I stood there with my fists clenched and my breath coming in heavy, uneven bursts. The thing stood and looked at me with a pair of evil, yellow eyes. Feral eyes. Inhuman eyes. But the emotion in those eyes was pure hatred. The creature looked to the sky, where a gloomy day was starting to settle in, and then, to my surprise, turned and fled into the woods. It didn't move so quickly now, and I noticed that its left arm was swinging freely at its side as it limped off into the camouflage of trees. I watched the forest for a few seconds, waiting for the creature to reemerge and come charging toward me. But nothing happened. A moment later silence had completely replaced the chaos.
As I stood winded and in shock, furiously trying to get my mind around whatever the hell it was I had just experienced, another rumble came from behind me. I turned around with wide eyes and clenched fists to see a tractor-trailer barreling down the road. Now here I was, a gory mess standing beside a beat to hell car with a pool of blood spilling onto the road beside it, hoping this trucker might stop and give me a hand. I waved my arms frantically, but the driver kept his eyes straight forward and didn't slow to ask questions. Within a half a minute he was long gone and out of sight. I couldn't blame the poor bastard and the more I thought about it, the more I figured it was probably in his best interest to avoid getting caught up in something like this.
But then, avoiding trouble's never been one of my strong suits.
I was shaking all over, trembling with a fear and adrenaline cocktail. Once I had a handle on my motor skills, I put my knees on the passenger seat of the destroyed Volvo interior and reached for the horn. I let it honk for five or ten seconds and then called out for Jessica, all the while glancing back to my left for fear the beast might take a second shot at turning me into dinner. I repeated this some ten times before she stumbled out of the woods on the far side of the road.
I got out of the car and walked toward her on wobbly legs. We met at the shoulder and embraced. Her arms around my waist, she held on tight, quiet and still for a minute. And then the tears came, wet and warm against my shirt. I rubbed the back of her head and tried to figure out what in the hell had just happened to us.
"What was that thing?" asked Jessica as she cried.
"I don't know, I?I just don't know. But whatever it was, it's gone. You're okay now."
I let her cry against me for another minute or so, and then suggested we get out of there.
After whining for a long while and threatening to leave us stranded, the Volvo's engine fired up and I shifted into drive. I pulled back onto the road and asked Jessica where she lived.
She looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, "I think I'll just come home with you if that's all right."
"Of course."
We didn't speak again for a while. Jessica moved across the shredded seat and leaned her head against me, and was asleep before we reached the house. Maybe it was an escape or some kind of defense mechanism on her part, I don't know. I only know that right then and there I envied her and wished I could escape all this too.
As I drove on, from time to time I glanced toward the woods. I could still feel a presence watching us.
Terror held me tight, and my foot fell heavy on the accelerator.
CHAPTER 4
I carried Jessica into the house and laid her down on my bed where I watched her sleep for a few minutes. I knew for damned sure I wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon, so I removed my bloody clothes and stepped into the shower. Though it helped calm me a bit, my heart was still pounding, and I took to pacing room to room, checking the windows for any sign of the beast. I considered calling the police, but knew if I told them what had really happened I'd end up spending a night in the psych ward.
I'd never in my life felt so afraid of anything, and my stomach was knotted so tight with worry I wanted to vomit. Eventually, I forced myself to relax as best I could, and then checked on Jessica.
She was still, save for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Looking at her made me think something good might emerge from the insanity of the last twelve hours after all. That got my pal Guilt knocking at the door. Here I was thinking about the possibility of a future girlfriend when my ex had just gone missing without a trace the night before. Sometimes I can be a real asshole. I blame testosterone.
Even though I was sure what Alicia and I once had was done, I still cared for her and needed to know she was okay. I wondered if she was trudging through some tough times she'd been unable to discuss with me for some reason, and then a rush of horrible visions flooded my mind, offering various scenarios she might be experiencing at that very moment. I imagined her in the trunk of a car, bound and gagged and crying in the darkness. I imagined her dead body lying still in the woods. My visions mimicked what I'd seen in movies, but were no less terrifying for it. Mostly, I just hoped she was still alive.
I tried Alicia's cell phone. Lisp answered again, disappointing me with the sound of his voice. He sounded like I'd woken him even though it was near noon.
"Hey man, sorry to bug you, but I'm just checking to see if you've heard anything at all from Alicia."
"No, I haven't," said Lisp in the prissiest tone he could muster. "And her little friend Karen hath been calling me all night too. I didn't thleep for more than an hour at a time lathd night thankth to your little drama."
I guess Karen had been concerned about Alicia after all, regardless of the cold shoulder bullshit she'd thrown my way.
"I don't know where your little girlfriend went but wherever it ith I'm thure the'd rather not hear from you."
