A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (23 page)

Ernest gestured to one of
the members in white. The responder nodded, as if knowing what the
gesture meant without words and moved into the darkness of the room
before emerging with Fallon in tote. Fallon seemed weak, easily
guided and offered no resistance to the ushering. Her chest heaved
heavily and her breathing was a ragged, pitiful wheeze, unlike that
of the violent creature that emerged from the mist, but like that
of an asthmatic child in desperate need of an inhaler. Fallon was
lifted and placed on the top of the desk, facing the
ceiling.

Jefferson realized he had
no time. No longer was this merely about stopping a condemnable
ritual
—they were now threatening a child
and the only person in the group that seemed to still retain any
sort of human compassion. Jefferson looked back to his family,
saying the words many brave men before him said before rushing to
their demise: “Stay here.”

Jefferson burst into the
room as the rest of the Quinn family sunk into the protection of
the darkness behind them, watching the events from within their
veil.

“
Stop this! This is
absolute madness! What do you plan to do with her, huh? Kill her?!
Kill her like you killed those people upstairs?!” Jefferson said in
direct accusation, his eyes staring to the leader,
Ernest.

Ernest turned back to
Jefferson, caught off guard by his candor. He then began to laugh,
shaking his head at Jefferson, as a king would to his court’s
fool.

“
There’s no stopping this
now, Jefferson Quinn. The wheel’s already spinning and there is no
brake for what comes.” Ernest pointed to the girl after his
warning. “She now breathes as the Hungerer does. She is channeling
her life through him. She is guiding his breathing. She shines now
like a beacon for him to swallow this world!” And he turned back to
Fallon.

Fallon now began to
struggle, but two adult members of the group in white held the girl
down as she gasped for breath. The earth quaked again, bringing the
Quinn family to hold on to the shaking walls of the hallway they
were in, them hoping they wouldn’t give.

“
Consume us! Consume us!”
Ernest cried out to the ceiling. The group in white chanting with
their leader, first disparately but soon in a powerful
unison.

Fallon began to shake her
head before turning her glossy eyes to Jefferson. Behind Jefferson,
Bradley burst into the room and shouted, “Help her, Dad! Help her!
You have to do something!”

Jefferson did a final scan
through the room, being mostly ignored by the fanatical, chanting
group, and finally noticed a panel near the wall, denoted by a
strip of silver duct tape which read, in large, bold lettering,
“SHUTTERS.”

Jefferson yelled out to
his son, “Bradley! Pull that switch! Right there, at the wall! Pull
the switch!” And with the order Jefferson ran further into the
room, pulling down shelf after shelf. The metal shelves came
crashing down, causing a panic among the members of the chanting
group. They would become disoriented in their chanting, but would
resume a moment later with the direction of their focused leader,
Ernest. Another large shelf came crashing down nearer to the group.
The shelf’s collision with the ground was met with an equal
reaction from the quivering earth, and the entire building shook
once again, only this time sending a violent, webbed cracking
through the ceiling above the ritual members. They all looked to
the ceiling, stopping their chanting for just a moment before
continuing.

Bradley reached the far
side of the room. He was almost trailed by his mother, but she
remained back, with her arms covering her fear-stricken, frozen
daughter, Chelsie. Bradley leapt up to grab a hold of the lever and
pulled down the switch to the “open” position. Miranda and Chelsie
turned and peered down the long hallway, hearing the motors and
shuffling of metal from upstairs, assuring the switch
worked
—only it stopped prematurely as
another quake ripped through the building, shuffling stone from the
walls of the hallway to litter the exit path, if there was an exit
at all.

Bradley followed his
father’s lead and tried to pull over a shelf, but was unsuccessful
in doing so with his lack of strength. He struggled instead to pull
a sheet that masked the shelf and grappled the entirety of the
fabric until it tore from the ceiling and floated haphazardly down
toward the group. While Bradley rushed to avoid having the sheet
fall on him, the fabric floated atop one of the candles in the
large candelabra, and swiftly caught fire.

