My Gramps' Weird Stories: A Pig with The Devil’s Face

  

We had been knee deep in pig shit for at least three hours when I finally asked Gramps for a story. The old man had been mostly silent that day, save for his grunts of effort while refilling the trough or corralling the hogs in and out of the different pens.

I couldn’t say that I blamed him - helping Uncle Russ on his hog farm was one of the more physically intensive jobs the two of us ever undertook, and we’d just gotten into the worst part. Shoveling shit. Wasn’t much to say anyways and the longer you kept your mouth open, the more you’d start to taste it.

I was shocked Gramps could still put in such a productive day of work in his increasing age - but the truth was, at nearly 70, the old man heaped pounds of manure into the compost pile even faster than I did at 17. Gramps was a large and powerful man, Father Time be damned.

Gramps liked the work though. Good honest labor was all the man had ever known, and he was gonna help his son in law on that farm whether Russ wanted him to lift a finger or not. That’s what men did.

We’d been working ourselves to the bone since sun-up - I never passed on a chance to spend some time with Gramps, and I knew that Uncle Russ would slip me a few bucks for the day, so I’d enthusiastically hopped in the old man’s pickup that morning at 5:00 sharp.

But it had been hours and I was tired and the air stunk. I hoped it was time for a little break.

“Gramps, can we take a load off? Just for a few.”

The old man sighed. He removed his weathered and stained trucker cap - the same one he’d worn my entire life - and used his forearm to wipe the sweat from his liver spotted head.

He plunged his shovel into the stinking and wet pile of manure we were working from as he spoke. “Ah hell, I guess we could use a break.” Thank god, I remember thinking to myself as I did the same with my own shovel and followed the old man over to the large apple tree that loomed over Uncle Russ’s farm.

We couldn’t head inside with our shit stained clothes and there was no point in changing or washing up. We still had a job to finish after our break. Russ had headed into town to grab some supplies and drop off some hogs to a few buyers, but he’d left us a cooler for the day filled with water and some food.

As we took our seats on the shaded but still warm earth beneath the apple tree, Gramps reached deep into the cooler. From it, he withdrew two bottles of water and two ice cold beers. He winked as he tossed me one of each.

I laughed, and we cracked our beer bottles open then clinked them together before taking a nice deep swig. That ice cold swill just hits the body different on a day like that. Really feels like you earned it. The days stayed pretty warm in Vernon, even in the fall. Especially after some hours of hard work. And these sun soaked days with Gramps were the best of times for me. Whether we were sitting on his porch doing a whole lot of nothing, or up to our elbows in stinking shit. I just loved spending time with the old man.

Of course, the real treat any time Gramps and I got together was the stories.

“Hey Gramps, long as we’re sitting here… got a story?” I grinned as I asked the question, couldn’t help myself.

I’ve mentioned before that Gramps always had a story. My grandfather was renowned throughout the town for his ability to weave a colorful and compelling tale.

Thing was though, no matter how outlandish or silly or sometimes scary they got, Gramps’ stories were always true. Comedy, tragedy. Didn’t matter. That was what made them so damn interesting. Whatever the subject matter, this was a recitation of a true event. I trusted the words that came out of that man’s mouth more than I trusted that the sky is blue and that a human being needs to breathe oxygen to survive.

He laughed - it was a mirthful sound, tinged with juuust a hint of annoyance. It was the way he always laughed when I asked the question. We both knew that he loved spinning his yarns as much as I loved listening to them.

Gramps took another swig of his beer, beads of cold sweat running down the sides of the glass bottle. As usual, he was in no hurry to answer. He set the beer down and cracked his aging knuckles, they popped so loud you’d swear the dusty old bones were snapping in two.

“Ah I s’pose it’s the perfect time for it, better’n sittin’ here with our dicks in our hands.” He leaned towards me, thrusting a knobby finger in my direction. “Just one now fuckface,” Gramps warned me sternly. “We’re not gonna piss our whole day away sharin’ stories under the apple tree. Got a job to do.”

I smiled. I always smiled when Gramps used my insulting but still endearing nickname. The kind of nickname you get living in a family of lively hillbillies who all like to drink and horse around a little too much.

Gramps had agreed to a story, just as I’d known he would. Gramps always had a story. He let the moment hang now. Cradled his beer loosely in his hand. He stared off ahead, into the shimmering summer afternoon.

Gramps’ eyes were locked on the hogs. As they rolled in their dirt and sloppily ate from the trough, milled around in their pigpen. Squealin’ and snortin’ the whole time. I always liked the pigs. Didn’t do much like shoveling mountains of poop but the pigs were alright. They were disgusting sure, but they were intelligent creatures. Cute too.

I didn’t much like the thought of Uncle Russ loading some of those pigs up and selling them to the butcher and market. Packing them into the truck and driving them to their doom. It was the way it always was and the way it always would be, I understood that. Just didn’t much comprehend how you could spend your whole life caring for things just to serve them up to a death sentence.

Gramps cleared his throat, disrupting my train of thought. A serious look crossed his face. He kept his eyes locked intently on the frolicking animals. I could already tell by Gramps expression and demeanor that this story wasn’t going to be a comedy.

“Well,” he finally said. “How ‘bout a pig story?”

I leaned toward Gramps, eyes wide with anticipation.

“You ever hear your uncle talk about a bad sow, fuckface?” I nodded. There were many days on Uncle Russ’ farm that I’d heard whispered talks between adults, talks they thought I couldn’t hear. About things like rifles and needing to take a pig behind the shed.

“Well, all that badness started way back when… had to be about forty years ago now by my estimation. When that damned thing showed up the very first time.”

---

Delmer Wurlick wasn’t a very nice boy. That’s what the adults in town always said about him. To be honest, that was putting it mildly. He was the kind of nasty little punk who left a bag of flaming dog shit on someone’s front porch and laughed as they stomped it out. The type to key cars just for a laugh, prank call old ladies with sex talk and heavy breathing at 2:00 in the morning after stealing their numbers from the church register.

Those were the things that made Delmer not a very nice boy. But the adults in town, they didn’t all know the extent of Delmer’s misdeeds. He wasn’t just a vandal and a punk. He was a killer. He’d started young - squishing bugs a little too enthusiastically and sticking firecrackers in the mouths of frogs he yanked out of the creek. Eyes lighting up as they exploded into wet and slimy chunks of sizzling gore.

At around age fifteen or so, Delmer upgraded to larger animals. Wrapping stray cats in barbed wire, mixing crushed up glass into hunks of raw meat and feeding it to neighborhood dogs.

There was one summer where livestock at various farms all over town fell prey to a mad shooter - a lone gunman in the dark of night firing one right between the eyes of any cow or sheep or goat he could get his hands on.

All the kids in town knew that that was Delmer Wurlick. He’d bragged about taking the rifle once his old man passed out from the gin, and blowing those defenseless critters’ brains out so fast that them and their farmers didn’t know what hit ‘em.

Delmer talked about how they twitched and sputtered even after the life left them. How red chunky ooze bubbled from their pulped and jellified skulls.

Of course Delmer saw no trouble with the law. There was no hard evidence, just a kid talking. And it helps when your alcoholic mess of a dad was once the town sheriff himself, before the jack and the gin and a few too many glassy eyed and slurred speeches at morning roll call did him in. Friends in high places.

So ol’ Delmer pretty much did what he wanted when he wanted. He had a taste for blood and the imagination to indulge.

Hate to say it, but a lot of the kids hung around him anyway. He had this charisma about him, a strange aura that drew you in. There was somethin’ behind his eyes. You didn’t wanna know what it was but you just couldn’t look away.

Didn’t hurt that he’d take groups of kids for a ride in daddy’s caddy. Cruising the streets of Vernon on the nights he wasn’t busy torturing livestock, getting the other kids involved in his car keying and window soaping and all the debauchery.

Things took a turn in the Autumn of ‘53. Bill Wurlick’s good friend Enis was picked up in St. Claire, cruising the streets for a boy to spend the night with. Enis owned a farm just on the outskirts of Vernon, one he’d inherited from his daddy some years back. A middling and not at all spectacular little patch of dirt. Didn’t grow much there. Enis was no green thumb. He had some livestock - a few cows, half empty chicken coop.

Mostly pigs. Wandering, zombified sows and boars that seemed especially apathetic and lethargic. Brought down by the malaise of the place.

With Enis’ looming legal trouble, he turned to his good friend Bill Wurlick to tend to his farm in the meantime. The only man he thought he could trust. Bill Wurlick, gin drunk and not one to rise from his spot on the mangy living room sofa - ‘cept to buy more gin - turned to his son.

So that’s how Delmer Wurlick became the caretaker

For someone like him, this was an all you can eat buffet. Unlimited access to a cadre of defenseless and sickly animals , on secluded farmland where no one would ask any questions.

He’d wake up at dawn each morning and make the 15 minute drive to the farm in Bill’s caddy, snagging a few of his old man’s beers from the fridge on his way out the door.

Once arriving at Enis’ farm, Delmer would get to drinking and begin his “duties.” He planted seeds - half heartedly, tossing them asunder without really looking. Not taking the time to make sure they were distributed properly on the pathetic and wanting earth. Delmer never could get the old and rusting riding mower that sat still in front of Enis’ run down barn to run properly, and so keeping the grass trimmed was permanently checked off of his list of chores rather quickly.

The animals. Delmer was to feed them, provide water. See that their needs were taken care of. The first day or two, Delmer mostly kept his sadism at bay. Hurled handfuls of dry feed at the chicken’s faces. Splashed water at the cows as he filled their drinking trough, yanking on their tails as he left their corral.

There seemed to be some kind of honest attempt by the boy to truly honor his father’s wishes and help out the man’s good friend.

He got bored fast though. Delmer had some kind of insatiable bloodlust. There was something deep within him that needed to see that pain and that hurt.

Maybe it was that pain and hurt were all Delmer Wurlick’d ever known.

