The Disappearance

The Disappearance

By Elliott Klaassen

My writing is still maturing, getting better I think with every piece I write. I don't feel that this is an exception, though it's definitely not my best. This is my first, and to date my only attempt at horror, so keep that in mind, and don't tell me it sounds like a bajillion other horror books/movies you've seen; I've heard it all already! :)

It was a normal day in the small town of Cimarron, Kansas, as the sun beat down on the wooden frames of barns, children laughed and played at the park, and men came home to their wives. All was well... before Mrs. Brown went missing after sleepwalking into the family’s cornfield. She was gone without a trace within minutes of the appearance of a strange metal box located in the center of a circle cut into the field.

* * *

August 21, 1998. Two weeks earlier.

“Bobby, turn the volume down on that PlayStation! I’m sure the neighbors don’t want to hear you blasting up aliens on that stupid game!” yelled Mrs. Brown from the kitchen, the smell of meatloaf following her voice.

“Okay, Okay, I’m doing it. But it’s called a Nintendo, not a PlayStation,” he added under his breath. “I was about to turn it off anyways.”

“Turn it to the news then, I’d like to see if they’ve figured out how to deal with the crop-eating beetle infestation yet,” Mrs. Brown replied, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

“…and that ends our report on how to deal with pesky crop-eating beetles. Back to you John.”

“Thank you Paul. If you’d like to hear more, log on to pest-solutions.com."

Well, it appears that there has been more reported sighting of darkened figures walking through fields late at night, always occurring before the disappearance…” his voice was interrupted by Mrs. Brown.

“Ugh, I’ll have to check that website later. I really wish they’d focus on more important issues than those stupid “sightings.” You can turn that off now Bobby, it looks like your dad’ll be late again. Better wash up.” She looked hopefully out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of her husband’s truck pulling up their dirt road.

Once the family had prayed, with still no sign of Mr. Brown, Sally (Mrs. Brown), Bobby, and Sarah, Bobby's sister, started to eat their meatloaf and potatoes.

The family ate in silence, awaiting the purring engines of a truck to approach, but none came. Then, without warning, a strange green flash erupted in the windows, lingering for a few seconds.

“What the…?” Mrs. Brown started, but was cut short by several loud bangs. “Stay here! And don’t move!” she urged her children, as soon as Bobby made a move to follow her.

Snyper, the family dog, could be heard barking furiously over the constant bangs. Mrs. Brown swore that she just heard an evil cackle coming from outside. Snyper then whimpered loudly, and silence. It was over immediately. Mrs. Brown stood two feet from the door, petrified in place. It ended so quickly, that she hadn’t even made it to the door.

Two more bright lights flashed in the windows. “Kids! Under the table now!” Sprinting towards the lights, she shut them off. She would not allow this thing to kill them easily; it would have to find them first. She ducked under the table before there came another loud bang… she hid her children behind her… one more bang… she grabbed a knife from a plate above her… CRACK! The door slammed open so hard that it was lodged in the wall.

Muffled thuds and the creaking of the floorboards signified that something was walking towards the kitchen.

Thoughts of her children dying because she had beckoned them under a kitchen table flashed across her mind. “How stupid am I? A table?!” she thought regretfully to herself. Gripping the knife even harder, she assured herself that she would do anything to protect her children. “If only Arthur were here. It would be so much better,” she thought. Arthur was her beloved husband, to whom she had been married to for the last fifteen years.

The footsteps ceased. Whatever the thing was, it now loomed in the kitchen doorway. Sally heard Bobby gasp behind her as a darkened hand reached slowly for the light switch.

Click. It was now, or never; their hiding spot had been discovered. Bowling over several chairs in her way, Mrs. Brown emerged from beneath the table, ready to plant her knife in the creature’s chest.

Suddenly, a hand much stronger than hers grabbed her wrist and forced it down. She found herself face to face with… her husband, wearing an utterly shocked and caring face.

“Um… I take it you guys saw those flashes too?” he inquired, looking dreadfully down at the knife that had just been pointed at him. “Uh…” her face flushed as she stuttered, “yeah. We saw the lights, but didn’t you hear all the commotion? It just ended when you showed up. So we thought you… were… whatever it was.” She placed the knife back on the table, horrified that she had been an instant away from killing her husband.

“No, I didn’t. But where’s Snyper? He usually greets me as soon as I come home from the shop.” Mr. Brown was a master blacksmith, and lately, he was busy filling out a lot of orders.

