We Came Back Read online

  We Came Back

  Patrick Lacey

  Sinister Grin Press

  MMVXII

  Austin, Texas

  Sinister Grin Press

  Austin, TX

  www.sinistergrinpress.com

  April 2017

  “We Came Back” © 2017 Patrick Lacey

  This is a work of Fiction. All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written consent, except for the purposes of review.

  Edited by Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi

  Cover Art by Scott Carpenter

  Text Design by Travis Tarpley

  Dedication

  This book is about loss. It's also about monsters and cults and family. But loss is the theme if, indeed, there is one. So let's talk about the L word for a moment, shall we? More specifically, let's talk about my father, Steven Joseph Lacey, who was a talented artist, wonderful father and husband, and overall superb human being. He died of lung cancer on a particularly dreary day in February of 2005. Most of that morning has been erased from my memory. From the stress probably. And the grief. I do remember some things clearly, though. I remember his last few breaths, how they sounded like battle cries (he was a fighter until the end, that one). I remember my mother's face as she told him to follow whatever he saw (she did not cry, hardly blinked in fact, because she is truly the strongest person I've ever known). I also remember going to Friendly's for lunch that afternoon and being denied ice cream because the waitress was about to finish her shift. I did not tip her. My point is this: since that day, I've wanted to honor my father in some way but I couldn't come up with anything that quite fit. Until this book came along because it's kinda sorta autobiographical (cults and monsters aside) and it seemed like a perfect fit. So this book (or e-book) you hold in your hands is special. Because every dime I earn will be donated to a cancer-related charity in his memory. I think he'd like that. I also think he'd roll his eyes about out how much I've drawn out this dedication. So let's keep it short and sweet and raise a glass (or coffee mug) for my old man. Wherever he is, I'm sure he's being just as sarcastic as his boy.

  Acknowledgements

  Here are some people who helped this book become a tangible thing, whether or not they know it. Thanks go to Ryan Beauchamp, Adam Cesare, Matt Hayward, Matt Serafini, Dave Bernstein, Sandy Shelonchik, Tony Tremblay (and the Taco Society), Russell Coy, Max Linsky, Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi, Mike Lombardo, Glenn Rolfe, Aaron Dries, the fine folks at Sinister Grin Press, and Emily Diana. There are plenty more that I forgot so please fill in your name here _____________.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  In the darkness something stirred.

  It was neither alive nor dead but something in between. It had waited, though it wasn’t sure how long. Time was different down here, in the shadows, in the void. Memories floated into its mind—if it had a mind anymore—at random, though some were more vivid than others. Some flew into the ether like kites on a windy day, but others were embedded there like a tumor, as much a part of it as the shriveled skin and mouths that made up its body. Those that did stick burned with the one thing it still felt, the one emotion that had not fled even in death.

  Rage.

  It was filled to the brim with rage and it grew stronger as the seconds ticked by. Soon it would be time. Soon even the rage wouldn’t matter anymore because it would have something else on its side, something it craved every moment of its in-between existence.

  Blood.

  ●●●

  Vickie Bronson did not hear the approaching footsteps over her headphones. They were an older, clunky model that hung over her ears and weighed her head down. They weren’t particularly fashionable, but Vickie wasn’t worried about such things. She had enough to worry about with the school semester about to begin on Monday. It was senior year and the pressure was on.

  She turned off Main Street, her legs burning with exhaustion from her run, and made her way past the boulevard. The ocean front destination usually swam with tourists. This late there wasn’t a single boat. The water was black save for the occasional buoy that caught the moon’s glow.

  She normally ran in the morning, but tonight she hadn’t been able to sleep, something that was becoming routine for her. Some nights her eyelids never grew tired. She would stare at the ceiling and feel a weight on her chest, like a vice grip would break through her ribs at any moment. It was stupid, she knew. She was at the top of her class, brought in straight A’s from her courses, all of them honors, and she’d do the same this year if she put her mind to it.

  Still, it felt like failure was just around the corner. It didn’t help that her sister Valerie had been class president and had gone on to study law at Harvard, or that her mother and father were both successful dermatologists who had been widely published in their field. She had a lot to live up to and her parents never missed the chance to remind her.

  It wasn’t anything obvious. They didn’t outright tell her she needed to do well or she’d let them down. But there were hints at such things during their conversations.

  “Are you sure you want to go to that movie tonight, honey?” her mother had said just last week. “You’ve already gotten some of your reading list for your AP English class, haven’t you? You know how much material you’ll be covering this year. Might not be such a bad idea to stay in tonight.”

  Or her father, who never seemed impressed with her report card, no matter the perfect scores. He’d congratulate her, sure, but Valerie was still the angel of the family and until Vickie proved herself, got into Harvard or Yale or the very least Stanford, she would never be on the same level.

  Put simply, it was—

  “Bullshit,” Vickie said through gritted teeth as she finally slowed to a jog.

