Welcome to Undisclosed – A JDatE Fanfiction

Disclaimer: I don’t own David Wong’s characters or anything, and they’re used without permission. I don’t plan to profit off this, it’s made just for fun. I copyright my characters, though. Oh, and this story. This isn’t canonical with Wong’s stories, but it probably would fit somewhere after the second book. In the paraphrased words of Wong himself, if you think it sucks, make something better.

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PROLOGUE

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Everyone went to high school with one kid who they were sure would show up at school one day with a semi-automatic, simultaneously angry and ecstatic as he mowed down students and teachers indiscriminately. My close friend and cousin, Isaac, who attended the Undisclosed high school, always had David Wong pinned as that kid.

He wasn’t too far off, it turns out. Wong actually killed another kid as revenge for years of bullying, or something like that. It was only in the news for a few days, or at least that’s how long the public cared about it. I had never met David Wong, but Isaac did, and I heard a lot about him that way.

A few years after he got kicked out of school, Dave and his friend John (who was apparently a much more appealing personality) started turning up in local offbeat news stories, usually concerning ghosts and demons and stuff. Most of us figured it was because he was a crazy occult type, and the fact that a disturbing number of police officers have turned up dead or missing after getting involved with him has never exactly squelched any rumors. My uncle was friends with one of the cops, a guy named Vance Falconer. I met him a few times, and he struck me as an action movie hero type, the kind of guy who gets all the one-liners and badass fight scenes. That is, until he suddenly committed suicide just outside of David Wong’s house.

I’m Adam, by the way. Um, hi. I’m not from Undisclosed, but I might as well be, since I spend most of my time there. It’s a terrible, terrible place, but that’s where Isaac is. Now then, where was I?

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CHAPTER 1 – It Begins

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I sighed and honked my car horn rapidly at the elderly fucker in front of me. He, in his aptly named Oldsmobile, refused to go any faster than fifteen miles per hour. The speed limit is twenty-five. It had snowed a few days ago, but the roads were bone-dry now and covered with white powder, a remnant of the chemical battle that had occurred between God’s snow and man’s road salt.

“Move your ass! I have shit to do!” I snarled. Why did this road have just one lane? I shook my head, theorized that if the speed limit was actually thirty-five, this guy would be going twenty-five, regardless of the road conditions.

After the longest two minutes I could remember, I at last reached Isaac’s road. I considered flipping the old guy off, but decided it wouldn’t matter, since he either had somehow not noticed me at all or was a spiteful prick.

I hung a left turn and within seconds came upon Isaac’s house. I parked my Chevy Lumina in his tiny driveway, since he didn’t own a car, and honked the horn.

He must have seen me coming, because he was out the door immediately. We nodded a greeting to each other, and he rounded my car and climbed in.

“Took you long enough,” he said. “What, did you stop for a snack on the way here, lunchbox?”

Let me take a moment to tell you about Isaac. When we were younger, I used to spend the night at Isaac’s house all the time. One night, his parents went out to get us pizza. They returned shortly after they had left, and told us with sullen faces that a little boy who lived a few blocks down the road from them had just been hit by a speeding semi truck. My jaw dropped, and my mind flooded with visions of that Stephen King book, Pet Semetary. Isaac, however, looks right at his parents and asks, “So, where’s the pizza?” He’s not a bad guy; he just has a dark sense of humor. Also, he’s sort of a dick sometimes.

“Shut up, Isaac. You’re as fat as I am.”

“No way, you’ve probably got at least 50 pounds on me.”

“Fuck you.”

Isaac laughed.

“So where are we even going? You didn’t tell me anything on the phone.”

He grinned devilishly at me. “Adam, we are going to the mall.”

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CHAPTER 2 – The Mall

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The Undisclosed mall was nearly indistinguishable from the garbage dump, and in fact appeared to be used for that purpose by the local teens. I had never come here, because there was literally no reason to do so.

“Why are we here? This sucks.”

“You’ll see, dude. Just hold on.”

We couldn’t pull very far into the parking lot without driving over a sea of broken beer bottles and McDonald’s wrappers. Isaac rolled down the window and contributed to the mess with a just-emptied bottle of Heineken.

I sighed as I pulled the keys. “You’re lucky we didn’t get pulled over. You can’t have open alcohol in the car, man.”

“I see no alcohol in the car, do you?”

Opening the door, I stepped out onto a charred beer can, the brittle aluminum cracking too loud under my foot. I kicked it away. Isaac was already moving toward the building, choosing a meandering path between the glass shards. Shouldn’t the city clean this place up? And why haven’t kids burned it down yet? Maybe it’s not as cathartic for the arsonists to torch as, say, a guy’s house down the street last week.

I followed him through the maze of trash and up to the doors, the locks long since broken. He turned on a flashlight he had taken from my car and we walked through the door.

The place smelled exactly how I had expected, which was like rotting garbage and animal shit. Isaac didn’t seem to mind the smell much, but I pulled my shirt up over my nose as he guided us through the decrepit halls. I saw a squirrel or a raccoon or something scamper across the floor just outside the flashlight’s reach.

“This better be fucking amazing, man. I am not happy right now.”

“Just relax, Adam. You’ll see in a second.”

We turned down a shorter corridor and headed toward the back wall. The smell was almost overwhelming now. It made my eyes water. Did something die in here?

Isaac set the flashlight down and started pulling up some floorboards near the wall.

“Hey Isaac. Dude, what are you doing?”

No answer. I grunted indignantly and jogged over to pick up the flashlight.

“Yo! Asshole, what-“

My heart stopped as the beam of light glanced over what lie beneath the plywood flooring. I dropped the flashlight. It was a corpse. A horrible, putrid, rotting human being’s body. It was almost entirely decomposed, covered in maggots and worms and all sorts of horrible shit. So that’s what the smell was.

“Oh… Oh my god. Fuck. FUCK, man! What..? Fucking shit!” I babbled. My mind was gone. I had never seen a dead body like this before. When they’re still freshly dead and all dressed up in a silk-lined coffin, it’s disturbing but tolerable. But not like this. Never like this.

“Pretty fucked up, huh?” Isaac turned to me. “I found this poor motherfucker the other day when I was here with some dudes from back in high school. They didn’t think it was real, but then again, we were baked out of our minds.”

“Yes it’s fucked up! What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you show me this, you bastard! Did you call the cops?! Fucking Christ, man!”

“Holy shit, Adam, relax! Yeah it’s a body, but it’s not like I killed the dude. Apparently he’s been dead for a long-ass time. No, I didn’t call the cops. The police around here are all pricks.”

“It doesn’t… look, Isaac.” I closed my eyes and breathed heavily. My pulse was racing. I desperately wanted to punch him in the face. “There is a human corpse right next to us. It’s not buried in a cemetery. It has been hidden, which almost absolutely means that he was fucking murdered. Do you not understand what the situation is here?”

“Yeah, I figured he was murdered too. It’s exciting, isn’t it? Nothing ever happens in this town.”

