by Terry Yates
“Hey!” she whispered toward the house. “Hey! Ya’ll come out here!”
She was met with silence as she continued to stare at the Hagen’s’ home. “Somebody come out here!” Still nothing.
Now she began to look at the front door of her own house. Something had to be wrong. It wasn’t just that the house was silent, but the whole night was silent. On a muggy night like this, there should be all sorts of sounds filling up the darkness, but there weren’t any. There was nothing but a silence that sent a cold sweat running down Rhonda’s body. She quietly set the bags down and took a step toward the door. The porch creaked as she set her foot down. Normally the first thing she would notice would be the screen door, off its hinges, leaning against the house next to the front door, but Tobin had yanked it off of the jamb after his girlfriend Lydia had broken up with him. Both Tobin and Jeff had promised to fix it…two weeks ago.
She was only three steps away from the front door, but it seemed like a hundred. Fear began to grip her as she took the first two steps. She stood no more than three feet in front of the door, which she could now see was about a third of the way open. Rhonda lifted her foot to take the last step. When she was in front of the door, she would be able to see into the house. Her leg felt heavy as she moved it forward. The porch creaked louder as she set her foot down…another thing that was to be fixed. Even with her left leg stretched out, she still couldn’t see inside. She would have to take the final step. More sweat began to pour down her face as she lifted her right leg. Once her two legs were together, she would know, for good or for bad, what was going on with her family. She slowly dragged her right leg forward. As she did, she began to straighten up. Rhonda put her hand on the doorjamb as her right leg joined her left. She closed her eyes as she stepped directly in front of the door, and then slowly opened them. The house was in disarray, not unusual for her house, but this looked like a bar room brawl had broken out. The couch was not only overturned, it was broken in half and torn to shreds, littering the entire living room. The television was lying on its side, also in several different pieces. Rhonda’s heart began to race and a chill ran over her as she saw what had to be blood splattered all over the room.
“Marshall?” she squeaked. “Tobin, Keith, Ellen?”
Rhonda wanted to run into the house and see to her family, but fear paralyzed her to the spot.
A thousand thoughts went through her mind and none of them good. Something had gone terribly wrong here. Her hand shook almost uncontrollably as she put it against the door and began to push. The door only went a few inches before something heavy stopped its momentum. Whatever it was wasn’t solid. Whatever this was had some give to it. It was soft…like a body. Her lower lip began to quiver and her eyes were becoming wet with tears. She moaned lowly as she put her shoulder against the door and shoved hard. Whatever lay on the other side only moved a few inches before it hit the wall and stopped the door’s momentum completely. She put her shoulder through the gap. It was a tight squeeze, but she would be able to fit through it.
With her shoulder halfway into the house, she drew in her stomach and began to squeeze through the door. Once her head followed her shoulder through the door, she turned it to see what was behind the door. Jammed between the doorway and the wall was something that, to Rhonda, looked like a large side of beef, only this was a large side of beef dressed in what had been her son Tobin’s red and white striped t-shirt…his Gilligan shirt, as the family always referred to it. There was no head, legs, or right arm, just a torso and a bloody left arm with no hand attached.
She tried to put her hand to her mouth before the vomit rose from her throat, but she wasn’t quick enough, and it flowed through her fingers, splattering the floor and the corpse. The tears in her eyes completely blinded her as she moved into the house. Her fear for her life was now replaced by the fear for her family. It didn’t take a genius to see that Tobin was dead. She tried to make herself believe that perhaps somehow, someway, someone was wearing Tobin’s shirt, but she new that wasn’t true. He had been torn apart by something. A thought suddenly hit her. What if one of the others…Jeff or Keith…had snapped and did away with the rest of the family and was waiting somewhere…hiding…waiting to sneak up behind her and finish the job? But she had to find out what happened to everyone else.
