Chapter Eighteen: We Take Children on a Field Trip to the Cemetery...

And find the children she did. She led me down the winding halls of the labyrinth-like hospital to a room located roughly in the center. And there were these “missing” children. They looked to be in some sort of comatose state- all of them strapped down to tables and completely unmoving other than the subtle movement of breathing. There must have been roughly a dozen and a half, the room so small they were maybe six inches away from one another on any side (max). They were wearing those sheet-like hospital gowns and had little plastic bracelets around their wrists. The ages ranged from the youngest being about three years of age, to about ten years old. So Franz didn’t kill the children- but then, that raises the question- what did he do to them?

“What do we do…?” Megan asks quietly, probably afraid of waking them. After all, we didn’t know if they were hostile or not- and we would rather not hurt children. We may be brutal, but no matter what anybody says- we were never true monsters….

“See if they’re coherent. That would be first.” I walk up to one of the tables and tap a little girl with golden locks lightly. I don’t make any sort of statement to Megan about how exhaustion is starting to sweep over me like the tide of the ocean. I don’t tell her that I drank blood. I don’t tell her that my hands burn like they’ve been submerged in sulphuric acid. This may make me the worst friend imaginable- but I didn’t tell her anything. Maybe that was my problem….I never told anyone anything...I never wanted to let anyone in any more than I absolutely had to….Even after I let Kurai and Megan in, I hadn’t really changed….

The little girl’s eyes fly open, they are a warm hazel flecked with rays of gold. Beautiful, childlike eyes. Innocent eyes. Innocent eyes that have now been tainted. The soul beneath has been wounded- and this is a wound that not time nor care can heal. She will be scarred forever. And I feel a great sympathy in my chest- because I do so know the feeling….The entire reason I became this way was so I could protect ones like her, so that children and adults alike would be able to be complete and wholesome and untouched by darkness. And so this time...even though I won the battle...have I still failed after all?

“Who- Who are y-you? A-are you h-here to h-hurt me ag-gain?” Her teeth chatter and her voice trembles with fear, almost making her incomprehensible. She is a scrawny little thing, her skin pale and clammy, and bruises run along the inside of her elbow where needles have been jabbed in repeatedly with little care for her frail body.

“Hello there….” I try and make my voice soothing, less cold and sharp, as I put the paper bag soaked with demon blood down on the ground. “My name is Aurora, and my friend and I aren’t going to hurt you- ok…? We’re here to help. What’s your name, little dove?” I start to undo the binding straps as I talk to her. I’ve heard it helps when you talk to a person in shock, it keeps the brain active.

“W-Winnie...Winnie Hudson…Y-you have to leave...th-they’ll find you...and h-hurt you….”

“No they won’t. It’ll be alright, Winnie. Just relax. How old are you?” I turn my head towards Megan for a moment.

“Check the others.”

“Gotcha.” She nods and goes to the other tables, checking for pulses and any sort of reaction to stimulus.

“E-eight….I’m-m eight…” Winnie’s teeth chatter.

“Eight? That’s good. Do you know how long you’ve been down here?” I ask calmly.

“N-no….w-we could n-never see the s-sun...It feels like f-forever though….”

“I’m sure it does….I know this may be uncomfortable to talk about, but do you know what the bad man did to you? Do you know how you got here…?” I say very tentatively, I don’t want her to stop talking. In fact, I need her to keep talking so I can gather as much information as possible.

“I w-was outside with my b-big brother...he went inside to get s-something to d-drink because it was h-hot outside...Then I heard these s-strange noises….sorta l-like p-pulsing...and then m-my head started to h-hurt...I woke up h-here...and I don’t know exactly wh-what they did but...it alw-ways hurt…” She starts to cry as I get the final strap unfastened.

“It’s ok now, Winnie. They won’t be able to hurt you again.” I give her a very awkward half-hug. I don’t really know how to deal with crying children...I bet my mother was good at this sort of thing….Heck, I bet my mother was good at a lot of things…

“Half of them are dead...pretty recent too, because they’re only in the early stages of rigor mortis.” Megan walks over to me with a scowl. She isn’t happy. I don’t blame her either, this must bring back some pretty nasty memories about Christopher. Both incidents involved demons and children after all.

“The human body can only take so much strain before it gives out…” I sigh, trying to keep a level head. I try- but I am still very angry. Angry and exhausted. Angry because if I had gotten here earlier, these children wouldn’t be dead now.

“I think we should relocate the survivors and get them proper medical attention before returning them to their families and having them put on the Watch List.” Megan says.  The “Watch List” is reserved for humans who have not seen too much, as would warrant killing the person, but may still see effects from their encounter with the otherworldly as time passes. Anyone on the watch list will have an agent of Muortum keep an eye on them for up to seven years, and after those seven years, will be revisited every two years for a check in.

