BASTARD
“I knew there was something wrong with her…I knew there was something strange about Cynthia.”
Jodie Lane wrestles with the sentence as she iterates it. The cocktail of medication she’s been given is doing more to her than just a bad job at dulling the immense pain she’s in. Her room is dim and quiet, much needed relief for her overloaded senses. She began her hospital stay in a coma that spanned several days. When she regained consciousness, she had all the time in the world to recall the nightmarish circumstances that led her to occupy room R90 at Tina Grey Memorial Hospital. Now, Jodie has a man in her room, and he’s been studying every word that spills from her swollen, mutilated lips. Detective Hakeem Benjamin.
Det. Benjamin has been briefed about the extraordinariness of the ordeal. He’s watched the gruesome account on CCTV recordings from five different perspectives. He’s puked through three of them. He’s had nearly two weeks to prepare himself for today: the questioning of the only survivor from that night – Jodie Lane.
The man adjusts himself in his chair. There’s only two people in the room, Jodie and Det. Benjamin. An assortment of high-ranking officers buzz just outside the closed door. Nobody involved is comfortable.
“Take your time, Ms. Lane.” Det. Benjamin says. “Tell me how things unfolded as best you remember it.”
The officer understands he’s in this for the long haul. A lot of people depend on him to place a finger on how something like this could’ve possibly happened. Everybody in the know has started attributing names to the incident, but none the detective cares to adopt.
Jodie seems to take the detective's words to heart. For a while, only the murmurs from the busy and confused police officers and medical professionals in the hallway held a deafening void at bay. Until–
“She was a friend…Cynthia Lee.” Jodie starts. “A work friend.”
Det. Benjamin had brought with him a small file, notebook, and a pen. He found himself relinquishing the poised handle he had on the items. With the regurgitation of events as bizarre as what Jodie Lane lived through, he figured he wouldn’t be doing much scribing in the first place; but luckily, he brought a voice recorder as well. He props up an elbow on the arm of the chair and makes himself as comfortable as a hopelessly antsy person can get.
“We never really saw each other outside of work, you know what I mean?” she poses. “But at work, given what we do, we’d often talk, and laugh, and share…and overshare.”
“And what is it that you do, Ms. Lane?” Det. Benjamin inquires.
“We—I’m a support worker for people with autism. I work in a treatment home.” It’s as if Jodie chokes on a few of the words as she speaks them.
“I see.” The detective nods. “Can you tell me more about Cynthia?”
The interview noticeably makes bed-bound Jodie increasingly uneasy as they delve deeper into the topic. Between this, the drugs, and everything that has happened, she’s little more than a turbulent ball of emotion.
“Cynthia was young but older than me. 27 years old I believe, and very beautiful.” Jodie groans onward. “You could never miss her if she were in a crowd. She had this long, jet black hair. It was like rivers of oil compared to her pale white skin and the soft rosy glow of her cheeks. She had a certain presence to her and was amazing with her clients. A ball of energy and someone truly built for compassion. She eased the rough days for everyone at the home; client or faculty, it didn’t matter, but—”
Jodie breaks off and the detective perks up. The sudden fall-off in discourse was an indication that whatever was coming next is what he was really here for. He doesn’t interrupt.
“I guess a few weeks ago I noticed she was different. In hindsight, she was acting completely out of the ordinary. She was seven months pregnant at the time. From our conversations, the circumstances maybe seemed a little…odd.”
“What made it odd to you?” Det. Benjamin probes.
“I-I guess the father. Her boyfriend.”
“Had Cynthia ever mentioned his name?”
“The name Jason was mentioned in a passing conversation. She never said his last name.”
“And have you ever met Jason?”
“I’ve only heard about him from her. At most she’s shown me a few pictures of them together, but I don’t think he has any social media or anything.”
“Okay. You started to say you noticed a change in Cynthia’s behaviour a few weeks ago, can you tell me more about that?”
“Cynthia is amazing at what she does— or did.” Jodie explains. “She was always a bright soul but some of us knew that outside of work she was a bit more…liberal and adventurous in terms of what she got up to. She went clubbing quite often, and she never really shied away from experimentation; with drugs notably. Cocaine, shrooms, acid, Percocet, molly, the list goes on. She’s even tripped on the venom from an Amazonian tree frog during a vacation in Louisiana. All that activity had led her to some…interesting characters.”
“You think her boyfriend Jason is a product of that activity, don’t you?” the detective asks, intrigued at the idea that this woman was two sides of the same coin.
“…I’ve had my suspicions.” Jodie sighs. “He’d been living with her for about a year, and when he first moved in, they weren’t even seeing each other yet. Cynthia never really went into too much detail, but it seemed like some things started to stack up against the guy, and being in the dire straits he was, he needed help; so, she offered him a place to stay. I thought he was just a squatter. I don’t even know how or where they met. But eventually, there she was— pregnant and in a relationship.”
The detective slightly sinks into his seat. This information, as facile as it may be, is enough to initiate some form of mental gymnastics. Although, he admits to himself that he doesn’t really know where to begin to try and piece together a case like this.
“What was it about her behaviour that alarmed you?” Det. Benjamin redirects, attempting to circle back to his original question.
Before she has a chance to appease the detective’s curiosity, Jodie winces in pain, and rests a very weak hand on her right hip that remained hidden under the covers. She closes her eyes awkwardly to better handle the shooting pain, but if she presses her eyes shut any tighter, she’d then have to combat intense pain from her grotesque facial injury as well. She protests a wail her body is fighting to let out.
Jodie’s sudden distress has the detective ready to launch into action.
“Are you alright, Ms. Lane?” Det. Benjamin asks calmly. A quality of an officer that knows how to control their own panic in instances just like this.
“Do you want me to call the nurse?”
“No…” Jodie croaks with discomfort. “The brunt of it will pass. Those fucking meds don’t do shit anyway.”
She reveals her glossy eyes first through small slits made by her eyelids, then gradually exposes them fully. She lets out a deep sigh followed by sputtered breaths. Like she had declared, the pain dispelled as quickly as it came.
“Cyn-Cynthia had a baby shower,” Jodie began, ignoring the wellness episode from just prior. “I guess it’s been a month and some change by now. It was only family— all on her side, none on Jason’s. She was so excited in the days leading up to it, beaming even. About it all. The party, her little girl to-be, her relationship. It was all she could talk about; she’d sneak it in almost every conversation we had. How thrilled she was for Jason to finally meet and be welcomed into her family, considering him not having any of his own around.”
Jodie furls her brow, implicative of puzzling thought.
“The week following the baby shower, she was the stark opposite, though.” Jodie pushes on. “She came to work Monday a husk of her usual self. That uncanny ability to electrify a room just by being in it was completely gone. She seemed so dejected, disassociated. Anxious and even paranoid. That Monday we had breaks that aligned so I struck-up conversation to hear about her weekend— how the festivities went. When I asked Cynthia about the baby shower…I remember how frantic she looked. She was stumbling on her words quite a bit. Her eyes looked lightless – completely bleak – and she couldn’t seem to maintain eye contact. An issue she’s never had before. When she could finally muster the words, she told me outright that she couldn’t remember.”
Det. Benjamin appears bewildered at the claim, but quickly becomes concerned due to what a spontaneous lapse of memory could suggest.
“Was consuming alcohol or drugs something Cynthia engaged in during her pregnancy, Ms. Lane?”
“Not a chance.” Jodie returns.
“What makes you so sure?”
Jodie scoffs. “If you got to see first-hand how much she cared about her baby you’d understand how stupid a question that is.”
“With all due respect Ms. Lane, there’s no stupid questions in a case like this. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on.”
For a moment there is silence.
“Cynthia stopped all her… recreational activities during the course of her pregnancy.” Jodie says coldly.
