“Shh…” Frank cut her off, kneeling lower against the wall.
“What is it?” Joana gasped.
“Be quiet,” Frank urged, lifting his hand. He lowered his voice, his eyes wide. “A few of those things in the parking lot are looking in this direction.”
“Shit…” Joana heaved. “Please… can we go back to the car? I would feel a lot better if we—”
“What part of shut the fuck up don’t you get?” Tim said, leaning over Frank to see what was happening in the Recreation Center parking lot.
As if getting slapped across the face, Joana reared back, stunned. Tim had never talked to her like that. Just when she was about to bark back at him, Frank spoke up.
“Shit… We’ve been spotted!”
“Move!” Tim shouted, turning to run back toward the Jimmy.
Joana screamed, catching a quick glimpse of more than ten bear-men charging in their direction. That wasn’t what made her scream. The elephants were charging along right behind them. The ground shook with a furious trembling as the stampede surged forward. She felt her shirt yank hard, nearly choking her. When she looked up, her legs kicking into gear on their own, Tim had her by the shirt running at full sprint back the way they had come. She felt the rolls in her thick midsection bouncing up and down as she ran. Not even six feet from the side of the building they had been huddled behind, her left side started to burn, the muscles not used to the work. Out of breath already as she heaved with every step to keep up, she watched Frank and Tim ahead of her. Their rampant pace was one of fright. And when she saw the expression plastered across Frank’s face that single second that he decided to look back, Joana knew. She swallowed hard forcing herself not to look back. She felt the animals giving chase. And the feeling was more than enough sensation. She didn’t need to see it, too.
With each foot plunging forward, one before the other, over and over again, the pain in Joana’s side surged unbearably. When her vision began to blur, the lines fading together into one large abstraction of color, she wasn’t sure if it was the pain in her side or the grip of fear causing it. Her chest felt hot, her throat dry and restrictive.
They were almost there.
The Jimmy was in sight.
She was so gripped with panic she didn’t even realize that she had already run the block and a half that they had walked. She had run right past the severed head of the man still wearing the glasses. Past the portal of horror, the stains of anguish sliding right up to the eerie light leading to another world. Right past the scattered body parts and blood that stained the streets.
“Get in!” Someone shouted.
Joana wasn’t sure if it was Tim or Frank. She was too busy losing her nerve to pay attention.
The back passenger side door swung open and she lunged forward, jumping in. She instantly felt relief set it. As if the vehicle was a security blanket that protected her from monsters, she took a deep breath of release. For the briefest of moments she was back home, age 7, tucked under her covers and totally okay with the fact that the closet door was wide open.
She was saved.
“Oh shit!” Frank screamed, the Jimmy roaring to life as he jammed the shifter into gear.
Joana looked up.
The horde of creatures fell on them from the street. Just about every last one of the beasts that had been rummaging through the parking lot of mangled bodies must have left their hunt for new, fresh meat. The road was a cluster-fuck of upright walking animal attackers. Shoulder to shoulder they charged forward, not even fifty feet from the white Jimmy. A hail of arrows left the mob ascending into the air above them. Somehow it reminded Joana of those times when she and Tim would nestle up together real tight on the couch watching scary movies and making out. Of all the movies to come to mind right then, the movie 300 flooded to the surface of her scattering thoughts. Something about the arrows blotting out the sun. Only there was no sun. Only orange.
The Jimmy kicked into gear, peeling out in reverse. The tires squealed as they caught traction. The sudden jarring motion sent Joana plummeting from the back seat. Her head hit the seat in front of her as she collided with the center console between the two front seats. The truck spun, someone shouting ‘shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…’ She tried to sit up but the rapid motion of the vehicle made it hard to gain control, her eyes only finding the back of Tim’s head and the ceiling.
After a few moments, the car seemed to settle, still surging forward. Joana pulled herself up and turned herself around sitting in her seat. Frank was at the wheel, his knuckles pasty white as he gripped the steering wheel intent on keeping the truck from crashing. Tim looked back at her, but not at her. He was looking through her, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. She followed his gaze and looked over her shoulder. The mob had fallen behind by a quarter mile, the vehicle too fast for the creatures on foot.
She sighed, her heart pounding in her throat.
“All right…” Frank exhaled, Joana watching the tension lift from his shoulders just a little. “This aunt of yours… what gives?”
“What do you mean?” Tim asked.
“I mean, what gives? What the hell is she going to do to fix this crap?”
“I don’t kno—”
“She can fix it, I just know it,” Joana cried, cutting Tim short.
“I never said that.”
“Whatever!” Frank hissed. “If she can help us, that’s all that matters!”
“Yeah…” Joana sighed, feeling the tears build. “How do we get to her house, Tim?”
Before Tim could open his mouth, Frank said, “I got it. I know how to get there.” His voice was hard, his grip still tight on the wheel. His eyes never left the road. “Just know that if we get there and she can’t help, you two are fucked!”
The air in the Jimmy turned silent for a few minutes as the truck rolled down the street at a rapid pace.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Joana stared at him in the rearview mirror.
