The Town Whispers: Season 1

Chapter 4: A Child Forgotten

The Fort. A small rotten little town.
Decay and chaos at it's center.
Digs it's nails deep,
Into the false shifting bedrock of,
Slithering monstrosities below its surface,
Just beneath its skin.
Oh, The Fort.
Home Sweet Home.
     
       - Jacob Mortimer

Door to door, the search party went, knocking on the flimsiest of door frames, and the sturdiest. No one was too poor or too rich to be asked if they had seen Matthew. No one was too rich or too poor to be asked to join in on the search.

They marched through the woods, shoulder to shoulder looking for anything, whether that was a body, disturbed earth, or simply Matthew sleeping at the base of a cedar tree.... Well that depended on who you asked. They waded through the shallows of the river that lay like secret tributaries hidden behind delta's which had built on the back of dead bilge rats swollen on the scraps and excrement left behind as the townies came and went, one life time after another.

Even old Alfie, who wasn't too sharp, and wasn't too fast did what he could, marching through his pumpkin patch, and through the back fields that looked as if they reached far beyond the horizon, idly poking at large lumps in the grass. Alfie had been sharp once, he was fast too, cause Alfie had been a log driver, but a slip and tumble later, and it looked like someone had taken a scoop out of the top of his head.

Everyone did what they could, because that's what everyone does in a small town as wonderful as The Fort. When one goes missing, the lose is felt deeply, it's felt spiritually. Of course when so few live in a small town, each persons worth seems to be more, and based on the effort everyone gave towards finding poor sweet little Matthew, well he must have been worth his weight in gold.

It consumed them for a number of long days.

They'd wake early in the morning, before the fog of autumn had burnt off in the sun, as it still hung just above the dirt, and glowed in the early light.

And they'd come in for lunch and a glass of water, before heading back out to search until dusk came and stole their sight.

Each day went on much the same as that, for longer then anyone had dared think it would.
And then it got to the point where no one had much hope of finding little Matthew. It got to the point where everyone in town had made peace with not knowing, and only carried on the last day or two because they didn't have the heart to look Matthews parents, who had arranged the search, in the eyes, and tell them enough was enough.

Feet were sore, eyes were blurry, bellies grumbled and groaned. Enough was enough, Matthew was gone.

Everyone was packing up, when Mark LaPonte, a 15 and a half year old boy, and it's important to note the half, because Mark felt that made him a man, while 15 years old was only a boy, well mark heard the most exciting little trickle coming from inside a dark cave.

It'd been a long day, and while Mark was too smart to drink the water in the cave, he felt it sure would feel nice to splash it on his face.

Mark strode in to the cave, unknowingly just as Matthew had, entranced by sound of the chilled water. He was sure someone had checked the cave before, they must have, and his father wouldn't like it if he went walking blindly into a cave where a bear could be nestled up, but Mark was 15 and a half years old, he was a man, and he'd tell his father.... A lie... well maybe he wasn't quite a man, but he was manly enough to go into a cave, that he was sure of.

His footsteps echoed through the dank cathedral of earth rhythmically, and Mark sang a little song in his head trying to time his syllables to the beat of his own reverberating steps, and swearing under his breath when he couldn't think of a word to rhyme with pumpernickel quick enough to stay in time.

The natural fountain that sat against the edge of the gave twinkled as Mark got closer, and dipped his hands into the cold water before splashing it up and onto his face washing away the dust and sweat of a days work.

[struggled breathing in the cave]

Wow, it felt good to get a little freshness on his face, mark thought to himself, as he ran his wet fingers through his greasy hair slicking it back and away from his wet face.

[struggled breathing in the cave]

Hmm, weird, Mark could have sworn he had heard something, but he chalked it up to, perhaps, a little bit of water getting trapped in his ear.

Mark LaPonte quickly jogged out of the cave, and trotted off towards home. He had places to be, the sun was getting low, and he told Mildred they could go watch the meteor shower, and count shooting stars.

