The Clique

by Jay Mason

  Alex shook her head. The pill tub slipped from her fingers. Her eyes turned glassy.

  Rusty immediately couched beside. “Tell me what you see!” he said.

  “The wall is going to eat me,” whimpered Alex.

  Rusty stood up and put his hand smack bang in the middle of the wall. “Nothing there, Alex. When did you last take a pill.”

  Alex tried to think. “I forgot my one this morning. I was too worried about going to college.”

  “You’re already in withdrawal,” said Rusty. “This isn’t going to be fun, but you have to do it.”

  The weekend was a time both of them would remember forever. Alex felt deeply ashamed, but Rusty discovered the depth of feeling he had for her. As she said in his arms raving about the illusions she was seeing, shaking with fear, he felt for the first time he was protecting her. It amazed him how much he liked that feeling. Alex spent so much time saving other people, it was good to be able to repay that.

  Even when she was being sick over and over again, when he held her hair back, he didn’t feel disgust, only pity. He stroked her back and told her everything would be alright. It was more trying when she went through the violent phases, hitting him over and over again. She could pack a good punch. But he found along with the bruises he found he was proud of how hard she fought. He knew it was nothing to do with him. What she was really fighting was the drug.

  Finally by Sunday night, Alex’s symptoms had calmed to the flu-like stage. She was shivering and burning in turns, but her mind was beginning to clear. He brought her some soup he’d found in the kitchen. “You should try this,” he said. “The only good thing about those pills is they have a short term effect. You’re over the worst. Another week and it will be like you never took them. At least that’s how it was with mom and you’re younger and fitter.”

  Alex took the bowl of soup. “I don’t think I will ever eat again,” she said. She put the bowl aside.

  Rusty smiled. “Don’t worry it came out of a can. Your mom didn’t make it.”

  “I really don’t fancy it,” she said. “But thank you for making it. For looking after me.”

  He could see it cost her a lot to admit her weakness and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her, but he knew that wouldn’t be far.

  “You’ll find you’ll be ravenous soon,” he said lightly. He sat down beside her. “I am so proud of you,” he said. “That took guts going cold turkey like that.”

  “I could never have made it without you,” said Alex. “I don’t know why you did this for me and I don’t know how I will ever repay you.” She reached up a hand to gently touch his cheek where a bruise showed. “Did I do that?” she asked.

  “Yep,” said Rusty. “You pack a hell of a punch for a girl.”

  Alex smiled, but didn’t take her hand away. Their eyes met. Rusty’s heart was in his mouth. If she kissed him that would be alright, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be him taking advantage, would it?

  “I am,” she begun. She was interrupted by the loud ring of the doorbell. It sounded as if someone was leaning on it.

  “Is that real?” he asked Rusty.

  “Yes,” he said, pulling away. “I’d better go check.”

  Alex followed him down the stairs. Rusty opened the door. Savannah stood there. She was trembling.

  “You have to help me,” she said, tears streaming down her face, “Bethany won’t stop talking.”

  10. Those Left Behind

  “If this is some kind of joke,” said Alex.

  “It isn’t!” sobbed Savannah. “I never cry. Ask anyone. I can’t stop.”

  Alex looked at Rusty, who shrugged. “I wouldn’t have said she was the tender hearted type.”

  Savannah pulled up her sleeve. “Look at this. It hurts like …”

  Rusty darted forward. “Those are like the marks Bethany had.”

  “Oh god, I’m going to die,” wailed Savannah. “She said I was going to die. I’m going to die. I’m …”

  “Get her inside,” said Alex.

  Rusty half pulled half helped the terrified girl into the lounge. Alex stuck her head out the door and looked up and down the lane. It all seemed perfectly normal. She resisted the urge to check the porch steps for paw prints. She locked the door and went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Then she went to find the others.

  “Do you want to drink this or wear it?” she asked Savannah.

