The Haunting of Ironwood Read online

  Snap my neck, mmm, wouldn't that feel so good?

  No! Stop!

  Katie held on for dear life. She made it to the second floor and held onto the banister as she wrapped around and started heading up toward the third. When she reached it, she fell to her knees again, growing weak. She crawled across some shattered glass and it dug into her skin, but she couldn't let that bother her now. Her hands and knees bled, but she had to keep going.

  In the dark now, she followed the way to the hidden control room. But it wasn't from memory; she didn't even have her own memories anymore. It was more from something like instinct. Katie was on her belly, worming through the darkness. She reached into her dress and pulled out the flashlight, turning it on. Some loose camera wires taken from the bundle were in her hands. She was wrapping them around her neck and pulling on them, choking herself. Then she was pulling at them, trying to free herself. When she made it into the room, she used the last bit of strength she had to pull herself up on the corner of the desk.

  The scrapbook sat on the metal filing cabinet across the small room from her.

  Katie backed into the wall, struggling to keep her footing. Her head bent low, she hobbled forward, holding her hands out to brace herself on anything she could as she crossed the room. Her eyes turned down to the corner of the desk and delighted in how sharp it was. If she threw herself down with enough speed, she might be able to rip open her jugular. Mmm yes, do it! Do it now!

  Her weight dropped suddenly but she threw out a stiff arm against the desk and held herself up. She shoved off of it and propelled herself forward. The filing cabinet was within reach now. Her arm was shaking as she raised it, reaching for the scrapbook. Her fingers fell on it, but it was difficult to grasp. The corners of the filing cabinet looked even sharper and more appealing than the desk. She grabbed the scrapbook with both hands and fell backward to the floor. She spread the book and shone the flashlight over its pages. As soon as she did Elizabeth's resistance faded. It was almost like she was mesmerized as soon as she saw the image Earl had taken of the ironwood tree atop the hill, like the memories soothed and fascinated her.

  Katie felt something of herself come back. She flipped the page. Earl was ascending the hill. The figure sitting under the ironwood tree was becoming clear. It was Elizabeth. Katie felt a tremendous sense of love in her heart. She flipped the pages, not giving Elizabeth a chance to get a hold on her again. With a shaking hand, she flipped to the next page, knowing what it would be.

  The page fell to the left and the flashlight shone on Elizabeth's curled and pale figure lying on the ground, her dress pulled up and her torn panties around her ankles.

  A jolt ran through Katie's body. It was a feeling almost stronger than any she'd experienced before. But it was indiscernible; confused.

  She turned the page again and found three pictures. The first one showed Elizabeth turning over, looking at the camera with bleary eyes. The second one was the same, but a hand extended into the frame holding the open ring box. Elizabeth was crying. In the third picture the ring was gone and Elizabeth held her arm above her head as if to shield herself from something.

  Katie turned the page, feeling sick. But this time the sickness wasn't hers; it was Elizabeth feeling ill inside her.

  Two final pictures: in the first one Elizabeth was lying facedown in the grass. The blade of the all-too-familiar axe was wedged in her spine. Her blue dress, pretty in the previous photos, was soaked in blood; the second photo showed a hand covered in blood that had just made a print on the bark of the ironwood tree. That was the end of the scrapbook and the end of the story.

  Something rumbled inside of Katie. Tremors shot through her body and she leaned back against the wall, terrified of what was happening. She suddenly felt her mind coming back to her, but Elizabeth wasn't out yet. Without any will of her own, Katie threw her head back and a howl of rage escaped from her lips. Her arms shot out to the sides and her fingers curled into claws and then in the next moment that icy coldness that had settled in her body and gotten comfortable evacuated itself out of her nose, a strange and very uncomfortable feeling somewhat akin to throwing up.

