, and right now every second counted.
"Besides," he told himself as he ran. "It's not like I'm scared! I've been in The Grove a hundred times. With my friends. In the daytime."
He swallowed hard. It hadn't seemed like such a scary place when the shadows were softened by sunshine, and kids' laughter drowned out the creepy sounds. Today though, he was alone. But he was in a hurry and would be through the forest quickly, so he didn't hesitate to enter the dark trail.
Had he known what the shadows hid, he never would have gone.
The moment he entered it was like being swallowed up into a different world. The large pine, cedar, and spruce trees closed in around him, darkening the already dim light and blocking out any sounds from the street. Yet, it wasn't quiet. Unseen animals scurried, wind rustled the dry October leaves, and the trees creaked and popped, their thick trunks swaying gently. In the distance, he heard the hooting of an owl.
Anxious in the fading light and darkening shadows of the forest, Stevie ran even harder. The soft floor of The Grove was covered with loose dirt, dead leaves, and pine needles. Occasionally he stumbled over a rock or root from one of the many trees that lined the well-worn footpath, but generally it was smooth going. The worst part was the hilliness of it, and as he ran over the crest of the steepest of the hills, his lungs felt like they would burst.
Stevie slowed to a walk, his hands gripping his sides, his chest straining to take in as much of the sweet pine-scented air as possible with every breath.
He was walking slowly, thinking about his father and how he didn't try to make the man angry on purpose, when he saw the toy sitting on a cut stump a few feet below the path. He squinted to make sure he saw it right.
Why is that here? he wondered. Weird.
Stevie hesitated. He didn't really have time to mess around. Still, it looked old and out of place. Creepy.
"Angie would love it!" he said, and instantly made a decision. Carefully taking hold of a root that twisted over the edge of the trail, he slid down the steep drop-off and picked up the toy. Painted tin covered with old cloth, it was surprisingly cool to the touch. Almost cold.
"Oh, you are freaky!" he said to the incredibly disturbing thing. The toy looked like an old man with a cane, wearing a straw hat and red and white striped suit. Under his chin was a blue bowtie. The suit was cotton, but the rest of the toy was painted metal. The tin head was very flat and angular in shape, with the mouth and eyes painted on. The gaping, grinning mouth was outlined in red lips, almost like a clown. Some of the paint on one side of the face had been scraped or worn away, exposing a jagged metal scar. Only the triangular nose broke the plane of the face.
"You've gotta be an antique," Stevie said to the thing. "But in great shape. You couldn't have been sitting there long. Who do you belong to?" Even the suit, which should've been weathered badly if it had been in the forest for long, was clean and dry.
Stevie put it to his nose, took a whiff, and instantly wished he hadn't. "Whoa!" he said. "Did something crawl up inside you and die?"
That's exactly what it smelled like. Dead and rotting flesh.
Carefully, Stevie pulled himself back up the steep slope. He dropped the toy into the leg pocket of his cargo pants with his cell phone, and screamed.
The toy started to move!
4.
Stevie reached into his cargo pants and clutched his fingers around the squirming toy. Very cold, the thing wiggled and twisted in his clammy grip. Was it trying to get free? Or was something inside of it trying to get free? He ripped it from his pocket and pulled back his arm, about to throw the possessed thing down the steep hillside and into the uncharted depths of the forest below. At the last instant however, he heard the telltale sound of windup gears grinding together within the creepy figure.
Stevie laughed nervously at his own foolishness. His eyes watched the thing rocking in his hand like a turtle stuck on its back, and he set it down on a flat patch of ground.
"You're just a toy!" he said with relief.
The cane—which must have been the winding mechanism—spun like Charlie Chaplan's in those old black-and-white silent movies, and the toy wobble-walked in a tight circle. The bowtie twirled around like a propeller, and from inside came a scratchy-squeaky noise that might have been a laugh when the toy was new.
This was very possibly the most unsettling toy Stevie had ever seen. What kind of parent would give this thing to a child? No wonder it was left out in the middle of the forest!
"Creepy in all capitals," Stevie murmured. "Angie's gonna go nuts!"
But at the moment, Stevie had more pressing matters. Like getting home and raking the yard before it was too late. If it wasn't already too late. He jammed the toy back in his pocket with his cell phone and started to jog down the trail again.
Something sighed.
Stevie froze. He stopped and looked around, searching for what made the noise. Had he imagined it? Was it the wind? No, something had definitely sighed, but he couldn't tell from which direction. It was a loud sound, and seemed to come from all around him.
