Twilight Hankerings

by Ronald Kelly

  I did exactly as I was told. By the time the males had been locked in and the women and children were secure in the mansion’s upper level, I watched from the upstairs window as a group of cavalrymen invaded the Bellamere property, leaving the rest of the division to conquer other pockets of resistance.

  No one will resist you here, I thought as the soldiers dismounted and marched boldly to the mansion’s front door. There is no one here but a few frightened women and children… and a couple of craven cowards hiding in the cellar.

  But I was wrong about that. Very wrong.

  A Union colonel kicked at the door with his dusty boot. “Open up this door, you traitorous rebels, or so help me I’ll burn this house to the ground with you in it!”

  There was the sound of breaking glass, the steely rasp of drawn sabers, and the sound of wild laughter as soldiers – some drunk on confiscated spirits – began to ready themselves for the destruction of the massive structure of whitewashed wood and alabaster stone.

  I looked to Lady Catherine. She looked frightened, but strangely enough, not because of the gathering of military men below. She held Emily and Martin in her arms, but the gesture did not have appearance of a mother’s loving protection. Instead, she seemed to be holding them in restraint.

  The crackle of splintering wood echoed from somewhere downstairs. I was sure that the soldiers had breached the security of the locked and bolted front door. But, upon listening further, I discovered that the noise was too muffled to be coming from the ground floor. No, it seemed to issue from some lower level. From the shadowy depths of the wine cellar.

  Then came the most horrifying wail of pure rage that I had ever heard in my life. It was fury torn between the mortal soul of man and the raw bloodlust of the most primal of beasts. It barreled up out of the pit of the mansion’s black bowels, demanding to be vented, filling all who heard it with a fear so strong that it was as paralyzing as the venom of some exotic and deadly snake.

  I turned and saw Emily and Martin then. Their faces were as pale as lard, their expressions contorted into a rictus of intense mental anguish. And their eyes… their eyes were the same shade of brilliant crimson as that which their father had exhibited that night so many years ago.

  “I can’t hold them any longer!” gasped Catherine, her slender arms surrendering the two struggling children. Emily and Martin ran for the door, their faces like those of demons, their hands curled into pale, fleshen claws. I moved to stop them, but the woman’s voice cried out, “Let them go! Let them go or they will tear you apart!”

  I stepped aside and they hit the door with such force that the lock was torn loose from its moorings. With enraged wails that more resembled the fitful snarling of beasts than that of innocent children, they disappeared down the staircase to join in the conflict below.

  And what a conflict it was. There came another crack and splinter of wood, again from the inside. There was the sound of the main door being torn from its hinges and tossed aside. And there were screams. Lord in heaven help me, I can still hear those awful screams of fear and torment shrilling through the night air, climbing higher and higher, pushing the limits of the human vocal cords, then faltering into choking silence. Only a few gunshots rang out and there was the clatter of hooves on the flagstones as a few the horses escaped into the summer darkness. After the screams of dying men faded, all that could be heard was the maddening sound of flesh being ripped apart. That and the wailing chorus of earthbound banshees performing atrocities in the outer courtyard.

  After a time, the horrible noises ended. “Wait here,” Catherine Bellamere said, then, despite my protests, went downstairs alone. My family and I waited in the upstairs parlor, straining our ears. All that we could hear was the lady’s gentle, soothing voice and the sound of soft sobbing.

  Minutes later, Catherine reappeared. Her gown was stained crimson with blood. Quietly, she avoided our questions and went to an iron safe in her husband’s study. She opened the safe and withdrew a small bag of gold coins and a folded document. “Come with me,” she said and the four of us went down to the ground floor of the Bellamere house.

  The marble floor was splattered with streaks of fresh blood, leading from the darkness of the courtyard beyond. “Stay here for a moment,” Catherine requested. Her voice was rock steady, despite the carnage around her. As she slipped through the door of the downstairs sitting room, I caught a fleeting glimpse of huddled forms in the golden glow of a kerosene lamp. They were the forms of monsters; hideous fiends clad in blood-dyed rags. As the door swung shut, I watched as one of them looked my way, its eyes running the gamut from crimson to pink to eggshell white.

