I don’t see anything.
I angle my beam slightly, just to make sure.
As I turn away, something shifts there, where the wood is blackened.
All I see are the charred beams and planks.
When the eye opens, and I see the blue glow, I understand.
It’s camouflaged.
My terror is immediately put on hold as I contemplate the eye.
It’s wrong to think of it as a glow. The eye doesn’t emit light, really. It’s a portal into another realm, where darkness doesn’t exit. Clear blue sky and happiness are the only things that exist in that place beyond the eye. If I only allow it, I will slip into that world and every care and concern will melt away.
I want nothing more than that, and it’s mine for the taking.
All I have to do is accept the eye and peace will be mine forever.
My foot slips and my weight comes down on the strapping that the ceiling below is attached to. It cracks and gives, but I don’t fall through.
At the sound, the eye turns from me and I’m lost.
My perfect world was a lie.
For one second, everything is clear and I thrust with my stake. I don’t aim for the chest, trying to pierce the heart. I don’t even know if it has a heart. All I know is the eye. I can’t risk being captured by that eye again so that’s what I aim for.
It doesn’t even try to move.
I did a poor job of sharpening the end of the broomstick. It doesn’t matter. The pointed wood easily slides into the eye and the illusion pops with a gush of fluid. The thing screams and thrashes, but it’s pinned into place at the end of the broomstick.
As it twists in agony, the camouflage illusion disappears.
I see the other eye, or what’s left of it. The lid is crusted down with thick slime. It must have suffered some past injury that took half of its potency. I’m lucky for that. One stake is enough to dispatch it.
The wriggling stops but the fluid doesn’t stop pulsing out from around my stake.
The thing is withering. It appears like it’s made entirely of liquid and it’s all leaking out around the hole I made with the stake. I don’t understand the physics of it—how something solid can turn itself inside out and melt like that.
The ceiling cracks under my foot again and I snap back to reality.
I push up and away, retracting back through the passage back to the main part of the attic. I’m coughing the dust out of my lungs as I stumble back down the stairs.
I’m no longer sure that my inspection of the house was thorough. I’m no longer sure of anything.
(I find the second one.)
I find the second one.
It’s in the space behind the dresser in Uncle Walt’s closet.
I can’t even imagine how it fit back there.
When I came down from the attic, I didn’t even have a real plan. I started poking my stakes into every dark corner, regardless of whether or not I saw anything. Back in Uncle Walt’s room, I lifted one of my stakes to a high angle and shoved it back behind the dresser in the closet. It met resistance and I heard something shifting around back there. I tossed the drawers onto my uncle’s bed and pulled out the dresser enough so I could get access.
Without looking, I take the sharpened shovel handle in both hands and start driving it down into the darkness back there.
With the first few stabs, it tries to slip and dodge. I must have hit something vital because it stops moving. I keep driving the stake down anyway and the solid flesh gives way and I hear the stake sloshing into something squishy.
I’m not as dumb as I look. I don’t peer over the edge of the dresser just yet. Instead, I find a new angle and pump the stake again until I find another pocket of resistance. Something screams this time and I stab at it blindly until my arms ache and there’s clearly nothing left of it.
When I pull the dresser out, I see a pool of gore.
It’s evaporating into thick smoke that hugs the floor.
I back up fast so I don’t inhale any.
It takes several careful minutes before I’m willing to claim that Uncle Walt’s room is clear. I go back to Grandma’s room and then the bathroom. They’re clear as well.
Back in my room, I already have a sense of where to look.
The way the end tables bracket the bed, they create a shadow that’s right underneath where I lay my head. I kneel next to the bed like I’m getting ready to pray.
With my good arm, I bang the end of the stake into the shadows.
This one is crafty. It’s moving around, trying to avoid the stake. I press my face agains the side of the mattress and maneuver the broomstick so I can reach the far corner. When I feel something with the end of the stake, I commit even more to the reach.
That’s when it almost gets me.
Talons grab my wrist and pull. I can feel the claws dig into my skin and I shriek. This was so stupid. I know how much they hate the light. Why didn’t I just dismantle the bed? I could have pulled off the mattress and thrown it into the hall. I could have carried the end tables away and given it no place to hide.
It tugs with incredible strength and I feel my elbow pop and the bones in my wrist grind together.
My other hand fumbles and finally closes around the broomstick. When I shove that into the darkness, I finally hit the thing. It screams and the grip on my wrist weakens. I jump on the opportunity, stabbing both stakes into the space under the bed while I prop myself up by pressing my forehead against the bed’s wooden frame.
One of the stakes meets the resistance of soft tissue and I use that