"Look, I know I didn't make a golden impression last night, but I'm really worried about her. I know that girl pretty damned well and this just isn't like Alicia."
"I don't know what you ethpect me to do about it. Maybe the'th juthd trying to get away from you after what you pulled at my party."
"Listen here, asshole. You're going to call me the minute you hear from that girl, you got it?"
He tried to get a word in but I didn't let him.
"If you don't, I'll be over there rearranging your god-damned face before you can say Lord of the Fucking Rings! You got that?"
Lisp got real quiet for a minute then agreed to call me if he heard from her. I hung up the phone feeling pretty good about the whole exchange but also kind of hoping this guy might give me an excuse to invade Walnut Ridge and deliver a serious ass-whipping. I needed to let off a little steam and couldn't imagine a much better way to do it.
I went over to the bed and covered Jessica with a blanket. She curled her knees toward her chest and pulled the blanket over her chin. I hadn't seen Bronson all night and was just about to go look for him when he sauntered in, jumped on the bed, did a couple of circles and settled on Jessica's shoulder. I lay down beside them. After another half hour of worrying, I somehow managed to fall asleep too.
CHAPTER 5
Something in the woods was watching me, its eyes glowing cold blue.
I could hear it breathing heavily from the shadows. In the middle of an empty highway, I stood scanning the swaying trees around me. I called out for Alicia, but received no reply, save a cold wind that swept over my skin and away. I called again and again, but there was no answer.
Until the eyes in the woods opened wide and the world went narrow like one of those fast zooming shots in a slasher film. Suddenly the beast was on top of me snapping its jaws and clawing the skin off my arms. I struggled to fight it off, but the monster was too strong, and I knew it was only a matter of time before it would tear my head off.
And then just as quickly, I was back at the party house, but this time the place looked deserted. One dim bulb shone from a lamp across the room. I stood statue still in the weak, grainy light wondering where everyone was. I called out a weak "Hello?" hoping to hear a friendly voice.
The response was a sigh from behind me. I whirled around to find Alicia standing there smoking a cigarette, the smoke rolling up and dancing around her head. She looked radiant, and before I could sp
eak she said, "You think you know everything, huh? Well you'd better watch those woods, big guy. It knows who you are." The skin began to peel and fall from her face as if something invisible were tearing at her with clawed fingers. Her left eye rolled from its socket, and a flap of her scalp fell free to reveal the white glint of skull beneath. Alicia smiled, blood drooling over her lips.
CHAPTER 6
I got up faster than a death row inmate in the electric chair given a last-second pardon from the governor, and let out a yell that echoed through the house.
Jessica looked over at me calmly and walked closer to the bed. "Now what in the world would give a tough guy like you nightmares?"
She gave a little laugh and I joined her, happy to have escaped that awful dream. I was surprised she was so composed after what we'd been through the night before, but all things considered, Jessica seemed to be doing remarkably well, and the smell of coffee reached me just before she placed a steaming cup of it in my hand.
"We need to talk about last night," she said hesitantly.
I sipped my coffee to buy a second to gather my thoughts, then sat the cup beside me on the floor. It needed sugar, but I didn't mention it. "I don't know what to think. The whole thing's like a fucked up nightmare. That thing that we hit with the car…it can't be what it looked like. I mean, I don't know what it was, but it can't be what I think it was."
"Looked like a wolf-man to me," said Jessica.
"Yeah, well, I'm not too inclined to believe in monsters. But my God, I've just never seen anything that looked anything like that outside the movies. I'll never forget the way it looked at me before it took off into the trees. If that thing had gotten out of the car and started chasing me, it would've been running through my shit the whole way."
"How do you think I felt about it? I could smell its breath on me it was so close." She hugged herself. "I'm just thankful you were able to wrestle me out of that car before it got a grip on me."
I nodded. "So what now?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what do we do about this?"
"What can we do? I'm going to call the insurance folks and see if I can get the car fixed, and then we go on with the rest of our lives. I'm really going to have to come up with one hell of a story to explain the condition of that car."
"Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, I think you're right. The cops wouldn't be too much help on this one. I can just imagine their expressions as I explain how a monster attacked us on the side of the highway last night. Yeah, that'd go over real big. Totally believable." I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sighed. "Hell, maybe it's one of those things that can only happen once in a lifetime, you know, like a plane crashing into your house or something."
Jessica smiled and nodded in agreement.
I was surprised at how everything seemed to quickly go back to normal. I felt okay, and that didn't make much sense to me. And the fact that Jessica seemed fine too was even more baffling. Maybe it was the sun in the sky that put us at ease, the light that had washed away our fear and made things seem like they were okay. Almost. Regardless of how either of us felt, the fact remained that Jessica's car was still sitting in the drive beaten to hell and covered in blood.
