Storberry

by Dan Padavona

  When he raised the pillow toward the boy's face, Jeff's eyes opened, and he pulled the hidden revolver from under his blanket. Dell was too stunned to say anything. The boy propped himself up with his left hand, keeping the revolver fixed on Dell's forehead.

  “Son of a bitch,” Dell whispered.

  “What? You didn't think I knew you would come?” Jeff's eyes were hard with anger. “Had to finish the job, right?”

  Dell shifted his weight on his feet, but the click of the readied weapon froze him in place.

  “Ah-ah, don't you fucking move. You really are a stupid son-of-a-bitch, aren't you? If you had just stayed away, you'd be home free. There were no witnesses, remember? Wasn't that your plan?”

  Sweat beaded on Dell's brow. Somebody was going to hear the little bastard, and pretty soon there would be rent-a-cops everywhere.

  “Quiet yourself, you little shit. You want'em to hear?”

  “No skin off my back if they catch an intruder in my room.”

  “Oh, no? You gonna explain to them what you're doing with a loaded gun in a hospital?”

  “Right after you explain why you wanted to smother one their patients with a pillow.”

  Dell's eyes darted left and right, as if searching for a secret passage that would get him the hell out of there.

  “How the hell did you get that thing in here?”

  “Unlike you, I have friends.” Jeff grinned and waved the weapon at Dell. “Now, turn around and put your hands on your head.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Do it.”

  Jeff sat up and put both hands on the weapon.

  Dell knew the boy would shoot and not regret it. A gun against a pillow wouldn't fly as self-defense in most court houses. But in Storberry, everyone hated Dell Lawrence. The courts would probably name a new holiday after the kid. Maybe something like Happy Hole In The Head Day. Or perhaps tiny munchkins would spring forth to sing, Ding Dong, Dell is Dead, as the townsfolk skipped merrily along a yellow brick road.

  Branyan would be a hero, while Dell rested six feet under.

  Dell turned around and put his hands on the back of his head.

  “Don't do this, boy. It ain't worth it. You got lots to live for yet.”

  The revolver clicked. Dell squinted his eyes.

  “Now you're going to walk out of here like nothing ever happened.”

  Dell was incredulous.

  “What?”

  “Just like I said. You take a walk, and don't come back. And you start treating your daughter like she deserves to be treated.”

  “Don't you talk about my Katy. If you so much as look at her again I'll—”

  Click.

  Dell cringed.

  “You'll what? Next time old man, you aren't going to catch me from behind.

  And if you must know, I rather like your daughter. Hell, I might even be a tad smitten. I'd never hurt her. Can you say the same?”

  “I never hurt—”

  “You hurt everything and everybody. Isn't that right?”

  “You ain't got no right—”

  “I do, I think. Hey, Dell? This isn't over. The doctors say you did a pretty good number on me. Messed me up damn fine. But I'll be out of here soon. And guess who I'm going to come looking for?”

  “You come, boy. You come.”

  “You'll see me coming. No surprises next time. Now, unless you want a permanent hole in the back of your head, you'll take your ass out of here.”

  “I'll be waiting on your call, boy.”

  “Go.”

  Dell Lawrence stormed out of the hospital room.

  His blood boiled, and he no longer cared about stealth. He stormed past the sleeping nurse at the desk, down the hallway where the fat orderly dreamed about boat drinks and calypso drums. His breeze blew across the orderly's face, and the fat man's eyes opened just in time to see the shadow of a large figure disappear around the corner.

  “Hey,” the orderly said with a decided lack of commitment.

  He glanced at the sleeping nurse and decided that she had the right idea. The orderly was sound asleep again when Dell walked out through the emergency exit, setting off a shrill alarm.

  Now everyone in the hospital was pissed off and awake.

  Three

  Benny was asleep in the backseat of Rory Dickson's truck. Randy sat next to him, heart pounding. He knew where Rory intended to take them.

