Free SHUDDERVILLE SIX by Mia Zabrisky Page B

answering machine from the nineties. Nobody ever called to leave a message, except for the occasional salesman. He had no family to speak of. No relatives in the vicinity. An uncle very far away who didn’t care if he was dead or alive. No friends. However, Colton was independently wealthy. He had inherited the farm and 120 acres from his parents, and he sold off the parcels an acre at a time. He lived on a dead-end country road, with an all-encompassing barbed wire fence that delineated his property from the outside world. He wasn’t the only odd duck ever to post “No Trespassing” signs on his land, but he was probably the most paranoid. Once a week he patrolled the perimeter with a shotgun.
    Tonight he drove his Chevy pickup truck into town, bought groceries, lingered over the sports magazines at the cigar store, and then took the gravel road back to the farmstead. He parked in the driveway and got out. The dilapidated two-story house was washed in moonlight.
    He felt a chill as he looked at the old sheep’s pen with its broken split-rail fence—it reminded him of a gap-toothed smile. The property was vast, with many outbuildings and a tumbledown, towering barn whose westward tilt was propped up with several long boards. The paint had peeled off, revealing the wormy wood underneath. Eventually the whole structure would come crashing down.
    The place seemed deserted tonight, as if nobody lived there. Colton liked that. It kept most people away, except for kids on Halloween. He waited with mounting tension, expecting to hear Bella’s wail any second now. It upset him that she was silent tonight, but that was okay. He knew she couldn’t escape. She wasn’t going anywhere.
    Usually she would be crying. Or else screaming.
    Sometimes she sounded like a wild dog.
    Other times she sounded like a hissing snake.
    But always she sounded traumatized and sad. He liked that.
    Now he approached the house—his house—with caution, and took out his keys. He unlocked the door and went inside. The living room was littered with fast food containers, scribbled notes on lined yellow pads and stacks of magazines placed strategically around the room. Nothing had been moved. He checked the old-fashioned phone on the coffee table with its rotary dial. The answering machine was blinking. Now that was odd. No one ever called here. There was one unanswered message. Colton grew momentarily confused. Who would be calling him?
    He hesitated with his finger poised over the button. Finally he pressed “Play,” but there was only the sound of a dial tone. That was all.
    Blackwood, New York
    One cold December night in upper New York State, Benjamin Pasternak woke up from a disturbing dream and looked over at Cassie, who was sound asleep beside him. He thought he’d heard her scream, which was crazy, because he couldn’t hear a thing. He’d been born deaf.
    Benjamin took after his grandfather, who was also deaf. From an early age, Grandpa Harry Pasternak had taught his grandson how to imitate the human voice by placing the boy’s hands against his throat and chest and letting him feel the vibrations coming from the old man’s lungs. He taught him how to form words with his mouth and make those same vibrations. He taught Ben how to read lips. Sometimes Benjamin wore hearing aides because they helped a little bit, but not much. It was more of an electronic blip or buzz in his ears, like a dog coming very close and snuffling your hair. That type of breathiness. But they’d helped him early on when he was first learning to speak.
    However, the voices inside Benjamin’s head were different. It happened maybe once or twice a year—not often enough to drive him completely insane—and it was always unexpected and freakish. Usually, he would hear someone crying or talking to him in a ghostlike voice. He knew he wasn’t “hearing” them as much as he was picking up on their feelings and fears. Like a bat with radar, he could sense their