by Nico Augusto
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“CRYPTIC WARNINGS”
NORTHMAN’S RESIDENCE
Tuesday, September 7TH
Yann and Ani had been playing and talking and telling stories in their room for hours when they heard the sound of Shirley’s voice calling up to them. Yann got up and opened the bedroom door and that was when they both smelled the delicious aroma of dinner wafting up the stairs.
“Dinner time!” Shirley said again, “Come on boys!”
“We’re coming!” Yann called down. “Let’s go, Ani! Time to eat!”
The young boy and his canine best friend bounded down the stairs and rushed into the kitchen. Shirley had the table set under the bright lights and the plates were filled with a juicy steak, savory red potatoes and fresh green beans.
“What do you think?” Shirley asked Yann.
“It looks and smells delicious,” he said, “Doesn’t it Ani?”
Ani barked out his answer and Shirley smiled and said,
“Yours is over there little man,” pointing at his food bowl. Ani walked over to his food bowl while Yann sat down at the table with Shirley. He ate one piece of his dry food at a time as he listened to the clinks and clanks of the silverware while Shirley and Yann ate a silent meal. Shirley was exhausted. She had spent the entire afternoon working on a report.
“Do you want to watch a movie after dinner?” she asked Yann. “It’s two hours long, but if we start watching it early, we should have time to finish before you have to go to bed.”
“No, it’s okay,” Yann told her. “Ani and I are going to go back into our room and read.” Shirley watched him as he shoveled in and gulped down what was left on his plate. With his mouth still full he said, “Shir….I’m done. I’m going to brush my teeth and then would it be okay if Ani and I go back and read?”
“Yann! Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s such bad manners! I’m not kidding, okay? It’s really sloppy looking. You can go brush your teeth and read, but only for another hour, okay?”
“Okay, thanks Shirley,” he said, getting up and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Come on Ani!”
Shirley shook her head as the boy raced up the stairs towards the bathroom, taking each step with a loud thud underneath his feet. Ani slipped out the doggy door while Yann was brushing his teeth. He did his doggy business and then stopped to sniff the air. Something was about to happen…something bad. Dogs have a sort of sixth sense about those things. He listened as he heard the sounds of a fire truck pierce the otherwise peaceful night. The garden was dark in spite of the well-lit sky, shadowed by the many trees and Yann’s precious shed. Ani looked up at the stars. Suddenly he saw a luminous sphere amongst them, growing in size, becoming huge as he watched. Then it suddenly vanished without a trace. Alarmed, Ani ran back inside the house with the hair on the back of his neck and down his spine standing straight up. By the time he made it to the bedroom, Yann had already fallen asleep.
Ani jumped up on the end of the bed and sat looking out at the sky. He felt his little doggy eyelids beginning to grow heavy and his head began tilting first to one side and then the other. When he couldn’t hold his head up any longer, he crawled underneath the sheets and cuddled up against Yann. Yann instinctively rolled over and put his arm around the little dog in his sleep.
Downstairs, Shirley lay on the living room sofa, reading one of her textbooks. Three other books lay strewn around her as she tried to read a week’s worth of assignments in one evening. She suddenly sat up straight and looked at the time,
“Oh no, I forgot to call Matt!” She put her feet on the floor, knocking over the stack of books she’d forgotten was there. Shirley sighed, she was so tired. She picked up the phone and dialed Matt’s number. She was worried, afraid that he was going to be upset with her. When he answered she said,
“Hi honey. I’m sorry, I was so busy. I had to catch up on….”
Matt chuckled and said, “I know. It’s okay. How are you? I miss you so much….” he said something else after that, or at least Shirley thought he did, but the words were distorted and there was a crackling sound coming out of the receiver.
“I can’t hear you!” she said, “Damn phone!” Shirley could suddenly hear a woman’s voice coming through the line. It sounded like she was far away but Shirley heard her say,
“One, zero, two, three….It’s over.”
