A story by by Jack Crabtree and Peggy Mintun
Try not to stop if you are ever driving down a dark, deserted highway at night, even when it seems like the right thing to do. You never know what may happen…
The wind whipped Linda Marion’s hair as she and her husband, Dennis, drove along the dark, deserted highway. They had been to a party at Dennis’s boss’s house to celebrate a successful merger with another local auto parts business. Linda had not liked the crowd at the party. She thought that they were a bunch of self-absorbed, misogynistic males. She had asked Dennis if they could leave early, but he had adamantly refused. He had insisted that cutting out early would make a bad impression with Larry, the big boss. Finally, at one o’clock, she had enough.
“Dennis, I think we should go,” she suggested as she pulled him aside. The guys were getting rowdy, playing poker and egging each other on, betting one another with shots of tequila and whiskey. The wives and girlfriends stood around watching this festival of male bonding. Linda imagined they were all wondering, as she was, why they were bothered to be invited to the event.
“Oh come on, babe. Just hang in there a few more minutes. Mingle with the other gals. I’m sure you can come up with something to chat about. Like recipes or baby talk or something” he joked.
Linda was furious with the chauvinistic comment. A few of the guys that were sitting close chuckled which made her even angrier. Linda turned red in the face and stalked off to the bathroom to cool down.
“Must be a full moon tonight, Dennis. Either that, or you have yourself one feisty vixen,” Mel, one of the shop supervisors, commented.
“Ah, man. You don’t really believe that crap do you? Full moons and vampires and shit?” Eric asked. Eric, Larry’s son, worked as the public relations liaison, which everyone knew was a gratuitous position created just for Eric to have a job. He had tried to hold a job in other corporations, but always managed to be fired.
“Actually I do,” Dennis said. This invoked a roar of laughter from the drunken men. Dennis was angered and embarrassed. He shouted above the laughter, “Well, there are a lot of things that happen in this world that we can’t explain! And besides, it’s full moons and werewolves!” The men roared with laughter again.
Eric grinned with satisfaction as Dennis sheepishly glanced around at his coworkers. Eric was a small-minded man, and he enjoyed it when he had the upper hand. “What a wienie. And I suppose you see little green men from Mars in your back yard from time to time too, huh?”
Dennis was now red faced with anger. He had had just enough alcohol to loosen his tongue. “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, Eric. Everyone knows you’re just a loser, sponging off your old man. If it weren’t for him, you’d be nowhere. I don’t care if he is your old man, he must be a real sucker to put up with your lazy ass.” This silenced the crowd. Instead of looking at him, they seemed to be uncomfortably glancing around or staring behind him. Dennis slowly turned around to be face to face with Larry, his boss and Eric’s dad.
“Well, I think that’s quite enough for one night. Dennis, it’s time for you to head home. I do expect to see you in my office first thing on Monday, though.” Larry looked at the rest of the men, “Shows over boys,” then redirected his gaze at Dennis, “Those who can handle their alcohol, feel free to stay and have a good time. Those who cannot may go.”
Dennis turned to leave the room without another word or a second look at the guys. Linda emerged from the restroom without a clue about what had transpired in her absence. “Time to go. I’ll explain in the car,” Dennis said in a low voice. She sensed the urgency and grabbed her things.
They drove out of the neighborhood in silence in their Mercury Cougar. Linda gazed at the expensive houses that lined the streets. The neighborhood that Dennis’s boss lived in was known as the more affluent area of town. It wasn’t bad for rural Kansas. They lived in the town of Gladsdale; a typical mid-western small town where the best restaurant was Red Lobster and J.C. Penney was still considered the upscale place to shop. Linda had met Dennis in college at Kansas State. She was originally from Kansas City, Missouri. She and Dennis fell in love and she agreed to move with him to his hometown, Gladsdale. They were both in their late twenties now and lived in a cozy, but older, two bedroom house on the outskirts of town. She had hoped that one day she and Dennis could own a home like Larry’s. Breaking the heavy silence, she voiced her hope.
“Well, I wouldn’t count on it too soon, babe. I think I may have blown my chances at a promotion at work. Hell, I may not even have a job come Monday.”
Linda listened while Dennis told her the events that unfolded while she was out of the room. “Everyone knows Eric is an asshole, Dennis. I’m sure that Larry won’t hold it against you for too long. After all, he has to know what kind of reputation Eric has and that he egged you on. Come Monday, all will probably be forgotten. Besides, I didn’t know you still believed in ghosts and goblins,” Linda said with a teasing smile.
