I’m fucked. I am so, so fucked.
It’s been two weeks since the last post. I apologize, but we had to pawn our laptops for some quick cash. Neither of us have phones anymore.
This is Liz by the way. I’m using Alan’s account to avoid confusion.
After Jessica posted her little love note, Alan and I left Seattle, knowing someone would show up there next, looking for us. And I’ve learned my lesson, so no, I’m not telling you where I am.
Alan was really quiet during the drive, thinking. But whereas before, when we would discuss every little thing going through our heads, he wouldn’t tell me anything. He’d just shrug and say he was at a loss for any answers.
Everything we’ve done so far seems to be wrong. I think he was exhausted and really depressed about Lisa. The note mentioned her death and he’d been trying to hold out hope.
He seemed a bit better over dinner the next night, a bit more normal once we’d checked into a hotel and things seemed less frantic. He cracked a couple jokes and wanted to watch X-Files. I started to feel better about all of this..
A week passed, totally quiet, totally normal. No weird texts or nightmares or mold. We did a bit of sightseeing. It felt really good to get out of that hotel room - both of us were getting cabin fever. It was nice, for a couple days, not to flinch every time there was a knock at the door. No sign of monsters. Alan got his color back and the circles faded from under my eyes.
Our only issue was that we were running really low on money. So, like I mentioned, we pawned our laptops and I got a job at a diner. I thought maybe we could make this city a permanent home. Alan wasn’t sure about that, but I was trying desperately to look on the bright side. It didn’t make sense that we had been followed here - we had no way of being tracked. We were safe, and I was trying to convince him of that.
Then, one night, things started to go wrong again. We’d gone out to dinner across town, and by the time we’d made our way back to the hotel it was well past midnight. I was pretty drunk, so Alan supported me as we stumbled inside and made our way up to our room. I blindly staggered into the darkness and fell face-first on the bed. It took me a long moment to realize Alan hadn’t followed me inside.
He was standing in the doorway, staring down at something in his hand that he’d picked up. He told me it had been hung across the door handle, and he’d noticed it as soon as he’d slid the key into the lock. I got up to look, too, and he kept me at an arm’s length. But I saw what he was holding: a long chunk of blond hair, the exact color as Jess’s. It looked as though it had been torn out by the roots, a few chunks of flesh dangling from certain strands, stained in dried blood. Wrapped around it was a thin silver chain with a diamond pendant. Alan recognized the necklace as one he’d gotten for Lisa back when they’d first started dating.
I couldn’t quite process what I was seeing, but I knew something was wrong with Alan. It was like he’d drawn up into himself. His eyes were kind of distant and cloudy, and he looked like he’d just come down with a terrible cold - pasty white skin, kind of sweating, hunched over this macabre little present.
I was crying in thirty seconds, drunkenly demanding that he throw it away - “Why the fuck are you touching it?? It could be infected!” He wouldn’t answer, fingering the pendant like it was the heart of the goddamn ocean. I got to screaming so loud that the manager came up to ask what the fuss was. That was the only thing that finally snapped Alan out of his idiocy. He tossed the hair out our fifth story window, but kept the necklace. Then he laid down in bed and went to sleep.
He ignored me the rest of the night and the following morning. He was up and having coffee when I got out of the shower to dress for work. I said bye to him on my way out the door, but he didn’t reply. I think he was still holding that necklace. His last piece of Lisa, I guess.
When I returned from work it was pretty late. The diner is understaffed so, as the newbie, I was roped into working a double. Not that I’m complaining - the pay is good and the tips are great. Alan was already sleeping, or pretending to, by the time I came in. Wanting to cry, I climbed into my bed and fell asleep.
I woke up to something shuffling across the room. It was very dark, as the heavy curtains were pulled across the windows. Careful not to make much noise, I looked over to Alan’s bed, where he was squirming around under the covers. At first I thought I was witness to some bad nightmare, but then he kicked off his comforter and I saw that his eyes were wide open.
How do I explain this? It looked like he was trying to stand up, but had lost all concept of how to control his arms and legs. He laid on his back, pushing his torso up with his shoulder blades, his arms splayed at strange angles. I heard his joints pop as he tried to rotate his knee down toward the bed, a physical impossibility, and stifled a gasp. His head jerked around to look over at me.
A million thoughts went through my head - what if he was having some kind of seizure? Should I call an ambulance? Should I help? But self-preservation and experience kept me where I was.
Hiding under my covers, I watched him gain his feet quickly once I’d made a sound. He kind of slithered off the bed and stood with his back to me, craning his head around to look over his shoulder. I watched his fingers working stiffly, watched him rotate his wrists. Something dangled from one hand, catching the light - Lisa's diamond necklace. He was still holding it.
Alan took three steps backwards, towards my bed, then quickly turned around to face me. I almost jumped, but stiffened and kept pretending to sleep.
He watched me for a while, grinning widely. Then, abruptly, he took four steps backwards towards the window. Turning, he forced it open about a foot, looked toward me again and bent backwards, sliding his head between it and the sill. Then he started to lower himself backwards out the window.
I watched in horror as Alan curved at an obscene angle and his upper body disappeared outside beneath the ledge. His legs started to slide through next, and I jumped up to try to grab him. We were five stories up. Even he survived such a fall, he’d be seriously injured.
Before I was halfway to the window, his legs failed to hold his weight and the rest of him slipped through. I heard the whoosh as his body fell and the sickening crack as he hit the pavement head first. You see why I’ve been putting off writing about it.
Holding my breath, I looked out the window, down to where I was sure Alan was laying dead. He was there, and there was blood, but almost immediately he started to stir, pushing himself off the ground with broken fingers, climbing onto a leg snapped at the shin, brushing concrete off his head which was cracked and streaming blood. He looked up to me in the window, slowly, and gurgled something incomprehensible. He was grinning like mad. In his right hand he still clutched the necklace.
After a long moment, he shuffled off down the road, dragging his broken leg, his shoulders uneven and slumped.
I’m not under any illusions about what happened here. My Alan is dead, replaced with something that, against all odds, found us again. Something that looks like him but can never pretend to be him. It knows it, too. It’s not even trying to hide anymore. And it’s after me.
I moved again, but I know it’s only a matter of time. In any case, right now I’m still alive. Z, anyone from Z’s organization, please help me. I’m alone and I’m running out of options and sanity. Nothing feels real anymore. I can’t sleep.
But I’m still alive, goddammit.
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