When your mother runs off with a band of coke-addled gypsies before you even turn 3 years old. When your cousin takes you into the bathroom only a year or two later at your grandmother’s funeral. When your father is so down in the drink that he cries tears of pure whiskey during those miserable late nights that he leans on your shoulder and asks you for all the answers

What does somebody like that have to offer the world but pain?

On the third day, he crushed one of the chickens to death with a rock. Then took that same rock inside the coop and lifted it up as he could before letting it fall directly onto a waiting cluster of diminutive baby chicks. Delmer licked his lips as the feathers and chunky gore oozed from beneath the stone.

He withdrew a knife from the kitchen and wandered into the cow pen, casually puffing away on one of Enis’ cigarettes. A small and sickly looking brown calf huddled next to its black and white spotted mother. Delmer slowly ran the blade along its skin as the calf mewled plaintively. Then he turned the knife and started cutting.

He’d hacked the thing to pieces in no time at all, a dark red puddle pooling on the hay beneath them. The mother cow stared at him, expressionless, the entire time.

Delmer wasn’t too concerned about getting rid of the mutilated cow parts. He knew that pigs ate pretty much anything. Taking a sledge hammer from the tool shed, Delmer set about mashing the bits of cow into a more digestible paste. Once he was finished, he scooped the jellified mounds of gristle up with a snow shovel. Deposited heaping helpings into the hogs’ feed trough.

The pigs chowed, snorting and huffing as they hungrily gulped down the chunks of flattened meat. Delmer chuckled as he noticed one exhausted looking sow, pink belly swollen to bursting with a litter of piglets, waddle over to the trough with great effort and try to eat her fill

The threshold was crossed. Delmer’s sickening pastime escalated quickly.

Over the ensuing days, he stabbed and shot and tormented. He’d dunk the chickens in turpentine and take a lighter to their feathers. Drop them into an empty barrel and piss on them to put it out. Twisted a cork screw into the eye of one of the cows, so deep that he couldn’t get a grip to retrieve it. He sliced its neck while it tried to buck him away with its weakened legs.

Delmer’d even invited a few of the local kids over to partake in the booze and the cigs and sometimes yes, even the hurting. Most of them didn’t like it much. Most of them were downright disturbed by it. But the allure of an older boy with ready access to a car and beer and all the tantalizing freedoms of adulthood was hard to pass up. If that freedom meant that the boys and girls had to bash a chicken to death with a fire poker, or slice a pigs snout from its face while it squealed and cried for mercy, many weathered the storm.

The corruption was the part Delmer liked.

Things changed when the sow gave birth. Delmer had watched the fattened pink creature keel over that brisk October day, flatten itself on its side and start breathing frantically. He certainly was excited to see those little piglets.

He hopped on the kitchen phone and called a few of the boys and girls over, telling them he had the beer and the cigs and something they wanted to see.

A small flock of kids had arrived by the time the sow pushed out her first piglet. The soft, squinting thing was covered in a fine layer of fuzz. Its pointed ears pressed backward, a calm expression across its face.

Delmer immediately raised his leg and smashed the piglet in one stomp. He cackled as it exploded into a chunky red mist. The crowd of children looked on, aghast at this display. Cruel and twisted and sick even for Delmer Wurlick.

A boy toward the back vomited, tears streamed down one girl’s face. It suddenly wasn’t so easy to look the other way, or to participate in these atrocities. The adult freedoms, doing what you wanted when you wanted. It was a kind of cage.

The sow seemed to lock its solid black eye on Delmer, and began loudly shrieking as it continued pushing out its litter of newborns. Its body writhed and shook with pain or anxiety or maybe some awareness of what was happening to its kin.

Suddenly, Delmer withdrew a buck knife from his back pocket. He lunged forward and sliced the sow open from neck to ass. The entire contents of its stomach spilled out in a steaming, stinking mess. Purple guts and thick rivers of blood. The rest of the piglets.

Covered in their mother’s gore and introduced to the world via this hellish act.

Delmer’s smile widened as he loomed over the pile of writhing and helpless newborns. His eyes widened as they met one particular pig in the mound of viscera.

Plunging his hands into the mess, Delmer spun around as he withdrew the object of his attention.

Facing the group of neighborhood children, cradled in Delmer’s outstretched hands, was a shaking and blood covered newborn piglet.

It didn’t look like any pig they’d ever seen.

The thing’s eyes bulged out of its head, its snout was basically nonexistent - a receding patch of flesh with two curved holes to breathe. Its mouth hung open wide, wider than a pig’s mouth should. It didn’t look like a pig’s mouth. No, with its broad width and rows of square teeth, it sure as hell looked like a man’s.

On the thing’s head were two pointed, fleshy bulbs. A sobbing boy yelled that they looked like horns.

As the mutated piglet gulped air and clacked its hideous teeth together, the crowd of children went into a frenzy. Many of them sprinted away in fear.

Delmer spun the twisted thing around and stared in its bulbous and swollen eyes. He thought of all the things he’d do to this pitiful creature that should not have been born.

Something happened though, in that moment. Something that even Delmer’s depraved mind couldn’t comprehend.

It spoke.

“You’re going to Hell Delmer. Your soul is going to be raped, your brain replaced with nothing but writhing maggots. You’ll be impaled on the endless and barbed horns of the great one. Forever. Split right down the middle, split in two. An eternity of agony.”

The tiny creature clacked its teeth together maniacally, cackling as it continued, in its garbled and inhuman voice. Delmer was frozen in silence.

“It’s already begun. For eons you’ve been tortured, chewed up and spit out. Forced to relive the evil deeds that placed you here. Your soul is black. Unclean. The kind we love. In that empty world of twisted hills and encroaching dark, you’ll wander and wander. Searching for hope and relief. All you’ll find is torment. We have your mother. Your cousin too.”

The thing’s voice took on an excited lilt as it spoke those last words. A blackened tongue emerged from between its lips, running back and forth across yellowed teeth. Delmer didn’t like to think about his mother or that cousin. He felt his bladder start to lose control.

“They’re suffering too Delmer, that’s all we ever do really. We suffer and we hurt. It’s because of them that the hollow world lives between your ears. We are going to tear your flesh off strip by strip and watch you eat it. You’re a vile creature, just like me. ”

Delmer screamed. He flung the thing to the ground with all his might, and it landed with a wet thud. That didn’t stop it.

It lifted its head and stared at Delmer, that hideous visage glaring up at him from the pile of smashed gore that was once its body.

“You can’t save yourself Delmer. You’re a damned sinner , and sinners reap what they sow!”

The scant few kids who hadn’t had the mental capacity to run watched in abject horror as the bug eyed demon suddenly began rising from the earth. All the mutilated animal parts - the mother pigs guts and the blood slicked bodies of the awful pig creature’s brethren - they coalesced into a terrible form. A mass of viscera in the vague shape of a humanoid.

Delmer screamed as the thing lurched forward, stretching out a long and appendage-like strip of dripping entrails. The wet spot on his jeans grew. In one swift movement, the thing spread itself apart and engulfed Delmer. He was covered head to toe in that horrible mess. Stuck inside of it.

The children could see him, writhing and pushing from inside the thing. Trying futilely to escape.

The pig creature clacked its teeth even more frantically. It suddenly let out a deep and guttural wail, loud enough to split the sky. The movement from within ceased.

It stared at the kids with those bulging, leaking eyes. Wide smile growing so large that it eclipsed its diminutive face, tearing the skin as it opened its mouth again to speak.

“I will come for each and every one of you, come in the night when your parents can’t protect you. I’ll make you feel every ounce of agony that the suffering souls of the endless void have endured for eons. This pain and bloodshed is absolute, and the screaming of tortured children will ring out and echo up to the ebony sky of the hollow world. Delmer doesn’t live here anymore.”

Then, it exploded. Chunks of wet meat flew in every direction, splattering the chicken coop and the barn and the children’s faces.

Mass panic ensured. The children finally dispersed and ran from the farmhouse for the comparative safety of anywhere else on earth. Through their tears and their horror, they screamed a single word.

Devil.

---

Gramps took a long swig from his beer as I stared at him in disbelief. It was another horror story, a terrible tale of horror and evil. Animal torturers and real life devils.

I had to ask.

“Well… then what happened? What happened with the farm? And to all those kids?”

Gramps signed. “Well, I was already grown and on my own back when this mess first happened. Only really heard about it third hand at the time. Those kids that were there with Delmer Wurlick that day had a real fear in ‘em. Little shits. Got home and told their mommies and daddies everything. Ah, the sheriff cleaned up the mess at Enis’ farm. Burnt the place down not long after. Just didn’t seem like the energy was any good there. All that death and bloodshed.”

I swallowed nervously, saying nothing and allowing Gramps to continue.

“No one much missed Delmer, not even ol’ Bill. Boy’s own father. So I can’t tell you there was a concerted effort to really solve the mystery of whatever bad forces grabbed the little prick that day.”

I could already sense that there was more to this bizarre tale. An epilogue, a postscript.

“But ya see fuckface,” Gramps’ voice sounded tired now. “Ever since that day, every year around October, we see one a’them things.”

My expression must’ve been quizzical, because Gramps clarified

“A bad sow.”

My eyes widened.

“Yep, every autumn a female pig’ll push out a litter, and at least one’a those little bastards’ll have bulgin’ eyes and fleshy horns and rows and rows of square yellow teeth.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But I mean… what do people do with them?” I asked.

Gramps stared at me like he thought I must’ve been stone stupid to ask that question. “Well, we pull ‘em away from the littler and take ‘em behind the barn and we…” Gramps trailed off, his gaze leaving me to settle on the hogs once again. “We do what we need to do.”

“I think Delmer Wurlick brought the devil to Vernon that day, fuckface. Only, the devil never really left.”

Gramps suddenly stood, stretching his legs and groaning as he straightened his back.

I was still comprehending the insanity of what I’d just heard, and stared up at him from my seated position.

