NFTF: Rancher IV

He'd caught it at a strange angle, and the box had broken open, much of its contents spilling over him. The word she'd shouted, one word so colored in his mind by that Halloween, that he had allowed himself to live a life devoid of it for the last fifty years.

"Salt," he says now. "Salt will kill 'em dead."

"Salt!" the wife shouts. "See? I fucking told you we should bring the rock salt!" Unleashing another arrow, she cores the largest creature's head and all those around it leap and devour before it's finished dying. Each creature that eats the largest one begins to grow larger than those around it. All of this in about three seconds, followed by more shots from both man and wife.

"As it happens," Talmadge begins, turning to head toward Beulah, but he never gets any farther in that sentence: a group of creatures is approaching the horses from behind a stand of trees to the East. He gives a shout and runs toward them and, as the woman and man behind him kill more of these things, he heads to his right and fires off a shot at the creatures closest to the horses. The first two creatures are down and the rest fall on them, devouring, giving the rancher enough time to reach Beulah.

In her saddlebags he keeps something special, in case he ever needs to run off an interloper or two. He grabs the sack and sprints back to the man and his wife, marveling for a moment at how the creaks and groans of his ramshackle old body could disappear in excitement. He decides to stick around these two as long as he can as he tosses the sack to the man. "See if this helps at all!" he shouts, then runs back to the horses, rounding them in time to see a creature launch itself at the fourth horse's left foreleg. The horse screams, trying to rear, snapping the dead branch it's tied to from the tree. The branch, wrapped in the horse's reins, swings wildly toward Talmadge just as he is ducking in toward the creature whose mouth is tearing flesh from the horse's leg. He sees it coming, raising the butt of his rifle to crush the skull of the little terror and hoping that his timing is just right.

The branch catches him in the side of the head, tearing into the left side of his face and his left eye. He feels the dry, jagged twigs jammed into his eye socket and pulling out with the force of the horse's panicked rearing. Clutching his left bicep up over his eye, he cries out as the last of the twigs tears through his eyelid and is trapped between his arm and the exposed, tender flesh. Lashing out in rage and pain, he swings the butt of his rifle toward where he last saw the creature, his grip on the rifle not so strong as it should be: it connects but doesn't kill the thing, and the rifle flies from his grasp, skidding across the earth to a spot about twenty feet behind the horses. As he lurches toward it, removing his left arm from its protective place over his bleeding eye socket, a creature lands on his back, digging its jagged claws into his right side and left chest as its teeth tear into the back of his neck. The pain is excruciating. He forgets about his eye, spins on the spot and falls heavily onto the little monster, thinking to crush it with his weight. Dimly, he hears the woman cry out and he is aware of a set of hooves galloping past his head too close for safety and just far enough away that he is still alive and can feel the creature struggling, still alive as well, beneath him. 

Just as he realizes what it's doing -- "Are you humping me, you little bastard?!" -- three more creatures launch themselves at him: one on his right leg, one aiming for his soft belly, the third with jaws thrown wide and black tongue lolling as it dives in to eat his face. For a moment, everything slows down and he sees:

Husband and wife, back to back, surrounded by an increasing number of creatures whose size has risen to about five and a half feet tall; the pair are turning, firing, the woman having switched from arrows to a pair of Glocks, from the look of things. The man is firing his shotgun with calm precision. These two move like they're dancing, seeming to know when the other needs to reload, reaching behind to give what's needed, turning to shoot what's attacking. He sees this and he is filled with loneliness: this is the kind of woman he should have married, instead of a bitter school marm librarian; he is also filled with pride: he knows he is going to die, and he has died fighting with two actual warriors. He knows a kind of love in that moment, and he wonders for the fist time in years if his children miss him at all.

He sees also that three of the horses are gone; branches broken from the tree tell him there's a chance they escaped. But there's Beulah, rearing up, coming down to crush a creature near the wife, then kicking three of them behind her. Good old Beulah.

The last thing he sees before the creature's jaws close on his face is a sturdy chunk of broken branch. It's just out of reach and he finds himself stretching toward it in this long billionth of a second, stretching his right hand out as he brings his left elbow up toward the throat of the creature attacking his face.

If he can only reach it in time ...

NFTF: Rancher II

"That's our signal," the woman says. The husband takes his shotgun from the scabbard on his saddle, checks it, his wife doing the same with her longbow. Silent, competent, prepared. This couple might not be as city-slick as they pretended. Jury's still out.

Shaking his head, he grabs his Winchester and joins them on the stony outcropping at the edge of the ridge. "What now?" he asks.

