A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Chet Williamson

  Bubba forced himself to his feet. “We gotta get on the CB and call the police. Oh dear God, he was only out of my sight for a few seconds. What am I gonna tell his wife and kids?” The man was nearly hysterical now, torn between tears and laughter.

  Wainwright knew that he couldn’t let Bubba get to the truck and the citizens band radio beneath the dash. Dellhart’s conditions were written in stone: the local authorities were not to become involved. Any danger that presented itself on Pale Dove Mountain was to be handled by Wainwright alone. They were having enough problems with that county sheriff snooping around anyway. “Stay here, Graham,” ordered Wainwright. “I’m going after the bloody bastard.”

  “Stay here?” giggled Bubba. He directed his shock-glazed eyes at the ugly bundle of flesh beneath the tree. “Stay here…with that? You’re freaking crazy! I’m gonna get on the horn and get some people out here, pronto!’

  Bubba staggered past Wainwright, heading in the direction of the Chevy pickup. “Sorry about this, Yank,” said the hunter. He slammed the butt of his rifle into the base of the man’s skull. Bubba went down like a sack of potatoes. Wainwright knelt beside him and checked his vital signs. He was okay, just unconscious. Hopefully he would stay that way until the one who was responsible for Steve Ratcliffe’s horrible death was taken care of.

  Colin Wainwright walked over and took the gun from Steve’s holster. It was a stainless steel Smith & Wesson .44 caliber. Wainwright stuck it in his belt, then searched the clearing until he found what he was looking for. Tracks. There were two sets that didn’t match those of Steve or Bubba. One was larger and deeper than the other, as if made by an incredibly heavy man. Oddly enough, the smaller tracks disappeared at one point and eluded Wainwright’s attempts to find them again. The first set, however, left the pine grove and headed up the western face, for the mountaintop.

  He set out, the Weatherby loaded and ready for business. He was more than a little peeved at himself for slacking with his responsibilities. Jackson Dellhart had hired him to protect the surveyors and hunt down the beast that stalked the wilds of Pale Dove Mountain. He had failed at the first task, but he was bound and determined to succeed at the other. And the thought of his target being a human being rather than an animal sparked him with a thrill that he had never experienced before. He had hunted every dangerous creature on the face of the earth, every predator in the animal kingdom…with the exception of man.

  Now, at long last, he was presented with a rare opportunity. And he certainly wasn’t about to pass it up.

  After crossing a clearwater stream, he found that the footprints had disappeared. One moment they were there, the next they weren’t. Where the tracks ended, there was a strange pattern in the mountain earth, as though the dirt had been violently churned. After that, the forest grew darker and wilder, the ground obscured by a thick carpet of honeysuckle and kudzu.

  He was making his way through the forest when he got the peculiar feeling that he was not alone. He eyed the wilderness around him, but nothing was in sight. The woods were empty. He heard a rustle of movement ahead of him and brought up his rifle. Still nothing. Then the sound echoed again and the hunter realized that something was nearby, but it was hidden beneath the undergrowth and not where he could see it.

  “Come out, you bloody bastard!” he demanded. “Come out this instant and show yourself.” He heard the rustle of ivy to his right and fired at the sound. Had he hit it? No, now it was to his left. He shucked the spent shell from the Weatherby and thumbed another cartridge into the breech.

  A clump of kudzu shuddered directly ahead of him. He aimed and fired. The slug sliced through the dense vegetation and ricocheted off a stone underneath. Or had it been a stone? A low growl rumbled beneath the undergrowth, then lapsed into silence once again.

  “Don’t play bloody games with me!” yelled the hunter. He was reloading his rifle again when a heavy wind swept through the foliage overhead, rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees. But that was impossible. Wainwright felt no such breeze at ground level. Almost afraid of what he might find, he chanced a glance into the treetops. The rustling had not been the wind after all, but the sound of fluttering wings. There were dozens upon dozens of white doves perched in the trees around him. They were pure-white birds with bright pink eyes that seemed to blaze down at him. They sat there patiently, but expectantly, like a jury contemplating the atrocities of a guilty man.

