Chapter 43
Vail
The water rose over my boots, my ankles, my calves as I descended.
It was icy cold, and the surface was uncannily still, except where my body made it ripple.
When I glanced down, I saw the reflection of something oily on the surface.
The air was freezing, and I could smell something—probably more than one thing—that was rotten and dead.
I lifted the bat above the water’s surface as my knees, then my thighs sank into the water. I didn’t know where the stairs’ bottom was, so I slowed in caution. I didn’t want to slip.
Behind me, I heard Dodie say, “Screw it,” then sloshing as she followed me. Violet told Lisette to stay at the top of the stairs and hold the flashlight. Lisette didn’t argue.
I admit I winced when the icy water seeped to my waist, but I gritted my teeth and tried to adjust. My feet edged forward and found only floor. “This is the bottom,” I called out.
Lisette aimed the flashlight ahead of me, and I waded into the flooded basement. I couldn’t see anything floating on the water’s surface. I also couldn’t see the walls, because it was so big down here that the beam didn’t reach them. It felt like I was in an endless underground cavern.
Behind Dodie, there was more splashing as Violet followed us down.
“Anne Whitten!” I let my voice boom as I rested the bat behind my neck, my hand ready on the handle. “I know you’re here. Come out, you coward.”
At the edge of the darkness, something splashed.
I stopped, and Dodie came close behind me. I could hear her ragged breathing. She bumped into my back, and I realized she had turned so that we were back-to-back. The best position if you don’t want to be surprised.
“Do you see her?” Dodie asked.
“No.”
We waited. I looked behind my shoulder and saw that Violet had made it to the bottom of the stairs, shovel in hand. The water was higher on her because she was shorter than me. She pushed forward, the water parting around her.
“You all right?” I asked her.
She looked at me, and then her eyes went wide in panic. It took me a split second to realize she wasn’t looking at me but at something past me.
Under the water, something slithered over my feet.
I shouted, but Dodie was louder. She screamed, and then she staggered, as if something had crashed into her legs. The golf club fell from her hands. She jerked as if something pulled at her. I didn’t have time to spin and grab her before she fell and disappeared under the water.
The thing under the water slithered over my feet again, and I kicked it.
I dropped the bat and plunged down where Dodie had sunk, groping under the water.
There was nothing—just icy emptiness where my sister had been.
My numbing hands scrabbled over empty floor.
I felt Violet submerge next to me, her hands searching, too.
My breath ran out. I bobbed up and gasped, ignoring Lisette’s terrified cries, and plunged again.
This time, I felt a calf. A knee. One of Dodie’s arms flung toward us under the water, and together Violet and I wrenched upward, pulling Dodie into the air with us.
“Fuck,” I shouted as I spit out foul, dark water. We had all dropped our weapons. “Lisette, be quiet,” I shouted to the wailing girl at the top of the stairs. “We’re okay. We need the light.”
Lisette got under control enough to aim the flashlight again. “Mom?” she called out.
“I’m fine,” Violet managed.
Dodie was shivering. “It grabbed me.”
“I felt it,” I said.
“She’s down here,” Violet added, pushing her soaked hair back from her face. “I saw her.”
I waded toward my floating bat, then the golf club, then the shovel. We regrouped, shivering. A splash of water came from one of the dark corners of the room. “Not good enough, coward!” I barked at the thing that was in the basement with us. “Try again!”
I waded farther out. Lisette’s light moved in my path. Dodie and Violet, armed again, followed behind.
There was a hiss of breath in the darkness.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “We’re coming for you.”
“Vail, you’re making her mad,” Violet warned, her teeth chattering.
“So what?” I took another step. The water got colder the farther we got from the stairs. “I’ve been mad for twenty years.”
The floor became uneven, and my toe hit something hard. A piece of metal. A remnant of old furniture, maybe. Had someone tried to put a furnace down here? They must have been insane.
Something bumped my leg. “Watch out,” I warned the others. “She’s under the water again.”
Dodie jabbed into the water with her club. Water dripped from the ends of her long hair, making circles on the surface. “She pinches the backs of your knees and hits your ankle. Puts your feet out from under you. She’s fast.”
As if on cue, something gripped my ankle—cold, hard fingers made of bone. I kicked hard, then stomped down with my other foot. If it was bone, I could break it.
I thought I felt something beneath my boot, but my feet were numb. A soft clicking sound came from the darkness, then another hiss.
“I felt her that time,” Violet said. “Circle up.”
We moved back-to-back again, keeping still, holding our weapons ready.
“Mom?” Lisette called from the stairs.
“Hold on, honey,” Violet called back. “We’re almost done.”
“Wake up,” a voice said, coming from everywhere and nowhere, making my nerves seize in instinctive terror. “Wake up, Edward. Get out of bed.”
Lisette shrieked.
We waited for Sister to say something else. My rage burned, replacing the fear, hot and healthy, cleansing. I would never let it go. I would hate Sister until I died.
The Whittens were tragic. Whatever had happened to Anne Whitten to get her pregnant at fourteen was lost to time, and it was sad. Her whole life story was sad.
I was going to kill her anyway.
The silence was cold, tense. The water lapped around my waist. I couldn’t feel my legs.