Dennis chuckled to himself, the subject made less serious by his wife’s insights. “I didn’t say I believed in ghosts and goblins! But I do believe that there are just some things in this universe that we can’t explain…supernatural forces and legends, like werewolves for instance.”
“Werewolves?” Linda asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Werewolves. You know, half man, half wolf. They come out when the moon is full, can only be killed by silver bullets, and kill their victims or else just bite them so they can become werewolves too,” Dennis explained.
“That’s vampires-the part about biting the victims so they become what they are. I think werewolves are just born that way. Not that I believe they are real!” Linda insisted.
“Oh come on. You don’t believe in the big, bad wolves?” Dennis teased. The quarter moon peaked out from behind the clouds. “Looks like we don’t have anything to worry about, there’s not a full moon out tonight.” Larry smiled.
“Like we would have anything to worry about anyway. There’s enough to be scared of in this world with out making up fictitious monsters, like terrorists and serial killers.” As if on cue, a scream peeled in on the wind, blowing into the car windows.
“Did you hear that, Dennis?” Linda looked out into the night. They sped past the fields of wheat on the deserted highway.
“Hear what? You’re just letting your imagination run away with you. Who’s afraid of scary monsters now?”
A second scream carried in on the wind. This time Dennis heard it. Up ahead on the right side of the road they spotted a red Corvette. It looked as if the driver had skidded off the road. The headlights were still on, dimly glowing in the dark night. Dennis slowed the car down to a stop about thirty feet behind the Corvette.
“We better check and see if they are okay. They must have had an accident. Maybe some wild animal ran in front of them or something,” Dennis suggested.
The cold October wind blew in on Linda sending a chill down her spine. She felt as though something was very wrong with this picture. She felt like at any moment a terrifying monster would cut out from the fields of flowing wheat and devour her. She shook off the feeling, half laughing to herself and half disgusted with herself for getting wrapped up in Dennis’ run away imagination. She agreed, “Yes, that’s a good idea. Someone might be hurt.”
Dennis cut the engine and started to take his safety belt off. He grabbed the keys from the ignition out of habit and stuck them in his pocket. The silence of the night was only broken by the cold and howling winds. “I’ll be right back. Just keep the headlights on. It doesn’t look as though anyone is even in the car. Hell, maybe someone already came by to help them.” They sat in silence for a moment, deciding what to do next. A low howling noise blew in from the fields off to the right. Linda jumped in her seat.
“What was that?” Linda asked, trembling with fear.
Seeing Linda shaking in her shoes, after insisting werewolves were a silly figment of his imagination pleased Dennis. He had to take a minute to gloat and tease her.
“Don’t you know?” he asked, trying not to laugh.
“Know what?” she asked, visibly irritated.
“The legend of the Wheatwolf.” He knew it sounded silly, but he hoped she was scared enough to make her gullible. She looked as if she was taking the bait, so he continued to weave his fabrication.
“You didn’t grow up around here, so you probably never heard of the legend. The kids in school use to talk about it all the time, especially around Halloween. Oh yeah,” he added, as if it just occurred to him, “Halloween is only a few days away. Anyway, Wheatwolves are like werewolves, except for the fact that they are taller and they steal the souls of their victims. They rip them apart and eat them and then they take their eyes and use them until they devour their next prey. They say if you look into the eyes of a Wheatwolf, you are actually looking at the soul of their last meal.”
“Dennis, shut the hell up! You are scaring the shit out of me!”
Dennis laughed and added, “Either that, or it’s just the poor animal they ran into. I’m going to check out the wreck. Just stay here and keep an eye out for anything.” Dennis grabbed his Mag light from the backseat and jumped out of the Cougar before Linda could say anything more. He walked up to the Corvette. As soon as the light illuminated the car, he realized that this was no ordinary wreck. The first thing he noticed was that the glass of the windshield was completely broken out, but the shards were mostly on the inside of the vehicle. He thought that maybe an animal had been thrown up on the hood and broke it in from the force of the impact. They must have been going very fast, he thought. He directed the light onto the hood of the car and gasped at what he saw. The fiberglass hood of the Corvette had six deep gashes that left holes so wide that he was able to see the car’s engine compartment. He moved the light down to the road beside the driver’s door. He saw wet drag marks that went from there to the wheat field. His heart was thumping hard as he knelt down and touched the sticky wetness on the pavement. He put his fingers in the beam of the Mag light to confirm what he suspected: it was blood. Some sick bastard had someone in that field, flaying them, and he was going to do something about it. Linda was right; there are enough monsters in this world with out making up new ones. Just then he heard a high-pitched wail from the wheat field. It was a woman. It was the woman who was in this car. He ran to his Cougar to get his handgun. He always carried it with him in the car to protect Linda and himself.
