Consequence Page 7

  Toby readjusted his grip on the tomahawk and made a straight line for his truck. He stuck low to the ground and looked all around as he scooted to the vehicle. Smoke dominated the air when he closed in, and he tried breathing through his mouth; however, it only ensured the acrid stench invaded his taste buds.

  “Chuck?” he whispered.

  The truck shook again, as if someone in the bed thrashed with renewed vigor. A muffled cry escaped from the bed, but Toby couldn’t understand the words. However, the voice contained the high-pitched tone of Chuck.

  “Chuck!” Toby said louder.

  He stood and looked into the truck’s bed. His mind cracked slightly under the pressure of what awaited him.

  Like Dave, Chuck lacked the flesh from around his mouth, and his teeth peeked through blood and gore in a horrible smile. Unlike Dave, Chuck still retained his eyes, although they had turned completely black with bits of burning orange light which shone through like dull stars.

  Chuck emitted a muffled sound reminiscent of a snigger. He hopped up to his feet and towered over Toby. Chuck spread his arms wide in a sweeping gesture.

  “Welcome to the party, Toby Dick,” Chuck said. The man’s voice sounded like gravel scratching across a chalkboard and made Toby’s ears ring. He took a step back and readied the tomahawk.

  Black, viscous blood burst from Chuck’s chest as the report from Brock’s muzzleloader blasted into the air. The impact rocked Chuck back onto his heels and caused the truck to shift under the man’s heavy weight, but Chuck remained upright. The smiling Viking looked to his new wound and then out into the field. He waved.

  “Hey, Brock. Nice shot,” Chuck croaked.

  Chuck used a crooked and elongated finger with a wicked looking talon and dipped it into the bullet hole. The smile on the thing’s face grew wider, and it let out a sound which could have been a giggle.

  “Kinda tickles,” Chuck said.

  The giant took a step, bounded from the truck, and landed next Toby. When he landed, his body crumpled to the ground and then sprung back up, as if he were a marionette. Toby took a couple more steps back from his former friend. The Chuck thing moved toward him, hunched over and low to the ground, like some sort of primordial ape-man. Chuck’s laugh echoed into the night.

  “What’s a matter, buddy? Don’t want to give me hug? Do I stink?”

  Fear and sadness slithered into Toby’s body. Two friends gone in the last few hours and another injured. All means of transportation lay burnt and destroyed, and hundreds of miles of wild terrain separated Toby from his family. The tomahawk’s weight hung from his hand, but he didn’t think it would do much against Chuck.

  Half of the giant’s face disappeared when another crack of a muzzleloader shot rang into the air. This time Chuck whipped to the side and fell to a knee. Toby took advantage of the opportunity and stepped in. He led with a hard blow from the tomahawk. Chuck’s hand shot up, caught Toby’s wrist in mid-strike, and clamped down like a constrictor.

  He turned his head and looked back at Toby. The bullet had ripped through his cheek and blown away a portion of his jaw, as well as one of his eyes. The black ichor of Chuck’s blood dripped down his neck and chest. Chuck tried to smile, but it looked lopsided and broken. The specks of orange light burned hotter in its dark eye.

  Chuck opened his mouth and spoke to Toby without moving his jaw.

  “Not very nice. I’ll have to teach you a lesson in manners, Toby Dick,” Chuck said.

  Chapter Seven

  There was another slam against the front door and a loud crack. The door swung open, and wind from outside swept into the house. Linda stole a glance but couldn’t tell who it was.

  “Someone else to play with,” the creature said.

  A tall figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted in the ambient light.

  “Leave us alone,” Linda said, holding Sebastian tight against her body.

  “Linda!” a deep voice thundered from the doorway.

  Lightning flashed outside and illuminated the stranger. For half a moment, she thought Toby stood there, and a sigh of relief escaped her lungs. With another flash, she realized her mistake.

  The man in front of her looked like Toby, tall and bald; however, the person was an older version of her husband. Plus, Toby didn’t sport a large bushy mustache and goatee reminiscent of Colonel Sanders, round circle glasses included.

