The Worst Heist I've Ever Been A Part Of

 

“GET DOWN! GET THE FUCK DOWN!!!”

Stitch’s voice sounded far less threatening while being distorted by his mask.

I always thought that was a corny nickname. Stitch.

But we all had one, for security reasons. The less my “colleagues” knew about me the better. I went by “Grey”. I don’t think I’ll divulge my real name here, though.

It was a six person crew. There was Stitch – the muscle. Wick – sharpshooter. Wire – safe-cracking expert. Casanova – the intel guy, Eagle – sniper support/lookout, and me – the de facto leader/getaway driver.

The place we were robbing was a weight training equipment store that served as a front for a smuggling ring. What they did smuggle? Literally everything under the sun. Casanova had gotten in with the ring a few months prior, working undercover as they carried out their operations. He knew the general layout of the place, how many guards were going to be present at any given time, and most importantly, where the goods were.

Even with the intel he was able to provide, the operation was still going to be quite dangerous. If we were to be caught, the consequences weren’t going to be as simple as prison. It was going to be… much worse. In any case, I was just gonna off myself if things went south. So was everybody else.

So why choose such a risky place to rob? Well first of all, it would attract less police attention, as opposed to robbing a bank or currency exchange. Simple criminal vs. criminal action. No need to go and track down any stolen money. Second of all, we could kill with impunity. No civilians. Just the most rotten pieces of shit on the planet. As strange as it was, we definitely had the moral high ground here. Third of all, they were apparently hoarding millions in cash, diamonds, and other valuables.

In short, the operation was high-risk, high-reward, high-catharsis. Killing these bastards was certainly gonna feel good. Casanova had once told me about something he’d seen while in one of their storage closets. Frozen torsos. Human torsos that definitely weren’t big enough to have belonged to an adult.

“ARE YOU FUCKING DUMB? GET DOWN!!!!” Stitch continued to scream. The “employees” at the front counter hardly budged. In fact, they hardly reacted at all. They just stared at us with disturbingly blank expressions. I knew we should’ve expected more resistance than usual, but this kind of behavior was still pretty bizarre.

“Fuck!” Stitch spat. “They aren’t fucking listening. Can I just waste these freaks!”

I looked over at Casanova. “You recognize them? How involved are they?”

Casanova clicked his tongue. “I think they’re new hires. Only seen them sneaking around in the basement since last week. But they’re aware of the operations for sure.”

I sighed. “Alright. Waste ‘em then.”

Stitch and Wick put two bullets in both of the employee’s heads. I was kind of relieved when they dropped. They were starting to freak me the hell out.

“And you’re sure nobody heard that?” Wick asked. Even with silencers, they’d still made a hell of a lot of noise.

Casanova shook his head. “Nah. Right now, there should only be people in the basement. And you can’t hear shit from down there.”

“And nobody’s watching security right now?”

“I’m 95% sure nobody is.”

Wick shot him a concerned glare.

“Stop being greedy, those are good odds.”

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The plan was fairly simple. Once we got down to the basement, we’d waste anybody and everybody there, grab as much shit as we could, and then get the hell out of there before reinforcements showed up.

However, the only reason we’d be able to do this at all was because of Casanova’s intel. We really owed him this one. Usually, there were dozens of guards stationed here at any given moment. There was only a small frame of time each week where there’d only be four. According to him, five of the eight main traffickers would also be present, in addition to the guards.

We were about to do society a favor.

I gestured towards him. “Lead the way, Cas.”

“Hey aren’t you worried they’ll find out it was you?” Wire asked him.

“Nah,” Cas responded. “I’ll be fucking outta here. Getting sick of this country. Already got property down in Jamaica. Smooth sailing from here on boys.”

I had plans on retiring from heists after this one as well. It really wasn’t a terribly sustainable occupation. I nearly had enough cash as well. I just needed a little more and I was golden.

We entered through one of the back doors, before locating the entrance to the basement.

“Fuck, boys. Here we go,” Stitch looked at us, before tapping his chest twice. “Godspeed.”

“Godspeed.” We all whispered in unison. It was sort of a tradition for us to do at this point.

“So are we just gonna ignore the elephant in the room?” Wire said. “What the fuck is that?”

He pointed to the ground, where some kind of symbol was painted right in front of the basement doorway. It looked like a circle with triangles lining the circumference, all pointing inwards. In the center of the circle was what I could’ve only described as an eye.

“Oh,” Cas responded. “I dunno. These people are probably in a cult or something. I mean, they sell kids. But they must’ve put it there recently. First time I’m seeing it.”

