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John leaned in and peered through the jagged tear in the wall. He saw a room that was clearly not on the floor plan. It was small, maybe the size of an average living room, and had absolutely no features. Four bare walls. Then John turned away from it and, as he did, saw a perfectly-round hole in the floor as wide as the room, going down. Way down. John said it was the kind of chasm thing they have in all of the space stations in the Star Wars movies, for some reason. The ones criss-crossed with catwalks with no handrails.

When he looked directly at it, it was not there. A tiled floor. It was at this point John realized there might be something going on at the Drain Rooter plant.

* * * * *

I splashed water over my face and studied my own bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Glad to be back home, back in my bathroom. I pulled off my shirt, and felt something catch back there. Something itchy. I turned to the side and looked into the mirror at my back. My breath caught in my throat.

There was something elongated, maybe a half inch long, protruding from my shoulderblade. Thin, like a needle. Pink.

Thump.

A knock, at the door.

I leaned in close to the mirror, examining the growth and reaching back with my fingers, afraid to touch it. A shiver of revulsion twitched through my body.

THUMP-THUMP.

A muffled voice, at the door.

“David? Hey.”

John’s voice. What was he doing here?

Thump thump thump.

“Hold on,” I said, pulling up a hand mirror from the drawer in the vanity. “I’ll be out in a minute. I’m, uh, shaving my balls.”

I held up the mirror, angled it to see the thing on my back, and almost screamed. The little protrusion on my back was a stalk that ended in an eye. A tiny black slug’s eye that twitched as the stalk began curling this way and that, as if getting a look around-

* * * * *

I jolted awake.

THUMP.

I was cold. A searing pain in my neck. I smelled the sweet but artificial chemical smell of strawberry shampoo flavoring. Come to think of it, strawberries don’t have a smell. They just smell wet, like grass.

Focus.

I felt something like a steel cable around my chest. I couldn’t move, a weight holding me flat. I pulled my eyelids apart, saw a set of eyes peering down at me through frosted glass. I blinked, looked down and saw copper red. A head full of red hair on my chest. An arm was around me, squeezing, a fist full of my shirt, twisting it.

I was laying with my head against the door of the Bronco, window roller pressing into my back, feet splayed across the bench seats, boot resting against the door across from me. Amy, however, looked rather comfortable since she had me to use as a self-warming mattress. She was curled up on top of me, breathing erratically, her eyelids twitching. Nightmares.

Get used to it, kid.

I craned my head and saw the blurred shape of John’s face through a hole he had wiped clean of snow. He waved at me, standing there in full work gear. My watch:

8:07 AM

My truck had died at some point because the engine, and the heat, was off. Amy and I untangled ourselves and I pushed out of the door, standing up in the refrigerated air, joints feeling lined with thick steel wire. I glanced back into the truck and saw Molly fast asleep in the back, paws twitching as she dreamed of clawing somebody to death, probably me.

John said, “It’s your first date and you make the girl camp out at the doughnut shop with you? You know they don’t open for three months, right?”

There were five guys standing around aside from John, though Tyler was the only one I knew. They had come in two tall delivery trucks with “Anderson Roof and Gutter” painted on the side. I glanced at the strangers and said to John, “We, uh, had to leave the house. Shouldn’t you all be working?”

John said, “We had to get a load of shit from Home Depot. We’ve been fucking around for two hours. Passed by here and saw your truck. What happened at the house?”

Amy came around then, arms wrapped around that huge parka of hers and immediately pressed herself up against me.

“Hi, John. Ugh, I’m freezing.”

She reached back and pulled my arm around her, saying, “warm me up.”

“Uh, I’ve got to have a word with John.” I grabbed her by the shoulders and sort of sat her aside, then motioned to John to follow me across the parking lot. We walked around the edge of the lot, me squinting as my eyes adjusted to the light. John said, “You look like shit.”

“I’m burning out, John. Seriously. I don’t know if I’m up for this. I feel stretched out, like too little butter scraped over too much waffle. And then it all falls down into one of the waffle holes and there’s none left for the rest of the waffle and you sort of have to tilt it to make it run out.”

