Accidental Evil

by Ike Hamill

  The hand clamped around his ankle.

  George screamed. It lifted his foot straight up. George hung from its grip, kicking the air as it stepped through to the darker part of the forest. As he spun, George saw the thing that wore his mother’s face. That same smile was there, and that same blank look in its eyes. George tried kicking at it as he beat his fists against its legs. The thing didn’t care. It just strode forward, letting George bounce off of whatever was in their path.

  It felt like his foot would pop off. George managed to flex his knee and hook his free leg over the thing’s elbow. That way he was facing forward and could lift himself or push away from approaching hazards.

  “Put me down!” he yelled. It didn’t heed him, or maybe didn’t even hear him. He heard it though. He heard the crunch and grind as the thing mashed his mom’s ruined ankle. This wasn’t his mother, but it was using her body.

  George got himself swinging and then climbed up his own body until he got his hands around its hand. He tore at its fingers, trying to release its grip on his ankle. Everything about it was like iron. It didn’t respond to hits or kicks. George held on with one hand as he swung forward and jabbed the thing in the eye. He thought it would be difficult to look at his mom’s face while he jabbed. It turned out to not be hard at all. This wasn’t his mom—he could tell.

  “Put me down,” he said again. It didn’t respond or react. George’s head began to swim with the effort of holding himself up. He let his torso flop back down and the rush of blood to his head made everything worse. For a few seconds the world was replaced with sparkling darkness. George felt his hands dragging on the ground.

  He was going to be sick.

  George saw a stick and had an idea. He tried for the next one and managed to grab it. George traded the stick to his other hand and then shoved it between the thing’s legs. He kept a tight grip as the thing’s other leg came forward. It didn’t even slow its pace. The thing nearly jerked the stick from George’s hand and then the stick simply snapped in two.

  It was impossibly strong. Its grip on his leg never wavered and it held him high as it walked.

  George saw Lori in the distance.

  “Run, Lori,” he shouted. “Don’t just stand there.”

  She turned, but she stumbled. The thing carried George forward at its relentless pace and stalked after the girl. She could have easily kept ahead of it, but the fight seemed to have gone out of Lori. The next time she stumbled, she looked back and watched as the thing descended on her.

  Lori was lucky—the thing grabbed her by the arm. She was able to stay on her own feet as the three of them moved forward. George had to fight with ferns and brush hitting his face. He had to fight with the blood pooling in his brain and making him nauseous.

  “Lori,” George said, “hit her with something. Make her stop.”

  “It’s your mom,” Lori said. He couldn’t see her face. It sounded like she was crying.

  “It’s not my mom. Hit her with a rock.”

  He saw Lori try to stoop to pick something up from the ground as they walked, but her arm was held just like George’s ankle. Lori cried out with pain as she pulled against the thing’s grip.

  George had to do it himself. He dragged his hands through the leaves until he managed to grab a rock. Bending up again, he threw the rock at the thing’s head. It bounced right off of his mom’s nose. A trickle of blood began to run down the curve of her nose and onto her cheek. It didn’t stop the thing.

  George flopped back down—it was too much effort to stay up.

  He saw a thick tangle of bushes approaching and he had to use both arms to protect his head. Lori stumbled and was dragged for a few paces, screaming the whole time. They emerged on the road.

  Chapter 48 : Prescott

  [ Turn ]

  TRINA AND HER COUSIN followed Ricky as he walked quickly down the middle of the road. Way up ahead, she saw Lily and Sarah climbing the hill. Sarah was standing on her pedals. She was moving so slowly that she looked like she was about to fall off.

  Lily’s parents were just starting up the hill. They couldn’t hope to keep up with the girls.

  She looked at Gerard. He had practically dragged her along with Ricky and April.

  She had wanted to stand with Vernon. At one point, they had been friends.

  Her cousin was right—there was no sense in standing there while that thing approached. Of all the crazy things she had seen, that man made of blood had been the most frightening she had set her eyes on. She didn’t even want to look back.

