The Festering Ones by S. H. Cooper

Author:S. H. Cooper [Cooper, S. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

The Wicked Lure

The three of us sat with no small measure of tension in my hotel room. It smelled musty, unused, and everything had a drab-bordering-on-dirty look to it. Janice had perched on the edge of the bed, her bag still clutched like a shield on her lap. The blonde stranger, Sasha, had suggested we go talk somewhere private. Now she was standing in front of the door, her arms crossed over her chest.

Janice kept looking at me. I knew what she was thinking: what if this woman was part of The Gathered? What if she’d been sent to stop us? To hurt us? I’d positioned myself against the opposite wall, so the queen sized bed was between us and the nightstand with the phone was beside me. Even if I didn’t have time to make a call, I could always try to use the old, bulky thing as a weapon if need be.

“I’ve seen you,” Sasha said bluntly, breaking the crackling silence.

“Huh?” Janice jumped slightly.

“I don’t know, exactly.” Sasha paused, struggling to find the right words to explain herself. “I kept seeing both of you, just glimpses in a crowd of something. At first, I thought you were following me, but I’d always lose track of you. Then I started seeing stuff about this place, Okeechobee and the motel, in magazines and on brochures. I didn’t know what to think, it couldn’t all be coincidence, so I took a chance and came here.”

“You came here on a whim?” I asked. It seemed so far-fetched. Then again, what about any recent events had been anything but that?

“Not to Florida. Like I said, I’m looking for my sister, Nina. She accepted a vet job in Passit and after the first few weeks, she stopped calling. I haven’t heard from her since. Finding anyone who knows anything about Passit has been impossible, so when I started seeing you two everywhere and stuff about the motel, I decided I had to at least look into it. I’ve had...nothing else to go on since I got here.”

There was a tired, defeated note in Sasha’s voice. Despite my caution, I found myself beginning to believe her.

“But why?” Janice had lowered her bag slightly. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha admitted. “I just had this feeling I was being pushed towards this place and to you. Like something wanted me to find you.”

That didn’t sound like Gorrorum’s MO to me. Not that I had a whole lot of experience in it. What I did know, however, was that he communicated through dreams and his Fingers, not these prophetic visions like Sasha was describing. Unless that was the next stage of his infection.

“Have you had any weird dreams, Sasha?” I asked. I’d rather know what I was in for than be surprised again.

But Sasha shook her head. “Weird dreams? No. This has all happened while I’m awake.”

That definitely didn’t seem like Gorrorum then. I frowned down at my shoes. I hadn’t realized one foot was anxiously tapping against the stained carpet.

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