Monuments of the Dead

"Hugo, I need you to pick up some extra blankets from the gas station!" Hugo's eyes widened at the sound of this news as he scrambled through his pens and pencils strewn throughout his art-desk.

"Uh-Okay mom!" He called back to her, his voice wavering a little. Hugo was always in his study or in his room messing around with his drawing utensils. Despite what his College professor or advisors said, he wanted to be an independent artist, and he sure was heading in that direction...

Eileen, Hugo's mother, was always on edge from her son's hermit-like personality. Ever since she divorced his father and remarried, he just wasn't the same. But that would soon be the least of their problems. "Hugo!" She called from the echo-y, dimly lit kitchen she stood in. "Could you please come down a moment?"

"I'm in the middle of something, mom!" Was his response. She sighed and stomped her high-heeled feet to the bottom of the steps.

"Come down here!" She ordered with a harsher tone of voice. This time, the only response was a deep annoyed groan from up stairs, which soon turned into elephant stomps as Hugo emerged from the hallway.

"Mom, I'm REALLY getting somewhere thi--" Hugo paused at the top step and flushed a bright white color. "Dad...?" He questioned his sight as he stood there, mouth agape. Right there, at the bottom step standing next to mother, was the man Hugo hadn't seen in 10 years. The man that raised him from birth to 9 years of age. The man that taught him to draw when he was a child. The man who was his one and only friend...

"Hey, bud." James was his name. James Lister. Eileen met James while they were in College where they got married. However, the minute James lost his job as a repairman and decided to pursue art, Eileen left the job as his wife.

"James is going to be staying with us for a while, just until he gets his feet back on the ground." Eileen replied regretfully.

"What do you mean?" Hugo couldn't get his eyes off of his dad. He was told he would never see him again and yet there he was, just out of reach. James stepped forward one grimy paint-stained workboot and looked at his son with his sparkling blue eyes.

"I--er...I was let go from my job--"" He began, only to be interrupted by Eileen (just like the good ol' days).

"Well, hardly a job, more of a hobby, you see, James--"

"Dad!" Hugo's face grew red with fury at his mother's refusal to call him by his familiar name. "He's my dad...so act like it." There was a moment of silence between the three before Eileen gained her confidence to speak again.

"Your...father was working as muralist for government facilities...but he ran out of 'jobs'--" She mockingly tipped her fingers as air quotes, "--to do. So until he gets hired in a REAL company with a REAL job..." She let out a sigh and patted James' back, "He'll have to stay with us." The tensity of the room rose as Hugo's rage built up inside of him, ready to explode. How could she treat him like this? He wasn't a mangy old dog! He wasn't some sorta bum who ruined her life! He was his father. Her husband....a friend.

Just then, the front door opened and only made the room's awkward aura worse.

"Hey, sweetie." Michael said, making his way to Eileen and kissing her. "And who is this?" He stepped in front of James and glared at him a moment before Hugo rushed to the bottom step.

"This is my dad, Mike." Hugo said, snarling up a little and standing next to his father. Mike scoffed and nodded slowly as if it were a bad comedy skit.

"Sweetie, I still need you to go get those extra blankets..." Eileen interrupted, "I don't want James to stink up the living room..." She chuckled along with Mike at her degrading and disgusting humor.

"Do I even know you?" The room grew completely silent as James stood still, glaring down at his once upon a time lover. "Because the Eileen I knew wasn't a bitch." At that, Hugo snorted out an attempt of composure but instead, bursted out in a laugh.

"Get her dad!" Hugo exclaimed, wiping a tear of joy away from his eye. Eileen's face boiled in anger. The aura went from awkward to full-blown roast session in two seconds. However, Macho-Mike took a stand as his role of step-father and STEPPED in the conversation.

"Hugo, listen to your mother!" Hugo opened his mouth to talk back, "Not another word! Take the keys and go to the store....NOW." Hugo huffed and looked at his father for approval. His only response was an uncomfortable shrug and a hair ruffle.

"Go get those blankets, sport."

"Its ridiculous! The literal SECOND my dad finally comes home, Mike has to come in and ruin everything! Its like my mom married that douche just to ruin my life...At least I'll be in College soon. God I can't wait to get out of there." Hugo spoke as loudly as possible, in hopes that his bluetooth phone would pick up his voice while he sped down the road.

"That is pretty stupid...Maybe you can fix things up, y'know? Maybe this is your chance to set the record straight between all of you."

"Thats easy for you to say, Penny." He responded with a slightly annoyed tone of voice. "You don't have this crap in your family."

"True." She sighed, "But we all have our problems--Anyways, why are you driving right now? Its like," She peered over at her pink alarm clock, "11:00 at night!"

"To make a long story short, my dad smells bad and I need to get him blankets." The two chuckled lightly at the comment. In times of grief and frustration, the best thing to do is to slap a smile on yourself and hope it spreads.

