What Vengeance Comes

by Strong, Anthony M.

  Decker put his arm around her and held her close. He glanced back at Taylor. The girl still hovered behind them, but she looked relieved.

  ”Look out.” Nancy’s eyes flew wide.

  Decker followed her gaze.

  The beast shook its head, groggy, then rose up, regaining its feet. It lurched forward.

  “Move.” Decker raised his gun.

  Jeremiah looked at him, startled.

  Taylor screamed.

  The creature steadied itself and sprang forward, still surprisingly agile despite so many wounds. It crashed into Jeremiah, pitching him forward. The gun flew from his grasp and landed, useless, several feet away. The beast let out a bellow of defiance and lashed out, opening a vicious wound across Jeremiah’s back. The old man howled in pain.

  Decker aimed his handgun. There were still at least ten rounds left, but somehow he knew the small firearm was not up to the job. He holstered it, eyeing the discarded rifle.

  “Don’t,” Nancy gripped his arm. “It will kill you.”

  “I have too, or we’re all dead.”

  He took a deep breath, steadied his nerves, and ran toward the rifle, dropping down like a baseball player sliding for home plate, letting his momentum carry him forward.

  The beast swatted at him, its arm ripping the air above his head, but it missed. The beast howled in frustration. It turned and snapped at him.

  Decker scooped up the gun and raised it in one fluid movement, pushing the barrel into the mouth of the creature as the beast’s large jaws descended toward him.

  “Go back to hell,” he spat, pulling the trigger.

  The back of the beast’s head erupted in a spray of blood and gore, spattering the wall of the corridor.

  The carcass toppled backward and hit the floor with a dull thud.

  Decker scrambled to his feet, gun at the ready, but this time the creature didn’t move. It was dead.

  He put a hand out and helped Jeremiah to his feet, then glanced back toward Nancy and Taylor to make sure they were safe.

  When he looked back the creature was gone. In its place lay the naked, bloodied body of an old woman. Despite the fact that the back of her head was missing, blown away by the rifle, Decker recognized the battered face of Annie Doucet.

  64

  DECKER SAT UP in bed, his body dripping sweat. For the third time that week the nightmare had returned, the beast stalking him in the darkness, hunting him. Even now, as the dream faded, he could feel the weight of the creature as it pinned him to the ground, feel those wicked jaws as they tore into his flesh, slicing the jugular and cutting off his breath. He reached up and touched his neck, relived to find that everything was normal. There was no gaping wound, no blood. He looked at the glowing digits of the alarm clock next to the bed. 2:24 a.m. He’d barely gotten two hours of sleep before the nightmare woke him. Still, that was about an hour more than the last time.

  “Did you have the dream again?” Nancy reached out, her voice soft and sleepy.

  “Go back to sleep.” Decker squeezed her hand. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. Maybe you should see a doctor. It might help if you talk to someone.”

  “I talk to you.”

  “I mean a professional.”

  “A shrink. What good is that? If I tell them what happened they’ll either put me in a straightjacket or take away my badge, maybe both.”

  “It does sound crazy.” Nancy paused, and then said, “Do you think we’ll ever know what possessed her?”

  “It’s pretty obvious. She wanted to hurt the people that were hurting her, taking her land. The Mayor, members of the chamber like Benny Townsend and Jake’s parents–” He took a breath. “She especially wanted to hurt you as Chamber president. After all, the road was your idea, at least in part. She figured you were taking the thing she loved, so she would go after the thing you loved – Taylor.”

  “I understand that. She wanted revenge. That’s why she killed the moonshiner, Floyd. He sold his land to the town, took the money. What I don’t get is how? I mean, literally how. What actually possessed her? What was that thing? We all saw it.”

  “Beats me.” Decker lay back and put his arm around her. “If you believe Ed Johnson she was a Loup Garou, a werewolf.”

  “And you?” Nancy looked at him. “Is that what you believe?”

  “I believe what I saw in that school.” He shrugged. “Whatever that thing was, it sure as hell wasn’t a feeble old woman that killed the Mayor, that almost killed us.”

  “Well, however she did it, turned herself into that creature, she’s gone and can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”

  “You know what, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Decker pulled Nancy close, a shiver of desire running through him as her body slid against his.

  “Well how about I take your mind off it?” She wriggled free and sat up, the sheets falling away from her nude body. He smiled and looked up at her, all thought of the beast, the killings, pushed from his mind.

  “I love you Sheriff John Decker,” she said.

  “I love you too,” he replied, gazing up into her eyes, watching her face as they made love. All was right with the world, there were no monsters lurking in the shadows, and for this moment, Decker was happy.

  THE END

  Please turn the page for a preview of

  Anthony M. Strong’s new thriller

  The Remnants of Yesterday

  Available February 8th 2016

  On Amazon.com

  in paperback and Kindle edition

  THE REMNANTS OF YESTERDAY

  1

  THE WORLD ENDED on a mild Tuesday night in June. There was no fanfare, no warning of what was to come. In the days, hours and minutes before it all went to hell everyone hurried about their business with the certainty that they were safe within their small corner of existence, that the mundane tasks they performed each and every day would continue on an endless cycle. Waking up in the morning, brushing their teeth, driving the kids to school, going to work, coming home again, climbing into their soft, comfortable beds at night. Rinse and repeat. They thought they had it all figured out. They thought things would be like that forever.

