Apparition, page 33
Daddy walked toward them. The nightmare-tongues were flicking in and out of his mouth, and Matthew could see that Daddy’s teeth had turned dark brown and black. They looked rotten, but he knew somehow that they would be strong and sharp as the teeth of a great white shark. In fact, he suddenly suspected that Daddy wasn’t even going to bother with the knife he still held. Just use his teeth. He would bite down on their throats and rip them out and drink their blood.
The image was horrifying, but Matthew was almost grateful his mind had conjured it up. Because imagining his own father tearing his neck apart was enough to get his feet moving.
He yanked on Ella. Pulled her slowly back to the stairs. She resisted him at first, still screaming hard enough to shatter glass. Daddy was moving faster than they were. He reached out, and Matthew saw that his hands had grown mottled and deformed. Ichor dripped from open sores on the hands, and each finger sported a long, talon-like claw that reminded Matthew of the stinger on a scorpion.
Matthew knew that he and Ella were going to die. Because she wasn’t moving fast enough to get away, and he wouldn’t run off without her. That wasn’t what a good brother did. So he kept pulling, even as Daddy’s gnarled hands moved closer, closer, closer.
Then the back of Ella’s legs bumped into the upper ridge of the first stair. It seemed to jog something loose in her mind. Her scream ceased and suddenly he wasn’t pulling her, she was pulling him. Pulling him and screaming at him to move faster move faster and Matthew move your ass faster!
His legs pounded up the stairs behind Ella. Something stung the back of his right calf and he looked behind him long enough to see Daddy licking one of his claws, to see blood glistening wetly on his lips. Then he looked forward, panic dulling the pain in his leg almost instantly. He pushed himself to move faster, drawing even with Ella as they reached the top of the stairs.
The kitchen door. Closed. Matthew and Ella both reached for the knob at the same time. He grabbed it first. Her hand slapped over his. They both twisted the knob.
It didn’t turn.
Ella’s hand crushed down on his as she tightened her grip and kept trying to turn the doorknob. He groaned with pain as her grip caused his knuckles to grind together. But he forced himself to keep going, keep pushing, keep trying to get the door open. He expected the pain he had experienced before, the slashing agony of claws raking at his legs and then continuing upward, pulling his spine out whole before feeding on his body. But it didn’t happen. Didn’t happen even though time stretched into eternal seconds as he and Ella strove to get the door open.
Finally, his sister let go of the doorknob – and his hand. New pain slid into the bones of his fingers and knuckles as the pressure on them suddenly disappeared. He groaned again, turning as he did so, knowing he would see a talon streaking at his face, the last thing he would ever see.
But Daddy wasn’t anywhere near them. He was still at the bottom of the stairs. Waiting with an amused look on the abomination that his face had become.
“Now, children,” he said. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to run away from your father?” He laughed, and spittle flew out of his mouth, thick gobs of it like Matthew would have expected to see slavering out of the mouth of a rabid dog.
Martha’s screams started rising in pitch. Even though he didn’t want to look away from Daddy, Matthew glanced at the mirror in the far corner of the basement. The tentacles that had come from the mirror had wrapped even tighter around the old woman. Blood ran freely around them, and he could tell she was being eaten alive, a thousand tiny deaths at once. Worse, he realized that she had been drawn closer to the mirror, and as he watched the tentacles started pulling her into and through the glass. The mirror melted like mercury around her as the tentacles hauled her into whatever dark place this evil had come from.
As Martha’s screams grew louder, the floodlights began flickering slightly, as though fighting to come on. But the flares of light did nothing to make the room brighter. They just added a nightmare quality to the room that managed to wring a few more levels of terror out of Matthew.
Daddy laughed. A mad laugh that danced wildly through the horror of the basement and made Matthew want to start screaming.
He knew they were going to die.
Daddy took a step toward them. Another. He wasn’t walking up the steps, he was stalking Matthew and Ella. Walking toward them with the silent, padding steps of a predatory cat closing in for the kill.
Matthew wanted to close his eyes. To go to sleep. To dream of a place where none of this was real. A place where Mommy wasn’t crazy and Daddy didn’t want to kill them and they were just a family again. But he couldn’t. His eyes were wide open, staring at the death coming toward them.
And Ella started to pull him toward Daddy.
Panic rose up in Matthew’s throat. What was Ella doing? Had she gone crazy?
No. He looked at her and saw fear, disgust, hatred. But no craziness.
So what was she doing?
Daddy had stopped ascending. He was just waiting. Why go up when Ella was bringing them right to him?
They were within five feet of Daddy.
Four.
Three.
Daddy reached for them…
… and Ella moved. Her hand whipped out, and Matthew glimpsed something wheeling through the air. It hit Daddy square in the nose. Dark blood exploded from Daddy’s face. The thing that had hit him clattered down the steps and Matthew saw it was Ella’s iPod.
Daddy reared back in surprise and pain. “Bitch!” he roared. Then Ella yanked Matthew down, almost dancing sideways as she passed Daddy. He grabbed for her but she was too fast, getting past him – and pulling Matthew along with her – so quickly that his clawed hands clicked shut on empty air. “You bitch!” Daddy screamed again.
