Monsters in the Closet

"...He doesn't know. He doesn't even know, Graham, p-put the damn gun down!" Squeaked Mary, her incredulity making way for horror. She didn't want to hurt anyone, but she could rationalise it if she knew that Josef was protecting someone he knew was a threat. If he was perfectly oblivious -as he clearly was- then hurting him in any way was only a recipe for disaster, especially in terms of the regret that would eat her alive over it.

"You don't know? We're... not monsters; we were protecting him-- protecting every fucking person at the lodge," her husband grimaced, cautiously setting down the gun with a panicked glance around, in case anyone had overheard him in the neighbouring rooms. "He's a-a-- there's something not right with him, he changes and-- and he'll kill people, he'll hurt you, and we-- we wanted to stop him doing that without h-having him taken away from us, he's still our boy, we-- we didn't know how to handle what he was-- he's a monster, Josef-- he'll change and he'll hurt you if you don't l-let us deal with this like we have the last few years."
 
"So are you saying locking your son in a basement, letting him starve to death o-or... or fucked out of his mind? You are crazy, you know that?!" Josef snapped, his face red in horror. Even when the gun was lowered didn't really reassure him in the slightest. He had been around trigger-happy people before, watching them shoot a man just out of fun. Everything he thought he knew of the couple was a lie, so how could he trust them?

"You're mad, you know that?" He continued, sitting up quickly. "He isn't some monster, you... y-you're just insane. How could you do that to your son?! I should call the cops on you, it... it would be worth jail."
 
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Before they had a chance to answer, River made an appearance, innocently babbling about how "awesome" the vending machine was, his arms full of snacks he had managed to buy. He didn't recognise his parents from behind, not spending that much time with them to really distinguish them that much. All he could see was the gun in a man's hand and Josef clearly frantic and pale. He didn't know what to do, other than recall Josef's words when he handed him the pen knife - about using it if someone tried to start something. This was, to River, the perfect example of that situation, so, despite being nervous and hesitant, he reached for the knife and plunged it deep into the woman's leg. It wouldn't cause any major damage, but the shock and the sudden pain did cause Mary to shriek and yell in agony - and it was only when she sat down and Graham rushed to her aid that River realised who it was.

Without hesitation this time, he ran to his mother and anxiously bit on his nail, the guilt hitting him instantly... even if he really had no reason to feel guilty after everything his parents had done to him.

"I-I'm sorry Mama, I-- oh g-god, I'm sorry. Josef said to protect myself and-- and you have a gun! You can't shoot him, he's my only friend," he babbled again, nervously peering at the gun in his father's hand. "...Were you here to... to take me back? You-- what have you said, Dad? To Josef. What have you said-- Y-You told him, didn't you? Y-You told him-- i-it's not true, it's a lie, Josef, I promise!"
 
"What the fuck are you talking about?!" Josef snapped, feeling his heart pounding in his head which only made the headache he had finally began to get over come back full force, his eyes squinting in pain. Managing to stumble out of the bed, he took a large step back in horror.

"J-Just - you're all just crazy. Your son - he's... he needs medical health and you're just going to shove him back into the basement and ignore that your adult son is... is dying!" Josef continued, hoping he was at least somewhat loud enough to alert the neighboring bedroom. "I thought you people were nice and - I'm going to vomit."
 
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"No, no, it's not like that! We're trying to protect him," insisted Graham, growing increasingly panicked by Josef's raised voice and the fact his wife was bleeding in front of him, clearly in incredible amounts of pain. He was so worried, in fact, that he failed to really acknowledge how quiet his son had become. He only took notice when the unsubtle, sickening sounds of the boy's bones breaking, taking in the sight of his son curled up on the floor in horror. He had seen it before and, whilst it had been a few years, he never forgot just how horrendous the transformation process was, grimacing at every snap of bone and pained whimper River gave. He could shoot him, of course, but he couldn't bear the idea of it - no matter what, River was his son and he couldn't knowingly kill him, even if he knew the monster River would become would kill him without hesitation.

"I-- Go. Go in your car a-and get to safety, unless you want to... to get killed," he said slowly to Josef, carefully helping his wife up, his arm hooked around her supportively. "We need to go now."
 
