Ghosts, Monsters and Madmen

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “That,” young Mary solemnly stated, “is a werewolf.”

  Mary shook her head in denial at the hulking form dragging itself her way.

  “No,” she muttered aloud, “that’s impossible. It can’t be.”

  It sounded like a bad line from an even worse movie.

  “It is,” her alter ego responded, “and it’s getting better.”

  A grunting snarl from the approaching shape punctuated that last observation with spine chilling finality. Despite everything she knew to be true about biology, this thing was noticeably improving. And if it truly was the werewolf it appeared to be, it definitely didn’t come across as the brooding boy model type that fourteen-year old girls fantasized about in recent movies. This thing radiated savage lethality and bloodlust.

  “It will kill you,” young Mary intoned, “and anybody else it gets hold of. Your time is running out.”

  As if to confirm that, the thing struggled to one knee with a pain-induced snarl. It staggered only thirty feet away.

  Mary stood frozen, unable to formulate a plan of action in the face of the impossible.

  “Run,” young Mary suggested.

  “Right!” Mary snapped out of her trance. But run where? Despite the creature’s current damaged condition, Mary suffered from several injuries herself and whatever head start she might have at the beginning would likely evaporate as the creature continued to improve and gain speed. Running either direction down the road seemed doomed to end in violent death long before the scheduled help would arrive. Her other option would be to head back down the embankment. But then what? Could she risk leading the thing back to Chad? Or back to the other driver…

  …and his shotgun?

  Ignoring the protests from her mental alter ego, she turned and staggered back down the incline. The security of a weapon, however marginal, pulled at her on a primal level. Anything to put between her and the nightmare back on the road. A coughing snarl from behind indicated that her motion had provoked the monster, and she could hear the grunt of pain and exertion as it increased its pace. That caused her to make the mistake of looking back.

  Mary caught her toe on the ground, sending her tumbling down the embankment. She somersaulted, hit the slope hard, rolled, and then did a face plant in the muddy bottom of the ditch. Her hand and face flared anew in agony, and new bruises and lacerations called themselves to her attention as well. The pain overwhelmed her and she curled in a ball with a whimpering sob. She lay there crying in the dim crimson pool of illumination created by the truck’s tail light.

  “They always fall down in the movies, too,” her young alter ego seemed to stand over her. “But laying there and crying won’t help. If it finds you here, it won’t feel sorry for you and show mercy. It will tear you to pieces while you’re still alive to be part of the experience.”

  She needed to keep moving.

  Not daring to look back, Mary pulled herself to her feet with an agonized groan and stumbled toward the truck. Now covered in mud, as well as blood, she found the footing even more treacherous than ever. Her hands left filthy smears on the side of the truck where she pulled herself toward the passenger door. Shouldering the hanging door further open, she grabbed the shotgun off the floor. She had seen her husband handle one years ago, and remembered the lever to twist in order to crack it open.

  No shells filled the chambers.

  One last idea presented itself, and she fumbled at the glove box open with frantic haste. She did all of this with clumsy difficulty due to being essentially one handed. She found the little door hard to open fully, it having been warped in the crash, but she leaned on it and revealed a beautiful box of #1 buckshot.

  Shells scattered across the cab as she snatched the box out. Mary scrabbled after them with her good hand, cradling the shotgun in the crook of her elbow, and managed to grab three. She realized as she slid two shells into the chambers that she had never shot another living thing before in her life, and wondered if she could bring herself to do it. She hoped so. Snapping the barrel shut she stepped back from the cab and turned…to discover the monster towered only seven feet away at the end of the truck. Two baleful, golden eyes now glared at her over massive grinning jaws.

  Mary screamed and emptied both barrels into it without a second’s hesitation.

  Unable to brace the gun with her injured hand, she had settled for merely laying the barrel across her forearm. Now it flew up and cracked her across her already bruised cheekbone as the creature went down in a snarling heap. Turning and staggering away with her face buried in her arm, Mary could hear the beast struggling and snapping on the ground behind her, and knew it wasn’t finished. Apparently this thing was unkillable.

  “You have to use silver bullets,” young Mary remonstrated from somewhere in her head, “nothing else will stop it for long. That’s the rules.” Her skepticism must have been knocked out in the tumble down the embankment, because she accepted this recollection with despair.

  No options remained but to run.

  Mary fled into the blackness of the trees, struggling to hold onto the shotgun and use her little pen light for guidance at the same time. Branches tore at her out of the darkness, and she knew that she was leaving a trail of both fresh blood and scent that a blind hound could follow. Twice she fell, the second time screaming aloud as the shotgun landed across her shattered hand. In this blackness and treacherous footing, it became obvious she was going nowhere fast.

  The hopelessness of her plight tired her as much as her exertion; and she stopped to push the last shell into the shotgun’s chamber. Gasping in both weariness and fear, she turned to face the horror she knew would be on top of her any second. She expected to hear it crashing through the brush toward her. But that didn’t happen. Instead, she heard the sound of metal tearing, back from the direction of the truck, and an agonized shriek.

  It was the sound of a man waking to his own slaughter.

