I kept my head down, and I could feel my pulse, racing through my veins. My breathing was coming out in short spasms, but Trey was completley still. I envied how calm he seemed.
 
 

 Arlene

I watched the bloody hand slide down the windshield, down the hood and disappear from view. My heart was thumping a mile a minute, and my breathing was erratic. I heard it, raspy and almost inhuman, jumping around my ears as I struggled to stay calm. All I could think was, “What the hell? What should I do?!”

The rain was slowing, it only coming down in small pitter-patters now. Still, I wasn’t going to step outside to see where the bloody hand – and the body attached – went. Especially considering the person who made that hand bloody could still be out there, too.

I watched the oily water streak the blood down the windshield, and I don’t know how much time passed, but it was enough time for the rain to stop – and for Trey to still not be here.

Worry started to gnaw at me, and I scrambled over into the driver’s seat. Trey had forgotten to lock the doors so I did that quickly. My gaze stayed fixed on the blood, occasionally flicking to the grocery store, or the the hardware store across the street.

Another few minutes passed, and my erratic breathing only grew worse. My head was starting to fill with ideas – the bloody hand on the windshield was Trey’s, or Trey was killed in the grocery store, or… or…

“What the hell is that?” I whispered, leaning forward so my nose was practically up against the windshield. In the distance, on the roof of a store down the street, something moved. It looked like a person, crouched over, watching something in the distance.

And then I saw flashing lights, and an ambulance came barreling over the hill at a dangerous speed. And it all happened in slow motion – the swerving ambulance was heading directly for Trey’s car, and my body was already poised, waiting for impact. However, my eye caught sight of the figure on the roof leaping and landing right in front of the car.

I almost screamed.

It was a boy my age, but his face… the skin was decayed and peeling back over his teeth, his skin was blackening, like it was dying, and parts of his flesh were rotted away to bone. His eyes were black and wild, peering deep within mine.

Then he opened his mouth and hissed. Like an animal. And only then did I actually scream in sheer terror. He reached down and hoisted something over his shoulder. I blinked and realized it was a body – alive or dead, I had no idea – wearing a paramedic’s outfit. His whole arm was cut open and dripping onto his hand.

The thing was inbetween Trey’s car and the ambulance, and for a moment I thought the out-of-control ambulance would pin the creature in bewtween the cars. But in a flash he jumped up and landed on the roof of the ambulance, then jumped off onto the roof of the hardware store. This all happened seconds before the ambulance veered and crashed into the side of Trey’s car.

My heart still thumping from what I had witnessed now only beat faster, knowing death could be right around the corner. My head hit the window and I pinned my eyes shut, feeling my body swinging around like the car was spinning. I heard the tires screech across the asphalt. The windows shattered, sprinkling onto my lap, and the car groaned as it came to a stop. I heard more shattering from behind, but I couldn’t work up the energy to look.

My head rested limply on the steering wheel, my hands tucked underneath. Except for my laboured breathing, it was all quiet; even the rain had stopped.

Slowly, carefully, I untangled myself and looked around. The car had ended up swerved on the other side of the street, near the hardware store. I craned my neck and saw the ambulance had crashed into the front display.

If there was people in there, stuck in the ambulance…

No, don’t go out there.

But what if they’re hurt? What if they’re dying?

Don’t you remember that creature? He’s still out there, y’know.

It’s small-town courtesy to make sure your fellow citizen is okay. Besides, if the roles were reversed they’d come for me.

And that’s how I found my fingers on the lock, slowly pulling it back to unlock the door. I blinked, sucked in a deep breath and plunged into the world outside. Without batting a lash, I jogged over to peer into the front compartment, where the driver would be seated.

Finding it empty, I crossed my arms and made my way around to the back. The doors were closed, but they were unlocked. I kicked one of them open and peered into the darkness. There was a bunch of stuff rolling around, but nothing shaped like a person.

When I stood up this eerie feeling like I was being watched crept down my spine. I spun, glaring out across the road. In all honesty, I was hoping I would scare whatever was watching me away. A mist was settling in, and that made things all the creepier.

I ran full speed into the grocery store and slammed the door shut behind me, taking in deep gulps of precious air.

“Trey?” I called, once I had regained normal breathing patterns. The store was lit up, but the emptiness of the place was unnerving.

“Trey! Stop being a pussy and come out. I’ve got a hell of a lot of shit to tell you.” I heard a scuffle near the end of the store – like a wet shoe squeaking on the floor – and I heard a crash.

I headed towards the noise, almost one hundred percent sure it was Trey. Actually, more like ninety-nine percent sure. After what I had witnessed in the car? I was expecting anything to pop out at me.

As I made my way toward the scuffling, I scanned the shelves, hoping to find something big enough to use as a weapon. The shelves were filled with little boxes and bags, nothing hard and sturdy to successfully bludger someone. And even if I did find something, would I have enough will power to do any damage?

I nearly gasped when I turned down the last aisle. The whole shelf was turned over, with cans of beans scattered on the floor, some split open. In the middle of the mess was Trey, laying limply on his stomach with his arms curled in to his chest.

I slipped on some of the juices on the floor when I raced over to him, collapsing on my knees by his side and succeeding in covering myself with bean gunk.

“Trey,” I whispered, shaking his shoulder. He stirred a bit, mumbling.

“Trey, get the hell up. We gotta get out of here.” I heard my voice echoe around the store. Had I really been talking that loud?

Trey’s hand encircled my wrist and he lifted his head.

“Stay down and don’t move,” he whispered, his eyes narrowing. I looked down and saw his whole arm was bleeding. It was pretty bad, but after years of working on my parents’ farm and witnessing so many accidents, I was almost immune to the sight of blood.

