As Frank's axe finally broke through the doorframe, Eileen tightened the knot around her waist. She felt silly being tied to a rope "just in case", but from what Henry had told her that night, his room was dangerous. Very dangerous. And if her suspicions were correct, it might still be. She just hoped that...
Stop it. I can't think about that right now.
Frank pulled at the door, but it still seemed to be stuck in place. He picked up the fire axe again and chopped away at the area around the doorknob for a few minutes, but even after the bolt lay exposed the door refused to open. He tugged at it one last time, then bent forward and rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath.
"It's as if something's holding it closed from the inside," he panted.
Chains…Henry did mention chains…
"There were chains across the door," she said. "When he was stuck in there."
"Chains?" Mrs. Adams asked.
"Yes. On the inside. He told me. Maybe…"
"Maybe," Father Kelley said as he rolled up his sleeves, "those chains keep the door from opening out…" He looked at Frank significantly. His mouth was a hard line.
"…but might not keep us from smashing it in," Frank said slowly. "It's worth a try." They backed up a few steps from the door, and squared their shoulders.
"On three," Father Kelley said. "One…two…"
WHAM! The two men slammed into the door. It bent, but didn't budge.
"Are you OK, Frank?" Mrs. Adams asked.
Frank shrugged and rolled his shoulder back. "Fine. Another try?"
"One…two…"
WHAM! The door splintered around its hinges. The four of them stood there surveying the damage.
"So we can break it," Father Kelley said. "Whatever's holding it closed can't hold out forever. One more go should do it." Frank nodded.
As they gathered themselves for the next shot, Eileen stepped forward to stand between them. Frank gaped at her, but Father Kelley merely asked, "Are you sure you want to do this? It will hurt."
She shrugged. "No worse than anything else that's happened to me lately."
He grinned at her. "Count us down, Eileen."
"One…two…THREE!"
WHAM!
They staggered back from the door. Her shoulder was numb from the impact, but she didn't care. She could see the splintered wood around the hinges, see the screws holding the wood to the metal bent and twisted. For a moment, the door stood unmoving…then, with a metallic groan, the hinges pulled away from the shattered wood and it slowly toppled into the room. The two men grabbed its bottom edge and dragged it out into the hallway. Its inside surface was clean and white.
No chains on the door. So why…
The room stood open now. The interior was completely black…she couldn't see a thing inside. The darkness looked as though it might swallow them alive. She peered behind her, to where the long ropes snaked down the hall and ended in large, round coils. There was enough rope there to pull her back from the top floor of the hotel across the street...plenty of length. She found that irrationally comforting.
Father Kelley was giving Frank final directions. "If we're not out in five minutes, pull. We'll tug once for OK, and twice for 'get help'. No tug means…"
"Get help now, right?" Mrs. Adams said. Eileen grinned at her.
"Got it," said Frank.
"Ready?" Father Kelley asked Eileen. She nodded, hoping that she looked more confident than she felt. He smiled and squeezed her hand, and together they stepped over the threshold into the blackness.
The first thing she noticed was the smell. My God, the smell. The whole place stank of rotted blood and rust and something else, something that made her stomach churn...a sweet, sickly stench. It permeated the air and seeped into her clothes and felt like mildew in her nostrils. She swallowed hard, and she saw Father Kelley blanch. She knew what it was because she'd smelled it before...it had been everywhere they'd gone that night, and then on Henry after he'd found Walter's body in his back room. It was the smell of decay and death. The last time she'd smelled it had been in her dream, when…
…I can't think about that…I can't think about that…
Outside, the afternoon was clear and bright, and the late-summer sun's warmth and light filtered into every nook and cranny of Ashfield. However, very little of either entered through the windows at the other side of the room. Rectangular patches of orange glow indicated their locations, but little else could be seen. The light switch by the door clicked ineffectively, and the room remained shrouded in darkness. The heat in the space was oppressive.
Eileen fumbled for her flashlight, and switched it on. It took a moment for details to resolve themselves, and several more for her to entirely digest what she was seeing. Everything was…orange. The floor, walls, and furniture...all orange. Orange and red and rusty. It reminded her of the throbbing red walls in the other apartment building, but for the color. Indistinct shapes glistened in the dancing beam of the light. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she recognized the bookshelf, the TV on its stand, the pillow on the couch…just as she'd seen them in her dream. And…
There they are. The chains. Hanging on either side of the doorframe, as if they'd been ripped off of the door. But Henry said that they wouldn't come off no matter what he'd tried…it makes no sense.
