Out There: A Rural Horror Story

by Cademon Bishop

  The entire time Lara talked; Michael felt that familiar soul-sucking feeling. Cassiel was trying to break free, but Michael kept on beating it back down, taking huge breaths. One moment he punched himself, causing Harvey snaped a confused gaze at him. The world around them settled back on the moonlit forest.

  Cassiel forced himself through Michael’s chest.

  To Michael, it felt like having an arrow pass straight through your body. To the others, it looked like Michael had a flashbulb attached to his heart. Denver’s midnight eyes turned a glowing white as Cassiel spun up and sunk through him.

  Denver gasped like a fish out of of water, “Lara, we must return to land at once!” Cassiel spoke out of Denver’s body, slowly gaining control. Harvey wanted to react to the insane experience of seeing someone possessed, instead he stared at the shivering body with dull eyes.

  Denver slouched up, his skin casting a dim glow on the dead leaves around his feet. His glowing eyes pivoted towards Harvey, “I am Cassiel, from the heavens.” Denver glanced towards the moon. Light poured down the sleeves of his leather jacket. There was a juxtaposition of color as Denver’s dark skin emitted bone-white light, as if invisible light bulbs were placed all over his body.

  “Is Denver still in there?!” Lara asked.

  “Yes, he is fine.” Cassiel said. “Lara, please take us back.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes, yes, he is healing!” Denver walked over to Lara, and awkwardly grasped her hand, “We need to go back. Now.”

  Harvey was still twiddling the bullet in his hand.

  Lara looked towards him, “You comin’?”

  Harvey was lost in thought. What was my plan? He rose the bullet at eye level and rolled it between two fingers. When was I going to notice that I was the one messing everything up. The one who got the army here, the one who killed Debbie. Harvey slid the bullet into his empty magazine, then cocked it. Lara’s eyes widened as if she were an animal looking into an oncoming truck.

  The headlights of fate shine in their blinding glory.

  Harvey gazed down the barrel of the pistol—deep down. His fingers trembled a little as he grazed the top of his gun and gulped what he hoped would be his last gulp. What good have I done? What good for her. His teeth clanked fear cold shivers. The rest watched in horror, all not quite sure what to say.

  Lara let Denver drift out of her grasp. She strolled towards Harvey with hands raised in retreat. For a moment, beyond the cricket’s calls, the wind’s whistle, and the cicada’s cries, she heard Harvey’s quick breaths.

  She lowered her hands, “We need your help…” He let the gun lower to his chin as he processed what she said. “We only have tonight to save this town,” She rested a hand on his shoulder, the same way her father did when they first met after fifteen years.

  He let the gun trail down his shirt buttons, then let it slip to his side. He glanced up at her and nodded, “I’m ready to do whatever it takes.” Tears swelled in his eyes and trailed along both his cheeks, “I’m ready to go home.”

  Lara smiled and gave him a quick hug, gluing the handgun to his side. She made a seeping come here motion towards Michael and Denver. The two huddled around Harvey. A pair of wings broke out of Denver’s back. Cassiel pressed the wings around the group, encasing them in a shimmering glow.

  “I’m ready to go home,” Harvey whispered.

  — — —

  Lara shot energy through her palms. Blue sparks danced across the ground. The dirt, in a sharp. blurring fade became white tile. The wings slithered back into Denver’s body like a winding spool of measuring tape.

  Lara looked behind her and saw the overflowing bath had taken a putrid scarlet color. Lara hoped Lucy had died in the water. She can die, right? She can melt away… The merlot handprints smearing towards the doorway told her otherwise.

  “Can I bring you to the base and call things off with the government?” Harvey asked from the back of the group.

  Cassiel’s voice echoed out of Denver. “The government has already evacuated, half are dead, half are searching for a way out.”

  “Why haven’t they-”

  “We need to find a safe place where we can take action,” Cassiel commanded.

  There was no sign of the gang as they bounded out of the room, only a puddle of water seven feet wide, coming from the exit. Michael almost Trippe d on a beer bottle on his trot out, his bones and ligaments were feeling better. For the first time since he was a kid, he felt like he could run. The small box TV spewed glass and sparks as Harvey took a running shot at it with his last bullet.

