The House on Everley Street (Death Herself Book 2) Page 20

  “Go to hell,” Elizabeth growled, turning to her.

  “Funny,” Hannah replied, “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

  Without giving Elizabeth a chance to react, Hannah grabbed Katie's shoulder and pulled the girl away, knocking her to the floor and then shoving her toward Sarah and John.

  “Bring her back!” Elizabeth shouted, getting up from the chair and rushing toward the door. “She's mine!”

  Suddenly able to see the horrific figure, Sarah grabbed Katie and pulled her out of the way just in time.

  “Get out of here!” Hannah shouted, scrambling to her feet and hurrying over to join them. “I'll deal with everything, but you have to get your children out of this house! It's the children she wants!”

  Grabbing Scott, Sarah began to lead the children to the stairs, before looking back and seeing that John was staring in horror at Elizabeth.

  “It'll be okay!” Hannah shouted at her. “Just go! If you -”

  Before she could finish, Katie screamed. Turning, Hannah saw that Elizabeth was standing in the doorway, her gaze fixed firmly on John.

  “Come on,” Sarah said, scooping Katie up into her arms and carrying her down the stairs, with John hurrying after them. “I can't let you see this.”

  “You're all grown up,” Elizabeth hissed, stepping toward John. “Maybe you're not as pathetic as I thought.”

  John stepped back until he was next to the bannister.

  “It's okay,” Hannah told him, “I'm going to get rid of her. This can't be allowed to continue.”

  “Is it true?” John asked, staring at his grandmother. “Did you kill my mother?”

  “I gave her life,” Elizabeth replied, stepping closer.

  “And then you took it away,” he continued. “Everyone believed that she'd killed herself. You told me she was weak and I actually believed you! I heard her screaming!”

  “She should have poured that bleach down her throat much sooner,” Elizabeth told him. “She threatened to do it so many times, I just helped her to get the job done efficiently.”

  “Was it worth it?” Hannah asked, edging closer to them. “All the pain, all the screams? Then again, maybe it was easy for you. It's not as if John's mother was the first person you ever killed. I know about all the others, Elizabeth. All the people in your life who didn't live up to your expectations, so you ended their lives too. Your first and second husbands, your sister when you were both just little girls, even your own father. You went through your whole life like this, getting rid of people whenever you decided they weren't good enough. I wasn't able to stop you while you were alive, but now you're dead, you're in my world.”

  “If only one of them had been good enough,” Elizabeth hissed, reaching a hand out toward John's face. “Just one, that's all I asked. One decent human being out of them all.”

  “You told me she killed herself,” John said with tears in her eyes. “You lied about everything.”

  “I thought it might toughen you up,” Elizabeth replied, “but I suppose that was a hopeless case. Still, I can always try again with your daughter.”

  Before John could reply, his grandmother lunged at him, knocking him back and breaking through the old wooden bannister, sending the pair of them crashing over the edge. Hannah called out and ran forward, but all she could do was watch in horror as John fell down onto the floor below. Racing down the stairs, she found him on his back as his grandmother's ghost stood over him.

  “I won't leave this family alone,” the old woman hissed, “until I finally -”

  “No,” Hannah said firmly, stepping over to her. “You're going to leave everyone alone.”

  As Elizabeth began to scream, Hannah placed her hand over the old woman's face and forced her down. Elizabeth's eyes were burning now as Hannah's fingers dug deeper, and a kind of cold blue flame was starting to ripple across the old woman's body, consuming her from within. The scream grew louder and more pained, but Hannah didn't even flinch as she stared down at her, and finally a vast white light seemed to open up in Elizabeth's chest, flaring briefly and then sparking through the air until finally Hannah was left alone, with her hand still outstretched as ribbons of fire danced across her fingers.

  “When I said go to hell,” Hannah whispered darkly, “I meant it.”

  Turning, she saw that John wasn't moving. She got down onto her knees and checked his pulse, before staring at his face for a moment. Hearing footsteps nearby, she turned to see Sarah in the doorway.

  “You'd better call an ambulance,” Hannah told her. “And while it's on its way, you might want to think about how you're going to explain all of this, because I think people might have a few questions.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Today

  “Is she gone?” Sarah asked as she sat in the hospital corridor, her eyes red and sore from all the tears. After a moment, she turned to Hannah. “I mean, is she really gone?”

  “She's really gone,” Hannah replied.

  “But she was already dead,” Sarah continued. “Doesn't that mean she could come back? If I hear a bump in the night or a scratching sound, how do I know it's not her?”

  “Because I personally supervised her journey to the next life,” Hannah continued. “Trust me, there's no coming back from where she went.”

  Hearing footsteps nearby, Sarah looked up, only for a doctor to hurry past without even acknowledging her. “They're not telling me anything,” she muttered with frustration. “Why aren't they telling me anything? John's father said he'd pay for the best care, but no-one's saying a damn thing!”

  “It's going to take them a while to work out what to do with him,” Hannah replied. “I doubt they've had too many people like him before. Elizabeth really did a number on him, she tore his soul in two when he was a boy.”