“Okay. Let’s talk more about what she told you during that conversation.” Det. Benjamin returns.
Jodie shot a look of displeasure at Det. Benjamin, but she continued her recount at his request.
“It’s like I said, Cynthia couldn’t remember her baby shower, which to anybody that knows her, is odd. She was obsessed with the mere idea of it before the date even came to pass. Hell, she could barely remember her weekend altogether. She couldn’t explain any finer details of the event, except this one occurrence.”
“What happened?” the detective asked eagerly, feeling like they may be getting somewhere after all.
“She spoke of a woman that came to the baby shower. Maybe crashed her baby shower is the more appropriate phrasing. She explained that this woman remarkably shared a lot of her features. The wavy black hair, pale white skin, dark eyes, and relatively the same build. Her face, however, was that of her own— unique and defined. The woman was stunning and held a certain elegance. She was taller and spoke a language Cynthia couldn’t identify. She seemed so transfixed on this woman’s speech, she looked just as puzzled as I did hearing all of this for the first time. From what I understand, the woman wasn’t around for all that long, but she seemed to know Jason enough to talk to him.”
“I’m assuming this had been Cynthia’s first time meeting the woman?” Det. Benjamin asks.
“Yes.”
“Did Cynthia tell you if Jason knew this woman prior and just never mentioned her?”
“She never explicitly said anything of the sort, but based on her demeanour when she told me about them, I think their familiarity was a shock to her. She just showed up and pulled Jason aside without acknowledging anybody else. Cynthia mentioned how angry the woman appeared and sounded as she spoke to Jason. The fact that Jason somehow seemed to understand the woman confused Cynthia further. She started to get more frantic as she told me all of this. It was already amazing that she snapped out of her manic state to spill the few things she remembered.”
“You mean to tell me she miraculously remembered all of this but not a thing else from the baby shower or the rest of her weekend, Ms. Lane?”
From her hospital bed, Jodie allows her eyes to fall resentfully on Det. Benjamin and she follows with a snide remark:
“She remembered how she got to the party you dick. Does that answer your stupid fucking question?”
The detective looks less phased by the jab than most people would permit. Everybody is under a lot of stress, and the only survivor of a freakish incident like this is surely no exception. He grazes past the comment.
“Is there anything else noteworthy from your conversation with Cynthia, Ms. Lane?”
“Yes…” Jodie starts, with a hint of disdain in her tone. “Cynthia was becoming more and more frantic as she spoke of the only memories she had of the party. She mentioned that when she saw Jason and the woman arguing, she wanted to make her way over to them and find out what was going on, but she was surrounded by family at the time, so it was hard for her to break off. She said it didn’t seem like anyone besides her and Jason even noticed the woman was present at all.”
The look of pure bewilderment Jodie once displayed returned in full force as she led the detective into what she considered to be the strangest thing Cynthia revealed to her.
“She…she said something weird at the end of it all. That amid the argument Jason and the woman were having, they both looked over at Cynthia. The woman locked eyes with her for a while from a distance and then mouthed something that she couldn’t understand. From that moment it was as if she blacked out. Everything from the party down to her weekend, she couldn’t remember any of it. When she told me this, it was as if she hit a wall. She regressed into a paranoid state completely. It was clear that she was uncomfortable and she started experiencing some sort of pain as well— probably from the stress and being seven months pregnant. She held her stomach and kind of…rushed away. That new habit of hers continued for about a week. Until…”
Jodie cut her thought short. The implications were clear, she was referring to that harrowing night. There’s something surreal about barely evading death, and Jodie has had nothing but time to think about it.
“What are you trying to say, Ms. Lane?” Det. Benjamin says facetiously. “That Cynthia was drugged? Bewitched by a mystery woman? Where do we go from here?”
The detective meant what he said quite literally. It’s felt like he’s been carrying the world on his back the last few weeks and even after all that’s been revealed he still feels no closer than before.
“What do you mean what am I trying to say, detective?” Jodie retorts. “I haven’t been trying to say anything other than what Cynthia has told me personally. You think me of all people finds something fucking funny about this? LOOK AT ME! My face is torn to shreds, detective. I don’t have a FUCKING LEG!”
Jodie writhes in pain from her eruption of anger and lets out a moan to match. Her hand flies to meet her face, barely a remedy for the pain she’s experiencing. Det. Benjamin, who has proven to continuously lose himself in the grim impossibility of this case, simmers down. He and nobody else with a badge, scrubs, lab coat, or a general pulse can begin to explain what happened at 45 Brockwood Rd all those weeks ago. It only makes sense to listen to the person that narrowly survived it.
The restrictiveness of the small chair the detective has been glued to thus far suddenly becomes very apparent to him. Enough for the man to free himself from his perceived prison, offloading the minuscule burden of the work materials he brought with him. Det. Benjamin is now pacing around the room with hands planted on his hips. His head locked to the floor as if searching for something – anything – to ground him. He finds nothing and continues his investigation.
“This is all very hard for me to grasp, Ms. Lane.” Det. Benjamin starts. “I apologize for my conduct, I’m just trying to put the pieces together, as abstract as they are. Please help me understand. I realize you’re the only person that can do that right now.”
Jodie watches the restless lawman as he strolls aimlessly around the room. Her vision distorted from the stifled tears that laminated her eyes. The subtle bodily tremble from the pain is enough to compel her voice to develop a tremble of its own.
“…Okay.” Jodie responds.
“After that conversation with Cynthia, the weird behaviour continued for a little while.” Jodie says. “You could see that she wasn’t well, and as the days went by, she’d look worse than the day before. It seems like an insane thought that someone as pale as her could look even more colourless, but she did. It felt like I was watching her slip, little by little; or watching her be subject to an invisible torment. There was a day within that stretch where I thought whatever hidden ordeal she was facing had triumphed over her. She looked incredibly sick and absentminded from most things happening around her. She’d regressed into this noiseless shell since the baby shower, so it was a shock to everyone the resounding scream she had let out before collapsing to the ground one day – unconscious and sweating profusely. The paramedics came, and claimed they found nothing out of the ordinary despite how she looked physically. Cynthia took a couple days off work and came right back into the thick of things, looking worse than she had previously. Frail, sickly, fatigued. It was like nobody cared. Everyone saw the state she was in, but it’s like they…we all chalked it down to her pregnancy. Another living organism growing inside of you might make you feel and do some strange things – but not this strange. Generally, our job detail requires us to be stuck to the clients. Conducting programs, recreation, personal well being, we oversee it all; but it wasn’t uncommon for staff to step away for some personal time. It gets hectic in treatment settings. We all need breathers here and there. I noticed Cynthia would disappear by herself far more often. There were a few instances I’d go through the building looking for her while I’d be on break. I just wanted to check up on her, I was so worried, but I could never find her. She wouldn’t be in any of the break areas. I even went as far as walking out to her car to check if she was there, but she never would be. The night of…the incident, I guess our game of cat and mouse came to an end.”
Det. Benjamin’s focus snaps from the floor he was once so fixated on to the bed-bound Jodie Lane. He’s seen the account of that night numerous times on the seized CCTV footage, but the catalyst to those events has escaped him and the few others with intimate details of the case – until now. It happened in one of the few areas in the treatment home without a camera. The detective’s anxious pacing yields for the information to come.
“The night of the incident I was working the late shift – 4pm to 12am – with a few others, including Cynthia.”
“Others being the two staff that were killed that night, correct?” Det. Benjamin probes.
“That’s right.” Jodie answers.
“After about 9pm – when most of the clients begin winding down and the last of the day staff clocks out – things around the treatment home become more docile. Manageable. Initially, I had no idea Cynthia was on shift. I hadn’t run into her the entire evening, not until after 11pm. That’s when I figured out her hiding spot completely by chance. I remember it all so vividly.”