Then a scuffling noise like claws scraping rocks on the mountainside below. Something running through dead leaves. How could anything be running on that uneven ground? More importantly, why was it running toward him?
Stevie didn't wait around to find out.
As fast as he could he raced along the trail, hoping whatever it was wouldn't give chase. But he could hear it, keeping pace with him just below. Was it getting closer? He couldn't tell, but he thought so. What could possibly be keeping up with him on that severe incline? Certainly nothing human, and anything small in the forest would run away from him, not towards him. A bear wouldn't likely be able to move so quickly on the steep terrain, but rumors of cougars in Vermont made Stevie push even harder.
Then he heard another noise, this time directly in front of him. The loud screaming of dirt bike motorcycles cutting through the forest! He almost laughed with relief, until he saw the motorcycles come around a bend in the trail ahead of him.
Victor Plotts and his two henchmen.
Stevie recognized Victor's red helmet with a white skull and crossbones. He also knew Victor's motorbike. Stevie had the exact same one, though Stevie's was a few years newer.
"I'd be better off with a cougar," Stevie grumbled to himself, but at least those bikes were certain to scare anything away.
The worst combination of mean and stupid, Victor Plotts had zeroed in on Stevie since they had both started going to Newhope Middle School. Victor was big, not only because he was held back twice, but also because he was naturally built like an ape, and had the brains to match.
Although, Stevie thought, I suppose that's not being very fair to the apes.
Stevie stepped to the side of the trail and looked at the ground, hoping that Victor had better things to do. In true bully fashion, Victor evidently was willing to put aside his other plans and focus on Stevie. He gunned the throttle when he saw Stevie, and then twisted the bike sideways on the narrow trail and hammered the brakes. Leaves and dirt flew up into Stevie's face and onto his clothes. Victor's friends stopped behind him. They all turned off their motorcycles and leaned them against trees.
"Oh, look," Victor taunted, circling Stevie like a predator. "Somebody left a tiny pile of poo right here in the middle of the trail!" He pulled a finger through the dirt on Stevie's shirt, sniffed it, and scrunched up his face. "Eeew, smells worse than it looks."
"Victor, I'm just going home," Stevie said, still not looking at his tormentor. Victor had circled around behind him.
"Oh, he's just going home," Victor mimicked in squeaky tones. His friends snickered. "Nobody wants poo in the house."
"Your parents don't seem to mind," Stevie said. He knew it was stupid to mouth off to Victor, but he couldn't help it. Stevie was smart, but his brain and his mouth often worked independently of each other.
Victor gave Stevie a hard shove from behind. "What was that, pile of poo? Hey, I think that's your new nickname!" Victor's friends laughed, and he continued, "You know, Pile, nobody wants poo on the trail, either. Guess I'd be doin' my civic duty if I threw the poo off the trail."
"Civic doodie!" one of the background boys said, and high-fived the other.
From behind him, one hand grabbed Stevie's belt and the other pushed his shoulders over the edge of the trail. His weight shifted and he stared down over the edge of the steep drop at the rocks and trees below. Stevie swung from his belt dangerously, and his pants started to come down in the back. Victor almost dropped him, but then grabbed one of Stevie's ankles.
"Stop! Let me go!" Stevie pleaded. He thrashed around, knowing it wasn't a great idea to struggle against Victor and risk being dropped, but his panicked mind couldn't control his flailing limbs. "Please Victor! Quit it!"
"Pile's not so smart now. Whaddya think, guys?" Victor said. "Poo splat real good?"
One of Victor's friends laughed nervously, but the other one said, "Vic, c'mon man. Let the kid up. Just hit him or whatever and let's go."
There was a pause and Victor threw Stevie back onto the trail. "Hey now," Victor said, looking down at Stevie. "What's that in your pocket?"
Stevie didn't even argue. He reached into his pocket and pulled the toy out. "Here, take it."
"Gee, thanks Pile. Can I?" Victor asked sarcastically. He snatched the toy from Stevie's hands. "The baby's got a toy. That is one ugly toy, though. Just 'bout right for one ugly baby." He looked like he would throw it over the edge just to spite Stevie, but then he lifted the seat of his motorcycle and tossed it in the small compartment underneath.
"You got ten seconds, Pile" Victor said, pulling his motorbike from the tree and straddling the seat with a smug smile on his face.
Stevie, confused, looked at him.
"Nine," Victor said. "Eight. Six."
Stevie took off running. Behind him, the motorcycles roared to life.
