He was sitting on his porch listening to the radio, drinking wine when he saw the man creeping through the RV campsite. Porch might have been slightly misleading as it was only 7’ wide and 3’ deep. Since he had built the thing with his own two hands, however, he felt that he could call it whatever grandiose terms that he liked. The radio was giving the latest news about the Rest Stop Butcher, lingering almost lovingly over the details of his latest victim. Again, this was a misleading term as only the first few murders had taken place at rest stops. The rest had taken place at RV parks, campsites and any other lonely place a victim could be caught unawares. Still, what’s in a name? He followed the man out of the corner of his eye as he slunk closer to him on the porch of his house. Even though it might be built on the back of a trailer, only measure 20’ by 8’, and was pulled by his truck from site to site it was his house. He had been inspired by that company out in California who built those prefab houses out of bamboo. People often thought he was crazy, but he preferred the term eccentric.
He reached the bottom of his bottle of wine, it was a small bottle after all, and went inside for some more. He walked through the Spartan living room with its solitary chair and small bookshelf. The curtains were drawn keeping in the light and keeping out any prying eyes. The entrance to the kitchen was beside the ladder to the loft bedroom. His was a home that was not designed to entertain guests. That was fine with him however. He preferred his solitude. He reached into his small dorm room style fridge and got out another one of the four-pack that he had picked up on his weekly grocery run.
He had been at this park for two weeks now as part of his ambling cross country trek and thought he might stay a week more. It didn’t matter; he had nowhere to be and forever to get there. He had watched the park slowly empty as news of the killer spread and was one of the few brave souls still there. The lack of neighbors didn’t bother him. He trekked the short distance back to his porch, it was a porch dammit, to watch the stars continue coming out. He grabbed a light sweater by the door as he walked out. Looking up at the sky his breath made a fog as it escaped. He knew he wasn’t alone, but pretended nonetheless.
“Excuse me, do you have a light”, he heard?
Looking down he saw the man standing at the bottom of the short steps to his porch. He wore glasses, was balding, and a little bit dumpy. There wasn’t anything about him that was particularly intimidating.
He slipped a hand in his pocket and pulled it out with a half full Bic lighter. The man lit his cigarette and handed the lighter back. He leaned against the porch and inhaled deeply.
“Nice night isn’t it? It’s cold, but the stars look great from out here.”
“That they do” he responded and then fell silent again. They stood there a few more minutes while cigarette man puffed away. He took quick drags off of the cigarette like he was trying to finish it in record time. After a few minutes the pudgy little man began shifting from foot to foot. His gaze kept darting around nervously.
“So, have you been keeping up with the news about the Rest Stop Butcher” Cigarette Man asked without anymore preamble? “You know the one who stabbed all those people to death.”
“I’ve heard of him. Heard he kills at more than just rest stops these days. They think he’s hunting the RV parks now.”
“If that’s true aren’t you scared staying here, especially with so few people around?”
“Nah, I’m not scared. Men who have to hurt and kill women to feel tough aren’t men at all.”
At this the pudgy man grew red in the face and started puffing air like a fish out of water. His cigarette fell from his hands when they started shaking. Then he straightened up and grew tense.
“You should be scared, you should be very scared”, he said through gritted teeth.
He knew it was coming, but had hoped he was mistaken or that Cigarette Man would move on looking for other prey. There was the click and then a glint of moonlight. Cigarette Man lunged at him with the knife. His face was twisted in a snarl, but he made the mistake of trying to stab upwards at his target. When his intended victim easily sidestepped he lost his balance which is when the drifter delivered a kick to his face that made his nose run red and broke his glasses. He dropped the knife and covered his face in shock. The drifter leapt off the porch and, almost casually, slid around behind him and locked in a choke hold.
The erstwhile killer in his arms began to thrash, but his struggles grew weaker as his brain lost oxygen. He glanced around but no one else was outside and the few windows with lights coming from them were covered. He dragged him up the stairs and inside the house.