  Elizabeth's spirit materialized in front of her. The strong emotions in Katie washed away like the tide going over a message written in the sand on a beach. But they were manifest in Elizabeth. The fury was etched into her face and she screamed again like she had done in Katie. Her ghostly image flashed downward at alarming speed through the floor and Katie was left alone in the flashlight's glow and the darkness of the hidden room.

  In the basement the fire puttered in the damaged fuse box. The wooden handle of the axe still stuck in it had burned up, now emitting black smoke that rose and wafted among the rafters. Elizabeth descended into the space and gazed upon Earl's body with her fury. Doing something that looked like drawing in a deep breath, Elizabeth howled and exploded. The ghostly matter of her form was torn apart into a shockwave of air that swept through the basement, sending fire from the fuse box in every direction. The scattered flames landed on various flammables throughout the basement and ignited them. The fire caught on and climbed, stretching up stacks of cardboard boxes. Before long the flames licked at the wooden ceiling above.

  Katie fell out of the closet onto her hands and knees. She tried to catch her breath and regain herself, and as she breathed, a sharp scent reached her nostrils: it was smoke.

  "Oh God," she uttered.

  Something cried next to her and she turned her head to see the black cat standing in the hallway. He meowed at her again, his hair still bristled.

  When he cried a third time she said, "Okay, okay, I'm coming!" She got to her feet and used the wall as she hobbled toward the stairs. The cat ran ahead and led the way. Katie was weak, but she could walk. The fuzziness in her mind was gone and her thoughts came back to her.

  As she descended to the second floor the smoke became thick.

  "Please, oh please," she said. She threw her arm over her mouth and tried to breathe in the small of her elbow. When she got to the first floor, the hallway was engulfed in flames. The fire rose up the walls and thick black smoke pooled on the ceiling. The heat was intense and she choked on the thick fumes. She stooped low to the ground, pawing through the ring of keys she'd taken from Earl. There were four of them aside from an obvious car key, and she looked up at the door, trying to decide which one would unlock it.

  She tried the first key as the fire crept up behind her. It didn't fit. She fumbled on the key ring and tried the next one. The heat washed over her and, mixed with the smoke, it became very difficult to breathe. Katie coughed as she tried to force the key into the lock, but it didn't fit either. She was getting lightheaded and she knew she needed to hurry.

  The cat was at her heels. He looked up at her and let out a loud and sustained cry as if urging her to hurry up. Then he turned and disappeared somewhere through the haze.

  Frantic, Katie dropped the keys. The fire got closer to the front of the house and she could feel her skin starting to cook. She bent and picked them up, trying to steady her shaking hands as she tried the third out of four keys. "Please," she muttered as she lined it up at the lock.

  She pushed and the key slid right in. Elation blossomed in her chest, but she didn't let it overwhelm her yet. She twisted it and the deadbolt unlocked. Wasting no time, she twisted the doorknob and pulled the front door open. A rush of cool air met her. She stepped out the door and turned toward the smoking blaze, looking for the cat.

  "Come on! Where did you go?"

  The smoke stung her eyes as she squinted and tried to pierce through it, looking for the small black shape. And just before the fire reached the front hall closet, the cat bolted down the hallway and rushed out the open door.

  Katie swung the door shut. She found the lock to the deadbolt on the outside and locked it with the key, then she took the key ring and threw it as hard as she could toward the woods, locking away this chapter of her life forever.

  As the ea
rly morning sun crept over the horizon, basking the troubled area in its warm light, she stumbled across the gravel driveway, feeling her tiredness finally overwhelm her. The lacerations on her feet pained her, but she walked. She coughed lightly from the aftereffects of the smoke and she found a rock large enough to sit on by the tree line where the driveway started to wind down the hill. Her legs ached as she turned around and sat down, then she splayed them out and relaxed as she watched the house burn.

  The cat sauntered across the driveway to her, carrying something in his mouth. She strained her eyes to see what it was, and when he got closer and tilted his head up to her, she saw that they were her severed fingers.