“They got some serious weird shit going on at the Drain Rooter plant, Dave.”

This was when John told me the somewhat dubious story of his experience at the semi crash site and everything that followed. I saw his story and raised him our experience with the Shadow People.

I looked back at my truck, where Amy was sitting sideways in the open door and fishing through her purse. She pulled out a brown pill bottle.

“Well there you go, Dave. It looks like the Drain Rooter plant is making more than drain cleaner. In fact, you could say they’re manufacturing evil.”

“No, we couldn’t say that.”

“I wanna see where that hole goes. I think that monster came out of it.”

“We can’t get into the place, John. There’s three shifts at the plant, working around the clock.”

We completed our circuit of the lot and arrived back where Tyler and one other guy leaned against the truck smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee from steaming insulated mugs.

John said, “There may be another way.”

John told me about the mall, and the Ghost Door that was there but wasn’t there. “Wanna know what I think? I think all those secret doors lead to the same place. Hell, there may be doors like that all over town.”

I nodded resignedly, sighed and said, “Well, we’re not waiting for them to just come get Amy again.”

“Absofuckinglutely. We’ll meet at noon.”

“What happens at noon?”

“We’re done with the roof job. They just want us to brace it for now and cover it. Keep the snow out.“

“You’re still going to fix their roof?”

“They paid Steve in advance. Plus, I really need the money.”

I noticed ghosts of exhaust rising from my Bronco, Amy turning it on to get warm.

I said, “I don’t know what to do with her. That house of hers is eighteen different kinds of screwed.” I glanced at Tyler, saw he was listening intently, and lowered my voice. “She’s got people watching her through the TV, like me.”

Amy saw us and emerged from the truck at that moment, a 24-ounce bottle of red Mountain Dew in her hand.

She came up and said, “Can I have this?”

“You keep that red shit in your truck now?” John asked me. “I think that’s one of the twelve warning signs, isn’t it?”

“I eat all of my meals there at work. If you eat in your car, nobody tries to talk to you.”

John looked at me with something like pity. I said, “It’s yours, Amy.”

She twisted at the cap, shoulders hunched against the cold. Somebody handed John a cup of coffee. John said, “Break time.”

“Shit yeah,” said Tyler, in his dickish way. He was wearing wraparound shades. He watched Amy as she tried to open the Mountain Dew bottle one-handed, trying to keep it still with her elbow. She concentrated on the task, grunting, the wet bottle sort of spinning in place.

I asked John, “Where’s the safest place to keep her while we do this?”

Amy said, “While you do what? Can I come?”

Tyler reacted to this, for some reason, looking at John with a “when are people gonna learn” look and then spat on the ground. Tobacco spitting is a kind of nonverbal communication in many parts of the Midwest. He must have spilled his coffee a lot as a kid because he had one of those big spill-proof mugs, the kind that flare way out at the bottom. It looked like he was speaking into a megaphone every time he took a drink.

I said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

Amy dropped the bottle, made a frustrated sound like somebody stepping on a cat. I reached out as if to help her and she slapped at my hand, then went back to twisting at the cap.

I continued, “She can’t go back to that house. I don’t know if she has any money but we can work something out. She can sleep on my couch if it comes to that.”

John eyed me as if to say, “really?” but didn’t say anything.

Tyler got a sly look in his eyes and said, “I got an interestin’ story. My brother, he and his wife gave birth to a Downs kid. He drools all over the place, he shits himself. They made my Ma baby-sit a few times and then more times and then, it was every night. Every damned night. You know what happened then?”

“Your brain fell out?” I noticed Amy had stopped messing with the bottle and was sort of just looking at it, frozen. I said, “Look, I gotta-“

“-Listen, man. Listen. They left the kid there. At Ma’s house. They come by to visit every now and then. My Ma, she’s basically got stuck feedin’ and cleanin’ this thing now, every day, it’s her job. Full time job. She can’t go to her bingo games or date or any of that shit because she’s got this thing to take care of, because she wanted to be a nice person. It’s like bein’ in prison.”