The lack of neighbors served him well. He counted to 60 to make sure of him then laid him down while he went back outside. He left the body while he went to retrieve his work gloves from his truck. His arms were shaking a little from the exertion and adrenaline in his system. On his way back in he retrieved the knife and the broken bits of glasses from the ground. He stood up and then paused like he had forgotten something. Glancing around him he saw the still lit cigarette. He extinguished it with his toe before adding it to the pile of evidence. He went back inside and began removing any trace he might have left on the body, just in case it was ever found. He stripped his jacket to remove any blood from it. He even wiped down his lighter to remove the man’s prints. He checked his ID and saw that he was a local man, which would mean he would be missed soon. That was a shame. If he was a drifter, like himself, then this would have been so much easier.
Soon enough he was in his truck headed to the hardware store. As was his practice, the first day he was in town he had taken the day to drive around and familiarize his self with the town. That familiarity would serve him well again tonight. First the hardware store for plastic sheeting and Sack Crete and then to Wal-Mart for duct tape and industrial sized zip-ties. It wouldn’t do to buy it all in one place.
When he returned home he wrapped the body in sheeting with the evidence laid on top and duct taped it together. He then placed the plastic wrapped body on another layer. The Sack Crete he mixed in a bucket in the living room before pouring it liberally over the body. Then he wrapped it again with several layers and zip tied it together. He glanced around again before dragging it to the truck, but the park was still empty. He lugged the body to the truck and closed the hard bedcover over it. He drove the limit exactly, never failed to use a blinker, and otherwise took great pains not to be noticed. A twenty minute trip found him on a small bridge over the Ouachita River watching the body sink out of sight. He stood there a minute and watched the stars some more. They were even more beautiful over the water. He supposed that he would need to stay long enough not to raise suspicion when someone filed a missing persons report, but he doubted that the body would ever be found. Not in the dim, dark, deep waters of the Ouachita. He drove home and turned on the radio. The news was once more about the Rest Stop Butcher. Police were still looking for suspects and asking anyone with information to call in. In the dark of his cabin he smiled.
Author’s foreword:
Despite not selling well I really enjoyed the character from A Night Under the Stars. As such I sat down and hammered out Monsters as a sequel. On my phone of course, between classes. I moved him out west, still not sure where he was headed. Honestly I still have no idea where he is headed. I guess we’ll find out when we get there. Again, this story is dark, possibly my darkest, and makes no apologies for it.
He nursed his beer while trying to guess the woman’s name. She was sitting at the bar sipping on some fruity concoction through a straw. She was a petite brunette wearing a blue sundress and when she had first walked in he immediately noticed her puffy eyes and lack of makeup. She looked like a Mary or maybe a Miranda. In the end it didn’t matter he thought as he raised his bottle to his lips. Pickups usually went south as soon as they found out that he lived in RV parks. He decided that he would finish this beer and then leave. There were exactly four people in the bar; the brunette, Susie maybe, the bartender,
a dark haired young man in a black pea coat, and himself. The young man was slumped over the counter with a shot of whiskey in one hand and an empty beer bottle in front of him. Several more empties had already made their way to the trash. He raised his shot glass with a shaking hand, sloshing whiskey over the edge, and tilted his head back to drink it. When he set it down his head dipped even lower towards the countertop. The bartender was watching him as he cleaned up and it was obvious that he was going to ask for his keys soon.
He glanced out the window behind him and saw that dusk was rapidly turning into full dark. He still had half a bottle left so he leaned back in his seat and watched the sun set over west Texas. He was lost in thought when he heard the approaching roar of a motorcycle, several motorcycles actually to judge by the volume. They continued to grow louder until they were right outside and then the sound died off as one by one the engines were shut off. The sound of heavy boots tramping preceded the door being thrown open and bouncing off of the wall behind it. Six men wearing matching leather jackets stomped in talking loudly and swearing among themselves. At the counter the woman, Jackie maybe, hunched in on herself and turned her head away slightly. The bartender’s expression never changed and the young drunk just continued to sink ever lower. One of the bikers walked over to the jukebox and fed it coins before making his selections. In moments Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever began pouring out of the speakers.
