The area seemed unchanged from the many years ago that the encounter took place in the distance of the clearing. The difference seemed to be that the air was absent of the putrid smell of evil and was replaced with the scent of dried dirt and rotted wood. The door to the dilapidated home swung loosely on its hinges, causing a squeak when a random breeze would catch it. I felt a reluctance to be in this place, but my reluctance was overshadowed by an undeniable attraction. I called out into the open air.
“Emmett! Emmett, are you here? It’s Sutter… The Chaser!”
The only answer returned to me was the creaking from the wooden planks of the front porch beneath my feet. I moved slowly, trying to hone my ears for any sound. Placing my hand upon the door I steadied it, silencing the hinges and leaving nothing but the sound of the boards crying under the weight of my body. I called again; this time a bit more fearful.
“Balsavoy? Balsavoy, this is Sutter. I’m coming in. Don’t shoot at me you crazy coot.”
As I peered into the entrance of the shack, I noticed the squander of furniture that appeared broken and abandoned for many years. Dust was settled upon shelves that hung suspended from a single nail on the faded walls of grey. The window to my right displayed furnace tape partially covering a crack; the adhesive backing giving way to time and weathering. Through the breaks in the window dust had entered and settled over everything in the room giving a brownish haze to my surroundings. With every step, traces of my shoes were left behind in the layer of dust giving me the thought that no one else had explored the home through this entrance for some time. Across the room was an archway, rounded and off square. I rested at the archway again calling out to no apparent return. The room that I entered was a kitchen, evident only by the cast iron skillet atop a wood burning stove long since cold and deserted. Across the room was another open doorway as doors did not seem to be present throughout the home’s interior. Framing the door were layers of peeling wallpaper reaching toward the floor in an attempt to escape the latticed walls behind them yet still held tightly by a portion of the wall.
I turned my body to the side to fit between the wall and the aluminum table; hearing my shirt brush the wallpaper behind it as I passed. I entered slowly through the doorway, relaxed and convinced that Emmett had not stayed here for quite a time. The room was a bedroom, complete with a stained and aged mattress topped by a bearded, rotting corpse lying with its head propped by a pillow and the remainder of the carcass beneath the blanket of the bed. The sight caused me to step backward and into the kitchen table, scooting it across the wood floor and sending me tumbling beside it. I stumbled against the words locked in my throat.
“Emmett? My mercy…Emmett? ”
No answer was returned as I had suspected from the sign of decomposing flesh and exposed bone of his corpse. The meat had long since rotted and dried as did the sunken face and dried eye sockets. The clothes were the same that I remembered Emmett wearing to the hospital during his visit a week earlier but the body had to have been rotting for more than a month as no odor accompanied his body. The jaw was dropped down upon the bib of his overalls which were stained with the oils of his rotted cadaver as the juices were wicked through the material during decomposition. His hands, which resembled thin strands of jerky, clutched tightly to a double-barreled shotgun across his sunken and hollowed chest. The propped head left me to imagine that Emmett was lying here scared and waiting for something or someone at the time of his demise.
Above the bed, the wall had been stripped down to the lattice work except for small torn remnants of wallpaper scattered sporadically about its length. Upon the wall was scribbled what I would have guessed to be a child’s handwriting. The letters were inconsistently displayed in differing sizes and were written in blood as they were darkened red in color and the substance had been pulled down the wall as it dripped during the composition. I moved a step back from the wall to make out the letters to discover what they combined to spell. Before me, the letters revealed;
NOT TONDER
Racing upward along the length of my spine, coldness arose in me reviving the memory of the wretched beast that spoke to my father and I and echoed the same phrase forever scarring my repressed memory with its words. I raced out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and out of the open backdoor and doubled over at the pain within the depth of my stomach. The burning, sour taste of bile rose into my throat and filled my mouth with vomit as I uncontrollably evacuated its contents onto the red earth below me. I struggled to regain myself and gathered my senses amidst the tears streaming down my cheeks from the release of the morning coffee in my stomach. Breathing hard I stood to notice the pile of rocks which were mortared in the same place that my father and Emmett had placed them as they contained the beast long ago.
I remembered the words that Emmett spoke to me in the hospital when he told me that she had finally died. A single rock lay on the ground in front of the mortared cage leaving a void in the fortress. I approached the rocks and placed my hand on the cold stone while steadying myself against its rigid wall. I leaned, bending at my waist, to look into the stone encasement. Within the void where the fallen stone once laid was the face of a beast compressed between the walls of rock and gazing at me through hideous black eyes. Its demonic face wrinkled as it laughed in a sinister tone, which raised an octave at its end while its sharpened teeth gnashed against each other like pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. It’s laughing echoed endlessly while I tumbled helplessly backward in fear. I scraped at the ground to carry me away while seemingly going nowhere. Fighting to stand, my legs; as if controlling themselves, tried desperately to move away as my wide eyes remained fixed upon the open portal.
I stood trembling in front of the enigma where I could see its form loosing consistency and fading away until it finally dissipated into nothing. The laughter stopped and the capsule stood empty. I felt as though an eternity had passed as I tried to understand what I was experiencing. Encouraging my legs, I ran around the house and was stopped at the side window by a voice speaking to me. The direction of the voice seemed to culminate from the broken and taped window, causing me to turn around to face in its direction. Through the thick dirty glass I could see the frail shape of an old man with his rotted fingers gripping the broken portion of the window raising its face to the opening above. It was undeniably the decomposing corpse of Emmett that the demon had raised and replaced its own head. As the sunlight shown caught it, its brown skin appeared leathery and weathered as its shark-like teeth gleamed at me through its wicked smile. It taunted me to its great satisfaction.
“Run, Chaser. Much to do! Can’t wait around just for me. I’ll twist your mind and leave you rotting. Just like Balsavoy. Run Chaser! I will catch you! Run, boy! It’s time to play!”
The sound of its voice shot through my body in a surreal wave of fear causing my limbs to feel limp and helpless against my trembling torso. I stood in terror as the smile of the creature widened and its laughter began again, louder than before. As I forced my body to turn, I ran as fast as my legs would carry while my misguided feet flailed as steel balls on a string. As I made my way to the truck the creature continued its threats as though yelling across the greatness of time and space.
“I will catch you Chaser! Keep running! I will catch you!”
As I opened the truck door its laughter filled the cab around me while I nervously shuffled the tangle of keys in my hands. After finding the correct key, I placed it into the ignition and twisted it with a jerk causing the engine to cough and sputter until finally starting in a cloud of smoke. The demonic creature continued to taunt.
“Run Chaser. Run away! I’m coming, Chaser, soon be there, don’t’ you worry about a thing”
Looking up through the dirty windshield I noticed the creature now standing on the front porch hideously laughing with widened eyes and in the direction of the truck. I quickly slammed the gear shift into reverse and expelled a cloud of dust in a circle surrounding me. Within my rearview mirror I could see the beast standing on the porch perched atop the headless body of Emmett which lay strewn in the dust. I traveled quickly through the bottle neck of the trees and while panicking, I placed rapid distance between myself and the atrocity. I reached to the rearview mirror with a trembling hand as the truck jostled me along the dirt road. Grabbing the rosary from the mirror I draped it around my neck and began reciting The Lord’s Prayer aloud while my trembling hands nervously gripped the steering wheel.
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