Chapter Forty-Two

I rolled over onto my back, staring at the ceiling while my mind lazily caught up with the moment. A quick look in the direction of my bedroom windows told me that it was still dark outside, and in my sleep-drunk state, I couldn’t understand why I had woken up before the alarm.

I sat up slowly, carefully, trying not to wake the woman sleeping next to me, but she was a much lighter sleeper than I was, and I heard her groan with annoyance, “What time is it?”

I looked at the digital clock on the bedside table, the green numbers glowing bright enough to light the otherwise pitch-black room.

12:04.

“It’s just after midnight,” I said, to which she let out another groan.

“I’ll go see what he wants.”

Right then, I realized what had happened. My movement wasn’t to blame for her interrupted sleep. She and I were both awakened together by the same thing: that voice calling to us from the room at the end of the hallway.

“Mom! Dad!”

How long had he been calling to us?

“Where are my house shoes?” she asked, groggily.

“No, don’t worry about it. I’ll go.”

The relief was evident in her voice as she fell back into the bed. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s my turn.”

Was it my turn? I couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. She needed her rest, and I was already up and moving towards the door. As I passed the writing desk, I spotted my old jacket draped over the chair and instinctively grabbed it to throw on before stepping out into the hallway.

By design, our home wasn’t nearly as dark out here. We had set up a row of night lights in the hall’s outlets shortly after moving in—a safety precaution to ensure our son could make it from his bedroom to the bathroom in the middle of the night in case of a potty emergency. Or at least, that’s what we told him. In reality, it was just one more tool to combat his increasingly frequent nightmares, but his mother insisted that we not bring any more attention to our motives than necessary.

A shiver ran down my spine. We were deep into the part of winter when cold snaps hit without warning, and now that I was out from under the covers, my subconscious lizard brain was screaming at me to go back and crawl into the warm bed. I stopped at the thermostat to dial up the heat by a couple of degrees, but the voice broke into the silence again, loud and urgent, “Mooom! Daaad!”

“I’m right here, buddy!” I called out in a calming but exhausted voice. The heat cut on, and I continued the rest of the way to his bedroom door, knocking twice to announce my presence before pushing it open. “Hey, kiddo.” I said as I entered. “What’s the matter?”

“Dad!” he screamed tearfully, as if he wasn’t sure it was really me.

I flicked on the Avengers lamp sitting on his dresser so he could see that it was, in fact, his father, and not someone he needed to be afraid of. I knew he was scared. He was scared by everything. Shadows, noises, imaginary enemies. He got that paranoia from my side of the family, and I could empathize a lot better than his mom.

He was sitting in his bed with his knees pulled up to his chin, all but his face wrapped in superhero-themed bed sheets. I took a seat on the mattress and put my hand on his head, unhappy to find that he was covered in sweat.

“What’s wrong?” I asked again, offering a smile.

He swallowed loudly, then looked past me at the door on the other side of his bedroom.

“There’s a monster in my closet.” I followed his gaze and nodded. “Is it okay if I come and sleep with you and mom?”

I looked him in the eyes and tried to reason with him. “You know if there’s a monster in your closet, it won’t do any good for us to simply leave it in there.”

He shot back, “It would make more sense to let him stay where he is for now and then do something about it in the morning after we’ve all gotten a good night’s sleep.”

He had clearly thought this through.

“Why do you think there’s a monster in your closet?”

“I saw it go in there.”

The fear in his eyes was real, and I was convinced that he believed what he was saying. I would never hold his fear against him. He had every right to be afraid. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you, okay? Monsters are real. Don’t tell your mom I told you this, but I’ve seen them. On plenty of occasions. They’re huge buttheads most of the time, too. But a monster isn’t going to sneak into your closet just to hang out. That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“I don’t know why he’s in there, Dad! All I know is he’s scary and I don’t want to be in the same room with him!”

I stood up. “You know you have nightmares, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think is more likely? That a monster came all the way down here, to our neighborhood in the suburbs, snuck past everybody—the cops, the neighborhood watch, that snoopy old Mrs. Churchill across the street—got past the deadbolts and both of our dogs without being noticed, came all the way into your room, and then went and hid in your closet? That? Or maybe you just had another one of your bad dreams?”

“The first one!”

I walked over to the closet. “Well, there’s one way to know for sure, huh?”

“Wait!” he screamed.

I turned. “Yeah?”

“Don’t open the door!”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s a monster in there!”

