Other Terrors, page 11
Carlos and Ernesto had turned their bodies away from the window and were staring at Amanda. Carlos had his hands in his pockets. It was something he did when he got nervous. Amanda normally found it endearing, but in this context, she hated it. Ernesto had his thumbs hooked on his belt. He looked at her as if waiting for an answer to an incriminating question. She continued.
“Imagine a big gray frog walking on two legs, and that’s more or less what we saw. I mean, it was slightly more . . . humanoid, but if you saw it, a frog would be the first thing that came to mind. The head was round, and it had huge black eyes. The mouth was like a slit, and its arms were long and shiny. It looked wet, but not wet because it’d been raining—more of a slimy kind of wet. It took a step to the right, still on two legs, and then bolted, moving deeper into the plants on the side of the road. It moved just like a person would.”
The men stayed quiet. She was done. Telling them about getting back in the car would’ve been dumb. She knew a story was over when the good stuff was over.
“That’s it?” asked Ernesto.
“Yeah.”
“So what are you trying to say? You think there’s a tall gray frog out there?”
“No, all I’m saying is that there’s weird shit out there and sometimes you see something you can’t explain. That’s it. The gray frog was tiny, and now that I’m an adult, I know the only reason it scared the shit out of me is because I didn’t know what it was. Same now. There’s a thing out there I’ve never seen before, but that doesn’t mean it’s dangerous or anything, you know? Could be a diseased animal or som—”
“No,” said Carlos. “No, this isn’t the same. You saw some weird animal, some . . . mutated frog or some shit. This is different.” Carlos walked to the table and grabbed one of the white pieces that were scattered on it. “Look at this shit,” he said, holding up what looked like a curved, sharpened bone. “This is a tooth. A huge fucking tooth. They’re all teeth. I’ve never seen teeth like this before, and I’m sure they belong to whatever is out there, the thing that was following us and trying to stay outta sight. You saw it, Amanda!”
Amanda knew what he meant. The slanky thing on two legs had moved from tree to tree with purpose and speed. The memory of its long, humanoid limbs swinging in the darkness sent a shiver down her spine. It was obviously trying to stay out of sight, but it never stayed put. It had followed them. She’d said nothing because jogging through the woods with stolen drugs wasn’t the best time to entertain things like that. Now they were locked here with the drugs and some huge teeth from a strange creature until someone came to buy them, and the thing was out there, apparently throwing rocks at the cabin.
Ernesto looked out the window again, his brown eyes scanning the darkness outside. “Whatever is out there will probably go away eventually,” he said. “We don’t need to go outside anyway.”
Carlos took a step back and pointed at Ernesto.
“You motherfucker! You knew about this!”
“What are you talking about, man?” asked Ernesto.
“You just went from ‘There’s nothing out there’ to ‘Whatever is out there will go away eventually,’ pendejo!”
“So?”
“I’ve known you what, fifteen years?”
“Give or take. What d—?”
“You never give in so easily,” said Carlos. “Amanda’s story didn’t convince you. This ain’t El Yunque. You knew something before we came here, or at least you suspected something, didn’t you?”
“I’d heard something about the area, but that’s—”
“Este pinche, cabrón!” said Carlos. He turned and paced away from the window. Amanda knew that anger made him abandon English and revert to Spanish, his native tongue. He was a good man, but the dark past inside him could turn into violence if left unchecked.
“Then why the hell did you bring us here?” asked Amanda. She’d tried to push away the image of the figure walking through the trees, but now she couldn’t. The memory of that amphibian thing on two legs had somehow magnified her current fear.
“I . . . It was the only place I knew that wasn’t near other people. We stole about a hundred grand worth of horse from that woman. I wanted a safe place far away from . . . everything. There’s only that dirt road coming here. So it’s easy to see anyone approaching. It was . . . It struck me as the perfect place, okay? And it’s not like what I heard sounded completely true, you know?”
“So what did you hear?”
Ernesto looked at the window again and opened his mouth, but a sound from the left side of the cabin made them all jump. It made Amanda think someone, or something, had slammed its body against the wall. Something to her left fell. The sound of glass shattering made her jump. She looked at the floor next to her. A newspaper article. She picked it up by the light brown frame and shook off some of the broken glass. She had to bring it close to her face to make out the headline: hill country creature strikes again. The first lines said something about mutilated cows. She stopped reading and stood up. She took her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight. The wall was covered in newspaper clippings like the one she was holding, all local, all mentioning dead animals.
A presence next to her made Amanda jump again. It was Carlos. His eyes were open wide as he scanned the wall. Carlos snapped out of it a second later and moved toward Ernesto.
“What the fuck is all that?” he asked while pointing at the wall. “If you know something, tell us now. I’m serious.”
Ernesto inhaled as if bracing for some kind of invisible impact.
“You knew about this, didn’t you?” Amanda sounded sad instead of angry.
“I . . . yeah, but it’s just stories, you know? Weird shit folks like my uncle talk about. The motherfucker is obsessed with it. That’s why we could use this place; he won’t spend the night here even if you paid him. Old-lady stories that—”
“Fuck that,” said Carlos. “Tell us what you know. Now!”
