Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There is something wrong with this town, and no one seems to notice. People walk around smiling, but their faces are wrong. We are outnumbered by what lives in the dark, and our neighbors keep disappearing. Luckily, a handful of young investigators have taken it upon themselves to document these paranormal happenings, to save as many people as they can and uncover the secrets that hide from their prying eyes.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

In the town of Deadwood, in the basement of the Wisp family home, the washer is running. The unfinished surrounding concrete is cold as a tomb. And in it sits William Wisp, a sixteen year old kid with dark hair and a hollow expression, surrounded by years and years of clutter, things that his parents wanted to get rid of, but they never got around to it. The light is dim and there’s the sound moths buzzing around the naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. You can barely hear them over the high pitched sound of a flute being played. Norah, a friend of Wills has discarded her now empty flute case on the floor next to her and is playing a couple of bars, sitting criss cross on a pillow on the floor. It doesn’t amount to a full song, she seemingly just plays whatever comes to mind, trying to pass the time, while William pours over a bunch of notes, scattered all over the table.

“Did you ever learn Megalovania?”, asks the third inhabitant of the basement. Isaac, a sporty guy with his hair pulled into a bun, stands in the corner of the room, boxing an imaginary foe. His eyes stay locked on his enemy as he makes conversation with his friends. “It’s my favorite song from the soundtrack.” He performs a mean uppercut.

Norah sets the flute down. “No, not yet”, she says. “I’m— I’m still trying. The tempo is just so fast.”

“I’ve beaten Sans like 15 times”, Isaac brags, very believably.

“I haven’t beaten him yet, but I’m writing this really good fan fiction about him, and I’m really excited to post it.” No flute practice today, she decides and just as quickly as she got her flute out of its case she packs it back in. In the meantime she keeps talking: “You know, it’s really messed up what you have to do in that game to get to that fight.”

“You have to do the whole genocide run”, comes the brooding voice of William from under his hood. “You have to kill Papyrus, and Temmy in the shop and­—”

“Well no, I don’t think you have to kill her”, Isaac replies.

Norah frowns. “I just could never do it.”

“That’s why you’ll never be a true gamer.”

“Sometimes I feel like Sans”, William says ominously.

Norah cocks her head to the side, frowning even deeper, and it’s only now that Isaac finally looks at him. “Will, you scare and concern me sometimes”, he says. “You need to talk about it, man?”

“No, I’m chill. I’m really chill though. Anyway let’s—”

“Right! You finally done with your notes?”

William shifts in his chair, and a suspicious squeaking noise fills the room. Even with his hoodie pulled way into his face you can see that Will’s face is turning red.

“Are you farting?”, Norah asks without hesitation.

“No”, Will says, but starts sweating and shuffling through his papers to divert his friends eyes and attention from the matter. “Look. There’s something wrong with this town.”

“Yeah, we know. We come here every week to talk about it.” Isaac walks up to the table and crosses his arms. The red flannel he’s wearing is rolled up over his elbows.

“Just to talk about it”, William echoes and curls in on himself on his chair. It sounds like he’s disappointed in something.

“And to just hang out, of course”, Norah adds, smiling at him encouragingly and William straightens up a bit. “We’re friends, we hang out for fun.”

“We’re cool with you, Will, we don’t come here just to talk about ghouls and stuff”, Isaac affirms. William is almost sitting up with a straight spine. Almost.

He beams, newly confident. “I saw a vampire that was twice as big as your vampire last week!”

“I saw Bigfoot”, Norah says, but then she adds, “It might have been my dad.”

“A vampire that was bigger than mine? No way!”

“It might have been a ghoul”, he huffs. “Or something else, I don’t know. Maybe a shadow in the night.”

“I didn’t see shit”, Isaac complains as he plops down into a chair to Will’s left side. He tucks his hand into his jeans pocket, pulls out a crumpled piece of paper and tosses it onto the messy table unceremoniously. Norah scrambles to pick it up and unfold it and when she holds it up to show it to the group, it is completely blank. No notes at all.

“I got grounded. For burning a phone and exploding my kitchen”, he explains curtly.

“That sounds really dangerous”, Norah says.

“Guess it was. But it’s cool, too. It like expanded. And then it just popped.”

“The phone? The burner phone I gave you?”, Will chimes in.

“Shit, yeah. I mean, what else are you supposed to do with a burner phone? Other than burn it.”

There’s an exasperated tone to Will’s voice when he speaks. “We saved up for this. Do you have any idea how long it takes when you only get $9 a week? Takes a damn long time.”

“Hey. You know it would take a little less time with $10 a week, which is what I get.”

“Yeah, we know. We know.”

Bragging again, classic Isaac.

“So, I got nothing. I was in my room all week”, Isaac concludes. He looks to Norah, who’s fumbling with her glasses. “You?”, he asks.

She sighs. “Nothing here either. I was studying the fish in the river, but everything was normal. No weird creatures coming from the water, like that one time.”

And with that both Norah and Isaac conclude their underwhelming tales. Now, they look at William expectantly. The massive amount of notes covering every inch of the table top was making them exceedingly curious about what crazy findings Will had to report on. All eyes on him, William clears his throat. Anticipation is rising.

“I’ve been smelling kinda weird”, he finally says.

Norah giggles. “Do you not wear deodorant?”

At the same time Isaac says: “Actually, my parents say that’s completely natural. Boys our age—”

“NO! I mean no”, Will shrieks, but quickly adjusts his volume. “That’s not what I— It’s the whole town. It’s like a rotten smell. Something smells off, like sick. Sickness.”

“I believe you, but what does sick even smell like?”, Isaac asks.

“Do you know where it was coming from?”, Norah asks, more relevantly.

“The whole town”, William says gravely.

Suddenly, a knocking rings through the room. It’s coming from the door leading to the basement.

“Oh shit, I mean crap”, William scrambles. “Mom, don’t come in!”

From up the stairs, Wills mom calls. “William? Can you come on up here for me?”

“Ugh. Okay.” He turns to his friends, grimacing apologetically. “Sorry, guys, one second.”

But before he has the chance to walk up the stairs and join his mom in the ground floor hallway she knocks again, and then promptly pushes open the door.

“Gah, Mom, I told you not to do this while we’re brooding.”

Her response comes in the form of a bone rattling coughing fit.

William forgets all about his teen angst complaints and shoots up the stairs to his moms side, leaving Norah and Isaac standing awkwardly next to the table in the basement. They had instinctively gotten out of their chairs when Will’s mother came in.

“Mom, are you okay?”, Will asks, worry creating a deep crease between his eyebrows.

His mother’s face is pale, contorted by deep discomfort. She uses one of her hands to lean on a wall for support and the other one she is pressing to her chest, trying to soothe the pain in her lungs the fit just caused her. She looks miserable, but she is trying to put on a smile for her son.

“Oh, yeah. Honey, I’m not feeling to good today. I’m gonna have to ask y’all to run up to the corner store for me. I just need you all to pick up some flu medicine and some ginger ale for my belly.”

“Yeah, no problem, Mom”, Will says and gingerly reaches his hand out to lay it on his mother’s forehead.

She moves her face out of his reach. “Don’t you go doing that, I’m alright.”

“Just let me check. You don’t need to walk these things off.”

When William reaches out a second time she doesn’t resist, seemingly to tired to argue. Even before Will makes contact, he can sense the heat radiating from her. And when he does, he feels his mother’s forehead practically burning up. She starts swaying a little and he hurriedly grabs her by the shoulders, trying to stabilize her.

“I need to lie down. I can’t.”

“You really don’t look okay. I think you need to go to urgent care.”

“It’s alright, I’m alright. Just— would you help me sit down?”

Will lays one of her arms over his shoulders and slings one of his around her waist. He looks back to his friends, still standing in the basement, clueless as to how they should act in this situation. Norah looks at Will with wide eyes, filled to the brim with concern. She probably wants to help, so he nudges his head towards the exit. She grabs Isaac by the arm and quickly ascends the stairs, hurrying after Will, who is guiding his mother to the living room to set her down on the couch.

When she sits comfortably, she speaks again. “Maybe I’ll go to urgent care, have your father drive me down there.” Then she addresses everyone: “But can you just get some of that flu medicine for me? And some ginger ale. And once you get that, just head on over to Mr. Lacey’s. I know he’s feeling just as awful, if not worse. Get him something as well and make sure he’s alright, if you would.”

“Of course, Mom. Just drink a lot of fluid, and when Dad gets home, just please get him to take you to the doctor right away, okay?”

“All right, I will. Thank you, kids.”

“Of course, Mrs. Wisp”, Norah says, which gets her a weakened smile from Will’s mom. She smiles back.

William leaves the living room and Norah and Isaac sheepishly follow him. They reconvene in the hallway. William turns to his friends with a strained expression. “Sorry to have to do this, guys, but can we just… Just really quick, to the convenience store and then check up on Mr. Lacey?”

“Sure. Who’s Mr. Lacey again?”, asks Isaac while already putting on his sneakers, always ready to go.

“He lives down the street. Our family has kind of kept an eye on him ever since his wife passed. My mom especially likes to take care of him and has me do so as well sometimes.” William picks up the spare key to his house and puts it on his keychain.

“And he’s also not feeling well she said? Is it that sickness?”

“This might have been that weird smell I was smelling”, Will muses, as he ties his shoelaces.

“You think it’s supernatural?”, Norah asks with a gasp. She pulls her cardigan tighter around herself as she opens the front door. She walks out into the chilly autumn air and William follows.

“Right now it just seems like she’s sick. We’ll need to get more clues.”

Isaac jumps onto the pavement and kicks a pile of leaves. They swirl in the air before gently floating back down to the ground. “I love it when you say this, dude. So mysterious.”

✝︎✝︎✝︎

A few rays of sunlight break through the clouds as the young investigators walk through the town towards the convenience store. It’s located at Deadwoods south end and not all too far away from William’s home, definitely a walkable distance for a couple of teens. As they walk, they pass under trees with their spindly branches reaching towards the sky like gnarled limbs. There’s barely any coverage, as all the trees have thrown off their leaves, which are piling on the floor or swirling around on the ground, carried by a light breeze. Branches litter the streets as well, remnants of stormy weather and high wind speeds. And then there is that smell again, wafting through Deadwood. William picks up on it as soon as they leave the house. He waits for the others to mention it or at least indicate that they noticed it in any way, but he waits in vain.

After a couple of minutes on the trek he says: “You don’t smell it?”

Isaac looks at him, gives the air a big whiff and shakes his head, no.

“It’s definitely there. I mean, is my nose that weird? I don’t think it is”, William says.

“No, I believe you for sure, dude. I just don’t smell shit, personally.” Isaac looks to Norah, who just shrugs.

“You’re kind of like a wolf. Or a bloodhound”, she says, contemplatively. “Like you’re part dog.”

“I don’t think that’s scientifically­—”, Will wants to start, but Norah interrupts him.

“Sometimes I want to be part dog, but… I’m a human.” She looks out wistfully. “Do you guys also practice your wolf run?”

“Aw man, I wish I could say no”, Will sighs.

“Sometimes when I’m doing sprints, I get on all fours and see if I can still beat my PB”, Isaac says and William’s eyes go wide. “Only when I’m in the woods though. It’s not really socially acceptable to run around town on all fours and I’m a pretty socially acceptable person.”

Norah nods along, as William pulls a notebook out of his pocket and crosses something out.

“I thought I saw a Chupacabra last week, bro, that was you?”, he says, dumbfounded.

Isaac shrugs noncommittally. “Yeah, probably.”

“That makes so much sense.”

A couple more minutes pass and there’s an odd impression that gradually sets into the minds of the group.

“Deadwood’s as dead as ever”, Isaac comments.

And he’s not necessarily wrong, but to Norah and William the town seems even more vacant than usual. They walk by one of the main roads that runs through Deadwood like the aorta would through the human body and sure, there are a couple of cars that pass them by, but no people at all. Even as they get closer to the town center, which by all means should be more lively, they don’t encounter a single soul. William remarks on how whatever sickness his mother's caught must be going around and Norah warns him to not speak it into existence. Will snaps his mouth shut and doesn’t open it again until they reach the convenience store.

They walk in and the chime of the bell hanging over the doorways greets them cheerfully. A couple of shopping aisles stretch out before them. Most of the shelves seem fairly empty, like they haven’t been restocked in a while. The voice of the local radio stations host, giving the traffic report or talking about something equally as mundane, is faintly coming through the stores sound system. Behind the counter the reason for the stores general state of disarray is dozing off. Will and Norah look to Isaac and frantically gesture at him to NOT, but Isaac doesn’t let himself be thrown off his course. He walks straight up to her and in a volume that is absolutely unprecedented goes:

“Janice, how’s it going, beautiful?”

William and Norah groan loudly, chills of cringe running down their spines, and they weasel off into the aisles. Janice is a grade above them, never indicated any interest and despite it all has been the object of Isaac’s misguided affections for the past week. This can only go badly.

Behind the counter, Janice jolts up at the noise. She looks up groggily, sees Isaac approaching her and puts her head back on the counter. Straight back to sleep.

“Always sleeping on the job. Classic Janice”, Isaac grins and waits for a response that doesn’t come. He then turns around to see his friends spying on him from between the aisles. “Alright, talk to you later”, he says towards Janice’s slumped over body and meets up with Will and Norah in the medicine aisle.

“Ginger ale, flu medicine, right?”, he says casually.

“Maybe some cough syrup as well”, Norah says, grabs a bottle from the shelf and adds it to the multiple others she is already struggling to carry. “I’ve seen my parents buy this, this is good.”

“And some antacid. This should settle her stomach better than the ginger ale”, William adds.

“Oh, if you’re giving her the ginger ale, make sure you let it go flat and warm first, because if it’s sparkling and cold, it might actually make her feel worse”, Norah advises and Isaac raises an eyebrow.

“Flat... and warm”, Will repeats as he struggles to pull out his notebook with his hand that isn’t occupied holding onto the antacid. He scribbles the words down with exceeding effort while Isaac and Norah discuss.

“Does that even work?”, Isaac questions.

“That’s what my parents told me”, comes Norah’s answer.

“Hm, my parents just force-fed me ginger ale.”

“Mine sometimes put it in the microwave before giving it to me.”

Isaac pulls a face. “Ugh. That cannot taste good.”

“Well it’s not supposed to taste good, it’s supposed to make you feel better.”

“Guys?” William interrupts their medical discussion and their faces turn towards where Will is standing in front of an empty shelf. “Did you already grab the flu medicine by chance?”

Norah gives the small collection in her arms a quick once-over and shakes her head. “Are we in the wrong aisle? I don’t see any in this one.”

“Maybe it’s sold out? I’ll just go ask Janice. Maybe they have some in storage.”

Isaac seems very on board with this plan. When all three of them walk over, he leans against the counter overly casually. He lets William take the lead in the conversation, but seems very invested in what they, and especially Janice have to say. Norah sets down some of her various bottles and boxes of medicine and busies herself with studying their ingredients and instructions for use.

“Janice”, William says and regards her with a look so intense it is bordering on a glare. “Hey.”

Once again Janice jolts up, now considering William with a look that is equally as unimpressed as the one she gave Isaac before. “You scared the shit out of me. What do you want?”, she says and she sounds like there’s nothing in the world she wants to do less than to attend to her customers.

William intensely points to the medicine aisle they just came out of, specifically at the empty shelf where the flu medicine should be. “I just wanted to know if a bunch of other people bought this flu medicine—”

“Why are you being so weird?”, Janice interrupts him.

“What do you mean? I’m not­—”

She sighs and rubs at her face. “Yeah, they’ve been coming in and out all day. Fuckin’ hassle.”

“Do you have any more in the back?”, Isaac asks.

“I don’t know”, Janice replies without looking at him. He doesn’t let it affect him.

“Can I check?”

“Sure”, she says, seemingly not having listened to a single word of his.

When Isaac tries the door to the storage room, he finds it to be locked. He turns to Janice again. “Do you have a key or something, Janice?”

“No, I­— Fuck, can you guys just leave?” She now stares at all of them, and Isaac comes to find that she looks a bit strange. She is usually tired at work and it shows in her outward appearance and in her attitude, but today she doesn’t just look tired. She looks drained and far away. Her eyes are just the slightest bit glazed over.

Isaac furrows his brow. “Are you feeling okay?”, he asks, his voice filled with genuine concern. She doesn’t respond, just lowers her head to stare at the countertop.

