Nurse Belham tapped her finger impatiently on the aged wooden surface. She didn't much care for being sent to the front desk for the night. Nothing happens in this town. Only the regular junkie or miscreant come limping through here for a quick patch up before being released into the wild to do it all over again.
Belham's eyes followed the lone fin of the ceiling fan spinning round and round; ready to fly free at any moment. The naked bulb hung from a single string dragged the ugly green glow of the town inside. The unpolished floor tiles did little for the atmosphere, giving the hospital an derelict feeling that no respectable ward would dare have.
Belham found her leg bobbing in place. Was she really that bored? She often wondered about leaving Weeks for the next town over, or -if she had the available funds- the next country over. But something about the small town left an eerie impression that you couldn't escape from. Something insidious hung in the air. Something that could only be described as evil. An evil so vast that escape was pointless.
He reeked of it. The boy from the scrapyard, Dwight; He was drenched in that nameless evil leaving an invisible stain wherever he went. Everyone could see it: the doctors, the staff, and her all saw the dark shadow that followed him.
In a silent agreement they patched him up and let him go as fast as possible, not wanting that evil to corrupt their beloved town further; if such a thing was even possible. No, this place was dead. The few fools that remain were the dying breaths of a once great town.
Guilt gnawed at Belham's heart. She should have said something, given the boy some sort of warning, but she didn't. Something in her brain begged her not to, that maybe if she ignored it that it would simply go away. So, she put on the smiling face he needed to see and saw him out.
Belham reached under the front desk and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She turned to check the time. The old clock was missing a few numbers and would often grow attached to a random minute making perfect time management impossible. It told her that her break was probably in three minutes or was three minutes ago. Nurses weren't supposed to smoke, but the hospital has fallen so far from health code standards that a little smoke was the least of their worries.
Belham didn't waste time pondering the matter of Dwight's disappearance. She lit her cigarette and took a drag. Whatever it was, was something far beyond her on the cosmic stage. A nameless director with with a malicious intent beyond comprehension. Belham should have been a poet. She at least believed she had a knack for it. She could wax on and on about the nameless evil.
Should couldn't remember exactly when the evil arrived at their doorstep. It simply was or wasn't there. No in between, no transition. It arrived out of nowhere and became a fact of life.
The disappearances began before she was born, back when the town had a bustling mine from that one nameless estate gladly forgotten. When the mines collapsed and those workers died it set the tone for what Weeks would become: A home to tragedy.
As if at the mere thought summoned it, the front doors flew open and a small dark silhouette stood in the frame. He was small but held a strong presence that forced you to look at him. The stranger's shadow crawled along the floor, swiping at her ankles. In the dull fluorescent light Belham saw a mask with a crudely painted smile over featureless white. The man in a mask emanated evil in invisible waves.
The scent of blood sucker punched the nurses nostrils. She was use to the smell, but this was something else, something much stronger. A scent stronger than any slaughter or butcher's shop put together. A third ingredient to the devilish cocktail that was the stranger.
Nurse Belham's chair fell right from under her. Her cigarette flying free from her lips. She hit the cracked marble floor with a thud. Her brain pounded in protest, bouncing back and forth in her skull. When she got up, the masked man was standing in front of her desk.
"Fairfield." he spat. Heavy breathing reverbing from the inside of the smiling grimace.
"What?" The nurse asked and regretted it instantly.
The masked man grabbed her by her collar and pulled out the dirty knife from his pocket. Oh my god! Is that fresh blood? He pulled her front half over the desk, spilling cups of pens and stacks of business cards to the floor.
"Fairfield!" he repeated louder. His voice trembling, trying not to crack. A little boy trying to deepen his voice to be a man. His knife was shaking in his hands. "Where is he?"
"Dwight? The boy from yesterday? He's gone! We let him go yesterday!" Belham said as fast as she could. Her words flowing like rapid river. She didn't know why the man wanted her former patient and she didn't care. She was face to face with evil.
The masked man clawed at his mask in frustration.
"Where? WHERE? Where did he go?" he screamed at the top of his lungs. It wasn't out of anger. Belham had seen her fair share of angry people, usually strapped to one of the hospitals medieval gurneys. No, there was fear in the boy's voice. Genuine fear. His words shaking like a patient with Parkinson's.
