Magpie, page 3
“Excuse me, but are we going to go inside anytime soon?” I snap, gesturing to the House before planting my hands on my hips. Jessica and Tim gasp behind me, and I roll my eyes. I wasn’t being that harsh. I turn to tell them to calm down, and I see what they really gasped at.
The front door stands open.
Turning back to the skeletal man, I see he is grinning broadly, his long arm gesturing for us to go inside.
I turn away from the man and his intense eyes, unable to resist the call of the House any longer. It’s just a house. I tell myself that I’m just playing into their hands by letting myself feel the first real bit of fear. Then Jessica squeals, breaking the spell the House has over me, as she takes the porch steps two at a time, not hesitating a moment before she enters. The shadows of the House swallows her instantly, but I can hear her nervous laughter calling out from deep inside. Tim is following close behind. He turns and notices me still standing on the lawn, just looking up at the windows.
“Come on, Maggie,” he says, before rushing inside.
“The House is waiting,” the skeletal man says behind me, his voice deep.
Shivering, but not from the cold, I trudge up the stairs, trying to ignore their creaks and moans in the silence of the night. I can hear Tim and Jessica giggling wildly inside, but past the threshold of the open door, all I can see is darkness. The rot, the numbness inside me rises up, answering the call of this desolate place, and I step over the threshold into the Wandering House.
“Damn,” Mr. Mortimer swears as he hangs up the phone.
I’m wiping off a table with a damp towel, but I stand up straight and give him a curious look. Mr. Mortimer has been whispering to someone for a few minutes. I round the counter, setting a stack of dishes in a bus tub before dusting my hands off on my apron, giving him a questioning look.
“Everything alright?” I ask, noting the expression of deep concern on his face.
“Peggy’s grandkid broke his finger at baseball practice today. She’s going to be with him at the hospital all night,” he grumbles. The one hospital in this town is severely understaffed, and even a small injury can take hours to get treated.
A pit in my stomach opens as I glance nervously at the sky. He’s going to ask me to stay late. I feel myself beginning to panic—
The door to the kitchen swings open, and Peggy bursts through, holding a cake with burning sparklers on top. “Surprise!” she and Mr. Mortimer shout at the same time.
Peggy begins laughing at the expression on my face as she walks toward me and shows me the crude icing letters that spell out Bon Voyage!. Tears brim in my eyes, and I have to cough to cover my shaking voice as I try my hardest to thank them, blinking hard.
“Did you think we would send you off without some kind of party?” Mr. Mortimer says as he snaps a striped party hat onto my head. Peggy busies herself with snuffing the sparklers out in a glass of water as she cut us each a huge slice of cake.
“Is your grandson okay?” I ask as she slides the plate over to me. I’m still having a hard time controlling the shaking in my arms as I reach for the fork she holds out.
Peggy laughs, punching playfully at Mr. Mortimer’s arm. “David is fine. Bob here just thought we needed some element of surprise.”
“I’m not a fan of surprises,” I whisper, moving my fork absentmindedly in a swirl of frosting. With a start, I notice I’m tracing the outline of a key. Scraping the bit of frosting off with my fork, I shove the entire bite into my mouth, swallowing vigorously to destroy the evidence.
The shadows of the booth stretch along the floor, creeping closer to me. Glancing at the windows, I note the sun beginning its last burning effort before it’s extinguished for another night.
“I should go,” I say suddenly, jumping up from the bar stool at the counter. It’s stupid to stay as long as I have. I know it’s because I’m not ready to go, not ready to give up on a life I’ve actually allowed myself to live. A lifetime of detachment has left me woefully unprepared for saying goodbye.
Tugging my apron off, I turn to hand it to Mr. Mortimer, ready to shove it in his hands and bolt out the door before they can stop me. He is holding out a brown envelope, one that is several times larger than my normal weekly stash.
“Oh…no, Mr. Mortimer, you can’t…” is all I can manage to say as my arms drop to my sides.
“Don’t try to fight it, just take it. You’re a good girl, Maggie. You remind me of my late Cynthia.”
