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2024-10-29 19:42:56“We have matching luggage again,” Janice joked as Byron settled into his usual spot and set up the tape recorder.
“Hmm?” he asked, confused at her odd remark.
“It's from an old horror movie...don't remember which one.”
“I'm a little slow today, didn’t catch it,” Byron said, forcing a smile.
“The bags under our eyes.” she pointed at his face.
“Oh. Yeah, I had a long night.”
“She got in your head again, didn't she?”
“Miss Rosse...” Betsy said, a warning in her voice.
“No, it's alright,” Byron assured the guard. “Let her talk.”
Betsy returned to her usual silence, but both Byron and Janice noticed her hand rested a little bit closer to her taser.
“I don't know how she's getting to you. The trigger is being alone with me, but you've never been.” Janice
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Broken Night 23
Anyone who has spent any serious amount of time in prison can tell you there are feelings in the air. If you are to survive for any amount of time with your sanity intact, you learn to read them and learn to duck if the feeling turns into shit hitting the fan. It was all part of the new skill set you learned while incarcerated, though Janice doubted that was what politicians were talking about when they pushed their inmate training programs.The whole time she was standing in line for lunch, she was picking up on the feeling big-time. She knew better than to look behind her, doing so would be a sign of weakness and showing weakness was a sure way to turn feelings into flying fecal matter. But if she did, she would see dozens of eyes drilling holes into her back. Something was up, and it was about her.Janice allowed the cafeteria worker to fill her tray with her guaranteed 2,000 calories, a small scoop of beans, fried rice, and a cup of fruit, w
Broken Night 24
Between the hallucinations and attention of her fellow inmates, Janice had taken to spending her free time in the library, under the kind and watchful eye of Norma Schelle. She wasn't sure why the skinny, bookish woman made her feel safer, but she couldn't deny that she did.Janice set down her book, Eleanor Cameron's The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Kingdom, and walked over to the front desk.Here goes nothing. She thought to herself.“Hey, if you're not busy, could you um… help me with something?”Norma looked up and smiled, “I'm so rarely busy here. What is on your mind?”“Well… um… I'm thinking about writing a book.”“Oh, that's wonderful! I always knew you were the sort of girl who would not be content with living in other people's worlds forever.”“Yeah, well… I have this idea, but I'm sort of stuck.”
Broken Night 25
The camera swept across a beautiful landscape, rolling hills, and serene forests, while soft piano music played in the background. Slowly, we move toward a small U.S. town, serene and charming as those from the writings of Bradbury. The camera travels down one of the small, one-lane streets, there we see a man mowing his lawn, then another washing his sensible (but stylish) car. As we move on, a smartly dressed business woman carries her briefcase into an official-looking building while a group of little girls skip rope.Suddenly, the sky grows dark. The soft piano music turns into a pulsing electronic beat, sinister and full of threats of unknown violence. The children freeze, a pigtailed blonde caught mid skip, her smile of joy turned to a silent scream of terror by the sudden lack of motion. Seconds later, an audible scream comes from somewhere off camera, high and pained, like that woman being tortured.Fade to black.Byron laughed to himse
Broken Night 26
Weeks passed in a blur. There was a flurry of investigations and Janice found herself questioned not once but thrice by official-looking people in suits with flashy badges, representing bureaus and branches Janice didn't even have names for. It was well known she recently had a dispute with “the deceased'' (which is all these official people ever called Rodriguez). She convinced them all in turn that she hardly knew the girl and wasn't anywhere near when she took her own life in the showers. She insisted again and again until they at least seemed to believe she had no idea where the girl got the razorblade she used for the deed.Janice made herself convincing as possible, playing the tough inmate and scared little girl in equal measures as the situation dictated. Finally, after all the investigations came to nothing, things went back to normal.The other two women who harassed Janice on that day never spoke to her again, but she saw them sometimes wat
Broken Night 27
“You know the rest.” At this point, Janice was crying but not weeping or gasping for air. Byron was once again impressed by her. “I found her in the bathroom, bleeding on the tile. She died in my arms. All the bouncer saw was the crazy girl screaming at thin air moments before now holding a stabbed corpse. It was pretty clear to him what happened, and from there, it was pretty clear to everyone what happened to all my friends. Even though they couldn't find the knife that Kelly was stabbed with, everything else lined up all too well.”“I was the only constant.”Byron nodded speechlessly. In the corner, Betsy wiped her tears.“The worst part is I keep thinking about what she must have seen, right before...you know? Did she think that I... that I hurt her? Or did it become something else in the final moment? She had a boogeyman as a kid; a tall, faceless woman with long claws that lived in her closet. So maybe
Broken Night Part II - 1
Weeks passed. Having all the details he required for his book, Byron could not find a reason to continue his interviews with Janice. Though they continued to correspond with letters, full of pleasantries and idle talk, it just wasn't the same as face-to-face meetings. Both of them felt the loss of something acute, though Janice couldn’t articulate what it was if asked.Byron never received a vision of Kelly Patrick's death, and after a while he stopped waiting for one. It was one secret, he guessed, would not be revealed. Thankfully, he was also not visited by any petite brunettes with creepy masks, even though he watched the entire run of Cain's Crossing, which he found engrossing in its weirdness.Byron continued to pound away at the book. His agent, a small, fussy woman in her forties with a pixie cut, loved what he had already submitted, and assured him it was going to be a sure hit, “maybe even a New York Times lister.”
