Another New Horror Story for Halloween - WHAT WAS IT??

       This story, which I finished up this morning and edited tonight, combines two of my favorite things in the world - hunting Indian relics, and a good old-fashioned creature feature involving some Lovecraftian nightmare lurking in West Texas.   So if you like finding pointy rocks and encountering horrid monstrosities while on the search, read on!!!

                           WHAT WAS IT?

                                                                 An Original Horror Story

                                                                                  By

                                                                       Lewis B. Smith

 

 

          “What was it, Dan??”

          Those were the last words my best friend Roger ever spoke to me.  His vital signs crashing, blood streaming from multiple wounds, one hand gone, eyes bulging, his face twisted by fear and shock, he grabbed my arm as the paramedics lifted the stretcher into the ambulance and rasped those words out with a desperate intensity.  By the time they got him to the hospital, he was dead.

          That agonized question played over and over in my head as I answered the sheriff’s questions that night, and later on, as I made the heartbreaking phone call to Amanda, his beautiful wife – widow, I mean!  What an ocean of suffering that simple transition of nouns conceals! – I could still hear them echoing in my head.  Even as I helped carry his coffin to the grave that had been dug in the small cemetery near the church he and his family attended, that question played in my mind over and over again, those frantic eyes seared into my memory, his voice mustering up the last of his dying body’s energy to demand an answer from me.

          The truth is, I didn’t know.  I still don’t.  Even though I was only ten feet from him when he sustained the injuries that ended his life, I cannot say with any certainty what the creature was – if indeed, it was a living thing. The fleeting glimpses I caught in the moments leading up to the final horror were of a being that had no place in a rational world, and the memory of them still haunts my dreams, waking me in the middle of the night screaming out the same question that my friend asked me before he perished. Because I have no idea what it was, and even now, I’m not sure I want to know.

          This all sounds confusing to me, staring at what I’ve just written, and I’m sure it must be even more so to you, whoever you are, as you try to figure out what on earth I am talking about.  I guess I should start at the beginning and do my best to explain what happened.  Maybe writing it down will help me make sense of it all – if such a word can even be applied to what we experienced!

          It started as a routine trip to South Texas. Roger had gotten permission for us to go digging for arrowheads on a large ranch near Bandera.  Such permission had been easy to get years before, when he and I started collecting Indian relics as a hobby in the 1990’s.  In the decades since, however, ranchers had discovered that collectors would pay fifty bucks a pop to hand dig on a good camp for a day, and upwards of two hundred dollars a day each for a “screen dig” – where a large table with an iron mesh top was set up, and a small bulldozer would scoop out a load of undug soil and dump it on each screen table for the hunters to sift by hand.  Two hunters per table, six to eight tables per camp, until the whole site was destroyed, and all the artifacts went home with the customers.  A large campsite, rich with points, could mean tens of thousands of dollars to the property owner.  With that kind of money to be made, few ranchers were willing to let people come dig for free anymore.

          So when Roger told me his Dad’s cousin Jimmy had a big ranch near Bandera – prime artifact country! – that had never been dug, and that he was willing to let us come down and spend a weekend exploring and digging all we wanted, I was excited at the prospect. I talked to my wife Priscilla and asked her if she’d made any plans for us that weekend, and when she said we were free, I bribed her with a day spa pass at her favorite beauty spa (not that she needed it; I know that’s what a husband is supposed to say, but in my case it’s the plain truth.  I married about six floors above my level and I know it!).  Roger’s wife was ten years younger than him and had always been happy to let him sneak off for a weekend with me; she and Pris were close friends and often hung out together when he and I were out digging.  She occasionally joined us, though – she liked artifacts and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or break a nail.  I thank God she stayed home that weekend – it was hard enough seeing my best friend ripped up before my eyes; I can’t imagine seeing the love of my life die like that.

          Friday afternoon at two, Roger and I met up after leaving work early.  Since he’d secured the spot, I provided the vehicle and gas.  It was about six hours from our neighborhood in Lancaster, on the south side of Dallas, to the small town of Bandera, west of San Antonio, and that was if Austin traffic wasn’t hopelessly congested (as it usually was).  We debated swinging west and going through a series of small towns instead of taking the interstate, but the latter part of our drive would be in the dark, and even with cell phone navigation (assuming we had a clear signal), the odds of a wrong turn seemed rather high.  So onward we hammered down I-35, getting through Waco ahead of the afternoon rush, and then sat and sweltered for the better part of an hour as the stop-and-start traffic of the state capital rendered my truck’s AC useless. We finally got free of Austin by about half past six in the evening, and the last hour and a half or so were cross-country, free of the interstate, watching the sun set about an hour before we finally arrived at the small town of Bandera around 9 PM.

