by Mark Tufo
Mike waited for a response… nothing. At least the scratching had stopped, but now the utter and complete silence was worse. The thing now plaguing his house didn’t look like it was the giving up type.
“It would be great if it was a vampire, because then I’d have to invite her in and there is no way I’d do that.”
Mike shivered. He began to search through all his lore of what he knew about vampires, almost all of it from movies, and a smattering from fiction books. He didn’t know how that was going to help him.
“I screwed up royally this time,” Mike said to the still flat eared cat who took a quick second to acknowledge the words he had shouted.
Mike began to wonder if it was a matter of surviving until the dawn, at which point he would jump in his car and drive into the ocean if it got him out of this mess. Mike stared at the blocked door for a while longer, wondering what was happening. When he was somewhat confident it wasn’t starting up again, he slowly headed back down the stairs, not remembering having ever climbed them, wishing he’d had the foresight to stock up on Holy Water.
He placed his hands against the front of the fridge. It was as cold as if it had been stored inside a meat locker. The sweat on his hands had bonded with the metal as if flash frozen. He pulled back quickly losing the top couple layers of skin. His breath was pluming around his head and whatever was out front was still there, he could feel it.
Patches looked like she was getting ready to bound off, not sure of her house mate’s intentions. “Don’t worry, cat,” Mike said, “I’m not that insane.”
Patches seemed to frown on the ‘that’ part.
The presence had not left, but neither was it advancing. Mike felt that they were at an impasse.
What now? Mike wondered. As if in response, the front door rattled. “I guess that confirms that suspicion.”
Mike’s gaze was quickly brought skyward as he looked to the ceiling some thirty-five feet above his head when he heard a loud thumping. “I doubt that’s Santa,” Mike said, doing his best to hold on to his fleeing nerve. Shingle-ripping scrapes above him kept him rooted to his spot. Is it trying to come through the roof? he wondered.
He did not know what he would do if he were to come face-to-face with the being. He was fairly certain his mind would fragment like a shattered mirror. He did not think anything living was supposed to gaze upon its countenance. Mike watched through the windows as debris rained down from above. “Homeowners insurance isn’t going to cover this!” he shouted.
The clawing sounds went from end to end, back and forth more rapidly than Mike could keep up with. He could feel his senses starting to shut down from overload. It was too much; he couldn’t even begin to process everything that was happening. When the scrabbling finally stopped, Mike looked heavenward, waiting for the next assault.
His neck began to ache and his injured leg was screaming for some relief when he thought he might have finally been issued a reprieve from the psychological torture. He hobbled over to the couch and immediately covered himself with the small blanket in the hopes the cotton blend would somehow repel the evil that had descended upon him, an evilness which he felt he had brought on himself. Does God allow do-overs?
Mike finally succumbed to the events of the day and laid his head down upon the armrest of the couch. He didn’t think he had been asleep more than a few minutes, but that didn’t seem right, the light in the house was somehow different, muted perhaps. Something was pulling the color from his surroundings. He sat up quickly when he heard the floorboards upstairs creaking.
“It’s inside,” he hissed.
He could feel it, he knew without a doubt whatever it was, had come in and was going to walk out onto the small landing and peer at him with its somehow burning, black pitiless eyes and he would go insane. His ‘self’ would be gone, replaced with something that would resemble him on the outside but would have none of the same inner workings.
“Go away!” Mike screamed.
It was as effective as he figured it would be. Which meant not at all. Mike twitched with every noise upstairs until finally he could not take it, it sounded like someone was tossing bowling balls around his room. Anger boiled over, this slow steady decline into the abyss was not how he wanted to go out. He ran up the stairs completely ignoring the pain. The noise ceased the moment his right foot touched the landing.
“You’re chicken shit!” he screamed, hoping he was not talking about himself.
Sounds began to emanate from the far side of the house on the main floor. Patches was on the couch looking into the gloom.
“Attack, cat!” Mike prodded, she wasn’t having anything to do with it and Mike couldn’t blame her much. The bowling balls were preferable to the sound drifting toward him. It was a light tapping on glass.
“The windows…it wants in. No way,” Mike said, shaking his head back and forth and finally placing his fingers in his eardrums in a useless gesture to block it out. The tapping became louder to the point where, Mike thought the glass was going to shatter. He could hear the whole frame rattling as if the entity were violently trying to shake the window free from its moorings.
What happened after the windows stopped shaking was worse. Mike could hear the glass being etched, he could imagine fine filaments of glass strings curling as they were shaved from the surface. What could be doing that but can’t get in? he wondered for the tenth time. Unless it’s already in and is just tormenting me. Think ‘OUT, it’s out!’ That’s much better.
Mike was rooted to the top of the steps. Whatever had propelled him there was now devoid of any power to get him moving again. Now he saw it as a precognitive lifesaving event. Something had got him to go upstairs to get away from what was most likely looking in his windows even now. Mike had the feeling of bugs crawling beneath the surface of his skin as he dwelled on that.
