CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Screaming at the Dark"

Ash's eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright in the dirt. His gaze drifted around, trying to focus in the fading light of dusk. He had been unconscious for a long time apparently, and his body felt a bit better, but that soon became irrelevant, as Ash realized that it WAS in fact, dusk. He did not want to spend another night here, so he got to his feet, then remembered the possession and looked himself over, searching internally for anything… out of place.

"It's gone…" Ash mumbled to himself, then looked at the horizon through the trees. "Sun must've driven it away." He said, smiling a bit in relief. The relief was short-lived though, as he realized that the sun was indeed still setting. "Better blow outta here before nightfall though."

The tires squealed and the car rocketed forward down the old road that he and his friends had come down the day before, and Ash feverishly wiped the crusty blood and other fluids off himself as he drove. He had no idea what he would tell the authorities… and tried not to think about what he would tell his mother about Cheryl… "Oh God, Cheryl… Linda, Scotty…" He said to himself, trying to keep himself from freaking out. His friends were all dead, and he was going to have to explain all this. Then a thought occurred to him. The dream he'd had, about waking up in the back of the car… Was that reality? Had he just come up here with Linda and the others WERE made up? He racked his brain, but somehow, the answer eluded him… He remembered them all, but he ALSO remembered a life with just Linda…

His thoughts were interrupted though, as he saw the bridge ahead and slammed on the brakes. "Oh no…" He said.

Ash climbed out of the car, staring in disbelief at the structure ahead. "NO!" He shouted, pounding on the roof of the car. The bridge was indeed still destroyed. Ash fell against the car, and remembered himself and Cheryl finding it the night before, and he knew then that it had all been real. He wasn't dreaming, and if he was… Would probably never wake up. That's when the feeling came over him again. He'd felt it a few times last night, but had been too busy to analyze it. A creeping feeling that he needed to run. Fast. He'd felt it this morning too, when the door of the cabin had busted out and he'd been thrown all the way out into the woods… That thing in the woods, the Evil force itself must have been responsible, and he could FEEL it coming now.

The thing in the woods was hungry again. It was furious over the burning of the book, and in it's weakened state, couldn't withstand the sun, but now, as the sun drifted down below the horizon, it knew it could go after the last one again… It roared up the Cliffside towards the wrecked bridge where the Ashley one's car was, calling out for him.

Ash jumped back into the car, slammed it in reverse, and stomped the pedal, looking over his shoulder to drive. The car sped backwards and he knew the thing was getting closer. He had no idea where it was, or if he could even see it if he looked, but he dared not find out. He just sped back towards the only cover he knew of… The Cabin. As much as he didn't want to go back there, he knew that it was his only chance. Ash yanked the wheel to the left and the car spun, sliding on the dirt road sideways a bit, then stopped.

...

The thing in the woods saw the car screech to a halt, and it zoomed forward with renewed interest, almost right on top of Ashley now.

...

Ash stomped on the gas pedal again, and the car shot forward, back onto the road going forward now. Ash couldn't help himself, and stole a look over his shoulder, night falling FAR too quickly around him to be normal, and he knew that the thing was growing strong again. He peered back, but saw nothing, so he turned back to the road.

Too late.

Ash cried out in surprise and slammed on the brakes. The bumper struck the wood-chopping stump in front of the Cabin and Ash felt himself fly forward, crashing through the windshield. He hit the ground and rolled, dazed, but conscious somehow. Ash got to his feet, feeling like he'd bruised a rib, but miraculously was not hurt.

Ash stumbled towards the door to the cabin, feeling that the thing was still coming for him. He heard the rear window of the car shatter too now and knew it was right on his heels. Ash reached the door, slamming it behind him, but the door broke open once more before he could lock it, and he backed away, not sure what to do, so he ran. He ducked into one of the side rooms and didn't look back, running for all he was worth and slamming doors behind him all the way.

...

The thing in the woods was furious. It would never have had this much trouble keeping up if the book hadn't been burned, but somehow it felt its strength returning to it as time went on, and it smashed open the doors Ashley had closed in front of it. Finally, it burst through the door into the main room of the cabin, but found it empty.

The thing looked around, but it simply had lost sight of Ashley. Its unsecured strength failing it now, the thing roared in anger and zoomed back out into the woods, leaving the cabin behind.

...

Inside the cabin, all was quiet now. The furniture was unmoving, the forest outside was still silent as before, and the clock once again stopped ticking even. Then, a creaking sound split the silence, and the cellar door slowly lifted. Ash, shaking like a leaf, peered out to find the room empty, but also felt alone once more, the thing in the woods was gone.

He climbed out cautiously, making his way to the door and shutting it, locking the latch once more.

...

