Chapter 4: Housewares Employee
It was a cold night, and a dark night. The young, dark haired man offered his jacket to the girl beside him. He offered it nervously of course, this being the couple's first—
Okay, hold up, can we just stop all this impersonal bullshit? This is my story and I'm gonna be the one telling it from now on, got that? Good. Anyhow, name's Ash, Housewares.
Oh, and that little dork you just say offer his coat to the pretty young thing beside him (despite his own shivering) was me. Yeah, yeah I know, who goes to a drive-in movie in late October for their first date in a convertible? Well bingo, that would be. The convertible? My dad's. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I really wanted to impress this girl.
And apparently, despite the near freezing weather and the decreasing cool factor of the drive-in theater I was. This girl was actually in to me, and she wasn't like all the other girls I occasionally ogled at at work. This one was special—and no blue light special either—I mean real special. This girl was Linda, check-out register number three at your local S-mart. Shop smart, shop S-mart.
"Y-you want some more popcorn, or something?" I blurted; probably because she peeked over at me when my eyes happened to be very far from the screen and several inches below her neck.
"No, I'm fine, Ash," she said warmly. Okay, so either she didn't notice that or she didn't mind.
Suddenly, without really thinking I guess, I decided to pull that ever so clever yawning trick. You know the one, where the guy goes to stretch his arms cause he's yawning but it's really a ploy to put 'em down around your shoulders move? Yeah, real smooth Ash-annova.
Linda doesn't seem to mind that one either. Maybe you should try out that new line you've been working on by the end of the night, Don Ash. How did that go again? Gimme some sugar?. Please.
Linda started giggling. Crap, did I say that out loud? Should I play it off like I just wanted another candy bar? Think, Ash, think!
She keeps on laughing. Maybe something funny happened in the movie and I should play along. So I do. Only a slight chuckle, of course. A real man doesn't laugh at the same stuff chicks do. I smile at her as I do this but she doesn't seem to notice. Instead she grabs my hand and twines her fingers between mine as she giggles. Man, her hands are cold. Wish I had some gloves to offer her too.
"Hey, you want some hot chocolate?" I did offer. Apparently this question was extremely funny as well because Linda was roaring with laughter. She curled up, her body trembling with giggles and her blonde hair fell to cover her face. She squeezed tighter around my hand.
"Ow," I said instinctively and reflexively tried to pull away. She didn't let me. Linda gripped my fingers tighter and tighter as her cackles heightened in pinch. Now I was worried.
"Linda?" she shook with laughter, "Linda?" my free hand moved to brush the hair away from her cheek but her own neck beat me to it. It snapped back to reveal the face of the giggling demon beside me.
Red lips, curly hair, long sharp finger nails with rosy cheeks and black lashes painted right on her face. Not to mention those ghostly white eyes. Yep, she's a demon alright, and she found my attempt to squirm free of her grasp hysterical. Sure a scream formed in my throat but that's where it stopped too. I was paralyzed. And my eyes… well I couldn't keep them off her. She was damn beautiful too…or…used to be.
"We're gonna get you," the thing inside my girlfriend sang in its baby doll voice, "we're gonna get you! Ah hahahaha hehehehehe hahaha!" her claws dug deep into my flesh. No matter how hard I pulled she just wouldn't let go. Finally I decided to open the car door and just give one big yank.
POP
My face collided with dirt as my body was yanked free of Linda's clutches. I opened my eyes to stare back up at Linda, my face now covered with something wet and sticky. Like me, I saw she was completely drenched in red, from her face to the bottom of her white nightgown. My twitching hand was still firmly secured in her own with interlocking fingers. Her giggling never ceased as my blood—spewing from my severed wrist—showered us both.
"LINDA!" I shouted, rocketing up from my nap on Lady Doc's couch.
"I'd appreciate it, Mr. Williams, if you didn't fall asleep during our sessions," that bombshell doctor with nice stems said this…what's adjective, oh yeah, acidly. She doesn't like me very much. Which blows cause she's the best lookin' thing on two legs I've seen in the past twenty some years.
"Sorry, baby, I just find straightjackets super comfy these days, that's all," damn, if looks could kill.
"Mr. Williams," she sighed, gathering up her things, I watched her long red hair slide over her shoulders, "Until you decide to talk seriously about what you did I'd like it if you stopped requesting to see me."
What? I don't care if she refuses to see me without a straightjacket between us (though I would like to let these people know I am not Hannibal Lecter) I'm not gonna pass up the company of the potentially only relatively normal human being in this joint. Even if she thinks I'm a crazy psycho path.
You know sometimes I almost believe her—them—when they tell me over and over again why I'm kept in a whitewashed room with one plastic wall (to keep an eye on me). "You killed your friends, Ash. There's no such thing as evil spirits or demons. You killed them in cold blood." And just for second I think I agree with them, after all, aren't I getting too old to still be holding on to that excuse?
Then I have one of those dreams. Those dreams about Linda, my hand, the cabin, Cheryl, Sheila, and that damned book. It was all real. Every horrifying moment of it and I've got the scars to prove it.
"Orderly," The Doc instructs the boy nurse to free her from my cell without another word to me.
"Okay, so same time next week?" I shout after her. I got no response.
