Shades: Eight Tales of Terror (21 page)

Both hands clenched into fists.

Three long swift steps brought him back and Russell delivered a vicious kick to the dead animal, hard enough to move it almost half a foot. His face now frozen in a snarl, he backed up and drove the toe of his boot into it again. And again, and again, and then again. He punctuated the blows with loud obscenities, pausing once to even spit on the body. Two more powerful kicks and the carcass tumbled into the ditch.

The boy scowled down at the broken corpse in the ditch, his face a mask of contempt. He breathed hard, almost panting from the exertion. Then Russell scooped up a handful of gravel and dirt and flung it at the wreckage below.

“Enjoy hell, mutt,” he spat then turned back toward his bike. “I’m missing my shows.”

***

Russell shot up in bed, sweat running off his face.

He gasped for air, his chest heaving as if he had been running a race. His eyes darted over to the clock on his beat up stereo. The red digital numbers claimed one o’clock loomed only minutes away. He put his hand to his narrow chest and forced his breathing to slow.

“Okay.” The boy took a long, deep breath. “Okay, then.  What the hell was that all about?”

His brow furrowed and he fought to recall the dream he just escaped. No luck. The hint of images slithered between the fingers of his mental grasp before drifting away into nothing. Another scan of the small bedroom also produced nothing to ev
oke any memories. Whatever the dream had been, nothing remained of it now.

“Nothing. Well that sucks…and now I’m thirsty.”

All that sweating came at a price, even if done in one’s sleep. Russell mopped his forehead with the back of his hand and squinted at the clock one more time. It still read the same, which meant his Mom would get all bitchy if he yelled for her to bring him a Coke from the fridge.

“Great,” he grumbled and threw aside the covers.

Russell kicked his way through the pile of dirty clothes on his floor and eased open his door. The sound of his mother snoring filtered through the door next to his. He felt his way down the dark hallway of the long trailer house, trying not to stumble in the blackness. At least the living room turned out to be navigable, due to the moonlight flooding in through the sliding glass door.

He skirted the scruffy lounge chair and made his way across the room to the kitchen. The teen fumbled around the end of the bar then grabbed the duct taped handle of the fridge. Pulling the door open revealed
him to be in luck—sort of. One lone Coke sat behind the bottle of ketchup on the bottom shelf of the door.

Russell considered his options, knowing full well the can of soda hadn’t found its way into such an obscure position by accident.  His mom most likely secreted it there to use as a cold, effort free substitute for coffee when she woke up. If he took it, he would most likely hear about it in the morning.

Not like that would be anything new.

“Oh well.” He shrugged and grabbed the can. “I
t’s just more noise to wake up to.”

He popped the top and took a long thirsty slug before closing the door and turning away. It took a second for his eyes to readjust to the dark again after the light from the refrigerator. It left a red square afteri
mage that faded as he made his way back around the bar and into the living room. Russell stopped to let his night vision return to full, glancing over at the sliding glass door and out into the moonlit world beyond…and almost choked on the soda.

Purvis sat on the back porch, staring in at him with dead white eyes.

Russel’s own eyes widened in disbelief as they took in the ghastly sight.  He stumbled back against the wall, trying to breath after inhaling the fiery mix of citric acid and carbonated water. He blinked, thinking the vision to be a lurking remnant of the forgotten nightmare of earlier, but it remained.

It was Purvis.

And he was deader than ever.

Rigor mortis gave the hideous creature a snarl no living canine could hope to match. The animal’s fur now stood out in the type of stiff spikes only dead or the sickest of animals possessed, but the sense of smallness Russell noted before was gone. If anything, the grisly dog looked larger than ever.

And meaner.

With its permanent snarl set beneath those white, staring eyes, the spectral beast gri
nned in at him through the door—and not in a friendly way.

Russell fought for air, desperately wanting nothing more than to get out of the sight
of the ghastly dog. Recovering a trace of self control, he slid along the wall of the living room in the direction of his bedroom.

The dead animal’s head turned with a mechanical slowness as it tracked him, its white eyes fixed on his face with hungry intensity. The death-mask of a grin gleamed in the bright moonlight. It seemed hard to believe Purvis had that many teeth when he lived, but now his jaws appeared to bristle with them.

Russell gabbled something incoherent, then dashed for the hallway.

He plunge
d into the blackness and felt his way down the walls with frantic sweeps of his free hand. For some silly reason he took care not to spill his Coke. His fingers closed around the doorknob to his bedroom, and he pushed his way in with a gasping rush before slamming the door shut and putting his back against it.

“I didn’t see that!” he wheezed.
“I did not see that! Purvis is dead, and dead is dead!”

The boy clenched his eyes shut and put the soda can against his for
ehead. He couldn’t have possibly seen what he just thought sat on the other side of the glass door. It must have been some kind of hallucination or holdover from a dream. People didn’t come back from the dead, and neither did dogs.

And thinking back on it, the scene did have a certain sense of unreality to it. The bright moonlight flooding in, the white eyes that almost glowed, the way the dead dog seemed to almost dominate the entire picture as if magnified…it
did
seem like a dream.

Russell inhaled deeply and started to collect himself.

“Nightmare,” the boy breathed. “It was just a part of a nightmare. Yeah, that’s it. I wasn’t really awake yet. I couldn’t have been. Oh man, that was some messed up shit.”

Saying it out loud mad
e if feel even righter.

He took another long drink of his soda, looked at it, then chugged down the rest. It crumpled easily in his grip. Feeling steadier, Russell tossed the crushed can into the corner
. Then he walked over and fell into bed. He lay there a moment, staring at the dark ceiling, then got up once more.

