by Vaughn Ashby
The sun rose bigger in the sky and with my eyes now adjusted, I noticed the snow was gone. I realized it could have been the very group we had encountered at the cabin before. But this group seemed younger, and less creepy. Well, until I watched in horror as two of them killed the other two. It became clear that two of the four people were holding shiny objects. Looking back, I can assume they were knives, but I never really got a close look at them. I watched in terror as one of the boys took the arm off one of the girls, then the other girl attacked the other boy. If I'd had the ability to speak I would have screamed in horror like a little girl. But nothing came out, which was probably good.
I stood there frozen, unbelieving what I was watching, but then again the rest of the day hadn’t been that ordinary either.
When they were done the boy was ripped apart like a piece of paper, he squirmed, and wiggled on the ground, he tried to yell but it sounded more like grunts. The girl on the other hand, remained on her feet, she staggered around aimlessly missing both her head, and arm.
You see back then horror movies were a lot tamer than today’s bloodbaths. I’d never seen, much less witnessed, horror like this.
Eventually, she fell to the ground and he stopped yelling. And the other two, I’m not really sure where they went. I honestly wasn’t watching them. I couldn’t take my eyes of the nightmare I was watching.
The sun now fully up, I turned to run back into the woods when I saw it. Sitting there basically giving me the middle finger was the cabin. The cabin we'd spent hours running through the woods from. The cabin with the woman who had jammed her hand into my chest. The cabin I so desperately wanted to protect my little girl from was right there.
I'd been a Boy Scout when I was younger. I knew how to navigate without getting lost, and without wondering around in circles. My group the Barrhead Second pack had been much smaller than the Barrhead First pack. So our leaders were able to spend much more time with each of us. And not in the gross scout master way either. We’d spent a considerable amount of time on navigating and orientation. Basically, I knew what I was doing in the woods, and I know I hadn’t circled back, not a chance.
I squinted at the cabin, maybe it was just the same builder, maybe there were dozens of these things around here. I’d been to multiple cabins with my father, they all look basically the same. But no, I knew it was the same and trying to talk myself out of it wasn’t going to help us.
Following that damn car into the field had been a huge mistake. I dearly wished Nicole was home in bed getting tucked in by Earla. Oh, Earla what have I done? I’ve brought our daughter someplace I just didn’t know where it was, or what was going on. And Joshy, damn it Joshy. I’d do just about anything to have you alive, and helping us out.
Then I remembered Joshy died right out front of the cabin. I don’t remember seeing the body while we were running from the house. Sure it had been dark, and maybe I wasn’t exactly looking for it. But again boy scouts had taught me to be observant, and I don’t remember seeing it at all.
I glanced over to the place the body should now be laying. There was nothing, nobody, no Joshy, not even any blood on the ground. Maybe he was still alive? No, I watched him die. It’s that woman, or the house, or those people. One or all of them is fucking with me. I felt so much anger I felt like I was about to turn green, and rip my shirt to threads. I could feel my eyes burning, they always got that way when I was mad, Earla hated it. She’d tell me to calm down or people are going to think you are on some kind of drugs.
That’s when something knocked me from behind. I stumbled, and manage to put Nicole down somewhat gently as I tumbled. As gently as a falling man can that is. I looked up expecting to see the boy and girl who had just massacred the other people in the opening. I’d been standing there frozen for so long I’d kind of forgotten about them.
But no it wasn’t them. It was Joshy. The man I’d just been thinking about. Strange how that happens in life. I’m sure it has some kind of fancy science word to go with it. But it seemed to happen to me a lot. I’ll hear a new word. or think about something I haven’t thought about in ages, then it will just happen, or I’ll hear the word all over the place.
Joshy stood above me and he yelled at me to get in the house. His voice was different. It sounded like multiple people yelling at once. I refused to and started towards Nicole.
He pushed me back again and again yelled to get in the house. I told him I was never going back in there.
I stared at him, the hole in his chest was still there. Blood and guts stained his clothes. This wasn’t my friend.
I remember him saying it’s fine. That’s it just fine, and in a much calmer voice. He picked up Nicole, and started running towards the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
2014 Shane: Just Taking a Bath
After a long conversation with Pratt, and Travers about where they should try next, and coming up with basically no ideas, Shane slowly made his way to the room. They'd only gotten the one for the four of them. Travers was busy trying to convince the waitress to let him stay in her room, while Pratt and the head in his bag were having an interesting conversation about which was better, Coke or Pepsi. Neither of these things interested Shane, and with his once private location in the bar not quite as private, he figured he'd head back to the room and check on Kristen.
He knocked on the door and waited. Sure it was his wife and his room, but he didn't want to startle her. All of this was new to her, and he wanted to ease her into it.
With no reply, he slid the key card into the slot and pulled it back. The little light flashed green and he turned the knob.
“Kristen?” He said softly in the hopes of not waking her if she was asleep. “Kristen it's me.”
She said nothing back so he approached the bed. He carefully climbed on again not wanting to wake her. But that wasn't really an option since she wasn't in the bed. At first, he tried to cuddle a lump of blankets, then he just padded around, she wasn’t there.
