Blackened Read online

  The things running at him through the once safe-feeling backyard scared him like nothing he’d ever seen before. Hideous. They ran on four legs like wolves, they had tails and fur and long snouts, but they were not wolves.

  They had no eyes.

  Their eyes hadn’t been gouged out, they had none to begin with. No eyelids. Where their eyes should have been, only smooth, fur-covered skin stretched over hard bone. Their misshapen ears reminded him more of Herlequin’s ears, sharp and pointed, rather than dog ears. Their front legs ended in a knotted, deformed hand, complete with an opposable thumb. Thick, viscous fluid fell from their jaws, and when it hit the ground, the grass sizzled and turned black.

  Were these the things that had run next to him in the woods? Had he been so close to these mutant killers? Benny shuddered at the thought.

  “Benny! Close the door! Close the door!” Billy screamed.

  With a start, Benny realized the lead wolf-thing was less than three yards from the open door. He heaved the slider closed with a bang. The lead wolf-thing snarled and snapped at the air. Then it started to pace—back and forth, back and forth it went like one of those windup toy soldiers.

  If it had had eyes, it would have been glaring at him. Benny had no doubt on that score. Even without eyes, the thing’s face tracked him as the creature paced. It panted, slobbering more of its poisonous spit on the wooden deck. Each drop sizzled and smoked when it hit the deck.

  “Fuck!” Benny gasped.

  “You said the F-word!”

  Benny gestured at the thing pacing outside the thin sheet of glass. “I think I’m allowed this time.” He glanced at Billy. “What are you even doing here, Billy? Where are Mom and Dad? Where’s Johnny?”

  Billy shrugged and looked away.

  “Tell me, Billy.”

  Billy glanced at him and then looked out the slider at the wolf-things. Some sat, ears perked at the door as if they listened in on what the brothers said. Others stood, panting, behind their pacing leader. “What are those things, Benny?”

  “I don’t know. But answer my question. Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “Benny, I have no idea! Okay? All I know is that they aren’t here.”

  Benny blinked. “Didn’t they bring you home?”

  Billy shook his head. “Last time I saw them was in the car.”

  “In the car?” Benny repeated dumbly.

  “Right. How did you get here? Why aren’t you with them?”

  Benny shook his head. “The king…that man in the road…he called me to him when Dad stopped the car. I…I went to him…Mom didn’t notice…no one noticed…”

  “I told Daddy he had me. I told him! Why didn’t they believe me?”

  “I… Billy, last time I saw you, you had passed out, and Daddy took you from Mommy and ran inside the hospital. How’d you get from the hospital to here?”

  “What hospital, Benny? The king took me out of the car when I tried to tell Mommy about him. He grabbed me and dragged me away.”

  “Billy, nothing like that happened.”

  “Yes, it did!” Billy yelled.

  Benny turned his back to the sliding glass door and looked at his little brother. Tears streaked the boy’s face. “Don’t cry, Billy. We’ll figure this out.”

  Billy’s gaze drifted over Benny’s shoulder, and his eyes stretched big and round. “Oh, no!” he screamed, pointing out at the deck.

  Benny whirled. Herlequin stood at the edge of the deck, smiling his wicked smile. “Caught you, sport,” he said and opened his mouth wide. Row after row of sharp teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Now, it’s time for you to pay.” He skipped across the deck like a little kid and put his hand on the sliding glass door’s handle.

  Benny was shaking his head, pushing with all his might against the door handle. “You said if I got out of the forest, you’d let me go!”

  “You didn’t make it out of the forest,” Billy said, except his voice sounded a lot like Herlequin’s, just a different pitch.

  “Yes, I did! I’m standing in my own TV room, at my house in Oneka Falls!”

  “Are you, sport?” asked Billy.

  Benny ripped his eyes away from Herlequin’s leering face and glanced over his shoulder at his brother. Billy raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

  The house disappeared…the deck disappeared…the lawn disappeared. The wolf-things didn’t disappear, and neither did Herlequin. Neither did Billy. They stood in a small clearing, surrounded by terrifying, twisted trees.

  Benny screamed, and everything faded to black.

