Frank paid little attention to the menial chatter of his dully dressed grandfather, his eyes set upon the world that lay outside of the old, vintage style car that Frank's grandfather would just about kill the nineteen year old for not being able to name off the top of his head.
Frank couldn't shake the feeling of dread and the tingling sensation that kept him forever on edge as he struggled to separate the thousands of shades of grey that surrounded him. He felt almost as if he'd stepped into an old fashioned black and white silent film as they'd driven from the airport and further into the middle of nowhere, and really, it wasn't just Frank's grandfather's car.
After his parents died, it had almost been as if his whole head had been stained red from the sight of their blood and the living room floor and they way everything smelt of decay and utter despair and as if the colours of the house had been stripped and painted red to hide the damage. This town didn't feel better at all; this town just made the memories stand out and echo around his head because nothing was there to fill it with.
Either that or Frank needed a cigarette.
He doubted that his grandfather would let him smoke and even less in the prized possession that was his car. Frank wondered who was older - his grandfather or the car? It kept him amused for a while, that was until they hit the fog.
The smothered the car, almost wrapping itself around the vehicle like a serpent and Frank glanced behind them in concern, only to have his vision blocked by a thick grey layer of fog. He looked forward to his grandfather who seemed to show no reaction, almost as if he hadn't even seen the fog, driving on through it like nothing ever happened, with his headlights only illuminating the first five feet in front of them.
"The fog..." Frank let the words slip his lips - more like a gasp than a properly annunciate sentence. This was the first time he'd spoken since the airport, and this was the first time his grandfather hadn't, leaving Frank to watch as the fog slowly thinned out around them before his grandfather finally replied.
"What about it?" He asked - his teeth gritted, almost as if he was offended that Frank had even dared to ask.
"I... I... uhh..." Frank let out a series of incomprehensible mumbles as he stumbled to string a sufficiently articulated sentence together - his grandfather intimidated him, to say the least.
"Spit it out, boy. Can't you see I'm trying to concentrate on the road here? It's not as if we want you dead as well." And Frank really had to sink into silence then, because otherwise he was certain his grandfather would throw him out of the car this very moment and kill him himself.
"Good." Frank's grandfather let out a content stay as he noticed the mutual decision for silence, and that was how they remained until they reached their destination - Frank in silent hatred and Frank's grandfather silent yet on edge, because he could never really be calm here, especially when Frank did know what was out here.
-
Frank's grandmother was a quiet yet strict woman - she was nice enough yet she had a very strong grasp upon the matters of discipline and it was no lie that this demeanour she had inherited from the questionable actions of her husband. But it was fact that Mr and Mrs Iero Sr. were happily married and also highly respected amongst the village.
"Frank, so nice to see you." Frank's grandmother greeted him rather robotically under her husband's watch, ushering her grandson into the household, which Frank couldn't help but be in awe of.
Their house was by no means a mansion but it was most definitely on the large side, and decorated intricately with just about every shade of grey, matching the outside world completely, and much like the rest of the village, the house seemed to be absolutely devoid of modern technology, lit only in an almost purposefully eerie manner with candles that had been obviously heavily used by the wax melting into the dishes they lay in.
"Nice to see you too." Frank responded with a smile, trying to remember the last time he'd ever, or if he even had seen this woman before - it was most likely someone's funeral, as his family wasn't a close one at all.
"Maria, take Frank upstairs to his room. I have business to attend to." Frank's grandfather announced as he pulled out his pocket watch - real gold, Frank knew - he had a friend back in New York who scammed people with fake gold and by now he really could tell the difference like it was the back of his hand.
Frank's grandmother - Maria, only nodded in response before leading Frank up the wooden staircase that seemed to take up just about half the space of the house, and god knows what they were hiding in the room underneath it.
"This is your room." She explained, pushing open a dark wooden door, carved intricately with a cross that seemed to be set into the door with silver - Frank really hoped this was just a part of the house design and that his grandparents weren't obsessive Christians, because it had been bad enough with his parents and they only insisted that he went to church weekly - they didn't have crosses set into the bedroom doors.