“Exciting? No, it’s horrifying and fucked up and wrong. I… I’m leaving. I want nothing to do with this. Didn’t see anything, never even came to this piece of shit mall.” I barked the words into the darkness, leaving my cousin behind me as I marched back toward the mall entrance. “Fuck you and your nonchalant attitude towards horrible shit.”

Isaac was following me. “Wait a second! Adam, come back! Wait a minute, come on!”

But I wasn’t listening. There was now an image in my mind that I never wanted there, and it would never leave. I had suspected that he had found someone’s stash of weed or something, or maybe some funny graffiti. Not a dead body. I was not prepared for that. He should have told me.

“Adam! Hold up, man. I didn’t show you that just to freak you out or piss you off or whatever.” Isaac had run to catch up with me. He touched my shoulder, I shook it off. My hand was on the door as he said, “Adam, I think it was Wong. David Wong.”

I stopped and turned to him. “What, you think that’s him down there?”

“Pfft, no. He’s still working at the video store. I think Wong killed this guy and hid him here. He’s killed people before, hasn’t he?”

“I guess technically he did, but come on. You can’t just assume it was him.”

“He’s crazy enough to do it.”

“There are lots of crazy fucks around here.”

“But Undisclosed only has one certified murderer.”

I slumped against the door and slid to the ground. “So what do you want me to do about it? Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I told you, I hate the cops around here. They always give me shit, and if I told them I found a body, they probably would think I was involved.”

“Isaac. It’s not illegal to report a crime, but it is to conceal one.”

“That’s not the point, man. Listen, I know you think I’m insane or something, but trust me, I already had my what-the-fuck moment about the body when I found it, and you had yours just now. I’m showing you because I trust you.” I hate when he says things like that. “Just please, hear me out here.”

“So you have a plan then? What are you possibly going to do that will make this go away?” I was getting angry again.

“We’re gonna confront Wong and make him confess, then turn him in to the cops.”

“And what if he didn’t do it? He’ll probably call the cops on us instead and say that we did it.”

“I doubt it. His track record with the police is even worse than mine.”

Not by much, I’ll wager.

“And besides,” he continued, “they probably wouldn’t even believe him. He’s insane, remember? He sees things that aren’t there. Also, I’ve read on the internet that him and his friend John are into all this paranormal shit. They go out and solve weird mysteries for other crazy people, like they’re fuckin’ Scooby Doo or something. If he did it, we have to make sure they put him away.”

I couldn’t believe he was actually starting to convince me to go along with this. What if Wong did do it? What if he freaks out on us for revealing that we know his secret? My mind was spinning with all that had just happened, and was about to happen.

“Fuck it,” I said, already sick of the whole situation. “You already found the body, the least we can do is tell someone it’s here. But promise me something. Okay Isaac?”

“Yeah sure, what is it?”

“If Wong doesn’t know what we’re talking about, we leave IMMEDIATELY and tell the police everything. You understand?”

“Sure, sure.”

“I fucking mean it, man. We go right to the station, report it, and forget this ever happened. Promise me.”

Isaac looked right at me. “I promise you, Adam. If this doesn’t work, we tell the cops. Well, you tell them. Those guys are pricks.”

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CHAPTER 3 – David Wong

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Neither of us said a word until the horrible mall-tomb was well out of sight. Isaac thunked his head against the window. “So… that thing smelled pretty bad, huh.”

“Yes, yes it did. Because it was a rotting dead person.”

For a while, the only sound was my car engine, growling through the streets like an oversized lawnmower.

“Hey dude, do you still have my Dynasty Warriors?”

I said nothing.

I swung quickly into Isaac’s driveway and put the car in park, released a breathy fuck-word.

“What are we gonna do, man? I don’t even want anything to do with this.” I tossed my head back against the broken headrest and sighed. It seemed I had been doing a lot of that lately.

“Now that we’re away from… the scene, we can think clearly about our course of action.” This was Isaac’s attempt at cop speak, since his dad was an officer. He always did this when he was trying to be serious. “Now then. What we should do is, we should go to his house and confront him.”

I sat up and looked at him. “No way, he could have a gun or something. I don’t wanna do this on his turf.”

“Well, we can’t exactly do it at the video store!”

“Sure we can. That way he won’t be able to pull any voodoo shit on us.”

Isaac took a moment to consider this. “He’s probably there right now.”

“But it’s Sunday. I think they’re closed for today already.”

“Alright, tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow? That body isn’t going anywhere. Fuck that, I’m not ready for this.”

“You must ask yourself,” and here he clasped my shoulder, “if you’ll ever be ready to face down an occult-obsessed, demonic cop-killing serial murderer.”

I glared at him. “Thanks, Isaac. I feel much better about this now.”

“You’re very welcome, lunchbox.”

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The parking lot of Wally’s Videe-Oh! was empty except for a smashed-up Ford Bronco sitting in the employee stall.

“Probably ran over some little kids. Broke the windshield with a little girl’s skull. He’s got it in his glove compartment now.”

“Shut up, Isaac.”

“Are we really going to do this, dude?”

“This was your idea, dick.”

I turned off the engine and pulled the keys. My heartbeat filled my chest and floated up to my head. My cheeks grew hot. I felt like I was going to pass out.

“Adam. Adam, you okay man?” Isaac put his hand on my shoulder again.

“No, I’m not okay, I’m probably about to talk to a murderer about his victim. Are YOU okay?”

“I got some righteous fury in my soul, right now. I’m ready.”

“I hate you sometimes.”

We opened the door and stepped into the store. Me, a twitchy mess of a man following behind Isaac, who carried the confident demeanor of a police officer. Not the best way to present yourself to a suspected cop-killer, I thought.

Mr. Wong stood behind the counter, wearing his Wally’s uniform. It didn’t have a nametag, but I recognized him from pictures from the internet. He looked disheveled and tired, like a man who had gone through hell more than a few times. I could hardly see straight for nerves, so I took a deep breath and focused myself. Wong was looking at us with an unsuccessful attempt at joy to see some customers.

“Welcome to Wally’s, what do you want?”

He suddenly seemed to recognize Isaac and promptly dropped the facade of happiness.

Isaac strode right up to the counter. For a moment I admired his bravery.

“David Wong, I’ve found your murder victim. What say you to that?”

His bravery had crossed the line into stupidity. I rolled my eyes and tried my best to look like I wasn’t with him. I picked up a copy of Mulholland Drive that was sitting on a nearby shelf and pretended to be very interested in it.

David stared hard at Isaac, shifted his balance, and said “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I guess it wasn’t him, then. I started for the door.

“Oho? Me and my friend here-“ He gestured to me. God dammit.

“We were just up at the old mall, you know the place. Well, I was looking under the floor, and I fo-“

Wong lurched forward and grabbed Isaac by shirt collar. I winced as he glared for a moment in my direction, and then turned back to his captive. “Listen to me. Are you listening? I’m telling you right now, you do NOT want to get any more involved in this than you already are. Do you hear me? I promise, if you pursue this, you will regret it more than you have ever regretted anything.” He released my cousin from his grip. “I’m sorry. Please, just… leave now and forget you ever saw anything. You don’t want to know what’s down there. Trust me.” David’s eyes held a hint of pleading as he spoke.