Norah, who has been passively listening to the conversation up until this point, springs into action. She lays her hand on Janice’s forehead. Janice seems to dazed to jerk back or to ask Norah what the fuck she’s doing.

“Oh crap”, Norah says and pulls her hand back. “Fever. Janice, you should go home.”

“I have to stay”, she says miserably and coughs a little.

“A cough too? Call in sick”, Norah insists.

“Everybody else already did. I need the money.”

“What about Lui, though? He works here. Oh, wait, yeah”, Isaac remarks.

“Out of town”, Will confirms, gloomy.

“Well, is there anything I can do to help?”, Norah almost pleads with her.

“No, I’ll be okay. I just… I mean, if you want to do my job for me, I can go to sleep here. Doctor should be in the back now. He can explain what to do.”

“You mean like work here?”

“Yeah.”

“Uhm...”

“It’s fine. It’s a joke, just go”, Janice scoffs and rests her head on the counter again. It only takes seconds until she’s out. Norah exchanges concerned glances with William and Isaac, but ultimately decides she can do no more for Janice, who has done nothing but resist her good will. If she wants to stay and sleep it off at work, she can. Norah’s gaze wanders from Janice dozing off on the counter to the stack of meds, she set down earlier and she focusses back on the mission at hand, the whole reason they came in here in the first place.

“Let’s look for the keys to the storage. They gotta have your mom’s medicine in there”, she says decisively.

“I can circle around the building to see if there’s another way in”, William suggests at the same time as Isaac goes: “I can just try to bust down the door.”

Norah and William slowly tuuuuurn and stare at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Please don’t get arrested again”, William pleads.

“Hey, no guarantees”, Isaac jokes, but Will remains unconvinced.

“I don’t have any bail money”, Norah whispers desperately.

Isaac shuffles awkwardly and puts his hands in his jeans pockets. He avoids their eyes, looks off over their heads as he says: “And by busting down the door I meant lock picking it of course.” He pulls a bobby pin out of his pocket and holds it up, an olive branch for spooking his friends.

“Alright, go.”

And Isaac does. He approaches the door to the storage room, kneels before it and examines the lock for a moment. He feeds the bobby pin into it, shimmies it around to get up in the mechanism. Nothing. He bends the pin to the side to peek into the lock, but it’s too dark.

“Flashlight”, he says and William fumbles with his keychain to find the small flashlight attached to it. He clicks the light on and Isaac gets back to work. A few more twists and turns and a small click comes from the lock and the door opens just the slightest bit. A weak ray of light shines through.

“Nice!”, Norah says and Will pats Isaac on the shoulder, who raises his chin and puffs his chest out with an expression of immense self satisfaction. Kind of like a male bird.

The room that waits for the young investigators behind the door is dimly lit and the dust particles that fly through the air are making their noses itch. It’s a long room, more like a hallway that ends around a small corner in the back. Shelves full of pill bottles and prescriptions in bins line both the left and right wall, from the floor all the way to the ceiling. Next to one of the shelves stands a little stool to help reach the topmost bins. There’s a sound coming from the back of the room, just around the corner. Rustling, shuffling, presumably boxes being moved around.

The friends breathing is flat and quiet as they inch closer towards the back. When they reach the corner they peek around the corner, stacked on top of each other cartoonishly. Their eyes fall upon the back of a white lab coat and long hair falling on its shoulders. A legal pad is sticking out of one of the coats pockets. Clearly this is the doctor Janice had mentioned and clearly he is the source of the sounds. He is bent over a small office desk. There are boxes of medicine all around him, some stacked up and unopened on the desk, some emptied out and haphazardly crushed, piling on the floor. Their contents are strewn across the surface of the desk, next to a boxcutter and a neatly organized bin of pill bottles.

Isaac takes a step closer and addresses him without a second thought. “Hey, are you the doctor?”

The man jumps in surprise and turns around. He has a scraggly beard the same shade as his hair and his eyes look tired and sunken in. The name tag on his coat says “Guerrero”. It takes Dr. Guerrero a second to take in the situation. There are three random teenagers in the staff only back room after all. He asks the only relevant question that comes to mind.

“Uh… do you work here?”

A second passes, Isaac blinks and says: “Um. Yeah.” And it takes Norah and William an excessive amount of self control not to let their neutral expressions slip.

“Okay. Well, you guys really need to stock the shelves out there. I’ll be back here organizing these alphabetically”, the doctor says and gestures towards his little workstation.

“Yeah. Is there more flu medicine back here? High demand right now”, Isaac asks and the doctor sighs and nods. His lips are pressed into a thin line as he pushes past them and picks a box off of a shelf to his right.

“Only one box left”, he says and passes it to Isaac. “Put these out on the shelves and if we need any more, we’re going to have to place a new order.”

“Do you know what’s going on?”, Isaac asks, trying for a casual, conversational tone. “A lot of sick people lately. What’s your diagnosis?”

“It is going around for sure”, the doctor sighs and rubs his neck. “Seems like a stomach bug. We get it ever so often.” He stumbles over his words as he says this, but he catches himself quickly and returns to his desk. William squints at him, still half concealed around the corner. “Anything else?”, Guerrero asks, politely telling them to get on with their “jobs”.

The teens shuffle out of the back room one after the other and huddle up at William’s sign when the door falls closed behind them.

“Okay. So. This guy clearly knows more than he’s letting on”, William says in a hushed tone.

Norah and Isaac look surprised at this information. Dr. Guerrero was just as ordinary a doctor to them as Norah’s parents are.

“He clearly does?”, Isaac tests.

“Yes. It’s clear from the micro expressions. Did you see how nervous he got when we mentioned the sickness?”

“Suppose he did”, Norah says.

“He’s got a notepad in his pocket. He must be taking notes on what’s really going on. Probably not just a normal stomach bug”, William explains and Norah nods along. She is catching on to Will’s enthusiasm.

“You think we should take a look?”, she says.

“We can’t just ask him for it. He’d be onto us”, Isaac replies.

“That’s what I’m thinking. What if… you guys run off with the box of the medicine”, he points towards Isaac, who looks down at the box he’s carrying, “…and I run off with the notepad?”, William says conspiratorially. “That way at least one of us gets away.”

“Win, win”, Isaac considers.

“Yes. And we can’t pay for all of this stuff anyways”, Will says.

“Your mom didn’t give you any money?”, Norah says with concern in her voice. Will shakes his head and she frowns. “I don’t have money on me either.”

“See?”, Isaac says and Norah frowns even deeper. The she suddenly lights up. She has an idea.

“What if we write an IOU?”, she suggests. “Then we don’t have steal.”

Will and Isaac consider this idea for a second before agreeing. It would be better than straight up stealing, especially with Isaac’s history.

“Okay”, William says, and rummages through the box of flu medicine. “One for my mom, one for Mr. Lacey.”

“Maybe one for each of us, just to be safe”, Norah suggests and Will grabs three more. Then he produces his notebook and a pen from his pockets and hands it over to Norah who starts writing the IOU. Fifty dollars should be enough, she thinks, but draws a smiling face and a heart just in case.

They take the box with the rest of the flu medicine over to the empty shelf where it should be and start stocking it appropriately. After they finish the first row, Norah places the IOU right at the front. While they continue working they clear up the details of their grand getaway plan. They discuss who should take which position. Since Isaac runs track and field, they consider assigning Isaac to run away with the medicine, until Norah mentions her hyper extending knees and they all get distracted. The topic of running on all fours comes back up, because William wonders if people run faster, if they do it on all fours.

“Would you chase someone that robbed you and ran away on all fours?”, he contemplates out loud.

“No”, Norah says decisively.

“I think no. My parents say people who do that are on drugs”, Isaac adds, to no real response from either of his friends. What does one even say to that.

“I’m on Abilify”, Norah says. “It’s for my anxiety.”

“Does it make you run faster?”, Isaac asks.

Norah shrugs. “It didn’t say that in the side effects part of the manual.” Of course she read the whole thing. Naturally.

“I can also try to pull a distraction here”, Isaac suggests. “And then you can try to grab his notebook while he’s distracted.” He looks to William who nods vigorously.

“And if he catches you, you throw it to me and­—”

A loud clanging noise interrupts further planning. The investigators jolt up from their conversation and look towards the door to the storage room, from which direction the noise seems to have come. It sounded vaguely like a door slamming closed and they all look at each other in a panic, as they all come to the same conclusion at the same time. If that was a door shutting, then Dr. Guerrero must be leaving. Shit! Like on command they all sprint to the storage room, find the back door, fling it open and see Dr. Guerrero walking to his car. The trunk is already open and it’s filled with more boxes, the same one’s he has been sorting through before. He grabs one and seems to be about to return to the storage room to continue his work. The investigators release a simultaneous sigh of relief and scurry back into the building.

“Okay, you distract him”, William says.

Isaac nods.

“I grab the notepad once he’s distracted. And if it all goes south we’ll toss the stuff to you and you run away on all fours.”

Norah nods.

The backdoor falls shut again, indicating Dr. Guerrero’s return. And the plan kicks into action. They casually walk towards the doctor’s desk and Isaac approaches him again.

“Hey, sorry. I’m not tall enough to get this box up here”, he says and points to a random box on a shelf. He puts on his best helpless expression, trying to convince the rather jaded seeming doctor. “Could you— Could you help me?”

He passes a glance to William, who nods almost imperceptibly. He understands that the ideal moment to strike is when the doctor reaches up to heave the box down, leaving the area around his midriff and thus the notepad in his coat pocket in a compromising position. Too open to attack.

Unfortunately, Dr. Guerrero looks unconvinced. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to tend to. I’d love to help you with your job, but right now I’ve got to do my job.” His face turns a little warmer, a little kinder when he says: “You guys must be new hires. Has no one told you about the stool?”

William tries to fake a convincing laugh, but the noise that comes out of his mouth sounds extremely unnatural and unsettling. And it does nothing to conceal his nervousness. The plan is lost and the doctor thinks I’m a freak, he thinks to himself, ready to accept his utter defeat. But then Dr. Guerrero bends down to pick up the box he previously set down on the floor, presenting Will with the awaited moment of opportunity. Will’s brain almost short circuits from the spike of adrenaline shooting through his system and he just goes for it. In the blink of an eye he stands beside the doctor and reaches out for the notepad. But Dr. Guerrero spots him out of the corner of his eye and lurches back just as quickly.

“What are you doing?” The clear irritation is his voice rings every alarm bell in William’s head.

“Just. Um”, he stammers. “You had, um, lint.” William cringes at his weak excuse.

“I’ve never seen you here before. Do you actually work here?”, the doctor questions and William fully panics. He hadn’t expected things to go this far south this fast.

“What? No, he does.” The words slip out of Will’s mouth before he has the chance to bite them back.

Isaac goes to raise his hand and wave. With a smile he says: “Hi. I work here”, but the doctor doesn’t care. All politeness he was previously willing to extend towards them had vanished.

“You are not supposed to be back here”, he says coldly and pushes past them. The friends freeze in fear when they realize what the doctor is doing. They see him reach for a phone on the wall and press the red button on it. The phone automatically dials and within seconds the person on the other end picks up.

They hear it faintly from the receiver. “Deadwood P.D.”

And then they start scrambling.

“Hello”, says Dr. Guerrero. “Yes, Michael, we’re going to need some help at the corner store. Kids are breaking into the back room—”

They don’t hear the rest of the phone call. The door to the storage room slams shut behind them and the rest of the conversation is cut off completely.

“Fuck, he’s calling Michael”, Isaac curses. He skirts the shopping aisles and the empty flu medicine box they left on the floor and pushes the front door open. The bell ringing barely registers over the ringing in his brain. He’s got to get out of here, now! He has to fight every instinct within himself not to just bolt without consideration for his friends. He holds the door open for them and only takes off from the convenience store when they have passed through. Together they run as fast as they can down the street and back towards William’s basement, the place they always return to in case of emergencies.

Deadwood looks to be as abandoned as it seemed before. The only sound echoing across the empty streets is the raining down of the friends soles on the cracked pavement and their panting breaths. They run across the main street, past insignificant rows of houses, past the street that leads to their high school. They run and run until William calls for the other two to please slow down. Isaac could have kept up the tempo for a bit longer with ease and Norah seems to be doing alright as well, but as soon as the both of them slow down and look back at Will, he doubles over and almost falls to his knees from sheer exhaustion. He says nothing, just stands and pants loudly. Poor guy, his lanky body isn’t used to physical feats like this. Even the adrenaline couldn’t turn him into the runner the situation clearly called for.

After a wordless minute of simply catching his breath, Will finally finds it within himself to speak. “Can we— Can we walk for a moment? I can’t— Shit”, he pleads with his friends.

Norah suppresses a giggle at his unfortunate phrasing and puts a hand on his shoulder. They slow down their pace to a brisk walk from this point on, still headed towards Will’s place.

A loud BONG BONG alerts them to the time, two o’clock, and to the fact that they have almost made it to the intersection towards the edge of town, which leads to the church if you were to travel even further North. And finally, after running around Deadwood twice in the span of not even that long of a time, they spot people. A group of them are coming from the northern direction, dressed in their Sunday’s best. Clearly church-goers, that are just going home after service has concluded for the day. A couple of cars come from the same direction too and split off to drive down their separate roads. When Isaac, Norah and William come into closer proximity to the group of church attendees, they make an uncomfortable observation. All of them, without exception, seem completely out of it. Their movements are slow and lethargic, like their bodies are using all possible energy reserves, trying to fight off the beginning of an illness.

Isaac specifically notices something even more alarming than a horde of sick people. Before they have the chance to spot him, he spots them among the crowd first. His parents.

“Oh, no”, he whispers.

His brain, high on the adrenaline from being caught stealing at the convenience store, cannot be trusted to make the best decisions. Especially not when it comes to his parents. But right now it feels like a really good idea not to hide away from them, it might be an even better idea to preemptively get in their good graces before they get confronted with another stain on Isaac’s record with the town police. So Isaac pretends to smile earnestly and walks up to his parents, greeting them as casually as possible. Norah and Will follow with a slight safety distance.

“Hey, mom. Dad.”

Isaac’s mother says nothing, just looks at him and then looks to her husband, who clears his throat and says: “I really thought you’d be joining us today.” The disappointment in the air is palpable and Isaac tries not to shrivel up under his father's chastising gaze.

“You know, it’s like… You’ve known for…”, he stammers, all confidence leaving his body instantly in the face of his father’s ice cold facade. “We do this thing at Will’s place every Sunday.”

William ducks reflexively, when he hears his name being mentioned. He does not want to be implicated in this.

“Yeah, convenient”, Isaac’s father says and William shrinks even more when his eyes move over from pinning his son, to regarding Will with clear distain. “William, you got your drivers license yet?”

William cringes. “No, but one day—”

Norah jumps in before William has the chance to embarrass himself terribly. “Hi, Mrs. Brooks!”, she says cheerily, addressing Isaac’s mother.

Mrs. Brooks smiles weakly. She looks to be in the same ailed condition that the other church-goers are in as well. “Hi, Norah.”

“How was church?”

“It was good, it was good. Just feeling a little under the weather.”

Isaac says: “Do you guys have that sickness that’s going around?”

“Oh, now you’re worried”, his father shuts him down.

“Listen, Dad, I already said I don’t want to be in choir anymore, okay?”

“Okay, but the least you could do is show up for your mother. We’re going home and we’re having Sunday dinner. Whether you’re there or not is up to you.”

Isaac looks like a hit dog. “Okay, cool”, he says quietly. “I’m not hungry yet.”

Mr. Brooks shakes his head and goes to take his wife home. She wordlessly follows along, a sad look in her eyes when she turns towards the direction to their home.

“Bye, Mr. Brooks!”, Norah says and he turns around, smiles and says goodbye to her too, not missing the opportunity to send his son another loaded look.

When they’re out of earshot both Will and Isaac turn towards Norah. “How do you do that?”, they ask her.

She looks confused. “Do what?”

“My dad, he’s so cold.”

“He doesn’t even like me”, William agrees. “I feel like if I tried the same thing you did, he’d just get mad at me.”

“He likes me because my GPA is a 4.0.”, Norah says all chipper. “What’s yours?”

Isaac’s face darkens. “Yeah, yeah, you’re everything he wants me to be. Okay, I get it.” He doesn’t bother hiding the bitterness that seeps into his voice.

