The Awakening

by Pierre C. Arseneault

  Mr. Stuart contacted the police immediately following this discovery, knowing it was likely important to the unsolved cases that still plague the island and its residents to this day. The police declined any further comment regarding the remains, stating that the discovery was a collection of dead animals, likely dragged to the area by natural scavengers. When asked if there was a connection between the remains and the ongoing investigation of several open cases, the police advised that no, it did not have any connection. When pressed further with the information that Michael Stuart had claimed to have clearly seen a human femur in the pile, the police representatives questioned Mr. Stuart’s ability to tell the difference between animal and human bones. Then they declined any further comment regarding the discovery.

  The dead animals were only one piece of a much larger mystery on Oakwood Island five years ago. Several cases, most still unsolved, placed Oakwood Island on the map.

  Strange occurrences began on the island as much as a year prior to the first murder. On top of the clusters of dead animals, around the same time some witnesses claimed to have seen what they described as a werewolf-like creature. It was seen attacking animals and prowling in some backyards of island residents. Although the creature was likely a large bear or another natural predator, nothing was ever concluded as to what this creature may have been. If that was not enough to keep the police department occupied, there was also the case of Maggie Foster, the victim of an alleged abduction and who was stricken with a strange illness. Ms. Foster’s symptoms were unlike anything seen before at the Oakwood Island Hospital, and her doctors were, and still are, baffled as to what illness she had and where she contracted it.

  The murder cases include those of Robert and Nancy Stuart, whose bodies were found in the bedroom of their home. Only days before, they had found themselves trapped in their car and someone had tried to break in to harm them. It was never known who attacked their car. Their bodies were found, victims of a brutal murder only a few days later.

  The Watson family murder is another case that remains unsolved. The bodies of Lawrence, Kathleen and their son Eddie Watson, were all found in their home, their deaths similar to the Stuarts, brutally disfigured and dismembered.

  (Continued on page 3)…

  Scott’s mug thumped against the wood of the desk as he put it down a bit too hard. He brought his hands to his head, massaging his temples as he could feel a slight pressure begin to form around his forehead, tightening its grip with each new line he read. It upset him to read about the anniversary of the killings, but he felt he needed to finish the article, it was the least he could do after so many lives were lost and affected. He turned to page three of the newspaper and scanned the page until he found the rest of the article.

  The death of Officer Ryan McGregor is still an unsolved case as while the accounts and evidence for his murder match the mutilations of the Stuarts and the Watsons, who killed them all remains a highly debated mystery. While claims of a wolf-like creature that walked upright are being dismissed by authorities, witnesses such as Oakwood Island’s own Jack Whitefeather insist otherwise. Jack claims in his own words that he saw Ryan being attacked by a monster, a werewolf of some sort.

  We spoke with Dr. Monique Richardson, the head of psychiatry at the Daye Psychiatry Unit at Oakwood Island Hospital to get some clarity around the sightings that many believe were a werewolf.

  “It is my professional opinion that Jack could not tell the difference between what he believed he was seeing and what really happened to Officer Ryan McGregor. This is something that is very common as hallucinations appear very real, are real, in fact, to the person experiencing them. I believe he wanted to see a werewolf and so is convinced he did.” When asked about the other reports by local residents of a monster or werewolf sightings on the island, the doctor confirmed that as with all tragedies, people try to find a common ground and will formulate their ideas of what their senses are experiencing to correlate with those of others, such as has been reported in cases of mass mania. The doctor expressed her disdain in regard to the notion that Maggie may have been the monster many claimed to have seen. Most residents believe there was a serial killer in their midst, who has long since moved on to the Mainland.

  However, others believe Maggie’s guilt is what drove her to commit suicide at the hospital and that she had been the one responsible for the terror that was brought upon the island five years ago.

  “Maggie was a patient at the hospital, a victim herself of a horrible abduction and attack,” Dr. Richardson said. “Most of these events occurred while she was being treated and battling for her life. Monsters are not real, people are. A person is responsible for all these horrible things, but it wasn’t Maggie. That is my professional opinion.”

  During the months and years following all these strange occurrences, the residents of Oakwood Island banded together as a community to help each other heal from the senseless killings that changed their lives forever. Some residents claimed this once quiet piece of land would never be the same again, while others continued living their lives with the hope that the answers they seek will one day bring peace and understanding to their community. Five years later, this still holds true.

  Scott’s eyes scanned over the article again to re-read the sentence about how some of the residents of Oakwood Island had speculated that one of his closest friends, a fellow ward of the Open Arms Orphanage, had been a monster, a supposed werewolf, capable of murder. While he knew that was total nonsense and that he shouldn’t let that bother him, Scott couldn’t help but feel hurt. His best childhood friend, who always felt more like a sister to him, didn’t deserve to have her memory tainted in such a way. Scott downed the rest of his lukewarm coffee in two large gulps before he folded the newspaper in a hurry and shoved it into the trash can that sat under the desk.

