Staying Alive
The fog rolled in from the swamp,
leaving its characteristic opacity on everything it touched, corrupting the
air, leaving the vicinities it covered in a dull haze of bleakness, acting as
an accomplice to the already downcast inky blue sky.
“God! It comes again!” a man called
Marvin said, pulling his jacket closer around himself, looking out through the
living room window, shivering slightly, watching the fog march on and obscuring
everything within seeing distance.
The same thought, at the same time,
passed through the minds of the twenty-five thousand five hundred and fifty
four residents of Weeping Marsh, as they saw what Marvin saw, their eyes
widening in fear as their minds made the connection, their bodies trembling
with more than the biting chill of the cold weather.
“Oh our Father in heaven! Protect your
children from the evil designs of Satan, who attacks our holy abode again!”
Father McCallis muttered under his breath, making the sign of the cross and
touching the crucifix dangling from his neck and resting on his chest, as a
reassurance, as he too witnessed The Fog from the window of his living quarters
behind St. Francis’ Church.
“Jack! Molly! Come in, now!” Brenda Tyler
shouted from the front door at her children, playing outside.
Both children looked at their mother,
their innocent eyes widening in surprise.
“Come in, I pray you, children!” Brenda
shouted again.
Both the kids rushed inside immediately,
and Brenda closed the front door, putting all locks and bolts in place.
She would not let The Fog touch her
house. Ever.
Crazy Catherine smiled her buck-toothed
smile as she watched The Fog, her eyes gleaming.
Her hands gripping the thick, round
metal bars of the small circular window that belonged to her cell. Her cell in
the asylum of St. Aloysius Center for the Criminally Insane, located on the
outskirts of Weeping Marsh.
‘
As my eyes see the unearthly light,
The
Fog rolls through Weeping Marsh,
Whom
will it claim tonight,
I
hope their death isn’t very harsh’
Crazy Catherine sang out loud, alerting
the other inmates in the other cells.
They started banging their fists against
the bars of their prison, eliciting a thumping, clunking music, shrill,
high-pitched, as they sang along with Catherine, in chorus, filling the dank
halls and corridors of the asylum with sounds never heard except on that night,
every year.
Sister Bettina came out of her office,
shaking her head.
“The crazies are at it again! What is
wrong with these half-wits?” she muttered, gritting her teeth.
She summoned the other nuns, working
under her, involved in running the madhouse, and they split up, going in groups
of twos on the various wings of the various levels, trying to hush the inmates,
but to no avail.
Because of all the crazies continued to
stare out the windows of their cells, bang their fists against the bars and
sing the verse which had terrorized Weeping Marsh for more than fifty years,
serving as an omen of the catastrophe to strike the residents.
“It’s that horrible song again! How do
they know when to sing it?” asked Ruby Singer to her husband Bob, lying beside
her on the conjugal bed.
“I don’t know, they just do. Maybe they
understand the true meaning of The Fog, being trapped in their own minds and
all. I never understood this legend they keep referring to,” Bob replied.
“What legend?”
“You wanna hear it now, hun? I’m sort of
sleepy right now.”
“Tell me…tell me what you know…”
“I don’t know the whole story…but some
of my buds say that this fog thing…it … it kills people.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Every year, on this every day,
the fog rolls in from the marsh. This fog is different than the normal fog…it
is thicker, colder and bleaker. Also, when it dissipates the next
morning…people are found dead…that’s all I know.”
The Singers just moved in eight months
ago…into Bob’s father’s house which was lying locked up in Weeping Marsh for
many years.
They had no idea where they had chosen
to come, trying to get away from the hustle-and-bustle of the city after their
kids left for college. If they knew what Weeping Marsh actually was, they
would’ve preferred the city or gone to some other ‘idyllic’ corner of the
countryside.
“But how can a fog kill people?”
“God knows. I told you, I never was able
to understand completely the mystery behind it. But I did hear them talking
about some curse. There is supposed to be a curse on this place, for the last
many years.”
“Curse? What curse?”
“I have no idea. My father left this
place when I was very young…he told me about Weeping Marsh but never told me
why he relocated to the city. My parents never talked about it.”
“Could it have been that your dad left
town because of this curse-thing?”
“Maybe. He and my mom never talked about
it- in between themselves or with me. So it was never important enough for me
to ask him about it.”
“Huh. Well, I find it hard to believe
that a simple fog can kill people. So I am going to stop asking you about it
now, and we’re going to forget about it. Right?”
“Right. Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Someone is going to die tonight. I
wonder who it will be,” Rosie Parker said aloud, staring out the window.
“Again…what is the story behind this fog
thing?” asked her cousin Clara, who also lived in the city and was in the town
on a visit.
“Well, I know only what the elders have
told me. I have no idea how much of it is true…who knows how many of these
tales are?” Rosie replied.
