Bing bong. An announcement came up over the speakers, waking Amicia up.
“Dear passengers, We will soon be stopping in Knoxville, Tennessee. Please be ready to depart the train. We thank you for choosing to ride with us today.”
Amicia fluttered her eyes as she woke. She yawned and stretched her arms over her head. It had been a long trip, and she was glad she’d be able to stretch her legs soon. She looked out the window to see a long stretch of green. She patted herself to see if she’d dropped anything while sleeping. Knife, check. Phone, check. New press badge, check. She just had to grab her luggage from the train and she’d be ready to go.
Amicia was on the road, driving away from Knoxville. A benefit of arriving in a big city was that car rentals were very close. She’d gotten a Chevrolet Malibu for 2 weeks which cost her about $400. Amicia doubted she’d ever buy a car just for herself. Her new purpose in line often took her across the country. Plus who needed a car in Serenity? That’s what the buses were for.
She was about an hour away from Walland. On the train, she had made a call. A call that seemed to be paying off now. A ringing came through on the car’s speakers.
“Hello? Is this Alicia Danvers? I’m-uh, Jeff Lennart. I’m returning your message about an interview.”
“Yes! Hello, Mr Lennart.”
“Oh, uh. Just Jeff, please.”
“Hey Jeff. My name’s Alicia from SNY radio. I saw that article you posted online.”
“I uhm, I’m supposed to say that the article was fabricated.” he muttered out.
“Supposed to say huh? Jeff, I'm a journalist too. I know a professional like you wouldn’t put out an article if you didn’t think it was real.”
A shuffling sound came through over the speakers. It sounded like Jeff was moving around. “You don’t know me, Alicia.”
“Don’t I, Jeff? You graduated with a masters from Columbia. Wrote articles on urban fracking. You were part of the team that called the gubernatorial race. I might not know you as a person Jeff, but I know a professional journalist when I see one.”
There was a silence that lingered as Jeff considered her words. “Yeah. Yeah, I did do all that, didn't I? I used to write things that mattered.”
“You still do Jeff. People keep focusing on that doctored photo, but the other things in the article were real right? Real people who were scared because someone was lurking outside of their homes.”
Another pause. Then, “It wasn’t doctored,” Jeff muttered.
“What was that?” Amicia asked
Amicia heard a door close from Jeff’s side of the phone. His voice came through clear now where before it was just whispers. “Sorry, I had to get somewhere private. A few of my colleagues came in. Anyways, I said the photo wasn’t doctored. The police contacted my editor. They spooked the shit out of him, claiming we were interfering in an investigation.”
“Why would your editor do that, Jeff? Hang you out to dry?” she asked.
“Jerry’s a good guy. A good editor even, but he’s been here since 04. All he wants in the papers is fucking bullshit fluff articles.” Amicia knew she had Jeff hooked now. He seemed reticent about talking to her at first, but tugging on his professional pride had opened him up.
“If the photos aren’t doctored then why admit to it Jeff?”
“Listen I got- I got a sister who’s in long term care here alright? I can’t afford to move her anywhere yet. I need this job right now. This place pays me half of what I'm worth but everyone else would pay me a tenth.” he explained. “You said you could pay me for everything I collected on this right?”
“That’s right Jeff. $5000. Not a bad payout for something you’ve been banned from ever working on again.”
“Yeah. It is. Listen, I live on 456 Davis. Just swing by and I’ll give you everything I got.”
“Sure Jeff. I’ll be in Walland soon. One last question though. If that photo wasn’t doctored. Was it real? That thing hanging off the flagpole?”
Jeff replied in a shaky voice, “Yeah. I think it was real. I think someone’s skin was hanging off the flagpole of the highschool, and the police don’t want anyone finding out”
Amicia arrived in Walland at around 6 in the evening. She had to stop at a bank to actually get $5000 dollars. She remembered how the teller looked at her, trying to determine whether or not she was going to buy drugs with the money. She eventually got it after reminding him that her money was her money and she’d be glad to switch to another bank that would ask less questions.
