by Hunter Blain
“Where are the dogs?” Jose nervously asked, still in a hushed tone. Martin shot a glance at the wall of dark brown leashes and back to his friend before shaking his head, signaling he was just as clueless as his friend.
A low rumble emanated from the front door for several seconds, reminiscent of an idling diesel engine. The two men looked at one another, and Jose grabbed one of the pistols off the table. Martin reached behind him and pulled a gold-plated 1911 from his waist before cocking the hammer. Somewhere in the back of Jose’s mind, he took note of the expensive-looking weapon and thought it a flashy waste of money.
As the low, steady rolling of thunder dissipated and was swallowed by the deafening silence of the early morning, Martin moved back to his side of the couch and reached for a pinch of white powder that sat on the table. With a quick inhale, Martin gave focus to his electrified nerves.
For several heartbeats, the only sound in the house was labored breathing from Martin and Jose, whose brows had begun to gleam with anxious perspiration.
Jose carefully stood to a crouch and began slowly making his way to the window, his boots making dull thuds against the carpet. Jose thought it was odd he had never noticed until now.
Trembling fingers pushed through the blinds and separated them, allowing wide eyes to peer into the night. He looked left and right but couldn’t see anything. Not even the moon or a single star.
“What is it?” Martin tried to whisper, but his anxiety was boiling to the surface, giving his voice undesired volume and intensity.
Jose turned and shushed his friend before turning back to the window. A mesmerizing curtain of darkness moved on the other side of the thin glass. A yellow moon swiveled into place and stared back, and Jose thought about how his tía had always said it was made of cheese. Jose scrunched his face in question as a black slit ran up the length of the moon, then shifted to land directly on the man.
Jose inhaled so sharply that it sounded like a whistle coming from a distance, and he fell backward into the living room. As he fell, he frantically squeezed the trigger of his Glock, shattering the window.
A bellow of rage sent cascading shards of glass into the room, coating Jose like the sprinkles on a birthday cake. The man screamed in uncontrollable terror while bringing his forearm up to cover his face as the house exploded inward with the deafening thunder of exploding bricks. Dust and debris filled the room in a thick, choking cloud as a deafening alarm bleated, startling Jose further.
Martin began firing his pistol at the wall where the window was being caved in as if being devoured by a bulldozer.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop, came from Martin’s 1911, making his ears ring as the man squeezed round after round on the approaching wave of dark brown while it tore the house apart as if it was made of Styrofoam. Pulverized plaster stung his eyes as a wall of debris smashed into him.
With adrenaline slowing time, Martin screamed as the indiscernible dark mass started to coalesce. The man continued his hopeless attempt to halt the progress of the . . . the thing that approached. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Martin felt more than heard another pop, but this one was different from the others. With confusion swarming his mind like a hungry fog, Martin looked down to see his gun was missing. Eyes that refused to process what they saw traveled up to where his arm had just been to land on a gushing mass of flesh and gore that spurted something red all over the wall in illegible cursive. With a flick of his eyes, he noted that the cocaine next to the couch had been tainted with the red stuff, and that the boss was going to be pissed at him. Would probably take it out of his cut . . .
Martin’s thought was cut off as drool-coated fangs the size of AA batteries latched onto his head. The jaws squeezed and crunched all the way through his skull as easily as squishing a paper cup. A gray mass of sludge escaped between viselike jaws like a tube of Pillsbury biscuits under a car tire. A torrent of crimson spurted into the thing’s mouth like a water gun that had been overzealously pumped. Nothing above Martin’s nose was left as the monster pulled back. Blood cascaded down Martin’s opening and closing jaw and quivering chin to stain his green flannel shirt. It would have appeared to an outsider that his skinless, moving mouth resembled a silent ventriloquist’s dummy before going slack and hanging open askew.
The beast coughed like a cat with a hair ball as the man’s cowboy hat flew from the throat of the monster, shredded to pieces and dyed red. Bits of skull and hair lined the inside of the hat as if they were attempting to escape the fate of their brethren.