“Why would you doubt your elders’
version of the story?” Clara asked, frowning.
“I just think they, more often than not,
embellish details of the truth to protect us. I mean, they think they are
protecting us.”
“Anyways…tell me the whole story,” Clara
persisted.
“Well…this was almost nine decades ago.
Across the marsh, there lived a black woman called Ruth Williams. She is said
to have been a witch- and brought down calamities on anyone who happened to
cross her path, using voodoo and other such black magic instruments. But they
could never prove anything. Suddenly, one day, the young girls and boys of the
village started disappearing, one by one. Everyone suspected Ruth was doing it.
She was killing the young girls and boys of Weeping Marsh and sacrificing their
blood to the Devil whom she worshipped.”
“Then?”
“The townspeople went to her house,
dragged her out of the house, and burnt her alive at the stake, at the market
square. Then they threw her body in the marsh. From that time onwards, every
year on this day, Rosie’s vengeful ghost comes back, in the form of that fog,
and avenges her death by hypnotizing few of our people to commit suicide in
different ways.”
“How does she hypnotize the villagers?”
“She sings a song. Mother tells me it’s
a lonely, melancholy tune and has an effect on the townsfolks’ minds, so they
do as she tells them.”
“Wow. A black witch coming to haunt the
town where she was killed. I wonder who will die tonight,” Clara wondered.
“Will they ever stop singing that
horrible song?” Sister Jude asked, as she and Father McCallis conferred in his
office, watching the fog obscure the large, stained glass windows of the church
and making it impossible to see anything outside. The church was located on the
edge of Weeping Marsh, and the asylum could be seen from there, being only a
few hundred feet away.
The chorus rendition of what was known
as the ‘Omen of Death’ song in Weeping Marsh had, by then, reached the ears of
every family within earshot of the church, just like it happened every year. No
one could stop the songsters of St. Aloysius from singing, led by Crazy
Catherine…no one could dispel the mad glint in their eyes, no one could
possibly know that the ghost of Ruth Williams communicated with them in their
dreams. No one could know the truths she whispered in their ears.
“They will stop only when this injustice
stops, Sister Jude,” Father McCallis said, shaking his head.
“What injustice do you speak of, Father?
She comes back on this day every year and takes away our people. She doesn’t
even spare our children. Innocent lives are taken every year and we are unable
to lift a finger to stop it,” Sister Jude retorted, her hands on her chest.
“You know what injustice I speak of,
Sister. The injustice that was done to Ruth Williams and her family all those
years ago. You know that the story about her being a witch and all is pure
hogwash. She wasn’t the person she was accused of being. Our children think
their parents and grandparents were heroes, having vanquished a murderer like
Ruth- which she wasn’t. The fact is, our parents and grandparents and
great-grandparents were cowards. They were way too big of cowards to let our
children know the truth about what happened that night, almost ninety years
ago,” Father McCallis replied, a pained expression on his old, wrinkled face.
“I know as well as you do about what
really happened that night. But the children or their parents today have
nothing to do with it. Why is Ruth taking innocent lives just to avenge her
death?”
Father McCallis stood up from his chair,
and banged his fist on his desk.
“Not just her death, Sister, not just
her death! She is avenging the deaths of her children and her husband too! When
will you understand? We have everything to do with it, Sister! Our children are
all descendants of our forefathers who massacred Ruth and her family! That
included your family and mine too. Your grandfather and a few others, including
mine, raped Ruth, because she was a black woman living in a town where vestiges
of white supremacy still remained! When she protested, they called her a witch
and accused her of killing innocent children! When the truth is those children
were kidnapped and killed by someone else! Ruth’s children and husband were set
on fire in front of her, Sister! And then she was burnt at the stake, without
being given a chance to speak the truth. We threw their bodies into the marsh
like they were pigs or something. We buried the truth all these years, like the
cowards we are, and let the wounds of the dead fester till they became like
rabid dogs and started taking vengeance. Her children and husband were taken
from Ruth, as was her dignity, and now she wants payback! Why don’t you
understand?” Father McCallis yelled.
“They…they were protecting us…” Sister
Jude started to retort, tears in her eyes.
“Protecting us, Sister? Please do not
utter such lies in the house of our Lord! They weren’t protecting us- they were
protecting themselves! From our judgment, from having to take responsibility
for their crimes and face punishment! Only a few families, including yours and
mine, know the truth about Ruth Williams, for all these years! We could have
protected our children if we had told them the reality! We could have let them
give Ruth and her family a decent burial and punish the culprits. But we
preferred to keep mum, and Ruth decided to get her own vengeance. The child is
punished for sins of the father, Sister. We are responsible for letting our own
children die,” Father McCallis replied, and tears flowed from his eyes too.
