When I awoke the next day, I tried to shake off the discovery of the previous day and get back to my original task, finding and recruiting members to help me restore the town. The only problem was I wasn’t sure just how many people I could recruit to build the town since I hadn’t even met half of the town’s ghostly inhabitants. I wanted to get everyone’s approval and help rebuilding the town so that I could get it back to its former glory. A part of me wanted to see the town restored the other part wanted to see it burned to the ground. After finding out my heritage I didn’t truly know what I wanted. Either way, if I was going to rebuild the town, it wouldn’t rebuild itself so I needed to get busy.
I walked down to the lobby and headed out the door. I had decided the best person to ask about rebuilding the town was Jasper. He had the skills to make the dream a reality and he knew everyone in the town. He was the ideal partner in crime I was looking for. So I headed down to the post office to talk with him.
When I first opened the door I expected to find him within, but unfortunately he wasn’t there. Where he was was anyone’s guess. I let myself in and figured I could wait till he got back. I walked across the old wooden floor as it creaked and protested beneath my weight and headed to the table and chairs in the middle of the room. I sat down in a chair while eying a tin that was on the table.
The tin was old and rusted in places on the lid. It had a painted scene of a Christmas winter in what looked like somewhere up north, full of snow, sleigh rides and other winter fun. I Picked it up and noticed the faded red border to the tin and how the paint even after all these years still stayed put. They really did make things better way back when. I opened the lid to reveal what was inside. In the tin box was an assortment of various deserts, ranging from cookies to candies. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have one while I was waiting for Jasper to get back. I picked a slice of what looked to be some sort of pie, I loved pie more than anything, and took the first bite. It was delicious. I guessed it was some sort of chess pie. It had to be the best one I had ever eaten, it was creamy and sweet but not too sweet and it had the best flakey crust you could possibly imagine. I enjoyed every last bite. After finishing the pie I sat back in the chair and waited. It was only a few moments before Jasper came walking through the door, tool belt in hand.
“Nice to see you made yourself at home.” Jasper said as he entered the room.
“Well I figured you would only be a moment or two.” I replied standing from my seat and losing my
balance. I felt like my legs weren’t working right, like they didn’t want to support my weight and Jasper noticed immediately.
“Please tell me while you were waiting you didn’t eat the pie.” He said rushing forward trying to keep me from falling.
“How did you know?” I asked anxiously after hearing the concern in his voice.
“That was given to me by the librarian for helping her fix a drawer in her desk.” He responded sitting me back down in the chair.
“So…what does that have to do with anything?” I asked now confused as to why he brought that up.
“The librarian is Miss Millie.” He stated looking serious.
“Oh my God…….Oh my God! Are you serious? I thought you were supposed to always accept the pie?” I said now beginning to become panicked and annoyed.
“Yes but you aren’t supposed to eat it.” He said defensively.
I once again had completely forgotten a rule. Rule #5. “So why are we not supposed to eat it?”
“Because if you do you’ll not be able to walk for a while because you’ll see things that aren’t there, and you’ll eventually won’t be able to move.” He added, “She puts a “Secret Ingredient” in her pies, heaven only knows what it is, but it acts as a paralytic and a hallucinogenic.”
“Well what do I do, will your elixir work or does she have one?” I asked trying to remain calm.
“No, you’ll just have to go through it. You can rest here, just try not to scream. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m hurting you or anything.” He said picking me up and moving me to the bed in the back of the room. “Just try and stay positive, think happy thoughts.”
I wanted to respond but found I couldn’t. All my limbs went limp and dead and to even hold my head up felt like it took all my strength. I wished he hadn’t said the last part. Try not to scream? What did that even mean? Why would I have cause to scream? All these thoughts fought for precedence in my mind. I hoped I would only see good things but Jasper seemed to know something I didn’t. One could only hope for the best outcome.
By the time Jasper set me down on the bed, I had gone completely limp. I could still feel everything, I just couldn’t move or speak. Hopefully whatever this was didn’t last long. As I lay there, I began to feel something crawling up my leg, no at least a dozen tiny things crawling. I looked down and saw what it was. They were bugs, hundreds of them, coming out of the mattress and skittering up my leg. I wanted to kick them off, to swat at them or something but couldn’t. I then wanted to yell out or scream, this must have been what Jasper meant, but I couldn’t find it in me to do that either. I just hoped the bugs didn’t start to bite. Right then a huge cockroach the size of my hand came up from underneath the mattress, it hissed once and the other bugs fled in its presence, then it slowly crawled up my body towards my face, ever so slowly, drawing out the terror I felt.
