A Neophyte's Tale, An Abbey Thorne Short Story (Prequel to The Netherwalker Series)

by CK Dawn

  Whatever cruelty Jennifer was about to assault her daughter with was interrupted by a shard of glass that had sliced her foot. Stumbling towards their kitchenette she managed to step on a few more pieces.

  Abbey moved to her mother’s side to help her walk. “Stop. Just stop, you’re stepping on more. OMG, even drunk you’re so--,” she frantically waved her free hand trying to think of how to describe how disappointed she was in her mother’s behavior. “You’re so typical! Drunk or sober you sound like every other horrible mother in this stupid building, blaming their kid instead of taking responsibility for--” Abbey refused to let her tears fall. Instead, she pulled a handkerchief from inside her hoodie and tried to wipe away the blood from her mother’s foot.

  Jennifer pushed Abbey’s hand away. “Get off me. It’s not that bad.”

  Abbey felt like a stranger looking in at her life. A scene from a sad movie was merely playing out before her as she unthinkingly folded the sullied handkerchief and placed it on the kitchen counter. She even refrained from asking her mother the same questions that plagued her every time they argued. Why did you even have me? And, why do you keep dragging me around everywhere? The answers didn’t seem to matter anymore. Abbey was numb to her surroundings as she looked around the barren apartment. She could almost predict everything that would follow. Her mom was already limping to the couch, lighting a cigarette. Her foot was still bleeding as she propped it on the milk crate they called their coffee table.

  Abbey scoffed at her next prediction. In fifteen seconds mom’s chest will start to heave, then she’ll begin to cry. This is where she apologizes and I become a blithering, snotty mess. Then it’ll all start over again.

  Abbey took a deep breath and started before her mom could begin to cry. “Mom, I love you. You’re the only family I have, but I need more. I want to go back to school and I want to stop stealing your stash of vodka. All of this moving is just not healthy for us. My friend Maggie said I could stay with her for a while,” she lied. She would clear it with Maggie when she showed up at her house. Abbey looked down at her feet as Jennifer began to cry. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Several minutes of Jennifer’s sobbing turned into sniffles. “Baby girl I--,” Jennifer paused and sat up. “Wait. What did you do with my vodka?”

  Abbey shook her head in defeat and walked to their front door without looking back. “I’ll be at Maggie’s,” she said, and slammed the door.

  Worlds Colliding

  He gave her that look. Abbey hated the sympathetic look people always gave her when she went searching for her missing mother. This time the look was coming from her mother’s boss. He hadn’t seen or heard from her in seven days. Neither had Abbey. Yesterday, the look had come from Maggie when Abbey lied and said her mom and stepdad were back from their impromptu second honeymoon. It was obvious that Maggie hadn’t believed her. The sad looks were always followed by too many questions that Abbey was ashamed to answer. She couldn’t stay with Maggie any longer, the sad looks made it impossible to stay.

  After Abbey left the love and warmth of Maggie’s house to return to an empty apartment and an eviction notice, she knew something was wrong. A week had passed and the blood and broken glass were still covering their kitchen floor and her mother’s remaining alcohol stash remained untouched.

  From behind his glass counter her mother’s boss was rolling up several deli sandwiches making Abbey’s mouth water. “If she comes in early tomorrow, I’ll give her another chance, but this is the last time.”

  “Thanks,” was all Abbey could manage as she walked out of the man’s store.

  “Hey, kid!”

  Abbey turned. The man tossed her a sandwich, still warm and fragrant in its waxy wrapper.

  “Good luck out there, huh?” he said, giving her another sympathetic look.

  Abbey barely nodded her head as she left the deli. She tucked the sandwich into her hoodie’s kangaroo pocket for later as her stomach growled in protest. Yes, she was hungry and had been walking around for hours, but she wasn’t starving. Yet.

  She headed for the last place on her mental list of where her mom could be. It was also the last place she wanted to find her mother.

