The Festering Ones Read online

  There was no Daughter lurking there that day, though, just more empty woodland.

  I stared down at the ground where I thought the arm would have been, near the base of that tree with its gnarled trunk and protruding roots. The monster had popped up as if from beneath a hatch door. A hatch door that would still be there even if the Daughter wasn’t.

  My nails dug into the ground, through dirt and leaves and debris, and I felt around. When it wasn’t immediately detectable, I shrugged out of my backpack, tossed my jacket aside, and crawled on my hands and knees, searching, searching, searching. This was the spot! I knew it was! Why, then, couldn’t I find any trace of a trap door? I went round and round, covering and re-covering the same ground and then expanding outward, until I was too far passed where my dad had disappeared.

  No matter how much I looked, there simply just wasn’t any kind of opening in the ground.

  A defeated howl escaped me and I shoved myself back to my feet. Dirt and sweat streaked in tandem down my arms and face and, when I tried to wipe it away, it just smeared into mud. I slung my things back over my shoulder and returned to the trail. It was getting too late to press onward, but I swore I’d be back the next day and the next and the next, until I could get my hands on one of those Daughters. It was a haphazard, barely formed plan that might have very well killed me, but I was determined to see it through. Knowing that Gorrorum was watching just made me more so.

  I wasn’t going to go crazy or convert. Screw what Charlie had said. I was going to get some kind of revenge.

  I picked my way back down my trail, my eyes narrowed and my hands balled into fists around the straps of my bag. Up ahead, with only about a quarter mile left before I got back to my car, a sliver of pale white stood out against the wood floor just beside the path.

  A Daughter had come calling after all.

  I froze, my heart thrusting against my ribs, and all I could do for a time was stand there, reliving the last encounter I’d had with one; the way it had erupted from the ground, its reaching, grasping arms, elongated and spider like, my father’s screams.

  Slowly, so slowly, I crouched and lowered my backpack to the ground. The flare gun I’d bought was lying on the folded-up tarp. I kept my eyes locked on the arm ahead while I pulled it out and cocked its hammer. If the Daughter heard the sound, it either didn’t recognize it or didn’t care, because it remained still, right up until I took aim and fired a flare at its exposed appendage.

  The flare glowed a brilliant red as it soared through the air. It landed with a dull thud on the ground just passed the arm, where it sizzled and caused the brush, too damp to actually catch, beneath it to smoke.

  It was still smoldering when the Daughter hurled itself upwards, out of its hole.

  It was exactly as I remembered, thin and ghostly pale with the naked torso and head of a woman and a dozen spidery arms. It paused, hunched down on those too-long appendages, and its white eyes found me. It snapped its teeth, jagged and pointy, together and made a sound like a rumbling hiss. It had expected closer prey, I imagined.

  I didn’t have time to think much else. It sprang towards me, two pairs of arms outstretched, and I stumbled back with a cry born of both fear and rage. I raised the flare gun again and fired twice more. One flare struck its chest, but bounced away, leaving a noticeable and nasty welt upon its flesh. The other tangled in its wild, dark hair like a fiery flower. It shrieked, whether from hurt or irritation that I wasn’t proving easy prey, I didn’t know, but it continued to rush towards me anyway.

  I screamed and pulled the trigger again. That one ricocheted off one of its arms as it launched itself in a pounce. We went down hard, it on top, gnashing its teeth and wrapping me in a crushing embrace, me trying to get the gun up again. She smelled faintly of decay and of earth and of burning.

  Smoke billowed from the Daughter’s hair where the flare had made its nest.

  It was getting harder to breathe; the monster was wrapping me so tightly in her grasp that color bursts edged my vision. My grip on the flare gun was becoming looser even as a voice in my head shouted at me to hold on to it. I could feel my kicks growing weaker, the world growing darker, all except for that one bright spot atop the Daughter’s head.

  All at once, I was lying on the ground in a heap, sputtering and sucking in air in painful gulps. The Daughter was writhing and beating at its head with multiple hands, yowling and screaming and hissing. It staggered back, glaring at me accusingly, and felt out its hatch door. The burning glow of the flare was the last thing I saw as it ducked back into its hole.