  It was Toby’s father, Evard.

  “Linda! Sebastian!” Evard said, “Come here quick.”

  The creature sneered and crawled closer to Linda and the boy. It stared at Evard while it moved. Its eyes narrowed with hate.

  “Wait your turn, old man,” it said.

  Evard took another step forward and lifted his arm. A slight glow burned from his fingertips, as if his hand was a light bulb, and his fingers were the filaments. The living room flickered under the light of Evard’s power as more and more of it coalesced around his hand.

  Linda couldn’t believe it. It was almost too much to process. Between the creature in the hall, and Evard’s—well, whatever Evard did—her mind decided to call it quits. Only Sebastian mattered. She held him close and shielded the child with her body.

  “It looks like I’ll play with you first.”

  The thing sneered and diverted its path toward Evard.

  “Enough,” Evard said.

  His voice boomed with authority, and the house shook under the weight of his command.

  The light in his hand went white hot and blasted the darkness to oblivion. Linda shut her eyes and looked away, but the brilliance still reached her. Its warmth rolled across her body like clothes fresh from the dryer.

  Linda’s eyes snapped open when Evard let out a small grunt of pain. He stumbled into the wall and knocked the lamp to the ground, yet somehow continued to attack the creature with his outstretched hand.

  The creature let out a shrill cry, which choked into a gurgle. The thing writhed on the floor and covered its face with its one good arm; however, the flesh burned away under Evard’s power. The glow pinwheeled and sent a kaleidoscope of light against the walls and floor.

  Linda tried to understand what was happening but couldn’t. Evard’s power invigorated her body with warmth and relief, but the thing on the floor contrasted the feeling with hatred and cold. It held a bony arm up in a feeble defense; bits of muscle hung off the arm like a tattered tarp. The creature’s inhuman scream cut through the small house and sounded like a teakettle whistle mixed with a hawk’s cry.

  Evard closed his hand, and the light dimmed for a second. The air in the room seemed to flow toward him like a vacuum, as if the house itself sucked in a lungful of air. Then, the world exhaled.

  Evard spread his palm and let the power loose once again. The creature tried to roll away, but the glow raced over it like a blanket of lava and burnt it to a crisp within seconds. Evard grunted, and the light faded away.

  It took Linda’s eyes a moment to focus in the dark. Sebastian clutched her leg, and she held him. The lightning flashed again and revealed only a pile of ash and bone on the floor.

  “Are you okay?” Evard asked.

  “Evard?” Linda asked.

  “Yes, are you okay?” Evard asked again, “Is Sebastian okay?”

  Evard leaned against the wall and tried to catch his breath. Sweat poured down his face and neck and saturated the neckline of his T-shirt. He wiped his brow with his sleeve and stood up as he flexed his hand. After a moment, he took his jacket off and held it in his arm.

  Linda took a step toward Evard, and Sebastian dislodged himself from her but still stayed close. Linda kept her distance from Evard, thankful the thing no longer threatened her but wary of what just occurred. It was too much to process, and she couldn’t organize her thoughts.

  “What was that?” Linda asked.

  “I don’t know. I
think whatever caused the quake and the storm let it loose.”

  “It was the man who lives in the corner,” Sebastian whispered.

  Evard furrowed his brow and looked to Sebastian. He knelt next to the boy and laid a hand on the child’s shoulder.

  “You’ve seen it before?” Evard asked.

  Sebastian nodded but then looked at Linda. Hesitance seeped through the boy’s eyes. She sighed, forced a meek smile to her lips, and hugged him.

  “Go ahead, it’s okay,” Linda said.

  “Sometimes he would stand in the corner, and sometimes he would stand right over me and watch. But he always went away when the lights came on,” Sebastian said. “Daddy said it was a bad dream. But it wasn’t a bad dream, was it?”