The group split at the
sudden rise of flames, moving toward a now littered corner of the
storage room. Ernest shouted to the group, commanding them with all
of his power, trying to regain control as the quakes, the fire, the
crashing of furniture and all hell broke loose about them. As the
flames rose, Jefferson dashed around the group, and each of them
shied away from him as though he were an uncontrollable madman; at
this point, he very much was. He picked up his son, Bradley and
moved toward the desk in the center of the room, approaching from
the side least affected by the spreading fire.

“
I’m
taking her with me, Ernest! I’m taking the girl!” Jefferson
advised, holding his son against him as the flickering light cast
over his perspiring face.

Ernest turned to Jefferson
with a smile. He didn’t wear the same sort of fear as the other
followers. It was a look of a man absolved, done with what needed
to be done with. “You’re too late! I said you’re too late! Listen!
Listen, you fool!” Ernest’s eyes became as bright as the rising
flames, their gloss and his madness reflecting the chaos in the
room.

That was when Jefferson
and his son, Miranda and Chelsie, the group in white, and Ernest
all heard it: the guttural, deep wheezing. The ragged, haunting
breaths. They rose from tiny Fallon, laying on the desk, her chest
heaving as she desperately sought air in a room that was becoming
difficult to breath for anyone. With Fallon’s affliction, breathing
was nearly impossible. However, the sounds, while they came from
her, were not her own. The fire rose with her exhale, sunk and
quivered with her inhalation, bent in her direction and by her will
with each breath. From them, Jefferson carefully backed
away.

Jefferson set his son to
the ground and rushed to the hallway to meet with his wife and
daughter. They stared into the room helplessly as the violent,
infernal storm rose, as if the girl’s breathing were a puffing
bellows. The group in white on the other side of the room became
trapped behind a wall of inescapable fire. The flames tore in an
almost supernaturally directed path to Ernest and caught on his
white pants, sending the fire swiftly up his body to consume him
whole.

Covered in flames, Ernest
shouted still, “Consume us! Consume us!” As his skin burned and
melted away. Miranda covered her daughter’s eyes and backed further
into the dark hallway. Knowing there was nowhere else to go and
nothing else he could do to save the group, Jefferson turned to his
family and shouted, “Run!”

The group made it down the
dark hallway, by feel and trial, tripping over falling stone, a
giving ceiling and other obstructions generated by the crumbling
shelter. They reached the stairs and one by one filtered up after
each other, trying to maintain their balance as the ground quaked
and felt as though it prepared to give away. At the top of the
stairs, the family burst through the basement door and rushed
toward the exit. The shutters had only opened about three feet, but
offered a chance for escape yet. With the little light produced
from under the stairs, one significantly darker than the last time
the shutters had opened, Jefferson grabbed a hold of a wooden chair
in the lobby, cracked it into pieces over the edge of the counter
and prepare to use the remaining leg to smash the glass on the
other side of the partially opened shutters.

Jefferson charged the door
and slid toward it while his family watched, calling out
frantically as the edge of the roof began to cave, sending debris
and wire down over the basement door. “Hurry, Dad!
Hurry!”

Jefferson, flat on his
side, slammed the wooden leg of the chair into the glass, cracking
it as the ceiling had shattered in the storage room below. Still,
in this position, he could hear the cries of the man below, somehow
still alive, chanting, “Consume us!” It even was joined in unison,
as though the other members in white began again. The heavy,
terrible wheezing shook the core of the building and the earth.
Each breath broke the building apart more and more. With another
sharp strike, the glass broke to reveal what was beyond it,
something Jefferson hadn’t noticed in his frantic slide and attack
on the glass: The city was being swallowed into the
ground.

One by one, buildings were
toppling over, imploding and falling into the open earth, consumed
by a sort of quick sand. Entire slabs of ground were pulled with
each wheezing breath, cracking and shattering roads and foundations
effortlessly. Jefferson realized the building they were in
practically sat on a plateau as every bit of ground around them
sank away with the violent, incessant quaking. Jefferson realized
something his family couldn’t from their vantage: They were doomed
and there was no escape. There he laid, taking slow breaths,
abandoning the wooden chair leg and rolling to his back. He stared
at the ceiling before his family rushed to him.