A few miles away, Ed's car pulled up the long, lonely road to the cabin, but stopped at the sight of a pickup truck parked in the middle of the road ahead. He frowned and got out, Annie close behind. They approached the truck and saw the driver in front of it, setting up a roadblock with a blinking light on top.

"Excuse me." Annie said, and the man turned to look at her. He was a heavy-set man, sweaty with disheveled hair. He wore a white tee shirt covered in grease stains, and a pair of blue overalls as well. A set of army dog-tags hung from his neck.

Jake was a lazy man by nature, he'd just been raised that way. One would think that his time in the military would have fixed this, and he loved talking about his time in "the war", but the fact is, Jake had never been in the military. The tags he wore were his grandfather's from World War II, and he just wore them to pick up girls at the bar. He hated city folk, as they were the ones who called him out on his story most of all…

"Excuse me." Annie repeated, and Jake simply popped a cigarette into his mouth, nodding to her. "Is this the road to the Knowby Cabin?" She asked.

Jake nodded again. "That's right, but you aint goin' there." He said, his thick southern accent shining through.

Annie frowned, crossing her arms. "And why not?"

Jake just smirked, and reached through the window of his truck, flipping on the headlights. The beams split through the dark ahead, illuminating the trashed remains of the bridge.

"Good God…" Ed said, amazed.

"There's gotta be another way in." Annie said, looking to Jake for an answer. "There's gotta be a road or something, right?"

Jake looked as though he was about to blow her off, but a voice from behind the group caught their attention. "Sure ain't no road…"

The group turned and saw a woman now leaning against the truck, chewing tobacco. She spit and leaned back again. "What the hell you wanna go up there for anyway?" She was an attractive woman, but wore FAR too much makeup for her own good, with overly loud eye-shadow, bright lipstick, and blush that made it look like someone had taken pliers to her cheeks.

Annie immediately hated her. She placed her hands on her hips, shooting her a look. "None of your business."

The woman looked thrown that someone hadn't just immediately answered her question, and looked as though she wanted to hit Annie already.

Fearing a fight, Jake quickly stepped in. "Hey, I just remembered!" He said, nervously chuckling, exposing several missing teeth in the front of his mouth. "Yeah, that's right, there is a trail. You could follow Bobby-Jo and me."

"Sounds alright to me." Ed said, looking from Annie to the others.

"It'll cost ya though…" Jake mumbled.

Annie sighed. "How much?" she asked spitefully. These dumb hicks were starting to piss her off now.

"Forty-five-" Jake started, but halted as his girl elbowed him. "Uh… Hundred buck." he finished.

Annie thought it over, and an idea occurred to her. She glanced back at the car, motioning to it with her head. "Tell you what, you take my bags and you got a deal."

Jake moved to the car and peered inside, seeing Annie's carry-on bag and the display case with the pages inside, but obviously did NOT see the large crate of clothes Ed had put in the trunk earlier. He chuckled. "Sure!" He said enthused.

Annie and Ed both chuckled as well, knowing what he'd just agreed to.

...

Ash jerked in the rocking chair, awoken by something he couldn't remember. He looked around the main room of the cabin and relaxed a bit, seeing he was still alone. It had been hours since he'd eluded the thing in the woods, and he'd used that time to crudely patch up the doors to secure his stronghold. He'd also used the kitchen table to board up the windows of the main room, even going so far as to fix the cellar door so that he could keep it closed, the memories of Cheryl tormenting him from within too fresh in his mind to stand it sitting open.

Ash couldn't shake the feeling of unease that had woken him up though, so he got to his feet, peering out the front, right-side window of the house, searching for any movement in the trees. Nothing was there though. He was about to look away, when he saw the cross on Linda's gravesite tip over. Ash watched in horror as a hand burst up from the ground, and Linda's headless corpse followed soon after. He hadn't been able to bring himself to finish her off, so she was returning yet again to torment him… Linda's head came rolling up the hill next to the graves, and her body bent at the hips, dipping down and allowing the head to latch onto the neck stump. She then waved to Ash, giggling and she began to dance, twirling and moving between the trees in a macabre beauty. Ash felt his heart sink as he watched this, for Linda's body was now back to the way she'd looked when she was alive, and her clothing was tatters of cloth draped across her naked form. Then, Shelly's grave stirred, and her hacked-up parts rose into the air, re-assembling as well. Ash blinked, and in that short time, Shelly was back together, looking alive as well, smiling at him as she joined Linda's dance.

