The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2) (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

T
hat night as Blaire read in bed there was a tapping on the door
. T
r
a
vis s
ee
m
e
d not to notice
a
s he
f
i
d
dl
e
d with his
ear
phon
e
s.

“Come in,” Blaire said. Travis looked up from his project. As the crystal knob twisted and the door sailed opened slowly, a small shadow emerged into the soft glow of light from their room.

“Natalka,” Blaire said, resting her book on the bed. The young girl smiled brightly. She stood there in the pretty pink pajamas that, thanks to Blaire, she now owned.

“Hi,” she beamed.

“What are you doing up here?” Blaire asked. “You should be in bed.”

“We’re not in bed yet. I just brought you something,” Natalka said, holding out a plate.

“Cookies! Thank you, Natalka,” Blaire gasped with a laugh as she got up and accepted the desserts.

“Thanks,” Travis said. “Hit me!”

Blaire handed him the plate of sweets.

“I just wanted to tell you thank you for all of the things that you bought for us and for everything that you have done for us.”

“You’re welcome,” Blaire responded. “Are you okay?”

The girl nodded up and down. Blaire didn’t believe her, but she didn’t push.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Blaire asked.

The girl nodded.

“Thank you, again,” Blaire said, bending to give the girl a hug. “Goodnight.”

Natalka turned to leave the room, and as Blaire grabbed the door knob to push the door closed, she hesitated, and then spoke, “Natalka…”

The girl turned to face her.

“Next time, make sure you catch us when we are downstairs. You are not supposed to be on the third floor, okay?”

“Okay,” Natalka answered, before starting back down the dark hall. Blaire looked to Travis who was already on his second cookie, which he held up in cheers. Peeking down the hall, Blaire watched as Natalka made her way toward the steps. Her footsteps were calculated, one after the other until she came to room 3C. Natalka stopped and walked a path slightly to the right making a semicircle in a deliberate effort to pass by the door as far from it as possible.

“What’s wrong?” Travis asked as he handed her the plate of cookies.

“Nothing.”

At 2:00 a.m. Blaire woke abruptly. She sat up in bed wondering only for a moment what woke her until she heard it again.

Blaire sighed and thought,
The rat traps had managed to catch everything in this place including her hand, but still no rats.

Travis slept soundly and even offered a shallow snore. Blaire jumped at the sound of an odd noise. Her eyes shot up to the ceiling at the chilling thought that someone was on the roof again, and then she looked to her dresser where her keys sat glimmering in the moonlight. Listening intently, she realized that something was being dragged across the floor. Blaire unlocked her door and peeped out into the hall. Anya was the other resident on the premises that night, but her door was shut securely. The noise sounded again. There was someone in room 3C, and she began to inch down the hall. The door was slightly ajar, so she leaned in to listen more closely and heard the screech of furniture moving across the floor. Sweat was beading across her brow when the door swiftly whipped to a close, brutally smacking her in the face.

“Who’s in here?” Blaire said. Pressing her fingertips to the spot on her face that had just been assaulted, she let out a moan as it was already sore.

Blaire grabbed the knob of the door and turned it back and forth rapidly, causing it to jangle loudly, but it was locked. Soft humming floated out from room 3C. Blaire jogged back to her room, grabbed her keys from the dresser and was back at the door of the vacant room within seconds. She fiddled with her mess of keys, trying different ones in the lock.

“You open this door and let me in right this moment or you will be sorry!” she yelled. Her impetus being to never let something even remotely similar to what happened with Ivan ever happen again.

The humming ceased, but the shriek of metal furniture dragging across the floor made Blaire hop back. For a moment there was silence, and then the door glided open.

An authoritative Blaire marched into the room. Silver rays of light filled the four walls through the uncovered window and murmurs funneled through the vents just low enough not to be detected by her human ear. The room was completely empty except for an iron bed frame, which was missing its mattress, and a wooden dresser.

Blaire turned to the closet. “Who’s in there?”

She reached out for the knob and pulled the door open. The garish creak of the door covered the low growl of something sinister. Her eyes searched the closet, but it was empty. Something swept by her back so closely that she felt the soft swoosh of air created by the movement, and she whipped around, but there was nothing. Blaire went to the windows and confirmed that they were closed and locked. She pressed her hands against the pane of glass. It was cold but alive, pulsing with the dreadful heartbeat of St. Sebastian. Blaire’s eyes trailed across the
rusted
-out pool and the desolate lawn until they landed on the holy statue whose face seemed to turn and look up at her, causing Blaire to stumble back, and then she heard the voices.

