The Children on the Hill(87)

The walls and ceiling down here were intact, but had been spray-painted by vandals. Smashed beer bottles littered the floor, along with empty bags of chips and fast food cartons. I spied a condom wrapper and shivered—what a strange place to have sex.

Someone had outlined a pentagram with red spray paint on the steel door leading to B West. And written beneath it: The Devil Lived Here.

True enough, I thought.

Holding the gun in my right hand, I pushed the door open with my left.

More candles lined the green cement hallway. The walls were stained black from smoke and mildew. The place smelled like rot and ruin with a tinge of smoke like a ghost, even after all these years.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Skink whispered. He stopped walking. I flapped my left hand back at him: You stay here.

I crept slowly down the hallway, trying to keep my feet from crunching too loudly on more broken glass, crumbled cement, bits of charred wood and plaster, melted plastic.

I heard voices. A shriek.

A girl in pain?

My heart jackhammered.

I wasn’t too late! Lauren was alive!

There was still time to save her.

I wanted to run but knew I had to move slowly, carefully.

I passed the first door on the left, spinning to look inside it, gun out in front of me like some TV show cop.

The room was empty, dark.

But the door to the procedure room, the room where Gran’s body had been found strapped to the bed, was open, candlelight flickering inside.

It’s a trap, it’s a trap, screamed a voice in the back of my brain. Run! Get out while you can!

My feet froze, not wanting to go any farther, not wanting to know what awaited me.

“Hold still,” a woman’s voice ordered from inside the room. “Or I’ll cut you.”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the room, gun raised and held steady with both hands.

The room was full of candles, their flames flickering, dancing. An old camping lantern was set on an overturned table, emitting a bright glow, throwing huge shadows on the wall.

The girl was sitting in a chair with a sheet wrapped around her so that all I could really see was the back of her head.

And there was the monster: my long-ago sister, standing by the girl’s side, the glint of a blade flashing in her right hand.





Vi

July 28, 1978




THE BUILDING WAS in flames behind them.

The fire alarm was ringing, the bells deafening. The sprinkler system had gone off. They were both soaked. Soaked from the sprinklers inside the building and soaked from the rain that was pounding down on them.

Iris was sitting up, leaning against a tree. The back of her head was bleeding, the rain mixing with the blood, making it run down her neck. Her face was pale, and her lips had a bluish tinge. Her hat was gone, and Vi could see the scar that ran along the front of her head under her stubbly hair.

From somewhere around the front of the building they could hear Miss Evelyn screaming, “Where is Dr. Hildreth?” as the thunder boomed. Patty and Sal were there, by the side of the building, counting the patients, who were half-asleep, medicated, staggering around in their hospital gowns, the rain pelting them.

Miss Evelyn kept yelling for Dr. Hildreth, her voice more and more shrill, more and more frantic, but no one seemed to be able to answer.

“What have you done?” Iris asked, looking past Vi to the Inn—the smoke pouring out of it, flames now visible from some of the lower-story windows.

Vi thought she could make out shapes in the smoke writhing and twisting as it rose: the ghosts escaping. Ghosts that had been there all along.

“I did what needed to be done.”

“The records, the files—” Iris said.

“Are all gone now.”

Iris looked as though she might start crying again.

“I’m sorry,” Vi said. “If there was anything in there about who you were, who you used to be, it’s gone.”

And she was sorry. She’d broken her promise: She never had found out who Iris was, where she’d come from. And now she never would.

But really, Vi believed she’d saved Iris in some way. Now Iris didn’t need to know the terrible things that had been done to her; the terrible things she might have done to others.

Iris leaned her head back against the tree, looked up at the sky through the canopy of leaves. Vi looked too. There were no stars. Only darkness. The occasional bright flash of lightning.

Vi turned to see a shadow moving quickly toward them across the wide expanse of lawn, running, past the lost-looking patients, past the night staff trying to maintain control.

It was Eric, his wild curls flying out, his pajamas pale and soaked, his feet bare.

“What happened?” he asked, panting to catch his breath. He looked at Vi. “Where’s Gran?”

“Eric—I—” she stammered, unsure what to say, where to even begin. The power and confidence of the monster was fading. She looked at the building in flames behind Eric and knew she had done it. She remembered setting the fire, yet somehow it felt like it had been someone else. Like it was a movie: a monster on a rampage.

She wasn’t sure who she was now, a monster or a girl or some combination of the two.

Miss Ev—in her robe, her wig crooked—was standing next to the building, staring at the flames, shouting, “Dr. Hildreth!” She rushed toward the east side door, like she was going to go right in, but Sal grabbed her, pulled her back, which proved to be more of an effort than he’d expected. They tussled, and Miss Ev nearly got away, but Sal got behind her, wrapped her tightly in his arms, and walked her back away from the building.