Dead Meat PT. 5: Runners
CONTENT WARNINGS: gore & body horror, bugs, parasites, exploding heads, manipulation, vomiting, impalement, fungi & consumption thereof, child endangerment, child injury, a child witnesses a no-holds barred beatdown, graphic descriptions of gunshot wounds, animal harm, disordered eating, eating contaminated food off the floor, graphic descriptions of self harm
A hard, rapid knocking started at the door.
Hieu Phan lifted his head from the arm of the couch, wiped a smear of drool from his cheek and bolted upright as the knocking reached a frantic crescendo. Grabbing his glasses from the coffee table, he stumbled to the door and squinted out the peephole.
His heart clenched. He flung the door open.
“Norman-” he started, before his voice was caught in his throat.
Norman stood before him, untidy and bloodied, a shell-shocked look in his eyes. Instinctively, Hieu held his arms out to him. Just as instinctively, Norman fell into them.
Hieu guided him to the couch and flicked the light on. Gently, he pried free of Norman’s arms, cupped his cheeks and got a good look at at his husband. Hieu’s stomach dropped immediately.
Norman was crying. That was a shock in itself; Norman never cried - not in front of him, anyway. Further shock came from the thick, bloody tears making their way down Norman’s cheeks.
Hieu jerked his hands back to himself, staring at the blood on his fingertips in disbelief.
“Sorry,” Norman wheezed out. “It’s getting everywhere.”
“Do I need to- are you- I,” Hieu stammered, and shut his mouth, pulling Norman close. Those tears were hot on his bare shoulders.
“...run,” Norman mumbled.
“What?” Hieu asked.
Norman sat back. “We have to run! My boss- she’s after me!”
“What? Where would we even run to-”
“I don’t know! Wherever she can’t find me!”
Hieu winced, took in a breath, slowly.
“We should at least stop by the apartment first,” he said. “Get you something else to wear-“
“No!” Norman snapped. “It’s not safe there. I tried, before I came here - the building’s crawling with people from the department! I still don’t know if anyone followed me here-”
Norman’s face screwed up in an attempt to not let any more tears fall. A few squeezed out, anyway.
Hieu eyed his bloody fingertips, the red streaks on his shoulders.
“This why you don’t cry in front of me?” he asked gently.
Norman covered his face and let out a shaky laugh.
“Y-yeah,” he said. “Don’t get any of that in your mouth or eyes.”
Solemnly, they washed up. Hieu left a note for his parents; Norman was back in town, and they’d be heading home.
Outside, Hieu’s van awaited them- a black van with bright blue lightning bolts spray painted onto its sides, along with Hieu’s own personal branding: HIEU PHAN, ELECTRIC MAN, LLC. Norman checked it over, crawling with unnerving ease under the frame and emerging on the other side smeared with dust.
“What on Earth are you looking for?” Hieu asked.
“Those FUCKING bugs!” Norman snarled.
The hair on Hieu’s arms stood up. He took a few steps back.
Once Norman was satisfied nothing was on the van, he set upon the interior, entering through the back doors. A clatter inside made Hieu jump; his tool boxes were overturned on the floor, the upholstery on the seats being torn at. He jumped in after his husband and clapped firm hands on his shoulders.
“Whoa, whoa! Norm! Give it a rest!”
Norman glared at him with bloodshot eyes that weren’t his. He blinked hard, and ran a hand anxiously through his bangs.
“I- I’m sorry,” Norman said, choking up again. “I’m just-”
“Have a seat,” Hieu suggested firmly. “We’ll talk about it on the way to ‘wherever’.”
Norman nodded sheepishly and climbed to the front of the van while Hieu gathered up his tools. His husband’s back to him now, he silently pocketed one of his screwdrivers, and got settled behind the wheel.
“Now. You want to explain to me what’s going on?” Hieu asked.
Norman let out a nervous giggle.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said. “I thought she was just deflecting when she said that, but I get it now.”
“She who? Your boss?” Hieu asked.
“No. Betsy,” Norman said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t even know where to start with all that, either!”
“You’ve got to try, Norm,” Hieu said. “Because unless this is a fake-out and we’re actually going on that trip to Phú Mỹ you promised me, I’m not up to a late night drive on the highway without answers.”
Norman was quiet for awhile.
But eventually, he tried.
Dread growing within him, Hieu drove onward to wherever.
A sleek black car with tinted windows slowly pulled off the side road and began to follow.
Eleanor Hassen ran into Norman in 1994, on Job Fair Day of all days; the day the student body of the high school section of St. Augurius skipped a few classes - only to be presented to by businesses vying for future unpaid interns.
At the very back of the auditorium, Norman ushered his students to their seats and took one himself. A man in a neat suit with short cropped hair and a wide smile walked on stage and took the microphone.
"Hello, everyone! How are we all doing today?" he said.
A chorus of groans and yawns from the already bored students in response. Enthusiasm was hard to come by this early in the morning.
"I'll get to the point, in that case," he said. "I’m Hank, and I work for Hassen Communications!”
The projector flickered to life overhead. Displayed on the screen behind Hank were photographs of the Hassen Communications building over the decades.
“You could say we’ve made a household name of ourselves,” he continued. “Statistically speaking, every home and business around the country has at least one of our products within its walls: telephones, radios and headphones, personal cassette players and recorders, television sets. Today, we’ve got something very special to debut!”
He gestured to his ear.
"Would you all believe me if I told you I was wearing an electronic earpiece?" he asked.
A few students humored him, shaking their heads no. But it was true, from what Norman could see; there was no sign anything was on or in his ear.
A woman’s voice rose around Hank then: “Hello, everyone. My name is Eleanor Hassen - the CEO of Hassen Communications.”
The door at the back of the auditorium opened then: a middle-aged woman with a commanding presence strolled down the aisle and stepped on stage. That cheesy grin still pasted on his face, Hank offered her the microphone. She brushed it aside.
"No need for that, my dear,” she said, voice protecting crystal clear across the room.
She pulled a gleaming piece of iridescent metal from her ear.
“Our state-of-the-art earpieces will be priced with the everyday consumer in mind,” she said. “Not only do they amplify hearing, they have a microphone function built-in, allowing users to connect to and communicate one another over long distances - no wires, no hidden fees, completely hands-free!”
Norman’s brows rose with genuine enough interest. Being able to get in touch with his mother or Hieu without a phone and a moment alone could be handy.
“Our earpieces guarantee you’ll have your fingers on the pulse of the world and those you’re connected to,” she continued. “Supervising loved ones has never been easier; everything they hear, you hear.”
She winked playfully.
“Best of all - they wouldn’t even have to know.”
The hairs on Norman’s arms stood up beneath his sleeves. He crossed his arms against the creeping chill.
Under his breath, he muttered, “Well, that’s a bit creepy.”
Eleanor looked directly at him then. Norman’s pulse jumped.
"A gentleman in the back appears to have a comment he wishes to share," she said curtly.
Others in the audience turned in their seats, following her gaze. Norman shook his head meekly, cheeks hot with embarrassment. Eleanor smirked.
"Changed your mind?" she asked. "What a shame! Just as we were entering Q&A time, too.”
Outside the auditorium, the visiting companies had set up booths packed with pamphlets, product samples and internship applications. While Eleanor Hassen surrounded herself with curious faculty, the Hassen Communications booth buzzed with activity, students gathering to try out the earpieces, marveling in a small provided mirror at how imperceptible they were once worn.
Norman watched on uneasily, and drifted over.
“Hi there! How are-” Hank started. His face scrunched up with concern. “Whoa. Are you okay, man?”
He tilted the mirror in Norman’s direction; his eyes were entirely bloodshot. Norman cleared his throat, cheeks heating up again.
“I have high blood pressure,” Norman deflected, and turned his attention to the earpieces on display. “My mother’s hard of hearing. Would these be any good as hearing aids?”
"Oh, you bet!” Hank said. “Once these babies are ready to retail, they’re gonna turn the medical world upside down!”
Norman picked one up, turning it over in his hand. The underside was lined with dozens of fine, hair-like needles.
“…Interesting design choice,” he mused.
“Oh, you wouldn’t feel ‘em at all, sir! They help keep it nice and snug inside your ear.”
Norman stared uncertainly at the earpierce for a few moments, before moving to try it on. Hank’s hand shot out, catching his wrist. Norman jolted, the earpiece falling to the table. Hank hastily scrawled something on one of the forms, before shoving it into Norman’s hands:
DON’T PUT THAT IN YOUR EAR.
“What?! Why? Is something wrong with it?” Norman asked. When Hank only pursed his lips tighter, Norman looked to the students around the booth. “Are these safe for the kids to be trying out?”
Hank waved his hands about, putting a finger to his lips.
Across the room, Eleanor was suddenly paying rapt attention.
“O-oh, yeah, they’re VERY SAFE for the students. No problem at all there!” Hank stammered.
He clapped a hand on Norman’s shoulder and pulled him close.
“But they like to eat these ones!” Hank whispered frantically.
His hands abruptly flew to his head, and he stumbled backwards into the booth, rocking the display and drawing the room’s attention - and then he ran off, crashing through the door into the hallway.
Norman snatched the earpieces from the students that still had them. “None of you continue to use these until I find out what’s going on!”
He began his pursuit. Hank disappeared into a stairwell, but Norman dipped ahead of him, blocking his path before he exited the building.
“Tell me what’s going on with those earpieces!” Norman demanded.
“Nothing that would harm the students! I swear!” Hank said weakly.
“You-” Norman started.
Hank clasped a hand over Norman’s mouth, eliciting a muffled sound of surprise.
“Don’t say another word!” Hank hissed. “She can HEAR-“
His forehead swelled, eyes bulging for the briefest moment before his head burst apart, coating Norman in thick blood and fragments of bone. Hank’s body fell, writhing, to the floor. Heels clacking down the stairs made Norman stiffen. Eleanor Hassen, backlit by buzzing fluorescent lights, was looking down at Hank’s body with disinterest.
"I wish he hadn’t made me do that," she said. She looked Norman up and down then. "Oh. You’re the gentleman who said my product was ‘creepy’.”
She lurched forward so suddenly his back hit the wall. She gripped his wrist, hard. He yelped when something sharp jabbed him. From her wrist protruded a thin needle; blood oozed sluggishly down his arm. Her eyes lit up.
“Why, another red one!” she cooed excitedly. “And just when I was looking to fill a position for a new assistant! A very special job opportunity, just for you!”