Grabbing the chair sitting next to his desk, he tilted it and shoved it under the doorknob. After studying his handiwork for a couple of second, he lay back down again. With the door now secure, the boy managed to close his eyes.

He knew it must have been a dream.

B
ut it never hurts to take precautions.

***

“Russell! Wake up! It’s time to get ready for the bus! What have you done to this door!?”

Russell turned over under his covers and squeezed his eyes shut.

Of course, it never worked.

“Russell! It’s six o
’clock! Get up and get dressed!”

“Okay!” he groaned, “I’m moving! Don’t have a cow
!”

“What was that?”

“Nothing! Nothing. I’m getting up.” He threw the pillow off his head and swung his legs out over the edge of the bed. It was the same thing every morning. And there was still three more months of this crap till Christmas vacation.

“And did you drink my Coke last night?”

“Huh? No! I didn’t know we had any Cokes!”

His mother’s footsteps retreated from the door and Russell went through the motions of getting dressed. Then he fumbled with the chair to remove it from where he jammed the door. Still half asleep, the boy staggered out of his room, and down the hall
toward the brightly lit kitchen. He fumbled past the bar and plopped himself down at the table to face a plate of toaster waffles swimming in thin syrup.

“You sure you didn’t drink my last soda?” His mom stared at their dripping c
offee pot in grouchy suspicion.

“Yep.
” Russell immediately filled his mouth with waffle, then glanced over at the back sliding door.

Reminded of last night’s apparition, he squinted at the
glass with apprehension. But with the moon no longer up, and the interior of the trailer house blazing with light, he could see little in the darkness on the other side of the glass. What he could see of the back porch appeared empty, but still…

The waffles suddenly gained an unpleasant heaviness in his stomach, and he pushed away the plate.

“Hey Mom, to tell the truth I ain’t feeling so good. I think I ought to go back to bed.”

“Uh huh.” T
he skepticism in her voice preceded her as she walked over to him and put a palm to his forehead. “Sorry, bucko. But you ain’t feverish, and you’ve already missed too much school this quarter.  You don’t get any more sick days unless you’re running a high fever or have limbs missing.”

“Thanks,” Russell grumbled.

Another glance at the back porch revealed nothing, but did little to settle his stomach either. Even as nightmares went, what he experienced last night had been pretty horrific. Now in the “bright” of morning, it seemed more distant but not entirely banished to the realm of dreams.

“
You’re welcome. Now hurry up and eat because I’ve got to get heading to work.”

Russell sighed and retrieved his plate. He managed to force down a few reluctant swallows of breakfast while his mother went back to her bedroom to finish “getting ready.” Then he settled for pushing pieces of waffle around their shallow lake of syrup. A few long minutes of that and his wait finally came to an end as his mother returned from the bedroom.

“Okay, Russell,” she goaded, “let’s get this show on the road. Don’t forget your backpack this time.

Russell grumbled again, and pushed away from the table.  He fished his backpack from where it had fallen behind the old couch, then took his time in retrieving the school books that fell out in the process. His stomach still didn’t feel happy.

“Come ON, Russell!”

“Yeah, I’m coming!” H
e put the last book in the backpack and trudged to where she waited at the front door.

His mother opened the front door and he followed her out into the pre-dawn gloom. The warm humidity wrapped him in a smothering blanket, promising another hot day ahead. Most of the stars were fading, but the dim countryside around them still rested in different shades of gray and blue. Only the beginning of orange showed along the horizon in the east. The chickens at old Murphy’s place down the road would be clucking and crowing in another fifteen minutes or so, but not even the morning birds were awake to disturb the hush yet.

“Hey, Mom?” He frowned as he watched her lock the front door with a twist of her wrist. “How about letting me have a key to the house? I’m old enough now.”

“You don’t need one,” she answered and shouldered her purse. “I get home before you do. Besides, it ain’t just about age, Russell. I’ll wait until I can count on you not to turn your bike around after I’ve driven off
, and come back here to watch TV all day instead of going to school.”

So much for that idea.

“Thanks for the trust, Mom,” Russell groused, and slouched down the front steps.

He went around to the side of the little front porch, where his bike leaned, and paused. Once again, unease stirred in his stomach. The bike rested against the house where he left it, next to the darkness of the space beneath the trailer…a space easily big enough to conceal a large dog.

Russell studied the black gap with suspicion.

“He’s dead.” T
he boy gritted his teeth and forced himself to grab his bike. “And dead is dead. The only thing it means is no more doggy bullshit while riding my bike.”

“What was that?”

“Huh!” Russell looked up to see his mom still on the porch and frowning at him. “Oh! Uh… I saw that dog, Purvis, dead by the road yesterday. I guess a car hit him.”

“Oh.” S
he finished adjusting the contents of her purse and headed down the steps and toward the car. “Well, that’s sad. I know you didn’t like him, Russell. But he was just an old dog. It’s not good to be happy about anything dying. It happens to us all, you know.”

“Gee, thanks for
that
depressing thought.”

“It is what it is,” she replied airily and opened the car door. “Try not to get into trouble at school, and have a good day.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Russell groused and climbed on his bike.

The boy waited as she got in the car and fired up the engine. He watched her pull away, then pedaled down the driveway behind her. They both turned onto the gravel road leading to the highway, Russell following closer than his usual surly distance.  The car’s tail lights were bright in the pre-dawn murk—cheerful red beacons of the only other human presence in the area. But only for a few more seconds.