I smile. He’s told me often of his daughter, who tragically died not long before he met me.
“Just let an old man be sentimental and accept this gift from me,” he says, sniffing and beginning to cough. I open my mouth to thank him, but he is still coughing.
Peggy slaps him on the back a few times, giving me a half-smile—but it fades, replaced with a look of horror when Mr. Mortimer drops to his knees. His coughs turn to wet, angry hacks, and he struggles more to take in each ragged breath.
“Call 911,” Peggy shouts.
Mr. Mortimer’s violent coughing echoes in my ears as I run to the phone, dialing the three numbers with shaking fingers. Like a robot, I rattle off the address of the diner, my eyes trained solely on the shadows growing longer across the floor, creeping toward my feet. With an ambulance on the way, I slam the phone down and rush back to Peggy. Mr. Mortimer has stopped coughing, his face sagging, his eyes closed. He’s unconscious, the only movements the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
“Someone has to tell Lavern,” Peggy says, cradling Mr. Mortimer’s head in her lap. “Their phone line failed in the storms last week, and Bob never got around to fixing it. He always fixes everything. I begged him to get a cell phone, but that stubborn man refused.”
She’s rambling. I grab her hand and hold it tight, drawing her gaze to mine. “Go,” I say. “Get Lavern and meet us at the hospital. I’ll stay with him.”
The shadows are stretching over Mr. Mortimer’s body, covering us in darkness. By the time Peggy is rushing out of the diner, shouting that she’ll drive as fast as she can, the sun has set.
Night envelops us, the stretching shadows like fingers curling around me, holding me tight.
“Tim?” I call into the shadows. If I squint, I can make out the smattering of furniture: a couch, a few armchairs, a coffee table, everything antique, like the House is trapped in a time long past. I take a few cautious steps into the small sitting room, my eyes adjusting to the darkness as I study the art deco wallpaper. There is a twin photo frame nestled on a table, and I pick it up, observing the old photographs inside. They’ve faded over the years, blurring the faces of the man and woman on either side of the frame.
“Jessica?” I shout, setting the picture frame down. I strain my ears to catch even the ghost of a sound. The cackling laughter of a witch, the blood-curdling scream of a patron being chased by an actor wielding a fake chainsaw. Anything to indicate that I’m not alone.
Nothing. The House may as well be empty.
I tug my jacket tighter around me and huff. What do I do now? We waited hours in the shivering rain just to walk around an abandoned farmhouse? The festering cold within me smiles, enjoying me sinking deeper into that hateful mood. This is what you get for trying.
“Screw this. I’m waiting in the car,” I say to myself. I march through the foyer, heading back to the door. Grabbing the doorknob, I twist and yank it open. Or, at least, I try to. The door must be jammed. Giving it a harder tug, sure I can get it this time, I let out a stifled cry of annoyance when it doesn’t so much as budge. Grunting with the effort, I finally let the door go, my mood souring.
“That’s not the way out,” a voice whispers directly behind me.
I gasp, spinning around and pinning myself against the door. I expected to be greeted by some actor dressed in a ghostly costume and holding a bloody knife, but once again I am looking at an empty living room.
“Nice sound effects,” I call out into the void, trying to force bravado into my voice as I peel myself away from the door. My only option is to move deeper into the House. Maybe I can find a back door, or an entrance to the area the actors use. Surely someone will help me find a way out of this.
There is a short hallway that ends in curling wooden stairs, not allowing me to see up to the next level. Gleaming above the stairs, glowing in the shadows, written in a spindly script, are the words:
Go Up To Get Out.
“Of course,” I grumble, gripping the railing and taking the stairs two at a time. I wait for a panel on the wall to open up and hands to pop out at me, or for one of the picture frames to suddenly come alive with the image of a screaming woman. But again, I am rewarded with a mundane stairway. “This is supposed to be scary?” I shout into the emptiness. It does not answer, but I get the sudden feeling that I’m being watched.
I push that thought aside, but I climb the stairs quicker, my heart rate spiking. When I crest the top of the landing, I come to a staggering halt.