Broken Night 2
Norma walked through the small library. Now and then, she'd drop a small stack of outdated magazines or a day-old newspaper on one of the round tables, which were strewn haphazardly around the room. It wasn't much of a job, but it gave her something to do, and with a mind like hers that was prone to wandering, something to do was precious.She had taken the job more out of desperation than any burning urge to help in the reformation of criminals, figuring there would be fewer people vying for the position than that of a more traditional library. She had been correct in this. After fingerprinting and a full background check (which came back squeaky clean) they had hired her.Her first few nights had been a paranoid nightmare filled with every cinema image of leering, snarling prisoners, depraved murderers, sadists, and all-around bad people. She had jumped every time upon hearing an unfamiliar noise. However, she quickly adapted and found most of the girls h
Broken Night 3
“I love it!” Claire's voice always annoyed Byron. Not only was it high pitched, but it also carried the airs that only a sheltered childhood full of money could create. She may be a great agent, one of the best, and she may have made him (and herself) a ton of money throughout the years, but that didn't mean he had to like her.“Really?” he asked, not really caring, but figuring that it was the path of least resistance in this scenario.“Oh yes. I bet I can wring half again what you made from your last one out of those misers at Billings and Jordan.” Billings and Jordan was the publisher who had handled his last two books, and in his opinion, they had always been fair to him, and far from miserly. “Not to mention the movie deal.”“Movie deal?”“Oh yes, yes. As soon as I finished reading your sample pages, I picked up the phone and called my people in Hollywood. They told me t
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Broken Night Epilogue
Two authors found at a bizarre crime scene, one dead.Dark fantasy author Emily Diamond's body was found in her home today. She was discovered by police after a call from true-crime author Byron Matthews, who was also found at the scene local law enforcement is calling “Bizarre”. Diamond had been strapped to a hospital bed, where she was seemingly being fed intravenously. According to authorities, Diamond's neck had been broken. “It would have taken a lot of force to do something like this,” One officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, informed. “We're looking for someone with incredible strength and probably some training.” Officers also found a large quantity of “Psychotropic drugs” in the house as well as what are being described as “Brainwashing accouterments.” Matthews, who is not currently a
Broken Night 13
The room beyond the door was simple; squarish and small, able to be crossed with only a handful of strides. The walls were painted eggshell white, and the paint had started to peel, just a little, at the corners. The room had probably, Janice assumed, begun its life as storage.The only things in the room were a small bed covered with hospital white sheets, slightly yellowed with age, and a small machine which filled the air with soft, rhythmic beeping. Tubes ran from the machine to the bed where they attached to the figure tucked beneath the sheets.It was Emily Diamond… the real one.***Adara felt the atmosphere change in her small apartment, the energies swell above her ritual space. She sensed (more than saw) a figure floating overhead in the shape of a majestic grey wolf.Thank you. She mouthed the words silently, not wanting the sound of her voice to break the preternatural silence that had eng
Broken Night 12
Byron heard a sniffling noise from behind him, and in his mind the demon girl had her head in the air, attempting to scent track like a bloodhound. He wondered if that was a good sign or a bad one and realized he had no way of telling.Everything has gone topsy-turvy. He thought to himself.“Clever,” The demon sneered. “Very clever. Which one of you summoned the seraph?”“Not me,” Byron grunted. “I don't even know what a seraph is.”“And not the girl… she hasn't had nearly enough time to learn how to do such a thing. It would take years of study… no...” All at once, Byron felt the stool under his feet jolt as though the demon had kicked it roughly.“Wait...” he hopelessly, foolishly grabbed the rope as though holding it would save him from hanging.“Who is helping you?” she exhorted, her voice tinged with anger. Byron
Broken Night 11
One night before all the madness started, back when Janice and her friends were looking for something, anything, to break out of the doldrums of day-to-day life, they had stumbled upon a film festival. It was being held in a shady, dirty, independent theater, one of the final 42nd Street dives that had somehow survived the New York cleanup of the early nineties.Though they had seen a handful of short films that day, one managed to somehow stick in Janice's mind all these years, though she could never find out its name. It was nearly plotless, relying on stunning, garish visuals. In the film, a group of people, dressed like gods and goddesses from mythology, participated in a party/orgy that very much took on the trappings of an occult ritual as it went on. What Janice was seeing as she carefully followed the wolf through seemingly endless hallways, reminded her very much of that nameless film.Figures would flash before her for seconds, giving h
