by Pete Kahle
# # #
We let him go. We had to. I had to go home for supper with my parents and Jacky had to cover for him with their mom. I barely touched my meatloaf. I couldn't get poor Clayton out of my mind, and it was too late now to pretend I wasn't involved. After I rushed through the dishes, I went back down to Jacky's.
She opened the door with tears in her eyes. We sat on the curb in front of her house, huddled together. “I thought he'd listen to you. He always liked you, you know.”
I did have a suspicion that Clayton had a crush on me, but I had always tried to avoid the topic.
“We should tell your mom,” I said.
“Do you think so?” Fear danced in her eyes. “She'll lose it. He'll never forgive me. I'll be in trouble too, because I knew about it so long.” She hesitated and I noticed how small she was, how fragile. “Mom's not the best at handling stuff like this. You know. Sometimes she's kinda... rough. I don't... I don't want to get Clayton in trouble again.”
I remembered her faded bruises, explained away so glibly over the years. I had never been a very good friend. Maybe it was time to change that.
“What if you just threaten to tell her? Let him know that if he doesn't set it free you'll tell. It'll probably be better off in the woods anyway. Wasn't he going to bring it back long ago? When it got better?”
She looked bitter. “It wasn't sick to begin with.”
“Let's go talk to him.” I said.
# # #
The twilight shadows seemed alive as we walked the path. The corrupted clubhouse loomed ahead of us. A groan came from within and I pounded on the door and everything went silent.
“Clayton?” I called.
“Hang on!”
“Clayton, open the door. We need to talk to you!”
“Yeah, hang on, I gotta get it back in the tank before I open the door.”
A few minutes passed. I could hear him struggling with it, little shrieks and shuffles and grunts of exertion. Finally, Clayton opened the door, his pale face seeming to float in the darkness. “What do you want? Go away.”
“We need to talk to you.”
“No.”
How had I gotten involved in this? “Clayton, yes. Now. Or I’m going right to your mom.” He flushed red, and finally he let us in.
# # #
It was much bigger, the size of a house cat. A really big house cat. He had gotten it back into the tank somehow, and it obviously wasn't happy. It glared at me with hateful eyes, gleaming orange in the dim light.
“Oh, Clayton.” I said.
“It's okay, I just fed it. It won't hurt you.” He took the top off the tank and it darted out, moving much more quickly than I would have expected. It pulled itself up the wall, glaring at us. Its eyes were large and luminous, and I looked away, afraid to make eye contact. The way it moved was unnatural, it's limbs too thin for that hideous, egg-shaped head.
“What exactly are you feeding it?” I asked pointedly, and he pulled his sleeves down further. It didn't matter. I couldn't stop looking at the thing, I couldn't help myself. Its head wobbled at me, its dusky skin shimmering in the light. I could see the webbing between its fingers and I shuddered to imagine the teeth that lurked in its palms.
It hated us.
It clawed at the boards, trying to pull them apart.
“It's just a little bit.” Clayton said, defensively, “It doesn't hurt. Not really. And it's making him stronger. He needs it.”
“He looks plenty strong enough to me,” I said. “Clayton, you have to let it go.” Horrifyingly, I found myself feeling sorry for it. Cooped up in this little room for weeks. “It's... not an indoor pet. Are you keeping it in the tank when you're not here?”
“I try to come out as much as I can. It needs me.” I knew Clayton didn't have a lot of friends, but the loneliness in his eyes disturbed me. Why hadn't I been nicer to him?
“It needs to be in nature, not cooped up in here. You have to let it go.”
“I don't want to.”
I could feel the creature's eyes on me. The room was too small and too warm, my heart pounding too loud in my ears. I didn't want to be in here arguing with Clayton over his disgusting pet, I wanted to be home, getting ready for my vacation.
Jacky piped up suddenly, “We're telling Mom, Clay! That thing is awful and we're going to tell Mom if you don't let it go! Tonight!” I had wanted to come around to it more gently, but there it was.
“Don't! You promised.” I had expected him to be angry, but instead his eyes filled with tears.
“Sure, but you promised to let it go when it got better,” I said gently. “You're not taking care of it anymore, you're torturing it. You have to let it go. Maybe there's others like him. It should be with its own... whatever it is.”
He sighed and I could see that I finally got through to him.
“Will you come with me? I don't want to go alone.”
Jacky sighed, relieved, and answered for both of us. “Yeah, we'll come.”
# # #
We waited until it got dark so we could sneak it out under cover. We left it in the tank, covered with a blanket, and Clayton and I carried it together. It was heavier than I expected. I could feel it shifting and moving, making me queasy.
It was a fairly long walk out to the road where Clayton found it, but he insisted we return it exactly where he had seen it first. I didn’t have the heart to argue the point further, and I certainly didn’t want him to change his mind altogether. Jacky buzzed around us, pleased that our plan had worked.
The tank seemed to be getting heavier, but we finally reached the spot. I’m not sure how he recognized it. All the woods looked the same to me. We walked deeper into the trees for some cover, and he removed the blanket.
It looked pathetic, crammed and contorted into the tank. It glared up at me, but I couldn’t meet its eyes. I looked at Clayton instead. He was crying again.
