My therapist keeps telling me if I am not going to tell her what happened I should at least write it down, maybe it’ll be a therapeutic experience. I know it won’t, nothing will make the nightmares go away, and nothing will ever wipe the memories of that day, but mostly just for my therapist I agreed to write it down and now I suppose it is as good a time as any. It’s been a pretty slow night shift at the hospital and this point I’d be surprised if something happened so here we go.
“This is the last time I’m dealing with this shit Briar!” My dad screamed down at me.
I shivered in my soaking pants with tears running down my face. I cried, “I’m s… s… sowwy d… daddy, I got s… s… scawed again.”
I continued to shiver and shake as he shoved me aside and marched angrily over to my bed which now had a large warm yellow patch right in the middle of it. He let out an aggravated grunt as he yanked the sheets off the bed in one quick motion.
“Damn it, Briar,” He screamed, “You soaked the mattress too!”
I let out a desperate hiccuping sob, “I’m s… s… sowwy.”
“Are you? Are you s… s… sowwy?” He taunted his voice harshly and mockingly.
“Yes d… daddy,” I sobbed.
He let out one last aggravated huff before leaving the bedroom with her covers and sheets. I stood there next to the door still sobbing in my pink unicorn pajamas, the pants still soaking from my urine. Then my older brother Bruce appeared in the doorway, his face was full of worry.
“What happened?” He asked, taking a knee in front of me.
“I s… s… saw the thing again, and I wet the bed,” I said, embarrassed, ashamed, and still sobbing.
That had been the pattern the past three nights. I kept having the same nightmare over and over again. All the nightmares as I said were the same. They started with me walking around our tiny cabin looking for Bruce or Dad but no one was there. I called and screamed for them, but nothing. Then after crying on my bed for what felt like ages, I would hear a knock on the door. Hoping it was them I would rush to answer it only to see this grotesque amalgamation of a creature standing at my door always with my dad’s dead body at its feet, and that’s when I woke up in a puddle of my pee. I could never remember what the creature looked like, but I’d always remember the feeling its appearance gave me.
I was never really sure why I had those nightmares, maybe if I hadn’t been such a fearful child my dad and Bruce would have found them to be more concerning but I don’t know. But what I do know is that the cabin only made things worse. Our house was an old rustic cabin that sat in the middle of the woods just on the edge of Denali National Park in Alaska. It was rural, but not as rural as you might think. We lived near a few other cabins, the closest one was just a mile down the road and they had an unfortunate habit of shooting their guns all hours of the night, but they were nice enough despite this annoying attribute. They didn’t talk to their neighbors much; they spent most of their time in the cabin.
The cabin was very old. It and the surrounding cabins had originally been part of the national park and were vacation cabins for guests. Still, eventually, a company bought the land, and the cabins were poorly converted into homes making their interior layouts quite odd.
When you first walked into the cabin you would enter one large space that was a kitchen, dining room, and living room. The kitchen and dining room were to the right, and the living room was to the left. If you walked straight through that room you would arrive in the hallway. The first door on the right of the hallway was the laundry room, and to the left was the restroom. If you went down the hall further, the next door to the right was Dad’s bedroom, and then to the left was a large closet with a mattress and dresser that was my bedroom.
To get to the second floor you had to go to the back left corner of the living room where there was a tight staircase. If you walked up the staircase you’d reach the attic turned to the second floor. The staircase led directly into a large room that Dad called the den. It was another living room although this one didn’t have a TV. Then if you walked through the den the door in the middle of the wall led to Bruce’s room which had a large circular window that faced the front of the house.
Bruce had me change and then brought me upstairs to his bedroom. He gave me his big bed which I shared with our big husky Lilah while he crashed on the floor. He didn’t mind, he’d do just about anything to make me happy. I lay there hugging Lilah as I heard Dad and our much meaner German Shepard Rory marching around downstairs. Dad was still letting out intoxicated grunts of agitation. He’d always been like that from my first memories of him. Always just a hot-headed man with an alcohol problem, only I didn’t see it that way then. Despite all the pain he’d had me go through I still loved him dearly, and now I hated my younger self for that. If I could see him now the first thing I’d do is spit in his ugly face and then whack him a couple of times with a belt.