Broken Night 10
This isn't real. Janice thought to herself. She had made her way down a long hallway, dark except for a meager supply of tea-lights which were placed in scattered recesses along the wall. Now she was standing in a room unlike anything she had seen before.Clearly, it was a living room decorated opulently with silks and overstuffed furniture. It was the sort of room where Janice expected to see Victorian men, dressed casually, sitting around smoking pipes, and talking about their latest trips to Africa. It was a nice room and not that unusual.Except that everything was wrong.This isn't real, this can't be real.For one, the walls were waving as if they were no more substantial than curtains. Shadowy things moved just beyond the walls which had taken on the opacity of theater scrims. Every once in a while, one of the things would push against the walls. Its hand (or claw or tentacle) would push out aga
Broken Night 9
At some point, the demon had lit a candle, and for the first time since being brought here, Byron could see the room that had become his prison.It was a simple room, unadorned. In the House's former life, as a normal place where normal people would live, (if it had truly ever been such a thing), the room would have acted as a sort of storage space for jackets, handyman tools, or whatever other sundry things the family had collected.He stood on a small footstool, painted black. The rope around his neck was nothing special, the same sort of thing you could buy at any hardware or department store in the country. It struck him as funny that such a simple thing could be his barrier, and possibly, if he wasn't careful, his vehicle to the afterlife.“She's coming,” the Emily demon jumped in excitement.It didn't sound very concerned to Byron, but then again, he wasn't an expert in reading the emotions of demons. He
Broken Night 8
The flickering light registered first. It seemed to come from all corners of the room beyond the door, all directions until it replaced everything in Janice's world with cold fire. The door slammed behind her with a defiant thud, leaving her alone with whatever was causing the prismatic world. Slowly, images began to come to the forefront.An animated demon perched on a mountain, summoning spectral figures from the ground.A man, standing in a busy street, throws a Molotov cocktail into an oncoming car's window. Janice could now tell the walls had been covered with sheets of thick plastic and an unseen projector was throwing up images on every possible surface. The air was full of noise, a dirty, toothache inspiring static that swelled to a volume which Janice feared would do permanent damage to her inner ear.If I ever get out of here… Janice thought to herself.A 50s era rock band plays
Broken Night 7
Looming like the villain in a million slasher films, the House cast its shadow over Janice. She stood now on its front steps, holding the vial of who-knows-what in her hand. She pulled the stopper from the vial and put it to her lips before quickly pulling it away. Whatever this concoction was, it smelled awful.Though she was no expert on drugs (that was always more Julia's domain), she knew that hallucinogenic drugs were often placed in an alcohol solvent for easy ingestion, so she had expected a grainy, yeasty smell. Whatever the liquid was, it smelled nothing like alcohol or grain. It was more like rotten eggs and the lingering fragrance you got after striking a match.“You can't be serious,” Janice said to nobody in particular. She tried the front door and was not in the least bit surprised it refused to yield. The doorknob had no give at all, not even the wiggle you get when you try to open a locked door. It was as though a mere m
Broken Night 6
Adara dropped Janice off a few blocks from the House.“I could bring you right to the door,” she proposed as Janice stepped out onto the rain-slicked pavement. “It's not far.”“No,” Janice wished for all the world that she could be dropped off at the door, or even better, she could skip the whole thing and just go back home. Her parents would be thrilled to see her even if she was an escaped jailbird. Although she knew they would probably call the police, it would be nice to see them again. Nice to know that for some people the world wasn't insane, hadn't fallen topsy-turvy; to know there were still people that only had mundane problems (like a murderess daughter...).“I don't want you to get any closer to this than you already are,” Janice said, trying to dissuade her.“If you're sure...” Adara raised one eyebrow.“I'm sure. I don't know who you are, but I know