A scream rips through the quiet of the House, deafening in the still silence.
I gasp. That’s Jessica screaming. It doesn’t sound like a giddy scream, the half-frightened ones she belts out during horror films. No, this sounds like real terror.
Without missing a beat, I sprint toward the sound. It’s coming from a room at the end of the hallway. Running to the end, I grab the doorknob and burst into the room. “Jessica,” I yell, coming to a halt in the middle of an empty nursery.
I only know it to be a nursery because of the single piece of furniture nestled in the far corner: a lacy, veil-covered bassinet. The screaming is coming from it. I shiver again and find my feet refusing to respond to me. The horrifying noise continues, each cry louder and longer than the last. The sound is going to drive me crazy; I need to find a way to stop it.
I creep forward, reminding myself that this is all some elaborate audio trick. The bassinet is far too small to fit Jessica. This is all just an act.
The screams have taken on a more insane edge, the sound grating. Fueled by irritation and fear, I march across the room, yanking the silk curtains aside and looking down at the bassinet. A baby doll with glowing red eyes is looking up at me, its porcelain mouth open, letting out the screams that somehow sound exactly like my friend’s.
I grab the doll and yank it up. Turning it over, I pull the lace dress down, trying to find where the batteries go, or some cord I can rip out of it. Anything to make it stop.
“Leave my dolly alone,” a voice hisses behind me.
I’m surprised I even hear it over the wailing screams coming from the demonic baby doll. Jumping, I spin around. A girl in ripped jeans and a frilly pink shirt stands in the doorway.
“I’m just trying to get it to stop screaming,” I say, holding the doll out awkwardly toward this strange girl. Is she a patron or an actor?
“I said,” she growls, her voice losing the light and breezy tone of a child, morphing into the guttural growls of a cornered beast, “leave my dolly alone!” She screams the last words, her voice filling every corner of the room.
I drop the doll, slapping my hands over my ears, trying to block out the sound. It isn’t the kind of noise that can be shut out; it’s almost as though it’s coming from inside my mind. The girl rushes to me, and with each step she grows impossibly bigger, her monstrous form looming in front of me.
Cowering against the bassinet, my eyes closed tight, I wait for the attack. None comes. After a moment, I open my eyes, slowly removing my hands from my ears.
The girl and the doll are gone, and the room is quiet once more.
Slowly standing from my crouched position, I lean against the bassinet for support, my legs unsteady beneath me. My mind is racing, desperately trying to make sense of the scene that just played out. An audio trick, an optical illusion—it has to have been something like that. Yet I can’t shake how real it felt.
“Maggie,” Tim yells.
I bolt from the creepy nursery, rushing into the hallway before coming to a sliding stop. If they copied Jessica’s voice, what’s stopping them from copying Tim’s?
Tentatively walking forward, I listen as Tim continues to shout for me. His voice is coming from downstairs, back in the living room.
“Maggie, where are you?” he calls.
The stairs curve and twist before me, one path leading back to the living room and to whoever is pretending to be Tim, begging for me to come back to them. The other path leads up to yet another floor, to more swirling darkness.
Looking down the stairs, listening as Tim’s voice calls for me, I turn my back on the sound and walk up the stairs.
Go Up To Get Out.
Jessica’s voice joins Tim’s, shouting for me, pleading for me to return. I shut them out as I climb up, and up, pulling further away from them with each step.
I’m getting out.
“He’s stable,” Peggy says, holding a white paper cup of coffee toward me.
I lift my head out of my hands, scrubbing them through my hair. Taking the cup, I sip the hot liquid, barely tasting it. Its warmth does nothing to chase away the chill that has settled inside of me.
“Lavern is with him now,” Peggy continues, sitting next to me and sipping from her own cup.
I twist mine in my hands, digging my nails into the soft Styrofoam. I stop when I realize I’m making the crude image of birds in flight. Letting out a shaky breath, I lean back against the wall and study the fluorescent lights overhead.
“Does this ruin your plans?” she asks. Peggy was never one to be comfortable with silence.
I look at her, confused for a moment, well and truly lost in my own thoughts of fluttering wings and black keys.
