Saturday, November 5th, 12 a.m.

Officer Simmons knew that he shouldn't be clocking out. Technically his shift was over, but calls were still flooding into dispatch at an unprecedented rate. The others needed him, but they didn't understand how bad he needed his nightly ritual, his Scratchers. Scratching away cheap plastic to reach the fated numbers underneath was symbolic to Wylie. Before he scratched, every single ticket held the potential for a better life or at least a well-deserved vacation.

It wasn't until after he'd revealed the numbers with a smelly copper penny, that they lost all their magic, their potential. Christopher once referred to Wylie's romanticized version of scratch tickets as Schrodinger's Scratcher, because each one was both a winner and loser until he observed the contents within.

Shit like that went right over Wylie's head, but he thought it had a nice ring to it. He got a good chuckle out of it when Norma, the lady who'd held onto the night shift at the Oasis gas station as long as anyone could remember, looked at him like he was some sorta Einstein.

Wylie felt a touch of guilt as he entered the Oasis, like he was letting his fellow boys in blue down, but he didn't sign onto the police force for all this excitement. His momma told him he needed a respectable job, and they was hiring. He'd been a fast and strong little sucker when he was a little guy, and supposed that being a cop fit him as well as anything.

He didn't think the job would be so much damn sittin' and doin' paperwork. Twelve hour shifts in the cruiser were giving him a helluva case of sciatica, and the paperwork was giving him carpal tunnel, or at least that's what the doc said. The quack tried to push some pills on Wylie, but he wasn't gonna have none of that. That's the problem with fancy docs, they think the solution to everything is in them little pills, just because it helps them get their wood up with the Missus must work for everyone.

All I need is a little vacation, and I'll be right as rain.

Officer Simmons let out a long sigh of relief when he got out of his cruiser. A twinge of pain shot up from his ass to his brain, but it was nothing a good stretch and Scratch couldn't fix.

Wylie heard the panicked "Wee-ooh, wee-ooh" of their town's outdated rinky, dink fire truck, and that eased up his guilt a touch.

They can handle it just fine without me.

Wylie heard the ding of the door cheerfully announcing his arrival, and he felt a big ol' goofy grin spread along his face. The gas station always sounded so goddamned pleased when he arrived as if it needed Wylie just as much as he needed it. He breathed in a deep gulp of the overheated air, and it had never tasted so sweet. Norma must've been working tonight, these Idaho winters were getting tougher on the old goat every year, but she always got a good chuckle out of it anyways.

'If you saw how much I get paid, you'd know the fuckers got enough money to pay for some gas.'

That was her mantra.

Wylie liked the other gas station ladies just fine. They were polite enough, and clearly viewed the gas station as a convenient stop to pay their dues before they went onto bigger and better things. Wylie tolerated their tired smiles, waves, and forced conversation, but they didn't hold a candle to Norma, the Matron of the Oasis.

Most folks, when they reach a certain age, they cash in their chips and settle back down into their lot in life, if that was a gas station attendant, you didn't make no fuss about anything, because you know your lot in life is shit, but not Norma. The way she figured it, if she was gonna work there, she was gonna do it right, and that meant treating her dump of a gas station like the Ritz, and taking no shit from anyone, including her employers.

When Wylie tried to describe to Tracey why Norma was so special, all he could manage to describe her was tougher than a piece of beef jerky, and more leathery. He knew he butchered the description, but his wife nodded all the same. Wylie suspected she nodded just to make him happy, just like she did with his nightly Scratchers, but hell if a system ain't broke don't fix it.

It didn't bother Wylie when he didn't see Norma at the counter, that wasn't so unusual. She was almost always off doing some bit of cleaning, because by golly, she wanted that Oasis to be so clean you could eat off it.

It wasn't that clean tonight, but it was damn close. The last little spot of filth had been cornered by an unattended mop bucket, and it waited to be cleaned at Norma's leisure. In fact, the only sign of anything living at all was that damn mop bucket. Most nights, he could expect at least one fella driving truck to stop by and cool his heels for a hot minute, but not tonight.

