The Scourge

by R. Tilden Smith

  “Obama, what the hell you doing?” Terp said, “Ray! Snap out of it man. Ray!”

  Ray felt a sharp pain across the left side of his face.

  “Wha—? Hey, why the hell you hit me Terp?”

  “I’m talking to you and you ain’t saying shit. And you were staring at those mops like you saw a ghost. You alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I just got lost in thought there for a second.”

  Terp gave Ray a long suspicious look. “Well, stop thinking and listen up. We got company.”

  “What?”

  “I heard something outside the back door, toward the bayou. Sounded like sniffing.”

  “Sniffing?”

  “Yeah, you know, like a dog sniffing around looking for something.”

  “Maybe that fish smell attracted some animals.”

  “Let’s find that safe, get the money, and get outta here so we don’t have worry about it.”

  “Yeah, I hear ya,” Ray said. He glanced at his phone. “We don’t have much time. That safe has to be around here somewhere. He pointed the light at the wooden table again, then pointed it lower, searching along the floor. This time he caught sight of something that looked right. It was a dull metallic gray plate, flush with the floor, about two feet square. It was under the wooden table, nestled snuggly in the back corner of the alcove. “Hey, I think I found it.”

  They moved quickly to the alcove, Ray knelt down and crawled under the table. “Hallelujah! This is definitely it Terp. The metal plate looks like some sort of cover. I’m gonna see if I can lift it.”

  “Hurry up, man,” Terp said, “I hear something right outside the door. Let me see your flashlight, maybe I can scare it away.”

  Ray found a notch in the metal plate where he could fit his fingers around its smoothly machined edge. He lifted the metal cover, revealing the safe door. There was a ten digit keypad affixed to the door's face. The keypad had two LED indicators along the top. The one on the left was lit green, the other was red. “This is it Terp! I can’t give you the flashlight now, man. I need it so I can enter the combination.”

  “Something is definitely in here. I can hear it walking over by the refrigerator.”

  Ray heard it too. A soft tap-tap-tap on the concrete floor.

  “Just shoot it if it gets too close. I only need another minute to open the safe.”

  “I can’t see shit in here!” Terp said. He had the revolver in both hands, his arms fully extended. He was swinging the gun wildly to the left and right, trying to follow the sound. The tap-tap-tap was getting faster and closer. “Obama, now would be a good time for us to leave.”

  “I ain’t leaving without getting my money, now stop talking and let me concentrate.” Ray had memorized the combination. His hands were damp and sweat poured off his brow into his eyes. Alright now, this shit had better work, he thought, rubbing his hands together, then placing his right hand lightly over the keypad. Let’s see, four‒seven‒zero‒nine‒two‒six, he thought as he pressed the keys. There was an audible click. The second LED lit up green.

  “Oh shit!” Ray whispered excitedly. He grabbed hold of the safe’s handle and pulled. The door swung open. “Terp!” Ray said, “The safe’s open! I got it open! We gonna be—”

  Two shots rang out. Ray jumped, banging his head against the underside of the table.

  “Aaaaah!” Terp screamed. “Get it off me! Get it off me!”

  Ray turned his flashlight toward the sound. From his vantage point, He could only see Terp from the crotch down. A large dog, maybe a German shepherd or a collie, he couldn’t be sure, had its jaws firmly clamped over Terp’s genitals and was thrashing its head back forth, taking Terp along for the ride. A large dark stain appeared on Terp’s trousers, spreading rapidly outward from his mangled crotch and down both thighs. Terp had one hand clamped around the dog’s neck and the other was savagely punching at its snout. Blood spurt from the dog’s nose, but it did not loosen its grip on Terp. Ray’s heart was pounding out of his chest. His breathing was fast and shallow, almost panting. Where’s the gun!? he thought. I need the gun!

  “Ray! Ray help me! Ray!” Terp screamed.

  Ray stabbed the off button for the phone’s flashlight and retreated as far as he could under the table, pressing his back up against the wall and folding his legs to his chest. Terp screamed Ray’s name over and over, faster and faster, each utterance an octave higher than the last, until it converged into one continuous wail.

  “I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry,” was all Ray could mutter. His hands began to shake. I can’t help him! he thought, panicked. I can’t help him, I can’t!