  “Oh, no…” Mary whispered, and tears of guilt and horror filled her eyes. The man in the truck had been helpless, and she had led the monster straight to him. She had even taken his only means of defense. His screams ripped through the night, accompanied by the snarls of the beast that tore at him. She took a few hesitant steps back in the direction of the truck. Even though she knew it would be hopeless, she felt she should go back to help him…if nothing else to atone for leaving him to die like that.

  “It’s not your fault,” young Mary lectured with solemn authority. “It’s still essentially a wolf, and that’s what it does…it feeds on the helpless and the weak. It’s instinctually attracted to the injured. Just like the pack that pulls down the slowest elk in the herd. It would have gone for him no matter what you did.”

  Despite her certainty that she was now losing her mind, Mary knew the voice spoke the truth. It didn’t really help though, as she listened to the fading cries of the brute’s victim and its feeding growls.

  Then things got worse.

  “Mary? Mary, wh-where…are you?” Chad’s distant voice drifted through the night. All the screams and snarls must have gotten him worried about her…and he couldn’t have sounded more weak and wounded.

  “Oh God! Chad,” she breathed. She knew if he didn’t stop, he would be calling the beast down on himself. She needed to get to him and quiet him before that happened.

  Once again Mary raced headlong through the dark trees, gasping in both fear and exhaustion. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and she found it hard to listen for sounds in the direction of the truck. She hoped the monster would be too distracted by feeding to notice the noise of her stumbling through the woods. The clinical part of her mind wondered if that astonishing pace of healing affected the creature’s appetite. The metabolic rate needed to perform such a feat would be astronomical. If that were the case, the thing would exist in a constant state of starvation. There would be no deterring something like that.

  Another painful fall, and two more gouges in the ribs from hitting branches in the
dark, and Mary limped into sight of the car. Her lungs burned from exertion, and her ragged breathing now came in loud gulps.

  “M-Mary? Is that you?”

  She staggered over to her window and fell to her knees. Every inch of her body hurt. With what seemed to be her last remaining strength, she wriggled back into the overturned vehicle.

  “Shhhhh! Chad, you have to be quiet. There’s something really bad out there.”

  “Mary?” his voice sounded borderline lucid.

  “Shhhhhh…quiet!” she whispered, “It killed the other driver, and if it finds us it will kill us too. The other truck hit it in the accident, but it got back up. I shot it, with both barrels, and it still got back up. I can’t stop it.”

  “Wh-what…is it?”

  “I don’t know, Chad,” she lied, “some kind of monster.”

  At that instant a powerful, full throated howl echoed across the countryside. The thing had finished at the truck. For a moment, silence fell over the night. Then another great howl shook the darkness.

  Understanding dawned in Chad’s eyes. Only one creature, real or otherwise made a sound like that.

  “M-Mary? Y-You need to…need to…get out of here,” he gasped. “Run.”

  “Chad, I can’t.”

  “Y-You have to, baby. I…I’ll call it to me. Head back for…for the road. Y-you can c-cover more…distance…on it. Maybe see…a car.”

  “No! I won’t do that!”

  “M-Mary, please.”

  The sound of distant crashing in the brush reached them.

  It was coming.

  With what appeared to be a supreme effort, Chad brought one hand to his neck and yanked off the chain holding his wedding band. Her eyes were huge as he dropped it into her hand. She realized he must have started coming out of the shock to be able to move again, and probably hurt worse than ever.

  “Chad?”

  “Y-you have to live, Mary. L-live for us…both. N-now g-go”

  She stared at the symbol of their promised life together, tears falling to the roof below, and then realized there remained one thing left to do.

  Three minutes later a huge form stalked into the small area around the car. With a thunderous growl, the beast sniffed the air, leaning from side to side. Then it circled around the back of the car, its footsteps heavy on the dark ground. The massive shape stopped on the passenger side of the car and sniffed once again.

  Then it lunged for the nearest door.

  In one powerful movement it grabbed the passenger door and ripped it entirely free from the car. The monster threw the door into the brush with a violent sweep of its arm, then thrust itself into the opening and roared at the prey huddled against the other side of the car.

  “EAT THIS, FIDO!” Mary snarled back, and pulled the trigger.

  The expanding gases and accelerating buckshot fragmented Chad’s heavy silver chain and propelled it out of the shotgun barrel at over a thousand feet per second. The pieces hit the werewolf point blank, bringing almost half a ton of energy along with them. Artillerists of old would have recognized what she did, as they often put lengths of chain down their cannons as very effective antipersonnel loads…and in the close quarters of the car, this proved just as devastating.

  The monster went over backwards with an unholy scream.

  Mary cringed while listening to it thrash and yowl out in the dark. She could hear branches snapping, and the thuds of the huge predator twisting and repeatedly striking the ground. She clutched the shotgun, now useless, as a club of last resort if the beast appeared in the doorway again.

  “It won’t,” young Mary informed her. “You got it. You got it good.”

  She could now dimly make out its shadowy form as it dragged itself off into the trees. It didn’t move like it would be healing up from this particular blow, and Mary got the definite impression that it wouldn’t be recovering at all. It might live for a while, but something inside told her that it was crawling off to die.