Something feels off.

Wylie was the type of man that had to duck when he entered most rooms, but it also gave him the advantage of having a bird's eye view of wherever he happened to be. He surveyed the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Besides the empty mop bucket, everything was as usual. The two neat rows of sundries were arranged with Norma-like attention to detail.

The thrum of the freezer sounded so damn loud when there wasn't no one there. Wylie wanted to tell it shut its yap; he knew he would sound crazy, but that's how he felt all the same, like the freezer was jabberin' in his ear while he was trying to hear something important. Wylie strained his ear to see if he could hear anyone or anything else besides that damn hum, but it was no use.

He thought about giving a shout for Norma, but decided against it.

She's probably out takin' a smoke, and I know better than to get between folks and their fix. Besides, looks like she got my Scratchers all ready for me.

Norma understood Wylie, and she knew he needed his fix just like she needed hers. The thing about addicts is, they want to enable others because it helps them feel a bit better about their own shit. There was an unspoken understand that addicts needed that fix like a fish needs water to breathe.

Wylie retrieved his three standard scratch tickets. He didn't always get the same brand, but he did always get a one dollar, a three dollar, and a five dollar ticket. He once thought about entering the lotto, but it didn't have the personal feel that Scratchers had. Besides, Wylie didn't need some guy on the TV telling him he won; that was something sacred between a man and his ticket. It felt wrong having some stranger telling him he won.

The Oasis had a tiny cafe set up for when folks on a longer drive are passing through. A stairwell to the basement separated the convenience store section of the Oasis from the cafe. Wylie thought he heard a thwump come from the office, but dismissed the idea outright. Norma would never take her smoke break down there, and she sure as hell wouldn't stay down there when a customer walked in. Perched on the top of the stairs, Wylie convinced himself that he hadn't heard anything, and he sat in his customary two person booth with Scratchers in hand.

Wylie's habit had become somewhat of a ritual over the years. First, he laid them out in front of him in order of potential winnings starting with the lowest and ending with the highest. Next, he lined them up with the grain of the wooden table, so they matched up all nice and perfect. Last and most importantly, he reached into his breast pocket and retrieved his lucky, 1939 penny. If his wife saw the way he held the penny, he had no doubt she'd feel a slight pang of jealousy at his gentle touch and the tenderness in his eyes.

Brandishing the penny, Wylie descended on the one dollar Scratcher. Luck was a tricky creature, and Wylie needed to prime the pump on the small fries, before the real luck would show its ugly mug. Norma didn't believe him, but he'd been doing it this way for as long as he could remember, and he once won $500 doing it just like this. Wylie had it all figured out, and it was only a matter of time before he hit the big winner.

No luck on the one dollar Scratcher. Wylie heard another possible thwump come from the basement. Wylie tuned his satellite dish ears, as folks were wont to call 'em, and listened for another sound. The thrum of the freezer is all he got in return.

He started in on the three dollar Scratcher. A force much greater than Wylie Simmons seemed to run through him as he little flakes of plastic scattered in every direction in a miniature flurry.

Tonight is the night. With all the strange shit going on in town, why wouldn't it be my turn for a little somethin' somethin'?

The three by three grid on the card showed Wylie a grouping of three cherries with a $15 underneath. The luck was really starting to flow now.

The five dollar all but glowed in its radiance. Wylie could feel the winner in there. He could sense it like some folks know when their child is gonna be a boy or a girl, a feeling deep in the gut like the acid reflux, but just a skosh stronger.

Wylie's penny hovered over the card when he heard something heavy slam against the basement door followed by the crack of splitting wood. He fingered his police issue Glock 22 waiting for the commotion to come his way.

When nothing clomped its way up the stairs, and the Oasis fell silent once more, Wylie dug into the five dollar. He knew he shoulda gone and checked out what caused the rumpus, but his destiny was moments away. Some drunkard that stumbled into the basement was gonna have to wait.

