Part XXVI

Part XXVI

I parked the Van in front of the storage facility just as the sun was painting the world with magic. Carl had been glum the rest of the ride, so I left him wander away from the van to get his bearings. I worked the runes on the door to the storage unit and as it slid up, I heard Carl let out a yelp.

It's just an automatic door.

I turned to look at Carl who'd just had a wad of bugs vomited onto his shoes by the old infested guy.

While Carl freaked out and brushed uselessly at his clothes trying to knock off invisible bugs, I had a small chat with my infested friend. I mumbled under my breath so he could get a word in edge wise.

Been visitors...cough.

Yeah? what kind?

Night time...cough...shadows.

He was talking about the kind of shadows that don't have a body attached to them. They're all recon and can't do anything to you, but they're hell to get rid of. You have to push them into a corner, or somewhere they can't get away from and fry them with UV. If you don't keep the light on them until their entirely gone, they'll just grow back from whatever little bit you left behind.

I told him to wait for a minute and went back to the van. I opened the spice rack up and knocked together a sort of insecticidal tea mixture.

I put it into a zip lock back and took it back to the guy. I didn't know if he wanted to be rid of brood nut someone had convinced him, or forced him to swallow so long ago, but I told him if he did, this would do the trick. He thanked me, but the look in his eye told me he'd become accustomed to their company. I'd heard about it before, it was a form of Stockholm Syndrome, that most psychiatrists never knew existed.

I'd met someone who'd been cured one time. He was in an asylum and a witness to a case I was perusing. Unlike the guy down the hall from him who felt invisible bugs crawling all over him, and who was not allowed any sharp objects, this guy could no longer feel his insides move, and so he cried himself to sleep at night. He may have been the loneliest person I'd ever met.

Carl calmed down once I took him inside and closed the door. He and the Old Man hit the couch almost instantly. I wasn't sure how this whole thing was going to work out, but I knew that I wasn't going to get much help from the two dead beats I had watching my back.

Two weeks ago, I'd never imagined I'd be where I was now. That in its own way was weirdly comforting. It meant that there was no specific path that I had to follow. It also meant that I'd somehow, along the way, committed to giving up everything I knew to start a war with something that I wasn't prepared to do battle with.

There were five places I needed to visit, and along the way, I was going to be tracked, intimidated, hunted and basically pissed on. But if I succeeded, my Uncle could move on, move on to where he belonged. And if I made it out alive, my name would mean death.

After a beer or two, Carl came back from the dead and helped me transfer the gun rigs from the cabinet to the rack system already installed behind a sliding panel in the Van. In under two hours, the van had gone from a nostalgia trip to a death dealer.

It wasn't long before the Shadows started to creep in too. I noticed the first one trying to hide, balled under the desk like a bright light was casting the shadow of the Old Man onto the floor. Problem was, the light would have had to penetrate the table. I casually picked up the old man and walked him out to the van. I closed the door and mumbled under my breath.

Back in the storage unit I closed the door and took two pairs of goggles, tossing one to Carl.

What the hell's this for?

Put 'em on or go blind. Up to you.

Carl fumbled with the straps as I slid mine on. They were round aviator goggles, with the lens glass replaced with the same stuff found in Welder's masks. You could look an eclipse all day with these things on.

Carl finally got his on well enough for me to think he'd be OK.

You should also shut your eyes, just in case.

Carl's cheek bones rose as his eyes clamped shut under the goggles.

I mumbled under my breath, charming the shadows out like snakes from a basket. They were everywhere. As they rose through the air, diaphanous black sheets on puppet strings, I pushed a button on a small remote in my hand and the inside of the storage facility turned white. The shadows died, screaming like beetles being baked under a magnifying glass.

I let the button go and the room turned visible again. Taking the goggles off I looked over at Carl and realized I'd forgotten the sunscreen.

For the next two days Carl and I looked like Raccoons. By the end of the week, we'd started to shed our skin, molting into something to be reckoned with.

Part XXV

Part XXV

As we passed the gates leading into Island Home, I mumbled under my breath, to see if anything had gotten through. Nothing lit up, so I had to assume nothing had.

When Carl and I got back to my place, the Old Man was curled at Em's feet purring. Em herself was just sitting there staring straight ahead, oblivious to everything. I took a glance in the direction she was looking, but there wasn't anything but window.

I asked her if she wanted me to turn off the water, she nodded almost imperceptible and I went back into the hall and flipped the switch on the bannister. By the time I got back to the kitchen, she was gone and the Old Man was awake and hungry. I took care of him first.

As the Old Man lit into his tuna and potion, I opened the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers. When I turned to Carl to hand him one, he was frozen, staring at the exact same spot Em had been. When she'd left, she must have passed through the window. The change in temperature had caused the water in the air to condense and what was left was a message, a message that had been written on the window from the outside. I guess Em has seen who'd written it, and that's why she wanted out.

On the window, set against the condensation were the words, I'M WAITING.

Carl downed his beer in record time and asked me WTF was going on. I tried to explain to him how Em had lowered the temperature of the window when she passed through, but then I realized he didn't see EM, so he just stared at me like I'd crapped in his shoes.

Who's EM?

You know, the poet. Emily Dickinson.

Carl just walked to the fridge and grabbed another beer and headed for the living room. He called back to me like a hurt child before rounding the corner.

You don't have to tell me, but there's no reason to an ass about it.

The next morning, while Carl was still sleeping it off in the spare bed room, I loaded the van with everything, including the Old Man, his litter box and his jug of juice.

I scribbled a note for Carl and left it on the last bottle of beer in the fridge where I could be sure he'd find it. I flipped the water on before I closed the back door and locked it. I hated to leave Carl like this, but it was better this way. He'd hate for a few days, but then he'd sober up and forgive me while he raided my freezer and played my XBOX until his eyes bled.

I pulled off the road in Dothan, Alabama with the intent of buying some pecans, but when I got to where Troy Simms Nuts was supposed to be, I pulled into a dead parking lot. I'd blinked for five years and now it was gone. Something inside shriveled and died knowing that I'd never taste a good pecan again. That's when I remembered that I'd forgotten to stop in Chilton for peaches and the whole day felt like it couldn't get any worse.

But, while I was here I took the opportunity to chuck some of the Old Man's finest creation out into the grass by the lot's edge. Even with a charcoal filter, the van was small. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like there were pieces of finger nail in one. I guess it took time to pass fingernails.

Getting back in the Van, I slammed the door a little harder than I intended and the Old Man gave me a hiss, just before I heard Carl wake up screaming.

I turned around, and there he was, bleary eyed sleeping in my back forty.

What the Hell are you doing here Carl?

Car rubbed his eyes and reached down into the cooler near the foot of the bed and pulled out the beer with the note on it.

I got your note.

Carl cracked the top off and climbed up to the passenger seat. He pushed the Old Man off the chair before the Old Man had time to react and sat down. The Old Man looked back at him in sheer confusion to his abrupt arrogance. Then the Old Man gave him that look that I knew would require much diligence on my part to keep from coming true, before he turned and showed Carl his ass as he wandered to the bed in back.

All of this took place in a split second, none of which Carl even noticed. When I looked at him, the beer was half gone and there was a grin on his face that killed most of my anger.

I sure do love a road trip Aubrey. So, where are we going?

Straight to Hell.

I turned the engine over and launched back onto the road, while out of the corner of my eye I watched Carl's grin die.