October Darlings

by Wendolyn Baird

  “Used to be? Why isn’t this part used anymore?” I glance at the guys for clarification, but Ellis shakes his head, and George only shrugs. Both are just as lost as I am. Sabrina really is the history buff here.

  “There were a few accidents,” Sabrina admits. “Some kids went missing. Eden convinced me and Miranda that it was vampires, preying on the innocent. Obviously now, I realize it’s something much worse... because it’s real.”

  “She wasn’t that off though.” I tighten my jaw and adjust the backpack on my shoulders. “Y’all sure about heading in with me?”

  Ellis nods at me, no trace of his easy mannerisms present in the solemn person before me. “For the last time, Addie, yes! Either we go together, or not at all. Get that through your head. We stick together around here.”

  The boarded-up doorway is easy to get through, the wood is so rotten all it takes is a couple of kicks from the guys before it caves in. Clicking on our flashlights, we step into the dim sanctuary, our footsteps sliding across the dirtied, cracked tile. Overturned pews and broken glass displays are scattered around the perimeter of the room, and a pair of spray-painted French doors lead back into the sunlight on the opposite side of the building.

  The debris crunches under our heels, and I pull my hat lower on the nape of my neck. My hair is standing on end, and the walls themselves appear to be dripping in a faint purple. Blinking, I shake the extra vision off, and the room is a faded grey again, streaked with water damage and covered in dirt.

  “We’re looking for the courtyard, right?” George asks. Rubbing at his arms he huddles protectively near Sabrina, looking around the space. "I think it’s through those doors. I got locked out there once."

  “Was that when you got caught hiding rocks in Ana’s lunch box?” Ellis glances at him, his face close to calm. Only the way his fingers twitch across his flashlight that gives away his anxiety.

  George swallows, reaches for Sabrina, and nods.

  “I’ll go first.” Pushing my way to the front, I shove the doors open and step into the adjacent hallway. The wide, cement archway is notably blank; no spray paint marks this space. The brisk air carries whispers with it, and I breathe it in hungrily.

  We follow the path until it comes to a split, where we amble into pairs and peer down each turn apprehensively. George, unaware of the one rule of Delia’s we’re breaking, suggests we split up, and leads to the first argument I’ve ever seen between him and Ellis. Exhausted and nauseous, I roll my eyes at Sabrina and plop onto the ground to rest for a minute.

  The morning is moving so quickly, the sun’s almost overhead. Again, I’m struck with the sensation of being in a world outside the one everyone else exists in. Delia said we existed on the in-between of things, but this doesn’t feel like limbo. It’s like I’m on a completely different plane.

  A shrill scream breaks my thoughts into static, and I scramble to my feet, with an overwhelming cloud of terror blinding my senses. It sounds again, cutting the air as my blood goes cold and the sky grows dark.

  “Sabrina!” George gasps, racing off in the direction of her cry.

  Grabbing onto Ellis’ jacket, I fumble for the stick of sage and force my tongue to form words. “What happened?” I demand. I’d only closed my eyes for a second. “Where’d she go?”

  He doesn’t answer me, or can’t, but taking my hand, he drags me along the breezeway after George. We can’t lose him too. Sabrina, where are you?

  Sweat pours down my face as we run, stinging when it falls into my eyes and against the cuts on my neck. “Sabrina!” I yell. “Sabrina?”

  She shrieks one last time, the sound echoing off the cement, and then George is gone too, forcing his body under a gap in a boarded over doorway.

  “Wait!” I beg him, but it's no use. He’s too frantic to reach her.

  I duck my head under the boards, and then back at Ellis. I can see the wide courtyard George had described, but there’s no way Ellis is going to fit through the doorway. We can’t split up anymore.

  The sick taste of acid swirls at the back of my esophagus as Ellis attempts to kick the planks in. Every second we’re separated might be another second closer to death. And it will be my fault.

  In between the shuddering slams that vibrate through my torso and skull, the sounds of George continuing to call Sabrina’s name keep me both hopeful and terrified. George is still safe, but what about her?

