Insanity? Jack Taggart smiled. The little shits that came by his property had no clue what the word was, or what he went through to gain such a title. He honestly didn't care what others thought of him; with what he went through in his seventy-nine years of living, and with what he witnessed twenty-three years and two days ago, he could give a damn over whether he was seen as the little old man who was sweet or one who was just as cantankerous as can be. After seeing his youngest son being ripped up into the sky like he did, then the events of the following night, he had hardened up.
Claire, his wife of eighteen years, who birthed him two sons, and died of cancer shortly after the younger one reached two, was very different than him. While he was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and a hard-working farmer, she was a former seamstress. Up to when his sons could walk, then begin working on the farm, it was he who took care of it; his wife looked after the young, and the house that they lived in. He did miss that gal. Even after witnessing Billy being taken from him, he hadn't experienced a lapse in memory or pushed her from it—unlike the other old-timers out there, who were either on their death beds or fighting off one or more of them old-age ailments, he was still strong, able, and had full retention of his memory... which was a good thing, because it was beneficial to what he had in mind for the beast when it woke up.
"Billy..." Jack Taggart Sr. breathed.
While training his eye to the thing across from him, he remembered the day where he lost one of his children. Even though a lot had happened over the years, he remembered the events of that day so fluidly. He remembered them so well that he sometimes dreamed them when he took time out to slip under the covers of his small bed; while they caused him constant grief, they also reminded him of what he desired.
At one time in his long life, he was happy. With his having a wife, and two sons, and a farm to call his own, he felt complete. No more worrying about where he was to stay, or whether he or his family would have a roof over their heads, or food in their stomachs, and no more worrying about which bill could be paid and which had to be put off until later. The farm, which use to belong to his father, and was willed to him following his death, provided him and his family with everything that they needed. Sure, he had to repair certain bits of it, and had to do plenty of head shaking and wondering what the fuck he was doing, but he kept it and, what's better, it was still in the family. While he was glad to see the farm as still being in Taggart hands, he couldn't dwell on such niceties—following his son's loss, the word nicety ceased to exist for him.
The police report said that Billy was either "missing" or a "runaway". He wished he could throttle the bastard behind it, because he knew better. He, Jack Charles Taggart, had witnessed the kidnap, and had tried to stop it to no avail. His oldest son, who he and his wife named after him but routinely called Jackie, was there to witness it too. Jackie, who was twenty-three at the time, but was now married and had two children of his own, had seen the creature fly off like a demented moth with his younger brother in its clutches. Like himself, Jackie vowed revenge on the creature and stuck it through to the night where they took it down in a cornfield.
"Dad..! Dad, dad, dad!"
"Billy! Biiilly!"
Even now, sitting on his usual perch, and feeling the late-afternoon breeze strike his backside, he couldn't believe what happened. The shock. The disbelief. The anger. The flood of emotion over losing a child, and the drive to teach the one who stole from him a lesson... It was all enough to drive a man insane and, while he came close to doing so, he retained his sanity by keeping himself focused on his son's memory. The boy who just turned sixteen at the time of his "kidnapping"; the boy who he loved oh so much; and the boy who he was denied the honor of watching grow up, marry, and then father children of his own. Like any other parent who lost a child, he felt an emptiness fill him when it happened, which had never gone away. Even in his dreams, he felt the empty feeling of one being without one of his children. It was like a nagging bee sting; even though the stinger was out, the searing pain was still there and so was the feeling you got after your arm started to react to the poison that was put in it.
Like with the shock over what happened, he couldn't believe who it was that was behind it. The creature before him was like nothing that he had ever seen. It was truly like what the sign professed it as being; what was even creepier was the fact that it had walked the soil and done its merry deed without so much as a hiccup—oh yeah, sure, it had probably encountered some issues along the way during its business, but it continued its business and, thus, claimed somewhere around forty lives. On the night that it was taken down, it was lacking an arm and leg and both of its wings; he and Jackie, thinking that they best collect it over just letting it rot into the dirt, had tracked its parts down and then stowed them away in their truck. Over the course of the following four days, they sewed the limbs back on, then glued the wings to where they thought they should go. It wasn't until later that they decided to rig the thing to the barn's farthest wall.
