Hovering on the edge of consciousness, Herb sensed the rabbit. Felt the impossibly fast thrumming of its tiny heart, felt the rapid breaths drawing the night air in and out of its sensitive nose. It must’ve startled when he fell from the sky, but didn’t run far. Herb lay in the grass, surrounded by small patches of clover. A cautious hop, followed by another and the rabbit slowly made its way back toward its evening snack. Each hop was followed by a pause, nose working to test the night air for danger, ears rotating back and forth, alert for the slightest noise. Hopping closer and closer, the rabbit nuzzled up to a bit of clover and started to munch. One leaf down, it turned in a slow circle, sniffing out the more tender leaves. Herb’s hand snatched out and grabbed it by the neck so quickly that the rabbit didn’t even have time to scream. Two white-hot needles ripped a nasty gash, sending splashes of red onto the green clover, both turned shades of gray in the night’s dark palette.
Herb drank the rabbit in hungry gulps. Whispers roared in his ears and every inch of his being sang. Broken ribs snapped back together. A shattered cheekbone knitted, muscle and skin forming over the new bone. The enamel of a chipped front tooth slowly regrew to take the shape of the original. With each gulp of blood, a scar vanished, a blemish smoothed. Old fillings drilled their way backward out of molars, and Herb could feel each eyeball stretching and reforming as he gulped.
Too soon, the rabbit was sucked dry. The thing that was Herb looked out into the moonlit forest around his home. Blurry shapes resolved into crystal clarity when he slid his cracked glasses from his nose. A slight inhalation caused his head to spin as he recognized the scent of each blade of grass, each leaf on each tree. And he could smell, smell the blood. Countless sparks of life teemed around him. All that warmth and vitality rushed up each nostril, coursed down his spine, settled in his gut with sickening weight. Urges to rent, tear and feast roiled through Herb, bringing him to his feet. Crouching in the cool night air, head tilted slightly, moonlight reflecting off silvery eyes, a growl escaped Herb’s blood-stained lips. A flicker of movement just past the tree line snapped Herb’s head around. Like a sprinter from the gate, Herb launched himself into the night.
Chapter 12
Herb swam. Long, smooth strokes pulled him through the red, viscous fluid, tiny air bubbles slipped down his body, down his legs kicking in easy rhythm. He’d been under a long time and wondered absently when he might need a breath of air. But still his arms pulled, his legs kicked, and stars flickered through the deep red like a school of minnows far above. Shark-like he moved, dove, turned, opened his mouth to breath, and inhaled the heavy blood deep into his lungs. It filled him up, bursting his lungs, flooding through his chest, saturating every organ. The more blood he absorbed the deeper he sank. Before, he could see the stars, but now all he could see was red, red, red. Deeper he fell, trying to breathe but each gulp only filled him with more blood. The taste spoiled in his mouth, curdled on his tongue. He tried to wretch, to purge...
Herb woke coughing, tried to roll onto his side and promptly fell ass over teakettle off the couch. He had been sprawled upside down with his legs up the back of the couch, heels against the wall, while his head hung back and down near the ottoman. He landed with his cheek pressed against the scratchy carpet. Deep, shuddering breaths helped slow his racing heart. His mouth had a foul taste and he could smell... something. Sluggish thoughts crawled through the steel wool stuffed between his ears. The last thing he remembered was falling off his roof. There was a brief memory of agonizing pain and then... nothing. Herb’s hands slowly pulled in, patted his face, chest, thighs. He was filthy, covered with what felt like sticky mud and grass, but nothing hurt. He cracked open one eye, then two, rolled onto his back and slowly sat up. As his eyes focused, he was mildly surprised to recognize his living room, strangely lit by the TV static and slivers of sunlight filtering through the haphazardly covered windows. Disoriented and dizzy, he listed to one side and a tiny beam of sunlight hit his eye like a white-hot needle. Hissing in pain, he lurched away to avoid the offending beam and plunged his arm up to his elbow in a cow’s stomach.
