A sound in the yard drew his attention. He raised the muzzle of the machine gun and snapped back the bolt in a single, fluid motion. He peered into the night and saw the source of the noise. A low, dark form crept from one tree to another, steadily approaching the lip of the front porch. Frank breathed easier when it poked its head into view and gave a low purr. Just a freaking cat, thought Frank, feeling a little foolish. And a black one at that!
The ebony feline crept upon the porch and sat there, staring up at him. “How’s it going, Kitty?” Frank said. He crouched and beckoned to the animal. “Come on Kitty, I’m not going to hurt you.”
The cat came to him without hesitation. It leapt into his arms and uttered a throaty purr.
Frank let the Uzi hang at his side by its nylon strap. “Yes, you’re a good little kitty, aren’t you?” He cradled the cat in the crook of his left arm and petted it gently. Its fur was coarse and stiff, not at all soft like that of most cats. But Frank was too wrapped up in the work of his brethren to give the peculiarity a second thought.
“Come on, Kitty,” he said with a low chuckle. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
He walked to the kitchen window and looked inside. Joseph was working on Brice’s middle finger now, drilling a hole clean through to the table. The elderly man thrashed and wailed, but was held securely in the chair by one of Anthony’s debilitating chokeholds.
“The old fart won’t last very long,” whispered Frank, running his hand lovingly along the top of the cat’s head. “Joseph has a way with power tools.”
A snarl rumbled deeply in the cat’s throat. The animal stiffened in Frank’s hands as it stared through the dirty panes of the cabin window.
“Hey, what’s the matter, Kitty?” asked Frank with a grin. “You don’t like what you see in there?”
As if in answer, the feline turned its head and emitted an angry hiss bristling with tiny, gray fangs. Gray fangs? Frank felt himself stiffen as he stared into the cat’s eyes. He found them to be not luminous green in color, but pitch-black and shiny.
“What the hell?” he growled and tried to throw the cat away. But something was wrong. The glossy coat of the animal seemed to adhere to him like black tar. In fact, it almost seemed to be melting.
Frank watched, dumbfounded, as his precious kitty cat began to crackle loudly and dissolve before his very eyes.
“The fingers aren’t working, Joseph.”
The younger Stoogeone wasn’t discouraged by Anthony’s doubts, though. “I haven’t done the thumb yet. The thumb always does the trick.”
Anthony shrugged. “All right. Give it your best shot.”
Joseph took a handkerchief and wiped off the drill bit, unclogging the spiraling grooves for better penetration. He pressed the top of the bit against the old man’s thumbnail. “Again, Brice…sign the freaking deed.”
“Screw you!” rasped Fletcher hoarsely.
“No, screw you.” Joseph depressed the switch and bored a neat hole through the end of Fletcher’s thumb. The bit shed thin shavings of meat onto the table, then curls of wood as it bored onward into the oaken surface. “Give it up, you stupid bastard! Give it up right now or, I swear, I’ll tape your pecker to this table top and work on it for a while!”
When Fletcher’s cries finally faded into low groans, he stared pleadingly up at Anthony. His free hand flexed feebly, fluttering like a white flag of surrender. “So you’ll sign now?”
“Yes,” he sobbed. His bruised and bloody head rested in exhaustion on the surface of the kitchen table. “Sign.”
“Wise choice.” Anthony placed the pen in Brice’s outstretched hand, then laid the two copies of the deed before him, after pushing the litter of fleshy scraps out of the way. “Right here, where it says Transfer of Ownership.”
Weeping in self-disgust, Fletcher Brice lifted his head and stared at the official papers from a veil of blood and tears. The legacy of his forefathers was gone now, forever lost in a marathon of torment that he could not win. He hoped their spirits would forgive him for his weakness. Shakily, he signed both copies in an awkward scrawl and then let the pen fall from his trembling fingers.
“It was nice doing business with you, Mr. Brice,” smiled Anthony Stoogeone. He folded the deeds and put them in his pocket. Then he took the tobacco-stained check for one hundred thousand and tucked it in the bib pocket of the man’s soiled overalls.
