John Manning - The Killing Room

That’s why she took the emotion seriously.

Someone-something-was out there. She knew that was a fact.

Taking a deep breath, she headed out of the bright lights of the store and back into the purple night. Whoever had paused outside the store was gone. Fighting off a shudder, she hurried around the block and let herself into her apartment, climbing the steps to the second floor. Carolyn unlocked her door and quickly shut it behind her, sliding the bolt firmly in place. She let out a long breath of relief. She was safe here.

But the fear still ate away at her.

He’s outside, she thought.

She moved over to her window. Leaving the lights off, she opened the Venetian blinds just a pinch and glanced down at the street.

There was indeed a man standing down there, looking up at her window.

Carolyn gasped.

She knew who it was.

It was no pitchfork-wielding ghost.

It was a far more human, but no less dangerous foe.

It was David Cooke.

“I’d like to leave the kids with Linda’s mother,” Dean told her. “I don’t want to bring them… I mean if something were to happen…”

Paula understood. But sitting across from her brother, glancing out the window at Zac and Callie playing in the yard, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

“We always went to the reunions as kids,” she said. “Mother and Dad always took us. For as long as the lottery has been held, the children have always been in the house. None of us knew about the lottery, of course, until we were older, but we were always there. Not bringing Zac and Callie would be breaking tradition, wouldn’t it? Against the rules?”

“I don’t know,” Dean admitted. “Uncle Howard doesn’t know either.”

Paula took another sip of her coffee. She’d headed out to her brother’s house this morning because she’d spent another sleepless night, dreaming of that baby. The baby who taunted her. Her eyes were puffy and dark with circles. She needed to talk to Dean. He was the only one she could talk to.

“What pisses me off is that we don’t even know what the rules are, or who laid them down,” Paula said. “It’s obscene. Unjust. That some unknown force dictates the rules by which we live and die.”

Linda came by to refill both their cups. “I wake up every morning crying,” she said. “Thinking that this time, maybe…” She couldn’t say the words.

“I hope it’s me,” Paula said. “I hope I’m the one chosen for the lottery.”

“Stop it, Paula,” Dean said.

“Oh, Paula, no, you can’t mean that,” Linda said.

She frowned. “Of course I mean it. I have no one now. Since Karen left, there’s no one who needs me.” She looked out the window again at Zac and Callie.

“I hope it’s going to be none of us,” Dean said. “Uncle Howard sounded optimistic that this Carolyn Cartwright could-”

“Could what? Oh, Dean,” Paula said. “He was optimistic about Kip Hobart, too. And whatever the man’s name he had the time before that.”

Linda had moved out of the room, her emotions getting the best of her. Brother and sister sat in silence for a while, just staring down at their coffee cups.

Finally Dean reached into a large manila envelope sitting on the table and withdrew the scan he had printed from his computer. He hadn’t even shown it to Linda. For some reason, he wanted Paula to be the first to see it. After all, she had been with him the day he had taken it all those years ago.

She knew instantly what it was. “The Polaroid,” she said, almost in awe. “You found it…”

He nodded. “I had it blown up. We were right all those years. It was a face.”

Paula held the image in her hands. A short, startled breath escaped her lips.

“A baby,” she said. “It’s the baby I see in my dreams.”

Dean nodded. “I remember before Dad died, he saw a baby. Well, the apparition of a baby. I told him about the Polaroid then, and it seemed to disturb him.”

Paula couldn’t take it anymore. She stood, a bundle of energy that needed release. She missed Karen terribly. Respecting her wishes, she hadn’t tried to contact her. She spent her days and her nights in a constant state of turmoil, grief, fear, and anxiety. She had meant it when she said she hoped she was chosen in the lottery. What did she have to live for now? Dean had Linda and the kids. Her cousins Douglas and Chelsea and Ryan were still in their twenties and had their whole lives ahead of them. It should be her.

But then she thought of her students, the children struggling to adjust to life in this country. She thought of little Quynh-Anh, just six years old and refusing to speak because everything around her was so different from what she knew. Paula had worked with her tenderly and diligently, teaching her words for her favorite things: her doll, a daisy, a glazed donut, a sparkly tiara. Quynh-Anh was making progress, but her mother was still worried about her. Only Paula, the mother insisted, had managed to get through to the little girl.

“Oh, Dean,” she said. “What went on in that room so many years ago to cause such enduring tragedy?”

“I don’t know if we’ll ever really know.” Her brother sighed. “All we know for sure is a servant girl was murdered. That’s all Uncle Howard has ever admitted.”

“But what about the baby? Why is there a spirit of a baby as well?”

“When Kip Hobart was investigating the room, he learned that Beatrice had a baby. But what happened to the baby, none of us know.”

Paula shook her head. “Uncle Howard knows. He must. He was there!”

“But he can’t say,” Dean told her. “Somehow he’s prevented from telling all he knows.”

“Are you so sure? I love Uncle Howard. He’s always been very good to me. And to you and Zac and Callie. Dad adored him. But…”

“But what, Paula?” Dean asked. “Do you suspect him of something?”

“I remember the year that Dad died. There was a man investigating the room then, too. Remember? A Dr. Fifer?”

“Yes. I remember him. But he wasn’t able to find anything to end the curse. No one has.”

Paula pressed her point. “But Fifer accumulated a good amount of information. I remember him saying to Dad once that he thought he understood why the forces in that room were so restless, and that it was up to someone living to put them at rest. That’s when he went out to see Jeanette at Windcliffe. Do you remember?”

Dean was nodding. “Yes. He upset her. For the first time, he was able to produce a response from Jeanette.”

“Exactly.” Paula looked at her brother sternly. “The next day Uncle Howard fired him.”

“He said Dr. Fifer wasn’t getting anywhere,” Dean said.

Paula smiled cagily. “Or maybe he was getting too close to something.”

Dean frowned. “Do you think Uncle Howard would abandon the mission to end the curse? That’s insanity, Paula. He’s spent his whole life trying to end the cycle of death. You can see the pain in his eyes at every family reunion.”

“It’s true,” Paula agreed. “I know Uncle Howard is deeply pained by all of this. But the way he withholds information…Dad even commented on it. Dad-who paid the ultimate price in that room.”

Dean was silent. He was looking at the scan of the crying baby again.

“Why let Dr. Fifer go just as he was about to tell us something?”

“I admit it’s odd,” Dean said.

Paula lifted the scan to study it herself. “I think,” she said, “I’ll have a few questions for Uncle Howard when we see him.”

Philip steered his Bentley up the long driveway outside Uncle Howard’s mansion. If he’d had his way, he wouldn’t have come to this depressing old place a day earlier than he had to. But Ryan and Chelsea had called a few days ago, all in a state. Uncle Howard had told them about the room and the lottery. Philip cursed the old fool. He should have waited until he was there before revealing the family secret. But apparently something had happened-some sighting of that crazy woman ghost-and Uncle Howard had felt he needed to tell them everything. It had taken Philip a good hour to calm his kids down.