Down the Psycho Path

  Our deer was ruined and my last pair of clean shorts were soiled. What we did have, was a body—an actual specimen of the creature known as Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch and a dozen other names. We had one and no one could take that away.

  I jumped back into the tent for my camera. Snap shots would document the whole scene just in case the other came back for it before we could load it up and take it…where? A ranger station, perhaps, or the university might be a better choice, but the ranger was close by. Whatever their magical disappearing act was, I wanted proof. I tossed Todd his keys and told him to get to the truck, find a solid cell signal and call the game warden. He stared at the body, which was still breathing, albeit in a shallow, dying pattern.

  “It ain’t dead,” he said. “Should I shoot it again?”

  “No,” I said. “Let’s get going. It’s drawing its last breaths.”

  “You want to be alone out here?” he asked.

  He was right. “Leave the rifle. Take the pistol,” I said.

  “What if there’s more? What if there’s a pack of them things? You saw how it flushed that buck.”

  “Fine. Let me get some pictures and we’ll go together.”

  Todd nodded and stuffed a cigarette into his mouth in addition to the dip. He readied the rifle for another shot as I walked down the hillside, careful not to slip in the cold muddy leaves. I snapped a couple pictures as I walked, hoping they wouldn’t blur, but I was too excited to wait. I heard the last gasp of the creature as we approached, and stopped. Its musky odor was sharp like a skunk’s and made me want to gag. Todd leveled the rifle at the monster’s bulk. Its massive chest lowered to a position of rest and a slow steamy breath escaped. Then the body did something I hadn’t expected.

  It convulsed, a death throe or some other nervous twitch. I had no idea which, but it startled me and backed me up a few feet. I approached the second time with more caution, raising my camera and taking another picture, then another. When I was within ten feet, the smell became more pronounced, like giant wet dog mixed with old onions. There was a hint of rotten meat, no doubt the remnants of previous kills. Obviously dead, the creature’s body still moved. It was as if something had crawled into its body and was rippling the skin from the underneath. The muscles deflated like balloons, and the fur fell off and blew away in the cold breeze revealing pink skin beneath. I continued taking snapshots.

  In minutes, there was nothing left but a dead, naked, human man. He appeared to be my age or slightly older, maybe as old as fifty. A large bullet wound glistened in the center of his chest. A perfect shot. A shot. I heard a shot. In my fascination, it took a second to register the sound. Another shot had been fired.

  I turned to see the second beast was on top of my friend, tearing at him as he screamed. He must have gotten one round off before it hit him. The creature’s teeth gnashed, stained with blood as it tore a large piece of meat from Todd’s chest and devoured it. Todd’s wails stopped. Then it jumped toward me. I froze and prayed aloud. “Sweet Jesus, give me strength.”

  I had left my bow at the tent in favor of my camera and regretted that decision. The beast approached carefully, stalking and glancing at its dead partner between every few bipedal steps. I saw the bullet wound in its gut. Todd had hit it. He’d wounded it but good and it had taken some spring from its step. I felt some remorse—some compassion for the thing—that the proof of its existence would only come through death. Then it howled, a deafening roar filled with pain and anger.

  I ran at the sound, hoping somehow I might escape the creature, that maybe its injuries were too great. It roared again and came after me, its footfalls fell heavy behind me. Its giant hands were on my back and I smelled the stench of wild animal, felt the heat of it, felt its breath on my neck. Then its teeth sank into the meat of my shoulder and there was white-hot, blinding pain. As soon as I hit the ground, it was gone. It had dropped me like so much luggage and I heard crunching sounds as it disappeared into the woods.

  I lay on my back and stared at the sky as its blue filtered between the leaves in the canopy above. I was afraid to look at my wounds, even more afraid of going back and finding Todd dead, although I knew deep down that he was. Then my fear intensified. What would I tell the police? What would I tell our families? And worse, what if it came back before I could get out of the woods?

  The photographs would have to tell my story and as for getting home, the ranger station was only a mile away. I knew I could make it that far.

  I covered the bloody mess that was once Todd with a blanket, finding it difficult to look at him. The deer and the dead man-slash-bigfoot were next. I left the deer, but dragged the man down the hill and into a thick patch of brush before covering him with leaves. Scavengers would take care of him and if I was lucky, he wouldn’t be found by authorities for a long, long time. If they did find it, it would be called an accident. I felt that man had been missing for a long time, if he’d ever been know at all.

  The wound in my shoulder eased and I found I wasn’t hindered by it. Then I had an overwhelming urge, stronger than any I’d had before.

  For the next several hours, I searched through the woods until I found the one that bit me. Strangely, I think I was tracking his scent. By the time I caught up, the rifle wound had won out and the creature was dead, leaving the carcass of another human male. I hid his body just like the first. Instinct told me that we hid our kind, we removed our own evidence. We kept our brotherhood a secret.

  Other feelings came to me, overwhelmed me at times, showing me the way. I found water, and I found shelter and whenever other wildlife was near, I found shadows and blended into the world. There was something else as well, something that gnawed at my insides and felt out of control but perfectly in control at the same time, something basic. Every muscle in my body grew sore, and my head throbbed and my clothes felt tight as if I had grown.

