Trish's eyes were glazed, her head limply lying in her folded arms as her father paced the length of the
hotel room. Behind him, she and her mother sat at a tiny table, watching as he spoke hurriedly to the
policeman in the doorway. Mrs. Jenner's eyes were a livid red from constant sobbing, and her trembling
hands broke off pieces of a blueberry muffin, more out of nervousness than actual hunger.
"We're trying, Mr. Jenner. But there's no sign of your son," the officer apologized, and Trish couldn't help
but notice how much he resembled that other cop, the one who had…Jesus, she could still see the monster
eating his tongue…
She gagged and buried her head deeper into her arms.
"There's no sign of him," the policeman continued, and Trish's father looked up, half angry and half
sorrowful.
"What the hell happened that night?"
"W-we don't know yet, sir. We're still investigatin-,"
"Go," her father said softly, rubbing her eyes. "Just go."
"We'll try to keep you informed," the officer told him, looking sympathetically at Trish and her mother.
Trish didn't even pay attention as he left; beside her, Mrs. Jenner dropped the crumbled muffin and began
to weep again.
There was a silence.
"Alice, we have to go home. We've been here for two weeks, and there's been no sign of-," her father
stopped, unable to say his name.
Trish looked up, her eyes sparkling more with rage than sadness.
"Darry."
Her mother's weeping worsened, until she was nearly choking on her own tears.
"W-w-we ca-can't go. He's-he's still alive, we'll f-find him," her mother's voice was strangled, and Trish
couldn't stand to see the look of suffering on her face. She turned away, felt bile rise up in her throat.
"Honey," her father said, trying to mollify her. He paused when he saw Trish rise, her expression utterly
unreadable.
"Where are you going?" he demanded, pushing back his disheveled gray hair with one weary hand.
"Out."
Normally her father would have argued with her, but now he just slumped down onto a bed. Trish
scooped up her keys off of the cheap dresser, feeling as though she would vomit. She was keenly aware of
her own breathing, how loud and furious it was. Her keys pushed up into the skin of her hand as she
walked. Past the front desk, past the doors, out into the parking lot where the spring sun beat down on the
cars.
Her car was horribly wrecked, but she got in anyway, slamming the door beside her. At first, Trish did
nothing but grip the steering wheel in her hand, looking straight ahead unseeingly. Oh, Darry. It should
have been me, she thought, grinding her teeth, the demon should have taken me…
She started the car.
My God, she thought pulling out of the parking lot, why hast thou abandoned me? Dammit, good was
supposed to triumph over evil, wasn't it? The whole thing was screwed up, and she was beginning to
believe that if there was some kind of deity, it was a sadistic one.
The radio was on; she could hear some preacher talking, and she quickly changed it. The next channel
was all static, and the one after that was a news report. She kept it on that station as she headed down the
road, all alone.
"…the FBI has been called in to investigate the so-called 'Poho Massacre', in which several citizens and
police officers were killed -,"
She flipped the channel again. It was a song.
"Jeepers, creepers....where'd ya get them peepers. Oh, those weepers....how they hypnotize."
Trish slammed on her brakes, the tires shrieking.
"Jesus Christ," she spat, turning the radio off. "When's it going to stop?"
Alton, Nebraska
"Hey, Larry. Come look at the sky," Norman Lewis called out to his friend, who was currently tinkering
with the engine of a beat-up truck.
"The hell are you blabberin' about?" Larry demanded, looking out from underneath the truck's hood, his
face smeared with oil and sweat.
Norman raised the Budweiser can to his lips and gulped some of the warm beer before answering.
"The sky's all reddish."
"So?" Larry sounded annoyed as he glanced past the hood at his comrade.
"I never saw the sky that color before."
Larry craned his head to look up at the crimson-tinted sky, his eyes widening. The clouds, the sky--all
were a dark red, the color of fresh blood.
"Jesus," he commented, scratching his dark hair, "That is weird. I wonder what the hell's going on."
"Maybe there's bad weather comin'."
"Maybe," Larry agreed slowly, stepping away from the truck.
"C'mon. Let's go see if Donna's done with dinner yet."
"Yeah. Sure." Larry wiped his greasy hands on a ragged towel and followed his friend inside of the house,
where Norman's wife was mashing potaoes and watching Jerry Springer.
