NOSTU, Part IV: Consummation

By Draven Copeland, Managing Editor

**CONTENT WARNING: This text contains strong language, sexual references, and violence**

Jackie sat on the hotel bed, staring at the cracked phone screen. The screen-recorded video had come to an abrupt halt right after Robyn’s sister, Erica, screamed when she saw something offscreen. He looked at the Ziploc bag on the counter, the hastily scrawled “DON’T TRUST ANYONE” on the paper beside it catching his eye more than once. Looking back at the frozen image of Erica’s screaming face on the phone, he tapped its power button and tossed it onto the bed in front of him.

“What the fuck was that?” He said out loud, and the silence in response offered little to console him. Now, he’d seen the events leading up to Robyn’s death… most of it, anyways. For him, the events were confined to the 5-inch screen and the capabilities of its camera and its owner. 

“What the fuck,” he said again. Then, the thought hit him. He was WTFJackie, wasn’t he? And what better of an opportunity for the channel than a case that has actual, hard evidence of the supernatural? Not to mention one that spanned decades… Caroline Wydell’s death wasn’t being recreated, it was another one of these… attacks. Whatever that thing was had been killing people for decades now, at least. With all of this information ready, he’d get Bella writing a script for him as soon as he got back, he resolved.

In the meantime, he checked his phone to see if she’d sent the pictures she’d said she would. She had – better yet, one of them had a play button. He was glad for that, as it meant he might not have to resort to PornHub again after all. Just as he began to swipe through them, there was a knock at the door.

Jackie muttered more profanities as he shoved Robyn’s phone into his back pocket and the bag/note into the nearest bedside drawer, ignoring the dust and cobwebs inside. He checked his pants and, as per usual, his excitement wasn’t obvious through the jeans. The mirror above the table showed him that his hair was still spiked up the way he liked it and, thus prepared, he walked over to the hotel room door and opened it.

A slender young woman stood on the other side, her straight black hair falling around her face and down to her shoulders. Dark eyeliner winged off of her large, pale blue eyes and highlighted the overall paleness of her face. Her sleeveless black top and knee-length skirt sat tightly on her body, lace leggings winding up her legs and various symbolic tattoos running down her arms. She looked into Jackie’s eyes and, for the first time he could remember in his adult life, he was actually stunned to silence by her beauty, despite the unnatural familiarity in her appearance. Her thin lips broke into a smile, as if in response to his lack of a greeting.

“Jackie, right?” she said with a seductive tilt in her head that made Jackie remember how to speak.

“That’s right,” he said. “And you are?”

“Eve,” she said. “Eve Wydell. You talked to my dad earlier today?”

“I did. I didn’t realize he had… he said something about his family dying, actually.”

Eve sighed and looked down and over at the doorframe. “My mom and my sister… and I’m as dead as I can be to him while my heart’s still beating. But I came here because I have a lot more to tell you, Jackie. A lot that my father probably left out.” She looked around, suddenly seeming concerned. “Not here in this doorway though. They might hear me,” she whispered, her eyes widening further in fear. “Can I come in?”

Jackie was silent for a moment, sticking his head out of the doorway and looking back and forth down the long, yellow-lit hallway. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he stepped to the side and smiled. “Of course.”

Eve looked up at him, smiled, and walked into the room.

---

Jackie sat on the side of the bed while Eve sat cross-legged across from him on the desk chair he’d pulled out for her, drinking the shitty hotel coffee he’d offered before they sat down. He hadn’t tasted it, but he could tell from the burning, metallic smell that it was likely in the running for the worst cup of coffee Eve had ever had. She didn’t seem to mind it.

The light from the sole bedside lamp was only just enough to fill the room, illuminating their faces and immediate surroundings but leaving the rest of the room in a dark, yellow glow.

“You know,” Jackie said. “You don’t look a thing like the Sheriff. Like your dad, I mean. The ‘old hardass’ genes not pass down or something?”

Eve laughed. “He gave you some trouble, did he? That sounds about right. We don’t get –”

“Many out-of-towners, yeah, I remember. Sorry to, y’know, intrude on your land and spoil the vibe, it, uh, seems like a good one.”

“Not at all. I mean, not that you need to apologize at all. I guess it’s not a ‘vibe’ I mind being spoiled. Not every time, anyway. I usually find it exciting when someone new comes around.” She paused for a moment, looking into Jackie’s eyes. “But, I told you I’d tell you more about my family.”

