Chapter 2: Whispers in the Steam

Chapter 2: Whispers in the Steam

Despite the bone-deep chill that had clung to his memory for days, Alex went back to the gym. He had to. His dad, thrilled that Alex had found an “interest,” had paid for a full summer membership in cash, beaming with a hopeful pride that Alex couldn't bring himself to shatter. Besides, the alternative was staring at the water-stained ceiling of his new bedroom. Here, at least, the slow, rhythmic clank of iron was a distraction.

He told himself it was all in his head. The void, the cold, the whisper—it was a combination of a stuffy room, a weird old man’s creepy story, and his own frayed nerves. A perfectly executed prank. That’s all it was. He repeated this mantra as he awkwardly tried to use a lat pulldown machine, feeling the indifferent gazes of the gym’s other inhabitants. They were a collection of weathered, grim-faced men who moved with a weary purpose, their faces blank, their eyes focused on nothing. They weren’t working out so much as performing a ritual.

And always, Alex felt like he was being watched.

It wasn't the casual observation of the other members. It was a focused, piercing attention that made the hairs on his neck stand up. Sometimes, he would catch Louis Alistair watching him from behind the counter, that wide, welcoming smile never faltering, while his ancient eyes held an unnerving, proprietary gleam. It was the look of a collector admiring a new specimen.

More often, the watcher was Neil, the skeletal janitor. Alex would see him at the far end of a hallway, a mop held loosely in his hands, his head tilted slightly. Neil’s gaze wasn’t possessive; it was drenched in a sorrow so profound it was almost terrifying. He looked at Alex the way someone looks at a fawn that has wandered onto a highway. The moment Alex met his eyes, Neil would flinch, turn, and shuffle away, leaving a faint, acrid scent of bleach and fear in his wake.

The true strangeness, however, lived in the locker room. Alex always tried to be in and out as fast as possible, his senses on high alert. The steam that curled from the showers and hissed from the old pipes seemed thicker, heavier, than normal steam. It muffled sound, creating a pocket of isolation in the heart of the gym. And within that isolation, he heard them.

Whispers.

At first, they were just faint, sibilant sounds, easily mistaken for the sigh of the pipes or the drip of a faucet. He’d freeze, his towel clutched in his hand, and listen. The sounds would resolve into something that was almost language, a dry, rustling murmur that slithered at the very edge of his hearing. They were genderless, emotionless, and utterly unintelligible. They sounded like the secrets of dust, the telling of things that had long since crumbled and been forgotten. He would flee the room, his heart pounding, only to feel foolish once he was back under the fluorescent hum of the weight room. It was just the pipes. It had to be.

His loneliness in Burberry was as thick and suffocating as the steam in that locker room. Then, two weeks into his sentence, he met Jason Miller.

It was during a sweltering afternoon at the town’s sad little park. Alex was sitting on a bench, listlessly flipping through a comic book he’d read a dozen times. A kid with a mop of unruly red hair and thick glasses nervously approached him, clutching a binder of trading cards to his chest.

“Is that… Cosmic Crusaders #37?” the boy asked, his voice a hopeful squeak.

Alex looked up. “Yeah.”

“The one where General Zorg reveals he’s Commander Comet’s brother?”

Alex nodded, surprised. “You read it?”

“Only a million times! I have the whole Zorg saga.” The boy’s face broke into a wide, earnest grin. “I’m Jason. You’re new, right? I saw you at the corner store yesterday.”

It was that simple. After weeks of suffocating silence, Alex felt a crack of light break through. Jason was a native of Burberry, but just as much of an outcast. He was a connoisseur of all things nerdy, an encyclopedia of video game lore and comic book trivia. He didn’t care that Alex was from the suburbs or that his clothes were different. He only cared that Alex knew the difference between a Blastoise and a Charizard.

Suddenly, Burberry wasn’t just a prison. It was the place where he and Jason would scavenge for bottles to get enough money for slushies, the place where they’d sit by the muddy creek and argue about who would win in a fight between Superman and Dr. Manhattan. Jason’s nervous, infectious energy was a powerful antidote to the town's weary gloom. For the first time since the move, Alex felt a flicker of something like happiness. He had a friend. The crushing weight on his shoulders eased, just a little.

He kept going to the gym, but now it was just a part of his routine, a place to kill an hour before meeting up with Jason. He grew bolder, ignoring the whispers, brushing off Neil’s pitiful stares. One afternoon, he was changing after a quick workout when he saw Neil in the corner, meticulously cleaning the grout between two tiles with a small brush. He hadn't heard the janitor come in.

“Hey,” Alex said, his voice sounding too loud in the damp room.

Neil jumped as if struck, dropping the brush with a clatter. His eyes, wide with panic, darted towards the door and then back to Alex. He opened his mouth, a wet, clicking sound in his throat. For a moment, Alex was certain he was about to speak, to finally give voice to the warning that lived in his terrified eyes.

“You… you shouldn’t…” Neil began, his voice a ragged whisper, thin as a spider’s thread.

But then the locker room door swung open, and Louis Alistair stood there, filling the frame. “Everything alright in here, boys?” he boomed, his cheerful voice a physical force that flattened the tension in the room.

Neil flinched violently. He snatched his brush from the floor, turned without another word, and practically fled, his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

Louis chuckled, shaking his head. “Poor fellow. Nerves are shot.” He winked at Alex. “Stick with the iron, son. It’ll make you strong. It’ll make you a man this town can count on.”

Alex just nodded, his throat tight. He quickly pulled on his shirt and grabbed his bag, an unnamed urgency compelling him to leave. As he walked past the last row of lockers, he instinctively glanced at the numberless one. It sat there, silent and blank, a scar of grey metal. And for a fraction of a second, he thought he heard a whisper from behind the door, clearer than ever before, almost forming a word he couldn't grasp. Mine.

He hurried out into the late afternoon sun, the gym’s oppressive atmosphere clinging to him like a shroud. He saw Jason waiting for him by the bike rack, waving a new comic book excitedly. A genuine smile spread across Alex’s face, washing away the gym’s lingering chill.

But as he walked towards his friend, towards the only good thing in this whole rotten town, a cold dread trickled down his spine. It was a phantom touch, a memory of the absolute cold from that locker handle. He felt it again, that deep, possessive watchfulness emanating from the brick building behind him. It wasn't just watching him anymore. He knew, with a sudden, sickening certainty, that it was watching them both.