Authors: Ronald Malfi
Around her: the soft din of a world about to crumble.
Kelly opened her eyes. Before her, Becky’s closet door remained closed…but she could now make out fine hairline fractures working up through the door toward the top of the frame. Likewise, the frame itself was now splintered and pockmarked. And above the door, the wall appeared to protrude slightly, to bulge, as if someone were pushing on it from the other side. Kelly began shuffling back on her hands and feet, unable to peel her eyes away from the closet door. The image of Simple Simon being dragged to his death by the two imaginary dead girls resonated in her head, like a chord strummed on an electric guitar. Something tickled her face, burned her eyes. She glanced up and saw that the ceiling too was riddled with cracks. Powdered plaster billowed out and floated to the floor, her face, her eyes.
Simon is dead,
she thought,
but this house is still alive. This house is the heart of Never.
Continuing to back away from the closet door, she could see more places in the walls beginning to bulge, as if infested by living things. The molding around the ceiling cracked and separated. Framed pictures against the walls began to rattle like steady applause. Beside her as she crawled, the windowpane—now a web of spreading cracks and fissures—began to clatter in its frame. The curtain rod above the window pushed from the wall and toppled to the floor, the sheer curtains flaring out and settling to the carpet.
Something was going to happen.
“Help me,” a small voice said from behind Kelly. Startled, she spun around, not knowing what to expect, and saw a moonglow shape half-propped against the wall at the head of Becky’s bed. The shimmer of pale skin and haunted eyes briefly glowed. “Help me.”
“Becky,” Kelly managed, although she wasn’t certain if she had spoken the words aloud or not.
Becky moved slightly toward the side of the bed, struggling to set herself onto the floor but too weak to complete the task.
Kelly rushed to her side, the walls of the room vibrating around her. “No,” she said to the girl, “don’t hurt yourself.”
“Kelly.” Becky paused and stared at her sister, her slight feet dangling like props over the side of the bed. Her nightgown was hitched up to her waist, exposing attenuated thighs peppered with bruises. Seeing her like this now, awake and alive, Kelly felt something flood throughout her body. It had nothing to do with power, hers nor anyone else’s, nor was it residual trauma, lingering about her body, her mind. No, this was something
deeper—
deeper than she could have ever imagined feelings could reach.
“How could I have forgotten?” she whispered to herself.
“Kelly,” Becky repeated.
Kelly snapped from her daze. “Are you all right? We need to get the hell out of here fast.”
The bedposts began vibrating, knocking against the wall and shaking all the way down to the floor. The mattress started to ripple in waves, from top to bottom, as if attempting to roll Becky off. Becky screamed and pushed herself forward off the bed. Kelly caught her in her arms, thankful the girl did not weigh much, and dragged her away from the bed. The mattress thumped against the frame, the posts trembling like tuning forks. Behind them, the windowpane exploded in a shower of glass shards. Becky screamed again and buried her head into Kelly’s chest.
“Come on!” Kelly shouted and dragged the girl toward the bedroom door. It was closed, and looked as if the frame was eating it, crushing it from the center and spreading to all four corners. Initially reluctant to touch the knob, Kelly finally reached out, grabbed it, yanked. The door came apart at the force of the pull: it splintered into a kaleidoscope of wooden shards and dust, the heavier pieces crashing to the floor, the lighter shreds blowing out in a plume of raining dust.
Kelly pushed her sister through the doorway and into the hall. Even out here the walls were bent and twisted like the corridor of a circus funhouse; oil paintings had been sucked flush against the walls; the floor appeared to be coming apart in sections, with individual floorboards snapping and cracking under some invisible weight. Candelabras flickered and buzzed down the length of the corridor. It was the whole house, Kelly knew. Simon was only a part of it. Over the years and with her mind, with her powers, she had managed to turn her childhood home into what she always feared it might really be:
alive.
It was the true heart of Never, the one vital organ responsible for keeping the terror alive.
