Terror in the Shadows Vol 5

by Scare Street

  Besides, Matt thought. I’ve got Roger to worry about.

  Merely thinking his young son’s name caused Matt to smile and his hand to hesitate in bringing the bottle back up to his lips.

  A good boy, Matt thought. His smile softened with sadness. Roger was with his mother, Matt’s ex-wife, for the weekend. The one good thing about that entire damned relationship.

  Matt took another drink, capped the bottle, and stood up. He slipped it into his back pocket, stuffed his hands into the pouch of his pullover sweatshirt, and walked toward his bedroom.

  Halfway there he paused to look out the bay window and was surprised to see the intensity of the moonlight on the summer landscape.

  This would be a good time for a walk, Matt thought. No idiots to deal with. I can keep to the path, stay off the damned road. That way I won’t have to worry about anyone killing me.

  The idea of it pleased him, and Matt walked happily to the back door. From its hook, he took down his bright orange safety vest, slipped it on, and glanced at the clock on the stove.

  The green digital numbers read, 4:11 AM.

  I can get a good hour long walk in, Matt thought. Get back here, crash, drink, repeat. Roll all the way through Sunday morning. Won’t have to get cleaned up until Roger comes home.

  Matt took his keys down, yawned, and thought, I’ll be good and ready to sleep once I get home.

  Smiling, he left the house, locking the door behind him. He stumbled down the granite steps and almost ruined his walk.

  Straightening up, he shook his head and started off, cutting through the backyard. The tall grass was already damp with dew, and he smiled up at the stars and moon. Around him, Matt heard the song of the cicadas, and enjoyed the deep scent of summer. Sweat beaded up on the back of his neck despite the pleasant chill of the early morning air.

  When he reached the end of his backyard, he stopped and took another drink. The right path, the larger and safer of two available, waited patiently for him.

  Matt stepped onto the path, humming to himself as he traveled along. Old forest debris cracked and crunched loudly beneath his boots, and he smiled.

  Beautiful, he thought. I need to do this more often. So long as the hunters don’t get all trigger happy and kill everything they see. Or think they can.

  Damn. But they’re stupid, Matt thought.

  The path curved down and around, and back again.

  For a moment, Matt frowned, remembering that he was going to have to follow the same path back.

  Which meant doing it all twice.

  He took another quick nip of the schnapps, grinned, and thought, Well, I doubt I’ll feel a damned thing.

  Matt started down the path, whistling to himself, picking out his way easily. Moonlight slipped through the thin canopy of leaves, and he was suddenly reminded of Jenn, and of walking along the path when she had been well.

  The memory was sobering, striking him and slowing his pace. He stopped whistling and felt his shoulders slump.

  He dug the bottle of schnapps out and took a long, hard drink, almost choking on the liquor before taking it away from his lips. His eyes stung, and he hated himself for drinking as hard as he did.

  Stop, he ordered himself. Just stop it already.

  He took another drink, and then he looked around the path for a place to sit.

  A tree trunk, half hidden in shadow, presented itself, and Matt sat down. He shook the bottle and saw it was half-full.

  Guess I’m not getting as far as I thought. Oh well.

  He nursed the drink, trying to let his mind clear, to get back into a pleasant mood. Or at least one that would allow him to stand up and not stumble his way home.

  Raising the bottle to his lips, Matt paused and lowered it a moment later.

  The forest was quiet.

  He couldn’t hear a single animal. Not even the call of an owl, and their cries could be heard every night.

  But not tonight, Matt thought.

  He tilted his head, listening, trying to understand why the world was quiet.

  A soft wail took him by surprise, and he lost his balance. He went tumbling back, the bottle flying from his hand and splashing the schnapps on him. Matt twisted, crashed into a rock, smashed his face into a tree, and tumbled down uninterrupted for what seemed like an hour, which he knew was impossible.

  Finally, tasting blood in his mouth, Matt came to a hard, painful stop.

  His body ached, his head spun, and he stank of spilled schnapps.

  And the wail rose up again.

  Matt shuddered at the sound, hating every twisted note of it.

  He tried to move and screamed.

  Something was stuck in his stomach.

  Grinding his teeth together, Matt probed the front of his shirt, finding a jagged piece of wood protruding from it. Cautiously, he followed the wood as far as he could, realizing as he did that he was impaled on an old branch.

  How bad? he wondered, reaching behind him.

  The wood continued farther than he could reach.

  Can I break it? Matt wondered. He reached his hands around the branch and tried to. But the moment he attempted to break it, he shrieked, a sound mimicked by the creature that had wailed but a few minutes before.

  I have to go, he thought. I’m going to die here if I don’t.

  Matt tried again, but the pain was so intense that he blacked out for several moments. When he opened his eyes, there was the stench of fresh vomit in the air, and he knew it was his.

  He tilted his head back slightly and stared up at where he believed the path to be.

  It’ll be a few hours before anyone even walks along it, Matt thought, biting down hard to keep his rising fear under control.

  Someone will come along, he told himself, hoping it wasn’t a lie. It’s supposed to be a nice day. Everything will be fine.

