Ancient Awakening (The Ancient)

by Matthew Bryan Laube

He was awake. He wasn't sure why yet, but he was. It wasn’t the usual nightmare. He was sure of that. Mike glanced at his wife's spot on the other side of the bed. It was still a bit of a shock seeing it empty, even after six months.

  Then, the baby monitor on the nightstand grabbed his attention. From it, Mike could make out a faint scratching noise. Odd. What would make that noise? He struggled over to the nightstand and slowly cranked up the volume on the monitor.

  A woman's voice drifted through, at last loud enough to make out.

  “Help me. Please help my baby!”

  Electricity seemed to snap down his spine. Someone was in Sam's room. “Oh God,” he whispered. He threw himself out the door of his bedroom and down the short, narrow flight of stairs to the first floor. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

  His body was moving much faster than his mind, the fog of sleep slowing his wits. Someone had gotten into the house and was now doing God-knows-what to little Sam.

  He rounded the corner to Sam's room and threw the door open to see...nothing. The boy was sleeping peacefully in bed. Mike stared for several minutes, watching his young son breathe. He glanced at the matching baby monitor that sat on his son’s nightstand. It wasn't on.

  “Damn, I forgot to turn the damn thing on. Hell of a father I am,” he said to himself. But where had the woman's voice come from? He knew he hadn't dreamt it. Racing back up the stairs, he confirmed that the monitor was still getting a signal from somewhere.

  “Please…” the woman’s voice was back, seeming to trail off. Turning up the volume, he could hear a terrible gurgling noise.

  It must be another baby monitor running on the same frequency nearby. It had happened before. Here in the suburbs of New Jersey, the houses were more than close enough for that. The house that made the most sense was Ted and Susan Zhang’s, a Chinese-American couple who had a girl just a little younger than Sam and lived directly across the street. The couples were close friends and when the Zhangs found themselves pregnant, Mike and his wife Melissa had recommended several items, including the baby monitor.

  Was it any of his business? The woman, who had to be Susan Zhang, sounded hurt. Well, he was a police officer, even though he had not done much more in his short career than traffic duty. “To protect and serve” still counted, though, even in your pajamas in the middle of night. And if his neighbor was hurt and he did nothing, he would never forgive himself.

  He picked up the phone on his stand and quickly dialed his neighbors’ number. Four rings, then the click of the answering machine. Okay, so much for the easy way. He grabbed his coat and then, on a hunch, took the hand gun from his room and pushed himself out into the cool spring night air. Outside, the moon was as visible as a fingernail, failing to do anything useful even though the sky was clear. In the electric light of the street lamps, all of the houses looked the same, like in that old episode of The Twilight Zone. Mike took a moment to organize his thoughts. Would he just knock on the door and explain that he had heard someone asking for help on his baby monitor? Yeah, like that would fly well.

  As he crossed the street, Mike thought back to a few days ago, when he had last seen the Zhang family. It had been a bright spring afternoon. He had just pulled up to the house after picking Sam up at his in-laws and was helping him out of his booster seat in the car. Sam noticed the Zhangs across the street.

  “Sally!” he shouted and waved. The girl was out with her father taking a walk. She giggled in the way that toddlers do and waved back at Sam. Sam made a dash to cross the street, but Mike snatched his hand.

  “No crossing a street without an adult,” he said and together they walked over to their neighbors. Once they had reached the other side, a game of tag started, with Sam as “it.” The kids ducked in and out of their parents’ legs, screaming and laughing. “The toddler screech,” Melissa had called it.

  Ted had a cast around his hand. Mike pointed it out. “Everything alright?”

  Looking down at it Ted said, “Oh it’s nothing big. Fell down the stairs and busted my hand. Ended up in the emergency room this morning. Hurt like hell.”

  After more small talk, Mike picked up Sam to bring him home and inflict more of his terrible cooking on him. The Zhangs had seemed fine at the time. Now, in the chill of the night, Mike's concern grew for his neighbors.

  Mike bounded up the short flight of stairs that led to the front door of the Zhangs’ small two-story home. As he reached the top step, his shoes crunched on glass. The house had two doors - a screen door that was half glass and half metal screen, and a sturdy metal door behind. The glass of the first door was shattered, with pieces lying as far as several feet away. He made to reach for the doorbell but then noticed that the metal door was open as well, just a crack. Something was definitely wrong here. Mike pulled his revolver, a strong sense of dread forming in the pit of his stomach. After several deep, calming breaths, he carefully pushed the metal door open and slipped inside.

  Mike thought back to his detective studies. He had tried to take the detective test several times, but had yet to pass. Still, some of what he had learned came back to mind. This had to be a break-in, but the glass on the front step would imply a “break out.” Someone had broken the glass on their way out, which didn’t make much sense. Maybe they were leaving in a hurry and had come in through another point of entry, perhaps a window that had been forced open somewhere in the house. If so, the chances were good that the perp was long gone. He kept the gun out, just in case.

