Julie sat on the edge of the bed next to her mother, lowering her voice to little more than a whisper. She said, “I phoned him. That’ll probably make you mad and I’m sorry. But I was awake and bored. I knew he was sitting at work so I phoned him. The thing is, after I talked to him a few minutes he started screaming.”

There was a break in the conversation.

Gina said, “What do you mean, screaming?”

“I mean he was screaming… like he was under attack. The truth is, I’m worried about him, mom. I’m worried.”

Gina closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. She was too tired for drama, and she wasn’t completely sure she understood what Julie was telling her. She said, “Do you phone this boy in the middle of the night often? Is that why you’ve been dragging your butt around lately?”

“No Mom,” Julie said, aggravated. This wasn’t the discussion she wanted to have. Not while Paul needed help. “I think we should call the police.”

Gina recognized the truth: this conversation was going to be bigger than she wanted it to be. Ron was right. It was time to change rooms.

“Get up,” she said.

Julie made her way to the center of the room while her mother crawled from bed. They left the room together. Gina turned off the light and closed the door. Once they were in the kitchen Gina poured water into a glass and Julie sat at the kitchen table.

“If that’s the case, he can explain himself to the police. He’ll be in trouble, not us. I think we should call, just to be on the safe side. What if he’s hurt? What if he’s dead?”

Gina didn’t think someone would end up dead tonight, but the boy working at Hopper’s might have been robbed. Might have been kicked around a bit too. Julie was right; better safe than sorry.

“Mom… ” Julie whined.

“Get me the phone number, would you?”

Julie went into her bedroom with her shoulders slumped. She grabbed a small white envelope off her dresser, which had the words PAUL’S WORK written in bubble letters on the back. She brought it to her mother who looked at the envelope and snickered before dialing the number that was scribbled beneath the name.

Gina was suddenly very confused. She thought a boy was working, not a girl. She asked, “Are you working tonight?”

“Who me?” Cameron laughed; there was no happiness in her voice. “No. Paul was working. Didn’t your daughter tell you? It was Paul. She’s been sleeping with him, you know. They’ve been having sexual relations. What do you think of that?”

Gina shot her daughter an evil eye that would have made Hitler nervous. She didn’t think much of that. She said, “Oh, really?”

“Oh, yes.”

Interrupting the conversation, Julie said, “What is it Mom? What’s happening?”

Before her mother had a chance to respond, Cameron continued. “I can tell you what I thought of that Mrs. Stapleton. I can tell you what I thought when your slutty little girl spread her legs to my Paul. I didn’t like it. In fact, I didn’t like it… at all.”

“What?”

“Do you know what I did Mrs. Stapleton? Do you? I bet you don’t. I bet you don’t have a fucking clue what I did. So let me tell you. Let me tell you all about it.”

Gina shook her head, stunned. “What are you talking about?”

“I came to visit my Paul and guess what? I found him talking on the phone with that slut daughter of yours. They were talking about how much fun they were having, sucking each other off, yes? Oh, yes. That’s what they were talking about. They were talking about their sexual relations. Paul looked so guilty when he saw me. He looked like a cat with two paws in the fishbowl. He said, Oh, please don’t get mad at me for fucking Mrs. Stapleton’s daughter. Please don’t get mad! I couldn’t help myself. She’s so slutty and willing. She loves fucking me, she loves it! So don’t get mad! But it was too late. I was mad. I was very mad. So do you know what I did, huh Mrs. Stapleton? Do ya?”

Gina didn’t respond.

“Answer me Mrs. Stapleton or I’ll make you wish you did.”

Gina’s mouth began to slink open. She was getting a sick feeling. This didn’t sound like a joke. It sounded like the real deal. Anger was being replaced with concern. Who was this Cameron girl? Was she dangerous? Was she insane?

Cameron laughed. “I thought you’d never ask! I kissed him, right on the lips. I kissed him and I bit down. Those were my lips, Mrs. Stapleton. They were mine and I took them, swallowed them like sushi. Do you like sushi? I did, but now I like other things. Revenge, Mrs. Stapleton… I like revenge. And murder. I asked Paul about your cunting daughter, you know that? I did. Weeks ago, maybe even months ago, I said, ‘Are you sleeping with Julie Stapleton? Tell the truth now.’ And he said, ‘No… of course not! What kind of person do you think I am?’ I wasn’t sure what to think, if you can believe that. I was confused and I wanted to trust him. So I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘Oh yes. I’m sure, I’m sure! You’re the only girl for me. onla And do you know what happened? I believed him! He looked me right in the eye and lied his head off and I believed every word of it!”

Gina Stapleton didn’t like this conversation. Certain words were making a very big impact on her. Revenge was one of them. Murder was another. She said, “What do you want?”

“You called me, Mrs. Stapleton, remember? You called me.”

“I suppose I did. Maybe I should let you go.”

“After I ripped Paul’s lips from his mouth with my teeth, I dug my fingers into his face and dragged him across the floor. Paul screamed so loud I figured he’d die. I didn’t want him to die. I wanted him to know how upset he made me, and I was very upset, Mrs. Stapleton. Very upset. So I broke his arms. Well, actually I broke his fingers, wrists and his arms. Then I chewed on his belly and chest. I have very sharp teeth Mrs. Stapleton. They’re very sharp indeed! His muscles tasted like raw hamburger and I swallowed them down, just like his lips. I swallowed and I drank. I rammed my––”

 

 

2

 

Gina didn’t want to answer the call, but the phone in her bedroom would wake her husband if she didn’t. She lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

“Don’t like my story, huh? I can’t blame you.” Cameron laughed. “I broke his arms, I ripped his nose apart and I tore the muscles from his bones. I did a lot of other things too, but that’s not the point, is it? No, it sure isn’t. Let me make something clear, Mrs. Stapleton, mother of Julie. I’m coming over. I’m comin’ to getcha!”

“We need… ” Her words trailed off. She didn’t know what she needed. She was too busy making sense of it all. Was the threat was legitimate? It was a threat, right? Had her family been threatened? If so, it was time for… what? Time to wake Ron? Time to call the police? Time to lock the doors and windows and hope nothing bad happens? Yes, yes and yes. It was time for all those things; probably time to get a weapon too. But she didn’t want to think that way. Getting a weapon meant using a weapon. And she didn’t have any guns.

What do people use when they don’t have guns?

A knife, she figured. I could get a knife for me––one for Julie, one for Ron. And, oh yeah––we have those pointy things from the fireplace. I could––

“Mom?”

Gina snapped free of her da ze. She got up from her chair and ran to the bedroom, which suddenly seemed far away from the kitchen. She flicked on the overhead light, shouting, “Get up Ron! Get up!”

Ron rolled over and dragged the pillow in front of his face. His incoherent mumbles might have been, “Oh… what is it now?” Might have been something else.

“We’re in trouble. I’m calling the police, so get up, get up! Your family needs you!”

“The police?” Ron said, slightly more articulate. He pulled the pillow from his face and rubbed his knuckles against his head. “Why in the world are you calling the police?”

Gina put a hand over the receiver. “I don’t want to talk with 911 dispatch. I want to talk with Mary O’Neill. She’s working the nightshift at Cloven Rock PD, as far as I know.”

Ron grunted. He was waking up now, and although he wasn’t worried, his wife and daughter were upset and that was enough to get his blood pumping.

“I don’t know. I just had a strange phone call and I was threatened, my family was threatened.”

“Okay, listen Gina. I don’t need to tell you that Cloven Rock isn’t the biggest place in the world… our police force fits the town, you know what I mean?”


“Yes.”

“There was an accident. Joel Kirkwood and Tony Costantino are the officers on duty tonight. They went to investigate and right now they’re not answering my call. They might get back to me in two minutes, but they might not get back to me for an hour. I can put this through to our 911 call-center and they’ll dispatch someone from the nearest station. The nearest police station is in Maplebrook, and you know where that is. Fortunately there’s another option. I have two officers on call and I can wake ‘em up and send them over but again, this takes time. Are you in immediate danger?”

“Okay. This is what I’m going to do: I’m going to come over and sit with you guys, and in the meantime I want you to stay indoors. I’ll try to get hold of Officer Kirkwood and Officer Costantino again. If I don’t talk to them soon, I’ll call Maplebrook and see if they can send some men my direction. Either way, hold tight and I’ll be there shortly. You can fill me in with the details later.”

“Bye Mary, and thanks again.” Gina hung up the phone thinking about the woman that threatened her, and the things that she had said.

I have very sharp teeth Mrs. Stapleton. They’re very sharp indeed!

 

 

3

 

Gina left Ron and Julie in the master bedroom. She double-checked the doors and windows, and turned most of the lights on, thinking the dark corners might turn against them somehow.

Ron sat up with the blankets wrapped around his waist like a skirt. He looked through the patio door, but couldn’t see much, just a bit of the deck, the sky and the outline of a few trees.

Julie exhaled a deep breath. “Will everything be okay Dad? I’m worried about Paul.”

“I’m sure Paul is fine, baby.” Ron said, but he wasn’t sure about that. He wasn’t sure about anything.

After several minutes Gina returned to the bedroom. “Everything’s locked tight. I even checked the windows in the basement. I think we’re safe.”

Julie left the room and Gina followed. They sat at the kitchen table again, same seats as before. Gina considered the phone call, even though it made her feel anxious. The more she thought about it, the worse she felt.

There was a knock at the door.

Gina flinched and said, “Stay here.” She entered the living room and looked out the bay window, thinking she’d see a crazy woman with teeth that were Very sharp, very sharp indeed!

Cops are here, he thought. Good. Let them sort this shit out. I need sleep, not that I’ll be getting any now. I’ve got to be at the docks at six thirty. What time is it now, four? Jesus. Tomorrow is going to be a bitch. Tomorrow? What am I thinking? Today! Today is going to be a bitch!

He opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of socks that were rolled up like a grenade. He dismantled the grenade and put a sock on each foot. He opened the closet door and took a moment deciding which shirt complemented his current mood.

Plain black t-shirt, snug fit. Great choice.

There was a bathroom attached to the master bedroom. He entered it, washed his hands and face, fixed his hair and turned off the bathroom light.

Then he froze.

Cameron was on the deck. She was naked, looking through the patio door with a grin that consumed her face. Her skin was pale, like the belly of a dead fish. She had dried blood on her face, chest, stomach and legs. It was in her hair and on her feet too.

She tapped a finger against the window.

“Let me in,” she whispered, staring at Ron with her haunting red-dot eyes. “Come to the door.”

The muscles in Ron’s stomach scrunched together; pins and needles danced across his arms and legs. Something cold slithered down his spine; his mouth opened and his heart rate changed gears. He stepped back, towards the bathroom and away from her.

She tapped on the window again, leaving a red smudge on the glass. “Hurry up,” she said. Drool formed around her mouth. “I’ve got something for you. Come to me Ron Stapleton. Come before they catch us and put a stop to it.”

She pulled her finger from the glass and touched her nipple, making it hard.

Ron cringed.

Cameron was the opposite of sexy; he couldn’t imagine enjoying anything she had to offer. He wanted her to go away; he wanted her to stop looking at him. But she kept looking and he returned the favor. He was gazing into those horrifically evocative red-dot eyes like he had never seen anything better. And the more he looked, the more power she had over him. He wanted her to feed on him now. So he moved towards her: one step, followed by another, he walked a straight line to the door. But only a fool opens the door for a vampire, right? He might as well put his neck on a plate and smear it in barbeque sauce. Still, he didn’t care. He wanted her fangs digging into him, even if meant the end of everything he cared about.

She’s not a vampire, some logical thought challenged. Vampires don’t exist. And if they do exist, that’s not what they look like. They aren’t naked, pale and covered in blood. They don’t have eyes that look like fire. And I recognize that girl. She serves coffee at the Big Four O, so how can she be a vampire?

He kept walking.

She hypnotizing me, he thought. She’s casting a spell with her eyes.

Maybe she was a vampire. But no––that couldn’t be right.

“Do it,ar i Cameron said, unkindly.

Ron reached out, unlatching the lock with his finger. A small groan escaped his lips.

Cameron slid the door open. Although she didn’t need an invite––only the vampires on television needed an invite––she said, “Invite me in.”

She leaned in, placed a hand on each of his shoulders and bit into his neck like she hated him, making it hurt. Warm blood blasted into her throat. It ran down her chest and splashed across the bed.

Ron’s eyes rolled back and his hands became fists. From the depths of his soul he released a small, harsh cry, not loud enough for the family to hear, only meant for the two of them. It was the last sound the real Ron Stapleton would ever make.

Cameron smiled with lips red, having drank until her victim’s eyes locked in place, his shoulders slumped and his heart stopped beating. And after that, when his eyes shifted again, she pushed him away and watched him stumble across the room, knowing he wanted to feed, glad he felt that way, eager for the moments that lie ahead to take their course.

 

 

4

 

Gina opened the front door.

Officer Mary O’Neill stood before her. She was big woman, a strong woman. She looked like she could handle herself in a physical confrontation. She had dark eyes, tanned skin, short hair and knuckles the size of walnuts.

Mary stepped into the front foyer. “Thanks. Let’s hope it stays that way. I have a question… have you seen Officer Kirkwood or Officer Costantino? Have they dropped by?”

“No, I haven’t seen them.”

The two women stepped into the kitchen.

Julie was there, sitting at the kitchen table, looking sleepy and guilty and wondering how one phone call could have led to all of this. “Hi Officer Neill,” she said.

“Actually Julie, I came here just as quick as I was able. I wanted to make sure that you guys were all right. You haven’t had any visitors in the last few minutes?”

Gina interjected. “No. It’s been quiet here. I’m thinking of putting coffee on. Would you like a cup?”

“Sure.”

Julie couldn’t believe what was happening. Coffee? Was her mother on crack? Paul was dying and she was making coffee? Trying to keep her emotions in check, she said, “Officer O’Neill, someone needs to check on Paul right now. You need to send somebody!”

Mary nodded. “Do I? Okay. I will. But listen a minute first, all right? Most nights in Cloven Rock nothing happens. There might be a fender bender or somebody that had one too many wiggly-pops down at the Yacht Club, but that’s about it. Occasionally we have two minor disturbances at the same time, in which case we inform the Maplebrook Police Department that we may need assistance. Now this doesn’t get everybody’s juices flowing, it just means a couple things are hitting the fan concurrently. The officers in Maplebrook send a cruiser in our direction in case we need them, but they don’t enter our jurisdiction unless we ask. And in situations like this, where the officer working the night shift at the Cloven Rock PD steps out of the office, we notify our two on-call officers. I’ve done both of these things. I’ve notified our on-call officers and I’ve talked with Maplebrook. Right now I have two men pulling themselves from bed and making their way to the station. Plus a car from Maplebrook is headed in our direction.”

Gina said, “What happened with the officers that are on duty tonight?”

“Officer Kirkwood and Costantino haven’t reported back to me. I noticed their car parked down the road. That’s why I asked if you’ve seen them.”

“Oh, no. We haven’t seen them at all. What do you think they’re doing around here? That accident you mentioned earlier… was it on this street?”