  I clutch at my hair, letting my beanie fall off and my bobby pins slide against my knuckles, embracing the pain pounding through me. Ellis is still kicking, but I can’t hear George anymore. It’s not possible for them both to vanish in a matter of seconds.

  Finally, the wood splinters, and we can rush through, but the moment my feet touch the threshold, Ellis jerks me back.

  Not only is George nowhere to be seen, but the courtyard is completely covered in spiderwebs. The spiders’ sleek black bodies and sharp legs dance about the gossamer threads, and the brilliant red hourglasses on their abdomens warn us of our mortality. In the very center of the space, rests the matching statue, her head bowed, her hands folded, but her face, very, very wrong. In place of a frown, this figure smiles, a grin so cruel, it drives ice into my veins.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ELLIS TRIES TO PULL me back, his frantic gasps echoing through my ears. But Sabrina’s glasses are lying next to the wishing well Ellis had described. It’s low to the ground, but so wide, there’s no doubt about where the others have gone.

  “The well!”

  “Addie, no way! Are you seeing this?” Ellis hisses. His face is pale and covered in sweat, and his eyes are so wide his irises look yellow in the fading light instead of their usual amber. His breath comes out in short breaths, labored and tight.

  I tug against his hold, hell-bent on recovering the others. “You said you were with me no matter what,” I beg. “I’m not leaving them. You said you wouldn’t either.”

  Guilt tears at me, I have no right to beg him to risk his life any further, but I need him to hold up to his promise. As if in response to my words, a blinding heat wraps around my wrist as Frank tightens about my arm, and it’s my turn to gasp, as thousands of scorpions come crawling down the walls. Like drones to their queen, they fight my way in undulating waves familiar to me from the dreams that plague me every night. The spiders fall to their ranks, and a swarming mess of colors swirl around our feet as the two swarms fight one another.

  Ellis looks as though he’s about to be sick, and taking advantage of his momentary distraction, I pull him into the courtyard behind me. Frightened voices bounce up the curved walls, and the faint reflection of water plays upon the roof of the well. Scooping Sabrina’s glasses into my pocket, I sit on the edge of the wall and swing my legs over. Dropping my backpack on the ground, I sigh as the weight slides off me.

  “You ready?” I glance at Ellis as he watches the horrifying mass of arachnids blocking our only exit out. Bits of web are caught on his hair and shoulders, and a wisp floats in front of my face.

  He groans, flopping down next to me, and meets my gaze with dazed eyes. His nod is more resignation than agreement, but I’ll take it.

  “Here we go.”

  We grab onto the rope that extends from the pulley over the hole, and I pray to god it can hold our weight.

  Air rushes past me, and again I feel like Alice, but this is no Wonderland. The dark consumes us, and as my stomach drops, so does my certainty in my abilities. Will I be able to fight off the demon if it makes another appearance? Will we be able get back out of here unscathed? All of us?

  We land in freezing water with a splash, and I’m eternally grateful it only reaches up to my shoulders. Enough to break our fall, but not enough to drown. It looks like there might be a hole in the wall just above our heads, and from the sounds of the voices, that’s where George and Sabrina are.

  “We’re alive,” George croaks out. “Please tell me Ellis is waiting to pull us out?”

  “Sorry, dude. I’m here
too.” Ellis shakes the water off the bottom of his backpack and hikes it on his shoulders. “What happened? How did y’all even get past the spiders?”

  “What spiders?”

  I feel Ellis turn towards me in the dark, and I struggle to see his face in what little light we have.

  “Did he just say what spiders? What spiders does he think I'm talking about?” he gasps.

  “Okay, I get it,” I reassure him. “You don’t like spiders.” I put my hands on his arms and pull him into a hug. It’s good to have him back at my side, and I could use the comfort of a hug myself. My heart is racing so fast, it’s a miracle it hasn’t stopped on me. “They’re gone now. Now we just need to worry about finding another way out.”

  That and not getting dragged to depths of this water by the shadows I’m sure are watching us.

  "Yeah, yeah.” He nods, resting his cheek on my head as he forces himself to relax. “Is there room up there for us?”

