Ravenous

by West, Terry M.

  Adam studied them all, his anger ebbing. They had a right to know. He owed them that much and more. He stopped menacing them with his weapon. “You know this property was my mama’s, until she passed.”

  Nathan nodded. Florence Campbell had been one of the sweetest women in Wise County. Her presence had been a blessing of light to anyone who had known her.

  “There was always a mess of stuff up in the attic,” Adam continued. “Mama was a packrat. I couldn’t bring myself to go up there and throw the stuff out. I felt like I would have been throwing my mama’s memory away with it all. After a couple of years, though, with Adam Jr. and little Florence growing like weeds, I had to make the space. Figured Adam Jr. would take to the attic, being the elder of the kids. Neither of the kids wanted it, so we settled on making it a baby’s room, as Iris was expecting again. She was early still, and there were things to be bought. But we would have a room waiting for it all.”

  Ted and Nathan both looked sadly to the ground, as if on a secret cue. George still stared keenly at Adam. The teacher waited for the point.

  “Iris and me headed up there with garbage sacks and brooms and mops.”

  Adam paused, pressing a palm to his forehead. He closed his eyes and gathered the energy he needed to continue.

  “It’s okay, Adam,” Ted said softly, sensing the gory conclusion of Adam’s story. Adam’s words had lingered sadly on his children and wife as he had spoken. His family wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The blood Adam was wearing had come from outside of his skin. You didn’t have to be a genius to see that the man’s soul had been ripped out. “You don’t have to keep talking on our account,” Ted continued, absolving Adam.

  “The hell he doesn’t,” George cut in. “If I’m going to die in this God forsaken little town, I want to know why. I want to know everything that happened.”

  Ted and Nathan held their breaths. They had the sense to know that Adam wasn’t to be trifled with this night. They also knew that he was their only chance at salvation. Nathan was old, Ted had a lame arm, and George, hell, George Berryman was a sissy. A little city faggot that no one in Pleasant Storm had asked for.

  The only reason the men associated with George was because he was a lousy poker player and easy mark. Otherwise, George was as useful as tits on a boar hog. Adam Campbell had started this, and he was the only one with a prayer of setting it right.

  Adam regarded George, and then he nodded his head. “You got a right to know, George. You’ll just have to bear with me, is all,” Adam explained. “Anyway, me and Iris go through my mama’s stuff. And we go round and round about what to throw out. Hell, I didn’t want to part with any of it. Course you all know how headstrong Iris is.”

  Adam corrected himself, sadly. “Was, I mean.”

  It took Adam a while to come back to the story, and the other men gave him a spell to do it, even George.

  “Most of the stuff was garbage. We burned six barrels worth of it to make a bedroom out of the attic. It was hard, watching all of Mama’s memories burn. I did manage to snag one box and put it aside. It was my family’s history, and not Iris or the devil himself was going to make me part with it.

  “It held old pictures, diaries, newspaper clippings. Traced my family roots all the way to Hungary with that stuff. Some people don’t care where they come from. It always mattered to me, though. There were books written in Hungarian older than all of us. It may as well have been Greek. Mama, she taught me a few words, here or there. The ones she could remember from her childhood. But I was never fully schooled in the tongue. I thought about taking the books to a university or someplace and having them translated.”

  “I could have helped with that,” George said. “I know people.”

  Nathan and Ted gave George a look that dummied him up pretty quickly.

  Nathan then turned back to Adam. “And you found the book in the attic with that stuff?”

  “Yes sir,” Adam replied. “It was all of the way to the bottom of that box. It was buried like a secret. Thought it was an old photo album or something. Or maybe it was a memory book. The sort of things older ladies are inclined to. It was leather bound, title absent. I opened it up and saw that it was a journal of some kind. It was written in a language I had never seen before. It wasn’t Hungarian. I knew that much. I committed myself to figuring out what the damn thing was. I don’t know why it was a mystery that I had to figure out. But it was.”