Ernesto took another big breath before he started talking.
“Buddy of mine who grew up right here in Hill Country told me a story about this part of the woods. His grandparents owned a farm out here or some shit. They had a bunch of acres somewhere nearby. Anyway, he said there was a thing living in their barn, a strange, tall creature with a big head and large, black eyes that hid in the woods during the day and came into the barn to sleep or something at night. Now, my buddy, Jake, he didn’t hit the bottle or nothing. He was a regular dude. I had no reason not to believe him. He always told the same story time and again, too, which I’ve learned isn’t something most liars do. You know, folks who lie all the time usually tell a bunch of lies and they get them all mixed up, but when someone always tell the same story, it’s probably t—”
CLUNK!
Something landed on the roof again. This time, it sounded even harder.
“That pinecone must’ve been the size of a cinder block,” said Amanda with no humor in her voice. “Tell your story, Ernesto. What the hell is out there? Should we be on our way back to the car?”
Ernesto took another deep breath while still looking at the ceiling.
“Right . . . Anyway, Jake told me more than once how he refused to go out to the barn at night. One time, his grandpa sent him out there to get some shit, and he says he walked in and saw the thing in a corner. A long, humanoid creature with thin arms and a very large head. Spooked the shit outta him. He told his grandpa and then repeated his story to his mom the next day. They said he’d seen the shadow of a tree or maybe a bird. He was a kid, you know? It was dark and all that. They dismissed him. Can’t blame them. He was a kid talking about monsters, so I’m sure any of us would’ve done the same thing. Thing is, Jake kept an eye out and saw the creature a few more times, either leaving the barn or walking along the edge of the tree line behind it. It was always a glimpse, you know? Like, enough to know it was there and that it was something weird and shaped like a thin, big-headed person but not clear enough to actually know what the fuck he was looking at.”
“Just like the thing Amanda and I saw out there!” interjected Carlos.
“Yeah, something like that,” said Ernesto. “Long story short, Jake’s room was on the second floor, right across from his grandparents’ bedroom. His mom left him with them all the time because she worked night shifts at a twenty-four-hour diner right down the road in Fredericksburg. Point is, Jake’s bedroom had a window and he could see the barn from it, so he became obsessed, staying up at all hours of the night trying to get a better look at the damn thing that he was sure lived in the barn or in the woods around it.
“He never saw it again, but he knew it was out there. Any time he brought it up, his grandparents or his mom would joke about his imagination and laugh at him, so he stopped talking about it. Then, when he was almost sure the thing had vanished or died somewhere out there, he and his grandpa started finding mutilated animals out on their property and in the nearby woods. Started with a few cats, dogs, possums, and raccoons. Jake told his grandpa it had to be the creature. Grandpa told him to shut the fuck up about the creature already. Animals die all the time. Disease. Other animals attack them. People poison them. They eat some shit they shouldn’t have eaten. Whatever. Old man had a point, although none of that explained why the animals were all messed up or why some of them had been mutilated in weird ways. Anyway, before they could figure out if there was another animal out there attacking dogs and cats, they started finding dead deer. Then they were doing one of their rounds and found a mountain lion missing its head. Nothing out there preys on mountain lions.
“Grandpa kept up his bullshit explanations, but Jake could tell he no longer believed a single word he said. Also, they realized no animal would scavenge the bodies if they left them around. It was like they were poisoned or something.
“Jake had a good relationship with his grandpa and he kept telling him that he believed the creature in the barn was responsible. His grandpa told him to stop watching movies that were rotting his brain. I guess things stayed the same for a while, but then, on a night like any other, Jake was in bed and heard a sound like someone screaming far away, a screech that woke him up. He kept hearing it as his brain woke up for real. It wouldn’t stop. Jake was facing the door and the sound was coming from outside so he turned around, thinking he was gonna get up and take a look out the window, but when he turned, he saw the thing right outside his window. He said the head was dark and had no hair or feathers on it, and its toothless, round mouth was open. The screeching was coming from it. The thing had black eyes that were larger than any Jake had ever seen. It watched as Jake moved, and instead of vanishing, it slapped a hand on the glass. Not a paw or a talon, a fucking hand.
“Jake ran to his grandparents’ bedroom and dragged them both to his room, but the thing had gone by the time they came in. Jake was so freaked out about the thing somehow hovering right outside, peeking into his window, that he convinced his grandpa to grab his rifle and try to hunt the creature down. After a lot of bitching and moaning, his grandfather finally agreed. The next night, they w—”
The rock that just landed on the roof of the cabin was so big that it was followed by a crack and a moan from the wood.
“We need to get the fuck outta here right now,” said Carlos.
“If there’s something out there, you want to risk a half-mile jog in the woods with it behind you?”
Carlos’s silence was eloquent, and it was all the answer Ernesto needed.
“So, did they see it?” asked Amanda.
“What?”
“Your story. Jake. Did they see the thing in the barn?”
“Right. The window . . . They waited by the window, but they didn’t see the creature. Jake said they should try again, and his grandpa said no, but then they went out the next morning and found three dead chickens outside the chicken coop, their bodies torn to pieces by something that drank all their blood and ate away at the soft bits. The dead chickens made Jake’s grandpa angry, so he said they’d spend one more night dozing off in front of the damn window.
