1 The Bank of the River Page 6

  Of course, this came at a price. They were both distant from Roy, too. Steven realized he’d learned more about Roy in the past few days than he knew from his entire life before. He wondered what Bernie would think of this whole thing.

  Steven closed his eyes and let sleep come. If he could even get half of a night straight through, he’d take it.

  -

  It was the kind of nightmare you tried to force yourself out of. In a pool of water, daylight receding. Falling, trying to hold your breath, but eventually having to let it in, water rushing into your lungs. Light beginning to condense. He knew it was a dream while it was happening, and he willed himself to wake up. As he opened his eyes, the ceiling above him was unfamiliar, but he oriented himself within moments. His mouth felt dry; he’d been drooling on the pillow, and it was soaked. He flipped it over, but now he was waking up. So much for sleeping straight through, he thought. He decided to make his way to the kitchen for some water. The layout of the house came back to him quickly. He glanced at the door to his father’s room – it was closed. He made his way to the kitchen, found a glass, filled it, and downed it. Sat it down quietly. He walked back to the guest room, hoping to fall asleep quickly, when he noticed the door to Roy’s room was now ajar.

  The same dread and heavy air filled the hallway as he made his way down to his father’s room. He pushed the door open.

  In a way, it didn’t surprise him. He’d taken Roy’s opinion that they were safe here at face value. But as soon as he saw it, he knew it had been a bad assumption. In the middle of the room stood the shadow, its eyes gleaming, focused intently on Roy. Like before, Roy was rigid and shaking. This time Steven didn’t try to rouse Roy – he already knew what it was doing to him. He approached the shadow, raising his voice. “Goddamn it, leave him alone!” he shouted.

  As he neared the shadow he had a sensation of a cold, icy knife slicing through his skin. The pain was incredible, and he jumped back. In his peripheral vision he saw Roy soften and still, and he knew the shadow had released him. Its eyes turned to center on Steven. He stared it down, neither of them moving. He noticed Roy waking, taking in the scene in the middle of the room. Roy arose and approached the shadow too. Steven felt he should not lose eye contact with the shadow – as long as he didn’t, he felt the shadow didn’t know about Roy’s movement, it remained focused on him. Steven was expecting an attack, for it to turn on him the way it had on Roy, but it didn’t move, it didn’t seem to want anything of him. It was just watching him. He noticed Roy behind it. Roy was lowering his head, as though he was praying. Going into a trance? Steven thought. The eyes in the shadow slowly closed, and the ambient light in the room began to appear inside it. Within moments, it was gone. Roy raised his head.

  “So much for being safe here,” Steven said.

  “Yeah,” Roy replied. “I think I have really misjudged this thing.” He was rubbing his arms, obviously in pain once again.

  “How did you make it go away?” Steven asked.

  “I willed it. It was easy,” Roy said. “You could try the next time you see it.”

  “I don’t think it would work,” Steven said.

  “It might,” Roy said. “You just close your eyes, concentrate, and mentally say, ‘go away.’”

  “Really? That’s all?” Steven asked.

  “Yes,” replied Roy, “and you have the advantage of being awake when this thing is attacking me. I’m asleep, I can’t do it. It knows that.”

  “Is that what it’s doing?” Steven asked. “Attacking you?”

  “You felt it last night. What did it feel like to you?”

  “Yes, I would call it an attack. It felt like I was being raped. Not physically, but mentally. It was taking something from me.”

  “Next time defend yourself,” Roy replied. “You might be surprised at what you’re able to do.”

  “Do you think it will come back?” Steven asked.

  “Why not?” Roy replied. “I was wrong about it not following us here. For whatever reason it wants us, it’ll just wait until we’re asleep and attack again.”

  “Then we can sleep in shifts,” Steven said.

  “Good idea. You sleep first,” Roy said. “I’m coming at this the wrong way, and I need to study up before we approach it tonight at the house, discover what I’m doing wrong.”

  “With your secret book?” Steven asked.

