And it was not until she turned on the kitchen light that she noticed the slime trails streaked across the ceiling, walls, and floor just like she had seen upstairs in the master bathroom. When she stepped across the linoleum floor the slimy substance stuck to the soles of her shoes like gum, coming up in long, gooey strands as she lifted her feet.
She picked up the phone, praying for a dial tone. She had no idea how long it would take the police to get out to the ranch but knew she needed someone to come help, and better late than never. When she heard the tone she whispered, "Thank God," to herself and dialed 911, but when she put the phone back to her ear she did not hear ringing, she just heard a flurry of whispers.
It was the same whispering she heard out on the road.
"No, no it can't be..."
She felt a hot breath down the back of her neck, it was slow and warm and smelled of rancid meat. Her eyes widened in terror, she screamed and spun around.
The kitchen was empty.
She hung up the phone, silencing that infernal whispering.
She needed a weapon. That was the one thing she knew for certain, everything else had fallen into complete and utter madness.
All she could do now was hope to God that whatever cruel force was playing these twisted games with her was not able to stop her from getting to the kids, she prayed she was not too late. She grabbed a large butcher knife from the Kitchen Aid knife rack and held it in a ready position with her right hand as she traveled the hallway back toward the front door, prepared for whatever might be waiting to spring out from the shadows.
As soon as she passed through the front door back into the night she broke into a run. She sprinted around the right side of the house, into the backyard and toward the apple orchard. As she ran away from the house she thought she heard a deep moaning sound emanating from the house behind her. It did not sound like it was coming from one person, it didn't even sound human. It was as though it was coming from every corner of the house, from inside the walls themselves. She was not about to look back to see what was making the sound.
~
She sped past the apple trees, fully ready to plunge the butcher knife into whoever, or whatever, might jump forth at her from behind each tree she passed. She reached the end of the orchard and stood looking down the hill at Clarence Wilkerson's house, no lights were shining from the humble cottage now, and the path down there was equally dark. Charlene fetched the small flashlight from her pocket and held it in the same hand as the knife, both stabbing forth into the darkness from her right hand. She was more careful making her way down the path, not just because the footing was much more treacherous here but also because with each step that primal feeling of dread that had been washing over her all night intensified to the point where her knees were shaking and her gut was wrenching with trepidation.
This must be how pigs feel when being led to the slaughterhouse, she thought.
There was a rustling in the bushes off to her right. She swung the beam of the flashlight around and surveyed the brush for her attacker. Nobody, neither man nor beast, was stalking there. She moved the light side to side and strained her eyes to make out anything hidden in the darkness.
Something snarled behind her, at the same instant she felt something cold and slimly slithering up the back of her left leg. She didn't even bother turning around or looking down, she just took off in a full sprint down the hill, suddenly not so worried about losing her footing, just knowing that she wanted to be anywhere besides where she had been standing. She became aware that she was not even following the winding path, but had cut a straight line down the grassy hill. No matter, as long as she was heading down that was all that was important. She was about halfway down when she tripped over something that was lying in the grass, sending her toppling face first into the ground.
Luckily, she was able to brace her fall with her left arm and avoided falling onto the huge butcher knife she held out in her right. She could feel whatever she had tripped over with her left leg. It was something covered in a coarse fur. She pointed the light and saw that it was a dead goat. Not huge and black like the one she'd encountered earlier, this was just one of the regular goats that wandered the property. It's brown and white fur was coated with blood seeping from a large hole on its side. Someone had shot it, from the looks of the hole it was done with a large caliber bullet.
"What the fuck?" Those were the only words that Charlene could seem to muster at the sight of the slain farm animal. She had no idea why someone would shoot a goat, it's not like it was a guard dog or something that posed any sort of risk to whoever had invaded the property. It was just a damn harmless goat.
She stood up and tuned back toward Clarence's house.
The lights in the house were flashing on and off.
Both the light on the front porch and what looked like all the lights inside were flashing like strobe lights at a night club. Charlene looked in puzzlement for a few seconds, not sure whether this strange display made her want to run towards or away from the little cottage. After a few more seconds she starting walking, albeit much more slowly than she had been moving before, toward the house.
As soon as she stepped foot onto the steps of the front porch the house went completely dark once again, she hesitated before taking the next step.
Something stirred inside.
She could hear a faint gasping sound followed by a wet, slurping noise. She tried to calm her own breathing so as to make out what sounds were coming from inside the dark house. Another sound, this one much louder, erupted from somewhere inside Clarence's cottage. It was a sort of bubbling gargle sound, like the growling stomach of someone who had come down with a horrible case of food poisoning, followed by a long moaning growl.
This was enough to give Charlene pause once more. She instinctively took a few steps back, down the porch steps back into the yard.
Suddenly the house broke into a series of loud snarls and hisses, as though someone had trapped an angry wildcat inside one of the rooms. She could hear crashing sounds and boards breaking apart.