A grid of eight tic-tac-toe boards were spread across the card. This was a new one for the Oasis, and it took Wylie a hot minute to figure out the math. Arithmetic, as his teacher Mrs. Bortz, had insisted it be called, had not been Wylie's strong suit, but he'd become something of an idiot savant when it came to his lotto numbers.

In the top two squares, he needed a diagonal tic-tac-toe to win the grand prize of $50,000. He could feel it lurking beneath the top right square, it seemed to come right off the card like one of them fake 3D images folks could put their hand through.

He wanted nothing more than to throw caution to the wind, and scratch off the entire card in one big greedy run. Wylie's sixth sense urged him against this course of action. If he betrayed the tried and true ways of the Scratcher, he knew the jackpot would vanish right under his nose.

Wylie treated the winner just like it was any other. He meticulously peeled away the straight edges of each individual square. He noticed in passing he won $5 dollars in a square in the middle left, but he didn't pay that no mind, cuz the big fish was round the corner.

The X's fell into place one by one, but Wylie contained his excitement until the last X was revealed with the penultimate X. Even though he'd just won the lotto, Wylie scratched off the last square out of respect to the Scratcher before all but dashing to the counter.

Norma's smoke break has gone on long enough.

Wylie mashed the bell at the counter trying to rouse Norma's attention, but the old crone didn't hear him. Maybe her hearin' aid was on the fritz again.

"Norma!" Wylie shouted, "Where you at gal? I got somethin' to show ya. It may just be the most beautiful thing I ever laid my eyes on."

The response to Wylie's hollering was the sound of a doorknob turning down in the basement. Normally, Wylie would've waited patiently, but tonight was nowhere near normal. He needed to share his glorious news, a stranger would have to do.

Wylie strode towards the top landing of the stairs, "Guess what fella? You ain't gonna believe what I got to show ya."

The man mumbled something slurring his words together to form a group of sounds that didn't make a lick of sense. He must've been hitting the sauce.

I suppose I don't blame him, it is a Friday after all.

When Wylie got to the top, he looked down on the first recipient of his spectacular bit of news, quite possibly the best thing that would happen to him. A flash of red anger flashed over Officer Simmons' eyes.

It was one of those of Barnum Boys, and from the looks of it, he was high as a kite. Wylie couldn't even see the whites of his eyes the pupils were so dilated. It was the youngest one, Wylie couldn't keep track of their names all too well, there were so goddamn many of em', but he thought this one was the one they called Nate, the worst of the lot.

The Barnum had all boys, eight of them, and by boy number eight, they'd all but quit tryin' to give them a good sense of character, but this was a new low. Lancet Falls prided himself that its citizenry largely kept its inhabitants drugs free, even to the extent where they hadn't had a heroin user in the history of the town, but Wylie suspected that was no longer the case.

The boy's long blonde hair clung to his face in greasy clumps. His teeth were clamped together, so tight that Wylie couldn't see a gap in em anywhere. Wylie could see the teeth so well, because Nate's lips were pulled back in a snarl. The boy hadn't been tryin' to talk earlier, he'd been growling in response to Wylie's voice. A vacant, predatory look was in the boy's eyes like the drugs had reduced to nothing more than an animal.

Wylie remembered a couple years back, when folks was worried about the zombie apocalypse when that fella hopped up on bath salts bit a lady's face off. Now he understood the commotion. He didn't think lil ol' Nate was gonna hesitate if he thought Officer Simmon's face looked like a good way to satisfy the munchies.

Without losing his grip on the Scratcher, Officer Simmons drew his Glock 22 and held it steady aimed at the boy's knee cap. Killing a boy was the last thing he wanted on his conscience, besides, police shootings don't happen in places like Lancet Falls. Nate Barnum would back down when he saw Wylie's gun and that would be the end of it, then Wylie could disappear into the night and go somewhere that wasn't stark raving mad to cash in his winnings.

If Nate noticed the gun pointed at him, he didn't pay heed to it. In fact, he got down on all fours like a wolf about to pounce on its prey.