“No,” Mary said. “It wasn’t.”

“Who are you sending to Hopper’s Gas?” Julie asked. She was angry now, clearly angry. It seemed very obvious that something needed to be done twenty minutes ago and nothing was getting done. She wondered if this was what people meant by red tape. “Are you sending the policemen from Maplebrook?”

Mary hesitated. “Sure, Julie. I can send the Maplebrook officer’s to Hopper’s. But this is the first I’ve heard there was trouble. Why should I send men there? Can you tell me, because frankly, I don’t know.”


Julie shot her mother an uncomplimentary glance, thinking, Mom dropped the ball. I asked her for help and she did everything except what needed to be done. Paul LaFalce is probably lying at Hopper’s in a pool of blood and nobody is checking in on him! It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. Do I have to steal a car and check on him myself? Is this what it has come down to? If he dies, I’ll never forgive her for this!

She said, “You don’t even know what happened, do you?”

Officer O’Neill said, “No Julie. I don’t. I got a call from Gina and she said you’ve been threatened. That’s all. That’s why I’m here… to keep you safe. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m keeping you and your parents safe. Now if you’d like give me more information, I’d be happy to respond appropriately.”

Julie felt like yelling, crying and kicking her feet. She hated when old people treated her like a stupid kid. Why were adults like that? Why couldn’t they treat her like an equal? Did they think she just plunked out of the womb this morning? She wasn’t five years old. She was sixteen… sixteen! Soon she’d be seventeen!

As calmly as she could manage, she said, “I phoned Paul at Hopper’s tonight. While I talked with him he started screaming. It sounded like he was getting killed. I was worried about his safety so I told my mom. I wanted her to help out somehow. You know, drive me to Hopper’s Gas or something; call the police. Do something to help Paul out, ‘cause he was screaming like he needed help. Don’t you get it? It sounded like he was dying! He needs help!”

Julie looked down at her hands, which were balled into fists.

Officer O’Neill said, “Go on.”

Julie nodded, keeping her eyes on the table. She thought she might cry, and she didn’t want that. She really didn’t want that. “My mom called Hopper’s to see what was going on. And she talked to somebody. I’m not sure who she was talking with because she wouldn’t tell me.”

“I don’t know,” Gina exclaimed, trying to remember the girl’s name. Was it Cynthia? Cameron? She wasn’t sure. “I have no idea who I was talking with!”

“Okay then, fine. My mom didn’t know. Then she called you. She was supposed to tell you to check on Paul, because Paul needs help. He really needs help… not like us. You should be at Hopper’s Gas checking on Paul, not sitting here with us!”

“Okay,” Mary said. “I’ll send somebody right now.”

She stood up.

Then a howl came from the bedroom and all three women turned towards the sound. Something bad was happening. It seemed that Paul’s assistance would have to wait.

 

 

5

 

Gina ran down the hall.

Mary rushed past, brimming with courage and authority. She pushed the door open, looked across the bedroom and out the open patio door. Then her eyes fell to the floor, her hand trembled and her teeth pressed together.

Ron was on his hands and knees; his head hung low. Blood drained from his neck.

Mary wanted to pull her gun from her holster because she was afraid; she didn’t. The gun stayed put. Ron needed help. That’s what Officer Mary O’Neill figured when she first looked at him––there was no immediate danger and the man needed help. She was wrong of course, and knew it almost at once. ‘No immediate danger’ didn’t mean ‘no danger’; the man received his wounds somehow. He didn’t rip apart his own throat, did he? No, of course not. That meant someone else was here. That meant danger.

She reached for her gun.

Ron looked up, revealing teeth that didn’t fit his mouth. His red-dot eyes glowed within their sunken black pits.

Gina screamed. Seeing her husband this way was as shocking as it was terrifying. He looked like he swallowed a handful of boxing shears.

Mary stepped back. She was scared now, beyond scared.

This man doesn’t need help, she thought. He needs to be put down.

Ron charged across the floor like an insect. He leapt, with teeth snapping madly in the air.

Mary tried to pull her gun free but her hands were trembling. She was unable to draw it quick enough. Pulling a gun from a holster like a professional hit man was a talent that eluded her. Some cops were gunslingers, but most of the cops in Cloven Rock were like her, all thumbs.

She tried––

Too late.

The Ronald Stapleton zombie-monster was attacking and she was falling back. Her head smashed off a wall as she crashed against the floor. A photograph fell from its place, shattering into pieces at her side.

Ron crawled on top, slammed a hand on her face and squeezed it into a fist. When he pulled his hand away Mary O’Neill’s nose and lips came with it. The pain Mary felt was unbearable. And when she cried out, Ron’s wife Gina raised both of her hands in the air screaming: “What are you doing? Stop it, Ron! Stop it!”

But Ron wouldn’t stop. He looked at his wife with anger and rage cattle-prodded across his features. Then he slammed his hand on his victim’s face again.

Julie, still sitting at the kitchen table, got up from her seat. She walked into the hallway slowly. She was scared but she needed to see what was happening. One foot in front of the other, she walked; staring at the floor, lips pinched together.

Her father was on top of Mary O’Neill. His eyes were different now, silver––no black, centered with a crimson dot. His hands were forged into talons, having just raked them across the officer’s face.

And Mary O’Neill––poor, unfortunate Mary O’Neill––she was on the floor, half in the hallway and half in the bedroom. Her gun was still in its holster. Her neck was twisted strangely. Blood drained from her throat, eyes, nose and mouth. Half of her face was lying on the floor in a pile.

Now sixteen-year-old Julie was screaming. Screaming, with both hands at her ears, fingers digging her scalp, watching the chaos in absolute horror.

Ron bit a piece from Mary’s throat. He rammed her head against the floor and snapped her neck.

Gina turned away from the violence, no longer looking like a mother with all of life’s answers. She looked like a victim in shock. She said, “Run Julie, run!”

“Hi Julie,” she said, smiling like an angel that lost her way. She tapped the stick against the floor. “Hi Mrs. Stapleton. Remember me? We talked on the phone. I said I’d drop by and… here I am. Glad to see me? I hope so. I’m here to see your daughter, Mrs. Stapleton. I’m here for revenge. I’m here for murder.”

Then she heard Ron coming down the hallway. She didn’t want to turn around and face him. After what she had witnessed, she never wanted to see him again. But she did turn. She did.

My husband looks like a rabid dog, she thought. He looks insane.

Then Ron leapt onto her, biting and scratching and out of his mind with rage.

Gina tumbled back, away from her husband, the man she had fallen in love with, the man that needed to work in the morning. She fell into Cameron’s arms and screamed one final time and then it was over. The last thing she saw was Ron slamming his blood-soaked hands inside her mouth and ripping her face apart.

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

∞Θ∞

 

