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2024-10-29 19:42:56That night Byron dreamed.
In his dream, he sat at a long table covered in lit candles. Other than the flickering candlelight, the room was completely dark. From somewhere in the distance music played, an eerie, droning music that sounded like it was being played backward. Across from him, on the other side of the table, sat a skinny woman with dark hair pulled into pigtails. She was a bit younger than Byron and looked vaguely familiar.
“I'd leave her alone.” The woman said, her voice taking on the strange, languid tone that dream speech sometimes had.
“Who?” Byron inquired, his voice he noticed, was normal.
The woman narrowed her eyes, “You know who.”
“Janice,” Byron proclaimed as understanding suddenly dawned upon him. “And why should I leave Janice alone?”
“Because you won't like what lies at the end of that road. Be it that of needles or that of pins.”
The candles on the table grew until they towered over the people sitting there, each one like a tree, each flame a conflagration. Though she wasn't before, the woman was now wearing a scarlet cloak, its hood pulled up covering her face completely.
Suddenly, Byron was scared. He knew even though he had seen her face only moments before, to see it again (her real face) would drive him over the ledge into sheer insanity.
She reached for her hood.
“No!” Byron shouted, “Don't.”
“I thought you wanted to see,” The girl said in a menacing voice, her thin fingers gripping the edge of the hood. “I thought you wanted to walk this particular path through my forest.”
As she began to pull her hood back, Byron woke, terrified but thankful that he did not, in fact, see what was under it.
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This is starting to feel like home, Byron thought as he sat across from Janice once more. The guard was even the same one that brought her in the first time they had spoken, creating a strange case of Deja vu.“The girl who told us about interactive theater was one of those artsy types, you know, short hair, glasses, probably plays ukulele? I think Julia knew her from a community art class she had taken, but I'm not sure.She had just gotten back from some show that was themed around cult brainwashing, and she praised it so heavily that we just had to go. Walking into that place was one of those moments where everything changes. We were hooked.This was exactly what we were looking for.We devoured these things; anything that allowed some degree of freedom and interaction became our weekend getaway. The best part was, we didn't have to wait until October for these things as the
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Janice had expected prison to be a lot tougher. A million awful movies (and at least one television show) had shown her just how hard life in a woman's correctional facility could be, especially for a well-educated rich girl. She had expected constant abuse from the other inmates, and even wondered if she would survive the ordeal but to her surprise however, it was pretty easy.The others always looked at her with suspicion. One time, another prisoner had rushed at her with a stone she picked up from who knows where, but the guards had quickly subdued her, and stopped it from escalating to Hollywood levels.Janice felt almost like something was protecting her.“Or maybe you just watch too many movies,” she whispered to herself.She was lying on her mattress (hard, but not painfully uncomfortable), her hands folded under the pillow where her head rested.Tap.After dark, the prison was usually fairly qui
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The next meeting was tense.Both Byron and Janice were nervous, stalling in every way they could think of, not wanting to get down to business but not willing to give up either. They made small talk for a while, and then Byron finally broke the spell by bringing out his tape recorder.Janice sighed, “I guess… since you're here...”“Yeah,” Byron said, forcing a smile. “Since I'm here...”They both laughed a little to fill the space.“You were telling me about the House,” Byron reminded, pushing the start button on the recorder.Janice nodded, “Right… so we drove up…”***“It looked like a normal house. A nice, modest two-story, hidden in the village of Ardsley. It wasn't falling apart, there were no broken windows, hell, the paint wasn't even peeling.”'You guys sure th
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“Time's almost up anyway,” Byron looks at the correction officer, “Right, Betsy?”The guard made a show of checking her watch.“Yeah, you have three minutes.” Byron detected a degree of longing in the prison guard's voice. She too wanted to know the whole story, but he understood Janice needed more time to open up about it.***Byron's office was a small, cluttered place where nobody but the person involved in creating the mess could have any hope of finding anything.And he was the creator of the mess, so knew right where everything was.With a shove, everything that was on his desk, everything that did not pertain to the case of Janice Rosse and her friends, fell to the floor. Now, on the newly cleared space, he spread out the case research files before him. He looked at the photos of the victims; each of them young, rich, and pretty, with a bright future ahead of
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Broken Night 14
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Janice looked tired. There were dark bags under her eyes, and her hair, usually pulled back into a neat ponytail, was in total disarray. Byron was pretty sure that judging from the look on the faces of the guards that let him in, he didn't look much better. At least good ol' Betsy, who always seemed to be there, didn't seem to react to his appearance.Thank God for small favors.“Rough night?” Janice asked, trying to force a smile.“Yeah,” he replied, and then added, “You too?”“Yeah,” she repeated.“Are you up for this? I can go...”“No!” she snapped, suddenly shooting forward in her chair. Betsy didn't move in response, but her eyes followed the girl closely. Janice looked sheepishly at the guard and then settled back down into her chair. “I mean… I want to talk.”“Are you sure? We're coming to the hard part, w
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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
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Broken Night 11
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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
