by Shawn Inmon
This isn’t working. At all. I’ve got to do something. I can't take it.
She reached over and pushed his shoulder, then said the four words a husband dreads most: “We need to talk.” His expression didn’t change.
She shook his shoulder harder. “Chad. Wake up. We really need to talk.”
Again no response.
On a whim, she reached out and plucked out the right earbud. She had always assumed he was listening to some dopey motivational speaker talking about being a better you. Sarah leaned over so that she could put the bud up to her own ear.
In her well-grounded practicality, Sarah had never spent one moment of her life contemplating poor souls being consumed by eternal hellfire. For that reason, it took her several moments of focusing on the variety of sounds to realize she was listening to the torment of millions.
Repulsed, her mouth forming an O of pure disgust, Sarah ripped the bud away from her ear and threw it in Chad’s face. He didn’t move. The same dreamy smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
She gaped at the stranger next to her. This was not the man with whom she had shared her bed and life for the past twenty-two years. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught some form of movement from the ExerTracker. That was impossible, of course; there were no visible moving parts. She shifted to peer at it more closely, moving her nose to within a few inches of its face.
You little demon. You're stealing my husband.
Two small, baleful eyes slowly opened and stared at her from the bracelet. Beneath that, she saw a gash of a mouth suddenly appear and smile at her, two rows of sharp teeth glinting in the light of the bedside lamp.
Sarah screamed, a wordless scream of primal fear. In an attempt to get as far away from whatever that was inside the ExerTracker, she bounded off the bed on her side. It would have been a dexterous move for a woman half her age, but she slipped on a paperback that she'd dropped by the nightstand and forgotten. Her momentum carried her headfirst into the wall, leaving a precise Sarah’s-head sized indentation in the drywall.
Stunned, she shook her head to clear the cobwebs away. Sitting awkwardly on the floor, she was at eye level with the bed—and with the Azuul ExerTracker. The bracelet, silent since Chad had put it on three months earlier, opened its gash of a mouth and hissed. A small forked tongue slipped out and whipped the air.
Sarah screamed again, clambered to her feet, and ran out the bedroom door. She sprinted down the stairs, nearly tripping. She dropped to her knees on the landing at the bottom, then realized that she was still too close. She rushed into the nearest room—Chad’s den—and slammed the door behind her before collapsing into a hysterical, sobbing mess on the floor. She cast her eyes around the room, looking for something with which to defend herself.
We've never owned guns, never wanted them, don't believe in it.
Maybe I was wrong about that.
Her eyes fell on the black-handled samurai sword hanging on the wall. A new thought emerged.
Defend myself, my ass.
Sarah gripped the sword in both hands, taking stealthy steps up the carpeted stairs, praying they would not squeak. In spite of her brave thoughts of the moment before, she felt a bit of her courage drain away with each step. She knew with precognitive certainty that she was going to look in the bedroom and see it empty.
And what in the hell will I do then?
There was no answer to that question, so she took a long, silent breath to calm herself and moved the last few feet into the bedroom. To her surprise, Chad was still laying on his left side. The thing on his wrist was still there, inanimate.
Sarah felt foolish, holding the sword in front of her as if she were The Bride in Kill Bill, about to unleash her unholy vengeance.
This is nuts. Certifiably nuts. Daddy would have a field day. I’m sure I imagined the whole damn thing. There’s no way that thing really has eyes and a mouth. “And teeth,” a distant part of her subconscious whispered. Yes. And teeth. Sharp, sharp little teeth.
She took two tentative steps to the edge of the bed, feeling her reserves of courage and bravado draining away.
The two yellow slits, that she had so definitely not imagined, opened again. The mouth opened wide, showing another row of sharp white teeth inside the first.
Two rows of teeth to eat your soul, no waiting necessary.
From that little gash, a sound emerged. It started low and ramped up quickly, an unearthly wail that climbed the scale until it threatened to go above the range of human hearing. It seared into her brain and caused her vision to black at the edges. Her legs grew uncertain. She had never before fainted, but realized with dread certainty that she was about to.