Jose watched as the beast that was bigger than any bear he had ever seen began licking the inside of his friend’s skull as if it were trying to get the last bits at the bottom of an ice cream container. Boney hands that were all too human in appearance wrapped almost entirely around Martin’s shoulders. The only other characteristic that could be described as being remotely humanoid was the simple truth that the monster stood on two legs. Everything else was like Clive Barker’s rendition of a wolf with ample — even generous — artistic liberties applied.
The aroma of ammonia permeated the air, caressing the wolf’s preternatural nose and earning its attention.
The creature let Martin drop to the ground, where the oozing corpse twitched a single leg, as if being electrocuted every few seconds. Then it turned its yellow eyes to Jose, who was squeezing the trigger of a gun with an empty magazine. Click. Click. Click. Wide white eyes locked with squinting yellow orbs just above a maw dripping with gore and drool. A piece of Martin’s face hung loosely from a tooth that reached upward out of the brute’s mouth. Jose could see his best friend’s eyelid staring eyelessly at him like the proverbial sad mask of a theater marquee.
Jose began to hyperventilate as he looked around desperately for something to help him. A glass of water must have been knocked into his face at some point because his vision was growing blurry. The monster turned its entire body to square off with Jose and straightened its back.
“Dios mío,” Jose breathed as his mouth gaped at the monster that stood on two legs. His vision took in the monstrosity whose head pushed into the ceiling, cracking the material in a shower of popcorn. In the back of his mind, a thought of normalcy extended its hand and almost snatched his attention: why hadn’t Hector ever remodeled and replaced the stupid popcorn ceiling that signified times long since passed?
With a chuff, what was left of Martin’s face dislodged from the behemoth’s tooth and landed on Jose’s fingers. The man yanked his hand back as if the piece of face had been boiling water, and wiped his fingers on his jeans. The gold of his wedding band became dull with the blood-laced drool.
A massive humanoid hand that ended in claws that looked like they could shred steel latched onto Jose’s boot.
Jose let out a scream that had been building in his core like a pressure cooker, straining his vocal cords to the point where he could feel them on the verge of ripping from the exertion.
A torrent of gunfire drowned out the shriek, and Jose’s leg was released.
Oh, thank God! Jose thought to himself as the men who were stationed close by in case of emergency — like being robbed or a preternatural monster attacking — unloaded round after round. The beast roared loud enough that Jose forgot about everything else in the world and desperately tried to cover his ears. It felt like his head was going to split in half if he didn’t.
Fur violently wafted into the air while blood spattered the far wall. The man-wolf pivoted its massive frame to face the hole in the house, where a window had once been the only view to the outside world.
Jose froze, wishing he could melt into the ground and away from this— this monster. He had heard the word used a thousand times in his life — Hell, he had even been called one by his opinionated wife when he had divulged the source of their newfound and ample income — but its meaning had been utterly misunderstood until that moment. The thing that had lurked in the darkness of his closet when he had been a child cowering under the covers tackled two men with empty fu
lly auto AK-47s. They toppled to the ground under the weight of the colossus like dry blades of grass underfoot.
The screams of fear that flooded the night began to crescendo and mutate into screams of unimaginable agony. They sang in a chorus of anguish before one of the singers was abruptly silenced. The remaining choir member, who had a baritone timbre, shifted to a falsetto that began to diminish as the sound of rending flesh grew more prominent.
With fingers that violently trembled, Jose brought his cell phone to life and tried to type the emergency code to the group text. The simple act of texting would have been easier to do during a ground-splitting earthquake or while skydiving than at that moment, forcing Jose to hit backspace a few times.
Once the message was complete, Jose hit send. The phones of the three decimated corpses chimed at the same time, drawing the wolf’s attention from his meal.