He and Joseph were preparing to leave, when the kitchen window facing the front porch imploded.
Frank Stoogeone accompanied the hail of broken glass and splintered wood. He landed on his back on the floor, screaming and thrashing as he struggled with something that was on top of him. The thing looked like a huge blob of shiny road tar, pulsating and shimmying with a life of its own. Anthony heard it crackle loudly, like the bones of a hand being crushed in the jaws of a shop vise. Then it began to take form, sprouting powerful legs, a sleek body, and a snarling, carnivorous head.
They could not believe their eyes, but there was a large black panther attacking their brother. Its gray fangs gnashed furiously as its equally gray claws ripped open his woolen commando sweater, burrowing past skin and ribs for the tender treats of his heart and lungs.
Joseph was the first to react. He stepped forward and aimed the point of the Persuader at the top of the panther’s head, intending to put the shaft of high-grade steel through its skull and into its savage brain. However, the cat’s head was much harder than he could imagine. The drill bit squealed torturously as if it had hit solid iron, rather than flesh and bone, then snapped off at the collar. The creature looked up in annoyance, its ebony eyes fastening on Joseph’s. Then it lashed out with a razored paw, swiftly, before the man could retreat. The power drill spun across the room…with Joseph’s hand still clutching the handle.
Anthony Stoogeone watched as his brother screamed angrily at the spouting stump of his right hand and awkwardly drew his pistol with the left, pumping 9mm slugs into the black panther. Anthony followed suit, shucking the .357 from its shoulder holster and booming away with experienced precision. The bullets seemed to be ineffective. They either ricocheted off the creature’s steely skin or flattened against the coarse, black fur and dropped to the floor like leaden coins.
The elder Stoogeone was reloading his magnum when he noticed that Fletcher Brice was no longer slumped in the kitchen chair. He whirled and found the old man staggering toward the back door—and the shotgun leaning next to it.
Anthony extended the revolver at arm’s length and squeezed off a single shot. A dime-sized hole appeared between the old man’s shoulder blades, while a crater the size of a baseball erupted from his breastbone as the blossoming hollow-point made its exit wound. Fletcher Brice was dead before he hit the boards of the kitchen floor.
Anthony turned back to the horrible tableau that had begun a mere thirty seconds ago, mounting in both ferocity and insanity. Joseph had discarded his empty pistol and was going for Frank’s Uzi. As he reached between the struggling bodies for the machine gun, the panther grasped the man’s head in its massive jaws, like an acorn in the mouth of a tree squirrel. Joseph was screaming bloody murder, his shouts echoing hollowly within the cat’s gullet. By chance, he found the Uzi. A burst of automatic fire erupted, stitching a pattern of lead across the panther’s broad chest.
That seemed to enrage the monster even more. Its jaws clamped down hard, enclosing Joseph’s head with a brittle crunch. Then it began to grow and expand as the strange crackling noise of metamorphosis started up again.
It’s changing again, thought Anthony with renewed panic. But what is it changing into this time?
He didn’t intend to stick around and find out. Despite his brethren’s predicament, he ran for the back door, pausing only long enough to fish the check from Brice’s pocket. The Stoogeone guarantee came to mind. The job had turned into a major screw-up, that was for sure, but that didn’t change the business agreement any. Anthony and his brothers had slipped up badly and now they we
re paying for it in spades. If Jackson Dellhart and Eco-Plenty were fingered for Brice’s murder, the Stoogeone name would be forever tarnished. Anthony was determined to save the family honor, even if he couldn’t save Frank and Joseph.
He kicked open the rear door and barreled into the darkness of the back yard. He instantly felt eyes upon him. He stopped in midstride and cursed softly at the strange sight that confronted him. A multitude of animals surrounded the log cabin. Pure white, albino animals. Deer, possums, birds, snakes, and lizards; all stood around the house of Fletcher Brice, their pink eyes feverish and frightened, watching Anthony as if he were the devil himself.
