Chapter Text
MID-JANUARY 2022
It was a particularly cold January morning in Dougal County, a rural mess of unincorporated communities in the asscrack of nowhere in the northern part of Georgia. So cold, in fact, that frost clung to the grass and sparkled in the winter sun as it rose over the mountains. Christmas decorations were still up in people’s yards here and there, and the trees were devoid of leaves. Winter in the mountains of North Georgia was a peculiar thing, not quite the snowy picturesque winters of the northern states, with the snow rarely ever reaching more than an inch deep, but oftentimes too chilly to be compared to winter in, say, the southern half of the state or its panhandled neighbor to the south. It was somewhere in-between. The forest was silent that morning save for the rustling of dead leaves in the wind, and the town was equally silent at the moment save for the background hum of electrical wiring and a peculiar soft wheezing sound that was barely audible.
A small trail of flattened grass led out of the forest, across a couple of lawns, and up to the front stoop of a house. On the doorstep of this house was a small green creature about the size of a basketball, huddled up against the door. The creature was silent save for being the source of the peculiar wheezing sound, and shivering in the cold. The door itself had several long scratches on it near where the animal sat.
As the morning rolled along, nobody even noticed the animal-a rare species of cephalopod called an Appalachian Mud Squid—which did not move from its spot on the porch. People continued about their morning routines, leaving home and driving to work or wherever else they needed to be. And the squid remained in its location, unnoticed and unmoving.
Well, that was until the homeowner went to walk out the door and nearly stepped on it.
Up until that point, it had been a fairly normal, and, actually, quite a peaceful morning for Sheriff.
At least, until he stepped out the door and almost tripped on a little green lump lying on his welcome mat.
“What the hell—oh. ‘Mornin’, Early.” He said upon recognizing who he’d nearly tripped over. Early gave no response and didn’t even seem to notice Sheriff’s presence. By the looks of things he’d probably spent the night drinking.
At the moment, nothing seemed remotely out of the ordinary. It wasn’t all that uncommon for him to find Early passed out in odd places after a night of drinking and partying and god knows what else. There were times in the past where he’d been found in people’s yards, on the sidewalk, hell, one time he was even found on a rooftop with no explanation for how he got up there to begin with. So this was nothing unusual.
Only problem was, Early tended to smell like alcohol after spending the entire night drinking. A smell that, now that Sheriff thought about it, was conspicuously absent this morning. Sheriff could smell something that seemed to be coming from the cephalopod, but it wasn’t the smell of alcohol. It was a peculiar, sickly sweet smell and it made him gag a bit.
Cautiously, knowing that Early had a tendency to be violent and confrontational if startled (or bored. Or drunk. Or all three.), Sheriff nudged him with his foot. “Okay, buddy, you gotta get up now. Can’t just lay around in front of my door all day.” He said.
Early didn’t respond aside from slightly twitching.
“Early?” Sheriff called again. No response. Now he was starting to get concerned, and was beginning to wonder if maybe Early overdosed on drugs or something. Normally the squid would have at least acknowledged him by now (or possibly even bitten his foot). He bent down to get a closer look and noticed several odd, partially healed sores that dotted Early’s backside. He was also close enough now to see that the squid was looking rather pale, and even scrawnier than usual. “You okay?”
He rolled the squid over and what he saw nearly made him vomit. Sheriff now realized the odd smell was the stench of an infection.
Early’s eyes were crusted shut with nasty-looking, dark discharge, and the skin around them was blistered and raw. Foam was bubbling up in his beak with each labored, shallow, wheezing breath. His eyes were sunken in, and he was covered in what looked like numerous sores and burns, some of which were clearly infected and oozing pus, particularly around his eyes and his beak. The ends of his front limbs were raw and bloody.
He was also shivering from the cold. Temperatures the previous night had dropped below 20 Fahrenheit. Which, in case you don’t know, is freaking cold.
“Shit...Uh, Denny? Grab a towel and the first aid kit. We have a problem.”
A few moments later...
“You know, when you said we had a problem, I thought you got your foot cut off again.” Denny muttered as he watched Sheriff carry the injured squid inside, wrapped up in a towel for warmth. Early still wasn’t responding much aside from flinching in pain if any of his numerous injuries were touched, and he hadn’t made a sound at all.
Sheriff walked into the kitchen and carefully set Early down on the table. “What the hell did you get yourself into this time?” He muttered, putting on a pair of latex gloves just to be safe. “Hey, Denny, pass me the hydrogen peroxide.”
“You sure that’s gonna do anything?” His clone/brother/deputy said as he reached into the first aid box and pulled out a brown plastic bottle.
Sheriff unscrewed the cap and dabbed a cotton ball in the liquid.
“Okay, buddy, this is probably gonna hurt a little.” He said, cautiously dabbing the cotton ball into one of Early’s numerous blisters. The blister popped and sprayed a noxious-smelling discharge at him.
“I think he’s already in way more pain than that’ll cause him, Sheriff. Besides, those kinda look like chemical burns.” Denny said, as the taller man wiped the discharge off himself in disgust.
