Nowhere (9 page)
“I need in the pharmacy, could you please call the pharmacist.”
“I’m sorry sir the pharmacy closed at 8, you’ll have to come back first thing in the morning if you want to speak to the pharmacist.”
“Look you don’t understand.” He leaned over the counter toward the small woman. “I have a condition, I need the pharmacist to open that grate and get my prescription. It’s sitting in there ready to go. I know because my doctor called it in today. I won’t trouble him long, I just need this one thing. You understand right?”
“No sir I’m sorry, I can’t do that. The pharmacy is closed, and it won’t open until the morning. I’m sure though, if you come by then, the pharmacist will gladly serve you. Now if you have no other purchases to make, I need to ask you to leave. The store will close at ten.”
Richard looked up at the clock on the wall at the front of the store. It was nine twenty. “You have to make that call, I have to have that pharmacist here now!” he slammed his hand down on the counter.
The clerk was startled by Richard’s uproar. “I’m sorry sir, there is absolutely nothing I can do for you right now.” She said in a shaky voice. “Now please be on your way, I don’t want to have to call the sheriff.”
“No, no… no sheriff.” He turned and walked away from the counter. He walked down the side aisle that led to the pharmacy window. The dark pharmacy lay dormant beyond the steel store grate. Richard stood in the center rear aisle of the store. Sweat had formed on his forehead.
He let out a quiet tearless sob of panic. The floor was shiny from recently being buffed. The lady at the store front really did want to close soon and he didn’t want to trouble her. But looking at the grate again, he knew that somehow he needed that bottle of pills. The grate was secured at the base by a locking mechanism on the inside of the pharmacy. The small side door had a keyed padlock and tamper guard protecting the latch. There was no drive thru window by which he could climb through. It was no use.
He stood there pondering what his next move might be. She didn’t understand, if she did, she would open the grate and let him in. He considered for a moment the notion that she had been lying to him about not having access and that there was a key behind the register. Of course, there had to be, what if a fire broke out in the pharmacy, the store clerk would have to be able to unlock the door to extinguish the fire. He felt in his pockets for a book of matches or a lighter, but there was none.
He looked around the store, there wasn’t anyone there with him. He thought maybe he could overpower the clerk, somehow subdue her without hurting the woman and then he could gain access to the key and his medicine. He thought he had a pretty common face, he could be anyone. He looked once more at the grate, do they sell saws here?
It would need to be the little fine toothed kind to get through a grate like that. Would she notice the sawing sound from the front of the store?
He took a trip down the small aisle that looked like it contained tools and hardware items. There were glasses repair kits, picture frame fastening kits, shoe shine kits, furniture touch up kits, but no hack saw or anything of that sort. He happened to look up at the ceiling and noticed the little black orb in one of the tiles. There would be no way to get past the all-seeing eye. He sighed and went back to the aisle next to the pharmacy. He heard a whooshing sound of the doors at the front and turned just as the entrance bell chimed.
The door slid quietly shut behind them as they separated and came down the individual aisles toward him. The empty look in their faces cut through Richard’s soul. He began to scream, first in guttural belts of shock and terror, then in loosely framed words.
“GGGhhhaaahhhhh! NNNnnoooo!!!! Help me, someone HHellpp!! NNNnnoooo!!!,” He clawed at the shelf sending bottles and boxes of medicine flying at the tall one in the collared shirt, the one that was closest to reaching him. Richard watched as the cold black pupil filled eyes melted like wax revealing the stormy black hollowness from within.
Soon the creature had no face, just blackness like a fog and Richard knew that the fog hid something far worse. Richard thrashed and kicked at the creature violently. It did not slow the thin man down, and Richard reeled backward as the man reached for him with boney pale fingers.
He slipped on a medicine bottle and fell hard to the floor, striking the lower part of his jaw on the smooth tile. Droplets of blood sprang out of a fresh burst in his lip. Richard screamed again as the tall one grabbed his ankle, there was power behind the man’s frail features. He seized Richard’s ankle with a machine like grip and began to drag him toward the front of the store.
Richard’s bearings went askew as he flailed about on the floor, gnashing at the shelves frantically, streaks of blood following him. He looked up at the store clerk as they drug him out of the chiming door. The personality drained from her face, she stared coldly back at him.
#
“That’s the last thing I remember. Her face was just like the woman the other day at the supermarket. Its like they see, but they don’t see. Like there is a blackness behind their eyes too and any second they could become one of those things.”
“Richard… are you absolutely sure that’s what happened. Search yourself deeply and tell me.”
“He sat there in his heavy green jacket, staring at his hands. “I know that’s what happened, my mind says that’s what happened. Heck, my face says that’s what happened. “
“Do you remember how you got here?”
