through the space where the windshield used to be. The smell of sweat and wet animal hair filled the interior of the car. As Bill Parker breathed in shallow gasps, the stench of it almost made him sick.
He struggled a few more inches and opened up the glove box. Behind the cube-shaped box of tissues, the rubber gloves, the baby oil, and the car manual was a small, black handgun. It was a peashooter by my standards. I was in the army and I used to pick my teeth after meals with bigger guns than that. In fact, I think most ladies in bad areas would have been embarrassed to carry around such a thing. Our friend Bill apparently didn’t have such prejudices.
He raised the gun and aimed it at the shape above him. Hefired once and saw a brilliant crimson mist saturate the air. The beast howled and drew back. Its grip on Bill’s shoulder loosened considerably. Bill fired three more times in rapid succession, and a spray of blood rained down upon him. The beast fell back, rolled across the hood, and in the night, Bill heard the thing hit the road in front of the car.
If not for Johnny Cash, it would have been perfectly quiet. Bill Parker was breathing heavily, but it took a minute for him to notice it. After that, he heard the crickets in the night, the hum of the motor, the wind playing with the leaves, the sounds of the night birds as they hooted and swooped past trees and snatched away their furry little snacks.
Bill listened intently for the sound of footsteps, the sound of a door opening across the road, of someone’s concerned voice, but he heard none of it. Not a single sign of a helping hand. Solace would have no part of him. He would have given up the use of his legs just to hear one measly person ask him if he was okay.
He listened for the sound of the creature’s pain, the sound of movement on asphalt. He didn’t hear any of that either.
After a spell, he deemed it safe enough to move and opened the passenger door. He got out slowly. He had his gun drawn and pointed, but his hand was shaking so badly he wouldn’t have been able to hit one of the houses across the way even if he wanted to. He came around the open door without closing it. The headlights brightened the cracked and sun-bleached road ahead of him. All else was darkness.
There, lying motionless in the road, was the creature. Its blood glistened like heavy red wine, like a rich merlot, on the hood of his white car. The blood steamed, and Bill didn’t know why. He touched the hood of the car, and the metal wasn’t that hot at all. It barely qualified as being warm. Bill swallowed and turned his gaze back to the beast. He didn’t want to get too close, but his curiosity was working on him like all hell. It was almost like he was rubbernecking at his own demise.
He took a few more steps and took in the sight before him. Hehad never seen anything like it before, except maybe in some crazy old horror movie the kids once made him sit through. Hell, he probably thought he’d just killed Bigfoot. He read about such things in the cheap newspapers he bought at the supermarket.
He took another step. Blood pooled at his heel. He looked at the houses, saw not a single light brighten a single room. There was maybe only one other time in his life that he felt so helpless and alone, and the thought of that one other time made him shudder. He probably thought about getting himself to the hospital, but what would he say?
A new worry gripped him: that he’d get battered with so many incessant, insensitive questions at St. Francis that he’d end up dying before they even got the chance to go to work on his unique and ghastly wounds. Apparently, it was never bad enough for Bill Parker to find something new—even hypothetical—to tense up about.
Some people might have found that quality endearing about him, I don’t know. I myself wasn’t a big fan of his, which I’m sure is quite clear at this point.
He looked down at the creature before him, studied it for a moment, and maybe after just a few seconds, he thought he saw its hand move. Bill Parker took a step back and rubbed his eyes, smearing blood across his face like a mask. He wasn’t sure if his mind had just played a trick on him or not. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.
He looked again and saw the beast’s chest rise, then fall, and finally heave with labored breaths. Smoke rose from its slackened, toothy mouth as if a candle had been blown out somewhere deep inside it. Bill stumbled back till he was against the open car door. He heard the beast breathe again. He heard his own blood dripping, splashing against the cracked tar, the black ring that held the wilderness back from the town it surrounded—the little town that grew up in the middle of it like a tumor.
The beast’s eyes opened, all bloodshot and inhuman. It raised its head, and those awful, haunting eyes peered into the soul of Bill Parker. It was in that gaze that he saw his own death. Bill Parker turned and ran.
Bill Parker disappeared into the woods. Branches beat against him like skinny arms, clawing at his skin, his clothes, and not far behind, he could hear those same branches twist, crack, and give way for the creature that pursued him. He could hear its howls reverberate off the trees, off the bones in his ears. He could hear them echo across the night like battle horns. His speed was gone, and all the strength he had was left as a trail of crimson drips behind him.
The salt in his sweat made him squint, and before long he could hardly see where he was going, but it was too dark for it to matter that much. He felt the ground shift beneath him, and he realized he was starting to head down a long slope, so he sped up and let gravity do some of the work his legs could hardly handle. Wind licked his face, and he smiled. He wasn’t sure why.
His ankle got caught in a web of crooked vines growing up the side of an oak tree. He fell face-first in the black and moistened soil and rolled the rest of the way down the slope. When his back finally came to rest on flat land, he realized that his body hadn’t registered the pain. He didn’t feel the throbbing in his arm anymore, and he didn’t even feel the slightest ache from falling so hard.
He knew then that he was dying.
He turned over and dragged himself over to the base of a very tall pine tree. In the darkness, he couldn’t even see the top of it. In a matter of time, he thought, he might be able to climb that tree to heaven. He scooched himself till his back was against the tree, and then he waited. There was nothing else to do.
In the dark, he heard it coming. He knew it was over. Just as night turns to day, I know that he knew there could be only one exit from those woods, and that was in a bag, if he was lucky. In his head, he asked God why such a fate would befall him. He knew why, deep down, and I truly believe that’s why he began to cry.
The beast’s job was easy. The gunshot wounds it had sustained were already a distant memory; the entry holes the bullets had ripped into its hide were at this point nothing more than pinpricks on its surface. All it had to do to track Bill Parker on his last, pathetic run was breathe. The scent of the dying man was like a guiding light in the dark.
It came to him, approaching slowly, toying with the man or just observing, I’m not sure which. Even after all these years, I’m not sure how that thing feels about anything, or if after so many years of being around the human race, it’s come to perhaps mimic some of our little behavioral traits. That’s something for me to think on the next time I have nothing else to do.
The beast circled around him, around the tree, growling. Bill Parker shifted in the dirt, and murmured prayers he hadn’t thought about in years in a high-pitched squeal under his breath. He got most of the words right. The beast came back around and paced before him like a man not sure what to do. The beast swiveled its shoulders as if loosening a knot; then it crouched down and brought its face up close to Bill’s, sucked in the fear that leaked from the man’s pores like vapor. Bill thought the thing smelled like a wet dog. The beast thought Bill smelled like barbecue.
Bill Parker tried to talk. I wonder what it was he would’ve said if he’d been able to get the words out. Would he have asked what it was, or
The beast watched Bill struggle for a moment, at first with a curious air, then with something that could’ve passed for amusement. It smiled the most horrible smile that Bill Parker could ever have imagined. Drool dripped from its fangs, and a blast of stinking air rushed up from the beast’s chest and hit Bill in the face like fumes.
Bill raised his one good arm, but before he could level the gun at his target, the beast grabbed him by his wrists with its two big, hairy hands and sank its teeth into the soft meat of Bill’s neck. A blood-arch pissed itself from the wound like a stream, and before the blood hit the ground, Bill Parker was dead and gone.
The beast drew back and tore a chunk of flesh away from the throat. It chewed, swallowed, and roared. Then it went back for seconds.
