??? Side

Ah… my eyes… my eyes have opened again… how rare these days…

Has it been days though? Has it not been years… millennia even?

I can no longer tell, nor does it matter… time flows differently depending on the being, and I have long since stopped being.

I do not know what my children refer to me as anymore, as when last I had awoken they had praised me as Lord Watcher… so I suppose that is what I am…

A Watcher, not a part of the world beyond seeing it… yes, it fits me well… I refuse to act upon the world, like so many of my brethren…

Though I suppose that is hypocritical of me… I have children after all, and they act as they will… at least it isn’t like my other brethren though.

I’m less hands-on compared to them, for sure… then again, I’m the most human of us… honestly, I still refer to myself as ‘I’ or ‘me’ like an ordinary being.

How amusing… but even more amusing than that, is what I see before my eyes… my eyes that see so much, oh, so, so many eyes…

Humans, entering our home… oh, the poor things…

I wonder how long it will take them to succumb to our stench, to our taste, to our blood… only time will tell, oh fickle time.

Cole Family Side

“I hate you.” Well, as if I hadn’t heard that before, little brat, it isn’t as hurtful as you think it is… not that Oliver could say that.

“What do you want me to say Stacy, that I’m sorry? It’s not my fault you got kicked out of school again and that the only place that will accept you is halfway into Canada.” Oliver spat out at his sixteen year old daughter as she looked away with a huff.

“It is your fault, you’re my dad.” Ooh… low blow little girl, low blow… again, not something Oliver can say, he was supposed to be acting like a serious, annoyed parent.

Oh, why did he end up having a kid at fifteen… his kid was older than half his age…

“Point, point, but think about it, you’re not just inconveniencing me, since I have to find new work now, but Mike also has to go to a new school and find new friends.” Oliver pointed out, hoping to drag in some support for the argument.

“I-I-I’m f-f-fine… n-n-not happy… but f-f-fine.” Looks like Oliver would be getting no support from his son, though he really wished he’d drop the stutter by now, it was getting annoying…

“Sorry Mike, dad’s just an ass.” Now why couldn’t his own daughter be nice to Oliver like that? Instead the only person she seems to actually like is her half-brother Mike.

Oliver noted, Stacy was because of high school hormones, Mike was because paid sex is excellent but dangerous, from now on, don’t accept the second and the first is long gone at least… his own warnings may or may not be accepted considering the hooker he got in the last town stop they were at.

“That’s m-mean.” Oliver was getting really annoyed at that stutter at this point; an annoying speech impediment that he had been assured Mike would grow out of eventually…

He didn’t trust that, considering Mike was the son of a prostitute that could have been drinking and smoking during her pregnancy, who knew what was wrong with the kid… lucky for Stacy, her mom was actually kind of responsible…

Well, that was actually because she was the valedictorian of her school and had secretly been a pervert with a crush on the star football player that was Oliver… and she had a thing for younger boys…

Oliver seemed to get all the weird ones, though the fact that they were kinky made up for it in his opinion.

More than made up for it…

“Whatever… huh… hey Stacy, is there a town on the map?” Oliver asked, looking through the windshield as Stacy huffed and checked the fold-up map of the great US of A.

“Nope, we’re a few hundred miles out from Quebec but nothing in between… why… oh.” Oliver was so glad something managed to shut up his traitorous daughter as they drove past a sign.

Welcome to Sanguine, we hope you stay.

That last bit was weird, and the name itself was weird to Oliver’s mind, wondering the pronunciation when Stacy spoke up.

“Sanguine? I think that’s French or Latin… something about a colour…” Oliver rolled his eyes at Stacy’s words.

Expect the child between a drugged up athlete and a genius of sorts to somehow be a troublemaker that was still smart. How that happened, Oliver didn’t want to know.

“So the town’s named after a colour and has a weird welcoming, is it on the map though?” Oliver asked, trying to cut his daughter off from wondering as she just rolled her eyes.

“No, there isn’t anything on the map actually… weird.” Oliver agreed, it was weird, but not majorly important, they had driven past a farm or two that wasn’t on the map, maybe it was because the map was old and this town was out of the way?

“Whatever, we need gas and some food, we’re stopping for an hour, then we’re leaving. I don’t give a shit what you brats do, but leave me alone.” Oliver stopped once they got into the town proper, allowing the children to get out of his old beat up truck.

“Go on, beat it.” Oliver didn’t really care where they went, as long as they left him alone to himself for an hour.