“Trust you? You’re a killer! You killed Billy Hitchcock, and you killed all those cops!”

CRRACK!

Isaac was on the floor holding his nose, blood streaming down his cheek. Wong glared down at him from behind the counter, his fist still clenched.

“You don’t know shit about me, or what I’ve been through. You can’t even imagine the things I’ve seen. So just leave now and forget everything. You don’t want to know the truth, I promise you. Just… just leave.”

He looked like even more of a wreck than I was, and although he was angry, I could also see something else in his eyes. It was fear. He looked right at me, and for a moment I felt the same fear he did. He wasn’t afraid of getting caught. It was something much worse.

Isaac stood up quickly, wiped his nose with his jacket and walked out of the store without another word. I followed him, glanced back at Wong, but he had his face buried in his hands, hunched down over the counter. Did he really do it? I wondered.

It took the engine a few tries to turn over, during which I informed Isaac that he was a fucking idiot, and that he was lucky to be alive, and that Wong could have pulled a knife or a gun and killed him. All Isaac said was, “that was some god damn punch.”

Again the ride was silent, save for the occasional sweep of windshield wipers, as a light snow had begun to fall. It wasn’t until we were seated on Isaac’s couch, cracking open a new bottle of Jack Daniels that we spoke again.

“Did you see how he acted in there?” Isaac asked me after downing a shot of Jack and coke.

“You mean how he punched you in the face?” I poured myself a shot. Mostly Jack, I decided. “Of course I saw that. You’re a moron.”

“Come on, it’s best to be direct. If I was real wishy-washy about it, it would have given him time to put up some defenses. This,” he gestured to his battered nose, “is collateral damage. Part of the job.”

“What job? You work at a grocery store. Your dad is a cop, not you.”

“Bah, same thing. Anyway, he pretty much confessed to it. See how freaked out he was about it? Did you see him panic when I told him we knew about it?”

“I guess, but…”

“You guess? This is gold, my friend! Now we just get the cops to find out who the body is, then have ‘em interrogate Wong, and we’ll be big damn heroes.”

“Hold on, listen. He told us that we’d regret it if we got too involved, if we found out the truth. I don’t like this, Isaac.”

“Don’t be a pussy, he knows we’ve got him by the balls and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

I nodded, but I kept thinking back to the way he had looked at me, the terror in his eyes. So many unspoken thoughts. There was more to this than it seemed, of that I was sure. But what was the truth that Wong had warned us so fervently to avoid? Looking back, I wish I had taken his advice.

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CHAPTER 4 – Shit Gets Weird

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For reasons I’ll never understand, Isaac refused to go right to the police after the incident at Wally’s. He said he wanted to be like Sherlock Holmes and have the mystery solved before the police even got involved, and it looked like I would be playing his Watson. He insisted on doing more “research,” which mostly consisted of reading through internet forums devoted to the paranormal. We found nothing there but a whole lot of crazy. There were detailed accounts of shadow people, ghosts, demons, and various other creepy things, but nothing worth looking into.

The day after Wally’s, we decided to look into police records at the court house, and that’s when things got interesting. We found a report detailing all the various disappearances and deaths in which Wong was involved. Detective Lawrence Appleton, missing in action while investigating the One Ball Nine case, involving Wong. Officer Frank Burgess, gone mental and murderous at a hospital after leaving Wong’s house, now deceased. An officer named Drake, Dave’s friend John’s uncle. Missing while on assignment to Dave Wong. Detective Vance Falconer, found dead of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound just outside of Wong’s house. This guy had a really bad history with cops, that was for sure.

In the One Ball Nine file, we found some grainy photographs of what appeared to be little red chunks and liquid, like blood, coating the walls and floor of a small room. There was also one picture of a snow-covered cabin in the forest. It seemed a little out of place, so we ignored it. There was a picture of a black dude named Bruce Matthews, and a reference to some kind of soy sauce. Isaac suggested that the black guy made soy sauce in the snow-covered cabin and sold it to the people at the One Ball Inn that night, and then they died from sheer joy at the flavor. I punched him in the arm. He punched me back.

We came to the conclusion that the body in the mall was one of the missing officers, and decided to go to the police with our theory.

On the way out of the courthouse, we were stopped by the old lady working at the desk.

“Oh boys, aren’t you forgetting something?” She called sweetly.

Isaac and I looked at each other and shrugged. We hadn’t brought anything with us and we couldn’t carry anything from the records out. The lady jumped straight up onto her desk with agility no person should have at her age. She hiked up her dress, revealing granny panties and saggy thighs. I cringed and looked away.

“Lady, what the fuck are you doing?” Isaac inquired.

“You’re getting involved in things that don’t concern you, fuckface.”

She kicked off a high heel and pointed her foot at us. It looked like a spot of dirt was on her big toe.

“I serve none but Korrok.”

With that she pulled her foot back down and swiftly kicked her other shoe off. It hit me right in the face. She grinned widely.

“The fuck is your problem, bitch?!” I yelled, rubbing my cheekbone where her heel had hit me. This was the third consecutive day of shit I was not ready to deal with.

Isaac started toward her, clenching his fists. “I hope you like beatdowns, cuntflap, because you’re about to get one.”

She didn’t respond, but jumped down off the desk and charged Isaac with ridiculous speed. She planted a naked foot squarely in his crotch, and I saw him go down. A second later she was upon me, and kicked me right in the dick. It felt like she had torn it right off. I squeaked out a few curse words before I hit the floor, and everything went black.

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CHAPTER 5 – Shit Gets Weirder

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I awoke to an incredible pain in my groin. That woman better already be dead, my first thought was, because I’m going to kill her. It took me a few seconds to focus my eyes.

I was alone, still on the floor of the courthouse. It was still daytime, but the lights were out, like the place had closed and no one bothered to do anything about the unconscious man on the floor. With some difficulty I climbed to my feet, immediately deciding to seek out some kind of ice pack for my poor junk. There was a weird flashlight holstered on a wall near the door, probably in case something like this ever happened.

Within a few minutes I found a headwrap thing for headaches in a freezer in the break room. Once I had carefully slipped it into my pants, I began to wonder where Isaac was, what had happened to that psychotic woman who had attacked us, and at what point my life had become a pile of shit.

As I wandered the courthouse halls, searching for my cousin, my thoughts turned to David Wong. Did he know anything about this? Was he involved? Maybe he brainwashed that lady into stopping us from turning him in. It felt a little farfetched, but after what I had just experienced, anything seemed plausible.

After a quick sweep of the courthouse, I determined that Isaac was gone and had left me there for some reason. After making my way back to the front door, I pushed on it, found it locked. Yep, somehow I had gone completely unnoticed by everyone and was now locked inside. I tried to call Isaac, but saw there was no reception in this building. I punched a nearby wall in anger and hurt my knuckles. Stupid brick wall.

Thankfully the courthouse phone line still worked, though I had almost expected it not to. I dialed Isaac’s cell, got no answer. Tried two more times, still nothing. I slammed the phone back on the receiver and started looking for a fire escape or some way out that wouldn’t be locked.

