The Cleansing

by Shane Staley

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  About The Author

  THE CLEANSING

  Shane Ryan Staley

  First Digital Edition

  November 2009

  Published by:

  Darkside Digital

  A Horror Mall Company

  P.O. Box 338

  North Webster, IN 46555

  www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital

  The Cleansing © 2009, 2005 by Shane Ryan Staley

  Cover Artwork © 2009, 2005 by Mike Bohatch

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  I watched my father die in the throes of a nightmare. His fingers twitched madly, his chest heaved in and out. His eyes darted around the room without focus. His heart raced on the monitor. Though surrounded by family and close friends, in a hospital room he had inhabited for weeks, he seemed lost, scared, like a young child separated from his mother.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” I whispered.

  It was the first time I had ever witnessed my father scared.

  He mumbled something I could not understand.

  His hand reached around my arm and pulled me closer. His lips moved, but, again, I could not hear the words. His grip tightened around my forearm. Pins and needles shot through my arm. I lowered my ear to his mouth, to hear what he was trying to tell me.

  “It’s still out there,” he whispered, his glossy eyes rolling to meet mine. “You find it and kill it!”

  “It’s OK, Dad,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to irritate him further. His blood oxygen was apparently getting worse.

  “Be careful,” he said and closed his eyes.

  Those were the last words he said to me.

  My mother’s frail voice said, “It’s just the cancer talking.”

  My father exhaled for what seemed like minutes. His breath gurgled from somewhere deep inside. His eyes fluttered, flashing familiar brown irises. His lids opened again to the sight of bloodshot whites.

  I felt hands on my shoulders, prying me away from him.

  He flatlined.

  We were immediately ushered to the waiting room by a nurse. I took one last look at my father’s body lying on the hospital bed and I felt helpless.

  In the waiting room, I sat with my mother and our closest relatives, but felt totally estranged. I felt like I didn’t really know any of them. I felt transplanted into a scene like some kind of emotional stunt person, taking on the drama of the film/life that was shot before me.

  The doctor finally emerged from the double doors. He lowered his mask to an expression that told us what we needed to know.

  My mother doubled over and cried. My aunt comforted her.

  I sat silently, taking in the scene. My arm burned. I looked down and saw my father’s handprint there. Each hair on that arm was standing on end, as if a current of electricity was coursing through my veins.

  My vision registered one last snapshot of the scene unfolding before everything went black.

  Chapter 2

  I was a child again.

  It was a summer day. A light, cool breeze hinted that the season was on the brink of change. The campsite loomed before me: a mid-eighties Mallard trailer with deck and awning. A fire pit came into view with a small shed standing along the back property line.

  My father bought this place as a summer retreat for fishing and camping. It was a place where he spent time away from us. We only visited on certain weekends to drop off supplies. Mother hated to camp and usually kept me home, allowing my father to have his personal space.

  The property line faded to a dark woods leading to a small lake. Dirt roads wound around the property connecting distant campsites. Other such campsites were sparse, but existed on similar plots of land with either log cabins or trailers as permanent shelters. Pontoons, fishing boats and golf carts were scattered around most lots.

  I squinted, my hands blocking out the glaring sun, and concentrated on the shadow before me. My father knelt there, the lines in his face seeming deeper, more shadowed, and his eyes were sad, desperate.

  I realized I was alone with him, beside the trailer. I looked around to see Mother’s car in the gravel drive, but there was nothing there. Dust blew in from the road. The sun disappeared. The crickets in the tall weeds at the edge of the woods stopped chirping. The birds ceased their songs and I could hear nothing but the wind blowing around us.

  I suddenly grew afraid. Nothing seemed to make any sense. The warm sun faded, the air chilled.

  “I don’t have much time,” my father said, “I need you to understand.”

  There seemed to be something wrong with the way his expressions changed. His face morphed seamlessly from one expression to the next. His body movements seemed jerky, almost convulsive.

  “Come with me,” he said. “The sun is going down.”

  We came to the side of the trailer. He quickly peeled the skirting away from beneath the deck. A gust of cool air flooded my face. I peered beneath the trailer. Shafts of light cut through the two-by-fours on the deck, enlightening the cinder blocks that were stacked to level the trailer. Used tires were scattered around the area, along with spider webs and other debris.

  I pulled back and he gripped my forearm. “You must understand.”

  He led me beneath the deck. I crawled on my knees in pursuit, wiping spider webs from my face and dead leaves from my bare knees.

  My father stopped near the darkest corner of the trailer. He turned to me, his expression twisting once again into desperation.

