Terror Town (31 page)

Finally, Beth said, “What do you want?” feeling defeated. Again. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Oh! There you are! Well, well… what do we have here? You
are
alive! Isn’t that incredible?”

“You don’t have to get all snippy. I just want to ask a few simple questions,
God
. By the way you’ve been talking you’d think I’ve mistreated you.”

Nicolas went suddenly quiet. He didn’t ask his questions. He just stood there looking at the trunk, smiling. He was tired and ready for bed, but he was also smiling. This was a big day, a very big day. Everything would be different tomorrow, absolutely everything.

“Well?” Beth unleashed. She was starting to hate the psycho on all kinds of uncharacteristic levels.

“I want to know about Cameron,” Nicolas said flatly. “I want to know where she is and why she took off her clothing. That was the strangest thing I ever saw.”

Nicolas thought the question was ludicrous. Why would she want out? He was going to kill her, or stick her in the cage, so what’s with the hurry? He said, “I’ll let you out in the morning.”

“No!”

“Yeah. I’m tired. I’m going to bed, you dumb twit. Don’t forget to keep your mouth closed. Otherwise the bugs will get in, and there are some big fucking bugs in there. Trust me, I’ve seen ‘em. Well, I guess that’s it. Good night.” Nicolas slapped his hand on the hood twice more; then he went inside.

Once he was in, he locked the front door and approached the closet––the
empty
closet, the one in the hallway. He put his hand on the doorknob and gave it a good yank. It was hard to open but he managed.

She tried not to think about the spot she was in or the things she had witnessed. She tried to forget the fact that the warm air tasted like death. Thinking about her future was out of the question. She didn’t feel good about anything. In time she closed her eyes and fell asleep, keeping her mouth closed.

37

The tree was old and dead, branches were knuckled and knotted like witch fingers, half-inch trenches separated thick chunks of bark, which were infested with worms and termites. A wasp’s nest was attached to a branch. It was the very branch that a very large cocoon clung to, and although the insects had stung the body inside the webbing, the body did not register pain. The cold blood beneath the changing skin remained impervious.

Cameron opened her eyes, covered in a silky mesh.

Below the crude, off-white thread, her exposed skin became darker. Her breasts bloated and elongated and turned completely black. Not a healthy and attractive African black, but the color of tar, the color of something burning in a chemical fire. All of her skin turned this way, even the tips of her fingers and the balls of her feet. The black skin was oily and greasy, covering muscles that had grown large and swollen.

As time forged ahead she looked like a strangely mutated corpse, except for her eyes and teeth. Her teeth had fangs now, fangs like needles, like daggers. Her eyes bulged and the whites had turned dark. Each eye had a red dot in the center. To look there, into the place surrounded by gloom, was to look into the heart of a demon, a succubus––the devil’s chilling and exotic whore. To look into those eyes could only bring madness.

Cameron crawled from the tree and sat at its base. She wrapped her arms around her swollen knees. And in time, she picked the silk away, freeing herself of its sheath. She was in no hurry; she was still changing, transforming, post-embryonic.

Leaning forward, she listened. She could hear so much now; she could hear everything for miles and miles. Yesterday she was deaf in comparison. Now she could hear footfalls in the heart of the town, people laughing at the waterfront cafe, boats slapping against the docks at the Yacht Club. She could hear lovers crawl into bed; fish swim in Cloven Lake, deer rustle in the forest. She could hear radio frequencies in the air, crickets in Nicolas Nehalem’s marsh, the beast from Daniel’s basement.

And she could hear more––much, much more.

Cameron could hear George Gramme talking lovingly about motorcycles, even though a Harley had amputated his fingers two summers ago. She could hear Jay Hopper ring in his final sale of the night, all the way out on the 9
^th
line. She could hear Stephen Pebbles brooding inside his two-bedroom apartment. He lived there now––now that a fire had destroyed his farm and everything he owned. She could hear odd-job Martin West limping across the kitchen like a ninety year old man, knowing he wouldn’t
have
to limp if he hadn’t been shingling his neighbor’s roof––something he was dangerously unqualified to do. She could hear Lizzy Backstrom roll her wheelchair across the hardwood towards the window; for the window was the place she kept watch. Lizzy didn’t trust Cloven Rock, not anymore. Not after seeing the great multi-legged beast creep across the street on that long and terrible night, the night that changed her life forever.

Cameron could hear Stanley Rosenstein, who had been a foreman at the docks and an all-around good guy before his wife left him and his sanity was questioned: he thought there were monsters in Cloven Rock. Stan pulled his shades down and triple bolted his door. He did that every night, and often times, checked to make sure they were locked.

She could hear Father Mort Galloway, sitting in his house by the church, secretly and shamefully watching his X-rated movies and thinking about Leanne Wakefield. Ever since Leanne’s husband Simon had drowned in the backyard pool she had been attending church religiously––so to speak. And every Sunday morning at nine, she arrived at mass wearing a shirt that was tight enough to make the Pope take notice. Galloway wasn’t sure if Leanne felt remorse for talking on the phone while Simon died, or if she was trying to land a new husband. Maybe it was both.

She could hear Nicolas asking questions, and Beth––locked inside the trunk––giving answers. In fact, she could hear Nicolas thinking. And when she put her mind to it, she could hear Beth thinking too. Listening to the thoughts of the entire town seemed almost within reach. She just needed a little more time.

She liked listening to Daniel; he was a good man, a nice man, the right man for her. He was handsome and smart, funny and kind. He was someone she could be with and love––not in conventional ways, of course, not now. But that hardly mattered. She wanted him. She wanted to be with him forever.

There were others she could hear. Others she needed to see.

She had a list of them.

