Old Associate

On my way back home to Massachusetts, I stopped in a restaurant in Manhattan for a bite to eat. It was one of those bar and grille places, and of course, I went right for the bar for a quick burger and a beer. Mainly, I was just trying to get Indiana out of my head for a minute or two.

Why am I telling you this? Because of who I met in there. Or rather, who I ran into.

As I was having my drink, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that someone had taken the stool next to me. The bar was empty, that early in the day, of which I was grateful for. As long as the guy didn't try to make idle talk, I would be fine with him.

“As a cop, I figured you'd know that drinking and driving are against the law,” the light, city accent said.

I froze, then silently groaned. Not because he was making talk, no. Because I knew who he was. And I couldn't believe whose voice I was hearing.

“I thought you were in the maximum detention center in Brooklyn, Wren,” I said, eyes focused straight ahead.

“Out on good behavior,” he replied.

I snorted. “There's not a thing good about you or your behavior.”

A laugh. “Fine, I broke out. You going to arrest me, officer?”

I tore my eyes away to finally turn to see that it was, in fact, Wren sitting there next to me, though how that was the case I still can't figure out. I was picturing a man disheveled from two years of maximum security prison time, but instead he looked better than ever. Clean dress clothes, clean shaven, dark red hair combed backwards in that way I used to do, pointed nose. He looked like he was in tip-top condition, even if he did look pale and did have dark circles under his eyes.

“Maybe,” I said.

He snorted. “Way I hear it, you're not exactly a law abiding citizen yourself these days.”

“Depends on who you heard it from.” I rubbed my throat as the burning began.

“Hell of a croak you got there. What happened?”

“Been sick. Strep throat. Still getting over it.”

“Okay.” He leaned in with a knowing smile. “So what really happened?”

I glared at him, but also was curious. Did he know what was going on? Was he aware of my little adventure?

He stood up and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“C'mon, let's go somewhere private to talk,” he said.

“Whatever you have to say, you can say right here,” I retorted, not getting up.

“Come on, man. Just have a drink or two. I'm sure it'd help.”

Not any help you would offer, I thought bitterly, but before I knew it I was being led to the outdoor deck and shown a table as far back away from people as he could. Wren told the waitress he'd have a cocktail; I declined another drink, preferring to keep some degree of sobriety for the moment. So he ordered me a Mike's. I didn't argue much.

Once our drinks were delivered and we were alone, Wren began to sip his drink. He always liked to sip his drinks, never gulp or chug. Always sip. For the kind of guy he was, he always maintained a “classy” persona when he drank. If this were a first meeting, one would think it was the kind of guy he was, but no, it was only when he drank.

“This place always did have stir my cocktails right,” he told me. “I used to come by here sometimes. Found it when I was moving to Boston, like to come by every now and again. Hasn't changed a bit.”

I ignored it. “How'd you find me, Wren?” I wanted to know.

“You're all over FBI scanners, you show up in a town overrun by a twelve-hundred-year-old cult asking about the suicide of a key figure in the FBI's little pet project, using identities of dead cops and active agents, and you sent alarms out all over the Eastern part of America when you shot two agents and let them live to report back your whereabouts.” He looked at me with an “are you kidding me?” look. “No offense, Zee, but you're not exactly Whitey Bulger.”

“I take it you know what's been going on, then?”

“You mean Mr. Tall, Pale and Faceless? Ohhh yeah, I know alright.”

That interested me. “Have you seen him?”

“Face-to-face? No. I've come close a couple of times. No, it's his little worker bees that have been giving me trouble.” He sipped his drink and then sighed. “They're on the move again.”

“You talking about remnants or whatever they're calling them?”

He snorted. “Yeah, Zee, I'm talking about the super-powered remnants. 'Oh hey, look at me, I'm a remnant, I'm gonna fly around the fuckin' stratosphere and shoot bolts of lightening out of my ass and used condoms out of my fingertips!' Please, if I wanted that kind of hocus-pocus bullshit, I'd go and watch a Pen and Teller show.”

One thing we always had in common- we're both skeptics, we both believe in some form of real logic. As much as I hated seeing him, it was nice to have someone who shared that way of thinking again.

“So what are you saying then?”

“I'm saying that the proxies, the real, human proxies, they're upping their game. I don't know if it's because of your little excursion in Indiana or it's something else, but something's got them going after every runner out there and having their way with them. It's not armies, we're not going to see ten thousand mask-and-hood wearing psychos charging over the hills any second, but the small numbers he has, and they're real fucking small, they're getting extreme.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How more extreme can they possibly get?”

He sighed. “They've been carving operator symbols into the skins of whoever they get their hands on.”

My face fell. “Are you serious?”

