Chris Holm - The Wrong Goodbye

Just a subtle crunch of foot on gravel. Topside, I might never have heard it, but down here, where all was still as death and stone walls amplified even the faintest of noises, it may as well have been a gunshot. But like a gunshot, I couldn’t quite tell from which direction it had come. The room was so shrouded in shadow, there were hiding places enough for a half a dozen would-be attackers, and as the sound bounced off the walls, it seemed to come from all of them at once. And it was that moment’s hesitation as my brain sorted out the likeliest spot for someone to hide that did me in.

Don’t get me wrong; I got the answer right. The sound came from behind the squat bulk of the cistern. It’s where I would’ve hid. It’s where my assailant did. But the time I took to get to that conclusion was time enough for them to close the gap between us.

I wheeled, too late. Electric pain as a white-hot needle pierced my neck. For a half-second, I wondered if it was the pain of Psoglav’s subtle blade. Then all of the sudden, I was a little girl.

Yeah, I know how it sounds. But it’s the fucking truth. One minute, I’m getting ambushed in a demon’s lair, and the next, I’m on my belly underneath my bed —a darkened flashlight in my trembling hands, my heart racing beneath my favorite flannel nightgown.

A creak of hardwood floor, and then another. Stocking feet beside the bed. Familiar. Familial. Adrenaline prickled through my system, chemical fear steeling my tiny frame. Whatever minuscule part of me was still Sam reflected back to another girl, another time —this one locked inside a wooden trunk in Amsterdam. But who she was, or how I knew her, I couldn’t recall. Those thoughts were too far from reach. Those memories belonged to someone else.

The stocking feet shuffled away, my stalker leaving —or so I thought. I relaxed a little, my fear subsiding.

Prematurely, it seemed.

Rough hands, strong and calloused, grasped my ankles and dragged me from my hiding place. I let out a squeal of sheer terror as those same hands lifted me up off the floor and hurtled me toward the bed. For an endless second, I flew through the air as though gravity had no dominion over my tiny frame —my nightgown flapping, my pigtails trailing out behind me, the flashlight clattering to the floor. Then I hit the bed and bounced so hard it rattled on its frame, and sent stuffed animals flying in all directions.

Dad was on me in a flash, roaring like a cartoon monster and tickling my ribs until I roared too, with laughter. I clamped my hands over my mouth, determined not to give him the satisfaction, but mischief glinted in his eyes, and he grabbed both my ankles with the crook of his elbow like a headlock, and set to tickling my feet. It was too much for me to take. I thrashed and thrashed, but his grip was like iron, and I couldn’t break free. I guess I must’ve been shrieking something fierce, too, because before long, Mom poked her head in, her frown of mock-disapproval not quite hiding the amusement that crinkled her nose and the corners of her eyes.

“Raymond,” she said, her tone stern, “you were supposed to be putting Gabriella to bed.”

“Oh!” he said, feigning surprise and lifting me once more off the bed. He held me up so we were eye-to-eye and leveled an appraising gaze my way. “Is this my Gabby? I thought it was an intruder —I found her hiding under the bed with a flashlight.”

“If this is how you handle intruders, I think we’ve got more to worry about than a daughter up past her bedtime.” Mom turned her attention to me. “What on earth were you doing under there, anyway?”

“Reading,” I said.

“Reading,” she echoed, one eyebrow going up.

“Mmm-hmm,” I said. “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Almost finished it, too.”

“You hear that, dear?” Dad said. “Our four-year-old was up late reading . Thank God we put a stop to that .”

“She’ll be cranky in the morning,” Mom said.

“You seem pretty cranky now,” he replied, but there was no malice behind it.

Mom once more arched an eyebrow, and said, “I do, do I? Well, then, don’t expect to be staying up past your bedtime with me tonight, mister.”

Dad laughed at that, though I had no idea why. Grown-ups can be so weird sometimes.

“All right, kiddo —time for you to go to bed.”

“But I’m not sleepy!” I replied. As I said it, though, I realized it wasn’t true; a yawn hit me out of nowhere, and I tried my best to stifle it, to no avail.

“Sure you’re not,” he said. “But how ’bout you try anyway, as a favor to your old man.”

He tucked me in and kissed my forehead. Then he headed for the hall, flicking out the bedroom light as he went by. The hall light was still on —that’s how Mom and Dad always left it; that’s the only way I slept. When he reached the doorway, he turned around, silhouetted by the golden hallway light.

“Sleep well, kiddo,” he said, and in that moment, I knew I would.

In that moment, the small, forgotten part of me that was Sam Thornton felt safer than he’d ever felt before.

It didn’t last.

Jesus Christ, did it not last.

Don’t get me wrong —those few moments I spent nestled snug in my bed, the soft glow of the hall light a gentle reassurance that Mom and Dad were just a room away, were second only to the first time I’d laid eyes on my Elizabeth. Before her illness. Before my cursed deal. Before everything I ever cared about was stripped from me, and my life became a literal, unending hell.

But those moments of feeling snug and protected were few indeed —and hell wanted me back.

The first sign this world was slipping from me was the hall light. One moment its calming presence shone like the light of God’s grace, and the next… it was simply gone.

I’m not talking gone like someone flicked it off. I’m talking gone like the very concept of light was torn free from the fabric of reality. Like my room was swallowed whole by some nightmare beast. Like any sense of security I’d been clinging to was ripped from my chest and devoured right in front of me —a feeling amplified by the horrid slavering sounds that seemed to fill the sudden darkness. They crept up on me, first so faint I had to strain to hear them —my body stock still, the covers pulled over my head to keep away the pressing dark —but soon, it was as though they were coming from right beside the bed. And something else was happening, as well: the bed seemed to come untethered from gravity, pitching and roiling like a ship on choppy seas. Only instead of the ocean’s roar, what I heard was the wet, wrong sounds of smacking lips and gnashing teeth, and the squeak and crunch of floorboards rending.

Whatever lurked in the darkness was coming closer.

Whatever semblance of sane reality this room represented was flying apart at the seams.

And I experienced it all not as a Collector who’d grown accustomed to such horrors, but through the eyes and mind of a frightened little girl.

At first, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t even bring myself to draw breath. I was too terrified to draw the attention of whatever it was that made those noises in the darkness.

So instead I lay there with the covers over my head willing the room’s vertiginous yawing to stop.

But then I heard it draw a breath, and then another, as if whatever the darkness hid was sampling the air around it —air that no longer smelled of dust and fabric softener and Mom’s pot roast, but instead of rust and rot and death —and the noises intensified. A whisper of motion surrounded me, like when Dad dragged our cooler down to the water’s edge when we went to the beach. Like the scales of a snake scraping across each other as it uncoiled.