Three cars cooled in the driveway. Mariah recognized Theresa’s powder blue Honda. No nonsense car for a no nonsense gal. Mariah’s throat constricted. Please let her be alright. She typed a text. “I’m here with the sheriff. Where are you?”
The sheriff drew his firearm and reported into his shoulder band, “I’m here. License numbers YYZ 4537 TX blue Honda Civic. License number ESV 2476 black Subaru Legacy. License EZS…”
A woman’s scream interrupted.
Sheriff Thornall sounded old but resolved. “Hurry with that backup.” He pointed at Mariah. “Get back in your car and drive to the end of the lane. Wait there until somebody comes for you. Don’t leave your vehicle unless an officer tells you to do so. Go. Now.”
Another scream. Panic threatened Mariah. The thick air hung like a sulfurous fog. Black clouds threatened rain. Sweat poured with tears over her cheeks and wetted her collar.
This is all my fault.
She pointed her camera at the sheriff’s retreating back and took a photo. He rounded the corner and out of sight.
No screams. No text. No police. Mariah sank into her car’s seat and struggled to breath. What should I do? I’m not leaving until I know Theresa is okay.
A loud thump interrupted. The grey cat landed on her windshield, shredded and bleeding. Entrails smeared a slow progression down the glass. The Tom’s agonized eye glared, and his face froze in slack-mouthed despair.
Mariah screamed and scrambled out the door. She tripped on the gravel and skinned her knees and palms before rising to run to the sheriff. Dogs growled from the wood line, their eyes yellow with menace. She sprinted in the kitchen and slammed the door shut.
She slid to the linoleum, gasping for breath. A dark red liquid crept toward her. Is that blood? She climbed to her feet to get away from it and tripped backward. She pushed up and her mouth fell open in mute terror. She had stumbled over a body of what might be a teen aged boy. He looked like he fell through a wood chipper. Gore covered her hands.
Her shoes squeaked, leaving bloody footprints in her wake, as she ran further into the house. The smell of blood gagged her. Mangled bodies dangled from the furniture, dripping carnage. Screams bubbled in her throat, but hysterical breathing prevented sounds louder than wheezing.
Theresa screamed past. A dark mass with claws pursued.
Sheriff Thornall tackled Mariah. His mass knocked the air from her and covered her as a whirlwind barreled down the stairs and through the room. She glimpsed red eyes before squeezing out sight with a prayer and clamped eyelids. White-hot pain seared through her leg, and she cried out. Sheriff Thornall yelled, too, a primal bellow sending shivers through Mariah’s core. She whimpered, but the rise and fall of her protector’s ragged breathing gave reassurance.
She heard a wooden crash, another terrified scream, the roar of a thunderous storm, and a snarling pack of dogs. Yelps. Howls. Crashes and cries.
The sheriff shook as he stumbled to his feet. Blood poured from his tattered back and his head. He struggled out of his uniform jacket. He lurched after Theresa and her pursuer.
Mariah whimpered. Pain shot through her leg when she tried to stand, and she fell. She dragged herself to a broken chair and claimed a leg as a make-shift crutch. Careful to avoid bits of people strewn as though thrown from a blender, she left the farmhouse and its horrors.
A gunshot in the woods made her jump. She ignored tears as she hurried after the sound. Police sirens announced the arrival of reinforcements. Another gunshot dulled her hearing, overpowering other sound with a high-pitched ringing.
Sheriff Thornall bent over Theresa’s prone body. His shoulders shook. Bites peppered her body, and blood trickled from two holes in her chest.
Mariah threw herself beside her friend. Red foam erupted from Theresa’s mouth as she whispered, “It was the only way.” She sighed and stared, her eyes growing glassy and distant.
The sheriff’s hand trembled as he slid Theresa’s lids shut.
Mariah felt numb as paramedics splinted her leg and treated cuts. They took the sheriff away in an ambulance. Police officers helped spread white sheets over the remains. Seven teenagers sought thrills at the Campbell homestead.
A voice from afar asked, “Can you tell us what happened.” Moving even her eyes required more effort than she could summon. Shaking overtook her, and she vomited until nothing remained inside her. She shook, unable to respond to the questions. She moaned, imitating a dreaded sound of a storm ripping after her dearest friend, until all fell dark.
When released, Mariah found her purse and cell phone on the front seat of her car. Although someone cleaned it, an oily substance marked the passage of the Tom. Rotting eggs overpowered the smell of leather seats. Tears smeared her mascara. I hate the color red. She chipped at her nail polish, desperate to be rid of anything garnet or ruby hewed. I’ll trade the car in as soon as I get home.
Her phone blinked a reminder of missed text messages. “Are you okay?” from Reggie. “Call me. I’m worried about you.”
The phone stored a message from Theresa. “It’s tethered to me. I said the words. I have to die so it will.” The words swam from view, washed with a fresh onslaught of tears.
She reached onto the back and retrieved her laptop and typed her story. Her hands shook as she loaded pictures of the farm house and the photo of the sheriff. As he walked toward the back porch, shadowy shapes of the pack of dogs lurked ignored among the trees. Four adult males, one bigger and black glowered, while a pregnant female and two pups lingered deeper in the dark.
