Motion in the Basement
It was quiet, except for the dog barking, who knows how long he had been barking. He was frozen, but only for a moment, as he slowly realized what had occurred before him. Tiny fragments of glass littered the ground, strewn about with a great lack of regard for the otherwise tidy breezeway. The door was cracked half open, not how it had been left that morning, its window shattered. Each step ground the marble-like bits into the concrete, cracking and popping as his heart raced, and his adrenaline began to pump. Something told him it was a bad idea, but he crept slowly to the trashcans which concealed a broken rusty breaker bar, gaze locked to the broken half-opened door. The hinges creaked as he slowly pushed the door open with his left hand, right hand firmly gripping the eighteen inches of tempered steel. Calling 911 should have been the first thing he did, but the first instinct to kick in preceded modern technologies, and felt primal. Glass had been thrown across the kitchen and dining room floor all the way to the basement door. His steps became lighter, to hide his presence from whoever else may be there. Slowly and cautiously he turned each corner of his home, looking for a head to introduce to his weapon, hoping he would have the guts to do so if he needed to. As he made his way into the house it didn't seem to occur to him that if he made a mistake, looked the wrong way for even a moment, someone hiding behind a door or in a closet could attack him. He made his way through the entire house only to find it empty. Walking through the dining room and finally dialing the police he realized that he had not cleared the basement. By now though the adrenaline had worn off and he realized the stupidity of what he had just done. He wasn't going to gamble any further. If an intruder were hiding in the basement then the police could deal with it, he needed to let his parents know, and get out of the house.
The police arrived in about ten minutes, his parent about another ten minutes behind them. After a few minutes, and several lectures to Jared about what not to do upon arriving at a break in, the house was cleared. Before allowing the family to enter an officer pulled Kelly and Beverly aside. "Alright, so whoever did this is not here anymore. A forensics team is on the way and you guys will soon be able to go in and inspect for any stolen belongings. Before that though I need to talk to you two. Whether the intruders were here intending to steal from you or not, something has definitely occurred in your basement. There is a lot of blood, a lot, and animal carcasses. We do not believe any of the blood is human but a more thorough investigation will need to be done. We will not want you down there until afterward. I will give you the number of a company that will be able to come in and clean up down there for you. Whatever you do don't let your son down there until it is cleaned up, okay? I would advise you guys to avoid it as well. It's a pretty horrific scene." The officer's chin lowered, his eyes glancing back and forth between them looking for a sign of understanding. Once he was sure he had made himself clear he went back to work, leaving the couple to absorb what they were just told.
It took a little over half an hour to search every surface one would think for prints. The family entered their violated home, carefully stepping over the glass-covered vinyl floor. Beverly repeatedly advised Jared to be careful even though he had already carelessly wandered through it already. They spent the evening checking under clothes on drawers and in boxes under the bed to find anything of personal value that could now be missing. The television was still there, along with all of their personal computers and electronics. Jared's laptop had been left in the living room, almost teasingly yet, untouched. Jared still had not been informed of what occurred, so all of this seemed strange. His parent knew the truth though, that their home had been targeted to host some sort of slaughter for reasons that seemed as hard to grasp as they were to fathom. The chances of the intruders coming back while they were home was close to zero but Kelly still slept with his gun on his nightstand while Beverly couldn't sleep at all. Jeremy had been picked up at school by his grandmother who had used this whole situation as an excuse to spend time with the boy, but Beverly certainly did not want him here.
"Well, how much is it going to be? Can we afford it?" Beverly asked, sweeping more bits of glass off the dining room floor. "This isn't something we have ever thought about investing in." "We also never thought something like this would happen to us. Especially, especially that shit show in the basement." Kelly replied. The smell of rot had slowly started seeping through the floor beneath them. They had called the number given to them and were expecting the basement to be cleaned out by the end of the day. That morning he had wandered down the stairs so as to fully realize what had happened. He needed to see the remains of the horrific acts that had been performed in his basement, to feel what he could imagine might be something close to closure, he wasn't sure. This was his home, and he was struggling to feel in control of what had happened in his absence, even though he couldn't. He had seen the blood covered floor, dark crimson after drying overnight, and spotted with the footprints of the forensics team the day before. The tiny limbs of animals were scattered about in no pattern, with seemingly no intent. Six severed opossom heads made a small circle in the middle of the massacre, their greying entrails and small fragile looking bones surrounded the circumference of the gruesome display. Something had been picked up from the center though, a small impression had been left in the dried blood of an object about the size of a quarter. If the gore hadn't been enough to make him want to vomit, the smell certainly was. He held it in though, he wasn't going to let this get to him, that's what the people who did this wanted. His attempt to regain control was the idea to have a security system installed. It seemed like a very reasonable response and Beverly, while supportive, wanted to make sure it was thought out thoroughly before proceeding. "Watch your mouth," she said "do you know how much systems cost? I know I've never looked into it. Call around today and find quotes. Be sure to ask about different levels of security and not just the top of the line available, we won't need all that." Kelly crossed his arms as he leaned against the counter, letting Beverly sweep the glass up around his feet. His gaze wandered to the door that was still held shut with duct tape. "I'm going to take Jared and get a new door first," he said. "That would be great," Beverly responded, seeming to still be sweeping the same spot she had been for several minutes.
Jared had never put in a door before, but he was always excited to learn a new skill. Generations of carpenters on his father's side had all led to him. He wasn't going to be a carpenter, or even an architect, but being around the construction of their home as a child, helping his father build a tree house and pool deck, and all of the work he had helped with on the house had put him on the path to be quite a handyman. While his father had taught him household skills, he had developed his own technical skills in the automotive world and was eventually able to teach his father how to do lots of things he never knew how to do. Today Jared was getting to learn, but it was in the midst of an unexpected trauma to the family. They picked out a door and by noon they had it installed, good as new. Kelly let Jared install the new door knob and deadbolt, not reading the instructions as usual, just trying to remember how the old one had been taken out. It didn't take long before they had a new functioning door. CTS arrived after lunch and quickly got to work. Jared still did not know about the basement, but he had smelled the growing stench and become somewhat aware of what might have happened. The smell of decay was quickly replaced by strong detergents as the team worked, bringing little more comfort to the family. Jared's head began to hurt. "I am going to take Jared with me to get Jeremy. Let me know when they are finished here, he doesn't need to be around all this." Beverly told her husband. A couple men and women in hazmat suits were carrying several biowaste containers across the backyard to their van, one of them had started an ozone fogger that would hopefully help with the smell. "Good thinking, tell mom I said hi," Kelly replied, deciding he did not want to go down there and be in the way. He instead opted to begin calling around and getting quotes on home security systems while his wife and oldest son were off to his mother's.
He felt like he was being treated like a child, but at sixteen he still never turned down an opportunity to see his grandma. She was the one who had introduced him to his current favorite films as a child, films that made his mother furious when she found out what he had been allowed to stay up so late to watch. Older now he understood why his mother may have been upset, but he still felt those experiences had shaped who he was, and he generally liked who he was today. Jared had a close group of friends who all enjoyed the same loud and heavy music, and the same gory sci-fi horror films he did. He knew his mother did not want him near whatever was going on in the basement, probably feeling like he wasn't old enough to deal with whatever it was, but he chalked it up to his own decision to go with his mother to visit his maw maw. The smell of hospital-grade disinfectants still lingered faintly in his nose as he rode shotgun in his mother's car. The scent was soon replaced by the thick odor of cigarette smoke as they entered his grandmother's home.
"What happened?" Jeremy asked his brother as they walked along the gravel driveway together. Their mother had asked them both to go outside while she and their grandmother spoke privately. "I came home from school for lunch and found the door busted open. There was glass everywhere but nothing was stolen. Something happened in the basement though, I think someone was killed." His younger brother stopped and looked at him with a newly disturbed look in his eyes, silently waiting for him to assure him it was a joke. "People came in hazmat suits to clean up, they were there when we left. Before they came it started to smell like roadkill in the house, it was awful. The cleaning products were almost as bad. Plus they didn't want you there, so do the math." Jeremy pondered for a moment, scanning the leaves on the ground as if for a reason for everything his brother had just told him. "So… people broke into our house and killed someone." "Or something. I guess the police would have been there longer if it had been a person. But something was definitely killed." His older brother had told him lies to prank him before but this did not seem like one of those times. He had a deadly seriousness about the whole thing. Jared was worried maybe he shouldn't have told him so much. After a few minutes they were allowed back inside, and their father called a few hours later to let them know they could come home.
