Coming of Age: Three Novellas (Dark Suspense, Gothic Thriller, Supernatural Horror)

by Douglas Clegg

  “Scratch moves pretty fast,” Josh said, then noticed Bronwyn’s arched eyebrows. “We’re on a first name basis.”

  “It might not even want us. But if we walk that-a-way,” Bronwyn pointed to the road, “maybe we stand a chance.”

  “Not if it gets us,” Tammy said, keeping her eyes on the fire.

  “It might be full,” Josh said, and felt a little sickly thinking of this. “I mean, if I remember right, it said on those signs that it drank the blood and wore the skins and used the meat for food. I mean, spiders, when they eat one fly, they don’t always eat more.”

  “Yeah, but they wrap them up for later,” Bronwyn chortled, and then covered her mouth. “I can’t believe I’m making a joke.”

  “You feel that, too? That light-headedness?” Josh whispered as if it were a dirty secret.

  Bronwyn nodded. “Yup. It must be shock.”

  Then, he got up and went to the outer ring of light and vomited. He came back, popped a beer open, and guzzled it. “I’m talking like a nutcase. Maybe it’s shock. Maybe it’s just insanity. Loony tunies. I got the looney tunies.”

  “We all have them,” Bronwyn said. “What do we do. Sit here until it comes back?”

  “The car,” Josh said. “It’s like a tank. We put a ring of fire around it, and we wait. That thing didn’t break out through the trunk. It can’t do that. We’re safest in the car. Then, someone will have seen the flare, and will see the ring of fire around the car. And they’ll come.”

  Someone had seen the flare out in the middle of that desert hellhole: Billy Dunne. He and Dave Olshaker, whose ass still stung from rock-salt shot out of Charlie Goodrow’s shotgun, were staying at a Motel 69 five miles out of a town called Naga, a good fifteen miles to the northeast, off the two-lane road that ventured off the highway that had ventured—via several other roads—off the main highway. Billy was just coming back from picking up some burgers and fries from a local drive-through, and as he drove down a desolate one-lane road back to the highway, he saw in the distance a strange orange light, briefly. Back at Motel 69, he told Dave, who was in bed already watching Mork & Mindy. Dave went out to the parking lot, and Billy pointed to the general direction.

  “It’s gotta be them,” Dave said, wolfing down his hamburger, with its sauce and mayo dribbling down his chin. “I know they’re up there. We know they’re outta gas. We gotta go find ‘em, Billy.”

  “What do we do with them?” Billy asked.

  Dave snarled, “First, we just grab Tammy and get the hell out of there.”

  “It was smart to siphon their tank,” Billy said.

  “It was a stroke of genius if I do say so myself,” Dave Olshaker said.

  Their evening had been none too pleasant.

  When they’d arrived at the Brakedown Palace, Dave had gone in after Tammy, and had left instructions for Billy to empty their gas tank so they couldn’t take off too fast. Then, inside, the place had been empty, so he followed the long corridor out into the long Quonset hut, along the creepy trail to the final room where, suddenly, all hell was breaking loose, and Charlie Goodrow had begun shooting at everybody, Dave included, and got him right in the left butt cheek with a powerful spray of rock salt. At first, he thought he’d been hit with a real bullet, but then, with the stinging, he knew exactly what it was.

  While Tammy and her jerk friends took off in their car, he was stuck behind with Charlie Goodrow who threatened to call the police.

  “Go ahead and call ‘em,” Dave had said. “Send ‘em after those assholes. They should be thrown in jail for everything they’ve done.”

  Charlie Goodrow had looked at him long and hard, and set down his shotgun. “You’re not with them?”

  “Not hardly,” Dave said. He pointed to Billy Dunne. “Me and him’s been tracking them, because the Snake with the blond hair stole my girl right out from under me.”

  “They stole my attraction,” Charlie Goodrow said. “But…well, I guess I shouldn’t call the police just yet.”

  “Call ‘em,” Dave said. “Please. They deserve arresting.”

  But Charlie Goodrow, for some reason Dave couldn’t figure out, wouldn’t call the cops. He said something about things being better left alone sometimes. Something about worse things coming when good went after bad.