I had never really been afraid of the dark, but as I wandered alone through the silent courthouse halls, I started to feel a panic spreading through me like venom. What if I was trapped in here? Where was my cousin? Why had he left me behind? Why was all of this happening to me?

At last my flashlight beam illuminated a sign on the wall reading “Fire Door”, with an arrow pointing to the right. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and started down the corridor that led to my freedom.

I started to panic again after about a solid minute of walking. Why wasn’t I there yet? Surely the courthouse building wasn’t this long. I turned around the pointed the flashlight back where I had come from. The beam’s reach didn’t extend all the way into the darkness, and gave the illusion that the narrow hallway seemed to stretch infinitely in both directions. There was the occasional unmarked door to keep the off-white walls and yellow floor tiling from growing too monotonous, but they were always locked and never had any light coming from behind them.

How long had I been here? The sun would be going down soon. For some reason, that frightened me even more. Deciding against getting even more lost, I turned back and started toward more familiar ground.

A few more minutes passed. I absolutely should have been back to the area with the sign, but I wasn’t. Clearly I had taken a wrong turn or something. I hadn’t actually gone down any turns, but it’s the only explanation I could think of as to how I could possibly get lost in a hallway. I turned around again and started heading back toward where the fire door was supposed to be.

More and more time passed, and I still hadn’t gotten anywhere. I began to walk more quickly now, once again calling out my friend’s name. I knocked on every door, tried all the handles. No luck. I pulled the icepack out from my crotch and threw it aside. Soon I was jogging, no longer caring who I found, so long as I wasn’t alone in this horrible fucking place anymore. I broke into a run for a moment, but realized I was very out of shape and quickly discarded the idea.

I ran out of breath and stopped, leaning against yet another locked door. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. What was I, a fucking child? I ridiculed myself for reacting like this, but I really did feel alone and frightened in a way I hadn’t since… ever, really. Where was that stupid door? I just needed something, someone…

“Help! HELP! Anybody! Please!” I shouted as loud as I could, my voice breaking with oncoming tears on the last word. Realizing I was lost and utterly, truly alone, I finally broke down and started to cry. I dropped the flashlight, slid down the wall and hit the floor, hurting my tailbone. I could hear my quiet echoing through the lonely halls, like the sound was mocking me. In that moment, I hated everyone and everything. I hated Isaac, that old lady, David Wong and his friend, this town, this courthouse, this hallway, the entire universe. I especially hated myself for getting so involved in this when I knew it was a terrible idea. Wong himself had even warned us! And still I followed Isaac here when I should have told him to fuck off and called the police the moment he showed me that body in the mall.

The mall. That’s where all this started. That’s where everything went to hell.

Suddenly, the door I was leaning against opened, and I fell backward through the hole. I saw the flashlight fall with me.

I had barely managed to gather enough air to scream when my ass landed hard on a wooden floor. My tailbone hit the ground for the second time in less than a minute, and my already-injured package slapped violently against the floor inside my pants. I grimaced and felt a fresh set of tears forming, but fought them off. My pelvic region would not handle much more abuse. The heavy industrial-strength flashlight conked me right on top of my head.

Fuck, that HURT!

I shouted in pain, heard some scampering and little animal noises. What the hell?

I opened my blurry eyes and found I was the middle of the Undisclosed mall. Disoriented, I stood and wiped my vision clear. Bright sunshine poked through the unfinished roof, making dusty pillars of light. Perhaps I hadn’t been stuck inside the courthouse for as long as I thought.

That’s right, I was just in the courthouse! How the fuck did I end up here? My head was aching almost as much as my privates, and not just from the flashlight hitting me.

I picked up the flashlight, found the batteries were nearly dead. The light was barely on. But how? It was nice and bright just a moment ago. Maybe whatever the fuck just happened to me drained the batteries. I whipped out my cell phone to try Isaac again. Its batteries were dead, too. I jammed it into my pocket with a grunt.

I walked as best I could with my injuries toward the door. Before I could open it, in walked Isaac.

“ADAM! Where the flying fuck have you been? You look like shit!” He pulled me into a bear hug before I could object, but honestly I didn’t mind. I was just relieved to see him again.

“Where have I been? More like where have you been! I was just in the courthouse looking for you after that crazy bitch attacked us and you were gone!”

Isaac looked at me like I had grown another head. “The courthouse? Adam, you’re in the mall right now, and you’ve been missing for four days. Are you feeling okay?”

My heart sank back down to where it had been in that dark moment in the courthouse. Four days? But I had been there just moments ago… My head started hurting again. This was just way too god damn much to handle.

Isaac took me by the arm and led me out the door, where there were a few Undisclosed police cruisers and my mother’s car parked in the least trash-ridden spots in the lot. I saw my mom speaking to one of the officers.

“Hey! I found him!” Isaac shouted to them. He pulled his arm close around me and waved to them.

At the sight of me, my mother’s worried face melted into a wrinkled mess of tears. She and the cop she had been talking to dashed across the parking lot, but I felt my eyes lose focus before they reached me, and I passed out.

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CHAPTER 6 – The Hospital

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Beep. Beep. Beep. Must be the alarm clock.

Beep. Beep. No, that sounds like one of those pulse monitor things at the hospital.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I slowly opened my eyes, and found that I was correct. I was lying in a hospital bed. There were wires hooked up to my head and my wrists. One of the bags was a morphine drip. I thought of my injured package and thanked the Lord for modern medicine. The curtains were closed, but I could tell it was the middle of the night. The little TV mounted to the wall was playing Nick at Nite on mute. It was Three’s Company, and it looked like Suzanne Somers was causing problems for her roommates.

The door opened, and my mother and Isaac walked in. Mom once again started to cry upon seeing that I was awake, and came over to give me a hug. Isaac smiled and said “Hey man, how ya feeling?”

My mother sobbed against my shoulder. “Oh Adam, I was so worried about you… I already lost your father and I thought…” She didn’t finish the next thought, but she didn’t need to. I reached a wirey arm around her.

“I’m sorry, mom. It’s okay, I’m okay… I’m okay, really.” I wondered for a moment if I really was okay. “Hey mom, I’m sorry, but could you give me a moment alone with Isaac? I gotta talk to him about some stuff.”

Mom sat up and smiled, wiping her tears. My shoulder was soaked.

“Sure, honey. Sure. I’ll be right outside if you need me.” She kissed me on the forehead. I grinned sheepishly.

When she was out, Isaac came and sat next to my bed. He scratched his head.

“I’d imagine you’ve got some questions, and so do I. I’ll start. Where in the fuck did you go for four days? I thought you were dead or something.”

“Isaac, as far as I can remember, I was only gone for a few hours, tops. After that crazy bitch attacked us, when I woke up you were gone. Everyone was gone, and the building was dark and I was locked inside. I wandered around inside the courthouse, then I got lost in some weird-ass infinite hallway. Seriously, man, I walked through that fucking hallway for like half an hour and I never found the end of it. This is gonna sound crazy, but I leaned against a door, fell through and landed in the mall somehow. Then I went to the door and you found me.”

