22. The Beast

Things like this don’t happen back in Libertyville, Illinois.

You don’t get lost in the woods behind your house.

You don’t get trapped inside a fortress-like wall ten feet tall.

You don’t stumble upon demon dogs with glowing eyes.

I’m walking downhill next to the wall, my hand rubbing its rough texture as I move in the darkness with my head turned back toward the dog.

I swear that its eyes are glowing.

And there’s something else.

That’s crazy. You’re imagining it, just like the burning eyes.

I smell something putrid. Something that makes my eyes water.

Nothing smells like sulfur, that’s just your crazy mind playing games.

But I believe it because the hairs in my nose are telling me.

So far the big beast hasn’t moved.

I keep slipping down the slope.

Then I hear a loud, gasping growl, a sound like something being shredded apart, like the top of a can being pried and popped open.

It’s followed by a clicking sound, as if something in the thing’s mouth or throat is recoiling.

You’re crazy it’s not a thing it’s a dog and it’s probably as friendly as a Pixar movie.

My breathing is ragged. I can’t tell if it’s my mouth sucking in air or the thumping of my heart.

I hear the thudding of steps, which sounds like the hooves of a horse digging into the dirt.

I run. And the thing behind me quickens its pace and launches itself.

Something massive flails against the tree to my left. I hear the small tree bend and shift as whatever the thing is stumbles and rolls around in the leaves.

I’m not just running now. I’m sprinting downhill next to the wall, trying to avoid anything in my way.

If my old track coach, who told me I never applied myself, could only see me now.

Whatever’s beside me—the dog, the thing—is massive.

It’s a big, black, hulking mess.

I hear it inhale in a high-pitched screech, then cough and start scrambling behind me.

The leaves and dirt on the ground sound like they’re being rooted out of the earth, spit out all over the back of the forest floor.

The thing is breathing in and out like a hundred-year-old smoker with something sick and deathly in the back of its throat.

The smell—the smell hovers just under my nose and my mouth. I can taste it.

Your imagination you can taste and smell your imagination there’s nothing behind you Chris nothing at all.

And then I start to lose my balance.

I’m going too fast and the slope is too steep and the darkness too black and I’m leaning a little too far in front.

And I hit a black metal object.

Something made of steel takes out both of my legs, cutting down my shins like a dirty kick might in soccer.

Now I’m soaring through the air.

I land on one shoulder and half my head, doing a somersault and then twisting and turning and landing in a half-buried rotting log that nearly swallows me as I finally come to a stop.

The dog—or the thing—is behind me, a little ways up the hill.

The eyes are now burning embers, fully on fire, enraged.

It’s massive, the size of a bull.

What if that’s what it is—some random bull that’s completely ticked off?

Then I see what I tripped over.

It’s a ladder.

The steel arms go to the very top of the wall.

That’s my ticket.

The creature starts to move again, this time not running but rather slipping through the darkness.

Every time it moves it seems to change shape, like liquid, as if its shape is bending and changing to its surrounding.

That’s crazy, Chris. It’s the darkness playing tricks on your eyes. Get up and get going on that ladder.

Just as I get to it, the shape smothers me, the smell burning my nostrils and eyes, the hair wrapping around my feet and legs, something digging into my shoe and my foot.

Teeth.

They feel like scissors, a dozen of them tearing down and into my skin and bone and cartilage. I howl and in a crazy, mad gasp of desperation take the ladder and try to pull myself up on it.

The beast isn’t letting me.

So I pick up the ladder from its bottom and manage to move it a little.

I hoist it up—it’s heavy—and then I bring it down on top of the beast from hell.

The thick metal of the ladder hits something.

It sounds like a cantaloupe being dropped onto the street and splattering.

I bring the ladder up and down, again and again, hearing the sound of something hard digging into something soft, a knife digging into jelly, a pole scooping up thick mud.

Whatever had my foot lets go.

And with it comes a howl like I’ve never heard in my life.

It sounds like a baby mixed with an old man, both singing in unison in a coughy, sweaty, sickly scream of pain.

I lift up the ladder and drop it, again, again, again.

The massive beast underneath me and surrounding me suddenly explodes like a balloon full of black paint.

Liquid jettisons everywhere.

The scent is like raw sewage, making me dry-heave and cough. I look down and see a remnant of a gray cloud hovering in the air.

With trembling arms, I slam the ladder back against the wall and desperately scramble over it.

I don’t even see the top of the wall as I flail blindly over it onto the other side.

It seems lighter over here. Not only in actual visibility, but in terms of being able to breathe.

I don’t look back. I run straight through the woods, knowing that sooner or later I’ll run into something.

Hoping that I’ll see the lights glowing from my cabin.

Hoping that the darkness that hovers behind me is all in my mind.