When Jared came home from school on Monday he found his father still at home and a van parked in the driveway packed with spools of wire and various tools and cabinets. He entered the house to see his father and another man he did not recognize working at the windows in the living room. "Hey dad, what are ya'll doing?" Jared asked throwing his bag down in the hallway to his room and sitting down on the couch. The stranger stayed busy but Kelly turned around to acknowledge his son. "This is my cousin Chris, turns out he deals in security systems so we are getting the family discount. We've been working since about eleven," he said, walking past Jared and to the kitchen, "we will have everything done soon and I will show you how to use the system, and we will make you a code so you can arm is and disarm it when you leave and come home." He came back into the living room with two bottles of water for Chris and himself. Chris accepted the water, took a sip, and got right back to work installing what looked like some kind of sensor on the window. "I guess we lost track of time until you got here, are you not home early?" "I don't have class after one" Jared explained, Kelly wasn't normally home on weekdays, and generally didn't know Jared's schedule. "Oh, well don't forget to go get your brother" as if he had ever forgotten to do so. "So check this out, we have motion sensors put up around all the windows and entrances, and a couple downstairs. These," he explained, pointing to the window Chris was working on, "will sound the alarm if the windows are busted, I think we have just a few more to put in around the house." His father loved over explaining things, and Jared just grew accustomed to listening regardless of how interested he truly was. Kelly finished his tale of running wire and drilling holes, gulped down some more water, and went back to assist Chris. Jared broke out his DS, propped his feet up on the coffee table, and returned to his saved game of Pokémon Soul Silver.
The van was gone this time. Chris had been going into detail about how to use the system when Jared left to go pick up his brother. His dad was waiting for him when he opened the door. "Alright Jared, I need you to pick a number to use as your pin, you got four digits" he explained without a moment's hesitation. Jeremy shuffled past them through the now crowded laundry room, letting his backpack fall off his shoulders into the kitchen floor, rushing to the fridge as if he hadn't eaten all day. The number Jared knew best was his the pin number to his debit card. It wasn't a number of any significance, he had just never chosen to change it from the default pin given to him by his bank, that or been too lazy to. Kelly set it to program and Jared entered his pin. "Watch this. Put your number in and hit 'arm', then stand very very still." Kelly said. Jared did as he was told. Jeremy had secluded himself in his room with a box of cereal like usual. The control panel counted slowly down to zero and displayed ‘armed' in blocky digital letters. "Jeremy! Come in here NOW." His father yelled, in a frightening tone that demanded immediate compliance. Jeremy's door could be heard swinging open and just as his steps were heard frantically running onto the carpeted hallway floor a siren sounded that made Jared's heart skip. His hands flew to the aid of his ears, plugging them just as he heard his brother scream and fall to the floor of the dining room. His father was laughing maniacally, Jared couldn't help but join him.
They tried to pull the same prank on his mother when she came home but she knew better. As the alarm sounded to her entrance she closed her eyes and tilted her head back as if looking for an answer from God as to why this was happening. She took a deep breath. and let out a long sigh. "Please make this stop, I have a headache." She pleaded, letting the tension out of her shoulders and trying to relax in the midst of the obnoxiously loud wailing. She had little patience for these shenanigans, and her husband should have known better. Giggling could be heard coming from the dining room but Kelly soon appeared and silenced the alarm. "Sorry dear, it was the boy's idea." "Not it wasn't!" came shouted from the same direction of the giggling. "Let me get you programmed in here and I'll show you real quick how to use this thing," Kelly said, reaching up to the control panel to set it into programming mode. "Jared, did you set the chicken out like I asked?" She yelled into the house. "No, sorry, I forgot." Came the expected response, nonchalantly from a boy deeply invested in his video game. Beverly sighed again and did as her husband showed her on the control pad. "How did it go today? Did he talk you into upgrading anything?" She asked, punching her decided pin number into the thick rubber number pad. "We already got a great system for our money," Kelly replied, punching a few more buttons, "for only twelve hundred dollars we got a lot more than what we would have from anywhere else I called." "I guess we never thought we would need something like this." She was trying to think of what to fix for dinner since her son had failed to do the one thing she asked him to do today. Pasta, she supposed, would have to do.
He knew his brother talked in his sleep but he didn't get to hear it often. It was later than he normally would be awake, and he hadn't noticed it until he finally put away his game. Laying under the cool sheets he could faintly make it out through the walls. What he was saying could not be discerned, only that it seemed he was having some sort of nightmare, and perhaps pleading with someone. Jared felt somewhat bad for his brother and had a slight inclination to go wake him his distress, but it was almost two, and his eye had grown tired from staring at the three inch led screen of his DS all evening. He made sure his alarm was set and fell asleep.
"Don't forget to set the alarm when you leave Jared, it's a habit you will need to get into," Kelly said as he struggled into his jacket while trying to rush out the door. "Have a good day, love you!" were his final words as he shut the door behind him. His mother had already left to drop off his brother at school. He was always the last one to leave the house in the morning these days and he usually spent the time browsing Reddit on his phone and taking his time with breakfast. He took the time, like he did every morning, to carry two large cups full of food out to Hulk, the family's Great Dane. Hulk was supposed to be fed a single cup in the mornings according to his parents, but Jared liked to spoil the big boy. Hulk slobbered over the 10-quart oil drain pan that was used as his food bowl. His jowls flung beads of drool as he attacked the meat flavored pebbles as soon as they had been poured before him. Hulk always received a vigorous rub down that ended with several well-accepted head scratches before Jared would make his way back inside. Leaving for school the new deadbolt was smooth and locked with a satisfying click. It wasn't until he reached his car that he realized he had forgotten to set the alarm like his father had clearly reminded him to do. Slightly frustrated with himself he went back in to do so. He did as he had been told, pressed ‘arm to away' and entered his code, simple. Except instead of beginning a countdown and asking him to leave the house the screen on the small command center read ‘system not ready: motion in the basement.' This error message was strange since he knew he was the last one home, and maybe it should have concerned him but he was starting to run late for school so he decided not to bother with it. He sent his dad a text to let him know as he slumped lazily into the driver's seat of his Sentra and waved goodbye to Hulk as he drove off to school.
11:30 am, he always arrived home around this time every day for lunch. Hulk was barking at something in the backyard but Jared tended to ignore this frequent occurrence. His father had asked him to try the security system again when he got home so he did. He entered his pin with success this time as the display informed him the system was now armed. Satisfied with the results he disarmed the system. He fixed himself a bowl of ravioli, not wanting to put much more effort into his meal than needed, and sat down to catch up on some TV he had set to record on the DVR. After finishing his meal he leaned back against the couch cushions with a quick exhale indicating something close enough to satisfaction, only to realize Hulk was still barking. Now curious as to what could have his dog so riled up he decided to investigate. The back porch was elevated ten feet off the ground and looked over the backyard that sloped down into a lightly wooded area where Jared had spent a lot of his childhood. "Shut up!" he yelled to Hulk, who immediately gruffed and then fell silent. He could be obnoxious, but he was a very obedient dog. Hulk stared at him as if trying to communicate telepathically. Jared kind of laughed it off and carefully scanned the backyard for anything that could make a dog lose his cool, which could have been literally anything. It took him a moment to notice an obscure looking mass almost hidden by leaves about halfway into the woods. Through squinted eyes he tried to make out its shape, wondering if he was curious enough to check it out. It was probably just the carcass of some animal. The aging stairs creaked under his feet as he made his way down to the yard. They should have been replaced a couple years ago, but they had never gotten around to it. Leaves littered the edge of the tree line and covered the rocky terrain. Hulk observed very closely, watching over his master from afar. Drops of blood began to appear in a small trail leading to the mass, they traced back the direction he had come. The kill was fresh and with seemingly no motive. Whatever had killed the deer had done so savagely and then disappeared without care for the meat of its prey. Hulk may have scared off whatever did it, it seemed to have run off towards the house. The poor animal had been sliced open viscerally behind its front right limb. The wound was deep, straight through the ribcage and where he assumed the heart was. Since the blood had not yet dried Jared assumed the bleeding had stopped only recently. People around here hunted, but this was not a gun wound, and this was private property. The carcass didn't bother him, but the thought of what could have done this did. He reached into his pocket for his phone only to realize the time and decided to make the call on the way to school. Sprinting back to the house, he only reached in the front door to arm the alarm but when it once again alerted him ‘system not ready' he sighed in frustration and just left after locking the door. "Fat lot of good this security system is going to be" he mumbled to himself, dialing his dad while putting his car into reverse.
