Number IV
By Art Hernandez

The headlights lit up the front yard, exposing a neglected, run down lawn. There were weeds, everywhere, growing shamelessly up through the rusting junk and stinking garbage strewn about the yard. And at the far right of the house, near a small pond, stood a large elm tree, its limbs stripped of its leaves by the early winter air.He shut the engine off and everything went black. The full moon above and a cluster of stars provided some light. But not enough.He opened the door to the car; squealing metal interrupted a choir of crickets. He reached for his flashlight lying near him and switched it on. He got out of the car, casting the beam onto the ground. In-between the tall grass, scattered in every direction, was broken beer bottles. He made sure not to step on them as he made his way up towards the house ahead."Looks like someone's been up here," the stranger grumbled. He directed the beam at the old house. "Who's there?" The man asked the darkness ahead of him; no one answered. He was sure he heard someone or something. He peered deeply into the darkness. Just the wind, he thought finally. A cold and sudden wind forced him back a little, like an army of icy hands. Regaining his balance, he lurched forward, pain from an old war injury shooting up his leg.The stranger grimly recalled the time he had spent living in this very house. He remembered the  grueling time he had spent tolerating his invidious wife and her nagging mother. And the space he had to share with his mother-in-law's repugnant dog: with its constant barking, early in the morning, and late at night; the mounds of shit it would leave around the yard for the stranger to step into; the many occasions when the dog found it necessary to prohibit the stranger from stepping onto his own yard. Thus, he decided the dog would be the first to go.  And so, each day, without delay or second thought, he'd add a tablespoon of rat poison to the dog's food, cautious to prying eyes.  Luckily, the dog enjoyed the strange new taste.A month later, after coming home from a hard day at the office, he found the old woman crying her eyes out over a large pile of red fur; its long black tongue was lying on the cold kitchen tile. He found it extremely hard to contain his delight that day. He succeeded though.The old woman and his wife buried the beast the next morning under the barren apple tree in the back yard. Finally reaching the steps, the stranger limped up them. Remembering the one board that he had made intentionally unsafe on the steps, in hopes that the old woman or his wife would step on it, he step carefully over it.Fortunately for the old woman and her daughter, they never stepped on the board. Unfortunate for him.The stranger had become highly impatient. Sinister  thoughts keep popping up in his tiny head. After some considerable thought, he decided on one particular idea, one that had seemed to delight him the most. And so, one early Sunday morning, while his wife went for groceries, he resolved to send the old woman to Hell with a spoon thrust down her throat--this plan he had enjoyed a lot more.During the attack, the old woman experienced a massive heart attack, so the death was not investigated. After they buried her (near her big red dog, as the old woman had so desired), the stranger and his wife decided to pack up and move out of the old house.They soon found a place of their own, an apartment, in a darkest corner of the city.Ever since her mother's sudden death, the stranger's wife had become deeply heart broken. Life just wasn't the same. She barely kept house, almost always forgot to wash their clothing. Occasionally she would conjure up dinner.  It wasn't too long afterwards that she had a nervous breakdown. And the stranger grew even more hateful of her.The stranger remembered the day the letter came, the one from his mother-in-law's lawyer, informing them of the will the old woman had left behind. The old woman had left a large sum money to her daughter, and only her; she had made sure of that, legally. This really angered the stranger.His wife didn't  intend to ever use the money (one hundred thousand dollars of it), making matters worse for the already furious stranger. She had explained, with a pained look on her face, to the stranger, that she hadn't the heart to spend it, that the money was bettermost left alone. She had hidden the money, the whole amount, in this old house. The map he now held tightly in his hand, gazing so dreamily at, disclosed the exact location of the hidden money; the very same map that he had swiped from his wife after drowning her that steamy summer night in the waters off Sunshine Shores.He grabbed the cold doorknob, turned it. It was locked. "Shit!" He barked. "I forgot the God damn key in the car."He turned about. He tried hard to locate the old rust bucket in the thickening darkness. The wind began to blow harder, lifting dirt up into the air and across the front yard. He cast the beam towards the curb and immediately the darkness and rising dirt swallowed it.Disgusted, the stranger grappled for the window nearest the front door and, with all his might, forced the window upward. It opened halfway; enough space for his body to squeeze through.  