Norman tried to pull his arm back. Her nails sunk in deeper. A bulge surfaced beneath her upper eyelid, a large insect crawling out from under it. Unmistakably, it was one of the earpieces that’d been on display, but alive, a cicada, but also a firefly, but also a cricket-
A swarm of the impossible things descended on Hank, mouthparts chewing away, secondary rostrums piercing his suit, sucking away until nothing was left of the man but the clothes that’d been on his back. Their abdomens grew fat with viscous red, and they lazily took off, wings drumming up a horrid buzz not only attributable to the flickering lights overhead.
Norman lashed when they began falling upon him, his body nearly breaking apart in his desperate attempt to fling them off, chew them up, smash them into the floor.
There were simply too many, and they kept on coming.
A piercing whine filled his ears as something unseen chewed through them.
Norman would finish his long-winded tale with the events in Iron Falls, leaving Hieu staring at the road in disbelief.
“That’s all pretty hard to swallow,” Hieu said. “Would’ve been more believable to say you were having an affair.”
“What? I would never!” Norman exclaimed.
Hieu flinched at the audible hurt in his voice. Norman’s head dropped against the passenger side window with a dull thunk.
“…But I can’t say I blame you, with how cagey I’ve been,” he croaked out.
“Now, I didn’t say I actually thought that…” Hieu said.
His eyes flicked anxiously to the rear view.
That black car hadn’t left his sight despite the meandering twists and turns he’d took before merging onto the highway.
He swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Norm, I think we've got company," he said.
“I think you’re right,” Norman said, eyeing it through the wing mirror.
He stared for a long time, though no longer at the car behind; he looked at the red beginning to cloud his sclera.
“Pull over,” he said.
Hieu looked to him wildly. “What?! Are you nuts?!”
Even so, he eased on the brakes, veering to the side of the road. The black car followed suit. Hieu turned the van off, heart pounding even harder when he heard the doors of the black car open.
“We close to any exits?” Norman whispered.
“Two miles out,” Hieu said.
“When I give you the OK, I want you to start the van back up floor it. Should stall them, hopefully long enough to reach it.”
A woman appeared at the passenger side window. She gestured for Norman to roll it down. Norman did so, only enough to hear each other clearly.
“Mr. Nguyen, Ms. Hassen requests your presence at the department,” Mina Barnes said curtly.
“Fuck off,” he said, equally as curtly.
He rolled the window up on her frowning face and stared ahead with crossed arms. She disappeared from the window. Hieu inhaled sharply when the van rocked - she was trying the mercifully locked back doors. Hieu glanced into his wing mirror; she was coming around to his side now, a formally dressed man in tow.
Hieu threw Norman a panicked look.
Norman nodded.
Hieu moved to start the van back up.
The engine sputtered - but didn’t turn over.
Their unease increased tenfold in that split second as they gaped at the darkened dashboard. Hieu tried again.
The engine ground, but still didn’t turn over.
"Oh, no, oh no, no, no-" Hieu said.
His pleas were cut short when the glass of his window shattered. Arms reached in and wrapped about his head, hands groping for the door lock. Hieu was swiftly dragged from the van.
"NO!" Norman cried out.
He dived across the seats. His arms were seized, and he, too, was dragged out. He forced against the side of the van. He felt the cold steel of a gun against the base of his skull while a hand pat him down.
“Nothing on him,” came a man’s voice.
“Don’t let your guard down, Eugene. He’s like us,” Mina said.
Laboriously, Norman turned his head. She stood nearby with an arm locked around Hieu’s neck. Her sharpened nails were poised at his throat.
“I’ll come with you. Just let Hieu go,” Norman said.
"Norman, no!" Hieu snapped.
He gasped when Mina’s nails jabbed him warningly. He searched for his breast pocket.
“Sorry. I can’t do that,” Mina said. “With you not implanted anymore, I-“
Norman only saw the quick movement of Hieu’s hand before Mina was screaming; embedded in her thigh was the bright red handle of a screwdriver. Hieu pushed himself off her.
“You BASTARD!” she hollered.
Her nails raked across his back. He cried out and fell forward, knees striking the concrete.
Her arm rose again.
Norman’s breath hitched. His head and back cleaved apart, the teeth lining the seams latching onto the arms of the now yelling man behind him. His joints cracked, reversed. He clapped his hands on either side of the agent’s head, ossified spikes jutting from his wrists and sinking deep into the man’s ears.
The agent let out a low groan as the implants were freed, their wretched squealing ended by a clench of Norman’s fists. Rainbow shrapnel sprinkled onto the ground.
Eleanor’s horrid scream filled Mina’s head. She clutched her temples and screamed alongside her.
The dulled popping of gunfire inside Norman ended when a great blade of bone emerged from the cleft in his form, piercing the agent’s midsection. It barbed, hooking him from within. He was swung wailing overhead, striking the side of the van. He was whipped forward. The barbs withdrew. The man sailed over the guardrail, disappearing into the brush beyond.
Mina locked eyes with Norman. He got low to the ground, raising a spiked, backwards hand to her.
“Now, YOU-” came the gurgling roar from his exposed throat.
His split face waved about as he ran at her on all fours.
Mina froze.
She had to do something.
Something.
ANYTHING.
That something would be vaulting over the rail after her fallen companion.
Norman passed Hieu, his charge waning to a wobble once by the time he reached the guardrail.
Instead of giving chase, however, he leaned over it and began to retch. The agent’s gun fell from his gullet and into the grass. Norman’s bisected body sealed up, and he leaned against the railing for support, eyes slipping closed.
Hieu stared on in shock. His eyes soon fell on the remnants of the implants, glittering strangely in the stark headlights of the black car.
He scooped one into his hands.
It buzzed faintly.
The van door slammed.
Norman’s eyes shot open. Hieu was back in the driver’s seat, trying again to start the vehicle. At last, the engine turned over with a roar. Norman sank all the way to the ground, heart sinking with, bringing his knees to his chin.
This had been it.
The final straw.
Hieu was leaving-
“Come on, Norm! What are you sitting out there in the dark for?!”
Norman startled, dragged out of his own head by the sound of Hieu’s voice. Hieu watched him expectantly from the broken driver’s side window. Norman jumped to his feet and climbed into the van.
Norman stole a wary glance at Hieu. He was looking back, expression unreadable. The silence was overpowering, blotting out even the hum of the engine. Norman’s lips trembled as his husband’s gaze gradually slid from him to the road.
And they got moving.
Mina stared down at Eugene Williams. The grass and soil under him continued to darken as his blood soaked into it. She knelt over him, placing pressure onto his stomach. His body made no move to fill the wound in.
From the road, she heard the screeching of tires.
“That had BETTER not be what it sounded like!” Eleanor snarled.
“Ma’am, Eugene’s down,” Mina said.
“Norman’s escaped, then! Of COURSE!”
Mina grit her teeth.
“Eugene’s down,” she reiterated more forcefully. “He’s bleeding real bad. You said he was like me! That he’d get better!”
“Are you unharmed?”
“I- Yes. I’m fine.”
A snippy little snort from Eleanor. “So you did nothing to stop Norman. Yes, DEAR, your colleague is like you. But unlike you, he’s only carrying the Rot due to how little of it he consumed. He’ll not recover as well as you would have, had you been a little bolder.”
Mina bit back a growl.
“Where’s all that fighting spirit you had?” Eleanor continued. “When you DEMANDED I send you to handle Betsy-”
“Would you SHUT UP?!” Mina snapped. “I’ve got a guy here that needs medical attention!“
A burst of pain between her ears, so intense she saw stars. Mina grabbed at her head and moaned.
“S-sorry, ma’am- I’m sorry,” she whined.
There was no response from Eleanor. Mina could only hear Eugene’s shallow breaths below her.
“Ma’am?” Mina asked.
Nothing.
“Ma’am?!” Mina whispered.
Still nothing.
Mina clenched her fists and stared at the ground, where something glistened red. A curious clot of mushrooms with dark, red, wet were beginning to grow beside Eugene’s body.
Those mushrooms.
The reddened grass curled toward Eugene’s abdomen. On contact with the gaping wound in his stomach, the tendrils poked enthusiastically at what they’d been seeking more of. When he’d landed, it’d all been mere grass and clover; now it was as changed as she’d been by the red fungus that’d spread from her bloody clothes and bleeding wrists onto the food she’d consumed that night.
She ripped up a fistful, fungi and all.
“Open up,” she demanded.
Eugene wheezed, lips parting slightly. She shoved the clump in his mouth, forcibly moving his jaws in a chewing motion. Disgust dawned on his face.
“Swallow it!” she hissed.
He did, and soon the theory she’d felt positively insane for considering bore fruit - fistful after fistful of wriggling vines and weeping mushrooms stopped the bleeding, his bites and punctures shrinking. He spat out a patch of grass wedged in his teeth and slowly sat up.
“Augh. Gross,” he muttered.
Mina sat back on her haunches, looking him over. “You’re okay now?”
He rolled his tongue about his mouth, trying to get the taste off it.
“Better than ever,” he said with a pinch of sarcasm. (-better than ever, Sanderson had said-)
Mina’s stomach lurched. She vomited right into the grass, instinctively pushing back her long hair. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and flinched when movement on the ground caught her eye. The vines and mushrooms had spread, new roots and leaves sprouting among the growing mass. If she didn’t know any better-
She moved her arm again, this time in a broad, sweeping motion.
The red vegetation moved with.
Eugene was transfixed on the sight as well. “Would you look at that! Those red plants at camp didn’t do that!”
Mina slowly lowered her hands. The plants drooped.
“It wasn’t in us then, either,” she mumbled.
Mina helped Eugene to street level and slid him into the passenger’s seat, buckling him in. Despite his healing wounds, he remained sluggish, dozing the moment he was settled. She took the wheel with red hands and stared into her own reddening eyes in the rear view mirror for a long time.
If she took him back to the department in this state, he’d no doubt be implanted again. But, when he woke up, he could remove hers-
Between her ears, an explosion of pain. Mina held onto the steering wheel for dear life. Blood spewed from her nose, dripping onto the little purple dress Eleanor gifted her.
“I don’t hear that engine revving, Mina. What are you waiting for?” Eleanor whispered against her ears.
Her eyelids drooped as she faded in and out of consciousness.
“Y- yes, ma’am,” she panted out.
Slowly, the pain dulled, refusing to leave entirely. A constant reminder Eleanor always paying attention, always listening.
After all, Mina was hers now.
