Chapter 35: Overwhelmed
The torch was dying out, so I had to re-light it on the candle on the way back into the mountain, remembering that we hadn't yet found the next piece of the mannequin.
Inside the mountain, we were swarmed by three ghosts. It was too many to fight, even with the Saint Medallion, so I grabbed Eileen by the hand and ran.
In the next area, we discovered the well we had missed the first time around, and it contained the doll's right leg, which I took with me.
Back at Wish House, I attached the leg to the mannequin. Only the arms were left.
On the way out the final door, I noticed something I had missed before, most likely because this was the door where I'd first entered the courtyard surrounding Wish House and there was no need to go through it again before now. To the left of the double-doors was a sign:
The Outside is filled with dangerous things. If someone goes Outside without an adult's permission, the Master is sad.
"Brainwashing at its best," I muttered, as I opened the door.
The next area was where I'd gotten ambushed by three dog monsters when I was there the first time—my first nearly-fatal mistake, but certainly not my last. However, I didn't have time to dwell on that, as a double-head was already charging at me.
It's bad when they get the chance to attack first. It takes them awhile to do it, but once they start going, they can move pretty fast. Unfortunately, I didn't spot this one until it was already on the move.
I shrieked at the sight of the two screaming infant faces coming at me, as I pulled out my gun and fired. Unfortunately, I'd only gotten two shots in before it caught up to me and took a swipe at me.
I moved out of the way, and yelled at Eileen to do the same, and we ended up moving in opposite directions. It missed me by a hair. Meanwhile, I'd gotten behind it, but Eileen wasn't as fast—it spotted her first, and turned in her direction, about to attack.
She screamed and backed away, too terrified to be able to face it.
"No!" I shouted—more out of reflex than thinking it would actually listen—as I aimed my gun and fired a few more shots until it fell down dead. Maybe shooting the gun with Eileen so close and not next to or behind me was a bad idea—I had risked hitting her. Fortunately I hadn't, but I made a mental note to be more careful in the future.
I went to Eileen and asked if she was okay. She was shaking and trying to hold back tears, but she was unharmed. Still, I held her and did my best to reassure her that it'd be okay and that I wouldn't let anything hurt her.
It took a minute, but she was able to recompose herself and we continued to the next area where there was a well, which held the left arm.
I decided to go ahead and take the arm back and attach it to make things easier later on. Once I did, I noticed that the figure was to be slumped forward with its head down and arms dangling. Only one more piece to go.
Once I backtracked, and went through another gate, it lead to the area with the "Mother Stone"—the area where I met Jasper.
I saw that something was on fire in the distance—something floating high, near one of the giant stones. Then I realized that it was a thin figure that was engulfed in flames. The figure descended, almost to the ground, and began moving in my direction, and that's when I realized I was meeting Jasper for a second time … sort of. This ghost made a strange wheezing sound, like struggled breathing (a reaction to the smoke from the fire that burned him, I guessed), its skin was burned to the point where it glowed red, as if made of still-burning embers. For someone who was a weak-looking waif of a guy in life, his ghost certainly looked threatening.
"Henry!" Eileen urged, tugging on my arm, unsure of what I planned to do.
"Let's go," I said, shaking myself out of the trance I was in. While, on some level, I had somewhat expected to see Jasper's ghost, I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't have a sword with me, so I chose fleeing over fighting for the time being. I'd come back later and deal with it after I'd gotten the sword and my quest to find doll parts was finished.
The next area had only a couple of moths to worry about, which Eileen swatted out of the air, and I stepped on.
Through the gate, we were now coming upon the strange industrial building—ghosts were everywhere and so we rushed through this area, through the next door.
In the next area, we went along a walkway and up a few ramps.
Eileen gasped. "What is that?"
I could see right away what she was looking at—it was the giant worm-thing I'd seen in the subway station. It was just as big as when I'd seen it before, and it was still flesh-colored with brown splotches all over. "It's okay," I said, "it's harmless. But I have no idea what it is." I looked at it for a moment, "but it suddenly reminds me of an umbilical cord," I added, noticing the way it seemed to be connected to the ground and the wall at either end.
"Huh?" she muttered, "Umbilical cord?"
Guess it's just me, then.
A couple gates later, we had come to the last area on this path where we were met by an ape, which I easily dispatched with my gun.
There was also a Holy Candle and a couple more journal entries, again written on stone structures of some kind that were right next to each other:
"'October 4th – My cheek hurts. I hate him.'
"'October 5th – I got hit again. I didn't do anything wrong. I wish he was dead.'"
She shook her head sadly.
As much as I liked the sound of Eileen's voice, I was glad that we wouldn't have to read any more of these entries. I'm sure Eileen was as well.
Finally, I'd found the last well. I illuminated it with the torch and found the right arm. After retrieving it, I threw the torch down. "Won't be needing this anymore," I said, as I stamped out the already dwindling flame. I guess I did it more out of force of habit than anything—all that was here were ghosts and monsters, aside from Eileen and I who would be out of here soon. It's not as if a forest fire would really hurt anything in this case.
We backtracked, but in the very next area, four ape men—who were not there only a moment before—wandered around, chattering anxiously.
I took a deep breath and brought out my gun. "Stay behind me," I said to Eileen, "And close."