Frank locked eyes with hers for a second. What she saw in him was almost demonic. His eyes were so wide that the whites showed unnatural amounts and his unyielding scowl never wavered. Rather than reply, he reached past his coveralls, pulled out his pack of cigarettes, and lit one up.
The mood the rest of the ride to Miss Yortsdayle’s house was grim.
Engrossed with fear, the silence ate into Joana like termites in old wood.
16
The Jimmy rolled to a stop only two houses down from Tim’s aunt’s house. The road had been eerily silent during the drive. Although the hue of orange light made everything seem as if it were day, there was something about the street that was very different than any of the others they had driven down on the way there. With his window down, Frank leaned half out looking around.
“Strange…”
He didn’t have to explain the statement to the others.
They knew exactly what he meant.
The homes on this small, practically vacant street were undisturbed. Other than Miss Yortsdayle’s house, there were three others on this small dead end road. There were no mangled bodies lying in the street. No blood splattered across the pavement. No primitive weapons left behind, or remnants of a massacre. No portals of light floated in the distance, suggesting the alien visitors might decide to drop in unannounced.
It was still and… well, strange.
It was as if the people that lived on this dead end street were still snuggled in their beds unaware of any mayhem and chaos flooding the streets in other areas of town.
The house to their left was just like the others. The lawn was unkempt, the grass and foliage growing out of control. The mailbox was wrapped with what looked like poison ivy. The thin brick walkway that led through the tall grass from the mail box to the front door was practically nonexistent under the high grass. None of the lights was on in the house, and from what Frank could tell, the house had been vacant for quite some time.
In fact, that was how all of the ho
uses appeared.
Even Miss Yortsdayle’s.
The grass and vines that poured out from the ground up engulfed her yard and home like a strangling set of tentacles trying to choke out any ounce of life left on the property. The one thing that made Miss Yortsdayle’s house stand out from the others was the walkway. It actually looked to be mowed down, not by a lawnmower, but by trampled feet. And Frank knew exactly why that was. She was one to keep frequent visitors. He had been in her house once or twice with Kathie. Kathie was into all of that mystical crap. The sign in Miss Yortsdayle’s yard right next to the trampled path was also covered in a choking stronghold of overgrown vines and grass. Although parts of the sign were covered it was still readable. In an almost Celtic font, the faded and peeling paint sign read: Psychic Readings of the Supernatural Kind. The letters at one time must have been a dark red against the painted white wooden sign. Now the white was cracking and almost absent. The once red lettering was now a pink washed out fade of what it once was.
“Do you think those creatures are still headed this way?”
“No telling,” Frank said, looking at Joana in the review mirror at the back of her head. She was looking back the way they had come. “But if they are, I’m sure it will be a while before they catch up to us. They were on foot and the witch’s house is like eighteen miles from the Recreation Center.”
“She ain’t no witch for the last time,” Tim argued. “She’s just… different. Lots of people go to her for help. And there’s nothing wrong with that. She’s more like a doctor. It’s just that her medicine isn’t average.”
“Yeah, right,” Frank chuckled, flicking the ashes from his cigarette out the window. He brought it to his lips, inhaled and spoke while still holding his breath. “More like a witch doctor.”
Joana snickered at that and Frank blew the plume of smoke from his nostrils while smiling at Joana in the rearview mirror.
“Whatever, man,” Tim cringed.
Frank sat there a moment longer enjoying his second cigarette with the window down. He felt uneasy about the situation. Something was off. Not only was the street silent and void of activity, it seemed like the closer they got to Miss Yortsdayle’s house, the more it got that way along the drive. It was almost like all of the crazy Arktos things, as Tim had called them, had gathered at his work to form one massive mob. With that, there was hardly any activity anywhere else. He didn’t like that. If they were met with a few, he knew they had a chance. But how many of them were back there in the parking lot was just way too much. And he wasn’t one to believe in luck, like his girlfriend Kathie. They might have gotten lucky once, getting out of there alive back at the Recreation Center, but there was no way in hell they’d make it out of something like that twice. There was just no way. It didn’t matter how the odds looked. That many creatures coming down on them like that wasn’t something he wanted to face again. And looking on at Miss Yortsdayle’s house sitting here on this dead end block was unnerving. If those things did decide to descend on them here at the old witch’s house they were fucked. No way out but the way they came in. With that, he knew one thing to be true. If those bears did take the time to make that long walk all the way here, they would be coming down on Frank and his friends the same way. He didn’t like the idea of being blocked in on three sides with only one patch of road leading the way out. It was a deathtrap. He exhaled a long exaggerated breath of smoke. The smoke almost seemed translucent as it rose against the orange strange light that engulfed his vision in all directions. Its unnatural appearance gave him the shivers. He tried remembering the line of cars back at the Rec Center parking lot. Was one of them Kathie’s ca—
“So are we going in there or what?” Tim asked, pointing at the old rickety house.
“Fuck it,” Frank said, tossing the cigarette out the window and opening his door. “Let’s do this.”
When he stepped out, slamming the door shut, he heard the two other doors on the other side do the same. Joana and Tim rounded the front of the white Jimmy and looked to Frank as if he were supposed to lead the way.
