Stan gave Rich a nod and smiled. "If we head down Main Street toward the old light house, the white one, there is some kind of medical complex beneath it. That's where I escaped from, and that's where I saw them holding Liz."
"I think I was there. I remember a little white room. A man in a white suit talked to me, and made some kind of comment about resetting my memory."
"Well, if we want to save the others, we have to go back."
They left the home quietly. Maybe someone would notice the displaced boards in the morning and contact the police, but that would be hours from now. Most likely, no one would notice. Everyone from town stayed clear of the murder house.
As they walked through the darkness, Rich turned to Stan. "So what's up with the random insanity attacks on people? They say that weird gibberish about demons and strangle people, go on a rampage, and super strength. When you...I mean ‘he’, killed Liz and Franklin, it was insane. I had never seen anything like that."
"That I haven't figured out. With them, whoever they are, cloning people and messing with their heads, who knows? It could be some kind of malfunction, or an actual demon or haunting. I'm pretty sure that Ouija Board incident wasn't in the script, understand?"
"I got ya."
Stan stopped walking. "Man, I'm starving. We have to stop somewhere. I woke up out of some kind of stasis, and I'm not sure how they were feeding me. I'm sure feeling it now, though."
"We'll walk to Peechin’s Market. It's only about a block away."
When they had almost reached the store, Rich had to stop to catch his breath for a moment. His injuries were flaring up. As he looked across the street, he saw a group of kids standing in a little group. They were all staring at him.
"Stan...I've seen this before...this is bad."
As soon as Stan looked at them, the kids scattered. "Guardians. There were hordes of them patrolling the area around the light house. I barely made it out. We need to get into the light, get to that store. They avoid light when they're ready to attack."
Peechin’s was about the cheapest grocery store on the face of the Earth, and the prize grocery destination for the citizens of Desolation Falls. It was also the most run down, dirtiest grocery store on the face of the Earth. Even the rats avoided the place. But with high turnover of goods, the food was fresh and cheap, and people came anyway.
Once they were inside, Rich could see that there were a few roaches running around the main aisle. It was late at night, after all. The lighting was poor, and one kept flickering on and off. The store smelled stale.
Old Burt was at his usual spot at the cash register. Sometimes Rich believed he never left that spot. He was a man of few words, usually drunk as a skunk, but good at restocking items and running the cash register. "Hey Burt, how's it going?"
"..."
A little drool ran down his face as he kept looking at that flickering light. Stan looked at Rich and made a motion like someone drinking a bottle. Rich nodded in agreement.
The picked up some bottled water, a sandwich, some chocolate donuts for Stan, and a big lighter with some matches. The two men walked back to the register. Rich put some money on the counter. "Burt, I'm just picking up a few things. Got a busy night ahead of me…"
Burt turned to them and Stan gasped. His skin hand turned some shade of gray. His eyes were completely white, and the smell suddenly hit Rich: the smell of death.
Burt smiled. "We know. RAAAAAAAGGG!!"
In one swift motion Burt was on him. He knocked Rich to the floor and started trying to rip his neck out with his teeth. "MINE NOW!! HAAAAAAA!!"
His nails tore into Rich's shoulder as he screamed. Stan picked up the nearest thing he could find, a piece of pipe, and slammed it into Burt's head. Dead Burt dropped Rich and tried to turn at Stan, but the creature stumbled. Stan hit him again, and again, and again. Finally, it went down for the count.
Rich got up, holding his ribs. "What the heck was that?"
"Some kind of defense mechanism. Somehow the compound people must be able to see us. We need to get on the move." Stan walked out of the store, shoveling donuts into his mouth. As they ventured out into the darkness, the night that had been silent was disrupted. Rich couldn't identify what it was or the direction, but he saw it soon enough.
Stan and Rich could see them coming. Some were the weird crowd kids. There were also hundreds of men, women, children…maybe everyone in the town. They had all turned like Burt, and the sounds of their growls and screams tore through the night.
