Clue

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Eight years ago

His name was Leroy, even if no one had called him that in such a long time. They preferred to call him by another name, a name which he'd begun to believe in himself, despite the irony of that and his circumstances.

His changing circumstances.

No one remembered why he was there in the first place, no one remembered when he'd entered, though there were a few rumors that he was just a ghost that was destined to haunt the prison's halls for eternity.

That was his luck, people's so short attention spans. Their dangerous games that they'd play with each other, not quite realizing that in doing so they were playing with fire. And because of all the human double negative he was free, leaving those hallowed grounds behind, the supposed gift a curse that he didn't know how to bare.

A woman led him out, appearing as if she were doing the world some a great deed. He didn't feel the same way.

"I'll take you home, Mr. Hurst," she smiled. She smiled a real smile, the corner of her eyes crinkling with short joy.

Leroy nodded, eyes quietly observing the realm around him, nothing like the past the he'd left when he'd walked through two wooden doors.

The sky was brighter, somehow, then inside the dinky building, though, smell reminded him of the sewers of London, his ending up there of all places a fact of the past.

The woman, walking in pressed black jeans, carried a satchel on her back, obviously where she'd placed the papers that had allowed his release, led him to her car.

It was a polished vehicle, cloaked in a box of metal, not resembling, in any sense, its predecessors. The inside was beat up, the windows, he learned, being able to move down through the use of a mechanism on the door. It was almost, he thought, a house on wheels, a house with the strangest inventions.

The woman talked as they went along, her voice resounding in empty space, not catching Leroy's ear, instead a white static that weaved its lazy way along. Leroy's eyes were on the countryside, watching the towering metal structures burning on the horizon, the sun casting a eerie glow across the shorter structures the hung below the architectural feats.

"Mr. Hurst," the woman caught his attention, the strange vehicle, stopping at the door of a ruin, which the man eyed skeptically.

The woman watched as the man stiffly climbed out of the vehicle, her hawk-like eyes carefully considering what to do.

She watched as Leroy climbed tentatively up the steps, a resistance there that she couldn't blame. He'd been away for so long, to come back would be torture, not the cure. The man had paid his house payments even while he had been gone, the funding which he received for his work in prison not amounting much, but the investments he'd made with numerous banks before his incarceration raised a small fortune over the years.

So, he stood, in front of the house, attempting to see through the present's illusion into the past's clear chorus of triumphant cries. It didn't appear to work was all that came to note. The man hand wavering over the doorknob and from there went no further.

Footsteps clambered up beside him, the woman panting as she reached the top step, rattling the keys in her hand, "Forgot these," she explained.

Leroy stepped to the side, allowing the woman through, slightly relieved at this change.

The woman opened the door, gesturing the man through, her smile back again.

"Thank you," the man muttered, the first thing he'd said the whole day, probably the whole week.

The woman said nothing in response, following the man inside setting the keys on a dust covered table.

The man's gaze traveled from place to place, as if he was searching for something, anything from his past, his eyes frantic in their search. Then they cooled, stopping at some spot in the distance, and the woman watched, standing in where she felt she was needed.

"She stood," the man spoke, pointing, his voice cracking, a worried line on his forehead. He swallowed, trying again, "She stood right there."

He chuckled, "She was always standing there, staring out the window."

The woman said nothing in response to this.

"My Caroline was one of a kind, didn't care what I did. Loved me all the same," the man turned, allowing a saddened smile of his own. "Then, of course, they came," he swore under his breath. "They had to come eventually."

"W-who came?" the woman suddenly asked, meeting his stare.

The man carried on, answering the question in a roundabout fashion, his words becoming clearer now, "The monsters, the thieves, stealers of life, of light, and I helped them. For a time. But I left. And they followed. And they came. They came here."

"When you were imprisoned?" the woman questioned, raising her eyebrows in sediment.

"No," the man shook head, chuckling as he looked up, eyes freezing, as if they were liquid water free to change as they would. "Now."

The woman's eyes widened when she saw what the man had in his hand, raising a hand to defend herself from the knife that had, no doubt, been concealed on some shelf away from prying eyes.

There was an inhuman screech a moment later, like a yowling cat's hiss, the grating of nails on chalkboard.

Then...Silence...