Mark Edward Hall

Chapter 1

APRIL 20th

The telephone call that saved their lives, and nearly destroyed them, came at five o’clock on a rainy, windy morning in April.

Douglas McArthur was having a terrible dream.

No . . . please, God, no. Not after all this time. It couldn’t be happening all over again. I need to wake up before this gets out of hand.

But it was already too late; he was fully immersed in the nightmare and there didn’t seem to be any way out of it. He saw the shape standing on the door stoop—tall, impossibly tall—wearing the familiar fleshy, black robe, the cowl covering the head, the single burning red eye bright as a miniature sun. And he saw the kid’s startled expression a split second before his body fossilized, turning to something akin to sandstone, and then crumbling to dust at his feet. And it was so real, like he was somehow a part of it, connected to it in some elemental way. Yet he knew it was impossible. He was asleep in his bed with Annie beside him.

But the dream that could not be real would not end. He knew the killer was aware of him watching, knowing that he knew, and taking some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing. He saw the shape streak past the dead boy and move on into the house.

He heard the dog’s hysterical baying halt in mid-stream, and then he again saw living human beings turn instantly to fossils and crumble to dust, the little girl running, hiding under her bed, the red eye watching her, ancient and implacable, like a permanent rent in the fabric of some alien universe.

Come out, little girl. I’m not going to hurt you.

“You hurt my Mommy and Daddy,” the little girl said. “And you hurt my big brother.”

I had to, little one. They were bad. But you’re not bad. You’re good. You’re pure. I won’t hurt you. I promise. I never hurt the pure ones. The pure ones all live forever in my House of Bones.

“But I don’t want to live in your House of Bones!”

You must, darling; it is my Darkness, my Sanctuary. Come with me so that I may prepare the way.

The burning red eye exploded suddenly inside Doug’s head, fragmenting his psyche and scattering it into a thousand black and flailing creatures, like pieces of living confetti. Doug sucked ragged breath into his lungs as he tumbled from the edge of a cliff and fell into an abyss. His scream resounded in his head even as the fluttering bits of confetti morphed into birds—hundreds, perhaps thousands of them—squawking, squealing, shrieking, trying to drive their evil noise into his brain. He was all sweat-soaked and trembling with fear. His saliva tasted like acid on his tongue and his heart pounded out a brisk rhythm in his chest.

He tried to come awake, knowing somehow that he must, that his life, and probably Annie’s, depended on it. He felt himself slowly rising up out of his thick stratum of slumber, panic fighting fatigue, lunacy battling common sense.

In a sudden scene-change he was sitting up in bed. Somehow the evil creatures—confetti birds—had broken through the windows and into the bedroom. They were streaming in by the hundreds, gathering on the mantle, the chests of drawers, perching on the bed posts. They looked to be some sort of blackbirds, but alien, a species he did not recognize; birds from hell, their bodies and heads misshapen, plumage disheveled, unkempt, black and shiny like wet tar. Staring menacingly out of their misshapen heads were bulbous eyes the color of arterial blood. He looked over and noted, in a wholly clinical mind, that Annie’s face was completely covered in the grotesque creatures. And as he watched, the loathsome things began to abandon their feast, and he saw that Annie’s eyes had been pecked out. A viscous mixture of pus-like fluid and blood poured from the blank eye-cavities and ran down the sides of her face in variegated streaks. The dreadful mixture pooled on the pillow around her matted blonde hair. Annie’s half-eaten tongue hung bloodily from her mouth.

Doug moaned loudly and came awake with his heart in his mouth. He had to grasp the edge of the mattress to keep from tumbling off the bed. His breath burst from his lungs in a painful gasp as sweat trickled down the sides of his face. Oh, dear God, he thought. Such terrible, terrible dreams.

