by Tim Wellman
"I don't understand you!" he yelled. "Whatever you are, I cain't figure out what your sayin!"
But it didn't stop her.
"The shit we took!" Steve yelled. "Give it back to her!" He reached into his pockets and started throwing the jewelry and other things toward the little girl and Jerry caught on immediately and started doing the same until everything was on the floor in front of her.
"That's everything!" Jerry said.
A couple of the mummies dropped to their knees and began picking up the things but the little girl was still pointing at them and talking.
"Did... did that do it?" Steve said.
"I don't know," Jerry said. "I don't think so the way she's still so pissed off."
She suddenly turned and motioned two of the mummies toward her and it caused Steve and Jerry to back up until they were against the wall.
Jerry glanced down. "The pick-ax in the head seemed to slow her down," he whispered.
"That's right!" Steve said. And before Jerry could stop him, he reached down and grabbed the ax and ran toward the girl, ready to bury it in her head. But one of the mummies reached up quickly and grabbed his hand, stopping him immediately, then with a horrible crunching sound, ripped his arm off and at the same time another mummy grabbed Steve's head with two hands, and twisted. His head came off in the mummy's hands before he could even scream. They, too, began eating.
But the little girl then turned her attention back to Jerry. He figured it was just a matter of time, now, before it was his turn to die. But she started talking again and pointed to the marble table with the unknown writing on it. He understood she wanted him to walk to it. "I can't read that," he said. She pointed again and he walked across the room. "It's some ancient language," he said. "No one remembers it. No one remembers you! You're forgotten, now."
She didn't understand him any more than he understood her, but she stood next to the table and put her hands on it. She said something and nodded her head. He put his hands on the table and as he did the small child sprouted dark, feathered wings and her black hair flew back as if she were standing in a strong wind, even though the room was stiflingly hot and still, apart from the horrible sound of the mummies. But, he could understand her now.
"My name is Eranielle, the Plague Angel. You have unlocked the way and I am grateful," she said. "After ten thousand years' sleep, I shall once again take my place as the destroyer of mankind."
"Does that mean I can..." He was unable to finish the sentence. She had pushed her fingernails into his throat.
Love Struck
"They ain't nothin' out yonder 'ceptin' that old goat," the old man said and smacked the back of his grand daughter's head. She had been pacing and looking out the windows for the last hour and it was starting to annoy him.
"I'm tellin' ya, old man, there's something out there and it's gettin' closer ta the barn right now," Susie said. "Right as we're a speakin', it' a creepin'." She pointed through the torn wire of the kitchen screen-door and narrowed her eyes so she could see better through the glint of the porch-light. The evening had faded quickly as a storm was brewing over the Ohio River and heading directly for Wayne County. The rain would be welcome to break the oppressive heat and humidity, but she didn't like the way it had darkened the woods behind the house so early in the evening. "I seen that thing out there, and I'm a swearin' on my momma's grave."
"Well, ain't nothin' I can see," he said.
"Ya cain't see nothin' even in broad daylight."
Ya sure are gettin' snippy," he said. He patted the child on her head. She was his, now, he figured, since his daughter had died down in Mingo County and left her in his care; and though he didn't figure on a twelve year old girl in his life at his age, he wasn't unhappy she was there. She brightened the old place up after twenty years of just living 'good enough'. Though she brought a new world with her, he was trying as best he could to understand it. But he still couldn't see what the heck she was talking about. "I thank ya's been on that inter-web thing again at school and got all spooked inta believin' in monsters. Just like last month when ya told me there was pixies in England."
"This thang ain't no damned pixie, Grampa," she said and shivered. "What I seen... and, mind you, seen it with my own eyes... was one a them bigfoots, sure as shootin'." She shook her head and pointed. "He was right in there, and then walked over closer t'ward the barn past them milkweeds and the wheel barrel."