"You watchin' that shit again, Donna?" Norman asked, jerking his thumb toward the screen. His wife
pulled the cigarette from her mouth and replied, "Shut up. It's more interesting than you."
"Is dinner almost ready?"
"It'll be ready soon. Goddamn, quit yer complaining."
She turned back to her show, only to see it disappear in a storm of static. Cursing, she arose from the
kitchen table and began pounding the small television set.
"What the hell's wrong with this goddamn piece of shit?" she muttered furiously, tapping the screen.
"It's probably the antenna. I'll go look at it," Norman offered, stepping back outside.
"This is just great," Donna said angrily, mashing the lumpy potatoes.
"He'll have it fixed in a second," Larry told her.
He didn't. In fact, Norman had been gone for a full ten minutes before Larry finally started toward the
door.
"Where the hell is he?" Donna demanded, her teeth clamped down on her cigarette.
"I'll go see," Larry offered, heading to the door.
"Wait. There he is. The son of a bitch is just standing outside of the window." Donna poked her head
outside of the window to clearly see her husband, and Larry froze when she began screaming.
"What is it? What's going on?"
"He's dead! Oh my God, he's dead!"
Larry sprinted to the window and gazed out, only to see his friend slumped over the hood of the truck, his
back ripped wide open to reveal his spinal cord. Norman's white t-shirt was stained red, the same color as
the bizarre sky, and Larry felt his stomach threaten to regurgitate its contents.
"W-we hafta call the police," he managed, feeling his breakfast coming up. Donna nodded, terrified, then
moved toward the window once more, studying the yard. Larry had picked up the phone and started dialing
when he saw the giant figure appear outside of the open window, snatching Donna before he could turn
completely around. She wailed, kicking, as she was dragged out. Larry ran to the window and much to his
horror, saw the worst thing that he could have ever imagined.
At first glance, he thought it was a man. But it was too big to be one. That, and it had bluish-gray skin,
the most God-awful color he had ever seen. Donna was on the ground, screeching, as the thing clamped its
mouth on her contorted face.A sickening rip followed as the huge monster jerked its head violently back,
taking most of the woman's face with it.
Larry heard the phone drop from his numb fingers onto the floor as he watched, petrified.
The gigantic animal-man turned its ugly head, Donna's blood dripping down its chin. The poor woman was
still twitching in its arms, her face a gory ruin. Its dark eyes stared into Larry's for a few heartbeats, then it
spread its horrible bat wings and took off.
The Sprite that she had bought at the tiny store tasted terrible, flat with a metallic undertaste. But Trish was
thirsty, and she forced herself to drink the soda. As she quickly drank it, looking out of the store's glass
window, she noticed for the first time how the sky had taken on a maroon color.
"Strange, ain't it?" The plump woman behind the counter commented as she restocked the shelves of
candy.
"The sky?" Trish sipped the soda, finished it. "Yeah. I never saw the sky that color."
"It's a bad omen, I say," the woman replied, opening a box of Twizzlers and placing them on a shelf.
"Uh-huh," Trish agreed, tossing the plastic Sprite bottle into the trash. She continued to gaze out the
window. There was something in the air, some horrible feeling that soaked through the pores of her skin
and froze her blood.
The woman at the counter turned on an old fashioned radio, humming to the country music that played on
it.
"So where are ya goin', hun?" She asked, and Trish moved to face her.
"I was going…to find someone. But I can't find him," she admitted softly. "I've been driving for hours."
"Do you know where he lives? Maybe I can help ya get there."
"That's the problem. I don't."
The chubby woman just raised one painted eyebrow.
Trish assumed that the conversation was ended, for no more words were exchanged. As she was studying
the odd sky through the window, she heard the radio DJ talking about some awful tragedy.
She listened.
"Reports are still coming in from Alton concerning the brutal murders that took place this afternoon. One
witness claims it was the work of some large animal with wings."
Trish smiled humorlessly. She had just found the son of a bitch. Without wasting any time, she bought a
small roadmap and started for Alton.
Alton, Nebraska
Matthew Hawn was having a very bad day. It had started in the morning, when he had stubbed his toe on
his bedpost, then spilled coffee on his pants and, to top it off, got yelled at by the chief for being late to
work.
Now he felt nauseous as he looked at the dried brown blood caked on the hood of the truck. He had only
seen one dead body since becoming a police officer, and that had been a teenager who had killed herself by
overdosing on pills. While the adolescent had obviously died in peace, her young body unscathed (at least
on the outside, the victims here had been pureed alive. Blood stained the truck, the grass; droplets were
even flung on the side of the house.