Jodie gently closes her eyes and awkwardly swallows. The strain may have been from dry mouth, but she didn’t care to wet her palette in retaliation. She continues the retelling, sounding noticeably more unsettled than before. she spoke with a sense of stupefaction and urgency.
“It was late into my shift – around 11pm – so I was the only one remaining from the team I work with. They left at 9. At the end of the day, the person working the evening shift gathers up their client’s laundry and throws in a load so it’s ready the next day for the morning staff. I did just that. Collected my client’s dirty clothes in his basket and carried it down to the basement with me. I remember setting it aside to quickly use the washroom. The washroom is a closet-like space along the same wall the laundry room is located, only separated by the boiler room and some distance. I did my business, and as I opened the door to leave the restroom, I caught a glimpse of Cynthia heading into the laundry room. I thought nothing of it. Like I said, the evening staff is stuck with laundry duty, so I thought she was tending to that. I was so eager to check up on her, I quickly grabbed my client’s basket and made my way to the laundry room but…when I entered, she-she wasn’t there. I stood in the middle of the laundry room confused as to where she could have been. There’s so few of us staff after 9, I was sure I saw Cynthia walk into the laundry room. I was met with nothing except a couple of running washing machines and empty client baskets littered about. I paused for a moment, looking around the area for any hints. There’s only one other room accessible from inside the laundry room – the breaker room – so I followed my intuition and called out to her from outside the breaker room door.”
Det. Benjamin almost rushes back to his chair. The materials that’d been resting in the seat in his stead finds a new home on the ground; all but the voice recorder. The detective reclaims the chair and draws himself nearer to Jodie’s bed. He’s on the edge of his seat, in more ways than just figuratively. He can’t help but comment:
“And she responded to you?” Det. Benjamin asks eagerly. “She answered your call from inside the breaker room?”
“Yes…” Jodie confirms, her voice just a hint shakier at the tabling of the question. “Cynthia’s response was feeble, and it took a few tries…but she answered me.”
Jodie struggles to swallow the frog that seems to want to burst from her throat.
“I could barely hear her, even with my ear pressed against the door. She sounded so weak…and desperate. I asked a few times if she was okay and if she needed help with anything…she just kept telling me to go away. It was barely audible.”
“You ended up leaving?” the detective asks.
“Yes.” Jodie chokes.
“Distressed woman, seven months pregnant, locked away in the basement’s breaker room while on shift.” Lists the detective. “What made you leave?”
Jodie shakes her head as tears spill from her eyes.
“I don’t know.” She says softly. “I told myself pregnancy makes you do strange things. That’s what we all kept telling ourselves. There aren’t many chances to be by yourself in this line of work. Cynthia looked so sick, and I guess the breaker room was as secluded as it got. Nothing in there except four walls and electrical switches for the entire building. I was hesitant to leave but I chose to honour the space she asked for. I didn’t make it very far, though. I barely made it past the laundry room door when Cynthia let out th-this long bloodcurdling scream. The kind of sound that sends someone into a frenzy.”
Det. Benjamin exudes an air of dread and busy anticipation. He feels his body rippling like the surface of disturbed water. Whatever happened to Cynthia while locked away in that breaker room is the genesis to the horrific incident that has eluded him for weeks. The detective’s attention is undivided. He hangs on to every word the traumatized woman speaks.
“When I heard Cynthia scream, I rushed back into the laundry room. I was yelling her name frantically trying to figure out what had happened, I thought maybe something had gone horribly wrong with her. I remember I had almost slipped running back in because the floor near the breaker room was suddenly soaked. I couldn’t understand it, the floor was arid – completely dry – before my brief exit. I realized all this…this liquid had flowed out from inside the breaker room, through the opening at the foot of the locked door.”
“I thought you said that room is always empty?” the detective interjects. “Nothing except four walls and a fuse box that controls the building's power. So where could the liquid have come from?”
“And that’s still true, detective.” Jodie says. “I’ve been in that room more times than I can count. I couldn’t make any sense of it either. Cynthia was only seven months along. Sure, she was close to popping, but her water breaking now…so early…that-that just doesn’t happen…”
“But it did…?” the detective asks quietly.
“Yes, it did.” Jodie responds.
The lawman exhales sharply as he slumps into his chair— a signal of astonishment and disbelief. If his dark skin could permit it, the colours that signaled his vitality would evaporate into the cloud of nightmarish tension that filled the hospital room. The debilitated victim presented the final pieces to the impossible jigsaw puzzle he’s been trying to solve. Det. Hakeem Benjamin finally understands what happened to Cynthia that night in the breaker room, but he needs to hear the rest from panic-stricken Jodie Lane. The Detective sits in a stunned silence and allows the woman to spew the events from that night.
“I banged on the door asking if she was okay, but Cynthia would just yell back telling me to go away. She’d repeat it over and over again, screaming and crying hysterically. I didn’t know what to do but I couldn’t just leave her like that again. The urgency I felt kept rising. I wanted to respect Cynthia’s privacy and give her space but instead I found myself fumbling around with my work keys trying to unlock the breaker room door. I found the key, plunged it into the lock, and tried throwing open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was like some insane force was holding it shut.”
Jodie is choked by a flurry of emotion. “That’s when the nightmare really started.” she cries.
“I’m jimmying the doorknob, using every ounce of strength in my body to try and open the door but nothing worked. Eventually…eventually Cynthia’s desperate cries turned into these long grisly moans. That’s when I noticed the liquid creeping out from inside the breaker room transition from transparent to a thicker, red fluid. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was standing in a pool of Cynthia’s blood. That’s when the moans stopped, and she was noiseless. I-I um… I remember screaming as I stumbled backward, away from the breaker room door. After all the effort I put into trying to force the thing open it felt like some sort of sick joke when the door somehow creaked ajar from my stumbling. I was terrified. I couldn’t fathom what was happening. It took me a second to regain the courage to try and approach the door again. Other than the sound of the building setting around me, there was only an eerie silence, and then this strange skittering. I found my voice and called out to Cynthia, but to no avail. I inched towards the door despite my body protesting the action. From the slightness of the door, I could tell Cynthia was in darkness, but the residual light from the laundry room was enough to illuminate the tiny area the opened door revealed. I’d probably only taken a step or two before…before something the size of a small dog scurried in and out of the light. It passed too quickly for me to identify any specific features, but that’s what led me to notice another small detail barely visible with the limited light and the breaker room door still hiding the vast majority of the space – Cynthia’s blood-bathed foot peeking out from behind the door. From the position the foot rested, I could tell that Cynthia was laid on her back, completely still; but it wasn’t long before that stillness was broken and her foot began to shake violently, producing a faint tapping sound on the door, before disappearing out of sight. That…that’s when ‘it’ started making use of its voice. The cries of a baby replaced the silence with a high-pitched shrillness. I didn’t know what to think of it, I was in shock, but those shrill cries began to bend into something else. It swung from the innocence of a newborn to the deep vocalizations of something terrible, and back again. It was like listening to the exasperated bleating of a goat, and it almost masked the tottering that ensued in the breaker room outside my vision. Hearing that, all the warmth in my body flushed away and was replaced by heaviness and a chill. I tried calling out to Cynthia one last time, but my voice broke from the fear, it came out in pathetic pieces. It didn’t matter though. I never got the familiar response I was hoping for. Something was seriously wrong. I tried to wrap my head around Cynthia having a very premature birth, but nothing was making any sense. Not knowing what else to do, I bolted out of the laundry room yelling for one of the few people that was scheduled that night to help. One of my coworkers was nearby and rushed down the basement stairs to meet me.”
“Daryl Fletcher.” Det. Benjamin iterates under his breath, breaking an enthralled silence.
