The Feast

When the GPS navigator perched on the dash of Mark Hicks’ car tells him to turn somewhere, he usually listens. And this cold November night was no different. He was driving back home after visiting his family for Thanksgiving. His parents lived in Mississippi and he was going to college in Cincinnati. He enjoyed the distance and picked that particular university to get away from all the rednecks and hey yall’s that were all too prevalent down there. His parents, however, were worried by the distance, that was probably why they bought him this GPS system for Christmas.

“So you won’t get lost while you’re up there at school.” His mother had said, while she donned a Reindeer themed sweater.

That was last Christmas and since then he had become pretty trustful – and maybe a little dependent – of the thing. When the electronic voice said to turn, he turned. When the voice said nothing, he kept going straight ahead. And that’s what he had done this entire day on his trip back to Ohio. He had done it mechanically, barely paying attention to where he was. He had set the destination and fully expected the little machine to get him there safely. It probably would have too, if his car hadn’t broken down. Suddenly something under the hood began to wheeze and cough, almost like a sick old man propped in a recliner watching old westerns. The car slowly rolled to a stop and the old man let out one final cough before dying completely.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me?” A tired and suddenly frustrated Mark asked to nothing but the interior of his car.

He was only 19 but each one of these little road trips seemed to add a couple years, making him look a bit older. He tried cranking the ignition three times but got nothing but sputtering and more coughing. Finally he gave up and just sat there for a moment. This was the first time he actually took a look around him to notice where he was.  Without even realizing it, the GPS device had taken him down a back road. Maybe it was a “shortcut,” according to the GPS but he didn’t like it. The road was dirt mostly, mixed with a little gravel. It wasn’t very wide, the kind of road that if two cars were to pass each other in opposite directions, both would need to get two wheels off the road to avoid a collision. Trees lined both sides of the road.

The winter season had caused the leaves to fall off the branches, making the limbs seem like boney arms reaching out. These limbs reached out on to the road slightly, almost like they were grabbing for the vehicle and Mark Hicks himself. He looked at the small screen of the GPS device, as if expecting an explanation. He half expected the screen to read, “You’re dead.” but instead it displayed a tiny rendering of a car on a road and an arrow in front of it pointing straight ahead. It indicated that the street he was currently on was Hollow Drive.

“A lot of good this thing is, it took me down the back road from hell,” he thought. He opened the car door to check under the hood and a bone chilling November gust met his face. He suddenly had the overwhelming sensation he was in a Hitchcock movie.

“I knew I should have listened to my dad,” he thought, “All those times he tried to teach me things about cars. About what was under the hood and how it all worked. But, no, I was too busy hanging out with my friends and watching mindless television shows.”

Those things had felt so much more important at the time but now they seemed extremely insignificant. “How in the world am I going to fix this now?”

He popped the hood of the car up anyway and shined his flashlight on various parts inside. He had a very basic and poor understanding of what he was seeing. What was worse was he really wanted to get out of here. To an Interstate, a Freeway, anywhere but here. He had a strong feeling he was being watched. Although, he had no idea by who – or what – and when he quickly glanced around he saw nothing. Nothing but scrawny, bare tree limbs and the small dirt road. He pulled the oil stick out and checked the amount of oil it indicated was in the car. It seemed fine to him. As if checking the oil might magically make the car run like new again, he walked back around to the driver’s seat and tried the ignition – nothing. “Alright,” he thought, “Time to call for help.” He pulled out his sleek new cell phone. It was one of the newest models that had come out. Stacked with features this phone could do almost anything. Except now the latest technological wonder known to man showed no reception. For the second time Mark exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Do you know how much I paid – and still pay monthly – for this phone? And when I really need it, no reception. Why couldn’t I have just listened to my dad?” He thought.

With the car out of commission and his beautiful new phone not working, he only had one option left – walk. Walk until he found help, or a phone, or better yet a mechanic. As he slowly started walking down the road he heard a light crunching noise as his shoes hit the dirt and gravel. That feeling that he was being watched grew stronger and seemed to be following him as he went. Off into the unknown darkness he heard an owl hoot. Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t matter, but on this road, on this night, it spooked him a little. He wished he could stop his heart from beating so fast, he was afraid it might give out on him before any monster had a chance at him. He was walking quickly now, wanting to get this over with, like ripping a band-aid off.

He saw something white in the distance but couldn’t tell what it was, or maybe he could and didn’t want to. Every horror movie he’d ever watched was flooding back to him. He had always thought that if it were him in those situations in the movies he would survive, but now he wasn’t so sure. The white thing was coming into view with each step he took. It was lying on the side of the road, when he shined his flashlight on it, it almost seemed to glow. A heavenly-like ribcage, legs, and skull lay before him.

