by Katie Perez
No
Faith
In
Whispers
- A Psychological Thriller –
KATIE PEREZ
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Copyright © by KATIE PEREZ. All rights reserved.
Warnings
Drama
-
Serious Feels
-
Jaw-dropping
-
Psychological Thriller
-
Cliché written may not so cliché manner
CONTENTS
1. Prologue
2. Meeting the Girls
3. Stories
4. Rose
5. Melancholy
6. War
7. Haunted
8. Bedrest
9. Jezebelle
10. Knife
11. Molly
12. Dead
13. Hospital
14. Night
15. Blood
16. Massacre
17. Nightmare
18. Interrogation
19. Epilogue
1. Prologue
There was some interest shown, for once, one Thursday evening at prayers in Villemonte City Orphanage. It had nothing to do with what Mr. Levitski was saying, asking some invisible deity to forgive sins and look over the two orphans who had already succumbed to pneumonia. No. At the front of the shadowy hall, where prayers were said every night, there were three new orphans.
There was a boy of about nine or so, strongly built, sandy blond hair; a girl a couple of years younger, smaller and slighter with almost white hair down to her waist; and in the girl’s arms, an infant. They stood uneasily at the front beside Mr. and Mrs. Levitski, trying not to look at the two hundred or so pairs of vicious eyes staring back. Some were curious. Others were downright hostile.
“Amen.” Mr. Levitski ended the prayer. There was a post-prayer pause when you were supposed to raise your head, open your eyes, recollect yourself. Few of the orphans had to do such a thing.
“There are three new orphans joining this asylum,” Mr. Levitski began. You weren’t supposed to call it an orphan asylum anymore, as the word conjured up images of lepers and lunatics. But Mr. Levitski was never one to change his ways. “They are Wilbur, Miriam and Steadfast Kladis. I hope you will make them feel welcome here.”
Wilbur and Miriam, the oldest Kladises, hoped so too, but judging by the unwelcoming looks on most of the orphanage’s inhabitants’ faces, it was not to be. Wilbur will be in Dormitory Four. Kuln, you will be responsible for him.” Kuln, a rather chubby boy around Wilbur’s age nodded.
“Miriam and Steadfast will be in Dormitory Three, where Klusman will look after them.” Klusman, a dark teenage girl, scowled at her boots.
There were rumors about Marie Klusman. She never looked up from her boots. She seldom spoke, being known to go for weeks without uttering a word. She’d been at the orphanage for thirteen years, almost longer than anyone. There was something vaguely unsettling about her, something even the kindest children couldn’t help noticing.
Prayers were dismissed and Miriam, unsure what to do or where to go, approached Marie. “Um…” she started, “Klusman?”
Marie suddenly lifted her head. “Molly,” she said. There was a slight pause as she moistened her lips with her tongue, as if what she was going to say next took a great deal of courage. “My name’s Molly.” Without another word, Molly abruptly started out of the hall, Miriam following behind, still carrying her baby sister.
2. Meeting the Girls
Miriam Kladis followed Molly Klusman out of the hall and into the corridor. She couldn’t help but look around- everything was so strange, so alien, so different. The cracked walls of the corridor were painted an ugly greenish cream with blue-green mould creeping up them and across the ceiling like some sort of mutant spider. They got to the stairs. There wasn’t much left of the wooden banister and the whole staircase creaked ominously as they climbed it. Miriam shuddered as she nearly put her foot through a splintering gap.
Molly, who still hadn’t uttered a word the whole time, led the Kladis girls into their new dormitory. It was a long, narrow room with two identical rows of ten beds squashed up against the wall. It wasn’t the best dorm in the orphanage, as the creepy mould that was everywhere was particularly bad in here, and it did have a permanently broken window.
The room was full of girls of every age. Miriam wasn’t normally shy but she was now. Molly had abandoned her completely. There was a blonde girl around Miriam’s age lying on a bed near the door, and they shared a shy smile.
“I’m Catherine. Catherine Lord,” said the blonde girl.
“I’m Miriam Kladis,” replied Miriam. “This is my baby sister, Steadfast.”
“She’s cute. I’ve got a little sister too.” She gestured at a toddler sleeping on the bed next to her. “This is Cleo.”
Miriam smiled. “Where do I sleep?”
Catherine thought for a minute. “Kladis? Umm… K-L-A… you’ll be between Jezebelle Killy and Marie Klusman. We have to sleep in alphabetical order.” Catherine rolled her eyes and Miriam smiled.
The room had twenty beds in it, and, before the Kladis girls arrived, twenty three girls living in it. This caused quite a problem. The older girls were particularly irritated.
“God, how are we supposed to fit twenty people in a room only fucking built for twenty?” exclaimed one Charlotte Percival Killy.
Charlotte Percival Killy. Thirteen years old, looked at least seventeen. The sort of girl that once met, you remembered her for the rest of your life. She had long, silky black hair, tan skin, brown eyes. She was tall and thin and graceful. Charlotte Percival was named after a female war hero. Every girl knew the story of Charlotte Percival, who had bravely killed twelve Arabians in the War, and looked up to her. To be named after her was unspeakably dangerous and sexy.