"Oh my God...KIDS! WHERE ARE YOU?" She screamed at the top of her lungs, "What the hell is happening?!"
The cottage went silent.
Charlene stood in the grass, completely unsure of what her next move was going to be. She had to assume that her kids were not in the cottage with whatever beast was wreaking havoc in there. She was trying to tell herself that they had probably escaped, ran off into the night away from whatever force had descended upon this normally peaceful slice of land. That was the only possibility she could allow herself to consider.
She suddenly heard the soft sound of a child's laughter coming from behind her.
She turned and saw little Elizabeth standing in the dark shadows over by the old horse stables. At least she assumed it was Elizabeth, her form was cloaked in darkness but the figure was too small to be Bradley or Alyssa.
"Bethie?" Charlene called to the child, assuming that she still answered to the odd shortening of Elizabeth, and trying her very best to mask the trembling sound of fear in her voice for the child's sake. "Hey there kiddo? It's your Aunt Charlene, you remember me, right?"
The child nodded her head and let out another soft giggle.
Charlene walked over towards her, when she was close enough for the light to shine upon her she saw that it was in fact Elizabeth. She raced over to her and hugged her tight.
"Oh thank God you're okay!" She pulled back and looked little Bethie in the eyes and said, "Look at me, everything is going to be okay now, I'm going to get you somewhere safe but first we need to find Alyssa and Bradley, okay?"
Bethie grinned wide, showing the gap in her gums where her two front teeth were missing, she nodded her head in agreement then said in her soft, sweet voice, "They're looking for you, too."
She giggled again.
"Do you know where they are?"
Bethie smiled and nodded again.
"Can you tell me, Sweetie?"
<
br /> Bethie pushed back from Charlene and laughed as she darted off into the shadows of the stables. Charlene was not quite sure how to process the situation. At the first sight of Elizabeth standing by the stables she was flooded with an immense sense of relief. If little Bethie had been safe, that meant that there was a good chance that her children were safe as well. But after Bethie had pushed away and ran into the stable that cold dreadful feeling crept back over her again.
Something was just so very wrong with this situation.
Surely, whatever calamity had happened here must have been a traumatic experience for the children. Even if they had remained physically unharmed, there was sure to be plenty of emotional scarring from the experience.
But sweet, little Bethie was all smiles and giggles.
Of course there was the chance that this was just a defense mechanism, children often have the capability to block out traumatic experience that were simply too painful to process emotionally, but this just felt different. Bethie did not seem to be traumatized at all. Charlene felt that there seemed to be a sort of cunning awareness in the girl’s actions, something beyond what a normal six year old should possess.
"Bethie!" She called after the child, "What are you doing, Honey? Come back here."
She heard a clanging noise come from the stable. It sounded like a bunch of metal objects being rummaged through and tossed to the floor, followed by more of that childlike laughter.
The child's gigglish cackling did nothing to alleviate Charlene's anxiety.
The sound came off as too deliberate, sort of mocking in a way. Still, she saw the kid with her own eyes and saw that it was in fact young little Bethie, and no matter how strange her behavior she could not just leave behind this poor child who had been through God knows what tonight just because she was getting spooked.
She pointed the beam from the flashlight toward the stables and moved forward. These stables had been vacant of horses since long before Charlene had last been here. She remembered how when she would come here with Charlie and the kids a few years back how Clarence would complain that they were now just good for collecting old junk. It was not as cluttered as would be expected, but there were plenty of old engine parts and tool sets laying around. Off to the right side, next to what must have been Clarence's work bench by the look of it, laid a metal tool box that appeared to have been knocked off the shelf and was now laying in the straw and dirt of the stable floor with its contents spilled out.
Just past the tool box, Charlene saw something that made her gasp and flinch backwards. There were two more dead goats lying in a pile of straw, both looked to have been put down with same type of bullet as the other one she had tripped over in the grass.
Then she noticed something else that nearly made her faint. A large pool of what could only be blood was seeping out from one of the stable stalls on the left and her heart sank at the thought of possibilities for the cause. As much as she hated the thought, she had to check the stall. If she only had her own safety to be concerned with then looking in there would have been the last thing she would do, but she still had not found her children.
She gripped the knife handle as tight as she could and walked toward the stall. As she approached she had to step over the slaughtered goats. As soon as she turned the light into the stall she wished to God that she hadn't. She wished she could turn back time and just run away from these damn stables.
It was Carla.
Her former mother in law and the loving grandmother to her children, was in the back of the stall with her upper torso propped up against the back wall and her legs pointing straight out in front of her. Her stomach was torn open and her intestines were pulled out and wrapped around her, from around her back and across her face. A strand of innards was pulled into her mouth like a gag. There were horrible gashes slashed across her face, which was permanently frozen with a look of sheer terror and grief.
Charlene fell to her knees, her screams caught in her throat before erupting out from her.