He made his way around the far side of the cabin and found more of the pale creatures there, crouching in the dense thicket and perched on the limbs of surrounding trees. All stared at him with that mortified expression of damning accusation. He considered firing the magnum into the midst of them, but knew that it would be a waste of ammunition. Besides, they were of no threat to him. The only thing he worried about was that thing inside the cabin.
He burst through the quivering ranks of the albinos and began to run for the road that led down the mountainside. As he passed the mailbox, he heard the strange crackling reach a deafening crescendo. He began to sprint down the dark road just as he heard the crash of splintering timbers and the heavy thuds of monstrous footfalls heading in his direction.
Anthony Stoogeone had been a fighter all his life, but that night he ran like a frightened rabbit. Several times during his mad scramble down the mountain trail, he glanced over his shoulder to see a tremendous form pursuing him at a distance. A dark, hulking form bigger than an African elephant. Anthony pushed himself faster, and finally, after what seemed an eternity, he rounded a sharp bend in the road and saw the tan Land Rover parked up ahead.
He reached the four-wheel drive and wrenched the door open. He climbed in, fumbling for the right key and then jamming it into the ignition switch. It started on the first lick. As thunder seemed to jar the vehicle and the earth it stood on, Anthony slammed it into gear and floored the gas pedal. The oversized tires churned the dirt of the road, tossing a cloud of dust and rock into the air.
As he pulled away, a hoarse bellow trumpeted from behind. He glanced into the rearview mirror and felt his throat open up for a scream.
In the crimson glow of the taillights, Anthony witnessed the creature that had been chasing him. He knew what it was at once. A dinosaur…a freaking triceratops! He had been a big fan of stop-motion monster movies when he was a kid and his favorites were the prehistoric creations of Ray Harryhausen. He particularly liked the scenes in which the underdog triceratops always got the best of the nasty Tyrannosaurus rex, spearing the flesh-eater in the belly with its twin horns.
But this creature lacked that underdog quality. This triceratops was a cold-blooded killer, pure and simple, and not some overgrown lizard battling for its life. Anthony peered into the mirror again as he shot down the winding road for town. This time the horror was compounded by two objects he had neglected to notice the first time. Two limp and bleeding objects that dangled like rag dolls at either side of the dinosaur’s dark head.
They were Frank and Joseph, each impaled on one of the beast’s iron-gray horns.
The scream that Anthony had struggled to suppress escaped in a shattering howl of fury. He raced down the mountainside like a madman, glancing in the rearview mirror every few seconds. At first, the creature stayed on his tail, even jarring the rear bumper with its horned snout a couple of times. Then it gradually lost ground as the road evened out and Anthony found it safe to push the Land Rover to the limit. Finally, as Anthony pulled off the dirt road and onto the two-laned blacktop of the main highway, he found that he was alone.
The dark creature that could change its form and temperament at will was no longer pursuing him.
Anthony turned north and headed for Tucker’s Mill. His mind fought off the blind panic that had possessed him moments before and he coolly began to map out his plans for a successful escape.
He was halfway there when he noticed the glare of headlights beyond a rise in the road. Out of pure instinct, Anthony knew that it was trouble coming. He cut his headlights and steered the Land Rover onto the side of the road, burrowing deeply into a clump of leafy green kudzu. By the time the vehicle shot over the rise, Anthony and his Land Rover were completely hidden from view.
The car flashed by like hell on wheels. He recognized it at once, a Peremont County patrol car. The siren and flashers weren’t on, but Anthony could still detect urgency in the Dodge’s speed that told him that it was headed for the mountains. Pale Dove Mountain, more than likely.
He waited a few seconds more and then backed the 4x4 out of the viney tangle. He pulled back onto the highway and headed for town as quickly as possible. If he arrived there before Sheriff Mayo discovered the chaos at Brice’s cabin, then he might just have a chance to save his skin, as well as the six-figure bounty Dellhart had offered for completion of the job.
Anthony Stoogeone drove toward Tucker’s Mill, thinking of Swiss bank accounts and Caribbean islands, and trying hard to drive from his mind the hellish image of two mangled bodies dangling from the horns of a demon.
