I Know Where the Dead Ones Go

4

I hear her before I see her. It could only be her voice hurtling over the front desk as she demands to speak with me. I'm in my office taking what should be the last report of my shift from someone who witnessed an apparent case of self-immolation, so I don't react right away. Marty does, though.

"Again? Really?" he says under his breath as he stomps down the hallway, shooting a passing glance in my direction.

After a few more minutes of notes, I'm free to take Penny into my office, not that I particularly want to do so. Frequent flyers are like rust on a police department.

Marty escorts a red-faced Penny into the chair across from my desk. The marks on her neck appear more severe than before, and she's favoring her left leg. She holds her right arm against her chest as if it's cramped. The rest of her looks like she's been towed behind a garbage truck all night.

"You want help with this one?" Marty says to me, exasperated.

"I'll be fine," I say and type a few strokes on my keyboard. After Marty leaves, I lean in and say to Penny, "You're not talking your way out of medical treatment this time."

It takes her a minute to gather enough steam to talk once again, but when she does she says, "You gotta kill it."

"Are we talking tentacles again? Penny, I went out to bakery and checked it out for myself," I say.

"You did?" Penny says. She sounds surprised, as if this is the first time someone took her seriously. "So you seen it, too."

"No, I didn't see anything other than the rubble from that bakery and a dented door that couldn't open if it wanted to," I say and pull a pamphlet out from a drawer. "Look, the city offers several excellent treatment centers that can..."

"You didn't go after dark, did you?" Penny says, interrupting me.

I lay the pamphlet in front of her. "No, I went at dusk."

"It only comes out when the moon is up. He does. Or it does. Still dunno," Penny says. "But I know this much. It tried to get me again last night. Happened the same way. Guy comes up with a loose face. I take him back for a date. There's a flash, and next thing I know I'm bein' dragged by the neck by some cord thing, a tentacle."

I raise an eyebrow. "This man with the loose face, didn't you recognize him from before? Why did you agree to go on a, as you call it, date? It doesn't make sense to make the same mistake twice like that."

"You tryin' to blame me for what happened? Or sayin' that I was askin' for it? He done the same thing to me. That's what matters," Penny says.

"No, it matters because I think you need help, and this is a big reason why," I say.

"I thought you said it ain't your job to pass no judgment."

"It's not, but come on, Penny. You and I both know what's going on here," I say. "The good news is we can get you help. In years past, your behavior would've meant jail time, but fortunately those days are gone."

Penny grabs at her stomach with her good hand and shakes her head. "No, no, no. I ain't goin' nowhere with you."

I pull a bottle of water from my desk. "Do you need something to drink?"

Penny slaps it away and says, "I need you to listen. It got me through the door this time. I seen all the bodies, I seen where the dead ones go. But I seen something else, too. It's a big hole in the corner of the room. That's where them cords, them tentacles, come outta. There were lots of 'em, too."