Chapter 4 – Chap 4

My mind lurched in shock. There was no way…no way that this could be real. “That’s impossible,” I blurted. “Look.” I stomped the floor with both feet, then reached over to push on the wall. “I can TOUCH it. That makes it real.”

Benny just sighed, gripped his walker handles and gingerly rose to his feet. “Frankly, it don’t matter if you believe me or not. We don’t got time for that. Perk yer ears over this way and button yer yap, because if I’m right, you ain’t got long either.” The hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood up, and reluctantly I sank onto the nearest chair, silent. When Benny seemed satisfied that I was listening, he continued on.

“The Wanderer seems ‘specially interested in you, Miss Deluca,” he told me, his voice grave and serious now. “So you would do wise to be cautious. This godforsaken place ain’t supposed to be here, but every year around the same time for 91 years now, it comes back around and suckers in some other poor schmuck like yourself and ends up trapping them here. Any of the doors moved around yet? This is just a facade, a mirage of the old building spun to suit the Wanderer’s purpose and draw yous in like flies. And yous always come, dontcha? Money is key for the survival of the human race, been that way for years. I can see your light; it’s brighter than most I’ve seen before. With that light alone, you might still have a chance.”

“Okay, so…what about that horrible screaming?”

Benny chuckled bitterly. “It don’t feel good when the Wanderer finally takes you. It ain’t no drifting off peacefully to sleep, that’s for sure. I’ve heard it feels like he forcibly rips yer guts out through yer skin.”

“And what about Beck, the redheaded girl who works second? She gave me some pretty sound advice given the current situation.”

“I heard what she told ya. She’s right. Lemme explain. That bathroom she told you ’bout…that’s apposedly where the Wanderer takes em. Or how he gets in and out, I forget which. Peter and Michael? They’re infected with a pretty wicked rash; they’ve been marked as the next to be taken.” As if on cue, my elbow itched, and I glanced down, horrified to see that what I had originally thought to be a mosquito bite was now a bubbly little patch of blisters that covered the peak of my elbow. Benny appeared to notice this, because he immediately thrust his arm out; it trembled with the effort of keeping it outstretched. “Let me see it!” he demanded.

When I came close enough, he snatched my wrist with a speed that belied his age and ran his fingers over the blisters on my skin. His brow creased in worry and he dropped my arm quickly like it was diseased. “So I WAS right,” he murmured. He looked up at me then, and his milky white eyes seemed to glow with an internal light. “You need to listen and listen good now. The Wanderer has marked you to be taken.”

“WHAT?” I gasped. “But I’m not even dead!”

“I don’t know how it works!” he hissed. “You must be a special case or something! But pay attention now, girl! There are only two options for you right now. You can either track the Wanderer down and stand against him, or you can accept your fate and let him take you, but either way, you don’t have another CHOICE!” He screamed the last word at me, and out of nowhere from the darkened hallway behind him, an icy breeze rushed into the room. Benny’s blind eyes grew wide in terror and he struggled to turn around. “No…no…please…not yet…I didn’t tell…”

The breeze whipped around the room, and the same bone chilling voice that had spoken my name earlier at Bridgette’s now assaulted my tender ears again with its low and gutteral whisper. But this time, I felt it INSIDE my head as well. “Yyeeeesssss, Maaaarrrrrrryyyyyaaaannnn,” it hissed, evidently drawing some sort of sick pleasure from my growing fear. “Cooommme fiiiiiiiiinnnd meeeee.”

“No!” I cried out. I shut my eyes tightly as the breeze whistled around me yet again, pleading silently for it to stop, and when silence fell across the room, I finally dared to open my eyes. What I saw before me will haunt me until the day I draw my last breath.

The darkness behind Benny had gathered into an amorphous black shape that hovered over him and pulsed with an evil I could physically feel. A set of burning green eyes, glowing like twin emerald flames, were focused directly on me and positively radiated menace and malice. I felt paralyzed by the depth of those eyes, as if I was drowning in them and unable to reach the surface. “The Wanderer,” I breathed. A wicked laugh echoed through the room before the Wanderer fell onto Benny and surrounded him. Benny began screaming wildly, a horrible piercing scream that spoke of unfathomable agony and torment, and even as I watched helplessly, he fell to the floor, smothered by the shadow of the Wanderer. He raised his head towards me, hands stretched out, but it was too late. He was yanked backwards into the darkness of the hallway by that shadow, and paralyzed with fear, I could only listen on as Benny’s scream cut off suddenly, followed by a nearly unbearable silence that seemed to flood the room with heavy oppression. Benny was simply gone. Suddenly I could move again, my paralysis broken far too late.

