I didn’t think that this night would get any more annoying, but sure as shit, I was wrong. I don’t blame anyone. Only myself. That hopeful optimism has brought me nothing but disappointment my entire life. Imagine being a kid and thinking that the whole world was at your fingertips, ready to be conquered, explored, and becoming self-sufficient. Then the future comes and here you are, twenty-six-years-old, stuck in the same place that you always swore that you would escape.
I have a modest job. I make just shy of three-thousand-dollars a month, which isn’t a lot, but it pays the bills, rent, and allows me a couple nights out of the month to indulge in some of the more humanly pleasures. Unfortunately, here in Sunset Springs, the humanly pleasure are limited. We have one bowling alley that’s a pretty big hot spot; The Sunset Springs Slaughterhouse. This was originally a place to butcher cattle, but the folks that bought it didn’t feel like changing the sign, so yeah. Then there’s the reservoir. I highly suggest going there if you like smoking weed and stepping on used condoms.
After 9PM, you are stuck with three options for entertainment. You can go to Barfly, which is a bar, but they let high school athletes in that don’t even make an effort to look like adults, so that’s never an option for me. Then there’s The Sunset Spot, which is full of elderly alcoholics. I’m not talking about functional drunks either. You go here when you have a drinking problem. Then there is the ever so reliable Jackalope Hub, which is where I…was tonight. It has its share of shade within the community, but overall it’s a relatively harmless place.
I knocked off of work a little later than I like. As every Friday goes, some company needed a last minute shipment that prevented me from going home with the rest of the crew. I drove the three-ton vehicle to the drop site, unloaded their stupid garbage bags, got the signature, then started my way home. That’s when Iris St. Peter decided to drop me a text to go have a drink with her.
I hurried home, speeding even though I was in the work truck. I’ve been friends with that girl for three years now, and only in the past few months has she decided that she has interest in me. Unfortunately, once again for me, even though we discussed being more than friends, it seems to have somehow slowed the process down. You have one drunk make out session in the parking lot, discuss the potential for a relationship, and then she somehow becomes more elusive. Still, I planned on taking advantage of the opportunities that the Gods grant me.
When I pulled the truck into the driveway, she had already left me another message. She specified that she just wanted to see me and to hurry. I told her that I was going to grab a shower and change, and that I would be with her within the next half hour. She sent another message back almost immediately, stating that I was fine to see her in what I already had on. She also said that she liked how I looked when I was dirty. I will contact a therapist at a later date on why that aroused me.
I hopped out of the work truck and into my personal truck, then headed down the road to the Jackalope Hub. It’s Friday, so this place was packed. A lot of people were in the same state that I was. Work clothes, basketball shorts and tank-tops, or simply jeans and flannel. This isn’t really the kind of town where you should feel the need to gussy up. Even Ms. Iris St. Peter was wearing a pair of denim shorts, black V-neck shirt under yellow flannel, and flip flops. God she’s freaking beautiful without making any effort and doesn’t even know it.
“Hey!” she shrieked, leaping up from the bar stool and scooting her backside down slowly. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around my neck, keeping little contact with her toes on the ground. She is petite, and I am tall, but we make it work. I had to blow away some of her frizzy red hair that found its way into my face, but it was a small price to pay. She looked at me with her piercing blue eyes, which complimented the trademark St. Peter freckle pattern on her cheeks.
“NATE!” a voice called out over the lyrics of Tequilla Little Time with You. I looked over her shoulder to the three barstools that were occupied by Erica, her best friend, Jonah, Erica’s something or other, and Peter, the towns mascot for selling weed and other party favors. Erica came over to me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and lifted me off the ground. I don’t like when people that are smaller than me are also stronger than me.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked, with a very notable amount of disappointment in my voice. As much as I enjoyed the company of these people from time to time, I was really hoping for the night alone with Iris. Once again, this is that hopeful optimism that I really need to learn never works out for people like me. Call it my version of the Winters family curse, but I think I’m doomed to be stuck in this town miserable for the rest of my life. I still kick myself over thinking this meeting was going to work out for me. In twenty-six-years, you’d think I’d learn.
I’ll skip over the details of the next hour. Just know that I had a great view of Iris talking to the other three. She barely acknowledged my existence. She was having a great time with them, but I had to sit there awkwardly, taking in larger portions of Bud Lite and chain smoking Camel’s, just to give myself some sort of motion. I hated to my core that ever since her and I started…whatever the fuck it is that we’re doing, its been twice as hard to keep her attention.
