The Perdition Tales

Screams, Part Three

Part Four: The Ride

When they arrived to shore, the land was empty. The screaming creatures were gone, leaving behind no trace of their existence. Rather than pull up to the dock, Anne and Rachel rowed furiously toward shore, trying for any slight advance in their course. Chris had quieted down, still dreary and occasionally moaning. Rachel hadn’t focused the light on him so as to see what damage had been done; she instead kept it trained straight ahead, guiding Anne toward the shore.

When they reached shore, Anne and Rachel leapt out of their canoe and pulled Chris behind them, each one grabbing one of his shoulders. Then, carrying him fully, they hobbled and jogged as fast as they could back the way they had come, hoping desperately that they could make it to the car. Sage had once mentioned having blankets in his car, blankets that they could cover the windows with, blocking out the moonlight. If only they could make it that far.

“Where are they?” Chris mumbled, groggy and slurred. “Where’d they go?”

“The moon’s gone,” Anne replied.

“Already?” Chris asked. “It hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“No,” Anne said nervously. “It hasn’t. Something’s wrong.”

“The clouds,” Rachel answered. “Look up.” They slowed for just a moment and peered up through the trees. Not only was the moon gone, but the stars as well. It was like an enormous, black blanket had been tossed across the sky, blotting out everything. “We need to get to the car before it clears,” Rachel said. The two girls jogged as fast as they could, supporting Chris, who was totally unable to use his legs. They didn’t have time to stop and see why; they had to get to the car as soon as possible.

They followed the trails back to their source, eventually coming out of the woods and onto the dirt road on which the car had been parked. And, sure enough, the car was still there, looking to them like shelter in a rainstorm. “I still have the keys,” Chris said, moving his right arm to try and reach into his pocket. Rachel motioned for him to stop and reached in, pulling it out herself. She and Anne laid Chris along the car’s hood as she unlocked the doors. With the back door open wide, she and Anne carefully slid Chris inside. Next, they opened the trunk and joyously discovered a large pile of blankets. They eagerly pulled them out, hopped inside the car and began covering the windows with them, opening windows a bit, stuffing the ends of the blankets through and then pushing the windows back closed.

Rachel was just hanging the last blanket along the passenger window behind the driver’s seat when the clouds cleared. A tiny fraction of red-orange light flashed in her eyes and she blocked it with the blanket. There was a click as Anne locked all the doors from the shotgun seat. “Will they…find us?” Chris mumbled. He was having trouble concentrating, he was in so much pain. “Can’t they just…get in?”

“They may not know we’re here,” Anne answered. “We’ll just have to be quiet. Whisper, if you have to talk.” Chris nodded.

Rachel finally took a chance to look at Chris’ legs. She reached up and flipped on the dome light, then covered her mouth as she saw them. There was so much blood, so much lost blood that she honestly couldn’t tell how damaged his legs actually were. All she could see was the terrible blood. Luckily, though, he wasn’t bleeding anymore, meaning that his main arteries and veins had been missed. Either that, or…he was running out of blood. Rachel prayed it was the former.

The screams began. They echoed all around the car, but they weren’t constant. They were at first extremely strong, but they eventually grew weak and died down to very quiet off in the distance. “It’s going to be okay,” Rachel told Chris when it got quieter. “Don’t worry. As soon as morning comes, we’ll get you to town and then to a hospital. Everything will be fine.”

“No,” Chris said. He was slightly more focused now, as if the pain had subsided a bit, allowing him to think more clearly. He shuffled around a bit, seeming a bit stronger than before, and reached down into the left pocket of his jacket. He pulled out the small box he’d found in Joe’s hotel room. “Rachel…I’m not sure if I should show this to you. Maybe…maybe you’re better off not knowing…”

“About what?” Rachel asked.

“About…this,” Chris said, handing her the box. Rachel reached forward and took it from his hand. Inhaling deeply, she popped the box open. Inside, nestled gently in two tiny, black cushions, was a thin, golden band. In the center of it was a diamond, with two smaller diamonds at either side of it along the band. “What is this?” Rachel asked. “You want me to marry you?”

“It’s not mine,” Chris said. “We found it in Joe’s hotel room.”

“We?” Rachel asked, turning to glare at Anne.