"It's arming fine now. If it gives you trouble tomorrow then call me again, I will have Chris come look at it" Kelly advised, disarming the system and turning back to Jared. "Wanna help me pull that deer back into the woods?" "Not particularly" Jared replied. Kelly patted his son on the shoulder, "I'll get you some gloves, come on." Jared sighed and followed his father to the basement. It was the first time he had been down there in the last few days. He usually went down every evening to play his drums and to aggravate his brother while he tried to play video games. His brother had not been down there all weekend either. His father hit the lights before they descended the down the white-walled their well into the thin dark of the basement. The flip of another switch at the base of the stairs illuminated the concrete-lined subterranean room. Wooden rafters held up the floor above which was lined with a thick layer of pink insulation. Shelves lined the opposite wall beyond a small living area where his brother's game stations and a 32" TV sat on a TV across from a couch and love seat. A path was kind of apparent between the back of the couch and an air hockey table and in that path they both quickly spotted a small pool of blood. "What on Earth?" Kelly whispered to himself, just audibly enough to where Jared could hear. It wasn't a very large puddle, but it had dried into a dark circle no more than eight inches in diameter. The thought ran through Kelly's head that this was the spot where he had found the tiny animal parts in a circle, it sent a shiver up his spine. Jared did not know about that though, so he had to play it as cool as he could. "I'll clean that up when we are done, come on," he said, trying to make it out as no big deal. Jared could sense something slightly disturbed in his voice but played it since it seemed he was doing the same. Kelly handed his son a pair of thick leather gloves that were hard from age and had cracks in the digits. They opened the rickety garage door and walked over the gravel, through the yard, and into the woods, the sun having already set halfway into the horizon. Crickets weren't out this time of year so the only sound around them was their feet crunching the leaves that covered the ground. There was just enough light to make out where they were going. Jared took the front legs, and Kelly took the back, and they drug the deer down into the woods where any predators who happened to be out might be able to scavenge and dispose of it for them. Maybe whatever killed the thing would come back to finish its meal. They worked under the ever-present watch of Hulk, who was beginning to also grow tired, but forever felt it his duty to protect his family. He looked around a few times through the low dusk light and decided that everything seemed fine. He would still wait until his masters were back inside before going to retiring back into his cozy little home. As the two men made their way back up and into the house he gruffed a goodnight, made a final scan of the yard, and made his way to bed.
His adrenaline seemed to had started pumping before he was even awake. He barely glanced at the clock as reached for his gun but he believed maybe it said one AM. He chambered a round and sensed his wife throw the sheets off of herself. "What's going on?" she shouted over the waling. He didn't answer. He had no combat training but he knew how to shoot. He threw his bedroom door open trying to listen for any indication of another presence other than his own. He couldn't make out anything over the siren. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he sharpened his focus, aiming his gun ahead of him as he worked his way through the living room and into the hallway leading to his kid's bedrooms, he had to make sure they knew to stay put. Approaching his youngest's door the siren stopped. He quickly turned about, carefully peaking back out into the dining room from the hallway. Light, careless footsteps could be heard in the kitchen. The lights flicked on as his wife appeared within the threshold of the kitchen. "What are you doing?" Kelly half whispered, half shouted, frustrated that she had so carelessly wandered out of their room into potential danger. "Listen," she said casually. Kelly, still tense, listened carefully to his surroundings. He heard nothing. The tension leaked out of his shoulders and he dropped his gun to his side realizing that no one was in his home. "What's going on" he heard from behind him, he recognized the voice of his oldest. Jared was now wide awake from all of the noise and left his room since it had stopped, assuming everything was okay. "The security system went off for some reason" he explained, "I'm going to call Chris in the morning, I don't want this to be a nightly thing." "The pad said there was motion detected in the basement," Beverly said "is that the one that was giving you trouble earlier today?" she looked at Jared for confirmation. "Yeah, I guess the sensor is messed up" he concluded. "Well I will let Chris know, hopefully he will just replace the thing, especially since we just had installed everything Monday."
Chris had come by that morning while he was at school so Jared had been told the system will be set when he came home for lunch. When he entered his home the pad did, in fact, alert him to his own breach and began counting down like it was supposed to. Jared entered his code and the system quieted itself. He shot his dad a quick text to let him know everything seemed to be working fine and went to fixing himself lunch, chicken nuggets today. It didn't bother him that chicken nuggets seemed like a meal for little kids, he imagined himself still eating them regularly well into his adult life. After filling himself and preparing for a couple more hours of school he reset the alarm and locked the door to leave. Walking to he kicked a forgotten piece of glass to the side, deciding it was a better idea to pick it up and throw it away. Over his car and the brick wall of the carport he noticed Hulk fixated on something in the backyard, standing at attention, his tail straight up in the air. This wasn't particularly odd behavior for him, and Jared figured he was probably just wishing he wasn't hooked to a runner that did not allow him to chase after small animals he noticed rustling through the woods. Still, with everything that had been happening Jared decided it might be worth checking out. He walked to the back porch and followed Hulk's gaze and saw… nothing. There wasn't anything that Jared could see. Small woodland creatures had started hiding away for the winter and weren't seen as frequently so Jared found it hard to imagine what could have Hulk's attention to firmly. He looked back at his dog who had not broken his stare and looked back to the empty yard. "Hulk," he shouted, "snap out of it." As if understanding exactly what he said Hulk's attention darted to him. His tail began to wag as his large pink tongue fell out of his mouth as if he had been holding his breath. "Good boy" Jared called and walked to his car to leave.
Another carcass was left in the driveway when he came home. The alarm was blaring and had been for who knew how long. Hulk was going mad. Jared pulled into the side yard and exited his car with his jaw agape, he didn't know quite what to make of what was going on. He had not seen a deer for almost a month and suddenly a second had been killed on this property almost twenty-four hours after the first. He gathered his focus and began to circle his house along the perimeter of the property. Hulk finally noticed him and ran to his side, his cable zipping behind him. His loyal dog stayed by his side as he made his way to where he could get a good look at the back of the house. Nothing. The door was still shut, no windows had been busted, nothing. He ran up the yard, Hulk zipping right with him, to get a good look at the front of the house. The side door was still shut, as well as the front door, with no sign of entry anywhere. The only thing out of place was the fresh deer carcass on the carport. Ignoring the alarm he approached the dead mass, Hulk returned to his panicked barking as Jared left his side, this time as if begging him to get away. A massive wound opened up the belly of the deer that had been gutted and left a hollow shell. Its antlers had been torn off revealing a still bleeding wound on the top of its head. Jared's gaze followed a thin trail of bright red drips that led back in the direction of the house. Remembering the occurrences from the day before he ran into the house, and silenced the alarm. ‘Motion in the basement' was displayed on the pad. His heart began racing. He focused his senses on the basement, listening for any kind of motion, beginning to realize yet again that maybe he should have called the police. Slowly he made his way across the kitchen and made his way to the basement door. He flipped the light on and listened for any kind of response from below. The old doorknob turned after working it for a couple seconds, he had never quite figured out the secret to opening it first try like dad. Just looking in from the stairs it seemed like nothing was out of the ordinary so he began his descent down the creaking stairs. The hardly used home gym slowly came into full view as he stopped at the top of the last few stairs. He took a deep breath and slowly peeked his head around the corner. A new fresher blood puddle had replaced the one from the day before, this time it still looked wet. He quickly retreated his head, took a deep breath, and slowly went for a second take, this time taking in the rest of his surroundings. None of the furniture had been moved, his drum set was fine, nothing was out of place. Carefully he proceeded down the remaining stairs. To his left was the pool table, nothing was hiding behind or beneath it. His father's office was clear, including the bathroom that was tucked away under the stairs. The only thing out of the ordinary was the very unordinary puddle of blood that still seemed to be expanding slowly into a perfectly smooth circle. A shuffle came from the shelves, not loud or violent, but audible, and sent Jared sprinting back up the stairs and calling the police.
