Andrew stared up at the tree, clutching Copper's abandoned spear so tightly his fingers bled. Copper's malformed body was stitched up, pieces from various residents sewn onto it like some kind of demonic quilt. It was covered with hair and feathers and stained with blood, wings sprouting from its back and nailed precariously to the tree. The new Frankensteinesque creation hung from the tree upside-down by its scaly feet.
There was a fog descending upon the village. And Andrew knew what was about to happen. It was a scene from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein replayed with the veryessence of a true nightmare. The body would come to life. Pritchard was coming to finish the job himself.
The eyes set in Copper's mutilated head turned a blazing red. It was happening the residents were coming out of the fog one by one, circling around the tree and chanting like some bizzarre cult. They each held a razor blade and were drawing blood from themselves, leaving it pooled at their feet. The pool of blood slowly expanded until it was touching Andrew's sneakers, seeping inside.
The first one to fall was the pelican from the post office. Then a six foot mouse, covered in blood stained brown fur. They all fell, one by one, all dying of blood loss. It was a furry slaughterhouse.
That's when it happened. The body dropped from the tree and onto the ground, lying limp and pathetic in the pool of blood. Was this Pritchard's attack?
Pritchard had failed. All he had done was bringing a mist upon the village and stitching together a shitty body. That's when Andrew noticed something horrific.
His feet were dry. The body was absorbing the blood off the ground, filling itself up like a gluttonous vampire.
The body slowly staggered to it's feet, stumbling back and forth as though in a nightmarish earthquake only it could feel. A scaly finger pointed itself straight at Andrew's heart like a homing missile. The hissed words that seeped from the body's mouth sounded like a soft yet horrifying, "You..."
And Andrew was off, running as fast as his blood soaked legs could carry him through the village. The creature was gliding after him on its bloody wings,
flying much faster than Andrew could run. It was the ratio of a bullet to an SUV, a hawk against a jackrabbit.
With his miniscule headstart, Andrew was able to crash through the door at his own home and lock it tightly. The door was quivering in its frame as the body pounded against it with the full force of its talons.
"Let me the hell in, you shitty little boy!" The creature rasped through its violent slams. The door couldn't possibly hold up much longer. And there was only one other way out.
Still clutching Copper's spear, Andrew made his way to the fireplace at the end of the room and climbed slowly as the chimney. When he was about eight feet up, he heard the door below him splinter and collapse. The monster had found its way in.
"Where are you, little boy?" The creature howled, climbing up the fireplace like a gecko from hell.
Andrew pulled himself from the bowels of the ash ridden hell of a chimney and onto his roof, gasping for breath.
The body fluttered out of the chimney behind him like a bullet with butterfly wings, slamming down onto the roof next to him. The entire house shook with the weight of the creature, sending Andrew tumbling to the surface of the slanted roof, dangling from the shingles for dear life.
The creature slowly advanced on him, the hissed words spilling from its mouth in a rasy voice, "End of the line boy."
Copper's mouth opened as if to engulf Andrew's head. No, it wouldn't end like this. Pritchard's head came from the back of Copper's throat, taking up his entire mouth like a dog halloween mask.
The truth hit Andrew like a car crash on the freeway. He had seen the man in the news... this was all fake...
Andrew raised the spear, pointing it straight at Pritchard's face with his trembling hand, his other hand was occupied with the seemingly insurmountable task of clutching the roof and avoiding a fifty foot fall. "Don't move, or I'll kill you..." Andrew gasped with his wavering voice.
"Ha!' Pritchard cackled, "I've been watching you for three years! You don't have the balls to do that!"
A dark grin spread across Andrew's face as Pritchard lunged at him, "I'm not the right kid."
It all happened in a flash. The Pritchard's body was impaled on the spear, Andrew standing upright on the roof and clutching it with all his might.
"Have fun in hell, you son of a bitch," Andrew hissed, releasing the spear and letting Pritchard's body fall fifty feet to the ground below.