Mildred of course was beautiful, and of course mark didn't want to count stars so much as he wanted to take her out past Alfie's place, out to the old well, that stuck up out of the ground where the rolling fields all came together in one sunken and pinched place, and kiss her, and maybe undo a couple buttons. No one knew why but the well was THE spot, and going there had become a ritual observed by every young man and woman coming of age in the Fort.

And while Mark LaPonte day dreamed about his first date with the beautiful and naïve Miss Mildred Mourthy, the body of Albit lay, making sounds it had no business making, as Albit was  technically dead.


Albit lay there, paralyzed in his own body. His eyes had started to rot, and through the milky film that covered his dry open eyes he could see nothing. Although he lay there dead and rotting, he felt every insect and every worm tearing through his insides one little maggoty mouthful at a time. But through it all he could feel an unnatural becoming rising inside of him.

The old Albit had died, and it both excited and terrified him at what would arise from the sinking, decomposing heap he had become. And something would arise, he knew that much, because he'd been told so. Albit didn't remember much of how he'd come to be lying dead on the floor of a cave, hidden just at the edge of shadows, but he'd start hearing the whispers.

They were in his own voice, but they weren't not of his mind.

And as the whispers gained in strength, Albit could feel a writhing inside of him, around his heart, and between his ribs, something skulked and slinked around freely within him, making its den and tunnels within his soul.

???: You are we now, and we are many, and we shall multiple. We shall multiple and you shall provide to each a piece of yourself, and through your sacrifice we shall spread. We are dust and shadow.

And that's all he heard, over, and over, until the repetitive monotony of it, had nearly driven Albit crazy. He, who was a slave to the immobility of his own body, his dead rotting body. He wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but his hands wouldn't move.

He wanted to run home, even though he hated home, and he wanted the comfort of his own bed, but his legs wouldn't move.

Albit wanted to turn his eyes away from the world, and not lay witness to all the unfair cruelties that had befallen him, and others, but he was forced to watch, because his eyes..... Wouldn't move.

And while Albit lay there confined, constrained, claustrophobic within his own dead body, but somehow with a mind very much alive, there was something stuck inside of him, within, inside the small space his existence called a body, whispering.

???: You are we now, and we are many, and we shall multiple. We shall multiple and you shall provide to each a piece of yourself, and through your sacrifice we shall spread. We are dust and shadow.

And then her voice pierced through the monotonous madness that Albit found himself sinking deeper and deeper into.

???: Oh he has done a number on you, you poor thing. We'll have you scooped up and stitched up in no time.

Albit hadn't heard her enter the cave, but he heard the authority of the woman's heels striking the floor of the cave as she strode towards him.

CYPRIAN: I am the abbess, Mother Cyprian, and I'm to nurture you and teach you, and you who are you in this moment, shall become we, and you who are we shall multiple and you shall sacrifice yourself to spread the whispers of the Long Shadows.

CYPRIAN: I know you must have many questions, I know you can't speak now, what with your jaw barely hanging on by a thread, and the decomposing tongue in your mouth. But one we get you to the Sanitorium, we'll have you sorted right away.

Mother Cyprian, the Abbess of the Holy Sisterhood of the Living Waters, and Director of the Riverside Sanitorium, strode away, her habit lightly bouncing as she walked out of the cave, and many more feet walked in, and lifted Albit, carrying him out of the cave.



Across town, Mark LaPonte was walking up to Mildred Mourthy's front porch, Alfie was limping through his back fields, little Matthew's parents held each other as they felt their overwhelming grief, and no one even knew that Albit was missing as well.

So no one knew he was being whisked away to the Sanitorium, with its tall fences. Tall fences not meant to keep anyone inside, but to keep the townsfolk of The Fort out. To keep them out, and keep their eyes away from what happened behind the walls, and the secrets of the Long Shadows. 

...

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