"I guess I should start looking for Alicia," I said. "If she's in some kind of trouble she'll definitely need a hand. That girl's no good on her own. She told me once that she hadn't been single for more than four months since she was seventeen."
"Oh, you don't have to tell me. I've known Alicia for a while now, and her disappearing doesn't surprise me much at all."
"Where do you know her from?"
"When I first moved here from Georgia four years ago she came into the restaurant where I was waiting tables. We ended up talking for a bit and she invited me to a party. I didn't know anyone around here at the time, so I took her up on the offer and showed up even though I'm not much of a party-person."
"You could've fooled me."
"All right, smartass, so I was a bit wasted. That's why I don't like parties, I always feel like hell the next day. But if you'll let me finish, Alicia was far worse than me with the drinking. Talk about the poster child for not knowing when to say when. But we always managed to have a good time, and so I kept going out with her, getting trashed and feeling like shit the next morning. And it was worth it…for a while. Then I started seeing her darker side more and more. Her depression and drinking were getting worse, and I started to see both outside of parties. On our nights out she started ditching me for random guys who were looking for fun."
"Great," I said. "That's definitely what I wanted to hear."
"It's the truth, and you know, I'm surprised you didn't know any of this. I tried helping at first but she always blew me off and made me feel lame as hell for not wanting to have fun. I felt like a nagging parent whenever we were together. So I started putting some distance between us and she kept spiraling out of control. Last night was the first time I'd seen her in well over two years. I noticed she didn't have a drink in her hand, and even in my stupor I was a little shocked. In any case, we hardly spoke to each other the entire night."
"Here's a random question for you: did Alicia smoke?"
"Like a fucking chimney. Why?"
"No reason."
CHAPTER 7
Alicia and I had been dating for a year and a half, and had grown close in a big hurry. She was a quiet, shy girl with a small-town attitude and looks that killed. I was crazy about her from the start, and wanted to know everything there was to know about her. She was a mystery to me, and that made the chase a lot of fun. Even the late nights spent worrying about losing her held a unique appeal. Alicia was a puzzle I wanted to solve, and until that last conversation with Jessica I thought I'd had it licked, all the pieces in place. As it was, it seemed I really didn't know much more about Alicia than a professional resume could've told me.
But man, was I wrapped up in that woman. Alicia was the first girl I ever seriously thought I might be able to settle down with. I never expressed as much to her, but I'd gotten to the point where I just assumed we'd end up married. Then she got weird on me. The shyness I'd found charming at the beginning of our relationship was replaced by something distant and cold. The light in her eyes faded like the world had swallowed up all her joy.
And I didn't know what the catalyst for her depression was. There was a time when Alicia and I were attached at the hip. If you ran into one of us in public, chances were damned good you'd see the other nearby. But sometime during the last six months of our relationship Alicia started running a lot of "errands" that she preferred to handle alone. She'd politely exclude me from her day then pull an "I'm tired" routine after getting home. This wasn't something she'd done before, so it should've waved an enormous red flag in my face. I started to suspect that she was cheating on me, but never asked her about it. I figured that trusting her was the right thing to do; the best thing to do if I wanted us to be together.
The expanse between us grew regardless of my efforts to keep a cool head, so I started letting go, because somewhere in the recesses of my mind I knew what was coming. I didn't want to be one of those spineless guys who try every trick in the book to hang on to a girl who no longer wants anything to do with him. I had bigger stones than that. Using the old, "I'll kill myself if you leave" never even crossed my mind. Another ending to another pointless relationship. At least the sex had been great. That's something, I guess.
I remember seeing Alicia for the first time. I was out to buy a copy of "The Beyond" when I noticed this really hot chick looking my way from the other end of the horror movie section. My first assumption was that something was wrong with me, like a long stream of toilet paper was still attached to my shoe or something green was hanging out of my nose. When I made eye contact with her she looked away in a hurry, as if I'd caught her trying to steal someone's wallet. I looked away as well, trying not to be too obvious, and every time I looked back at her she'd turn away again. This little cat and mou
se thing went on for way too long, and eventually I made my way over to where she was standing.
If I had known Alicia better I'd have realized in a moment that she wasn't there to find some rare horror cinema gem. Before spending time with me she hadn't seen more than a handful of scary movies, and the ones she had seen were awful; the big Hollywood films with computer animated monsters and mushy, happy endings. We stood there for a few minutes, eyes glued to the titles on the shelves, not actually reading a damned thing, but not knowing how to break the sheet of ice hanging between us.
Eventually she asked me what I had in my hand, so I showed her the box cover.
"You ever see this one?" I asked.
"No." Alicia's answer was so short and direct I thought I'd struck out with my first swing. But I swung again anyway, as fools looking for love are wont to do.
Andy Deane Page 3