The Dark God (Part 8)

It’s been about an hour since my last post.

We haven’t had any customers yet, and if the gas station weren’t an active crime scene I might have asked one of the other employees to squeegee the large pool of blood into the drains by the cooler.

For those of you out of the loop, you may want to catch up by reading my earlier posts:

Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 7

I don’t know what Arnold’s personal grooming routine looks like, and I have to assume he spends at least twenty minutes a day in moustache prep, but even factoring that in he should have made it to the gas station by now.

I called him a few minutes ago to make sure he hadn’t gone back to bed, and to make sure I hadn’t imagined the phone call in the first place. The conversation went something like this:

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Arnold? You on your way?”

“Sit tight, we had a little emergency.”

“Ok.”

“The road between town and you is blocked off.”

“Ok… Which one?”

“All of them. Even the service roads. It must have been a freak storm. I’ve never seen anything like it. All the roads are covered in trees. But they aren’t, you know, fallen. The trees are growing in the middle of the street. I’ve been trying to find a way around all morning, but I’ve given up. I’m about to head through on foot. Just to be clear, you said you heard from Spencer Middleton last night? Has he made any other contact?”

“Well, actually, he’s here. He came in and some stuff happened and now he’s dead.”

“What!? You’re telling me there’s a dead body at the gas station?”

I already told him all of this. Man, I really miss Tom.

“Did you not realize that?”

“I’m sorry,” he answered, “When the phone rang earlier I had just woken up from this beautiful weird dream of a... dark god... calling me into his eternal grace, taking me by the hand and guiding me into blessed oblivion, freeing me from all the pain and suffering of this mortal prison. Nurturing me like a child and inviting the world into a realm of higher existence, allowing me the privilege to devote myself to his glorious servitude.”

“Ok,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you when you get here.”

I ended the call and checked the charge on the phone. The battery was sitting close to fifty percent.

“What’s the deal, Lucille?” asked Benjamin.

“Arnold is on his way here on foot. But we might have another problem.”

“Holy shit, you guys see that?” Carlos asked, pointing out the window. I couldn’t quite make it out from where I was seated behind the counter, and I didn’t feel like hobbling over a corpse just for a look.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s a bunch of naked people out on the road walking this way.” Carlos answered.

“The hell you say?” said Marlboro, who had suddenly taken interest. He pressed his face against the window for a better look. “Those aren’t just any people. I know them. That’s Marla! and Tyler! And there goes Fred! At least, those were the names I gave them.”

Benjamin crossed to the frozen drink machine, throwing over his shoulder a quick “They friends of yours?”

“Family, actually. Well, they were anyway, before they disappeared. But I don’t remember them looking like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, starting to get an uneasy feeling.

“Like…” He took a second to find the words, but all he came up with was “They look funny.”

They continued walking closer to the gas station. Close enough by now that I could see them. At least a dozen people, stark naked. The closer they got, the more details I could make out, the more I wish I couldn’t. Their eyes were milky and pale, maggots crawling out of infested crevices all over their bodies. Their skin dirty and covered in lesions and bruises. Marlboro was certainly not wrong, they looked funny.

I’m sure you know the Hollywood-style Zombie walk. The shuffle of an undead body with impaired motor skills. The scariest part of these “people” approaching the front doors of the gas station was that they were walking one hundred percent perfectly normally. Just a bunch of decaying nudists out for a stroll.

There was a loud crash that snapped us out of our probably-rude staring. We all turned to see that Benjamin had pulled the frozen drink machine to the ground, and was attempting to drag it over Spencer towards the front doors, the sticky syrup concoction spilled out all over the ground, mixing with the congealed blood and coating the floor in a red and brown and purple viscous soup. There’s no way we won’t have an insect problem after this.

Marlboro and Carlos didn’t have to ask what was going on. They instantly knew the plan and began yanking down whatever fixtures weren’t bolted in place and piling them up in a barricade against the glass doors.

I would have helped if it weren’t for this broken leg. Besides, it looks like they’ve got this under control.

“You boys think you can stay alive long enough for help to arrive?” Benjamin asked.

“We’ve got almost ninety years experience staying alive between the three of us,” Carlos joked.

Benjamin directed his next question to me. “You got any weapons in this place?”

I told him no. The only thing I have is a half-empty canister of gasoline in the supply closet and some really hard jerky, but he was welcome to whatever he could find. That’s when he started Macgyvering some spears out of chair legs and broken glass from the drink case.

About ten minutes ago, the gas station lost power. Now really would be a great time to have a giant pet glow-in-the-dark butterfly.

Stupid racoons.

It’s been pretty quiet, save for the wet guttural whispering coming from those “people” outside. Benjamin is still searching for weapons while Carlos finds things to push against the front door, and (assuming he hasn’t fallen asleep) Marlboro has taken the back door. I was feeling pretty useless after Benjamin confiscated my crutches, so I figured I would take this opportunity to type up the account of what happened, just in case Arnold gets here too late. And in the spirit of preparedness, I should say a few things to whoever finds this message (or is it “whomever”? I never could get that right.)

First, to the owners: I’m sorry about the mess.

Second, to her: I’m sorry we didn’t run into each other one last time.

Third, to whomever keeps dumping tar into the ditch outside of the gas station, I hate you.

I guess that’s all I have to say. It’s been a weird, crazy ride.

This is Jack from the gas station, signing off one last time…

---

I didn’t die!

Sorry it’s been so long since the last update, I just got my laptop back from the police. (Special thanks to whoever gilded me, by the way. I don’t know what to do with reddit gold, but it brings warmth to my soul.)