Not exactly something I wanted to hear or see. Nevertheless, we proceeded with the job. We rushed down the stairs and began tossing stun grenades. That just about did it. The ensuing firefight was a near-flawless victory on our part. Stitch was the only guy injured on our side, with a bullet grazing his shoulder. It wasn’t a problem, though. We’d taken out all the guards and the traffickers.

“Man, you fucked it up,” Wire said. “All that mass makes you an easy target.”

“Fuck off!” Stitch spat. “Let’s just get the shit and get out of here!”

“Where to now, Cas? Cas? Hello?”

I turned around to see Cas just standing there, his expression seemingly bewildered.

He shook his head. “I’ve… I’ve never these guys in my life.”

“So?” Wire responded. “What does it matter?”

“I’ve been undercover for months. Never met any new faces after day 1. But now they’re getting new employees? And now these people? Something’s going on.”

“Maybe they didn’t trust you as much as you think they did,” Wick said. “I doubt you know everything that goes on in this place.”

“Fuck that,” Cas said. “Something’s fucked up here.”

He walked over to the corpses of one of the “traffickers”. He kneeled down, observing a tattoo on one of their arms.

“Jesus, what the hell.” He held up the guy’s arm. His tattoo was an exact replica of the symbol that we’d seen on the ground earlier.

As it turned out… all of the traffickers had the same tattoo. Even the guards did.

“You sure you don’t recognize that symbol?” Wire asked. “Like, you’ve never seen it?”

“You think I’m fucking blind or something? I said I haven’t.” Cas responded. “Fellas, I don’t like this at all.”

“We’re wasting time,” I told him. “Where’s the shit we came here for?”

Cas shook his head and sighed. “Fine. Fine. God, I didn’t sign up for this demon shit.”

He led us to a locked, password-protected door near the back of the room.

“What’s the code, Cas?”

“Fuck if I know. Wire, you’re up.”

Wire took out his toolkit and began going to work. Only a minute later, the door was open.

“Shoulda never dropped out of MIT,” he said. “My talents are wasted here.”

“Yeah, yeah, cry about in the Bahamas,” Stitch said, walking in. We all followed suit.

Cas’s intel didn’t disappoint. We’d hit the fucking jackpot. Stacks of cash, gems, watches, you name it. There were also boxes of USB’s. I set on those on fire. Cas still appeared to be on edge as we shoved the loot into garbage bags.

“Relax man,” I said. “We found it. We’re golden. You’ll never step foot in this hellhole ever again.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

“You have any idea what’s in there?” Wire asked.

I looked at the direction he was pointing towards. It was a small, grey safe in the corner.

“What could be so valuable that it needs double protection?”

Cas shook his head. “Like I said, I dunno. It’s like everything’s changed the last time I was here.”

“Well, it must be something good.” Wire said, getting up and walking towards it.

“We don’t have the time, man!” I called out to him.

He simply held out his hand. “Won’t take long.”

I did have a habit of underestimating him. He managed to crack the safe in under 30 seconds.

“Well, what the hell’s in there?” Stitch asked.

“Um… it’s a… necklace.”

“Alright, well toss it into a bag. We’ll figure out its value later.”

“Come take a look at it first.”

As it turns out, the necklace was… alive. It appeared to be made of sharp teeth, with an abnormally large eye as the centerpiece. An eye that was still blinking.

We must’ve stared at the thing for a minute straight without saying a word. I heard Wick silently utter a payer.

“What the hell are these people?” Stitch asked. “Let’s get the fuck outta here. Cas, you aren’t possessed or something, right?

Describing how I felt as “unsettled” would’ve been an understatement.

“Alright, pack it up. We’re outta here.” I said, heading towards the stairs. I couldn’t wait to leave. But before I could even make it out of the room, I got a call on my radio. It was from Eagle, who’d been hiding out on the 7th floor of an adjacent building. He was only supposed to call if he’d spotted any suspicious activity outside the store.

Obviously, this was gonna be bad news.

I picked up the call.

”Hello?”

”Grey? Find a fucking place to hide!” His tone was frenetic.

”What? What the hell-“

”Go, Go! Don’t ask questions, just hide. A fleet of cars just pulled up outside. Over a dozen people got out. Maybe even twenty. They’re getting out and walking in as we fucking speak.”

”Are they armed?”

”I’m not sure, but… they’re walking weird. It’s screwing with my head. Fuck! I think one of them saw me, I gotta go. Just hide!”

“Eagle? Hello? Shit!”

“Well,” Wick said. “That didn’t sound good.”

“It wasn’t,” I responded. “We gotta hide.”

