Something shuffled in the bedroom, and I immediately switched off the light. I wanted to run, but was afraid I'd draw attention to myself if I moved. I watched the static-filled television across the hall in my living room as I tried to figure out a way to escape.
Footsteps moved from my bedroom into the darkness of the hallway. I gripped the knife handle tightly and crouched down in a ball in the corner of the room. Whatever was moving down the hall toward me was taking very slow steps, and I could hear it sniffing the air, probably trying to track me. As it paced closer and closer, I desperately fought to control my breathing so the thing wouldn't hear me.
And then I saw it: the beast's silhouette against the white static on the television screen. The werewolf's mouth was open, its teeth like black knives. Drool fell in thick strings from its lower jaw as it continued to smell the air for a trace of me.
The beast locked in on my scent, and its shadowed face became a snarl as it turned to face the kitchen.
I slid the TV remote from my pocket as the beast took a first, slow step into the kitchen. The monster smelled like a bloody, wet dog. I pointed the remote past the thing, toward the television, and pressed the mute button.
Just as the beast took another step toward me the cheering crowd static came to life again behind it, filling the house with sound. Startled, it spun around and darted into the living room on two legs.
I wasted no time standing and bolting out of the kitchen. I wanted to get to the gun in my bedroom, but I saw the beast turn toward me from the corner of my eye and knew I wouldn't make it. I detoured into the bathroom and slammed the heavy door behind me.
I pressed the button on the doorknob to lock it and took a look around the room for a weapon. The best I could see was a can of hairspray and a plunger, neither of them promising. Instead, I slid the wooden cabinet I had against the wall in front of the door. I figured it weighed about a hundred pounds or so. As a last resort I knew I could get out of the house through the bathroom window, though I liked my chances of survival out in the open even less than being trapped in the house.
I could hear the werewolf just beyond the door. It sniffed the crack at the bottom then started scratching at the wood. I stayed quiet as the scratching became more aggressive, more violent, and after a minute or two of clawing the door the beast started throwing its weight into the wood. It pounded the door again and again, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the hinges let loose, so I opened the bathroom window. If it broke through I'd jump out and make a mad sprint for the car.
Knowing first-hand how fast a werewolf can run, I didn't like my chances outside. The fact that the Mustang rarely started on the first, second or third turn of the key didn't make my getaway plan seem any more plausible, but the monster was still smashing away at the door, shaking the cabinet I'd leaned against it so hard I thought it would collapse. My eyes shut reflexively every time the beast slammed the wood, and I bit my bottom lip until it bled. The hinges were starting to look bad. The top one was hanging on by one of three screws.
It wouldn't be long now.
And then suddenly the beast stopped its assault. It gave up on the door and started pacing up and down the hallway, no doubt trying to figure out another way to get to me. I noticed for the first time that the TV wasn't making any noise. I stayed quiet and still, and waited, sitting in the windowsill as the beast roamed from one end of the house to the other then back again. I was sweating so hard my shirt felt like a wetsuit. Now and then the beast would paw at the door a bit as it passed by in the hall, but it never put any real effort into it.
I must've stayed in the same position for an hour before the house finally went quiet, and even then I didn't move for another twenty minutes. Even after I closed the window I sat on the floor for what seemed forever.
Eventually, I decided to open the door and see if the house was clear.
I pulled out my dying flashlight and followed the weak beam to my bedroom, hoping I wouldn't regret that I didn't head straight for the front door. The fact that nothing dove on me when I entered the hall was a huge relief. Now that the threat of imminent death had eased up a bit I remembered that the thing in the hallway had been human, or something close to it, when I first heard it in my bedroom. And the voice, as horrifying as it had been, was somehow familiar and was tugging at my heart. And for all I knew, maybe the beast had changed back into the girl who had called out to me.
I saw the mess of my bedroom in the circular yellow light. Lamps upturned and smashed, blankets from the bed all over the place, a pillow with its innards all over the floor. I fought back the fear, taking the smallest, slowest steps I've ever taken to cross a room, then grabbed the doorknob on the closet door and jerked it open as fast as I could.
My many black T-shirts hung in rows, and a pair of work boots covered in dried mud lay on their sides on the floor. I closed the door and moved toward the bed. If anything were in the room, it would have to be on the other side of the bed, the side where the dresser housed my.44. I didn't know what I'd find there, but I planned on hitting it with everything I was worth.
A cool wind blew through the broken window beside the bed as I eased forward. I thought a little about dying, and felt that if I was indeed writing an ending for the book of my life, that the last chapter had really sucked.
The space beside the bed was all broken glass, blood, and patches of dark fur. There were some disturbingly large claw marks in the hard wood floor, and my bedroom window had been smashed. Replacing some broken glass was the least of my worries. I reached into the dresser and grabbed my.44. I felt better with the gun in my hand. A hell of a lot better.