They don’t get to linger on the topic any longer and it’s not like Isaac wanted to anyway. Police sirens and the sound of car engines fill the air all of a sudden.

“Scram!” Will shouts and dashes off into some nearby bushes instinctively.

Norah and Isaac’s instincts leave more to be desired. Their brains short circuit and Norah tries to hide behind a pole, that is clearly to thin for anyone to fully hide behind. Isaac spots a seemingly perfect bush to hide in on the other side of the street and runs towards it, out into the street. In his panic he doesn’t see the police car fast approaching and almost gets hit full force, if the car didn’t pull off an impressively abrupt stop right in front of him. The tires screech so loudly the birds on the surrounding trees get spooked and fly off, complaining about the sudden noise. Isaac heart pounds just as loudly, in his ears, in his head, in his throat. The car window rolls down and an officer pokes his head out.

“You gonna explain that?”, he asks plainly.

“What? The running out into the street, the jaywalking?” Isaac decides to play dumb, not his smartest move ever. “Is that like illegal?”

“Yes. Yes, it is, especially when I’m driving in the middle of­—”

“Ohhhhhh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to”, Isaac says and stumbles over his next words. “I, um. I just saw a perfectly beautiful bush over there.”

The officer raises and eyebrow, entirely unimpressed by Isaacs attempt at explaining his irrational and frankly suspicious behavior.

“Isaac, I just got all call from the convenience store. Was that you?”

“...No.”

A sigh. “I don’t believe you”, the officer says, exasperated.

“Why? You know how many kids could’ve­—”

“Isaac, I’m taking you home. Get in the car”, he speaks authoritatively.

The hairs on the back of Isaac’s neck stand up at the thought of meeting his parents again so soon and under such damning circumstances. “Do I have to go home? Can you just take me to jail”, he pleads desperately.

“I’m not taking you to jail. You are 16.”

Suddenly Norah pops up next to Isaac. “Hi, are you okay?”, she asks.

Isaac’s heart drops. He feels sick. “Norah… You were doing so good.”

“You got the Fleetwood girl in on it, too?” Only further disappointment.

“No, no, it was just me”, Isaac lies frantically, but he has already lost all of the cop’s sympathy in a matter of seconds.

“Right”, the officer says and turns to Norah. “What was your name? Norah?”

Norah only nods and the officer gets out of the car and opens the car door to the backseat, looking at the both of them expectantly. “Come on, get in the car. I’m taking you to Norah’s parents.”

All color drains from her face. “I don’t wanna”, she protests weakly. She hasn’t lost the police officers good will yet, so he speaks to her nicely.

“That’s okay”, he says, trying for a sympathetic, but strict expression. “You’re gonna have to get in anyway. Come on, I’ve got a lot going on today.”

“I didn’t even take anything. I left an IOU”, she whines.

“It’s okay. I’ll go up to the store later. I’ll pay for it”, the officer sighs. “But don’t let yourself be pulled into stuff like this again. Seriously.”

Norah nods and the officer sends a stern look in Isaac’s direction. “Come on”.

“But I have track later”, Isaac protests and gets shut down immediately.

“I don’t care what you have, Isaac. Norah, do you need a ride?”

“No sir, I’ll walk.”

“I’m still going to tell your parents about what happened here, okay? But I suggest you tell them first”, he says, resignation filling his voice. He’s so tired. “Isaac. Me and you.” He gestures towards the car.

Isaac starts grinning out of nowhere. Humor as a last hurrah. “Hands behind my back, I know”, he jokes.

But the cop is not in a joking mood. “I’m not cuffing you, Isaac. Get in the car”, he says and closes the door forcefully once Isaac finally complies and slips into the backseat.

They drive off towards the direction of Isaac’s home and Norah stands there watches them. She catches Isaac’s eye from the back seat and he gives her a smile, that doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks small and childlike, and he only gets smaller and smaller as the distance between them grows. He averts his eyes eventually, breaking the eye contact just before the car disappears behind a turn of the road. Norah’s heart aches.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

William watches the situation from his bush, remaining out of eyesight until Isaac and the officer have disappeared for good. He feels awful. Watching his friend get apprehended and not having it in him to intervene in any way. He feels ashamed of his cowardice in the face of authority, but he knows it would make Isaac feel even worse if Will got in trouble as well. And besides, Isaac isn’t new to this, he knows how to handle situations like this, Will tells himself. He knows this to be true, yet he still feels a pang of guilt for trying to soothe his sense of culpability first and foremost.

“Hi!”

He almost jumps out of his skin. He looks to his side and sees Norah crouching in the bush next to him. She has her skirt slightly pulled up to avoid the long fabric dragging across the floor.

“They’re gone”, she says.

“Yeah, I saw”, William answers. “Is Isaac okay?”

“I don’t know?” Norah furrows her brow and bites nibbles on her lower lip. A nervous tick of hers. “The officer said he’s driving Isaac back home. He’s gonna tell his parents.”

Will grimaces. The fact that Isaac’s father was cross with him already and now this… It didn’t bode well. Isaac just got out of his last period of being grounded, but Will could see the next punishment on the horizon already. He just hopes it won’t be too harsh.

“He’s gonna tell my parents too”, Norah continues.

Will feels terrible. The prospect of getting Norah in trouble with her parents too sits heavily on his conscience. And all because he fumbled on asking his mother for money to buy her medicine. He lays a hand on Norah’s wrist. “I’m so sorry we pulled you into this whole mess.”

“It’s okay. I told him I left an IOU. And he said he’s going to pay for it.”

“Cool, I mean. But still, I know you’ve got a pretty spotless track record.” It pains him to even bring this up.

She sighs. “One stain’s fine.”

“Oh, um. Are you sure? The way that you said that, didn’t really feel—”

“One stain is fine”, Norah says more forcefully this time.

William laughs nervously. “So what’s two, you know?”, he jokes. Norah glowers at him and he snaps his mouth shut.

After a moment her face softens again, and she looks at Will curiously. “Do you have the, y’know”, she asks sheepishly. He fumbles for a second and then pulls a couple of flu medicine bottles out of his hoodies front pocket. He pulls his face into a lob-sited grin and Norah smiles too. Mission success after all.

She stands up and offers Will her hand. “Let’s go home”, she says.

Will grabs her hand and she pulls him onto his feet. They are covered in branches and leaves that cling to their bodies. And not just that. Norah squeals as Will pulls a spider out of her hair. After Will gently sets it back onto the bush, they start making their way back towards Will’s home.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

Isaac sits in the back of the cop car. More specifically Officer Donalds’ car. He doesn’t like that he knows this mans name, doesn’t like that he sees him often enough to remember his name anyways. Doesn’t like the familiarity that being addressed by his first name by Officer Donalds implies. Hates the fact that his parents know too. He dreads what lies ahead, but he keeps his head up. Grins and bears it, the good ol’.

After a while of driving in silence, Isaac speaks. “So, anything fun happen lately?”, he asks his tone overly casual and conversational, totally inappropriate for the situation at hand.

“No, I get enough excitement from you, Isaac.” The officer sends him a sharp look through the rear-view mirror. It stings a bit, but Isaac has bested worse. “No one else has ideas as dumb as robbing the convenience store down the road from their house.”

Isaac begrudgingly admits it wasn’t the best idea. Out loud he still decides on defiance. This cop doesn’t fucking get it. “We were just trying to help, okay?”, he says. “William’s mother is really sick and she asked us to buy her medicine, but she forgot to give us any money. It was really urgent and we didn’t know what else to do. We even left an IOU!”

“Mrs. Wisp?”, Officer Donalds asks, not paying any mind to anything else Isaac said. “She’s ill?”

“Yeah, she’s not doing to hot. And by that I mean she’s really hot.”

Officer Donalds stern expression slips for a second. He looks completely caught off guard, yet his walls are back up in a second and his gaze feels more chastising than before. Isaac realizes his mistake after a beat and heat rises to his cheeks. He stumbles over his words, gesturing wildly.

“Not like that, not like that! That wasn’t even intentional. Like, I didn’t mean— I was actually trying to say she’s burning up, not like she’s hot.”

The officer says nothing. Silence stretches on longer and longer and Isaac shuffles around uncomfortably. “Are you feeling okay though?”, he asks. “That sickness is going around.”

“I’m fine”, Officer Donalds answers curtly and Isaac decides to stop talking. Sometimes he knows better, so for the rest of the drive not a single other word is spoken. It gives Isaac time to think about how to approach his parents, what to say to them to not make them more furious than they would already be, being confronted by their son being brought home by a cop again.

It seems Isaac’s parents haven’t arrived at their home quite yet. When Officer Donalds spots them and pulls the car over on the side of the street, they are just about to take the turn from the main road to the smaller street they and the Wisp family live on. Most of the people who were walking back from church with them seem to have split off, but there’s an older woman and a small family walking just behind them, gawking at the police car. They don’t keep moving, rather standing back and observing the situation.

Officer Donalds rolls the window down. “Mr. Brooks.”

At first Isaac’s father looks confused, then he spots Isaac in the backseat and his expression turns so suddenly he can’t conceal it at all. Anger. Just pure, hot anger.

“Take him downtown. Let him sleep it off in the cell”, his father says, trying his hardest to remain composed in front of the police officer and the other onlookers.

And Isaac forgets everything he prepared to say throughout the car ride. Desperation takes over. He just needs him to understand. To see. “Dad, you don’t understand, I was just trying to help Mrs. Wisp”, he says, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. His father doesn’t even deign to look at him.

Officer Donalds shakes his head. “I’ve got a lot to do today. I got to cut the kid loose. I’m sorry, sir.” He gets out of the driver’s seat and opens the door for Isaac. He sheepishly shuffles out of the car, not daring to look at his father. He looks to his mother instead.

Mrs. Brooks seems far away. She looks past Isaac at everything and everyone else but her own son. Like she can’t stand the sight of him. Her eyes are welling up and just like her husband, she is also trying to pull herself together in front of the people. She must be terribly ashamed.

Seeing as there was no verbal reaction from on mother’s side, and it probably wouldn’t come soon either, Isaac turned back to his father.

“Listen, you got to understand.”

“Do not talk to me right now”, he hisses through his teeth.

Isaac barely hears him over the sound of Officer Donalds throwing the car in reverse and driving off, past the people who are still staring, not having moved an inch. Yet, he insists, begging to be understood: “But she’s sick right now. She’s sick and she needed the medicine!”

“Get. In. That. House.” His father grinds out his demand word for word. His face is red and he looks like he’s about to explode. There’s no getting through to him. He won’t hear it.

Isaac drops his head in defeat. “Yes, sir.”

His parents walk behind him. Isaac feels his father’s threatening aura behind him, staring daggers into his back, so sharp he can almost feel them sticking into his skin. When they arrive his father slams the door behind him. “To your room”, he barks loudly, finally out of earshot and eyesight of the fellow church-goers. “And you’re not leaving this house for another three weeks.” His mother scurries off into the kitchen, pretending she has nothing to do with it. Typical, Isaac thinks cynically.

His face contorts into a grimace of anger, but he doesn’t talk back. Not now at least. He just glares at his father, turns on his heels and walks up the stairs to his room, his feet banging against the wooden flooring as loudly as possible. Whatever, let them hear his frustration. He slams the door closed behind him too for good measure. For a second he just stands in his room, unsure of what to do. His eyes fall upon his window. One thing’s clear to him, and that is that he needs to find a way out and join up with his friends, the sooner the better. He opens the window and looks down to the ground. Second story, nothing to help him climb down, nothing to hold onto except the smooth facade of the house. This is too dangerous, he decides, considers his other options and sighs. Hopefully not everyone in this house currently hates him, he thinks and makes his way to his sisters room.

“Bella, hey”, he says, standing in her doorway.

Bella is sitting on her windowsill, listening to some music. When Isaac looks past her through the window he can see the trees outside. One of them stands just close enough to the house that he could feasibly leap over from Bella’s room onto a steady branch and then climb down the tree towards freedom. Should be easy enough.

At first Bella doesn’t notice him, but he lingers until she finally looks over to him. “What do you want?”, she says and pulls her headphones off of her ears. Annoyance already coats her tone before he had even said anything.

“Um… I need to go out through your window”, Isaac says. No need to sugarcoat it.

She raises an eyebrow. “So you want to get me in trouble too? No, thanks.”

“No, but it’s urgent. Somethings going on. People are getting sick and William and Norah are looking into it.”

His appeal doesn’t work, his sister only stares at him, growing more and more suspicious. “What does that even have to do with you?”, she says. “Actually, if people are getting sick wouldn’t you want to stay inside?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever”, he says, growing kind of annoyed. Why can’t anything ever go his way? “There’s just some people that we need to deliver medicine to and stuff. And… And you don’t look like you believe me. Okay.”

His sister, in fact, doesn’t look like she believes him at all. She squints at him. “You got arrested again.”

“No”, he says and she just squints at him harder. He groans loudly. “It wasn’t like arrested arrested, okay? He just drove me home.”

“So you didn’t kill anybody?”

“What? No! Who told you that?”

“Mel. She called me after church. Said she saw you getting got. And that you looked super spooked, y’know, like someone who just killed someone”, Bella said, too conversational for the heavy accusations she was seemingly mindlessly making.

“Mel is full of shit”, Isaac says, “We— I was just taking medicine for Will’s mom from the convenience store.” A pause. “But um… So no window? Not just this once?”, he pleads.

Bella considers for a second. “What do I get?”

“I’ll give you my allowance for a month. And I’ll cover for you the next time you want to sneak out and go to a party or something.”

Now, her face takes on a mocking expression. She grins snidely. “You know, some people don’t get grounded every week and don’t have to sneak out under moms and dads noses to see their friends.”

“Fine. Then I’ll just go and break my window and fall out and break my neck and die, and that guilt will live with you forever”, he spits out, pure venom in his voice.

“What the hell. You fuckin’ asshole”, Bella says, halfway offended, halfway confused by the sudden escalation. Then she raises her voice: “Mooom!”

Isaac shoots her a look that could kill. Can’t trust anyone in this damn house.

Their mother ascends the stairs and Bella goes all the way. She tells her all about Isaac’s plan to sneak out, about his attempts to bribe Bella into cooperating. Their mother is shocked and appalled and gets their father in on the matter. Worst case scenario, Isaac thinks. He’s about to get another round of being yelled at, but instead of the usual, Mr. Brooks goes down to the basement, gets his tool box and screws Isaac’s window shut. Isaac sits on his bed, stewing in his anger, watching his father work. When his father is finished, he stands up to leave the room. In the doorway, he turns around to Isaac and fixes him once more with a look that spells danger.

“You stay in this room. No dinner. Don’t come downstairs, don’t go to your sisters room. Nothing”, he says and it sounds more like a threat than an instruction. The focus lies on the unspoken “or else” more than it does on anything else.

Defiantly, Isaac scoffs and says: “You guys are a bunch of fucking fascists.”

His father’s hand twitches. It looks like he’s going to reach towards his belt. Isaac freezes in an instant. The backs of his thighs hurt in anticipation. His mouth flies shut and he clenches his jaw, staring, eyes full of fear.

His father scoffs and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him without saying another word. It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t. Isaac takes a shaky breath and closes his eyes.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

On the way home Norah and Will decide to stop by Mr. Lacey’s place first, before tending to Will’s mom. His house was just a minute closer to where they’re coming from and Mrs. Wisp said that his condition was worse than hers anyway. She was worried about him and so was Norah, who was more than willing to postpone telling her parents about her stint in small town crime, especially if it was to look after a sick elderly man. That’s at least something her parents could be proud of her for, she thought.

She looks up. The dark clouds above them swell in size and move closer together until not a single ray of sunlight is able to pierce through. It’s still relatively early in the afternoon, but with how dark and overcast it is it might as well be midnight. A stronger breeze blows through the streets now and Norah wonders if she should have brought her umbrella. They continue walking through the empty streets of Deadwood once more, this time with a bit more urgency, not wanting to get caught in the rain, should it suddenly start pouring.

When they reach Mr. Lacey’s house, William goes to pick up the mail and walks through the gate towards the front door, Norah in tow. The house is pretty small, just enough for a couple to live in. The construction seems to be befitting its inhabitant, it’s old, colonial looking, with a porch and pillars up front. On the porch stand two rocking chairs, one of which has significantly less signs of wear and tear than the other. Must be the one that belonged to his wife. It makes Nora’s heart sink momentarily.

