“What’s wrong with your voice?” Faye couldn’t respond to the content of the question. “It’s… wrong.”
“Sun will be up soon. Need to get somewhere darker. Away from people. Can you help me?”
“Tell me what happened, Henry. Let me see you, and we can try to figure out what to–”
Just then, a car drove by, its headlights illuminating the edges of the shadow in which Henry hid. She saw one of his legs, part of his torso, and the fingers of one hand.
Her jaw dropped, her eyes bugged, and a hand shot up to her mouth. But she stayed where she was, even though every fiber of her being was barking at her to run, get the fuck out of there right now.
The headlights whipped past the dumpster as fast as they’d lit it up. Henry pulled his leg in closer to his body, unsure of how much Faye had seen, knowing that at this point even a few inches was enough to have caused her reaction.
“I’m changing,” Henry said. “Into something else.”
Faye stared, slowly brought the hand down from her mouth, consciously lifted her jaw till she heard her teeth click together.
More people were moving around inside the hospital now. Outside, too. More cars, more buses.
“What do you need me to do?” Faye heard herself say, not entirely sure why she was still anywhere near this spot. She should’ve rocketed out of there as soon as she’d heard that voice – and certainly the moment she’d seen… whatever it was she’d seen. This was not Henry Kyllo. It might claim to be him, might even sound a little like him under all the growling gravel, but it couldn’t be. It’s impossible.
And yet.
“I just need to hide till I can figure out what’s going on. I didn’t know where else to turn. My only real friend was Milo, and he’s dead.”
Milo looked hard at his friend, then. Felt something like breath come into his lungs.
Faye glanced behind her. More people still. They were bound to start coming in and out of the loading dock doors soon.
She opened her mouth to speak – maybe even to give an answer, she didn’t know – when two of her co-workers walked out of the door she’d come through a few minutes ago. They were laughing and talking shit about someone. One of them, a woman named Joan, looked up and saw Faye standing near the dumpster. “Faye?” she said. “What are you doing? Dumpster diving?” She and her friend, Marissa something-or-other, laughed some more, kept walking arm in arm.
“Ha,” Faye said. “Your face is a dumpster.” She tried to act as casual as she could so they wouldn’t stop and come over. They were work friends, but not close: the occasional joke here and there, acting silly in the break room, that sort of thing.
They just made faces, flipped her the bird, and kept walking, headed for the bus stop.
Unsure exactly why she was doing this – clearly there was something incredibly wrong with Henry – she stepped closer, whispered, “Alright, then. Follow me.” She felt strongly that she needed to help him, that there was truth to this. And that no one else would help him.
She strode past the shadows where Henry hunkered, purposely not looking, afraid to see more of whatever she’d glimpsed before in that wash of headlights. Henry said nothing as she walked past, just scrambled to gain his feet.
She opened the door to the loading dock, poked her head in, looked around.
No one coming.
She stepped inside, held the door open, but still didn’t look behind her. When she felt the weight of the door removed from her hand, heard breathing close to her ear, she carried on.
Down the stairs, moving quickly. Behind her, Henry grunted, “Slow down. Can’t move so fast.” She ignored him. Then, two flights down, she said over her shoulder, “Keep up. I’m not waiting around,” and kept going. Henry shambled along behind, occasionally forgetting his size and cracking his head off the cement stairs.
“And try to be quieter,” Faye said, reaching the bottom of the staircase.
Milo grinned a little at that, whispered along in both their wakes.
“Wait here a sec,” Faye said. “I’m going to check the boiler room, make sure no one’s in there. Should be somewhere in there you can hide – at least for a little while.”