“Hey Matt? What is that? I can’t hear you!” Shirley banged the phone on the table and then put it back to her ear. She could hear Matt’s voice then saying,
“Hello? Hello...the pho…” then she heard a ring and two beeps before the line went dead.
Frustrated, she dialed him back several times but each time she was unable to get through. Shirley tossed the cordless phone down onto the sofa. Stupid technology! She thought. She sat back down on the sofa with her books, hoping that he would call back when he was able. She picked the phone back up and sat it on the small table next to her. Tim and Elise should be home soon…she was just going to close her eyes for a second….
Shirley let her mind drift to thoughts of her life. She loved what she was doing with her life, although she was so tired all the time. She loved Matt and she loved the Northman’s. They were the first real family she’d ever had and she hoped that when she was finally ready, she could have a family like theirs one day.
She continued to let her thoughts drift, becoming more and more relaxed. Her whole body, including her limbs felt practically weightless as she slipped into a tranquil state of REM sleep. She could see herself beside a glorious river at sunset. The intense light of the sun as it dipped its head behind the mountains made the water glitter like a thousand diamonds adorned its surface. Shirley was gazing upon that serene scene when suddenly she could see herself back in the Northman’s living room, only now she was completely drenched. She could actually see herself as if she were looking into a mirror at her own reflection and she had the strangest sensation of having just been kissed.
“Yann…Ani….Are you there?” Shirley’s face was as white as a sheet suddenly and she looked dazed as if just waking up from a long sleep. “Answer me, please…I…” she tried to move but she felt almost paralyzed. She fought against the feeling and slowly and progressively she began to feel each one of her limbs again. When she was finally able to rise, she ran up the stairs and flung open the door to Yann’s room. It was empty. In a panic, she ran over and yanked the sheets off the bed. Nothing…no one was there.
She was suddenly filled with anguish. She found it hard to breathe as if her distress might be causing her to have a panic attack, and the panic caused her difficulty filling her lungs with air. All at once, she could feel something behind her. Thinking it might be Yann, she spun around. To her horror, she found herself facing something so hideous that her brain could barely process it. It had the vague shape of a man, only it was bigger, maybe six and a half feet tall. It had something folded against its back that looked like wings and the worst part was that it didn’t actually have a head, but two glowing red eyes the size of automobile reflectors were inset on its chest. Shirley wanted to scream, but she couldn’t, the fear had trapped the screams somewhere inside of her. Fear and loathing coursed through her body and left her limbs weak and shaky.
“Stay where you are… Don’t get any closer!” she told the thing as they stood facing each other only four or five feet apart.
Its voice came out slowly and had a crackling tone to it…like the sound Shirley had heard on the phone earlier, like a broken radio signal.
“We are not here to harm you, Shirley, you know that...Don’t you want to join your parents?”
Shirley could feel the tears streaming down her face. Her heart was pounding rapidly in her chest and she was fighting so hard to keep air in her lungs that her breathing was audible and echoing off the walls of the room.
“Leave me alone, don’t get any closer,” she told it. Her voice was coming out in a high-pitched yelp. She didn’t even recognize
the sound of it herself. “What did you do with them, where are they?” she screamed at the thing. It took a step towards her and she realized that its giant black silhouette was made of some type of slimy, viscous material like used motor oil. Shirley was frozen to the spot, paralyzed by her own fear, at the mercy of the creature…that suddenly disappeared.
Shirley fell to her knees and cried out, “Where are you?” Tears weren’t just streaming but now pouring down the sides of her face. She was petrified, in disbelief that any of this was happening. She held her hands on her head because it felt like it was going to explode. There was a flash of inky black and glowing red in front of her once more and the creature reappeared, right in front of her. It was terrifyingly close to her face as it said,
“They are ours; don’t you want to join them? They command us!”
