by Alan Spencer
He listened hard, making up for lack of sight, and he heard a shuffle and a scurry of steps on the grass. None of the animals stirred, not even the horses in their stalls.
Then it happened again, the crashing sounds. Crack-crack—thump!
Another series of boards collapsed, and this time a cow cried out.
The last cry was cut short by a dry, disconcerting snap.
Mary-Sue lunged into the darkness toward the disturbance, and he followed at her heels, fearing the possible outcome of the next seconds. They were running the border of the cattle pens when the darkness parted enough and shed attention on the horrible sight. Reeling from the violence, Andy struggled to stay in place as he absorbed the bodies of white and black spotted carcasses strewn about in heaps along the acreage. Their innards snaked out for many yards, uncoiled and broken. Ravaged torsos revealed rib bones that jutted up, broken and helter skelter, as if snapped by giant hands.
He pushed her toward the farmhouse, taking control of the moment. “Run inside the house!”
He sent Mary-Sue on her way, but then he was staked in place, studying the scene, fascinated, glued to the unreal image. In deeper shadows, it lurked. The glint of oil-black eyes stared back at him unblinking as it continued to devour another cow’s body. The face was the size of half an adult cow’s body, so giant. The bloodied chubby face hissed and flicked blood from its whiskers onto the wooden fence, taking offense at being watched. The culprit was a life-sized rat with sandy-colored fur and teeth the size of human fingers. Its midsection was a plump and distended pot belly, the skin stretched to near breaking capacity. Pink foam built up at both sides of its mouth as it gnawed through a cow’s stomach cavity and ripped an intestine in half with its claws.
He stared at the monster for a special reason.
There was something familiar about the creature.
It resembled the rat in his movies!
“Andy, shit, get inside!” Mart-Sue seized him by the shoulder and forced him into the house when the rat whipped its tail and smashed the wooden fence into tatters. He ducked and barely avoided being struck by a jettisoning plank. Together, they retreated to the doorway and slammed the door shut, locking it behind them. The rat barreled into the door, right on their backs. The wood forked down the middle in a deafening split.
“It’s not going to hold!” She was frantic, standing in limbo between the front door and the kitchen. “Where do we go? What do we do now?”
CRACK!
The wood divided in two and a pair of pink fingers wrenched the pieces backward to reach through to the other side.
The black eyes glared at them, menacing and contemplating its moving prey.
“Where’s the basement?”
She shoved him to the left, through a small hallway, and then into another door. Following her, he swung the door closed behind him, assuming it was the basement. Mary-Sue picked up a 2x4 and wedged it into two metal slats at each side of the door, securing the barrier. “The plank’s strong oak. My mom made my dad install it after a burglar robbed our house.”
The front door was ripped from its hinges, the pieces drumming against the floor and quickly settling. She clung onto him, quivering. He did his best to protect her. He was the one closest to the door, and if that monster broke through, he’d be first to face those snapping teeth.
Clack, clack, clack, the rat skittered across the wood, its nails striking the floor. They could hear something being launched through the front window with a great shatter. The beast was angry that its food was missing. Next, it sounded like the kitchen was raided, and in moments, they heard refrigerator fall over onto the floor with the sound of broken tiles and the give of beams. They heard the sound of pipes breaking as the sink was uprooted, water splashing the ground in high-pressure torrents.
“What is it doing?” Mary-Sue whispered to him. “It’s throwing a fit.”
The creature in the kitchen froze.
She tensed up, waiting for its next move.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The nails tapped against the floor.
Andy scavenged the stairs for anything useful; a tool, a weapon, a way out. The darkness didn’t lift, except for a sliver of light from the door’s crack. Along the right side of the stairs, a shelf was installed into the wall stocked with laundry detergent, fabric softener, mouse traps—not that any of that size would do any good against the beast—and kerosene. Panicked as to what might come in the next moment, he poured the kerosene through the crack of the door.
“What’s that supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.” He looked over the oily mess. “But I heard that rats don’t like bitter-tasting things. Maybe it’ll keep it from the door. The barrier won’t hold on its own.”
They heard the rat stomp through the hallway. It paused before the basement door and sniffed the floor. It recoiled and backtracked into the living room and waited. But how long would the monster’s patience last?
Together, Andy and Mary-Sue retreated deeper into the basement. Mary-Sue sat on top of a washer and curled her legs into herself. Half her face was visible behind her knees when she whispered, “Why did you stare at it for so long outside? The thing could’ve killed you.”
Andy mustered the saliva to talk. He couldn’t decide how else to explain his reaction, so he leveled with her. “I recognized the rat. It looked exactly like a movie I watched recently called Humanoid Rat Eats Indiana. In fact, it was just yesterday I watched it. It was one of the films my professor wanted me to write commentary on.”
“And the rat looked like something in that movie, huh?” Mary-Sue scoffed. “So how did the humanoid rat die in the end?”
He bit his lip. “Um, a life-sized mouse trap killed it.”
He recalled the swarm of locusts, too. It all flooded into his mind at once, the obvious connection. “And the green locusts, they were also in one of the movies I watched, called Night of the Locusts.”