The cockroach made its way to my face, and stopped just before my eye. I could hear now every move it made as it looked at me trying to figure out where the best place would be. I swear I could hear it’s every thought as it made its way through my hair, over my mouth and towards my ears. Finally it came to rest just above my nose, its head pointing toward my eyes, staring into them relentlessly. It turned then, to face my mouth again and with its legs began to pry it open. I tried so hard to keep it shut but the bug was far stronger than I had realized. It achieved its task in a matter of seconds, and then slipped inside past my teeth, over my tongue and down my throat. How it fit I didn’t know, but I could feel every movement it made as it slithered down my throat into my stomach. It felt like butterflies in my stomach as it squirmed and wriggled around. After a few moments of this it came back up my esophagus to my mouth where I could taste the bile of my own stomach mixed with something else. It exited my mouth and went back down my body and back under the mattress. What it had done to me I had no idea, all I knew is I suddenly felt very full. I could only guess that it had laid eggs inside me that would hatch soon.
Soon as the cockroach left, I felt a squirming in my stomach again, the eggs were hatching. I was scared, wondering how long they would stay inside but I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain begin in my stomach they were going to hatch out any way they could even if it meant going through me. I could feel them as they ate their way out, through my stomach lining then through muscles, and finally though my skin. As I looked down I could see hundreds of tiny protruding points just under my skin. With a searing pain they broke through, as blood flowed and coated my stomach in its sickly dark red color. Never had I liked the sight of blood, now to see so much had my head feeling light and dizzy.
Soon enough they had all escaped leaving me feeling raw, violated and in pain. I hoped that would be the extent of things but I quickly found out I was wrong. As I lay there I looked to the corner of the room out of the window. My vision was hazy and blurred, but I could see that it was now dark out. I was shocked that so much time had passed. But then out of the corner of my eye, in the corner of the room towards the ceiling I noticed a familiar sight, a dark, black figure, with a Cheshire cat grin and sharp, elongated, yellowed teeth. One of the evil spirits had entered the room somehow and was sitting right above me. I began to panic. I didn’t know what it planned on doing but I knew surely it couldn’t be good.
It crawled along the ceiling till it was directly below the edge of the bed. It then dropped down from the ceiling to the floor where I lost sight of it for a moment. Soon I saw its hands slowly creep up to the top of the wrought iron foot of the bed and grip the metal, carefully and thoughtfully one finger at a time. Then I watched as it began to rise from the foot of the bed, peering through the rungs of the iron frame. It pounced suddenly then as a beast would jump on its prey, on top of the frame, perching there like a bird. It stayed there, silently watching me as if it was waiting for something. It slowly cocked its head to the side, farther than any normal human could and its grin widened even more, reaching ear to ear. It grabbed my foot and started to crawl on top of me, the weight of it felt like an elephant, crushing me and causing me to lose my breath. It was right above me now, smiling as it ever did, and it leaned in real close.
“What is your name?” It asked staring holes through me straight to my soul.
I didn’t answer.
“What is your name?” It asked this time more menacingly and demandingly.
Still I did not answer it.
It began to cut my face with its long fingernails with each and every word. “What. Is. Your. Name?!?”
I still wouldn’t answer him thought I wanted to from fear and pain, but something in my gut was telling me not to.
It became angrier them and slammed the head of the bed crashing the bed against the wall. Far off I could hear the sound of someone yelling but I couldn’t see who it was. Then my vision blurred from the blood trailing down my eyes from the four long marks that ran down my face from my forehead to my cheek just below my eye, and I felt weary and worn thin. I gave in to the restful sleep that then threatened to take me, the last thing I saw was the creature spring off me as a bright light flashed in the distance, a voice yelling and the creature growling in response.
I woke up not the next day, nor the few days that followed. Instead I awoke five days later, dizzy and my limbs and head feeling heavy. I noticed then as I opened my eyes that I only had vision in my right eye. I couldn’t see a thing out of my left. I tried to move my arm to feel around my face at what it could possibly be that clouded my vision and to my surprise and delight I could once again move. I tried each limb one at a time, feeling each as I did so. All ten fingers and ten toes were accounted for. I then reached up to my face to feel my eye and to my shock there was nothing there except four long, painful, marks that the creature left behind. I shot up then in the bed sacred because I couldn’t see anything. Then I heard a familiar voice beside me.