“Daryl saw my tear-soaked face and immediately questioned the commotion. I frantically explained what had happened in the laundry room and quickly escorted him there so we could offer Cynthia more help than I was able to provide on my own. It was clear Daryl didn’t fully grasp what I had told him. After all, how could he when I wasn’t able to myself.”
Before continuing, Jodie paused for a minute looking horrified. Her face made it blatantly clear that her mind wrestled with things far beyond the understanding of the average person. The detective waited in silence for the woman to find her baring’s.
“Daryl and I rushed to the laundry room. When we stepped through the doorway, Cynthia was no longer in the place where she once desperately confined herself. Rather, she now stood just outside the breaker room door. B-but what stood there could hardly be identified as the woman we knew. She…it stood with pants dropped around its ankles like fabric shackles. The button-down shirt Cynthia had been wearing was torn down the middle, tattered, and bloody, barely hanging on by the shoulders. The body that had once belonged to Cynthia was exposed and painted red from blood. It stood awkwardly with feet angled slightly inward, and the hijacked body would passively twitch as it idled. This thing, whatever it could be called, had attached itself to Cynthia. It was about the size of a small dog, but it certainly didn’t resemble one. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Like a sick creature spawned from Hell itself. It had four spider-like legs that it used to fasten itself to Cynthia’s chest by threading them under her skin. Two of which were embedded in Cynthia’s shoulders ending at her upper back area, while the creature's remaining legs burrowed into the skin that wrapped her lower rib cage. Its body was slender, fleshy in composition and colour, and sort of insect-like. Its torso rested between Cynthia’s breasts and the umbilical cord remained attached at the tail-end of its body, feeding out from the womb. Cynthia’s head had been…forced back, leaving her face to stare at the ceiling to make room for the creature’s large head which sat just ahead of her chin. It was like a grotesque caricature of a newborn…a hellish human-parasite hybrid. A tube-like organ trailed from the back of the creature’s head down into Cynthia’s mouth, while these small tendrils invaded her nostrils. A sight such as that is something I couldn’t dream up even if I wanted to.”
The detective reintroduces his voice into the cryptic atmosphere that seemed to smother both occupants of the room. “So, you’re saying Cynthia’s mutated, unborn child forced its birth and hijacked her body?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen the security footage of the murders,” Jodie starts. “You saw that thing but needed me for- “
“-an explanation.” Det. Benjamin says, finishing the feeble woman’s sentence.
The man is in no position to deny what they both surely saw, not that he would. As a career lawman, the detective’s days are no stranger to excitement and unusual happenings, but the tragedy that befell the victims of that night strikes the ‘very human’ Hakeem Benjamin as hauntingly enigmatic.
“For the record Ms. Lane, are you confirming what you encountered the night of the murders was inhuman?” Det. Benjamin postulates.
“Whatever humanity Cynthia possessed was stolen by that…thing. She’s gone. I couldn’t understand it then, but she was gone the moment she locked herself away in that damned room. She felt something sinister at work inside her and was forced to live with it. Tortured by it. Only the creature remains.”
“And frankly, I have no clue where to start looking for this thing.” The detective grumbles nervously. “It goes on an indiscriminate murder spree and isn’t physically seen again since. It’s just been leaving a scattered trail of bodies all over the city and then disappears without a trace. Everybody expects the police to have the answers but…I’m not sure how to conduct a manhunt on something that’s hardly ‘man’ at all.”
Faced with the impossible, Det. Benjamin develops the demeanour of someone cursed to look over their shoulder for the rest of their life; tormented by the ambiguity of the uncertain and things perhaps man was never meant to understand. He’s unable to ignore the sensation of his hairs rising and the scurrying of imaginary bugs across his skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
As the detective battles to regain composure, he prompts Jodie to continue once more. She obeys. The helpless woman feeling a bit more connected to the man she now realizes is just as helpless as her.
“I recall Daryl’s confusion and fear very clearly.” Jodie begins with some dejection in her voice.
“’My God!’” Daryl had shouted at the sight of what Cynthia had become. “’Is this a sick prank? What the hell kind of costume are you wearing, Cynthia? You’re naked!’”.
“Daryl turned to me after that. He glanced nervously between the creature and I, scanning for answers I didn’t have.” Says Jodie. “I could tell he wanted assurance that all of this was a joke, so that he could at least start to understand what he was seeing. I didn’t have that sort of comfort to offer him. My eyes were locked on the creature as it began to clumsily totter toward us. It took short, shuffling steps; its movement restricted by the pants that stacked around its ankles. It seemed to struggle with its new body, just like a toddler learning to walk. The shoes Cynthia had worn produced a light squeaking against the floor before being overpowered by that horrible bleating and infantile sobbing. The creature's face twisted as it exclaimed, but there were never any tears despite its weeping – at least not from its own massive black eyes. Cynthia’s lifeless head would bob with every step, her long black hair would sway with the movement, a-and her eyes would shed tears instead of the creature. The display stunned Daryl into silence, but he continued to scan me for answers as the creature slowly closed the distance between us. Daryl began to study the creature that had claimed Cynthia’s body as it approached us. ‘Jodie what is that thing?’ he asked me quietly before yelling: ‘WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING, JODIE!?’”
Jodie begins to feel a well of emotion within herself once more, her voice harbouring a slight quiver as she speaks.
“Suddenly,” Jodie pushes on, “it stops walking and falls mute, seemingly at the sound of Daryl’s outburst. It stared at us with its large black eyes, it was like the gaze of a fly; curious and primal. A muffled popping began to replace the deafening silence. In my peripheral vision, I could see Daryl staring at me scared and confused; b-but just as suddenly…Daryl’s gaze broke…”
Jodie shakes her head at the recollection.
“…then the integrity of his body followed shortly after, slumping to the floor like a bag of bricks. The space in which his head occupied quickly became bereft of it. I felt a cascading warmth on my left side, where Daryl had been standing. At the time, I hadn’t given it enough thought to realize the feeling was his blood trailing down my arm. In-instead I stood and watched, enthralled and frozen with fear. Through a weird process, the creature…elongated Cynthia’s right arm to unnatural lengths and warped her hand and nails to emulate something more bestial. It was as if bone and skin would immediately adjust to the arm’s new proportions, never breaking or tearing despite sounding like they were. I don’t know any human bodies capable of doing something like that. I watched as Cynthia’s arm retracted past me, viciously gripping the head it tore from Daryl’s body. Th-the um…expression Daryl’s decapitated head had as it was pulled past me struck me to my core. Locking with his lightless eyes initiated the flight response that had been repressed with fear up until that moment…”
Jodie squeezes her eyes shut as she permits a grimace to wash over her countenance. Det. Benjamin watches the woman, suddenly aware and deeply engrossed with the bandaging adorning her face. The man promptly averts his eyes and offers a grimace of his own. What he’s heard from Jodie thus far coupled with his newfound hyperawareness of the woman’s injuries slam him like ice water from a pail. This strange reality the pair have been subject to is a challenging pill to swallow. The world they thought knew has been permanently flipped upside-down. The tragic duo forced to accept terrors they’d at one time only acknowledge in sheltered comfort as elaborate displays by big screen masters of horror, nothing that was a tangible and legitimate threat to their lives. They arrive at the understanding that they’re cursed with knowing, while the rest galavant amongst themselves blissfully ignorant to the fact that their small, scary world is far scarier than anything they could’ve imagined.
“I believe this is where I began following your ordeal from the seized CCTV footage.” Det. Benjamin announces flatly.
“You’re seen fleeing from something that at first remained outside the parameters of the single camera in the area. After a few seconds, the footage then shows you being struck forcefully in the back of the head with an object that was thrown from outside the camera’s visual range. Your medical report mentions that you sustained a mild concussion, is this when it happened?”
“Yes.” Jodie responds.
