All The Dark Places

35. Jar

    Ruins were all that was left of the old seventeenth century rectory. Rosalind stepped carefully through precarious piles of stone that had fallen from the ceiling and tangles of weeds that were sprouting up through what was left of the floor. Scraps of wood patched the ground where the fine wood floor used to be and now was returning to the earth. A bit of scaffolding held one wall upright and another was leaning inward, ready to topple. A corner of the ceiling was gone, leaving an oculus opened up to the sky. From under a pile of rubble, a cat bolted across the floor, fleeing from any visitors. The broken marble pieces of an enormous fireplace were stacked in a corner along with large buckets, lengths of canvas and rope, remnants of an attempt at restoration long since abandoned.

"Well, this would make a good filming location for a horror movie," she said aloud, kicking aside the dried skeletal remains of a squirrel. A work table stood in the center of the main hall, a new and modern thing made of sturdy wood with industrial metal fold-out legs. A set of blue prints and building notes laid half in a blue folder. It must have been there for months, possibly years for all the dust. She picked up the folder, dusting off the cover with the hem of her shirt. The blueprint was dated 1982, yellowed and the edges crumbled at her touch. All right, she thought, so no one comes out here, except that the table is not that old. She dusted off some of the table and found splotches of paint and and the remains of low tack art tape. An artist came here and sometime recently, probably to paint the place as it did look like something out of a Bronte novel. She set her bag and bow on the table and reached inside, pulling out the mason jar. Blue lights blinked and the long spidery legs of the creature scratched at the glass of the jar.

"All right, just calm down," she said, whispering to the creature under the lid. "I'm going to do something incredibly stupid if I don't lose the courage. I'm going to let you out."

The lights stopped blinking and stayed bright blue. Unscrewing the lid of the jar, she let the creature crawl out, shuddering as it slowly peeked out and crawled onto the table. Her heart thumped.

"I don't know how you gave Scott and Ivy and Ramona those abilities but I need you to help me, please. I don't know if you can understand me, but these men want to kill me and I have no way to protect myself and to protect the others. I don't want to be like that poor horse that threw Martin. Oh God, I can't believe I'm doing this."

She bent and laid her arm over the table in front of the creature. Slowly, the lights began to pulse instead of blink, a slow glowing heartbeat. It came closer and one long leg touched her palm as if it tested her to discover her reaction. She remained still though she was certain she would piss herself soon from fear. The creature crawled over her wrist and she bit her lip so hard that a trickle of blood dripped down onto her neck. The pain was only a flash of a second and then it settled into a drunken numbness. She felt dizzy and feverish. The fear became something completely new to her, a strange feeling of awe and reverence that was overwhelming. She wanted to move, to snatch her hand back and scream but she could not. No sound came from her lips. From the creature's belly came a long thin needle, tipped with a tiny ball of electric blue light. The cold, strange metal pierced her skin.

"Rosalind!" Arnav Patel's voice shouted from the front door. "Oh my God, what is that thing?"

He must have followed her out to the rectory. He rushed to her, and before she had a chance to tell him to stop, he reached out and grabbed the creature, trying to pull it away from her arm. The creature resisted, and it's needle punctured her flesh deep and deposited its little light orb underneath her skin.

"Arnav, don't!" she yelled, and he dropped the creature back onto the table. Slamming her arm back on the table, she welcomed the next bite. The creature obliged, crawling over her offered wrist as she heard Arnav's frantic 'oh shit, oh shit, oh shit' from the other end of the table. "Stay away from here! Arnav, go! Get out!"