"Boy, I ain't messin' around tonight. I may be off duty, but that doesn't mean I won't haul you in for assaultin' a police officer."

This time the boy did react to Wylie's words, he advanced up the stairs at a quicker pace. He was within spitting distance, and if he wanted to make a lunge, he'd be able to reach the officer. Wylie was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind.

That boy's gonna make me shoot him. I'd bet dollars to donuts, he don't even know a police officer, just another meal.

The boy cocked back his legs, like he was pulling back a rubber band.

Wylie pulled the trigger. He forgot how loud these suckers were, it'd been months since he'd discharged his weapon. Blood bloomed from the boys leg as his knee cap was obliterated. His leg crumpled underneath him, and the force of the bullet knocked him backwards, sending him tumbling down the stairs.

"You brought that on yourself, ya hear? Now, you're gonna let me put these here cuffs on ya, and we're going for a drive."

The boy's eyes shone glistened in the dim lighting which heightened the animalistic gleam. Then he started moving, faster this time. He darted up the stairs on all fours like it was as natural as breathing. His hobbled leg didn't slow him down. Dribbles of black drool hung out of the corner of his mouth.

Officer Simmons felt his finger pull the trigger, again and again until his fifteen round clip was emptied. He'd never been much of shot, but adrenaline did some funny things. On a subconscious level, he'd stopped trying to slow down the boy, and went for the kill shot.

Bits of blood, brain matter, and bone lay stained the walls on either side. He and his buddies used to light off cherry bombs inside folks pumpkins on Halloween; that's how the boy's head looked now. His arms and legs flopped around, but didn't have nothing giving them commands anymore. Black wriggling things squirmed in the blood.

Wylie gripped the Scratcher a little too tight, and it was a sweaty, crumpled ball in his hand.

I need to cash this baby in, before something else happens.

A form stepped through the archway of the basement. Turns out Norma'd been down there too, at least what used to be Norma. She had that same feral, look in her eye. Goosebumps sprouted on Wylie's arms, and he shivered. The woman he'd seen five days a week for the better part of three years wasn't no junkie.

Somethin' else is goin' on and I don't like it one bit. Maybe I'll take a vacation until all this gets sorted? I don't get paid enough for this shit.

The Matron of the Oasis seemed unsure of her footing. It looked kinda like a newborn calf finding its legs. Officer Simmons trained his gun on her as she hobbled up the stairs. The black beads that replaced her eyes watched his mouth hungrily.

She's gonna make me shoot her too.

Wylie turned tail and ran. He wasn't gonna shoot his friend. His Scratcher wasn't gonna be blood money. That'd be bad karma if he ever heard it. The ding of the door announced his mad flight away from the Oasis, and Norma's moments later.

He fumbled with the keys of the cruiser. His precision focus from earlier failed him. He couldn't for the life of him get a good grip on the key ring, and still hold onto his gun and his Scratcher. Wylie debated letting it fall to the ground and leave all the events of the evening behind. He couldn't bring himself to do it.

Wylie could barely hear the sound of the automated click over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, but he could hear Norma pounding after him just fine. He managed to get the door open before the leathery woman knocked him to the ground.

Yellowed nails dug into the flesh of his forearms as she pinned him to the ground. Officer Simmons struggled against her grip. The woman was stronger than she had any right to be.

She opened her mouth and revealed teeth ravaged and pitted by years of smoking. At first it looked like she'd been trying to bite him, but she was going in for a kiss.

Without fully realizing what he is doing, Wylie pulled his knee to his chest and kicked. Norma was a lot of things, heavy wasn't one of em'. Wylie knocked her onto her back and pulled the door handle. He got half his body into the cruiser before he felt, a sharp pain dig into the muscle of his calf.

He looked down saw Norma's jagged teeth clamped onto his leg. They'd even bit through his Levi's in a few places. He'd had enough. Wylie kicked out and something give way as the heel of his boot knocked Norma in the side of the head.

Wylie didn't even look at her as he drove out of the parking lot.

Twin Falls here I come. I'll call Tracey when I get there.