Matt's partner was questioning the only witness, a quivering man who was deathly pale.
"So it resembled a man?" Matt's partner, Rodney Har, inquired.
"Yeah. It looked like a man, but it wasn't. I already told the other officer that-,"
"Uh-huh." The policeman scibbled down some notes on his pad. "Well, then. What did it look like?"
"I dunno. Kinda big, with wings and teeth like a bear."
"Uh-huh."
Hawn moved around one of the members of the forensic team, who was meticulously bagging samples.
The fetid stink of death was strong, and he struggled not to gag. He gazed past the crime scene, only to see
a girl with light brown hair standing on the side of the street. There was an odd look in her eye, one of
deranged determination and complete lack of fear.
"Can I help you?"
The tall girl did not answer, choosing instead to look past him at the bloody crime scene.
"It's horrible," she whispered.
"Yeah."
The teenager looked up at him, her brown eyes clouded with intense fury. When she spoke, her voice was
low and strangled by the emotions that she was obviously holding back.
"I know who did it."
Matt glanced over at her, suddenly unnerved. There was something creepy about her, something that
frightened him although he hated to admit it. Perhaps it was the intensity of her gaze, or the hatred that
shone so brightly in her dark eyes.
"It was the same thing that killed my brother." Her soft voice had become bitterer, if that was humanly
possible.
"Uh-,"
"Tell me," she said, looking up, her face pale. "Are there any abandoned buildings around here?"
Matt was startled by the oddness of the question. He scratched his crewcut, nodding.
"I guess so. There's an old plant about three miles from here. Why?"
The slender girl turned and walked back to her car, a beat-up vehicle that looked as though it had been
driven straight out of the 1950s. All the while Matt watched her, suspicious. Why the hell would someone
ask such a question? He wondered. Unless, of course, that person planned to do something where no one
would see…The weird girl started her car, and Matt walked toward his own.
"Hey, where ya going?" Har called out, shoving the notebook into his pocket.
"I need to check out something."
Har watched as his partner drove away quickly, shaking his head as he did so.
"Poor guy can't take a little gore," he muttered to himself.
hotel room. Behind him, she and her mother sat at a tiny table, watching as he spoke hurriedly to the
policeman in the doorway. Mrs. Jenner's eyes were a livid red from constant sobbing, and her trembling
hands broke off pieces of a blueberry muffin, more out of nervousness than actual hunger.
"We're trying, Mr. Jenner. But there's no sign of your son," the officer apologized, and Trish couldn't help
but notice how much he resembled that other cop, the one who had…Jesus, she could still see the monster
eating his tongue…
She gagged and buried her head deeper into her arms.
"There's no sign of him," the policeman continued, and Trish's father looked up, half angry and half
sorrowful.
"What the hell happened that night?"
"W-we don't know yet, sir. We're still investigatin-,"
"Go," her father said softly, rubbing her eyes. "Just go."
"We'll try to keep you informed," the officer told him, looking sympathetically at Trish and her mother.
Trish didn't even pay attention as he left; beside her, Mrs. Jenner dropped the crumbled muffin and began
to weep again.
There was a silence.
"Alice, we have to go home. We've been here for two weeks, and there's been no sign of-," her father
stopped, unable to say his name.
Trish looked up, her eyes sparkling more with rage than sadness.
"Darry."
Her mother's weeping worsened, until she was nearly choking on her own tears.
"W-w-we ca-can't go. He's-he's still alive, we'll f-find him," her mother's voice was strangled, and Trish
couldn't stand to see the look of suffering on her face. She turned away, felt bile rise up in her throat.
"Honey," her father said, trying to mollify her. He paused when he saw Trish rise, her expression utterly
unreadable.
"Where are you going?" he demanded, pushing back his disheveled gray hair with one weary hand.
"Out."
Normally her father would have argued with her, but now he just slumped down onto a bed. Trish
scooped up her keys off of the cheap dresser, feeling as though she would vomit. She was keenly aware of
her own breathing, how loud and furious it was. Her keys pushed up into the skin of her hand as she
walked. Past the front desk, past the doors, out into the parking lot where the spring sun beat down on the
cars.