“Is that joke? If somebody’s coming down, let’s just waste ‘em.” Stitch objected.

“Too many. Won’t work. Cas, I thought you said nobody was coming back ‘till midnight.”

“That’s the way it’s been for months, it is my fault that they suddenly changed the goddamn schedule? And EVERYTHING else?”

“Jesus,” I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. “Fuck it, just find a place to hide.”

As soon as we stepped back out onto the main basement floor, another issue presented itself. All the bodies were gone.

“What the hell?” Wick said, dumbfounded.

We hardly had time to digest the news, as heavy footsteps began descending down the stairs. Eagle was right. Their footsteps did sound weird. They were too… uniform. As if they were all marching in unison or something. And there were a lot of them.

I was starting to panic, looking around the basement for somewhere to hide.

“Cas, where the hell do we go?”

“There’s no goddamn place to hide! Shit!”

“Check it out!” Wire said.

I looked over, seeing him holding open a door in the opposite corner of the room.

“No. No way,” Cas said. “That door was never there before.”

“You sure, Cas?” Stitch said. “Your memory seems pretty foggy these days.”

There was hardly any time to argue. The footsteps were getting dangerously loud. We all rushed into the mystery room, with Cas being the last one to enter. I did have to admit. I was beyond unnerved. I knew Cas the best out of anybody in my crew. He didn’t do any drugs. No record of mental health issues. I believed him 100% when he said that this door was never there before.

Once we were all in, we shut the door behind us, plunging ourselves into sheer darkness. We all grabbed our flashlights and pulled them out. I could only describe what we saw in front of us as a cruel joke.

We were in a short corridor, leading to a small room at the end. In that room was the entrance to another staircase, leading down. And on the floor? The symbol. That same, hellish symbol.

Obviously, none of us wanted to go down. We are all perfectly content with waiting until we got an all-clear from Eagle.

Wait. Eagle. He told me that he’d been spotted. I didn’t call his radio, in case he was hiding. I texted him instead. No response.

“What the hell is going on?” I heard somebody whisper.

“Just keep quiet,” I said. “We’ll wait here until I get a response from Eagle.”

That option was quickly wiped off the table when we heard the doorknob begin rattling.

You’ve gotta be kidding me, I thought to myself.

Nobody needed to say anything. We started moving towards the stairs, as much as we all dreaded the prospect.

The stairs themselves took around a full minute to descend fully. A full fucking minute. Where the hell did this thing lead? At the very least… it didn’t sound like anybody had followed us down.

In retrospect, that fact should’ve been more concerning than anything. These people obviously knew there’d been a break-in. They obviously heard us running towards the stairs. Why the hell had they not chased us down?

“Shit. Alright, let’s get our bearings straight,” Wick said. “Cas, you have any idea what this place is?”

Cas shook his head. “Not in the slightest.”

“Fantastic,” Wick mumbled in response. “Well, I’m not gonna be a sitting duck. There’s gotta be another way up. But make sure we know the way back. Just in case.”

We started walking. The place was… weird, to say the least. It didn’t look haphazard at all. The floors looked like they should’ve belonged in a well-maintained hospital. On top of that, the place itself had a hospital-style layout. Well, with hints of a prison. A prison-hospital hybrid, if you will.

It was also big. We’d walk down the corridor, passing dozens and dozens of closed metal doors, but there’d be no end in sight.

“What the hell’s behind these doors?” Wire whispered.

Honestly, I really didn’t want to know.

“This is pointless. We’ve been walking in a straight line for like twenty minutes. How big is this place? I’m starting to freak the fuck out.” Stitch said. “Let’s just go back and-“

“Hang on.” I cut him off.

Somebody had stopped walking with the group. They were standing about 20 feet back, absolutely still, with their flashlight pointed at the ground.

“You find something?” I called out to them. “Hello-“

I felt somebody grab my arm.

“Stop.” Wire said.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Everybody’s here.”

I was confused. I shined my light down at everybody’s shoes. Six pairs, including myself. That meant…

I looked back up at the mystery person, petrified at the prospect of directing my flashlight towards whatever was lurking there in the darkness. A few seconds of tense silence passed, before they turned their own flashlight off.

And then they started walking towards us.

“Stay the fuck back!” Stitch shouted. I heard him raise his rifle. I followed suit, attaching my flashlight to the mount underneath the barrel and pointing it towards the mystery person.

God, I could’ve gone my entire life without seeing the thing that was illuminated before me.

It was… a woman. About eight feet tall. Wide, dead eyes and a wide, static grin. Too many teeth in her mouth. Almost looked like a damn doll. We all opened fire at once. Thankfully, she went down. However, she ate at least six bullets, two of them headshots, before she did.