  That was when he remembered the snow-white hawk. And the snake in the bag.

  The big game hunter began to back away, retreat foremost in his mind. But before he could take two steps, a noise sounded behind him. It was a loud crackling noise, like that of a water buffalo crashing through a canebrake. Wainwright whirled and stared at a spot just beneath the green ivy. The sound increased in intensity and the viney growth began to buck and heave. Something pulsed underneath, something ebony black and without distinctive form. But whatever it was, it didn’t intend on staying that way for very long. It was growing at an alarming rate of speed and changing — transforming — into something incredibly huge and potentially horrifying.

  The flock that watched from overhead abandoned their silent vigil. They voiced their collective verdict, but it came harsh and shrill; the cawing of carrion crows, rather than the gentle cooing of doves. It cut through Wainwright’s ears like a death knell, proclaiming his guilt and calling for swift and merciless punishment.

  It came an instant later, exploding from the depths of the undergrowth like a great black monolith. It rose to a height of fifty feet, a living pinnacle of dark fury. He watched as its form grew more distinct, sprouting appendages and a huge, oversized head. At first, he couldn’t envision what it intended to become. It looked comically out of proportion. The hind legs were massive and strong, while the front ones were tiny in comparison. Its tail was great and reptilian, thrashing about like the tendril of an angry sea squid.

  Then the features of the head grew more prominent, splitting into a powerful maw of sharp gray teeth. Almost immediately, Colin Wainwright knew precisely what it was that he was dealing with.

  It’s a bloody Tyrannosaurus rex! he realized. The largest carnivore that ever roamed the face of the earth! And I’ve got it in my sights. The king of all big game…and it is mine!

  Wainwright lifted his rifle and fired at the column of its throat, knowing from experience that the underbelly was the softest part of a reptile’s body. But the shot didn’t net him the results he expected. The slug ricocheted ineffectively off the dusty black hide of the great beast. The tyrannosaurus roared, but it was a bellow of contempt and not one of pain. It gnashed its giant fangs together, then started toward the hunter.

  The Englishman had no time to reload his Weatherby. He discarded the rifle and drew Steve Ratcliffe’s Magnum revolver from his belt. He fired, point blank, at the advancing dinosaur. The slugs only glanced off the thick black hide or flattened against the gray spikes of its grinning jaws.

  Wainwright lost his nerve then. Panic hit him like a punch in the gut. He had always laughed at the superstitious fears of the natives he had encountered during his many hunts. But now he knew what inspired them to the heights of mortal terror. He had always scoffed at their “dark gods,” not knowing that such beings actually existed. At that moment, his disbelief dried up and turned to dust like a mudhole beneath a blazing African sun.

  But even as the thought of escape lanced through his mind, he knew that it came too late. The shadow of the beast engulfed him and the heat of its fetid breath seared the flesh of his face. He screamed only once before the tyrannosaurus dipped its massive head toward him. Its toothy maw encaged him, the incisors spearing into his struggling body, nearly cutting him in half. It lifted him into the open air, jaws grinding and chewing, drawing him deeper into the dark pit of its gullet. It grinned, blood dribbling down its scaly chin, as it snapped its head back and swallowed the dregs of Colin Wainwright in one, savory gulp.

  Afterward, the creature stared
up into the trees and eyed the flock of doves that perched amid the foliage. They stared back, approvingly, yet with a touch of underlying fear for the black beast that was their sole protector. Then they took flight, swooping from the branches and limbs and heading, en masse, down the mountainside.

  The dinosaur bent down and took the hunter’s bolt action rifle in its tiny, reptilian hands. It used it as a makeshift toothpick, prying a stray piece of Colin Wainwright from its iron-gray fangs. Then it tossed the gun aside and followed the others down the western face of Pale Dove Mountain.

  Bubba Graham woke up thinking that he was in heaven.

  All he remembered was the madness of panic that had gripped him at the sight of Steve’s battered body, the arrival of Colin Wainwright, and then the burst of bright pain and darkness. Now he was surrounded by angels…but they were not like angels that he had ever read about in the Bible.