  “I tried to kill it, but it wouldn’t go away,” he said.

  He pointed to something behind a cinder block.

  I shuffled forward only a foot or so when I saw the black mass that was torn in a circle.

  And in that circle was a face. His face.

  I screamed, looking back towards the opening in the skirting.

  “Get back!” my father yelled. “Now!”

  The face suddenly moved. Deeply shadowed eyes flashed open, appearing intense and angry. Pale hands emerged, expanding the trash bag. As the bag expanded, I noticed that it oozed slime. Upon further inspection, I realized the black mass was actually skin. The skin stretched elastically. It appeared segmented, like some kind of worm. The head rose, pivoting insect-like atop its black body, as the creature watched me scurry past my real father and into the dimming light of the setting sun.

  “You must kill it,” my father screamed.

  I rolled out from beneath the deck and I ran. I reached the road and stopped.

  I was lost in darkness.

  I spun, looking for something familiar.

  There was nothing.

  I sat on the cold, dirt road, pulled my legs into my body, lowered my head between my knees and cried.

  I felt the darkness shift. The stench of something dead s
urfaced.

  A cold breath sent shivers down my back as a whisper surfaced. “It’s too late.”

  Cold, slimy skin brushed against my leg. I felt something sharp puncture my skin there and I screamed.

  From a distance, I heard my father yell: “Kill it!”

  * * *

  I awoke in the hospital. A familiar doctor peered at me with smelling salts in hand. He pried my eyelids open with his fingers and shined a light into my eyes.

  And in the light I saw a face.

  But it wasn’t the kind, loving face of my father, the one I had known all my life. It was the other face, an entity beyond those eyes that seemed vile, enraged.

  And as my vision faded, I saw that face wriggling in a black body.

  In a cold dark place, waiting.

  Chapter 3

  After my father’s death, I dreamt of nothing but a pitch-black place. In those dreams I felt nothing but coldness. I heard only the echoes of something I could not imagine: a chorus of sucking sounds.

  I feared I had gone mad.

  My father’s handprint had settled on my forearm like a birthmark. And I couldn’t help but wonder if his touch actually gave birth to a new me, because everything had changed in my life. I felt there was some newfound purpose to it all, but I had no clue what that purpose was.

  Could something have transpired in the final stages before his death, something being passed onto me from that final encounter to cause this change?

  Each day became a blur and time no longer mattered. The funeral came and went and I put my job on hold for the summer. Luckily, I was making ends meet by having a number of freelance writing jobs and had enough in savings to last the rest of the summer. It wasn’t much, but enough to get me by as I had no immediate family to support.

  Each night I sat in my apartment and found myself dwelling on the dream I had in the hospital. It was like no other dream I could recall. It was a vision. It meant something more than I could’ve ever imagined and I knew the key was at my father’s campsite.

  The phone rang as I pondered taking a trip to the campgrounds.

  “Hello,” I said, hearing static on the line.

  My mother’s voice sounded distant. “Hi, Chris. What have you been doing?”

  “Just work,” I lied. I stared out the window at the setting sun. An endless line of traffic was backed up for miles. “How have you been?”

  “Actually worried about you. You seem…withdrawn lately.”

  “Sorry, I’ve just been—”

  I paused, searching for the right word. There was none to describe the way I felt.

  “I don’t know. Sad.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “We all knew it was coming, but that never seems to ease matters, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  I laughed. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be asking you right now?”

  She returned a small chuckle. “I’m fine, Chris.”

  I knew she was lying.

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ve just been dreaming a lot,” I replied. “Having nightmares.”

  “What about?”

  “I’m not really sure exactly,” I said, “I guess I’ve been sitting here thinking about Dad. The same thing keeps running through my mind: how well do we really know even the closest people in our lives? I’m thirty years old and there was a lot I still didn’t know about him.”

  Mom was silent, so I continued, feeling relieved I could finally talk about it. “Dad was a great father—”

  “Yes he was,” she cut in.

  “But there seemed to be so much I didn’t know about him, things I never asked, things we didn’t share.”

  “Like what?”

  “He always seemed to have such a private side, like we were never a part of that side. He left and spent a lot of the weekends by himself at the campgrounds.”

  “Well he was a very private person, Chris. I think he needed his space from time to time and I always made sure he received it. Before you were born, he went through a change. When I first married him he was the life of the party. He really shined in a crowd. Then he left for the war. I swear that when he came home, he was a different person.”

  “That’s pretty common though, isn’t it?” I inquired.