"Oh, Iisus Khristos!" He blurted out at the sound of crunching noise, his body cringing. Anxiously slipping on his shoes, he was willing to trust the couple when it seemed they knew more about what was happening than he did, obviously. Scrambling to tug on a coat, he hissed under his breath when he felt the stitches tear a bit. The sight of River twisting and convulsing made him want to get sick, which he did once stepping out into the cold air.

Once getting sick, he hurried through the parking lot to his car. He didn't want to drive away so instead locked the car, peeking from the floor to watch. If River was as dangerous as he seemed, he was going to at least offer the two the safety of his car - he didn't want to see anyone die, not anymore.
 
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The couple had had every intention to follow after Josef and get to safety, perhaps even bravely try and deal with River before he changed by retrieving some of the drugs they injected into him to stop the change. Yet, they embarked on neither action. In fact, they didn't step out of the motel room altogether - though the monster did, the fact its pointed teeth were stained with blood clearly being an ominous sign. Its eyes, solid black and fiery, locked on the car in front of it, after taking in the serenity.

The neighbours clearly hadn't heard anything, with River's parents being killed too quickly for them to even muster a scream. The road was free of cars and the woods, at this time of night, free of ramblers. There was nothing to really distract the monster from attacking Josef this time, its eyes narrowing in on the fearful human - except in this instance, rather than rashly lashing out in an afford to get at him, the creature seemed to pause, a very faint but clearly noticeable flicker of recognition presenting itself. It disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived, the monster's next move being to slam its body against the car and dig its claws into the metal framework in an effort to tear the roof off. It was only when its attempt looked like being completed that it abruptly stopped, several bullets being heard in the air and, following that, a faint pained whine from the monster itself, who had no choice but to retreat into the woods to prevent further damage.

"...What in the fucking hell was that thing-- you alright? Call a fucking ambulance, Marge," came the panicked, gruff voice of the gunman, a 30-something year old running up to the car in the effort to help Josef. "Come on buddy, let's get you out, you're alright now-- ambulance is gonna be coming real soon."
 
It didn't take a scientist to realize what happened when the couple didn't return, the blood staining River's teeth and the bloody paw prints that marked the concrete being unsubtle, even in the dim lighting coming from the small bulbs outside of each room.

In a way, it was good that River had slammed into his car. For starters, it knocked him out before the shock and panic set in. The deep scrape across his chest and another hit to his head was just adding up to his injuries but perhaps other than his skull, he hadn't broken anything. His leg definitely felt twisted but it was the least important thing at the moment.

He only started to come through a little when he felt he was being pulled out of the car. Shaking from the cold when it hit the warmth of the blood that came from his chest, he could only whimper a soft 'no' in response. His ears were ringing and his vision was blurry but what he knew for certain was that he couldnt go to the hospital.

"P-Please, I... I can't go to the hospital," he begged, his voice cracking as he laid on the pavement, unable to move from pain. ""I can't... I can't go to the hospital. What - What did you just shoot?"
 
"Looked like some bear or somethin'-- some mighty big bear," began the man's wife, her pale expression a result of having peeked into the neighbouring motel room and spotted the bodies torn to pieces, which only confirmed to her that an animal had been responsible. No human could behave in such a way, after all. The darkness also concealed the truth about River; the couple, the only real witnesses to the monster, hadn't seen it properly, nor up close. They failed to see that the creature had no fur, for example.As far as they were concerned, it was a bear, albeit an abnormally large one.

"You need to go to hospital, you'll bleed out and that ain't good," she continued, placing her cardigan underneath his head to protect it from the rough ground, unable to think of something else to do to make herself useful to them. "I-It won't be long, hon. Five minutes tops, they said."
 
"God, I-I... need to find River," he insisted weakly, desperate to get up despite his sudden urge to get sick, vertigo setting in as his vision spinner. He laid back down, his anxiety pushed into the back of his mind when he heard the ambulance approach. He could squirm his way out of everything later, he decided.

"Wait, my... don't let my car get towed," he pleaded after a moment, remembering the money inside the glove compartment. It was locked so it wasn't like anyone could just peek once and see more than half a million dollars. It would just be a clue of more suspicious stuff that he didn't really want tic deal with. "... and... and my friend, he - I don't know where he is."
 
