Authors: Rhiannon Frater
“We've been looking all over for you! Why did you abandon your car? Why are you out here walking with that man? Who is he?” Estelle demanded.
“Estelle, she's plumb lost her mind,” Tanner said in a dark voice, glowering at Mackenzie. “I told you.”
Mackenzie could smell her mother's flowery perfume and the hint of mint from the gum she chewed after smoking. “Mom, Iâ”
“Don't pay attention to them,” Grant urged.
“Well?” Estelle asked, arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
It was hard not to answer. The woman before her looked exactly like her mother. Smelled like her. Even exuded her strength and force of personality.
“Mackenzie, answer me! Didn't I raise you properly? I told you over and over again not to be a damn fool and yet here you are in the middle of nowhere walking along a road with a complete stranger!”
“She's lost it,” Tanner said grimly. His gloved hands tightened on the bars of his bike. “Totally lost it. Abandoning her car, not answering her phone, and now this?”
“Where do you think you're going, Mackenzie?” Estelle's voice cut through her like a knife, demanding that she answer. “How can you be so reckless? So thoughtless? Haven't I taught you anything?”
Mackenzie locked her lips together, kept her head tilted downward, and fought the urge to defend herself to the beings on the motorcycle.
“Who is this guy, Mac? Why are you running off with him? You've been acting all crazy and suddenly you're gone. Just left me and Joshua in the lurch. To do what? Run off with some hobo that doesn't even have a car?” Tanner's voice was a mixture of hurt and loathing.
“They're not real,” Grant again reminded her.
“Mackenzie, answer him! What the hell is going on with you?” The click of cowboy boots landing on the road jerked Mackenzie's attention toward Estelle. The older woman stalked toward her, both hands on her narrow hips. “Answer him, for God's sake!”
“You're not real!” Mackenzie shouted. “You're not real!”
“What the hell?” Estelle couldn't have looked more shocked if Mackenzie had slapped her.
“Just like that tornado, you're not real!” Mackenzie pointed just as she realized the growling roar of the tornado was gone.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tanner asked, narrowing his eyes.
Mackenzie's hand dropped as she stared at the spot where the tornado had been spinning just moments before. The storm was still crawling across the sky, but the vortex of high winds was nowhere to be seen. Her hands shook at her sides as her mind struggled to comprehend what was going on.
“Mackenzie, don't listen to them. It's all an illusion,” Grant said leaning toward her, his lips lightly brushing her ear.
“I tried calling you. I tried to tell you that the state troopers were at the café. That you needed to head back there. I thought maybe you had broken down and were lost. That you didn't have any coverage, but then I find you just walking along the road as though nothing is wrong! And with a complete stranger!” Estelle looked at her incredulously. “What the hell, Mackenzie? What the hell?”
“Who is this freak anyway? Is he drugging you or something? Because you don't look okay,” Tanner added.
“I lost my Xanax,” Mackenzie said in a weak voice, her mind a clutter of confusing thoughts.
“Are you having some sort of nervous breakdown?” Estelle stomped over, stopped short, and stared. “You look like shit. Who is this guy? Did he kidnap you?”
“Mom,” Mackenzie whispered. Was she having a breakdown? Were the terrible things she had encountered just illusions? Was Grant just keeping her confused for his own diabolical reasons?
“Stop talking to them. Ignore them,” Grant said, his hand clutching hers in an attempt to drag her away.
“Fuck you!” Tanner shouted, parking his bike and climbing off. “You and me, right now. Let's settle this like men!”
“No!” Mackenzie darted at Tanner. “You leave him be!”
Tanner loomed before her, angry and frustrated, reminding her of the only true fight they'd ever had. It had taken place the night Tanner had left her for good. The night he'd tried to pack up the nursery and she had fought him. “Mac, talk to me. Tell me what the hell is going on with you. Are you leaving me?”
“How could you leave Joshua?” Estelle's voice was pure ice. “What sort of mother are you?”
“Joshua's dead,” Mackenzie sobbed. “You know that!”
Estelle's eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? He's with Angie right now!”
