“I learned a lot about power and possession, and invasion. That’s what he did, you know: he invaded me. He forced himself inside me, invading me in my most personal spaces. I am not letting that happen again.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, forming thin snail trails on her skin.
“I don’t know what it means anymore, but I love you.” Again, his words sounded ridiculous, but Sarah seemed to understand what he was trying to say.
She nodded, glanced away, and then behind her, at Connor, who stood in the bathroom doorway clutching his PSP like a religious artifact—a weapon to repel the demons. “Love isn’t the issue here. The issue is hate. Are we capable of enough hate, enough primal loathing, to finish this thing?” She looked back at Robert, searching for a strength he did not even think was there.
“I hope so,” he said, sitting down on the bed. “But if we aren’t, we need to learn fast.” He glanced to Sarah’s side, at the mirror on the wardrobe door, and barely even recognized the man who stared back at him. He was losing himself, his features fading and his connection with the world degrading. Soon there would be nothing left but a smudge.
Sarah picked up her phone off the bedside cabinet. She held it up for them both to see the screen.
“Watch this with me. Know exactly what it is you’ve done.” She pressed a button to start the clip.
Robert watched in silence. After a few seconds, the scene altered, becoming something he could not remember. Corbeau’s wife turned to look directly into the phone camera, and she smiled. The smile sliced across the entire bottom of her face, bisecting it. Her nose changed, becoming like a pig’s snout. Her mouth opened wide, wider, showing nothing but blackness.
“This didn’t happen before.” Sarah’s hand was shaking, but she kept it together. “What is this? What’s happening to us? Where the hell are we?” She threw the phone onto the floor.
Robert shook his head. “We’re nowhere,” he said, wishing he knew what that meant.
The mobile phone twitched on the floor. Slowly, it began to move, and flipped over to display the screen. Nathan Corbeau’s face, wide and pale and hideous, stared at them. It pressed against the small glass panel, and then made it bulge outwards, as if it were made of rubber.
Calmly, Sarah got up, walked over to the phone, and stamped on it.
“We have to do something,” she said. “We have to stop them.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon as a family, locked up together and eating room service. With Molly rested and awake, they played games, they held hands; they even told each other stories, sitting in a tight circle on the master bed. This strange behavior added yet another layer of unreality to the whole situation, but by now Robert had learned to accept the weirdness. If this was just a fiction, a story being told to make a reader or a listener more afraid of the dark, then he intended to play his part well. The ending, when it came, would be brutal, but he would ensure it was also swift…and just.
The innocent must suffer, he thought, and the guilty must be punished. Was that a line from a book or a film? He was not sure, but it had always resonated with him, seeming to mean something beyond the boundaries of fiction. The question now was, who was innocent and who was guilty? He suspected everyone had a little bit of both about them, and the true test would be strength of conviction.
The Corbeaus were animals in search of entertainment, but the Mitchells were now a family in search of meaning.
Robert closed his eyes and thought: Let the strongest survive.
WEDNESDAY
3:00 A.M.
He parked the car half a mile away from the access road, and they journeyed the rest of the way on foot. The night was warm but breezy; the wind helped keep them cool as they trod the narrow road toward Number One Oval Lane. The air around them was charged with energy. The trees along the side of the road appeared as if they were being created in that instant, filling in the gaps.
Robert was carrying a large carving knife. He had taken it from the hotel kitchen when he sneaked in there before they left, looking for a weapon. Sarah was content with the smaller blade they had been carrying in the car, along with the camping and cooking gear from their trip to the Lakes (a trip that now seemed so long ago, part of another lifetime). Connor carried his cricket bat. It was old and solid; an expensive gift one Christmas, when he first had fallen in love with the game. Molly was frightened of weapons of any kind, but under duress she had finally relented and taken up a small meat cleaver—again from the hotel kitchen—which she could conceal beneath the sleeve of her cardigan.
Ordinary weapons for an ordinary family trapped in extraordinary circumstances.
Robert could not help but smile at the sight they must have made, tramping along the side of the road, kitchen utensils and sporting goods gripped in their hands, and murder in their hearts. In his younger years, Robert had enjoyed procuring so-called “video nasties” to watch with his friends: notorious films like Straw Dogs, Last House on the Left, Deliverance, I Spit on Your Grave…movies where normal people were driven to atrocious acts of violence in defense of their homes, their family, or their chastity. This moment felt like a scene from any one of those films and their countless imitators…and just as unreal. He wondered if the character of Sergeant McMahon would make a final, vital appearance, or if his part in the proceedings was now over and done with.
“We need a theme, some soundtrack music.” He felt like laughing, but realized that would be insane, and possibly dangerous. If he started, he might never stop.
“What?” Sarah looked at him, the knife blade glinting in her hand. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. It isn’t important.” He stared at the road ahead and waited for the way to clear. There was nothing physical blocking their path, but he felt like he was pushing through layers of something he could not see; invisible curtains, or skeins of flesh that hung down from the sky like drapes.
A sound drew his attention—the cawing of a bird from somewhere above. Robert slowed his pace and looked up: the distant moon flared in his eyes, dimming his vision, but when it cleared, he saw two crows perched on a branch in a ragged tree. The crows shuffled sideways along the branch, as if following him. One of the birds released a white wad of guano and flapped its wings. The crows cawed again and Robert looked away, afraid.
That was reaclass="underline" fear was real. He had managed to deflect its effects since leaving the house, where he had rescued (if that was even the right word for what he had done) Molly, but now it had returned, stronger than ever. This confrontation he sought may be final, a fight to the death, and he had to consider the consequences of whatever action they were planning to take.
He was not fully convinced his family believed in the monstrous nature of the Corbeaus, but they believed in him enough to take up arms and follow him here. At the very least, something would be proved.
He gripped the knife, and it felt good. His hands adapted to the handle, fingers flowing around it as if the thing was meant to be in his hand. Fuck the consequences, he thought, and suddenly he was no longer so afraid.
Sarah reached out and grabbed his hand, and he squeezed her fingers. Familiar warmth passed between them, and once again he was proud of her for saving their personal row for later. He knew the time must come when they would face what he had done, but right now they were united, a team, and ready to go into combat against a common foe. Even if their marriage fell apart, they would always have this, and it would sustain them through the wreckage.