Her car was horribly wrecked, but she got in anyway, slamming the door beside her. At first, Trish did
nothing but grip the steering wheel in her hand, looking straight ahead unseeingly. Oh, Darry. It should
have been me, she thought, grinding her teeth, the demon should have taken me…
She started the car.
My God, she thought pulling out of the parking lot, why hast thou abandoned me? Dammit, good was
supposed to triumph over evil, wasn't it? The whole thing was screwed up, and she was beginning to
believe that if there was some kind of deity, it was a sadistic one.
The radio was on; she could hear some preacher talking, and she quickly changed it. The next channel
was all static, and the one after that was a news report. She kept it on that station as she headed down the
road, all alone.
"…the FBI has been called in to investigate the so-called 'Poho Massacre', in which several citizens and
police officers were killed -,"
She flipped the channel again. It was a song.
"Jeepers, creepers....where'd ya get them peepers. Oh, those weepers....how they hypnotize."
Trish slammed on her brakes, the tires shrieking.
"Jesus Christ," she spat, turning the radio off. "When's it going to stop?"
Alton, Nebraska
"Hey, Larry. Come look at the sky," Norman Lewis called out to his friend, who was currently tinkering
with the engine of a beat-up truck.
"The hell are you blabberin' about?" Larry demanded, looking out from underneath the truck's hood, his
face smeared with oil and sweat.
Norman raised the Budweiser can to his lips and gulped some of the warm beer before answering.
"The sky's all reddish."
"So?" Larry sounded annoyed as he glanced past the hood at his comrade.
"I never saw the sky that color before."
Larry craned his head to look up at the crimson-tinted sky, his eyes widening. The clouds, the sky--all
were a dark red, the color of fresh blood.
"Jesus," he commented, scratching his dark hair, "That is weird. I wonder what the hell's going on."
"Maybe there's bad weather comin'."
"Maybe," Larry agreed slowly, stepping away from the truck.
"C'mon. Let's go see if Donna's done with dinner yet."
"Yeah. Sure." Larry wiped his greasy hands on a ragged towel and followed his friend inside of the house,
where Norman's wife was mashing potaoes and watching Jerry Springer.
"You watchin' that shit again, Donna?" Norman asked, jerking his thumb toward the screen. His wife
pulled the cigarette from her mouth and replied, "Shut up. It's more interesting than you."
"Is dinner almost ready?"
"It'll be ready soon. Goddamn, quit yer complaining."
She turned back to her show, only to see it disappear in a storm of static. Cursing, she arose from the
kitchen table and began pounding the small television set.
"What the hell's wrong with this goddamn piece of shit?" she muttered furiously, tapping the screen.
"It's probably the antenna. I'll go look at it," Norman offered, stepping back outside.
"This is just great," Donna said angrily, mashing the lumpy potatoes.
"He'll have it fixed in a second," Larry told her.
He didn't. In fact, Norman had been gone for a full ten minutes before Larry finally started toward the
door.
"Where the hell is he?" Donna demanded, her teeth clamped down on her cigarette.
"I'll go see," Larry offered, heading to the door.
"Wait. There he is. The son of a bitch is just standing outside of the window." Donna poked her head
outside of the window to clearly see her husband, and Larry froze when she began screaming.
"What is it? What's going on?"
"He's dead! Oh my God, he's dead!"
Larry sprinted to the window and gazed out, only to see his friend slumped over the hood of the truck, his
back ripped wide open to reveal his spinal cord. Norman's white t-shirt was stained red, the same color as
the bizarre sky, and Larry felt his stomach threaten to regurgitate its contents.
"W-we hafta call the police," he managed, feeling his breakfast coming up. Donna nodded, terrified, then
moved toward the window once more, studying the yard. Larry had picked up the phone and started dialing
when he saw the giant figure appear outside of the open window, snatching Donna before he could turn
completely around. She wailed, kicking, as she was dragged out. Larry ran to the window and much to his
horror, saw the worst thing that he could have ever imagined.
At first glance, he thought it was a man. But it was too big to be one. That, and it had bluish-gray skin,
the most God-awful color he had ever seen. Donna was on the ground, screeching, as the thing clamped its
mouth on her contorted face.A sickening rip followed as the huge monster jerked its head violently back,
taking most of the woman's face with it.
Larry heard the phone drop from his numb fingers onto the floor as he watched, petrified.