Finally, Amicia pulled up to the house of Jeff Lennart. It was a cozy 1 story home. She got out of her rental and went to the door. She rang the doorbell. Nobody answered the door. After waiting a few minutes, she rechecked the address to make sure she was in the right place. Yep, This was it. Where was Jeff? She considered calling him when she heard another car pull in the driveway.
A man got out of a blue toyota. He was in his 40s with sandy blonde hair. He had a lanky frame and wore glasses. He stood at about 5’8 and held a box in his hand. Amicia held a hand up at his approach. He seemed wary of her being here.
“Are you Jeff?”
“Uh, yeah. Who’re you?”
“Alicia Danvers.”
Jeff seemed to relax at his words. “I wasn’t expecting you here so soon. I was at the office, collecting everything I had about the flagpole.”
“Were you expecting someone else?”
“I’ve been getting some strongly worded letters in my mail. Some people aren’t too happy with me.” he said. He walked up to his door, unlocking it. He went inside while gesturing for Alicia to enter as well. She followed him into his home “I thought maybe one of them had decided to act on all the threats I’d been getting. The father of one of those teenagers in the photo stopped me in the grocery store the other day. He said I shouldn’t have involved his kid in all my fake news. He said it while showing off his revolver.”
“I’m sorry to hear that Jeff.”
He waved his hand. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ve had critics get rough with me before. Do you have the money?”
Amicia pulled out an envelope full of cash. “Right here.” She tossed it over to him. Jeff pulled out the money, counting it. When he finished, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you. I know this is just your job, but this money is really gonna help me. My sister’s been put on a list for an experimental surgery. I’ve been running around trying to scrape everything together.” Jeff placed a box full of papers on the table. Afterwards, he sat down on a couch while inviting Amicia to do the same. ”I’m sure you have many questions for me. I’ll do my best to make sure you get your money's worth.”
“Let’s start with the wave of crime that led you to all of this. When did it begin?”
“I first got wind of it around 6 weeks ago. One of my contacts at the police station said they’d been getting a surge of callers recently. People saying that they were scared someone was outside their homes. I brushed it off initially, but my contact said the rate of incidents was climbing. The incidents got more intense. Shattered windows, broken doors. That kind of thing. That was initially all I was gonna report. An article about rising crime, but then-”
“Then what?”
“Then I got some photos in my email. See there’s this photography club at the high school nearby. Occasionally, I mentor some of the kids from the club. One of them, Emily Wacowski, sent me her picture for the yearbook. She wanted some pointers about getting better lighting in post. Then I noticed that thing in the background.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
“What made you connect the two events? The sudden crime wave and the photo?”
“I know it seems stupid now. I feel stupid for even having done it, but something in my gut just told me the two were connected. It just made sense at the time. We had people getting their homes broken into. A guy was almost taken out of his car. I knew someone was trying to do something bad. Then this just… popped up.”
“Did you ever dig deeper into who that could’ve been on top of the flagpole?”
“Of course I did. That’s a part of why I added the photo to the rest of the article. I was supposed to have a meeting with the principal of the school, Keith Duggar, 2 months back. Every time the meeting came up, his secretary would call to push it back. One day I had enough and blew up at her. She admitted that the principal hadn’t come in for weeks.”
“Then you were sent the photo.” Amicia said. Jeff nodded. He was about to say something else when there was a clanging noise outside. The both of them jumped at the sound. They looked out the window. There was someone standing there. It was too dark to see who it was, but Jeff grabbed a nearby flashlight. He flicked it on and pointed it at the figure. To both Amicia and Jeff’s horror, the figure was a skinless man.
He started pounding on the glass of the window. Every time his fist landed, blood would stain the glass. He seemed almost desperate in his assault. Jeff screamed in terror. Amicia started calling 911 with one hand and placed her other hand on her knife.
The figure was relentless in his pounding. Thud. Thud. Thud. Jeff had fallen to the ground after his initial scream. Then the figure in the window began to say something.
“Help, me, Jeff. Help, me.” it croaked out while pounding on the glass.