"Answer me!" He roared.
The commotion caught the attention of hospital security. Two fairly burly guards paid to handle the more intrusive patients rushed to the lobby. Their blue uniforms an unmistakable icon of their authority and their sidearms even more so.
Belham took the opportunity to run. She slipped past the masked man, her heart skipped a beat when her skin touched his tainted hoodie.
Belham's footsteps echoed down the hospital's halls, drowning out the yelling and screaming behind her. You knew this would happen. Did you believe yourself to be an exception? You knew one day the evil would come for you as it has the others.
Belham ran through the harrowing halls. Past the barred cells containing the sick and insane. They felt it to. The evil has come.
An old man, who's beard reached the floor in messy gray locks, pressed his face against the bars. His eyes staring off in two different and distinct directions. He opened his toothless maw and howled like a wild beast. A high pitched wail that bounced off the walls. Other patients scratched against their cells and did the same. A sick symphony of suffering crying out for the nurse's demise.
Belham didn't stop running. She didn't stop running when she could no longer hear the screaming, and she kept running when she heard the gunshots in the lobby. She didn't stop, she couldn't stop. Against all odds she was certain that the man in the mask was still after her. An unstoppable force molded to take human form.
Belham turned the corner and pressed herself against the wall. She leaned around the corner and listened carefully. Silence. Nothing. Only the constant buzz of the lights overhead and her beating heart.
Was he gone? Is it safe? Did the guards get him? Belham took a slow deep breath before turning the corner and-
The masked man tackled the nurse to the floor. Her back grind up against the dirt and grim. Forced this close, Belham could hear the boy's heart about to explode in his chest. He was just as terrified as she was.
"I can do this." He muttered to himself. "I can do this. I don't need them. I can do this myself!"
The masked man raised his knife high above his head. The dagger's point ready to rip and tear into its next victim. The knife plunged into her shoulder. Belham let out a blood curdling scream. He tore the blade from her shoulder and stabbed her again and again and again.
Skin split like paper and muscles torn like fabric. Nurse Belham raised her arms to shield herself from the relentless assault. The masked man was more than happy to add a few more cuts to his growing collection.
She saw the darkness in his eyes. Behind that mask was someone or something truly primordial. Something as old as the universe itself. It had its claws in him, but not completely. Wrapped around his will in a vice grip shackled to a post. How else could he hold back the ravenous fiery just shy of killing her?
Belham laid there, in a pool of her own blood. The masked man was muttering words of encouragement as if talking to someone else in the room. He raised his knife one last time for the killing blow. His hands began shaking. His chest rose and fell like a jackhammer. And in that moment of hesitation Belham closed her eyes and slipped away.
Dwight sat with his back straight and his hands over his knees. He had the house all to himself. Derek was off at school, his father was at his office job and his mother was buying all of Dwight's favorite foods from the store. The house was silent and still. It was time to breath.
He did a quick run down of the rest of the house while everyone was away. He didn't want anymore surprises. Thankfully nothing went under such a dramatic transformation as his room did. A little furniture rearranged here, a new color on the walls there, but for the most part it was the same old house, same old home. Dwight silently debated whether this was for better or for worse. Old memories lingered in the details set to remind him of troubled times, yet the familiarity was a comfort from the horror he ran from.
That only he ran from. Only he successfully ran from. Everyone else was…
Dwight refused the thought to form in his mind. An absolute truth that he didn't wish to face. He forced his attention back the house. There were some pictures of his parents with Derek. Dusted and frame on shelves, counters and walls. Some were of natural settings like sports games, landmarks and the forest-
No, no don't think about that. Don't think about that at all! Think about what? Exactly! So don't think about it! House. House. Nothing but a house on a pleasant suburb street.
TV. TV would be the perfect distraction. There's a million things to watch on TV. At least one has to keep him preoccupied.
Dwight walked into the modest living room. Consisting of a small box TV, a worn coffee table and a three person couch. The walls ooze sentimental knick knacks on full display. There was an air of nostalgia that tasted bitter in Dwight's mouth.
Dwight sank into the cushion when he took a seat on the couch. The old furniture had slight holes and tears poorly sewn together. Stuffing oozed from the bar of strings and fiber.
