The Awakening

by Pierre C. Arseneault

  He knew it wouldn’t be an easy task for him and he didn’t want to kill a child, let alone two. He knew it wouldn’t be something he could live with. He was conflicted, but he also knew that he had a responsibility to carry out justice for people like Ben Augustine, who might never walk again. He had to end the curse. Many had already died because of the cursed twins and the evil had to be stopped before it gathered more strength and killed again. He felt like he was the only one who could do it. He had hoped for clear answers, but found himself just as confused as before. The only thing he knew for sure was that he needed to sever the tie between whatever evil was at work on the island that had a grip on the young twins.

  Glancing at the passenger seat of his truck, Jack recalled the vision he had the previous night after the pipe ceremony. Was the spirit of his grandmother here with him now, he wondered. Was she helping him or was she only being used by the evil itself in order to make Jack do its killings too? She had shown him the little boy with no eyes. The little girl had come to him in the vision and right after he had seen his grandmother torn to shreds. If there was an answer in these visions and sightings, he knew it had to do with the twins. He would have to come up with his own answer, as he had more questions now than before.

  He felt confident that the sightless boy was a sign and that his grandmother had been the one who had told him so. But how could he know for sure? Had the vision been real? Was it just a nightmare brought on by his worries and questions? Distraught, Jack embarked on the ferry. His return to the island would be troubled, but before he stepped foot on the island, he would make his final decision on how to stop this evil curse, no matter the cost.

  Chapter 11

  Back Yard Feast

  Mid July

  Sitting on a bench in his backyard, Scott Cudmore sorted through a pair of laundry baskets containing hundreds of socks as he watched Gavin play in the shaded sandbox. It was the first time since the June worm incident that the melodramatic boy seemed happy to play in the sand. Today he hadn’t hesitated, taking his favorite toy dump truck and loader in the box and had begun digging right away.

  The Davis brothers, Peter, Clay and Colin, were inside along with two of their friends. The group was sitting at the kitchen table playing Dungeons & Dragons. It was one of the only other activities that interested them besides video games. Roars of laughter could be heard every once in a while from the opened window.

  Lily sat on the grass next to the sandbox doing what she loved doing most: destroying Barbie dolls. She had random parts of six different naked dolls laid out between her legs. She smiled with glee as she pulled the hair out of one doll’s head, a few strands at a time.

  Wearing his large sunglasses, Patrick sat on the bench, next to Scott as he felt his way through a Braille children’s book. The librarian had said the Braille books Scott ordered were far too advanced for a boy his age. Scott knew better though, as Patrick was significantly mature and intelligent for a four, nearing five-year-old. Both twins seemed advanced, but Lily was very moody and didn’t speak much unless it was to her twin brother. Although she did mutter to her dolls when she thought no one was listening.

  Scott and his wife Miriam often discussed the twins seeing a counsellor again like they had in the past. It wasn’t easy for a little girl like Lily to grow up having a twin brother who needed so much special attention. They also knew it wasn’t easy for Patrick to grow up with a twin sister who was mean to most other children, except him. Patrick was soft hearted, a complete opposite to Lily.

  Scott had argued that if they saw a counsellor again, they might end up having to go back to the orphanage, which Scott didn’t want. His fears fueled enough fear in them both to avoid having the twins questioned by any professional. So far, nothing major had occurred, except the odd behavior Lily exhibited with her dolls and having her head in the clouds sometimes. If something serious were to happen, or if there were signs of something wrong, he would get them help. This he would do in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

  Scott had dedicated his life to helping other foster children like himself. That was one of the endearing qualities that Miriam had first loved about her husband. His dedication to the children was amazing to her. She had always tried to bump into him during his visits to the hospital with some of the children from the orphanage. Most orphans never wanted to go back to the orphanage, once they were old enough to get out of the system. Scott though, unlike the others, didn’t want to leave. He bought a big house nearby and worked for the orphanage as soon as he was able to do so. He worked there full time until he and Miriam married. Then he became a stay at home father, taking care of foster children like he wanted someone to take care of him when he had been a child.

  The first few troubled wards the couple had taken in were still with them. Samantha now seventeen, sat under the oak tree chewing on her necklace while reading as she often did. Bradley, now fifteen, and crushing on Samantha, sat next to her.

  He’d been trying to impress Samantha, even to the point of agreeing to read the first Harry Potter book when she had insisted he read it. Amazingly, he’d quickly taken a liking to the book.

  Both had been troubled as youths, but stability had turned them into amazing teens that Scott and Miriam were proud of. Children, who used to need constant supervision, now sat quietly reading books.

  Scott slowly made progress in matching the hundreds of socks into pairs for the ten people who lived under the one roof. He dug to find matching socks, putting them together and then transferring them to the second hamper.

  “Socks, socks, and more socks,” Scott muttered.

  “Can I help?” Patrick asked with a slight grin.

  Scott chuckled slightly as he wondered if the blind boy was sincere about matching socks he couldn’t see. Then he thought about it.

