by N. C. Reed
“Not good,” Chuck shook his head. This was another bad sign. It was possibly a sign that whatever had been summoned was on the move. Possibly even here in town. Even a smaller creature could wreak havoc in the small town. There were very few defenses against them. Most of them were arcane in nature, and would require experienced practitioners to execute.
Experienced and powerful.
Chuck wasn’t sure his small group was up to such a task, either.
Chapter Four
The gang met up at the front entrance of the high school as usual the next morning. Donny and Donna were there first, and were still arguing about whatever Donny had heard the night before when the others arrived.
“I know what I heard,” Donny said heatedly.
“You already said you didn’t know what it was,” Donna shot back, smirking.
“You know what I mean!” Donny exclaimed. “Stop using my words against me!”
“How can I help that you’re too stupid to know how to say anything?” Donna replied, her smirk growing larger by the second. She lived for times like this. Donny was an easy target.
“What are you two arguing about now?” Angie asked, eyes rolling. The twins were famous, or infamous, among the group for their titanic arguments.
“Donny thinks he heard a monster last night,” Donna said derisively, laughing until she saw Chip stiffen.
“What?” she demanded.
“What did it sound like?” he asked Donny, concern evident on his face.
“I can’t describe it exactly,” Donny admitted. “Never heard anything like it before. And I didn’t say it was a monster, either,” he shot his sister a dirty look. “All I said was that it. . . .”
“What did it sound like, Donny?” Chip interrupted, urgency in his voice.
“Well, kinda like a grinding of some kind,” Donny’s face furrowed in thought. “Like metal gears grinding, mixed with the old steam organ at church. It made the hairs on my neck tingle. And I think every dog in the Hollow was barking afterward, too. Sure sounded like it anyway.”
Angie was looking at Chip while Donny spoke, and noticed how pale Chip grew at the description.
“What?” she demanded. Donna had stopped making fun of her brother and was paying attention, and so was Alvin.
“I. . .I heard the same thing,” Chip told them hesitantly. “Last night, about eight or so, I guess, when I was taking the trash out.”
“Yeah, that’s about right,” Donny nodded. “We were doing homework.”
“Are you two making this up?” Donna demanded suddenly. “Did you get together to make up some kind of lame story to sucker us in?”
“No,” Chip replied quietly as Donny just shook his head. “I even told my dad about it. I don’t know if he heard it or not, but he went outside to listen. I don’t know what it was either, Donny, but the hair on my neck and arms tingled when I heard it.”
The warning bell for the beginning of the school day rang before anyone else could speak, and the group gathered their packs and made their way inside. As they split up to go to their separate classes, their eyes met. By unspoken agreement, the friends agreed not to speak of this until they had a chance to discuss it later.
Chip went to class wondering if their attempt to get Waldo back had went awry somehow. Maybe he should tell his father what he’d done? Show him the ritual they had used? He’d probably get into trouble, but at least a grown-up would know what had been done. His father was pretty smart, and was always messing with those old books of his. He’d probably know if they had caused something to go wrong, somehow.
Donny headed to his own class now more sure than ever that he’d heard a monster. He didn’t connect the possible monster to their failed attempt to return Waldo to life. Just the idea that some monster was on the loose around town was exciting. Donny was too excited about it to be scared, in fact. Why, this could make Creasy’s Hollow famous!
Donna walked beside her brother, still wondering if the two stupid boys had made all this up to get attention, or to try and scare the rest of them. She wouldn’t put it past either of them, and together there was probably nothing Donny and Chip wouldn’t at least try to accomplish. Sometimes they were too clever for their own good.
Alvin was thinking about the two stories, but unlike Donny, he was also thinking about their little cult experiment the day before. He was glad he hadn’t heard anything last night, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He wondered if there was a connection between the two events. Could they have unwittingly caused some kind of monster to be made out of poor Waldo? Just the thought of something so horrible made him want to cry.
Angie was concerned as well. Chip was a joker and had been all their lives. But he hadn’t been joking this morning, she was sure of that. She’d watched the blood drain from his face as Donny described what he’d heard, and Angie knew from experience that Chip wasn’t that good of an actor. It probably wasn’t a monster, but whatever the two had heard was real. Or at least they thought it was.
Despite the group’s thoughts, school work soon drew their attention away from monsters, occult rituals, or anything else other than getting through the school day and preparing for the week-end.
Other problems would just have to wait.
*****
Kat Harold had opened her restaurant at five am., as usual, and she and her crew began preparing for breakfast.
Kat’s mind was far afield as she went through her morning routine. So many times she had done these familiar things that her hands would work from muscle memories alone, so that left her free to think about the day before.
She wanted to be angry at Chuck for not knowing what had happened, but this morning realized that wasn’t fair. Chuck knew more than the rest of them did because he studied more. That didn’t make him infallible, or an authority. It just made him their leader.