  Her lungs burned worse than her legs now. The world spun, her eyes having trouble focusing on anything for too long. She stopped and leaned against a chain link fence. For a moment, she was certain she’d pass out. She reached for her cell phone but realized she’d left it at home. Eventually her pulse slowed and she calmed enough to take in her surroundings.

  And she wished she hadn’t.

  She was no longer at the boulevard. She must have been running at twice her normal speed. Otherwise, there was no way she could have run this distance in such a short span of time.

  No way could she be looking at the old Lynnwood High School.

  She blinked several times, but the vision did not change. The building was still there, just as abandoned as ever, and she could not deny the shiver that shot up her spine.

  Just about every kid in town thought the place was haunted. Vickie wasn’t one to believe in ghosts but it was hard to deny the way her heart skipped a beat every time she neared the crumbling building.

  It had been closed for nearly a decade, since they built the new school on the eastern edge of town and just after the cafeteria shooting. It stood atop a cliff, the sole structure on one of the highest points in Lynnwood. The brick walls had seen better days. Lewd graffiti covered almost every inch and there were several damaged sections that had begun to fall apart, as if something had wanted to get inside.

  Or the other way around, she thought, shivering once more.

  Don’t be stupid. It’s just an old school. Creepy as all hell but there’s nothing haunted about it.

  In her mind she sounded confident, but she could not fool herself. She couldn’t stop staring at the structure and wondering if anything stared back. It resembled an ancient castle the way it was perched on the cliff. She could see shattered windows from her position. There
was only darkness beyond. Surely something wouldn’t peer out at any moment. Surely nothing lived within those walls aside from rats and maybe squatters.

  Her headphones seemed to grow exponentially louder. She only listened to classical music on her jogs. It usually helped her calm down, but now the violins and cellos sounded distorted, as if they’d begun to play a new tune, rising and falling in suspense, the score for a film just before the main character gets murdered.

  She removed the headphones and shut off her iPod. The only sounds were the wind, the distant lapping waves, and the occasional fog horn.

  Fog horn?

  Fifteen minutes earlier, the night had been crystal clear, perfect for running, but now a thick mist had begun to roll in from the harbor. It obscured everything, made her surroundings almost dream-like.

  On her left was a small playground that had been used for student mothers before the school closed. The only things left standing were half of a swing set, a splintered mock pirate ship, and a rusty seesaw.

  The latter of the three began to move.

  As if someone were riding it.

  The squeak of the metal bore into her ears. She covered them and began to back away, hoping a car would speed by, but knowing everyone avoided this section of town for good reason.

  She wiped away sweat and tried to run in the opposite direction.

  And that’s when she heard it.

  Footsteps.

  Footsteps that echoed in the night. Slow, deliberate. As if the owner was in no great rush.

  As if they’d been following her the whole time.

  The sound of the seesaw grew louder, more piercing, and even though she longed for a rational explanation, she could not blame it on the wind. The same went for the outline that appeared within the fog.

  It was vaguely human-like, but its features were obscured.

  She tried to run but for some odd reason her legs remained in place. She attempted to move them, to bend the knees and ankles, but nothing happened.

  “Vickie,” the shape in the fog said.

  She didn’t care how it knew her name or why it had been stalking her. She only cared about getting away and calling the cops.

  It? When had it transformed from a drunk bum to a thing?

  Icy sweat dripped from her forehead and into her eyes but she could not blink against the burning sensation. Her eyelids were paralyzed too.

  The fog grew thicker and the shape grew closer.

  “Vickie, don’t be afraid. I’m here to help. I’m here to make everything better.”

  She wanted to ask what the hell it meant, but her lips didn’t move a centimeter, didn’t even quiver with the fear she felt. Her eyes grew heavy, perhaps her insomnia finally taking its toll, perhaps some defense mechanism, but she knew the real reason as the shape stepped even closer.

  It was the voice.

  It was hypnotizing, everything else fading into the background. Her skin tingled with an almost pleasant sensation. The longer she listened, the more she wanted to lie down and take a nap.

  “Would you like to come with me? Would you like to stop worrying about school and grades and everything else? Don’t you want to be a normal high school kid for once in your life?”

  That sounded lovely. To forget about the stress and the pressure, to forget about her parents’ approval and expectations that shouldn’t have existed to begin with.

  What the hell are you thinking? You should be screaming for help right now.

  The tingling across her skin multiplied and her pulse slowed drastically.

  “Well? What do you say?”

  Her rational thoughts fled with the wind. She thought she nodded but she wasn’t sure—wasn’t sure of anything except how exhausted she felt.

  “That’s good,” the voice said. “You and I are going to have such fun together.”

  Her mind conjured a tentacled beast, with too many eyes and claws to count, but as the shape stepped out from its cover of fog, she saw it wasn’t a beast at all. She thought she recognized the face from somewhere. Some distant gear within her mind turned before the epiphany struck. The memorial picture hanging in the cafeteria. “Aren’t you…?”

  “Yes.” The shape nodded, shushed her.