Mina headed back to the department. The pain throbbed in time with her quickening pulse as anger, buried deep inside her, began to unearth itself.
The clerk of the little bed-and-breakfast Norman and Hieu came across did a double take at her battered guests.
“Uh. Wow. You boys have been in a bad way,” she said.
Norman resisted an eye roll. No shit.
“Do you have any rooms available?” he asked.
The impressive wad of cash he tugged from his wallet shut her up quickly enough; something else fluttered to the ground in the process. Hieu picked it up. It was the photo they’d taken together on their wedding day. He pocketed it with a faint smile.
Once they got into their room, Norman freed himself of his tattered shirt and bloodied pants. Not taking his eyes off Norman, Hieu sat heavily on the bed - then hissed, standing back up abruptly, reaching for his back. Norman dropped what he was doing, clothes hitting the floor as he approached Hieu.
“I’m okay,” Hieu said, holding up his hands.
Norman’s mouth hung open, then snapped shut with an audible click of his teeth. He grabbed his garments from the floor dejectedly.
“I’m going to go wash up,” he muttered.
“Here,” Hieu said, holding his hands out. “I need to get out of my shirt too. I’ll give those a soak for you while I’m in there.”
Norman hesitantly handed over his clothes, and Hieu disappeared into the bathroom. It was small and neat, with a well-stocked linen closet. Once his husband’s clothes were hanging over the shower rod to dry, Hieu removed his own shirt to look himself over in the mirror. Though they stung like hell, the scratches were shallow. Just cleaning them up would suffice. He exited the bathroom, dampened washcloths in hand.
The adrenaline having run its course, Norman sat limply on the bed in the buff, a mopey look on his face.
“I need some help cleaning these,” Hieu said. He turned his back to Norman. “You mind?”
Norman blinked up at him in evident surprise. He took a cloth and dabbed at the scratches. Hieu sucked in a breath. The washcloth lifted from his back, leaving him with a faint chill.
“Sorry,” Norman said.
“No, you’re good. They just sting a little,” Hieu said. He faced Norman then. “Now you. Have a seat.”
Norman regarded him with a puzzled look before scooching onto the bed. Hieu carefully wiped the cloth up his torso, along his neck, tracing his jawline, and finally cupping his cheek. Norman nestled into the touch, closing his eyes. Hieu’s gaze hardened momentarily, the mental image of that very face cleaved in two stuck at the forefront of his mind.
“What was that earlier?” Hieu asked quietly.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself,” Norman mumbled.
“Wish you’d told me what you were going through.”
“Wish I could have.”
Norman turned away.
“Coming back and getting you involved in this was irresponsible of me,” he said. “But I didn’t want to do this alone. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Hieu was quiet for a time. He let out a shaky sigh.
“I won’t lie. This is all scaring the shit out of me,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want you doing this alone, either.”
Norman buried his face into a pillow and sniffled. Hieu sat next to him, rubbing his back in slow, gentle circles with the washcloth. Norman clutched the pillow even tighter until he was forced to come up for air.
“Does this change things between us?” Norman asked, voice thick with tears. Then, more shyly, “Do you still love me?”
Hieu thought on it, and seriously. The pause this left weighed a ton on Norman’s heart. Hieu then pressed a kiss into Norman's shoulder, despite the reek of blood and sweat still upon it.
"Yeah," Hieu said.
Norman's shoulders shook. Pinkish stains dotted the pillowcase. Hieu dropped the cloths onto the nightstand, and dangled the photo that’d fallen from Norman’s wallet in front of him. Taken in 1982, they were sharing loving, eye-crinkling smiles with each other rather than the camera; a candid captured by Norman’s mother Nga between the more formal, staged photos by the actual wedding photographer.
“Didn’t know you carried this on you. I’ve been looking for it for awhile now,” Hieu said. He chuckled warmly. “You look so handsome in ao dai.”
“So do you,” Norman said softly, a smile on his face now.
They laid down together. Hieu molded himself against Norman’s back, pulling the blanket over them. Once Norman’s breathing finally evened out, Hieu lifted his head enough to peer over his shoulder.
For the first time in days, Norman was asleep.
Norman awoke to the gentle blue of dawn streaming in through the blinds. He shifted. Everything hurt. But more importantly, his back was freezing. He looked over his shoulder.
Hieu was gone.
Norman nearly fell out of bed attempting to get to his feet, only to wobble and sit back down. The room spun around him. He tried again, slower this time, and he made it to the window overlooking the parking lot.
The van was still out there. Through the rear windows, he could see Hieu inside.
Norman’s heart slowed as relief flooded him.
He got himself a shower at long last and slipped on warmer, cleaner pants and socks. His shirt, however, was in a sorry enough state he trashed it, opting to bundle up in one of the robes from the linen closet. Perhaps if he left some additional cash with the clerk, they wouldn’t miss it too much.
He went outside and knocked on the back of the van. Hieu’s face appeared in the window, looking out with suspicion. At the sight of Norman, he unlocked the doors. Norman slid into the passenger seat and immediately noted the garbage bag taped over the busted window - and an enormous hole in the dashboard where the radio used to be.
“What are you up to in here?” Norman asked, peering into the back. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Couple of hours,” came Hieu’s absent-sounding reply. “Check this out, Norm!”
Hieu held up the radio with a triumphant smile. At Norman’s confused hum, he climbed back into the front of the van and slotted it into the dashboard.
“So, I grabbed one of those bugs from the scene last night-” Hieu started.
“You what?!”
Hieu hushed him and began playing with the dial. In the static, a voice came into focus. Eleanor’s voice.
“-he knows full well how to incapacitate. I sent Norman to handle Betsy Winters and the entities for a reason,” she was snapping.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Mina’s bitter voice chimed in.
Hieu snapped the radio off with an abruptness that made Norman break into a sweat, but if Hieu thought anything of what he’d just heard, he didn’t think on it long; his eyes were still twinkling excitedly over his makeshift invention.
“Based on what you told me,” Hieu continued. “I had a hunch these ‘earpieces’ don’t work for long without a power source. In your case, they fed on you. Hooked up to the radio, they’ll draw power from the battery. I tested it out earlier, and it opened a channel right to her! The sound was still really garbled, so I’ve been tweaking it, trying to find that sweet spot.”
Norman stared at him for a time.
“That is so sexy of you,” he said incredulously.
Hieu burst out laughing, cut off when Norman wrapped his arms about his waist, pulling him near. Hieu smirked at the feeling of his husband mouthing his neck, a familiar sharpness grazing his skin.
“Oh, you meant that, huh?” Hieu asked teasingly.
"I've missed you," Norman said breathlessly.
Hieu laughed again. Norman pulled away with a confused smile on his face.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
Hieu ran his fingers across Norman’s lip.
“When you get excited, your teeth get all pointy,” Hieu said.
Norman felt around his mouth with his tongue. Sure enough, his teeth were longer, with needle-sharp ends. Norman clapped a hand to his mouth self-consciously, cheeks growing hot. Hieu giggled all the while.
“How long has that been happening?” Norman asked.
"Since I met you. Just like all that other crazy shit you can do with your body. Did you not ever realize?”
“No, I didn’t. Have I ever hurt you?”
Hieu moved Norman’s hand aside to kiss him.
“No, never,” Hieu whispered.
The sound of their stomachs growling audibly stunned them both into laughter then. Norman cupped a hand to his stomach.
“Well, that killed the mood. I haven’t eaten anything since I had breakfast back in Iron Falls,” he said. “We should get a bite to eat before we head back out, wherever we’re going.”
Once the dining room was open, a bite was far too polite a way to describe the way Norman gorged himself on variations of sausage, eggs and toast. Hieu laughed wheezily at Norman’s third clean plate when he himself hadn’t made it through the two egg sandwiches he’d ordered.
"Sheesh, Norm. I’ve never known you to be a big eater. Where'd this appetite come from?"
"I'm not sure myself," Norman said, sucking stray glob of grease from his thumb. "But the food here is excellent."
With love in his eyes, Hieu watched his husband dine, oblivious to the onlookers regarding the scene with a combination of admiration and queasiness.
Why, if he didn’t know any better, Norman’s gaunt figure filled out ever so slightly, his cheeks fuller, giving him a healthier glow.
After Hieu started trade school, bar food and a beer became a great way to unwind once in a while.The last thing he expected was a deliriously handsome contortionist being the star attraction of the local bar - a remarkably tall man with a strong jaw and long black hair tied in a loose ponytail.
Soon, Hieu showed up every Friday just to see him, though he could never bring himself to approach the guy; the wall of hungry-eyed men surrounding him was more than a little intimidating.
Tonight would play out differently.
Hieu ordered his usual beer and BLT, and sat at the end of the bar. It was his perch from which he watched the guy bend impossibly far, shirt sliding up the length of his torso, backs of his hands touching his ankles, as much an arch as the sharp corner of a wall was. Some looked on in awe, others lustfully imagining the possibilities, others morbidly fascinated that he was still alive.
Hieu locked eyes with him for a split second (those heart melting eyes, so deep a brown). His cheeks grew warm and he stared down at his barely touched sandwich. Then he stole a glance back.
The guy was upright again, looking smugly at another man in the crowd. He eagerly snatched up a surrendered beer, no doubt the winner of a bet.
If tonight were a usual night, the guy would chug it right there and take his leave.
Instead, he sauntered toward the bar.
He took a seat right next to Hieu. Despite plenty of other open seats, Hieu would note. Face heating up, he picked up his sandwich, trying hard to observe it like it were most interesting thing in this room, finally taking a large bite out of it. A long hand slid into view, splayed fingers hardly an inch from his elbow.
“I was wondering when you were actually going to eat that. Or were you going to keep pretending you haven’t been ogling me from afar the last few weeks?” came the guy’s voice. Then, inches from Hieu’s ear, “I like looking at you, too.”
Hieu inhaled that gigantic, barely-chewed bite. He made a strained noise.The guy’s expression immediately devolved from flirtatious to concerned. He pried the bottle cap off his beer with his teeth and offered it to Hieu. After a few sips, he could finally breathe again.
“Whew! You’re a life saver! I thought I was gonna die for a second there!” He cleared his throat and held out a hand stiffly. “I’m Hieu Phan.”
The guy took his hand with a raised brow and a smile.
“Minh Nguyen. But my nickname here’s Norman.”
Hieu took his hand back, body ablaze with simultaneous embarrassment and excitement.
“I really like your act. Your thing you do,” Hieu mumbled.
