Tanner
“Tanner?”
I stare at the hole in the drywall. It gapes open like the maw of some unknowable beast, just waiting to devour anybody unwitting enough to step into its jaws.
What would it feel like to watch this house consume somebody?
Hungry desire washes through me at the thought. My hands clench into tight fists at my sides, my nails digging into the calloused skin of my palms.
“Tanner!”
Fingers close on my shoulder, and I whip around, my heart beating wildly.
“Take it easy, boss,” Jose placates, taking a step back from me and holding his hands up as if to show me that he means me no harm.
I blink. Of course, it’s just my foreman. Who else would it be?
“What?” I growl, hoping my aggressiveness will hide my embarrassment at being caught spacing out like that.
Jose raises an eyebrow but ignores my antagonistic tone. Instead, he asks, “Do you want an extra pair of hands in here?” He nods to the gap in the drywall.
“I’ve got it,” I snap.
“Whatever you say, boss,” Jose sighs with a shrug. He gives me one last skeptical look before he retreats from the room.
Good riddance.
All I want is to be alone here to do my fucking work.
But there’s something about this special space in the drywall, this cut in the skin and flesh of the house rending all the way down to the bone, something that begs me not to cover it.
Not yet.
Shaking my head, I step away from the hole in the wall.“What the fuck’s wrong with me?” I mutter.
I haven’t felt right since last week. Even yesterday, when I had promised Bailey that I’d finish here today, I’d been hung over and cloudy. I’d passed out on the street in front of the café where we’d met up, and while I remember peeling myself off the sidewalk and stumbling away, I don’t recall what had happened after that.
It was if a split second had passed, and then I had simply found myself here at the old Gregory place, loitering on the edge of the swamp as dawn broke over the stagnant water. The crew had arrived shortly after, and I’d been doing my best since then to pretend that everything is okay.
But it’s not.
What had I done in all of that lost time? Would it stop once we got away from this place?
I squeeze my eyes shut. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not myself, not entirely. Maybe I never will be again.
Pushing that morbid line of thinking away, I grab my measuring tape. I need to mark the fresh sheetrock to make sure it’s the proper size to cover the hole.
But before I can even start the task, a harrowing scream rips through the air, drowning out the drone of power tools and idle chatter.
Adrenaline surges through me as I drop the measuring tape and spring into action. As I burst out into the hallway, I see Jose and several of the others doing the same.
“Upstairs!” one of the guys shouts, barely audible over the shrieks echoing off the bare walls.
We move as a pack toward the sound, surging up the stairs in a mass of bodies. I push my way to the front of the group as we reach the landing, where one of the crew, Terry, has been installing balusters for the railing.
Terry’s mouth is open in a piercing, continuous wail as he stares down at his hand. Vomit rises in my throat as I realize there’s a nail embedded in his palm. It’s punctured so deeply that I can see the sharp end sticking out from between the bones and tendons, the metal sandwiching the flesh.
Blood courses down his arm in thick, vibrant veins and spatters in a growing pool beneath him. His face is ashen from pain and shock.
He won’t stop screaming.
I know I should go to him and put pressure on his hand to stop the bleeding. I should tell him it’ll be fine. I should pull my phone out and call for an ambulance.
But I’m frozen there on the landing, steps away from Terry.
Let him bleed.
That horrible voice slides across my thoughts, a serpent in the garden. My eyes are locked onto the man’s bloody hand.
The nail glints dully in the midday light.
I can’t look away.
People push past me, swarming Terry as I stand rooted to the spot.
“Jesus, man,” Jose gasps, gathering his colleague’s hand up in a wadded rag. “What the fuck happened?”
One of the guys on the landing pipes up, “We were just getting the balusters in place. The nail gun jammed and when he tried to jimmy it out, it just went off!”
Jose takes a moment to process before he starts barking orders. “Let’s get him outside,” he commands, securing his arm around Terry’s quivering shoulder and guiding the still-screaming man toward the stairs. “Vince, call the hospital and tell them we’re bringing him in. He’s bleeding too bad for us to wait for an ambulance.”
“Sure thing,” Vince, the man who had seen the incident, replies.
Satisfied with that answer, Jose turns to me. “Do you want to take him, or should I?” he asks.
I open my mouth to say that Jose should take him so I can control the situation here once the cops come out, but the voice that erupts from my throat isn’t my own.
It’s that laugh, that terrible, grating fucking laugh.
The demon’s laugh.
Jose’s eyes widen in horror at the sound. Several of the men around me flinch away. Even Terry’s scream cuts out.
