Rosewood Mountain
Chapter 2 - Body Horror
The relentless tapping of raindrops on the glass shattered the silence of the room, pulling Jacob from his restless sleep. The space briefly lit up as a flash of lightning pierced through a small gap in his curtains.
Jacob groans as he sits up on the couch, stealing a glance at the standing clock, ticking in the corner. The hands read 6:45. He had managed a few hours of sleep, but his body yearned for more. It had been days since he experienced more than a couple of hours of sleep, the fatigue weighing him down like a stone, dragging him deeper into the waves of madness.
With a sigh, he unfolds himself from where he had curled in on himself and stood. His bare feet pad across his creaky wooden floor. He slipped down an adjacent hallway into his kitchen, sneaking as if not to wake the house itself.
The back window presents the surrounding forest, trees creating an oppressive blanket of shadow obscuring all that call the woods home, and with everything roaming the woods, seldom does one feel alone.
Jacob shook his head, trying to ease his troubled mind. It was in vain. His vision narrowed on a flash of color on his counter, tucked in a corner, right beside an old teapot.
He caught his breath and his eyes burned as soon as he registered what he had been staring at.
A gold cross necklace.
“Fuck!”
Jacob staggers back, the mere sight of the cross burning him. His back slamming against the wall behind him as lightning blinds him briefly. The old house groans and shutters. The walls were awake now.
His teeth grit tight, eyes squeezed shut. His breath came in short pants as he swore he could hear Lucy’s soft voice.
“Your tea will be cold soon babe, hurry,” her voice echoes in his mind. Her soft face was etched behind his eyelids.
Lucy stood by his stove after a church service. Her soft hands unclasped her necklace and set it aside on the counter.
She smiled at him as he walked over, her hands wrapping around the mortician's neck, holding him close as she captured his lips in a soft kiss.
His visions of her vanished as quickly as they appeared. All that remained was her corpse, mutilated and perverted as she laid back on his embalming table. Jacob could only find solace in Detective Laz's sympathies, as they were the only thing left.
Jacob swore as he snapped back to his senses. His sleep-deprived brain blurs the lines between his memories and reality. He wanted to take the day off from work, to hide, to mourn, but Lucy couldn’t wait. He knew she couldn’t.
He stumbled to his feet. Grief had dragged him to the floor without him noticing. His hands lurch toward a dusty cabinet he hardly touched.
Inside, his late father’s old bottles of whisky stand. Each bottle invoked dread within Jacob. Taunting him. With a snap, he forcefully squeezes the closest bottle in his hand, feeling the plastic crumple beneath his grip. His movements were erratic as he found a glass, filling it to the brim with the lukewarm alcohol.
The house fell silent, still despite the storm raging outside. Watching Jacob with silent judgment for depending on vices. Jacob stood defiant against the feeling, stomping back to the living room, challenging the oppressive walls. Jacob crashes down onto the sofa, setting his drink down on the coffee table. His eyes narrowed toward a bottle of sleeping pills prescribed several months ago. With little thought, he retrieved a pill from the bottle and washed it down with his whiskey. His face contorts with the stinging burn of alcohol.
He takes a defeated gulp of the glass and lets his arm drop. The familiar sting of tears etched into his cheeks, unsure when he started crying. Jacob no longer wanted to feel. He storms back into the kitchen, abandoning his glass for the bottle he started on. He flings the cap off and begins chasing the bottom.
------
Laz sighs, taking a long drag from his cigarette. Eyes watching the rain pelt the windshield of his police cruiser. His headlights reflected against the wet asphalt. The idle chatter from his police stereo fades to background static.
The department and he had followed all leads to their ends. It was apparent the suspect had departed from the Loger Motel a day earlier. The name used was fake. All they had was the car. A car that likely was hundreds of miles away by now.
Laz sighs and turns down a familiar road, driving up to an old gas station. The buzzing fluorescent lights make it stand out like a lighthouse in the rain. Pulling in, he elected to just sit. His mind whirls as he tries to go over the facts again. To find an excuse for the killer to remain in town. Perhaps it was a local, and they had rented the car for the crime. That would explain why Lucy got in the vehicle, seemingly by her own free will.
With a curse, he slammed his hands against the wheel. Taking a final drag from his cigarette before snuffing it out in his ashtray.