“Yeah, this stuff ain’t gonna help much except maybe for the cuts on his tentacles.” Sheriff said, erroneously using the term tentacles to refer to the longer pair of Early’s four front arms. “Hand me the Neosporin and the gauze.”
“I still think we shoulda called 9-1-1.”
“Denny, we’re 9-1-1, and Early doesn’t have health insurance last time I checked.” Sheriff said. He then very, very gingerly began applying the Neosporin to the injured patches of Early’s skin. “I’ll take him to the hospital later. Besides, that hospital ain’t exactly the best at keeping folks alive. Or treating burns.” He thought back to the tanning incident a few years prior and shuddered. “ Especially treating burns.”
“I don’t really see why you’re botherin’ with this anyway, Sheriff. I mean, this is Early Cuyler we’re talking about. He’s not exactly an upstanding citizen and we definitely don’t owe him anything.” Denny said, eyeing the squid suspiciously.
Sheriff stopped what he was doing and looked at him incredulously. “So you’re saying I should’ve left him to die because he’s a criminal offender with a track record a mile wide?”
Denny shrugged. “S’Not like anyone would miss him.”
“Well, maybe after this he’ll wanna turn over a new leaf.”
“You and I both know that there ain’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of something like that happening.”
Sheriff shook his head and went back to his previous activity of putting gauze on Early’s blisters and sores. “Well, whatever. Besides, he’s also a member of an endangered species. Can’t just let one of those critters die....all right, and we’re done with the bandaging. Feelin’ any better, Early?”
The two men both waited for any sort of response. Early still remained silent save for the sound of him breathing.
“You sure he’s even awake, Sheriff?” Denny wondered.
“Hard to tell with his eyes closed.” Sheriff said, looking at the nasty crusted something that was all over Early’s eyelids. “What’s Google say to do about crusted-shut eyes?” He asked.
Denny took out a phone and typed in something.
“It says to gently wipe ‘em with a warm, damp washcloth.”
“Gently wipe what?”
Denny glared at him “What do you think? HIS EYES, YOU DINGDONG!”
“Just makin’ sure.” Seeing as they didn’t have a washcloth on hand at the moment that was clean enough, Sheriff used paper towels instead and carefully wiped off the disgusting crust.
“Oh, hey, he is awake. He’s opening his eye—JESUS CHRIST!” Sheriff shouted suddenly, backing away in shock.
“What?”
“What the hell happened to his eye?”
Denny walked over to where Sheriff was and cringed a bit in disgust. Early’s left eye was open and clearly he had some sort of nasty infection in it. The veins were inflamed and since squid blood is blue, it looked, well, blue. Blue and swollen. And very, very painful. Early didn’t seem to be actually looking at the two men, or at anything in particular. His gaze was just slowly drifting around the room.
“I’m pretty sure that’s just conjunctivitis, Sheriff.” Denny said.
“Why’s it blue?”
“Probably ‘cause his blood is blue. So when his eyes get bloodshot they turn blue instead of pink.”
“Oh.”
Sheriff then proceeded to wipe the disgusting gunk off of Early’s other eye. He cringed as the eyelids popped open to reveal that the right eye was just as inflamed and painful-looking as the left.
“Should probably put some eye drops in those or something.” He said, watching as Early glanced blankly around the room some more. “At least we know for sure that he’s awake.”
“Think he’s having a bad trip or something?” Denny said. “Or maybe he got caught in a meth lab explosion.”
“I don’t think that would give him pinkeye, though.” Sheriff replied, scratching his head. “He’s awful skinny all of a sudden, too.”
“Ain’t he already pretty scrawny?”
“Well, yeah, but when I picked him up it felt like he barely weighed anything. Last time I checked he weighed 14 pounds. Felt more like half of that today.” He turned and walked over to the fridge.
“What are you doing now?”
“Well, he’s probably hungry.” Sheriff rummaged around in the refrigerator before finding a bag of leftover fast food from the night before. There wasn’t much left in it, just some fries and a couple chicken nuggets, but he wasn’t sure if Early would be willing to eat salad or yogurt. He walked back over to the table and pulled a nugget out of the bag. “Here, buddy, try this.”
He dangled the chicken nugget in front of Early, being careful to avoid having his fingers within easy access of the squid’s sharp beak. He’d been bitten by Early a couple of times in the past and neither of those times were particularly pleasant.
Early blinked a couple times at the piece of meat before shakily reaching out one of his two front-most limbs (which were shorter than the rest, and mainly used for manipulating pieces of food) and cautiously touching it. He then reached out with his other short limb and grasped the nugget with his sucker-claws, at which point Sheriff let go of it, expecting him to lunge forward and probably devour the thing in one bite.
That wasn’t what happened, though. Instead, Early seemed rather unsure of the chicken nugget, and turned it over in his suckers a couple times before cautiously taking a tiny bite. After seemingly coming to the conclusion that what he was holding was, in fact, food, he started to actively nibble on the chicken nugget, not appearing to have the energy to do much else.
