Chapter Twenty Six

Halloween Night

As Sandi lay on the grassy ground, her grandmother's whispering voice slowly faded away, lost in the surrounding low din that enveloped her. The ground seemed to open up, and the almost comatose girl floated gently through a thick, comfortable warmness. A phrase slowly came to her mind.

Safe as in a mother's womb. I was in my mother's womb once. Do babies' remember things like that, so safe and so secure. I haven't felt safe and secure for so long. I almost don't believe it could be that way anymore. But I was a baby once, like everybody else. It's strange. Only in the hospital pictures does mom look like she's glad to see me, glad to hold me. Dad always does, he's always the one holding me. Except when she was still in the hospital, mom always looks so impatient, like she's late for an important meeting.

I was always so much in awe of mom. I always told myself that I would grow up to be so like her, important, with people listening to my every word, because I was so important. But what does it get you? All these people around me used to be alive, and now almost nobody remembers everything about any of them.

Other girl's mother's love them! Quinn and Daria, Stacy, Tiffany, Jodie. Maybe not Brittany, her mother ran away to Hollywood, to be an actress or something, if she loved her, shouldn't she have stayed? But my mom stayed, does that mean she loved me? Or it's just convenient for her? Am I a bad person because she doesn't love me? Is this all my own fault for being weak and dumb? Is that why she hits me so much!

Sandi sighed. It would be so nice to just float here, away from everybody and everything. Still, if Mom could just love me, everything would be perfect! I'd give everything I have for my mother to love me, just once!

Sandi's thought quivered through the thick darkness surrounding her. The low murmur of voices became suddenly silent.

A chill seemed to slowly approach her. A cold clear light slowly grew, and Sandi felt herself encased in ice, unable to move or even to think. She seemed to hang there for an eternity, numb and unfeeling.

Slowly, an alien thought grew in her mind, like a knife-blade formed out of the coldest ice. It was clear, passionless, but with a thin undercurrent of amusement.

You would give everything you have? It asked.

Sandi trembled in fear at the coldness, but found herself forced to answer.

Yes.

But what do you have, I wonder? What will you give for this favor? Are you desperate enough to truly deal with the forgotten dead, child? For your mother's love?

Yes! Sandi fiercely replied. Yes! If she loved me, everything else would be perfect! I'd be happy, I wouldn't be so mean to my friends, Dad would be okay again, I'd do better in school, everything would be great!

A long silence followed Sandi's impulsive words. A dim figure slowly took form in Sandi's mind. A slim Asian girl in white robes, with a petite figure, her long black hair flowing like silk down her small body, her robes drifting like clouds across her perfection. Her large eyes were dark pools of stillness. She held a large bundle in her slender arms. Sandi stared at her, entranced.

Once, woman who is still a child, I was as you. I bore my strong son for my proud lord, who fiercely protected us. But he was betrayed by those he trusted, and I fled into the night, friendless and alone. I bargained for vengeance, and was betrayed yet again. I was betrayed here, in this foreign land, and was trapped. I will arrange for your mother to realize her true love for you, if you swear by your soul that you will truly sacrifice all for me to do so.

Sandi slowly tried to think of what she was doing, but she was so confused. It was more her fear and frustration speaking, than her mind when she answered.

Yes. Even if it's my soul, I want my mother to love me!

So be it, child, so be it. You're soul it is, and your soul it will be. My son will finally live the life so long denied him. But foolish child, your soul? As I learned so long ago, mortals never really sell their souls.

Sandi suddenly gazed deep into the Snow Woman's cold gaze.

They give them away.

Sandi screamed in sudden horror as her sprit was blasted away in the swirling void, the true meaning of the phrase, Anything you have? echoing in the dim recess's of her mind. Do we ever have anything, than the companionship of others?

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Jane stared down at her snow-covered yard for what seemed a eternity. The phantoms returned her stare, their large, luminous eyes filled with a ghastly hunger. Hunger for what? She thought. I'm afraid I'm going to find out. Their hair and ragged clothing fluttered in the gusting wind. Almost unconsciously, Jane noted that the spectral figures seemed to fade out around their ankles, so they had no visible feet, floating above the snow.

The small part of her mind not screaming in terror said, Well, that makes sense, or does it? Don't ghosts just float through walls? How the Hell would I know! Just because I've watched both Ghostbuster movies! Can ghosts enter your house without an invitation? Vampires can't. I think. If there are real vampires. I really hope I'm not going to find out about that! This is bad enough as it is!