Blaire!

There’s something in the basement. Don’t look now.

Don’t go down there!

Help us!

Come and play with us, Blaire!

BLAIRE!
her mother called.

With their relentless bombarding, the mysterious voices made her nauseous, and she grabbed her stomach, managing to hold back whatever was creeping up out of her throat. The voices were coming from the floor; she dropped to her knees and peered into the obscure vent.

“Hello?” she spoke.

Don’t go down there! Jump! Jump! Jump! Help us!

She’s coming!

“Hello?” Blaire called again. It was coming…something was pulsing up through the vent. Something was coming for her, and then it hit her hard.

“Ugh!” Blaire yelped. She abruptly turned her head away from the vent as the putrid aroma of rotted meat and garbage blasted her. In the middle of the floor, the dark stain began to spread, pulsing to life.

The door slammed and the iron bed frame slid across the floor planting itself in front of the door, blocking her exit. Crawling across the floor and scrambling to get to her feet, she wedged herself between the railing of the bed and the wall. She pushed with all of her strength to get the frame away from the door, but she was hardly a match for the invisible force that pressed back. The stain in the floor was large now, pumping hard and spreading eagerly toward her. Blaire’s arms were beginning to weaken, and she could hardly breathe from the vulgar odor that had all but filled the room, blocking out all the clean air. As the stain protruded from the floor, growing up vertically into the air, Blaire tried to scream, but nothing came out.

She had to get out now. With a deep grunt, she pushed harder. The bed frame slid a couple of feet, and Blaire went for the door that was now locked. Sweat dripped down her body as she used every muscle, fighting against whatever energy was keeping the door closed tight, her feet sliding as she pulled with all of her power. Blaire let out a cry in surprise when the door finally gave and flew open. She fell backward, but got to her feet quickly and ejected herself from the room, sliding across the slippery hall floor. She turned back to face the room just as the door slammed violently shut, and she heard again the recognizable scraping as the bed slid across the floor, placing itself staunchly back in front of the door on the other side.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

“S
o tell me again how you ended up in a fight with a door?” Travis asked as he placed an ice pack on Blaire’s bruised face.

“Travis, there was something in there, I swear. I heard voices. The door wouldn’t open, the bed moved on its own, for God’s sake.” Blaire had purposely left out what happened with the stain in the floor as that sounded irrational, even to her.

“Maybe the building is at a slight tilt or something, and that’s why the bed slid,” Travis said, rationalizing as he headed down the hall for breakfast, with Blaire following closely behind him.

Travis coughed into his hand, and then wiped beads of moisture from his brow.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look awful.”

“Just catching a cold.”

“Oh,” Blaire said, and then continued. “If the building is at a slant, then why aren’t our beds sliding?”

“I don’t know. I’m a nurse, not a scientist. Besides, I didn’t hear anything.”

“You sleep like the dead.”

“Blaire, I went in there this morning after you told me what happened, and there was just nothing in there, nothing out of place, nothing at all.”

“You think I’m making this up? How do you think I got this black eye?”

“Maybe you’re having some form of night terrors, waking dreams. Maybe you have just become overly sensitive to your environment because what happened with Ivan is still having a big psychological effect on you.”

His words made Blaire stop dead in the hallway. “That’s brutal,” she said, and Travis turned to her.

“I didn’t mean anything by that, Blaire,” Travis assured her. “I mean…what are you saying? Please don’t tell me that you think this place is haunted or something ridiculous. Aren’t I supposed to be the overly sensitive one that’s afraid of ghosts?”

“I’m NOT saying there are ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts, I’m just saying that
some
—”

“Oh, my God,” Travis interrupted when he saw Bo, who was also heading toward the lunch room. He knelt to perform a closer examination of Bo’s purple, swollen eye.

“What happened to your face, Bo?” Blaire asked.

The boy stared at her blankly.

“Who did this?” Blaire asked again. “Was it a student?”

Bo nodded left to right.

“A teacher?”

No response.

“I think you’re right, Travis,” Blaire said.

“About what?” Travis studied the boy making sure that he had no other injuries.