Chuck’s reminder of why they had started their little group had also hit home. The group had never done anything that even bordered on malicious or evil. They had performed rituals for good health, healing, and for success in business. Not at the expense of anyone else, either. The small group of friends had no interest in harming others, or seeing harm caused.
The door bell ringing jarred Kat out of her musings, and she put on a smile and went to wait on the first customer of the day, leaving thoughts of summons and spells behind her.
Chuck yawned as he sat down behind his desk and started getting organized for his day. Friday usually wasn’t too bad on him, though he did have a business lunch today at twelve.
He had stayed awake into the late hours studying, but was no closer to an answer than he had been the day before when the blue energy wave had knocked him from his feet. He wasn’t sure there was an answer to be found, at least not in the books he possessed.
This was above him. The event of yesterday afternoon was like nothing he had ever encountered, and his studying had revealed nothing that he hadn’t already known, or at least suspected. There had been real power behind it. A level of power that he and his small circle were unlikely to be able to match. They just weren’t that kind of people. Everything they had ever done had been positive in nature. Yesterday had been anything but positive.
Chip’s report of something ‘howling’ last night had not been encouraging, either. While Chuck hadn’t been able to hear anything like it himself, he had heard what sounded like every dog in the Hollow up in arms. And dogs, historically, reacted poorly to things summoned to the Earth from other realms. For Chuck, that was just another puzzle piece.
The phone ringing jolted him out of that train of thought. He shook his head to clear it a bit, then answered the phone, starting his work day. He would have to worry about the rest later.
*****
Alvin and Valina Thomas were quiet as they began their work day at the hardware store. Both were thinking about yesterday, and wondering what had happened. And who was behind it.
They had never intended to get so deeply
involved into this cult type stuff, but both had to agree that their business had improved since it started. Drawing energy from the Earth to heal, to be successful, to have a better life had seemed ideal. Still did at times.
But yesterday had shown them there was always a dark side to things. And someone had tapped into that darkness yesterday. There was little doubt of that, according the Chuck. He was the most knowledgeable of them all, so they didn’t question his statement. Besides, they had already known that something powerful had happened.
Normally the two would have been talking back and forth this time of the day, either with good natured bantering or discussing business details. But neither was in the mood for such things this morning, lost in their concerns about what was happening around them, and how it might affect them before it was over.
The phone began ringing, and as Valina moved to answer, a contractor arrived to pick-up supplies for a job he was working on. The couple had to put aside their fears for the moment and concentrate on business.
*****
Stacey Douglas worked part-time at the Creasy’s Hollow library three days per week. She also had a home business doing sewing and crafting other items for people on order. Her work was purchased local, and over the internet as well, so she was rarely bored, and her income supplemented Chuck’s nicely. Together they had made a good home and life, for themselves and their son.
Friday was one of Stacey’s days at the library. She was pushing a cart of recently returned books through the aisles, placing them back on the shelves for the next borrower. Doing so wasn’t particularly mentally challenging, so she had plenty of time to reflect on the previous days events.
In particular she hadn’t like the tone that the others had adopted toward her husband. A tone that had bordered on accusatory when he didn’t have the answers they were looking for. Chuck wasn’t to blame for what happened anymore than they were, and to expect him to know exactly who had done something like that, and why, was ridiculous.
The group had started when Belinda’s first husband, Donald Craig, had been killed overseas. Support, healing, stress-relief, that kind of thing. Over time it had grown into a small coven, if that was even the right word, that worked for the betterment of themselves in positive ways. Ways that didn’t include acts against anyone else. Positive results for positive actions, that was the motto they lived by.
Yesterday someone had crossed that line. Stacey was positive that no one in their group had done it. They simply didn’t have the power or the knowledge to do so. Chuck might have the knowledge, or know where to find it, but was not strong enough, alone, to perform such a ritual. And even if he was, he wouldn’t do it. He had always been the most insistent of the group that all actions had to be positive in nature.
All of that pointed to another group in Creasy’s Hollow. Or worse, at least to Stacey’s way of thinking, one very powerful individual. If one person had been able to produce that kind of energy then it wasn’t just the group that might be at risk. The entire town might be in danger.
“Stacey? Can you come help me for a minute?”
Broken from her reverie, Stacey moved to assist her fellow worker, leaving the cart, and her thoughts about who might be to blame for the summons behind for now.
*****
Belinda Craig-Johnson went through her day as usual, delivering orders of Mary Kay cosmetics and Avon products that had been ordered the week before. She represented a number of companies as a salesperson, and made a pretty good salary doing it, though it did require a lot of driving. She also had a website that sold the same products that added to her income, but not her work load, since she simply had the company ship directly to the consumer.
