* * * *
“Listen, Sheriff Brighton, I’m not saying that we need to tell the people that there’s a real live monster in Tucker. But we do have to give them another story. No one believes that this is an animal.” The Mayor sat back in her chair.
“Well I don’t know of another story to give, Shelly. What I do know is that if this keeps happening the townsfolk are gonna believe whatever they want. What we need to do is find this monster and kill it!"
“You two can’t be serious!” Dave Reddington the deputy shouted. “Do you mean to tell me that you two honestly think this is a monster? You believe that this is something we should hunt down and kill?”
“Oh come on Dave,” Brighton said, “You saw that dog and that cat. And you saw the houses. Nothing was touched besides the animals. No trace of anything, not a footprint or a hair or a drop of blood anywhere! The way I see it is that anything that can do what that thing did has got to be supernatural.”
“It could be human.” Brighton and Reddington looked at Shelly Webster.
“What I mean is that I was talking to my Dad yesterday and he seems to think it was the Peterson boy. He thinks the boy let his dog into the houses. You’ve got to admit that the dog is a vicious nuisance. I saw that dog go after a rabbit once, it was not a pretty sight.”
“See! So let’s go and talk to Billy Peterson.” Dave had a look of unease and not relief on his face.
Sheriff Brighton and Deputy Reddington mounted the steps of Shane Peterson’s ranch style house. Brighton looked at his deputy, “Alright now don’t be accusin’ him of anything! We just want to ask him some questions.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Reddington knocked on the door. Marla Peterson promptly answered. “Well hello boys! Come on in! I’ll get ya some iced tea.”
The officers of law stepped into the house and waited for Mrs. Peterson to come back. When she did the Sheriff quickly asked her if Billy was home.
“Well sure. Billy!” She yelled towards the back of the house. “What’s this about y’all? Billy come out here right now!”
Reddington spoke up, “We just have a couple questions to ask him is all.”
The three sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. There was not so much as a rustle from the back of the house.
“He must still be asleep. I’ll go in and get him”
Dave knew something bad was going to happen. He could feel it. He wasn’t at all surprised when Marla Peterson screamed. He got up and ran to the back of the house. He peered through Billy’s bedroom door to see Crazy Eyes the German Shepard, or what was left of him, lying on the floor.
Billy was nowhere to be found.
Brighton looked at Reddington, “Well, I guess it wasn’t the Peterson boy.”
The manhunt began immediately.
* * * *
Sandy reflected upon the darker time in her life. The time she spent in that morgue after her parents died. Billy Peterson was right. God did hate her. Why else would a twelve-year old girl be trapped in a basement morgue while her parents burned to death in the funeral home upstairs? Why else would no one be able to locate her in the morgue for two weeks? And why on god’s green earth would it be possible for a twelve-year-old girl to develop a taste for the human flesh she had to eat to survive?
Billy Peterson screamed from the trunk of Sandy’s car. She wasn’t hungry after Crazy Eyes so she decided to hold on to her next meal.
x x x
|
Read more Flash Fiction? Chat about this story on our BBS? Or, Back to the Front Page? |