Shirley began to scream then, as the giant creature wrapped its giant black wings around her body. “Leave me alone, let go!” she yelled at it, struggling with all of her might to get away. Slimy black matter was not so much dripping as it was oozing like thick tar from its wings onto the shiny wood floor. Once it hit the floor, it would melt down into nothingness.
Screaming, kicking, clawing and even biting, Shirley was fighting for what she thought was her very life. With considerable effort she somehow managed to escape the giant creature’s slippery grip and run out into the hallway, running right into the wall and falling down to the floor.
The impact left her stunned and she was having a difficult time pushing herself back up off the floor. The creature was back upon her and in the space of a second, pushed her over the ledge of the mezzanine.
Shirley screamed as her body hurtled through the air like a rag doll and came crashing down on top of the living room table. She could hear the crackly voice saying, “Stay with me, you will be safe, you might even save them...” just as the leg of the table ripped through her flesh and muscle and bone, perforating her throat. Stunned, she pulled herself up and staggered, bleeding profusely across the room. She could see her life flashing before her eyes and she knew she was dying. She saw Yann and Ani and Matt….Their beautiful faces appeared before her and then faded to black….Suddenly there was only emptiness….
The insistent ringing of the phone brought Shirley out of her nightmare. She was still shaking and disoriented when she woke. She instinctively put her hand to her throat, feeling for the object that had impaled her in the dream. There was nothing there…it was only a dream.
She glanced at her hand as she picked up the phone…there was something on it…something red, was that blood?
“Hello?”
“ “Hello, is this Shirley?”
“Yes it is. Who is this?” she asked, not in the mood for a telemarketer tonight. She was thinking about her nightmare still. She wanted to go up and check on Yann and Ani.
“Good evening Shirley, this is Eddie,” His voice sounded anxious. It immediately got her attention; she could tell that he was calling with very bad news
Shirley listened in abject horror to the words that Eddie was speaking. The news was worse than she would have ever imagined. She began to scream with rage, the tears flowing now in real life as abundantly as they had done in her dream as she dropped to her knees and sobbed. Her breathing was ragged and she leaned forward, clutching her stomach as it reeled with disgust. She felt Ani licking her arm. He’d heard her screams and ran down the stairs to check on her.
Shirley sat back on her bottom on the floor and looked at Ani. “Dear God, how am I going to tell Yann?”
She collapsed again into a torrent of tears, wrapping herself up in her own arms, curled into a fetal position on the floor. She lay like that; sobbing non-stop for what may have been minutes or hours, or days. It was as if time had stopped and everything was just now moving in slow motion. She didn’t want to believe what Eddie said even though she liked him and she knew Tim trusted him implicitly… She’d rather believe he was playing some horrible joke on her. If he was telling the truth then that meant that Elise and Tim were dead….And she had to tell Yann.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“ORPHAN”
September, 11, 1991
Shirley and Yann drove along the road that had become like a shallow river because of the pitiless rain that had emerged from the heavy black clouds with a roar and then poured down relentlessly across the city. The sky was malevolent as it pressed down on them. Thick black clouds raced across it, so dark that they even stood out against the starless night sky.
Yann sat in the passenger seat, his skinny little shoulders leaden with grief. He was still bewildered by it all. Only days earlier, all had been right in his world. He didn’t fully grasp what had happened to change all of that. He didn’t really get that his parents were never coming home. He knew that something bad had happened and that things would never be the same…but he didn’t understand why. Because of that, he had done his best to explain it to Ani but the dog didn’t fully comprehend it all either.
“Shirley, I don’t want to leave him. It’s not fair…” he said with tears rimming his dark eyes as he looked at her. Shirley’s heart was breaking for him, but she was doing what she knew she had to do.
“I know sweetie,” she told him in a soft voice. “I’ll take care of him until you get back home. I will do everything it takes to get you back.”
“I don’t want to go there….I really don’t. How will the other kids treat me? Please stop the car Shirley! Please! I don’t want to go!”
