The Shapeshifter (Part 4: Neil’s Nightmare And The Cashier)

I think I’m losing it. For the past week, I’ve been having intense nightmares. In them, I’ll be somewhere dim like a forest at dusk or a hallway. The shapeshifter will be chasing me and no matter how much I run, the end of where I am will keep stretching forever. Those aren’t the worst ones, though.

No, those would be the ones with Jake. We were alone on the swings. I’m trying to go as high as I can, but he doesn’t seem into it. He just stares down at the woodchips. I slow myself to a stop.

“Are you okay?”

“All gone…”

“What?”

“It’ll all be gone one day. Neil.”

“What do you mean?”

He doesn’t reply. The woodchips under his feet shake a bit. Worried, I hop off the swing and tug on his arm in an attempt to get him away.

“Let’s go,” I plead.

He doesn’t move. A hand pokes up through the dirt, grabbing his ankle. Something about it seems familiar. I scream his name as it pulls him off the swing. Then I find myself in a tug of war for him with the hand.

It’s so much stronger than me and even though I’m straining, he sinks deeper and deeper. Now I’m begging for him to fight or do anything. I scream his name. He doesn’t even do so much as acknowledge me. It’s like he’s accepted his fate.

A pair of eyes become visible through the dirt and woodchips. They look so full of glee and malice. The person rises and when I see them, my heart stops. The face I’m looking at is none other than my own except older. In fact, it’s how I looked the day he left my life for good, all bloody and busted.

It grins, revealing those god-awful teeth, and yanks Jake from my grasp. I scream, falling back and it laughs. Then opens its mouth wide, teeth stretching and appearing almost horselike. It speaks.

“Thanks for sending him my way.”

It chomps into Jake who doesn’t even flinch as blood pours from him. That’s when I woke up drenched in sweat. After lying in darkness and breathing heavily for a minute, I checked my phone. I’d only gotten four hours of sleep. Knowing that trying to get some more would be a fool’s errand, I decided to be productive.

Kelly had copied the files onto a flash drive so I could view them on my laptop. While waiting for it to boot up, I got a little pick-me-up. My room has a microwave and a min fridge which I’ve been keeping stocked with drinks and premade sandwiches. This time I was having a grape Gatorade with an Italian hero.

Along with what’s in my fridge, I’ve also been having a lot of energy shots. I always wait until I’m actually feeling fatigued before taking one or else it’ll just wear off too soon. I know it’s not healthy, but it’s not like I’ve been well-rested recently. Not even the sleeping pills I’ve been taking are helping with that. I can only imagine how Kelly’s been feeling.

To be honest, she has me worried. She was already looking thinner than when I last saw her and I’ve noticed she hasn’t been eating much. With my laptop now fully booted, I sat down with my food and checked out more information on Maxwell and Turner. Something we found out about the former is that he was married as well.

Their town isn’t very far from here so we planned on finding them to ask questions. Obviously, there was a problem with this. Said problem being that we didn’t think they’d be comfortable with some random strangers asking them about the most horrible thing to happen to them out of the blue. Nonetheless, we needed to begin somewhere. Kelly headed over to speak with Maxwell’s wife and I went to talk with Turner. It took me around two hours to get to his address. However, upon arriving, I found a new family living there. I asked them if they happened to know where he moved to which they had no clue. I continued asking around to no avail. Then I stopped to get some gas and decided to try the cashier for information.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know about a man named Floyd Turner. Would you?”

He paused in the middle of putting the money I gave him into the register.

“What did you say?”

“Floyd Turner? He lives around here or I guess he used to.”

The man gave me a long stare. On his employee tag was the name Gene.

“What’s it to you?”

“So you do then?”

“Even if I did, why would I tell you? Who are you anyway?”

“My name is Neil and I’m trying to find the one who killed Alberta.”

That was the name of his wife. A pained look came over the cashier’s face.

“You better not be fucking with me.”

“I swear I’m not.”

He looked hard into my eyes. Then he exhaled.

“My break is in five minutes. Wait for me outside.”

I paced back and forth waiting for Gene to come out. When he did, I saw him immediately pull out a pack of cigarettes. He casually flicked one from it with a single thumb and put it in his mouth. Then he lit it, taking a long drag before blowing out a puff of smoke.