  I was no different. After all, it wasn’t like I had a crystal ball, like I could see into the future. Besides, even if I could, maybe I would have driven to that lonely gas station off I-89 anyway. Maybe…

  “Can I help you?” The girl behind the counter looked up when I entered the gas station convenience store, alerted by a small bell suspended by string above the door. None of that electronic stuff here. Her dusty blue eyes sparkled despite the cold white light given off by the neon tubes set into the false ceiling.

  “I need to fill up.” I replied. She was cute – Much too attractive to be working on her own at night in a gas station off the highway. My eyes fell to the nametag fixed, slightly askew, above her left breast.

  CLARA

  I looked away, just in case she got the wrong idea. “Thirty dollars on four?”

  “You got it.” She flicked a strand of long brunette hair away from her face. “Cash or credit?”

  “Credit’s fine.” I flipped open my wallet and picked a card, the one with the lowest balance, and pushed it across the counter. She plucked it up between slender fingers and examined it.

  “Cool name.” Her eyes skipped from the card up to me. “Hayden Stone. Sounds like a rock star or something.”

  “Yeah, right.” Too bad it took more than a cool name to become a rock star. I was in a band for a while in high school. I played bass guitar. We kinda sucked and only got one gig at the local bowling alley. Only ten people showed up to watch, and one of them was my grandfather. Not exactly the throng of screaming girls I had been hoping for. That was over a decade ago.

  “Still a cool name.”

  “Thanks.” I hesitated for a moment. “You know your card reader is broken, right?”

  “It is?”

  “I tried to pay at the p
ump. It just told me to come in here.”

  “Yeah. Sounds about right. I’ll tell Walter. Not that he’ll fix it. If people pay outside they don’t come in here and buy snacks and things.”

  “Who’s Walter?”

  “My boss.”

  From somewhere behind me I heard a new voice, rasping, full of too many years of cigarette smoke. “And don’t you forget it young lady.”

  A short balding man, probably in his mid fifties, appeared from the direction of the restrooms. He wore an ill-fitting short sleeve shirt with buttons stretched just a little too tight, and tan slacks that seemed to be fighting his belly for dominance of his waistline.

  Clara scowled. “That’s Walter.” Her eyes met mine for a moment and in them I saw a flicker of disgust.

  “I’ve told you before Clara, you’re to call me Mr. Hancock,” he scolded, pushing his way behind the counter with a grunt. As he passed her, he brushed just a little too close even though there was more than enough room, and opened the register drawer to inspect the contents. He glanced sideways at her. “There are plenty of folk that would be happy to have your job right now.”

  “Yeah right.” Clara said. She swiped my card and waited for the transaction to process. “They’ll be lining up around the block.”

  “One more quip like that and I’ll dock your wages.” Walter said, turning his attention to me. “Sorry about that.”

  “No worries.” I caught Clara’s eye and smiled.

  “Where you heading son?” Walter asked.

  “New York, to see my brother Jeff. He and his wife are having a baby.” Actually it was a double celebration, but I didn’t bother to mention the deal I’d just signed for the book I spent the last two years writing. The book that was going to let me quit my day job. It was none of his business.

  “Really? New York?” He scratched his head, the motion dislodging a few flakes of dandruff. “Where you coming from?”

  “Burlington.”

  “Burlington huh? Don’t go there too often myself. Too many people, I don’t like all those noisy crowds.” Walter sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Not that New York’s any better mind you.”

  “Each to their own.” I directed my attention to Clara, who more than likely wished she were anywhere but in close vicinity to Walter. “Are we done?”

  “Just about.” She forced a smile and handed me a receipt, which she watched me sign, then took back, handing me the carbon. “Enjoy New York, Hayden Stone.”

  “I will.” It seemed wrong to leave her in the company of obnoxious Walter. For a moment I entertained the thought of jumping over the counter, sweeping her up into my arms, and rescuing her – A shining knight in a Volkswagen. Instead I just said “Hope you find a better job soon.”

  “Me too.” She grinned.

  If Walter heard, he ignored it.

  The gas station forecourt was almost deserted. It was late and I was in the middle of nowhere, which in Vermont is worse than the middle of nowhere in most other places. I probably should have just waited until morning and set off then, after a good night’s sleep, but after Jeff called and said his wife, Becca, had gone into labor I didn’t want to wait. It wasn’t like we had any other family around to offer support. So I finished up my shift at the coffee shop, dropped by the apartment, packed a bag, and hit the road.

  As I filled the tank I glanced around. Apart from myself, there was only one other customer, a tall woman in a red dress next to a convertible BMW roadster. She smiled when our eyes meet. I would have returned the gesture, but it was at that moment that it happened.

  The pain slammed into me, a crushing, searing agony that started in the deepest depths of my brain and punched outward.