“Can you identify the object that struck you?” the detective asks.
“…it was Daryl’s head.” The woman returns grimly. Det. Benjamin nods silently as he receives the woman’s response. A detail like this sounds more par for course than sick and outlandish.
“When I was finally able to react to Daryl dying right next to me, it all came out at once. I remember screaming the loudest I ever have before turning and sprinting across the room. I didn’t realize but I had dropped my keys in the process. That…thing began its horrible sobbing again. The racket it made flooded my ears to the point where I could barely hear myself at all. I almost reached the doorway on the other side of the room when it…threw Daryl’s head, striking me in the back of mine. I collapsed from the impact and blacked out for a few seconds at most. I came too and pulled myself to my feet to continue my escape – my head reeling from pressure. Just as I stumbled through the doorway desperately trying to reach the basement stairs, I felt something tear through my jeans and slice into my left calf. The feeling first came as a bizarre heat, and then it quickly turned into excruciating pain. I’m guessing it made use of the same trick it killed Daryl with, but I didn’t turn back to find out. I cried out again from the pain, while one of the nonverbal clients in his bedroom nearby got riled up because of the commotion.”
“I’m assuming this wasn’t where you lost your leg, correct?” Detective Benjamin interjects.
Jodie looks at the detective with solemn eyes and shakes her head in response.
“I…I should’ve left sooner,” Jodie says regretfully. “I know how that sounds, but I should have run right out of the building the moment Daryl was killed. Instead…”
Jodie begins to cry inconsolably.
“Instead, I hobbled my way to the top level of the building, the gash in my leg leaving a trail that was impossible to miss.”
The detective swallows uncomfortably.
“Almost all the clients at the treatment home are nonverbal and have the tendency to get excited when they hear loud noises or commotion. All the activity certainly had a few of them riled up. At first, I couldn’t tell if the creature was slow in chase as it continued to adjust to its new body, or if it stopped to investigate the noise the only client that resides in the basement was making. As I approached the top of the basement stairs…it was a bone-chilling scream that gave me my answer.”
“The second victim,” Det. Benjamin mouths under his breath, completely inaudible to Jodie. “Talha Gill.”
“That poor man’s scream stopped me in my tracks,” Jodie says beneath a waterfall of tears. “I turned, looking down the stairwell wanting to leap to his aid but…but what could I have done against that thing. I wasn’t in any shape for heroics. I just stood there and listened to an array of grisly screams as Talha was torn limb from limb. Until the screams stopped and there was silence. Then silence was replaced by shuffling and the squeaking of sneakers. T-then I saw it creep around the corner, approaching the basement stairs, and the weeping began again. I fled at the sight of it, trying to keep quiet.”
“Is there a reason you decided to keep quiet? It didn’t seem like it mattered to you before.” The detective quizzes the woman.
“It seemed like that thing was attracted to loud noises. I think it killed Daryl instead of me because of his yelling. Same with Talha.”
Det. Benjamin nods as if stumbling upon something revelatory. He adjusts himself in his seat and rubs the stress from his eyes.
“So, if I’m understanding you correctly Ms. Lane, the creature has a primitive – almost primal – hunting prerequisite by responding violently, and in many cases lethally, to loud noises?”
“Yes, detective. It seemed that way…but it also acted in a way that I can’t confidently explain.” Jodie answers.
Det. Benjamin examines the woman inquisitively. “Please elaborate for me.”
“As the creature began its ascent to the main floor, I had the idea to work my way up to the top floor, lock myself in the staff office, and call the police; I was only slowed down by my wound. Like I said detective, I-I should’ve just left when I had the opportunity, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving these clients behind. I had to help somehow. It’s crying echoed through the building but as I dragged myself to the second level, I started to hear something else. At the top of the stairs is one of several client washrooms within the facility, and at the time my only remaining co-worker was holed up in there helping her client with his nightly hygiene routine…”
“Victims five and six, Suzzy Mensah and Misha Dykeman... Jesus.” Det. Benjamin says to himself softly.
“Suzzy was notorious for having earphones in for most of her shift, either on the phone with family and friends back in Ghana or listening to music. I don’t think that night was any different. At first, I tried to unlock the bathroom door, but I quickly realized I had lost my keys somewhere along the way. My intent was to stay as quiet as possible, but I was desperate to get Suzzy’s attention, so I started to bang on the door and pleaded that she let me in. The only response I received was the hiss of a showerhead and falling water beating against the tub. I decided to give up because I could hear the creatures weeping and bleating get louder; it was closing in on the main level. I ran as best I could to the end of the hallway and locked myself in the office. Inside, there’s a large desk where a central monitor displays all the cameras in the facility – hallways, gathering hubs, and client bedrooms. As soon as I found myself in front of the monitor, I saw the creature had reached the main floor. It was walking away from the two client bedrooms that were in its immediate area. A large part of me was shocked but relieved to see the rooms undisturbed. It told me that the clients inside were quiet enough to avoid grabbing that things attention – not that they could have possibly known. But as the creature made its way through the area, I noticed something else about it...it was following the trail of blood the gash on my calf had left behind.”
“Following blood trails, an attraction to sound…everything about this thing comes across as extremely animalistic,” Det. Benjamin says, playing around with the idea. “Like a wild beast with an insatiable hunger.”
“That’s just it though, detective…” Jodie fires back ominously. “As I was holed up in the office, I rummaged through my backpack that I always keep stowed there to find my cellphone. At first, I thought about calling Suzzy, but she rarely picked up calls from coworkers, especially while she was at work. Gives you an idea of how loose and forgiving this work environment was; but I also figured the police could offer more help in this situation than just her and I – two care workers against a monster. I tried that once already. I frantically dialled 911 and was quickly connected to an operator. I began to explain to the woman on the phone what had been going on – despite how insane it all sounded – making sure to keep my voice as low as possible. I could tell the operator thought I was crazy, or at the very least on drugs as I explained the nature of the situation; but people were dying and that’s all that should have mattered. All throughout the call, my attention never broke from the security monitor. I watched the creature follow my blood trail all the way to the base of the staircase that led to the second floor, where I was, along with two clients and Suzzy; separated by one means or another. But then… but then the creature just stopped moving – cold in its tracks – and that unbearable crying stopped too. I watched it just…stand there, motionless. The way that camera was positioned, you’re able to capture someone approaching the stairs from off to the side, and then their back as they walk upstairs. That’s essentially how it positioned itself – standing at the foot of the stairs with its back to the camera. The operator continued to bombarde me with questions, but watching the creature follow the trail of blood I left behind and then park at the foot of the stairs, I went mute. I was terrified thinking it might hear me or the little buzz of the voice on my phone and slaughter me like it did Daryl and Talha. I whispered to the operator to please hurry before hanging up. I watched, and watched, and watched as it just stood there. From the camera feed, I could make out what appeared to be Cynthia’s displaced head showing more activity, shaking a bit more violently than before. it was like the creature…I don’t know…wanted something from Cynthia’s body. Something more; and then suddenly, movement. It turned away from the stairs and started to retrace its steps as if it had forgotten something…or remembered. I thought it was making its way back towards the basement stairs b-but I was wrong…”
Jodie takes a weak hand and rubs her forehead. Her expression is a cocktail of disgust and disbelief. This interview, as necessary as it is, has squeezed both Jodie and the detective for all that they have, but the circumstances of that night just continue to get grislier as the woman forces on.
“The pace in which it walked picked up dramatically, the sobbing began again, and before I knew it, I watched Joshua’s door – one of the clients on the main floor – swing open, slamming into the wall. Then the creature appeared on the camera in his bedroom immediately after.”
The detective leans forward, places elbows to his knees, and buries his face into his hands. He allows his countenance to pass first under his palms, then his fingertips, finally letting his mouth and chin sit smothered by a fleshy cradle of his design.