          We didn’t want to bother our host so late in the evening, so after a quick text to let Jimmy know we were nearby, we checked into the smallest of Bandera’s three hotels, and managed to grab some fast food at Sonic – the steak house where we’d hoped to dine was already closed – and then turned in for the night. Neither of us slept well, of course – we were too excited at the prospect of the next day’s dig!  (For those outside our hobby, northeast Texas, where we lived and normally hunted artifacts, is a flint-poor region, and most points we find are small and made of rough quartzite or petrified wood.  Southwest Texas is loaded with slick, glossy Edwards plateau chert, which comes out of the limestone in huge tabs and could be made into large, beautiful points, much nicer than what we normally found at home.)

          By 7 AM we were both wide awake, and we had a hearty breakfast at the town’s diner before heading out along the farm-to-market road that led to Jimmy’s ranch.  Our host was waiting for us – a crusty, seventy-five-year-old West Texas rancher who could have stepped straight out of a 1960’s Western.  Greeting us both with a handshake that could have crushed concrete, he told us a little bit about the place we’d be searching.

          “I never was that fascinated by Indian rocks,” he said, “but as a kid I found a bunch of them on that slope below the cliffs yonder.  They’d wash down from the overhangs into the crick, and after the spring rains they’d be scattered down the slope.  If you go north, round the shoulder of that bluff, there’s a spring comes out of the rocks and trickles down into the creek.  There was always a bunch of them there, too.  You fellers can dig all you want, all I ask is fill in your holes and don’t destroy any of my trees – except the cedars.  You can take out all of those nuisances you want.”

          “Thanks, Jimmy,” Roger said.  “This really means a lot to us – not many folks are willing to let us come dig any more in these parts.”

          “Too many folks got dollar signs in their eyes,” he said.  “I don’t want them dang dirt rapers coming on my place!  I saw what was left of the Holloway’s ranch when they were done, and it was pitiful.  I mean, they filled in their holes, but they also destroyed everything that made that place so beautiful.  I don’t mind friends and family coming here and digging up a few arryheads, and as long as I’m careful about who I let in, and how many, there’ll be Indian rocks to be found by my grandkids’ grandkids!”

          “It’s a huge place,” I said.  “I imagine we’ll find enough to go home happy and leave plenty for those who come after us.”

          The old man laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.

          “That’s exactly what I thought, when Roger asked me if y’all could come,” he said.  “He also vouched for you, or I wouldn’t let you near the place.  No offense, I just don’t know you yet.”

          “Understandable,” I said.  “Well, my students have rated me ‘mostly harmless,’ my Dad has conceded that I’m not a disappointment, and my Mom is happy that I married what she called ‘a nice girl.’  Anything else you want to know?”

          “You a Cowboys fan?” he asked.

          “I bleed silver and blue,” I replied.

          “Reckon you’ll do, then,” he said.  “Now, there’s an old foreman’s cabin out back; I put fresh linens on the bed so you fellers don’t have to worry about a hotel.  Shower in the cabin is busted, but you’re welcome to come up to the house and use the guest shower there.  Supper’s at six; I got some rib eyes on sale at the meat market yesterday – if you’re late, I may finish all three of them myself!”

          “I imagine by six we’ll be ready for them,” Roger said.  “Digging’s hungry work; we packed sandwiches and drinks for lunch, but by supper I imagine they will have worn off.”

          “One other thing,” the old rancher said.  “I’ve had some cows come up missing lately, so if you find a carcass or some sign of predators, let me know.  I want to find out what’s killing them, or if I have a thief to contend with.”

          “Sure thing,’ Roger said.  “I think we’re both ready to get out and start searching!  Anything else we should know?”

          “Nothing I can think of. Watch out for rattlesnakes; they’re not as active now as they will be in a few months, but they still come out to sun on warm days. They’ll avoid you if you give them a chance.”

          “I don’t kill snakes unless it’s unavoidable,” I said.  “Plenty of room out here for us and them.”

          “Yup,” Jimmy said.  “As long as they stay out of my house and yard, I leave them alone.”