Dwight turned on the TV. After the short buzz of static there was a woman holding a microphone somewhere in town.
"At this rate, the number of missing persons cases have piled up at the sheriff's office since yesterday. Reports are saying that most of the alleged victims have been students of the local high school, leaving parents demanding efforts be made to increase security. Witness say that-"
The screen when to black and Dwight set the remote down on the coffee table. So, the TV is off the table. Nothing could on TV anyway. Bad for the brain as most would say. What else could he do to distance himself from the haunting visions.
Dwight's gaze wandered to the pictures of Derek. The adopted son was at a sports game of some sort, holding a big golden trophy that Dwight recognized in his room. He was surrounded by his teammates in matching jerseys. They worked together to achieve a goal and without them, Derek would have surely lost.
A team, a family survived together. Friends. Dwight pulled out his phone. The screen cracked due to the wear and tear of the fog. Only now in the real world had he had a chance to charge it.
The idea was sound undercut with dread. Dwight punched in his passcode. The screen shining a harsh bright light into his eyes that even the sunglasses had trouble blocking out.
He dragged the search bar into frame. The blank rectangle asking "Who first?" Dwight wondered the same.
Dwight knew about where his friends came from. They're backstory and history were nothing new to him. It was what happened afterwards that tickled his interest. What became of their friends and families? Was there anything for them to go back to? The spark of hope inside him told him that when he sees his friends again, they'd want to be caught up on what happens.
His fingers rested on the sides of the screen. Dwight wanted more than anything to type out his friends' names, see who they were before the fog, maybe go to their loved ones and tell them the truth.
No, he couldn't do that for the same reasons he couldn't confess to his own parents. It would only serve to distraught them and give him a one way ticket to the loony bin. Still, it couldn't hurt to satisfy his own curious craving.
His finger on the enter key, shaking. The weight of responsibly heavy on his shoulders. What if he doesn't like what he sees? What if he learns too much and than couldn't stop himself from seeing the ghosts of the past? Even worse, what if he learned that all this time they had lied to him? When they first met, when they first poured their hearts out to each other as a symbol of trust and friendship that they had lied to him? And after seemingly years in the fog that the lie became the foundation of their survival. A foundation that was the one thing holding them together.
No, that was crazy? They wouldn't lie. Why would they? They've been through so much together that they were a family. A bond held them together that not even It could break apart!
But what if they had? Jake, Meg, Claudette, what if they lied to him since the beginning? They wouldn't think to spend so much time with a loser like him. Little did they know that they would spend a lifetime running, hiding, and dying in the fog. Revealing the lie would taint the few good memories they shared. Of times where they would gather around the campfire and sing songs. How they would share their hopes and dreams under a starless sky. They comforted each other in their darkest moments and -for a brief second- they could forget where they were and pretend to be home.
Dwight couldn't bare to even risk it. He pulled back and turned away. Unable to bear the burden of thought,
They wouldn't lie. No way. They would never. Not to him, not in the fog.
Dwight got up from the sale marshmallow that was the couch. A perfect imprint of his backside etched in the aged leather.
The others were his friends, his best friends! They wouldn't lie, but some hidden insecurity whispered that they did. Something that told him that Dwight could never have friends without there being some sort of catch.
Dwight wasn't the most popular kid growing up. He'd spent countless hours hiding in plain sight, a ghost in the crowd. He was use to distant gazes of passers by. No one noticed him and he like it that way. Maybe that was his weakness when he was dragged into the woods? No one noticed until it was too late.
But they saved him in the fog. They helped him off bloody hooks and tangled wires. His friends saved him when he couldn't save himself and somehow they made him feel life was worth living, even in the fog.
Dwight walked upstairs to his distorted bedroom plastered with someone else's happy memories. He collapsed on his bed in bitter defeat.
They're all gone. He told himself. They were gone for good. There was only him now. You're alone. Everything from that place was gone and was never coming back.
The sun was beginning to set. Dwight pulled the sheets over his head and willed himself to rest. He didn't need another reminder of the horror behind him. Content that it was better left tucked away as an unpleasant memory.
Frank charged through the jagged branches and sharp underbrush. He made a conscience effort to stay away from the road. They'd be looking for him. For what he did, there was no question that they'd be looking for him.