  Closing his eyes, he recalled Maggie’s smile and how it had never faded throughout their childhood. No matter how difficult their lives had been through the years, she always smiled through it all and made sure to make him smile often too. He paused and listened to the abnormal quiet of a Saturday morning. The ticking of the large grandfather clock that stood in the hallway resonated in short, rhythmic pulses. He rarely heard the soft ticking sound of this favorite time piece, a wedding gift from his father-in-law. Today he could fully immerse himself in the peaceful sound that helped to calm his troubled mind after reading the article, but especially some of the vicious messages some people had written on social media about his long-time friend. As he took in a few deep breaths, he could also hear some birds chirping outside, from the opened window that faced the front of the house. The only thing that would make this moment better, he thought, was if his wife, Miriam, was sitting here with him, enjoying the tranquility, instead of working the morning shift at the Oakwood Island hospital, where she was a nurse.

  Samantha Myers, the eldest of the foster kids at seventeen, was outside watching the three youngest of the family as they played in the backyard. Lily and Patrick Jones, who were four, and Gavin Williams, aged six. Bradley Shaw, who had recently turned fifteen, was alone in his room, as usual. The other three young boys, who were also known as the Davis brothers were Clay, eight, Peter, ten, and Colin, eleven. The trio were playing video games while wearing the headsets his wife had bought them the previous Christmas. Heavenly quiet was rare in this house full of foster kids, although more often than most, Scott preferred the racket of the kids being kids. This appreciation for the sound of children was no doubt developed during his years of growing up in a busy orphanage, where he got used to the semi-constant buzz of activity and conversation. But occasionally, peace and quiet was nice.

  Opening his eyes, he reached for his computer mouse and refreshed his computer. He made his way onto the Facebook page of Oakwood Island’s only surviving newspaper with the intention of letting them know exactly how he felt about the article in today’s paper. As suspected, the page a
lready had a long thread discussion about today’s article. He skimmed the good and bad comments in search of the ones specifically discussing his late friend Maggie.

  Scott, much calmer and determined to set the record straight, began typing. He would remind the oblivious fellow residents of the scarred island that Maggie had not had an easy childhood. Having been raised together in the Open Arms Orphanage, Scott had been the closest thing to a brother Maggie had known. He would not sit by while people marred her name with such nonsense. He wanted to honor her memory, and so he would tell them about the good person Maggie Foster had been.

  Six-year-old Gavin had dug a large hole in the sand on his side of the shaded sandbox. He was sitting next to it while playing with a toy dump truck and toy loader. An average sized boy, he had thick dark hair, big brown eyes and olive-toned skin. He loved playing in the sandbox and would come out to play in it every day when the sun was out.

  Four-year-old twins Lily and Patrick sat back to back on the other side of the large sandbox. Both of them were small for their age, both in height and weight, as was normal for multiples. Their physical traits were very similar. Both had hair that was a butterscotch brown color, bordering toward blonde in shade. Their skin was a very light tone, pale even, and both were speckled with freckles on cheeks and across their nose. Lily had three naked Barbie dolls in front of her. She got onto her knees, her bright yellow and pink sun dress pooling around her as she began digging a small hole in the sand with a red plastic shovel. Patrick wearing his large sunglasses, a blue pair of shorts and grey t-shirt, sat directly behind his sister where he could feel her presence. He patted the ground until he found what he was looking for. He had a stack of blocks between his spread legs and had been missing one; the one with the letter E and the raised picture of the elephant. The block also had a side with a Braille version of the letter E as well. He felt the stack and found the one he wanted. He spoke the letters softly as he felt the blocks one by one.

  “There’s the E, like E for Elephant.” His voice was almost a whisper, he spoke so low. Neither Lily nor Gavin paid any attention to him, each of them carrying on with their own preferred toys.

  Samantha sat under the large oak tree in the back yard, chewing on her favorite necklace, as she often did when she read. The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight and the sun was the warmest it had been all season. A slight breeze every once in a while would ruffle her black hair. It was long and straight and she often wore it pulled back into a tight ponytail, her bangs falling just below her eyebrows. She had bright blue eyes that contrasted well against her long and full lashes. She was the type of teenager that was stunning but yet didn’t recognize her own beauty. She sat facing the kids, her nose buried in a book as usual, today’s selection being the second to last in the Harry Potter series. Samantha was hooked after the initial pages of the first book in the series. Something about the magic element fascinated her. She often would spend entire days lost in a book, where her imagination was free to travel to new worlds and meet incredible characters. It was her preferred form of escapism ever since she was taken into foster care as a toddler.

  Gavin mimicked the sound a loader might make as he scooped sand into the bucket and proceeded to dump it into the box of the toy truck. Samantha, the pendant of her necklace in her mouth, glanced over at the children as she turned a page and went back to her book.

  “More sand for the new road, Mr. Truck Driver?” Gavin exclaimed as he played. “Sure, LOTS MORE please, Mr. Loader Guy.”

  Gavin made the sound of the loader again as he prepared to scoop more sand into the bucket. Content with the full load, ready to get dumped in the truck, he started the imaginary conversation between the two drivers.

