All was silent. No birds, no insects. The land was in hibernation.
Never, she thought. That was the name of this place. We called it Never.
The forest before her was impossibly black. Anything could come at her from any direction and she’d never see it coming, never—
No, I can’t think about that. If I imagine it, it could happen, could come true. Somehow, Simon has managed to tap into my head and use my ability against me and for his own purposes. I have to be careful not to let prying fingers into my brain.
Wind blew, rattling the trees and causing her to gasp.
I’m not going to be able to find anything down here. Not in the dark…
That said, a dull red glow appeared at the heart of the forest, just barely visible for the trees. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and she could almost hear it breathing in her head. Obeying her instinct, she took a step in the direction of the light, her foot crunching dead leaves hardened by frost. The pulse of the light was steady, unflinching. She a ship in the harbor, and that light her beacon. Home. Coming home. Welcoming her back to the Land of Never.
He wants me to find him, she thought, creeping through the underbrush. He’s been waiting for this confrontation for as long as I have. And maybe all along he was never satisfied with Becky. Maybe he was smart enough to use Becky to get to me. Maybe all those feelings I started feeling back in the city had nothing to do with Becky calling out to me, and everything to do with this monster.
The notion that this creature was capable of such power nearly frightened Kelly into submission. However, she would not curl up and wish it all away. She couldn’t do that, not now. She’d left a door unlocked here when she went away as a teenager, and the thing living inside that room had gotten out, had himself a grand time. But now the cat was back; the mouse would no longer play.
“I created you from nothing,” she whispered as she walked. Even in the densest part of the forest the wind whipped her face and chapped her cheeks and lips. “I made you and now I’m going to put you back.”
—You’ll never do it.
She froze. It was a voice inside her head.
“Simon…”
—You can try but you’ll never be able to make me disappear. You’ve done too much forgetting while I’ve remained lonely and restless, Kellerella. Now I’m strong and you’re weak. Time has changed things.
And could that be true? Or was it just another tactic?
“What have you been up to?” Her throat felt thick and tight. “What did you do to Becky?”
But the voice did not respond. Her eyes, still trained on the red beacon in the distance, forced her to trudge on. Her fear was slowly being eaten by an urgency to reclaim her own mind and body. She felt cheated. That this creature had done terrible things to her in the past, forcing her mind to block out whole lapses of her childhood, she wanted to punish him—it—whatever—and make him pay, make him go away, to shovel him back into the realm of nonexistence.
And then there was Becky. Poor Becky, whom she’d deserted, had been left unknowingly with a monster in her back yard.
I’m sorry, Kelly thought. I’m so sorry.
She stumbled into a narrow clearing, thought she’d gotten somehow turned around, then realized that she was on the path. Though it had become overgrown over the passage of years, the rudiments of the path remained, and she found that she could trace its direction even in the darkness. The beacon was still up ahead of her, but she no longer needed it. Now she was on the path. It would take her home.
Home, she thought. My own warped mind poisoned this place.
Something moved in the shadows a few feet in front of her, and she felt her heart skip. She paused, standing there like someone at the scene of a twisted and gruesome accident, her eyes hungry to focus on the thing before her, to draw it out into the moonlight.
She found herself whispering, “Simon…”
Two eyes locked with hers; they were the first things she saw. They were blue and piercing, deflecting the moon glow like polished ice. Yet they were low, close to the ground…
“Come out.” She wanted to sound forceful but her voice cracked.
The eyes moved and Kelly followed them in the shadows. Briefly, they vanished in the darkness, only to reappear several inches closer. Its body was still hidden in darkness, yet she could sense the enormity of it moving and shifting around her. Like an embrace, its warm, fetid breath accosted her, wrapped around her. Intelligent eyes…yet not the eyes of a human being. Nor the eyes of anything trying to mimic a human being.
“Come out,” she repeated, her voice a bit sterner.
The eyes passed before a bar of moonlight across the path. A silver-gray pelt covered its face, the muscular slope of its back. It was a dog. It was the dog, the injured one from all those years ago. And was what she was seeing even real, or was this some ghost, some memory-induced phantom brought to life by preternatural means?