The old man pointed with the barrel of his old poke-stalk twelve-gauge. "Right in there?" He tried squinting and then put a hand over his bad eye and looked again. He still couldn't see anything except the trees and a few chickens scattered about the bare ground. "That's 'bout where the well pump used ta be, ain't it? So it's prob'ly that old salty water a seapin' up and attractin' the whitetails."
Suddenly something huge and black moved from the treeline and crossed the bare ground and stepped behind the corner of the barn. Susie was silent. She simply pointed with her mouth open, looked over at her grand father, and then looked back. "Ooh..."
"All right," he said. "We might just got us a problem ta deal with."
"Ya think?!" She stepped behind him and looked around. "That ain't no deer, old man. We gotta do something!" She started jumping around and punching the air. "Gotta whack 'im good! Comin' 'round here and messin' with us Adkins; he's askin' fer it!"
He pulled off his old B&O railroad cap and scratched his bald head. "I reckon we..." He was at a loss for words and ideas. "Well, if we..." Still nothing.
Susie took off running through the house. "I gotta get my camera!" she yelled. "And a baseball bat! And we still got that machete?"
The old man suddenly felt very alone and backed away from the door. He had seen it; he was certain it wasn't an illusion or shadow or anything other than a huge, hairy, hulking beast out there and it seemed to be getting closer. "Susie?"
She touched his back and he jumped all the way back to where he had been standing earlier. "Got my camera!" she said. "Let's go!"
"Go?"
"Yep, we gotta go catch a bigfoot," she said.
"Thought you was lookin' fer a machete?" he said. "Losin' yer nerve, girl?"
"No!" she said. "Just ain't no use bein' stupid 'bout it. I need me somethin' with a longer reach."
He moved his head around so he could get a clear view through the holes in the screen. "How ya figurin' we're gonna get 'im?" he said. "That damned thang could squish you like a bug."
"Yeah, but I figure that shotgun could blow a big ol' hole clean through 'im," she said. "And I'll whack him with somethin' when he's down. I'll need ta take pictures so I can send 'em in ta that website! Then we get rich, you get personal grooming lessons, I get video games, the end."
"That simple, huh?" he said. "I'm thinkin' we go out there, he grabs us, bends the gun in half, eats us both, the end."
"We gotta do somethin'," she said. "I seen TV shows and you gotta do somethin', 'cause doing nothin' leads to him reaching through your windows, grabbing you, and dragging ya off to a love nest. You wanna be that thing's girlfriend? 'Cause I don't!"
"Well, I guess I could go out there and take a quick look-round," he said. "You can stay here."
"No way!" she said. "I might be little fer my age, but ya know I'm as strong as you are with your bad back." She pushed him forward and forced him through the doorway and out on to the old rickety wooden back porch. They both bounced on the old, rotting planks until they reached the single stone step, and stopped when their feet hit the red and yellow clay ground. "Just keep that gun pointed that a way."
"Pointed at what?" he said.
"Anything nine feet tall and hairy that wants ta marry me," she said. She sniffed the air. "You just let one, grampa?"
"That ain't me," he said. He sniffed. "That's comin' from out near the barn." He started walking, slowly, one measured step at a time as his grand daughter held on to the back loop of his overalls and studied the area for anything unusual.
There was a loud
grunt and they both jumped. "He might just be in the barn, now," she whispered. "I think that came from in there and your old mule is over there; I can see her." She pointed across the yard at the mule, grazing, but the whites of her eyes were showing. She was scared, too. There was another grunt, louder than the first, and they could hear a chicken bawking, panicked, then nothing, silence. "I think he just got hisself a snack. That there's five bucks he owes us."
He looked at the small, delicate face framed in long straight blonde hair and smiled. He could hear the fear in her voice, even though she was trying to be brave. He wondered if she could hear the fear in his voice, as well. "We got this covered, right? Ain't no good come from lettin' a damned chicken thief get off without payin'."