Mike felt he had somehow failed a test with Durgan; he now harbored guilt for the death of Durgan and for offering the man up as some sort of sacrifice. He had brought this retribution upon himself with his actions. Whatever doorway he had opened it would not close without him as a final payment. Somehow Mike was able to push the terror to the back or else his body had just decided it couldn’t take any more as it began to shut down. Mike wrapped himself up in as tight a fetal position as he could at the top of the stairs.
Even in his near state of delirium he knew this for the bad idea it was, but he didn’t move. At some point the night had to end no matter the blackness that was ensuing.
***
The sun did little to burn away the feelings Mike had. Patches was no more than a foot from his face, her loud meowing more effective than a rooster.
“Don’t you have a shit to take or something?” Mike said half-heartedly, trying to push her away, she danced away from his attempts. Mike rolled on to his side and almost down the stairs before he realized where he was.
“I can’t go through another night like that, cat,” Mike said, sitting up, careful not to rise too quickly lest an ill-timed case of vertigo finish him off. As he got to his feet, Patches headed into the bedroom. “Might as well see how much of my deductible I will have to pay to cover this,” he said as he followed after her.
Chunks of drywall littered his floor, large swaths of it had been removed. It looked as if a grizzly bear had been caged in his room the destruction was that vast. His bed was cleaved in two. Patches was sitting on the half still within the bed frame.
“You’re braver than I am,” he told her.
She looked at him as if to say ‘No shit.’
“I wish that had happened before Durgan decided to spend the night with me,” Mike said, trying to inject some humor. He thought maybe if he had someone with whom he could disperse his terror he would be able to abate it. Bouncing it off of himself was only having so much affect and none of it really all that good.
Jandilyn would be able to talk me off this perch, he thought. But really, would she even understand what was going on?
“What the hell?”
Mike looked up to the window pane. If he had the foresight to look at his reflection he would have witnessed how quickly he went from a robust tan color to that of bleached bone. Three scratches each about an inch apart from each other ran the width of the window. Mike rubbed his finger along one of the lines and was rewarded with a bleeding wound when a sliver of glass embedded itself deeply, the shard sent electric currents of pain through his nervous system.
“Fuck!” he yelled, pulling away quickly.
Fat droplets of blood splattered on the ground and began pooling around him, Patches moved away as the blood began to run in a small rivulet. Mike hurried to the kitchen and turned the water on, what spewed from the spigot was nearly identical in color to what poured from his finger. He waited for the rust to work its way through, at least that’s what he hoped it was and then placed his finger underneath. By the time the seepage began to diminish, Mike was watching as the sheriff’s car weaved its way up his long drive. His soured disposition was not going to improve in the least with his new guest.
Mike grabbed a bandage, wishing he had a few more moments to dig for the irritating splinter and headed down the hallway to the front door. He pushed the fridge out of the way to watch the approach of the sheriff. He did a quick scan of the area to make sure his night visitor was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t visible, but the damage was, sheets of shingles lay strewn around the yard, a micro-burst descending on his house would have had a hard time replicating the amount of damage he was looking at. When he was confident it was not close he turned back toward the sheriff who had just stopped his car and was getting out.
“Good to see you again, I was wondering when we might find some time to get together,” Mike inflected with as much sarcasm as he could muster given that he was as stressed out as he had ever been in his life and hadn’t slept much in at least two days.
The sheriff said nothing as he came up the stairs. When he got to the top he also surveyed the damage on the lawn. “Trouble?” he asked behind his mirrored glasses.
“Squirrels.”
“Squirrels did this?”
“They’re very angry. I think the previous owner built his house on an ancient native squirrel burial site.”
“Do people really spend their hard earned cash on this shit you think up every day?”
“Well, I know it’s not as impressive as harassing people and just generally being an asshole, but yeah, you’d be amazed. Already got the court order? That’d be monumental.”
“Judge wouldn’t sign off on it, seems that the ramblings of a distraught mother-in-law aren’t probable cause.”
“Damn shame.”
“But I figured you’d invite me in because of good old Northwestern hospitality.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because I’m from Boston and we’re all pretty much dickheads there.”
“I figured you’d say as much so I brought my persuader.”
Mike was now staring at the chromed-out barrel of what appeared from his angle to be a howitzer. “Sheriff?” Mike asked. He was scared, but nothing approaching the level it had been only a few hours previous.
“You smell…wrong. You look…wrong. And something about this place is foul.”
Mike found himself nodding in agreement.
“I’m going to find whatever I need in this place to get you thrown in jail.”
“How you going to make it stick if it’s illegally obtained?” Mike asked.
“Or you could just die in a struggle to escape, I guess.” The sheriff smiled.