  It was a demon I knew. A demon that possessed a familiar face, as well as a familiar voice. “Oh, what shame,” it moaned tearfully. “What sordid shame!”

  A moment later, Lady Catherine exited the den. She handed me the gold sack and the folded paper. “Here is money and your freedom. Take a buggy and two strong horses from the stable and go. Never return to this house again, and for God’s sake, never utter a word of what took place here this night.”

  Confused, we did as she said. We left the house and stood for a long and horrified instant in the courtyard beyond the alabaster columns of the Bellamere mansion. In the pale glow of moonlight we laid eyes on the massacre that the Bellameres’ secret shame had brought about. Soldiers and horses lay everywhere, torn and broken, like huge toys mangled by some vicious giant-child and cast aside. Fresh blood glistened in the nocturnal light, as well as the stark whiteness of denuded bone. When I quickly led my family past the awful scene of human devastation, I noticed that some of the bodies appeared to have been partially devoured.

  As we made our way through the garden for the stable, the titter of childish laughter erupted from beneath the spreading magnolia tree. “Jeremiah,” called young Martin from the shadows. “Come play with me.”

  My son took a step toward the tree, but I pulled him back. Moonlight shone upon the dirt circle where the Bellamere child crouched. His marble game was different that night from the countless times I had witnessed before. For instead of the colorful balls of glass, onyx, and agate, Martin shot the circle with huge black orbs that seemed slick and slimy in appearance. It took me a moment before I realized that what he played with were the gouged eyes of a cavalry soldier’s horse.

  We hitched two of the stable’s finest steeds to a wagon and left that horrible place, escaping the Federal soldiers by way of a desolate back road. Although I have never spoken of that horrible night before this writing, I have thought about it many times. I have revisited the Bellamere mansion many times in my dreams, have heard the bestial screams of bloodlust and smelled the coppery scent of violent death in my nostrils. And I always wake with a scream trapped firmly behind my lips. Sometimes that scream escapes, like steam escaping from a boiler, saving my mind from the mounting pressure of certain insanity.

  I am an old man now. I have lived past the conquering of the West, past the turn of the century, and now into the time of the Great War. I have watched the world progress before my aged eyes; have seen people live and die, including my own family. And I have watched for word regarding a particular surname. That search has ended with a story from a recent newspaper, a report about a soldier by the name of Bellamere who was court-marshaled for crimes unspeakable, even by the conventions of war. I cannot help but wonder if that poor soldier is a distant offspring of the family I once knew and if he is damned with the same seed of shame that his ancestors were.

  I lay here now, bedridden and ill, my frail hands unfolding a document yellowed and crumbling with age. It is the declaration of freedom given to me some sixty years ago… my own private Emancipation Proclamation.

  As I stare at the hastily scrawled signature at the bottom of the page, my heart grows heavy with uneasiness. For the name of Sebastian Bellamere is signed not in simple ink, but in the blood of a dozen slaughtered souls.

  THE THING AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

>   The thing at the side of the road worried Paul Stinson something awful.

  He didn’t know why. It was nothing more than roadkill. Some unfortunate creature that had strayed past the gravel shoulder of Highway 987 and got clipped by a passing vehicle. Or maybe it had reached the center line, got mashed beneath speeding tires, and crept its way back to the side before curling up and giving up the ghost. Either way, it was dead. Paul had passed it on the way to work and back for the past two weeks and it was hunkered there in the exact same spot… nothing more than a clump of glossy fur amid a fringe of brown weeds and wilted cocklebur.

  It was the fact that Paul couldn’t easily identify the thing that bothered him so. The thing was too big to be a possum or a coon. It certainly wasn’t a cat… much too bulky and big-boned for that. If it was a dog it was bigger than anything that Paul had seen running around. And its coat bugged him, too. It was slick and black, almost oily looking, with thin streaks of gray running through it.