Will turns around to her. He looks upon her expression with worry. “Not breaking and entering this time, don’t worry”, he jokes, trying to lighten up the mood and flashes the key to Mr. Lacey’s house. “No more stains for you.”

But it seems the key is obsolete. When they arrive at the heavy wooden front door, they find it slightly ajar. No light comes from inside. William furrows his brow and looks over to Norah nervously. His concern signals to her that this isn’t usual.

“You think the sickness made him too weak to pull the door closed behind him?”, Will says and he sounds like he’s not believing a single word that comes out of his mouth. Norah doesn’t believe him either, but would rather not think about what else it could be. The mere thought of someone or worse something forcing its way in and getting to Mr. Lacey is sending shivers down her spine. So she just nods and follows William inside, despite all of her nerves. Her eyes haven’t even adjusted to the darkness, when Will inhales harshly. He stops moving, barely having made it past the doorstep.

“Oh my god”, he says breathlessly.

She bites down on her lower lip. “What?”

“Please tell me you smell it too”, he pleads.

Norah has been wondering what was up with this strange odor, that William has been talking about smelling all week and all day. She too, trusted that he wasn’t making it up, of course. He had proven to be more sensitive to smells in a few of their last investigations and it had come in handy before, so she followed his nose wherever it guided her. Of course, joking around about it wasn’t off the table, but in this moment every funny quip she could have thought of dies on her tongue instantly. What she assumes Will had been smelling in a lighter, more subdued form for days, hits her all at once at full force. Rot and decay fill her nostrils and she instinctively goes to cover her nose and mouth. She feels like this is what an unventilated room with a days old corpse would smell like. Or someone clinging to life, wasting away from illness. She feels sick to her stomach.

Yet, she presses on, until she feels William grab her by the sleeve of her cardigan. She turns around, barely being able to make out his face in the darkness, but she can feel the nausea and discomfort radiating off of him. His eyes flit around wildly, anticipating the worst, always.

“I don’t know if I want to— I feel like we don’t need to...”, William struggles to articulate, but Norah can imagine what he wants to say.

“We have to go check on him!”, she insists.

“What if he’s already…” He doesn’t dare finish the thought.

“Well, what if he’s still, y’know. What if we can still help him?”

William squeezes his eyes shut, clearly fighting against every prey animal instinct in him, that’s telling him to run, to find safety. “You’re right.” He forces the words out and holds onto Norah’s cardigan even tighter. “But you go first.”

Norah takes a couple of unsure steps forwards. Her eyes still haven’t acclimated, so she uses her hands to scout out her surroundings. She looks down at her feet too, to find safe footing. Suddenly a cockroach runs across her left shoe. She shrieks loudly and grips onto William with a strength previously unknown to her. The bug is gone within the split second, scuttling out of the crack in the door, but Norah’s heart is racing as if she just ran a full marathon. It takes her a couple of moments and heavy breaths to somewhat calm down again. She slowly loosens her grip on Will. That’s going to leave marks, she thinks, William bruises easily after all. She apologizes profusely, doesn’t let go of him completely though.

The hardwood floor creaks underneath their feet as they make their way deeper into the house. The silhouettes of the furniture are looking ghostly and menacing in the dim light that’s coming in through the closed curtains. Then there’s that scuttling again, sounds just like the cockroach moving, but somewhat… more. Norah swallows harshly, trying to focus in on the sound. Her heart is beating out of her chest, but she tries to stabilize herself, closes her eyes and listens more closely. Norah’s excellent hearing leads her through the house. She can picture every room in front of her inner eye. And she can picture the cockroaches. Sounds of scuttling. One runs across her foot again, but more pressingly a horde of them, upstairs. Then something bigger moves as well. This time it doesn’t sound like the scuttling of bugs limbs moving, it sounds more like footsteps, then cloth moving, maybe ripping. Suddenly, breathing, choked up and labored, upstairs in the same location as the sources of the other noises.

“William?”, she whispers, barely being able to cover the fear in her voice.

“Yeah? What is it, Norah?”, he whispers back.

“He’s not okay. Something’s­—”

“Oh, who would have guessed”, William interrupts her sarcastically.

“Something’s happening to him”, Norah starts, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. Upstairs, the breathing stops with a last, bone chilling gurgle.

She lets out a sob.

“What’s wrong?”, William asks her, suddenly extremely concerned. She signals him to be quiet, as she hears something else. Swallowing, a couple of harsh gulps. And then complete silence.

She freezes. William pulls her closer to him, desperately trying to find comfort, before asking his next, deeply disconcerting question. “What did you hear?”

“I heard something walking.”

“Okay.”

“I heard something ripping. I heard something struggling to breathe.”

More worried now: “Okay.”

“Then it stopped. And then it gulped.”

“Alright, that’s enough for me”, William announces, turns around abruptly and walks straight out of the house, pulling Norah with him. She doesn’t resist, this is too much for her too. He doesn’t stop until they stand out on the street again, having firmly closed the door behind them this time.

“I think it would have been a really bad idea to stay in that house”, he says and Norah finds herself quietly agreeing. She observes him and he looks shaken, terrified even. “And— And we don’t need to feel bad about leaving. All we had to help him was flu medicine and everything you just described seems like it’s not really a flu situation.”

“I don’t think flu medicine would help him”, Norah says gravely and looks up towards the windows on the second floor. She would have hoped to see something, maybe a glimpse of Mr. Lacey to confirm his condition or even a sight of a possible intruder that did whatever just happened upstairs to him. But the curtains are closed there too. “Nothing”, she sighs and gestures towards the window. “I guess he liked his privacy.”

William follows her gaze and nods, a serious expression on his face. Despite everything, he is clearly contemplating something. An idea is forming, and it most likely isn’t a very good one.

“Yes?”, Norah says and it shakes Will out of his thoughts. He looks at her.

“We don’t have to go back in”, he says, with an intense expression on his face, “but what if we try walk around the back and find a window and you lift me up and I could try to get a look?”

Norah thinks for a second. “We can’t help him if we don’t know more. I suppose looking in won’t hurt.”

William winces a bit. It never goes well when people say this sort of thing. But he decides to hold his tongue and not to speak to it further.

They walk around the house, finding more windows on the ground floor, curtains pulled closed. Not a chance, but then when the reach the backside of the house that borders on the forest that surrounds Deadwood they get lucky. There’s a window on the second floor. The curtains seem to be left open just enough to be able to peer into the room. William points to it. “That one”, he says and Norah nods.

She ducks down so Will can get on her shoulders. He sits down and she grips onto his shins like her life depends on it. Standing up with Will’s additional weight literally on her shoulders proves to be quite the challenge. Norah’s legs shake when she tries to push up and she takes a dangerous tumble forwards, right towards the wall of the house. William holds out his arms, preventing them from crashing into it.

Norah exhales a shaky breath. She tries again and stands up straight. To her dismay they aren’t tall enough like this for William to take a look into the window. It is too high up. But, he is able to reach the windowsill above his head, gripping it so hard his knuckles turn white. He gathers his strength and pulls himself up high enough to be able to stretch out his legs and stand on Norah’s shoulders. Finally, he can peek in, but unfortunately the view is underwhelming to say the least. The lights are turned off and the curtains, safe for the little gap that William is looking through, prevent any dim sunlight from coming inside. All he can make out a vague shapes of furniture and the silhouette of a man sitting in a chair, stiff and unmoving. But otherwise nothing paranormal or acutely dangerous is happening in the room.

William sighs and signals for Norah to put him down again. “Nothing much”, he says and Norah seems similarly disappointed. “He’s just sitting in his chair.”

“Well, that’s something. Seems like he’s not doing too bad”, she says, determined to stay positive. As positive as one could be in this situation.

“I guess”, Will says, going to suggest to go back to his place since there was nothing more to gather here and his mother had already waited long enough for her medicine. But the words get stuck in his throat when, from the other side of the house, he sees a couple of bugs emerging, followed by a whole swarm of them. They form a dense cloud, moving off towards the forest like one big organism. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Could it be that they’re…? His eyes widen and Norah cocks her head to the side, looking confused. She sees him stare past her in terror and goes to turn around to investigate what he’s so alarmed by. Will’s body springs into action. He grabs her by the shoulders, holding her in place.

“Don’t move”, he warns, keeping his voice low. The seriousness in it is unmistakable though.

Norah stands frozen on the spot. It doesn’t look like she’s going to move anytime soon, spooked by Will’s sudden intensity. He lets go of her and peeks past the corner of the house. All of his fears are confirmed. A couple of bugs seemingly separated from their swarm, are scuttling through a cracked window on the side of the house they hadn’t investigated. They are hurrying after their group, off into the forest with single minded determination. Will’s heart sinks as he realizes what they have to do.

“What did you see, Will?”, Norah’s voice comes from behind his back. She hasn’t moved an inch. Will comes back around to her.

“I saw what looked like strange movement of some…” He pauses, not wanting to say it out loud. He really, really does not want to walk into the forest alone. He doesn’t feel great about it, but he tries to obscure the truth a little. “Some suspicious entities taking off towards the woods”, he says.

“What kind of suspicious entities?”, Norah says, sounding genuinely, giddily intrigued. It twist the knife of guilt in Will’s stomach even more.

“Ohhh, small ones”, he forces out.

“So, mice?”

“Well, it’s not— It’s smaller than a mouse.”

“I love twenty questions”, she says and smiles. “Let’s play.”

Her innocent enthusiasm almost kills him. “No, it’s bugs!”

Norah’s eyes widen in panic and William can see the shiver that runs across her entire body at the mere mention of the little creatures. “EUGH!”, she shrieks and shakes, as if one just landed on her and she’s desperately trying to get rid of it.

Now that he came out with it, William doesn’t see the point in sugarcoating it anymore. “Norah, I think we need to follow them into the woods”, he says in a serious tone. Norah looks at him like a kicked puppy. He points behind her. “They were coming out of a window in Mr. Lacey’s house, a whole swarm of them. And they’re all going the same way back to the forest as if they’re some sort of hivemind.”

“A swarm?” Norah repeats frantically. It seems like her brain hadn’t processed anything but that one word.

“Yes”, Will presses. “Too many to be normal. This is extremely suspicious!”

“Do we have to follow them?”, Norah whines and Will nods. He doesn’t like this either, but the longer they stand still, the further the bugs fly off into the forest, the more uneasy he gets. It’s like he’s a hunting dog, letting the prey get away.

“It’s our only lead. Come on. You don’t have to look at them. I’ll guide you”, he offers.

Norah looks doubtful. “What if they’re just normal bugs though?”

“We don’t know that unless we catch them and check”, he says. “If you start to feel weird we can turn around, okay? Please?”

Norah makes a sad little noise, but nods anyways. She closes her eyes and Will is at her side instantly, anxious to go. He lays a hand on her shoulder and guides her into the brush he watched the bugs disappear into. After they walk for a moment, William stops them. Norah hears him shuffle around, then he curses.

“What’s wrong?”, she asks into the direction she heard him speak from. “Where did they go?”

“I don't know. I can’t see them anymore”, Will sighs and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Then he has an idea. “Can you try and listen for them? Your hearing is pretty excellent.”

“I’ll listen”, she says.

Her eyes remain closed as she focuses on that particularly sharpened sense of hers. She hears the rustling of the leaves on the ground, the rattling of naked branches being pushed against each other by the wind, the calling of the birds, rushing water in the distance. And then the scuttling of thousands of bugs legs, the whirring of their wings. She shivers. It sounds exactly like in Mr. Lacey’s house, the terrible sounds of his ragged breathing back in her conscience. Yet she starts staggering towards the direction she hears the bugs going. In the blink of an eye she feels Will’s hand back on her shoulder. Her heart skips a beat. It spooked her a little, but she feels comfort in knowing William is there for her. She’s not doing this alone.

Now knowing the direction they need to go, William pushes them forwards, setting a pretty brisk pace. Norah follows as best as she can, eyes closed, ears trained on the sounds of the swarm. They get louder from time to time, indicating that the teens are catching up, but every time they do the sounds fade out just as quickly. They do this for a while, catching up, getting their hopes up, then losing them and that glimmer of hope again. Norah begins questioning their mission. This seems like a pointless shot in the dark to her. They’re not getting anywhere, if anything they’re just loosing time. She is about to suggest walking back to town, when William gasps next to her.

“There!” He yells.

Norah doesn’t dare open her eyes. She assumes he saw one of the bugs. The last thing she wants to do right now is open her eyes.

“This way!”, Will hollers and Norah feels him take her by the hand. He pulls her with him, making their way through the trees, stumbling across roots and through bushes. She feels the branches scratch at her through the fabric of her long skirt. She feels herself loosing steam, her steps keep getting slower.

“Come on, we’re going to lose them!”

Almost immediately her foot gets stuck on something and she yelps loudly. Will loses his grip on her hand. Norah’s eyes fly open and she catches herself last minute, leaning against a tree before she can fall to the muddy forest floor. Her heart races.

“Are you okay?”, Will asks, worriedly.

“Yeah”, she says, breathing hard. Will is too.

Now that her eyes are already open, Norah looks around. She doesn’t recognize her surroundings past the fact that they’re in the woods surrounding Deadwood. And there are no bugs, she can’t even hear them anymore, not even a bit. She looks to Will who is leaning forward, hands on his knees and panting. A few strands of his bangs stick to his forehead. He’s sweating.

“Did we lose them?”, she asks and Will nods wordlessly. Disappointment sets in, but she can’t help but feel a little relieved too. Then the more pressing question presents itself. Looking up at the sky, the cloud cover is so dense she can’t see the sun. No pronounced shadows against the trees, no way to tell the time. She wonders out loud: “How long did we walk for?”

William gets out his burner flip phone and checks the time. “Oh my god”, he says. “Fourteen hours?! Oh, military time. 25 minutes.”

“Hm”, Norah says, “I mean, we should probably head back to town then.”

Will looks conflicted for a second, but even his determination has its end. Reason kicks in and he groans, frustrated at this misstep. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry for making you do this. I messed up.”

“No, it’s okay. It seemed important to the investigation.”

William pulls a face. “Seemed like it was”, he repeats bitterly and Norah bites her tongue.

“Let’s go then”, she tries to change the topic quickly. “Your mother is still waiting, right? And I still have to tell my parents I’m a criminal.” Her joke doesn’t land. Will is too preoccupied with closely inspecting their surrounding area. He seems to give up quickly.

“Do you have any idea where we are?”, he asks, exasperated.

Norah shakes her head. “My eyes were closed the entire time. Do you not know how to get back?” Worry is written all over her face.

Will shrinks visibly. “No”, he confesses, his head lowered. Norah’s heart sinks.

“I haven't been keeping track of the path we took”, Will continues, his voice getting more and more upset as he keeps talking. “I was too focused on not losing the bugs. And now we lost them and I don’t know where we are.” He goes quiet. “I’m sorry”, he mumbles.

Then Norah shushes him all of a sudden. She remains silent for a second and then whispers: “Do you hear that?”

And yes, now that he puts a pause to airing out his guilty conscience and is actively listening to his surroundings, Will does hear something. Further in the forest, he distantly hears water running. His eyes go wide. “The river!”, he whispers back and Norah nods at him enthusiastically.

They take off towards the sound simultaneously. Both of them feeling a new wave of hope wash away the dread of being lost in the forest without a map and a sick mother alone at home. After sprinting through the brush for a moment they come upon the river and take a deep breath in. A point of orientation, thank god. If they had a map and a compass they could walk back to town in a straight line, but with the river being the only reliable guide available, they have no other option but to start following its winding, long winded trail. Norah and Will both know it will eventually lead them back to town as it passes behind the Deadwood town center, but it will take them a considerable amount of time.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

On their long trek through the forest Norah and William decide that they have recovered enough to give checking up on Mr. Lacey another try. They promised William’s mom they would after all. On top of that, they just can’t shake the suspicion that the bugs might have something to do with the case, with the illness. So when they make it back to Deadwood they immediately head back to where they escaped from about an hour and a half ago. Another twenty minutes later, they stand in front of the house again. The heavy wooden door looks down at them menacingly, almost mocking them in a sinister way.

A shiver runs down Norah’s spine. “Are we going inside?”, she asks, nervously.

“Well, the bugs are gone. I’m getting the sense that the danger is too. I mean, it’s just an old man in the chair, right?”, William tries to soothe Norah and himself. It works, just a little bit.

“Uh. Can you go first this time?”, Norah asks.