For close to two decades, and for $5 a pop, people who wished to see the "bat out of hell" could see it. For the ones who wished to snap a picture of it, a further $10 was requested—and they sure paid up that sum; it was either that or they were denied the freakish honor of photographing the beast and granted the privilege of being kicked from the premises. While some of the farm's visitors made comments on it looking fake, others were fascinated by it and by the tale that he and Jackie spun on how it was found and taken down. He still smiled over the bold ones, who were in such disbelief that they tried to touch it to see if it was real.
"Don't touch..." Jack remembered saying to them bold souls.
While he was stern in saying it, he never said it meanly. Or even insisted on the ones who were bold to leave the barn. He was calm while saying this, and he was always honest in answering the question that were presented to him after saying it. For the last eighteen years, he had answered this question so many times that he could probably answer it in his sleep. Was he waiting for something? The answer to that question was always quickly given—a certain amount of days, with an allowance of one to two more for the beast to awaken and for his revenge on it to be given in earnest.
Other than to check up on him from time to time, his son very rarely joined him in waiting for the creature to wake up. Jackie had a family to look after, and he also had the farm to take care of. He understood the man well, thus why he felt no negativity over his not being here to help him when the beast woke up. It was his hound who kept him company when he took to being at his perch. The dog was loyal and alert... a bit too alert these last two days, come to think of it. Like with himself, Ruby's gaze was focused on one thing; once in the barn, and beside his homemade harpoon gun, the set of sad, brown eyes would turn to look at the crucified abomination on the wall.
"Teach you who to mess with, Beast of Hell." Jack spoke softly while the afternoon breeze blew his hair into his face.
It was ironic, but the creature before him was nothing but skin and bones. On the night that it was taken down, it was stout and right fierce. It was no force to play around with, though he and Jackie had sure "played" with it on the night that it went into its weird sleep. He and Jackie had noticed several things about the creature right off after collecting its pieces then beginning the process of putting them back on its body. The skin was dark green, and mostly dry; with it being scaly, they almost considered calling it a reptilian of sorts. The hands ended in prehensile, reptilian hooks, or talons, if one so chose to use such a term, and so did its feet. While the face was obscured by some type of hood, that was webbed, and had hook-like claws on its ends, they remembered it well—the jowls were prominent, and had a possession of needle-like teeth in them; the eyes were blue-gray; and, except for the slit in its center, the nose was almost humanoid in appearance. Except for the patch of long, bushy white hair that sprouted from the back of its head, the creature was bald.
Perhaps the oddest thing about the creature, other than its reptilian features and the hood, was its wings. He and Jackie had noticed that they were batlike in origin, and rather tattered. When stretched out, they had a span of around six feet. How something so heavy was able to use them was beyond the both of them; with the way the creature looked, they were leaning towards two possibilities to what it was.
An alien of sorts, that was just making itself at home on the planet, and using its people as its weird means to stay alive, or a demon who just liked to create trouble. Whatever it was, both he and Jackie had pondered long and hard on whether to torture its sleeping body until it woke up then finish the job or just hang it somewhere and wait until it awoke. In the end, it was Jackie's then girlfriend who made the suggestion that they use the thing as a sort of tourist attraction. After stinking up one of the house's spare bedrooms for five years, it was moved to the barn then nailed up.
"And thus started the adventure of it being an "attraction"." Jack came close to smiling after saying this.
The weather said it was going to rain just before five, and it looked like this was to happen. Along with the breeze bringing the promise of rain, the sun's rays were starting to dissipate. While the light dimmed around him, he looked at the thing to his right. The gun was big, and almost vintage in appearance, and was covered in cobwebs and dust; despite the latter, he knew it would work when he went to use it. While Ruby shuffled to his feet, then shook and turned to look at the house, he remembered how the one harpoon in the gun had come to being made.
After taking Billy, the creature left something behind. A knife, but one that he had never seen before. The handle was, without a doubt, bone, which had been intricately carved into. The knife was sharp as shit, and could cut through butter with ease; while intrigued with the weapon, he was infuriated with the handle's design—he was almost certain that the image carved on it, which depicted a boy running from something, was of his son and he was also sure that the thing that the boy was running from was the creature on the wall. After seeing the thing fly through air, then become embedded in the wall of his living room, he decided to fasten it as the end of a harpoon then use it against its owner—he remembered stabbing the beast numerous times, and then it looking at him as its hood wrapped around its face, but the thing he remembered most was that he was unable to kill it.