Today, however, she was driving, her seats filled with small colorful bags full of products ordered by the women, and a few men, of Creasy’s Hollow. Part of the service was such delivery. And it allowed Belinda to get in on all the gossip, which was an added plus so far as she was concerned.
Not that she was a busy body or course. Never let it be said that Belinda Craig-Johnson was nosy. But she saw nothing wrong with knowing what was going on around her. That’s all.
Today had been an interesting day of gossip, too. Several people she had spoken to had commented on the blue energy wave, or power surge as many had been calling it. Others had commented on a disturbance later that evening that had set practically every dog in the Hollow to barking and growling. Several people had apparently heard a wild animal howling as well. Or growling, depending on who you spoke to about it. The one thing all of them agreed on was that it had scared the tar out of them, and made them seek shelter inside right away.
None of that made Belinda feel any better, considering what she knew. If Chuck had been right, and the spell had been a summoning, then whatever ‘animal’ people had heard last night, and upset all the dogs in town, might have been something very bad indeed. If it was, then those who had heard it had every right to be afraid.
She tried to shove her worries aside as she arrived at her next delivery. Thelma’s Beauty Shop was one of her bigger customers, and there were always plenty of tales circulating among the women who were there having hair or nails done.
Carrying several packages, Belinda painted a smile on her face and stepped inside, leaving the problems of yesterday outside, if only temporarily.
*****
When the dismissal bell rang that afternoon, students streamed out of the building at a steady rate, heading for whatever fun or work awaited them for the weekend. The gang wasn’t in such a hurry today, despite the fact that it was Friday. Instead, they ambled along together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Angie was the first to break that silence.
“Okay, what’s everyone thinking, here?” she demanded. “We’re acting like we’re going to a funeral or something.”
“I’m just thinking about last night,” Chip admitted. “And yesterday,” he added, frowning. “Trying to make sense of what I heard.”
“I’m thinking about who I can call about the Monster of Creasy’s Hollow!” Donny proclaimed, grinning ear-to-ear. “I’m hoping to get a picture, or at least a recording of that howling sound to send to someone. Monster hunters and stuff.”
“Oh, get real, you dork,” Donna rolled her eyes. “You heard someone trying to grind their car into gear without the clutch or something. Idiot,” she added under her breath.
“I’m not so sure,” Alvin said quietly. “I don’t think it’s a co-incidence that they heard that particular noise last night.”
“What do you mean?” Angie demanded.
“Well, we do that. . .that thing, yesterday, for Waldo,” Alvin replied. “And then that wave happens, and Waldo disappears. We have no idea where he went, or what happened to his body. Later on last night, Chip and Donny just happen to hear something howling, or growling, that upsets every dog in hearing distance? Doesn’t that strike anyone as peculiar at all? Even a little?”
The group grew quiet again, considering Alvin’s words. He had made some good points that no one in the group could actually dispute. All solid facts with no conjecture.
“Might be,” Chip mused into the silence. “Maybe I made a mistake,” he admitted to them, looking a bit scared. “Maybe I shouldn’t have got you guys to do it.”
“We all agreed to do it, Chip,” Angie said, and the others nodded, Alvin a bit reluctantly. Even Donna agreed with that, but. . . .
“Look, even if I believe that you guys heard something, and I’m not saying I do,” she pointed a finger at them, eyes narrowed, “there’s nothing that ties whatever you might have heard to poor Waldo. Waldo got killed by a reckless jerk in a car. We tried to bring him back because we all loved him. It just didn’t work, that’s all.”
“I just don’t know,” Chip said softly. “I just have a feeling that I should have left well enough alone. I mean, I really didn’t think it would hurt anything, guys,” he told them, eyes wide with honest regret. “I just wanted us to get Waldo ba
ck, and thought I had found the perfect way to do it. What if I led us into something really bad?”
“Bad like what?” Angie asked.
“Bad like I don’t know what,” Chip shrugged. “What if Alvin’s right, and we, I, turned Waldo into some kind of monster?”
“Oh, that would be so cool!” Donny just had to say. “Maybe we could try it on something else! Like a squirrel maybe?” The excitement in his voice and on his face was all too clear.
“Can you give that crap a rest, Einstein?” Donna snapped out. “In case you missed it, Chip’s worried that we may have transformed our dog, that we loved, into some kind of monster!” The others nodded angrily at Donny, who had the grace to look ashamed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s just exciting to me, that’s all,” he said lamely.
“Well, if we did transform him into a monster, then we have to do something about it,” Angie declared. The others looked at her in shock.
“Well, what would you suggest?” Alvin was the first to ask. “I guess we could get our pellet guns and go after him, right?” His voice contained more than a hint of sarcasm.
“No, but we do have to do something,” Angie retorted. “If we did it, then we’re responsible. We have to fix it.”
“I’m the one responsible,” Chip said miserably. “It was my idea. But what if it can’t be fixed? What if we did something permanent?”