“My parents were friends with them.”

“For how long?”

“Since we moved in pretty much. That was back in 2008 I was only twelve at the time. My dad got to talking with Floyd in the middle of some yard work and ended up inviting him and Alberta over for dinner.”

“How were they?”

“Really nice. Alberta and my mom talked a lot. I never had any problems with them and even helped them out with certain projects on occasion.”

He tapped off some ash and his expression saddened.

“You know, I got rejected a year after we moved in. Floyd must’ve noticed something different about me because he asked if something was wrong. I told him about what happened and he gave me some good advice. Told me he knew how it feels and that it sucks, but it’ll pass.”

“Was Alberta the same way?”

“Even more so. Every other time I saw her, she’d have a treat to give me. I’m pretty sure I’m the reason she wanted kids.”

“You knew about that?”

“I heard her talking about it with my mom one day, but something was off about her. She seemed nervous. That happened I think almost a year before she died. It was like she knew she didn’t have much time left.”

“Did she mention anything unusual?”

Gene thoughtfully took another drag.

“My mom did ask her about it and she just told her that it was from a lack of sleep.”

I wondered why assuming Alberta’s situation was similar to Jake’s, did she also not choose to seek out help? My theory is that if this thing takes on the shape of its victims, that would make it difficult to combat.

“Did she believe her?”

“No, but she’s not the kind to push someone. It was tough watching her trying to hold it all together. I wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as she did with that thing after me.”

“So you know about it too?”

“Yep. I saw it the night she died.”

His hand shook as he once again raised the cigarette to his mouth.

“Do you want to know exactly what I saw?”

I felt my heartbeat pick up merely by seeing the look in his eyes. As he continued, all other sounds around us seemed to vanish. He got closer to me.

“I was up late and my window faced the Turners’ room. Of course, I wasn’t a peeping tom or anything like that. What caught my eye, though was seeing Alberta just standing by the side of the house, looking up at their window.”

“Except it wasn’t really her?”

Gene nodded and composed himself in the manner of someone about to talk about something they dread.

“I wish I could forget it. Even after all this time, it’s still fresh in my mind. I didn’t understand what I was seeing at first. Then I realized that her limbs were stretching and she or it began climbing up the side of their house, pulled up their window, and slipped inside.”

“And what did you do when you saw this?”

“I went to bed. It was like my mind was refusing to process any of it. The next day I dismissed it as a nightmare. That was until I noticed George’s car parked in front of their house. I already knew what happened before my parents broke the news to me.”

He closed his eyes, sighing, and opened them again.

“But that didn’t make it any less painful to hear. A piece of all of us went with her you know. For me, though grief wasn’t the only thing I had to contend with. I kept replaying that night over and over again for months. I would have nightmares about it crawling into my room instead.”

Gene shuddered.

“I don’t want to think about what it would’ve done if it noticed me.”

“Did you tell anyone about it?”

“Who would’ve believed me? Not even I did and I saw the fucking thing.”

“Was your family close with Geroge as well?”

“Only my dad. He did ask us if we noticed anything unusual that night. I wish I at least made something up about seeing someone unusual in their yard. Maybe then he’d at least still be alive. They’re what made me get into these.”

He gestured with the butt of his cigarette and then flicked it onto the sidewalk. I briefly glanced at the smoking ash and then looked back up at him.

“It was the best thing I could think of to ease my worry. I thought for sure that somehow it knew about me and that any day I would be next. Thankfully, it never showed at our house. Why it went after them, I don’t know. By the way, what’s your stake in all this anyway, Neil?”

“I lost someone close as well.”

I told him about Jake and he listened, nodding intently.

“That sounds rough. Man. You’re braver than me for trying to go after that thing I can tell you that.”

“Me and Kelly have been trying to find a way to hurt it. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps.”

“Preaching to the choir on that one.”

He checked his phone.

“My break’s almost up,”

“Wait. What about Floyd? Do you know where he is?”

A pained expression came over him.

“I’ve been through my fair share of funerals, but let me tell you, I haven’t seen anyone fall apart from losing someone as fast as he did. Then again, maybe it wasn’t only her death that made him spiral. He stopped going to work and eventually lost the house. Last I heard of him was through the grapevine. Apparently, he ended up getting hooked on heroin in the inner city. “

“Can you tell me which part?”

