Breathing slowly to combat the fear that threatened to overtake me again, I turned up the volume. The sounds of jingling and a choir were non-threatening. I should have known that I'd have to face it all again. The thought made my stomach want to purge the food I'd just eaten.
I arrived minutes later. The area had the typical rectangular single stories, with the occasional older two-story craftsman style homes. Most of the homes needed painted or new siding, new rooftops, and new columns. Not a bad part of town by any means, but a lot of buildings needed repair.
I drove past a blue house and circled around. I parked the car at an intersection on a crossroad three houses away.
The front door stood ajar. The possibility that someone intentionally left a front door open in below freezing weather seemed remote. A storm began brewing inside me. What fresh hell had crept into this home? What evil had it wrought?
I made sure my burner phone was on silent while adjusting my thin leather gloves. I put my keys in my inner jacket pocket and zipped it shut. I got out of the car and opened the rear car door. I grabbed my wooden tonfas hidden under the seat.
I rolled my shoulders and neck and bounced on my feet. My side hurt, as sharp pain lanced through it when my heels landed back onto the concrete. I'd deal with the wound after destroying the monster. It was close to two hours since I had been grazed.
The wound would slow me down. I jogged across the street to the open door. My side was on fire.
As I approached the front door, the presence of something vile, corrupted this house.
All of my muscles tensed, the way you do before you get in a car wreck, big or small. It is a feeling of tightness everywhere. My breath stopped before returning after a moment soft and slow. I held my St. Michael's necklace that was all I had left of my Dad and prayed to succeed. Slowly opening the door, I crouched low. The smell of maggots hit me.
Some people will call it rot, but rot and maggots were different. Maggots made everything worse in every possible way. Whatever the creature, or the creatures, something inside the house was dead. A feast for the vile writhing larva. My heart rate sped up, but my breathing slowed.
A monster was in this house. Along with a tiny pair of Mary Janes in the shoe stand. A trail of blood went from the kitchen to the hallway.
A dripping water noise came from the kitchen along with the sound of the heater trying to warm the chilly home. There was a dead body face down in the kitchen. It looked like a man, with part of his neck missing.
Judging by the maggots, he’d been dead awhile. I needed to find this creature fast. I walked down the hall, one open door, three closed.
A trail of crimson went in and out all of four doors. Slowly opening the first closed door with a trail led to a bathroom. It was small enough to see nothing was in there. The next was a playroom for young children. It had a lot of bricks and blocks of various brands. Several projects were on shelves. Various types of dolls in a homemade dollhouse. I heard a faint noise, like a muffled irregular thumping from down the hall.
As I started to move down the hall, it stopped. I couldn't tell which door it had come from. The next door closed was a closet, neatly arranged towels, and bedding. I peeked in the open door. It was a bathroom. Following the trail again led to the third door in the hallway. The muffled noise returned, coming from the opposite door.
Opening the third door revealed two small children. Putting one of the batons in my pocket, I looked them over. A young girl in a tutu with matching homemade sequin top had a snot and tear streaked face. Her hand was over her mouth. She took it away as she looked at me with hope. She was inside a crib with an unconscious toddler next to her.
The toddler was only wearing a diaper, and it was hard to make out the gender. I gently turned the child over, and it looked like a little boy with curly hair. He wasn't waking up. My breath halted as I waited to see his chest rise. As he breathed deeply, I sighed out.
Pulling a nearby quilt to cover him from the cold, I asked the girl, "Where is it?" I spoke softly, but not in a whisper. Whispers attract attention.
Most times, children that had encountered creatures saw them as the monsters they were. Not as people. The girl pointed at the door across from her room.
She said in a low voice mimicking mine, "There is a bad monster in there with Mommy. It made her cry."
Red smeared my vision. Everything became saturated in scarlet hues obliterating all colors, and I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
I pulled out my burner phone and called the emergency number. I stated the address to the police in a low growl. Then I gave the girl the phone. Crying some, but not screaming, the little girl sat down and put a hand on her brother while she told more details to a dispatcher.