  4

  While Craig Witherson was driving across town to check out the Motor Lodge, Owen was setting up a surprise at Meat World, the town’s only grocery store. He parked the Skylark about an eighth of a mile down the road from the grocery store and slipped into the woods. The store stood with the woods at its back and a small parking lot and the road at its front. Owen was high up in a tree at the edge of the woods. He had a perfect view of the parking lot and the road, and he had plenty of ammo. He’d removed his homemade silencer—he wanted to terrorize these townie fuckers.

  “Brigitta, are you here?” he asked. He was using his own skills to make himself invisible, but he liked having her with him. Unlike most women, she never pissed him off.

  “Yes, my love.”

  Owen grinned. “I like the sound of you saying that.”

  “I like to say it, my love.”

  A car went by on the road, rusty muffler blatting away. “Why…why did you pick me?”

  “Pick you?”

  “In Vietnam. Why did you pick me to save that night?”

  “Oh, that,” she said. Mist appeared out of the air, and Brigitta coalesced out of the mist, sitting on the branch next to him, and he smiled. “I sensed in you a…like-mindedness. Your thoughts attracted me at once.”

  “Love at first sight, eh?” Owen chuckled.

  “Yes, something like that,” she said. “But look!” She lifted a semi-transparent arm and pointed at the parking lot. An old woman was struggling toward her car with a bag full of canned food. “She looks ripe, Owen.”

  Owen shouldered his rifle and looked through the scope. The woman wore her blue-rinsed hair in a short pageboy cut and wore cat-eye glasses. “At least she’s not a pretender,” he breathed. Moving the bolt with care so as not to jostle his aim, Owen chambered a round.

  “Do it, Owen,” said Brigitta. “Do her.”

  “Don’t rush me,” he snapped. “I want to enjoy this.” Brigitta didn’t respond, but he didn’t get the feeling that his snappishness annoyed her as it would have annoyed Candy. He aimed at the old woman’s back. “Pow,” he whispered. He aimed at her ample posterior. “Pow.” He raised the gun to aim at the back of her head and gasped with pleasure. “Pow,” he whispered and pulled the trigger.

  The shot echoed across the road and back, and the old woman dropped forward on her face like a felled tree. Owen shivered with ecstasy and closed his eyes, replaying how the old bat had fallen when the round smashed into her brainstem.

  “Yesss,” hissed Brigitta. “Oh yes, my love.”

  Someone screamed. Owen snapped his eyes open, and his hands moved automatically, working the bolt, ejecting his spent brass, and chambering another round. A woman in her thirties ran toward the old lady’s corpse, no doubt to help. Good Samaritan, he thought.

  Yes, give her what she deserves, Owen. The mental voice didn’t sound like his own, but Owen chalked that up to excitement.

  He sighted the rifle at the running woman. Her blonde, feathered hair was bouncing to and fro, her ass jiggling in her tight maroon cords. He aimed at her ass first. “Pow,” he whispered. His erection pounded with the tempo of his heart. He brought the rifle up, pointing at her back where her breasts would be. “Pow, pow,” he said, moving the rifle from right to left. Then, his crosshairs floated over the center of the back of her head. Chuckling, he made a game of tracking her as she ran, making himself wait.

  When
the woman was less than ten feet away from the old woman’s corpse, he pulled the trigger and ejaculated as her brains splattered on the back of the old lady’s dress. Next to him on the branch, Brigitta was breathing hard, moaning a little. “You are so good, my love,” she breathed.

  The air stilled for a moment in time, and then a cacophony of screams and shouts sounded from the grocery store. Owen waited, biting his lip, but no one ran out into the parking lot.

  “Let’s go down there, my love,” said Brigitta in a dreamy tone. “Let’s go around to the front of the store.”

  That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, he thought. “Would that be…smart?”

  Who cares? Think of the fun! The foreign thought echoed in his head—it had come from Brigitta.

  “Can you read my mind?” he whispered.

  “Your mind, my mind,” she breathed. What difference is there?

  Owen stared at her for a moment, part of him excited, part of him terrified.

  “We can talk about this later, my love. Let’s go! People are trapped inside the store. Imagine the mayhem we can wreak.”