  Ted increased the flame on the lantern, tossing shadows around. Adam took another breather, and then continued.

  “There was something inside of me. It was deep down there. It was something I can’t explain to you. Something in my blood. It drove me to that book. The words made no sense. It didn’t stop me from staring at every page, though. I picked it up whenever I had a free minute. I couldn’t help myself. It was as if the more I studied it, the more I could understand it.”

  “So how did this all happen if you couldn’t read it?” George asked.

  “I couldn’t read it at first,” Adam replied. “The more I stared at those pages, though, the closer I came to understanding them. It was small words at first. Then, before I knew it, the book was laid out before me. I could read and understand every word.”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no way,” George scoffed. “Adam, nobody could do what you’re describing. I couldn’t translate something that way. It’s impossible.”

  “Let’s leave impossibilities outside,” Ted said, checking his wound. “What ripped through my house and ate half the town didn’t seem impossible to me.”

  George turned away, his opinion spurned for the last time, as far as he was concerned.

  “Reading the book wasn’t enough after awhile,” Adam continued, without prompting. He needed to talk about it now to try and find any sense at all in it. “The book called for things; things that normal folk may have frowned on. One particular passage was called Car Nex. It was a summoning ritual. Now, I didn’t just give my belief over to this thing. I didn’t think it would really work. I didn’t really think such things were possible. But I had to find out. I had to know.”

  “You had to know,” Nathan repeated, growing a little thick with the explanation. “I’m sorry, Adam, but I just don’t understand. No God-fearing Christian would have flirted with this.”

  Adam shook his head, dodging the daggers. “It was more than that, okay?” he said, trying to make Nathan understand. “The book was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Iris noticed my head was off somewhere else. I didn’t tell her or the kids about it, though. It had become my secret cross to bear, and I didn’t want them sucked into the words. Those damn words.”

  Adam finally crouched down. His story was sapping the strength out of him. He put the rifle aside and rubbed his hands together, trying to warm and calm them.

  “Finally, I realized the only way I would be free of the damn thing was to just do as it asked. I holed up in the attic to perform the ceremony. That deep down feeling told me the attic was the only place for this to happen. Maybe it was because the book had sat up there so long and the room had grown rich with its magic. Besides, it was just a bare room, with no life to occupy it yet.

  “So I went up there and I did just like the book told me to. I had locked myself in, to keep the family out. Last thing I needed was for Iris to assume I worked for the devil, now. I had snuck a goat upstairs earlier in the day. I read the words and then I slit that poor thing’s throat, in accordance. The kids loved that damn goat. Figured I would tell them a coyote got to it in the night.”

  “And then it came,” Ted guessed.

  Adam nodded grimly. “The goat blood must have been powerful stuff. It showed up right away, and I realized what I had done. What I had called here. It formed in the middle of the air, busted through the attic door and headed downstairs. I heard Iris and the kids screaming…”

  Adam paused, shaking quie
tly, lost again in his own nightmare. “After it left, I gathered up what I could of Iris and the kids. It was a messy but easy chore. Most of it fit in a bucket. I brought their remains here,” Adam said. He motioned to a far corner of the barn floor where a reddened and moist sheet covered the bloody remnants.

  The survivors hadn’t noticed it before. They had taken refuge in a makeshift morgue.

  “Why did you bring them here?” Nathan asked, staring at the sheltered remains.

  Adam smiled, tears coming now, though he tried to deny them. “Because Iris hated messes in the house, you know? And leaving them like that just didn’t seem Christian. I brought them here inside the barn to keep the animals away so what was left could be buried properly. I was going to dig three graves. I figured there was nothing of the baby to bury as Iris’ stomach was gone. I was going to sort out what I could, commit them to the earth, and then I was going to eat my barrel and chase after my family. But the hate got the better of me, and I went after the Car Nex. I had to track it on foot, because the damn thing had destroyed my truck before it left. Don’t know if it did it on purpose or if the truck was just in its way. Ya’ll know the rest.”