Rhonda sobbed loudly as she pushed her way completely through the door. She heard the torso’s ribs cracking and breaking as she pushed the door against it. Once inside the house, she scanned the living room half expecting to be attacked, but nothing or no one ran at her with an ax, although it looked like someone had, and left making a loud noise as they exited. Every piece of furniture lay in shambles. Very little of her yellow wallpaper was visible because every single wall was nearly covered in blood. In some places, blood splattered the walls, and in others, it was smeared. Either way, there must have been gallons of it spilled. Something else on the walls caught her eye. There was what looked to be like large scratches on each wall. They looked like…claw marks! And they were huge. It looked like there were six or more inches separating each claw. So it hadn’t been a murderer. It had been an animal, and by the looks of it, a very large animal, like a bear, but they never saw that many bears in Harmonville. Whatever this thing was, it had completely destroyed her home.
“Marshall?” she called out as she stepped over a broken easy chair. “Keith?”
Rhonda began to move toward the kitchen, but the couch was blocking her way. Her mind didn’t even comprehend the fact that the couch had been sitting on the other side of the room, nor did she comprehend how, through all of this carnage, the ceiling light had managed to remain unbroken. Her two living room lamps were each shattered beyond repair, but not the overhead. The kitchen and the rest of the house were dark, but not the living room. That had been the reason that she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary when she had driven up. Had the house been dark with Marshall’s truck and Tobin’s 1997 Honda Civic been sitting in the driveway, she would’ve known that something was amiss.
As Rhonda began to move into the kitchen, her left foot slipped on something wet, and her right foot slipped out from under her. Grabbing the edge of the broken couch with her right arm, was the only thing that kept her from hitting the floor. Pain shot from her elbow to her shoulder. Rhonda wasn’t as small as she’d once been, and her arm was holding up her entire weight. She managed to turn over and put her other arm onto the couch, the whole time her feet and legs running in place in the slippery muck. She managed to pull herself up until her stomach was lying across the couch. She dropped to her knees into what she knew had to be flesh and blood. She began to sob loudly as she rested her head on the back of the sofa. She knew that whatever her knees and legs were soaking in had been the remainders of another, or who knew, the rest of her family. They were all dead. She knew it. She could feel it.
After several minutes of kneeling in the puddle crying, she lifted her head up off the couch. Tears and mucus stained the upholstery. She found herself trying to wipe it clean. Through her sobs, she heard a noise, faint at first, because it was coming from down the road. Before she could distinguish what the sound was, she heard another…two of them…and loud. They were screams…loud, terrifying, long wails of agony. Whatever had been in her house must be at the Hagen’s now and doing exactly the same thing as it had done here.
As she got to her feet, she heard a gunshot. It was a shotgun if she wasn’t mistaken. Having lived in rural Oklahoma her whole life, Rhonda knew the sound of rifle fire. She began to move back toward the front door. After a few moments, she heard another rifle shot, followed by what must’ve been a pistol. There were guns firing. The shots were followed immediately by several terror filled screams.
When Rhonda walked back into the lighted living room, she looked down at her pants and shoes. They were caked with blood and bits of flesh. Her bottom lip began to tremble again as she wondered which one of her family members was attached to her jeans and shoes. She
began to sob loudly again as she moved to the front door. She didn’t know why she was leaving. Whatever had been there was gone and reeking havoc elsewhere. Her family was dead and the cops would be there soon. This much noise was bound to attract attention from the townspeople.
She wiped the snot from her nose with her sleeve as she reached the front door, turning her head to the right so that she wouldn’t have to look at the thing that had once been her Tobin. When she reached the door, she opened it enough to get through, not wanting to feel it hit the corpse.
Rhonda slipped sideways through the doorway, managing not to touch Tobin’s body, and stepped out onto the porch. She looked down at her bloody pants again and began to stumble toward the edge of the porch. She stopped just before the steps, put her hands on her bloody knees, lowered her head, and vomited. When she was through, Rhonda wiped her mouth and stumbled down the three stairs, missing the last step as she tumbled onto the concrete walkway…one of the few things Jeff had actually done for her in their long marriage was to build a walkway in front of the porch…a walkway that just put a three inch gap in her chin and loosened several bottom teeth. Her arms were scraped from her elbow to her wrists while trying to protect her face from the fall. They were both bloody and she was pretty sure she had a cracked wrist. She also felt a sharp pain in her right knee.
