A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Boy, I'm sure they let you dig as much holes as you want in heaven.
Leaving
I was stupid to think it would last.
I was playing with Hero, a tug-of-war game with an old rag. I pulled, he pulled back while panting and drooling happily. When he tried to get a better grip with his big powerful jaws I pulled the rag loose. He barked and tried to lunge for it again. I yanked it away and dangled it teasingly. He yelped in excitement and tried to go for it again. Then he rose briefly on two legs to grab it, but I held it just out of reach.
It was a fun game, one the Creeper ignored as he loaded up his truck. I ignored him as well. He was always loading or unloading something from that awful truck, usually some equally awful cargo. He worked steadily.
Hero made a lunge and finally got the rag in his jaws again. We commenced our tug of war game again. He shook his head from side to side, trying to rip it from my grasp. I held on tight. "I'm not gonna let go." I said happily. He shook his head again, as if to disagree.
The Creeper seemed…antsy, lately. He would stop carving or eating suddenly and sniff the air. He would put down the old newspaper he was laboriously deciphering and pace around the clearing and the woods, sniffing or listening warily. He tried to kill Hero only once in the past few days. Mostly he ignored him now, as if he had bigger things to focus on. I noticed him examining the moonshiner's remains more than once, however. Almost as if they disturbed him, which is ridiculous. How can human remains disturb him?
Still I wondered at his attitude.
Hero finally succeeded in tugging the rag away from my hands. He gnawed on it happily.
"Okay you win." I declared. "But I'll bet you double or nothing with the tennis ball."
At the sound of the word "ball" he dropped his rag and wagged his tail. I smiled and hobbled over to the shack.
Hero probably saw or sensed it coming before I did. He began barking frantically. As I opened the door I noticed with a start all my stuff was gone. Packed away? I wondered. Then the monster grabbed me from behind.
I screamed, more from instinct than actual fear. Hero's barking grew closer, and I knew he was rushing at us. I prayed there wouldn't be a confrontation. However instead of dragging me inside the shack like I thought he would he dragged me outside. Toward the car. I knew what was happening.
"No, wait!" I cried out, but he ignored me. He threw me (but not roughly) into the passenger side. Then he quickly hopped over and entered the driver's door. I thought of twisting the handle and jumping out again, but he would only grab me, and it might cause a confrontation I didn't want. Hero was jumping frantically at the door and barking at the window. Trying desperately to get inside. The Creeper threw it heedlessly in reverse.
"Please, please, please, don't hurt him." I begged, tears in my eyes. How dumb I was to form an attachment with a stray animal. Hadn't I known he would only kill it in the end?
A slow smile spread across his face. Hero was still trying to get inside the car. He started forward and nearly hit him. I screamed. Hero backed away then tried to get in again. The Creeper reversed, aimed and lunged his car forward again. My heart jumped into my mouth, but Hero backed away in time, and continued barking.
By now tears were pouring down my face. I looked at the Creeper imploringly. "Please, please." Was all I could say. "Please just let him go."
He still had that smirk on face, and I knew he could kill Hero easily, it might even give him pleasure to do so, but I also know he could simply drive on and forget about him. The desire for vengeance isn't something he feels. I've seen him completely ignore people who have maimed him horribly, even though it would be easy to kill them, in favor of people who simply smell good. I guess his mind is really practical that way. The dog barked at and bit him while defending me, and that made him angry, but if he could solve the problem by driving away then by killing he could do so. He was a monster yes, but not an insane, unfocused killing machine.
That's what I hoped for now.
He gave a sort of faint shrug, as if to say "as you wish." He put the car in gear and drove off.
I looked at Hero. He was running to catch up. I saw him in the side mirror, running and running, still even as he got smaller and smaller. Finally he disappeared from the dirt road all together. I didn't cry. I said nothing.
I'd like to give you the happy ending. Maybe that Hero followed me all the way to our next destination miles away, sniffing me out the way only a loyal dog could. Maybe I could even tell you that the Creeper was so moved that his heart swelled three times it's size that day and let me keep him forever. But such never happened of course. Truth was I never saw him again.
We drove on.
Tower.
The Creeper, to me, seemed less wary as we drive on. He stopped sniffing the air reflexively He stopped looking over his shoulder. By the time we got to paved road he was relaxed and whistling "Jeepers Creepers" happily. I sat silently and wondered.