  “Yes, but it was like another person came back in his body.”

  The thought sent a flurry of chills through my body. My father’s face flashed through my mind, the one beneath the camper.

  My mother continued. “He came back from Vietnam and he was withdrawn. He didn’t talk much. He never smiled. It was like he was a zombie. A year went by and he bought the camper and site and spent more and more time there by himself. And then one day he came back and everything changed. He became the person he once was, almost overnight. Our marriage was in trouble and then everything was the way it was before the war. About a year later, you were born and everything else is history, so to speak.”

  “What changed?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. Didn’t really care to know. I was just happy I had your father back. From that day on, he seemed to be always in good spirits, although he did seem a little distant from time to time. Like he needed some space.”

  “You know the funny thing is that I don’t ever recall Dad getting upset or depressed. He always seemed to be smiling until—”

  “He was good at hiding things.”

  “His cancer.”

  “Yes, that too,” she said. “In the past few months, I think he knew he wasn’t going to make it.”

  “Why?”

  Mother hesitated. “He did some strange things.”

  “Like what?”

  “There was a girl, about your age, at the house a few weeks ago. They met secretly behind the garage. I just happened to notice that he was gone from the living room. I glanced out the kitchen window and there they were.”

  “Maybe it was someone in passing. Asking directions or—”

  “No, they knew each other,” she added. “And the way they were talking and the looks on their faces told me that the subject was serious.”

  “You don’t think Dad was having—”

  “No,” mother interrupted. “He would never have an affair.”

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  My mother laughed. “Yeah I did. He said something about an old friend’s daughter came by. I guess her father needed your father’s help with something. He wouldn’t have mentioned their talk if I hadn’t said anything. That’s not like him.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, thinking about it.

  “That night he packed his stuff and was headed for the campsite, but that’s when he began having spells. His vision had blurred to where he couldn’t see to drive. He begged me to drive him to the campgrounds, but I refused. He needed to go to the hospital. What else could I have done?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You did what was right.”

  “The night before he died he made me contact the lawyer. He insisted the will be changed. The poor lawyer came to the hospital near midnight.”

  “What did he change?”

  “He changed the beneficiary of the campsite. He left it to you instead of me.” Mother’s voice cracked. “I think it was because he was mad at me.” On the other end of the line I could hear her breaking down into tears.

  “No, Mom, I’m sure he understood.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know,” I said. “He had a reason for doing it.”

  And the reason is at that campsite, I thought.

  Chapter 4

  Whisper Ridge Campgrounds was just as I had remembered it: simple and secluded. On the winding, main dirt road, I passed several lots that were vacant. I turned off on a side road and noted more cabins and RVs that were unoccupied. This late in the season, most of the park’s inhabitants were back home, their children now in school.

  Dirt and gravel roads wound
their way across the campground like a maze. A few turnoffs later I pulled up into the driveway of my father’s lot. I sat there, looking around the area. The nearest lot to my father’s was barely in view and, like the rest, apparently vacated for the summer.

  I exited the car and stood on the edge of the property, feeling uneasy about my decision to visit. The dream-vision rushed back into my mind, and I stared down at the skirting that surrounded the camper.

  I looked around the property, noting the fire pit and the old wood shed in the far back. The quiet was somewhat unnerving. For the past few weeks I had locked myself in my downtown apartment, listening to the traffic continually flow through the main drag. Now, I had checked myself into one of the most desolate places in Indiana and at a time of year when it would be most deserted.

  The stairs creaked as I climbed the deck. The key that my mother gave me turned hard in the door to the RV, but eventually unlocked it. I entered the bedroom. The sheets were neatly tucked around the bed. Down a short hall was a set of bunk beds to the left. I remembered sleeping there during an afternoon nap or two, but we never stayed the night.

  I continued into the kitchen and living room combo. The camper seemed hollow. The water cooler was almost empty. I checked the cupboards and there was coffee, graham crackers, marshmallows and a package of Hershey bars. The refrigerator contained ketchup, mustard and barbecue sauce along with a few bottles of Coronas my father used to drink.

  I searched through more cupboards and found my dad’s coffee mug, the one I had made for him in art class in the fifth grade. “#1 Dad” it said. I smiled, held the cup and felt myself choking up. I quickly shook off the feeling and opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto the deck.

  The silence consumed me.

  I went back inside and grabbed a flashlight.

  My mission began.

  I removed the skirting from the trailer and shined the light underneath the deck. Cold air rushed against my face.

  Although I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, I stalled, terrified at what I might encounter.