by C R Langille
The lights in the room turned on again and illuminated Kelly’s form. It looked like Kelly, but had pale skin and sweated a black, viscous liquid. Dark veins ran through the thing’s body and pulsed in a fast, staccato rhythm.
It looked at Evard with dark, smoke-filled eyes. Orange storm clouds raged in the Kelly thing’s dark orbs.
She wore one of her sundresses, a dingy green one with a floral print. The real Kelly made it look cute. Yet the horrible image slapped Evard in the face, a figurative punch to the gut, and he screamed. It took everything nice Kelly had been and turned it on its head.
“What… What are you?” Evard said.
“Why, I’m yours my poor, Evard. And you’re mine.”
***
Linda watched the light in the sewing room go off and on. She held Sebastian tight. His face was almost completely smothered on her chest. After a moment, the light flicked off again and stayed off this time.
“Mommy?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Grandpa alright?”
“I’m sure he is.”
As if in answer to his question, Evard appeared at the doorway. He looked to the car and stared at them in silence.
Linda opened the car door and slid out. The October air slithered across her neck, and she shivered.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
Evard continued to stare at her, his hands resting at his sides.
“Evard?”
He motioned for them to come into the house. Sebastian shifted in his seat and pulled Linda’s attention away.
“Mommy, something’s wrong.”
She looked back up to the house, but Evard was gone. The porch light was on and bathed the entryway in a dull yellow glow. A distant scream echoed into the night. It sounded like a large bird and human baby mixed into one. Other cries from different parts of the neighborhood echoed the first call, and the air soon filled with a raging chorus.
“Come on,” Linda said.
“But—” Sebastian said.
“Not buts, we’ve got to get inside.”
Sebastian scooted across the seat and hopped out onto the driveway. Linda took his hand into hers, and they ran to the house.
Chapter Thirteen
The sun tried to break through the shield of afternoon clouds, but the results were lackluster. At best, the light cast a grey sheen across everything and matched Toby’s mood as he navigated through the woods.
He passed a giant boulder. Green, white, and orange lichen clung to its rough surface; it looked more like ancient bird shit. Yet, something about this particular pattern caught Toby’s attention. He stopped next to the boulder and studied it for a moment.
“Damn!” he said and kicked at a low-level branch of a nearby pine.
He’d passed the same boulder an hour ago. Toby was sure of it. It was the same lichen pattern shaped like a smiley face. Toby searched around the area and found other signs of his trek. He took a seat next to the rock and drank a sip of water from one of his remaining bottles.
Toby gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate. He always felt home in the woods, and his wilderness survival training should have kept him in the right direction. Yet, for some reason, this patch of wilderness made him look like a fool. He got up and looked at the boulder again and then once more at the surrounding foliage.
The boulder lay next to a large defiant pine in the middle of a copse of aspen. A slight breeze rolled through the grove, and the leaves danced their wild routine. He oriented himself southwest. At least what he hoped was southwest. Toby checked his bearings once more and froze mid-thought. Two more pines sat in the midst of the aspen.
The wind picked up, and the leaves shivered. He rubbed at his eyes and looked again. Three pine trees greeted him. A chuckle rode the wind, quiet but clear. Frustration grew, and his blood boiled. Brock fucked with him, he knew it.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and counted backwards from thirty. When he opened them, he still stood in the same place, but now there was a slight tug in his chest. It pulled him back the way he’d just come.
He decided it was worth a shot and followed the pull. Worse case, he would end up back in the same spot.
Another hour of walking, and the scenery finally changed. The elevation grew, and there weren’t as many trees as before. Toby stopped to drink some water and eat a couple strips of jerky from his pack. Even though he felt better after spending time with Rusty, his body wasn’t at 100% as he’d originally thought.
It hurt to take deep breaths, and if he sat hunched over for longer than a minute, his chest ached. His jaw also clicked when he talked or chewed, which made eating a chore. Yet, the most disturbing malady was the cold in his chest. The black spot was cool to the touch, and the tendrils were like icicles buried just underneath his skin. Toby rubbed at the spot and hoped it would warm up.
You reap what you sow, Tobias.
His thoughts shifted to Linda. Was she pregnant? How would Brock know? Was the baby his? Linda had never cheated on him, not all the way. She’d gotten close to cheating with Brock a year back and told him once that one night Brock tried to take advantage of her feelings. They were both drunk at a party while he was away on training. One thing led to another, but Linda swore she knocked it off before it got to second base. Whatever the hell that meant.
Toby always wondered how far they got. He had never fully trusted her since, and it became a strain on the relationship.
After Toby found out, he confronted Brock about it. As the memories flooded his mind, he clenched his fists, and the cold streaks in his chest flared hot with hate. He almost wanted to run into Brock again so that he could rip the creature’s head off for good.
The smell of smoke hit his nostrils and pulled him from his thoughts. The grass surrounding him wilted and burned up in a circle. The vegetation right next to him was nothing more than cinders, while the greenery further out smoldered. As the circle grew bigger and consumed more plants, more and more power flowed through him, but there was a layer of stickiness as well, as if something coated his insides with a smoggy haze—something unclean. He unclenched his hand and forced himself to relax. His chest hurt where the spot was, and the smell of singed flesh wafted into the air.