“This is it, little buddy.” His voice sounded unfamiliar, soft and gentle. He removed the lid from the tank.
It was fast, uncurling from its cramped position and skittering off on all fours, quickly, not looking back at us. Its strange little hands gripped rocks and twigs as it pulled itself across the forest floor. It made a sound that I felt more than heard, vibrating through my skull. It called, and its brethren responded.
There was a flickering in the bushes, a murmuring as the woods came alive with movement. Jacky screamed and I clutched her close to me, my hand over her mouth, please be quiet. I could feel them all around us, just out of sight. Trees quivered around us. We had made a mistake coming here, but Clayton didn’t seem to realize it. He continued to stare at his creature, tears in his eyes, while all around us they closed in.
“Clayton,” I hissed, “We have to go.” I started backing away, gripping Jacky tight. Clayton’s creature chose that moment to dart into the woods, and Clayton did a stupid thing. He followed.
“Wait!” he called, “Wait, don’t go!” The woods swallowed him up, the rustling grew louder, and Jacky bolted.
In my cowardice, I followed.
# # #
Clayton never came back. We told the truth, but no one believed us. Of course. A case of mistaken identity. A raccoon or a baby moose or a ferret, just a normal wild animal. We were kids, we didn't know what we saw. There were investigations, of course, but in the end it didn't matter. He was gone.
I tried to believe them. A moose. A raccoon.
Years later, I saw another one. I was flipping through the channels and there it was, an artist's rendition of the Dover Demon. I dropped the remote, my heart pounding in my chest. There were more of them. John Baxter with his loose leaf drawing of the thing he saw, his face serious. No one had believed them either, just a bunch of teenagers. When the expert came on and explained how they had probably just spotted a baby moose and misunderstood, I laughed through my tears.
It set a fire inside me. I did my research after that, but information was sparse. It didn't matter. I k
now now. They exist. They exist. The woods are dark. The woods are deep. They are careful.
I wanted to call Jacky, but what would I say? Would it help her to know?
It certainly hasn't helped me.
All they found when they searched for Clayton were scraps of cloth, bits of blood. No body.
I like to think he's out there still. The official story is that he got lost out there, probably died of exposure. But maybe not. Maybe he's living among them. Maybe he's happy.
I don't live that far away from where I grew up. It was a small town, and small towns talk. I listen for the rumors, I wait for the legends. On occasion, I hear about someone who saw something in the woods that they can't explain. I pray that someday I will hear about a man living among the beasts.
The woods are dark. The woods are deep.
Betty Rocksteady is an eclectic author and illustrator from Canada. Her early exposure to Stephen King, The Weekly World News, and EC horror comics shaped her into the woman she is today. With art and fiction, she explores personal fears and resonances. Her short fiction has been published by Halloween Forevermore, Grievous Angel, and Another Realm. Her debut novella, Arachnophile, is part of the Eraserhead Press 2015 New Bizarro Author Series.
Learn more, and check out her macabre pen and ink art at www.bettyrocksteady.com. Keep in touch and keep up to date at www.facebook.com/bettyrocksteadyart.
With Covered Eyes
By Johann Thorsson
As he stood outside the small house in the night-time rain, watching the other police officers take their positions in those slow tense moments before the shouting started, Jon thought of how he had never fired his gun. He held it and checked that the safety was off and looked up as the officer by the door turned towards him, waiting for his signal. Hoping, as always, that this wouldn’t be that time.
The squat house seemed to cower away from the outside world. Two steps led down to the front door, as if someone had been digging for a basement but decided on just building a house instead, halfway through. Or maybe the house was sinking into the ground. It had all the inviting charm of a toad sitting in a muddy hole. A pedophile’s house.
The bulb in a light post on the street behind them went out, turning the scene darker, one less reflection on the wet uniforms. A single drop of rain slid down Jon’s neck as he raised his hand with two fingers extended, like a child mimicking a gun, and then lowered them quickly, indicating that the moment was upon them. He just hoped that they wouldn’t find any children inside.
The officer knocked on the door, three hard bangs of a fist on the thin wood.
“Mr. Hendsley, this is the police. Open the door.”
The patter of rain on uniforms.
“Mr. Hendsley, you have until the count of three to open the door or we’re coming in!”
An officer by a window at the side of the house waved at Jon. Jon turned and the officer pointed and nodded; Mr. Hendsley was inside. Jon turned back to the officer by the door and gave him the signal to knock it down. They needed to do this before Hendsley could kill himself or delete any evidence from his computers. He was a known pedophile, but it was important to be able to prove it, and without evidence obtained at the house this would be difficult.
The door broke in and officers poured into the house, pointing their guns and shouting “clear” as if they thought a single fat man was a threat. Playing at movies.
Jon entered last, hesitantly going into the deep darkness again. He knew there would be no gunfire, though there was often some sort of confrontation. Hendsley was a loner, and had hopefully not worked up the courage yet to steal or entice a child into his house. All they expected to find was a man sitting by his computer, deleting file after file of children being abused. But that did not turn out to be the case.
Jon entered the man’s living room to an odd scene.