Jane looked around her bedroom frantically. No Bibles, no crosses. Well, gee, no surprise there! Mom worships the Earth Mother, Gaia, or whoever she is, and the rest of us Lanes are so nonreligious I'm surprised I know what Christmas is. Still, if there was ever a time for me to be a nun!

Hysterical laughter choked her for a moment.The earrings in her ears were all only silver plated. No, silver was for werewolves'. Damn! What could she do! Her room was filled with nothing but her bed, clothes, painted and blank canvas's, easels, paintbrushes, her latest metal sculpture . . .

And her welding set. The two small tanks, one filled with acetylene, the other with oxygen, sat next to the metal sculpture. Sparks from her latest creation had scarred her bare wooden floor, but Jane had never noticed, caught up in the thrill of creation. Jane grabbed the cold metal of the torch handle in her left hand, her right hand grabbing the striker, but then hesitated. What now? Haul it downstairs, waving the torch with one hand, and dragging the tanks with the other? She glanced at the small gauge. Almost empty. Great, just great.

A cold chill behind her sent her spinning. Without thinking, she used her thumb and forefinger to twist the gas knob, her right hand squeezing sparks from the striker into the jet of gas from the nozzle. The small blue flame erupted from the torch tip with a steady hiss, the clean blue flame lighting up her darkened bedroom.

Jane choked, letting out a small yelp at what she was looking at. It was the pale, spectral figure of Jake Morgendorffer, Daria's father, standing there in his pajamas, a look of utter despair on his face, his legs fading out several inches above the carpet. The stark portrait in black and white was only broken by the bright red blood running down his chin. Jake and Jane stared deeply into each others eyes for a long moment, and Jane saw Daria, kneeling as her life's breath was sucked out of her, the skin on her face cracking as Helen rushed into the room. The image snapped away, and Jane stared at the face of her best friend's father. Almost unseen tears were running down his face.

He mouthed the words Jane almost couldn't hear, Please, Jane help Daria, Helen, . . . Suddenly he started frantically flailing his arms around, as his figure seemed torn by tremendous winds, being torn away piece by piece until it disappeared. Jane stared for a long moment at the empty space, until a sudden crackling made her bring up the small blue flame from the torch. She saw the pale forms of the spirits from outside slowly passing through the walls, leaving their faint outlines formed in frost on the walls.

The eyes of each figure drilled into her own, each glance ripping small pieces' of her body heat out of the trembling girl, though none seemed to want to get too close to the small flame she frantically waved. Jane's fear of her attackers warred with the frantic anxiety she felt for Daria, and she screamed in frustration, trapped here, and not being able to race over to help her friend. Her screams of anger seemed to confuse her attackers, and their attack slowed. Still, their very gaze seemed to leach something out of her spirit.

Jane gasped, struggling to form some plan, to drive these things away, to run and rescue Daria. Then the true horror of what she had seen finally struck her. The thing was in Daria's house! Straining her whole body, she dragged the tanks to the door, the surrounding phantoms reluctantly giving way. Jane tried not to look in their eyes, the sheer desperation she saw there tearing at her.

Standing in her way was a little girl, still dressed in an Eighteenth century night gown. Her long blonde hair was now a pale white, the misery on her face tearing at Jane. She silently mouthed a word Jane made out only too well, Mommy? Jane ground her teeth in sheer frustration. This child had been dead for centuries, forced to wander the earth. Why! She had to find Daria!

As Jane thumped the tanks down the stairs, the ghosts crowded her, and she waved the torch around frantically, their sheer presence draining her, eating at her spirit. She stumbled on the tank hose, and the flame caught the dry wallpaper, which promptly blazed up the wall. Jane tried to pat it out, but the flames scorched her hand. The tanks tumbled down the stairs, the flame from the spout catching at the carpeting. The torch landed on an old armchair, which started to blaze. The ghosts shrank back from the building flames. Jane stood paralyzed as the flames built up around her, the wallpaper on the ceiling burning fiercely. Torn between the need to evade the ghosts, put the flames out, and rescue Daria, Jane couldn't do anything at all. She didn't even know if her absent-minded family owned a fire extinguisher! Sparks flew through the air, and Jane frantically beat at the sparks landing on her hair. She grabbed the phone on the living room table, hearing only the emptiness of the dead line.

