Night Terrors

Night Terrors

Josh Phipps had been an officer at Penny Lane, Georgetown for a couple of years now but he still felt like a rookie. He worked out for a gruelling three hours a day, he’d be on patrol five days a week and try to settle his nerves for two days a week whilst balancing his personal life on top of that.

He had a beautiful wife called Sasha and two great kids but he knew he was constantly letting them down as he could never make recitals and even missed his daughter’s pre-graduation dinner. It killed Josh to see Sasha’s disapproving look as she watched him arrive home late again. “Don’t worry sweetheart Daddy wants to be here, he’s just got a lot on,” was the soundtrack to his life. It seemed the only time his mind was at peace was when the lights went out.

Recently, however something had kept him stirring in his sleep. The news was heckling on about the Hallbeck case again which was a case his unit had closed several months ago. It seemed this had been the ruining of him because for the first time a case had taken him to the breaking point.

Seemingly innocent at first, it was a tale about a pleasant family who lived just around the corner from him. They lived in a beautiful French villa with roses climbing the walls and a garden big enough to fit a forest in. They were the Hallbeck family. There was Kevin Hallbeck, a jolly investment banker; yes, that’s possible, and Claire Hallbeck, a stay at home mum who loved nothing more than tending to her garden. They had three children and a dog called Michael. Josh’s partner Bobby had joked at the time that you should never call a dog Michael, that’s just “gonna stir all kinds of skeleton’s in your closet.”

Ironically he couldn’t have been closer to the truth. Josh had seen the dog around the neighbourhood and it seemed happy enough. It was a brown collie always snooping and sniffing for treasure. Yet one day the dog escaped and the family didn’t see it for days.

The office received a dozen worried calls from Claire crying over the lost dog, but all they could do was wait for a siting. Well someone did call in and what they described as Michael didn’t sound anything like the happy go lucky collie Josh had once known. Regardless of this the family were happy to take ‘Mickie’ back. It was only the next day that one of their neighbours had visited the house to return cooking utensils and noticed the front door slightly ajar. Worried for the families safety they entered the house. It was only when they looked into the living room that they found Kevin, Claire and all three children shredded to pieces across the floor and a trail of thick, black blood leading out to Michael’s cage.

The case had haunted Josh ever since. He still remembered the pictures taken after the crime of the creature. Its eyes were a dirty red colour, its fur was coming off in jagged pieces and bits of flesh hung from around its mouth.

“Spotted a vicious hound with demon red eyes, the 68-year-old proclaimed she’d seen the beast on a late walk with her two dogs who seemed bothered by the sight of the hound, she claimed the animal looked ‘ready to attack.’ Others have also claimed to have seen the canine. So does this mean the tales are true? Is the Hallbeck hound really back to haunt us?”

Josh switched off the television and threw the remote onto his desk.

“What are you doing?” Cried Steve, one of his colleagues.

“We closed that case already, it was put down and that’s final.”

Bobby looked amused, he crept up behind Josh making him jump.

“You never know, maybe he’s back from the dead.”

The doors to the office flung open dramatically and Harrison, Josh’s boss entered with puffy red cheeks, looking beat.

“They want to reopen the damn case?” He said seething through his teeth.

He turned to Josh who was now submerged under files trying to avoid Harrison’s wicked glare.

“This one’s yours Josh…hey you closed it, you can do it again.”

Shivers crawled down his spine as he recalled the last time he was faced with this scenario. The other men looked at him with guilty sympathy.

Later as Josh packed up, Bobby turned to him to offer some friendly advice. “Hey man, it's not so bad, just think if you get this one then he’ll give you that raise you wanted.”

“Yeah, but at what cost?”


****

She was glowing in an airy yellow dress and cooking a Sunday roast. Josh watched Sasha through the icy kitchen window and wanted nothing more than to hold her again like he used to but he feared that nothing could ever feel the same.

“Daddy, Pugsy is crying, look!” Cynthia shouted jumping around in an excitable hop. He looked over at the whimpering Pugsy whose tiny legs were shaking as he let out a nervous pee.

“He just needed to go sweetheart.”

She tugged his palm with sweaty fingers and her puffer jacket inflated as a massive sweep of wind passed over them. The yard was bare and the leaves had turned an ugly brown colour, weeds had grown around the old swing set which reminded Josh how long it had been since he’d tended to the garden. The guilt ate him up.

“Daddy, daddy, can we walk him?”

“Honey, I…”

“Go ahead.” Josh jumped and turned around to see Sasha with his old cop jacket on. She smiled at Cynthia with an undertone of sadness.

“Ok.” He kissed her on the forehead and took Cynthia’s hand who was gripping onto Pugsy’s little red lead.

As they headed down the winding woodland trail, Josh thought over his progress with the case. He’d been sent down to four dog sanctuary’s, visited countless homes, parks and forests but had no luck. However, there’d been more siting’s; another woman had been attacked on her walk home from work. She described the creature to have, “eyes like ‘the Devil'”.

