May 22, 2019 - 10:50 PM

Leo Kelly

About a mile away from the bridge, Eury needed to take a break. I was surprised that she was doing so well up until now. With her suddenly changing her O2 intake last night, I should’ve expected it, but how she looked was still a shock. Compared to yesterday, she was noticeably more lethargic. Breathing harder. Sluggish like she was walking in waist-high mud. I just hoped what I said, convinced her to keep the O2 up before she passed out or something worse.

After a while, we entered downtown Sheridan. And by “downtown”, I just meant a set of three-streets running parallel to the river with the center-most street hosting the small town hall across from the largest park in Sheridan. One that I was quite familiar with.

From the gas station that we holed up in for our rest break, it was a fairly straight shot down mainstreet to get to O’Brians. I had swallowed my worries and complaints about stopping there after Eury told me about Alaska. I knew if I was in her shoes, I’d want to know what happened to my friend too. But steeping in the bloodbath there that night, seeing first hand what happened, I wasn't in a hurry to return.

From O’Brian’s, it would only be a few blocks further to the clinic. Not long if we were walking at a normal pace, but between trying to be silent, jumping at every single sound, and one of us—not naming any names—having only one functional lung and refusing to use more oxygen, we weren’t exactly burning rubber here. I looked back at Eury, who had slowed to a stop a few steps behind me. We had just turned back onto mainstreet after avoiding a couple of freaks sleeping on the meridian. It was still so weird to see them sleeping. Those first few days, they barely seemed human with how they prowled the streets, looking pants-shittingly terrifying in the dead of night. In a way they seemed just a little more human these days. A bit more normal in a homeless kind of way, even though they would rip me inside out if I accidentally woke them. I walked back to Eury to see what had caught her eye. Looking out over the river like she did, I couldn't see much even with the sporadic moonlight. It was cloudy. A good thing for us. In our dark clothes, we were practically invisible, but it meant that we couldn't see them much better either.

Lightly, I grabbed Eury by her shoulder. Her gaze turned to me, slowly, like she was running at half speed. I considered trying to play charades to see what was up, but thought better once I saw how glassy her eyes looked.

I leaned in close to her, nearly putting my lips against her ear. “Are you okay? What's wrong?” I waited for her answer. I pulled away when I got none.

Even in the dark, it was clear she was crying. Barest hints of tears still clung onto her cheeks. Being out here, it was beyond obvious the world could never be the same. Not after this. Even if things somehow did return to normal, how could we?

Last night it was my turn to break, now it was her’s. I brought her in for a hug. To my surprise, she allowed me to wrap my arms around her—for a few seconds at least—before she pulled away. With a single sleeve, she wiped her eyes.

“Are you okay?” I repeated.

Her lips pursed tightly, then nodded. We continued on.

My footing felt a little less sure as we reached the edge of the gravel lot beside O’Brian’s. The parking lot, still half-full of dirty cars and trucks, reminded me of the shit show that night. If I closed my eyes, I could play out the events moment by moment. Somehow, the old sagging bar looked even more decrepit with none of the flickering yellow lights that normally dotted the porch. Even though it had been the better part of a week, not much had changed outside. The only thing that had changed since that night, was the one thing that I had hoped we could avoid. The corpse of the bouncer wasn’t where I had pulled myself off him, that night. Instead, where he should’ve been on the steps of the old wood porch, there was a conspicuous nothingness.

The wagon crunched too loudly on the gravel so I left it close to the berm that separated the parking lot from the bar. I grabbed Sheila, and Eury held her fire poker in both hands. After pulling the concentrator’s sling tight across my chest, we were ready to go. My head on a swivel we crossed the lot. The cold sweat of effort that I had built up getting here turned hotter with every step. Made even more difficult because each step threatened to be loud enough to get anyone’s attention. As we approached the porch, I felt some of my tension release.

The porch squealed like a pissed pig the moment I put my weight on it, freezing both Eury and me on the spot. The seconds ticked past. No response. Was O’Brian’s empty? I breathed a slight sigh of relief. It was quiet, and we might just have been safe.

The last time I had been here, it was anything but on that last Friday.

May 18, 2019 - 12:40 AM

I couldn’t help but feel awkward when I walked into the motel’s sickly green lobby. And the slack-jawed gaze from the desk clerk didn’t make me any more comfortable either. He couldn’t have been much older than eighteen. His face covered in enough acne it looked like he bathed in pizza grease.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m… looking for someone.”

Nice going Kelly, way to look incredibly suspicious.

“That ain’t helpful, dude.” He said, looking back down at the flickering desktop.

“There’s three people here, two guys and a girl. All of them mid-twenties?”

His eyes flicked back up from the desktop again. The recognition was obvious on his face. “Okay, but it isn’t like I can just tell you if they’re here.”

Except you just did, dipshit.