The two women touched, watching Ash as they did so, clearly trying to illicit a reaction. They giggled the same, eerie, echoing laugh as they danced with one-another, their bodies rubbing together. Eventually, the dancing façade ended, and they simply began to touch one-another all over. Ash's first impulse was, of course, to watch, but then their bodies began to whither, wrinkle, and rot back to the way the demons had made them. Ash looked away, biting his lip. After a moment, he looked back, and Shelly's corpse glanced over her shoulder at him, grinning a rotten-toothed smile before kissing Linda, then crumbling back into her hacked-up form. The pieces of Shelly slid back beneath the dirt, and Linda looked at Ash, her body now gray, rotten and withered like the corpse she was. All aside from her head, which looked exactly the same as it did in life.

After a moment, she leapt off the top of the hill and vanished into the trees, an echoing laugh lingering in the air, then the woods returned to silence. Ash leaned closer to the boards, peering between them to give himself a wider range of sight. Suddenly, Linda popped up right in front of the window and snarled at him, her eyes blank white and her teeth sharp like a shark. "DANCE WITH ME!" She snarled.

She began giggling again and reached through the boards, grabbing Ash by the sides of the head. She yanked him hard, smashing his face against the boards painfully. Ash grabbed at her hands, wrenching them off him and backing away from the window, screaming in terror as her head simply rolled off her neck, blood shooting up from it like a fountain.

Ash's eyes opened and he screamed in terror uncontrollably in the rocking chair, his hands clutching the arms of it in a death-grip. He panted, feeling the cold sweat beading down his brow, and his head shot towards the boards on the window he'd dreamed of standing next to, but saw nothing there now. None of it had happened, the Demons were just trying to screw with his mind again. "Just a dream ya idiot…" He mumbled to himself. "You're fine… It's alright…"

Something plummeted from the roof and landed right in Ash's lap. He looked down, screaming again when he saw what it was. Linda's head looked up and smiled inhumanly wide with those shark teeth again. "Hello lover." She said, then chomped down onto his hand. Ash screamed and jumped up from the chair, swinging his arm wildly, smashing the head against the nearby fireplace mantle. Linda refused to release him though, and Ash fell to his knees, grabbing her head by the hair in agony. Suddenly, through the pain, a plan formed in his mind. "Workshed!" He exclaimed.

Outside, the door of the workshed burst open and Ash stormed in, feeling out the work bench with his free hand in the dark. The pain was agonizing, and blood was now running down his right arm freely as he finally located the vice he'd been looking for. He shoved Linda's head into the clamp, and spun the tightening handle, then ripped his hand free, taking a few teeth with it. Linda spit blood and variously colored fluids, giggling at him as he hit the light to see what he was doing easier. "Even now we have your darling Linda's soul! She suffers in TORMENT!"

Ash glared down at this thing before him that had stolen Linda's face… Had taken her away from him. The thing in the woods didn't have a body, didn't have something for him to shoot, stab or chop up… This thing here though… This thing he could hurt. "You're going down!" He shouted, reaching up for the chainsaw, but found nothing. "Chainsaw…" Ash mumbled, looking around for where he'd left it.

The door to the shed burst open again and a loud revving of an engine split through the silence of the space. The chainsaw fired up and Linda's headless corpse lunged at him, brandishing the saw out in front of it. Ash recoiled in fear, desperately grabbing the first sturdy thing he could, a crowbar. He held it up in front of him and the saw's spinning blade connected, sending sparks flying as Ash shoved the blade back. Linda's body was thrown off balance and Ash struck before it had time to react. The chainsaw, heavy in Linda's body's weakened arms, fell back towards the body and the whirling chain sunk right into the neck hole, ripping down into her midsection, spraying Ash with blood and bits of gore. He groaned and tackled the body to the ground, grabbing the saw and gaining control of it to finish the job and chop Linda's body to pieces.

After a moment of catching his breath, he turned off the chainsaw and yanked it from Linda's hands, standing up and looking down at her head, still alive on the vice. Now though, it looked like Linda again, and was crying. Ash backed away, not in surprise though, as he was used to their tricks… But he just couldn't take looking at her any more. "Please Ash, please don't hurt me. You swore we'd always be together! I love you!"

"I… I love you too, Linda." Ash said, then yanked on the Chainsaw's rip-chord to start it up.

Linda's face contorted and reverted to the Demon's face again, knowing it wasn't going to be able to trick him. "Your lover is mine… and now she burns in HELL!" It screamed at him.

With renewed anger, Ash furrowed his brow, clenched his jaw. "Alright, that's how you wanna play it? OKAY!" He screamed at it. He revved the saw up full-blast and rammed the tip of the blade into the Demon's face, refusing to look away as the blade ripped violently into the head, shattering bone and spraying bits of flesh and brain all over the workshed, a torrent of blood and Demon bile spraying so thick it hit the single naked light bulb and colored everything in the shed in a red filter.