“I don’t know. He was certainly barking at something out there, and well... now - nothing,” she shuttered as she recollected the strange happenings.

* * *

After Arthur Brown had finally comforted his wife, the family went outside to look for their dog. The searches’ results: a bloody tail in the middle of their yard. Whoever this person was, it had killed their dog brutally.

The police arrived shortly after, and examined everything. Their search yielded no results, however; it was as if nothing had happened. There were no fingerprints, no footprints, and no sign of struggle where the bloody tail stump laid… nothing. The police force finally offered to keep a guard at the Brown’s house, in case the culprit decided to come back.

When the day was coming to an end, the family rejoiced in having a peaceful dinner at last. There were no cameras, no voice recorders, no notepads, just the family and their food.

Bobby looked up from his food at the big empty space on the wall in the living room, he always watched Friday night cartoons at dinner, but had been deprived of this since the occurrence. His parents had moved the television to their bedroom, and didn’t allow the kids to watch it in fear that their kids would grow too terrified to do anything. Every channel on TV was now news, as more and more reports came in from all over the world stating that the strange occurrence was happening all over the world, except more than family pet’s had disappeared, leaving behind more grotesque things than tails.

Rumors were flying left and right that aliens had finally came to conquer our planet, while others said that the devil was trying to take down as many people as he could before the end of the world at Y2K. The Browns honestly didn’t know what to believe, so they frequently watched the TV for any new information, keeping it hidden from their kids.

Arthur jumped as two bright lights flashed through the windows. “Oh for the love of… not again,” he muttered, fearing for the worst. The family was extremely jumpy since Bobby had come across that bloody tail stump in the yard. Even the mail slot opening to reveal the day’s mail caused the family to jump.

An evil silence loomed as they heard a bang; a silence so quiet, that the air screamed with emptiness, beckoning the slightest of sounds to break the tension. And finally, a pounding on the door did. Bobby screamed before a deep voice came in through the door.

“Ain’t no need to be scared. It’s just the sheriff. I’ll be here unteel 6:30 as usual.”

After the Browns had finished their meal in silence, Mr. Brown returned to the paper before heading off to bed. “I’ll be right there Arthur, I’m just going to go tuck Bobby into bed,” she called after her husband, watching him as he went. A weird feeling of separation followed as he disappeared around the corner.

After she had tucked her son in, and kissed him goodnight, Mrs. Brown headed down the dark hallway, trying to keep her boiling fear down.

Dong, dong! Came a sonorous ringing. She screamed and jumped at the sudden noise, before realizing it was just the clock downstairs tolling midnight.

And then it happened; it started off with a slight muffled ringing sound, and got progressively louder and louder. The blinds and shutters racked the windows violently, eventually knocking them out as they beat against the glass, as Sally stood frozen in the middle of the hallway. Just when she thought she could take it no longer, when she had collapsed to the floor, her brain racking from the loud noise, there was once more silence. Next, Sally found that she could not move, that she was rooted to the ground as if some large invisible hand held her down. She opened her mouth to scream for her husband, but found she could not yell either.

Had no one heard the ringing? “Arthur will be here soon,” she told herself calmly.

The longest moment of her life passed, and still there was no sign of her husband. A scream broke the silence, a scream of such torment and agony; it was as if the gates of hell had opened in the upstairs hallway that September night. And for the second time that night, the shutters beat against the empty place where the windows once stood, but this time, there was a greenish glow illuminating the hallway briefly every time they opened.

Sally let out a mute scream as the last flash revealed a dark figure across the hall. There was still no sign of her husband. Each green wave of light showed that the creature drew ever closer. Soon she sat so close to the figure, that if she had twitched, she would have touched it.

Unfortunately, the flashes stopped, and a bright blood-red light shown from behind, so she was unable to see what the thing in front of her was. She was able, however, to catch the putrid smell of burning flesh combined with dirt and blood. Also, the light did reveal that whatever loomed in front of her immobile body was highly deformed.

“Alas! Pitiful human girl,” said the creature in a deep voice. It spoke in a strange, hellish tongue, but strangely Sally could understand. “Your sad little life comes to a sad little end. You will, however, perform a simple task to bring me into a physical form here at this farm.”

Silence. The tormented screams had finally stopped, but Sally wished with all her heart that it had started again, in order to drown out the thing’s voice.

“I will do as I am told,” said her voice, though she did not say it herself. The thing was obviously controlling her.

