The Corruption Within

by Ty Griffin

  It was her turn for her cheeks to turn a little pink. She shyly tucked some loose hair behind her ear. “God, I hope so,” she said.

  The bell above the door jingled, and Kayla and I both looked up to see Paul walk in. He was not the same Paul who had been in the bar a couple nights before. His shoulders were hunched and his head bowed as if he was trying to shield himself from a bitterly cold wind. He had huge bags under his eyes, and the lines in his face were deeper and more pronounced than they had been.

  “Hey!” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could comfortably fit into my voice.

  “Hey, Wesley,” he mumbled. Even his voice was tired, strained. My chest ached a little as I watched him. He just seemed—broken.

  “Can I get you a burger cooking?” I asked.

  “Uh, no. No thanks. I was just wondering if you found a wallet lying around?” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I think I lost my wallet the other night.”

  “Oh, uh. No. Sorry, man. I haven’t seen a wallet. Did you check the alley?” I asked cautiously.

  “No … no, I guess I could do that.” He didn’t move for the door, though, but stood there, shifting his weight from side to side with excess anxious energy while looking at his feet.

  Kayla looked at me with questions in her eyes. I shrugged my confusion back at her. “Phil, why don’t you sit down,” she said, pulling a stool out from the bar beside her.

  Paul glanced at Kayla skeptically but did not correct her. I tossed a questioning glance at the odd woman, who smiled, made a smoothing motion over her head, and mouthed “Collins.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Sit down, Paul. I’ll get you a burger cooking and check the alley for your wallet while you eat.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t have my wallet, so I don’t have any money. I guess I’ll have to order new cards, so unless you’re willing to let me come back to pay …” Paul said.

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it. You just sit down. You look like you could use a hot meal.”

  He sat gratefully, and I tossed another patty on the grill. Kayla did a better job at making small talk than I did and was able to get Paul to relax a little into a conversation while I cooked. A few minutes later, I set a burger, a bag of chips, and a diet soda in front of him.

  “Thank you,” he said before taking his first bite.

  “No problem.”

  I don’t know what it is about the burgers at Gabe’s Bar and Grill. I mean, they taste great, don’t get me wrong. But they seem to have an almost supernatural ability to make people relax, get comfortable, and open up like they’re talking to old friends. Part of me wondered if Gabe spiked his burgers with a special ingredient; it was Colorado after all. But I had eaten a couple of his burgers by then and would certainly recognize the feeling if he had. Maybe it was just the magical properties inherent in any properly cooked, greasy burger.

  Regardless of why, as Paul took his second bite the tension in his body seemed to dissipate. His shoulders relaxed, and the tightness around his eyes calmed into a casual, almost sleepy, comfort. Halfway through his burger, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked up at me.

  “Thank you,” he said with obvious embarrassment. He looked back and forth between Kayla and me. “I’m not usually like this, you know? I’ve never had anything like this happen before. I’m usually someone who has his stuff together.”

  Feeling really uncomfortable with Paul’s vulnerability, I said, “Yeah no problem, man. Everyone has their stuff, you know?”

  Kayla looked at Paul and me quizzically and asked, “What happened?”

  I hesitated, taken aback by Kayla’s unabashed prying. Paul must have felt comfortable enough, though, because he answered without hesitation. “The doctors said I had a panic attack. I don’t know. I’ve never had one before, and honestly my memories of the whole night are kind of patchy.”

  “What do you remember?” I prodded gently.

  “After leaving the bar, not much. I stepped outside, and the next thing I remember is being in the alley, balled up beside the dumpster. Terrified. I was absolutely terrified.” He chewed on his lip for a minute, and I was sure he wanted to say more. But the look passed, and he said, “Then I remember being back inside the bar, you bringing me a glass of water, and Gabe taking me to the hospital.”

  Kayla reached out and placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder, genuine concern on her face. In the back of my mind, I wondered at the quality of the heart of someone willing to offer comfort to a stranger like that. “Is that all you remember?” I asked Paul.

  He continued telling us what he could remember from the night. Which was mostly just flashes of sitting in the ER waiting room and meeting with the doctor. His memory didn’t stabilize until late the following afternoon, which had been when he realized he didn’t have his wallet.

  I think talking ended up being cathartic for Paul, and Kayla must have realized it before I did. She kept asking questions, gently leading Paul to keep talking. Eventually she had him talking about flying planes and how he met his wife. While they talked, I slipped away to check the alley for his wallet. My own memories of that night were still fresh enough that my palms began to sweat as I stepped outside. I forced myself to look thoroughly, if not quickly, before returning to the bar.

  Paul looked up hopefully when I came back into the front. I shook my head. “Sorry, no luck.”

  He shrugged. “It was a long shot anyway.” He looked down at the empty plate in front of him as if he was just realizing what he had done, and shame began working its way into his expression. He apparently was not someone used to taking handouts.

  “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t ask for food, I insisted you eat. So no charge,” I said.

  He smiled ruefully. “Thank you.”

  I waved a hand dismissively and, remembering the words Gabe had used on me, said, “Everyone needs a little help every once in a while.”

