It was originally thought to be a temporary position for the three families, maybe lasting a generation or two. The beast would eventually grow old and die. One hundred and fifty years later and the creature still roamed; the Bigfoot families having had to pass on the responsibility to new generations.
Hank waited an hour inside his pickup, giving the beast time to enjoy its meal before heading back to wherever it went. He trekked back to the killing ground to clean up the severed head—which for some reason the beast never ate—and bury the bones.
* * *
Three weeks later, a week before another sacrifice was to be made, Joel called Hank on his cell phone.
“What’s up, buddy?” Hank asked, sitting in his worn recliner with a bottle of Labatt Blue in his hand.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Joel said, his voice cracking something awful, like a kid hitting puberty.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Go on with the family business. My son’s almost of age to know the truth; to be brought into our little group. I can’t . . . I won’t pass this on to him, Hank. I won’t.”
“Calm down,” Hank said, sitting up in his chair and setting his beer down. He reached for his pack of smokes, pulling one out.
“Hank?” Joel asked.
“Hang on a sec,” Hank said into the phone. Placing the cigarette between his lips, he lit the smoke and took a long pull, inhaling the sweet tobacco deep into his lungs. He held his breath for a moment, then exhaled. He’d needed that.
“Hank, I’m serious.”
“I know,” Hank responded, quietly. “I think I’m done too.”
“What? Really?” Joel asked, elatedly.
Hank took another deep draw from his smoke, exhaling as he spoke. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. “I’m glad you called.”
“Oh, Hank. You have no idea how relieved I am to hear it. But what are we going to do? Tell Pete?”
“No, absolutely not,” Hank said, harshly. Pete Jorgan was a cowboy, a hot dog who had no qualms about the family business. He would never go along with them and would most likely cause a ruckus with the townspeople. And who knew what the town would do to his and Joel’s family. No, this would have to stay between himself and Joel.
“We can’t tell anyone, Joel. Not a soul, not even your wife. You understand what happens if this gets out?”
“Yeah, but what are we supposed to do? Leave town and let Pete recruit two more families to replace ours?”
“No. I want out, but not at the cost of the town folk. If we just up and left and anything happened to Pete, the town would be at the mercy of that beast.”
“So what then?”
Hank took another drag off his smoke, then said, “We kill it.”
“What? Are you nuts?”
“It’s our only option. Well, my only option. I won’t run and leave the town to suffer.”
“Okay, okay,” Joel said, his voice sounding a little calmer. “You’re right. But it’s been tried before and only to fail. Lives were lost. My great granddaddy lost his wife and eldest son to that creature.”
“Things are better now,” Hank said, reassuringly. “Technology is better. Weapons are better. I’ve been working on a plan, have been for some time, should the need arise to kill it. It’s risky of course, but we have to take it.” Hank paused, taking a last drag on his smoke before extinguishing it into his near empty beer bottle. He waited for Joel’s reply and when none came, he asked, “Are you with me?”
“Yes, Hank. I’m with you.”
* * *
The bait was set: another woman of the night from Seattle. She was tied to the post and still unconscious from the sedative.
With an unobstructed view of the clearing, Hank peered through the night vision scope mounted to his .30-06 bolt action rifle. The moon was out full again, illuminating the area adequately enough to see, but the night vision scope proved better.
To his left lay Joel, also with a clear view of the clearing and armed with a .30-06 rifle and night vision scope.
Both men lay prone, leaves and forest debris covering them like seasoned army rangers waiting in the bush.
Hank had imagined the beast was no different than any other predatory animal of the forest, having keen senses beyond what any human possessed.
After speaking on the phone about killing the beast, Hank went over to Joel’s house and had taken a set of clothes. Along with a set of his own clothes he’d be wearing on the sacrifice night, Hank took Joel’s shirt, pants, shoes, and hat, and immersed them in the local pond for a few hours. He had soaked them thoroughly, marinating the fabric with pond scum before heading back to Joel’s place. There, he allowed the clothes to dry in the dog house. He wanted no trace of human odor with them when they went into the forest.