Amy glared at him, like she really had something killer to say to him, then she got this look on her face, sour, like biting an apple and seeing half a worm. She spun and took two steps toward my truck, then put her hand over her mouth and leaned over.

Tip: if you ever feel a puke coming on, do not, do not put your hand over your mouth to try to catch it. It’s reflex but it doesn’t work at all. Vomit kind of sprays everywhere. So Amy stood there in the snow, leaning over at the waist, her eyes clamped shut, her hand dripping, a puddle at her feet. It was an awkward moment. There were some comments from the crowd behind me. Somebody muttered something and somebody else chuckled.

I walked to her and said, “Over here.” I guided Amy toward the truck and sat her in the open door.

“Don’t move.”

I ran back to the rear door of the Bronco, opened it, reached in and grabbed a red and white flip-top cooler. This is my emergency kit. It contained a roll of duct tape, a spare pair of pants, an envelope with two hundred dollars, two bags of dried fruit, two packages of beef jerky, three bottles of water, a roll of those thick shop towels you see mechanics use, a small metal pipe—just right for cracking a skull with—and a fake beard. Look, you never know.

I pulled out a bottle of water and soaked a shop towel. I went to hand it to Amy, realized stupidly that she had no hand to take the towel with since she only had, you know, the puke hand and the nonexistent hand.

“Here,” I said. I took her handed arm by the wrist and wiped vomit from her fingers. Amy wrinkled her nose in disgust at this but, to be honest, I had never attended a party of John’s where someone didn’t either vomit on me or near me. I was kind of inured to it. As I worked I said, “When I was in seventh grade, I took Emily Parks to the Fall Festival. First time I had ever been anywhere with a girl. We wandered around and ate Elephant Ears and saltwater taffy and lemon shakeups, all of that festival stuff. We get on the Ferris Wheel, and riiiiiight as the ride is about to end I lean over and puke in her lap. The ride slows to a stop, you know, so they can unload all of the riders. And we wind up at the very top. Waiting. She’s sitting up there, her with a lap full of vomit, crying. And we’re up there for-ev-er.”

Amy’s hand seemed pretty clean. I tossed the soiled rag in the snow and gave her a new one and the bottle of water. I stepped back and said, “I didn’t ask another girl out until I was a junior in high school. Seventeen years old before I even held a girl’s hand. All because somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew I would wind up puking on her.”

Amy didn’t react. She drank some water and wiped splatters of vomit off her pants and her shoes, her fingers having to be frozen now doing wetwork in this weather. I caught a glimpse of her face and saw that look, a familiar look, a sort of embarrassment that is almost numbing. Like she wanted to dig a hole, bury herself in it and let grass grow over the top.

A warmth spread behind my eyes. Everything turned red in my brain, my skull suddenly filled with Tobasco sauce. There was a tingling in my gut, muscles tensing. I picked up the used towels and walked back toward a trash can in the parking lot, near where Tyler and the guys were standing. I tossed in the towels and Tyler leans over, whispering. He said, “You’re a nice guy, Dave. So all I’m sayin’ is watch, that’s all I’m sayin’. Watch out bein’ a nice guy because you can get fucked.”

A blink. A searing pain in my hand. Blood.

There were arms on me, grabbing my jacket, pulling me, and there was blood on my knuckles and blood in my mouth. My jaws were clenched, I had bitten my tongue and tasted warm copper. Tyler was on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, grunting that they had better hold me back because I was a fucking psycho and that I had broken his fucking nose. Then John was there, in my face, saying okay, okay, back off, just go, get outta here. I looked down at my throbbing hands and saw the knuckles were split, like I had been punching concrete. John pushed me back from the group, looked over my shoulder and said, “Get him outta here.”