The beast cocked its head to one side, its eyes thoughtful and frighteningly knowledgeable. Its injured front paw was tucked beneath the billowing fur at its chest. As if trying to communicate, the animal began emitting a high-pitched whine that reminded Kelly of squeaking hinges.
Unable to move, she could only watch the animal as it, in turn, watched her. It was real enough. And she knew that if she reached out to touch it her fingers would be greeted by sleet-dampened fur. Was this another trick?
“Get lost,” she yelled at it. “Go on—you’re not real. Get going.”
The dog swung its head around to the side and hobbled off the side of the path. It disappeared into the darkness of the forest. For several moments after it became invisible, Kelly could still hear it slowly impel itself through the confusing thicket of the forest. She stood there, deep within her own silence, until the labored, stumbling sounds of the dog stopped. And a moment after that, she was already questioning the validity of its appearance.
Ahead, the red beacon seemed to intensify. Yes, there was no doubt about it—she was anticipated, expected and long overdue.
If you think I’m afraid, she thought, then you’re sadly mistaken.
She jumped, a piercing laugh ringing through the center of her brain. Before her, the world began to shift and challenge reality.
—You have no idea, a sharp voice barked inside her mind.
Driven, she pushed forward along the path. Further down, trees leaned in her way, their branches touching from either side of the path. Heedless, she pushed through them, feeling them prick and scrape her face, the back of her neck. A sharpness jabbed at her forehead and she felt a warm slick of blood dribble down her face.
—How much can you handle, Kellerella? How much do you really think you can deal with? Because not all of this is just in your head. Not all of what you’re about to see is make-believe. Not everything here is part of Never. Some of it is very, very real. So how much can you take?
“Fuck you,” she breathed, pushing on.
—It’s been a long time. You’ve changed. You’re not the same little girl you once were. But you want to know something? I’m not the same thing I used to be, either. Like you, I’ve changed.
“I’m not afraid.” But her voice shook. She found she could not think of anything—dared not, for fear that her newfound well of childhood memories might come to life and bring about her own downfall. “I’m not the one hiding. Why don’t you come out and face me if you’re so powerful? Why don’t you show yourself to me right now?”
—A proper reunion. Don’t spoil it for me. I’ve been waiting so long to do this right.
And despite her words, she sensed no fear in its voice, unlike her own.
—You can’t lie to me, can’t trick me, Kellerella. I’m you and you’re me. We’re the same. We share the same mind. I am your mind. You can’t lie to me, stupid girl. You can’t trick me.
Eyes pressed closed, she shook the voice from her head. From behind her eyelids, she could still see the throbbing red light, beckoning her. Alm
ost teasingly. Opening her eyes, she pushed on through the path. Or what was left of the path: this deep, it had become overgrown with forestry and impeded her passage. To her right, she could hear the soft gurgle of the brook, apparently unfrozen despite the cold. She thought of it flowing with blood and felt a mist of shivers rise through her spine.
Close enough now, she could actually feel the heat from the red beacon at her face. She crossed over a deadfall, heard something small and quick scamper off into the shadows, and footed up the small incline slick with ice. Her breath whistled through her tightening throat. Grappling with weeds for a handhold, she pulled herself up and over the incline, and half-slid down the other side, her fingers frozen and numb.
Though still veiled by the arms of many trees, she could now partially make out the house. Its puerile silhouette sat before the black density of the forest behind it, the pulsing red light issuing through the open doorway. She stood and stared at it without moving, almost without breathing. She’d known it would be here…yet found that she was unprepared for it. Dark and ill-defined, it was still possible to convince herself of its unreality, of its nonexistence, of its falsity.
—Welcome home, Simon whispered. And he was hardly alone: she could make out the indistinct jumble of a chorus of voices, all speaking cluttered nonsense in unison. How strong had Simon really become?
She recalled Simon’s words: Not all of what you’re about to see is make-believe. Not everything here is part of Never. Some of it is very, very real. So how much can you take?
