Creature

by Hunter Shea

  This wasn’t one of those moments.

  Andrew deflated. “No, you look fine. Maybe you were sleepwalking.”

  “I couldn’t have been sleepwalking because I’ve been up for hours.”

  Oh Lord, she wanted to slap him. It was as if he were accusing her of some mighty wrongdoing, which she knew was irrational. The past few minutes had her on an emotional roller coaster, and she needed her husband to settle her down, not send her on the next loop-de-loop.

  When he leaned over to hug her, she pulled away.

  “Look, I’m sorry. Wouldn’t you rather it be a hallucination or dream than some poor person screaming for their life out there?”

  She went to say something, but bit her tongue instead. Tonight was the first time she’d put on a new patch in tandem with the new light sedative she’d been given. Maybe, just maybe, they didn’t play well together.

  And she really didn’t want that to be some poor, hurt, terrified woman out there in the woods.

  Staring at Buttons, who had grown bored and closed his eyes, she said, “I hate it when you’re right.”

  She leaned into him and he held her, his stale beer breath something powerful.

  “Yeah, me too. It’s not easy being right so much of the time. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

  Kate pinched him, eliciting a sharp yowl.

  “Now you get to stay up with me until I can fall asleep.”

  Propping up their pillows, he said, “Fine, but no black-and-white movies. I need something in color with action. Naked boobs if we can swing it.”

  “I married a child.”

  “Action and nudity keep me young.”

  She laughed, and it felt amazing to release the pressure that had built up inside her. “Then you’re going to grow old real fast with me around.”

  Andrew clicked around, settling for a Vin Diesel movie.

  She had just started to believe that maybe she had been kind of sleepwalking when the penetrating scream happened again, this time sounding as if it were right outside their window.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Did you find anything?”

  Andrew was in the kitchen, buttering up some toast for her. He had a plate for himself heaped with scrambled eggs and sausage links.

  Neither of them had been able to go back to sleep. Here they were, eating breakfast at the ass crack of dawn, Kate tapping and swiping away on her tablet.

  “Yes, but he’s thirty miles away,” she said.

  The pink-and-yellow sun did wonders to calm their nerves. As did having a task to concentrate on.

  “Thirty miles is nothing up here. It’s the equivalent of the corner store back home,” he said, handing her a plate of toast and glass of orange juice. She nibbled on a corner.

  He hoped she hadn’t noticed him checking the lock on the door as he walked past it.

  “Not many ratings, though. I don’t know,” she said, brow furrowed.

  “I don’t think people up here give a crap about Yelp and all that nonsense.”

  Andrew tucked into his eggs, slathering them with hot sauce.

  “Well, it’s either this guy or a vet in New Hampshire. It looks like a county clinic. The drive would take about an hour.”

  “I’ll stick to the one in Maine,” he said.

  Buttons sat by the bed, looking up at them, waiting for scraps.

  “Want some sausage?” Andrew said, barely above a whisper.

  The dog waddled to his side of the bed.

  “He heard that,” he said.

  “Something has to be off with his hearing,” Kate said. She took a birdlike sip of her juice. “There’s no way he heard that last night and just decided not to react.”

  Andrew gave Buttons a sausage and patted his head.

  “No, you’re right. That was so loud, it was like someone had pressed their mouth against the screen and was shouting at us.”

  What he didn’t want to say was that the sudden, shrill cry had frightened him so much, his balls had shriveled to raisins and still hadn’t gone back to normal. How had he not heard it the first time? Maybe he should get his hearing checked while he was out with Buttons.

  Hearing issues aside, it had been terrifying. He’d snapped the lights on and they’d waited, holding one another, wondering when the next shriek would come. When he went to check the window, she’d pulled him back onto the bed. A very big part of him was grateful. It was a moment when he was supposed to be alpha male macho, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was on the other side of the window.

  So they’d sat quietly, minutes turning into an hour, finally allowing themselves to unclench, just a little. As dawn broke, Kate became fixated on the dog’s hearing and had been looking up places to take him ever since. She could get like that – obsessed with something to take her mind off what was really bugging her. Like the way she obsessed over those old movies.

  “I’ll call when their office opens at nine,” Kate said. She set the toast aside and dove back into her tablet.

  Andrew had decided he was going to skip his morning run today. Dashing around in the woods alone had lost a lot of its appeal.

  “What are you looking for now?” he asked.

  “Scary animal sounds.”

  The three-word search returned over a million possibilities.

  “All I want are the videos,” she said, opening the first link. The title was ‘Ten Most Chilling Animal Sounds’.

  She turned the volume on her tablet all the way up.

  The room was filled with a lion’s roar. Buttons went on high alert, barking like mad.

  “Calm down, buddy,” Andrew said, hooking his finger under the dog’s collar and keeping him close. He’d heard that as well. Maybe he didn’t need to go to the vet at all.

  “It definitely wasn’t a lion,” Kate said.

  “I don’t think we needed a video to prove that. At least we know Buttons will give it right back to a lion.”