Sheriff’s brow furrowed in concern. “That ain’t right.” He said. “Early’s a glutton if I ever saw one. Never seen him react that way to free food before.”
And he still hasn’t said a single thing. He thought worriedly. Early wasn’t exactly known for being quiet (in fact he was quite the opposite) and seeing this sort of behavior from him was extremely odd.
Denny, on the other hand, was less concerned. “Well, since it seems he’s going to live, I should probably let you know that we’re an hour late for work.”
“What—oh, shit. You’re right.” Sheriff said upon glancing at the clock and seeing that it read 9:15 AM. “Denny, you keep an eye on him until I get back.”
“Wait, what? Why the hell are you lettin’ him stay here?”
“He clearly ain’t in any condition to be left alone at the moment.”
“And why the hell do I have to babysit him?”
Sheriff didn’t answer and instead headed out the door and sped off to work in the police cruiser, ironically going 5 miles above the speed limit.
“Well, at least it’ll probably be a slow work day, what, with you bein’ out of commission for the moment.” Denny said, casting a suspicious glance at Early as the squid continued chewing on the piece of chicken. “On the other hand, if you do anything suspicious I will shove you down the sink drain.”
He could’ve sworn that Early inched away from him a bit at that.
Elsewhere…
Sheriff sat down at his desk in the Sheriff’s Office and silently prayed that nobody had noticed he was an hour late for work.
The Dougal County Sheriff’s Office was a small and unkempt building, and it was critically understaffed (especially since the last clone purge had happened a month or so prior, leaving just him and Denny to work the entire county.), and today it felt particularly empty. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and the air conditioner was making weird noises again. Other than that, the building was eerily silent.
Until the phone rang and nearly made Sheriff jump out of his skin, anyway. It was a report of an armed robbery at the local convenience store. Great, so even when Early ain’t causing trouble, we got somebody else here who is. He thought as he drove over to the store.
Sheriff wasn’t quite prepared for what he saw when he pulled up to the convenience store and marched in, gun raised. In fact, his jaw dropped a bit when he realized what he was looking at.
Any other day the scene before him would’ve been completely normal. But not today. Today it didn’t make any sense.
Because what he saw when he walked in was Early, looking as healthy as he always did and talking up a storm, pointing a shotgun at Boyd’s face.
What the hell?
The arrest itself went as smoothly as it usually did. Sheriff put Early (at least he was 70% sure it was Early) in the back of the cruiser and made sure to double check that the door was locked, before stepping away and taking out his cellphone to check in with Denny.
“Hey, uh, Denny...how’s Early doing?”
“Well, he ain’t really moved much since you left. He ate the chicken nugget and I’m pretty sure he’s asleep now.”
This just keeps getting weirder. “You’re 100% sure he’s still on the table?”
“Sheriff, I’m starin’ right at him. He’s definitely here.”
The winter air seemed to grow a thousand times chillier as Sheriff glanced towards the back of the cruiser to see “Early” glowering at him from the back seat. As soon as he looked, though, the squid ducked back down.
“Okay, keep an eye on him. There’s something really weird going on here...I gotta go. We’ll talk about it when I get back. Later, Denny.” He said, and hung up.
“‘Bout damn time you got off the damn phone!” Early—or possibly something that looked exactly like him but sounded like a man from Brooklyn doing a bad southern accent impression—said as Sheriff finally got into the cruiser and began to drive towards the Office.
“Yeah, hey, uh, Early…can I ask you a question?” Sheriff said, without turning around. He could see Early looking at him through the rear-view mirror. There was something incredibly unsettling about the way the squid was looking at him.
“That depends. You gonna tell me where the hell my truck-boat-truck went?”
“No—just, I need to know where you were at 8:00 AM today.”
Early growled a bit in annoyance but responded quickly. “At home. Gettin’ drunk. Then I ran outta beer and I had to walk all the way to the store from my house because that little bastard stole my goddamn truck-boat-truck!”
If he was home all morning then who the hell is on my kitchen table? Unless this guy isn’t actually Early...And I guess that would explain the sudden voice change...No, no, that’s ridiculous. Why would anything like that happen? Damn it, none of this makes sense. Sheriff shook his head and tried to hide his befuddlement. “Rusty only took one of your trucks, though.”
“The back one ain’t got gasoline in it, dumbass! And I know you know where he went!”
The rest of the ride to jail was uneventful, save for a large amount of swearing.
Elsewhere…
He wasn’t exactly sure where he was, but he was 90% certain it was someone’s kitchen. Probably Sheriff’s considering that he’d been in the room until he suddenly left and also Denny was still staring at him.
He still wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming this. Or that he hadn’t just dreamt the events of the previous night—the escape, the endless running through the forest, the scratching at the door, scratching and scratching until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore because it hurt too much.
Maybe he was having another dream and he’d inevitably wake up and be back in that endless nightmare. In that cage. Alone.
But the thing that told him this was real was that he couldn’t talk anymore, no matter how much he wanted to. There were a thousand things he wanted to scream out and he couldn’t because they’d taken away his voice.
And there wasn’t a goddamn thing Early could do about it.