June 9, 1985, midday
It took him only an hour to walk to the drugstore and pick up the list of assorted whatnots on Sister Ann's list. He actually only had to hand the list to Mr. Drogan who was manning the register that day, and the middle-aged man spent all of ten minutes finding the items the sister had requested. The unease in his gut, quiet though it was now that he was nowhere near the church, led Caleb to make his own purchase from his pocket money of a Snickers bar after Drogan assured him that the items for Sister Ann were, indeed, covered by the Home's tab.
He walked slowly back, hoping that the candy bar would help to settle the twisting sensation in his gut, but the closer he got to the church and its sprawling, interconnected labyrinth of halls, buildings, and enclosed courtyards, the worse it got.
Wondering if maybe it wasn't simply a sign of caffeine withdrawal, Caleb spun on his heel and all but ran for the local McDonalds. By the time he got there, his stomach was feeling much better, and he nearly laughed at himself for the action. His amusement at himself didn't keep him from ordering the largest cup of coffee the fast-food joint had on offer, however. He drank it slowly, unwilling to admit, even to himself, that he absolutely did not want to go back to St. Theresa's. After draining the cup, he ordered a second one. He knew two would be enough to make him jittery later, but he couldn't think up any other reason to stall his return to the home. He drank it as slowly as the first, grateful for the first time for the fact that the fast-food coffee was served at roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun. When nothing remained in the styrofoam cup but a few flecks of grounds, Caleb glanced at the decorative clock hung where the employees could easily see it. It was nearing eleven already. Sunday school had been out for almost an hour. This time, he did laugh at himself. He tossed the cup into the trash bin by the door and jogged back to the Home. He forced himself to ignore the rising uneasiness that twisted through his gut the closer he came.
As it wasn't the first time he'd run an errand down to Drogan's drugstore, Caleb knew the procedure. He stopped by Carson's office – luckily, the accountant was out for lunch – and dropped the receipt in the man's in-box, and then headed up to the fourth floor. He'd only been down that particular hall a few times before. It was where the eight Sisters who lived at the Home stayed. There were also a couple of guest rooms set up in case any higher-ups in the church needed to stay over for any reason.
He left the bag from Drogan's outside Sister Ann's room, and wondered (not for the first time) just what the sisters' rooms looked like on the inside. Though he knew how to pick a lock – he and Heck had been taught by David the summer before the older boy had left for good to go to college, using the locks on the doors in the mostly-abandoned classroom area for practice – he also knew that the sisters' rooms were never locked. He didn't want to chance getting caught, though. Just the year before, a man had accidentally wandered into the wrong hallway and walked in on one of the sisters as she was changing for bed. The man had been forcibly ejected from the premises and a Polaroid of his face had been tacked to the bulletin board by the main entrance with a couple of others who had been permanently barred from the Home's services. He didn't know if the same punishment stood for a 'kid' like himself, but he didn't really want to know badly enough to find out.
Caleb turned to retrace his steps back down to the second floor, idly wondering if maybe the churning sensation in his stomach might not be a sign that he was coming down with something and thinking that maybe he should lay down for a while, when something caught his eye. The fourth-floor hallway was dimly lit. Wall sconces placed next to each of the doors put out marginally more light than a nightlight and the windows at either end of the hall weren't in a position to catch much light from outside – the one at the far end from the stairs faced the side of the church proper and was always in shadow and the one at the end with the stairs was on the north side of the building. Regardless of the low light, something on the floor, almost directly under one of the doors, managed to shine with a dull crimson color on the polished hardwood floor.
The twisting sensation that had been plaguing Caleb since Sister Ann showed up in class that morning sharpened painfully as the fourteen year-old cautiously stepped towards the tiny fragment of reflected red light. He knew what it was lying there on the floor, but didn't want to admit it to himself. Caleb ran a shaky hand through his hair and tried to distract himself by wondering if it was time to get the dark brown mass of curls he'd been cursed with hacked back to a length that didn't make him look like a living version of the stone cherub that overlooked the playground.
He looked around, hoping that maybe one of the sisters would make an appearance, so he wouldn't have to actually confirm that what he was seeing was what he thought it was. Sadly, luck was not with him. Caleb folded his gangly limbs and crouched by the door. Since it was the second one from the stairs on the right-hand side, he knew it was Sister Margaret's room. He shook his head to get rid of the thoughts that kept trying to distract him – even though he didn't want to do it, he knew that if that little puddle (maybe its paint) was…well, whatever, then he had a responsibility to do something about it.
Long fingers well-suited to his chosen hobbies of magic tricks and slight-of-hand stretched down and barely brushed the surface of the tiny puddle. The liquid contained in that misshapen splat the size of a silver dollar clung to the tips of his middle and ring fingers. Please, let it be paint. Let it be paint, the thought echoed in his mind, throbbing behind his eyes as he brought his hand up and sniffed the not-so-mysterious substance.
The scent which met his nostrils was neither the sharp, clean scent of wet wall paint, nor the weirdly thick, earthy smell of the tempera used in art class, but a visceral, metallic tang.
It was definitely not paint.
'Under the weather' could mean a lotta things, part of Caleb's mind tried to rationalize, maybe Sis Maggie cut herself helping with breakfast or something. A larger part of his mind countered with the observation that he hadn't seen Sisters Ann or Margaret at breakfast – not altogether an unusual occurrence for either of them: Sister Ann usually didn't partake of the morning meal (eating too soon after waking made her nauseous) and Sister Margaret almost always oversaw the adult volunteers in the kitchen – and if Sister Margaret had hurt herself, she would have gone to the infirmary, not her room. The smallest portion of his brain, rarely heard by the main halves and the same portion that thought chemistry was the most wonderful thing ever invented by mankind (it kinda had a 'thing' for explosions), simply took macabre delight in experiencing a bit of real-life gore.
Caleb stood, reflexively wiping his hand off on the tail of his t-shirt, and knocked on the door. "Sister Margaret?" he tried to say, but all that escaped from his mouth was an embarrassing squeaking noise. He cleared his throat and tried again, knocking a second time. "Sister Margaret? Are you alright?"
When only silence met his question, he took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob. He cast one more hopeful glance around the hallway, desperately hoping for someone to show up and either take over or forcibly eject him from the Home – anything to keep him from opening that door. He knew, with absolute certainty, that whatever waited on the other side of the heavy oak was definitely not something he wanted to see. The steel wire that had been coiling around his innards tightened, growing barbs when his hand connected with the warm brass knob.
The hallway remained silent save for Caleb's own breathing, and no one appeared.
He turned the knob and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.