He squirmed his way into the house, turned around, and shut the window. The howling  wind and the singing crickets quieted instantly.The house was extremely cold and stank atrociously of squalid dog, and of dog droppings.  The despicable stench sickened the stranger. Cupping his nose, he aimed the flashlight on the map, locating once again the exact position of the money. She had hidden it upstairs in the attic inside a wall. "I'll have to fight rats for the money," he protested.Suddenly, from the upper floors, came a blood curdling noise, a horrible moaning, ensued by the distinct sound of glass shattering. The stranger turned with a start, his joints stiffening.Eventually, he assured himself that it was nothing, just the wind. Of course, he told himself. It's dark, the wind's blowing hard, all perfect factors for a spooky night.He steered the beam through the gloom, towards the stairway leading to the upper quarters, illuminating thick cobwebs and blankets of dust covering the furniture and walls. As he ascended the staircase, the beam caught a photograph, an old picture of his wife and her mother. They appeared to be laughing about something.  Weird, he pondered, realizing he'd never seen this picture before. Where did it come from? Did I see this picture before? He directed the beam up the stairway and the darkness quickly swallowed  up the picture once again.The upper stairway led the stranger into nightmarish darkness. He felt a weird sensation rising up his chest, as if the  walls around him were conspiring to snuff him out. He lungs felt like collapsing with each squeaky step upon the rotting stairway. The strange sensation felt even greater at the top of the stairs; and he soon found it hard to move forward.However, greedy persuasion spurred the stranger painfully onward and towards the attic stairway. As he made his way down the corridor, he passed the room where he and his wife had only once or twice made love. A strange, cold breeze flowed over him as he went past it, sending a shudder through his body.  He noticed that the door to the attic had been left open. That's weird, the stranger wondered. Never had he seen this door open. It had always been locked and forbidden to enter, by his mother-in-law.He started climbing the stairway to the attic. That smothery feeling was, however mild now, still there as he climbed. And the awful smell that he had encountered earlier was even stronger here. I hope the old woman didn't leave any rat traps laying around up there, the stranger wondered.He stumbled upon an obstruction of spider webs as he entered the attic. His hand went up quickly, brushing the webbing off his face. "Shit!" He shouted angrily, slinging the webbing aside.The flashlight slipped from his hand. It popped open upon the ground, scattering batteries across the floor. The stranger quickly gathered up the casing and the batteries and reassembled the flashlight.  He switched it back on but no light emerged. The crash had apparently burst the tiny bulb inside, dashing all hope of a lit exploration.Luckily, moonlight beaming through a shattered window in the attic easily provided the stranger with enough light to locate the money. According to the map it was hidden in a wall on the left side of attic. He noticed a pile of old boxes reaching the top of the attic blocking that wall. The money, he thought, should be behind all that mess.The stranger attacked the piled boxes like a mad dog, swiping and kicking them away. Finally, making his way through the blockade of cardboard, he found the wall. On the wall, hanging crookedly, was a photograph of something large, non-human (the photo was unclear). He whacked it off the wall, exposing a safe behind it. No lock had been placed on the safe.The stranger grinned wildly. Finally there would be happiness in his life. The three things he hated most were dead; and now, the money was his to do whatever he pleased with. No nagging women, no dumb ass dog barking in the middle of the night. Yes, true bliss.No longer able to contain himself, he let out a cry of joy. He opened the safe. It was very dark inside, and without the aid of the flashlight, very hard to see the insides. But that didn't matter. He knew what was inside and his fingers could work just as well as his eyes. Like an impatient child on Christmas morning, he  reached inside the safe to take the present. At first he thought the money had been stashed in the far back of the safe, because when he reached inside he found nothing but empty space. His first assumption was correct. He did find something, after reaching further in, at the rear of the safe, but not what he had been hoping to find. It felt wet, cold and soft -- mushy. Part of it pricked him and he cried out painfully. A strong rotten smell was coming from the safe. The painful stab and rotten smell sent him falling backwards, with that strange something from the safe still in hand. The wetness from the thing in his hand splattered his face as he hit the ground. It tasted, strangely, like blood. There was no mistaking the taste. Fortunately his head was spared a fatal fracture, as it had landed on a large, soft mound. He tossed the putrid thing in hand away and brought his other hand behind his head to investigate the soft mound it had landed upon. "What the hell?" The stranger mumbled, taking a whiff of his hand. It was a pile of shit, and not dog shit, or shit from any other animal. Where had it come from? He wondered. "What's the fuck is going on here?"At the other end of the attic, in the darkness, something uttered a guttural complaint.  "Explanations are, no doubt, due," it spoke, rising to its feet in the sparse light beaming from the moon outside.There was no question in the stranger's mind that this was the form in the photo that he had so callously smacked off the safe. Its large head nearly touched the ceiling, and its bony arms were as long his body, reaching from shoulder to ankle.The stranger tried to rise from the ground and soon discovered the fall to the ground had done some damage. He sat up, slowly, with a fearful look on his face."Let me shed some light." The creature raised his arm, holding a long candlestick in his hand. With his other hand, he lit the stick. The flame whipped frantically in the breeze, threatening to blow out.The stranger's eyes widened. Somehow, the door to hell had been opened, allowing this creature, this ugly demon, loose upon the world. Or at least that's what the stranger believed had happened.The creature's face was mangled and badly disfigured. It had three eyes, the largest one between two smaller ones. It boasted no nose. Its mouth was bulging from its face. Aligning its huge jaws were two sets of razor sharp teeth. Hair was growing refractorily from its body. What appeared to be blood stains perhaps even clots of blood spotted the creature's thick, hairy coat."What are you?" The stranger gasped."Who am I would be better. I am your brother-in-law," it replied."I have no brother-in-law.""Indeed you do, Antoni," it growled. It stepped forward, then stopped to pick up the thing that Antoni had found in the safe and had tossed aside. Now in the candlelight, Antoni was able to half-way determine what that thing was that he had snatched from the safe. To his dismay, it strongly resembled of hunk of mutilated flesh, very human in appearance. The creature brought the chunk up to its monstrous mouth, ripping a piece off with its sharp teeth. With its tongue it lapped up the blood dripping off its fury chin.The creature grabbed Antoni by his neck, and squeezed lightly. It closed its eyes, raised its head up, and smiled."You married my sister, Suzanne. Lived here with her for almost three years -- remember now?""No. . ." He tried to speak."Do not lie to me, Antoni. I know who and what you are," the creature's voice rumbled, "and what you did."Antoni grimaced.The creature opened its eyes and grinned at the stranger, licking its lips."How . . . how do you know, Suzanne? I don't have a brother-in-law!""Please, there is no need to shout at me," the creature told Antoni, squeezing his neck tighter.Antoni felt the bones in his neck begin to bend and snap."Yes," Antoni gasped, "I am him. I did marry Suzanne. Why are you hurting me for?"The creature's middle eye grew larger. "For years they kept me away.  Away from the outside world, the people, and from you, Antoni. Locked up here in this prison. It would have been my cell for life, if not for you.""My mother said it was for my own good, that I stay up here locked away.  She feared others would try to hurt me; but I know what she really feared."  The creature stopped long enough to spit out a bone.  "She feared me, the bitch. The way I looked, smelled, tasted, farted, breathed. She hated everything I was. She must have thought I was the son of Satan himself. What you think, Antoni?""Perhaps," he replied with rolling eyes.

"She loved that rat-ass dog more than she loved her own son."The creature let Antoni go, dropping him on the floor and back on the waste he had recently fell upon.Antoni looked up at the creature looming over him, coughing softly. His eyes tearing from the pain in his neck."Then I watched you kill mother, with the spoon, that was quite interesting, pretty morbid, but interesting. I loved every minute of it. She deserved nothing less than that." The creature turned, walking over to small table. A small purse was lying on it. He picked it up. Its grisly fingers, finding the insides of the purse, pulled out a bundle of hundred dollar bills. The creature then pointed the bundle at the broken man."Is this what you came hunting for?" It asked."Well, I . . .""Please, enough lies. I've had to deal with much of them in my life," it grinned again."Yes," Antoni finally confessed, sobbing softly."You know I can't just let you leave with this money. It's rightly mine. I am the first born child.""Its a shame my sister drowned and was unable to enjoy the money with me. I'm sure you mourned long for my sister, Antoni."Antoni didn't reply. Instead he kept his eye on the money, waiting hopefully for the opportunity to escape."Did you?" The creature asked."Did I what?" Antoni murmured."Did you cry for my sister?""Yes," he lied. The creature smirked at the answer."I found her body the night she was reported missing. Brought her back home with me, and put her in a safe place." The creature smiled at the man, licking its fingers. Sucking blood from its skin, it then pointed to the safe."Would you like to try some?" It proffered the chunk in his hand.The man gagged, looking away."Please, I meant you no harm. Let me leave.""No, I must insist you stay. For dinner."

T H E E N D

Copyright © 1992 by Arturo Hernandez