Junkyard
For the first time in...
... he
dreamt."I need to show you something."
"....figure out..."
"Where it ends."
"Raven Jones caused all your problems."
He blinked, suddenly cognizant of the cabin he was hunched in. Daylight spilled through the skylight overhead, almost blinding as it bore down upon him. He didn't understand; it had been
dusk just moments ago, before...
Had he slept? Had he been
dreaming?Who was Raven Jones?The name didn't match to anything he'd understood. Why was he dreaming? That, more than
anything else, unsettled him.
He had
never dreamed. Not since-...
As far back as his memories could go, dream and sleep were just one of many
normal things that had eluded him. He understood the concept of it, and had vague impressions of what it meant, but not the familiarity that he should.
Much of the dream, he didn't understand. He felt no different from before, save that he was no longer a
passenger watching someone else's memories.
A trial. Robed figures, wearing masks of bone. A girl searching for her mother, entering the Pit, the black liquid and the
snakes bursting from the contorted bodies painted across a wall.
Was this what Ashley had faced all those years ago? A nightmare of her own?
The creatures devouring the girl, and the dark place he'd sighted invoked memories of cold shadow and
pain beyond anything the boy could've ever imagined, once upon a time.
Raven Jones was a name that held no familiarity for him, but he felt a certain sense of
sympathy at the girl's situation.
"Raven Jones is a monster." The words echoed in his head.
"We're all monsters," was his reply to that.
It meant something that he'd
felt more power here, in this place, than he had at any other point in the existence he'd known.
His memory of the last week was ephemeral. He'd arrived in this city with hints of where to go, pointed at the
asshole sporting the wolf motif. He'd found that asshole, Judas, and with some difficulty had managed to get a
private audience. He'd persuaded Judas to talk, only for the man to die seconds later. Shayton, the 'carpet bagger' - as one of the Nazis he'd
spoken with had called the man, among other impolite phrases - had been there, and all-but acknowledged responsibility for Judas' death. And then he'd disappeared, claiming he had to report to his 'bosses' - Clancy had suspicions who he associated with, although he hadn't shared those with the others nor come to any definite conclusion.
He'd needed answers, and Shayton had taken that from him before he was done. Taken his chance to find Ashley's killer, and finish what he came to St. Portwell to enact.
The thought drove him to anger, but the rational part of him knew that it was pointless at this moment. The 'Father Wolf' killer was still out there, and the baritone immigrant's warning had remained in his mind.
“... I would suggest you keep your head down. Whoever- whatever you are. These days, everyone is a target. They don’t know it yet.”Clancy pushed the thought to one side, looking to the 'home' he'd carved out in this space; the interior cabin of an
abandoned RV parked out on a junkyard half a mile from the urban sprawl, where the most attention he'd seen had been some local
assholes stumbling down the road on a bender, hurling bottles and pissing against the fence. Sections of tarp had been cut and draped over the windows to shield from prying eyes. A few discarded belongings were spread about the place, including his old knapsack and the cellphones of varying value and technological generation. The decor was dated, at least twenty years out of fashion, with ragged couch cushions that
probably pulled out into a bed spread, if he were so inclined.
What passed for a kitchen unit was bare of running water or any other provisions, but settled on the countertop was his dufflebag, still bearing the ornate axe with norse runes and motifs decorating both head and handle. He realised, in retrospect, that there was some power that sat within it that was bestowed upon its wielder. How else had the
asshole he'd taken it from - Victor - been able to push the weight of a car, and drive the blade through stamped steel?
It seemed
important somehow, Clancy knew, although he himself felt no different - no weaker, no stronger - from holding it in his hands. Maybe that was
his problem rather than the axe's, although he felt no disappointment at that fact. Power and strength came with a price he knew, and it seemed better it remain in
his hands for now, than anyone else's. His parents had taught him how
irresponsible it was to leave dangerous things in the hands of children who didn't know better.
Besides, if nothing else, it was
sharp, and made a cleaner cut of felling trees, meshwork and other
stubborn obstacles than any
other method he could've tried.
Shrugging the thought off, Clancy zipped up the bag and slung it back over his shoulder. Waiting around wasn't going to help him, and he was restless enough as-is. The 'festival', as he recalled the others talking about, was upon them, along with a good chance of catching up with the locals and Ashley's-...
