Chapter 14
No Rest For The Wicked
The cold wind stung Ashley's face as he stepped out into the damp night air. Each step seemed heavier, carrying Linda's dead weight wasn't helping and every part of his body ached. On the whole, he wasn't doing all that hot.
Ash chose a mound of loose soil on a hill overlooking the cabin. He lay down Linda's body and grabbed a spade from the work shed. Upon returning, Linda was still lying as still as before. Ash thrust the blade of the shovel into the earth and started to dig.
Meanwhile the current sole resident of the cabin, Cheryl, was growing impatient. She had been locked down in the cellar for to long and was feeling ready to leave. She was pulling the door up and down, up and down, rattling its hinges to the point of snapping. Very gradually, A link in the chain keeping her confined in the root cellar began to give under the strain. A weak link was all it would take. Very slowly it began to come apart.
Ash was almost done with the grave. It was shallow, only two or three feet deep, but a grave nonetheless. Besides, he didn't want to spend anymore time out in the open than he had to. Then he paused. It felt as someone was standing behind him, watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck tickled slightly. He turned slowly, clutching the shovel. There was nothing, nothing save Linda's limp form. He looked at her body. She was dead, she had to be. Ash turned away and continued to dig.
Cheryl pounded away at the door, slavering like a wild animal. The weak link finally snapped and the door flew open. Cheryl howled in triumph. She was free.
Ash felt it again, a strange prickling at the back of his neck. Something was toying with him. He whipped around again, still finding nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the body of his dead girlfriend. Ashley dropped the shovel. It was time to lay Linda to rest. He slowly walked over, like there were lead weights in his shoes. He choked back a sob as he lifted Linda up and carried her towards the grave. It was odd, how a simple hole in the ground could inspire so much sadness and grief. Ash slowly lay Linda in the hole, kissed her frozen lips and climbed out. He sat there, his legs dangling over the lip of the hole for a few seconds, trying to catch his breath. Slowly he stood and once more grabbed the shovel, slowly filling in the grave and burying Linda under shovelful after shovelful of dirt and mud.
The task was finally done. He stood over the filled in grave, staring at the loose mound of earth and makeshift cross made from two wooden planks lashed together he had made. This was all there was to mark Linda's final resting place. He patted down the earth with the shovel and turned to leave. Ash paused. Maybe he should say something. He stood over the grave, trying to find words, but none came to him. Ash looked down and something caught his eye. It was Linda's necklace. Trembling, he reached down and picked it up. The relevance of this was lost on him when Linda's hand burst from the soil and wrapped around his wrist.
Ash screamed as Linda rose from the soil, howling like a cat. Blasting the dirt out of the hole, she clutched at Ashley's wrist until he managed to tear it free. Ash screamed again and turned to run, but Linda wrapped a hand around his left calf and clawed at it with her other hand, tearing long gashes in his pants and the skin beneath. Blood flowed freely as Ash kicked himself loose, howling in pain as he struck the ground. Linda was right behind him. Ash grabbed a large, hefty branch from the ground and swung it like a baseball bat. It connected, sending Linda stumbling back. Ash scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his lower leg and swung the branch again, and again, each blow striking her across the face. She cackled as Ash thrust the wooden club at her. Linda caught it, starting a game of tug-of-war between the two. Ash gripped the branch, pulling with all his might until Linda suddenly let go. The sudden release caused Ash to drop the branch and stumble backwards, landing in next to the shovel. Linda started to lurch towards him. "Come to me" she screeched and leaped through the air at him as Ash gripped the shovel by the handle. At that point the adrenaline coursing through Ashley's body hit some primitive gland in his brain and he lost all conscious awareness of what was happening. He became a more primitive version of himself, reacting purely on impulse like his Cro-Magnon forefathers. Cro-Magnon Ash let out a howling grunt that twentieth century Ash had never heard before but could easily be translated as "get me the hell out of here". Without another thought, Ash swung the shovel through the air like a sword, with enough force to cleave clean through the skin muscle and bone of someone's neck, which is exactly what it did.
Linda's twitching body collapsed on top of Ash's like a lover, while her still grinning head rolled down the embankment and into darkness. Ash shoved Linda's remains off of himself, letting her collapse back into the recently vacated grave. He hauled himself to his feet, wincing as pain shot through his wounded calf. With a final pang of regret, Ash shoveled the last of the soil over Linda's finally still body. He wasn't sure he had it in him to go find the head right now. Ash started back to the relative safety of the cabin at a quick, limping gait.
