I had never seen the Hewitts’ property before, and it was as spooky as I’d expected. It stank something horrible—like a mixture of wet dogs, gasoline, and chicken poop. The ground was covered in sticky mud dotted with wrecked cars, broken washing machines, and rusted barrels. I walked past a refrigerator lying on its side. The door had been removed and replaced with wire mesh to create a pen for some scraggly rabbits. I pulled my sweater up over my nose. It was no surprise Alex and his dad were in horrible moods all the time. If I had to live in that stench, I might go around hurting people too.
“Ilona?” I called, still clutching the Stone. Most of the buildings looked like animal barns, but past a dumpster, there was one that looked more like a human dwelling. There was an old rotting sofa on the porch and, above it, a bare light bulb surrounded by giant bugs.
“I don’t like this,” I told the Stone.
“Mr. Goolz?” I called, stepping onto the porch. “Are you in there?”
I leaned forward to listen at the door. I thought I heard knocks and voices, so I walked behind the rotten sofa and peered through a window into the kitchen. There was nothing there but a horrible mess of dirty dishes and trash. I moved to another window in a darker part of the house. But when I got close to the glass, I moved back in horror, nearly falling off the porch into the putrid mud. The figure reflected in the window was looking at me with two glassy white globes instead of eyes. I moved my hand. The reflection moved its hand, only it was all bones and skin and no flesh.
I looked down at my hands and they looked absolutely normal. I approached the glass to take a better look. Thanks to the Stone, I was walking again, but in my reflection I looked as dead as Madame Valentin. I looked like a monster.
“Am I dead?” I asked my zombie reflection. I set the Stone down on the floor like it was toxic and stared at myself in the window. I touched my face. I touched the empty eyes. I was the stuff of nightmares.
“Am I dead?” I asked the window again. I didn’t want to be dead. I looked down at the Stone. “You did this to me!” I wanted to kick it away, but I heard a voice and looked back up at the window. Something was moving on the hallway floor. Or rather, the entire floor was moving—there was a trapdoor and somebody was trying to get out.
“Ilona!” I called. I skirted the sofa and opened the front door. “Ilona!”
“Harold! Down here!” she replied, banging on the trapdoor.
“Good boy!” Frank Goolz said.
“Get us out of here!” Suzie yelled, and the trapdoor moved up and down as someone pushed on it. It was secured with chains and a huge old padlock. I squatted to get a better look.
“Where’s the key?” I asked.
“I think Hewitt has it. Where is he?” Ilona answered.
“His dogs are dead,” I said, since that was the only information I had.
“Go into the kitchen,” Frank Goolz said. “All my things are there. You can use the gun on the padlock.”
I went into the kitchen. Frank Goolz’s satchel was there on the table, along with the revolver, his orange pad and pen, and my phone. I picked up the gun and went back to the trapdoor.
“You sure this thing isn’t going to explode in my hand when I shoot?” I asked. It was extremely heavy and didn’t feel safe at all.
“We’ll soon know,” Frank Goolz said.
I heard them scurrying down a flight of stairs—in case the revolver did explode, I suppose.
“Harold?” Frank Goolz called from far below.
“Yes?”
“Shoot the padlock. Now!”
I cocked the gun. It made an old metallic noise like a tin can being squeezed. I aimed at the padlock, looked away, and shot. It made an enormous KABOOM and the recoil knocked me onto the ground. I fanned the acrid smoke with a shaky hand and picked up the revolver from where I’d dropped it. It hadn’t exploded, but neither had the padlock.
“Everybody all right down there?” I called.
“We’re fine,” Ilona said. “How’s the padlock?”
“It’s fine too,” I said. “I’m going to shoot it again.” I leaned down a little, bringing the barrel really close to the lock. I shot it at nearly point blank. KABOOM. It made an even greater noise, like a thousand metallic springs jumping out of a box, and the force of the shot vibrated up my arm. I fanned the smoke away with my hand and leaned down to check the padlock. “It worked!” I said. I struggled to free it from the chain.
“Don’t shoot, I’m coming up,” Ilona shouted.
“I’m not gonna shoot anymore.” I set the gun on the ground and pushed it away from me.
I removed the chain, and Ilona pushed the trapdoor open so hard that I fell back on my butt.
“Oh, thank God, Harold,” she said, and crawled over to hug me tight.
Then she pulled back, frowning. “Where’s your chair?” she asked. “How did you get here?”
I waited for Frank Goolz and Suzie to come out and enjoy the show.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I said and tried to stand up. I failed. I tried again. I failed again. It was like waking up in the middle of a dream where you could fly.
