Autumn acted like he wasn’t there and kept listing off the reasons. “Secondly, it’s one of the worst storms I’ve ever seen. Third, the power went off almost as soon as we heard the first sounds of thunder.”
On cue, the thunder roared as loud as ever, rattling the game pieces in the Monopoly box.
Stephanie and Ruby were watching Autumn with focus and intensity, and Tommy noticed this. He said, “C’mon, you can’t be serious. It’s just a summer thunderstorm. We all know it’s gonna pass—”
“Hold on, Tommy,” Ruby said. “If I’m being totally honest, Carter and the young lady might be onto something. Because…because I felt it, too. Something is off.”
“Yeah,” Stephanie agreed. “It’s like we’re being watched…”
A flash of the figure I’d seen outside filled my head, and I shuddered
“Okay, you guys are messing with me now,” Tommy said, snorting with laughter. “Right? You have to be.”
“I think the sooner we get out of here, the better,” I said. “Because…” I swallowed. My throat felt like sandpaper. Then I took a deep breath. What I planned on saying next wasn’t going to be easy.
“Because of what, dude?” Tommy said. “The suspense is killing me.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw something out in the rain.”
“Something?” Autumn repeated. “Like a person?”
I nodded. “Yeah…someone.”
Listen, I’ve seen a ton of horror movies. I’ve read some horror books too. As a kid, I burned through the Goosebumps series multiple times. I know what clichés and tropes are. But I also know—or thought I knew—that the supernatural was not real. It was an entertaining enough idea, yes, but that’s all it was. Entertainment. I’ll tell you this, though. When I said what I said to the others, that I saw someone out in the rain, the candle flames flickered. Was that a sign? A bad omen? I can’t say for sure, but…
Tommy’s eyes widened. “So you saw some crazy person out in this storm? Big whoop.”
“Everything’s closed around here,” I said. “Not like there’s much to do in this area anyway. You got Bovines, I guess, but it’s almost two blocks away.”
“But the main parking lots are across the street,” Tommy argued. “And there was still a few cars there when we left the first time.”
“There’s a little hotel down the road,” Stephanie said hopefully.
“Yeah! The person you saw, Carter. They had to have come from the hotel!”
There was a small hotel, but I didn’t see why a guest would be here…in the pouring rain…staring at me through the window…
“The person—the figure—wasn’t moving,” I said. “They were…just watching the building.”
Watching me, I neglected to add.
Thunder crashed again.
Tommy frowned. “Maybe they were walking their dog and got caught in the rain. There’s a park over there too, you know.”
“But it closes at sundown,” I said.
Autumn wasn’t buying any of this. “Even if it wasn’t closed and this person was taking a moonlight stroll, why would they just…stand there? Especially in the middle of a crazy thunderstorm? To me, that makes even less sense.”
“Whatever the case,” I said, “I need to leave. If I can get to the hotel, maybe I can get some answers. They might have a backup generator or a CB radio or some guest might have cell service, I don’t know.”
“You’re gonna go out there after what you saw?” Stephanie said. Her face had paled.
“I have to. Besides, Tommy is right. I probably imagined it.”
“And if you didn’t?”
I shrugged. My mother once told me there was no such things as monsters, but I wasn’t so sure now.
“It’s probably the guy from the alley,” Ruby said. “I wouldn’t doubt he took offense to Carter tackling him.”
“There!” Tommy shouted, sitting up in his chair. “Now that’s a logical explanation! Thank you, Ruby.”
She offered him a weak smile.
“Is that supposed to make us feel better?” Autumn asked.
“It makes me feel better,” Tommy answered.
I stood up. “I’m going for it.”
Tommy stood too. “Not by yourself.”
“I’ll only be a few minutes. I’m gonna go to the hotel, get some answers, and come back.”
“You’re gonna leave us here alone?” Stephanie asked, voice wavering. “Three women with no protection?”
“I don’t know…three women with no protection sounds like a hell of a night to me,” Tommy mumbled.
