Danvers Pointe— Episode Fifteen

Last week: Darla freed herself from... Jackson. The pair disguised themselves and infiltrated the mill. Somehow the cult had managed to capture the tear, or void entity.

Danvers Pointe, Massachusetts—1938

He had to have been ten years younger than when she’d last seen him.

In the coffin.

Her father.

He was right in front of her. Alive. The tear would allow them to be together. It was a certainty. She felt it in her marrow. Her body warmed as she stared at him. God, she missed him.

Words.

He was speaking to someone, like they were outside the frame of a photograph. She tilted her head but couldn’t see them. Was he arguing? She shifted more, but the angle was wrong.

She stared at his mouth. It hurt to concentrate on the words. Her mind reeled.

It was like the Arkham fog had filled her brain. The hum was so intense she swore her ears and eyes were bleeding.

She tried to focus on him and block out the pressure.

Close enough she could almost smell his aftershave.

“Dad,” she whispered.

He turned toward her.

He heard her.

Her heart pounded. He was staring right at her. Warmth flooded her chest. Love. But as he stared at her, his eyes widened and his face scrunched with something she had only seen on it once before.

Fear.

“No,” he said. His voice broke through the fog, and the hum; she could hear the dread.

“No, not her too!”

“Dad,” she cried, reaching toward him. Just one more step. The floorboards bucked beneath her feet. They groaned in a way she felt from her feet up through her teeth. As if something enormous had shifted under the mill;

a massive beast waking from slumber.

She stumbled backward until she bumped into a body, her eyes never left her father’s face.

Whum. The tear pulsed hard.

Whum. Lantern glass rattled.

Her vision darkened at the edges. She was going to pass out. No! And then—

Darkness snapped. The air slammed back into her lungs. She was on the floor heaving like she’d been holding her breath for ages.

Panting, gasping and retching surrounded her.

Rough-hewn boards that had worn down with the years of constant use pressed against her palms.

Faces hovered above her. Concerned. Suspicious.

The hum softened but didn’t disappear. Darla was hauled upright by a pair of hands.

“What happened?” a woman whispered.

“She fainted,” someone else muttered.

“Who is she?” Someone else asked.

Darla blinked, trying to find the seam. Her vision blurred, tears streamed down her cheeks. He was gone. Again. Despair gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

He was so close.

It was still there, hovering. But it wasn’t the same, no longer reaching.

It was, she felt, waiting.

Cody hadn’t moved. He was breathing hard, but didn’t seem any worse for wear.

He hadn’t reacted. He hadn’t even looked at her.

He hadn’t seen what she saw.

Did he even see her now?

She tried to pull away, but the hands tightened their grip. She felt the crowd shifting. They pulled her back from the chalk. The wooden floor was painful on her knees.

________________________________________________________________________

Jackson saw her fall.

One moment she was steady beside him. Then she stepped forward, in a trance.

He heard her mumble, but the hum was too loud in his mind.

He reached for her.

And the world folded. Bodies were pressed around him. He looked for a way out of the mob.

He turned and was face-to-face with a man, bodies pressed them together. He couldn’t budge.

The man smelled of whiskey and old sweat.

Regret.

He was about Jackson’s height and build. He had longer hair and thinner cheeks. Eyes that had seen too much and retreated into his skull.

Otherwise, he could have been staring in the mirror.

The man looked at him. His breath washed over him, he had to turn to the side or vomit.

The man’s eyes looked empty, devoured from the inside. He smirked.

“Shouldn’ta given up the whiskey—” he slurred.

“What? Who the hell—” It dawned on him. He must be having another episode, like earlier outside the library.

This man was him. Or a vision of him. Older, emaciated, drunk.

The man began speaking again, but the vibration was too loud, too intense.

He felt like his head was going to split open. He pressed his hands desperately, trying to keep it from spilling its contents on the floor.

Noise roared in.

The floorboards rushed up at him, he barely managed to stay on his now bruised knees.

The world spun around him. Hands grasped at him from all angles.

Faces twisted into impossible nightmarish things.

He managed to look up, toward the doppelganger. He thought he saw him standing there, the same smirk on his face, then a heavy pulse of darkness washed over him, and the man was gone.

Jackson swiped his finger under his nose, it came away clean. The pressure had let up, but the thrumming in his brain was still there. He turned and his stomach dropped.

Darla was being dragged by a pair of robed cultists.

“Hey!” he barked before his mind caught up.

He tried to stand up—

White flash.

Pain exploded at the back of his skull. He staggered. You got a hard head boy, his father used to tell him as a kid. Hitting him in the head rarely did anything other than make him angry.

He didn’t black out. He never blacked out unless it was from whiskey.

The mill tilted sideways and he dropped back to his knees. Hands gripped his arms. He was hauled upright and shoved forward to the edge of the circle beside Darla.

Dark droplets were on the floor in front of her.

Tears.

The chalk lines were inches from his hands now. He could smell them. Not chalk. Something else.

It was metallic and bitter, like lightning had struck the boards and left residue.

His head pounded. He reached back and felt the back of his skull. It was still intact, but his hand came away sticky, covered in bright red blood.

He looked up and saw the stain. Or smudge, or whatever you call something that shouldn’t exist. It was taller, thinner. It was centered inside the circle of runes. By the looks of it, it was bound by some eldritch power.

This must have something to do with whatever they were trying to summon, it would come through that.

It had to be a doorway.

Hello my friends. If you’re enjoying this content, please leave a comment. I have several other stories that I hope to publish in the future. If you think someone in your friend circle might enjoy them, please send them a link.

Thanks again for your support.

Mike

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