I got up and went to the bathroom. While the Jackalope Hub was a nicer bar, I can’t say the same for their bathroom. There was always highlighter yellow piss on the toilet seats, shit stains in the toilet bowl, and God help you if the roll of paper towels sitting on top of the dispenser is wet. It also wasn’t uncommon to find things like empty beer bottles sitting on the floor or empty plastic shot glasses rolling around in the sink when you went to wash your hands. I developed a method of getting everything out of my pants without touching anything for the sole purpose of not having to wash my hands. Guys will understand.
I left the bathroom to find one of the local drunks standing outside looking irritated. Sorry if the bathroom is for the public dude. I barely made it out the door before he shot past me and slammed it shut behind him. I walked back over to my barstool, only to find that it had been taken by somebody. Also, Iris and her band of misfits weren’t in their stools either. I reached in front of the guy to grab my beer. When he saw what I was trying to accomplish, he made an exaggerated movement over to who I would assume was his girlfriend. Unnecessary, but appreciated.
“Where did Iris go?” I asked Maggie, the bartender, and a good friend of ours from school. She pointed over to the back exit, which wasn’t supposed to be used by customers, but there were exceptions to this rule for certain people, and Peter just so happened to be one of them due to his nature of providing the aforementioned party favors.
“Peter pulled some premium out and I made them take it outside,” she said, pouring a drink from her cocktail shaker into a glass on the bar.
This was exactly the problems that I was having. I couldn’t get this girl alone to save my life, she invites me out, ignores me, and ditches me. Yet I still show up. I don’t know if its because I’m down for a change, down for a possibility, or just plain pathetic. I know the universe isn’t exactly working in my favor, but Christ. Can I get anything? But I’ll tell you something for sure, nothing made me feel more pathetic than trying to push that back door open, only to have it seemingly barricaded on the other side. Then I could hear them all laughing and having a good time. What the fuck did I even show up for?
My moment of self-loathing came to an abrupt halt when I could feel my pocket vibrating. I pulled my phone out and saw the contact listed as Jimmy, who is my cousin. If “neck beard” could be personified in human form, Jimmy would be that very person. It was rare that he called me up on a weekend due to the fact that he and his wife had just had a baby. We do meet up for a few days every month, but this wasn’t one of those days.
“What’s up man?” I asked.
“Nate, where the fuck have you been?” he panted into the phone.
“I came over to Jack’s to grab a drink with Iris,” I explained. I could hear heavy wind resistance on the other end of the phone and he was breathing heavy. “What’s wrong?”
“Nate, it’s fucking Brody…and Stephanie…Willow…” he said in decreasing degrees of frequency.
“What the fuck, Jimmy? What’s wrong with them?” I asked.
“Mother fucker! I’ve been trying to call you since you left the house!”
“JIMMY, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON?!” I yelled, grabbing the attention of some nearby bargoers.
“Nate, they got out…they ran out of the place, scattered in all directions…and I have no fucking clue where to go.”
What the fuck? He was referring to my brother, sister, and sister-in-law. And the one and only thing he could possibly be referring to…
“Wait, no that isn’t possible. Its not time. Not for another two weeks,” I said, confused as shit.
“Nate, I don’t know what the fuck to tell you. They’re out, they’re about, they’re fucking loose.”
I pulled my phone away from my face and looked at it before putting it back up to my ear, as if that gesture was somehow going to make what he was saying make more sense. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not tonight. We kept track.
“Alright, give me fifteen minutes,” I said.
“Make it in ten,” he said before hanging up. Son of a bitch always had to get the last word in. Fuck, if I was paying more attention to my phone and not the possibility of hooking up with a girl that clearly isn’t as interested in me as I thought, I might have been able to help. Naturally, you always think that a night couldn’t possibly get any worse, but the second that somebody like me thinks like that, the universe throws me a curveball.
-———————————————————————————————————————-
I drove down to my family’s property as fast as I could without trying to alarm local law enforcement, who were always out on the weekends looking for drunk drivers. I know all of the DUI checkpoints to avoid, but mostly for this purpose. It was just time that I simply didn’t have to waste.
Welcome to 8PM everyone.