“Folk around here though, we always try our best to keep those things in check. Mind our own and deal with the problems as they come. Delmer Wurlick was just a kid but, I reckon he deserved what he got. If you go lookin’ for hell, eventually the devil’s gonna find you.”

Gramps was still gazing out at the pigs when he realized I was still cemented to the ground. “Well god damn fuckface, hop to it. Story time’s over, got a job to finish.”

I leapt to my feet, nodding. I ran my hand over the back of my neck as we made our way back to the pig pen, back to the shit.

Gramps chuckled under his breath. “A’course,” he said with a devilish wink, “who’s to say folk always find the bad sow in time?”

My heart stopped, skin went pale.

Gramps laughed louder now as he withdrew our shovels from the manure pile and thrust mine into my hand.

I didn’t pay much attention to Gramps or the farm or the stench of shit the rest of that work day though. My mind was elsewhere as we shoveled that stinking slop.

I couldn’t possibly focus on anything but the lone pregnant sow wandering about Uncle Russ’ pens. Pink belly full and protruding.

Sure to soon give birth to a happy and healthy litter of beautiful little piglets.

---

Credits

My Gramps' Weird Stories: They Never Found Her Head

  

“Got one last story in you Gramps?”

I couldn’t help but smile as I shot the old man the question and tipped the beer bottle to my lips, downing the last few drops of precious brew.

I smiled because it was rhetorical, redundant. A question I already knew the answer to. Ya see, Gramps always had a story.

I’d been visiting with Gramps and listening to him weave his wild yarns my entire life. From tales of adventure, to comedic experiences with some of the town’s local oddballs, to the occasional terrifying splatter show that rivaled any horror picture.

To put it simply, I’d literally grown up on the old man’s entertaining ramblings.

The thing was, Gramps’ stories were always true. That’s what made them special. That’s what kept me captivated over all the years and years that I heard them.

It didn’t matter if we were doing something boring like adding the umpteenth coat of paint to his rotting and weather-beaten barn, or choking back tears from the dust as we organized his collection of musty old post cards.

Gramps always made it worthwhile because there was always a story. Truly, the best memories of my life.

He was getting old though. He’d always been old - Gramps had seemed ancient my entire life. As weathered and warped as that old barn we’d paint over and over. The last few years though, his health was on a decline.

I’d moved two towns over about three years back. Got a job on a large farm and then started seeing a girl I really liked. I was enjoying my twenties as any honest man should. Thinking about me and my future and my world.

But the truth of it was, I didn’t get back home near as much as I should’ve. Near as much as I thought I’d want to.

It had been about a year since I’d seen Gramps when mom called me last week, talking real sad about the old man and how he “wasn’t doing well.” Told me I should come see him soon as I could.

Told me there maybe wouldn’t be so many chances left.

The guilt I felt, the hurt in my heart, I don’t mean to dwell on it or beat myself up. But as soon as she told me that Gramps’ health was on the decline, I thought about the stories. The memories. All those wonderful years, and how easily I’d let them become just that - memories.

I took some days off from the farm right away, and headed home fast as I could.

So here we sat, me and Gramps. For the first time in a long time. Two men sharing a cold beer together (a tradition we’d adopted around the time I turned about 17 or so - a fact we’d both take to the grave).

It saddened me to say that the old man really was the worst I’d seen him. Gramps had always been a tall and powerful man, even in his old age. But now, he was fully withered. His eyes had become nearly totally sunken, two black pits rimmed with wrinkles. His rail thin arms were mottled with blue veins, head hairless.

A constant stream of brown tobacco juice still dripped from his quivering jaw, and he still wore his faded orange and white trucker cap on his liver spotted head. But it looked like the weight of the hat, the effort of chewing the tobacco - any slight level of exertion at all - would cause him to collapse into dust.

Gramps didn’t have quite his usual level of vigor and spunk, but we still got on like we hadn’t spent a day apart.

We talked about the old times, the good times, the current times. He asked me about work and my car, and smiled wryly when I told him about my girl. We bullshitted, we caught up, and for those few hours it felt like the old days again. Like I was a little boy holding a paintbrush and the world was as vast and limitless as one of Gramps’ stories.

The stories.

I couldn’t help myself.

It was getting late, and I could tell Gramps was tired. A few times as we sat on that front porch , watching the summer sun settle into dusk, I caught him closing his eyes a bit longer than a standard blink.

I’d have to leave soon, leave Gramps all alone, and I just got this nagging feeling that I wasn’t gonna see him again. Even if I came back tomorrow, even if I came back in an hour. Once I got in that car and the farmhouse disappeared on the horizon, Gramps would be gone too.

And so I asked him.

One last story. Somehow I think we both knew that I didn’t mean for the night.

Gramps sighed, and he chuckled. An ancient, wheezing chuckle of great effort. But genuine and real.

“God damn fuckface,” he finally answered, my old insulting-yet-endearing family nickname a good indicator that a story would in fact be coming. “Ya stroll back in here from your fancy job, and can’t even let an old man rest?”

He smiled, and I couldn’t help but sheepishly do the same, my cheeks reddening.

“Hell,” he continued. “I dunno that there’s one story I ain’t already told. Best I can recollect, ya’ve heard every one I got. Well…”

Gramps went silent, a serious look crossed his face as he seemed to think long and hard. His dark eyes blackened even further as the thoughts consumed him.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of contemplation, he spoke.

“How ‘bout one from when I was a kid?”

My eyes widened. Gramps was probably right - I had heard all of his stories. But not this one. To my memory, and it was a good memory, I’d never heard a single tale from Gramps’ childhood.

Though Gramps body language and demeanor indicated that he wasn’t sure this was a story he should be telling his grandson, I couldn’t hide my excitement. If this was our last story ever, it had to be something special. Something wild, maybe something no one else had ever heard.

“Come on Gramps, let’s hear it!” I exclaimed. Gramps’ face was still twisted in that contemplative look, eyes cast down at the ground and away from me. Slowly, in a way that almost seemed reluctant, he nodded and began.

---

I reckon I was about 11 years old, maybe 10. Couple of us kids used to play the whole summer down the creek. It was a big marshy pit, almost more like a swamp. Past the old junkyard and through a hidden and twisted path that snaked through the dry grass.

Me, Gertie, Simon. We’d all of us play down there damn near every single day. Dunkin’ each other and spittin’ water and swimmin’ and acting like a bunch of fools. Sometimes see a frog or scream “Alligator!” And get everyone running.

Morning til dusk we’d be there. I think about those days and sometimes it’s like I can still feel the sun on my skin, the dry boards of that hidden walking path ‘neath my feet.

‘Course, the watering hole wasn’t exactly the safest. We’d hear stories - a lady drowned there with her little baby, local crooks and thugs might would use it as a dumping ground since the creek would eventually flow into a larger river outside town.

We didn’t worry so much - what the hell did we care? Little kids always think they got super powers. Like nothin’ can hurt them. The few rumors made the place more exciting.

That was, until Gertie drowned.

Day was like any other, nothin’ out of the ordinary. The three of us had met up outside Simon’s parents’ chicken farm, then headed to the creek. We’d goofed the whole way there , shovin’ each other and deciding what games we’d play. Hot that day, hot like it is now.

Wasn’t long after we’d stripped down and jumped in that Gertie yelled about her leg.

We thought she was kiddin’ at first, we all played cruel little games like that on each other.

But those tears in her eyes, the panic in her voice as she screamed that something was wrapped around her leg… no child could take that. We rushed over to her, tried to help, tried to pull her out.

We couldn’t really see beneath the water, see what had her. It was too murky and dark, even on a sunny day like that. The whole time she cried and screamed that somethin’ had her ankle so tight, so hard that it was bein’ crushed.

Then, she vanished. Sucked under like she damn well disappeared.

The two of us screamed and we ran the hell out of that murk and mire fast as our little legs would take us. Ran back home to Simon’s parents in our soakin’ wet underwear, crying and snot runnin’ down our little noses, tellin’ ‘em what happened.

They launched a search, whole town got involved.

Gertie’s body didn’t turn up til three days later. We didn’t see it. No one did, ‘cept the searcher who stumbled on it. It was floating face down in the creek, right where she’d disappeared. It was like she got sucked away and spit back up.

The sick part, the thing us kids heard that weren’t s’pposed to, is that Gertie’s head was missing. Gone. Torn clean off.

What kinda drowning does that?

Her funeral was a closed casket. And we were forbidden to ever go to that creek again. Not that we needed much convincin’.

Thing was though, that didn’t stop us. ‘Course it didn’t. Not cuz we wanted to swim or play - those memories were tainted. Ruined. They weren’t worth a shit without Gertie.

No, we wanted to know. Wanted to know how a creek disappears someone and rips their head off. Wanted to know why that happened to our friend.

That curiosity, it’s dangerous sometimes. You got that curiosity in you fuckface. Always have. I have it too, I think. But at first I was too scared to act on it.

I thought about that creek damn near every night. I’d see those murky waters in my night terrors, when I laid down for bed. Gertie’s big brown eyes peeking out of that black mire. Just the top half of her head staring at me, like she wanted something.

Simon convinced me, one day. We were at the chicken farm, cleanin’ up the dead newborns from inside the coop. It always felt like goin’ through the motions after Gertie died. “Ah hell with this,” Simon exclaimed as he threw down the sack of baby chicks. “Let’s go to the damn creek. Let’s see if we can find it.” I stared at him quizzicamally.

“Gertie’s head.”

Boy, did my mouth drop to the damn floor. We all wanted to investigate the creek, but I’d never thought of it that way. Never thought about findin’ her.

“Havent you seen her? At night , when you’re dreaming I mean.” Simon continued. I nodded, even more surprised that he’d been havin’ the same dreams as me!

“I think it’s like, she needs us. She can’t rest unless we find it.”

It seemed logical enough to me. Same kinda thing I’d seen in horror pictures, sneakin’ into the old drive in. It was worth it just for a shot to make the damn nightmares stop. Silently as we could we crept off the farm and made our way to the creek like old times. Only one man short.

