by J. D. Oliva
"What about the van?" Blake asked again.
"Not as lucky," he answered, already tired of the old man's questions.
"Looks like the van blew right through the stop sign. Oncoming traffic didn't have a sign."
"Can't talk about an investigation, Pops," the annoyed cop said.
"People in the van, let me guess, hillbilly guy in his 40's, teenager with an overbite, and a middle-aged woman with short, brown hair. Kinda matronly looking?"
Now the Cop was suspicious. This family wasn't from town and just happened to get into a horrific car accident that killed all three of them. Now a weird-looking old man showed up asking questions. Something wasn't right.
"What's it to you, Columbo?" He asked. "You with the Press or something?"
Blake paused for a moment and fidgeted with a Zippo lighter before placing it back in his coat pocket.
"Nope. Just passing through, Officer."
Blake started walking back to his Coronet and said,
"Thank you for your time, Sir."
VII
Aileen Dake was ready to clock out from her eight hour shift at Hawk Hallow Area Hospital when the call came. Car accident. Three victims, all pronounced D.O.A. Dr. Haskins asked her to stay and help and as an orderly she didn't have to, but Dr. Haskins was always such a nice guy she decided to stick around and help out. Aileen had been working as an orderly at Hawk Hallow Area Hospital for the past four years. It was a fairly routine career, which was exactly what she was looking for when she took the job. She always wanted to be a doctor, but didn't have the grades for medical school. She also didn't feel that she could handle the stress of working one-on-one with patients, which left nursing out of the question. But as an orderly, she was helping people without the pressures of practicing medicine or working directly with the patients. It was perfect for her.
Aileen lived in Hawk Hallow for most of her life. Her boring, average life. Every morning she was up at 7:15 AM and drove her red 2003 Toyota Corolla to the hospital, worked her ten-hour shift, then drove the Carolla back to her apartment just outside Town Square. Then she made dinner for her and her cats, Flotsam and Jetsam. She'd watch television for two hours every night and finished off her day by cracking open whatever book she found at the Hospital gift shop that week. That was her life every day for the past four years. With the exception of Friday night, when she would literally let her hair out from its tight bun and drive into the Cities to hit the bar scene with her younger sister, Kylie.
Kylie was always trying to get her to dress more alluring but Aileen was far too shy to take her glasses off, let alone dress like Kylie. Aileen was a pretty, young woman despite her best efforts to hide it. But that was only on weekends, and this was a Thursday afternoon.
Aileen had the heavy-set woman on the gurney and was pushing her into the morgue to join the rest of her family. She stopped to look at the body for a second. She normally wouldn't do that, but there was just something about this woman. Something very motherly. She didn't exactly remind Aileen of her own mother, but still, there was something about this woman. Aileen knew it was best to try not to think about the people that she wheeled into the morgue, but she let herself slip from time to time. She felt bad for this woman, but again, she died at the same time as her husband and son. There was something poetic to that. Now, they would all be together again. The thought made her happy.
She smiled down at the mother and was about to leave the morgue when the florescent lights began to flicker and hum. The buzzing whir that normally surrounded the cool room grew louder than she was comfortable hearing. It was time to go. The mother's eyelids popped open, and bright, blue light shot out from the sockets with an intensity that blinded Aileen.
She screamed, shielding her eyes. The humming grew louder. The fluorescent glass tubes popped, and the room went dark, except for the blue light still pouring from the mother's eyes. Aileen ran for the door, but the room started to warp and bend out of shape. Aileen couldn't keep her balance and fell to the floor. Her head spun as she tried to push herself back up to her feet. The shape of the room twisted, moving almost like the lava lamp her parents had in their bedroom. Reality itself lost its form before her. The floor ebbed and flowed beneath her like molten plastic. She pushed against the wall and finally pulled herself back up to her feet. When she looked back toward the body, it sat straight up and turned its undead head toward her. Those glowing eyes were locked on Aileen. The mother opened her mouth and let loose an unholy shriek that burst Aileen's eardrums. From its mouth emerged a small, blue orb that bounced around the room like an errant Ping-Pong ball. It paused in front of Aileen and started to change shape. For a moment, she paused in child-like wonderment as she watched it dance around her head. It stopped and started to tremble. The orb morphed into a twisted claw that bolted out and grabbed her face. The light-made talons clutched her head and forced itself into her mouth before crawling its way into her body. Then the orb was gone.
