Infected Town: Series Three (Part 18) [FINALE]

  

Hey NoSleep. You ready for the end? I am.

Shit, it’s hard to talk about. Even fucking months later. I sit down to type and can’t make my fingers stop shaking. Trauma, you know how that goes. Or maybe you don’t, but you can guess. Anyway, I should probably just start, right? Just jump in. I don’t remember everything, but you oughta know what happened as well as I can piece it together. I feel like I owe it to you and all that.

I'll get to Clayton soon. But given that I spent months with her, and I felt we were close in a way, I want to say a few things about Elizabeth Hadwell.

Liz and I talked a lot during our time together. Well, she talked. I mostly listened. She would actually spill her guts to me more often than to her other guys, maybe because she actually felt like I was a friend. I was never a cultist. I didn't grow up in the town. I hadn't started out indebted to or worshipping her. When we'd first met, before I knew what she was, I'd chosen her for her.

In a twisted way, I think she convinced herself this meant I wanted to be there. Friends were fleeting, suspicious things for Elizabeth Hadwell. The daughter of a cult leader is surrounded by followers and fear but rarely true affection. Alan and Jess were the only real exceptions, and she lost them almost as soon as this all began. Can you imagine that? Losing the only people who love you to a power growing inside of you, one you hardly understand. One that wants to be the only thing to love you, the only thing you love. No wonder she kept me and the others around while playing cat and mouse with the Voyager. Otherwise it would've been her and the Entity alone together. She never admitted it, but I think she feared that above all else.

I think she’d been desperately lonely for most of her life. You might be surprised to hear that. The way Clayton wrote about her, you'd think she was a monster. Like you'd look into her eyes and see only empty greed. That wasn't the case. Clayton told a lot of lies and half-truths, swinging the story to fit his view. Most of what he posted here is factually accurate, but take it with a grain of salt. And I think it's important to remember that Liz started out as a regular girl who never chose what was given to her. She didn't choose to be a Hadwell, much less the Vessel of a god. No one wants to be evil.

She told me she resisted the Entity for a long time. That might surprise you too. She started realizing around 13 years old that there was something different about her, and it wasn't just her father or her family. She was the only daughter born of the Hadwell line for more than four hundred years, the only girl, and that always seemed to be important to everyone. But the Entity had been part of her since she was born, and around puberty It started to whisper. It sent her dreams, planted thoughts and feelings inside of her that she knew were not her own. As the years went by, it got harder and harder to separate what she was from the creature that had fused with her soul. She did not know she was the Vessel for all of her childhood - that information was kept strictly confidential in the cult’s inner circle. She often thought she was going crazy.

When she was 17 or 18, her father finally invited her to a meeting with the inner circle and revealed her destiny and purpose. Liz responded by running from them after starting a fire in the ceremonial chamber. She was in denial, she said. She distanced herself from all the cult families - besides Jess - and made new friends.

But things were accelerating. The Entity was growing stronger, regardless of whether It had her permission. It started saying sweet things, whispering words of love. She described It as her only true companion, the only one who really knew her. It was there for her, always on her side, even about her break from the cult - saying she didn’t need them, she’d grow on her own. That they were strong enough together. And Liz, confused and feeling alone, started to love It. Genuinely love It, not the drugged, hypnotized, confused kind of love you feel for It when you’re infected. Love It in a clear, sane, self-aware way. It was part of her and beyond her all at once. She called It her soulmate. Her friend. Her confidant. Her god.

Only then did It show her what It could do.

Lisa was the first. As sympathetic as I’m making Elizabeth out to be, she was still human, with all the pettiness and cruelty that comes with it. And don't get me wrong, most of me hates her. Clayton was fairly accurate in describing her thirst for attention and admiration. It hid a lot of shame and self-hate, maybe an inferiority complex. She needed everyone to find her attractive, to love her.

Lisa didn’t. Lisa disliked Elizabeth a lot. This wasn’t helped by Elizabeth’s clear and demanding crush on Alan. It would be fair to say she tried to steal him from Lisa multiple times. And the fact that he was tempted only heightened the tension.

The night before Lisa was supposed to go to Chicago for her friend’s bachelorette party, Elizabeth drunkenly showed up at their place to see Alan. This next part is from Elizabeth’s notebooks, which Clayton found in a secret room behind a wall in Alan’s apartment. She started squatting there once the mold began to spread. She’d watch her work, the infection spreading its black arms through the building, right at the source. Laughing or crying alternatively. She’d steal the numbers from the apartment doors as the mold crawled into the adjacent rooms, and she’d hang them in this black, secret chamber. At times she told me they were trophies, other times she described them as reminders of guilt. A self-imposed punishment and a point of pride, all at once. I’m still not sure which is closer to the truth.

The oscillation between guilt and pride is clear in her journals. Here’s what she has to say about the night the infection started:

---

She wasn’t even supposed to BE there! I thought she left already! Did Alan lie to me??? I thought I’d surprised him, you know, when the fugly old cat’s away. But I knock at the door and there’s her STUPID FUCKING FACE and I asked for Alan and she just glared at me and told me he was in bed already with that stupid SMIRK she always has when she thinks she’s making me jealous! GUESS WHAT, BITCH? I WAS NEVER FUCKING JEALOUS!! He loves ME!!

Soulmate starts whispering to me, says we should talk to her in the hallway, so I ask her to step outside and she does. GOT WHAT SHE DESERVED I didn’t write that, Soulmate did, but I have to agree with him.

Soulmate put the words in my mouth more than I’ve ever known him to. I didn’t think you could do that so well, but you must be getting stronger I am and that’s ok cuz she needed to hear this shit, knock her down a few pegs.

Soulmate told her how inferior she is to us, how she can’t keep him when I’m around, but he said it in such a smart, beautiful way that it almost didn’t sound mean coming out of my mouth and she was just crying all fucking pathetically. But then I ruined it by opening my big stupid fucking mouth cuz I’m a fucking ass don’t my love and she realized how mean I was really being and got PISSED. it was funny. And she fucking HIT me! ME!

Soulmate took over again. You’ve never moved my body like that before, love, more than just writing words or stroking my cheek, but you came through me so strongly last night and it felt INCREDIBLE, like I went all numb and warm, like almost post-orgasmic, and I watched my hands come out and cover her ridiculous face with my palms. I want you to do it again.

Will you? soon

go on

I watched fucking Lisa stop just totally still and felt all this… ENERGY or something power come through my fingers and into her skin and she like jolted and shuddered and went limp standing there. And when I pulled my hands away from her face, she was smiling.

---

I didn’t love transcribing that. By the way, the bolded phrases weren’t written in a different hand, really, but they were pressed much deeper into the page and kind of shaky. The journals really give insight into what went on in Liz’s mind, and it was some pretty dark shit. Into the mind of madness and all that.

So, with that, the infection was out in the world, no longer contained in the Haven’s basement. The rest is history.

And still, Liz resisted. She had moments of deep sadness and guilt, especially watching Jess and Alan. She loved them, but with the Entity love turns into possessiveness. I wonder, if she hadn’t been the Vessel, if she would’ve felt that way.

A lot of her journals seem to be conversations between her and the Entity. It doesn’t always write responses back, but Liz used them to put structure and form to what must have been a chaotic stream of consciousness.

This entry was probably written in the weeks between Jess posting her final update and Alan waking up in Chicago:

---

I miss Alan. I miss Jess. Why are we doing this again?

you know why my beautiful girl

AREN’T YOU SAD TO SEE ME SAD???

happier now ours forever together forever with all of them soon my love you will see how wonderful it is here us and them together loving you worshipping you one with you

But surely Alan’s been in Chicago long enough to spread it now so please can we just go get him back?

Z

Dad's guy? YOU’RE STILL USING DAD’S GUY? WHY??

find Alan bring him gain his trust spread our light

You know I hate my father. You PROMISED after your little hex bag trick with Jess! This is a betrayal. LEAVE ME ALONE.

[On the bottom of the page:]

I love you.

I love you too.

I wish I could touch you. Really touch you.

soon my love

---

I’ll skip past repetitive entries detailing her reunion with Alan. They get a bit… explicit, and they don’t say much we don’t already know. But I will say, from what she wrote, he was under Their fucking thumb pretty much the entire time he was posting to NoSleep.

She also mentions Jess following them around Washington when they started travelling. The Entity calls her “strong of will,” which I think means there was something about Jess that allowed her to retain some part of herself, even while she was infected. In the end, Liz decides to let her do her thing. And in the words of the Entity, “I care very little either way, my love.”

I assume the next entry picks up after Alan and Liz stopped posting on NoSleep.

---

Ok so Alan is a bust. I’m finally willing to accept that, we tried like three times. Oh but he has such a pretty body, let’s just keep him around for a while. No more trying, it’s too stressful for him and he looks worse every time, but can I keep him? Just for a while. Ok I promise, and then we move on. Maybe someone new will come to town. And at least he won’t be demanding we post stories anymore. They’re all so worried it’s so FUNNY! If only they knew how happy he is. I’m gonna pretend we’re dead. You’re such a scary villain, Soulmate ;)

---

These next parts… these give me chills. Lines between entries.

---

Voyager is all about the new girl who showed up in town. Trying to warn her away. slippery Yeah, WTF! Can’t catch the little fuck. Why their god would even be interested in him in the first place is way beyond me. yes why? He’s nothing special, never has been. Socially retarded stoner in high school. paranoid idiot Yeah, those shifty eyes… Kinda hot though like Christian Slater. What, I’m an eighties girl!

the new girl interests me

Oh what I thought you only have eyes for me! Now you’re into another girl? :(

don’t fear that

:) I don’t. But yeah she is something new… Brave... or stupid. I know what you want though. What do you say, my love? Shall we follow her? See how that turns out? I’ve been dying to get out of town.