  Rusty glanced at her in annoyance. “No, I get it,” said the cheerleader. “Last time you saw me I was trying to set a mob on you.” She gave a little sob. “Bethany has been telling me to apologize to you ever since. She won’t shut up. She keeps talking. I can try and block the words out, but she goes on and on and on.”

  “Bethany’s dead,” said Alex.

  “I know!” cried Savannah. “That’s why I’m here. She told me you were the only one who could give her peace.”

  “Yeah right,” said Alex. She bent over and with her free hand ran her fingers along the marks on Savannah’s arm.

  “Ow!”

  Alex stepped back. “You went to the trouble of burning yourself with a candle? To set me up again?”

  “I’m not doing this.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know she is doing it,” said Rusty. “Maybe that’s what happened to Bethany. Isn’t there something about pretty girls self-harming to get attention.”

  Alex blinked. “There is so much wrong with what you just said I don’t know where to start.” She turned her attention to Savannah. “What exactly is Bethany saying now?”

  “She’s saying we woke their fears. We brought the lantern man back.”

  Rusty went pale.

  “Whose fears?” persisted Alex.

  “The people in the asylum,” said Savannah. “The ones he liked to hurt. The smart ones. Bethany says the ones that weren’t mad. The ones he wanted to make sure no one let out.”

  “Err, I read about this warden who was accused of burning inmates in the old asylum in the local newspaper archive,” said Rusty.

  Alex sat down in a seat opposite. “So she could have done so too,” she said.

  “Bethany says c0nundrum would believe her,” said Savannah desperately.

  “Did you tell them about him?” Alex asked Rusty.

  “How could I? I didn’t even know his name until this weekend,” said Rusty.

  Alex heard the sound of the key in the front door. “That’s my parents,” she said. “You have to go.”

  “But …” said Savannah.

  “You, Tiffany and Charisma have to meet me tonight in the tunnels. We’ll need the lantern. Rusty, I need you to get back to the archive and find out one more thing for me,” said Alex and she told him.

  “OK,” said Rusty. Before she could object he was hustling Savannah out the door. “Bye Mr. and Mrs. Morgan,” he said to Alex’s surprised parents.

  Once he had gone Lewis turned to Alex. “If that young man is going to be here so often he had better call us by our proper names.”

  “Yes,” agreed Irene. “Dr. and Dr. Morgan.”

  After supper Alex went back to her room and rolled back the carpet. Very slowly, so as to make as little sound as possible, she eased up a section of the floorboard. She reached in and took out a cloth parcel. Inside it were two of her greatest treasures. She felt enormous relief that when on the pills she hadn’t thought them worth burning. She took the bundle over to her bed. She took out some cotton gloves from her drawer and then very carefully unfolded the material. Inside lay two ancient grimoires, payment for previous missions. Alex used these rarely. If the books would allow the reader to achieve half of what they promised, they were extremely dangerous. Mostly, she thought they were superstition, but occasionally, like now, she had reason to refer to them. They had never let her down.

  An hour later Alexander made her way out to the college. The late summer was coming to an end and the night was filled with the scent of the final blooms of the season. A full
moon shone so bright Alex felt she was in a spot light.

  The three cheerleaders and Rusty were waiting for her outside the main door of the college. Tiffany and Charisma were back to their usual glossy selves, with mirror-like straight hair and false eyelashes that would give an arachnophobe nightmares for a month. Savannah’s clothes were crumpled and her hair was frizzy. The other two stood slightly away from her as if she might be contagious. Rusty leaned casually against the wall and still managed to look awkward and out of place.

  “I don’t know why we are doing this,” said Tiffany.

  “Because I said so,” snapped Savannah.

  Charisma rolled her eyes. “Let’s get it over with. Then everything can go back to normal.”

  “Is Bethany with us?” Alex asked Savannah. The girl nodded.

  “Oh creepy,” said Tiffany.

  “Has she been like watching us?” asked Charimsa. “Like all the time?”