“Who really sent you here, Sheriff? I can’t even begin to wrap my head around what is going on here much less be able to explain it.”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out. I’m not nearly as insane as you are.” The sheriff motioned with the gun for Mike to go inside. “Another struggle?” he asked as he stepped to the side to avoid the screen door leaning up against the railing. “Doing a little woodworking?” he asked as he stopped to admire the wood carving on the door.
Three half inch deep claw marks were hewn into the wood. Mike reached up and traced them and pulled back quickly as a splinter lodged into his ring finger. “I’ve got mice,” he said. The sheriff was not amused.
“Whatever you’ve done here, you won’t be able to cover it up with an insanity plea or are you going to try to say you’re researching a character for a new book? Because I’d love to get a sneak peek at that.”
Me too, Mike thought, considering he hadn’t written a word since Jandilyn died.
Mike kept looking from the door to the pathway and back again.
“Something out there?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Maybe we should take a look there first. Some folks think they can get away with anything out here in the wilderness, but that’s not always the case.”
“I think it’d be safer if you looked around the house.”
“Are you afraid I’ll find something.”
“I’m more afraid something will find us.”
Mike felt an iron grip on his shoulder as he was forcibly turned around. “Move,” the sheriff said. Mike felt the barrel pressed firmly in between his shoulder blades. He involuntarily raised his hands.
“I’d rather you shoot me now and get it over with,” Mike said hesitant to go any farther.
“That can be arranged, but I want to see your face first when I find out what has you so disturbed. Now move.” He shoved Mike roughly forward.
Mike’s steps were as small as he could make them while still making forward progress.
“You’re beginning to piss me off, Mr. Talbot.”
“Beginning?”
“You know what I mean. I would like to get to the crime scene while it’s still light so I can get an investigative team up here and working.”
The path down to the clearing was quiet and for the first time Mike could remember there were no flying insects present, anything that valued life was nowhere in the vicinity and this fact was not lost on him. The sheriff was completely oblivious, he was so wrapped up in the hunt for evidence.
“Been busy?” the sheriff asked over Mike’s shoulder as he looked into the clearing. “Did you do all this?” he asked as he came abreast of Mike.
Mike nodded, but he wasn’t so sure he had. The trees he had felled, but he had not removed the stumps and there wasn’t so much as a hint they had ever existed despite the fact that some had been at least five feet around at the base.
The area where Durgan had been eroded was the same pale shade of green as the rest of the flooring, the greener pigmentation had faded to match the rest. The ground was uniform, whatever had ripped its way through the earth had not disturbed so much as a lone pine needle.
“What’s wrong with this place?” the sheriff asked as he hesitantly held a foot above the edge as if he was now thinking better of entering into the opening.
Mike was fairly certain if he were to push the man in the same fate that had besot Durgan would happen to him. But did he deserve it? That was the question. Whatever residual vestiges of humanity he was still hanging onto would be pulled away. Mike instead grabbed the cop’s shoulder and pulled him back from the brink.
“You afraid I’ll find something?” the cop asked, but there was something else, he looked relieved.
“I think you’d die,” Mike said flatly.
“From what?”
“Listen.”
The cop was staring at him intently. “To what?”
“Do you hear anything—a c
ricket? A bird? A squirrel? Fucking Bigfoot?”
“No.”
“There’s something here sheriff, something evil.”
“I think you’re full of shit, like maybe you’ve read too many of your crappy stories.”
“Durgan tried to kill me.”
“The man who owns the car?” He formed it as a question but it was more a statement.
“Yes, I lucked out and was able to turn the tables.”
“He’s dead then?”
“Yes.”
“Was it self-defense?”
“Up to a point,” Mike said vaguely.
“What exactly does ‘up to a point’ mean?”
“It means I got the best of him and then kicked him while he was down.”
“Was it in the heat of the moment?”
“Does that make a difference?” Mike asked.
The sheriff nodded.
“Then absolutely, couldn’t have been any more heat-ier.”
“Where’s his body?”
“In there,” Mike said pointing to the center of the clearing.
“This ground hasn’t been disturbed recently—are you pulling my leg?”
“Yes, Sheriff, I just admitted to killing another man just to gauge your reaction.”
“Did you bury him?”
“No, I didn’t have to.”
“Okay, we can play two hundred questions all damn day long if you want or you can just tell me what is going on.”
“I’m not sure if I even know what’s going on.”
“Why don’t you give it a shot and I’ll decide whether you can sit in the front or back of my cruiser?”
Mike thought it would be option C, an ambulance equipped with a straight jacket but he kept that to himself.
“Let’s go back up to the house and I’ll tell you everything. You can decide then what you want to do with me. Jail might be preferable to another night here.”
Mike spent the next couple of hours laying out the whole story, from his first introduction with the cat, to the being that seemed to reside in the loft. With each sentence Mike couldn’t tell if he was drawing the sheriff in or alienating him. He told him about his encounter with death, the compulsion to make the clearing. Durgan showing up at his door to the fight and then even the dragging to the clearing where Durgan disappeared.