This town looked too small to be having adult entertainment, so he’d probably just have to find a bathroom somewhere to bust a nut… having kids is not conducive to getting some, or even relieving his own tension.

And so it was that the Coles split up.

Side Stacy

“Asshole… so Mike, what are you going to be doing?” Stacy looked to her little brother, ruffling his dark brown hair as he looked up to her with a frown at her actions.

She didn’t care that he was frowning over it, obviously. She loved her brother the most in the world, over her asshole father and over the mother who had two other kids with a successful military veteran or something and pretended Stacy didn’t exist.

“I-I-I’m going to the park.” Stacy smiled at Mike, nodding as she raised a thumb in approval.

“Alright, I can see it from here. By the way, I noticed you only stuttered once there, you’re getting better.” Stacy never forgot to complement her little brother on his improvements, knowing that even if he did improve, the asshole they called father wouldn’t notice or accept it.

“I-I-I still stutter f-f-for the same letters though…” Mike wasn’t wrong, his stutter was consistently for words starting with ‘f’ ‘i’ ‘m’ and ‘n’. It was apparently normal to only stutter at only certain sounds for those with similar speech impediments.

“Hey, it’s still better than when you started, when you first started talking you stuttered for everything but the ‘S’ sound.” Stacy reminded, smiling at that, liking to think that it was because her name started with it.

It made her feel better about her chronically depressed self.

“You’re right… okay… see you later.” See, without those words involved, Mike could talk properly, though his speech seemed to take a slight hit when he was nervous… a frequent state around their father.

“See you later. If you look for me, I’ll be looking around for a library. Oh, and knowing the asshole, he’ll stop here to pick us up, remember.” Stacy refused to call the man ‘father’ or ‘dad’ unless in a mocking tone.

The man hadn’t acted like a father to her since as far as she could remember, and she remembered having to ‘potty’ train herself since she was four years old wearing diapers.

Yeah, her lifestyle hadn’t helped her mentality, if anything; she blamed all her problems, of which she had a lot, on the asshole.

“You shouldn’t call him that…” Mike warned meekly as he walked away, after looking across the very empty road for cars, just like Stacy taught him.

He was already ten, but he still acted younger, something that was probably attributed to whatever mental condition caused his speech problems… not that they knew what it was, the asshole couldn’t afford to even get that checked out.

Which was bull, since there should be a government fund for that somewhere, but he probably didn’t want to get caught out on having kids and not being able to pay for them.

That got attention, that got Stacy and Mike put into orphanages, likely separated, and the asshole would stop getting money from a government grant for the unemployed who had to take care of ill people.

Stacy was his ‘ill person’ with her history of depression, self-harm, anger, and the one or two times she tried to kill herself.

The first time failed because she was eight and couldn’t tie a proper knot of all things.

Stacy shook her head, trying to take her mind away from the asshole and all the ways he failed both her and Mike, instead trying to think about all the stuff she got up to that got her expelled from the last school…

It was not her fault a guy trying to cop a feel couldn’t take the heat… literally she used the spray-flamethrower trick on his head.

The guy had to get all his hair cut off, and obviously she nearly went to juvenile for assault, though they were lenient with her previous mental issues enough to simply state that she had to go to another school.

In a different country… okay, lenient wasn’t the right term.

Lost in thought, Stacy arrived at the library, a small smile on her face, even if the building was slightly aged, it just added authenticity.

Books… it was the land of no emotion beyond those of a character in a story, how lovely… surely books were better.

The characters in a book couldn’t hate you after all.

Side Mike

Mike watched his sister walk away from the sidewalk with a small frown on his face.

He loved his sister, he really did, but she always seemed angry with their dad… he didn’t quite get why, but she always said he’d understand someday.

Mike thought he didn’t quite want to understand if it meant hating someone. He didn’t like the idea of not liking someone so much you want them to get hurt.

Other people didn’t like him like that though… at his old school, there were boys who hated him, he thought. He wasn’t sure, but they tripped him, stole his books, shoved him…

A lot of that sounded like they hated him.

Mike didn’t like that, he didn’t think he could hate someone if that was what it meant… he wasn’t sure he could ever do that to another person, it felt horrible after all.

Even the girls joined in, though they did stuff like stick bubble-gum in his hair, or pretend to stutter around him, and once they took his lunch.

Not as obvious as the boys, but his sister eventually told him that meant bullying, and bullying was when you hated someone different, or weaker than you.

It was a bit complicated for Mike, but he got it, they hated him.