“The deputies, they pulled into the parking lot just as the thin people were about to take me back to the laboratory aboard their spaceship. When the headlights hit them, they released me and fled. The deputies couldn’t console me, it’s true that I was hysteric. I know they brought me here because they think I’m crazy, but you know I’m not crazy and I know I’m not crazy. These aren’t dreams I’m having, I know they aren’t Doc?”
“No Richard, they aren’t just dreams anymore, I’m afraid not…”
“What do you think they are?”
“I don’t know how to present this to you in a way that will be taken positively, but I feel that you need to see it. I want you to know that I do trust you Richard and no matter what, I want you to know that we’ll get to the bottom of it. I want to talk real to you for a while and not scientific. There is a part of you, that I feel you don’t know about. It is a deep part…”
“What are you saying??”
“I was able to obtain this from the sheriff’s department, because I told them it might help you to realize what is happening when you get taken by these people, in your dreams.”
“What are you saying??”
“Doctor Hays put a disc into his computer and spun the monitor around to face the office. He then sat anxiously in the chair next to Richard.”
“What are we watching Doc!? Answer me, please…”
“Just watch.”
Richard watched as video came up on the monitor. The video was of the pharmacy parking lot. The lower right corner showed the time in white numbers with colons separating the different units. The time read 16:32:45, the seconds ticked up slowly.
“You don’t get there for awhile,” Dr. Hays said as he punched the forward arrow making the disc run at x2 speed. The clock at the bottom right buzzed forward until Richard’s car could be seen zooming into the frame from the side entrance of the lot.
Richard watched with vivid recollection as his video self sat in his car. From the angle of the camera, they could see clearly into the front of the car. Doc Hays pushed the play button and Richard watched himself looking back and forth between the storefront and the cup in his console. The numbers read 16:58:13.
“Here’s the thing Richard you never leave from this spot. Not until you go into the pharmacy, nor do you fall asleep. I’ve watched this, I mean the sheriff’s department showed it to me in fast time and one thing I know is that you never leave or fall asleep.”
“That’s impossible, I was there, I know I did.”
“No Richard, watch.”
He pushed the arrow once more to speed time. Richard watched as his head bobble back and forth inside the car. Forty minutes ticked by on the clock, then Dr. Hays pushed play again.
“I think it’s coming up here, I had a question about this.”
Richard watched intently, he felt somehow sick, somehow offended that this video existed. The white numbers read 17:55:50. On the screen, the fake Richard leaned forward in the seat, disappeared momentarily from the video and then reemerged holding some silver device. He then went back to bobble heading back and forth in the car, holding the silver object to the front of his head.
Dr. Hays freeze framed it just as the fake Richard turned toward the store just enough to have a clear profile of the side of his face with the silver object pointed and facing his mouth. “Do you know what this is?” Hays pointed at the silver object with the corner of the remote.
“I haven’t got a clue what that is, that’s not me Doc.”
“Richard I think I’m being pretty reasonable here. I’m really trying to be open minded, and I want you to open up to the possibility, however minute you might think it is, but the possibility that this is most certainly you and there is something about this video that we need to realize.”
The Doctor pushed the forward arrow once again to speed the video up. Richard watched as the video rolled time quickly through the better part of two hours. All the while, the video Richard was holding the silver object to his face.
Then the video Richard lurched forward out of the view of the camera and rose again, this time without the silver object. The time showed 19:59:45. What happened next made him break out in goose bumps. The video Richard turned, the video still zipping by at double speed, turned directly and looked out of the driver window toward the storefront.
From the distance of the camera, Richard couldn’t be certain whether he was staring at the store itself or directly at the camera, as if knowing what was going on, knowing that the present Richard, the one who sat in Doctor Hays’ office now would be watching this.
For twenty seconds or so, Richard watched his video self sit motionless in the car, staring out the window towards the store. The white numbers had an hour and eleven minutes of this footage. Then suddenly the statue that was Richard got out of the car and began to walk toward the store.
Dr. Hays froze the footage again. “After seeing this, is there anything that you remember differently about what took place inside the store?”
“No, I told you what happened”
Doc Hays pushed the play button on the remote and the disc began to play once more. He put it on 4x speed. The video quickly shifted from the parking lot camera outside to a new angle that Richard knew must be from the ceiling mounted camera he remembered seeing. The video Richard walked into the store and quickly back to the pharmacy. He stared at the metal grate as the time on the camera ticked quickly by. After standing there about three minutes he went back to the front of the store and began conversing with the clerk.
After what Richard knew was said, was said, the video Richard took off at double speed back to the pharmacy. Then he began the odd bobbing motions again, this time in the rear aisle of the store. He would briefly look toward the pharmacy and then back toward the floor. All the while, he was just standing there. Richard knew that it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes that he stood there. He watched however as the time ticked by. Soon it was ten o’clock, the time that the store was supposed to close; he had been standing there well over forty minutes when suddenly he saw in the corner of the frame, the store clerk yelling at him.