The high-pitched scream of a young, obviously terrified little girl brought Herb halfway to his senses. Realizing that the scared, screaming child was actually him brought him the rest of the way there. For a few incoherent moments, all he could feel was the slimy guts of the dead cow lying in front of him. He sucked in a ragged breath. Exhaling slowly, he shifted his weight and extracted his bile-covered arm and hand from the cow. Careful to avoid the sliver of sunlight, Herb’s head turned in a slow arc and took in the mayhem around him. The cow lay on its side, tongue protruding, once-liquid brown eyes now very dead and staring at the Favre bobble head doll on the credenza. Herb’s arm had pushed through a large rent in the cow’s side. Some wild beast had torn skin, muscle and bone asunder, leaving a gaping wound. Strewn around the rest of the living room was a macabre collection of dead creatures: a fox, small leftover pieces of what might’ve once been birds, a goat, and easily half of the squirrels in Wisconsin. Jammed up on the back of the sofa, little fuzzy head pulled down toward the cushions where Herb had been lying upside down mere moments before was a raccoon, its tiny paws curled in like a prizefighter, slowly congealing blood dripping to the floor. It was horrible, monstrous. The guy that shot Bambi’s mother was a saint compared to what Herb had done. Bloody tears were already forming when he saw the final and most heart-wrenching victim of his bloodlust. Folded in the corner, its tan coat mottled red with gore, was an all too familiar, scrappy little pug.
Horrified, Herb crawled on his hands and knees through the mostly-dried pools of blood and clumps of skin and fur toward the dog. Its smooshy little face was untouched, bug eyes glassed over, flat nose still slightly damp, and a tiny pink tongue protruding from its dark muzzle. A sequined collar sparkled bravely through the gristle and blood-matted fur adorned with a purple tag proudly proclaiming the name “Lady.” Never mind the gruesome Disney slasher flick that covered the rest of the room. Herb had eaten the neighbor’s pug.
Red tears flowing freely, he sat in the middle of the carnage, trying to sort-out just how in the hell he managed to get half a petting zoo into his house. The phone rang and rang again, causing Herb’s head to swing in a dazed circle, bringing his eyes to bear on where the phone stuck out from beneath most of a dead grouse.
“Um, hello. You’ve reached the Knudsen residence. Um. The Knudsen, Herb, I mean me, well it’s a recording of Herb. Me. Oh crap. Does this rewind? Uff dah. Aaah crap. Oh, ok. Sorry! Can’t take your call! I’d sure love to, and I hope I can take your call again. Later. When I call you back. Um. Ok den, thanks! So wait for the beep… um, the beep. It should be this one. Oh for chrissakes...” Beeeep!
It had been a long time since Herb had listened to his answering machine greeting, and found himself wondering when the suave and self-confident message he remembered had been replaced by a drunken Ole impersonator.
“Herb? Herb! Are you there? Why aren’t you at work? Ronnie’s furious and Hector is exhausted ‘cause he’s been here since like five o’clock last night.” Lois’s voice floated from the tinny speakers of the RadioShack machine, leaving Herb in awestruck wonder. She called me, thought Herb. She’s worried about me and she called. A smile cracked the caked blood around Herb’s mouth as he leaned toward the voice.
“Ronnie’s making me call since you haven’t picked up your phone all morning. He’s been calling and calling and thinks you’re trying to ruin him or something. You’d better call back or get your ass in here pronto, ok Herby? Seriously, it’s like 10:45 in the A. M. Just...”
Herb knocked the remains of the grouse off the phone and grabbed the receiver. “Lois! Hi, Lois. Um. Wow. Hi there. It’s Herb. Me. I’m Herb. Um...” Herb squeezed his eyes shut, slowly pounded his forehead on the lifeless grouse and took a deep breath.
“So. I’m here. You called. Me. Lois. Um, how are you?”
“How am I? Oh just peachy, thanks so much for asking. It’s
busier than heck here but our morning cook has apparently decided to take the morning off, which means the exhausted overnight cook can’t leave since Ronnie only knows how to make Rice-A-Roni.”
“Ronnie.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, Ronnie calls it ‘Rice-A-Ronnie.’ He ah. Adds cilantro, dill, some mayo. He thinks it makes it fancier.”
“Roni, Ronnie, whatever. Hector burned his hand when he dozed off near the deep fryer half an hour ago. Seriously, I don’t know what your deal is, but you really gotta get to work.”
For a few treasured moments after the phone was slammed into the cradle, Lois’s voice flittered on Cupid-wings through the fog in Herb’s brain. Gone were the dead animals, the blood-soaked couch, the gore-spattered Brett Favre bobble-head doll. Even Lady, Jerry and Pam’s poor little pug, flew from his conscious mind like dandelion fluff on a warm summer breeze. Herb bobbed in a sea of bliss, looking at the phone that had recently held her angel voice. Gently setting the receiver down on its cradle, he caressed it with a grimy finger.