Mariah froze. The book. Her fingers felt an electrical jolt where they once touched the pages. I’m not sending these. She smelled tannin and tasted tears. Hope Sheriff Thornall has the book someplace safe.
She sent the story to her editor and returned her attention to the photographed pages. Her finger traced along the lettering and her mouth formed ancient words.
About the Author
To weave her tales, after all of the family appointments and therapies, Kerry E.B. Black perches on a corner of the sofa, laptop warm and heavy, while chaos erupts around in her suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania home. Children play games and bicker, husband (when he's home) watches car shows or sports. The eldest girl waltzes in to outline the latest twenty-something drama. Kerry offers suggestions, referees, and intercedes when required. However, like Arachne, Kerry spins one gossamer strand at a time until the web lays in wait, a fragile thing huddled in a corner, spun strands from a recess of her brain.
Car Nex: Trailer Park by Shaun Hupp
1.
Jesse rushed into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. “I HATE IT HERE!” The door bounced back open and Jesse had to storm over to close it again. Once she heard the click of the latch catching, she continued on with her tantrum by throwing herself onto her bed and screaming into her pillow.
“AS LONG AS YOU LIVE UNDER MY ROOF, YOU WILL OBEY MY RULES!”
Jesse’s dad kept on yelling, but she could barely hear him as she pushed her iPod’s volume to the limit. What roof? She thought. You mean that rubbery tar you spread over our heads every few years when the ceiling starts leaking? That’s not something to be proud of.
All her life Jesse had lived in Pleasant Palaces Trailer Park and she hated every second of it ever since kindergarten. The trailer park had its fair share of kids, but not enough to fill a school bus. Budget cuts to the Milburn Public School District meant every bus had to have three kids to every seat. Thus, Milburn’s poorest of the poor had to sit with some of Milburn’s better off children, who were already irritated they weren’t in a private school and their rich parents couldn’t take the time out of their busy schedules to drive them to class. Jesse learned at a very young age that her family wasn’t as good as the others. Taunts of ‘trailer park trash’ followed her from elementary all the way up to high school.
Dad just doesn’t understand, she thought. I can’t compete with those other girls.
The fight had started wh
en her dad saw what she was wearing. Her mom didn’t say much; probably hopped up on too many painkillers to notice, but good ole pops noticed the impossibly short, black skirt, and midriff exposing, Bloody Carnivores t-shirt. In an effort to get noticed, Jesse started wearing dark clothes and much, much less of them to contrast her pearl white skin that wouldn’t tan like the other girls. Then, when that wasn’t enough to get a second glance, her hair was chopped short, dyed black, and she painted her lips and eyelids to match.
Finally, she got noticed. The girls still called her names, but the guys called her when they wanted to get off. Jesse didn’t mind. She was finally popular in her own twisted way, but she still wanted more. She wanted a relationship. She wanted some guy that would put his varsity letter jacket around her shoulders when she was cold, instead of ripping the shirt off her back to fondle her.
That guy she wanted was Ben.
He wasn’t captain of the football team, but he was on it. While most of that same team were typical horny teenagers and had had their way with her, Ben was different, almost gentlemanly. He was handsome in a classic way with a great smile and sense of humor. Jesse told herself that money didn’t matter, but his parents were quite wealthy. Ben could take her away from this trailer park after high school and she could put this life behind her.
There was a party tonight to celebrate the end of football team’s great season. Ben would be there. Jesse was finally going to make her move on the overly shy hunk of her senior class. Now, because of her dad, she couldn’t go. She was stuck in Pleasant Palaces Trailer Park all night and probably the rest of her life.
2.
David Richard Morgan looked out the window at the trailer park below him. There were three different parts: the old part, where most of the trailers were rundown, abandoned, or looked like they had been hooked to the back of a rusted pickup truck since the 60s; the new part, where the owner tried to spruce up this place’s image with brand new homes and paved roads; and then, there was David’s part. He was all by his lonesome up on his hill partially hidden by trees the park manager refused to have cut down.
David used to be down there in old part. His place wasn’t as bad as some of the others, but it was all his wife and daughter really needed. They were happy or at least he thought they were happy.
It was in May of 2010, David discovered his wife Linda had been having an affair with a blackjack dealer named Tyler from the new section of the park. It wasn’t much later that she asked David for a divorce and moved two dirt roads and two paved streets over.
The worst part was that she took Haley with her. Tyler had plenty of rich lawyer friends, who were regulars at the casino and were able to make David’s one beer after dinner magically turn into a drinking problem in the court’s eyes. He didn’t even get visitation rights and for the last five years, the only time he got to see her was through his pair of binoculars.
And now, he really did have a drinking problem.
To make matters worse, his ex-wife was friends with everyone in the old section and now, everyone in the new. She spread lie after lie until no one could stand the sight of David when he managed to stumble out the door to go to work. He came home one day from his crappy gas station job to find his trailer moved to the area it currently occupies. The manager claimed that he had plans to make a playground in his old lot and there was nothing David could do since he did not own the land, only the house. So far, only a lawn chair had been put in that spot.