  “So the man I married was...” Sarah paused, trying to understand the enormity of what had happened. “He was, what, only half a man?”

  “The good half. The human mind is a powerful thing. Sometimes the damage is too extreme, it spreads and destroys the whole mind, but some people find a way to compartmentalize that damage and split it off into a separate mind. That's what John did, except that his damaged half took control whenever he thought Elizabeth's ghost might be around. The good side of John genuinely believed his grandmother had died all those years ago, and the damaged side tried to protect him and maintain that fiction. It was a symbiotic relationship. Kind of cool really, apart from the context.”

  Sarah paused for a moment. “I'm not ever going to get him back, am I?”

  “I think you will,” Hannah told her. “In time.”

  “But how could people not have realized Elizabeth was still alive?” Sarah asked. “How could people have lived in that house without realizing that an old woman was sealed-up in the basement, living off rats and rainwater for twenty years?”

  “Like I said, the human mind is a powerful thing. People would have sensed that something was wrong, but fear would take over and kept them from investigating. They'd put it out of their thoughts. Of course, it helped that Elizabeth lost her voice in the stroke, and that she was barely strong enough to move. John's sound-proofing attempts were completely useless, but that didn't matter because Elizabeth couldn't make much of a sound at all. Still, people living in that house will have sensed her, and that's why they thought the place was haunted. It was a kind of referred fear, but on a grander scale. Children are less able to deceive themselves, though. They're more aware.”

  “It still seems hard to believe,” Sarah told her.

  “Well, that's the thing when I show up,” Hannah replied, getting to her feet and putting her hands in her pockets. “Thousands of people die every day on this planet, and the vast majority of those cases slip past without causing a problem. I'm only assigned the cases where strange, unlikely or improbable things are happening, and this one definitely qualifies.”

  “You're assigned cases?” Sarah asked. “By who?”

 
“By my boss.”

  “And who's that?”

  “Someone who thinks people should suffer a little less than they do.”

  “But -”

  “And I'm not going to give you a straight answer,” Hannah added, interrupting her. “You can ask until you're blue in the face, but I'll just keep on being enigmatic and mysterious.”

  Sarah stared at her for a moment. “Who are you?”

  Hannah smiled.

  “Really, I mean,” Sarah continued. “You seem to know so much about all of this, but... Who are you?”

  “Do you want coffee or tea from the machine?” Hannah asked.

  “Tea, but -”

  “Then that's who I am,” Hannah continued. “I'm the person who's going to go and get you some tea. And I'm pretty sure that within the next few minutes, a doctor is going to come out of the door at the end of the corridor, he's going to be wearing a pink tie of all things and he's going to tell you the treatment plan for John. And at least then you'll have some idea for how things will improve, and they will improve. Slowly, but it'll happen. The human mind is capable of recovering from almost anything, given the right help.”

  “But -”

  “Tea,” Hannah added, turning and heading around the corner. “I'll get that tea.”

  “Please be okay,” Sarah whispered, looking down at her hands for a moment. All she could think about was John, and the way that her husband's entire life and mind seemed to have unraveled in just a few days once he'd gone back to the house on Everley Street. She wanted to believe Hannah, to believe that there might be a chance of things getting back to normal, but at that exact moment she felt as if the whole world was crashing down onto her shoulders.

  “Mrs. Myers?”

  Looking up, she saw a nurse standing next to her, holding a cup of tea.

  “Here,” the nurse continued, handing the tea to her. “Someone asked me to give this to you.”

  Taking the tea, Sarah got to her feet and headed to the corner. Looking along toward the machine, she realized there was no sign of Hannah. After a moment, she turned to the nurse.

  “The person who asked you to give this to me... Did she leave a message?”

  “Sorry,” the nurse replied, “she just said you needed tea. Oh, and -” She held out her hand, passing a pile of crumpled pieces of paper to her. “She also said to give you these, and ask you to pass them on to your husband. She said she saved them years ago and that maybe he'd like them.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah replied with a frown. As the nurse walked away, she set the cup of tea down and began to look through the pieces of paper, which turned out to contain some kind of handwritten story. She didn't recognize the writing, although it looked a little like John's while also seeming subtly different. The pages seemed to be out of order, and finally she found the first, which contained an underlined title. “The Curse of the Beast in the Shed: A Novel,” she read out loud, “by...” She paused, feeling a faint shiver pass through her chest as she realized she recognized the name. “Rachel Myers. John's mother?”

  “Mrs. Myers?”

  Hearing another voice, she turned, just in time to see a doctor making his way toward her from the door at the far end of the corridor. She couldn't help but notice that he was wearing a pink tie.

  ***

  “You have got to be kidding,” the first medical examiner said as he and a couple of colleagues worked on one of the skeletons that had been found in the basement, with lights mounted on stands all around. “Twenty years? No way, that's impossible.”

  “I know,” the second examiner replied, “but that's actually what happened. I didn't believe it at first either, but I checked the files and it's all in there. Crazy, huh?”

  As they continued to work, neither of them noticed Hannah in the corner, watching them.