“So you said. But if that’s true, if there’s a monster, maybe we should talk to him, huh? Ask what he’s doing in there. What if he’s lost?”

“What if he kills you!?”

I made a mental note to dial back the television before bedtime. My child clearly had the same imagination and anxious tendencies that I’d had at his age, and I knew that he needed some reassurance that everything was going to be okay. But I wasn’t really in the best state of mind to properly answer a question like that. “Well, let’s think about this. If he wants to kill me, what’s stopping him from doing it right now?” As soon as I said it, I regretted it.

He glared at me and answered in a matter-of-fact tone, “It’s a monster! It can’t open doors from the inside.”

“Ah,” I replied. “My mistake.” Then I turned and gave the closet door a few loud knocks. “Hello? Any monsters in there?”

Obviously, there was no response.

“Dad, please! Leave him alone. You don’t want to make him angry!”

“If he can’t open the door from the inside, then what do you even have to be afraid of? He can’t hurt you if he’s trapped in there, can he?”

“I don’t like what he says when we’re alone. He talks to me through the door. He says weird things. He tells me stories about you and the gas station.”

An icy chill surged through my veins, and suddenly I was on high alert like I’d just slammed ten shots of espresso.

“What did you say?” I asked, hoping against all hope that I had misheard him.

“He tells me about the gas station. And you.”

I looked back at the closet. “And you’re saying he’s on the other side of this door?”

I reached out to touch the handle, but my son shrieked, “NO! DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!” But this time, somehow, his voice sounded funny. Like it wasn’t him who was speaking.

I pulled my fingers away from the handle. “What did this monster look like, exactly?”

“Oh, so now you believe me!?” This time, he sounded annoyed.

“Let’s just say I’m open to the idea of the possibility that there could be something in there. But I remain convinced that there probably isn’t. Is that fair?”

My son scoffed. “Now I feel like you’re patronizing me.”

“Sorry, kiddo.”

“I’m just saying, let’s leave the monster in there for the night. Maybe you can get a hammer and nail the closet shut while I go and get into bed with Mom.”

“You know we’re going to have to open that door eventually, right? That’s where we keep your school clothes.”

“We can buy new ones! Why risk it? Tomorrow, we burn the house down with the monster inside! It will be fun! Come on, Dad! Please?”

I took a deep breath and sighed, then crossed the room again, taking my seat next to him on the bed. I gave him a hug and said, “Look, we can’t just keep burning houses to the ground every time there’s a problem. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

I released him and looked into his eyes. “Don’t tell your mom this, either, but I’ve killed a lot of monsters in my day. Like, a ridiculous amount of monsters. Some of them were bad guys. Not all, but a lot of them. What do you say we look and see what’s in there, and if it’s a bad monster, we take care of it together?”

“I feel like this might end up causing me some serious psychological harm in the long run. Are you sure I can’t just come sleep in your bed?”

Wow. He really was my son.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He leaned over to look past me at the closet door. “Okay. Then let’s see what he wants. But can I have a weapon or something first in case he eats you?”

I laughed to myself. “Afraid I’m fresh out of weapons. Unless I have a—” I patted at the pockets of the jacket, then caught myself… Something heavy and metal... “Wait, no, you’re right, actually. I do have this.” I reached inside the jacket... The inner pocket… Somehow, I’d already forgotten… the pistol was still there from earlier...

I pulled it out and looked at it. How the heck could I have forgotten?

“Cool!” my son yelled, looking at the firearm with excited, wide eyes.

“No, it’s not.” I corrected him. “This is a deadly weapon. You can permanently disable someone with this thing. You can literally kill somebody by accident if you’re not careful. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay then,” I said, handing him the gun. He took it from me with a big smile. “The safety is already off, and there should still be a bullet chambered, so all you have to do is point and squeeze the trigger. Got it?”

“Got it!!”

“And for the love of God, please don’t shoot me by mistake. If the monster comes at you, be ready. Don’t get fancy and try for any sideways aiming or trick shots. And don’t bother with headshots. You’re a seven-year old, not John Wick. Statistically, your best bet is center mass. You know what that means?”

“Aim for the middle?”

“Right. Chest and torso shots should be enough to incapacitate most humanoids. Now, are you ready?”

He pointed the gun at the ceiling and nodded. “Ready!”

“Okay. Let’s see what this guy’s problem is.”