  "Oh my God," she said, taking them from the cat's mouth. She looked down at them and then at her wounded hand and started to feel queasy, so she looked away. She gently clutched them in her palm and wondered if it would be too late for a hospital to reattach them. But for the moment she just needed to rest.

  Faint sirens played in the distance as the smoke from the house climbed into the sky. The fire spread fully to the front of the house and was now climbing up to the second and third floors. The kitchen window shattered from the pressure inside and the flames licked the morning air.

  Katie closed her eyes and leaned her head back, letting the light of daybreak wash over her. Her nightmare was over. She was finally free.

  The front door of the house rattled.

  Katie's eyes snapped open.

  The doorknob twisted in both directions and the door rumbled in its frame. There was a pounding next and then a momentary pause before a powerful blow hit the wood. A wrenching sound was faintly audible from inside like something being pulled out of the door, and then it was followed by another loud blow. The door splintered in the middle and the wood fell onto the porch. Something sharp peeked through and was withdrawn with great effort. The next blow opened the hole in the door a little wider and Katie saw something in the gap, highlighted by the intense blaze around it.

  A blackened face and an eye peeking through, delirious and bloodshot. It was set directly on her.

  Katie froze. The sirens were getting closer, but they weren't close enough. Should she make a run for it down the driveway?

  I'm too tired to run. How... how is he still alive?!

  Earl swung the axe again and it buried into the wood, creating a downward split about a foot long. He struggled to get it out, fighting against the tremendous strength of the ironwood. When he did, he swung the axe in a windmilling chop, hitting the crack again. The door buckled a little, but held for the moment. Katie could hear him panting from across the driveway as she watched with a blistering terror to see what would happen next. The cat stood by her side, his tail sticking straight up and his fur bristling again.

  He pulled the axe out and had the strength to give it one final swing. It buried into the wood and became firmly stuck. Earl left it there and tried to squeeze through the gap he'd created. He got his head and one arm through before he, too, became stuck.

  His bloodshot eyeball rolled around in his head before settling on her again. A low whine came from his throat. Drool rolled down his black lips. But his own creation proved too strong for him, and now a panicked look settled on his face as he realized he couldn't get out and the fire was closing in. He tried to look behind himself into the house, but couldn't manage to twist his head. His mouth fell open and he began to pant rapidly; he was in pain.

  Then Earl howled as the fire reached him and engulfed his body. The black smoke poured out the door through the small gaps around him and climbed high in the sky. His uninjured eye bulged and his blackened tongue lolled around as he wiggled violently in the gap, trying to get out. With a final howl, he fell silent. His body slumped as the flames ate at the door and his body.

  He was finally dead.

  When the fire trucks rolled up the driveway, Katie fainted.

  Reintegrating

  When her eyes opened again she found herself in a hospital bed hooked up to a multitude of tubes. It was the same place she found herself the last time she opened her eyes and she looked to the clock on the wall again to determine how long she'd been asleep. It looked like it was about an hour and a half, even though it felt like an eternity. But she knew she should count her blessings and not worry so much about the time; she was still recuperating and every bump and bruise she'd taken at old Ironwood had finally caught up to her, showing their ugly selves to her and taking time, too much time, to heal.

  Katie lifted her arm to scratch an itch on her forehead and paused when she remembered the bandage around her hand.

  "You might not want to do that," a nurse said as she walked into the room. "They weren't reattached that long ago; you'll want to let them settle a bit so they can heal."

  Katie nodded and drifted back into unconsciousness. The itch wasn't that important, anyway.

  Some days passed and she found herself still stuck in bed hooked up to a couple of IVs and monitors. But she felt in much better spirits and she was antsy to get out of the hospital, looking to the windows and starting to feel like she was cooped up in some prison. Her memories of the house seemed fuzzy now, like she wasn't entirely sure she had actually experienced them. Maybe she'd just had a bad dream and she was actually in a car accident or something. But the pain where Earl had chopped her now reattached fingers off was still there, reminding her of her experience. Sometimes at night in the hospital when she had trouble sleeping and was constantly wandering back and forth over that fine line between being awake and being asleep, she would think she was hearing Earl's subliminal messages playing over the intercom in the hospital hallways. She would snap awake and take about ten seconds to adjust herself, paying keen attention to the sounds around her before she recognized the silence.