When we got there that day, the whole place just didn’t quite feel right. No life there. No noise. A wrongful stillness in the air.

It happened almost immediately.

The two of us were slowly inching around the creek’s edge as the surface of that black, inky water broke, and a tiny head of golden hair emerged.

Gertie’s brown eyes locked with mine and hell if I didn’t freeze in place like the devil was staring right into my soul.

I couldn’t even scream, the terror gripped me so deep.

But Simon could.

He screamed at the top of his lungs, collapsing to the ground as I saw a dark stain forming on his shorts.

Somehow, findin’ exactly what we’d expected was the most terrifyin’ thing in the world.

Then, Gertie rose up.

Worse than the dream, worse than we imagined.

On my soul, on every story I’ve ever told you, that was not Gertie in that swamp.

Oh it was her head - her blond hair and coffee colored eyes, dimpled smile and missin’ front tooth.

That angelic head sat on top a twisty and gnarled body, a hideous sight that revealed itself the taller it rose from those depths.

It was human like, but not quite - it’s torso and arms and legs were unnaturally long, bony and spindly. It had sagging and veined breasts, its sallow yellow skin covered in weeping orange boils and browning scabs.

The hands, those knobby claws endin’ with cracked and sharpened nails as black as the water it rose from. Tufts of black animal hair covered it’s shoulders and wrists and just below it’s waist, foul and dripping wet.

All in all, the thing stood probably 7 feet tall fully erect.

And at the top of its massive, elongated and twisted neck sat the too small, pinprick head of our best friend. You could clearly see the point where Gertie’s head had been attached to the thing’s neck - a raw and red strip of glistening gore divided the spot where that hideous veined yellow flesh met Gertie’s.

The thing of it was though, was how perfectly Gertie was preserved. She didn’t look rotted or bloated or like she’d been at the bottom of a creek for 3 weeks. She looked fine as the day we’d last seen her - she looked alive!

Gertie opened her mouth, but it wasn’t her voice. It was some awful, strangled sound. Wet and hollow and rasping. A voice no ears were ever meant to hear. A voice from the bottom of a creek. A voice that ain’t of this world.

“I DONT WANT THIS ONE!” It bellowed as Gertie’s face twisted into a visage of pure hatred, eyes bulging from her head.

Lightning fast, the thing bounded out of the creek and onto the shore, and it shot its massive claw at Simon’s leg, wrappin’ him tight.

God he screamed bloody murder, he screamed the worst scream I ever heard. The thing stared intently at him with Gertie’s eyes, full of hate and somethin’ else. I was frozen in place, my feet cemented to the ground beneath me.

It picked Simon up by the leg, hangin’ him upside down and bringin’ him up to its face. Starin’ right into his eyes.

The whole time Simon screamed, piss runnin’ down his whole body, tears and snot dribbling to the ground.

The hideous creature glanced at me from the corner of Gertie’s eye, turning its attention from Simon.

Then suddenly, with its other claw, the thing reached up and palmed the top of its head - of Gertie’s head - and with a dull and wet riiiiip it tore her head clean off its tree trunk neck.

I couldn’t stifle the scream then, god I screamed. A scream that could’a split the sky.

The thing was, once it had torn off Gertie’s head and thrown it to the ground - her head that I’d just seen talkin’ and movin’ like it was alive, only now the eyes were just lifeless and dead and starin’ up at the clouds forever - and reeking black ichor cascaded from its freshly mangled neck hole… It kept movin’.

You get what I’m saying fuckface?! It was a giant, grotesque body with no head , and it was alive! It kept that tight grip on Simon’s leg, still holdin’ him upside down as the blood rushed to his head. It lifted him higher and still stared at him, with that empty space where a head should be. Stared with nothin’ there.

Somethin’ somewhere in me woke up.

What else could I do, fuckface?

I ran.

Ran fast as I could, hoping I wouldn’t hear the sounds of giant wet feet slapping the earth behind me. I knew I’d never outrun the damn thing.

But no, all I heard was a wet rippin’ sound in the not too far off distance, as Simon’s screams were cut short.

And I knew. I just knew what it was doin’.

And god, god I wish that was the end of it. It was evening by then, and I simply ran my sorry ass all the way home, washed up and hopped into bed. Mom and dad didn’t ask too many questions - no one even knew yet that another child had gone “missin’” at that damned lake.

As I lay there in bed, mind racing, The worst part wasn’t even seeing what had become of Gertie. And it wasn’t knowing what had become of Simon.

It wasn’t even thinking about that damned creature - thinking about where it came from, where it had been hiding. Was it the malformed and demonic reincarnation of some poor drowned woman? A booger straight from hell?

Had it always been there? Lurkin’ beneath the water, just waitin’ to snatch one of us? To snatch is new head?

‘Cause I knew by then that that’s what the thing wanted - that’s what it had been lookin’ for. An incomplete, wretched thing just wantin’ to be whole.

No, none of that was the worst. The worst was that night, in that most oppressive dark of midnight, dark as the bottom of that creek.

When I heard a tapping on my bedroom window.

And I pulled the covers over my head tight, but I could hear a quiet and awful voice from behind the curtain, muffled by the glass.

But it wasn’t that same awful voice from the depths of the creek , being spit out of Gertie’s mouth.

It was Simon’s voice. A little distant and garbled, but god damn if it wasn’t him.

“I don’t like this one.”

I knew it wasn’t really him. Couldn’t be. It was only a sad and confused imitation. But there was something in that voice, some quiet and needful like desperation. It was like the real Simon layered under somethin’ else. But Simon was there.

I couldn’t help it, I will never know what came over me. But I found myself standin’, my hand wrapped tight around that curtain.

The tapping stopped, like we were both anticipating it. I pulled that curtain back, just a bit and I got a glimpse of Simon’s eyes staring back at me. Peeking from just over the windowsill. I knew that a gnarled and monstrous form was crouched just out of my view, clenchin’ it’s clawed hands into fists and anticipatin’ this moment.

I threw the curtain closed and shielded myself under the covers, as I heard that hideous whispering voice.

“Just wanna be like you.”

---

It was the worst story Gramps had ever told me - the most terrifying and harrowing and awful. I knew it had taken a lot out of the old man, and the look of twisted wistfulness and horror on his face when the tale came to an end was palpable.

He stared into my eyes with this kind of quiet desperation that I’d never seen.

We had been inseparable for so many years. Such a deep trust and love existed between us. I was probably the only person he’d ever told this story to.

Even though Gramps couldn’t say it, he was never one for sentimental words, I could feel what he was trying to tell me. There was this deep intimacy to that look.

I didn’t have too many questions, which was rare for one of Gramps’ stories. Usually once they finished, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. With that dark and almost hopeful look I saw in Gramps’ eyes, I could tell he wanted me to talk. Wanted me to ask how or what or why.

Or ask my usual immediate follow up to one of his yarns:

“Well, then what happened?”

Instead, I just squeezed the old man’s hand as we stared into the country dusk.

After a few more minutes I said my goodbyes, and Gramps and I smiled sadly at each other as I got in my pickup and drove away, watching as his meekly waving form grew smaller in my rearview mirror.

Tears streamed down my cheeks the entire ride home. Gramps had opened up to me more than ever with that story - a deep look into a significant personal trauma he’d experienced. It was a tale of violence and monsters, but it was something that he’d clearly carried in silence his whole life.

We’d always have that, the two of us. All those special and wonderful years of stories and the odd love between a gruff grandfather and his inquisitive grandson.

I had to get out of there and away from that farmhouse as quickly as humanly possible.

Because, ya see, Gramps’ stories were always true.

And when that story ended, I couldn’t take my eyes off the massive, gouged and deep pink scar that had always covered the exact middle of my grandfather’s neck.

The one he’d had my entire life. The one that, way it had always been told to me, came from an accident with a thresher when he was a boy.

I was right about one thing - that meeting and that story was the last time I ever saw Gramps.

Because that night, at midnight in the deep and murky dark, when I heard a tapping on my bedroom window?

I damn sure didn’t open the curtains.

---

Credits

 

My Gramps' Weird Stories: Night Stalker

 

“Tell me another story, Gramps.”

The old man and I had been sitting under the sweltering august sun for hours, not doing much of anything.

Our cans of paint sat nearly full, brushes left dipped inside the containers of bright red. I worried that the oppressive heat threatened to boil the cauldrons of varnish where they stood.

The two of us never seemed to get much done at all when we “worked” together, but that was okay. I valued my time with the old man above all else.

And I valued his stories. Gramps was a sort of master storyteller, revered around Vernon for his ability to spin a yarn. Recently, he’d told me a wild tale of murder and gore that beggared belief.

It had honestly put me off asking for the old man to flex his storytelling muscles for a few weeks, but the allure of another always drew me back in.

The thing was, crazy as they could get, Gramps’ stories were always true.

The old man hocked a massive clump of tobacco into his spittoon and yawned, reclining back in his rocker. He stared at the nearly naked side of his old barn, bright red covering the small corner we’d gotten around to actually painting.

He said nothing, but I knew he’d heard.

“Well fuckface,” he finally said, using my endearingly insulting family nickname, “If you think you’ve got the stomach for it, I recently heared a story down at McCullough’s that might whet your appetite.”

He withdrew the bag of dip from where it sat next to his chair and packed another lip.

Through the tobacco drippings, he continued.

“You might not remember the old Sheriff, Jack Henry. Folk always called him Ol’ Henry. Retired some years back now.”

I nodded, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead. I’d heard talk of the ex-sheriff here and there. Mainly something about a violent home invasion that had occurred on his property within the last few years.

“Well Ol’ Henry had a few too many Jack and cokes that night at the watering hole. And we got to talkin’. Talkin’ about the old days, the way things were. Got to talkin’ about his wife, Jane.”

Gramps spit out another wad, in no rush to to speed up the story just for my sake.

“Ol’ Henry got some loose lips in his state of inebrianation. Decided to tell me what really happened that night the robber broke in.”