“I concur.” I wince as I pick up Winnie in one arm, my blistered hands screaming in protest. “We’re going to get you to safety, little dove.” She whimpers softly as her body shakes, icy cold and scrawny to the very definition of the word. Megan and I are able to carry three children each on the first trip, one in each arm and one on our backs. I hold the paper bag in my teeth by the little flap as I tote them. After the first run, I stay out in the grass fields with the children while Megan goes back to make another trip. There was a lot of crying...I almost wish I had taken the extra trip just so Megan could deal with all of the tears. They made me uncomfortable…

“Where are we going…?” Johnny, age four, asks as Megan and I lead them to a cemetery in a churchyard near the town.

“Hallowed ground. You don’t want those guys coming back, do you?” I hand Megan the bag, and she torches the sloppy parcel in her hand with a fireball. I wince as I kneel down and start to claw up handfuls of dirt with my burned hands as the hearts sizzle and pop.

“Let me do it.” Small hands push mine aside, and I look up to see Winnie kneeling beside me, scooping out dirt as though her life depended on it.

“How deep?”

“Just a bit more…”

I look up at Megan, the paper bag had burned into ashes in the flame- but the hearts did not. Three small withered objects almost resembling a glowing cross between the pit of a peach and a rough stone sit in the palm of her hand, each no bigger than a silver dollar. To unknowing eyes, it may have looked like we were trying to bury rubies in the church graveyard. If those eyes were a bit closer, maybe even half cooled chunks of lava rock.

I look back, and not only is Winnie digging, but the other children as well. All nine of them are crowded around the small hole, digging and scratching at the dirt with tears in their eyes. They had already been through so much, and for years on end, they don’t have to do the dirty work. That is supposed to be our job…

“You don’t have to do that.” I speak up, trying to nudge Cathy and Drayton aside, but they refuse to move.

“We want to… No, we need to.” Trey insists. He is the oldest of the group, ten years old. He has mousy brown hair that falls in front of his face when he draws a scoopful of dirt out of the ground, making him brush it out of his face and unintentionally smudge soil on his dark skinned and clammy face.

“This is our job-”

“Please….We just...we have to. We have to know that they’re gone...we have to feel like we did something.You’ve already protected us...You shouldn’t have to do more. You’re injured. If it comes to something as simple as digging a hole- please, let us do it Miss. Let us help you…in whatever little way we can…” His eyes water, and I reluctantly take a step back. I understand. I do. I understand that these scared little children want to help, they want to feel like they did something, however small, to help these people who risked everything to save them. They want to help put away the evil that hurt them so badly. But they are already tainted...children are so frail...I do not want to break them with the dark trials of this world.

“Children, please. Megan and I are accustomed to this sort of work-”

“You don’t like to accept help, do you? You’re a lonely person.” Kendra says blatantly. And for once, I find myself without words. It takes me a few moments to find the voice to speak up again.

“Megan. What do you make of the situation?” I blink and brush the hole sliced in the hip of my armor gingerly, everything on my body feels so tender and sore, so vulnerable. I just want to lay down and rest until this vessel regains enough energy to become hard and strong again. The blisters on my hands are terrible, and several have burst. The pale skin is red and bubbled up as though the appendages have contracted Poisonous Pox, or Blood Fever, or some other similar disease.

“I think you’re injured and you should let somebody else do all the hard stuff for now.” Megan says this bitterly, she is upset that I didn’t make it known immediately that I was not entirely well off. She should probably get over it. After all, it doesn’t matter if we get hurt or not as long as we get the job done and survive to fight another day. Comfort isn’t vital to survival. Neither is friendship. And yet- we both still want it. And now she’ll probably pout for a few days because she feels betrayed blahdy blah blah, but she’ll get over it just like she always does whenever I don’t tell her something and she finds out anyway.

“You’re so sensitive, Megan. Honestly. The fact that I didn’t tell you has nothing to do with how much I trust you or how I think of you as a friend. It simply wasn’t relevant, so I didn’t feel the need to share.” Once again, it’s quiet for a while as she broods. Just as I had predicted she would.

“That’s deep enough. Please step back.” Megan directs the comment towards the children. They slowly crawl back, away from the now good sized pit, as she steps towards it.

Megan drops the charred remains into the pit and the two of us shift the dirt back over it with our boots, then walking over the dirt patch to somewhat harden the ground. Burying the evil in the only place it would never be able to rise again- on holy ground. With this, our job was nearly done. There was simply the matter of the missing children, and how to be as inconspicuous as possible in returning them…

“So it’s done…?” Winnie looks up at me with wide eyes. Winnie is a sweet little girl, I can already tell. Even after experiencing this, she would carry on and bring great joy to this world. I am glad that we were able to save her.

“Yes, done. All done.” I look down at the small herd of children. They stare openly at me, in the way adults never do because they believe it too rude. They stare blatantly at my eye patch, not with disgust or revulsion, but with a sort of awestruck wonder. They probably believe I sustained the injury performing another heroic act, as I have done for them today. I think they would look at it much differently if they knew the truth, that this injury is not the result of courage and battle glory, but of cowardice and helplessness.