They're silent for a time, the roar of the fire loud and getting louder. The husband looks at him, a little smile in his eyes:

"We wait."

A howl sounds, far off to the South, and they all three turn their heads in that direction. The woman has given a little gasp, whispering a word he doesn't hear clearly, and he wonders again if they know about anything beyond the freeways and coffeehouses of the young.

"Not a cayute," he says, but his words are lost under the keening whine of something to the North. The horses are disturbed, whickering and stamping. Turning to look for the source of the noise, he sees only that there is something moving in the grass, coming toward them. The light of the fires to the East is not enough to make anything clear at that distance. 

"Why would anything that small be running toward us?" he murmurs. It reaches a low, pebbly hillock and they see it more clearly: small, maybe the size of a small child, but somewhat hairy and oddly shaped -- and its face ... something is wrong, there. It stands, panting, sniffing the air, tongue lolling between what look like very sharp teeth.

"Is that ... a little kid?" the woman asks.

"I think it's one of the things we were warned about," the husband says.

"It looks like a toddler in a monster mask," she says, and her voice is a little loud, a little mocking. The rancher would never have spoken so loudly, but then he also wouldn't have come here on a lark. The thing seems to hear her, its head snaps in their direction and it licks its chops, hunkering down, one hand going to its crotch where it fiddles as it shits out a pile of something greasy and foul enough to make their eyes hurt from a hundred yards away. The horses are near panicked, and he glances back to see even Beulah with her eyes wide, pulling and stamping. 

Smiling at them, the creature reaches back for a handful of shit which it then smears over the tip of what is clearly a very erect cock. Raising its head with a high, screeching, keening howl, the creature points at them -- but more at the woman.

Instinct sets in and he has raised his rifle and sighted the tiny creature, when he realizes that the woman and her husband have done the same with their weapons.

"Should we just kill it?" she asks, calm, her bow drawn taut.

"Probably," her husband responds.

"Ladies first," he murmurs.

Two more creatures step from the grass behind it, already stroking engorged cocks. One of them drops to the ground and actually fucks the pile of shit for a few thrusts, as the third dances about with its fists in the air, uttering guttural barks that sound like laughter.

"He wasn't kidding about the shitfuckers," the husband breathes.

"He wasn't kidding about any of it," the woman sounds a little annoyed.

"I'll take the one on the right," the rancher murmurs. 

Three more creatures step from the grass, heading directly for the shit, which only seems to be growing stronger in intensity, burning the eyes as well as the nose and lungs, now. He coughs, his eyes watering.

"Fuck this shit," the wife says, then gives a little laugh and looses an arrow. Her aim is true: it plows through the head of the creature in the lead, as well as two behind it. Two more! Where did they come from? 

All of the creatures stop what they are doing. 

He sets his sights on another one, shifting his stance, sensing more than seeing that the couple to his left have done the same. 

The creatures fall on their former leader and the two behind, ripping, biting, devouring, tearing, even greedy in the gobbling of entrails -- unleashing a wave of stench so foul that he is fighting back puke. The horses are screaming their alarm, and he glances back at them to see if he should go cut them free. But Beulah, blessed Beulah, is watching him. Stamping, whickering, but calm.  

The wind changes for a moment, smoke less burning than the shit of these creatures, and he realizes he smells sage. He breathes deep. The urge to vomit passes, his eyes are clear.

"Breathe," he says. "Deep. That sage will help."

They do, and he again senses them resetting their stance, more secure now. 

Focusing fully on the creatures with eyes clear, he sees that they have made quick work of their three fallen comrades and ...

"Good Lord," he breathes.

"They're growing," she whispers.

A new creature takes the lead at the top of the low hillock, this one appearing to have eaten the most of its dead fellows: it is large and growing larger than the creatures around it, its bones cracking and growing and realigning as its flesh tears and re-heals around them until it is the size of an adolescent human. For a moment its face is bare bone as the flesh and other tissue is torn away before re-growing, the eyes receded to embers in the hollow sockets, but still smiling at them as it rocks its head from side to side like a carnival automaton.

Like a Halloween nightmare.

October, 1946, Betty's attic.

"Mama says it's heavy enough to cut off a finger," she'd said, and he'd held the trunk open as she rooted around inside of it, finally coming up with an old, leather-bound volume, the binding broken and papers bulging from the front and back, held together with an iron band which clasped and locked in the front of the book.

"You have to promise not to tell," she'd said, looking at him with the book on the wooden floorboards between them. 