---

This Blake guy. What do you think?

he is strong

My thoughts exactly. Pretty and strong. And he likes me. Maybe he’s the one.

who would not like you

Aw :) Have you tested the waters at all?

yes

And?

suitable at first but it is difficult to say

Couldn’t be worse than what happened with Alan. He fell apart QUICK once you stopped feeding him. Wonder if Claire knew she was fucking a corpse.

---

San Fran sucks. I’m bored I want to go back home!

so do they.

---

Well Claire’s ours. Did you see her last night, wandering around like a zombie? Haha I almost pissed myself! It’s good that she’s finally shutting up now and again because I was getting so fucking sick of her voice! She thinks she’s so fucking cute and so does Blake, it’s nauseating.

we could have her now

Hm. You’re actually kind of into her like that? no Oh but it WILL keep Blake happy, I guess. Even if he’ll hardly remember. Like a really good dream :) fun Yes fun for us too, my love. God, I hope Blake works out. I can’t wait to feel you hold me, to touch you and know it’s really you, ALL you. Not just myself or one of the Ascended - YOU, looking back at me with your beautiful, dark eyes. Truly inside of me, in a way we can’t be now.

I cannot wait.

Me neither. Are we sure you’re strong enough? You’ve taken enough of me? never enough of you You know what I mean.

yes. I am stronger than I have ever been. our influence spreads unchecked by their false god or his voyager. we have plentiful resources.

You said [Something is scratched out violently here. I can't read it.] just after it happens. not for long

But if the Voyager gets to us in that time and tries anything… a little protection never hurts. I’m thinking of building an army.

my brilliant, beautiful girl.

---

Liz stopped journaling for a while after that. Maybe she was too preoccupied, running from city to city. I have very few memories of it myself, apart from the times she allowed me to be lucid. She liked me lucid, I think.

Some time early last year (Jesus, it’s insane how long I was with her) we went to visit Liz’s mom up in Michigan. It was surreal. After nearly a year living out of suitcases and crashing with strangers, suddenly we were in a cozy family home eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The two other guys with us - Christ, I don’t even know their names. They showed up a couple months apart after we left the town, one picked up in Seattle, one in LA. In my head I just called them Thing 1 and Thing 2. We never bonded, hardly spoke. I think they were just around for sex or protection. I think they knew I was Liz’s favorite. Their glares when she wasn’t looking said enough.

Anyway, they had to wait outside at her mom’s house, but I was allowed in. Liz introduced me as her boyfriend. Her mom didn’t say anything, but I think she knew I wasn’t… right. She kept glancing at me nervously.

After dinner, Liz and her mom had this big fight. I was shunted to the back patio, where all I could do was pace back and forth and smoke. I loved it when she bought me cigarettes, I remember. Made me feel normal.

I didn’t catch what the fight was about, but we left shortly thereafter. Liz was pale, scary-furious. Her mom was sobbing, pleading for her to stay. We just got back in the car and drove for hours. When we got to a motel in some town I don’t remember, I blacked out hard.

---

My eyes popped open who knows how much later, and I immediately found I was unable to move. This happened occasionally when I was coming out of a blackout. Some kind of paralysis brought on by the infection. I couldn't consciously move for a few minutes when I woke up. It only happened when Liz was around. Like my body was still waiting for executive control from its real boss, since she was so close by.

But that wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was knowing that Liz and the thing that lurked under her skin were around. And the worst part was being unable to turn and look at Them. Here, I’ll give you an example of what it’s like.

Keep your eyes on this screen - whatever it is you’re reading this on, a computer, a tablet, a phone. Whatever. Keep your eyes glued to these words. Do not look away. Don’t look behind you, not even out of the corner of your eye. Just keep reading. Stay on this page, in these words. Stay with me.

Now bring to mind a nightmare. A monster. A shadow. A killer. What scares you. But keep your eyes on these words. That thing, well, now it’s in the room with you, just out of sight. But don’t look away from the screen. You can’t look away. The shadow is approaching you now. From behind. From just outside of your periphery. Keep your eyes here. It’s coming, moving towards you, slowly and silently. You can smell it. Just don’t look away. You can hear its wheezing breath. You can feel its long fingers stretch towards your neck. Don’t look away from this screen. Don’t check behind you, even as it gets closer and closer. Even as its long finger gets so close to brushing your skin. Keep your eyes here.

That’s an inkling of what it’s like. Did you check behind you? Imagine not being able to. And imagine knowing that your conjured shade, or monster, or nightmare, or whatever the fuck you thought about - imagine knowing it was real.

And just when my heart started pounding so hard I thought for sure it’d fucking kill me, I found I could move again.

I sat up, looked around, tried to catch my bearings. First thing I noticed was one of the other guys was dead. Thing 2. He was laying on the carpet next to the bed, a discarded ragdoll of flesh and bone. He’d been a solid, muscular guy, big as I am, maybe bigger. Now he was skeletal. Skin the gray-white color of corpses stretched taught over jagged bone. I could see every rib, every tendon in his hands, every cord in his neck. The worst part, though, was his face. His eyes were wide open, bulging out like his head had just been forced into a vacuum. All the vessels in them had burst, coloring them black and red. This weird, viscous black fluid ran out of his eye sockets, and out of his nose and ears. Like blood, but it wasn’t blood. I remember staring at him for a long time.

“Another failure.” Liz’s voice was low and raspy, and I spun around to spot her next to the window.

She looked feral, crouched on her haunches as easily as a stray cat. I recognized her immediately, even though it was quite different from the way she usually looked. I’d seen this change in her anatomy before, especially after party nights when she’d bring home a new guy and he’d be gone by morning. I was sort of used to it. But maybe to an outsider she wouldn’t really look like Elizabeth at all. Maybe she wouldn’t even look human.

She’d elongated and narrowed, particularly in the arms and legs, and the way her spindly limbs were folded as she crouched there put me more in mind of spider than anything. Her face was was unnaturally long and gaunt, as if someone made a clay sculpture of her pretty head then slowly stretched it apart. Her mouth was huge, the skin hanging slack around the corners. Her jaw seemed to unhinge with every syllable, like a snake trying to swallow a rat. Behind rows of yellowing, needle-like teeth, an inky darkness bred, writhing and shifting like something alive. Her eyes were black, too. All black.

I probably don’t need to tell you that’s the closest I’d ever get to seeing the Entity in Its raw, physical form. It bled through Elizabeth’s skin like a disease, no longer hiding inside of her. But It only came out when It needed to do something that required all of Its strength. Something powerful had happened here. I could only assume it had to do with the dead guy.

“Boys can only take so much,” Liz said in that gravelly voice, staring wistfully at the corpse. “We try and we try, but we just can’t find someone strong enough.” Her eerie black eyes met mine. “You came closest, you know. I was so hopeful. You’re so beautiful, you really are. And he stayed inside of you for three hours - three glorious hours* - before you got too weak. I mean, he’s been inside of me since before I was born, but regular people can’t be Vessels. He just takes too much out of them. You almost died that first time. And every time we tried again after, you just got weaker. I don’t want you to die, I really don’t.” Liz sounded so genuine. I believed her. I still do.

“But you’re just not strong enough,” she went on. She sighed, her breath hitched. “It’s so frustrating. We can’t live like this anymore. He needs a Vessel he actually feels at home in, you know? And it’s painful for me, too. All I want is to be able to look into the eyes of my soulmate and see him looking back. To live together with the one I love, to hold him. Is that so wrong?” Her monstrous face, pleading, distorted with tears, was almost pitiable. I couldn’t speak, so I just looked away. Elizabeth sighed again. She gestured to the corpse on the carpet. Thing 2. “I’ll admit, we pushed our luck with this one though.”

Yeah. “Pushed their luck.” That’s what Elizabeth called forcing the Entity to reside inside a man for far longer than the human body could stand. That’s what she called letting her monstrous soulmate tear a person apart. “Pushing their luck.”

I remember laying back down on the bed, silent and complacent. But that’s all the memory I have for weeks. Maybe months.

Liz journaled, though. I think she wrote this next bit the night she killed Thing 2.

---

Failure is disheartening. And it’s not like we can assess what went wrong and try to fix our process. We don’t know what went wrong, not even Soulmate knows. So we just keep failing. Alan, Zach, Mikey, Anthony, Connor… now Donny. So many dead boys. So many pretty, fallen petals. None of them with the strength to be a true Vessel. We just want to be together - or apart, but together, you know what I mean. And what are we left with? A bunch of fallen soldiers, casualties of our quest. Ha, quest. I like that. Say it like that, it almost sounds noble.

What is it about me that lets Soulmate thrive? Why don’t I waste away like the boys? It’s not that I’m a female - we tried it with that girl, Amanda from Vegas, and that didn’t go well at all. So what? Is it just me? Am I just special somehow? Is it something dad did, or the congregation? Is it because I’m a Hadwell?

Hadwell...

...

Holy shit.

That’s it. The Hadwells. I think we just fucking figured it out, Soulmate! You said you made a deal with my family centuries ago. So maybe, even though I was the one you needed to birth you into this world… maybe our blood is strong enough to hold you in all your power.

my brilliant, beautiful girl

Then… Maybe there’s another chance. Maybe that’s why their god chose him. Maybe that’s why he’s immune to us. Because if what mom said is true and my dad is that much of a cheating piece of shit, then I have a fucking half-brother.

Find the Voyager.

---

Find him we did. Clayton relayed our meeting with him in his last post. I don’t remember it. She had a tight grip on me, keeping me close. But when he posted his story, Clayton challenged her.

“Hear that, Liz? Come on home. I’ll be waiting.” She rose to that challenge. It was exactly what she fucking wanted.

