J. Gonzalez - They

Vince glanced back at the doorway; the coast was still clear. “Frank, listen, you need to relax. You can tell me everything when—”

“I don’t know why they let me go” Frank continued. He swallowed, then coughed. “Next thing I remember, I was outside… in… Fountain Valley? Huntington Beach maybe? I… started walking… saw how bad it was… found a phone booth…”

“—you get out, okay?” Vince was trying to calm Frank down, trying to get him to just relax and sleep, but he was still listening to what Frank was saying. Did he just tell me that they ate part of him? Is that what the doctor didn’t want to tell me?

“Tracy… where is she?” Frank said, his voice failing.

“She’s safe, Frank,” Vince said, his mind racing. “You’re going to be okay.”

“You… knew…” Frank was struggling to speak. His pupils dilated to wide discs, obscuring the whites. “…Tracy…”

Vince’s heart began to pound as Frank’s breathing became more labored, his eyes grew wider. The beeping of the heart monitor was racing as Frank’s heartbeat accelerated and Vince glanced at the monitor. Surely that couldn’t be a good sign. The green indicator on the machine was blipping like crazy. Frank had stopped talking and was lying slumped on the bed, staring sightlessly upward.

Vince turned toward the doorway. “Help! Doctor! Somebody!” He raced toward the nurse’s station just as a nurse rushed in, almost knocking him over. “The monitor—” he began, hovering in the doorway, watching helplessly as the doctor that had escorted him to Frank’s bedside rushed in.

Another pair of medical professionals joined them, and Vince could only watch in growing shock as a defibrillator was wheeled over. The dark-haired physician squeezed a dollop of gel on the defibrillator pads, placed them on Frank’s right pectoral muscle and on his left side. He watched the cardiac monitor as the nurse watched the dials on the defibrillator. “Clear,” she said.

Whump ! Frank’s back arched as his body was jolted with electricity. There was a short pause as all eyes went to the monitor. Flatline.

“Damnit!” The doctor placed the pads back into position. “Increase the voltage, in five.”

The five seconds that passed were the longest Vince ever experienced, and when the nurse shouted “clear!” again and Frank was jolted with the defibrillator pads, Vince turned and bolted out of the room. He couldn’t bear to watch anymore, couldn’t bear to be in the same room as the doctors and nurses fought to save Frank’s life. He couldn’t bear to be in the same room because the sinking feeling that he had when he watched Frank flatline was that it was over. Frank wasn’t coming back.

Vince stood outside the triage room for a moment, collecting his bearings. Other medical personnel breezed past, some clutching charts, some pushing gurneys with patients. They didn’t pay attention to Vince. After a moment, Vince could hear what was going on in the triage room and he closed his eyes. They zapped Frank a third time, then a fourth. Each zap was followed by a bustle of activity—the administering of oxygen and CPR and fluids, then the all-clear signal, followed by another zap. Vince waited outside the closed triage room door, unable to move, transfixed by the sound of the medical personnel fighting to save Frank’s life. It felt like he was in a holding pattern, frozen until the final verdict was pronounced.

When it finally came it was in a single sentence, from the dark-haired doctor. “Time of death five minutes after five p.m., Pacific Time.”

With no clear destination in mind, Vince moved.

He headed down the hall, away from the triage room, not really knowing where he was going, only knowing that he had to get away.

YOU KNEW… TRACY…

Frank’s last words floated through his mind as Vince walked out to his car numbly, the scene in the hospital reverberating in his mind. With Mike Peterson dead, Frank was obviously frantic, worried about Tracy, worried about Vince, and he was confirming to Vince what he’d known all along. The Children of the Night were after him. He was important to them. What was the term Frank had used? The Red Opener? Like some kind of portal? Whatever it was, it was sick, it was dangerous, it was insane, and he had to get as far away from these people as possible. And he had to contact Tracy and get somewhere safe where they could never be found.

Vince’s cell phone rang as he approached his car. He answered it as he disarmed the vehicle and climbed in. “Yeah?”

“Vince?” Tracy’s voice. She sounded concerned. He could only guess what he sounded like to her. “Vince, you okay?”

“Frank’s dead,” Vince said. He sat in the front bucket seat of his car, staring out at the lot and its multitudes of cars shimmering in the July sun. “So is Mike. They’re both dead.”

For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. Then, Tracy came back on the line. Her voice was calm, urging. “Vince, are you okay to drive?”

“I think so,” Vince said. He felt numb; detached, like he was in a waking nightmare. “It’s just… everything… it happened so fast.”

“You need to get out of there,” Tracy said. “Do you understand me, Vince?”

“Yeah. I understand.”

“I need you to come pick me up,” Tracy continued. “Only you’re not coming to the condo. I’m at Brian’s place. Can you pick me up there?”

“What are you doing there?” Vince asked. Brian Dennison lived in a large house in Laguna Hills. They… took me… near Laguna Hills …

“I told him what’s happening and he’s set us up. Everything is set up for our new lives, Vince. I acted on this the minute you dropped me off at the condo. I did it for us. We’re both going to be fine.”

“Everything’s… set up?”

“To escape,” Tracy said, her voice calm, soothing. “But we have to leave now. Come get me.”

“Okay.”

“You remember where Brian lives, right?”

“Yeah. I’m leaving now.”

“Drive carefully. I’ll see you soon.” And then Tracy hung up.

This played in his mind as he headed south on the 405 toward Irvine. The Lexus purred contentedly in rush hour traffic as Vince merged into the next lane, maneuvering to the left so he could get onto Interstate 5 where he would then get off on Mission Road. From there he would turn left, heading inland. Laguna Beach would lie behind him, a conclave of upper-middle class homes nestled in South Orange County. But further inland…

Laguna Hills.

Vince had been to Brian’s house a number of times. The neighborhood was made up primarily of high-level professionals: bankers, lawyers, doctors, CEOs. It was very plausible that Gladys Black and her husband lived within the general area.

As Vince drove, he thought about what Frank Black had told him in his drug-addled state. It was obvious something had happened to him; he’d looked gravely wounded. The attending ER physician did not want to discuss the specific nature of Frank’s more threatening injuries. Vince felt his stomach churn; he was nervous. It was still very difficult to believe the supernatural was at play here. He had a hard time believing what Frank had told him. Vince a half-human half-demon hybrid? It was absurd. The Children of the Night might believe it, but Vince didn’t, and that’s what made them so powerful. It was their belief that propelled them, what motivated them. Their devotion to this insane cause was as idiotic as those Christian nuts in Kansas with the god hates fags website and the Jihadists in the Middle East who blew themselves up in order to take down a few infidels.

The exit he was looking for came up and Vince took it, cruising effort-lessly onto Mission Viejo Road. He continued east, trying not to be both-ered by rush hour traffic. He drove on autopilot, his route already mapped out. He knew where he was going, and he would know the house when he saw it.