I couldn’t fly anymore.
“No,” I said, looking up at them.
“What?” Suzie asked. Ilona looked at me with sad eyes.
“No, no, no,” I repeated. “I need the Stone. I need it now!”
Ilona tried to touch my arm. “It’s all right, Harold. You’re going to be all right.”
I pushed her hand away. “I don’t need your pity! I NEED THE STONE! GET IT FOR ME!”
Frank Goolz squatted in front of me. “We need to get out of here. I can carry you.”
“I don’t want to be carried. I want you to go outside, pick up the Stone on the porch, and bring it back to me.” The more they looked at me, the more I hated myself. “You people are useless!” I screamed. I started to crawl toward the door to get the Stone back.
“Harold, stop,” Ilona said.
“Leave me alone!” I didn’t care how pathetic I sounded. All I wanted was to get the Stone back and turn it. Maybe I would look like a decomposing cadaver in every mirror for the rest of my life, but I didn’t care.
“Harold!” she yelled. I didn’t stop. I was nearly at the door when I realized she’d been trying to warn me. Hewitt was on the porch. Instead of his usual plank of wood, he was holding a shotgun. His face was covered in mud and bloody scratches. His clothes were torn. His expression was murderous. Wherever he had gone after setting the dogs on me at the church, it didn’t look like it had been a picnic.
“You people,” he said, aiming the shotgun at the Goolz. I looked over my shoulder. Frank Goolz had picked up his revolver and was pointing it at Hewitt.
“Or we could talk this through,” Frank Goolz said.
“You brought her back,” Hewitt said. “You brought her back from the dead.”
“You killed her, right?” Frank Goolz asked. “All those years ago. You and Donahue killed her. That’s why she came back and went after your kids.”
“She’s dead!” he yelled, tightening his grip on the shotgun. Clearly, he wanted to put an end to this discussion.
“If you tell me where you buried her body, I can help you find your son,” Frank Goolz insisted. “He might be still alive.”
“She got what she deserved!” he yelled, ignoring Frank Goolz’s offer. “She’s dead and in hell!”
“No, she’s not,” I said, looking past him. “She’s here.”
She was standing by the dilapidated fridge. She leaned over and tore off the mesh, freeing the rabbits. They jumped out of their prison and ran away in all directions. Old Hewitt turned around slowly, keeping his shotgun pointed at Frank Goolz. He screamed when he saw Madame Valentin staring at him with her empty white eyes.
“You’re dead!” he screamed at her. “Go away!”
She didn’t. Instead, she let go of the mesh and walked toward him at a slow, even pace, her expression perfectly calm. He aimed his shotgun at her, but she didn’t seem to care. She kept coming at him, even when he shot at her again and again, like she didn’t belong in the same dimension as the bullets he was shooting.
“You killed my dogs!” Hewitt yelled. He kept shooting until he had no more ammunition. She stopped right in front of the porch, still looking very calm. He flung the shotgun at her. It bounced off like she was a wall, and she stepped up onto the porch. She was coming for him and he knew it.
“You’re dead!” Hewitt cried. He fell to his knees. “Please go.”
She stood right above him and cupped his chin with her half-skinned, mummified hand, her dark nails and bones pressing hard into his fat cheeks, forcing him to look into her eyes.
“I didn’t kill you,” he pleaded. “The dogs killed you. I didn’t want them to kill you. I just wanted them to scare you off. Please, just leave me alone.”
But she kept staring into his eyes until he started crying like a little boy. “We were dumb kids. It was an accident. We wanted to scare you off, that’s all. It was an accident. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
She let go of his chin and he fell to the floor, curling up at her feet like a dying bug.
She looked down at me and smiled—I think. It was hard to say. With her mummified cadaver lips, she always seemed to be grinning. Then she walked over to the Stone of the Dead and picked it up. She cradled it against her chest with both hands and continued past us into the house. We watched her disappear into the darkness at the end of the hallway.
Old Hewitt was still curled up on the porch, sobbing. “It was the dogs. The dogs did it,” he repeated.
“I think she’s gone,” Ilona said, bending to help me to sit up against the wall.
“She took the Stone with her,” I said. I hadn’t known she could do that.
Frank Goolz kept the revolver pointed at Hewitt, who was still sobbing. “Well, I guess we should wake up Officer Miller, then,” he said.
“She took the Stone!” I repeated. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. “Why did she do that?”
“I think she’s taking it back to where it belongs, Harold,” Frank Goolz said. “She’s taking it back to hell.”