His wife beat him home, which made sense, he had to drive from the top of the mountain. He pulled into the gravel beside the asphalt driveway and got out running to the group of officers that stood with his wife and son. "What happened?" he asked, wincing as he noticed the bloodied carcass on the concrete beyond them. "We don't know sir. Your son called and reported another break-in. He went in again, he's going to get himself killed doing that," he threw a glance sideways to Jared, his mother's arm around his shoulder, "fortunately there was no one still inside when we cleared it." "A break in?" Kelly asked Jared, shocked and in disbelief. "The alarm was going off when I got home, but I didn't see anywhere they would have broken in. I went in to turn off the alarm and didn't hear anybody or see anything. The sensor in the basement had set the alarm off again so I went down there-" "That was a bad idea," his father interrupted, "stop doing that." "Anyway," Jared continued, "there was another puddle on the floor but nobody was down there and the basement door was still locked. I heard something from the shelves and ran back up to call the police." "There was nothing in the basement sir. Might have been an animal, I'd look into setting a trap." Suggested the officer. Baffled, Beverly interjected "a puddle of what?" "Blood, like last night," Jared explained. She glanced up at Kelly, frustrated that she had not been told about their finding the evening before. "Sorry dear, I didn't want you to freak out." "Well I'm freaking out now." She replied, curtly. "The only thing I do not know how to explain is that," said the officer, motioning at the deer carcass, "I have animal control on the way to remove it from your property and investigate its death. We would suggest maybe having cameras installed with your system, whatever is doing this might not be safe for your family, and it might be your best way to find out what we are dealing with." Kelly looked at his wife knowing exactly what she was thinking. "We will look into it," he said with a sigh.
It was earlier than he normally woke up, but Jared found himself wandering out of his room at 6:15 hungry and craving a cookies and cream pop-tart. Jeremy was yawning over his cereal, barely eating it, barely keeping his head up at that. "You okay bro?" Jared asked his brother. With a long dramatic sigh he replied "I didn't sleep good last night. I'm still tired." Memories of a few nights before entered Jared's head, remembering listening to his brother's nightmare in the next room over. "You want an energy drink? I won't tell mom" "You won't tell mom what?" asked Beverly, emerging from her bedroom door. Jared got a quick glance inside as the door closed of his father hurriedly getting ready. His mom made her way to the kitchen asking over her shoulder "what's the matter sweety." "I'm tired." Jeremy answered, exaggerating the ‘I' dramatically, he probably didn't want to go to school. "Are you having nightmares?" Jeremy glared at his older brother, wondering why he would ask something like that, "No, I'm not a baby." Jared shrugged it off, deciding not to bring up the night before. "You're still in your PJs', you need to hurry and shower and be ready to go." She made her way back through the dining room with a peeled orange and set down in the living room, turning on the news. Jeremy grumbled and carried his bowl of unfinished cereal into the kitchen and poured the remainder of his breakfast down the sink. He shuffled his way back through the dining room like a zombie, lazily sliding his feet across the floor, shoulders slouched, chin up with a pouty face. Jared prepared and finished his small breakfast in just a small amount of time and decided to go ahead and feed Hulk. From the living room Jared overheard a story about a missing girl in their town, it sounded like she had lived down the road. He did not know many of his neighbors and did not recognize the name. She had apparently disappeared overnight and the police had been searching since around three that morning. "One cup in the morning." Yelled his mom, hearing Jared fill the two large cups with food. "I know, I know," Jared replied, still carrying the two cups out the door. With no shoes on the concrete was cold beneath his feet. The air was cool, teasing the approaching winter. Every now and again he would find another glass marble from the old door, and make a mental note to pick it up on his way back in. Out through the carport he saw Hulk still sleeping, curled up in front of his home. With the weather getting colder he often slept inside but Jared didn't think anything of it, he just chalked it up to one of Hulk's many isms. With light steps he snuck his way through the grass, dead in a few places, too tall and still green in others, attempting to wake his friend with a playful fright. As the distance closed Jared got a strange feeling, he wasn't usually this successful at sneaking up on Hulk, and it almost seemed like he wasn't… Jared dropped the cups and ran to the cold mass of flesh on the ground to find his beloved dog decapitated. The neck remained, the head had been removed with a violent tear at its base. The exposed meat, red and pink, contrasted with Hulk's dark blue fur making the scene that much more visceral. Jared dropped to his knees, unable to hold back the tears. He screamed for his dad through sobs, rubbing Hulk's belly knowing it wouldn't bring him back, but hoping that the gesture would bring some kind of comfort to at least the ghost of his friend. Heavy urgent footsteps behind indicated the arrival of his dad who came to an abrupt halt behind Jared utter holy shit just under his breath. The thought repeated in his head as he pulled his son away from the carcass and held him tight as he sobbed into his chest. He couldn't pull his eyes away. What could have done this? His brother's scream came from the carport as his mother pleaded with him to hurriedly get back inside the house. The door slammed behind them and Kelly was left with his son, mourning the sudden loss of a good soul.
The next morning Chris was there installing cameras on all corners of the house and in the basement, where another pool of blood had been found the prior morning. Beverly had packed up for herself and Jeremy and had spent the night at her father's house, and would likely spend the next few days there as well. Kelly had set out poison traps in the basement along with a baited cage trap, not knowing what he would find, but intending to kill whatever the hell it was. Jared sat at the fresh mound of exposed earth at the top of the yard, their own pet cemetery where all the family's prior pets had been buried. His tearful eyes were glued to the new grave. The image of Hulk's headless body haunted him, he couldn't close his eyes without seeing it.
Jared had laid out of school the day before and was doing so again today. Chris finished up around noon and left without a word, his van just started up suddenly and the noise of the engine quickly faded up the driveway and down the road. He was alone again, alone in this house which seemed to have become the dwelling place of some evil force. His lack of appetite over the past twenty-four hours was starting to manifest as a dull ache in his stomach. He sat up in his unkempt bed and decided he should eat. The silent house wasn't anything he wasn't used to, but he normally didn't feel so uncomfortable in it. Entering the kitchen he felt a strange current run through up his spine. Was he that hungry? It had only been a day. But the feeling felt more like the first time he had watched Alien and Dallas was making his way through the air ducts. He paused to observe this feeling, to follow the tingle in his neck in an attempt to find its origin. His heart began to race, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He felt a chill. An obscure, wet sound came from beneath him. He was frozen again. Focusing his attention on the basement. Not moving a muscle. Another wet plopping sound followed by a faint whine, similar to a child's, but too far away to be sure. It almost sounded like wet towels smacking against the ground, and it moved. With careful, quiet steps he turned around and faced the basement door, as he did so thud echoed through the staircase. Another faint cry, more distinguishable as a little girl's, followed by another, heavier thud that shook the door. He began to ponder the cry he had heard when the signal from his brain finally reached his legs to run, and he turned and sprinted through the side door and through the yard. Halfway across the yard his foot found a hole and as a sharp pain shot through his leg he fell. The sound of wood being splintered sent him scrambling forward through the pain, scraping his hands on the asphalt trying to lift his body up to a running position. A familiar sound stopped him. Something told him to keep running, that what he heard was impossible. He dared a glance back to the house, needing to find the origin of the bark, Hulk's bark, a bark he knew so well.
It had no distinct form, it was simply a mass of meat and bones. Thrown together pieces of various other forms, a primordial Frankenstein's monster. Entrails drug the ground behind it, leaving a smear of blood leading back to the door which was now broken and barely hanging by its hinges. Its legs resembled those of a deer, cautiously carrying the mass, trembling as if it were just learning to walk. It did stumble a few times but quickly gathered itself. The bark came again and in a sudden moment of clarity he realized Hulks head sat atop the thing almost mockingly. A tangle of hair, matted and clumped with dried blood, hung in front of its chest and created a crimson silhouette of what appeared to be a face beneath it. There was a snapping sound as it fell again and two slender pale arms reached out to break its fall. A girl whimpered. Jared snapped out of it. His feet slapped frantically on the asphalt as he sprinted to the road and ran to his aunt's house.
It seemed to take less than a minute to get to her door. He didn't quite know how he managed to get his cries for help out through his frantic shallow breaths. The sheet metal door screen rattled as he pounded the door. It swung open and before Mary could ask he fell to the floor and scurried into the kitchen. The followed him questioning what was going on, concern setting into her tone. "Where is your gun?" Jared shouted, searching her drawers until he found a large knife. "What is going on Jared? Calm down, do I need to call the police?" she asked, grabbing her purse to keep her gun out of Jared's manic hands. "Yes! Yes, call the police, please, hurry." He ran back into the closed in porch to watch out the window for the thing. His aunt, still in the kitchen, was giving the police her address over the phone, and describing to them the disturbed state of her nephew. "They're on their way," she said, peaking into the small room, littered with fresh fruits and candies in various baskets, "what is going on Jared?" "Go to your room Mary please, there is something out there." Jared realized he sounded crazy. Turning around to give his aunt a brief look, trying to will her to believe he wasn't, he pleaded "please, I'll explain when the cops get here. She didn't argue, he wasn't in a good state of mind, she would just do as she was told until the dust settled.