 

~~~~ CHAPTER SEVEN: TUESDAY MORNING

 

1

 

4:15 am. Sunrise.

4:44 am. Cameron entered Patrick’s cottage, licking her lips through teeth that had grown a full inch during the night. They looked like they belonged inside the mouth of a rattlesnake now; they were sharp, thin and strong. Above the slender of her nose, dark and haunting red-dot eyes were locked on Daniel, fixed on him like a mother to a newborn child, watching his chest rise and fall as he lie helplessly asleep on the couch, lost within his private world. Time mattered. In eight short minutes the sun would rise, burning Cameron to a crisp, wiping her from existence. She understood this, but did not subside to the spoils of fear. She had enough time to bite Daniel and turn him into her slave while staying clear of the morning sun. Doing so only took a moment; a single bite and she’d be off. But there was a problem: she didn’t want Daniel to be a slave; she wanted him to be more than that. She wanted an equal, someone to spend eternity with. She wanted Daniel to be her mate. Instinctively she understood that forging any man into her likeness took three nights, despite the fact that her transformation only took one. Why were the rules of becoming a vampire this way? Because. Because she was bitten by the source of the infection, and he, if things played out the way she wanted, would be bitten by her. And now she had to drain him in modest amounts and infect him progressively, augmenting his contagion over time. Then on the third night he would become like she was––an equal, a vampire, immortal. Only then could they be together. Otherwise he would be a ruined shell, an empty husk, no better than all the other senseless zombie hybrids that were obeying her every will and command. No, this was not the Hollywood way, but this was the way that it was––the truth behind the vampire legend. A single bite meant Zombie. A triple bite meant Vampire.

4:46 am. Six minutes remained. By now the town would be free of the zombies that had terrorized every home, every building. The zombies would have found shelter, in an attempt to hide from the sunlight. They would have crept into the basements and cellars, the closets and the attics. But Cameron, naked and filthy, had not. She still had a job to do. Dropping to her knees she pushed apart Daniel’s legs. She crept between his thighs and tilted his head to the left. Leaning in, she put her mouth to his neck. Her cold tongue licked his warm flesh, tickling him, tasting him, enjoying the moment for as long as possible. Her fangs slid deep and his blood entered her mouth. Her nipples grew hard as her pussy turned hot and wet. She wanted to devour him, consume him; she wanted everything he had to give and more.

Daniel felt the bitter lips sucking the life from him, the acidic teeth inside his flesh. As his eyes opened his neck turned numb and his heart began racing. He didn’t know what was happening but fear crashed upon him like an ocean wave to the shore, saturating him, overshadowing his will. He wanted to push her away––needed to, but his body wouldn’t respond. He was powerless, becoming feeble and immobilized. Blood ran down his neck in a dark, thick channel, a liquid rope. The room seemed to spin on one corner. Stranger still, he felt himself growing hard. Part of him didn’t want the moment to end, wanting instead to seize hold of more pain and fright, disorientation and confusion. Thoughts flipped end over end, falling apart before he could comprehend their value. What was happening here? What horrors sat before him, poisoning him, exterminating the very spirit of the man he was born to be?

Cameron sucked more blood from her victim’s body. Running her fingers through his hair, she pulled away. Her fangs slipped from his skin, releasing him from her deadly hold. A string of blood dangled between them, shinning like silk, glimmering in the moonlight before its integrity was compromised.

“Sleep,” she said. “Close your eyes.”

Daniel did what he was told; his heart rate slowed immediately.

4:49 am. Cameron stood up, wiped a line of blood from her mouth and licked Daniel’s taste from her lips one final time. Her chin was covered. She had blood on her breasts, dripping from her nipples to the floor. His flavor was nothing short of ecstasy, bliss. She wanted to swallow another mouthful but wouldn’t chance it. Drinking more could turn him into a zombie and spoil everything; it wasn’t worth the risk.

4:50 am. She left Patrick’s cottage and made her way to Daniel’s place. As she stepped through his front door she saw a multi-legged creature with numerous eyes and an abundant amount of jaws. It crawled across the floor on stalks that were fourteen inches long, snapping its teeth at random. She walked past the beast calmly, blood glistening on her naked flesh, knowing she was safe, knowing the creature wouldn’t attack, for she had become one with the critters, a queen among the hive.

4:51 am. She entered Daniel’s basement.

4:52 am. Cameron made her way down the ladder. Once she was deep in the earth, in the place the others believed was a bomb shelter, she curled her body next to a large cocoon and closed her eyes. For this new version of Cameron, the first of many nights had ended. The time for sleep had come.

 

 

2

 

5:23am. Nicolas Nehalem woke, shifting into a different position as he held his pillow tight. His eyes opened, closed, and opened again.

The babies were crying.

He rubbed the sleep from his face, lifted his librarian-issue spectacles from the nightstand and slid them into place. He sat up, putting his feet on the floor one after another. CLUMP. CLUMP. For no real reason he looked over his shoulder, lifted his feet and dropped them down again.

CLUMP. CLUMP.

He put his hand into the empty space on the far side of the bed and gave the sheets a squeeze. They felt soft and nice.

He stood up, stumbled across the room and entered the bathroom. He relieved himself, washed his hands and face very thoroughly before pouring himself a glass of water. The glass had a cartoon dog on it. The dog was wailing its tail and smiling happily. He drank the water from the glass and emptied the remaining few drops on the floor. After returning to his room he lifted his brown-checkered housecoat from the shiny brass hook and pushed his furry blue slippers together on the floor with his foot. He put the housecoat on and tied the cotton belt in a cute little bow. He slid his feet inside the slippers and stumbled down the hall. With a yawn and a fart he entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door.

Last month’s turkey sandwich was still there. So was the empty carton of orange juice. He lifted the empty carton, shook it and tossed it in the garbage.

There were no bottles of formula; if he wanted to feed the babies he’d have to make a new batch. Or––

He grabbed the sandwich from the bottom shelf and sat it on the counter. The green and black moon craters inside the plastic wrap were bigger now. The plastic felt squishy beneath his fingers.

The babies kept crying. Or was it just one?

Nicolas opened a cupboard door and grabbed a box of powered formula. He lifted a spoon from the sink and licked it. He opened the container of formula and rammed the spoon inside. From a different cupboard he found six baby bottles. He opened them, put a spoonful of formula in each and filled the bottles with water. He capped the lids and shook them all; then he put four in the fridge and two in the microwave. He turned the machine on for nine minutes. After five minutes he opened the microwave door. The formula was boiling. When the bottles were cool enough to handle he lifted two of them up and headed downstairs, formula in one hand, sandwich in the other.

5:31 am. At the base of the staircase he clicked on a light. Several large cockroaches made for the shadows. He walked across the room that was filled with shoes and coats, jeans and shirts, wallets and belts. He opened the cellar door and flicked another light switch.

Today the crying didn’t stop. It became louder.

And yes––only one baby was crying. Still, he didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. It might be time to teach those babies a lesson; he wasn’t sure.

Nicolas slid the bottles of formula and the sandwich into his housecoat pockets. He walked down three stairs and stopped. There was a cupboard on his left. It was deep and dirty and the perfect place to store paint cans, mason jars and all the other stuff people hold save but rarely use.

He opened the door.

Somewhere inside, a mouse squeaked and ran for cover.

The cupboard was home to a wide assortment of things that made his babies quake with fear: a pair of pliers, a wrench, a long hunting knife, gasoline, razor blades, a nail gun, a chainsaw, hedge clippers, a blowtorch, a hammer, a sledgehammer, vice grips, a curling iron, a cattle prodder, a cork screw, an electric sander, rat traps, an ax… the list went on and on. Today he reached for one of his favorite items: a medical scalpel he bought off the Internet. It was neat and clean, fun to use and easy to work with. And boy, was it sharp! Sharp enough to slice through leather.

The crying continued.

He walked down the remaining six stairs, crouched down and entered the room with the low ceiling.

William was gone. In his place was a large puddle of hardened blood and a severed leg. Connected to the puddle of blood was a trail that led to Cathy Eldritch’s cage. It was empty.

Cathy’s cage was empty.

Nicolas couldn’t believe it. That cage hadn’t been empty in fourteen years. And Nicolas, completely surprised, looked at the cage for a long while before his eyes finally shifted to another trail of blood, which led to Olive Thrift’s cage.

It too was empty!

Nicolas dropped the scalpel; he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. And he could hear screaming now. Not crying but screaming. But why? Who was making that noise?

He turned his head towards the sound and found Cathy sitting in the corner, naked and wilted and covered in scars. She wasn’t alone. William was beside her with eyes open, his mouth agape and his skin white like a sheet of paper. The man’s legs were destroyed, his hands were drenched in blood, his fingers were opened and facing the ceiling like overturned spiders, like he was expecting something to be placed in them. Cathy didn’t seem to notice. She was holding onto William, arms wrapping around the dead man like a blanket. And she was screaming––screaming and screaming; a woman that had finally lost her marbles.

Nicolas said, “Where’s Pumpkin?”

But Cathy didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer, couldn’t think. Being set free from the cage was the final straw that caused her sanity to crack apart in a way that could never be salvaged. She was lost; her mind was elsewhere, drifting, floating; reliving the horror…

 

 

3

 

Cathy watched Nicolas lead William inside the room. She knew what would happen next. Will wasn’t the first man to be led into the basement over the years––led to the slaughter, as she often thought of it. He was the twelfth.

The unfortunate souls were always dealt with in a similar fashion: Nicolas would walk his victims down the stairs, force them to strip and allow them a nice view of the cages. Then after a brief reaction he’d pull the trigger. On two separate occasions Nicolas shot his victim in the head. Twice he shot his victim in the stomach. Three times he shot his victim in the back. Three times he shot arms and legs off, one at a time. And on one terrible occasion––an occasion that haunted Cathy’s thoughts still––he shot his victim in the groin, and when the man went down screaming he shot him again in the neck, lopping the poor bastard’s head clean off.

After his victims had fallen Nicolas would do the unthinkable: he would eat them, or cut them into pieces, or set them on fire, or suck out their eyes, or dismember them with an ax. Often times he made intestine soup and fed it to his babies. Other times he’d strip the victim naked and have sex with the corpse. One time he chopped a man apart with a hammer; one time he operated with a chainsaw. One time he covered a man in chocolate and licked him semi-spotless. But he had never––as far as Cathy had seen––never, shot a man in the legs and left it at that.

Cathy didn’t know. She didn’t want to know. Truth was, she didn’t care any more. She hated thinking about Nicolas and all of his crazy bullshit. It was too much. He was too much.

After Nicolas shot William he went upstairs to scream in his closet or piss in the sink or do whatever it was that he was doing, and Cathy watched the wounded man screech and cry and pass out where he lay. She thought he was dead.

He wasn’t.

Somehow William found the strength to open his eyes and drag his body across the floor, one leg dangling by a pair of tendons and a rope of meat, the other leg left behind, dribbling blood on the floor. Then, with his teeth clenched and his fingers quivering, he unlocked Cathy’s cage.

She knew what William wanted. He wanted her to save him. He wanted her to crawl from her coop and hunt down the medical attention he needed––but how? Didn’t he know how mistreated she was? Couldn’t he see that she had been abused too?

Cathy was in no position to help. She was under enough strain without being asked to play hero. And besides, that part of her personality died years ago. She couldn’t resurrect it now. Not for him. Not for anyone. She wasn’t a hero; she was a psycho’s plaything. Didn’t he know that?

In the other cage, Olive cried and begged. She said, “Come this way! Come here! Open this cage! Set me free!”

William turned away from Cathy, squealing in pain, fading in and out of consciousness. He crawled across the floor leaving a trail of blood three feet wide. And in time, somehow, he unlocked Olive’s cage.

Olive pushed the door open, crept from her cage and lifted her head high. She started to laugh. It was a terrible sound. There was no humor in that laugh, no happiness. She looked at her hands, her fingers, her bony little stubs… and the strangest thing occurred: she laughed louder than before.

She was almost free; she could hardly believe her luck!

Cathy, however, was not free. She remained in her cage, far away from the wide open door, afraid to step through, afraid of the future. The reason was easy to understand: she was institutionalized now, with her cage being her establishment. Leaving the pen meant leaving the safety of her home. Not to suggest that her home was a safe place to be. It wasn’t. And she knew that––but home was home and the cage was it. Stepping outside meant God knows what, and she was simply not ready for it.

Did stepping from her cage mean a daring escape followed by a barrage of questions from policemen, doctors, news crews and talk shows? Did it mean being captured by Nicolas again, and a punishment so severe that all of her past penalties would seem pleasant in comparison? Or did it mean something worse? Like seeing her family again, for that was the one thing she wanted least of all. Looking into her mother’s eyes now would be a torment she couldn’t possible handle. The very sight of her family would break her heart into pieces. And her mother wouldn’t cry. She would run away screaming in terror. She would run from the monster that Cathy had become, wishing her child had never been born. She was a living nightmare now, an unsightly ghoul. Cathy knew these things, and that’s why her home inside the cage was good enough. She knew her place. Escaping the cage was opening a door to an entirely new brand of nightmare she wanted no part of.

 

 

4

 

Olive crawled past William and scurried towards the stairs. She was smiling. For the first time in five years, ten months and thirteen days, she was really smiling. This was the chance she had been waiting for, the chance she had dreamed about. Her fantasy.

William said, “Help me, please.”

Olive didn’t say anything to the man. She just looked at him and looked away. Then she climbed the stairs like a spider, pretending he wasn’t there. Later she could help, or not help, or do whatever she needed to do. But right now she had to think about herself, she had to escape.

She entered the room filled with clothing and tried to stand up straight. She couldn’t. After years in the cage it hurt too much to stand; plus her balance was wrong, thanks to Nicolas’ little surgeries on her feet.

Didn’t matter. At least, right now it didn’t.

Olive didn’t want to stretch; she wanted to see her mother again, her father again. She wanted to spend time with her younger brother Dale. She wanted to go back to school, play video games and be on the track-and-field team. She wanted to go to baseball games and complain that the seats were bad and the ref was blind. She wanted to read magazines and listen to music. She wanted to organize her dolls and put them in her dollhouse. She wanted to get away from Nicolas.

On the way up the stairs she heard someone yell. No––not someone. Him. He was screaming and yelling again, being insane.

Was this good news, or bad news?

She didn’t know. It would definitely be better if he was asleep but he wasn’t, and nothing was going to stop her from trying to get outside, because being outside, even for a minute, would be the best thing that happened in years.

She made her way to the top of the stairs and pushed open the door. It opened slowly; the hinges sounded like they belonged inside a haunted house: CREEEEEEEAAAAK–AK–AK. Once the hinges stopped squeaking she listened to the sounds of Nicolas grunting and cursing and pounding his fist against the wall. POUND. POUND. POUND. The noises were coming from inside the closet, which was beside her; the doorknob was next to her head.

Thinking about Nicolas made her cringe. She could just see him opening the closet door and saying, “Ah ha!” Then he’d drag her downstairs and cut off another finger and piss in her face and talk about setting her on fire. Or maybe he’d lop off an arm this time. After all, this was bad. Trying to escape was very, very bad. And if she found herself caught there’d be a serious punishment attached to her crime. Extreme punishment.

Nicolas pounded on the wall again, crying as he did so. POUND. POUND. POUND. POUND. He followed the pounding with a good long scream.

Olive grinned a frightened grin and scuttled down the hall, towards the front door. She reached for the knob, knowing that freedom was just a few feet away.

But––

She only had three fingers now, two on her left hand and one on her right: two pinkies and a ring finger. Not much to work with, but she would work with them. Oh yes. She would do whatever she had to do because she was getting out. The time for escape was now. This was her chance, her only chance.

Nicolas kicked the door––not the wall but the door––and Olive nearly jumped out of her skin.

He could come out of the closet at any time, she thought. Any time at all!

Kneeling at the front door, she wrapped her fingers around the knob. She tried to turn it. Didn’t work. She didn’t have a good enough grip. She tried again. Same result. She put a palm on each side of the knob, pressed her hands together and tried her luck again. Now it worked; the knob was turning.

Olive’s eyes widened. Unlike the lock on her cage, this was a lock she could open. This was a lock she would open! Come hell or high water she was getting through that door.

She put a pinkie to the lock and gave it a push. The lock turned so easily she could hardly believe it. With a hand around the knob, she turned and pulled. The door creaked and cracked and made lots of strange sounds but it was opening.

Thank heaven; it was opening!

A cool summer breeze hit her in the face. She thought she might be dreaming and hoped that she wasn’t. She wasn’t. As abused and mentally fragile as she had become, she knew that her escape was really happening. Outside was right there, less than two feet away. Oh God, she felt like crying.

She crawled back a foot, giving the door some room to swing open. Then she did it: she moved through the doorway and onto the porch. She closed the door very quietly and made her way down the steps and along the driveway, hunched over, walking on her hands and feet like a primate.

Laughter came. It was a sick laugh, one that didn’t sound connected to comedy in any way, but there it was. She was laughing, and tears rolled down her face.

Olive realized something: she hadn’t stood up straight in years. She tried again but couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not here. She had to keep moving and worry about her posture later. Slumped over, she lost her balance often. Walking was difficult with every toe amputated, but she would do it; oh yes she would.

She moved past the fire truck, which seemed large and completely out of place sitting in the driveway. Once she was past it she had a choice to make: follow the road left or follow the road right. She couldn’t see much in either direction: the moon and the stars, the trees and the sky. That was about all. The moonlight wasn’t much help. It was dark. Real dark.

She turned right and continued her journey. It wasn’t a bad choice; it wasn’t a good one.

Stone Crescent was like a lollipop: it went around in a circle. She needed to get off the circle if she wanted to get noticed by the people of Cloven Rock. She needed to get onto Stone Path Road and into town.

She followed the loop, hoping a car would pass. None did. The road swerved left and right, but mostly left. She didn’t realize she was walking in a circle. And she didn’t see Stone Path Road when she came to it. Not the first time, the second time, not the third time either. Stone Path Road looked the same as everything else, like darkness.

After two hours and forty-five minutes she became tired and slightly dizzy. Being in no condition for long distance hiking, she made a decision. She would lie down at the side of the road and sleep. A car would come by soon, she trusted. It had to. It just had to. She had no idea that Nicolas was still only a few hundred feet away. Had she known, she would have continued on.

 

 

5

 

5:34 am. “Where is Pumpkin?”

Cathy didn’t answer. She kept screaming and crying and holding William’s corpse close to her body.

Her high-pitched voice was annoying, and before long Nicolas decided enough was enough. He turned away from her, walked up six steps and looked into his cupboard. He put his hand on the hedge clippers, then he touched the blowtorch, and finally he decided on the sledgehammer. The sledgehammer was good. It was sturdy and heavy. Too bad there wasn’t much room in the cellar to use it.

He lifted the tool and made his way down the stairs, approaching his plaything with evil on his mind. He grabbed her bony ankle and dragged her from the corner. His beady eyes were slightly askew behind his glasses, making him look crazier than ever.

Cathy screamed louder, holding William’s corpse like her life depended on it. It didn’t; the corpse couldn’t help her. What she needed to do was beg for Nicolas’ forgiveness, and even that wouldn’t be enough.

Nicolas pulled her into the center of the room. The corpse slipped from her remaining fingers and a moment later Nicolas released her. As she flopped to the ground, writhing in mental agony, he positioned himself above her, holding the sledgehammer––not in a traditional way, but the way an executioner would hold his battle-ax while waiting for the condemned man to arrive––with the mallet at his feet, not over his head. And when he raised it up, he raised it to his waist, balancing it above Cathy’s teeth.

Cathy was on the floor, squirming and laughing, screaming with her eyes opened very wide. Something changed inside her mind and she looked right at him, right into his face with knowing awareness. She howled like an animal, saying, “SHE GOT AWAY! OLIVE GOT AWAY! YOUR PUMPKIN IS GONE, NICOLAS! SHE’S GONE, GONE, GONE!”

Nicolas continued holding the business end of the sledgehammer a foot and a half over her face. It swayed left and right like a pendulum. He said, “What did you say? What!? How dare you speak to me like that! She’s not gone! She’s not gone! She’s mine, you hear me? Mine!”
 “SHE’S GONE, SHE’S GONE, SHE’S G-O-N-E! OH, YOU STUPID MISERABLE PSYCHOTIC FUCKER, SHE’S GONE AND SHE’S NEVER COMING BACK! NOT NOW! NOT EVER! SHE ESCAPED YOU! YOUR BABY ESCAPED YOU!”

“Don’t say that! Don’t you ever say that––!”

“I’M SAYING IT YOU STUPID PRICK! OH LORD, I’M SAYING IT!”

“I’ll kill you!”

“DO YOU THINK I CARE? I WANT YOU TO KILL ME! DON’T YOU KNOW THAT? I WISH YOU HAD DONE IT YEARS AGO! KILL ME! KILL ME, YOU PATHETIC PIECE OF SHIT! DO IT! DO IT NOW BEFORE I GET UP AND WALK OUT OF HERE THE WAY PUMPKIN DID!”

“You’re not going anywhere!”

“KILL ME YOU BASTARD! I DARE YOU TO!”


Nicolas heard enough. His hands were shaking. His nostrils were flared. His knuckles were turning white from holding the wooden handle so tight.

Raising the sledgehammer another two inches, he screamed, “YOU WANT ME TO DO IT? YOU WANT ME TO KILL YOU? OKAY BITCH! I’LL DO IT! IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT I’ll GIVE IT TO YOU! I’LL KILL YOU RIGHT HERE AND NOW! HERE IT IS BITCH! HERE IT IS, RIGHT IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!”

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

5:37 am. Nicolas mashed the mallet into her eyes, crushing her skull like a beer can. He raised the weapon up and slammed it down again. Cathy’s head cracked open. Blood, brains and bone rolled free. Legs trembled. Hands flinched. Her nightmare ended, and the next time Nicolas hit her she was already dead. But that wasn’t enough to stop him from smashing his fury into her empty shell until her head looked like mush. Nothing would stop him. And when he finally grew tired of beating her with the hammer he kicked her four times and threw the weapon across the room.

 

 

