Part 1 (Lukas): https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16jp1vj/hellwalker/
As mentioned in the previous post, some more things have occurred that I thought worthy of sharing so I’ll be discussing them in chronological order.
I met up with Ellie at a café after I made that original post. It was a nice café near our campus. I placed an order for both of us for coffee and sandwiches and we sat on two darkwood chairs at an Oak table in the corner of the Cafe next to the window. She wore a brown long sleeve shirt and jeans and had her dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. She also had her silver catholic cross around her neck.Ellie looked outside the window at the plants the Cafe had placed, the sunlight making her green eyes sparkle more.
If I was to be honest, this was almost like a dream come true. The girl I had been crushing on for months sitting right across from me where I am the first guy she’s dated in a while from what I’ve heard. If it weren’t for circumstances, I would’ve been more cheerful and energetic than a rabbit rather than having the melancholic expression I had on my face.
“Out of all the days, God had to make this one beautiful . “ Ellie said.
“What did you expect?”
“Something more depressing, like a rainstorm.”
We continued to engage in small talk, awkwardly dancing around the thing that brought us here. Hell, we continued to avoid it even when our food and drinks came.
I broke the awkwardness when I asked “Ellie, what exactly happened?”
She was silent for a moment before saying “Do you remember when Samatha asked me to do some ritual with her friend?”
I said yes.
“Around a month later on August 18th, Samatha and her friend Kyrsten , the occultist, were hanging out at her apartment. She said that she found through sources a way to release sealed spirits, and asked me for my silver cross. She made some kind of pentagram and she said something in Latin. I understood some of it and I think it roughly was some kind of chant along the lines of ‘O spirit, awake and return to this world and escape your prison.’ Nothing happened for a little while until the power went out and back on.”
“Did anything happen after the blackout?”
“No, Samatha and Kyrsten thought it was just a dud and they teased me. I took my silver cross and left.”
“That’s it?” I asked, hoping to get more information about the ritual.“
Yeah, not much more I can tell you. She didn’t really go into much depth and just told me to do some things.”“Damn it!” I muttered under my breath.
“What is it?”
“He’s going to kill us if we don’t do something and I don’t know about you but I’m not the type to lay down and die, not especially after what he did to Lukas.”
“Lukas.” Ellie began sounding remorseful. “He was close with you, no?”
I took a moment to think about my relationship with Lukas, and all the things we had done for each other ever since we met freshman year of college.
“He wasn’t just my best friend, he was my brother. He taught me a lot about dating and socializing, helped me get on my feet when I got here, was always there when I needed help, and I was for him.”
I looked at Ellie, and I could see she was trying so hard not to shed tears and was looking away.
“I’m so sorry for Lukas.”.
“Thank you.” I said, feeling consoled “To be honest, I’m not holding up well after I learned that he was dead. The only thing that’s been on my mind is preventing this from doing it to someone else.”
Ellie calmed herself down before saying “How do you think we’re supposed to fight some angry Irishman from 400 years ago that may wait a second.”
Ellie’s face began to light up and the smile that attracted me to her began to quickly return as she radiated a hope that rubbed off on me.
“My mom said that one of my ancestors was the one to seal the Hellwalker, so what if we, you know, find out how he sealed him?”
I felt immediate hope before I was silently insulting myself for not thinking of that earlier.
“Of course!”
“I’m going to have to call my mom though.” Ellie’s original joy and optimism quickly crumble upon this realization. “I can’t believe she’s going to be too thrilled about the fact that I unleashed a monster.”
“Do you feel ok talking with your mom?”
“ If I have to take a screaming fest from my mom, if it means we can stop this thing before he kills another person then I’ll do it. ”
I admired Ellie’s resolution before both of us got up and left. We walked to Ellie’s dorm that happened to be nearby and before she entered her dorm I stopped and asked if she wanted me in the room as an emotional support in the likely case things got heated with her mom.
“I’ll be fine but thank you.” she smiled at me before going into her room while I stood outside.
The time she spent talking with her mother was around 12 minutes. Unexpectedly, the conversation wasn’t as strenuous or heated as I thought it was. Though I could hear through the walls what sounded like arguing, it wasn’t the heated or tense exchange I thought. However after the call was done, Ellie walked out of the room and looked like her soul had been crushed which immediately had me concerned .
“Are you ok?”
“My mom said she already knew about the Hellwalker being released after my dad told him about Lukas death. She told me she didn’t know how our ancestor sealed the Hellwalker. However my grandad apparently knows some people in Ireland who can help and he’s going to Ireland tomorrow. “
“When will he be back?”
“At the earliest, three weeks.”
“Damn it!” I banged the wall in frustration before taking a deep breath and calming down.“Did your mom suggest we do anything in the meantime?”
“She suggested we start doing research on how to defend ourselves against the Hellwalker. She said she would try going through some old family books about spirits and demons to see if she would be of any help.”
“So we’re on our own until then?”
“Pretty much.”