"It isn't dead," the pretty, blonde girl said on that night so long ago. "It's time ran out."
"Looks dead to me." Jack remembered saying back.
Even after stabbing it, the doubt was there on whether he really killed it. After getting over his ordeal, then seeing the kids into his truck and going to retrieve his son, he decided to collect the creature. It took close to two hours, but he and Jackie managed to find all the pieces then wrap them up in a canvas bag; some of the kids, who were injured in numerous ways, and more than a little terrified and tired, had wanted it nowhere near them... both he and Jackie forced them to quiet down, and to accept the ride back to the farm. Once the kids were all in the house, and had phoned their folks and gotten most of their injuries tended, he and his son took to removing the creature from the truck's bed then moving it to the room across from Billy's own—to this day, he still swore that it breathed after being nailed to the wall... which was the final shock given to that day's adventure.
Perhaps, this time, when it woke up, he'd be able to kill it. The creature's physique had withered to a point of extreme emaciation within a year, so he was sure that it would have little to no strength to fight him and he was also sure that he'd be able to pay it the way past dues that it deserved.
A smile crossed his face when he remembered the thing that "fell" off the creature. Even now, twenty-three years and two days after it was felled, he continued to think and call it a genderless thing when it did have a gender. Both he and Jackie had cringed when the phallus fell off the creature's emaciated body; neither of them wanted to touch or move it, but they did it to get it out of the house and away from their gaze. Instead of burying it, they burned it—the very idea of burying anything that was owned by the beast was infuriating and revolting, so the option to burn it was the most plausible one the do.
The two of them figured that more parts would fall, and that they'd do to them as they did to the root, but that didn't happen. Over the years, they saw that this was normal—a penis was muscle and, when not used, it dissipated or shrunk in size. While the idea of the creature being an active participant of using that thing was cringe-worthy in itself, he doubted if it had the pleasure of doing so. Going by how it acted on that night that happened so long ago, it probably just toted one around for show. It had no time to use it, Jack thought, and would surely have no interest in using it thanks to how it viewed humanity as its regenerative source.
"Supper!" Jack heard his daughter-in-law, a lovely woman named Abigail, shout from the house.
"Mmmm," Jack mused, while his dog turned to look at him. After the dog pushed his muzzle into the crock of his arm, Jack sighed then started to get up. "Alright, Ruby. We'll go for now but we'll be back."
Maybe it was fate, or the thing on the wall knew of his presence and was waiting for him to turn or take his eyes from it, but it started to arouse from its sleep when he rose from his chair then started to leave. After standing tall, then stretching his stiff bones some, he turned then started the process of leaving the barn. Ruby, an old-breed hound dog, who was bred and raised on the farm, trotted on ahead of him; the dog didn't stop until he heard the sound of the birds, which started faint but grew thunderous in an instant.
Along with counting the days to when the beast woke up, he counted the birds that entered his barn each morning and afternoon. For the last week to week and half, the birds had congregated on or around the abomination. They never pecked at it, or even bothered it; they just landed on one of its outstretched limbs then waited. Waited for their weird friend to awaken, then give them its odd company, he continued to think.
In all, there were twenty to thirty crows in the building. With all of them sounding off like they were, he grew alarmed. While the little hairs on his neck stiffened, and the muscles of his back grew taut, he reached for the first of the barn's door. Even though he told himself to not do it, and to return to his gun, he started sliding the door shut; he was in the process of going to do the same to the other door when he turned to look at the creature. His breath caught in his throat when he saw what he did.
The hood, which had hooked itself around the creature's face, was slowly moving back. The taloned toes on the intact leg were twitching, while the ones on the sewn-on leg were still. The fingers on the hand that was attached to the arm that wasn't lost were stretching, while the ones on the other hand were giving a barely noticeable bit of motion that he thought was flinching. While watching the creature come to life, he grunted then moved to where the gun was; Ruby, who was slowly turning, then returning to the building, started baying once he heard him give the signal. The dog had just reached him when the wings, which were pinned to the wall, dropped to the floor. After getting the gun ready to fire, then getting behind it, he watched as the previously severed arm and leg fell from where they were sewn to; the creature, after the hood retracted and then settled back to where it was before its owner went into its weird hibernation, glared at him before shoving itself from the wall then falling to the floor.
"Enjoy picking the straw from your teeth you Beast of Hell!" Jack yelled while going to touch the trigger of his gun.