“Oh my God, did you hear that scream, Dennis? That was definitely some woman in trouble.”
“Yes I know. I’m getting the gun and going into the fields. I may be able to help her.”
“Dennis, don’t! Let’s just get out of here and call for help on the cell phone,” she pleaded.
“You know that damn thing never works out here in the boonies. Besides, she’s still alive and needs help right now! I’m going into the field. Just lock up the car and see if that phone will work.” He grabbed the 357 Magnum from the glove compartment and loaded it with six hollow-point bullets. Linda watched feeling helpless as her husband played hero. She knew she couldn’t stop him. She’d always known that he had a stubborn curiosity. She only prayed that he would return safely to the car. “Please, just be careful. I love you.” She felt like this was the last she would see of him.
“Don’t worry, babe. I got this gun to protect me,” he leaned over and gave her a kiss, then started on his mission. Linda watched as he ran down the road toward the Corvette.
Dennis was at the Corvette in a moment. He decided he would follow the trail of blood to find the girl. He started into the dense stalks of wheat. It was unusually tall, coming up to just under his nose. He could only see about ten feet in front of him, even with the flashlight. It seemed like a dark cloud of fog had come over the land. He swayed the beam of light this way and that, catching sight of the glistening blood as he made his way through the field. He heard noises just up ahead. It sounded like bones breaking and flesh ripping. The sound turned his stomach. He started to believe that maybe this time his curiosity had gotten the best of him. That old cliché sounded in his mind-curiosity killed the cat. He kept on walking toward the sound.
He came upon a clearing. It was a large circle of flattened wheat and fallen leaves with a dying tree in the middle. Its gnarled branches flared out in every direction. He had put his flashlight on a low beam before he got to the clearing. He saw shadowy figures on the other side of the twisted tree. He made his way around to get a better look. The carnage he witnessed was nothing like he had ever seen. Body parts lay everywhere. Evidently there had been two people in the car. The man’s corpse was so mangled it was unrecognizable. His body lay twitching and disemboweled. He was a bloody mess. He could see the outline of the killer stooped over the woman. He pointed his beam towards them. He stood there in shock as he watched the back of a beast that he had only seen in his nightmares and overactive imagination. Gray tendrils of fur covered the beast’s form. It was crouched down over its victim, its head buried in the guts of the woman. It was eating her alive. Its tail stood straight out, swaying back and forth.
Dennis directed the beam of the light to the woman face. The beast did not notice this, being busy devouring its prey. Her face was frozen in agonizing torment. Her eyes were wide open, but her eyes were gone, leaving deep black holes. He cocked his gun, readying himself to kill the beast. Its ears perked up. They were the ears of a wolf. The beast stood up to its full height and it was tremendous. Dennis estimated it to be over eight feet tall. His breath caught as the beast turned his way. Its eyes were not like that of a wolf, but its face was like that of a wolf, with a snout and gnarling jowls. The eyes were blue and looked out of place in the folds of the monsters skin. They somehow seemed too innocent to belong there. Its mouth was full of teeth that looked to be as sharp as double-edged swords. They dripped with blood and clumps of flesh. Dennis shuddered when he thought this might be the last thing he would ever look at. He remembered his gun and took aim. As if the beast knew what was about to happen, his mouth formed a wide, sickening grin. Dennis fired the gun. Two shots from point blank range fired into the monsters chest. It looked down at his chest and seemed to laugh. It raised its head back up slightly and looked at Dennis with rage. A low gurgling noise came from its throat and became a fierce gnarling grow. In a flash Dennis thought that he should have used silver bullets. Just minutes ago he adamantly claimed to believe in supernatural forces and thought that he would love to come face to face with the beasts of his imagination. Now he thought very differently. He turned and he ran into the field praying that if he could just make it to the car, he would never take such things lightly ever again.
Dennis ran like he never had before. Fear fueled his speed. The wheat seemed to grow before his path and was smacking and scratching his face and eyes. He knew he not on the trail he came in on, but any path out of that field and away from that beast would do. He could hear the beasts loud trampling behind him. Dennis ran faster, his heart exploding in his chest. Still clutching the Mag light and the 357, he came upon the road. He stole a glance back at the field, expecting to see the beast, but it was not there. He didn’t hear it either. He ran for the car and screamed to Linda.