“That’s really fucked up, man. Let me tell you what happened to me. So, that crazy bitch attacks me, kicks me right in the nuts. I go down and see you go down too. I wake up to people holding that nasty smelling salt shit under my nose. The people in the courthouse tell me that the old front desk lady was missing when the person came in to take her shift, and they found me lying there. I asked where you were, and they said I was the only person they found, so I figured you had gotten up and left me there, being a total asshole and all. Hey, I’m kidding, relax. So anyway, I go outside and see your car is still there, so then I thought you might still be in the courthouse. Everyone helped me look for you, but you were just gone. The search spread and continued for four straight days until this morning, when we came to check the mall again and I found you just wandering around in there.”

Having told our stories, we both sat in silence for a moment and contemplated what had happened. In the background, John Ritter was yelling noiselessly at his female roommates about something. Isaac spoke.

“I’ll bet Wong did it.”

“God dammit, Isaac. He told us not to get involved and then this fucked up shit happens to us. It’s not like he has superpowers and can make me disappear in an endless hallway, then fall through some kind of time-portal-door and land in the fucking mall, and have it all happen to me in the span of a few hours while on the outside, four entire days pass. It wasn’t him.”

“Okay, okay, calm down, Sparky.”

Isaac held up his hands in an I-give-up sort of way.

I took a deep breath. “Clearly we are dealing with some paranormal shit here.”

“Clearly. And who do we know, Adam, that has experience in the paranormal?”

He grinned at me. My eyes widened in horrified realization.

“No. NO, Isaac. Never. No.”

+++++++

CHAPTER 7 – David Wong, Again

+++++++

I was fairly sure we were the last two people in the entire universe that David Wong ever wanted to see again, and yet here we were, my car idling in the Wally’s Videe-Oh! parking lot.

“Alright,” Isaac was telling me. “If he runs, you go around the back and tackle him. One way or another, we’re making him tell us what happened to you.”

“Isaac, we were just here yesterday. He was not happy. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna run out in a second and punch you in the face again.”

“Yesterday? No Adam, remember? That was five days ago. You’ve got, um… missing time.”

Oh, right.

“Well let’s go, shall we? Time’s a wastin’.”

Once again we walked into the store, but this time with a different attitude. We weren’t rabbits approaching the wolf, we were tough badasses looking for some motherfucking answers, and this punk was gonna give them to us. We had downed a few shots before leaving and had gained the cocky confidence that only hard liquor can bring.

The store was empty. We approached the counter, checked to see if he was hiding behind it. On the desk was a sheet of paper that said ‘Will return shortly, sorry for any inconvenience.’

“Must’ve seen us coming and ran like a little pussy bitch.” Isaac suggested.

We heard the muffled sound of a toilet flushing. After a few seconds David Wong walked out of the bathroom, zipping up his fly. At least he was a regular guy in that respect.

“Aha! David Wong, we meet again!” Isaac walked over to meet him, but kept his distance. No need to get facepunched again, I suppose.

Wong’s eyes narrowed as he saw us.

“What the hell do you want?”

“We’ve got some questions, and we want some answers!”

Again, I had to applaud Isaac. He certainly had some guts. Maybe he should’ve been a cop like his father.

“I’m not answering any of your questions. Get the fuck out.”

Hmm, that didn’t go quite so well as we had hoped.

I braced myself and walked up behind Isaac.

“Hey, um… it’s not about the body in the mall or anything…”

Awesome, I thought. Crash and burn at the word go.

Dave snarled and made to push past us.

“No! Wait a second, it’s… I had, um, a paranormal experience and I need your help finding out what happened.”

He wheeled around to face me. This was our first direct conversation.

“You know what? I don’t give even half of a shit if you saw your grandma’s ghost or heard some noises in the night that made your shit your diaper. Why don’t you call Ghostbusters or something and leave me the fuck alone?”

Now I was pissed off. I didn’t care if this guy had killed a thousand people and danced in their blood, I was going to find out what the fuck happened to me and he was going to help me do it.

“God dammit, just listen to me for a second. We were at the courthouse, when some crazy bitch attacked us and shouted something about ‘I serve none but Corky’ or something and showed me her foot. She then hit me in the face with her shoe and kicked me in the dick. I got stuck in some alternate-dimension version of the courthouse for a few hours, but four days passed on the outside. I got lost in some kind of endless hallway, then I fell through a door that was locked, but it opened, and I fell through and landed in that shitty mall. Now I’m missing four fucking days! I’ve read that you and your friend John have some experience in that kind of crazy shit, and I always thought you were nuts until this happened to me. Now tell me what the fuck is going on, or I WILL call the police and tell them all about your little secret in the mall.”

Wong had been staring at me since I mentioned the crazy bitch attacking us.

“Fucking shit.” He sighed heavily and motioned for us to sit down. We did. It looked like I had gotten through to him. Maybe I should’ve been a cop.

“The woman who attacked you showed you her foot? Was there anything on the big toe?”

“I don’t remember… oh yeah, it looked like a smudge of dirt or something, I didn’t see clearly.”

“And she said, ‘I serve none but Korrok’?”

“Oh yeah, that was it. Then she kicked me in the nuts and then all that shit I just explained happened. I ended up in the hospital, man.”

Dave sighed again and pulled out his phone.

Isaac took a step forward. “Hey, who are you calling?”

He ignored him, punched in a few numbers, waited.

“John? It’s Dave. We’ve got a problem.”

+++++++

CHAPTER 8 – John and Dave

+++++++

Isaac and I passed the time waiting for Wong’s shift to end by going to McDonald’s, getting water cups and drinking our fill of free/stolen soda. We were pretty wired by the time 11 PM rolled around, and I got a call from Dave saying he was done with work. He refused to give us his phone number, let us ride in his car or let us into his house, but he did agree to pick up John and drive over to Isaac’s house for deeper discussion of what kind of shit was going on and whether or not they could help us.

At about 12:30, Dave and John rang Isaac’s doorbell and found it to be broken. It had been for years. They knocked instead. Isaac answered the door, since it was his house and all. I was in the other room watching Three’s Company again. It appeared to be the same episode that was showing while I was in the hospital.

Isaac and Dave walked into the living room, shortly followed by who could only be John. He was holding a cigarette, surveying the room intently. His eyes paused on me for a moment, then widened when he saw the TV.

“Dave. Look at the TV.”

Dave looked at the TV. His eyes widened, too, and together they stared way too intently at Isaac’s crappy, ancient little television. Fuck, they really were crazy. I knew this was a bad idea.

“Heya cowpoke, turn that there tee-vee off, if’n ya know what’s good fer ya.”

“Knock it off, John,” said Dave.

John had said this to me, as I had the remote. I shrugged, clicked it off. Don Knotz’s face instantly shrank into a little dot that slowly faded away in the center of the screen. No point in arguing with insanity, I figured. Isaac came over and sat next to me on the couch. He opened a beer and took a sip.

“So, um… you must be John. I’m Adam. It’s a pleasure.”

John stuck his thumbs into his shirt and pulled outwards, like he had them hooked around suspender straps.

“Well howdy-doo to you too, pardner. It’s mighty fine t’meetcha, yessir it is. I already been acquainted with yer cussin’ Isaac over yonder.”

