by J L Aarne
The truck was a manual and it took Wyatt a little bit of time to figure it out because he had only driven one twice in his life and they had been smaller vehicles than the truck. Eventually he got it into first gear without killing the engine and pulled out onto the road. His car was still parked in the right lane with the hazard lights flashing and Wyatt didn’t like to leave it there but he had no choice. He knew he should at least push it off the road, but he would have to get out and do that, probably alone since Silas was out cold in the passenger seat of the truck. Bleeding, possibly to death. He would have to do it without any light to protect him since he would have his hands full pushing the car.
There was no way in hell he was doing that.
Still, it worried him to leave it there.
He glanced up at Silas in the rearview mirror. “You’re probably not even real,” he told him. “This truck I’m driving right now, I could actually be wandering around in my underwear. Wandering around in my underwear with shit running down my leg. Maybe after finger-painting in it.”
That sounded like nothing he would ever do, but then again, he’d never had a mental breakdown before.
“When Kat or Mom and Dad come to see me, they’ll find me rocking in a corner in the bathroom. Naked except for my socks and some shitty boxer briefs,” Wyatt said.
He was relieved when they got into the city and streetlights became more common. Silas went on being unconscious and Wyatt let him. He wasn’t looking forward to waking him to get him inside, but it wasn’t that cold outside for November. Maybe he could leave him in the truck.
“That’s what you are, you know,” Wyatt said to the image of Silas in the mirror. “Shit. Diarrhea shit. You’re not real, you’re made up of all the crap I ate today and all the things I think about every day. That’s what it is. I should probably talk to Dr. Graham about it.”
Silas let out a soft snore.
When they got to Wyatt’s building, he parked the big truck in his parking space and got out to help Silas. It took some maneuvering and Silas wasn’t much help that time. He was barely awake and almost completely incoherent.
Wyatt went through the apartment when they got there first thing and turned on all the lights until he felt safe. As safe as he could feel in the middle of the night. When he was satisfied that nothing was going to appear out of the dark to attack them, he started to relax.
He deposited Silas on the sofa and went to put the tea kettle on. He needed some hot water. Silas looked awful and Wyatt didn’t know a lot about first aid and nearly nothing at all about medicine or doctoring, but he knew that in the movies they always boiled water. Lady having a baby; boil some water. Guy broke his leg; boil some water. Kid comes down with some weird disease that came over on the Mayflower, well everyone’s probably going to die anyway, but to hell with it; boil some water.
Silas groaned and threw an arm over his eyes to shade them from the light. “Where am I?”
“You’re at my place,” Wyatt said.
“What?” Silas asked. He lowered his arm to look at him. “Why am I at your place? You don’t even know me, kid. You can’t just… go inviting me into your house.”
Wyatt sat on the arm of the sofa by Silas. “Okay, first—I didn’t. You’re not invited. You weren’t invited. I just sort of… dragged you inside. I mean, you helped a little, but not really a lot. You weigh a ton, by the way.”
“It’s mostly muscle,” Silas said.
Wyatt decided he was trying to joke, but it fell flat because he was covered in blood and lying on Wyatt’s couch. Getting blood all over it.
“Second—you’re at my place because I had to take you somewhere and, like you said, I don’t know you,” Wyatt said. “I have no idea where you live.”
“You went through my pockets for my keys. There’s a wallet. My driver’s license is in it. There’s an address,” Silas said.
Wyatt sighed. “All right, but look, I’m not really… I don’t do things like this, so I’m sorry if it didn’t occur to me to go through your pockets or dig through your truck. I’m not… I’m not some kind of thief or anything.”
Silas had dropped his arm back over his eyes while he listened to Wyatt talk. He yawned and asked, “And third?”
“I don’t know. I guess there’s only two things,” Wyatt said.
“Hardly seems worth making a list,” Silas said.
“No, wait, three—I am not a kid. Stop calling me that,” Wyatt said. “I’m Wyatt.”