I can only assume we were camped out in the infected town for a couple of weeks. I think both Liz and Clayton were dancing around each other. Scared little kids. Clayton, trying to figure out how to end this, scared to make a wrong move. Liz, putting off their final meeting, tying up loose ends, scared that her last hope would be a failure.

Clayton must have found Liz’s journals in her secret little room behind the wall in Alan’s apartment. Claire tipped him off to it in the diary she kept near the end. That girl… That girl was incredible. I’d give anything to have her back.

Anyway, the journals were what did it.

---

When I finally snapped out of my blackout, we were back in town. In Hadwell High School, actually. A huge ground-floor classroom. We’d apparently shoved all the desks back against the walls, leaving a wide, empty space in the center. It was dark, but Liz was lighting candles when I came to, I remember. At once, the area seemed like both a ritual space and an arena.

I looked around. It was me, Liz, three other guys (all of whom were strangers to me), and fuck ton of Ascended.

They filled the periphery of the room - crouched on the desks, huddled in dark recesses, standing back against the walls. There were dozens, and all of them had mutated weapons of some kind. Some balanced on the long, jagged bones that grew from their arms - bones that could slice the flesh from you in one swing. Others had vaguely humanoid claws jutting from their hands or feet. I saw one whose spine had burst from its back in a series of vicious spikes. Another who could unhinge its jaw wide enough to swallow my head, whose teeth were long as railroad spikes but needle thin, needle sharp. Some were slow, dragging dead legs with the spears of bone protruding from their elbows. Others were fast and restless, flitting from desk to desk, heads jerking in every direction at every new sound. Others looked dead - slumped against the wall, mouths slack and crooked - until you approached them. Then they’d jump up to greet you.

Experiments. Different ways of weaponizing a human, as many and varied as the people they used to be. But they all shared similarities - trademarks of the Entity. They were all thin, wasted. They were all much stronger than they looked. None of them had eyes. And, of course, they were all smiling.

Liz’s army, or part of it. Her generals. The cream of the crop, here to protect the king/queen hybrid that had created them. She looked at them with pride. She stroked their heads, cooed at their eyeless faces. Sang to them.

When she passed by me, she noticed the clarity in my eyes.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re up.” She kissed me. “I’m glad. I wanted you to see this. Be a good boy, okay?”

I didn’t reply. I never replied.

“He’s on his way,” Liz said. “I know it. We just have to be patient.”

And so we waited. It felt like hours. It probably was. Outside, the sky grew dark. The Ascended got restless. Their weird, rasping breaths got shallower, faster. They strained towards the windows, looked out to the moon. They wanted out, wanted to run. Liz told them to hush, and most did. Some kept pacing, or swaying back and forth, or clicking their teeth together. I got restless, too. I wanted to be outside. I understood them, understood their needs. I think it was the first time I realized I wasn’t just Liz’s hypnotized dancing monkey. I wasn’t special. I was as infected as the rest of them.

When the night couldn’t get any deeper, when my fingers itched and my legs burned to run through the darkness, the Voyager came.

A hush went over the room. We could feel it as soon as he entered the building, all of us operating on some hive-mind network. At one with each other and Liz and the mold on the walls. There was something wonderful about it, something I’d miss if I let myself. Something powerful and safe. We all knew and saw and thought the same thing, like a chant echoing at the back of our minds.

Voyager. Mine. Ours.

Clayton came through the door into the classroom with a shotgun trained on Liz. Despite our deepest instincts, we resisted attacking. We were told very specifically not to attack.

He looked tired. Weathered. Much older than I’d last seen him. He moved slowly, cautiously. Gray speckled his once black hair, at odds above such a young face. He was wrinkled and dirty and scarred. I realized with something like admiration that this was probably as close to an action hero as I’d ever see in real life. But you could see the fear in his wide, haunted eyes. You could still see the kid he’d been not so long ago.

“Clayton.” Liz’s voice was gentle, lilting. She sat atop a desk, surrounded by her Ascended. She’d dressed up for him, I noticed for the first time. Red dress, red lips, black heels. I felt the jealousy instantly, hot and sharp in my chest, and I fucking growled. The other guys growled with me. It wasn’t my jealousy, I knew, or at least not all mine. But I still felt it.

“The fuck is this?” Clayton hissed, gesturing around with the barrel of the gun. He eyed each of us with deep suspicion. “I couldn’t keep them off me a few weeks ago. And now they’re content to sit and fucking watch?”

“They’re not content,” Liz replied. “I’m not content either.” She pushed away from the desk and paced towards him at the center of the room. Her pout, the way she moved her hips - she was playing the femme fatale now, at once dangerous and unbelievably alluring.

“Put down the gun, Clayton,” Liz said. “We’re not gonna hurt you. And you know shooting me isn’t going to do anything. We’re too strong.”

Clayton blinked at that. His eyes filled with sudden tears. Yet still he stared down the sight of the gun with determination, aiming at Them for a long moment.

And then he made what had to have been the hardest decision of his life.

He lowered the shotgun. He let the barrel touch the ground. He let it slip out of his hands and drop to the floor.

“There,” he said. “No more gun.”

Liz looked surprised for only an instant. Then, slowly, a serpentine smile slid over her lips. She raised her arms to him.

“Come,” she said, her voice mingling with another, low and raspy. “Give yourself to us. We all know what has to happen now.”

“Do we?” Clayton asked shakily. All the same, he stepped towards Them.

“Yes,” she hissed, smiling wider, too wide. Her eyes darkened, the blackness of the pupils spreading across her irises, her sclera. “We’re meant to be together, my love. You and I. We’re family. And we can be so much more.” She licked her lips, opening her mouth to momentarily expose the darkness writhing within. The Entity, coming to the surface. Coiled like a snake waiting to strike.

“What can we be, Elizabeth?” Clayton said, his voice breathy and soft. He seemed enchanted by her, pulled by her magnetism and horror. He reached out to her, too. “Tell me.”

“We can be everything,” They replied. “We can be the sun, the moon, the stars. The universe will be ours, and every life in it. Just let him into you and we can be together. One with him, with each other, with everything.”

Clayton's hand touched her waist. Her arms folded around his neck. I was shaking, thrumming with a force that seemed to engulf the room. A force that engulfed the entire town, the rapidly beating epicenter of which was the Hadwell siblings, together at last.

“You’re my sister,” Clayton whispered, stroking her hair gently away from her face.

“Yes, my love,” Liz whispered back, leaning toward him, reaching for his lips. “That’s why we chose you. You’re strong enough to hold him. You’ll make him what he was meant to be. What we are meant to be, together.”

“Promise?” Clayton asked. He pulled her body against his firmly, eliciting a gasp of surprise and delight from the woman in his arms.

“Oh, my love,” Liz replied. “I promise you the world.”

And he kissed her. He kissed her, as if he could barely contain himself. As if it was all he’d ever wanted to do. I knew the feeling. I still know it. That jealousy erupted through me again, white hot. But it didn’t overshadow my wonder at what happened next.

As the Hadwells kissed, their mouths open against each other, that inky shadow moved between. Out of Liz, into Clayton. Like oil, but too insubstantial to be liquid. It floated and coiled and squirmed into Clayton’s mouth, down his throat. I watched his eyes open in shock, but he didn’t pull away. He leaned into it, even as Liz reached up to hold his face, tears of what I assume were joy streaming from her eyes. And soon, surprisingly soon, the kiss ended.

The shadow, the Entity, had squirmed Its way into the Voyager - Its new Vessel. The Hadwells broke apart, breathing heavily, Liz’s arms still entangled around Clayton’s neck. And as she stood there in his embrace, she searched his eyes and watched the darkness spread across them.

“It’s you,” she whispered, crying.

And the Entity opened its mouth and spoke in a voice all Its own, untinged with even a hint of what Clayton used to sound like.

“My brilliant, beautiful girl,” It said.

Liz let out a sob of pure happiness. It stroked her face, staring at her with something that was clearly genuine love.

“Oh my god,” she said, thick with tears. “My god, it’s really, truly, you!”

She laughed in delight, hugging him, and the Entity laughed with her, a weird hissing noise, holding her close.

“Just you,” she sobbed. “Just us.”

But as they laughed, Its hissing got deeper, smoother. In a matter of moments, his laughter no longer sounded like hissing at all. It was low and smooth and bitter. One of his hands left her waist.

“No,” he said.

When he pulled back, Liz met his dark eyes with a look of confusion.

“What?” she asked, a note of panic in her tone that I didn’t understand.

“Not just you,” Clayton said, the darkness receding rapidly from his eyes. He pulled her against him forcefully and raised the hidden handgun he’d drawn from his beltline. “I’m here, too.”

Liz managed one final, panicked gasp before the blast of the gun tore through the quiet space. It was the last noise she’d ever make.

I couldn’t quite grasp what was happening, even as her limp body slumped to the floor. My ears were ringing.

The Entity screamed then, using Clayton’s mouth to unleash a howl of pain and fury as It sank to Its knees beside her corpse. Clayton’s eyes were black again, the jaw stretched wide. But the inky darkness within had nowhere to go. It gathered Liz into Its arms, wailing like a feral cat, and rocked her. Mourned her.

The Ascended, including me, watched in silence. Tears were dripping from my eyes, but I don’t know what I was feeling, even now. Pity? Sadness? Vindication?

She was gone. Why didn’t that make me happy?

The Entity hunched over the body of Its lost love, Its broken Vessel, lost to the world in Its own grief for what seemed an eternity. I can’t grasp what was probably going through Its head, so I won’t try. I’d like to think, though, that It was only grieving the loss of Elizabeth Hadwell. Not her power. Not Its chance to infect a world. Just Liz. I’d like to think she was enough.

But I’m probably giving It too much credit.