“Well, around one in the morning, right before they were about to pass out, they saw movement to the left of the barn. Something was exiting the woods and making its way to the barn. Jake’s grandpa told him to wait in the house and went out there with his rifle and a flashlight. According to Jake, he opened fire as soon as he walked into the damn barn. Then Jake heard the screeching sound from far away and then a second shot.
“The shots woke up Jake’s grandma. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him downstairs. They took another flashlight from the kitchen and ran out there. They approached the barn quietly and scared shitless, obviously. They couldn’t find Jake’s grandpa at first. There was blood on the floor, and the rifle was there, slightly bent as if some giant had tried to break it, but they couldn’t find anyone. They hollered and looked and then hollered some more.
“Finally, they called the cops and two guys came out and helped them look. About half an hour later, one of the pigs had the brilliant idea of shining a light upward. That’s when they found Jake’s grandpa. The man had been attacked by something or someone, and then that something or someone had pulled him all the way up to an exposed beam near the roof of the barn. They had to get firefighters with big ladders to get the body down. Way Jake told the story, his grandpa’s body had been viciously attacked. Someone had punched a hole through the left side of his body. He said you could see his ribs and lungs. There was also a large cut between his neck and shoulder that made the cops think some crazy killer with a machete was out there in the woods.
“Here’s the kicker: They never found a weapon or anyone to pin the murder on. Jake kept the article that came out about it in the local newspaper in his wallet. It was short and vague as fuck, but it said the man had been ‘viciously attacked by an unknown assailant.’ That’s fancy talk for seriously fucked up, you know? I know it said that because Jake would show it to me all the time, or at least whenever we drank together. Anyway, that happened a couple miles from here . . .”
Ernesto stopped talking. He looked deflated. Amanda felt like he’d given them a lot of information, but other than use it as an excuse to tell them to run for the car, she had no idea what to do with it.
“We need to leave. We’re not safe here!” Carlos wasn’t panicking, but he’d taken the first step down that road. He’d been on edge for two weeks. He’d been the one with the big idea. He knew the woman who ran the Yellow Rose, where Amanda worked in the kitchen, not as a dancer, was using the strip joint as a cover for her drug business. He planned everything. Quick hit. From the inside. No killing. Grab the stuff and vanish. It was dangerous, but Carlos was always worrying about money. He had no papers, which made things harder, and Amanda hadn’t finished college and had a thick accent, which made every human resources person that interviewed her smile . . . and then give the job to someone else. They were both desperate, and when Ernesto said he could set the sale up with a friend of his cousin in San Antonio, they’d decided to go for it. Poverty is often the mother of bad decisions.
Now here they were, and they weren’t willing to wait for the buyer because something tall with long arms was out there throwing rocks at the cabin. Big rocks. Anger washed over Amanda. This wasn’t fair. The plan was supposed to get them out of their hole. Maybe she and Carlos could use the money to get married. That would be an easy path to citizenship.
“Maybe we sh—”
CRASH!
The rock was larger than a melon but was more cube-shaped than round. It fell through the ceiling and landed with a loud thud a few feet from where Carlos stood. Amanda found herself on her feet with no memory of standing up.
Carlos was about to speak when something else landed on the roof.
“That’s it,” Ernesto said, his hand flying back to the gun tucked away under his black T-shirt. “We’re—”
The screech was as loud as a siren. Their shoulders went up. Amanda covered her ears. Carlos looked up as if he expected a banshee to drop down on him from the cabin’s ceiling.
Then the window exploded.
Glass shards flew into the cabin.
Amanda shielded her face.
Carlos jumped away.
Ernesto screamed.
A long, dark thing came through the busted window. It looked like a cross between a human arm and a branch covered in rotting muscles. The thin hand at the end of it had fingers that were at least a foot long. There were more than five of them. They quickly wrapped themselves around Ernesto’s head and shoulders. The thing outside pulled back with surprising speed. Amanda saw Ernesto standing there and then saw the bottom of his black boots as he flew out the window.
The screech moved away and ceased. Ernesto’s screams replaced the deafening shriek for a second and then stopped abruptly.
Carlos ran across the room and held Amanda’s arms.
“You okay?”
Amanda didn’t know how to reply to that.
“What the fuck was that?”
“No idea. We need to get in the bathroom or something. Let’s g—”
“No! No, I went when we got here. There’s a huge window there, right over the shower.”
“Fuck! Let’s run for it.”
“What?!”
“Vámonos, Amanda! I think I can get us back to the car. If not, I can at least get us to the road.”
“Ernesto had the keys.”
Carlos’s face crumbled.
“And the gun . . . FUCK!”
Amanda saw him move toward the door, stop, and turn. He was lost. She had to save him.
“Let’s run for it. You sure you know how to make it back to the road?”
“Yeah . . . espera!”
Carlos ran to the small kitchen table and grabbed the three sandwich bags full of small, white heroin packets. Then he stepped back and looked at the window. The sound of insects was coming from the woods.
