The Town Whispers: Season 1

Chapter 18: Two Sides of a Coin

The night air was clear and crisp - the crescent moon hung in the sky - waxing - growing in strength.... So white and bright - it shone a spotlight on the fort that seemed to leech what little color there was.

The cool blue ambiance highlighted the trailing puffs of air that Tom exhaled.

The Fort was cold - but not the frigid desolate bone breaking cold that the dead of winter commanded.

It was mild - but his skin was still pinched and squeezed into tiny goosebumps that ran along his arms and back under his shirt, and under the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders.

Mid winter in The Fort - the darkest nights before spring, when a deep freeze could catch mid day, when the winds could pick you up and spin you out of over the river on a childish whim.

It had been a mild winter. Despite that, the common sounds that signaled the end of winter had still not arrived to liven the hours between dusk and dawn - the white noise of crickets, the bass filled clucking of frogs - only the occasional coyote yip and the cascading replies echoed through the flat empty air - hunger, desolation, desperation in their calls.

Come to the Church, Reverend Albit had said.

It wasn't until he was out walking to god knows where, for god knows what reason that he recalled the memory of those words.

It wasn't that they'd be spoken so long ago that the memory was covered by the dust and dirt of time - it just hadn't seemed important.

But now Tom could hear the tone, the seething fury beneath the words, not at him, but.....for him.

Reverend Albit was ugly - and creepy..... No one had ever spoken a bad word about the man in any seriousness though. Of course there were rumors - there were rumors about everyone in The Fort.

Most of the rumors were vague and obtuse - he'd been born in The Fort, everyone knew that, but nothing was known of his childhood. Then it was as if he'd been forgotten until he arrived at the church bright eyed, sweeping between the pews.

Gossip based on the absence of anything really - that's what it was. The need of curious minds to fill the void in time that defined the man.

What Tom did know - was as I said before - That Reverend Albit was ugly. He had a hair lip - well it wasn't a hair lip, it looked as if something had torn a strip from his face and it had never healed the way it should have - never being tended too or stitched.

It pushed upon his face, a toothy sneer even in the sternest of moments - and in that moment Reverend Albit had implored for him to visit the church - even then, it had looked as if there were some sick punchline that Tom wasn't aware of.

Or maybe that was just how it seemed to him as he thought back on it now - as he walked through the empty dark streets of The Fort as his path was illuminated by the impossibly bright moon hanging in the star pierced night sky - casting a very long shadow.... Behind Tom.


James shifted in the narrow church pew he'd made his bed that night. His eyes were opened wide in frustration, staring at the back of the wooden bench in the row in front of the one he lay in.

[scampering]

Always with the damn rats.

Normally, it didn't bother James to the degree it was that night, but a strange frustration built inside of him.

The sound of the rodent's filthy nails on the wooden floor echoed through the congregation area - floors which he'd swept, and washed.... By hand - and there was a rodent running about tracking in dirty and leaving droppings behind for church goers to find at awkward moments... no, no, no that wasn't going to happen.

James jumped out of bed with loose shoulders swaying as he rose.

It was hard enough to fall asleep in a church as it was. The sparsely decorated rooms echoed every breath, every cough, every creaking sound, even the pillows seemed to have a deafening noise to them beneath a turned head.

And there was a rat - a rat clearly not wise to a sensible bedtime.

In the corner of the room, stood a stiff corn broom, a remnant from the day's chores.

James grabbed the handle, with white knuckles and turned to the room staring into its empty guts as if not only the rat, but the entire building conspired against him.

Of course the walls and the floor and the ceiling of the church mocked him, made him a slave to their care and maintenance, why else let in the damn rats. Big rats, small rats, loud rats, quiet rats, always the damn rats.

JAMES: Not tonight -