The monster never came. The police showed up in less than five minutes. Jared retold his tale, describing everything that had happened, and connecting it to everything else that had been going on the past week. The officers, of course, didn't believe him at first. The crime scene was evident that something at least resembling the boy's tale had happened, but it was too impossible. The crimson trail originated in the basement from a new large puddle. They traced the path of the creature through the house and tracked it all the way through the field across the road. Long stalks of wheat had been pressed down in a path that was easy to follow until the field ended in a front yard. There was a house on the tree line but nobody was home. No-one to realize that the dog had been ripped from its leash around the tree, only the rear half of its body remaining. A chicken coop had been destroyed and white feathers covered the ground interrupted by small splashes of red. Beyond the tree line and into the woods there was no more trace. Whatever it was had disappeared hopefully never to be seen again. But stories would pop up throughout the next few weeks of family pets going missing, animal carcasses being left eviscerated in random places, and children continuing to go missing every few days. The small town of Hudson was thrown into crisis, under attack by an unknown and seemingly unstoppable force.
The police arrived in about ten minutes, his parent about another ten minutes behind them. After a few minutes, and several lectures to Jared about what not to do upon arriving at a break in, the house was cleared. Before allowing the family to enter an officer pulled Kelly and Beverly aside. "Alright, so whoever did this is not here anymore. A forensics team is on the way and you guys will soon be able to go in and inspect for any stolen belongings. Before that though I need to talk to you two. Whether the intruders were here intending to steal from you or not, something has definitely occurred in your basement. There is a lot of blood, a lot, and animal carcasses. We do not believe any of the blood is human but a more thorough investigation will need to be done. We will not want you down there until afterward. I will give you the number of a company that will be able to come in and clean up down there for you. Whatever you do don't let your son down there until it is cleaned up, okay? I would advise you guys to avoid it as well. It's a pretty horrific scene." The officer's chin lowered, his eyes glancing back and forth between them looking for a sign of understanding. Once he was sure he had made himself clear he went back to work, leaving the couple to absorb what they were just told.
It took a little over half an hour to search every surface one would think for prints. The family entered their violated home, carefully stepping over the glass-covered vinyl floor. Beverly repeatedly advised Jared to be careful even though he had already carelessly wandered through it already. They spent the evening checking under clothes on drawers and in boxes under the bed to find anything of personal value that could now be missing. The television was still there, along with all of their personal computers and electronics. Jared's laptop had been left in the living room, almost teasingly yet, untouched. Jared still had not been informed of what occurred, so all of this seemed strange. His parent knew the truth though, that their home had been targeted to host some sort of slaughter for reasons that seemed as hard to grasp as they were to fathom. The chances of the intruders coming back while they were home was close to zero but Kelly still slept with his gun on his nightstand while Beverly couldn't sleep at all. Jeremy had been picked up at school by his grandmother who had used this whole situation as an excuse to spend time with the boy, but Beverly certainly did not want him here.
"Well, how much is it going to be? Can we afford it?" Beverly asked, sweeping more bits of glass off the dining room floor. "This isn't something we have ever thought about investing in." "We also never thought something like this would happen to us. Especially, especially that shit show in the basement." Kelly replied. The smell of rot had slowly started seeping through the floor beneath them. They had called the number given to them and were expecting the basement to be cleaned out by the end of the day. That morning he had wandered down the stairs so as to fully realize what had happened. He needed to see the remains of the horrific acts that had been performed in his basement, to feel what he could imagine might be something close to closure, he wasn't sure. This was his home, and he was struggling to feel in control of what had happened in his absence, even though he couldn't. He had seen the blood covered floor, dark crimson after drying overnight, and spotted with the footprints of the forensics team the day before. The tiny limbs of animals were scattered about in no pattern, with seemingly no intent. Six severed opossom heads made a small circle in the middle of the massacre, their greying entrails and small fragile looking bones surrounded the circumference of the gruesome display. Something had been picked up from the center though, a small impression had been left in the dried blood of an object about the size of a quarter. If the gore hadn't been enough to make him want to vomit, the smell certainly was. He held it in though, he wasn't going to let this get to him, that's what the people who did this wanted. His attempt to regain control was the idea to have a security system installed. It seemed like a very reasonable response and Beverly, while supportive, wanted to make sure it was thought out thoroughly before proceeding. "Watch your mouth," she said "do you know how much systems cost? I know I've never looked into it. Call around today and find quotes. Be sure to ask about different levels of security and not just the top of the line available, we won't need all that." Kelly crossed his arms as he leaned against the counter, letting Beverly sweep the glass up around his feet. His gaze wandered to the door that was still held shut with duct tape. "I'm going to take Jared and get a new door first," he said. "That would be great," Beverly responded, seeming to still be sweeping the same spot she had been for several minutes.
Jared had never put in a door before, but he was always excited to learn a new skill. Generations of carpenters on his father's side had all led to him. He wasn't going to be a carpenter, or even an architect, but being around the construction of their home as a child, helping his father build a tree house and pool deck, and all of the work he had helped with on the house had put him on the path to be quite a handyman. While his father had taught him household skills, he had developed his own technical skills in the automotive world and was eventually able to teach his father how to do lots of things he never knew how to do. Today Jared was getting to learn, but it was in the midst of an unexpected trauma to the family. They picked out a door and by noon they had it installed, good as new. Kelly let Jared install the new door knob and deadbolt, not reading the instructions as usual, just trying to remember how the old one had been taken out. It didn't take long before they had a new functioning door. CTS arrived after lunch and quickly got to work. Jared still did not know about the basement, but he had smelled the growing stench and become somewhat aware of what might have happened. The smell of decay was quickly replaced by strong detergents as the team worked, bringing little more comfort to the family. Jared's head began to hurt. "I am going to take Jared with me to get Jeremy. Let me know when they are finished here, he doesn't need to be around all this." Beverly told her husband. A couple men and women in hazmat suits were carrying several biowaste containers across the backyard to their van, one of them had started an ozone fogger that would hopefully help with the smell. "Good thinking, tell mom I said hi," Kelly replied, deciding he did not want to go down there and be in the way. He instead opted to begin calling around and getting quotes on home security systems while his wife and oldest son were off to his mother's.
He felt like he was being treated like a child, but at sixteen he still never turned down an opportunity to see his grandma. She was the one who had introduced him to his current favorite films as a child, films that made his mother furious when she found out what he had been allowed to stay up so late to watch. Older now he understood why his mother may have been upset, but he still felt those experiences had shaped who he was, and he generally liked who he was today. Jared had a close group of friends who all enjoyed the same loud and heavy music, and the same gory sci-fi horror films he did. He knew his mother did not want him near whatever was going on in the basement, probably feeling like he wasn't old enough to deal with whatever it was, but he chalked it up to his own decision to go with his mother to visit his maw maw. The smell of hospital-grade disinfectants still lingered faintly in his nose as he rode shotgun in his mother's car. The scent was soon replaced by the thick odor of cigarette smoke as they entered his grandmother's home.
"What happened?" Jeremy asked his brother as they walked along the gravel driveway together. Their mother had asked them both to go outside while she and their grandmother spoke privately. "I came home from school for lunch and found the door busted open. There was glass everywhere but nothing was stolen. Something happened in the basement though, I think someone was killed." His younger brother stopped and looked at him with a newly disturbed look in his eyes, silently waiting for him to assure him it was a joke. "People came in hazmat suits to clean up, they were there when we left. Before they came it started to smell like roadkill in the house, it was awful. The cleaning products were almost as bad. Plus they didn't want you there, so do the math." Jeremy pondered for a moment, scanning the leaves on the ground as if for a reason for everything his brother had just told him. "So… people broke into our house and killed someone." "Or something. I guess the police would have been there longer if it had been a person. But something was definitely killed." His older brother had told him lies to prank him before but this did not seem like one of those times. He had a deadly seriousness about the whole thing. Jared was worried maybe he shouldn't have told him so much. After a few minutes they were allowed back inside, and their father called a few hours later to let them know they could come home.
When Jared came home from school on Monday he found his father still at home and a van parked in the driveway packed with spools of wire and various tools and cabinets. He entered the house to see his father and another man he did not recognize working at the windows in the living room. "Hey dad, what are ya'll doing?" Jared asked throwing his bag down in the hallway to his room and sitting down on the couch. The stranger stayed busy but Kelly turned around to acknowledge his son. "This is my cousin Chris, turns out he deals in security systems so we are getting the family discount. We've been working since about eleven," he said, walking past Jared and to the kitchen, "we will have everything done soon and I will show you how to use the system, and we will make you a code so you can arm is and disarm it when you leave and come home." He came back into the living room with two bottles of water for Chris and himself. Chris accepted the water, took a sip, and got right back to work installing what looked like some kind of sensor on the window. "I guess we lost track of time until you got here, are you not home early?" "I don't have class after one" Jared explained, Kelly wasn't normally home on weekdays, and generally didn't know Jared's schedule. "Oh, well don't forget to go get your brother" as if he had ever forgotten to do so. "So check this out, we have motion sensors put up around all the windows and entrances, and a couple downstairs. These," he explained, pointing to the window Chris was working on, "will sound the alarm if the windows are busted, I think we have just a few more to put in around the house." His father loved over explaining things, and Jared just grew accustomed to listening regardless of how interested he truly was. Kelly finished his tale of running wire and drilling holes, gulped down some more water, and went back to assist Chris. Jared broke out his DS, propped his feet up on the coffee table, and returned to his saved game of Pokémon Soul Silver.
