The local Indians denied any involvement or knowledge of the whereabouts of the settlers. Despite some intense interrogations, the Indians held fast to their denial. They had seen nothing, heard nothing.
The one tell-tale sign that the settlers met with a fate other than hostile Indians was a hastily scrawled message on a piece of stone. What seemed to start off as the simple lines to mark off the days spent in settlement ended as squiggles culminating in a fragmented sentence...
...demons from the s- And a rough sketch...
The sketch was reproduced in the booklet in pencil for the reader alongside a grainy black-and-white photograph of the original stone etching. Glen stared at it for a long time.
The first, a rough sketch of the thing Rick found. It looked like a cross between a giant crab and a scorpion. The severed tail and claw resting in his downstairs freezer would match a beast like this perfectly.
The second...a hint of a message, preserved in time in the grainy black and white photograph, the message cut off suddenly when the unknown artist met with a sudden, unknown fate.
Glen Jorgensen read through the rest of the booklet with amazement. Phillipsport County remained largely uncolonized until the early 1700s. The crew that landed in the area one hundred years before had taken their tale back to the mother country and the tale became a legend, handed down from generation to generation.
And it had remained as such. Until Paul Hackett dug up the story and published it for the local tourist trade.
Glen had heard a rough version of the story when he was growing up in Phillipsport. It was told around a Boy Scout campfire when he was eleven or twelve. An older kid told it in all the spooky tones and gestures of campfire story telling. "And legend says that the Wendigo came down from the sky and ransacked the village, destroying all its inhabitants and pulling them back with him into the air, never to be seen again. And even now, four hundred years later, the Wendigo waits for the right moment...when an unwary boy might stray alone into the forest...like...us!"
The story had always ended on a melodramatic note, designed to shock. And it had spooked him back then; it held all the reverence of those urban legends that are handed down from generation to generation, from older brother to little brother and his friends, in turn handed down to smaller kids in the neighborhood where it grows, mutates into a story with horrifying proportions. They were the kind of stories that the teller proclaims was steeped in the truth, and he or she believed it; it had happened to his cousin"s sister"s boyfriend"s best friend. There were similar tales of woe. b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, who appeared in the mirror-after you gazed into it in a dark room and chanted her name three times-to rake your face with her long fingernails. The Hook, who hung around lover"s lanes and decapitated young fornicating couples. It bore similarities to such a legend, with the possibility of more. The Wendigo was more than just an icon in this tale; it was also an Indian legend, centering in New England, the northeast coast of Canada. Indian legend described it as a monster-a G.o.d, if you will-that roamed the woods of greater Canada and Maine, devouring human flesh and ravaging everything that crossed its path.
Glen chalked the Wendigo legend up with that of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot-unproven, undoc.u.mented fairy tales. At least there were photos of Nessie and Bigfoot. He had always regarded the Wendigo legend as a pile of s.h.i.t in comparison to the former two.
Glen closed the slim volume, his brow creased in reflection. The lost village story and the creatures they were dealing with now had a common thread-Paul Hackett reported in his book that shortly before the settlers vanished, there"d been an invasion of giant crabs from the ocean. The villagers had scampered inland, horrified at the sight. This had been doc.u.mented by a tribe member who"d been near the campsite when it happened. The Indian darted back to his tribe to spread the word. Legend had it the tribe retreated farther inland en ma.s.se, as if escaping the wrath of a rival tribe on the warpath.
They"d waited until the following rise of the next full moon. Just as their forefathers had done, many times before the white men had ever come to this land to build their villages. Then they returned.
This time the white man"s village was ransacked. Not a soul had been spared.
Glen Jorgensen pursed his lips in thought, his mind running on auto-pilot.
A ma.s.s exodus of giant crabs. The excited shock of the villagers.
And then the town is ransacked, the villagers vanished.
The hastily scrawled message in stone...demons from the s- Demons from the sea? That would be the most plausible deciphering of the message. The settlers had obviously seen the giant crabs come up from the beach. In those times of religious persecution, when possession by devils was taken seriously and a mole on a pretty girl"s cheek meant she was a witch, they very well could have thought the overgrown crabs were demons from the sea. They could have very well been scared out of their wits when the crustaceans had washed ash.o.r.e. Panic had probably ensued at a greater level than was happening now. Somebody could have scrawled the message and then been interrupted to join the fray to beat the creatures back to the ocean. But why would the creatures have come up in the first place, just as they were doing now?