So yeah… Mike wasn’t sure he could hate someone. It seemed like too much effort, not to mention it hurt someone… being hurt didn’t feel nice, so they probably also wouldn’t like it.

Hopefully, if there were children in this park, they wouldn’t hate him?

Walking up to the park, he found three children, one boy a bit bigger, one boy younger, and one girl roughly his age, the three were just kicking a ball between the three of them lazily.

Mike’s appearance did disturb them though, as all three looked to Mike.

Mike shyly waved as he hoped he didn’t stutter… he always stuttered worse when meeting new people.

“H-h-hi…” well, there went that idea.

The three children all smiled slightly, their dark eyes narrowing a bit as they each waved at the same time, their mouths opening at the same time.

“Hi.” Mike felt it was weird, but he didn’t mind, glad that they were at least nice enough to greet back.

“I-I-I’m M-M-Mike. I-I-I’m staying i-i-in town f-f-for an hour. I-I-Is i-it alright i-if I play with you?” he stuttered quite a bit, meeting new children, but they seemed to not mind as all three nodded, in sequence from the eldest to the youngest.

“Sure.” “Sure.” “Sure.” All three spoke as they nodded, and Mike just smiled, thinking it was a neat trick, that they could all talk and do their actions at the same time, or just after each other.

“Play with me.” all three spoke, and Mike giggled a bit, wondering why the three all seemed to want him to play with one of them alone…

He wished he had friends who he could do tricks like that talking together thing with.

Unfortunately, Mike was not quite able to understand the eerie nature of the three children with the same eyes and grin.

He also didn’t know how weird it was that they kept passing the ball between them without even looking at it…

But he just thought that was another cool thing about these three children…

Even their mismatching old timey clothes were cool, to Mike at least.

Side Oliver

“Hey, thanks for letting me use your bathroom.” Oliver thanked the gas-station attendant after towelling off his hands… probably shouldn’t tell the guy his soap was ruined.

“No problem, I’ve had times where I needed a while to finish my business too.” Oliver was pretty sure the guy wasn’t talking about the same business Oliver meant, but hey, silence is golden.

Or some bull like that… he didn’t quite know if he got that right.

“But man, I got to say, I’m really thankful gas prices are so low around here.” And wasn’t that the truth, it was usually almost three dollars a gallon, but here in this town it was still just a dollar.

“Oh is it? Well, too late for me to charge you, but how much is it these days? We don’t get much news from out of town, considering we’re of a quiet folk.” The man said from his chair, though he gave a warning glance at Oliver when Oliver patted a box of cigarettes in his hands…

Right, explosive materials and fire obviously don’t go together unless he was trying to be part of an action movie.

“Oh sorry… uh, yeah, it’s almost three dollars now.” Oliver didn’t care that explaining this to the guy would cause gas prices to jump in this town, Oliver wasn’t ever going to visit this town again, so what did it matter to him?

“Wow, that’s quite a jump since ninety nine…” Oliver blinked at the man’s words, looking at the man again, and noting the man didn’t look much older than twenty.

And it was twenty eighteen, which meant the guy would have just been born maybe two years before then.

“Sorry, did you say nineteen ninety nine?” Oliver asked as the man blinked, shaking his head.

“Oh, sorry about that, I’m talking about my pa, he owns this place, so he set the price back then and hasn’t changed it since.” The guy corrected with a wave of his hand, and Oliver shrugged, probably a slip of the tongue.

“Well, thanks for everything then… say, you know how to get out of this town? I’m heading for Canada with my kids.” Internally Oliver loathed calling the brats so nicely, but appearances were to be upheld.

“Wonder why you’d ever want to leave, but sure… the road you stopped by, when you came into the town? You won’t get out if you follow it forward or back, you’d best leave through grass paths if you want to get out.” Oliver frowned waving the man off.

“Nice joke there man, so basically follow the road right? Thanks for the help.” Oliver said, getting into his truck as he started it up to go drive around the town for a bit.

He didn’t see the attendant frown and shake his head, looking most regretful as Oliver drove away.

“Poor guy… I warned him.” the attendant stated, his eyes suddenly glazing over as he reached behind him, pulling out a newspaper and ruffling it.

As he did so, if one was there, they would see the date, nineteen thirty four, and they would probably be confused.

Side Stacy

“This library doesn’t have a good selection of fiction, huh?” Stacy mumbled to herself as she walked amongst the shelves, looking for anything from the year two thousand or later.