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The woman managed a meek smile, obviously assuming that this River boy was one of the ripped-apart bodies she had briefly glanced in on, though she hadn't the heart to tell the injured boy that. Instead, she stood back with her husband as the paramedics rushed out to tend to the injured Josef, several police officers that had arrived instead rushing into the motel room, only to go into shock and feel physically sick at the sight themselves. When it reached their attention that there was a missing third person unaccounted for, River became the main priority in the chance he was still alive. They had no idea he was the one responsible - they assumed the 'bear' had taken him and, without evidence suggesting otherwise, there was a chance he was still alive and his safety became their utmost concern.

River, naturally, didn't want to be found. When he came around, finding himself naked in the snow for the second time in a day, he really didn't want to head to the motel and discover what it was he had done. He knew it was bad to have transformed in front of Josef and the blood he was soaked in (again, for the second time that day) terrified him. Either Josef was dead, or River's parents were. Or, worse, they all were and River had really fucked it up. He had been shot in the arm, a fact he realised when he noticed the pain and, however much it hurt, he simply dug his finger into the wound to retrieve the bullet lodged inside it. It was either that or go to the hospital, and he didn't want to do that, assuming that the truth about him was spreading throughout the town and he as being hunted down right that second.

Not wanting to go to the motel, he opted to track his way back to the cosy diner that he felt safe and warm in. He knew that wandering in naked and bleeding wasn't going to keep him under the radar, but he hoped that the waitress he felt he had befriended would honour his plea for secrecy. When she agreed (albeit reluctantly) not to call the police or an ambulance, she set him down in the empty diner with a spare waiter's outfit and some hot food. However confused she was, she wasn't going to turn him away in his hour of need, feeling too worried to do so.
 
"You're lucky we're dead now, kid, or this would have been chaos," the waitress explained once setting the country fried chicken out for the other. "You're also lucky we're 24-hour. I won't tell Rocky in the back what happened, he'd probably go running off to the police in no time," she continued before deciding to slide opposite of the strange man in the booth. It wasn't like there were any other customers to serve, after all.

"... so are you going rock tell me what happened or should I not even bother?" She continued as she picked up her mug of coffee, yawning. "I alwant a name at least. I'm Cindy. I don't know how long you plan to stay in this shitty town but I'm always here for the overnight shift. Not like I have anywhere else to go on a Friday night, huh?" She drawled sarcastically with a roll of her eyes. "What about that guy you were with? Did he hurt you?"
 
"Josef? He would never hurt me, he was my best friend-- all he wanted to do was protect me and I-- I think he's dead now. My parents are dead, probably, and-- and I got caught up in it. There was this monster-- I don't know, it was an animal, probably, but a real big one, and I... I think it must have killed them all. I got out, barely," he mumbled as he eyed the plate of food in front of him, his frown deepening. The idea of eating made him feel sick to his stomach. For all he knew, the people he cared about most in the world had been slaughtered by him - sitting down and stuffing his face with chicken just made him feel guilty.

It also didn't help that he was alone in all of this, not having anyone to turn to who understood exactly what he was going through. He figured that he wasn't the only one of his kind; in a world of billions of people, it was far too scary for him to think that he was the only person born the way he was. Admittedly, finding someone like him was a long shot, but he always hoped it would happen, just so he could feel less alone. Especially now he thought Josef was dead.

"Josef would never hurt me," he declared again for emphasis, reaching for the milkshake he had quietly requested, mostly for the sugar content, knowing it would give him energy. Coffee, he realised, was not for him. "My name's River, I... my parents thought it was cute that I have a nature name, I think. They were really into all of that."
 
"Jesus - well, no matter what we'll probably see it on the news tomorrow," she explained, pointing to the beat-up, dusty television mounted on the corner of the wall, that of which was playing a recap of the sports game. Letting her eyes drift to the television, sh sipped her coffee as the sports announcer babbled on, pretending that his babbles has any influence on the actual players.

Not much after mentioning it, the channel had cut to 'breaking news'. A clearly tired news women was stood outside the motel, that of which showed the familiar yellow tape that made an appearance on every crime show to date. She explained the toll; two dead and one severely injured and in emergency care.
 
The boy quietly eyed the TV, unable to stop the smile breaking on his face. Despite hearing clearly that two people had died, the very fact one person had miraculously survived was enough cause for a celebration - he hadn't expected anyone to be left, after all. Even if that person was one of his parents, that was still one person more than River had anticipated having in his life.

