by Shaun Meeks
I went to the bathroom, and then headed to the kitchen to put on some coffee. As it brewed, I checked my phone. I was surprised to see nothing from Rouge at all. I thought at least a text message, but not that or a missed call. I sent her a quick one, just to say hi and that I hoped we could talk later.
By the time my coffee was done and I had finished two cups, she’d sent no response so I was pretty sure she was avoiding it all too. As hard as it all was for me, there was little doubt it was equally as bad for her. We had such a great relationship. We laughed, got out and saw all kinds of amazing things, had some incredible sex, and talked about our future together. It was perfect in my opinion, and then, it was all coming apart. I felt sick to my stomach from it. Every time I tried to think about something else, her face popped back into my head. I figured the best thing to do was get to work on solving the Chance case. I hoped if I buried myself in research it would be enough of a distraction from the things that made me long to sleep my day away. I put on some music, needing something dark and hard to wake me out of the funk I was in. A playlist of Bad Brains, Killswitch Engage, Wu Tang, and Propaghandi was just what the doctor ordered.
Three hours melted by before my head started to pound from all the time I’d spent poring over books and staring at page after page on my computer. I spent all that time reading and it turned out to be all for nothing. Not one thing I read brought me any closer to answering the mystery of what had killed Chance, or what would cause me to see those people drooling from every facial orifice. I leaned back in my chair, frustrated, and felt as though I needed to step away from the research, too. Work didn’t seem to be working the way it normally did.
I stood up and checked my phone. There was still nothing from Rouge, so I sent her another message asking if she wanted to see me later. I didn’t know what else to say.
When I got nothing back from her after thirty minutes, I knew I had to do something else. I couldn’t go back to reading, as important as it was. I needed to move, to get out; I figured fresh air would do me some good, even if it was raining out. I was worried about going out, though. If it was somewhere public, there was no saying I wouldn’t see another of those melty-faced people, and I was sure I’d freak out again if I did. Skipping the mall was easy enough.
I saw it was still pouring outside, but even if all I did was go for a drive, I was sure it would help. I could pick up something from Tim Hortons and drive out to the Bluffs and watch the storm. It’d be better than sitting around the house moping and feeling useless. I’ve never been in this way before, feeling as though everything around me was a fragile house of cards, with a hurricane on the horizon. It wasn’t something I felt suited me too well, either.
I left the house five minutes later.
The storm wasn’t as bad as it had seemed from my apartment, but the wind made it harder to see. That was good, because not many people were out and about, and the ones that were had their faces cover up. If they had their faces covered, I was less likely to see one of them melting away.
I picked up some coffee, Timbits, and a bagel, and changed my mind about driving all the way to the Bluffs. The rain had picked up, which meant a higher possibility of bad drivers. The Timmies I went to was pretty close to the lake though, just down the street from the old Sunnyside pool, so I decided to go out there instead and look out over the lake as the winds made actual waves.
I parked in a deserted lot very close to the water, and just let the serenity of the scene relax me. I turned my phone to silent. I wanted to talk to Rouge still, but if I was going to have any success at using the time to relax and try to work through everything, I didn’t need to keep worrying about whether or not she was going to call. I did send her a quick text though, let her know I was going to be offline for a little while, but really wanted to talk to her. I asked her to message me when she could to let me know when we might talk later. I then tossed my phone into the back seat and forgot about it.
I wasn’t even sure where to start with everything, but I knew I needed to pick a jump-off point or my mind would just wander and eventually take me down a path that would only make me freak out even more. I’d had enough of freaking out to last me a life time.
I went back to everything that had happened in Niagara Falls. I replayed the moment I met Chance Anderson, right up until I left the city and headed home. I retraced my steps through each holding he was owner or part owner of, pulling up every little detail I could, and in the end, it brought me right back to where I thought it would. Through all the details, small and major, there was only one real place my focus fell on that felt right. The church: it was the only thing that added up.
I used a pen and paper to write down the name of the pastor, Herb Dank, an obvious alias, and drew the symbols I’d seen spray painted on the walls, and those that were carved into the walls and into the wood beams and pews. Most of the vandalism was just a blur, but some of it had really stuck out and I picked it out of my memory easily.
I delved deeper, remembered burn patterns there, recalled the area that was the start point of the blaze, and what the property had been before it’d become a church. The woman I’d talked to said it used to be a pottery store, but I wondered about its history beyond that, or if the people who owned the old store had had any incidents before they left. I would look that up when I got a chance to, but it was a good starting point. I’d been so ready to brush off the church after the woman had told me all she had, but when the cops explained that Pastor Herb and two others had died in the blaze, and that the fire was deliberate, well, it meant it was top of my suspect list of the source of all the madness.
That act of murder, especially in a place that might even be only perceived as holy, would be just the type of thing to call a demon. It was especially so if the building already had a weak spot in it. If I could find signs of previous activity there, then there’d be no doubt. Some of this seemed like it could be a stretch, but it was more than I’d had a day ago. I’d look into it, the symbols, the history of the building, and Pastor Herb. I just hoped it would turn out to be a demon, and not some other Earthbound spirit, like the vengeful souls of Herb and the others looking to curse anyone who stepped in there. If that’s what it was, it would mean having to break the rules once again to save myself. Better to break the rules and keep my head than to be a good boy and end up looking like a ruined action figure.