"Friends."He bared his teeth in a humourless grin as his thoughts invoked the word. The escapade at the cemetery a week ago, something he had observed from the shadows, had led him to question that assertion, but they were if nothing else a means to an end.
Approaching the exit, he twisted the door handle and pried open into the daylight; the locking mechanism barely functioned, and his original entry method had been through the skylight. Now that it was daylight, he didn't want to advertise himself as the metaphoric king of the scrapheap.
Outside, a layer of gravel, hardy grass and weeds awaited him, all partitioned off from the outside world by a chainlink fence crowned with barbed wire. The RV had been parked off at the far side of the lot, away from the main road or where most would've seen him. As he stepped out into the daylight, gravel crunching beneath his sneakers, he noted that the camper looked much sorrier in the dawn. ts tires had partially worn down to baldness, the alloys stripped off a long time ago.
Surprisingly, it still retained both windscreen and side windows, although the cracks in the glass suggested
someone had, at some stage, attempted to hurl rocks and beer cans at it for fun. It was
kind of old by the day's standards, dating somewhere between the late eighties and early noughts, with paintwork that had been bleached and rusted by at least a decade or two of exposure to the elements without due care and attention. Compared to this, the motel had been a penthouse, but the
attention it drew was too much, the time he'd had left in the room too limited. Here, confined behind chainlink fencing with minimal oversight, was some privacy.
For him? It served. He'd seen worse places in his time; condemned buildings and shooting galleries where he'd stepped over the semi-conscious limbs of addicts enjoying their latest high. Sometimes, they
bothered him, but never for long. He didn't
need shelter, didn't
need warmth. But as far as convenience went, less questions were asked if he had somewhere he could retreat without being bothered by
people.Children wandering the woods at night so close to the city attracted questions, and he didn't want to become a
lost child with his face plastered on posters and milk cartons all over town.
Been there, done that. The thought was a bitter one, but he pushed it out of mind.
Mind set on where he needed to go, Clancy paced over towards the fence. At the far end, he'd been able to cut a
thin strip that he could peel back to slip underneath, circumventing both chainklink, front-gate and barbed wire. His clothes would thank him for that, no doubt; it was frustrating enough when he'd had to scavenge up a new set after the events at the club had ruined what had been an almost perfect fit, without dressing himself up as a
baby.
Fingers gripped around the ringlets in the mesh and pulled, opening a space half a meter in width for him to slide through. Just as he was about to, however, it occurred to him;
Halloween Festival.His expression crinkled at the thought.
Was it essential to bring a costume?
@FernStone@silvermist1116Halloween Festival, Children's Paddock
Days of watching, waiting, following the metaphoric
breadcrumbs left by the
Persons of Interest that had once been a component of Ashley's old life, the 'cult' that had been dubbed the Sycamore Tree coven. Waters muddied by a
dream he shouldn't have experienced, names floating through his mind.
A voice, brief as it was, that invoked a familiar longing.A week of observation had been fruitless, for the most part since the graveside visit. His quarry had spent their time talking each other to death in diners and bars, shopping, and other
meaningless exercises. All of it, to lead to where he was now.
And it had amounted to
whispers so far, with nothing
tangible to show for it. At least he hadn't wasted his time sitting idly. He'd learned things from watching. Had
they played a part in Ashley's death? He wasn't sure, but the graveside visit suggested they were far from the
good friends they'd pretended to be, although he didn't understand any of the teenage stupidity that was behind any of the bad blood, between them, Ashley or the differing factions -
covens - that had fractured apart from one another. He'd confirmed what he had suspected for a long time, that there
was a government agency out there, dedicated to finding the ghosts, ghoulies and other creatures of myth of which he had
probably been due some credit. That the girl, Alizee, was dead and
gone, and the parasitic shadow attached to her - the entity that had needled him so - seemed to have disappeared with her, into the 'Void'.
That they were still no closer to finding Father Wolf, despite the threads that connected it all together.
This world, what had he heard someone call it? 'Shimmer'? It made him think how
small and
insignificant they all were in the greater picture.
So was he, come to think of it. In more ways than one, he had realised.
