Better Off Dead

Chapter Nineteen: Say It's For Science

I stayed in my hiding place, breathing as quietly as possible, for a long time. In the dark. My heart felt like it was going to explode. It probably did. I emerged from my hiding place and listened. Still nothing. I snuck out of the house, looking in all directions in panic, and made it back to the truck.

"Was it him?" Liam asked.

I wasn't sure how to answer that. Maybe? "I... don't know."

When he started walking towards the house I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back, but you can imagine how much impact that had. Literally none. It was like a mouse trying to pull a cat back by the tail. It tries and tries, but ultimately it just gets dragged along. Into the dark. With a killer.

"Just check the tracker." Liam said.

Okay, yes, that was a very reasonable thing to do. But it was still terrifying. I brought out the tracker and we looked at it. Nothing. The house was... safe. The word felt wrong. That place would never be safe again. Not to me.

Still, following him inside was less terrifying than being left by myself. He paused for a moment at the front door, listening, then turned on his flashlight and we looked around. I found what I'd knocked over. A statuette of a bird, still lying on the floor. Such a small thing to have set off the hunt.

We turned the corner and moved into the room with the light. The backdoor was connected to the dining room, which was left slightly ajar. It looked mostly normal. There was a little slime at the door. A chair had been knocked over, but chairs do get knocked over sometimes. I let out a deep breath and was prepared to accept that things were okay.

Liam righted the chair and waved me over. On the table, on the way to the door, there were scratches. I walked over and examined them. "Claws?" I asked in a small voice. I was really hoping there wasn't some darkness monster, but I couldn't rule it out. Especially if there were claw marks.

"Not claws." Liam's voice sounded off. It wasn't jovial at all. It was serious, and oddly studious. He grabbed my gloved hand and spread the fingers out on the table. It matched, for someone with a larger hand.

With a suddenness that might have given a non-immortal person a fatal heart attack, he put a hand on my mouth and started to drag me away towards the night. Instinctively, I dug my hand in to try to grab the table, struggled a bit, and kicked over the chair. He let me go, and looked over the scene with me. A perfect recreation.

We looked at each other with apprehension. Someone had dragged the occupant out of the house.

Liam ran a gloved hand over the side of the door frame and nearby wall. "No scratching here."

We took a sample of the slime at the door.

"That's probably not from the person staying here." I pointed out. If two crime scenes have slime at the door, and you know the killer dragged the bodies outside, chances are the slime came from the killer and not the victims. Just saying. So if he was trying to get a sample of whoever had been there, he would need something else.

"That makes sense. So we should look for... what? Gloves and socks?"

"Yeah..." It sounded weird. We searched the house and found the occupant's clothes. No gloves. We searched the laundry and found some seriously gross socks. They looked like my socks. All crunchy and stained from dried fluid.

He put the sock in a sandwich bag and zipped it closed slowly and carefully.

Dude. Seriously. It's a sock. It's not going to break, spill, or escape.

So that was what happened. We stole a dirty sock from a dead guy. To give to our resident scientist to do whatever scientists do with stolen socks. Probably eat them and say it's for science.

There's nothing like a strange event such as sock stealing for science to make you forget to be afraid. Everything feels less real. A curtain could suddenly pull back from the sky to show a golden retriever pressing random buttons and orchestrating this madness. Honestly, I'd believe it.

We got back in the car and tried to call Devon. It didn't go as expected.

It took a few rings for him to pick up, and when he did, there were crashing sounds in the background. He tried to cover the mic, but only slightly muffled the words. "Damn it, not again..." Something started beeping. Then he spoke to us. "Work is for work hours." He hung up.

"Huh. Feel like checking out another one?" Liam's lack of exuberance made it clear that he didn't want to go anywhere else. But sounding like a chicken probably wasn't his style.

I gave him a look. "What do you think?"

He took the tracker from me and looked at it. There was a faint dot on the edge of the screen. A moment later it vanished. He looked at me and I shook my head. I must have looked terrible, because he drove us home without further discussion.

When we made it back I looked around the house. Shadows. So many shadows. There were open doors leading into wells of darkness. Someone could be hiding there and I wouldn't even know. Hiding out. Waiting. Lurking. Someone could be lurking.

I started closing all the doors so the shadows and whoever might be in them couldn't watch me. Liam's door was slightly ajar. I grabbed the handle to close it, and I heard him chuckling behind me.

"You can't sleep in my room just because you're scared."

"I wasn't trying to." I said in a petulant voice. I always got a little embarrassed when people teased me about being childlike.

"Besides, I'm headed out in a few minutes."

At 10:30 at night? "You never sleep, do you?"

"Places to go, people to see." He shook me in what I had learned was meant to be a friendly way.

"That's so annoying." I shared my views on the matter, just in case he was actually listening to me that day. I wasn't big or strong enough to wrestle away, so words were the only defense I had. Unfortunately, just like every other complaint, my defense was about as useful as a paper helmet. It exists, and it is visible, but it is absolutely pointless and I don't know why I even try.

I was shaken for a few more seconds, but eventually I was able to continue my important work of shutting all doors, then closing all blinds, then turning all the lights on. Especially if I was going to be there all by myself, there would be no darkness getting in. None.

Five minutes later, when I was turning on all the lamps, Liam emerged looking all dressed up like he had somewhere to go. He saw me and suppressed a laugh. "Afraid of the dark? Haven't grown out of that one yet?"

"Are you not?"

"Hmm... It's been... twenty or so years since I was afraid of the dark. But everyone's different." With these very considerate parting words, he disappeared outside. Which was probably full of shadows. Which would gobble him up, and it would serve him right.

He miraculously survived.