William looks at her pleading eyes and can’t help but do as she asked. So he feigns confidence and steps in front of her, pulls out the key to the door and unlocks it with shaky hands. He steps into the house, hears the floor creak, bugs scuttling once more, not many, but it seemed like some got left behind by the swarm. All confidence, fake or not, leaves William at once. He stands back and tries to get as even with Norah as possible. Should something jump out at him he wants to be able to sprint away as fast as he possibly can. Unobstructed, that is. Norah steps on his heels, apologizing, but gently pushing him to move forward nonetheless. Will pulls out his flashlight and finds a light switch with ease. He really doesn’t want to stumble around in the darkness again, especially if they’re going to go up the stairs, where Mr. Lacey presumably still stays.

He flips the lights on and with Norah at his heels, they start exploring the downstairs area. It contains a living room, a kitchen, a door to the basement and a door to the laundry room and to the garage. The living room is of the most interest to the investigators. The floor is covered in green carpeting and the walls are adorned with a folded-up flag in a display case and medals and awards. Upon closer inspection they turn out to be from Mr. Lacey’s military service. He is clearly a well decorated veteran. A few steps further a large moose head is hoisted on the wall, surrounded by riffles and other weapons. A few seem to be missing from their racks, clearly not having been decorative, but actively used up until recently. Norah finds the weapons deposited loosely on the living room table next to plates of leftover food, never finished. It looks like Mr. Lacey hasn’t cleaned up after himself in a while, and since William’s mother isn’t in good enough of a shape to clean up for him, the room is looking quite messy. Norah also notes the amount of crosses and crucifixes hanging on the walls and over the doorways. Then she gets distracted by a collection framed family pictures on a shelf next to the TV, and most notably an old picture of him and his wife. They looked so happy back then. Remembering that Mr. Lacey has been alone for years now, since his wife passed, Norah feels a wave of saddening compassion wash over her. She can’t linger on it for too long, because William comes up to her.

“Do you know if Janice is religious?”, he asks her breathlessly.

“What?” Norah is caught off guard by his question. That is not at all where her mind was.

“There’s so many crosses here”, Will explains. “And Mr. Lacey is sick. My mom goes to church and she helps with the youth group sometimes on the weekends and you know how she’s doing. Then there’s all of those people coming out of the church looking sick too. I just think that maybe…” He trails off and Norah catches on quickly.

“I don’t know if Janice is. Maybe her parents are. You know how if your parents are religious, then a lot of the times you might be too?”

“Yeah, my mom is religious, but my dad isn’t. And Dad isn’t sick. God, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, but this really feels like it could be something.” Will says, his heart pounding.

“You’re not sick?”, Norah asks and William shakes his head. “Do you believe in god?”

“Norah, that’s a really big question. I, um. I don’t know. Maybe there is something out there...”

“So do you think you can only get sick if you’re religious? Or can you be infected if you’re not too?” Norah’s eyes grow wide in realization. “Oh my god, Janice coughed next to me earlier.”

“Don’t worry about that right now”, Will says hastily. “That’s just one possible thread. We’ll have to find more evidence to support it later, okay? But let’s find Mr. Lacey first.”

Norah’s face doesn’t get any more relaxed. She clenches her jaw and nods. They have already procrastinated enough, she thinks as they move back towards the entry of the house, where the staircase leads up to the second floor. Standing at its foot, Norah gets the impression that it seems to stretch on forever to where the light from the ground floor doesn’t reach. William gets his flashlight out again and Norah braces herself for the ascend, then takes the first step up the stairs. It creaks beneath her feet and she hears Will suck in a sharp breath next to her. She takes his hand and they keep moving slowly but steadily until they reach the top. A hallway spreads out in front of them, a door to the left, to the right and straight ahead on its end.

When they turn their attention to the floor they see the stains. An orange substance is splattered across the green carpet. It’s textured, little kernels orange in color as well are spread throughout the splatters. Norah can’t exactly identify them, but as her eyes follow them, she notices they form a trail. She nudges William and gestures for him to point his flashlight in the direction they’re being pointed. The trail leads to the door on the right side of the hallway. The substance leaks out from under the door, spelling out the investigations unfortunate destination. As they get closer the smell of rot overwhelms them and Norah has no doubt that this is exactly what William has been smelling all week. It might even be the source.

They reach the door and Norah looks over to William. She can barely make out his features, standing outside of the ray of the flashlight. He looks gaunt and the strange shadows cast over his face make his dark circles look deep and skeletal, yet Norah finds comfort in her friends face. William nods and squeezes her hand. She squeezes his hand too, lets it go and reaches for the doorknob. She slowly pushes the door open, avoiding any sudden movements that could spook whatever is in here. William shines his light through the ever growing crack in the door, illuminating the room inch by crawling inch. Their eyes fall upon a bed, a nightstand and finally, in the middle of the room is Mr. Lacey. He is sat up in a chair like William said earlier, body slack and unmoving, facing off to the side. The substance that stains the carpet outside leads closer and closer towards his body and to Norah’s absolute terror it seems to be coming from him. It seeps from his head, across his torso down into to the floor. Drip, drip, drip. Dripping from the fingertips of his outstretched arm.

She swallows hard, her heart beating out of her chest, and creeps towards Mr. Lacey. William follows her reluctantly. “Excuse me, Mr. Lacey? My name is Norah Fleetw—”

The word dies on her tongue. Because when she circles around him, getting a good view of the front of his body, she sees it. Illuminated in the glow of William’s flashlight, she sees Mr. Lacey’s face, skin hard and shiny, almost crystalized. And she sees the hole. Right in the middle of his forehead is a large hole with jagged edges. And past it, nothing. No brain matter, eyeballs, not even a skull. The husk that was once Mr. Lacey seems to be hollowed out completely and instead of anything resembling normal human anatomy there is only the substance. It pools in Mr. Lacey’s head and flows out of him in a steady, sickening stream.

Norah yelps and takes a few staggering steps back. The heels of her feet bump against something. She flails her arms around wildly, trying in vain not to lose her balance, landing on the floor with a loud thump. She’s on her hands and knees, covered in the substance she fell into. When she looks back to see what she stumbled into, she sees William doubled over on the floor behind her. He holding his stomach, throwing up what little food he had had today.

“Will!”, she exclaims and crawls over to him, laying an orange liquid coated hand on his shoulder. She can’t help it.

He looks up at her with a panicked expression. Sweat rolls down his forehead and he’s breathing hard. “Norah”, he squeezes out. Then his expression slips. He looks even more mortified than before. “This can’t happen to­— Oh my god. My mom, she’s—”

Norah’s eyes widen. She gets up on her feet, yanks Will with her and starts sprinting, down the stairs, through the hallway. They burst through the front door and it slams closed behind them with a loud bang. Norah and Will pay it no mind, too overwhelmed by their flight instincts. It’s the only option. This is nothing a human knows to deal with by fighting, so they run as fast as they can back to the Wisp home. When they arrive, both of them double over, desperately gasping for air. The rush of fear and from going zero to 100, running for their life is a combination they have tasted before, but it seems they can never get used to it. It just never gets easier.

Will’s hands are shaking too much to open the door so Norah, whose hands shake just the slightest bit less, takes the key from Will, manages to fumble it into the keyhole and unlocks it. She opens the door, but then she sees a splatter of the orange substance on it. Her heart drops for a second. She looks down at her hands to find them still covered in it and realizes that it was probably her who left the gooey, orange mark. Yet she urges William inside to see his mother.

They can’t be careful enough now that they have seen the catastrophic end stage of this sickness. They don’t know how fast it advances. They don’t even know how it can be stopped. Or if it can be stopped. Maybe it’s already too late. The thought crosses Norah’s mind, an unwanted intruder on her already weakened mental constitution. It makes her feel nauseous. No, she tells herself before she can spiral deeper, no illness can advance this devastatingly fast. Sure, they got a little sidetracked and spent a little longer getting the medicine back to Mrs. Wisp, but going from feverish to full hole in the face, leaking alien substances doesn’t happen within an hour or so. Or does it? This is not a regular illness after all, this is clearly something paranormal. A shiver runs down her spine and she tries shaking it off like a dog shaking the water out of its fur after going for a swim.

Additionally, Norah digs her hands into the pockets of her cardigan. Maybe she’s going to find something to play around with, to ease her mind. What she finds is the small pouch she keeps her medication in, just in case she needs it. Her fingers close around it and she feels the cylindrical shape of the bottle she keeps her pills in against her palm. For a second she considers taking another Abilify. Maybe it would make these terrible thoughts go away, but she reminds herself that she’s already had her daily pill alongside breakfast. She chastises herself for even thinking of it. How could she? Her parents made it very clear that this is not a medication to be taken in acute cases and strongly warned against taking more than her arranged dosage. She frowns and goes through her mental catalogue of other things in her pouch that could help. Lactase tablets, no. Ibuprofen, no. The next best thing she lands on is Dramamine for the nausea induced by seeing what has become of Mr. Lacey. She decides to take one after making sure that William’s mom is okay.

By the time she has come to her decision William has already taken off his shoes and is now looking at her expectantly. It snaps her out of her thoughts and she apologizes swiftly. She kicks off her loafers and follows William to the living room.

They find Mrs. Wisp on the couch where they left her. She is lying on her side facing the TV, which is currently showing an ad for some sort of cruise ship holiday. Her eyes are closed and she taking slow, ragged breaths through her mouth, clearly having dozed off during the time the kids were away. William just looks at her for a moment. The normal, domestic scene presented before him being violently disrupted by what he has learned in the last hour.

He walks over to the couch and gently touches her forehead again. It burns. William jerks his hand away like he’s just touched a hot stovetop. He hisses and shakes his hand instinctively. His face transforms into a grimace of pain, then looks over to Norah who doesn’t look better. In fact, she looks like she’s on the verge of a panic attack. Seeing her reaction sends a stabbing sensation through his chest and he tries to wrangle his expression back to just regular concern for her sake and for his mothers.

He goes to touch his mother’s shoulder to wake her and just in time she starts stirring. Mrs. Wisp groans and squints her eyes at the vague shape in the form of her son. “William?”, she slurs and struggles to sit up straight. William goes to help stabilize her. “You’re back.”

“Yeah, Mom”, he says. “Are you okay?”

His mother doesn’t answer the question. Instead she forces her eyes open and gives William and Norah a scrutinizing once over. “Where have you been?”, she asks, furrowing her brow.

The both of them follow her gaze, look down at themselves and then at each other. They look insane. Sweat beads on their foreheads, hair sticking to their skin and a crazed look in their eyes. Their clothes are rumpled from running as much as they did and there are leftovers of their hiding place in the bush clinging to them. And as if that wasn’t enough Norah’s hands are still covered in the orange substance, her skirt is stained as well and William has a gooey handprint on his hoodies shoulder from where Norah had touched him.

Will squirms uncomfortably and clears his throat. “Some things came up”, he tries explaining away their terrible conditions and the fact that it took them way over an hour to got to the corner store, but his mom looks unconvinced.

“Some things came up”, she repeats skeptically. “William. Lord.” She sounds exhausted even though she had just slept.

“Yes, but we have your medicine”, Will says and pulls it out of his ruined hoodies front pocket. He opens up a box for his mother and hands her a pill. She takes it in hands and goes to swallow it dry before Will stops her, saying they’ll get her a glass of water.

“Would you get me a towel and put some cold water on it, too? Please”, she says and William nods vigorously. He takes a glace at Norah, who is already looking at him. They leave the room and Norah heads straight for the bathroom. Will grabs her by the wrist, stopping her in her tracks. She turns around, wide eyed.

“Is everything okay?”, he asks, barely above a whisper.

Norah looks like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing. “Yeah”, she says, sounding breathless and unsure. Her hands wander into her cardigans pockets. “I was just going to…” She looks towards the bathroom door.

“You want to prepare the towel now?”

She nods slightly.

“Okay. I’m going to go look something up on the computer. There needs to be something we can use to kill these bugs.”

Norah raises an eyebrow. “You mean like Raid?”

“No, like. Something that we can give to my mom. Like medicine.”

“Ivermectin.”

“What?”

“Ivermectin. It’s used to treat parasitic infections. It hurts the parasite, but not the human. Why?”

William stares at her without saying a word.

“You think the bugs are causing the illness? The cockroaches?”, Norah asks and Will averts his eyes reflexively. In that moment he feels impossibly stupid. Maybe he did take a few leaps in logic coming up with this theory, but he really felt like he had something there. He sheepishly looks back up at Norah and finds her looking puzzled. But not in a mocking way, she looks to be genuinely interested in his insight. Will sighs in relief. His guard and his tensed shoulders lower a bit and he starts explaining.

“Um. I thought that the bugs have to be connected with the case in some way. It’s not normal to see that many of them in one spot, let alone working with such coordination. And the fact that they all came rushing out of Mr. Lacey’s house after what happened to him is very suspicious, like they left after finishing the job. We don’t know what his symptoms were before it did, but I think it’s fair to assume that everyone we met so far that’s sick has the same illness as him.”

Norah nods. Same symptoms across the board, though at different stages and at different intensities.

William continues. “I can’t imagine anything worse than what happened to Mr. Lacey, so I think that that is the end stage of the illness. What’s waiting for everyone else if we don’t do something. It was his insides that were all messed up so I think something must have crawled inside him and did that.”

“Okay...”, Norah says, seemingly following, but there is still a little skepticism in her tone. “They looked like normal cockroaches to me. Even if they were paranormal, you think cockroaches do can that to someone?” The memory sends a cold shiver down their spines.

“Maybe it’s not the cockroaches hollowing you out and turning your insides into soup”, William says, “they could be the messengers. I thought they maybe carry parasites and they can give them to humans or something. And then the parasites do that? Ugh, I don’t know a lot about parasitology or bugs, I’m making stupid guesses.” And despite him feeling less and less confident the more he tried to explain himself, Norah started nodding along.

“I don’t know much either. I don’t like to study bugs”, she says. “Have you seen a lot of them around your place lately?”, she asks hesitantly and William doesn’t like what she’s implying, but he has to face it.

“I don’t know. Maybe. They were just at Mr. Lacey's and he doesn’t live far away. They would have had enough time to come here while we were out.” His stomach turns. “What if the bugs were already here and put the parasites in my mom?”

“Then we should try Ivermectin”, Norah says gravely. “I don’t carry it with me and I am not sure my parents have it at home. We could ask at the hospital? Or we could go back to the convenience store.” She cringes at her own suggestion as soon as it leaves her mouth. William does too.

“I don’t think we should show our faces at the convenience store anymore today”, he says and Norah shakes her head slowly. It was a silly idea. “And the hospital is too far away. This seems to progress super quickly”, he continues, his tone getting more desperate. They needed to do something, and fast. But with no medication at hand and no way of making it to the hospital other than on foot, it feels hopeless. Still he racks his brain, not wanting to let his mother’s illness progress any further while idly standing by and not trying anything to help except ease her symptoms. But he ultimately comes up short. If this only was a ghost infestation or something else he was more familiar with, then he’d have an easier time figuring out what to do. Not this maybe bugs, maybe parasites shit. He groans in frustration.

“Is there something else we can do for her now? Without bug medicine?”

“Parasites or bugs usually don’t like cold temperatures. It slows them down”, Norah supplies.

“So if there’s already bugs or parasites producing that weird, orange goop inside of my mom, then we could slow the progression by lowering her temperature. What are you suggesting, cold water, a cold shower maybe?”, Will asks, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

Norah thinks for a second. “Yes, cold water to drink. Air conditioning. Do you have ice packs we could put on her?”

“Ice packs, yes, of course!”, William exclaims and takes off towards the kitchen. Norah follows, quick on her feet.

In the kitchen Will is already pulling two large ice packs out of the freezer and wraps them up in towels. He hears the tab running, assuming Norah is preparing the glass of water.

“Do you think we’ll still need the wet towel?”, she asks.

William turns around, seeing Norah dry off her hands with a tissue. Next to her on the counter are two huge glasses of water, one filled to the point of almost spilling over.

He holds up the ice packs. “I think these should be fine”, he says. “What's the second glass for?”

She lays her arms across her stomach and hesitates a second before speaking up. “Um, I was just going to take a Dramamine. For nausea.”

Will fiddles with the ice packs in his hands. “Can I, uh...”, he asks, awkwardly gesturing towards her and then to himself. “Just in case I have to... y’know again.”