Amicia had finally connected to 911. She told them that there was an intruder at Jeff’s address. The dispatcher said the police would arrive in 4 minutes. Amicia stayed on the line as Jeff trembled in fear from the figure. Then a spark of recognition came into Jeff’s eyes.
“Keith?” Jeff whispered. Amicia turned towards Jeff. Was the figure in the window Keith Duggar? The man who had disappeared? How did he get here? Where had he gone?
Amicia turned back towards the window. There. Beyond Keith, she could make something out. There was someone else standing there. She couldn’t make out any features. The only thing she saw was a wicked smile. His teeth seemed to almost gleam in the dark.
Amicia stowed away her phone and ran out the front door. Jeff noticed her moving and yelled out, “Wait! Don’t!”. She ignored him. The variant was right there. She could kill it now and be back in Serenity tomorrow. She bursted out the door with her knife in hand. She ran around to the side of the house.
The variant was still there, just smiling at her from the shadows. She charged at it. She was 10 feet away from the variant when she caught something in the corner of her eye. A skinless man was running at her. Just as he was about to pounce on her, she ducked down. His arm passed over her head and she circled behind him. With both arms, she pushed him forwards towards the fence. Keith Duggar crashed violently against the wood. He had been moving fast enough to almost punch through the fence. He screamed in agony as small splinters from the fence dug into his unprotected flesh.
Amicia turned back to the variant. It had jumped onto the fence that was connected to Jeff’s back neighbors. It was about to leap away when she flicked her knife at it. The knife buried itself into the creature’s knee mid jump. Then the knife began to emit a glow. The light from the glowing knife allowed Amicia to see the creature. It had the shape of a man. The top half of it was skinless just like Keith Duggar. The monster’s head was skinless as well, but there was a v shape starting from its brow going down to its chin that seemed to be all bone. The bottom half was not skinless. No, the creature wore patches of skin that covered its hips down to its feet. The skin sagged as if they were ill-fitted pants. Amicia could see that one patch of skin had a tattoo the shape of an anchor.
The monster roared in pain at her. Her knife was glowing red hot now. The heat of it intensified the longer it stayed in the monster. It started searing the monster’s knee from the inside. The monster grabbed the knife with its hand. An effort that the knife rewarded the creature for by burning its palm. Amicia almost laughed at the sight. She started running at the creature again.
The variant pushed past the pain and pulled the knife out of its knee. As Amicia neared its position on the fence, it hurled her knife at her with terrifying force.
“SHIT!” she yelped. She tried dodging out of the way, but the knife was too fast and she had built too much speed. She put a hand up as her knife came straight towards her. She could see how the blade would pierce through her palm, but then something happened. The knife inexplicably started turning despite the fact that the variant had thrown it straight at her. It flipped in the air until the handle lined up with Amicia’s hand. She instinctively closed her fist and looked down in surprise. She had caught the knife.
As Amicia recovered from her stupor, she looked back up at the fence. She realized with fury that the creature was gone. “FUCK! Get back here!”
She was planning on jumping the fence when she noticed that Keith had recovered from his crash and was rushing at her again.
The man lumbered towards her with his arms outstretched. Instead of circling behind him this time, she backed away from him. She tried to reason with the man.
“Keith, I know you’re in pain, but I need you to back away from me.”
“Help, me, Jeff. Help, me, Jeff.” he said, mindlessly. It was as if those were the only words he knew. He was still coming for her. She grabbed some dirt from the ground. When he was close, she ducked left as he went to tackle her again. She threw the dirt in his eyes, blinding him. She ran back to the front of the house as the man was distracted. Keith tried to follow her even as he was rendered blind.
As Amicia got to the front of the house, she looked over her shoulder. He was still running at her. He must’ve heard her footsteps. As Amicia decided whether or not to end the man’s suffering. She heard the siren of a police car coming towards them. She started heading down the street and under a street lamp so the police could see her.
A blue and white police car pulled up to the curb in front of her. Another one followed up right behind it. Amicia quickly put her knife away and hid it in her pocket before they got out of their cars. One of them came up to Amicia while pointing their flashlight at her.