“Autumn! Autumn! It’s alright, it’s ok. Your safe now, nothing can hurt you. Just try not to touch it.” It was Jasper.
“Why can’t I see?? What happened and why can’t I see out of my left eye??” I asked startled and scared as I felt the fear rush though my limbs.
“There was an accident. It is all my fault I wasn’t thinking. I watched you all day to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself. I don’t know what you were seeing but whatever it was had you bad. It slowed down after a while and I thought I could take the time to go lock up the hotel quickly so I could come back to watch over you. The only problem was I forgot to lock the post’s door behind me and one of those……those things got in. It was on you when I arrived. I yelled at it but it didn’t pay attention to me. I had to light up a bundle of sage to fight it off before it got you further, then you slipped into unconsciousness. I had to go get Mr. Herd to come tend to the wound on your face, he’s also the town’s only doctor, and by the time I got back with him he said there was little we could do for your eye. I’m afraid you’ve gone permanently blind in one eye. I’m so sorry Autumn.” He told me placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.
I sat there for a few minutes letting his words sink in. “So I won’t ever see again out of it?”
“I’m afraid not. You were extremely lucky though, it could have stolen your soul…….the only reason it didn’t was probably because you never gave it your name. Names give them power over you somehow. Usually they are very good at getting names out of people but you couldn’t speak. I think it saved your life.” He said backing up and looking me over. “You aren’t hurt anywhere I can’t see are you?
“No, I don’t think so.” I said feeling my stomach, but not feeling any pain there I looked back towards Jasper. “I want to see my face.”
“I don’t know if that is a good idea yet. Just sit still and rest a minute.” He told me but I got the feeling it wasn’t a request.
I stayed there a few more minutes as my heartbeat began to slow and I became calmer. Once I felt the strength return to my body, I slowly stood and made my way over to the only mirror in the building. It was a small mirror, more of an old looking glass than anything. Small though it was, it was just big enough to get a good glimpse of your face through the single broken line that ran through it. I walked over to it and closed my eyes as stood before it. I bowed my head for a minute, opening my eyes to look at the floor while I summoned the courage to look at myself in the mirror. After standing there for a moment or two I took a deep breath in and looked up, not ready for what I saw.
The first thing I noticed as always was my auburn red hair, it looked unkempt and all over the place. I tried to smooth it down a little before I brought my attention to my face. I could see Jasper standing just behind me waiting for me to see it. I turned my attention towards my face then, and that was when I saw it. My face was for the most part spared on the right side, but on the left I looked at four long gashes that spanned half of my face, starting at the edge of my eyebrow and going in four straight rows to the other edge of it. They were deep and red in color; I swear if they had been any deeper they would have exposed bone. I then saw my poor eye, once dark, chocolate brown, now a ghostly blue where my iris used to be, the rest all white. I took a sharp breath in when I saw it. Even though I had tried to prepare myself for it, it hadn’t worked, but then again nothing can truly prepare you for something like that.
I turned and looked back at Jasper with what I’m sure was an uncertain look on my face. He winced a little and took a step forward towards me. Before I could say a thing, he wrapped me in an embrace as tears began to fall down my now hideous face. He never let go of me till I was ready, and though he often teased me and could be a little curt sometimes, in that moment I was truly grateful to have him as a friend. After a few moments I calmed down enough to pull away from him. Feeling sad and defeated, and even though I had slept for five days straight, I just wanted to go back to my hotel and rest. So that’s what I did. I pulled away from Jasper and turned towards the door. I think he knew what I wanted and took my hand and escorted me home to the hotel. Only once we were there did he let go of me.
“I’m so sorry Autumn, I really am. If there is anything I can do, just let me know. I’m right next door if you need me. Don’t worry about the hotel I’ll take care of it till you can resume your duties.” He said standing there as he watched me closely.
“Thank you.” I croaked out of my now hoarse voice.
I turned then and went up to my room. Once there I closed the door behind me. I crawled into bed without worrying about my clothes. I laid there for a time, thinking about what had happened. Tears began to reform in my eyes as I thought of the image of my face in that mirror. I had hardly recognized myself. I cried myself to sleep in a matter of minutes. The last thought going through my head was how I was going to take revenge on the creature that did this to me, if that was even possible. All I knew for certain in that moment was that I was going to kill it if I ever got the chance.
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