  Adam didn’t bother trying to stifle the tears anymore. He let them come in a quick, heavy downpour, like a sudden cloudburst. Ted and Nathan were both discomforted by the show of emotion. It pulled at any security they felt.

  With great difficulty, noticing their disdain, Adam tried to suck it all back in.

  When he was able, Adam said to Ted, “It hit your place ‘cause you’re the closest to me.”

  “Let me get this straight,” George said. “We were attacked by the God damned Tasmanian Devil because a book told you to do it?” There was no compassion in him whatsoever. Compassion was a hard tool for one as self-consumed as George to use. There was only fear and anger in him, and these were easy for him to wield. He stared with hatred at the man who had made a monster out of thin air and endangered them all.

  “Tread lightly, George,” Ted advised, eying Adam, who was still wiping the grief from his face. “It was an accident.”

  “Shitting in the shower is a God damn accident, Ted,” George went on, his anger making him bigger than he was. “Adam meant to do this. He decided to play with hell, and now we all get to die. Instead of losing my salary this week, I can look forward to getting my fucking face gnawed off. And I have Adam Campbell to thank for that. Thank you, Adam.”

  “You got no call to talk that way,” Nathan chastised George.

  “I’ll say whatever I want, old man,” George snapped. He then focused his angry attention back on Adam. “This is your fault. We’re going to die because of you. We’re going to look just like your little family over there. How does that make you feel, Adam?”

  Adam regarded George with red and soft eyes. He started to rise, slowly, and he brought his rifle with him.

  George came to his senses and regretted his outburst immediately. He even clamped a hand over his mouth to discourage further discourse. He shook his head as Adam approached him. His shadow quickly falling on the school teacher, Adam gripped George by the hair on his head.

  “I want to show you something, George,” Adam said softly. “Bring the lamp over here, Ted.”

  Adam hauled the struggling and protesting school teacher to the remains of his family. George whimpered an incoherent apology as his feet made a trail in the dirt floor. Adam shoved George to the ground and whipped off the sheet. Ted and Nathan, who were lending light and peering over Adam’s shoulder, both immediately turned away. There was no healthy reason to invite that image in.

  George was given no choice. Adam held George’s face close to the waste that the carnage had left behind. George immediately puked.

  “I can’t tell you who’s who, other than the obvious,” Adam said, forcing George’s head closer. “Oh, that’s right. You never met my wife of fifteen years and the two wonderful children she blessed me with. Three if you count what was growing in her belly. Or, no, wait, that ain’t right. Adam Jr. was in your class. Well, you’ll have to excuse him on Monday.” Adam said this all with an unnerving peacefulness. It chilled Ted and Nathan to the bone.

  “Please, Adam,” George pleaded, trying but not able to close his eyes on the gore. “Please I am so sorry.” Now George was crying, which didn’t surprise or even offend the men that much, given the circumstances.

  Adam shoved George aside, and covered his family back up. He poked the barrel against George’s forehead.

  “You want to condemn me to hell, George Berryman, you do it in your head where I can’t hear it. Because I am beginning to think that putting a bullet in your brain would be a kindness to the both of us.” The calm still stuck to his voice. This wasn’t a violent threat from Adam. It was a solemn guarantee of what was to come if George didn’t weigh his words more carefully. Adam was tired and empty now. He knew his sins better than anyone. He would account for them and add to them if George opened that mouth of his again.

  Nathan jerked a pitchfork from a pile of hay and pointed it at Adam.

  “You take your weapon off George, Adam!” he screamed.

  Adam turned to Nathan, taking aim.

  “You can shoot me if you want. But I’ll let this fly first and with purpose, Adam Campbell! I don’t intend to lie down for you or this monster of yours! I am an old man and I am not afraid of you!”

  Adam looked at the men. He saw how scared they were, and it wasn’t the beast they were wary of. Adam had appointed himself their protector and he was terrorizing them. He had become a bully, and he hated bullies. He suddenly felt ashamed and he despised himself. He pitched the rifle to the ground, deciding that it didn’t belong in his hands. He turned to George, who still lay frightfully on the ground.