“Are you crazy? The only thing you’ll find there is a mugging and that’s if you’re lucky. Hell, I’m not even sure if he’s still alive. I haven’t seen him in years and to be honest, part of me thinks maybe it’d be better on him if he was all things considered.”

“Gene, please. You and I both know this thing needs to be put down and if he’s still there, maybe he knows something.”

He gave me another long stare.

“Alright, fine.”

He let me know the general area in which I might find Floyd.

“My advice, make sure you go there when there’s still plenty of daylight out and take this.”

He produced a pocket knife. My eyes went from it back to him.

“Are you sure?”

“You’ll need it more. Trust me.”

I took it, thanking him.

“Good luck,” he told me as I was walking to my car.

“It’s going to take more than that,” I told him to which I received a grim nod.

He gave a brief wave as I was backing up. I returned the gesture. Then pulled out of the gas station and started heading to the inner city.

Gene wasn’t kidding about the area and it made me thankful to have a weapon. After searching for a while, I finally found Floyd in a homeless camp. I wasn’t entirely sure it was him until I said his name. When I did, he opened his eyes. I stopped through the trash and makeshift mats.

“Floyd?” I repeated a little louder.

He only stared at me with glazed-over eyes. It was the expression of someone who’d lost themselves years ago,

“I’m…Here about Alberta.”

His far-away gaze became one of weak recognition.

“My Alberta?” He croaked. “How is she?”

I rubbed the back of my head in discomfort, trying to think of the best thing to say in response.

“I’m trying to help her.”

That wasn’t entirely a lie. In a way, we are trying to help by making sure it never hurts anyone again. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife. However, if there is, I know if I got killed by that thing I wouldn’t be able to rest in peace until it was put down.

“Do you know who was after her?”

A mixture of anger and fear came over Floyd. I got the feeling as though I’d accidentally lit a fuse. I was afraid he was going to attack me. Luckily, he didn’t.

“Nobody’s after her. She’s fine. I don’t know why everyone kept telling me they were sorry that she was gone. I’ve seen her.”

“You’ve seen her? When?”

“The woods. I knew they were wrong. It wasn’t my Alberta they buried. I would see her every night, waving to me in the same dress as when we first met.”

Floyd’s smile was reminiscent with a hint of longing. I got the sense that some deep part of him knew the truth of the situation and I pitied it.

“Nobody believed me when I told them. I gave up everything to find her.”

“Did you?”

He gave a weak nod.

“She made it all worth it. Nothing else mattered and I was willing to do anything for her.”

That was beginning to worry me.

“What do you mean by anything?”

“She told me she was sick. That…She was hungry. I fed her. I fed her all I could.”

“When did you see her last?”

“Three years ago. She took so much from me, but I’ll never regret it because it meant she forgave me.”

Those last two words hit close to home. I winced. The next question I asked was one whose answer I was dreading.

“What did she take?”

He lifted his shirt. My breath hitched upon seeing what lay underneath. Massive scars ran along his side, appearing to have been caused by several cuts and a large bite. I backed away.

“They thought I did this,” Floyd cackled. “They said I needed help. Tried to keep me locked up, but I escaped and made them pay. I lead them to her.”

“You did what?”

I felt myself get cold.

“They believed then. Oh, they believed as she chomped into them.”

Floyd became somber.

“I lost her after that, but I know she’ll come to me again, my Alberta”

His eyes closed. I breathed in deeply. To be honest, I felt conflicted. This man basically fed people to that thing. On the other hand, it’s clear he wasn’t in his right mind.

At the very least, I did get something from the conversation. I dwelled on it as I was heading back to my car.

The woods huh? It makes sense that’s where a predator would reside. The question now is which part of it?

The sun was setting during the drive back to the hotel. Kelly was already back Exhaustion was plain on her face.

“Long day?”

She nodded. I returned it and without any other words, we went to our rooms. We’ve been doing more research since then and tomorrow, I’ll be relaying what she did while I was searching for Floyd. Now, I need to get some rest. It’s been a really exhausting day.