The unnatural heat dissipated from his body, and the circle stopped growing. The last of the grass wilted and died. Moments later, every bit of vegetation he affected turned to ash and fell to the dirt. What bothered him the most was the invigorating feeling beneath the malaise.
Toby panicked and tried to think of what he did to make it happen. His thoughts were fuzzy and muddled. When he closed his eyes, he saw Linda in a puddle of blood, her stomach ripped open. She still lived and screamed on the ground.
Linda looked at him, her eyes full of tears. Blood frothed from her mouth, and she tried to speak a single phrase over and over. In his mind eye, Toby leaned in close to her. What was she saying? She looked past him to the side.
“The baby.”
Toby looked to where she stared. Sebastian stood next to him with a wide grin. The boy’s eyes were completely black. He held a bloody bundle in his hands.
Toby let out a yell and fell to the ground. The image disappeared, and he fought to regain control. He sat up, leaned his back against a tree and tried his best to regulate his breathing.
Laughter grabbed his attention. It didn’t come from him or his imagination. At least he hoped it wasn’t his imagination. He couldn’t afford to go insane.
The laughter came from the south. Toby double-checked to make sure he had everything and made his way toward the noise. The crack and pop of a fire got louder as he neared a campsite. He stopped and hid behind a tree.
A man dressed in faded camouflage sat next to a woman who wore jeans and a blue hoodie. They cuddled up next to a campfire and cooked hotdogs on a stick. Toby couldn’t
believe his eyes. It was such a normal scene, he watched for a few moments. Normal held the madness at bay. He couldn’t wait too long though. They were his ticket out.
Toby burst from the woods and jogged toward the couple. The man spotted him first and dropped his hotdog into the fire. The woman let out a small gasp and went to grab it, but then she looked at Toby.
“We have to get out of here!” Toby said.
“Calm down,” the man said.
The man held his hands out, palms open in the international sign of I-don’t-want-any-trouble.
He had a gruff exterior. His skin was sun baked and sported big forearms and shoulders. As Toby neared, the man’s hands dropped, and his stance shifted.
The man was a fighter.
“Look, there’s a killer on the loose. It’s not safe. We need to get out of here.”
“What?” the woman asked.
She had a nasal quality to her voice, which grated on Toby’s nerves. For an instant he wanted to smash her face in and shut her up. He shot her a look, and she shrank back behind the man.
The anger was getting worse the longer he was out in the woods. Toby fought to keep it in check.
“I think it’s best if you move on out of here,” the man said.
Was he speaking in tongues to these two? What didn’t they get?
“Don’t you understand what the hell I’m saying? People are dead. We need to get the fuck out of here. Now.”
Toby glanced past their tents. A beat-up Jeep Wrangler was parked next to a small pine. The man followed Toby’s glance. He was about to say something when a low growl issued from the direction of the vehicle.
A surge of hate rolled through Toby’s mind. It scratched at the dark recesses of his thoughts and created an incessant buzz in his ears. The emotion left him feeling even more sticky and soiled. It was the same type of sensation he felt when he knew his hands were dirty but couldn’t wash them. Whatever lay in hiding wanted to kill them. Toby didn’t know how he knew, but he was certain of that fact.
“Run!” Toby said.
The woman backed away from the Jeep and stumbled over the log she’d sat on only moments before. The man stood his ground. He lifted his jacket to the side and drew a large pistol.
“I don’t think it’s going to help,” Toby said.
The man kept the weapon pointed towards the Jeep but turned his head and glared at Toby. A branch snapped, and then something heavy landed on the hood of the vehicle. The woman screamed and scrambled to her feet.
A mountain lion hopped off the hood and landed on the ground with almost no sound. The animal was big, bigger than any mountain lion Toby had ever seen, yet it wasn’t the size that caused his heart to skip a beat.
Half of the beast’s face was gone, revealing some of the cat’s skull and bits of ragged skin and fur. One of its eyes was missing, which left a hole that oozed a familiar black liquid. Parts of its midsection were torn, exposing a section of ribcage to the open air.
The stench became palpable and hit his nose like a prizefighter—quick and vicious. Toby’s brain tried to process it, but the word bloated dominated his thoughts.
The lion crouched low to the ground. Its remaining ear flattened to its skull. The beast let out a gurgled hiss, and then it launched into action. Toby brought his muzzleloader up and took aim, but the other man beat him to the punch. Five shots cracked out in rapid succession. Each bullet ripped into the creature’s hide. The impacts sent miniature geysers of black blood into the air.
The man was good with his weapon and was definitely trained for combat. Toby was familiar with the type. SOF operators held themselves similarly.
It didn’t matter in the end. All the man’s training didn’t mean squat against something unnatural such as the lion, and the man didn’t realize it until it was too late.