She was still screaming when she felt something tap her on the shoulder. She held the knife, ready to stab or slash at whatever was upon her, and turned to see little Beth smiling down at her. Charlene stood up, attempting to block the child from having to see the bloody, mangled horror that used to be her grandmother.
"Bethie, don't look, baby! You don't need to see this."
The child just looked up at her, with a huge, almost comical grin.
"Bethie?"
What Charlene saw next happened so quickly that she doubted her own vision. Bethie was smiling, exposing that gap in the front of her teeth when a long, black tongue, one that was forked at the end like a snake’s, flickered out from between where her two front teeth had yet to grow in for a split second before quickly disappearing back into her mouth.
Charlene, unsure if she had actually seen the tongue or if she was seeing things in a panic induced delirium, took a step back away from the child. Bethie just looked up and grinned. Charlene noticed that Bethie was holding one hand behind her back and was about to inquire about it when she saw something happening to the child's face. It was as if the skin was rippling around, like it had something squirming beneath it.
Then two needle sharp teeth began poking through Bethie's gums where her two front teeth were missing.
Charlene could only watch, shaking her head back and forth while sobbing, "No, no...oh God...what...is..." She could not finish, she just cried as she watched the remaining teeth in the child's mouth begin wiggling their way out from her gums, each one had a long, sharp, fang-like tooth sprout from the bleeding gums in its place.
Bethie tilted her head and hissed loudly at Charlene.
Charlene's sobs became one long scream.
She did not notice Bethie raise the hand she had behind her back, nor did she notice the claw hammer she was holding, with the claw end pointed down, at least not until the child had already began swinging downward.
The claw end of the hammer tore its way through the top of Charlene's right foot, shattering the bones of her foot as it smashed and ripped all the way through to the rubber sole of her tennis shoe.
Charlene's eyes rolled back in her head as she fell backwards, shrieking and howling in a pain so intense that choked as she vomited her stomach contents onto the stable floor. She jerked her smashed foot back and the hammer tore loose and fell to the ground. She was still screaming when she saw that Bethie was still changing. Her legs had stretched upwards so that the child had grown nearly twice her height and they were bulging outward as enormous muscles began to form around the legs until they looked more like the legs of a gorilla than those of a little girl.
The adrenaline pumping through Charlene's systems did much to mask the pain in her foot, just enough to get her senses focused on spinning around on her butt to the left and scooting her way past this hulking form that was once an innocent six year old girl. She still had the knife in her hand, she held it out in front of her as she tried desperately to scramble backwards down the stable hall toward the exit.
Bethie's gaze followed Charlene as she pulled herself along the ground, leaving a long trail of blood from the horrific would on her right foot. Each step Bethie took toward her seemed to bring about another grotesque change to the little girl's features. There were sickening sounds of bones snapping and shifting, skin stretching and tearing, as her form twisted and pulsated. Her back was now hunched over and her neck had stretch out in a forward direction, she had the posture of a large lizard or bird, her head bobbing back and forth like an ostrich with each step, she was beginning to take the shape of what Charlene thought looked like a dinosaur, perhaps a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Bethie's left arm was curled up against her chest and it appeared as though all the fingers on the hand had sort of morphed together to form a single appendage that began twisting around and stretching into a tick, twisting tentacle. The right arm stretched downward as the rest of her grew upward. At first the fingers on her right hand all began to s
quirm around and wrap up intertwining with each other, as though they were no longer the bony fingers of a human being but rather five long and joint-less worms that were covered in a skin made to look like human fingers. The middle and ring fingers twisted together to form one solid finger while the index and pinkie fingers swelled to an enormous size and long, black talons sprouted forth through the skin on the tips of each newly formed appendage. The hand curled backward and became a solid form with four long, thick fingers, each one tipped with a vicious, dagger-like talon.
The vile creature still had the facial features of the child it once was. Bethie's little brown eyes stared down at Charlene and her hair still hung down the sides of her head. But soon this changed as well. Her face rippled again and her eyes lost all their color until they were white and pale like the rest of her exposed skin. Most of her clothing had torn as she grew but what was underneath was no longer the flesh of a human child, it was all pale gray with blue and black veins running in jagged lines up and down each limb.
Her skull seemed to expand out in every direction. Her cranium was now huge and bulbous and bulged out behind her forehead. The ridge of her brow jutted out like that of a Neanderthal or gorilla and her nose and mouth, filled with all those long pointed teeth, grew out from her face to form a large snout like a dog or a baboon. The beast leaned forward until its head was close to Charlene's and roared at her. This was not a growl or a snarl, but deafening roar that would match up to that of any lion or grizzly bear.
Charlene felt the sick hot breath of the creature blow across her face, felt its spittle on her cheeks and smelled that foul breath, just like when something had breathed down her neck up in the ranch house, it was the stench of rotting flesh, the smell of death.
Becoming the Gateway Page 15