"Okay," she said. I heard her getting into position as she did.
We approached the area where the apes were running around. They had all spotted us, and they hopped up and down, beating on their chests, anxiously, as if they just couldn't wait to get their hands on us. As expected, only one charged in our direction.
Using the strategy I came up with in Building world, I waited until it got close enough that I had a good shot, and blasted it in the head. It flew back, tumbled, and lay still.
That worked well, but when I looked around, I noticed that the rest were gone, but I could hear them, their noises coming from all directions.
One thing I had forgotten to take into account is that while these creatures will only attack one at a time, one won't hesitate to get behind me while I'm fighting another one so that if I kill the first one, it can catch me off guard.
"Henry!" Eileen screamed. I turned and saw that she was pointing to the right in the direction of another ape. I didn't wait for this one to come closer, I just started shooting. It took several shots, but it did go down.
Their irritating and repetitive chatter still seemed to be coming from everywhere, keeping me on edge. I couldn't relax until every single one was dead.
I figured that the most logical place for the next one to show up was directly behind me—I did a 180 and, sure enough, that's where it was. This one was a lot closer than the last one, really only a few feet away. I gasped and barely had time to aim—in fact, it was nearly upon me when I fired, but I somehow managed to aim well, and put a bullet through its head.
This was a clever strategy they were using—they were all closing in at once, but they were far enough away from each other that I could only deal with one at a time.
Before I had time to think about where the fourth one was, I heard the sound of Eileen's screams alternating with a few snaps of her chain. When I turned around, the ape creature had gotten hold of her chain and had yanked it away from her.
It actually swung the chain at her—I was surprised that it knew how to use it, I assume it figured it out by watching her—but not before I grabbed Eileen and pulled her close to me, partly to keep her away from the monster, and partly so there was no danger of her getting in the way, as I held the gun out and shot the thing.
I let out a sigh of relief and was about to stomp on the likely-dead creature for good measure, but Eileen turned around and practically fell into my arms, crying, before I had the chance to.
I remembered hearing the chain being flung around and her screaming, and I nearly panicked. "A-Are you okay?" I stammered, "Are you hurt?" as I simultaneously tried to see if there were any bruises on her that weren't there before.
She shook her head. "It never … laid a hand on me … thanks to you," she said, between sobs, her words muffled against my shoulder—apparently it didn't take the chain from her until after she'd gotten her hits in, and the screaming I'd heard was out of fear and not pain. "I just … wish I wasn't so … so useless."
Hearing her say that was heart breaking—she may not have been able to do much fighting, but she was the sole reason I was able to make it this far, and by this point was the only thing keeping me sane. If it was just me, I would have given up by now, or lost my mind in any case. If only she knew. If only I knew how to tell her.
"Don't say that," I said softly, but firmly, holding her tighter, "You're …" I struggled to find the words, but all that would come out was: "… much more of a help than you realize."
I practically winced at my own inability to express myself. What I said sounded completely lame to me, but she seemed to accept it, somewhat, and she eventually calmed down. Once she did, I retrieved her chain from the dead monster's hand for her, and we continued down the path.
At the wall was a hole. I told Eileen that I'd be wanting to get the crested medallion—I had a feeling that we'd need it to get out of this world—and my axe, which she understood, so in I went.
Upon awakening in my room, the first sound I heard was a shatter as the Saint Medallion on my neck broke, followed my own screams of agony as I was suddenly gripped with a vice-like headache that blinded me. There was a haunting somewhere in the bedroom, very close.
I moved to the right, as I normally did when I wanted to get out of bed, but the headache came on stronger, so I rolled to the left, and in my disorientation, I overcompensated and rolled right off the bed, hitting the floor painfully. Fortunately, the headache went away then. I lifted my head and looked over the bed to see something in my open closet.
The shadow of a boy stood there, occasionally looking around and trying to touch things. It was distorted, elongated—the shadow of something that wasn't there, not unlike the shadow I saw in the hospital of the body in the wheelchair. It cried like an infant, but in two voices.
Without hesitating, I got the matches from the living room, but I did hesitate when it came to setting up the candle. I was just so damn tired of the headaches by this point, and they seemed to be getting worse—I wondered if leaving this one ghost alone would make that much of a difference.
No, I thought, I can't afford to be passive about this, especially with the thing being in my damn bedroom. It's either have one headache now, or deal with one every time I come back here.
So I took a deep breath, and approached the closet. As the sound of the apparition's cries became louder, my headache became stronger, until I could barely see what I was doing. I quickly set the candle on the floor in front of it, but then I had to back away until my head cleared again.
"Okay, two headaches," I muttered in frustration as I lit the match. Standing as far away as I could, I reached toward the candle and lit it—I could see the wick just well enough to get the job done. Once I could see the flame grow, I pulled away quickly, shook out the match and stood at the other side of the bed as I waited for the candle to burn all the way down. As it did, the shadow disappeared.
"Oh god," I groaned, "so many …" I shook my head wearily, no longer feeling any sense of accomplishment from ridding my apartment of the hauntings—I was barely able to keep up.
I was beginning to despair, just as Joseph had.
I tried to keep my mind off of it by staying focused on the current task—I retrieved my axe, and the big medallion from the box in the living room, then went back through the hole in the laundry room.