Once upon a haunted time: a Halloween fic
Chapter 9. The cruelest farewell
Amid a deafening crash of shattering wood, the monstrous spider burst through the ceiling of the room.
Plaster rubble and pieces of wood fell on them. A strong tremor on the ground made them all lose their balance.
A large piece of the coffered ceiling fell on Tiffany.
Stuart shook off his paralysis and ran to her, shouting her name; he jumped up trying to get her to safety. But he didn't quite make it in time. Tiff's body was partially buried; her head began to bleed. Stuart's senses flooded with his old nightmares about Doug and 9/11. Sobbing, he crawled toward Tiff, who lay there, motionless.
The shadow was not going to miss that chance. Isobel saw an appendage shoot out at him.
"Scola, look out!" she tried to warn him.
But it was no use. Besides, Stuart could not see it. The strange tentacle stabbed into his back like a dagger and began to drink eagerly from his anguish. The shadow also absorbed more power from OA's fear.
The spider-monster swooped down on them.
With a shove, it knocked Maggie down and threw her back across the room. There it pinned her to the ground with the claw of one of its paws.
OA let out a panicked scream.
"Come to me," everyone heard in their minds the shadow speaking to OA. It felt like having shards of glass inside their soul. "Come to me and I will let her go safe and sound."
Son of a bitch, thought Isobel in despair. The shadow finally found OA's deepest fear.
Time seemed to stand still, suspended at the edge of an infinite pit.
Maggie and OA's gazes connected from across the room. She didn't ask for his help. She just projected all her fierceness at him.
OA's expression mutated, slowly but inexorably, from the greatest fear to the most burning fury. Isobel smiled internally. It might be the deepest, but it was also the one fear that could never paralyze him.
Rising to his feet, OA picked up the broken coat rack from the floor.
Brandishing it, he let out a defiant bellow. Isobel saw the shadow remove the appendage from OA as if he burn. The spider visibly retracted.
Another burst of hatred hit them again.
Using the broken end of the coat rack, OA attacked the monster, stabbing it in the lower thorax. The spider's aberrant face let out an angry roar... but it didn't even move. OA pulled out his improvised weapon and thrust it again in rage. This time, the fiendish creature's face simply smiled mockingly around its massive fangs and regenerated its wounds.
Isobel looked at Stuart and knew that, as long as it continued to feed on him, it would be impossible to defeat the shadow's physical manifestations.
Next to her, Jubal struggled against his weakness, trying to get up. Isobel had to make a decision that broke her in two.
Heartbroken at having to leave Jubal alone, she ran staggering from her chest pain to Stuart, who cradled Tiffany's head, his eyes blank, lost in shadow-induced delirium.
Praying Tiff was still alive, Isobel grabbed the tentacle impaling Stuart, and pulled. He let out a surprised cry of pain. It didn't stop her; Isobel pulled and pulled.
To her surprise, Jubal was beside them. Crawling, but he managed to get there.
Jubal's rational mind simply did not understand what Isobel was doing. She seemed to have lost her mind, fighting against invisible things. However, his heart... it trusted her. It trusted her with his life.
Even though his body was failing him, he tried to help; grabbing her by the waist, he pulled as well. As much as his weakened strength would allow.
However, it was all to no avail. OA continued attacking and the wounds continued closing. Isobel realized with desolation that it was not possible to remove the tentacle from Stuart unless he himself also fought against it. Unfortunately, her friend seemed beyond her reach.
"Stuart," Tiffany murmured, barely regaining consciousness.
It was the spark of hope he needed. Isobel could sense him starting to resist. She pulled again. Jubal did too. The appendage began to come out.
The monster, furious, reacted by cruelly tightening its grip on Maggie, who struggled under its claw. It dug into her flesh, drawing blood from her torso.
"No!" Jubal and Isobel screamed, horrified.
More tentacles sprouted toward them.
OA did not scream. He charged.
Using the coat rack as a spear, he rammed into the creature on the run. He pushed it away from Maggie and kept thrusting. He impaled her almost from end to end. The more force he exerted, the less resistance he encountered, for it was the irresistible impulse of his will that the spider-monster was unable to overcome. To Isobel, it was a dazzling light enveloping OA and his spear.
The shadow redirected its appendages to attack him. But his light repelled them like armor.
With a final lunge, OA nailed the creature against the wall. A supernatural Saint George. It died amidst a shrill, deafening shriek. Its legs slowly curled in on themselves.
Stunned, Isobel watched that light ascend the puppet strings to the shadow, which shuddered violently.
In Isobel's hands, the tentacle attached to Stuart also turned into ashes. He suddenly awoke from his trance.
Although each of their movements required immense effort, Jubal and Isobel helped him free Tiffany, who was blinking, fighting unconsciousness.
Meanwhile, OA took Maggie in his arms.
The shadow was becoming dense again over their heads.
"Come on, let's go!" Isobel exclaimed, looking up.
Breathing heavily, and holding each other, they ran towards the exit she indicated.
They stepped outside, and off the porch. The wet gravel of the road dug into Isobel's bare feet, the cold rain soaked into her bones. Jubal was beside her. Holding him and leaning on him allowed her to be able to ignore all of it.
