Behind Closed Doors

I guess I should tell you what happened yesterday.

Crystal's been shot. She won't let me take her to a hospital. She insists she'll be fine. The bullet got her in the leg. She tells me there won't be any lasting damage. I'm not so sure.

After what I learned, I'm not sure if I want her to recover from this.

Yesterday's post ended with me saying there was someone at the door. You'll never guess who. Turns out some of the local drug dealers decided they wanted to pay Crystal a visit. Apparently, she and that new drug of hers have been intruding on their turf. You see where there is going?

No sooner had I opened the door then I was pistol whipped into unconsciousness. I woke up tied to a chair like in some shitty action movie. But unlike shitty action movies, I woke up with an aching head and I was so dizzy that I threw up, spraying puke all over my lap. My guests ignored me, apparently not even noticing the putrid scent of the puke. There were three of them. They were all armed. I realize that there's probably no way I can type this without coming across as at least a little bit racist, so I'll just come right out and say it: two of them were young black guys, and the third looked Hispanic. None of them seemed very friendly. They all sat on the bed, waiting for Crystal to show up.

Eventually, the door opened, and in she stepped, a smile on her lips. As soon as she saw our guests, that smiled melted away, and she immediately took a step back. All three of the dealers were already aiming at her by then, and for a moment, she froze.

The moment passed quickly. Before I could even blink, she was running. Two of the dealers-- the Hispanic guy and one of the others-- chased after her. The third one stayed with me.

"Your girlfriend's not very smart," he told me. "First the whore starts dealing in our spots, then she tries to run." He pointed his gun at my head. "That pill of hers. Where does she make it?"

I stared at him blankly, and realization dawned.

That bitch. That STUPID BITCH!

Suddenly, a great blackness fell over me, and I saw an empty face, pale and yet somehow dark, just inches away from my eyes. Tentacles oozed out of the blackness and wrapped around the dealer, twisting the gun from his hand, wrapping around his throat and chocking off his scream. One tentacle lashed out, slicing through his stomach like a blade, spilling his intestines out onto the floor.

And then the Slender Man turned his attention to me.

I tried to move. The best I could do was scoot the chair a bit away, just as a tentacle flew at me. It sliced the rope from my legs, and managed to leave a a long but shallow gash across my skin, and I immediately took advantage of this sudden freedom, standing and running for the door, ignoring the stinging in my leg.

Slender Man attacked again, and the chair, my arms still tied to it, exploded. Splinters rained everywhere, and I was knocked flat on my face, my back covered in cuts and slashes from those tentacles. I scrambled away, half crawling half running out of the motel room. I didn't look back to see if Slender Man was following me.

I ran out onto the street just in time to see Crystal pinned against a car with the dealers beating the shit out of her. I hesitated for a moment, and ran toward her.

One of the dealer's heads exploded, his brains splattering all over the asphalt of the parking lot.

I looked up. Gas Mask was standing on the roof of the motel, a rifle in his hands. He took aim again, and I ran.

Crystal managed to push the remaining dealer-- one of the black guys-- away from her and ran for the car. He opened fire on us, but we both ducked behind Crystal's car in time to avoid the bullets. Some guy was lying on the pavement nearby, in a hoodie with one of those Operator symbols on its back. He was bleeding pretty badly. I'm not sure if he was still alive or not.

We heard the rifle go off again, and the dealer's barrage stopped.

"Get in the car!" Crystal shouted. "NOW!"

I complied, and we scrambled in, but not before Gas Mask got in one more shot, blowing a nasty hole through Crystal's right leg. The bullet hit on the lower half, in the fat behind the bone. Not sure what the technical name for that is.

I pushed her into the passenger's seat, pulled the keys from her pocket, got the hell away from there. I looked back with the rearview mirror to Slender Man behind us, standing in the middle of the parking lot, turning to look at Gas Mask on the roof. Gas Mask seemed almost about to fire at him, but then he just dropped the rifle and seemed to almost burn away, vanishing in a puff of ash and embers.

Crystal poured whiskey on her wound and had me bandage it up. I'm not sure if that's the proper way to treat a gunshot wound, but at the moment I was too angry to object.

"What the hell were you thinking!?" I shouted. "Those pills! Those pills!? What the fuck made you decide to sell them!?"

All she said was "Had to... make money... somehow" before she fell into unconsciousness.