Dan Poblocki - The Stone Child

Eddie allowed himself to stare at the darkness all around him for a few seconds, listening for whatever sound Harris thought he’d heard. The silence of the basement was hypnotic. Finally, he picked up the book again.

Dylan opened the cabinet next to the potted palm and found a candle and a matchbook. He struck the tip of a match, and the spark erupted into the darkness. He lit the candlewick. The flame flickered tenuously before settling into stillness. Looking around the room, he didn’t see anything or anyone who might have made such laughter. But the horrible stench grew stronger. It was coming from the wall near the fireplace.

Cautiously, Dylan crept toward the mantel. When he reached the oriental rug in front of the fireplace, he noticed two strange lumps. Bending down, he could see the lumps were piles of familiar clothing. He trembled as he realized what he had found. His mother’s bathrobe was wet and soiled. His father’s pajamas smelled like rotten meat. Something terrible had happened to his parents. The rug underneath the laundry was dark, and the flickering candlelight revealed an oily sheen. Dylan held his hand to his nose to keep himself from becoming ill. Suddenly, the candlelight was out, and he was thrown into darkness.

“What’s that nasty smell?” said Harris, interrupting once more.

Eddie paused. After a moment, he smelled it too. “It’s almost sweet… like the garbage bins next to the parking lot at school. Where is it coming from?”

“All around,” said Harris. Then he looked at the book in Eddie’s hands. “Sort of like… exactly what’s happening to Dylan in the story.”

Eddie felt sick, and it wasn’t from the stench. He held out the book to Harris. “Y-your turn?” he stammered.

Harris took the book, smiling wearily as he began to read.

In the darkness, something brushed against his leg. Then something pulled his slipper from his foot. Dylan stumbled backward, turned, and ran. He scrambled along the wall to the front door.

Whatever had taken his slipper slithered across the floor behind him. He fumbled with the doorknob, and he flung himself into the night.

The thing chased him all the way down the driveway. Up the road to the right, Dylan saw headlights approaching. He waved his hands, trying to flag down the car. The light grew blinding, and the engine roared louder and louder. He realized it was not going to stop. From the shadows near the end of the driveway, a dark shape leapt at him. He jerked his body out of the way and fell on the far side of the road, just as the car sped by. It missed Dylan by inches. He heard a horrible wet thump and the squeal of tires.

A car door opened. Dylan heard boots on gravel, and a deep voice called, “You all right? ”

Dylan stood up and shouted, “Didn’t you see me? ”

A short, thin man stood next to a pickup truck. “Sorry, man,” he said, “I just came off my shift. Didn’t expect to see a kid in a bathrobe in the middle of the road at this hour.” The man looked down and then shouted. “Aww, geez, what the heck did I run over?” In the middle of the road lay a black lump about a foot in diameter. It was wet and shiny in the truck’s headlights. “It’s not yours, is it? ”

Mesmerized by the lump in the road, Dylan shook his head.

“ Some kid is going to be really unhappy tomorrow morning. Poor little thing,” said the man, taking a step closer to examine the mess.

The man bent over as Dylan shouted, “Get away from it!” But it was too late. A slick humanlike hand shot out of the wet puddle and grabbed the man’s collar. Dylan watched the man’s face turn dark and oily, his skin seeming to melt away like wax. Not even his screaming could be heard over the sound of a woman’s fierce laughter, ringing across the Coxglenn Hills.

Harris tossed the book to the floor. His eyes grew wide and he stifled a small whimper. “I just thought of something…”

“What’s the matter?” asked Eddie, sitting up straight.

“The Woman,” Harris said, staring at the book.

Eddie’s stomach turned to ice. Of course! That’s why the title had sounded so familiar. The Wish of the Woman in Black.

“Eddie, do you think…?” He didn’t need to finish. Eddie had already started nodding.

It was her-the woman from the Gatesweed legend. The ghostly woman the townspeople said haunted the woods. The Watching Woman from the graffiti.

“You know what this means?” Harris continued.

Eddie nodded again. “Nathaniel did write a story about her, after all.” Looking around the basement, he felt the shadows pressing on him. He shuddered as he came to a terrible understanding. “Does this mean that the Woman in Black is real? Just like the gremlins and the dogs in the lake?”

Harris only nodded slightly, as if he’d come to the same conclusion. “Maybe people in town aren’t crazy. Maybe they really have seen her. Maybe she is watching?”

Eddie took a deep breath, then exhaled, trying to remain calm. He spoke slowly and evenly. “Maybe there’s a connection between the handwritten books we found here in the basement and the creatures we’ve seen in Gatesweed…”

“What kind of connection?” said Harris.

Eddie shook his head. “Maybe he knew that some of his monsters were real. Did he think the Woman was real too? Could he have buried this book under the stone because he thought her story was too scary?” Suddenly, Eddie had a terrible feeling. “If it was too scary for him” he whispered, “then what the heck are we doing here?”

Harris continued to stare intently at the book on the floor. “We’re doing what Nathaniel Olmstead would have wanted us to. Solving the mystery.” He picked up the book again and turned to where he’d left off, but when he flipped the next page to continue reading the story, he yelped.

“What’s wrong?” said Eddie, shining his flashlight at Harris.

Harris held his hand in front of his face to block the light, but he didn’t hesitate before showing Eddie what was on the next page.

P B Z D Y F R H V J W L U

A Q C O E T G S I X K N M

“No way,” said Eddie. Quickly, he picked up The Enigmatic Manuscript from the floor. Opening the cover, he compared the strange writing to the letters they’d just found in The Wish of the Woman in Black. After a few seconds, he said, “Why would Nathaniel Olmstead have written the code in this book too?”

“I’m not sure.” Harris pressed his lips together and flipped one more page. He looked distressed. He held up the book and showed Eddie. The rest of the pages were blank. “This is where it ends. The Wish of the Woman in Black is incomplete. He buried the book without finishing it.”

Eddie felt empty. “That’s everything he wrote?” he said. “But how does the story end? And why doesn’t he actually explain what the stupid code means?” He tossed The Enigmatic Manuscript on the floor next to the hole, where it landed with a soft whap. “We were so close to finding the key. What are we supposed to do now?”

Something on the other side of the room sneezed, and the boys froze. The noise had come from the doorway near the secret fireplace entry.

After a few seconds of silence, Eddie whispered, “H-hello?”

Harris seemed to come to his senses and suddenly whipped his flashlight toward the doorway. “Who’s there?” he said. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out his boomerang. If Eddie hadn’t been so terrified, he might have laughed at the image of the kangaroo shaking in Harris’s hand.

Harris’s light illuminated a shapeless dark figure. It scrambled backward against the wall near the ladder. Its clothes were black. Its white hands clutched at its pale face.