"Comin' through kid-"
Someone in the crowd brushed past him, catching his shoulder hard enough that they'd have knocked him over if he didn't have a greater sense of core balance and dexterity, threw him off track. They were gone before he could
really make out the culprit, the crowd ahead of him blending together like watercolours on a dull canvas. Now he was back on dry land having disembarked the ferrry to the Island Festival a short while before, and conscious of the
hunger pangs nipping away at him. He'd taken sustenance of a kind before arriving, but the crush had only tightened his appetite.
Clancy scowled beneath the veil of his current garb, frustrated at it. He felt no joy from being here amidst
people, packed onto one of the ferry boats like sardines and shuttled across the water. At one point as they'd disembarked, someone had
patted him on the head in a gesture of almost-drunken giddiness, and it was a credit to his restraint and sheer resolve that he hadn't thrown the offender over the railings of the acces and into the water. Instead, he'd
gently nudged the back of their ankle with the tip of foot, ending the matter with a yowl on their part.
Clancy wondered if
that had been the only reason to attract a few stares his way. His chosen
costume in particular left much to be desired.
A few holes had been haphazardly cut into some bleach-white tent canvas, salvaged from the junkyard. Holes for the eyes, awkwardly punched out to give himself a reasonable peripheral vision. Slits for his hands to fit through, so he had some dexterity and maneuverability. Long enough that it covered him to just below the knee, so it wouldn't snag on the ground and get caught in anything. It had been a long time since he'd wasted his time with something as
childish as Halloween. He had vague memories, recollections of being dressed in a white sheet that someone -
Judy - had cut out for him, and this served his purpose. Likewise, he was
cloaked now, ostensibly passing as a
traditional caricature of a ghost, a relic amidst the humanoid wildlife, gangsters and other grotesques and characters of fairy tale myth.
If only ghosts were so simple.At least it afforded him
some anonymity, and if all else failed, he could dump the thing to one side and walk around as he was without the need for a
stupid costume. Beneath the canvas, he wore the same clothes; the green hoodie with the duck mascot and the oversized denim pants, both a little dirtier after days roaming the wilderness and chasing
leads. Tightly slung to his back was the dufflebag and the artifact that lay within.
Maybe he'd been better off getting himself covered in blood?
That would've been convincing enough, sure, but he'd taken some liking to his clothes, and didn't want to ruin them
just yet. Another consideration, made after some delay; finding a
willing donor would've been a small complication.
Clancy pushed the thought to one side. By nature of his stature, he'd found himself funnelled towards the
children's sector of the island by one of the event's security guards, where the stalls, rides and activities were considered safe and sane for the under-twenty-ones. He bristled at that thought, keeping his distance from toddlers and tweens alike, maneuvering between scattered family units and single parents alike, either tending or neglecting their offspring. The presence of massed human bodies in varying states of excitement needled him, a level of agitation that had once driven him to walk apart from society.
Sustenance.That feeling was never truly apart from him, he knew.
This wasn't good, he acknowledged , but self-control won out for the time being.
Nonetheless, he found himself instinctually scanning the crowds for outliers, briefly looking for anything that would
excuse acting on that base
need.A man with a vaguely familiar face, walking with his wife and kid. With a scraggly beard and a shorn scalp, he resembled one of the
assholes he'd watched breaking bread with the Nazi bikers, moments prior to an untimely
industrial accident. What did it matter if the man's
family were there? It just meant he was
an asshole with baggage. Clancy dismissed the thought. He
wasn't familiar with the man's face, not realpy. But he, himself
was in control of what he did right now. He reminded himself of the fact, and why he'd travelled to St. Portwell in the first place.
Remember why you're here...
... and for her.Judy's name crossed his mind, and that was sustenance enough for now. The rest could wait until later.
Shaking it off, he moved away from the push to somewhere less crowded, walking past a witch conversing with a fellow mother as they watched a small boy in a pumpkin outfit. Clancy's head tilted upwards, gaze fixed upon the artificially generated fog that only amplified the
localised weather phenomenon that seemed to be afflicting the island, working to tune out the crowds giggling teenagers picking through their buckets of candy, alcohol and
other illicit materials being passed around.
Something
rotting was close, a sensation worse than being immersed in carrion meat. His posture tightened, briefly, although he made no further movement. Overhead, his eyes remained locked on the black birds -
crows circling where the adult entertainment had been settled.
It would, at least, explain
some of the noise coming from that direction.
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