Page 3 of Hallow Hill at Halloween: Part Two

CHAPTER TWO Darkness

The darkness is so complete it swallows me whole. My eyes strain to find something to see and my brain capitulates by showing me ghostly specters occasionally.

I think they’re not really there.

Ihopethey’re not really there.

I have no idea how long I’ve been in this place. It feels like…. Well. What difference does it make how it feels? I believe my mind is playing tricks on me. It might be hours. It might be years. I know my people wouldn’t abandon me. I know they’re trying to find me. Obviously without success.

But they won’t give up.

I know it.

Perhaps my mind isn’t playing tricks at all. Perhaps my mind is trying to protect me. Trying to find something to do other than turn toward the call of insanity. I say it’s a call because I hear it. Just there on the outskirts of my thoughts. Waiting. Beckoning. No real pressure.

Yet.

Every so often I remember the medallion, the one Evie so sternly admonished that I call upon when in need of help. I reach for it, thinking all I have to do is grab and squeeze. My hand goes to where it should hang at the level of my heart. But it’s not there. Of course, it’s not there. I remind myself that I know this, but I also know it’s a folly my befuddled mind would repeat again and again.

I think I’m dreaming. Mostly because I know I’ve been standing for as long as I’ve been in this hell. Sometimes I feel the tension subside just a little. I use the time between sightings of light to recite poetry. Well, not poetry exactly. I guess it’s lyrics. I try to reconstruct a song I like. Piece it together with words and phrases I remember and words or phrases I make fit, but it’s so easy to get confused and distracted in here. I don’t think I ever get very far before I’m interrupted and, after my attention’s been pulled away, I can’t ever seem to remember what song I was working on.

The darkness feels like a living thing. It sees everything. Knows everything.

If the darkness thinks I’ve become too preoccupied with my song game, I’ll be startled by loud chittering or skittering that sounds close by. It always make me jump, but it doesn’t make me scream. What makes me scream are thethingsthat slither past my ankles. Sometimes it encircles one of my calves before it moves on. I try hard to refuse imagining what it might be, but images come unbidden.

In between shrieks I jump, stomp and kick. It’s a weird sort of dance that might be comical if I wasn’t always on the verge of sobbing. Through it all I think I hear laughter. Female laughter. But I can’t distinguish reality from these dark fantasies, not when there’s no context, no reference point.

Even when I don’t hear the chittering or skittering, it seems the dank air is full of sound. Like the noise that would be made by thousands of crickets congregated and agitated at great distance.

I would label this method of torture sensory deprivation, but it wouldn’t be totally true. I can’t hear anything but my own thoughts. I can’t see anything except the occasional bursts of light. But I can smell musty rot all around me. And, lucky me, I canfeel. I feel the cold, the damp, and the things that come tocaress my legs in fiendish ways. I know I’m breathing the cold, rot-filled air into my lungs and it makes me want to retch. I try to suppress the shivers that constantly rack my body. I know my teeth are chattering, but they make no sound.

If anything could be called good, it’s that I’m not tired and don’t feel the need to sit because gods only know what’s on the floor. I think I’d rather die than sit.

My mind continues to strain for something, anything, to seize on, but there’s nothing. Nothing until the next time a sliver of light appears.

I don’t want to respond. Somehow, I know that my tormentor is enjoying the game, and I don’t want to be entertainment for the depraved.

I want to ignore the tease of a sliver of light and pretend I don’t care. I also know that when the first ray breaks through the blackness, I’ll run for it. I’ll run like I haven’t run since ninth grade relay races. I’ll run thinking that this time, maybe this time, I’ll reach salvation, or even touch a moment’s warmth, before it disappears.

Of course, I know that there’s a chance something even worse waits on the other side of the light, but I struggle to think of something worse. That means it’s worth the risk, whatever that risk might be.

I won’t believe that Keir would leave me here like this and I try to think what I could do to help him find me. I drag in a ragged musty-smelling breath deep into my lungs and prepare to scream with all my might.

“KEIIIIIIIIIIR!!!”

“EVIEEEEEEE!!!”

If there are gods listening, the kind who are sympathetic and not crazy, please let them hear me. I want to go home.

“Wake me up! Wake me up! Wake me up!”

At some point, after I’d slumped against the misery in defeat, I felt something around my chest and shoulders. My body jerked at the surprise of touch. When I reached to see what it was, my fingers made contact with fabric. And, unlike every other part of my existence, it wasn’t terrifying. It was… comforting. Perhaps more importantly, it took the edge off the chill. I clutched it with both fists and held on like it was a lifeline.

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