I know you guys are probably wondering what happened. Well, last week I met a dark god.

---

We were in that gas station without power for hours. It’s cold this time of year, so we huddled together around a plate of scented candles and ate pork rinds and canned beans. Marlboro almost dozed off a couple times before Carlos decided to loot the energy pills behind the counter. He handed them out and we all took a few, washing them down with cold coffee and telling ourselves it was for “alertness,” but all they did for me was create a heartbeat arrhythmia. That sure would be funny, if those things finally broke in here just to find the four of us dead from heart attacks.

Well, not “funny.” But, you know.

Carlos tried to strike up a conversation with Benjamin a couple of times, but the bearded man wasn’t very social.

“You Army?”

“Nah.”

“I knew a guy. He was a ranger in the Army. You remind me of him.”

“Alright.”

“Those things out there, any idea what we’re dealing with? You ever see anything like that before?”

“Nah.”

“You got any family?”

“Nah.”

I checked Spencer’s phone throughout the day, but it wasn’t getting any service anymore. I tried 911 a few times, but even that wouldn’t go through. When the battery got to five percent, I turned it off. We might need it later for an emergency call.

Eventually the adrenaline and pills started to wear off and I remembered that my leg was still healing from a complex fracture and maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to come back to work so soon. I did the cripple-walk back to the front desk to grab my meds. While I was there, I spotted the still-unopened gift-wrapped package on the shelf beneath the register. I decided to ignore it and instead grabbed the employee whiskey bottle that was behind it. We told ourselves it was for our “nerves” but all it did for me was give me an even worse heartbeat arrhythmia.

A few more hours passed. After we killed the first bottle we opened another, then Marlboro got into the energy drinks because we needed mixers. At some point the former cultist pulled out his stash and lit a joint and (without asking, I might add) turned the whole station into a hotbox. I couldn’t remember if I’d taken my pain meds yet, so I went ahead and took them.

As the sun started to set, I had two thoughts competing for first place in my mind. First, it sure is getting dark early these days. And second, I think we might be getting a little too fucked up to handle what’s about to happen.

---

Time became even more illusory than normal once the laptop died and we had no way of knowing how long we’d been waiting. We started measuring the time in candles. Our snack food and morale raced each other to depletion.

At some point, Carlos got me away from the others to ask what I thought about Benjamin. I told him he was the nicest guy that had pointed a gun in my face all week. But Carlos told me that he had a weird feeling about him. I reminded Carlos that he had killed Kieffer a couple times and maybe he should get off his high horse.

“Hey!” Benjamin yelled at us from across the room. “What are you two talking about?”

“Anime.” I lied. I think he bought it.

“Get back over here. I don’t need any more dead bodies piling up tonight.”

Benjamin was in the corner, warming his hands over the candle plate. It was the only source of light in the building, and was casting shadows that could maybe be described as “spooky” if I weren’t in such a serious life-or-death situation. Some of those shadows looked like faces, smiling, laughing at us idiots. One or two looked like old presidents. One of them asked me what time it was and holy crap I was tripping!

“You ok, man?” Carlos asked, snapping me back to reality.

“I honestly have no idea.”

Did you ever figure out who placed that bomb? asked Spencer Middleton in a gurgle.

“What do you mean? I thought you did it?”

Not me. Bombs aren’t my style. Who do you know that can build a bomb?

“Hey, where’s Marlboro?!” I asked.

Benjamin picked up his spear - formerly my crutch that he had paracorded his knife to - and asked, “Who the hell is ‘Marlboro?’ Is there someone else here?”

“Marlboro. The other employee.” I looked at Carlos, who just shrugged and said, “I don’t know no Marlboro. How many of them pills did you take?”

Had I imagined Marlboro this entire time? Did I just Tyler Durden this guy into existence? I tried to sit down on the tarp, but it turned into me lying on my back while the room spun. I could feel the human debris squish beneath the tarp fabric as I rested my head. How much of any of this was real anyway?

You’re losing it, you know.

“I know.”

All those years ago, the first doctor tried to prepare me for life with my condition. There weren’t that many other cases before me, so they didn’t know exactly how everything would play out. But every case had a few of the same side effects. Of course there would be weight loss, fatigue, headaches, all of the signs of a normal physical illness early on.

As the condition developed, there would be more “interesting” side effects. Hallucinations, memory loss, the works.

And of course, I can’t be properly anesthetized. They tried in other cases to induce medical comas, but that just messed things up further. I’m always wide awake and halfway lucid during surgery. If you want to know what that’s like, I’ll tell you the truth. It’s boring.

You know what? Usually when I hurt someone bad enough, they pass out from the pain.

They gave me a couple years, tops. I haven’t been keeping track of time.

Right then, Marlboro walked into the room, zipping up his fly. Presumably, he had just come from the bathroom, but who really knows? I pointed at him and yelled, “That guy! You see him, right?! It’s Marlboro!”

Carlos looked where I was pointing, then back at me. “What, you mean Jerry?”

Oh. That’s right. He has a real name.

“I hate it when he calls me Marlboro.”

Benjamin set the improvised spear down and turned his attention back to the fire. “You better get him under control.”

You should open your package. Said Spencer.

“Hey wait a sec, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

Well, aren’t you supposed to be dead? he said back.

Touche, Spencer.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Carlos.

“Spencer,” I answered.

“Well stop that. It’s freaking us out.”

---

Two candles burned from start to finish before Benjamin decided that help wasn’t on the way and our best chance of survival was to fight it out with the things outside.

I disagreed, but Benjamin informed me in his own polite way that it wasn’t up for vote.