“Violet?” I said when the silence had stretched too long.
“Yes?”
“I need to tell you something.”
I heard her let out a shaky breath. It plumed in the cold air.
“That time Dad gave you five dollars for your tenth birthday? I stole it.”
There was a splash as she smashed her shovel down on the water’s surface. “I knew it.”
Behind my other shoulder, Dodie laughed.
“You swore it wasn’t you.” Violet’s tone was dark.
“I lied,” I said. “I bought comic books with it.”
“How did you even know where it was? I hid it.”
“It was in your dresser drawer, under your underwear. I mean, come on. It was the most obvious hiding place.”
Dodie laughed again, and Violet shouted, “You went in my room?”
“Violet,” Dodie said, “we went in your room all the time.”
“True,” I said. “If we’re going to die down here, then I guess you should know.”
“You can die down here if you want,” Violet snapped. “I don’t plan to.”
Dodie’s teeth were chattering. “If this is our last moment, then I want you both to know that Mom liked me best.”
“No way. It was definitely me,” I shot back.
“Shh,” Violet said. “I can hear her now.”
A hiss came from the darkness, and we went quiet.
“I want to show you something,” Sister said. A shadow moved, tall and thin. It came from one direction, then another, flickering. I tensed. “Wake up. Wake up.”
I lunged forward and swung the bat, but hit only air. Dodie started to stumble but grabbed my arm, steadying herself.
“Sister,” Violet said.
I turned. Violet was frozen still, her face a mask of terror. The shovel shook in her hands.
“Sister,” she said again, and then she rushed past me in a splash of dark water. She raised the shovel to hit something—I couldn’t see what it was. The flashlight moved. There was a strange thump, and then Violet dropped the shovel. And then, without another sound, she was simply gone.
“No,” Dodie moaned. “No, no, no.” She lunged forward to where Violet had disappeared and reached down into the water. “Vail, help me. She’s—”
Something bumped hard into my legs, and I staggered. I braced myself to rebalance, and it hit me again. Sister was trying to drag me under.
I kicked her. Then I plunged my arms into the water again, submerging, looking for Violet.
It was pure darkness under here. I forced my numb hands over the floor, searching, searching. An icy, bony hand landed on the back of my head, pushing me down.
I jerked, jamming my elbow back, then flipping my position under the water and kicking her off me. Her hand lost its grip, her fingernails raking my scalp in stinging pain. I kicked her again, then pushed up for breath.
“Vail!” Dodie shouted. “Over there! Toward the stairs!”
Something thrashed beneath the oily surface of the water behind us. I regained my balance again. My bat floated by me, and I grabbed it as I waded as fast as I could through the water, Dodie beside me.
Violet’s hand flew out of the water, then sank.
“Mom!” Lisette screamed.
I pushed toward the spot where the hand had gone under, then reached into the water again. Hands grasped at me—real hands, human hands. I gripped Violet and pulled up with all my strength.
There was resistance, because something was dragging her down. Something powerful. Sister had a grip on Violet and refused to let go.
I moved my leg under Violet and levered myself up. Dodie had grabbed her, too, and was leaning back with her full weight. We pulled her toward the stairs.
Violet’s face broke the surface of the water, and she gasped in a breath. She was dragged under again.
We pulled, Dodie and me. I dove down and pushed Violet upward. She broke the surface and gasped again.
Dodie picked up her club, gripped it in both hands like she was holding a stake, and stabbed it down into the water, hard. Violet squirmed as the grip on her loosened. Dodie stabbed down again, and I pulled Violet toward the stairs.
“Go!” Dodie screamed, stabbing down again. There was the sound of her hitting something solid. “Hurry!”
Violet flung an arm around my neck, and we were almost to the foot of the stairs when she was yanked out of my grip. She lurched onto her knees on a lower step, her hands grasping for purchase on the rotting wood of the stairs.
I turned to find Dodie struggling, slashing with the club. I took a step back, holding out my hand, and she grasped it hard. I pulled. I still gripped the bat in my other hand.
There was a long hiss, a click, and something rose out of the water.
She was oily black, an inky shadow. A wretched smell came from her as she pushed up.
She was between me and Violet, with her back to me.
She was fixed on Violet. I had never seen my sister’s face like that—blank with terror, helpless.
She stared into Sister’s face transfixed, and then she tried to scramble up the stairs.
Sister took a step toward Violet, reaching an arm out, a bony hand.
I let go of Dodie’s hand and gripped the baseball bat with both hands. I swung with all of my strength. There was a crack as the bat connected with the back of Sister’s skull.
Sister reeled, snapping around, raising her arms, but Dodie was faster. She hit Sister just as she swiveled, the golf club catching Sister’s jaw.
Sister screamed.
Behind her, Lisette scrambled down the stairs and reached out to Violet. In her hand was the hatchet. Violet took it.
Before Sister could turn again, Violet stood, grasped Sister by her lank, slimy hair, and swung the hatchet.
Again. And again.
There was no blood. Sister stopped screaming. I held her icy bones while Violet kept swinging. In the end, it was like breaking an old, dead twig.
Sister’s head rolled into the water and sank. No bubbles rose to the surface.
The rest of her body collapsed, and then it was gone.