  Please don’t be pee, please don’t be pee, Abbey thought as she walked down the abandoned building’s ratty hallway, avoiding the wet debris. As she made her way to the apartment and drug den she knew lurked within Abbey gathered her strength. It was the same apartment building her mother swore she would stop coming to. Abbey hadn’t believed her, not after seeing first-hand how many drugs were being passed so freely. But this time the building was quiet. There was no loud music blaring, no thick haze of smoke clinging to the air, and no coughing or wheezing coming from the countless addicts Abbey had passed during her first encounter. The building seemed empty now. When she reached the last door at the end of the hallway she took a deep breath and swung it open without stepping inside. Abbey gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

  Jennifer Thorne was sitting alone on the floor propped against a wall staring into nothingness. The apartment was bare, abandoned but for a few pieces of ruined furniture, and her mother had been left to rot. She looked like a rag doll that had lost all of its filling, weak, frail, and so limp her muscles looked like they had atrophied. The drying vomit surrounding her on the floor had started to attract flies.

  Abbey jumped as Jennifer took an unexpected shallow ragged breath, but still her mother didn’t blink and she actually looked… happy.

  Abbey’s shock was replaced by anger as she stepped through the threshold. “Well, you really did it this time didn’t you!”

  The grungy, barren apartment instantly morphed into a familiar house. Her stepdad waved at her from the kitchen as he pulled a turkey out of the oven. Her mom swatted him with a towel while he basted the bird. He pulled her into a kiss and smiled as he grabbed the towel and swatted her back. The sights and smells were intoxicating and Abbey swore she could live in the perfect memory forever.

  Memory? Abbey thought as her stomach growled. A flash of soiled couches assaulted her vision. She shook her head trying to remember something, but her mind felt hazy. “Abigail Renee Thorne,” her mother’s voice whispered in her head as the couple before her remained locked in an embrace. The welcoming smells of Thanksgiving dinner began to sour, morphing into odors of rancid human waste.

  “Abigail Renee Thorne!” her mother said holding her stepdad’s hands and looking into his eyes.

  Abbey shook her head again, closing her eyes for a moment. She looked across the room at her frail mother as the apartment kept shifting from a festive holiday home into a dingy graffiti tagged drug den.

  “Mom! What’s going on? Mom?” Abbey ran across the room, fell to her knees, and shook her mother. Jennifer was lifeless, staring blissfully into nothingness. Abbey followed her mother’s gaze up to the ceiling and noticed an out of place shadow hovering in the darkest hollow of the room.

  The shadow looked like a canopy of mist draped in the corner of the ceiling, almost tangible, like a physical three dimensional thing sculpted from onyx.

  Jennifer gasped for air as Abbey was pulled back into the Thanksgiving vision.

  Her mother smiled at her husband as he carved the turkey. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. For everything.”

  The man stopped carving and lifted his head towards Abbey. Only smooth pale flesh stared back at her, no mouth, no nose or eyes, only emptiness. Her stepdad had no face. He began carving again, but this time the bird was gone and he used the blade on himself. As he cut parts of his own flesh from his arm, the skin and sinew fell to the floor. They disappeared, one after another as Abbey’s reality threatened to slip away. For a moment she feared her spine was melting as she strained to avert her eyes from the horrific and jumbled images.

  From above her the shadow appeared and rattled like a snake’s tail. It was as though her two realities were morphing together. The shadow shimmered from the darkest black to the bleakest of grays, as if
it were reacting to Abbey’s awareness of it.

  “No time. Hood up, like I taught you!” Jennifer said cupping her stepdad’s cheek as he kept cutting.

  Abbey complied without question as the shadow rattled louder and louder.

  “Now run and don’t look back! I’m so sorry, baby girl. Always remember that I love you.”

  Abbey looked at the shadow again as it began to slither off the ceiling and morph into...Oh my god!

  A sharp pain ran up Abbey’s leg. It felt as though something had pierced her thigh. The dregs of her happiest memory faded as her awareness completely returned to the filthy room. She looked down once more. Jennifer had grabbed her leg and was now looking directly at her.

  “Run.” Jennifer mustered a shaky warning as she took one last breath.