"G.o.dd.a.m.n," Glen Jorgensen murmured as it came to him. He"d just put two and two together when the thought occurred to him to take a peek outside and see what was happening.
He placed the chapbook on the shelf and hurried out of the study and up the stairs. The attic took up the entire floor of the house and had been renovated into a recreational room. Glen had done all the work himself. He moved across the room, past the pool table and wet bar, to the telescope perched by the port window that looked out over the east side of the town.
He moved the telescope over the horizon, his right eye up against the lens, scanning the scene. The storm was still unleashing her fury, blowing rain against the window, blowing the trees into a frenzy. He scanned the town over the peaked roofs of the Victorian style buildings and homes, over trees and telephone poles to the beach and pier.
To the scene that was unfolding below.
Chapter Seventeen.
Rick and Jack hit the first house they could find, a cute little white bungalow with blue trim perched on the corner of Main Street and the entrance to the pier. Rick pounded on the door until the occupant opened it with a grimace. "What the h.e.l.l is going-"
"We have to get out of here," Rick almost shouted. "They"re invading the town, they-"
The man at the door was middle-aged, late forties, balding with strands of long gray hair spilling off the back of his head and down his back, stained white T-shirt over a huge paunch. He was wearing horn rimmed gla.s.ses with lenses that were so thick they resembled the bottom of c.o.ke bottles. "What the f.u.c.k are you-"
Jack interrupted him. "I know it sounds crazy Earl, but the beach is being invaded by a ma.s.s of huge crabs."
"Huge what?" Earl looked at the two as if they were experiencing a bad acid flashback.
Jack c.o.c.ked a thumb toward the beach. "Take a look."
Earl peered over their shoulders. His eyes widened.
"What the f.u.c.k?"
Rick risked a glance behind him. The Clickers were cresting the sand and had reached the parking lot of the beach. They were heading right toward them.
He turned to Earl, pushing his way inside the house. "We"ve got to get out of here now."
Earl scrambled back as Rick and Jack fumbled inside. Jack slammed the door shut as Earl moved toward the window, his eyes as wide as saucers. "What the f.u.c.k are those things?"
"Clickers," Rick said, moving to the kitchen. It ended in a laundry room, which in turn led to the backyard. A white picket fence lined the backyard, which led presumably to the neighboring house. "Got any guns in the house?"
"Earl? What the h.e.l.l is going on?" A short, squat woman wearing a yellow-stained, white nightgown emerged in the hallway. Her gray hair hung in greasy clumps over her eyes. She was fat. She wasn"t wearing a bra, and her t.i.ts hung down her chest like pendulant udders beneath the frayed nightgown. Her bloodshot eyes moved from Rick to Jack. "Who the f.u.c.k are these guys?"
"Shut up!" Earl barked to the woman, his gaze still trained out the window. "Jesus Christ, them things is heading this way!"
"Don"t tell me to shut up you f.u.c.king a.s.shole, f.u.c.k you, Earl, you fat f.u.c.king slob of a pig," the woman bawled. Rick moved past the woman to the bedrooms, looking for weapons, a gun, anything that would help fight these things off. Moving past the woman was scary enough; the heavy smell of body odor and booze permeated the air around her.
Jack found a deer rifle in the hall closet. He opened the slide. Five rounds left. He joined Earl at the window.
"This thing work?"
Earl seemed to notice Jack for the first time. "Yeah. Hey, I got more guns in the bedroom."
"You ain"t gone go shootin" critters in this storm!" The woman yelled at him.
Earl turned his jiggly bulk toward the woman and screamed at her. "Shut yer trap, Maggie, just shut up! There"s things out there coming at us and-"
"No, you shut up Earl, you fat sack of slime s.h.i.t!" Maggie was screaming, blowing snot and crying at the same time. Rick emerged from the bedroom with two rifles and a box of sh.e.l.ls. He nodded at Jack, who was gritting his teeth. Why the h.e.l.l did they pick this house? Christ, he felt like shooting both of them.
"Gimme that rifle!" Earl barked. He took three heavy strides forward and plucked one of the rifles from Rick"s hands and turned back toward the window. He opened the window and cradled the rifle to his shoulder, aiming at the beach. The barrel of the rifle kissed the mesh of the screen. Maggie was screaming hoa.r.s.ely next to Rick. If she didn"t shut up soon, by G.o.d, he"d blow her stupid brains out himself.
