***
After Owen showered he tried rousing Matt from bed, but he wouldn’t budge, settling for a glass of water instead of dinner and fell right back into his semi-coma. Chloe joined them for dinner briefly, and then returned upstairs to continue her drawings.
Owen cleared the dinner table while Claire helped Chloe get ready for bed. When he walked back to their bedroom he saw Claire sitting on the edge of their bed, picking at her nails nervously.
“Hey,” Claire said, her voice so small and fragile it was like her teeth were made of porcelain and if she spoke too loud they would shatter.
“Hey.” Owen sat down next to her, then grabbed her hand. They hadn’t spoken over dinner, and he’d been avoiding bringing up the subject of her father. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the promise he’d made to Roger. “I know you love your dad. I love him too. And what you said about your mom not wanting to put him in a home if she was still alive, I think you’re right. She wouldn’t have.”
Claire’s expression softened.
“But you have to understand that things have changed,” Owen said. “Your dad would never hurt the kids, but he’s also not in his right mind. We can’t think of him like he was anymore. We can’t—”
Claire sniffled, wiping a tear from her eye. “I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand, a desperation in her touch that he’d never felt before. “With the move, and everything happening with Matt, it just feels like I’m losing my family.” She looked up at him, her eyes red and watering, the tiny red veins of her eyes irritated from the tears. “I don’t have a dad anymore.”
Owen rested his chin on her head as she leaned into him and sobbed. He held her tight. “But you’re not going to lose your family. I won’t let that happen. I promise.”
Claire took deep breaths, exhaling slowly, doing her best to regain control of her emotions. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can,” Owen said, looking at her. “And I will.” He never wanted to see his wife break like this again. “We’ll keep your dad here. We’ll do what we have to do. But he will eventually need to be sent somewhere for care. I don’t want the kids to have their last memories of their grandfather being what he’ll become. And he wouldn’t want that either.”
Claire kissed him, and then wiped her eyes. “I’m gonna take a shower before bed.”
“Okay,” Owen said.
When she was finished, Claire stepped out of the shower like a wet zombie and collapsed into bed with the towel still around her body. Owen helped her out of it, then pulled the thin sheet over her, kissed her cheek, and then turned off the light.
Owen lay in bed with his eyes closed, but his mind wouldn’t turn off. He found himself trying to rationalize everything that happened. He kept brushing it off as coincidence, but there was something about last night, the way Claire had looked, the spiders, the water, even that Voodoo woman, it was all connected.
Just the thought of her caused Owen to shiver with anxiety. And it wasn’t just her, it was that whole goddamn store. And while he never believed in religion, there was something satanic about the place. Something evil.
Owen tilted his head on his pillow toward Claire. His family was the only great thing he’d done in his life. Growing up, he had dreams, like all little kids did, but there was always something that kept him from ever trying to peek over the edge. It wasn’t fear of failure, just an understanding of who he was at a very early age. He wanted a wife, to own a house, raise kids, work hard to provide for his family, and come home at the end of the day sweaty and satisfied. But now it all felt like it was slipping away.
A heavy thump sounded upstairs, and Owen jolted upright out of bed.
“What was that?” Claire asked, wakening with a violent jerk.
Owen swung his legs off the side of the bed, his eyes watching the ceiling, listening. He kept still, his muscles tense, and another heavy thump echoed upstairs, this one accompanied by a rattling noise.
“Oh my god.” Claire jumped out of bed, the towel she fell asleep in falling to the floor as she rushed around the end of the mattress before Owen snatched her arm to stop her from leaving. “That’s the same—”
“Just stay here,” Owen said, reaching for the Louisville slugger he kept behind the nightstand. He left Claire to dress and stepped into the hallway, the heavy thumps and rattling growing louder upstairs as he sprinted toward the kids’ rooms.
He dashed through the dining room and looked up to the second balcony. Oddly shaped shadows formed on the walls in the darkness, but Owen felt his heart skip a beat when he saw one move into Matt’s room.
“Hey!” Owen sprinted to the staircase, his body in such a hurry that he cracked the side of the dining table with the bat as it dragged behind him. He leapt up the stairs, but the moment his foot hit the first step of the staircase, the ground trembled.
Owen’s foot slipped against the wood, and gravity body-slammed him awkwardly on the steps. The staircase shuffled him side to side, the whole damn house shaking like they were in an earthquake. “Matt!”
