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All the Wrong Places (11) : Your GPS keeps glitching. It doesn’t matter what app you use. It doesn’t matter if you walk, drive, or bike. You’ll be given the correct address, but the directions always take you somewhere else–somewhere you don’t want to be. No matter what address you type in, the directions always take you to the same place–and it isn’t even always obvious that’s where you’re headed until you arrive there. Again, and again, and again. You don’t want to be here. But something does.


Something felt off today. Each course went out without a hitch, each cleanup went smoothly, but still, something didn’t feel quite right for Rafayel. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, but ever since he had been backed into a corner and shoved through a mirror, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right anymore.

With the most recent thing happening, involving that hell scape of a game board, Rafayel still couldn’t bring himself to look over his arms or legs where the bits of acid had gotten him. So even though he normally didn’t wear long-sleeved under his chef’s coat, he did so following that.

One of the other chefs noticed that Rafayel was wearing sleeves even when it was too hot in the kitchen, pulling him aside to check in and make sure everything was alright. There was sweat pooling at the back of the collar, so it was obvious that being cold wasn’t the issue.

“I’m fine, just tired and looking forward to this coming week off,” he mumbled quietly before pulling away to finish up the last few trays of dessert alongside another pastry chef. That should have been it, he knew it should have, but even after they hung everything up for the night and checked the next crew in, he felt something bothering him still.

Once he was free to go, Rafayel wasted no time getting out to his car and putting in the directions towards home. Since this had been one of the vacation homes for his client, he didn’t have the directions memorized. It was a bit further out than he was used to, but with it being late, there was no one on the road, really. Only a few pedestrians walking their dogs or people stumbling between bars, something he might do after he dropped his car off at home.

Looking over at his bag on the passenger seat, he could see his tin of pills and powders. It might be a nice way to relax after things, especially since he wasn’t sure he liked this season so far, now that it seemed to be even more problematic than just the usual uptick in work responsibilities. He still couldn’t bring himself to look too much at his arms, or to leave some of the lights off in his place. Nothing else had happened since then, but he was still dealing with it.

Looking back to pay attention to the road again, he noticed that the street lights were blinking yellow. It was odd, adding onto that feeling of off-ness he’d had all day, but as nobody else was around, he drove through it and continued on. With things looking less familiar instead of more, he checked the gps again and sighed. It still looked right, at least from what he could tell, but as he took each direction, he found himself entering a part of the city that looked run down and almost forgotten.

“Okay…..?” Leaning to look out the window as he continued down the block, each of the streetlights was burnt out or flickering. Nothing about this street looked remotely like he wanted to have anything to do with it unless he was dropping off something for charity. That or dropping someone off after a night with them and before they came around enough to start asking questions.

As the GPS dinged, noting that he’d arrived, Rafayel felt his stomach sink as he looked at the open green space that it had led him to. This wasn’t where he had wanted to go, not even remotely close to it, and when the smell hit him, he had to slam on the brakes before trying not to gag. It was worse than rotten; it smelled like something had baked and festered beneath the leaves and for more than just a night or two. Wasn’t there supposed to be a clean public space policy around places where people wandered? Through the open window, he could see something moving in the downed piles of leaves. It didn’t seem large, but whatever it was disturbing kept sending out more and more of that rotten and festering smell.

Shoving the gear shifter into park, he cursed and got out of the car, grabbing the knife from under his seat just in case. It felt better than grabbing that henshin, especially since he had no clue what it was, and he liked the certainty of having a solid item to defend himself with instead. All this magic, this itching he couldn’t get to stop, he hated it to be honest. Whatever perks that were supposed to come with it weren’t really worth it so far.

Once he stepped up onto the path and off the sidewalk, the rustling stopped sharply. With a shake of his phone, the flashlight on the back lit up, and he swept it over the downed piles of leaves. This time, he saw something that he was sure was real and not just his imagination. While part of him wished it wasn’t real, he would rather it not be some sort of magic that might just pop up again and again like that infernal itching.

Stepping back, he nearly dropped his phone as he gagged from the sight and smell. The pile of wet leaves was full of maggots, writhing from where the leaves had been disturbed by something. Beneath it, he could see the first, and how black and rotten it looked. This wasn’t just something that had gone bad; he knew the smell all too well. He couldn’t be here, no way in hell. Staring at his phone as he hurriedly swiped through the apps and back to his GPS, he stared at the map as it glitched and kept saying this location was his home.

“Not a ******** chance.” Force-closing it, he ran back to his car after making sure he didn’t get anything on his shoes. The last thing he needed would be to get tangled up in an investigation of a dead body. This time it wasn’t even related to him or his family, at least not that he knew of, and that was what he would stick to if someone asked him about it.