Her search was proving fruitless, and she just sighed, recalling the librarian.

The old man had seemed surprised at her appearance, immediately pegging her as a traveller heading through the town, just stopping by for a quick read.

The man seemed to approve, as she walked up, asking where the fiction section was… the man had told her that it was not exactly worth looking for, and he recommended she look amongst the history section.

She disliked reading about dead people, let alone horrors like the works of the great King or Lovecraft, though she didn’t mind Poe as much since most of his works were poems.

Something about such knowledge freaked her out, so Stacy disliked them, instead preferring fantasy or science fiction over supernatural stuff. History was just marginally better, since it didn’t go into detail on how people died most of the time.

Seeing the abysmal amount of fiction, Stacy decided to try and take the old man’s advice, and walked up the history section…

Which was likewise empty, with the exception of one shelf… this library was turning out to be very disappointing in Stacy’s opinion.

Nonetheless, she walked forward, and scanned the shelf, looking at the boring titles until she came across a book without a title on the spine.

Normally ignoring such books, she figured that she might as well give it a try this time, and removed it from the shelf, turning to see the cover.

The Sanguine.

It probably spoke about the town itself, or perhaps its inhabitants?

“That is a good book.” Stacy gave a yelp of shock as she turned to see the old librarian who just looked out of his foggy glasses at her.

“Don’t scare me like that!” She shouted as quietly as she could, given that she was in a library, but that wasn’t very quiet.

The librarian responded to her shout with a simple raised eyebrow before he sighed, shaking his head.

“I’m not scary, little one. But to each their own… the book you chose is a good one. Do not read it yet though.” The librarian said making Stacy blink as she narrowed her eyes.

“Not now? I’m not staying in this town for long you know, I won’t have time to come here and read this book.” Stacy said, leaving the man to chuckle as he walked away.

“Oh, you’ll stay, and you’ll be back, and then you’ll want to read the book then. Don’t read it now. It won’t change anything.” The man stated, his owl-like glasses peering at Stacy with a knowing look.

The problem was that Stacy had no idea what the librarian ‘knew’ about her.

“I think that you’re wrong.” Stacy said, even as she tried to edge away from the librarian… he didn’t go closer, instead extending a thin arm, with fingers thin like the limbs of a spider or something.

“And that’s the mistake of most people who come into this town. They are so quick to share their thoughts… but the value of something is higher the less who possess it.” The librarian flexed his fingers, a crack or two making Stacy wince…

Stacy got the idea from his actions, handing over the book as the man tucked it under his arm, not returning it back to its perch.

“What do you mean, by value?” Stacy was by now more than a little freaked out, and definitely wanted to leave the library, and yet she felt some need to remain, a need to verify her questions.

“Thoughts, I mean. If they are your thoughts, they have value. But when you share your thoughts, they aren’t yours anymore. They are now known by others, and so it is the thought of the collective.” The librarian’s words were calm and steady, in contrast with his appearance which looked like he could be blown over by a tiny gust of wind.

“That’s a strange way of looking at it. Most people are praised for being able to share their thoughts freely.” Stacy said, getting a chuckle from the librarian as he turned.

“And those who praise are the smart ones, for they found a way to take the thoughts of others for no cost.” The librarians words got Stacy thinking, even as he vanished into the darkness.

She didn’t hear his footsteps after that.

She walked away, leaving the library confused and introspective, considering her thoughts and her previous actions over her life.

She didn’t get much chance to do so before she found herself at the meeting spot where she was supposed to wait for her ‘father’ and her younger brother.

Mark was soon there, running and huffing heavily, worried he’d be late and get Oliver angry… he didn’t like making his father angry, and Stacy wasn’t sure why Mark cared.

As soon as she was eighteen, she was leaving the passive abusive asshole in her opinion…

And there she became depressed again.

“Hey there Mike, did you have fun while we were away from our sperm donor?” Stacy didn’t care for keeping Mike ‘innocent’ because frankly the fact that he was despite living with Oliver was amazing.

She didn’t think anything she said would destroy his innocence when living with Oliver couldn’t do so.

“I-I don’t think you should be so m-m-mean with dad.” Mike’s pout was adorable and healed Stacy’s soul in her opinion. There was just something about being adorable that made one forgive everything and feel happy.

Stacy wouldn’t stay happy for long, but at least Mike was her anchor in the waves of turmoil that was her depression and anxiety from living with Oliver.

She had gotten really good at hiding the last one from the cause, but when she was away from him she ended up wanting to drink or smoke, anything to take her mind off.