Ash half walked, half collapsed through the door of the cabin, panting heavily and leaving a trail of blood behind him as he dragged his injured leg across the floor. It took him a moment to realize that Cheryl was being unusually quiet. She would have probably greeted him with a taunting quote, a demonic howl or at least a rude gesture. She was silent. Ash glanced over at her makeshift prison and the bottom fell out of his stomach when he saw that the cellar door had been thrown open. Cheryl was gone. Ash stood over the open hole, staring into the darkness. Was Cheryl still down there? Was she waiting for him to go down and check? Maybe she was hiding somewhere else in the house, waiting to jump out at him like a day-glo skeleton in a kiddie ghost ride. A creaking drew his attention away from the cellar and towards the bedrooms. Ash slammed the trap door shut and stared down the foreboding hallway. He had a hard time moving. The door leading to the sitting room swung open ominously. Ash tried to make himself relax. It was probably just the wind. Yeah right. Ash slowly made his way towards the open room, then, thinking twice, he reached down and picked the shotgun up off of the floor. Holding it in front of him like a British royal guard, he warily advanced into the room, ready to aim and fire at a moments notice. A rapping was emanating from the window. Like someone was tapping on the glass in a robotic, constant fashion. The drapes were drawn, obscuring the outside. Ash crept closer to the window, gripping the gun tighter as he pointed it at the drapes. Ash realized a second too late that the window he was standing right next to was wide open. Cheryl had been crouched under the window sill, ready to leap out at the right moment, which is what she did, springing up and grabbing the barrels of the shotgun, trying to wrench it out of his hands. Ash yelled in horror and shock, trying to bat Cheryl off. He finally twisted free, backing away from the window, panic stricken. Cheryl turned from the window and fled towards the forest. Before she reached the border of trees, Ash aimed briefly and fired, blowing open her left shoulder in an explosion of blood and shrapnel. Cheryl turned in the darkness, snarled at Ashley and started to run towards the front of the cabin, towards the front door. The front door that you left open, Ash told himself as he fastened the shutters of the open window closed and bolted across the cabin, throwing his weight on the door. Wouldn't you know it, the damn thing was jammed. Ash pounded at the door, trying to force it closed. The door inched forward at a painfully slow rate. The bottom was caught on something or other. Cheryl smashed her way through a dead shrubbery, baying like a wolf. Ash yelled in frustration and anger as the door refused to close, like a horrible force was trying to hold it open, which, for all Ash knew, was exactly what was going on. It was almost closed when Cheryl reached the front door. A single, rotting hand snaked through the crack, her fingers trying to pry it back open. Panic stricken, Ashley slammed the butt of the shotgun against Cheryl's fingers, breaking them like spaghetti. Cheryl roared in anger and pain. Ash struck again, grinding her hand into the threshold until Cheryl withdrew the shattered digits.
Ash leaned against the front door, panting heavily. "Back door" the part of him that got Ashley this far said ominously. Ash bolted from his prone position, sprinting the length of the cabin as fast as his injured leg would carry him. Ash collapsed against the open back door, which mercifully slammed shut with a single shove. Ash firmly locked it, desperate to catch his breath for one damn second. "Okay" his center told him. "You didn't listen to me about Linda and look where that got you. A busted leg and a head full of traumatizing images. I'm gonna get you out of this, but you gotta do what I say. Okay, quick roll call: Cheryl? Wounded and outside. Scotty? Dead, hopefully he'll stay that way. Linda? Probably down for good. Shelly? In the ground. You? Not as screwed as they want you to be. You've got shelter, you've got weapons, you even have food. Just hold out for another one or two hours and the sun will be up, then you can get out of here. Speaking of weapons, how's the shotgun?" "Got one round" Ash found himself muttering. "Alright, so what do you need?" "Shells" Ash said more firmly, he remembered seeing a box of them in the basement, near where they found the book. Ash looked over at said book, lying on the desk in the sitting room. Hard to believe this was all because of it.
Ash peered down into the cellar. The staircase extended into the darkness. He wondered if he really should go down there, who knows what horrible things could be down there? Then again, after he ran out of ammunition, the only purpose the shotgun could serve would be as a club. Ash took a deep breath and started to descend into the darkness.
Authors notes: Well, Ol, Ashley's finally coming out of his shell! At least the loudest voice in his head is a helpful one. Sorry about the wait, but I've dedicated to making longer chapters. They'll be further between, but they'll definitely have more meat on 'em. See y'all soon.