“This isn’t a time to be shitting me, Andy. Why are you talking about horror movies now? I’ve got wounds on my neck from those locusts, and that rat killed our cattle, and he came inches from doing the same to us. You’re acting like an asshole talking like that. Are you trying to scare me even more than I already am?”
He hardened his voice. “Listen, Mary-Sue, I told you when we first met what I was doing at my uncle’s house. You saw the screen projector. I’m not lying. I’m scared to death right now, okay? I swear I wouldn’t lie to you. It’s a strange coincidence, that’s all I’m saying. It’s fucking weird. It’s a dumb line of reasoning, but it still bothers me.”
“Just because it resembles some horror flick you watched doesn’t do anything to help our situation.” She was angry. “So how are we getting out of here? Where the hell is my father?” She softened her voice. “I guess it’s safe to say he’s dead.”
“Don’t say that.” He joined her on top of the washing machine and hugged her close. “There’s no proof of that. Somebody will come and help us sooner or later. The locusts flew off somewhere. Someone else will see them and call for help. We have to sit tight and be patient. At least you’re not alone. I’m here.”
She wept into his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re here with me. If I was alone, I’d probably be dead.”
“You saved my ass back there. I was staring at that rat-creature like a dumbass instead of running. Thank you for getting my attention, seriously. That was brave of you.”
“Considering what my father talked me into doing with you so he could break into your house, I’m full of all kinds of dumb-headed courage.”
Mary-Sue needed a pick-me-up, and he wanted to unload what spun in his mind ever since the night she cooked him dinner and made her proposition. “You’re going to think this is funny, I hope,” he said
“What is it?” Her pony tail had long-since come undone, and with many strands in her face, she combed them back to get an unimpeded view of him. “Your eyes sudd
enly got bigger. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Despite the terrible events that had occurred in the last few hours, a different set of butterflies upset his stomach. “I wanted your offer to be serious. I thought about what you said to me the other night for the longest time. At first, I was mad at you, but then I was disappointed in myself. I missed out on a good time.”
Mary-Sue gave him an honest smile. “You’re cute, Andy. I don’t know many guys who want to make movies and aren’t pompous or jerks or make fun of me because I’m a country girl. You were polite to me when I practically threw myself at you. You wanted more from me, and that made me feel good.”
He kissed her cheek, enjoying her words. “If we make it through this, whatever the hell all of this is, I’ll make you dinner, and then maybe I’ll take you up on your offer…breaking or entering or not.”
After a long hug, they listened upstairs.
The swift skittering of nails against the wood floors gave them a start.
“What’s it doing now?” she whispered. “Oh my God, is it coming back?”
Andy waited, moving to the wall and flicking the switch, but it failed to work. “The power’s out, I forgot.”
“I guess we can’t use the phone then either. Do you have a cell phone?”
“I left the damn thing at the house.”
The rat pounded down the hall, as if sensing their desperation and wanted to take advantage of it. They could hear it ripping wallpaper with its claws in ripping swipes. The monster battered at the basement door next, the hinges protesting at the sheer power of the blows. Each new connection caused the wood to sag inward, on the verge of imploding.
Mary-Sue clutched onto him for protection, and together, they waited for the last barrier to break.
Chapter Thirteen
1
Whatever James and Pricilla were murdered by, Ned still didn’t understand how it was possible. How did the spirits break through the afterlife and inhabit other objects? They were obviously dangerous, and now traveling to Anderson Mills, he wondered what could be waiting for him in town. The memories of the mismatched victims at The Comedy Tavern flashed in his mind. If they could displace another person’s head on someone else’s shoulders, among other places, what else were these spirits capable of perpetrating?
He was driving in the middle the road without realizing it.
Oh damn.
“Keep your head together,” he scolded himself, veering back into a lane. “You’re minutes from arriving, you can’t turn back now, and Andy’s in trouble. Don’t lose it, Ned. Not now.”
He’d burn the house down and be done with it. That simple. It won’t be too hard, just torch it and run. I’ll actually enjoy it.
He touched the axe’s handle in the seat next to him to remind himself he was armed. The woods surrounding him cleared, and he was now driving downhill. A quarter of a mile later, the road narrowed and he approached Apache Road. The block was occupied with residential housing and many structures surrounded him. Beyond the houses, the beginning of Silver Lake formed, and then deeper in the woods, James’s house awaited.
He slowed to five miles an hour, put the car in park, and got out, cutting through Mr. Runyen’s yard to avoid the Jeep Wrangler tipped over on its side in the street. Mr. Runyen’s front windows were shattered and the front door was removed from the hinges and missing.
The headlights from the Jeep revealed a corpse lying in street. A robed body. Charlie Roseman, he could tell by the shock of tall gray hair and ponytail at the back, the rest of his neck plagued by jagged gouges. The head barely stayed connected to the rest of him, the neck was so ravaged.
I don’t hear sirens of any kind. Don’t tell me nobody knows about this.