“Joshua Renaux, victim three.” He mutters to himself, appalled by the thought. Det. Benjamin feels as if he’s been punched in the gut. His mind whirls back to when he first viewed the killings on the security footage and examined the pictures taken by forensics; this death in particular had always troubled him.
“Joshua…Joshua was the only client in our care whose treatment plan required him to be strapped to his bed by the limbs while also wearing a padded helmet. Without them, he’d relentlessly injure himself until he lay in a pool of his own blood. He was completely nonverbal as well. At most he’d only yell, grunt, and make limited use of hand gestures to communicate with the staff that worked with him. Most nights he’d lay in bed vocalizing to himself but that night he didn’t make a sound; yet there that thing was, towering over Joshua as if it suddenly remembered someone was in there. It was one of the strangest parts about this whole thing. I have my own theory about it, but I can’t convince myself it doesn’t sound insane.”
“What does your theory entail, Ms. Lane?” the detective asks.
“I think the creature can— I don’t know, I think it might be able to see Cynthia’s memories.” Jodie returns, her statement riddled with uncertainty. “Joshua was her primary client after all, so she spent most of her time with him. It’s just too weird that it was obsessed with following my blood trail but just as abruptly doubled-back as if it remembered something crucial.”
Det. Benjamin takes a moment to ponder the rather ambitious hypothesis, and he recalls something he would’ve forgotten or possibly never would have considered in the first place.
“Ms. Lane,” he begins cautiously. “The CCTV footage shows that the creature approached Joshua’s bed, and stood idle by it for a brief period, as if in a state of inquisition. At the time, client Joshua Renaux lay bound to the bed by his limbs, awake. It’s tricky to muster up a reasonable explanation as to why the creature acted so dramatically different than anything that’d been observed previously but…I believe your theory may carry some merit. It’s possible the creature could’ve been processing a number of memories involving Joshua that were once meaningful to Cynthia. Until it—”
“–I know,” Jodie somberly interjects. “I know what it did. I watched that bastard rip Joshua in half with the very hands it stole from Cynthia. I watched it tear his head from his shoulders. I watched as it stood there studying or whatever the fuck else it could’ve been doing with that poor boy’s head, before tipping its own freakish head back and spilling Joshua’s blood into its mouth. I watched that thing toss Joshua’s head aside like garbage, and then I watched it go to the room next door and kill again.”
“Victim four, Michelle Gonzales.” Det. Benjamin murmurs. “It didn’t stay long with her.”
“No,” Jodie says. “It killed her instantly and left just as quickly.”
“Where did it go after killing Joshua and Michelle?” the detective probes.
“It stumbled out into the hallway, and it began making its way back to the staircase,” the woman says, her face twists a bit as she tackles a thought.
“It seemed like it was entering a frenzied state based on how it was acting then. Its mannerisms were more fervent, as if the continuous killing was a source of invigoration; or at least that’s how it seemed as I followed it from the security cameras.”
“Is it at this time the creature set its sights on your co-worker, Suzzy Mensah and her client, Misha Dykeman?” Det. Benjamin pushes on.
“Yes,” Jodie begins. “During all of this they were still locked away in the bathroom. Knowing Suzzy, she probably wasn’t doing anything at all in there. She was probably messing around on her phone while Misha sat in the shower; anything to kill time. Seeing that thing start climbing the stairs I scrambled to dial Suzzy’s number. I wasn’t confident she’d answer but regardless I needed to try. The creature’s moans filled the second floor. Suzzy ignored my call, but she couldn’t ignore that. I guess the racket the creature made was loud enough to interrupt whatever she was doing in there, because it wasn’t long before I heard the bathroom door swing open and watched Suzzy spring out to investigate. When Suzzy exited the bathroom, she took up a stance at the top of the stairs, she watched as the person she once knew to be Cynthia climb the steps to meet her. She didn’t want to believe what was approaching her was anyone or anything but Cynthia, so Suzzy began speaking with the creature.
“Cynthia! What is the matter with you? You must be possessed to be walking around looking the way you do. You’re naked! What is this disgusting costume for? That baby of yours and that man you let leech off you has made you lose it!”
Jodie slightly nods her head as she stares into space before letting her eyes fall on the detective, forcing the unsettled man to meet her gaze.
“As it got closer, I think Suzzy realized the once very pregnant Cynthia had suddenly slimmed down; and that thing attached to her chest had an umbilical cord that fed back into Cynthia’s genitalia. I think Suzzy had finally noticed the blood that painted Cynthia’s stolen body as well – old and fresh – staining the hands and forearms like gloves. I think she started to really pay attention to the details that eventually let her know this creature was no longer the woman she thought she was scolding; and that whatever this was, it wasn’t something she could grasp, especially not with how little time she had left. Then Suzzy screamed. It was a scream that’d shake anyone to their core. The type you let out just before a bad situation gets worse. When an unimaginable horror becomes terrifyingly real. Suzzy’s scream set off the two clients that were also on the second floor, they let out excited screams of their own, not understanding what was happening in the hallway. The already blood-frenzied creature began a new murder spree. It wasted no time the moment it heard the chorus of screams and competed with weeping that fought to overpower everything else…”
Det. Benjamin had abandoned sitting statically some time ago. There was no comfort in this subject for the man, and the more the tortured woman before him reveals, the less prepared to confront the creature he felt – him or anyone else for that matter. He relinquished the idea of leaving here today and expecting anyone to truly discern the gravity of a freak phenomenon such as this. It felt like peering over the edge of doom. Oblivion swelling to meet its ignorant quarry at the ruptured ceiling of an endless schism.
“This isn’t a surprise to you Ms. Lane, given your intricate involvement in the matter but the bodies of your co-worker Suzzy Mensah, client Misha Dykeman and the seventh victim and client, Samuel Chandler were all found lifeless on the second floor of the treatment home in various locations. Suzzy was found in the hallway at the head of the staircase disembowelled and missing a large portion of her left side, while Misha was found in the bathtub, mangled beyond recognition. Client Samuel Chandler’s body was discovered in his bedroom. Aside from a few broken bones, bruises, and a crudely amputated right arm, Samuel’s body was relatively intact. He was left to die from blood loss because someone else suddenly became the subject of the creature’s attention.”
Jodie looks noticeably sick listening to the detective’s report of these killings. She had witnessed Suzzy’s condition with her own eyes, but the disturbing details of the two clients’ deaths were new to her. Stomaching this information is trial enough for the bed-bound woman.
“The bathrooms don’t have cameras…I didn’t know the extent of Misha’s condition.” she says with a tremble in her voice. “Even Samuel dying slowly alone in his room, I...”
The woman pauses, searching desperately for the words that are working to evade her.
“It’s when the creature went into Samuel’s room, I made the decision to abandon the cameras and escape.” Jodie begins.
“That thing was completely blood-lusted. The toddler-like clumsiness I first encountered in the laundry room was gone. It had gotten used to controlling the body it had stolen. If I hadn’t moved then, I would’ve surely been next; so, I ran. I masked my steps with the screaming that poured out from Samuel’s room. I made it past and paused by Suzzy’s corpse hoping to replace the set of keys that I lost so that I’d be able to unlock the front door with her key fob. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find them. The stairs ended up being more of an issue with my injured leg. I hobbled my way down, step by step, trying to be as stealthy as possible but failing. Every step I took hit the stairs like cinder blocks and I had to stop myself from making my pain known. Eventually, I abandoned stealth altogether realizing it was hopeless. My best chance was mustering everything I had and making a break for it, so I did just that.”
As Jodie continued her recount, the woman’s speech became distinctly more fervent. Det. Benjamin – hanging on to every word – recalls how Jodie was found mutilated and bleeding out in the middle of the street, and cues that the woman is nearing the conclusion of her living nightmare. He doesn’t interrupt.