5.
He was scarcely a hundred yards away when the screaming of the motorcycle engines erupted through the trees. They were on him in a second like cheetahs chasing down a turtle, but he had nowhere to go. To the left, a steep hill of rocks and trees rose above the path, and to the right, the path fell away into the tree-filled valley below.
They won't actually run me down, he thought. Will they?
He didn't think they would. Still, they smelled fear, and Stevie knew that fear to bullies was like blood to sharks. Once they smelled it, they went into a frenzy. And attacked. Why do the animals with the smallest brains always have the sharpest teeth?
So at the last second, he dropped to the ground and slid off the path to the right.
The ground disappeared. Time stopped for a second and he looked up at the trunks of the trees rising high above him. Then his body crashed against the mountainside and he rolled, bouncing painfully over rocks and roots. Eating pine needles and mud. He was out of control, and it was only through blind luck that he made it to the base of the slope without slamming into one of the many thick trees or large boulders.
He lay quietly for a moment on his back, staring up at the trees looming over him and wondering if he was dead. No, he thought. Being dead wouldn't hurt this much. The sound of the motorcycles paused, and then continued on and faded away until eventually there was only silence. He no longer heard animals anywhere around him, and the sweet smell of pine was gone. The smell of damp wood and decay filled the air now.
Stevie gritted his teeth in pain, rolled onto an elbow, and from there was able to stand. Then he saw the house.
Ages ago, it must have been grand and elegant, but Stevie could never imagine it as anything but wicked. Decades of neglect had left only a dark scarred shell. Many, many long years it waited empty and uncared for, but it was more than neglect that filled him with disgust of the place.
Had this ever been a house lived in by people? A family? Laughter? Somehow he knew it had not.
The main part of the house was gray stone and rose like a massive dark monument from the forest floor. The porch was also stone, with three granite arches supporting a roof that cast deep shadows over the entrance doors.
Covering the two story building (though it seemed impossibly large for only two stories), was a steeply slanted black slate roof. Centered on top of the roof sat a bronze tower encircled by a widow's walk.
Two windows perched on both sides of the black roofline like the eyes of an enormous beast. Stevie felt the hairs on his neck prickle. He could sense
someone—or something—watching him from behind the high, dark windows.
And yet, he wondered if that were accurate. He thought the evil was greater than whatever was inside the house. Rather the house itself was the source, and maybe even the forest surrounding the ancient, vile place. But it was more than just evil. It was angry. Furious. Jealous.
"Freaky," Stevie said in awe. The other words he couldn't say out loud. Not here. Something about the place gave it an overwhelming presence, as though it were a living thing rather than just a building. Was he afraid of being disrespectful?
He brushed the dirt from his clothes and pulled leaves and small twigs from his light brown hair. His pain from the fall was all but gone, but he was sure he'd be sore tomorrow. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the stone front of the horrible house—and especially the dark, high windows. Many windows framed in rotting wood lined the first and second floor, and a number of them were broken, but it was those two sitting high above the others and filled with black glass that held his attention. They really did look like eyes staring down at him.
There was something both terrifying and hypnotic about the house, and his feet started to move toward it seemingly on their own.
"What are you doing?" Stevie hissed at himself, needing to hear the sound of his own voice. "You have to get home!"
But still he kept walking toward the place. A marble fountain, now filled with dirty sludge and covered in weeds, sat in the middle of a circular driveway. The driveway wound along the steep slope Stevie had fallen down and, though overgrown with thick weeds and prickle-bushes, he knew that a driveway would eventually lead to a road.
The wind picked up and he heard a sound coming from the house. He stopped and listened.
Though only a low moan at first, it grew into a fiendish, wailing sound that could have been the wind gusting through the broken windows or the slatted bronze tower above the old mansion.
But he knew it wasn't.
It sounded like ReeetUUUrrrrrn.
Fear twisted his stomach, and his feet—still apparently acting on their own but with new motivation—turned and ran up the driveway away from the house. The prickly-bushes tore at his clothes and flesh as he broke through or dodged around anything that blocked his path. He didn't know what had made the sound, but he knew it was something impossibly old. Something waiting. Something that might be behind him and wouldn't need to push through trees or pickers or anything else. Something that could go right through whatever stood in its way!
He charged through a large hedge and fell into the street. There was a field across from him. A big, beautiful open field of cut grass that nothing could hide in, and he fled across it.