  I wandered the rest of that day, going deeper into that forest than I had ever been, deeper than I knew was possible. As night fell, my vision sharpened and although I could see my breath, I wasn’t cold anymore. I heard a howl. It was that same throaty sound the first Sasquatch had made. There was food in the distance to the west, a fresh kill.

  “Come and get it!” that howl said.

  The thought of raw meat disgusted me, but not as much as I thought it would. I may have even drooled a little. A cave entrance, no bigger than a car door caught my attention and smelled deserted. It would do as a hiding place, a place where I could wait for the change to come. I wondered who the others were before they had changed. My name was John. My name was John.

  I kept repeating those words so I wouldn't forget.

  NOT SAFE FOR WORK

  Carla knew she couldn’t get pregnant from giving head, but it had been a dream, so all the rules went out the window. She didn’t even know the guy but he was hung, and he was waving in front of her, rigid as a flagpole. And since it was a dream, she pounced on it and gave it a good polishing. Up and down, cupping the luggage, mealing on it like she was on her period and it was made of pure chocolate.

  Then, he came. An explosion that filled her head and for a moment, she felt like one of those old hand-held water games and that maybe, if he squeezed her boobs, the rings would float up in the water and land on the pegs. Red, green, yellow and blue.

  She leaned back on her elbows while he toweled off and smiled, swallowing every drop. In the dream, it tasted like lime Jell-O. There’s always room for Jell-o. She never even saw his face, forget knowing his last name or what kind of car he drove. It was something she would never do in real life. Never. And still, the thought that she was pregnant loomed in her head. Something else loomed there as well. Pain.

  Carla’s head throbbed and in between the throbs, there were sharp stabbing pains. Then more pounding. She tried to reach the phone, but the pain made it difficult to walk. It was that all-too-common dream sequence of walking through quicksand or muck while something chased her, but nothing was cha
sing and she wasn’t dreaming. There was only the pain. She reached the phone and even dialed, but when the person on the other end of the line answered—no one in particular, mind you—and she opened her mouth, no sound came out. What came out were fingers. Small, chubby, baby fingers followed by the hand, wrist and arm they were attached to.

  “Can I help you?” the voice asked. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Carla struggled, gagging on the arm just like she had gagged on the flagpole dick and the only noises that came out were bubbly hacking sounds. The line went dead. Her eyes bulged, and then one of them popped from her skull. It dangled there by its retina, bouncing against her cheek. The baby’s hand reached over and grabbed it, pulling it loose to Carla’s pure agony.

  Pressure on the side of her head built to a climax and exploded, along with her ear, bits of brain, skull and plenty of blood. A leg filled the hole from the inside and its foot stood on her shoulder. Carla fell down in an overstuffed chair and with her one good eye, watched herself in the full length mirror on her closet door. Two arms and a leg, all baby-sized, stuck out from her head like a weird set of horns.

  The rest of the baby appeared in a burst of chunky red liquid that splattered on the walls and the mirror. That was when Carla sprang upright from her deep sleep.

  “Whoa, baby. Are you all right? Nightmare?” Her husband said. His name was Ted and he was sitting up in bed, reading glasses on, hardback propped on his middle-aged belly.

  “I’ll say,” she said, whispering to him.

  He leaned over and kissed her on the shoulder. “Are you okay now?” he asked.

  Fuck no, I’m not okay! I just sucked…and then my head…and a baby…

  She looked around, still panting, and finally got a hold of herself. “Yeah. I think so. Of course I am. That was just so…”

  He looked at her over his reading glasses.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  How much wine did I drink at the party?

  “Good. Hey, let me thank you again for the birthday present. I can’t remember ever being serviced like that. I think my little dude is sore.”

  He had a grin on his face and his eyes were distant. Then he looked at her, squeezed her left breast and gave a wink.

  “I need some water,” she said. She had a headache, felt nauseated and there was a strange taste in her mouth—a taste like blood and green lime Jell-O. When she turned on the light in the bathroom, her cheeks were flushed—one might even say she glowed—and there was no denying the magical twinkle in her eye, or the tiny finger that poked from her ear as Carla screamed.

  OWLS

  It was 4:00 am when I woke from heartburn, or maybe it was back pain. There are so many things that wake a man of my age in the middle of the night. I shifted my position and then got up to relieve myself. While I was in the bathroom, I heard something odd, something I didn’t recognize—not at first, but then it came to me. Wh-h-h-who. It was an owl.

  It called, and it was close, close enough that I heard it clearly in the bathroom. I walked back into the bedroom.

  “You okay?” my wife asked, sleepily.

  “Fine. I just had to pee,” I said. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did. I’ve been listening to it for a few minutes.”

  “It’s an owl.”

  “Uh huh,” she said.

  I walked to the window and peered through the slats in the closed blinds. In the January darkness, I could make out the trees, void of leaves against the sky, but I saw no bird.

  Wh-h-h-who.

  Wh-h-who.

  Was that another one? Wh-h-who-who. A third? Three distinct pitches and if I wasn’t mistaken, they were coming from three different directions.

