When James finally managed to stop laughing, he decided against suicide. He stretched out on the bed and went to sleep.
That was the first night James was off the medication. He went to bed early and slept well at first, but when night came he started dreaming of the beast again.
The beast crawled out from under a spidery knot of tree roots that had been exposed by the creek eroding the dirt from around them. The woods were thick in the area.
Once the beast was out from under its little den, it set out at a determined stride. It was hunting again, ambling along for a while, then stopping to sniff the air. As it moved along through the underbrush headlights from a car could be seen just off to its left; it was traveling parallel to a road. The beast continued on its way until lights could be seen ahead.
As it crept forward, it stopped to sniff what had once been a large dog, but was now a mass of mutilated meat. Probably last night’s kill.
The beast began creeping toward the lights until it could see a small trailer-house, and a small metal outbuilding. The beast sniffed the air then closed its eyes. Its detached senses sped forward. However, it didn’t go in the house at first; it went under the back porch where it found an old blue tick hound. Though the dog’s eyes were closed, the beast’s senses still passed through its eyelids and into its mind. Once it had found a suitable memory, it left the sleeping dog and went straight upward, passing through the floor. It then passed through the silent house until it found an extremely obese old man asleep in his recliner. The man’s head had lolled to the right, pulling the small plastic tube that normally ran from his nose to the green oxygen bottle beside his recliner until it had come out of his right nostril and had stretched his left to an oblong slit. The deep rumble of this man’s snoring echoed through the tiny living room.
The beast’s senses passed through a closed eyelid and found a memory.
On all fours the beast then circled to the front of the house. Then it stood — Wake up! — and began approaching — Wake up! — the front door of — Wake up, for Christ’s sake! — the trailer-hou…
James woke up. The old man he had seen was William Youngblood. He lived less than two miles down the road.
James threw on his shirt and pants, and grabbed the shotgun. He ran out of the house without even putting on his shoes. He jumped in his pickup and tore out of the drive. It took James only a few minutes to drive the short distance between his house and Mr. Youngblood’s trailer. As the pickup slid into the driveway, he laid on the horn, hoping that if the beast hadn’t already done its deadly deed the sound would scare it off.
The front door was wide open, and James started toward it at a full run. From the back of the house he heard a dog yelp, a sound that was abruptly cut off. James ran around the corner of the trailer. With the shotgun in his hands, he combed the area with his eyes. He saw on the steps of the back porch a headless dog, its warm body still twitching. James then looked up and down the tree line, but it was too dark to see a thing. He then turned and walked toward the front taking frequent looks behind him.
From the woods, the beast watched James. It raised its snout only slightly, so it wouldn’t have to take its eyes off him, and breathed in his familiar smell. It continued to watch him until he passed back around the trailer-house. Then the beast slowly crept deeper into the woods.
The inside of the trailer-house was dark except for a small light coming from just around the corner in the living room. James knew from his past visits to Mr. Youngblood’s that the light was from a small reading light beside the old man’s recliner. Holding the shotgun firmly in his right hand, James reached for the light switch in the dark trailer. He felt two switches and flipped the first one. A light came on outside, illuminating the steps to the front door. James tried the next switch and had better luck — a single lightbulb came on in the middle of the trailer’s living room. James returned his left hand to get a better grip on the double-barrel shotgun. James stepped into the living room, and just around the corner he found Mr. Youngblood. He was still in his chair.
The old man’s walker was still neatly folded beside his recliner. In a small town like Newton, quite a few people don’t bother to lock their doors. Mr. Youngblood probably heard a familiar voice at the door, and rather than straining and pulling to get his obese body out of his recliner, he probably just called out that the door was unlocked.
William Youngblood’s entire stomach and chest was open, long ropes of guts and small greasy yellow beads of fat were all over the chair and laid out on the floor in front of him. It looked as if the beast had torn at him like a dog digging furiously in the ground for a bone.
The heavy smell of Mr. Youngblood’s bowels almost made James lose his lunch. He staggered into the kitchen and splashed water over his face. James then looked around for a phone, but the only one he could find was right beside old man Youngblood, and James didn’t want to get that close to the mutilated body. After scouring the kitchen from top to bottom and taking a hesitant peek into Mr. Youngblood’s bedroom, James came to the conclusion that the only phone in the house was the one beside what was left of the old man.
Holding his breath, James slowly walked over to the mutilated corpse. When the phone was in reach, James grabbed it and took it as far to the other side of the room as the cord would allow. James dialed the police station.
“Sheriff’s office,” an old woman’s voice answered.
“This is James Taylor,” James said, his voice shaky and warbled with fear, “get someone out to William Youngblood’s house immediately. It’s about four miles down Farm Road Fourteen-fourteen, on the right.”
“Uh, how many houses down from Turner’s is that going to be?” the voice answered
“Just call Deputy O’Brien, he knows exactly where it is.”
“Okay.”
James stretched his arm out as far as he could, and still had to throw the phone the last couple of inches. It landed in the cradle. He then went outside for some fresh air. Leaning up against the inside of the front door, with the shotgun resting all but forgotten in his arms, James waited for the cavalry to arrive, hoping Greg would be first on the scene.
Less than five minutes after the call, a police cruiser pulled into the drive behind his pickup. Greg stepped out of the car and started toward the trailer. Seeing the shotgun in James’ hands, he stopped well short of the door. “James, I love you and all, but could you put the shotgun down?” Greg said, smiling nonetheless.
“Sure,” James said plopping the shotgun against the wall, then turning and motioning Greg to follow him in the house.
When Greg first saw Mr. Youngblood, his reaction was not unlike James’ had been, except Greg opted for fresh air instead of a splash of water — he stepped outside on the front steps.
James followed him out and said from behind him, “I saw that thing, whatever it is, headin’ up to Mr. Youngblood’s door. I woke up in the middle of the dream, and thought I could get here in time to save him. I tried like hell to get here, but I was just too late.”
Another set of flashing lights reflected off the trees across the road. Someone else was on the way.
Greg swallowed hard, shook his head, then turned to James. “You know you’re our only suspect in these murders don’t you?”
“Suspect? It’s not a human that’s doing the killing,” James replied, shocked.
“They… we… don’t know what the hell we’re lookin’ for, but out of three murders, you’ve been first on the scene at two of them, and someone reported seeing you out at the scene of the first one the day after the murder.”