“Of course”, Norah says. She digs in her pockets and produces a small pouch. She pulls out a small cylinder with a couple of pills rattling around in it, taking two and offering one to Will, who accepts with a slight smile. Norah puts the pill in her mouth and washes it down taking a sip of water from one of the glasses she poured. She hands it to Will who follows her example. In comparison to her he struggles a bit, taking multiple tries to swallow the thing whole, but it ultimately goes down smoothly. William really hopes it will keep his nervous stomach in check. He hates throwing up, especially in front of people.

They put the used glass into the dishwasher and make their way back into the living room. Mrs. Wisp has once again laid down and is once again not noticing the two teens entering the room. Even when they walk in front of the TV screen and come closer she doesn’t react. William hurries to her side and finds her eyes glazing over. He can barely see her pupils anymore. He drops the ice packs and shakes her by the shoulders.

“Mom!”, he shouts, not attempting to wake her up gently like he’d tried to do before.

She jolts out of her stupor, looking around the room, seemingly disoriented and confused. Will’s heart feels like it’s sinking from how badly his mother’s condition has worsened in such a small amount of time. At the same time he feels a slight surge of hope that she is at least still responsive.

“We know what to do now”, he says, not exactly convinced he believes what he says. Not even sure who he is trying to soothe more, his mom or himself.

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, of course. Take the flu medicine first”, he says and gestures for Norah to hand over the glass of water to his mother, who picks up the pill she previously set down on the couch table and swallows it diligently. “And then”, William continues while picking the ice packs up off the floor. He looks at his mother’s eyes, glazed over and tired, looking down at him and a wave of doubt crashes into him. How can he truly believe that ice packs can help his mom enough, when she is getting worse and worse by the second and the image of Mr. Lacey’s hollowed out corpse won’t leave him alone. If there truly are parasites turning his mom’s insides into orange liquid, he needs to take some drastic measures.

“We’re just going to give you a quick ice bath.” He tries to say it as casually as possible, but no amount of trying to adjust his flat tone can smooth over what an extreme escalation of a suggestion he’d just come up with. Mrs. Wisp looks at him pained and bewildered and even Norah furrows her brow in disapproval.

“Ice bath?”, the both of them say in unison.

“Yeah…”, Will says, panicking a little bit. The immediate negative reaction throws him off balance. He knows he needs to say something really smart in order to convince her. He flails for a second, but then: “The reason we’ve been out so long is because we’ve been talking to Norah’s parents. They were the ones to suggest the bath”, he says, surprised at the speed the lie came to him with. Isaac would be proud, he thinks.

“William, are you sure?” His mom is still skeptical. She really doesn’t want to get up off the comfy couch and get into freezing cold water.

“They said so. Come on, Mom. You’re arguing with doctors now?” He continues talking, looking over to Norah in hopes she would back up his story, but he was mistaken. Her face had grown even more concerned and upset. She is chewing on her bottom lip, looking like she’s considering saying something.

“It could be bad to change her body temperature so quickly”, Norah says hesitantly. “She could go into shock.”

Will cringes. He feels exposed all of a sudden. “At least take these”, he says quickly and pushes the ice packs into his mother’s hands. “One for your forehead and one for your stomach, okay?” She takes them wordlessly and places them on her body like instructed.

“And don’t forget to drink the water while it’s still cold”, Norah adds for good measure.

Will sighs in relief, thankful that his out-there suggestion didn’t completely sour the situation. Thankful that he hadn’t lost Norah’s support. He nods at her, trying to convey his gratitude. She looks back at him, but instead of the encouragement he had hoped to find on her face, he finds a whirlwind of emotions clashing against each other. He struggles identifying all of the individual pieces and it makes Will feel uneasy. But the main one, the emotion he has seen on Norah time and time again, is anxious worry.

“Thank you both”, Mrs. Wisp says. “I’ll be fine now. I’ll rest for a bit, sleep it off.”

“Of course, Mrs. Wisp”, Norah says kindly.

“Would you be so kind and turn the volume down a bit?”, Will’s mother asks and stretches out her arm. She’s pretending to grab for the remote that she left next to the TV, way out of her reach. Will takes the remote and turns the volume down by a couple of clicks.

“Let us know of you need anything else”, Will says and his mother puts on a smile. He does his best to smile back and then turns to leave the room. He feels like fire ants are crawling under his skin every second he is staying in this house and not outside, finding whatever is doing this to his mom and putting a stop to it. He feels anxious to do something, anything, but the worst part is he doesn’t even know where to start. Going to Norah’s parents to inquire more about this illness would most likely not be very helpful, because it seems pretty clearly paranormal. And everything in him is fighting against the idea of once again going back to Mr. Lacey’s house to investigate more. But do they really have a choice?

His mind is racing with increasingly desperate ideas, possible connections, but his thought processes are overridden by the overwhelming need to go outside. He steers Norah towards the front door, puts his shoes on and is about to storm out. This time it’s Norah’s hand on his sleeve that stops him. He spins around.

Norah looks small. Her shoulders are slightly hunched and she’s avoiding his eyes. Her lips look raw and there are visible indents from how much she’s been biting them. “Will”, she starts, her voice wavering slightly. She pushes through it. “Please don’t say stuff like that about my parents again.”

Will is about to open his mouth to say something, but Norah continues, words spilling out of her mouth like a waterfall.

“You know, it’s bad to lie to your mom. And­­— And especially about what a doctor recommended. Something could have happened to your mom and to my parents. If someone found out and thinks my parents told your mom such dangerous advice…” She starts breathing heavily and her shoulders shake. She hasn’t let go of his sleeve.

Will feels the other shoe drop in real time. “Norah, oh my god”, he says and her head snaps up, finally making eye contact. Her eyes are swimming, tears starting to gather in the corners. He gasps and goes to hug her, freezing in the middle of the motion. He pulls his arms back and clears his throat awkwardly.

“Norah, I’m so sorry”, he says, not knowing where to put his hands. “I was just­— I thought the ice packs wouldn’t do anything. Look how fast my mom got worse, I thought I had to take it a step further. I panicked.” He squeezes his eyes shut. It stings. “I was so worried and felt like I had to convince her to get into that bath no matter what. And your parents are doctors and I thought she wouldn’t listen to me if I didn’t­—” Will chokes up. He feels so stupid.

He feels a tug on his sleeve. Norah wipes away her tears and with a slightly steadier voice she says: “It’s okay. You were worried about your mom.” She sniffles a bit and frowns, continuing, “but it could have gone very badly. Don’t do stuff like that, please.”

“I won’t, I promise”, he assures her quickly. “You’re right, I’m sorry.” He smiles a crooked, nervous smile. “Thank you for being there. And for stopping me from doing stupid stuff. I appreciate that so much.”

Norah sobs and Will’s heart stops for a second, thinking he messed it all up again. But then she grabs his arm tighter and pulls him into a hug. He freezes again, not daring to move a muscle. Norah’s forehead rests against his shoulder, where the orange liquid is still staining his hoodie, but she doesn’t seem to notice. He feels her hot breath against his chest. She mumbles something incomprehensible into the fabric and he hesitantly raises his other arm, reaching towards her hair. He gently pulls out a leaf of the bush that stuck to her particularly stubbornly. Then he takes a deep breath in, gathers all of his courage and strokes her hair carefully.

They stay like this for a moment, and William becomes more and more nervous, hoping, praying even that Norah doesn’t notice the way his heart is hammering against his rib cage. Eventually she removes herself from his arms. She snorts and wipes across her face with the sleeve of her cardigan.

“Needs a wash anyways”, she jokes and looks at Will, who’s face is beet red. Her eyes widen and heat rises to her face as well.

“We should probably go”, Will says, panicking. He feels caught.

“Yeah”, Norah agrees breathlessly. She slips on her shoes and just a second later they stumble through the Wisp home’s front door onto the street.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

Isaac lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling. The sound of some rock bands front man angrily singing about how the world has betrayed and abandoned him coming out of the speakers of his CD player. He’d been trapped in here all day since his window was screwed shut and his father had threatened him not to try leaving the house again. Yet the itch persisted. Isaac knew not to try again too soon, but he knew he’d try eventually, biding his time until the moment came.

One time, when he got too bored of just lazing around he went to his computer, trying to be helpful to his friends, even if he couldn’t be outside with them. He tried finding something related to the symptoms Will’s mother was experiencing on the web. He was thinking back to what William said about the doctor at the convenience store, about how something was off and that judging by the doctor’s strange behavior, this clearly wasn’t an ordinary stomach bug. So Isaac typed in “weird smells”, “lethargy”, “pale skin”, thinking there must be at least one niche forum where people make their normal illness out to be something supernatural. And maybe, among those most likely hopelessly deluded people there is one account of something believable, something similar as what the town is experiencing now. But in the end he doesn’t find that one person, he doesn’t even find the niche forum he was hoping for. All the internet (and by the internet he means countless WebMD results) tells him is that everyone in Deadwood has cancer and is doomed. After that enlightening moment of research he went straight back to his bed, feeling useless and a little scared. Maybe those people on WebMD were onto something after all.

The day goes on and the light coming in through Isaac’s window becomes more and more sparse, as the urge to sneak out becomes almost unbearable. He looks to the alarm clock standing on his nightstand to check the time. Eleven minutes past 5 PM. A couple of seconds later the time jumps to 12 minutes. He sits up, walks over to his CD player and turns the volume down. Only then does he hear a door close down the hallway, the shower turning on in the bathroom and after a few minutes the hairdryer going off. All telltale signs of his father getting ready to go to bed. Isaac waits, breathless and with his ear pressed to the door until his father has finished his blue collar man routine and retreated to his bedroom indicated by an all too familiar sound of the door to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks bedroom getting pulled shut behind him.

Not wasting a second, Isaac grabs a jacket off the floor and slips out through his bedroom door. He shuts it as quietly as he can and starts sneaking down the stairs, light on his feet. As he inches closer to the ground floor he hears faint noises, the tap running, dishes clanking. When he reaches the kitchen his suspicions are confirmed. The rest of his family had just finished eating dinner and his mother is now cleaning up, putting leftovers into containers in the fridge and preparing to wash the dishes. She is solitarily humming along to an old pop song on the radio.

Isaac has run into this problem many times before. The layout of the house is unforgiving towards his tendency to sneak out, having him go to through the kitchen and the living room in order to make it to the front door, although he reckons his mom is distracted enough for him to sneak past her with relative ease. Today the thought pains him. He watches her work for a moment, thinking about her watery eyes and makes a decision. He is going to disappoint her again, but he at least wants to soften the blow. She’s put him through a lot today, through her inaction, through her silent complicity, but so has he and it pains him that they seem to be stuck in this loop, unable to change for the better.

He walks up behind her and grabs a towel. “Hey ma, let me help you with the dishes quickly”, he says, taking a plate from the drying rack and beginning to work on it diligently.

His mother doesn’t answer him, she doesn’t protest against his help either. She lets him dry off a couple of plates and stack them up on the counter before saying anything to him.

“How was your day?”, she asks quietly, keeping her eyes trained on her hands cleaning the dishes. The attempt at casual conversation feels so wrong and so loaded it makes Isaac grimace uncomfortably. He doesn’t say anything back. In the background the radio is still on, filling the silence with the soft vocals and guitar strings of an indie ballad.

“You were hanging out with William and Lui and them?” Mrs. Brooks asks another question, desperately trying to create a sense of normalcy, of a peaceful household. It’s a helpless endeavour.

“Lui is out of town. I was with Will and Norah””, Isaac says, gently correcting her. “We were going to get medicine for Will’s mom when the cop—” He pauses. “The officer was just having a bad day and he took it out on me. I’m really not trying to get into trouble.”

An unreadable “Mhm” is the only response he gets.

Isaac’s heart rate picks up, he raises his volume a little bit. “I’m telling the truth, ma. You know that.”

His mom turns to him for the first time during this conversation. She looks him in the eyes and Isaac sees that hers are filling with tears again. Isaac feels like someone punched the air out of him.

“I believe you”, she says shakily. “Please just always come home.”

It sends a dagger straight through his heart and for a brief moment he questions his entire plan. He is almost giving up on making it out of the house, staying put instead just to avoid hurting his mom any further, to not make her tears fall. Almost.

He puts a hand on her arm. “You know I will”, he says putting conviction in his voice he isn’t even sure he’s feeling at the moment. “But I really need to go out.” He finishes the sentence, squeezing his mom’s arm.

She pauses her movements, stops washing the dishes. Her eyes widen.

“It’s just. Like over to William’s place”, he clarifies hurriedly, but something else quickly takes over his attention.

His mother’s eyes are empty, glossed over and she seems far away like she did when Officer Donalds dropped Isaac off in front of his parents feet earlier. It reminds Isaac of something else too. He’s seen this same glossy eyed, dazed expression on Janice as well, when he was talking to her at the convenience store. Both of them seem to still have their wits about them, but something feels off. And if their illness really was the same one that has Will’s mother too weak to drive to the store herself, then he knows what was likely in store for both women soon. He needs to do something about this. And quick.

“Are you okay, ma?”, he says alarmed.

“You’re staying with William? Is that right?”, she asks, instead of answering his question.

“Yes”, Isaac promises hastily. “I’ll be with him. We just have some stuff that—”

His mom sniffles.

“I don’t feel like I can even tell you no. It doesn’t even matter what I say. I don’t know what to do anymore”, she confesses and Isaac feels his insides twist up. He doesn’t know what to do either. So he takes his mom in his arms and lets her rest her head against his shoulder. They don’t stay like this for long.

“I need to…”, he mumbles, hesitating saying it out loud.

His mother grabs his head, gives him a kiss on the forehead and then releases him. Isaac just stands there for a second, frozen and unsure if it was okay for him to move again. He waits for a sign from his mom, maybe a permission that he knows won’t come. She wouldn’t go against his father’s direct order for him to stay in the house, forever a passive bystander. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the bitterness spreading in his mind and body.

“Love you, Mom”, he says and he means it.

She looks at him sadly. “I love you, too.”

Then she turns back around to the sink, letting the water run down the drain and drying off her hands on a towel. Isaac leaves her there. When he reaches the front door he puts his shoes back on, zips up his jacket and looks towards the kitchen. The lights are turned off now, and there’s no noise coming from the radio anymore. It’s dead silent as he sees his mother walk off in the other direction, heading for the stairs. Her back is turned towards her son. She doesn’t look back.

Isaac slips out of the front door and closes it behind him with a quiet click. He jogs towards the Wisp home just across the street from his house. He’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice Norah and William tumbling out of the door right as he walks up to it to ring the doorbell. They stumble into each other and someone yelps loudly.

“Isaac!”, Will and Norah say at the same time as they recognize him.

“How are you feeling?”, Will asks and looks at him suspiciously.

“Great”, Isaac says, raising an eyebrow. He’s not enjoying the sudden scrutiny. “You know, besides the pretty shit day I’ve had.”

Will and Norah sigh in what Isaac assumes is relief and look at each other meaningfully. It only confuses him more. He stares at them. They look disheveled and flustered, their faces are flushed.

“What happened with you guys?”, he asks, turning the suspicious glance around on them.

Norah only blushes further and William looks to the ground, his bangs falling in front of his face, covering up any expression he could be making. None of them say a word. The silence stretches on and on until Isaac goes: “Right” at the same time as Norah pipes up and asks how his mother is doing.

“Good, I think.”

“She doesn’t have a fever or anything?”

He thinks for a second. Her skin felt like it was of a normal temperature where they’d hugged. “No fever”, he says, “but her eyes were glazing over. A bit like Janice earlier.” William inhales sharply at that. “And after she kissed me on the forehead she went to sleep early. So tiredness and lethargy, maybe.”

William is suddenly very alarmed. “She kissed you on the forehead?”

Norah leans over to him and whispers. “I don’t think that’s how it travels.”

“How what travels?”, Isaac asks, feeling excluded somehow.

William and Norah look at each other again, exchanging charged looks and Isaac feels himself growing more irritated by their strange behavior. He has been stuck in his room all day, while his friends were out investigating a mystery, obviously gaining knowledge he isn’t privy to and now they won’t even say anything. He opens his mouth to make his frustration known, because it’s really unfair that—

“It’s bugs!” Norah just comes out with it, eyes wide in terror. She tries to whisper, but she says it with such intensity that it comes out as more of a hiss.

Isaac is stunned into silence. “What?”, is the only word he feels like he can say.