“'Fraid so. Once they've done whatever they wanted, they carve it as a warning to the others that they're gonna be joining them.”

“And they kill them?”

“Some of them. Others they leave alive. Though every time they leave one, it's mainly just so someone else can put them out of their misery. They fuck 'em up bad.”

As if things couldn't get any worse...I leaned back in my chair, taking it all in. He sipped his cocktail again.

“Which is why I was hoping that you and I might be able to form some kind of a partnership. 'Cause you and me, man, we'd really send them running for the hills, and you know it.”

I glared back at him, sitting smugly in his chair with his drink when by all accounts he should be locked away in a high-security loony bin drinking piss.

“You really expect me to just let it all go like nothing ever happened?” I asked him.

“Hey man, I can't afford to look back. I can only look forward.” He smirked. “Besides, it's not like that bomb was meant for you or anything.”

“Not the point.”

“Look, Zeke,” he placed his drink on the table and leaned forward, his voice low. “If I'm right, and he's got something big coming up, you're going to need all the help you can get. I mean you, you're the big hope-”

“I'm not the one who's going to do it.”

“Okay, then we're helping out whoever is. I mean, come on, who else are people going to trust with this? Huh? Who, Crappy Frappy and his little band of merry magicians? Those losers can't even help themselves, they're a joke, they're nothing. You, though, you survived him not once, not twice, three times, and that's not even counting escaping him as a child. Pair you with me, you've got two highly-trained machines, two grown adults compared to a bunch of kids and melodramatic teenagers who are still in school and don't understand how bad the real world really is. We're the best chance out there of ending this. And you know it.”

He was right, in a way. We were among the oldest of these runners, we were out of school, he was in his thirties and I was nearing mine while the rest of them ranged from twelve to twenty-one. As to us being the ones to finish it, well, realistically was one thing, but desire was stronger, and in ways of desire I had lost two people I had cared about to this thing, and a little revenge never really hurt anyone.

Still, though, I was not entirely convinced. This was Wren I was talking to, and he was a tough gambler to read. He could be on my side, or he could just be bluffing.

“Do you have any proof of any of this?” I asked.

He sighed. “Yeah, unfortunately, I do.”

He unbuttoned his shirt and showed me his chest, where right above his breast, carved in with what had to have been a small pocket knife, was a small Operator symbol. Whenever it had been done, it hadn't been long ago; there was still signs of blood along the lines.

I looked away. “That's all I needed to see.”

He buttoned his shirt back up, then reached into his pocket for a pen and what looked like a paper business card and wrote something on the back.

“Tell you what, why don't you give me a call when you're ready to start thinking of things a little more seriously,” he said, sliding the card towards me and standing up. “You know where to find me if you want to meet up.”

He put his shades on and smiled, patting me on the back as he left, but stopped at the door when I called out to him.

“Why should I trust you after what happened?” I asked.

“Because Lizzie and Eric were my friends before they were yours,” he replied, and I turned to see him staring back at me, his shades back on his forehead so I could see the seriousness in his eyes. “And that makes it just as personal for me as it does for you. Put aside everything that happened, we're the same guy, Zee. And we both want the same thing.”

He nodded, put his shades back on his nose, and walked out, leaving me with a finished cocktail, a quarter finished hard lemonade, the bill, and my ever-conflicting thoughts.

Bastard.

The Red Building

For the third time in my life I find myself emerging from the rabbit's hole, only this time I have absolutely no idea how I made it out.

I suppose that's a spoiler for how this story ends, but hold on a minute, it gets better than just that.

I drove to the park where Rick O'Connor said that the red building was. I got out with my gun, a lockpick, a flashlight and some extra batteries. My ID stayed in my back pocket in case I needed it, just because you never know when you might run into someone who wants to see some. At this point, I feel like being without an ID of some kind, real or fake, feels like being bare-ass naked in the middle of a four-way intersection.

Traveling through the park, I caught last-minute glimpses of people out and about. It was around eleven in the morning (I know, I'm not stupid. Who knew?), and mothers were taking their children on a stroll in their carriages. Nice little gathering of people. I always enjoyed those feelings of normal. Even if they were random and short.

Before long, I was deep in there, out of sight from everyone else, back in my own little messed up world. The warm feeling I had been feeling was gone. Now it just felt like every other time I was near forests these days. On the one hand, it meant I was close to where I was heading. On the other hand, I liked the feeling of being safe.

Trying not to panic, I just started repeating one of the old kid's stories in my head. Today's winner decided to be the Three Little Pigs. In my mind's eye, I could just keep picturing that damn wolf pounding on the door: “Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Or I'll huff, and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!”

Probably not the best mental image to go in with, but it worked.