“But we have to stop this…this
madness…we must stop Ruth…”
“ There is only one way to stop Ruth…and
that is to tell the truth about that night, and put Ruth’s angry soul at rest.
Are you ready to own up, along with me and the others, for the sins of our
grandparents, Sister Jude?”
Sister Jude opened her mouth to reply,
and then stopped, all of a sudden. She froze, and her hands fell limp by her
sides. Her pupils dilated out of focus, and her face became expressionless like
a stone statue.
“Sister Jude?” Father McCallis asked,
looking at her with his eyes wide.
But she wasn’t listening to him, because
her ears were filled with another sound. The voice of a woman singing a song.
‘I
keep the promise I made that night,
When
you annihilated my beloved ones,
Your
survival instincts you must fight,
Because
to my tune of death you will dance.’
Father McCallis’s eyes went wide and his
hands went to his chest, to the crucifix dangling there.
“Lord save us!” he whispered, seeing the
outline of a human on the glass window right behind Sister Jude, highlighted
against the diffused light coming from outside.
‘Sister
Jude, let’s go. To your death.’
Sister Jude nodded her head once, then
turned on her heel, and walked up to the window.
“Sister Jude! No!” Father McCallis
yelled, pushing his chair backwards and running around his desk.
Sister Jude smashed the glass with three
quick punches of her fists.
“Sister! No! Staying alive is
important!”
Sister Jude rested her bloody hands on
the jagged ends of the smashed glass and put one leg up, ready to step out into
the fog.
“Judith! No!” Father McCallis shouted,
running towards her.
He was stopped in his tracks. By the
specter of the burnt body of Ruth Williams, standing in front of him. The only
part not charred being her chocolate brown eyes, staring at him, the pupils
burning like Hellfire.
‘No,
Father. No. Do not stand in my way.’
Her words rang in his ears.
“But she’s innocent…” he protested.
‘She’s
not. Her soul is damned to burn in hell. She will die for her father’s sins.’
Sister Jude stepped outside the window,
into the fog. She picked up one of the shards of glass lying on the window.
Closing her eyes, she slit her throat,
the wound going deep.
“Judith!” Father McCallis yelled,
running up to the window, and getting a spray of hot red liquid right in the
face.
He squinted through the fog, trying to
locate the nun, tears flowing copiously down his cheeks.
“Judith,” he whispered, wiping the blood
off his face.
“Grandpa! Where are you going?” Rosie
Parker asked, running after her grandfather.
But he didn’t turn back to reply, and
continued walking away from the house, carrying a shovel in his hand, his
ninety-eight year old body stumbling side to side. His eyes clouded over, only
one song ringing in his ears.
‘I
keep the promise I made that night,
When
you annihilated my beloved ones,
Your
survival instincts you must fight,
Because
to my tune of death you will dance’
“Rosie! No!” Clara shouted, pulling her cousin
away from the back door.
“We have to go stop him!” Rosie yelled,
her hand outstretched.
“Stop whom?”
“Grandpa! He suddenly walked out with a shovel
in his hand, without saying anything!”
“What? Where is he going?”
“I don’t know!”
“Let’s go find him then!” Clara said.
But as both sisters reached for the door
knob, it shut in their faces with a loud BANG.
“What’s happening?” Rosie asked,
shocked.
“I don’t know!” Clara exclaimed, equally
shocked.
Rosie tried opening the door, but it
stayed firmly shut.
Barney Parker walked on, towards the
swamp, a voice guiding him onwards. Staggering through the fog, oblivious to
the chill, he entered the thicket of trees which formed the entrance to the
swamp. He walked on through the trees, until he reached some sort of a
clearing, semi-circular in shape.
Then he started to dig.
***********
Next morning, the fog would clear from
the town of Weeping Marsh, only some of it being left in the surrounding swamp.
They would find Barney Parker in the
swamp, his brain blown to bits by his own gun, clutched tightly in his one
hand. His other hand clutching a note.
My
father, Bertie Parker, raped and killed thirty four young children of Weeping
Marsh, and stayed silent when they put the blame on Ruth Williams. He also
participated in the murder of her and her family.
Barney Parker
They would find Father McCallis kneeling
by the bloody corpse of Sister Judith Brennan, crying, a crucifix held tightly
in his hand.
Sister Bettina and her fellow nuns would
find the ‘half-wits’ of St. Aloysius Centre for the Criminally Insane sleeping
peacefully, their singing having ceased as soon dawn broke over Weeping Marsh
and the fog started to recede.
The inmates slept serenely, a smile on
their faces, their arms crossed over their chests.
As
the ghost of Ruth Williams watches over all of them, unseen, unfelt, reading
their minds, selecting her next victims.
Copyright
@ Percy Kerry 2014