Meanwhile, the rest of the bikers had wound their way through the tables to the bar. Just as they came to a stop in front of it the young man’s head finally succumbed to gravity and booze hitting the counter with a hollow thump. The bikers started laughing wildly and joking amongst themselves about how he couldn’t hold his liquor. The bartender just rolled his eyes at him before turning back to ask for their order. They each asked for beer and the bartender started popping tops off of bottles. While he was doing that one of the bikers, a skinny man with pale skin and lanky hair, spotted the brunette sitting on her stool. He nudged one of his companions, a tall man with broad shoulders and blonde hair that hung to his shoulders. When he saw what his friend was looking at a smile crept over his face and his eyes lit up eagerly. He moved over to lean against the bar beside her, reaching out his hand to brush her cheek.
“What’s your name sweetheart” he asked.
She didn’t reply. She flinched away, but otherwise sat rigid and still on her stool. His companions gathered around her in a looming circle and began making crude comments to her.
“Leave her alone or I’m gonna have to ask you to leave”, interjected the bartender.
The blonde leader attempted to stare him down, but to the bartenders credit he met his stare and refused to be intimidated even though the biker towered over him. A toothy maniacal smile spread across blonde biker’s face after several moments of this. He turned to face the rest of his gang and jerked his head back towards the bartender. Two of them immediately leapt the counter and grabbed his arms before he could run. He struggled, but they both outweighed him by close to a hundred pounds. A third biker took his time in sauntering around the counter, cracked his knuckles, and without a word began pummeling the helpless bartender. The brunette that he had been attempting to defend began crying hysterically and the whole time blonde biker’s smile never faltered.
None of them had taken any notice of the drifter in the back corner who had continued to sip his beer while debating the merits of getting involved. The trio beating the bartender finally dumped him on the floor unconscious. Blonde biker had stopped paying attention, however, and was leering at the Brunette and stroking her tear stained cheek. He made gentle shushing sounds as he did this, but they only made her tears flow faster. Then suddenly his hand slipped behind her neck and he jerked her face close to his. She gasped in air and her whimpering stopped suddenly. She tensed up momentarily and then began frantically beating at him in an attempt to get away, but he laughed while lifting her off the floor. She struggled and flailed until other members of his gang grabbed her limbs and they ran with her to the pool table where her crying grew louder as they pawed at her and tore at her clothes. She begged them to stop, but they were indifferent to her pleas.
The man in the corner, still unnoticed, glanced down at his empty left hand. He quietly stood up and slowly slid along the back wall to the door. His shoulders were hunched and he kept low trying not to catch the attention of the gang. Luckily for him, if not for the brunette, all eyes were on the woman struggling on the table. He slipped through the front door and ran bent over to his truck parked along the side of the building. As he ran he heard the music from inside swell, presumably to cover the sounds of screaming and raucous laughter. It would also help cover the sound of him cranking his vehicle to make a quick getaway. He started his truck and brought it around to the front of the building, leaving it idling. Inclining his seat he retrieved a double barrel 12 gauge shotgun. He pulled out a small box that held an assortment of rounds from buckshot to slugs and even a round known as Dragon’s Breath. He broke it open and loaded it with two slugs. Several other rounds, including the Dragon’s Breath, went into his coat pocket. Snapping it closed he walked stiff legged back to the bar.
Slipping back inside he was greeted with a scene straight out of a thriller movie. The bikers were in a half circle around the pool table laughing at the brunette’s struggles. Their leader had not quite gotten around to his full intent. He was standing beside the table holding her wrists down against its surface while making shushing sounds and laughing. She was throwing her head side to side with her eyes tightly closed and tears leaking down her face. Her feet were beating a staccato rhythm against the table that could be heard even over the jukebox.