  Thick pools of rain waterfalled down the stairwell. The group hiked through the water.

  The parking lot became a dense creek. A plastic chip bag floated along a newborn current across the pavement.

  “Did you drive here?” Lara asked Harvey over the roaring rain.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You’re drivin’!” They all trekked towards the car, avoiding the dense pools of rain.

  “Okay, but where to?” Harvey asked as they all slammed the car doors.

  “I don’t know where just…” Lara lost her train of thought as she looked towards the sky. A white beam of light stretched out of the Brookside Gardens and into a hole in the sky above them. A red glow pulsed in the center of town. “Let’s just drive over to Walling’s and barricade the place. You know where that is?”

  “The hell I do!” Water sprayed as Harvey floored his BMW down East Broadway. The car served in the center of the street, both sides of the road were flooded. A toppled over streetlamp flickered in a pool of water.

  Shadowy beings crept through a row of shotgun homes and roamed the streets like pedestrians. They glued their gazes onto the car. The wipers struggled to catch up to the flood of rain on the windshield.

  “If I could only see the damn road.” Harvey said as the car swiveled over the puddles. More dark beings appeared as they drew closer to town. The shadows loomed across the streets. Harvey swerved as one ran in the center of the road.

  “There!” Lara shouted as she tapped on the window. He tried to slow down and turn into the parking lot. However, the slick road caused him to come spinning into the lot, just missing the curb. Denver’s possessed body slumped onto Michael’s shoulder as the car violently spun across the parking lot. A shadow darted towards the spinning top of a car, trying to catch them while they were trapped. However, the winking headlights batted the shadow. The force of the smack caused the car to slow its spin and park horizontally in front of the building.

  Harvey checked to make sure no one was hurt. His head swayed with his heavy breaths. Michael and Lara looked back with equal bewilderment. Without a word, they hopped out of the car and ran into the building. The lights inside were still on.

  “Michael?!” Lara said. “Come on, I need to get Dian.”

  “How is she going to get here? We can’t have her risk her life to see ya.”

  “I can call her, at least.” Lara dialed away at the phone.

  “Hey Michael,” Cassiel called. “Can you hide this body somewhere?”

  Michael ambled forward, gripping onto the aisles of food to support his worn legs. The dusty, plastic smell of the store filled his nose. “Denver’s body? What’s going on?”

  Cassiel sank, “Just grab me!” Michael ran and wrapped two hands around Denver’s armpits. Denver limped in his arms, Cassiel hovered above his body. “I don’t want to exert his muscles.” Cassiel swooped downward and entered Michael’s back. “Now,” he echoed within Michael’s mind. “Lie him down somewhere. We’ll make a barricade using the shelves, they don’t appear to be bolted to the ground.”

  Michael pushed the door to an office with a blank sign beside it and dragged Denver inside. He paused and looked at the name tag on the desk; it was also nameless.

  “Alright, let’s try that first one.” Cassiel said as Michael stood in front of the first shelf. He tried pulling on it, but it wouldn’t budge. He closed his eye
s and braced himself as he pulled a second time. The aisle moved like butter and screeched like hell. He opened his eyes and saw the various items tumble off its tracks, and the dazzling white glow of the angel wings surrounding him as Cassiel did most of the work.

  “Are ya’ll tryin’ to destroy the place!?” Lara shouted over the metallic squeal.

  Michael couldn’t answer as he swiveled the long oat tan aisle over the front door.

  Lara realized what they were planning and went back to the phone. “I gotta see what they’re up to.”

  “Ya gonna get outta there, right?” Dian asked.

  “Dian, I don’t know if any of us are gonna make it out…”

  “No, Lara, I ain't hanging up till you promise.”

  “Promise what?”

  “Promise me you'll make it out.”

  “I promise,” Lara smiled. “I promise.”

  “I’ll miss ya. Please see me as soon as you can.”

  “I’ll try. Love ya.”

  “Love ya too.”

  Lara clicked the phone back on the wall. She looked behind the counter and watched Harvey plug a suitcase into an outlet by the floor. He opened it and dialed a number written on a playing card.

  “Who are ya calling?” Lara asked, puzzled as to where Harvey got his phone working.