In any case, I watched the Entity, still weeping, lean forward over Liz’s body. I watched the blackness recede from his eyes, watched the human take hold again. I watched him pick up the gun he had dropped, cock it, and raise it to his temple.

“We are nothing,” he said. It was Clayton’s voice, pure and strong.

And he pulled the trigger.

---

Have you ever awoken suddenly from a nightmare and felt that moment of mingled relief and terror? You look around your dark bedroom and can’t help but feel that the monsters in your head made it out somehow. And you know you’re being ridiculous, but you still reach for the lamp to turn it on. Because that nightmare felt fucking real a second ago. More real, maybe, than waking up in a warm bed.

That’s how it was. That snap into real control, real consciousness, all the more jarring because I’d thought only seconds before that I was conscious. It was like a haze suddenly lifted. I was myself again. I could talk and move without any kind of resistance. I had no orders, no goals that weren’t my own. The tether I’d had to the Entity had snapped. I couldn’t feel It in my head anymore. That’s how I knew It was really dead.

That and the fact that beneath Clayton’s sprawled body an oily black substance was slowly spreading across the floor. Like blood, but it wasn’t blood. I watched It for a long time, puddling around the corpses of Its Vessels, until It stopped spreading and began to dry there on the tiles. It was no longer something alive.

The tether to the rest of the Ascended had snapped, too. Like walking through a packed bar and suddenly you’ve pushed through the door and you’re alone outside in the cold air. It was at once freeing and deeply lonely.

So yeah, I felt like I’d just woken out of a nightmare. But, looking around, I realized I was still in one.

Bodies littered the space. I was suddenly the only one left standing. Jesus, Liz must really have taken care of me. Even the three other normal-ish guys were on the ground, eyes closed. Only two were breathing.

The Ascended… How do you explain dozens of twisted hunks of flesh, lifeless and pale, strewn around the room? How do you describe their skin, already beginning to crack and decay? Their limbs falling away, leaving oozing, rotten pits. Their fused eyelids slowly peeling open to reveal hollow depths of skull. Their smiles going slack or stretching tight enough to rip the flesh around their lips. How do you explain what that looks like? How do you explain what it smells like?

I didn’t stay to help. Couldn’t. Could you?

I ran. Well, I grabbed Clayton’s keys from his coat. Then I ran. Mold peeled from every wall in the school, sloughing off to expose rotting beams and rusting pipes. The jog through that town was almost worse. Bodies littered the roads, dozens, hundreds. All rotting to pieces. The Ascended. An entire town brought to its knees by a girl and a demigod. And not a smile among them.

I didn’t stop to look. Didn’t stop to view the wreckage or do what Claire would have done - try to see if anyone was still alive. Try to see if I could somehow help. I just fucking ran.

If you think I’m shitty for that, that’s fair. If it makes you feel better, nightmares plague me.

Clayton’s truck was parked on the bridge. I started it. Full tank of gas. I thought that was optimistic of him, since he seemed to know before even walking into that classroom that he’d have to sacrifice himself. I took it as a sign, like maybe he wanted me to have it. I see signs in lots of things now. His duffel with Liz’s journals was in the back.

Thanks, Clayton. I mean that. I wish I could tell you what you did for me. For Claire. For the fucking world.

I took one look back at the Infected Town in my rearview as I sped away. It was early morning, when the skies start to lighten just a bit, the blue grays of coming dawn. The place looked quiet, peaceful almost. Like a black shroud had been lifted. Maybe that was just the relief I felt at having escaped. Or maybe it was something more divine.

In any case, I forced my eyes off the town and glued them to the road ahead. And I never looked back.

---

There’s no epilogue here. I’m trying to pick up the pieces of a life I shattered by disappearing for so long. It’s not easy. I logged in to Claire’s account pretty much as soon as I got back to California. I was gratified to see Clayton had been updating it. I figured I owed it to him to finish the story.

I’m always restless now. I like moving around. Real life doesn’t do it for me anymore, you know? There will always be a part of me, I think, that’ll be obsessed with that town, with Liz and the Entity, with Clayton and the Eye. I don’t know how to go back to what I used to be before all of it started, or even if I should. Knowing something like the Entity exists, having personal experiences with It, that changes things, you know? There’s gotta be more out there. Armed with my knowledge, maybe I could make a difference. Or maybe not.

So thanks. Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping, NoSleep. Thanks for being part of their stories, these people who didn’t deserve the hell their lives became. These regular people, barely more than kids.

The scared best friend. The confused lover. The villain in disguise. The incredible urban explorer (I’ll miss you forever). The reluctant hero. And me, the half-crazy ex-Ascended.

I don’t know where the moral is, or how to end this. So I guess I’ll just leave you with one last request, even after everything you’ve done.

Remember them.

-Blake 

---

Credits

 

Infected Town: Series Three (Part 17)

  

Hello, NoSleep. Clayton again, with the promised update.

I thought I’d start by addressing some issues brought up in the comments.

1.) A lot of people have been asking for the “best guess” reports I mentioned last time. I should tell you, these are not official police reports. They were written by a scientist during the outbreak, and they seem to be part of his personal notes on the infection. There’s not much there you haven’t heard before. I believe someone posted my PM in the comments of part 16, but I will continue to try to respond to your messages. If I miss you, I apologize, and don’t hesitate to try again.

2.) My family. My parents met in college in Montana, which is where I was born and lived for a decade. My mother did grow up in the infected town, but my father has never been there. My parents divorced when I was ten. My father lives in New York. We are not particularly close, but I speak to him on holidays and other special occasions. His is the name on my birth certificate. I’ve been trying to contact him, but he’s not returning my calls. My mom, who I do trust, says she never knew about the cult and has no other information. She’s lived in Florida since 2011. I don’t think she wants to believe any of this is happening.

3.) I’ve thought a lot about the basement Archives, and my best guess is that the cult had been feeding its members to the Entity for generations. The cages were necessary to keep the Ascended from roaming the town, to avoid panic and keep the cult’s secrets. Some creatures clearly escaped or were let out, as there seemed to be quite a few running around that basement. I want to reiterate that what I’m calling the “Archives” was not particularly large. It’s been five years, and the night was pretty traumatic, but if I had to guess I’d say there couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty cages down there. Perhaps even fewer.

4.) I’m not infected. I take pictures of my face on almost an obsessively day-to-day basis to prove this to myself. No blurs of any kind. Any typos or grammatical errors in my posts are due to my own mistakes or idiocy.

Okay. Let's get back into it.

---

That day in the Haven’s basement, and the night immediately preceding it, marked a stark line in my life when things went from relatively normal to completely fucked up. After I left the Haven and until I moved to Chicago, that town was never the same. In fact, suddenly it was fucking hostile.

People I’d seen every day, people I knew and even liked, became openly aggressive towards me. Shops and restaurants refused my service. I got stares, glares, flipped the bird - all on a regular basis. Some of my friends - mostly those I considered in Liz and Jess’s circles - stopped speaking to me altogether. I was followed home from school or work almost every day by at least one guy. The police were fucking useless as long as no crimes were committed, and the cultists were always very careful not to commit any crimes. It’s an unnerving and uncomfortable experience, when the town you called home for ten years suddenly wants you out.

I stopped going out much, obviously. I'd never been exactly what you could call a social butterfly anyway. Instead I used my time to research the history of the town and the cult. I read the Hadwell bible dozens of times. The Vessel became my fixation, filling me with equal parts fascination and dread, wonder and fear. Liz and Jess were my only real suspects, and I couldn’t see either of them as the mystical embodiment of an ancient god. I got obsessed. Even Alan started avoiding me. Lisa tried to maintain our friendship - the woman had the patience of a saint - but I was making it hard on her.

In May 2011, however, I was roped into attending Alan’s birthday party. I couldn’t say no without looking like a complete dick. I figured, surrounded by friends, I’d be safe. And it was true, I wasn’t bothered for most of the night. One or two guys tried to corner me, but then Liz would show up with her foxy grin and they’d back off. Part of me assumed it was just her sex appeal, while the other part of me screamed that this was evidence she was the Vessel. It’s really hard to trust your gut when you’re aware of how paranoid you can be.

I got drunk. We all did. Alan was off his tits, hardly able to walk, but I wasn’t much better. Lisa went home early after getting into an argument with Elizabeth. For the rest of the night, Liz and Jess whispered bitchy comments about how possessive and psychotic Lisa was. It was classic catty girl bullshit, and it didn’t take me long to get tired of it.

Alan, drunk and grinning about being fought over, refused when I asked if he wanted to head home. Birthday boy hadn’t gotten enough of two pretty girls’ flirting and fawning. If I hadn’t felt such a deep well of loyalty towards Lisa, I wouldn’t have blamed him.

As it was, I left alone and in a bad mood. Near the door to the bar I walked past a table that immediately fell silent at my approach. Drunk and confused, I turned to stare at them. Sitting there was none other than Mayor fucking Hadwell with a few of his friends. I think I slurred something hostile at him about whether he was enjoying his beer and if he’d said hi to his daughter in the past three years. He didn’t reply - taking the high road, I guess. His impassive smile did not fade. I dismissed him, disgusted, and stumbled towards the door.

I looked back at him once after opening it. I’ll never forget his smile as he sat there, surrounded by his glaring followers, because that was when the pieces really started to fall into place. He gave himself away. He couldn’t help himself, it seemed - as self-indulgent as his daughter. Mayor Hadwell looked me right in the eye and raised his hand to me, pointing with his pointer and his pinky. The devil sign.

I left. I came up with some brilliant plan about dropping by Alan’s and seeing how Lisa was doing. I had some shitty, bad-friend ideas about her whirling around in my drunken noggin.

