Everything seemed to move at a snail's pace from the moment Chris left his house, to the moment he reached the grocery store. English class was wasted staring at the clock, waiting for it to end. Gym class was spent taking more than his fair share of dodge-balls to the face; he was about as bad at dodge-ball as he was good at hockey.
Lunch was spent lingering inside of his thoughts; stirring the slop he got from the cafeteria consisting of powdered mash potatoes, and mystery meat that made McDonald's seem like a healthy alternative. He ate alone, like he always had. It wasn’t that Chris had no friends within his class or team in which he could get along with, but they were only friends in name, he didn’t really trust them.
On top of the unease he felt from last week's events, the conversation he had earlier with Evelyn about his future gave him another problem to think about. If I don’t find something to do after high school, I’ll risk becoming some aimless loser or drug addict for the rest of my life. He had already known a few of his peers who were going down that path and he had a rather low opinions of them. He was biased though. His father's death was the result of a drunk truck driver, who had a well known history of substance abuse and multiple DUI’s. To him, addicts were losers who lacked self control.
Control was something Chris felt like he had little of, so he exercised what little he had by staying away from substances, even including his prescribed medication; like the anxiety pills which he had been put on since he was twelve.
Chris spent half his day at school thinking about his future. Future house, future wife, future kids. He had many images of what these things would look like, always changing and yet always staying within a similar framework; well paying career, nice house, maybe by a lake, trophy wife, 3 kids, all boys. At the very least two boys, as long as that’s the case I don’t mind one daughter. If he did have a daughter who knew one thing for sure. I’m raising them to be far more responsible than Liah.
Speaking of which, he passed her in the hallway in between 3rd and 4th period. As per usual they ignored each other at school, not out of malice but more out of mutual respect. Last thing Chris wanted was for a fight with her to become the talk of the school, plus what teenage boy wanted to be seen hanging with his younger sister? None he knew anyway.
Observing from a distance, Chris initially saw nothing out of the ordinary. Liah was goofing around, talking Anna’s ear off about something that she didn’t seem particularly interested in; probably anime. Chris could relate to Anna's apparent boredom, and yet he also couldn’t help but to think. Why be her friend if you don’t even enjoy talking to her? I mean, she’s my sis, I have no choice but to put up with her, but what's your excuse?
Off Liah's left, Chris noticed a boy, about her age, with thin circular rimmed glasses, shaggy dirty blonde hair that swooped over his face from the left to the right, and a black hoodie. They were staring at Liah’s direction from a distance. Was he the creep from earlier?....... No way it’s them. The boy’s hoodie was a regular zip up, the man Chris saw earlier was wearing more of a robe than anything; they were also too short to be the hooded man.
Another boy joined the kid with the glasses. They were slightly taller, wore a black beanie hat and a jean jacket with patches sewn into it; mostly Nu metal bands like Slipknot, Korn, and Limp Bizkit, Nu metal was Chris’s least favorite genre of music. The boy in the patchy jean jacket wrapped his right arm around the one with the glasses, put him in a head lock, and gave him a playful noogie.
Typical kid behavior, nothing to see here. By the time he looked back in Liah’s direction, she and Anna were already heading to their next class. The boy with the glasses and his friend started heading in the opposite direction.
On the way to the store after school, Chris couldn’t help but constantly look over his shoulder, looking for the hooded man from before. A few times Chris almost thought he saw them, but it always turned out to be some other hooded individual, or nothing. Nothing was worse because it made him feel like he was hallucinating, also, every time it turned out to be nothing, were the times he was the most sure that he saw them. They’d be standing there one moment, staring at him as if peering through his soul, then the next moment, gone. He saw them across the street, in reflections, standing in crowds, on rooftops; it felt like anyone and everyone was the hooded creep.
By the time he arrived at the store, Chris wanted nothing more than to get in and out. He hated that greasy old man of a store clerk, who watched him like a hawk, and was never nice at check out.
Chris grabbed what he needed and was looking at snacks; he’d planned to stay at home that night and watch highlight reels of the recent NHL game. That’s when he looked up and came face to face with the hooded man again, staring at him from the next aisle over, with their twisted grin, and black liquid flowing from their sharp jagged teeth. Their hood hung low, so even at this close distance Chris couldn’t see the upper half of their face. All day Chris thought of what to do if they did encounter this man, about how he’d cuss them out or give them a right hook to the face, but in this moment, face to face, Chris couldn’t bring himself to do much but swallow the lump in his throat, and anticipate god only knew what.
The hooded man was as still as a picture, more still actually; at least a photo flapped in the wind or could be moved around. Slowly reaching out with a shaky hand, Chris attempted to grab hold of his hood and pull it down. Worse case scenario, if it seemed like the hooded man was about to do anything, he’d just feign ignorance and claim he was reaching for the bag of pretzels in front of him. His hand got close when the man snarled, raised the left side of his upper lip, further exposing his decaying teeth, and his face began to twitch.
Chris tried to quickly pull his hand back, but the hooded man grabbed his wrist with an iron grip, crushing it, digging into Chris's skin with his finger nails; it felt like his wrist could snap in half at any moment. A burning sensation gradually built up in his wrist, the same sensation he had felt a week ago when he touched the black substance. Looking closer at the man's hand, there was remnant of that same ooze underneath their fingernails.
Out of desperation, Chris swung his basket full of eggs, butter and bread at the man's head, sending splatters of egg yolk and shell all over the place. It worked, the man let go and fell to the ground, out of Chris’s site. He checked his wrist for burns, but there were none, just like the last time he came into contact with the goo. What substance burns without leaving marks? He rushed over to the next aisle to get a better look at the man, but was both disappointed and flabbergasted to see they had vanished. No one was there, just a scattered pile of broken egg shells.
The store clerk was pissed, and immediately got up then started cussing Chris out, demanding he clean up the mess and pay for the ruined merchandise. The old geezer was insulting him with everything he could think of under the sun; a bone head buffoon, a dim witted hooligan, mindless brat, little shit, even called him retarded at some point. Chris tried to explain himself, but according to the clerk, no one was in the store but them. Of course, Chris paid for the now wrecked merchandise, then grabbed what was still good, which was only the bread, and when the clerk wasn’t looking, ran off without helping clean up.
On the way home, he kept looking at his wrist, thinking about the burning sensation. No way this is not connected to the crash. News reports of the night claimed it as a regular homicide, but it was anything but. Since when do homicides happen here? And why did they not report on the black goo? Chris figured it would have been the talk of the town, but no one seemed to care. He would have been inclined to say he was just overthinking everything, if not for what just happened.
Definitely going to bring this up to mom and Liah when I get home, we might be in danger. But because of circumstances Chris couldn’t predict, he never got to tell them until it was too late.