Silas snorted laughter. It hurt him to laugh though so he stopped and hissed in a pained breath. “Good to meet you, Wyatt,” he said. “I gotta ask you to do me another favor now.”
“Okay. What?” Wyatt asked warily.
“Go in my truck and get the first aid kit out of the foot well in the back.” Silas lowered his arm to look at Wyatt and Wyatt fidgeted a little beneath his gaze. “Then I need you to sew me up.” Noting the growing look of dread on Wyatt’s face, he added, “Or I’m probably going to bleed out right here on your sofa.”
It wasn’t as easy a decision as it sounded, but in the end, Wyatt went out to the truck. He did not want some dead guy on his sofa that he would have to explain to his family and neighbors and the cops. Only after he did all of that and they decided to not arrest him would he be allowed to clean up the mess. The sofa would be a lost cause and probably haunted. Letting Silas die at this point would be A: more trouble than it was worth and B: counterproductive to Wyatt learning anything from him. There was also C: it would be wrong, but since that only occurred to him as he was going down the walkway to the truck, it was pretty clear even to Wyatt that it wasn’t very important.
Thank God he was still wearing his headlamp.
Chapter 4
Sewing up bleeding human flesh wasn’t one of the easiest things Wyatt had ever done. It was messy and sticky and slimy. His fingers slipped in the blood and the curved suture needle didn’t want to go through. There was a lot of whining and moaning, almost all of it Wyatt’s. Silas himself was remarkably stoic about the whole ordeal. He winced a few times, but otherwise sat patiently and endured Wyatt’s clumsy nursing.
It clearly wasn’t Silas’s first time, though most of the old scars on his body looked like they had been patched up by someone with steadier hands than Wyatt’s. Silas had scars all over. The ones that stood out the most were what looked like claw marks starting at the back of his right shoulder, crossing his back and around his side to the front of his left hip. There were four lines and they looked like they had been made by claws the size of grappling hooks. The new claw marks bisected those by his hip and crossed over his stomach.
Silas said that nothing vital had been cut and Wyatt had to take his word for it. The wounds didn’t stink though, and he knew that was important. Stinking meant infection or seepage near the bowels, both of which would have meant taking Silas to the hospital, no matter what he said. Though Wyatt would have to do it after he passed out again because Silas was violently against going to the hospital.
Before he got started, Wyatt gave Silas orange juice to counteract his low blood sugar from all the blood loss, which Silas accepted and drank from the bottle.
Wyatt also asked him about disease before he would consent to sew up anything.
“I don’t have any communicable diseases,” Silas said.
“Are you sure?” Wyatt asked. “What about not so communicable ones?”
“No.”
“You can’t possibly know that. Especially if you don’t go to the hospital and get tested. Have you been tested?”
“Wyatt, I’m clean. You’ll be completely safe.”
“What about sexually transmitted diseases? Or bacteria? If you’re running around in the woods chasing… whatever those things were. Things. If you’re doing that, you could come in contact with bacteria. In fact, it’s almost inevitable.”
“No STDs and no bacteria.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
When Wyatt
still hesitated, Silas made an impatient gesture with one hand for him to pass over the first aid kit. “Forget it. I’ll do it myself.”
Wyatt’s eyes went wide in alarm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Silas did not look like he could sew himself up in his condition. He didn’t look like he was going to be able to even stay conscious for much longer.
“Then quit fucking around and let’s do this,” Silas said.
Wyatt pulled up a chair beside the sofa and opened the first aid kit. He stared at the contents and had no idea what most of the stuff inside it was for. “You’re going to have to walk me through it I think,” he said.
With a lot of Silas’s help, Wyatt did eventually get him patched up. Toward the end, Silas clung to consciousness by a thread, but he managed to remain awake so he could tell Wyatt what to do. When Wyatt was finished, and Silas was as good as he was going to get without letting a professional do it, he did finally pass out. Wyatt threw a blanket over him, fed the cats, took a shower then fell gratefully into his own bed and slept like the dead.