  “There’s more than one,” I said and turned to see my wife.

  She was backed up, sitting against the headboard and holding her knees to her chest. Even in the dark room, I could see her eyes were round and full of fear.

  “Honey? What is it?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Really? You don’t look like it’s nothing.”

  “It’s silly, really.” She paused. “It’s just something my grandmother used to tell us when we were little. A poem, or a song. I don’t remember all of it.”

  I peeked back out the window. A dark shape perched on one of the branches in the largest maple tree that stood between the sidewalk and the road. A car drove by. “Well?” I said staring out the window as I wondered who was out driving at 4:00 am. I heard her sigh and turned to her again. She frowned.

  “It went something like this: When the witching hour draws near its end, hide, if you’re awake my friend. Before the dead wake up to roam, The owls will come to take them home.”

  I waited a moment to see if she had any more to add and when she was silent, I said, “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  She hugged her knees again and I sat down on the bed. “Like I said, I don’t remember the rest, but I do recall her telling us a story about the owls. She told us they came when someone was about to die and sought that person out. The hooting brings the reaper.”

  “The reaper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your grandmother told you that? That’s a little intense isn’t it?”

  Wh-h-h-who one owl called. The other two answered. Each from a different direction and in its unique owl voice. It occurred to me then that they might be triangulating a position. A silly 4:00 am idea.

  “It is intense. She wasn’t joking either. I can still see her face grow pale whenever we heard one of those birds howling in the night at that old farmhouse. She lived on a farm. I thought we were far enough out of the country to avoid them.”

  “You mean you believe that old tale? You’re afraid of a poem.”

  She glared at me.

  “It’s just a poem,” I said.

  “Is it?”

  I peeked out the window again, looking for the dark spot in the tree, but it was gone. When the birds hooted again, it was further away, but still close.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t look.”

  I stared at her and it was as if we were children and she was trying to scare me. She was believing in the nightmare and I was a few years older telling her how silly she was.

  “Honey, come on.”

  “Please?”

  I waved her off and looked back out the window. Something fluttered and I heard the beat of large wings. A shadow covered our window for just a moment, then it was gone to my right. Then the hooting again.

  “Please?” she said, clearly upset, but I ignored her.

  I ignored her because there was something out there in the glow of the street lamp across the way. It shimmered and warped like a mirage. I heard the owls again. My wife protested again behind me, “Please. Don’t look.”

  I heard her, but it didn’t sink in. I was watching, engrossed in the thing that moved along the sidewalk across the street. Engrossed by the talking birds, calling and responding to each other.

  The shimmer slid along the sidewalk, forming a familiar shape, then becoming abstract, then forming again. It looked like a man, thin to the point of worry, and nude. His skin was pale and just barely stretched across his bones. Behind him he dragged something. I would swear it was a scythe. Too cliché, I thought. Another 4:00 am thought. I’d had too much beer the night before or too little sleep. Still it was unsettling. I opened the window without knowing why, call it a compulsion. I wanted this stalker, this skeletal being to know that I knew he was there. Perhaps I thought I might prevent him from committing some terrible act. The owls’ voices were much heavier, much louder through the screen. The icy air surrounded me.

  “Hey!” I shouted. It was the only word that I could manage.

  My wife screamed behind me and at that moment, the thing dr
agging its weapon along the sidewalk—its metal blade sparking on the concrete as it went—turned and looked at me. Not toward me, but at me. Its burning yellow eyes dug into my brain for just a split second and then it was the only thing I could see. The creature’s visage was my world and everything else was black. I heard my wife weeping, calling to me, but I couldn’t answer her and I couldn’t move. Not dead, but paralyzed and blind having seen death before my time.

  It was the next day at the hospital when my wife got a text from one of our neighbors that the elderly widow on the corner had passed away in the night. The owls were for her, and not me. I should’ve respected that personal moment. I shouldn’t have interrupted. It was none of my business and now I will pay for my rudeness. I will pay until the owls come back.

  ROUTINE PROCEDURE

  Ray Noonan paced on the commercial grade tiles, staring at the notification list on his cell phone. Emails and social media hits poured in from friends wishing him well and that his wife, Tabby, would come through the surgery without a hitch. He cleared the list and dialed his home number.

  One ring.

  Everything in the waiting area was a shade of green. The carpet, rough commercial grade stuff, was dark and the walls were a cool shade, but still green. He hated green. Or he hated surgery. Or he hated hospitals. Ray didn’t know what he hated, but he was unhappy. The uncertainty of it all. The thought of going to sleep and not knowing if you would ever wake again. He didn’t like it and didn’t know how his wife could be so calm about it. It smelled like disinfectant and burnt coffee and worry in that room.

  Two rings.

  “Hello?” said his mother.

  “Hi Mom. How is Stephanie?”

  “Oh honey, she’s fine. We’re coloring. Don’t you worry about her. How’s Tabby?”

  He looked down the hallway toward the nurse’s station and the waiting area. His blue eyes were glazed over and he appeared well older than his thirty-five years. “She’s in prep, mom. The doctor said he’d come speak to me for a minute before they go into surgery.”