The rumbling worsened as Owen ditched the bat and was forced to crawl up the stairs on his hands and knees. The noise blared like a freight train speeding through the house, and Owen’s bones rattled more violently the closer he reached the second story.
But as Owen climbed, there was another noise among the freight train, an undertone that he’d heard before. It was a whisper, a chanting, and he could have sworn he heard the woman’s voice from that voodoo shop.
The trembling ground thrust Owen into the wall, then the bannister, his legs twisting beneath him on his serpentine sprint to his son’s room. The door was shut, and the vibrations of the house were so intense that Owen’s vision blurred. “Matt!”
The whispering undertones grew louder, and they were accompanied by a rhythmic rattling that grew as violent as the tremors.
Owen stretched his arm and reached for the knob, pulling himself toward the door and shouldering it open in one motion. The moment he stepped inside, the trembling stopped.
Owen stumbled a few steps, his legs wobbling on steady ground, and found Matt’s bed empty, the sheets messily strewn about the mattress. Owen’s heart plummeted toward his stomach and he frantically searched the room. “Matt! MATT!”
“Owen!” Claire screamed from downstairs, her voice cracking.
“He’s gone!” Owen pressed his hands into the side of his head, the panic overwhelming him as he spun in circles in the dark.
Moonlight filtered through the dirty bedroom window, and Owen passed his eyes over it so quickly that he nearly missed the figure in the tall grass. He rushed to the window, his hands plastered against the dirty glass like a mad man trapped in an asylum.
Amidst the tall grass he saw something carrying his son toward the swamp. “Matt!” Owen smacked the glass and then sprinted out of the room and back toward the spiral staircase, passing Claire on her way up.
She grabbed at his arm, but he was too quick for her to stop. “What happened?”
“Someone took him!” Owen jumped the last three steps of the staircase, landing hard on the balls of his feet, breaking into a sprint toward the front of the house. The heavy thump of his feet echoed loudly through the house and ended when he slammed into the wall of humid Louisiana swamp air outside.
Owen cut a hard left that sank his feet into dirt and mud, causing him to trip. “Matt!” The tall grass in the clearing tickled at his legs and waist. He pumped his arms and legs hard, ignoring the tingle in his bare feet and the growing numbness of his body.
The clearing ended and Owen smacked aside the hanging Spanish moss as dirt morphed into mud that splashed up his legs with every step, sucking his feet into the depths of Louisiana swamp.
The overhanging branches of trees blocked the stars and moonlight and while the air had been hot and muggy when he first stepped outside, Owen felt a crisp chill run up his back.
“Come o
ut here!” Owen screamed at the top of his lungs, stumbling through the mud like a drunkard. Rage coursed through his veins, laced with the fear of losing his son and the unknown of the darkness he saw take him. “Matt!”
The rattling noise sounded to his left, and Owen snapped his head in that direction. He lifted his foot, and the mud gave off a low suction noise as he stepped forward. The darkness thickened, and water started to bubble up from the mud the farther he walked. “You can’t hide out here forever!”
Gnats and flies buzzed around his head, and despite the growing chill, sweat oozed from Owen’s skin. The water level rose to his shins as he followed the rattling and then a quick, heavy swoosh sounded to his left. He jumped from the noise and watched the ripples wrinkle the still water. “Matt?”
Dark patches of grass and debris floated lazily over the black water, and the cypress trees grew more frequent the deeper he waded. He couldn’t stop shivering, and when the water reached his knees, that’s when he saw it.
It wasn’t human, though it had legs and arms and stood upright. Thick cords of matted black hair sprouted from the top of its head and traveled down its back. Its head was large, its torso short but muscular. Its entire body was covered in a scaly grey flesh that glistened and shimmered under the moonlight. It held Matt in its arms, six-inch black claws stretched out from three stubby fingers on each hand.
“Let him go,” Owen said, doing his best to keep his voice steady.
The creature didn’t answer. It just stared at Owen, holding Matt, half its body below the waterline. Then, slowly, it opened its mouth, wide. A throaty croak escaped ending in a long, drawn-out hiss. The sharp teeth were pointed toward Owen and the creature hunched forward while it held his son.
Water rippled to Owen’s left and right, and he saw something gliding through the water just below the surface. He turned back to the creature, and it slowly lowered into the water, taking Matt with it.
“NO!” Owen lunged forward, erupting the still, rancid swamp water. Quick, thrashing movements to his right stole Owen’s attention, and those croaking hisses grew louder. It wasn’t until the gator was less than a foot away that Owen realized where the sound was coming from.