Chapter Eleven
“What in tarnation is that?” Gart Mayo uttered beneath his breath. He slowed his patrol car and braked to a stop halfway up Pale Dove Mountain, letting the engine idle as he stared at a twisted heap in the middle of the road.
Cautiously, he took the riot gun from the rack beneath the dash and left the car to check it out. After a few difficult moments of close examination, he determined that they were the bodies of two men. They were a couple of the city slickers that he and Mable had become suspicious of, and the reason that he was up there. Both were dead. Their bodies had been mangled and mutilated in the most horrible ways imaginable. One fellow’s right hand was missing and his head crushed like an eggshell, while the other seemed to have been ripped open from gullet to groin. There was only one wound that the two had in common—a single hole about six inches in diameter that bored the thickness of their upper torsos. They weren’t gunshot wounds. Gart had seen a few in his time and nothing short of a cannon could have made such a puncture. Rather, it almost looked as though someone had impaled them on a jagged fence post before leaving their bodies in a heap in the center of the road.
Gart directed both his eyes and his shotgun toward the encompassing forest. Darkness surrounded him on all sides. The moon was obscured by a cloudbank and the headlights of the patrol car provided the only available light. They cast a circle of illumination upon the road like a pale island in a sea of black ink. Not knowing exactly what was going on or what was hiding out there sent a shiver through the elderly sheriff. And another thing bothered him: there was no sound. No crickets, no tree frogs, nothing at all. The night was completely quiet, as though every nocturnal creature on the mountain had been shocked into total silence.
Bewildered, the sheriff stared at the corpses lying in the dirt. It was sort of hard to tell, due to the amount of damage, but he was pretty sure that one was Brown and the other Jones. That left the fellow named Smith unaccounted for. Had Smith been responsible for this horrible double murder? And if so, where was he now? Up there at Brice’s cabin perhaps?
Gart wasted no time. He jumped back into his cruiser and headed on up the mountain, steering wide to avoid running over the two bodies.
A few minutes later, the sheriff reached his destination. He drove past the mailbox and pulled into the junk-scattered yard. The headlights shone on the front wall of the cabin. Gart sat in his car for a while before getting out. A gaping hole confronted him. Most of the right side of the house, including the porch below and the eaves of the roof above, was gone. It appeared as though a grenade had detonated there, obliterating sturdy logs and boards in a devastating explosion. But there was something wrong about that theory. The debris that littered the ground around the hole had no powder burns. It was as though
brute strength alone had dislodged the heavy timbers, rather than a charge of explosive.
“What the hell is going on here?” he wondered, then gathered the nerve to go and find out. He climbed from the patrol car and assessed the damage. He held a long, black flashlight in one hand and the shotgun in the other, ready to unleash a burst of lead at anything unlucky enough to move.
“Fletcher?” he called out. “Fletcher Brice, are you in there?”
He received no answer. Gart walked over and flashed the beam inside the ruptured wall. It was hard to determine exactly what had happened there. It almost looked as though something extremely heavy had sunk through the boards of the kitchen floor and then pushed its way through the front wall. Gart closed his eyes for a second, but all that kept coming to mind was the illogical image of a steam-puffing locomotive crashing through Fletcher’s cabin, so extensive was the destruction. He knew the thought was pure nonsense, like something a child would concoct, but still he couldn’t quite shake the impression of something very dark and out of control having done such damage.
He decided not to risk climbing up through the hole and entered through the front door instead. The first thing his flashlight caught was the kitchen table knocked over on its side. Its surface was stained dark with blood and there were strange scraps of meat littering the floor beneath. Then he directed the light past the gruesome mess and found a body lying facedown in a congealing pool of gore.
Gart knew that it was Fletcher Brice before he even turned the poor man over. A low moan escaped the sheriff as he examined the extent of the old hermit’s injuries. Fletcher had been severely beaten and tortured. The twisted scraps of flesh came to mind when he saw the neat holes in the fingernails and Gart felt a wave of nausea sweep over him. He turned away and breathed deeply, but not before seeing the massive hole in the center of Brice’s chest. Someone had shot him plumb through with a large-caliber hollow-point bullet, probably a .357 or .44 magnum.
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