I gently shut the door to the children.
Wrath took over as I moved to the door across the hall. Moans echoed from behind the door, and thumping noises started. Taking out the tonfas, I started spinning them and kicked open the door. The door fell off its hinges to the ground. It missed the two prone figures on the carpet landing next to them.
With the door gone, I saw a woman with multiple wounds on the ground. Her eyes stared at nothing, and her throat was torn out, revealing the spine. The rest was hard to see because the creature was on top of her raping her dead, partially eaten body. It was the typical human-sized one, with skin like an octopus. It was shiny, warty, and had suckers on its limbs. The eyes were half the size of a human's.
It turned to look at what had caused the interruption, and the tentacles waved around. It shrieked through the beak on its face, the noise similar to a teapot’s whistle.
Sounds of running steps came close as the creature opened the beak full of sharp teeth. The monster rushed at me, and the spinning tonfas hit the beast on its leg. Cracking sounded, but the monster didn't falter. Its strength and momentum crashed my body into the wooden armoire in the room. The force had my side wound open and bleeding. The tonfas flew from my grip.
I grit my teeth in rage, as I slammed my head into the beasts. Blood sprayed out of the crack above its left eye. It shrieked as it slammed me again.
The creature smelled like the blood and flesh of the woman. It had me pressed into the tall dresser. Screaming and hoping it would die on impact, I pushed at the vile thing with both hands and didn't hold back. The creature flew into the opposite wall, leaving a sizeable hole as it slammed through the drywall, and broke some of the house's framing. Then it jumped at me, faster than I could gather my tonfas.
The creature and I were partially on the full bed in the room, wrestling. The sharp beak aimed at my throat. I couldn't reach my weapons. I pushed at the fish creature with our hands locked together. The feel of its putrid flesh disgusted me.
I kneed it in the groin, satisfied with the crunching noises. Its grip loosened, but our arms shifted, and mine were now inside at its chest while its hands were on my shoulders.
Biting at a tentacle that caressed my check, the creature shrieked as more blood poured out of it. I spat the piece in its face, as it swung its beak towards me.
"Try to stay flat, so I can get a shot," yelled the big man I'd bumped into at the cafe from the doorway.
The advice seemed ridiculous. The thing had me pinned. I pushed the creature away with my arms, but I couldn't gain leverage to do anything.
"Don't shoot me, asshole!" I yelled, worried the bullet would ricochet off the creature's hide and into me.
"I'm going in," said a deeper male voice, but I couldn't see who the voice belonged to.
The room was roughly twelve feet by fourteen feet. With the wooden armoire, the full bed, the fallen door, the dead body, fighting space was scarce. Its beak snapped at me again, this time it nipped my shoulder taking a small chunk.
As I howled, and I started to lose myself to the red, I saw a light. It looked like a bright blaze in the sea of oncoming scarlet. The odd beast spat out my flesh making a gagging noise.
The big man was in the ro
om, and stabbed the creature in the back with the light, hitting it on the left side of its neck. I could see the hilt of a knife as the glow disappeared into its flesh. Dark blood came out, thicker than that of a human's. It cried out and stopped fighting me.
I took advantage and lifted my hips, dislodging the monster. It fell off balance, and I moved down and then twisted out from under it. I jumped up hitting the ceiling and smashed into the back of the creature. It made a squawking cry, flailing its arms and legs.
It wanted to consume everything pure and decent.
The leaner one slashed the creature with the sword as it fell off the bed. Its tentacles fluttered in anger and pain as it stood. It ran at the taller but leaner man and hit him hard, knocking him on top of the fallen door.
I grabbed a fallen tonfu, while the thing was distracted. The bigger man jumped forward and kicked the thing in its middle with a solid front kick. It knocked the wind out of the creature as it fell back.
The small eyes of the beast crinkled as if in a smile, and its hunger was in the air. It got its breath and screeched. It headed for the bigger man in a full tackle run. It was planning on eating again. Its lust for flesh exposed in its eyes.