She reached for them automatically, but stopped short.
There's blood on the chains, mixed in with the orange stuff…blood and…something else, too.
Father Kelley stepped forward. The carpet crunched under his first step, and squished wetly under his second. Eileen reached toward the kitchen counter and extended a finger to touch the crustiness. It was very warm. It gave slightly under the pressure, and then flaked away.
She felt movement under her hand. Before her eyes, the hole in the crust vibrated, and mutated. She yanked her finger back quickly as the surface swelled to fill the hole left by the break. It was moving…pulsating with energy and life. It reminded her of a special she'd seen on TV about volcanoes a couple of years ago...the orange lava roiling, flowing, liquid and glowing with solid pieces bobbing up and down in the stream.
"Careful," Father Kelley said softly. "Eileen, we don't know what this stuff will do."
"Have you ever…"
"No. Never."
Everything was covered in this moving, bubbling...stuff. Large reddish-brown blobs stretched across the linoleum floor of the kitchen area, flowing liquidly through the orange goo like oil in water. Two picture frames rested on top of a cabinet, which was pulled away from the hole in the wall. The pictures within the frames were just barely visible through the sludge, but she guessed that they were family photos, like she'd seen in her nightmare.
Funny...somehow I never thought of him as having a family. I mean, everyone has family, but he never seemed like the family type. Don't know why not...
The ceiling fan had fallen down at some point, and taken chunks out of the wooden table in the front room. It lay in a twisted heap of metal on the floor. A few cardboard boxes sat next to it, partly filled with personal possessions. Photos, videotapes, books…there wasn't a lot, really. Very little in the apartment remained to be packed. It looked as if he was just starting to move in, not just starting to move out. There were few clues to his personality, or signs of a life lived.
"You two OK in there?" Frank called from the outside. "Can't see a thing."
"We're fine," she replied. "Keep that door open."
Father Kelley wrapped his hand in a handkerchief and carefully opened the door to the laundry room. It was dark inside, but uninhabited, and untouched by the orange goo.
"What's this?" Father Kelley asked.
"A...oh, my God," Eileen said. "Sorry, Father. I think I know what this is. This must be one of the holes that Henry used to go back and forth between here and the other places. He told me about them. I'd never seen one, not until now...I couldn't see them before."
"But now you can."
"Yes."
"Is that significant, do you think?"
"I don't know."
The red markings surrounding the hole were glowing faintly. The hole itself gaped open, dark, but silent. There was blood spattered around the dryer. Boxes littered the floor, their contents strewn about and soaked in the blood. Father Kelley closed the door again, gently, and they headed down the hall.
The hallway was even darker than the front room. As they made their way carefully along, the carpet squelched under each step, but didn't crunch as it had before. Eileen searched its surface, but no sign of a crust was present, and no footsteps could be seen in the red muck. The hallway terminated after the first set of doors, and the wall at the end had an enormous, ragged hole, with clean edges.
"What happened here?" Father Kelley asked. "Do you know?"
"The pickaxe," Eileen said. "That's why…"
"What?"
"We ended up in the other room...the other 302, when Joseph lived there."
"Joseph…wasn't he the writer who used to live here? Did they ever find him?"
"No. But we did. Kind of. He was in the ceiling. He told us what we had to do…what Henry had to do. I'm sorry, Father. It doesn't make any sense."
"That's all right. It doesn't have to."
"There was a pickaxe stuck in the wall, right here. Henry brought it back here with him. That must be how he made this hole. This wall blocks off the back of the apartment. It has to. The apartment is too small otherwise." She had no desire to tell him what Henry had found back there, and it didn't seem relevant just then.
She bent to peer through the hole, but Father Kelley stepped in front of her. "That can wait, Eileen. Let's try the doors."
The door on the right was sealed by the layer of muck. It took their combined weight to break it open. Inside was a bathroom, much like hers, except for...
"Another hole," Father Kelley muttered. "This one's blocked, though."