His please were melting her heart and she wished that she had any other choice. She was trying not to cry for his sake, but that was the only thing keeping her from it,
“Listen to me, Yann. Trust me…please. Give me some time so that I can get custody of you and Ani. I promise I will get you back, and we’ll all be together. Eddie said that he would help us. He knows people who can speed up the process. Trust me, Yann. Please.” Shirley wanted to turn the car around and take him home. She would have done it, if not for her fear that if she didn’t do this legally, someone would take Yann from her. Tim’s parents had been dead for ten years, Elise’s mother was in a nursing home and her father hadn’t been seen or heard from in over thirty years….There was no biological family to take Yann, but Shirley wanted him…she was his family. She just had to do it right.
She pulled the car into a poorly-lit parking lot, maneuvering around the deep puddles that the rain had left behind. The majority of the lights in the area emanated from the windows of a nearby building. It was the building they were headed to and Shirley looked at it with despair in her heart. It was so lifeless and cold looking. It looked more like a sanitarium than an orphanage to her. Children shouldn’t live in such a dark and dreary place….The building was immense, stretching out in all directions with hundreds of windows dotting the outside of the edifice, some were lit up and others completely black. Once they parked the car and got closer to the building, it gave Shirley the eerie feeling of a prison, like whoever went in never came out. She shuddered at the thought and glanced at Yann. He wouldn’t look at her and she didn’t blame him.
A woman, shorter than Shirley stood in front of the main building. Her hair was swept back into a severe bun and her dark and close-set eyes only added to the harshness of her look.
“Good evening,” she said, “You must be Shirley?” the woman’s voice had an edge to it, and it instantly struck Shirley the wrong way. The woman looked down at Yann and in a sharp, swift tone she said, “I assume then that you’re Yann, aren’t you?” The woman looked him over and her eyes came to rest on Ani who Yann was clutching in his arms. “This institution does not accept…these…you know, that black thing you have there! Animals are not allowed at Saint Josephs.”
“You are?” Shirley asked her, not fond of the way the woman was speaking to Yann.
“I’m Miss Pearce, the person in charge of the children.”
“We know of course that the dog can’t stay…they just wanted to say good-bye.”
The older woman gave Yann another disdainful look and told them,
“Follow me this way.” They followed her through the big main doors and began walking down a long, poorly illuminated corridor. Shirley leaned down near Yann’s ear and said,
“A few days, maximum a few weeks…I promise!”
“Please Shirley. Please let me go back home with you. I don’t want to stay here,” Yann pleaded. Ani whimpered in his arms. Although the dog didn’t understand all that was happening, he knew his best friend was sad and afraid.
Miss Pearce stopped walking and turned towards Yann, “I know this is not easy son, but we are all here to help you. We will take good care of you until we find you a real family.”
“Don’t worry please, sweetie! Just give me a little time,” Shirley felt a tear escape down her cheek, she couldn’t hold them back any longer.
“Please! I want to stay with Ani!” The little boy’s voice was desperate and his eyes wide with the terror that came from being separated from everyone he loved and sent to live in such a horrid place.
“Yann, listen to me…” Shirley begged him. “Come with me to the car and we’ll get your suitcase from the trunk. I‘ll walk you to your room. I promised you we’ll find a solution to this and I meant it. Once that happens I’ll be back to get you. It’ll be in no time, honey. I promise.”
“Come on,” Miss Pearce told them over her shoulder. “I’ll show you where the room is and which one is your bed. Once you’ve seen it we’ll sign the admission papers in the office and you can get your luggage. Then Shirley and….The dog can be on their way.”
Yann tightened his grip on the little dog, clutching him to his chest. Ani licked the boy on his neck and the side of his face. He was shaking…sensing Yann’s fear.
As they walked further into the dismal place Shirley found herself thinking that a place filled with children shouldn’t be such an abysmal place. It should radiate with warmth and joy. This place was as welcoming as a penitentiary and she completely understood why Yann was afraid.