I plastered on a nice, polite smile. “Look, I know these guys. I haven’t seen ‘em in three days, and they’re not at the shelter. I just wanted to make sure they were alive and not rotting in some drain or something.”

“So what? You’re a cop or something? Just get a warrant, man.” He said, looking back down again.

“I’m not a cop, and they’re not in trouble. Least, not that kind of trouble. I just want to be sure they’re okay.”

“Okay, but—”

“Let me guess, they haven’t paid up for the night yet, right?”

“They…” The kid’s eyes floated over to the sheet beside his desktop. “Okay, no they haven’t.”

“Yeah, and they won’t. So, instead of calling Sheriff Keefe down here, how about I go and deal with your problem?”

The desk clerk held my gaze as he mulled my offer over. After sucking on his teeth loudly, he pushed himself away from his desk.

“Fine.” He agreed, without sounding all that happy about it. He brought with him a large key ring from under the desk and a baseball bat from behind him.

I followed him out into the neon-lit parking lot of the motel. The clerk was a lot bigger than he looked hunched over behind the desk. He must’ve been a football player, or maybe a powerlifter or something. Steroids would explain the acne, now that I think about it. Every step he took, the keyring in his left hand jangled. And with every other step, the aluminum baseball bat he had in his right hand clinked against the ground.

“You’re probably not gonna need that.” I said, at the back of his head.

The desk clerk shrugged. “It’s just policy, man.”

“It’s policy to threaten your clients with a baseball bat?”

“It’s policy to threaten the non-paying ones, yeah.” He said, shutting the conversation down.

We stopped in front of Room six. “After you open the door, do you mind hanging back for a second? Just let me talk to them first.” I asked.

“Alright, whatever dude.” The desk clerk flicked through the couple dozen keys on the ring until he found the correct one.

“Shouldn’t you knock?”

“Sorry, it’s policy.” He shoved the key into the lock, turning it and opening the door with such ease that it must’ve been rehearsed. No surprise there. This motel was the only cheap place to stay, or shoot up, in town.

The door creaked open into a dark room. The blinds had been drawn. Lights were off. The only light was from the dim bulb under the overhang above me, and the slowly flashing neon sign out front.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness. Whether it was fear or instinct, I don’t know, but something kept me from taking a single step into the room. “Hello?” I called out again, finding my voice a little more.

The desk clerk leaned beside the door. “Maybe they ain’t here.” “

Hey, Rheese. You here, man?” No response. “Hey guys—”

“Alright.” The desk clerk stepped in front of me. Flipping the switch to the old tired lights. “You’ve tried, and I’m getting cold. They’re obviously not—” The room’s lights flickered on after a moment. And the sight shut him right up.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in red splatters. It was so thick and dark that it looked like a can of black paint exploded. And the epicentre of that explosion was on the bed.

It was impossible to be sure that the thing on the bed was him, but I recognized Rheese’s long blond dreads on the bed beside the red and black mash that used to be his head. Below that, it was like his chest had been torn open, and everything inside had been devoured.

I stumbled away from the door, but the clerk stood stark still.

“What…” The clerk stammered out. The world around me spun as the horror burned into my eyelids. I puked up my dinner onto the sidewalk. “What the fuck is that?” The clerk continued.

A tearful moan drifted out the open door.

“Stay back!” The clerk said suddenly. His tone changed from shock to quivering fear.

I got my bearings, turning back to the door, just in time to see the clerk take a few steps back. Then, without warning, a bloody and sick looking man tackled the clerk, knocking him off his feet. As I rushed to help him, a wave of terrible familiarity came over me.

“Teddy? Oh god, what the fuck are you doing! Get off him!” I barreled into Teddy, knocking him into the slatted wall of the motel, stunning him for a moment. Turning back to the desk clerk, I recoiled. His throat sputtered out more and more blood from the gaping hole Teddy had torn out of his neck. “What the fuck!” I felt my breath growing shorter and shorter as panic took hold.

I backed away as Teddy slowly got back on his feet. Before I could even question what was happening, something at the back of the room moved.

At the back of the room, a thin woman with patchy platinum-blonde hair stumbled out of the bathroom. Even more than Teddy, she was covered in the black blood. The moment that our eyes met, I recognized her. Of course I did, there was a time that I was in love with her.

The moment that she saw me, Wren’s jaw unhinged. And from somewhere within the deep blood-covered hole that was her mouth, an exceptionally loud, traumatizing shriek erupted. The sound blasted my mind clean of every thought and feeling save one.

Fear.

The moment she sprinted at me, deftly avoiding the vomit and sick that covered the carpet of the motel room, the adrenaline that drowned my brain finally yelled at my legs to move. And move they did. I ran faster than I ever had before, straight for the busiest place in Sheridan on a Friday night.

O’Brian’s, someone could help me there. There had to be.