An evil form of hope swelled in Mackenzie's heart. It was dark, dangerous, and sent her teetering at the edge of the abyss of madness. “Joshua's alive?”
Clutching her hair tightly, Mackenzie shrank away from them. She remembered vividly Tanner leaving the house, slamming the door behind him, the roar of his motorcycle when he rode away, leaving her alone in a house full of broken dreams. This couldn't be realâthis terrible, yet wonderful reality where Joshua was alive, Tanner was still her husband, and Mackenzie was losing her mind and wandering the back roads of Texas.
“Just come home. We'll get you to a doctor. Find out what's wrong. You're acting crazy, baby,” Tanner whispered, his voice sweet and wonderful in her ears.
“No, I remember you leaving. I remember Joshua's tiny body in my arms. His lips were black and his little heart was still. And I remember the coffin, that beautiful little coffin being lowered into that awful grave. You're not real! You're not my mom and you're not Tanner!” She latched on to the truth in her words, and mentally pulled away from the toxic hope they had tried to use against her.
“You're fucking crazy!” Estelle screeched at her.
Mackenzie shoved the woman, knocking her back a few feet. Then she struck her again, sending Estelle sprawling to the ground. Tanner snatched Mackenzie from behind, lifting her feet off the ground.
“You're coming home and taking care of our baby,” Tanner growled in her ear.
“Fuck you!” Mackenzie yanked the knife out of her purse and stabbed Tanner in the thigh.
With a gasp, he released her. “What the hell did you do that for?”
Mackenzie yanked the blade out of his flesh. Holding up the bloodied blade, she backed away from him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Estelle climbing to her feet.
“Grant?”
“I'm here,” he answered from just behind her.
“We need to keep going,” she said, thrusting the knife at Tanner.
Tanner's face creased into a sneer. “You're fucking nuts, Mac. You're not suited to be a mama of any baby. You're fucking insane!”
“This is why your baby died!” Estelle shouted.
“I thought you said he was with Angie!” A wild smile of triumph spread on her face. “You're fucking wraiths! Liars!” She planted her foot against the side of the bike and shoved. It fell over in a slow arc. “You hate each other. You can't stand each other. And my real mother would never get on a motorcycle! She called them death traps!”
The woman wearing her mother's face screeched, the sound inhuman and painful. In a flash of movement, her mother's form vanished into a writhing, twisting mass of darkness, then was gone.
“You, too!” Mackenzie thrust the knife at the form of her ex-husband. “Go away! I know what you are!”
The smirk on Tanner's face was diabolical, but scarily familiar. The dangerous aspect of Tanner's personality that he kept at bay was on prominent display on the face of his doppelganger. “I'll be back for you, honey pie.” His body dissolved into darkness, then vanished.
As she dropped to her knees, the adrenaline left her in a rush. Shaking, Mackenzie laid the knife on the ground and forced herself to breathe.
Hesitantly, Grant squatted beside her, not speaking.
“Why didn't you do anything?” Mackenzie asked, fury in her voice.
“You had to deal with that yourself,” Grant answered somberly. His blue eyes were compassionate, yet sorrowful. “It was time for you to stand up to them.”
“I almost believed them. For a moment, I wanted it to be true.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to really believe that I was a fucking lunatic and that Joshua was safe with Angie.”
“I know, Mackenzie.” Grant didn't make any moves to console her. He just watched.
The ridiculousness of it all elicited a crazed giggle and Mackenzie covered her mouth in embarrassment.
Grant smiled slightly.
Tears in her eyes, but laughter trying to wiggle its way out of her, Mackenzie slumped over onto the ground. Her eyes flicked toward the horizon where the tornado once more raged. She never thought she'd feel so relieved to see a deathly funnel. The bike was gone from the roadside, too.
“It's trying to convince me I'm crazy, isn't it?” Mackenzie watched Grant stretch out next to her. He nodded and she sighed. “What if they had sucked me in?”
“They would have kept the illusion alive long enough to push you over the edge.”
“Like the coffin in the crib,” Mackenzie whispered.