A red 11 blinked at him from the answering machine, a stark reminder of the ten angry Ronnie’s and one blissful Lois waiting for his attention. Herb quickly stumbled to his feet, hit play and delete in rapid sequence, turning Ronnie’s messages into a staccato of angry reproachment.
“Come on, come on!” Jittering with anticipation, he hit play, delete. Play, delete. Reaching the final truncated message, he stopped, quivering in anticipation, and gently, reverently hit play. Lois’s voice again filled his senses, buckled his knees, and sent him sliding back to the floor. Oblivious to the fact that he was sitting in a half-congealed puddle of blood, Herb smiled, contentment incarnate. She had called him. Called his phone to talk to him. And she was waiting for him. All he had to do was get in the Pinto, go to work and...
Reality crashed down like kitchen knives from an overturned drawer.
Taking in the farmhouse slaughter scene lit by slivers of burning sun, Herb fumbled for the phone and quickly called back Ronnie’s. No angelic Lois on the phone this time, though. The voice that answered was Ronnie himself, the soul of small town courtesy turning Wrath of the Titans the second Ronnie recognized the caller. Herb held the phone away from his ear for a moment as a torrent of expletives ruptured through the receiver. Halfway through the tirade, Herb yelled a quick, “Sorry Ronnie! I’m really sick.”
Ronnie’s screaming ended abruptly as the Herb slapped the phone back into the cradle. With a shaky sigh and a slow turn, Herb took a measuring look at the carnage strewn about what had once been a simple living room. There was little doubt that he was out of a job again. However, before he could worry about that he had to deal with more immediate concerns. Apparently he’d gotten hungry last night, and he had to clean up the leftovers.
Chapter 13
What struck Herb as odd wasn’t the fact that he was burying assorted woodland creatures, farm animals and the neighbors’ dog in his root cellar. The root cellar was a logical choice. He had first thought to bury them outside, but the freight train of sunlight that slammed into him upon opening the back door was a stark reminder that he was home-bound until nightfall. And he certainly couldn’t leave all the critters in their varying states of repose in the living room. That was just gross, and would probably violate some code or ordinance or whatnot. No, burying the animals in the cellar wasn’t really the weirdest part. It just made sense. What had him perplexed was how ungodly tired he became while doing it.
He’d started out well enough. Never one to lift a weight or push in any direction, up or otherwise, Herb had wondered how he’d gotten the cow home until he grabbed a hoof and pulled. With a wet, ripping, slurpy sound, the carcass slid across the carpet before the leg pulled clean off from the haunch. Herb stumbled back, only to catch himself with cat-like grace. The cow must’ve weighed a few hundred pounds at least, but he’d dragged it and ripped a leg clean off with hardly a tug. Something that started as a giggle and ended as a belch slipped out as he took a firmer grip on the cow’s back end and hauled it across the room, through the kitchen, finally sliding it to a stop at the top of cellar stairs. Reversing his grip, he gave a shove and the cow flopped end-over-end to sprawl in a gory hump at the bottom of the steps. Herb followed, hopping lightly over dead Bessie and took in the space. Never one to acquire anything of real value or significance, the cellar was mostly bare. Furnace and water heater, laundry machine and a wash tub, an old weight bench he’d picked up at a garage sale years back and a ten-speed whose tires resembled the cast-off skins of molting snakes. Plenty of bare, hard-packed dirt floor and an old railroad switch-shovel leaning conveniently in the corner. Herb had crossed the room, grabbed the shovel, and moved a small mountain of dirt before he realized he’d forgotten to turn on a light. Stopping briefly and leaning on the shovel, he turned his head first left, then right. Things did look a little different. Everything he saw stood out in perfect clarity, despite being almost totally dark in the cellar. No windows, no door. The only sources of light were the few rays brave enough to come down the stairs from the kitchen, and the glow of the pilot light under the water heater. But Herb could see everything, every crack in the foundation wall, every cobweb in the joists. With a grin that would’ve sent a jack-o’-lantern scurrying for cover, Herb excavated a hole big enough to accommodate the cow, goat and raccoon for sure, and probably more than a few of their smaller compadres if he squished them in. The cow settled in the hole with a wet schlupping followed by a deep thud. Dropping the shovel next to the pit, he turned to head back up the stairs, only to swoon and collapse to the dirt floor. A ginormous yawn stretched his jaw so wide tendons in his face popped and cracked. Smacking his lips while simultaneously reaching around to scratch his behind, Herb felt himself drift down, down...