When he reached the spot where the bones lay he bent down at the knees and examined them. Of course, this was pointless, unless they were human or some incredibly obvious animal he would have no idea what they were, and he didn’t. He was starting to question the actual applications of a psychology major. As he looked up from the bones he happened to glance into the line of trees on the right side of the road. Two large glowing eyes fixated directly on him. They were two of the largest eyes he had ever seen and they seemed to be staring straight into his. It was dark, so the head of whatever this was could not be seen, but he could have sworn he saw a smile in the shadows under those eyes. They blinked and disappeared. He whirled his flashlight around and splashed light where the eyes had been in the trees, but whatever it was had left. Or at least it wasn’t there. Frightened more than ever, his heart doing triple the beats, Mark started running down the dirt road. The crunches underneath him coming quicker than ever now. The cold air he sucked in for breath stung his throat and lungs, but he wasn’t going to stop. The circle of light from the flashlight jerked around violently as he ran through the darkness.

Finally, he came upon a break in the tree line to his left and saw there was a house. Light shone through its windows and the porch light was on. To Mark it was the most beautiful house he had ever seen. He ran up the steps that led to the wooden porch, and rapped on the large wooden door three times.

“Hello? I know it’s sort of late but I need help. Hello?” He had a huge, wild smile gleaming across his face. “The lights are on, of course they are awake and home and I could use their phone,” he thought. But why didn’t anyone answer? And the door he had knocked on, it was half open, didn’t they know that was dangerous living out here? Anything could get in. He slowly walked in the house, repeating hello once again. He saw a kitchen to his right, with alternating black and white tile flooring. He walked left down a hallway. As he went he noticed pictures of people, of the family that lived there, all along both sides of the hallway walls. They were in awkwardly posed positions in front of a backdrop that implied the photographer worked at Sears or some place like that. They seemed happy in every picture. There were three of them: Father, mother, and son. They were white and looked as if they’d all said a few hey yall’s in their time. He smelled something but didn’t know what it was, just that it was bad.

The hallway led into a living room area and over the back of a big recliner Mark could see the top of a man’s head, slightly tilted the left. “Must’ve fallen asleep watching TV,” he thought. Only when he got around to the front of the chair did he see that the man wasn’t asleep at all, it’s hard to sleep when half of your face is gone and your entrails have been torn from you body. Mark’s mouth dropped. What had happened here? He glanced to another chair in the corner of the room and saw a woman, with knitting in her lap, one eye missing (the other bulged in terror), and who was apparently missing a neck. Her head was tilted to the right, as if the neck was swiftly pulled from underneath it and the head landed a little off. He looked up at the ceiling and just knew that the son was up there or at least whatever was left of him anyway. Mark’s heart was beating even faster now and he thought he might puke, but he had to make that phone call.

He held his breath and rushed for the phone that was on a table next to the man’s recliner. When he picked it up the sweet sound of dial tone ringed in his ears. He dialed 911. A pleasant voice with a slight southern accent answered.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“My car broke down on, uh, Hollow Drive. I need help, and I found dead bodies in this house!” His words rushed out like a flood, he was panicked and he knew it.
“Ok, sir, are you hurt?”
“No! I just need help!”
“Ok, sir, we’ll have a cruiser out there as soon as possible. Can you stay on the line with me?”
“Hurry.” With that he hung up the phone. He couldn’t stand to be in that house any longer. He frantically stumbled down the hallway, past the smiling faces, toward the exit. When he was outside he welcomed the cold night air. But as he looked out, across to the trees opposite the house, he saw two familiar eyes and a smile that was different from those in the hallway. The eyes blinked but they didn’t go away this time. Mark ran down the porch steps and down the road in the direction away from his car. It didn’t matter that he might be running in the opposite direction of where the cop would come, or that he was running towards God knows what in the darkness, because there was something different in the eyes this time, something that said if he didn’t run now he would never run again.

He was sprinting but he thought, he knew, he could hear crunching behind him. He was too afraid to turn around and look; he thought it might slow him down too. But the steps were getting closer, gaining on him, and so he ran faster. The cold air made him feel like he was swallowing a sword now, but he kept going – trying to run even faster. He could hear breath behind him now, whatever it was it was very close. It was very close to turning him into the man in the recliner or the woman with the half-knit sweater. His fear and curiosity was finally too much to bear and he turned his torso and head around just in time to see a wolf leaping in mid-air towards him. It tackled him to the ground and stood on top of him; bushy fur, giant, glowing eyes, and a mouth that showed no snarl or anger of any kind.