The lull of the night droning on. For a moment, Laz considered calling it a night. Leaving his patrols to keep a lookout, to go back to his office and reevaluate.
The soft rumbling of a car caught his attention. With a quick glance in his rear-view mirror, he observed the car headlights approaching rapidly. The vehicle raced past the gas station, well over the speed limit. Just as he is about to turn on his light for a traffic stop, he stops. As it raced down the rain-drenched streets, a red Austin Allegro swerved down a turn towards the main road out of Rosewood, and up the mountain.
“Mother-fucker!” Laz nearly screams as his car roars to life. His foot slammed the petal to the floor as his tires spun for a moment, skidding out of the gas station with a squeal. Sirens blaring as he gives chase. Grabbing his radio, he tries to call for backup. Only to be met with static. Not willing to lose the suspect, he bit his tongue. He had taken bigger risks before. He had his whit's and his shotgun in the passenger seat.
-----
Jacob groans as his head pounds, an empty bottle slipping from his grasp to clang to the floor between his feet where he sat on that red sofa. The room warped and melted in on itself as the alcohol and pills mixed in an ungodly concoction.
Lifting his head, he stares straight ahead. His once cozy living room now spinning and rocking like a ship in a storm. His stomach lurched.
“Jacob.”
The mortician froze. Stuck in place, he hears his name called. Wondering if it was maybe the groaning of his home.
“Jacob.”
The man gulped and lifted his head, turning toward the sound. Eyes meeting a painting of Mother Mary. His heart stopped.
The painting had changed.
Jacob stared into wide, uncanny eyes that seemed to follow him. Her peaceful expression warped into one of rage, hate, and disgust as she witnessed the man on the sofa.
“Jacob.” The painting hissed at him.
The man leapt off the sofa scrambling across the floor, a guttural scream leaving his throat as he slammed a hand down. Hot pain shot up his arm. Looking down, Jacob heaves. A large nail impaled his through the palm. Blood oozed from around the wound. Lifting his hand he clutched at his wrist sobbing like a scared child as he continued to scoot further from the painting.
The painting was laughing now. Illuminated by lightning, the Mother caught up in a strange and inhuman euphoric state. Her mouth opened far too wide. A third large eye staring at him from inside the void of her maw.
“What are you!” Jacob shrieks as he tries to look for a way out, his vision tunneling leaving him disoriented and lost inside his own home. Eyes landed on other paintings, Angels, Saints, and the Messiah himself all staring with wide eyes. All depicting inhuman grins on their painted lips, the holy now perverted into beasts. A cacophony of laughter and hymns filled his ears.
“Jacob, Jacob, JACOB!” the voices chant louder and louder. The man wept in desolation as blood poured from his hand, staining the floor, the baseboards, and the walls.
Jacob felt himself dry heave. His stomach was flipping. Was he on the ceiling? His home felt as if it was crushing him.
“What do you want from me!?” he screams back at the walls. Watching as lightning flashed once more and in an instant, the expressions changed once again. All the faces were wiped clean. Blank slates of flesh.
“Forsaken”
Jacob grits his teeth wanting to deny it, but his voice has died. Sobbing loudly as he brought his hand in front of his face. Howling like an injured animal as he grabs hold of the long bent nail. Had he been sober he would have left it alone, to call for help, but in his altered state his logic was nonexistent. Yanking it free, sending blood across the room. Splattering against the painting of the holy Mother.
“Stand”
Jacob felt his lungs ache as he forced himself to obey, blooded hands leaving grotesque imprints on his wall. Was this what divinity was? Was this God's will?
“Please … .please. What have I done to forsaken you?”
He wept stumbling towards the photo again, a religious stupor falling over him. His mind crumbles with each slow tick of the clock. Every whisper and insult.
"Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life."
Jacob felt his vision tunnel further, legs shaking as they began to give out. His hands fly out as he catches himself on the sofa. Falling onto it with a thud. On his back he stares at the ceiling unable to move, staring at his hand, through his hand. Warm blood dripped down his face. Unable to fight any longer, his hand fell to his chest limply, His wound oozed and soaked his shirt through to the skin as Jacob slipped into unconsciousness to the sounds of maniacal laughter and church hymns.