I saw Dave splay his hand across his forehead, presumably in disgust.

“So anyway, Dave here tells me that you got your ass kicked by an old lady, got lost for four days in the alternate-dimension courthouse’s infinite hallway and then teleported from there to the mall?

I took a moment and thought this over.

“Yes, that’s basically what happened. Hearing it out loud like that makes it sound incredibly retarded, though.”

Dave raised his head and looked knowingly at me. “You have no idea.”

John grabbed a can of beer from the coffee table and sat down in a chair. He opened the can, took a big draw from it and burped.

“Well folks, tell us your story.”

—-

It took only about 20 minutes to tell the entire story, both mine and Isaac’s halves, though mine was more eventful. I left out the part where I cried like a little girl. When it was done, John, who had been listening intently, leaned back in the chair. Dave was just staring at the floor.

“Well, shit. What do you think, Dave?”

Wong said nothing.

John extinguished his cigarette and pulled out another one. He was about to light it when the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” said Isaac. He got up and went to the front door. I suddenly felt very nervous, like I was forgetting something important. What was it…?

Oh yeah. The doorbell doesn’t work.

I stood quickly and cast a glance at Dave, who had raised his head at the sound of the doorbell. He returned the worried look I had, then stood, and to my surprise, pulled out a gun.

“Whoa shit man, why do you have that?”

“You’d understand if you knew. Your cousin is in trouble.”

John quickly lit his cigarette and sprung to his feet.

We raced to the front door, found it hanging open. Isaac was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck! FUCK!” Dave shouted, holding the gun out in front of him and stepping outside. He swung it around, looking about wildly like a gazelle who knew a yet-unseen tiger was nearly upon it. John was right behind him, and I right behind John. We ran out of the house and searched the snow for footprints. There were none save the old ones John and Dave had left half an hour ago.

“Where is he, man?! Is this some kind of joke? ISAAC!!!”

I cast suspicious glances at John and Dave as I wandered around my missing cousin’s front yard, peering as far as I could into the dark, snowy night.

“ISAAAC! HEY!”

A thought occurred to me, a small ray of hope that grew dimmer with every second I thought about it. I dashed back inside his small house, shouting his name and tearing through the small hallway, tossing doors open recklessly. My voice was too loud for this tiny little shack. Within seconds I had searched every room, and I knew he was gone.

John and Dave had not followed me inside. I ran back outside to them and interrupted a conversation they were having.

“Hey you fucks, where is he? Where is Isaac?”

Dave lowered his gun and stepped toward me.

“Adam, it’s not easy to say this… I think he’s gone. You probably won’t see him again.”

“Don’t tell me that. Don’t tell me that, man. You both are god damn lunatics and now you fuckin’… kidnapped him or something. Tell me where he is!”

“Hey! Listen to me.”

He put the gun back into his pants and approached me. I backed away.

“Listen. There are some really bad things out there, okay? Things you can’t see and never want to see. Me and John, we can see them.”

I shook my head and stepped backward again.

I can’t listen to this right now. Fuck you, David Wong. Fuck you.

“You know your TV in there? You saw a regular episode of Three’s Company, but John and I saw Don Knotz jerking off onto John Ritter’s face as he pulled a knife across Suzanne Somers’ throat. That’s the kind of shit we deal with every single day. It’s literally a living hell, and since you and your cousin got involved in it, bad things are starting to happen to you, too.”

I sighed exasperatedly and threw up my hands.

“Fuck you, okay? I don’t want to hear all this paranormal bullshit. I don’t know what happened to me in the courthouse or how I ended up at the mall. Maybe I smoked something with some LSD in it and had a bad trip. I don’t know. All I know is that my cousin is missing, and as far as I can tell, it’s your god damn fault.”

“You’re the one who asked us to come here! We had nothing to do with Isaac disappearing. If you don’t want our help, then we’re leaving.”

“Good! Get the fuck out of here!”

I knew Isaac’s neighbors were awake now and had probably called the police, having seen an armed man in a loud fight at one in the morning.

The two men had started for Dave’s busted up truck, when suddenly I had an idea.

“Hey, wait a second! Guys, I’m sorry.”

They turned around and looked at me blankly.

“I… I don’t know what’s going on here, but right now I have to accept the fact that Isaac is gone without a trace and you seem to know what’s happened to him. So I’m asking you, please… help me find him. I at least want to know what’s become of him. Please, guys.”

“… I have to work tomorrow.”

“If it takes too long, I’ll drive you there myself. Please.”

He glanced at John, then back at me. He looked tired and frustrated, just like I was.

“Fine. But only because I have to stop this thing before it gets out of hand. And you clearly are not able to handle it yourself.”

John dropped his cigarette into the snow. It made a little sizzling sound and was out. He clapped his hands on mine and Dave’s shoulders.

“I’ll get the beer from the house. Let’s go the mall.”

+++++++

CHAPTER 9 – Soy Sauce

+++++++

We decided to leave before the cops could show up and start asking questions. Dave grabbed some things out of his truck that he said we’d need. We took my car because I had half a tank of gas, and Dave still didn’t want me in his truck. I decided that if he tried to charge me for his ‘services’, I would tell him he owes me for gas and we’d be even.

As we rode silently toward the mall, where I expected a full explanation on where Isaac was, my thoughts turned to that day just over a week ago. Instead of John in the passenger seat – he had called shotgun immediately – it had been Isaac. My poor cousin… I had never been religious, but as I drove through the snowy night, I prayed as hard as I could that he was still alive and well somewhere.

I was turning onto the road where the mall’s driveway was, when I heard David open something in the back seat. He was holding a small silver canister, and he poured the contents into his palm.

“John. There are three.”

John cranked his head around. “What?”

“There are three pills here.”

“So does that mean…?”

“I guess so.”

John turned to face me.

“Adam, my boy, you’ve been selected for a first-class cruise into Satan’s asshole.”

“And what the fuck does that mean?”

Dave spoke slowly from the back. “It means you get to see the things we see. There are three pills here, and that means that you’re meant to take one.”

“Fuck that, I’m not taking anything. I don’t even know what that is.”

John looked at me. “It’s soy sauce.”

“It’s um, what we call it.” Dave said. “Basically, it gives you amazing mental abilities, but it also opens your eyes to all the horrible shit around you.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not taking it now. You guys can take it if you want, but I think I’m gonna pass.”

“It’s probably the only way you’ll be able to save your cousin.”

“Bullshit. I’ll go to the mall, but I’m not taking any of your weirdass pills.”

Dave popped his pill and handed one to John, who did the same. “I really think you should take it…”

“Eat a dick,” said I. A tiny buzzing noise from the back. I yawned. Something landed on my cheek and quickly crawled into my mouth.

“What the fuck?!” I nearly lost control of the car but managed to bring it to a stop in the middle of the road. I tried to spit the thing out, but to no avail. I could feel it crawling across my tongue. I jammed my fingers into my mouth, tried to grab a hold of the horrid little bug or whatever it was that was invading my body. “Help! What’s happening…!”