Paul LaFalce was on that list. Paul LaFalce, the lying cheating, cunt-hungry prick that fucked every open-leg slut in town. Oh yes, oh yes. He was on that list for sure. He wasn’t alone, there were more. Like Lizzy Backstrom’s ex-best friend Julie Stapleton, who didn’t know how to keep a secret but knew how to sleep with Paul and act like nothing happened. But Paul was first. Oh yes. She couldn’t wait to see Paul LaFalce. She couldn’t wait to see the ‘the Gasman.’ She wanted to give him a little piece of her mind. And take a piece of his.

Her dark and bloated skin was fading now, fading, fading––color returning to normal. And beyond. Becoming wilted and pale, insipid and palled, almost toneless. Her organs and bones looked gloomy beneath her skin, which seemed as transparent as the webs she picked from her body.

With a grin she lifted herself to her feet. She was almost ready.

Her transformation was nearly complete.

∞∞Θ∞∞

∞Θ∞

~~~~ CHAPTER FOUR: THE KYLE THREAD

1

Kyle Van Ryan squeezed Douglas Waterier’s hand.

Douglas coughed twice, spraying blood into the air. He exhaled one final time and shivered. His fingers opened, his eyes locked on nothing and the tension seeped from his body.

He was dead.

Kyle was holding hands with a dead man.

He looked away from the corpse with grief-stricken eyes, seeing the carnage on the road instead. With the headlights cutting the darkness into various shapes and shadows, the area looked like something from a horror movie. He felt like crying, like turning off his mind and shutting down the world. The dead man’s hand slipped from his own, making a soft thump against the ground. And although he didn’t see it, a moth landed on the unmoving hand after it dropped, fluttering its wings like it found a new home. In time, the insect stood very still, as if waiting for the future.

Kyle felt terrible, but not for long. Soon enough the feeling was replaced with something unrelated to grief, anguish, misery, and sorrow. This was a new emotion––a vile sentiment, and quite possibly a dangerous one.

He was being watched.

Deep down where his instincts dwelled, Kyle Van Ryan knew he wasn’t alone. There was something in close proximity he couldn’t put his finger on. Might have been an animal, might have been something else.

Something worse.

He glanced at Barry ‘Wolf’ Doreen’s haunted features, his blue eye and his brown. He sized up the minivan and the bodies within. He looked at the car in the ditch, the ax embedded in Mark Croft’s head, the blood on the road, the tread marks in the gravel. If he could teleport himself into another time and place he would. Of course, he couldn’t. All he could do was gaze across the dark and evocative road to a place he didn’t want to see. And it was there, near Daniel’s car––a white shape against a black background, watching him, studying him, like a ghost. Was it hiding near the forest or was it just too dark to see? He didn’t know; didn’t want to know. He wanted it to be gone, just gone––nothing more and nothing less.

Go away
, he thought.
Jeepers bum-fuck, just go away.

He felt his nerves unraveling and the muscles in his neck stiffen. He felt a cold chill along his spine. His arms grew goosebumps and face felt flush. There was a knot in his stomach tightening like a noose.

Standing at the side of the road, waiting, lurking, looming. What was it?

No––not it.
Her
. It was a girl.

The woman at the side of the road seemed to be a phantom, but not transparent. Real. With pale skin and the eyes of a demon she moved towards him, naked and seductive, dominant and strong. Her feet, colorless and exposed, dragged against the gravel until she was close enough for Kyle to smell her rotting decay. Or maybe it wasn’t decay; maybe it was something different than decay, something tainted and sour that had no name.

He wanted to run but couldn’t. His defenses were weak and his will to escape was drifting. She was beautiful, stunning––more breathtaking than his wife on their wedding night, more spectacular than a perfect morning sunrise. But she was hideous too. Creepy and foul; like something that crept from a tomb in a gothic tale from a time long since past. She mixed the two extremes in an equal concoction. He wanted to kiss her passionately and run screaming at the same time. He was excited and terrified. His eyes were wide, his mouth agape, his muscles clenched tighter than ever before.

“No,” he whispered. But like the moth on the corpse, he stood motionless, waiting for the future.

Another stride. Two.

She was less than ten feet away now, getting closer. She almost appeared to be gliding towards him, lighter than the air she breathed, if she breathed.

He looked at her wilted breasts, her desiccated skin, her strange black eyes––eyes with bright red dots that seemed to dance in circles while not moving at all. The sound of her feet crunching against the pavement was louder now, her stench grew worse, and yet he remained in place, helplessly obeying her unspoken commands.

Her jaws opened terribly wide, something unnatural. And inside that tragic and cavernous maw, that gaping hole, he could see long, sharp spikes that had no business being inside a human mouth. But she was not human. Couldn’t be. Not now. The teeth belonged to a wolf or a shark, not a woman, not a girl. They were awful and horrific, incisive and dangerous.

He felt himself growing hard.

He wanted her. And he wanted to give himself to her, wanted her to bite him; needed it, in fact. He longed for it pensively.

“Hurry,” he said, sounding desperate and vulnerable. But,
oh God,
why was he saying
that?
The voice wasn’t his. It
couldn’t
be his, could it? It was. That was the worst part; his words were betraying him. He needed to shut up, stop talking, escape his own will. But his will was no longer
his
to escape. It belonged to her now. He would do what she wanted, what
it
wanted. He had no choice. He would become her concubine, if nothing more.

Deep inside, in the little place that still belonged to Kyle, he considered pulling the ax from Mark Croft’s skull and chopping the abomination down. This was no woman; it was a monster, a thing. It looked like a girl but it was not. It was an evil succubus, a vampire, a fiend––or quite possibly a combination of all three.