He messed up. Fuck, he messed up! He should have finished her off when he had the chance!
Frank, stilling clutching the dripping knife in his hand, held his wrist to his bleeding shoulder. That overpaid mall cop grazed him. The bullet just missing the bone and tunneling straight through him. In any other circumstance, he'd consider himself lucky.
A wave of numbness washed over his shoulder. Beneath the skin was a sharp burning sensation as though Frank was being pricked with tiny hot daggers, but none of them stabbing him.
Why couldn't he do it? Frank had her right where he wanted her. Helpless, defenseless, she was at his mercy and he couldn't do it! Frank cursed his own cowardice.
They could have done it. If they were here none of this would have happened. That couple in the orphanage or those guards would have been taken care of if the others were here.
But they're not. Frank was on his own. He can't afford to bring attention like that on him again. All that turmoil for a simple point in the right direction. Fairfield might not even be in the next town or he might have driven halfway across the state or even the country!
Frank was no stranger to trouble. He's spent more time in detention than he did the classroom; hence the detention. At school he'd gotten in countless brawls, pulled numerous pranks and practical jokes at others' expense, but he never got as far as he did when he had his Legion.
Frank was tired and out of breath. He slumped up against a rotting tree that had the perfect slope to rest on. From how far he ran, he hoped he was at least a quarter of the way there. If not, at least beyond the reach of Weeks' finest. Susie would have had that figured out. She was good with nerd stuff. Joey could have help fend off the guards while he went for the nurse and would have taken the bullet for Frank. And Julie… Julie would keep Frank running until they found Fairfield. Her presence motivator enough to keep Frank going. She would never let them stop until their prey was whimpering and bleeding alone in a small secluded alley.
But they're not here to help you. You can't use them as a crutch. You're on your own, just the way you like it, right?
A terrible thought slithered in his mind and wormed its way to the center. It had his Legion. Susie, Joey, and most of all Julie. Julie… In the claws of It… The idea was almost too much to bare.
It was at Its whims that Frank was given a second chance. He was told to hunt, to redeem himself as worthy. Were the others so lucky? Were they given a chance?
They could be dead. They could be dying and it's all your fault.
"They shouldn't have followed me!" Frank cursed as he struggled to catch his breath. "They should have known better than to follow me in that fucking fog!"
But they did. They followed you to a realm beyond imagination and now their fate is bound to yours'.
Then the thought arise of failure. Not only sealing his fate, but theirs as well. His -dare he say it?- friends would be lost in that endless fog. The things that lurk within will turn on them. Hunt them for sport like those weaklings like Fairfield!
Frank unrolled his sleeve. Wrapped around his wrist was a bracelet beaded in four colored strings threaded in between four beads. Each bead had a single letter printed on it, spelling out F, J, S, J. Frank cradled the friendship bracelet close to his heart. Behind the blood he could smell a faint whiff of Julie's sweet perfume tickle his nostrils.
Julie. The small town girl that saw him for what he could be. Frank still remembers the day they first met. He getting the lay of that terrible mountain town he was stuck in. He was already thinking about how to escape it when he first laid eyes on her.
No one noticed him. He was living specter among the townsfolk, but she saw him. She saw him as many things. A way out of the town she was condemned to, a mysterious stranger she had to get to know better, and someone who knew that she could be so much more than what others saw her as. This made Julie the one person he wanted to impress. He slicked back his hair, popped a mint in his mouth and said hello. The rest was history, bloody fun history.
No! Frank refused to accept that fate! Fairfield will be the prey, not them! The Legion will live on! Frank balled up his free hand into a fist and pounded it against the rotting oak. The surge of adrenaline running through him, threw him to his feet. Splinters embedded in his knuckles, molding and festering. It's fine, he'll deal with it later. He has more important matters to deal with.
The moon crept above the trees as the sun slept. He would have to move. He wanted to put as much distance as he could from the town of Weeks. There was nothing for him there, nothing at all.
She woke up in the infirmary ward bandaged head to toe. The crowd of doctors breathing a sigh of relief. Belham was lucky to be alive.
