Page 14

Twelve

The next day…

“Stay still, you fucking bitch!” The harsh cement floor digs into my knees, scratching at my flattened palms as I flatten my back. Remaining still like a fucking dog or in this case a human ash tray. “Just like that.”

Despite wanting to spring up and stab the motherfucker with the knife I brought with me, I flatten my back and hold still. Not out of respect or fear, but out of convenience. If I obey by playing along one last time, he’ll be convinced that it’s because I’ve finally conceded. He’ll never see what I have planned for him the second my opportunity strikes.

Smoke coils around me, notes of tobacco and menthol drench the air. The smell turns my stomach, but it’s the motivator I need. The reminder of why I’m here and what I need and will do this time.

“You burn like a sinner,” the delusional man observes, digging the tip of his cigarette into the nape of my neck.

A shiver runs down my spine. It hurts, but not as much as the knife I tucked in my boot. It’s in there loosely so I can gain easy access to it when needed, but its positioning by my Achilles and is close to slicing it if I don’t hurry the fuck up.

“You hear me, pecadora? ”

Sinner.

I mumble a half-assed ‘yes’ but the questions continue. I tune them out. My focus glued to the sliver of steel beckoning me to grab the handle and end this.

“I wonder if I can fuck the sinner out of you?”

The ‘again’ part is left out. It always is. Delusional fuck. Every time I’m down here, it’s under the guise of it being the first time. Every time it’s the same. The same torture, the same pain, always the fucking same. What won’t be the same this time is what I do next.

“Stand up!”

My heart rate elevates, driving my pulse to my ears. I ignore the command. Adrenaline taking over every cell as I rehearse the scene in my head of what I’m about to do.

“You’re going to pay for the lies you’ve spread, you whore. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done.” Another set of hollow words do little to affect me. I wait until the belt buckle jingles and it's tossed on the floor for me to make my move. Time slows as I spring up, retrieving the knife.

“Fuck you,” I spew, charging the monster dressed in human flesh. With a clenched fist and my eye on the prize, I break the barrier of skin concealing his vital artery. Blood spills down his neck, slowly. Too slow for my liking. I need more. I need him to suffer more. I tear the blade from inside him and stab again…and again…and again. With every strike, I scream ‘fuck you’ louder and angrier. Reveling in the blood splatter painting my skin, the floor, and most importantly—him. To my surprise, he doesn’t put up a fight. Then again, when the first place you’ve stabbed is the carotid, the brain connection starts to get a bit fuzzy.

He falls to the floor. A loud, messy pool of pierced flesh and crimson.

Breathless, I try to collect myself. My work isn’t done yet, it’s just beginning. Staring at the bloodbath before me, I try figuring out what will be the easiest way to gather the blood to fill the tub upstairs. A large bucket catches my attention, as does the broom in the corner of the basement. I gather both because it’s time to collect. El Barquero should be here any minute, and if I don’t hurry, I’ll miss my opportunity to join him.

Using a mop, I maneuver the blood of the sacrifice into the bucket, filling it up to the brim, and then walking the overflowing bucket to the bathroom to pour into the tub. Time passes, unaware of how long this process takes, but with each step closer, I hear a voice in my head, trying to throw me off guard.

“It’s not too late, hija, you can change your mind.” The voice now morphs into my mother’s, taunting me as I drag the overflowing bucket to the bathroom.

“No, I can’t.” I won’t.

Adrenaline continues to fuel me, but only until I make it upstairs to the bathroom. I feel the crash coming. I need to push through only a few moments more. Dropping the bucket, I use both hands to open the door. The hinges fight me tooth and nail, but my stubbornness prevails, determined to win. To finish what I came here for.

Finally, the door opens and I retrieve the bucket, dragging it on the tiled floor, and placing it beside the porcelain of the already full clawfoot tub centered in the bathroom. I lean forward, my reflection in the still water both comforting and horrifying. I swallow a lump of saliva in my dry throat, the equivalent of a dozen knives stabbing me as I take off my clothes.

Using all the strength I’m clinging to with everything I have left, I bend at the knees, cupping the overflowing bucket of blood in my grip. Slowly, I ascend from my bent position and dump the blood into the water.

It slaps against the water's edge. First a faint shade of pink before it spirals and spreads in a slow, concentrated dance, morphing into an opaque hue of crimson. It’s then and only then, when the water no longer looks like water but a bath full of blood, that I enter it. The voice from before returns. This time joined by others, all chanting a verse I’ve heard many times before.

“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”

“Shut the fuck up!” The tip of my nose brushes against the murky water. My eyes move to the reflection of the open window in the mirror on the wall in front of me. A sadistic cackle erupts, leaking through it, traveling to my core.

“There you are,” he announces, cryptic and amused.

El Barquero.

I inch upward. Just enough that my nose is lifted and my mouth is able to speak without taking in the water.