  “Yes,” Roy replied, “with my secret book that might save your ass. Try to sleep as much as you can. I’ll wake you in a few hours, and we’ll trade off.”

  Chapter Ten

  Steven sat cross-legged at the end of the hallway, once again waiting for something to happen. Roy was seated in the hallway, blindfold on, waiting as well. Steven hoped things might play out more benignly tonight, but either way, he was determined to get more answers.

  He and Roy had traded off the night before, keeping an eye on each other while the other slept. Whether their approach worked or they just got lucky, nothing appeared and no attacks occurred. They both had received much needed sleep, and they slept into the late morning, anticipating another late night at Steven’s with the second trance.

  Roy had spent a good amount of the day with his book. He complained multiple times to Steven of being “rusty” and that if he’d been more in practice, certain things wouldn’t have gone past him. Steven wasn’t entirely sure what he was referring to, other than the idea that the shadow couldn’t follow them to Roy’s, which was obviously wrong. But for the most part Roy seemed confident he knew what he was getting into with the second trance, and he talked as much about being prepared with defenses as he did getting answers to their questions. It was clear to Steven that Roy was afraid of the shadow, of what it might do to either of them if they weren’t prepared to deal with it.

  The hallway sat still. It had been half an hour, the same amount of time they waited two nights ago before things went to hell. Steven had fallen asleep then, and he felt that he had let his father down. But Roy had asked him details about that, and had assured him he hadn’t fallen asleep on his own, that he had been “led to sleep” by the forces in the house. It made Steven feel marginally better, but he still resolved to stay awake tonight. Twice he had interrupted the shadow attacking his father, and he didn’t want to find out what might happen to Roy if there was another attack, or, god forbid, an attack that he didn’t interrupt.

  The heaviness was returning, and it made Steven think of how Debra had described it. It seemed as though the air became thicker, and there was additional pressure in the house. This was the same as two nights ago – just before he fell asleep, the same feeling. If I don’t fall asleep, or if it doesn’t think I’m asleep, it won’t appear, Steven thought. Sleep is part of this. I need to fake it. I need it to think I’m asleep. He closed his eyes, and let his mind wander, but kept pinching his left hand with his right. He had no idea if this would work, but he stuck with it for several minutes.

  Just as he thought he might have to change technique, Steven heard Roy speaking, but it didn’t sound like Roy. “Come to me…come to me…” At first he thought Roy was speaking to him, that he should get up and walk over to him. But he repeated the phrase over and over, dozens of times. It began to take on the quality of a chant. Steven knew he was not speaking to him.

  Steven saw, over Roy’s head, a face appear. It was one of the child faces he’d encountered in his bedroom the first night. It was floating, hovering above Roy. Steven’s legs tensed as he felt an instinctive need to protect his father. But the more he looked at the face, the more he registered sadness and pain rather than evil intent, and Steven calmed with the realization that the face was not a threat to Roy. The face seemed lost, and Roy’s calls, or whoever’s voice was coming from Roy, were beckoning the child. And now, where it had looked like one face, there appeared to be several, all overlaying each other.

  Steven felt a wave of pressure pass over him and the hallway seemed much darker. Roy’s voice seemed muddled, like it w
as coming through a tube. Steven looked at his arm and knew if he tried to raise it, it would move slowly, as it had the other night. The thickness had arrived. He pushed an image of himself sleeping to his forethoughts, and let the images and sounds of the hallway recede.

  In a matter of seconds, the hallway had filled with water. Steven, still sitting cross-legged at the end of the hall, was immersed up to his waist. I’m hallucinating, he thought. No, you’re not hallucinating. You’re seeing what Roy is seeing. You’ve jumped in.

  Once again Roy’s arms were extended to his sides. The darkness in the hallway made Roy only a silhouette. “It’s over now…it’s over now…” Roy was saying. The faces had disappeared, but something else was building. The feeling of sadness and loss was now replaced by dread.

