by Mark Tufo
Mike was shaking with impotence. Questions blazing across his thoughts. Would Jandilyn still be alive if I had died that night? Would she have been better off?
Durgan had succeeded in his intentions to shake Mike’s foundation, he was now riddled with self-doubt and should have been an easy target.
“They say better late than never,” Durgan said, standing up and taking one choppy step toward Mike. “In this instance I’d have to disagree, but it’s the only choice available” Durgan’s next step was half as much as the previous one. He looked down at his traitorous legs before they turned on him and he folded in on himself. “What’s going on?” Durgan said in alarm as he lost functional control over the rest of his body. He fell backward, his head bouncing twice off the hardwood floor.
Mike seemed to come out of his stupor, “Huh, I wonder what this shit is?” He held up the empty vial.
Durgan’s eyes got huge, Mike laughed as Durgan appeared briefly cartoonish with his exaggerated gaze. “How much of that stuff did you give me?” Durgan asked as the corners of his mouth began to sag.
“All of it.”
Durgan groaned.
“Well, it’s not like there’s dosage instructions on this,” Mike said turning the small bottle over looking for some fine print. “How come you can still talk? I was really hoping to do the rest of this with you all glassy-eyed and a frozen look of terror on your face.”
“What are you planning on doing?” Durgan asked in terror, his eyes now fixed on the ceiling.
“Oh…big plans, big plans,” Mike said as he grabbed Durgan’s left leg and began to slowly drag him across the floor toward the front door.
His injured leg screamed in pain, he barely noted it. Mike stopped to look back at Durgan, he lifted his patch quickly, hoping Jandilyn wasn’t looking down at him at this inopportune time. The entity that had encircled Durgan had vacated, Mike wondered if it had done so when it realized its puppet’s defeat.
“Mike, what are you doing?” Durgan asked in a panicked voice.
“Bet you’re seeing the error of your ways right about now.”
“This shit ain’t funny!” Durgan screamed as Mike, with some effort, pulled him over the threshold his head striking the porch with a thud as he yanked him out. “I wasn’t really trying to kill you, you know that, right? I was just trying to scare you.”
“Scare me from what?” Mike pulled Durgan down the stairs taking satisfaction at every tread.
“Come on, Mike, we’re friends now!” Durgan pleaded.
“Friends with benefits!” Mike laughed.
“Don’t go getting all sick on me, man,” Durgan cried, trying in desperation to move any muscle that might make a difference. He thought he might have wiggled a toe but he couldn’t be sure. At least not until Mike reacted.
“Oooh, getting a little sensation back, are you? Well, maybe we should take care of that.” Mike left Durgan where he was, half his body on the walkway leading up to the house and his head on the second to last stair. Durgan fought to wrest control of himself from the insidious drug that Mrs. Hollow had given him.
Make him suffer, she had said. His whole life he had been doing other people’s wet work, and now he was going to pay for it. Mike’s look of insanity far outshone even that of Mrs. Hollow and she had scared the shit out of him.
“Thirsty, buddy?” Mike asked as he came back down the stairs.
“I hope you fall and break your neck!” Durgan shouted.
“God might not like me all that much, but he sure isn’t going to do you any favors,” Mike said as he sat down next to Durgan’s stationary head. “So if you can talk…I guess you can swallow,” Mike said as he tipped the bottle of tequila into Durgan’s lips. Durgan was powerless to stop him. The caustic liquid burned his throat as his swallow reflex forced the agave juice and poison into his system.
“Flucken slop!” Durgan shouted as Mike nearly drowned him.
“Well, that should be enough anyway. I want you cognizant enough to enjoy this.”
“You’re insane.”
Mike stood. “I guess I probably am. Have I told you about my fridge?”
“Your what?” Durgan asked, his eyes rolling a little into the back of his head.
A loud thwack brought him back as Mike slapped him hard. “Don’t you fucking pass out on me!” Mike shouted into his face.
“I have kids!” Durgan pleaded—a new tactic—as Mike again resumed the dragging. Durgan’s head bounced twice more before striking the small cement walkway.
“Someone bred with you? Really? Was it consensual? They’ll thank me for this someday.” Mike labored as the big man’s weight began to cause friction. That and the wound on his leg had busted open again.
Durgan began to full on cry. He knew there would be no reasoning with insanity. How many people had pleaded with him for some pity or mercy? He had never acquiesced to them.
“Oh, it’s okay it’ll all be over soon, I guess. I mean I really don’t know how this is going to work out.” Pulling Durgan became easier as he got him on the lawn and then onto the small path that led to the clearing he had been working so diligently on.
“Please,” Durgan hitched. “What would Jandilyn think? She wouldn’t want you to do this.”
Mike stiffened, Durgan genuinely hoped Mike would kick him into unconsciousness. “No, I guess not,” Mike replied with stooped shoulders, but he did not stop his forward momentum as he finally dragged Durgan into the clearing and another ten feet into the center. “I don’t know if it’s big enough, but I guess we’ll find out.”
“Find out what?” Durgan was still looking straight up into the cloudless sky, he had never felt more alone and isolated than at this very moment.