  What the hell is that thing? Paul found himself wondering every time he drove past.

  Not that the thing at the side of Highway 987 was the only thing about HarlanCounty that bothered Paul. No, since the company sent him down from Louisville to take over the local State Farm office, he had found more than enough to be bothered about. The people, the way they looked and acted… hell, even the lay of the land was all somehow wrong. But it was nothing tangible… nothing he could actually put his finger on. Every time he tried expressing his concerns to his superior back at the main office he came off looking like a freaking idiot.

  That Saturday evening, on the way home from getting groceries in town with his wife, Jill, Paul decided that he had finally had enough. He wasn’t driving another mile without stopping and finding out exactly what that furry black thing was.

  When he slowed the Escalade to the side of the highway, Jill turned and looked at him. “What are you doing?”

  Paul sighed and put the vehicle into park. “You remember that thing at the side of the road? The one I pointed out on the way to town?”

  Jill nodded. “The dead dog?”

  “Yeah, but that’s the point,” said Paul, shutting off the engine. “I don’t know if it’s really a dog or not.”

  His wife regarded him with irritation. “What do you care?”

  Paul exhaled through his nose and gripped the steering wheel. That was Jill’s typical reaction. March on through life with blinders on. No curiosity, no worries. Just that annoying, sugar-coated, Pollyanna attitude of hers.

  “I care because it’s bugging the shit out of me and I need to know, that’s why.”

  Jill stiffened up a bit and sat back in her seat. She knew better than to argue with her husband when he was in such a pissy mood.

  Paul climbed out of the Escalade, leaving the driver’s door open. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Don’t touch that thing. It could’ve died of a disease or something.”

  Paul ignored Jill’s comment. As he walked down the shoulder of Highway 987, a beat-up Ford pickup passed by. The driver – an old man wearing a green John Deere cap – threw up his hand at him, as the old folks did in greeting.

  As he walked toward mound of black fur, he surveyed his surroundings. It was nearly six-thirty and the long shadows of dusk were beginning to gather. The valley was narrow, with thin stretches of farmland on either side. Across the road was a small farm; a two-story white house, graywood barn, a few outbuildings. It was early spring, so the pastures were empty of crops. No cows around at all.

  A little smile of triumph crossed Paul’s face as he came within eight feet of the questionable roadkill. Now, let’s see what the hell you are. He bent down and picked up a dead branch that lay at the side of the highway.

  When he finally stood over the animal, he was struck by exactly how large the thing was. Even curled inward the way it was, it was huge… much bigger than a normal dog. All he could see was that glossy black coat with the strange gray-striped pattern running through it. He couldn’t make out the creature’s head, tail, or legs; they were completely tucked from sight. Standing close to it now, Paul found that the coat wasn’t actually fur, but heavy black bristles, more like that of a wild boar than a canine.

  Also, even after a couple of weeks of rotting on the side of the highway, Paul smelled no trace of decay. Instead, there was merely a heavy muskiness to the thing lying on the shoulder.

  He should have found all this, well, unsettling. Instead, he found his inability to identify the animal infuriating. “Well, we’ll just flip you over and take a better look at you,” he said. Paul wedged the tip of the branch underneath the thing and started to exert a little leverage.

  That was when the thing at the side of the road woke up.

  “Damn!” Paul jumped back as it stretched and then lifted its head. Its massive head. The thing’s black-bristled skull was long and narrow, almost rat-like in a way, its tiny ears laid back sharply toward its broad neck. It had silver eyes. Silver like polished chrome. And the teeth. Lord have mercy! How could anything have so many long, jagged teeth within the cradle of two jaws?

  Paul Stinson knew then that the thing at the side of the road hadn’t been dead for two weeks.

  It had been waiting. Waiting for someone stupid enough to stop by and wake it up.