When I saw the red begin to appear through the trees, suddenly I remembered my dream. The surroundings were exactly as they were then; to the detail. This was it. This was definitely the place. And sure enough, through the clearing there was the red building, in the park, exactly where Rick said it was.

He was right about that part.

Time to see if he was right about the other bit.

I went to the door and began to work on the lock, and as I was working, I felt a paranoid feeling, like something was off, like I was being watched. I looked around at the surrounding area but there was nothing there, not even a bird. This must have been what Damien had felt when he came, that feeling he felt when he had gone in. I don't think I would have felt it if it really was nothing in there.

The lock wasn't hard to pick and before I knew it I was inside this dusty, empty room with a draft from a broken window that I recognized instantly as the one he had broken to get inside; looking at it then, I was glad I went through the door. I was in the right place, I had to be. I started looking around for that trapdoor that he had gone down.

I found it, closed, towards the back of the building. I flipped the lock keeping the door to the floor and opened it, and before long I was staring down at the stairway from Damien's story.

Only...it was longer than he had said it was. Even from the top I could see that it went down pretty deep. That confused me for a moment, but I brushed it aside. Maybe the way down would seem shorter than it appeared.

Well, it did, but even now that it's all over I still feel like it was more of its own doing than mine. And it wouldn't be the only time I would feel that down there. There is something wrong with that place, the architecture is all screwy, and I realized that the moment I got off the stairs and stepped into that corridor.

Dark. That's the best word to describe it, pitch black dark. And cold. Really cold, colder than a basement belonging to a building like this should have been. All I had was a light jacket, and that was not enough. So I started moving to keep warm, flashlight on and gun out, ignoring the very obvious blood splatters against the wall, an omen that I should probably get out while I still could.

And again, this corridor was different. Damien had said that there was just the corridor leading to the one room, nothing else, but as I walked I could distinctly see doors along the walls, leading into what appeared to be cells. All of them were locked, and quite frankly the thought of exploring them made me feel faint. Peering through the bars, I had a feeling that they were cells, possibly to hold their sacrifices. Only if I had no other place to look would I think about poking through them.

Eventually I ended up in the chamber from the tape, the orgy tape. I looked around, careful where I touched; God only knew how many STDs this place carried. I finally found the other door, the one that lead to the sacrificial chamber. My walk there was considerably shorter than his, and I was inside before long, looking at a table that had sacrificed...how many children?

Too many.

I looked up, and I was surprised that you really could see the sky from here...but how did that work, this far underground? And...wait, how the fuck was it night? I had gone in in the early afternoon, but sure enough it was night time, moon, stars and all. I could see Orion's belt from where I was. It did not make any sense.

And then I understood that that was exactly the point. This place did not make sense. Maybe it was always like this or maybe it was after the cult stopped using it, but this building was supposed to be confusing, was supposed to be a maze, just like the warehouse. In order to tear you down from the inside, make you vulnerable

Little pigs, little pigs

and then he comes and rips you apart.

Let me come in

It was time to move fast. I started looking around the room for whatever was down here that could help me. I started looking under the altar, around the room, for any items left behind, and then I started searching the walls. Along the sides of the altar I found a set of pictures...hieroglyphics, I think they were. As I remember now, the images fly through my head:

Three long, wavy lines...almost life lines of fire...or water?

A face down semicircle.

A...I think it was a branch. Or a flower. Or a cane, I don't fucking know.

Circle with an X running through it. Big surprise.

Finally, a man...I think. Naked, faceless, looking as though he were pondering something.

Then the big picture on the wall, the one that put the rest of them to shame, for it was the most gruesome. Bodies. Just endless piles of bodies, some thrown on top of each other, some thrown into a river of probable blood, but all of them dead. Except two. One, a pharaoh sitting in his chair, and the other the many-armed man standing before him.

I remember just being transfixed by these images for a moment, then moving on. I had to move fast; I could feel something coming, even though nothing had actually happened...and then I heard the noise. This large growling noise, almost a dull roar, that rang out from somewhere deep within the building. I turned and just as I looked towards the door, the batteries in my flashlight died.

My throat started burning as I reached into my pocket for the extra batteries. I unscrewed the lid

Or I'll huff

and tipped the dead batteries out and

And I'll puff

screwed the lid back on

And I'll blow your house in

and turned the flashlight on to find Eric standing right before me. Blood was caked all over his face.

“He's here,” he said. “Time's up.”

The flashlight flicked off and on for a brief moment but when it went back on he was gone. And before I could question it, candles on the wall flicked on and the door opened and he slowly stepped through, his pale surface looking right at me.