The doctors had her hooked up to every machine available. Her bedside neighbors were the familiar boys in blue looking only slightly better off than she did. From the looks of it, one would think the three were attacked by a swarm of blenders. Cuts and stabs painted all over their bodies.
Belham struggled to stay away. Her eyes were heavy and she faded in and she struggled to remain in the waking world. Blood lost. Has to be blood lost with a minor concussion, she deduced by the throbbing pain in the back of her.
In the mist of the swarming doctors asking her a million questions at once were a few more officers. They held little notebooks with pens scribbling madly the descriptions given to them. Belham swore she could hear a dog barking outside in the front lobby. There would be a search for the man in the mask.
A cold breeze grazed her shoulder. A chill crawled up her spine. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw something move. No, no someone. Some people. A group of three closely knit teenagers were leaning up against the putrid green wall. One boy and two girls.
The boy standing closest to the door. One hand around his wrists and the other in a fist. He was slightly taller than the girls. His eyes painted over with dark ash on a brutish looking face. One of the girls had her hoodie pulled over her face while the other girl proudly showed off her pink dyed hair.
All of them staring directly at Belham with the same hunger as him. The heartbeat monitor spiked. The machine beeping like a runner in a marathon.
Belham tried to tell the doctors something, but they were lost in their own swarm of duties and questions that her words fell upon deaf ears. Belham reached out for one of the policemen and saw that they were already leaving the room with looks of satisfaction plastered on their face. They were focused on the adventurous hunt ahead, ignorant to the beasts behind them.
The pink haired girl walked up to her and bared her metal braced smile. Her gaze could cut glass. A slight twitch in her eye made her all the more unsettling. She turned back to the wall and waited.
The three waited there for the rest of the day. Belham couldn't tell how much time has passed. A mixture of morphine and fear loosened her grip on reality. A blink later and it was dark. The lights dimmed to accommodate the sleeping patients. The three were out of sight.
"Frank couldn't finish her? Are we sure he was here?" A deep voice whispered in the dark.
"If Frank was here, he would have cut her to ribbons! She just has a paper cut!" A scratchy, high pitched voice retorted.
There was a grunt in the shadow. A small sharp hiss of disapproval just out of view.
"Geez Julie, I'm just saying! Frank would have finished the job!"
"Stop bitchin, Susie!" The boy said. "We gotta know where to find Frank and she knows where!"
There was huff of agreement then the three emerged before her. Three masked grimaces stared back at the helpless nurse. One broken into pieces held together by twisted braces. Another a bandanna painted white with holes cut out for the eyes. Lastly was the marker on white, but instead of a crude smile there was a red X over the mouth.
The three inched closer, pushed by an invisible force like statues. The quiet one pulled a knife from her pocket -a twin to the masked man's- and stabbed at the nurse's cast. She hardly felt at thing. A small tendril of pain rain up her arm before disappearing entirely. The clear sign of indifference angered the masked woman. She pulled the knife free and stabbed again. Still, very little pain, but this time it was more pronounced, its presence was known but not unbareable.
Belham tried to scream for help when the boy pressed his hand over her mouth. She could smell the blood still fresh on his pitch black gloves. Blood and muck spilling out over her face and into her mouth. She gagged, huffing and heaving at the smell she'd long since grown sick of.
He looked to the pink girl and she brandished her own weapon; a broken ruler whittled to a point with compass needles taped to the sides.. She walked up to the IV drip at the nurse's bedside. Giving the bag a few good taps with her ruler.
"Morphine." She said. "Would be a shame if someone were to say... cause a leak?" Although she didn't see it, Belham could easily imagine the metal smile grinding behind that mask. The pink girl raised her ruler and stabbed the back. Precious medicine spilled onto the floor. Expensive medicine made useless by children.
The pink girl giggled madly. "She should be feeling it any moment now. Stab her again, Julie!"
The quiet one gave a subtle nod. She raised her blade high above her head before jamming it firmly into Belham's shoulder. The nurse's screamers rendered mute, muffled by the brute's hand. The blade scraping the bone.
"A few more inches to the right. Where the shoulder meets the collarbone. That's where you'll do the most damage." Susie pointed to the stitched together wound on the nurse's right shoulder.