  Still coughing, I groped for the gun with its two remaining rounds and swayed unsteadily after it. This time, I found the opening to its lair and, with some difficulty, I forced it open. It led down into a long, long tunnel, painstakingly carved out and angled downward, deeper into the mountain. Ahead, I could just make out the spider armed woman skittering away.

  “Bitch,” was all I could manage to say, and I lifted the flare gun and fired after her again.

  It sailed down the tunnel and came to land far behind the monster.

  Despite only having one flare left, I was ready to follow that thing down into the heart of White Crow. My phone ringing from my pocket, such a jarringly normal sound, stopped me and helped return me to my senses. Following it now would only get me killed; I had to come up with something less reckless before I went after it again.

  I stepped back and let the hatch fall shut so I could answer the call.

  “Did you talk to my mom?” a woman bordering on hysterical demanded.

  “What? Who is this?”

  “Janice Greer. Did you talk to my mom, Faith?”

  “No, only you, why? What’s happened?”

  A shuddering groan filled the phone and I had to pull it away from my ear until she had calmed enough to speak again. “I came home from work last night and...and I found my fiancé. Someone killed him, they stabbed him in his sleep! Oh God.” She burst into loud sobs. “My mom and son are gone! The cops think Mom did it!”

  “Why?” It felt like a sick game of twenty questions.

  Was this my fault? Had her mom found out she’d spoken to me? Was this her way of punishing Janice?

  “T-they found a confirmation for tickets in her email for a flight to Florida. Why would she go there? We don’t know anyone in Florida! I know she didn’t really like Shane, but she wouldn’t kill him! She wouldn’t take my son!”

  I was walking back to my car, careful to keep a wary eye on the ground behind me. “I think I can find out. Hang tight, I’ll call you back.”

  I hung up before she could respond and scrolled down to the number that had called me earlier that day. Marcus picked up on the second ring.

  “Hello again, Faith! What a nice surprise.”

  “Do you know Josie Greer?”

  Marcus, who seemed to enjoy small talk, clicked his tongue in reproach, but answered. “Matron Greer, of course. She’s been a beloved member of our community since she was a child.”

  I paused halfway through putting my seatbelt on. “You’re saying...she’s part of The Gathered?”

  “Yes, for almost all her life, ever since Sister Pratt brought her to The Father’s side.”

  A swirl of questions rose like a tornado in my head, but I forced them aside. “Do you know why she’d go to Florida?”

  “Oh, well, hmm,” Marcus mulled noisily over the question, “I suppose she could be going to Passit, but that doesn’t make much sense. That sect fell from favor after the business in the 70s; it’s against the Father’s will to associate with them.”

  “Why would she go there with her grandson?”

  “I’m sorry, Faith, but we don’t discuss the fallen.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from shouting at him. A child was missing, it might have been because of me, I didn’t care about his beliefs! I bottled up my anger as best I could and just said, “The place in Florida is called Passit?”

  “Yes, but
—”

  I ended the call and stared out of the car at the cabin. I’d come back for answers, for vengeance, and I could still have that, I would still have that.

  But only after I helped Janice get her son back. Only after we figured out what was worth killing and kidnapping for in Passit, Florida.

  Two Tickets To Passit

  Talking to Janice when I called her back was almost impossible. She wavered between near hysterics and asking me why this was happening in a pained, pleading tone that cut through me even over the phone. She doggedly denied that her mother might have been involved with The Gathered and just loudly repeated that Josie couldn’t even talk about them, she hated them too much, Marcus must have been lying. Trying to get a word in edgewise while also trying to navigate back to the motel was a challenge and it took every ounce of dwindling reserve I had not to flat out tell her to shut up.

  She also didn’t want to accept that Josie had had anything to go with her fiancé Shane’s death. She said it had to be someone setting Josie up, that her mom never could have hurt anyone, much less killed them.