An officer stood, pointing his weapon at the obese man.
“Put it down, now!”
Hendsley was tearing out the tape from a video cassette, ripping the brown strip of film that contained the actual recording out of the plastic cassette itself. It was clear from the smell that he had defecated himself.
“He’ll come for me, he’ll come and hurt me and make me...” he said as he tore at the tape. Hendsley’s eyes were glazed-over and his skin glistened with greasy sweat.
The living room had a single three-seat couch with an orange blanket covering it, a TV in a corner and a computer by a desk. The computer was on, displaying what seemed to be some sort of message board. Usually the pedophiles would try to destroy files from the computer, sometimes even the computer itself.
Jon drew his gun and pointed it at Hendsley. “Mr. Hendsley, drop the video tape. Now.”
The fat man kept pulling out reams of tape. Jon directed two officers to take him down and he noted the hesitation in their movements. No one wants to tackle a fat man with shit all over himself.
Jon looked on as two officers led Hendsley into a car and drove off. He was about to walk to his own car when another officer, Grode or Grange, he wasn’t sure, walked up to him. Just a kid, really. Eager. Still had his soul intact.
“I wonder what’s on that tape,” the officer said, filler for an awkward silence.
Jon looked at him. Found innocence in his eyes. Grode.
Jon then turned away and looked at the fading lights from the patrol car driving off with Hendsley. “Don’t. You never want to see the evidence in these cases.”
“Yeah, well I hope they castrate the guy,” he called after Jon. Not an uncommon sentiment in town, though Jon held out that everyone, even men like Hendsley, deserved a fair hearing.
Jon walked to his car and wished he’d never stopped smoking, a drag would be just the thing right now, and as he drove away the single thought in his mind was that he never wanted to see what was on that fucking tape. If the pedophile’s first thought was destroying it, above the gigabytes of material on his computer, it had to be something vile. And the way he had been whispering as he did it...Jon couldn’t help but think that Hendsley had been afraid of something other than the police.
# # #
Jon had never intended to become a police officer, much less long enough to make detective. A loss of direction after high school, where he had very nearly but never completely excelled at sports and a number of his classes, ended up as an enrollment into the Academy with a friend who soon dropped out. Jon didn’t care enough either way so he stayed on and finished, graduating in the top quarter of the class.
He was just going to take a few shifts as he decided what he wanted to do with his life but now, two promotions and one wife later, he was like a car stuck in deep tracks with no option but continuing straight forward.
He was athletic and had a sharp mind, but had a motivation problem and let himself be pushed along. Plagued by an inward apathy, Jon was nonetheless easily moved by the plights of others. He guessed that was what kept him on the force.
A psychiatrist warned him he would be unhappy in the police force, he was simply “too intelligent to be career police material,” something the psychiatrist said was an actual thing. It simply made Jon like the police force more; secretly enjoying his work while sheltering in the fact that he had potential for so much more. It somehow made it bearable, knowing that if he just “applied himself,” he could do something else, something more meaningful for more money. The lies we tell ourselves to function.
It might have been all right too, working as cop, if the damn town hadn’t been full of pedophiles.
# # #
Jon drove his unwashed Land Rover along the streets towards his son’s school, splashing water from pools that gathered in trash-choked drainages. The keening of electric guitars from a hard-rock song playing on the radio scratched the speakers’ insides, static rendering it generic and unclear.
Aidan stood inside the school and looked out into the rain as he waited. He ran out as soon as he spotted Jon’s car and Jon saw an attendant wave go
odbye. The attendant took a look around outside, as if he was expecting to see someone else.
Aidan wore a baggy blue sweater Jon hated and had a buzz cut his wife Lisa hated. But they both loved him and had, for longer than was perhaps necessary, tried saving the marriage for his sake. Their shifts, him a cop and her a doctor, hadn’t made for much family together time
“Hi, Dad,” Aidan said, throwing his bag into the back seat and climbing in after it.
“Hey, kid. Sorry I’m late.”
“Agnes was playing chess with me.”
“Agnes?”
“She’s a sixth grader and her father forgot to pick her up as well.”
Jon was about to say that he hadn’t forgotten, he was just late. He felt like he was always late, wherever he went. Could never get to work early enough, never pick Aidan up on time. The odd things we do to impress people at work who don’t care, at the expense of people we love, who do care. He wouldn’t argue with his son, and made a vow with himself to pick Aidan up earlier next time.
“Sixth grader, huh? Now you’re putting the moves on older women?”
“No.” He smiled “It was her idea.”
“Okay, okay. Look, your mom’s out of town so we’re going to my apartment today. So how about we go get some pizza?”
“Is it clean?”
Jon looked at his son. “The pizza?”
“No. Your apartment.”
“Oh.” Jon turned his head back towards the road ahead.
“Well...not exactly.”
His son was starting to sound like his mother. The phone saved him from making excuses. “Stefansson,” he answered.
“Sorry to call you on your day off, Jon, but we need you.” It was Tobin, his partner. “Tech finished putting the tape together, and the chief wants you down here for it.”
“Fuck,” Jon said and then looked in the rearview mirror at Aidan.