6

 

5:40 am. Nicolas stormed his way upstairs. He was furious! He wanted to kill everyone, everywhere––right now! This was shit! Complete fucking donkey shit! How did Pumpkin escape? How did she get out of the house? It made him so MAD! He felt like sticking his hand into a blender and turning the knob to mince. Maybe that would ease his thinking. Maybe that would make things better.

After stomping through the house, he kicked his way into his laboratory and considered slamming together a mix of sulfuric acid and nitric acid right then and there, real fast like. But building nitroglycerin wasn’t something you ‘slammed’ together when you were pissed off at your babies. He was mad and crazy, but not mad enough and crazy enough to try something like that.

“FUCK!” He screamed. “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” He tore a handful of hair from his head and cracked his knuckles against his ears. “HOW DO YOU BUILD NITROGLYCERIN? ONE PART SULFURIC ACID AND ONE PART NITRIC ACID! HOW DO YOU MAKE DYNAMITE? THREE PARTS NITROGLYCERIN, ONE PART DIATOMACEOUS EARTH AND A SMALL FUCKING ADMIXTURE OF SODIUM CARBONATE! AND HOW DO YOU BLOW UP THE TOWN? YOU PUT DYNAMITE IN EVERY HOUSE AND SET THE WORLD ON FIRE!” Nicolas clomped out of the bedroom, balled his hand into a fist and punched a hole in the wall. “FUCK!”

He went into his bedroom, tore off his robe and kicked off his slippers. He threw on pants without underwear, shoes without socks, and a white golf shirt that had a snappy green alligator above the left breast. He combed his hair real nice and checked his teeth in the mirror. They were clean, but not clean enough. He entered the bathroom, brushed his teeth and clipped his fingernails, making sure they were rounded and spotless. After that he shaved and applied a generous amount of aftershave. Perfect. He looked like a lunatic.

Reaching into his pocket he found his keys sitting next to a stick of gum. He pulled the gum from his pocket and tossed it on the floor.

A new idea came: he hustled his ass to the basement, pulled the chainsaw from the cupboard and grabbed the sledgehammer from the corner of the room. He took both items upstairs and blasted his way outside.

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

5:45 am. The morning was beautiful in Cloven Rock. The sunshine was bright, the air moved with a gentle wind and no matter which way you looked, the day seemed absolutely gorgeous. But Nicolas wasn’t looking at the beauty of the landscape; he was looking at his car and thinking about the bitch inside the trunk. With an ugly smirk he squeezed the sledgehammer in his left hand. Then his smirk became a sneer and with his right hand, he lifted the chainsaw high.

Chainsaw.

He dropped the sledgehammer, flicked the saw’s safety switch and yanked on the cord. The machine came to life, easily and without delay.

“Big Beth!” His voice was barely heard over the roar of the spinning blade. “You in there? Are you? I got something for you! Here comes a big fat surprise!”

Nicolas didn’t have time to fuck around. He didn’t have time to make the most of the situation and enjoy the subtleties of the terror he was about to inflict. It was time to kill people, simple as that. He was about to rip the town a new asshole, starting with that rotten whore he had stashed away.

Holding the saw tight, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keychain. He shuffled the keys through his fingers until he found the appropriate one. The key entered the lock. His wrist turned. He heard a CLICK and the trunk was unlocked.

Then came a big fat surprise all right: Beth kicked the trunk with her knees and the trunk flew open. Almost comically, it nearly bounced shut.

Beth squealed.

The last thing she needed was a surprise attack that started and finished with her getting locked in the trunk again. It was almost funny but holy hell, it wasn’t. She stuck her knees up just in time and the trunk lid bounced into them.

“Look at you!” Nicolas screamed as Beth worked her body into a sitting position. “Look! Coming out swinging, are you? Do you know what you look like?”

Beth felt like she had spent six weeks living inside a used coffin. Her hair was wet, her face was dirty and her eyes were glossy and red. She had bugs crawling on her skin and maggots in her hair. Her lips were dry, turning white and starting to crack. She was dehydrated. Her arm was bloody and mangled, with a wound that was getting more infected by the minute. And she stank. Oh boy, did she ever. She smelled like Pauline Anderson’s corpse, fresh urine and old sweat mixed together in a tub of compost. On top of everything else, she was scared; it was easy to see. Her eyes were wide, her teeth were clamped together and her muscles were as tight as a hangman’s rope.

Do you know what you look like? he had asked. Truth was: yeah, she supposed she did. She looked like a woman that had tasted hell, a woman with nothing left to lose, a woman that had spent the night in the trunk of a madman’s car, lying next to a dead body, wondering if she’d ever see her family again. She wasn’t happy about it, not one little bit. And she wasn’t going down easy; she wasn’t going to give up living without a fight.

Beth lifted the crowbar as high as she was able. She said, “Back!”

Nicolas started shouting: “Oh, you want to play do you? Okay bitch! We can play! We can play all morning long! I haven’t had breakfast yet… how about you? Did you get something to eat while you were in there? Did you break off a little piece of Pauline Stupid-Head for a late-night snack? Yum! Pauline tastes good, yes? She tastes good to me, you fat fucking cow. Her fingers taste like steakhouse ribs!”

Beth didn’t hear much of what Nicolas was saying; the chainsaw was too loud and piercing. She understood the gist of it though: Nicolas was explaining that he was crazier than a hen-house fox and he was going to chop her into pieces. Simple.

She swung the crowbar wildly. “Stay back I say! Back!”

Nicolas moved a little closer and revved on the engine. “What’s that? You want me to saw your face off? I can. Won’t be a problem. I can saw off your arms and legs off too.”

“Get the hell away from me!”

Nicolas’ glasses sat low on his nose, threatening to fall from his face. He didn’t seem to notice, or care. His focus was firmly directed on Big Beth, the ugly man-dyke with a neck like a tree trunk and a head like a bowling ball.

He smiled with good reason: he was happy. A moment ago he was furious but bingo-bango––things had changed. Just looking at that stupid tub of mule piss was a knee-slapper. She looked like an over-the-hill babysitter trying to extinguish a house fire with a glass of pudding. Where did her smart talk go? Where was her existentialism philosophy when she needed it? Apparently her Mother Teresa attributes evolved into a big brown loaf of underwear-munchies once she became bed-buddies with a corpse.

“Hey Einstein,” Nicolas said, revving the motor louder. “Why don’t you sweet talk the chainsaw?”

Beth felt a cold chill creep down her spine. She needed out of the trunk, otherwise she was a goner.

She put a hand on the trunk’s casing and shuffled her legs around so she was kneeling. Now her head was touching the trunk door and her feet were pressed against Pauline’s corpse. She didn’t care about the corpse. Not now. The bugs, maggots, flies and rotting flesh meant nothing at this point. The girl was dead. It was bad but she was over it. And she was alive. Bugs and maggots could be washed away, memories could be suppressed, and without a doubt, she had bigger things to worry about than the creepy-crawlies nesting on her skin.

Beth’s eyes shifted; she caught a glimpse of the white van. Then her eyebrows lifted and she looked up.

“Oh my––”

There was something on the roof––big, black and loaded with legs. It had a dozen mouths and was roughly half the size of riding lawnmower.

 

 

7

 

5:48 am. The crab-critter crawled down the wall and onto the porch. Its mouths opened and closed in unison.

Nicolas saw Beth’s eyes shift towards the monster and he decided to make the most of the moment. He lifted the chainsaw high and came at her quickly.

For one terrible flash Beth thought her life was over. It wasn’t. She lifted the crowbar up and the spinning blade crashed into it. Sparks shot into the air as he pressed the saw towards her, putting muscle into it. If she couldn’t hold her ground he’d chop her into hamburger patties for sure.

And it was going to happen. Oh God, it was going to––

Nicolas stepped back and pulled the saw away. The sparks stopped flying.

He was laughing now. Laughing, but his face was pinched into an expression of pure hate. The two facades made him look like he might turn the saw against himself and like it.

Beth snuck another glimpse.

The creature from Daniel’s basement was smaller than the one that tried to break through the trap door, but it was just as ugly. Its mouths opened slowly and snapping shut fast. Bulbous eyes were unmoving. Long pink tongues, not unlike the tongues of lizards, flicked the air. Long, limber stalks tickled the area around it.

The trap door must be broken, she thought. That big mamma escaped and brought a few friends outside with it.

Nicolas realized that Beth was honestly looking at something behind him. He was surprised; at first he thought she was bluffing, which seemed like a straightforward line of defense. What else could the bitch do aside from bluff her way free? He had a chainsaw and she was geared up to change a flat tire. Bluffing was her only move, wasn’t it? He thought so. But when he saw the look in her face––in her eyes––he knew she wasn’t pretending. There was someone behind him. He’d bet the farm on it. And who, he wondered, would that someone be?

The creepy-crab leapt off the porch. It came straight at Nicolas, lost two legs (courtesy of the chainsaw) and landed on Nicolas’ face with teeth snapping.

Nicolas pulled the saw towards himself recklessly; he stumbled backwards.

Crab guts exploded everywhere.

Beth steadied the crowbar and swung it like a baseball bat. There was a loud, vibrating CLUNK as the iron banged off Nicolas’ head.

Nicolas saw stars, waved the chainsaw hastily in front of his chest and fell forwards. As he dropped to his knees, a second crab leapt off the rooftop. This one was bigger than the first. It looked like it weighed a hundred pounds or more.

Nicolas didn’t see it coming; it landed right on him––and the saw.

More guts splashed.

Beth crawled from the trunk. She turned away from Nicolas, and the crabs, and ran down the driveway. Something large and loaded with teeth flew past. Not surprisingly she dismissed it, and within seconds she was standing on Stone Crescent Road, wondering what to do. She looked left and right but she didn’t trust the road at all, so she crossed it, jumped a ditch and a fence and hid in a field.

In the distance she heard Nicolas cursing and swearing. And a moment later she looked across the road. There was something there. She thought it was another crab-critter but it wasn’t.

It was Olive.

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

When the crab jumped into the chainsaw and exploded, it pushed the spinning blade towards Nicolas. The blade clipped his head and he fell back––shocked, startled and alarmed. As the saw fell to the ground it came dangerously close to chewing his leg apart, probably in half. It missed his limb by less than an inch, coughed twice and died with its nose in the dirt.

The world suddenly seemed very quiet.

Nicolas released his weapon and sat up. He placed a trembling hand to his head as his vision blurred. The saw blade, he realized, got him pretty good. It bounced off his forehead and gnawed his skin to the bone. A generous amount of blood was running down his face now. It was in his eyes, dripping from his chin, onto his chest and draining between his legs. He pushed blood from his face with an open hand and squeezed his eyes tight. When he was able to see he looked at the area around him, surprised by what he found.

Crab guts and severed monster legs were everywhere: on the car, the driveway, the porch, the bush beside the porch; there were chunks on his lap, in the trunk, in the flower garden––you name it, it was there.

Nicolas reflected: he stuck a cat in the microwave once or twice, maybe three times, maybe four. Same result.

He pushed critter husk off his lap and looked to the roof.

A small crab, roughly the size of a housecat, was clinging to the eaves trough while spraying a web like a spider. Another danced around next to the chimney.

“What are those things?” Nicolas said flatly.

A small one scooted under the car. Then it ran in a circle, made a quick dash in his direction and jumped on his back.

Nicolas––still sitting on his ass with his legs shaped like a V––waved his arms and kicked his feet. He turned, crawled on his hands and knees and swung his head from side to side. “Get out of here,” he said. “Get off me! What the fuck? Get the hell… ouch!”

The creature bit into his neck and chopped at him with its little pinchers.

In desperation, Nicolas threw himself onto his back and squished the crab against the driveway. It popped apart like an egg, legs twitching. Dead. He stood, wiped himself off and looked at the car.

Beth was gone, and seeing the empty space in the trunk made him furious. He had barely crawled from bed and already he had lost both of his babies and the bitch in the trunk. He couldn’t believe it.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said. “Not on my watch.”

He lifted the sledgehammer off the ground, slammed the trunk shut and headed down the driveway, keeping both eyes open. He didn’t know what those little crab-things were, but they were a solid pain in the ass. He knew that much. He also knew that his back was covered in a runny gel, not unlike a moisturizing cream. His shirt was sticking to his skin in a way that wasn’t the slightest bit pleasant.

Reaching Stone Crescent, Nicolas looked left and right.

On his right he saw nothing. No wait, that wasn’t accurate. On his right he saw one of those things crawling across the road. It was far away, wasn’t a threat.

He looked left and saw––

 

 

8

 

Lying on her side, Olive opened her eyes. The sound of a chainsaw roared in the near-distance. She hardly noticed. What she did notice was the sun and the way it was shining around her. It was so bright, so unbelievably bright. She couldn’t remember anything being so intense, not ever. It felt warm against her skin, appeasing too. This was a good feeling, an amazing feeling. And the air was so clean! The cold stench of the basement had been a constant for so long she had forgotten the simple pleasures of a summer’s day. The air tasted satisfying and sweet, a little slice of heaven.

She rolled onto her back and looked at the sky.

The brightness hurt her eyes, but it was beautiful. Words couldn’t describe how wonderful the sky looked. After years in the basement, seeing an open space was the single most important thing she had ever witnessed. It was stunning, spectacular. It was fantastic and magnificent and glorious. Over the last few years her mind had erased the uncomplicated delights of a scenic landscape, and looking at it now was completely shocking in the most wonderfully miraculous way imaginable. The fact that she was naked, disfigured, and in serious need of medical attention didn’t matter. The fact that she had been tortured half her life didn’t matter either. Not here. Not now. The only thing that mattered was her freedom. And she had it. She finally had it. She wasn’t dreaming. This was real.

The word ‘peaceful’ had been lost in her vocabulary for so very long. Often times it had been quiet, but never peaceful, never ever peaceful. Peace isn’t something a child in a cage feels. Peace is something that disappears quickly in a situation so cruel and unfair. Now it was back. She was outside on a gorgeous and peaceful day. Was there anything better? Was anything more amazing?

She sat up, noticing that her back hurt. She wasn’t surprised. Her back always hurt. It was nothing new.

With effort, she stood. Once she was on her feet she forced herself to stand up straight. It hurt but she did it. Pain didn’t matter. It was the standing that mattered. She hadn’t stood up straight in a long, long time.

Olive looked around; she couldn’t believe her eyes.

She was outside! She was free!

Inevitably her mind turned to Nicolas and her happiness became clouded with fear, apprehension and concern. She hated that man, hated him so much. He was mean, terribly mean. She had never known anyone who could treat people so poorly. He was cookoo in the head; that much was obvious. And once he realized that she had escaped he would come looking. She knew it, but didn’t want to think about it. Not now. Not yet. She just woke up and besides… she was free! FREE! Couldn’t she enjoy a moment of freedom without thinking about him? Didn’t she deserve that much?

Olive didn’t know the cage she spent so much time in was less than three hundred and fifty meters from the place she was standing. She had no idea that she had walked in a circle three separate times. She thought she was miles away from Nicolas. If she knew the truth she’d walk more and sightsee less. But she was only fourteen, and being outside was as thrilling at it was breathtaking.

Olive began walking. Her legs were sore but she didn’t mind. She walked for two minutes, then for no reason at all she turned around and looked down the road.

There was a man, and for the first time since she escaped she thought about her nudity. Truth was, she had been naked so long that she didn’t even care. Modesty and humility were not relevant. She needed help. She needed to be saved. That’s what mattered here. The fact that she was naked meant nothing.

Olive turned away from him. She tried to run, stumbled and fell; she didn’t have the energy or the skill to run. She didn’t know how.

Suddenly the beautiful day wasn’t important. The sunshine, clouds and the unbelievably fresh air all took a back seat to the dilemma at hand. Escaping her daddy. That was the important thing now.

Escaping.

But Nicolas wasn’t her daddy, no how many times he said that he was. He was a psychopath, a killer, an abductor of children and the most sinister man she had ever known. He was the reason she was in such poor physical and mental condition. He had tortured her and abused her, punished her and condemned her. He had chewed off her fingers and chopped off her toes. He pissed in her face and forced her to eat human flesh. He set half of her cage on fire and splashed acid on her legs. He was the devil; that’s what he was: the devil, pure and simple. And she needed to escape the devil if it was the last thing she did. And why? The answer: She didn’t want to die. Not here, not now. She was too close to salvation, too close to freedom. She had survived the dungeon and she was going to find her way back home––to her real home. She was going to see her real daddy.

The sun disappeared, replaced with the outline of a man: Nicolas. He stood above her, looking down and breathing hard. His eyes were wide and his teeth were pressed together. The cords in his neck were sticking out like jumper cables.

He said, “Running away, are you?” ARE YOU?”

“No daddy!” Olive screamed. She rammed her mangled hands onto the dirt road and pushed herself into a sitting position. She was scared; it was nothing new. She had felt this way so many times before, too many times too remember; it never got any easier. The fear was always the same: grounded in reality.

The heavy iron mallet smashed Olive in the left kneecap. Her leg exploded and before she had a chance to scream Nicolas raised the weapon up again; he brought it down again. This time he went for the other leg. Now her right kneecap exploded; blood and bone splashed into the air.

Olive put both of her degraded hands to her open mouth as her face turned white. She fell onto her back and squeezed her eyes together.

Nicolas changed his footing, raised the hammer above his head and brought it down a third time. He could feel the sweat beneath his fingers and smooth lacquer of the wooden handle. It felt good. It felt right. He smashed her in the ankle and the weight of the hammer nearly amputated her foot.

A large pool of blood began forming.

Olive’s body convulsed as she tried to pull her right leg in. It didn’t work. For some reason her leg wasn’t responding. Neither leg was responding. And that was bad news for Olive because her legs needed to respond; they needed to respond right fucking now because the psychopath was raising the sledgehammer again.

Oh shit, he was raising it again––

The fourth time Nicolas slammed the weapon down he smashed her other ankle. Then he went for the shin. Then he went for the other shin.

The shins, he realized, were the best. They SNAPPED like brittle pieces of wood. Snapping them was fun. It was exciting. He wished that she had more shins so he could snap them too; she didn’t. She only had two, so he circled her body and raised the heavy iron mallet above his head again. This time he smashed her in the elbow. It almost seemed like she wanted it. As the hammer was balanced above his head she laid her arm on the road. She might as well have put a sign on it that said: SLAM IRON HERE. It was perfect, and so was his aim. He got her right in the elbow and her blood splashed high enough to catch him in the chin.

Panting like a wild animal, he said, “HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, HUH PUMPKIN? DO YOU LIKE IT? DO YA?”
 Pumpkin wasn’t responding, but her whole body was quivering and shaking like she was being electrocuted.

It was then––as Olive’s body was deep in shock and blood was pouring from three of her four limbs––Nicolas realized that he wasn’t putting her back in the cage. She was finished now. It was obvious.

He decided to end their relationship with a bang. And when he brought the mallet down its final time he didn’t aim for a limb; he aimed for her face. And although she was alive when the iron slammed her in the nose and teeth, her mind was already in a different place.

Nicolas was right; she was finished.

And in the end, she didn’t feel a thing.

 

 

9

 

6:02 am. Nicolas made his way back home. Twice the crab things attacked him and twice he smashed them with his mallet.

He unlocked his shed.

The shack’s interior looked just like he knew it would: filled with homemade explosives. Technically the explosives were considered dynamite, although they didn’t look like the dynamite you might see on television. The dynamite still contained diatomaceous earth and sawdust soaked in nitroglycerin, and each piece had a blasting cap attached to a wire. But the dynamite was wrapped in a shoebox-sized square box, rather than a tube shaped cylinder. He liked them better that way.

Nicolas pulled his van beside the shed and loaded the boxes into it. Once the van was full, Nicolas was behind the wheel. He drove past Olive’s corpse and made for town. He dropped off his first box of explosives in the place he abducted Beth and William.

The bodies impaled upon the sticks were surprising, and he wondered if he had done it himself and forgotten about it. It was possible. Sometimes he forgot things, and last night was a big night for him. He killed people, and was still killing people. But still, impaling people on sticks seemed like the type of thing he would have remembered.

Nicolas shrugged.

He supposed that it didn’t matter one way or another. He was going to burn the town to the ground and nothing was going to stop him.

6:26 am. He noticed Leanne Wakefield, impaled in front of her home. And she wasn’t the only one. There were seventeen other men, women and children impaled in their yards, and Nicolas knew he wasn’t responsible; he didn’t have the time.

7:29 am. He placed explosives at St. Peter’s Catholic church.

7:36 am. He entered the residential area, and began hiding explosives every few houses. The streets were empty, save the fact there were more bodies impaled in the yards. The neighborhood looked like it had gone through a war. Windows were smashed and doors were kicked in. Some of the impaled were still alive. One man begged to be saved. A woman asked him to end her suffering. He saw a pregnant woman impaled with a child that couldn’t have been older than two. He saw a man impaled with his dog.

Nicolas smiled. He was living in one fucked up little town.

7:54 am. Nicolas entered the downtown core. Everything was quiet. Windows were smashed and blood was on the street. Several bodies and been tossed together in a pile. None of the stores were open and no cars were on the road, aside from one that had crashed into a telephone pole.

He placed packages at The Big Four O, the 7-11, Spooky’s Antique Palace, Miller’s Gas Station, Cloven Rock Secondary and the Post Office.

8:14 am. Nicolas entered the waterfront area. The carnage was everywhere, including the Police Station. He went there first, happy to see an officer impaled with an iron rod and left to die on the floor.

After he placed packages around the fallen officer, he visited the Yacht Club, the Waterfront Café, Tabby’s Goodies, Starbucks and McDonald’s.

8:29 am. Nicolas headed for home. He needed more explosives.

9:17 am. Once again, the van was filled with boxes. He sat behind the wheel and drove into town, wondering what the hell was going on.

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

∞Θ∞

 

 