She nodded and smiled, but as they both turned back toward the barn, there he was, only a few feet away from them, blood dripping from his huge gorilla-like mouth and his massive arms outstretched and threatening. Susie screamed so loud the creature actually took a step back, but then roared at them, spitting saliva and chicken blood all over them. The old man acted the only way he knew how. He scooped up Susie in his arm and took off running for the house. Susie was looking over his shoulder. He's just standin' there! No! He's comin', now! Run faster, Grampa!"
The old man was running as fast as his skinny old legs would take him and one foot hit the stone step and the other was halfway across the porch in a single stride. He yanked open the screen-door, nearly tearing off its hinges, and darted inside and Susie literally jumped out of his arms as he spun around and lifted his gun.
The beast was coming fast. He seemed to stop just before he got to the porch, but then took a big jump and landed only a foot from the screen... and fell through the planking. He growled and grunted, but he seemed stuck and very confused.
"Blast him, Grampa!" She put her fingers in her ears and squinted.
The old man braced himself and pulled the trigger and the buckshot caught the creature in the shoulder with an explosion of blood and fur. And though stunned, the shot just seemed to make the monster even more angry and determined to break free and get inside the house. "Shit!" he shouted. "I cain't aim good 'nough ta hit 'im in the head!" He looked back to make sure the girl was safe, but she was gone. "Susie?! Ya hidin', girl?" He was fumbling to break the gun down and load another shell but his hands were shaking so much it was proving difficult and he had already dropped two shells. "Ya ain't gettin' us, you furry bastard!" But as he looked toward the beast again, there she was, standing outside, behind the bigfoot and getting closer.
"Hey buttstink!" she yelled and as he turned around, she swung an old wooden two-by-four she had picked up by the front porch and it landed solidly on his forehead, with several old rusty nails driving themselves into his skull.
He let out a blood-curdling scream, and then began to wobble, lost his balance and fell over, his pinned legs tearing up several planks and freeing him from their trap. But he was in no mood to continue the attack. He lay on the ground, bleeding profusely, his eyelids blinking and he almost seemed to be crying.
Susie quickly made her way around him and across the busted porch and through the door. She grabbed the old man around the waist and couldn't let go.
He patted her on the head. "Ya okay?"
She nodded.
"Good. Ya's grounded the rest of yer god damned life!"
She nodded and they both watched as the beaten animal pulled himself up on all fours and began to crawl away, eventually managing to get to his feet and stagger into the woods.
"Ya think that got him fer good?" she said.
"Don't know," the old man said as he finally got his gun reloaded. "But I need ta get myself a double-barrel or somethin' if the wildlife 'round here has started fightin' back, I know that!"
"You thinkin' he'll be back, then?" She stepped closer to the screen and peered out, searching the woods."
"Not tonight," he said. "But I wouldn't bet agin him showin' up again after he's healed up."
Susie suddenly turned around. "Shoot! I forgot to take pictures!"
"There goes my groomin' lessons, I reckon," he said with a chuckle. "Didn't need no damned groomin' anyhow."
Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder that brought a hard downpour of rain and made the lights flicker, then go out. They were in the dark. "Ya goin' on ta bed early?" she said after a long pause.
"No. No, reckon I'll sit up a while and think," he said.
She nodded. "Me to. Just do some thinkin'. I'll dig the candles outa the kitchen cabinet drawer."
The Goodbye Place
The old farm house was eternally and intolerably dark. The old woman wanted it that way and since her hand was firmly wrapped around the entire family's fortune and inheritance, she always got what she wanted. But when Janice and her mother, the old woman's daughter, needed a place to stay, she had opened her home. It was unexpected, but otherwise they would have been homeless and the rest of the family assumed the old matriarch would rather help them than suffer the disgrace of having a family member live on the street. Janice wasn't sure it was worth it, putting up with the old hag and her mean-spirited remarks all the time, but a bed and a safe place to live required sacrifices, at least that's what her mother kept telling her.