I steeled myself, knowing the bad part was coming. But with stories like this, the bad part was usually the best part.

“Here’s what he told me that night, best I recollect after cleanin’ up his drunken slurring.”

Gramps began

---

The sharp sound of a window shattering jolted me wide awake. I snapped up to a sitting position in the inky dark.

I said nothing, did nothing. Tried to listen.

The crunching of boots on freshly broken glass. A lamp on a side table clattering to the floor. A low murmur.

All coming from the living room below us.

Someone was inside the house.

“Henry!” I put my hand up to silence her, unsure if the gesture was even visible in the oppressive black.

“Henry!” Jane hissed again, but louder.

I turned to face her now, seeing the whites of her eyes wide with fear even in the dark.

“Shh!” I insisted, putting a finger to my lips. “I’m listening.”

“Someone is in the house!” She whisper-screamed.

“I know that. Barging down there’s without thinking’s not gonna do any good.”

Below us, the faint ruckus continued. The intruder seemed to be aimlessly rooting around the first floor of the house. By the sounds of silverware hitting linoleum, I figured he’d made his way into the kitchen.

I yanked off the duvet and readied myself to stand. My knees ached. I’d been roused out of a deep, medication-assisted sleep and was even groggier than usual. But I was coming to.

I was going to show this cocksucker that he’d picked the wrong fucking house.

“What are you doing?” Jane frantically sat up as I rose from the bed, not without effort.

I steadied myself on the nightstand, my legs wobbling. God my fucking knees.

“I’m getting the gun, and I’m going down there to shoot the son of a bitch. Call the police.” I slowly made my way to the bedroom closet without waiting for Jane’s response, grabbing the Remington 12-gauge that I kept stashed there in the event of a home invasion like the one we were currently experiencing.

As I loaded the gun, Jane became more exasperated. “Henry please!” She insisted, still in that strange in-between of whispering and yelling.

“Don’t do it. Lock the door and we’ll call the police and wait for them to handle it!”

“No. And wait like sitting ducks for him to come up here? No Jane. Mother fucker comes into my house, breaks my window…” I trailed off.

I sometimes don’t articulate myself the best when I’m angry, and boy was I fuming. Probably some piece of shit drug addict looking for a quick smash and grab to buy a couple ounces. Or maybe some punk kids just looking to vandalize houses for a laugh.

I wasn’t about to give him the easy out of a heroin needle or a few years in juvie doing the job.

Used to be in this fucking country, we protected what was ours. And god dammit, some of us still believe in that.

“Call the police. No matter what you hear, stay here. And lock this.” I reiterated to Jane as I quietly opened the door and exited the bedroom, ignoring her cries.

Jane and I had been together over 40 years. Good woman. Better wife. She’d get hysterical and overreact like most women are prone to, sure. But at the end of the day we made a good couple. We’d made this home together, raised a few great kids.

I wasn’t about to let some piece of shit criminal defile what we’d worked so hard for. It was the principle, dammit.

Truth was, I’d felt useless in the years since I retired. I wasn’t some pathetic old man, willing to lie there and let my whole life be stolen by some piece of shit thug. The asshole downstairs was about to learn who the victim in this situation really was.

I crept down the stairs, the sounds of the house being turned inside out growing louder as I made my way into the foyer. Even in pitch black, I knew the layout well. I observed the broken bay window in the living room, shattered glass glinting in the moonlight. The humid summer air wafted in with the pale glow of midnight.

Slowly, I made for the kitchen. A bright light suddenly filled the room, coinciding with the sound of the coffee maker shattering on the floor as the intruder swung open the refrigerator door.

I stopped in my tracks, thrown off by this bizarre action. You could see clear into our kitchen from the living room, but the fridge opened toward the entryway. The attacker was still obscured from my sight.

How to best approach this situation. How to maximize my chances of the shot hitting true.

I watched the intruder loudly empty our fridge, tossing vegetables that thudded on the ground and flinging beer bottles backwards into the dining room.

So this was some piece of shit thug just trying to trash the place.

The man seemed to talk to himself in a low voice as he destroyed the kitchen, though my hearing was impaired enough by this age that I couldn’t quite make out the words.

I needed more light. Luckily, the switch for the living room wasn’t far from where I’d stopped to observe the intruder. Quietly, I hobbled my way over to the wall and flicked on the light , casting the living room in a yellow glow.

Immediately , the kitchen went dead silent.

“Hey, asshole!” I screamed as I raised my shotgun.

“I have a weapon, close the door and put your hands up. The cops are on their way. Guess you tried to trash the wrong house.”

No response. Nothing. All sounds in the house seemed to cease.

“You hear me you piece of shit?” I pumped the shotgun, hoping to give the asshole an aural clue that I was not fucking around. I was prepared to shoot.

Slowly, a pair of wide eyes emerged from behind the open fridge door.

The man wore a jet black balaclava, his emerald green eyes the only visible features of his face. He was literally wearing the mask of a fucking cartoon robber.

The figure stood up , still taking his time, and gingerly shut the refrigerator door. His gaze never broke mine, and now I could make the bastard out more fully.

He was an average sized guy, not more than 5’9, maybe 5’10. He was fully outfitted in jet black, from the covering on his face to the gloves on his hands to the soles of his boots.

“Put your hands up motherfucker. I will shoot you.”

The man did nothing. We stared at each other. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

“You fucking hear me?” Before I could continue, the man spoke.

“You hear me you piece of shit?”

His voice was slightly garbled, and strange. And he spoke with an odd lilt, almost like a question. Like the words weren’t coming naturally.

More important , he had repeated my earlier threat. Was this piece of trash mocking me?

I kept the gun raised, aimed square at the intruder’s chest. “Listen smart ass. I’m not playing any games. Like I said, cops are on their way.”

“Put your hands up motherfucker. I will shoot you.”

Again, the same threat I’d made against him seconds before, repeated in that strange and hollow staccato.

It went quiet after that. We stared at each other, neither of us budging. My knees ached like hell. My shoulders were starting to droop as the adrenaline wore off and the weight of the shotgun became more apparent.

The intruder could’ve been a statue the way he stood there. I sensed no fear from his stance. No apprehension, no worry.

I got nothing from this fucking guy. I’d dealt with people like him on the force. Lunatics, their brains so fried or fucked up that they had no fear whatsoever.

My knees throbbed and I stared into those emerald eyes. I started to think that in the haze of being jarred awake , I’d made a serious mistake.

This fuck was completely crazy.

Suddenly, a loud cracking sound broke me from my trance as the intruder jerked forward shoulder first, his black-clad head snapping backwards as he did so. His hand was outstretched toward me, fingers now looking long and spindly.

Before he could take another step, I pulled the trigger.

The shot exploded out of my weapon, blasting the intruder square in the chest. The man was propelled backwards into the darkness of the kitchen, gore and bits of flesh hovering in the air where he had stood moments ago. He hit the kitchen sink with a thunk. I stumbled backwards from the force, my knees and arms now searing with pain.

“God dammit…” I said to myself.

“HENRY!” Jane screamed from upstairs.

“I’m fine!” I yelled back to her. “I’m fine. Stay in the bedroom. You called 911 right Jane?”

“Oh god, oh god..” I heard her crying sobs.

“Jane!”

“Yes,” she choked out between cries. “Yes I called them.”

“Okay well, all we can do now is wait. Just stay put, honey. I love you.”

She said nothing else , but I heard her muffled sobs even through the ceiling.

I ran my hand over my face in frustration, and sighed. It had been a while.

The anger and rush had worn off quickly , and now of course I questioned if I’d made the right choice. I’d been so gung-ho about defending my castle, but did it really need to be this way?

Hell, I guess it did. Who knew what the strung out piece of shit would’ve done if I hadn’t reacted.

When the boys from the precinct got here , it would be easy to explain how things had gone so bad. They’d understand.

Another loud cracking sound grabbed my attention.

I furrowed my brow as I stared into the darkened kitchen.

I could make out the dim outline of the intruder, on all fours , crawling into the living room where I stood.

How in the fucking hell.

I stumbled backward, trying to cock the shotgun again.

“Stay where you are motherfucker!” I yelled. “You’re lucky to still be alive, maybe the cops will help your sorry ass when they get here. Get your life back on track.”

A low, gurgling voice answered me as the sound of limbs skittering on linoleum grew closer.

“Stay in the bedroom Jane. You called 911 right? Staystaystaystay JaneaneaneaneJaneJaneJane. Call call call call call.”

The intruder’s voice had taken on a manic quality, and he repeated the things I’d just said to my wife at a rapid pace. Like a tape caught, wound up tight in the machine.

“Stay where you are motherfucker! Motherfuckermotherfucker!” A sharp, angry growl. My sharp angry growl. The first time the intruder had expressed any emotion whatsoever.

My mouth widened in horror as it dragged its way into the light of the living room.

Frozen in place by the wrongness of it all, it began to dawn on me that something I did not fucking understand was staring me in the face.

This was not a person.

Pulling itself along on all fours with hideously twisted, multi-jointed limbs, the thing that was clearly not a human left a trail of blood from the jagged hole my shotgun had torn in its abdomen.

The limbs cracked and popped as they jerked forward, snapping as they seemed to grow and change.

With a sick, wet click, the masked face of the creature shot up, it’s neck breaking into a pure straight line so those eyes could look me in the face even as it still lay on the floor.

The cat burglar outfit the thing wore was now stretched and tearing at odd angles, no longer properly fitting the grotesquely outstretched limbs.

What the hell had broken into our house.

With inhuman speed, the creature’s torso snapped upward, the hole in its chest still leaking viscera.

It’s legs popped and hinged backward, elongating with extra joints. It pressed on the ground and stood itself up, now much taller than the 5’9-average-height it had appeared as a man. It wobbled and swayed from side to side, unsteady on its newly double-jointed legs.

Again, the creature and I entered a sort of stasis. We both stood, staring at each other, neither willing to make the first move.

