Read House at the End of the Street Online
Authors: Lily Blake,David Loucka,Jonathan Mostow
House at the End of the Street
Puzzle pieces were scattered on the cement floor. Someone had hung a pink sheet up, giving the space some color. Everyone said they’d kept her locked up, isolated for years. Was this where they had put her after the accident?
Elissa started into the room, studying the stuffed animals that were gathered in the corner. The puzzle looked like it was for a young girl— a unicorn was visible on one of the stray pieces. Elissa stooped down to pick it up, when she noticed the wire bolted to one leg of the twin bed. It was pulled taut. She turned, glancing over her shoulder. All she saw was a blur as the girl charged toward her and let out a horrible scream.…
F
OR
E
RIN
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-1-405520-13-3
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by HATES
Artwork copyright © 2012 by Relativity Media
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Contents
T
he house at the end of Sycamore Lane was a split-level with a half-moon window in the front, its thin gray curtain always drawn. The weeds had grown up around the porch, the grass sprouting through the warped floorboards. Its shingles were splintering. Long strips of faded green paint peeled away from the frame. A rusted playground set stood in the backyard. The slide was still there, along with the metal frame, but all that was left of the swings were two broken chains. The seats had fallen off long ago, the rubber breaking apart in the sun.
It was not always this way. Things change in moments, each piled on top of the next. The family that lived in this house was chased by unhappiness, the tragic moments coming faster than the joyful ones. The fall of their
youngest child and only daughter, Carrie Anne, from the swing in the backyard interrupted their lives. The blood pooled beneath her head, congealing in the nest of her long blond hair. The neighbors learned the poor thing suffered brain damage in the fall, and most of her time afterward was spent indoors. She was constantly monitored by her parents. They policed what Carrie Anne ate, what she wore, and never let her out of her bedroom for more than a few hours a day. There were rumors that she was dangerous.
Years passed before another tragic moment. It was a muggy August night when it happened, a decade after Carrie Anne’s accident. Her parents slept with the windows open, the air still damp from an afternoon rain shower. Mary Jacobsen, Carrie Anne’s mother, awoke to the sound of footsteps in the hall. It took her a while to decipher whether it was real, or if it was part of a dream. She watched the light flicker by the crack beneath the door. John Jacobsen rolled over, noticing his wife was awake.
“How is she up again?” John asked.
Mary rubbed her eyes. “Okay, okay. I’ll go,” she said, an edge in her voice. They barely talked anymore. Their marriage had collapsed after the accident, with everything— every conversation, every day, every month—revolving around the girl. What would Carrie Anne eat today? Who would stay home with her while the other went into town? Unable to focus on anything except their daughter,
they’d both lost their jobs in the preceding months. If they had been outside when she fell, could they have prevented it? Why hadn’t John put sand on the ground underneath the swings, as he had originally promised? How many times had Mary asked him to do that?
She was always the one to console Carrie Anne when she awoke in the middle of the night. The girl needed constant comfort and guidance. Though Mary couldn’t say it aloud, she’d become more callous toward her daughter. Her nerves were frayed. She scolded the girl more than she liked. In the past months she’d found herself taking too many of the pills prescribed by her doctor. She’d started seeing other physicians, desperate to get more—the supply was never enough. She and John fought most when the bottles were nearly empty.
Mary stood and walked toward the door. Her head hurt from the combination of sedatives and antianxiety medicine. When she stepped into the hallway, Carrie Anne was standing there at the edge of the stairs, her hands clasped behind her back. Mary closed the door tight behind her, knowing John would complain if they made any more noise than they already had.
“Carrie Anne,” she said sternly. “You have to go back to bed.”
The girl’s long blond hair was tangled. It fell over her forehead, hiding her face in shadow. Her nightgown came down to just above her ankles, a dried stain on the front
of it. She had lashed out during dinner, sending her plate flying across the table. Gravy had spilled over her lap. Mary simply had not had the patience to clean it up or change her clothes again.
“Carrie Anne?” Mary asked again. The girl was hunched over. She didn’t respond. Mary took a step toward her, starting down the narrow hall. She hated when the girl did this—she could recognize Mary’s voice. She knew she was speaking to her. Why wouldn’t she just listen?
Mary took another step, reaching out her arm. She grabbed Carrie Anne’s wrist, harder than she intended, and then she saw it out of the corner of her eye. Carrie Anne raised her other hand, the hammer visible in the dim hallway light. For a brief second her blue eyes shone in the dim light as she looked her mother full in the face. Then the blunt end of the hammer came down just above Mary’s eye, again and again. Mary Jacobsen fell back, her face unrecognizable.
In the bedroom, John sat up, sensing something was wrong. He could hear the muffled whimpers, then the silence that followed. He was edgy from the drugs, a strange cocktail that kept him relaxed for several hours before causing rebound paranoia. He watched the door, wondering if he was imagining it. He felt for the bottle on the nightstand, but there were no more pills left.
He waited, pushing back on the bed. He watched the shadows move beneath the door, wondering if Mary had
managed to get Carrie Anne back to sleep. Sometimes she had to hold the girl close to her chest, wrapping both arms around her for several minutes to subdue her. Sometimes they had to lock her into her room, listening to the screaming until it subsided. The screaming was what he hated most. He couldn’t take it, the constant shrill cries, or the way the girl pounded her fists and kicked the door.
He watched the shadows move over the floor. Outside, thunder cracked. The rain started again, drenching the curtains. He squinted into the darkness, about to call out, when the door swung open. The girl rushed in, her hair in front of her face, the bloody hammer in her hand.
FOUR YEARS LATER…
E
lissa sat on the dusty hood of the beat-up SUV, her guitar settled into her lap. She leaned forward, strumming a G chord over and over again. That one had always been her favorite. Maybe it was the warm, open sound of it, or the way her fingers felt on those specific strings. Or maybe it was because it was the first chord she’d been taught. Her father had given her the guitar four years ago, when she was thirteen, as a birthday present. That was when they lived outside Chicago. That was before the divorce and all the vicious fighting that came after.