“When I reached the base of the stairs, I picked up the pace.” says the woman. “I had a bit of a hop in my stride because of my injury, but honestly, the pain was sort of an afterthought at this point. I knew my adrenaline took over as I ran for the front door. When you reach the bottom of the stairs, the exit is straight ahead, across the main floor. From that position, the door is in full view. I made it about halfway to the front door when I heard familiar noises behind me. Thudding of feet on stairs, creaks a building makes when you pass through it, and that damned cracking and popping sound Cynthia’s body made when that parasite forces her limbs to extend and retract to unnatural lengths…I was too terrified to turn and look. The lingering pressure in my head reminding me what happened the last time I got curious in a dire situation; and then the crying. Oh God, that fucking crying. I can hear it. Even now I can fucking hear it, and at the time I thought I was going to be ripped apart and killed as I listened to it close in on me…”
Jodie, in her panicked state, breaks down in tears that sear her cheeks with the reminiscence of lived trauma. They’d flow through the fleshy canals carved by the creature if her bandaging wasn’t there to soak them up, navigating a jungle of stitches. Det. Benjamin looks on, trying to hide his horror.
“I didn’t expect to make it out the door. The racket behind me was unlike anything I’ve heard from that thing before. The cracking and popping seemed to last forever as well. I really thought I’d be dead before I reached the door but suddenly – after scrambling to unlock the door with the key fob – there I was, hit with a wall of night air, hopping from the pathway to the driveway screaming the breath out of my lungs hoping someone, somewhere would put end to all of this. But as I stood in the middle of the driveway, out of options, I heard the glass on the front door shatter from being flung open with force. Honestly…it was so loud I couldn’t help but turn back to look. I froze in place seeing what came through the doorway. It was like…I don’t know, a fever dream…finally realizing why the cracking and popping of Cynthia’s bones and muscles seemed to never end. The creature came barrelling out of the treatment home and climbed the side of the building like a massive spider. Everything about Cynthia’s body had changed; her arms, hands, legs, feet, torso, nails, it had all changed. It had been stretched and warped beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined possible for a human body. Cynthia’s skin and muscles were stretched thin to accommodate for the new proportions of her old body. Her extremely long torso looked like a greyhound’s the way her stomach caved inward and ribcage protruded. This 5’3 body is suddenly 10’, maybe taller. It was boney and grotesque. She was unrecognizable. All I could do was watch while it stood perched on the edge of the building’s roof above the garage with arms held out by its side. That-that’s when its neck began to stretch – the creature and Cynthia’s neck together, their shared body shook throughout it all. Their necks stretched skyward for what seemed like an eternity until the creature slowly started to drop its head to meet mine. We stood with a few inches of space separating our faces, it was silent, and so was I. It still hadn’t moved from the roof where it stood. My body finally began processing fear in a way that wasn’t just freezing in place, I started hyperventilating. Then hyperventilation turned into a scream I thought would’ve been the last sound I’d ever make. The creature bombarded the neighborhood with its distorted weeping reacting to my outburst. I remember the tears that spilled from Cynthia’s hanging head were different from the ones in the laundry room. Like filling a cup past its holding point, liquid would spill everywhere but the pouring never stopped. The crying was so intense her dangling hair clumped together from the moisture. I finally unfroze and poised to run, but it was just too fast. Before I could even turn my body, its nails tore through my face and its other hand found its way around my leg, dragging me into the air, upside down. I couldn’t see anything with my left eye with all the blood that had poured into it, but I could feel my other leg being gripped by the creature. And…and um…in that instant, it ripped my leg off. In one motion, it just…tore my leg clean off my body. I-I can’t say I remember the pain at all, I think I was deeply in shock. It flung my body through the air, and I guess tossed my leg off somewhere else. I landed hard in the middle of the street. I was somehow still conscious but that didn’t last very long. I remember everything feeling like a muddled mess. My vision was extremely blurry and my hearing was faint – I couldn’t form a single coherent thought while lying there. The moment I began to pass out, I heard a muffled thud next to me, then almost immediately the creature's long figure crawled overtop of me like a giant insect. A porch light went on nearby, and then a confused scream followed. In a daze, I watched the creature disappear from my line of vision in the direction of the scream. I held on to consciousness long enough to hear two more screams nearby, and then another, and one more. The dying screams of the neighbours is the last thing I heard before slipping into a coma and waking up in here, looking a little different than I used to. I guess I’m the lucky one in all this. Living to tell the tale…”
Jodie scoffs.
Throughout the woman’s cascading retelling of events, Det. Benjamin had been ongoingly restless where he sat. He’s found himself sunk down into his seat, sitting tensely – eyes pressed shut. The detective massages his brow-line with the fingertips of his hands that hovered closely over his face. The silence between the pair is thick, with only the hospital's residual white noise introducing any ambiance. There is nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. There is no consolation that could possibly be offered. Somewhere along the lines, Det. Benjamin looked at Jodie Lane, her injuries, and the bed that she’s bound to, and he’d see himself. He had also inserted himself amongst the gallery of deceased he observed while studying the CCTV footage. The thought of this being where his misfortune may take him next plagued him like a sickness. The misfortune of a woman he had never met spilling over into his cup. For weeks, her name is something he couldn’t escape, Cynthia Lee. The peculiar details of the woman’s life now blending into his, and tragically ending the lives of countless others before him. The silence makes the slight ringing in the detective’s ear more apparent, and suddenly, the ringing is the only thing the man can hear until-
“Benjamin,” says a stocky man standing at the entrance of the room, his hand still gripping the door handle. The noise from the hallway fills the space pulling both Det. Benjamin and Jodie Lane from their shared daze – the pair look over.
“I need you out in the hall, now.”
The man shares a look of concern with Det. Benjamin before giving an apprehensive glance at Jodie, then shuts the door shortly after.
The room becomes mute yet again.
Det. Benjamin is slow to turn back around. He allows his eyes to fall to the ground for a brief period. Eventually, he resituates himself and makes a motion to gather up his belongings. The man unconsciously grinds his teeth as he liberates himself from his seating. The detective stands at the length of Jodie’s hospital bed, the woman having been quietly observing the man the entire time. He frames Jodie with a melancholy stare and softly clears his throat.
“I don’t suppose we’ll be meeting again, Ms. Lane.” Det. Benjamin says. “Thank you, and…I’m sorry. For everyone and everything that you’ve lost.”
Jodie stares blankly at the man, allowing his words to dissipate into the air. She doesn’t immediately respond, and eventually he turns to leave. It wasn’t until the detective had left the room the woman meekly responds with:
“…yeah.”
Det. Benjamin walks briskly down the crowded hallway alongside the stocky man that hailed him, Deputy Chief of Police Marcus Richardson. The hall is dense with a mix of uniforms, they all seem to be stirred by something. Det. Benjamin appears to want to say something but is promptly interrupted by the Deputy Chief.
“We’ve got a number of calls coming in from a local drive-in theatre claiming there’s been a string of violent murders on the grounds. Some callers report having to play dead to avoid contact with what they describe as a ‘crying woman’. This is an active situation, and something tells me your freakshow suspects claw prints are all over it. Task Force guys are en route to the drive-in, and you have an SUV out front waiting to transport you to your new AO, effective immediately.”
The Deputy Chief stops walking abruptly, compelling Det. Benjamin to do the same. The two officers face each other, Det. Benjamin felt worse for wear, but the Deputy Chief would never have guessed. Deputy Chief Richardson places his hands on Det. Benjamin’s shoulders and offers him the best advice he could muster:
“Listen Benjamin,” Richardson begins, “Nobody knows what the fuck’s been going on for the past few weeks. I’ve seen all the CCTV footage and I still can’t make any sense of this. I don’t know what you got out of that woman, but you deal with this tonight. Do you understand?”