  Trina looked at the side road they were passing. It was one of those camp roads, used only by the people fortunate enough to have a lakeside cabin.

  “Maybe we ought to hide out,” Trina said to Gerard. “If that thing is chasing the Hazards, perhaps we ought to get out of its way.” It was a hard thing to say. She had always liked the Hazards. Then again, they were on bikes and she was on foot.

  “I think we ought to stay with this one,” Gerard said. He did something that Trina wouldn’t have predicted—he pointed at crazy April.

  “Her?” Trina whispered.

  Gerard nodded. “I think she knows things.”

  He was looking at Trina and almost ran into Ricky’s back when the boy stopped.

  April sensed that she was the only one still walking. She turned around and her eyes went wide.

  “What?” Trina asked. She moved forward and then slowly turned towards Ricky as April raised her finger to point at the young man. Trina didn’t see anything unusual. Then Ricky moved forward. He didn’t seem particularly fast, but he closed the distance to April before she could move. He grabbed April by the wrist and immediately turned for the woods.

  “Hey!” Gerard shouted. He ran forward.

  Without turning towards Gerard, Ricky’s other hand shot out and caught a handful of Gerard’s arm. Her cousin yelled in pain as Ricky strode forward, dragging both April and Gerard.

  Trina ran at Ricky’s back.

  “Hey!” she yelled. She put both hands on Ricky’s back and shoved, hoping to knock him off balance and make him let go of his captives.

  Hitting him was like hitting a brick wall. Trina flinched back as pain shot up through her arm. She tucked her arm in and lowered her shoulder at the young man. She still couldn’t make any impact on his momentum. Ricky kept moving, dragging Gerard and April off the road and up the grassy hill to where the trees started.

  Trina looked up the road and cupped her hands around her mouth. She was about to yell up to the Hazards for help, but the words died in her throat. It was the sight of Wendy Hazard that stopped her. Her husband was holding his feet off the pedals. Under Wendy’s power, the two of them were flying up the hill towards Lily and Sarah. The girls didn’t seem to notice the big tandem bike on a collision course.

  “Lily! Look out!” Trina shouted. “Rabbit!”

  Lily turned just in time to see her mother dismount, spilling her father to the road. Wendy grabbed Lily, pulling her off of her bicycle. Then Wendy turned and reached for Sarah. The other girl almost got away. Wendy caught the back of her shirt and used that grip to pull Sarah from her bike as well.

  “Shit,” Trina whispered. She was too far away to help any of them. She turned back to Ricky. Gerard and April were struggling for all they were worth, but it wasn’t doing any good. The boy was dragging them into the woods.

  Trina ran after them.

  [ Meeting ]

  “Help me!” Gerard yelled.

  “What else do you want me to try?” Trina asked. She was slogging behind them on Ricky’s improvised path through the woods. She had tried tripping him and hanging onto him. She had even wrapped her arm around his neck in an attempt to cut off his blood supply. He never reacted. The boy kept moving through the woods, dragging April and Gerard along.

  Her cousin never stopped trying to get away. April seemed more pragmatic. She let herself be led and tried to maneuver around obstacles. Gerard looked like he was about
to chew his own arm off.

  Trina walked behind.

  There was a cloudiness in Ricky’s eyes. He didn’t seem present.

  Through the woods, she occasionally heard shouts from Bruce Hazard and screams from the girls. They seemed to be headed in the same direction. Trina wondered if maybe they were converging on a point.

  Up ahead, Trina saw open sky. As Ricky got closer to breaking through the bushes, Trina pictured the area and came up with a prediction—they were headed for the golf course. It took up a good chunk of land through the area. Gerard screamed again as Ricky dragged him through the thick brush. April angled herself to the side and backed through behind Ricky. Her feet tangled on branches. Trina rushed forward and caught her before she fell.

  When Trina looked up again, she saw that she was right. They were walking through the tall grass towards a fairway. Gerard found his feet again and he and April flanked Ricky as they walked up the hill.

