Yes! His license.
“John Winter,” he said, “That’s me. I’m John Winter.” He mulled the words over. They sounded strange and alien. He had three credit cards, a bank card, and about eighty dollars in cash. There was also a picture of a woman and a boy. Was he married? Was this his son? He didn’t have a wedding ring on, but that in itself meant nothing. He might never have married her. The ring could have been lost in whatever struggle led him here, or stolen. But that didn’t make sense. If whoever buried him was going to steal his wedding ring, why wouldn’t they have taken the contents of his wallet?
The sun rose as he made his way into town. There was only one person out on the streets- an early morning jogger. He looked at Johnny as if he were the oddest sight he’d ever seen. He supposed he must be, as dirty, disheveled, and tired as he looked and felt.
He made his way to the nearest lodgings he could find, a dinky little motel, run by a large rotund balding middle-aged man in a sweat stained wife beater tee. The sight of Johnny didn’t seem to dent his I-don’t-give-a-shit dour demeanor.
“Yeah?” he asked Johnny.
“I need a room for the day, possibly the night.”
“Okay,” the man said.
Johnny pulled out the first credit card he found. The man gave him the price, the keys, and quickly muttered directions to his new domicile.
As Johnny walked to his room he looked for a cell phone. He had none on him. The room had a phone. He considered calling the police, decided against it, not entirely sure why. All he wanted now was a shower. He supposed he had to walk back out into town to buy a change of clothes, as tired as he was, before that could happen. Whoever John Winter was, he was not real happy with himself right now. He must have pissed somebody off really bad to deserve being buried alive. He stepped back out in his dirty clothes, and wandered into town.
8
They knocked on his door, but there was no answer. After knocking on Johnny’s door several times, and calling his name, Tony said, “He must have drunk himself to sleep last night.”
“No,” Staci shook her head, frowning, “Something’s wrong.”
“Is this one of your… feelings?” Jeremy said, looking at her seriously.
“Yes,” Staci said.
They tried the door. It was locked. Tony tried to break it
down, charging into it with his shoulder.
“Don’t!” Jeremy said, “We don’t want to get kicked out for breaking down the door.”
“You got a better idea?” Tony asked.
“Yeah.” Jeremy pulled out his credit card.
“The ole credit card trick. Does that ever really work?”
“Yeah, as long as it’s a simple lock, and the doors not double bolted or chained.”
Staci almost smiled. “Since when did you become a cat burglar?”
“Since now,” Jeremy replied. He tried the card several times to no avail, sliding it up and down between the crack in the door next to the doorknob. “I can feel it. It’s got some give. I’ve almost got it.”
After two dozen or so tries he did have it. The door clicked open, and he pushed it wide.
“Oh no, no, no,” Tony said, “This is not good.” It was empty.
They searched the bathroom, and nothing. The bed was unmade. Jeremy removed the sheets. “Guys, look!”
They saw. Blood- Two deep stains, not completely dry, marring the white sheets.
“Oh, poor Johnny,” Staci said.
“You think one of the vamps took him?” Jeremy said.
“Who else?” she said.
“Can you sense if he’s alive?” Jeremy said.
“No,” Staci shook her head. “Yes, he has to be. I still sense that he’s in danger.”
“Should we call 911?” Tony wondered.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Jeremy said. “We have to report this, although I don’t think there’s anything they can do.”
Staci nodded. “Let’s go get Myron. We’ll call, and then look for him on our own.”
“Let’s do it,” Tony said.
9
Before the others ever got around to looking for him, Johnny was wandering town in the very early morning, in dirt-caked clothes, looking for a place that was open. The only place was the 24 hour Supra-Mart, Mercy Falls answer to Walmart. It was about half the size, with about a third of the selection. He could get most of what he needed, and the wandering drunks and early bird elderly, who were its only occupants at the moment, barely batted an eyelash at his appearance.
Johnny got himself a new pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, a pack of socks, a pack of underwear, and a new pair of sneakers. The cashier, a middle-aged hefty woman chewing loudly on either bubble gum or tobacco, looked at him as she rang him up and said, “Rough day?”
“Rough night,” Johnny said. “I suppose,” he added.
She nodded and said nothing else, simply bagging his clothes. This was fine by him, because he didn’t feel like answering questions he didn’t have answers to.
Back at his motel room he shed off the dirty clothes, heaping them in a pile on the bathroom floor. His groin area was itching, and he didn’t understand why until he pulled off his boxers. His penis looked like it had punctures in the shaft, and where the shaft met the rest of his body it had been stitched back onto him, which meant that at some point it had been torn from him. He nearly passed out, but then realized that some of the stitches had popped off, and where they had, the scars were almost completely healed. Just reddish marks remained where new skin grew. Likewise, the puncture wounds in the shaft were about healed, tiny scabs covering them where they’d almost closed.
How long had he been under? This seemed to suggest that whoever attacked him had him unconscious for at least several weeks, if not months. What kind of sick fuck would tear off his dick, sew it back on, and then bury him alive? And what other kind of
torture was he subjected to? Was he part of some cruel experiment?