It started to go down my esophagus. I was having a panic attack now, and I couldn’t breathe. I desperately tried to make myself vomit, anything to get this bastard out of me. With wide, terrified eyes I looked at Dave and John. They just stared at me as if there was nothing they could do. I coughed as hard as I could, trying to spit it out, but I already knew I had lost the battle.

Time stopped. I felt the warm air blowing from my vents suddenly stop, and the engine went silent. The snowflakes outside were stuck in midair, as if dangling from millions of strands of fishing wire. I watched as my vision shifted from my car to outside. About 100 feet ahead of us, I saw Isaac, frozen in a quick stride toward my car. His eyes were pitch black and his face bore no emotion, like a porcelain mask. I was glad to see him, but it made me uneasy to see his usually animated face completely blank. And his eyes… why were they black?

The scene changed, and I was outside Isaac’s front door. I saw a hand reach out and press the doorbell. It rang. A few seconds later, Isaac opened the door. His face turned pale at the sight of me and his eyes widened. I watched myself grab him with incredible speed and jump impossibly high into the air, where I easily snapped his neck and threw his body away. He flew like a bullet out of a gun and in less than a second was completely out of sight. I looked down and watched Dave, John, and then myself dash out the door and start shouting. I heard a sickening, inhuman laugh from my own mouth. My vision changed to show that it was Isaac hovering up in the air, laughing like that.

Once again I was in my car, and things were in motion again. John and Dave were still staring at me. I felt dead inside. I never wanted to experience murdering my own cousin, and now I had. It was so overwhelmingly unfair. He didn’t deserve to die like that.

“What… did you… do to me?” I gasped.

I knew what Dave would say before he said it.

That’s what the soy sauce does. I warned you.

“That’s what the soy sauce does. I warned you. If it chooses you and you don’t take it, it takes you instead. It tore a fucking hole in my cheek once, I even have a scar.”

“He’s dead. I can’t believe it. Isaac is dead, but he’s not. He’s coming this way right now. How is that possible? What the fuck is going on?”

“We know, we saw it too. That’s not really your cousin out there, it’s like an evil clone of him.” John patted my back. “I’m… really sorry. I can’t imagine how you must feel.”

I heard Dave’s gun cock. “Isaac’s here.”

My cousin’s form appeared in my headlight beams.

Someone shouted, “Adam, floor it! NOW!”

I did it, and just in time, as Not-Isaac had nearly reached us. Not-Isaac was too fast for us, however, and leapt quickly into the air before I could hit him. I sped away, looking for him in my rearview mirror, but saw nothing. My heart felt like a rock, and my face showed it. I was prepared to puke at any moment.

“Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what the fuck I just ate, why Isaac has an evil clone who killed him and is now trying to kill us. Tell me why we’re going to the mall, and finally, tell me who the fuck is the body under the floorboards. Tell me everything right now or I swear to God I’ll kill every fucking person in this motherfucking car.”

John, seemingly unfazed by my seething fury, was the first to speak.

“The soy sauce is a weird drug we got from a fake Jamaican kid who exploded into chunks after he took it. But don’t worry, that probably won’t happen to you.”

David shot him a look. I remembered the pictures Isaac and I had found in the courthouse and shuddered.

“I’ll take it from here, John. In another dimension there’s an enormous, omniscient evil God-like entity called Korrok the Slavemaster who seems to be behind most of the shit that happens to us. That includes the woman who attacked you at the courthouse. The smudge on her big toe was actually a pi symbol, which is imprinted on all the, um, evil clones that Korrok makes. We’re going to the mall because that’s basically ground zero for the hellspawn that we deal with on a regular basis.”

“Okay. After all the shit I’ve been through in the last week, I’m willing to believe anything at all. So I’ll accept all that as the truth. Okay then. And who’s the body in the mall? That seems like the least fucked-up thing in this whole fucking mess. Right?”

Dave sighed. “Well…” He looked at John for a moment, then back at me.

“Since you’re already in this far…The body in the mall, under the floorboards… that’s me. That’s my body. Oh, hey, we’re there.”

I pulled the car into the parking lot and stopped.

“The body is yours. Uh huh. Why the fuck not, right? And how are you sitting in my backseat right now if you’re rotting in there? Don’t tell me you’re actually an evil clone, and you killed off the original David Wong and took his place.”

John answered. “That sounds about right.”

A long silence.

“Jesus Christ. Just get out of the car, let’s fucking go inside already.”

I slammed the car door and stalked toward the mall. I didn’t care if they were following me or not. I thought of my first encounter with Wong back in the video store; how he all but begged us not to get involved. If he wasn’t such an insane asshole, none of this would have happened. We’d never have met, and I’d be safe in my bed right now, unaware that this bullshit ever existed. Isaac would be safe, too… safe and alive. I looked up at the looming building in front of me and sneered.

I’m so sorry, Isaac. My cousin. My friend. I’ll avenge you, I promise. Oh look, something’s about to hit me from behind.

I had scarcely finished this thought when something did slam hard into my back, throwing me face first into a pile of garbage.

+++++++

CHAPTER 10 – Mall of the Dead

+++++++

I scrambled to my feet and looked around. My eyes met Isaac’s, who stood grinning at me joylessly. He opened his mouth slowly and spoke.

“I serve none but Korrok, lunchbox.”

My guts turned to lead. I bent over and puked in horror, and also from pain. He had really smacked into me hard.

Recovering, I said “Fuck you. You’re not Isaac, you’re just some fuckin’ faggot clone of him. Fuck you!”

I heard shouting from somewhere. In a blur he was on me. He kneed me right in the balls with immense speed and strength. They were still tender from the courthouse thing, so I went down fast. I saw him reel his foot back, preparing to punt my head off, and from somewhere behind him I heard the shouting suddenly turn to singing.

Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world

She took the midnight train goin’ anywhere…

Isaac stumbled backwards, grabbing his head and howling in an unnervingly inhuman voice. I saw his black eyes bulge and he whipped his head around in fury.

Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit

He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere…

Bizarro Isaac had apparently forgotten about me and started charging toward my car, where John stood valiantly, holding a boombox over his head like John Cusack. As the classic rock song blared, Not-Isaac slowed his approach, clearly in pain. Dave had leveled his gun at my ex-cousin. A loud snapping sound exploded through the parking lot, and I saw a chunk of the monster’s head fly. It hit the pavement with a nasty wet sound, like dropping a soaked washcloth onto the floor.

It wasn’t until Steve Perry carried the high note at the end of the chorus that Isaac’s evil clone finally stopped moving, dropping to his knees. Dave fired two more shots into the thing’s head, and after a dramatic pause, it fell forward onto what was left of its face. I was thankful its back was turned to me. I had already watched my cousin die once tonight, and once was more than enough.

I struggled back to my feet in time to see the evil clone’s body begin to collapse in on itself like a rotting pumpkin. It seemed this evil clone was filled with nothing but white ooze, which upon his death began to dissolve. The smell of it evaporating can only be described as a combination of feces, vinegar, and the smoke from a freshly lit match. A guitar solo played out Bizarro Isaac’s last moments. We stood silently and watched it fizzle away to nothing on the icey blacktop.