  Paul held onto the tree branch, but knew that it wouldn’t serve as any sort of effective weapon. He’d fare better going against a pit bull with a toothpick. He took a couple of wary steps backward as the thing stood up. Its legs were short and stubby, like a weasel’s, but powerful. It shook its coat off with a shudder, shedding a couple weeks’ worth of debris. Dead leaves, gravel, an old Snickers wrapper someone had tossed out a car window. It yawned, stretching those awful triangular jaws to capacity. The thing could have swallowed a softball without strangling. And all those damn teeth! And a long, thick tongue as coarse and gray as tree bark.

  Paul began to back away. “What…what the hell are you?”

  The thing cocked its huge head and grinned.

  Paul suddenly remembered the Escalade behind him. The driver’s door stood wide open.

  The thing saw it at the same time.

  Paul turned and began to run. He didn’t get far until he sensed the thing beside him, then outdistancing him. Up ahead, in the passenger seat, sat Jill. Her pretty face was a frightened mask blanched of color. She watched, mortified, as the thing, which was about the size of a young calf, poured on the speed, heading for the open door of the SUV.

  “Paul,” he saw her mutter. Then he heard her, loud and shrill. “PAUL!”

  “Stop!” Paul muttered beneath his breath. “Stop you, sonofabitch!”

  But it didn’t. It knew where it was going and it got there a moment later. The black-bristled thing leapt into the Escalade and, with a long tail as sleek and serpentine as a monkey’s, grabbed the door handle and slammed the door solidly behind it.

  “NO!” Paul reached the door as the power locks engaged with a clack! The thing was smart… and it knew what it wanted. And what it wanted at that moment was to not be disturbed.

  “Paul!” shrieked Jill, hidden by the thing’s heaving, black bulk. “Oh, God… Paul, help me! Oh, God… it hurrrrrrts!”

  Outside the vehicle, Paul could hear the thing at work. Biting. Tearing. Ripping.

  Frantically, he looked around; found a large rock at the far side of the highway. He grabbed it up in both hands and battered at the side window. It held fast, refusing to shatter. Damn safety glass!

  Suddenly, the inner glass of the Escalade began to gloss over with great, thick curtains of crimson. “Paul!” screamed Jill from inside that slaughterhouse on wheels. “Paul… pleeeeeeease!”

  Her husband began to scream himself, loud and horrified, full of utter hopelessness. He paced back and forth beside the vehicle, wishing… no, praying that some ignorant Kentucky redneck would happen along to help him. But the highway remained empty and no one came.

  The last win
dow to gloss over with gore was the driver’s window. The thing turned and grinned at him with those awful, four-inch teeth. Pieces of Jill clung in-between. Her ear, the ruptured sack of an eye, the bottom half of those ruby red lips he had kissed so passionately following their wedding vows seven years ago.

  The thing licked its glistening gray lips, then turned back to the ugly, jagged sack of seat-belted carrion that had once been Paul Stinson’s wife. Rivulets of blood obscured the horrible sight from view… but far from mind.

  At a loss of anything better to do, Paul dug his cell phone from his jacket pocket and dialed 911.

  ~ * ~

  It was already dark when the police finally arrived.

  The first one out of the Harlan County Sheriff’s car was a tall, burly fellow in his fifties. “What seems to be the problem, sir?” he asked. He had a stern, suspicious expression on his broad face; the same severe look that the locals customarily directed toward people who had been born and bred beyond the county line.

  Paul quelled the impulse to run up and grab hold of the man in complete desperation. “An… an animal of some kind is inside my car!” he said. “I… I… I think it’s… oh, God… I think it’s killed her!”

  The deputy, whose name tag identified him as Frank McMahon, walked briskly toward the Escalade. His eyes narrowed as he saw the blood-splattered windows. “What sort of animal? A dog?”

  Paul laughed, almost hysterically, then caught himself. “No… no… wasn’t a damn dog.”

  Deputy McMahon tried the doors. They were all locked. He turned questioning eyes toward Paul.

  “It locked them… by itself.”