I stood up and made my way back to the closet door, reached out, and grabbed the handle. Then I looked over my shoulder to see my son pointing the gun in my direction. We were all set. I yanked the door open and nearly fell over backwards when I saw who was standing there.

“Hey bro!” said Jerry excitedly.

“What the fuck! What the fucking fuck, Jerry!? What the fuck are you doing in my son’s closet!?”

He was holding a forty-four-ounce Styrofoam container and lifted the straw to his lips for a moment, gulping each swallow loudly and staring at me. When he was done downing half the drink, he smacked his lips and said, “I really don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Is it, like, a metaphor? I can’t keep up with you kids and your slang these days.”

“Uh, dad?” I turned to see my child trying to find his shot. “Can you take a step to the side or something?”

“Don’t shoot him,” I relented, “He’s not that kind of monster.”

My son let out a long, disappointed “Awww.”

“And don’t tell your mom I said the ‘F’ word!”

“So, Jack?” I turned back to face Jerry. “I can’t help but notice the changes you made to the place. Gotta say, I really don’t like them. Maybe we should clean up or something? Right? Hey, is there any cake left over?”

“Where the flip did you come from? How did you find me? How did you even get in here?”

He stared hard into my eyes for a long time before asking, “Are you drunk?”

Well this was rich. Jerry was asking if I was drunk. It felt like such an insulting accusation. “I haven’t had anything to drink in…” I tried to remember the last time. “It’s been years now. Never mind that! You’re supposed to be dead!”

“I am!” he responded happily. “But right now I gotta piss like a frat house moose. I’ve been driving for the last eight hours straight and holding it in the whole time and I’m about to pop and not in a good way. Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.” He shoved his way past me, out the bedroom door, and down the hall towards the bathroom.

My son was still pointing the gun at the open doorway. I walked up to him and took it from his tiny hands and tossed it onto the counter next to the cash register.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Just this guy I used to know,” I answered. “Don’t worry about him okay?”

“O… kay... I guess. But, I still need a signature.”

I looked inside his closet, wondering to myself how the hell Jerry managed to get in here in the first place. I wouldn’t put it past him to have picked our locks. He probably bribed our dogs with some jerky or something. But how on earth did he find me way out here after all this time?

“Just go to bed, son. I’ll take care of him.”

“Come on, dude, all I need is a signature.”

I looked at the bed, but he wasn’t there anymore. And neither was the bed. Nothing was there, and all of a sudden, the world started spinning. Except that wasn’t exactly right, was it? The world had always been spinning, this whole time, and I had only just now become aware of it. It was spinning faster than I thought possible, like the planet was trying its damnedest to get rid of me by flinging my body off its surface and into space. I was sick to my stomach and could feel my dinner preparing to make a surprise reappearance.

“I need to sit down,” I said as I collapsed onto the sticky floor behind the register.

The postman walked around the counter and looked down at me. “Look, this is getting really weird. You’re my last stop, and I just need you to sign for this package so I can go home.”

I tried sitting up, and the back of my shirt made a disgusting fwack noise as it pulled away from the floor. Somehow, even that was too much and I fell over and hit my head against the shelf next to the empty safe. This wasn’t my proudest moment, for sure.

The man walked right up to me and knelt down at my side, dropping a thick envelope onto the floor and reaching into his pocket while muttering to himself.

“All of my friends are dead or turned into monsters or both,” I told him.

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” the guy replied. “You look like you really need a fix bad, huh? What’s your poison?”

“Reality.” Suddenly, I realized that something about this guy was not quite right. “Hey! How did you get into my son’s bedroom?”

The guy pulled out a prescription bottle and emptied its contents into the palm of his hand. “Look, dude, I was saving this for the weekend, but I can tell you need it way more than me. Make a deal with you? I’ll hook you up, but then you have to sign for my package.”

He put a small, white pill into my hand.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it.”

If I had been in my right mind, I probably would have simply said “No thanks.” But I wasn’t, and I hadn’t been for a long time, so it never even registered that I might not want to accept this strange man’s gift. I popped it into my mouth with nary a thought and dry swallowed. Next, I signed for the oversized envelope and watched as the guy turned and walked back around the front of the counter.

I didn’t get up right away, instead I stayed there on the dirty ground, staring at the discolored gas station ceiling tiles. In time, I started to feel almost normal again, but then the vehicle I was riding missed its exit, and I kept riding in the wrong direction. Soon I was sweating, and then I felt like I was on fire, like I was about to erupt into flames. Wet, disgusting, bloody flames. And I was convinced that this was how they’d finally find me. As a smoldering puddle of red goop behind the gas station counter. Nothing left but a fake leg and pain gravy.

