Gravewalk

There’s nothing like a good bit of small town drama in places like little old Alamo, Georgia, where nothing ever happens… but when the first interested crowd I had ever seen in all my life is planted right outside one of the storefronts, my nosey heart and soul grew giddy at the sight.

Stores here usually never pack a crowd, but this one in particular had the entire town staring through its shining glass. It wasn't until I had bumped into one of them that I finally paused my music long enough to see what was going on.

“Hazel.” A classmate waves me over.

“Macy.”

“Isn’t that the dude you interviewed for school?” She asks and I raise myself up on my toes slightly as I peer over the small crowd.

I remember doing a report on the BioGen Lab, having interviewed one of the scientists and researchers myself who actually lived here in little Alamo, Georgia.

He was a shy guy, wasn't big on people but loved talking about his research and his most recent breakthroughs.

To say I was surprised when I saw him standing in that display case, staring out into the crowd that had gathered to question why he was there in the first place is an understatement. To say I was surprised when I realized he was standing in a kids toy store display window next to a little children's science kit is also an understatement.

And we all just watched him.

Some people tried to talk to him; others tapped on the glass which encouraged kids to bang on the window to the point parents snatched them away. All I could do was observe him like one of those rats you experiment on.

He probably felt like one.

“Yeah,” I frown, setting myself back down on my heels, “that’s so odd.” I pocket my phone and take a sip of my tea, trying to wrap my head around the scientist that’s standing behind the front display of the children’s toy store like some kind of weird creep.

I don’t want to peg him as the kind, he was truly such a nice guy—odd at times, sure—but seeing him just standing there, not moving whatsoever, staring out at us with this empty sort of look was giving me the chills on this hot last-of-summer day. Not even the heat could tend to the goosebumps I got from him.

He doesn’t flinch or move, just stares off into the distance.

Shoulders hunched.

Mouth agape.

Drool starts to pool at the corners of his parted lips.

His skin looks sort of clammy—a sickly greenish-gray tint to it.

His eyes looks a little bloodshot, which I sort of expected to happen to a scientist working on vaccines and whatever scientists of his sort do, but this behavior was so utterly out of the ordinary and it showed because the mass of people slowly start to laugh at him.

A little girl riding her daddy’s shoulders starts giggling and tapping on the glass, her little pigtails bouncing with her little blond curls, and it was her in particular that made Todd the Scientist snap from whatever zone he was staring into oblivion in to look at her, drool now dangling from his face and breath fogging up the glass. He raised a fist and started pounding on the glass softly every time she tapped.

It made her laugh even more.

The mass of people soon caught the store owner’s attention, and he realized someone had sneaked into his storefront window. Everyone could hear his muffled words as he encouraged Todd the Scientist to leave before he called the cops—the very cops that were also watching entertained with donuts and coffee in hand getting their fill of the mad scientist in the children’s toy store display before busting him—but Todd the Scientist did not move. He just kept banging a fist against the glass a little harder this time every time that little girl tapped on the pane.

I took another sip of my iced tea, about to pop my headphones back on when I noticed the way Todd’s chest began to move.

Heavy and labored, reminding me of an angry bull, frothing at the mouth, groans of fury escaping his lips as his fist hits the glass harder and harder, faster and faster.

The girl thought it was entertaining, everyone did, but something doesn’t sit right as I watched. The little girl shrieked with glee, but Todd only grunted.

The glass starts to rattle.

Hard.

Wrong.

Unsettling.

I can hear the splintering of glass before the rest of the town can as he hit and before anyone could truly question this man’s sanity, his fist ripped a hole straight through the window, shredding the very flesh off of his bones as he grabbed the little girl’s arm and pulled it through.

The entire group of people shouted as they ran away from the window, knocking me over in the process, iced tea gone.

She screamed as her dad tried to pull her away, but Todd had a mouthful of the little girl’s forearm. The store owner tried desperately to open the display and when he did, Todd the Scientist moved on from the little girl to him.

The cops out front were already firing into the window, but the bullets did nothing, confusing all of us who stayed behind to watch. Todd pounced onto the store owner, taking bites out of every bit of exposed flesh he could before moving on, running, roaring, face covered in blood.

What remained of the store owner was that out of a horror film.

It wasn’t until he had successfully managed to get out of the store when I realized I needed to start running, to find my car and get home quickly, to tell my family of the crazy cannibal that had started to terrorize the small town of Alamo, Georgia.

My scraped hands and elbows felt numb as I stood up and starts to run, forgetting all about how much I hated running as I found my way to my car and scrambled to get the keys out, thanking God my doors were already unlocked thanks to my forgetful brain.

I started the ignition and tore out of the area as fast as I could, leaving the throngs of screaming people and confused cops behind as Todd the Scientist, the very man I had interviewed just before school had ended, destroyed my little town.