I sank back onto the chair and sobbed openly, my sorrow over Benny’s death gripping me tightly. He’d only been trying to help me and the Wanderer had taken his life. I cried for a good few minutes, for Bridgette and for Benny, cried out all the terror I’d experienced over the last few days. Finally when I was finished and I couldn’t cry anymore, I dragged my arm across my leaking nose, sniffed and stood up, a rock solid determination spreading through my blood like a rampant disease. Benny said my light was bright and that I might have a chance to escape. I vowed to myself that it didn’t matter how long it took, I would see this through and put an end to the Wanderer once and for all. How, I didn’t know, but I would do whatever I had to to put Whispering Hills – and the Wanderer – down for good.

Armored with this newfound determination and unwilling to even bother with cleaning anymore, I checked my watch and was not completely surprised to see that it was almost 3AM. Steeling myself, I decided to go check out the bathroom against both Beck and Benny’s warnings. After all, the Wanderer had clearly already seen me and marked me, so why be careful anymore? I tossed my rag back into the bucket and got up to investigate, but was halted by a faint woman’s voice calling for help. I strained to listen, and it came again, a little louder this time, carrying the definite impression of urgency. “Please…it’s Candice…help me…help me…just let me die…” I’d temporarily forgotten Beck’s advice in the wake of the Wanderer’s appearance and set off in the direction of the cry.

I followed the woman’s helpless cries to a nondescript wooden door exactly like all the other doors I’d passed, and as I pressed my ear against the door to make sure, I was greeted by yet another low cry for help. I swung the door open and stepped in, glancing all about the room with no sign of the Wanderer, only a very old woman laying in the threadbare bed.

All at once the smell hit me, like rotten flesh under a burning sun, and I gagged, holding my breath. It stank of death in the room, and once my eyes adjusted to my surroundings, it was perfectly easy to make out the source of the odor. Every visible inch of the skin of the poor woman in front of me was clustered with disgusting blisters and pustules of all sizes and colors, and as I struggled not to throw up when faced with the oppressive stench of rotting flesh, some of the blisters burst on their own, sending oozing rivers of filth flowing down her body to pool on the bed underneath her. I felt my gorge rise, gagged and backed away from the horrid sight before me.

Candice’s body shuddered involuntarily on top of the bed as if racked by seizures, and during one such tremor, she sat straight up on the bed, glaring full at me as if she was possessed, even though I was positive she wasn’t looking at me, but through me. Her face twisted in a rictus of agony, and her arm shot up, clawed hand reaching for me. With her dying breath and through a mouth that to my abject horror I now noticed had been neatly stitched shut, she snarled, “You belong to him now! There is no escape for you!” With this final proclamation, her upper body snapped backwards violently and I heard a gut-wrenchingly wet snap as her spine was severed. The woman fell back onto the bed, unmoving, crazed eyes locked on mine in a frozen death stare that seemed both pleading and accusatory, as if I was somehow to blame for her unfortunate demise. I closed my eyes for just a moment to try and fend off the grisly sight I’d just endured, and when I opened them again, the body was gone, puddles of stinking pus and blood the only trace remaining. A low and evil laugh wisped through the air in a mocking hiss, taunting me with its latest torment.

Grimacing, I managed to swallow my gorge enough to strip the soiled bedsheets from the mattress and stuff them into the garbage, bits and pieces of a plan forming in my mind. Nobody else was going to die on my watch. I decided I would finish out my shift by simply cleaning up, if only just to pass the time. Beck had all but outright requested that I show up early so she could explain what exactly the situation involved here; now curious, I decided to see what she had to say. By the time the darkness of the night had melted at last into the cold gray light of the coming dawn and my first shift in this hellhole had waned to a close, I had also decided that come tomorrow, I would try to track down Jeanette and find out her side of the story, perhaps force her to tell me why the Wanderer wanted me so badly. If only I’d had some way of knowing that my nightmares were still so far from over.