I signed in frustration but at the same time having some a new sense of direction. It wasn’t exactly hope but it was better than being lost and dreading being burned from the inside out. I talked with Ellie a little before we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways for the day.After we talked, we agreed to do research on what the Hellwalker was and how we can protect and hopefully end it.
I went home, and since I took the day off, I spent the next few hours browsing the internet, writing down notes about possible ways to deal with the Hellwalker. It had the generic methods, salt, holy water, sliver, etc.
While I was doing research, I noticed something extremely odd. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I put into the search bar, no matter what obscure paranormal board I searched, there was no mention of Ellie’s Hellwalker.
The closest I got was some Irish folk spirits but none of them exactly fit the description of what I was looking for.I slammed my desk, frustrated that this little piece of shit that took my best friend, that supposedly terrorized Ireland, had no information on what he was or how to defeat him.
Part of me was hoping for a solution, one quick fix that can wrap up this nightmare in a nice bow. Perhaps I was just living in fantasy land.
“Jesus, I needed a cigarette” I thought to myself.
I went up to go get a pack from my bedside drawer when something caught my attention. I had accidentally opened the top drawer instead of the bottom where I keep my cigarettes and I saw some pictures of my family.
I picked them up and I began to smile when I focused on my little sister, Emily. I felt a sense of comfort wash over me when I remembered seeing her beautiful green eyes, her dark brown hair that our mom wrapped in a ponytail, her childlike innocence that lit up the room, and that beautiful smile that made all the worst of our days tolerable.
“That smile that has been gone for a long time.” I thought.
My expression devolved into a sour one as I began to get depressed when I remembered what had happened to her when I was entering high school. My dad was out driving her out to school however what should have been a normal drive followed by her sitting and being bored in class for 6 hours into a living hell. What happened was that there was a bad pothole that caused a pickup truck to swerve violently and collide with my dad’s Black sedan at 60 miles per hour.My sister died instantly, her beautiful face from what I dared remembered disfigured beyond belief.
The worst part however was that I could see the look on her face. It was a mix of shock and confusion, the kind of expression I imagined a child in a warzone or a child who witnessed someone jumping to their death would have. She didn’t understand, she didn’t understand why her bright life was cut so short.
Emily’s death destroyed my family to say the least. The one driving the pickup truck was confined to a wheelchair for life while my father was the only one who made a full recovery. To be honest, I wish he didn’t and instead had died that day. I don’t say this because I hate my father but more so because I think him being dead would be a far better fate for him than him being alive.
My father started drinking heavily after that, spending at least a third of his income on booze. He started getting into altercations with my mother and sometimes things got violent, with me being caught right in the middle. Not like my mom was innocent at all. She started smoking at first one cig a day before it was 2, 3 and then half a pack a day. She became a lot more cold towards me and seemed completely different from the warm and loving mother I spent most of my childhood with. She would curse my father, blaming him for Emily’s death and saying that he should be dead, not her. Eventually my parents divorce with my mom gaining custody rights with my dad only allowed a monthly supervised visit but I could tell that the divorce broke both of them, especially my mother.
Because of everything that happened between us, I haven’t contacted my parents for over 3 and half years ever since I left for college. I shed a few tears before I put the photos away before I got my cigs and smoked two of them, wishing Lukas was still here to smoke them with me.
Not much really happened for a few days, I talked with Ellie about my findings and we concluded that until we get more definitive methods, we would just use the usual methods of dealing with spirits. I went out to a store and I bought multiple canisters, and began salting my doors and windows everyday. It was a pain in the ass to clean up and at the time I wasn’t sure if it would even work but that was preferable to getting burned from the inside out.
As for things on Ellie’s side, she asked me to come to the dorm because she wanted to discuss something. I drove there and I rang on her dorm bell to which she opened the door and let me in. I greeted her before I was immediately concerned by the look on her face, a mix of frustration, disgust, and sadness.
I walked in and saw her room for the first time. She shared a dorm with Samatha. Her side was relatively plain with a Catholic Cross hung up above her bed and where she only had a desk and a few books. Samatha side was far more decorative with posters of bands, and TV shows. Her desk had a lava lamp and a small bookcase filled with romance novels.I sat down on her bed next to her and we began having a conversation.
She confided a few days ago with one of her professors, Dr Richards who specialized in Irish history, about her Hellwalker story. of course leaving out the whole part of it being released She wanted to see if Richards knew any folklore or more information about the legend that she didn’t know. She told her that he sadly didn’t have information but he said that her story was apparently fascinated by it and offered to help her write a paper about it and said that he would be open to discussing this topic with her at another meeting.
Afterwards she was done explaining, she had the same look on her face and I still had the same feeling that she was holding something back.
“Ellie, is everything alright?” I asked.
She hesitated to speak for a moment, putting her hand over her mouth and visibly gagging in disgust.
“I, I was supposed to have a meeting with Dr Richards today but when I walked to his office.”
Ellie gagged again with me putting my hands on her back and stomach to help maintain her balance.
“He was sleeping with a student.”
“Excuse me what?”
“He didn’t notice me, but I swear I just wanted to puke right there and then.”