“Why? We’ve got to get out, to get out town. We have to head to Calgary, or Edmonton, or somewhere-”

“Shut-up!” he hissed, yanking my arm so I fell down beside him. “Do you want to get your ass killed?”

I swallowed and looked him in the eyes, staying as still as I could. I heard a crash on the other side of the store, then footsteps racing down the aisle. Trey’s hand tightened on my wrist as the footsteps got closer, and closer, until finally…

They stopped, right by the aisle we were in. I could hear heavy, raspy breathing. Everytime it exhaled it whizzed through it’s teeth, and it kept doing that until a hiss started to bubble from its throat.

I kept my head down, and I could feel my pulse, racing through my veins. My breathing was coming out in short spasms, but Trey was completley still. I envied how calm he seemed.

And then I heard one foot hit the ground and suddenly something heavy was on my back, pulling my hair and yanking my head back. My head flew back and my eyes widened in surprise – then in horror – when I saw the same creature from before. He hissed again, his black eyes searching mine, his nails digging into my scalp, slowly moving down.

I cried out in pain and started thrashing, but the creature yanked my head back until I was still. His hand flew up, like he was going to smack me or rip me apart or something, until I saw Trey, on his knees with a coffee tin in his hand. He swung and it cracked on the creature’s head. He fell off, and I scrambled out from under him, grabbing onto Trey.

We were already running out of the store, not daring to look behind us. As we ran I took in Trey’s cut. It’d need stitched, but we didn’t have that liability anymore. The best we could do was wrap it up and keep it clean.

When we made it outside I veered to the ambulance and crawled into the back.

“What are you doing?!” Trey hissed, tugging on my ankle. I kicked his hand away, hoping it wasn’t his injured arm.

“I’m looking for disinfectent. I’m going to roll some jars out to you, and you tell me when you come across some, okay?” He didn’t say anything – probably silenced by my interest in his wound- so I took that as a yes. I crawled forward, slipping on the metal of the ambulance, trying to make my way to the back where a cabinet of supplies were kept.

I reached in and started rolling anything I could get my hands on back down to Trey.

“No,” he shouted when he got the first item. We were there for three minutes until he finally said he got a bottle of some. There were no bandages, so I was going to have to find some elsewhere.

We ran to the hardware store, down all the aisles to the backroom. Trey forced the door open and I slammed the bottle down on the table, instructing him to clean his wound while I look for bandages.

I wasn’t sure – we had passed by so quickly – but I thought I saw some on a small shelf near the front. On my way there, I picked up a piece of wood, keeping it tucked under my arm just in case that thing came back.

As I was finding my way around the store, seeing if I could salvage anything, I saw movement outside.

“It’s back,” I whispered, taking a small, baby-step towards the door. Something was moving by the ambulance.

If it was like an animal, was it following my scent… like a dog? Trying to track us down and eat us, or some crazy thing like that? I could still feel the wound in my scalp from where his dingy nails had dug in.

The shadow in the mist moved closer to the door of the hardware store, and I readied myself; an explosion of anger surged through my body.

How dare that fucking thing – that fucking creature - think it can just torture us? Make us fear for our lives? Make us run screaming into a hardware store? How dare it!

When the shadow was about five feet from the store, I kicked open the door, pinched my eyes shut, and started swinging the piece of wood around, hearing a satisfying clunk when it made impact.

I ripped open my eyes and saw a very pissed off guy.

“Oh snap,” was the only thing I could think of saying. “I wasn’t expecting… a person.” His eyes flashed and he spun on me. I seriously thought he might start punching me, or something.

Don’t blame me, he looked like the type of person to do that.

“Then what the hell were you expecting? Freaking sasquatch?!” I would’ve found that funny, if the guy didn’t have such a bitch look on his face – like he owned the world, or something.

“I could leave you out here with the creature,” was what I wanted to say. But something in my mind told me he had no idea there was a creature, and I wasn’t going to tell a complete stranger who might think I was crazy.

Hell, maybe I was crazy. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

“I could clunk you again, y’know,” was what I ended up saying. Pathetic. He rolled his eyes and gave me a disgusted look.

“Go ahead, it’s not like its going to do any damage.” I frowned and mustered the best glare I could, just for him. Then I tightened my grip on the wood and walked back into the store.

I didn’t have time to fight with some stupid boy. I had a friend back there who needed help, and I wasn’t going to let him bleed to death because of some dude.

I heard footsteps and I almost groaned in disgust. Did he have to follow me?

“You know, there’s a destroyed ambulance out there,” he said, the tone in his voice completley different. I mimicked him under my breath, stopping only when I stumbled across the shelf with the bandages. I picked one up and picked up my pace, hoping he’d fall behind.

“Yeah, I know,” I snapped.

“We should call 911.” An opening for an insult. Perfect.

I spun and shot him another glare.

“Hey, you know that ambulance outside?” He just stared at me. “That was 911. We’re on our own, buddy.”

He was quiet for a moment, then he lamely said, “I have a name.”

“That you didn’t grace me with, nor do I care to know.” I opened the door to the backroom and stepped inside, spotting Trey tucking the disinfectent into his pocket.

“Whose this?” Trey asked me, his eyes darting from me to the guy and back. His lips quirked a bit, finding this mildly amusing for some reason.

“Another stray I picked up. You know how much I like dogs.” Trey hid his smile well and looked over at the boy.

“We’re still trying to teach her manners.” Silence filled the room, and Trey shifted. I think he would’ve stuck his hand out if he could. “Trey.”

“Zach,” the guy said.

“And this creature here is Arlene.” He patted my head and I frowned, unwrapping the bandages for his arm and beginning to wrap up the cut…

I lost track of Trey and Zach’s conversation, my mind wandering to what I had witnessed in the car, and in the store.

What was going on?

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