“I think it’s going to be better for me if I step out of here now.”
“Why?” Durgan begged, trying to follow Mike’s retreating footsteps. “What’s happening? Are there wild animals? Please, Mike, I don’t want to be eaten alive! Please!”
“Did you feel that?” Mike asked excitedly.
“No,” Durgan said at first. “What is that?” He cried as a slight tremor rippled through the earth he was bedded on.
“My guess is that it’s the end. I mean for you anyway.”
The ground around the whole perimeter of the clearing began to vibrate, Mike took another step backward.
“I think it’s an equal opportunity destroyer.” Mike said as he began to laugh.
The vibration intensified and began to pull into a tighter circle around Durgan.
“Can you still save me?”
“Doubtful and I can’t imagine for what reason I would want to.”
“Mike, you don’t want to release what’s in here.”
Mike’s heart lurched once as he watched moss crisscross over Durgan’s body like green lattice; wherever it touched, smoke began to steam up as it burned through Durgan’s skin, muscle, sinew and finally bone. The screams stilled the rest of the creatures in the woods. At the end Mike turned away when all that was left was some one-inch-by-one-inch remains of humanity.
Mike vomited and headed back up the path and into the relative safety of his home, wondering if at the end Durgan was somehow trying to mind fuck him or was speaking the truth. “Never know now,” Mike said aloud. Unless of course whatever is in there comes down (or up) to let me know, he thought.
Mike was exhausted, the events of the day had completely drained him and his leg was throbbing in pain. Any thoughts he had of the pain forcing sleep away were quickly dispelled as he fell immediately asleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – The Sheriff
The sun was again blazing across his cheek when he awoke, he was not sure if that caused him to stir or the sound of tires crushing rock coming up his driveway was the cause.
Durgan? he thought immediately, his heart fluttering wildly. He quickly whipped his legs over the side of the bed in preparation for round three. He was rewarded by a sharp pain in his leg for his efforts. “Damn!” he
snorted loudly.
The car outside stopped. He heard a car door open and then close.
Mailman? Mike hoped. Odds weren’t greatly in his favor considering it was a Sunday.
“Anyone home?”
Mike’s heart sank, it was the sheriff.
“Whoa,” Mike said as he was coming down the stairs, the sheriff was coming through the screen and in. “I don’t remember inviting you in.”
“You in the habit of leaving your front door open while you sleep?”
“I’ve been up for hours and what business is it of yours?”
“Up for hours?” the sheriff asked. “You’ve still got sleep lines on the side of your face.”
“Can I help you with something?” Mike said as he went outside effectively keeping the sheriff from entering the house.
“This your car?” the sheriff asked, pointing to the newly deceased Durgan’s Chevy Impala.
“Why? Are you interested in buying it?”
“I’m the one asking the questions here,” the sheriff said as a plume of red began to creep up his neck.
“Isn’t there some person of color somewhere you can harass?”
The sheriff looked like he wanted to reach for his mace and give the snot-nosed punk in front of him a good dosing. “I received a call from a concerned citizen. Said there might be something going on around here.”
“Roman orgy,” Mike said.
“Excuse me?”
“There’ll all the rage these days. Making a hell of a comeback. It gets messy sometimes, especially when someone pulls out the Olive Oil, all that thrusting and grunting, sometimes you just never know where things are going to end up if you know what I mean,” Mike said, winking at the sheriff.
“I have no desire to know your twisted sexual preferences. Like I said this woman called and said I might find some trouble here and now you’re talking about orgies and there’s this car here, which she also described.
“Mrs. Hollow.”
“What? How did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” he told the cop. Bitch, he thought. She knew Durgan was coming to kill me so she waited two days before reporting it. And then she was going to turn his ass in, He had to salute her for that. “Leave no stone unturned.”
“What’s that?”
“I said that out loud?”
“Where is the owner of that car?”
“No idea,” Mike said.
“I think you’re lying.”
“I really don’t give a shit.”
“I have probable cause to search the premises.”
“You don’t have shit. You have a random car and the ravings of a crazy bitch three thousand miles away who has hated my guts since the first time she laid eyes on me.”
“Much like myself then?” the sheriff asked Mike.
“Are you done?” Mike asked wearily. “I have a book to write.”
“I read it by the way. It sucked.”
“I wouldn’t figure someone like you would understand it anyway.”
“What happened to your leg?”
“I cut myself shaving.”
“What happened to your eye—eyeliner accident?”
Mike brought his hand up to his face, he felt the material and then realized that at some point last night he must have put his patch on, but for the life of him couldn’t remember when. “You should leave.”
“You know I’ll be back with a search warrant,” he said, walking back toward his car.
“Good, maybe when you come back we can discuss where you went wrong in life.”
The sheriff stopped and looked long and hard at Mike. Mike could tell the man was debating if anyone would hear the shot. “Have a nice day,” he said as he removed his hat and climbed back into his cruiser.
Mike waved and headed back into the house.
Patches was on the counter, boring holes into him as he approached. “Et tu?” he asked the bristling cat. Patches hopped off and headed back upstairs.
