The Testimony of Jacob Hollow
Prelude
Jacob Hollow watched the grub inch up the doctor's jacket sleeve, slowly, then drop harmlessly to the writhing floor below. Hundreds, thousands more roiled around the table and chair legs, threatening at any moment to rise up and consume them whole.
Jacob knew they would. He's seen it happen!
"Let's talk about Castle Bay for a moment, shall we?" the doctor asked, striking a match and drawing the small plume of fire into an overused pipe. The dancing light snapped Jacob's eyes back up from the floor for a moment and when they darted back down the larvae horde was gone - all but the first, which slowly inched away, into the darkness...
Jacob knew they'd seen him, and that they'd wait... wait until the doctor had him off-guard again before...
"Jacob?" the doctor prompted.
"Yes, Doctor Solomon?" Jacob's voice was level, disenfranchised, alien. He couldn't remember using it for anything but screaming in far too long.
"You were speaking of Castle Bay?" the doctor prompted.
Jacob's eyes flared again, and he wrestled uncomfortably within the straight jacket. "You have to let me warn them!" he said, his voice clear and stern.
"Warn who?"
"Everyone!"
"Of what?"
Jacob grew still and his eyes fixed on the doctor, burning into the man's face. "You have to tell them all. No one can return to Castle Bay! It isn't safe!"
"Why isn't it safe, Jacob? What happened there?"
"None of us are safe!" Jacob screamed, veins bulging from the sides of his neck, threatening to explode.
"Jacob, it's alright," the doctor said, raising his hands before him to help ease the tension. "I believe you. No one's going back there. But we need to know why. We have to know what happened to you there."
Jacob fell back into nervous silence for a time, rocking without rhythm in his chair. The doctor raised his hand higher toward the mirror to their right, warning off the orderlies. He was close to getting Jacob to talk - close to learning the truth...
"There were seven of us to begin with," Jacob began, his voice low and his words carefully selected - as if he feared they might unleash some evil if he misspoke. His eyes were fixed on the doctor again, but they were seeing something else ... a shocking past that gripped his psyche and shredded his soul. "Most of us didn't last very long!"
Doctor Solomon glanced to his tape recorder. The spools within diligently circled, recording everything the patient said.
Finally, the doctor thought, we'll know what happened to this wretch - and the 214 people who died in Castle Bay...