  His joke fell flat as the lion faded away, a crocodile’s warning rumble emanating from the small speakers. All ten animal recordings were of big animals found in Africa and Asia.

  “Next,” Kate said, clicking her way through audio compilations of all sorts of animal cries.

  Nothing sounded familiar until they heard a fox screaming. Andrew’s flesh prickled. It sounded very human, almost like a small child screaming at the top of their lungs.

  “That’s pretty close,” he said.

  Kate frowned, playing the audio three more times. Poor Buttons was starting to get antsy, his tail tucked between his legs.

  “Maybe we should use headphones,” Andrew said.

  Kate looked at Buttons and her face softened. “Poor baby. I’m so sorry, But-But. Mommy got a little…”

  “Obsessed,” Andrew finished for her, getting the headphones and adapter from the bedroom so they could both be plugged in. They used it often to watch something on her tablet that they couldn’t get on their old, pre-smart television back home.

  After feeding Buttons her toast as a small act of apology, Kate put her headphones on and replayed the chilling fox noise.

  Andrew shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it.”

  “Me neither. Let me refine this a little.”

  This time, she typed in ‘scary north American animal sounds’.

  They sat listening to more foxes, badgers, bears, and bobcats. They were all unnerving, but not what had been outside their window.

  When Kate clicked on a screeching deer, they both stiffened.

  “I didn’t know deer could make a sound like that. It’s awful, like a child being beaten,” Andrew said, heart beating just a little faster.

  Kate shivered. “Did we really just freak ourselves out all night over a deer?”

  Andrew had to laugh. �
��If we didn’t know we were dumb city folk before, we do now. Did you know deer made any kind of sounds? I thought they were all mute, except for Bambi.”

  Kate smiled for the first time that morning. “Let’s just listen to a few more.”

  Andrew had no desire, knowing that it was definitely a deer they’d heard. For it to make a sound like that, something had either spooked it or hurt it.

  He didn’t pay much attention until she opened a file for an owl.

  They looked at one another.

  “Okay,” Andrew said, “it could have been an owl too.”

  Tapping the screen, Kate verified that there were a dozen species of owl in Maine.

  “Or maybe a deer battling an owl,” she said.

  He took the tablet from her, turned it off, and set it on the end table.

  “You need to get some sleep. You look terrible,” he said.

  She nodded. “I am so tired. You should too.”

  “You know me. Maybe I’ll take a nap later. Once I’m up, I’m up.”

  He tucked the sheets around her.

  “We are a pair of world-class chickenshits,” he said, kissing her.

  “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “Don’t be. I’d hate to think that I would sleep through all of that and leave you alone and wigged out all night, even if it was just over a deer or owl.”

  “Or both!”

  “Right. Or both.” He gave her her morning medication and she was asleep before he had the dishes washed.

  Lucky, he thought.

  Now that their ridiculous fears had been assuaged, he had to go for a run just to prove to himself that he had some bit of testosterone left. Buttons followed him into the bedroom as he got changed.

  “You want to come, old man?” he said.

  He made an executive decision not to bother with the vet. From everything he could see, Buttons could hear just fine. Just why the beagle hadn’t reacted to the deer/owl was a mystery, but not one that Andrew would lose any sleep over.

  Maybe he could dial things down a bit today. The old anger was nowhere to be found. There was nothing to pound into submission. He was too damn tired to be upset.

  His run was actually an amble, Buttons not sniffing around so much but going at his own leisurely pace. The air smelled extra sweet this morning.

  “God’s bakery,” Andrew said.

  They trudged through the litter of leaves and needles, the lake peeking between the trees. He saw the elderly kayakers out for their morning exercise.

  Buttons barked, tugging on the leash. Andrew’s shoulder snapped, and he had to hurry to keep up.

  The dog dove under a pile of brambles, front paws scratching at the dirt. When his furry head emerged, he had a squirrel in his mouth.

  Andrew cringed. “Put that thing down, Buttons.”

  He opened his mouth, the top half of the squirrel thumping on the ground. Its gray coat was splattered with what looked like fresh blood.

  “Where’s the other half?”

  Buttons wagged his tail, tongue dripping drool and squirrel blood. Toeing the area where the beagle had found the squirrel, Andrew was unable to locate the missing chunk.

  “Glad I already ate breakfast. Come on, buddy.”

  They walked for twenty minutes and Buttons didn’t find any more severed critters, much to Andrew’s relief.

  He let the dog back inside, Kate fast asleep, and took a thorough tour around the cottage. Tracking was not one of his specialties, but that deer had been so close, it had to have left some sign of its presence. The ground beneath the window on the side of the house where it had made its last pained cry was lush with grass. He didn’t see any small depressions anywhere.

  “Check for scat,” he mumbled, remembering Kate’s request the day she’d thought a bear had been on the porch.

  For the first time, Andrew wondered if he should have found a place a little closer to civilization. Maybe with more people around, there’d be less wildlife to scare the piss out of them. There were occasional bears that went pool hopping in New Jersey, and he’d once spotted a deer in their backyard, but those were rare instances. At least the Jersey beasts had the common courtesy to be quiet when they lurked about.