I reached into the backseat of my truck and grabbed my bowie knife and 9mm. I holstered my pistol on the right side of my waist and my knife on the left. Every few seconds I would look up, check my windows on both sides, and then carry on doing what I was doing. I leaped out of my truck and moved as quietly as I could to the back seat, leaving my driver side door open. I opened the rear driver’s side door, once again as quietly as I could, and grabbed my .30-06 by the buttstock and slid it towards me. I didn’t want to have to use any of these, but fuck. How the hell else am I supposed to approach this?
I turned towards the house. We’re lucky as fuck that our parents left us the farm house on a decent sized plot of land on the outskirts of town, otherwise this may be a cause for alarm. Ah fuck, this is Louisiana, who gives a shit?
I walked towards the front door, which was swung open and the screen door hanging by a single hinge. I pointed my rifle directly in front of me, keep my eyes even with the sights and maintaining awareness of the muzzle. I put my back against the wall just outside of the door, poked my head around for a peek, and then rushed into the house with my gun at the ready. I had brief flashbacks to Iraq, but honestly nothing I learned in the military could have prepared us for this one.
I took a second to admire the damages that the three of them had made. The couch was tuned over, the T.V. was busted and laying face down on the floor, my dads favorite recliner was ripped to shreds…man seeing that thing in the shape that it was in brought up some painful images in my head. He was always planted on that thing on Sundays watching the Saints game, drinking Miller Lite and smoking cigars. It was a painful sight. So painful that I had to swallow the lump in my throat.
In the kitchen, the small round table was flipped on its side and three of the four wooden chairs were shattered. Yeah, it sure as shit didn’t take them much to make a mess of the place. I was momentarily alarmed by a red substance on the floor by the stove, but I realized it was only pasta sauce. Either Willow or Stephanie must have been in the middle of cooking dinner when the change happened. The claw marks etched into the floor was enough to tell me that they ran into a frenzy. That isn’t uncommon. The beast is theoretically caged up inside for around twenty-seven days out of the month, so when it comes out, its usually confused and erratic. Of course, if they were abiding by the moon cycle, we would have put them in their designated cages. This is still a mystery to me.
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise coming from upstairs. I moved quickly, choosing to sacrifice stealth for speed, hoping to get the mess taken care of before anyone got hurt. Plus, the sound of my steel-toe boots hitting the wooden steps gave my position up in a matter of seconds. I once again held my rifle at the high ready. The last thing I wanted to do was shoot someone in my family, but once again, what the feck else am I supposed to do? Like everything else in my life, I was pretty much just winging it.
As I reached the top step, the movement stopped. When the movement stopped, I stopped. If one, or God forbid more of them were in the house, I didn’t stand a chance. Not without the element of surprise. I already had my contingency plan in play in case I was ambushed. Roll backwards down the stairs, drop the rifle, draw my knife. The beasts typically went for throat shots. I’d have a better chance of protecting myself at close range without the added length of my rifle. Plus I’ve fallen down those stairs so many times in my childhood that I’m pretty much immune to it.
As I prepared to make the charge, I noticed a 30-30 rifle laying on the ground. I looked both ways down the upstairs hallway as if I were a child trying to cross the street. I tiptoed over to the gun, as if it were going to make a damn bit of difference at this point, bent down slowly and…
“Cock sucker!”
If I didn’t duck when I heard the very loud and inappropriate slur, I would have easily been rendered decapitated by the large gentleman swinging a wood cutters ax at me. I whipped my rifle around and hit him in the torso with my buttstock. Despite the force that I sent into him, he barely budged, and seemed otherwise unaffected.
“Goddammit Jimmy,” I said, relieved that I wasn’t a statistic.
He flexed his shoulders backwards and snapped his back like he was popping bubble rap. Jimmy stood even in height with me at six-feet, but had about eighty pounds on me. He was wearing a button-up flannel, jeans, boots, and a trucker cap. He definitely looked the part to that of a Winters. There wasn’t a single part of him that wasn’t covered in sweat.
“Shit, sorry Nate. Mark’s been poking around the roads all night. I thought he came into the house,” he said, placing the ax on the ground and grabbing the 30-30 rifle.
“So, you were gonna kill him?” I asked, alluding to the fact that I was almost the equivalence of firewood.
“Hey, it would serve him right. That boy has been spreading conspiracies about our family for years. Devil worship. Murder house. Aliens.”
“Well, I’d never tell him this, but he’s not far off,” I said.