"These f.u.c.kers are all over the place!" Earl said excitedly, and then he fired.
The shot blew a hole in the screen and made Rick jump. Earl c.o.c.ked the rifle and aimed again. Rick moved over to the window just as Earl squeezed off another shot.
Earl"s front lawn was overrun with Clickers. Two of them lay on the walk, their sh.e.l.ls mashed and exploded, drawing a circle of feasting Clickers. Others scurried past and scuttled up the walk toward the house. Earl fired at them, yelling "Look at them f.u.c.kers go! Jesus Christ!"
Rick motioned to Jack and the two men moved out of the living room and into the kitchen, away from Earl"s yells and Maggie"s hysterical jig. Earl continued to shoot the Clickers outside, following each shot with a hysterical cackle of triumph. He seemed to be oblivious that they were storming the town and were probably scuttling up Main Street this very second. "We need to get the f.u.c.k out of here."
"You said it," Jack said. He was still clutching the deer rifle. He handed Rick an extra box of sh.e.l.ls he had salvaged.
They exited the house through the backdoor, leaving Earl to his muttered cursing as he fired the remaining rounds into the Clickers.
Rick and Jack had just crested the fence of the house behind Earl"s when they witnessed another civilian fatality.
A young man had ventured out of his home to investigate the gunshots that were coming from Earl"s house. Rick saw the Clicker on the sidewalk before the young man did, and yelled. "Hey! You! Watch out, on the sidewalk!"
The young man looked up at Rick, confusion across his face, and then he looked down on the ground and saw what was already attacking him. Stinging him.
He screamed. Scrambling back, he tried to run, but the Clicker climbed on top of him, pinning him down. Rick and Jack stood rooted to the spot, watching in fascinated horror.
The creature"s barbed tail jabbed downward, stinging the man"s back. The young man screamed again as the Clicker began digging into the man"s back, tearing away b.l.o.o.d.y strips of flesh with the man"s shirt still on it. It stuffed the b.l.o.o.d.y meat into its mandibles as the man"s skin began to stretch, expanding his abdomen. Jack turned away and grabbed Rick"s elbow, moving him on up the street. "I can"t watch this." His voice was choked. It sounded like he was on the verge of being sick again.
They trotted down the street with the man"s dying screams echoing in their ears. Rick was still holding on to the rifle and the box of sh.e.l.ls. People came out of their homes as they ran past, looking confusedly down the street. As they pa.s.sed, Rick and Jack shouted at them to stay inside. A few wandered off into the sidewalk, saw the Clickers and turned to scramble back into their homes. Rick and Jack moved farther inland, threading their way through the neighborhood, pounding on doors, admonishing the occupants to take arm and defend themselves. Most people took their advice. Others...simply didn"t.
Through it all, the amount of Clickers they saw was relatively few. Rick surmised that they were rampaging in one solid ma.s.s, hitting one end of town-the beach presently-and going on to the next. The few Clickers they saw and managed to blow up with the rifles were probably stragglers.
But eventually they would come. All of them. And they would engulf the entire town.
As they headed farther inland, moving toward the shopping center, it suddenly occurred to Rick that they needed to get to Janice"s house to warn them.
Oh G.o.d, what am I gonna do?
This thought ran through Stacy Robinson"s head as she paced her quaint craftsman style home on the outskirts of town. It ma.s.saged her brain as she went from bedroom to living room to kitchen, oblivious to the storm that was now wreaking havoc on Phillipsport and causing such a thunder and shower spectacle. She ignored the crashing boom of the thunder as she went to the bedroom and dragged out a suitcase, wrenching open the drawers, pulling clothes out and dumping them in the suitcase. Her mind roiled with the same thoughts of what am I doing? What is going on? and then she"d stop packing and move to the kitchen, wishing none of this had ever happened.
When she got home last night she"d gone immediately to the closet and brought out her suitcase. She packed, throwing clothes in blindly, not even thinking about what she was going to do, where she was going to go. All she could think of was that she had to get away. She"d pushed Kirk away from her and he"d fallen right into those...things...and that was equal to murder and she had to get out before- She"d stopped, taken a deep breath and let it out. Calm down, she told herself. This is what got you into this mess in the first place. So just calm down.
She had gone into the kitchen and taken out a bottle of Jim Beam and poured herself a gla.s.s. She smoked a cigarette and sat at the kitchen table while she drank the bourbon, trying to get a handle on her thoughts. Before she knew it the gla.s.s was empty, and she"d poured herself another. And another. And another.