“You know, your plans to leave and go live some grand adventure,” she says, trying at a jovial tone to chase away the darkness of the night.
I try to hide my grimace, turning my attention back to the lights. I’m not going to live some grand adventure. I’m running and hiding.
“No, this doesn’t ruin my plans. It just…complicates them,” I say, fumbling for the right words.
I glance at my wristwatch and swear. It’s creeping toward midnight. My options are to spend all night in the hospital, or to flee home when the streets are covered in night. When he can easily find me.
As if reading my dark thoughts, the hospital lights flicker and I jump, dropping my coffee cup and splashing the contents over us both.
“Hey, easy,” Peggy says, wiping away at the coffee I spilled on her.
“Shit, sorry, Peggy,” I say, jumping up. “I’ll go find some napkins.”
I hurry down the hall, turning the corner toward the cafeteria, slowing to a stop. The hallway is completely empty, but brightly lit by the softly buzzing fluorescent lights. The cafeteria, however, is dark. Not so dark that I cannot make out the tables and chairs scattered around the room. Still, I have learned the hard way to fear the darkness.
Sucking in a deep breath, telling myself I am being silly, I walk resolutely forward, my hands clenched at my sides. Keeping my eyes focused straight ahead, I navigate my way through the empty chairs to the counter holding a container of condiments, plastic cutlery, and a napkin dispenser. I begin to pull out a wad of napkins—
“Magpie.”
I drop the napkins, almost tripping over the leg of a chair as I spin and peer into the darkness. “Where are you?” I snap, balling my hands into fists as I glare into the empty cafeteria.
I look down at my watch again. The face reveals the date, the current time, and the times of sunrise and sunset. I purchased it specifically so I would always be aware of when he would be free. It’s still September. He won’t be at his full power, not yet.
I try to ease my racing heart, try to tell myself that it is just my nerves. I can’t help but feel like they are all lies I tell myself as I scoop up the napkins and rush out of the room, nearly running back to Peggy.
“He’s awake,” she says, her smile of relief sliding off her lips as she comes face to face with the very real fear in my eyes. “Are you alri—”
“Here. I’m sorry, but I have to go,” I cut her off, pushing the wadded-up pile of napkins at her and rushing back down the hallway to where we were sitting. Grabbing my backpack, I sling it over my shoulders and turn to find a stricken Peggy staring blankly at me. I have no words to explain to her, and I certainly don’t have the courage to give her a proper goodbye, so I simply walk by her. I move quicker with every step I take, desperate to put this life I should have never been afforded behind me.
“Wait, Maggie, don’t you want to see him?” Peggy calls out after me. “Maggie?”
My name echoes through the sterile hallways of the hospital, and it takes everything in me not to cover my ears. The sound of Tim and Jessica’s voices calling my name fills my mind as I break into a sprint and rush out of the hospital.
The good thing about living in a town this small is that nothing is terribly far away from anything, and soon I’m climbing the stairs to my apartment. I planned to head to the train station the moment the sun rose, but I need to go now. My nerves are on fire, and every part of my mind is screaming at me to run, run, run. I burst into my apartment, shutting my door but not even bothering to lock it. I won’t be long.
Grabbing the pile of clothes on the floor, I stuff them into my backpack along with my laptop. Tearing the blanket off my bed, I reach inside the slit in the mattress. I pull out the thick brown envelope I’ve been hiding my cash inside, giving it one cursory look before stuffing it into my backpack, then reaching back into the mattress for the only other thing I need.
The key. My key.
I fumble around, my fingers poking and prodding, feeling for the ribbon.
Nothing.
My heart skips a beat, but I calm it down. I sometimes shove the key in too far and lose track of it. This isn’t the first time I’ve given myself a scare thinking it’s gone.
Searching around again, barely keeping my panic at bay, I feel the first real prickling of absolute terror as I continue to come up empty-handed. It is here. It has to be here. I begin yanking great chunks of stuffing out of the mattress, tossing them to the side as I stick my hand in again and again, letting out a disgruntled growl as it continues to elude me.
