by Scot McAtee
***
The next day she went to ask Jack what the doctor said. She knocked on the door, timidly. She saw him look through the window. When he noticed it was her, he left the window for a moment again and opened the door.
“Hi! I just wanted to check on you again. How are you feeling?” she said trying to sound casual although she was nervous to talk to him.
She examined him. He was shorter than yesterday, but he was still taller than her. She noticed his face was getting closer to how she remembered him.
“I’m feeling even better today!” he said with false excitement. His voice was surprisingly backed to normal already.
“What did the doctor say?”
“Well, I decided not to see him. I’m getting better quickly. Don’t you see?”
“Yes, but I really think he should check you out. Just in case, you know? You could have anything, and you still don’t look your best,” she said almost begging him to go.
“I told you I’m fine!” he yelled lashing out at her.
She stopped talking, fearful he might yell again. Then he got her a cup of coffee, and once again, rolling up his right sleeve. She glanced down to his wrist once again. The tattoo was there this time, but it was faded.
“See! I knew you had a tattoo. Why couldn’t we see it yesterday? Why did you lie about it?”
“You were looking at the wrong wrist. I don’t have one on this one see?” he said pushing back his other sleeve.
“I know we talked about this one! You’re right handed, and I remember you using this arm!”
“Please leave; I don’t have time for this! I’m busy right now.”
“Okay, but…”she began.
“But what?” he answered aggressively.
“Never mind,” she said too scared to finish. She could not believe how he was acting; she remembered how gentle he used to be. “What’s wrong with him?” she kept thinking.
After a few weeks of trying to avoid the topic of Jack, she heard news on the Facebook that his neighbor died. They were still trying to find the cause of dead. Riley had a constant thought of the woman said to be possessed by an alien, but kept trying to push it further back in her memory. Then the deaths kept coming. In that time she remembered trying to take a video of the dark figure in her room. That was the first day she realized something was wrong with him. The video was still somewhat dark, but enough to see clearly what was in front of the phone. The thing recorded was tall and slender. Whatever it was, was so discolored and deformed. The video captured the entire conversion when he was there. It was perfect evidence of the alien that possessed her brother. She knew the truth, but she couldn’t turn him in. She couldn’t do that to him. “Or could I?” she questioned. She spent hours thinking about what would be right. Riley knew he would keep killing if she didn’t speak to the police, but he was family, or at least used to be. “Is there a way to kill the alien and not Jack?” she wondered, but she doubted she’d find an answer. Then she made a decision…she needed to tell someone. She put all of the websites where she read about the lady onto a flash drive and went to the police station.
They were stunned, confused, and in no mood to reason with her. They told her they need to stop it from killing more people, and didn’t know how to kill it without killing him. Then the police went on their way to his house, and Riley sat in the back of one of the police cars. Then suddenly out of the darkness a creature ran out into the road and got hit by the car. Everyone darted out of the cars to investigate. It was the alien from her video.
“He must have left Jack’s body!” Riley yelled. “Hurry we need to check on him he might be in trouble. Why else would it try to find someone new?”
After the alien possessed Jack for so long, it drained the life out of him and it needed to leave his body before it died as well. A few police cars went with her to Jack’s house to find him lying on the ground. He was not breathing. They called an ambulance and brought him to the hospital.