Another scream tore through the night, causing Rhonda to look up and turn her head toward the houses down the road. Her whole body throbbed as she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes. Just as she got to her knees, she heard a sound that stopped her cold. It was the howl of an animal, more than likely a wolf, which they sometimes heard in this part of the country, but this howl had a sound that crowed of triumphant victory. She stood frozen, afraid to move. The hairs on her body began to rise, and she could feel each goose bump as it began to form. Just as the howl was about to die away, it was followed by another howl, this one higher in pitch, and that one was followed by another that was so high that it almost made her ears hurt. There was more than one animal! There must be a pack of wolves roaming the town in search of food. Where were the police?
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, when she heard sirens blaring. She slowly and painfully lifted herself up. It was either Harlan Gaskin or Earl K. Avery the two deputies on Sheriff Mary Sue Carter’s police force, or it was Sheriff Carter herself. There were only two cars for three police officers, so Harlan and Earl shared one and Mary sue Carter took the other one.
Rhonda screamed out as she painfully made her way to her feet. She bent down and felt her knee, which she knew was already swollen. Rhonda stayed bent for a moment before straightening up and taking her first slow steps. Pain shot through her knee as she tried to limp across the grass. She could feel the burning from her scraped hands, and the throbbing ache from her bleeding chin.
When she got halfway across the yard, she was able to see down the road. The blue and red lights of the police car were blinking brightly. She heard another scream from one of the houses just as she heard the police car’s door shut. With all of the screaming and mayhem, she wondered why the deputy would bother to close the door of his cruiser.
Rhonda made her way across the yard and stepped off of the curb, and onto the highway. The full moon was high and the road, which had only a few streetlights, seemed to be lit up. She didn’t know why but she began to limp down the highway. She got no more than a couple of feet before she heard what sounded like Harlan Gaskin yelling for someone to freeze, but his sentence was cut off by the sound of a shotgun blast, which was closely followed by the sound of the man screaming out in agony. She heard a snarl, then nothing.
She continued to move toward the police lights, common sense telling her that no good was going to come from going in that direction, but she was drawn to it like a beacon. The closer she got to the Hanson house, the more she thought about turning around, but she was going downhill now and everything seemed pointless anyway. Her family was dead, her neighbors were dead, and she was pretty sure Harlan Gaskin was dead. He was almost fifty and in no shape to take on whatever seemed to be wiping out her entire street.
She was no more than a hundred feet from the police cruiser when she saw something massive move across the road at a tremendous speed. She stopped in her tracks, too afraid to move. Rhonda could feel the sweat dripping down her. It was always muggy in their little corner of the world, and now with fear and terror thrown in, sweat was dripping off of her by the bucket lode.
She thought her heart would pound out of her chest as she tried to hold her breath. Every time she exhaled, a gasp would emanate from between her lips, making it sound like a loud moan. She kept her head straight, but moved her eyes to the left of the road where she had seen whatever it was cross. With such a low, bright, full moon, it didn’t take her eyes long to adjust to the dark. The pulsing of the police lights made it hard for her to keep her eyes focused for very long, though. Even though her eyes hadn’t completely adjusted, she could tell by the horrific sound of tearing, chewing, and slurping what was taking place just on the other side of the ditch. It was the only sound that she heard anymore. There were no more gunshots and there was no more screaming. Complete silence. Even the cicadas who generally filled up the night air with their mating songs were quiet.