Aileen sat in silence. The room stopped moving. The body was resting exactly where she'd left it a few moments ago. Everything seemed fine. She felt normal. Maybe she imagined the whole thing? Maybe it was a side-effect left over from one of those Friday nights in the Cities. Maybe it was--
Something inside grabbed her by the spine and stood her up. Her body was straight and rigid. Though paralyzed in this position, she could feel movement inside her body. Her bones snapped and twisted out of place. The pain was unbearable. Her eyes looked down and saw her hand twist and snap out of shape, mutating into the same jagged claw that grabbed her head seconds earlier. Her spine bent at a harsh right angle. Her neck twisted around and for a second she saw the backside of her own legs. She screamed out for help, but her voice cracked and changed to match the sound the mother made as she rose.
Then she collapsed. Aileen laid motionless on the floor for just a moment before light burst out from behind her eyelids, which illuminated the room before finally dimming. Aileen opened her eyelids. Her brown eyes turned crystal blue. She smiled, but it was different than the grin that ran across her face a few moments ago. This smile was proud and devilish. Aileen Dake was gone, and Gillian Slater had found a brand new body.
VIII
"Wakey, wakey, sweetheart," Gillian said as she unzipped the first body bag. Roscoe Slater, the driver of the Astrovan, climbed out from the black bag. He arched his back toward the ceiling and let out a roar.
"Well now, look at you, Gillian. You're as pretty as a Ju-Ly afternoon," Roscoe said in his deep Southern twang.
"You think so, baby?"
"Ab-so-lootly, darlin'. You done real good this time," he said running his thumb under her chin.
He wandered the morgue, getting used to his new surroundings. Running his hand through his greasy, thinning hair, he nodded in approval. Roscoe was the leader of this makeshift brood. He had escaped from their home a long time ago and reached back through to find Gillian. Of course, that wasn't her name when Roscoe rescued her, but that's who she'd been for the past forty years or so.
He wore tight-fitting jeans accented by a large, gold belt buckle, black leather cowboy boots, and a tattered, gray Confederate Army issue coat. Whether he was that coat's original owner or just something he had picked up in his travels, Gillian wasn't sure. But she knew where he got the belt buckle. She had it made for him back in '83 when they were staying in Alabama. It was a cartoon-styled magic lamp set against the stars and bars. Roscoe loved it and carried it with him ever since.
"'Scuse me, can one of y'all get me outta this thing?"
Bo Slater was still inside his body bag. As usual, he felt like the forgotten Slater. Especially since he took the body of a teenage stoner back in '77. He often found himself playing the role of Roscoe and Gillian's child, which made sense as they were both holed up in middle-aged husks. Roscoe unzipped the bag and said, "Bo Slater, get your lazy ass up. It's time to go to work."
"Yes, sir."
It was a role he'd gotten used to playi
ng, even if she knew he hated it. Bo was about 5'11 and very thin, with shaggy brown hair and a set of buck teeth that created a slight lisp in his voice. He brushed himself off and caught a look at the new Gillian and smiled. The way he smiled made her a tad uncomfortable. Though Bo wasn't really her son, he played the role for so long it was hard for her not to think of him that way. He liked her new body. Maybe too much.
"Now then, time to get serious. New town, new plan," Roscoe said. "And I'm getting hungry."
