by Pete Kahle
She needed something to keep that second one at arm's length long enough for her to get the Glock aimed at it. Jo quickly yanked her flashlight from her pocket and held it out to her side. She was going to use it as makeshift club. Making it see stars for a few seconds from a bone crunching bash to the face might be just the distraction she would need.
So, which one of them was going to die first? Common sense dictated it should be the one closest to her, which meant it was going to be the thing in the adjacent room. But if she could get even closer, she could extend her distance from the one in the foyer, thus giving her even more time to kill, re-aim, and kill again. However, when she attempted to put this idea in action she discovered she didn't have the nerve. Score one for the monsters in the house, and their complete control over the physical distance they had between her.
It looked like the only thing she had to concern herself with now was who was going to make the first move. Since she was the one with the gun, Jo decided that honor was going to be hers.
How fast could a person raise a handgun and fire it?
In a life and death situation, she assumed it had to be like watching lightning strike, then imagine her shock when she discovered—after killing the one from other room, and swinging the flashlight three seconds later at the rapid advancement of the other from the foyer—that these things were just a hair faster than that.
She also had a very brief moment to finally see how they transported themselves on thickly muscled, stilt-like, possibly human-like legs that were jointed like a spider’s. She assumed they were legs, but there was something at the end that hinted they could've been arms instead. She couldn't say for sure, for her train of thought was violently redirected to her left leg and the agonizing pain that unexpectedly shot through it. It felt exactly like a knife had been stabbed into her thigh. After she saw what had been quickly pulled out of her leg, that guess wasn't too far from the truth. She also understood how the one from the foyer had gotten the jump on her, even though it wasn't all that close.
These creatures were equipped with a special pair of appendages which had nothing to do with locomotion, but everything to do with maiming and killing quite well from a distance. Again, she couldn't say for sure how the ends of these organic spears were set up, but it was safe for her to assume they ended in something that was sharp and pointy enough to pierce, poke, and/or impale the flesh of any desired prey that came within their reach.
Even though her failed assault upon the thing with her flashlight had never connected, it had, however, grazed the spear-leg as it was being thrust at her, unintentionally redirecting it away from where it was meant to go. In her face, most likely in an eye socket.
As Jo was crying out in pain, letting go of the flashlight, falling to the floor and firing the Glock, she also understood why those tapping noises it made reminded her so precisely of a blind man with a cane.
After the one that had stabbed her crumpled to the floor dead, taking three lethal bullets to its head-shaped body, she peered into the foyer and was horrified to see more, except these were stumbling around in the dark, tapping, and sweeping the tips of their spear-legs on the floor in front of them.
There was something about this behavior that didn't seem in accordance with the two that had just attacked her. She couldn't put her finger on it—she didn't want to—she just wanted to get out in one piece. She climbed to her feet, putting pressure on the one good leg she had left, and dragged herself towards the foyer. The pain was unbelievable. It looked so easy in the movies. When someone got shot or stabbed, they still had the ability to limp for cover or keep on fighting. The reality of such a wound was very different thanks mostly to the insidious ability of the pain to radiate outward from its confined location, infiltrating every ounce of flesh it came in contact with.
But Jo couldn't let that debilitating side effect disable her. Not now. Not when she still had a loaded gun in her hand. Not when she was this fuckin' close to freedom!
She slammed against the wall near the doorway. Needing, but not being able to afford, a chance to compose herself. Whatever was going to happen from here on out was going to be even faster than what had come before.
She swung into view, planted herself against the doorframe, and started shooting at anything that looked like a hovering hunk of flesh. When the bodies started dropping, the ones that still stood started to cannibalize the dead. Opportunistic feeders, she guessed. From the corner of her eye, the way out now looked completely clear. Grunting and groaning, she hobbled as fast as she humanly could through the front door and onto the veranda.
The instant she was clear of the interior of the house, she discovered too late that she had walked right into the path of another one of those demented daddy-long-legs. It had been on the veranda, keeping itself out of sight. Waiting just for her.
She knew when it appeared that she wouldn't have enough time to react. She tried anyway, not by turning and shooting, but by throwing herself over the stairs. The thing managed to spear her anyway, in the back of the calf of the same leg the other creature had speared her in. As she landed with a painful thud on her stomach, she immediately started to crawl away from the house. When she finally realized what it was about their odd blind behavior she hadn't realized before, she stopped and played dead.
She didn't move. She didn't breathe. She didn't do anything that might make her enemies think she was still alive. She just remained on her stomach, on her hands, on the gun, which she snaked under her armpit and aimed up into the air behind her.
The one that had just speared her was tapping down the steps now, but instead of coming over and tormenting her further, it wondered off to the side as if it had suddenly lost sight of her. That was an act, she knew damn well that it knew right where she was, it was simply playing up the blindness angle just in case she still had some awareness left in her, hoping she'd make the same mistake her brother had made when they encountered him.
