Creepy Things

Creepy Things

I have to tell this story. I have to get it out. For several weeks now I have been holding it in and it has been slowly driving me insane!

How do I know that I have not already been so inclined to lose my sanity? I do not know, exactly. But as you read this, I tell you that I, Mitchell Cross, am not yet certifiable. As you read my tale, I hope you will realize my reasons for wanting to put it on paper! Oh, it is so hard to just come out and say it, yet it has to be told. I do not have much time; the moon is starting to rise. I don’t have much time at all. Here is my tale, as accurately as I can possibly recount it:

Picture any coffee shop. I don’t know the exact location of it, because it was viewed in a dream. Yet, it was more than just a dream and I don’t know how to depart that information to you! It felt like I was there, floating just above everything as they happened. I saw every color, smelt every smell and heard every sound there was to hear.

…I am off track. Let me start over.

Picture any coffee shop. One with the large coffee makers literally stacked side by side along the counters. People are packed into the establishment. Teenagers reading magazines and old men playing chess occupy most of the tables and benches in the place. One table in the back, though, is set apart from the others. Around the table sat five people, who under normal circumstances should never be seen together. However, this is a coffee shop, and anything is possible in a coffee shop.

An older gentleman, with salt and peppered hair, sat at the table. The suit he was wearing, had to have been Italian, a nice dark gray in color. The only two things that caught my attention other than his suit were the sunglasses he wore and the cane he had lying across his lap. The glasses were an oddity, only because of the fact that it was actually quite dark in the coffee shop. His cane was purely beauty; a masterly crafted silver handle set upon a dark Mahogany wood. Never in all of my days have I seen such exquisite workmanship.

On his left sat a stunning young woman. The toned muscles in her arms seemed to ripple as she sipped at a glass of water. Her blonde hair long, straight and pulled back into a ponytail. And when she spoke, my heart almost stopped, for her words were heavily accented by her obviously Australian dialect. Her clothing clearly bespoke that she was an athlete of some kind.

Next to her sat a man that I will not forget for all of my days. How he knew the rest of this small group I will never surmise. Picture an unsavory biker with long unkempt brown hair, wearing jeans, a black tee shirt, and a dirty leather jacket. Some warning in my mind told me to keep an eye on this one. As if confirming the thought for me, he leaned over to grab the coffeepot and it was hard not to notice a shoulder holster and a very large, very powerful looking pistol. Eyes, as cold as steel took in every aspect of his surroundings and at one point looked directly in my direction. I don’t know if he saw me, he might have I don’t know. The dream I was experiencing was nothing like anything I had ever experienced awake, or asleep.

Sitting directly across from the ruffian sat a well-built man in his early thirties. The short sleeve shirt he wore was adorned with a fireman’s symbol, and on the back it said, “In times of need we are there.” The radio attached to his hip occasionally squawked with traffic, but he turned it down as they talked. Routinely, he would make a snide remark to the biker about his cigarette smoke, which would get a round of approval from everyone else at the table.

Directly to the right of the fireman sat the last participant of the discussion. For some reason he seemed as out of place as the others. Although he was wearing a suit similar to the older gentleman, his was cut a bit differently, almost as if he wanted to hide a gun holster similar to the biker’s. He spoke with a deep German accent, and it wasn’t until he opened his wallet did I notice that he had some a badge and I.D. proclaiming him some kind of German Agent.

As I had said previously, this group was unlike any I had ever seen together, but at once I knew there had to be a purpose. Even when I dream, I am a curious person and I knew that no matter what it took, I needed to hear what they were talking about. For some reason though, they were just out of range. As I tried to mover closer, I could feel something holding me back. I only caught bits of what they were saying, and as I tried to piece things together, I felt a sense of dread deep in my soul. It was the kind of dread that makes you cold from the top of your head to the tip of your toes.

It was then that I awoke from my dream, and realized something was not right. For as my senses came back to me, I found with horror, that I was covered in dirt and blood. I was lying under a tarp in my garage. This had happened to me once before, some years ago. I think it may be relevant to my story, so I need to take the time to recount it too.