“Oh, yeah. That,” Norman said. “To be honest with you, I only do it for the freebies. Saves me a lot of money.”
Norman’s lips pulled apart in a mischievous grin then. Hieu blinked; his teeth were long. Menacingly edged, even. Perfect for ripping and tearing.
The sight admittedly enchanted Hieu more.
"Hey, whatever works, man, I'm not judging!” Hieu said. “If I could do that and get free shit for it, I'd do it, too. But I really do think it's neat! You're pliable! Like a wire!"
"Like a wire," Norman repeated.
"Yeah, a wire! See, like-"
Hieu dug around in his pockets. From them, he yanked a tangle of electrical cables and a series of screwdrivers, plopping them onto the bar.
"Like this!" Hieu said, bending one of the cables carefully.
"You just carry all that around with you?" Norman asked.
(Uncle?)
"I'm an electrician to-be!" Hieu said. "You never know when you're gonna need to rewire someone's radio or replace a burnt out plug."
(Helloooo? Uncle Hieu!)
Norman smiled as Hieu began to explain how to do precisely that, confused, but listening with interest nonetheless, a smile on his face that Hieu found positively dreamy-
“EARTH TO UNCLE HIEU!” Vui called.
Hieu shook his head, snapping out of his daydream and greeted by the reality of the half-pout on his niece’s face.
“What’s up, Vui?” he asked.
“You were zoning out again! I SAID, I see my friend,” she said. “Can I go say hi before we meet with the teacher?”
“Oh, yeah! Sure, sure,” he said. “No need to stay glued to my side! Y’know, I see a friend of mine, too, so give me a shout when it’s time, okay?”
Vui cocked her head in confusion as he jogged toward a group of teachers from the high school section.
Tonight was Parent-Teacher Night, and St. Augurius, being home to both a middle school and a high school, was alive with activity and events. People filled the halls - students saying hi, family friends catching up with one another, faculty talking among themselves - and the latter group was where he spotted that familiar face with that dreamy smile.
“Norman! Hey, Norman! I thought that was you!” Hieu called.
Norman did a double take at the man approaching him. Those thick-rimmed glasses, black hair sticking straight up into the air, the goofy grin - he knew this guy. Intimately. The other teachers offered him a curious look when he broke off from the crowd to intercept the other man. Norman tugged at the collar of his button-up, suddenly far too warm for his liking.
“Hieu, what are you doing here?!” he whispered.
“I’m here with my niece! My brother Liêm’s tied up with work so he asked me to fill in for Parent-Teacher night,” Hieu said.
Norman bit back his disappointment.
“Oh. I see,” he said. “That’s kind of you to help your brother out like that.”
Hieu snuck a quick up-and-down survey of Norman; he’d cut his hair since he’d seen him last, crisp pastel button-up, simple-patterned tie, slacks that hugged his hips so perfectly they HAD to be tailored-
Norman cleared his throat loud enough to make Hieu jump. He was leaning far too close to the other man.
“You cut your hair! Looks nice!” Hieu said hurriedly.
Norman ran a hand through his bangs with a smile, face warm as Hieu’s eyes roved over him. “Yeah, I like it short during the school year. Easier to keep up with that way.”
“I remember you telling me you were a teacher, but I never guessed I’d run into you at work!” Hieu said, and winked. “Lookin’ good, as always.”
“Uncle!”
Hieu and Norman looked down the hall. Vui stood outside her classroom, waving impatiently. Hieu threw Norman a pout.
“Annnd that’s my cue! I’ll see you around,” Hieu said.
Before Norman could say anything else, Hieu was gone.
A few hours later Norman was fussing with his car keys, yawning all the while. Parent-Teacher Night was a great way to become better acquainted with his students and their families - but it made for a long, tiring day. At least it was Friday. A shame he hadn’t seen Hieu on the way out-
“Norman! Norm!”
His keys slipped from his grasp, bouncing under the car. He cursed, kneeling down to feel underneath for them.
“Ah, crap, sorry!” Hieu said above him. “Here, I’ll help!”
Hieu knelt down next to him. Norman’s face began burning all over again.
“That’s okay! My arms can get longer, anyway!” Norman blurted out.
Desperate to ignore how strange what he’d said was, Norman flattened himself out to look under the car. There they were, far enough underneath it’d have been easier to go around to the other side. There was a soft popping in his elbow as his arm stretched just enough to grab hold of his keys.
“Wow, they were really under there,” Hieu said. “Sorry I scared you. I was hoping I’d catch you before you left.”
Norman glanced at his watch. It was pretty late.
“Weren’t you here with your niece?” he asked.
“Her friend spirited her away for a sleepover. I already called my brother about it earlier,” Hieu said.
“…You didn’t really hang out in the school ‘til I came out, did you?” Norman asked.
Hieu averted his eyes, grinning sheepishly.
“Maaaybe,” he said, before elbowing Norman playfully. “I haven’t seen you in awhile. Was hoping we could catch up over dinner? My treat. You don’t even have to do tricks for it, either!”
Norman snorted. Wrung out as he was, he wouldn’t miss out on a chance to spend time with the chummy guy he’d grown fond of over the summer.
After all, it was Friday.
“Sure,” Norman said. “I’ll follow you?”
Norman’s pulsed quickened when Hieu’s smile widened. What a cute smile.
Several minutes of sneaking glances at Norman’s dopey smile later, Hieu finally laughed.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” he asked coyly. “You’re supposed to be going through your notes!”
“Just reminiscing,” Norman replied, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear.
His hair was a lot longer these days - not a lot of time to get it cut when they’d been on the run for months. It’d been an exhausting time for both of them between the arguments, the bleeding of their funds for gas and supplies, and repairs, and every other inconvenience that cropped up to impede their impromptu road trip, the drifting from place to place with little time to settle…
But today, map in hand, they were approaching Greensea.
It’d been as random as a lightning strike. Driving along the eastern coast, they’d listened in on Eleanor at the precise moment she declared Norman a lost cause. Betsy Winters and the entities would take his place as priority number one.
It’d filled Norman with relief, but only at first.
Then came gut-wrenching guilt. He’d led Eleanor on a wild goose chase until she’d finally lost interest - now, she circled over Betsy.
“It’s not too late to back out,” Hieu had said.
“No. Not this time,” Norman had said.
He couldn’t.
Norman smoothed out his crumpled notes. On one, Betsy’s scrawled phone number. He’d jotted it down when she’d dialed it at the payphone, sharp eyes and quick hands from years of working with rowdy high schoolers coming in handy. He dug the burner phone out of his pocket, dialed Betsy and waited. He pulled the phone away from his ear at the loud, buzzy static on the other end.
"Hello?" Norman asked. "Betsy? Hello, can you hear me?”
The static grew louder.
"Too much interference,” he muttered.
Norman ended the call.
The crackling of static continued.
“I’m not imagining that, am I?” Hieu asked nervously.
“No, I hear it, too,” Norman said.
He checked the radio. It was off. Norman sat ramrod straight in his seat, trying to ignore his nerves as static chattered on.
“Let’s keep going,” he said. “I’ll try calling her from a payphone.”
Hieu sighed through his nose.
“I don’t feel good about this,” he said.
Norman swallowed the lump growing in his throat. Neither did he.
It was dark once they reached the outskirts of Greensea. Nearby, a weathered billboard welcomed them to town. Vast swaths of wood hugged either side of the road where a row of benches and a phone booth sat.
“There,” Norman said. “Pull over!”
As soon as the van rolled to a stop, he made a break for the booth. Hieu shifted uncomfortably in his seat; he could still hear that static. His eyes landed on the radio. He lowered an ear to it.
A crackling hum still emitted from the speakers.
He got out of the van. Out of the corner of his eye, the shapes of people emerged from the woods across the street. His breath only quickened with his pace.
Norman grunted when Hieu squeezed himself into the booth with him.
“Hieu, we can’t both be in here, there’s not enough room!” Norman said.
“I KNOW THAT! I’m not squeezing my big ass in here for a quickie - we got company!” Hieu snapped. He sucked in his stomach and slid the door shut behind him.
Palms began slapping the glass. Norman quickly dropped coins into the slot and dialed Betsy.
It rang.
More hands hit the booth.
And it rang.
BAM. BAM.
Rang-
Click.
“Hello?” a familiar voice asked.
Norman’s stomach dropped. Oh, please say it wasn’t so.
“Hello?! Is Betsy Winters there?”
"Who’s this?”
"Norman-"
"Norman?!" Betsy exclaimed. "How the hell did you get this number?"
"Paranoid as ever, I see," he said. "I wrote it down, back when I still had a job in recon. You need to get out of that house! The department is coming for you!”
The hands hitting the booth started punching. Fine cracks began to grow.
“I was hoping you wouldn't answer,” he continued. “That you'd have taken my having that photo with your address on it for what it was and gotten the hell out of there by now!"
He slammed the phone into the cradle. Hieu cried out - the door started to slide open, no matter how hard he tried to hold it shut. Hieu fell forward, only to be spun away from those grabbing hands and striking the payphone. Norman surged forward, shredding through clothes, skin, tendons, bone. The crowd around them quickly scattered. In the booth, the handset swayed gently on its cord, dial tone droning away.
Norman turned to Hieu. Blood that was not his own drenched the gaping wounds of his bladed arms. Hieu clung to Norman.
“We NEED to turn back!” Hieu whispered.
Norman averted his eyes.
“Norm? Norman, please-“
“I can’t! I can’t run away this time!” Norman spat. “I’m so tired of- of this, of running!” He squeezed Hieu’s shoulders. “I know you are, too.”
Hieu’s lower lip wobbled. Norman looked toward the faded billboard welcoming them to Greensea. It felt almost mocking.
“I need to return a favor, anyway,” he finished.
Hieu gave him a hard, exhausted stare. And nodded.
They got back into the van.
“Before we go, we need to throw the radio overboard,” Hieu said. “That static - I think it’s coming from there.”
They pried the radio out of the dashboard. They both sucked in a breath at the sight of bulbous membranes stretching across its surface, originating from the remains of the implant Hieu wired into it.
“Shit,” Hieu said weakly. “Leave it to me thinking I was being clever to dig us into a deeper hole.”
Norman nodded slowly.
“She’s been listening in on us too, then,” he said. He let out an anxious giggle. “She’s got me right where she wants me.”
Hieu pitched the radio from the driver’s side window. It landed in the brush with an underwhelming thud. With that, the static came to an end. They took off into the heart of Greensea without another word, leaving behind the throbbing remains of the radio.