The thought of the harpoon becoming embedded in the creature, then of his hearing it give out a sound before dying, came to him for a micro-second. He envisioned his revenge as being complete, and of his taking the creature's remains out to be burned, and of his sleeping good tonight, while the birds took flight. It was them, and them alone, that caused his shot to miss its target. With all of them flying at him, and dropping their feathers on him and grazing him with their feet, he lost his focus. And balance. The birds' calls seemed nonexistent as he got up from where he was, then fought to get to where the gun was; somewhere behind and off to his right, he heard a dog bark, and then yelp. His blood ran cold when the yelp was cut off—Jackie had bred that dog! His son had bred a lot of dogs over the years, but Ruby was special. Unlike the others in the litters bore to the bitches that roamed the farm's grounds, they kept Ruby; to hear the dog's yelp being silenced like it was made him feel an even greater desire to off the creature.
He was just getting to his feet, and sliding the next harpoon in the gun, when his feet were yanked from under him. His balance, which had never fully been regained, was lost for a second time. The second he was on his stomach, he rolled over; his eyes grew large as he watched the beast lunge itself up his body—oh this feeling was as odd as it was repulsive... He was a very straight man, and to know that something that once harbored a penis was crawling up his biball-covered body sickened him. Even though he was disturbed by this event, he wasn't fast enough to stop it. The creature traveled quickly, despite lacking two of its limbs; it had only been two minutes since he went to his gun, then misfired, and it had only been a minute since he was assaulted by the birds and lost his ability to remain upright.
"Jackie! Jackie, Jackie, Jac—"
If not for the creature's sudden movement of throwing itself the final foot up him, then plunging its index and middle finger into his mouth, he would of been successful in attracting his son's attention. Even though he was compelled to look at the creature, he noticed something behind it that made his already cold blood run even colder—the birds had returned to the barn. They weren't only feasting on the discarded limbs of the creature but were also having a merry ol' time with his dog, who looked to of been torn to pieces!
Shit! Jack thought after he turned his attention back to the creature, who was now staring him in the eye.
The anger present when it went into its weird sleep was still there, but the eyes were different. Instead of being the color that he remembered them being, they were close to being white. It was almost like they were covered in film, which made him wonder if it could see or not. The jowls were no longer prominent, and the face was no longer full. The hair on the back of the creature's head was still there, but it was so light that he could barely detect any of its previous color. While trying to wrestle the fingers from his mouth, and roll over, he saw the birds fighting over the "meal" that was given to them—crows were known scavengers, but he thought that these were a new species. Perhaps, they and the creature had a relationship going on where, whenever it lost or discarded one of its body parts, they would go to devour them, thus making them be like some weird parasite that depended on another for survival.
"Ge... oph... m—" Jack started to say around the fingers in his mouth.
The creature's eyes fell from his own only when it went for his arm. A little over twenty-three years ago, it lost its right arm after it went through a truck; he guessed that it decided to use him as its first victim, because it dove towards his arm then gnawed it off. He screamed while the needle-like teeth punctured his flesh, then split bone from bone. A puddle formed where his arm was a second later, then he grew to being faint as the creature pushed itself away from him then shoved his arm down its throat. While turning, then crawling away, he witnessed how the lost arm regenerated from the place where it use to be; he was just gearing up to yell for help when the creature's hand wrapped around his left leg.
"Aaaahhh!" Jack bellowed in pain as his leg was split from his body.
Once his leg was gone, and then, presumably, devoured and used like the arm was, he felt light. The idea of calling out for help escaped him. He felt like he was clean. All the impurities that he carried were pouring out from the two areas that were bleeding. As the creature behind him stood on its weak sticks for legs, then shook itself like a dog, he envisioned himself as seeing his wife and son again. The place where Billy and Claire were was beautiful, Jack thought, and he was about to join them. The regret that he felt over not being able to avenge his son's death was never thought of; while being passed by the thing that claimed his son's life, and that used him as its first means of regaining what it lost, he thought of how wonderful he felt and of how happy he felt to now be able to see the two that he lost more than two decades ago.
"Go home, Little Lamb, for the Wolves will getcha if you don't." Jack said while his vision failed him. As he breathed the last breaths that he'd ever breath on Earth, he watched as the creature stumbled down the path that led from the barn; before going into his final sleep, he saw that it was headed towards the cornfield.