Now he looked back over his shoulder, fully expecting to see something long dead reaching out to grab him with worm-eaten fingers, but nothing was there. Just the dark depths of The Grove. He couldn't even see where he had pushed through the hedge. Whatever hole he had made closed up behind him.
Stevie knew one thing. Whatever was in that part of The Grove didn't want to be disturbed!
But it was too late.
6.
Stevie checked his watch when he turned onto his street. Six-thirty.
"Oh man, I'm dead," he said to himself. "Dad's gonna kill me!"
Unless his father had been held up at the hospital where he was a doctor, he'd be home, probably pacing, and very angry. Stevie would just have to take whatever punishment was coming his way, and hope that maybe he could play on his father's fondness for Angie to overrule the Halloween grounding.
"Yeah, right!" he snorted. If Dr. Barton said something, you could bet he stuck to it. That was just his way.
When Stevie came to his house, his heart sank and his shoulders slumped. Not only was his father's car parked in the garage next to Stevie's yellow motorcycle, but the rake and leaf blower were outside, and big bags of leaves sat on the driveway.
Dad raked the yard himself, Stevie thought. He must be beyond mad! I'm gonna be grounded until I graduate college!
Stevie took off his shoes at the entrance—another Barton family rule—and walked into the bathroom. He washed the dirt from his hands and his face as best he could.
"Stevie, get in here!" his father called from the dining room.
Stevie's seventeen year old sister Emily, and his father, sat at the table. They had nearly finished their dinner. A Friggin' Chickn' bag sat at the corner of the table, and greasy bones littered their plates.
When his father saw Stevie enter, his eyes grew stern. Dr. Barton was not a throw-things-around-the-room-yell-and-scream kind of father. Stevie sometimes wished he was. The flash in his father's eyes and his icy tone of voice could be far more terrifying.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Stevie said, sitting down at the table.
Dr. Barton's eyes softened a little with the apology, which surprised Stevie. Wasn't he furious about the leaves? "Son, I don’t mind you going out to play after your chores are done—"
"Dad," Stevie interrupted. "I'm really sorry about not raking—"
Emily kicked Stevie hard under the table. He grunted in pain, and his eyes shot over to her. She made a subtle slashing motion at her neck with a drumstick bone, then put a finger to her lips.
"Stevie, that leaf blower is brand new. It's an expensive piece of equipment. How difficult would it be to put it back in the garage when you were finished?"
Stevie's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. They shot from his father, to his sister, and back to his father again. What was going on?
"Not... difficult," Stevie agreed, confused. It came out sounding more like a question than an answer.
"Furthermore," Dr. Barton continued. "If you're going to go out before dinner, I expect you back home by six o'clock. Those are our rules, and you know them. We eat together as a family, work permitting."
Stevie nodded.
"Why didn't you answer your phone? I tried to call."
Stevie's hands flew to his pocket. Oh no! His cell phone was gone!
"Aw, man. I fell. In The Grove. It must've come out of my pocket!"
"Well, after you eat, you'll go back and get it."
Stevie's heart filled with fear. No way was he going back into that place! "Dad, it's almost dark! I'll get it in the morning."
Stevie's father shook his head. "Thunderstorm is coming tonight. Your phone won't be much good for anything other than a paperweight come morning. Emily will go with you."
"Dad!" Emily protested. "I don't want to go there tonight!"
"Do you have a game tonight?"
"No, but—"
Dr. Barton smiled at Emily. "Well, I'm not going. And since it's not safe for Stevie to go alone, and since I'm the father, I volunteer you." With that, he smiled at his family, picked up his plate, and walked to the kitchen sink.
"You're lucky I love you, Wartface," Emily said. She smacked him lightly on top of the head.
"Did you rake the leaves, too, Em?"
"Yeah, I knew after his threats last night what would happen if he came home and you hadn't done it. Again. Who's got your back?"
"Thanks, Em," Stevie said, and meant it. Some kids hated their older sisters. He counted his lucky stars for Emily almost daily.
"Don't thank me yet," Emily said. "You owe me. Big time. Especially now. Those woods are scaaaaaaa-ry!"
You don't know the half of it! Stevie thought.
7.
The dark trees of The Grove rose up in front of them like an abandoned fortress. All it needed, Stevie thought, was a hand-painted sign with bright blood-red letters that said KEEP OUT! It felt good to have Em with him, though. If he'd been alone, he'd never be able to go in.
As they walked, Stevie told her about the toy he had found and the house in the valley below the trail.