~~~~ CHAPTER EIGHT: THE FOURTH BULLET

 

1

 

Daniel woke, still wearing yesterday’s clothing. He rubbed his fingers through his hair not knowing where he was. He didn’t recall the things that had happened. Not yet. Then, as the room came into focus, it came back to him. One by one, the memory of yesterday’s events began creating an image––a bad one.

He was inside Patrick’s cottage.

He remembered climbing the ladder. He remembered the giant room beneath his home. And Roger. Oh God, that thing ate Roger.

He took a deep breath and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. His arms were sore. His neck was sore and bleeding. His legs were aching and he hadn’t even tried to stand yet. Standing was going to hurt. He knew it just by thinking about it. By the time he was up and walking about he figured his entire body would be writhing in agony. He renovated, climbed up and down the ladder more times than he could remember, battled monsters––it was no dream. Yesterday was a full day and his muscles were completely unprepared.

He thought about checking in on Patrick but he didn’t want to. Not yet. Not until he was awake. Patrick was doing all right, he told himself––but somehow he didn’t really believe it. Patrick needed a doctor, maybe more.

And maybe, just maybe… he was dead.

There was a part of him––the nicest part, most likely––that wanted to check in on Patrick as soon as he was able. He couldn’t though. He was getting a bad feeling about Patrick. He remembered Cameron (I had a dream about Cameron, didn’t I? Yes, I’m sure I did…) and the way she turned violent. What if Patrick turned violent? What then? Did he have the energy to fight? No, he most certainly did not have that type of energy. Not yet. Not now.

Daniel relieved himself in the bathroom. He washed his hands and face in the bathroom sink before stumbling into the kitchen. He looked in the cupboards and in the fridge for something worth eating, or drinking. He drank a glass of water, brewed a pot of coffee, and sat down, trying hard to keep his mind from reeling. Once the coffee was ready he poured himself a cup. Then he poured a second cup and made his way into Patrick’s room with a drink in each hand.

The door was half-open, just the way he left it. So far, so good.

He entered the room, wondering if he should have a weapon. But why was he thinking that? There was no reason to think he was in danger, was there?

Sure there is, his mind suggested. Remember Cameron? Remember what she did?

As he stepped inside the room he looked at Patrick and his hands began to shake. Coffee spilled over both cup rims. He clomped the cups onto the dresser and stared at his friend with a hand over his mouth and his eyes wide open.

 

 

2

 

Daniel approached Patrick slowly, eyeing him like he came from another planet. A moment passed. He turned away. Mind racing. Spotting his coffee, he lifted it from the dresser and quickly left the room. He marched down the hall, into the living room, and sat on the couch. A splash of coffee spilled onto the floor as he sat down. He didn’t notice. He wanted to phone someone but he didn’t have a phone. He wanted to talk things over but there was nobody to talk with. Patrick Love was inside a cocoon. And what, exactly, was he supposed to do about that?

He drank from the cup.

His eyes were playing tricks on him. That had to be the answer, right? Because it wasn’t Patrick inside the cocoon, it was one of those crab-things.

Yeah. Sure. That sounds good. It’s one those crab-things.

No.

It wasn’t one of those crab-things. It was Patrick. He could see Pat’s young and handsome face through the silk, turning dark, turning black. So where did that leave him? Should he pull Patrick out of the cocoon, or leave him inside it?

Would Pat die inside the cocoon?

Would he die if he were yanked from the webbing?

Daniel didn’t have the answers for such questions. He wasn’t a doctor. He wasn’t a scientist. He was a moneyman: insurance, mortgages, real estate––that was his game. Friends living inside a cocoon? Not his field.

He drank another sip, and another. After he finished his coffee he looked in on Patrick one more time.

Nothing had changed.

He needed to do something, anything––but what? He didn’t have a car. So where did that leave him? Walking. Was that really the answer? Was it time to lace up his shoes and make his way into town? It seemed like there was nothing else he could do, so yeah, walking into town. That was the answer.

Right?

Maybe.

God, he thought. What a mess.

A sound was heard; Daniel snapped his head towards the window.

A crab-critter was walking across the glass. He could see little hooks, needles and suction circles on the bottom of the creature’s feet. Its stalks were long and thin. Its mouths were opening and closing quickly, like they were hungry. The thing looked like an oversized inkblot on pelican legs. And seeing it forced Dan to re-evaluate his thinking.

Was stepping outside really the game plan?

His mind returned to Patrick inside the cocoon.

Sadly, he decided, it was. And on the heels of that thought he stood up, looked at the thing that was clinging to the window and decided to find a weapon. Locating a gun in Patrick’s cottage would be impossible. Patrick’s father was an anti-gun man; he believed all firearms should be outlawed.

So where did that leave Dan?

Ironically, the first weapon he thought about was the same one that Nicolas used to smash Olive’s face: a sledgehammer. Of course, there wouldn’t be anything like that inside the building––perhaps in the shed or under the deck, but not inside. And he didn’t want to go outside to look, not while he was unarmed, so what now?

Daniel entered the kitchen. He didn’t see anything worth grabbing. He opened a closet and discovered coats and jackets, sweaters and shoes. There was a broom, however, but the handle was very thin and brittle looking. There was also a small toolbox that he didn’t bother opening. He didn’t believe a hammer, a tape measure, or a screwdriver was going to cut it.

He returned to living room, looked at the fireplace, and found his answer attached to the wall beside it. The answer came in the form of a heavy, black iron poker. It had a nice handle on one end and a sharp hook on the other.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

After checking on Patrick one last time he made his way outside. The sun was shining; the air was almost still. He glanced at the raft floating in the lake and the small waves that crashed against it.

A crab-creature ran across the yard, heading straight for him. Another leapt off the roof and landed at his feet.

Without much thought, he kicked the closest critter, spun around and stabbed the other one with the poker. The poker pierced the creature easily, but creature was still alive. He stepped on it and moved away from the house, nervous that another attack might come from above.

He walked away from Patrick’s place cautiously, heading for his summer home.

William’s 1979 firebird was sitting in the driveway. His cottage windows were smashed and his side door was wide open. He spotted three more crab-critters, but none were attacking.

How many of the creatures are running free? he thought. And what harm have they caused? Have people been hurt? Have authorities been notified?

His mind shifted gears. Now he was thinking about Cameron, William and Beth: they must be at the hospital.

Another crab-thing moved towards him and he stomped it, creating a ball of mush beneath his shoe. Then he walked away from his house and headed down the driveway.

His eyes were stinging; the sun seemed very bright.

 

 

3

 

After hiding in the woods for hours, Beth returned to the road and approached Olive with a hand at her mouth and tears rolling down her face.

That son of a bitch, she thought. That fucking prick.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

The word ‘tragedy’ didn’t even begin to describe the naked girl’s remains. She looked worse than anything Beth had ever seen or imagined. Olive had been abused for years, then pulverized. Her head looked like a smashed coconut covered in human gore.

And––

Lying beside the broken corpse was a Colt Python 357 magnum. It must have fallen from Nicolas’ pocket.

Beth lifted the weapon, checked to see if it was loaded, and smiled. Given the chance she would shoot the man, of this she had no doubt. He deserved death. If anyone in the entire world deserved death, it was Nicolas. And although she never thought she would kill a man, not in this lifetime, for him she’d make an exception. She wasn’t sure if she believed in God or not, but if there was a God, he would understand. He would forgive.

After wiping away her tears, she continued on.

A few crab-things scurried along the edge of the road, less than twenty feet away from her, but none of them attacked. But she kept an eye on them, and she kept the gun ready.

A few minutes later she was nearing Daniel’s place. When she arrived she was surprised to find Daniel on the driveway, walking towards her. His eyes were busy checking nearby trees. He looked nervous and upset.

Beth’s strong features became laced in heartbreak. Her eyes, which looked swollen and tired, glistened with tears. Her bottom lip quivered momentarily, and with a deep breath she put a hand to her mouth.

Skirting the question, Beth looked over her shoulder to make sure there were no crab-critters around. “Where are you going right now?”

“Honestly, I haven’t been thinking. I just woke up and Patrick… ” Daniel trailed off, trying to find the right combination of words. Somehow saying that ‘Pat was inside a cocoon’ sounded absolutely insane, and he didn’t even want to admit the things that were happening. It was all too much.

Beth said, “Who’s Patrick?”

“What, you didn’t meet him?” A slight pause. “No, I suppose you didn’t. Pat’s just a kid, but he’s also a good friend of mine. His parents have a cottage next door, and he was in that bomb shelter when Cameron and I escaped.”

A van was racing towards them––a white van.

“Oh thank God,” Daniel said. He raised his arms, waving the vehicle down.

Beth’s face became fortified with concern. The van was traveling too fast, and she couldn’t help thinking that she had seen that van before.

The van swerved towards him as he was stumbling. He didn’t have his balance. And the van was close, too close; it was going to hit him. If he didn’t do something quick he was going to get run down!

His mouth opened and his eyes widened.

He whispered something inaudible.

At the far side of the road Beth turned around. The van, she could easily see, was not going to hit her. It wasn’t trying to hit her––it was aimed at Dan. And oh sweet, sweet, mercy, it looked like it was going to hit him dead on.

Dan fell back. His body was sucked beneath the front bumper. The back of his head slammed against the road and his left knee got caught on something beneath the vehicle. Perhaps it was the muffler. His body snapped in the middle and rolled into a ball. Arms and legs went spinning. A loud, terrible CRUNCH sound was heard. The van bounced up and down and when it was finally finished driving over its victim Dan appeared to have no head. It seemed to be missing, but it wasn’t. His head was packed into his chest.