“Yup,” Wick said. “Our past has caught up to us. We’ve died and gone to literal hell.”

I can’t say it was a terrible theory. I didn’t know how else to explain what the hell was happening.

Before any of us could decide on our next course of action, we heard doors beginning to open up, one-by-one, all around us.

I heard Wire sigh. “Is it too late to repent?”

We all started running. Unfortunately, our senses of directions seemed to have gotten a bit jumbled. We inadvertently split up. Wire, Wick and I ran in one direction, while Cas and Stitch ran the opposite way. I aimed my light up, only to see… things beginning to stumble out into the hallway. Some resembled humans. Others, not so much.

Thankfully, Wick was with us. He hadn’t earned that nickname for nothing. He began shooting the creatures down in front of us, clearing a path. Most of them looked similar. Just zombified humans, for lack of a better term. But some were freakier than others. I saw a six-armed humanoid wearing a steel mask, a slug-like being with a gaping mouth, a hulking man with rusty saws for hands, amongst many other monstrosities.

At a point, an oily, elongated arm reached out from one of the rooms and pulled Wick in. I’ll never be able to forget the sound of his slimy, muffled screams. It was the worst possible outcome. Compared to Wick, Wire and I couldn’t shoot for shit, and it showed.

Soon enough, we were effectively trapped. Creatures had started piling up in both directions, and we were running out of ammunition. With nowhere else to go, we just ducked into one of the empty rooms and shut the door behind us.

Not moments later, they began viscously pounding on the metal. I could see no way out of it. I started wondering if Cas and Stitch had made it. Whether or not Eagle was alright. The decisions that led my life to such a shitty conclusion. I’d always told myself to put the past in the past. Not to dwell on my regrets.

However, it was all that I could do right there. I pulled out my pistol. I’d made a promise to myself. I was going to die on my own conditions.

“Well… I guess that’s that.” I muttered. I could hear Wire fishing out his own pistol next to me.

But before we could do anything drastic, the pounding suddenly stopped. A few seconds passed before the door opened. My flashlight was on the ground, so it partially illuminated the two figures that stepped in. They seemed to be humans, more or less. But I didn’t get my hopes up.

“Well, isn’t this quite the surprise.” A voice said.

The next thing I knew, somebody had kicked me in the face. My body went limp, with my consciousness slowly fading into nothing as I was laid out on the floor. The last thing I saw before everything went black was Wire falling down next to me.

Everything was going wrong. I’d even fucked up my own contingency plan.

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair, back in the basement. The first basement. Wire and Cas were next to me, in similar conditions. Stitch was nowhere to be seen, though. Wasn’t a mystery what had happened to him.

“I’m not quite sure what you were thinking there.” A voice called out from behind.

I suddenly heard a cacophony of footsteps, and before I knew it… there were about 3 dozen people, both men and women, standing in front of us. They were all wearing black suits and gloves, with one sleeve rolled up to reveal a tattoo. You can probably guess what it was.

What was even stranger… I saw the men that we’d definitely killed earlier standing amongst them. Hell, even the employees in the main store were there.

“I believe you took something from us.” The man at the front – a blonde man in his twenties, said.

“It’s all in the bags,” I said. “If you’re gonna kill us, I only ask that you do it quickly.”

“No. We’ve recovered those. But we’re still missing one thing. The most important thing.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

“It’s in my jacket pocket.” Wire spoke up.

The blonde man walked over and reached into Wire’s front pocket, pulling out a small container. He opened it up, revealing the weird eye-necklace inside.

I could hardly believe it. “Wire, what the FUCK!” I screamed. “Why the hell would you take that thing?”

“I dunno,” he said. “I thought it might be worth something. That some creeps would be willing to pay big bucks for it.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry guys. I fucked us all over.”

Obviously, I was furious. But at the same time… he couldn’t have known something like this was going to happen. My anger was useless anyway. Our fates appeared just about sealed.

The blonde man looked at the necklace and smiled. “Well, I’m glad that’s resolved.”

“So what now?” I asked.

“Well… that’s up to the discretion of our leader. The new Messiah. With your skills and some conditioning, you just may earn a spot amongst his loyal followers. Like us. But… you’ve certainly caused us some trouble. That likely won’t go unpunished. You may just end up back down where we found you… until we need you again, of course.”

Ah fuck. I didn’t like the sound of that.

“In the meantime… just wait here. The Messiah should be here soon.”

I was really wishing that I’d just pulled the trigger when I had the chance.

