Demons, Freaks & Other Abnormalities

by Michael Laimo

“Jerry, we need to guard you from that truck if we’re to get out of here. Can you get it?”

  Jerry plodded into a back room and returned a moment later with a rifle. He removed two shells from his shirt pocket and loaded them into the barrel. Good thing. Both Pete and Kevin were as foreign to guns as they were to this buried part of America.

  “You sure know how to use that thing, huh Jerry?”

  Jerry said nothing, a young man suddenly possessed by his mission. He handed the rifle to Pete, then slammed out the door, head turned from the fuel truck, trudging clumsily across the gravel towards the side of the building and disappearing from sight.

  Pete and Kevin inched towards the door, then slithered outside, keeping their backs plastered to the entrance. They heard hisses and pops: static coming from around the bend as the boy fumbled with the radio.

  “I can’t get it to work! It’s not working!” His boyish voice echoed in the night.

  The truck responded with a snort. Steam unfurled from its chassis.

  Suddenly, the LeSabre started.

  Pete shouted. Kevin screamed. Fat-Jerry appeared from around the corner, confused and scared.

  The LeSabre lunged, lights freezing him, wheels firing gravel up in sprays. Terror found Jerry’s face, and he couldn’t have been more than ten steps from Pete and Kevin when the car slammed into him and sent him through the window of the store. Glass rained everywhere. The wood frame of the building caved in over the car. The lights inside the store flickered, highlighting the hunks of Fat-Jerry that remained behind on the shards of dangling glass.

  The car tried to reverse. Its wheels dug grooves in the lot, spraying dust everywhere. Pete saw packs of cigarettes showering down from the overhead shelves inside. Steam seeped along the edges of the car’s hood, its engine growling madly like an animal. The rumble of the truck escalated as if urging the car on. The car finally made some headway, one wheel backing over a pile of debris, and Pete thought for sure it would rip away from the carnage into the clear of the lot to rejoin its parent.

  Its parent...

  Then Pete noticed something near the hole the pump had made in the side of the car. A red gelatinous substance oozed from it, down the side of the white surface.

  The gas from the truck.

  Its blood.

  It had filled the car.

  It had made the car come to life.

  “Kev! You with me?” Pete yelled as the din of the two engines had grown to deafening levels. The vehicle’s horns started blaring, as if communicating with one another.

  Pete thought Kevin responded with a “yes” but it didn’t matter. They had only one alternative.

  Pete raised the gun. He aimed at the open hole leading to the gas tank.

  He prayed that this fuel was flammable.

  He fired.

  The shot hit low and to the left, leaving a smoking hole in the door. The black Mack growled savagely. Pete turned and saw the fuel hose slithering from the ground back into its place alongside the bottom of the tanker. The truck leered at him--it was like looking into the face of a monster about to attack. A mother eagle finding a snake in her nest. Pete and Kevin were as good as dead.

  The truck’s engine roared, its tone tumultuous. The LeSabre answered with piping horn blasts.

  Pete felt blisters forming on his hands as he gripped the gun.

  He aimed. Fired.

  This time he connected, just as the mother truck’s wheels began crunching gravel. A spark flashed like a match, and then there was a great blast, the rear end of the LeSabre exploding into a million pieces, black smoke spewing from it like sputter from a volcano.

  The truck screamed as if alive, deep, guttural, monstrous, and then a high-pitched wail ensued from the car as a golem-like creature composed of roiling flames appeared from the fury, staggering away from the burning wreckage. It stood nearly eight feet tall, legs and arms flailing, tiny droplets of fire falling off and skittering across the gravel like animated worms, each going five or six feet before withering away. The fire-monster paced six giant steps then fell to its knees, head turned towards the truck, howling one last time in plea before dying, its flames extinguished into patches of smoldering ooze.

  Pete kept the gun high, aimed it at the truck’s gas tank. The truck slowly drove into the road, the light from the “Jerry’s Gas and Convenience” sign flickering across the dark window.

  Within, Pete saw two horrible eyes staring back at him. Red. Glowing. Like fire.