"You fell all the way down the side of the mountain?" she asked. Concern spread across her face as she tilted her flashlight and looked over the edge of the trail and into the dark depths below. "You need to watch where you're going!"
"I was watching," Stevie said. "But I was being chased."
He explained the details of his encounter with Victor Plotts.
She frowned, thoughtful. Then she said, "That kid's a little punk. One day something bad is going to happen to him. Somebody'll do something about him. Maybe it should be you."
"Me?" Stevie exclaimed, shocked. "He's two years older than me, and a bazillion times bigger! What could I do?"
"He's all mouth. I bet you could take him."
"You're kidding, right?"
Emily didn't say anything. Her forehead crinkled up in thought.
Brother and sister crunched through the fallen leaves along the trail, their flashlights waving across the path in front of them. The lights helped illuminate the path, but made the darkness outside of their beams look even darker. Without any sun, it was even colder than before, and Stevie shivered.
Neither spoke as the trees closed in around them, the long branches reaching out over the trail like cold, searching fingers. Some trees, the perennials, still had life, but most were covered with dead leaves, or bare limbs and gray trunks. Stevie again noticed the scent of decay mixed with pine, slight now, but still there.
He wondered if Em could hear the sound of his heart beating. To him, it sounded like the canons firing in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Music with guns. Good stuff. But not when it came from inside your chest.
Em put an arm around Stevie's shoulder. "You're right, Stevie," she finally said. "You should just do your best to stay away from Victor. He's not worth it."
"I know, Em. I'm used to him. But the worst part is he stole the toy I found. I was gonna give it to Angie."
Emily puckered her lips and batted her eyelashes. It looked really grotesque in the flashlight's glow.
"For Aaaaaaaaaaannngiiiiie?" she asked, following it with lots of wet kissing sounds.
"Shut up. It isn't like that." He pushed her lightly and she stumbled forward, but caught herself.
"I know," Emily said, mussing his hair.
"It was this really old windup toy. Totally freakish." He explained to her about the toy, the way it moved and spun its cane. The mechanical laugh that sounded more like a scream. He told her how weird it looked, just standing there on the tree stump in the middle of the forest.
"You know, in Japan, they think that gods and spirits and junk live in the mountains and the forests, so when loggers cut down trees, they leave little gifts on the stumps. Toys or whatever. To make the gods happy."
"Really? Is that true?"
Emily shrugged. "Dunno. Read it somewhere, or someone told me. Or I saw it on television. Hey, maybe you'll get lucky and Victor will get what he deserves. A toy with a nice demon inside to haunt him."
Stevie shivered, his hairs standing up on the back of his neck again. He didn't want to think about demons in this place! He remembered the sigh, the sound of something chasing him—claws scratching on rocks—and the horrible house. If something was haunting The Grove, Stevie didn't think it was inside that old toy.
"Where'd you drop your phone, anyway?" Emily asked.
Stevie shook his head. "I think maybe it came out when I was running from Victor, or when I fell down the mountain. I know I had it when Victor stole the toy."
"Oh, hold on a sec. I'll call it." Emily pulled her cell from her pocket and called Stevie's phone.
"Won't work," Stevie said. "There's never any reception in The Grove. It's—"
In the distance, far below them, a phone rang. Emily lifted an eyebrow at him and smiled.
"Okay, okay," he said with a sheepish grin. "We must be getting close to where I went over the edge. Keep your eyes on the side of the trail."
They walked for a few more moments when Stevie said, "There!"
On the side of the trail was a place where the dirt and leaves and pine needles had been dug into, exposing the dark soil underneath. "I slid down here. Call again."
Emily did, and the ringing came from directly below them now.
"Crud!" Stevie said. "I'd hoped I'd lost it up here on the trail when I was running."
"Looks pretty steep," Emily said, her brow knitting again.
Stevie frowned down at the steep side of the mountain. "Trust me, it is. I know from experience."
"Well, I'm right behind you. I'll keep calling the phone until we find it."
Stevie nodded, hesitated, and slid down on the seat of his pants. He used his feet to control his decent. Now that he wasn't rolling uncontrollably, it wasn't really so bad.
The ringing was loud now. He was almost on top of the phone.
"Where is it?"
"Close now," Stevie said. Then he saw the screen illuminating the ground directly below him. Luckily, it was only a little way down the hill. He did not want to go all the way down to the house. "There it is!"
He slid to a stop next to the phone, looked at the screen.
"Got it!" he said loudly. The phone stopped ringing, and he turned back to Emily.
She wasn't there!