“But don’t worry… know that whatever happens… you’ll be a pivotal piece to the formation of the new world. A world shaped by the ideals of the Messiah. There is no greater pleasure we can execute in this worthless state known as human consciousness.”

“Hey freaks!”

Another voice called out from behind. But this time, it was familiar.

The blonde man’s expression changed. “Oh. What do we have he-“

A bullet was drilled through his brain before he could finish the sentence. I flinched at the sound of automatic machine-gun fire coming just a few feet away from me. I watched as each and every one of the people in suits were mowed down right in front of me.

I could hear the person who’d done it walking towards us from behind. I had a hunch about who it was, but still remained cautious.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he walked into view. It was Eagle, limping on one foot, covered in blood and dirt, his eyes wider than I’d ever seen them before. He’d definitely snorted a few lines. Couldn’t blame him, though.

“Eagle?” I said, recognizing his mask. “What the hell happened up there?”

He just looked me dead in the eye and shook his head. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

After he untied us, we all booked it up into the main store and out the door. There were about ten bullet-ridden bodies on the ground in the parking lot. All wearing black suits, of course. I can’t be sure, but I think I saw some of them moving on the ground as we ran. In any case, we got into our van and floored it the hell out of there. We were starting to hear sirens in the distance as well.

Eagle was shaking as he drove.

“You sure you’re alright to drive?” I asked.

With his mask off, he looked like he’d seen the devil himself. Although with everything that’d happened… I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

“I’ll be fine.” He said.

“Well… what happened?” Cas asked.

Eagle just shook his head vigorously. “Don’t want to talk about it. Listen, we need to get out of the city. Out of the country, even.”

“Well, that was the plan, wasn’t it? Thanks for coming back and saving our asses.” Cas said.

Eagle just nodded once in response, his expression still borderline catatonic.

In the end, we’d only managed to make it out with two of the five bags we’d filled. But I wasn’t going to complain. At least we’d made it out at all. I uttered a silent prayer myself for Stitch and Wick. It's not like I believed in that stuff but... it felt like I needed to do something.

We sat in silence from then on. At some point, Cas fell asleep. His sleeve was rolled up slightly, revealing some kind mark on his forearm.

Out of curiosity, I rolled it up the rest of the way, just to check if he’d been injured or something.

What I found was worse than any kind of injury.

As far as I knew, Cas never had any tattoos. Especially not that one.

Oh boy. 

---

Credits

 

I Need to Get Out of Here

It's been a while.

As the speaker continued to ramble on about whatever, I could feel my eyelids getting heavy. So... heavy. I didn't want to be there, but I had to. If we tried skipping out, the boss would've been on our asses immediately. And they took attendance at the door.

Still, I was running on 3 hours of sleep, which forced me to eventually doze off. When I woke back up, the auditorium was silent. I was under the momentary impression that the speech had ended, so with my eyes still half-closed, I started getting up.

But the room was still full. Nobody was saying a word, though. The speaker simply stared ahead, his face devoid of any emotion, save for an empty, obscure smile. The people around me held comparable expressions, all seemingly frozen in place. This lasted for about five seconds before the speaker started talking again.

I thought I was going crazy, possibly delusions spurred on by sleep-deprivation. With that in mind, I closed my eyes once again, not caring so much about the consequences if I were to be caught. When I woke back up, I was feeling refreshed. But the speech was still transpiring.

How long is this gonna last? I thought to myself.

I took out my phone, checking the time. 1:34 AM. The speech was supposed to end at 10 PM. I looked around, but everybody seemed complacent about the situation. But eventually, I spotted a few worried faces - three in total, looking as confused as I probably was. I made eye contact with one of them.

I turned to the person next to me, asking in a whisper about when the talk would be over. I assumed I missed something big during my nap.

They didn't respond to me. They simply stared ahead... same blank eyes with the same empty smile. Suddenly, the speaker stopped talking again. I looked towards the stage, seeing that same expression on his face.

Am I having a fever dream?

The silence lasted about three minutes before he went back to his spiel. This time, I actually paid attention to what he was saying. It was... the same speech he was giving before. The exact words. In fact, he even introduced himself again. I pulled out my phone, texting one of my colleagues, who was in the theater with me, asking him what was going on.

No response. I scoured the crowd once again, eventually spotting him at the front. Like nearly everybody else, he had same stare and smile.

I decided to raise my hand, in order to get the attention of the speaker. No reaction.

My heart was starting to race, given the obscure and inexplicably terrifying situation. After about twenty more minutes, I could hear the speaker beginning to stumble over his words. Not in a human-like manner, though. It was more robotic. Almost like a badly-programmed robot.