Matthew felt a moment of exhilaration. He was alive, Ella was alive… they were both still alive!
The moment was a short one, though. They were still in the basement, a bloodthirsty monster blocking their only way out, dead bodies on the floor nearby, roaches everywhere. Ella had added a few seconds to their lives, nothing more.
And what was Ella doing now? He realized suddenly that she had dragged them over to some shelving and was flinging things left and right. Then she shouted. “Ah-ha!” and turned around to face Daddy. She had a screwdriver in her hand and she held it in front of them like it was a dagger or even a lightsaber. Matthew almost felt like laughing, it was so pitiful a weapon. But at the same time pride welled up in him. Ella wasn’t going to give up. She was going to fight. To protect them.
Daddy laughed. The sound was ugly, an undulating noise that seemed almost to writhe through the air and into Matthew’s mind. It made him want to sit down and give up, like it was despair itself calling out, pounding at him and screaming that he couldn’t escape.
Then another sound invaded the air. He heard something crackle and looked toward the sound. It was Martha. Her head had been pulled halfway through the mirror, her back arched to the breaking point as she struggled against the tentacles that were pulling her back. One of her arms had been cinched tightly to her side by the gnawing tentacles, but the other was free and she was hammering at the mirror with her fist. Matthew expected to see her hand just pass through the glass, but apparently it hadn’t all changed to… whatever it was that allowed the tentacles through.
The crackling repeated, and then there was an almost warm-sounding tinkle as the edge of the mirror broke under Martha’s fist. She hit it again, and then worked her fingers through the cracks in the mirror even as her head kept being drawn through the glass. Blood spattered down to the floor as she cut her hand on the glass, but she managed to rip a shard free.
Martha had stopped screaming. Instead she was making an ngh, ngh, ngh sound that was worse. Like she didn’t even have it in her to scream anymore, but had been relegated to the most basic, primitive sounds a human could make.
Then the sound stopped as the old woman’s head disappeared completely through the glass.
Still, she didn’t stop what she was doing. The shard in her hands was several inches across and maybe eight inches long. She held it so tightly that it cut her, blood flowing down her wrist and arm in a thick river. But she didn’t let go, it looked instead like she just held it even tighter. She drew the glass fragment close to her throat and Matthew’s stomach tightened. She was going to cut her own throat. Going to kill herself rather than be pulled beyond the mirror.
But apparently Martha was determined not to give up or give in. She slashed at the muscular base of one of the tentacles. Then again. Then laid it on the side of the thing and began sawing. The tiny mouths on the tentacle opened and resumed their terrible screaming. Thick, black fluid welled out of the tentacle and mingled with Martha’s own blood on the floor below the mirror.
The tentacle sagged. Started to let go.
Something shoved Matthew back. He realized that he had been so caught up in Martha’s struggle that he had forgotten to watch out for himself. Now he snapped his gaze forward again and saw that Daddy was approaching; that Ella had pushed him protectively behind her. She still held the screwdriver.
Matthew glanced at Martha, hoping against hope that she would get free, would be able to help them. He saw the tentacle she had been hacking at lose control of itself. It writhed wildly through the air, then let go. But Martha was still held fast by the other tentacle. She was not going to get free in time to help him or Ella.
Matthew looked back at Daddy. He was close. Only a few feet away. Ella jabbed out with the screwdriver, but Daddy was standing just out of range. He laughed that oozing maggot-laugh again.
At the same time, the legions of roaches began to crawl off the walls. They sloughed free like horribly burnt skin falling from the off-white bone of the wall beneath. The horde moved closer, inch by inch. The closest roaches touched Patrick’s still form. There was a moment, almost a sensation of hesitation, and then the roaches swarmed across the dead man’s body in a thick black blanket.
Matthew knew it was over. This was the end.
Daddy raised the knife above his head. Just like Mommy had done. Only this time there was no one to save Ella, no one to save him.
Daddy’s eyes blazed with a hellish light. The tongues slipped in and out of his mouth. Pustules burst on his skin and soaked his clothing with yellowish goo. He stopped being Daddy, completely and utterly. All that was left was the thing that had taken him away. The thing that wanted only death for Matthew and Ella.
It smiled, the rotten spikes of its teeth creating a mockery of happiness. “My… chiiiiiiilllllllldrrrrrrrrennn…,” the thing moaned.
The knife plunged down at Ella.
And then stopped. Something was in the way.
A small face. A slit throat that gaped wide as the chin tilted back. Tiny hands with bruise-blue nails.
Andy Hanson stood between them and the monster. The dead boy’s face was twisted with concentration, as though being here were costing him terribly. But he stood his ground; looked at the thing that stood before him, the thing that had ended his life and now wanted to end the lives of two more children.
“Daddy,” said the dead child. “Daddy, don’t you love me?”
Matthew suddenly felt like he was in the middle of an electrical storm. A current flowed through him, a power he did not understand but that was somehow familiar. Like an amplified version of the feelings he had had when Mommy held him after a bad day at school, when Daddy took him in his big, strong arms after he fell off his scooter. Like there was something more than fear, something wonderful waiting at the end of a terrible road, if he could just stick with it long enough.