I hit him. It was more of a reflex than anything else.
“If you really want to go then we’ll be fine,” Autumn said. She sounded disgusted at both Tommy and Stephanie. “We’re grown adults. We can handle ourselves.”
Ruby nodded. “Yeah, we’ll keep each other safe. The buddy system goes a long way. But Carter, I really don’t think you should leave. Not yet. Wait a few more minutes to see if the storm calms.”
I shook my head. “That’s where we’ll always be. Wait a few minutes. Wait an hour. Wait another hour after that. The next thing I know, it’s morning and it’s too late to help my daughter.”
Truth was, I didn’t want to go out there. It sounded like a horrible idea. But I also didn’t want to sit here and do nothing. There was a time and a place for waiting. Now didn’t seem like the time for either.
“She’s fine, Carter. The storm probably hasn’t even hit up there,” Tommy said. “Probably won’t at all.”
“I gotta find out for sure.”
Tommy sighed. “Really. If I’m being honest, I don’t wanna leave, but we stick together. I won’t let you do anything dumb alone.”
“Sounds like that’s the motto of your friendship,” Stephanie teased.
“You’re not wrong,” I said. She flashed me a hint of a smile, and my insides got all twisted up. That smile was beautiful, along with the rest of her.
The others laughed, which eased the tension a bit. They followed Tommy and I into the front room. Ruby and Stephanie had a candle each. Autumn held her phone, its flashlight helping illuminate our way.
The storm raged on, but one thing had changed. Whenever the lightning flashed, it didn’t brighten the outside world. It was like the darkness absorbed it. And a heavy fog had settled over the street. Through the plate glass window, which was still sporting thin cracks, I saw not a hint of the world beyond. For all I knew we could’ve actually been in the Land of Oz.
I took a deep breath and looked at Ruby. She was staring back like it was the last time she’d ever see me, and I started feeling the fear worse than ever then. Not just for me but for Ruby and the women, and for Tommy.
“Tommy,” I said, “why don’t you stay here, man?”
“You know I can’t do that. Ride together, die together.” He winked, and then turned to the others. “Any of you happen to have an umbrella?”
Ruby let out a burst of nervous laughter. “You’re gonna need something a lot stronger than an umbrella.”
“True.”
“Be careful,” Stephanie said. “And please come back.”
“You’re welcome to join us,” Tommy said. He was poking his chest out, trying to look big and brave, but they didn’t call him Dink for nothing. No matter how straight and tall he stood, he would always be a short, skinny guy.
“We’ll let you be the test dummies,” Autumn said.
“Fair enough,” I replied, and I turned toward the door.
Before I could take more than a couple of steps, something smacked against the window. My eyes shot to the source of the sudden noise. Somehow, the glass was holding, but pressed against it was something I never imagined I’d see right then.
It was a hand.
A bloody hand.
5
We all stared at that hand as the pale, bloody palm slid down the window, making a muted squeaking noise that was somehow louder than the thunder outside. It s
topped around the middle of the glass. Because of the fog and the angle of the wall, I couldn’t see who—or what—the hand was attached to. You would’ve thought it had to be connected to an arm, right? Logic said yes, but then who was that arm connected to? The figure I’d seen earlier? Or could it be someone’s severed hand the wind had launched at us?
Don’t think like that…I told myself as I walked toward it. Man, I don’t know what the hell was wrong with me. First I'd risked getting shanked by helping Autumn and Stephanie, and now…well, I didn’t know what I was getting into.
“What are you doing?” Stephanie asked, almost yelping in fear.
“Someone’s out there,” I said, “and they might need our help.”
The hand suddenly vanished.
Just as I gripped the handle and pulled, the others screamed. I snapped my head back to the window. Now there was a face pressed against the glass.
It was Brock, but at the same time it wasn’t him. He looked different. His nose was swollen. There were scratches down his cheeks, and one of his eyes was slitted.
Ruby sprinted toward the door, shoved me out of the way, and yanked it open.