  The wail he had heard before, a cry that sounded as though it held all the misery of the world within it, interrupted his thoughts and made him shiver.

  What the hell type of animal makes that sound? Matt thought, his eyes darting along the shadows of the path. Is that even an animal? Maybe just some kids messing around. Yeah, that’s probably what it is. Just kids being stupid.

  Matt knew it wasn’t true. None of the kids nearby walked along the path. He had asked Roger once why that was, and his son had told him it was because the path was haunted. Matt had scoffed at the idea later when his son wasn’t around. He hadn’t wanted to upset the boy.

  But now it seemed as though Roger had been absolutely correct.

  Something seemed to be on the path, and whatever it was, it didn’t sound natural.

  Matt lay there, impaled on a branch, and listened, his eyes locked on the path and illuminating moonlight.

  In the long moments of silence that followed, he realized he couldn’t hear the cicadas any longer. They were quiet. The lack of sound, at such a basic level, was profoundly disturbing to him.

  I have to get out of here, he thought, panic wrapping around his throat and squeezing. I need to leave. Something’s coming. Everything knows it, too.

  As soon as the thought arrived, Matt knew it was true.

  The natural world understood that it no longer held sway over the night.

  And that terrified him.

  Gagging from the pain, he struggled to first pull, then shake himself loose. Neither freed him.

  Then he heard a new sound, one he thought he had imagined for a moment.

  It was the sound of tires on the path.

  They struck the stones noisily, and a moment later Matt heard the rattle of a chain.

  A bike? he thought gleefully. A bike! They can get help!

  Matt inhaled to let out a desperate cry for help, and as he did, the wail broke the silence completely.

  It did so from the path above him, where the chains had sounded and the moonlight shone.

  It’s looking for me, Matt thought numbly. It’s here for me. For me.

  His eyes were f
ixed on the path, on the log he had fallen off. A cold wind sprang up, the leaves and branches bending beneath its dictates.

  As the moonlight shifted and twisted, the wailing grew louder, and Matt could see the nearly vertical climb he would have to make to reach the path.

  It would have been difficult if he hadn’t been injured, and seeing it, he knew it would be impossible to do so with a branch piercing him.

  Whatever it is, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. It’ll go away in a minute. Maybe two. Then someone else will come along.

  Any further thoughts were cut off as a pair of other voices joined the first’s wails.

  Matt’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at the path.

  Someone was looking at him.

  He caught a glimpse of white hair, and nothing more.

  It vanished behind the fallen tree, and the wailing reached a crescendo.

  Then the white hair was back, and it was atop a pale face. The face was nothing more than an oval, the white hair serving as a halo against the backdrop of the sky.

  A pair of faces appeared on either side of it, and all three stared down at him.

  With his heart racing, Matt let out a strangled scream as clouds rolled across the sky and smothered the land in darkness.

  The creatures on the path let out their strange wails and the sound of movement cut through the stillness of the forest.

  No! Matt thought, as he struggled against the tree branch.

  The pain was instant and intense. Stars exploded across his vision as he grasped the blood slickened wood and pushed himself back.

  Fear alone kept him from passing out as the pain slammed into him. The wind picked up, rushing down the incline and carrying with it the steady thump and crash of the creatures coming to him.

  Matt continued to try and extricate himself, but it was no use.

  The pain was too intense, his muscles too weak. Blood pumped through the wound, and he knew that regardless of what the pale-faced monsters did to him, he was dead.

  He struggled to maintain some form of composure. He brought up the image of Jenn on their wedding day, the stunning beauty of her at the altar.

  But it was replaced by the memory of that ravaged beauty, the strange, inexplicable illness that had rushed into their lives and snatched her away from him.

  He had no hope of seeing her in the afterlife.

  Matt did not believe in one.

  Roger, Matt thought, wrenching his thoughts away from the melancholy, self-pity threatening to overwhelm what he was certain were his last few minutes on earth.

  I’m not going to see Roger again, Matt thought, horrified.

  The realization spurred Matt to action once more, and again, he tried to push himself backward, to slide his ruined flesh off the rough bark dragging at the edges of his wounds and flaying his innards.

  His fear did not prevent him from blacking out a second time.

  When Matt came too, he was unsure as to how much time had passed. The sun was still far from finishing its ascent, and the land was still dark. Yet, as he lay in his curious death bed, he discovered that he could no longer hear the wails of whatever creatures had been coming for him.

  Matt reached down with his hands and gingerly probed the wound, whimpering and moaning as he did. There was little in the way of fresh blood, and Matt suspected that the only reason he was alive was that the branch placed a significant amount of pressure on the injury, serving as a sort of rough tourniquet.

  If I move much farther from it, Matt thought, I’ll bleed out in minutes.

  In the darkness, Matt reached his hands out further than he had before, trying to find some sort of break or weakness in the wood.

  But there were none.

  The wood was strong, and Matt knew he couldn’t break it.

  How long is it? Can I drag it out and find a way to break it?

  Matt gathered his feet under him, wrapped his hands around the tree branch, and pulled.

  He let go instantly, shrieking with the pain. He opened his mouth and vomited blood and bile and schnapps, a stinking mess that caused him to vomit a second time.