The second Hole seemed to be completely filled with some hard substance. Debris littered the floor, which was splashed with old blood as well. The bathtub held several inches of rotting blood, and a wad of soaked fabric...a piece of clothing, maybe, or a towel. She didn't dare reach in to find out. There seemed to be something blocking the toilet, but that also didn't bear close investigation. It clearly hadn't been used in days. Nothing in there had...except, perhaps, for the toothbrush that lay abandoned on the floor in the debris. But the blood on its handle was dry. So it had been a while since it had been used for whatever it had been used for.
That left the door across the hallway. Alone of the doors in the apartment, it remained unblocked by the orange crust, which flowed across its surface but didn't seal its edges. As Father Kelley reached for the knob, Eileen's hand shot out and grabbed his.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered.
"What?"
"Something's in there," she said. "I heard it move. I know it. Maybe..."
"Eileen, we could be wrong," Father Kelley said quietly. "If so...do you want me to go in first?"
Eileen shook her head. "No. I'll...I'll do it. I owe him that."
Father Kelley nodded and turned the knob.
The door swung inward. Waves of damp heat rolled over them from the room beyond, and Eileen had to close her eyes against it for a few seconds before she could venture inside.
The windows of the room were faint orange rectangles in the darkness, as the front windows had been. A tiny bit of light filtered through, just enough to illuminate the familiar outlines of a desk and chair, a dresser and a bedside table, and a bed. The room was filled with the same stink of blood and decay, but the smell of death was stronger, and the air was very heavy and suffocating and cloyingly sweet. She swallowed hard.
There was something on the bed...something large. It sprawled on top of the covers, motionless, limbs at strange angles from its body. It seemed too shrunken, too static, to be alive…and it had to be the source of the horrible stench. Eileen squared her shoulders and stepped closer, training her flashlight on the bed.
The blanket on top was twisted and bunched. It was the same orange as everything else, and she couldn't tell what color it had originally been. There was blood everywhere, mixed in with the orange goo. One corner of the blanket was wrapped around something long and thin, and it was a second or two before she realized what she was looking at. Through the heavy denim fabric, she could just make out the shape of a leg, and at the near end was a foot in a boot. She knew that foot as well as she knew her own, but it had always been in motion before, running, walking, jumping forward as he swung the axe through the air…she'd never seen it so still. Her heart sank. After a few seconds, her eyes met Father Kelley's across the bed, and she saw the same thoughts in his.
Oh God, no…we're too late…he's…
Then, the foot twitched. She nearly jumped out of her skin, but she dug her nails into the palm of her free hand and forced herself to stay calm. Maybe…
Eileen opened her mouth to speak, but she gagged on the putrid air. She steeled herself and tried again.
"Henry?"
The leg stilled suddenly. Her flashlight moved upwards. The jeans were dirty, soaked through in dark orange and red, but intact. The bottom of a shirt lay wetly over the top of the jeans.
Could he be…
"Henry...is that you?"
The shirt was in the same shape as the jeans, its original color masked by the red-orange stains. It draped loosely over the body beneath. As she moved the flashlight up, she saw the familiar chest pockets, the unbuttoned shirt collar...and the rounded neckline of the white T-shirt underneath. The scent of that T-shirt was etched indelibly in her memory, from down in the hospital. She remembered hugging him and burying her nose in his shoulder and idly wondering what detergent he used.
She shook herself out of it. That was a lifetime ago. This is now.
As her light found the first inch of flesh above the white shirt, now not so white, she caught her breath. The skin was covered in the orange stuff, too.
Suddenly, something rustled wetly, and a hand stretched across the bright circle of illumination. The hand was thin, so very thin...its skin was a sickly grayish-pink under the slime. Father Kelley muttered something under his breath and crossed himself. She could see sweat running down his face in rivulets, and her own neck was damp.
"Henry...it's Eileen," she said quietly.
She nearly jumped again when a long, rasping sound came out of the darkness. It took her a second or two to recognize it as a human breath.
"Henry."
"…Mom...no..."
The voice was almost inaudible, but she would have known it anywhere.
"Henry?"
"…stop it…can't be…"
The hand wavered, its bony fingers twitching indecisively.
"What?" Her stomach fell to her knees. "Henry, it's me. Eileen."