"Emily?" He was able to stand on the steep hill, barely, and turned around a few times with his flashlight searching for his sister. She was nowhere around. "Emily!"
Then his eyes fell on the dark silhouette of the house, still a good distance below. It was just a black shape nestled in the trees, but he saw a yellowish-green light coming from the entrance door. The light shimmered and waved, almost like liquid. Then the door slowly closed!
Stevie turned and scrambled back up the hill as fast as he could! His fingernails dug into the dirt and grabbed at the rocks, searching for anything he could grip to pull himself back up. Uncontrollable whimpers came from his chest as he worked.
Had something inside closed the door to keep Stevie out? Or had something left, closing the door behind it? Something making its way up the slope behind him?
He could feel it all around him now. A presence. Was it right there? Was it reaching up with dead hands, about to wrap maggot-infested fingers around his struggling ankles?
Finally he reached the top and rolled up over the edge and onto the trail, then jumped to his feet. He searched with his flashlight for Emily, but she wasn't here either.
"Emily!" he screamed. Tears stung his dirty cheeks. Desperately he called out to her. "Emily!"
Something moaned from the darkness behind the trees. A long, low, ghastly moan.
Stevie screamed, and terror too powerful to control overpowered him. He turned, and ran as fast as he could.
He could hear the thing chasing him, its feet crashing through the leaves and dead sticks on the trail! And it was getting closer!
8.
Stevie raced from The Grove and out onto the street. Suddenly, a breathless laughter sliced through the air. A horrible, shrill sound. The kind of laughter that can only come from a soulless sister playing a horrible joke on her little brother.
Stevie stopped and turned. Emily came out of the forest, hands on her sides, laughing so hard she nearly collapsed. She wiggled her fingers at him and made the moaning sound again, same as Stevie had heard, and then leaned on her knees for support.
"I hate you!" Stevie yelled at her, and she quit laughing. He was so mad he just wanted to jump on top of her and pound her face, but he couldn't actually imagine ever hitting Emily. Not for real. "You're a bad sister!"
Stevie turned and stomped angrily towards home. He couldn't believe she'd done such a horrible thing! But in an instant Emily had a hand on his shoulder, turning him around. Tears streaked his face, but he wasn't crying any more. He glared at her.
"Hey, Stevie," Em said. "Hey, you're right. I'm really sorry. This weekend is Halloween, and I thought it would be funny." She grabbed him and hugged him tightly.
"It wasn't!" he said, squirming to get free, but she was five years older and too strong.
"I know," she said quietly. "I'm a jerk. Really, I'm sorry."
Stevie quit fighting and wrapped his arms around her. He knew she wouldn't let go until he did, and anyway, the anger had faded. "Bra-stuffer."
"How do you know?"
Slowly, they started walking home.
"Hey, Em?" Stevie said once he'd calmed down. "I think we're even for raking the leaves now, don't you?"
Emily smiled. "Yeah, I guess that was worth it."
* * *
Where is it?
Awakened from a surprisingly dreamless sleep, Stevie's eyes shot open. At least, he thought it was dreamless. And he was pretty sure he'd been asleep. Had he heard the voice? Or was his subconscious just reminding him of what Emily had said in the forest?
Something was wrong about what had happened in The Grove with his sister. Something nagging that, in his grogginess, he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Stevie's room flashed with bright, white light. Thunder boomed. The storm his father mentioned had arrived. The wind howled as it blew against the house, sending waves of rain slamming against his bedroom window with each gust.
Stevie sat at the edge of his bed, fixed his pajama top that had twisted around his body, and rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands. Again the lightning came, and a moment later, thunder. Sounded like a good storm. He slid his feet into his slippers and pulled his desk chair up to his window so he could watch the lightning.
His mother, a nurse, had to work second shift at the hospital tonight. He looked at the clock. Almost eleven. Was she home yet? He hoped so. He didn't like the idea of her driving home in this storm.
The house sat at the end of a long, winding driveway that was pretty, as long as you didn't have to shovel the snow off of it—something that Stevie and Emily had to do routinely during the frozen Vermont winters. Much of their yard was grass, but a number of large oak trees dotted their property. When Stevie's dad had the house built, he'd wanted to pull them out and build a straight driveway from the road, but his mom had put her foot down.
"If those beautiful old trees go, so do you," she'd said. She was joking, of course, but the trees had stayed and the driveway went around them.