So she"d gone into the living room, feeling pleasantly buzzed and filled the bowl of her water bong. She took a few hits off the bong, letting the smoke settle in her lungs before she exhaled. There. That felt better. Now she could think this through calmly and rationally. Think it through one step at a time. First she needed to rest her body and her mind. She"d just gone through a terrifying experience and she needed to be on her guard and thus, needed to have all her energy. That meant she needed to get some sleep. Come tomorrow she could decide what to do in a calm, rational manner. Perhaps she"d leave town, but if she did she would do it the right way. She would go through it calmly and rationally.
She stopped her pacing at the kitchen counter, wishing for a cigarette. She"d smoked them all last night. Outside, the rain lashed against the windows and the sky over the ocean was as black as pitch. Stacy was still wearing the worn, black leather jacket she"d worn to the beach the day before. Below that she was wearing a cranberry colored sweater and no bra. Cold air seeped through the holes in her jeans. She moved toward the refrigerator, thinking she might have left a pack of cigarettes inside, but stopped, suddenly remembering. It had been Kirk"s turn to make the beer and cigarette run today. And Kirk was- She couldn"t bring herself to think of that word. Because that would equate Kirk with what had happened to her mother and- Stop it!
Stacy felt on the verge of screaming if that word so much as invaded her cerebral cortex. Because that word, the dreaded D word, was the perfect way to describe mother"s current state now. She had witnessed Kirk"s...that word, and had she not been such a b.i.t.c.h he would be here with her now, holding her, comforting her.
But no, she always had to have the last word. It had been that way with Mom when they"d argued. They"d been living together at the time. Stacy was seventeen. She realized now that Mom was just trying to raise her right, was trying to guide her through the turbulence of adolescence. Either way, Stacy didn"t like it. Didn"t like Mother"s constant nagging, her constant criticism, her frequent questions of where did you go? what are you doing? who are you hanging out with? do you really have to do that?
The day she killed her mother had started like any other; an argument, mother began hitting the booze a bit too much, only escalating her emotions further. Stacy still didn"t remember what it was that set her off. But in any case, the facts remained: Stacy had screamed at Mother, told her that she hated her, that she never wanted to see her again and that she hoped she rotted in h.e.l.l. Mom"s face had turned to stone, the alcoholic twinges that erupted like facial tics whenever she grew angry suddenly gone. Fine, Mom had said, her voice as cold as black ice on a pond in winter. She"d stormed out of the house and slipped inside the car, peeling out like the hounds of h.e.l.l were on her tail. She never came back.
While driving through a winding road at a high speed, she"d lost control of the car. It flipped three times and went over the embankment-it didn"t explode, but it didn"t have to. Mother was killed instantly.
And then, yesterday afternoon, Stacy telling Kirk to get the f.u.c.k out of her house. Kicking him out of her life on the spot. And why? Kirk had done nothing to deserve being kicked out of the house, to be treated that way by her. He had been looking after her. He"d been concerned about her drug use. A common concern.
She realized the only reason she reacted the way she did was because she was running from her problems. She"d rebounded from the death of her mother to the warm comfiness of herbal intake. This psychological habit was burdened by spreading into alcoholic and chemical indulgences. s.e.xual interludes were interspersed between them. For five years she had gone from lover to lover, going through friends the way most people go through underwear, and going through the hefty insurance settlement that had been bestowed on her like it was water.
And where had it gotten her?
Stacy"s bottom lip quivered in the beginning stages of a cry. She stomped out of the kitchen into the living room, hoping its warmth would relieve the mood. The room was decorated quite nicely; an Oriental throw rug, creme-colored sofa and love seats, and an oak coffee table piled with magazines and tattered paperbacks which rested in the middle of the room. A Michael Whelan print occupied the wall over the sofa, and posters of Motley Crue and Guns N" Roses took residence in the entry hall. A stereo was set up next to the forty-five inch screen TV, the entertainment center housing hundreds of videoca.s.settes and compact discs. Because this room was catty-corner to the refrigerator, it was her sanctuary. TV and music all day, and beer and food in the fridge just a few steps away. She even kept the water bong right by the sofa.