"Time to go!" The two men ran for a short while, but Rich wasn't really able to keep up. Another crowd was moving in from the other direction, and soon there wouldn't be anywhere to run. Abruptly, Stan punched in a truck window and unlocked the doors. "Come on Rich, move!!"
Rich hobbled over to the truck as Stan found the keys tucked into the sun visor. The truck wouldn't start. Rich cried out as he fell, his leg had given out on him and the dead crowds were almost upon them.
Stan abandoned his attempt to start the truck, dove out into the street, and helped Rich get up. The smell had just hit his nostrils, and he fought back the urge to throw up. They both made it back to the truck just in time to avoid being attacked.
Stan turned the key while pumping the gas. The engine murmured a little. Then the town crowd surged around the truck. Rich was trying to catch his breath. "They got us! They’re trying to flip it!!"
The engine roared to life. Stan floored it, mowing right through the crowd. It was like driving over a bunch of big speed bumps all at the same time as bodies crunched under them or got thrown to the side. "Listen to this baby roar!!" Stan changed gears to speed up more, and the gore-covered truck turned in the direction of the light house.
As they approached the light house, the streets were clear. Stan was still on edge as he looked around. "They must have sent everything they had at us at the store. We go into the base of the lighthouse. There is a hatch into the main complex there."
"Is there a key or a code or anything?"
"Something…." Stan held a severed finger up to Rich's face.
"Holy crap!!"
They reached the lighthouse without incident. There, right where Stan said it would be was the hatch. Stan used the finger to activate it, and they descended into the unknown depths.
The base was very much like the room had been, totally white and devoid of any markings, dust, anything. It gave Rich a deep feeling of terror in his soul. "Which way?"
"The containment area is down the right passage. That's where I escaped from."
They walked for about ten minutes. The base was silent except for a slight humming sound, until that silence was disrupted by a scream that abruptly cut off.
Alice was standing in the next doorway. The edges around this door glowed blue.
Alice was standing totally still, like a robot. She looked like Rich hadn't seen her in quite a while, healthy, at normal weight. The light was back in her eyes. Still, this must have been a different Alice than his.
"Alice, we need to find Liz and get out of here. Ok? We're going to get you..."
"Those who fear demons see demons everywhere. I have seen my demons and they are mmmmeeeee!!!"
With a high pitched scream, she threw herself on Stan. Her hands locked in on his neck with impossible strength. She no longer looked like herself; all the color had drained from her.
Stan and Rich swung at her. Stan's hand that wasn't trying to pry her hands off of him was slamming into her mid section. Rich finally kicked her in the face with his fully weight. Her head flew back and she collapsed, no longer moving. It was too late for Stan.
He could still talk a little, but his windpipe had been crushed. "Please...save....her..." He was gone.
Rich sat and wept next to the bodies of his friends. It was too much for him to take, for any man to take. His eyes were wide and locked as everything that had happened to him surged through his mind. He could feel things moving around him. Little, invisible things which pr
ey on the minds of those on the verge of insanity... In the midst of his crying, intense laughter erupted from him as he forced himself to his feet and pushed through the glowing blue door.
A rifle butt slammed into his head before he entered the next room.
*****
For a holding cell, the place was spotless. Rich had been expecting a vermin-infested hole coated in filth. It was crowded, though. There were a few dozen guys in white jumpsuits crammed into a space meant for six. The guy he found himself sitting next to was tweaking out. "Yoyoyo waz up son? You got the fat beats in dat nosy head. My head is full of the chaos juice, baby."
"Ok."
Rich half walked, half-crawled, to the other side of the cell.
"Don't mind Walsh. He's been here too damn long." The tall African-American man who spoke looked like he had been trying to catch a nap. Rich had a seat next to him. "What are we all doing here?"
"Ha! Well, I was doing six months for assault. One day the guards pull me out of my cell, drug me, and I wake up here. What's your story, boy?"
"I was trying to track the people who hurt my friends. Trail led me here. They caught me."