  Evard stayed silent. Perhaps the old man believed the boy’s crazy story, although it was hard not to believe it, given that the story almost killed them. She couldn’t put her finger on real or unreal anymore, and that thought was the most frightening of all.

  “No, it wasn’t just a dream,” Evard said.

  “Is the man gone? For good?” Sebastian asked.

  “I think so,” Evard said.

  Evard stood up and looked at Linda. He moved toward her, and she instinctively shrugged away from his touch. Linda moved Sebastian a little bit further away from him.

  Evard stopped his advance and pulled his hand back. His shoulders slumped, and he plopped onto the couch.

  “I’m here to help,” he said.

  Exhaustion leaked through his voice and settled around his body. She remained quiet; she didn’t know what to say. Toby and Evard had drifted away from each other after Kelly died. Evard’s condition and propensity for violence drove a wedge between father and son. Linda knew the kind of things Evard was capable of. After seeing this last display of power, she wanted even less to do with him. She didn’t want to imagine what he could do to Sebastian in the wrong circumstances.

  “What did you do to it?” Linda asked.

  “What I could,” Evard replied. “Have you heard from Toby?”

  Jesus, Toby! Linda raced to the bedroom with Sebastian in tow. Evard followed right behind.

  “Wait! You don’t know what’s in there.”

  Linda didn’t care. She needed to get in touch with Toby. She burst through the door into the bedroom. Lightning stuttered outside and machine gun blasted the walls with its strobe-like effects.

  A wispy figure reached out at her and brushed her chest with its cool touch. She screamed and fell backward and almost rolled over Sebastian. He let out a sharp cry and moved to the side.

  Evard burst into the room and looked down to Linda. He held a large revolver in one hand and assumed a crouched shooting stance. The storm ravaged the dark interior with another light show, and the ghostlike assailant moved. Evard drew the gun down on the figure but then relaxed.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  “But, something grabbed me,” Linda said.

  Her heart pounded hard against her chest. She saw it in her mind’s eye, a bulge in her chest getting bigger and bigger until some puppet creature broke free and ran into the dark.

  The power kicked back on and exposed her attacker. The drapes from the window blew around and twisted in the wind. Broken glass lay strewn about the floor in a chaotic puzzle and caught the light of the receding storm’s lightning.

  “Must have broken in the quake,” Evard said.

  “Yeah, must have,” Sebastian echoed.

  Evard smiled at the boy, and Sebastian’s mouth turned up into a small grin.

  Linda grabbed her phone and called Toby. Each ring droned on for what seemed like hours until finally the other end picked up.

  “Toby! Honey! Are you okay?” Linda asked.

  “This is Toby. I’m not here right now. You know the drill.”

  A long beep sounded off after Toby’s recorded message. Linda ended the call and tried again but found the same results.

  “I tried already,” Evard said.

  Linda looked up at the old man’s aged face. Wrinkles carved canyons from the man’s eyes through his forehead and down his cheeks. Liver spots dotted his face and hands like dark, oversized freckles. Even his mustache and goatee looked old, with wispy strands of grey and white hair that shot wildly in every direction.

  Evard caught her look. “Using that kind of energy can sometimes take a lot from me. We need to get out of here, away from the city.”

  “You think there might be more of those things?” she asked.

  Evard nodded, and Sebastian looked around to all the corners of the room as if he expected another nightmare to crawl out of the darkness at any moment.

  “What’s going on?” Linda asked to no one in particular.

  “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling it’s only going to get worse.”

  As if on cue, a car alarm sounded down the street followed by a gunshot. Linda ducked low and grabbed Sebastian who fought to get his head free and look out the window. The old man peered out into the darkness, his gun in one hand while he flexed his other hand. He whipped his head toward Linda and put a finger to his mouth.

  “Shhhh.”

  More gunshots blasted in the street followed by low-pitched screams. Evard crept along the wall and flicked the lights off. Two more shots were fired, and the screams ended.

  Evard turned to Linda. She could read the look on his face like a billboard. His eyes were wide, and the sweat started to pour again. His lips trembled slightly when he talked.