David had probably thought the same thing—that they were blind—and if he was quiet enough, he could hobble right past them. But, this time, she had the advantage. She wasn't like her brother. She wasn't crippled. She was capable, and armed, not only with a weapon, but with certain instinctual knowledge of what they were capable of.
Thanks Mom. I mean it. Sincerely. Thanks.
They were sadistic to the core. That one that had caught her on the veranda could have speared her in any number of spots that would have made her desire to keep on living a moot point, but it chose a small, crucial area that would cause even more pain. It's the little wounds that do the most harm. How David must have suffered.
The tapping came closer. Perhaps it was curious as to why she wasn't moving.
She noticed that the tapping going on way in the background was beginning to draw near as well. Hopefully she had enough bullets left because it looked like the next few seconds were going to turn into a bloodbath.
She baited the thing, waiting to a very risky point where it was so close she could feel the sharp tips of its spears poking small needle holes in the backs of her legs. Despite the gnawing pain she didn't make a sound, or budge an inch. She wanted this thing so close that if she had wanted she could turn around and give it a hug. And when that moment came, when its prodding finally started to elicit silent cries from her, she pulled the trigger. It touched down, dead as a doornail, on the foot of her bad leg, eliciting that cry of pain it would have eventually gotten from her had she been a moment later in killing it.
Rolling over, she unloaded ninety percent of the Glock's clip. She was a very good shot, too. One bullet each, in the head, killing them all.
More appeared, coming from around the house this time, a few even appearing on the roof of the veranda, scaling down the posts to reach the ground, but they were more interested in feasting on their long gone comrades, giving her the opportunity to get to her feet and limp away.
She tried hard, so hard, to make it all the way down the driveway. She even had
it pictured clearly in her mind—the fence, crawling under the chain, and the freedom of the open road on the other side—but somewhere along the way her body simply decided it had had enough.
Jo collapsed for good onto a slick patch of grass. She could still faintly hear the tapping of her enemies, but in her dazed state of mind she couldn’t tell whether they were receding away from her, or closing in on her. She wanted to check the Glock’s magazine to make sure she had, at least, one bullet left for herself in case they were indeed on their way down to finish her off, but again, her body had a hard time complying with her wishes.
# # #
VII
She fumbled with the gun for what felt like eternity, her night vision becoming increasingly hazy and unfocused in the process. As time continued to slip away, trying to figure out how the gun worked was like playing with a Rubik’s Cube. Frustrated, she slammed the gun down and sobbed.
The tapping continued, but now it was beginning to take on a dream-like quality.
She couldn’t believe she was thinking it, but if there was ever a time that she actually wanted to black out, this would be it. In fact, she prayed for it. Within seconds an all-encompassing peace flowed through her. The tapping went away. Every muscle in her body relaxed completely against the grass.
The next thought that passed through her mind was, Is this what it feels like to die? The thought after that was, How can I be thinking anything at all, I’m unconscious.
There was a strange, momentary sensation of lying next to herself. Then came the warmth, after which she felt normal again. Jo reached instinctively over her shoulder for the blankets she assumed had fallen off of her. The warmth she assumed was coming from the furnace next to her mattress. Light came next, which she assumed was from her mother turning on the cellar light. She braced herself emotionally for that inevitable wakeup call she typically got every morning.
None came.
Jo opened her eyes.
She was still on that patch of grass she had collapsed on, but it was no longer night, morning had arrived.
How could that have happened so soon?
When she moved she could still feel the pain in her head and in her leg, but it was nowhere near as crippling as it had been. She placed a hand on her head. There was still a terrible bump, but it didn’t feel as swollen, or as lacerated. She looked down and felt the wound in the top of her thigh, ripped back part of the pant. It wasn’t pleasant to look at, but, again, the pain wasn’t as debilitating as it once was. The hole in her calf was the same way.
Jo remembered the Glock, looked frantically around, found it right where her hand had been holding it. She popped the magazine out, and inspected it. The clip was empty.
She stood, suddenly feeling more pain in her leg now, but was relieved to find she could still put some pressure on it without wanting to scream.
“Now, what, I do?” she whispered.
Looking up the driveway showed her just how far she had actually gotten, and it was far enough away to put the house completely out of her sight.
“Good,” she said, relieved she wouldn’t have to look at it, even in the daylight. Nothing left to do, now, but go, she guessed. Go where? Home? That other house she had come from, the one with her dead mother and siblings in it? Where else could she go?’
Jo began her descent down the drive.
It was nice and warm today, and a lot sunnier.
As she approached her neighbor’s house, the one whose second floor could see all the way into her backyard if the fence hadn’t been there, an inconceivable idea occurred to her. Maybe, not as inconceivable as it used to be, now that her brother was dead.
It felt like very early morning. Maybe no one would be home. The garage doors were open and there weren’t any cars in the driveway. Jo walked up and rang the doorbell anyway. She waited, then pressed the button again, holding it down longer this time.
It didn’t matter. There were plenty of other homes she could go to.
She began walked back to the road.
“Hey,” someone said from behind her. “You’re the girl from last night, aren’t ya?”