I clamp my mouth shut, but the damage is already done. Silence rings around us for a moment before the fear on the foreman’s face sours to disgust.
“Get out of the fucking way,” he spits, checking me with one shoulder so that I have to catch myself against the wall.
Nobody says anything as they close ranks around Terry. Several of the men spare me ugly glances as they file past, ushering him down the stairs, through the hallway, and out into the daylight.
I stay where I am, even as I hear the roar of engines and the slamming of car doors. Soon, the silence tells me that my crew has left, following Jose in a somber procession to the hospital.
“It wasn’t me,” I moan, sliding down the wall until I’m crumpled on the landing. “It wasn’t me.”
But there’s nobody left to convince.
What is this thing doing to me? I don’t want to admit the horrible truth that it’s controlling me. Bailey was right. It really is possessing me, pulling my strings and using me like some fucking puppet.
“Fuck you!” I howl to the empty house.
The only reply is the ceaseless buzz of the swamp.
The swamp.
That’s where this thing is from, isn’t it? Bailey said something about it being connected to the land here. It makes sense. If it was bound to the old Gregory house, it would have turned to ash along with the rest of the place. But it’s still here. Weakened, perhaps, but not dead.
It comes from the swamp, and that’s where I’ll find it.
I struggle to my feet, ignoring the way my head swims as I right myself. Time feels slow as I stumble down the stairs like a drunkard. My limbs are cottony, and my thoughts are thick. All I know is that I need to get to the marsh.
I need to confront this thing, once and for all.
Every step is a struggle. I force myself forward, navigating the hallway until I burst out of the back door and into the fresh air.
I could have sworn that today had been sunny and bright, but now, the sky is gloomy and banked with bruise-colored clouds. Thunder surges in the distance, heralding an oncoming storm. The rank stench of the swamp permeates the oppressive humidity. It’s only a matter of time before the rain starts.
“You think a fucking storm will stop me?” I holler at the shadows that dance between the cypress trees. My feet carry me away from the house toward the loamy ground. Insects mutter furiously from amidst the greenish haze that hangs over the water as the tombstones, half-sunken into the mire, beckon me closer.
That’s where I’ll find it, in the cemetery.
Mud sloshes around me as I wade into the swamp marching toward the graveyard. The water, cloudy with moss and sediment, rushes over my legs. I can feel the gnarled bones of cypress roots beneath my boots, offering me some purchase as I struggle forward.
Finally, I grab a branch and haul myself onto the patch of grass beside one lichen-covered gravestone. I gasp for air, nearly doubled over from the effort it took to climb out here.
A peal of thunder crackles in the distance, and I startle at the sound.
“A little jumpy today, aren’t we?” a voice croons from behind me.
I whip around, my fist raised, but the thing that stands before me simply catches my swing with one hand and holds it there with lazy ease.
“Amos,” I growl.
How could I have forgotten this thing, even for a second? The shadows of the swamp unmask it for what it really is, something terrible and inhuman. It’s still wearing Dalton’s face like a disguise, but nothing can hide the evil that lurks beneath.
“At your service,” the thing says with a little bow. “Or perhaps it would be more apt to say that you are at mine.”
“It’s over,” I snarl, squaring up to it even as it begins squeezing my fist painfully in its crushing grasp.
“Not quite yet,” Amos corrects, grinning. “Did you really think you could simply leave?”
I try to yank my arm back, but it doesn’t even budge.
“You shouldn’t have come back here,” the demon continues as it strengthens its grip on my hand. Pain zips up my wrist and radiates in hot bolts down my arm. “You can’t win. The house is almost finished, and then the new woman will be here. She will be mine.”
“Then take her,” I beg as the agony forces me to my knees. “Take Julia. Just let Bailey go!”
“Now why would I do that?” Amos muses. It regards me as a god would an insect. Is that what it thinks of me? Of people? Are we just toys to it?
“Please,” I plead through the blinding pain.
The thing smiles widely. “I don’t think I will,” it says slowly. “Why choose when I can have both?”
Black spots cluster before my eyes. There’s not much fight left in me, but I have to try. “You can’t have her,” I insist, my voice barely a whisper. “You can’t take Bailey.”
Amos chuckles, and the sound makes my stomach turn. “I’m taking Bailey,” it assures me. “And then you’re both going to die.”
Before I can react, the thing raises its free hand and presses its cold, slimy palm against my forehead.
A bolt of lightning splits the sky, and by the time the thunder rolls, I’m overtaken completely.