  Paul smiled his appreciation, tossed his napkin on his plate, and stood to leave. I realized once he left it was entirely possible he would never come back. An almost panicky sense of curiosity reminded me that I may never again have the chance to get answers about what had happened in that alley. So, devoid of grace, I blurted out, “Are you sure that’s all you remember about that night?”

  He froze, the color draining from his face. Kayla’s head snapped up, too, and she stared at me, head cocked to one side.

  “Yeah …” he said.

  “You didn’t see anyone else there?” Internally I kicked myself for starting the conversation in front of Kayla. She was going to think I was crazy, and not in a cool, attractive way. But I was determined to keep pushing. I had to know if I actually was crazy. “You didn’t see anything else?” I asked, putting the slightest emphasis on thing.

  Paul’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and any blood remaining in his cheeks drained in an instant. He knew! He knew exactly what I was talking about. He had seen it too. Then he clenched his mouth closed and narrowed his eyes. I could tell he was about to try to play it off, and, in desperation to not lose the opportunity, I blurted out, “I saw it too, Paul.”

  My confession broke the remainder of a wall Paul had been hiding behind. Even with all his shame and brokenness, he had been desperately holding back the remaining details, fearing they would be evidence of his insanity. I watched the last tendrils of resolve snap under the intense pressure to not be alone in the madness. “You saw it … him?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Or at least part of him. He was still hidden in shadows, and I couldn’t see his face,” I said. I glanced sideways at Kayla. I didn’t want to mention in front of her how the shadows seemed to move with him … or it. I didn’t want to say that I should have been able to see its face, if it had a face to see.

  I think Paul was thinking along the same lines, because he glanced at Kayla, too, when he said, “Yeah, I didn’t see his face, either. He got really close, but I was so scared I guess I just didn’t think to look.
”

  “Did he attack you?” Kayla asked. “Or maybe drug you or something?”

  Paul shook his head. “They took blood at the hospital but didn’t find anything in my system. And I don’t think he attacked me, really. I don’t have any bruises or anything. He just … I don’t know. I was just so scared. I can’t explain it.”

  “I was too,” I said quietly. “I wasn’t as close as you were, or there as long, but I was scared. I’m still scared, and I don’t understand why.”

  “Yes!” Paul exclaimed, his words coming out quickly. “Me too! I haven’t been able to sleep since. Every time I close my eyes, I remember that … man looming over me. Of looking up and still not being able to see its face, but being absolutely sure it meant to hurt me, to destroy me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

  Paul took a few calming breaths. Kayla’s eyes danced between Paul and me, the fear of being alone with two mental patients evident on her face; although a kind of excitement shone in her eyes, the kind of nervous excitement you’d see in someone who had just walked through a haunted house.

  After a minute, Paul said, “I don’t know how Gabe fought him off.”

  “He did what?” I asked in nearly a shout.

  “Well, yeah. I don’t remember much, but I saw him fight the thing and run it off.”

  “Thing?” Kayla asked. “Not person, thing?”

  Paul shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I asked Gabe about it at the hospital, but he said I must have imagined the whole thing.”

  “He told me that too. That it was nothing, just some street punk or something.” I took a deep breath, fortifying myself to reveal my own crazy. “But that wasn’t what I saw out there. I’ve tried to rationalize it away, but I know it. I know there was … something there.”

  The look on Paul’s face was pure relief. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for telling me the truth. I thought I was going crazy. My wife thinks I’m going crazy. She hasn’t said it, but I can tell from the way she looks at me. She wants me to see a therapist. And maybe I should, maybe I will. But I really did see it. I’m not insane.”

  “I was starting to feel a little crazy myself,” I confessed.

  Paul gave me a sad half smile and nodded. “I doubt anyone will believe us.” He looked at Kayla, realizing she was still there and had not said anything in several minutes. His shoulders slumped again as if the reality of having to keep it all secret as he entered back into the real world was a physical weight bearing down on him. “I guess I should go.”

  “Take care of yourself, Paul,” I said.

  “Thank you again.” He walked to the door and exited. I watched him walk away until he disappeared from sight.

  He seemed so different from the man I had seen in the bar a couple nights earlier. He seemed defeated, almost broken. And I realized it wasn’t just what had happened in the alley that was weighing on him. It was the uncertainty of it all. I knew talking to Kayla and me had been a huge relief, but Gabe denying everything left so many questions.

  I decided then that I would try to help Paul. I was going to find some evidence of what had happened in that alley. I was going to find something to prove to Paul, and to myself, that we were not crazy. I just had to figure out how in the world to do that.

  Kayla’s cheerful voice broke into my thoughts. “Two questions: Exactly what was all that about? And what are we going to do about it?”

  Chapter 5

  ◆◆◆

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” I asked.

  Kayla leaned forward in her seat, her eyes dancing with excitement. “You’re going to help him, aren’t you? I could see it on your face when he left. You’re going to do something, and I want in.”

  “You want in? Why? You don’t even know what you want in on,” I said with a fair amount of suspicion.

  She shrugged and said, “It sounds fun.”