* * *
The girl awoke and began yelling for help. The woods soon filled with the beast’s roars before appearing at the clearing’s edge. The woman fainted upon seeing the Bigfoot, silencing the air and making Hank’s and Joel’s job all the more difficult. Hank had been relying on the woman’s pleas for help to cover up any noise he or Joel made.
He looked on, a nervous sweat trickling down the sides of his face, making him itch. He would have to bear it for now. Any movement, any noise, and the creature might bolt or attack. He wanted to turn to Joel, signal him not to move or make a sound. But he remained still, not wanting to alert the beast.
Inside the clearing, the creature looked around, then began walking forward. Hank grinned as the monster’s large head entered his scope’s view. Letting out a controlled breath, he squeezed the trigger.
The weapon’s crack was deafening. Hank watched as the creature seemed to vanish, falling out of the scope’s view. Joel didn’t even have a chance to fire.
Hank was on his feet in seconds, sprinting toward the downed beast. He could hear Joel close behind. Running up to the Bigfoot creature, Hank wanted to sink more bullets into its hide, but saw that it wasn’t going to be necessary. The thing lay still; a small hole where its right eye had been. The back of its head was a mangled, blood-smeared, pulp; the exit wound appearing as if a bomb had gone off inside the monster’s head. Blood, like strawberry syrup, was pooling around the body as its left arm twitched involuntarily.
Hank couldn’t believe how easily the creature went down. The thing’s skull looked thicker than a Grizzly’s. He’d had one heck of a lucky shot; having the bullet enter the softest part of the creature’s body--a direct and easy line to the brain.
“You killed it!” Joel proclaimed, joyously. He began jumping up and down like a cheerleader celebrating the winning touchdown.
Hank was speechless. It was finally over.
“Incredible!” Joel hollered, slapping Hank on the back. “One shot, one kill.”
“We better get this lady back to the city,” Hank said, after a little time had gone by. “And then come back and clean this mess up.”
“You going to tell, Pete?” Joel asked. “The town council?”
“Yes,” Hank said.
“We’ll be heroes!” Joel said, before pausing. His face scrunched up into confusion. “You smell that?”
With a cigarette in his mouth, not yet lit, Hank sniffed the air. He nodded. A cold chill ran down his spine.
“Smells like this thing, only stronger,” Joel commented.
“No,” Hank answered, his tone cold. “Smells like a bunch of the things.”
From the woods came another beast, its movement almost soundless. It stood eight feet tall, making the one on the ground look small. Then another beast came from the forest, followed by another and another. From what Hank could tell, these were older than the one he’d killed. He swallowed.
“Hank?” Joel managed to squeak out.
Hank knew what he’d done: killed a youngling in training. Looking at Joel, he saw that the front of the man’s pants had darkened.
Hank raised his lighter to his mouth and lit the cigarette
. The beasts hadn’t even flinched at the sight of flame. He hoped it might scare them off, but it didn’t. Closing his eyes, he took a long pull from the cigarette, wishing he’d gotten his family out of town.
Bad Cutlery
Dilinger saw the steak knife lying on the edge of the kitchen counter. Its glimmer, shining like an exotic jewel, spoke to him.
“Pick me up. Use me,” it said.
Dilinger glanced around. Had the knife spoken? It couldn’t have. Someone had to be playing a trick on him, but the wave of panic coming over him like an icy wet towel told him otherwise.
“Virginia, baby, come in here a minute, please,” Dilinger called, eyes glued to the blade. A minute later his wife entered the kitchen.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Wait,” Dilinger said, holding up a finger.
“Stab him, Virginia,” the knife said.
Virginia jumped, a scream escaping her mouth. “Pick me up. Kill your husband. Use me.” She stumbled backwards and collided with the wall, knocking down a picture. It landed with a thud as the glass and frame cracked.