It all started becoming too much. I stood up and prepared to leave. But before I could take a step, I heard a cough coming from somewhere in the crowd. I looked over, seeing the woman I'd made eye contact with earlier feverishly shaking her head. There was genuine terror in her eyes.

I sat back down, sweating and shaking nearly uncontrollably. I decided to call 911. A few rings and the operator asked me what my emergency was. As I got out the first few words, the theater went quiet again. I didn't want to look up, because I already knew what I would probably see. But I halted my words, doing so anyway.

Everybody, speaker and audience alike, was staring at me. Same dead eyes. Same empty smile. But not exactly. It was nearly impossible to discern, but there was a malicious presence in their collective expressions that wasn't there before.

"Hello? Sir?"

The 911 operator continued to speak on the other end. With every little sound she made, their faces became more and more subtly distorted. I shut the phone off and sat still. Everybody turned away and the speaker began talking again. I looked back at the woman who coughed earlier and saw her silently crying.

Thirty minutes later, and the speaker was hardly coherent, simply stringing together words that failed to form sentences with any actual meaning. However, I could hear faint police sirens from outside. The cops had come. Somebody in the front row took this as motivation, bolting out of his seat and sprinting up the stairs. I watched intently as he burst through the door. From the few seconds it was open, I could see tall figures in black cloaks and twisted masks circling the exit.

The runner's screams were intense, but short-lived, getting cut off immediately. The police stormed into the building shortly after, only to suffer the same fate.

It's 3:35 AM now. The speaker's words have devolved into a quick, guttural series of throaty staccatos. His face has also begun drooping, along with the rest of the audience.

The woman is crying loudly now, and the only thing I can do is join her. 

---

Credits

 

The Early Trick or Treater

  

I first noticed the trick or treater when I was leaving the party. I had recently broken up with my asshole boyfriend Mitch, who had been on a relentless mean streak since a bad case of post concussion syndrome had derailed his dreams of being drafted into the NFL. It had all culminated a few weeks back with him threatening to "slap the shit" out of me if I didn't stop arguing with him about going out for a night of drinking with my friends.

I broke it off then and there. Sure, it was a four year time investment down the drain but I wasn't going to let anybody threaten me. Mitch's behavior had grown increasingly erratic the last few months, and I knew it wouldn't take long for the threats to escalate to full on violence. He was pretty upset about having to leave our shared apartment, but luckily the lease was in my name.

So here I was, a 23 year old single female living alone in a cramped apartment just off campus, working towards a Master's Degree in Education.

On the bright side, there are worse times to be single than Halloween.

The spooky time of year was always my favorite. Ever since I was a kid, I've loved decorating the house, picking out my costume, buying huge bags of candy... All the pomp and circumstance of this season is my bread and butter.

Even though it was only the second week of October, Halloween parties abounded both on and off campus. Like I said, as much as my relationship ending stung, there was no shortage of cute guys in ridiculous costumes to help ease my pain.

Which brings me back to the point of all this. The trick or treater.

It was a crisp Saturday night - far from the unseasonable warmth of the past few Octobers in my part of the country, this fall really felt like fall. Brisk mornings, chilly evenings, the whole "sweater weather" deal. I had spent the day with some of my friends watching a few scary movies and getting all of our costumes together in preparation for a party a few blocks away from my apartment that night.

Normally, I'm not one for "sexy" Halloween costumes. Quite the opposite actually. I'm no ugly duckling by any means, but I always delighted in coming up with elaborate and truly horrifying displays for Halloween activities. One year in high school, I went as a crewmember of the Nostromo, complete with a suitably gory baby xenomorph graphically bursting out of my chest.

This year however, my goal was to attract some male attention. As such, I went for the typical "sexy" Halloween costume of this day and age: Harley Quinn. Nothing creative, I know. I made a mental note to make up for it by devising something especially outlandish for next year.

My friends and I headed to the party at around 7:00 pm. The apartment hosting the party was nearby, within walking distance of my own apartment. We decided that walking was the way to go, as the part of the city we were situated in wasn't known for being particulary dangerous, even at night and we were planning on indulging in some controlled substances.

Sarah, whom I had been friends with through my entire college career, was dressed as a sexy "Super Mario," complete with a fake mustache that juxtaposed oddly against the revealing denim miniskirt/red tank top combo. She shoved me playfully. "You're probably only gonna have to compete against like, 37 other Harley Quinns tonight Morgan," she said, laughing.

