Harlan County Horrors (16 page)

Paul couldn’t easily identify it, and that's what bothered
him.
What the hell is that thing?
he wondered every time he drove past.

Not that the thing at the side of Highway 987 was the
only
thing about Harlan
County that bothered Paul. No, since the company sent him down from
Louisville to take over the local State Farm office, he had found
more than enough to be bothered about. The people, the way they
looked and acted…hell, even the lay of the land was all
somehow
wrong.
But it was nothing tangible, nothing he could actually put
his finger on. Every time he tried expressing his concerns to his
superior back at the main office he came off looking like a
freaking idiot.

That Saturday afternoon, on the way home from getting
groceries in town with his wife, Jill, Paul decided that he had
finally had enough. He wasn’t driving another mile without finding
out exactly what that furry black thing was.

When he slowed the Escalade and stopped, Jill turned and
looked at him. “What are you doing?”

Paul sighed and put the vehicle into park. “You remember that
thing at the side of the road? The one I pointed out on the way to
town?”

Jill nodded. “The dead dog?”

“
Yeah, but that’s the point,” said Paul, shutting off the
engine. “I don’t know if it’s really a dog or not.”

His
wife regarded him with irritation. “What do you care?”

Paul exhaled through his nose and gripped the steering wheel.
That was Jill’s typical reaction. March on through life with
blinders on. No curiosity, no worries. Just that annoying,
sugar-coated Pollyanna attitude of hers.

“I
care because it’s bugging the shit out of me and I need to
know
, that’s
why.”

Jill stiffened up a bit and sat back in her seat. She knew
better than to argue with her husband when he was in such a pissy
mood.

Paul climbed out of the Escalade, leaving the driver’s door
open. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“
Don’t touch that thing. It could’ve died of a disease or
something.”

Paul ignored Jill’s comment. As he walked down the shoulder of
Highway 987, a beat-up Ford pickup passed by. The driver—an old man
wearing a green John Deere cap—threw up his hand at him, as the old
folks did in greeting.

I
don’t know you, buddy,
thought Paul, neglecting to return the gesture.
Ignorant hick.

As
he walked toward mound of black fur, he surveyed his surroundings.
The valley was narrow, with thin stretches of farmland on either
side. Across the road was a small farm; a two-story white house,
greywood barn, a few outbuildings. Being early spring, the pastures
were empty of crops. No cows around at all.

A
little smile of triumph crossed Paul’s face as he came within eight
feet of the questionable roadkill.
Now,
let’s see what the hell you are.
He bent
down and picked up a dead branch that lay nearby.

When he finally stood over the animal, he realized exactly how
large the thing was. Even curled inward the way it was, it was
huge…much bigger than a normal dog. All he could see was that
glossy black coat with a strange grey-striped pattern running
through it. He couldn’t make out the creature’s head, tail, or
legs; they were completely tucked from sight. Standing close to it,
Paul found that the coat wasn’t actually fur, but heavy black
bristles, more like that of a wild boar than a canine.

Also, even after a couple of weeks of rotting on the side of
the highway, Paul smelled no trace of decay, only a heavy muskiness
to the thing.

He
should have found all this, well,
unsettling
. Instead, he found his
inability to identify the animal infuriating. “Well, we’ll just
flip you over and take a better look at you,” he said. Paul wedged
the tip of the branch underneath the thing and started to exert a
little leverage.

That was when the thing at the side of the road woke
up.

“Damn!” Paul jumped back as it stretched and then lifted its
head. Its
massive
head.
The thing’s black-bristled skull was long and narrow, almost
rat-like
in a way, its
tiny ears laid back sharply toward its broad neck. It had silver
eyes. Silver like polished chrome. And the teeth. Lord have mercy!
How could anything have so many long, jagged teeth within the
cradle of two jaws?

Paul Stinson knew then that the thing at the side of the road
hadn’t been dead for two weeks.

It
had been waiting. Waiting for someone stupid enough to stop by and
wake it up.

Paul held onto the stick but knew it wouldn’t serve as any
sort of effective weapon. He’d fare better going against a pit bull
with a toothpick. He took a couple of wary steps backward as the
thing stood up on short, stubby but powerful legs. It shook its
coat off with a shudder, shedding a couple weeks’ worth of debris.
Dead leaves, gravel, an old Snickers wrapper someone had tossed out
a car window. It yawned, stretching those awful triangular jaws to
capacity. The thing could have swallowed a softball without
strangling. And all those damn teeth! And a long, thick tongue as
coarse and grey as tree bark.

Paul began to back away. “What…what the hell
are
you?”

The
thing cocked its huge head and grinned.

Paul suddenly remembered the Escalade behind him. The driver’s
door stood wide open.

The
thing saw it at the same time.

Paul turned and began to run. He didn’t get far when he sensed
the thing beside him, then outdistancing him. Up ahead, in the
passenger seat, sat Jill, her pretty face a frightened mask
blanched of color. She watched, mortified, as the thing about the
size of a young calf poured on the speed, heading for the open door
of the SUV.

“
Paul,” he saw her mutter. Then he heard her, loud and shrill.
“PAUL!”

“
Stop!” Paul muttered beneath his breath. “Stop, you
sonofabitch!”

But
it didn’t. It knew its target and it got there a moment later. The
black-bristled thing leapt into the Escalade and, with a long tail
as sleek and serpentine as a monkey’s, grabbed the door handle and
slammed the door solidly shut behind it.

“NO!” Paul reached the door as the power locks engaged with
a
clack!
The
thing was smart…and it knew what it wanted. And what it wanted at
that moment was to not be disturbed.

“Paul!” shrieked Jill, hidden by the thing’s heaving, black
bulk. “Oh, God…Paul, help me! Oh, God…it
hurrrrrrts!”