She took a step closer and her foot come down on something thick and wet.
It was a body. She knew this before actually looking down and seeing it. Quickly pulling her foot away, she stumbled backward and slammed against a tree, her eyes straining in the darkness to make out the shape on the ground, already visualizing the worst. A shaft of moonlight broke through the treetops and illuminated the irrefutable swell of a human body. It lay slumped and broken on the ground, its limbs indecipherable from the vegetation that surrounded it. Yet, she knew it was a person—could almost make out the shape of a boot protruding from the thicket…could almost see a pale-white hand, dense with frost, curling up out of the ground like a leaf…
“No,” she managed, and sought out that special part of her brain that controlled such hallucinations. She pressed against that part, intent on demolishing this mirage as she had done with the phantom pains of urination, the receding earth and the injured dog. Yet she found only a hollow void in her head—a coldness that could only mean that her mind was not engaged with this mirage, that Simon hadn’t penetrated her, was not siphoning her powers…
Which meant the body was real.
She side-stepped around it, not taking her eyes from it. From this new angle, she caught a glimpse of its face. It was a man. Eyes wide and frozen to crystals, mouth agape, lips frozen in unending agony, she found herself again thinking about the animal heads that had decorated her father’s thinking room. And this strange man…this dead human being lying here in the woods, here at her feet, wrapped in a checkered hunting jacket and—
—It’s not all make-believe, Kellerella.
“No!” The word exploded from her throat like a rocket, shattering in the air. She knew what this was, knew what this dead man represented, and in a fit of tremors, Kelly pushed herself back along the embankment and surveyed the rest of the clearing.
A second lifeless hump was strewn on the ground a few yards ahead of the first one. Again, she could make out the features of its face in the moonlight. Another man. Wearing a flannel hunting jacket and cap. Over his jacket he wore an orange hunting vest. However, this time she could clearly make out the cause of death: the hunter’s orange vest, flannel jacket and, subsequently, his chest and ribcage had been torn down the middle. Dead for some time now, the hunter’s blood had coagulated and gelled. His skin had turned a gray-blue color. A nest of insects had infested his guts; they squirmed in the gore, each maggot as thick as a human finger.
Missing hunters, she thought. There was a third. And there was: several yards beyond the second corpse, closer to the crest of the house and half-buried beneath a plume of bushes. Dead. Dead.
—Do you like what you see? I’ve recreated it all for you, Kellerella. I’ve made Never real for you once again. For both of us. I’ve never stopped thinking about you.
Petrified, she found she could only shake her head. “Why?” she managed, her throat small and clogged with fear.
—Because I need you. Just like you need me. There’s no escaping the truth, Kelly. We’re both the same person. The difference is, you’ve worked long and hard to forget about me. But I haven’t forgotten about you. Can’t you see that now? Can’t you see all I’ve done?
“Killed people,” she said. “You—you killed…people…”
—I wanted everything just as it had been back then. Only better. We’re both stronger now, don’t you see? You just have to learn to go with what you feel, to use your power…
“What else have you done?”
—It only gets better. I promise.
“Come out,” she said. “Show yourself.”
—Why? Are you afraid to come inside the house? Are you afraid to see what’s next? You know, don’t you? I’ve knocked it all up a notch just for you. So come inside our little home. It’s your house, really. You built it.
Three dead men leading the way to the gingerbread house. Knocked it all up a notch, she thought, and remembered the dead squirrel that had been hanging from vines just inside the doorway of the house when she’d followed Simon inside all those years ago. The squirrel, dangling with its belly split open and its bowels hanging out. Knocked it all up a notch just for you.
The image of Becky, prone and helpless in bed and covered in bruises, roused Kelly and forced her to take another step toward the house. The red light was hot on her skin now, and she could see that most of the snow and ice had melted away from the front of the house. Becky—that was what drove her.
“I should have never left her here for you,” she growled. “And I should have never left you here for her.”
—She has the same power, Simon said, but she’s nowhere as strong as you.
“You hurt her. You used her to bring me back here.”