“
Dad? Dad?” It was all a
warbled distortion, barely audible over that wheezing sound and the
quickly deteriorating building. Explosions were heard in the
distance, causing the rest of the family to witness what was
happening.

“
Jefferson...” Miranda
said softly, his wife’s voice cutting momentarily through the
madness. “...I love you, Jefferson.” She said.

Jefferson closed his eyes,
brought his family into his body and there they laid, a small mound
of profound effort and love for one another. The last breath came,
staggered and desperate before it was snuffed out. The ground below
the Quinn’s gave way and into the earth they went, forever and
ever, together, as one.

RETURN TO THE TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Our Spirits out West

April 16, 1847

We are finly prepard for
travel out west. Its been a long time comin but Im excited about
the prospecks of the Fort Deposit in new Oregon. Floyd has bin
sayin that our life theres going to change dramaticly. I’m going to
be far from my famly and frends, but I’ll still have Floyd with me.
We have enlisted a few men to go with us and thank God we have the
monies to do so. Floyd workin as a docter has made all the
difference. He calls himself froogel. I call him a sweet hart.
Froogel is just a funny word. Since a majorty of the group is not
going our way in Oregon, Floyd has also hired us three hands to
help with evrything. I hope to keep this jernal while travelling.
It is many months travel.

Sincerely,

Hattie

***

It occurred to Harriet
Greyson that, though the group admitted being “prepared” for
travel, there was a distinct difference in preparation of commodity
and preparation to leave. It was the very break of dawn, where the
birds chirped proudly in the Missouri sky, fluttering from oak to
hickory in the lumber town they prepared to depart from. The wind
was cool and fresh, more soothing in the chest than the past winter
nip. Floyd Greyson, Harriet’s husband and one of the local doctors
in the small community, spoke of plans and intents with some of the
other men from the travelling company.

The group was a small one
for Western travel, but they were as prepared as any, weakened
solely by their size. Each wagon was thoroughly outfitted with
foodstuffs and accompanied by cattle to maintain the caravan along
the dangerous (albeit somewhat routine) travel across the continent
to Oregon, and for the Greyson’s, more specifically Fort
Deposit.

Fort Deposit was less
popular than other Forts in the Oregon region, but it had an
important purpose: to restock and aid travelling groups moving
through the interior of Oregon, headed to the coast. While many
travelers often believed they were prepared for the long haul
through some of the world’s most desiccated lands, the truth of the
matter often reared its head at Fort Deposit, in the form of
sickly, starving caravans, the bodies of fallen family members,
pestilence and rescue parties trying to prevent it all. Floyd’s
ambitions were two part. He knew that Fort Deposit was lacking a
steady medical professional, one that could help those that find
themselves in the worst of positions. Second, Floyd was a man of
gentle nature and an intellectual, hardly a man’s man, but all the
while excited by the prospect of change and adventure. To make up
for his lack of skill in many important trades associated with such
distanced and rigorous travel, Floyd had hired three hands. The
cattle hand and butcher was known as Jim Bleckley. Jim was an
astoundingly short man, often with a foul temper and equally foul
interest in hard alcohol. As was the case, the commodities came
stocked with such fuels for Jim, to be saved for the early evenings
and for promise of early sleep. Hank Paulson was a carpenter’s
assistant. Finding someone to fashion something out of wood in the
town wasn’t difficult with its business in lumber, but Hank knew a
thing or two about maintaining the travelling wagons through
varying terrains. He also was responsible for the several oxen
required for towing the heavy cart and those within it. The last of
the three was Grant Vickers, a small-time cartographer responsible
for mapping a good portion of settled Missouri and an excellent
guide, hoping to map the West and make a name for himself in the
distant region. Everyone involved with the travelling party had
something to gain from the challenge; everyone except for Harriet.
She was a woman in a time that demanded she did as her husband
did.