  Instead, Goodrow told Dave and Billy to get the hell out of his gas station before he pulled the shotgun out again.

  Then, Dave and Billy had decided they’d lost them for good. They got the motel room and figured they’d better turn around that night. “You don’t need her,” Billy said, his arm over his buddy’s shoulder. “You can do better than her.”

  “Yeah, she’s a bitch,” Dave said, shrugging off his friend’s arm. He didn’t feel comfortable like that. It felt wrong.

  But now, looking out at the dark night, after midnight, the sting in his ass didn’t feel quite so bad. He thought of what he’d do to her if he had her. If he got her. First, he’d tie her wrists to the bed, then he’d strip her, using his teeth to tear her clothes off. Then, he’d give her what she wanted most from him. He got hard, standing there, thinking about it.

  Then, he said, “Billy, let’s get on up to those hills up there. We gotta track ‘em down.”

  Billy Dunne felt like he was driving in circles for nearly an hour before Dave looked ahead in the dark and pointed to something off another road to the West. “Look, that must be them,” he said. Billy glanced over and saw what looked like a fire off the road. “This is too easy,” Dave said. “They’re stranded. They got nothin’. My dream’s coming true, Billy. Truer than true.”

  Billy swerved and made a U-turn, and then went West on a slender, barely-paved road and then went north. He nearly hit a coyote as he drove, and he thought for just a second that he felt Dave’s hand on his knee.

  Josh had just finished positioning some rocks and dry sticks about ten feet away from the Pimpmobile. Then, he helped Tammy arrange some on the other side. She’d dressed again, at first scared to reach into the trunk, but he’d used the flashlight to show her that no monsters lurked there. Then, they’d set to work, and in some respects, setting up the circle of fire as a perimeter around the Pimpmobile took all their minds off the terror that was somewhere out in the desert.

  “Maybe it’s over,” Tammy said. She sat on the hood of the car, cross-legged. The fires comforted her.

  “Could be,” Josh said.

  “Someone has to feed the fire,” Bronwyn said.

  “We’ll take turns.” Then, he noticed the doubtful look on Bronwyn’s face. “Someone will see this. There’s a town within twenty miles of here. The flare went up. Now we have a large fire.”

  “They may just think it’s a fire. Nobody lives up here. Nobody cares if there’s a fire,” Bronwyn said. “There’s not enough to burn.”

  “That’s not true,” Josh said. “Fires on the desert can get out of control. It can be devastating if it spreads. Someone will see this from a distance. I bet you can see it for miles.”

  “We can’t see a town. I’m not sure they can see us.”

  “Someone’s driving out there. Someone’s on the roads. They’ll see it and stop somewhere and maybe call the police,” he said. “You have to believe.”

  “I believe,” Tammy said. “I believe that Jesus Christ is my personal savior and is the son of the everlasting God.”

  “Good for you,” Josh said.

  “I’ll pray for all of us,” Tammy said.

  When Josh went around to make sure there was some dry brush to toss in one of the fires, Bronwyn followed him. “I didn’t want to say this in front of her.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Josh. How can this be happening? Can you tell me?” She seemed like a little girl now, even with the cigarette hanging out of her mouth. “How is this humanly possible?”

  “I guess it’s not,” he said.

  She smoked some more, giving him a look she’d never seen from him. “Can you hold me?” she asked
. “Right now. I know it’s…” She was about to say “weird,” he was certain, but he didn’t let her get to that word. He went over to her and put his arms around her. She laid her head against his shoulder and began sobbing.

  “We’ll get through this,” he whispered, smelling her hair and feeling weak and strong at the same time.

  Tammy was the first to get sleepy, and Josh promised her that he’d stand guard. Then, he told Bronwyn to go sleep for a bit, also. “We have the fire, we know it doesn’t like fire. It’s not going to cross over to the car. But if it did, you’re inside a metal cage in that car. I doubt obsidian claws can even get through a car door,” he said.

  “Only if you sit in the car, too,” she said. “I want you safe.”