  “That will never be enough sand! Fill it some mo…” Gavin’s loud and content play-talk stopped as something caught the six-year-old’s attention as he scooped the sand with the tiny plastic loader. A long, slimy worm, striped in shades of black and grey fell from the side of the freshly made hole and wriggled around, sand sticking to its gooey body as it tried to slither in the dry sand. Gavin’s palms began to sweat and his throat went dry. Gavin loved crickets, spiders and other crunchy or hairy bugs, but hated slimy, wriggly things like worms. They were gross and he hated everything about them. Gavin swallowed hard as he dumped the sand from his loader, covering the wriggling worm in the process. He scooped up more sand and confidently dumped it over the worm’s location, covering it more. Before he could scoop more sand, the worm broke through and wriggled free. Gavin froze as he watched a few more worms wriggling out, these a bit longer and wider than the first one. With his heart pounding and his breathing shallow, he reached for the toy truck with the intention of dumping all its sand over the worms. As his hand reached the truck, he saw more worms had also poked out of the sand in the box of the toy truck. He froze. His mouth as dry as the sand in the play area, he looked at Samantha, hoping she would be looking in his direction, but she wasn’t looking. When he turned his attention to the sandbox once more, hundreds of slimy worms were breaking the surface of the sandbox, crawling over top of each other, intertwining their elongated bodies into one large mass of slimy movement. Panic welled up in the six-year-old boy as he struggled to his feet. As he did so, he no longer saw any sand where just mere moments ago he was seated. Worms covered every inch of the sandbox, a large and ever growing puddle of wiggling worms, until they began spilling out over the edges and onto the grass. Panic turned into terror. Gavin screamed.

  Scott Cudmore knew he couldn’t let this get the better of him but that was difficult. He had to write his reply with tact as he didn’t want people to think ill of him if it could affect the children in his care. He knew he couldn’t let them talk about Maggie like that though, and so he was working on the perfect comment for the paper’s Facebook page when the scream came from the back yard.

  “What now?” he said aloud as he recognized the cry as being from the melodramatic Gavin. He hurried to the sliding door and made his way outside to find Samantha holding a screaming Gavin in her arms. She tried to calm him down with soothing words which seemed to be having little to no effect so far.

  Scott scanned the area in an attempt to understand what was happening. Gavin’s favorite toys were in a hole dug in the sandbox. Lily and Patrick sat back to back like they often did. They sat on the opposite side of the sandbox and while Patrick cocked his head to listen, trying to understand in his own way what was happening. Lily sat quietly staring at a pair of naked Barbie dolls. She had a doll clutched firmly in each hand as she sat in one of her dazes Scott knew so well.

  “What’s going on?” Patrick asked with childlike innocence, yet sincere concern.

  Scott placed a hand on Gavin’s shoulder so that the boy would feel his presence, as that usually helped when he broke into hysterics.

  “Worms!” Gavin screamed as tears gushed and he clutched his body to Samantha’s.

  “What’s happening?” Patrick asked with growing panic in his voice.

  “Lily,” Scott snapped. He could see she was in one of her usual moods when she retreated into herself and appeared in a daze. Scott knew the best way to calm Patrick was with his sister’s presence and attention. So this was not the time for her to retreat into one of her moods. The four-year-old twins were more than Scott bargained for and ever since they had moved in, Gavin had become quite the attention seeker, often going into hysterics for no apparent reason. The hysterical crying persisted as Gavin grabbed onto Samantha tighter, climbing up onto her higher while looking down into the sandbox. His fear was apparent, though there was nothing there that could explain this outburst. Scott rubbed Gavin’s back with a gentle up and down motion, trying to calm him.

  “Gav, if there was a worm, it is gone now. Look, there isn’t anything in the sandbox anymore except sand and your toys.” Scott said, trying to calm Gavin.

  Looking down into the box, Gavin shrieked louder. He was seei
ng something that just was not there.

  “What’s happening? Why is Gavin crying?” Patrick repeated his question, an alarmed tone in his voice. Looking back at Lily, Scott saw a large smile on the young girl’s face, her eyes fixated on the sandbox.

  “Lily?” Scott repeated a bit louder. This time she snapped out of the spell she was under and as if by instinct, she reached behind her and placed a hand on Patrick’s arm. She did this without saying a word as Patrick’s growing agitated state dissipated.

  “Everything is okay, Patrick. Gavin just thought he saw something in the sandbox but it was nothing,” Scott said.

  Through sobs, Gavin tried to talk. “But…there…is…(sniffles)…look!” Gavin pointed downwards, his cheeks covered in tears.

  “Bring him inside, please, Sam?”

  Samantha picked up her book which she had dropped near her chair and carried Gavin inside as he clung to her and sobbed into her shoulder.

  A bewildered Scott scanned the sandbox and didn’t see the worms that had upset Gavin so much. He picked up Patrick and took Lily by the hand and led them inside with the promise of cookies and milk. Patrick smiled at the mention of cookies, but Lily simply followed, her pair of Barbies clutched in her free hand. The sullen little girl glanced back at the sandbox where a small lock of synthetic blonde hair protruded from where she had buried the third Barbie doll. A chilled breeze whipped some of the sand away from the doll as a long slimy worm coiled its body around the Barbie’s neck.