The Last Winter

Saturday: Phantoms of Judgement (18)

I stagger to my feet, trying to focus my eyesight on my surroundings once again. Various sharp hooks and chains hang from the ceiling and the walls. Dark substances have been splattered all over the place.

God, this stinks!

I better get out of here before I throw up.

But something else catches my eye--a cork board hanging on the wall behind a desk. It's rather large in size, spanning the length of the wall several feet.

I feel the photograph of myself slip through my fingers when I see what is tacked on the surface. I hear the faint flutter and the slight rustle as it slides on the floor.

Jumbled in a furious puzzle, pinned on top of others in multiple layers--faces. Everywhere--faces I know, people I trust, my closest friends.

Senpai.

Michal.

Vena.

Mini Bites.

Eddie.

Dallas.

Wesley.

The whole youth group is here. Everyone is tacked on the board, in different angles, various places, in all times of the day. Blurry, sharp, close, far, through windows and across streets.

Mad scribbles are scrawled over the pictures. Bold black circles envelope some people, like Della and Michal. And me. Others have frightening X's over their faces--Senpai, Dallas, Isabella.

My heart skips a beat. What does this mean? What does any of this mean?

And there's more--blueprints and maps. I can make out aerial views of the mountain ranges and of the ski trails; even what appears to be numerous tunnels mapped out between the lodge and another, larger building sitting far away.

This building. Hitchwood Sanitarium, the label reads.

Whoever has been stalking us, they've been doing it for a long time. And they've been preparing for this trip extensively.

I back up slowly, taking in the overwhelming obsessive exhibit before me, until my back hits the opposite wall. That's when some of the crazy words scratched on the pictures come together, jumping out like accusing phantoms of judgment:

There is no one righteous.

There is no one who understands.

There is no one who seeks God.

I don't realize that I've been holding my breath until I release it rather shakily. My hands are trembling, and I clench them to stop myself.

I need to get to Michal and the others before it's too late. We have to leave. We have to leave right now.

Click.

The sound is so quiet but simultaneously alarmingly loud.

I whip my head in the direction of the noise, half-expecting to see someone pointing a gun to my head like in the movies, but all my eyes fall on is the closed door to the hallway.

I peel myself away from the wall, the hairs on my arms standing on end.

I did hear something. Was it the floorboards? The creepy noise that any old building makes during the silence of the night?

I glance into the next room, beyond the pig carcass. Other office doors loom in a small, distant hall. But it is a scary void of darkness and uncertain shadow.

Is someone there?

I back away, slowly turning toward the exit. I grab onto the cold doorknob and quickly twist--

It catches on something.

My heart leaps to my throat.

No.

I twist again--and again. It doesn't budge.

No no no no no no no.

Someone locked it from the outside. The soft click I had heard--someone was in the hallway.

They know I'm in here.

................................

Romans 3:10-18
"There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes."

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Next chapter: Gone

"H-H..."

I hold my breath, straining to make sense of his labored sounds.

"...Hmmm. I-It's him."