The gargantuan monster looked over its shoulder at the hyperventilating Jose. Crimson stained its brown muzzle as blood leaked between his chewing jaws, like a sponge being squeezed. Jose couldn’t hear anything over the bass pedal beating against his eardrums.
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.
This, accompanied by the sound of rushing blood through his adrenaline-filled veins, invaded his auditory universe. A warm metallic smell had gathered a coup and overthrown the aroma of piss in the air.
Slurping down the mouthful of entrails — that for some reason reminded Jose of his mama’s spaghetti — the beast resumed its stalking of Jose, moving at an agonizingly slow and methodical pace. Jose remembered a special on TV about everything moving slower just before death, and a moan escaped his quivering lips.
Frantic heartbeats filled the man’s body with oxygen in preparation for the flight his brain signaled, but his muscles refused the order and instead decided it was best to freeze as if concrete were in his veins.
The thought of his wife, five-year-old son, and newborn baby grew in his mind like a blossoming flower. Their faces lent him strength from the accumulated years of love, and the command to move was finally accepted by his muscles. Jose grabbed the tray of cocaine and flung it at the beast’s face as it approached. A cloud of powder filled the air between them, the tray smashing into the forehead of the monster. It roared in fury as its open eyes and flailing nostrils were flooded with the drug. Hands that were more human than wolf rushed to rub at the coated yellow orbs.
Jose crab-walked backward over the couch, tumbled to the ground, then flopped to his stomach and scrambled to his feet. He knew the layout of the house well enough, but his mind was having trouble processing the information. Instead of running out the back door and to the awaiting vehicles, Jose sprinted up the nearby staircase to the second story and disappeared into a bedroom.
As he slammed the door shut hard enough to crack the plaster, Jose rested his back against the wood and felt the surreal urge to laugh at all the times he had made fun of horror movies when the victim ran upstairs.
A series of aggressive chuffs came from the living room, followed by a ground-rumbling snarl that sounded like thunder to Jose.
The floor rumbled with every massive step of the beast as it systematically ascended the stairs, growling in rage as it went.
Jose urgently scanned the room, searching for a way out, and saw the open windo— A clawed hand the length of the metal coffee thermos his dad used to carry around the ranch ripped through the door as if it were made of Popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue. Jose was knocked to the ground, something warm rushing down his back. Jose thought that a line to the water heater must have broken and sprayed him, which was odd because the water heater was in the garage.
Jose ran on all fours to the window before leaping through it, not caring what was below. The toes of his stiff boots caught on the frame, and he tumbled through the air to land on his back on top of the roof of his truck. Glass burst out in a hail of glinting fragments as he created a crater in the old metal.
Black bugs with glowing outlines swarmed his vision, clambering over one another in a chaotic formation. As quickly as they had appeared, the insects got bored and fled to accost their next victim somewhere in the world, leaving behind a few stragglers who were sticklers about making sure the job was done right.
Jose tried to lift his head where it hung over the edge of the truck, but decided that a few moments of rest wouldn’t kill anyone. His head dropped, and the ground and sky switched places as if in a practical joke. A groan escaped his body, tickling his throat that had been stretched to its limit.
Six twirling figures grew larger in Jose’s vision as it cleared. He recognized the shapes as men, but they were upside down and spinning around their identical twins.
Something grabbed Jose’s feet, and his vision snapped into focus in an instant, fueled by surging adrenaline, as his head shot up to regard his feet. Jesus was shaking them, trying to get Jose to wake up. For some reason, the first thought that came to Jose’s mind was, Ah man, not Jesus. He knew he didn’t have a reason to not like the man who had never done anything to cross him; he just didn’t.
Jose clutched at his tender throat with one hand while the other pressed into the dented metal of his truck cab. He hoisted himself into a seated position and struggled to slide forward, feeling the throbbing aches in his back as he moved. Jose noticed that his shirt clung to his body like cellophane, and he explored the matter with his hand. He pulled back fingers covered in warm crimson, prompting Jose to furrow his brow in confusion.
