Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

At the top of the stairs, Lisa froze, a scream choking in her throat.

To their left, the hallway door was opening and closing slowly, rhythmically, as if the door was breathing…in…and out…

The four stood mesmerized, watching.

Cain suddenly strode to the door and pulled it open. A strong breeze ruffled his hair, and Robin gasped. He shook his head.

“It’s the wind. Coming in the broken window.”

Robin pushed up behind him, looked down the long, dark hall. She could feel the draft from the window she’d broken.

She leaned against Cain, and he put a strong arm around her waist, holding her tightly against him.

Patrick shoved forward, marched past Robin and Cain. “Let’s fucking get on with it.” He slammed into the stairwell.

Cain moved Robin forward, touched Lisa’s arm, and the three of them followed Patrick through the door.

The stairwell was dark and hollow, resonant with their breathing as they climbed up after Patrick’s bobbing flashlight.

“O’Connor, hold up,” Cain whispered upward, and the light paused at the third-floor doorway.

The three of them caught up with Patrick on the small landing in front of the door. Patrick pulled the door open a crack and peered through into the third-floor hall. Robin could feel him untense slightly. He nodded behind to the others, then silently swung the door open into the hall.

They followed Patrick into the murky corridor, looking down at a string of silent doors, all closed.

Robin felt a rush of impatience. She moved suddenly ahead toward Martin’s corner room. Cain fell quickly into step with her, staying close by her side. She could feel Patrick and Lisa right behind.

Robin stopped at the last closed door and stared at the door frame. The mezuzah had been ripped off, leaving a slash of exposed wood.

Robin swallowed, then set her jaw and knocked hard. She jumped slightly as the sound seemed to echo through the floor. Now it’s heard us , she thought bleakly. She had a flash of swirling formless energy…chaotic malevolence…

“Martin?” she called softly. “Are you in there?”

The other three crowded closer to listen. There was only silence behind the door.

Patrick tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants and put a hand on Robin’s elbow. “Out of the way,” he ordered. Robin and Lisa shrank back against the opposite wall. Patrick raised his leg and kicked at the door below the knob. Robin saw a flash of a thigh as thick as a tree trunk; then the door crashed open against the wall inside.

Patrick pulled the gun out of his pants, cautiously stuck his head inside the black room, leading with the gun.

Robin peered around the side of him from behind. She could see no movement, no Martin, only shadows.

Patrick shoved into the room. The others followed with flashlights.

The curtains were drawn, but even in the thick darkness, the clutter was unnerving. Books were stacked in teetering piles; the bed was in chaos. Food wrappers and soft-drink cans were scattered everywhere, as if Martin had been living out of the snack machine for weeks instead of just a day and a half. Robin cringed at the rank, rotted smell.

Cain trained his flashlight beam on the mirror. Robin drew in a breath. Hebrew letters were scrawled on the glass and the wall beside it: thick, dark smears of something that looked suspiciously like blood.

Lisa gasped behind them and they all turned instantly. Her flashlight was aimed at a desk pushed into the middle of the room, with a chair in front of it.

The Ouija board was laid out on top of the desk, the planchette in the center of it. Martin’s miniature tape recorder was beside it, and fat candles were set up around the board, burned halfway down, hardened wax pooled around them.

Robin focused on a pile of books, open on top of one another, stacked on the chair, with more on the floor beside the desk. Half of the titles were in Hebrew. She glanced at Cain.

He moved forward, staring down at the board. He pulled out his lighter, lighted the candles. The flickering flames seemed to make the room colder, not warmer.

Cain switched on the tape recorder on the table. Everyone jumped as Waverly’s voice screamed out of the small speaker: “ You’re really going to stay here with these freaks? ”

Robin had a swift shock of déjà vu at the sound of her dead roommate’s voice, then she realized. “It’s the tape Martin made in the attic. He left it running.”

Patrick’s voice rasped from the tape, an ugly sound. “ Fuck off and die, you bitch .”

Patrick blanched in the candlelight. “Turn it off,” he said thickly.

“Wait.” Robin fast-forwarded the tape past Waverly’s feminine twittering to find Martin’s voice again.

“ Come on. Let’s keep going ,” Martin was saying.

Then Cain’s voice, incredulous: “ You’ve got to be kidding .”

“ Don’t let her ruin it .”

Robin flinched at the obsessive intensity of Martin’s voice. They all stared at the tape recorder.

Cain’s voice cut Martin off curtly. “ I don’t know what you’re after, but we’re done .”

Robin looked up at Cain. His face was tense, fixed on the tape recorder. Patrick shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, so—”

Cain said sharply, “Wait.”

They all stood around the desk uneasily, listening as the tape continued to play. There was the sound of people moving, footsteps on the wooden floor, a door opening, then closing.

Then silence…just the hiss of tape.

And then the sound of the tape being snapped off. But before anyone could even take a breath, the tape started again. Robin stiffened.

On the tape was the squeak of a chair being pulled out…and Martin’s determined voice, speaking aloud.

“ Are you still there? ”

The four of them stiffened at the familiar scraping sound of the planchette moving on the board.

Then Martin’s voice again, low with excitement: “ I’m here, too .”

Patrick looked up. “Shit. He did it himself.”

On the tape, Martin spoke with a touch of longing. “ Are you really…Qlippah? ”

Robin jolted, whispered. “He did know. He knew what it was.” Cain met her eyes, tense.

There was a brief scraping on the tape, and Martin’s voice reading the message. “ ’Yes .’”

A pause. “ And you were there…at the beginning of creation? ”

There was a longer scraping, and Martin’s voice, reading out the reply. “‘ Before the beginning ….’”

Another pause, then more scraping. Martin spoke suddenly, so intensely that Robin flinched. “ I do want to know more .”

The scraping came again, faster now. They could hear Martin’s breathing on the tape. What do you mean, I could see? ”

The scraping.

Then Martin’s voice again, rising in disbelief. “ See God?”

Patrick moved in the dark beside Robin, an explosive gesture. “What the fuck—”

Martin’s taped voice cut through his. “ Yes. I want to see God. How? ”

Robin felt faint with the sound of the scraping of the planchette. There was a long silence on the tape. I’m going crazy , she thought. I really am going to go crazy .

Martin’s voice came again. This time there was a distinct note of wariness.

“ I don’t know. What would you do…if you were in me? ”

Robin’s eyes leapt to Cain’s face. He stared back at her across the candles, jolted.

“Sweet Jesus,” Patrick mumbled. Lisa pushed in to him; he put an arm around her waist blankly.

On the tape, Martin was sounding out letters, stumbling over unfamiliar words. “‘ Nayah, horeh, yiyeh .…?’”