The Town Whispers: Season 1

Chapter 14: No Good Deed Unpunished

They hadn't yet made it back into the moonlight - Tom on The Reverends back, his arms slung over his shoulders - before the screams started - and by the time they'd made it outside, those screams had already begun to turn to hoarse, airy whines in the night.

The righteous Reverend Albit - struggled to carry Tom- at points nearly dragging him by his hair. He had carried him out on his back but it hadn't been easy - along with the screams - Tom began to spasm and buck.

Reverend Albit had fallen to a knee - unable to steady himself, and hold tightly to Tom at the same time. He'd tried more than once to turn his face back to Tom to quiet him, at first shushing him, and eventually more quickly then he'd like to admit yelling for tom to shut up out of frustration - but anytime he'd turned his face to try and get a glimpse of tom and make that human connect that the boy needed, he'd stumble and nearly drop them both.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway - Tom had neither recognized the words spoken by the Reverend, nor obeyed his gruff commands so far, and he had very little doubt that Tom was about to anytime soon.

As they exited the cave - The young LaPonte boy finally pushed hard enough against the reverends back, and fallen off into the cold frost covered mud outside - Tom writhed about staring and swatting at imaginary things in the air - his screams sounded more like the whimpering of a animal caught in a trap - they were fragmented thoughts and sounds, as if the cave walls had institutionalized him, and the very air touched by the light of the moon was driving him to despair in his shattered state.

The Reverend looked at the boy with pity - remembering his own past - and those unfortunate things which had happened to him once upon a time.

Reverend Albit turned to regard the cave - giving Tom a moment to perhaps calm down. That rocky cavern was probably part of the same subterranean system - the same never ending serpent encased in rock - as the cavity in the earth where he himself had nearly had his jaw ripped from his face - these twin galleries of dank wet rock seemed to have tried to swallow the pair of them. But they'd escaped - because they were strong - and, of course, because Reverend Albit would never let the man in the cave win.

The score was already favoring the man made of shadows - and no doubt Tom having found himself face to face with his brother Ben - Ben who always sat up straight in church, and seemed to smile with his eyes, when he sung hymns in church - would have been the doing of that very same man.

The same man who had told young Albit he'd been doing good, that he was saving the children he'd taken to him - saving them from father's and mothers who were brutish, and violent tyrants - just like his own father had been.

The same man, who preyed on his need for love and affection - both the playful company of other children, and the encouraging words of a father.

The same man, who'd Killed little Matthew, and no doubt the rest of the boys and girls Albit had taken to him, before leaving them in the dark

And of course the same man, who had killed Albit, but who'd also rebirthed him.

And made him more tharn he ever could have been otherwise.

Sending whatever fueled his mind with bright and vivid thoughts, and his body with strength and agility scrambling down his throat.... That feeling.... Oh god that feeling, he could remember that distinct, sickening feeling that made him feel less human, and more roadkill - the claws that ripped and clawed and grabbed for purchase - pulling its horrid little body deeper into Albit.

He could still feel its scabby, diseased skin rubbing against the lining of its throat, he could still taste the puss that oozed from its sores onto his tongue as it squeezed its hairless rat-like little body, and loose skin past his teeth and down into him to gnaw away those things that made Albit human, , and he could still feel it twitch and continue settling in the spot where he thought he heart should have been instead.

The individual who the Reverend had called the man in the cave, the man Albit hated, and despised, the one who'd done to Tom, what he'd done to Albit - trying to break his mind, and twist him, to exert his influence on him, and make him just another unwitting puppet of the Long Shadows -

Was also a man that Albit held affection for and loved - loved much more then he'd loved his own father, and loved enough to still hear the way he'd told Albit he was special, and smart.

Which wasn't much, but more then he would have been told, and more affection than he would have been given otherwise.

Ben LaPonte, or the remains of Ben - Reverend Albit hadn't given it much thought, hurrying to secure Tom, to drag him away from whatever tendrils were set to sucker and cling to him, but what exactly had the eldest LaPonte boy become?

Asking Tom would be helpful but - Tom's mind was predisposed at the moment, with other things. Those answers would have to wait.

The Reverend was not surprised to have seen what had once been Mildred's oldest child fused and stitched into rock, his face disfigured, half rotten, and half knotted making sickly wet words with what looked to be a crude imitation of a mouth made of corded muscle.

He was curious of course - the boy had not ended up there by accident - plans set many years before his birth had led him to that fate - The Righteous Reverend merely wondered what those plans would be.

Thank god, he'd gotten there in time though - there was no telling what might have happened to the boy, and the Reverend felt a pinch of pride as he patted himself on the back before picking Tom back up and slinging him onto his back again.

He was proud of himself, but he was more grateful for Mother Cyprian, and her constant guidance - if she hadn't come to him earlier that evening, He wouldn't have had a chance to save Tom, he wouldn't have even known.

If The Man In The Cave was Reverend Albit's surrogate father, then he'd thought to himself often, Mother Cyprian would be his surrogate mother. Or perhaps they were the angel and devil each perched on opposite shoulders, whispering into opposite ears.