He considered driving back, but the disconcerting scene urged him to investigate. Eva Nelson was tangled up in her garden hose, the water still spraying. Her body was seventy percent fleshless. Her face was the only part of her completely intact. Wilma Chunning was caught up in her rose bushes, scattered about in six pieces. Ned winced at Wilma’s head pinned between a set of large lava rocks. Fred McCain’s legs jutted out from underneath his rust bucket truck. The entire garage was spattered with his blood. The Christianson family of four was disembodied in their living room, the furniture—including the ceiling fan—was soiled in the aftermath of a cruel attack. There was much more violence to be accounted for, but he refused to search any longer.
Ned couldn’t stay silent, so he called out, “Is anyone alive out there? ANYBODY!”
He didn’t want to leave anyone behind before he turned back to Green County, but he also considered his own safety. He wasn’t sure what had terrorized the neighborhood was gone yet.
He studied the streets and didn’t locate shell casings or signs of weapons being discharged. The houses weren’t burned down. Considering the twelve houses on the short block, there were few bodies that had made it outside. Whatever caused their deaths, they’d broken through windows and doors to reach them.
Ned was half-way down the block, surveying and searching, when he heard a wispy voice call out to him. “Stop…don’t leave me.”
Running back to his truck, he collected his axe and pursued the words. The voice came from the house of Nick Gruder, a tractor salesman. Nick’s three-hundred pound body was impaled on the broken glass of his front bay window, the glass catching him through the middle. He dangled limp and very dead, but when Ned stepped next to him, the head popped out of alignment to peer up at him. Nick’s bushy brown beard was colored with blood, and only one of his eyes was intact, the other pink gristle and minced by puncture wounds the size of needle points. The white tongue spoke with a slow drawl. “It’s James again. Everyone is dead. You have to hurry. Andy’s at the Jennings’ farm. They’re trapped in the basement. You might not be able to save them. Focus on the house first. Burn it down. Destroy the film projector. The power is out in certain regions of the county, so don’t waste your time trying to phone the police. There are swarms of locusts among other things out there, and I don’t want any more people to die on my account. That means don’t call the police. You can fix this alone. Simply burn the house down.”
Ned broke in to speak just as Nick’s skin molded and sprouted over with fungus instantaneously. In seconds, the flesh slipped down the face in a greenish brown muck pile. It kicked up a wretched stench, like the innards of a rotten pumpkin, and the globs spattered the porch. He recoiled in disgust.
Then he heard: “Ned look over here!”
He sprinted to another body hanging out from a nearby house, but this one was Crystal Lowell. Her top half jutted out of a window well. He could only see the skeletal face and a pair of hands reach out to him. The face was completely bare, but he knew it was Crystal because of the Harley Davidson hog parked in front and the tangles of long black hair left on her scalp.
The face clicked and clacked as the jaws, mandible, and teeth worked to pronounce words with half a tongue to annunciate them. “Locusts tore these people apart, Ned. They flew in a swarm. Nobody’s alive, so don’t look for survivors. The reels of film are causing this to happen, the horror movies. They spirits are manipulating images. Making things real that aren’t.”
“Is that your explanation? Fucking movies?”
“I told you Priest Hutchinson communicated by contagious magic from beyond.” The skull cranked upward to make eye contact. “He taught me how to displace dead spirits into objects. It’s all metaphysical. That’s how I made people disappear. It’s how I created illusions. There are spirits in the film projector, and they’re using tricks of light and illusion to make these horror movies come to life. Andy’s been watching them at the house, and the images are being displaced all over Anderson Mills.”
Crystal’s head disassembled and clunked into the window well, the body’s second life burned out. Her rotund midsection sank inward with gasps and pops of air as the rest of her turned to liquid. The bones slipped back into the house and the window
clapped shut.
Ned rose up from his haunches and waited for another dead body to come to life.
The call was muffled and from within Crystal’s house. He tramped up the short set of steps, crunched on glass underfoot, and crossed the open threshold. Words boomed, “In here—in here!”
He stumbled through the kitchen and the voice beckoned louder, but the source was nowhere in sight.
“Under the fucking table, Ned.”
He lowered onto his hands and knees and gasped at what he found. The shock compelled him to crab-walk backward until he struck the wall. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!”
“Calm down, brother, calm down!”
It was the head of Eric Lowell between the legs of a captain’s chair.
“Yes, it’s me,” the head reassured him, each motion of the mouth issuing jelly-like blood out of the neck’s opening. “The movies are coming to life. In fact, they’re coming down the hill after you, Ned. There are three dozen of them. These people, they’re from a movie about an old folk’s home and how the residents massacre the doctors and nurses.”
The statement was not only ludicrous but laughable. “It’s not possible. You’re making this up. I can’t believe any of this shit. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
And I’m talking to a head on the floor!
“Look all around you.” The head rocked in place from the treble in its throat, distorted and muted without lungs. “The dead are using images from these horror movies to recreate reality, and they’re projecting them in Anderson Mills. It starts here, Ned, but where does it go from here if we don’t stop it?”
A distant shriek in the air rang out, “Shraaaaaaaaaaaah!” It sounded like a condor about to swoop down on a field mouse.
He looked out the window and two red specks glowed and disappeared, coming and going blink fast. “What the hell was that?”