  Not so with the fauna of Maine.

  Andrew and Kate were the interlopers here.

  Finding nothing, he ended up on the dock, dipping his feet in the water. With the sun on his face and the lake so still, it was perfect for napping.

  If it was an owl, I’m not climbing trees to look for evidence.

  He couldn’t get that sound out of his head, nor the one he’d heard that early morning. Every time he started to doze off, the screeches returned, raising the hackles on the back of his neck, even though he knew damn well they were just the weird cries of some harmless animals. Animals hidden by the dark of night, just out of sight.

  Looking back at the cottage, he could almost see inside the glass doors to their bed.

  A strange thought floated through his brain.

  We can’t see them.

  But they can see us.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You’re burning up,” Andrew said. “And we ran out of Tylenol. I’ll have to go to town to get some. You need or want anything else?”

  Kate had kicked all of the sheets off, her skin feeling as if it were being pricked by live wires. Her muscles ached, joints swollen so much, she feared they would crack like old walnuts. It was a very bad day.

  “How are we on soda?”

  Andrew checked the fridge and the cabinet where they stored their drinks. “I’ll get more. You want a magazine or something? Maybe the paper?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I could concentrate enough to read a full sentence.”

  “I could get you USA Today. I don’t think they write in full sentences.”

  “How about some English muffins? For some reason, I have a craving.”

  Andrew scribbled on a scrap of paper. “Officially on the list. You going to be all right? I was thinking of renting a kayak while I’m out.”

  She was happy to hear that. She’d noticed him looking wistfully at the lake more and more. He’d taken a few quick dips, but she could tell he really wanted to explore it beyond the dock. She wished she could join him, but there was no way her arms could paddle a kayak. Her shoulders would dislocate on the first stroke.

  “I’ll be fine. You have to leave for work every day, and I feel like crap nine times out of ten. Go forth and get your toy. You deserve it. Take your time. I have a couple of Tylenol in my backup pill case.”

  Aside from her mason jar of pills, she had an old Altoids tin she usually stowed in the car for emergencies. One of every medication was in the tin.

  He smiled and kissed her forehead, covering it with a cool washcloth.

  “Be back soon.”

  Buttons followed him to the door and whined after he closed it. Since Andrew had been around day and night, the beagle had grown more attached to him.

  “Don’t be a traitor, But-But.”

  He happily bounded to the bed.

  He was still very much her baby. Kate petted him until even that made her tired.

  She’d been more tired than usual. Ever since the night of the shrieking deer, as Andrew had nicknamed it as if it were a B horror movie, she’d found it hard to sleep when it was dark out. Well, harder than usual. Her senses were on high alert from sundown to sunup, which in turn was wearing on what was left of her immune system.

  Today’s fever came without that microwave feeling. Even so, she waited for her back to feel like someone had sprayed lighter fluid on it and flicked a match her way.

  Despite being weak and clammy, she started to get antsy. Perhaps it was having the threat of her secret microwave feels hanging over her, or the niggling feeling that
something about this place wasn’t what it appeared to be. Strange noises aside, other aspects of their vacation home were bugging her more and more.

  Like, why really had it been available at the last minute? And not just for a week or two, but the whole summer? Kate was starting to doubt the realtor’s story about the previous renters having a death in the family.

  Also, where the hell were their neighbors? Andrew said he still hadn’t seen another home on his runs. She hardly saw anyone ever on the lake. Were people avoiding this place for a reason?

  Or was all of this just nonsense, another aftereffect of her treatment, her mind spinning on overdrive?

  A ball of nervous energy in her gut grew and grew until she couldn’t sit still anymore. She had to get up and do something, no matter how much she hurt or her body begged to get back under the sheet.

  She forced herself to get out of bed. The day was a little overcast, threatening rain. The increased humidity only made her joints feel worse.

  You’re going to hurt like hell whether you stay in bed or get up off your ass and do something.

  Andrew’s housekeeping had gone a little sideways since they got to Maine. And why not? They were on vacation, after all. There were clothes in and around the hamper, socks scattered on the floor, dishes in the kitchen sink. And the bathroom could stand a little bleach cleaner.

  If you can’t properly christen the house with Andrew, this will have to do.

  Kate groaned whenever she bent down to pick up clothes or get the cleaner from the lower cabinets. Buttons followed her around the house. She tossed a load of laundry into the washer, which was kept in a closet near the kitchen. She’d at first thought the closet was a pantry, but it contained a small washer with a top-mounted dryer instead. Leaning against the sink, she washed the dishes slowly, meticulously. She had to take a break before tackling the bathroom, sitting down to catch her breath and dispel the dizziness in her brain.

  Days like today, when she was sick to death of being sick, sexually frustrated – hell, frustrated in general – and harboring a low buzz of being freaked out, she pushed herself to restore a modicum of order around her. It wasn’t much, but it gave her some sense of control back. It always ended in tears and blinding pain and sometimes worse, but once she started, she couldn’t stop herself.