"Can-- I-- I need to go to the hospital, I... I think," he declared nervously, his hands clenched tightly in an effort to stop himself shaking excitedly. Sure, there was no guarantee that whoever had survived was in good health and would make it through the night, but there was also a possibility that they would and River would have someone. "I... Is it far? Can I walk there?"
 
"Oh, definitely not. For starters, you're not in the best condition yourself. Secondly, it's a solid half hour drive so imagine how long it'll take to walk!" She quickly replied, laughing in disbelief. "Nah. Look, I... can go on my lunch and I can drive you there. I mean, I can have the cook take orders while I'm gone if I explain him," she offered with a pursed smile.

"... come on," she urged, getting to her feet. Hurrying into the back, soft chattering could be heard before she emerged from the kitchen in a coat and scarf. She handed over a hat - she didn't have a whole other outfit but it was better than nothing. Motioning River to follow, she headed into the cold with a shiver. "I'll drop you off at the hospital but then I have to head back, okay? I'll be at the diner til 6 in the morning, so you can always get a ride back if you need to, okay?"
 
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"...You're super nice, you know? Josef said that it wasn't wise to make any other friends, but you're sweet. I'm sure if... if he's alive still, I'm sure he'll change his mind when I tell him how much you've helped me," he remarked with a faint smile, hurrying into her car out of the cold with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, both to warm himself up and to try and keep control of himself. For all he knew, his mother or father were alive and had no desire to keep him living a free life. As dearly as he loved them, the best outcome was for Josef to be the one who avoided death, which made the discovery of the man all the more relieving.

It took a while to actually find him and to sneak into the room without being caught. It hadn't taken long for him to discover that he was a wanted person, overhearing the lingering police officers discuss their lack of faith of finding the "missing boy" alive. He was probably in need of medical assistance, but he also wanted to avoid being taken from Josef now that he had found him.

"...Josef," he began quietly, approaching the bed with a wary smile. "A-Are you awake? You-- you're happy to see me, right? It took ages to get here, I... I had to see how you were, you had me worried."
 
The past few hours had been a blur for Josef. He barely remembered being pulled out of the car, the sound of the ambulance and suddenly he was in a hospitals bed. He felt his neck supported his head (once again) wrapped up as the bandage soaked. He felt the oxygen assistance, especially when realizing that taking too deep of a breath hurt more than he'd like to admit He also noticed that his arm - the one he had tried to stitch up - was wrapped up neatly, as was his chest.

He was told he had a concussion, which made sense since he had gotten ill at least three times, even though there was nothing in his stomach. For the last hour, he could only hear the cops outside his room murmuring which caused dread to set in. The gig could be up and his genuine attempt to run away and try to solrt of start a good life was over. Squeezing his eyes shut to stop his sudden dizziness, he only opened them to see River. If it weren't for the fact that his body was screaming to stay still, he would have pulled the other into s right hug.

"Jesus - River? Are you okay?" He asked quickly before reaching to take River's hand in his. "What the hell happened? Be honest with me."
 
"...I don't know," he answered, that at least being partly true. He didn't know what happened when he transformed, and if it wasn't for the news report, he wouldn't have any information to pass on other than the fact he had transformed and, he guessed, had hurt Josef. It took a lot to admit that, especially seeing what a state his best friend was in, but he hadn't the heart to stand and lie to the man's face; not after everything he had done to him. He was at least owed the truth.

"My parents are dead. I... think I killed them," he began as quietly as his voice would allow, clutching Josef's hand tightly in case the other decided to rip it from him after the confession. "I... hurt you too, I must have. I-I can't remember doing it, I... can never control hat I do when-- when that happens. I-I... I hurt you, I'm so sorry, I... I didn't w-want you to... to find out like this, I... I didn't want you finding out whatsoever, a-aha...A-And now my parents a-are... they're dead and I loved them s-so much and... and I'm just sorry."
 
"You're being crazy, it was a bear... I think... I don't remember," he admitted, his voice slurred as he blinked a few times to try and focus. With his free hand wrapped up, he couldn't reach to turn on the television, knowing it might help the tension even in his muddled state.

"What the hell are you wearing?" He asked after a pause, his eyes scanning River closely to take in the dress, snorting in disbelief. "Oh, well... you look cute. I don't think we're allowed to get our stuff... I can ask for a hospital gown, though."
 
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