The room was cleaned perfectly but it was clear it hadn't been used for years now and Frank felt almost humbled that they'd cleaned it for his use, not that he'd prefer to have spiders and cobwebs crawling all over his bedroom - he loved horror and gore, but spiders were something he simply could not deal with.
"You can put your clothes in the closet and unpack, just generally relax, stay in your room until dinner in a few hours when we'll call for you - that isn't permanent, we'd just prefer that you didn't go 'exploring' until your grandfather's had a chat with you. As you can tell, things are just a little bit different around here." Frank nodded, turning away as he rolled his eyes at her words, finding it absolutely ridiculous that he was practically locked up in this ancient little box of a bedroom for a few hours.
Surely he could just be good and appreciate the fact that there was probably a reason she was doing this and just text one of his friends of a few hours of something, but he doubted that not a single one of his friends back in New York wouldn't be passed out or severely hung-over right, and even less that he could actually get cell reception here.
"Yeah, okay." Frank answered pulling on a smile, which his grandmother returned before she closed the door behind her and Frank sat back down on the bed behind him, his eyes widening as he heard the familiar click of a door locking and then footsteps as she walked away.
What the fuck? He was nineteen, for Christ's sake.
Frank rolled his eyes, shoving his bag into the closet, telling himself he'd unpacking it later and already knowing now that even in a months time his bag would still be in the closet, unpacked. He did however grab his hoodie from the bag, not because he was planning on sneaking out or anything, it just miraculously happened to be unfortunately cold in the room... in late August.
He grabbed his combat boots from the bag and praying to god that they hadn't been clever enough to lock the windows.
Frank opted for the one leaning over the side of the house, with a drainpipe he could make his way down snaking down the brick work just about a foot away from the window itself. He grabbed his phone, reception or not, and his lighter, cigarettes or not, along with a ten dollar bill - he could buy himself a coke or a prostitute or something, whatever.
"Fuck..." He cursed aloud, finding that his grandparents had in fact thought of locking the windows, which really made them cleverer than his parents, who kept the windows open for pretty much all of Frank's teenage years, so practically they were encouraging him to go out and party with his friends, weren't they?
Frank was about to bury himself under the covers and sleep off the next few hours in utter despair when he caught sight of a little silver object placed almost innocently upon the bedside table - a key, and fuck, yes, it fit the window.
Frank pushed upon the window, inhaling enough cold air to cause his lungs to burst and coughing a little at the dust that the window released from the lock, almost as if the window hadn't been opened in centuries - Frank thought it weird, but he was in more of a hurry to get out of this house than to question the usage of the windows in the spare room.
-
After he reckoned he was far enough away from the house not to be noticed, he slowed his fast pace to a gentle stroll, his eyes scouring his surroundings for anywhere that looked relatively interesting or looked like it had a drug dealer or a dodgy off license at the very least. He needed something - a smoke, pills, booze, a spliff, anything.
But as he continued his explicitly forbidden exploration of the village, he came to realise just how fucking tiny the place was, and just how fucking desolate and devoid of anything worth his time it was. It was just rows of grey houses and the odd corner shop dotted in places, and the biggest building here was the church, and despite the fact that it was the only place that looked vaguely interesting here, Frank hated churches with a burning passion.
But then it struck him, churches always came with graveyards nearby, and Frank really loved graveyards. It was kind of weird, especially for someone that was scared of spiders and distrusting of villages that had too much fog, and someone whose parents had died recently, but Frank always found them calming and the dead always seemed to be better company than the living, especially the living that had crosses set into their bedroom doors.
And sure enough, Frank was right, because after walking up the hill in the direction of the church, he found the fog clearly away a little and up the hill, past the church, where the houses seemed to stop and everything seemed to fade away back into fog and endless woodland, Frank found his eyes set open the black gothic styled gates that could really belong to nothing other than a cemetery.
As he reached the cemetery gates, he found them, just like everything else, to be locked. Frank let out a pissed off sigh, but the locked door or the locked window hadn't stopped him so really the locked gates had no reason to at all.
He glanced behind him for a moment before climbing over and jumping down on the outside, landing on the grass with a thud and audible "ow..".