Kelly tried not to look—tried only to make it down the stairwell and out the front door as quickly as possible. But Becky, terrified into submission, refused to move from her bedroom doorway.
“Come on!” Kelly shouted. “Becky!”
Frozen by fear, the girl could not respond. Her eyes seemed glued to the shambling, capering framework of the house coming down all around them.
“Becky, please, you have to come with me! I’m not going to leave you here again!”
She looped her arms around the girl’s waist and hoisted her into the air. As quickly as she could manage, Kelly hustled down the corridor toward the winding stairwell. Becky screamed again just as the wall of closed doors bulged, and the doors sprang open along the hallway, swatting at them as if they were insects, intent on knocking them down. One of them swung with such force that it tore from its hinges and shattered in a spray of wood against the opposite wall.
Peering over the stairwell, Kelly saw the risers themselves were beginning to break apart. Several of them sank in the middle, like grinning mouths. There was no way she’d be able to carry Becky down the stairs.
“Come on, Becky!” she urged.
Becky looked at her face, her eyes wide and terrified. “Is he gone?”
“Becky—”
“The Pie Man!” Becky screamed. “Simple Simon the Pie Man!”
“Yes! Yes, honey, he’s gone! He’s gone! Now come with me, okay? Please, Becky! Please come with me!”
Crying, Becky nodded and quickly followed Kelly as she began climbing down the stairs. At one point, it felt as though the entire staircase would give way, sending them both toppling to the marble floor below. But it held, and Kelly thundered down the steps as quickly and as carefully as she could manage, one hand squeezing Becky’s the entire time.
“Kelly!”
Becky’s voice boomed just as a light fixture above Kelly’s head exploded in a display of sparking wires and a spurt of gray smoke.
They both hit the floor and started running down the hallway that communicated with the main foyer. Beneath their feet, the floor bubbled and ruptured. Geysers of plaster and sealant spewed from gaping sores along the floor. At the top of her lungs, Kelly began screaming:
“Get out! Get out! Get out!”
The echo of her voice slammed back at her face in the small confines of the corridor. The walls protested their escape, grew prong-like extensions and tried to grab at them.
Aside from the vibrating sway of the immense chandelier in the center of the ceiling, the commotion had not yet reached the foyer. The sweeping stairwell along the far wall only groaned under an unseen strain. A shuffle of footsteps came thundering from the upstairs hallway. Glancing over her shoulder as she ran, Kelly saw her parents standing in their nightclothes, peering down at her from the landing. Their faces were blank and colorless.
“Mom! Dad! Get out!” she cried up to them, but they didn’t move. Even the sight of Becky at her side did not appear to stimulate any emotion on their faces. “Get out!” she screamed again. “Get the hell out of the house!”
Beside her, Becky screamed and slammed her body against Kelly’s. The force of the tackle was nearly enough to knock her over. Stunned, Kelly spun around and saw Glenda standing in the broken light of the foyer. She was tying a housecoat about her waist with deliberate slowness, seemingly ignorant of all that was going on around her.
“Glenda,” Kelly breathed, “the house…you have to get out of the—”
“Becky,” Glenda said firmly. Her eyes did not even acknowledge Kelly. “Rebecca Kellow…”
“Glenda!” Kelly shouted. Above her head, the bulbs of the giant crystal chandelier began blinking on and off, on and off. “We need to get out of here!”
A coy smile on her face, Glenda finally met Kelly’s eyes. The intensity of her stare froze Kelly on the spot. There appeared to be a countless ream of emotions behind those eyes, calculating and contemplating…
“Kelly,” Glenda half-whispered,
“what did you do?”
“What?” The world was starting to spin out of focus again.
“What did you come back here for? To bring such destruction, such havoc?”
Shaking her head, her heart thudding feverishly in her ears, Kelly could only mouth the word again:
“What?”
“Did you kill him?” Glenda took a step closer to her, out from the shadows. Her feet moved in perfect parallel division. “Where is he? Is he dead?”