May 18, 2019 - 12:54 AM

May 23, 2019 - 12:02 AM

Carefully, I pushed open the door into O’Brian’s while consciously avoiding looking at the bloodstains where Wren had taken the bouncer down. As I peered into the dark, empty bar, I pushed the memories of that night further and further down as I stepped in. The door closed quietly behind Eury. I froze, listening for any movement. The seconds ticked past mercifully quietly. Eury stepped forward, and suddenly, I could feel her breath against my ear.

“Light,” Eury said.

I clicked on the flashlight. In the slight panic that always followed entering a new place, I quickly swept the empty bar with the flashlight. Nothing too alarming at the entrance and first seating area. The floor, however, was something else. I gagged at the smell of vomit, blood, and bile that stained the floor. I pinched my nose, a futile attempt to block the smells. The same smells from that night.

“Oh god.”

I spun around to face Eury. In the flashlight, I could see her clearly for the first time since we left the store. Her eyes were bloodshot, glistening with tears.

“She’s dead,” Eury whispered, but her words hit like a loudspeaker against my ear.

“Who’s dead?” I quickly scanned around the room again. Even though there were so many people here that night—so many people hurt—there weren’t any bodies around. No evidence of the insanity that no doubt unfolded after I left.

“Alaska. There’s no way... Look at all the blood.”

“And not a single limb lying around. No bodies.” I turned back to her. “There’s a chance she’s still at the clinic. So until we have definitive proof, don’t jump to any conclusions, okay?”

“No I… I didn’t tell you about her last text.”

“Last text?”

“I… I don’t think she’s…” With every word, Eury’s emotions fought to take her down.

“Maybe she’s just holed up somewhere, just waiting for—” she interrupted me before I could finish my excuse.

“Be safe. I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“That was her last message to me: Be safe. I’m sorry. So, come on… let’s go.”

“Wait, Eury,” I said, grabbing her by her tank bag. Turning around she ripped her bag away from me, but she stayed silent. I kept the flashlight low, to not betray the uncertainty I felt and knew I couldn’t hide. “Why are you in such a hurry? Just take a moment, we need to talk about this.”

“I’m in a hurry because I thought being back here would give me hope, or maybe help me understand something about this thing that's happening. But instead, it just sucked any hope out of me.”

I bit my lip. I wanted to double down on the clinic angle, but I knew better. Getting stuck downtown during those early days? That was a death sentence. That was why I crossed the river into the suburbs so quickly. More places to hole up in and fewer people. Fewer people meant there’d be fewer people to go full crazy. Even that first night, it was obvious that there were way more out there than just Wren and Teddy.

“We’re leaving. Now.”

A flare of rightfully placed anxiety erupted in my brain. There was no way that I could let her leave all emotional and erratic. She needed to cool off first. Even though O’Brian’s wasn’t the safest place to calm down, it was certainly better than outside. “Eury.” I said, grabbing her again. Immediately she tried to yank her arm away, but I held on tight.

“Let go!” Her voice raised just a little too loud, so she spoke quieter. “Let go, now.”

“We’re not leaving until you calm down.”

“Calm down?” I glanced down at her fire poker as she raised it slightly. “When in the history of saying calm down has that ever worked!” She punched the air with the poker, violently enough for me to flinch and lose my grip on her. “Fuck off, Kelly. I’m leaving. With or without you.” She started towards the door, swinging the fire poker at her side with every step.

“Wait.” I said, starting after her. “Eury, stop, now!” I couldn’t help but raise my voice.

She stopped a step away from the door. As she turned, I could see her chest undulating beneath her jacket. Quick, jerky movements. I raised the flashlight, revealing the truly terrible state she was in.

Her skin was clammy, slick with sweat. Eyelids heavy and sluggish on her face. Tears were draining down from her nearly lifeless eyes. And her mouth was the worst. Like a fish trapped on land, it was opening and closing wildly.

“Kelly, I don’t feel—” A violent coughing fit interrupted Eury.

Her fire poker rattled loudly against the ground when she reached up to cough into her hands. Once the coughing subsided, she looked at her hands, her face even more lifeless than even just a moment before. In some sort of futile attempt to have me help her, she showed her bloody red hands to me.

Suddenly, the door behind her slammed open, sending her aside. I only saw the large man tumbling in for a moment before he disappeared into the darkness of O’Brian’s.

I searched frantically with the flashlight and after a tense moment, listening to his drawn out moans, scattered shuffling, I finally found him.

He was hunched over Eury’s unconscious body, hands wrapped around her throat, and his open mouth only inches from her face.

“Hey! Put her down, you fuck!”

His animalistic gaze broke from Eury to meet mine. The light of my flashlight was reflected back at me in his single bright-white eye and was seemingly swallowed whole by the lifeless black stone that was the other. Seeing me, his jaw unhinged and unleashed a pained wail into the bar.

May 23, 2019 - 12:26 AM