It was called a living room, the place where the old woman spent most of her time sunk into an old Victorian chair, but Janice couldn't imagine anything but nightmares living in such a dark place, populated with so much old junk and stale, heavy air. She felt as if she were being held prisoner in the house, really, but there was no one to confide in, no one to listen to her fears. And the fear was real. She had seen them, the flickering shapes that darted around the dark house, encircling the old woman like big black globules of water.
She was apparently the only one who could see the truth, though. Her mother seemed uninterested or at least unwilling to entertain anything other than what science said was real. It was frustrating, and the fact was, the things, slimy, filthy things oozing through the thick dark air of the house, were starting to manifest themselves more clearly. Not openly, other than the faint shapes, but as she slept, they were there, among the twisted images of birds and butterflies, of the house and woods, the reinvented memories of the day, the dark things were starting to show up. At first they were rare, hardly more than a fleeting glimpse from behind a wall or a dark shadow in a forest of water maples, but as the weeks passed, the weeks she and her mother had spent in the house, the things were becoming more blatant, more prominent in the dream landscape, now turning even mundane dreams into nightmares.
She was lying in the huge old bed, fighting sleep like facing down an enemy combatant, but her eyes, the cowardly traitors, were not cooperating. Her head jerked as she snapped back awake, only to doze off again and every time she ended up in sleep, the things were there. She jerked back awake again, but this time it led to a loud scream and an attempt to scramble across the bed. But she soon realized the face, the small body kneeling over her, was the old woman, her grandmother.
"You see them, don't you," the old woman said.
Janice nodded. "Are... do they belong to you?"
The old woman crawled to the edge of the bed, tugging her old white shift back into shape, and sat with her back toward Janice. "They are mine, but they don't belong to me," she said.
Janice slid closer to the old woman, but still kept her distance. The only words she had ever spoken to her were insults, and even then they had been more statements to the world at large than anything said to her directly. "Why are they in my dreams?"
The old woman fell backward on the bed and seemed to relax as she looked up at Janice. "Because they want to belong to you, too," she said. "They lust after your young life." Janice could hear her sigh and seem to sniff away tears. "And once you let them into your world, they will consume you."
"But how?" she said. "They're nothing I want around me."
"They don't care," her grandmother said. "You... your mother can't see them. The b
lessing... curse... jumped over her, but you have it, even though you're only seven, you already have the ability to contact the other side. I knew when you first arrived and I hoped I could make you leave... leave before they found you." She spun around and was almost instantly on her knees with her hands on Janice's shoulders. "But it's too late now, girl." She pointed a long spindly finger at her face and then slid up the bed and fell back on the pillow and motioned for Janice to lie down beside her. "Come, I'll show you more."
Janice started to get out of the bed and run to her mother, but something held her back; not physically, and it was nothing evil, just something, perhaps just curiosity, caused her to lie down beside the old woman. "Don't hurt me," she whispered. Her eyes were defeated and she fell asleep in only moments.
But instantly she was aware, though she wasn't awake. The old woman held out her hand and Janice gripped it and allowed her to lead the way. It was a dark street, old brick paving, the smell of smoke from distant and nearby chimneys, that they walked along, and Janice struggled to keep on her feet with the continuous undulations and potholes. It was cold, freezing cold, but they were both dressed only in old rags, the numerous holes letting the wind cut into her skin like a knife. She pulled the woolen remnants of a coat tighter around her and looked up at her guide. It was still her grandmother, she could tell that, but not the old woman, she was a young woman, a dirty-faced street urchin, but with a cheerful and pleasant continence, only a few years older than she was. "We're almost there," she said.
"Where are we?" Janice said. "What is this place?"
"It's hell," her grandmother said calmly. "Look! There!" She pointed ahead to a door at the end of a trash-littered and filthy alley. It was an old wooden door, rotted and broken along the bottom and bent slightly so that it hung unevenly open a few inches. "This is our section. The answer is there."