“You heard it too?” Dilinger said, running a hand over his thick brown hair.
“Yes, I heard it. What the hell, Dil?”
“I don’t know,” Dilinger said, almost giddily.
“What, are you happy? Is this a joke?”
“Thought I might be going insane,” he said, fingering his lower lip. “Good to know I’m not.”
“We have another problem," Virginia said. "A damn talking knife.”
“Kill each other,” the knife said. “Use me before the other one of you does.”
“Shut that thing up,” Virginia demanded, her body trembling.
“Kill, kill, kill, slice, slice, slice, blood, blood, blood.”
“Get rid of it, Dil,” she said, whimpering. Tears were streaming her cheeks.
Dilinger opened the silverware drawer, grabbed an oven mitt and pushed the knife off the counter. It fell into the drawer with the forks, spoons and knives with a dull clang of metal. Dilinger shut the drawer.
“What now?” Virginia asked, biting her fingernails.
“Where did that knife come from?” Dilinger asked.
“I bought it at a yard sale last weekend.”
Remembering the yard sale’s address, Dilinger and Virginia used the internet to find out more about the place.
The house belonged to the infamous Gradil family, a deranged serial killing household headed by Morton Gradil a self-proclaimed prophet to the Devil.
Grabbing Dilinger’s shoulder like a hawk would its prey, Virginia said, “We have to get rid of it. It’s possessed.”
Dilinger didn’t want to believe in such a thing. Possession was bullshit. For the movies, made to frighten people. Used in the olden days as a way explain schizophrenia and other disorders. But the facts were presenting themselves without denial.
He returned to the kitchen, opened the drawer and took hold of the knife. An electric charge filled his hand. It traveled up his arm, numbing it.
“Kill, Virginia. Kill that bitch. We both know she deserves to die.” The sensation and message was overwhelming, like the need to breathe. Dilinger tried dropping the knife, but had no connection with his arm. Images of people dying, bleeding, guts spewing, flooded his mind.
Virginia entered the kitchen. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Get out of here. I don’t think I can control myself.” Dilinger tried walking toward the house’s front door, his legs feeling like they weighed a ton. “Have . . . to . . . throw the knife . . . outside. Get . . . away.”
Virginia, shaking like a junkie, stood unmoving, unsure of what to do.
Dilinger struggled to the front door, opened it, pulled his arm back to toss the weapon when his arm came down and the knife sliced his own leg. He screamed more in shock than in pain as blood oozed from the gash. The knife had control of his arm, the appendage a separate entity with a mind unto itself. He fought against it, using his other arm to fend off another attack. He looked like a novice mime doing a bad interpretation of a stabbing. The blade approached his throat, his right arm clearly stronger than his left. With the knife an inch away from his carotid artery, Virginia whacked her husband’s possessed hand with a frying pan and knocked the weapon away. In the process she had broken two of his fingers.
Dilinger limped to a kitchen chair, holding his broken fingers out.
“Sorry,” Virginia said.
“No, you did well. It was trying to kill me.”
Dilinger’s wound wasn’t deep. His wife patched him up, set his fingers with splints and cleaned up the floor.
The knife lay in a corner of the living room, yelling out deadly commands the entire time.
The damn thing had to go. Be destroyed.
Dilinger rose to his feet, able to walk. Virginia grabbed a towel and covered the knife with it. Using the bionic arm grabber they’d purchased in Orlando while on vacation, Dilinger picked up the covered knife. He twisted it so the towel wrapped around the blade. The knife's cursing cries became muffled.
Dilinger dropped the towel-wrapped knife into a pillow case his wife retrieved from the linen closet, and then carried it to the backyard where a fire burned. Virginia was tending the blaze.
He dropped the pillowcase onto the fire. Together, husband and wife watched the package go up. They let it burn for two hours, hoping whatever evil possessed the knife would be cast out or destroyed by the blaze.
