The Festering Ones

by S H Cooper

  I could only imagine what Janice would think if I woke up screaming for my life again.

  Instead, we passed the time by playing a fun game of Mother’s Worst Nightmare: Janice would suggest something terrible happening to Ben and I’d do my best to calm her down again. It was a difficult role for me, especially since I was certain Josie hadn’t brought Ben down to Florida to visit Disney. More than once, I had to shush her and remind her we were in a very public, very closed space, and her simmering panic would only cause a chain reaction that might very well ground us before we reached our destination.

  Between the kidnapping of her son and her fear of flying, I was worried Janice might actually have a nervous breakdown before we touched down.

  It was with no small measure of relief, then, that we made it to West Palm with little more than some tears shed to show for it.

  We were greeted with muggy, hot air even as we disembarked from the plane and walked up the bridge to the gate. Florida apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that it was already September. Janice pushed her way through the crowd, anxious to be on our way, and I followed in her wake. Neither of us apologized: we were now on a mission.

  “Bags or car first?” she asked over her shoulder.

  The fear that had been so present on the plane had dulled slightly, and in its place a spark of determination had taken light. Now that she was back on her feet and more in control of the situation, she had a single goal, and that was to find her son.

  “Um, why don’t you go grab bags, I’ll meet you at the car rental place. Mine was the red plaid with the bright green name tag hanging off the top handle.”

  “Got it.”

  While she went one way towards the baggage claim, I went the other towards the kiosk. A bored look woman was sitting behind the counter, idly flipping through a magazine. When she saw me approaching, she quickly set it aside and stood up with a customer service ready smile.

  “Welcome to West Palm Beach, I’m Becka, do you have a reservation?”

  “No, I just need to get whatever’s cheapest.”

  I could already hear my credit card crying out for mercy from my purse. I had always been so careful about keeping it reserved for emergencies or items I’d be able to pay off in one or two payments. Now, though, I was racking up big ticket bills faster than I’d known I was capable of.

  Becka pecked away at her keyboard with long, brightly colored nails. “Just you?”

  “Me and a friend. I’ll be driving.”

  “And where are you planning to go?”

  “Passit.”

  She paused with a slight frown, her brow furrowing. “Passit, huh? I’m not familiar with that town, give me a second to look it up.”

  More pecking.

  “I’m not seeing it on a map. Is it near here?”

  “I don’t know, maybe an hour and a half, two hours north of here?”

  “Are you sure you have the right name?” She asked.

  “Yes,” I replied through grit teeth, “it’s by, uh, Okee...Okee-fucking, it’s by that place with the giant lake.”

  That was the only thing I remembered from my brief search that morning while we waited to board.

  “Okeechobee!” she said helpfully and I nodded. “Sorry, hon, there’s no Passit in Florida. Maybe you mean Pahokee?”

  Don’t argue, don’t argue, don’t argue, I told myself to stave off my knee-jerk reaction. She didn’t need to know where Passit was or even that it existed: she just needed to give me a car.

  “Pahokee, yeah, that must be it.”

  “Pahokee?” Janice had appeared beside me. “No, Passit.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I mumbled at her.

  Becka retained her smile, although now it had taken on an uncertain edge as she looked between us. “So...you’re going to Pahokee?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” Janice said.

  I jabbed her in the ribs with my elbow and shot her a withering look. “Yes,” I repeated more firmly.

  Janice didn’t argue that time.

  “Ok then,” Becka made note of it in her computer. I doubted she cared much either way, she just had to do her job and get us out of there, but the less fuss we kicked up, the better. We already had enough obstacles in our way without losing out on having a car.

  After sorting through the rest of the paperwork, we were handed a key for a Ford Focus and wished an enjoyable visit to the great state of Florida. While Janice continued to side eye me dubiously, I thanked her and hurried away.

  “What the hell? We’re not going to Pahokee!” She said as soon as we were out of earshot.

  “No, we’re not, but she couldn’t find Passit in her computer. I wasn’t about to stand there and look like a crazy person demanding a car to a place that she doesn’t think exists,” I said.

  “How could she not find it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Passit except that something happened there that was bad enough for even The Gathered to cut ties. Maybe it’s just super small and they don’t have a sister rental company there, maybe it’s a nickname. We’ll figure it out.”

  “What if Marcus lied to you?” she asked quietly. “What if all of this was just a trick to get you to go away?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. I just told her to help me find the tram that would take us to the rental parking lot and our car.

  If it was all one big conspiracy, they’d done a good job. I hadn’t thought twice about getting Janice and I down to Florida as quickly as possible. If we had made a mistake, then I was even more afraid of what would happen to Ben back at White Crow. I didn’t even want to consider it.

  We found our car, an older model in forest green, waiting for us just outside the tram. As we handed off our rental slip to the security guard on our way out, Janice leaned over me.

  “Hey, are you familiar with Passit?” she asked him with an excited, touristy tone.

  “Passit? What’s that?” he replied.

  “Nothing,” Janice deflated back into her seat.

