“Who are you?” the girl asked and her voice sounded so hoarse with dryness that Violet’s heart nearly broke. A closer examination revealed that Eloise’s lips were cracked and bleeding.
Violet moved into the room, pushing the door shut behind her. “My name is Violet. Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here.” Even as she said it, Violet knew she meant it, too. She’d come here thinking the girl might have something useful to say about The Damned Thing…but now that she’d seen her, she knew she could never leave anyone in these conditions.
Eloise swung her legs over the side of the bed and struggled to her feet. The smell was overwhelming as she staggered towards Violet. She collapsed into the older woman’s arms, making a strange sound that Violet quickly realized was a cry of some kind. The poor girl was so moisture deprived that she couldn’t even sob properly. “Please be real. Please don’t be a dream. Did Jasper really go get help? He said he would. He told me I’d be okay.”
Violet recognized the name Jasper from Will’s earlier comments. She stroked the girl’s hair and spoke soothingly in her ear. “Eloise, please listen to me. Before I can get you out of here, there’s something I have to do first.”
Eloise pulled back and looked into Violet’s eyes. “You’ve been touched by it, too, haven’t you? I can… smell it on you.”
“The Damned Thing? Yes. It’s here, on the island.” Violet’s words set off a round of thrashing from Eloise, who began moaning and shaking her head. Violet gripped the girl hard by the forearms and restrained her. “I’m going to destroy it!”
Eloise stopped, panting from her exertions. “How?”
“I’m going to send it back to hell.”
Eloise laughed at that and it was a chilling sound, full of madness. “That’s good,” she said. “I like that… Back to hell.”
“You know about the pit that’s in the basement? The Hellmouth?”
Eloise stopped laughing and the corners of her lips seemed to tremble. Violet wasn’t sure if the girl was going to start laughing again or break down into tears. “Yes. It lets out evil… gets into everybody’s minds. I’ve had things… done to me by Doctor Main and his men… it makes me glad I’m not pretty anymore. I… I was passed around like a party favor and it made me so sick…”
“Well, it won’t happen anymore. Listen, do you know of anything that might throw off my plans? I’m going to throw the statue down into that hole, where nobody will ever find it.”
“I’m not sure that will be enough. It’ll just find its way back to the world.”
“Maybe. But it seems like the best idea I’ve come across.”
“Wh-where is it?” Eloise was obviously terrified, as if The Damned Thing was about to appear over Violet’s shoulder.
“A friend of mine has it. I’m not sure where he’s at, actually. I think the statue has been… talking to him.”
“I know where he is.”
“You do?” Violet narrowed her eyes, wondering if perhaps Eloise was so far gone that it would be a detriment to try and take her along. “How would you know that?”
“Because I heard its voice. The Damned Thing. I heard it in the hallway earlier. It… recognized me. I thought I was imagining it… I do that, sometimes. But if it’s really here, that must have been it.”
“So Clint brought it past your door?”
“Yes. He was going into the electro-shock room. I heard the door clang shut and lock.”
Violet released the girl and stepped back into the hall. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Eloise nodded. “Be careful.”
“I will.” Violet reloaded her pistol and kept it in hand as she approached the electro-shock therapy room. She left her purse behind in Eloise’s room, not wanting to be distracted by it. A quick pull at the handle of the door revealed that it was locked, which wasn’t surprising. Unlike Eloise’s door, this one didn’t look like it would be easy to break. Violet knocked on the door, pressing her face close to the surface. “Clint! If you’re in there, please open up! If someone finds me here, it’s going to be hard to explain…”
To her surprise, the door unlatched almost immediately and sprang open. Violet stepped inside and saw Clint Jacobs on the far side of the room, holding a pair of electrodes against his forehead with one hand. His free hand was resting on the controls of the electricity machine. He looked like he’d been crying. Violet looked around, wondering who had opened the door but saw no one. “Clint? What’s going on? Where’s the statue?”
“It’s on the floor next to my feet,” Clint said, taking a deep breath. “You should see it, Violet. It’s so… hard to describe. It looks like nothing I’ve ever seen… but at the same time, it was so familiar. It’s like something… so familiar you had totally forgotten.”
“It’s time to give it back, Clint.”
“Why do you have a gun, Violet?”
“In case I ran into Main or his men… or Crowley. He’s here, along with Burkard. Our plan’s kind of fallen to pieces.”
“I think the gun’s for me.”
“Don’t be silly.” Violet lowered the gun, keeping it at her side. She began to approach, moving around the side of the long white table. The straps on the table looked like they’d been used many times. Clint’s fingers twitched on the dial that would start the machine running.
“Don’t come any closer,” he warned.
“Or what? You’re going to zap yourself? Why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t want to keep living in this world. It’s awful, Violet. The things it told me… I didn’t want to believe them but I knew they were true. Every horrible word of them.”
“What could it have possibly said to you, Clint? You have to know that thing’s evil. It lies. It wants to hurt you. It wants to upset you. So what could it have said to make you forget all that?”
Jacobs looked like he was about to share what he’d heard but then he shook his head. “No. I won’t do that to you.”
“Tell me. Please.” Violet didn’t have any real desire to hear what awful things had set her friend on this path but she wanted to keep him talking until she could get close enough to pull him away from the electro-shock device.
“I asked him what the purpose of life was.”
Violet was almost within reach. If she lunged for him…
“We’re nothing but meat, Violet. Nothing but meat. You know how you beat a piece of meat with a hammer to soften it up? That’s what life does to us… it tenderizes us, through pain and suffering. That’s all we are to the Great Old Ones — toys and meat.”
Violet tensed, ready to jump. Jacobs saw what she was doing, however, and he twisted the knob, flooding his body with electricity. Sparks flew from the electrodes attached to his skin and his hair immediately stood on end. His eyes bulged sickeningly and then burst, the awful stench of burning flesh searing Violet’s nostrils. He’d turned it far past the accepted safety levels but Violet was still shocked at the damage being done in just a matter of seconds. Had Main made some modifications to the unit?
Violet found where the machine was plugged into a small generator and yanked out the cord. The lights in the room flickered and briefly went out. When they returned, Violet crept over to where Jacob’s smoldering body lay on the floor. His mouth was open and his bloated, blackened tongue hung out past his lips. It looked like a hot dog that had been left too long in a campfire.
“Oh, Clint. I’m so sorry. I swore I wouldn’t get you involved in this but I did, anyway…” Violet reached out and touched his face, yanking her hand back in surprise when she felt how hot he was.