At this point he knew what she had to have been saying. The video Richard did not respond well to this, he spun around screaming, his mouth contorting in odd shapes, screaming and shouting. Then his arms sprang out like giant cleavers wrecking the elaborate placement of medicine and pharmaceuticals.
The clerk ducked behind the counter taking the phone with her.
The video Richard walked to the next aisle and looked toward the different hardware items. He must not have found what he needed because he returned to the medicine aisle empty handed. He stared at the pharmacy again for about fifteen minutes. Then suddenly he looked up directly at the ceiling security camera.
This again gave present Richard goose bumps and chills. The video Richard then started moving again, walking towards the front, but suddenly hit the deck hard as he slipped on a bottle of pills and knocked over more things from the shelf.
The video Richard left blood dripping on the floor and down his shirt as he stood back up. He walked screaming and fidgeting out of the store. When he left the camera angle switched again. Richard watched as halfway across the parking lot, a sheriff’s unit sped into the lot.
“I don’t need to see more” Richard said. His head dropped and he suddenly saw that the blood stains on his shirt fit this scenario more soundly than the one in which Richard was dragged, bleeding from the store by some alien like creature.
“No…, me neither.” Doc pushed stop and the TV went blue. He got up and went to the window behind his desk. He sighed as he stared out the window.
“What Doc, what are you holding back?”
He turned back toward Richard, took a sip from the straw of a fast food cup, and then put both hands down on the desk.
“It could be that you have a form of schizophrenia, these moments that you think you are asleep, are actually spent awake. It could be that these people who come out after you are psychological projections of yourself. They are an interruption in your brain, a warning device if you will that interrupt the brain to prevent smooth transitions between your personalities.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what Richard?”
“Don’t feed me this, this…this psychological projections crap. I know what I saw Doc, I know what I felt and I know that it was real.”
“You don’t really want this to stop, do you?”
“What do you mean? of coarse I do.”
“You don’t want to hear the truth. You don’t want to accept the fact that your subconscious is a liar. You don’t want to take action against this Steven character that is destroying you.”
“No, what you’re saying can’t be the truth. I’m not crazy, or schizo. This is what’s crazy,” He pointed his hand toward the TV. I know what happened, it had to have happened. So no, I don’t want to hear what you’re calling truth anymore, I just want to go home. I need to sleep. Do you think that they will let me go home?”
“For tonight, I’ve already arranged for you to be let home, but on one condition. I need you to take this.” Doctor Hays held out a small peach colored pyramid shaped pill on the tip of his finger.
“What is it?” Richard asked. In the past he had taken anything Hays would prescribe him in a desperate attempt to fix his issues. Tonight, however, red flags shot up. Despite what he had seen on the Television and what Hays was telling him, he didn’t feel like he needed to be fixed. He wanted answers, but he knew he would need to talk to Steven again to get them.
“It’s a sleep aid, it will help you to calm down and actually sleep tonight, but it’s also a really strong muscle relaxant, so it will help ensure that you don’t go driving off tonight.”
“Do I have to take it? I mean I’ll go to sleep and stay home tonight. I promise.”
“It’s not really my decision to make, the Sheriff said it’s the only way that he’ll let you spend the night anywhere but the lockup. He essentially wants you sedated, and I said I’d do my best. I guess it’s ultimately up to you, but just know that you’ll go to jail if you don’t take this.”
Richard took it and looked at it in his hand. He decided it best to listen to the red flags, but didn’t want to spend the night in jail. Hays handed him a bottle of water. Richard opened the bottle and while doing so he used his thumb to push the small pill securely in between his fingers. Then he pretended to throw the pill into his mouth and then drank the whole bottle for good measure. He gave the empty bottle to the doctor.
“Open up and let’s have a look see.”
“Are you serious?” Richard asked.
“In this case, yea… I have to be.” Hays responded.
Richard opened his mouth wide and moved his tongue side to side as the doctor leaned forward to peer in. Richard took the opportunity of this momentary distraction to carefully stash the pill away in his coat pocket.
“Well that’s done I guess.” Hay’s said as he leaned back. “The sheriff wants you to stay in town tomorrow for some questions. Don’t worry, I’ll go with you tomorrow down to the station and we can clear this up. Let me see, it’s 2:35 in the morning.” Hays said as he pressed his fingers under his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. How about you go home, I’ll call you at noon and we can arrange to meet at the sheriff’s station at around one.”
“That sounds good.”
“So let’s get going, I’ll drop you by your car, and then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yea, well more like later today.” Richard said faking a smile.