Ever since he showed me that femur with a bullet hole. Maybe a little before that. I thought, days and days afterwards he seemed wary, antsy, itching to be gone. He acted like a man, well, monster, being trailed, followed. Dogged, as they used to say in old westerns. But what did he have to worry about?
Well whatever it is he seems to have forgotten it now. I thought with a hint of bitterness. I wondered for the umpteenth time if it were possible to kill him. I thought not. All the stories and first hand evidence said he was immortal.
The thought of him being immortal added even more bitterness to my thoughts. He never has to taste death, but I will, one day, everyone I know will. My poor mother is gone forever, but he will live on. I closed my eyes.
I must have drifted off a little, for the next thing I knew it was sunset and the Creeper was suddenly pulling over. I jerked awake.
"Are we here?" I asked dully. Even though I didn't know where "here" was. The Creeper seemed to understand and shook his head. "No", he said with a touch of excitement, "tower."
Tower? I thought, confused. I got out of the car, he let me.
About Fifty yards away was a single high tower. At first I thought it was electrical tower, but there was only one, and no wires hanging from it. I gazed up at it curiously. A tower in the middle of nowhere.
The Creeper rummages around and hauls out a huge rusty chain from the back of his truck. He grins at me. Then orders me to stay here by the road. I obey and he drives up to the tower.
I can see him well, but I hear him attaching the chain to a spindly leg, then here him revving his truck, it roars, groans, then one of the towers legs snaps.
He drives the car quickly out of the way. Then he steps up to the tower and with his colossal strength begins to bend, twist the steel. I've seen his strength before, felt it, but still my mouth hangs open in amazement as he grunts and sweat and twists a huge chunk of steel, warping it. Finally the support for the tower can't stand anymore and it groans. He stands and gives the tower one final push in the direction he wants it to go. I can hear him groan, see the muscles underneath his scaly skin ripple. The tower starts to fall slowly, then faster and faster as it gains momentum. He stands clear, grinning like a lumberjack that has brought down the biggest tree in the forest. The Tower keels over and finally collapses in a spectacular cloud of dust. Birds, panicked take flight. Finally everything settles.
When everything is quiet I am too curious to stand there by the side of the road. I hobble forward as fast as I can. I see a few pieces of metal, twisted by the fall. I hobble up closely, examining the spindly metal tower. I come to what uses to be the top when I spot some writing. I squint .
Suddenly the Creeper grabs me. "Stay back." He ordered. "Back." I catch a glimpse of the words "-OBILE CELLPHONE TOWER" as he shepherds me back to his car.
A flash appeared in my memory. I am running from the gas station, I am in my car, the BEATNGU is chasing me. I am desperate, frantic. I pick up my cellphone to dial for help and the screen answers coldly OUT OF RNGE.
My mouth works like a fish. I want to say something hut I don't. The Creeper sighs in satisfaction, as if he had done this job many times before, but it was always satisfying to do a good job again.
We drive on.
Hotel Hell
We stop driving late at night, when we come across an ugly squat building on a crumbling side road with the word HOTEL blazoned simply across them. I sight wearily and get out the car. The Creeper opens the back and brings out my stuff. I trudge inside.
It is as dank and nasty as come to expect from Creeper haunted places. And yet, at least there is a carpet underneath my feet, a roof over my head, an actual bed, not just a pile of straw. To my joy the Creeper shows me there is running water by forcing a rusting bathtub faucet open.
"Thank you." I whisper, trying to sound sarcastic as possible, but to my surprise, it comes out sincere. He grunts in acknowledgement then leaves me to enjoy my bath.
After I am clean I hobble down to the boiler room, a dank hell which of course the Creeper has already decorated with the remains of him meal. I am looking for my notebook. He has it open and he is studying my drawings. I hold my hand open for it back.
"No." He says suddenly. "Sit." and he forces me down next to him. He picks up my pen.
WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA. He writes.
"Hotel California?" I ask dully, waiting for the inevitable punch line.
"YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANYTIME YOU LIKE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE. The he laughed so hard he rolled backwards. I smiled tolerantly, used to the weirdness of an inhuman monster quoting an Eagles' song.
That night, when I enjoyed a lumpy mattress instead of a couch or a bunch of straw for the first time in ages he came to me. He came to me repeatedly throughout the night as he fed and returned smelling of carrion. I didn't have Hero, I had nothing, I could not resist. So he made me screa, over and over again.