  Alex ignored them and led the way down into the tunnels and towards the little room the girls had used. Savannah walked quietly beside her. The other two girls whispered to each other. Rusty followed at the back.

  The tunnels smelt strongly of dust. The air was acrid enough to claw at the back of Alex’s throat. Involuntarily she began working out where the asylum room she had seen had been, but she caught the thought and stopped it. She wasn’t ready yet.

  Each of them had brought a flashlight. The beams of light cut through the gloom illuminating the detritus of decades; broken desks, upturned chairs, papers trodden so frequently under foot that they had become illegible and doors hanging drunkenly off their hinges. “It’s weird,” said Rusty softly, “how all this stuff got left behind. It’s like one day everyone got up and left.”

  “How come no one remembers what’s down here?” asked Tiffany quietly.

  “Out of sight. Out of mind,” said Rusty.

  Alex shook her head. “No, they shut this place up. They didn’t want anyone coming back again.”

  “Why?” asked Charisma nervously.

  “Because bad stuff happened here,” said Savannah. No one answered her.

  Only their footsteps, muffled by the dirt, broke the silence. Savannah stared at every doorway as if waiting for someone to appear. Her nervousness affected Alex and she found herself scanning the darkness for red eyes.

  By the time they entered the small room, Tiffany and Charisma were clutching each other’s arms. They gathered around the circular table. The lantern stood upright in the middle. A light layer of grey covered it. One side of it had buckled from when Alex had knocked it on the floor.

  Tiffany went to pick it up. “We should get rid of this,” she said. “It’s broken. We can light the other candles instead.”

  Alex caught her hand. “No, that’s the link to everything. Put it on the table.” She handed some matches to Rusty. “Could you light the other candles please?” Then she turned to Savannah, “Do you sense that Bethany is with us?”

  “I think so.”

  Tiffany gave a little squeal.

  “Right,” said Alex. “I’ve done some research and I think I know how we can deal with this, but I need you all to take this seriously. I can’t stress enough how important it is that no one breaks the circle until I say we can. Do you understand?”

  “Whatever,” said Charisma looking at her nails. “None of this is real.”

  “You tell Bethany that,” said Savannah. “Oh wait, you can’t.”

  “Turn off your flashlights,” said Alex. Rusty and Savannah switched theirs off at once. Tiffany and Charisma looked at each other. Savannah grabbed theirs and turned them off. She handed them to Alex, who put them down behind her.

  “I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe,” she told the cheerleaders. “No one is getting out of here till I say we’re done. Rusty, I want you to stand at the place at the table nearest the door. Don’t let any of them past.”

  “Or let anything in,” said Tiffany, “like the bogie man.” She tried to say it in a sneering tone, but her voice trembled.

  “All of us must stand around the table with our hands on it, fingers touching. No matter what happens you must not step back.”

  They gathered around the table. The lantern remained in the middle, unlit. “Please close your eyes,” said Alex.

  She kept her eyes open, watching them. The candle light flickered creating shadows of inky blackness between the feeble lights. “There was a time,” began Alex, “when this place was not a college. Many years ago, long before any of us were born, they were some who claimed this was a place of learning then, but it was not. They claimed it was a place to cure the sick and ill, but it was not.

  Instead they brought the unwanted, the women pregnant out of wedlock, those crippled at birth, those who had become too ugly to look upon, those who could not speak and finally those who were mad to this place.

  The doctors here promised families and friends they would heal their loved ones, but they did not. They had no intention of doing so. Instead they put them on display so visitors could come and watch the madman perform. They tried radical new ideas upon them — cutting, burning, sawing bone to see what would happen. They tried out new ideas for medicine that they did not dare perform on the living outside. And slowly, no matter why they were brought here, all those within became mad. Mad with fury. Mad with pain. Mad with betrayal. Mad and lost in a world of darkness where all truth, light, and love had been rent from them.

  They were the lost.

  They are the lost.

