Embrace This Silence

Chapter 3: Piercer, Texas

1

"You okay?" I asked Chelsea as she drove to the address.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about my dad." Chelsea responded, looking cold and despondent.

2

Change and heading toward a potential unknown have led me to choose everything safe. It was always the safest and easiest choices. That was what I had to pick, except right now apparently. Apparently, I've decided it's a good idea to step out of my comfort zone.

We got to the address and it was merely a large warehouse. It was nothing of real importance, just as in Grater. A few vehicles were parked nearby, that was suspicious I suppose. The sun was starting to go down.

"What's the game plan here?" Chelsea asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know." I'm just trying to pretend I wasn't having a panic attack. I'm sure Chelsea could tell. She could always tell.

Two men walked out of the warehouse, both smoking cigarettes. Neither of them looked familiar. We ducked lower in our car seats, trying to not be seen, but I'm sure it was futile. Suddenly, another man came out of the warehouse, and even from a distance, I could tell who it was. "That's the old man from the bar!" I exclaimed, trying to contain my excitement and worry.

"Are you sure?" Chelsea asked.

"Absolutely." I said. "It is him." I was just failing to understand exactly why he was in Piercer, near the border, and also in Townsend, centralized in the state. Did he need more than one base of operations for whatever this was? What was going on here? Drugs? Trafficking? Illicit abortions? The whole thing was just odd.

And then things turned to shit pretty quickly. The old man started to walk toward our vehicle. He had a smile on his face. A bright, big smile. "I won't hurt you." He yelled. "I just want to talk, Natasha." How does he know my name? How the hell does he know my name?

"Drive. Drive. Get us the hell out of here!" I exclaimed to Chelsea. The old man wasn't running toward us. He merely walked, slowly and menacing, like a slasher villain in an old horror flick. He was baiting me. He was baiting the both of us. But why? Was he bored? What was his reasoning? What was his goddamn game?

Chelsea started to gun it and drove as fast as she could. All I could hear was the old man laughing. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourselves into!" He yelled to anyone who would listen. Was it even for us? Was it all for himself and his own selfish pleasure?

As Chelsea started to pull away, two cars came in. One was an unmarked police vehicle, it was that same officer who had followed us here. The other was a normal police vehicle part of the Piercer PD. "How the hell did they know to come here?" Chelsea asked.

"I don't know." I said.

"Are you lying to me?" She said.

"No, I'm not. I promise. I told Jeffers to not send any help."

"Yeah, he clearly didn't listen. They're going to get themselves killed. Who knows what the hell those guys have!"

"Should we go back?" I asked. But it didn't matter, as we pulled into the street, we heard the gun shots. It was only two. And then, all we heard was the old man laughing in the distance.

We weren't dealing with a human being, we were dealing with a monstrosity who lived among us.

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