  “Fun?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a mystery. It’ll be exciting. Unless you’re just going to keep asking me why. Then it will to get boring. Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?” she asked.

  I held up a hand in a pacifying gesture. “Okay. Fine. But you’re going to think I’m crazy once I tell you everything.”

  “Maybe,” she said cheerily. “Now, this faceless monster in the alley: was that a metaphor, or did it really not have a face? And were the shadows moving? Do you really think something supernatural was going on?”

  “Uh, well …” I hesitated.

  “You do!” she exclaimed. “You think it was something supernatural! God, that’s so cool. I’ve never seen anything like that. Tell me about it! Tell me every detail!”

  “Wait, what? Really? You believe me?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why shouldn’t I? Are you lying?”

  “Well … no …”

  “Okay, good. So tell me everything,” she said.

  So I did. I mean, who’s going to say no when a pretty girl wants to hear you talk? I tried to tell the story in a way that made me sound a little braver than I had been, but Kayla asked so many questions that in the end I think she had a pretty accurate picture.

  “God, you must have been absolutely petrified. Have you had trouble sleeping? Are you still scared every time you go back to the alley? Is that why you seemed so weird when you came back from looking for Paul’s wallet?” she asked gleefully.

  “Yeah …” I said dryly.

  “That’s crazy. I mean, it literally sounds like you’re crazy. I bet it’s so stressful that you can’t talk about it with anyone because you’re worried they’ll try to lock you up or something!” As she rattled on, completely oblivious to how humiliating her questions were, her hair fluttered at the tips, as if filled with excitement on its own.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Did you start to question your own sanity? Or did you just feel completely helpless because you couldn’t do anything? Were you frozen in fear?”

  “Right!” I exclaimed in exaggerated excitement. “So you said you wanted to help Paul?”

  “Oh, yes! Absolutely! What’s our first move?”

  “Um, I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I hadn’t really gotten that far.”

  “Hmm,” she said, biting her lip in concentrated thought. “Why don’t we go look at the alley?”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She looked around the empty restaurant and added, “It seems like you’ve got the time.”

  I shrugged and conceded her point. I pulled the “Back In 5” sign off the shelf and set it in the window on our way out. Gabe had said he didn’t generally close in the middle of the evening, but it wasn’t uncommon for him to shut down for an hour during the day to run errands or something. So I just had to hope that if someone did come by, they wouldn’t think it strange enough to mention to Gabe.

  We walked around the side of the building to the back alley.

  And then we stood there.

  And we looked at the dumpsters.

  And we looked at each other.

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  Kayla threw up her hands. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before!”

  We looked around for another minute, but then, seeing nothing but the regular trash and clutter of a back alley, I said, “Well … I guess that’s it.”

  “Yeah,” she said, drawing the word out into several syllables.

  We started heading back toward the main street when Kayla said, “You know, I’ve never thought about it before, but I have no idea how to investigate something. Like what do we actually do?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” I admitted. “I want to help, but I don’t know how. If only there was some way to prove what was in the alley. Or something we could use to convince Gabe to tell us what he saw.”

  We reached the end of the side alley and Kayla lit up. “What if we could see who and what came into the alley that night?” she asked.

  I followed her eyeline past my hea
d up to a security camera on the coffee shop next door to Gabe’s. The camera was at the far corner of the building, aimed at the front door, but its angle meant it would have likely caught the sidewalk leading into the alley.

  I looked at her skeptically. “If that thing was really supernatural, do you think it would show up on a security camera?”

  She shrugged. “It’s worth a try. If nothing else, it might be useful to see what time Paul went into the alley, right?”

  “I guess, yeah. But how are you going to get them to give you the security tape?” I asked.

  Kayla shrugged again. “I’m cute, and people like to do things for me.”

  She turned and practically skipped past me, heading into the coffee shop. I watched her as she went, purely as a protective measure. I am a gentleman, after all. I was just about to head back into the bar when I heard a sound coming from behind me in the alley. I turned to look and nearly fainted.

  At the end of the alley, less than a hundred feet from me, was a—creature. It had a head like a wolf, with a long snout and large, pointy ears. It stood on two legs that ended in large, clawed, bear-like paws. Its upper body was shaped like a human’s, with wide shoulders and arms hanging to about mid-thigh. Its entire body was covered in wiry, brown fur, except for its wings. Yes, it had wings. Large, black wings were folded up against its back.

  I froze in terror, my body reflexively employing the T. rex defense: if I didn’t move, maybe it wouldn’t see me. A part of my brain screamed that I should run away but a more instinctual part told me that you don’t run from predators. They like the chase.

  The creature cocked its head to one side, a curious canine gesture, and stared back at me. After a moment, the creature dropped to all fours and started running toward me. After a couple steps, it grabbed hold of the coffee shop wall and pulled itself horizontal mid-stride. It crossed the space between us in what seemed like less than a second.

  I tried to scream. I forgot my plan to not show my back and tried to run. I could not force my body to do either. Like in the alley two nights before, I was scared completely stiff. The wolf-like creature came to a stop a few feet from me and hung on the wall, its head cocked to the side. Its nose moved in delicate twitching motions, like it was sniffing me.