Beth screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!”

It didn’t matter; what was done was done. Daniel had been crushed into something that looked like 180 pounds of raw, pulverized, blood pudding. Broken bones stuck out from all angles. His fingers were twitching. A pool of red liquid was rapidly expanding across the road.

Beth looked away from Dan and clamped her teeth together.

The van was driving away.

“FUCK YOU!” she screamed, pointing the gun towards the van. Her voice sounded so upset her own mother wouldn’t have recognized it. Her hands were trembling. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!”

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

And Cameron––buried deep in the earth––opened her eyes.

“No,” she whispered. But there was nothing she could do; she was trapped in her tomb until darkness fell, and by then the town would be lost.

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

∞Θ∞

 

 

~~~~ CHAPTER NINE: EPILOGUE

 

June 3^rd

Cloven Rock––

A series of explosions in the little town of Cloven Rock has caused a massive fire, forcing thousands to evacuate while creating a growing concern across the country. Hundreds are feared dead, as over one thousand people remain unaccounted for. The cause of the explosions is yet to be determined and officials are now speculating that foul play may be at hand. City workers have been called in from four separate states, and while over two hundred firefighters and firefighter volunteers are working around the clock to contain the blaze, many believe that things are going to get worse before they get any better.

Geoff Walter, a witness to what he believes was the first of over eighty-five explosions in the town best known for its annual country music summer fair, is quoted as saying, “I was in my car when that first one happened, and I couldn’t believe the size of it. Damn thing was thirty stories if it was a foot. One minute everything was fine and the next, BOOM. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Cloven Rock, with its population of 1,690, has been all but wiped off the map, and not since the fires of…

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

June 3^rd

Cloven Rock––

A grisly discovery has been made in a gas station on the outskirts of Cloven Rock. Paul LaFalce, 19, was found mutilated in his workplace. Other than saying that the young man is still alive, officials are giving little in the way of information on this one. They are quick to point out, however, that at this time there they have found nothing to suggest that there is a connection between Mr. LaFalce’s condition and the massive fire that continues to rage only a few short miles away.

Schoolteacher James Monogyny, the first person to arrive at the scene, said that…

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

June 4^th

Cloven Rock––

Fires continue to spread as thousands are forced to evacuate their homes in what is quickly becoming one of the worst fires in North American history. Maplebrook was the first of nine towns to receive its evacuation notice. The town’s police chief Fabian Levin was quoted as saying, “It’s not surprising that the people in the neighboring towns are stepping away from the disaster. At this point, the cause of the explosions has yet to be determined, and although the fires will likely not spread much further, the amount of smoke that the fires are causing is nothing short of troublesome.”

So far there have been thirty-four confirmed deaths in relation to the blaze, including local billionaire Peter Holbrook’s wife Penny Holbrook, mother of two. Peter Holbrook is one of over six hundred people still considered missing. The number of deaths caused by this tragedy is expected to rise.

Rumors continue to mount, and questions remain unanswered in regards to what originally ignited the inferno. Chemist Morris Penniman, great grandson of Russell S. Penniman, who invented ammonium dynamite in 1885, has gone on record as saying, “Whether or not these explosion is an act of terrorism is yet to be determined, although it is now safe to say that nitrating glycerol has been used in at least some of the blasts.”

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

June 6^th

Cloven Rock––

Five people have been reported as missing since the search for survivors began three days ago in the now infamous Cloven Rock. Tempers among the locals are rising, and speculation continues to mount, forcing government officials to reevaluate their policies concerning…

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

July 14^th

World news––

It’s been six weeks since an abundance of explosions in the little town of Cloven Rock caused an estimated 845 million dollars worth of damages, killing 834 residents, injuring 44 more, and leaving 407 people unaccounted for––and now the infamous Cloven Rock is in the news again. It seems that the remains of unknown species has been found among the wreckage. Scientists are calling this newly discovered mammal the Clade Thoracotremata Chelicerata; also labeled the Buccal Crab.

The hard-shelled, multi-legged carcass, weighing in at seventeen pounds, three ounces, is being described as a cross between a giant spider and a crab. It has several extremely unique attributes, the most amazing feature, most scientists agree…

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

JAMES ROY DALEY ~ The Dead Parade, James Roy Daley’s first novel, was released in a trade paperback edition in 2008 by Permuted Press/Swarm Press, and once again by Bad Moon Books in a limited edition hardcover edition in 2010. Best New Zombie Tales Volume One is Daley’s first anthology. Other books include Terror Town, Best New Zombie Tales Volume Two, Best New Vampire Tales Volume One, and Into Hell.

 

∞∞Θ∞∞

 

Preview of:

MATT HULTS - HUSK

 

STILLWATER, MINNESOTA

Five Years Ago…

 

Black.

The suspect had painted every inch of his house black.

Obscured by snowfall, it looked like nothing more than an apparition in the storm, but through the binoculars its sinister presence loomed as large and solid as a monolithic tombstone.

Homicide detective Frank Atkins lowered the binoculars and handed them to his squad partner as the remaining S.W.A.T. officers took up positions to their left and right.

“This is it,” Frank said. He unslung the HK sub-machinegun from his shoulder and flicked off the safety. “We’re going to need to move fast to cross that field without being spotted. This psycho is a slippery son of a bitch. We can’t give him the slightest opportunity to get past us.”

Martin DeAngelo peered into the binoculars. “You do your thing, Detective. We’ll do ours.”

“I mean it,” Frank replied. “I want this bastard taken down once and for all.”

The officer smirked. “Just because you’re qualified for this shit doesn’t make you my commander. Follow my lead and leave the noble quest for vengeance up to the prosecutors, okay?”

Frank looked to the house with the word on the forefront of his mind. Vengeance. That’s exactly what it came to. Vengeance for Christine Mitchell. For Katie Hart. For Sean Edwards. Vengeance for the adolescent boy they still couldn’t identify. Vengeance for all of them.

“Jesus,” DeAngelo commented, still gazing through the binoculars. “I can already hear the insanity plea.”

Frank racked the first round into the breach of his weapon. “If I find him first, he won’t be going to court.”

Maybe it was the hiss of contempt on Frank’s tongue, or the soft squeak of rubber as his hands wrung the handle grip of is weapon, but DeAngelo’s stare broke from the house and regarded him with a creased look of uncertainty.

The tactical team plunged out of their cover of evergreens and charged toward the farmhouse, plowing through snowdrifts to the war-drum beat of the twin air-units approaching fast from the south.

The black house loomed ahead. No lights, no sign of movement.

They’d closed within yards of the target when a cataclysmic blast of thunder exploded overhead, shaking the air with the concussive force of a bomb. Three serpents of lightning slithered earthward through the flurries, striking a canted weathervane atop the killer’s rooftop. Sparks showered in every direction.

Praying they hadn’t lost the element of surprise, he crouched behind DeAngelo, staying close when the man hefted his riot-shield and rushed up the front steps to the porch. Another officer, Sergeant Rice, heaved a battering ram against the front door, pulverizing it in a hail of splinters and paint chips.

“Police! Search warrant,” Rice shouted as a second officer tossed a stun grenade into the farmhouse’s foyer.

Inside, the decoy device exploded, sending out a mild concussion to disorient anyone in the immediate area. The tac team rushed through the smoke in a stacked, two-by-two formation, spurred on by Rice shouting, “Go, go, go, go!”

Frank followed in line behind DeAngelo, moving fast and low. He kept one hand on the S.W.A.T. officer’s shoulder and held his breath when they crossed over the threshold.

Smoke swirled in the air.

Combat boots hammered the floor.

Three groups of officers, all entering the house from separate locations at once, began calling off cleared areas of the home. Frank and his squad entered a brightly lit foyer flanked by open doorways. Ahead lay a staircase and a long hall that extended toward the back of the house.

Contrary to the exterior paintjob, the walls and floors inside the home appeared immaculately clean. The walls looked smooth and unblemished by age, dotted by dozens of pictures in decorative frames. Ornate woodwork made up the baseboards and trim. Hardwood floors gleamed, exuding the scent of fresh polish. 

From the hallway, Frank glanced into the living room on his right. He spotted a host of nick-knack covered end tables, chairs with white doilies draped over the armrests, and a plastic-sealed couch with an eye-sizzling floral print.

“That room’s clear,” DeAngelo said. “Stay with me, Detective.”

Frank’s hand had come away from the officer’s shoulder while he contemplated the dichotomy of their suspect’s strange dwelling, and he rushed to catch up. The forward half of their twelve man team raced up to the second level, leaving Frank and DeAngelo to lead the remaining squad members deeper into the house.

A third of the way down the hall, they came upon a half closed door yet to be checked.

“Basement,” DeAngelo said. He kicked the door open, and the stairwell beyond expelled a hot breath of putrescence. The stench of decay invaded Frank’s lungs, causing his chest to heave with a reflexive cough.

“Police,” he yelled. “We’re armed.”

He followed DeAngelo down the stairs, passing between mortar-caked stonework that brought to mind the crumbling tunnels of a subterranean tomb. A bare light bulb over the lower landing cast a fiery glow on the walls, and combined with the smell of death assaulting his nostrils, Frank imagined he’d not only trod into the domain of a killer but had descended into Hell itself.

Four steps from the bottom Kale Kane lunged into view. Their suspect sprung from an open doorway to the right of the landing, brandishing an automatic weapon that exploded to life in a blaze of fire and noise.

“Look out!” Frank cried, but it was already too late.

The first barrage of gunfire hit DeAngelo’s shield center-mass then trailed up the stairs toward the other officers behind them. Bullets cut a dusty trail of destruction along the walls and risers as stray shots whined off the house’s cave-like foundation.

Hot lead cut the sleeve of Frank’s uniform. More screamed past his helmet.

DeAngelo fired two rounds from his sidearm. It was all he had time for. Following the second shot, sparks leapt from the stone on his left and a ricochet tore ear-to-ear through his head. Blood and brains sprayed Frank in the face.

He fired a burst from the MP-5, but the shots went wild as DeAngelo’s body collapsed backward against him.

The other officers higher up the steps erupted into a fury of shouts and hollers, everyone struggling to flee the cramped stairwell and retreat toward safety. Return fire sputtered overhead, amplifying the chaos and adding to the cries of several men shrieking in pain.

Half-blinded by the rain of debris coming off the walls, Frank shoved DeAngelo’s corpse toward Kane with all of his might, slamming the killer back into the room he’d emerged from.

The gunfire ceased.

Frank charged after Kane before he could regain the advantage. He rounded the corner in time to see the madman slap a fresh clip into his weapon.

The killer’s eyes reflected the ugly orange light of the basement like twin flames set in the sockets of a half-rotten skull. They flashed with undeniable glee as he retracted his upper lip in genuine smile of delight.

“Fraaaaaaank!”

Frank shuddered at the sound of his name. It gusted from the killer’s mouth in an elongated breath of mixed wonder and jubilation.

“I said drop it!”

Kane’s smile only broadened. “You’re early, Detective Attkins. Not that it will do you any good. I’m finished.”

Frank’s heart thundered in his chest. Sweat slipped from under his Kevlar helmet and cut trails down his cheeks. Behind him, the stairwell rumbled and creaked as the SWAT team reassembled.

“Don’t come any closer!” Kane shouted to the officers without taking his eyes from Frank. “I’ve got your man Attkins. I’ll blow his head off!”

Frank’s grip tightened on his weapon. “How do you know my name?”

Kane’s laugher sounded like snakes slithering through dry grass. “I’ve been told all about you. Who you are. Where you live. I’ve stood over you while you’ve slept. You didn’t know that, did you? The veins in your neck have beat against my blade more than once, but each time I let you live. Do you know why? Because you pose no threat to me, Detective. No more than those dead men on the stairs.”

“There are fifty officers surrounding this place,” Frank growled. “You’ve got nowhere to go. Now drop the fucking weapon!”

Kane laughed again. “I’m counting on those fifty officers, Detective. Don’t you get it? You’re here because I want you here. This is where it starts!”

Frank’s trigger finger tensed when amber light suddenly flared to life on the other side of the room. For a split second his mind screamed BOMB! He flinched hard, but then recovered. Kane’s silhouette stood amid the blaze in stark relief. He could’ve cut Frank in half.

“You see?” Kane said within the light. “It’s begun.”

Frank squinted, trying to keep Kane in his sights.

Over the madman’s shoulder the blinding amber light seeped through the frame of a closed door set into the far wall, casting blazing slivers across the room that illuminated the basement. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the light vanished. Kane’s spittle-slick grin snapped back into focus.

“The bible got it wrong,” the killer said in an oily whisper. “The meek won’t inherit the Earth, Frank. They’ll take it BACK.”

And with that, the smiling devil pulled the trigger of his weapon.

Each round punched into Frank’s chest with the ruthless power of a sledgehammer, their lethal progress stopped short of entering his flesh by his vest’s protective plating. Pain sunk its teeth into his nerves. Somehow he held the MP-5 steady, gripping it in both hands. He fired back even as he fell, his shots opening a dozen dark holes in the killer’s gaunt torso. Red geysers sprayed from exit wounds in the madman’s back. Unbelievably, Kane continued to grin, firing his gun empty as Frank’s 9mm rounds sliced through him.

The remaining officers poured down the steps and flooded into the basement, filling the room with the explosive roar of additional gunfire. Muzzle flashes lit up the room, creating a crowd of black shadows that danced on the walls like a cheering crowd of demonic spectators.

Frank caught a momentary glimpse of Kale Kane’s blood-splattered face staring back at him from the ground, eyes open. Then fellow officers crowded into the area, blocking the view.

Two of the men helped Frank to his feet. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’ll live.”

He pushed away and edged through the crowd until he stood over Kane’s corpse. The killer lay in an ocean of blood, one cheek peeled aside by a bullet to reveal those shiny white teeth, as if he was still smiling.

Frank sagged, catching his breath.

Across the room wood shrieked against a strike plate. When Frank looked, he saw one of the tactical officers trying to yank open a door built into the opposite wall. It pulled free on the third try, and the officers that closed in to clear the room beyond immediately choked and recoiled.

“Holy shit,” one of them cried.

Another doubled over and puked.

Frank hurried forward. He pushed through the crowd, wincing in pain, but came to a halt when he beheld the unimaginable sight that waited in the dirt-walled room ahead. He stared in dreamlike detachment, his mind straining to make sense of the madness displayed before him.

“My God,” he whispered.

And just when he thought his overstressed nerves had been pushed to their limit, one of the medics who’d bent over Kane’s body ended the shock-induced stillness with a scream.

“He’s still alive!”

 

 

CHAPTER 1

Five Years Later …

 

Jerry Anderson’s eyes snapped opened to see the last flicker of pale blue lightning depart from his bedroom walls, pursued into the night by darkness.

He bolted upright and surveyed the shadowy bedroom with widened eyes, searching his surroundings for the source of what had roused him. By the weakness of the lightning’s pursuing thunderclap, he knew it hadn’t been the storm.

Something moved in the darkness, and Jerry wheeled around to face it.

