Getting Spotted

Leslie stared down into the refuse as Nikki pulled Kaitlynn away. Kaitlynn’s face was pale. She’s seen bodies before, she was working to be a nurse after all. She’s worked on Cadavers. That was why she had no doubt in what she was looking at. Leslie reached down to shift the back, freeing its contents. Reaching in she would pull out the limb, or what was left of it. It looked like it had been carved up: marks along the bone showed where the cleaver had hit. All that remained were tendons and -- Leslie backed up, dropping the forearm onto the ground. It hit the pooling sewage at her feet with a wet smack.

“They’ve been carving up, fucking people, Jon!” Nathan grabbed his arm, only for the young man to whip around and slug Nathan across the jaw, sending him tumbling back, but luckily Leslie had moved in and caught Nathan on the way down.

It happened before Jon could even stop himself. He felt his skin tighten as it became clammy. The sound of Nathan’s nagging had hit a nerve, one that he had finally lost at the sight of the truth. He thought he had gone crazy. He was just seeing things... What was going on?! Nikki raised her head, having finished retching in a corner. Kaitlynn was doing her best to soothe her friend, but how do you calm someone down after seeing something like that. Her dad was a sheriff, sure, but she’s never seen -- they were never carved up like that. Like someone’s -- dinner!

“We have to go tell your dad Kat.” Jon looked to Nathan who stood rubbing his face. Looking to his fist Jon would rub his bruising knuckles.

Nathan would nod, looking back to the others. “Let’s go. Before we get carved up next.” As Nathan passed Jon he would punch his arm.

“Ow!” Jon spouted. “Dude?!”

“Eye for an eye.” He clenched his fist as they turned to make their way to the street again, but as they did the cruisers rushed up toward Hollow Road, sirens blazing.

“W-what?” Kaitlynn sputtered. “That was dad’s cruiser!” They watched as the cars sped up the hill, across the train tracks. “Let’s go!” She hurried.

As they pushed up the street a pair of eyes watched from the windows of Misha’s shop. The curtain fell closed, causing Nikki, who was at the end of the pack, to look back. She felt the eyes on the back of her neck and it caused her to shiver. Holding back another feeling of vomit in her throat she rushed to keep up with the others. The rains were heavy and they had little protection from it. Nathan and Jon had their hoodies and Leslie her fedora, but Kaitlynn and Nikki were hardly suited for rainy weather having only brought umbrellas, but with no sense of mind to open them they made their way towards the tracks. As they arrived the bells went off and the guard came down.

“No!” Jon grabbed the edge of the guard and moved to tuck under the toll, only for Nathan to drag him back. “W-wha - hey!”

“Do you wanna arrive in pieces? Don’t tempt the train. We’ll get there.” He warned, the others looking down the track as the train arrived.

“Guys...“ Nikki finally had a moment to breathe. She had ducked under Kaitlynn’s umbrella, leaving them to share it a while. The train would sound off, rushing by on the tracks, clanking along as the water beneath its wheels turned to steam. “Someone was watching us.” She looked back down the road.

“What do you mean...?” Nathan was wary of his question. He really didn’t want it answered.

“When we were leaving the alley--” Nikki began. “I felt weird and when I looked up I saw someone in the window of Munchies.” But she could have been seeing things. There were a lot of people hiding from the storms in the shop.

Leslie would shrug. “Don’t worry about it. A lot of folk were hanging out. We were kinda noisy in the back...“ She would look to Nathan, who shrugged.

“Sorry, I was freaked out.” He admitted. “You don’t think they fed us --” Nathan was asking questions he didn’t want the answer to again, but he had this nagging feeling.

Nikki covered her ears, humming loudly to not hear any more, only for Kaitlynn to glare at him. “Of course we’re thinking that, but who wants to?!” The training nurse shook her head, trying to dismiss the thoughts outright. “That’s only for third world countries or people dealing with food shortages. We don’t have either! There’s plenty of meat on the farms, in the woods!” She was feeling anxious.

Leslie put her hand on Kaitlynn’s shoulder and nodded. “Right, it’s crazy, but we saw it. I can excuse them being murderers or something. Probably how they got Crowley’s shop--” she began. “It was weird how they said he died. Suddenly, at night? That guy had fought drug addictions, two heart attacks and outlived two wives and a parrot. I don’t see him suddenly kicking the bucket in the middle of the night. He rode his dirtbike out across the tracks with Jay and them.” She reminded them. “Guy was healthier than any horse I knew.” But there was suspicion on her part probably. She never did feel his death to have been fair. You live hard, but die quietly at home, alone? It was a scary thought she would rather not have.

The train continued to roar past the group as they fretted on their circumstance. It was strange, but Crowley was old. “Listen,” Jon began. “I know it’s strange but sometimes the healthiest looking guy can just drop dead.”

“Jon,” Nathan called, only for the young man to look to his companion.

Nathan was staring down the hill so Jon would follow his gaze. Bo could be seen at the bottom of the hill, quite easy to spot with his white apron and the man’s sheer height compared to most in the town. Nikki looked over, squeaking as she grabbed at Leslie and Kaitlynn’s arms. The cheerleader spotted what looked like a knife in the cook’s hand.

“Guys....” Nikki stammered, tugging on the other two girls.

“This way.” Nathan would pick up pace and head left, along the track.

Down a few feet was the train’s platform where a shelter sat for the rain. The others quickly followed, but the group had yet to start running as Bo was taking a leisurely pace up the hill. The train continued to rattle along, the shriek of its metal wheels grinding the metal rail was distressing, sending strong vibrations through one’s chest as they were but a hair’s breadth from the cars. Nathan looked around as the others piled into the shelter. The tracks ran throughout the town and all the way out to a bridge that cut through the mountains. Normally the winter months shut down the rails as ice sheets often made it impossible to run the cars. Running across this avenue it was surrounded on either side by a fence and some dense brush. But on the other side of these tracks was also the poorer part of town where many of the town’s industry had flourished leaving many abandoned factories and a few, still active, coal processing plants, sawmills, and meat processing plants. There was a chain link fence on either side of the track to keep out animals, but there was a break in the fence across the tracks that younger kids used a lot to get to the construction sites. Nathan knew about them because he often had to pick up his siblings across the way.

“Hurry.” Nathan ushered as the train finished passing through.