I laughed. "I'm going after the guy with the coolest costume, whether he's good looking or not. And Harley Quinn may be generic, but what kind of weirdos are you gonna attract with that sexy Mario outfit?!" Cindy, another one of our friends, who was dressed as a sexy Luigi to complement Sarah, frowned. "You think these are too out there...?" We all continued laughing as we made our way to the party.

Unfortunately, I struck out. After several hours of standing around, drinking, smoking a little, and flirting with the few guys who weren't available or going after one of the other Harley Quinns - I cursed Sarah for being right - I was ready to call it a night. I had barely even managed to get more than buzzed and the weight of my current personal situation was beginning to drag me down.

Inexplicably, Sarah and Cindy's costumes had gotten them a ton of attention from two particular geeky-looking, though not unattractive, guys. Sarah was sitting on a couch chatting up the one dude, dressed as Negan from the Walking Dead, when I approached her. "Hey," I said over the music. "I'm gonna get out of here, I think." Sarah was more than a little drunk, but she still recognized the potential danger of me walking home alone even in our neighborhood.

She shook her head violently. "No..." She slurred. "C'mon Morg, I can't let ya do that..." she trailed off. I rolled my eyes. "In your state you wouldn't be a great chaperone. I'll be fine. Maybe this party wasn't a great idea, I'm just not really feeling it." Negan was getting impatient. Sarah bit her lip and looked back and forth. "I'll text you when I get back to my apartment, I promise." I reassured her. She finally relented, pointing a drunken finger at me. "Alright, you better." I smiled, turning to leave as she faced Negan again.

I immediately pulled my coat tight as I stepped out of the apartment and into the cool night air. This damn revealing outfit had really come back to bite me in the ass. As I started the walk back to my apartment, I noticed a figure standing under the dim glow of a streetlight on the other side of the road.

It looked to be a small child - probably a boy judging from the build- maybe 10-12 years old, in a ratty red hoodie. His pants were equally rugged - dirty black sweats caked in filth. Filthy, untied sneakers completed the ensemble. Over his shoulder, a sack that one would probably use for trick or treating was slung.

A trick or treater? That wasn't right. It was only like, October 14th. Halloween wasn't for a few weeks. I began to wonder if this wasn't a trick or treater, but a vandal. A young punk out for some early Halloween mischief.

As I stood there gawking, the trick or treater turned.

I froze.

Instead of the face of a child, I was greeted with a stark white visage. A long, gaunt face with a pointed chin that seemed to extend almost to the stomach. Massive black voids with yellow pinpricks where eyes should have been, above two sunken nostrils. A wide, rictus grin with far too many teeth topped it off. In my somewhat foggy state of mild inebriation, it took me a second to realize that the kid was just wearing a really fucked up looking mask.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and the kid turned his head slightly. What the hell was this costume even supposed to be? Dirty Pale Faced Boy? Doesn't sound like any horror movie I've ever seen.

Now, despite the shock of the mask, I didn't feel unsafe or intimidated by this kid. In fact, I was still kind of worried about him. Why is a kid running around at 12:00 in the morning in their Halloween costume weeks before Halloween?

As a future educator, it felt like my duty to help kids out, even creepy ones that stand under street lamps at midnight.

"Hey kid," I called. "Are you okay? It's pretty late, maybe you should head home." He turned back away from me after I called out, almost like he was trying to hide from me. I sighed. "Do you need me to call someone? You shouldn't be out here alone." No answer. I was weighing my options, when a scratchy yet almost infantile voice called out to me. It was decidedly male, and childlike.

"Trick or treat..."

I frowned. "Halloween isn't for a few more weeks buddy, and it's waaay too late for you to be trick or treating anyway! I can call your parents..." I trailed off as he turned to face me once more.

"Trick or treat..."

My blood turned to ice. When the kid spoke the second time... His mouth moved.

The mouth of his "mask" moved.

Instinctively, I took a small step back. The trick or treater slung the empty sack off his back and held it in front of him, as he began making his way across the street. "Trick or treat... Trick or treat... Trick or treat..." He repeated, over and over. That wide mouth opening and closing, but never breaking from the massive grin. His white forehead wrinkled as his eyes grew even wider, seemingly in anticipation.

My mouth hung open as the trick or treater closed in. He was only a few feet away from me now, and I could make out more clearly his tiny, clawed hands. Wrinkled and pale like his face, ending in sharp black points with which he clutched the sack. The stains on his clothes didn't look so much like dirt anymore.

I turned and ran, and heard an inhuman screech of what could've been anger or shock. As a lifelong horror fan, I had always craved an experience with the unknown. But the danger I felt had overriden any sense of curiosity. I sobered up quick as I sprinted down the block.