  “We need to go, now,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Chuck tightened his grip on Toby’s wrist and gave a smile that reminded him of a jack-o-lantern. Unnatural cold cut through his arm, and Toby’s grip loosened on the tomahawk. Chuck gave Toby’s arm a violent shake, and the weapon flew from his grasp.

  “That’s better. Now we can be friends again,” Chuck said.

  Toby tried to reply, but Chuck stood and lifted him up off the ground. His arm stretched to its limit and pain crackled through the joint. Toby let out cry of pain and tried to get away to no avail. Chuck was a strong man in life, but this was something else. Something unnatural.

  “Uh-huh,” Chuck said.

  He brought a crooked talon up to his mouth and shook it from side to side. “It’s time to shut up and listen, Toby Dick. I’d hate for you to say something you’d regret.”

  Toby flexed his hand. He fought through the pain and tried to fill it with power. The Viking growled and jerked on Toby’s caught arm. The jolt snapped Toby’s head back, and the small amount of energy he gathered, dissipated.

  “I don’t think so, buddy. ‘Fraid you don’t get to play wizard for a while.”

  Chuck slammed him into the bed of the truck. All the air whooshed from his lungs, and stars exploded in his vision when his head smacked the hard surface. The shocks groaned under Chuck’s weight when he jumped up into the back of the truck and sat on the edge. Toby fought to catch his breath as Chuck settled in.

  “Well, T.D., guess what?”

  “What?” Toby replied. He tried to sit up, but Chuck placed one of his massive boots on his chest and pushed him back down.

  “Quit squirming there, you’re making me anxious. Now, where were we?”

  Chuck put a finger in the air and opened his eyes wide. For a brief moment, the small specks of orange light brightened.

  “Oh, yes! Guess what?”

  Toby wrestled with Chuck’s foot, but it would have been as easy to wrestle with a steel beam.

  “We’re going to be buddies again! Isn’t that great? Of course, the initiation is a little… taxing,” Chuck said and motioned to his own face. “But the payoff is worth it.”

  “I’d rather die, you piece of shit,” Toby said through clenched teeth.

  The smiled disappeared from Ch
uck’s face, and he stood up. The pressure on Toby’s chest doubled as Chuck bent down low and whispered.

  “I’d rather kill you, to be honest. Tear your heart out and feast on every organ inside your pitiful skin sack. But orders are orders, and It wants you.”

  Toby stopped struggling as the words sunk in. Death seemed like a better option. He tried to harness the energy again, and Chuck snarled, picked him up, and slammed him down. Toby’s vision doubled. His ears started ringing, and the taste of blood filled his mouth.

  “What the fuck did I tell you?” Chuck asked.

  Toby groaned and tried to lift his head, but the night sky tilted back and forth whenever he opened his eyes. Chuck crouched low, and his long arms—somehow longer than usual—dragged against the metal of the truck.

  Brock fired again and took a piece of Chuck’s neck off, which caught the Viking’s attention. The big man let out a low growl.

  “That idiot, on the other hand, is fair game,” Chuck said.

  The truck bounced when Chuck jumped out. Toby sat up and dragged himself to the edge of the bed. Chuck loped across the glade and ran with his arms loose at his sides. Brock pulled the other rifle up and took another shot. It missed. The bullet slammed into the truck inches from Toby, and hot lead shattered into a thousand pieces. Small shards cut into him and pain pinwheeled through his face as he fell back into the truck.

  His hand trembled as he reached up to his head. When he pulled away his fingers, they came away covered in blood. Brock’s cry cut through the open mountain air and bounced off the trees. Toby lifted himself up again and tried to focus on the two.

  Chuck rained down a series of savage blows onto Brock’s prone body as if he were an enraged gorilla. Brock tried to fend them off, but Chuck was too strong and fast. Chuck slapped Brock’s hands away and then grabbed the man’s wounded leg. Brock’s scream of pain echoed through the canyon.

  Chuck dragged him by his leg toward camp.