Black Box: Book Three

43 ~ The Infected Town (Part Six)

I woke up on the morning of the 17th to some texts from a number I didn't recognize with an Oregon area code. They came around 3:30 in the morning. I them for you.

I noticed, like you probably did, that the only capital letters spell out "I AM HE." This guy really likes his little riddles. It pissed me off, but it also scared me. The unknown number could very well belong to someone in the Infected Town. But if it's or , why are there no random misspellings or jumbled letters? Other than the sporadic capitalization, they seem pretty lucid.

I also got a text from a different number, one with a Chicago area code. I know Alan went to Chicago, but he never lived there. So it's probably not his phone. The delivery time on that was 6:27 AM, around three hours before I woke up. .

I rushed into Blake and Heather's room and showed them. Neither had received messages of any kind.

On the way into town we parked on the bridge to check out Blake's sighting of that hand. I noticed the silence again as soon as I stepped out of the car, like the bridge marked the edge of a bubble where the atmosphere completely shifted. Heather played ignorant, but I think she guessed we weren't telling her something. She doesn't read these accounts. She says they freak her out.

There was nothing on the railings of the bridge or anything hanging off - no tree branches or monsters. I jumped down beneath the bridge, followed by Blake, and found a dry creek. No one was there, but along the banks was an obvious camp of some kind - blankets and sleeping bags, a collapsed tent, and an empty fire pit. Someone had been here recently, evidenced by a few embers still glowing under the ashes. I wondered if it was the guy in the leather jacket and the girl.

I wanted to go to the high school first, since that's what the Chicago number said I should do. Heather did not. She kept saying how it was a trap, we'd be ambushed. She was adamant. I decided to heed her advice. I planned on visiting it the next day anyway; hopefully Heather would decide to stay back at the motel. To you she probably sounds like the voice of reason, but I wasn't thinking like that. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

We went to the apartment building again instead, since I hadn't explored it thoroughly last time. We jumped in through the window I'd opened after we'd put on respirators and I'd pulled my hair back (Heather and Blake both have short hair).

It was the same as before - oppressive, dark, horrible. Blake wanted to check out the basement first thing to see the creature's body. I was feeling brave (read: stupid) with him by my side (he's always had that effect on me) so I agreed. Heather was looking uneasy, staying away from walls and hugging herself. She seemed sure we were about to be attacked. But when nothing happened as we passed through the lobby she started to relax, and as we whispered to each other it started to feel more like a regular exploration. Knowing what I know now, I couldn't believe I'd gone in there alone last time.

The floors creaked and moaned above us as we moved towards the basement, probably just settling. I thought warily that those people we'd seen the night before could be in the building. The stairwell is probably my least favorite part of that building.

I pointed out the boilers once we were in that room, saying I'd seen the body behind them. I didn't want to look again - once was enough - but Blake eagerly squeezed himself into the space between the wall and the boilers and shone his flashlight back there.

"Where is it?" he asked after a moment.

"Like, right there," I said, confused as to how he was missing it. It was pretty conspicuous. "On top of the black pile of whatever."

Blake slid back out of the space, shaking his head. "There's nothing back there."

I ran to check. Sure enough, there was no body. The black pile seemed a bit bigger, but other than that the area was empty. Maybe it hadn't been dead. It sure looked dead, though - dead and mummified. I snapped a few pictures.