  I grunted and leaned against the car, white-hot daggers of brilliant light swarming in front of my eyes. I was sure that any moment now my head would split open, my skull explode from the immense pressure within.

  And then suddenly, my legs stopped supporting me. I toppled forward, the ground racing up much too fast.

  In the moment between hitting the pavement and losing consciousness I wondered about the woman in the red dress, and why she wasn’t rushing over to help me…

  2

  SELF SERVE. GROCERIES. COLD BEER.

  A bright white strip light flickered, blinking like some kind of crazy erratic Morse code, buzzing as it did so.

  Where the hell was I? What was I looking at? My addled brain took a second to interpret the strange view, and then it hit me. I was staring up at a canopy of some sort. There were words on the side in tall red letters with peeling edges.

  I battled to quell a rising panic. I needed to clear my head, make sense of where I was, what I was doing. For a moment my mind remained blank, a void of hazy recollections, disjointed and jarring. Then, just like that, everything snapped back into focus, the memories tumbling over each other. Stopping for gas, my brother in New York, the baby, and the book deal. We were going to party like it was 1999, whatever that meant.

  My head hurt. It hurt a lot – I probably cracked it against the ground when I collapsed – but at least I was alive. I was also uncomfortable. The concrete was hard, and there was something sharp, pointy, pushing into the small of my back, probably a stone. Sitting up, I glanced backward at the ground, expecting to see a halo of blood where my head had been. There was none, much to my relief.

  I glanced around. Where was every one? Where was the woman in the red dress? What about Clara and Walter? The place was like a ghost town. Surely they must have seen me take a dive, but yet there were no concerned faces peering down at me, no paramedics checking my vitals. Either I’d only been out for a moment and they hadn’t noticed yet, or they didn’t give a crap. If it was the latter, that was a little disturbing.

  I pulled myself up, using the car as a crutch, and waited a moment, checking my balance. Whatever happened, it seemed to have passed now. The pain in my head was receding and my legs appeared to be working again.

  The BMW still sat at the next pump. The driver’s door was open a crack and the hose of a fuel pump snaked from the side of the car like a black rubber umbilical cord. A white Gucci purse rested on the roof of the vehicle, the strap dangling over the side. The woman in the red dress was nowhere in sight. Maybe she went to the restroom. That would explain why she hadn’t rushed over to help me. It seemed odd that she had left her purse behind, where anyone could come by and steal it. Didn’t women usually take their purse with them when they went to the bathroom? Most of the girls I ever knew did. Not that it mattered. What did matter was reaching Jeff’s home in New York and catching a few winks of sleep before heading over to the hospital.

  I rummaged in my pockets.

  Where were my keys? They should be there, but they weren’t. Had I taken them out before pumping gas? If so they should be on the roof of the car, a place I had a habit of putting them, or on the ground, dropped when the pain hit.

  After a brief search two things became evident. They were not on the car roof, nor were they visible on the ground.

  Great.

  It was hard to go anywhere without a way to get back into the car, or start it for that matter.

  I knelt down, wincing as a jab of remaining pain flared behind my eyes. Reaching under the car I felt around. Maybe the keys had bounced underneath when I collapsed. At first it seemed like this too might be a dead end, but then my hand closed over a familiar shape. I gripped the key fob and pulled it out with a grunt of satisfaction. One problem solved.

  I got to my feet and paused, glancing around. Something felt off. Things were just a little too quiet. The BMW was still unattended. Maybe I should take the purse into the store for safekeeping. It didn’t seem right to just leave it there unguarded. Surely the woman in the red dress would be back soon, after all how far could she go? It also occurred to me that not a single vehicle had pulled up to the gas station since I regained consciousness. Even stranger, I couldn’t hear the sound of cars on the highway. Mayb
e that was normal, after all, the interstate was at least a mile away, so it was possible the traffic noise didn’t carry that far. Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was weird. On the other hand, I did just take a nasty fall, so maybe I was just shaken up. I would feel better once I was on the road again.

  I slipped behind the wheel and pulled the seatbelt across my body, my mind back on Jeff four hours away in New York. The clock on the dash read 10:30 p.m. Was it really only ten minutes since I’d pulled off the highway? It felt like more time had passed. I checked my wristwatch, half convinced that the clock was wrong, but they both agreed. Again the thought occurred to me that my fall had caused some kind of state of befuddlement. What the hell did it matter what the time was? Earlier was better, right?

  I inserted the key into the ignition and turned it.

  Nothing happened.

  Actually that isn’t strictly true. Something did happen. The engine made a dry clicking sound and refused to start.

  I tried again.

  Click.

  Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If that was the case, then I was clearly insane, because I turned the key for a third time, then a fourth. By the fifth attempt there wasn’t even a click.

  My battery was dead.

  3

  “HELLO?” I STEPPED INTO the convenience store for the second time that evening. The bell above the door jangled. A tune I could not identify played over speakers set into the ceiling tiles, the recording thin and scratchy. It reminded me of elevator music. There did not appear to be anyone around. Both Walter and Clara had pulled a vanishing act. Just like the girl in the red dress, and the traffic noise on the highway.

  A prickle of apprehension crept up my spine.