LITTLEPIGSLITTLEPIGSLETMECOMEINORI'LLHUFFANDI'LLPUFFANDI'LLBLOWYOURHOUSEINIMEANI'LLBLOWITRIGHTTHEFUCKIN

I couldn't move. I couldn't think. I could only stare at the enemy that's haunted me for the last year. His hands were at his sides, his head tilted, and...the tentacles weren't out yet, so that was a good sign. But there he was, in all his slim seven-foot-tall glory, looking right at me.

And then, in my head, something snapped. I grinned. The fear that had gripped me just a moment before was gone, and I was right back in the warehouse like I was all those months ago.

“Welcome back,” I croaked through the now blazing pain that had overtaken my throat. “You finally got the courage to find me, did you?”

I took a step forward, daring myself further. He did nothing.

“Yeah, that's right, you remember me, don't you?” I giggled, which given the circumstances was probably not the thing to do. “I'm the one that got away. I'm the one you didn't get. Were you embarrassed by that? Were you embarrassed that I've escaped you more times than anyone else?”

Still nothing. He just kept watching me with that stupid head tilt he did. That just made me laugh more, that this fucker that everyone feared so much was not doing a thing to me.

“I'm starting to think everyone's fear in you is misplaced,” I croaked, close now that we were face to face. “What do you do, anyway? You stand there and you look at us and you drive this fear into our heads, but get past the paranoia and you're just a stick with arms in a cheap suit. Nothing scary about you at all, you cowardly piece of-”

There was a swish and a whip and a loud CRASH and before I knew it I had been grabbed by my shirt by a tentacle and slammed against the altar so hard that I had caused its legs to smash and the surface to collapse. I stifled a cry as he stood over me, two other tentacles drawing from his back. Despite the back pain and the blood trickling from my mouth, I managed a bloody sneer.

“Yeah, that's right. That's the Slender Man I want to see,” I growled, or I tried to growl; my throat was practically useless by now. “I wonder what you really look like under that pathetic costume of yours-”

He raised me back up for us to be face to face. Even without a face, I could feel just how angry he was, how angry I was making him. And this made me laugh harder, knowing that little old me was getting him angry. So for good measure- and just because I seemingly had a death wish- I mustered up some blood and spit it right into his face.

And that, fortunately enough, is the last thing I remember, other than being flung towards the stone wall. All I know is that next thing I remember was waking up on a couch with a dark-haired girl seven or eight years younger than me staring at me. Once my vision cleared, I recognized her as the girl I had seen leaving Damien's workplace.

“You okay?” she asked.

I slowly sat up, looking around the room. It was just a small little pad, the only lights coming from lit candles, but it was warm enough. It was safe enough. I looked at the table and saw that all my equipment was still there, gun, flashlight, and all.

“Yeah, I'm alright,” I whispered, still feeling the burning in my throat.

“Good.” And without warning, she slapped me right in the face. “That was the stupidest move you could have ever made. What were you thinking, idiot?”

She shook her head and started moving around the apartment, grabbing my items and stuffing them in a bag. I studied her for a moment, her hair, her eyes, the way she acted, how she had been watching me the other day, and a random thought occurred to me.

“You're Kiera, aren't you?” I asked. “Damien's ex.”

She neither confirmed nor denied my statement. She threw some food into the bag and threw it at me.

“You made a big mistake,” she told me. “Coming here when you've got the entire FBI looking for you, into a town that's much worse than that, do you have a death wish? Huh? Did you really think you could just walk into Damien's workplace asking about him and not send up red flags? Do you not realize how close you came to disappearing yourself in there?”

“The hell are you-?”

“Did you really think this cult was just a group of old timers at the church? It's the whole fucking town, Strahm, why do you think everybody's looking at you funny?”

“Wait...the whole town?” I jumped to my feet. “Bullshit, no way they could get away with that-”

“Couldn't they? The government already turns a blind eye to Slender Man, why not turn a blind eye to a town full of people who follow him?”

The people in the shop...But how can a cult just stay in full light in town and not have any passerby’s notice? It's easier to hide a cult within a town, but if the cult IS the town...and no one was ackowledging it...

“Okay, hold on,” I said, trying to slow her down. “I need to know the whole story. Can you take me to Rick, can he tell me about this? Because this doesn't make any sense-”

“Oh come ON!” She finally turned to me, her eyes full of fire. I can kinda see why Damien would go for her. “I knew you were here following that bullshit story, but I didn't think you believed it THAT much. And you're the one who's supposed to be the great detective?!”

“Will you slow down please? What the hell are you talking-?”

“Zeke, Rick disappeared on August 27th. A week before Damien did.”

She turned back to what she was doing, leaving me standing there with what I imagine was the stupidest look on my face that I had ever kept there. That wasn't...there was no way...how could...was I really supposed to believe that this was all a lie, that everything Rick

(Rick?)

said was a lie?