I just stared up at the slanted ceiling listening to the soft tapping sounds of snow hitting the top of the roof. It was quite pleasant and I found myself turning to face out the large circular window to watch the snow fall. I basked in the beauty of it all, the way the icy flakes slowly drifted to the ground as if they were dancing as if they were celebrating the clouds finally releasing them and letting them come down to bring joy to the world. That’s how I liked to think about it. For that brief moment, I was at peace again safe with Bruce and Lilah.
Creak! I flinched, knowing that was the first step of the staircase and that Dad was likely coming up to yell at me more. Creak! That was the third step, Dad always took big wide steps when he was angry. Creak! In the fifth step, I squeezed Lilah so hard that she let out a slight growl. Creak! Seventh step, this one sounded louder than the others. My heart was pounding in my chest and I buried my face into Lilah’s soft fur. Then just as I was expecting to hear the ninth step something loud came from outside. It was a slam-type sound. It sounded like the garbage cans had been thrown about. Through the thin old walls and floor, I heard Rory run over to the front door then the smacking sound of the doggy door opening and then closing behind him.
I sat up from the bed and noticed Bruce was now standing up, he looked worried which made me worried. Then I heard Dad’s footsteps begin thundering back down the stairs the way he came. I could tell just by the way his feet hit the ground he was agitated. I started to wonder what was outside that upset Rory. Just then I heard the distinct creak of Dad’s bedroom door opening. It was distinct because it almost had two creaks as it opened. The first creak would sound until the door was half open then that creak would stop and the second would begin. It sounds weird to describe but you’d know what I mean if you heard it in person.
I listened to him shuffling around in the room for a minute before Bruce shifted toward the circular window right around the same time I heard another slam. I watched as Bruce’s eyes widened when he looked out the window. BARK! BARK! The aggravated barks of Rory tore through the quiet night air. They were louder than I’d ever heard before, they sounded mean, aggressive, and defensive. It sounded like if Rory could speak he would be screaming at the top of his lungs: “Get the hell away from me!” Bruce’s face went pale then, BARK! BARK! BARK! These three somehow sounded exponentially louder than the last two. They sounded deranged and rabid. Like he’d lost all sense of being their fluffy little companion and was now only focused on attacking and barking at whatever was disturbing him.
A sound came from my dad’s bedroom then, a cha-chink sound. He’d just cocked the shotgun. I’d only ever heard him do that when he’d seen a bear. I gripped Lilah even tighter now knowing what was likely out there. I heard his footsteps slowly go down the hall before entering the main room. Each step sounded so different from the unusual they were slow and cautious, scared even. Slowly he got closer and closer to the front door until he was directly below me and Bruce.
BAR… Yelp! This last bark was cut off by an earsplitting yelp. Bruce let out a short sob, I heard Dad yell expletives, and I buried my face further into Lilah’s soft coat. But Lilah perked up at the sound of Rory being hurt and before I could stop her she slipped off the bed and dashed down the stairs, and before I knew it I heard the little tapping of her claws hitting the floor as she reached my dad and then passed him and going out the doggy door.
CRASH!!! YELP!! It was still Rory, it sounded like he’d been slammed into the garbage cans. Between the crash and the yelp, I heard the sound of metal ripping apart. It was like the sound of ripping aluminum foil only far louder, deeper, and more wretched sounding. BARK! GRRR! These were Lilah now coming to the rescue of Rory. Something else happened that I don’t know how to explain, it was a sound, a sound of pain only I’d never heard anything like before. It was like a yelp, a scream, and crying all mixed into one horrible screeching call. In my head I wanted Dad to shoot at it, he had the shotgun. Why wasn’t he doing anything? That’s when it hit me, the trash cans were on the side of the house. He couldn’t see what was going on.
After the wretched calls finally stopped Lilah let out a loud horrible desperate whimpering mixed with growling. Her desperate sounds strained and struggled before being cut off by a sudden loud heart-stopping CRUNCH! I can only hope that it broke her neck and that she died quickly. That she just blacked out, that her life went out like closing a lighter on a flame, not like slowly burning out until there was no more fuel.
Rory let out a whimper and I heard another loud slam and once again the sounds of crunching metal. At this point, Bruce was crying leaning against the wall trying to wipe the tears from his face. I had resorted to burying my face in a pillow with no more furry companion. I was crying and sobbing terrified of the thing that was hurting my dogs. Bruce finally moved over to me and scooped me up.