And then, all of a sudden, I felt fine.

I had no idea how long I’d been down there, but I was done. For now. I was in a period of lucidity and finally able to make an assessment of my surroundings.

My name is Jack. I’m a gas station clerk who can’t fall asleep. This morning I killed a man and buried his body in a shallow grave out back, and after that, my brain started going off like a box of fireworks in a supernova. I searched the area around me until I found my baseball bat. What the hell was that just now?

It took me a second to realize the answer. That was a dream. Or, at least, my brain’s best attempt at one. Like a flower growing out of the crack in an asphalt parking lot, my subconscious was finding a way to break through and express itself, and I hated it.

This was a long time coming. Vivid hallucinations. Memory loss. The periods of missing time. My body and brain were in a continuous state of missed connections, all signaling the unavoidable reality that my troubles were almost over for good. But until then...

“Hey! Jack!”

I looked at the Styrofoam ice chest on the shelf below the cooler, where the noise appeared to be coming from.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You okay, dude? You’re not looking so hot.”

“You’re one to talk! At least I’ve still got most of my body.”

“Touché.”

I stood up and immediately fell over, smacking my face against the counter in my descent. My front teeth cut into my upper lip and when I hit the ground, I spat out blood.

“Gross!” laughed the severed head from all the way inside the box.

“Shut up!” I screamed back.

What was his problem, anyway? Why was he always laughing? Turning everything into a big joke?

I tried again, slower this time. Standing and pushing the bat into the ground to brace myself. I stood in place until the vertigo had left, then I began to stretch. My muscles ached like I hadn’t used them in ages.

Whatever drug the postman had given me, it appeared to have temporarily stabilized my brain chemistry. I was wide awake now, but that didn’t stop me from feeling the need to eat another handful of coffee beans—a habit I’d gotten far too comfortable with as of late. What the hell was that hallucination supposed to mean anyway? Was that a vision of my life in another reality? A possible future? Or was it simply a side effect of improperly firing neurons?

“You should open your package,” Spencer Middleton said from his spot on the other side of the counter.

Yeah right. I’m not falling for that one again.

“Why would I do that?”

“You never know. It could be something useful.”

“Yeah? Or it might be another one of my dead friends!” I screamed.

Wait a second. Who the hell was I talking to?

I looked around the empty gas station. There wasn’t anyone here but me. So why did it feel so damn small? Why did I feel like I was running out of space?

I went and retrieved the ice box and placed it on top of the counter, then tapped it a few times to get the head’s attention.

“Hey, Jerry, you see anything weird going on?”

For some reason, he didn’t answer. I went to open the top of the box to make sure he wasn’t up to anything in there, but right as my fingers touched the lid, I heard the voice right behind me and jumped.

“You seem crazier than normal.”

I spun around to see Spencer Middleton once again. He was standing within striking distance, but Ricardo was still propped up next to the coffee machine. I grabbed the gun off the counter and pointed it at him, but he flicked his hand out and relieved me of my weapon in a single, effortless move.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “Are you that cool, or do I just suck?”

“Get it together, man. You’re embarrassing both of us.”

He was wearing a dark three-piece suit with a red tie. His hair was freshly cut and combed. His face cleanly shaven. And he was looking much healthier than I had hoped. He stood straight and tall, staring down at where I was leaning against the counter. In short, he looked like the exact opposite of me. He smiled a little wider, no doubt thinking of all the ways he was about to torture me. God, I hated him so much.

“You look different. What happened? You get promoted to vice president of Hell or something?”

“One of these days, you're going to finally learn, I'm not the bad guy. You are.”

“Ha! Shows what you know. I’m already aware that I’m the bad guy.”

He shook his head, and then, he wasn’t there anymore. I can’t exactly say that he vanished, because I don’t think that’s what happened. One second, he was standing there, holding me hostage. The next, he was long gone, and I was sitting behind the counter again.

My face hurt like hell from where I had just taken a counter to the teeth, and the blood was steadily filling and refilling my mouth, making me more and more sick to my stomach with each swallow. Finally, I got up and went in search of paper towels. I grabbed the last pack off the shelf, used a wad to temporarily stop the bleeding, and fell into my seat in the booth where I’d left that empty tequila bottle from the night before. Just the sight of it was enough to make me gag, and I made a silent resolution to give up alcohol for the foreseeable future. I turned my head away, looking out the window at the front lot. That’s when I noticed something strange.