…I had been working late hours at the office and my wife had called to remind me that we had dinner reservations at the new French restaurant in town. It was our thirteenth wedding anniversary, and I was going to be late. At the time I didn’t know what happened. I must have slipped and hit my head. When I awoke the next morning, I was lying in a trash dumpster somewhere downtown. My clothes were in tatters, and I had blood and trash smeared all over me. There was a ringing in my ears and my muscles were sore in ways I had never felt before.

In order to get home, I had to steal some clothes from a homeless man. It was a long walk home, but along the way I had enough time to become terrified. I know not what happened to me the precious night. I do know that when I arrived home, I was shocked to find the police waiting for me. After being handcuffed, and taken back downtown, I was notified of my rights and interrogated by the detectives. To make this long story as brief a possible, my wife was dead, and I was their primary suspect. Little did I know of what had happened! The police pieced things together, as they always do, but for me, their theory sounded very hollow.

Apparently, my wife had found out about the affair I was having with my secretary and had noted everything in her diary. I had come home late one evening, smelling of perfume and with some nasty scratches on my back. Little did I know, but as I showered and prepared for bed, my wife was standing in the doorway. She put two and two together, and she never looked at me the same way again. I do regret what happened to my wife, but as I told the judge, jury and the lawyers; it was not I who killed her. My downfall had been that I didn’t have an alibi.

The jury found me guilty of murder, and I was sentenced to ten years in a state prison. I served my prison sentence without complaint. By the time I got to my prison cell I had convinced myself that I had committed the heinous crime. I served my time, and three weeks ago I was released from prison. The day I returned home, I stared having the dreams.

The first one I have told to you as I remember it, and the rest are still ingrained in my mind. So if you will continue through the rest of these pages, I will tell you a tale that I myself still do not believe. Yet somehow, I know it must be true, for there are signs left behind that are too real to ignore.

*****

I was released from prison three weeks short of my court demanded sentence of ten years. As I returned to my hometown, I rented a small house on the edge of town and tried to settle down. With the assistance of the local Job Corps I started working asphalt with one of the road crews here in town. The work was remedial labor, but I was used to it and it does pay the bills. Well, it did pay the bills. About a month after I started with the road crew I started experiencing dizzy spells. One hot afternoon, I finally passed out and was rushed to the county hospital. It took me three full days to regain consciousness.

Sometime during those three days is when I had my second dream, or vision, or whatever the hell they are.

…Again, the same five people were sitting around a table in a coffeehouse.
A different dream this time, the only reason I know this, is because I could clearly see the location of this one; Southern California, somewhere close to where I reside. The waitresses were all wearing bikinis. My attention was drawn away from one delicious blonde by the biker. The odd part was that I could clearly hear their voices this time. I turned away from the waitress in time to catch the beginning of a heated debate.

“Chains, we’re not going to go in guns blazing.” The Australian lady was pointing at him. “From now on we think things through. Design a plan.”

“Yeah, okay.” The biker snorted and threw his hands in the air. Apparently his nickname was ‘Chains.’ “Next time we come out of a house and people start shooting at us I’ll let you devise the plan. I’ll just stand there and get shot!”
“Jesus, Chains!” Now it was the Firefighter’s turn to chomp at the bit. “You know that’s not what she meant.”

“Whatever!” Chains retorted. “I didn’t hear you complaining about me shooting back.”

“No, I wasn’t complaining.” Toby added, shaking his head and pointing at the older gentleman. “I was shooting too. Hell, even Hans over there was shooting.”

Once again, that cute blonde waitress distracted me, because it seemed, she too was interested in the conversation that was going on at the table. In one swift motion she replaced the coffeepots. She followed it up with a small shake of her hips, and a smile aimed at Chains.

He returned the smile, but he was getting angrier by the moment and his face was getting darker and darker red. With every word they said, his face was turning a darker shade of red.

