#Cause...cause she's _after what she's seen;_ get it? :DD Ha....ahhh. never mind ^^;

[thelindenpapers]

After What I Seen....

“Well, I can match that!

“Truckers gather stories constantly — and nowadays, anytime there’s a run that creeps the other drivers out? I’m there!

“...Mind you, most rumors are just bullshit. 

"Teenage pranks. Conspiracy theorists scared of their own shadows… or of their new neighbors.

“The tale I’ll tell you about?

“Is what started me taking 'The Unusual' routes in the first place.

“It started when I returned to my hometown, after being twenty years gone.

“It’d seemed a kind of standstill place when I was a girl — because it was — yet, I arrived hoping to see something good and new.

“…Leastways… I looked where my eyes were welcome.

"An isolated upbringing like mine, it caused… deficits. 

"And the deficits caused holes.

"Spaces where things should be. Things that would’ve helped me to relate to others properly.

“Yet, even for what little I had any right to look at — I saw the place hadn’t stood still after all!

“The high school?

"They added a 2nd floor. They’ve got Arts now.

“The family ranch where I’d worked as a teen… their sons weren’t interested in the place, so they'd sold it. It's a Community Garden now. The Pattersons, happily retired.

“Hell, only one thing *hadn’t* changed:

“That diner, over on BlackDuck Road? 'Ruth’s'.

"Still got the best grub for a 100 miles!

“So I walked in, after settling into the hotel across the street from Ruth's.

"And there’s a stranger, chatting with the cashier, who turns to look at me…

“Tall, clean guy; early-50s. Heavy brows and a lined face. Grizzled black hair, beard. Hawkish nose.

“He’s got these warm, green eyes. Like sunlit forests…

“I manage a casual nod without falling over. 

"Ordered Ruth’s pot pie and a sweet tea. Head back out towards the street…

“Well, I fully expected him to stick with the pretty little cashier. But, he follows me out...

“It’s funny. Men my age, they do tend to chase younger folk… but those Old Souls. They're at ease enough in their skins, to not need to feel young via association...

“Or. That’s what I thought, at the time...

“Now, it seems 'Thomas' was on vacation, too. 

"Said his great-grandparents had lived there in town a long time ago, so, he wanted to see if he liked the place enough to move in.

“I’d see him at the library, or hiking around -- especially by the riverside. His father’s folk’d brought a heirloom with them: some kind of gem, or stone...

"He was trying to see where it’d gone.

“Thomas was happy to talk about what I remembered about the town...

"About the bizarre family tall-tales his parents had told him in their senility...

"About what we'd each seen of the world during our respective travels...

"And about all the ways in which the world was both pleasant, and uncomfortably strange, to be inside of...

"We clicked like puzzle pieces.

“By our second week, we just, reflexively, meet up to have our meals together.

"Fishing followed. Dancing. Drinks over at Eric’s Dive.

"By week three… we figure a way to cut our hotel fare in half...

“…Oh, hush, Sam. *chuckles* I’ll spare you the steamy stuff.

“Point is… I can’t ever remember being that at ease. 

"That accepted. That cared for. That seen. That understood...

“Not in town. Not on the road. 

"Not anywhere…

“Anyway.

"One night, Thomas is late getting over to Eric’s for drinks.

“I wait a while. Then figure I'll go 'powder my nose'.

"And Eric confronts me, back by the bathrooms, when I come out: ‘Come here! I seen you go off with that stranger the other night, easy as you please.’

“I says, “Well! He ain’t strange to me! Been seeing him the whole month I’ve been here.”

“‘I known you longer!’

“He knows me better!!”

“And I cuss ‘im out, fierce.

“…oh, stop your fussin’. You know my temper!

"Besides, Eric didn’t really care!: hell, he’d been a damn bully to me since 3rd grade!! 

"He just… hated seeing me happy. And had a need to ruin that.

“So he lunges at me!

“I damn near punch his jaw off. Try to kick his legs out from under him, so’s I can get past ‘im…

“But Eric… hell.

"He’s a thing about town that’s changed, too.

“For the worst.

“He sidesteps… and punches me in the midsection with something sharp...

“Sam, I’ve been stabbed before, but he musta’ hit somethin’ important, because the pain I felt…

"I just drop onto my side like a sacka’ potatoes.

“Bastard drags me into the storeroom. Starts trying to get my dress up… I’m just gritting my teeth. Cursing my head off; trying to press real hard on the wound with both hands — worried I'll bleed out —

“Then we hear footsteps come into the storeroom.

“And Thomas’ voice. Calling for me.

“Eric stands up, ready to attack; but Thomas rounds the corner — wearing this green stone on a thin gold chain — and he sees us.

“Rage fills his face.

“And h-he... Deforms.

“He snatches Eric up like a toothpick!

"Puts a big, transparent hand into his chest. Pawing around inside of ‘im -- as if Eric was a satchel. Eric's screaming...

“Thomas was… growing. Turning inside-out… even the air around him turning … so that there were th-these holes. 

“Spaces where things should be.

“And through the holes: Flashes of images! Wildly shifting states of reality. Feelings hitting me like waves, changing suddenly with the flow of possibilities real, unformed, and unhappened: each one whispering — but all together of such intensity that it sounded like endless shrieking inside my head…

“…I did something I rarely do.

“I *screamed*.

“Thomas’s upper body twists towards my voice as he pulled his hand out of 'em — just this impossible mass of towering voids and billowing shapes. And, in the center it all, atoms gatherin' up, crystallizing to form:

“Eyes.

“Those green eyes of his…

“Not the sunlit forest green that I remember.

“A milky-way-night-sky green:

Filled with blindingly bright fires of galaxies; countless joyful stars in chorus!...

“Filled with dark, lonely expanses I-I can’t even conceive of. Stretching like a single despairing echo into forever...

“He looked at me just the once.

“And then he fled.

“Eric was never seen again.

“...The look in Thomas’ eyes…

“There was that strangeness. And a sense of age several times longer than what my great great gran carried.

"There was ...shame? 

"Even, fear.

“…But Sam, there wasn’t a lick of ‘evil’ in ‘em.

“Afterwards, I’m driving to the hospital to get patched up… but I was so *shook*, it took a couple a' traffic lights before I realized:

“I wasn’t wounded anymore. 

"No blood. No rips in my clothing, either. That dress was just as new as when I'd got it a few hours before!

"I think… I think, when Thomas was rummaging around in Eric… he was looking.

Looking for that moment when I was hurt...that moment that really happened to me… but that was only 'possibility', to someone like Thomas.

“And when Thomas found that moment… he pulled it out.

“Out of Eric.

“Out of Reality.

"...Yeah, Sam, I've looked!

There isn't even a scar! 

“…That fella… I know you can’t see ‘im as human.

“Yet he saved my heart. And then saved my LIFE.

“So. If you see any man or monster by those descriptions whenever you're out there hunting… wouldja' let him live? 

“…At very least… tell ‘im thanks.

“Tell ‘im I love ‘im.”