The van was gone this time. Chris had been going into detail about how to use the system when Jared left to go pick up his brother. His dad was waiting for him when he opened the door. "Alright Jared, I need you to pick a number to use as your pin, you got four digits" he explained without a moment's hesitation. Jeremy shuffled past them through the now crowded laundry room, letting his backpack fall off his shoulders into the kitchen floor, rushing to the fridge as if he hadn't eaten all day. The number Jared knew best was his the pin number to his debit card. It wasn't a number of any significance, he had just never chosen to change it from the default pin given to him by his bank, that or been too lazy to. Kelly set it to program and Jared entered his pin. "Watch this. Put your number in and hit 'arm', then stand very very still." Kelly said. Jared did as he was told. Jeremy had secluded himself in his room with a box of cereal like usual. The control panel counted slowly down to zero and displayed ‘armed' in blocky digital letters. "Jeremy! Come in here NOW." His father yelled, in a frightening tone that demanded immediate compliance. Jeremy's door could be heard swinging open and just as his steps were heard frantically running onto the carpeted hallway floor a siren sounded that made Jared's heart skip. His hands flew to the aid of his ears, plugging them just as he heard his brother scream and fall to the floor of the dining room. His father was laughing maniacally, Jared couldn't help but join him.
They tried to pull the same prank on his mother when she came home but she knew better. As the alarm sounded to her entrance she closed her eyes and tilted her head back as if looking for an answer from God as to why this was happening. She took a deep breath. and let out a long sigh. "Please make this stop, I have a headache." She pleaded, letting the tension out of her shoulders and trying to relax in the midst of the obnoxiously loud wailing. She had little patience for these shenanigans, and her husband should have known better. Giggling could be heard coming from the dining room but Kelly soon appeared and silenced the alarm. "Sorry dear, it was the boy's idea." "Not it wasn't!" came shouted from the same direction of the giggling. "Let me get you programmed in here and I'll show you real quick how to use this thing," Kelly said, reaching up to the control panel to set it into programming mode. "Jared, did you set the chicken out like I asked?" She yelled into the house. "No, sorry, I forgot." Came the expected response, nonchalantly from a boy deeply invested in his video game. Beverly sighed again and did as her husband showed her on the control pad. "How did it go today? Did he talk you into upgrading anything?" She asked, punching her decided pin number into the thick rubber number pad. "We already got a great system for our money," Kelly replied, punching a few more buttons, "for only twelve hundred dollars we got a lot more than what we would have from anywhere else I called." "I guess we never thought we would need something like this." She was trying to think of what to fix for dinner since her son had failed to do the one thing she asked him to do today. Pasta, she supposed, would have to do.
He knew his brother talked in his sleep but he didn't get to hear it often. It was later than he normally would be awake, and he hadn't noticed it until he finally put away his game. Laying under the cool sheets he could faintly make it out through the walls. What he was saying could not be discerned, only that it seemed he was having some sort of nightmare, and perhaps pleading with someone. Jared felt somewhat bad for his brother and had a slight inclination to go wake him his distress, but it was almost two, and his eye had grown tired from staring at the three inch led screen of his DS all evening. He made sure his alarm was set and fell asleep.
"Don't forget to set the alarm when you leave Jared, it's a habit you will need to get into," Kelly said as he struggled into his jacket while trying to rush out the door. "Have a good day, love you!" were his final words as he shut the door behind him. His mother had already left to drop off his brother at school. He was always the last one to leave the house in the morning these days and he usually spent the time browsing Reddit on his phone and taking his time with breakfast. He took the time, like he did every morning, to carry two large cups full of food out to Hulk, the family's Great Dane. Hulk was supposed to be fed a single cup in the mornings according to his parents, but Jared liked to spoil the big boy. Hulk slobbered over the 10-quart oil drain pan that was used as his food bowl. His jowls flung beads of drool as he attacked the meat flavored pebbles as soon as they had been poured before him. Hulk always received a vigorous rub down that ended with several well-accepted head scratches before Jared would make his way back inside. Leaving for school the new deadbolt was smooth and locked with a satisfying click. It wasn't until he reached his car that he realized he had forgotten to set the alarm like his father had clearly reminded him to do. Slightly frustrated with himself he went back in to do so. He did as he had been told, pressed ‘arm to away' and entered his code, simple. Except instead of beginning a countdown and asking him to leave the house the screen on the small command center read ‘system not ready: motion in the basement.' This error message was strange since he knew he was the last one home, and maybe it should have concerned him but he was starting to run late for school so he decided not to bother with it. He sent his dad a text to let him know as he slumped lazily into the driver's seat of his Sentra and waved goodbye to Hulk as he drove off to school.
11:30 am, he always arrived home around this time every day for lunch. Hulk was barking at something in the backyard but Jared tended to ignore this frequent occurrence. His father had asked him to try the security system again when he got home so he did. He entered his pin with success this time as the display informed him the system was now armed. Satisfied with the results he disarmed the system. He fixed himself a bowl of ravioli, not wanting to put much more effort into his meal than needed, and sat down to catch up on some TV he had set to record on the DVR. After finishing his meal he leaned back against the couch cushions with a quick exhale indicating something close enough to satisfaction, only to realize Hulk was still barking. Now curious as to what could have his dog so riled up he decided to investigate. The back porch was elevated ten feet off the ground and looked over the backyard that sloped down into a lightly wooded area where Jared had spent a lot of his childhood. "Shut up!" he yelled to Hulk, who immediately gruffed and then fell silent. He could be obnoxious, but he was a very obedient dog. Hulk stared at him as if trying to communicate telepathically. Jared kind of laughed it off and carefully scanned the backyard for anything that could make a dog lose his cool, which could have been literally anything. It took him a moment to notice an obscure looking mass almost hidden by leaves about halfway into the woods. Through squinted eyes he tried to make out its shape, wondering if he was curious enough to check it out. It was probably just the carcass of some animal. The aging stairs creaked under his feet as he made his way down to the yard. They should have been replaced a couple years ago, but they had never gotten around to it. Leaves littered the edge of the tree line and covered the rocky terrain. Hulk observed very closely, watching over his master from afar. Drops of blood began to appear in a small trail leading to the mass, they traced back the direction he had come. The kill was fresh and with seemingly no motive. Whatever had killed the deer had done so savagely and then disappeared without care for the meat of its prey. Hulk may have scared off whatever did it, it seemed to have run off towards the house. The poor animal had been sliced open viscerally behind its front right limb. The wound was deep, straight through the ribcage and where he assumed the heart was. Since the blood had not yet dried Jared assumed the bleeding had stopped only recently. People around here hunted, but this was not a gun wound, and this was private property. The carcass didn't bother him, but the thought of what could have done this did. He reached into his pocket for his phone only to realize the time and decided to make the call on the way to school. Sprinting back to the house, he only reached in the front door to arm the alarm but when it once again alerted him ‘system not ready' he sighed in frustration and just left after locking the door. "Fat lot of good this security system is going to be" he mumbled to himself, dialing his dad while putting his car into reverse.