The police lights continued to strobe, but Rhonda’s eyes had completely adjusted to the dark now. She saw something massive and hairy bent over the body of the dead policeman. The corpse was no longer whole, but severed or torn in two. The top half of the body was slightly askew. The arms were straight up over its head while the head was tilted to the side, because it was only hanging on by a few pieces of skin. Rhonda couldn’t help but think of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz when the flying monkeys rip him apart. Rhonda remained frozen to the spot, unable to look away from the scene before her. The thing pulled and tore at Harlan, tossing the deputy’s lower half to the side and concentrating on the torso. The ribs broke with sickening cracks as the creature spread the ribs apart until they were lying on each side of the man. The thing then lowered its head and began to feast on the fresh kill.
Rhonda couldn’t take her eyes off it. She just watched, transfixed…so much so that she didn’t even hear the small ‘pat’ ‘pat’ ‘pat’ of tiny paws, or the scraping of sharp, tiny claws as they raked themselves across the blacktop.
CHAPTER 25
Simon parked his rig on the street in a fire lane. He didn’t care. Let ‘em write me a ticket, he thought to himself, a broad grin crossing his face. Let ‘em try to do something about it. They might just find themselves in a world of deep shit.
He jumped onto the sidewalk and began to walk quickly, enjoying the sound of his boots as they clopped loudly with each step. Everyone that he passed did a double take at him, and he knew the reason. His face. It was changing. With only forty-five minutes until sundown, his face was morphing with each few minutes that passed. As he walked past a department store, he looked at the plate glass windows and saw his reflection looking back at him. His face looked more like a bat now that it had just hours ago. He grinned at the reflection as he studied his strut. Blond hair, denim jacket, tight jeans, and snake skin cowboy boots. He WAS a sight. L.A. was going to get a screaming dose of the shits after he was through tonight. He looked up at the moon, which had already appeared in the sky. It was full, but Simon guessed that it wasn’t high enough or bright enough or late enough to change, but he could feel things happening inside his body. It felt like his blood was boiling, and he was getting pains in his stomach, but they were pains that he was enjoying immensely knowing that in a very short time now, that he would change into something great, something beautiful, and something deadly. He could hear what the people across the street were saying to one another, his vision, especially at night, was greatly improved and enhanced. But it was his sense of smell that really invigorated him. He could smell everything and all at once. Perfume, tar, hairspray, bird shit, feet, hamburgers, and smog. He turned his nose to the
sky and gazed at the moon. She seemed to be talking to him, beckoning him to come to her….to bite her…to feed off of her.
As Simon strutted down the street, he took his comb out of his back pocket and began to comb his hair straight back. He giggled as he heard the voices talking all around him and about him.
“What is that?
“Did you see that face?”
“Freaky.”
“Gross!”
Once or twice, he actually heard complements on his body, but once they saw his bat-like face, he could hear the gasps and the shrieks. Oh, if this shit-hole town only knew what was about to come marching through, it would scatter to every bar and church that it could find. If the people thought that the country had changed because of those hurricanes and tsunami’s down south, they should stick around for the next chapter in this country’s reawakening.
Simon crossed street after street, not really sure or caring where he was going. He just walked. Block after block, he strode. He’d been trying to count the blocks, but had drifted off a few times. He noticed that he could hear his own loud heartbeat. Thump…thump…thump…it went as he bee-bopped down the street. He could also hear other heartbeats, too. Some fast and some slow. Thump…thump…thump…came from a young lady of about twenty. Thumpity…thump…thump…went the heartbeat of the obese middle aged man who was just stepping onto the sidewalk and walking toward him. He doesn’t have long, Simon thought to himself. He then watched as a nervous looking lady came out of what looked to be a fleabag motel…not even a motel, really…more like a hostel. She was a thirty-something year old with a short, blonde haircut. She was tucking her white blouse into her blue skirt and adjusting both to make them look straight and not like she’d just left her job, probably at a bank or a hotel, and met some stud she’s been seeing, in the worst possible part of town that there was, just to ensure that no one, especially her husband, saw her. Simon could smell the man all over her. She reeked with perfume, cologne, aftershave, deodorant, and sweat. They were all mixed together, yet he could distinguish each one separately.