He woke up that morning at eight o’clock when someone banged loudly on the front door.
He got up and shuffled half asleep into the living room. Silas was awake on the sofa, looking a lot more aware and alert than Wyatt felt.
“Sounds like the cops,” he said.
“What do you mean, it sounds like the cops?” Wyatt asked.
“Well, mostly it’s cops who knock like that and I heard some radio sounds. Usually means cops,” Silas said. “You better go answer it.”
Wyatt went to the door and reached for the knob just as another pounding knock shook it. He was abruptly not afraid anymore so much as irritated. It was the irritation that had him yanking the door open and glaring at the tall young guy in his imposing cop uniform standing on his doorstep.
“Yes?” Wyatt asked.
The officer looked at him then looked past him into the apartment, assessing things. “Are you Wyatt Sinclair?”
“Yes. What’s this about, officer?”
“I’m Officer Coogan. A car registered to you was found abandoned early this morning.”
“Oh,” Wyatt said dumbly.
Then he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound both horribly reckless and irresponsible of him. He couldn’t tell a police officer that, honestly, he had completely forgotten about his car. The officer would, not unreasonably, want to know what could have possibly been so important that it had distracted him from the fact he had left his car sitting in the middle of the road with the hazard lights flashing. Since Wyatt didn’t have a good explanation for that which wouldn’t make him sound completely batshit crazy and have the officer in question calling for backup, he said nothing.
Officer Coogan waited for him to say something more, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going to, he cleared his throat. “Would you care to explain how this happened?”
“Ah…”
Wyatt considered telling him that his car had been stolen. Anything was better than telling him the truth. Then he remembered that people at the diner would have seen him arrive and leave in his car, so that wouldn’t hold up if anyone asked about it. Which they would. He would be asked why he hadn’t reported it and then what would he say?
“Mr. Sinclair?” Officer Coogan prodded.
“It was… an accident,” Wyatt said.
Officer Coogan stared at him without any trace of belief on his face. “I see. And how did you happen to abandon your vehicle in the middle of a busy residential street by accident?”
Wyatt’s heart sank, and his mind went utterly blank. “I… um… It’s a long story. You see, it just died on me and I don’t know anything about cars and it was so dark out there and… well, so I, um…”
“He called me, and I came out and got him,” Silas said, coming to stand behind Wyatt. “Didn’t realize it was so serious or I’d have taken more tools with me, but damn it, I went and left the jumper cables in my garage. So, we came back here. Wyatt said he had some, but I haven’t been able to find them.”
Wyatt tried not to let the officer see how truly shocked he was by Silas’s story. He hadn’t expected the man to help him and he definitely hadn’t expected him to lie for him. Though he was grateful, Officer Coogan didn’t seem to buy it.
“Really?” Officer Coogan said. “And it didn’t occur to either one of you to move the car off to the side of the road?”
“I couldn’t,” Wyatt said. He was glad for Silas’s help, but he had done enough. He could handle this himself. After all, how bad could it be? It wasn’t as if he had killed anyone. “It… It wouldn’t go into neutral. I couldn’t get it to do anything. It just… quit. So, then we came back here and I… uh…”
“So why didn’t you call a tow truck?” Officer Coogan asked, eyeing Silas suspiciously over Wyatt’s shoulder.
Silas had pulled a shirt on over his bandages, but he still looked like crap. He was pale and sweaty and seemed like all he wanted in the world was to lie back down, which he probably did. To a cop, he likely appeared to be hungover, drunk or on something.
“I had a seizure,” Silas said. “Pretty bad one, really. I imagine Wyatt here got pretty upset about it and plumb forgot, didn’t you?”
“I, uh… yeah. Yeah, I just forgot all about it. He was thrashing around and I… I wouldn’t leave my car out there on purpose. I mean, who does that?”
“Uh huh.” Officer Coogan still didn’t look like he was buying their story. “Mr.…?