“You may be wondering why I cannot do this, human girl. God has cursed me. I can only walk the earth as a shade, until judgment day comes,” at this last sentence, he sounded utterly disgusted. How could he do this, if he knew the truth?

The next thing Sally knew, she was on her feet. “You shall go to the center of your crop field. Dig there, and you will find a box. When you uncover it, I shall mutter a few incantations. Then you will be dead. I hope you embraced your God when you lived, because it’s too late now.”

Another flash erupted, this time white, and Sally found herself face to face with an angel.

As it spoke, its beautiful hair flowed in a non-existent breeze, its voice possessing the beauty of…well… an angel’s. “Fear not Sally Brown. It is I, Gabriel, sent to you from God. While the powerful demon below controls your body to do wicked things, God has decided to spare you from enduring the painful torture of being controlled by a wicked soul. So come now, and join me in paradise!”

And the last thing Sally Brown heard as a human, were the words, spoken strong and true, “WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT!” And with that, Sally Brown passed from the realm of the living, to the realm of the dead in paradise.

* * *

When the family had missed Mrs. Brown at breakfast the following morning, they went out to check for her, thought they soon wished they hadn’t gone out.

The town sheriff sat dead right outside the door. A small wooden plank with a pentagram carved into it was shoved brutally into his skull. This explained why they had not heard him leave earlier, and Bobby and Sarah immediately got sick, rushing inside.

Soon it had grown dark, and the family had still not found their Mrs. Brown. Arthur finally accepted the fact that the only place she could be now was in the cornfield, so he approached it cautiously and unwillingly.

Every time he slowly laid down his foot as he stepped, the cracking of the stalks made him look frantically from side to side. He stopped, he was already deep in, it wasn’t looking good for the chances of his wife still being alive.

A large cracking noise came from his side. He jumped, and looked, hoping against hope to not see whatever it was that had been tormenting his family. A large black, charred foot with huge, sharp claws just passed by as he glanced around. He let out a muffled scream; he could not let that thing know he was here. His deep love of his wife gave him the courage to continue on.

Suddenly, he came to a large circular clearing in the corn. Whoever did this would certainly pay, he told himself, and he continued to the center of the ring, determined to stop the culprit.

He came across a large, metal box with large pentagrams etched into it in the center of the large crop circle. He picked it up hoping that he would find a clue inside that would lead him to his wife.

As soon as he opened the box, though, a loud tormented scream erupted from the box. A scream he somehow knew to be tortured souls beckoning to be let free. A thick blackish-red ooze started flowing from the box. It resembled blood a little too well for his liking, and he dropped the box, running several feet from it. He knew now that this thing had killed his wife as the ooze fell to the ground, molding into the shape of a large, deformed figure.

It had now grown so dark, that you could only see a few feet from in front of you, but a thick green flash soon broke the darkness.

“Oh good lord,” yelled Mr. Brown. He was so scared now, so alone; he did not know what to do. He wondered what this thing was, why it kept tormenting his family, why it had killed his wife, he just didn’t know what to do.

More green flashes. An evil cackle broke the silence. “So you miss your wife, do you, Son of Adam? “ An eerie blood red light now illuminated the circle behind the thing. The crops around him shrank down, shriveled up, and died. Two leathery, charred wings that appeared to be on fire spread out, the only visible thing in the field. Mr. Brown wished desperately to know what this thing was.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” he shouted, and almost fell to the ground, but kept himself steady.

“Oh, I am your worst nightmare, Son of Adam. I am a compilation of your darkest thoughts, your deepest fears, and the creature that lurks in your nightmares, feeds off your fear. I am he who has been kicked out of paradise by the Almighty. You do not wish to consider me a foe Son of Adam! “

Mr. Brown didn’t hear the end of the thing’s speech as he took of running toward the house. He was going to gather his kids, get some weapons, and head off to his shop on the other side of town. Another evil cackle came from behind. Whatever the thing was, it wasn’t giving chase immediately. “Run Son of Adam! I’ll kill you just like I killed your wife! “

Arthur stumbled in through the door, shouted for his kids to meet him at the front door, that it was an emergency, and he ran to get some knives and guns.

When he arrived back at the front door, he was glad to see that his kids had heard, that they had obeyed, and had done it quickly. He didn’t know how much time they had.

“…Dad… what’s going on?” came Bobby’s scared voice. He yawned, and wiped the sleep from his eyes. Sarah said nothing; the look of utter fear on her face told it all.

