The grandfather clock emitted another garbled gong.
Almost time.
She turned half-glazed eyes toward the newspaper on the table. She cringed at the sight of the man on the front page. His face had haunted her nightmares and ravaged her sanity. This fiend had crept into her house, abducted her son, then viciously butchered him and burned him alive.
“Monster!”
She ripped off the front page and shredded The Fog’s face, tearing at the newspaper until her hands were black. In a fury her arm swept across the table, sending the paper bits into the air. As the freak snowstorm of dead gray flakes floated to the floor, she gave voice to her rage.
“I hope you rot in hell!”
Tears slid down her cheeks as she gazed at the sparsely furnished cabin. What she saw instead was Sam’s empty bed, the gaping window in his room and the police officer holding the clown’s shoe. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she saw Sam in the car, bound and gagged. The entire explosion played itself out like a horror film that had been incorrectly fed into the projector, jerking and skipping until it froze on a shot of the scorched baseball cap.
Sadie picked up the gun. It was as if a stranger held it.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Sam,” she wept.
Through the kitchen window, she saw them. Six small bodies.
“One fine day, in the middle of the night…”
Outside, a pale hand reached for the window.
“You’re not real,” she cried, even as her hand pressed against the icy glass. “You don’t exist.”
She looked down at the gun in her hand and caressed it.
“No!” the ghost children screamed.
A final gong echoed in the small room. Midnight had arrived.
“Happy Mother’s Day.”
She took a steadying breath, pressed the gun to her head and flicked back the safety, shuddering at the soft click.
“Mommy’s coming, Sam.”
Against her will, her eyes settled on the gifts on the counter.
Why are they always arranged in the same order?
In the nanosecond before she pulled the trigger, the answer became crystal clear.
28
Sadie’s death didn’t go according to plan.
She expected to hear a deafening roar, maybe feel a twinge of heat and then sink into a black abyss. However, there was only silence. No booming blast, no pain, no blood spatter. Just a faint click.
She jerked the trigger again, this time with more force.
Nothing.
She batted away a stray tear. “You can’t do anything right, Sadie. Not even kill yourself with a fucking loaded gun.”
If it weren’t so tragic, she would have laughed.
With a trembling hand, she dropped the gun on the table, hoping it would go off and finish the job she hadn’t been able to. She glared at it, wondering why she felt sober all of a sudden. The overdose of drugs and alcohol should have knocked her out at the very least.
Maybe I’m unconscious. Or in a coma.
But she knew she wasn’t.
“Maybe I am dead,” she rasped, hopeful.
The sound of her voice assured her this wasn’t true either.
Sensing that she was being watched, she turned toward the window. Outside, the children had ceased their chanting. With the shifting veil of fog behind them, they stood motionless, watching her… waiting.
She flicked a look at the counter, at the message—for that’s what it was. She could see it so clearly now.
Hershey, envelope, licorice, pen, onion.
“H… E… L… P.” Seeing the onion, she frowned. “One of you needs to learn how to spell. Un-yun. U. And I ate the Smarties. S.”
HELP US.
In a shocked trance, she walked to the back door. When she opened it, three nearly identical boys and three almost identical girls silently stepped inside. None spoke a word, but moved as one, almost gliding toward the warmth of the fire. She surveyed each child, noting the close shaved dark hair of the boys and the butchered blond of the girls. The boys wore two-piece pajama sets in gray, yellow and navy blue, while the girls wore matching nightgowns in mauve, aqua and pink.
“Who are you?” she croaked.
The girl wearing mauve stepped forward. “I’m Ashley.”
“No, you aren’t.” Sadie pointed to the girl in pink. “She is.”
The girl in aqua smiled. “We’re all Ashley.”
“And we’re all Adam,” said the boy in gray.
“Adam and Ashley are dead,” Sadie said in a dull tone.
“We know, Thadie,” Gray Adam said.
The boy who likes marshmallows!
She groaned in confusion. “Why would your parents name you after dead children? And why would they give you all the same names?”
“Father named us,” Pink Ashley said tightly.
“I don’t under—”
“Come with uth!” Blue Adam pleaded. “But you have to hurry.”
Without hesitation, she snatched up a flashlight and followed them out into the tempest. The winds raged and the clouds released a torrential downpour, but the canopy of evergreens sheltered them somewhat from the storm. The single beam from her flashlight lit the ground as they picked their way through the woods and down to the river’s edge.
Sadie noticed the rock bridge. Before she knew what they were planning, two of the girls began to file across the slippery surface, arms outstretched for balance. They were followed by two of the boys.
“Wait!” she yelled.
“What’s wrong?” Blue Adam asked, reaching for her hand.
“It’s too dangerous. Someone might fall in.”
“We won’t.”
“We should stay on this side,” she argued. “The river’s going to flood.”
She shone her flashlight on the boulder on the far shore. The water level had almost risen to the orange line.
“Trust me,” he said, tugging her hand.
She sucked in a breath and followed him onto the first rock. It was dry and ridged, making for easy footing. The next slab was damp and covered with a thin slime of algae. She made her way across, praying that she wouldn’t drop the flashlight or plunge into the turbulent river. Minutes later, she was on the other side, racing along the shore, winded and trying to keep up. She was nearly sober—nearly sane—for the first time in weeks.
Maybe months.
“This way,” Gray Adam called, waving her on.
She moaned. “Can’t you slow down a bit?”
Pink Ashley took pity on her and waited. “We don’t have a lotta time. C’mon.”
Sadie shot her a brief smile. “I’m not as young as you. And I’m a bit out of shape.”
“No, you’re not,” the girl said. “It’s the booze and drugs.”
Sadie stumbled. How’d she know?
“I just do,” Pink Ashley said.
“So you’re a mind reader now, are you?” Sadie said, slightly amused. “What am I thinking now?”
Pink Ashley took a few steps away, then hesitated. “You’re thinking that you should’ve bought more bullets.”
As the girl disappeared into the heavy brush, Sadie plodded behind, pondering her words. Ashley was right about the bullets.
Soon, the babbling of the river faded. When the trees parted, an icy field stretched out before them. A few yards to the left stood a rusted utility shed with metal sides and a corrugated tin roof. As the rain clanged down, a strange humming sound emanated from within the shed.
Sadie started toward it, but something drew her attention.
At the far end of the field, the blackened hull of what was once a two-story house created a sharp contrast to the opalescent ice around it. The house resembled a false front in a ghost town, its empty window frames scorched by a previous fire that had trailed its way up to the roof. A collapsed doorway revealed a deteriorated stairway that climbed to a non-existent second floor. The back wall had buckled and was mostly gone.