“Ms. Marks, can you come in here?”
I looked up to see Mr. Jackson standing at the doorway to his office, and I could already tell from his expression that it was bad news. Standing up, I made an effort to not favor my bad leg. To not limp as I walked over to him and entered the room. To not look weak. Expendable.
Sitting down in one of his guest chairs, I tried to keep my face neutral as he took his position behind the desk. “What can I do for you, Mr. Jackson?”
He smiled awkwardly. “Tony, please. Everyone can just call me Tony.” Clearing his throat, he looked at some point above me and kept ploughing ahead. “Ellie, we’ve been real happy with the work you’ve been doing here and I know I’d talked to you in the past about making it a full-time position…but, well, I’ve talked to our numbers guys and it’s just not in the budget for right now.” He glanced at me before looking away again. “It’s not the salary, so much. It’s everything that comes with it. The benefits are so dang expensive these days.”
I felt a flare of familiar anger flaring in my chest. “Mr…Tony, the insurance is one of the main reasons I wanted to work full-time.” I held up my prosthetic right hand and waved it to illustrate my point, but also because I knew how uncomfortable it made him. “As you know, I have certain limitations from a childhood accident. The damage to my hands at the time…if I have good insurance, I can get an upgrade on my prosthetic. And if I get the gold plan the company’s insurance offers, I think I can save up to meet the co-pay for surgery on my good hand as well. The doctor I saw last year said they may be able to get my left hand’s functionality up from fifty percent to ninety or better with modern surgery and follow-up therapy.”
Jackson’s face flushed as he forced himself to look my way again. “I…I didn’t know, Ellie. I…look, I can’t make any promises, okay? I really wasn’t shooting you a line before. But let me talk to the people above me again. See if I can make something happen.”
I felt tears springing into the corners of my eyes as my heart started to pound. “If you would, that would be won…”
He held up his hand. “Don’t thank me yet. And don’t take this as a promise that it’ll happen. Just that I’ll try my best.”
Nodding, I fought the urge to go around the desk and hug him. This was the second job I’d had since moving to Empire three months ago, and I hadn’t held out much hope of it going anywhere long-term. But if it could…if I could really get on full-time…I gave him what I hoped was a grateful smile and left his office. When I got back to my desk, I saw I had an inner-office message from Gladys who worked in Accounts. Her and some of the other girls from work were going to some kind of Haunted Hayride near Murphy Park and wanted me to go.
I felt a flood of nerves and mixed emotion as I reread the invitation. It wasn’t some mass mailing--it had only been sent to me and the three other women from work that were going with Gladys. A small, constant voice in the back of my head started telling me why I shouldn’t go, why I couldn’t go. It was just a pity invite, or maybe even a trick. Yes, they all seemed friendly enough at work, but they would never really be my friends. And even if I went, what if I had too much trouble getting on the hay ride? I was pretty strong and capable despite my size and limitations, but still I…
No. I needed to fit in here. Make a real life here. I had to stop psyching myself out.
When I had gotten the packet from Helping Hands job placement service back in August, I’d never imagined I’d actually move two states away to Empire. Being disabled, you get all kinds of related junk mail and scams regularly, and most of it I just ignore. But something about this…I read through the paperwork they sent, called and talked to them and…well, it seemed too good to be true, but they were actually legit. I drove out the next week to visit the area, and by the week after that, I was already moving and starting my first job at a pest control company in south Empire. That hadn’t lasted, of course, but now I had a chance to make sure this one did.
My palm sweaty, I pecked out a brief response.
Hey! Sure, I’ll go. See you there!
I didn’t understand at first. When the hayride began to slow down in the middle of the woods, I first thought it was just the driver easing off the pedal of the tractor. There were twenty of us in the back including Gladys and myself, and to my surprise, I was having a really good time. These women were fun and didn’t act weird around me and…
The driver of the tractor was slumped over like he was unconscious. I went to tell my new friends what was happening, but as I turned back, I saw that everyone else in the back of the hayride was slumping over too. I reached over and shook one of the ladies I didn’t know as well, her name was Meredith I think, and she didn’t respond. I didn’t know what was going on. They weren’t dead, and I didn’t know how they’d have gotten knocked out by anything. I felt fine aside from my growing panic and fear. But it was as though they all decided at the same time that they needed a little nap.
I was digging in my jacket pocket for my phone when I heard the voice. It sounded somewhat different than what I remembered, but it didn’t matter. It was the same voice that had whispered to me down in the dark of Stonebrook’s basement. It was the same devil that broke me apart. Took my hand. Killed my life. I’d tried to forget it, to pretend that I remembered it all wrong, that I’d just had a bad fall, but I’d always known what really happened. And now it had found me again, trapped me alone in the dark again, talked to me again in a deeper version of its strange sing-song, uneven voice.
“No. Oh no no no. Please noooo…” Just those two words had sent me into a terrified frenzy. I started scrabbling off the hayride and running back down the path we’d taken as best I could, my heartbeat thudding in my ears like a wardrum. Suddenly I hit something I couldn’t see and staggered back, barely catching myself from falling.
“No need to run, child. There’s no where to go, in any case.”
I started looking around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary in the limited light from the moon. The hayride had several “scary” scenes set up along the journey, and in the distance I could see the lights from the last one we had passed--a hillbilly shack with a skeleton propped up as though he was playing a banjo. I probably had half a mile to go after that, but I just needed to keep…
I felt it brush by me and I let out a scream.
“I suppose this seems very unfair to you. I think it probably is. I want you to know that it isn’t personal. I considered your debt paid to Cassidy when you left that basement broken.”
Despite my fear, I stopped trying to figure out the best way to run away again and responded to it. “Why? Why are you back then?”
I could feel it nearby, circling me. “I’ve recently become…unfettered and need to find a new place. A place I can live and grow. I’ve decided that this area is well-suited to my unique needs.”
I shook my head slightly. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“Ellie, this place is rife with strange tales and beliefs. It is a very fertile ground. But I’m unknown here.” There was a brief pause and then it added. “Except by you.”
My throat started to tighten. “Did you…are you…why I’m here? Did you trick me into moving here?”
I almost thought I heard regret in its voice this time. “I’m afraid so. I don’t do this out of cruelty, you understand. But your fear of me…your belief…it is still very strong. It makes for what Ellis would have called ‘a great jumping off point’.”
“No.” I started running again, heading for the light of that propped up shanty, when I suddenly felt a sharp pain flare in my left hand. I slowed but didn’t stop as I held my hand up to be silhouetted in the distant glow.
My fingers. He broke two of my fingers.
The voice came again, right at my ear.
“That should suffice for the moment. See you soon, child.”
I ran on through the dark, knowing I could never really escape it. I saw now that I had never really escaped it since that day at Stonebrook. This thing…the Professor…whatever it was…was going to keep torturing and terrorizing me forever.
I tried to leave town that night. I’ve tried several times since. I never get any further than Jessica’s Resolve or a few miles outside of Empire in any other direction. And I’ve had three toes broken since then. There are sores running down my left side. And I don’t hear so good out of my right ear any more.
It’s pulling me apart, piece by piece, and I can’t stop it. I can’t run away. All I can do is try to end this, try to warn others. Maybe that’s what it wants anyway. And maybe if I do it right, it’ll let me just die.
I’ve tried to live my life. I’m not a good person, but I don’t think I’m bad either. Not really. And I’ve tried to make the best choices I knew how. Pick the right path when I was able.
But that’s done now. I see now that I was never free. I was just in the waiting room for Hell. And now, there are no more best choices or right paths.
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