“I think that the most mysterious happenings in this place are the work of real live people, not any ghosts!” Blaire could feel her cheeks burning.

“Bo, go to breakfast. Travis, come with me.” Blaire dealt out commands like a general. The boy slouched away, and Travis tried hard to keep up with Blaire, who was already halfway down the hallway.

“What are you talking about?”

“First, Ivan, now Bo,” she said, as she rounded the corner.

“They all have bruises from time to time,” Travis said.

“Yes, but not like these. They’re getting worse. Something is going on, and I’m going to find out what it is.” Within seconds, Blaire was banging on Marko’s door.

After receiving no response, she entered without permission. Marko was on the phone, and he glared at her before returning to his conversation. Blaire signaled to Travis to come into the room, which he did, closing the door behind him. Marko finished his call and placed the phone on the receiver.

“How can I help you?” Marko asked, with unabashed annoyance spicing his tongue.

“Have you seen Bodan’s face?” Blaire wanted to know.

“No, should I have?”

“Yes, you should have,” Blaire snapped. “Someone hit him, maybe one of your workers.”

She caught a glimpse of Travis, alarm marked clearly across his face.

“Did he say that?” Marko asked.

“You know very well he didn’t
say
that,” Blaire shot back.

“Did he communicate to you in any way that he was hit by a worker?” Marko rephrased his question.

“He said that it was not a student.” Travis managed to overcome his discomfort and chime in with that information. Despite the fact that his statement helped her case, Blaire was infuriated by the fact that Travis seemed downright impartial.

“…but he did not say that it was a worker.” Marko seemed too composed for someone who was in charge of the welfare of helpless children.

“No, he did not specifically say that it was a worker. But what I want to know is what you plan to do about it?” Blaire asked.

“What is there to
do
? He was probably playing with one of the other students and things went too far. It happens all the time,” Marko explained.

“Bull! What about Ivan’s bruises? I’ve noticed the small injuries and bruises to several of the children, and up to now I have marked them down as accidental, but Bo’s face is no accident.”

Marko adjusted in his seat. “Did the same
worker
hit you?”

Momentarily, Blaire had forgotten that her left eye looked like
hammer
-tenderized beef.

“I ran into a door.”

“See there, accidents do happen, don’t they?”

Blaire rolled her eyes, pushed passed Travis and stormed out of the office.

“Blaire, wait,” Travis called. She was already halfway down the hall but stopped sharply.

“You didn’t even back me up in there! You have seen the bruises on the children, you know you have.”

“Yes, but they always say that they fell or that they were playing around or something else…what can I do about that?” Travis was sweating profusely now. “Bo didn’t say that one of the caregivers hit him. If he would have communicated to you that an adult had done this, I would have been all over it, but he didn’t.”

Blaire turned and spotted Bo going into the hall bathroom.

“Bo,” she called, walking toward the boy.

“Sweetie, can you tell me what happened to your face?”

“Did a worker do this to you?” she asked. Blaire took his hand, and she could feel him begin to tremble.

“Was it Ms. Vesna?”

The boy offered no response.

“Ms. Hannah?”

“Blaire,” Travis interjected.

The boy shook his head from side to side.

“Was it…Anya?”

“Blaire, stop.” Travis’ face looked contorted and pale.

“I need you to tell me what is going on here. Give me a clue, Bo. Tell me something…anything.”

Bo did not move his body, but his eyes began to wander to the left as if trying to find something. Slowly, they traveled up the wall to one of the hanging black and white photographs, a picture that had hung in the halls of St. Sebastian for as long as anyone could remember. It was one of the pictures that Blaire saw on her first day in the facility. In the photograph, a
curly
-haired woman stood along the seashore with children. Blaire lifted herself from the floor until she was eye to eye with the strange woman in the picture and able to see every detail of her face. She seemed so real that Blaire could almost feel the woman’s hot, moist breath on her.

Blaire looked back down at Bo, who was now looking at the floor, shuddering hard. Blaire and Travis watched in shock as the groin area of his pants darkened with liquid flowing into the front of his pants and down the legs, out onto the floor into a pungent yellow puddle.

“C’mon, partner. Let’s go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up. Then we’ll get some ice on that face,” Travis said, taking Bo’s hand and leading him away.

Blaire looked back to the smirking woman in the photograph.