Irene, My dead best friend [Wattys 2015]

Chapter 30.1 : Clarity

Chapter 30.1: Clarity

"Okay...is it going to be painful? Because I don't think I can deal with a lot more of that," I looked down at my leg and up at her, hoping to lighten the situation.

"What? I want you to be serious, Jason. This is very important. Those creatures are very dangerous. You yourself saw from that vision I had, how they tore apart the woman in the forest. They may have the head of a human but they lack all the emotions of one. They can't differentiate between compassion or love or human life. They just feed themselves like animals do. The things are thrice your size, you think joking about it will help our situation?" I felt like a little child. Thoroughly chastised, all that was missing was a spanking. It angered me quite a bit but I knew she was right so I sucked it up and looked at her with frozen eyes. She should know I don't appreciate being talked to in that way. Oh, I'm such a child.

"Fine. What do I have to do?"

"See, I figure, if my father experimented and made these things, he must have made an antidote of sorts or at least documented a way of killing off these things as well. It's only logical. We won't be too sure till we find it,"

"And where are we supposed to find these documents. Everything happened ages ago. How are we going to find any of that stuff?"

"In his experiment room, of course," and with that she turned in the direction of her house and pointed at the right window on the bottom floor. To my astonishment, the house was back to its old, moldy appearance, finally indicative of the time passed.

"How did the house go back to that?!"

"Jason, I think we're past acknowledging oddities, don't you think?" she said looking at me with a sympathetic look plastered across her face. "You see that window right there. It's the only window that peers up from the basement. He had turned the entire basement into his working area. No one has been in this forest for years. Everything is as it was from the day they died...." She trailed off, a soft glaze covering her eyes but she quickly blinked it away, "we should go in."

With that finality, she began walking towards the house and I followed. I looked at her in her blue dress as she walked in front of me and stopped at the entrance of the house. With the door missing, there wasn't anything that was stopping us from going in. I walked right up to her and touched her hand,

"I'm right here with you. You can do it," she didn't look at me but shook her head and took her first steps into the house.

Everything around us was covered in layers of dust and mold. No life remained in this house, but years of memories screamed down at us. I wanted to look around, see the life Irene had lived, but now was not the time. It also might have been due to the fact that people had died in here and I was in no mood to run into some more ghosts.

"I don't want to wander around the house. Let's just go directly to the basement," her voice was cold and restrictive, answering my unasked questions. She was trying to control her emotions and get to the point. I could only wonder if she was living through the entire event again in her head, now that she wasn't projecting any visions on me anymore. I guessed it was better to not find out.

Furniture laid around, toppled over and left as it had been. The walls covered in mold and wall papers peeling; they stood living the scenes they had been through. I followed Irene through the kitchen, towards a door, limping behind her.

"This is it," she reached out and turned the dusty knob. It wouldn't budge and she tried again, "After all these years it's still locked. I can't believe it," she paused to think and then looked at me, "kick it down, Jason. We have to get in there."