He sat up, surprised and noticed the light coming from the bathroom. He felt stupid now for thinking the blankets where her. Looking closer he wasn’t even sure how he thought that. But he chocked it up to being overtired. He got to his feet not wanting to leave the comfort of the bed. If he stayed on it any longer he'd be hard-pressed to keep his eyes open. It would be a battle he would lose.
He knocked on the bathroom door. Again there wasn't an answer. Slowly he pushed it open. The mirror was foggy and the air heavy.
“Shane?” said a voice from the bath tub, it was Kristen.
“Yep it's me, sorry I can leave you alone.”
“No, it's fine, I'm just taking a bath, it helps me think,” she said.
Shane slowly opened the door. There she was sitting in the warm bubble bath. Her arms across her chest to hide her breasts, her other regions well hidden by the bubbles.
“So I was thinking about all of this…” she started.
He found it hard to concentrate. It had been so long since he'd seen so much of her. Finally, he got something coherent out. “We don't have to talk about this stuff if you don't want to.” He sat down on the toilet which was next to the bath. Seat down of course.
She sat up a little and rested a hand on his leg. “Thank you for finally letting me into this world of yours.”
Shane smiled and tried not to look right at her boobs. He couldn’t help it, so he just glanced for the shortest amount of time his brain would allow him. “I don't think we are going to find Jason.”
“Ok, why do you say that?” she said, her hand was wet on his leg.
“Because there isn't a good trail to find him. We have nothing to go on other than that book, and his phone call,” he said trying to keep his thoughts together. Why was he such a mess around her? Correction, why was he just a mess around naked her?
“Right.”
“And finding this Moe guy seems impossible since most of this town has been looking for in for fracking years.”
> She turned, resting against the side of the tub. “So we find what this Moe was after?”
“The man? What did he call him?”
She smiled again, “Smith.”
“Like the Matrix Smith?” he smiled back. “Well, he wasn’t named after him since he appeared here about 20 years before the movie came out.”
“Right, good point,” she said looking up at him. “You ok?”
Shane shook his head, knocking himself free of his infatuation with her body, and snapped himself back to the reality that his friend was missing. “Yeah, I think so.” He stood up, her hand sliding down his leg till it was free of it. He turned and looked in the mirror. It was still foggy so he wiped it with his hand. He only got a couple second view before it fogged back over. He sighed and turned back to her. “I’m tired.”
“You do know it’s ok to be worried.”
“I know,” at least he thought he knew.
“You know I’m here for you right?”
He smiled at her, “I didn’t, I do now.”
She leaned back down into the water, moving her hands, and revealing her breasts, “why don’t you go in the other room and get comfortable, I’ll be right in.”
He was sure his mouth was hanging open like a schoolboy, this time he couldn’t take his eyes away from her and he couldn’t get any words out. It had been, well, forever, too long to remember since he’d seen her naked. He tried to speak again, then just nodded and walked out of the bathroom. He made his way to the bed and sat down.
What felt like several minutes passed, he sat on the edge of the bed waiting. Then there was a knock at the door. He could here Pratt and Travers yelling something. He got up and ran to the door.
They both looked out of breath when he opened it.
“We saw them,” Travers said.
“Who?”
“Those fake cops,” Pratt said sounding more out of breath then Travers.
“Yeah, they were leaving the hotel, we figured we should come make sure you two are ok,” Travers said regaining his breath.
“We are great here, we actually are about to,” Shane paused and made a circle with one hand and a stick with the other, then motioned that the stick should go into the circle.
“Gross,” Travers said jokingly.
“I’m so happy for you,” Pratt said going in for a hug but pause before getting too close. “What’s that?” he said pointing at Shane’s leg.
Shane stepped back and looked down, he saw a red handprint on his leg. Things fell into place quickly and he turned to run back into the bathroom.
Barely through the door Shane dropped to the floor and covered his eyes, the tears were instant. Travers pushed past him and into the bathroom. He rushed to the edge of the tub, gasped, then covered his mouth barely holding back the vomit. Pratt stood in the doorway in shock. Kristen lay naked in the tub, the warm bath water mixed with blood, the bubbles now red. Her arms lay by her side motionless the water had a clamminess to it. Her chest… well it wasn’t there anymore, along with most of her head.
CHAPTER THIRTY
2014 Jason: Mother Dick
With each step down into the basement, Jason regretted his decision to go down there more and more. By the time he hit the bottom step he was ready to turn and run like a little girl. But he didn't and made it to the bottom.
The floor of the basement was dirt, it hadn’t been packed down, so there were sand dunes of dirt blowing around below the house.
Jason shuffled his feet along the floor. It was dark, no saying it's dark is an understatement to darkness. It was devoid of light is much more accurate. Standing there he listened and gripped his shotgun tight. He could hear something running, probably just the generator that had been running the light outside. He felt along the wall next to the stairs for a light switch and what do you know he found one. He flipped it on and waited. Then panicked because maybe flipping a switch that you don't know what it does isn't the best idea. Finally, the sound coming from the generator changed and lights started to slowly come to life.