  “I’m sorry, George,” Adam said, reaching out and gently adjusting the glasses which had gone askew on the teacher’s face. “I am deeply sorry.”

  George nodded silently, determined to never utter a word again.

  Adam looked to all of them and raised his hands. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he assured. “And I don’t want anyone else to die. Take the rifle, if it makes you feel better.”

  George considered it, but was too shit scared to make a move.

  “Put those hands down, Adam,” Nathan said, stabbing the hay with the pitchfork. “And pick up that rifle. You’re the best shot here, anyway.”

  Adam looked to Ted, who held the lantern up near his face and looked like a bearded lawn jockey. “We all have our moments, Hoss,” Ted said, adding his two cents.

  Adam retrieved the weapon and then offered a hand to George, hauling the slender man up easily.

  “So, what do we do?” Nathan asked, praying the tension between the men was buried now.

  “We wait,” Adam said. “It won’t live past dawn. That much I know. If we make it ‘til then, it’ll go back to hell or wherever it came from.”

  “That’s still a few hours away,” Ted gauged, staring at his watch. “That’s a long time.”

  “Come on, guys. We can make it,” George said, a little hesitantly at first, as his words were prone to inspire anger and violence. But then he decided to fan a little hope their way, to show them that George Berryman was a changed man. He was Scrooge on Christmas morning from now on. That rifle against his head had taken the venom out of his bite. “It hasn’t hit us, yet. Maybe it gave up on us. Or maybe it passed us over.”

  “Maybe,” Adam said, giving George a soft squeeze on his shoulder. At least the school teacher was being optimistic, now.

  “No news is good news, I guess,” Nathan said, allowing a little hope in himself.

  Ted had nothing to say. He looked to his watch again like an impatient child. Dawn wasn’t any closer.

  Adam gave a confident but lifeless nod to the group. He was keeping his chin up for their sake, but really, what did it matter to him? He wanted these men to survive, less blood on him, but his life had already ended. He had been a dead man on foo
t since his family was taken. Shame and vengeance were the only two impulses left in his brain- the only motivators that remained. He was vacant inside, otherwise.

  Then, suddenly, the men realized they had been dining on happy horseshit.

  Ted Gavin was the first to notice it. “Wait a minute,” he said, glancing around. “You hear that?”

  But, there was nothing to hear. It was more of a feeling. It was as if an innate but long dormant sense deep down inside had suddenly been given new purpose. They had been thrust back into the food chain, and nature had compensated somewhat for them. They were now deer- perched and drinking from the creek- straightening quickly as a predator’s eye admired them from the brush.

  Something longed in a sinister fashion for them, and they knew it. They just knew it. The same had occurred at Ted’s house during poker. The men had all paused, disturbed suddenly by something they couldn’t explain. That had happened right before the beast tore through a wall, sending a forceful wind of debris and slaughter through Ted’s home.

  That sensitivity was back, now, haunting them all. It was suddenly hot in the barn. They could feel the warmth of hell slipping in through the cracks in the walls. Nathan regained the pitchfork, clutching it tightly to his chest. Ted and George scooted as far back as they could, finding a slight solace behind Adam.

  “It’s here,” Adam reported quietly, raising the rifle to his face. He took aim, his sweat pouring onto the weapon.

  The barn door exploded inward. A gust of wind sent the men reeling back. The force of it ripped the rifle out of Adam’s grip. The rifle was pitched away like a tomahawk into the darkness behind Adam.

  A funnel cloud manifested inside of the barn. The storm grew as tall as the loft and flickered with hungry teeth and claws. Red, demonic eyes glared out from the center of it. A thunderous growl shook them all.

  Ted shit his trousers and dropped the light, darkening the barn. Flames crept from the glass housing of the lantern and a fire was born and it escalated swiftly in the hay. The wind from the creature strengthened the fire and sent it moving quickly and in all directions.