Jane coughed from the smoke in the air, dropping down on her knees and hands, crawling to the door, as her families home blazed and collapsed around her

Quinn huddled in the corner of the cabin farthest away from Sandi's comatose form and Tiffany's body. She could still taste the blood in her mouth. She had crawled to the door and barely made it outside before vomiting, uncontrollably retching until her body hurt, but still feeling unclean, the sick heat inside her not dying down even in the fierce winds and drifting snow. She stared blankly at her own hands, at the skin stretched tightly over her finger-bones.

She had just wanted to stay outside, lay down in the snow, but something deep inside her had made her crawl back inside, feed the small fire before retreating into the corner. One small glimpse of what had remained of Tiffany's face had forced shriek after shriek out of her, until only by bitting on her already infected wound on her hand had forced her to stop. She saw Tiffany's terrified face once again, begging her, warning her about the thing inside Sandi getting her. Quinn thought she knew what the Snow Lady had wanted, she wanted Stacy, but what did this other thing want from them? What was it! Why were they being made to suffer like this?

A sudden thought struck Quinn, and she slowly crawled on her hands and knees to Sandi's side.

Afraid of the answer, she asked the question she needed to ask.

"Sandi? Sandi? Can you hear me?"

Sandi laid still, only the slight fluttering of her nostrils showing she still lived.

Quinn desperately grabbed Sandi's head and shook her, her now grey-white hair stiff and greasy with dried blood and dirt in Quinn's hands.

"Damn it, Sandi, wake up! Who did it? It was you, wasn't it, wasn't it! You're the crazy one, not me! Not me, I couldn't have done it! But you're crazy, you'll just go to a hospital or something, and I'll help you get better, I promise!"

"Sandi? Please talk to me! I'm scared, Sandi, I'm really scared! I want to go home now! Please wake up! You're the only one still here! Stacy's gone, and Tiffany's, Tiffany's dead! You did that, didn't you? Please, tell me it was you, please Sandi, for God's sake, wake up and talk to me!"

Sandi's huge belly squirmed and bulged. The face Tiffany had seen earlier pressed up against Quinn, who shrieked and shrank back against the wall. With unholy glee on its face it smiled at Quinn. Sandi suddenly groaned as she was dragged back into her pain-filled body from the Abyss. She coughed up blood out of her mouth, her panting voice filled with pain as she screamed:

"Quinn!"

Quinn desperately grabbed her sole living friend's hand, her vision swimming, filled with impossible things. She saw the air thick with people, all pale, all staring at her in fear and loathing which stunned her. They were afraid of her!

Sandi's weak voice dragged her attention back to her.

"Quinn, I'm, I'm sorry, she tricked me, I didn't remember anything, I, I swear I didn't. I thought it was all just a dream, a nightmare, I wouldn't hurt any of you, I, I swear it."

"Sandi! Thank, thank G . . . " The word caught in her throat. If she wasn't a killer, she was at least a cannibal. Would God ever hear her again? Wouldn't her guardian angel turn away in disgust from the sound of her voice? She Had Eaten Her Best Friend!

"Quinn?" came Sandi's weak voice. "I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault,"

Quinn stared into Sandi's tortured face and saw the truth there, the truth that she had tried to hide from herself. It hadn't been Sandi or the thing inside Sandi which had killed Tiffany with her bare teeth, it had been her.

It had been Quinn.

Quinn leaned back against the wall, staring mindlessly at the ceiling, the air thick with the crowding spirits now bonded to her by the flesh she had devoured. She threw back her head and howled, her shrieking became a roar, pouring from her raw throat, the timbers shaking, the swarming spirits crowded away from her in sudden fear. Quinn's howls became louder and louder, her thin body twisting, her face contorting, her teeth tearing her thin, dry lips. Her thin legs and arms twisted horribly, lengthening, the muscles tearing and reuniting. Her dry, dirty skin, tore open, blood trickling out on the floor. Quinn's bones twisted inside her writhing body, snapping and breaking, before growing back together. Quinn's filthy clothing tore off her horribly changing body. She twisted into a huge knot of naked flesh, out of which screams and howls emerged. A thick, greasy, vile smelling goo coated her bare organs as they ripped apart, reforming into new shapes.

Sandi watched with glazing eyes. Even the thing inside her was silent for once. A thin whispered word almost silently came from Sandi's lips. A very old word.

"Wen-di-go."