  The idea of rampaging through the small store was intriguing, but his mind blanched at how it would end. Owen on the ground, bleeding out, some cop-fuck standing over him with a smoking .357 magnum.

  I will protect you.

  Owen shook his head and snaked down the trunk of the tree, rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “Thank you, Owen!” said Brigitta. “You will love it, I promise.”

  Owen shook his head again. “Not going in there, Brigitta. It’s suicide.”

  “But, my love, I will—”

  “Two shots, at the most, from any one location,” he recited. “Police your brass, relocate.” He stood at the base of the tree, imagining the arc his spent brass would have taken. He had a talent for it, and as usual, walked right to it and picked it up.

  “My love, think of—”

  “Brigitta, I said no.” He glanced at her, and though her lower lip quivered like a small child’s, her eyes were cold, angry. “We’ll relocate across town and find other people to play with.” He smiled at her—his best, most winning smile—but she sniffed and turned away, arms crossed. “Don’t be that way, babe.”

  She flipped her hair and looked into the depths of the woods. When she walked away, Owen ran to her side. “Car’s this way, Brigitta,” he said, laying his hand on her arm. He hooked his thumb in the direction of the road.

  She glanced down at his hand and disappeared.

  He couldn’t even feel her arm. “Brigitta, please. We can go right now, maybe the library or a park. Maybe get a kid or two.”

  I told you, no kids. Kids belong to my father.

  Owen laughed and turned back toward the car. “Your father? Let him find his own fun.” He slipped the shell casings into his pocket. Behind him, something growled. With a smile on his face, he turned, expecting Brigitta, but what he saw made him take a step back without a conscious decision to do so.

  It was a dog. A dog without eyes. The thing took a menacing step toward him, and the growl transformed into a snarl. “What the blue fuck?” he gasped.

  Owen, meet my father’s idea of fun.

  Owen turned and ran for the car, and the dog chased him, snarling and barking. He jerked the passenger door open and jumped into the Buick Skylark he had stolen. He slammed the door just in time, and the eyeless dog crashed into the door, claws clattering against the window, barking to beat all. He stared at the mutant thing’s smooth, eyeless head, not quite able to trust what he was seeing. But the dog’s slobber coating the window looked real enough. “Nice doggy,” he muttered. “Go chase a squirrel or two.”

  The dog cocked his head as if it could almost understand Owen’s words and then barked one more time, louder and more ferociously than before. The dog trotted away. It turned its head back toward Owen as if it were glancing at him over its shoulder. It spun and sprinted toward the car, leaping into the air at the last moment. With a bang and a screech, the dog landed on the hood of the car and stood there, facing Owen through the windscreen, head down as if glowering at him.

  “What the hell do you want? I’m all out of Alpo,” muttered Owen.

  The dog took a step forward, claws sliding and skittering across the hood. It crouched and extended its neck until its nose smeared against the windshield. Its lips peeled back, and then it froze there, mid-snarl.

  “Okay, okay. No kids. I get it.” The dog jerked as if its owner was tugging on its lead. It turned and barked, then jumped off the hood and ran into the forest. Owen sat in the passenger seat, shaking his head and sweating. He slid over to the driver’s side and started the car. “You in here, Brigitta?” He waited for a long time, but there was no answer.

  With a sigh, Owen climbed back out of the car, leaving the engine running. “Look, we can go somewhere right now, babe. I’ll only shoot adults. It’ll be fun.” He looked around, hoping to see mist coalescing out of thin air, but there was nothing to see and no reply. “If you’re not coming, that’s cool. We can catch up later.” He got back into the car, and put the car into drive, but kept his foot on the brake pedal.

  When she didn’t answer, he sighed and screeched out onto the macadam, missing the ambulance screaming in the other direction by a few feet.

  5

  Benny opened his eyes, feeling anything but rested. His legs ached, and hot spots burned on the balls of his feet and where his shoes rubbed against the back of his ankle. His mouth tasted funny—like he’d licked a 9-volt battery. He felt feverish and a touch nauseated.

  “Finally awake, boyo?” asked Herlequin.