“Yes, bugs”, Norah confirms at a normal volume now. “We went to Mr. Lacey’s house and we saw them leave just after they…” She drifts off, clearly remembering something she hesitates to put into words. It worries Isaac immensely, but he urges her to continue anyways. He needs to know so they can all be on the same page.

For the next few minutes Norah and William take turns explaining what they experienced during the past hours. The first encounter at Mr. Lacey’s house, the swarm of bugs fleeing the scene, the disappointing chase in the forest. Then the terrible discovery of what was left of Mr. Lacey, Mrs. Wisp’s rapidly decreasing health. Isaac listens with increasing concern and when Will and Norah finish recounting their experiences, he takes a moment to take it in and process the sheer amount of bad news he’s just been told. His mother’s tired face appears in his mind. Her defeated attitude and glazed over eyes.

“And you’re sure everyone has this sickness? It’s the same one my mom has?”

Will nods gravely. “Everyone shares the same symptoms. And further than that everyone shares a connection to the church or religion in general”, he says. “I mean there’s really no way around it now. Mr. Lacey, my mom, your mom, everyone we ran into earlier when service ended. We don’t know what Janice’s connection is, but the evidence is convincing even without her.”

“Shit”, Isaac says. “What does that have to do with the bugs though?”

“Since Mr. Lacey’s insides were liquified, Will thought that there must be something that was put inside of him for that to happen”, Norah explains. “The theory was that the bugs put parasites into him.”

Having it laid out again out loud, William looks skeptical. “I don’t know”, he says, furrowing his brow. “We saw the bugs leaving, followed them for a while and when we came back Mr. Lacey was already completely hollowed out. There’s no way it could happen that fast. Something doesn’t add up.”

“What if the parasites had already been inside of him?”, Norah suggests. “Like if they weren’t brought in by the bugs, but instead they were in something he ingested earlier.”

“Like food?”, Isaac asks and Norah shrugs.

William breathes in sharply and both Norah and Isaac turn their heads towards him. His face is already pale to begin with, but it seems like all color had been drained from it now. He looks white as a sheet of paper.

“I think it’s the communion”, he says, barely sounding like himself.

Norah’s jaw drops. “The body of Christ.”

“The blood too”, Isaac says.

“Think about it”, William says. “Everyone goes to church, they all eat the bread and drink the wine, they all ingest the parasites and all of them come out sick.”

Isaac nods. “That makes a lot of sense”, he says, “but that brings up the question about the bugs again.”

“Fuck the bugs!”, William curses loudly and Norah gasps at his sudden outburst. Even Isaac raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Sorry. The bugs don’t matter right now. I think we need to go and investigate the church right now.”

Norah frowns. “It’s still just a theory”, she says quietly. “I feel like we should find a way to confirm it first before we run into a dead end again. We’ve already lost too much time”, Norah says and William cringes, still visibly feeling guilty for leading them astray in the forest. “Sorry”, Norah mumbles.

“It’s the best theory we have right now. And the only one”, William says, frustration evident in his voice and in his demeanor.

“We could ask around if people went to church today, if they participated in the communion and if they’re feeling sick at all”, Isaac suggests. “We just walk towards the church and ring a couple of doorbells on the way.”

“Can we also make a quick stop at my house?”, Norah asks. “I still have to talk to my parents and tell them about what happened at the convenience store.”

“And how does that equate to not wasting time?”, Will asks bitterly.

Norah shrinks a bit at the pushback, but she holds her own. “My house is also on the way to church. And I wouldn’t just tell my parents about earlier, I also said I would ask them about the Ivermectin for your mom, remember?”

That seems to take the wind out of William's sails. He deflates slightly. “Right”, he says. “Sorry. I’m just… Yeah, let’s do that.” He sheepishly gestures for them to go ahead.

Norah steps past him, Isaac and Will follow. They walk down the street Will and Isaac live on and then turn to the left. They follow the main street with their eyes until they reach the intersection, the road past it to the North and then finally, above the jagged tree tops, their eyes find the Saint John of the Cross church. Today it doesn’t seem to look onto the town in a soothing, protective way. Today it towers ominously over Deadwood, a dark fortress against an even darker sky.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

As the teens travel ever closer to their holy destination, they speak to about ten or so people in total, getting a good variety of age groups and genders. William diligently notes their findings in his notebook. At the first house a younger man in his early thirties opens the door to them. They smile politely and ask him if he believes in god. His face falls and he closes the door in their face, wishing them a good evening anyways. After that unhelpful encounter they decide to change up their strategy. Will suggests not opening the conversation with asking whether the person believes in god or not.

“It sounds too close to Have you heard of the good word?”, he explains. “They’re just going to think we’re mormons.”

“The let’s just say it’s a school project. A census about the prevalence of religion in Deadwood”, Norah suggests.

“Good idea”, Will says, looking toward her encouragingly, trying to make up for the tone he took when talking to her earlier. She gives him a slight smile, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Isaac.

“Then Norah should be in the front”, he says quickly.

“It would make sense”, Norah says. “I do a lot of school projects.”

“And everybody likes you”, Will supplies. Isaac turns around and studies William more closely. Will notices and nervously adds: “Everyone is scared of me or something. If I tried asking the questions nobody would talk to me.”

And so it is settled. Each house they walk up to from this point on they let Norah stand in front, smile at folks in her disarmingly genuine way and ask her questions. And if people seem unconvinced she proudly tells them of her fabulous GPA and rattles off the nothing but positive feedback on her last 12 months worth of report cards. This does the trick most of the time. After all who would question the intentions of such a sweet girl with a 100% attendance score?

What they find is that out of the ten people they interviewed, 9 said they went to church and of those 9, 6 of report that they are feeling sick. All of them said they ate the body and drank the blood. Only one person did not go to church today and they said that they are not sick either. All pretty damning evidence towards the church being the origin of the sickness, and at least solidly indicating the communion specifically. But at this point the investigators decide this is it. They don’t need to spend anymore time trying to further prove or disprove where the sickness and the parasites come from, they need to get into the church and try to find a way to stop this. But before they do that, the last door they knock on before knocking on the church portal, is the door to Norah’s home.

The closer they get to it the more the boys can see Norah getting progressively more nervous. They see her hands starting to shake, see her taking a hair tie from her wrist and fidgeting around with it. She takes a deep breath when they make it to the front gates.

“I’m pretty sure the cop already told them”, Isaac says, as they walk up the Fleetwood home’s driveway. He’s digging at some dirt underneath his fingernails. “It’s been at least three hours.” It was meant to take some weight off Norah’s shoulders, but it seems to do quite the opposite.

Norah grimaces. “Shit.”

William looks shocked. “Did you just swear?”

The front door swings open and their eyes fall upon Norah’s mother, Mrs. Fleetwood standing in the doorway. She is wearing a t-shirt and some loose fitting pants. “Norah, you’re here!”, she says, sounding nothing but happy that her daughter has come home.

“Hi, Mom”, Norah says, squirming in place, not daring to look her in the eyes.

Mrs. Fleetwood eyes Norah and raises and eyebrow at her. “Are you okay, honey?”

“I’m good, yes. Why are you not yelling at me?”

Her mother just smiles to herself. She goes to pull something out of her jeans pocket and holds it up. “About this?”, she says. Norah recognizes it instantly. It’s the IOU they left at the store earlier. The police officer must have given it to Mrs. Fleetwood when he came by to tell her about Norah’s involvement in the situation. Norah squeezes her eyes shut, still anticipating the worst.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you sooner, but we got caught up in something”, she explains sounding panicked.

“It’s okay”, her mom says and lays a hand on her shoulder. The gesture calms her down a bit. “But you know were going to have to punish you.”

Will and Isaac freeze at that and the feeling of guilt seizes them. This has never happened to Norah. Now it would and it was their fault. Isaac wants to jump in and take the blame for the situation, freeing Norah of her involvement.

But Norah’s mother continues, speaking as softly and gently as someone who’s talking to a frightened animal: “I’ll be taking your lizard book for the night.” Norah gasps in shock, while the boys sigh in relief. Isaacfeels especially soothed. If that’s the punishment Norah’s parents dish out then he had nothing to worry about in the first place. At the same time his heart seizes up. It could be so easy, he thinks, looking at Norah’s mother who is now petting her daughter’s hair.

“And you’re not getting it back until you finish the fish book, okay?”

Norah nods, looking unhappy. “I also didn’t have time for flute practice today, we we’re busy—”

“No flute practice either?”

“William’s mom is sick and we had to go up to the convenience store to get her some flu medication and then that’s where…” She doesn’t finish her sentence. “I promise I’ll do extra practice tomorrow, but right now I’ve got to go. There’s this project we are working on.”

“You’re leaving?”, her mother says and for the first time during the conversation her expression darkens a bit. She furrows her brow slightly. “Your father is making meatloaf.”

Just like on cue Mr. Fleetwood joins them at the door. He is wearing a white button up and an apron, that has a couple splatters of red sauce on it. Thick-rimmed glasses sit atop of his nose and he looks at the small group gathered in front of him curiously. “You didn’t tell me there was company!”, he says jovially and loops an arm around his wife’s waist.

“Hi, Dad”, Norah says.

“She’s saying she can’t stay for dinner today”, her mom says and looks to her husband.

“I’m so sorry. Can you put a portion in the fridge for me?”, Norah asks, feeling even worse about the whole situation.

“If it’s for a school project, I suppose we could make an exception”, her mom winks and her dad nods appreciatively.

“What kind of school project, dear?”, he asks.

“About religion.”

“Ah, indeed. I may not be an expert, but if you have questions you can always come to us”, her father says and William’s face lights up.

“We do have questions!”, he says, from behind Norah’s shoulder.

“Well if we’re talking about Christianity, I can tell you that the Catholic church was established in Rome, and it was really the fall of Rome that—”

“It’s a census. Demographics, Dad”, Norah jumps in.

“Oh”, he says.

“Mhm”, says Mrs. Fleetwood.

“Do you go to church? Mom, Dad?”

They shake their heads. “No”, the both of them answer.

Norah turns around and sends a meaningful look to Will and Isaac. Will twitches and gets out his notebook, quickly adding two more lines in the “Not religious/Doesn’t go to church column”.

Mrs. Fleetwood curiously looks past her daughter to Will’s notebook. “Would you like to share your findings with us?”, she asks him with a genuine smile. His eyes widen and he freezes on the spot. He sends a pleading look to Norah, who understands immediately.

“Yes, of course”, Norah says. “I can tell you all about it when I get home later, okay? I’ll color code them. But right now we really have to…” She gestures to the street awkwardly.

“Of course”, her mom says.

Her dad waves them goodbye. “Good luck, sweet pea.”

“One more question”, Norah says hastily. “Do you know if we have Ivermectin at home?”

Her parents look at each other, confused as to where this is coming from. Then they think for a second, before looking back at their daughter. “I don’t think so. Too specific for even our medicine cabinet. If you really need it you could ask at the hospital. We have a parasite and toxicology specialist there, Dr. Madison”, Mrs. Fleetwood says and before she can even open her mouth to ask what Norah would need that specific medication for, Norah has already grabbed the boys by their arms and dragged them halfway down to the street again.

“Okay, thank you, bye!”, Norah shouts towards the house. Her parents sound confused but they send them off with polite goodbyes nonetheless. Will and Isaac barely have the chance to return them. They hear the door close behind them and the light that previously fell through the door and onto the driveway extinguishes. Everything suddenly seems way darker.

“I’m so glad you didn’t do that pass the weed thing you always do”, William says and elbows Isaac in the side.

Isaac grins devilishly. “Damn, how could I forget”, he says, as they walk down the street, back towards the main road. He folds his hands behind his head and looks at the other two expectantly. “So? The to do list is almost finished.”

“I never thought I would say this”, Will sighs, “but let’s go to church.”

✝︎✝︎✝︎

By the time they stand in front of the large, looming wooden doors of the church the sun had already set, not even a few last streaks of blood red sunlight seeping through the dark clouds gathering behind the churches tower. It’s a large construction made out of gray slabs of stone, with a long body, one single bell tower and protruding offshoots for the side chambers to the left and the right of the altar room. The windows are tall and slender and equipped with most gorgeous stained glass art. No light is coming in or out through the windows, making you have to use your colorful imagination to really appreciate their beauty. The only light sources are a few solitary street lights, casting their orange glow into the darkness. And the lantern by the entrance to the small cemetery next to the church. William shudders, not wanting to think about the buried dead right now.

The bell gongs eight times and the teens flinch noticeably. The volume is almost overwhelming, standing this close to the origin and it puts them on edge. It’s 8PM now. They did spend more time than they wanted on their census after all, but at least they were finally here now, standing a bit helplessly in front of the building.

“We can’t just knock on the door”, Will says very matter of factly.

Isaac wonders why, it’s the most direct way to get into the church and start investigating, but Norah interrupts his train of thought before it can really take off.

“We could try walking around the church and you could look inside through the windows. You’ll look and I’ll listen if there’s something suspicious going on inside”, Norah suggests. Will and her nod at each other, completely on the same wavelength again.

“And maybe we’ll even find another, less obvious entrance around the back”, William adds enthusiastically. Norah nods again with a serious, but very obviously excited expression.

“Great! Then I can break us in”, Isaac says and both of their heads snap around to look at him, doubtfully.

“Well, if we have to”, Norah says.

“What’s my job then?”, he asks, feeling undermined. He’s made it out of his house despite the threat of a beating hanging over his head and he still feels like he’s being unhelpful. Like he’s being left out somehow.

“You can keep watch?”, Will proposes. “Someone needs to be my eyes and look out for what’s happening behind me while I look inside.”

“Alright”, Isaac says, slightly appeased. “Which side are we trying first?”

“Left side”, Norah says quickly.

Isaac raises an eyebrow at the speed of her reaction. He looks to the right side of the church, seeing the adjoining cemetery. Okay, nope! he thinks and cocks his head towards the left side of the church, signaling his friends to follow him. They do without a second thought.

Will sneaks close to the wall, pressing his face to the stained glass windows, trying his best to peer inside. Isaac places himself right behind him and keeps an eye on their surroundings, but as they get further away from the street lights their vision gets worse and worse. William can barely see anything and what little he can see is drowned in red light, filtered through the colorful stained glass. And yet before he can pull out his flashlight and shine it into the church, he spots someone. Or something. It’s really not much more than a vaguely human silhouette, standing up from the benches the congregation sits on during mass and moving through the rows. The figure reaches the center aisle, quickly making its way towards the altar. But it doesn’t even look like it’s walking or taking steps at all. The movement is all too smooth to look human, no, it looks more like the figure is floating.

Meanwhile Norah is standing closely behind him. She has her eyes closed and is holding onto Isaac for stability. Her face is scrunched up in concentration. The sounds come to her quickly and easily. Cockroaches, again. Her face contorts further, this time in disgust. She hears their thousands of legs, scuttling, scurrying towards something. Most likely further in the church, as the noises get quieter and quieter as she keeps listening. And then there’s that fabric again. Then, most alarmingly, footsteps. One set of footsteps, one person in the church. The sounds get louder, she imagines the person must be walking towards the front door, but then they get quieter again. Walking back again, Norah thinks, until they come back. She makes confused noise. Why would this person be aimlessly walking up and down the aisle of the church at 8PM. And in almost complete, barely lit, red tinted darkness too? It didn’t make sense.

She opens her eyes and in a hushed voice she announces: “I hear someone.”

“I see someone”, William whispers at the same time.

Norah swallows heavily, then opens her mouth to say something again. “The bugs are in there too. Everything sounds exactly like it did at Mr. Lacey’s.”

William looks terrified, and even Isaac who hasn’t experienced the horrors himself, shares his expression. Cold sweat gathers at his hairline, but he steels himself. They need to keep pushing. “Where exactly in the church is this person?”, he asks his two friends.

Norah pipes up. “The sound of the footsteps indicate that they’re walking back and forth, like nervous pacing.” She closes her eyes and listens closely again. Isaac unintentionally holds his breath, not wanting to disrupt her listening in any way.

“Currently walking towards the front, towards the door”, she says finally.

Isaac’s eyebrows rise. “Let’s check for a back entrance then. We can sneak in unnoticed while their back is turned.”

