Post by cala cant be arsed to sign in on Jul 1, 2008 3:14:54 GMT -5
May 9th, 2007
Argonia, Kansas
Sister Orpah Wyatt ran her fingers over the large, ornate skeleton key hanging around her neck. The little roses and vines that intertwined along the length of it felt comforting to her trembling hands. Taking a deep breath, she whispered a prayer and stepped out into the night.
The steps outside of the church spread out beneath her feet, broader at the bottom than at the top, giving way to the darkened parking lot. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d commissioned to the city that they needed a streetlamp out here just for this reason. She was always the last to leave the church, the one that had to lock up, and she had to cross the parking lot to get to the living building of the small convent.
But the Lord walked with her, she reminded herself. She had nothing to fear so long as she had faith. Chastising herself for being so silly, Sister Orpah closed the heavy oak door behind her and brought the key over her head. She turned it, heard the click, and put it on again.
As she stepped off the first step and began to make her way down the stairs, she heard a rustling in the copse of trees to her left. Or at least, she thought she did. She passed it off as the rustling of her habit against the stair and continued, keeping the Lord’s Prayer on her tongue as she started into the dark.
Sister Orpah was halfway across the parking lot when the quiet rustling turned into a clopping sound, like hooves across cobblestone. She stopped, turned around sharply, and peered into the darkness. A shadow stood out from the rest, only visible because it was moving, darker.
Her lips moved frantically, reciting a prayer under her breath, grasped at the rosary at her waist. She wanted to run, but her legs felt leaden, her body wouldn’t cooperate.
There was a rasping sound coming out of the darkness, oppressive, coming at her from all directions. Her voice rose, nearly shouting now, tripping over the words as they came to her lips and struggled to get past.
Time slowed, nearly stopped. She kept her eyes glued on the moving shadow. Suddenly, it stopped. Orpah’s legs took this as a sign to start listening.
She took off, running away from the shadow, pulling up her habit to keep it from getting trapped up around her ankles. Soon, the convent came into view. She stopped, nearly doubled over, struggling to draw breath into her panicked and exerted lungs.
Her fingers remained around her rosary.
Without warning, rough hands caught her from behind. One went over her mouth to keep her from screaming, the other wrapped around her waist and dragged her back into the darkness of the parking lot. She couldn’t be sure, but the ground felt spongey underneath her feet as she struggled to get the thing’s hands off her, and she thought that it might have dragged her into the outcropping of trees next to the church.
The last thing her mind was aware of before deep blackness was a sickening crunch and the same oppressive crunching.