Outside the vehicle, Paul could hear the thing at work.
Biting. Tearing. Ripping.

Frantic, he looked around and found a large rock at the far
side of the highway. He grabbed it up in both hands and battered at
the side window. It held fast, refusing to shatter.
Damn safety glass!

Without warning, the inner glass of the Escalade began to
gloss over with great, thick curtains of crimson. “Paul!” screamed
Jill from inside that slaughterhouse on wheels.
“Paul…
pleeeeeeease!"

Her husband began to scream himself, loud and horrified, full
of utter hopelessness. He paced back and forth beside the vehicle,
wishing…no,
praying
that some ignorant Kentucky redneck would happen along to
help him. But the highway remained empty and no one
came.

The
last window to gloss over with gore was the driver’s window. The
thing turned and grinned at him with those awful, four-inch teeth.
Pieces of Jill clung in between. Her ear, the ruptured sack of an
eye, the bottom half of those ruby red lips he had kissed so
passionately following their wedding vows seven years
ago.

The
thing licked its glistening grey lips, then turned back to the
ugly, jagged sack of seat-belted carrion that had once been Paul
Stinson’s wife. Rivulets of blood obscured the horrible sight from
view…but far from mind.

At
a loss for anything better to do, Paul dug his cell phone from his
jacket pocket and dialed 911.

The
first one out of the Harlan County Sheriff’s car was a tall, burly
fellow in his fifties. “What seems to be the problem, sir?” he
asked. He had a stern, suspicious expression on his broad face, the
same severe look that the locals customarily directed toward people
who had been born and bred beyond the county line.

Paul quelled the impulse to run up and grab hold of the man in
complete desperation. “An…an
animal
of some kind is inside my car!” he said. “I…I…I
think it’s…oh, God…I think it’s
killed
her!”

The
deputy, whose name tag identified him as Frank McMahon, walked
briskly toward the Escalade. His eyes narrowed as he saw the
blood-splattered windows. “What sort of animal? A dog?”

Paul laughed, almost hysterically, then caught himself.
“No…no…wasn’t a damn dog.”

Deputy McMahon tried the doors. They were all locked. He
turned questioning eyes toward Paul.

“
It locked them…by itself.”

The
law officer regarded him suspiciously. “Sir…exactly what is going
on here?”

Anger flared in Paul’s eyes. “I told you…some…some
thing
…it jumped in there
and attacked my wife…”

“And it slammed the door behind it and
locked it
?”

Paul realized how very lame that sounded. “Yes.”

McMahon studied Paul for a long second, then turned to his
partner, a tall, lanky young man who stood in front of the patrol
car. “Grab the Slim Jim, Jasper…and the shotgun.”

Soon, both county deputies stood next to the Escalade, looking
at one another. They then looked at Paul, pacing back and forth at
the front of the vehicle.

“
If there’s an animal in there, sir,” said McMahon, “why can’t
I hear anything?”

Paul shrugged. “How should I know? You could sure as hell hear
it fifteen minutes ago!” He shuddered at the memory of those wet,
ripping, slurping sounds.

“I’ll take your word for it…right
now
. But you stay put, do you
understand?”

Paul swallowed dryly and nodded.

The elder officer turned to his subordinate. “Okay, this is
how we’re gonna work it, Jasper. You jimmy the lock and open the
door. I’ll shoot the thing when it comes out.” He jacked a shell
into his twelve-gauge Mossberg with a metallic
click-clack
.

“
Gotcha,” agreed Jasper. His hands trembled as he stepped to
the driver’s door and inserted the narrow length of the Slim Jim
with slow precision past the blood-soaked window and down into the
body of the Cadillac’s door.

Frank McMahon stepped into the center of the highway and
lifted his shotgun, bringing the butt securely against his
shoulder. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Jasper fished around with the jimmy until something within the
door went
click
.
“Get ready. Here goes!” Then he grasped the handle and pulled open
the door.

At
first, nothing happened. Then Deputy McMahon’s eyes widened. “What
the
shit?
”

Paul watched in horror as the thing burst from the
gore-encrusted cave of the Escalade, leaping straight toward the
lawman. It was
bigger
—twice as big as it had been before—and, it seemed, twice as
fast. It barreled out of the vehicle with sharp jaws gnashing, a
deep, thunderous roar rumbling up from out of its
gullet.

Deputy McMahon managed to put a load of double-aught buckshot
smack-dab in the center of the thing’s chest but wasn’t able to
jack another round into the breech. The creature landed atop him,
seemingly unharmed. The officer cried out as he hit the pavement
hard, his eyes bulging as the monster’s teeth burrowed deeply into
the tender flesh of his throat.

“
Do something!” screamed Paul. “Shoot it!”

Deputy Jasper dropped the Slim Jim and nervously fumbled his
service revolver from its holster. He held it in both hands,
pointing it at the thing on top of his partner. During his
hesitance, the thing brought its powerful jaws together in a
bone-shattering
crack
! His victim’s head separated from the neck bone, rolling
lopsidedly across the highway, stump over balding scalp.

Jasper looked over at Paul in indecision. “I…I might hit
Frank.”

“
Frank’s head is in the freaking ditch!” Paul yelled at him.
“Shoot the damn thing!”

The
deputy turned back and pumped the contents of his .38 into the back
of the creature’s head and spine. Instead of suffering from the
gunfire, the thing seemed to regard it as an annoyance. It looked
over its shoulder, shook its leering head as if saying, “Stupid
bastard!” then lashed out with its bristly black tail. The blow
took Jasper’s right hand off at the wrist. Both severed fist and
the gun clutched tightly within it crashed through the windshield
of the patrol car, leaving a jagged black hole.