This thing would do no more evil. Snarling, I leaped to block its dash, and spun the baton impossibly fast, hitting the creature with an upward blow.
The knockback was strong enough it didn't just shove the fiend back, it defenestrated it. The window shattered as it passed through. Edges of broken glass lacerating the oozing flesh as it landed with a squishing plop outside covered in bleeding jagged cuts and glass.
Jumping through the window, shards of glass still in its frame cut at my legs and arms. Landing, I grabbed the knife still stuck in its neck. I pulled the glowing white knife out, and the creature made an odd cooing noise.
Although I was disgusted my hands were touching it, I held the sides of its head. In a quick motion, I bent the thing's head entirely around. Crunching and cracking sounds were under the creature's shrieks. Then silence. It stopped moving. As it stopped twitching, I stabbed it in the heart with the glowing blade, just to be sure.
The scarlet started to bleed away from my vision as colors returned. I pulled out the ichor covered dagger, wiping it off on the monster's soiled shirt.
The monster transformed into a human male dressed in a stained suit. I never understood why the monsters changed to a human form. Maybe they started out human?
Seeing the creature destroyed made the rage vanish. The woman and old man were dead, but the children would live.
The flesh that had suffered cuts hurt. They would be slow to heal. Breathing heavily and fighting the urge to decapitate the thing, I paused. Eyes were on me.
I looked up.
Two pairs of similar brown eyes were wide open looking at me in horror.
The slightly taller, thinner one held his sword in one hand and my stray tonfa in the other. His mouth remained slightly open.
I passed the knife hilt first to the muscled one. I took back the tonfa. "You should leave. I called 911. The police should be here within the next five minutes."
They were still looking at me in disbelief. My stomach growled. I put my torn hand on my side, to stop the bleeding.
The tall, narrower one looked to the bigger man and asked, "D, should I stay with the childr-"
The big man, D, interrupted him, "No." He looked at me, with those beautiful dark brown eyes with gold at the center. The warmth he had exuded during the chance meeting at Dhalaights was extinguished. Now he had a colder, calculating gaze.
Ignoring them, I ran back to my car. It started up, and the heater blasted out warmth. I thought about the children. I hoped that they would end up in a safe home, forget everything about this ordeal, and go on to lead healthy normal lives.
I took off the gloves and tucked the tonfas under the seat. I noticed the men.
They started up a minivan with a 'My Child is a FAHS Honors Student' sticker on the rear window. They had the family stickers on the back of three stick figures in a row.
"They probably think you are a monster, not the thing that you killed," said Brad. He sat in the passenger's seat again.
I shrugged. I didn't have any control over anyone’s opinions.
"I'm glad you saved the children, Dianna." He practiced trying to change the radio station.
So far he couldn't move anything, but I'd gotten him books on the subject. Unfortunately, I had to be around to flip the pages. I hoped curiosity would kick-start his ability and have him turning pages before he realized what he'd done. We'd been working on Brad moving anything for over a month. So far, nada.
Taking out some beef jerky I kept in the car, I bit into it while my hands warmed up. Keeping the piece of food in my mouth, I put the car in gear and left the suburbs.
Chapter Four
As much as real experience and my abilities helped in combat, so did training. Wen owned and taught at the gym. I didn't know if it was his first or last name, because that's all any of us called him. He was maybe five foot flat, between fifty and eighty years old, there was a betting pool, and taught mixed martial arts. A lot of the regulars carried badges or wanted to.
I was one of a handful of woman that attended regularly. Most of the other females attended the kickboxing sessions or the self-defense nights.
I'd been lucky enough to get referred to Wen's, or I would have never known about it. The gym was in a building squished between others. The outer bricks had been painted a blue shade that was the kind of ugly only found in the clearance section. The hours were on a sign in the front window on a piece of printer paper. Wen's Gym was in white paint stenciled on the door. Otherwise, nothing proclaimed what it was.