  The heavenly bodies stood around him in a close circle, peering down at him with curious pink eyes. All of the women were in various stages of undress; some completely naked, while others wore flimsy lingerie or revealing bikinis. One even wore a Stetson and cowboy boots. She was the spitting image of Steve’s centerfold sweetheart in the April issue of Satyr.

  “Who are you?” he asked sluggishly. “Where am I?”

  Then he smelled the rich fragrance of pine and saw the lumpy thing lying at the base of the tree, and he knew that he was still in the grove. He struggled to his feet, sick pain exploding through the back of his head. That damned Englishman had hit him hard, but why? To keep him from calling the local sheriff. Wainwright had been hired to hunt down and kill the thing that roamed Pale Dove Mountain, but he didn’t want any help doing it, or any interference. Well, you egotistical son of a bitch, you can have the thing all to yourself, thought Bubba. But don’t expect me to stick around waiting for you. I’m getting the hell away from this place right now!

  Bubba stood, weaving and stumbling amid the circle of naked, albino women. I’m hallucinating, he decided. They’re not really here. I’m just imagining all this. Wainwright must’ve knocked something loose in my brainpan. But he found that he was wrong when he lurched forward and touched one of the women. His hand recoiled at the touch of warm, soft flesh.

  “Oh dear Lord, let me outta here!” he cried. Bubba broke through the silent gathering and tore through the dense grove like a madman. He ran through the forest, past Steve’s measuring rod, then, fifty yards farther on, past the tripod with its transit level. The truck was parked where they had left it, next to a dirt road that extended up the western face of Pale Dove Mountain from the main highway.

  Bubba climbed into the truck and sat there for a moment, catching his breath. His sides ached from the wild sprint through the forest and he wished that he were in better physical shape. I bet Steve wishes the same thing, he thought and a hysterical giggle escaped his lips. He knew then that he had better get off the mountain before he totally lost whatever amount of sanity he still possessed.

  He dug into his pants pocket for his keys, but they were not there.

  Looking up, he saw the procession of albino beauties leaving the pine grove. They walked through the woods toward the truck. There was someone else with them, but not another female. No, the one they followed was a man, tall and cadaverously thin. Bubba couldn’t make out exactly who it was, until they reached the very front of the pickup. Then it hit him with a wave of dizzy bewilderment.

  The man was a washed-out duplicate of Lance LaBlanc, the playboy publisher of Satyr magazine. He had the same gaunt, Rathbone-like features and his stark white hair was pulled into a full ponytail. The customary black pajamas were substituted with ones of shimmering white silk, while the red sash was a soft pink hue, much like the color of blushing flesh.

  “Who are you people?” screamed Bubba. He searched his other pockets, but the key ring was nowhere to be found. “What do you want from me?”

  LaBlanc and his female entourage said nothing. They merely stood and stared at him with those burning pink eyes.

  He remembered the .45 and drew it from his side holster. “I got a gun, see? Now scram, or I swear I’ll start shooting through the freaking windshield!”

  Their ranks parted, but not because of Bubba’s threat. No, it was to make room for the one they had all been waiting for.

  “What the hell—” muttered Bubba. He felt a rash of goose bumps prickle his flesh as he stared through the windshield at a flash of dark motion in the distance.

  Something was sweeping gracefully down the wooded mountainside. It looked like a man dressed in the garb of a hockey player—a goalie to be more precise. The nightmare player was decked out in arm, chest, and kneepads, thick gloves, and a ventilated mask—all jet black in color. He dodged between the close-grown trees, swerving easily as though he was skating on ice, rather than the moss and ivy of the forest floor. And any bothersome obstruction he happened upon, like saplings or thorny brush, he cleaved away cleanly with his hockey stick, much like a farmer uses a sickle to harvest a crop of wheat.

  Bubba watched as the hellish goalie flew straight toward the front of the truck. Suddenly, he knew that he was the one who had killed Steve Ratcliffe. He rolled down his side window, leaned out, and leveled the .45 at the approaching man.

  “You lousy bastard!” he yelled. “You’re the one who messed up Steve!” He began to fire, squeezing off one round after another. He watched in growing panic as the slugs flattened against the goalie’s chestpad and dropped away.