The smell wouldn’t go away, though; it was all in his nose and even as he rolled the window up and started down the road, he couldn’t get it out. Gagging again, this time with the unwanted result of warm acid puke coming up his throat, he reached for the open cup from where he’d had gotten a drink through a drive-through a week ago. It smelled foul, but it didn’t matter; he just needed somewhere to puke that wasn’t on the seats of his car.

Looking back up as he heard a ding on his phone from where it was up on the cradle, he saw it telling him to go back, even though he’d closed the GPS. Righting himself as much as he could, he sat back up and stared at it. The address showed his home, but the directions kept recalculating back towards where he was driving away from. If he were a better samaritan, he might call the cops or someone to report things, but that was the last thing he wanted to deal with, given his history of getting into trouble.

Scratching slightly at the back of his neck, where he felt that itching picking back up, his eyes wandered over the street signs as he tried to mentally map his way through things to get back away from whatever was back there. Each turn he took brought him further away, his phone letting out a glitched beep as it tried again and again to drive him back there to that scene.

Closing his eyes for a moment as the traffic signal glowed red, he found himself still trying to get the sight of those maggots out of his mind. They were always there, every time something spoiled or tilled compost was touched by the fresh air.

So many beetles and other bugs he had pinned and hung up in his place on the wall came from much less gruesome sources. It’s what he tried to focus on before a honk came, the car behind him impatient now that the light had gone from red to green.

Reaching out the window, he flipped them off and drove on down towards a part of the city he did recognize. Bars and restaurants that he’d either worked at or gone to lined the streets as the suburbs fell away. That glitching whine from his phone grew more desperate as he ignored it and kept driving further away.

Something almost like relief started to stir in his chest as he saw the familiar gas station where he got a bottle of juice or a protein drink from the cold case if he was hurrying off to work or coming back late at night from the bar. The cashier never asked him anything, and he never answered. It was comfortable, and he was grateful for it.

Tonight, though, he could swear he saw flies swarming over near the dumpster beside it, the sound more in his mind than he knew it was in real life. So he turned quickly, one of his tires popping up on the curb as he did so, and started down what actually was the street he lived on.

Bags of leaves were set out for compost day, each one done up in orange with a jack-o-lantern face that stared as he drove past them quickly. Just thinking about leaves and compost made him sick right now, and he screeched into the driveway just a few more yards later.

The first thing he did once he got into the driveway was roll the window down and toss the cup of vomit and rotten drink away in the open trash can. Who cares if it wasn’t in a bag? He’d seen worse piled on top of the cans after a holiday. At least this was just one thing. Grabbing his phone, he shut it off as it whined at him to turn back, and he threw it in the glovebox.

Taking stock of his car, he grabbed the wipes and wiped his face, getting any last traces of where he’d puked off of himself before wadding it up and throwing it overhand into the can. With the window rolled back up and his bag and wallet in hand, he got out of his car and walked up the driveway. Everything was quiet, something he was only slightly glad for right now after the past few nights out.

The only problem was that it felt too quiet. As he pulled his keys out to fumble them into the lock, he looked around, and the sound almost felt too loud. The ker-chunk of the lock, followed by the same sound coming from the deadbolt, rattled through him. Snapping his head around, he looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was coming up, not that anyone would, but after how things had gone, he didn’t want any more surprises.

With the coast clear and the night falling back into silence, he adjusted the bag over his shoulder and hurried inside, turning and locking all the locks behind him after slamming the door. ******** anyone who wanted to complain about a slammed door at three in the morning. They hadn’t had the shitastic week he’d had.

Letting his bag fall to the floor as he kicked off his shoes, he didn’t really care where they landed right now. He yanked off his layers, first the coat he wore and then the long-sleeved shirt and undershirt that was beneath that. Staring down at his chest and the scars there, they looked the same as usual and not like they were rotting or infected. Part of him knew there was no way it could act up this long after things, especially considering that they were so faded few would really know what they were if they didn’t know him before things.

Then he chanced a glance at his arms, the acid burns now faded and barely there. Better than they had been the night he’d bolted away from Hedwig, but he still didn’t like them. So he turned the lights off and wandered up the stairs to his room, where he dove under the blanket and shoved his face in the lavender-scented pillow that he’d gotten to try and de-stress a bit when he was home between long weeks at work.

It helped slowly overcome that rotting scent that had stuck in the back of his throat, at least enough that he could pass out. Ignorant of the pings coming from his laptop as it loaded up the map search on Google and set the directions to print. The sheet of paper slid off the printer and fell to the floor, a red circle around the destination in ink before it too whirred and went back to sleep.

WC: 2,175