Outside, the wind gusted against the house and through the nearby treetops, its morose tone overlaid by the sound of rainwater dripping from the gutter. Inside, black shadows swayed on the walls and floor, but he saw nothing to justify his fear.

Her startled expression cleared, replaced by a look of stark terror. Even in the wan light of the bedside clock the color drained from her face. “No,” she groaned. “It’s been three days. Kern said three days and we’d be safe.”

“Kern’s a fool,” Jerry said. “We were idiots for listening to him.”

Her eyes flicked from his to the door, then back. Lightning flashed outside, and a peal of thunder trembled through the air. They listened to the silence that followed, straining to hear into the deeper reaches of the house.

“You’re certain it wasn’t just another nightmare?” she asked. “We’ve been through this before. You know how real they can be.”

Jerry shook his head. “We should’ve left when we had the chance.”

Turning away, he extracted a .44 revolver from the nightstand, keeping his gaze trained on the bedroom door. When he looked back to his wife, she’d already retrieved the Remington pump-action shotgun from under her side of the bed, just like they’d practiced.

“Stay here,” he said.

He eased out of bed and walked toward the hallway, holding the gun ready. He forced himself to keep his finger on the trigger guard rather than the trigger itself, afraid his shaking hands might fire the gun prematurely.

Clearing the doorway, he crept down the hall to where the stairs overlooked the foyer. Below, the reassuring red light of the front door’s new security panel glowed in the darkness: Property Secured.

He exhaled his fear in one great breath. If anyone lurked down there, the motion sensors would’ve detected them the moment they entered the room.

I’m a prisoner inside my home. And now even home no longer feels safe.

But maybe it was over; maybe Kern was right?

Lightning flashed outside. It lit the huge window in the adjoining living room and displaced the darkness, illuminating a collage of muddy footprints splattered across the carpet.

His skin went cold, and he whirled around, tracing the footprints back to the bedroom door, where they faded to nothing more than outlines on the carpet.

Margaret screamed.

“Not her,” Jerry cried.

Bounding faster, he came through the door to find the source of his dread looming at the bedside, silhouetted against the far window. Margaret thrashed on the mattress, battling to free herself from a cocoon of bed sheets wrapped tight around her head and held fast by the attacker’s hand behind her back. Her muffled cries came to him like the screams of a drowning swimmer.

The intruder stood silent, unmoving. Resisting Margaret’s violent struggle elicited no signs of strain whatsoever.

“Get away from her,” Jerry yelled. He thrust the gun forward. “You’re not welcome here. Leave us alone! Go the hell away and don’t ever come back.”

Despite the strength of his words, a cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

“Need you,” the trespasser replied.

“No,” Jerry cried. “Find someone else to torment. I’m not going to help you. I can’t do what you want.”

Another flash of light played across the sky, and Jerry gasped at what it revealed: his old flannel shirt; Margaret’s faded blue jeans with the patches on the knees. The intruder had taken the clothes off the scarecrow from their garden and now filled the mud-covered garments to the point of nearly bursting the seams. Jerry trembled at the nightmarish sight, mumbling “please” over and over again in a child-like whimper. His eyes searched the dirty burlap sack that made up the thing’s head for the slightest sign of mercy, but no details had ever been added to the simulated head to create a face. The only response to his pleas came in the form of a blank, expressionless stare.

“You’re not supposed to be able to come here anymore,” Jerry shrieked.

With tears slipping from his eyes, he sighted the weapon on the center of the wadded bed sheets and blew two bloody holes through his wife’s shrouded head.

Then, acting before the maniac scarecrow could stop him, he rammed the hot barrel under his chin and fired again.

 

 

End of Preview...

 

∞Θ∞

 

Preview of:

JAMES ROY DALEY - INTO HELL

1

 

Carrie Paige’s favorite duffle bag in the whole wide world had a picture of Kermit the Frog on both sides. The bag was black and cute and it said IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN on the strap and Carrie thought it was the greatest thing she had ever seen. She brought her bag into the backyard with her when she was playing with her dolls, and she was planning on showing it off on her first day of school, which was eleven days away. She was excited. Big kids go to school, her mother often told her. Big kids go to school and little kids stay home. Eleven more sleeps and it would be official; she would be a big kid. She was so excited she could hardly think.

Carrie reached into her Kermit bag and shuffled through her important possessions. This included a flower made of construction paper, playing cards, multicolored rocks, a bag of marbles, a handful of crayons and a plastic horse with a squished head.

The playing cards were always in her Kermit bag. If they were out of the bag she had them spread around so she could see every card at once. They were very special to her. She cherished each and every one of them and as a result the cards looked like hell.

Her favorite boy card was the one that said READY FREDDIE.

Ready Freddie looked so adorable sitting at the kitchen table with a knife in one hand and a fork in the other that sometimes she kissed the card. Freddie had yellow socks, a green bandana, and his tongue was sticking up from his pencil-line lips suggesting that he couldn’t wait another minute to eat.

Her favorite girl card was FANCY NANCY.

Fancy Nancy sat on a pink-and-white striped chair. She had a hat on her head and a mirror in her hand and a purse that looked like a teakettle. Carrie imagined Ready Freddie and Fancy Nancy getting married someday and having babies that looked just like them.

Other cards she loved included Jolly Jean, Corny Carl, Lady Luisa, Skinny Minnie, Jumping Jack, Scary Harry and Slim Jim. Then there was the OLD MAID. Nobody liked the Old Maid. And because nobody liked her, Carrie decided she liked the Old Maid just fine. It was only fair. And her mother always said if you can’t play fair, you shouldn’t play at all.

Carrie pulled a photo album from her bag and put the bag at her feet.

The album had a picture of three Care Bears on the cover: Love-A-Lot Bear, Tenderheart Bear and Bedtime Bear. Care Bears were okay, but they weren’t half as good as Kermit and were nothing next to SpongeBob.

SpongeBob SquarePants and his best friend Patrick were amazing. If she were a resident of Bikini Bottom she would eat at The Krusty Krab every day, just to play Old Maid with the pair of them.

She opened the photo album, which held one picture per page. She flipped through the pages slowly; then she lifted her Coke can from the cup holder and sucked a mouthful through a straw like she was in a drinking race.

After she put the can back in the holder she said, “I hafta go the bathroom.”

Stephenie was thirty years old and looked a whole lot like her daughter. Not so much now, but when she was Carrie’s age the resemblance was spooky. Back then she was cute. Today she was beautiful. She had subtle features, a slim nose and lips that were neither thin nor full. On a day like today she fixed her hair and Carrie’s hair the same way: in adorable little pigtails. The twosome looked so delightful it made you want to barf.

Stephenie said, “What’s that? You need the bathroom?”

“Yeah.”

Stephenie slid a hand along the steering wheel, looked at the gas gauge and said, “Okay. I need to stop anyhow. I’m almost out of gas.” She stuck her tongue out and made a silly face and for a moment, Carrie thought her mother looked like Ready Freddie.

Carrie said, “Really?”

“Yep. The gas gauge is telling me it’s time for a fill up.”

“Are we going to run out of gas? Madeleine Nyssa said that her daddy ran out of gas when they were going to their grandpa’s house and they had to call a doctor to get some help.”

Stephenie pinched her smile and tried not to laugh. Sometimes it was impossible not to laugh. Carrie was constantly saying things in ways only a child would consider appropriate. “Madeleine Nyssa told you that, did she?”

Carrie grabbed her Coke and put the straw to her lips and enjoyed another drink. She put the can down and said, “Yes. I have to go really bad. It might come out in my pants a little.”

“Well don’t do that. If you need to pee I’ll stop the car and you can pee at the side of the road. Do you want me to pull over so you can go?”

“No. I can hold it inside my tummy ‘til we find a bathroom.”

Stephenie put pressure on the gas petal and the car moved a little faster. The highway was pretty much empty so she could drive as fast as she wanted. She didn’t need a speeding ticket though, so if worst came to worst she would pull over and Carrie could relieve herself at the side of the road whether she thought it was a good idea or not.

Carrie eyed the can suspiciously. “Okay, I won’t have any more until after I go.” She grinned, showing the big hole where a tooth had once been.

Carrie loved her mommy more than Kermit, the Care Bears and SpongeBob together. And after watching Stephenie nod her head, she decided to nod her head too.

 

 

2

 

Ten minutes passed.

Stephenie turned on the radio and flipped through the stations. She found a song that wasn’t too annoying, might have been Radiohead. She turned it low and let it play. Resting an elbow on the open window she looked at the gas gauge again.

She was almost out of gas.

She didn’t tell Carrie this information, but she was worried about how much gas was in the tank and how far it would take them. Being stranded at the side of the road was quickly becoming more realistic and today wasn’t a great day for that type of adventure. It was hot outside. The late August sun wasn’t fighting its way through many clouds and the wind factor was nonexistent. Then again, it was nearly 7:30 pm. The heat was sure to ease soon.

Carrie flipped through the pages of her photo album.

Looking at a photo of her daddy, her face saddened. It had been five months since daddy had gone to heaven and she was finally beginning to accept the fact he wasn’t coming back. It wasn’t fair. Madeleine Nyssa’s daddy didn’t have to go to heaven. In fact, none of the kids she played with had daddies that had to go away forever.

She wanted her daddy to come home. Sometimes she asked God to send daddy home and she promised to keep it a secret and not tell anybody. Sometimes she asked God if daddy could drop by for a visit because she missed him, and because she wanted to show him the tooth that fell from her mouth after she wiggled it with her tongue. God didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure if she liked God. She knew she was supposed to love him and figured that loving him was okay, but she didn’t know if she liked him. God didn’t play fair. He never responded to her questions, he never dropped by to say hello, and he was keeping her daddy all to himself. Mommy said people that don’t like sharing are spoiled brats. Sometimes she thought God was a spoiled brat but she never said anything because she didn’t want to say any swears.

“We’ll be okay babe. We’ll get through this. Every day things get a little easier so don’t worry. It’s okay to miss him but try not to worry.”

“Are you going to get us a new daddy?”

Stephenie took a moment to find the right combination of words. “I don’t know what to tell you babe. Right now I’m not looking for a new daddy but I don’t want to say there won’t ever be one. Do you want me to find a new daddy?”

“No. I want the old one back.”

“Carrie, you know––”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Daddy is on an elevator for heaven and he can’t come back to visit us ever, even if God says it’s alright. You don’t hafta tell me. I know he’s not coming home. God won’t let him.”

Stephenie didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t a new conversation; they had talked about Hal’s death a hundred times or more.

Hal had a terrible accident while he was at work and now he was dead and life goes on, even though it’s hard. And it was hard. The past five months had been hard for so many reasons. Hal’s death was the big reason, of course. But the fact Stephenie had been in-and-out of therapy and prescribed a handful of drugs wasn’t helping anything. She was irritable and irregular and her nightmares had her waking up in tears. The doctors (all four of them) were telling Stephenie that when they found a suitable combination of drugs and dosages, sleep would be easier and her body would function more regularly. Until that time she had to be strong, pay close attention to her body and let them know what was happening.

Stephenie figured the trip would be good for both of them. Visiting mom and dad was something she didn’t do often enough. And besides, a six and a half hour drive wasn’t that far. It was doable. And it was time.

Hanging from the rearview mirror was a small portrait of Jesus Christ.

Stephenie’s mother had given it to her at Hal’s funeral. She hung the portrait around the mirror for no real reason, aside from the fact that her mother would notice it and appreciate it being there. Oddly enough, she liked it there too. She wasn’t a Catholic or a Christian, but she found comfort in the image. Jesus had eyes that were kind and sad and without a trace of anger. And if the stories were true he had a reason to be angry, beyond angry. If the stories were just stories, well then, she supposed there was something worth thinking about inside the message.

Stephenie was emotionally charged, strung out on meds, and had a reoccurring nightmare where her husband fell eighteen stories and landed on a sign that said DANGER - MEN WORKING. Sometimes Hal screamed as he fell and sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he said things as he dropped. Things like, I told you I didn’t want to go to work today. I told you I wasn’t feeling well, right babe? Why did you push me into going to work today Stephenie? Why didn’t you let me stay home? I knew I wasn’t feeling well and you said I was being a lazy baby. You said I was making excuses and now I’m dead. Is that what you wanted Stephenie? Is that what you wanted, babe? Who’s going to take care of Carrie now, huh? Who’s going to bring home the bacon? Not you Stephenie. You’re falling apart. You’re falling apart and I’m just falling. And when I hit the ground I won’t make a simple little splat on the sidewalk, I’ll come down on the fence and my body will be severed in half. It will be a closed casket funeral and while you’re standing above my remains it will occur to you that I could have been placed in two separate boxes. Whose fault do you think that is, huh babe? Do you have an answer for me? Huh? Do you or not? Do you know what I think? I think it’s your fault I was chopped in half at the waist Stephenie. I think it’s ALL YOUR FAULT.

Stephenie focused on the road, knowing she could have driven the car straight into a river without knowing it. She said, “I’m okay babe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Carrie put her hand on the Coke can then pulled it away as if her fingers had been burned. She squeezed her legs together and snuck a hand in-between them.

She said, “Okay mom. Just checking.”

“I love you babe. Don’t worry about me. Things are going to be all right. You just watch.”

Up ahead was something; Stephenie wasn’t sure what the something was but it looked promising. Less than twenty seconds later everything came into view. There was a gas station with a restaurant attached to it. Carrie could go to the bathroom and she’d be able to fill up the tank. Everything was going to work out just fine.

“Look babe,” Stephenie said. “A place to go to the bathroom.”

Carrie looked honestly relieved. “That’s good,” she said. “I thought I might go pee-pee in my pants even though I said I wouldn’t.”

 

 

3

 

Stephenie pulled off the highway and onto the establishment’s asphalted driveway. A large neon sign said KING’S DINER. It looked seventy years old or more. She pulled her car next to a pair of gas pumps that looked as old as the sign, if not older. Above each pump a weather-faded notice read: WE SERVE.

Carrie opened her door with a grunt, jumped out of the car and tossed her photo-album on the seat. The pavement felt hard beneath her feet. The book bounced and fell open to a random page. The page had a photo of Carrie sitting on a swing with Stephenie standing behind her.

“Wait a minute babe,” Stephenie said, reaching for her ignition keys. She thought she heard the words, Okay, mom. But then she watched Carrie shaking her head in total disagreement.

“I can’t,” Carrie shouted. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom super-duper or I’m going to make an uh-oh in my pants!”

Carrie hustled towards the restaurant like she was in a hurry, leaving the car door wide open. She squeezed her knees together and struggled with the restaurant door, which seemed to weigh a thousand pounds or more. She pulled on the handle with all her might; in the end she managed to wiggle herself inside. Just.

Stephenie turned the car off, unlatched her seatbelt and felt it slide across her waist. She unlocked her door, swung the door open and stepped outside, leaving her keys dangling in the ignition. The sun had begun to set but the temperature was still hot. It was muggy out; the air felt thicker than most days.

Her eyes scanned the parking lot for an attendant. Didn’t see one.