  For some of them remain. Confused souls no longer remembering who or what they are or were. No longer remembering anything but the pain and their tormentors.

  Feel them around us. Feel those poor, dispossessed souls who remain below. Feel their sadness. Do not fear them. They, who were tortured and hounded during their last days, would never knowingly inflict such pain upon others.

  Feel their presence all around us. They are despair. They are grief. They are loss. But they are not evil. They have been forced to dwell in darkness. They have been changed by darkness, but once, like us, they were born into the daylight, under the warmth of the sun, some even knew love, perhaps not for long, but they remember. All they want is to return to that brightness. They want nothing from us, so as I call them. As I gather them to us. Do not be afraid. They are not our enemies.”

  Alex looked around at the other’s faces. Rusty frowned, but his eyes were tight shut. Tears streamed down Savannah’s face. Charisma and Tiffany stood still as statues hypnotized by her words.

  “Come then,” said Alex. “Come then all those who were left behind. Come to us that we may free you. Come in light and love. Come in hope and with joy. Come knowing we wish no more than to set you free.”

  A wind whipped up around the room. Alex leaned forward into the table. “Come to us now,” she cried as the noise of the gale rose. The others shut their eyes tighter. Charisma whimpered, but did not move. This, Alex knew, was when the danger would begin.

  As Alex alone was watching, only she saw Bethany’s form shimmer into being above the table. She looked as she had always done. She did not glow and she was not some translucent being. She was simply Bethany. Alex smiled at her.

  “They cannot leave,” Bethany said and her voice sounded exactly as it has when she was alive.

  Tiffany hunched her shoulders up to her ears as if trying not to hear.

  “Keep your hands on the table,” said Alex. “Keep the circle. You must keep the circle strong.”

  “Beth?” asked Charisma, her eyes still shut. “Is that you?”

  “Pretty much,” said Bethany.

  “But you’re dead,” said Charisma.

  “I’m not properly dead. I’m stuck.”

  “Is it the man with the lantern who holds you here?” asked Alex.

  “Him and the rest. They are all so frightened of him. They can’t go past him. Some of them have faded until they are nothing but the fear. They are almost as frightening
as him.”

  Alex nodded. “I’m going to need you to help us Bethany. You are the most recent here, so you are the one who can bring the others together. They will follow you. You are one of them. You have to help us convince them to come together against him.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” said Bethany.

  “It is your only chance to leave here,” said Alex. “And it may be our only chance too.” She heard Savannah gasp beside her.

  “Rusty, what was the name of the lantern man?” asked Alex.

  “Thomas Gryme,” said Rusty.

  “Thomas Gryme,” said Alex. “We summon you to answer for your crimes. We summon you to answer for your cruelty. We summon you to answer for the deaths you have caused. We summon you to answer for the evil that you spread. We summon you into the light so that you may be cast out and these souls go free.”

  A howl so primitive, so savage, so pure in hatred echoed from the corridors outside.

  “He’s coming,” said Bethany.

  “Hold the circle,” said Alex. “He cannot harm us if we stay together.” She could see Tiffany’s face contorting in panic. Charisma shook like a leaf. “Lean on the table,” said Alex. “Root yourself to the table. This is the wood of a tree, grown in sunlight. A tree of the world above. Lean into the table allowing it to support you.” She saw Rusty lean forward and Savannah too. Bethany watched from above. “I don’t know if they are strong enough,” she said.

  “Come souls of the lost. Come take your chance,” called Alex. “Now is your time to fight this man with us. He is no more than you. He was but a man. He fed on your fear while you are alive. He feeds on it now. Defy him!”

  The wind grew stronger. Alex fought for balance. The lantern on the table flared into light. Rusty opened his eyes, shock registering on his face.

  The howl came again from outside. Louder. Closer. “Oh my god,” breathed Savannah. “We’re going to die.”

  “No, we are not,” said Alex. “Stay strong! Together we are safe.”

  “But he killed Bethany,” said Savannah.