Sanderson pressed an ear to the basement door, hand glued to the deadbolt. Betsy’s impassioned yelling had ceased, and all was quiet now.
Unbearably so.
A soft creaking below got his attention. Annie stood on the last stair, BB gun at the ready. Her expectant look made him fidgety, more so than Betsy’s hypothetical disappointment.
He took a breath, slid the deadbolt to the side and cracked the basement door open. Just a smidge. He saw the well kit kitchen. Better heard the TV in the living room. Smelled the remnants of Betsy’s cooking prep in the trash.
No blood.
He eased his face through as small a gap as possible, cheeks squished between door and door frame. Not quite far enough out to get a good look yet. He emerged, slowly, attempting to see into the living room.
The door shut on his neck.
Sanderson wheezed out what was left of his breath. His hands scrabbled against the other side of the door, trying to push it open. Someone snorted above him and the pressure on the door increased. His face reddened, clawing at his throat. Another snort became a laugh, mean-spirited, giddy. His face was nearly violet when the door opened again. He choked in a breath, and glanced up through black-dotted vision-
BOOM.
He rocked back. The world flipped upside down as he careened down the stairs, head cracking against the cement floor.
Everything went black.
And came back, almost immediately.
Amid the ringing of his ears, Annie was screaming. That smell filled his nostrils. Mina came into view, brandishing a shotgun, an unadulterated, sadistic joy brightening her otherwise gloomy face. A warm stickiness accompanied the movement of his head. He could see Annie, cowering on the mattress Clive formerly occupied.
He tried to move his jaw, to speak. It hung loosely on one hinge, and all that came out was a groan. “Huuuhghh- guh…”
A heel dug into his thigh.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you again, Dr. Sanderson,” Mina breathed. “I’ve been dying to get even with you.”
Her nails (painted with chipping purple glitter polish, he’d absurdly note) sparkled in the light as she readied a strike.
She gasped when something small and hard struck her cheek. A BB pellet rolled across the floor. Her eyes met Annie’s, and though the child shook like a leaf in front of the shelves, she pointed the BB gun right at her, a familiar stubbornness in her stance, in her eyes.
Just like her mom.
Mina glowered.
“Stay out of this, you little-“
PING.
Mina yelped. With hands that quaked with anger, she wiped away the blood oozing down her cheek, squeezing her left eye shut. Annie gaped, pride and horror filling her at making the shot of her life.
Victory was short-lived.
Mina strode over, slashing at Annie’s face. Her glasses took the brunt, falling to pieces, turning the world and Mina’s face into an angry red blur. Tears sprang anew to Annie’s eyes. She shied away, holding her face.
“Just like your mom,” Mina hissed. “Do you know how much that pisses me off?!”
Annie shook her head desperately. Her back hit the shelf behind her. Mina cried out again - Sanderson’s teeth sank into her ankles, his shuddering arms pulling her legs together. She slammed a hand into the shelf to steady herself. Annie ducked out from under her ire, her crying becoming full blown sobs once she sank down next to the washer.
“Tha’ hell’s th’ MATTER with you-“ Sanderson garbled out. “She’s just a child!”
Mina pulled free of his weakening grasp, reeled about and kicked him with all the force she could muster. He rolled onto his back, panting. She eyed the spit and blood-slicked patch of skin he’d left on her leg. Her fists trembled. His heavy breaths, the child’s weeping, the buzzing in her ears-
“Shut up,” Mina whispered.
She rammed the butt of the shotgun into his ribs. Sanderson screamed.
“Shut UP!” She punctuated her cry with a blow to his sternum. “It’s my turn to talk now!”
She wiped his blood off her face and struck him again. His ribs pierced his lungs.
“I’ve been daydreaming about this moment every DAY, every DAY, since you ran off with your tail between your legs!” she panted. “But you’re NOT getting away from me THIS TIME! Not after you- and HER- made me A MONSTER!”
She struck him again.
“This is all because of you two! You, and Betsy, and your- your SICK plan!”
And again.
“It’s all your FAULT!”
His blood spattered across the wall.
Annie curled as tightly into the gap between the washer and the shelves as she could, but no matter how hard she pressed her hands against her ears, she couldn't block out the meaty thuds interspersed with Mina’s wailing.
Mina Barnes sat alone in a studio apartment that looked more like a greenhouse, filled floor to ceiling with plants as it was. She sipped at her usual breakfast - a cup of coffee with a single teaspoon of sugar - and nearly choked on it when she skimmed over the ad that changed everything.
URGENTLY HIRING: ON-SITE BOTANIST FOR LARGE PROJECT IN RUBY TEARS NATIONAL FOREST. GOOD MONEY! TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES! CALL NOW!
Her eyes lit up.
She was what her psychiatrist charitably called ‘agoraphobic’. After The Big Break-Up with her college sweetheart, she’d withdrawn from the world as much as she could, what with needing two jobs. Neither of them in her field, of course. She was getting by, but the monotony of filling out paperwork for nepo babies and pet store cashiering wasn’t so much calling for a change of scenery as it was screaming.
And there’d be no greater change of scenery than venturing into the great outdoors.
Her psychiatrist, a rosy-cheeked older woman by the name of Dr. Price, agreed when Mina showed up to her appointment with an apartment’s worth of plants to stash.
“A research camp? That’s a big step forward for you, Dr. Barnes!” Dr. Price said. “I know how you get nervous around other people-“
“I’m JUST not a people person,” Mina corrected, trying to find room on the woman’s desk for a lengthy ivy. Finally sated with the plant’s position, she smiled politely at the older woman. “Thanks for taking them in while I’m away, Dr. Price.”
“Of course, dear. Before you go- how’s your food diary coming along?”
Mina’s smile faltered.
“My appetite’s been up and down lately,” she said. “Um. Nerves. You know. So I’ve not been filling it out as much as I’d hoped.”
Dr. Price nodded patiently. “Certainly. It happens. Well! I know you’re bound to be busy up there, but if you get the time for it, make sure to jot your meals down.”
The old woman looked Mina up and down then, and gave her a smile bursting with pride.
“I think this’ll be really good for you, Mina.”
Mina smiled back. More sincerely this time.
“I’m hoping so!” she said.
Mina packed and bussed it north to High Bridge. There, she’d meet the other assembled camp-goers. They climbed into trucks and were on their way to the heart of Ruby Tears National Forest. The hot summer air brought sweat to her brow. The forest was beautifully alive with birdsong and animals scampering just in the distance.
A bright red glint would catch her eye.
And another.
Another.
The longer they drove, the deeper in they went, the more the trees glittered red in the dappled sunlight.
Once they reached camp, an elderly man with enormous glasses greeted them.
“Good afternoon, everyone!” he said in a high, shaking voice. “I’m Dr. Clive Reeves, the, ah, lead scientist of this ‘little’ project, heh.” One by one, he got acquainted with the other camp-goers. Finally he turned to Mina. “And who might you be, my dear?”
“I’m Dr. Mina Barnes. The botanist you were ‘urgently hiring’,” she replied, smiling sweetly. “What exactly are you all doing up here?”
“Glad you asked, Dr. Barnes!” Reeves said. “We’re investigating natural habitats around the country at the behest of the Hassen Research Department. We’ve been coming up here to ol’ Ruby Tears for a few years now.”
Mina tilted her head. “’Hassen Research Department’? Never heard of it.”
“You’d probably be better acquainted with them as ‘Hassen Communications’,” he said. “I can’t imagine what possessed the mogul of an electronics empire to invest in wildlife-habitat research in the first place, but you won’t see ME complaining with a wallet this fat!”
Mina resisted rolling her eyes.
He showed them around. The grounds were large and gated, containing a rec center, security booth, lab, kitchen & cafeteria and individual personal quarters, complete with personal bathrooms.
They’d soon come across the ‘second-scientist-in-command’, a squat, balding fellow tailed by a redheaded woman with broad shoulders and a vigilant gaze.
“I’m Dr. Herbert Sanderson!” the little man said in a chipper tone. “I’m an old friend of Dr. Reeves. In fact, he was my professor once upon a time! And this here’s-“
“Betsy,” the woman said flatly.
Mina looked her over. The rifle in the other woman’s arms gave her pause.
“There’s been bears sighted around camp,” Betsy replied, having followed her gaze. “Better safe than sorry.”
Sanderson chuckled. “Betsy here’s our chef, and I’d reckon the keenest eye this side of the country!”
Betsy rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.
“Man, stop,” she muttered, though there was a grin on her face.
Come sunset, they gathered for a night under the stars, tents and all, just outside the west gate. The small talk around the campfire would be broken up by a clap of Reeves’ hands.
“With this being our first group outing, I was thinking we all take a moment to introduce ourselves to each other proper,” he said.
Sanderson nodded, pouring piping hot water for his tea. “Excellent idea, Clive. Who would like to go first?”
“I have experience with heavy machinery,” Eugene Williams said.
“I looooove animals and the great outdoors! That’s why I study wildlife!” Steena Ripley said.
“I have medical experience. Ms. Hassen felt an on-site medic would be a boon,” Vera Connor said.
“I’m the nighttime security guard!” Milo Gaskins said.
Enrico Valentine gave him a playful nudge. “And I pick up his slack during the day!”
“Used to be a park ranger,” Lucas Cane said.
“Dr. Reeves is my great uncle. I’m shadowing him before I start college,” Toby Torrance said.
Sanderson took one last swallow of his tea and smacked his lips. He looked to Mina then. “What about you, dear?”
Mina chewed on her tongue. She wanted no part of this.
After swallowing a little blood, she lied, “I’m a botanist by degree, but I’ve loved plants ever since I was a little girl. My mother had a beautiful garden; I’d help her with it every spring and summer.”
In reality, they’d lived in an apartment and she’d had no such heartwarming bond with either parent. But the tall tale was a success, bringing smiles to the faces of her peers.
“Your turn, Bets!” Milo said.
Betsy sat on a log, away from the group, scanning the dimming forest. She glanced over her shoulder with a grunt. “What about me?”
“Anything to share with the ‘newbies’?” Reeves asked.
With the exception of Sanderson, the others turned to her expectantly. Betsy’s mouth set in a line. She looked back out into the woods.
“No,” she said, and that was it.
An awkward silence fell over the group. Sanderson smacked his lips again and ripped open a bag of marshmallows.
“S’mores, anyone?” he asked.