“How can that be? How can no one know he's missing?”

“With everyone and their mother focusing on Damien's story, you really think anyone's gonna notice if his brother goes missing?” She finally threw me the bag. “Now go. You can't stay here, they know you're here, they're sending some agents over-”

“Wait a minute-”

“Listen to me,” she growled, grabbing my shirt; Christ, this girl was forceful. “You never should have come here. This was not your obligation to come here and fuck with things. You want a sense of purpose, you can do it somewhere else, but leave things here for someone else!”

“Someone...Damien?”

“You need to get out of here.”

“Is it Damien?”

“Get out of here now-”

“Kiera!” I grabbed her arm just as she threw the door open. “Is Damien alive?”

She pulled out of my grasp and pushed me out, bag in my arms. “Get out of town. Don't come back.” And then she slammed the door in my face.

So there I stood for a minute staring at a brown-colored metal door and wondering how many shrooms I had been fed during my black out. This didn't make sense. Well, in a way it made sense but it still didn't really make sense. The town being the cult...that was a stretch. Rick not being...well, that could be true, I suppose, but...if he wasn't Rick, then who the fuck was he?

Who was he...and that was when I started getting angry. If he lied about who he was, that made his entire story questionable. Meaning he wasn't working with the cops. Meaning Damien didn't kill himself...but that they killed him instead. That had to be it, right? That's why Kiera didn't tell me, isn't it? And we all just accepted the story and let those fuckers kill off another one of us...

I kicked the wall furiously as the reality of this sunk in. Slender Man's influence was everywhere. Even before the servants started their tirade, they were picking us off. Damien died right under our noses, and they covered it up. We're all expendable. God damn it, God DAMMIT...

I wasn't in my right head space when I left, which was why I didn't really see the two agents following me until I finally turned the corner and out of the corner of my eye saw them. Not even trying, they had the suits on and everything. This wasn't scouting, they were going in for the arrest. Problem was, I was tired, I was confused, my head hurt, my back ached, and I was just not in the mood to deal with their shit this night.

So I went down the alleyway, making sure that they followed me, and waited until I was halfway before I turned around and shot one of them three times in the chest. The way the bullets impacted his chest it was apparent that he was wearing the Kevlar vest, but three bullets to the chest is going to fuck you up no matter what you're wearing. He went down like a sack of bricks, and the other one fell backwards on his ass in shock. He raised his gun, but I was just a tad bit quicker and before he knew it he was clutching his badly bleeding arm, his gun clattering a few feet away.

He tried to crawl, but I slammed my foot onto his chest, grabbed his collar, and pulled him up towards me. His teeth were gritted in pain.

“Go on,” he growled. “Kill me.”

“No, you don't get off that easy,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “You're going to go back to base and give your boss a little message for me. Tell Fisk I'm on to him. Tell him to stop following me, stop following Celeste, stop following Kiera, stop following everyone. Tell him to pull back every single agent he has working in the field right now, and when he's done with that, ask him why he's busy defending the wrong people and letting the right people die-”

“You're never going to get him to stop, he's always going to come after you-”

“I'm not done!” My voice was all but gone at this point, so I squeaked a little towards the end of that, but I didn't care. I was beyond caring at this point. All I had was rage. “Also I want you to tell him that I'm done playing nice. Now, I gave that agent in Ohio a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card, and unfortunately you're about to use up my last one. I've had fun playing games with you and your little friends, but now I am no longer in the fucking mood. No more freebies. The next agent he sends my way, I'm sending his head back in a box. Got it?”

He just stared at me as if he had never seen anything quite like me before, but he got the message. I threw him back down on the ground, grabbed my bag, and took off, taking care to hock a big wad of spit onto his partner as I left that alleyway and the long hike back to my car. He groaned as I spit on him, and from that I gathered that he was alive, and probably would survive my little surprise. Just as well. As angry as I was, I wasn't ready to go on a mass murder spree quite yet.

I'm now a few miles out of town, laying low, re-gaining my bearings. I'm making the trip back home tomorrow. Whether or not this trip actually did me any good, I can't say for certain. Still too many questions. And now a whole different threat as well.

I need sleep...fuck.

Ohhhhhhhhh Zeke. Zeke Zeke Zeke. What have you gotten yourself into now?

Seriously, who DOES that? Goes into a building that by experience alone everyone knows NOT TO GO IN THERE? I can hear it now, "Aaaand the Dharma Award goes toooooo..."

Very kind of you to leave your laptop open for me, by the way. Haven't you ever heard of "logging out"? You never were very internet-savvy, were you?