Brock, along with sheets of rain and gusts of wind, hurried over the threshold. Then he lost his balance and landed on his knees with a wet slap.
I thought he had been attacked. I mean, judging by his appearance what else could’ve happened to him? Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I had only caught a glimpse of him once he was in, because the rush of air snuffed the candles out, and aside from the cell’s flashlight, which now seemed weak compared to the enveloping blackness, we were on our way to being in the complete dark again.
Tommy snatched the phone from Autumn and pointed it at Brock. He was on his hands and knees, breathing like he’d just sprinted across town to get here. His soaking wet t-shirt clung to his muscular body. It wasn’t white anymore. Now it was pinkish and rusty-orange in some spots.
Blood.
A sick thought crossed my mind. Whose blood was it? Was it his? Did it belong to the figure I’d seen outside?
But a sicker thought overshadowed the rest: Whatever that figure was won’t bleed like a normal person. Because it’s not a normal person…
“Oh, Brock, you poor thing,” Ruby said in a soft voice. Her and Tommy tried to help him up, but as soon as Tommy touched Brock’s arm, he grunted and threw Tommy off of him.
Tommy backpedaled, tripped, and took a seat on the floor, crashing into a nearby table. The stacked chairs, chairs that Brock had stacked himself, fell—and, to add insult to injury (and more injury to injury), landed on Tommy’s head. The noise the wood made against his skull was not a pleasant one.
“What the fuck—?” Tommy shouted.
Ruby backed away.
Autumn’s phone had skittered toward me, the light flashing like a disco ball. I picked it up and went over to give Tommy a hand. As I did, I noticed Brock was holding something. I stopped when I realized what it was.
“Uh, Ruby…” I said in a low voice.
She looked at me, her eyes swimming with tears. She had noticed the same thing.
I pointed the light at it to confirm what it was. A hammer. The rain had washed most of the blood from it. On the claw end, tangled around the claw, was a tuft of curly blonde hair and what I thought was a chunk of flesh.
My stomach clenched. I was about to be sick.
Please don’t be hers, I remembered thinking. Please don’t be Debbie’s…
Right about now I imagine you’re probably saying I don’t have much faith in my fellow man, and maybe you’re right, but it was more than that. The reason I’d thought so negatively off the bat was because of the crazy look in Brock’s eyes when he stared up at us. Sure, the hair tangled around the claw could’ve been someone else’s, but that didn’t help me feel any better. It still meant that he had taken a hammer to a person’s head, didn’t it? And his shirt was stained with blood. Not even the crazy, blasting rain could wash away the evidence of the violence.
But this wasn’t Brock, I told myself. This wasn’t the guy who had freaked out when he first met me because his sister Angel was a fan of our band. This wasn’t the guy who had smiled in the pictures we took and who had cracked jokes at Ruby’s expense.
I didn’t think this was anything close to that Brock at all.
Something—the storm, maybe—had changed him.
“Brock?” Ruby shouted over the howling wind, stifling a cry as she looked him up and down. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
He rose slowly and stepped closer, walking as if he was drunk off his ass. His wild eyes swept the room.
I was standing about ten feet from where Brock was in front of the door, the light trained on his face. The claw marks were worse than I’d originally thought. They were long red streaks that I imagined were made by pink manicured nails.
Autumn and Stephanie were behind me, and Tommy was still on the floor. I could see the women out of the corner of my eye, half-crouched behind the back of one of the booths, their knees bent, ready to bolt if they had to. Situated on Brock’s left, near the window, where we had first seen the bloody hand, stood Ruby. The red handprint was gone now; the rain had washed it away. Ruby slid closer toward Brock. I don’t know what her plans were. She looked heartbroken and angry, but at the same time I thought she wanted to throw her arms around his shoulders and hug him, like it would make it all better.
“Brock,” she asked. “What the hell is going on?”
“They’re here,” he said over the wind and the rain pelting the glass.
Ruby’s voice trembled. “Who’s here?”