  He shuddered.

  The truck pushed off into the street and rumbled away into the night, heading east toward the interstate, leaving them behind to sweat in the heat of the LeSabre’s flames.

  ~ * ~

  The highway was a black empty line intersecting the earth like a great artery. Kevin drove, keeping it at a steady fifty-five. Jerry’s nineteen-seventy-something Dodge pick-up shook a bit too much at the higher speeds. Pete sat in the passenger seat spending the last half-hour since they left looking back and forth, at first seeking the black truck, and then, upon realizing they were traveling the highway utterly alone, other cars.

  There were no other cars on the highway.

  Suddenly, lights appeared ahead. Headlights. Coming at them. On their side of the highway.

  Kevin stopped the truck. Ahead, the cars stopped too. Then, slowly parted.

  From within, it appeared. The black Mack.

  Kevin and Pete both yelled. Kevin turned the truck around, tearing a hunk of grassy divider away. Pete knew that if he spun around and looked real close, there would be no one in those cars.

  Except for red glowing eyes.

  The cars came after them.

  Its children.

  Pete wondered if there was a highway somewhere in America that cars couldn’t travel on. If so, would they be able to find it?

  The pick-up started shaking. The cars honked their horns in an evil symphony.

  They soon approached a bridge crossing. Pete and Kevin looked at each other, nodded without saying a word. It was their only hope.

  Water.

  Kevin stopped the truck. They ran to the edge of the bridge, climbed the short barrier and looked back down the road as the cavalry of steel approached.

  Pete peered down. Twenty, twenty-five feet at the most.

  They could make it.

  They jumped.

  And on the way down, Pete remembered something.

  Boats ran on gas too.

  Room 412

  “Here’s your key, sir. Room 410. Elevators are to the right.”

  “Thank you,” I said, returning the young girl’s smile. It was the first conversation I’d had all day, and frankly, it felt good to simply talk to someone, regardless if the exchange had only been a few pleasant words with the hotel’s desk clerk.

  I’d been traveling all day, since early this morning. First the flight from JFK to Omaha, which had been delayed at its scheduled stop-over in Chicago for nearly three hours, and then the drive from Omaha to Grand Island, which also took longer than anticipated. I’d ended up smack in the middle of rush-hour, and believe me, these cornhuskers don’t take to offensive driving as much as us city boys do. They pretty much stick to their lazy ways, even behind the wheel, no matter if they’re early, late, or what. Once I battled my way out of the city though, it was pretty much smooth sailing to Grand Island--all three hours of it.

  The stale smell of a hotel hallway is always welcoming odor on a business trip, today being no exception. I was tired and hungry, and needed to wind down; I had two meetings to attend at the Grand Island Convention Hall in the morning, and since a promotion was in the cards, a good night’s sleep was foremost on my mind.

  I stopped in front of Room 410. Finally.

  I slipped my keycard into the lock and entered. The lodging held no special detail: brown carpeting, cheap art with contrasting floor-to-ceiling curtains, paisley bedspread. I placed my bag in the mirrored closet and immediately tested the bed, stretching out my limbs
to work the tightness from my muscles. Good. The bed was soft and comfortable, and would provide for good sleeping. I twisted my neck and looked at the clock; nearly 9:30 and I still hadn’t eaten any dinner. Hardly any lunch either, just a pretzel and cola at O'Hare. My stomach groaned, protesting its emptiness.

  I ordered a grilled chicken dinner from the room-service menu, then took a shower. By the time I dried off and changed into a pair of knit shorts and tee, my food had arrived. I ate voraciously, cleaning up every last morsel of chicken, broccoli, and rice from my plate, washing it down with two cups of decaf. My mouth felt pasty afterwards and I regretted not getting something cold to drink, so I scrounged up some change, grabbed my keycard, and set off in search of a vending area.