  “Hang on,” Harvey held out a finger. “Hey, it’s Harvey,” he waited and nodded. “I saw ya just yesterday.” Another pause, Lara was getting impatient. “Yeah, yeah, do you think you can swing by…” He paused, glancing around the room, then looked at Lara. “Where are we again?”

  “Walling’s, right by rays. Do you mind tellin’ me who you’re-”

  “Uh-huh,” Harvey interrupted. “Got it… how long?... alright we’ll wait right here for ya.” He clicked off the telephone case and grinned.

  “Who was that?”

  Harvey drifted to the front of the store and glanced over the metal shelf barricade, “You’ll see.”

  “You’ll see?” Lara repeated, “When is this person gonna get here?”

  Harvey glanced at his watch, “We have about ten minutes.”

  Lara was about to speak, but hesitated, “What’s ya name again?”

  “Harvey.”

  “Yeah, Harvey, ya think we even got ten minutes?”

  “We can hunker down, right?” A soft explosion echoed through the streets. They snapped their gazes out the window. Thirty seconds later, another roar bellowed within the town, a guttural, almost human sound. The three of them stared at each other. After another thirty seconds, it roared again. The lights in the building clicked on and off along with it.

  Lara heard and felt that noise.

  A spine-tingling static crept as the roar started. They waited once more, but it stopped. There was only silence and the numbing wail of rain. Harvey leaned his head over the barricade to see if something was out there. He only saw a red glow out towards town. The light was moving, almost breathing.

  The wide pane window in front of him splintered into a thousand shards, resembling a spider’s web. A pair of glowing white eyes stood in the crack—Johnathan’s eyes. Harvey tried to jump back, but Johnathan’s hand shot out of the pouring shards and seized his neck.

  Johnathan’s pale rain-soaked hand seared Harvey’s skin. Lara ran to grab her pistol, but Johnathan slithered through the window. He had completely stripped the black jell of skin off. His hair clung wet and tangled across his forehead. Water dripped down the tips of his curled hair and the torn bottom of his stained sweater. His cream white skin hung on his body like a blanket.

  “Lara!” Water poured from Johnathan's mouth as he whispered. Harvey thrashed at his grip; the hand only tightened. “Look who we got…”

  Michael bounded forward, the wings on his back warped into two sharp points. A wing swiped at the arm that held Harvey. It got halfway through the wrist. Harvey collapsed on the floor, gasping. Lara froze there and gazed at Johnathan. His skin was a putrid cream cheese white, his veins clung around him like loose black roots. Despite his horrid decline, he still had those eyes, the same eyes she admired on their date one week ago.

  She could have loved this man in a different timeline.

  Johnathan looked at his half-torn arm with odd fascination. Black blood gushed onto the floor. His glowing white eyes, which had a thoughtless glaze, faded into a salmon pink light and then into a bright cherry red. The wound wrapped itself together with glowing red strings.

  The ribbon size blades on Michael’s back whipped at Johnathan’s sides, only cutting off an inch near his rib cage.

  Johnathan’s smiled. He lunged forward, nearly smacking his head on the florescent tubes. Michael pierced him mid bound, freezing him in the air. Lara ran down an aisle towards the opposite side of the store. The drink coolers blurred blue light past her left. She drifted as reached the end of the aisle, “Michael, can you keep him up there?!” She shouted as she tore a box off the shelf, ripping open the longest and smallest knives.

  “I can try!” Michael said. Johnathan shook in his grasp. He wrapped the scarf like blades around Johnathan’s torso, leaving them to repeatedly stab his chest. Each stab when only two inches deep.

  Lara crept back down the aisle. She watched Johnathan wince as Cassiel’s pointed wings kept stabbing him with no success. Her heartbeat thrashed in her chest. I don’t have to do it. The back of her throat stung as she held the need to cry. Not me, I can’t do it, not him. Lara crept forward, keeping the 14-inch blade tucked behind her back. She picked up her pace towards the writhing, bloodied mess that once was Johnathan.

  Once was.

  The two words echoed in her head. He looked at her with the eyes of a trapped rabbit, glossy, fearful, and pleading. She raised her shaking hand and focused on where she could stab his chest. Once was. She heaved the blade forward but let her arm limp mid swing. She couldn’t do it—still couldn’t let go. Her teeth chattered.