As much as he wanted answers, his questions would have to wait. He needed a shower, and he needed it now.
He stepped into the tub, prepared the water as hot as he could stand it, and let it sluice down his body, washing the dirt and his wandering mind clean.
10
They didn’t wait for the police to arrive. To avoid answering questions, they made the call anonymously, and then went out to search for Johnny.
“Where do we even begin to look?” Staci said.
“Hotels, bars?” Tony suggested.
“What if he was taken into the pit?” Jeremy said.
“Well, we can’t check the hospital,” Myron chimed in.
“That’s not funny,” Staci said.
“I wasn’t trying to be. I just meant it’s been burned down. If anyone found him hurt, he wouldn’t be here, at this hospital. He’d have to be taken to a hospital outside of town.”
“Yeah,” Staci said, “Sorry Myron.”
“It’s all right. We’re all on edge.”
“And now both Blake and Johnny are missing,” Jeremy concluded.
“At least Eve will be safe in the hotel, as long as it’s daylight out,” Tony said.
“Promise me one thing guys,” Jeremy said. “We go into the pit tomorrow as planned, whether we find them or not, and we kill as many of those bastards as we can.”
Tony’s face was grim, but determined. “I’m down. They’ve already started attacking us. It’s about time we fought back.”
“Here here,” Myron said.
“Here here,” Staci echoed, not as enthusiastically.
“To the misfits!” Myron said.
“The misfits!” they shouted, raising invisible glasses and
laughing. This would be the last time they would all laugh together.
11
Freshly scrubbed, and newly clothed, Johnny searched through the old dirty jeans he’d left on the bathroom floor for anything that might clue him in to who he was, and what had happened to him. Key
s to a house, a car… he found nothing, just his wallet. Except… he felt something thin, like a piece of paper, or a bill in the front pocket. He pulled it out. It was a folded up note. Johnny opened it and found a neatly written message, in what looked like some old-worldy script- fancy curlicues and the such. It said:
You’ll thank me for this later.
Kisses, Arianna
Thank her? Thank her?! Was this the bitch that pulled the Lorena Bobbitt on him?
Wait a minute! He fumbled through his wallet again, pulling out the photo. No way was it the sweet looking woman. It couldn’t be. Didn’t feel right. He flipped it over, looking for an inscription. Nothing. He took out the photo of the kid. On the back it said: Cody, 9th birthday. This meant he was probably a few years older now. His kid? Maybe. Unless it was his nephew, possibly the girl in the pictures kid.
He had only glanced at his license before to find his name, but now he looked at it closely. It had a Los Angeles address. And he was in… Massachusetts. Some place called Mercy Falls. The motel stationary said as much. He was so far from home. At the moment John Winter felt much alone.
12
While Johnny recalled nothing, Blake remembered everything. By five p.m. that day, as the sun began to set, he was already starving, fully aware that there was no food that would calm his hunger. He needed blood. Blake sat in an alley, against a brick wall, arms cradling his knees to his chest, trying to push back the growl in his stomach, shaded by the row of trash cans that lined the wall. The sun didn’t bother him so much, yet. But he knew that too would change.
Fulton Blake could not bring himself to go to Eve or the others, not while he was in this condition. He knew they’d be worried, and wondering about him, but he had to be sure he could control himself. He had some money left, not much. He knew he’d have to use it to go to the butcher shop. Listen to you, there’s no such thing as butcher shops anymore, just delis. He’d have to go to one of those and get some pig or cow’s blood. Some people cooked with those. He just had to make sure to order some meat along with it.
The thought of it disgusted Blake, but there wasn’t much else he could do. He would have to get used to it. Until he got rid of the hunger he wasn’t much use to anyone; not Eve, not the others, not even himself.
13
The search for Johnny wasn’t fruitful at all, and they suspected the police wouldn’t get any farther. No motives, no leads. Even if they had the one responsible on hotel surveillance, they’d never find him or her. Vampires lived outside of society, but came and went as they pleased. After hours of searching they decided it was time to get back to the hotel.
“This is awful,” Staci said. “We should call the police; see if they have any leads.”
“We reported him missing anonymously,” Tony said.
“True, but they’re going to end up questioning us anyway,
since we have ties to him,” Jeremy countered.
“Blake is gone, Johnny’s gone, who’s next?” Staci said, frustrated.
“Nobody’s next,” Myron said. “We can’t let them get to us, before we get to them.”
“Right,” Tony said, “We need to make sure we stick together.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed. “We should all sleep in the same room tonight. I don’t mind if it’s mine. If we’re all together, they can’t pick us off one by one.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Staci said.
Jeremy nodded, “You’re right, I’m sure they’re both probably still alive.”
He could tell by Staci’s face, she wished he hadn’t added the word “probably.”
14
Sensuous, dark-haired, almost other-worldly beauty; Johnny got a flash of this woman in his head. He was taking her clothes off. She was looking into his eyes. Then it was gone.