Maybe it’s a good thing I never got there. On the way home, I was attacked and beaten severely by a group of men. It was a warning, and they wanted me to know that. They didn’t even attempt to make it look like a mugging - I still had my phone and wallet on me when I was found the next morning in the alley, just two blocks from the bar.

I was laid up in the hospital for four days. They broke my wrist, my nose and cracked a rib. Any insistence to the police on my behalf that it was perpetrated by cult members got me raised eyebrows and talk of conspiracy theories. The crazy kid thinks the mayor has something to do with it. Pro tip: Don't even say the word "cult" if you don't want people thinking you're a nutter. My attackers were, obviously, never caught.

---

I got out after that. Last straw, I guess you could say. I moved to my college town and finished up the coursework. After that I got a job in Chicago doing IT for a big company. My mom left town, too. She said she didn’t feel safe without a man in the house, though now she lives alone in Orlando. It makes me wonder if she really does know more about the cult than she’s saying. But maybe that’s paranoia rearing its ugly head again.

I lived in Chicago for two relatively blissful years, trying to forget everything I’d ever learned about the Entity or the Eye. I had nightmares at least twice a week, often about being trapped in a 3’x3’ metal cage, feeling a smile spread over my aching cheeks, but I got good at ignoring them. Girlfriends helped. Bedmates helped. Therapy did jack shit. But over time, mainly by sheer force of will, I got my life back in order.

---

You know the rest of the story. In July 2013, Alan disappeared and Jess started posting on NoSleep.

Also around that time was when Lisa was supposed to come to town for her friend’s bachelorette party. She’d planned to stay at my place for a night or two. I was going to show her the sights. But she never showed up.

I texted, I called. No response. And then, two days after she was set to arrive, Alan showed up instead.

At the time I just thought he was drunk. He was incoherent and weird, but he’d snap into these moments of perfect articulation. He looked pale and thin, clumsily stumbling around. He kept saying he missed Elizabeth. I asked him about Lisa, his goddamn girlfriend, where was she? Alan said he had no idea who that was. I argued - of course he did, was he fucking stupid? Still he insisted he’d never met anyone named Lisa, and it didn’t matter anyway. Elizabeth mattered. That was it. Of course I couldn’t understand though. I was jealous of the bond he had with her. I yelled at him for that one, saying he knew I couldn’t stand her, just because he was fooled by her act didn’t mean everyone was. And he just kept that goddamn smirk on his fucking face, shaking his head.

It felt like a dream, arguing with him. Because I could tell he was not joking, nor giving me shit. I couldn’t get through to him, no matter what I tried. He was steadfastly being an asshole, smirking, patronizing the shit out of me. He finally acknowledged Lisa’s existence by calling her boring and nerdy, no match for what he’d found in Liz. Nothing compared to her. He’d never loved Lisa, he said. He just kept her around because he was used to her. Something about his tone, and the words he used, reminded me forcibly of Elizabeth.

So I punched him in the face. His head snapped back on his neck but immediately righted itself again, like an inflatable punching bag. No other reaction. I thought I’d clocked him good, certainly hard enough to knock him down, but his feet hadn’t even shifted from their initial position. He stared at me, smiling that supercilious smile that made me want to hit him again. Then, without another word, Alan left. And that was the last time I saw him alive.

Neither he nor Lisa answered their phones that night. I received an aggressive misspelled text from his phone the next day, demanding I leave him alone. I realize now that it was Liz and the Entity, probably controlling Lisa’s withering body, who wrote those texts.

---

In August of 2013 I found Alan’s NoSleep posts. He’d linked to the thread on his Facebook with no explanation, and I’d clicked it. I hadn’t even known he and most of the people in that town were missing. I read the whole thing, starting with Jess’s tale and on to his. I read everything Liz wrote there at the end carefully - never touched by the infection, the only one left alive.

And it clicked. Years of clues. It was Liz. It had always been Liz.

So, in September 2013, went back to the infected town. I’ll spare you much description. You’ve seen more than enough of it. It was fucking decimated. Practically empty. I discovered the existence of the Ascended wandering around in much the same way as Jess, Alan and Claire, but I was slightly less surprised. I explored, learned to fight, gathered all the information I could. Learned I could not be touched by infection. Watched as, slowly, the creatures became less clumsy and lethargic. Watched as Liz built an army around her.

I know she was there almost the whole time I was, probably holed up in some abandoned building. I felt her there, like an itch you can’t scratch. I wonder if she feels me when I’m close by, too. It was rarely safe to go inside any building. With her in town, every creature was watchful, alerted. As far as I can gather, the Entity’s complete control and possession works on a somewhat geographical basis. When It and the Vessel are nearby, Ascended in the area act according to their will. I haven’t gotten a lock on exactly how large this range of influence is, but it has to be more than a couple miles. The further they get from a creature the weaker the will becomes, until the Ascended is left to its own devices. In my experience, if they are far-gone enough, they will just lay dormant, waiting for their master’s return. And, of course, they'll attack anyone who isn't already infected.

Being in town was dangerous, so I stuck to the woods and the borders when I couldn’t have my guard up. I stayed as safe as I could, camping and hiding and searching for answers. Nearly half a year of that shit. Then came Claire. You know how that turned out.

---

I guess the last things to wrap up are Jess and Alex.

I already told you Z was my first kill. Alex was my second. It was during the one time I managed to break into Alan’s old apartment building, by crawling in a basement window. I crept down those black hallways, listening hard for any movement. Something was using the vents above me, sliding its way through them. But I ignored it, because something else was shuffling around in a room to my left. I dropped low, got behind some boxes, and crept around the corner to have a look. Alex was waiting for me there.

He was farther gone than even Alan described in his post, but I recognized him. There’s something about the infection that allows its victims to look like themselves, despite how desiccated they get near the end. Despite the rictus smiles and the bald heads and the fused eyelids. Maybe it’s just me - maybe it’s a “gift” from the Eye - but I could recognize many of the creatures who attacked me on a regular basis in that town. Old friends, employers, teachers. I knew them all.

He stood in the farthest corner corner of the room, and it took me a second to spot him in the dim light. His shape was so wrong I wouldn't have thought he was a living creature if he hadn't been swaying slightly from side to side. He was... facing the corner, I suppose, though his eyes were trained on the door directly behind him.

Alex’s back, which had been broken backwards at a 90 degree angle when Alan saw him in 2013, had snapped acutely. His head was now dragging along the ground behind him, his body was folded almost exactly in half - thighs touching his spine, heels knocking against his skull. He could still stand, however. Somehow. He didn't seem to notice me crouched near the doorway, just stood there shifting his weight from foot to foot like he was waiting for something.

I watched him for a long time, trying to figure out what I was up against. It didn't seem like he was going to do anything at all. At one point, wondering if he was completely inert, I rolled a bottle across the room. It stopped in the far corner across from me, and Alex moved.

He shuffled rapidly towards the bottle with a sound like knuckles popping, his head dragging along behind him in this weird, bow-legging walk as his atrophied musculature tried to deal with the stress of his twisted posture. He stopped by the bottle, breathing rapidly for a few seconds, before he returned to swaying in place.

I threw a bottle next. It exploded in the corner Alex had just come from, raining glass. And Alex fucking came alive.

Immediately, he turned towards the noise and straightened upright to full height with a series of rapid robotic jerks, his back bones popping. His arms stretched out, beckoning as if for an embrace. Then he raced forward, shuffling and cracking. Fast. Too fucking fast. Complete with that smile and the withered arms out like he was asking for a hug, it was an extremely uncanny image. He was across the room in two seconds flat, and when he found there was nothing alive over there he paused, turned, and dropped his arms. He used a few seconds of his upright posture, standing like an average human surveying his surroundings, sniffing at the air. Then, upon detecting nothing, he slumped forward in an extreme toe-touch at the waist. He didn’t seem to like being folded over forward as much, however, because after a moment he jerked back upright and bent himself over backwards again.

I watched him fold, unfold and refold himself multiple times from my hiding spot. I threw cans and bottles to get him going, studying him, seeing what I was up against. Increased movement speed seems to be a constant pattern in the evolution of the Ascended. There definitely wasn’t much brain power behind it - he seemed instinct driven, reactive, almost like a lizard. But he was fucking fast.

In the end I lured him over to me, then stood up and shot him point-blank in the face when he reared to full height. Not very sporting, albeit, but he was no longer the Alex I’d once known. He wasn’t the kid I’d made fun of for his accent when he’d first moved here from England. He wasn’t the guy I’d stayed up with countless nights, getting high and talking bullshit. He wasn’t the Navigator to my Voyager. He was a rotting, smiling animal in a basement, mindlessly searching for prey.

I also found Lisa’s body that day. She’d been dead for a long time. I couldn’t get to her behind the basement boilers, though I tried for more than two hours. Even tried to get through the vents, but I’m too big. So yeah. Killed one of my best friends and couldn’t even give the girl I’d always carried a secret torch for a proper fucking funeral. Not my best day. Let’s stop talking about it.

---

Jess I couldn’t find until later. I knew from her posts that she was infected, and I think she became my next obsession because Lisa and Alex were gone. I needed something. I wanted to end her suffering. I’d never hated her. We’d never clicked, but she was kind, funny, witty. She didn’t deserve what her best friend did to her. But I couldn’t fucking find her. I searched that town top to bottom, anywhere I could get without being swarmed by Ascended. No luck.

Then I remembered her favorite hang out spot from high school and beyond, where she’d often go to smoke joints or cigarettes after class. She’d called it her “me place.” No one else was invited when she went there, but we all knew it was a certain copse of trees right near the bridge over the creek. So I decided to check it out.

It was a stretch, but it turned out to be right. I found Jess there one night, sitting on a fallen log, still as a statue.