The different shades of red must have reminded Toby of something funny. He sat there silently watching and his own expression changed. A small smile began at the edges of his smirk. The laugh started in his belly, deep down as a groan. Finally he couldn’t take any more, and he burst. The laugh was deep and almost feral. If I never hear a sound like that in my life, it will be too soon! The sound of him laughing had a tone to it that wasn’t human. The others didn’t seem to notice, they were laughing too…


I have picked up a lot by trying to figure out who this group is. Before I get too far into this one, I must tell you what I know of this group. First and foremost, is that they are real. Each and every one of them actually looks exactly like they did in my dream. I didn’t know very much at first, but I began to pry through all the public records and news clippings I could get my hands on. What I do know scares me.

Mr. Rains, or the one that they call chains is a bounty hunter. He is an avid gun collector, and a very loose trigger. He was kicked off of the Denver Police force for continued use of excessive force. That was when he became a bounty hunter.

One group of police records showed just how reckless he is. Twenty out of twenty-one bounties he brought in had been shot, some more than once. The last bounty never made it to jail alive. According to the records, the man was fleeing on a motorcycle, and suffered massive trauma when he crashed. Mr. Rains reported that an animal of some kind caused the crash, and had then mauled the man. The fact that the investigators never found the man’s head was the only item to corroborate Chan’s story.

Toby. There is something not right with Toby. When I heard him laugh, it felt like I was hearing my own doom. I can’t explain it, but somehow I know that Toby will be the end of me. Toby is a St. Louis firefighter. It seems that he was on a camping trip with his wife a few years ago. He had decided to take a short hike first thing in the morning. When he got back to camp, his saw his wife get drug off by an animal of some kind. Only bloodied parts of her clothing were found.

The next year Toby went on an archaeological dig in South America. He spent six months with the team, though the records do not show exactly what he was doing down there. On the return trip, the plane crashed into the jungle killing everyone aboard. Three months later Toby walked out of the jungle. How he survived, I don’t know, but it adds to the fact that there is something about him that just plain unnerves me.

Elissa, is the quintessential Australian athlete, and that is the best way to put it. She was training for the Olympic Decathlon events when her oddity happened. The stadium video shows she was rounding the far corner of the track when an unidentified animal of some kind attacked and killed her coach. That night, Elissa withdrew from the Olympics and traveled to America where her sponsors have her filming commercials almost all the time.

Eric is the mystery. I have been able to dig up his tax information for the past thirty years. He is a resident of Las Vegas and his profession is listed as a professional gambler. He walks with a limp, carries a cane with him everywhere and wears sunglasses even at night. Other than these small facts, I cannot come up with any other information. His past should be there, somewhere, but I cannot find anything on him. It’s almost as if he doesn’t exist.

Hans is almost as much of a maniac as Chains. He was a German secret service agent, or is? His status is guarded, and I can’t get into the German record systems. I did find an article on him at a vampire web site. The article details how Hans’ entire family was brutally murdered by what he calls vampires. The only reason he was alive, is because he was on a mission in Yugoslavia. He likes his guns almost as much as Chains, but he is calm and collected. Cunning is the best word. Not like a fox, but more like an alligator. He will wait for his pray, but when it is in his grasp, he will strike with the precision and skill of a surgeon. Erie, almost, but not as frightening as Toby.


Again, I digress. But, it is important that I get this out and soon, things are set into motion. I was about to tell you, the reader of this bizarre tale, about the last half of my second dream. Elissa picked up the coffeepot. When she did, a small business card came unstuck from the bottom and landed in the middle of the table. The argument stopped as the group stared at the card. There were no words on the card, only the picture of a gold skull.

Chains reached into his coat and pulled a very large pistol out, pulling back on the hammer. He placed it on his knee, under the table and looked at Elissa.

“My dear, Elissa,” He spoke, calmer that I thought he could be. “It would seem that we are in a very bad spot at the moment.”

“But, Chains,” Elissa replied, drawing out her Australian accent. “What ever do you mean?”

Toby started laughing again, and Eric spit his coffee back into the cup.

“I’m just guessing here, but this card would belong to either the man with the shotgun by the bar, or the man with the small revolver by the door.”