"Well, you're in the deep end now. No one ever gets out. They periodically take people. Either they come back all jacked up like Walsh, or they wheel them down the hall in a body bag.
Another guy was slamming his head into the wall over and over again. Rich looked toward the door just in time for a rifle butt to, once more, slam into his face.
*****
He was in the white room from his nightmares. Once again, on the table, were a newspaper and a steaming cup of black coffee. For a reason he couldn't understand, he had a seat at the table. The words on the newspaper refused to focus, and he couldn't make them out. It was like they were in some foreign language. Again, he started weeping as the door opened.
The man in the white suit entered the room, followed by Liz. She was holding a baby. The man smiled. "Richard, glad to see you made it, my boy. We almost have it, son. We almost got it right this time." A woman in a white medical uniform entered the room. "Reset his memory to the fourth iteration. Release the next set of clones."
Rich held out his hands. "Wait! Please!! What's happening here?"
"You already know, son. And soon, you'll know everything."
Liz ripped her face off.
"HAAAAAAAAA!!"
Rich sat upright in bed, covered in sweat. That had been the longest, most intense dream he had ever had. It had all seemed perfectly real, but it couldn't have been.
He looked at his alarm clock: 6:45. He would have to get up for his new school anyway in about an hour. He headed to the kitchen to dig up some breakfast.
******
"Hey man! Are you ok?"
Rich looked up, right as a heavyset guy shook his shoulder. "W..what?"
"Are you ok? You've been staring at those two girls for about twenty minutes. I think they're starting to freak out."
Rich looked around. He was sitting on a bench outside the school. "Why don't you introduce me, then? I'm Rich, I just moved to town."
"I'm Stan, pleased to meet you. Their names are Liz and Alice. Try not to freak them out anymore than you have."
"I won't, but there's something so familiar about those two..."
"What, like they're girls?"
"HA!"
After that, the school day went pretty normal. Rich was pleased he had made a few friends so quickly. Alice even drove them all home after school and the group set up a carpool. They became the best of friends.
The next month flew by. They would all hang out randomly at one of the four or five places kids could hang out in a small town. Eventually, Rich and Liz even started dating. A fifth joined their group, a jock named Franklin, who had a thing for Alice. The feeling was not mutual.
"There's a party out by the old Willard Creek camp site. We should check it out."
Rich was not enthusiastic. "The old Willard Creek camp site? You're kidding, right? We're the Scooby Gang now?"
Alice raised an eyebrow. "Hey, it's a real place with a real party. Liz will be there."
"Only one of those facts is entirely true. Fine, let's go."
Rich hated parties in general. He especially hated these little social gatherings where he knew no one. He had to over-dependently stick to the few people he did know like glue, or fake his way through crappy conversations with people he didn't like. Like the jock that had him cornered by the punch table right now.
"You're that guy who sang at Lenny Smith's birthday bash."
"Nope. Don't sing."
"Oh, wait. You're that guy who got suspended for putting fireworks in the bathrooms last year."
"No. Not crazy either. Just moved here."
"Damn. Why am I talking to you then?"
The guy walked off as he noticed Liz next to him. "Having fun?"
"Always nice to meet new people. What's up?"
"You give any thought to Stan's idea?"
"To go check out the murder house? Doesn't seem like a good idea to me."
"Oh, come on. It's like a paranormal investigation."
"It's like breaking and entering. I can't get in trouble with the law. I'm too pretty."
"Uh huh." She gave him a little kiss on his nose. "Come on. Alice and Stan are waiting."
Now he had to go. It was one of those “rite of passage” moments of stupidity, combined with the whole “impress a cute girl” stupidity moment. "Oh yeah, this is going to end well."
As they pulled off the lighted highway into the overgrown gravel driveway, Rich knew he had made a mistake.
"This is a great idea, guys. We'll go down in Desolation Falls High history! Woo hoo!!"