  “Ted? Susan? It’s Mike,” he called out into the darkness of the house. Then, thinking better of it, he followed up with, “This is Officer Samson.” There was no answer. He had been in the house several times and knew the little girl’s room was upstairs, so made that his first destination. Moving slowly in the dark, he found the light switch and flicked it quickly to the “on” position. The sudden light was blinding and it took a few painfully-long seconds for his eyes to adjust. A look around revealed no armed criminal in waiting. The house was generally quite neat. Mike noticed that the front door had been knocked out of its frame a bit. The plaster around the door was destroyed and the frame could plainly be seen under the wood trim. That was really odd. Very sloppy yet extremely strong thieves.

  Mike made his way upstairs, which was a mess. Something had definitely gone down here. The light from the street poured in through a broken window at the end of the hall. Clothes and furniture were tossed about and there were dark stains on the floor which Mike was pretty sure were blood.

  Mike could sense that something terrible had happened here. He poked his head into the first room, a bathroom. It looked generally normal, apart from the hideous pink and black floor tile. The next was a bedroom. It was a bit disheveled but much better than his room at the moment.

  The last room in the hallway was the kid’s room, made obvious by the various toys that were scattered in the doorway. The sense of dread that had been slowly building in him reached a screaming pitch.

  The room was dark as Mike entered. Feeling along the wall, he found the switch he was looking for. The light snapped on, and Mike almost vomited. He had witnessed some terrible car accidents in his time, seen his fair share of mangled, mutilated bodies, but this was so much worse. Susan lay sprawled on the floor, covered with blood. Her torso had been torn open and, judging by the amount of blood around the room, she had taken a long time to die, crawling towards her child. Worse still was the tiny body that lay sprawled on the child’s bed. Most of the flesh was gone, revealing a tiny white skull. Only the right hand of the little girl remained unmolested, standing out as proof that this pile of flesh and bone had once been the little girl he had seen in the sandbox, laughing with his son.

  “Oh God.” Mike's courage broke and panic took him as he dashed down the stairs, away from the nightmare. He would have kept running, but once outside he spotted someone standing i
n the middle of the street. Mike skidded to a halt and drew his gun, his heart hammering in his chest.

  “Freeze! Police!” For a second Mike and the man stared at each other. The man was not much taller than Mike, but was built like a bodybuilder. His hair stuck out at all sorts of odd angles and he seemed to have long knives attached to his fingers, which looked like inch-long claws. Terror ran up and down Mike's spine again as the man charged at him like some kind of crazed animal. A strange howl erupted from the charging beast-man. This had to be the thing that had so brutally murdered his neighbors. That thought, and the fear that followed, made Mike pull the trigger of his gun, not once but three times. The bullets all found their marks. Mike was a decent shot and the range was short, but the man didn’t slow. He collided into Mike, knives biting into flesh, pinning Mike’s arms against his chest and driving both men to the ground.

  For a second, the attacker paused and Mike could see his face clearly. It was covered with wiry hair and the teeth were all wrong, but he could see that it was Ted. The most disturbing thing was his eyes, which were a solid black. Like pitch. Ted growled and brought a hand up to strike. It was covered with the remains of his cast. Mike screamed as he realized that the blades he had seen were not knives, but claws that were digging into him. The fear gave him strength, and he bucked and kicked. Mike managed to bring his hand, still carrying the gun, straight up to his chest. As Ted’s claws came down, he pointed the barrel of the gun at his attacker’s chin, firing it just as the claws dug deep into his chest. The bullet tore though Ted’s chin, through the entire length of his head, and blasted out of the top of his skull in a spray of brains. Ted made a choking noise and rolled off of Mike.

  Pain radiated all over Mike’s body and blood gushed from his chest. It took him a few moments to notice that he was screaming and few more moments to make himself stop. He glanced to where Ted had landed, but he was gone.

  “What the hell?!” he shouted, once again raising his pistol. There was nothing there but a trail of what Mike assumed to be blood. A million questions ran through Mike’s fear-ridden brain. Had that really been Ted? If so, what the hell had happened to him? How the hell did he get back up after having his brains blown out of the back of his head?

  Mike struggled to his feet, one hand still pointing the gun out at the darkness, the other pressed against the cut on his chest, trying to keep pressure on the wound. He limped toward his house. He had to get back to his son. With several painful steps, he managed to cross the street. He fought with the lock for a bit before managing to throw the door open and push through. Spinning around, he slammed the door and locked it again, and then dashed back to Sam's room. The sight of his sleeping son, breathing quietly, calmed his mind a bit. He slid down onto the floor, suddenly remembering his wounds. They throbbed. He needed to call this in and then he needed to see a doctor. Then maybe he would have a nice mental breakdown. He got up and made the call.

  “This is Officer Mike Samson.” He gave the woman on the other end of the phone his badge number. “I need to report a double homicide.” He gave the address.

  “Officer Samson, we have a car heading there now,” the woman's voice on the other side stated. Hanging up, he headed to the bathroom, stripped off his shirt, and quickly bandaged his cuts. He could see the lights from the arriving squad car outside. He would deal with them in a moment. First, though, he crawled into his son’s bed and held him, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  Chapter 5 - Monsters

  A Horse Called Golgotha – Baroness – Blue Record