John switched off the boombox.

“Yeah, motherfucker! That’s what happens when you stop believing!”

With some effort I moved toward the men who had saved my life.

“Hey, uh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Dave holstered his gun, but drew it again after a moment. “Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way, but we’re not done here. Let’s get inside, it stinks out here.”

It sure did. I decided to grab a crowbar from my trunk, and we moved as quickly as we could into the mall doors.

Dave went in first, since he had the gun. He came right back out, and shut the door.

“What the hell, man?” I inquired.

“There’s a big worm in there,” he replied.

“Oh come on, like an earthworm? Don’t be a pussy.”

“No, I said a big worm. Look for yourself.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed open the door.

Not ten feet in front of me was the tail of what appeared to be an enormous worm. It had to be twenty feet high. I couldn’t see all of it because it was so dark, but I could tell it went through at least half the length of the mall. It didn’t appear to be moving, so I guessed it was either dead or sleeping. It smelled exactly like worms do after it rains, but ten thousand times more potent. I immediately backed out and shut the door myself, then promptly puked.

“Shit, how did that even get in there? This must be some kind of bad trip.” I gasped.

“I told you, Adam. You see everything we see now.”

“Well I want out. This is fucking… awful. Give me an antidote or something.”

“There is no antidote.”

“Well then just shoot me right now, because I don’t wanna live in the same universe as something like that. I can’t do this.”

John said, “Hey, I wanna see it.” He opened the door and peeked inside. “Aww, there’s nothing here.”

“What?!” I pushed him out of the way and looked for myself. The worm was gone, and it had left no trace of ever being there. Even the smell was gone, although it had just been replaced by the usual rotting shit smell. For some reason, I began to laugh. It grew and grew until I could hardly breathe. This was just too much; too ridiculous to even consider.

“So there’s a giant worm, and now it’s just gone, huh? Hahaha!” I could feel tears of laughter running down my cheeks and freezing there. It stung, but I didn’t care.

“Yeah, this kind of thing tends to happen a lot. You’ll get used to it. Hey, calm down,” Dave said.

This made me laughed even harder. I coughed a few times and tried to bring myself down. After a moment, I could breathe again. I rubbed my eyes.

“Good. Unless you relax, you’re not gonna be much help. Now let’s get inside, we have work to do.”

We at last entered the mall and, hidden behind Dave’s gun, we slowly made our way through the main corridor. I was dreading the idea of going back to that corpse under the floorboards, especially now that I knew whose it was, but thankfully we went right past it.

After a minute or so of silence, I spoke.

“Ah, I’ve got it. This is a dream. How else could this be happening? This is just a terrible dream.”

John and Dave said nothing.

“I said, THIS IS A DREAM! WAKE UP ADAM! COME ON! GET UP!”

I pinched myself hard. It hurt. Worse, I did not wake up. I was grateful for their silence.

Some more time passed, and I spoke again.

“So, what are we even looking for? I thought we came to find Isaac, and he’s already… found.”

“Shh!” Dave whispered quickly, and pointed the gun in front of him.

I piqued my ears and listened. There was no sound save for the wind blowing through the rafters above, exposed in spots lacking a roof. A raccoon said something raccoonish somewhere to my left.

Suddenly, I heard it. It was a faint rumbling noise, but it grew into the sound of something very large and very heavy moving across a floor. And it was moving fast. Looking around for the source of it, I spotted the flashlight from the courthouse, still sitting where it had landed after hitting me in the head a few days ago. Even though it was almost certainly dead, I picked it up and switched it on. A brilliant white light shot out of it, as if someone had actually come in here and charged the battery.

“Hah!” I observed. The noise was getting even louder now. It sounded like someone sliding an enormous, slimy crate across a concrete floor at 100 mph. I tried to picture what on earth could produce such a sound. Underneath the usually terrible odor of the mall, I began to detect another smell. It smelled like…

Oh no.

The realization hit me like a truck, and I had only to point the flashlight down the hall behind us to confirm my worst fear.

It was that giant fucking worm. With the light of the sun in my hand, I saw it about 200 yards down the hall, ripping through the mall like a hellish train. I could see its face this time, a huge pile of needly teeth arranged in a circle within its gaping mouth. It made me sick to look at it, and I felt vomit coming up again. When the light shone on it, it screamed like a hurricane. I was floored. I suddenly understood just how deer feel before they get hit by a speeding car. If, of course, that car is an enormous hellworm.

“ADAM! MOVE NOW!” Isaac shouted.

Isaac?

I dropped the flashlight and the crowbar and dove into a nearby store stall. I looked across to see John and Dave taking shelter in a stall across from mine. After a second or two, the giant worm reached us. I heard what sounded like an explosion as it broke through the floor right between our hiding places and sped into the ground like it wasn’t even there. The thing was obscenely long, and even at its tremendous speed it took over a full minute for the entire length of it to finally dig its way into the earth. I threw up again as the sound of the horrible creature faded away, echoing hauntingly in the tunnel it had made. The wildlife that inhabited the store I was in were going absolutely insane, chittering and scampering like the place was on fire. I wished, not for the first time, that it was.

Oh yeah, Isaac! I had heard his voice… But that’s impossible. He’s dead. I saw it happen.

I made a decision right then that I would never come to this fucking mall again.

“I’m done. I’m never coming to this fucking mall again,” I shouted weakly. My voice was shaking, and my gut was tight and churning. Ahh, adrenaline.

“Never coming to this fucking mall again,” I repeated. I stood and walked back from where the worm had come, taking care to stay far away from the worm tunnel.

“Adam, wait!” John shouted. I actually smiled at the parallel between this incident and the one that had started all this. Except this time, it was a worm instead of a corpse that I found myself rushing away from, and it was John, not Isaac, who was trying to stop me.

Nope, not this time. Not again…

Why did I hear Isaac’s voice?

The mall’s hallway was no longer as long as it was when the worm had come through, and I could see the sun beginning to rise through the damaged roof. The door was straight ahead. So close… I was so close.

“Adam,” said a voice to my right. It was Isaac’s voice.

I stopped walking and closed my eyes.

“Isaac, you’re dead. I am not hearing your voice right now.”

No response. Thank God. I took another step.

“Adam!” Isaac’s voice again, to my right again. I turned to face the source of the voice.

There stood Isaac. The first thing I noticed was that his eyes were normal again. He was smiling at me.

I could feel my eyes welling up. I never thought I’d get to see him again, and yet here he was.

“This… this isn’t happening. I’m hallucinating because of that shit they made me take.”

“That’s true, you can only see me because you took it. Listen, Adam. I don’t blame you.”

“But-”

Isaac disappeared.

“Isaac. Hey, Isaac! HEY!”

He was gone, I could feel it. I rubbed my eyes and sighed, then kept walking.

Dave and John weren’t trying to stop me anymore, it seemed. Perhaps they went down that wormhole, or maybe they came here because they knew that would happen and wanted to follow it. I decided not to think about it ever again.

I made it to the door, and this time, I pulled the handle and walked out into the sunrise. I let the door close behind me.