“I don’t think so.” Frank nodded at Tim, nudging toward the house with his nose. “Your aunt, your lead.”
Tim’s shoulders sagged, a grunt of protest hinting in his inflection as he sighed.
Frank just shook his head and Tim got the hint.
Leading them up the unkempt lawn, Tim directed the way. The grass that hadn’t been trampled along the path by Miss Yortsdayle’s various visiting customers folded under their steps. A twig snapped just as they passed the mail box. Joana jumped, a faint whimper fluttering from her quivering lips.
“It’s all right,” Frank encouraged, softly pushing Joana along while looking over his shoulder at the Jimmy.
Joana looked down, taking Frank by the hand. He nodded at her, letting her take hold and he helped lead her up the porch steps to the front door.
When they reached the top, Tim stood at the door and hesitated. He froze in place looking blankly at the door handle.
Frank scanned the porch, Joana still holding his hand tightly. To his left was an old wooden porch swing. One of the chains had broken long ago. The swing leaned half on the ground and half in the air suspended by the one working chain. To his right on the other side of the door there were a plethora of candles, all shapes, sizes and colors. All of them had been used to some degree. They lined the porch railing, both on the floor and on the railing itself. They were hanging on the windowsill. A single wooden table laid in the corner of the porch covered in candles, the wax dripped down all along the sides—long hardened.
Tim knocked on the door.
Tap… Tap… Tap…
Frank felt Joana’s grip tighten on his hand. He squeezed back.
A light flickered on from inside. The abrupt flash made Joana gasp. When Frank looked over at her, she looked as if she was holding her breath.
“Hey…” he said, soothingly. He ran his fingers through her soft, dyed hair. “There’s nothing to worry about, okay? Tim’s aunt is going to help us. Remember?”
“Yeah…” Joana lowered her head, obviously trying to make herself believe that.
Frank caught an ugly look from Tim. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was for, but then he realized. Tim didn’t like him being all touchy-feely with his girlfriend. He smiled at Tim, releasing his grip from Joana’s hand. Sadly, if Tim wasn’t going to comfort her, someone had to. Since Kathie wasn’t there for him to take care of, he felt like it was his job to take care of someone. Tim sure as hell wasn’t doing it.
The soft pitter-patter of approaching feet reached the front door from the inside.
The curtain on the window to the left of the door peeled back revealing Miss Yortsdayle’s pale face. She smiled, left the window, and opened the door.
“Come in… come in…” She said waving them in, her voice frail and brittle like thin glass. “I’ve been expecting you all.”
The little old lady at the door was at least in her early 80’s. It had been several months since Frank’s last visit with Kathie. In truth, he thought all of this hocus-pocus crap was just one big joke. She was short and slightly hunched over. Sopping wet the little old lady probably didn’t even weigh 100 lbs. She was thin, a bag of bones. The clothing on her body sagged. The shirt she wore had a bunch of strange symbols on it that Frank had only seen when visiting her little place of business. But to call your home where you sell incense and trinkets a business wasn’t something Frank could really call a home. More of a waste of time. Her shorts were the same dark red as her shirt with none of the odd round and square symbols on it. The shorts were short enough to reveal her boney kneecaps and thin liver spotted chicken legs. She was barefooted. Favoring her right side, her right hand held an old wood cane made from what looked like the branch of a corkscrew willow. The wood had a dark stained shiny finish.
She waved them in.
Tim entered first, followed by Joana, and then Frank.
She smiled up at each
of them as they came in. Her smile was wide; the false teeth overbearingly out of place in her narrow head. Her skin sagged and the liver spots that covered her from head to toe only made the perfect pearly-whites in her mouth clash against the look of old age.
When she turned to close the door, she said “Oh, one more thing before we get a pot of tea started.”
Frank looked back at her as she stepped to the door.
She reached into her shirt at the collar pulling free a small purple stone attached to a thin rope around her neck. She lifted the stone and chanted three little words with her brittle little voice.
“Degos… bynata… seagintada…”
Frank, Tim, and Joana watched as the stone in the little woman’s hand started to glow. She smiled and waved it back and forth over her head. As this happened, they all watched as the orange hue that had fallen down around them was pushed back. Night fell upon them once more. The darkness consumed Miss Yortsdayle’s yard as it crept in like a fog.
When she was done, she placed the stone back into her shirt, letting it dangle around her neck out of sight.
The darkness had pushed back the light barrier only up to the street. The front end of Frank’s Jimmy was sticking in just at the barrier’s edge. Part of the truck looked normal. The rest of it was still cast in the orange hue, making the white paint bright and hard to look at.
“How the hell did you—”
“It will buy us some time, yes? Keep them out, no?”
“How did you do that?” Frank asked.
“It’s all in the stones. The stones hold the key young boy. Don’t you know this already? Haven’t you seen its power tonight? Oh, yes… yes…” She smiled, closing the front door and escorting her guests down the narrow hall toward the living room. “I’m sure you have seen many wonders tonight.”
“But…” Frank said, pointing over his shoulder toward the front yard.
Killer Koala Bears from Another Dimension Page 13
