The Haunted

Thirty-five

Struggling.

He was not himself anymore. There was no himself anymore. He grasped for purchase, trying to remember what he had been and figure out what he was now. He was a part of something but he was lost in it, sightless, adrift, with only the most rudimentary senses to guide him. Then he was touched and touching, energy flowing into him, through him, connecting him to everything, to all of it. The form he had taken was enormous and powerful, and he could sense within it the competing wills of the thousands who had come before him. He was them, they were he, and while this new form was unwieldy, almost ungovernable, he was determined to take charge, to be in control. It was imperative that he do so, though he could not remember why it was so important.

He stretched out.

There was no time here. Seconds could have passed or minutes or hours or days or months or years. It could be today, tomorrow or yesterday.

And suddenly …

He could see the house. He was in it, around it, part of it. He knew where he was and what he was and why he was here. In the living room, his body was still on the couch, where it had died, and he took care of it, made it disappear so no one would be able to find it, so his family would not have to see his corpse.

His family.

Claire.

Megan.

James.

He knew instantly what had been done to them and what was planned for them. For the first time since becoming, he understood what he was supposed to do, what he had to do.

He remembered.

But he didn’t know how to go about it. He couldn’t shoot himself, couldn’t jump off a bridge, couldn’t even take pills or poison, the way he had before.

How powerful was he? he wondered. He reached out, saw the street outside, felt the other houses on the block. A police car drove by, and he touched the man inside, made sure that as he drove on he thought there was nothing unusual in the sight of all these empty homes and dead yards.

How far could he spread out? Could he reach all the way to the hospital? Of course he could. Megan had been made to cut herself and James had been taken, both in their grandparents’ house. So he needed to go farther than that, needed to stretch as far as he could.

To the breaking point.

That was it. He knew from everything he was and everyone who was here that it was the link to this spot that kept his form alive, that granted it power. He needed to leave, to sever all ties. If he could move from this location, he could break the connection off at the source. It would be like pulling the plug on an appliance. Whatever was left would dissipate, float away.

Already he felt resistance. John Lynch. Jim Swanson. The man before him. And the man before him, and the man before him …

He needed to maintain control. It was hard, but it was possible. He was the newest and the strongest, and what he had become was what it had become. They were one and the same; that was how it worked, and he tamped down the other voices even as he moved away from the house, away from the neighborhood, through the town.

Stretching.