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He was alone.
He was alone again.
All he could do was sit and watch miserably as the flames started to consume the tanning bed and soon the objects around it in the shed. He wanted to remain sitting there, allowing the flames to consume him just as they were going to consume Lisa in time. At least this way he wouldn’t be alone in death again.
It was the note that urged him into action. The promise of seeing her again gave him the ability to stand and open the bed, enduring burns both from the fire and electricity as he pulled her corpse out and dragged it from the shed a little distance away from the fire. He doubted she would be able to come back if he allowed her to be completely consumed.
And then, he ran.
He was going to have to wait for the right time for his wife to return to him. There was only one place he could think of to go for now; somewhere the police and anyone else would not think to go and look for clues about everything that had happened here.
***
Sal had never seen anyone sitting in front of his store when it was closed before. The old man chuckled as he stepped out of his car, shaking his head as he approached the dark figure sitting on the floor, hugging their knees to their chest with their head lowered. “Hey! I know my stuff is good but I’m not open until five and…”
The Creature lifted his head and Sal gasped in surprise.
“I remember you. Lisa’s friend, right? Never been to a deli before.” Sal looked him over, frowning to himself. The young man had resembled some kind of raccoon when he first met him. Sal had wanted to keep feeding him, worried that maybe there was some kind of lingering illness behind the large black circles and pale skin. Now he had regained his color but somehow he looked more miserable than he had before. Reaching down, Sal took hold of the young man’s wrist, lifting up his hand to look at it. “Where did you get these burns from?”
*I…need help,* the Creature whispered. His voice was hoarse from disuse, his Yiddish awkward and stilted. *I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.*
Sal frowned at the young man’s words. His Yiddish was…old. Very old. It reminded him of his great-grandmother and the way she spoke to him. *What happened? Where’s Lisa?* The young man’s eyes started to tear up and he winced, gently pulling him onto his feet. *Come on. Let’s get you inside and cleaned up. We’ll figure this out together.*
***
The Creature told Sal his name was Josef. It was the only direct lie he told the old man. Sal eventually heard on the radio about what had happened with Lisa Swallows and the Creature had blurted out that she was only protecting herself, that the people who were killed had all abused her in some way. Sal had accepted this answer, shaking his head at the thought of anyone being driven to lash out as Lisa had done.
Josef’s hands were bandaged and Sal gave him a job at the deli and a place to sleep at night. *We take care of each other,* he had explained to him the first night as he offered him a blanket.
Josef found that he liked working at the deli. People came and went and there was a small group of regulars that came and seemed to spend hours inside, sitting at a table in the corner playing cards and dominos and teasing each other in a mixture of English and Yiddish.
The regulars all teased Josef about his manner of speaking. Some of them took to calling him Elter Zayde, great-grandfather. It was from them that he started to better learn how to interact with people in this world. Lisa was his wife and beloved, but he had to admit that she had a very different way of seeing the world and interacting with it. It was more pessimistic without any optimism. These people reminded him of his grandmother.
*You seem really sheltered for a young man in his nineties,* one of the regulars noted with a reassuring smile one morning.
Josef blushed and shrugged, placing his domino down. *My parents forbade my grandmother from speaking much about our people. They said it was dangerous.*
*That’s why he talks like a grandpa!* Sal laughed. He and the other regulars had come up with a theory that the Creature didn’t know a lot about the more modern aspects of his culture because of his family fleeing to America from the war. He did not correct them. *His grandmother had to keep the old ways alive on her own! You see it all the time from people after the war. Some families thought it was better to just keep everything hidden for their kids’ sake. Let them grow up as Americans without looking back at where they came from.*
*That's why old fogies like us have to stick around to make sure you people remember!*
Josef smiled and set down another domino.
***
It was several weeks later that Sal sat the Creature down after the deli had closed, a serious expression on his face. “You can’t stay here forever, you know. Sleeping in the back room of a deli isn’t the healthiest way to live one’s life.”
The Creature nodded his head. He was well aware that he had been straining his kindness. All he could do was pray that the thunderstorm the radio claimed would be happening in the next few days would give him a reason not to intrude any longer.
Sal cleared his throat, placing some papers down in front of the Creature. “I’ve been talking with my wife. When we came out here, she insisted on buying a cabin in the woods a few miles away from here.”
The Creature tilted his head to the side at that. “A cabin?”
Sal sighed and waved a dismissive hand in the air. “She was going through a phase where she imagined she was some kinda outdoorswoman!” he explained. “We only used it for a couple of summers before she got tired of it. It’s got everything anyone could need; electricity, insulation, and heating. It gets serviced and cleaned in the summer. We meant to save it for one of the kids but they haven’t come down to see us for a lengthy amount of time in years. They’re New Yorkers who don’t plan on becoming anything else,” he chuckled.
The Creature looked down at the papers again. “Why are you giving this to me?” he asked.
Sal just smiled, placing a hand over the Creature’s. “You’re a good boy. I’m not going to pretend to understand everything that’s going on with you and with what happened to Lisa. What I do know is that it seems like you need a place to stay that’s not out in the open. We can talk about transferring the bills and all that once things have been finalized.”
The Creature picked up the papers and smiled, hugging Sal.
“It’s a good size,” Sal said, “it’ll be perfect for a young couple to stay in.”
The Creature could only look at him, trying and failing not to look as if he understood what the old man was telling him.
***
The Creature held both of his blind wife’s hands as he gently guided her towards the open front door of their new home. He had cleaned it up, filling it with the things he was able to salvage and collect from her home and Taffy. He made a point of making sure there were a lot of open spaces for Lisa, hoping that in time she would be able to navigate their home without assistance.
It really did have everything a couple that wanted to live away from everyone could need. They were only a drive away from his job at the deli and the rest of the town when they wanted to go in for supplies or just do some shopping.
“Home?” Lisa asked, her voice raspy and barely above a whisper. She gasped as she felt herself being swept up into the Creature’s arms, hugging him around his neck to avoid falling.
“Home,” he assured her, carrying her inside.
Lisa smiled, resting her head against him. “Home.”