I approached, raising my shotgun, expecting her to jump up and charge me. She didn’t. She noticed me, but apart from looking up with her wide grin, she stayed where she was.

The thing was, Jess wasn’t nearly as far gone as most of the Ascended in the town. She was blank and unresponsive when I talked to her, but she didn’t seem aggressive. She was smiling, but she still had dirty clumps of her hair. Her fingers hadn’t fused together and one eye was still open.

She’d meet my gaze every once and awhile with what I imagined was a spark of her old acuity, but her eye contact would slide away after a moment and go glossy. I could tell she half-understood what I was saying sometimes, and that she often recognized me. But I never got much more from her in terms of communication than a tilt of the head and a blank grin. Given how bubbly and sharp-witted she’d been in life, it was really jarring to look into Jess’s face and see all but nothing.

I couldn’t kill her the first time I met her. I don’t know. I just couldn’t yet. She looked too much like her old self, compared to the others.

Once I found her, though, she followed me everywhere. It might have been desperation, some part of her brain still functioning at a high enough level to think I could maybe save her. Or it might have been a desire to kill me, but an inability to physically do so for whatever reason.

I found it utterly creepy, like being stalked by a dangerous animal that hadn't attacked yet but certainly had the potential. She just watched, waited, and followed. I’d look behind me on a walk through town, and she’d be following a few yards behind. I’d wake up from a dead sleep in the deep woods, and she’d be standing over me. I’d spin around at a noise while exploring a dark and abandoned building, and it would just be Jess, climbing clumsily in through a window.

I’m not sure when I started getting comfortable around her. But after a while, it was almost nice to have her by my side. Don’t get that look on your face. I’d been surrounded by Ascended for nearly six months, too scared to leave town for extended periods in case the infection traveled with me. I had barely spoken to another human face to face in that time. I felt like she protected me from other Ascended, even though she didn’t. If I got attacked or chased, she’d just kind of stand back and watch. But, though it might have been my imagination, it felt like I didn’t get approached as often when she was around.

One night, when I woke up for a piss to find her shaking badly outside of my tent, breathing rapidly between her teeth, I gave her a sweatshirt. The next night she was back, and I actually let her inside the tent. She looked kind of like a wounded bird, skinny and pale and pathetic. She just sat in my corner, wrapped in my too large sweatshirt, and watched me sleep.

After that, I stopped avoiding her. In fact, honestly, I started seeking her out. I'd get worried if she was gone too long. I talked to her all the time and it kept me sane, even though she barely registered my words. In a weird way, Jess and I were closer after she became Ascended than we’d ever been when things had been normal.

Jesus fuck. I reread what I just wrote. What the fuck does that say about me?

A few nights after Claire's first visit to the town, when I followed her to the police station and screamed at her to get out, Jess and I were down at our camp under the bridge. I was talking her ears off about this new chick who had showed up, worried about what it might mean. She just tilted her head and stared, as usual. I told her she was absolutely no help. She watched, smiled, tilted her head to the other side.

I was stressed, and this infuriated me for some reason. I asked her what the fuck she was doing here, following me around, not trying to kill me. Told her for all I knew, she could be keeping tabs on me for Elizabeth. Jess looked away from me at this, and I sort of took this as an actual response, though I probably shouldn’t have.

I stood up, screamed at her to get away from me. She didn’t move. I asked her what the hell she wanted from me.

And, for the first time since meeting her Ascended form, Jess made a noise. She whined at me, a tiny, high pitched, animal whine from behind her fused teeth. It stopped me in my fucking tracks.

“What?” I asked. No response. I crouched in front of her, took her tiny, delicate, bony hands in mine. “What, Jess?”

She whined again, and her good eye flicked to look behind me. I spun around, expecting to see a crouched Ascended waiting to pounce from the bushes. But there was nothing. Just the fire, my tent, my shotgun propped against a stump. I turned back to Jess.

“What are you trying to say?”

Then, something incredible. Jess weakly raised her hand out of my grasp and gestured behind me. I turned to look again, feeling another rush of adrenaline as I prepared to see an enemy. Again, nothing, and I more carefully followed the vague line of her hand. She was pointing at my gun.

Then, very slowly, Jess brought her hand back and settled it against her chest, indicating herself.

Fuck. Obviously. A wave of weariness washed over me. I was so tired of feeling this sad all the time. But I stood again, nodded, and started heading for my truck. I didn’t have the ammo, having used the gun liberally to scare back pursuing infected. The scattered shots made holes in them, stopped them for a few seconds, but they always got moving again in no time.

“Give me a few days,” I told her. She whined again.

---

I came back a week later. I’ll admit, I was putting it off. I don’t know, I didn’t want to lose her company, as meager as it was. But when I did drag my ass back, it was with a new box of shotgun shells and the will to put her out of her misery.

Night was falling when I rolled into town. Jess wasn’t by the creek, so I spent a while searching, running from tree to tree, avoiding the attention of any Ascended that might be around. The town seemed curiously empty tonight. Usually I saw one or two creatures out and about at night, but they all seemed to be in hiding. I felt Elizabeth closer than she'd been in a few weeks, painfully close. Dread started settling over me, and my searched ramped in desperation. I even started calling out Jess’s name.

I found her by the old high school, staring up at one of the upper windows. She turned when I called to her and tilted her head at me. Her customary greeting.

I told her I was ready, told her I thought we’d do it in her old “me place.” She tilted her head the other way, which I took as a gesture of acceptance. So I put my arm around her withered, fragile body and started leading her through the streets towards the bridge.

On our journey through an abandoned neighborhood, Claire, Blake and Elizabeth drove up behind us. I panicked at the lights, recognized Claire’s car, and scooped Jess up to get the fuck out of there. So mystery solved. Claire saw me with Jess that night.

I killed Jess in her old copse of trees by the dry creek bed. She sat on the ground and gazed up at me with her one good eye. I wondered if Elizabeth and the Entity could see me through it. I wondered why they’d left Jess more or less independent of their influence, if that really was the case. It certainly seems like it was. Maybe Elizabeth is a more sentimental creature than I think. But probably not.

She went peacefully, all things considered. I made it quick, the way I did with Claire a few short months later. She closed her eye right before I squeezed the trigger.

---

Elizabeth left town with Blake just before I killed Claire. I have no idea where either of them are at the moment. But I couldn’t feel her presence in that town anymore.

So I followed her, angry. Claire's death lit a fire under my ass. For a few months I was a dog after a rapidly fading scent, up and down the coast, then further inland. It was a mix of blind instinct - my gift from the Eye - and emails and PMs from people who read these accounts.

They usually weren't complete wastes of time. Every so often I’d get a hit, only to arrive after Elizabeth had already moved on. She always leaves infected in her wake. I chased rumors of weird smiling people wandering around in Portland, in Seattle, in San Francisco, in Phoenix. Rumors that never came to anything more fruitful than a shotgun blast and black ichor splattering the walls. Deaths that treat the symptom but not the disease. If you live on the western side of the United States, stay safe. If someone approaches you with a forced smile and eager eyes, run. Even if they’re not infected, I can’t think of a case when this is bad advice.

---

A couple of months into this, the game reversed. I was in Houston on a weak lead, not expecting to find anything, when I spotted Elizabeth’s fucking car parked outside a bar. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I double checked. I triple checked. That was her vehicle, no doubt about it. The coincidence was too crazy. She just happened to have stayed put here? Not only that, she was out drinking at an establishment only a few blocks from my hotel? No way. There was something else going on, I knew it.

I was right. But I took the bait, exactly as she wanted me to. At that point, I was thinking “fuck it.” I’d fucked myself and too many others over by playing it safe. I was done. If she wanted to do this here, who was I to refuse?

I entered the bar, which was crowded, with a handgun stuffed in my jacket. I would've preferred something larger, but I couldn’t exactly bring a shotgun inside without getting the cops called on my ass.

I spotted her immediately, sitting at a table in the corner with three men. Two I didn’t recognize, but one of them was Blake. He's still alive, or was a few months ago. He’d claimed the special seat right next to Elizabeth, and he had his arm around her, smiling at her dopily. The other men had much the same expressions on their faces. It was like she collected them.

She grinned at me when I walked up to her, like none of this crazy shit was happening and we were just old friends meeting up.

“Clayton,” she said, and two of her lackeys turned to me. Their expressions went vicious. One of them reached into his jacket and held on to something therein, likely a weapon. I understood. She wanted to have a conversation, but she was protected. I reached for my own gun, returning the threat. Liz nodded, winked at me.

She gestured for me to sit, and I obliged. Carefully. She wasn’t the type to make a scene in such a crowded place. None of the other patrons looked like they had anything to do with this, so I considered us on relatively neutral ground.

“You found me,” she said.

“You let me,” I replied. Elizabeth nodded again, her smile growing wider.

“Things have changed,” she said. “We’ve come to understand something. Something that was hidden from us for so long.”

By “we” she meant herself and the Entity.

I asked what they understood, but she shook her head.

“You’ll see,” she said. “I promise, you will. There’ve been so many failures, Clayton. So many deaths.” She gestured at the men sitting with her, though they seemed pretty alive to me. “All because of your Eye. If He had just told us the whole story, things would’ve been so much simpler. But no. His way is to keep secrets. I’m told that’s just the nature of the beast.”

She laughed. The men laughed with her, stupidly. I tried to get Blake to look at me, but he only had eyes for Elizabeth.

"But that's over now," she went on. "We know everything."

“What secrets?” I demanded.

“Come with me,” Elizabeth said. “And I’ll tell you. I don’t want to hide things from you anymore. We have lots to talk about. So what do you say? Let’s get out of here. Be alone together for a little while.” Her hand reached out, her fingers slid into mine, cool and soft.