“Dead?” Faintly, she could feel Becky tugging against her arm. “Glenda—”
“What are you trying to do here, Kelly?” the old woman repeated, her voice rising. “What are you trying to do to
me?
Do you have any idea what it’s like to live your entire life here, to raise a child only to have her run away from you and never come back? Do you know what that feels like?”
The floor started to shake. A statue atop a marble pedestal near the front door was shaken to the floor. The beams in the ceiling creaked and groaned.
Glenda took another step closer. “And now you take
him
away from me too?”
“Kelly!” Becky shouted, seemingly from very far away. “Kelly, no!”
Kelly’s mind reeled. “Glenda, what is this?”
“Little Baby Roundabout,” Glenda half-sang. “Someone let the Baby out, Kelly.”
“She’s bad!” Becky screamed, her voice choked with tears. “Kelly, she’s bad! Kelly! Kelly!”
“How do you know about him?” Kelly whispered.
Glenda threw her hands up, her face suddenly red with fury, wetness glittering in her eyes. “Do you see what you leave me with? Nothing! You leave me with nothing! My own
daughter—”
“I’m not your daughter.”
“You were more mine than theirs,” Glenda hissed. “You goddamn know it, Kelly!”
“I’m…” She faltered and turned to see her parents still standing on the landing, unmoving. In their silence, she could see a tear trace down her mother’s cheek. After all this time, like a shock from a light socket, she felt a strong urge to forgive her parents, and to almost comprehend where they were coming from. Because in a sense, this house—this thriving, beating heart—had kept the same hold over them as it had kept on her. Only she had
power,
had
strength,
had abilities. Her parents did not. Doomed, the house had sucked the life from them since the beginning. Since, she suddenly understood, before she was even born. The image of herself curled into a fetal position in some dark corner—the result had she given in to Simon—returned to her…and only now did she understand that
that image was exactly who her parents had been for years.
That without her power—and the power Becky undoubtedly carried inside her too—she would have grown cold and empty and beyond emotion just like her parents.
She glanced down at Becky, petrified against her, and back up at Glenda. “You knew about this all along,” she marveled. “You knew what lived in those woods—”
“You two aren’t the only ones who get lonely and afraid!” Glenda cried, tears spilling down her face. “I’ve been here for so long! Do you know what it’s like to have no children of your own? And when you raise the children of others, they just turn around and leave you. Kelly, I didn’t want them to put you away. I wanted you here with me. I tried to stop them.”
“You…you were taking care of Becky here at the house. After the accident, you…it was your idea to keep her home and not at the hospital, wasn’t it? You’ve been looking after her, been—” She shuddered at the thought, her heart breaking, but it needed to be asked. “You were keeping her unconscious, weren’t you? All along. That’s why her door was locked sometimes. You were giving her sedatives.”
“You don’t understand anything!” Glenda cried. Overhead the chandelier flickered. Bits of plaster were dropping from the ceiling now. “You’ve been away for too long and don’t understand anything!”
“Did you keep her this way so I’d come back?”
“Kelly—”
“What did you think would happen? Did you think I’d come home and everything would be like it was?”
“I knew that if you came home, that thing in the woods could make you stay,” Glenda breathed. “I knew there was a way.”
“No.” She shook her head, looped an arm around Becky’s shoulders. “There is no way.”
The weight of the chandelier became too much for the weakening ceiling, and it suddenly plunged several feet before its cables caught, preventing it from crushing them all. Becky screamed and pushed her face against Kelly’s body. Glenda didn’t even look up; her eyes were pushing against Kelly’s flesh, her face and her own eyes.
“If this house comes down,” the old woman said, “then it comes down with all of us in it. Like a family.” She took another step closer to Kelly. “I won’t let you leave. I’m not going to let the Baby out.”
From her housecoat, Glenda produced a carving knife. Kelly followed the blade, her mind unable to comprehend this sudden twist. She felt something nudge her at the back of her mind. It was like the resurgence of power from earlier, only ineffectually faint now. She almost caught a whiff of coffee and cologne and thought:
Josh?