Everyone agrees wordlessly and the investigators sneak alongside the churches outer wall towards the back. After a few steps they come upon a fence that cuts them off from their desired destination. William curses under his breath, feeling defeated, but Isaac doesn’t hesitate a second. He takes a few steps back, gathering momentum and goes for it. He leaps onto the fence, gripping tightly and climbs the last few inches he needs to make it across. A moment later his feet hit the muddy ground on the other side of the fence. He bounces off the ground, finds his footing and turns around to his friends with a large grin on his face.

Norah stares at him open mouthed, before a smile starts spreading on her lips as well. Still she doesn’t attempt the same physical feat Isaac just executed. She approaches the fence at a slower pace and with a more analytical look. Then she hooks her foot into it and begins the climb, finding more safe steps along the way. She struggles for a second and Isaac is by her side at an instant, thrusting his hands through the holes in the fence and using them to form a platform for Norah to set her foot on. When she does he pushes her upwards and she also makes it across to the other side.

Now it’s just William staring at the both of them, looking troubled. He walks towards them hesitantly, eyeing the same route Norah took before him. He takes the first step exactly like she did, places his hand overhead like she did and lifts his other leg up to find purchase to heave his body upwards. When he tries putting his foot into a hole in the fence he slips and falls backwards. He holds on instinctively and the fence bends to his direction from the weight. He hears Norah and Isaac yelp distantly. William lets go and returns to the ground on uneasy legs, knocked breathless from the shock.

He looks at his hands. Angry red indents from how hard he held onto the fence look back at him. “Guys, I don’t know if I can…” He doesn’t want to look them in the eyes.

“That’s okay”, Norah soothes, sounding concerned herself.

“We can look around the perimeter ourselves”, Isaac says and William’s face falters.

“It might take a moment. I’m pretty sure the person in the church had enough time to turn around and go to the back”, Norah notes. “You could wait here for us.”

“We don’t have that much time. If the front is be free again…” Isaac thinks out loud, looking at William while he does. “You could—”

“I’m not going into this church alone!”, William hisses loudly. He looks sick even at the suggestion.

“Okay man, geez”, Isaac says. “I could come with you then”, he offers not entirely selflessly. He’s not going to get sidelined again. He looks to Norah standing beside him. “You’re sneaky, right?”

Norah nods. “I could look around the back by myself”, she says.

William doesn’t look convinced. He opens his mouth in protest, but Norah seems dead set on her task. “But if you hear anything suspicious, if you hear any bugs you run, okay?”, he says instead.

“Mhm”, Norah affirms.

“We’ll check if the front door is open, sneak in if it is. And you’ll check for a backdoor and do the same. The guy in there won’t see all of us coming”, Isaac sums up the plan and everybody agrees to it, though at different levels of enthusiasm. He jumps the fence again, back to William’s side and pats him on the back encouragingly. He looks at Norah and nods at her too. She presses her lips together and turns to go towards the back area, while the boys walk towards the front of the church, whispering to each other intelligibly.

Norah moves closely to the churches outer wall. With her back to the wall she sneaks closer to the corner on the backside, inch by inch, careful not to make a single sound. Even her flat breaths sounds too loud, ringing in her ears. When she reaches the backside of the church after what feels like hours, she looks around the corner. No suspicious bug activity or mysterious pacing figures. Instead she sees a weathered staircase, four steps at maximum, leading up to a small offshoot, presumably a back chamber for the priest. Above thestaircase hangs a light fixture, dipping a small radius of the surrounding area in its flickering orange light. Norah takes a breath and walks towards it, wondering if she’s walking right into a trap. Images of the deep sea fish in the book she’s currently studying come to mind. Terrifying creatures that lure in their prey with a glowing light dangling right in front of their sharp toothed maw. She stands in front of the steps and looks up to a wooden door with an ornately decorated doorknob. The images don’t leave her alone, almost leaving her paralyzed in fear, but she ascends the steps anyways, determined to push through. The doorknob feels cold and heavy in her hand and she tries turning it. It moves slightly, but then jams. The mechanism inside the lock doesn’t let her proceed. At least it didn’t groan or creak loudly, she thinks, trying to make the best of the situation.

Then she hears it. The steps inside the church are approaching. Norah gasps and immediately slaps her hand in front of her mouth. She had been too loud after all and drew the persons attention. She hears steps coming closer and closer. Her heart almost beats out of her chest, imagining the door open and a dark figure finding her trying to get into its sanctuary. Norah doesn’t hesitate for long and takes off towards the fence. The muddy ground gives way under her feet and she almost slips and falls when she runs around the corner. But she steadies herself, gets up and presses herself against the wall of the church. When she spots the boys at the other end of the church, she gestures wildly at them, trying to convey that the front is clear. “Go!”, she mouths, not daring to make a sound.

The boys spring into action and weasel around the corner, disappearing from her vision entirely. She breathes out as quietly as she can and peers around the corner. Nothing, the door remains unopened. She focuses again on the sounds around her. It’s the footsteps too, that indicate that the person inside the church has not reached the back of the church and will take another moment until they turn around to walk the aisle to the front door again. It wouldn’t take the person too long though, she thinks and starts moving towards the front of the church. They could turn around before Isaac and William made it in, or God forbid, the person could catch them while trying to sneak in. Norah needs to be there to warn them.

✝︎✝︎✝︎

After Isaac and William see Norah’s sign they make it to the front door in no time. Will grabs the door handle wordlessly, holds his breath and presses it down slowly. Not locked, he thinks, noting his considerable luckiness. Then the door handle creaks, loudly complaining at the movement. It almost sounds in pain. William’s hand shoots back as if burnt. He curses under his breath and both boys run off into close by bushes in case the person inside is coming to investigate the disturbance outside. If the door handle is already making this much noise, William didn’t want to imagine what a racket opening the whole wooden door would cause.

“I thought the church would have enough money to afford some WD-40”, Isaac jokes and William snorts against his will. His heart would have given out ten times over if he was alone and had no one more worried than him to look after, or in Isaac’s case, no one to lighten the mood with an otherwise poorly timed joke. Will smiles, but shushes Isaac anyways. He grins raises an eyebrow at Will challengingly.

“So no front door?”, he says and Will shakes his head. “What about that window?”, he suggests, pointing towards a stained glass window on the front of the church, just a couple feet away from the door.

William squints, trying to find better options than just smashing the window and climbing in. That would be too loud too after all. If that’s on the table they might as well just walk in through the front, creaky door and all, and loudly greet the figure inside too, he thinks sarcastically. Then he spots hints of a window opening mechanism. It seems likely that the window could be propped open from the outside if one had a suction cup or something similar to pull it into position. And maybe they could open it enough for one of them to slip in, then help the other one get there as well. Will’s mind is racing, creating scenarios upon scenarios on how this could work. He starts telling Isaac about them and the words come spilling out of his mouth like a waterfall.

Isaac stops him. He holds out his hand. “I’ve got this Gorilla Glue”, he says and William looks at him quizzically.

“And what are you going to do with it, Isaac?”, he says tensely.

“I was going to put it on my…” Isaac looks to William who’s stare has turned bewildered and genuinely concerned. “Hmmm”, Isaac says. He suddenly doesn’t feel like ending his sentence.

He thinks for a moment, then finally: “We could build a pulley system or something. We take a big stick, glue it to the window and then pull hard.”

All the worry leaves William’s face and his eyes practically start glowing. “Good idea!”, he says maybe a little too loudly, too unstealthily. His enthusiastic praise makes Isaac grin widely and he excitedly opens the cap of the glue before they have even started looking for a fitting stick. Fortunately it doesn’t take too long. Closer to the forest there are even more tree branches covering the ground and the boys find one that would work well as a lever in no time.

They make their way over to their mark. Isaac puts the stick up to the window and nods. He proceeds to try and squeeze some of the Gorilla Glue onto it. Nothing happens. Must be a little dried up, he thinks, but he doesn’t give up. He only squeezes harder and suddenly the glue is all over his hands. The stick falls to the ground with a dull thud.

“Shit”, Will curses. He fumbles with one of his hoodies sleeves, pulling it over his fingers. “Isaac, you need to wipe that off now”, he says and goes to clean it off Isaac’s hands before he does anything stupid, but it’s already too late.

To Isaac this is all too convenient. He has already stuck his hands to the window. If the glue is already on his fingers he might as well make the best of it. He doesn’t even need a lever, he can become the lever. He feels confident, but William clearly doesn't.

“How do we get you off? Should I give you a tug?”, Will says.

A beat passes. Nobody moves or says anything.

„Dude, I’m sorry, I don’t swing that way“, Isaac finally says, then quieter, “I think.”

William feels heat rise into his cheeks and is about to launch into a thousand apologies and excuses when he sees Isaac starting to widen his stance, starting to crouch down.

“Let me just…”, Isaac says, looking tense like a sprinter just seconds before the starting signal. Gathering momentum.

Will’s eyes widen and he forgets all about his previous misstep. A single panicked thought crosses his mind: He needs to duck now! Like in slow motion he sees Isaac abruptly pull his body backwards, hears thewindow shattering and the red stained glass shards fly through the air as if they were drops of bloods. And Will leaps back into the bush and out of sight again.

Isaac finds himself standing a couple of steps away from the church where the momentum of catapulting himself backwards has sent him. He’s breathing hard. He looks down at his hands. A large pane of the colored glass is still stuck to his hands, some shards stick out of his skin too and in the dim light he can’t really tell where the glass ends and his blood begins. He feels panic rise in his body. His throat feels tight. Still he stands there frozen. And the door to Saint John’s church opens.

It creaks loudly as it does, just as the boys had anticipated. A tall silhouette stands darkly against the sick red shine behind its back. It takes slow, measured steps towards Isaac who staggers back on shaky legs. As the figure moves closer to the street lights, more and more of its features become visible. It seems to be an older man with a long, shaggy, grey beard. He is gaunt, the bones in his face protruding out sharply. He is unmistakably of the cloth, wrapped in a dark robe with the white collar of a man who has devoted his life to God. Still he does not look serene, nor does he have the calming presence of someone who has found their purpose serving Him.

“Are you in need?”, a wispy, deep voice coming from the man’s slim lips asks. He is reaching out a hand towards Isaac, possibly trying for a benevolent, calming gesture, but Isaac feels nothing of the sort. The man’s gnarled fingers remind him more of animal claws than of anything human. He feels like he is about to be touched by death itself.

“Are you the priest?”, he asks breathlessly, while he tries to pry the window off of his fingers as inconspicuously as possible. No success though, the glue holds strong and the priests attention is caught by the incessant squirming.

The priests face doesn’t move an inch, not a single muscle shifts. He has reached Isaac now. “Let me help you with this”, he says and gestures towards his hands. Isaac takes more hesitant steps backwards, not knowing whether to play along and keep up a semi normal facade or to sprint away as fast as possible and immediately reveal that he is onto whatever this creep has going on.

“Come with me, son”, the priest speaks again, more force behind his words now. He puts a hand on Isaac’s back and puts the other one on his shoulder, looming ominously above him from behind his back. His touch is light at first, wanting to gently guide him towards the churches doors, but as soon as he seems to notice Isaac’s reluctance his hands grip onto the boy like a vice. He starts dragging Isaac to the church with a force entirely unexpected of such a frail looking man.

“Hey!”, Isaac complains loudly, but the priest doesn’t listen. Neither does his body. He struggles, trying to pry himself out of the man’s grip, but again to no success. He frantically looks around, trying to spot anything that could help him, trying to locate Will or Norah, but he finds no one. He only has himself to rely on in this moment and he’s been dragged all the way back to the churches door again. Isaac is convinced that if that door closes behind him, there’s no way he’s going to make it out. He’s going to die in the house of God he’s only just escaped from.

Isaac once again looks at his mauled, bloody hands. Anger and desperation rise like bile to his throat. They create something in him that he’s gotten more and more acquainted with lately: defiance. Defiance against the church, against his father who keeps trying to drag him there, against God Himself too. And against this fucking priest who’s for sure going to kill him. He feels sick of everyone pretending they know what’s best for him, forcing their will on him. It feels like fire is coursing through his body, setting him ablaze. So he gathers all of his might and smashes the windowpane still attached to his hands into the priests face.

The hit lands heavily, a loud wet thud echoes through the large hall of the church. Isaac whips around to see that the priest has staggered back a bit and his head is covered in red shards. The grasp he had Isaac in has slightly loosened and Isaac feels a spike of adrenaline at his chances of survival going up. Finally something went remotely right for him. He breathes out heavily, preparing his body for the escape when he feels the presence of the priest approaching again. In the blink of an eye he stands in front of Isaac and forcefully grabs him by the hair, his claws digging painfully into Isaac’s scalp. The priests second hand goes for Isaac’s throat, punching a strangled cough out of him. Isaac sends another desperate look towards the bushes William and him hid in earlier, nothing. The corner Norah was supposed to walk around once finished with her investigation, nothing. Isaac tries to scream for help too, just in case they are in earshot of him, but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a wet gurgle. Tears gather in the corners of his eyes. He angrily tries to blink them away.

Then the hand wanders up to his jaw, forcing his mouth open. Isaac’s eyes widen and through the blur of his tears he sees the priests eyes glaze over. His mouth opens, further than a humans jaw should and to Isaac’s absolute terror he sees rows and rows of razor sharp teeth spiraling into the depths of the dark pit that is this creatures throat. And with a deep gurgle the priest starts vomiting into Isaac’s mouth.

It burns. Isaac screams as if hot lava were being poured directly into his throat. He can almost hear his gullet sizzle when he reflexively swallows the substance. In a panic he trashes around wildly, trying desperately to wrench himself out of this monsters grasp. It’s just enough to turn his head to the side and close his mouth before more of the stuff can travel down into his gut. He gags and throws up the rest of it. It lands on the floor with a splattering noise and when he looks down his heart almost stops. He recognizes this stuff. Horrible, bright orange, liquid with little bits in it. Exactly like the substance that Will and Norah told him was seeping out of Mr. Lacey’s corpse. They even showed him its residue on their clothes. And he had just swallowed it. He feels sick.

Then, out of the corner of his eye Isaac sees movement in the bushes. His head whips around to see William jump out of the foliage and attempt to run towards his friend in need. Isaac sends a pleading look towards him to do something, but Will freezes mid approach. It looks like he was about to say something tocall the priests attention towards him, but the words died on his tongue. Instead he stares at the priests open maw, looking petrified. The priests body starts convulsing and Isaac can hear the gurgling again. William seems to have caught onto what is going to happen.

“Watch out, Isaac!”, he screams.

Isaac turns his head just in time and sees that the priest is preparing to throw up more of the orange substance. Within a split second he raises his hands over his head and uses the window to shield himself against the attack. The liquid splatters on the glass and it overflows down the sides, dripping onto Isaac’s jacket. Isaac gags and wipes his mouth off on his sleeve. Then he pauses. There seems to be the slightest refractory period after the priest has choked up his sickening substance. He didn’t notice it the first time, distracted by William’s appearance, but right now he does. The grip has loosened and the priest seems less perceptive too. Upon this realization Isaac’s body goes into autopilot. His legs go limp, making him fall to the ground abruptly enough to catch the priest off guard. He slips from between his clawed hands onto the muddy ground, wasting no time getting up and making a break for it, sprinting away as fast as he can. He doesn’t even think about what road would lead him to safety the fastest, he just needs to get as far away from this place as possible.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots William running after him at a distance. He’s panting hard. Then he hears another set of footsteps fast approaching. In a panic he whips around to see who’s coming for them. He can see the image already, the priest with his animalistic claws stretched out towards them. On the hunt. Instead he sees Norah, running after them with her skirt in her hands and a face paler than he’s even seen on her. And behind her, lingering in the open doorway of the church stands the dark silhouette of the priest. He hasn’t moved an inch. Isaac feels momentarily relived that he doesn’t seem to want to follow them, but he catches the priests eyes. They are locked on him and it sends a shiver down Isaac’s spine.

Then the figure at the door of the church collapses. The priests dark robe flutters to the floor as if the person inside it was just snapped out of existence. Then Isaac sees a swarm of small creatures emerge from under the robe, scurrying off into the darkness and out of Isaac’s sight. Norah doesn’t look behind her, but eyes widen nonetheless and she shrieks, confirming Isaac’s panicked suspicion. Cockroaches. Fuck, he curses mentally, but he doesn’t slow down.

When they make it back to the main road, to the relative safety of being close to other human beings again, they slow down a bit, but Isaac still sets a pretty fast pace. He has finally decided on a destination: Will’s basement. He signals the others to follow him there.

They have one hell of a debrief ahead of them.