Quarantine

Grim noticed things have been different since the old man. People acted like they were seeing things or that they were a little more tired. Some of them blamed that it was just the weather changing and that they were a little overstressed because a lot of people didn’t know if the wall was going to keep the mountain lions out of the small town.

Big Rudy had asked Devon if he was feeling okay when he had come in for work. Grim replied with ‘obviously’. Devon wouldn’t have come in if he was sick. He knew that Ramona would have just sent him back home anyways.

“This must be a different strain of the flu that they didn’t put into the shots,” a nurse said. Grim knew her name, but he couldn’t remember it. She was the one who gave him the flu shot. “Davy had been claiming that he wasn’t feeling very good after shot, and it’s like he has the flu.”

“Well, you do know that they put the flu into it. I get like that myself,” the girl across from her said. Devon knew this girl. She was Meredith Jameson. Everyone in this town knew who she was, and she was one of the main gossipers of the town. It kind of made sense for her to know all the gossip when she was the one who ran the local newspaper, Four Trees Weekly.

Devon couldn’t help but hear their scratchy voices as he cleaned of a table next to them. He kind of wished that he was deaf when he was near Meredith. She had a high-pitched voice that was almost like nails on a chalk board.

“Yeah, I know that,” the nurse agreed. “I think my new house is haunted.”

There was silence between the two girls, and Devon was thanking the gods above for that small moment of silence from them. There was the sound of other people talking, but it wasn’t nearly as annoying as these two.

“Why’s that, Leah?” Meredith asked, shocked to hear that. The moment of silence was ruined and Devon tried to hurry and clean.

“Well, I keep seeing shadowing figures around the house, but when I try to focus on it, it’s gone,” Leah said.

Devon picked up the bucket and carried the dishes back to the kitchen. He walked past Rudy who stood in front of the grill. “The news queen is here,” he announced, annoyed.

“You want me to drop something?” Big Rudy asked with a teasing smile.

“Nah, we don’t want her to give us a bad review. We would end up needing a new job,” Grim replied, shaking his head.

No one really liked Meredith completely, let alone trust her. She was known to have something negative directed to the people and business that she didn’t like in the paper for the whole town to see. Most of the girls claimed to be her friend because they liked hearing the local gossip, and maybe even giving her some of the gossip about someone they didn’t like.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, but you know no one would blame me,” he pointed out, laughing silently.

Devon just shook his head. Big Rudy wasn’t all that bad, but he liked to make jokes that may be a little much at times especially to the people he was comfortable around. Big Rudy was a bit of a shy guy who preferred working in the kitchen where he didn’t have to interact with the customers all that much.

Grim thought back to the two girls’ conversation. Everyone has been saying that or thinking they have been seeing things. He was curious about it since it wasn’t affecting him. He looked up when he saw Anthony walk into the kitchen.

“Sorry for being a little late. The doctor’s appointment took a little longer than planned. Thanks for covering for me, Grim,” Anthony said, smiling kindly to the older guy.

“Don’t worry about it, Tony,” Grim said, untying his apron. He hung the red material on the hook next to the entry way. He called out a ‘see you later’ to Ramona who just waved from her spot next to some her old friends.

Devon didn’t really want to go home just yet, and he had been avoiding going to see his mom. She was getting worse, and he just didn’t want to accept that she was about to go. It still felt odd for him to think that she was sick. He grew up thinking she was so invincible, but she was bedridden. There was nothing anyone could do about it. All Grim could do was hope that she wasn’t in pain.

He walked down the sidewalk, barely looking at the people around him. The wind was starting to get color around this time which made him realize that Winter was coming sooner than planned. In Four Trees, fall was a little bipolar with the weather. The summer heat liked to linger and hold on as long as possible while the winter would try to move it as quickly as possible.

Grim hated the warm weather and was thankful for the coming winter. He didn’t know if he was going to be staying the whole winter though. By the looks of his mother, she wasn’t going to be alive for very much longer. He would move back to Juneau, Alaska as soon as he could after that.

He looked up and realized that he was standing in front of the park at the center of the town where the famous four trees stood. He saw them in the center of the park and noticed that something was different about the four of them. They were originally all the same color, but now they looked a little different. He couldn’t really see the differences. He could feel it which seemed weird. How could he feel that something was different?

He stared at the four trees that made an oddly shaped circle. He took a step towards the closest one and nearly fell on his ass when felt the jolt of energy come off of it. He had never felt anything like that in his life.