So, hopefully, Zeke, you read this and you survive your little excursion, and when you do, just know that I'll be in contact soon. And that goes for the rest of you too, y'hear? You all be ready for when I call.

No, I'm not Redlight.

No, I'm not a remnant.

No, I'm not a fed.

No, I don't work for Slender Man in any way shape or form.

But you'll know me when you see me.

Hope you get out of there, Zee.

Oh, and Mary says hi.

-\/\/

Damien's House

I've stood in the homes of many dead men before. I've stood over their corpses and looked through their drawers for clues and substances. Hell, I've sat on chairs and beds while trying to get my head wrapped around the crime without really feeling anything by the fact of being in a dead person's room. But I'll tell you now, standing in Damien's house last night gave me goosebumps that I never got when I was a working cop.

I stood in his main room for ten minutes, looking around at the dirty, shabby conditions that it had fallen into and wondered if it had been like that when it had had an occupant as well. There was dust all over the place, chair knocked over (most likely from that last scuffle), dishes and plates left untouched and uncleaned in the sink. A mouse scurried along the floor, looking for food, at one point crossing right over my boot.

I closed my eyes for a moment, though why I was doing that I wasn't entirely sure of even then.

Where are you, Damien? I thought. Are you really dead? Or are you still out there somewhere, being torn apart by your own subconscious? Do you feel me in your house right now? Am I supposed to feel you here?

Of course, I get no answer. Not like I was expecting one.

Once I was done with that, I got to work. I checked every square inch of that living room before I finally made my way to the bedroom. Looked basically like it should have, just as dirty, and the bed having not been slept in for a very long time. I poked through drawers, cupboards, closet, under the bed, even checked a couple of loose floorboards.

Nothing. No drawings. No bone. Nothing. The place had been cleaned out.

Damn, the thought ran through my mind. I knew it'd be cleaned out, but I thought there would be something of value. Nothing, though.

Guess the red building's the place to go-

It happened so fast I barely caught it, but even slight movement is movement. My eyes caught it out of the corner; a tuff of black, peering in through the window before leaving in the blink of an eye. Just as fast I was out the door, gun drawn, looking around.

“Come ooon! Show yourself!” I shouted. “I know you're out here, fuckface! COME ON!”

The woods in the middle of the night; my worst nightmare. But someone was out there, for sure, and I wasn't about to let them go, but out here there was nothing, not even wind to blow the trees around. So there I was, standing in the woods with gun drawn, shouting for a shadow that was not there.

But it was there. I'm damn sure of that. Something is sure as fuck following me out here.

I'm going to the red building. It's the only place I can think of to go.

I'll post again after I get back.

365 Days Later...

One year ago today, my chief came into the office and handed me and my partner an assignment. We were to investigate a teenage disappearance in the forest off Point Hope, a sixteen-year-old girl that had up and left home in the middle of the night. No clues, no leads, nothing to go off of but the alcoholic mother's word. I figured it was a cut and dry case. I figured it would have been an easy solve.

One year later and look where I am now.

On the run, fearing for my life, both partners are dead, in hiding, being chased by something that by all logical accounts should not exist, the government cleaning up after him and putting me on the top of their list, all these kids running for their lives and coming to me and putting their fates in my hands.

Yeah, quite a bit has changed.

And yet this very morning, around midnight, I got a tip and a link to head into some chat. Why an online chat of all places, I don't know. I couldn't help but think it was another trick of Redlight's, him trying to convince me to take his offer, though it DID have that crazyman's name in it. Habit or whatever.

Well, I thought, can't hurt me over the internet. So I hopped in to see what he wanted and...

I still don't exactly know how to explain. There were over a hundred people in that chat, well over a hundred, and among them were Jeffrey, Evan, Noah, that doc fellow and the PTC guy. All of them, in there for those Hybrids, and yet here I was, put on the exact same pedestal.

I felt like I was being interrogated as questions were thrown at us, but what really got to me were when those side-messages came in from individual people, telling me not to give up, to keep on with my work, and that they were right behind me.

I can't wrap my head around it. All those people...were in there for us? For those of us that are running for our lives, being hunted by something illogical, being close to death time and again. I knew there were fans, but...Jesus.

And word to word with those kids was interesting. I've said it before, they've got the best chance out of any of us. Not a clear shot, but a shot nonetheless. And if shit gets messy, I think they know I'll help how I can. Maybe it's the cop in me. Maybe it's the adult in me. Maybe it's just the situation.

I was the last man out of that chat, not because I liked to keep a crowd or make a grand exit, but because I didn't want to leave the warmth that that chat and those people provided and go back into my cold, dark surroundings of the real world. I wanted to just feel their happiness, their awe, their feelings that had left me so many months ago, and let it be my blanket. A security that I longed for, to be among them, being the ones to maybe cheer the others on while I stayed safe, maybe in my real bed back in my real home with Lizzie right next to me.