“It’s going to be ok Briar, it’s going to be ok,” He said, rocking me in his arms like I was a baby. I knew he was lying, and he knew he was lying but that was better than facing the demon outside, then facing the truth that it would probably shred Dad like it had the dogs and come upstairs to do the same to us.
Dad’s footsteps started running back deeper into the house, he was probably just as scared as I was. He made it to the first set of doors before I heard him slam and lock the restroom door. I heard Bruce gulp loudly before he turned and ran out of the room. I followed him, we both rushed into the den then down the stairs, through the living room, and over to the kitchen. Bruce grabbed the phone off the counter, the whole time making sure I didn’t look outside, and then he and I sprinted right back upstairs.
He called 911 while I held the pillow tightly in my arms. I was confused when I didn’t hear him talking, I looked up and saw him desperately dialing over and over again each time the call was not going through.
“There’s no signal!” He yelled, in a mix of anger and fear.
I squeezed the pillow even tighter when I heard something. It sounded like something scraping against the front of the house. I looked toward the window but there was nothing, literally nothing. Almost the entire window was being taken up by some big black mass. We both screamed and Bruce lunged for the rifle mounted to his wall. He had the rifle in his hand in one quick motion and then dove for the nightstand. He yanked open the drawer so fast it broke off shattering on the wooden floor and throwing its contents all about. He scanned the floor before picking up a bullet. Just as he was about to load it into the rifle SLAM! The window cracked as whatever was on the other side pressed against it. BANG! In a second the window had shattered and whatever was blocking it seemingly fell to the ground making a much more normal sound of pain but far louder than before. I reached for my ears which throbbed from the loud sound. It reverberated through my skull, the two sounds only making the pain worse, and for a moment it felt like my ears would explode. But slowly gradually the pain began to fade.
We both stood there catching our breaths and crying. Bruce dropped the gun and pulled me in for a long tight hug, and that’s where we sat in the middle of his bedroom floor crying, sobbing, and hugging one another feeling lucky to be alive. If only we’d known it was just the beginning.
I heard the restroom door creak open slowly before Dad made his way toward the front door again. I didn’t dare look to see what the thing was but Bruce did. He walked over and poked his head out of the now-shattered window. He gasped and his face went so pale I thought he might puke. I heard the front door slowly creak open followed by a loud gasp. Suddenly I heard the sound of a car in the distance. I heard the sound of the loud sputtering engine before anything else. Before long though I heard it turn onto the driveway and begin rolling down it. The sound of gravel being driven on was incredibly loud and slowly as the sound got closer it rolled to a stop and the loud engine cut. For a moment there was nothing but silence before ca-thunk! One of the doors opened and was then slammed shut, and I heard boots walking across the gravel driveway. They were almost just as loud as the car driving across. The gravel gave away everything.
“Billy, what the hell is that?” The man asked my dad, as he walked over to where I presume the corpse was and then stopped.
“I don’t know, I’m… I’m not sure.” Dad stammered out.
Ca-thunk! Slam! Another man hopped out of the truck, his footsteps the loudest of the bunch. He joined them by the corpse and they all three began conversing over the monster that just minutes ago had, had them all terrified. I didn’t listen to much of their conversation until I heard.
“Billy, you damn idiot, it’s just a bear.” They all three erupted into laughter, “Not even fully grown, just a little cub.”
They all seemed satisfied with that answer but Briar was so incredibly confused. A bear cub couldn’t kill their dogs even if it wanted to. I looked over at Bruce who had a confused look on his face. He was likely just as perplexed as I was.
“Daddy, but what about the dogs? A little cub like that couldn’t kill them?” He asked.
But just as he pointed out that glaring fact, that had all the adults turned up at him, I felt something very slightly shift around the side of the house, where it had all gone down with the dogs. Then it clicked in my head, whatever had killed the dogs was still there, and the bear cub just happened to be there. I jumped up off the bed and was about to yell to the adults but then that thing let out its call. It’s a horrible blood-curdling call. It sounded like 10 different animal calls mashed together but they were all sick dying animals. But this call despite that death was clearly from something alive. The closest I could compare it to is a mix of a scream, a wail, a sob, a yell, and an animalistic howl or growl all in one horrible conglomeration.
I felt the thing slowly move from its hiding spot around the side of the house. I was so terrified but I had to do something. I’m sure I’d meant to scream out a warning or something. Something to tell them where it was, something to save their lives but all I managed to yell was: “Monstew.”