With everything lined up there and ready to go, I turned my attention to Don Parks and Rouge. That was more stress than I really wanted, but there was no way to not deal with it. He wasn’t just going to go away, as much as I would like that, and my feelings for Rouge weren’t simply going to be squashed because he ordered me to. The two of us had started our relationship in a whirlwind of monsters and potential death, which is probably why it happened so fast. Some people might think it’s not the best way to start a relationship, but it seemed to be working out just fine for us. I wasn’t going to let this asshole come out of nowhere and try to squash it, just because it was against someone’s rules. I’ve been on Earth for so long, I’ve come to realize that many of the rules the Collective try to put on us is based on outdated and unchecked facts. It’s not like we were planning on having a pack of little monster hunter babies. We just dig each other.
But he’d shown up at her house, and that made me think he might do something to her, as well as to me. I have no idea what the Collective might’ve okayed him to do if I refused to leave here, or her, but I had a hard time believing they would harm her. It sort of went against their laws and rules.
Yet, I remember a few decades back, when another hunter had gone off reservation with a human companion. The two of them had decided to stop hunting monsters, and instead began robbing banks and killed a few people. All the active hunters on Earth were told to keep an eye out for them and kill them on sight: both of them, not just the hunter. So there was a history to consider.
The waves began
to slam into the rocks along the shore with a thunderous bang as the wind picked up and I continued to ponder the conundrum before me. There was no good way to deal with this, but it would have to be dealt with. I still held hope that if I solved the Chance issue, found out what had killed him and was causing me to see all the melty-faced people, I’d have something to hold over their heads and it would allow some leeway.
I didn’t know for sure though. A boy can hope, though.
I spent another forty minutes parked there, staring off at the ebbs of the stormy water and feeling a connection to it. The waves rose from a dark colour to a foamy white rage, crashing against the still waters, or against the rocks that lined this area of the shore. Further down the way, it washed against the sand where, in the summer, kids would be playing. In October, though, people rarely came down, especially in weather as foul as this day had served up. When I figured I had settled my mind as best I could, made firm plans as far as Chance’s case went, I reached back and grabbed my cellphone.
Still nothing from Rouge, but I had two missed calls from numbers I knew, forty from unknown ones. The two I knew were Don Parks and Godfrey. I ignored the call from the asshole hunter and called Godfrey back. He picked up after the second ring.
“Screening calls?” he asked me, without saying hello.
“I had my phone off; needed some thinking time. What’s up?”
“You hear from that other hunter yet?”
“Unfortunately. Why?”
“He was here today asking a lot of questions. Some of them were about you, some about your girl. He even asked me about leaving the shop. How’d he know about that?”
“I have no idea, but he mentioned it to me, too.”
“Are we fucked, Dillon?” he asked, and I didn’t want to lie to him. I told him I wasn’t sure, but things weren’t looking too good for me. “Well, if they get you, they’re going to get me, too. The best I guess I can hope for is extra years in this shop, but there’s worse ways they can get me, right?”
“Aren’t there always? Want me to swing by?”
“Only if you want. Maybe you can grab some whiskey or rum for me if you do. Might as well drown these thoughts in my head, or at least settle them down with some hard drinking.”
“I could join you there. I’ll swing by with a bottle or six. I also have some drawings of some symbols I’m hoping you’ll recognize.”
“You still want to work with all this going on?” he laughed.
“It might be something good enough to take the heat off. You never know, but it won’t hurt to try.”
“You’ve said that before. You’re not always right in those cases.”
How true that was.
On the way to Godfrey’s, I stopped by the plaza at Bloor and Dundas Street West where there’s an LCBO (liquor store for those who have no clue how different it is to buy alcohol in Canada; look it up). The plan was to grab some JB and a bottle of spiced rum I knew he liked. The store wasn’t as busy as usual, but there were still a fair amount of people in there since it was just after most people were off work.
I was in my own world going in, still thinking about Rouge and wondering why she wasn’t calling. I felt so terrible, and I could only imagine where her head was at. I hoped she’d call before too much more time passed, but I didn’t want to come off like a clingy boyfriend. I had to accept she’d call me when she was ready to, no matter how much I didn’t like it.
I grabbed the bottle of whiskey first, and headed over to get the rum. I saw a shelve with a bunch of Autumn-inspired drinks, and shook my head. Most of them were fine, ciders and dark ales, but the ones that made me want to hurl were the rows of pumpkin-spiced beers. I’d fallen for them once upon a time, when I actually had drinks on the weekend, but they never tasted the way you wanted them to. You hear chocolate beer, or one that’s pumpkin-spiced, and you get this warm, delicious image in your head that makes your taste buds start to dance with excitement. Then, you open it, try it, and your taste buds become taste foes. They want to pack up and leave your mouth from the pure disappointment of what you just forced them to savour. You taste the false pretenses and say you’ll never do it again, but you do. Usually it takes three or four failed attempts to make you steer clear of the bottles of regret. For me it was four, and from there on in I swore to my mouth I would never show it disrespect again.