Stevie was just about to check if his mother had made it home when another lightning bolt lit up the sky. When it did, his breath caught. Near the mailbox he thought he'd seen a shape in the driveway! Something dark and bent over. Was it some kind of animal? From this distance, and in the quick lightning flash, he hadn't seen it clearly. It had looked like an animal, but with long hair. A mane?
The lightning flashed again, and again he saw the figure. This time it was much closer, though. It stood perfectly still. Had it moved? No, there hadn't been enough time for it to get that far. Even if it ran. Maybe there was more than one.
Stevie leaned forward, his nose pressing against the glass. He squinted, trying to see the thing in the darkness, but it was impossible.
WHERE IS IT?
The voice pounded painfully through his mind, and his hands clutched at his head. It wasn't something he heard, but rather something he knew. With it came a sense of anger and frustration. Hatred!
Three quick flashes of lightning struck and thunder boomed at the exact same moment. The thing he'd been watching was now at the nearest bend in the driveway, standing between the largest of the oak trees and the house. Stevie clearly saw what it was. A young girl!
But not exactly a girl. She was a broken creature, twisted up like a rubber band. Her one leg supported her weight, and the other jutted from the knee in a useless direction. Bent sideways at the waist, her chest pointed up toward the sky while her stomach wrenched toward the ground. Her broken neck twisted from her shoulders at an unnatural angle, attached to a head that dangled limply. Snapped and shattered bones had torn through her pale, nearly translucent skin, and in places ripped through the thin, tattered nightdress that she wore. Dark stains covered her dress and surrounded the protruding bones. In the pale, flashing light Stevie couldn't see the color, but he knew the stains were red.
Her long, black, knotted hair hung over her face and fell to the ground. Stevie saw leaves and sticks and mud in the rat's nest of hair, and above one ear, her head was flat and caked with blood.
Bent and tangled arms twisted up in front of her, but it was the fingers that were most horrible of all. They came from her hands, each broken and pulled in different directions. They seemed to reach out for him.
RETURN THAT WHICH WAS STOLEN!
Stevie screamed, and screamed, and screamed again. His father and sister ran into the room almost instantly. As they did, the lightning flashed again, and the thing was still there, but they were focused on Stevie.
"Stevie, what's wrong?" his father asked, gripping Stevie's shoulders with both hands and giving him a firm shake.
He pointed, and his father and sister turned toward the window. He could still see the horrible creature dimly in the night, but just then, his mother's car came up the driveway toward the house. When she turned around the big oak tree where the girl had been standing, her headlights shined directly into Stevie's room. The lights caught the dark shape for an instant, but then Stevie, his sister, and father were momentarily blinded.
His mother's tires squealed on the driveway, followed by a loud crash!
9.
The car had swerved and struck the old oak tree.
Mr. Barton let go of Stevie's shoulders. "Your mother," he said, momentarily startled. Then he regained control.
"Stevie," he said urgently. "Come with me and we'll see if she's okay. Emily, grab the medical bag from my office. Hurry!"
Stevie threw on his sneakers and chased after his father. The man grabbed a flashlight from the table beside the door and ran barefoot into the pouring rain as Emily disappeared into the doctor's study.
Stevie nervously glanced into the darkness, but didn't see any sign of the broken girl. As he raced to the car, he wondered if the creature was watching him, hidden in the darkness and shadows. The rain pounded his face and hair and drenched his clothing instantly. It was loud as it beat against the ground and the house and the car. A constant static sound that made it impossible to hear if anything was sneaking up on them. Again, there was the odor of decay that he'd smelled in the forest. He moved closer and ran beside his father.
His mother was already standing by the door of the car. She held her hand to her head and was looking at the damage. The fender was a little crumpled and pressed up against the tree, and there was a dent on top of the hood, but otherwise the car was fine.
"Sit down!" the doctor said, sternly. "You're a nurse. You know better than to be up walking around after a head trauma!"
"Oh, relax, Henry." She smiled at him, but sat in the passenger's seat. The windshield wipers were thudding back and forth, so she reached over and turned them off. "I barely hit the tree. Just bumped my head slightly on the side window. What else did I hit? I didn't see it until the last moment."
Stevie's father shone the flashlight in front of the car. "Must've missed it," he said.
"No," she said, and shook her head. "It dented the hood."
"Well, whatever it was, it's gone now," Dr. Barton told her. "I only caught a glimpse. Dear or dog maybe."
"I guess," Stevie's mother said. She hesitated. "It just, well...."
"You okay, Mom?" Emily asked as she ran up to the side of the car. She handed Dr. Barton the medical bag he'd asked her to bring. "What did you see?"