Jackie looked back at Eve. “I’m ready and waiting.”

Eve’s smile widened as she sipped at the coffee, looking his body up and down. “As you wish.” Her gaze went down again, lingering on the phone sticking out of his pocket. “You don’t want to record any of this? It might be important to your investigation.”

“You’re so right,” Jackie replied, shuffling for his phone. “I do have to ask… you’re comfortable being recorded? And that your recording might be featured in one of my videos… with credit, of course.”

Eve chuckled lightly. “That’s fine, Jackie.”

He tapped the red circle on his phone screen and numbers dashed upwards as the recording timer started running. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Eve smiled again, setting her coffee down on the bedside table. “My parents moved here about 30 years ago… five years before I was born. After a couple of years, my mother… well, she started to become concerned. Hearing things in the trees. Thinking they were laughing at her. And she’d see things out in the darkness, waking my father and sometimes even my older sister to tell them about the ‘moving shadow’ she saw in the corner of her eye. My father didn’t believe her, but Marcy, my sister, she saw it too. ‘The Clicker,’ she called it. My father didn’t understand why, but my mother – Caroline – she did.

“At first, she was quiet about it, but then it got to a certain point… she wouldn’t let it go. She said that the townspeople looked at her funny in the daytime and that they watched her from the trees in the nighttime. They were ‘waiting’ for something, she said, but she couldn’t say what. William… my father, if you could call him that… still would not entertain her. I suppose he had his reasons. To the average man, she sounded hysterical. To the average man, she was too emotional, letting her feelings spill out into reality in a way that became bothersome. To the average man… well, I guess I digress, don’t I?”

Jackie took a moment to respond, the wheels in his head turning. Everything she was saying had made an eerie amount of sense until the end. “Well… was she..?”

“Emotional? Why yes, she was. Because she was right about all of it. There is something here. Something that eventually killed her and my sister.”

Jackie stopped the recording. “You’re talking about the creature that killed Angela Mariani and Robyn Patterson?”

Eve’s eyes widened briefly with amused surprise. “So you already know about it? Oh, good.” She smiled again, her eyes betraying an anticipation behind them. “Should I continue on the record or would you like this conversation just between us?”

Jackie tapped the record button again. “Go ahead, sorry.”

“Locals know this creature by its name, as it has been passed down… Nostu. It killed Angela and Robyn… and my mother… and many, many more. But, it has also given life.”

“If the people know this Nostu… I mean, have they tried to stop it?”

“Stop it? How, Jackie, would you presume we do that? You saw it, just now. You saw it seminate Robyn. And you want to know how to stop it?”

“How do you–”

“Although my father and I are not close and, after tonight, will never have the chance to be, I do stay up to date on his comings and his goings… his affairs, if you will.” Her eyes met Jackie’s again as she finished the sentence. “Insmith is a small, quiet town. Whenever there’s a disruption like yours, it’s the center of attention. You are the center of attention. And my father, he… well, for the sake of conversation,” she looked directly at the timer running on the phone, the soundwaves of her voice halting as she paused. “Sheriff Wydell has not been in favor in this town for quite some time.”

Jackie’s heart was racing and he started to stumble over himself. “You said that, um, that Nostu ‘gives life…’ Do the townspeople have some sort of relationship with it? Is that why you haven’t tried to stop it?”

Eve’s smile widened. “Now, Jackie. You ask these questions and then you seem disappointed by my answers.”

“I’m not–”

“Yes, Jackie. Your heart is racing. Your posture has changed.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Are you afraid? Has something I said reminded you of something?”

Jackie’s finger hovered over the red square on his phone. “No,” he said shakily.

“Then why, Jackie, are you so concerned with stopping it?”

Jackie pressed the square on the phone, stopping the recording. “Okay, real talk for a second here,” he said. “What the everloving fuck is going on? Who are you, really? Wydell tells me his family is dead, he only gives me theories about these girls’ deaths, and then, you know what he told me? Twice?”

Eve chuckled to herself, recrossing her legs and leaning back again in her chair. “What did he tell you, Jackie?”

He grabbed the note from the drawer, standing and shaking it in her face. “‘DO NOT TRUST ANYONE.’ In bold fucking letters. So, I’ll ask again. Who the fuck are you?”

