Beer Run

         “Christ… Do we always have to go this way?” Travis was complaining again. Ever since kindergarten he had been known as a whiner, and that was saying something in Black River County where one kind of whining was as much a pastime as the other.
         “Look at it like this, if we take Gravel Avenue we shave off… fifteen minutes or so from our trip. More time for you to spend staring at Fran’s whoppers.” Greg wasn’t very fond of Fran’s better known attributes but he knew that Travis was. Hell, half the county was, and not just the male half.  “Come on let’s go, my dick’s getting the fridges.”          
         The road eventually began to turn into Gravel Avenue as the sand and rocks underneath their feet sawed and shuffled along with the cicadas of the evening. They rode along the dusty path as it passed beneath the spider limbed elms that hung watching overhead. Daylight was dipping deeper into the night sea.
         “Travis, I’m only going to ask this once, and don’t take it personally…”
         “Yes, I have my ID…”
         “Great… Are you gonna be alright? I mean …” Greg made a gesture with his right hand toward the darkness in front of them, knowing full well how Travis felt about Gravel Avenue at night. They were already halfway into its chalky mouth where it was nearly pitch black and that never made Travis easy to get along with. He wondered if he should have left him back at the bonfire.
         “I’m freaking great. We’re in the middle of freaking nowhere on our way to get some beer from an even freakier place than this. Life couldn’t be better…”
         “Yeah well, Mr. Hardy’s had a rough life. That little store is all he’s got…”
         “He sells stuffed skunks man, skunks …”
         “... and beer. Focus on the beer when we get there. On second thought, just let me go in and I’ll get it.”
         “And what the hell does he keep in that cage, dude? That big ass thing in the corner by the bathrooms? You never see it, but he feeds it raw steak! And it drinks beer, man! Fricken gross! Probably his inbred monster son …”
         “Did you hear me? I’ll … wait… “
         “Huh?”
         “…Wait…listen…”
         It was barely there and then it was gone, a seemingly breathless howling soaring high above the pines. Only it wasn’t really a howl Greg thought. They were closing in on the fork that marked a turn in the avenue towards the highway when Greg thought he heard it again, something amongst the cicada’s, something horribly out of place.
         “What?”
         “SHhhhh. Just listen …”
         Along with the nocturnal dirge of the insects arose something similar to a high pitched wail. It was only the duration of a heartbeat, but that was quite enough to make a lasting impression that neither of them wanted. Greg was unable to decipher its true place of origin; whether it came from in front of them or behind them.
         “Jesus Greg, you don’t think that was one of the girls do you?”
         “I think we should just keep on going to Hardy’s. As far as we know, it was just some frat-boy fucking with …”
         Suddenly, a sickly chorus of mindless suffering arose harrowingly into the evening sky, encircling them with the dread of an unknown fate that lay thankfully somewhere just beyond them.
         “Ohhh… Fuck me! Jesus Christ Greg! What the Fuck is that?”
         “I’m absolutely sure I don’t want to know. Let’s go, now!”
         They ran as fast as they could down the gravel road, streaking north along the fork toward the highway, the near total darkness fueling their worst nightmares. It only took a few minutes to get to Mr. Hardy’s store at the northern edge of town and they took no time to slam breathlessly through the glass doors to get inside, to get anywhere else but where they had been.
         That’s when Greg saw the blood.
         It wasn’t really the blood itself that made him vomit… it was the sheer quantity of it.
         The floor and walls of the tiny store were bathed in an eerie hellish mist, as the crimson haze that highlighted their shadows shimmered and danced under a pink fluorescent glow seemingly mocking them from above.
         Travis’s eyes filled with tears as he fell on to his knees next to Greg, dry-heaving in a raspy volume that began to hurt Greg’s ears. Greg fought back to regain his sanity and grabbed Travis by his arm, pulling him back out of the store and into the vacant parking lot. Greg didn’t know where else they could go, but they couldn’t stay where they were.
         “Travis, I think we better hide out somewhere…”
         “Whatever man…” Travis was sobbing uncontrollably; Greg had never seen him like this since his dad had died five years ago.
         “Let’s go north, towards Shellsburg …”
         “What the fuck happened Greg? You can’t just pretend you didn’t hear that shit back there! Where’s Mr. Hardy? Why’s there all that blood?” Travis fell back down on his knees hugging himself, his body convulsing as he sat shaking against the cold hard pavement.
         “Travis, man I’m freaked out too. I’m just trying to keep busy thinking about how to keep us alive until we see some cops or whatever, you understand?” Travis looked up at him from his swollen eyes and nodded.
         Before Greg could blink, Travis’s head rolled to the ground with a sickening smack, blood spurting high from his dead friend’s ravaged neck. He fell down in shock, only to stare up at an obscenely disfigured giant that may have once appeared human, but now could only be called a nightmare. It drank deep from the eruption from Travis’s neck with a giddy excitement. A bloody saw hung ominously from its raised misshapen hand as it stared down at Greg curiously.
         “Better than beer…” it screeched as the saw flew down.