Chapter Nine
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
Psalms 23:4
Officer Frank Marshall held his hat firmly against the driving wind and rain to keep it from flying off his balding head, while he quickly raced across the parking lot to his car. The drops were falling in sheets and it quickly saturated the Sheriff’s clothes. This storm had mysteriously come out of nowhere soaking the ground and leaving standing pools everywhere you stepped, but this was summer and sudden storms weren’t uncommon.
Frank swung open the door of the unlocked police car. In this town there had never been a need to lock your vehicle, but after the recent deaths that was one habit Frank had quickly decided to break, thrusting his dripping self inside, and slamming the door behind him. He wasn’t a puny man by any means, he was fairly fit, though he had yet to have to run down a suspect or chase after a criminal. Although a muscle man he wasn’t, the word “beer belly” was something of a curse word to him, so there he stayed somewhere between muscle man and flab man, with a few love handles of course.
With the slamming of the door, the officer had shut out the wind, the rain, and all of the elements that were fighting nature that night and with a turn of his key the engine roared to life, its glowing headlights showing him the way out of the parking lot and toward his destination. As Little Red Riding Hood, he was going to his Grandmother’s house and all he needed right now was to run into the Big Bad Wolf. The thought made him chuckle and if it had been a wild dog or wolf hybrid that had so brutally murdered those poor people he should very well watch out or the Big Bad Wolf would cross his path.
No sooner had the image run though his own tired mind than someone or something flashed across the road in front of him and into the trees beyond. Frank blinked wildly shaking his head in total disbelief then hesitantly chopped the whole thing up to an over active imagination. Between the recent deaths, the storm, and his amusing Little Red Riding Hood analogy it’s no wonder that he’s seeing things dart out at him. He began to laugh at his own stupidity, but his laugh quickly died as the sight in front of him registered in his brain. The rain distorted everything, yet standing in the middle of his lane was a large figure that seemed to be motioning him onwards… smiling.
Without blinking Frank franticly pumped the anti-lock brakes, still he plowed right into the thing, screeching to a halt yards away. His mind could not accept what had just happened, it didn’t want to. He had never hit anything in his life and now he had just run down some poor soul in the middle of the street. His hands refused to let go of the steering wheel and his eyes wouldn’t open. It could not have been real, it just couldn’t have, the thought of hitting some kid playing a joke or some stranded motorist, or even the thought of hitting some one’s beloved pet tore at his heart and his conscious.
He prayed that it wasn’t a child. “Didn’t he know that he could’ve been hurt or even killed, let alone hurt or kill somebody else?!” Concern flooded over Frank along with his training. Even more hurriedly than he got into his car he jumped out, not caring about the storm that raged outside; only the storm of emotions inside mattered now. Slipping wildly on the drenched pavement he ran to the rear of his car expecting to see the body of some decimated soul lying behind him in the road. Nothing. Worse, had he dragged the body along? He slowly walked to the front of his vehicle. Nothing. He checked the sides of the road, still nothing. There was only one place left to look… underneath. With his flashlight shining brightly Frank descended to all fours and braced himself for the gore he was about to witness. He called out to the wretched victim underneath his vehicle that was sure to need immediate medical attention, but there was no answer. There was no body. It had been his imagination after all. Frank shook his head in bewilderment and peered one more time at the emptiness underneath his car, but the light went out leaving him staring into the darkness. He rose frustrated into the headlights of his cruiser and came face to face with a smiling big bad wolf. Its rotting breath hot and putrid in the rain just inches from Frank’s own face made his stomach turn as he kneeled, frozen in disbelief. The shadow of the beast’s mammoth paw crossed the officer seconds before it brought it down again and with one mighty swipe it tore his nose from his face spurting blood high into the falling rain. One claw caught his eyeball popping it like a ripe zit that gushed fluids of all kinds into his exposed nasal cavity, the razor sharp claws slicing his cheek like a paper shredder ripping his lower lip from his mouth sending it bouncing into the distance. Frank fell onto his back with a thud, stunned, not wanting to believe that the creature standing over him grinning at him was real, but the pain wracking his body and the blood flowing freely from it was real. His tormented mind quickly changed and he faced the reality when the monster embedded teeth and all into his gut ripping his steaming hot intestines from his belly, watching as the thing chewed them up then spat them back in his face. Blood, bile, digestive juices, and other fluids mixed with the pouring rain and drained from his dying body as he went cold. His vision blurred and his remaining eye rolled back into the darkness of his head as a soft gurgling whisper emanated from the holes in his face. The words were as mutilated and misshapen as his body now was, but they weren’t for anyone on earth to hear and he spoke them with his damaged mind and his longing soul.
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.” With his last conscious breath he sighed, “Amen.” And with it his soul left his body lifting away from the evils of the earth and ascended into his heavenly home for all eternity, leaving behind only a shell for the beast to shred as it desired.
And that it did. The loss of the girl had sent it into an uncontrollable rage seething for blood and it would not stop until this human was nothing but a pile of pulp and bone. So it relentlessly continued to tear, slice, shred, and crunch the remains of Officer Frank Marshall. Chunks of flesh flew in all directions and steam rose from both the carnage and the monster. The rain fell so heavily it hid all traces of the events violating the night, washing the pieces into gullies and the blood into muddy streams. The butchery continued, but the pleasure had dwindled into nothingness when its sacrifice gave up the ghost and left this earthly plane. The ultimate pleasure came only from the pain and torment of its offering, now gone.
Ceasing its massacre the beast breathed deeply inhaling the salty remains of the very tasty Frank Marshall then stood erect, stretching its long fur ridden arms to the heavens as if reaching to pluck something from the sky. As with the nights before it let out a mighty howl and ordered the storm back from whence it came, it had served its purpose and cover was no longer needed.
Its fury had been released and soon it would be able to sleep in peaceful contentment once more. The first victims had been discovered, this one warranted no hiding, its presence was known now. It lowered its massive head to the sodden road and sniffed the sweet smell of the dismembered carcass one last time then slinked into the darkened woods, disappearing as if it never was. The only evidence of the night’s dismay was that of the lone police cruiser, awaiting its own death, its lights blazing like a spotlight in the night on the bloody remains of the man who would have learned the truth. The moon emerged from its clouded refuge and shown bright and full over the cursed town below; the only witness to a lone figure carrying another in the deep of the night.