Page 26 of Haunted Heart
Jonas recoils from it when we get there.
It’s a bubbling, steaming mess with corpses floating among the muck, but through Julia, it’s a crystal-clear pond… and at the center, a small dingy piled high with… “Computer equipment?”
I share a confused look with Jonas. Julia remains silent.
A man stumbles out from behind the barn, and I know immediately that it’s not Dylan, but I don’t recognize this person either.
“Do you know him?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Jonas scoffs. “Brandon Thorne. He and Steven tended to show up together.”
His limbs are bent and broken, his body lurching as he goes to get a prize that isn’t really waiting for him.
“A greedy man and a gluttonous one,” Julia says, quietly glancing from the sty to the silo, and then to Jonas. “And a lusty one… Everyone finds their own Hell, eventually.”
“Should we try to stop him?” I ask.
“If Steven was a scumbag, Brandon is worse. Let him go.”
“If you remove a truly dead soul from this place, they will not come back to life. They may find their bodies again, I’m not sure, but they will wreak havoc on the living.”
“Like you did?” Jonas asks… not accusingly, and Julia doesn’t take it that way.
“No, they wouldn’t be ghosts.”
“Are we talking about zombies now?” Jonas asks, looking utterly freaked out.
“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t worry. Your body’s still alive. You’ll just be you.”
He lets out a shuddering breath and I feel guilty all over again for bringing him here.
I watch as Brandon dives into what he thinks is clear water and I grimace as he comes back up from the mud, gasping.
The man screams as corpses in the muck drag him down to join them. Jonas steps closer to me. I don’t know if it’s for my safety or his own.
Brandon disappears beneath the boiling mud, and his screams go with him.
“Have I thanked you for saving me yet?” Jonas adds quietly, “Because, Jesus fuck,thank you.”
“You’re welcome, and I’m sorry. You wouldn’t be here in the first place if I hadn’t messed up that spell.”
TWELVE
I turn toward the barn,gripping both Julia’s hand and the chain connecting me to Jonas a little tighter. It’s the only place left where Dylan might be.
Its paint peels as though scorched by flame, black and red and bubbling. The heat I’d gotten used to is somehow hotter here.
The doors hang on their hinges, broken. The lights dangling from their cords pulse with a sickly yellow glow.
It’s empty inside.
Or… it is for me.
Julia’s skin has gone from gray to sheet white, and the wisps of her semi-non-corporeal form flow toward the barn as if Hell has finally gotten ahold of her and is trying to drag her in.
I don’t ask what she sees. I step behind her to look for myself.
There are two people inside the barn. The one she stares at is a man dressed like he’s from another era. And on the other side of the barn, Minnie sits on an enormous pile of hay, twirling her hair and blowing big pink bubbles.