... and shook himself awake. Dragging himself up the stairs, he emerged into the relative brightness of the kitchen. Despite the covered windows, his sensitive eyes reacted to the dim glow like he’d stumbled in front of a spotlight. Squinting as his eyes adjusted, Herb moved into the living room and scooped up the goat in one arm and poor little Lady in the other. Turning to head back through the kitchen, he wondered who had snuck in and stuffed the animals with lead. While the cow had felt light as a feather, each step with the goat and dog felt like he was pulling cinderblocks through a field of mud. Another huge yawn stretched his mouth wide, but he continued to move purposefully toward the stairway.
What ensued was a tortuous endeavor. Each step threatened to be his last. His muscles burned and he couldn’t stop yawning. Red rivulets streamed from his eyes, down his cheeks and out of his ears to trickle down his neck. Blood-sweat smudges covered his face like war paint with matching marks on the backs of his wrists. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, every little creature, critter and fowl was safely in the pit and covered with a thin layer of dirt. A few final pats of the shovel to level it with the rest of the floor did Herb in, and he collapsed onto the remaining pile of earth. Within moments the only sounds disturbing the final resting place of Herb’s dinner were snores.
Waking was a sudden thing, not the arduous, torturous, Herculean task he was accustomed to. One moment he slept, dreamless and deep. The next, he was awake, alert, finely tuned to the still air around him, and uncomfortably aware that he’d somehow covered himself in loose dirt. Sliding out from the earthen blanket, Herb sat up and rested his arms on his knees. Sunset he thought. He raised his head and looked up toward the stairs leading out of the cellar. His preternatural eyesight confirmed what he already instinctively knew; outside night had fallen. Herb rolled his neck, shrugged his shoulders, flowed gracefully to his feet, at which point his stained and blood-caked jeans promptly fell down around his ankles. Despite being completely alone in a dark, underground, windowless cellar, Herb still squeaked in embarrassment and quickly doubled over, spontaneously covering his briefs with one hand while grasping for his jeans with the other. Hiking his Wranglers back up, he went to tighten his be
lt, and pulled it in past the last notch. The waistband of his jeans bunched and gathered in front where Herb’s beer gut used to reside. Both hands flew to his stomach as his jeans pooled down around his ankles again. Experimentally, Herb curled one hand into a loose fist and rapped on his abdomen like knocking on a door. Instead of the smooshy paunch he was accustomed to, Herb felt leaner, more... well, not toned muscle exactly. But definitely a lot less fat. Scrabbling, he pulled up the front of this shirt, yanked it over his head and ripped it in the process like it was no more than tissue paper. Standing in the dark on a dirt-packed floor in nothing but a dingy pair of tighty whities, jeans in a pile around his tube sock-wrapped ankles, Herb looked down at himself in complete disbelief. Herb always thought of his physique as... unfortunate. Stooped shoulders, scrawny arms, flabby chest. Beer gut and love handles that caused the waistbands of all of his pants to be permanently rolled over. Neither obese nor svelte, Herb often felt that he looked like a wax statue that stood a little too close to the oven. Dallas was less kind, and had once called him cheese curds and gravy poured into a medium flannel and jeans. But now...
Almost tripping over his jeans in his haste, Herb launched himself across the cellar, up the stairs and into the bathroom. Flicking on the light, he stared at the uncooperative mirror, slowed his breathing and concentrated until a faint reflection coalesced in the mirror. What he saw took his breath away. Quickly turning on the faucet and grabbing a washcloth, he scrubbed at the gore and used his fingers to tame the rat’s nest of hair. Concentrating again, he willed his reflection back into the glass. Where before he’d been a pasty, pudgy walking testament to the effects of midwestern bachelordom, he was now... Herb struggled for the right word. Hot. Never in a million years would he have dreamed he’d be able to wear that particular adjective. Well, if the shoe fits, he thought with awe. The extra pounds that had previously rounded his face and softened his chin were gone, exposing his cheekbones and defining his jawline. The stubble that still covered his cheeks now gave his face a rugged cast, instead of a “geez that guy should probably shave” look. Eyes that had always been a lackluster brown now glowed indigo blue, so dark as to be almost black. He had passed out an unremarkable, squishy, beanbag of a man and woke up… different. No, he thought with a devilish grin. Not just different. Special.
Monsters in the Midwest ( Book 1): Wisconsin Vamp Page 7