He jerked to a stop, backtracking as the pair of gators blocked his path toward his son. He splashed the water, trying to push the gators back, but they wouldn’t budge. “Matt!” The creature was submerged to the chest now, sinking lower. His son’s head was nearly underwater, his eyes closed as he lay unconscious against the creature’s body.
The gator to the left lunged and snapped, and Owen fell backward, his arms and legs flailing wildly on his retreat as the creature finally disappeared beneath the water’s surface.
“NO!” The scream rivaled the gator’s fierce hiss as both animals pressed forward, pushing Owen from the water. The pair followed him all the way up the mud, Owen’s backside sliding in the thick muck as he kicked his legs. The gators slithered on their bellies over the dark mud, water dripping from their jaws as they exposed the hundreds of short, jagged teeth that still had bits of flesh on them from their last meal. Owen got to his feet, backpedaling, and the gators ended their pursuit. Mud and water dripped from Owen’s body as his mouth hung slack.
This wasn’t real. This was a bad dream and he’d wake any minute. “Matt!” His voice echoed off the water and bounced through the swamp until it disappeared into the darkness like that creature.
Headlights caught his attention toward the road. They turned down the long driveway to the house, and Owen immediately sprinted toward the truck, waving his arms in panicked frenzy, his legs cramping. “Hey! Help!”
The truck’s headlights bounced up and down over the encroaching cypress roots that curved over the dirt path to the house. It slowed to a stop, and the lights and engine remained on as Owen drew closer, the adrenaline that fueled him nearly gone. “My son! Something took my son!”
A pair of shadowed figures said nothing as they stepped out of the truck, and Owen slowed. The truck looked familiar, but before Owen made the connection, a gunshot thundered from one of the silhouettes.
Owen ducked, and sprinted to the back of the house. Three more gunshots fired, each making Owen flinch. His heavy legs and arms suddenly grew light in his flight, and he didn’t stop until the house was between him and the shooters.
Gasping for breath Owen hunched over, resting his hands on his knees. The gunmen shouted at one another, their voices carrying in the night, and then Owen heard the front door groaning as they stepped inside. His eyes widened. Claire. Chloe.
Quickly, he snuck through the back door, gently closing it behind him while the men up front stomped loudly through the front living room.
“We know you’re here!” The voice echoed down the hallways but was slightly muffled from the walls. “You’re just going to make it harder on yourselves!”
Owen paused just before the hallway in the back led into the dining room. He knew that voice. It was Jake Martin from work. That was his truck parked out front.
“C’mon out, Owen! Let’s get this over with.”
Owen quietly crept around the edge of the stairwell, his eyes falling to the baseball bat that had fallen from his hand when the house started shaking. Halfway on his approach, the floorboards creaked and gave away his position.
He snatched the bat and sprinted toward the back just as a gunshot fired across the dining room and put a hole in the wall three inches from Owen’s head. He ducked into the den where Roger’s room had been located and crouched low by the door.
Slow, deliberate footsteps moved closer. Owen had a white-knuckled grip around the slugger’s handle and he shivered, each breath rattling from the tiny convulsions from his body. The footsteps ended after a final groan from the floorboards and Owen forced himself still, holding his breath.
A bullet blasted through the wall to Owen’s left, followed by three more shots that nipped at his ankles. Jake rounded the corner of the doorway and when he entered, Owen spun around, leading with the bat in his hands, connecting with the rifle.
The weapon clanged to the floor and as Owen lifted the bat to strike, Jake charged, leveling both men to the ground. The harsh contact into the hardwood knocked the wind out of Owen, and elbows and knees struck the floor in harsh smacks as the pair grappled with one another.
Jake’s meaty fingers curled around Owen’s throat, then tightened like a vice. Spit dribbled from Jake’s foaming mouth, his eyes wild and dark like the creature he saw out in the woods. Owen’s face reddened and he bucked his hips trying to push Jake off, but the man wouldn’t budge. Slowly, Owen lifted his right leg, wedging it between the two of them, and pushed into Jake’s gut.
Jake held on for a few seconds, but Owen managed enough leverage to fling him off, and Jake was lifted backwards onto his ass. Owen gasped for air and he rolled toward the rifle, Jake making a move at the same time.
Both men collided, their shoulders cracking into one another as two sets of hands fought over the weapon, Owen grabbing hold of the stock with Jake on the barrel.