  The low rolling hum of the engine cast its song of sleep on Renee, who fought to keep her eyes open. As the first thin strand of gray lay imperceptible on the eastern horizon, Mary and Evan sat in the front of the cab, silently counting the two remaining hours until the perceived safety of sunrise.

  Rory had one more stop to make before they called it a night. He swung the truck southward on Randolph toward the Marks' residence. The emergency crews had made progress—cut logs layered the roadside like excavated dinosaur bones.

  He thought, with a little luck, I can get the kid home to his parents.

  He took the truck over the sidewalk to avoid a road blockage and slalomed his way through debris and branches before nearing the juncture of Jensen and Randolph.

  The Marks' residence was back-lit by the moon with its front masked in shadow. It stood isolated, the closest neighbor fifty yards east on Jensen. A rickety barn sat unused behind the house, its brown peak jutting above the house. A single light shone in the downstairs of the Marks’ home.

  Seeing the phantom house emerge from the night encased Randy's spine in icy fear. He could feel the walls of the truck constricting, closing around him. He gripped the door handle.

  He started to get up from the backseat, ready to break from the vehicle, but Rory signaled him to stay put.

  “Wait here.”

  The truck engine died in the driveway, the shadow of the Marks' residence looming above them.

  Rory snatched his shotgun and walked up the front porch steps. Randy watched the man go, one eye on the keys hanging from the ignition.

  Don't you think about going into the backyard. You got no business there.

  The trilling of insect song echoed out of the meadow behind the house. There were no streetlamps on this sparsely-populated portion of Randolph. Those began a few hundred yards down Jensen, stretching away like a landing strip into blackness. The gloom enveloped all, the way it seems to in the pit of night when all hope of returning dawn is lost.

  Hardly able to discern the black doorbell on the outer wall, Rory wished he had kept the engine running with the headlights on. If there was any danger out in the night...

  Don't you start believing that nonsense about monsters.

  ...would he see it coming? His stomach fluttered the way it had during combat. His mates had always said he had a sixth sense. Rory didn't believe that nonsense. He was well trained, and attentive. The sixth sense, he had always said, was simply a combination of situational awareness and attention to detail. Nothing materialized out of thin air. The enemy always gave away its presence. You just needed to stay alert and watch for the signs.

  He didn't wish to jostle the Marks’ family awake, but surely they would be relieved to see their youngest child safe. He pressed the button, and an old-fashioned bell sang through the downstairs like a telephone ring. He listened for the sounds of footfalls, and when he didn't hear them after 30 seconds, he rang the bell again.

  He glanced back at the truck, unsure if they could see him in the shadowed porch. He shook his head to indicate that there had been no answer. Against his better judgment he jostled the door knob to find a way in but found it locked.

  He sighed. If he didn't get sleep soon, he would be useless to the town, but intuition tugged at him to check the back of the house. His sixth sense again.

  When Rory left the porch for the driveway, Randy began to mouth, “no...no...no,” until he saw Mary's face in the rearview mirror studying him. He averted his eyes. The keys...yes, the keys hung in the ignition. He had everything he needed – the truck, the key
s, Benny.

  The women would be no trouble to overpower. But Evan...

  A dirt driveway led Rory around the house. The roof blocked the shine of the moon, leaving the driveway a desolate black. He could discern silhouettes of the house and barn and little else. Stones crackled and shifted underfoot, and once he tripped over what might have been a large rock or a brick.

  His instinct was at it again, this time groaning danger! A chill sensation arose in his chest that he was walking into an ambush. And then he saw light.

  A faint, orange glow spilled between the dilapidated wood planks at the top of the barn.

  What would someone be doing in the barn at this hour?

  His skin tingled. As the fiery glow increased, he began to believe he was walking toward the gates of hell.

  Rory thought to call out to the person inside the barn but caught himself. It was preposterous to believe a trap awaited, but he wasn't taking any chances. Someone

  (something)

  had tried to kill Mary. Only a fool would walk unarmed through the night knowing as much.