To say I was surprised was an understatement. Dr Richards was the kind of professor that everyone on campus, no matter your personality or work ethnic, loved. His classes were always so engaging that even slackers got off their asses to listen to his lectures. He was professional, kind, understanding, and truly what everyone’s ideal professor would be or at the very least, that’s how he was on the surface. Hell I even had a semester schedule with him to get credit for my political science degree.
“Wow, that must have been tough to see.” I said in what was admittedly a vain attempt to comfort her.
“That, that lying filthy snake bastard! How many girls has he done this with? What did he want with me?”
Ellie’s face quickly morphed into an anger that I would have never imagined seeing from such a sweet, and beautiful girl such as her.
“Ellie, I know you’re upset, but calm down and report it to the administration tomorrow.”
“I know.” She said in a much calmer tone but it still had a sense of bitterness and vile disgust in it. “God will judge him so I don’t see much-”
“Wait a second.” I said, stopping her.
I stopped because I just had a sudden feeling rise up with me. It was a primal feeling, the kind one would feel if they were being watched by something not within their eyesight. The kind of feeling that a caveman would feel if he was being watched from behind by wolves. I felt the air around us grow cold and heavy as the cumbersome feeling that we were not alone began to ring on us.I checked Ellie’s window and door, there was no salt.
“What is it?”
“You forgot to salt the doors.”
Ellie’s face went blank as I sensed that she too had the same feeling that we were being watched by some entity.
We looked at the door, it gently opened from the inside as we saw it turn towards us, and then it closed, like someone was leaving the room.
“Ellie, come with me now.” I said.”We need to go find Dr Richards right now.”
Ellie got up without a word, understanding the situation completely as she grabbed her silver cross, and what looked to be a journal. Both of us were scared out of our lives and we understood that we were likely charging towards our deaths. But for our own reasons, we kept pushing forward.
Both ran out of the room and sprinted towards my car. It was late with twilight outside as we got into the car and I stepped on the gas and moved as fast I could without getting pulled over. We reached the building Dr Richards was at.
“Fuck the doors are opened.” I said, getting out of the car as fast as I could.
I opened the trunk of my car, and pulled out a canister of salt. I intended to splash whatever the Hellwalker was with it. It was better than nothing, I slammed my trunk , and while carrying the canister, I sprinted up the concrete stairs and through the doors.
“Ellie, which floor and room is he?”
“Floor 1, room 584!”
I didn’t need directions as shortly afterward, we heard the sounds of screaming. We followed them and in around ten seconds, we were outside his room.I saw through the window that inside was obscured by a black mist, as we heard more and more screaming. Ellie caught up to me and I motioned for her to do whatever she was going to do with her silver cross and journal. I tried opening the door but it was locked.
“SHIT!” I yelled.
Quickly thinking, I asked Ellie if she had a hair clip I could borrow to which she gave one to me. I molded it and began pick locking the door like how my dad had taught me.
I got it opened, and as soon as I opened the door, the black mist dissipated as the room came into view. Books and pages littered the room along broken pieces of ceramic pots and dirt from the plants he had in the office.
I looked at Dr Richards who was leaning up against his wooden desk flipped sideways , he was alive and conscious and was relatively unscathed with only his clothes somewhat torn with a few bruises.He then looked at me, no that’s not the right words, I don’t think he was looking right at me but rather just looking with a soulless expression.
And then he started screaming the most ear piercing, horrific scream of terror I have ever heard in my life.
“Holy Mother Mary, Pray for us sinners, handmaid of Lord, Pray for us sinners! Be it done unto me, at the hour of death, pray for us sinners so we may be spared from hell!” He kept screaming in broken, barely understandable phrases.
He began wailing around like an animal and I eventually had to physically restrain him before ended up hurting himself. It was no easy feat but luckily I had some help from some of his co-workers who were in the building and also heard the screaming.
The campus police came and while they were initially suspicious of me, Ellie explained the situation to them and I was out of trouble .
Dr Richards was taken to a hospital where they concluded that he had a mental breakdown which caused him to have a violent fit and destroy the room but as I and Ellie know, the Hellwalker got to him first and we were too late to help him.
Even now, I still feel a level of self hatred and anger for not doing anything to stop the thing that killed Lukas.
I sat in my dorm contemplating the day’s events, and then I looked over at Lukas bed. He was my roommate and that’s actually how we first met. Seeing his empty bed just both made me despair even more but paradoxically also bolstered my resolve .
The silence ended when my phone began ringing. It was a number I had never seen before but my phone didn’t mark it as potential spam so I picked it up.
“Hey, this is Andrew right?”I recognized the voice as Miguel, a member of the track team who Lukas was close friends with as well as me.
Miguel and I ourselves weren’t close and only really interacted if Lukas invited us out for something.
“Yeah it’s me Andrew what do you need?”
“Andrew, do you know what happened to Lukas? Because from what I heard, I swear God almighty it, it sounds crazy but sounds like how that monster from Ellie’s story killed his victims.”