  Tammy and Bronwyn lay together across the backseat, using blankets and rolled up clothes as pillows. Josh sat up front, his one hand on the gun, his other on the Bic lighter as if this would help ward off Scratch. He kept looking around, feeling like he heard things. He didn’t know what good it would do, but he locked the doors. Then, he felt sleepy, but fought it. All the beer had done a number on him, and he felt exhausted and drained on top of that—but he didn’t want to sleep. Not that night. He was going to stay awake. He could sleep all day long if he had to, once they got to safety.

  Then, suddenly, without even thinking he’d closed his eyes: He was on a waterbed that undulated with gentle waves, and Bronwyn and Tammy were there, too. They were both naked, kissing each other sweetly, nothing too dirty, and playing innocently with each other’s breasts.

  Then, Tammy reached over and grabbed his hand and brought it down between her legs. Then, they were not naked at all, nor were they the two women from his college. Instead, he was back home, and it was his mother and his aunt who took his hands and were taking him to school.

  His aunt said, “You never told us that you didn’t pass your Chemistry final.”

  “But I did,” he said, or tried to, but no one seemed to hear him. His mother gave him a stern look, and then she let go of his hand, and suddenly he was back in high school, but it wasn’t even full of high school students—instead, the children looked as if they were nine or ten. He was in elementary school—he was sure of it. How had this happened? He tried to tell the teacher who came to get him that he was already in college, that he shouldn’t have to go back to the fifth grade, but the teacher—Mrs. Raleigh, who had once humiliated him in front of the entire fifth grade—told him that he needed to mind his Ps and Qs.

  “But this isn’t right!” he shouted. “I’m almost twenty.”

  The other kids in the fifth grade looked at him funny, but paid very little attention.

  Then, he noticed something even worse: he had no pants on. He sat there in his shirt, but no pants, no underwear. Hanging out. And no one said anything. Why hadn’t his mother noticed? How could she have let him leave the house without his pants on? Without something on? He tried to pull his shirt down over his balls, but it wouldn’t go far enough.

  Someone began banging at the window of the classroom. Someone yelled at him.

  Josh opened his eyes, wrenched from the dream.

  Tammy had already begun screaming—not just screaming, but it was like the sound cats made when they were in heat, it was a wail that barely sounded human. Bronwyn was up, and apparently had been shaking Josh.

  “It’s gonna get us!” Tammy screamed. “Oh my god, it’s gonna kill us!”

  But Josh saw headlights out the window. And then, like a nightmare come true, Dave Olshaker’s face suddenly appeared against the windshield. “Hey you losers! How’s it hangin’?”

  “Get out of here!” Bronwyn shouted.

  “How the hell did they get here?” Josh said, still wondering if this might be an extension of his dream.

  Bronwyn had to slap Tammy to get her to stop the scream. Dave and his buddy were shaking the car up and down, trying the doors, running around the car.

  “We should tell them,” Bronwyn said.

  “Are you crazy? Keep your doors locked. That guy’s insane,” Josh said. He had already dropped the gun on the floor of the Pimpmobile.

  Dave was shouting, “Tammy! You’re coming with me, baby! Do you understand?”

  “Don’t let him take me,” Tammy said.

  “They have a car,” Josh said. “Oh my god. We can get out.”

  Bronwyn rolled her window down slightly. “Hey! Guys! We know you’re mad. We know it. But there’s some kind of…” She paused, unsure of what to say. “There’s a killer out here. We need help.”

  “Griff is dead!” Tammy shouted. “Griff is dead!”

  It probably was this cry that stopped Dave Olshaker in his tracks. He and Billy Dunne looked at each other for a second, then Dave started laughing.

  “Oh my god,” Bronwyn said. Josh looked back at her. She was looking up toward the headlights of the pick-up truck. “They ruined part of our fire. Part of the ring we made.”

  “So?” He turned and saw the break in the circle of fire.

  “What if it’s been out there? Waiting? Just outside the fire?”

  “No, it’s not,” Josh said.

  But just as quickly, they all heard a woman’s high-pitched scream and Josh looked at Tammy but her mouth was closed.

  It was Billy Dunne.

  Or rather, it wasn’t Billy Dunne.

  He had been there, standing just in the headlights in front of the Pimpmobile, and suddenly, he was gone.

  They heard a thud beneath the car.