She gathered the remnants of her strength, raised the sword above her head, and slashed down with all her might toward the toothy little mouth. Sarah had never been an athlete, much less a swordswoman. She missed.
The razor-sharp edge of the sword bit into the soft flesh just below Chad’s elbow, slicing through tendon, bone and muscle. His arm had rested outside their Pottery Barn duvet, and the cut's impact sent little downy feathers flying into the air. It had probably cut into his side, too, at least a little, but she could not tell.
The sword amputated Chad’s right forearm as neatly as if an insane surgeon had done the job. His eyes flew open. Sarah saw shock and surprise on his face, but no pain. Not yet.
”Sarah? What…?”
“Honey, is that you? I’m so sorry. So sorry. I—"
She looked down at the stump of his arm. Arterial crimson sprayed across the bed, even onto the wall, and puddled on the beige frieze carpet.
The pain arrived. The shocked expression on Chad’s face doubled, paused, then doubled again. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he sucked his lungs full of air as if to scream. He let it slowly out in a hiss instead, and then his neck muscles relaxed. His head lolled back, eyes rolled upward.
9-1-1. I’ve got to call 9-1-1. Got to get help.
She climbed over Chad’s unconscious body, rattled the cordless phone off the nightstand and frantically punched in the number.
A female voice answered on the second ring. “9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
With calm that surprised her, Sarah said: “This is Sarah Stinson. I'm at 3476 Hammond Lane. There’s been an accident. My husband’s arm has been amputated. Please. Send an ambulance.”
“Ma’am? Is your husband conscious?"
Sarah noticed the severed forearm where it had landed, about where her hip would normally rest on her own side of the bed when she slept. The fingers were curled up. Something about the hand reminded her of a huge, dead spider.
"Is he breathing? Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Numbly, Sarah disconnected and let the phone fall to the floor. The ExerTracker had been on his wrist when she swung the blade. Now it was gone. Where it had been, there was an angry red burn and six small, bloodless holes. She imagined small tentacles emerging from the band and slowly working their way inside Chad’s wrist.
Oh, my God. Where is it now?
She had laid the sword on the bed. Now she picked it up again, looking left and right, seeking any sign of movement.
Slowly, she inched off the bed and stood up. She backed away one step at a time.
Just two steps away from the door to the hall, she felt a soft caress against her bare ankle.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer with each passing second.
Dressed in an old nightgown and tennis shoes, Sarah Stinson stepped out of the white colonial house at 3476 Hammond Lane. She took a deep breath of the cold night air and slipped the headphones into her ear. She stepped nimbly off the porch, smiling at the world. She walked the opposite direction from the sirens, her shoes slapping a regular rhythm against the wet pavement.
Author’s Note for Chad Stinson Goes for a Walk
It’s easy for me to pinpoint the exact moment when this story came into being. It was 10:30 on a Wednesday night. I was getting ready for bed. (He
y, I’m an early riser!) I checked my fitbit app to make sure I had gotten my 10,000 steps in for the day. I hadn’t. I was 1,100 steps short. So, off with the slippers, on with the walking shoes and raincoat, and back out into the storm for me. While I was taking a lap around our neighborhood to get enough steps to keep me on pace for the week, I thought to myself, “It’s like this thing is controlling my life.” The rest of the story fell into place immediately.
The hardest part of the story was coming with the name “Azuul Exertracker.” I finally settled on “Azuul,” as an homage to one of my favorite movies – the original Ghostbusters, which featured a spirit named Zuul.
Obviously, this was another example of a Twilight Zone type story. My mind just automatically goes toward creating short little morality plays like that. If they ever reboot the series, I will be standing on their door with a few scripts in hand.
Bull Lick Lodge
Dave turned his van off the paved road. His tires crunched over gravel as he fished out his cell phone and dialed Beth.