But nothing good lasts forever and I did have to leave, but I let them know that I was staying with it. Whenever there's hopelessness, those people out there unite to root for us. Makes me remember that we, I, have something to fight for. And that's not to let them down.

And hopefully, come this time next year, I won't have to be running anymore.

Hybrids, Noah, Doc, and the rest- you guys keep fighting.

It's been one year to the day.

I'm really hoping I don't go to two.

Found Damien's old workplace today. Went inside and went right to the manager's office, with nothing more than a personality to go off of. No name, no picture, no identity to go with, just a personality that he was a bit of a hard ass. All things considered, it went pretty well.

One of the employees pointed me to him, and he looked up upon my approach. I didn't look like a cop, with T-shirt, jeans and a leather jacket that I grabbed at some thrift store on the Montana trip, but appearance doesn't make the man so much as how he presents himself. And judging from his appearance, I think he took me seriously enough.

“You the boss?” I asked.

“I am. Name's David.”

“Been here long?”

“Long enough. You are?”

“Detective Riley.” Sorry, Eric, but you were a good enough cover name and there was no way your obituary would have made it this far south. I showed him my badge that I still keep on me for these just in case situations. “I'm investigating Damien O'Connor's suicide.”

All the activity around us seemed to stop dead as I said that. The manager was looking right at me with a frozen blank expression, and I assumed everyone working around us was as well. Sure enough, I glanced over my shoulder to see the workers frozen in the middle of their work looking right at me. Seeing my stare they broke out of their stupor and they returned to business as usual.

I turned back to the manager, who was also resuming work.

“I thought the police closed that investigation,” he told me.

“I'm re-opening it,” I replied. “There are still some details that are a bit hazy for me.”

He snorted. “You're new around here, aren't you?”

I shrugged. “More or less.”

“What's wrong with your voice?”

“Been sick. Just getting over it.”

He sighed and placed the box down and folded his arms.

“Aright, Detective,” he said, “what do you want to know?”

“Alright,” I said, pulling out my notepad and pen. Look at me, being all official. “You were his overseer during his time here, right?”

“I was.”

“How would you describe your relationship with him?”

“Like watching a train wreck in slow motion while the sun explodes and the moon catches fire.”

“Difficult, then.” Well, it wasn't as if I didn't expect at much. Damien's notes on his boss weren't exactly the most positive ones. “Would you say that was more on your part or his?”

“Damien was a very unique individual,” he told me. “And a particularly violent one as well.”

“He attacked you?”

“No, but he came close once or twice. Mainly with other customers. Seemed like I was pulling him off someone every other day. Mood swings, you know?”

“Well, were you aware of his medical history?”

“I was aware that he was taking medication as part of some study. And I saw what he was like off the drugs. And it wasn't fun.”

I wrote all that down, though it really wasn't anything I couldn't already figure out. Every employer needs to check their employees' history out to make sure they're liable. Still, facts are facts.

“When was the last time you saw Damien?”

“Let me see...” David closed his eyes, trying to remember. “It was after that friend of his died, but not long before Amelia's accident. Something happened that made him just stop showing up-”

“The Ellison murders,” I explained. “Emily Ellison was a friend of his.”

“Was she? Lord, no wonder he cracked, losing that many people in such a short time...”

“What was he like in those last couple of weeks that he worked here?”

“Pretty much like I described him, though times five. Paranoid, sweaty, thought he was going to have a heart attack at any second, increase in violence. Then he just stopped showing up. Didn't know what happened to him until the day after he died when his death made the paper.”

The entire time, I got the feeling that I was being watched by the other employees, but I tried to ignore it. Maybe Damien was just a touchy subject in this town. During his posts, I never really got the vibe that he was someone well known among his community. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe it was something else. It was hard to say.

“I just wanted to ask one last quick one and then let you get back to work.” I told him, flipping the page of the notepad.

“Oh, leaving so soon?” He looked a mix of apprehensive and relieved.

“Just for now. I'll probably stop in again eventually.”

He nodded, seemingly relieved, so I dove into my final question. “At any point during those last few weeks he worked for you, did he ever mention anything about being stalked by a man in a suit?”

His face paled but otherwise he gave no visible recognition to my question. “No, none that I recall.”

Bullshit, I thought for no real reason.

“Thank you.” I closed the notepad and stuffed it away. “If I have any further questions, I'll come back. You have a good day.”

He nodded and returned to his work and didn't spare me a second look as I turned and walked out. The little busy bee workers had returned to work as well, though one or two threw a glance in my direction that they probably thought I wouldn't see. The whole place had a weird vibe to it. Maybe I was just too on edge.