  He felt his way around the corner of the house and saw that the barn door ajar. Orange light poured through the crack and danced on the dirt entrance. Lantern light.

  He reached the door, but stopped before pushing it open. His spine tingled as though a thousand tarantulas crawled down his back. Something was wrong. Something...

  He raised the shotgun and carefully pressed the door open with the barrel. He heard something drinking, like a dog lapping at his water dish.

  As his mind battled to comprehend the unspeakable vision before him, his skin went cold.

  What appeared to be an old man was hunched over a woman's body on the dirt floor of the barn. Her stomach was split open, her innards hanging out like worms writhing in a cloudburst.

  Blood was everywhere. It was splashed against the walls, splayed against mounds of hay, and its puddle seeped out from under her in an ever-swelling ocean of crimson.

  The thing...the old man...drank from the torrents of blood bubbling out her stomach. The nightmare supped at the gore with sickening gulps. Rory felt bile surge into his throat. He gagged, but composed himself before he vomited into the blood expanding toward his shoes.

  Then the thing’s head turned toward him. The man’s jaws opened to a heinous grin, revealing razor-sharp teeth protruding from the top of his mouth. The teeth...fangs...were crooked and angled outward as though the thing had chomped down on a block of iron and shattered the incisors akimbo. One pierced through its upper lip. Despite the withered form of his body, the old man’s face was timeless and youthful, free of the lines of aging.

  The air seemed to ripple in front of the man’s face, and for a brief moment, Rory thought he saw a corpse’s face, as though a terrible truth lay concealed beneath a magician’s illusion.

  The old man hissed and sprang to his feet with an unnatural dexterity that belied his decrepit form. But Rory was quick. Before the man took a step forward, the shotgun blasted a hole through his sternum. The thing fell backward, arms and legs trembling on a pile of hay.

  Rory’s heart pounded. Bile roared into his throat. He watched the abomination like a fly in a web watches a black widow.

  The thing still breathed. The old man’s chest rose and fell, and a wheezing sound escaped his mouth. The second shotgun blast exploded through the barn. Rory's aim was true. The bullet ripped through the man’s heart, and a blackish substance bubbled and oozed out of the hole like magma.

  He lowered the shotgun and bent at the waist. Sickness overcame him, and he regurgitated onto the side of the wall. His extremities tingled, his head swam through dizziness, and for a moment he was sure he would lose consciousness. Tiny black spots clouded his vision like flies.

  He concentrated on breathing in and out. The nausea finally passed, and his vision cleared.

  He never saw the monstrosity rise to his feet and approach him.

  The old man screeched and lunged forward. Rory wasn't quick enough with the shotgun. The thing would have him.

  Mary smashed through the door. One second he was alone in the barn with whatever it was, and in the next she was there, throwing herself at the creature. She brandished the cross as though she were on the front line of an ancient holy war. The others were behind her, frozen in shock in the doorway.

  She screamed, making Rory think of a war cry. The creature attacked the new intruder.

  She was ready for the old man. She thrust the cross into his forehead, and he screeched in pain. The illusion of youth vanished. Decrepit flesh sizzled and smoked under the symbol. An odor reminiscent of overcooked liver filled the barn.

  She didn't stop. She pushed the thing that was once an old man to the dirt, sat astride his hips, and pressed the cross down through his skin. The decrepit flesh was soft, and she thought of pluff mud as the cross sank deeper. He thrashed under her, trying to rip the woman's hands away from the cross.

  Before Rory could grasp what he was seeing, Evan grabbed a rake off the wall, smashed the rake against a support beam, and broke the stick into two sharp weapons. He took the longer end and plunged the point through the thing's chest, next to the gaping hole from Rory's shotgun.

  The old man’s body seized and went rigid. Then whatever life existed in him departed.