  Then it grabbed her hair, threw her to the ground, and climbed atop her.

  In the distance, the foghorn blared.

  And in the darkness something stirred.

  Chapter Two

  When Busty Brown showed up on the front porch, Frank wasn’t sure whether to laugh or slam the door shut. The kid was impossibly tall and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds. The skin on his face seemed too tight, his cheeks too hollow. He had a pierced septum that made him seem equal parts tribal and cartoonish. His once-busted nose was crooked from a childhood fall, hence the nickname, according to Alyssa.

  “Can I help you?” Frank asked.

  “Hi, there. You must be Frank.” He held his hand out. There was a flaming skull tattooed across it, the reds and oranges popping against his pale skin and his black painted nails.

  Frank accepted the handshake. “That must make you—”

  “Busty!” Alyssa shouted from behind. She pushed Frank aside and threw herself at the guy, giving him a kiss with a little too much tongue for Frank’s taste.

  “Come on in,” Alyssa said, pulling Busty along toward the living room.

  Frank stood in the doorway for another moment, looking out into the evening, and wondering why the hell his daughter had chosen this fool out of every other possible suitor in town. But he knew the answer. Busty was the polar opposite of Frank. He was a bad boy, a rebel. She was just trying to shock her father and he hoped the phase would pass quickly.

  He considered having a cigarette but thought better of it. As far as Mona knew, he’d quit at the end of last semester, though that wasn’t quite true. This summer he’d indulged here and there and he was sure he’d be indulging a whole lot more come Monday when the semester started once more and he was back to teaching history to kids that were daydreaming of drinking and fucking most of the time.

  He caught movement to his left and looked into his neighbor’s upstairs window. Justin Wright stood there shamelessly, watching Frank, had probably been watching the place all night, just waiting to catch a glimpse of Alyssa.

  You watch all you want, Frank thought. But like I said before, you come near my daughter again, I’ll break every one of your fingers. See how easily you can lift those weights of yours then.

  “Frank?” Mona called from inside. “I could use your help.”

  “Be right there,” he said, locking eyes with the Wright boy, sending a psychic threat.

  Frank stepped inside the house and made his way to the kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and drank most of it in two gulps. His stubborn headache would not let up. Something told him it would last through dinner.

  “Are you ready to scream yet?” Mona asked, stepping through the swinging doors and into the kitchen.

  “Give me five more minutes and one more beer.” He drained his can and got a fresh one.

  “Busty seems… animated. And nice. Very nice.”

  “He looks like David Bowie mixed with the grim reaper. She chose a real winner. Hell, he’s worse than the stalker next door.”

  “You need to lay off that poor boy and give this one a chance.” She grabbed the chef’s knife and started to chop vegetables. “If you remember correctly, my parents didn’t exactly invite you in with open arms either.”

  “And I didn’t exactly show up looking like an undertaker.”

  She picked up a rogue slice of cucumber and tossed it into her mouth. “When my father first saw you, he said your hair was too long and your clothes were too baggy. Said you looked like a vagrant. Times change, honey.” She winked and brought the salad bowl out to the dining room.

  “They certainly do.” He popped open the second can. He considered staying in the kitchen for the rest of the night, leanin
g against the counter and getting drunk, but he could feel his wife’s death stare from here. He finished the second beer in less than a minute, grabbed his third, and made the painful trek into the dining room.

  “So tell us a little bit about yourself,” Mona said five minutes later as she scooped mashed potatoes onto her plate.

  “Well, I work at this record store in the city. We sell mostly goth and industrial stuff.”

  “I like Springsteen myself,” Frank said. “Do you like Springsteen?” He chewed the pot roast too hard, his teeth grinding together every so often.

  “Can’t say I do. Always thought he was a bit hokey if you ask me.”

  Wish I hadn’t asked you anything. Who the hell doesn’t like Springsteen?

  “Busty’s in a band.” Alyssa beamed. “He plays keyboard. Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right. When they need someone to fill in, at least. We’re called Fleshgasm.”

  Mona nearly choked on her meat, had to take a gulp of water.

  “Quite the name,” Frank said. It had been less than a half hour, but he could no longer stomach the sight of this boy, this fool who was staring at his daughter’s breasts for much too long. “Let me take a stab at the rest of your life story. I’m guessing you dropped out of high school in your last semester because rock and roll is your real calling. You live in your parents’ basement rent-free and you don’t believe in getting a real job because corporate America is just trying to bring down the people.”

  Everything in the room seemed to come to a stand-still. They held each other’s eyes and for a moment, Busty didn’t look all that different from a cadaver. Frank hated to admit it, but the kid actually gave him the creeps.

  “Dad!” Alyssa said.

  “It’s okay.” Busty held her hand and grinned. “Actually, Mr. Tanner, I did drop out. And then I got my GED and went to community college. In fact, I graduated in just one year because I took double the classes. I paid for it with the money I get from playing in my stupid band and working at that stupid music store.” He smiled, the pearly white teeth almost as bright as his pearly white skin.