  Instincts Abbey didn’t know she possessed kicked in as she jumped up and ran from the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Running down the hall with her head down and hood up she heard a loud roar and a thud against the apartment door that vibrated through the floor beneath her feet. Her mind was still hazy, the illusion of her stepfather on Thanksgiving had been so real. Please tell me I’m hallucinating that creature, too!

  “Hey!” an arm reached out and grabbed her.

  Ouch! What the hell was that?

  The policeman let go and recoiled as a jolt of electricity surged through Abbey’s body.

  He must have felt it too! Abbey thought, taking advantage of the cop’s stunned reaction. Pulling her hood further down to cover her face, she ran down the stairs and didn’t look back.

  “Hey, Kid! Stop!” but the cop didn’t follow.

  Fighting back tears, Abbey heard another splintering thud against the apartment door that demanded the officer’s attention. The shadow creature sounded like a caged beast, feral, and wild. Her mind was hazy as if waking from a dream. She wondered if the shadow had done something to her. Fearing the creature had been real and that her mother was truly dead she ran blindly down the city street trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  †

  “What about the girl--?” asked Detective Jack LaCrosse.

  “Abbey? That’s her name as far as I can tell,” Bernie Stevens said with a southern drawl. He sighed and walked away from the apartment towards the detective waiting for him in the hall. “I heard her momma yellin’ it once or twice.”

  Detective LaCrosse seemed shocked. “That was her mother?” he said, pointing down the building’s ratty hallway littered with trash and flickering light bulbs.

  Bernie lowered his head slightly, trying to erase the image of the dead woman’s body he wouldn’t soon forget. “Well, if she wasn’t her momma she was the closest approximation to family I gather Abbey had. It’s a damn shame.”

  “Do you think you can find her again?”

  “She’ll find her way to us. She’s almost ready.” The southerner scoffed. It was apparent the detective didn’t know much about what a shepherd actually did. “I’ve been watchin’ her for a while now.”

  The young detective scratched his head. “So, she’s a neophyte then?” he asked, waving a uniformed officer over who had sworn the girl was one of them. “You’re sure, Bernie?”

  Bernie looked at Detective LaCrosse.

  Shrinking a little under the seasoned guardian’s gaze, LaCrosse waved the uniformed officer away. “Of course you’re sure...Why--How did she end up like this?”

  Bernie looked around, waited for a few dociles from the precinct and coroner’s office to pass, and then whispered to his fellow guardian. “The Court may’ve been built of stone and mortar, but there are cracks in any foundation, my friend. Sometimes people slip through.”

  LaCrosse let a few more dociles pass then whispered, “Well, whoever she is she’d make a damn good hunter.”

  †

  Abbey shoved her back against the brick wall as hard as she could, trying to wake up from the nightmare she now found herself in, but she knew it wasn’t a dream. As the haze in her mind began to subside, reality set in. She was alone and her mother was dead. Abbey bit down hard on her forearm and muffled her screams of terror into her sleeve. The jagged bricks dug into her back as she slid down the wall. She welcomed the pain. Unencumbered her tears flowed mingling with the rain streaming down her face as she slumped to the ground. Exhaustion consumed her and the edges of her vision dimmed. She welcomed the darkness as sounds faded and everything around her turned to black.

  †

  “Run!” Her mother’s frail body flashed in her mind and startled Abbey awake. She realized that she must have passed out. Trying to stay warm and dry she tugged her hoodie down further over her face, but it was no use. The rain had already seeped through the fabric and she was soaked and freezing.

  How long have I been here? How many days? Abbey took a minute and finally surveyed her surroundings. Even in a daze, running away from her mother’s body and the strange sensation from the cop, she had still ended up in a familiar alley. She remembered the sun setting and rising at least once. She was extremely tired, but closing her eyes again and seeing her mother’s dead body was not an option.

  A shimmer of light caught her eye. Crazy Carol’s stash of whiskey was behind the dumpster next to her. Abbey could see the glass bottle hugging the same brick wall she was. That would warm her up and numb everything else, at least for a little while.