They reached the densest part of the woods where the trees looked like curling fingernails. He felt like he was caught up in some kind of garish nightmare.

“It’s like Snow White.” Whispered Cynthia. Josh looked at her and she gripped tighter onto his hand, she wasn’t the only one who felt slightly frightened. He looked at the old sign which directed to different paths. One location listed was, ‘Fool’s trail.’ To his horror he recognized the name, it was one of the locations where the creature was sighted.

Josh’s phone buzzed loudly, it was Harrison. He had to pick this up. He looked at Cynthia who was playing joyfully, skipping around throwing orange leaves and getting muddy mitts.

“Hello…oh the receptions bad what did you say?”

As Josh took the call from an anxious Harrison, Cynthia paused her playtime. She could hear something rustling in the distance. In her distraction she let go of Pugsy’s lead who ran into a cluster of trees. Cynthia yelped, “hey boy come here, Pugsyyyy.”

It was pitch black now and the trees seemed to huddle around her blocking the little light left from the street lamps. She clapped her little hands and suddenly heard the rustle again. “Hello?”

A weird wheezing sound was coming from the bushes. The sound seemed to come nearer, she followed it but in a rushed confusion she tripped over a pointed branch scraping her knee. The deep red blood seeped onto the earthy ground amongst the mud and beetles.

Suddenly she heard Pugsey and cried “Daddy!”

Josh dropped his phone in horror, he looked around and they were nowhere to be seen. He yelled for Cynthia who was whimpering. He finally found her lying on the dirty ground and flung her onto his shoulders feeling her shaking intensely.

“Honey, I’m sorry, you're safe now.”

“Pugsy!”

Josh was worried he too heard the rustling and Pugsy’s call. It was in that moment that the crying became a strange yelling sound, like a human. Josh put Cynthia down and told her to be quiet. The sounds grew louder and stranger. Something howled.

“Cynthia run!”

He grabbed her and hurdled back through the trees. Josh grabbed his little walkie talkie always hidden in his pocket. “This is an emergency, I’m calling for immediate backup, Penny Lane Forest, Fool's Lane, can you hear me? Over.” But the reception cut out. “Shit, Cynthia stay right by my side ok.” She nodded submissively.

The branches rustled again and from all around footsteps could be heard. Two glaring eyes appeared in the reflection of the moonlight.

“You can’t run now.” Sneered a husky voice. Josh pulled her close, he felt a sudden chill come over him.

One shaky hand held up the receiver, and the other held his gun.

“Don’t move an inch or I’ll shoot.”

“But that’s not how it works Josh, we make the rules.”

“Stay the hell away.”

It chuckled, “A beast has got to eat.”

Out of the darkness appeared five figures each wearing long white hospital gowns, with brown and red blood clots clinging from them. Upon their crooked necks were the heads of foul beasts.

Cynthia screamed and closed her eyes. Josh raised his gun and shot the tallest, it hit him right in the neck making a deep hole but the thing kept walking forwards. In his hand he held a knife.

“Who are you?”

They chuckled in strange gurgling sounds. “We’re the Hallbeck’s and we found the perfect scapegoat for revenge.”

Josh took three quick shots, but like mechanical things they kept going. In a shaky voice Josh whispered, “But you were killed?”

“We set that whole thing up Josh. Remember the Hound of the Baskervilles, the cursed family, think of ours like that. Seemingly carefree. But we weren’t, the town despised us so when we found out about this canine hysteria we took the liberty to use it for our own advantages.”

“You fucking animals, move an inch and I'll shoot!”

A bark was heard from behind and a furious Pugsey leapt forward and sunk his fangs into the father’s leg who fell down instantly in pain. Then he swiped at him right in the balls. The family were distracted so Josh took five shots each to their gruesome bare feet and threw a shocked Cynthia onto his back; Pugsey followed behind. They made it back to the dim road and Josh made his call.

“Harrison you were right; get all back up teams quickly.”

Within the next hour a team of police cars were gathered on the dark streets and the five Hallbeck members were being pushed into a police truck. The heads of five innocent dogs having been used as masks were placed into the evidence locker.

Josh and Cynthia sat in the back of a police car wrapped in towels, he held her hand and turned to her, “You know where your big sister lives, in California, that’s where we’re going and you never have to see this place again.” Suddenly there was a loud knock on the window and Sasha was outside in hysterics. He swung open the door.

“Don’t ever do that to me again!” She cried.

“Never again. Look I was thinking, how about I take a break from this policing stuff and we start over?”

She nodded and smiled for the first time in months. In that moment a light seemed to appear in the skyline and the two kissed as the morning sun set in the deep black sky. Pugsy happily lay beside them.

As the police cars headed off into the distance, Georgetown was once again quiet. Well, other than the sounds of several stray hounds licking the trail of thick, rotten blood from the concrete ground. Their eyes shone a deep, ugly colour in the moonlight and their hungry jaws remained open…

Word count: 1994