  Suddenly, the Fiesta’s car horn let loose a sharp bleat before going silent and a dim, dust-filled, rectangular block of light sliced into the room, bathing the prep area in a scattered white light. Ray squeezed into the small wedge of shadow that remained under the table.

  Just stay quiet and be still, he told himself, and they won’t see you.

  There was an explosion of noise as Terp and the dog pirouetted and crashed into the wooden table. Ray heard growling and a strangled gurgle right over his head. Binders crashed down around him, spewing their paper contents in every direction. Shadows leapt all over the place, Ray couldn’t make anything out. His whole body shook with terror. He closed his eyes and tried to control his rapid breathing. Be quiet Ray. Be quiet and they won't see you. Be quiet and you won’t die.

  There was another flurry of noise, a very wet, heavy thud, and then silence. Ray opened his eyes—and stopped breathing.

  Shit! Shit! Shit Shit! Ray bit his tongue to stay quiet.

  Terp was dead. He lay face down on a bed of yellowed paper, half of his skull crushed by the unforgiving concrete, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. It pooled around his head, creating a slowly widening halo of orange syrup. Terp’s blank, bloodshot eyes stared back at him, as if to berate him for being a coward.

  I’m sorry Terp. I’m so sorry man.

  Ray heard a noise, a rustling of the paper that littered the floor. He shifted his eyes from left to right without moving his head, afraid that any movement would be noticed by the rabid dog. Where is it? he thought as he braced for an attack. But the tap-tap-tap of clawed feet against concrete didn’t come. Instead, he heard a soft, shuffling gait, the sound of footsteps wading through the spilled paper. He felt a wave of relief. That must be Spuds! He heard the shots so he beeped the horn and turned on the headlights to scare the dog off. He started to unfurl his legs from his hiding place when the source of the shuffling gait came out of the shadows. It was a pair of legs, but they were unlike any legs Ray had ever seen. He froze. What the hell...? he thought. He could only see as far the mid-thigh, as the table blocked the rest, but what he could see made his blood run cold. The thing’s skin was black and pitted, and where it wasn’t covered with dark veins and open wounds, it was bruised and lacerated, like it had been running through a field of razor wire. Some of the cuts on its legs were deep and they seemed to be oozing some sort of pus or mucus.

  What the fuck is that thing? How can it walk with those deep cuts on its legs? The feet briefly hesitated and then turned ninety degrees and headed straight for him. Please don’t look under the table! Please don’t look under the table!

  It stopped at Terp’s body. A grotesque hand came into view, with fingers that were abnormally long, and fingernails that were long, thick, and curved, like talons. The thing gently caressed Terp’s head, lovingly stroking his short-cropped hair as if it knew him. Please God, Ray thought, don’t let that thing bend down and look under this table.

  The hand disappeared and the thing took a step toward the lower half of Terp’s body. As it did so it lifted its foot over Terp’s torso and it landed in the puddle of blood draining from Terp’s crotch. It splashed up, covering its entire foot up to the ankle in a dark maroon sheen.

  Oh God! Ray thought. He felt sick. Not now, please not now.

  The hand re-appeared and wrapped around Terp�
��s ankle, roughly yanking his leg up in the air at a forty-five degree angle.

  Ray watched in silence as Terp was dragged away into the light, his lifeless eyes staring back at him as his body was dragged through its own blood and out of sight. Ray couldn’t get Terp’s voice out of his head, Ray! Ray help me! Ray! played over and over, threatening to drive him insane.

  The thing—he was still not sure what he saw—was headed toward the front of the restaurant.

  I'm sorry I can't help you Spuds, Ray thought as he hugged his knees to his chest, I'm so sorry.

  22

  Spuds glanced at the clock on the dash again. It’s five thirteen, he thought, in two minutes I’m leaving and those two jotitos can walk back to the depot.

  He sighed, leaned his head back against the headrest, and for the tenth time, checked to make sure the doors were locked. “Never can be too careful,” he muttered under his breath, “no sir, mi madre didn’t raise no fool.”

  Just relax Mateo, he thought, there’s nothing out there that can hurt you.