Shirley Kittirick was her best friend. Similar in the way that they were both thirteen but looked much older, she was drop dead gorgeous in a different way, being as blonde and fair as Charlotte Percival was dark and tan, and she also possessed brains, not always common in girls with ‘that look’.
Shirley thought about the problem. “We could get rid of someone in here,” she said. “Put them in Dorm Five. Prudence died last week, remember?” She was referring to Prudence Mortimer, an infant killed by pneumonia recently. “So they have a crib. We take that crib and bring it in for Steadfast here. Then… that means one of us has to go to Dorm Five to make room.”
No-one said what they were all thinking. As the dorms were arranged alphabetically, this meant the girl who would be kicked out was Adora McCoy, one of the most popular girls in the orphanage, best friend to Shirley and Charlotte Percival.
Then Mrs. Levitski came in. “How are the girls settling in?”
Every girl despised Mrs. Levitski. She was quite a short woman; even ten year olds could look down at her. She had a high pitched, scratchy voice, usually berating the girls over things like their skirts being one centimeter too short or their hair not being tidy enough. She was in charge of the girls here; the one you were supp
osed to go to if you had any problems. Not surprisingly, few did.
“We’re just wondering how they’re going to fit,” said Shirley. She could be sweet enough when she wanted. “I think maybe Marie should leave.”
“Marie?” Mrs. Levitski’s eyes went to Molly’s hunched figure on her bed. “Marie Klusman? No, she’s not to leave,” she said firmly. “Adora. She has to go to Dormitory Five.”
Adora, a girl who looked almost identical to Shirley except thinner, stood up. “But Mrs. Levitski,” she protested. “Why should I? I mean, I have friends here. Marie doesn’t. She can leave. No-one would care.”
“Don’t answer back to me, young lady!” Mrs. Levitski screeched. “You’re to leave. That is final.” She stormed out.
Molly knew what was coming. The older girls in the dorm circled her like wolves.
“You’re gonna pay....”
3. Stories
The girls of Dormitory Three initiated the new girls that night. They told the same old stories every institution has, the same stories told for years.
“You know, Levitski isn’t the Levitskis’ real name.”
Miriam stared wide-eyed at the narrator, Shirley Kittrick’s younger sister, Thomasina. “It’s not?”
“Nope. They had to change it. They’re on the run from the law.”
“Really?” Miriam was fascinated.
“They robbed a bank. In Montreal. I swear to God.”
Molly was lying on her bed, trying to sleep. Her head hurt for some reason. Sleep wouldn’t come, because the girls’ voices seemed ten times as loud as usual. She had an odd feeling that the last time the story had been told the Levitskies had robbed a bank in Quebec City.
“You know what else?” said Shirley. “A girl here got pregnant. And she was only thirteen.”
“Really? Wow!”
Miriam was responding the way the girls wanted her to, with complete and utter conviction. She would be accepted fine.
“Some slut named Beulah St. John. Total whore. The father was from here too. He ran away when he heard.” The girls giggled. “The girl got sent away, to some girls’ reformation place. She went mad.” Shirley savored the next bit. “She tried to kill the baby when it was still inside her.”
“How?” Miriam said in a hushed voice.
“An old piece of barbed wire.”
The girls who were old enough to know what that meant shuddered.
“That’s nothing. You know, there was a massacre here. Like, twenty years ago. Some kids were like, worshipping Satan or something, and got these guns and went around one night shooting everyone.” Charlotte Percival said matter-of-a-factly.
“Why?” whispered Miriam.
Charlotte Percival shrugged. “They were psychos. It was really late one night. First they killed the people who owned the orphanage before the Levitskies. Shot them in their beds.” Charlotte Percival mimed cocking a gun at her head.
“Then, they went around the dormitories. Everyone was still asleep. So it was easy. They shot everyone.
“They came to this dorm right here and killed everyone just as usual. But there was one girl; she was like five or six, who had gone out of the dorm for a glass of water. She came back and got back into bed with her sister… who was dead. She realized the bed was covered in blood and saw that her sister’s head was all smashed in, and she started screaming. She ran around the orphanage screaming, ‘Everyone’s dead! Everyone’s dead!’”
Charlotte paused to let that sink in.
“She should have kept quiet,” she retorted. “That only made her get shot faster.”
Molly shivered.
“You know, that little girl haunts this place,” Charlotte continued. “You still hear her some nights, screaming.”
Molly tried to fight back the tears in her eyes with little success. She hated this story. None of the other girls ever found it as disturbing as she did. She’d heard it so many times, and events differed from telling to telling, but it terrified her. Maybe it was because she knew the story did have a grain of truth in it. There were, occasionally, cases of orphans getting hold of guns and shooting one another. But there had been a massacre, years ago… Molly was very little when it happened. It was before Charlotte Percival Killy had ever come to Villemonte Orphanage. Some boys… she didn’t really remember the exact circumstances. She remembered screaming… someone lifting her and running… a pool of blood, Molly’s two or three year old brain too young to be anyway moved by it. That was her earliest memory.