“The underground people. They’re here, and they’ve come to take back what’s theirs. We’re all gonna suffer. I’ve seen it. They whispered their visions to me. Soon they’ll whisper visions to you too.” He tapped his left ear. “All you gotta do is listen.” He paused, tilted his head downward, and studied his blood-stained hands. In a softer, almost menacing tone, he said, “Debbie wouldn’t listen.”
Ruby broke down. The tears that had been hanging near the rims of her eyes now flowed. “W-where’s Deb? Brock, where is Debbie? Please tell me.”
“She just wouldn’t listen. And I couldn’t let her suffer. I loved her.” He smiled. The craziness dwelling in his expression lessened the smallest bit as he looked over us and into his memory. “She kissed me once, you know, after the bar closed down and we were cleaning up. It was the best kiss of my life.” He paused and inhaled deeply. “Believe me, I didn’t want to do what I did to her…” A gust of wind tried to steal his voice, but we all heard him. “They made me do it. Those horrible monsters. They did. I saved her, okay? I saved Debbie. And now I’m going to join her, where it’s safe. Where the underground people don’t live.”
What happened next happened too fast for any of us to react.
Brock raised the hammer, claw side pointed toward him. He wore a sick grin on his face, the kind I imagined serial killers wore when they did what they did best. His elbow slightly cocked, veins pulsing through his skin, Brock bashed his own face in with the same weapon he had used to murder Debbie.
One hit, and a fresh wave of blood rolled down the bridge of his nose…
Two hits, and his teeth shattered…
Three hits, and one of his eyes bulged from its socket…
Four hits, and fragments of bone fell to the floor…
Five hits, and his legs finally started to give out…
The sixth hit never connected because Brock collapsed, half in the street, half on the sidewalk. Dead.
None of us moved. I think we were still too stunned, too shaken, but I tried my best to get my stupid brain to kick my ass into gear, and I had zero luck. All I could do was stare.
I knew Brock was strong, but I don’t think anyone is strong enough to bust their own head open with a hammer. Something had to be pulling the strings because he had hit himself not once, but many times before he fell. It
was simply not humanly possible.
After a few moments of hearing nothing but my heart beating as loud as the rolling thunder above, I finally found the strength to speak. Before I could, though, Stephanie screamed. The sound snapped the others out of the haze the incident had brought over us.
Ruby was halfway in the growing pool of Brock’s blood. I reached for her hand, grabbed it, and guided her away.
Autumn went over to Stephanie and tried calming her down without much luck. I looked at Tommy and saw he was doubled over on his hands and knees, dry heaving. I wasn’t sure what to do. We couldn’t just sprint out into the storm and scream for help. I needed a short-term solution, something that would help restore some order among us.
On the far wall was a blanket Ruby had hung there. It had some kind of Native American design on it and it looked expensive. That didn’t matter then, because it was all we had. So I ripped it off the wall and took it over to Brock. I covered him, tucking the fringes beneath his body. He was still warm. I could feel the heat coming off of him through the material. For a second, I thought maybe he wasn’t really dead. Maybe he was playing some kind of sick prank on us. But one look at him before I covered his face and I knew there was no way in hell he was still alive.
“I can’t—” Ruby said through her tears. “I can’t… He—he killed Debbie. He killed her.”
“Rube—” I began, wanting to tell her that he might’ve been lying, that it was going to be okay, but I couldn’t.
Not for the first time I started to wonder if this was happening all over the country? The world? Were people going insane and hurting each other, and then themselves? I thought of Julia or Steve doing what Brock had done. Doing it in front of Clem. Or startling her out of a sound sleep and killing her, and then themselves. All because of what? Some weird thunderstorm? People crawling out of the sewers?
People? my mind asked. Bullshit. If what you saw in those lightning flashes was real, they aren’t people. It kinda looked like a person. It stood like one, and it had arms and legs and a head that resembled a person, but it wasn’t a person. It wasn’t a person at all…
The Whispers: A Supernatural Apocalypse Novel Page 5