Wounded, covered in dirt and scratches, clothes in tatters; limping, staggering, stumbling, tripping and helping others to get back up, they all hurried away from the house.
Then Isobel heard a voice inside her head, sweetly calling her name. Her heart skipped a beat and her feet stopped dead. A voice she thought she would never hear again.
"Don't leave me..."
Her mother's voice.
The others had stopped as well. Jubal slowly moved away from her, and Isobel felt the cold digging its teeth into her flesh.
Instinctively she knew everyone had heard someone different.
Jubal heard Rina. OA, his father. Tiffany, hers. Stuart, Douglas.
Maggie Jason.
"Don't leave me, please," Isobel's mother pleaded, and now she sounded behind them, as if she were right there.
With an almost unbearable pain in her chest, Isobel could feel one of the shadow's appendages slowly piercing her back like a cold steel blade. She closed her eyes tightly and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Nothing she had felt that day, no matter how agonizing and painful, could ever compare to the suffering this subjected her soul to.
Because Isobel felt the loss as raw as when her death happened years ago but now her mother was there. Right there. The fact she only had to turn around to be reunited with her forever. And then nothing could take her away from Isobel ever again.
She didn't know how, but suddenly she knew the others were feeling the same torment. Her pain was multiplied by each one of theirs.
Her mother called her sweetly again.
"Isabelita..."
It also made her understand she had to fight against that conviction, to realize it actually came from the shadow and that she had to renounce it. It made it even more painful.
Isobel didn't know if she would have the strength. It was easier to give up. Much easier.
She cursed the shadow. She cursed it with all her hatred. But it did no good.
About to turn, Isobel reached out blindly, desperately searching for something to hold on to so as not to let herself be carried away, so as not to turn around and embrace her doom and, with it, the doom of the rest.
What she found was Jubal's hand. For an eternal instant, he hesitated as she intertwined her fingers with his.
Then, he clung to her like a lifeline. It was the grip Isobel needed.
"Don't listen," she told them all, her throat tightening, "Don't listen and don't look back."
Isobel started walking toward the cars on shaky legs.
She let out a raged sigh of relief when she felt Jubal follow her. He in turn grabbed Stuart by the arm. Stuart pulled Tiffany closer, taking her with him. Tiffany managed to grab OA by the wrist and pulled him along. With his arm around Maggie's shoulders, OA tried to pull her away as well.
Isobel heard her mother again, calling out to her, and she pressed on, the heart broken into a thousand pieces.
But Maggie... Maggie could not ignore Jason's voice. She turned her head.
And she saw him there. Standing in the rain and with a look of sad longing on that face she had loved so much. A look that made her sob, fresh tears fusing with the rain on her face.
"Maggie," Jason called out, smiling tenderly at her, holding out his hand, "Don't leave me... Stay, Maggie," he begged. "Stay with me."
Everyone stopped again at the sound of the voices of their dead loved ones.
"Don't listen! Don't look back!" repeated Isobel almost frantically, pulling Jubal and with him everyone else.
"Maggie!" OA called her with anguish, trying to get her to walk with him. To his utter despair, she remained motionless.
The wind whipped the rain against them.
"How…? How dare you?" Maggie then snarled in dull anger. Shaking her head, she spat disdainfully at Fake Jason's feet. "He would never have asked me that."
Only then did she let OA pick her up and carry her away.
Isobel noticed the cold and most of the pain leaving her chest at last.
They practically ran to the cars through the rain, lightning and thunder.
Still dazed, Tiffany clumsily slipped the car key she took from Maggie's nightstand into Stuart's palm.
"I love you," Stuart assured Tiffany in a whisper, his eyes shining.
"I know," she replied with a slightly embarrassed murmur.
Unlocking the car, he hurriedly helped her into the passenger seat, while OA climbed in the back with Maggie on his lap, and Isobel and Jubal got in through the other door. Stuart got behind the wheel.
The storm became more furious than ever. Stuart started up and skidded out of there, skidding and blasting gravel off the road behind them, finally leaving the house behind.
When they came out onto the paved road, Jubal looked like he was about to faint, but he slipped his arm around Isobel's shoulders. He must have noticed she was trembling. She didn't even think about rules or regulations; she just snuggled against him.
Isobel looked at them all, taking stock of their condition and their very real injuries. How on earth were they going to explain to the real world what had happened to them that fateful night?
Worse, how could their own rational minds take it on?
She sighed. This is going to be a paperwork nightmare. Jubal chuckled under his breath and she realized she thought it out loud.
They still had to get to safety, to have their wounds treated, but the sound of his quiet laughter left, the reverberation in his chest, the soft kiss he placed in her forehead, let Isobel know she could get through what happened.
She looked at Maggie, in OA's arms, her head resting on his shoulder, at Stuart, driving with one hand and Tiffany's in the other.
It was finally clearing up.
We'll be fine. As long as we have each other, we'll be fine.
~ The End ~
Author' note: We reached the end. It's been a challenge! I hope you all enjoyed it. Much appreciated thanks to those who favorited, posted reviews, and helped me with this story. You're amazing!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!