The girls moved on to telling their stories of how they ended up at the orphanage. Charlotte Percival told her heart-breaking story of her loving parents being killed when she was a baby. Catherine Lord, the girl who had been so kind to Miriam when she first set foot in the dormitory, surprisingly had parents in jail for life, after apparently killing several people. Catherine seemed completely undaunted about this. There were lots of murders, diseases, accidents, parents being too poor to look after their children… oddly, the Kittiricks never told their story. No-one ever asked them, and they never told. It was simply accepted as a taboo subject.
Miriam had heard almost everyone’s stories. “Molly?” she asked.
Molly still had a headache and was still upset from the earlier ghost story. “Yeah?”
“Why are you here?”
To Miriam’s surprise, the room burst out laughing.
“Yeah, Molly, why are you here?” cackled Charlotte Percival.
“My mum… she got sick. So I came here. Then she died,” Molly replied in a tiny voice. “That’s all.”
“That is not all, Marie Klusman. What about your daddy?” Charlotte snapped.
“I- I dunno- I- I never knew him, he…”
“Yeah, you never knew him,” said Shirley. “I bet your mama had trouble figuring out which one it was too. Slut.”
The word stung Molly. It felt like she’d been slapped.
“I guess you wanna grow up to be a hooker like your mama, don’t ya?” Shirley taunted.
There was no way Molly could answer this question without branding either herself or her mother a prostitute, so she said nothing.
“Yeah, I bet you do,” muttered Shirley. She turned her attention to Charlotte Percival. “You know, I’m not sure Molly could be a hooker. I mean, nobody would ever wanna have sex with someone as ugly and fat as her, let alone pay for it.”
“Well, maybe she could attract the desperate ones,” replied Charlotte. “You know, for a few cents maybe, like her mom did.”
“Molly’s dad must have been a hell of a low life if that was the only whore he could…”
Molly interrupted Shirley. “My mother was NOT a whore.”
Shirley merely shook her head at Molly patronizingly. “Tell yourself that all you want, Marie, but there’s no changing what you are.”
“If I’m a whore,” said Molly, “that makes you twice as much of a whore as me.”
Charlotte stood up sharply and advanced towards Molly. “What the fuck did you just call my friend?”
Molly said nothing, wishing she could take back the words that she’d said.
“I said, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST CALL SHIRLEY, YOU FUCKING BITCH?” Charlotte leapt on top of Molly and grabbed her by her black hair. Molly tried to struggle, and screamed as Charlotte pulled her hair sharply.
“Let go of me!” she shrieked.
“You’re a fucking bitch and a whore!” Charlotte started to batter Molly around the face.
Suddenly Molly summoned up all her strength from within and pushed Charlotte away as hard as she could. Surprisingly, Charlotte fell back and hit her head hard against the metal frame of a bed. She screamed. Shirley went over to her immediately. “Oh my God, Char, are you okay?” There was a little blood in her hair.
It was then that Mrs. Levitski appeared at the door.
“What in heavens is going on here?” she shrieked in her annoying tone.
Shirley stood up straight and dusted off her dress. “Marie
attacked Charlotte Percival, ma’am.” She could be sweet when she wanted to.
Mrs. Levitski marched to where a sobbing Charlotte was sitting. She cast a well trained eye over her head. “It’s just a scratch. Stop crying.” She turned to Shirley. “You say someone attacked her?”
“It was Marie, ma’am.” Shirley simpered.
Mrs. Levitski turned to Molly. “Klusman! This is not the first time this has happened! What were you thinking of? Charlotte Percival could have been seriously hurt, or killed! Do you know what another death will do to this asylum?” Mrs. Levitski shook when she was angry. “Anything more and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave! Do you understand?”
Molly nodded meekly. “Yes, Mrs. Levitski.”
“First thing after school tomorrow, you can report to Mr. Levitski for punishment. I will tell him not to go lightly on you.” With a final glare of contempt, Mrs. Levitski strode out of the room.
An oppressive silence filled the room after her exit. Molly, feeling her cheeks growing red, busied herself in getting ready for bed. She could feel every eye on her.
“You know, they were only joking with you,” said Catherine Lord.
There was a murmur of agreement. “Yeah, Marie, why do you have to take everything so seriously?” said another girl.
If that was a joke, thought Molly, then I’m not laughing..
Not laughing at all.
4. Rose
The next day, Rose Franck fell down the stairs.
It was in the morning, when everyone was pushing to get down the stairs for breakfast. Someone pushed too hard, and Rose Franck fell over the side of the banisters. She banged her head hard on the ground. Crack.
And she was dead.
Molly saw the whole thing, being right behind her on the stairs. One minute Rose was perfectly alive and well, talking to her friend, yelling at one of the boys to stop pushing-
And then she was dead.