After cooling, the knife—its wooden handle disintegrated—was plucked from the ashes, placed on a large flat stone and pounded into a bent, misshapen piece of steel. Not a word had been uttered from the knife during the ordeal.
“I think it’s dead,” Dilinger said, his wife returning from the house. “I’ve been listening for its call and haven’t heard a peep.”
“Good, throw it in the trash,” his wife said, her face scrunched disgustedly.
Using the bionic grip, Dilinger tossed the mangled blade into the trash before dragging the cans to the curb. Thank goodness garbage day was tomorrow.
The next evening, while Dilinger and Virginia slept soundly in bed, a man dressed in sanitation garb broke into their home and killed them, but not before they were soaked in lighter fluid and ignited.
After putting the fire out, the man bludgeoned them to within an inch of their lives, smashing their arms and legs with a sledge hammer. They died hours later, the pain unbearable.
A few days later the sanitation worker was arrested and convicted for the murders, his finger prints everywhere. When asked why he did it, he said, “The knife wanted revenge and it made me do it.” He was sentenced to life in prison.
The knife is still at large.
Potty Mouth
Peter had been a badly behaved young man. A real potty mouth. His mother warned him repeatedly not to swear, but Peter—now eighteen years old—refused to listen.
“I’m eighteen,” he told his mother. “I’m an adult and you can’t tell me what to do or how to act.” He crossed his arms, defiantly adding, “and I can fucking swear any fucking time I wish.”
“As long as you live under my roof," she said, red-faced from anger, "you’ll follow my rules."
“Fuck that, bitch!” he hollered and gave her the middle finger before storming out of the house.
Marla had been raising Peter alone since Fred, Peter’s father, left them. She’d felt badly for the boy, often giving him more leeway than normal. But she’d had enough. He was a rotten, spoiled son-of-a-gun. She needed to teach him a lesson he’d not soon forget. It was time for harsh punishment, like her parents had done to her. Something that had made her learn her lesson.
She thought for a while at the kitchen table as she sipped her English tea. Her parents had used an assortment of spells and curses to teach their lessons, and so would she. An idea finally came to her. He likes being a potty mouth, she thought, then he’ll get to see what a real potty feels like.
&nb
sp; Later that evening, around two a.m. while Peter slept soundly in his bed, Marla went to the basement and sifted through her spell books. Her eyes lit up when she found the enchantment she needed.
After mixing the proper ingredients, having them all at her disposal, she crept upstairs to her son’s bedroom.
Standing over him while he snored loudly, she performed the spell quietly, and poured the magical brew over his person.
Within minutes, his body began to disperse into a mist-like substance. Using a Container of Holding, Marla was able to gather her son’s particles together, keeping them securely locked away.
Next, she traveled in her Station Wagon with Peter's particles on the seat next to her in the magical container to a remote rest stop in the middle of the Nevada desert. Marla felt as if she’d been transported back in time to the 1970’s. The lot wasn’t paved, allowing a whirlwind of dust to kick up when she pulled in. The gas pumps had old flip numbers instead of a digital readout. The sign naming the establishment was unreadable and hung from a long rusted pole faded by years of harsh sunlight. Old forgotten cars, relics now, sat on either side of the establishment like a pile of human corpses at a mass grave before burial. Marla thought the place was perfect.
She entered the store, bells ringing annoyingly against the glass, and asked to use the restroom. The clerk, an elderly man with thick lenses that made his pupils appear like pin-holes, and a ring of puffy white hair around his bald, age-spotted head, handed her the key. Marla held it up, admiring the attached two-foot piece of graffiti ridden two-by-four block of wood.
“Don’t run off with that,” the clerk told her.
She needed the men’s room key. Women could be nasty, messy things, but when it came to the punishment, she wanted Peter to be in the men’s room.
She walked around the side of the building and waited a minute before returning to the store.
“That was fast,” the clerk said, holding out his arm to take the precious key back.
A Mixed Bag of Blood Page 7