Definitely didn't help as I stepped out of the store and noticed some dark-haired girl staring right at me from across the street and didn't stop looking even as I stared back directly at her until she finally realized what she was doing and started walking off.

I don't know if it's the town or just me, but Jesus, Indiana is fucking weird.

Road Trip

Driving down a highway to somewhere, possibly nowhere. I think a song could be made around that line. Maybe one already has.

I probably could have made the drive in a day, it's only fifteen hours from where I am to Indiana, but...well, I do have to make whatever detours I can to avoid authorities. New York was the worst, it's car accident central up there and traffic's horrible. Spent a few days there living around Central Park out of my car. Once I got out, though, it was nothing but me and the open air.

I have to say, though, I've really enjoyed this drive. Fresh air blowing through the open window, radio blaring, almost makes me feel like I was in college again. I even went and got a haircut yesterday on one of my pit stops. I'm not used to short hair, it's been a while since the last time I had hair short enough that I didn't have to slick it backwards, but I kinda like it. Definitely don't look like the guy in the wanted posters anymore.

Now debating if I should keep the beard or shave it. On the one hand, I got a good Johnny Messner look going, and on the other hand the beard can be awfully cumbersome. Decisions decisions.

Of course, it hasn't been all smooth all the time. In fact, at one point this little trip almost had an abrupt ending.

This one motel in...I think it was Cleveland, though honestly once I got out of New York all sense of what state I was in went right out the window. Just me and the map that I couldn't read for shit. For all I know I could have ended up in Timbuktu. Fucking maps...

I'm getting off topic. Just picture a really crappy motel that you take one glance at and know that it probably rented by the hour. Imagine going into a cheap dinky room that smelled like sex, tears and fifty dollar bills, and sleeping on what feels like a haunted mattress and thinking to yourself that the dirty hand prints above the headboard really pulled the room together, and a shower that no matter how hard you scrubbed in the back of your mind you doubted if even the soap could be clean in that place.

Now picture all that and an FBI agent in a very similar room two doors down.

He wasn't dressed like an agent, none of the good ones are. The good ones being the ones that are on your tail. This one's been following me since day two of New York when I stopped in a convenience store for some Reese's and a FastBreak bar. They wear casual clothes when they're tailing you, but they usually have the same build, same haircuts, same Rolex on the right wrist. You'd think by now they'd pick a different schtick. Apparently that's not in their guidelines.

Sucks for them, I pay attention.

This one here had been following me since then. A rookie, by the looks of him, but a rookie Fed is just as dangerous as a veteran Fed when he wants to be. On my last morning he was sitting on the bench pretending to read the paper while I got some candy out of the vending machines and as I was headed back to finish up my packing (not that there really was much left to pack, but you understand) and as I was opening my door out of the corner of my eye I see him folding his paper, standing up, and coming my way as I slide through the door.

Shame he couldn't see through walls and see me move against the wall, out of sight for when he decided to come in after me, which he did without even knocking, the jerk. Well, he was a jerk, so I repaid the favor and knocked him in the back of the head so hard he fell flat on his face.

I checked his wallet- “Agent Leo Mellish”, his ID read- and pocketed it. Lord knows I could use another identity, if need be. Then I grabbed his cuffs and cuffed one of his wrists, then dragged him to the closet, through his arms over the bar, cuffed the other wrist so that he was hanging from the bar and then closed the door. I then finished packing and left, paying at the front desk on my way out.

Ohhh, Zeke, Zeke, Zeke. Why did you not take him with you? You could have gotten some answers out of him. Probably, but things to consider:

I spent three months investigating into Fisk and what he was doing. The entire fall, that whole period where I wasn't posting, was more or less investigating his special unit. Pretty sure nothing he says is going to be new info for me.

Where was I going to keep him? In the trunk of my car? Pretty sure any noise he made back there would fuck me over on the off chance I got pulled over. Same goes for if I dragged him into any place I was staying, hotel or whatnot. They'd notice someone making a lot of noise.

Finally, he'd slow me down. This thing I'm chasing, whatever it is and wherever it leads me, is more important to me than some suit. Priorities, people, priorities.

So why leave him alive? Because it's no fun to humiliate Fisk just by killing off his guys. Killing them would let him know I knew his men were tailing me, but why not have fun with it? Let's be honest, he'll be a sight to see whenever housekeeping finds him.

Which they will. Eventually. No guarantees.

I'm in Indiana now, and I'm pretty sure I'm closing in on Damien's town. Once I do, I intend to talk to any of the survivors from his story. His boss, his ex, Rick, maybe the doctors from his mother's asylum, anything like that. Hopefully I find something out.

Hopefully.