  I bought an orange soda and a package of cupcakes from the machines next to the ice maker at the end of the hall. I gobbled the cupcakes as I paced back, eyeballing every nondescript wooden door along the way, 420, 418, 416, 414, my tired mind wondering as to who settled within the rooms, where these mystery people came from and what kind of business they had here in Grand Island. I shuddered for a moment, suddenly suspicious of the unknown occupants and whether they might be standing just behind the doors, staring at me through the tiny peep-holes as I walked by.

  I passed room 412.

  I heard a voice.

  Help...

  I stopped, gazed curiously at the door, my heart tremoring with surprise. Call me crazy, but it felt at that very moment as if the voice I heard--mind you, not an amplified utterance from a television, but a spoken voice--had called to me. I stood still, listening intently, but found only silence. At once I assumed that the whispery beckon had been contrived from within my own fatigued imagination.

  I peered at the tiny peephole, a hazy point of light returning my gaze. I took a step closer, turned my head in attempt to hear something from within, a rustling from inside perhaps: a confirmation of occupancy. But I heard nothing.

  I looked up, the door only inches away.

  The tiny light in the peephole vanished.

  Someone was looking at me.

  Immediately I ducked away, aware of the embarrassing truth. The occupant in 412 had seen me loitering at their door! Mortified, I quickly utilized my keycard and slid back into my room, shut the door and attached the chain. I then peered out my own peephole to see if 412’s occupant had come out in search of me, but the view was limited, the span of it narrow and warped. So even if an individual had emerged from 412, I don’t think I could have obtained a decent glimpse unless they’d stood directly in front of the door.

  Like I had.

  Unnerved, I pulled away and slipped into bed, hugging the television remote. I watched the local newscast with blank disinterest, trying to shrug off my mind’s sudden preoccupation with room 412. Soon I shut the TV and rolled on my side, staring at the LED display of the clock on the nightstand. It read 10:47.

  Long moments passed and I listened to my breathing, unable to find sleep.

  Then, from amidst the shadowed silence, there came a sound, emerging suddenly and unexpectedly. A sharp rhythmic noise.

  Thump...thump...thump...

  It came from room 412.

  It sounded like a fist, someone gently carrying out their boredom against the wall behind my bed. I ignored it at first, figuring its maker to grow weary of the incessant routine, but its persistence soon had me tossing and turning in bed, and I found myself armoring my ears with my palms as its ceaseless rote tempted to water torture my mind in the minutes to follow.

  Suddenly I could take it no longer. I yanked the covers down, scampered up and grabbed the edge of the headboard for support, pressing my ear against the wall. I don’t know why I did this, I guess I was just hoping to hear the muffled voices of those in occupancy, or the sounds of their television. But I found the room to be silent except for the thump...thump...thump... against the wall, now a bit louder than before, the three or four second intervals of dead silence between each occurrence strongly suggesting the room’s vacancy.

  My mind ran amok. Then what of the voice I heard in the hall? Could that have come from another room? If so, then who or what produced the thumping noise?

  I slid back down under the covers, pulling them over my head. Here in my vulnerable privacy I blamed the intrusive thumping on a loose water pipe, denying my initial premise that its source had been man-made, whether by finger or fist or through inanimate supplement. I swallowed a dry lump in my throat that tasted of orange soda, reaffirming to myself that my intuitions had been wrong, that indeed someone in the room above or below was taking a shower, that they would soon be finished and the thumping would cease.

  Beneath the covers, I waited for the thumpings to stop.

  But they went on and on and on.

  I closed my eyes and wished for sleep to come, trying unsuccessfully to think solely of my meetings in the morning, and not of the mysterious thumpings issuing from room 412.

  ~ * ~

  I tossed and turned for nearly two hours. Cool sweat spilled from my body like rain, dampening the sheets that were twisted into knots from my restlessness. Outside, wind and rain came.

  The thumping had grown louder.

  It was torturing me.

  I decided to place a call into room 412.

  I opened the light next to the bed, picked up the telephone handset and placed it to my ear. Slowly and methodically, I pressed the three numbers on the keypad, 4-1-2, careful not to trip up as I did not wish to awaken anyone else by mistake; no other should needlessly suffer sleeplessness as I had tonight.