She answered after two rings. “Hey, baby…” Her voice carried the telltale echo that told him the connection wouldn’t last long.
“Hi yourself, babies,” Dave said.
“Aren’t you funny? The little one’s not talking. She’s got other things on her mind, like using my kidneys for a football.”
“I’ve gotta be quick, baby. I’m on the way to the gig, but I can’t get a good signal out here, so I wanted to check in with you.”
“Don’t worry, we’re fine. Just sitting here watching old movies, waiting for you to get back.”
There was dead silence for a few seconds, then a distant pop.
“Beth? Beth, are you there?” No sound but a distant echo. “Damn it.”
He tossed the phone down on the empty passenger seat and looked at the road ahead. It was lined by elm trees on both sides, the setting sun casting long shadows over the way in front of him.
Dave rolled to a stop without bothering to pull over. He hadn’t seen another vehicle since he had turned off the main highway, almost eight miles back. He turned on the dome light and squinted a little at the printed directions he had brought, tracing his fingers down the directions. No way am I lost yet.
Satisfied, he stepped on the gas, kicking up a new dust plume behind him. When he’d accepted this gig, he had known that it would be a hell of a drive, but Beth was eight months pregnant. Gigs were scarce, especially weekday gigs. So here he was, as his dad would have said, “in the middle of BFE.”
After another mile, he passed the burned-out remains of a barn and turned left onto an even smaller dirt road. Dave winced when an overhanging branch produced a metallic shriek against the side of his van. That had cost money to get painted: Dave Kool’s Party Machine! You supply the people, we’ll supply the Party!!!
His headlights cut through the descending darkness, illuminating nothing more interesting than the grass growing between the wheel ruts. He was down to 20 MPH, starting to think about giving up and looking for a place to turn around, when he saw a paved road ahead. The encroaching trees backed away from the road, leaving a straight, clear path ahead.
After a hundred yards, the road turned to the right. Dave whistled softly and said “I’ll be goddamned.”
Here, at what he would have sworn was the end of the earth—Dad would have said, “If it ain’t the end of the earth, you can damn well see it from there”—loomed an immense two-story lodge. Burning torches every fifteen feet or so along the length of the lodge combined with electric lights pointing upward, casting an otherworldly, golden glow onto the redwood-sized logs that made up the lodge’s exterior walls.
The road ended in a circular drive large enough to park several dozen cars. Dave pulled up to the front of the lodge, marked by a sign: BULL LICK LODGE, ESTABLISHED 1949. Who builds such a impressive place out here in BFE, then tacks on such a redneck name? They didn’t even bother to swipe one of the local Indian tribe’s words, or just name it ‘Chatauqua Lodge’ or something else equally weighty.
The ten-foot-tall front door swung open, and a pretty, petite blonde emerged and walked toward him. As the torchlight fell on her face, Dave recognized her as Francesca Bastien, the woman who had originally contacted him. He had met her while DJing a wedding reception in the city. She had complimented the job he had done, taken his business card, and called him later that week to schedule this job.
“I’m so glad you found us,” she said, her voice cool and confident. At the reception, Dave had guessed she was in her early twenties, but their phone conversations had given him reason to revise that number upward. Now, shaking her hand and looking into her lineless face and intense green eyes, he decided he must have been right the first time.
“I was never worried,” he lied. “You gave me great directions.”
“If you’ll pull around the side, you’ll see there’s a door with a ramp that will make it easier to unload your equipment. I’ll go unlock it for you and show you where to set up.”
“Thanks,” Dave said and climbed back into his van. Before he drove around back, he checked his cell one last time – still no signal, still no chance to call Beth back. He slipped the van into drive and pulled around the side of the lodge until he came to a concrete ramp leading up to a service entrance.