The green van pulled up to the gas station's sketchy parking lot and screeched to a stop. It seemed dead there. There were no cars but one grimy old truck. No people were driving on the road. No one was walking down the street. All of this made Hugo wonder if he should just start the car back up and speed down the road back home. But, as he was 19 and about to start an independent lifestyle, he needed to learn to grow a spine and go for it. The car door popped open and Hugo stepped out his sneakered foot onto the gravel with a crunch. The lightpost nearby flickered with its bright-white light, casting odd shadows on the ground before him. Hugo wasn't a coward, but he certainly wasn't a daredevil either. With a gulp and a regretful sigh, he began slowly walking to the sidewalk lining the gas station walls. The town they lived in was very rural and ghetto. There were hardly any visitors and the only occupants were either poor people or really old people. So going into any store at 11:00 at night is a horror movie in and of itself. As he approached the windowed walls of the store, a lighter feeling filled his body. It was less scary when you see the lights on and the food products beaming in your face. Its even less scary when the cashier is a gothic teenage girl, obviously younger than yourself, enjoying herself by reading poems and listening to music. He sighed in relief and shrugged off his fear before slowly pushing the door open. The familiar sound of the bell above ringing struck away the last drop of scary vibes that this store brought with itself. Hugo nodded at the girl, expecting her to welcome him, but only to get the cold shoulder as it seemed she didn't even notice anyone came in. He huffed, mumbled a few nasty words, and made his way to the rags and blankets section. In small towns like theirs, there are only a few areas where stores are set up, so odd places, like gas station, carry common household items, like blankets. He looked down each aisle to see which one was the one he needed.
Candy.
Sodas.
Phone Accessories.
Ahh, finally, 3 aisles down were the blankets. It felt a little uncomfortable being that far in this creepy store, since the only other person there had no clue what was going on around them. But, he pressed on, shaking off his thoughts of Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger popping up. Of course, there is the rational possibility that someone might rob the place, but that was the last thing on his mind. He turned heel and started down the aisle, looking for the most expensive blankets to buy, just to get his mom back for being so rude to James. His hopes of crushing her bank account kind of sunk when he peered around and saw how low on stock they were. Just a few kitchen rags and a towel.
'Maybe there are some at the end,' he thought, dropping his shoulders and walking to the very back of the store. Now this was getting freaky. The LED lights above each aisle shown brightly down on the creepy grimy tiled floors that obviously hadn't been cleaned in weeks. He gagged a little at the thought of how many kids threw up or how many products were spilled and forgotten. As he approached the back of the store, slowly and cautiously, that same feeling rose back up and jumped in his throat from one sound: The door's bell jingling. He stopped and stood dead still. Why was he so scared of this right now? It was almost as if he has an instinctive mind and knew something horrific would happen. Slowly, he turned his head to look over his shoulder. No one? The bell still swung back and forth from the force of the door, so he knew he wasn't hearing things...However, no one made a sound...or an appearance. He darted a look at the cashier, only to see her still delving into her poetry, then turned back around and sighed.
'Its nothing,' he thought, 'Just your imagination. Probably just someone picking up an energy drink or something.' The thought of a regular-dressed man driving his car and parking, getting out and strutting into the store made him feel a little better. 'Okay, okay, blankets.' He bent down in front of the opened cardboard restocking bins. 'Wonder who was lazy enough to leave these sitting here.' He glanced a sarcastic little look over at the cashier. She was gone. He looked over and saw her walking towards the restroom, casually, so he continued rummaging through the boxes.
Nothing...Wait. As he sat down, feeling defeated, he glanced up and saw that there was a box on the top shelf in the blanket aisle labeled, "Blankets: New Shipment". Feeling kind of stupid, he hopped to his feet and walked to the aisle again. The top shelf was pretty high up and, no matter how far he stretched his arm up, he simply couldn't reach the box.
'No one is around,' He thought, peering about him, 'I'll just climb for it.' With that, he grabbed both hands on the sides of the metal panels and hoisted himself up on the shelf, beginning to climb up each platform like it was a ladder. Once he reached the top shelf, he felt slightly guilty, knowing there were security cameras around. But his guilt turned to a sudden burst of fear when he heard a clank coming from inside the restroom. He shot his head towards the restroom door and stared at it for a good minute before reaching his arm back to the box. Because he wasn't paying too much attention to what he was actually doing, his grasp on the box and on the shelf were both quite weak and with a girlish scream, he tumbled backwards, tipping the box onto himself and covering himself in tons of blankets.
"Shit..." He murmured, just KNOWING that the loud noise he just made had to have alerted the clerk. Angrily, Hugo flung the blankets side to side to try and escape his cozy cave. Suddenly, his heart dropped and he felt all the blood rush out of his face. The bathroom door...was open. He gulped hard, slowly grabbed one of the blankets, and stood up.
"I was just trying to get a blanket!" He hollered to the seemingly empty room in hopes the cashier would understand. "The-the box--" He peered around, confused, then started nearing the front desk, "The box was at the top shelf...an-and no one had restocked so--" He let out a nervous laugh and lifted the blanket a little, as if she could even see him, "--So I took the liberty...." Hugo was now at the front desk, standing directly in front of the register, alone. He furrowed his brow in confusion. Wasn't she just here? She just took a bathroom break....right? "Hello?" He said, lightly and leaned over the desk a little, thinking (for some odd reason) she may be down there. "Hello!" He called out, louder this time.

SMACK!

He jumped and turned to the loud metallic noise coming from the bathroom's wide opened door. Sprawled out on the side of the door was a grimy and blood-covered hand. He'd been terrified this whole time and yet right now...he couldn't scream. He just stood still with wide blue eyes, staring...waiting. Out from the bathroom crawled what used to be the clerk. She had a mauled face, bloodied and tendons stringing down. Her teeth were all bared from the skin being torn off. Her eye was slightly popping out and the other dangled by the chord. She slumped out, crawling like a pathetic dog that had been beaten. As she emerged, Hugo could see that her left side had been entirely torn open and was gushing out blood, rushing down her exposed and hanging organs. She lifted her arm up to him and gurgled out,

"It...is still...in here....run...."

Thud....