She stood in the center of the living room, trying hard not to cry. If she hadn"t been so G.o.dd.a.m.ned afraid to face up to her problems, face up to what Kirk had been trying to tell her, this wouldn"t have happened. She wouldn"t have thrown such a fit and tried to storm away the way mother had. She wouldn"t have fought with him, sent him reeling to the sand to be attacked by those things- At the mere thought of the things that had come crawling out of the ocean her hands began shaking with fear. G.o.d, she needed a drink.
She spun back toward the kitchen and rummaged for the Jim Beam that she had partaken in last night. She found it in the liquor cabinet. Still a third left. Good.
The amber liquid cast a warm glow down her throat, warming her chest. Another shot brought the warmth further, settling in her bones in a nice, peaceful ambiance. The third shot calmed her nerves down to the point that she felt better. Back in tune.
She stood at the kitchen counter, the bottle of Jim Beam in front of her. The rain pelted the house, the drumming of it filling her eardrums. Far over the Atlantic Ocean, thunder boomed. The wind brushed the trees against the windows, creating a spooky atmosphere. This would be a great night to cuddle up with Kirk with a great horror flick in the VCR; Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, Psycho. He would be there to comfort her through the scary moments of the film, his arms draped around her shoulders, one hand in her lap, caressing her thigh. And after the film was over they would make-out, and then he would peel her clothes off and go down on her and she would open herself up to him, open herself to his manhood, open herself to- But not anymore. Kirk was gone now. For good.
Instead of bursting into tears the way she thought she would have, she stalked back into the living room, her green eyes on fire.
It was her mother!
Mother did this to get even with her, for making her rush out of the house in anger and get in the car and drive off that cliff. Mother had followed Stacy to the beach, had witnessed the argument, had seen the monstrosities coming up the beach before she and Kirk even felt their presence. And she"d acted upon it accordingly. It had been Mother who possessed Stacy, made her fight with Kirk, made her struggle in his grasp, pushed him away from her, sent him falling to the sand, smack-dab into the clicking horror of the monsters that picked him apart and devoured him while she ran like a coward to her car.
Stacy stood in the living room, her senses tuned to everything around her: the creak of the house as it shifted on its foundation; the moan of the wind as it blew around the eaves; the patter of rain that drummed on the roof; the crackle of lighting that flashed on the horizon, followed by the slight boom of thunder in the distance; the ticking of the clock above the mantelpiece in the living room; the hum of the gas burner in the furnace when the thermostat kicked in, heating the house. Stacy stood rooted in the center of the room, watching, waiting, all senses peeled for any extra activity. Any presence, any outward signs that Mother was here and watching.
Nothing.
Stacy smirked. She wouldn"t be fooled though. Mother was trying to drive her crazy. But two can play at that game.
Stacy went up the stairs to her bedroom and rummaged in her dresser drawers for the blotter acid she"d picked up from Brent last week. There were five hits left. She took it downstairs with her, went into the kitchen, took out a bottle of Rolling Rock and went into the living room. She rummaged inside her purse for the dime-bag of pot and her pipe, fished them out. She filled the bowl of the pipe, lit it and inhaled. The herb burned, curlicues of smoke drifting up. She took two hits before she extinguished the pipe and cracked open her first beer of the evening. She wasn"t going to let Mother beat her at this game. No way. Mother wasn"t going to drive her crazy with guilt, drive her to stew and cry in the house while Kirk lay dead and mangled outside. No, she was going to sit in here, collect her thoughts, trip for a while and figure out what to do. Come up with something positive. That was the ticket.
She took another swig of beer and moved to the stereo. She found a battery operated boom box, rummaged among her tapes, and found Pink Floyd"s The Wall. She put the tape in and turned up the volume. She placed the boom box on the coffee table, settled back in the sofa and went for a hit of acid. She took it with a shot of Rolling Rock. She"d deal with this problem and she"d find a solution for it her way. Not mother"s.
Comfortably Numb.
Chapter Eighteen.
Janice Harrelson looked out the kitchen window of her modest three-bedroom home on Elm Street, trying to fight off the drowsiness brought on by the tranquilizer Glen Jorgensen had given her. She"d tried to sleep after Glen dropped her off and could only toss and turn in bed. She left her bedroom door open so she could listen for anything that might emit from Bobby"s room, but her son slept soundly. The shock had probably helped add to the tranquilizer Glen had given him. Poor baby.
She slipped downstairs and tried brewing a pot of coffee only to discover that the power was out. She went around the house, trying the lights. d.a.m.n!