The cartoon burglar outfit looked so wrong stretched over this now inhuman frame. The twisted limbs had outgrown the pants and black thermal , exposing his veiny tan flesh. Blood dripped from the gory hole above his ribs. I could now clearly see that my shot would’ve killed a normal human.

Those wide green eyes looked more otherworldly than before, fixated on me from the stark black that surrounded them.

What the hell was I supposed to do. I’d seen plenty of crazy shit in my day. But this wasn’t crazy. This was impossible. Wrong and horrible and impossible.

That hideous voice escaped from its mouth once again.

“Jane.”

I thought of dying at this thing’s hands, thought of what a shit way this would be to go out with the life I’d had. I was getting angry now, feeling the righteous indignation that had gotten me out of bed in the first place.

I had always been a hothead, always too full of piss and vinegar. Even after all the years, retirement had never suited me.

I thought of protecting my castle. I thought of Jane.

I raised the shotgun. Before I could pull the trigger, the creature suddenly elongated and twisted its neck one hundred and eighty degrees, with a sickening squelch.

The balaclava clad visage now faced me upside down and hanging from a veiny and tendril-like neck.

I’ll admit, I nearly shit my pants. Whatever was beneath the balaclava rippled and shifted as the creature stared at me, our faces now nearly touching.

Fuck this.

I raised the gun again and pulled the trigger.

Too old. Too slow.

As the shot was let loose, the thing swiped at me with its enormous limb, sending me flying backwards and smashing into the living room wall, my head snapping back on impact.

I saw stars, the room spun. I’d gotten my shot off though. I’d clipped the thing right in the head.

It let out an inhuman shriek as it hit me, stumbling backwards and tripping over its twisted legs.

“Owowowowowowow fuckfuckfuck HURTSHURTS”

It yelled and screamed , it’s voice more garbled and strange than before. It almost sounded like multiple voices in unison, talking over each other and saying the same thing.

I guess I could take some satisfaction in hurting the thing, at least a little.

The gun had gone flying in the melee, and the sharp pain in my gut told me I’d likely broken a rib, or worse. I looked down and even through my blurred vision saw bruises and even some broken bloody skin already forming where the creature’s tree trunk like limb had made contact.

Your skin is like tissue paper when you reach this age.

Everything ached. Everything hurt. Especially my knees, especially my head, especially my ribs. And god my head was on fire. I felt my vision beginning to blacken.

The sound of the creature standing up and crashing it’s way over to me kept me alert. I was defenseless at this point. Some king of this castle I’d turned out to be.

As the creature approached me and knelt down, I realized my aim had been better than I thought. Half of the thing’s entire head was blown off. A gory, pulpy mess dripped through the ripped side of the balaclava where the shot had made contact. Only one piercing green orb remained.

If that shot hadn’t done the job, nothing was doing the job. Apparently this thing could function just fine missing half its brain.

As I heard the distant wail of an approaching siren arriving just in time to be too late, I waited for the thing to do whatever things like this do. Waited for the end.

Instead, saying nothing, the creature reached up and removed the covering from its face.

I was greeted by a fairly unassuming visage, minus the part of the face I had blown off with my shotgun. A young man with some stubble and a buzzed haircut. A little haggard looking, but certainly not the face you’d expect to see on some malform-limbed alien creature.

A sick, gigantic smile began to spread across the face, inhumanly wide, growing to even tear the man’s cheeks.

That gaze never breaking from mine, it began to change.

The face twisted and shifted, the skin stretching and morphing as if it were alive. It’s nose collapsed, it’s lips stretched upward. The teeth fell from its mouth. Even the damaged gore of ifs gunshot wound melted and merged with the unmarred half of the face to make an almost liquified soup of facial features that thrashed and bubbled.

As the grotesque display went on, a new face began to take shape.

My face.

Slowly but surely, the weary-but youthful man was replaced by deep wrinkles, and thinning auburn hair. The hairs of my moustache bristled over it’s newly reformed lips. Even the birthmark beneath my left eye appeared.

The only thing that stayed the same was those alien emerald eyes.

I realized now what the thing had been staring for. Why it had been repeating my words. Why all it had done was silently stand and observe, until I’d gone trigger happy. Until I’d decided I had to defend my castle.

I figured somewhere out there, maybe miles away, maybe in this neighborhood, there was the body of a youthful, weary young man with buzzed hair who had been planning on committing a robbery this evening.

And someone else before him. And someone else before that. And all the way back to wherever this thing that didn’t belong in our world had come from.

What did it want? What was it trying to do? Did that even matter now. I knew the answer.

All traces of injury to the creature’s head gone, I was now face to face with myself. A ghoulish grin still spread across its face, it seemed to be waiting for my reaction. Waiting to see what I thought of my face on this twisted, gnarled, funhouse mirror body.

It was almost comedic, almost funny. Trumped even the craziest shit I’d ever seen on the job. I scoffed.

Turned out I had been pretty useless after all. I could hardly keep my eyes open now. I was ready, waiting for the moment to come.

But then I remembered. We both did.

When we heard our wife yell down from the bedroom.

“Henry? Henry dear god are you okay? What is going on down there?”

Her sobbing voice was hysterical and pained.

The thing’s smile grew even wider as I shook my head, pleading, trying to fight the coming embrace of unconsciousness.

“Don’t. Don’t. Please.” I reached out and grabbed the scruff of the thing’s shirt with my last ounce of strength.

It spoke, but not to me. A spot on, if staccato imitation of my voice.

“Just stay put, honey. I love you.”

---

Gramps leaned back in the chair, story finished.

My face had gone sheet white, once again in absolute shock at what I’d heard. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut

“Well wait then… what happened after that? What really happened to Jane?”

I recalled a bit more vividly now the story I’d been told about Ol’ Henry and his wife - Jane had been killed by a home invader who had also harmed Jack Henry, and ultimately escaped that night never to be found. There hadn’t been any talk of a shapeshifting monster with green eyes, that’s for damn sure.

Gramps sighed, staring off into the now-setting sun.

“Well fuckface, he did what a man has to do in those kinds of situations. When he came to and saw his wife in the kitchen, boiling a pot of dirty water and chewing on raw spaghetti, turning to face him with a massive, face-splitting grin and a loving glint in her emerald green eyes…”

Gramps trailed off as the weight of the story’s epilogue sunk in.

“Ya know fuckface, last time I told you that it’s best to mind your own. But sometimes, maybe it’s safer to be aware that some things in this world just ain’t right.”

Gramps leaned forward to silently emphasize the point. He lifted his glasses and locked his eyes with mine.

Thankfully, they were the same piercing blue as always.

 

---

Credits

 

My Gramps' Weird Stories: Road Killer

  

Gramps always had a story. Always. We’d lived out in the sticks long as I could remember, on the ass end of Culver Road, not far from the bombed out-looking-but-still-functional gas station.

Not many people out this way, not much life at all really. Occasional big rig speeding by , stray car here and there. And tons and tons of roadkill. Pasty, mashed animals usually littered the road far as the eye can see.

Most days I didn’t usually pay it no mind, but this wasn’t most days. It was hot as hell, my body slick with sweat as Gramps and I fruitlessly worked away at his decrepit caddy. The car had sat motionless on the front lawn long as I could remember. I was bored.

I surveyed the road beyond our farmhouse , the sizzling black top seeming to stretch endlessly in either direction. You could hear the faint buzz of flies feasting on the squished piles of animal guts and gore.

I turned to Gramps, wiping my head of sweat with the oily rag I then stored in my back pocket.

Gramps always had a story.

“Hey Gramps.” The skinny old man’s weathered face seemed to permanently squint, deep grooves of wrinkled age plastered across his visage. He spit a wad of chew and said nothing to acknowledge my call.

But I knew he’d heard, and I knew he’d want to spin his yarns.

“What’s the deal with all these dead critters? Doesn’t seem like enough cars even come ‘round Culver Road to squash this many animals.”

Gramps sighed deeply, tobacco juice leaking from his lips.

He snorted and cleared his throat.

“Well fuckface,” he said. “You ever think that maybe, just maybe , some questions’re better left un-asked?”

Fuckface had always been a term of endearment among our wild family. Gramps had christened me with that nickname from eight years old when I tried fueling the tractor with syrup and coke.

I smirked, knowing that Gramps never begrudged a chance to answer the un-askable.

“You know that ol’ ruined farmhouse miles down the road, one with the caved in silo ‘hind it?”

I nodded. The place had been derelict and abandoned long as I or anyone under the age of nine-hundred could remember.

“Well,” Gramps continued, leaning forward in his chair to command my rapt attention. “Folks say that somethin’ ain’t right about that land. ‘Bout that silo. Said no good happened there when the farm was healthy, and even worse happens now that it’s dead. Hear stories folks go missin’ round that silo. City slickers mostly. Lost travelers, don’t belong on this road in the first place.”

I sat cross legged now, listening intently. Gramps had me totally hooked, as usual.

“Fact,” he continued, “Heard tell recently ‘bout one particular greenhorn who found himself well-acquainted with that awful place.”

Gramps’ eyes took on a mischievous glint as the story began.

---

"Fuck!" James yelled as he accidentally stepped in the red, greasy mound of burst guts and matted fur next to his broken down car. As if being stuck in the middle of nowhere cooking in the oppressive summer heat wasn't bad enough, James had just stepped in roadkill. He lifted his foot out of the pile of viscera, shaking loose tiny bits of gore from the sole of his shoe as he did so. The stench of the rotting, pancaked creature wafted up to his nostrils as a result of this action, and James retched. He silently cursed himself for not getting that check engine light looked at sooner.

The self-reprimanding moment didn't last long, however, as James remembered that it wasn't his fault the check engine light wasn't looked at. He didn't have any extra money to get his car looked at these days. Barely had money to pay his rent and keep his cupboard full of instant ramen these days. Every dime he had went to Amy. That cunt, James thought. Their divorce had not been an amicable one, and Amy had gone through the legal system to ensure that James would be supporting she and their son Tyler for many years to come.