  A low rumble filled the air, and a terrible, painful cold swept over him.

  Moments later there was a knocking sound, as if he were in a room with a heavy wooden door and someone was rapping upon it.

  Matt bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from moaning with fear.

  The darkness deepened, and a heartbeat later he was unable to see anything.

  A soft whisper came from his right, and when he looked, there was nothing.

  The whisper repeated on his left, and his attempt to see the origin of the sound ended in the same result as the first.

  But there was someone there.

  Matt could feel them.

  The cold, bitter, and unrelenting cold, pierced his thin summer clothes and stabbed at his flesh. His heart beat quicker, and he felt a warm trickle of blood caress his hand.

  The touch of the liquid on his skin caused him to gasp in shock, his bottom lip throbbing instantly.

  Then the light returned.

  Only a fraction of what had been on the horizon before, but it was enough for Matt to see what had made the noise.

  Two faceless, genderless people stood near him. They were clad in rags, their hair white and dirty, hanging in thick clumps to their chests. Neither did they speak, nor did they acknowledge him.

  Matt knew they were staring at him, from whatever served as eyes.

  He felt it in his heart, and it brought out a plaintive wail from his lips.

  As he finished, a voice took up the same wail from behind the two creatures, and when it did, they stepped aside, revealing a third being.

  This one was shorter than the first two. The hair was white and long, nearly reaching the creature’s waist.

  Matt gagged when he saw the creature’s clothes.

  It was clad in what must have once been a stunning wedding dress, but it was now caked with dirt and grime.

  He stiffened as he looked at the dress.

  Beneath the filth, the gown was familiar. The stitching in the front, the off the shoulder sleeves. Even the hem, with its remnants of pearls, struck at a memory.

  In the darkness, feeling his mind race, Matt stared at the creature in the wedding dress. He looked past the deathly pallor of the face, the clumped and dirty white hair hanging in front of its face.

  “Jenn?” His heart thundered in his chest, the invigorated beating of the muscle driving pain back into his stomach.

  Matt gasped from it, shook his head, and stared at his dead wife.

  “Jenny?” he whispered. “Sweetheart, you’ve come back to help me. Oh, thank you. Thank you!”

  The exclamation sent a wave of agony through him, but he fought it back.

  Jenn walked forward, the faceless creatures flanking her as she came to a stop less than a foot away from him.

  Her face was devoid of emotion, and it hurt him to look at her, but look at her he did.

  “I’m stuck, Jenn,” he whispered. “I need your help.”

  “You’ll get it,” she answered, and the hollow sound in her voice struck him like a blow. “I am the king of the dead, and you shall get my help.”

  The statement confused him, yet he did not question it. He was afraid that she might not answer, that he might wake up and discover he was still bleeding out on the forest floor, impaled by a tree branch.

  She tilted her head to the right, her flat eyes absorbing the last light of the moon.

  “Do you remember when I died?” she asked.

  He shuddered, hating the memory.

  “Do you remember when I died?” she asked again.

  “Yes,” Matt whispered.

  “Tell me,” Jenn said. “Tell me when it was.”

  “January 1st,” he said, closing his eyes against the sadness.

  “What time?” she asked.

  “Thirty-two seconds into the new year,” he said, his voice hoarse
.

  “The first death,” Jenn said. “Thus, I am the Ankou, the king of the dead until the first death of the next new year. I am the king, and it is my task and my right to help gather the dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  She tilted her head to the other side. “You’ve no reason to be sorry. Death is death. It is something we all face.”

  “Please, sweetheart,” Matt said, gasping in pain. “Will you help me, please?”

  “Have I not already said I would?” she asked. There was no anger in her voice. No irritation in her words. She sounded only curious, as if she wasn’t sure she had told him or not.

  “You said you would,” Matt whispered.

  She nodded, leaned forward, and took his hands in her own.

  He cried out in pain, the mere touch of her flesh like needles through his own.

  Matt tried to tell her to stop, to hold on, but then she was standing up and jerking him backward.

  His shrieks rang off the trees as he was dragged off the branch. He felt bark and broken pieces of wood catching and tearing at him. When she dropped him to the earth, he caught sight of something long and thin, glistening in the moonlight, and stuck to the branch.

  Matt lay on his side, panting, the pain excruciating.

  “Help,” he whispered.

  Jenn looked at him, an expression of genuine confusion on her once lovely face.

  “But I am,” she said. “I am helping you die.”

  Matt shook his head, but even that little act sent pain pulsing through him.

  “I am the Ankou,” Jenn said, brushing her long white hair out of her eyes. “I am the king of the dead.”

  The two faceless creatures tilted their heads up toward the sky, horrific wails escaping from their beings, causing the trees to shake.

  Matt looked to his wife, to the creature that had been his wife, and stretched out a hand in one last bid for help.

  She looked at it, shrugged, and stood up.

  Matt felt a glimmer of hope and ignored the pain as she grasped his hand.

  Then, he screamed in horror and surprise as she began dragging him up the hill, leaving his entrails trailing along the forest floor behind them.

  * * *

  She Brought the Monsters

  By Julia Grace