For a moment they just looked at each other, faces inches apart. Mark was sure this was the end. Then what looked to Mark to be a small smirk crept into the corner of the wolf’s mouth. This was only temporary however. The next thing Mark saw was a light that shined in the wolf’s eyes. It started small and then it grew brighter and brighter, until the wolf looked up in a curious way towards its source. Then a crack rang out in Mark’s ears, and blood rained down on his face and shoulders. At first he didn’t know what had happened but he was happy to be alive. Next he heard footsteps and a deep gravelly voice asked, “Are you alright, son?”

The wolf, what of it that hadn’t been obliterated, had gone limp on top of the young college student and he pushed the lifeless body off of him so he could get up. When he got to his feet, he heaved a deep sigh of relief and said, “Yeah, although, it has been a rough night. Thanks, officer.” His voice was shaky.

“That’s Sheriff Jackson, and I was just doing my job.” He was tall and wide, and his southern accent wasn’t subtle like the 911 operator’s. His face was expressionless as he walked toward Mark and then looked from him to the motionless wolf lying on the dirt road. After his curiosity or concern was satisfied he looked back to Mark.

“Sally said something about you finding bodies?”
“That’s right…they’ve been half-eaten or something. It’s pretty bad.” He was sort of dazed from the recent events of the night and barely was able to answer the question but he was able to express the basics in a low voice, almost a whisper.
“Show them to me.”
Mark was shocked and really didn’t want to go back to that house.
“What? No, I don’t want to go back there and why should I have…”
“I want you to show them to me,” Interrupted the lawman. He said it stronger this time, almost like a parent reiterating a command or a warning to their child.
“We’ll take my cruiser, come on.”

Reluctantly he followed the sheriff as he walked back to the police cruiser. The headlights shone in his face, forcing him to squint. He didn’t notice the sound of his footsteps this time, he was too busy thinking of the bodies, that smell, and the horror show he was about to step back into – and for what? He had no idea why he had to show this sheriff the bodies. He knew what house he was talking about, it was the only one he’d seen on the street. And since when does anyone have to give law enforcement a tour of a crime scene? He got into the back of the cruiser and the sheriff started the engine. They ran directly over the wolf carcass with a thud as they rolled down God-forsaken Hollow Drive towards that house. The silence in the car puzzled Mark. The big man in the front seat said nothing. No, “What’s your name?” or, “What are you doing out here?” He just stared at the dirt pass under the cruiser as they went.

They came to a stop in front of the house and the sheriff got out, walked around to Mark’s door and let him out. They slowly walked side by side up the porch steps and into the sad house, which now to Mark seemed worse than a prison.

“Show me where they are.” The big man with the badge said, so low and raspy that Mark could barely understand him. He walked in front of the sheriff, and led him down the hallway of pictures, pictures of the dead. As they walked into the living room the smell hit Mark strongly again and he winced in queasy disgust.

“There and there.” He gravely articulated and motioned to both the corpses as he said it. “I think the other one is upstairs.”

The lawman looked at both the bodies, but he didn’t seem surprised or disgusted in anyway. He took a step forward in front of Mark, his heavy shoes making deep thuds on the hardwood floor. Then he turned towards the college kid and began to speak in a deep raspy voice.

“Yep, it’s pretty gruesome. If you lived around here and knew what kind of people they were you might not feel so bad, though. Jack never attended church (he pointed towards the man), Ruth over there in the corner never did contribute cookies or a pie to any events around town, even though we all knew she was an excellent cook, and I have it on good authority the boy was producing and selling drugs. Right here on Hollow Drive, can you believe that? It is gruesome though.” The sheriff repeated again. Mark had a look of pure perplexity on his face as he stared at the law enforcement officer. After taking a moment to pause, the sheriff continued.

“But do you know what the real tragedy about all this is? They didn’t even taste that good.” And with that, the sheriff pulled a knife out of his pocket and with a quick and powerful jab, thrust the object into Mark’s throat. If he had lived to experience it, a wave of a realization would have accompanied the sudden rush of blood in his throat. Instead there was a sharp pain and then blackness, and then whatever comes with death. As it was, the lawman stood over the college student’s dead body and reveled in his catch. Maybe this one wouldn’t taste like raccoon.

Everyone has their demons, and every town has demons among them. Sometimes it just takes a while for the true beasts to succumb to their hunger and feast. And that’s what the sheriff on Hollow Drive did that night, feast.