“Me and Brian,” Chris replied. “Anne didn’t know. We thought, you know…Joe should be the one to…I-I shouldn’t have showed you-”

“No,” Rachel said. “You should have. I’m…I’m glad you did. It showed me that he was worth coming here for.”

“So…” Chris began. He stopped as she pushed himself up a bit. “What…would your answer…have been?”

Rachel smiled a bit as she slid the ring on and off her finger. “No,” she said.

“What?” Anne asked.

“No,” Rachel repeated. “My answer would have been ‘no.’”

“Do you…care to…elaborate?” Chris asked.

“Joe’s dead,” Rachel said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“So you would have said no to him?” Anne asked, still not comprehending. Rachel nodded.

“Well,” Chris said, his voice giving out for the slightest bit. “I guess that means I lose the bet. When you see Jason again, tell him I’ll owe him fifty bucks when he gets to heaven.”

“You’re not going to die” Rachel reiterated.

Chris shook his head. “Don’t say that,” Chris whispered to her. “I don’t want the last thing I hear to be a lie. Please, just…tell me anything right now, anything, please.”

“You’re pale,” Anne said, with a pained but subtle smile on her lips. Chris smiled at that. Then he closed his eyes and leaned back. He mumbled a bit as he drifted off to sleep.

Rachel turned off the dome light, saving the car’s battery for the morning. Sitting in the darkness, she began thinking to herself, hoping and praying that the blankets would hide them from the banshees. She heard Chris mumbling in the dark, whimpering in pain despite his sleep. Most of his energy was gone. He’d lost so much blood…

Sage was dead. Joe was dead. Brian…they were all gone. It was only she, Anne and Chris left, and Chris was moving ever-closer to the brink. He needed a hospital. Rachel stared at where Chris was, not seeing him but imagining that she was looking at him. He was very close now.

She found herself looking back on Brian’s last moments. Had they been good? Well, aside from the fall and the broken neck, had she made his last moments…had she helped him to be in a good place? Rachel had spent the end of Brian’s life looking back on their most treasured memory. Perhaps, just maybe, she had, in some way…shared it with him. She hoped with all her heart, that while she had stared into his eyes and held his hand, he had remembered that lost night so long ago, that he had remembered that there is love in this world…

“Check this out,” Brian told her, his eyes pressed - as usual - up against a computer screen.

“Brian, back up,” Rachel said. “If you stay like that, you’ll have to get glasses someday.” Boy, would she be right.

“No, look at this,” Brian said. “In the news, this guy was arrested for digging up and stealing bodies. The police caught him with seven bodies in his basement!”

“That’s gross,” Rachel said.

“I agree,” Joe said, walking up and placing his hand on Rachel’s arm. “That is disgusting.”

“No, no,” Brian continued. “He told police that they weren’t the bodies that were stolen. He told them that the bodies he had were of these monsters that actually ate dead bodies. According to him, the monsters would then become copies of the corpses that they’d just eaten! He said that the bodies he had were the monsters, not the people.”

“Wow,” Joe said. “That guy sounds like a psychopath.”

“What were these monsters called?” Rachel asked, slightly interested.

“He called-”

“Rachel!” Anne’s voice pierced through the darkness. Rachel opened her eyes. The blankets were down and light was streaming in through the windows of the car. “Rachel, wake up!”

“What?” Rachel asked, groggy. She also had a headache, probably from sleeping with her head against the window all night. “What time is it?”

“Two in the afternoon,” Anne said. “We’ve been asleep half the day!”

Rachel’s head bounced up, her eyes open wide. “What?!” She yelled. “We…we have to get back to town! We have to get Chris to a hospi-”

“He’s dead,” Anne said, cold and placid. “Look.” Rachel turned her gaze and saw Chris in the same position he’d fallen asleep in. He was pale, with his legs saturated in now-dried blood. But his chest wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. “I held his wrist,” Anne said. “There’s no pulse. And he’s cold. My guess is that he died not long after he gave you the ring.” Rachel’s hand dropped down to her side, feeling the box in her pocket. It was real; that hadn’t been a dream. Rachel looked at Chris, her friend from college, the guy who had always been willing to spend time with her, playing games or just talking. He was gone, just like all the others. Everyone but Anne. Rachel reached back and grabbed the blanket that was still hanging along the back window. She pulled it down, stretched it out and laid it on top of Chris, covering him completely. That would do for now. She coughed as she sat back in her seat. She was still tired and her head was pounding. She felt like she was about to get sick.