“Annie!” he cried out, still not entirely certain of his consciousness. But he could see now that she was okay. Her eyes were closed in sleep but decidedly intact, as were the windows. There were no alien birds in the room, no pieces of living confetti, but somehow he still felt their menacing presence, as though they had been there and they’d left some sort of bitter residue at the center of his psyche. A phrase suddenly surfaced in his mind, more a plea than anything else: Please, mister, my name is Trinity. I’m lost and I need your help.

Oh, God no, Doug thought. This can’t be happening. I can’t do this again.

But the voice reiterated: I’m lost and I need your help.

“Where are you, Trinity?” Doug whispered, knowing even as he acknowledged the plea what the answer would be, and that it was futile to begin with; he could not help the child. How many others had he tried to help and had failed them all.

“I’m trapped in the House of Bones and I can’t get out. You’re the only one who can help me!”

Doug put his hands over his ears, trying to block out the voice. “No!” he moaned. “I can’t help you. I don’t know how. This can’t be happening all over again. I won’t accept it. I won’t listen.”

But he knew it was already too late. Somewhere not far away the morning headline would look something like this:

FAMILY MYSTERIOUSLY MURDERED IN THEIR HOME! LITTLE GIRL GONE MISSING!

Doug had this . . . connection. He couldn’t explain what it was, why he had it, or from where it had come. Nobody could. Not the greatest psychiatrists or the most gifted policemen. And oh how he hated himself for having it.

But he couldn’t think about that now. Something was terribly wrong, something other than the knowledge of the dead family and the missing child. He felt it in every fiber of his being. Awake now, he looked toward the window. The pale light of an uncertain dawn had begun to steal its way into the bedroom.

“Phone,” Annie said stirring, her voice muffled by the pillow.

“What?”

“Phone’s ringing.”

It was then that Doug realized what Annie was saying; the phone was ringing. It probably had been for several minutes. “Christ,” he said, leaning over and clumsily grabbing it up.

It was odd, later, when his mind would come back to the events of that morning—as it did often—how he always remembered the sound of the phone, and how it had somehow become a part of the dream, interwoven with the cries and shrieks of the menacing birds.

“Hello?” he said, his voice oddly tentative.

“Douglas, this is your father-in-law.”

Doug stiffened. He was dimly aware of holding the phone receiver too tight. He turned to his wife. “Here, you can talk to your daughter.”

“No, Douglas! I don’t care how much you hate me! Listen to what I have to say!”

“Screw you!”

“Get Annie out of the house, now!”

“What the hell—?”

“—Just shut up and listen to me for a moment! Someone is going to try and take her and they will kill you if you try to stop them. Am I getting through to you, Douglas? They killed my wife and they will kill you.”

“Jesus Christ, Ed, when?”

“Last night.”

Annie stretched over and switched on her bedside lamp. She was sitting up now, staring fixedly at Doug, her face pale, like chalk.

“Go!” the man on the end of the line insisted. “Get Annie out of the house now before it’s too late. They want her and they’ll do anything to get her.”

“You set this up—”

“Just do as I say, Douglas, or I promise you, you will be dead. Don’t take time to pack and don’t speak of where you’re going out loud. Annie has my secure number. Have her call me when you’re in a safe location.” The phone went dead in Doug’s hand. He stared at it, unable to loosen his numb fingers.

Annie was still staring at him, but now her eyes were glassy with grief. Wetness stained her cheeks. Doug threw the phone away, jumped out of bed and began dressing hastily.

“Is there something wrong with Mama?” Annie said.

“I’m sorry, Annie.”

“What happened?”

“Get dressed! There’s no time—”

“Tell me!”

“It’s that son-of-a-bitch father of yours!”

A noise somewhere—not loud or particularly alarming, just unusual—brought Annie to her senses. She moved quickly and quietly out of bed, slipped into jeans and a T-shirt. Doug slid open the drawer of his bedside stand and grabbed the automatic. He pulled the magazine back and chambered a round.

“Come on,” he whispered.