She crested the embankment and hopped down the other side. Now, the house loomed before her, much larger than she ever remembered. It seemed as wide as a school bus, with windows that scaled up past the treetops. Its facade was black as tar, no longer made of sweets, but of stone and wood and moss and rot and blood and bone. Staring at it, she felt something deep inside her give way, like an elevator dropping several floors. She braced herself for the crash, but none came. Not from inside her, anyway; the outside world had crashed, though. Everything around her screamed in agony. The brook ran thick with blood, she knew at that moment. For some reason, that notion left her with little hope.
The front door was open, that burning red light flooding out of it, pulsing like a heartbeat. Something dark and immense was suspended in that light: from her new proximity, she could see that now. Something large and indefinite, hanging inside the doorway, slowly swinging back and forth. Again, her mind returned to the gutted, decapitated squirrel. And to the three dead men out here with her.
“She’s unconscious because of you. What did you do to her, Simon?”
—Now we use the name…
“What did you do?”
—I did nothing. You did it. Can’t you see that yet? Don’t you understand any of this? I would never have existed if it hadn’t been for you, Kelly, and for your mind.
“So what do you want now?”
—More, he said. What else?
“More what?”
—More life. More power. I want what you already have. I want what you have and are too afraid to use. I want, Kelly, what I wanted all those years ago, and what you refused to give me. I want to live.
“Sacrifice myself…”
—No. Join tog
ether. Make us one.
“That’s what you tried to do with Becky. Only it didn’t work. Did she fight you at the end? Did she reject you?”
—Don’t give the girl so much credit. She wasn’t strong enough. I wanted you. I’ve always wanted you.
“Show yourself now.”
—Lonely growing up here, wasn’t it? Do you think it was any different for your sister?
“Come out. I’m calling you out!”
—Lonely children are such easy targets. Such fascinating imaginations.
“Out!” she screamed—then felt a surge of electricity slam through her body, scooping her feet out from under her and sending her crashing to the ground. In pain and gasping for breath, Kelly rolled over to one side, her face pressed into the freezing snow.
—I miss our games, Kelly, Simon said, his voice now like a sonic boom in the center of Kelly’s head. I miss all our good times. Again, she was aware of a million voices at once, each struggling for supremacy. Now come inside the house.
She sprung to her feet, her hands shaking, the blood from the gash in her forehead now stinging her eyes, and she began moving toward the house. Closing in, she could feel that pulsing light searing her flesh. The heart of Never.
All in my head, she promised herself. It can’t hurt me if I don’t let it.
But the pendulous shape in the doorway was not part of her imagination.
—Come inside…
“I’m not afraid of you!” she shouted, standing directly before the burning front door. Her hands were balled into fists; her face was flushed, her teeth clenched together. “I made you and I can destroy you! You’re not real!”
—Too late, chuckled Simon. Now I’m as real as you.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Carlos splashed cold water on his face then paused to stare at himself in Nellie’s bathroom mirror.
He thought, With all man’s ability to study and learn and hypothesize answers to our world’s greater mysteries, how is it that we all feel so small? The question of God is not really a question of God; rather, it is a question of how much we’re afraid of and how much we cannot understand for ourselves, despite our test tubes and charts and graphs and awards we present ourselves—all that tells us we understand things that we really do not. We say “theorize” and “solution” and “predict” and think we are intelligent. We read Whitman and Hemingway and Darwin and Einstein and Shakespeare and think we are enlightened. We establish a foothold in the bustle of society and feel we have somehow, by some personal achievement or device, attained a certain piece of land for ourselves, a certain societal slip in which to dock. Yet when faced with the severity of the incomprehensible—the impossible and the terrifying—then why is all rationale lost to us? Is the human race that doomed? Or perhaps in blindness we find comfort, or that nothing behind our faces is of any importance until it attacks us? Have we gotten so arrogant that we no longer want to be protected and informed by our own brains, our own minds? As if they are separate from us—the enemy? In the end, have we shut ourselves off to our own instincts because people as a whole are terrified of the idea that something had to instill those instincts in us, and that we ourselves are truly powerless?