  Memories of Elizabeth floated through her head, whether from her dreams, reading the storybooks, seeing old pictures, or from her brief experience with her spirit inside of her. It was all starting to fade, but hard to shake completely.

  The next day, a different nurse came into her room announcing that she was being discharged, adding at the end of her sentence as she looked at Katie's chart pinned to the wall, "...Miss..."

  "Elizabeth," Katie said.

  The nurse did a double-take of the chart, her brow furrowing.

  "I mean... Katie. Sorry." Immediately after the nurse left the room, Katie leaned over and vomited into the bedpan next to her.

  Katie walked down the hallway of her apartment building and stopped at her door. She tried the door handle, but it was locked, just as she feared. She reached into the pockets of the clothes someone at the hospital donated to her, even though she knew she didn't have any keys inside; her apartment keys were lost at Ironwood. She turned her thoughts away from the house immediately because they always created this black, ugly feeling deep inside of her whenever she was reminded of it.

  She sighed. This would mean she would have to go to the landlord and do something—maybe beg—to try and get some leniency. When she turned back down the hallway, her landlord came around the corner and stopped when he saw her. Katie tensed up.

  "Katie," he said in his thick Korean accent. He crossed the hall and approached her. But not in the furious charge that she expected. He approached softly, almost apprehensively.

  "I don't have my keys on me," she said quietly.

  "I heard what happened to you," he replied. He looked at her for a moment, then he pulled a key ring off of his belt, cycling through them. He went to her door and unlocked it for her.

  She stared at him blankly. "You're... letting me in? I... I still don't have the money for my rent... I mean, I will though, soon."

  He smiled at her weakly, like it was restrained by something. Maybe pity. "Don't worry about the rent right now. Just relax and settle in. We talk about it later." He smiled at her again then turned to leave.

  Katie stood at her door feeling worthless. "I will get you the money," she called after him.

  He tu
rned around. "I'm looking for an assistant," he said. "Some janitorial work and such. Maybe you help me out and you can pay off your debt. Maybe I let you keep a little extra on each payment for groceries." He looked at her for a long moment, but this time with no smile. His face was expressionless and she couldn't tell what he was thinking. "Oh, and Katie... welcome home."

  Tears welled up in Katie's eyes and she wiped them away before opening her door and stepping back into her apartment that she never knew she could miss so much.

  Katie sat on her couch watching TV. She had a big bowl of microwaved popcorn sitting between her crossed legs. She picked up the remote carefully with her bad hand and slowly changed the channel to something she liked. Her fingers were still bandaged and splinted, but they seemed to be getting better. She still had no sensation at all in them, and that was the strangest thing of all, but she was readjusting well back to her old life. She set the remote down and grabbed a big heap of popcorn with her other hand.

  The phone rang. Her new cell phone that she had gotten a few days after coming home sat on the table at the end of the couch. She leaned over carefully, trying not to spill the popcorn bowl, and grabbed it.

  It was Josh calling.

  Katie's heart jumped in her chest. Her skin became clammy and her hand started to tremble. All the old feelings she'd ever had when they were broken up and he contacted her out of the blue came back to her—the excitement, the confusion, the love, the upset stomach. She'd been intentionally cold to him when he seemed to change his mind about dumping her recently, but that was before all that. After her ordeal, she would jump at the chance to throw herself in his arms, just to be held and loved.

  She answered the phone. "Hello?"

  "Hey... uh, hey babe, it's me. Beth gave me your new number. I heard what happened to you. I... I don't know what to say. I figured if I just picked up the phone and called you maybe I would."

  She tried to keep her cool. "Hey. Well, it's nice to hear from you again."