He slid off the roof onto shaky feet as glass tinkled on the driveway. The simple act of righting himself caused Jose’s head to become unnervingly light for a moment.
Jesus shook Jose’s shoulders, snapping the man out of his daze. Jose had forgotten how to panic for a moment, but luckily, the moment had passed.
“There’s a fucking monster up there, man! A monster!” Jose cried out, mirroring Jesus by grabbing his shoulders. He left the imprint of a crimson hand on one side of Jesus’ shirt, like a child who had been finger painting after reaching for their parent.
Jesus’ face screwed up in confusion as his colleague spoke, half from what the man was saying and the other half from the blood-stained hand that was pulling away from his shoulder.
“We need to get you to the doc. Your head is all messed up, man. Your back, too.”
A bellow erupted from inside the house, causing Jesus to jump back several feet. His huge eyes shifted from the window of the second floor down to Jose, who just stared back at him with brimming tears.
Taking control of his emotions, Jesus called over a radio, “There’s something inside on the second floor. Guns hot.” Jose unconsciously decided that he could like the man, after all.
The two men who had arrived with Jesus responded by clicking their subcompact machine guns into the full-auto position. Jose stole ragged, shallow breaths as the men went through the back door and disappeared into the house.
“We gotta get out of here,” Jose whispered loudly.
To accentuate his point, cries of disbelief accompanied by the chatter of fully automatic weapons rang throughout the house.
A shriek pierced the din of gunfire, followed by a rapid-fire plea of “No!” repeated in sullen contrast to the machine gun that clicked empty. The cries grew with exponential intensity before being silenced forever.
The remaining prey clicked on an empty magazine before fumbling for another with shrill whines as he exhaled quickly. A gasp was heard from inside the house, followed by the dull clattering of metal on carpet. Jose and Jesus looked at one another before Jose yanked open the driver’s door and climbed into the truck. Jesus struggled to open the unrelenting passenger side door before his eyes flicked to where the roof and arch of the door had been deformed with Jose’s fall.
Jose fumbled for his keys and tried several times to stab them into the ignition before finally succeeding. He turned the ignition and the engine tried, and failed, to catch.
A feeble cry between lips spilling bloo
d yanked the attention of both men. They looked up to see one of their comrades weakly shuffling out of the back door, clutching at his stomach.
Warmth spread down the front of Jesus’ pants and down a leg to pool inside one of his ostrich boots. Eyes the size of dinner plates gawked at the man trying to flee the house as tears streamed down his face and intestines steadily uncoiled from their thoracic prison. Desperate fingers clawed at the escaping innards, but the man would have had better luck at trying to carry fistfuls of water.
Jose turned the ignition again as Jesus found new motivation and jumped into the bed of the truck with a heavy thud. The engine rumbled to life, causing Jose to cry out in victory as he threw the transmission into drive.
As the tires squealed on the pavement from the tonnage of Jose’s foot, the man just outside the house collapsed to his knees. The impact dislodged the rest of his insides, which had always heard about life on the outside and now were getting their first vacation to the world on the other side of the skin.
The smoking tires found traction, and Jesus was thrown to the back of the truck bed, cracking the top of his head on the metal tailgate. A teeth-chattering roar thumped into Jesus’ body like a supercharged bass amplified at a rave concert, making his heart skip a beat as if slipping on ice before regaining his footing.
Grabbing the top of the tailgate, Jesus lifted his head above the metal to witness something that made his bowels want to mirror his bladder.
THUMP THUMP THUMP, THUMP THUMP THUMP, sounded as the monster began charging toward the fleeing truck on all fours. Potholes made the vehicle bounce violently, forcing Jesus to hold the tailgate in a death grip, fearing that if he lost sight of the titan chasing them, it would somehow manifest in the truck bed beside him. The thought was an ironic contrast to that of a child covering his head with the blanket so the monster couldn’t get him.
With the whine of an engine at full throttle, the truck began to pull away from the pursuing monster.