Dave got out and opened the van’s back door. Even over the rough road, nothing had come loose. If fifteen years of being a mobile DJ had taught him anything, it was how to pack his gear. He pulled the hand truck out and loaded one of his speakers onto it, then hauled it up the ramp. As he reached the top, Francesca opened the door and slipped a prop wedge underneath it. “The dance floor is just ahead,” she said, leading Dave through a series of hallways that opened onto a grand ballroom floored with perfectly lacquered hardwood squares. Two converging spotlights lit up a stage set at the far left end.
“You can set up on the stage,” Francesca said, pointing to the lighted area and laying a warm hand on Dave’s shoulder. She let it linger long enough to draw his eyes her direction. She met his ‘what’s going on?’ stare with an almost pleading look in her eyes, leaving her hand on his shoulder for one, two, three beats longer before moving it, as if this unexpected intimacy had never occurred.
Dave swallowed and said “Okay, thanks,” before wheeling his speaker away from her and toward the stage.
“How long will it take for you to get set up?” Francesca asked his back.
He kept moving. Distance was comfort. “Not long. Maybe forty minutes. I’ve done it a few thousand times.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “My father would like to meet you before the festivities.”
“What exactly are ‘the festivities’ anyway? You never told me.”
“Didn’t I? Well, this is our annual banquet. My father is the Director of the Bull Lick Lodge, and I am the Event Planner and Coordinator. I fear he might be training me to take over for him some day.”
Dave was about to ask about that ridiculous name, but thought better of it. “What kind of music should I be playing? I brought everything from jazz to classical to current stuff, but I have a hunch they don’t want to hear Beyoncé or Justin Timberlake.”
She smiled slightly and said, “No, probably not. My father will cover that with you when he meets you. He likes everything to be very… precise.” Before he could reply, her heels were clicking in rhythm against the hardwood floors as she walked away.
He finished hauling the speaker to the stage and lifted it up, placing it so that it would help fill the room to maximum effect, then headed back to the van for the other speaker.
When he made the long round trip hauling his other speaker, he lifted it onto the stage as well. He saw a piece of folded paper sticking out from the edge of the first speaker. That hadn’t been there before.
He rocked the speaker slightly, pulled the paper out and unfolded it.
There were two words handwritten in block letters: “LEAVE. NOW.”
T
he message sent prickly fingers up his spine. He whirled around to see who might be watching him, hoping to see someone laughing at their little joke. He was all alone.
This is some ass’s idea of a joke. The hell with it. Dave went back to hauling equipment, though he kept his eyes open for any more messages. Good as his word, half an hour later Dave had his system set up and was ready for the sound check. He usually used Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses for testing the sound because he liked feeling the bass drum beat against his chest, but it didn’t feel appropriate here. He opted instead for the Overture from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. It didn’t have the thump of Paradise City, but when the full orchestra kicked in, he loved the way it sounded over his system.
Dave clicked play on his laptop, hopped down off the stage and went to the middle of the immense ballroom to absorb the sound, listening for any adjustments he would need to make. He was completely lost in the music when he felt a hand grip his shoulder. He almost let out a gasp, but managed to contain it. He spun around and saw the man who belonged to the surprisingly strong hand.
He wasn’t very tall—in fact, he had needed to reach up to grab Dave’s shoulder—but he was still a commanding presence. He had silvery-white hair combed back in a way that had been out of style for decades. He had a ruddy complexion slightly at odds with his dark suit and refined air. His posture was as erect as an oak tree, but he gripped a silver-tipped cane firmly in his right hand.
Dave started to speak, but realized that the music was so loud he wouldn’t be heard. “Excuse me,” he said in a voice pitched to carry, and ran up the stairs to his computer and stopped the music. Silence settled across the room. For some reason that he couldn’t pinpoint, Dave felt guilty, like he’d been caught playing his rock ‘n roll records too loud on his Dad’s stereo.
The silver-haired gentleman walked forward and extended his hand. “I hope my sudden appearance didn’t startle you. I’m Francis Bastien, Francesca’s father.” His voice was mellow and quiet, but had an air of calm authority.