  The phone rang in my ear. With slight delay, I heard it ringing in room 412.

  I waited. And like the thumping, it went on and on and on.

  I let it ring perhaps a dozen times, not knowing whether my toll was being ignored, or if indeed no one had occupied the room. But how could that be? The thumping, it was there, as real as my restlessness had kept me awake. Certainly some individual produced this noise, the motive behind it clearly mustered through effort to drive madness into me! I was beginning to scare myself, thoughts like this making me feel as if my mind had begun to erode: each thump and each ring of the phone chipping away another little piece of my sanity with every stroke.

  I pulled the phone from my ear.

  Halfway to the cradle, I heard a click. The phone stopped ringing in room 412.

  Someone had picked up.

  I hung up.

  Damn! Couldn’t I have waited another second, another ring? My momentum in preparing to hang up had forced me to disconnect the line! Or was it my fear? Perhaps a dreadful combination of the two? Does it matter?

  Dear God, why am I so afraid?

  I tried to get a grip, to convince myself of my intelligence. I reminded myself of all the years spent traveling for this company, to places even more so desolate and lonelier than Grand Island. Why then, all so suddenly, am I buried in fear tonight? Terrified of this thumping? It is a thumping against my hotel room wall, and nothing more. There is nothing to be afraid of.

  But a piece of my mind tried to convince me otherwise. That there was something to be afraid of.

  Its source.

  Thump...thump...thump...

  Again I attempted sleep, gazing pointlessly at the clock, watching the minutes creeping at a pace no faster than the hours it took me to arrive here. Finally, I squirmed up in bed and put on the light.

  I stared at the phone for what seemed an eternity, then picked up the handset, shivering as I did so. I had to know. I had to establish a rationale to these impacts that so threatened my sanity.

  A dial tone met my ear.

  I punched in the room number, 4-1-2.

  It rang, from the earpiece and through the wall.

  Someone picked up on the second ring.

  Whoever it was, they did not identify themselves, or say “hello”. I waited, thinking for a moment that the line had simply disconnected. I hesitated to utter, my breath caught in my lungs. I felt horrible wa
ves of discomfort. I sensed the presence of someone at the other end.

  My heart nearly stopped as I realized something.

  I could hear the thumping through the phone. Indeed I had a connection into 412! My heart pounded, my mouth went dry. Finally, I found the spirit to speak.

  “Hello?”

  Something followed my summon. Not a voice, but more of a stiff blare of static, as if someone had spoken but the signal proved too weak and distorted to appropriately carry a voice.

  “Hello, can you hear me?” This time I spoke a bit louder.

  The line disconnected to a dial tone.

  I pulled the phone from my ear, utterly confused. Had someone been there? Indeed, the thumpings had sounded in the phone, and I did sense a presence at the other end. Perhaps the connection was bad, that the person in room 412 couldn’t hear me and had simply hung up the phone.

  I dialed again, now frantically determined to make contact.

  The phone picked up on the first ring.

  A storm of static met my ear, hissing waves rising up and down in volume like swooping winds, carrying with them a barely audible whisper--a voice--lost yet trying to find its way out from the tempest. Indeed, I could hear a voice, but could not make out what it said.

  Thump...thump...thump...

  “Hello?” I called. “Can you hear me?”

  I nervously picked at a fingernail in wait for a reply. Then I wondered: how on earth could the voice of the person in room 412 be veiled in so much interference, when the ambient strikes against the wall transmitted so clearly? That didn’t make sense.

  “If you can hear me, I’m sorry to bother you, but...”

  Like an animal attempting to free itself from its captor’s jaws, the voice broke through the static.

  Help me.

  The same voice I’d heard in the hallway. I hadn’t imagined it.

  The phone disconnected and I was once again left with a dial tone.

  My heart raced and I started thinking clearly for the first time since the thumping began, assuming that somehow the phone lines had gotten crossed and were either picking up a local radio broadcast or some nearby cellular activity. It had to be. I could form no other postulation. I called the front desk, something I should have done from the onset. A woman answered.