Then something caught the moon's light and reflected it into my eyes. I looked down at the glass and blood on the floor and saw something metallic lying amongst the mess. I reached down, picked it up and used the flashlight to see what it was. My heart went cold when I recognized the necklace I'd given Alicia for her birthday shortly after we'd started dating; a small cross with an onyx stone in the center that she wore more than any other piece of jewelry she owned. I sat on my bed for a while, trying to gather my composure, and eventually convinced myself that this was not the time to be sentimental. The beast that had been in my house might be coming back, and judging by what it did to my bathroom door, it could do some real damage to me if it wanted to.
I rose from the bed and went to check out the rest of the house. I was feeling a whole lot more confident with a gun in my hand as I made sure the doors and windows were shut and locked throughout the house.
I started fixing the place up as soon as I'd determined that the house was as secure as it could be. The first thing I did was replace the broken light bulbs. Then I boarded up the broken window with some old lumber scraps I had in the basement. It reminded me of the house from Night of the Living Dead. I was fulfilling a childhood fantasy of being a character in a horror movie, and it wasn't nearly as much fun as I had imagined.
The phone rang and I almost sent it to phone-heaven with the.44. I took a breath to gather my composure and laughed at myself. I knew it would be Jess wanting to know what was taking me so long to get back to her place before I picked up the receiver.
"You decide to spend the night alone?" she asked in a playful tone.
"No. Sorry, I got tied up cleaning the place and lost track of time." I thought it'd be better to tell her what had happened another day. Otherwise, she'd get no sleep at all. It took everything I had to disguise the terror I was feeling.
"Well, I'm going to bed," she said. "I have to get up early tomorrow and I feel like I could pass out right here on the phone. But I'll see you after I get out of work."
"Sounds good to me, Jess. You sleep well."
"Yeah, thanks. Oh, and don't forget that Bronson's still starving over here. If he dies tonight it's your fault."
I hung up and sat back on my sofa, the gun resting in my lap. The horrible voice I'd heard earlier kept repeating in my mind. What frightened me most wa
s that whatever was hiding in the room had known my name. And just before dawn I finally admitted to myself what I'd known from the moment I heard it.
The voice was Alicia's.
CHAPTER 15
I didn't see Jessica the next day. She was working and I was doing some straightening up and reconstruction around my house. I was tired as hell, and hit my thumb with the hammer enough times to turn it purple for lack of concentration. Each time I screamed curses into the air, more out of fear and frustration than pain.
Sometime after noon I got a call from Jessica. I'd thought about giving her a ring earlier, but couldn't muster up the strength to tell my story, or to terrify her with the news. My nerves were damn near fried, and just thinking about the attack was almost too much for me to handle. I'd never felt so drained in my life.
"Hey Brian, what's up?" Jessica sounded bubbly, like she was having the best day of her life.
"Hi, Jessica, how are you doing?" It took a lot of effort to speak, and she could hear it in my voice.
"I'm good. I fell asleep shortly after you left last night. I was worried about you when I woke up and saw you weren't at the house. I ended up giving Bronson a can of tuna before I went to bed. Are you okay? You sound awful."
"Jessica, I have awful news."
"What's wrong?" Her tone went from sunshine to rainstorm in a split second, her voice dripping with a mixture of dread and concern.
"Last night. Here at the house. I was attacked by a…a werewolf."
"Oh my God! Are you alright? Were you hurt?"
"No, no. Calm down. I'm okay. Just a little tired is all. It was a long night. A very, very long night."
"What happened, Brian? Are you sure you're okay? You sound awful. Should I come over there and get you?" I could almost hear the tears gathering in her eyes.
"No. It's okay now. I don't think those things can attack during the day." I gave her an abbreviated, clean version of what had gone down minus the part about Alicia's necklace. I would spare her that kernel of information until later. She was freaked out by the whole thing, but probably not as much as me. It was one thing to be attacked on the road. But when a monster decides it's a regular houseguest the shit gets too deep to ignore.
"Why won't that god-damned thing just go away? And why us? What the hell did we do to deserve this?"
"I don't know. I really don't know. But Jessica…"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think this was our monster. I mean, I think this one was different. Smaller. Just as mean, but smaller."
"Are you fucking kidding me? Is there an entire nest of those things somewhere in the woods? I don't know what to do Brian. I don't know how much longer I can pretend that everything's okay. I'm falling apart here. I've been having horrible nightmares, and I'm waking up exhausted and?"
"I know, Jessica. This has been hard on me too. And I really don't have a good idea what to do aside from making sure we're armed every second of the day from here on out."
Someone spoke to Jess on the other end of the line. "Shit. I have to get back to work. I'll call you when I get out of here."
"Sounds good, girl. Take care of yourself, and I know it's an impossible request, but try not to let this weigh on you too much."
After we hung up I took an inventory of all the crap I was going to need to replace around the house. First off, the bedroom window. Two lamps, my desk and the bedroom phone were also on my list. Not to mention I was going to need to seal up some tears in my mattress with duct tape and try to get bloodstains out of my carpet. There were a few pretty good holes in the walls, and my bathroom door looked like a whale had used it to sled down a rocky hill. The werewolf had knocked my television from its stand and onto the floor, but luckily the damage was only cosmetic.