  “Good riddance,” she whispered after it.

  Then Mary realized that she could see its exit due to the dim flicker of red and blue light that made its way through the brush. The kind of light made by police cars and ambulances. It grew stronger, and she could picture them pulling up to the carnage of the wrecked pickup truck. With a sigh, she understood that she had one more trek to make.

  “Wait here, love,” she groaned at Chad. “I’m going to get help.”

  ###

  “Just rest, Mr. Phelps.” The nurse consulted her chart then held it out for Mary to see…one nurse to another. “Those ribs are going to make breathing a real adventure for a week or so, but then it will start to get better. Be a good boy, and we’ll let you out of bed in a few days to start getting used to that walking cast. I’m sure your wife can explain it all to you.”

  “I bet she can,” Chad groaned.

  With a wink and grin, the hospital’s nurse left the room and the couple savored their first time alone since the accident. Chad would be bedridden for at least a week, but Mary was the one who looked the worse for wear. She had bruises and bandages on every part of her body, and her hand in a large cast. It faintly annoyed her how Chad looked so much better than her, even though his injuries were more serious. Still, just finally being alone with him and knowing things were going to be alright felt wonderful. A comfortable silence filled the room.

  “Eat this, Fido?” Chad finally chuckled. “Where did that come from?”

  “Instinct,” Mary grinned, carefully settling beside him to avoid disturbing his injuries, “that beggar was messing with my pack and threatening my mate. His mistake.”

  “Wow. Remind me to stay on your good side.”

  Her grin widened.

  “Good idea, but if you want to stay on my good side,” she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, “then you just be good and heal up. I want to keep you a good long time. Besides, you still owe me a new car, buster.”

  Picking Dewberries

  “Bunny!” Karen yelled as the small lab bolted out of the car and out onto the dirt road. After making a futile grab for the dog’s collar, she could only watch as a growling Bunny dashed through the shallow ditch and between the trees that ran along the fence line. A split second later she disappeared into a mesquite thicket in the field beyond.

  “Mommy!” Tucker wailed from the back seat, “Bunny ran away!”

  “It’s okay, son,” she soothed the seven year old. “She’ll be back. She’s probably just chasing some old rabbit she saw when I opened the door.” Karen grimaced at David while she pulled her hair back in preparation for the furnace of a Texas afternoon in June. Even though she had already opened the door and voided the car of its cooled air, it still hit her like a solid, sweltering wall of heat as she exited the vehicle.

  At least they were out of the sun, the trees arching high overhead to form a leafy green tunnel. The shade came as some relief, though the thick air itself felt almost like an oven. The scents of dust, grass, manure, and just a hint of honeysuckle combined to douse them all in a stifling atmospheric stew called summer. Somewhere, a locust droned its varying buzz at almost earsplitting levels. The birds must have been resting during the heat of the day, because the only other sound to be heard was that of Bunny’s barking coming from somewhere in the mesquite thicket.

  “I better go after her,” David grunted as he climbed out the driver’s side door. “She’s a city dog, and doesn’t understand that animals out here might fight back. Why don’t you two get started with the berry picking, and I’ll go rescue the princess before a rabbit eats her.” He started after the lab, repressing a curse as the dewberry vines alongside the road caught on both his khakis and vinyl tennis shoes, almost tripping him. Righting himself, he gave an embarrassed thumbs up to Karen and then eased his way through the barb wire fence with exaggerated care. Once through, he dusted off his Hawaiian flowered shirt and headed for the mesquite thicket that the dog had disappeared into.

 
Karen grinned. Bunny wasn’t the only one out of her element out here.

  “Be careful, honey. We are a good ways off the pavement. If you break a leg out here, I have no idea how to describe where we are to an ambulance.”

  “Oh ye of little faith!” David’s faint protest wafted back from the field.

  In truth, both she and David had been born out in the country and then moved into Houston in their early teens. Now, years later, their memories of country childhoods motivated them on this little excursion. Karen remembered going out with her family and picking dewberries as a child, and wanted to share that experience with Tucker. She remembered riding in the back of her father’s pickup as they drove the sandy back roads in search of good picking spots. The wind through her hair had been all the air conditioning she needed back then. Her and her brothers would point and excitedly compare opinions on likely dewberry patches as they approached.

  Now, as she opened the door for Tucker, she felt fairly confident that they found a good one. Dewberry vines ran along the fence line on both sides of the shady road. This stretch showed little in the way of fresh tire tracks, meaning they would probably be able to pick uninterrupted to their heart’s content. She left their little Toyota parked in the middle of the road, since she intended to stay nearby and could move it in the unlikely event somebody else drove by.

  “Okay Tucker, get your gloves on and get your basket. Now do you remember what Mommy warned you?”

  “Yes,” the boy groaned in recitation, “watch where you put your hands, and watch for snakes. You have to pay attention out here.”

  “That’s right, so you can take that iPod you’re trying to sneak along with you and put it right back into the car.”

  Giving a sigh that only another such oppressed seven year old could fully appreciate, Tucker did as directed.