  Sí Mateo, hay Maria, his grandmother’s voice echoed at the edge his thoughts, La Llorona, la cazadora de los escuincles.

  “Shut up Abuelita Titi,” he grumbled to himself, “I haven’t believed in that stupid fairytale since I was eight.”

  Spuds thought about his beloved Abuelita Titi often. She practically raised him and his cousins when his mother and four other aunts and uncles made their way across the border to the United States, leaving him with his grandmother. Abuelita Titi, who lived in a pitiful shack of a house on the outskirts of the Mexican border town of Reynosa, would keep her brood of unruly grandchildren in line by warning them that if they misbehaved “La Llorona” would snatch them from their beds while they slept, rip their souls from their bodies, and eat their flesh. The story went that a woman named Maria, the wife of a wealthy ranchero, drowned her children in the Rio Bravo in retaliation of her husband's infidelity. Distraught over the murders she committed, she died of a broken heart and since that time, has been cursed to roam the earth, weeping and searching for the lost souls of her children. They say that until she finds her own dead children, she will snatch children from the world of the living to take their place. The way his Abuelita Titi told the story used to scare the shit out of him and he would have nightmares for weeks afterward.

  “Mateo,” his grandmother would start, in her slow, slightly slurred Spanish, “do not bring the wrath of La Llorona upon this house! She prowls the river banks and small villages, dressed in a tattered white funeral gown, her hair long and tangled, reaching out with long fingers with razor-sharp fingernails, searching for the rotting souls of bad children, spoiled brats who don’t listen to their elders. Do you want your soul to be ripped from your body and cursed to hell? Do you want La Llorona to strip the flesh from your bones, then crush them with her ragged teeth, sucking them dry of their marrow? Do you Mateo?”

  “N-N-No Abuelita,” he would say.

  “Then do as I say Mateo and stop being such a sore on Abuelita Titi’s ass.”

  For a long time he believed in La Llorona just as much as he believed in Santa Claus, Jesus, and the Easter Bunny. He would be up half the night, afraid that some zombie bitch with knives for fingernails was going to reach into his bed and chew his ass up.

  Spuds shuttered at the memory. “Thanks for the pleasant childhood memories Abuelita, you crazy witch. May God rest your soul.”

  The sharp report and muzzle flash of two gunshots boomed like lightning from the interior of the restaurant.

  “¡Híjole!” Spuds said, instinctively ducking below the dashboard for cover. La chota found us! he thought. Time to get the hell outta here! He got back behind the wheel, stepped on the brake, and was ready to put the car in reverse when the driver’s side window exploded, slicing his face and arms with glass shrapnel. A hand and arm, rough and pitted, with skin like burned tree bark, lunged through the broken window and clamped around his throat. His mind was in a panic. Through tear-filled eyes he flailed helplessly, trying to grab a piece of whatever it was that had him pinned within the car’s tight confines. Its fingers were cold and hard, he could feel them tightening like a steel noose around his throat. Fighting unconsciousness, he grasped the hand around his neck in an attempt to loosen the press of its palm against his windpipe. Instead, its grip tightened and he was jerked upward, slamming his head against the ceiling of the car and fracturing his skull. He was stunned and disoriented, the impact numbed his extremities and blurred his vision. He braced his feet against the car door and pulled as hard as he could in a final attempt to free himself. He felt the hand around his neck squeeze tighter. A wave of excruciating pain shot through his body as long, dagger-like fingernails ripped into his skin. A jet of blood spurt from Spuds’ punctured carotid artery and sprayed a thick, dark line across the front windshield. Air, mixed with his own blood, filled his lungs.

  “Aaah!” he croaked. He coughed up a large amount of phlegm and blood. It flowed out of the corner of his mouth like molasses, draping the thing's wrist in a slick goo.