Silence. She held her breath, but there was no sound. A drop of sweat fell into her eye, and she blinked it away. Eileen was starting to wonder if she'd just been hearing things when…
"…no."
No? No what? He doesn't believe me?
She felt eyes upon her. They were scanning her, and she stood still and let them do what they needed to do. It seemed to take forever.
"Go." The whisper was flat and emotionless.
"We're not going anywhere without you."
"No. Go. Now." Then, another long, rasping breath.
Father Kelley stepped forward. "Henry, my name is Arthur Kelley. I'm a priest." There was a faint rustling, and now the eyes were no longer upon her. "This apartment is engulfed in evil. We need to get you out of here. You're going to die if we don't."
"Get out. While you can."
"No," Eileen said, more firmly. "Not without you."
"Can't leave."
"You have to," Father Kelley said.
"Henry, please," Eileen asked, softly. "What Father Kelley says is true. You're going to die in here. Don't let him win."
Silence. The eyes were back upon her.
"...too late."
"No, it's not too late. You're still alive."
Raucous, rusty laughter filled the room…barking, howling laughter with no shred of amusement behind it. It echoed off of the walls of the little room and rang harshly in her ears, and went on and on without interruption for an eternity. Finally, it ended in a fit of dry coughing.
At least he's strong enough to laugh.
"That's because…my mommy loves me."
Had she heard that correctly? "What?"
"Get out before she takes you too."
"NO."
The arm dropped, and Henry sat up on the bed. Eileen shrank back in shock. His face was gaunt, skeletal, completely covered in blood and the orange sludge. His hair was matted with the stuff, and his lips were cracked and peeling. Open cuts crisscrossed his sunken cheeks. Eileen's stomach turned as she saw the bubbling orange ooze in them as well. His bloodshot green eyes blazed unblinking from deep within their sockets. Despite the flashlight shining in his face, his pupils were dilated wide, and reflected the light redly as he glared at her.
"Leave me alone here," he hissed. "It's too late. Don't you get it?"
Too late?
Out of the corner of her eye, Eileen saw Father Kelley moving around the bed to the other side, but she said nothing and kept her eyes locked to Henry's. She bent closer.
"Get what?"
"Her. She's here, now. Everywhere." The words tumbled from his mouth in a frantic whisper. "She needs me. She needs me to give myself to her, or she'll find someone else. I can't go, or someone else will have to..."
"Listen to me, Henry." She took a step closer, and he shrank back. "Nobody else will have to. Ever. We're going to take you out of here, and nobody else will ever live in this Godforsaken place again." Eileen had no idea what would happen, actually, but she had to say something...
"No. You don't know – "
At that moment, a drop of sweat slid down her forehead and fell from the tip of her nose onto his hand. She watched in horror as it hissed and smoked, and seemed to burn a hole through the orange goo. His face contorted, and he gritted his teeth in pain, neck corded like a vulture's. Words came to her from the depths of memory.
"She's being taken over...she's Number 20...'The Mother Reborn'..."Joseph's words, from down in that other 302...what was happening to me then?
She squinted at his hand. The flesh around the spot was gray and ashen. What she could see of his hair seemed darker than she remembered, too, almost black. That might be from sweat and blood, or…
Or…
A vision of a large, round, red room floated through her head. She could hear the sound of grinding machinery from somewhere in front of her, and the sound of swirling liquid, but all that she could see were the two figures down by the side of the room…a familiar one in a shirt and jeans, running from another familiar figure in a dark coat with long dark hair. Henry, and Walter. But Walter had been blond before, with a blue coat…now, he had darkened to grays and blacks, like in an old photograph. Just like…
Being taken over…oh my God.
"Henry..."
His eyes were blazing.
"GET OUT!"
From behind him, something dark and metallic glinted. Father Kelley's lips moved silently.
One…
"Henry, I'm sorry," she said.
Two…
Henry stared at her, and for the first time ever she could see straight into his head.
…for what, Eileen?
She saw comprehension hit him a moment too late. On three, Father Kelley brought his flashlight down on Henry's head. He dropped to the bed with a thump, and Father Kelley pulled his cuffs over his hands, scooped Henry up in his arms and hurried out the door and down the narrow hallway.
Frank's eyes were very wide as Father Kelley stepped through the door with his burden. Mrs. Adams gasped, and crossed herself.