“You’re not even crying,” Anne said. Rachel noticed that her cheeks were bright red, indicating that Anne had been silently crying for awhile now.

“We don’t have time for that,” Rachel said. “We need to get to town.”

“I’m on it,” Anne said. She turned back to face forward and soon, Rachel heard the sound of the car starting. Anne followed the road forward slowly, wary of anything in their path. She drove for about five minutes before coming to a halt beside the cemetery. “Get out,” she commanded Rachel.

The two girls stepped out of the car and saw, before them in the road, two enormous mounds of earth and tombstone. The piles had been constructed between the two trees to either side of the road, inhibiting them from being able to go around. “Like Chris said,” Anne spoke. “Someone doesn’t want us to leave. If we hurry, we might be able to walk it.”

“No,” Rachel said, walking up to the mound. “Come on, help me get this out of the way.”

“Are you insane? We’ll never get this out of the way in time! It’ll be dark before we clear enough space to get out of here!”

“So?” Rachel asked. “Last night was the last night of those things. Tonight should be safer. Sage said so.”

“What if Sage was wrong?”

“He was right about everything so far,” Rachel fought back. “He was even right about the alligators…Besides, I’m not leaving Chris here.”

“He’s dead,” Anne argued. “There’s nothing we can do for him!”

“I won’t let him become one of those things!”

“The screamers are gone, Rachel-”

“I wasn’t talking about them.” Rachel stopped and sat down on top of a particularly large tombstone that was laying on its face. “Last night, Brian told me what the Graveyard Folk are, or at least what they do. They feed on corpses, Anne. And then, they become what they’ve eaten. I won’t let that happen to Chris.”

Anne stepped forward and placed her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “I’ll help you move this stuff,” she said. “At night, we’ll drive back to town. And we’ll keep on driving.”

They worked for hours and hours, moving the mounds. Each tombstone seemed to take at least forty-five minutes, and Sage’s shovel was missing, so they had to push through the dirt with their bare hands. But as it began to get darker and darker as evening rolled in, they found they weren’t making as much progress as they’d hoped. “We’ll be out here until midnight, at this rate,” Rachel finally said.

Anne looked back at the car and saw the top of Chris’ head free from the blanket. It had slipped down, probably caught by the wind or something. “I’d better fix that,” she told Rachel after pointing it out to her. “I’ll be right back.”

“Stay in sight,” Rachel commanded her.

“I’m right here,” Anne said as she caught up to the car. She reached inside and pulled the blanket back over Chris’ head. Some of it came loose on his side and she fixed that as well, but not before noticing something odd: Chris had a wound in his side. Anne didn’t remember that being there. She investigated it up close, noticing how it looked like there were teeth marks around the wound. She shuddered and covered up the wound, telling herself that it was probably from the alligator.

Anne coughed as she finished covering Chris up. She coughed again and covered her mouth this time. When she pulled back her hand, she found blood on it. She looked back at Rachel, who had also been coughing quite a bit lately. The two of them hadn’t been feeling well. She just assumed it was trauma and stress, but maybe it was something else. Maybe they had caught something in the woods or out in the swamp. There were always diseases floating out in swamps, spread by the bugs and encouraged by the mold and filth. As soon as they made it to town, the hospital would be their first stop.

Anne noticed something in the basket-like holder behind the driver’s seat. She hadn’t noticed it before. Curious, she pulled it out and examined it. It was a moon guide. Sage had mentioned having one. Still curious, and a bit cautious, she opened it up and began thumbing through, noting the times of rising and falling of each moon. According to the guide, the moon wasn’t set to rise for about another half-hour. It also said that the previous night was the last night of the harvest moon. But it also said more…

“Rachel!” Anne yelled, running for her. “Rachel, we need to get back in the car!”

“Why?” Rachel asked. “We should be done in just a few more hours.”

“They’re coming back.”

“What?!” Rachel asked. “That’s impossible! The harvest moon is over!”