The monster that had stolen his dad looked unsure for a moment. Unsure, then frightened, and then the fear melted away and below it Matthew thought he glimpsed Daddy again – not the rotten copy of him, but the real Daddy.
Matthew’s heart pounded, pumping sudden hope through his veins. Maybe Daddy wasn’t gone. Maybe they could save him. Maybe –
Then the thing screamed. The remnants of Daddy’s face were swallowed up in the demon’s rage. It slapped one of its twisted hands toward Andy, and though the clawed appendage didn’t touch the boy, still the ghost-child screamed and flew to the side like he had been hit by a car. Matthew watched Andy’s form fly away. He saw Andy’s face, saw the dead boy clearly, hanging in the air like a slow motion frame from a movie. Andy was looking at him. Pain rode along with him on his flight through the air. And underneath that, Matthew thought he saw pity. A sense of remorse, as though Andy were apologizing. “I tried,” he seemed to be saying. “Tried but failed. I’m sorry.”
Then time resumed its normal speed. Andy disappeared in mid-flight, his scream ending suddenly as he winked out of existence.
“Auuugghhhh!”
Matthew heard the scream – it was Ella! – and turned back in time to see his sister barreling straight at the monster. The thing must have been distracted long enough by Andy’s disappearance to allow Ella to make her move. Matthew’s sister suddenly looked unafraid, like some kind of warrior princess protecting her domain. She ran forward, no hesitation at all as she rammed into the thing that had stolen their dad. It screamed as she hit it, then she bounced back and Matthew saw that she had slammed the screwdriver into the demon’s leg just above its knee. She buried it so deep that when she bounced off the monster the screwdriver remained sticking straight out of its leg.
The thing fell to one knee as its leg buckled beneath it. Ella fell back, the strength Matthew had seen on her face disappearing as suddenly as it came. She was just a scared girl again.
It was his turn.
The monster was still screaming. It wrenched the screwdriver out of its leg with a howl and then began to struggle to its feet. Matthew turned to the shelves. He knew there wasn’t much time. He grabbed something blindly. It felt solid and heavy in his hands and he barely had a moment to see that it was some kind of old-fashioned lamp before he whipped it around and down, smashing it against the side of the monster’s head.
The monster screamed again and the lamp broke into a million pieces. Wetness splashed Matthew’s hands and he thought he must have cut himself badly before he realized that the liquid was too cold to be blood. Cold and getting colder and he realized it must be kerosene or some kind of lighter fluid.
The thing on the floor roared and struggled to its feet, lurching drunkenly as it did so. Matthew grabbed Ella’s hand and pulled it, though he had no idea where they might go. The door that was their only way out was still shut tight at the top of the stairs.
Then thoughts of flight disappeared as something came rushing out of the darkness. Matthew’s stomach twisted painfully as a growling, snarling mass appeared as if from nowhere. What else could be coming for them? What new fiend was this?
The thing flew through the air, heading straight at him and Ella before it veered suddenly to the side. He caught a glimpse of fur the color of starless night sky and realized it was a dog.
The dog charged across the basement and jumped on Martha. Matthew didn’t know what was going on. He had never seen the dog before, though he realized it must be the one Daddy had spoken of, but the animal didn’t feel like the demon. It didn’t feel evil, it felt good, like a friend in a crowd of strangers. So it was doubly shocking to him when it attacked the old woman.
But wait. Matthew saw now that it wasn’t attacking her, it was biting and scratching at the remaining tentacle that was still pulling the old woman into the world beyond the mirror. The dog snarled and leapt into the air to bite the thick tendril, chomping down on it tightly and then worrying it until suddenly the thing loosened its grip on Martha. Still the dog kept its teeth clamped firmly around the limp tendril, as though somehow afraid it would suddenly spring to life again. And apparently the dog was right. Because suddenly the toothed mouths opened in a shriek. The tentacle let go of Martha completely and wrapped itself around the dog, blindly fighting against the enemy that had attacked it. The dog ground down even harder, its teeth yanking gobs of putrid flesh away from the flailing tentacle.
The mouths of the thing in the mirror – which Matthew intuited was not really a separate thing at all, but just a larger part of the demon that had come for them through Daddy’s body – screamed their low scream again. The tentacle tensed, then whipped out. The movement shook the dog loose at last. Like Andy, the dog flew through the air. Like Andy, it screamed in terror and fear. Then, like Andy, it disappeared.
But the dog had done its work. Martha’s trapped hand came free as the tentacle dropped away from her to deal with the canine. She put a hand on each side of the mirror frame and pulled, slowly emerging from the place on the other side of the glass. Her eyes were wild, almost insane, and Matthew wondered what horrors she had seen there.
Martha looked around. Matthew saw her spot him and Ella, then her eyes dropped to the monster before them.
“You won’t get them!” she shrieked, and her voice was so high, so crazed sounding that Matthew wondered if she was going to help them or hurt them. “Not these children!” she continued. “Not this time!” She ran at them, her legs pumping under her short frame. Matthew knew that whatever part of her was still sane wanted to help, wanted to save him and Ella, but at the same time he wondered what she could possibly do to help them.