  “Yeah,” George replies. “Give me your hands and we’ll pull you up.”

  Ellis lifts me first, waiting until I’m firmly in George’s arms before relinquishing his grasp on me.

  Once we’re all settled into the recessed ledge, Ellis digs through his now damp backpack until he pulls out a flashlight, and the weak beam is so stark against the rest of the well, I have to cover my eyes to stop them from burning while they adjust. Far above us, the faint circle of dying sunlight teases us with how far away we are from everything we’re familiar with. Somewhere along the passages we ran, we crossed a line, and with the way every bone in my body is tingling with electricity, I think we’re far closer to the underworld than we are to the living.

  “How did you get down here?” Ellis asks the others while I feel the bricks around us. If we could only find a way to climb up... I pass Sabrina her now crooked glasses and stare longingly at that tiny slip of sunshine.

  “I don’t know,” Sabrina admits. “One second I was watching Addie sit down outside, and then I thought I heard singing. I blinked and next thing I knew, I was standing by that statue up there. There was a noise, and I turned around to see Addie falling into the well, except now I guess I know it wasn’t Addie after all.”

  My teeth are chattering so much that I can’t speak, and Ellis presses me to his side, shaking just as much as I am. Black dots float in front of my eyes as I wrestle with myself to get my breathing under control, but I’m about three seconds away from hyperventilating, and that’s something we can’t afford. It lured us in, which means it’s down here with us. Oh, god. Did I just bring my friends to their tomb?

  George wraps an arm around Sabrina to steady her as her face crumples in the shadows off the flashlight. Whatever way she imagined this going, this clearly wasn’t it.

  “Same thing with me,” he adds. “Except I was trying to pull her up with the rope and something knocked me off my feet. I thought it was a dog or something until Sabrina told me what happened to her.”

  “Wait, but y’all didn’t see anything wrong with the courtyard before that?” Ellis demands, still fixated on the black widows.

  “I don’t know,” Sabrina sniffs, “I wasn’t really paying a bunch of attention to that stuff, okay? I pretty much teleported and started hearing things! Do you know how majorly scary that is?”

  My heart can hardly keep in its place as I listen to them, and the lack of one detail terrifies more than any other.

  “The statue, guys, what did the statue look like?”

  All three turn to me, and I can feel the anxiety rising off of them like smoke blowing in my face. The sensation is as prominent as the violet lights that guide me, and the warmth of Frank at my wrist that reassures me. I know their emotions as strongly as I feel my own.

  Ellis speaks first, confirming what I don’t want to hear. “It was just the same as the one in the cemetery. Sad and covered in moss. Why?”

  “Because that’s not what I saw.”

  Everything is connected, I know that much. I just need to put the pieces together.

  Opals are important. Delia wears one, I think it might have been Marlowe’s, and they were set in all those graves. Women and children are the ones who died, and only one little boy, who I’m willing to bet is the one that’s been terrifying me for months. The one Delia said murdered Marlowe. But where does the shadow figure fit it? Is it like the doppelgangers— some sort of trick the boy uses to become more threatening?

  I shudder, leaning against Ellis’ wet hoodie to keep from trembling myself right off the edge of the nook. It’s not as though a demon like that needs any intimidation skills, not with its supposed track record.

  The boy must have been a Nix, there’s no other way he could have made it in the graveyard or house otherwise. But if he was, why bother drowning my mom? Or hunting down any of the rest?

  A faint collection of words floats up through the middle of my mind, just bare snippets of Delia's ramblings. “It was shortly after their great aunt passed that they found her wandering in the halls. Then again when a cousin drowned, poor thing he was only a child.” A slew of deaths, a drowning, a child. Could the twins, the first clairvoyants, be to blame for all this?

  “Ew! Get it off, get it off!” Sabrina begins whimpering in her corner, stretching her leg out as far as the ledge allows. A thick, black creature clings to her ankle where her tights have ripped, and I recoil as the shape of a leech becomes clear.