“But there’s another moon now!” Anne yelled. “I found Sage’s moon guide and it said that yesterday was the last of the harvest moon but today is the start of the hunter’s moon!”

“What’s the hunter’s moon?”

“I don’t know,” Anne answered. “But it doesn’t exactly sound like something that would keep those things away. We need to get in the car and block the windows again-”

“No,” Rachel said, yet again.

“Stop saying that!” Anne screamed. “I don’t want to die out here!”

“We don’t have to,” Rachel said, her expression cold and stony. “But these things killed Joe and Brian, and they drove us into the swamp, killing Sage and Chris. We’re paying them back, tonight.”

“How?”

Rachel slammed the car’s hood back down and tossed a small, black object aside. “Is it ready?” Anne’s voice echoed from the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” Rachel said. She circled around the car and climbed into the passenger seat. “Wait for the moon to shine.”

“How far will we have?” Anne asked.

“Maybe a mile or two,” Rachel said. “Start the car.” Anne turned on the engine and they sat in the car, waiting for the moon to come out.

“Are you sure this’ll work?” Anne asked.

“Joe taught me enough about cars to know this,” Rachel began. “When we stop the car, the antifreeze will go back from the radiator into a reservoir tank beside it. But with the cap missing and the antifreeze still boiling hot, it’ll shoot out of the tank like a geyser. And since these things don’t like water - and antifreeze is diluted with water before being put into a car - they won’t like it when we hit them.”

“I didn’t follow that at all,” Anne said. “Next time, just say ‘yes.’”

“Honk the horn,” Rachel said, but before Anne could, Rachel leaned over and laid on the horn, blasting the annoying sound all through the woods. “That should draw them in.”

A few seconds later, the familiar dark shapes started floating out of the woods, their red eyes now glowing a soft silvery color, matching the hunter’s moon. They glided out into the old, dirt road and began moving quickly toward the car. “I guess you were right about the moon,” Rachel said. “Thanks for catching that.”

“Should we go?” Anne asked.

“Wait,” Rachel said. “Turn the car off. We have a few seconds to let the engine boil over.” Anne did as commanded and shut off the engine. Rachel still laid on the horn, announcing their presence to the creatures. Their shrieks began echoing all around them as they floated ever closer.

“Now?” Anne asked.

“Turn on the car,” Rachel said. Anne turned the key and held it for five or six seconds before the engine finally started. At the sound, the creatures sped up. Anne was shaking with fear. So was Rachel, but she kept her eyes glued straight ahead of them. “Put it in gear,” she commanded. Anne put the car in drive but stayed on the brake. One of the creatures was five feet from the hood of the car, its screams louder than the others. Behind it, all the monsters were floating along the road, their black shapes making it impossible to make out any clear features. Except for their glowing, silver eyes. The lead creature reached the car and scraped its nails across the hood, the sound matching its own screams. It suddenly reeled its dark arm back and howled; it had touched the cloud of steam billowing from below the hood. “Now!” Rachel yelled.

Anne picked up her foot from off the brake and slammed on the gas. She flipped the headlights on, but that didn’t accomplish anything. The creatures were so dark that they appeared to be impenetrable shadows, the light stopping at them and simply vanishing. Anne and Rachel shot down the road, smashing and barreling through the creatures. The screams of the creatures never stopped, but Rachel knew that this time, they were screams of alarm and pain. Some of them fell on top of the hood and vanished, while others fell beneath the car. Each time, the front half of the car would bounce up and then fall back to the ground, as if the creatures they were driving over vanished as the antifreeze poured down on them from underneath.

The girls careened out of the forest and shot down the road, flying past the cemetery. Rachel looked as they drove past and covered her mouth when she saw Brian and Joe crawling amongst the tombstones, creeping out from the pits of graves to see what the ruckus was. There were numerous other seemingly normal people behaving in the same manner, crawling and creeping as if they weren’t even human. Rachel looked away and cried silently to herself.

Part Five: Mane Manor

“Rachel?” Anne said. “It says the engine temperature’s boiling.”

“Turn it off,” Rachel said. “It’s overheating.”