“You’re going to take us home now, right?” Johnny asks hopefully.

“Not exactly. We have to take you to get some medicine for your boo-boos now.” Megan smiles. I have to stifle a laugh at her using the term ‘boo-boo’, who knew she had such a way with kids?

“Ok….” Tristen grumbles as we start to march them out of the cemetery. We would have to get them medical help without becoming involved ourselves. And this was because of totally logical reasons- not because we didn’t like hospitals, got it? I mean, if two people showed up with a group of children that had been missing for some odd years- people would start asking questions. Questions and Megan and I wouldn’t be able to answer. We would have to drop them off at the hospital and leave before anyone noticed us.

. . .

Ok, so maybe we should have thought this through a little more. But in our defense, Megan and I were exhausted by the time we finished up at the cemetery.

The moment the hospital came into sight, the children started shrieking and crying. All nine of them. As loudly as possible. It was like a chorus of misery and annoying snot bubbles. And when we tried to walk away, it got even worse.

“What do we do?! They’re...leaking all over the place!” I shout.

“How should I know?!”

“You like kids, don’t you?!”

“Well that doesn’t mean I know how to handle them!”

“D****t! Stop...No-no, Don’t cry….hey look- Megan is making a funny face-”

“What? No I’m not…” Megan says confusedly. I stomp on her foot and she purses her lips, making a sound that seems like a hybrid between a rhino and an elephant. Sure enough, the screaming dies into sniffles and we even hear a few giggles.

“You’re gonna pay for that later…” She hisses into my ear, soft enough so the children won’t hear.

“I’m sure I will.” I laugh softly and shake my head. “Ok now. We need you guys to be brave and go into that hospital so you can get all better, alright?”

“You’re coming too.” Winnie speaks up, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. I scowl at this and Megan has to elbow me in the ribs to remind me that children tend to not like frightening facial expressions.

“I can’t come with you.”

“Can too.”

“Can not.” I can’t believe I’m arguing like this with an eight year old. This is a new low for me…

“Can too.”

“Stop that. Megan and I can’t come with you and that’s final.”

“And why can’t you? What’s stopping you?”

“Lots of things. You’ll understand when you’re older. So go on and run along.” Apparently this was not the right thing to say, because then the chorus of tears came back full force. God, sometimes I just hate life…

. . .

“I can’t believe we got dragged into this by some puppy dog eyes and a bunch of wailing.” I gripe, crossing my arms in the waiting room as Winnie and the other children are tended to.

“They wouldn’t have come otherwise. Now come on, we can go now.” Megan says. I really must have been out of it, because the thought hadn’t even hit me that we could leave as soon as the children were no longer within sight.

“Thank goodness. I think I’ve had enough of Vietellam for a good long while…” I sigh, standing up with a stiff and tired groan as we make our way towards the exit. There are lots of strange looks, as there always are.

“Must be cosplayers or something…”

“Is there even a convention in town…?”

“Is that a whip?!”

“Those scratches and stuff look pretty real…” Are among some of the things we hear as we make our exit. We’re already out of the building when we hear the scuffle and the accompanying shout.

“Take me with you!!!” Winnie has forced her way out of her room and is struggling against two nurses who managed to snatch her before she could reach the door.

“We can’t.” I state bleakly as Megan and I continue to walk.

“I don’t belong here! I want to go with you!”

“You still have a lot of good to do here, Winnie. It’s best if you make the most of it, and forget all about us.” We wave softly, Megan murmurs an apology under her breath, and then we are gone. Out of sight and out of hearing range.

~ ~ ~

“You two have been gone for five days…” Kurai comments as we trudge through the living room.

“Herhmhnrmhnr uuuuuuuunnnnghhh…” Megan zombie groans. That’s when you know Megan is completely and utterly exhausted, the moment when coherent conversation is no longer a possibility.

“It was a long job.” I translate, not even stopping to attempt “the pleasantries” or the obligatory greeting.

“Want to talk about it?” He asks, looking over his shoulder at us as we shove each other down the narrow hallway.

“No. We want to sleep.” I snap.

“Arghamdersh….” Megan says in agreement.

“My mom was great, thanks for asking.” He rolls his eyes.

“I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know~” I chime before swan diving into my bed. Oh bed, how mommy has missed your sweet embrace…

Megan, on the other hand, just flops on the floor and starts snoring like a hellhound.

There’s serene quiet (well, as quiet as it could be with Megan’s exhausted snoring), and then-

“Wow, you two really are tired. You even forgot to close the door.” I open my eye and glare at him.

“Go. Away.”

“Mishlahgurrrrrrrden…..” Megan pines.

“What she said.” I throw the closest thing I can find, which happens to be a heavy glass paperweight, and close my eye again.

“Sleep tight.” Sadly he catches it, and then he closes the door. I peek my eye open, casting a glance towards Megan.

“How does one even sleep loose?”

“Thermaklammmmbaduuruggggh?”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too…”