James could sense himself growing angry, and tried to calm himself down. He was already in a bad enough situation without losing his temper. Even though it was that bitch's fault he was even on the road in the first place. If she hadn't been so insistent about him taking Tyler this weekend, he never would've made this trip.

She fought so hard to get sole custody, why the fuck did she care whether or not he skipped a visitation day?

James covered his nose with the back of his hand and inspected the bottom of his shoe. Though now stained a bit brownish red, he had managed to shake most of the mess off. He peered down and inspected the carcass. It was impossible to determine what this animal had once been. It was now little more than a crushed mass of brownish fur and bright red chunks. It looked like it had been run over again and again. James guessed they didn't do much cleaning on this road.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked around. No cars seemed to be coming from either direction. James knew this road was isolated. All that surrounded either side of the offbeat highway were acres of empty farmland. A sea of dry grass with the occasional scattered pile of hay or large bush, surrounded by rotting and broken fence posts. In the distance, James could barely make out a presumably long-abandoned farmhouse opposite what appeared to be a silo with a caved in roof. No one had tended to this farm in a long time.

James stopped daydreaming and came back to his current situation. The sun beat down on the back of his neck. He had been so close to his destination when the engine gave out. Only 10 or so miles. He needed to get there. Things would only get worse if he kept Amy and Tyler waiting.

James pensively pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Though he was trying to stay calm, he couldn't help but open his voicemail and listen once again to the angry message he'd received from Amy earlier that morning. "Be a fucking man for once in your life and come pick Tyler up like you're supposed to. Jesus fucking Christ James you only get him one weekend a month and you're trying to get out of it?"

Her voice erupted from the phone's speaker, and James quickly exited the playback. That wasn't the reason he'd pulled his phone out to begin with. Why was he torturing himself listening to what that stupid whore thought? He'd already played it repeatedly throughout the day, his rage simmering.

James gripped the phone tightly as he thought of Amy living it up on the gorgeous property just outside the city that he'd worked so hard for, while he wasted away in a shitty apartment. Probably fucking a different guy every night, trying to find a new daddy for Tyler.

James remembered the point. A tow truck. Was it worth it? Never mind paying for it, he couldn't afford to stand around for hours waiting. Walking was out of the question, the nearest civilization was still miles away. There was no way he was leaving his car on the side of the road for that long. The stench of the roadkill that had become acquainted with James' foot wafted up to him yet again, and he wished the car would turn on so he could sit in the air conditioning.

James' mind drifted to dead things again, and he recalled the sheer volume of roadkill he'd seen on the drive before his engine had died. It had seemed like piles of gore littered the road every few feet. Mashed up corpses of small animals, driven over again and again into a hairy paste. James knew that he couldn't sit here all day. Apprehensively, he resigned himself to the fact that calling for a tow was his only option. James dialed the number and waited, again wiping his sweat-slick forehead. Nothing. James had no reception on this stretch of road.

"FUCK!" James yelled again. He kicked the passenger door of his beige sedan, causing the propped up hood to wiggle dangerously. He stomped his feet on the hot asphalt and swore some more.

I am well and truly fucked, James thought. He put his head in his hands and leaned against the car. His shirt clung to his back, damp with sweat, and left a faint moist streak on the door as James slid to sit on the sizzling black top. James wished he knew the first thing about cars. Wished there was something he could do besides stare impotently at the guts under his car's popped hood. He looked at his watch - 6:45. The hot summer sun would be setting soon.

James was contemplating cutting his losses and walking to the gas station he had passed a few miles back when he heard the first thwack. James' head snapped in the direction of the sound. In the distance, far down the desolate highway but close enough that James could still make it out, was a massive figure. James stood to his feet, and strained his eyes to see the person in the distance.

It appeared to be a man, wearing a red flannel shirt and denim jeans. He carried some sort of bundle in his left hand, dangling from a string. Something appeared to be covering the man's face. Holy shit, James thought. That is one big fucker. James was 6'2, and even from this distance he could tell that the flannel-shirted man was far taller. Even more perplexing than the man's hulking size, however, was the action he was performing.

The man was furiously jumping up and down in place, stomping both feet hard at the same time as he came down out of the air. James heard the rhythmic thumping of massive boots on asphalt as he watched the man repeat the action again and again. Abruptly, the man stopped jumping and walked several feet forward. James had all but forgotten his current predicament at this point. He was entranced by the strange behavior of what he presumed to be a giant retarded hillbilly.

The man stopped, a bit closer to the side of the road this time, and grabbed one of the items dangling from the bundle. He raised it above his head, and slammed it hard into the ground. THWACK. James winced at the closer, louder sound. It sounded like wet meat. The ritual was repeated as the man spent close to a minute jumping up and down on the object he'd thrown. James saw bits and pieces flying into the air as the man's jumping forged a misshapen lump beneath his feet.

The stomping stopped, and the man began walking even closer to the broken down car. All the color drained from James' face as he was able to better make out not only the physical features of the man himself, but what dangled from his left hand.

Though the man had looked pale from a distance, close up his skin was a downright pallid, creamy grey-ish color. Deep, poorly healed scars ran up and down his muscular arms. The tattered and filthy sleeveless flannel left little of the man's hideous physique to the imagination. What was left to James' imagination was the man's face. Over his head, the man wore a beige burlap sack, tied tightly around the neck with a thin piece of rope. Two jagged eye holes were ripped in the rough material.

As much as the image of a seven foot tall, grey skinned hillbilly wearing a potato sack mask terrified James, what the man grasped in his enormous gray claw was even worse.

Hanging by their hair were two human heads, the skin of their faces removed to reveal the wet, red muscle beneath. Their eyes were removed, leaving only gaping black sockets. There didn't seem to be any teeth in their mouths either. Everything but the hair had been carved away.

James was trying to process the horror in front of him as the man raised one of the severed heads, appearing to belong to a woman judging by the long blonde hair, above his own. He slammed it on the ground with another loud THWACK.

James' eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen. The bag-faced man leapt up in the air and brought his enormous, crimson-stained boots down hard on the head. Immediately, the skinned face caved like a rotten watermelon. James heard the cracking of the skull much more clearly now, and could do nothing but watch as the man reduced the head to a mashed up pile of hair and gore.

A sickening thought crept into James head as he slowly gazed down at the pile of roadkill near his car, the one he had stepped in just minutes ago. Slower still, he looked back the way he'd come before his car had broken down, faintly making out the piles of days old roadkill that littered the highway.

Before the next thought could enter James' head, he heard the loudest THWACK yet. He looked back to see the masked man standing mere feet from where he sat. As the man reduced yet another human being's violated skull to a heap of mush, James slowly slid to a standing position, his damp shirt clinging to his back.

Frozen in fear, James could do nothing as the man performed his morbid exercise. Once the final head had been suitably crushed, the masked man turned sharply to face James, apparently aware of his presence all along. The man pointed a massive finger to the pile of face at his feet. He pointed at the roadkill near where James stood. He turned and gestured toward the miles of highway ahead.

James' terror turned to confusion. This maniac was creating the roadkill, using human heads. Now he was trying to... Show it off? James shrugged his shoulders confusedly, careful not to make any aggressive movements. The bag faced lunatic grunted, and pointed at the roadkill again, the motion seeming sharper and more aggravated this time. James was lost.

The man moved his face inches from James, yellow eyes set in jagged holes staring deep into James'. He grunted again, louder and now clearly agitated. "I don't..." James trailed off. "What the fuck do you want me to do? Don't fuckin' hurt me man, I won't tell anybody about this shit-" the grey man interrupted James by suddenly grabbing him with a ragged hand.

Effortlessly, he swung James to the ground, nearly sticking his face in the pile of gore. James gagged as the stench invaded his nostrils. He tried not to think about what the roadkill had been mere minutes before. After a few moments holding him near the mess, the man yanked James back to his feet, and tossed him towards the hood of the car. James stumbled, steadying himself against the front bumper.

Again, the man stared at James almost expectantly. Now sick to his stomach from the smell and unsteady on his feet due to being physically manhandled, James was even less sure what this behemoth wanted. The two stared at each other for a long moment.

After some time had passed, the masked man reached behind his back and produced a large rusted blade. James jaw dropped. The grey man took a step forward, and James' brain turned back on. He turned and made a beeline for the decrepit farmland opposite the highway. Fuck Amy, he thought as he weaved around the car and attempted to steady his shaking legs. It was her fault he was in this fucking mess, being chased by a masked lunatic in the middle of nowhere.

He heard a deep, guttural roar of anger from behind him as he broke into a sprint. James wasn't sure what he'd accomplish by reaching that old farmhouse in the distance, but he figured it was better than waiting to see what the man was going to do with that knife.

James had been an athlete in school, but years of a sedentary lifestyle had caught up with him. He was already starting to feel winded and the farmhouse still seemed miles away. James didn't have to look back to know the man was close. He could hear the heavy footsteps, the almost inhuman grunting. He had caught the man off guard running in the first place but he was already losing his head start.

As James was trying to formulate the best plan to avoid having his head chopped off and the skin removed from his face, he tripped. Tumbling head over heels, he skidded to a halt in the dry grass a few feet from the object that had caused him to fall: A weather worn metal pitchfork, discarded in the past by some unknown hay baling farmhand.

The masked man had not been far behind, and James looked up to see him casually walking towards James' prone body. Thinking fast, James grabbed the pitchfork and stabbed forward hard with it as he rose to his feet. The man hadn't seen what James tripped on, and was surprised by the rusted blades piercing the flesh of his abdomen.

An inhuman howl of pain escaped the man's covered lips as he staggered backward. James stabbed the pitchfork again, this time striking higher up on the man's chest and digging the farm tool deeper. He tried to yank it free to take another jab, but it was stuck, jammed in the man's grey flesh. The masked man slashed with his dagger at James' arm, cutting deep into his wrist. James screamed and fell back, crimson blood gushing from the deep gouge. If the blade had gone any deeper, James wondered if his hand would have been severed from his forearm.