“Then what?” Anne asked, nervous. There were no more of the banshees around them, but they could be hiding. She pulled over to the side of the road and turned the car off. They both got out and stood beside it. “What now?” Anne asked. She was on the verge of panicking. “What do we do, Rachel?!”

“Get to the mansion,” Rachel answered. “If we’re in there, we can close the doors and wait until morning. As soon as it’s light out, we head for town.”

“But the car’s dead,” Anne whispered.

“We walk,” Rachel replied. “If we leave at dawn, we should make it to town long before dark.”

“Uh, Rachel,” Anne started, looking out into the trees. “We need to move.”

Rachel spun around. The woods were silent; it couldn’t be the banshees. But as she watched, people began walking out from behind the trees, stiff-legged and pale, with blood dripping from their mouths. They were all coming from the same direction: south. They were coming from the cemetery. “Rachel,” Anne said. “Rachel, I thought you said they only ate corpses.”

“If they kill us, what will we be?” Rachel asked, staring at the creatures. She and Anne turned and started sprinting along the road, the Graveyard Folk speeding up behind them. As they ran, more and more began popping up, sliding around corners of the stone mansion, crawling out of holes in the ground or cracks in the walls. They were coming from everywhere, it seemed, snarling and waving hands with fingers scraped down into bony, blood-caked claws.

“Keep going!” Rachel yelled to Anne, who had started to fall behind. There was a door up ahead, a large, wooden door that looked like the main door to an entire wing of the mansion. Rachel started running toward that.

Anne screamed. Rachel spun around and saw that one of the faster “people” had caught up to Anne and was clawing at her shirt, pulling her back. Rachel picked up a nearby rock, ran forward and smashed it into the creature’s face. It grunted angrily and stumbled back, allowing just enough time for Anne to squirm free. But she screamed again, this time in pain as the creature grabbed onto her ankle and sank its teeth in. Deftly, Rachel focused as hard as she could and kicked it in the face. Its teeth tore the wound in Anne’s ankle but it fell away and sat there, shaking its head, dazed. By the time it turned its hungry gaze back to Rachel and Anne, they were already a dozen feet ahead, Rachel supporting Anne as the two hobbled toward the thick door of the mansion. With an angry growl, it turned and started walking back to the cemetery. There was better food there anyhow.

Rachel and Anne hobbled up to the door and Anne stood on one leg while Rachel pulled the heavy door open a crack. It was at least a few inches thick, and with heavy deadbolt locks inside. Anne put her arm around Rachel’s shoulder and the two stumbled inside. “Quick!” Anne yelled as Rachel dropped her to the floor. “Close it!” Rachel grabbed one of the locks and used it to pull the incredibly heavy door shut. Then, as quickly as she could, she slid the four bars across, locking all of the deadbolts tight. There was a thud as something slammed against the door, followed by the sound of scratches and claws being etched and dragged across the other side of the door. But the door held strong. It refused to budge. There were snarls and growls from the other side, but no screams. The girls were thankful for that. Eventually, the snarls and growls died down and drifted off. The creatures had given up.

“It’s like they’re zombies or something,” Anne said.

“They’re not zombies,” Rachel said. “They can think. I have a feeling that they might even be able to talk.”

“Then why’d they snarl? Why didn’t they try to lure us out by talking?”

“Because we gave ourselves away when we ran away from them,” Rachel explained. “From that, they knew that we knew what they were. There was no need to hold up a charade that would’ve failed.”

“Rachel,” Anne said, her voice quivering again. “I hate to add to our problems, but…” She pointed and Rachel followed her direction to the ceiling…or rather, what should have been a ceiling. It was gone. As the clouds cleared and the moonlight began to shine in through the gaping nothing that should have been a roof, the girls could look around and see where they were. They were in Mane Manor, alright. But they were in the portion of it that had been burned down. All around them, the walls were charred black and crumbling. What was left of the ceiling was laying on the floor in front of them, burned and crumbling like everything else. Great piles of rubble lay around and the girls could almost taste the ash in their mouths as the smell of sulfur burned their nostrils.

Rachel turned her gaze to the large, black, cracked staircase leading to a second story that looked like it was about to collapse. Standing at the top of the stairs were dark, shadowy forms, their eyes glowing a gentle silver as they descended toward the girls. As they reached the foot of the stairs, they at last began to scream.