So, I shook my head, avoided the bad decisions, and grabbed a bottle of spiced rum. As my hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle, I heard someone say something behind me, and it made me not want to even turn around.
“This is so cool. Davey, do you know who that is? It’s the fucking monster killer from YouTube, bro!”
I closed my eyes and wished them away. I didn’t want to turn and see two or three barely-legal bros grabbing some brews for the rest of their frat brothers. I just wanted to get what I’d come for and get out of there without another word. They continued to talk, though. The one guy who’d called to Davey began to call out to me, asking me if he could get an autograph, or take a selfie with me. I bit back the urge to spin around and swing the bottles in each hand at him and whoever he was with. That wouldn’t do me any good. There were other people in the store, cameras everywhere, and I was already in enough trouble. The only thing I could do was turn around, tell him he had the wrong guy and be on my way. It was doubtful they’d believe me, but I’d just have to ignore their disappointment.
Trying to relax a little, feeling my shoulders already tight from the first words, I turned around to tell them I had no idea what they were on about. My mouth opened, but the words died on my lips as the three people standing there in matching Blue Jays jerseys drooled oily blackness from every orifice on their faces. I saw their oozing, melting faces, the globs of muck falling from their mouths, and took a step back, hitting the wall of bottles behind me, nearly bringing them all down.
The tallest and broadest of the group took a step towards me, and a sound came from the sludge-packed mouth. It sounded like something that wanted to be words, but they were like nothing I’d ever heard. It was as though his speech was playing in reverse, but was also muffled. The sound came out it bubbling hisses like the sound mud makes near a hot spring. He raised a hand towards me, and a logical part of my brain told me not to be afraid. I tried to remind myself how nobody else could see what I was seeing, that it might not be real. I even told myself that I was just breaking mentally, or infected with something I’d gotten from Chance’s case. I knew there was a rational explanation to it all, and freaking out wouldn’t solve anything.
Yet, despite that, as soon as his hand touched me, another part of me—my survival instinct, maybe—just snapped. I reacted without any real thought. His hand was like fire on my skin, even though he was touching me through my coat and hoodie. I dropped the bottles of booze I’d been holding and without fully realizing what I was doing, I reached back and pulled out my Tincher. A howl came from the closest of the melted-face jocks, and his equally liquefying friends joined in. That was probably because I threw myself at the one who’d touched me, knocked him to the ground and put the cursed, spellbound blade to his throat. Some of the goop touched me, and I felt darkness swirl all around me. The LCBO started to smell of wet dirt and rot. I could taste earth and mould. I shrieked and tried to get it off me as the melty one under me began to buck, trying to get me off him.
I nearly dropped my blade as I fell sideways, landing in a pool of whiskey, rum, and the remains of the bottles. Glass cut into me, but all my attention was on the alien substance from the melted thing’s mouth. It was on my left forearm and moving in every direction. It reminded me of a scene from the blob, only this was blacker than the midnight sky out in the country. It felt like cold death as it spread over my arm. The more of me it covered, the more the room stank of decay, and the darker the lighting in the store seemed to get. I was about to try to get it off with my other hand, but
a sudden terror of it infecting that as well stopped me. What if it covered my whole body, ate me in its muddy darkness, the squirming things under the mainly-liquid surface finding their way into my mouth, nose, or ears and suffocating me?
I took my Tincher to it instead. I used the blade to try and scrape it off my arm, careful not to cut my coat or my skin. The blade disappeared into the mess, and there was a hissing sound that rose and became more intense the longer I held it there. The blackness boiled on my sleeve. Alien insects with bleach-white legs and millions of eyes rose to the surface and then fell to the floor, where they thrashed around until they appeared to dry up and turn to dust.
The black goop also fell off and evaporated before it ever hit the ground, and my heart rate finally slowed down a bit. I went to get up, forgetting for a moment where I was, but then heard the commotion around me and knew as bad as that had been, things were about to get worse.
“Drop the knife and get on the floor!”
There was a huge crowd there watching everything as it went down. Mixed in with the onlooker were the three melting-faced jocks that nobody seemed to be reacting to. Masses of blackness continued to glob out of their mouths, but that wasn’t my biggest concern. My full attention was on the cop working a Pay Duty gig. His gun was out and aimed at me as I knelt on the floor, still with a sizable knife in my hand. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen everything that had taken place, but as nobody was reacting to the three melters in amongst them, it wasn’t likely he would have any idea what was actually going on.
I wasn’t even sure I did. Not fully, at least.
“I said drop it, or else!”
I let the knife fall from my hand, and it clattered to the ground in front of me. I kept my eyes fixed on the cop, not wanting to look away or act shifty at all. Cops had a way of shooting people lately, even when they were doing as they were told, so I wanted to avoid giving him any reasons to use me to scratch his itchy trigger finger.
