The Note (Part 2)

As Kersey moved forward slowly, the Madman screamed and shuffled back,

“No please, they will kill us all!” He took a step towards the door, fear in his eyes from something unknown. He pushed the knife until it bit into his flesh. Red liquid rolled down his neck, trickling onto his tattered white shirt.

Eden covered her mouth in horror.

Kersey took another more aggressive step forward, ending up in the madman's bubble, he drew his revolver and readied it at his side.

“Now let's just put that thing down, partner. We will talk about it. I don’t want to hurt you and you don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s too late, they’re coming. I’ve seen them out there in the ocean. Horrible monsters from the deep dark… They killed my crewmates… No one will survive...”

The Madman began to calm a bit, dropping the knife hand to his side. “Not you, not her, not me. We all die in the end. There is no stopping the tide.” The madman was in tears now, whimpering.

“Okay man, okay, let’s end this and put the knife down.” Kersey did his best to talk the man down from his madness.

“You’re right Constable, you’re right. This has gone far enough.” the madman agreed, his knife clanged against the tile floor as he dropped it. Kersey nodded, stepping closer,

“I’m so tired, sir.” The madman looked up at the Detective with pleading eyes. Then, in a single rapid motion and with brute sailor strength, the Madman grabbed the Constables revolver, hand over hand, put it to his head, and squeezed Kersey's finger.

There was a loud cracking sound, smoke billowed from the madman's temple as he fell away to the floor. Kersey grasped for him with astonishment, but the dead weight slipped through his arms and hit the floor, blood began to slowly leak out around his feet.

“Christ Almighty!” Kersey yelled, stepping back when the shock wore off and holstering his weapon. “Call the Ambulance!” He turned to the barista who seemed to be frozen in place. Eden, eyes wide, grabbed up her things and ran out the front door, tears streaming down her face.

She ran, on autopilot it seemed, all the way back to her house. Her adrenaline carried her swiftly through the darkening streets, passing strangers with umbrellas, all the way to her porch and doorstep where she found refuge on the old swinging chair.

She curled up sobbing, cold, and in shock. She pulled the old woolen blanket that smelled like her grandmother and hung over the back of the chair, curling up in its safe embrace. Sometime later, she finally passed into a dreamless sleep.

In the morning, she awoke to the warmth of the sun on her face. The smell of rain clung in the crisp air and drops of water tumbled from the turning leaves of the trees. She sat up, wondering if it was all a bad dream. Maybe, just maybe, she had been lost in some old book and passed out on the swing like she often did. Somehow, she felt that wasn’t the truth though. She remembered it so vividly and realized she would never be able to tell anyone about it. A rolled-up newspaper came spinning into view, the delivery boy ringed his bell, calling to Eden,

“Good Morning!” he shouted as he biked up the road.

Thursday, October 30th, 1991, it read in the left-hand corner.

“Hallows Eve Masquerade to be a Banger!” the bold print screamed at her from the front page. Nothing about a madman and suicide, however. Eden rolled the paper back up and pushed her key into the door, unlocking it and heading inside. Hopefully, her parents hadn’t noticed she was gone all night.

A couple of hours later, Eden found herself walking up the long asphalt path that led from the sidewalk to the Front Doors of James Clark Ross High School. Cars pulled in and out of the roundabout dropping off students who waved goodbye to their families before rushing into a metal double-door that was neatly pressed into the red brick wall.

The windows to the office area were to the left of her, frosted out and covered in drawings. A few inspirational signs were posted in the windows of the double doors and the small metal door that connected the gym with the sports field was to the right. Eden knew all these sights by heart, she had walked them so many times. Today she navigated them while looking at her feet and listening to music, missing the oh so important Navy Blue Mustang that was parked in front of the doorway.

She pushed through the doors, shoulder-checking students as she walked through them.

“Hey trash, watch where you’re walking.” The two girls from yesterday jeered, trying to get a reaction. Eden didn’t hear them, nor would she have cared if she did. “What a fucking loser.” They said, defeated.

Eden opened her locker and placed her bag on one of the hooks, pulling out texts for her first couple of classes. She turned off her music and put the Discman on the top shelf, where she noticed another note. This time it was standing upright. The carding was black and gilded with red, like some sort of bizarre Valentine's day card. She pulled it down, opening it.

“Dearest Eden,

I would love to cordially invite you to a get-together tomorrow night, Friday, October 31st, 1991. I urge you, please, to dress up; for this will be a Masquerade Ball. The venue will be my own home, at 2222 Drowning Court. Please join in the festivities. Rejoice as you are one of the few chosen for this great honour. I will send you proper attire and will see you at Eleven-Twenty-Five sharp.

With Affection,

Your Secret Admirer

Postscript:

Please darling, Make sure you bring this invitation along with you. You will be dressed in a mask after all, and I don’t want the Help to remove you.”

Eden looked at the invitation’s strange gold-inked script. She wasn’t sure what to think about it, then placed the card nicely back into her locker.

“It has to be some sort of prank right?” she thought, starting to doubt that it was. She continued walking down the emptying hallway to her next class. Again, missing an important detail in the world around her. Uniformed Police Officers had been walking the hallways with a drawing, asking students if they knew this girl.

She entered her English Literature Class still in that dark haze from the night before and sat down in the seat nearest the door. The teacher, Mrs. Andrews, was writing something on the chalkboard. Eden pushed the trauma from her mind and tried focusing.

The Letters on the board were fine at first and everything was normal until it wasn’t. The room around her began to vibrate and shake, blurring and focusing itself. Mrs. Andrews seemed to slow down, then she stopped moving altogether, turning to face the students.

