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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Verastahl on 2024-10-16 16:05:08+00:00.
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“So you’re going to trap me in here and escape with Grace and…what, your son Nick? What exactly do you think that looks like, Gordon?”
He went to interrupt, but I kept going, my words cutting across the distance between us like invisible knives. I was upset, yes, but not afraid or worried. Instead, the main emotion I felt was anger…anger approaching some kind of righteous rage, and again it felt as though it was flowing through me more than boiling up from within. Still, I felt some satisfaction when he fell silent as I went on.
“Do you think this monster living here has kept Nick a little boy? And somehow kept him sane? If he’s even alive, which is really hard to believe, your best hope is that he’s a completely crazy grown man.” I gave a bitter laugh and tried to hold in the rest, but found that I couldn’t quite manage. “Actually, that’s not true. Your best hope would be that he is dead, has been dead a very long time, rather than trapped in whatever hell this thing would be putting him through.”
Gordon’s eyes were gleaming now, and his face had grown ghastly pale. I expected him to yell, but his voice was soft and trembling as he spoke, his eyes starting on me before drifting behind to her. “I know all of that…that it’s a possibility. The thing can’t be trusted. But I had to try, didn’t I? I had to try to get our little boy b-“
I cut in. “No, Gordon. Don’t look at her. You look at me. I’m the one you’re trying to sacrifice now, remember? You’ve already abandoned her in this place. Trapped us both in your son’s tomb.” He went to speak again and I raised my hand to silence him. “Before you whine again about your good intentions and how unfairly you’re being treated, let me ask you this. When did you last feel our master?” I pointed a finger at him like a red-hot brand. “No lies, now. When was it?”
His eyes went to Grace again, more pleadingly this time, but whatever silent response she did or didn’t give, he found no harbor there. Lowering his gaze, he gave a small shrug. “When I first came here. Not to…not to this house outside, but another place that it moves to and from. It isn’t trapped, you see. It’s like a hermit crab, moving from house to house, swallowing up bits and adding it to the inside, to its place, before moving on. Or…maybe it is in all of them at once. But…It found me in a dream. Told me it could give us Nick back if I would do what it asked.” His face was streaked with tears when he looked back up at Grace again. “And I listened to it. I think it will work, I swear to God I do. And it’ll be worth it, even though I don’t want to lose Clint either.”
“When did you do this? When did you make a deal with this thing?” Grace’s voice was icy and hard behind me.
Gordon looked down again. “Nearly five years ago now. For a long time I didn’t listen or agree to anything. Until…well, until I did.”
A short, sorrowful laugh at my back and then. “And you haven’t felt our master since?”
He just shook his head silently.
“And the night the tape failed. The night the room flooded and we almost all drowned. Was that your doing?”
Gordon jerked as though he had been lashed with an unseen whip, a gasp of air escaping him as he looked between me and her. “I broke the tape barrier. It told me to. As proof that I would honor the deal.” Raising his hands, he took a step forward. “It promised we would all live. Not the…not the client, no, but the three of us. I would not have done it otherwise, you have to believe me.”
I gave a snort of disgust. “Real nice of you to get a promise for my safety. Had to keep your sacrificial lamb from drowning I guess.”
Sighing, he gave me a nod. “You’re right, of course. And I truly am sorry. I do care about you. We both do. But this is our child. And we need you to stay.”
I stood up slowly, my eyes never leaving Gordon’s. “Do you now?”
I felt something swell inside me, pass through me, just then. I heard more words spoken with my voice. “Then ask for it. Call to your new master and see if it keeps its bargain.”
He frowned uncertainly at me, but then a thought seemed to cross his mind, perhaps what happened the last time he hesitated in this place. Looking at Grace again, he called out to the darkness nestled in the corners of the room.
“I’ve honored our bargain! I give you Clint, who I love, who we both love. In exchange, give us our freedom and the safe return of our son, Nicholas!”