“He doesn’t know jack.”
I looked around to see if I could make sense of the situation once again. The upstairs wasn’t that bad. I wouldn’t have guessed that they made it up here. And as Jimmy had mentioned, the three of them would have made a run for it out of the door.
“What the hell happened?” I asked.
“I have no clue. Brody invited me over for dinner. Everything was fine. I was here for about an hour. We heard you pull up, but then you darted away from the house pretty fucking fast. Wasn’t but a few minutes later that the three of them spazzed out.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Scared the shit out of me. They ran around downstairs in a frenzy, like…well…animals. I made it up here and locked myself in Willow’s room and tried calling you. Once they broke out of the house I ran outside to see what I could do to get them out to the stables, but they all took off in different directions.”
I had so many more questions to ask, but I didn’t see them being important enough to ask at the moment. There was really nothing that could be done to reverse the transformation. I mean, they changed without the help of the moon, so anything was theoretically possible at this point, but I found it best to leave that question on the back burner until we rounded them all up.
“Fuck me,” I said, wiping the sweat from my forehead on my shoulder. “We need to find them. Fast.”
“I agree. But we need Jed to come over. It would be a lot easier if he was here to monitor the trail cameras,” Jimmy said.
“Alright. Call him. I’m gonna change clothes real quick.”
Jed is also my cousin, as well as my best friend. He is somewhat of a legend/leper in the Winters clan because he got his college degree in Statistics, which is unheard of for someone like us. Ever since we were kids, he’s been way smarter than the rest of us. Not only that, but he managed to marry a woman from a wealthy family despite being far less attractive than her, he holds down a white collar job, and makes good money. Seeing him do his thing often gave me hope that I might be able to make something out of myself as well.
I went into my bedroom and removed everything but my boxers. If I was going to be poking around in the fields all night to look for my family, then I would at least need to be dressed somewhat appropriately. I put on a green thermal shirt and threw a black t-shirt on over it. I also took a pair of jeans off the floor and threw those on. I felt my steel toe boots were probably the best to wear, so I put those back on. I also exchanged my work cap for one of my trucker style caps and turned it backwards. It would keep the creepy crawlies out of my hair, but also allow for better visibility.
I put my bowie knife and sidearm back into their places on my belt. I also went into my closet and grabbed my carrying pouch for my ammo and attached it to my belt right behind my knife. I hated the thought of how this all might end. In a perfect world, we would be able to round them all up and put them in their cages until we could figure out what happened. As I’ve explained already though, this is far from a perfect world, and I don’t have a stellar resume when it comes to luck.
“Fuck! Nate, you may want to come down here. We have a bit of a situation,” Jimmy called from downstairs. I sighed. Loudly. Very loudly. I didn’t even leave the bedroom before trouble came knocking.
I hurried over to grab my rifle and made haste down the stairs. I got about halfway down before I noticed the red and blue lights flashing from outside, through the windows and open door. This guy could seriously never give my family any kind of peace. By the time my boots even hit the bottom floor of the house, Jimmy had already started making his way out of the open door.
I made a light jog outside onto the front porch and casually walked down the front steps, still holding my rifle, but at the low ready. This guy was always hassling our family, and I knew for a fact that he would have no issues putting brass in either me or Jimmy. I admired his constant determination, but he was annoying as hell.
“What do you want Mark?” Jimmy asked.
He stared Jimmy down, chewing on a piece of gum like it was concrete. He had a typical military haircut and a light pencil thin mustache that didn’t hang below his lip, which made him look like he gave zero fucks about anything. He was such a smug piece of crap. I have nothing against police, but I don’t know how guys like this manage to get a job. He also wore the traditional dark blue uniform, seemingly an intentional size too small to show off his physique, which wasn’t nearly as impressive as he wanted it to be.
“Why don’t you two boys put those weapons on the hood of my car while we talk for a second?” he asked without really asking.
“No thank you,” I said very politely.
That angered him. I could tell. He bit his lip and rendered himself speechless. He also started clenching his fists and inhaling really deep. I loved that we could so easily get under his skin. Instead of talking to us like men, he narrowed his eyebrows at us, keeping his left hand on his sidearm and violently pointing at the hood of his car with his right index finger. I rolled my eyes at him, smirked, but complied and placed my rifle on the hood of his cruiser. Jimmy did the same, but kept his typical Jimmy face on.