“Ma’am, stay where you are. We’ve had reports of a break in. We’ll need to ask you some- JESUS CHRIST!” they screamed as their flashlight moved behind her to shine on Keith Duggar, revealing him in all his skinless glory. All the officers had drawn their guns now. Each of them had a nervous look in their eye as they saw the body of Keith Duggar.
“I need help! He’s chasing me!” Amicia yelled.
The officer that had been talking gestured at her. “Ma’am, move behind us! Ford, Daniels, I want eyes on that guy at all times! Shen, call an ambulance now!”
Amicia ran to one of the officer’s cars. She ducked behind them, getting out of the officer’s line of sight. Keith was still shambling towards her. He was moving slower now. Crashing into the fence and chasing her around had tired him out. She thought he was starting to lose blood too.
Another one of the officers yelled “Hey! Stop moving! Do not move!” as they trained their guns on him.
Keith didn’t listen to their commands. He kept coming. He kept muttering “ Help, me, Jeff.” over and over again. The words were spoken in a choppy and pained manner. The officers looked almost ready to fire, but the one who’d spoken to Amicia put his gun away. He pulled out a baton and ran up to Keith. He swung hard at Keith’s knee, toppling the man down.
When Keith fell on the floor, the officer got on top of him. He placed cuffs around Keith’s arms. He looked ready to throw up as he did it. “Stay down, man. Just stay down.” he said.
Amicia looked around the street for any signs of the variant, but there was none. It had gone, retreating back to gods know where. Jeff Lennart finally came out of his home when he saw the officers out on the street. He came over to where Keith was being held down by the officer. At his appearance, the lead cop turned angry. He called another officer to keep an eye on Keith as he came up to Jeff.
“Is that him? Is that Keith?” Jeff stuttered out.
“Turn around, place your hands behind your back.” The lead officer said.
“What?” Jeff asked in surprise. The officer pushed Jeff’s shoulder, spinning him around. He placed Jeff in handcuffs while Jeff was still stunned. The officer escorted Jeff to a police car. In the distance, Amicia heard the ambulance coming. She ran up to Jeff and the officer.
“Wait, is he being arrested? Why?” Amicia asked, wide eyed. She saw that the officer’s name was Khan.
Another officer opened up the back door of the car. Even they were looking at Kahn with a question in their eyes. Khan answered, “Jeff Lennart here posted in an article about someone’s skin hanging from a flagpole. It scared the whole town half to death and had people calling us every night. Then we come to his house and what do we find? A man with no skin.”
Jeff sputtered, “I - I had nothing to do with Keith. I don’t know what happened to him.”
Khan asked back menacingly, “Then how do you know his name? He doesn’t even have a face.” He then turned to look at Amicia. “And who are you? How’re you involved with all of this?”
Amicia answered, “I’m Alicia Danvers from SNY radio. I was here to interview Jeff.”
“Then we’ll need you to answer some questions too. You’re not under arrest, but my officers will be escorting you to the station.” He looked over at Amicia’s car. “Is that your vehicle?”
She nodded yes. Khan looked to one of the officers, “Daniels! Make sure Miss Danvers gets to the station. She can follow in her vehicle.”
“What about that guy?” Amicia asked, pointing to the groaning skinless man.
An ambulance arrived then. 2 guys came out with a stretcher. They seemed to be whispering to each other about how to get Keith on without more injuries.
“We’ll make sure he gets help. If he makes it, we’ll get the full story from him” Khan said.
Amicia agreed to follow the police to the station. She sat in the parking lot, ready to go in. Things had not gone well for her tonight. One of her best sources had just gotten arrested. The variant had shown up, but escaped. She could only hope the damage she inflicted to its knee would slow it down. It was a rough first night in Walland, Tennessee. She knew it would get better though. After all, she had her brother’s lucky knife.
She looked at the knife in question. She held up its edge to her eye. It had stopped glowing, but the knife looked cleaner. It seemed almost sharper than it had been. Amicia didn’t know if she was nuts, but the knife seemed…. satisfied.