In the midst of the group setting up their tents, Mina strayed, making a beeline for those sparkling red trees, even more brilliant in the light of the setting sun. Under the dark scaly bark of a fir oozed a red sap. She leaned in - and promptly pinched her nostrils shut against the wretched stench it gave off.
“Get back to the group.”
Mina stiffened.
Behind her stood Betsy, rifle in hand. She held up a hand apologetically.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare ya,” she said. “Gettin’ your first whiff of the ‘Ruby Tears’?”
Mina could feel herself scowling; she forced a smile. “Can’t say I expected something so pretty so smell so bad. What is it?”
“Yeah, it surprised me too when I first came up here. The Doc’s not too sure what it is, but the animals around here seem to like eating it.”
Betsy jerked her head in the direction of the camp.
“Now c’mon. We should get back to the others,” she said.
Mina sighed and gently ran her fingers across the thick bark.
“Do I have to? I prefer nature to people, anyway,” she said, a hint of mischief in her tone. “A tree can’t annoy me with mindless small talk.”
Betsy let out a sigh, putting a hand to her hip. “Look, it’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t get hurt, or go missin’ like the last-”
A branch crackled.
Betsy pursed her lips and stared beyond Mina. She followed the other woman’s gaze.
Among the trees, a bear trundled unmistakably toward them.
Mina heard Betsy whisper, “Black bear.”
She firmly grasped Mina’s shoulder.
“We’re gonna make ourselves big as possible,” Betsy instructed. “Stretch out your arms, jump up and down, make a lot of noise!”
Mina reluctantly followed along. She hooted, she hollered, right alongside Betsy. The bear shifted restlessly and took a step forward. Mina took a step back, only to be halted by the other woman’s palm on her back. Betsy scooped a hand through the dirt at their feet, taking up a rock.
“Don’t you dare run,” Betsy hissed. “I got a second-to-last resort!”
She chucked the rock. It pelted the bear’s big furry body harmlessly, but did the trick. It retreated. Glanced back at them. Then continued on into the woods.
Betsy turned to Mina with exhaustion in her eyes. “THAT’S what I meant when I said you could get hurt out here.”
Mina averted her eyes, cheeks warming with embarrassment. Her heart still pounded.
“So I’m learning,” she muttered. “What was that you were saying earlier?”
Betsy scanned the darkening woods around them. “That it’s easy for the inexperienced to go missin’ out here. Why do you think we were ‘urgently hiring’?”
Mina fidgeted uncomfortably.
“You’re joking, right?” she asked.
Betsy rose a brow. “’Fraid not. Disappearances in big forests like this are no joke, nor a rarity, Doc. Let’s get ya back to the others.”
Mina followed sullenly.
She was restless that night, spending most of it staring at the inside of the tent. The soft snoring and shuffling of her colleagues around her was broken by the crunching of footsteps nearby. Mina sat up, eyeing the entrance of the tent warily. She reached for it-
“Fuck. Where’d it go?” A low, gruff whisper. Betsy.
Mina’s hand froze mid-air.
The beam of a flashlight slowly crossed the ground outside.
“It can’t possibly be the same bear you saw earlier,” Sanderson yawned after.
“It’s gotta be. I’m tellin’ you, Herbert, they’re gettin’ bolder. Acclimating to us. Shit makes me nervous. I don’t want a repeat of last year.”
Mina leaned nearer to the front of the tent, straining to listen. But the crunching of footsteps along the ground resumed, getting further and further away. She laid back down, though now she was restless for entirely different reasons.
But there’d be no further incidents, and in the coming months, Mina would be swept up in the great outdoors; group hikes under Betsy’s watchful eye, stream-side campfires and fishing, long talks about their observations and studies. While it didn’t elicit the life-changing joy Mina hoped for, the experience was refreshingly more like a vacation than a job.
Naturally, it was the plant and vegetative life in the area that captured her interest. The ‘ruby tears’ trailing down the trees, the smaller plants that clung to them, the red mosses she’d discover under the rocks along the riverbeds - there was plenty to see, to record, to sample.
The first frost came unseasonably late. Even so, the strange carmine flora continued to thrive. Outside the west gate sat clusters of shrubs that remained decorated with leaves and flowers the same distinct red of their twigs.
She was determined to take samples of them.
Kit in hand, Mina closed the gate behind her.
“HEY!”
Mina jolted.
Above, Betsy sat on the watchtower, rifle in arms. She gave a casual wave. “What’re you up to?!”
Mina waved back stiffly, cheeks burning from embarrassment. She gestured wordlessly to the shrubs, then to her sampling kit. Betsy gave a thumbs up. Mina soon knelt before the candy red apple of her eye - it was a beautiful specimen, red leaved and pink-flowered.
“Should’ve lost most of these by now, so I’m assuming you have no chlorophyll. You’re probably parasitic, in that case,” she mumbled affectionately. “But here you are. Out in the open, thriving like its still summer. How are you getting your nutrients…?”
Movement caught her eye below. She carefully pushed the flowers and leaves aside. Half-buried in the dirt was a squirrel, struggling to dig itself out.
She frowned.
…She had gloves on. She could risk a bite.
Cautiously, Mina scraped away at the soil. The squirrel was entangled in shallow roots. She dug a little deeper, and that was when squirrel began chattering wildly, the roots clinging harder to it, burrowing under its skin and pulling it deeper into the soil.
Mina rocked back on her haunches.
"HEY! Bear behind you!” Betsy called from afar.
Mina stumbled to her feet and came face-to-muzzle with a-
“Black bear,” she wheezed.
This close, in broad daylight, its large, shambling form was far more intimidating than before. Mina began hollering, waving her arms about, stretching them as far as they’d go, taking cautious steps back all the while.
The bear hesitated, huffed, lowered its head.
Charged.
Mina screamed. Turned tail and ran.
BAM.
Overhead, Betsy’s rifle went off, ringing Mina’s ears. She struck the closed gate. Closed. CLOSED IT. She’d fucking CLOSED IT-
She hooked her fingers into the chain-link and shook it.
“Let me in! LET ME IN!” she wailed.
BAM.
Mina barely registered the thud in the snow behind her, too scared out of her mind to focus on anything but the slowly opening gate. Betsy and Dr. Sanderson approached with alarm on their faces. Without a word to either, Mina bolted into the yard. She slumped to the ground outside the mudroom, trying to catch her breath.
Sanderson’s voice, above: “My dear, are you quite all right?”
He gave her a quick up and down. And he laughed.
Mina glared, mouth snapping shut, nostrils flaring as she desperately clawed for any semblance of dignity. Sanderson momentarily looked taken aback before chuckling, this time more uncomfortably. He dabbed at his sweaty forehead.
“Need a hand there, Dr. Barnes?” he asked.
Mina got to her feet, dusted the dirt off herself and stormed into the building, cheeks burning hot enough to warm her up in no time at all. Come dinnertime, what little appetite she had bottomed out at Betsy’s announcement of what was on the menu: bear meat chili.
“Why THAT?” Mina asked.
Betsy grinned. “Could call it an ‘old family recipe’! But to be serious, it’s just to use as much of the animal as I can. I hate seein’ a life go to waste, y’know? You don’t have to eat any if you don’t wanna.”
The cafeteria was soon filled with the scent of spices and cooking meat. Betsy slid heaping helpings of bear meat chili in front of the curious, expectant diners. Mina stared down at her own. Chunks of meat, beans, stewed tomatoes; the smell was, admittedly, heavenly. Her stomach growled and turned all at the same time.
“Thanks,” Mina muttered.
Betsy laughed. “For dinner, or savin’ your ass from that bear earlier?”
Mina withdrew further into herself, cheeks hot with embarrassment.
“The BEAR,” she grumbled.
A smile twitched Betsy’s lips. “Sure thing!”
Mina started to eat. The spices complimented the intense, slightly sweet meat, though a curious metallic aftertaste sat on her tongue after each bite.
Now that everyone was served, Betsy walked back toward the kitchen. Mina turned sharply toward her, eyes narrowed.
“You’re not having any?” she asked.
Betsy glanced over her shoulder with a raised brow.
“Yeah, I am. My portion’s still in the kitchen. Had to make it separate,” she said. She laughed when Mina’s squint deepened. “Don’t worry. I didn’t poison it, or nothin’. I’m a vegetarian, is all!”
Days later, Mina stood against the pantry door in a daze, the sound of her wrists snapping like dried twigs replaying in her head, over, and over, and over. All around her, the others hurried through the kitchen, trying to escape the cold whistling in under the cargo bay shutter.
Tears streaked down Steena Ripley’s cheeks, nearly freezing there.
“What do we do?!” she asked frantically. “Dr. Reeves is gone, Dr. Sanderson’s one of those- those things-“
“Pull yourself together!” Lucas Cane said. “The department could show up any time now! We can make this work, we have to.”
Enrico Valentine scoffed.
“How? We can’t even use a can opener with our wrists broken,” he said. “This wouldn’t be so hopeless if we still had power.”
“I don’t know why I did that, okay?!” Eugene Williams snapped. “Dr. Sanderson told me to disable it, and I- I wasn’t thinking, okay?!”
As the heated conversation devolved into a shouting match, Mina held her hands over her ears, trying to block it out, the yelling, the crying, the whistling, the SNAPPING-
“STOP IT!”
Vera Connor’s voice cut through the raving. Even as she shuddered from the cold, her eyes smoldered.
“Right now, we need to get warm,” she said. “Back to our quarters, NOW!”
Murmurs of agreement followed her out of the kitchen.
Mina stayed put.
She’d tried to follow. The room spun about. The blood on her clothes, on her hands, her arms, flowing sluggishly from her open wrists - it was moving. She gagged, holding her abdomen. Days of hunger finally caught up to her, and she hadn’t eaten more than a saltine or two in days. After her encounter with Sanderson the night before, she’d had even less of an appetite.
Gradually, the vertigo passed. Though she was freezing, she slid into the pantry. Mina gorged herself, tearing through cardboard and plastic with her teeth, wrists painting boxes and containers and cans in red, the blood squirming eagerly onto the shelves.
Before her, a loaf of bread. She ripped open the plastic. Red bloomed on the slices and warmed her mouth. The more of it she ate, the more of that stuff she swallowed down, the better she felt. Her fingers twitched, and grabbed, moving freely once again, no more grinding of bone, no more pain.
Her nails, sharpened, sliced open cans. She dumped chilled vegetable soup into her mouth, slurping greedily. She fumbled an open can of peas and carrots, a torrent of orange and green splatting onto the floor. She fell to her knees and scooped what she could into her mouth.
