Betrayed

By August Remier

I got a call from Belleview Mental hospital yesterday, informing me that my brother, Steve, has taken up residence there. Being his only living relative, I guess it's my responsibility to take care of him. I talked to some assistant on the phone who couldn't tell me anything but set up a meeting for me with his doctor for tomorrow. I had heard that Steve was charged with killing his wife and kid. Ya know I never thought that Steve would be the one to screw up his life. He was the stable one: had a family and a job. I was always the one raisin' hell when we were kids, but it's always the quiet ones isn't it?

The next day I headed out to Belleview, which is in Moline, which is to say it's in the middle of nowhere. It took me two hours to drive there even though there wasn't much traffic. When I pulled into town, I noticed that it was dead, which I thought was a bit unusual at the time. I easily found the hospital and pulled into the visitor's spot. I stepped out of my black 1977 Lincoln Mark IV (Man, I miss that car. But I'm getting ahead of myself.). I make my way through the double doors and stroll up to the front desk. The smells of urine, despair, and death soak the air. Reminds me of prison, not that there's any difference between prison and a mental institution. There's nobody there. I waited a few minutes for someone to show up and decided that was getting me nowhere so I went behind the desk to look up my brother's room. I thought I'd stop by and visit him before I met with the doctor. Room 43A. I started off down the hall, my boots echoing with each step. I turn the corner and find an even bigger surprise.

Death. Half a dozen bodies strewn all over the corridor. Dried blood everywhere. The bodies appeared to be attacked and eaten. That is, all except for one. He was tied up: arms and legs spread eagle. His body obviously tortured. Thousands of cuts. His intestines exposed and pulled out of his belly. Half of his face fucked up and his left hand cut off. I stepped over a couple of stiffs so I could get to my brother. He was still locked inside his cell. I peered in through the slot and saw that he was just another body. I figured I'd better call the cops before they came and found me, or before whatever did this does. My guess was that one of the inmates got loose. Wouldn't be too hard to cause this much trouble since most of the people here are locked up. I headed back to the reception desk, picked up the phone and dialed 911. It rang about ten times before I hung up. Andy and Barney must have gone fishin'.

So I got to the police station and, well, the good news is there are more than two officers; the bad news is that they're all dead. How the hell did this happen? Not that I'm too upset that some pigs got turned into bacon, but what could'a done this to five armed police officers. They had their guns drawn so they obviously were fighting back. I figure I might as well arm myself in case I run into this psycho. I grab a couple of handguns and make sure to find some ammo, stuffing them in the pockets of my trench coat. I go over to the case and pick up a shotgun. I didn't know the cops used these. And then I hear a noise - a growling - coming from the office behind me. I load the shotgun and turn around only to come face to face with a monster. It's there grinning and drooling with its blood red eyes glaring at me. It's my size except it's on all fours. It launches at me before I could get fully turned around. It knocks me down and I drop my shotgun as it starts going at me with his claws. Bastard opens me up. I punch him right in the face, pull out the handgun I had taken, and pop one right between his eyes. "How you like me now, mother-fucker?" It doesn't respond. That's when I notice that it had thumbs. What the hell is this thing? So this is the guy that killed all these people? I don't get it. That wasn't so hard to kill. I don't know what these chumps are gettin' paid, but it's too much. I decide to blow this Popsicle stand and head out the door when I notice two things: it's gotten dark out and the town was literally crawling with these sons-of-bitches. There must have been dozens of them. A couple notice me and start charging. I slam the door and lock it in time to hear a head thud against it. OK, well maybe they were outnumbered. I go back to pick up the shotgun and plan on getting to my car and getting the hell out of here. I peek through the window to see how many of those thing's I'd have to go through to get to my car, but it's too late. They tore my car apart: slashed the tires, broke the windows, crushed the hood and tore up the inside. You don't mess with a man's ride. Now it's personal. Well, I have to put her out of her misery, so I take a couple of shots at the gas tank. Boom. Sends all those bastards running. The fire keeps most of them away. Throughout the night, a few of them sneak in but the only thing they get to sink their teeth into is lead. It comes to a stop shortly after dawn - apparently they're not too fond of sunlight. Hell, me neither.

I was told that Steve had killed his wife and kid. So there must have been some record of his arrest. Flipping through the latest police reports, I find my brother's. It says Steve claimed there were critters that ate his wife and daughter. He burnt the house down trying to get rid of them. They assumed he was loony and put him in the nuthouse. "Shows what you know." I say to the cop at the foot of the desk. I go back through the records and pull out all the ones that mention monsters or beasts. There were 5 of them. The earliest was three months ago. A man - Harold Schulte - who killed his wife claimed of being attacked by a monster. Not only did he live in the same house as my brother, he also ended up in the same mental institution. Next was my brother from three days ago. The others varied from dead pets and wild animals destroying property, to people getting killed. I went over to the map on the wall and plotted the locations. They moved from Steve's house toward the asylum. If I were smarter, I would'a ditched this town and gone back home, but surviving where these other punks couldn't and the fact that I had a couple of scores to settle kept me around.

