Friday, October 24, 2008

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.