It‘s okay, he thought. I have a better view with my binoculars. Or at least, I did.
David set the binoculars down on the table next to him that also had a large butcher’s knife resting on it. He grabbed the final sheet of paper and a tape dispenser. He placed the page on the window and taped it there. He stood back and admired his work. He could no longer see through the window. Every inch was covered with printed words; words in a language foreign to any library. He sat back in his recliner and looked around at the rest of the living room. None of the vinyl wallpaper was visible. There was nothing but paper and words.
And the words, how they spoke to him.
It’s time.
3.
It was after nine. The party would have already started and Jesse wasn’t there. Images of Ben flirting with rich bitches like Heather Colemen, Amanda Bryce, and Ashley Myers played in her head. There were a lot of other girls that she didn’t get along with, but those three were the worst.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it! she screamed in her head as she walked back and forth. He’s not like that. He wouldn’t go for someone like them.
It was then that she saw herself in her door mirror and it dawned on her that Ben wouldn’t want a girl like her either. He would want a nice, down-to-Earth type and not the scantily clad girl she put out there for any guy to ogle. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand that reflection staring back at her. She grabbed a glass of water she had nearby, poured it on an old towel, and wiped her face clean, leaving a black smear on the cloth she’d have to wash later. She then looked down at her clothes and felt her skin crawl. Jesse pulled her shirt over her head and stripped the tight skirt off.
She looked back in the mirror and still didn’t like what she saw. Underneath the mismatched bra and panties was a girl that was starving herself to keep up with the rich girls and their gym memberships, but all she saw was every inch of fat. She climbed into bed, pulled the covers over her body, and cried herself to sleep.
And not for the first time.
4.
When Linda left him, David wanted revenge more than anything. He was by no means a violent man, but she had to pay for what she had done to him. He also considered that fact that maybe if she were dead, the courts might reevaluate him as a parent and could possibly award him custody again; especially if Linda's boyfriend didn’t want to get stuck raising a nine year old.
He wasn’t proud of it, but he spent way too many hours on the local library’s computers searching for ways to ‘take care of’ his ex-wife. But every hit man could be an undercover detective and he feared that even the most untraceable poison would still lead back to him: the scorned ex-husband. No. David knew he needed something that wouldn’t necessarily take out just Linda. He needed something that would take out a bunch of people and no one would notice if she were one of them. The trailer park was the perfect location for an attack. He didn’t mind if whatever it was took out everyone that lived there.
That’s when his research came upon an incident in Pleasant Storm, Texas in 1965. The official report said that a farmer killed almost an entire town, but someone named DeadAware435 had another theory. He claimed that some creature from another dimension of sorts had killed all those people and the government was covering it up. He maintained that the book that summoned this creature was being held in heavily guarded, underground vault that could rival Fort Knox in security. Before it was locked away, supposedly every page was scanned and uploaded onto the Pentagon’s private server for global input from scientists. DeadAware435 admitted to hacking into that very server and copying the file. He then posted a pdf version of every page online. It was on a no frills blog that had no likes, shares or comments. When David visited the site, it had felt like a secret whispered only to him.
Initially, David wasn’t going to fall for such nonsense, but something drew him back to the library the next day and to that same obscure blog which seemed created for his benefit only. He swore he could see the download button pulsating. He clicked it and after a few minutes, had the entire book before him on the screen. Again, he felt the same urge to start reading, but he fought it. He felt like everyone was watching him; like he was doing something wrong. He sent the file to the library’s printer. It cost him quite a bit, but he got it all printed. He threw it all in his backpack and headed back home. It was only a five minute drive, but he felt the urge several times to pull his truck over and read the pages.
When he got home, he finally looked at the pages and to his dismay, saw they were in a languag
e he didn’t know. He went to throw the stack of pages out, but couldn’t. David spent the rest of that night pouring through those pages. Eventually, every word came to him.
A dark grey cat nuzzled against David’s leg and brought him back to present day. He knocked another cat off the arm of his chair as he stood up. In his right hand, he held the butcher’s knife. In his left hand, he held some cat food. He knelt down and all the cats came out from their hiding spots.
The ritual calls for a goat, he thought. There are no goats around here, but there’s no shortage of cats in a trailer park. I hope this works. Blood is blood, right?
Without hesitation, David plunged the knife into the nearest cat.
5.
Jesse sat up. She looked at the clock; it was just past eleven. Something had woke her up, but there was no light coming from underneath her bedroom door. Everyone was asleep; the house was quiet. Still something didn’t feel quite right, like someone was watching her.
She settled back down and before her eyes fully shut, she heard a tapping. She opened her eyes and slowly turned her head towards the sound. A scream caught in her throat as she saw a face through her window. She turned to get out of bed and run, but her feet got tangled in the sheets and she face-planted on the floor. The tapping continued. She hesitantly raised her eyes above the bed.
Ravenous Page 9