“I’m mean with him because he’s a bad dad Mike. Anyone would tell you that if they knew how we lived with him.” Stacy reminded, and Mike frowned, but said nothing.

They stood in silence for about three minutes before Oliver’s car pulled up next to the sidewalk, allowing his children into the car.

“Alright, now to leave the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. Brats, we’re never coming here again.” Oliver’s complaints were ignored by Stacy and Mike just looked a bit lost at why his father was angry at this place.

“What happened, stub your toe while bending over in the bathroom?” Stacy’s words were ignored by Oliver just as much as she didn’t care for his complaints.

“Dad, why i-is this place bad?” Oliver tried to limit his stutter as much as possible… but it still ended up annoying Oliver, that was just not going to change.

“It’s empty and boring. No good place to sleep, no entertainment, and there are way too few people for a town this big.” Oliver’s complaints all came down to the same thing after Stacy thought about it.

He was basically complaining that there were no whores or fun people to hang out with… all three of his complaints went into that one problem.

“It’s a weird place.” Stacy did not agree exactly, but just added her own observation of the place…

Well, she was only really by the library, but that was enough for her to consider this place messed up.

“Huh… you’re right there.” Oliver said as the car turned onto the main road of the town, the one that headed both in and out of the town on opposite sides.

As he turned, he didn’t notice the gas station attendant looking at their car with a sad glance and a shake of the head.

“I-I-I think it’s n-nice.” Mike thought to the three children he played with… he couldn’t remember getting their names, but they were amazing, they were really good at hide and seek.

Outside the window of the car, no one saw three children wearing very old fashioned clothes looking at the car. No one saw how the three smiled simultaneously, their deep dark eyes twinkling.

“Let’s compare then, if it’ll actually keep me from being bored.” Oliver said with a sigh as they drove slowly, the speed-limit in the town ridiculously low.

And even if he was rude, Oliver didn’t want to go to jail for speeding, let alone a jail in a boring town like this.

“Well I-I-I played with three other kids. They seemed n-n-nice, they were really good at passing to each other. They could do i-it without even looking!” Mike was amazed.

Oliver just shrugged, while Stacy blinked in confusion as his words.

“Eh, by the gas station there wasn’t any lube but soap.” Stacy’s look of disgust was a contrast to Mike’s look of confusion.

“Disgusting.” Stacy’s statement was ignored as Oliver continued talking.

“Oh, and the prices were really low. Like nineteen thirties or so low. And the gas station’s grandpa set the price and never changed it apparently.” That didn’t seem too bad, though how a town didn’t know about changed rates was a mystery…

Stacy still considered it strange as she thought to her own encounter.

“The library was empty. It only had a ton of old books about things before world war two. And a history book about the town… didn’t get a chance to read it though.” Stacy admitted with a bit of annoyance, and Oliver looked at the rear-view mirror, seeing a large trailer truck turning into a different road.

The only thing he managed to make out about the truck, other than the black front and white trailer, was the white words on the trailer…

Deliverer.

Seemed like an odd name for a delivery company, but hey, FedEx existed, and Oliver had no idea what that stood for.

Seeing the truck reminded Oliver of what the gas station attendant told him though, making him snort derisively as he remembered the warning.

Stick to the woods area? His car wasn’t a Jeep, it wasn’t made for that kind of driving, and that sounded silly in the first place.

It didn’t stop Oliver from mentioning the story to his children who were confused on it.

Stacy looked worried though, recalling the words of the librarian…

She would be back? She’d stay?

“Oh, the other children I-I was playing with said that n-n-no one leaves the town.” Mike’s words only furthered the worry Stacy possessed.

Oliver ignored the signs of disturbance though with a sigh.

“Those kids were probably right. I mean, that town is so empty and boring, there are probably very few people who enter or leave that place." Oliver didn’t know it, but his words were only making Stacy more scared.

“…no one leaves… don’t take the road… we will be back…” Stacy’s words were too quiet to be heard as she happened to look up and see a sign.

At first glance, it was similar to the one shown when one enters the town.

A second glance would kill that train of thought and leave one pale.

You can’t leave Sanguine. You will stay.

Stacy had barely begun to open her mouth to tell her asshole of a father about what she had just seen, when the truck hit them.

It had come from in front of them, out of nowhere, the headlights suddenly on in front of their faces before the collision.

Were they to look at the trailer of this truck, they would find only one word.

Deliverer.