"It's arming fine now. If it gives you trouble tomorrow then call me again, I will have Chris come look at it" Kelly advised, disarming the system and turning back to Jared. "Wanna help me pull that deer back into the woods?" "Not particularly" Jared replied. Kelly patted his son on the shoulder, "I'll get you some gloves, come on." Jared sighed and followed his father to the basement. It was the first time he had been down there in the last few days. He usually went down every evening to play his drums and to aggravate his brother while he tried to play video games. His brother had not been down there all weekend either. His father hit the lights before they descended the down the white-walled their well into the thin dark of the basement. The flip of another switch at the base of the stairs illuminated the concrete-lined subterranean room. Wooden rafters held up the floor above which was lined with a thick layer of pink insulation. Shelves lined the opposite wall beyond a small living area where his brother's game stations and a 32" TV sat on a TV across from a couch and love seat. A path was kind of apparent between the back of the couch and an air hockey table and in that path they both quickly spotted a small pool of blood. "What on Earth?" Kelly whispered to himself, just audibly enough to where Jared could hear. It wasn't a very large puddle, but it had dried into a dark circle no more than eight inches in diameter. The thought ran through Kelly's head that this was the spot where he had found the tiny animal parts in a circle, it sent a shiver up his spine. Jared did not know about that though, so he had to play it as cool as he could. "I'll clean that up when we are done, come on," he said, trying to make it out as no big deal. Jared could sense something slightly disturbed in his voice but played it since it seemed he was doing the same. Kelly handed his son a pair of thick leather gloves that were hard from age and had cracks in the digits. They opened the rickety garage door and walked over the gravel, through the yard, and into the woods, the sun having already set halfway into the horizon. Crickets weren't out this time of year so the only sound around them was their feet crunching the leaves that covered the ground. There was just enough light to make out where they were going. Jared took the front legs, and Kelly took the back, and they drug the deer down into the woods where any predators who happened to be out might be able to scavenge and dispose of it for them. Maybe whatever killed the thing would come back to finish its meal. They worked under the ever-present watch of Hulk, who was beginning to also grow tired, but forever felt it his duty to protect his family. He looked around a few times through the low dusk light and decided that everything seemed fine. He would still wait until his masters were back inside before going to retiring back into his cozy little home. As the two men made their way back up and into the house he gruffed a goodnight, made a final scan of the yard, and made his way to bed.
His adrenaline seemed to had started pumping before he was even awake. He barely glanced at the clock as reached for his gun but he believed maybe it said one AM. He chambered a round and sensed his wife throw the sheets off of herself. "What's going on?" she shouted over the waling. He didn't answer. He had no combat training but he knew how to shoot. He threw his bedroom door open trying to listen for any indication of another presence other than his own. He couldn't make out anything over the siren. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he sharpened his focus, aiming his gun ahead of him as he worked his way through the living room and into the hallway leading to his kid's bedrooms, he had to make sure they knew to stay put. Approaching his youngest's door the siren stopped. He quickly turned about, carefully peaking back out into the dining room from the hallway. Light, careless footsteps could be heard in the kitchen. The lights flicked on as his wife appeared within the threshold of the kitchen. "What are you doing?" Kelly half whispered, half shouted, frustrated that she had so carelessly wandered out of their room into potential danger. "Listen," she said casually. Kelly, still tense, listened carefully to his surroundings. He heard nothing. The tension leaked out of his shoulders and he dropped his gun to his side realizing that no one was in his home. "What's going on" he heard from behind him, he recognized the voice of his oldest. Jared was now wide awake from all of the noise and left his room since it had stopped, assuming everything was okay. "The security system went off for some reason" he explained, "I'm going to call Chris in the morning, I don't want this to be a nightly thing." "The pad said there was motion detected in the basement," Beverly said "is that the one that was giving you trouble earlier today?" she looked at Jared for confirmation. "Yeah, I guess the sensor is messed up" he concluded. "Well I will let Chris know, hopefully he will just replace the thing, especially since we just had installed everything Monday."
Chris had come by that morning while he was at school so Jared had been told the system will be set when he came home for lunch. When he entered his home the pad did, in fact, alert him to his own breach and began counting down like it was supposed to. Jared entered his code and the system quieted itself. He shot his dad a quick text to let him know everything seemed to be working fine and went to fixing himself lunch, chicken nuggets today. It didn't bother him that chicken nuggets seemed like a meal for little kids, he imagined himself still eating them regularly well into his adult life. After filling himself and preparing for a couple more hours of school he reset the alarm and locked the door to leave. Walking to he kicked a forgotten piece of glass to the side, deciding it was a better idea to pick it up and throw it away. Over his car and the brick wall of the carport he noticed Hulk fixated on something in the backyard, standing at attention, his tail straight up in the air. This wasn't particularly odd behavior for him, and Jared figured he was probably just wishing he wasn't hooked to a runner that did not allow him to chase after small animals he noticed rustling through the woods. Still, with everything that had been happening Jared decided it might be worth checking out. He walked to the back porch and followed Hulk's gaze and saw… nothing. There wasn't anything that Jared could see. Small woodland creatures had started hiding away for the winter and weren't seen as frequently so Jared found it hard to imagine what could have Hulk's attention to firmly. He looked back at his dog who had not broken his stare and looked back to the empty yard. "Hulk," he shouted, "snap out of it." As if understanding exactly what he said Hulk's attention darted to him. His tail began to wag as his large pink tongue fell out of his mouth as if he had been holding his breath. "Good boy" Jared called and walked to his car to leave.
Another carcass was left in the driveway when he came home. The alarm was blaring and had been for who knew how long. Hulk was going mad. Jared pulled into the side yard and exited his car with his jaw agape, he didn't know quite what to make of what was going on. He had not seen a deer for almost a month and suddenly a second had been killed on this property almost twenty-four hours after the first. He gathered his focus and began to circle his house along the perimeter of the property. Hulk finally noticed him and ran to his side, his cable zipping behind him. His loyal dog stayed by his side as he made his way to where he could get a good look at the back of the house. Nothing. The door was still shut, no windows had been busted, nothing. He ran up the yard, Hulk zipping right with him, to get a good look at the front of the house. The side door was still shut, as well as the front door, with no sign of entry anywhere. The only thing out of place was the fresh deer carcass on the carport. Ignoring the alarm he approached the dead mass, Hulk returned to his panicked barking as Jared left his side, this time as if begging him to get away. A massive wound opened up the belly of the deer that had been gutted and left a hollow shell. Its antlers had been torn off revealing a still bleeding wound on the top of its head. Jared's gaze followed a thin trail of bright red drips that led back in the direction of the house. Remembering the occurrences from the day before he ran into the house, and silenced the alarm. ‘Motion in the basement' was displayed on the pad. His heart began racing. He focused his senses on the basement, listening for any kind of motion, beginning to realize yet again that maybe he should have called the police. Slowly he made his way across the kitchen and made his way to the basement door. He flipped the light on and listened for any kind of response from below. The old doorknob turned after working it for a couple seconds, he had never quite figured out the secret to opening it first try like dad. Just looking in from the stairs it seemed like nothing was out of the ordinary so he began his descent down the creaking stairs. The hardly used home gym slowly came into full view as he stopped at the top of the last few stairs. He took a deep breath and slowly peeked his head around the corner. A new fresher blood puddle had replaced the one from the day before, this time it still looked wet. He quickly retreated his head, took a deep breath, and slowly went for a second take, this time taking in the rest of his surroundings. None of the furniture had been moved, his drum set was fine, nothing was out of place. Carefully he proceeded down the remaining stairs. To his left was the pool table, nothing was hiding behind or beneath it. His father's office was clear, including the bathroom that was tucked away under the stairs. The only thing out of the ordinary was the very unordinary puddle of blood that still seemed to be expanding slowly into a perfectly smooth circle. A shuffle came from the shelves, not loud or violent, but audible, and sent Jared sprinting back up the stairs and calling the police.
His wife beat him home, which made sense, he had to drive from the top of the mountain. He pulled into the gravel beside the asphalt driveway and got out running to the group of officers that stood with his wife and son. "What happened?" he asked, wincing as he noticed the bloodied carcass on the concrete beyond them. "We don't know sir. Your son called and reported another break-in. He went in again, he's going to get himself killed doing that," he threw a glance sideways to Jared, his mother's arm around his shoulder, "fortunately there was no one still inside when we cleared it." "A break in?" Kelly asked Jared, shocked and in disbelief. "The alarm was going off when I got home, but I didn't see anywhere they would have broken in. I went in to turn off the alarm and didn't hear anybody or see anything. The sensor in the basement had set the alarm off again so I went down there-" "That was a bad idea," his father interrupted, "stop doing that." "Anyway," Jared continued, "there was another puddle on the floor but nobody was down there and the basement door was still locked. I heard something from the shelves and ran back up to call the police." "There was nothing in the basement sir. Might have been an animal, I'd look into setting a trap." Suggested the officer. Baffled, Beverly interjected "a puddle of what?" "Blood, like last night," Jared explained. She glanced up at Kelly, frustrated that she had not been told about their finding the evening before. "Sorry dear, I didn't want you to freak out." "Well I'm freaking out now." She replied, curtly. "The only thing I do not know how to explain is that," said the officer, motioning at the deer carcass, "I have animal control on the way to remove it from your property and investigate its death. We would suggest maybe having cameras installed with your system, whatever is doing this might not be safe for your family, and it might be your best way to find out what we are dealing with." Kelly looked at his wife knowing exactly what she was thinking. "We will look into it," he said with a sigh.