The thing leapt into the air and closed the last ten feet. Toby let out a shot with the muzzleloader as a last-ditch effort, but it proved to be as ineffective as the pistol. The beast slammed into the man and drove him to the ground.
The woman ran toward the tent and disappeared. Toby sprinted to where the man and lion fought and slammed into the creature with the butt of his rifle. The strike broke bone and knocked it to the side, but it did little to faze the creature. It got back to its feet and crouched. A long slash in its gut exposed intestines. Little by little, they slipped out of the wound and piled on the ground like a tangle of noodles.
Toby crouched low as well, ready to spring to the side if the creature chose to jump. He focused on the creature and put the other two people out of his mind. They were distractions. Distractions he couldn’t afford to have. He needed to get home, and these people were likely to get him killed. At the moment, his entire world revolved around the creature in front him—an obstacle in his path.
The lion looked at him through its dead black eye. Toby knew without a doubt that Brock could see him with the lion’s eye. Hate and hunger rolled off the creature’s body, a bitter taste filled Toby’s mouth.
The blood in the air tasted of copper and filled his senses. Toby’s heart pounded, and it was hard to breathe. For half a moment, Toby wanted to finish the creature’s work and kill the man at his feet. He wanted to hunt the woman down and make her suffer before he devoured her life. The smallest hint of a smile crept onto his face.
Brock’s laughter filled his mind. Toby slapped his head repeatedly to try and clear his thoughts.
“Get out!” Toby screamed.
The creature pounced. Toby sensed the attack just before it moved, and he rolled to the side as the lion soared by him. It got tangled in its own intestine and fought to free itself. The scene reminded Toby of a kitten playing with a ball of string—a bloody, visceral ball of string. He chuckled.
The fact he could laugh at such a time set off an alarm in his psyche, but he hit the snooze button. Reality crept back in like morning sunlight through a window.
The attack helped clear his thoughts. He no longer had the urge to murder these people, only to destroy the creature and get the hell out of the area.
The beast finally ripped a big chunk of guts away from its legs and stood once again. Toby took a deep breath and dropped his rifle. He focused his mind; he focused on Linda and Sebastian, and he focused on home. They were all that mattered.
Toby looked for something, anything he could use. He tried to recreate the blast of energy he’d used earlier and probed the air and ground around him with his mind. He almost cried out loud when he felt the warm tickle of life he needed. Once again, he tapped into the nearby plants and harnessed their essence. With his feet planted firmly in the dirt, he gathered the plant’s life, until it coalesced into a bright ball of light in the palm of his hand.
The action took less than a second, but it was long enough for the lion to shoot forward and fly at Toby like an arrow. Toby opened his hand and let the energy fan out in front of him. It rippled in the air as liquid gold and hit the lion like a tsunami. The blast slammed into the creature. It rolled across the dirt until it slammed into a large tree. The lion staggered to its feet, coughed up a ball of black blood, and then crashed back to the ground. The feeling of hate dissipated from Toby’s mind. His knees gave, and he fell to the dirt. The spot on his chest burned hot for a few seconds then died away. A soft grunt of pain pulled his attention away from the creature.
The man lay on the ground with blood bubbling at his mouth. His jacket was torn in several places, as were as his shirt and pants. Long claw wounds raked down his face and chest. He held a big knife in his hand, covered in the black blood of the creature.
The man looked all around, but it was apparent to Toby he didn’t see anything. The man tried to move and let out a wet cry of pain. Toby knelt close. He knew some basic first aid skills but was in no way equipped with the knowledge to deal with wounds of this severity. It didn’t matter; Toby
knew enough to realize the man didn’t have much longer.
“Don…” the man said.
“What?”
“Donna.”
“Your friend? Her name is Donna?”
Toby felt stupid as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Find… her.”
Toby looked toward the tent, but Donna was gone. His locked his gaze on the Jeep.
“Where are the keys to your Jeep?” Toby asked.
“Donna,” the man said again. His eyes started to cloud over. A moment later he let out one final gasp of air, which caused a bubble of blood to grow on his lips.
“Donna!” Toby yelled.
Nothing.
“Come on! We need to get out of here.”
His indifference and frustration toward these people was a new feeling for him. Before, he would have had no qualms whatsoever helping them. In fact, his friends gave him a lot of shit because he went out of his way to help total strangers. Yet, the status quo changed, and now survival and getting back to his family was priority one. Everything else that didn’t help his objective didn’t matter to him. It wasn’t even the same game anymore.
Nevertheless, she had the keys, and the Jeep would get him home quicker than if he tried to hoof it out. Therefore, Toby reloaded his rifle and grabbed the man’s pistol. He found an extra magazine strapped to the man’s belt. Toby ejected the old magazine and put the fresh one in. He placed the old one in his pocket and put the gun in the waistband of his pants at the small of his back.
“Donna!” he yelled.
Still nothing.
Just to make sure, he searched the Jeep for an extra set of keys. No joy.
Toby jogged in the direction Donna ran. It only took a moment to find her tracks. He took off into the forest and hoped he found her. Dead or alive, it didn’t matter as long as he could get the keys out of her pocket. His family depended on it.