  “Sure, you can help. I’ll dig them out and you fold like this,” Scott said as he took the boy’s tiny hands and helped him roll a pair of socks together. He moved some books and placed a laundry basket on the other side of Patrick, showing him where to put the socks once folded. Scott proceeded to dig out pairs and hand them to the boy who gladly rolled them up like Scott had shown him and placed them into the basket. He held out his hands as he waited for Scott to give him another pair. The boy smiled wide as he and Scott folded socks together.

  Lily glanced over at her brother who seemed happy while folding socks and paused in her destruction of a doll for a moment. A small smile spread across her lips. The only thing that made her sincerely happy was her brother’s happiness.

  Then Gavin screamed.

  Scott had become so engrossed in the act of folding socks with Patrick that he hadn’t been watching Gavin as closely as he felt he should have. Looking over at the sandbox he saw Gavin frozen in fear, a wet spot on the front of his pants showing he had peed himself. Otherwise the boy looked fine. He was staring off into the back yard at something. Movement caught Scott’s attention and he noticed a porcupine had wandered into the back yard. This wasn’t just any porcupine, as this one looked like it had been chewed up and spit back out. The quilled mammal was bleeding from many gaping wounds and was missing much of its face, exposing glistening bone. The small animal seemed to stagger towards Lily as it lurched a few steps forward and staggered to the side. It screeched as it stepped towards the four-year-old girl, the quills that remained on its mangled body leapt to attention, standing straight up on the animal’s torso.

  Samantha tossed her book aside and scooped up Lily before anyone else was able to react, all frozen in shock where they sat. Samantha hadn’t hesitated. While she had jumped in between the porcupine and Lily, Samantha had gotten numerous quills in her right arm. While clutching Lily tightly, she winced from the pain in her arm but still moved to plant herself between Gavin and the small, yet dangerous animal, protecting them both from harm as best she could.

  Gavin screamed a second time as ever
yone watched a pair of large, deformed rats emerge from the brush on the edge of the back yard. They boldly walked to the dying, quill covered mammal. Together, the pair of rats pinned the animal and began chewing on the live porcupine, tearing off bloody flesh and eating it. The porcupine, now pinned to the ground, twitched and convulsed as the predators tore him apart. A third massive rat emerged from the brush and quickly scurried between his two feasting friends and Samantha. Bradley, as if awoken from his trance, rushed to place himself between the seventeen-year-old girl he crushed on, and the strangely mutated rat, which was the size of a raccoon.

  Scott stood from the bench wanting to go protect the children but hesitated as he heard Patrick call out for him.

  “Scott?” the sightless boy said in an alarmed tone. He wondered if he had left him alone. “I’m scared.”

  “Get the kids inside,” Scott said to the teens he often counted on for help.

  The largest of the rats stepped towards Bradley and stood on its hind legs. Samantha took a step back, grabbed Gavin by the hand and moved backwards towards the house. Bradley turned his attention to Samantha for a moment as if unsure what to do next. When he turned to face the rat, he saw its neck had jutted forward and with its mouth open in an unnatural way, the rat sprayed his face with a hot, sticky and rancid liquid. Bradley wiped at his face with his hands and shirtsleeves as he staggered back, blinded by the liquid the rat had sprayed. He tripped over the edge of the sandbox, falling into the sand and nearly landing on top of Gavin’s toy loader. He brushed the sticky mess from his face with a sand covered hand as he felt a sudden weight on his torso. He opened his eyes and with blurred vision he saw the large rat had pounced on him and was now sitting on him as it hissed directly into his face.

  Bradley screamed.

  Scott swung an old rake at the rat. He slammed the rodent across the yard, and it landed with a thud. But the rat did not appear affected in the least. It boldly got up again and hissed at everyone in the yard. It then scurried back to join the other rats who were feasting on the now dead porcupine.

  Clay, Peter and Colin had come running outside, along with their two friends. One of them still had his dice in hand. The commotion had been heard from inside the house and they were curious as to what was going on. They stood at the back door, unsure if they should go any further. Scott, noticing them, called out:

  “You boys go back inside and open the door when we get there! Make sure none of these rats get in the house!” The boys looked at each other and filed back inside one by one. They watched from the kitchen window, out of the way, while Clay held the door handle, waiting.

  Scott helped Bradley to his feet, and they both ran toward the house. Scott peered back at the rats, expecting them to attack. He held the rake like a weapon, ready to swing at the animals again, if needed. Clay swung the door open as soon as they all reached the house. Bradley stumbled on the stairs but managed to get inside with the rest of the kids, followed by Scott, who locked the patio door behind them. He watched the largest rat as it stood up on its hind legs, watching him watch it. Chills coursed over Scott’s body as he went scrambling to find one of the many cordless phones scattered about the house. Finding one atop the breadbox, he went back to the door to keep an eye on the rats only to find them all gone. The three rats were nowhere to be seen. The dead porcupine was also gone, realized Scott. The rats must have taken it with them.