“Delano,” Silas said. He reached over Wyatt’s shoulder and passed him his driver’s license.
“Mr. Delano,” Officer Coogan said, examining his ID. “How do you and Mr. Sinclair know each other?”
“Well, we’re practically neighbors,” Silas said.
They were? That was news to Wyatt.
“I see. And you suffer from epilepsy?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Mr. Sinclair take you to the hospital then?”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess he probably panicked and then I don’t much like hospitals if you must know. It wasn’t anything life threatening, so I’m glad he didn’t take me to the hospital.”
Officer Coogan held out Silas’s drivers’ license for him to take back. Wyatt took it and looked at it before he could. There was Silas’s address, not a mile from his own apartment. He was thirty-nine years old, his middle name was Daniel, he was six foot three inches tall, weighed a hundred and eighty-five pounds, his eyes and hair were brown, and he was not an organ donor. And he had apparently been living right down the street from Wyatt all this time. Or perhaps not all this time, but for some time, and Wyatt hadn’t known. What were the odds of that?
Silas took his drivers’ license from Wyatt’s hand with a muttered, “Thank you.”
“That still does not excuse leaving a vehicle parked in the middle of a busy road. Someone could have been seriously injured,” Officer Coogan said. “You’re responsible for making sure that the car is moved out of the way when something like this happens. That’s just common sense, Mr. Sinclair. If another car had come along and crashed into it, you would be responsible for whatever happened to those people. As it stands, you’re merely responsible for reckless endangerment. I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”
Wyatt’s stomach dropped, and his mouth fell open in surprise. “You… Wait, you’re arresting me?”
“I am. I would appreciate it if you would come with me. I don’t think I need to handcuff you, but I will,” Officer Coogan said.
Wyatt turned his head and looked up at Silas, his mind racing. “But… But he told you. I had to leave it there to… because it wouldn’t move. Then he was—”
“I understand that, Mr. Sinclair, but it is still illegal to abandon a car in the middle of a road,” Officer Coogan said.
Silas sighed and tipped his head toward the police car parked at the end of the walkway beside his truck. “Go on. Don’t ma
ke him cuff you.”
“But then I’ll be a criminal,” Wyatt hissed at Silas.
Silas’s lips twitched into a smile and Wyatt wanted to kick him. This was not funny, but he knew Silas was laughing at him. Maybe not out loud, but he was.
“Mr. Sinclair?” Officer Coogan said.
Wyatt sighed and stepped outside. “Okay, I’m coming,” he said.
Officer Coogan stepped behind him and walked with him to his car. He opened the back door and put his hand on Wyatt’s head as he got into it.
Wyatt watched Silas standing in his open doorway as the police cruiser drove by his building and then he was out of sight and they were pulling out of the parking lot. He slumped back in his seat and stared through the mesh separating him from the officer driving and tried not to worry too much. He had never been arrested in his entire life. He had only ever been pulled over twice and he had never had a ticket. Now he was being arrested for reckless endangerment and he would probably be served with a huge fine for abandoning his car, and it was doubtful he would get his car back at all when all of it was over with.
Right now, he needed to worry about going to jail though. He could not go to jail. If he went to jail, he would get beat up, probably raped, possibly killed. If they put him in a dark little cell or threw him into solitary, or any of the other horrible things he had heard and read about, then he was going to die in there. Locked in a cell, he wouldn’t even be able to run from the things in the dark that wanted to eat him.
“I want to make a phone call,” Wyatt said.
Officer Coogan didn’t say anything.
“Did you hear me? I want my phone call,” Wyatt said again.
“I heard you,” Officer Coogan said. He smirked. “Who you gonna call?”
“Not the Ghost Busters. I want to call my sister,” Wyatt said.
“Not your lawyer?” Officer Coogan asked.
His tone was mocking and sarcastic and Wyatt scowled at the back of his head. “I don’t have a lawyer,” he said.
“You don’t say,” Officer Coogan said.
“But my sister has a lawyer,” Wyatt said.