The Slater's were nomads who wandered the country in constant search of food. Roscoe wasn't the first of their kind to break through the bleed into man's world, but he was the first to figure out how to do it on his own. He was the first to come over free, unshackled to any object or master. The problem was, in this world they were in constant hunger and the only thing that could satisfy them were people. Hunting the humans made them a target, and while they were powerful and immortal, they had their weaknesses and were often slaves to their greedy nature. Roscoe saw many of their brethren chained or bound to inanimate objects, and that was if they were lucky. The rest were banished back to their home, neither of which interested them. They knew that survival meant feeding, but hunting was out of the question. So Roscoe changed the game. The Slater's weren't hunters. They were trappers. They would hole up in a town, set camp and lure a small handful of people in only to be gone a few days later, before the locals could figure out what happened. The plan worked and kept them fed and free. "Two of the three most important F's," as Roscoe would say.
"Now, this here's what I'm thinking," Roscoe said. "This morgue is good. It'll be a perfect little base camp to start out with."
"But, uh, Roscoe, ain't these already dead? How we supposed to eat 'em?" Bo asked.
Roscoe shook his head. Bo had no vision. That's why he was never going to take control of the family, no matter how much Gillian could see he wanted it.
"Bo, Bo, Bo. This here's a hospital. Hundreds of people coming in an' outta here every day," Roscoe said.
"But, baby, aren't they all sick?" Gillian asked.
Roscoe shook his head again. The look on his face told her enough. He was more disappointed with Gillian. He expected Bo to be short-sighted, but Gillian was supposed to be his right hand. She knew she should know better.
"The people that visit ain't. Hell, how many you think come down here every day? Every hour? How many people you think we could pull down here? The best part, when we're done, we just climb right inside them lockers and catch some sleep. I say we're here three days, tops. Then we hitch out on one of them ambulances, ditch it a couple towns over and catch a bus. Move along."
"What happens when one o' them people open up a locker we're sleepin' in?" Bo asked.
"Well, should that happen," he said. "Eat them," Roscoe annunciated to make sure he was clear.
IX
Cody spent six hours at Hawk Hollow Area Hospital. They checked him for injuries. They checked him for cuts, bruises, and bumps. They checked his eyes, and they checked his ears. After the huge, gray Astrovan slammed into the family's Jeep Liberty, the doctor's expected the Burk family to be in similar shape to the strangers that were thrown from the van, but they weren't. The medical staff at HHAH were surprised at how healthy Cody and his family were. Physically speaking, they were completely fine and left the hospital close to midnight. But that didn't change how Cody felt.
Cody finally got into his bed at a quarter to one. He was exhausted, but didn't sleep. Not that it was anything new. Over the past two months, he lay awake every night, tossing and turning. He'd told his mother that he couldn't sleep, but the truth was he was afraid to fall asleep. When he did allow himself to drift off, he imagined that he was on the street watching Dad's car spin into that tree. Tonight, things were different. Instead of Dad behind the wheel, he saw the old woman sprawled out on the street. It was the same scene as earlier, but the Jeep was gone. Cody walked by the mother and headed for the van. He tried to rip open the door and pull out the father and his boy. But when he finally threw the door open, the man was gone and Dad was there. Face against the wheel. Cody looked into the back and the boy was gone too. Instead there was Connor, face down in the back of the van. Cody wanted to run over and grab Connor and pull him out, but he couldn't move. He was frozen again.
"Help me, Cody," Dad said over and over.
Cody woke up three or four times that evening. A few months ago, he probably would have woken up screaming, but not tonight. Maybe he was getting used to the night terrors? Maybe he just felt like he deserved them? Either way, Cody slept terribly. Same as every other night, just with different nightmares.
The sun came up around 6:45. Cody thought about staying home from school that day. It was Friday and after what happened last night, Mom would have let him. It was a good reason. He was positive that's what Connor was going to do, which was enough to convince him to go to school.
Cody couldn't even look at himself in the bathroom mirror while brushing his teeth. He knew he had a small five-minute window before Mom would be down from her morning routine to have breakfast. She was going to ask him how he was doing and what he thought about what happened yesterday. He had no interest in that. The sooner he got out of the house, the better. Inhaling a couple granola bars on the bus would be good enough. She'd probably send a text asking where he was, easy enough to write school, and just ignore it.