Mike was going to get a cold drink, but the fridge, which was still in its original spot, was now however turned completely around so that he was staring at the coolant tubes.
“Is this shit supposed to be funny?” he asked the house. There was no response.
Mike was fairly confident the sheriff would be back and soon, the house looked like a CSI’s wet dream. Blood spray from both men was all over the floor and even Mike with his untrained eye could see the telltale signs of a person being dragged. He went outside and followed the path, constantly wondering how the sheriff had missed what was right in front of him.
“Blinded by hate,” Mike said as he entered the woods. He found himself at the foot of the clearing. Nothing remained of Durgan, even the human lattice holes were now part of the enshrouding landscape. The moss where Durgan lay appeared somewhat greener than the rest, but Mike wasn’t sure if that was just a trick of his eye. Mike began to lift the corner of his patch, no matter what he had promised Jandilyn, but quickly shut his eyelid. He didn’t think he would like what he ‘saw’ at all. Instead, he let the blackness again fall back in place.
He turned to go back up the trail, Patches was watching him from the side of the woods. “What?” he asked the cat. “He was an asshole, he wouldn’t have fed you.” Patches bounded off. “Ingrate!” Mike called after her.
Mike felt a small tremor under his feet. Time to go, he thought, following the cat, the diffused light of twilight making it difficult to see the way ahead.
“When the hell did that happen?” Mike asked, looking up as the stars were becoming visible. “The sheriff showed up couldn’t have been any later than nine, nine thirty tops. And now it’s gotta be close to seven thirty.”
A cold dank wind pressed against his back. The smell of old dirt and rot folded around him as he added another gear to his walk. His injured leg was slow to flex. That’s what happens when you stand for ten hours straight, he thought sourly.
He was halfway down the path toward his yard when he heard the sound of roots tearing free from the earth. It was not a comforting noise. Whatever they had been holding down within their heavy wooden embrace had finally and forcefully been set free.
Something was coming, Mike knew it without having to turn around. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing straight out. His fight or flight response was pegged on flight and if he could get his legs to cooperate he would be gone. He finally stole a quick glance behind him once he made it to the edge of his yard and could see some of the trees down by the clearing swaying violently. He began to run and so did whatever was following him if the thrashing of the trees was any indication.
He was breathing heavy on the top of the porch, a steady flow of blood issuing from his leg again when she appeared, at least he felt her to be female. The figure stopped where Mike’s backyard started, she/it was clothed in a large black hooded cloak. Mike thought she was unnaturally tall until he realized the creature was levitating a full foot off the ground, her black dirt-clod feet dangling uselessly below her.
The head which had been looking at the perimeter, deciding if it could cross the barrier finally looked up. Mike pressed himself up against the door as the yellow eyes radiated light. The twin orbs of fire froze his heart.
“What do you want with me?” Michael cried.
The figure looked back down and began to move silently and effortlessly toward him. Mike ripped the screen door off its hinges to get away. He was thankful the front door was open, he didn’t think he had enough reasoning ability over the ever crowding terror to twist the knob.
He slammed the door shut and threw the deadbolt home. He turned and placed his back against the door, thankful he had shut out the nightmare. A deep scratching noise came from the other side of the heavy oak. Mike jumped away with a cry.
“Michael,” seethed a voice choked with mud, rock, and moss.
Patches was at the top of the stairs, her ears pulled back, hissing violently at the sound.
The scratching continu
ed, Mike could hear wood shavings striking the porch. “What do you want?” Mike screamed.
“You,” came the solitary response. The word could have been issued from the depths of a tomb carried along an ill breeze.
Mike turned around to face the door and began to back away, his body was shaking with fear. He could barely control his movements. “You…you should leave, I…I have a gun,” Mike voiced weakly.
The laugh that came was as dry as a funeral drum.
Something unholy was outside, the mere thought of which made Mike wish Durgan was back.
Mike’s terrified gaze was ripped from the front door to the kitchen where he heard an even louder scraping sound. He thought his heart might stop beating when he looked down the hallway and could see a huge shadow approaching.
“She’s coming,” he said resignedly. If I slit my throat now, will I be dead before she can torment me? He had turned to flee up the stairs when the object of his nightmare came into view. His wayward fridge was making its way down the narrow corridor. “What the fuck?” was all he could muster. It’s trying to crash the door down and let it in. But he couldn’t find it in himself to go and inhibit its forward progress.
The appliance picked up speed as it got closer to the door. To Mike it was happening in two completely different speeds. On one level, it was happening so fast he could do little more than wonder how quickly his demise was going to be; and on the other, he watched in agonizingly slowly spaced segments of thought, the end of his existence as he knew it. Hell had submitted a remittance and now the note was due.
The stairs shook as the ice box was pushed up against the door but not with the terminal velocity needed to shatter the wood but rather as an aid to keep what was out, out.
Mike laughed. It had about as much mirth as the entity’s only moments before, but what it lacked in merriment was more than made up for in maniacal insanity.
“You’re on my side now?” Mike asked, looking up to the loft. “Is this a matter of who staked a claim first or are you as scared as I am?”