Wait… Whose car is that?

Somehow, until just now, I had missed that shiny black 1960s-style Chevelle Malibu double-parked by the front doors. I took the paper towels out of my mouth.

“Hey, Jerry!” I yelled in the direction of the head. But he didn’t answer.

How long has that car been there?

I got up, grabbed Ricardo, and walked up to the front doors to see if I could spot anybody in front of the building.

Alarmingly, there was no one out there, but I went ahead and turned the deadbolt, just to be safe. Never hurts to put the gas station into lockdown mode, right? I went to check the back door, but right as I passed the bathroom, I heard something I should not have been able to hear. Running water. Had I left the sink on and forgotten about it?

I knocked a couple times.

“Occupied!” sang the voice of someone on the other side of the door.

I quickly ducked (like that was going to do any good), then scurried back into the front of the store, where I dove behind the counter. Once there, I leaned up and smacked Jerry’s head box, whispering loudly, “Jerry! Put your game face on! Code red! Who is that in the store?”

But he didn’t say anything.

“Come on, Jerry! Now’s not the time to play around! Is that a mimic or not!?”

Still no answer. I was beginning to panic.

The bathroom door opened and the man who had been inside came out whistling. Jerry was no help, so I was going to have to assess this situation all on my own. Another judgment call; another great chance for me to get it all wrong. The whistling was getting closer, closer, until it was coming from the other side of the counter. I gripped the bat and stood up to see who it was.

“Yo,” he said with a smirk. “Nice bat.”

I screamed.

He screamed.

“What the fuck!?” I yelled.

“Why are we yelling!?” he yelled back.

I swung the bat at him, just in case, but missed completely before losing my balance and collapsing onto the floor all over again.

Jerry calmly walked behind the counter and looked down at me, saying “Weird question, but, did I miss something? This place seems… a lot worse.”

I patted my pockets to try and find one of my guns, but they weren’t there right now. I threw the bat at him, but he managed to duck it at the last second before it went bouncing off the wall on the other side.

“Who are you?!” I screamed.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment and said, “I guess it’s a pretty good question. I never really thought about it.” He shook his head like he was trying to get a bug out of his hair, then looked back at me with a smile. “Anyway, sorry it took me so long. Y’all miss me?”

I didn’t even want to say it. I was so pissed at this moment, so tired of all the close calls and the hope that shows up just to disintegrate before my eyes. But there was something more than just the fear of death forcing me to continue, so I stood up, faced the man in front of me (if he was a man), and asked, “Jerry?”

The smile on his face faded, and suddenly he looked different. Like I’d never seen him before. He actually looked worried.

“Yeah, man. Are you okay? What the hell happened while I was gone? This place looks like y’all played indoor hockey without me. And you look like shit. Like, really bad. Like, just so so bad. No offense.”

I could feel the tears streaming down my face as the words fell out of me, “I didn’t know where you’d gone and I thought you were dead. Everybody left me and I’ve been here by myself this whole time and I’ve killed people, Jerry, oh God I’ve killed so many people. It’s crazy how many people I’ve killed!”

“Okay, look who’s bragging.”

“I’ve run out of places to bury all of the bodies! Rita’s probably dead and Brother Riley’s a fugitive god and either the cookie twins are secretly fae or I ate a whole chipmunk. I don’t even know how I haven’t been caught yet! I have a box of wallets and guns in the cooler. I eat coffee beans by the handful and they won’t even deliver pizza here anymore and the others all think I’m crazy.”

I would have probably kept talking for much longer, but at this point I started hyperventilating. Jerry walked over, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, “Dude. Take a breath. Calm your tits. It’s going to be okay.”

“HOW?!” My breath was back. “How is it going to be okay? You haven’t been here. You don’t know how bad it’s gotten. And where the hell were you, anyway?”

“I told you, I had to go and fake my own death.”

“What?!”

“We talked about this. Extensively. A couple bounty hunters showed up on my birthday, and I got tired of paying everyone off. This was your idea, remember? I go and fake my death so that my family leaves me alone once and for all. You said no communications until I got back, not even WhatsApp.”

“When did we talk about this?”

