“Alma, you’ve got to promise me. Don’t go to Widowsfield. Let him die!” He advanced threateningly, but Paul caught the old man by the shoulder. Her father winced as Paul forced him to the stairs.
“Get out of here.”
Paul shoved her father down the stairs and the old man fell to the concrete. His head smashed against the railing and he gasped in pain and shock, but then crawled to his feet and darted away.
“Get your stuff,” said Paul to Alma as he still stared down at the fleeing old man.
She couldn’t respond and continued to cower against the wall, humming a tune as she wept. Paul turned to her, concerned. “Babe? You okay?”
Alma shook her head and finally stopped humming. She buried her head in her hands.
“Oh shit, honey. Don’t worry. I’m here, okay? I’ll always be here.” Paul rushed to cradle her as Alma sobbed. “I’m not going to let him hurt you.” He put her head against his chest and held her. “I’d do anything to keep you safe, babe.”
“He’s never going to stop,” said Alma. “He’s just going to keep coming back, over and over.”
Paul tried to hush her. “It’s okay. I’m here for you now.”
“I have to go back.”
“Go back where?” asked Paul.
Alma didn’t want to say, but knew that it was time to confront what had haunted her all these years. Saying the word felt like a curse and she hardly had the strength to utter the name of the town, “Widowsfield.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Amid Chaos
Widowsfield
March 14th, 1996
Walter saw the creatures attack Winnie, but there was nothing he could do. He was too frightened to save her, and retreated up the stairs to the apartment above the book store. He slammed the door shut behind him and then locked it. He wasn’t content relying on only the deadbolt and started to pile up whatever he could find against the door.
Winnie cried out in agony as the monsters tore her apart. Walter apologized over and over as he barricaded the door, but she’d done this to herself. Winnie had chosen to stay down there. She had time to get up the stairs if she wanted to, but she insisted on staying where the creatures could get her. Walter didn’t have time to save her. He would’ve died too if he tried.
He continued to apologize to her as he piled whatever he could find against the door to keep the creatures from devouring him. Then he heard someone gagging in the room with him.
Walter spun in terror to see who’d made the sound, but there was no one in the room with him. Winnie’s apartment was sparsely furnished, with only a rocking chair and couch in front of the television stand. A TV tray was situated beside the couch with a Reader’s Digest opened and face down on top of it. There was a bland rug between the couch and the television, and there was a small pile of white foam on it.
He took a trepidatious step toward the bubbling mass.
A woman’s body appeared on the rug, followed by a zinging crack of green electricity that coursed along the metal legs of the TV tray. The electricity popped in the air and was then gone, leaving behind the body of a choking ghost. Her mouth was open, purple lips rimmed with foam, and she stared at Walter before reaching out to him. Her eyes were bloodshot and her wet hair clung to her cheeks.
She was trying to ask for help, but Walter was too terrified to do anything but gape at her. The woman finally succumbed and her head fell back hard against the floor, but instead of thumping down, her head seemed to sink through the floorboards. The rest of her body followed, as if it had suddenly dissipated into vapor, and all that was left of her was the white foam on the rug.
“Oh Lord,” said Walter. He made the sign of the cross and kissed his knuckle. “Lord have mercy on my soul.”
He dared to step closer to the rug, uncertain if he really had seen the woman, or if she’d been a figment of his imagination. “What the hell’s going on here?”
Walter got on his knees on the hardwood floor and edged his way closer to the rug. He didn’t dare get on the damned thing, and kept his distance, but he needed to see if the foam was real. He started to reach out to it, but then retracted and chided himself. “What are you doing, Walter? Don’t touch that shit.” He started to stand up when the woman’s arms reach out from the rug. Her face was exposed for a moment, and her expression of helplessness had changed to hatred. She grasped Walter’s arm and dragged him forward until he witnessed his own limb disappear into the floor along with the ethereal woman. He cried out in terror, and tried to break free of her grip, but the ghost was inhumanly strong. She dragged his arm into the floor and then reached up to grab more of him. He tried to pull free, but every inch of his flesh that had been pulled through the floor was now stuck within it, and the woman continued to drag him down.
She gripped his hair and pulled his head down. Within seconds he was staring at the darkened first floor of the Anderson Used Book Store. He could see Winnie’s corpse, ringed by the demonic creatures that were devouring her. The ghost was below him. She smiled and finally released him before drifting away, down to the first floor and sinking below it as well.
Walter was left dangling from the ceiling, his body fused to the wood above. He clawed at the ceiling and tried to move, but every twist of his waist ignited agony throughout him, as if he were trying to pull himself apart every time he moved. He started to scream for help before he felt his spine crack from his movement.
He was left there to dangle, like a living stalactite; an adornment of chaos; a witness of the horror below. Blood started to flow from his open mouth and his vision faded. He started to vomit, but it wasn’t food that slid past his lips. Strips of flesh began to push through his throat and he yanked them out to avoid choking. He pulled forth the fleshy pulp until the strands were too long, and the pain too great, to continue. A few minutes later, Walter finally died, but every second was spent enduring agony that only hell could conceive.
Something was hiding in the shadows of the store, and the creature’s teeth chattered as it watched the chaos unfold.
16 Years Later
March 10th, 2012
“I have to go back to Widowsfield,” said Alma as Paul held her.
“Why?”
Alma pushed out of his arms and stood up. She squealed in pain when she put pressure on her foot, and then limped through the door of her apartment with Paul following behind. “I don’t know.”
Paul jokingly responded, “That makes sense.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Alma went to the breakfast counter and started to rifle through the contents of her purse that had spilled out. She found Rachel’s card and showed it to Paul as if it should mean something to him. “I don’t know what happened there.”
“Okay, neither do I,” said Paul. “You never told me anything about it. You just said that you wanted to leave that part of your life behind you.”
“I know, and I did, but there’s more to it than that.” She sat on the stool and started to tap the business card against the countertop. She debated calling Rachel now, but it was too early in the morning to wake her. Alma felt frantic and got up to make a pot of coffee.
“Are you going to explain, or what?” asked Paul.
“I can’t, that’s the problem.”
“Alma, you’re not making any sense.”
“What’s going on?” asked Jacker from the hallway. He was still on the floor and was just now waking up. “What happened?”
“Just stay there, Jacker,” said Paul.
The big man groaned, but did as he was told. He folded his arms over his barrel chest and sighed.