Chapter 12

Chris took the mysterious mirror's advice and ran out of the house, making sure that he left no evidence behind that he was in the house. He left everything in place, and didn't even need to clean the mirror since it magically cleaned itself.

Hopping over the hedges, he took off down the street, noticing that the skies were now as black as night. Something was happening, but he did not have time to sort things out. If Jessie was in trouble, he was going to save her before anything happened to her.

He was west of the diner, and he knew the town like the back of his hand. He took the alley on the other side of the Wal-Mart, making sure that it wasn't blocked or the home of a hobo. Running through the alley, he was surprised to find that it wasn't littered with trash like usual. That was good enough for him, since he realy didn't feel like fucking around with a black plastic trash bag on his leg trying to get to Jessie.

Jessie. Right now that was the only thing he could think about. Jessie. His love, the only thing that mattered to him at this instance. Knowing that she was somehow in trouble, he could feel the adrenaline rushing through him, surging through him, like he was somehow electrocuted and it gave him added energy. Nothing had ever meant that much to him before.

Now on the other side of the alley, he crossed the strangely deserted street, only one block from the diner. From here he could see that there was no one on the streets, no one taking their usual afternoon walks or coming home from a nice day at the local spa. No, the streets had the eerie appearance of a ghost town, and for some reason, that scared Chris.

The diner appeared in the distance, the brightest thing that he could see in the darkness of the now-ominous day. The lights seemed to provide a sort of haloed look, like the monument of good when all else was evil and looked at its bleakest.

He entered the already open doorway, searching the diner for any sign of life. Another strange observance was that no one was sitting at the tables or bar, eating their late lunch. Jessie wasn't here, that he could see, and it didn't appear that anyone was working. It actually looked like the diner was closed, but that couldn't be because it was a weekday and it was always open on weekdays, even holidays.

Chris almost left, thinking that maybe he had been hallucinating or something when he was at Jack's house, when the smell hit him. It was rank, nothing he had ever smelt in his life, and trying to hold his breath, he made his way back inside. Obviously something had to be there, or the smell would not be.

He went to the bathroom and knocked on the door, fearing to open the door and find someone "doing their business". After no one answered, he opened the door, making sure that there was in fact no one using it. Finding it empty, he headed to the only other place available: the kitchen.

A big sign located by the door stated STAFF ONLY. Not being one to break the rules, Chris hesitated, but decided that he had a legitimate reason to enter. He swung the door open, and the sight that beheld him almost made him vomit on the floor. Intestines on the floor; a worker's dead body; and Jessie, sleeping, on the floor.

Trying to avert his eyes from the dead, gutted clerk, he walked over to the sleeping Jessie. She was trembling in her sleep, and softly moaning somehting inaudible. She had scratches on her face, and Chris feared that she was hurt in other places. Chris shook her, put Jessie did not seem to wake up. He shook her again and again, and she still not wake from her troubled sleep. Once more he shook her, hard enough to jolt her body and move her on the floor, and she finally stirred from her sleep.

As she realized where she was, she became horrified. "How did I get back here?" she sputtered as she tried to stand up. Her legs were asleep, and she collapsed back to the floor like a baby deer trying out it's legs for the first time.

"Honey, it's ok! I'm here now. We're going to call the police, and then we're gonna get you out of here. You can tell me what happened."

Jessie was still shaking. "No, no no! I don't want to repeat what happened here! The fucking... the fucking... the fucking DICK killed Sandra! He killed her, and now she's dead! She's dead!" She started crying, and Chris just held her in his arms, wiping the tears away from her cheeks as she let her anger, sadness, and fear out at the same time.