He couldn’t stay in this motel any longer. He needed answers. He asked the clerk downstairs where the nearest rental car dealer was. He’d decided he was going to rent a car and drive around town, hoping to jar his memory, with something, anything familiar.
It was close to noon now, and when he stepped outside, the sun was blinding. Not in any way that seemed normal. It physically hurt his eyes to even look straight. They started to tear. He had to walk into the nearest convenience store and pick up a pair of sunglasses. When he wore them he not only felt better, but more like himself, however that was.
Without being consciously aware of it, he selected a Ford Mustang, nearly the exact same model and color (maroon), that he owned back home, at the rental car place. He drove off the lot feeling lighter, and better about himself. He liked the way the car purred.
Johnny turned on the radio. A song by Tool was playing. He liked Tool. His head started bobbing. He was not only feeling better, but he felt a lot less tired, more energized. Cruising down the streets, windows down, he saw a cute little blonde thing in the car next to him, at a stoplight, going the other way.
She smiled when she noticed him, interested. He tipped his sunglasses down and winked. When Johnny smiled, he didn’t realize his canines were longer, sharper, more pointed, his tongue skating across his teeth, as if savoring a meal. The girl’s smile quickly changed to a look of worry, as if she were startled. She looked away and sped off as soon as the light changed.
Johnny scratched his head, confused. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d done to merit that reaction. He looked at himself in the rearview, and didn’t notice anything odd or out of place about his features. In fact, he thought he’d cleaned up pretty well. Maybe she was scared off by the winking. Whatever, he wouldn’t let it get to him. He had memories that needed recovering.
15
Calling the police involved questioning, but they were on the hotel’s surveillance camera forcing Johnny’s door open with a credit card. They couldn’t get around that. When they got back, it turned out the police were still there, or they’d come back around to look for them. They admitted to placing the anonymous call. It would have looked worse if they said they hadn’t called at all. Although the police were initially suspicious of them, they agreed that it was unlikely they were the perpetrators. The body had been gone for some time, possibly overnight. The blood on the sheets wasn’t fresh.
“Are there any leads?” Tony asked.
“Well,” the sheriff said. “Besides the four of you, and that redhead…”
“Redhead?” Myron said.
“He must mean Eve,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah, that one,” the sheriff agreed, “Already questioned her. Strange girl, that one, wouldn’t even let us draw open any curtains. She’s got her room dark as a cave in there. Anyway, besides the five of you saying good night to each other, Mr. Winter only had one visitor last night, judging by the hotel cameras.”
“Who?” Staci said, after the sheriff fell silent.
“Well, I’m not supposed to tell you. It’s an ongoing investigation,” he said, making an exaggerated shushing face, contorting his features every which way.
“Please tell us, he’s our best friend,” Staci pleaded.
“All I can tell you is this was a hot little number, looked Italian or Greek. Curves like… ahem.” He cleared his throat. “She had long black hair, very attractive. Really hard for me to believe she’s a killer, or a kidnapper.”
They waited until the sheriff’s back was turned for their expressions to reveal what they already knew.
“Sound familiar to anyone?” the sheriff asked.
“No,” they shook their heads.
“Johnny was always kind of a ladies’ man,” Myron said, “It could have been anyone.”
The sheriff nodded. “A-huh. Well, looks like your ladies’ man may have just pissed off the wrong lady.”
16
Once Johnny passed by Jeremiah’s Woods, the memories started flooding back. At first, a jarring image: a little girl gnashing her teeth- no, not teeth really, but fangs- gone feral. Then other images, more troubling: Johnny, as a teenager, running ahead of a pack of kids- he th
ought pack because they seemed like wolves- their intensity. Chasing a boy through the woods until the boy falls through a hole in the ground. Johnny skids to a stop, almost falling in himself, a look of shock on his face. Then the woman again, this time in his bed. They’re having sex. And then the images stop.
He knows the memories are related, but not how. The little
girl couldn’t be a real memory. No one had teeth like that. It was his mind trying to make associations. Nothing made sense right now, but he could feel the memories pushing forward. Very soon he would know who, or what, he was. What? Why did he think that? He shook his head. Didn’t matter. Everything would come to him, and it was important that it did. Johnny didn’t know how he knew, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was somewhere he needed to be, soon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FIRST GOODBYES
(1986)
I
BLAKE DOWN
1
With Blake back at the Hillside Bed and Breakfast, recu-perating from his broken wrist, the Misfits were left to their own devices. They imagined Blake must have concocted an elaborate story to explain why he’d been gone for so long.
There seemed to be no imminent threats, so they decided to relax. When not in school, they took in movies, shopping at the mall, hanging out in Tony’s shed (which had become an unofficial clubhouse), and strolling along the avenues. There were just two months left until John and Tony graduated, and they knew these might be the last times they would all be together.
The Pit in the Woods: A Mercy Falls Mythos Page 52