James lay there clutching the wound, expecting the killing blow to come. Instead, he heard soft whimpering. He slowly stood yet again, and saw the grey man on his knees, blood seeping from the two pitchfork inflicted wounds, the weapon still jutting from his pectoral muscle. He was injured. James knew he had to think fast. The car was still no good, and he doubted he could make it to that gas station in this shape. The house was still his best bet. Maybe he could dress the wound.

Slowly, putting as much pressure as possible on his wrist, James half-walked, half-ran toward the dilapidated farmhouse. He took the occasional glance back at the masked man, still kneeling in the grass, breathing sharply. Eventually, James reached the front door of the farmhouse. It was already hanging off its hinges, and even in his wounded state James kicked it open easily.

The inside of the house was as run down as the exterior. Peeling paint, holes in the walls, and piles of garbage and other debris littering the floors. James noticed a large mass of trash and what appeared to be cushioning from the inside of a mattress in the middle of the floor. A nest? Jesus fucking Christ, James thought. That fucking maniac lives here.

James remembered his slashed wrist, and began looking around for something to dress the wound. Everything in the house looked unsanitary, but James decided he would rather survive the night and deal with any potential infection later. Near the base of the stairs, James found a slightly less disgusting table cloth. With effort, he was able to wrap it around his wrist and tie it tightly. His entire arm ached. There had been rust on the blade. Hopefully this would get him through.

There didn't seem to be anything in the living room that James could use to defend himself in case the masked man had survived, nor in the filthy kitchen. Apprehensively, he decided to head upstairs. The sun was beginning to set, and James didn't want to be stuck in this house in the dark on top of everything. The stairs looked about as well maintained as the rest of the house, which wasn't saying much. But it was worth a shot.

Carefully, James started up the stairs. There had been a slight stench in the living room, and the smell only amplified as James made his way to the top floor of the house. Originally thinking it to be the garbage that filled the living room, James now recognized the smell as that of dried blood and rot. Based on the day's events so far, James had a bad feeling about what he was going to find up there.

Much like the downstairs, the upstairs of the farmhouse was torn apart and strewn with garbage. There was a room with a closed door at the end of the hall, the other rooms only had open doorways leading to the mess within. James took a quick look inside each, finding only more disarray and detritus.

There was no rhyme or reason to the mess. It was a mixture of random objects - things like torn up books, broken children’s toys, empty takeout containers and cracked computer monitors. Each room looked like someone had sliced open several trash bags and poured the contents onto the floor. Inside the bathroom was a cracked porcelain tub overflowing with some sort of stinking soupy black liquid, and a medicine cabinet filled with expired pills.

The smell of death grew even stronger as James approached the closed door. James knew that he had to go in. He pushed the door open.

"Fuck..." he whispered, too shocked to even react to the oppressive stench of decay that now blasted him in the face. The room was filled with corpses in varying stages of decomposition. Women, men and children alike. Most were headless, leaning against walls or stacked in piles. Dried blood caked the floor, and chunks of gore were scattered everywhere.

Under a large curtained window on the far wall was a wooden table, upon which laid a body that still had its head attached. On the floor next to it was what appeared to be a bucket of carving tools. Unable to stop himself, James covered his nose and slowly walked into the room.

Upon entering, James noted a crude bookshelf against the east wall, lined with severed heads. The roadkill supplies, James thought. Trying not to step in any of the greasy viscera that covered the floor, James stopped at the table, looking down at the corpse. It was a young red headed woman. Her skin was pale, lips purple. She hadn't quite begun decomposing yet. How new was this one? James noticed the large gash on her freckled chest between her breasts, and his eyes wandered down the rest of her body. She was covered in bruises and gouges. She had suffered. He thought of Amy. The rage he'd felt towards her that day couldn't escape him, even in a life or death scenario.

He looked once more at the ghoulish bookcase, and saw what appeared to be the head of a young child. A dark haired boy. He thought of Tyler. He thought of his wife and son in a room like this. Suddenly, James heard footsteps below him.

He froze. There was only one person those heavy steps could belong to. How the fuck was that goddamn freak still alive? James needed to think fast. He reached into the bucket and pulled out a bloodstained meat cleaver. He stepped past the table and drew the curtains. The window oversaw a small portion of the roof. James wondered if he could make the drop from roof to ground without shattering his ankle.

James heard the man's footsteps clomping up the steps. It wouldn't take long for him to be found. James opened the window, straining to exert any energy with his injured arm. As James was halfway out the window, the grey man's massive frame filled the doorway.

James turned to stare at the man, who let out a primal scream as he charged toward the carving table, blood still oozing from the wounds on his abdomen. James flung himself from the window, barely managing to land on the rooftop. He looked over the edge. The drop was several feet. James hesitated. He turned to see the grey man reaching through the window. "God fucking dammit!" James yelled. He jumped.

James hit the ground with a thud. He attempted to roll and hold onto the cleaver at the same time. As he tumbled, the cleaver flew out of his hand. James rolled over his bad arm and screeched in pain. James looked around desperately for the cleaver. It had gone flying. There was no time for him to search any longer. He had run. James took off in a mad dash back the way he came.

Maybe he could get the old piece of shit car to start? Maybe he could outrun the maniac behind him and get to that gas station. Maybe he'd get reception on his phone and be able to call... He was unable to finish the thought as he heard a series of grunts and screams behind him. James didn't need to look back to know the masked man was on his tail again. He tried to increase his speed, while also taking the occasional glance at the ground in front of him so he wouldn't trip again.

It was dark out by now, but James could still make out his car shining in the moonlight. James knew the grey man was right behind him, but his body was on fire. Out of breath, he attempted to catch his wind by leaning against the trunk for a brief moment. He heard the scream, and got out of the way just as the masked man slammed his enormous fists in an attack aimed at James. The man missed, and the impact of the blow caused the car to shift and bounce off the pavement, denting the chassis of the car where the hit had connected.

James turned to run again, sticking his foot in a pile of greasy gore as he did so. Unable to control his momentum, James slipped on the roadkill, landing hard on the ground as he lost his balance. Before he had a chance to react, the grey man picked him up and tossed him hard at the trunk of the car.

James bounced off the broken down vehicle and hit the ground with a thud. The grey man picked him up by the neck and began repeatedly slamming James' face into the already dented trunk. Blood erupted from James' nose and he saw white. He thought he felt a tooth go loose.

The repeated impact eventually caused the trunk to pop open, and the grey man threw his broken victim aside as he noticed the trunk’s contents.

Inside the trunk were two corpses: A middle aged brunette woman, and a young boy. The stench of hot, decaying meat wafted from the trunk, escaping into the night sky. The grey man focused his yellow eyes on the bodies. They both wore dark ligature marks around their necks, their eyes cloudy.

"I had to..." the delirious man spoke from the ground. He spit out a glob of blood and coughed. The grey man turned to face him as he spoke. James wasn't speaking to him, though. He wasn't speaking to anyone. "That fucking cunt was stealing my money... Stealing my life.... Making my fucking life miserable. She deserved it. She deserved it..."

A lot of things had gone wrong for James that day. Losing his cool at the house after he'd arrived to pick up Tyler had been the beginning of a long day of fuck ups. Before he'd realized what he'd done, he'd strangled his ex-wife and unfortunately had to do the same to silence his screaming, traumatized son. His biggest regret was his car breaking down BEFORE he'd made it to the even more isolated patch of farmland where he'd planned to dump the bodies.

James was losing consciousness. He heard a ringing in his ears, and every part of his body throbbed, especially his bleeding wrist. The last thing he saw was the grey man standing over him. Those cold yellow eyes held his, as the artist drew his rusted blade and went to work.

+++++++

Dale was pissing into a bottle as he and Earl soared down the highway in their tanker. "Careful fuck nuts," Earl said. "Don't get any piss on the seat." Dale rolled his eyes. He glanced out the window. "Sure is a ton of roadkill around here, huh? I didn't think many people really drove on this road." Earl took a quick glance out the window himself. He had to admit that the road was absolutely swarmed with pulpy piles of gore. He shrugged.

"I wonder what all different animals there are out here," Dale said, his eyes still glued to the window. As they passed a junked out beige sedan in a field a few yards from an abandoned farmhouse, Dale noticed an odd cluster of roadkill. Three small mounds of flesh, red gory paste mixed with matted brown hair, arranged in a straight line.

"Looks like somebody hit a whole pack of squirrels at once or something right there," Dale said, pointing as he shook the last few drops of urine loose.

Earl didn't take his eyes off the road. "Squirrels don't run in packs, fuckface."

---

Gramps leaned back silently, his tale told.

My mouth hung open , slack-jawed in disbelief.

“Gramps…” I trailed off.

I stood and steadied myself against the caddy, stretching and trying to gulp in the hot summer air.

Gramps stories’ were typically a little strange, and many of them even had a sort of horror bent to them. But he’d never told me any story this bizarre, this visceral and weird.

Most importantly , even if he exaggerated slightly, Gramps’ stories were always true.

Where had he even heard of a story like this? How could he possibly think this was happening, miles from our home? Hell, right in front of our home! A crazed serial killer? A man with the bodies of his murdered family in his trunk?

Unexpectedly, Gramps spoke again.

“It’s bad things happen to the ones don’t mind their own business. The strange and awful things, they love the dark. They feed off the badness and the evil. Our family, we don’t bring no badness, we don’t bring no evil. We keep to ourselves and keep to our own.”

The worn old man’s eyes had taken on a hardened look, as he locked his steely gaze with mine.

“Don’t we fuckface.” Not a question, a command.

The two of us surveyed the landscape once again, my gaze lingering on the mounds of rotting and ruined meat that suddenly didn’t look so much like dead animals anymore.

I turned back to the car and silently resumed my Sisyphean task of repairing the junker.

Gramps was right. Some questions are better left unasked.

---

Credits