"I promise," he'd said, his crush on Betty strong enough to get him to promise anything. 

"You also have to share a secret with me, since I'm sharing a secret with you," she'd said. His first and fervent hope had been that this secret would involve a kiss. "Do you promise to share a secret with me?" she had asked.

"Yes, I'll share any secret you want," he'd said.

From down below, music: someone, Betty's mother probably, had put on a record. It was Dunkelheit's Dance Of Lost Shadows, the perfect music for that late Halloween afternoon. A little scratchy. He shivered.

"Tell me what Ben said to you before he ran away," she had whispered. A violin shriek in the music had sent goosebumps up his arms. He'd needed, then, to pee, but had no idea how to tell her that.

"I can't --" he'd started, but Betty had laid a finger across his lips. 

"Here's a free secret. My name isn't Betty," she'd said. "My name is Leah. My family, we're ... different. We're being looked for. There's someone out there in the world who wants to find us, and Mama says it's very important that we not be found. I think this book is one of the reasons that we have to hide."

She had unlocked the iron binding on the book -- he hadn't seen a key -- and had opened the cover to reveal a page covered in handwritten symbols and shapes, words surrounding every image written in a precise, beautiful, and incomprehensible language. He had reached for the paper, but she had stopped his hand. Then, with her left hand, she had tapped three times in the center of the largest symbol on the page -- circular, with points extending like an X -- three times, tap - tap - tap, and whispered a word that sounded like Abracadabra but was older, thicker, made him think of twisted roots clinging to bright gemstones deep underground.

Then she'd said, "Show me what I saw." 

From the circular symbol arose a globe of blue light. Bright enough to light the entire attic, though it affected their candle: the flame had begun to sputter and send little sparks into the air. Presently, the center of the blue globe, no larger itself than a grapefruit, resolved itself into a picture: a window, looking out into a gloomy September evening. Focusing on a house that looked familiar.

"My house," he'd blurted. "That's my house ..." His words faded as he recognized the boy sitting on the porch, the car pulling up and himself getting out, Mr. Packer helping him with his knapsack. This was not his house anymore. Betty lived near his new house.

"How did you ... how did you see this?" he asked.

"Shhh," she'd said, and the picture in the globe took on what little color that dark evening had carried. He'd unlocked the door, run inside, Ben waiting outside as his first cry of, 'Mom, I'm home ... !' had echoed in the now-empty foyer. He'd dropped his pack and run through every room, more frantic with every step. He knew he'd been yelling 'Mommy?! Where are you!?' and the realization that Ben was on the front steps sent a spike of shame from his balls to his heart. But maybe he was in the wrong house? Maybe it was all a mistake. He returned to the front door to find Ben. He checked the house number, he looked around at the neighborhood: it was all as he knew it should be.

In the globe of light, they saw him run in. They saw Ben watching, waiting, dressed in rugged travel clothes but wearing, oddly, a yellow rain slicker and hat over it. Ben never looked around, standing now. Patient.

When he comes outside, they speak for a moment after he has looked around. He sits down, tears unavoidable. Ben sits next to him. After a time, Ben says something. He turns to Ben, his tears sliding into a scowl of disbelief. 

They'd watched the conversation from a distance, through a window, through a globe, Talmadge and Betty -- Leah -- in the oddly lit attic as her mother put the finishing touches on the best -- and last -- Halloween party he'd ever attended.

The two boys head off together, both wearing knapsacks -- the one returning from a journey, the other only just beginning -- and the bubble bursts, a flash of blue light, shadows leaping high as the attic returns to darkness lit by a single stub of candle in an old saucer.

"Betty --"

"Leah," she'd corrected.

"Leah. Right. Sorry," he'd mumbled, abashed. He had looked her directly in the eyes, quiet for a moment before asking, "How did you do that?"

"It's one of the reasons we're being looked for," she'd whispered. "Now tell me, Tal: what did he say?"

He is snapped back to the present by another howl, from the South again, closer this time. Nothing like the keening, shrieking howls of these creatures amassing on the hillock to the North of them. The howl from the South sends a susurration of alarm through the creatures; they begin looking around, suspicion clear in their torn, half human faces. The horses calm, but only a little.

"If we kill them, they eat each other and get stronger," the husband says. "We were not aware of that."

"Do we have any ammunition that may work better?" the wife asks, bow drawn taut again, the point of her razor-sharp arrow never wavering.

They are silent. There is nothing. Then it hits him, bubbling up from within the memory of that Halloween night, in 1946. The thing that had come in to their party, the thing that had come through.