“Here I am,” I mumble to the rotting God outside the half-open window of the bathroom. His face is riddled in decay and dirt, with features defined by scars and dried up blood. A horror to others but a savior to me. “As promised, I brought you a gift. Come in, the water is just how you like it… bloody.”

He accepts the invitation, curling his filthy fingers at the window’s edge, lifting it. Slithering his way from the window, he moves with the agility of a serpent, until he stops by the tub hovering over it.

“Are you sure?” his low and rough baritone asks.

I nod.

His rough hand tips my chin as he studies my face.

“Once fed, there’s no escaping el Barquero,” he warns.

I nod again. This time with the vibrant addition of a smile, remembering the steel knife I hid in the tub.

Keeping my eyes on him, I discreetly curl my fingers as his tongue nears mine. As the token of my commitment to the sacrifice is transferred from my mouth to his, I use the sadistic communion as my opportunity to secure the knife's handle in my palm and drive it into his throat.

Blood streams from the wound, the look of betrayal ripe within his irises as he slumps over me and into the tub.

“You’re wrong,” I spit on his slumped body. “Tell el Barquero there’s no escaping me.”

“That was amazing!” Applause fills my ear. My agent, Beth, on the other line claps away, but her rehearsed excitement does little to distract from the hesitation that permeates from her breath.

A long-winded sigh escapes my mouth, knowing she has more to say.

“Go on. What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, it’s just so, so, I don’t know,” Beth hesitates.

I rise to my feet and the wheeled chair I was just sitting on rolls all the way behind me, hitting the bookshelf behind my desk. “Beth,” I say sternly. “Spit it the fuck out.”

A phony scoff of surprise muffles the earpiece with her overdone surprised act. She should be used to me by now. She’s been around long enough to know that I don’t mince words, agent or otherwise. Considering the shit sleep I got last night, what I said to her versus what I could’ve said to her, is on the tame side. I used to love this time of year, but the dreams—or rather nightmares—that I have every goddamn year become too much. The one I had last night was the most vivid one that I’ve had in a long time, or ever.

“I loved it, Char.” I wince at the nickname. An abbreviation of my pen name, A.H. Charon, and the only name she knows me by. Her voice trails. “But…”

My eyes roll. There’s always a ‘but’. Hesitation injects itself into the air before she starts yelling at someone, honking her horn.

“Sorry, I’m back. I swear to fuck people can’t drive here.”

I laugh. “It’s Halloween in New York. What do you expect today of all days? Plus, they’re always rushing.”

“True, but this is the burbs, not the city.”

My brow furrows. Beth is a city girl through and through. She rarely ever leaves the comfort of the concrete jungle.

“What the fuck are you doing in the burbs?”

“My mom has been sick and hasn’t been able to take care of my dad. You know how he’s been since the accident. She needs my help. Trust me, I’m not thrilled about it either.” Her throat clears as she redirects the conversation. “Anyway, listen, Char. I love the intensity, but this is the last book in the Ferryman series. Your readers want, and quite frankly, deserve, a neater ending.”

I pace my home office. “First of all, it’s horror. Since when does a horror ending need to be neat or wrapped up in a pretty bow? Horror should creep into the reader’s mind. It should linger and fester and make the person think. I’m not going to spell it out for them. I still have the—”

She cuts me off. “Let me guess. An epilogue, because God forbid, you write anything without an epilogue.” The annoyance in her tone is rubbing me the wrong way. What the fuck does it matter if I always have to write an epilogue? It’s my style, and they’re arguably my favorite thing to write since it signifies the end. Everyone deserves a good ending, the same applies to books.

“Well, yes, I have an epilogue. Maybe even two for this one.” I stick it back to her.

“Just hurry up. The publisher wants me to give it to them next week. I don’t know what you’re waiting for. All of your other stories you've handed in before the deadline.”

I interrupt her.

“Calm your tits. Have I ever missed a deadline?”

A scoff disguised as a giggle sounds from her.

“Have I?”

Now a sigh sounds, probably because she realizes I’m right. “Well. No.”

“Exactly.

“Fine,” she concedes. “Just make sure it’s done on time.”

Walking out of my office and to the bedroom, I go to grab my notebook, since I wrote the rest of the chapter by hand before bed. “Will do. Besides, whoever said I wasn’t done? You know what they say when you assume. You make an ass out of you and—”

“Me,” she finishes my sentence. “Yes, I know.”

“I just stopped reading from my computer. I wrote the rest by hand. ”

Now Beth scoffs. “By hand? Jesus—” she interrupts herself. “I meant to say, who does that anymore?”

Me, that’s fucking who.

“By the way, do we have a title yet for this story?”

I round the corner to my bedroom about to walk down the hall. The bathroom on the main level, the one that I never use because the water pressure sucks, grabs my attention. Stopping me in my tracks, and a gasp that bellows from my mouth feels like an out-of-body experience.