  Spuds was pulled out of the car through the window and hoisted off his feet. His windpipe crushed, artery severed, and drowning in his own blood, his arms and legs spasmed uncontrollably, banging against the steering column, activating the car’s headlights and causing the horn to emit a short beep. With little effort, the thing kept Spuds suspended in the air above its head, walking back and forth, holding him aloft like a threadbare rag doll. Spud's head lolled forward, his oxygen-deprived brain no longer able to provide him any meaningful control over his body. Near death, he nonetheless took some pleasure in noting Terp’s child-like screams in the distance. Before closing his eyes for the last time, the monster passed through the light of the Ford Fiesta’s halogens, giving Mateo “Spuds” Martinez a good look at the harbinger of his death. It was La Llorona, the creature of his childhood nightmares.. But his Abuelita Titi was wrong about one thing. La Llorona did not wear a long white gown. No, the La Llorona that ended his life was wearing a pink bikini and white yoga pants.

  23

  Get up Ray, get up now!

  Ray couldn’t bring himself to move. Whomever, or whatever, killed Terp is still out there, he thought. That monster had dragged Terp’s dead body out of sight, toward the front of the store. I don't want to be next.

  Light still shone through the dining area doorway. Ray assumed it was from their car. But why is it still here? Spuds should have heard the gunshots and Terp screaming for his life and hightailed it out of here by now. A feeling of dread came over him. He breathed in shallow, short gasps. If Spuds is not gone that means the thing probably got him too. Ray felt light-headed. He was starting to hyperventilate. You gotta do something! Don’t just sit here like a frigging two year old. You got them into this mess. You sat back and let Terp die! The least you can do is get off your sorry ass and go see if you can help Spuds.

  But he didn’t move. Tears streamed down his face. Admit it, you’re just a damn coward! Just like in Afghanistan, you froze up when you were needed the most and, just like in Afghanistan, people are dead because of it. A big sob escaped from his lips. In the extreme quiet of the back room the noise it made sounded like a scream. He cut the sound off short and held his breath. Oh god, I hope it didn't hear me! Please don’t come back here! Don’t come back, don’t come back, don’t come back!

  Too scared to move, Ray closed his eyes and curled himself into an even tighter ball. Shivering in fear, he waited for the inevitable tap-tap-tap of the footsteps of the killer dog that would tear out his genitals or the soft shuffled gait of the barefoot monster who would carry his torn and bloodied body into oblivion. But nothing happened. There was no noise. He cupped his hands over his nose and mouth, forcing himself to breathe deep. Ok, Ray Hillman, time to get off your ass. If you don’t get moving you’re going to be the next body that thing drags outta here. Ray slid to his right and bumped into the safe door. It was still open. This whole job has been a cl
usterfuck and it’s all your fault, he chastened himself. Just leave whatever’s in the safe and get outta here with your life. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Not without at least checking to see if there was something in the safe. He slowly got to his hands and knees, positioned his phone over the safe opening, and then turned on his phone’s flashlight.

  “Jackpot,” he whispered when he saw the safe’s contents. Stacks of twenties, tens, fives, and ones filled the bottom half of the safe, bound neatly with paper money straps, each stamped with a neatly stenciled ‘100.’ Ray quickly stuffed the stacks into his jacket pockets, filling all four of them until he looked as though he was wearing an inflatable life jacket. He was securing the snaps on his jacket pockets when he noticed shadows playing across the light coming from the front of the store. Then he heard the squeal and crunch of glass being stepped on. He quickly crawled out from underneath the table and stood up, sliding noisily on yellowed and bloodied paper. A tap-tap-tap noise was coming from the direction of the restaurant's dining area and getting louder. Though his knees ached badly from being cramped under the table, he half-limped, half-ran toward the open back door. He heard the rustle of paper. They’re right behind me! he thought.

  He shook off the pain in his legs and picked up his pace, crossing the threshold of the back door running at full speed. There was a twinge of color in the sky to the east, a slight reddening against the pitch black. A haze of twilight cast diffuse shadows across the restaurant’s backlot. The wind had picked up, pushing the smell of rotting fish directly into Ray’s face. The backlot was a concrete pad about fifty feet square, surrounded by a chain-link fence. At its far end, directly ahead of him, the fence gate yawned open. Beyond the gate, a field of knee high reed grass swayed and bent in the stiff breeze. There was a narrow path trampled in the grass, starting at the gate entrance and tailing downhill and off into the distance, toward the bayou. Ray blindly ran toward the gate without slowing down or looking back. Behind him, he could hear steps gaining on him, a chorus of claws scraping against concrete, and the angry snarls of animals in pursuit.