  Dave Olshaker glanced around the car, stepping back from it.

  Inside the car, they were silent.

  Then, Josh said, “Just go away. Just go.”

  “Billy?” Dave walked around the car. “Billy?”

  “We’ve got to let him in,” Josh said, leaning over to unlock the driver’s side door.

  “No,” Tammy said. “Don’t let him in.” She had a curious anger in her voice.

  “Dave!” Josh shouted. “Dave, come around here, get in!”

  But Dave Olshaker was looking around the car, crouching down as if looking under it.

  “Don’t let him in,” Tammy said.

  “Tammy?” Bronwyn asked, softly.

  “He did something bad to me,” she said. “Maybe this is what happens to bad people. Maybe…”

  “Dave!” Josh said, rolling his window all the way down, signaling for Olshaker to get over there. He was about to open his door to pull Dave in, when suddenly they all heard it.

  The voice from under the car.

  “Davy baby,” Billy Dunne’s voice rasped. “Sweetie, come to Daddy. You know you love me, Davy, all hidden away inside you. I love you, too, we can love each other here, down here.”

  “What in God’s name?” Dave said, still crouching.

  “Don’t let him in, Josh,” Tammy spat. “Let it happen to him. Let it. Maybe bad people get what’s coming to them.”

  “Shut up,” Bronwyn said. “Just shut up.”

  “Dave! Get in this car right now! There’s some kind of…some…that thing. That thing from the gas station. It’s there. It’s alive. It’s…” But even as Josh said this, he knew it was too late.

  He looked out his window, Dave, still crouching, glanced up at him, his eyes wide with an emotion that seemed to exist between fear and awe. Dave began stammering, and pointing underneath the car. It seemed to happen in slow motion, as Dave pointed and looked at Josh and his mouth began moving as if trying to get something out.

  And then Scratch leapt out from beneath the car, its black hooks going to Dave’s eyes. In the car, everyone was screaming, and Josh reached on the floor for the gun hoping it would help, and then he tried to get his door open, but it was locked, and by the time he reached around for the lock, Dave’s face had smushed up against Bronwyn’s window. The two women screamed again as the bloody face slid down the window to the ground.

  Then, Josh locked his door, rolled up his window.

  And they waited. It was quiet fo
r a long time.

  The headlights from the pick-up truck illuminated them as if it were nearly daylight.

  They heard a thump or two beneath the car.

  Tammy began praying softly, her hands pressed together, her eyes closed. Josh glanced at Bronwyn, but neither said anything.

  And then, they saw something come out from under the front of the car that sent shivers down Josh’s spine.

  The creature emerged in the headlight’s beam. Billy Dunne’s face over its skull, his lips torn and flapping. It began a strange, slow dance that reminded Josh of an image he’d seen of Kali, the Indian goddess, who danced with skulls around her neck. The creature’s arms went out at odd angles, and its legs moved around in wide arcs.

  It’s doing its dance, he thought. This is its ceremony. It drinks the blood and wears the skin. It dances in the skin. It makes the sacrifice dance for the gods.

  Josh felt Bronwyn’s hand on his shoulder. It felt good, in the face of this. He needed her warmth.

  They watched the strange, intricate, bizarre dance as the bloodied creature wearing the tissue thin skin of either Billy Dunne or Dave Olshaker, moved to the unheard music.

  Then, it stopped.

  It’s watching us. It’s waiting for us. Why? What is it waiting for?

  A sound came from it. Not Dave’s voice or Billy’s voice or Griff’s or even Ziggy’s.

  It was a sound that seemed more wild animal than human, yet it had a human cast to it. The creature began singing, raising its skin-hung arms in the air, skyward.

  “Dear God,” Tammy gasped. “Dear God.”

  The creature sang a tuneless melody that consisted of mainly open vowel sounds of ohs and ows, a slightly musical howl and shriek, but Josh was sure it was saying something.

  “Why is it doing that?” Bronwyn asked as if any of them would know.

  “It has a ceremony to fulfill,” Josh said. “A ritual. It dances in their skins, and then it sings to its namesake god. That’s what it said at the Brakedown Palace. On the signs. There’s the sacrifice, then there’s the ceremony.”