  “Looks like a scoliosis patient,” the first examiner said as he carefully laid a section of spine onto a sheet, complete with a metal rod screwed into several of the vertebrae. “So the guy was, what, feeding people to his dead grandmother?”

  “The doctors reckon his subconscious mind was taking over and doing these things,” the second examiner muttered. “Whenever there was a chance of his secret being discovered, he switched into a mode where he'd do anything to keep it hidden. I guess some people are just messed up and can't be saved. Goddamn psycho probably had no idea he was even -”

  Hannah kicked a rock, sending it skittering toward the two examiners.

  “What the hell was that?” the first examiner asked, looking at the rock and then turning to look toward Hannah, still not seeing her.

  “What's wrong?” his colleague asked. “Worried about ghosts?”

  “In a place like this? No kidding, man!”

  “Let's just get on with the job. There's no such things as ghosts.”

  They got back to work, but a moment later Hannah kicked another rock toward them.

  “This place is freaking me out,” the first examiner said. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”

  “Fine, but don't get flaky on me. There's probably just a lot of rats down here, they probably move stuff as they scurry through the shadows.”

  “Thanks. That makes me a feel a lot better.”

  “It's better than ghosts, right? Face it, at least rats actually exist. Ghosts don't.”

  “Of course not,” Hannah whispered with a faint smile, before kicking another rock toward them, this time freaking them out even more and sending them hurrying back up the steps.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  “When can Daddy come home?” Scott asked as he climbed out of the car and pushed the door shut. “He seemed a little bit today, more like he used to be.”

  “The doctor says he needs to stay there for a while longer,” Sarah replied, opening the boot and pulling out grocery bags. “It's looking better than before, though. They'll start by letting him come home for day visits, maybe for weekends, and then they'll take it from there.”

  “But he'll be okay in the end, won't he?” Scott continued, grabbing two of the bags and heading toward the house. “He's not going to be there forever, right?”

  “No, not forever,” Sarah replied, slamming the boot once the final bag was out. “Just until he's okay again.”

  “Do you really think he'll get better?” Katie asked, with a hint of fear in her voice. “Every time we go and see him, Scott says he thinks he seems better, but I don't think he's right. I don't think he seems different at all.”

  “The truth is somewhere in the middle,” Sarah told her. “He's getting better slowly, but he might never be completely well. It's just a matter of taking small steps each day and hoping that eventually...” She paused for a moment, seeing the concern in her daughter's eyes. “Whatever happens, it'll be okay. Your father has problems, they went undiagnosed for years, but they've been recognized now and you might not see it, but he's making real progress.”

  Katie frowned.

  “Now take these bags inside,” Sarah continued, “and I'll start thinking about dinner.”

  As Katie headed into the house, Sarah leaned into the car and grabbed her bag. As she locked the doors and prepared to go inside, however, she heard footsteps getting closer, and she turned to see a smart, twenty-something guy approaching. Well-dressed and with a kind smile, the guy seemed a little hesitant.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Sarah Myers?”

  If you're a journalist,” she replied, instantly becoming defensive, “I really don't think I can help you. My husband's health is a private matter -”

  “I'm not a journalist,” he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender, “I promise. I'm not here to dig into his personal details, I'm a researcher.”

  “I'm still not sure I can help you,” she continued, glancing at the house to make sure the children were inside, before turning back to him. Over the past year, she'd dealt with scores of journalists, and they never quite seemed to giv
e up digging into the story. “We're dealing with things privately.”

  “My name is Daniel,” the guy told her as they shook hands. “I was very sorry to hear about what happened to your husband, I hope your children are okay.”

  “They're just fine,” she said cautiously.

  “And you? The whole experience must have been extremely harrowing.”

  “I'm fine too.”

  “That's great.” He paused, as if he was a little nervous about continuing. “I'm actually here to ask you about Hannah.”

  “Hannah?” Pausing, Sarah felt relieved and uneasy at the same time. In all the drama surrounding the events a year ago, the presence of Hannah had been one thing she'd kept very much to herself. After all, she had no idea how to answer the inevitable awkward questions. “Listen, I really have no -”

  “I know you know who I mean,” he added, interrupting her.

  She paused again. “What did you say you were researching again?”

  “I guess you could say I'm researching Hannah herself,” he continued. “I'm sure I don't need to tell you that she's... elusive. Something of an enigma.”

  “I really don't think I can help you...”

  “I think you can,” he replied, before smiling. “I'm sorry, that must have come across wrong, but... The truth is, I've been researching Hannah for a while now. Digging into the story, following leads, tracking down people who might have come across her. It's not easy, people tend to not talk about her much, some people even seem to doubt she exists, but I know she does.” He paused. “I also know she was involved in what happened with your husband last year.”

  “I haven't seen her since then.”

  “I know that too. She's not exactly famous for sticking around. She never has been.”

  “I don't know anything about her,” Sarah continued. “Not really. I don't know how to get in touch with her, if that's what you want. Hell, I don't even know her surname or where she comes from.”

  “I figured. Everyone basically says the same thing. She turns up like a whirlwind, she does whatever she needs to do, and then she gets out of town real fast.”