Christopher reached the door on the other side of the guard’s bedroom. He opened it, the thick metal squeaking on its hinges. He slammed the door shut and locked it with a heavy click.
Then, he stepped into the darkest place he had ever been.
The air around him suddenly changed. It felt like being inside an oven. He stood breathless for a moment, listening. He heard rustling like bugs on a screen door. He called out to get any perspective, but all he heard was the sound bouncing off the walls in a giant echo. It reminded Christopher of old war movies when men were far from the battlefield. Miles away, people were in agony. But for him, the world was quiet.
Until his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
And he looked up to find the most horrible thing he had ever seen.
A giant hive of mailbox people.
The hive was as large as the clearing. Christopher looked above them and realized they were underneath the giant tree. These people were the roots. They guarded the only door to the surface. He was trapped. Christopher’s eyes followed the string that held the mailbox people in place. He had to find the first person who held the string. Where did it all start? It could take him out of here.
Christopher walked down the line. Each person held the string. Their bodies swayed like trees, their arms branches dancing in a sick breeze. Puppets and strings. They were all connected. Christopher ran and saw the next hand holding it. And the person after that. And the person after that. Adults. Children. All ages. All genders. He had to find the master. The one holding all of the marionettes. He kept running. Faster and faster. Frantic for the exit. He heard banging on the locked door behind him and realized he was back at the entrance.
It was a circle.
A chain.
There was no master.
They were all holding the string.
Christopher stared into the darkness. There was no life here. There was no death. There was only eternity. A life sentence after everyone stops dying.
He was in the valley of the shadow of death.
Christopher closed his eyes and fell to his knees. He clasped his hands together and prayed for deliverance. For his mother. And the hissing lady. And David Olson. And the sheriff. And Ambrose. The list of names stretched out as long as the line of mailbox people. Mrs. Keizer. Mrs. Collins. Mr. Collins. Brady. Jenny. Eddie. Mike. Matt. Even Jerry. Especially Jerry.
“Please, God. You can have me if you need me. Just save them.”
Suddenly a hand reached out from the darkness and held Christopher’s arm. Christopher screamed and turned quickly. The hand wouldn’t let go, so it took him a moment to realize there was something different about it. There was no ripping or grabbing. There was only a soft touch. Christopher found the hand and the wrists with the scars. He moved his gaze up the body until he saw the face of the final mailbox person in the hive.
It was his father.
Chapter 127
His eyes were sewn shut.
Christopher’s father stood in a porcelain bathtub. He wore hospital clothes. The bottoms of his pajamas were wet. Not from water. But from blood.
youR daddY iS crazY
Christopher took a step closer. His father’s wrist scars were still wet. Still dripping. Filling the bathtub forever.
CLANK. CLANK.
The metal door banged behind them. The damned were coming.
“Dad?” Christopher said.
Christopher reached out and took his father’s hand. He remembered the funeral. The viewing. The room with the ashtrays. He had kissed his father’s dead forehead. It was so lifeless. There was no electricity. His hand was so cold.
But now his hand was warm.
“Dad, is that really you?” Christopher said.
His father twitched. Moaning through the stitches holding his lips together. Christopher felt the nice man’s warning burning his ears.
I cut the yarn that held a little girl and her sister’s mouths shut.
They tried to eat me alive.
Christopher reached into his pocket, looking for something to cut the string. He found it, coarse and jagged.
The hissing lady’s key.
He stood on his tiptoes and brought the key to his father’s mouth. He sawed through the strings holding his father’s lips together. His father moved his jaw, frozen and stiff from years of bondage.
“Christopher?” he asked weakly. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Dad,” Christopher said.
“You’re alive?”
“Yes.”
The man began to cry.
“I’ve seen you die a thousand times,” he said. “You keep drowning in a bathtub.”