  As Steven watched, a figure rose from the water, next to Roy. It was shaped like a man, but it was twisted and grotesque, as though something had genetically gone wrong. Parts of it appeared more animal than human, but even the animal parts were wrong. Steven strained his eyes to take it in, to make a mental picture of this creature. Once it had fully emerged, it turned to Roy. Steven studied its face, but the bends and folds of skin where skin shouldn’t be made it hard for him to process what he was seeing. Its eyelids were closed. It had no hair, and the bare skin looked armored in places, like a reptile or a beetle. Flaps of skin hung down from the forehead and cheeks, as though it was inside a flesh costume that was too big for it. Its chest was massive and its torso was shaped like a man’s, tapering at the waist. Its phallus was definitely not human, it looked more like a dog’s. Its legs disappeared into the water. As Steven watched, it took a step toward Roy. Then it opened its eyes, and Steven recognized them immediately.

  He knew he needed to send it way, as he had the first night. He attempted to stand, but his motions were slowed by the resistance of the water and the air in the room – he was moving through clear quicksand again, just like before. It took an eternity just to make a step.

  As he progressed towards Roy and the figure he saw its lips move. He couldn’t tell what it was saying, but he could hear Roy’s replies.

  “It doesn’t matter…it doesn’t matter,” Roy was repeating. Was he attempting to repel the figure? Or was he speaking to him, Steven? He lifted another foot and with agonizing slowness continued his march toward the couple, engaged in a conversation he could only half make out.

  “Why should I care? The only thing that matters is gone,” he heard Roy speak. It was Roy’s voice, but it wasn’t Roy speaking. The figure was having a conversation with someone other than Roy.

  The figure reached a hand towards Roy, and Steven saw Roy’s body go rigid. The attack has begun, I’ve got to do something, Steven thought. He focused his mind and shouted “BE GONE” as loudly as he could. Nothing seemed to come out. He was too far away. He focused all of his energy on moving closer, taking as many steps as he could, as quickly as he could. Roy was shaking now, and a panic set in Steven, feeling that if he didn’t do something soon, Roy wouldn’t last. He was a step closer to them and he tried again: “BE GONE. LEAVE HIM ALONE.”

  It worked, or at least for a moment he thought it had worked. The figure’s eyes shifted from Roy to him. At the same moment its eyes reached him, Steven felt all of the water in front of him rush towards him, an additional force pushing him back. It pushed him off his feet, and he fell backwards into the water.

  It was just like the dream. Everything in slow motion, holding your breath, but knowing you were going to have to open your lungs eventually and then you’d be in trouble. He moved his arms to push himself up from the floor. It took forever. The water was rushing at him with the force of a fast moving river. It took all of his strength to fight against it, get his arm into position against the floor, and push himself up above the water level. As his head cleared the water, he gasped for air, sucking in a huge lungful, and raising his knee to stand.

  How long have I been underwater? he wondered. As he looked up, the scene had changed. Roy was pinned against the hallway wall opposite the figure. There was a knife in his hand, and as Steven cleared the water from his eyes, he saw that Roy’s throat was cut. It was a ragged, gaping wound, and blood was pouring from it down his shirt and into the water below. Roy’s body was still shaking, and the sight aroused such anger in Steven that he focused his mind with all of the energy he had left and shouted, “LET HIM GO!”

  In the blink of an eye the water was gone and the ability to breathe normally returned. Roy’s body slipped from the wall into a crumpled heap on the hallway floor. The eyes in the shadow closed, and Steven saw it descend into the floor. Steven rushed over to his father, checking him for damage. There was none, no blood, no cut throat. As Roy came to, Steven asked him if he was ok.

  “Hurts. All over.”

  “You were up on the wall,” Steven said. “When it ended, you slid down to the floor.”

  “Did you see it all?” Roy asked. “Did you see it?”

  “Yes,” Steven replied. “I didn’t fall asleep. I saw the whole thing. I saw it.”

  Steven raised Roy to his feet, and they walked out of the hallway and into the kitchen. They both sat down in kitchen chairs and stared at each other.

  “Do you need some aspirin?” Steven asked.

  “I’m thinking whiskey,” Roy replied.

