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Chapter Six.

The rain fell.  Not from above, but from the side.  All sides.  Aimed directly at me.  It seemed as though the rain was at the behest of...  Aunt Hay Hay. 

My feet were firmly planted in the ground, yet the wind blowing with the rain felt like it would rip me away at any moment.  I wasn't sure how it was working, but the more I pressed down on my feet, the more I felt as though I would remain.  

Then, as quickly as this weather assault came on, it ended.  I opened my eyes.  The red truck was gone.  Vanished.  My hand was still in place where it was still there.   In the spot where it was touching the car.  I don't know how it happened.  I didn't feel it.  It was just gone. 

But the woman remained.  Standing still in the same spot she's been.  She looked like my Aunt Hay Hay on the outside, but it felt like a shell, like a hollow husk of a person.

Then...  she spoke.  Like a wisp of air escaping the narrow caverns of an underground cave."

"Tired."

"Can...  Can I help you?"

"Tired."

"Aunt Hay Hay?  Do you remember me?"

"This was a house for children.  This was a house of love.  My heart was tainted.  My home was darkened.  My soul.  My soul..."

She turned toward the house.  

And then we were there.   At the single porch step.  We didn't walk.  We didn't move.  I didn't even blink, I don't think.  The house was now right there.  

Aunt Hay Hay stood by the door. 

"Aunt Hay Hay--"

"No."

"Who are you?"

The... "being" that looked like my aunt, her doppelgänger, pointed at the house.  The front door to be exact. 

"Everything I am.  Everything I was...  I left it there."  

Her arm just hung there, pointing.  That was all she needed to do for me to know I had to move forward.  I had to go inside.  

I step forward and again, I'm instantly there at the doorknob.  Hand on the metal, wrapped around the cold brass.  

I remember reaching for this doorknob as a child.  The aroma of warm blueberry muffins used to rush over me like a wave once I opened the door.  My heart would race as I saw Aunt Hay Hay walk toward me, removing her oven mitts, to give me and Timmy a hug.  And, of course, one of those delicious, sugar-filled muffins.  She would tell our mom that the fruit made them "healthy".

There was no such feelings when I turned the knob now.  The cold dread of the outside world surrounding me was behind the door as well.  I now faced the stairs I climbed so many years ago, where I was the last one to have ever seen Timmy.  

I turn to look at Aunt Husk Husk and she's standing there in the doorway.  Right behind me.  I never felt her presence, never felt her breath.   Her right arm cranes upward, extended in front of my face.  Her skeletal fingers dangle, like a wet cloth, before falling into place to point up the stairs.  It was obvious that's where I was going to go, but now, I supposed I had to. 

I looked the Husk in the face one more time.  Her eyes were closed.  Her mouth was shut.  Even her nostrils remained still.  So still that I had to focus on whether I could feel mine.  On whether I was actually breathing. 

I wasn't.  

I felt no pain from it.  I wasn't gasping, I wasn't in need.  I merely realized I wasn't breathing air in or out.  The thought processes necessary to even force myself to attempt to breathe were absent.  I was just existing.  Any thought of breathing before was merely an illusion. I could even speak, though I'm not sure why I was surprised.  Wherever I am...  isn't where I'm supposed to be.  It shouldn't be alarming that I can speak even though I'm not breathing, but something about that realization...  that I'm...  not...  breathing...  it feels like it's opened a pit within my stomach.  Something that feels like a piece of me is being drained.  

In an attempt to feel normal, I try reaching out to the Husk.

"You coming up?"

A single streak of blood trickled out of her left nostril.  Then her right ear.  Then the corner of her eyes.  Riding the curves of her chin down the slope of her neck. 

A larger splurge of blood came out of her throat, like a dam bursting wide open.  Like she was melting from the inside.  I'm paralyzed and feel an emotion for the first time since entering this strange world.  I feel like I want to vomit.  I feel weights pulling back my eyes even though I want to shut them so much.   

The Husk reaches out for me once more as though time has slowed way down.  I raise my own arms to shield my face from whatever attack is about to happen.  And then...

...it all goes back to normal.  The piercing scream that rang in my head is silenced.  The door remains open.  

No sign of the Husk. 

An engine revs from outside.  I peek my head out.  The red truck is down at the edge of visible road, spinning around in a circle before speeding off into the depths of the gray mist.  

I feel a presence behind me.  I hope and pray that it isn't the Husk.  I spin around and see it a top the stairs...

...a tiny shadow...  

...that of a little boy's...

I can't see more than the silhouette, but I can tell he -- it -- is standing still.  

I can tell that it's watching me.  

"Timmy?"

The shadow boy takes a step forward, only its tiny foot stepping into frame.   That white sneaker with red sides and a single blue stripe.  This was Timmy's shoe, but I'm in no rush to see another family member melt into a bloody mess.  If it is him, I hope he stays in the shadows. 

His voice confirms it.  It's one that was never captured on film.  My father never figured out the audio component to his video camera.  The only VHS memories that remained were that of silent films.  

But I remember that voice as clear as can be.  And God help me, if this is another...  mess around, I...  I have no idea what I'll do.  But I hope I can hit someone to deal with it.

"Timmy, is that you?"

And the way he spoke...

It was him...

Same tender, innocent age that I last saw him...

But the way he spoke.  There was a maturity to it.  A darkness. 

A horror. 

When he replied to me.

"Come up here and find out."