  From the doorway, Renee watched the macabre scene, frozen in shock. Randy's mouth was agape. Benny's face was buried in Randy's chest, sobbing and inconsolable. Outside the barn, crickets shrilled incessantly, a reminder that sunrise was still two hours away.

  It was a long time before anyone spoke.

  Four

  There are few moments in life so unsettling that they force one to question everything he thought he had ever known. For the pallid-faced group riding in Rory Dickson's truck, that time was now.

  The strip of gray in the eastern sky was larger now. The fulfilled promise of another dawn was not long off.

  Neither the dead woman on the barn floor nor the thing that feasted on her had been members of the Marks' home. The woman's name was Merrill, Randy had said. She had moved to Jensen Road from Maryland a few years ago. How she ended up split open on the barn floor was anyone's guess. Nobody recognized the old man.

  They had pounded on the Marks' back door for what seemed like hours, but no answer came. Given the dire circumstances, Evan had broken the window. As he carefully reached through the broken glass, the queer remembrance of playing Operation suddenly flaring, he unlocked the door without tearing flesh on the jagged shards.

  Randy stood back from the door, his brother sobbing into his shirt with short gasps. The others wouldn't find anyone inside the house, but he needed to play along a little longer before they moved on.

  He also needed to ensure they stayed out of the backyard.

  The fresh graves had been no more than thirty yards behind them. He could feel their presence against his back, like the first chill wind of October.

  If he turned, he would see them—blood pouring from their chests, the blackened remains of Calvin Marks reanimate, his eyes accusing.

  They searched the house from top to bottom, but there was no sign of Calvin and Sue Marks. Rory apologized to Randy, his eyes full of regret. Though Randy had been certain they would have found evidence of his deed, the residual scent of gunpowder had dissipated. For this, and this only, he breathed a sigh of relief in front of the others.

  Rory Dickson took charge. It was his way of dealing with the trauma.

  His first order of business was to get Benny to safety, and so he drove them back north on Randolph to his own home and woke Evelyn. His wife was less than enthusiastic about being awakened so early and perplexed as to why the Marks’ boy was being left in her care. But Rory had been insistent, and she was not one to turn her back on a child in need.

  He also told her to lock all the doors and windows and that she was not to let anyone into the house. She had protested, but he was unwavering. He left her the shotgun because it made hi
m feel better that she have its protection, even though he suspected the weapon was useless against what stalked Storberry.

  After, he drove the remaining members of the group back to the Moran farm on the northeastern side of town, again forced to dodge the debris strewn across Standish.

  During the trip he eyed the walkie-talkie with trepidation. He had to bring Greg Madsen in on this, but how in the hell was he going to convince the Chief of Police that...well Christ, what in the hell were they up against? Madsen would say he was insane, and at that moment, Rory would agree that the assessment was not far from the mark.

  The first embers of sunrise burned at the center point of the eastern horizon when Rory Dickson's truck barreled into the farm’s driveway. They climbed groggily up the front steps, a single ray of sun upon them like a searchlight.

  They split into two groups, armed with only Mary's cross and the two broken pieces of the rake as they searched the cavernous farmhouse. The second order of business was that all doors and windows be locked securely.

  The final order was sleep. Slumber would not come easy, but it was necessary if they were to function during the daylight hours. Rory and Evan both agreed that posting a watch would be optimal, but they would forgo a watch this morning. Every member of the group had pushed themselves beyond exhaustion.

  They acknowledged that to this point, the old legends about crosses and wooden stakes were holding up pretty well to real-world scrutiny. It was assumed vampires...

  And that is what we are talking about, right? That thing that fed on the Merrill woman's innards...the creature that tore Mary's house apart...vampires stalking the night in Storberry?

  ...could not survive in sunlight. If this legend held up, they would have a little over twelve hours to figure out how to defend the town before sundown. Minus an hour or two of sleep.

  Nobody wanted to be alone, even if they weren't willing to admit it. When Renee suggested everyone sleep downstairs in the living room, there was unanimous agreement.