"Pupils aren't dilated," Dr. Barton said as he shined a small penlight into his wife's eyes. "Probably no concussion." He stuck the penlight in his shirt pocket and ran a finger over the bump, pushing her soaking wet hair aside. She winced slightly. Then he peeled the back from a small cold pack and stuck it to her forehead.
"Mom, what did you see?" Stevie fearfully prodded, even though he already knew.
"Well," his mother said. "I could've sworn it was wearing clothes. Old, dirty clothes." She shook her head. "Maybe it was just the light. It all happened so fast!"
Mrs. Barton stood, and her husband put a supporting arm around her. "Honestly, Henry. I'm fine. Really!"
Doctor Barton frowned. "Let's go to work together tomorrow and I'll ask Kev down in radiology to do an x-ray. Just to make certain."
"Fine," Stevie's mom said. She chuckled. "You know, they say most accidents happen within five miles from home. Couldn't get much closer than this unless I ran into the house!" She turned off the ignition and headlights and locked the door. "Now, let's get these kids out of this storm."
Back inside, Stevie changed into clean, dry clothes, and then knocked on Emily's door.
"Come in!"
Emily lay on her stomach in bed reading a magazine. Her hair was all frizzy from drying it with a towel.
"Em, did you see what was on the driveway?"
She considered for a moment, and then shook her head. "Not really. I mean, I saw something, but as quick as it all happened, it was really just a blob. Did you? Is that why you screamed?"
Stevie's eyed dropped to the floor. He didn't tell her that yes, he did see it. He didn't say that it wasn't an animal. And he didn't share the most disturbing thought of all:
It came for me.
He knew he could talk to Emily, but he couldn't bring himself to actually say what he knew had happened.
"No," he said. "I just had a bad dream."
"Hey," Emily said, closing her magazine and sitting up. "I gave you quite a scare in The Grove tonight, didn't I? I'm sorry. My baddage. I shouldn't have done that." Stevie stood in awkward silence for a time before she continued. "With this storm, and mom's accident, I’m a little wigged out. Could I crash on the floor in your room tonight?"
Stevie looked up at her, a smile of relief that he unsuccessfully tried to hide flashed across his face. He wanted to thank her, because he knew she wasn't afraid of the storm. She was worried about him.
"Sure," he said. "If it'll make you feel better."
Emily smiled and pulled her sleeping bag down out of the closet. "I'm sure it will, Ratsmack."
Stevie raised an eybrow. "Ratsmack?"
* * *
Stevie watched the rain push against the glass. Emily lay on the floor beside his bed, listening to pop music on her mp3 player. She always fell asleep that way.
"Em," he said. Then again, louder. "Emily!"
"What's up?" she asked, pulling her earphones down around her neck. He heard the thumping bass of drums.
"You know anything about that old house in The Grove. Down near where I dropped my phone?"
"You mentioned that before, but there's no house down there," she said. "Not that I know of, anyway."
"Didn't you see it last night? It looked like a light was on."
"No, not from up on top where I was. The forest was totally dark!"
"No, I mean when we went down to find my phone. The house was right there." Then he realized what had been bothering him earlier about the trip with Emily. "Hey, how'd you get up the mountain so fast after we found my phone?"
Emily giggled. "I’m sorry! I never followed you down. I was wearing my new running shoes, you know. I didn't want to get them all yucky."
"You never followed me down?"
"Of course not. How could I? I mean, I would've come if you were in trouble, but you found the phone right away and then high-tailed it back up, so I just stayed put."
Stevie remembered the voice he heard when he found his phone. A quiet whisper that had been right next to him—that he had thought was Emily.
Where is it?
10.
"It was on the driveway," Stevie said, and stared at her dramatically. "On the driveway!"
Angie leaned up against the green metal locker next to Stevie's while he pulled out his books for the first two periods. She listened silently while he recited the events of the previous day since they'd parted ways at the library. Stevie spoke in quick, excited tones, often not breaking for silly little interruptions like periods or breathing. Unlike Emily, Stevie knew he could completely download on Angie.
"And then later I was talking to Em and asked her how she was able to get up the mountain so quickly after she said WHERE IS IT and she said she never followed me down the mountain so she couldn't have said that so who did say it? It was the thing on the driveway, I know it was! It followed us home from The Grove!"
"Yeah, I don't know, Stevie," Angie said cautiously. She looked down at the ground and shuffled her feet. She didn't sound convinced. "That's pretty intense."
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-37 show above.)