  Scott listened to the chaos of the house as both Patrick and Gavin cried; Samantha, who was struggling with the pain of porcupine quills in her arm, shouted instructions to Bradley to wash his face. Lily sat on the kitchen floor, sullen and still, tearing the hairs out of a doll’s head. Clay, Peter, Colin and their friends stood at the windows, searching for any sign of the rodents. Scott looked at the cordless phone in his hand and tried to decide who to call first. Should he call 911? Should he call cops, forest rangers, or pest control? Then it hit him. He would call his wife. Miriam would know what to do. She always did.

  Chapter 12

  Deadly Fungus

  Detective Burke had a curse of his own in the form of selective memory. For some reason he forgot some things easily while remembering others in vivid details. He always forgot things like his ex-wife’s birthday or their wedding anniversary. That was one of the many reasons she was now his ex-wife, however most case details always stayed with him as if burned into his mind forever. Especially the ones that remained unsolved. This had irritated his wife, as she thought this meant Burke’s personal life was less important than his work. Even though that was true, Burke couldn’t choose what remained in his memory. He didn’t get to choose that.

  Like the autopsy pictures of Ryan McGregor and the subsequent autopsy results, there were certain things his mind would never let go. He was thinking now about the autopsy results as he stood in front of the late officer’s gravestone. Ryan, a native of Oakwood Island had lost his life on the job while trying to protect the very island he loved, and so had been given an elaborate tombstone to honor his service. His final resting place was decorated with an ornate granite piece with police cruiser lights carved into the top of the gravestone.

  “Bravery is not the absence of fear

  but action in the face of fear.”

  Ryan Robert McGregor

  Burke adjusted his glasses and lit a cigarette using his Zippo as he tried to forget the images of Ryan’s mangled body. The doctors had tried to patch him up and stop the bleeding, but the wounds had been too severe. He had already lost too much blood, and there had been no saving the young officer, as much as they had tried. Burke tucked his lit cigarette between his lips, the smoke swirling around and into his nostrils as he patted his pockets in search of his now ringing cell phone.

  “Burke here,” he said, placing the phone to his ear.

  “The amount of data you guys have based on the small samples collected from the crime scenes and bodies is amazing,” Jin Hong blurted. He hadn’t bothered to say hello when Burke answered, getting right to the point.

  “This is a mutated strain, from what I can tell. It has to be the same as what we found in Peru. But I can’t understand how this fungus got all the way to this remote island across the continent.”

  “I don’t get what’s so hard to understand? I mean, if you could find it in Peru, why not here?” Burke asked. “If you can find something in one place, then why is it so difficult to imagine it being found in another place?”

  “You don’t get it,” Jin replied. “This thing survives in Peru only because of the conditions, the climate.”

  “But you said it yourself,” Burke replied, pausing to take a drag from his cigarette before he spoke again. “It’s a mutated strain. If it evolved, then why couldn’t that help it survive in a different climate? It could adapt and survive, right?”

  “Fine,” Jin replied, who wouldn’t admit that Burke had a point. “But what boggles my mind is this: what are the odds of this thing being on this island and being found by someone like Danny, who knew what he was looking at in the first place?”

  “True,” Burke replied. “You got me on that one.”

  “Did you talk to anyone about what I asked you?”

  Instead of answering right away Burke lit another cigarette off the first one, before crushing its tip between yellow stained fingers and pocketing the butt. He then blew out smoke from the fresh cigarette. “Not yet,” he finally replied.

  “You still don’t think they’ll agree to do it?” Jin asked, annoyed.

  “Look. Exhuming multiple bodies for an active case is one thing, but to do that to look for mould on cases everybody wants to forget is another thing altogether.”

  “Fungus. Spores. We’d be looking for spores.”

  “Look, I don’t think that will be necessary as something tells me that you’re going to find much fresher samples anyway.”

  “What makes you say that?” Jin ask
ed.

  “Back when this shit all started, we had found dead animals scattered on the island. Most of them appeared half eaten. I’m thinking if we had known what we were looking for at the time, we probably would have found the same traces on them as we did on Ryan, Maggie, Danny and the other bodies too.” Burke looked at the smoke curling up from the cigarette.

  “I’ve asked local forest rangers, cops, the local vets to hang on to any dead animals they find for the next little while, especially those that look like they’ve fallen victim to predators. That way we can get samples and you can run some tests.”

  “You can still do that?” Jin asked. “While still on sick leave?”

  “They don’t know that. Plus, they know me.”

  “I still think we should exhume at least one body. If we do find new evidence on the animals like you say, then we can compare it to the old findings to see if it’s evolved even more. We can see if the body is still contaminated or if my theory is right.”

  “What theory?”

  “Well, they found traces on that cop, Ryan, when they did the autopsy. Traces that survived on him after being treated at the hospital, I have the reports. I have to wonder if the strain died off in the confines of a coffin or if it mutated still.”

  “Mutated?” Burke asked. “What do you think we’ll find in that coffin, friken zombies?”

  “Actually, I don’t know,” Jin replied. “But I’d love to find out.”

  “Let me call Randolf and run this by him to see what he thinks.”

  “Randolf?” Jin replied. “The coroner?”