“What the hell is this about Mark? We got things to do and not a lot of time to do them,” Jimmy said.
“Well, you can start by addressing me as Deputy Chambers. I’m not your friend, so don’t play with me like that.”
“Oh, Mark. Get the fuck off of my property,” I snapped.
“Watch your fucking tongue, Nate. I’m serious. I will make both of your lives fucking miserable. I’m getting sick and fucking tired of getting these calls from neighbors complaining about the noise coming from here. I don’t know what the fuck you two got going on, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
Jimmy and I looked at each other. I looked left, then looked right. Jimmy did the exact same thing and our gazes met each other once again. I took an exaggerated look back at the house. Jimmy got on his tiptoes to look over Deputy Douche-Face. Jimmy and I concluded our point by looking at each other one more time before returning our gazes back on him.
“What neighbors?” I asked. That one really stumped him. He didn’t say anything. He just rubbed his eyes very intensely.
“What the fuck are you two doing with rifles at this hour? Hmm? Your fucking door is hanging from its hinges. I can see from here that inside, your place is a fucking mess. What the fuck is going on?”
“We’re trying to go out and hunt for coyotes. They keep killing the cattle,” Jimmy said.
“Wait, what are you? A fucking interior designer?” I asked. “Mind your own damn business.”
Our conversation was interrupted by a very loud and deep howl coming from the trees. Jimmy and I jumped at the sound, but still doing our best to maintain a reasonable degree of composure. Mark didn’t budge at the sound. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say it came from maybe a quarter of a mile away. The speed that they moved at was incredible, in a very frightening kind of way.
“I’d like to go have a look around inside,” he said, taking a step forward.
“I think not,” Jimmy said, placing his hand out in front of him, preventing Mark from going any further.
“Move out of my way Jimmy. This is obstruction of justice,” he barked.
“What Justice? Once again, you assume that we’re up to something and this is getting to be a severe case of harass…”
Before I could finish my sentence, a loud trampling noise started in our direction. Before I could even turn to see what it was, the three of us were knocked onto the ground. I rolled into the dirt and eventually stopped on my back. Jimmy was face down on the ground, but was pushing himself to his feet by the time I sat up. The world seemed to stop when I heard the agonizing screams from Mark, pleading for help from anybody that would listen.
“JESUS! GET THIS FUCKING THING OFF OF ME!”
I looked over to where he was. I saw it. It had its teeth sinking into Mark’s neck, shaking him furiously. For a second it looked like he was reaching for his gun, but his body went limp not long after. His throat was torn out completely and devoured. His head was hanging on by a thread. Blood covered the entire top half of his body and bled out onto the ground.
I got myself to my feet as quickly as I could while still maintaining a calm enough demeanor. Their attacks were usually provoked by movement. Keeping still was the best way to avoid being mauled. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was the closest thing we’ve ever found to a defense tactic that didn’t require violence.
It stood up straight, grey fur, lightly coated with a darker mane around it’s canine face, with a very exposed malnourished looking torso. The ribcage was extremely visible. That was one of the most dangerous things about them. They were always hungry and they were never full.
Judging by the size of it, which was about six-feet in height, I could tell it was Willow. She’s always been the runt of the pack. She’s extremely skittish once transformed. She scares easily, which means she’ll either run away, or attack out of fear. At this point, neither of these options were particularly favorable. She locked eyes with me, which is something that I’ve always considered a death sentence. Do that to them when they’re in the cage and they’ll try to rip that thing open to get to you. Thing is, she wasn’t in the gage. She gave a very loud growl and got on all fours, facing my direction is pouncing motion.
A shot rang out of nowhere and caused her to jet off at a high speed away from me. As she ran, she whimpered in pain. Within a few seconds, I couldn’t see her or hear her. I turned to Jimmy, who had his .38 special drawn. Shit, I hated seeing my sister in pain, even if she was under the influence of something else. Thankfully she didn’t seem to be hit fatally. They have a higher tolerance for pain when they’re in this state, and their ability to heal is much quicker. I guess that’s the closest thing I’ll ever find to a silver lining.
This night is going to be hell. We need to get them back here to the farm where its safe. They can easily fuck up anyone and anything. Not to mention that this is the south, and people don’t have any problems shooting things, especially in this hunting community that we live in. I don’t see this ending well, but fuck. Its going to be a long night.
Wish me luck.