Before turning into a monster, the intruder had avoided light and reflections like the plague. All the light bulbs had been broken in their sockets and most of my mirrors had been smashed. Also, the framed picture of Alicia and me that was still up in the bedroom had been tossed against a wall and lay shattered on the floor.
Seems to me it wasn't exactly fair this creature chose my place to destroy. I'm sure that Lisp and his Walnut Ridge pals could have soaked up the cost of the attack a lot easier than I could. Hell, if the thing had gone one house over, Hank probably wouldn't have even noticed it had been there considering the mess he kept on hand. And I have a feeling that Hank is the type of fellow who sleeps with a shotgun, so he'd probably have been better prepared in the first place.
I was left to handle the situation by myself. I couldn't exactly call the police about what had happened. Well, I could have, but it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere.
"Good morning, officer. A monster destroyed my house last night and then jumped through my window and fled into the woods. Yep. That's right, a monster. No, I didn't get a good look at it, but I'm confident it was a monster 'cause I was just attacked by one on the road a few days ago. I have some monster fur and monster blood here that we can use to identify it once it's apprehended. No, I don't think I'd be able to identify it from an all monster line-up. Because it was dark. Sorry."
I was scrubbing the carpet beside my bed when the phone rang. I looked toward the dresser and remembered that the only working telephone was in the living room, and even that one had a good sized crack in it. Couldn't blame the monster for that one though, that was all me.
Jessica was on the other end letting me know that we were getting together later. She was an assertive one to say the least, rarely asking for my approval when making plans for the two of us, and I didn't mind that at all. It kept the amount of thinking and preparation I had to do to a minimum.
I showed up at her place as the sun started to fall. I couldn't keep my eyes off the woods around me as I walked down the sidewalk. Every shadow seemed to cloak some evil, bloodthirsty beast. Jessica was on edge as well, her eyes scanning the landscape behind me when she opened the door. After I stepped inside she shut the door quickly and locked the deadbolt.
On her way home she had stopped to rent a few films, and I was happy to see a Clint Eastwood classic among them. We needed distractions, because distractions were the only things keeping us from going completely, bat-shit insane. But not even Clint, in all his badass, no-nonsense glory could keep my thoughts from the werewolves that were determined to see my life end.
All night I had trouble focusing on anything Jess was saying, and my eyes kept checking the windows, terrified that they'd find a werewolf face looking in on the two of us. I jumped when a branch would fall outside and shivered when the somber wind howled through the trees.
"Brian, are you sure you're okay? You seem a little jumpy tonight."
"I'm just a little freaked out is all. To be honest, I'm scared. And I've never been very good at being scared."
"I'm scared too, but we've got to get through this together. If there's something you need to talk about I'm here to listen."
"I know. I just hate dragging you down with this shit. I seem to have a knack for spreading my bad luck around."
"Is there something you're not telling me, Brian?"
I wanted to lie to her, to shield her from the things I'd seen, but knew that would cause more harm than good.
"Jess, I was almost killed last night. I was seconds away from being torn to shreds. So if I seem a little uneasy I hope you'll understand." I caught myself getting snippy with Jessica and felt bad for it.
"Brian, I'm not attacking you here. But I want to know everything that happened, because like it or not this affects me too. I just want to be sure that you're going to be okay. You don't have to be an asshole."
I composed myself with a sigh. "Sorry…Look, let's get some food and I'll tell you the rest of the story. I'm starving."
"How can you think of food at a time like this? Werewolves are trying to kill us." Jess was getting a bit of a crazy look in her eye, like a horse ready to bolt.
"Jess. I just need to chill for a minute. I'm okay. You're okay.
We're okay. Let's get something to eat and I'll explain everything."
She nodded and took a deep breath.
We reheated some Chinese food and made some nervous small talk before I decided to spill my guts in better detail about what had gone on at my place not twenty-four hours before. As she listened to my tale of terror her face seemed to drop a little at a time until her mouth hung open. I paused for a minute to let everything sink in before telling her that the creepy voice had sounded a lot like Alicia. Then I went to the bedroom and brought out Alicia's necklace so she'd know the whole story. Her eyes filled with tears at seeing it.
"Oh, God. Do you think Alicia is one of those… things?"
"I hope to hell not." I put my face in my hands and the room went quiet. A few silent moments passed as the gravity of the situation set in. It felt like we were the only two people at Alicia's funeral, mourning a loved one who wasn't dead, but too far away to reach. I had the tiniest bit of hope that my assumptions were wrong, that Alicia had simply run off to turn another page in her life, but found that hope slippery and hard to hold on to.
"What are we going to do?" Jessica's soft voice cut the silence like thunder. I snapped back to reality, and took control of my emotions.
"Way I see it, we've got a few options here and ain't one of them worth a shit."
"Like what?"
"Alright. I figure we could do what most folks would do. Call the police. Get that Sergeant Matheson fellow over to my place to take a look around. He seems like a good guy. We could try to convince him that something unbelievable is going down here and hope he believes us."
Andy Deane Page 8