Slowly and calmly, Eve stood, face-to-face with Jackie. “Since you won’t listen to me,” she said, nearly whispering. “Maybe it would be better for me to show you.” Placing her left hand softly on his crotch, she leaned in close to his ear, wrapping her right arm around his neck. “Would you like that?”

“Woah, hey,” Jackie recoiled slightly but did nothing to pull himself away from her hand. “Don’t avoid the question. You’re talking about shit you’re not supposed to know about, how am I supposed to think this isn’t some sort of weird plot or something? Are you trying to take my fucking evidence or something?”

There was a moment of silence as Eve looked into Jackie’s eyes, motionless.

“Also, I have a girlfriend,” he added.

“Ohhh, interesting,” she said sarcastically, licking at his ear and grasping him tighter. “Is she here?”

“No.”

“So, why can’t a fan,” she moved in closer, “And a follower of yours,” the arm that wrapped around him pulled him against her, “Get to know you a little better before I share all the secrets? Information isn’t free, you know.” She kissed him, licking at his lips as she pulled away. “And whoever she is… that girl too busy farming money from other men that she can’t ever come with you… she doesn’t have to know anything about anything, does she?”

Jackie exhaled slowly, his hands rising to Eve’s waist and hair. “No,” he said. “I guess she doesn’t.” He kissed her, shoving his tongue into her mouth. Pulling back, he added, “So, how much is the price for info these days?”

Eve smiled and Jackie could feel her breath on his neck. “You unfaithful fuck,” she said, gripping him with her left hand so tightly that her red-painted nails started to dig into him through his jeans. Just as he tried to pull back, her right hand gripped the point where his neck met his jaw and violently forced his head to the side, nearly breaking his neck. Rearing her head back, her long canine teeth slowly grew forward, her gums bleeding black, shadowy liquid as they forced their way out of her gums.

“Hey, what the –” were Jackie’s last words before she slammed her teeth into his neck. Her left eye rolled back first, followed by the right as she sucked on the blood that came streaming into her mouth, gulping loudly. The bloodshot whites of her eyes bulged, unseeing, as she hastily drank from him.

When she was done, she pushed his rapidly paling body back onto the hotel bed. He gasped for air, his glazed eyes looking all around but seeing nothing. Blood continued to pulse out of his neck to the pace of his slowing heartbeat, leaking onto the musty bedsheets and slowly seeping into them.

Eve chuckled to herself and spat the mixture of blood and black saliva that remained in her mouth onto his white shirt, watching as it splattered against its canvas. “Lucky you – I almost took too much,” she said. “I wish I could say I was sorry but, unfortunately for me, I just can’t lie like you can.”

She turned around, leaving Jackie’s convulsing and gasping body behind her as she flipped the light switch, smothering the room in complete darkness. Opening the hotel room door, she greeted the group of seething townspeople that filled the hallway, waiting anxiously for her; their dark-rimmed eyes seemed to be bulging out of their sockets with anticipation and their mouths were twitching with impatience. They were all strikingly thin, and all but the shirtless white-haired old man that stood directly before her held lit candles in their hands, none of them minding as the wax dripped down onto their hands. The white-haired man smiled widely as he held out a camcorder towards Eve in his bony hands. Someone in the back of the hallway flipped a light switch, changing the glow of the room from unfeeling fluorescence to living, waving, shadowy firelight that reflected and shimmered in the bulging eyes of the dense mass of dark figures. 

Eve bowed before the man as she took the camcorder and turned back towards the hotel room. The play button clicked in when she pressed it, a small red light beaming from the front of the camera as she held its viewport to her eye and walked into the room. The grainy dark footage slowly grew into faint visibility as all of the townspeople huddled into the room, vaguely illuminating it with their candlelight. She turned the camera to watch as the old man walked over to the window across from the doorway and creakily opened it. Small, brief whispers from the crowd and creaking bed-springs from Jackie’s seizure broke the silence as the grainy footage continued to roll.

Suddenly, a loud screech quieted the room completely as an abnormally large, clawed gray hand gripped the windowsill and a wet clicking noise began to echo into the room. “Nostu,” Eve whispered, training the camera on the dark, open window and zooming in as the creature’s head slowly rose into view, its tongue clicking against the back of its knife-like teeth. “Semené Infantus Sangus Corpi.”

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