Immediately in front of him, with his back to the door, was the lanky haired rider who had first spotted the woman. Holding his shotgun in a two handed grip he approached him on the balls of his feet. When he was in position behind him he struck him with the butt of his weapon just like Uncle Sam had taught him to. Lanky haired biker went dropped to the floor in a heap. He stepped over him as the other members of his gang finally noticed an armed man in their midst and began frantically backpedaling. The leader looked up just in time from his sport to see the drifter level his shotgun to his shoulder. They locked eyes for a split second before the drifter shot him in the face permanently erasing his smile. A red spray drenched the woman on the table and several of the bikers who were diving for cover. He grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her off the table to her feet. She had stopped crying, but she was breathing quickly and shallowly as she stared at the blood covering her. He pushed her behind him and raised his shotgun back to his shoulder. The next shell was buckshot. If any of them charged he wanted to catch as many of them as possible when he fired. He stepped shuffled back towards the door keeping an eye on the bikers, waiting for them to find their nerve to attack. He had hoped that taking out their leader would rattle them enough to buy them the time they needed to reach the door. That’s when the juke box cut off and they heard the giggling.
He spun around towards the sound. Standing in front of the door holding the power chord for the juke box was the young man who had passed out on the counter. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was pale. He slowly smiled revealing sharp jagged teeth and ran a forked tongue over them. The drifter heard several gasps and more than a few expletives from the shocked bikers around him. He swung the woman around to place her behind him again and trained his weapon on the thing in front of them. It crouched down spreading its arms wide showing that it had grown thick, black claws on the tips of its fingers. It opened its mouth and its throat expanded, almost like a frog, before yelling out an earsplitting scream. It leaped in the air in an arc designed to land in the middle of its targets. The drifter followed it with the shotgun and as it passed over head pulled the trigger putting a round of 12 gauge buckshot in the center of its torso. It landed in a crouch and hissed in pain, but that didn’t slow it down from tearing into the nearest unlucky biker. He screamed as
it tore at his flesh. To their credit the others tried to come to his rescue, but they weren’t any more effective than the shotgun had been.
The drifter yelled at the woman, “Get outside now. “
“What about the bartender?” She cried.
He glanced to where the bartender was still laying on the floor. He was beginning to move his head weakly, but it was clear that it would be awhile before he could stand on his own, much less run for his life. The screams of the bikers were growing more frantic as they were being torn apart. He snapped the shotgun open and removed the spent cartridges as quickly as he could. In their place went another slug and the Dragon’s Breath. He doubted that either would kill this creature, whatever it was, but it might slow it down enough for them to escape. He ran to the downed man with the woman right behind him. He jerked him up roughly by the arm. Turning to the woman he said “You have to help him walk. He’s still out of it and I need my hands free.”
She nodded and sniffed once, but her tears were mostly dried up. He could tell that she was in shock, but she was following orders and still moving. That gave them a chance of making it out alive.
The screams of the embattled bikers were growing louder as were the growls of the thing that was killing them. They moved as quickly as they could towards the exit. They were almost there when the abused, bloody corpse of the lanky haired biker flew by them to crash into the door. It made a wet splat and slid to the floor in a heap leaving a wide red streak down the door. He turned around to cover their escape and was confronted by a scene from Hell. The thing, be it demon or ghoul, was crouched in front of him. Its mouth was spread wide showing wicked rows of teeth and its forked tongue was moving lazily side to side. Its hair was matted with dark blood making it stick out in erratic angles. It hissed and began creeping towards them on all fours. He promptly fired a slug unto its open mouth jacking its head back and bowling it over. It landed on its back, but kicked its way to its feet like someone out of an 80’s martial arts movie. Meanwhile the trio of survivors was still backing towards the door.
Encounters Page 6