  If I hadn’t been so exhausted in every sense of the word, maybe I would have entertained her theory with more grace and understanding, but after the last week, I had no patience left.

  “You not wanting to believe it doesn’t make it any less true,” I snapped after another go around in which she insisted it couldn’t have been her mom’s doing. “I didn’t want to believe that a monster killed my dad or that my mom…”

  My voice hitched painfully in my throat. I wasn’t quite ready to say that she’d killed herself out loud.

  “Look,” I started over, “there’s a lot of shit going on that I don’t want to believe either, but that doesn’t change anything; it’s happening and I want to help you, but you’ve got to work with me.”

  “W-what do we do?” She asked quietly.

  “Does the word Passit mean anything to you?”

  Janice had never heard of Passit, Florida. They didn’t have any friends or family in the state, Janice wasn’t even certain her mom had ever been south of Virginia. Our only lead as to why Josie might have gone there had come from Marcus and his vague reference to a sect that had apparently fallen out of favor after something had happened in the 70s.

  “The confirmation the cops found said she took Ben to West Palm Beach. Is that near Passit?” Janice asked.

  “I don’t know, I never heard of the place before today.”

  “I don’t have the money for a ticket.” Desperate panic had seeped back into Janice’s voice. “I don’t know how Mom did. And the cops told me to stay here in case they heard any news…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  Whether or not I could really afford two last minute plane tickets to Florida was up for debate, but I’d worry about that when the credit card bill showed up. The Gathered and Gorrorum had already cost me so much more. I couldn’t let them do the same, or worse, to Janice.

  Once I got back to the hotel, I stayed on the phone with her long enough to book two one-way tickets on the first flight out the next morning. She was sobbing when we hung up. I tossed my phone onto the bed, stripped down, and ran the hottest shower I could stand. Now that I was alone again, my thoughts turned back to the Daughter I’d met on the mountain. I was convinced I could still feel her fingers digging into my skin, could still smell her, and I scrubbed myself viciously.

  I should have followed her, I thought, but almost immediately was glad I hadn’t when I reminded myself that I’d had a single flare left and no other weapons to fight her with.

  And there were supposedly two more of them, if Charlie was to be believed.

  If Janice hadn’t called, I would have followed her. I would have run headlong down that tunnel, into whatever lair they’d built, wholly unprepared and unarmed except for my fury. How far would that really have gotten me?

  Far enough to get myself killed.

  It’s a sobering thing, to realize the extent of your own recklessness. If I died so stupidly, my mom’s years of suffering would have meant nothing. I’d have wasted all of her careful research. I’d have let her and Dad down. I knew I’d be going back, but next time, I’d make sure I was ready.

  I sat on the end of my bed wrapped in a towel and my thoughts. I didn’t know what was waiting for us in Florida, not like I knew what was here, and it scared me even more than the Daughters. At least I knew they could be hurt. At least there was no child caught up in the middle of that fight.

  It seemed the more I tried to uncover answers, the more questions I was left with. What should have been a simple trip home (as “simple” as a trip to bury your mother could be, anyway) had quickly spiraled out of control and I felt like I was just being dragged along whether I liked it or not. Even if I’d wanted to pack up and leave it behind, it was already too late.

  The ever-shifting shapeless staring down at me from the painting over the TV was evidence enough of that.

  I flipped it around so that the cardboard back of the frame faced outward instead and crawled into bed.

  I was back in the dark place almost as soon as I closed my eyes. The constant whispers, the rumbling thunder and crackling lightening, the bruised sky. Ibsilyth enveloped me. This time, I was standing on a craggy ledge overlooking a vast expanse of scorched, alien land. Below, I could see a slug like being, similar to the one I’d encountered before, writhing upon the ground.

  Off in the distance, outlined against swollen clouds, the giant loomed.

  I stumbled back, away from edge, and spun, looking for a way. It didn’t matter if it was up or down, I just wanted to move, to rub, to try and escape this terrible place. Behind me, the rock wall rose endlessly overhead, broken up only by a series of dark cave mouths, like so many pockmarks, upon its surface.

