{"id":139,"date":"2011-08-06T08:37:35","date_gmt":"2011-08-06T12:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=139"},"modified":"2011-08-09T18:38:18","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T22:38:18","slug":"serial-saturday-road-trip-part-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=139","title":{"rendered":"Serial Saturday: Road Trip, Part 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

The smell was worse inside the cabin, a thick, nostril-clogging miasma made worse by the stifling heat. JT glanced around. Most of the area of the cabin seemed to be taken up by the large room they were in, a sitting area she guessed, although it had hardly any furniture. There were other things in the room, though, in the dim corners or under a large rough-hewn table. They were things that tried to draw her eye, things she thought might have something to do with the smell, strange assemblages of what looked like dried meat and bone at a glance. <\/span><\/p>\n

Much as she thought she should check them out, much as she hated even turning her back on them, she thought it was more important to keep an eye and a gun on Laurent. It was hard to make out details anyway, given the dimness of the room. The stingy windows wouldn\u2019t have let a whole lot of light in under any circumstances, and with the rain pounding against them it was worse. All those windows were shut, maybe against the rain, but JT had a feeling they hadn’t been opened in a long time. The air was too stale. A bead of sweat dripped off JT’s nose. An air conditioner would have been nice, but she didn’t even see an electric light in the place, much less AC.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Have a seat,” Laurent said, gesturing toward the two stained, ragged easy chairs at the center of the room. Neither Israel nor JT made a move, and JT took another quick glance around as lightning lit things up for an instant. There was a crude kitchen against one wall alongside a massive stone hearth, and a single door led to a closed-off area in the corner. An open staircase led up to a small room closed off above. The rest of the area above them was open to the rafters, rough-hewn logs. Oil lamps and candles were scattered around the big room, none of them lit. Other than that, and the few objects she hadn’t gotten a look at, the whole place was strangely bare.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Are you turning down my hospitality, Israel?” Laurent asked. “After all we went through together?”<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel didn’t seem to be up to answering. His shotgun was still pointing at the bare, dirty wood floor. JT’s was aimed right at Laurent’s midsection, but he didn’t seem to care.<\/span><\/p>\n

“At least introduce me to your guest,” he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m JT,” JT said. “Who the fuck are you?”<\/span><\/p>\n

“I am Laurent,” he replied. “Israel and I go way back.” He turned to Israel. “You didn’t tell her about us?” he asked. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Laurent?” Israel finally said. He took two staggering steps and sat heavily in one of the chairs. He still held his shotgun, but its barrel clunked on the floor. <\/span><\/p>\n

JT glanced over at him, then back at Laurent. “Okay, what’s your story?” she asked. <\/span><\/p>\n

Laurent glanced over at Israel. “You really didn’t tell her?” he asked. “Then how did you get her to come along?” His face suddenly brightened, lips pulling back from filthy teeth. “Ah,” he said. She wasn’t sure where it came from, exactly, possibly because her vision seemed to blur a bit for a moment, but suddenly he was holding what looked like a small flute made of bone.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s all about this, isn’t it?” he asked. “Our Israel takes a break, then finds someone new to use for a catspaw.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Laurent,” Israel said. “It really is you.” He pushed himself to his feet, leaving the gun behind. “<\/span>You’ve<\/em><\/span> got the flute. Of course.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Who else would have it?” Laurent asked mildly.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I…forgot…everything,” Israel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Laurent seemed surprised for the first time. “Really?”<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel nodded, still looking stunned.<\/span><\/p>\n

JT blinked. The flute was making her feel slightly nauseous, and was hard to look at even while it drew her gaze. It didn’t create a feeling like an actual Old One, but it didn’t have a neutral feel like her Old Weapons did. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Jesus, I should have trusted my gut,” she said to no one in particular. <\/span><\/p>\n

Laurent looked up and smiled. “Now, there’s a familiar notion,” he said. “Everyone who deals with Israel thinks that sooner or later.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Laurent, that\u2019s not…I never meant…” Israel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Laurent held up a hand to interrupt, head cocked to one side in a manner that looked eerily like Israel’s. A moment later, JT felt it; the familiar oily, crawling sensation. There was a muffled scratching noise from outside the cabin, barely audible over the pounding rain. The gazes of all three people in the room followed the noise as it grew louder and traveled along the wall. The miserable feeling the Old Ones brought on built in JT as her shotgun tracked the noise. Something went past one of the cloudy windows, too quickly for a good look, but JT had the impression of spongy gray flesh glistening in the rainy sunlight. The window would have been at head-height for a man, but all she’d seen was an indistinct mass of gray.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a pause, and the scratching grew louder for a moment. Then came a crack of thunder almost at the same time as a flash of lighting. For a moment, JT hoped that the thing had been struck. But the feeling was still there, and a few seconds later, the sliding, scraping noise picked up again. It reached another window and a dim shape rattled against the glass. It was hard to make out, because the Old One was big enough to blot out what little light was coming through. After another thump that rattled the pane, it moved on.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few seconds later, the noise reached the rickety door of the cabin, and there was another thud, and a crack.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It looks like you brought me another guest,” Laurent said to Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2011 SM Williams<\/p>\n


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The smell was worse inside the cabin, a thick, nostril-clogging miasma made worse by the stifling heat. JT glanced around. Most of the area of the cabin seemed to be taken up by the large room they were in, a sitting area she guessed, although it had hardly any furniture. There were other things in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serials"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}