The one called Julie aimed her knife as instructed and plunged the blade into nurse's flesh. She bobbed it from side to side, wedging the blade into her shoulder. The man leaned in real close. His breath stank of a cheap, sugary orange flavored drink.
"Where. Is. Frank?" He growled.
Nurse Belham shook her head and the boy lifted his hand from her face, still cupped encase she decides to scream.
"Please! I don't know who you're talking about? Just let me live!" She pleaded.
"She's lying! She knows where he is! He was just here!" Susie hissed.
Julie slammed her fist on top of Belham's shoulder. The pain shot down her arm and made it numb. There was a loud crack and then a deaf pop. The arm held desperately beneath the skin. The girl dislocated her arm from its socket with surprising strength given her size.
"I'm gonna ask one last time. Where is Frank! Man is a mask, just like ours?" The boy pointed to his own mask with one gloved finger. "The mask of the Legion?"
The white smiling grimace flashed before Belham's eyes. Blood splattering on the crudely drawn smile. The heavy breathing behind the mask and the inky shadow that followed him wherever he went. That was Frank.
"The town next over! He should be going to the town next over!"
"Why? Why would he go there?"
"I don't know! He kept asking about a patient we had here! Dwight Fairfield! He might be following him; I don't know! Just please don't hurt me! PLEASE!-"
The boy pressed his arm against her throat, muting her cries for help. He looks to the other two with a suspicious glare.
"You think she's telling the truth?"
"I'm not sure. Why would Frank be after this Fairfield dude?" Susie asked. "Doesn't seem like him to do that."
Julie wiped the bloody blade on her sleeve. A small crimson streak tattooed on her denim jacket. Belham watched as she scoured the room for evidence, any contradiction to confess that the nurse was lying. She walked back into the darkness, returning with a crumpled up newspaper smelling slightly of garbage.
The teenager unraveled the paper and printed on the front behind a used wad of gum was a black and white portrait of one Dwight Fairfield. The headlines read "Teenage boy found after being missing for a whole year!"
"Missing? Could he be from the fog?" Susie asked.
"He looks like prey." The boy added.
"And weak. Don't forget weak, Joey."
Joey gave a half chuckle. "Looks like one of the boys me and Frank would pound on for lunch money back at school!"
The trio collectively laughed at the pleasant memory of their leader. Their cheery fit stopped on a dime. A harsh silence fell over the room. The teenager's hungry eyes turned to the bed bound Belham, cornered and helpless.
Belham struggled to find the strength to speak. A river of blood spitting from her shoulder draping a warm blanket down her side. Her sterile white bed sheets stained crimson. Her fingers wrapped in a sticky glove of dried red grim. Her head full of feathers. Belham's thoughts scrambled with the amount of blood loss.
"You know where he's going. Please just let me go. I won't tell anyone you were here. I promise!"
The three masked figures turned to each other. Without a word they silently argued between each other on the next step. Their gaze shooting signals directly to their brains like some sort of human hive mind.
Susie griped her ruler till her knuckles burned white. Joey kept one hand around the other, holding himself back until a verdict has been reached. Julie was the hardest to read. She stood there in her shroud of silence. Her fingers dancing around the hunting knife in her hand.
The three nodded in unison. An agreement has been meant. Belham's heart pounding in her chest. Her clean hand drenched in clammy sweat. The nurse watched the trio head for the door. They were going to let her go. She was going to live to see another day!
Than Susie flicked off the lights. The neighboring patients cried and complained at the veil pulled over them. Belham held her breath, her eyes darting in the black suffocating her. She heard a twisted giggled like corkscrews being drilled into your ears.
The ruler slipped into her skin. Wooden splinters breaking off and burrowing into her flesh. Another knife ran through her gut, puncturing her stomach like a needle to a balloon. One last blade slipped between her ribs. Heavy breathing mere inches from her face. Belham could barely see the red X on her attacker's mask. She was closer than the others. She wanted this to be personal, a sick intimacy that the teenager desperately craved.
Nurse Belham dreamed of leaving the town of Weeks, to put the horrid history behind her and go work for a much better hospital, maybe finish her degree and become a doctor herself, but she never did. The evil she intimately knew could reach out its black tendrils and drag her back wherever she went. Something so inescapable as the passage of time. Something as inevitable as death.