“What?” Toby glanced over his shoulder, as he tried not to laugh any more. He let out a gasp as he looked at the door. “Ummm…Chains. I would say that it probably belongs to the bad guy over there.”

The so called ‘bad guy’ was a man that filled the doorway with his bulk. He, and I’m not sure that I should be using the term, he, looked like kind of circus horror. The skin was pulled so tight across his face, that he had a grin that could only be adequately described as corpse-like. The man-thing, had ripped the door right off the hinges, and he held it in his right hand like some kind of shield.

The left hand was the first time that I had seen the sight of gore. Where the hand should have been was no more than bone sticking through the flesh. The bone had been sharpened to a point, and congealed blood hung from the wound.

“Would you be a chap and start shooting now?” Elissa asked Chains, “Before the waitress decides to scream?”

Everything happened at once.

Chains moved faster than a man should be allowed, and quickly squeezed the trigger three times. The bullets tore through the door, and into the flesh of the man-thing. Two more bullet wounds appeared in the man at the door, without much effect. Toby shoved himself away from the table and into the path of the man with the pistol. As they collided the man’s gun fell to the floor. Elissa did this flip, roll out of her chair and dove in front of the man with the shotgun. By the time she got there, Eric had hit the man several times with his cane. This caused the man to drop the shotgun into Elissa’s waiting hands. Like an expert, she pumped the action, and fired at the man at the door.

The man at the door just stood with that same corpse-like grin. He didn’t move. Even as the bullets tore into his body, and the shogun blast ripped the door out of his hand.
The last thing I remember is the sound of more gunfire and the waitress screaming. Everything started to go hazy, and the sounds of medical monitoring equipment replaced the sounds of gunfire. I remember feeling like my spirit was being sucked back into my body, a quite unpleasant feeling.

*****

The third and final dream happened just a little while ago, and is the reason that I am putting this down on paper. I was sitting in front of my computer, trying to find more information on Hans, when this dream happened. One second I was typing, the next I’m sitting at the International House of Pancakes only a few miles from my house.

Elissa was shaking her head. “He’s not, but she is? I don’t follow.”

“Okay, here is what we know.” Toby was pulling some papers out of a briefcase. “Mr. Travis Rochester was convicted of murder almost eleven years ago.” At the mention of my name, I almost pissed myself. “He murdered his wife in a way that we all found to be similar to what we have experienced in our past.”

“Okay, but where does that bring her in?” Chains lit another cigarette, but looked confused.

“I’m getting to that.” Toby sounded a little bit irritated. “We know that only a full-born can change shape at will, and he wasn’t born as a shifter.”

“But that means…” Eric interrupted, “that he would have had to have been infected somehow.”

Chains might not be the smartest of the bunch, but he is able to put two things together faster than some that I’ve seen. “He had been having an affair with his secretary. Her Diary…”

That shocked me out of paying attention. How did he know she had a diary? I was trying to think about this, when Toby cut back in.

“Chains, that puts the pieces together. Now that we know he got infected, how did he not change while he was in prison?”

“She wasn’t controlling him anymore. Now that he is back, she can control him and make him change.” Chains looked satisfied as he sat back in the chair and puffed on his cigarette. He looked out the window and let the last comment sink in.

My head was swimming with thoughts like “That bitch!” and “She never told me!” I happened to try and look out the window while I let my rage sink in. It was dark outside and while I couldn’t see out of the window I could see the reflection of a shape standing behind me.

I snapped out of the dream with the sounds of my own screams. Here I sit, twenty minutes later, writing this, and my hands won’t stop shaking. In my mind, I keep seeing her smile, and the way here eyes were glowing red.

…Dear reader, now you know. It wasn’t my fault. She was doing this to me, has been doing this to me. I never wanted to kill anyone, including my wife. I swear though, that somehow, somehow I’m going to make her pay for what she has done. I know where she is, and I am…Car doors just slammed in front of my house. Looking out the window I recognize Chains, Toby and Hans. I guess I’ll have to do something about them first…