  “I’ve got whiskey,” Steven said, and went to the liquor cabinet. He brought back a bottle and two glasses, and they each poured a shot and downed it in silence.

  After a while Steven said, “I’m not sure I can do this kind of thing again. You were suspended on the wall with your throat cut. I could barely move to do anything about it.”

  “But you did do something about it,” Roy said. “You ended it. And we got what we were looking for. Well, part of it, anyway.”

  “What part? What did you learn for all that?” Steven asked.

  “For starters, I figured out we’ve been looking at this all wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are different entities here,” Roy explained. “We thought we were dealing with the ghost of the man who committed suicide, but it’s much deeper than that.”

  “How many entities?”

  “Well, there’s two for sure. Probably more. Ben is one. He’s the one I’m most able to contact. Many of the manifestations we’ve seen have come from him. The knocking, for example, that’s Ben. But whenever I make contact with Ben, a second entity shows up. Every time.”

  “The shadow?” Steven asked.

  “Yes, but you saw him tonight, didn’t you? The real thing, not just the shadow with eyes.”

  “Yes, I saw him,” Steven said. The image of the distorted and twisted shape was still vivid in his mind.

  “I believe,” said Roy, “that that thing, the shadow, is the reason Ben took out his eyes. When I was in the trance, I was able to see things from Ben’s perspective. He was saddled with an enormous amount of grief. I remembered that feeling when Claire passed, it feels like a mountain weighing you down, and that you’ll never get over it. And he was being haunted – attacked, really – by this thing, this shadow. It had been attacking him for a while. And I could tell Ben knew the shadow, he knew who or what it was. Ben’s despair was so large, once he realized that the shadow would never stop, would never go away, he couldn’t bear to see it anymore, it horrified and sickened him, and he got to a point where he just wanted it to stop. In the trance I felt what he felt when he decided to remove his eyes. I understood it completely.”

  Steven gulped. He wasn’t sure what kind of depths a person had to sink to to take that kind of a step, and the thought of it unnerved him. It made him feel a little sick to his stomach.

  “It didn’t work,” Roy continued. “He didn’t have to see it anymore, but it didn’t stop the shadow from attacking. He was having the life drained from him every night, every time he slept. Not being able to see the shadow made it easier to endure the rest of what he went through.”

&n
bsp; “So he killed himself to end the pain?” Steven asked.

  “Did it in that bathtub,” Roy replied. “But he was also trying to stop it, the shadow. He was denying it something by killing himself; his suicide was also an attack back at it, his way of striking back.”

  “I can’t say I understand that,” Steven said.

  “It’s because it wasn’t just haunting him, it was using him, draining him,” Roy said. “He wanted to deny it any more of himself.”

  “But why? Why was it after him?” Steven asked.

  “That’s something we don’t know yet,” Roy said. “But there’s another thing I learned that might answer that question.”

  “What is that?”

  “There’s something in the hallway that we need to find. Something Ben hid.”

  -

  Steven used a screwdriver to pry the baseboard away from the wall in the area that Roy suggested they try first. It exposed the corner where the floorboards met the wall.

  “Look along the edge,” Roy said. “See if one of the floorboards is a fraction of an inch shorter, or doesn’t go all the way to the wall.”

  Steven shined a flashlight into the corner of the wall and floor, on his hands and knees, inspecting each floorboard. They all came flush against the wall, no spaces, nothing unusual. “Nothing,” he said.

  “Try over here,” Roy said, prying the baseboard off the opposite wall himself.

  Steven ran the flashlight into the corner again, looking for the board Roy described. He found one near the middle of the hallway. “Here!” he said, and began to pry it using the screwdriver. It popped up with a little effort, along with a couple of attached pieces of the hardwood floor. There was nothing directly underneath it, but shining the flashlight into the hole Steven could see that there was a space that bent to the left. Steven turned to Roy. “Ben showed you this?”

  “Yes,” Roy replied. “in a way. He felt it was part of the solution, and part of the problem.”

  “What did he mean by that?” Steven asked, suddenly not sure he wanted to find what lay below.