As usual, Franklin had a unique view of things. Most people Rich's age seemed to think they were indestructible, immortal, and that nothing could happen to them. Then, of course, there were the damaged ones; the ones that something bad had happened to. The kids who knew better. Alice had a touch of that. Rich was one of these people. He knew that bad things happened all the time. He just couldn't quite place where that feeling came from.
The house looked like something abandoned by time. Nature had already started to reclaim its rotting foundation. That was creepy enough, not considering the darkness which surrounded them.
"What a craphole," Franklin said as he kicked in the front door.
"You wanted in here." Alice followed him in. Liz hesitated, as she often seemed to. "What if it's a trap?" Her comment froze Rich's blood. "What do you mean by that?"
"I...I don't know. I guess I meant to say what if we get into trouble?"
"Right… We're not going to get in trouble. Just be careful. I know this place is dangerous. I can feel it."
Once they were all in the house, everyone got pretty quiet. It was like they couldn't believe they'd pushed things as far as they had, or because they were all equally terrified. Each of them seemed to gravitate toward different parts of the house. Rich caught himself fixating on the discolored parts of the walls where pictures had once hung. The upstairs hall was full of them.
Liz was in the living room. She tried to picture the house as it had been, when the family still lived here. It would have been a nice home if it were cleaned up and kept after. Alice was in the kitchen, where the murder had happened. Somehow, she had expected blood on the floor, police tape, chalk outline, etc. Of course, none of that was true. There were only water stains, cockroaches, and signs of the inevitable march of time. Franklin they had all lost track of...
"HAAAAA!!" A figure wrapped in a white sheet threw itself up against the kitchen window. Alice screamed her brains out. Not a scream of surprise, but one of true terror. Franklin pulled off the sheet, laughing hysterically. "I got you. No denying it. That was..."
She took a swing at him as he entered the kitchen. "That was not cool. That's what the killer did right before he went nuts! Don't pull junk like that."
"Whatever. We're just having a few laughs. Isn't th
at right, Rich?"
Rich was busy staring at one of the cabinets. He could have sworn he'd seen something move...
The body rolled out of the area that had been above the refrigerator. All that was left was a decayed bundle of rags and some bones, but it was enough to send the whole group screaming from the house into the night.
*****
None of them talked about it for a long time. Finally, Liz was the one to bring it back up. "We should have called the police."
Franklin had a big chunk of fried chicken stuffed in his mouth at that particular moment. He comically stopped chewing and let it drop to his plate. "That's the last thing we should have done. Too many freaking complications. Way, way too many. We weren't even supposed to be there."
Rich agreed. "The guy had been dead for a while, much longer than a few months. Probably some homeless dude. I want to forget about it."
Alice's eyes were distant. "We shouldn't have gone there..."
The friends’ most recent hang out was Desolation Falls Theater. Alice, of course, had wanted to see a horror movie. Liz hated horror movies. Franklin wanted in just because of what Alice wanted, and Rich found himself being neutral. After some coaxing, they all entered the theater for a screening of The Screaming Unknown.
Rich had a seat next to Liz. "What's it about?"
Franklin gave him a little jab in the arm. "Who cares, as long as there are hot chicks!!"
Alice sat next to Liz. "Grow up, loser."
The film ended up chronicling the life of a guy stuck in a city where everyone was possessed by demons. At first he was bored. It was like watching Night of the Living Demons or some crap. About thirty minutes in, some of the imagery started to get to Rich. A young girl tore out the eyes of her father. The main character ran some possessed people over with a car. In one of the kill scenes, a guy strangles another guy saying, "Men who fear demons see demons everywhere. I have seen my demons, and they are me!!"
That was it, Rich jumped up out of his chair. He was soaked with sweat. Liz tried to follow him, but he motioned for her to go sit back down. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Every muscle in his body refused to relax. It was the most horrible feeling he'd ever had. He walked into the men's room. Usually he was a germ freak, but he splashed some water on his face and tried to pull it together. From the theater, he could hear the sound of a baby crying.
An Infinite Sorrow Page 5
