Baked Scribe Flashback : Off The Reservation
.
.
The storms rolled through early that morning, the thunder making the windows rattle in their frames. Above that, the metallic plink of water dripping down into the large cake pan could be heard distinctly as rain pelted the roof above them. Louis stared down at the book he was reading, oblivious to anything going on outside or around him. Raymond stared at his friend and squirmed around in the chair, so bored that he felt like any second he was going to boil over. He hadn’t brought anything to entertain himself, he hated to read. But what he assumed was going to be a weekend of socializing had turned into an exercise of watching himself being ignored.
It seemed absurd to be here, and the only reason he could think of for Louis inviting him was because he wanted some help covering the cost of gas and food, driving all the way up here like this. That was all Raymond was to him anyway, just a resource to be exploited for his own gain.
When Louis had called, inviting him to come along, it had seemed like something was weighing heavily on his friend but he would not admit to anything specifically. He thought they were going to have some kind of drawn out, heavy conversation but as soon as they had arrived, a cold front had swept through the house, and Louis had barely said more than two words ever since. Raymond had considered walking into downtown and exploring, but was worried about getting lost. Louis had booked the rental, and Raymond didn’t know the town,
What the hell. Even the pouring rain seemed like a more attractive alternative to the stifling silence he was having to sit through in here. It didn’t even occur to him to say anything to Louis as he stood up and walked out the front door. Part of him was a little disappointed that Louis hadn’t called out after him.
The main street through town was mostly deserted, probably due to the rain but also because it was getting down to the end of the tourist season. Before long, the most action that would be found anywhere would be the locals at the newspaper stand, arguing over their checkers game.
Raymond looked out over the channel, and at the boats drifting around on their lines. A few owners sat out on the decks of their various over-sized yachts, sipping drinks in the now misting rain. He was surprised to find that his hands were starting to tremble slightly from the chill in the air.
He scanned the boats, looking over each one when, as he passed over one of the more modestly sized fishing boats, he saw the older owner, sitting there in a lawn chair, and staring straight at him. He passed over the man so quickly, that it almost didn’t register. Raymond frowned as he shifted his gaze back to the boat and saw the man, still glaring at him from across the park.
As he walked over and approached the boat, the man’s gaze somehow became even more icy and hostile. He didn’t know what he had done to piss the guy off, but he needed to find out.
“Sorry, do I know you?” he asked. The man crossed his arms across his chest but did not answer. Raymond stood there, feeling like an idiot as the man reached up and slid the hat off the top of his head, scratching at the mostly balding area before replacing it. He leaned over and let loose with a giant wad of spit, somehow managing to maintain eye contact with Raymond.
“Is there a problem?” he asked, trying to get some kind of response. Finally, he started to turn away when the man yelled out at him for the first time.
“You just don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, do you?”
Raymond turned around to face the man, who was now standing up from his chair. “I don’t understand. What’s that supposed to mean?”
The man chuckled and shook his head. “Blind to the world, right? Wearing blinders?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, are you mistaking me for—”
“Hard to mistake someone as dim bulb as you are around these parts. Don’t have a clue, do you?”
“A clue about what?”
Again, the man chuckled, a gravelly tone, as he reached down and jerked on the rope to loosen it from the dock. He turned back to the controls and twisted the key. Before Raymond could say anything else, the boat started to move out into the channel, its owner keeping his back to Raymond the entire time.
It was about on par with pretty much every social interaction he had experienced in town so far. There wasn’t much outright rudeness, but everyone seemed to be peering down at him, making him feel like a bug in a petri dish. He had written it off, at first, as simply locals scorning the tourists, but now it seemed deeper than that, as if there was some huge inside joke that he wasn’t privy to.
There was a clamor of activity from the other side of the park, a sound of heavy equipment dropping and someone cursing loudly. It had come from one of the repair houses for the yacht club, and he could see something flashing inside, as if a work-light was being swung back and forth. He strode over to the entrance and peered inside, hoping to maybe find some reason to strike up conversation with anybody. By the time he got there, however, there was no one to be seen.
He did notice an office door against the far wall that was ajar. There was no one in there either, but the computer on the desk was on, the chair slowing to a stop from rotating, as if someone had just stood up in a hurry. He didn’t even know why he cared, but he approached the computer and looked at the screen.
The black and white footage looked like some kind of a laboratory or doctor’s office. The room contained one operating table with a patient sitting atop it, staring listlessly off into space. Raymond was about to disregard the footage until, in a moment of breathless recognition, he turned back to the screen to look closer.
The patient on the bed was Louis.
He watched as the black and white image moved, and someone approached the bed, wearing what looked like a Hazmat suit. The person produced a needle that looked over a foot long, and leaned over Louis, placing the tip just to the left of one of his eyes. Raymond looked away as the needle was plunged in, but looked back reflexively, peeking through his fingers as he discovered that Louis was lying alone again, a fresh tube now inserted into his arm. Blood flowed freely from him, but Raymond couldn’t tell where it was going. He looked at the time stamp on the footage and saw that it was late at night, the same night they had arrived here.
The past few days came back to him in a flood of images. Louis, growing progressively more introverted, showing less and less interest in anything. Raymond had felt like he was talking to someone in a walking coma. He thought about the attitude of the locals, the snarky comments of the man in the boat and how he had almost seemed to be warning Raymond of something.
In the length of a heartbeat, he suddenly realized that the bells on the buoys outside had gotten louder, as if the outer door to the building had been opened. He felt the kiss of fresh breeze on the back of his neck and the groaning from floorboards. Raymond turned, already knowing what he was going to find.
A half dozen of the town locals stood there, staring silently. Raymond took a step back, trying to formulate in his head what he was supposed to say, what they might accept. Before he could come up with anything, they began shambling forward. There was no other door, no windows, anywhere that he would be able to escape from, and he certainly couldn’t overpower all of them.
The only sound filling his head was the increasingly ragged intakes of his own breath as someone switched off the lights and closed the door, drowning him in darkness.
.
.
.