It was earlier than he normally woke up, but Jared found himself wandering out of his room at 6:15 hungry and craving a cookies and cream pop-tart. Jeremy was yawning over his cereal, barely eating it, barely keeping his head up at that. "You okay bro?" Jared asked his brother. With a long dramatic sigh he replied "I didn't sleep good last night. I'm still tired." Memories of a few nights before entered Jared's head, remembering listening to his brother's nightmare in the next room over. "You want an energy drink? I won't tell mom" "You won't tell mom what?" asked Beverly, emerging from her bedroom door. Jared got a quick glance inside as the door closed of his father hurriedly getting ready. His mom made her way to the kitchen asking over her shoulder "what's the matter sweety." "I'm tired." Jeremy answered, exaggerating the ‘I' dramatically, he probably didn't want to go to school. "Are you having nightmares?" Jeremy glared at his older brother, wondering why he would ask something like that, "No, I'm not a baby." Jared shrugged it off, deciding not to bring up the night before. "You're still in your PJs', you need to hurry and shower and be ready to go." She made her way back through the dining room with a peeled orange and set down in the living room, turning on the news. Jeremy grumbled and carried his bowl of unfinished cereal into the kitchen and poured the remainder of his breakfast down the sink. He shuffled his way back through the dining room like a zombie, lazily sliding his feet across the floor, shoulders slouched, chin up with a pouty face. Jared prepared and finished his small breakfast in just a small amount of time and decided to go ahead and feed Hulk. From the living room Jared overheard a story about a missing girl in their town, it sounded like she had lived down the road. He did not know many of his neighbors and did not recognize the name. She had apparently disappeared overnight and the police had been searching since around three that morning. "One cup in the morning." Yelled his mom, hearing Jared fill the two large cups with food. "I know, I know," Jared replied, still carrying the two cups out the door. With no shoes on the concrete was cold beneath his feet. The air was cool, teasing the approaching winter. Every now and again he would find another glass marble from the old door, and make a mental note to pick it up on his way back in. Out through the carport he saw Hulk still sleeping, curled up in front of his home. With the weather getting colder he often slept inside but Jared didn't think anything of it, he just chalked it up to one of Hulk's many isms. With light steps he snuck his way through the grass, dead in a few places, too tall and still green in others, attempting to wake his friend with a playful fright. As the distance closed Jared got a strange feeling, he wasn't usually this successful at sneaking up on Hulk, and it almost seemed like he wasn't… Jared dropped the cups and ran to the cold mass of flesh on the ground to find his beloved dog decapitated. The neck remained, the head had been removed with a violent tear at its base. The exposed meat, red and pink, contrasted with Hulk's dark blue fur making the scene that much more visceral. Jared dropped to his knees, unable to hold back the tears. He screamed for his dad through sobs, rubbing Hulk's belly knowing it wouldn't bring him back, but hoping that the gesture would bring some kind of comfort to at least the ghost of his friend. Heavy urgent footsteps behind indicated the arrival of his dad who came to an abrupt halt behind Jared utter holy shit just under his breath. The thought repeated in his head as he pulled his son away from the carcass and held him tight as he sobbed into his chest. He couldn't pull his eyes away. What could have done this? His brother's scream came from the carport as his mother pleaded with him to hurriedly get back inside the house. The door slammed behind them and Kelly was left with his son, mourning the sudden loss of a good soul.
The next morning Chris was there installing cameras on all corners of the house and in the basement, where another pool of blood had been found the prior morning. Beverly had packed up for herself and Jeremy and had spent the night at her father's house, and would likely spend the next few days there as well. Kelly had set out poison traps in the basement along with a baited cage trap, not knowing what he would find, but intending to kill whatever the hell it was. Jared sat at the fresh mound of exposed earth at the top of the yard, their own pet cemetery where all the family's prior pets had been buried. His tearful eyes were glued to the new grave. The image of Hulk's headless body haunted him, he couldn't close his eyes without seeing it.
Jared had laid out of school the day before and was doing so again today. Chris finished up around noon and left without a word, his van just started up suddenly and the noise of the engine quickly faded up the driveway and down the road. He was alone again, alone in this house which seemed to have become the dwelling place of some evil force. His lack of appetite over the past twenty-four hours was starting to manifest as a dull ache in his stomach. He sat up in his unkempt bed and decided he should eat. The silent house wasn't anything he wasn't used to, but he normally didn't feel so uncomfortable in it. Entering the kitchen he felt a strange current run through up his spine. Was he that hungry? It had only been a day. But the feeling felt more like the first time he had watched Alien and Dallas was making his way through the air ducts. He paused to observe this feeling, to follow the tingle in his neck in an attempt to find its origin. His heart began to race, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He felt a chill. An obscure, wet sound came from beneath him. He was frozen again. Focusing his attention on the basement. Not moving a muscle. Another wet plopping sound followed by a faint whine, similar to a child's, but too far away to be sure. It almost sounded like wet towels smacking against the ground, and it moved. With careful, quiet steps he turned around and faced the basement door, as he did so thud echoed through the staircase. Another faint cry, more distinguishable as a little girl's, followed by another, heavier thud that shook the door. He began to ponder the cry he had heard when the signal from his brain finally reached his legs to run, and he turned and sprinted through the side door and through the yard. Halfway across the yard his foot found a hole and as a sharp pain shot through his leg he fell. The sound of wood being splintered sent him scrambling forward through the pain, scraping his hands on the asphalt trying to lift his body up to a running position. A familiar sound stopped him. Something told him to keep running, that what he heard was impossible. He dared a glance back to the house, needing to find the origin of the bark, Hulk's bark, a bark he knew so well.
It had no distinct form, it was simply a mass of meat and bones. Thrown together pieces of various other forms, a primordial Frankenstein's monster. Entrails drug the ground behind it, leaving a smear of blood leading back to the door which was now broken and barely hanging by its hinges. Its legs resembled those of a deer, cautiously carrying the mass, trembling as if it were just learning to walk. It did stumble a few times but quickly gathered itself. The bark came again and in a sudden moment of clarity he realized Hulks head sat atop the thing almost mockingly. A tangle of hair, matted and clumped with dried blood, hung in front of its chest and created a crimson silhouette of what appeared to be a face beneath it. There was a snapping sound as it fell again and two slender pale arms reached out to break its fall. A girl whimpered. Jared snapped out of it. His feet slapped frantically on the asphalt as he sprinted to the road and ran to his aunt's house.
It seemed to take less than a minute to get to her door. He didn't quite know how he managed to get his cries for help out through his frantic shallow breaths. The sheet metal door screen rattled as he pounded the door. It swung open and before Mary could ask he fell to the floor and scurried into the kitchen. The followed him questioning what was going on, concern setting into her tone. "Where is your gun?" Jared shouted, searching her drawers until he found a large knife. "What is going on Jared? Calm down, do I need to call the police?" she asked, grabbing her purse to keep her gun out of Jared's manic hands. "Yes! Yes, call the police, please, hurry." He ran back into the closed in porch to watch out the window for the thing. His aunt, still in the kitchen, was giving the police her address over the phone, and describing to them the disturbed state of her nephew. "They're on their way," she said, peaking into the small room, littered with fresh fruits and candies in various baskets, "what is going on Jared?" "Go to your room Mary please, there is something out there." Jared realized he sounded crazy. Turning around to give his aunt a brief look, trying to will her to believe he wasn't, he pleaded "please, I'll explain when the cops get here. She didn't argue, he wasn't in a good state of mind, she would just do as she was told until the dust settled.
The monster never came. The police showed up in less than five minutes. Jared retold his tale, describing everything that had happened, and connecting it to everything else that had been going on the past week. The officers, of course, didn't believe him at first. The crime scene was evident that something at least resembling the boy's tale had happened, but it was too impossible. The crimson trail originated in the basement from a new large puddle. They traced the path of the creature through the house and tracked it all the way through the field across the road. Long stalks of wheat had been pressed down in a path that was easy to follow until the field ended in a front yard. There was a house on the tree line but nobody was home. No-one to realize that the dog had been ripped from its leash around the tree, only the rear half of its body remaining. A chicken coop had been destroyed and white feathers covered the ground interrupted by small splashes of red. Beyond the tree line and into the woods there was no more trace. Whatever it was had disappeared hopefully never to be seen again. But stories would pop up throughout the next few weeks of family pets going missing, animal carcasses being left eviscerated in random places, and children continuing to go missing every few days. The small town of Hudson was thrown into crisis, under attack by an unknown and seemingly unstoppable force.
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