In the dim light of dawn he took Annie by the hand and began making his way toward the door, but stopped suddenly, thinking better of it. He could hear the raucous noise of a hundred migrating birds outside in the leafless trees, shrieking in his brain like fingernails on a blackboard. And now the smell. Christ!

“Oh, Jesus,” Annie said, her hand tightening in Doug’s. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Fucking birds?” Doug said.

“No, the smell. It’s gas!”

“Shit,” Doug said, turning back toward the window. He let go of Annie’s hand and pushed the window up. Outside rain gusted in sheets. Beneath the window there was a small landing with a narrow and steep set of stairs attached along the side of the house. Doug had added it when they’d finished building the place five years ago. Nothing fancy, but protection enough in case of fire.

He went out first, and as he did so, a flock of startled blackbirds took noisy wing from the balcony railing, their shrieking flight causing Doug’s heart to hammer wildly in his chest. Doug stood frozen. On the railing perched a lone straggler, its head cocked as it stared coldly at Doug with one small red eye. The second eye appeared to be missing; a milky and membranous film covered it. Doug almost stopped breathing. The Collector, he thought, as a series of terrible memories began flooding through his mind. But he could not think about that now. He never wanted to think about it again. He had to get Annie to safety. He swiped the grotesque creature from the railing with the hand that held the gun. The bird flew into the gloom, cawing loudly as it did so. Its neck was craned to the side and it appeared to be glaring back at Doug with that one terrible red jewel-of-an-eye. Doug aimed the automatic at the ascending creature and almost pulled the trigger. But something would not allow him to do so. He shivered as a dark and ethereal fluttering in his head tried to paralyze him. No way, he thought. You’re not doing this to me. Not here. Not now. But the sensation would not go away; it was sludgy in his head, like cold motor oil.

Doug briskly shook his head. Come on, you need to be alert. You can’t think about this now. He surveyed the back yard, guessed it looked okay. Hard to tell with the rain sheeting across the lawn the way it was. He took Annie’s hand and helped her out onto the landing. The driving torrents caused her to quake with cold shivers.

On the horizon dawn punched eerie pink light into an otherwise dead eastern sky.

“Oh, God, my paintings!” Annie said, pulling away from him and trying to get back into the house.

Doug grabbed her wrist. “Sorry, Annie, there’s no time.”

“But—”

“No buts. Your life is more important than those paintings.”

He gingerly led the way down the treacherous steps, the gun pointed, amazed that no one was there to greet them. Something didn’t add up. But there wasn’t time to think about that either. His instincts told him to move. They hit the ground running across the spacious back lawn toward the woods beyond.

Behind them the house exploded in a hive of sound and light. They were both blown forward onto their hands and knees, their backs nearly flash-fried. They were up and running again in an instant. Gunfire exploded behind them, several weapons of the automatic variety, followed by the sharp commands of an authoritative voice. They did not stop, or turn to fight, but kept running. A hundred yards or so into the woods Annie halted, doubling over.

“The baby!” she said.

Doug tenderly touched her belly. She hadn’t yet begun to show. Only three months along. It would be their first. Now someone wanted Annie. But Doug knew what they really wanted. Long ago he’d been warned, but he’d refused to accept it. Now he was being forced to reassess his thinking. If what he’d been told was true Annie would be safe but a prisoner, until the delivery. Then God knows what would happen to her, God knows what would happen to him, or anyone else who knew, for that matter. And that son of a bitch father of hers, who’d made some sort of sick deal with the devil, would have the child. Their child. For what purpose he could not even venture a guess.

Doug propped Annie up, looking worriedly back the way they’d come. “We can’t stop now. They’re too close.”

“Maybe I’m losing it,” she cried.

“No fucking way!” Doug said. “That’s our kid and you’re not losing it!” He tucked the automatic into his waistband. “Here, I’ll carry you.”

“No, I’m too heavy.”

Ignoring her protests he scooped her up in his arms and continued his run through the woods toward the distant highway.

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