  “Good God Almighty!” he said and ducked his head back inside. The goalie skated by a moment later, stick flashing wickedly. It chopped the side view mirror cleanly from the door, cutting through the chromed steel as if it were warm butter.

  Bubba twisted his head around and looked through the back window. The dark goalie made a sharp U-turn around the rear bumper. The end of the black stick punched through the reinforced tailgate. With a mighty heave, the goalie tore it from its hinges, flinging it a good thirty feet away. It landed with a clatter in the middle of the mountain road.

  The goalie was coming up fast on the far side of the truck. Bubba aimed his gun at the passenger window. He unleashed a volley of rounds as the dark player swept past and severed the other side view mirror. Bubba swore that he hit the man in the side of the head at least twice, but he didn’t go down. The goalie shot onward, made a graceful pirouette, then started back. This time he was heading straight for the front of the Chevy.

  Bubba knew that there were only two or three rounds left in his gun. An extra magazine was stashed in the glove box, but there was no time to reload. He held the gun in both hands and leveled it at the windshield, ready to fire.

  But before he could expend his few remaining rounds, he realized that the nightmarish goalie was slowing down. He stooped abruptly, mere inches from the front grill. Bubba watched, frozen into immobility, as the hockey player mounted the bumper and stood there, perfectly balanced, the dark stick clutched in thick-gloved hands and ready for a deadly, downward swing. Bubba stared up into the black mask and, within its eyeholes, saw equally black eyes glittering out at him. Eyes full of hatred and seething rage. And there was something else there, too. Restraint…but just barely.

  The end of the hockey stick flashed downward, but not into the glass of the windshield as Bubba expected. No, the razored tip bit deeply into the hood of the truck instead, slashing through the steel with horrifying ease. The goalie withdrew the stick, then brought it down time after time, carving a haphazard pattern into the surface of the hood. Then the goalie stopped and admired its handiwork for a long moment, before stepping off the front bumper. The horror in the hockey mask regarded him once more, almost grudgingly, before turning and starting back into the heart of the forest.

  Bubba nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned his head and found Lance LaBlanc standing directly outside the window. The gaunt man stood there, staring at him with the same anger that the dark one had. Then he held out his hand. Th
e keys to the truck dangled from his pale fingers.

  “Thanks, bud!” The surveyor snatched the keys away from LaBlanc and cranked up the ignition. The roar of the engine was music to his ears. “I’ll be back, though, and I’ll be bringing the sheriff with me. Then you’ll all pay dearly for what you did to poor Steve!”

  Bubba Graham sent his Chevy roaring down the mountain road. He had to fight to keep his mind on his driving. His thoughts kept wandering to images of Steve’s broken body, as well as LaBlanc and his albino bimbos. And most of all, he relived the horror of the dark goalie with the destructive hockey stick. As he reached the highway and poured on the speed, he remembered those coal-black eyes staring at him from the sockets of the mask and the sheer savagery the attacker had exhibited while butchering the hood of Bubba’s truck.

  “But why did he do it?” Bubba wondered aloud. “What was the meaning of it all?” He peered at the slashed hood of the truck and, the more he studied the crisscross design of the goalie’s vandalism, the more he began to realize that crude words had been etched there in the jagged steel.

  Bubba Graham had to study the inverted message for a moment, before he figured out what it actually said:

  SECOND CHANCE!

  Chapter Eighteen

  Carpentry was the only true skill that Glen Tucker possessed. True, he could tend to the business of the general store, run a household, and raise a child all at the same time, but that was more out of necessity than talent. The craftsmanship of carpentry had once been a major part of his day-to-day life. Before his father had died and left him the market, Glen had made his living building things with his hands. During the first few years of his marriage to Liz, he had worked for a contractor in Mountain View, doing the interiors for new homes in the Peremont County area. After Dale was born, he and Liz had even planned on buying a lot on the outskirts of Tucker’s Mill and building their own house. But things had changed and their youthful dreams had faded, first with the sudden responsibility of the country store, and after that, the trying illness and death of his beautiful wife.