Owen yanked it toward him, and Jake came with it, using the momentum to drive Owen back against the wall. Pictures crashed to the floor as Jake kept Owen pinned. Both men’s faces flushed red, their expressions pained and angry as they locked like a pair of horned rams.
Owen jammed his knee into Jake’s stomach and the man’s grip loosened. He then yanked the weapon hard left, spinning in a half circle as he stole the gun. Jake lunged, but Owen had a half second on him, and that was all he needed as he butt-stroked Jake’s forehead.
Jake collapsed to the floor like a limp noodle, a gash cut across his forehead that leaked blood over his face and the floor. Owen held the gun loosely in his right hand, staggering to the left and right as he caught his breath, gently rubbing the red marks on his neck.
Chloe screamed, and Owen jerked his head toward the sound. He jumped over Jake’s unconscious body, rifle raised as he followed the noise toward the maste
r bedroom, and that was where he saw Marty’s father-in-law, the old man that Owen only knew as “Grandpa,” with a knife to his wife’s throat and Chloe unconscious in the corner.
“Let her go!” Spittle flew from Owen’s mouth as he aimed the rifle at the old man’s face. His eyes looked grey and dull in the moonlight, but the steel shimmered brightly under Claire’s chin. “I will shoot you.”
“No, you won’t,” Grandpa said, his expression stoic as he shifted Claire’s body in front of him as a human shield. “I doubt you’ve ever even pulled a trigger before.”
Owen’s cheek was pressed up against the rifle’s stock as the small tick marks of the rifle’s sight offered a narrow window to the old man’s head. “The cops are on their way.” Owen took a dry swallow. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“Bullshit,” the old man said. “Nobody’s coming. It’s just you, and—”
Claire thrashed backward, thrusting both her and the old man onto the bed. Owen rushed to her side as she elbowed the old man’s ribs and the knife nicked her throat. Claire whimpered, placing her hand over the fresh wound, but scurried away.
Owen aimed the barrel only a few inches from the old man’s chest as he lay helpless on the bed. He had his finger over the trigger, but the old man didn’t flinch.
“You don’t have it in you, boy.” The old man lifted his head off the bed, his grey eyes locked onto Owen. “You don’t have the look.”
The weapon trembled in Owen’s hand. His grip tightened, but the old man was right. He couldn’t pull the trigger. Owen loosened his grip but kept the rifle aimed at the old man as he took the knife away. He backed toward Claire. “Are you all right?”
Claire removed her hand from the wound, blood smeared over her fingers. She hissed in pain. “I think so.” She walked around the bed toward Chloe and picked her up off the ground. “They knocked her out with some rag.”
“Chloroform,” the old man said. “She’ll be fine in a few hours.”
“Who sent you?” Owen asked, aiming the rifle at the old man’s head. “Who took my son?”
The old man shook his head. “Boy, you have no idea the shit you’ve just stepped in.”
“Owen, we need to call the police,” Claire said, clutching Chloe closely.
Owen gestured the end of the rifle barrel up. “Move.” The old man complied and Owen walked him out into the dining room and had him sit down at the table. He handed Claire the knife and then retreated back to where he’d left Jake, keeping the barrel of the rifle on the old man until he was no longer in sight.
Owen stepped into the den and the gun barrel dropped to the floor. Jake was gone. Owen spun toward the back door and stepped outside, scanning the yard, and then looked toward the tree line where the swamp water began. He saw nothing.
He returned to the dining room and the old man was still in the chair, Claire holding the knife and Chloe. When Owen walked back in alone, the old man smiled.
“Why?” Owen asked. “Why are you doing this to us? Where is my son!” Claire flinched from the sudden burst of anger, and Owen rammed the rifle’s barrel into the old man’s left cheek, cocking his head at a harsh angle.
The old man grimaced. “Your boy’s gone, Yankee.”
“Please,” Claire said, pleading. “You have children, don’t you?”
The old man gave Claire a side-eye. “You’re not getting him back, lady. Accept it.”
“No,” Owen said, shoving the end of the weapon into the old man’s head. “You tell me where my son is or I blow your brains out and toss you out in the middle of the swamp.” He gritted his teeth and felt a wild hate take control of him that he’d never felt before.
The old man stared at Owen for a minute, and then the left corner of his mouth twitched upward. “There’s the look.” He smiled, revealing that silver capped tooth of his. “There’s the killer.”