Cody got on the bus and took his seat toward the back, a right earned by advancing from 6th grade, when he would have to sit up front, to 7th grade where he'd sit as far away from Connor and Tyler as possible, to 8th grade. He put on his headphones and drifted off into the haze that he'd been in since the accident. The first accident.
Cody stepped into Coach Pawley's US History class. There was that girl from yesterday. She smiled at him and he ignored her as he took his seat in the back of the room. Coach Pawley's class was usually one of his favorites. He and Coach Pawley got along well, but today he just didn't have it. Normally Coach would be all over him for not paying attention, but not today. Coach was giving him some slack. He vaguely heard something about the Louisiana Purchase before finally snapping back into reality.
"Cody!"
"Huh?"
Cody looked toward the front of the room and saw Coach holding a yellow hall pass in his hand.
"Pass to main office," Coach Pawley said.
"Okay," he said.
Cody picked his bag up and threw it over his shoulder. He grabbed the pass and walked out the door. Cody looked down at the yellow slip and saw he was to report from Mr. Pawley's class to Dr. Schultz's office. That was the school social worker. Great. Maybe he should have just stayed home today.
Cody knocked on Dr. Schultz's door.
"I got this pass," he said.
"Hey, Cody, c'mon in!"
Cody took a seat at the other side of the desk. It was only the third week of school but he'd already been in this office twice before. He was turning into that screwed up kid that everyone was always trying to reach. He hated feeling like a freak.
"What's going on, buddy?" Dr. Schultz asked.
Ian Schultz was in his early thirties and had been at Hawk Hallow Middle School for a few years. At least since Connor started going there. He was probably a nice guy in real life but at the other end of that desk, Cody thought he was a phony.
"Nothing," Cody said.
"I heard you were in a car accident yesterday. How you feeling, champ?"
"Fine."
"Are you sure?" The doctor asked.
"My mom called you, didn't she?"
"She did. She's a little worried about you."
"I'm fine," he said.
He wasn't, of course, but he wasn't telling him that.
"Okay. How'd the football game go?"
"We lost again. I had the chance to sack the quarterback on the last play but I choked."
"What do you mean choked? Were you scared?" Schultz asked.
"I dunno. I just froze. It's k
inda what I do."
Neither of them said a word for the next minute. Cody could tell Schultz was trying to get him to open up, but he had no intention of doing that. At least, not to this phony.
“Cody, I need you to know that if you need to talk, I'm here. I think I can help you with the choking. Hawks are gonna need you later this year when we play Carterville."
"Okay. Thank you, sir."
The bell rang.
"Can I go now? I have lunch this period."
"Of course."
Dr. Schultz wrote him a new pass for some reason. Cody took the new yellow slip and stuck it in his pocket. He put his earbuds in and pulled his sweatshirt hood up over his head as he left the office. The day was half over and the headphones had helped, but he was going to have to leave them in his locker before lunch. Bringing them into the cafeteria was strictly forbidden and he didn't need the extra hassle.
"Hey, Cody!"
He turned around and found three boys and a girl walking passed his locker. He wasn't sure of their names, but had seen them around school.
"What up, Code Red?" One of the boys said.
"Oh, hey," he said back.
"Bye, Cody!" The girl said.
"See you in gym class," one of the other boys said.
"See you in gym, Cody! Maybe we can play with your hack-key sack?" Said Nick's mocking voice from behind.
"You wish you could play with my hack-key sack," Cody said back with a smile.
Nick could always make him smile. Even after what happened this summer, Nick would drop by the house and in just a few sentences, Cody would laugh.
"What a douche-bag," Nick said.
"Pretty much. Who was that guy anyway?"
"Who cares?"
"Don't get jealous cause somebody else was all over Cody, Nick."