The door opened behind her, the pantry filling with light.
Mina froze.
The others felt their way back to their quarters, the trek made more difficult by their dwindling energy and frostbitten extremities. The only mercy in all this was they’d left the doors open in their rush to arm themselves and answer Sanderson’s call. Many of them were asleep when that wailing hit their ears - something forced them from their beds, just as it forced them to be jerked around like puppets on strings by that creature.
Further back, the personal quarters remained warm. They gathered clothing and blankets, their swinging, screaming wrists complicating the operation. But whether they had to pull them off with their toes or their teeth or bunch them up with their arms, they were determined to make it through this.
After all, the department was on its way.
There was still hope.
They huddled together in the warmest room.
“Cl-close the door already! We have to keep the warmth in!” Toby Torrance snapped.
Vera shook her head. “Head count first.”
Agonizingly, she propped a flashlight into the crook of her arm and bit onto the switch. She scanned the room, full of expectant, fearful faces. Everyone was here, except-
“Wh-where’s Dr. Barnes?” Eugene asked.
“Haven’t seen her since we were still outside. Should we go back for her?” Steena asked.
“I’m not leaving this room,” Toby said.
“Maybe she went out to the trucks,” Lucas muttered.
“If you ask me, that’d be smarter! Get them running and we got heat!” one Jacob OhNeil chimed in.
“And how are you gonna get more gas in the truck once it runs out, eh?” Enrico Valentine asked, followed by a trembling, bitter laugh. “Suck on the gas can an’ spit it into the tank?! We can’t drive in this snow, anyway! We’re better off staying where we are.”
Jacob turned his head and spat. “Suit yourself. Anyone else with me?!”
The several others who’d managed to wrestle their way into warmer clothes murmured to one another and nodded. Vera looked at Jacob warily.
“If you leave this room, I am shutting that door, and I am not going to be able to get it open again with my wrists like this,” she said solemnly.
“Fine by me. You all can sit here and freeze your asses off for all I care - we’re stopping by the kitchen for supplies, and then we’re out of here!”
Jacob and his cohorts stepped out, never to be seen alive again.
Mina locked eyes with Jacob, his form faintly illuminated by the flashlight clipped to his jacket. At the sight of the food on the floor, his face twisted into anger. He grabbed a fistful of her matted hair, dragging her to her feet. Pain electrified Mina’s scalp, tears springing to her eyes. She squealed, scratching at his arms. He threw her aside.
Mina hit the floor with a yelp. Jacob and a few others raided the pantry, the rest taking what was left from the shelves in the walk-in freezer. They were taking all of it. Their greedy hands touching HER food, TAKING ALL OF IT.
“It’s mine! IT’S MINE!” she shrieked.
She dipped into the freezer. The sounds of screaming and thudding drew Jacob and company out. Several of his colleagues in a writhing heap on the freezer floor, their exposed and swollen feet curling with the cutting of their tendons. Mina’s blood-red eyes set upon him next.
Jacob dropped his armfuls of food. He glanced over his shoulder at the others.
“THE TRUCKS! MAKE A BREAK FOR THE-“
His neck split open, a bloody chasm yawning between his clavicles and chin. He slumped to the floor, gurgling. Mina stood over him with shock on her face and blood under her nails.
The others fled like the roaches they were, under the cargo bay shutter.
Her hands balled into fists.
These idiots.
Thinking they could PUSH HER AROUND.
She tore out from under the shutter after them, her frostbitten feet pummeling the snow as she ran for the parking lot.
When she caught up to her fleeing colleagues, she only saw red.
Norman and Hieu stood before an aged home with a sagging porch. Above the busted-in front door, illuminated by the flickering porch light: 618.
“This it?” Hieu asked.
“That’s it,” Norman replied, stomach souring.
He crept up the porch and took a look around. A solemn black car was parked outside, not unlike the one that’d followed him and Hieu down the highway. Rocking chair on the porch. Small table beside it. On it, an ashtray and lighter. Could be handy. He pocketed the lighter, and peeked through the windows. No one-
Something touched his shoulder. Norman made a strangled sound. Just behind, Hieu held up his hands apologetically.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Thought you heard me.”
An incredible BOOM rang out further within the house, quickly followed by a crash. Norman gripped Hieu’s shirt, dragging him low to the ground. He looked to Hieu with panic in his eyes.
“Stay here!” Norman hissed.
He darted into the house. The interior was in disarray; the pullout couch had been forced away from the wall, a cabinet packed with heirlooms was overturned. Porcelain shards crunched under Norman’s shoes as he passed through. His ears perked: meaty thuds, coming from below. Erratic shadows danced along the wall as he descended the basement stairs, quietly as he could manage.
A woman stood with her back to him, beating on someone he couldn’t quite see.
A shard caught in the tread of his shoe crunched when he reached the last step.
Mina Barnes whirled around, and all too late, Norman saw the shotgun in her grasp.
His vision blackened for a split second, his ears ringing on and on. Before him, Mina’s face was a snarl of rage one moment and horrified the next. He grasped at his side. His fingers met damp, ragged warmth. When other sounds came into focus again-
"Norm?! NORMAN?! Where are you?!” Hieu called from above.
Hieu ran down the basement stairs, stopping abruptly in the middle, mouth falling open at the gaping tears in his husband’s side.
Mina, and the barrel of the shotgun, faced Hieu.
Norman roared. Her eyes darted back to him in time to see a great, bloody blade coming at her. It punched through her sternum, piercing the thick muscle of her heart and pinned her to the shelf behind her.
“Ah- AGH-” bubbled from her throat.
Gradually, she went limp, and fell to the floor when Norman yanked his arm free. He kicked the shotgun, sending it skittering into a faraway corner.
“Enough of that,” he muttered.
He inhaled. Hieu watched on, mystified, as Norman’s figure slimmed, until smooth, unbroken skin was all that was visible through the bloodstained hole in his shirt. Hieu stumbled down the remainder of the stairs, flabby chest molding against Norman’s back, wrapping his arms around him. Norman’s shoulders slumped at the warm wet of tears on his neck. Gently, he pulled free of Hieu and smiled at him.
“I’m all right,” Norman whispered. “Rêu wouldn’t let me die like that.”
Hieu’s tears ended abruptly. Confusion set in next.
“Huh? Who’s Rêu?”
The man on the floor let out a great, wet cough, startling them both. It took Norman a few moments to recognize him, what with his face resembling a smashed tomato, but when he saw those teeth, peeking out under a mustache laced with clotted blood, it clicked: Dr. Sanderson. Norman moved to help him. Sanderson only wheezed, knocking away Norman’s hands. He jerked his head repeatedly at the far corner of the basement. Norman followed the gesture.
On one of the mattresses, curled into a tight little ball, was a child.
“There’s a kid down here?!” Hieu exclaimed.
Annie slowly lifted her head from her arms. Norman straightened out and approached; his head just shy of the ceiling, he cast a great shadow on her as he did so. Annie shuffled until her back hit the wall. He knelt short of her hiding spot, and, this close, she could make out his face even without her glasses. He had some scratches and a lot of stubble, and his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.
“Hi,” Norman said. “Are you Betsy’s daughter?”
Annie searched his face intently, before nodding.
“I’m a friend of your mom’s,” he half-lied. “My name’s Norman. What’s yours?”
She rubbed at her face gingerly with her arm, trying to avoid the weeping scratches across her nose and forehead.
“Annie,” she said. “My mom nervous about you?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Then I’m not gonna be nervous about you, either.”
She puffed up her chest, pursing her trembling lips.
“Where’s my mom?!” she demanded.
He hesitated.
“I don’t know. But I’m going to look for her. I promise.”
He offered her a hand.
“I can stand up on my own!” she said.
She stood, and the gun in her unfolding arms finally caught his eye. Norman let out a nervous giggle once he noticed colorful plastic under a coat of chipping black paint.
“That sure looks real,” he said.
She glanced down at the BB gun. "Yeah! Mom got it for me. Anni helped me paint it.”
Norman got to his feet and nodded to Hieu. Annie instinctively pinched the fabric of Norman's jeans as Hieu got nearer.
“This is my husband, Hieu,” Norman said, looking between the two of them. “He’ll take you upstairs and get those scratches taken care of, okay?”
Hieu tried his hardest to muster up a smile. Annie swallowed back tears and trailed up the stairs behind him, trying as hard as she could to not look back.
“You- you bastard. You killed me,” Mina croaked from the floor.
Norman met her stunned, glassy eyes. The bruised depression in her chest was slowly filling in, her cheekbones more prominent with every passing moment.
“Where’re Betsy and the entities?” he asked.
Her stare hardened. He leaned over her.
“Answer me,” he growled.
“The others are taking them to the department,” she replied.
"That your car outside?" he asked.
She nodded.
“Great. You’re taking me to them,” he stated.
Behind them, Sanderson hacked wetly. His broken face trembled, blood and drool oozing onto his lap while he struggled to sit upright.
“M-me, too,” he wheezed. “Take me with…”
Norman winced at the sight of the man’s ribs trying to shift back into place, chest steadily inflating along with his lungs.
“You’re in no condition to-” Norman started.
“I’ll live,” Sanderson cut in. “I’d never hear of the end of it from Betsy if I stayed here- urgh- feelin’ sorry for myself!”
He got his feet underneath himself, sliding up the shelf he’d been leaning against. With tremendous effort, Norman dragged Sanderson up the stairs, Mina following behind.
Hieu was in the living room, squatting in front of the loveseat and gently patting down the scratches on Annie’s face with a peroxide soaked cotton ball. Her eyes drooped tiredly and she stiffened, forcing herself upright, still holding onto the BB gun like her life depended on it.
Hieu looked to Norman and his ‘companions’, eyes widening at the sight of the woman his husband most certainly killed. She shot him a chilly scowl. He averted his gaze, resuming his tending of Annie’s wounds.
“What’s the plan, Norm?” he asked.
“I’m going to the department,” Norman said. “You?”
Hieu sighed.
“Safest place for the kid to be right now is arguably the hospital,” he said. “I’ll take her there.”
He gathered up the first aid supplies with hands that trembled badly. Norman reached down with his free arm, squeezing his husband’s shaking shoulder. Hieu’s hand found his, their fingers lacing together.
Hieu looked to Norman with wet eyes.
“Norm. Don’t do this,” he choked out. “I- I don’t know what I’ll do if you don’t come back this time.”
Norman’s breath shuddered. Their grip on each other’s hands tightened. Grew lax. Slipped away.