For a moment, I was tempted. Elizabeth is beautiful, and there’s something hypnotic in her eyes, something that wants you to keep staring. Her hand, the only prolonged human contact I’d had in months, felt deliriously good against mine. It made me wonder, instantly and instinctively, about the rest of her skin. I found it hard to deny in that moment that the Entity is a god, because if that is what’s inside of her, no wonder she’s that attractive.

But then the alarm bells started ringing in my head. This security system I am well aware of - another product of the Eye’s protection over me. It is always there, and it is never wrong. Something inside of me was screaming at me to run, and it was clashing with the desire to keep on staring into Elizabeth’s bright green eyes.

I gave it a few more seconds. My ears started ringing. I caught a flicker of confusion on Elizabeth’s face - she wasn’t used to resistance. But I felt what was happening more acutely than I ever had before, with her fingers entwined in mine. Two gods battling fiercely for the right to this world. Elizabeth and I, their Vessels, caught in between them, doubtlessly ignorant of the half of it.

But my god is stronger. This is His world. I tore my gaze from her face and stood.

“Wait,” she hissed, and I heard a hint of the Entity’s voice mingled with hers. Her fingers locked around my wrist so tightly I had bruises later. She leaned towards me, tilting her head pleadingly, desperate longing in her expression. “We belong together, Clayton. You and me.”

The alarm bells in my head started ringing critical threat. I wrenched out of her grasp, turned away, and ran.

---

Since then, running seems to be all I do. It’s been nothing but motels and highways, guns and boobytraps, for more than half a year. Elizabeth follows me everywhere, but at least I have my little mental security system to warn me when she gets too close. I have to assume she wants to possess me, too. She wants to possess the world, of course, but her interest in me is particularly strong. I think she’s worried I’ll her undoing. And I plan to be.

So we’re up to date now. I think writing these accounts has been more helpful to me than it has been to you, NoSleep. It’s supplied me with a few more leads to follow. It’s given me a weird energy I haven’t felt in a long time.

And I think, like these accounts, I need to return to the source. I thought I’d exhausted every lead there, but now I think there must be more. The Eye’s nightmares stopped when I came to the decision a few weeks ago to return to the infected town. I’m on to something. He seems satisfied for the moment.

I’ll update again if I find anything there. If I’m alive to do it. And maybe, with a hope I haven’t felt in years, I can finally put an end to this.

Hear that, Liz? Come on home. I’ll be waiting. 

---

Credits

 

Infected Town: Series Three (Part 16)

  

Hello NoSleep. Clayton again.

Let’s get straight into it this time.

The Haven is a two-story converted mansion built, according to the plaque by the front doors, in 1890 by town founder Charles M Hadwell III for his wife Olivia. It’s a classic Victorian, gray slats and white trim, high peaked roofs and brick chimneys. One round tower juts out from the back corner like an afterthought; for a while, in 2001, Elizabeth’s father tried to convert it into a belfry, but the idea turned out to be injudiciously expensive. Now it’s a used as a storeroom, full of dust and half-empty boxes, as I found out when I climbed the trellis to get inside. The double doors leading out of the building, predictably, were locked that morning.

The trellis was full of brown vines and the roof of the first story was slippery with ice, but it wasn’t a particularly hard climb. It wasn’t until I’d pushed through the unlocked window, into the musty silence and warmth, that my half-addled mind recognized the danger I was in. I came up with a weak story about being dared to break in, should I be discovered by the cult. They wouldn’t kill me, I thought, if they believed someone else knew I was here.

I listened hard at the threshold for any sounds from downstairs. There was nothing in the tower room but disused furniture and Christmas decorations, and I figured the quicker I got in and out, the better. A set of spiral stairs wound down from the tower room, and I took them as quickly as I dared. Every creak of the aging wood seemed like a clap of thunder. I could only pray the building was deserted.

The second floor hallway was empty. It was strangely cramped and narrow, as Victorian service hallways often are. Behind me, the tower stairs continued down to the first floor, but I wanted to check the rooms here first.

There were three doors and another hallway branching off to the right. The floor was faded blue carpet here, and it muffled my footsteps, blessedly. I quickly checked each of the service hallway rooms - a bathroom, a lost and found closet, and an unused bedroom with a single cot and an elaborately carved Victorian dresser. I figured that might be the room of the caretaker, on the hopefully rare occasion he had to spend the night here. It was clean and sparse, the sheets a little dusty. Long-since slept in.

The lost and found closet only had a couple of items inside - a baby blanket, a grade eleven History textbook, a pair of men’s flip-flops, a woman’s gold wristwatch. There was also a purse, in which I found the ID of my 4th period English teacher from senior year. I’d liked her back then - she was young, smart and funny. I’d trusted her, had been alone with her many times during office hours. That trust snapped as soon as I saw her grainy official picture on the laminated card. I think that was when I really started realizing how far the cult reached in this tiny town of mine. People I’d thought of as normal, even trustworthy, were involved. It threw my world into question, and I was already a paranoiac. I wondered about all of my friends. I wondered about my mom.

Next I moved into the main hallway, careful to leave everything exactly as I found it. There were two more doors here and the upper landing of the entrance hall, from which the main staircase descended. As I reached to touch the knob of the door closest to me, the house groaned around me and a low creak came from downstairs. I froze with mind-numbing fear for a solid minute, listening hard but hearing nothing. I decided it was the mansion settling, and opened the door.

Jackpot. It was an office, classically decorated in mahogany and bronze. Quintessentially Victorian. I closed the door behind me and went about searching it as thoroughly as I could. The desk yielded results, in the form of minutes from cult meetings for the past forty-odd years. They were contained in a thin notebook, which was contained in a locked drawer - a drawer I broke into with a pocketknife, a screw driver, and the longest fifteen minutes of my life.

The minutes were brief, and meetings were only conducted twice a year and on special occasions. There seemed to be four or five people in attendance at each, who were referred to by initials which changed occasionally, signifying the loss of an inner-circle member and the initiation of his replacement. There was nothing really of note the majority of the time - mostly administrative or charity stuff. But I started looking for entries during months that were not planned for meetings - any month besides January or July. The minutes themselves were lost when my file was stolen in 2014, but I transcribed them on my laptop long before that. A laptop, by the way, that was stolen and then returned to me. Thank you, Claire.

So. The minutes.

---

The first entry is dated January 1964. This was before the reign of the current Mayor Hadwell, so I assume the H that is mentioned is his father. Another initial that might interest you is that of Z.

The minutes were more long and detailed in the beginning, and you'll notice they really go in for Random Capitalization, so you'll excuse my omissions.

It goes on a bit before:

C and M approach with compelling evidence that Acolyte Stern is not one of our True Faithful. He has expressed doubts and queries to other Acolytes, particularly regarding those It has chosen for the Rites of Ascension. We cannot allow him to spread slander and fear among Its Followers. Our Entity’s continued strength and survival depends on Ascension being seen as the honor it is. H will preach on this during tomorrow’s sermon. Additionally, more evidence must be gathered against Acolyte Stern before action can be taken. Z will pose as a new member of our Following with doubts and concerns, and will go to Acolyte Stern for council to find the truth of what he is telling others.

Then, in February 1964:

Z reports that Acolyte Stern made clear his suspicion and doubts about our Entity. Z demanded evidence of him in an attempt to reveal his treachery. Watch closely for any movement.

Again, February 1964 but later in the month:

Last night, Acolyte Stern was found in the basement Archives taking photographs. He is now deceased. Watch for his allies. Security will have to be increased. On another note, Z asks our permission to take a two week vacation. In light of the continued and excellent service of his family over the generations, this council grants him three weeks and a ticket to London. Z is very pleased, and the council wishes him congratulations and thanks.

---

A couple things to unwrap here, quickly. Those “basement Archives” caught my attention. I read the first few entries while I was still in that office, so the basement was my next destination.

On the subject of Z. In April of 1979, there was a note in the minutes that Z celebrated the birth of his son. I have to assume this son is the Z who met Alan and pretended to cure him. I think he kept tabs on Jess during her time in the town, too.

He wasn't working against the Entity. Did you actually think lavender could cure fuck all? He, and his group of friends, were as full of tricks as their mistress, working with her towards whatever goal she had at the time. Z seems to come from a long line of the cult's spies, for lack of a better term. Liz’s loyal lapdog, full of misinformation and manipulation. I think that he and maybe one or two others pretended to be the Entity’s enemies while actually doing a lot of the grunt work for Elizabeth. Warnings not to return to the town were attempts to spread the infection. They also spread propaganda that grossly exaggerated the power of the Entity, making It out to be some kind of unstoppable force. Claire even got an email from this group, which doesn’t do much besides literally say “It wins.”

I wonder how many people this worked on - especially on those who were not cultists. I wonder how many ticking bombs Liz has set up across the country.

She doesn’t need Z anymore, that’s for sure. I know for a fact he’s dead, because he was my first kill. He was one of Elizabeth’s creatures by then - withered and pale, smiling. Finally Ascended, given what he wanted. I recognized him from my years after high school - a son of an old family, an asshole who thought he was a badass. I knew him as Mason Zabala. He never had dreadlocks when I knew him, but he did the goth thing. We got drunk together a few times with Elizabeth. I considered him just another in her long line of rejected suitors. I killed him in Liz’s old apartment.

---

The rest of the minutes I looked over when I got home that night.

An entry dated December 1988:

Celebrated birth of the Promised One. Baby is healthy and thriving. No action to be taken at this time.

And then, hand written underneath:

"Besides getting the proud papa drunk! Congrats, H!”

---

Though I didn’t know then that H was Mayor Hadwell, this told me that the Vessel had to have been born around December of 1988. A quick search in the town birth registry brought up three suspects: Liz, Jess, and me. Coincidentally, all of our fathers had a first or surname beginning with H, but my focus had narrowed considerably. For a long time, years, I was paranoid that I was actually the Vessel, that this was all an elaborate trick by the Entity. That wasn’t a comfortable idea.