Frank picked himself up, making his way further up the hill and deeper into the graveyard with no certain for how he'd ever get out again, after all, he really had no desire to - he'd barely been here thirty seconds but he already preferred the cemetery to just about every other part of town.
He made his way up through the gravestones, giving a few a quick glance, reading the names of the deceased off in his head for nothing more than a measure to pass the time, his eyes set on the grandiose gothic structure of the mausoleum that had now made itself visible amongst the waning fog, and Frank was excited like a little kid on their birthday.
But as he fell down against the wall of the mausoleum, sitting down and resting his legs as he admired the hill comparable to Everest he'd just traversed his way up, everything finally sank in as he let his vision stretch out across the whole town, because from up here he really could see everything - he wasn't going home at all, and this wasn't his parents sending him away whilst they went on holiday for a week, and these weren't some relatives he was going to hate for a week and never see again.
Everything was also much more permanent and Frank hated that. Everything felt important and like he was wasting away every second just by existing, but he reckoned that death did that to people, and with no intoxicating substances to shut his nervous system down for a few hours, Frank felt himself giving into himself and crying.
He hadn't even cried since he was a fucking kid and god he felt fucking pathetic and of course that only caused him to cry further - it was an unstoppable cycle and Frank felt very much as if he was held prisoner, not just in his mind or in his parents' death, but in this town too.
The fog heavily clumping around the exterior of the village seemed just so ominous and Frank felt almost as if he couldn't trust the stuff, but he smiled in the realisation that the fog lining the hill prevented anyone from seeing him or even knowing he was up here, whereas Frank was left with a perfect view of the solely grey expanse of nothingness below him.
He was content with that at the very least, and so perhaps the fog, just like everything had its benefits. His mum had told him that; some bullshit about clouds and silver linings, however this village seemed to have an overload of clouds and an absolute abundance of silver linings, and not just in the metaphorical sense.
He really couldn't see any benefit, any silver lining to his parents' death, to being here at all, perhaps this was karma of some sort, for every time he disrespected his parents, every time he disobeyed God, kissed a guy, fucked a guy, jacked off, disobeyed the law, took drugs, drank and smoked underage, skipped school, and fucked prostitutes.
Frank was really glad that despite all the Catholicism practically drilled into his brain as a kid that he still didn't see any truth in God and Jesus or otherwise he reckoned he'd spending a least a millennium, in here, in his metaphorical hell. Who knows perhaps they'd even have demons, monsters and shit? That'd actually be pretty cool - absurd, but pretty cool.
Perhaps Frank would even meet Satan himself.
Frank reckoned the two of them would get along - well, the both of them hated God, the Catholic Church, and its rules, and it seemed like Satan would enjoy a good gory horror movie. Drinking goat's blood though, vegetarian Frank would have to disagree with that one, but they killed animals and shit in the bible all the time, so really, maybe Satan wasn't such a bad guy.
Kind of like his friend Alex - everyone said Alex was a massive douche and that you should never trust him and that he'd fucked you over, etc., etc. But on the first occasion Frank met him the guy gave him some pills and a blowjob, so Frank really did not see what the hell they were talking about. Sure enough, there were the rumour and court statements saying that Alex had murdered his girlfriend, but yeah, haters gonna hate.
The guy gave really good blowjobs, and that was enough for Frank.
He set his eyes back upon the horizon, letting out a deep breath along with his worries and prayed that there was at least someone here willing to buy cigarettes for him.
He focused upon the cloudy skies, and felt so much calmer; the fog was sort of calming, almost protectively separating Frank from the rest of the town under its pale grey smoky blanket, and for the first time in several weeks now Frank felt somewhat safe and he let his eyelids flutter, and just as he was about to close them, completely burying himself amidst a blanket of darkness, the fog parted slightly.
And as the fog parted, the pale grey was replaced by a black, blacker than black, a shape, a figure, absolutely devoid of all light - recognisably human, to an extent, yet not quite, something was off.
The figure grew larger, stepping forward and Frank came to realise that the darkened figure had been watching him every since he arrived, the fog not serving as a safety blanket, but perhaps more of a blindfold.