  Trina didn’t know a thing about golf and had never been on the course. It was well-manicured, but didn’t look a thing like golf on TV. There were no open vistas here. She could only see a short distance down to an oval of grass with a flag stuck in the hole. That wasn’t the direction Ricky was headed. He was going uphill through the middle of the fairway. Trina ran around him. She wanted to know what they were headed towards. Her legs ached as she ran up the hill.

  She turned to get a sense of which way his glassy eyes were headed. At the top of the hill, the fairway curved the other direction. Trina saw Wendy Hazard emerge from the woods down the way. Trina turned between Ricky and Wendy. They were indeed on intersecting paths.

  Trina slogged through tall grass and then climbed a ledge to get better visibility. Projecting Ricky’s path, she turned around and saw the building in the center of the course. There was a small pond between her and the building. She ran to her right, where an asphalt path offered her a much easier route.

  She had to slow down to a fast walk to catch her breath. Through a cluster of birch trees, she saw her cousin being dragged through the water. Except from the splashing of Gerard and April, Ricky didn’t get wet. His feet still moved as though he was walking, but he slid over the surface of the pond.

  Trina slowed and then stopped. There was a buzzing sound in the air. Her eyes scanned the skies until she saw them. There was a line of the black drones moving back and forth. They came over the trees and then descended when they approached the roofline of the building. Trina hurried up the bank to her left so she could see better. The drones were dropping into the fountain in the middle of the parking lot. They didn’t stay there. After a few seconds, each drone would lift off again and go back the way it came.

  She heard Gerard shouting again and turned to see Ricky gliding down a rocky slope. His captives were suspended by their arms until their feet touched down.

  Gerard spotted her.

  “Kill him, would you?” he yelled. “Find a gun or something.”

  Trina looked back to the clubhouse. The building had grand peaks to its roofline. It looked like it would be at home at the top of a mountain. The exterior was stone, wood, and glass. There was no parking lot in front, just a turnaround for the driveway, but there was a big brown UPS truck parked near the entrance. In the center of the circular drive was the fountain where the drones were making their stops.

  She approached cautiously, afraid of the flying things. They didn’t seem to notice her. She saw a foul yellow liquid in the fountain. A drone swooped down and hovered over the pool. While she watched, it expelled more liquid into the pool and then flew up and away.

  Ricky was headed right for the fountain. Trina began to circle, headed for the clubhouse. She didn’t see anyone inside, but it was still her best bet for help. Movement from another direction drew her eye. She saw a woman dragging another girl. It took her a second to recognize Jenny Hilliard. After figuring out the identity of the girl, Trina recognized the woman as Jenny’s mom. They were also headed in the direction of the fountain, and it looked like Jenny was a prisoner in the same way as Gerard and the others.

  Across the way, Wendy emerged from the tall grass with Lily and Sarah in tow. From another direction, Mary Dunn was dragging her son by his leg and some other kid by her hand.

  Trina’s hands went up to her own face. Something horrific was happening and it was starting to be too much for her brain to handle. She struggled to maintain control.

  A fifth figure arrived. Once she saw the shape of the person coming up from the woods, Trina figured who it was. Peg Polhemus, the glassy-eyed woman who had appeared at the shop, was dragging the limp body of what must have been Louise Townsend.

  Trina looked back to Ricky. He made it to the edge of the fountain and stopped. Gerard was still struggling. April stood beside him and looked down.

  Trina ran for the clubhouse.

  Chapter 49 : Dunn

  [ Flight ]

  VERNON UNDERSTOOD WHAT WAS happening. He barely believed it, but he understood. The second blood monster was somehow absorbing the first one. The pentagon-shaped pool of blood was diminishing and the stature of the monster was increasing. Worse that that—it seemed to be developing a skeleton beneath the swirling blood. Vernon caught glimpses of the bones when the thing moved.

  He had to act.