His eyes were wild as he looked around, waiting for a response. Anger flaring in my chest again, I couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“You’re a fool. You gave up the protection and…miracle of…something truly wonderous. For what? A fucking pitcher plant. Because that’s all it is. Not a god. Not a genie to give you back your son or your life. It’s just an emptiness with teeth and appetite that traps anything dumb enough to wander inside.”
Gordon was shaking his head again, clutching his hands together as though in prayer. “I beseech thee! Free me and my family!” He pointed at me. “Take this boy who mocks you and your power.”
I heard Grace stand up behind me. “Gordon, it isn’t going to listen to you. It knows it can’t stop our master when it is ready for us to leave. I didn’t understand before, but I do now.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “You can feel it now, can’t you?”
Glancing back at her, I nodded. “Yeah. Since at least Braxton. More since I met it. It’s not like hearing it speak to me exactly, but it’s always there, and I can feel it push me sometimes. One way or another.” Swallowing, I gave a weak laugh. “Or when it needs me to say or do something in particular.”
She nodded back. “I used to get that sometimes. Not as strong, but sometimes.” Grace let out a shuddering breath as she looked over to Gordon. “Maybe if I had understood it better back then, I could have gotten us all out without losing Nick. I don’t think so…I don’t think my connection was strong enough, but I’ll never know for sure.” Letting out a quiet sob, she wiped her eyes before returning her gaze to Gordon. “It’s too late now, anyway. It’s too late for anything.” She looked back to me, her expression unreadable. “Will it let us take Gordon with us?”
I felt my stomach twist into a ball of ice at her question. The anger was still there, but the sadness and regret were stronger in that moment. “No. He has broken covenant and cast its lot with the thing that lives here. So here he will remain.” Not my words, but I heard my voice saying it all the same.
Grace seemed to understand that too, giving my shoulder a squeeze as she nodded. “And if I choose to stay here with him?”
The Other spoke through me again. “You cannot remain if you do not break covenant. And if you break covenant, you will not save him, but only condemn yourself. And the thing that lives here is very strange and cruel.”
Gordon stepped closer, his breath hot and panicked as he grabbed her hand and my arm. “I’m still here, you know. Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
I looked at him, my voice empty of the pity that I still felt in my heart. “You are here, Gordon. Which is nowhere. And that is where you will stay.” I could tell the next words that were coming, and I tried not to say them, to give the two of them more time, but it was no use. I could have just as easily stopped a storm or a flood.
“Release us now, in the name of the one we serve.”
The next moment, Grace and I were outside. And even though I didn’t think I could really hear the sound, it seemed I could feel the echoes of Gordon screaming in the webs of some faraway dark.
****
Hours later we sat outside Grace’s house. I’d never seen it before, and I don’t know what I had imagined, but it wasn’t this. A small ranch-style house with weeds growing in the front yard and an air of lonely disuse. I’d thought about talking to her a dozen times as we drove, but I’d always lost my nerve. At one point she’d even had me pull over so she could be sick in the grass, but other than asking if she was okay to ride again and giving her a bottle of water, I didn’t say a word. I was still trying to figure out how to start when she broke the silence.
“I don’t know if we told you this, but when we went to see our benefactor, we went in separately. I don’t know why we knew to, maybe some scrap of ritual we had, or just instinct. It’s been so long ago now, I really don’t remember. But I recall walking up to a doorway in that warehouse, just a slip of nothing in the air that you could only see if you looked just right. And on the other side? It was a field of flowers.”
I turned to look at her, but she kept staring out the windshield as she continued on. “But not just any flowers or field. It was the field and flowers from a day when I was eight or nine. I had wandered off from…a trip? A picnic? I don’t know now. But I had found myself in this beautiful field filled with…well, at the time the word I thought of was magic. Everything felt special and meaningful and rich with layers of connection and mystery and excitement. It all felt true and wonderful and I felt like I was part of it.” She wiped at her eyes. “It was t...
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