I turned back only once, and saw that the creature was nearly on my back. It's smile was gone now, replaced with an irritated grimace as it continued screaming "Trick or treat! Trick or treat! Trick or treat!" and gibbering like an animal, spittle flying from it's gaping maw.

I felt a rush of air as the creature took a swipe at my back. It had been several blocks, and I could see my apartment building. I had to make it, but I was running out of breath and time as I felt the creature's small hand briefly grasp my hoodie before losing its grip.

Panicked, I popped open my purse and began hurling objects backwards at the trick or treater. Lipstick tubes, some fun sized candy bars I'd stashed from the student lounge, a bottle of hairspray, my makeup mirror, anything I could find. It sounded like a few of them connected - the creature made an odd gasping noise and I felt less heat on the back of my neck.

As I barreled through the front door of the apartment lobby, I turned to see... Nothing. No childlike phantom hot on my heels. Though the adrenaline had sobered me up somewhat, I began doubting if maybe something I'd smoked at that party had been more than just pot. Gripping at the back of my hoodie revealed a small tear, almost like a tiny clawed hand had grabbed it. I had no idea what to think.

If it was a hallucination, it had been a damn intense one. I started feeling foggy again, and made my way up to my apartment to get some sleep, remembering to text Sarah that I was home safe before doing so.

I opened my front door and flicked the light on. I nearly screamed. Sitting on my couch was Mitch. He looked angry.

"Mitch," I sighed. "What the fuck are you doing here? Do I need to call the cops?" He stood up, his expression growing darker. "What's with the slutty outfit Morgan? Already trying to replace me?" He looked me up and down, seeming to notice my messed up hair and runny makeup. "You look like you had a good time."

I rolled my eyes. I wasn't about to tell him I'd messed my outfit up running away from a monster that might not have even been there. "Get the hell out of here Mitch. And give me whatever copy of the key you used to get in here." He shook his head. "I don't think I'll be doing that Morgan. I'm still pretty fucking mad about the way things ended."

Suddenly, he grabbed my arm, and covered my mouth with his other hand. "Don't you wanna spend one last night together?" I tried fighting, but Mitch had always been strong. I had never envisioned myself feeling so weak, even in a scenario like this. He began dragging me towards the bedroom as I struggled against him. "Shut the fuck up." he commanded. "Or I'll do worse than slap the shit out of you... Ah hell, fuck it." He wrapped his hands around my throat, tight. Even if I'd had the power to scream, nothing would've come out.

My head felt light, my eyes fluttered. This wasn't how I thought I'd die, that's for sure.

There was a knock at the door. Mitch loosened the pressure somewhat, but not enough for me to make a sound. Another knock.

A familiar voice floated through the door. "Trick or treat..." My eyes widened. I began kicking wildly, trying to break free. Mitch glared at me angrily. "What the fuck is this, one of your little friends?" He hissed, in an angry whisper. "Trick or treat..." the trick or treater's childlike voice wafted in again.

The doorknob slowly turned. I hadn't locked it when I'd walked in and been startled by Mitch. Mitch's eyes widened in horror as the small creature in the red hoodie sauntered into my room. He let go of my throat, and I collapsed to the floor.

The trick or treater looked back and forth between us, assessing the situation. Suddenly, he lunged at Mitch. Even a former athlete's reaction time couldn't match the speed and ferocity of the trick or treater. Howling like a mad primate, the creature knocked Mitch to the ground and clawed at his throat. A bright red arterial spray painted my ceiling as its claws penetrated his jugular.

Mitch grabbed the creature's torso in a futile attempt to fight it off, but it was much stronger than him. Blood bubbled from Mitch's mouth, and his eyes glassed over. The creature's smile widened once again, and for the second time that night I couldn't even scream.

It suddenly snapped its head toward me, wide black eyes focused intently on mine. It stood up from Mitch's corpse, and slowly began walking in my direction. Overwhelmed by shock and fear, I passed out.

I awoke the next morning to... Nothing. No bloodstains, no visits from the cops, no corpse of my ex-boyfriend in the living room. How the fuck was that possible? Was last night all some wild trip? The soreness in my throat and tenderness around my neck confirmed that it wasn't. I clutched my aching head and brewed a pot of coffee. Suddenly, I noticed something on the kitchen counter.

Scrawled on a torn piece of looseleaf paper, in barely legible chickenscratch was a note.

"Thank you for treat. Happy Halloween." Laid on the counter beside the note, were the empty wrappers of several fun-sized candy bars I'd stashed from the student lounge, their contents now in the belly of a very satisfied trick or treater.

---

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