Across the road a single bungalow sat before the backdrop of undeveloped land like it had been misplaced. It had dark windows and was made of brick. It had a long driveway on the right hand side. There was no garage, few trees. Thick green grass was growing long. There was no sidewalk in front of the building, no curb either. The grass just shrank away, diminishing into rocks, pebbles and sand until it came to the clearly defined edge of the highway, which was old but in good condition, faded but not overly weathered.

She dismissed the house and all the details that defined it. She walked towards the gas pump and looked over each shoulder, once again trying to locate the man in charge. She didn’t see him. There was a greased-out gas-shack attached to the restaurant. Maybe he was there? Or perhaps he was picking his ass inside the restaurant, ordering coffee and making time with the waitress. That seemed about right. For a moment she wondered if the attendant might actually be a woman, but for reasons unknown the idea didn’t seemed to fit. So assuming the attendant was a man, where the hell was he?

The attendant’s hiding place was unknown, a lackluster mystery.

Didn’t really matter, she supposed. She knew how to pump gas and if the attendant didn’t like it he could suck on a lemon and piss up a rope.

After she unscrewed her car’s gas cap, she lifted the nozzle and switched the pump on by lifting an ancient looking metal lever. She stuck the nozzle into her tank and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. She opened her fingers, waited a moment and squeezed the trigger again. Still nothing.

“Huh,” she said, with an eyebrow lifted and her tongue peeking out between her teeth.

Stephenie flicked the gas-pump switch on and off a number of times and squeezed the trigger a number of times and still nothing worked. She returned the nozzle to its place and walked around in a circle.

It was a hot day. Nice, but hot.

She waited ten seconds that seemed like ten hours and walked towards the restaurant feeling like a failure.

Between the entrance to the gas station and the restaurant’s main door was a patio swing made of wood. The swing could hold three people, two comfortably. Sitting on the swing was a thin girl with dark hair. Her name was Christina Split; she wore an attractive brown dress covered in white polka dots. The dress looked retro. She looked about eighteen. Stephenie noticed her earlier but ignored her because she was clearly not the person in charge.

Christina––who had been quite literally, twiddling her thumbs––lifted a hand from her lap and waved, offering a sad little smile.

Stephenie waved back. She considered saying ‘hi’ but didn’t. Instead she pulled the restaurant door open and stepped inside while nodding her head and making a face that felt comfortable to wear but might have been humorous to see. Bells rang. Not the electric kind, but the old-fashioned, ‘bells hanging above the door’ kind that made every day seem like Christmas. Carrie didn’t open the door with enough gusto to make them cry out, but Stephenie had. Then the ringing faded and the door closed behind her. Stephenie’s eyes popped open. Her heart started pounding, her breathing became labored and she thought she might be sick.

The restaurant was a slaughterhouse.

The customers and staff were splattered everywhere. They were slumped over in the booths and in pieces on the floor. Body parts were on the tables and chairs. The walls were soaked with blood. The carnage was nearly immeasurable.

Stephenie stumbled; her mouth became dry.

Spinning, the world was spinning.

She put her hands on her knees and felt her stomach heave. Somehow she held it in. She wasn’t sick on the floor but she wanted to be. Not that being sick would fix anything. It wouldn’t. And her view wasn’t better now that she was crouched over like an umpire at a ball game; it was worse.

She was looking at a corpse.

The corpse wore a yellow waitress uniform that consisted of a loose button shirt, glossy black shoes and a miniskirt. The dead woman was twenty-five years old, give or take a year. Her nametag said SUSAN; her head was twisted awkwardly towards the door. Her skull had been cracked apart like an egg.

Stephenie could see the woman’s brain just as clearly as she could count the bone fragments lying on top of it. And still, she held her nausea at bay. She held it because she didn’t want to vomit on the girl. She didn’t dare move, fearing her stomach would revolt against such action, leading her into a bought of illness that would last fifteen minutes or more.

She closed her eyes and squeezed them tight.

When she opened them nothing had changed. She was getting a real close look at this waitress named Susan, whose eyes were wide open, shockingly open, dreadfully open. Her face held an expression of terror so absolute she seemed to have died of fright before the killing blow had been able to claim her.

In time, Stephenie lifted herself to an upright position.

There was a puddle of blood around Susan’s head and tiny footprints were in it. Tiny footprints. Carrie’s footprints.

“Where’s Carrie?” she whispered.

Then she closed her eyes, telling herself she was trapped inside a dream, a terrible dream––a nightmare in fact. More than anything else, that’s what she wanted to believe. Otherwise she’d need to face the fact that she was standing in a horrific bloodbath and her five-year-old daughter was suddenly gone.

 

 

4

 

The scene was tranquil. Everything was calm. The customers were eating and socializing, the staff was working and everyone was happy. There was no blood on the walls, no bodies slumped over in the booths, no body parts lying amputated on the floor. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing disturbing. Nothing to suggest there was a problem big enough to have people shaking their heads in disbelief. It was a diner, just a simple diner with no strings attached. It had stools with red seat covers, which were bolted to the floor in front of the counter. It had booths with divisional walls that were a little more than waist high, giving privacy but not too much privacy. It had cheap paintings on the walls between the dark windows. Florescent lights buzzed in the ceiling and ceiling fans spun below. It was the type of place that gets labeled a greasy spoon and often times deserves the label. It smelled like coffee, toast and bacon. The smell alone was enough to get your stomach rumbling and your waistline expanding.

Stephenie felt a tug on her finger. She heard a voice. It was a child’s voice, her daughter’s voice.

The voice said, “Mom?”

Sitting inside a booth in the center of the diner was a woman named Angela Mezzo. She was a beautiful Italian lady with dark hair and an exotic appearance. Her lips were full and her cheekbones were high. She was roughly the same age as Stephenie, twenty-nine, maybe thirty. But unlike Stephenie her youthful exterior was no longer present. Not in a bad way, in a good way. She had womanly features that weren’t restricted to the curves of her body, but on her face too. In contrast, Stephenie’s appearance suggested that she might carry her inner-girl around with her until the day she died.

Angela lifted a coffee mug from the table with delicate, manicured hands. She swallowed a sip of coffee without making a sound.

The mug had a yellow happy face painted on the side. It was the same yellow happy face that had been produced and reproduced a hundred million times and can be found on cups and glasses in dollar stores around the world.

Stephenie felt another tug on her finger. She heard the voice again: “Mom?”

Angela sat the mug on the table in front of her. She started to grin, but the grin sat on her face wrong somehow, like it didn’t belong there, like it belonged somewhere else.

The smile was lifted from her late husband Hal. It was the same smile he made in her dreams, in her nightmares. Not when he was falling, but the moment before he hit the sign that said DANGER and his body was severed at the waist. But why was Hal’s smile on Angela’s face? It had to be a coincidence.

Angela began changing. Her eyes turned blacker than oil and her mouth crept open like a squeaky door in a haunted house. Her head tilted, hair swooped in front of her face and her skin became pale. For a moment Stephenie thought she might crumble into dust.

Then came a third tug on her finger.

The tug seemed more urgent this time, but still, it was gentle. A child’s hand was wrapped around her finger and Stephenie knew it was Carrie’s hand, which was good news indeed because if Carrie was pulling her finger Stephenie knew exactly where the girl was hiding and there would be nothing more to worry about, nothing at all. Nothing except the cold hard fact that a room full of strangers was chopped into a million pieces and somebody was responsible. Strangers don’t kill themselves when they step out for a bite to eat––no way, no chance, no how.

But the room wasn’t filled with dead people. The room was just the way you’d expect it to be: the staff were bustling about and the customers were enjoying their meals.

Except for Angela Mezzo.

Angela was sitting at the table with her happy face mug in front. Her eyes were black and her mouth hung open like someone had snagged it with a hook on a string and given the string a good yank.

Now she was about to say something.

Stephenie didn’t want to hear it, not a single word. Once Angela started talking everything would be so bad she’d want to scream.

She felt another tug on her finger. Then the hand slipped away and that was the end of it. The finger tugging was over. If Carrie had been there she was gone now. She was gone to wherever she may be.

Stephenie was alone. Alone in the room with the cheerful people that didn’t notice Angela’s eyes had turned black and the color was draining from her skin. She was alone in the room with a ghoul that was opening her mouth so horrifically wide that a rat could crawl from her throat with room to spare.

Now Angela did speak. She did. And when she spoke it wasn’t a woman’s voice Stephenie heard. It was a child’s voice. It was Carrie’s voice. Carrie’s voice was creeping free of that cavernous void that needed to be shut.

The voice said, “Mom?”

And Stephenie opened her eyes.

 

 

5

 

Angela Mezzo was indeed dead. Her lifeless body was lying awkwardly across the table. Her fingers were wrapped around the coffee mug like she was about to take a drink. The yellow happy face on the mug smiled in spite of the carnage around it.

Stephenie lifted her stare from Angela, but everywhere she looked there was a new horror waiting to be seen. The restaurant was a killing box, simple as that. It was a killing box that had been exhaustively used.

She said, “Carrie?” Her voice sounded weak and shrouded in terror. “Where are you?”

She stepped forward. Her foot brushed against Susan’s corpse. A spike of fear and panic gripped her with such strength she thought she’d faint. She turned quickly and reached for the door. Her foot slipped in the blood, not enough to knock her off balance; just enough to let her know what she was standing in. The walls seemed nearer; the ceiling seemed lower.

She pushed on the glass. The door opened, the bells sang and out she went.

She was outside.

Yes. Outside. Outside was good. The clean air and the open sky eased the claustrophobic feeling that had clutched her so tightly a moment before. She put both hands on her knees and breathed hard, like she had gone running. Her throat felt dry now, the sweat on her neck gave her a little chill.

This was bad, so very bad.

She stood up army straight and looked over her right shoulder. The swing was empty. Christina was gone. She looked over her left shoulder. Nothing.

The reality of the moment came rushing in, hitting her with enough power to knock her right out of her shoes.

Where is Carrie? Where’s my daughter?

At first she didn’t know what to do, what to think. The car was empty. The parking lot was empty. So what did that leave?

It left the restaurant; that’s what it left. It left that fucking slaughterhouse, the gore-zone, the abattoir. And she didn’t want to go in there. She didn’t even want to think about going in there.

Stephenie stumbled away from the restaurant like she had one too many at the local pub, more anxious now than anything else. She said, “Carrie? Carrie where are you?”

Carrie was in the restaurant. She had to be. There was nowhere else to hide unless she, she––what? Wandered onto the highway? Sprouted wings and flew away? Disappeared into black-hole void like a spacecraft from a science fiction story?

She was inside. Goddamn it, she had to be inside somewhere.

Maybe she’s dead.

Stephenie spun around quickly, holding a hand at her chest.

Don’t think this way, she thought. Don’t think she’s dead, not even for a minute. My daughter isn’t dead, just misplaced. Whoever’s responsible for this mess is long gone, which means there’s no danger here. None. So don’t start thinking Carrie is in trouble; it’ll only make matters worse.

She eyed the door.

The door looked the way you’d expect an old restaurant door to look: big and grimy with a large glass window. The bottom half had little splotches of dirt and mud clinging to the chipped paint. The glass was tinted dark and nearly impossible to see through. Behind the glass, a thin, dirty curtain hung from a cheap gold colored rod. The curtain needed to be cleaned. The rod needed to have its screws tightened, otherwise it would likely fall from the door before the season’s end.

Stephenie stepped towards the building and wrapped her fingers around the door handle. The handle felt like trucker sweat and french-fry grease. She tightened her grip; then taking a deep, stabilizing breath, she pulled the door open. Bells rang. The carnage became visible before she even stepped inside.

“Carrie?” She whispered.

The door closed behind her. The room was awful; it was also very quiet. But there was something, a sound of some kind. She wasn’t sure what the sound was but it was there, no louder than the buzz of an electric heater. It didn’t sound like a heater though. She didn’t know what it sounded like. Scratching? Was that it? Did it sound like something scratching the wall?

“Carrie? Are you here? Hello? Anybody? Is anybody… alive?”

No response.

Stephenie’s eyes found Angela again, but she didn’t want to look at the woman because Angela did one thing very, very well: she made Stephenie nervous––beyond nervous, actually. She made Stephenie feel like she was ready to die of anxiety. So she looked away, looked towards a dead body that was slumped against the counter, because that was better. Sure it was.

The corpse had a name: Craig Smyth. He was twenty-one, dressed in a nice white shirt. His hands were on his chest. His legs were curled towards his body, suggesting that he recoiled from something terrible in his last moment of life. There was a large wound near Craig’s heart; it separated his ribs and caused a giant puddle on the floor around him. His white shirt was drenched in red.

Stephenie turned away. She said, “Carrie? Are you––”

A wet hand slapped the floor, shocking the silence of the room. Stephenie flinched. Her words got caught in her throat as her head snapped towards the corpse once again. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see but she felt like screaming.

Craig’s arm had shifted; his hand had fallen from his chest. Now it was lying on the floor, surrounded in blood.

“Don’t freak out,” she whispered, allowing a little moan to escape. But Stephenie knew she might freak out. Oh yes. Freaking out was right around the bend and becoming more appealing all the time.

She heard the sound again: scratch, scratch.

It came from behind the counter. Yes, she was sure of it now.

She moved past Craig, trying not to look at him. And as she rounded the counter’s corner she noticed the countertop had a big hack mark in it, like someone had slammed an axe into it. There was blood around this spot, but that wasn’t really surprising; there was blood everywhere. She moved ahead. Another corpse came into view. It sat on the floor near the stove, leaning against a cupboard door that was missing a hinge. It was another waitress: Jennifer Boyle. The young woman’s open eyes stared at nothing. Her legs were spread wide, creating a V, exposing her skimpy pink underwear, exposing her flesh. Her left arm had been severed near the elbow. Now it sat in a dark red puddle at her side that was easily a quarter of an inch thick. The open hand faced the ceiling like an overturned spider. Blood dribbled from her stump.

Stephenie looked at Jennifer; she looked at the severed arm. She was about to turn away when she heard that sound again: scratch, scratch. It sounded like, like… like what, a rat dragging its claws against a door? Maybe. She didn’t know. But there was a door beside the corpse, and that’s where the sound was coming from.

What was in there, a staff bathroom? Closet? Storage room?

“Carrie?”

She walked along the path behind the counter, past a pair of coffee makers, towards Jennifer and the door. She could smell greasy food. She could smell coffee as well. There was heat coming from a stove so Stephenie took a moment to turn the elements off. It seemed like the right thing to do. She placed a foot between Jennifer’s open legs and put a hand on the doorknob. In contrast to the hot stove, the knob felt cold. She turned it quickly and pulled, disregarding the fact that she hated rats. In her books, rats were disgusting.

The door opened, hitting Jennifer in the leg.

Stephenie pulled harder, causing Jennifer’s right leg to slide towards her left. The sound of dead skin dragging across the floor was enough to make her stomach churn.

 

End of Preview...

 

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