Just A Little Terrible

by Vincent V. Cava

I begged him to clarify what he meant – to tell me that he wanted to be with me, but hearing my desperate pleads only caused him to throw his head back and laugh. His voice had mutated into something horrible and repulsive. The mocking chortles gushing from his mouth sounded like the howls of a dozen dying dogs all crying out together in unison. But that wasn’t the only thing about him that changed before my eyes.

  I could feel heart rise in my throat as I watched his beautiful blonde hair fall from his head only to be replaced by a pair of twisted goat-like horns. His nose turned upwards like a boar’s while his chin receded to the point where it was almost non-existent. He smiled at me again, but now he was wearing the grin of a serpent. A row of pointed teeth glistened in the twilight that had trickled into my room.

  The revolting sound of bones cracking and flesh tearing filled the room as his body continued to contort itself into a horrible, disfigured mass. By the time the noises had faded his feet had become hooved, his spine was bent and misshapen, and his body had almost doubled in size. He looked down at me – those angelic eyes were now as cold and white as porcelain – and I realized I had been deceived by the Morning Star.

  The beast spoke to me. He told me that he wasn’t interested in a wife; it was a child he wanted. Of course the son of the devil could only be born out of sin – a sin I had been tricked into committing. I could tell he took great pleasure in persuading me to stray from the righteous path. I begged him to take it out of me, but he showed me no mercy. In the blink of an eye he had vanished from my bedroom, leaving only the lingering smell of sulfur in the air to remind me of his presence.

  That was two months ago. I’ve been worried about how I’m going to hide my bump from the rest of the church once I start to show. I admit that I’ve been tempted at times to head down to the clinic and get the demon’s seed removed, but I made a promise to God that I would never sin again and I still believe that he will see me through this. I’m not one of those whores. I refuse to take the easy way out. God is testing me and I won’t take the bait. As long as there is a child is inside of me then it’s safe – even if I’m harboring the Anti-Christ.

  To Make An Omelette

  Daniel got into position and looked through the scope of his rifle. From his vantage point he had a clear shot of his target. This would be the second time he visited Nuremberg, Germany in the 20th century. The year was 1927, thirty-three decades before the time traveler had even been born. He had arrived to eliminate the menace that would bring about an unprecedented amount of death and destruction, the likes of which the world had never seen. The Nazi anthem began to play and a young Adolf Hitler would be stepping up to the podium soon. Daniel only had one shot.

  He said a prayer and squeezed the trigger. His sophisticated sniper rifle fired a silent bullet through the air. The shot pierced the skull of the overzealous man aiming a gun out the window at Germany’s future Fuhrer 100 yards away.

  The threat had been eliminated. Hitler would go on to give his impassioned speech and rally the masses. In a few years Germany would go to war with the Allied Forces. The much more sinister, dangerous threat that would arise in place of the Nazi regime following Hitler’s assassination would never come to power. Daniel let out a sigh of relief, looked down at his hands, and watched himself begin to fade from reality. Though he was terrified that his existence was coming to an end, he took solace in the thought that he had righted his past mistake and put the world back the way it was supposed to be.

  The Psycho At Rider’s Lookout

  Sheriff Riley slowed his police cruiser to a stop on the side of the empty road. The night was dark – stars twinkling in the black autumn sky above allowed for a little bit of visibility, but Riley couldn’t see much beyond the reach of his vehicle’s headlights. A wall of pine trees lined both sides of the street; behind those stretched miles of wild forest. He had received a call over his radio regarding a disturbance at Rider’s Lookout, a scenic observation point located in the foothills mostly frequented by teenagers in need of a private place to fondle each other.

  The sheriff leaned forward in his seat and peered over his steering wheel. Something moving in the shadows had caught his attention. It was the figure of a teenage girl. Her body hobbled towards the car like an undead creature wandering an apocalyptic landscape, on the hunt for human brains. Riley was able to see the girl more clearly once she stumbled all the way into the glow of his car’s headlamps.

  She was wearing a tattered purple dress. A matching clutch dangled haphazardly in her hand, swaying to and fro with each tired, haggard step she took. The girl had no shoes on – her feet were caked in a layer of mud. Her auburn colored hair hung in a disheveled, tousled mess. Riley unfastened his seatbelt and stepped gingerly out of the car.

  “Hey there,” he called out. “You ok?”

  The girl wobbled over to the sheriff, collapsing in his arms when she got near. He propped her up against the hood of his car and shined his flashlight in her eyes to check if she was responsive.

  “Girl? I asked if you were ok. You ain’t been drinking, have you?”

  “N-no sir.”

  Riley squinted. Dozens of deep cavernous lines bunched up around his eyes, as he studied the girl’s face.”

  “Wait! I know you. You’re the Wilson’s girl, ain’t ya? Bella, right? What happened?

  “Please, sheriff, you need to help me,” cried the girl. Tears were welling up in her eyes, but Riley could see that she was starting to come out of whatever fog her mind had been drifting in. “He’s still out there.”

  “Who’s out there, girl? You ain’t making much sense.”

  “The psycho! He got Buck.”

  The sheriff placed a hand on the rambling girl’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down. “Ok, hang on a minute. Who’s Buck?”

  “Buck! My boyfriend! He was my date to the homecoming dance tonight,” Bella started to sob, but continued speaking between sniffles. “After the dance we drove up to Rider’s Lookout. We were…we were…”

  “You can spare me the details, darling.” Riley pulled a hanky out of his pocket and dabbed at the girl’s tear stained cheeks.

  “Right. Well, we heard something outside the car so Buck went to see what it was. And there was a m-m-man out there! A maniac in a mask! Buck didn’t see him until it was too late! The psycho had a huge knife – like a machete or something!” The girl began to break down and started bawling again. “Poor Buck!”

  Sheriff Riley put his arm around the inconsolable girl. “There, there. It’s ok. So you’re the one that called the police, Bella?”

  “Uh-huh. After he was finished with Buck the psychopath came after me. He chased me through the woods. Oh, sheriff, I was sure I was gonna die. He caught me and pinned me to the ground, but I managed to get ahold of his knife. That’s when I stabbed him in the foot. It startled him just long enough for me to get loose.”

  “You stabbed him in the foot!?”

  “Yes, sir,” the crying girl spluttered out. “Think it hurt him too ‘cause he was limping pretty bad after that. He couldn’t catch up to me.”

  Riley stepped back and scratched at the whiskers on his chin.

  “You mean to tell me some kinda knife wielding psychopath chopped up your boyfriend at Rider’s Lookout?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And he was coming after you, but you were able to stab him in the foot and get away?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that he’s been limping after you through the woods ever since?

  “Please!” begged the girl. “Please take me home! We need to get out of here!”

  “Of course, darling,” responded the sheriff. “You’re safe now. Why don’t you hop in my car and I’ll drive you back to town where I can call your parents?” Sheriff Riley helped Bella into the back seat of his police cruiser. “You done good, girl. Stabbed him the foot, eh? Who knew you were such a reso
urceful young lady.”

  He flashed an approving smile to the girl as he closed the door of his patrol car, securing her inside of it. Bella watched out the window while the sheriff limped around the vehicle to the driver’s side door.