  Benny moaned. Not a nightmare. “Where’s Billy?” he croaked. He leaned against the trunk of an old beech tree. The tree was huge, and its thick trunk twisted skyward as if someone had wrung it like a towel.

  “How would I know, sport? Omniscience is not in my bailiwick.”

  Benny leapt to his feet, anger thrumming in his veins. “Where’s my brother, you son of a bitch?”

  “Language, Benny,” said Herlequin with a wry smile twisting his grotesque face. “Why do you think I know?”

  “I saw him! Back at my house when you…when you…cheated me!”

  Herlequin laughed, and it sounded brittle, a mockery of mirth. “Cheated you? I did nothing of the kind.”

  “You said if I got out, you would let me go free! I was out of the forest! I got to my house! I saw Billy!” Benny fought the hot tears that wanted to cascade down his cheeks. He fought the rising anger and frustration that threatened to choke him.

  Herlequin patted him on the head as if he were a cute puppy. “Tell me what else you think happened.”

  “It happened! You are a big, fat liar!”

  “Now, now, sport. Let’s not start name-calling.” Herlequin held up a finger like a pedantic father lecturing a child. “First off, you absolutely, positively did not get out of my forest. You did not find your house. You did not see your brother.”

  “Nothing but a liar,” snapped Benny. In the distance, he heard the howling of a dog or a wolf. Then the air split with overlapping howls and snarls as if ferocious beasts surrounded him.

  Herlequin sighed. “Well, now you’ve done it, my boy. You’ve woken them up again.” He spread his hands wide and danced a little jig. “There’s nothing for it, son. You must run again.”

  “What if I won’t?” demanded Benny, hating the pouting, petulant sound of his voice.

  Herlequin smiled and leaned toward him. “Then you will die, and my pets will eat you, Benjamin.” His smile stretched wider, pulling his skin tight across his cheeks. His fangs glistened. “Maybe I’ll eat you up myself, what with your attitude.” A bifurcated tongue darted out to rasp across his lips, leaving a foul, viscous fluid in its wake.

  The howling drew closer, and Benny’s mouth went dry. He got to his feet on shaking legs and spun in a circle. “Which way are they coming from?” he asked in a small voice. “I can’t tell.”
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  “Telling you would be cheating. What fun would that be?”

  Benny spun in a slow circle, but it was no good. The howling, snarling, and yipping still sounded like it was coming from every direction at once.

  “Better get moving, boyo. Better run.”

  “You’ll only cheat me again.”

  Herlequin winked at him. “I never cheated you, sport. Told you that, already. If I mislead you, that’s part of the fun. Of the challenge. How much of a victory would it be if you could just walk out of the forest? No, boyo. This victory, you have to earn.”

  A lone dog stepped out of the trees across the clearing from Benny. Its fur was black, like a Doberman, and like the things that chased him before, it had no eyes. Saliva dripped from the thing's jaws.

  “What is that thing?” asked Benny.

  “One of my daughters, boyo. They love to play this game.”

  Benny’s gaze drifted back and forth between Herlequin and the eyeless dog-thing. “How can that thing be your daughter?” he muttered.

  The thing took a step forward, growling and wrinkling its nose. Herlequin shrugged. “Better get a move on, kiddo.” The dog-thing took another step forward, and suddenly, there were more of them stepping into the clearing behind it.

  Benny turned and ran, his screams echoing through the trees. After too short of a delay, the dogs followed him, yipping and barking happy, playful barks. Behind them, Herlequin laughed and clapped his hands.

  As Benny ran deeper into the dark forest, the trees got closer and closer together. Branches whipped across his cheeks, drawing blood. He sucked in huge gasps of air, his lungs already burning. His feet skittered and slid across tree roots slick with fungus.

  He fell, and one of the dog-things howled. It sounded like a celebration of victory. Benny pushed himself to his feet, panic gripping his mind with blazing fingers. He’d lost all sense of direction in his headlong flight, and every direction looked the same. Which way? a scared, childish voice wailed inside his head. The dogs barked and snarled behind him. He ran on, stumbling across roots hidden in the dim light. His side felt like someone had rammed a white-hot steak knife between his ribs. Tears diluted the blood flowing down his cheeks.