Wen had taken my training in Jiu Jitsu, and Tae Kwon Do to a level I never thought I could achieve. Regardless of my speed and strength, I sought fast, deadly strikes. The sneakier, the better.
The smells of the gym hit me as I came in, making my body relax. People always say a true gym stinks. It does. But to me, the smell is a reminder that I am in a place where I don't have to hide behind a mask.
Kim gave me a nod as I walked on. He was sweaty from working out. I'd overheard two of the men gossiping that Liam Kim was the grand-nephew of Wen, but had been taken in by Wen because he was half-Korean, and the result of his father having an affair. Kim was a member of the FAPD. I didn't know his rank. He was nice enough, and we got along well.
I waved back as I made my way to the cubbies and put up my bag. I grabbed a rope. As I skipped, I thought about my failures. Three deaths. Three losses. Nothing could fix it.
The rope tripped me, and I started again. My mind drifted to the two men. Were they like me? Or like Whisper? Or something else? Whatever made that dagger glow had made the creature’s hide feel like paper underneath its edge.
Brad hung out, watching Ashley workout. Ashley was one of my acquaintances at the gym. She'd made a firm offer of friendship that I had debated taking. She liked to go dancing at clubs. I used to go with Gretchen. After Halloween, the clubs felt like places to avoid. I wasn't sure why.
Rather than contemplate more buried emotional pain, I stopped going. Ashley and Gretchen went out for girl's night once a week. Both were still determined that I join them. Gretchen said she'd give it one more month, and then she'd drag me to one. It was probably inevitable, but I put it off.
As I got worked out, the world slipped, shifting back to the night at Lake Clare. I looked at my reflection in the bathroom’s mirror, adjusting my hair. It was in a topknot that I hoped Max liked. My body moved, but I was just along for the ride. I couldn’t alter my course.
I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see. Not again.
Opening my eyes, I squatted.
The smells of the beer, barbeque, and the lake vanished to be replaced with the stink of sweat.
Panic poured adrenaline through me. Trying to act normal, I did my breathing exercises. As I stood up, Kim came over.
"Dianna.
You coming to the party?" His dark eyes were looking at Ashley as she worked out.
"What party," I asked letting my hair hide my face.
He gave me what I call the look, hands on hips, disapproving downturned mouth. "Dianna. The one I'm throwing."
"In your home?" I had no clue where he lived. I thought he lived at the gym.
Kim took out his phone. Typing for a second, he said, "There." He put his phone back in a pocket. "I resent you the invite. It will be a text message from me."
Kim and I often paired up for training, since he was only a few inches taller. Plus he didn't treat me like I'd break. But lately, he gave off the let's-chill vibe.
I didn't want to date anyone. I'd tried with my boss, Roth, with disastrous results. I wasn't ready to do anything. We'd just broken up only two weeks ago.
"Uh, Kim, look-"
Gretchen came up, interrupting me, "We're coming!" She smiled her big white toothy grin. Kim and Gretchen were partners on the police force. I wasn't certain about what they did, or their ranks, but I knew that. They didn't talk about work much.
She rested her arm on my head.
I growled at her, and she removed it.
"I'll bring her," Gretchen said.
"What do I need to get? Secret Santa thing?" We were having one at work too. I dreaded it.
I had only worked there for two months and managed to break my boss' heart. It had to be some kind of record for fucking up.
Kim said, “There will be a gift exchange. It has to be from a dollar store and non-edible. However, it’s just a holiday party. Non-denominational. All are welcome." He smiled.
I looked up at Gretchen, she was six foot without sneakers or heels, so my poor neck hurt. "Is it dress up?"
She nodded, "Yep, dress time, Dianna."
I put my face in my hands. This is what I get for talking to people more than a couple times over the years. "Okay."
Gretchen said, "Hey, a nice party is what you need to get over Roth breaking your heart." She patted my shoulder.
Kim said far too casually, "You guys broke up?"
Dead Wrong Page 3