“Not now Bobby, we just need to get to the truck, and now!” he said looking back to see what had made Sarah look so scared. He gasped, cursed quickly, and loaded his shotgun; that thing’s shadow lurked in the doorway. He burst the door open; he still could not see what he was exactly dealing with.

“Come out to play, have we, Son of… AARGH! “ The creature let out a scream of pain when Mr. Brown placed 2 well aimed slugs and a large knife into the thing’s head. As it keeled over in pain, Mr. Brown lifted his kids over its body, and ran off to the truck.

He got in, and quickly started the car, and pulled off away from the farm, hoping to never see that thing again.

Huge green bolts of lightning streaked across the sky. He had either not killed it, or it was coming back to life. Now, a giant pentagram made of blood red lines etched itself slowly into the sky, oozing out red liquid, looking as if it was carving itself into a limb of a person.

“Dad! What was that?!” Bobby sounded terrified now. Mr. Brown couldn’t blame him; this whole experience had scared him as well.

“Not now Bobby! I’ll tell you as much as I know at the shop!” He looked down at the speedometer; it read 100 mph. He was desperate to get to the shop as quick as he could. He had brought some silver church crosses along just in case real metal couldn’t kill this beast.

The lights of the car started flashing, interior and outside headlights. Soon, the only light was coming from the little light above their heads in the truck.

“ARGH!” shouted Mr. Brown before cursing again. He couldn’t see the road. He reached down and grabbed a flashlight he had in his car, right before he plowed into a tree.

“Kids! Are you all right?!”

“Yeah dad, let’s just go!” came their desperate reply. Mr. Brown opened the car door quickly, they weren’t too far from the shop now, if they could just get there in time.

Some rustling in the bushes next to them signified that they were not alone. A rabbit burst from the thicket, and ran across the road. Arthur had a strange feeling that the animal had not run because of the crash. “Let’s go!” he shouted, and they headed off down the street by foot.

The trio eventually made it safely to the shop, and they set a barricade over the door, hoping it to hold against whatever they were dealing with. On their way, they thought they heard it laughing, but never actually saw it.

Rushing to the furnace, Mr. Brown quickly made some bullets and some makeshift blades out of the crosses. He handed a knife and a handgun to each of the kids, teaching them quickly how to aim for the heart alone on whatever they were fighting.

Bobby and Sarah started crying, and Arthur wanted to join them, but could not; he had to be strong for the kids.

“Kids I want you to remember this: long ago, in the Bible, God tells us repeatedly to not fear anyone but the Lord. He deserves our fear and respect, no matter what you’re dealing with.

“In Genesis 35:5 it says, “Then they set out, and the terror of God
fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.” We learn that there is no greater wrath than the Lord’s, not even Satan deserves the fear that the Lord does. And it may very well be something of Satan that we’re dealing with here. But do not fear, because the Lord will be with us.

“We sit here in the shop, with a thing coming to kill us probably, but we should not fear, the Lord is with us now…” he broke off as loud banging erupted against the shop’s doors.

He continued again, with renewed vigilance, now feeling ready for whatever was beyond that door. “And in the future, regardless if we die, we are all part of God’s nation, we will go to heaven if we die. There we will find endless pleasure and rewards for our service to God on the earth.” The bangs grew harder and louder, and Arthur was yelling now to be heard over the bangs. A strange greenish glow came from outside the windows, but he was sure it was now morning.

“It says in Revelations 2:10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. It also says later, in Revelations 20:1-3 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.

“He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time. Don’t you see? The devil will eventually be defeated, maybe not here, but he will be! Along with everyone that follows him! So I say now to not cower, but await whatever fate that awaits us beyond these doors!”

And suddenly, with extreme violence, the shop’s doors flew open, smoldering, and burning from the evil hands that knocked them down.

And then what stepped into the doorway was now revealed; it was definitely not human, and it appeared as if it had suffered great torment. An evil smile appeared on its deformed face as it saw the children cower. It had two horns on top of its head; and it had two large feet covered in soot and blood, large claws sprouting from its toes; its body was covered from head to toe with deep bleeding gashes that did not appear to ever heal, and a large pentagram was etched into its chest, matching the one they had seen in the sky.

“Now you will feel pain beyond belief, Son of Adam, and his children. You will join your mother after much torment, and I will have won the battle, so now bow before me, Son of Adam, I wish to see you beg for mercy.”

No one has yet retrieved any of the family member’s bodies, but a strange aura hung around the shop and their farm from then on. Some said it was the family’s spirits, guarding their old house; that the family would now live forever in peace with their Creator, never to feel pain or torment like they had before.