Then all I heard was carnage. Gunshots echoed through the night, the others having brought their firearms. Bruce screamed and pulled his head away from the window refusing to watch what was happening outside. I pressed the pillow into my ears trying to make the horror, and the sounds go away trying to make it all go away. But still screams, gunshots, and the things called continued. I heard things downstairs explode, windows shattering, beams splintering, flesh ripping, bones breaking, and all sorts of carnage.
SLAM! A bloody arm came flying through the window smacking against Bruce. He screamed as it fell to the ground sending its blood all over the room and us. I let out another high-pitched wail. I trembled and shook listening as it all still unfolded. I gripped the pillow with all my might sobbing and screaming at the carnage that continued to unfold just below me.
The lower part of the window frame exploded sending shards of wood flying into the room. I felt searing pain as a large piece hit me in the forehead and another in the ankle. I screamed but no longer in fear, I howled in pain reaching for my now bleeding forehead.
There was a loud slam followed by a gunshot as the fight seemed to have moved into the house. More slams and gunshots. At some point, I heard something massive get thrown against the wall shaking the entire cabin. Another slam, followed by hundreds of pieces of glass shattering. At this point, I noticed there was only one gun firing, and with one final slam and the sound of the TV shattering everything went silent.
I heard ragged horrible breaths downstairs sounding like they could only be coming from that horrible thing. It sounded weak and in pain but it kept moving. With each step, the house rattled ever so slightly as it made its way down the hall. I started to squeal knowing the thing was coming for us but then I heard something, a cough followed by BANG! I heard the thing turn around before in a quick move. I felt it sprint across the house to the doorway before someone screamed their screams being quickly turned into gurgling noises and then nothing. There was a loud thunk, quickly followed by SLAM! I heard the person get thrown into the bookshelf and then fall to the ground before I heard the bookshelf toppling and then shattering atop them. I screamed at the sound of the bookshelf falling, Bruce lunged to cover my mouth but it was too late. It had already heard us.
It sprinted across the house and its footsteps began thundering up the staircase. Bruce reached for the rifle and then looked over at me.
“When I say so, I want you to jump out the window!” He yelled, so uncharacteristically stern that I felt I had to listen.
I heard the monster reach the top step before it burst into the den. I shook like a leaf waiting for Bruce to give the command. The creature slowly began to search the den before with a sudden burst of speed the door was thrown off its hinges.
“NOW!” He screamed before opening fire.
Without looking at what had entered the room I grabbed the edges of the window frame, cutting my hands in the process, and hurling myself out of the house over the porch roof and onto the ground. I rolled when I hit the ground before finally stopping against something warm and squishy. Both my ankles throbbed from the fall, and the especially large chunk of wood in one of them. I closed my eyes not wanting to see what I’d landed on.
That’s when I became aware of my surroundings. I heard screams and shrieks coming from the window I’d just jumped from. Bruce- Bruce was dying. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, and then his desperate shrieks started to grow fainter before the sound of ripping flesh silenced him completely. I let out an involuntary sob, my big brother was dead. I heard something falling through the air before slamming onto me. A thick liquid that I knew had to have been blood began to cover me. I whimpered but tried to suppress my cries, but I knew that the monster likely heard me.
I was expecting the monster to come back down for me any second. To come butcher me like it had the rest of my family but I heard one last loud slam from the bedroom. The thing that fell was so heavy I heard a couple of the floorboards shatter under its weight. I heard the ragged breaths of the creature slowly grow heavier and heavier and less and less frequent before finally, it let out one last exhale. I couldn’t believe it, the thing, the monster was dead, but I knew I would likely be soon to.
I was weak, tired, cold, bleeding, and worst of all I’d lost my will to live. Daddy and Bruce were dead, what’s the point? That was my little kid brain logic. That’s when I heard it. It had been too loud before and I hadn’t had time to focus but now I could. I heard a low whimpering by the garbage cans. I tried to stand up but collapsed back down on the corpse that had partly broken my fall. My feet were throbbing and freezing so finally I opened my eyes I needed my vision to survive, but damn opening my eyes then, was the worst mistake of my life.