The detective stares at the finger Deputy Chief Richardson is now pointing in his face.
“Yes, sir.” He answers.
“You deal with this TONIGHT, Benjamin.” Richardson emphasizes.
“Yes, sir.” the detective responds again, this time with a nod.
“You don’t have ‘stand around and scratch your ass’ time detective, get moving. You’ll have time to suit up in the van.” Deputy Chief Richardson barks as he walks away from Det. Benjamin.
Everything from getting into the van to the majority of the commute to the drive-in was a blur for the detective. He found himself slipping in and out of a daze. It was one thing to hear the nightmare retold by the only survivor of the first encounter, but it was another to have to live the nightmare himself; especially so suddenly. The detective doesn’t believe he’s prepared to face the creature, and he knows nobody else has the first clue where to begin. A fleeting thought haunts the man as his body is jostled around by the movement of the van turning off the main road: they’re marching to their deaths.
Det. Benjamin’s morbid trance is broken when the van comes to a stop behind a convoy of tactical police vehicles. They formed two lines on a dimly lit driveway. The concrete path leads past the ticket vendor booth, and eventually onto the drive-in theatre grounds. No one intends to bring the vehicles any further. Still seated within the van in which he arrived, the detective passively scans the immediate surroundings. He sees a swarm of black tactical uniforms mingling amongst each other in wait, fleshing out how to approach this ominously quiet instance of mass death, while some others mess about.
Det. Benjamin exits the SUV along with several other officers that were with him. The commanding officer of the Crisis Task Force quickly meets with him to discuss their avenue of approach. The detective is catatonic, the only thing keeping him on track is his natural affinity for the job. He’s running on autopilot, responding to things he wouldn’t be able to elaborate on if someone were to ask him about it a short time after. The performance is convincing enough; no one pries past a simple inquiry of the grimace he’s done a subpar job at hiding, but everyone ultimately attributes the look to the situation at hand.
The crew wastes no more time. In a spacious horizontal line, they begin their sweep of the drive-in theatre grounds under the cover of night. At first, the only sounds were local traffic flowing on the freeway nearby, the road veiled by a cluster of tall trees that adorned a strip of greenery by the theatre’s entrance. The flittering light from the enormous outdoor screen creates a dynamic glow throughout the area, while car radios hum the films dialogue into the dismal atmosphere. An orchestra of distant blaring car horns scattered throughout the grounds gives the impression of leaving their known world behind and entering a world entirely new.
As the group creeps onward, they’re met with a line of running vehicles. It was clear to everyone that some of the movie goers had hoped to escape the carnage by speeding away, the vehicles planted here an indication of their failure. The team didn’t have to get that much closer for the horror to start making itself known. Body parts littered the ground, and the officers found themselves dodging chunks of flesh. One officer stopping to pluck a small finger from between the treading of her service boot – she believes it belonged to a child. Everyone’s stomachs churn at the thought. The once chatty bunch is now stunned into passing disarrayed comments or an unsettled silence. No one entered this really knowing what to expect, nobody besides Det. Benjamin, who is now completely lost in this endless nightmare. The man has a job to do, but has let the notion of his leadership go altogether. The stress causes the detective to perspire heavily, his eyes darting in all directions akin to a fly maneuvering during flight. He thinks of Jodie Lane, then of the CCTV footage, then of the shocking scene around him; the surreality is almost too much for the man. He wants to make it out of this alive, nothing more.
As the group powers on, the morbidity only increases. Combing deeper onto the grounds, body parts and fleshy pieces are now corpses – defiled and left to eventually be claimed by hungry scavengers. The hasty retreat of a coyote almost startles one officer into opening fire with a few others following his example. The horror show has made the lot antsy, Det. Benjamin is just relieved they haven’t encountered what they’ve been dispatched to find. Dismembered vessels, blood-infused dirt, the crimson hue of headlights that’ve been drenched in the vitality of one or more of the countless victims here; This macabre laden world they’ve entered has been testing the will of every attending officer – Det. Benjamin is no exception.
Their search has been unfruitful as they methodically assess row after row of disorderly vehicles. The continuous and ear-piercing honking of a nearby SUV made it impossible for the crew to think, and the detective couldn’t take it. The man cautiously approaches the SUV that sits adjacent to a few cars that had been parked in the theatre’s designated viewing spots. The SUV is still running, only forced to a stand-still by a blood smeared sedan that stood ahead of it. With the shine of his flashlight, Det. Benjamin immediately notices shattered windows and a young couple that sat dead inside – the driver's corpse slumped forward onto the steering wheel while the passenger sat with their head resting in their lap, both fashioning a collection of ugly lacerations. The detective reaches through the driver’s side window, suppressing the urge to vomit as he does. He clutches the collar of the driver, sharply pulling them off the horn, and causing the car to fall into a state of noiselessness. The small remedy of silence is short-lived for Det. Benjamin as the man catches sight of something in the distance, just barely beyond the final row of cars parked on the grounds.
Still standing by the driver’s side of the SUV, the lawman nervously peers through the vehicle, now completely ignoring the corpses. He observes the back of a pale, feminine figure slowly meandering past several cars in the last viewing row, in and out of visual obstruction. The figure walked on an angle unparallel to the parked vehicles, destined for a wooded area behind the drive-in theatre grounds. Det. Benjamin begins noticing other details, like the figure being devoid of clothing aside from a discoloured and tattered button-down shirt, and a bobbing head with a skyward pointing face. He becomes fixated on the subtle swaying motion of the figure's long, jet black hair. The man stands erect, stunned by the realization of what he’s just seen. The detective has found what he's been sent to deal with, but a whirlwind of fear binds the lawman in place and stitches his lips with invisible threads. His arms fall limply by his sides as he stares terrified at the product of this never-ending nightmare, ravaged by incoherent thoughts until—
“Contact,” says a task force officer, “I’ve got sights on what appears to be a naked woman walking just beyond the last row of vehicles.”
“Acknowledged, I have sights.” Answers another officer.
Members of the group look to their commanding officer for their next course of action, where he meets the inquiry with an array of hand signals. The group understands and begins to once again creep forward – this time in a more condensed formation – leaving Det. Benjamin behind with the SUV. There’s barely a delay before the commanding officer shouts:
“THIS IS THE CRISIS TASK FORCE. CEASE ALL ACTIVITY AND SURRENDER FOR QUESTIONING!”
The woman yields at the sudden outburst but doesn’t motion to do anything else. She stands unsteadily in place exhibiting a subtle twitch.
The officers pass confused glances at each other before the group leader issued another command.
“THIS IS THE CRISIS TASK FORCE, CEASE ALL ACTIVITY AND SURRENDER. WE CAN HELP YOU IF YOU’RE INJURED.”
The woman’s twitch becomes far more violent, and the air is filled with the sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing. The group watches stunned as the woman’s body warps in ways they’ve never seen, just before lengthening to supernatural proportions, and adopting a new, boney silhouette. The creature finally faces the group using its snake-like neck to observe them. Its infantile head produces the sputtering noise a baby makes just before releasing a waterfall of tears.
Det. Benjamin has not moved from beside the SUV. He watches the nightmare unfold with all the details Jodie had mentioned coming to life before him – a lucid dream gone terribly wrong. Amongst the confused and scared shouting of the task force officers, Det. Benjamin thinks back to one of the last things he said to Jodie before leaving her hospital room:
“I don’t suppose we’ll be meeting again, Ms. Lane.”
The detective didn’t understand why he chose to leave the woman with those words – something about it felt unconscious – but the moment the twisted weeping of the creature was introduced to his ears for the first time, it all became grimly clear.
END.
