“someone’s gotta say it: time for you to meet your Maker, Jimmy. Tell Him I said ‘hi’.” He raised the hammer up over his head, and readied it to come down on Jim’s head. The ugly, thin arm that raised it was surprisingly strong seeming, and from just a glance, Jim knew that he would not survive if that arm came down a few times.
Dear God, please, I’m ready to meet you, but I’d rather do it at the hands of something other than this monster.
Beverly was still laying on the concrete just a few steps over, huddled together, reflexively protective.
Linda came up behind Bram, bearing her own grin, with two shining canines and nothing more. Her horns were fully visible, even in the poor lighting. Her true face easily seen.
“Say goodbye.”
Jim smiled, grinning at his own dumb joke, “Goodbye.”
The hammer came down.
A bright light broke from nowhere. The center of it was undetermined, but beams shot out in every direction, the fibrous movement of the rays was smooth and organic, as if it were living sun.
Jim covered his eyes immediately. He heard an unholy wailing and knew that it was Bram and Linda; the light was too bright for them, which meant that it didn’t come from them.
Jim felt a warm embrace around him, as if something were protecting him, out of his fingers that covered his eyes, he saw a great sword, a robe swirled, moving, as if alive, then a wing moved past his field of vision before he could no longer stand it and had to look away.
Deep down he knew that Beverly was safe. Something told him that, he wasn’t sure what, but he knew it.
That was just before he lost consciousness, and the world faded away to white.
IX
WAKE UP!” He was being shook. The feeling of hands on his shoulder, the fingers digging just a little deep, like someone was clawing into his shoulder.
Jim pulled himself back into reality. The feeling of weightlessness quickly left him, like someone pulling a rug out from under him, leaving him on a hard floor that he quickly realized was a driveway.
“Wake up!” Beverly, she was waking him up.
What did she want?
His eyes opened, and he was instantly blinded by light.
It wasn’t gone! It wasn’t over; whatever it was that he had seen was still there, right by him, the blinding light…
“Wake up, Jim!”
He realized it was the sun. A blue sky with the slightest grin of clouds gazed down on him, like a Cyclops with a blinding eye.
“Jim!” Beverly, covered in dirt, but as beautiful as anything he had ever seen. He managed to slur out something that sounded like a death rattle instead of a reply.
“What?”
“Are they gone?” He asked. He managed to glance around, and saw that the shed was there, the latch busted open still, hanging loosely. The padlock shone in the grass, right by his bolt cutters. He saw his Ruger lying on the ground, empty and discarded. He wished it hadn’t been left like that.
“Yes,” she answered. “They’re gone. I don’t know where, but they’re gone. Everything’s gone.”
Everything? What was she talking about?
He looked around and saw that there were no tables in the back yard. There were no bins either. No tent. No piles of junk. The table that was in the carport was missing as well, and so were Bram and Linda. He leaned back on the grass, and smiled up at her, unable to help it. He felt the pull at the edges of his mouth and wanted to stop it, wishing that he could be serious, but under the circumstances could not be serious.
“What are you smiling at?”
“The craziness of it. The police didn’t come, probably because they didn’t want them too, and the neighbors were eating out of their hand. They had control of the whole neighborhood, and still they’re the ones that left. They had all that, but we won.”
Beverly looked down at him, confused.
He didn’t feel like it needed to be explained. In the end they had the neighborhood, but that didn’t mean anything. When it came down to good versus evil, good won, despite the odds.
He grinned at Beverly again. She looked back down at him, desperate, but relieved at the same time—more confused than he was. She had not seen the light, nor had she seen the wings, or the swords. He wasn’t sure she understood, or was ready to understand. He didn’t even know if she ever would be able to understand all of what had just happened. All he knew was that they were together, and they had survived. Both of them had made it out, free from evil. Good had won over evil.