  Again we were told to enjoy our stay and the booth’s barricade arm swung upward. I had to temper myself to keep from flooring it out of the airport.

  With the help of my phone’s GPS, we navigated out to the highway and turned north.

  “Do you even know where we’re going?” Janice asked.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “Okeechobee, I guess. It seems to be the nearest real town. As good as place to try and get answers as any.”

  “Want me to find a hotel?”

  “Sure.”

  Having something to do seemed to help refocus Janice and she tossed out suggestions for places we might stay in, including reviews and ratings. After we narrowed the list down, she made some calls and got us a couple of side by side rooms at a small place towards the west side of town, as close as we could get to Passit.

  “Do you think the cops will think it’s suspicious that I left?” Janice was staring at her lap, her hands entwined into a tight, white ball. “Will they think I’m involved?”

  “I think they’ll see it as a mom trying to get her kid back,” I said. “It’s not like they can’t call you or you’re hiding that you went.”

  She was quiet for a while.

  “Do you think he’s ok?” There was a catch in her voice.

  “Yeah,” I said, not adding the ominous for now that begged to follow.

  We followed the interstate and its palm trees up the coast for a time before abandoning it in favor of a smaller westward bound highway that would take us towards central Florida. It was a flat state, and the more we got away from I-95, the more empty it became. There were long stretches of open fields dotted with grazing cows on either side of our double laned road. Occasionally, we’d see a mobile home or gates to a ranch set far back down a dirt drive, but otherwise, there wasn’t much to see.

  Okeechobee itself wasn’t much more interesting.

  It was a small, blue collar town of
half empty strip malls and fast food restaurants. The downtown area, which had been labeled historic, was quaint and, quite frankly, one of the few charming things about the place. Janice seemed to share my first impression of it and chewed her lip nervously.

  “Why would she come here?” she mused aloud.

  “She didn’t,” I reminded her.

  “I mean Florida in general. I don’t understand. She never mentioned it at all! You think she’d have slipped up or something at least once. About this, about The Gathered. I don’t get how she kept it all from me.”

  I thought of my own mother and the secrets she’d managed to keep.

  “If it’s important enough, I guess you do what it takes,” was all I said.

  Our inn was a run-down little thing painted in a pale yellow that seemed like it was trying too hard to make it appear more cheerful. Neither of us were very concerned with looks, though: we didn’t plan on being around very often. The front door was open except for a thin screen that slammed noisily behind us.

  Inside, an overweight woman was watching TV behind the front desk and sipping from a straw stuck in a large Styrofoam cup.

  “Heya,” she said, friendly enough even if she didn’t look towards us. “You gotta reservation?”

  “Yeah. It’s under —“

  “York,” she finished for me.

  Janice and I both stiffened, immediately defensive.

  The woman must had noticed because she chortled with amusement. “You’re the only one on the books.”

  “Oh, right,” I flashed her a weak smile. Apparently I was more on edge than I’d realized.

  From the way I felt Janice relax beside me, I could tell she felt the same.

  “Hey, are you familiar with Passit?” Janice asked conversationally while I handed over my credit card.

  “Nu uh,” the woman replied quickly. “You looking for places to go, there’s some pamphlets on the wall over there. The lake’s real nice, go back east and the beaches are great, Vero’s got an outlet mall. Lots to do.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We gathered up our bags and headed back outside to find our room. A woman, tall and blonde, was standing just outside when we exited and she watched us with an intent gaze.

  As we passed, she spoke in a low voice.

  “Did I hear you ask about Passit?”

  Janice and I hesitated.

  “Did I?” the woman pressed, taking a step towards us.

  “Yeah,” Janice said, unconsciously putting her bag between herself and the strange woman.

  “Then maybe you can help me.”

  I glanced from Janice to the woman. “How?”

  She held out a hand and I accepted it slowly.

  “My name’s Sasha,” she said. “I’m looking for my sister.”

  The Wicked Lure

  The three of us sat with no small measure of tension in my hotel room. It smelled musty, unused, and everything had a drab-bordering-on-dirty look to it. Janice had perched on the edge of the bed, her bag still clutched like a shield on her lap. The blonde stranger, Sasha, had suggested we go talk somewhere private. Now she was standing in front of the door, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Janice kept looking at me. I knew what she was thinking: what if this woman was part of The Gathered? What if she’d been sent to stop us? To hurt us? I’d positioned myself against the opposite wall, so the queen sized bed was between us and the nightstand with the phone was beside me. Even if I didn’t have time to make a call, I could always try to use the old, bulky thing as a weapon if need be.

  “I’ve seen you,” Sasha said bluntly, breaking the crackling silence.

  “Huh?” Janice jumped slightly.

  “I don’t know, exactly.” Sasha paused, struggling to find the right words to explain herself. “I kept seeing both of you, just glimpses in a crowd of something. At first, I thought you were following me, but I’d always lose track of you. Then I started seeing stuff about this place, Okeechobee and the motel, in magazines and on brochures. I didn’t know what to think, it couldn’t all be coincidence, so I took a chance and came here.”

