A.R. Wise
314
PART ONE: THE SERPENT’S COIL
CHAPTER ONE
It Begins Again
Widowsfield
March 14th, 1996
“It’s going to happen in three minutes.”
Mark Tapper sat on the edge of his son’s bed and tried to comfort the eight-year-old. He considered calling an ambulance, but he didn’t know if what Jeremy was suffering from qualified as an emergency. He decided to wait for his wife to get home, since she’d be there in just a few minutes anyhow. She’d left work early when the school called, but Mark was able to get to Widowsfield Elementary to pick Jeremy up first.
“What’s going to happen in three minutes?” Mark glanced at the clock on the nightstand that displayed 3:11 on the stomach of a Batman figurine.
“I told you,” said Jeremy. The desperation in his voice terrified Mark. “The Skeleton Man’s coming.”
“I don’t know what that means, kiddo. Help me out here.” Mark tried to wipe sweat from his boy’s brow, but Jeremy jerked away as if frightened by contact. “Who’s this Skeleton Man you keep talking about?”
“He’s coming, and then everyone’s going to go crazy. Dad, I don’t want to kill you again.”
The statement was more than a little disconcerting. Mark stood up and put his hands on his head in exasperation as he stared down at his quivering child. He’d tried to stay calm through all of his son’s outbursts, but he couldn’t take it anymore. “That does it. Mom can meet us at the hospital. Do you think you can walk, or do you want me to call an ambulance?” This manic episode confounded the school nurse, and it was getting worse the longer it went on. When Mark picked his son up from school, Jeremy had simply been crying, but now his mania had gone from concerning to disturbing.
“There’s no time. I can already hear his teeth.” Jeremy looked at his father and chattered his teeth, as if he was freezing cold. Then he looked at the clock and they both saw the time change.
3:12
Jeremy put his hands under his pillow and bunched it up so the sides covered his ears. He clenched his eyes shut and continued to weep. “You should just kill yourself. Make it easy. Just shoot yourself in the head and get it over with. You can’t handle what’s coming. No one can.”
Mark was frantic now. His hands were shaking and he rushed out of the room to compose himself. The last thing Jeremy needed to see was his father breaking down. Mark felt helpless and terrified. Something was happening to his son, and he had no idea how to fix it. When he’d been called in by the school he expected to hear that his son had thrown up, or got in a fight, or anything other than this. Jeremy had never shown signs of a mental disorder and Mark was utterly unprepared for what was happening. He broke down after he closed his son’s door, but there was no time to weep. He rushed down the stairs to get the phone and call 911.
The cord on the kitchen phone stretched long enough to accommodate his pacing as he listened to the automated voice tell him that his call would be taken in the order it was received. He glanced at the green numbers displayed on the microwave’s clock.
3:13
“Widowsfield County 911,” said a woman’s voice on the phone. “What is your emergency?” She sounded elderly, and kind, immediately affable.
Mark didn’t know where to start. “Hi, my name’s Mark Tapper.”
“Howdy, Mark,” said the operator. “What’s your emergency?”
He’d been struggling to answer that question himself, and had trouble relaying it to her. “It’s my son, Jeremy. I got a call from his school because he was having a, like, I guess a mental breakdown or something. I don’t really know. I had to pick him up early from school because he was crying and talking about how someone named The Skeleton Man is coming.” He chuckled out of nervousness and felt embarrassed for it.
The clock held steady at 3:13, seconds from the time that Jeremy had been panicked about.
“It’s okay, sir. We can get someone out there if you’d like.”
Mark stared at the clock, dreading the coming change.
“Sir?” she asked after he didn’t respond. “What’s your address?”
It changed.
3:14
Nothing happened and Mark breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know why he was so scared. “Sorry, what was that?”
The operator didn’t respond.
“Hello?” asked Mark.
She gurgled on the other line, a wet, throaty expulsion of sound, as if the woman had started to choke. Then he heard a shrill scream. Someone else in the operator’s office had become frightened. The gurgling continued.
“Hello?” Mark asked again and looked at the phone as if expecting to be able to see what was wrong. He pushed in the wire that connected the phone to the base on the wall to make sure it hadn’t fallen loose.
He was in the kitchen when he caught sight of the green fog outside. It had been a gorgeous Spring day just moments earlier, but there was no sign of sunlight now. The town had been blanketed in fog that glowed as if illuminated deep within by a pulsing green light. Mark took tremulous steps toward the window above the sink. The phone went dead, and he let it drop to the floor where the cord pulled it skittering backward across the tile.
“Holy fuck,” said Mark as he leaned over the sink.
The fog was thick enough to cloud his view of the houses across the street. Even the Oak tree in the front yard was hazed. Waves of green light flashed within the fog, as if he were watching electricity roll out from some machine within. It crackled and coursed along metallic objects, giving shape to things lost in the mist.
Then he saw a man lean out from behind the tree. The fog was too thick to see any details, but the stranger was very tall and thin, and he retreated back behind the tree as soon as Mark saw him.
“Dad,” said Jeremy from upstairs. He didn’t sound panicked anymore.
“Yeah, Jeremy,” said Mark as he backed away from the window. He wanted to go out and confront the stranger, but was afraid of the mist and still concerned for his son. “Are you okay?”
Jeremy didn’t answer.
He heard small, light footsteps running across the floor upstairs, headed down the hall from the bathroom to Jeremy’s room.
Mark stopped staring out the window and ran to reach Jeremy. He bounded up the stairs and was confronted by his son at the threshold of his room.
“Jeremy,” said Mark as he paused at the top of the stairs. “Do you know what’s going on?” He asked as if afraid his son was somehow responsible for what had happened outside.
“I tried to warn you.”
Jeremy held a straight razor to his own throat.
“Buddy, put that down.” Mark took a tentative step, like a cop approaching a suicidal man.
Jeremy looked at the blade and smiled. “This isn’t for me, Dad. It’s for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Skeleton Man’s here, and he taught me how to hate.”
“Put the razor down, Jeremy.” Mark’s authoritative tone was beleaguered by fear.
The razor reflected green light from a nearby window. “We’re going to try something new this time. The Skeleton Man saw something that he wants to try on you.” Jeremy giggled, as if talking about something cute a puppy had done. “He’s so excited. He doesn’t want to hurt me, but if you take another step then we won’t have a choice. He’ll slit my throat just to watch you cry.”
“What’s going on, Jeremy? Who’s the Skeleton Man? How did you know that something was going to happen at 3:14?”
“I think we’ve done this before,” said Jeremy. “I think we’ve been doing it for years.” He seemed confused, but then shrugged off his uncertainty. “We’ll keep doing it until we get it right, I suppose. Do you want to hear what we’re planning for you?”