“Char,” Beth says my name and a bunch of other things that I can’t focus on.

My notebook is on the floor. Not on my nightstand where I know I left it.

Carefully, I navigate the bathroom. Shattered glass and lumps of hardened wax line the tile by the tub.

“Char,” Beth repeats my name. “Are you okay?”

No.

No. I’m not fucking okay.

I’m the opposite of okay.

I’m in shock.

As I bend to retrieve my notebook. I see the part of the story I started in bed, not in the bathroom, above handwriting that does not belong to me.

“You can run from the truth, but you can’t run from me.”

My blood turns cold.

No. He couldn’t have been here.

I look to the window, the only glass that isn’t shattered in the entire bathroom.

If he were here last night, that means that my dream wasn’t a dream… and that the pills are losing their magic. They aren’t helping me like they used to.

But why now?

What the fuck does he want from me?

Why can’t he let what happened go?

I have .

Why. Can’t. He?

Still trying to process this, I reach for my necklace, but as my fingertips graze my neck, all I feel is fire. Ripples of flames dancing like they did the night of the haunt. Thirteen years ago. On Halloween. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath in, but my feelings have now escalated to a vision of Harlan on his knees. Licking me. Fucking consuming me. His tongue so deep inside of me that he was practically choking.

My pussy pulses at the memory.

No.

I can’t do this.

I reach for my chain, needing to feel the pentagram in my grip, but my palm is empty. My lids jolt open, I peer down, and there’s no pendant… no necklace to be found.

You motherfucker.

He not only broke in, he ruined my bathroom and took the only thing I have left of my mother.

Finally entering the conversation, I interrupt Beth’s spiral.

“I need to go. I’ll be in touch, okay? I need to go home.”

She hesitates, confused. “Home? I thought you were home.”

No, and that’s the fucking problem.

“Are you…?” Beth begins, but I hang up the phone and go to grab my car keys from the kitchen.

As I reach for them on the countertop, I see an aged newspaper article next to the bowl I keep my keys in. My stomach drops the closer I inch towards it. Its headline glaring at me.

“Local haunt closed after multiple reports of … “

I stop reading, taking the article and crumpling it though as I do, something sticky and red steals my attention on the backside. Slowly, I turn it over and flatten the scrunched paper.

Another message. This one undeniably Harlan’s doing. Clearly, he took the olive branch I tried to extend to him and saw it as a sign to mess with me. Something my church boy would never do, but I suppose, as much as it pains me to admit, his dad got one thing right in his Devil’s Night service all those years ago .

“All it takes is one moment of temptation. Just one taste of what the enemy has to offer and even the best of men can be transformed into the evil incarnate.”

I was the enemy. The taste Harlan needed to take all that was good in him and throw it all away. Not to be like me… to be worse.

I throw the newspaper article in a ball to the ground, becoming incensed all over again. This is not what I had in mind when I wrote him that letter. I reached out to put an end to the divide that has grown with each passing year. I don’t understand why he’s still so angry. Did he seriously think that because we shared a moment, a fucking hot one at that, that I would be his forever?

That night at Heathen’s Cross, the drugs, all of it, was just a temporary escape. I didn’t literally mean that I would escape with him like he wanted forever. At least for me, the one silver lining is that his dad offered me a way out, to go live with my grandparents, and now that they’ve passed this house I’ve built my life in alone, is mine.

I don’t need him.

I don’t want him.

What I do want is my necklace, and to get back home to finish my deadline, so I can finally do what I haven’t been able to do for so fucking long. Rest.

With my book clutched against my chest, I storm out of my house, locking the door behind me. Turning, I walk down the steps and past the rows of pumpkins that line the footpath in front of my house. All of them have different—yet equally fucked up—faces carved into them, reflecting my mood this time of year.

As my feet reach the last pumpkin, a gust of wind crashes into me, knocking the book out of my hands and into the dirt. The breeze quickly picks up, displacing my hair. Though only the side of my part that has the bleach blonde moves, whipping me in the eye causing it to water. I tuck my hair behind my ear and snatch the notebook up. Fallen leaves and twigs drag around me as the wind continues its relentless howl, making it clear a storm is near. I love storms, but right now this feels more like a sinister omen, than it does just another October night storm.

As I head towards my car, I brace myself, readying my nerves to go back to the hell I used to call ‘home’. Hunger strikes at my core, processing the anger I feel right now for Harlan. Though above all, the sense of fear he has elicited from me feels the most striking, because the thought of seeing Harlan, after all these years, feels somehow scarier than any of the horrors I’ve written or the ones I’ve endured. Most of which are loosely based on moments in my life I’ve had no one to tell but the paper or screen in front of me. Harlan and me, we’re a tragedy with no end in sight. The kind of horror that lingers before it festers and rots…. before it kills.