---

This next one niggles away at the back of my head, because I still can’t figure it out. It’s dated July 2000.

Discussed H’s other child. No action to be taken at this time. Watchful waiting.

Mayor Hadwell, Liz’s dad, only fathered one child. There’s no record of anyone related to them being born in July of 2000. I don’t know on this one.

---

The last entry, dated March 2007:

Discussed fire and possible repercussions. Renovations to begin in July. H not concerned about other events. Assures us she will come to her senses.

Looking back, I see this was about Elizabeth, proof that she did break from the cult on the night of the fire. Perhaps they wanted to restrain her power, or perhaps they wanted to use her for their own devices. She refused them.

---

The minutes stopped after that. I knew the cult was still functioning - sermons were still held every Saturday - but it seemed the inner circle had disbanded.

Lying under the minutes folder was a plain silver keychain with labeled keys. I took that, too, and replaced the drawer as well as I could. There were scratches in the wood from my screw driver and chunks gouged out so I could get at the lock, but there was nothing to be done about that. I was focused on the “basement Archives.”

I hustled down the stairs, intent now on following my lead and then getting the fuck out of Dodge. If no one had come to investigate me scratching and chipping away at that fucking desk drawer, this building was definitely empty.

Downstairs, I paused briefly in the main hall - long rows of pews, a podium up front. It looked like a normal church. I grabbed a copy of the Hadwell Bible from between the seats. That turned out to be a fun read later.

It took me three tries before I found the right door. None of them were labeled. But finally I used the key marked “basement” and the door swung open to reveal a stairwell descending into darkness.

It’s hard to describe what I saw down there in anything close to a linear way. I only remember pieces. I know it was dark and smelled strongly of mold, but I crept down anyway, using the railing for support.

After that, I was stuck in a dark maze of pipes and machinery for a long time, led along by a weird blue glow through the gaps. My phone was dead, so I was essentially going blind, feeling my way along walls. The place was much larger than it had any right to be, as a basement in a converted Victorian.

I kept hearing skittering noises or felt things tug at my pant legs or catch at my hair. It wasn’t rats, I know that much. Rats don’t have fingers. I kept feeling like people were standing directly in front of me, inches away. They were hidden by the oppressive darkness, but even in a dark room you can kind of sense another person in your immediate vicinity. They seemed to be breathing in my face through their teeth. I felt their breath, heard every catch and inhale in their raspy lungs, but when I reached out, no one was there.

Things kept blocking out light coming in between gaps in the walls and pipes. Just for a second, long enough to peer in at me then move on. I don’t know how I managed to stay as quiet as I did. But I’m sure they knew I was there.

Finally, I got close enough to the blue glow to see what it was. Like you, I’ve seen my fair share of cult rituals in movies and shit - black robes, hoods, a group of people chanting latin, a big pentagram on the floor. This wasn’t like that. The fact that it was a ritual, or at least ritualistic, was pretty clear. But it was also surprisingly clinical.

There were three guys in a large open chamber. The room was absolutely covered in black mold. It created huge toxic piles in the corners, snaking out from them like a disease. The blue glow came from yards and yards of Christmas tree lights, strung back and forth across the ceiling like someone had intended to make the place festive. I was above on a walkway, crouched behind a piece of machinery, but my view was good.

One of the guys was dressed in a business suit. He held a leather bound book. I’d kill to get my hands on that thing, but I think the cult only has one of them and it’s guarded as shit. I’ve looked in the Haven since the town was infected, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Given that the dark lower floors are crawling with Ascended, I was hesitant to go down for long. Maybe it’s still there, in that big chamber.

The guy in the suit was reading from the book, some language I didn’t recognize. There were lots of “sh” and “tl” and hard “k” sounds. I’ve searched a variety of sound samples pretty thoroughly, trying to find out what it was, and the closest I can come is Nahuatl, an ancient Aztec language. The guy’s accent was pretty awful though, unalterably American. I guess it doesn’t really matter, as long as you say the words.

Another guy seemed to be the muscle. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit, complete with gloves and some kind of makeshift hazmat helmet. He was holding the third guy face down on the ground, straddling his waist and forcing his arms behind his back.

The third guy was half naked, skinny and dirty. He was pleading with the other two, crying his guts out, but the guy with the book just kept reading and the guy in the jumpsuit kept restraining. As the ritual continued, the man’s crying slowly petered out, first into whimpers, then an ominous silence. The guy in the suit never changed his cadence - his tone remained oddly flat, even when the guy on the floor turned his face to the ground and shuddered. At this point his restrainer got off him and walked silently out of the chamber. The man with the book kept reading. It went on for full minutes.

Then the victim started twitching, and the man in the suit did raise his voice. He sounded slightly more excited now. The twitching got violent, practically seizing, while the man read the last few sentences. But as soon as the words stopped the victim collapsed, utterly still. At the time, I thought he was dead.

You’ve probably guessed what was happening here, so it shouldn’t come as much of a shock when I tell you that, after a few seconds, the victim’s head snapped up from the ground.

A digression here. Obviously we know that being exposed to the mold is enough to spread the infection. But I think it’s used as a sort of conduit for the Entity, as opposed to being its own supernatural occurrence. In other words, it’s real black mold - Stachybotrys chartarum. It’s just been infected, and apparently its chemical composition and ability to rapidly multiply in low-light or pitch dark conditions is perfect for the Entity's particular virus or whatever it is. For some reason, possessing a human can take weeks when the virus is spread by mold, and sometimes even takes multiple exposures - but not often.

I have some documents transcribed onto my laptop, ones I stole from the police station in town during the outbreak. They’d been working with local scientists - sort of a “best guess” report on what the hell this thing could be, at least until the CDC was called. Which, by the way, never happened. PM me if you want to read them and I’ll gladly send them over. This story is already far too long to justify posting them here.

I think the cult used the ritual to speed along the process of Ascension, to feed the Entity here and now, to call It directly to the victim. Yeah, a magic fucking spell.

It seemed to work though. The guy on the ground braced his hands against the floor and started to turn his head, very slowly. The man in the suit watched impassively as the victim turned just his neck to look back over his shoulder. He rotated his head so far around I flinched, watching the tendons in his neck pop and strain. When he was finally facing me, I saw that he was smiling, mouth stretched tight in a rictus grin. Wide white eyes with pinprick pupils were trained directly on my hiding place the whole time.

Even as I watched, he deteriorated, like the life force was sucked out of him Hocus Pocus style. But he didn’t just get old. He got corpse-like. Skin went waxy white, fat and muscle dropped away, fingers curled in on themselves and adhesions formed between them. Black rot started to form rapidly on the feet, necrotizing them and half the legs in less time than it took for him to fully turn his head. This was my first experience with someone Ascended, and I remember thinking distinctly that I never wanted to see anything like it ever again.

In the midst of his literal ingestion and decomposition, the victim extended a frail arm and pointed to the ledge where I crouched.

“We have a guest…” he said, in a voice much deeper and raspier than the one he’d been using to plead moments earlier. At that moment the rot spread over his scalp and across the skin below his ears. On his next attempt at speech, his lower jaw broke away, taking his tongue with it and exposing a partially rotted trachea. Oozing black fluids, the flesh dropped with a wet thud to the floor.

I didn’t need more of an excuse. I shot up out off my haunches and took off, vaulting over some pipes and back into the basement’s darkness. I wasn’t going to stick around hoping the victim hadn’t meant me. I heard the man in the suit shouting, and soon his voice was joined by another, then the sounds of pursuit. My only thought was to put distance between us. I took random turns, and by the time my adrenaline was spent, I was lost.

The next bit felt a little like making my way through a Halloween haunted house - a series of rooms lit in eerie blue light, absolutely crawling with black mold. They’re in my head like so many snapshots - a tiny tiled cell with a drainage hole in the floor, clogged with long clumps of brown hair. Gurneys lining the walls of another room, white sheets stretched over their occupants. A row of dirty bathtubs. Mason jars filled with teeth.

One room was too dark to see in once the door slammed behind me. I froze for the first time since running away from that big chamber. I heard shuffling from all sides, raspy sighs, groans. Finding my sense again, I started trying to feel my way through it. I happened to touch the metal bars of a shaky structure to my left, only to feel something fleshy behind them touch back. Yelling, I stumbled backwards into another rickety metal structure and a hand stroked my hair from behind. I felt breath in my ear and reacted instantly, spinning around and pushing the structure away. I heard a crash as the metal structure toppled off its surface and on to the floor.

The noise had attracted attention. A door at the other end slammed open, giving me enough blue light by which to see what the metal structures were. Rows of tiny cages filled the little room, piled on each other, stacked side by side. None were larger than 3’x3’ and most were occupied. People were crammed inside. Pale, skinny, smiling people, twisted into impossible poses, covered in wounds that wept black fluids. Many were blindfolded. Some of them had lost limbs to the rot slowly consuming them, arms and feet that laid next to them inside their cages.

A collection of fodder. A basement Archive.

My pursuers yelled for me to stop. I screamed and ran.

Somehow I ended up retracing my steps back through the pipes and walls, back up the stairs. I slammed the door on that horrible basement and sprinted into a still-abandoned church. I found the first emergency exit I could and got the fuck out, ignoring the blaring alarms behind me.

---

I have more written, too much more, and it wraps up the rest of my past and hopefully answers many of your questions. Since I couldn't fit it all in this post, I've split them up. I'll post the rest tomorrow, once the 24 hour limit is up. It's the least I can do, given how long this story has taken to tell.

See you tomorrow, NoSleep. 

---

Credits