The gigantic animal-man turned its ugly head, Donna's blood dripping down its chin. The poor woman was
still twitching in its arms, her face a gory ruin. Its dark eyes stared into Larry's for a few heartbeats, then it
spread its horrible bat wings and took off.
The Sprite that she had bought at the tiny store tasted terrible, flat with a metallic undertaste. But Trish was
thirsty, and she forced herself to drink the soda. As she quickly drank it, looking out of the store's glass
window, she noticed for the first time how the sky had taken on a maroon color.
"Strange, ain't it?" The plump woman behind the counter commented as she restocked the shelves of
candy.
"The sky?" Trish sipped the soda, finished it. "Yeah. I never saw the sky that color."
"It's a bad omen, I say," the woman replied, opening a box of Twizzlers and placing them on a shelf.
"Uh-huh," Trish agreed, tossing the plastic Sprite bottle into the trash. She continued to gaze out the
window. There was something in the air, some horrible feeling that soaked through the pores of her skin
and froze her blood.
The woman at the counter turned on an old fashioned radio, humming to the country music that played on
it.
"So where are ya goin', hun?" She asked, and Trish moved to face her.
"I was going…to find someone. But I can't find him," she admitted softly. "I've been driving for hours."
"Do you know where he lives? Maybe I can help ya get there."
"That's the problem. I don't."
The chubby woman just raised one painted eyebrow.
Trish assumed that the conversation was ended, for no more words were exchanged. As she was studying
the odd sky through the window, she heard the radio DJ talking about some awful tragedy.
She listened.
"Reports are still coming in from Alton concerning the brutal murders that took place this afternoon. One
witness claims it was the work of some large animal with wings."
Trish smiled humorlessly. She had just found the son of a bitch. Without wasting any time, she bought a
small roadmap and started for Alton.
Alton, Nebraska
Matthew Hawn was having a very bad day. It had started in the morning, when he had stubbed his toe on
his bedpost, then spilled coffee on his pants and, to top it off, got yelled at by the chief for being late to
work.
Now he felt nauseous as he looked at the dried brown blood caked on the hood of the truck. He had only
seen one dead body since becoming a police officer, and that had been a teenager who had killed herself by
overdosing on pills. While the adolescent had obviously died in peace, her young body unscathed (at least
on the outside, the victims here had been pureed alive. Blood stained the truck, the grass; droplets were
even flung on the side of the house.
Matt's partner was questioning the only witness, a quivering man who was deathly pale.
"So it resembled a man?" Matt's partner, Rodney Har, inquired.
"Yeah. It looked like a man, but it wasn't. I already told the other officer that-,"
"Uh-huh." The policeman scibbled down some notes on his pad. "Well, then. What did it look like?"
"I dunno. Kinda big, with wings and teeth like a bear."
"Uh-huh."
Hawn moved around one of the members of the forensic team, who was meticulously bagging samples.
The fetid stink of death was strong, and he struggled not to gag. He gazed past the crime scene, only to see
a girl with light brown hair standing on the side of the street. There was an odd look in her eye, one of
deranged determination and complete lack of fear.
"Can I help you?"
The tall girl did not answer, choosing instead to look past him at the bloody crime scene.
"It's horrible," she whispered.
"Yeah."
The teenager looked up at him, her brown eyes clouded with intense fury. When she spoke, her voice was
low and strangled by the emotions that she was obviously holding back.
"I know who did it."
Matt glanced over at her, suddenly unnerved. There was something creepy about her, something that
frightened him although he hated to admit it. Perhaps it was the intensity of her gaze, or the hatred that
shone so brightly in her dark eyes.
"It was the same thing that killed my brother." Her soft voice had become bitterer, if that was humanly
possible.
"Uh-,"
"Tell me," she said, looking up, her face pale. "Are there any abandoned buildings around here?"
Matt was startled by the oddness of the question. He scratched his crewcut, nodding.
"I guess so. There's an old plant about three miles from here. Why?"
The slender girl turned and walked back to her car, a beat-up vehicle that looked as though it had been
driven straight out of the 1950s. All the while Matt watched her, suspicious. Why the hell would someone
ask such a question? He wondered. Unless, of course, that person planned to do something where no one
would see…The weird girl started her car, and Matt walked toward his own.
"Hey, where ya going?" Har called out, shoving the notebook into his pocket.
"I need to check out something."
Har watched as his partner drove away quickly, shaking his head as he did so.
"Poor guy can't take a little gore," he muttered to himself.