Linda had heard the gunshots ring out into the night. “Oh my God. Oh Dennis!” she said to herself. She wished that the cell phone had worked. It was dead. They had just charged it yesterday and it was already dead. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, she thought. The night had seemed to get darker after Dennis had gone. A foggy cloud had come down over the fields of wheat. She reached over to turn the lights onto bright. When she looked up she saw Dennis coming out of the field about twenty feet in front of the Corvette. The beam of the light was bouncing back and forth. He was running fast. He was waving at her and was shouting something. She reached over and rolled down his window.
“Start the car! Start the car!” Dennis shouted. Linda reached for the ignition switch and found it empty. Dennis had taken the keys with him. She started to dig in her purse for her set, but then distinctly remembered that she had hung them up on the key hang in the kitchen before they had left. “Shit. Shit,” she said to herself.
As she sat there hoping to find her keys in her purse, anyway, she felt an odd feeling wash over her. Slowly she looked up to see Dennis running towards the car, looking back, gun pointed toward the field from which he had just run. Something must be chasing him, she thought. Her gaze went to the side of the road, in front of the car. There stood a beast, unlike anything she had ever seen before. A scream rose to her throat but nothing came out. It was watching her with its odd blue eyes, smiling with its grotesque mouth. It had the body of a wolf, standing taller than any man she had ever seen. It looked like the creature that Dennis had described. What she thought was a figment of his overactive imagination, a story conjured up to frighten her, was standing in front of their car. The fangs in its gaping mouth dripped with blood. It turned away from her and started towards Dennis. Finally, she managed a scream, “Dennis!”
Dennis turned around to come face to face with his aggressor. He raised his gun and cocked it. He fired one shot that hit the monster in one of its strange blue eyes. The beast reeled back from the shot and landed on its back on the driver’s side of the car. Dennis kept a safe distance walking around it to get back in the car. As he neared his door he glanced at the beasts face. Its eyes were wide open but the peculiar blue eyes were gone. As he looked at the hollowed out sockets a strange red glow started to illuminate from within the beast. In a flash, the beast was back on its feet. Dennis raised his gun again and the monster struck his hand. A searing pain ripped up Dennis’ arm. He saw his hand, with the gun, on the pavement. He backed away as the wolf came upon him. It grabbed him just under his ribs, its black claws sinking into Dennis’ sides. He could feel the claws ripping up his sides and catching under his rib cage. The monster lifted him up three feet in the air. He was then face to face with the monster, looking into its red, glowing eye sockets. He felt some kind of force pulling his eyes. He could feel the tissue behind them giving way. He heard the sucking noise as his eyes were pulled from his skull. He then lost consciousness.
Linda could not seem to look away as the monster brutally lifted her husband in the air. All she could see from inside of the car was his legs hanging, shaking with spasms. She cried “Dennis.” over and over again, but she knew he was dead. She watched as the beast flung her husband’s lifeless body twenty feet in front of the Cougar and she watched it turn toward the car. She frantically rolled up the window, as if the glass could protect her.
The beast bent down and peered in the window at her. She tried to look away, but she found that she was compelled to look into its eyes. Slowly she looked up and saw the unspeakable terror. She was looking into Dennis’ eyes. The beast grinned and started to laugh at her, then turned and ran towards the body. She watched for a moment as it ripped off the clothes and began to tear off the arms and the legs. Then it nuzzled into the abdomen and started to rip the organs out. She slowly passed out when she couldn’t take any more.
The sun was peaking over the wheat fields, casting a warm red glow across the horizon. Linda woke up with a start, vague memories of her husband’s massacre invading her mind. She began to weep as she raised herself up off the seat. Immediately, she saw his body in the road in front of the car. She looked at her watch. It was five o’clock in the morning on a Saturday. She doubted that anyone would be along to help her for at least an hour. She looked around slowly, surveying the area for the nightmarish beast. Daylight was coming in fast. Maybe those types of things only come out at night, she thought. She knew what she had to do.
Dennis knew he had been wrong. He was so afraid that the last thing that he would see before he died would be that beast. But now as he watched the road from the field, he knew his last vision would be much worse. He watched his wife wake up and emerge from the car. She walked over to his dismembered body and searched for the keys. In all of his days he would have never dreamed of hurting her, but now he was like a helpless passenger in a runaway vehicle. He could feel the beast’s hunger, and then felt that hunger become his own.
With keys in hand, Linda stood up and looked at the rising sun. She heard the rustling in the field and the whoosh. She heard the claws striking the pavement and the sound of metal giving way under the weight of a sizable object. She turned and glanced for a moment at the car to see the beast poised on the roof. She knew she had nowhere to run, so she kept her eyes on the sunrise, knowing that it was the dawn of her last day.