  He lunged forward with his blade, aiming for the thing’s midsection. As he slashed, the thing’s arm swept down and hit his hand. The knife flew into the road and Vernon was spun off of his feet. He rolled as he landed and came up to hands and knees. Vernon jumped to his feet and scrambled backwards, convinced the thing would be on him in an instant.

  It wasn’t.

  The blood monster was looking up towards the sky. It raised its arms as it sucked up the blood under itself.

  Vernon picked up his knife and began to circle around the thing.

  That’s when he saw the third. Another blood monster—the size of the first two before the merger—was walking up the street to join their little conference. Vernon hesitated. If he cut the big one, would the little one just absorb it? Had he facilitated the creation of the giant one?

  He had too many questions without answers.

  To complicate things even more, he saw monster number four about a hundred yards behind monster number three.

  The last thing he wanted to do was lead them towards his son. Vernon backed away slowly, heading perpendicular to the road. When he got to the grass of a nearby camp, he stopped and watched. His hand was sweating on the handle of the knife.

  The third monster approached the big one as the last of the pool was being absorbed. As soon as they touched, they merged together. There were three of them combined in that one form and the volume grew accordingly. Vernon turned his eyes to number four. Surely, it would do the same. He wondered how many of the things would group together, and how tall and massive it would be when they did.

  Keeping the road between himself and the monsters, Vernon jogged alongside the road after his son.

  [ Tracking ]

  When he rounded the corner, Vernon knew there was something wrong. He could see a long stretch up the hill and there were no people. They couldn’t have gotten that far ahead of him. Even the people on the bikes should have been visible. He squinted towards the hill and saw something there. He saw abandoned bikes on the road.

  Vernon took off as fast as his feet would carry him.

  His breath was coming hot and fast by the time he got close enough to form an opinion. The bikes were all pointed west. There, between the road and the trees, the grass was mashed down. Following the line of the trail, he saw a place where branches were bent and broken. Vernon crashed into the woods.

  In his head, he pictured everyone abducted by blood monsters.

  Vernon followed the trail easily. There were scrapes in the dirt, overturned rocks, and broken branches. It looked like a herd of people had stomped through there. Near a stone wall, Vernon saw a hunched over form. When he stopped, he heard the sobbing.

/>   “Bruce?” Vernon asked. He ran to him. It was Bruce Hazard. “Where’s my son?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “She took them. I don’t know why, but she took them.”

  Bruce pointed in the direction of the tracks. Vernon figured he wasn’t going to get any more help from the man. He continued, following the trail until it broke through to the golf course. Once the trail crossed onto the mowed grass, Vernon didn’t have any more signs to follow. He kept going anyway, keeping to the same line until he saw where it picked up again in the tall grass on the other side.

  Cresting a hill, he saw people over near the clubhouse.

  His heart leapt and then fell as he recognized Mary. She advanced to the fountain and stood a short distance away from Ricky.

  Mary was flanked by some kid and was holding George upside down by his ankle. Ricky was holding onto April and Gerard. There were other people in their circle. Vernon recognized most of them, but couldn’t understand what they were doing over there. As he jogged forward, he realized that he was still holding the knife out in front of himself.

  “Mary?” he called. She didn’t turn, but some of the others did.

  George yelled, “Dad!”

  [ Arrival ]

  Vernon slowed. He wanted to know what he was walking towards. None of it made sense. He saw the shape of someone move past one of the clubhouse windows. Everyone at the fountain was stationary. Vernon started to figure it out. Five of the people stood like statues, his wife and eldest son included.

  Vernon trotted towards Mary and George.

  “Hey!” Gerard called. He noticed Vernon approaching. “Give me that knife,” he demanded. Vernon glanced at Ricky. His son seemed to have an iron grip on Gerard. No matter now much the man pulled, Ricky didn’t budge. Vernon’s eyes returned to Mary. He couldn’t fathom how much strength it would take to hold George upside down like that. Her grip wasn’t wavering even though George was reaching out towards Vernon as he approached.