Go For Stories

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked. He then raised his hand, finger outstretched. “And if you say ‘the beginning’, I will lock you in that cool room and walk away.”

Bec shrugged. “How about what makes you so scared that you’re willing to blow us all up to stop it. Because I know shit is messed up and there are super spooky beasties around this place, but that doesn’t threaten the entire planet. And I want to know where you got the info too.”

“Okay, sure.” He nodded his head repeatedly, almost to the point of obsession. He wracked his brain to find the best way to say things without sounding insane. He didn’t like people thinking he was insane. “So, you know that ‘witch’ we saw in the stairwell?” Milly and Bec nodded. “Well, while you were dissecting Anne, she came to me. She came and told me about how the dead don’t go away entirely and how they are constantly looking for a way back. It seems that whatever was being done here opened a door, so to speak.

“So, the dead have found a way to come through. The albinoids are just the beginning. They’re the dead that have no real purpose anymore. They are shadows of people that once were. They are content with taking over dead bodies and merging them with their own, twisted souls. They are the vanguard, the grunts.

“But there are others out there. There are other people who haven’t lost all of their memories and personalities.” He paused to take a breath. Bec and Milly watched him without turning away. “These are the ones I’m terrified of. These are the ones that can find a way out and spread, because they still have their minds. They still have their minds, but they are only the worst parts of the people. The good parts have moved on.”

“Moved on where?” Milly asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe somewhere good. Maybe somewhere silent and dark. Just not where they can come back. Either that, or they don’t want to. I don’t blame them either. Why would you come back to this hell hole?”

“So,” Bec crossed her arms in front of her chest, “you’re saying that there are dead people in some other what … realm? … and that want to kill us and take our place so they can live again?”

“No, they don’t want to kill us and take our place. They want to take over our bodies.”

“And what happens to us if they do that?”

“Nothing good, Reynolds. Either we stay in here and become a passenger in our own body while some fiend takes it for a world destroying ride, or we die.”

Bec shook her head. “Why did that witch tell you all this anyway? Why didn’t she just kill you and take your body like you say they all plan to?”

Nigel stayed silent. He wasn’t ready for this.

“Actually, yeah.” Milly took a step towards him. Not a menacing step, but a curious one. “Why did she tell you?”

“Because she’s my wife, Mill.”

He let their shocked silence envelop him as he waited for it to sink in. Their faces went from confusion to horror to understanding to confusion again.

“Wha?” Milly sputtered, her eyes so narrow you could perform a light-based physics experiment through them. “What do you … what do you mean, your wife?”

“Just that.” He was committed to telling them now. “We married young and had a good life together. Had a daughter and a home and everything one could ever want.”

“What happened?” Bec kept her voice low and caring. As if in response, the building rumbled and shook.

“Hold on.” Nigel grabbed onto a table lying on its side. The others grabbed onto inverted chairs and braced themselves for the shock.
Which never came. The rumble stopped mid-rumb and left a feeling of unfinished business in the air. Nigel waited before answering Bec’s question, glad for the thinking time.

“One night,” he said in a low voice. Milly released her grip on the chair legs and leaned in to hear better. “One night, a man broke into the house while I wasn’t there. He stole some stuff and messed the place up. Julia holed up in a closet with Mads, our daughter. They hid as he destroyed our house.” His voice broke. “They must have been so scared. So scared and I wasn’t there for them.”

Milly moved over and put her arm around him. He took the hand on his shoulder and sighed. This was proving harder than expected. He squeezed Milly’s fingers tight. It made him feel a little better, but not enough.

“Hey, man.” Bec gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Nevermind. You don’t have to tell us.”

Nigel wasn’t sure if it was an offer born of sentiment or Reynolds’ inability to deal with his emotional state. Either way, it was appreciated. He continued, nevertheless.

“He found them. He found them and dragged them from the closet. I don’t know if he was looking for more stuff to steal, or if he was just looking to hurt someone, but he did. He hurt Julia bad. They found her body with defensive wounds on her arms and it looked like she got a good scratch or two in. She was …” He swallowed, trying to remove the large lump in his throat. “She was brave. She fought to protect our Mads. Our beautiful girl.”

He took another deep breath and stared at the two women. They stared back; Milly with tears in her eyes, Bec with anger.

“He got away,” said Nigel. All the emotion had fallen out of his voice, now he was telling a distant tale. Completely impersonal. “He skipped out of the state and left me to deal with the shitstorm it created. The police did look for him, they did everything they could, but it wasn’t enough. They even had witnesses who placed a known crook near my house at the time. It wasn’t until months later that I got a call from a friend who’d seen someone that looked like the suspect. So, I went out and I found him.”

He fell silent. He could hear Bec and Milly’s shallow breathing, he could hear his own heartbeat, he even imagined that he could hear the distant sound of albinoids destroying the complex looking for them. How much should he tell them? He wondered. How much could they hear and still want him around?

The complex rumbled again, like an empty stomach made of concrete and secrets.

“What did you do when you found him?” Milly was the one bold enough to ask. Bold, yet wary of the answer. Rightly so, as it happened.

“I tied him to a chair and beat him to death,” Nigel said without blinking.