She turned around. It was the boy. He was standing in the doorway, wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and a pair of shorts, and looking like he had just been woken out of a deep sleep. She reached for her gun.
“Hey, easy, it’s okay. I’m not gonna do anything.”
She kept her hand around it, but didn’t pull it all the way out.
“You all right? You look like shit.” Jo crammed the Glock back into her back pocket again. “Ever find your brother?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding.
“Is he all right?”
“No—he’s dead.” Jo hesitated before speaking again, then quickly blurted out, “My mother’s dead, too. I shot her in the head.”
“You want me to call someone for ya? The police? An ambulance?”
Jo stared at him.
“Maybe, you should come inside.”
“Yeah, would you?” she asked, limping towards him.
“Call someone? Sure.”
When she finally got close enough to him, she said, “I can’t go back home, I don’t ever wanna go back home.”
The boy took her gently by the arm and guided her inside.
It smelled good inside the house, and it was nice and warm, too. She sat on the couch.
The boy had somehow gotten the Glock from her, and popped out the magazine. He inspected it, then placed it on the kitchen table, picked up the phone, and made that call he had said he would make for her. She relaxed against the cushions of the sofa and gazed serenely around.
When he came back, the boy asked, “You live around here?”
“Across the street.”
“That’s your house? No shit? So, what happened to you?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
“Did you go into that house up there?”
She nodded.
He smirked. “You have any idea how lucky you are? Don’t ever do that again. I mean never ever. If you wanna keep on living, that is.”
She nodded, looked away, looked at the television. Thoughts of David intruded. “Are they coming?”
“Yeah, don’t worry, the cops will be here. Why did you kill your mother?”
“It’s a long story.” Jo scratched the side of her head, and continued to gaze at the TV.
“You wanna watch something while we wait?” He took up the remote and turned the TV on, began surfing through the channels. Jo thought she recognized that actor, Jeff Goldblum, thought she saw him stepping out of a telepod.
She closed her eyes so tightly her brow wrinkled. There was a great amount of pain welling up inside her, but not the physical kind. She was hoping to keep it in check until official help arrived. Then, maybe, she would let it spill out, all over the place until she was empty.
Completely, totally, uncompromisingly empty.
H.P. Lovecraft, early Dean Koontz and early Clive Barker have primarily influenced Shawn Francis. Outside of writing fiction, he’s also a big DVD collector and does reviews for his site DVD News Flash: The Reviews. Not only does he have a Facebook page for DVD News Flash but he also has one for his fiction called, The Weird Fiction of Shawn Francis.
Seek him out: https://dvdnewsflashthereviews.wordpress.com/
RAJA
by Wednesday Lee Friday
Detective Perry Thorn
Michigan State Police Annex
January 1st
12:30pm
“There’s your girlfriend!” Deke nudged me, pointing as he put down the phone. Deke thought that the old lady coming back to confess again was hilarious. I could not concur. She was obviously upset and probably nuts. Christ… full moon. Come to think of it, this one always came in to confess the morning after the full moon. What is it about the goddamn full moon? Scientists said the full moon didn't really make anyone crazy. But scientists didn't see what I've seen.
“I don�
�t know what you think is so funny about senile—“
“Oh come off it, poor oldster prolly has a basement full of corpses next to her favorite axe. She’s a regular Juanita Wayne Gacy!” Deke raised an invisible weapon above his head and mimed bringing it down hard. “Or maybe she’s one of those--you know? Like Arsenic and Old Lace?” He guffawed like a frat boy. When he started humming “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, I knew I needed to get the hell away from Deke before I punched him in the face. I had to wonder how a grinning ass like Deke ever got to wear the badge in the first place.
She was a small old woman, what my old man would call a little slip of a thing. Hair done up in curls. Looked like she dyed the grey out for a while but had long since stopped. The old lady wasn't hunched over like some of them get. She stood straight, prideful even. If I didn't already know she was nuts, I'd probably find her quite distinguished.
Bad as I felt for her, we couldn’t have nuts coming in and confessing to crimes that never happened. This has got to stop one way or another. I didn’t want to have to lock the old lady up. She’s some kind of intellectual celebrity, a botanist or something. If anything happened, some internet blogger would be all over it—trying to make a name for themselves. Getting hits, I think is what they call it. Writing half-true articles with misleading headlines—stuff that made people hate police even more than before. That kind of thing burned my ass. If only those people could see what we go through, the ugliness we see day in, day out.
I should have been home an hour ago. Been here all damn night. Maggie already complained that I spend too much time at work. Dunno what she thought being a cop's wife was gonna be like. When I finally made detective, you'd think she'd have been happy for me. Nope. Complained even more about how I was never there for her, never there for the kids. What did she think I was doing all that time? Loafing? Drinking? I was doing my best to keep the world safe for my family, for everyone. I guess she was right to be angry. I'd been late every day this week. But what could I do? Police work isn't a nine-to-five job. And detective work is even more unpredictable. Mags should know that by now.