  But then what? Abbey shook her head back and forth trying to make sense of it all, but her brain still seemed clouded by a fog. A haze of doubt was clinging to her subconscious. She wasn’t sure what was real or imagined anymore. Did I really see that shadow turn into a monster? And what about that strange buzz I felt around that cop? I felt it down in my bones. What the hell was that? OMG, am I freaking turning into spider girl or something? What’s happening to me? She rubbed her eyes ferociously, as though it would wipe away the image of her mother’s withered body. That had been real. She was certain. What am I going to do? I’m all alone!

  Sounds of happy school kids walking down the street drew her attention to the alley’s opening far in the distance.

  The strange buzzing started to resonate through her body again, just before one of the kids slowed their pace. What the hell? Abbey thought.

  A boy with floppy brown hair tripped over his own feet as if he, too, had felt something. He stopped and looked down the alley.

  Abbey gasped, cowering deeper into the shadows waiting for him to leave.

  The boy and his friends looked like snooty rich kids, all dressed up in their school uniforms and plaid ties. They even had umbrellas with their school’s name on them; S.B. Devere Academy.

  “Humph, sounds stupid,” Abbey whispered.

  “C’mon Muddle!” another boy shouted. And with that, the curious boy turned and walked away.

  As the group of students continued their journey, Abbey’s senses seemed heightened. She could still make out some of their conversations and she could feel the buzzing dissipating the further the kids walked.

  “... I don’t understand. Why can’t I just have my driver take us to the museum? I cannot get out of this neighborhood fast enough.”

  Abbey imagined the boy who responded was the same one who almost spotted her, “Headmaster Frobisher said it would build character…” Their voices finally faded into the cacophony of the busy New York street.

  She may have imagined the strange shadow creature, but she was sure the tingling she felt was real now and she knew exactly where she was going to go to get answers. Her brain was screaming for her to follow her instincts.

  Abbey placed her uneaten sandwich next to Carol’s bottle of whiskey, dried her tears, got up, and walked out of the alley.

  Hope Rising

  Abbey’s instincts led her to the alley below her apartment. The smell of burnt popcorn assaulted her nose, but was comforting and familiar somehow, just like her little word. Standing in the alley, Abbey kept her back to her own apartment, there was nothing left for her there. Inst
ead she only looked forward, up through the pouring rain into her neighbor’s open window on the fifth floor. Above her head there was a fire escape ladder on the second. Finally being so close to Bernie’s apartment, she could feel the same faint buzzing in her bones that she felt when the cop had grabbed her arm and when the school kids had walked by. I knew it! she scoffed.

  Whatever it was that had happened while her mom lay dying, she knew it had awoken something within her. The buzzing seemed almost second nature to her now, like breathing in a warm familiar scent, like home. Abbey felt as though she were on the verge of discovering a hidden world that these unnatural encounters had opened up to her, like a cloak covering her eyes had been lifted and she was finally seeing the world as it truly was.

  Taking a deep breath and a leap of faith, she jumped, grabbed the ladder, and pulled. It came down to the ground with a rusty squeal. She couldn’t help the chuckle that filtered through her rain soaked tears as the burned popcorn’s scent came towards her again. Mr. Alley Cat Dude, I think you forgot to check your microwave.

  Feeling like the scrappy little black kitten herself, Abbey took another deep breath and started to climb. With every rung she knew she wasn’t just leaving the city’s alleyways behind but her sewers of despair and addiction as well. She knew she was climbing towards her little word and her future. The word was with her now. It was becoming a part of her with every rung she climbed. She knew she was climbing towards her fate.

  When she reached Bernie’s balcony she crouched down, peered through the open window, and began to panic. What am I going to say? He doesn’t even know me--

  A soft chuckle reminiscent of Saint Nick’s came from the couch. Then Bernie, and the scruffy black kitten curled up beside him, looked up towards the window. The kind hearted man waved Abbey in from behind his bowl of popcorn, “Hiya, hon. Come on in. Welcome home.”