“I love you,” Norman said.
Hieu nodded. “You, too.”
Sanderson was soon sprawled across the backseat of Mina’s vehicle, his breathing slow, shallow. Mina settled into the passenger’s seat, Norman taking over the wheel. He felt around his breast pocket and inhaled. Mina looked to Norman questioningly, as did Hieu, when he hopped out of the car, disappearing back into the house. A few minutes later, he emerged, gave Hieu a peck on the cheek and got back in the car. Mina eyed the can of hairspray now bulging from the pocket of his jeans.
“…You really went back in there just for that?” she asked.
Norman flicked a hand through his long bangs with dramatic flourish. “Need to look my best for my rendezvous with Eleanor.”
He started up the car and went on his way with Mina’s directions - he wouldn’t stop glancing out the rear view mirror at Hieu until he couldn’t see him any longer. They’d reach an isolated strip of land where one last helicopter waited. The pilot did a double take at the entourage coming up on him.
“Mr. Nguyen?!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you since-“
“We burned down Camp 12 together,” Norman finished. “Good times, right?”
The pilot fidgeted nervously with the controls, surveying the bloodstains and myriad wounds on their bodies. All told, the three of them looked like the living dead.
“S-so,” the man stammered. “Am I taking all of you back to the department?”
Norman smiled chummily. He placed a foot on the landing skid. The pilot leaned back with a whimper as a gnarled red spike lay against his throat, jutting from Norman’s forearm.
“You bet!” Norman said. “Let’s get moving, shall we?”
"That your car outside?" Norman asked. After a pause, he said, “Great. You’re taking me to them.”
“M-me, too,” Sanderson’s voice wheezed. “Take me with…”
Miles and hours away, Eleanor Hassen smirked.
So many birds with just one stone! Betsy Winters was proving to not only be a fascinating woman, but a useful one at that, with all the Red Ones that’d slipped Eleanor’s grasp gathering in her orbit.
The phone on her desk lit up; her secretary’s extension.
Eleanor hit the speaker button.
“Yes, Sharon?” she asked.
“It’s closing time, ma’am!” her secretary said. “Pulling another all-nighter?”
Eleanor let out a long and lilting sigh.
“I have a meeting this evening. Rather late, in fact,” she said.
The secretary paused.
“A meeting? I don’t see anything on the schedule about this.”
“A last minute arrangement. Feel like getting in some overtime, dear?”
Sharon paused, stifling the faintest groan.
“…Nnnoooot a problem! I could use it,” she eventually chirped.
Eleanor lifted the handset and dropped it back into place, ending the call. Her gaze fell upon her hand then, noting the skin to be thinner than ever. How much longer she’d be able to keep feeding on this husk was ever an uncertainty these days. Perhaps a costume change was in order once she’d aired out her grievances at the ‘meeting’.
Eleanor Hassen burst onto the business scene guns ablaze when she bought out a rivaling telephone company. A proud cutthroat, she almost single-handedly ensured Hassen Communications would cement its status as a household name come modern day.
But first, she needed a headquarters. She’d bought up an abandoned property on the outskirts of Tenor Valley and establish her empire there. The cherry on top was the radio tower; brilliant, branded, built just for her.
Everything was going swimmingly.
Until she began to hear It.
A sound only she could hear.
A buzzing, a humming, sometimes a song, throbbing behind her eyes. Occasional, at first. A mild annoyance.
Eleanor knew how to play the long game.
When even sleep wouldn’t rid her of It, she’d see doctors.
A blockage, of some sort, in her ears.
“You’d best get that removed,” they’d always recommended.
Yet every time she’d make that appointment, the pain intensified.
If she so much as heard a dial tone-
It sent her to her knees.
Hassen Communications wilted alongside her.
On a late summer’s eve in 1955, she stepped onto the elevator, battling both splitting headache and fatigue of overwork. As she descended, her body vibrated with the sound. The farther down she went, the more her bones shuddered with it, and the LOUDER It got in turn, and by the time the elevator hit the first floor-
“Deeper,” something whispered in her ear.
At Its behest, she went deeper, into the bowels of the building.
The chaotic orchestra in her head was at its most violent once she reached her destination, forcing her to crawl her way out of the elevator. The basement floor was dark, dank; storage for a business long since abandoned. Here also, barely visible in what little light of the elevator could penetrate this blackened space, was a deep depression in the foundation. The doors slid closed behind her, leaving her in darkness.
The closer she got to it, vibrations eased.
With them, the sound.
She lay at the depression’s edge, finally finding the peace and quiet she’d been seeking for months. She began to laugh hysterically.
“I’m mad! I must be mad!” she cried.
“NOT SO,” a voice replied. “YOU HEARD MY CALL AND HAVE AT LAST COME TO ME.”
Eleanor fell silent. And then, “Who’s there?!”
“THIS ONE IS CALLED TEHHAZ,” It said.
She placed her hands on the ground, ready to find her footing. The concrete floor thrummed gently under her palms.
“What do you want?” Eleanor whispered.
“I NEED YOUR HELP, DEAREST ELEANOR,” It sighed through the cracks in the foundation. “THIS ONE HAS BEEN CALLING YOU FOR SOME TIME NOW. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE CAPABLE OF SAVING ME.”
“YOU’RE responsible for that wretched noise?!” Eleanor asked. “It haunts me, EVERY. WAKING. MOMENT! I even hear it when I’m asleep! You’re RUINING me!”
That buzz arose then, louder than ever before.
Eleanor groaned, holding her head.
“Stop it, please,” she said. “I just want it to stop!”
“THEN HELP ME…” Tehhaz sighed.
“Fine,” Eleanor ground out. “What do you need me to do?”
In the weeks to come, the inexplicable project to excavate the basement of Hassen Communications began under the guise of expanding, albeit downward.
Tehhaz saw light for the first time in thousands of years.
“You’re free,” Eleanor said tearfully, though she shed them for herself.
“THANK YOU,” Tehhaz sighed. “BUT IT IS NOT SO SIMPLE AS THAT. LONG AGO, I WAS SICKENED. THE PROPOSED ‘CURE’ WAS IMPERFECT. LEFT ME UNABLE TO MOVE. THAT’S WHERE YOU COME IN.”
At the edge of the pit, an insect appeared. Then another. And another. They began to boil up abuzz from the pit. Eleanor screamed as the horrid things overwhelmed her, crawling up her body, flying into her hair, landing on her cheeks. There was a sharp pinch between her eyelids. Her eyeball deflating in its socket made her scream until she lost her own voice entirely.
Her hoarse, weakening cries heralded the Eleanor Hassen of today.
Her wilting company thrived once again.
And began to branch out.
Two days after Mina encountered Norman on the highway, she stared at Eugene’s supine form. He snoozed away on his bed, oblivious to her presence.
When he’d arrived at the department, he’d still been lethargic. Easy to implant again, with a little ‘coercion’ from their colleagues, with only a few flailing limbs and weak shouts.
It’d been all too easy.
Mina’s fingers flexed.
Just as it’d be so easy to put him out of his misery.
Just like the others at camp.
Her nails grew and sharpened over his throat.
The dead were the lucky ones.
She clenched her fists, puncturing her palms instead. In his sleep, Eugene’s nostrils flared. He licked his lips, beginning to stir.
Mina rushed into the adjacent bathroom and heaved over the toilet. Nothing came. Her stomach was empty. She spat bile into the toilet bowl and straightened out in front of the mirror.
Her cheekbones protruded, sandy brown locks of hair shedding again. She was back to barely eating; her colleagues and their SMACKING LIPS as they ate, their changed bodies FILLING OUT, changed like her when she’d ate that fungus-coated food - it disgusted her.
Mina’s lips peeled back from her teeth.
Sharp.
Her belly boiled sickly, her thoughts racing (Mr. Nguyen was one of those THINGS after all) through her head at a maddening pace (turned into a MONSTER) and she raised her hands, clawing her gums, tearing through the tendons (MONSTER), blood filling her mouth (Dr. Sanderson’s blood-tinted teeth, his pathetic blubbering that he wasn’t a ‘freak’ that he was ‘so sorry’) and cracking in her HEAD-
Mina stood in front of the mirror. Red tears ran down her face, the only sound in the room her gasping for air and the clink of her teeth in the sink.
The next day, they’d grown back.
She ran her tongue over them, and ripped a chunk of encroaching black hair from her head, stuffing it into the toilet.
“What the hell am I?!” she cried to the ever-listening Eleanor.
Nothing.
“WHAT THE HELL’S HAPPENING TO ME?!”
Nothing. Still.
Mina burst into Eleanor’s office, bloody maw and all. Eleanor Hassen sat before her, smartly dressed as ever (DID SHE EVER CHANGE CLOTHES). Those icy eyes met hers (DID SHE ALWAYS LOOK SO THIN-SKINNED SO DEAD). Mina slammed her hands on the desk.
“You. You haven’t talked to me in days,” she hissed.
Eleanor’s mouth twitched. “You did tell me to shut up, did you not? I only did exactly as you asked of me, dear!”
Mina’s nails dug trenches into the desk. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. Strands of dark hair fell into her vision. She tore at them.
“You heard me. I KNOW you heard me. What the hell is the Red Rot?! What is it REALLY?” she asked.
Mina froze when Eleanor’s cold, limp hand met her cheek. Under her skin, there was buzzing.
“Oh, dear,” Eleanor cooed.
She stood and approached Mina with open arms. Despite her brazen entrance, Mina found herself backing away. She was pulled into Eleanor’s embrace, those thrumming fingers stroking her hair.
“The Red Rot and I go way back,” Eleanor sighed with no breath. “Tell me, dear, do you think I would take myself apart and shamble around in this rotting corpse by choice?”
There was a hot pinch between Mina’s ears. She let out a whimper, tears oozing down her cheek as she dropped her head limply onto the other woman’s shoulder. Behind her own eyes, that squirming started, vibrating her skull. Her face and cheeks burned feverishly, forehead swelling.
“I wouldn’t,” Eleanor answered herself. “I’m more dignified than THIS. But I’ll do what I must to round you little monsters up, until you’re all mine - and then I’ll DEVOUR you.”
Eleanor released her. Mina sank to her knees in what was silence to any outside observer. But to Mina- all around her was that infernal SOUND, screechy cries that shook her eardrums and BONES-
“DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, DEAR?” Eleanor buzzed.
Blood and bile surged from Mina’s throat.
She fell forward and
everything
went
dark.