“On the phone. It was an extremely detailed conversation. I didn’t want to leave until after the party, but you insisted. Come to think of it, you sounded a little off, but I just assumed you wanted the cake all for yourself.”

Another puzzle piece fell into place. Or did it? Did any of this make sense?

“That wasn’t me,” I said. “Whoever you talked to on the phone. It must have been one of them screwing with us again. We can’t trust phones. They must have figured out a way to mimic voices.”

“Can they sound like Robin Williams?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Look, a lot has happened since you’ve been gone.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Honestly, I’m a little impressed at how much you managed to destroy in so little time.”

“Jerry, I’ve been fighting monsters for months now. It’s been non-stop ever since the day you left.”

“Uh, dude?”

“Yeah?”

“I left last week.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My birthday party was six days ago. How much time did you think had passed?”

Six.

Days.

It’s only been six days?!

I gave up on keeping track of time after O’Brien left. When my phone died, I saw no point in recharging it. Plus, it’s hard to know when days end or begin when you don’t sleep. But it must have been longer than six days, right?

“You mean to tell me I’ve done all of this in less than one week?!”

Jerry looked out at the wasteland of a gas station and whistled. “Alright. Here’s the plan. Are you familiar with the Japanese organization method of Konmari? Where you take everything in the building, look at it, and ask yourself, ‘Does this bring me joy?’ That’s what we’re going to do. And if it doesn’t bring you joy, we’re going to throw it in a giant bonfire, because bonfires bring me joy. We’ll start with the bills and go from there. I’ll go find some kindling.”

He walked down the hallway, stepped over a gnome, and pushed open the back door. I waited until it swung shut behind him to grab the ice chest on the counter and shake it.

“Dude!” I screamed, “Are you in there? It’s not funny anymore, if you’re alive, I need you to tell me what the hell is going on! Is that the real Jerry? Or is it a clone?” He wasn’t answering. I ripped the top of the lid off and gagged. The sawdust and coffee grounds had done an okay job of muffling the smell of rotting meat, but it also had an unintended adverse effect, absorbing all of the moisture remaining in the skin. I’m not sure what I was expecting to see, but the only thing in there was a mummified head with empty, hollow sockets. Had I somehow killed him?

“Dude, please, talk to me!” I closed my eyes. “Don’t do this to me now, of all times. I need to know, is this real? Were you ever real? Are you going for some kind of noble thing where you try to let me think the mimic is the real Jerry and you pretend to be dead so that at least I have a real friend to talk to before the world ends? Or was I legit nuts this whole time?”

“Hey, uh, dude?” I opened my eyes and looked at the head in the box, but it wasn’t the one talking. The voice was coming from the real Jerry, standing on the other side of the counter. He looked at the ice chest, then at me, then asked, “Sorry, I came in to get a fresh lighter, and, uh… What ya got there, buddy?”

“Nothing.”

“Looks like you’re talking to a jerkified skull like a crazy person. And it sounds like you named it after me. Pretty weird.”

“Yeah.”

He grabbed a handful of butane lighters from the display next to the ice chest and said, “Well, I’m not gonna tell you how to live your life.” Then he turned to leave again, but I stopped him.

“Wait. Jerry. I think this has served its purpose. It’s… time to let go.”

“Alright, cool. Do you want to do another Viking funeral, or—”

“No. No more funerals. Just get rid of it.”

He nodded, then, to my surprise, reached into the ice chest and scooped out the raw head up with his bare hand. I followed him as he walked out back with it, then watched as he gave himself a running start and drop-kicked the head into the trees. As soon as it went airborne, a swarm of raccoons raced out from under the crawlspace, chasing the head to wherever it landed in the woods.

Jerry wiped his hand in the dirt and said, “Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about the others.”

“The others?”

“Yeah, O’Brien and Rosa. Where the hell are they, anyway? Something tells me we’re gonna need to go rescue them before we do the fire. I’ll go grab some weapons and snacks. You go change into a shirt that isn’t covered in blood and sweat. Then we go straight to the nearest KenTacoHut because I am starving. Then we go save Rosa first. Sound good?”

I took a deep breath. Deep down, I knew this was all working out a little too perfectly. I knew that “Jerry” was just luring me away from the gas station. I knew that something else was going on, but I didn’t know what it was. Only that things were looking too positive. It felt just like a trap. And I didn’t care.

“Hey, Jerry?”

“Yeah, man?”

“It’s good to have you back.”