As I left the station, I noticed that the monsters I had killed were decaying rather rapidly. It's like they were disintegrating. That would explain why there weren't any of their bodies left behind. Within a day, there'd be nothing left. I hiked over to my brother's house not sure what I was looking for, but I figured I'd know it when I saw it. Maybe I would find a nest that I could set on fire or something. The house was burnt pretty bad. It smelled like stale smoke. The stains of my sister-in-law and my niece were still on the floor. I walk through the library (man, some nice digs he had, must have been doing well). The floorboards start to creak beneath me and then break through. I fall flat on my ass in the basement. Managing to scrape myself off of the floor, I take a look around. The room's set up for a horror show. I'm standing on top of a pentagon that's been etched on the floor. The walls are lined with jars of god-knows-what and tons of books. Half of them aren't in English, but I'm guessing they're all about witchcraft (based on the pictures in them). Several of the books had the word 'Golan' in the inside cover. Probably the name of the owner. There's some bad mojo going down here. The book that was open on the altar wasn't in English either, but it had pictures of symbols and demons. So now I'm thinking the monsters were summoned here my some sort of witchcraft. Now if I can find out who Golan is, I might be able to find out how this happened and how it can be undone. Next stop: Town Hall and personal records. I turn to make my way out of here and notice there isn't a door. I look on the floor and spy arcs that were scratched into the floor next to the wall. I push on one side of the wall and part of it swings open. Cool, a secret room. As I walk through, I see a pack of beasts that I apparently just woke up. It's then that I realize that I don't have my shotgun - must have dropped it when I fell down here - I gotta quit doing that. Not that it would have mattered. I wouldn't be able to face all of them at once anyway. The stairs are too far away, so I run back through the passage and use the altar as a springboard to get back to the ground floor. I pull myself up and grab the shotgun. A couple of them try to follow me. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. The other two run up the stairs. I reload and set up by the doorway. The first one races by and I pick it off, but the other one jumps me before I could swing around and get him. Did they just set me up? I hit him with the butt of my gun and keep doing it 'til he stops moving. Saves me a shell. At this point, I'm guessing that they don't have a nest. They must spend the day sleeping in packs and the night searching for food.

My stomach's howling at me. I haven't eaten or slept in twenty-four hours. I figure I should do one of them. I stopped off at a neighbor's house on the way to Town Hall and grabbed some leftover grub from the 'fridge - chicken I think. That'll do for now. The Hall of Records had a couple of PCs. Of course they were about ten years old, but better than going through them by hand. I sat down at one and did a search on Golan. Turns out Karen Golan married Harold Schulte, the guy who killed her in my brother's house. They had a daughter, Alicia - fifteen years old now. They didn't mention her in the report, so I did another search on Alicia Schulte. Says she's been put in the care of her aunt after her mother was killed and her father put in the loony bin. They still live in town. I called their number hoping they were still alive and Alicia could give me some useful info.

The phone rang four times before someone answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hi, can I please speak to Alicia Schulte?"

"Speaking." The voice on the other end responds, obviously not interested in carrying this conversation any further.

"Are you aware that the hounds of hell have been loosed on your town?" I thought I would throw it out there and see how she would react.

"What?"

"Someone's been playing around with witchcraft and causing a big mess."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"You know something and I want to know what it is."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

I decided to change my approach.

"Are you going to let the killing of innocent people continue? For some personal vendetta? They've destroyed half the town."

"Look, I had nothing to do with that, it was my mother."

"I don't care who did it, can you help me stop it or not?"

There was a long pause before she finally replied.

"Yes."

She then told me to meet here at her mother's grave and to bring a particular book and some items from several of the jars in that room I had discovered in my brother's house. I gathered the items without incident and considered finding transportation. It was going to be dark pretty soon and the cemetery was on the outskirts of town. No such luck, all of the cars I had seen were demolished too.

Alicia was already at the gravesite when I showed up. The sun was starting to set and the sky was turning the clouds pink. She took the book and opened up to a particular page. Then she took the other objects - chicken foot, some ground up bone and some hair. She drew a circle in the ground, placed the items in it, and started speaking some gibberish. When she was done, I asked what she was doing. She said she was calling her mother.

"Whoa - you're not double-crossing me are ya?"

Before she could answer, the grave broke open and a flaming skeleton rose out of it, arms folded across her chest in the shape of an x.

"My dear, it's so good to see you." The ghost announces in a tone that sounds like it's coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

"Mother, how could you? Those things have destroyed everything."

"I did it for you. To protect you. To avenge you."

"You think this helps? You think I'm happy? You've made my life a living hell!"

"I did all I could. You must believe I never thought you're father would hurt you."

"How can you say that? You could have stopped him. You think I didn't know what he did to you? And you never did anything. You never stood up for yourself. You let him abuse both of us."

"I did what I could. I did what I thought was best."

"I want you to stop it. I want you out of my life."

There's a break in the conversation. As if things weren't weird enough, now I'm in the middle of some sort of family squabble.

"You're my daughter. I would never hurt you. I would do anything for you. I could give you heaven, but you ask for hell. So be it."

The apparition extends her arms forward and outwards and tilts her head to one side. I start to hear a sound from behind me. The ground starts to tremble. I turn around and see hundreds of the creatures charging towards us. I draw my shotgun. I figure I won't survive, but I'm not going down alone. I wait to fire 'til I see the reds of their eyes. The first of them gets within range and as I'm about to pull the trigger, it leaps - to my amazement - over me. The others strafe on either side by me. I glance toward Alicia and see she's unharmed as well. I turn around to watch as each of them gets swallowed up in a hole that has grown around the ghost's feet. It sucks them all in (back to hell, I suppose) and then closes up. The fire around the ghost grows brighter and Karen Schulte disappears leaving only smoke. I scratch my head trying to figure out what happened. I turn to ask Alicia and she's ten yards away, already leaving. I consider chasing her down and asking if she wants me to walk her back but decide to let her be. She's a tough kid; she'll be all right. Hell, we all got our problems. Mine's figuring out how I'm gonna get home without a car. Life's a bitch.

The End

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