  “You came here on a whim?” I asked. It seemed so far-fetched. Then again, what about any recent events had been anything but that?

  “Not to Florida. Like I said, I’m looking for my sister, Nina. She accepted a vet job in Passit and after the first few weeks, she stopped calling. I haven’t heard from her since. Finding anyone who knows anything about Passit has been impossible, so when I started seeing you two everywhere and stuff about the motel, I decided I had to at least look into it. I’ve had...nothing else to go on since I got here.”

  There was a tired, defeated note in Sasha’s voice. Despite my caution, I found myself beginning to believe her.

  “But why?” Janice had lowered her bag slightly. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” Sasha admitted. “I just had this feeling I was being pushed towards this place and to you. Like something wanted me to find you.”

  That didn’t sound like Gorrorum’s MO to me. Not that I had a whole lot of experience in it. What I did know, however, was that he communicated through dreams and his Fingers, not these prophetic visions like Sasha was describing. Unless that was the next stage of his infection.

  “Have you had any weird dreams, Sasha?” I asked. I’d rather know what I was in for than be surprised again.

  But Sasha shook her head. “Weird dreams? No. This has all happened while I’m awake.”

  That definitely didn’t seem like Gorrorum then. I frowned down at my shoes. I hadn’t realized one foot was anxiously tapping against the stained carpet. Another layer of riddles to add to the mix. Whatever had guided Sasha here didn’t seem to be the same power that had brought me and Janice.

  “You still haven’t found Passit?” I heard Janice asking through the veil of my thoughts.

  “No. It’s not on any maps that I can find and everyone I’ve asked said they’d never heard of it. It’s like some big conspiracy that everyone’s in on except me,” Sasha said.

  “Or maybe something doesn’t want people to know about it,” I offered quietly.

  Without knowing the full extent of Gorrorum or whatever else was lurking out there, it didn’t seem entirely impossible that there was some kind of...enchantment or something over Passit.

  Not impossible, but certainly ridiculous.

  At least Janice and Sasha didn’t immediately balk at the idea. They considered it quietly, gravely. I found that it made me feel a bit better about myself. Less alone. Now I wasn’t the only one caught up in this mess.

  “Whatever’s going on, we have to either find someone who’s willing to admit they know about Passit or find the town ourselves,” Sasha said definitively.

  “But how?” Janice looked at her hopefully, like she expected Sasha to have the answer right then and there.

  When Sasha hesitated, I spoke up. “You know all those ‘Florida Man’ news reports? About all the crazy shit that goes on here?”

  The others half-shrugged, not entirely certain they knew what I was getting at.

  “I read that the reason Florida seems like such a weird place is because of how open the government is with their records. Police reports, court filings, stuff like that. If we were to go to the town clerk —”

  “Maybe there’d be something about Passit,” Janice finished for me.

  “It’s a start, at least,” Sasha said.

  “Find out where it is,” Janice was already on her phone. “We’ve gotta get moving.”

  “You guys never told me why you’re looking for Passit.” Sasha quirked a brow with her realization and looked between us.

  Janice’s fingers froze over her phone’s screen and the muscles in her jaw tightened. She hadn’t had to say it out loud to anyone but me yet and the surge of emotions that it stirred in her played across her face even as it was obvious she was trying very hard to keep them under control.

  “My son is there,” she said qui
etly. “Or going to be. My mother kidnapped him.”

  Instead of the crack in her voice I’d been expecting, there was a dark undercurrent. The subtle growl of a maternal beast about to be unleashed. Sasha opened her mouth, perhaps to apologize, but she closed it again and nodded once.

  “Then we’d better move fast. For your son and my sister.”

  At the last minute, I sent the other two off without me. I explained that, while they were trying to get their hands on any public records having to do with Passit, I was going to stay behind and do some research of my own. If we hadn’t felt so pressed for time, I got the feeling they’d have questioned me about what I planned to do, but with the afternoon waning and the clerk’s closing time fast approaching, they had to settle for my decision with little push back.

  They left in Sasha’s car and I pulled out my phone.

  Marcus answered on the first ring, like he’d been expecting me.

  “You’re in Florida,” he said. He sounded disappointed.

  “Yup. I’m going to find Ben and Passit with or without your help.”

  “Then why did you call?”

  “Because you know what happened here and you’re the easiest place to start.”

  Marcus tutted into the line. “I’ve already told you, we do not speak of those who fell from favor.”

  “I don’t care about the cult. This is about Gorrorum. Is he going to start sending me visions? Making me see things even when I’m awake?”

  The pregnant pause between my question and his answer was not lost on me. I’d struck some kind of nerve.

  “No, the Father is not some kind of illusionist playing silly tricks,” he replied. His words were prickly.

  “We met a woman here who claimed to have seen us before we’d even arrived. Something was driving her to us. If it wasn’t your beloved Father, then what was it?”

  “You do not want to get involved with that business, Faith,” Marcus warned. “Do not stray from Gorrorum. Nothing good will come of it.”