Eden looked around in panic as the ceiling lights began to go out, clinking and buzzing. Everything went black a minute, then lights flickered on. The classroom around Eden was now peeling and spray painted with graffiti. There were massive blast holes in the wall and mummified bodies of people sitting at the broken desks that littered the room. Seaweed clung to the corpses and vegetation grew around their feet.

There was a swampy smell of rotting vegetation and stagnant water. It hung thickly in the air. Eden pushed herself from the desk in fright, tripping backward over a body behind her as she tried to escape the room. She stumbled hard into the wall, her eyes flitting around her in terror. She scrambled for the doorknob, flinging the thing aside and running out into the dark hallway.

Lights flickered here and there, randomly illuminating spots in the sunken wreck of a building. One end of the hallway was drowned in brackish water, mottled clumps of plant life were strewn throughout the space. Both sides of the sinking hallway were lined with rusted and hanging lockers. The other end was up, on sort of an angle. The two sections were separated by a mound of rubble. It seemed that one side of the building's foundations had sunk into the silt below it and the other had stayed on solid land.

Eden watched as vicious, fish-like creatures began to claw and drag themselves, clicking and gurgling out of the brackish water from the opposite end of the hallway. The blueish-black swarm moved rapidly, darkening the walls, ceiling, and floor. As the flood of teeth and claw closed in on her, Eden scrambled up the jagged and broken pieces of the building trying to get to the higher half of the splitting hallway.

She wasn’t fast enough, however. Just as she reached the top of the rubble, she felt multiple claws dig painfully into her legs and calves, then felt herself being yanked backward. She fought with all her power. Muscle and skin began to tear apart as the claws raked her flesh.

Eden screamed in terror as she felt herself being dragged across the broken tile towards the water by thousands of scaly hands. She grabbed onto a hanging locker door as she passed. The rusted metal dug painfully into her hands, opening fresh wounds.

She gripped the metal tightly as the Deep One’s pulled at her lower body. She held on, trying to tear herself free from their grasp. She began to feel her muscles tire, however, and feared she was about to her lose grip. More of the monsters lept from the water, like some sort of horribly deformed frog-things, and hooked their claws into her torso. She couldn’t hold on anymore, then below the brackish depths, she was pulled. Water filled her lungs and blood clouded her vision. A deep, silent, blackness overtook her. The final dark.

Eden snapped out of her trance, people surrounded her. She realized that she was bleeding from her nose and forehead and laying on the floor of an intact school hallway. Police Officers closed in on her. Eden heard Mrs. Andrews voice from somewhere,

“Eden! Are you okay?” it said,

Eden went to sit up, all she wanted to do was get out of this situation. She replied quickly,

“Yes, yes, sorry. I’m fine. No really.” wiping the blood from her nose with the sleeve of her sweater. She stood up, embarrassed about... something… and tried to push her way out of the circle. Two Police Officers stopped her as she left the scene.

“Eden, is it? Do you have seizures often? Because that was a bad one.” the one on the right asked,

“What? Seizure?” Eden said, confused.

The Officer on the left nodded and replied,

“Are you sure you are okay? Constable Beady and I can take you to the hospital…”

“No, no thank you. I am fine, Officers. I think I just need to go get some rest...”

“Long night was it, Eden? You wouldn’t happen to have been at the “Ocean Side Cafe” last night at around 8:30 PM or 9?”

The Constable with “Beady” across his nametag looked flatley at Eden, flipping open a notebook and waiting for her response. The second Constable nudged Beady, giving him a look. Eden stared at them, suddenly realizing that they had been at the school looking for her.

“Th...the Ocean Side…” Eden stammered, remembering the horrible scene from the night before.

“Yes, the Ocean Side Cafe. Down on Main. Were you there last night?” Constable Beady questioned pointedly,

The onlookers in the hallway had been silently shunted back into their classrooms by teachers, while the Police Officers questioned Eden. The hallway was quiet and bare now. It was just her and them.

“Yes, Sir. I was in Ocean Side last night. I saw…” she stopped mid-sentence. For some reason, she felt if she spoke about the madman killing himself, it would become real again.

“Go on, please. Tell us what happened there last night.” The Second Constable with “Leems” written on her nametag questioned softly. Eden looked at the floor.

“I was in the Cafe doing homework and eating dinner when a man came in. He was screaming and yelling about Deep-Ones…” visions of the horrid fish monsters she had been seeing the last two days flashed through her mind. Somehow she knew those were what he feared, “...Fish-monsters from the depths of the oceans he said. He said they were coming for us and put the knife to his own throat.”

“Then what happened, Eden?” Beady questioned after he finished scratching away with his pen.

“Well, a man in a tweed suit. He stood up and confronted the madman. He said his name was Special Constable -tweed man, glowing eyes- Kerry... or maybe Kerley... from Interpol? He tried to talk the crazy guy into dropping the knife...” she stopped again, she didn’t want to tell the next part.

“Then what, Eden. What happened between Special Constable Kersey and the man.” Beady pushed.

“Well. Special Constable Kersey stepped towards the man. I think he was getting ready to restrain him. The man dropped the knife, Kersey moved closer. I guess he thought the man was giving up. But the guy was fast, and he grabbed Kersey’s weapon from its holster and shot himself in the head…”

Constable Beady finished writing, then said,

“Okay Eden, you are going to have to come with us to the Police Station. Special Constable Kersey will need you to come to give this as an Official Statement so he can continue his work here.”

Eden, hesitantly, followed the officers out the doors next to them. She saw a Blue Mustang parked in front of the door, its windows tinted black so she couldn't see into it.

The Constables walked past the car without a second thought. Eden noticed that someone was sitting in the driver's seat, but didn't have time to look through the windshield before she was ushered into the back of a cruiser. She quickly turned to try and see look who was in the Mustang, it drove away before she had the chance. The cruiser pulled out a minute or two after. Eden had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.