"Father...what..." she sputtered.
"Give me my bag. I'm taking him straight to the hospital," Father Kelley said. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Eileen, would you mind..."
Frank picked up the black leather bag as Eileen quickly untied the rope from around Father Kelley's waist, then did the same for herself. Henry's long frame looked very small cradled in the priest's huge arms, all elbows and knees. The orange goop that had covered him was gone, leaving behind only stained fabric and gray skin coated thickly in blood. He stirred as the light hit his closed eyes, and his thin chest heaved. Blood oozed from his mouth…she could see the purple hole in the skin on his hand where her sweat had burned him. Everything seemed surreal.
Father Kelley fixed Frank with a firm glare. "Hold the door open until we get back to get his things. Then nail it shut and never let anyone back into there again. Mark my words, Frank. This has gone far enough. Too many people have died. You've made this mistake twice already. Don't make it a third time."
Frank looked from Henry to Father Kelley, and then back to Henry. He nodded.
"Father," Eileen said, "can I…"
"If you wouldn't mind," he replied. "In case he wakes up."
They hurried down the hall, and Eileen held the door as Father Kelley eased both of them through into the stairwell. Then, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her.
"Can you press five on that? I've got the hospital on speed-dial."
She did, and handed him the phone.
"Seth? It's Tom. Got one for you…name's Henry Townshend. Yeah, him…bad, pretty bad. No, I don't know, it's like nothing I've seen before…that'd be great, thanks. We'll be there in a couple of minutes."
A little over a minute later, she was in the back seat of Father Kelley's small car with Henry's head in her lap as the three of them covered the short distance to the hospital. He was still unconscious, huddled on the seat and wrapped in an old woolen blanket, and she bent over him protectively as they navigated the busy streets. His head rolled gently back and forth on her thigh, and she put a hand under it to support it.
As Father Kelley hurried Henry out of the double doors of the building, she'd taken a brief glance at him. He'd looked bad inside his apartment, and under the harsh lights of the hallway, but in daylight…now, she couldn't bring herself to look at the face in her lap, and she felt so horribly guilty about that. Thank God that he was out of that place…but now…
Oh my God…oh my God…oh my God…help him. Please.
And then they were at the doors of the St. Jerome's emergency room, and there was a gurney at the curb with three nurses waiting beside it. She lifted Henry's shoulders as Father Kelley eased him out of the car (he weighs almost nothing, like a little child) and moved him swiftly to the gurney. One of the nurses brushed back the hair from Henry's face, and Eileen saw her friendly face struggle to contain her horror.
"Don't touch him without gloves on," Father Kelley murmured to the nurse in charge. "It may burn him." The nurse nodded.
Eileen's hand was on the gurney now, gripping it tightly. "I have to go with him," she said to nobody in particular. "I have to."
"Miss, you can't," another nurse said. "We have to get to work on him immediately. I'm sorry."
"But I have to," Eileen said. "I can't leave him."
"Eileen, let them do their work," Father Kelley said quietly. His large hand settled on her arm gently but forcefully, and she let go. And then the gurney and nurses were gone inside the building, and she and Father Kelley were left standing next to his old car.
"They're going to do their best," he said to her. "I've brought them people in trouble before, and they've never let me down."
"Really?"
"Really," he said with a smile.
"Nobody like Henry, though."
He shook his head. "No. Nobody like Henry. But if anybody can take care of him, they can."
"But…he's in terrible shape, I mean, you saw him, and he's so weak, and – oh no – he hasn't got any money…at least, I don't think he has…and neither do I…and…"
Father Kelley smiled down at her. "Don't worry about that right now. It's not important. And, anyway, the head of the hospital and I have an understanding. The most needy cases get what they need regardless. Given what Henry has done for this town, what he's done for everyone who lives here…I don't think that will even be a question."
She nodded. "I'm…I'm sorry. I don't know…"
"It's OK. You're still in shock. Tell you what. Let's go back and start getting his things out of his apartment. That will give you something to do."
"But I should be here."
"You can't do any good here. Neither of us can. The hospital will call me if they need anything right away. In a few hours, once things have settled down, we can call them and give them your contact information. For now, we can only pray and hope."
She smiled up at him. "You think of everything. Thank you."
"It's what I do."