The body that had broken my fall was our neighbor Phill, and the man, he looked horrible. His face- oh god- his face was gone. It had been ripped clean off by a four-clawed hand from the looks of it. His eyes were missing, his nose nothing more than a hole in his face, and his lower jaw broken in two like some alien. Basically, all of the skin had ripped off his face, but by far the worst thing about his face was it was still screaming. It was still in that horrified expression he’d had before his face had been ripped off. The rest of his body wasn’t much better. He’d been ripped in two his waist and legs were lying 15 feet away a twisted bloody mess.
I puked- I puked all over me and him. I’d never seen anything even remotely close to this, the only dead thing I’d ever seen to that point was my hamster, Ms.Squibbles who’d passed away of old age, and I cried for two days after that happened.
I think your brain has a way of protecting you in a sense. I think sometimes it knows when it’s better to forget because I don’t remember much else from that night. I don’t remember the other bodies, I don’t remember using the shotgun as a crutch, I don’t remember finding Rory still alive, I don’t remember snuggling up next to him, and I don’t remember the police arriving.
Apparently, they were just as traumatized as I was, probably even more so because they remember it, they remember every gruesome detail of that crime scene. When the police found me and Rory alive they were astonished, they took us both to hospitals. They tried to take Rory to an animal hospital but apparently, I insisted he stay with me, so they put Rory in a cot next to mine in the hospital they called a bunch of vets in to try and save Rory’s life but he didn’t make. He died two days later right next to me. Now you’re probably wondering about the others, about the count, that would likely be my first question.
Phill and Boris (our closest neighbors) were pronounced dead at the scene they were 41 and 45 respectively, Bruce passed away in the ambulance they tried to revive him but he was long gone he was 13, and my dad, Billy, died a week later I saw him once before he died and well he looked like the walking dead he was 37.
The other question I would likely ask is what happened. Well, we don’t know, we don’t know what the monster was, we don’t know where it came from, and we don’t know where it went. When the police arrived the only thing in that bedroom was my brother no monster. But as for what went down during the shootout I used crime scene photos, autopsy notes, and the detective’s options to put it together.
Boris and Phill both were carrying large semi-automatic AK-47s assuming we were under siege by a bear. My dad as previously mentioned was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun.
As soon as Boris and Phill saw the thing they opened fire, and my dad despite having the strongest gun started making a run down the driveway turning his back from the monster. Well, it didn’t like this because it quickly caught up to him, ripped his stomach open, badly lacerated his face, and severed his right arm throwing it all the way into the upstairs bedroom.
It then turned its attention to Phill. It picked him up and ripped him clean in half with its arms, it then used Phill’s lower half as a flail bashing Boris in the head with Phill’s legs. This shattered Phill’s legs and threw Boris into the house. Phill still continued shooting the thing, although in all likelihood he was already dead his finger was probably just stuck on the trigger. This didn’t stop the creature as it crushed the gun and then ripped Phill’s face off.
It then turned its attention back to Boris who’d been thrown through the house and into the fridge. He already had a severe concussion but he was the only one who’d actually been in the military so he continued his attack on the creature strategically. It knocked over furniture and tried to throw things at Boris but he kept successfully dodging its attacks until it grabbed him by the leg and threw him against the TV. While the creature began to make its way upstairs Boris moved to the doorway before opening fire on the monster. The monster charged him and grabbed him by the neck and head, crushing his neck and windpipe with just its thumb before shattering his skull and then dropping him. That was how it happened.
Now as for me, I spent a day actually being treated at the hospital, but stayed until my dad died. Once he did I was put into foster care since my mother was in jail at the time, it wasn’t until 3 years later on my twelfth birthday that my mother had custody over me. My mother had completely turned her life around for me, those 3 years she’d gotten out of jail, stopped smoking, stopped drinking, and got a job as a police deputy in Anchorage. She was just as traumatized by what had happened. She got married when I was 14 and she tried her best to be the best mother she could. She did good, but I’d been scared physically and mentally and that was never going to go away. On my 18th birthday, I found the old rifle that Bruce had used, and I swore an oath one day I’ll find that thing, and I’ll kill it for good this time.
I was reading the paper the other day that an entire family was killed just east of Denali, and throughout the past 16 years since it happened, there has been a record-breaking number of disappearances. My nightmares have been getting worse too, and more common. I’m starting to think the day I need to dust off that rifle is coming sooner than I thought. After all, this all started with a dead monster and that’s how it’s going to end.