He didn't know anything - how to respond what to do, anything. He just knew that the figure slowly grew larger, approaching him perhaps, and he'd watched enough horror movies to know this was a bad sign. He jumped up from where he sat, immediately darting to fence at the side of the graveyard, knowing that this was probably just some horrible headache induced side effect of his shamefully overwhelming nicotine addiction, but Frank really wasn't taking any chances.
He grasped the black metal of the fence, cursing as he cut his hand on the spikes, and stopping momentarily just to look at the injury on his hand, watching the blood leak from his skin, and as a rushing of wind hit his eardrums, almost painfully, he jumped back into action, thinking past the pain and propelling himself over the graveyard fence, taking off down the hill as fast as he could, looking just as stupid as anything, but looking like he was still alive.
He slowed his pace as he reached the village again, reckoning he was safe amongst the houses and prayed that his imagination would calm the fuck down or he'd get a smoke soon at the very least, before it drove him insane.
Frank shook his head to himself as he made a beeline back to his grandparent's house, completely in disagreement with the mentality he'd left the place with, because fuck, Frank wasn't five and Frank wasn't even high, but that figure looked uncomfortably real, and along with the atmosphere of the town, that was a feeling Frank just couldn't shake.
And as he approached the corner of the street that fully took him away from the graveyard and the horror he may have just witnessed, he couldn't help but make an insanely stupid decision, and stop.
He stopped, turning back and peering through the fog, his eyes fixating upon the gates of graveyard and sure enough, just in the aid of the destruction of Frank's mental stability, there the figure still stood, dark and contrasting against the grey tones of the fog, its body moving slightly, almost as if it had noticed Frank, staring up at the graveyard and watching it again.
Fuck.
That was when Frank went, and this time he didn't turn back.
-
"Where the hell have you been?" Frank's grandfather screeched as Frank approached the front garden, his grandfather pulling him into the house before he could even open the gate for himself. Frank's movement was rendered useless as he struggled aimlessly in his grandfather's questionably strong grip where he stayed until the front door was locked shut behind them and the question was asked a second time.
"I... I..." Frank stuttered out, blushing a little, knowing that he'd gone directly against his grandparent's requests and he'd barely been with them a few hours. He glanced around to see his grandmother peering at the commotion from the kitchen. Frank shot her a scared and pleading glance - she only shook her head, turning away and leaving Frank to her husband.
"Leave her out of this." He demanded, taking a step closer to his grandson in a horribly threatening manner and Frank felt like he had the right to feel scared here, even if he had bought this upon himself by sneaking out even when he was told specifically not to. "Where the bloody hell have you been? Do you not have any respect for discipline, boy? We specifically told you not to go out, and now I have very good reason not to let you out tomorrow, which had you not played the little 'rebel' we would have. So tell me, where?"
"I... uhh went up to the graveyard-" Frank didn't even get a chance to finish before his grandfather jumped forward, grabbing him by the neck and staring down at his eyes.
"The graveyard? Are you fucking stupid?" He screamed, causing Frank to flinch at the notion of his grandfather screaming the 'f word' at him. "Did you see anyone there?" He continued, inspecting every inch of Frank's face and neck in a way that made the boy feel beyond uncomfortable.
"No... I was alone." Frank ignored the figure he definitely had seen, because in the mind of anyone sane, he hadn't, and if anyone wanted to send him away to a mental hospital, right now it was most definitely his grandfather.
"Go back to your room." The man let go of Frank, gesturing towards the staircase that Frank didn't telling twice before he sprinted up there, pushing open his now unlocked bedroom door and seeing that window had been locked again, the key now understandably nowhere to be found.
Frank let out a deep sigh, leaning back on the bed and trying just to pass out and forget all of this for a good few hours, but as he closed his eyes, he was immediately hit with an image of the graveyard gates and that same figure - an image he just couldn't shake.
-
Hey guys:) So it turned out not to be a four year wait so that's good aha;) Anyways, I hoped you'd liked this chapter and if you did, as always I appreciate your comments and votes and remember that I fucking love you all<3