Blame

The Blood Smear

"I don't know... What if that's fake? What if it was made by somebody that just wanted to mess with us?"

After Elizabeth returned, she told Jesse about what had transpired at Charlie's house. Of course, she didn't do so verbally. She had to write it down like the last time.

Because she couldn't come back with the tape, the two of them ended up sitting in the dining car while everyone else was asleep, trying to produce some sort of fake warning letter left by the demon.

It liked to leave messages, and most people in the troupe had seen the one that was left on the side of the train. A letter wouldn't be too far fetched, would it?

Jesse wrote it out using her non-dominant hand, which made her distinctly neat print look shaky, horrible, weirdly spaced, and vaguely similar to its handwriting.

Elizabeth told her what to write. She had heard and read enough from it to know what it would say if it had actually written it.

"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. It doesn't really matter 'cause we've got no way of knowing for sure. I think it's better to assume that it is real, 'cause it's better to be safe than sorry."

In the morning, Jesse started going around and talking to each and every troupe member about it, trying to convince them that it was real.

She had managed to get through a little less than half of them, had to stop for a while because of the show, and kept going afterward.

"I guess you're right. I don't really want to get stabbed...again..."

Arlen handed the letter back and Jesse stepped out of the tent, turning to Elizabeth.

"Alright, who's left?"

"Uh... j-just Mister Afton."

"Okay... Where is he?" Jesse spotted the ringmaster walking past Yenn. "Ah. There he is. I'll be back in a sec."

As she started heading over to him, Elizabeth remained where she was.

She stared up at the clouds, tuning out the conversations around her.

Or at least, she tried to do that. Two particularly loud voices pulled her back before she could completely zone out.

"Bon-Bon!"

"What?"

"Y-y-you can't say that! R-r-remember?"

"Well, too late. I already did."

Freddy huffed, stopping just short of the redhead. "Elizabeth!"

She blinked, turning her head to look at him. "Y-yeah?"

"Ethan th-th-threw my hat and it got stuck."

"It was an accident!" Ethan shouted from somewhere nearby.

"It w-w-was an accident," Freddy repeated. "But I can't g-g-get it down. Could y-y-you get it down for me? Please?" 

He pointed to the concession stand, where his top hat was hanging off of one of the little flag poles that jutted out right above the faded sign.

"Sure." Elizabeth walked over to the stand, reached up, pulled the hat off with ease, and handed it back to its owner.

"Yay! Th-th-thank you!"

She watched him run off with his hat, going... well, she didn't really know where he was going.

After he was gone from view, she went back to zoning out.

And eventually, she was pulled back into reality yet again by somebody interacting with her.

"Crap, sorry! Didn't see you there."

"It's alright, J-jeremy."

Elizabeth shook off the remnants of the shudder he had induced when he bumped into her just as Jesse walked back over.

"I'm back. I took forever 'cause Mister Afton was doing a crossword puzzle and he wasn't really paying attention, so he kept interrupting me. He'd go, 'Sorry, I wasn't listening to a word you were saying. Could you repeat everything?' I don't understand that man sometimes." As the two of them started heading back towards the train, Jesse crumpled the letter up and threw it into a nearby trashcan. "I think all that junk you came up with sounded pretty convincing. I just hope nobody chooses to ignore it."

"I h-hope that too."

Nobody else was near the train. They were all still over in the field they had set up in.

The sky got just a little bit darker.

Jesse stopped.

"Hey, you see that?"

Elizabeth followed her gaze over to one of the train windows.

A large red smear was visible.

Something appeared to be suspended from the ceiling behind the glass, but it was obscured by the stain.