A fat blonde kid was standing over Tyler, looked like a bloated version of him and I realized this was Tyler’s brother or cousin or something. And the fat kid was saying see, see what happens when you run your fucking mouth, Tyler, that one day talking shit was gonna get him killed because he was gonna say the wrong thing and some nigger was gonna shoot him in the back. John turned and joined the group and I was standing there, in the parking lot by myself, lost, disoriented. Tyler outweighed me by 75 pounds and, where I spent my days shelving DVD’s, he spent his carrying roofs up ladders. But the strangest thing, the sickening thing, was the urge that flashed through my mind as I was standing over him-

-the urge to BITE-

-and I knew this was it again, that I had lost time, that I had lost myself. Then I felt a pull on my jacket and the unique sensation of a handless arm reaching around my midsection.

“Come on. Come on, David.”

Amy circled around, her hand on my sleeve.

“Amy, I-“

“Come on. It’s okay. Come on.”

She started turning me, back toward the truck and I felt everyone staring. She got behind me and started pushing me toward the Bronco.

“Come on, David. Take deep breaths. You’re fine.”

“Amy, don’t-“

“-Nope. Come on. Keep going. Vrrrooooommmm...”

That last part was Amy making an engine sound as she steered me toward the truck, like she was driving me. She reached around me and opened the door, then pushed me into the seat like you see cops doing with handcuffed suspects. She slammed the door, circled around and sat in beside me. We sat that way for a moment, I glanced out my window and saw the whole group watching. I reached up with a shaking hand to twist the key and realized the engine was already running. I tried to slow my breathing. I couldn’t keep my hands still.

Amy asked, “Are you okay?”

“Just, give me a second.”

“You kicked that guy’s ass.”

“Amy...”

“Come on, let’s go. Before he gets up and beats the crap out of you.”

* * * * *

We got back to my house to find it ransacked. It was difficult to tell because I’m not the world’s greatest housekeeper myself, but by the time I was in the kitchen I knew they had been here. I don’t normally keep the oven open. I whipped out the gun and prowled around the house, finding it empty. Amy asked what they were looking for. I dodged the question by pointing out what a pity it was they tossed the place because it was immaculate before they got here and that it was too bad she didn’t get to see it when it was clean. I went to the kitchen and ran water over my bleeding knuckles.

“Look,” Amy said, from behind me. “They threw laundry all over your floor in there.”

“Yeah. And they wore the clothes first, the bastards.”

“And what were they looking for again?”

A pause. I was on the verge of revealing what was probably our biggest and most dangerous secret to someone who I had known for all of a day. I let out a breath and looked right into her eyes. The irises were too green, that was the thing. Like grass after a week of spring rain. And there was a piercing, electric intelligence in those eyes that I was too stupid to notice before. Seeing right through me. And I suddenly had the very dismaying realization that I probably could not lie to this girl, for one very simple reason. She was smarter than me.

I said, “They were looking for the Soy Sauce. I know they didn’t find it, though.”

“The what?”

I didn’t answer. I did a walk around the house, saw if anything was broken. It looked like they had taken the batteries out of my clock, for some reason, and the glass fixture on my ceiling fan was cracked.

Amy followed me around, pestering me with questions, suddenly desperately curious. The truth was, I wasn’t sure how to explain it. After about the fifth time she turned the conversation to it I held up a silencing hand, made a shushing sound, and put a single finger to her lips.

“All will become apparent in good time, sweet Amy.”

For a second, I seriously thought she was going to punch me. I went outside and did a walk-around of the house, glancing nervously at the tool shed and praying that the door wouldn’t be standing open.

What are you talking about, dipshit? If they came and took the body off your hands that’d be a blessing.

I noticed the flag was up on my mailbox. This was Sunday. I went over and opened it, found a palm-sized package inside. There was no name, no address, no postage. I stared at it with some trepidation, then peeled it open, thinking it might be the world’s tiniest little mail bomb. Inside was a necklace, a little gold cross on a delicate chain.

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Copyright © 2008 David Wong and Jason Pargin - All rights reserved. No part of this book or website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the express written consent of the author and publisher. This online book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidence.