Shadow Stalker Chpt. 14

I wriggled in the chair. No use. I counted the men as they ate continuously. Twelve of them. They all sounded like they had old old English ruffian accents. Or Scottish maybe. It didn't matter. The table just seemed to be constantly full of food as well. My stomach grumbled like a dinosaur. I never really had thought about eating the entire time since I had become a shadow stalker..or what ever it was.

"The lass is hungry Bono!" yelled the orge man next to me. His breath was diguisting and teeth were rotten. The group laughed. "Yew know what happened to the last lass that ate here love?" he said in real close to my ear. I shook my head. He used his eyes to point across the table. I looked and there was a chair with bones and chains. Fear ran through my veins.
"I'll be fine." I said in a small voice to him, and looked away from them all. The room was large and ceilings were high. We must be in a castle of some sort. The men continued to eat. The man next to me though watched me carefully.
"So what is so spesh about yew anyways?" he asked eating a leg of lamb. Spit and juice ran down his hairy chin.
"I don't know, but you seem to have me chained up for some reason." I said in reply, holding as far away from the man as I could. He smelt awful!
"Ah, see young w'man, yew weres roaming the plece, and withoot permission. Thats why your in that chair."
"Oh." I sighed. Great. "So, then why are you all here? Aren't you full yet?" I asked. The man stopped and looked at me for a second. He seemed confused.
"Yew haven't heard o' us before nah?" I shook my head again. "Hmph. That is odd hmm. Everyone knows o' us!" He yelled. All the men cheered and continued eating. He turned to me and must of seen the confused expression on my face now. "Yew still really don't know?"
"Sorry, I haven't been here long..." I replied, feeling stupid. "What is your name?" I asked him now, seeming like he was nicer than the rest.
"Percy." he said triumphantly. "And we -" he paused and showed me, "are the Damned." he smiled now. "Forever Damned to starve. Forever to be hungry. It is our curse. Not the most unpleasant I might add, but a coupla hundred yers will make ya sick of anythin."

Forever hungry. The thought floated in my mind. No recognition of the curse what so ever. "What made you this way?" I asked. He grunted.
"Never yew mind lass. Besides. Your the mightly and powerful wanted one." he then shrugged. And went back to eating. I looked at the chains that bound my hands and feet. There had to be a way out, or even a bargain out...
"Percy?" I asked the man, he looked up from the whole chicken on his plate. "What if I could free you from this curse?"
"Free us from the curse? Impossible!" he laughed.
"But what if I find a way? I mean, your all supposed to be.. uh, dead I pressume?" he nodded. "And this un-death you have here, is well, not good right?" he sort of nodded again after thinking about it.
"Well, what if you let me go, and in exchange I will find a way to get you to your next life, make you be free of this gross curse, and we can all be happy - relatively?" The room was silent. All the men were looking at me. It was hard to try and find the right words to say, even though I had no idea how to help them.
"Don't listen to her boys!" Shouted an older one from the end of the table. "She'll poison yer minds with dumb ideas so you'll letter free!" he claimed. It was true. But I did want to help, if that was any consilation. The men had small conversations with each other, I'm guessing to decide my (and their) fate. I looked to Percy who was playing with the food on his plate.

"What will you do?" he asked me.
"Well, what did you do to deserve this?" I asked again. I looked around the table and everyone seemed to be listening to us again.
"We." he hesitated, and looked to the others for reassurance. "We all chose to be selfish, lass. We gave in to our own desires, and not that for the greater good." Percy said, now putting his fork down.
"We all died about the same time, back in the real world." Said one of the men.
"We were champion eaters, as a team we went around the world conquering restaurant records." said another.
"We were constantly on the move, our families feared for our health and our lives, but we didn't care, eating was our job, our lives."
"We eventually came up with some tough competition down in Southern Utah. A team of men would do anything to keep their record, their claim to fame.
"We ended up defeating their record, but we all came down with an extremely bad case of food poisoning." He paused, it looked like he had trouble continuing. "We all thought it was sabotage by the Utah men and the restaurant staff.Of course it wasn't, but we couldn't see passed our own death beds at the time."
"On our death beds lass," Percy went on now, "we swore revenge would be made, and thats when a young man came to us. He promised us revenge and all our hearts desired, and here we are, paying the price for a promise yet forfilled." he finished.
"We haven't even our revenge yet!" yelled one of the men, he was furious by the look on his face. All the men grumbled and yelled along with him.

"Hang on," I interrupted. "So you swore your after lives to this man, who ever he was, so you could get revenge on a few men that gave you food poisoning that led to you eventual deaths?" Everyone nodded. "And you haven't received your promised gift?" They yelled in agreement.
"So what will ye do lass? To help us?" Percy asked again. I thought about it, and my purpose here in this world. I wasn't dead yet, that I was 90% sure. Maybe like Valerie, I could help these people, these men make the right decision?

"What if," I began, "you could make it right?" The room was silent. I looked at them all. Most of them didn't want to make eye contact. Though I could feel the stare of someone.
"What if you could choose again, redeem yourselves, and break free of this curse?" No one seemed to think it could be done, just by looking at their faces. Percy undid the binds on my wrists.
"You think it would be that easy?" Percy asked, hopeful. He looked like he wanted to change, where as the others did not.
"Probably not." I said truthfully as I rubbed my wrists and undid my ankles. "It would take a true change of heart by your sole." The men all looked at me with wide eyes as I stood up.
"I can help you all!" I said with guisto. "You can pass on to you real after life, all you have to do is believe me, and that I can help you get there!" The men got back to eating, so strangely too, like I had said nothing. Except Percy. He had vanished.

"Weldone, Bravo! Bravo!" echoed a voice from above. There was an inside balcony that I did not notice before, 2 men stood there glaring at me, or the group of us, I couldn't tell. That was where the feeling of someone looking at me came from. From under the balcony walked another man, tall and cloaked. He was the man congratulating me. I could not for the life of me figure out why I  hadn't recognised the voice earlier. He was clapping now as he walked closer, and took his hood off. I gasped. His smile was large and wide.

"Congratulations Delilah, you are on your way to become an effective shadow stalker." Dunstan said as he patted my shoulders. I almost thought for a second a breathe of fear went through me, but I was quickly mistaken as I suddenlt felt a wave of calm over me. My doubts subsided and I put my arms around him. How good it felt to see him again.
"I've missed you Dunstan." I said into his chest.
"I'm glad your here, Delilah."