  A face stared down at me from one just over head.

  At first glance, it appeared human, but the longer I looked at it, the more wrong it became. The eyes were too far apart, the mouth too small, the cheeks too sunken. It was an ill made mockery of a person.

  It slid forward, little by little, its too-small mouth opening and closing soundlessly, like it was trying to call to me, to entice me closer, until it was dangling above me on the end of a long stalk. I scrambled backwards again, until my feet were brushing the edge, and I screamed.

  More stalks, each tipped with a face ranging from recognizably human to unidentifiable monstrosity, stretched from the cave, and the bulbous beast from whose back they sprang followed after. It was a gelatinous thing, the only feature aside from the stalks rising from its flesh was its gaping maw, and it made an awful wet, sucking sound as it slid forward towards the lip of its cave.

  Like an angler fish, it had tried to lure me in using the almost human face as bait, hoping I would blindly go towards another of my kind. Now that that had failed, it was taking a more direct approach.

  It dropped down on to my ledge and lashed out with a few of its stalks. Two of the faces attempted to sink their teeth into me, but couldn’t get a good hold. A third tipped with a strange insectoid face grabbed my arm in its pinchers and yanked me forward, towards the creature’s wide and stinking mouth.

  I was wrenched out of Ibsilyth and back into the waking world by my alarm going off.

  I clutched the comforter in white knuckled fists and stared at the ceiling. My breath came in short, shallow gasps while I tried to disentangle myself from the dream’s lingering grasp, if it could even be called a dream. As soon as I was calm enough, I kicked the bedding off and ran to the bathroom, where I turned on the shower and let cold water run directly into my ears, first one, then the other, before shoving the end of a face cloth in and wiggling it around.

  No specks of the Finger who must have visited me to deliver those visions of Ibsilyth came out.

  In an angry flurry, I packed up all of my things and hurried to the office to check out. I had to get Janice, get to the airport, and get the hell out of dodge. I sped all the
way to her house, where she was waiting anxiously just inside the front door with her bag. Neither of us spoke as she climbed in.

  I didn’t know what kind of reach Gorrorum or his Fingers had, but I hoped he’d at least have a harder time finding me again after I went as far away as Florida.

  Somehow, though, I doubted a thousand miles really meant much to a being that could slip through the cracks between entire realms.

  The Town That Wasn’t There

  The flight to West Palm Beach, Florida was a tightly packed one. Janice and I were one of the few splashes of hair color engulfed in a sea of white and silver and gray: all the snowbirds migrating south to avoid the oncoming winter. While Janice clutched the armrests on either side of her, anxious as only a first-time flier can be, I was wishing I had internet access. I wanted nothing more than to be doing more research, this time about The Gathered and their connection to Passit.

  My traveling companion would have made it almost impossible, anyway.

  Every time the plane swayed with turbulence, she’d gasp and look at me with bugged out, terror-stricken eyes. “What was that?”

  “Nothing, relax.”

  “Shane hated flying,” she said. “We-we always drove everywhere, even out to California once. And after Ben was born, we pretty much stopped traveling. Do you think he was scared? Ben. He’s only five, h-he’s only seen planes on TV, never up close.”

  I tried to smile. I even tried to make it reassuring. What I managed, though, was probably closer to a grimace. Honestly, I didn’t think Ben was scared. As far as he knew, he was just going on a trip with Grandma, someone he loved and trusted. Janice was the unfortunate one; she was the one who knew he was in danger. I put my hand on her arm and gave it a squeeze, a far more reliable gesture than my attempt at an expression had been, and she turned to look out the window again.

  Normally I would have tried to fall asleep on a plane, I hated being awake in such a confined area, surrounded by people sniffling and coughing and smacking their lips on the in-flight pretzels, but I didn’t then. I couldn’t risk it. I wasn’t sure how those nasty little Fingers traveled or if being surrounded by so many others would deter them, but the last thing I needed was to wind up drifting off to Ibsilyth and facing another of its monsters.