  George forces himself to pluck it off, gagging as bits of blood squelches into his palm. Ellis turns the flashlight away to hide the sight, and a quick splash tells me George has released it back in the water. “Please tell me there’s no more of those things,” he groans. Wiping his hands on his muddied, wet jeans, all he manages to do is smear the stuff around.

  I lean forward, peering into the dark reservoir with the light Ellis moves my way. The water is still, and the reflection of the beam is painful against the dim hues around us. Fat, writhing parasites flounder at the edges of the water, working their ways onto the wall. A wave of vertigo hits me, and Ellis grabs the back of my shirt to keep me from tipping.

  “There’s more alright,” I tell him.

  Above us, the slice of sky we can still see changes hues as time goes on. Our phones are waterlogged, and even if they weren’t, I’d doubt we’d get reception this far underground. We’re out in the middle of nowhere behind a labyrinth of half boarded walls and I never thought I’d die sticking my nose into history. Then again, I never thought I’d be targeted by a demon either.

  Family drama will do that to you, I guess.

  “Hey, Addie?” Sabrina’s voice bounces off the rounded walls and I shudder. I bet this is what the inside of a mausoleum sounds like. “You don’t see anything... bad in the water, do you? Like we’re not about to be eaten by a monster or anything.”

  The air passes through my chapped lips in a slip of a gasp, but I shake my head in denial. “I haven’t seen any ghosts down here.”

  George groans and hangs his head dejectedly. I can just make out his bedraggled hair in the weak light, and he’s shaking so violently, drops of water fly off his head to hit my cheeks.

  “No,” he shivers, “we’ll probably starve to death ourselves before that happens.”

  Ellis fidgets around, and after much movement and the sound of a zipping opening and closing again, there’s a crinkling of plastic and a small slap as Ellis throws an object at George’s face.

  “There,” Ellis says. “Now eat and shut up. Being negative isn’t going to help us get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” George whines even as he tears into what smells like a granola bar, “then what is?”

  Huddled against Ellis and colder than I’ve ever been in my life, I squeeze my eyes shut and do my best to quell the frantic panic beating through my chest. If there was any way in the world we could reach Delia, I’d tell him she would help, but there isn't. There’s only me and my half-fledged ghost sense.

  “Me,” I tell him. “I’m going to get us out
of here.”

  Pushing myself to the edge of our little nook, I let my feet dangle over the darkness, feeling like I’m just tempting something to drag me down. The water seems deeper from up here, thicker too. As thick as blood. The heavy metallic odor that rises through the scent of mildew doesn’t help that impression, and the air is becoming harder to breathe.

  “Okay, Frank,” I whisper. “We could really use a miracle right now.”

  He tightens his grasp on my wrist, but otherwise doesn’t respond. You’re on your own kid, he may as well be saying.

  Just great.

  Angling forward just a bit further, I stretch my neck until my muscles scream in protest and I’m in danger of falling to the leeches. There’s not an inch of me that isn’t weighed down in terror, but there’s a strange buoyancy keeping me going. It’s unordered and powerful, and as I count the bricks separating from our ledge to the top of the well, I almost miss it for what it is. Rage.

  Nothing in my life has been fair for far too long, and I’ll be damned if I let myself or my friends die this way.

  “Stay here,” I command the others.

  Ellis reaches for me, but something in my expression must tell him not to, because he falters, hand raised and flashlight shaking in his opposite grip. Sabrina twitches and a bit of food falls out of George’s mouth as he gawks at me. None of us deserve this.

  Turning my back to the open space, I lower myself over the edge, pressing my feet flat against the wall the way I learned to float in a pool. Crouch against it, and then kick off.

  Falling is easier this time, but my friends’ horrified screams are much harder to bear than the impact of the liquid swallowing me whole. Everything muffles as soon as I submerge, and flailing my arms around me, it’s nearly impossible to push myself up. The bottom of the well doesn’t just resemble blood, it is blood.

  My lungs beg for air, but I can’t open my eyes in this stuff. I can’t determine up from down, and no matter how much I stretch, I can’t reach a single wall with any of my limbs. I thought I had imagined what dying was before, but this is so much worse.