  Johnathan glanced down and smiled a pained grin. “Do it,” he muttered. Water flowed from his mouth as if he were a drooling child, “Go on, it’ll all be over soon.”

  Her lips fought against her. She wanted to say she was sorry, that she wished things could have gone differently, but couldn’t. Without a word, she stabbed him. The 3-inch knife slid through his chest. His ribcage griped the knife and kept it there.

  Searing water sprayed out of his mouth as he laughed, “Ya really think you’re gonna do much. She’s coming, ya know, the Elder One, she’s coming, and she’s pissed!”

  Lara walked behind Johnathan.

  “Repent while you can!”

  Lara held the fourteen-inch blade horizontally, “Michael can you hold him still?” She asked as if she were a barber getting ready to do a clean cut. The knife teleported out of her hand. Lara let it flick in and out of existence as a tear slid down her left cheek. “Bring him back.” Michael tightened his hold and dipped Johnathan back. The blade flickered between her fingers. She found the will to speak as Johnathan was less than an inch away from her, “Please forgive me.”

  Johnathan head shook as he failed to turn towards Lara, “Ya can’t do shit!” She, however, did just that. The knife flicked out of existence, and Johnathan’s sickly pale neck slid back to where it once was. The knife flicked back, instantly cutting an inch of his neck. Johnathan tried to cry out for help, but his words became an unintelligible gargle. The knife flicked on and off like the blades of a fan. She closed her eyes as she reached the halfway mark, now the three-fourths mark, now the-

  Johnathan’s body stopped resisting. The last of his thoughts slapped the tiles—a sound like a watermelon rolling off a counter.

  Lara screamed at the sound and sent the bloody knife clattering between two aisles.

  Blood clouded the water on the ground. Michael loosened his grip and laid Johnathan’s body behind the last aisle. His blood trailed across the tiles and shimmered in the drink cooler’s blue light. Lara held her hands on her knees and tried to ignore the loose, glassy-ey
ed, head three feet to her left. A trail of ink black blood slipped from the corner of his lip.

  Harvey stood behind her. He slid his hands in his camo raincoat and hissed as he saw the disembodied skull. Lara got a clean cut. She placed her hands on her knees and she fought to control her breath.

  The three of them rested as the rain roared and sprayed out the window. Michael placed the loose head in a supply closet, far away from the body.

  Lara sat on the ground in front of the cash register. Harvey lay, tossing his wallet in the air, near the nameless office. Michael propped down beside him, the wings on his back vanished. The two men had a quiet conversation as Lara let her weary eyes wonder.

  For a moment, the air conditioner clicked on. Lara heard it spring to life and come back down again. Even the building breaths. The air conditioner sang on, and Lara listened. She rested her head on the wood paneling of the counter. Sounds echoed through her skull as the air conditioner’s vibrations rose from the floor.

  Harvey stood up and looked out the window. A yellow-white light shone across the front side of his face; the corners of his lips curved into a childlike grin. The light grew brighter, highlighting the raindrops.

  Lara stood up and wiped the tears off her face, unsure if she needed to be afraid or hopeful, then she heard it; the sound of an engine rumbling.

  A honk echoed through Walling’s. Lara saw the word Red Acres Inc in sharp red font across one side of the grand silver semi. Harvey ran out of the building and waved them all forward. Cassiel produced wings out of Michael and carried Denver with them. Lara looked at Johnathan’s body one last time, then followed suit.

  Rain tip-tapped against the hood of her light brown jacket.

  “Jesus Christ!” The truck driver shouted over the rain. “I didn’t know ya had an entire god damn group!” He hopped out of his seat; his hot pink poncho shimmered in the Walling’s sign’s crimson light. Al trudged to the back of the truck and swung the massive back doors open. “Get in!” He pays no attention to the bundle of glowing feathers on Michael’s back. They climbed into the truck’s body, the light from Michael’s wings shown on the assorted boxes inside. Al clanked a metal tab on the back of the door. “Pull on this if ya’ll need to break out or somethin’.” Lara tried to speak up, but AL slammed the doors. Michael’s wings shimmered into his body.