He looked at the ground and saw a round burn mark; right where he had seen the ball of light and reckoned it was centered. Impossible, but undeniable—it had all actually happened. Even though everything was gone—he was sure that it indeed was all gone, and not a single thing had been left behind, they were still there. They remained, he and Beverly. They made it. Good over evil.
No, he thought to himself. It was God won over evil. Not just good. God.
X
FAR AWAY, in a tiny town in Montana, a woman named Tracy Jackson was walking her Great Dane, Arnold, and saw a man up ahead. He was strong looking, youngish; he was nicely dressed, fresh shirt, clean jeans. In his hand was a post and he had it lined up, carefully, he pounded down onto the wooden post. As he looked up, taking a quick break from his work, he caught her eye and smiled. He had a nice smile, a real winning smile, she thought. They hadn’t welcomed this couple to the neighborhood yet, she realized. Perhaps she would do that. It might be a good idea.
The man went back to work on his post and finished after a few more hammer blows. The hammer hung limply in his hand as she approached, trying to keep Arnold from running too far ahead of her. He walked to the sidewalk to meet her, the hammer swinging lightly in his hand.
“Howdy there,” he said. He seemed to have a bit of a Texas accent to her. Something very pleasant, she thought.
“Hello there,” she replied. “New to the neighborhood?”
He nodded. “That we are, me and my wife, Helen.” He extended his free hand. “I’m Jonathan Cain, ma’am.”
She shook it and introduced herself. “This is my dog, Arnold.”
The Great Dane took a look at him and sniffed, turning his nose back to the wind, seeking out something more interesting.
“What’s that you’re putting up?”
“It’s a sign for our new business venture. Something my wife cooked up, figured it’d be a good way to make some money, you know.”
She looked at the sign.
ODDS AND ENDS: NEVER-ENDING YARD SALE
WE SELL ANYTHING
“Anything?” She whispered.
“What’s that?” He asked, the smile of perfect teeth still on his face. She took a look at his face and noticed that he really was the picture of perfection. Just how you’d expect a man in a magazine would look.
“You sell anything?” She asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” He replied. “Anything.”
About the Author:
Waking
Maureen woke from her terrible dream. The room was dark around her, and the scream that was stuck in her throat was slowly swallowed as she sucked in thick, warm air that seemed to weigh heavily in her lungs and was expelled with incredible effort—like she was breathing swamp water.
She could still feel the tentacles wrapping around her throat, slimy, dripping with thick mucous. They writhed and slithered over her body, searching her, tasting her, sampling her. The terrible hiss of ragged breath from nostrils that seemed torn in the fabric of what was supposed to be the monster’s face left a lasting chill that ran across her shoulder blades. She could still smell it, like a thousand rotting corpses blown into her face through dozens of crooked teeth that writhed in their places like a bed of maggots.
Her arms were covered in tiny pinpricks, goosebumps swaying as if in a dance across her flesh. She looked around the room in the limited lighting, wondering why she could not see; the darkness seemed to en
gulf her. She always left a small light on, always…why couldn’t she see the light?
Maureen tried to wriggle away from her sweat-soaked sheets that tried to hold her back and fought to find the night-light that she always left on. She never slept without that on.
Her free hand fumbled for the lamp switch on the night table, bumping only the alarm clock and the H. P. Lovecraft paperback collection that rested on the tabletop.
Her air was flowing freer, it no longer felt like she was breathing muddy water, but she instead felt like the darkness was trying to strangle her. Trying to break free from the terror that was creeping up her spine, heading straight for her brain, crawling like a caterpillar up her spine slowly, tiny legs wiggling up farther and farther.
Maureen finally found the switch on her lamp and quickly flipped it—the light flooded the room quickly from a dim light bulb.
She felt the chills on her arms and shoulders drop. Her eyes were squinted tightly from the sudden light out of the darkness. She closed on eye and left the other halfway open, trying to look around the room carefully. For some reason she expected to see a monstrosity waiting for her with seven