From across the room a single light came on, then another. Jason squinted, they were Christmas lights, each individual bulb on the chain was turning on one at a time. It traveled up the wall and across the ceiling all the way the where he stood.
While he was happy to be able to see anything, the lights hardly lit up the room. Then a second strand from the generator started to light up. It dropped to the floor and moved towards an outside wall. It turned back towards him, then again turned and went back towards the generator. Jason slowly stepped towards it as the lights completed a half square, half circle on the floor. He got to the lights and realized that they outlined the edge of a hole.
Looking in he could see the bottom, it looked uneven and half filled with water. It looked unpleasant.
With his attention on the hole, he hadn’t noticed a third-string start to light up. It looped around a chair sitting next to the generator, then around the person sitting in it. Done inspecting the hole Jason let out a rather girly yelp. The body in the chair was long dead, he could see there was a lot of decomposition already well underway.
Slowly he moved around the pit to the generator and the chair. Holding his shotgun tight just in case the body came back to life as he looked it over. For the most part, it looked like a normal body, with the exception of the power cable coming out of the man's chest. It seemed to be connected right to his flesh. It actually looked like the flesh had grown over it.
Feeling brave, he leaned forward and touched the man, with his shotgun. The man didn't move. He tapped on the cable, still no movement. He poked the man in the junk, no movement. Content the man wasn't going to eat him he called for Jessica. “Jessica, enough already!”
“Oh, do shut up,” Jason turned to see the man in the chair plugged into the generator looking up at him. His face was mostly decomposed, but Jason could tell he was pissed off.
“Sorry?” Jason said as a half question, half statement. He backed away from the man who reached down and pulled the Christmas light plug from the generator. The lights slowly dimmed and Jason ran for the steps, being extra careful to avoid the pit in the floor. Not that he was creeped out by the guy, no in fact he'd love to pick his brain, not literally but it was visible. The thought of being trapped in the dark terrified him.
“Jessica!” he yelled as he stumbled up the steps. “I’d like to go home now.”
He made his way to the top and turned to check there were no toilets following him up the stairs. There weren’t, then he realized that he may never have that thought again in his life and he was ok with that. He crossed the house, still seeing no sign of her, he approached the door and peeked out the little window. The yard was clear of whatever those people were. He slowly turned the doorknob, half expecting it to turn into a toilet handle.
The sun was high in the sky, he’d have plenty of time to make it back to the car and trace the car's path back home. He’d have to try and turn whatever was in the trailer back on, or did he even need it? There had to be something nearby, a road, a town, people somewhere.
Quickly, Jason crossed the yard, shotgun still in hand. A quarter of the way to the car he noticed the sun had started to set.
“You're shitting me,” he yelled at the sun. If he could just get to the car before the sun dipped all the way down, he could hide in there ’til it came back up. But years of donuts hadn’t helped his endurance, and he slowed considerably by the midway point. He stopped, hands resting on his knees and panting. He again looked up at the sun, only to see it was almost down. He looked back and forth between the house, light post, and car.
What if the light doesn’t come on? What if he couldn’t get into the car? The car was fucked up after all. So, that left the house, but it was now the furthest away. The sun set and he could see people walking towards him out of the darkness. No way he could get to the house now. He glanced at the light post, it hadn’t come on yet. Maybe he’d pissed that dude plugged int
o the generator off to much. It was too dark to see the car now.
“Mother Dick,” Jason said to himself.
He turned to try for the light post when he saw the location of the old shed with the well under it. Now almost completely dark he ran for the well. He flipped the board he pulled up before out of the way, then he grabbed the next and pulled it free too. He tipped the shotgun into the hole, he saw nothing. Then he fired two shots in. The flash revealed the depth of the well and the shell had cleared or killed anything down there. He threw one leg over the side and took a deep breath as if he was about to jump into a pool. Then he jumped down into the well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
2014 Shane: Goldblum
Travers and Pratt sat on the trunk of Shane’s car, and watched the sun come up. Both holding coffee provided by the local PD. Both watched the rays reach their way to the horizon, then explode across the sky. The burning red covered everything, Travers put his sunglasses on, Pratt just squinted into it.
Across from them, Shane sat in the back of an ambulance. He had some kind of tube running under his nose. He also had one of those ambulance blankets you always see in movies and TV shows. Pratt was jealous of the blanket, but not so much jealous of all the police talking to him. They watched as a few officers would go over, ask him some questions, then leave. Then another set, would follow the same steps, then another, and another, repeat, repeat, repeat. Occasionally, one of the officers would wander over to Travers and Pratt, but they’d just leave disappointed that the two saw nothing.
“Do you think he was actually talking to her before we got there?” Pratt asked, he was feeling lonely since they’d hid the duffle bag with the head in it. It would be kind of hard to explain to the cops.
“I don’t know; I mean he seemed pretty stable. Mentally, that is, before this happened,” Travers said, not taking his eyes of the sun.