So I whistled at the boy-nurse after he locks me up again, "hey, you!" what's his name, Ted? "Ted! Teddy! You gonna let me out of this thing or what?" I figured out a long time ago that shaking doesn't do much with these nice white coats, "Hey, where you goin'!?"
And where are you going? Don't want to talk to crazy ole Ash no more? Okay fine, I get it. Just don't come cryin' to me if you get possessed by evil Kandarian demons.
Betsy Ellen York trudged her way up the stairs. It was late and she had been crying. Almost anything made her cry these days. Passing by Sarah's daycare center, finding a long since forgotten toy while cleaning under the couch cushions, or even watching the neighbors interact with their own children, caused Betsy to realize she'd never see her daughter graduate high school, get a promotion or married or have children of her own. Tonight the tears come after she tucked Theresa into bed. The girls used to share a bedroom. Betsy could tell her daughter had changed since Sarah's death and though she feared it, she knew Theresa would never again be the same smiling child she once was. But of course, neither would Sarah.
Betsy hardly noticed the girls' door ajar as she mindless dragged her feet through the hall. The woman began to notice how her body no longer moved with purpose lately. She pressed a trembling hand against the wood door of her bedroom in a daze. The appendage lingered there for moment, as it no longer had the strength for even the simplest tasks. Betsy sympathized with the hand. She knew the feeling.
"Hal…" she whispered for her husband to come to her rescue, seeing as how her body would no longer obey the muscle memory that had been carrying it for that past week. Her only response was a faint gurgling noise from beyond the threshold. "Hal?" Betsy called again, this time her voice more audible. The gurgling replied to her once more.
"Hal!" Betsy shoved open the door using her shoulder (no other body part seemed to have enough force). She screamed the moment she stumbled into the bedroom, an action she previously thought she was incapable of doing in her state. Hal's bloody, near lifeless body, however, cured his wife of her fatigue.
He lay motionless atop the bed. White sheets were now stained red with his blood oozing from the cavity in his chest. The crimson liquid bubbled in his mouth, flowing out from his flooded lungs. His clothing was torn to shreds. Claw marks decorated Hal's legs and arms. Some gashes went deep enough to reveal white bone. Every few seconds a limb would twitch, but of course activity of any sort no longer occurred in the dead man's brain.
"HAL!" Betsy shrieked at her husband. Panic nailed her feet in place and she could do nothing but watch the last bits of life flicker and fade from Hal's irises, "HAL!" behind Betsy the glass window overlooking the back yard shattered, forcing the woman t her knees. The crash of the glass, combined with the gusting wind that came rushing into the house roared in Betsy's ears. She threw her arms over her face to protect it from the falling shards. The wind blasted against her back. The typhoon force of it ripped the curtains from their rods and wretched the rubber band free from Betsy's hair. The gust soared across the room, finally ceasing as it collided with Hal's body.
Immediately the dead man shot up from his soaked sheets. The unseen force in the wind had reanimated his lifeless body, turning the poor man's eyes as pale as the bone that peeked out from beneath torn flesh.
"JOIN US!" A monster's voice growled from deep inside the man's throat. Betsy sobbed in terror as her husband's dead body lifted itself from the mattress in quick yet rigid movements, "JOIN US!" the ugly—inhuman—voice bellowed, blood spewing from its already rotting lips.
Finally the adrenaline building in Betsy's system kicked in. She sprinted from the room and into the hall before her mind even had a chance register the movement. She didn't get very far.
Standing in hall was the only daughter Betsy Ellen York had left. The child's face was ashen. Purple veins could be clearly seen beneath the girl's translucent skin. Her lips were blue, her hair matted and gray. Theresa's eyes too were distorted. Her irises no longer existed, replaced by the same milky white as her father's. In the girl's hand was a bloodied carving knife she found easily in the kitchen. The woman froze in her tracks, suddenly unsure if she had any daughters left.
"Join us, Mommy!" Theresa growled with her arms outstretched.
"No…" Betsy whispered; tears evident in her voice and now staining her cheeks, "No...You're not… you're not my daughter!" the mother took a giant step back.
"Oh yes I am, Mommy!" the beast cackled in a voice no mother could love, "It's me Theresa! And I just want to play, Mommy! Like they I played with Daddy! And little Sarah!" It was too low, too cracked, too echoed, too evil to be Theresa's. "Now JOIN US!" it roared.
"No!" Betsy screamed. The thing charged her with its worn knife. She managed to duck away into the staircase, though was not able to maintain her balance and she tumbled down the first few steps. A heavy mass leaped onto the former mother of two's back, pinning her down.
"WE SHALL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!" the thing inside her husband screeched.
"No!" Betsy wriggled against the thing's weight, "No!" she sobbed uselessly. No one was coming for her…save for the two monsters already trapping her in her own home.
The beast inside the little girl cackled endlessly, "I love you, Mommy!" it mocked, "Now jjjOOOOoooiiIIIIiiinnnn uuussss!" it sang wildly as it plunged the knife into her mother's spine. Betsy Ellen York shrieked and screamed for help to no avail as the no longer breathing bodies of her husband and child tore her body into infinite shreds. Eventually the screaming stopped when life did, but that did not halt the ravenous demons. The only pieces of Betsy Ellen York that the neighbors, or the police or the coroner would ever find would be the broken and battered partial skeleton abandoned on the stairs.