“Yes, like that.”
“Would you have tried to save me then?”
Grant bobbed his head once. “Yes. I would have stepped in if they had convinced you to believe in their lies. But I had faith that you would see what they really were.”
“Did you? Why?”
Grant hesitated, then rolled over so he could look into her eyes. “Because a pain as deep as yours may be your weakness in this world, but it can also be your strength. Your anchor to what is real.”
“You're so sad, Grant,” she whispered. She could see it etched into his features and his posture. His eyes were haunted and forlorn.
“So are you,” he answered, shrugging.
“Will they be back?” She stared at the knife. There was no blood on the blade now.
“In time, but we should move on. That storm is heading our way.”
Mackenzie clambered to her feet and shoved the knife into her purse. Casting a worried look at the storm clouds, she could see it was darkening considerably, turning a grayish green that warned of killer winds and possibly hail. “Yeah. It looks bad.”
Together, they walked onto the road, Grant's walking stick lightly tapping on the asphalt.
“Grant,” Mackenzie said after a few minutes of silence.
“Yes?”
“Next time they attack, you better hit them with that damn stick.”
He chuckled. “All right.”
“I'm okay with you wanting me to stand up to them and recognize what was going on, but no more tough love, okay? Just beat them senseless.”
“You got it.”
Mackenzie smiled and nudged him lightly with her shoulder in a playful manner. To her surprise, the anxiety attack that had been threatening was gone now. She felt a lot more clearheaded than she had in a long while. Weirdly, standing up to the wraiths and stripping them of their disguises had helped her banish her growing terror. When she had the opportunity she would need to add another line to her list.
Don't give in to the madness.
She was feeling quite confident when she spotted the red balloon bouncing along the edge of the road. A sad clown face had been drawn on it, the yellow paint still wet in appearance. Swallowing hard, she felt her heart speed up at the sight of the merrily bouncing balloon. The wind caught it, spun it about, and it disappeared into the woods, but not before Mackenzie saw that a word had been written on the opposite side of the face.
It read:
SOON
.
Â
The hail beat on the roof of the small house and clanked against the windows. The high winds tore at the trees surrounding the structure, breaking off brittle branches, stripping leaves, and sending them spinning into the air. The rain sounded like a waterfall, pouring off the roof and porch. It was one of the worst storms Mackenzie had ever experienced and the deafening claps of thunder unsettled her.
The small house consisted of a living room, a kitchen, and a single bedroom with a bathroom added on in the back. From the design of the furniture and appliances, Mackenzie suspected it had been abandoned in the thirties or forties. Tucked into the small restored kitchen, Grant and Mackenzie sipped coffee and ate sandwiches made from ingredients in the revitalized refrigerator. This time she hadn't experienced any pain like she had when she'd restored the other house. Mackenzie hoped it was a sign she was acclimating to her new ability and that the pain wouldn't return.
Lightning flashed and the echoing thunder shook the windowpanes. Mackenzie gasped and almost choked on the cheese sandwich.
“Once the lightning passes, we should keep going,” Grant said after a long gulp from his glass of milk. “It's a few more hours until nightfall and there should be a better place down the road.”
“You're afraid the house is going to tip over, aren't you?” Mackenzie had wondered the same thing. Even though she had restored it, the house wasn't in very good condition.
“That and I think that we're going to get hit harder next time.”
With a sigh Mackenzie set aside the rest of her sandwich. It didn't actually surprise her that her victory would be so short-lived. It was unnerving to admit it, but her surroundings felt like a living, breathing entity that was constantly watching and assessing her while it waited to strike again. Resting her elbow on the table, she set her chin in her hand and plaintively stared at him.
“What is it?”
“Are you sure I can't restore a gun or something? Maybe a bazooka. You know, something with the firepower to blow them away?”
Grant chuckled. “Though the thought is appealing, no we can't.”
“I don't like feeling defenseless.” She pushed her half-eaten sandwich away. “I hate feeling like I have no options.”
“If you trust me, Mackenzie, I can guide you. You can survive here. I've been doing it for years.”