“You see?” Doug said. “Always among us.”
“Oh no,” Jack said, his face crumbling to an expression of utter despair. “That poor, dear girl.”
“What’s happening?” Lindsay cried. Panic replaced her pain. It sparked throughout her entire system, making her skin tingle and twitch disturbingly. Desperate to be free, she tried again to step over the threshold, and another sheet of burning agony pressed against her body. This time her scream was piercing. She danced anxiously from foot to foot, unable to understand what was happening to her.
“Jack?” she shrieked. “What’s going on?”
And for the second time that night, Lindsay felt something move low in her abdomen, like a worm twisting to make itself comfortable.
Mark?
Always among us.
17
A boy named Chris Herren wandered through the woods, swatting at the ground and the occasional shrub with a thick tree branch. Snow crunched beneath his boots. A chill wind worked its way beneath his scarf.
Get some fresh air, his father said. You’re not going to enjoy the trip if you just sit inside.
Yeah, like this festival of nettles and poison oak was going to improve if he immersed himself in it. He didn’t know what the hell to do in the woods. He knew what bears did in the woods, which made his current trek all the more disturbing, but Chris had grown up in a co-op in Midtown Manhattan. He didn’t even like to be close to nature, let alone surrounded by it. They were supposed to be skiing, but there wasn’t enough snow. Oh, there was enough to make walking a chore, but not enough good powder to justify waiting in the lift line. They didn’t even bother driving to the resort that morning.
He swung the tree branch, connected solidly with a fir trunk, and dropped the stick. Chris looked back down the trail the way he’d come, and then up the hill. A glimmer of light caught his eye, and he peered through the trees to get a better look. More than likely, he was seeing a bit of sunlight catching the top of a discarded beer can. But as he focused on the place from which the glint came, he noticed more movement. A slender tendril of smoke rose through a break in the trees.
A chimney? Neighbors?
Chris wondered if anyone his age lived up there. Or even better, maybe some college kids had rented a cabin for the Christmas break. Thoughts of keg parties and scantily clad coeds flitted into his mind.
It was worth a look.
The cabin, a large log structure, appeared slowly. Each step Chris took revealed another row of logs, then the break of the porch on the right. A window came into view, dark as night. Then he saw the porch railing and the rest of the window.
Chris hugged a tree, not wanting to get caught sneaking up on the place. He just wanted to see what his neighbors looked like. If they seemed cool, he’d wander up, pretending to not even notice the cabin until he was standing right next to it. The place looked empty, but he saw a car parked in the drive. Sunlight shimmered off a perfectly polished bumper. That’s what had caught his eye on the trail.
To his left Chris noticed a slight rise that would put him above the cabin’s foundation. He walked to it and climbed up. When he reached the top of the mound, he peered at the cabin and was shocked to see a face in the window.
She was a pretty girl, though a bit plump in the face. Maybe she’s just built a little thick, Chris thought. He couldn’t be sure, because from where he stood, he only saw her from the breasts up, which was cool. They looked nice. And she was definitely cute.
He tried to look busy, tried to look cool. He tried to look like anything but a stalker who was trying to sneak a peek into the house, but he was right out in the open on the rise. He smiled.
The girl waved at him, and Chris felt a tingle of excitement in his belly.
The family vacation is looking up, he thought.
Then another face appeared. The man was only slightly taller than the girl. His face was thick and strong-looking. Maybe he was the girl’s father or husband, but Chris didn’t think so. At least, he hoped not. She was about his age, and the guy looked as old as his granddad. He also looked pissed off.
The man wrapped an arm around the girl and guided her away from the window. Chris’s sense of disappointment flared, then went out completely. He saw the bulge of the girl’s stomach when she turned to the side.
No way, he thought. Pregnant is so not hot.
So Chris walked off the snowy mound. He picked up the trail where he’d left it and began the walk down.
EPILOGUE
A mournful rumbling shook the old Georgian deeply. The sound was like thunder, but last night’s storm was over, and the way Shirley rolled up on her knees with her jaws stretched open made it seem as if, somehow, it had come from her.
She panted, shivered, exhaled, and grinned giddily. The moonlight picked up a patina of ghostly sweat on her face that made her pale skin glisten. She blinked a few times and noticed how the others were staring. Then she began to sob.
“I told you it was horrible,” she said, collapsing forward. “That poor girl, trapped with that thing inside her.”
A nonplussed Anne rolled her eyes. “Please. That overprivileged brat got just what she deserved. She made it with a guy she barely knew without any protection. Like she didn’t know about the birds and the bees?” She rolled closer to the whimpering Shirley in a predatory fashion. “But the big question is why you got all Rainman to try to keep from telling it.”
Anne looked up and melodramatically scanned the ceiling, where flecks of fraying plaster jutted from darkness. “Hmm. No Christmas lights or angelic hordes. I’m guessing it wasn’t your story. Why the fuss?”
Shirley tried to slow her breathing. “When it first came to me, I didn’t know it wasn’t mine. I was…I was just afraid it might be, I guess.”
“Right,” Anne said. “But that’s never happened before. Did it hit too close to home? Were you maybe not a virgin when you died?”
Shirley looked nervously around. “No, I would never! I mean, I don’t know! That’s not fair! You know I don’t remember! None of us do!”
Her objections were loud, bringing Daphne and Mary out of the story’s haze.
“What are you on about now, Anne?” Daphne said, her brow twisted deeply in disapproval.
“You’ve no heart at all,” Mary chimed in. “Lindsay was in love. It was tragic.”
“Well, I did like her spirit, if not her taste in men,” Daphne said. “She was a fighter. Thought on her feet. Guess you can’t always help what the heart wants.”
“Yeah,” Anne said. “That’s why we have laws. And agreements. Things that people can stick to when it’s not in their selfish best interests. You know, like agreements about how games should be played?”
Daphne sighed loudly. “That again. How much longer are you going to drag our noses through it? We gave you your three tries and you lost. Now you’re taking it out on Shirley? Can’t you let anything go?”
Anne’s face wrinkled. “Maybe I just can’t stomach the way Shirleykins whines even when she wins. She’s the only one who’s never even been in the Red Room, right? What’s that about?”