          With that, we bid each other good day, and Roger and I headed to the base of the big hill he’d pointed out.  Sure enough, the slope between the bluff and the creek was littered with flint, and we found several broken points and two nice whole ones within the first hour as we slowly worked our way towards the spring Jimmy had mentioned to us.  We talked about many things that fine morning, but one of the first things I said after we got out of earshot regarded Jimmy’s missing cows.

          “Do you really think there are cattle rustlers out here?  I mean, this is the 2020’s, not the 1890’s!” I asked.

          “Not a chance,” he said.  “More likely a pack of coyotes, or maybe a mountain lion.”

          Of course, it turned out to be neither of those things, nor cattle rustlers either.  In retrospect, I think I would rather have faced all of them at once instead of the thing we found – or, I suppose it would be more accurate to say, the thing that found us!  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I’m trying to explain this whole thing in order, and the horror didn’t really begin till the next day – although there was a sign that first day that I wish we hadn’t ignored.

          It had taken us all morning to search the slope between the bluff and the creek from the place behind the ranch house where we started until we came to the curve of the hill where the clear, fresh spring flowed from a cleft in the rock.  Just as Jimmy said, the signs of ancient occupation grew thicker and thicker close to the spring, and we were each avidly searching the ground, flipping over every exposed bit of worked flint we saw, and crying out when we found a complete point or tool.

          Then the breeze shifted, and I caught the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh nearby.  I swiveled my head, trying to locate the source, and saw a large spatter of dried, blackened blood on the ground next to a post oak tree.  There was a trail of drops on the tree’s trunk as well, and as my eyes followed it upward, I found the source.

          Ten feet off the ground, leaning against the bole of the tree where a sturdy branch emerged from the trunk, was the head of a cow.  It had been dead for several days, and flies were buzzing around it.

          “Something reeks!” Roger said at that moment.

          “Look up there,” I told him, pointing.

          “How in the Sam Hill did a cow’s head get way up there?” he said.

          “I think we can rule out coyotes,” I replied.  “Only predator I can think of that climbs trees would be a mountain lion.”

          “I want a closer look,” he said.  “Can you reach it with your walking stick?”

          I had to stand on a rock, but I managed to poke the thing hard enough to knock it loose.  It hit the ground with a sickening, wet thud and the smell of rot wafted up so strong I nearly gagged.  Roger held his nose and bent over the severed head, grabbing one of its horns to turn it over.

          “This is odd,” he said.

          “Oddly disgusting!” I replied.

          “Well, duh,” he said.  “It’s pretty ripe, but look here, at where it was severed.  This wasn’t a wild animal.  That’s a clean cut, not a bite or claw mark!”

          I had stepped upwind to get a breath of clean air, but I circled back and saw that he was correct.  The head had been cleanly cut off about six inches down from the ears, and even the vertebrae were cleanly sliced, with no jagged edges protruding.  Interested despite the stench, I looked closer and noticed something else.

          “Roger, both his eyes are gone,” I said.

          “Don’t birds always go for the eyes first?” he said.

          “Have you seen a bird out here all morning?” I replied, for I had noticed how silent the woods had been around us for some time.

          “Come to think of it, I haven’t,” he said.  “And normally a chunk of carrion this big would have a dozen buzzards fighting over it!”

          “I’m all in for a mystery,” I said, “but this thing really stinks.  Let’s snap a couple of pictures for Jimmy and move on!”

          We photographed the head from several angles, turning it over with our walking sticks, and then resumed our search.  Still, I found the grisly image floating in my thoughts – who would neatly decapitate a fully grown cow and leave its head up in a tree?  And where was the rest of the beast?

          By the end of the day, we had each found a half dozen or more whole points, including a beautifully worked corner tang knife that I flipped out of the dirt after only seeing one corner of the base exposed.  We’d also picked a spot to dig the next day, an ancient midden just on the other side of the spring that looked very promising.  We made it back to the ranch house a few minutes before dinner, and the smell of grilled steaks drove the day’s odd discovery out of our heads for the half hour it took us to devour them.

          “Looks like you boys had a fine day hunting rocks,” Jimmy said.  “Did you see any sign of my missing cows?”

          “Dang, that reminds me,” said Roger.  “We found the weirdest thing.  There was a severed cow’s head in the fork of a tree near the spring, about ten feet up!  We knocked it down and took some pictures.  Crazy thing, the head wasn’t bitten or torn off, it was cut clean as a whistle!”

          The old rancher paled, and then silently took Roger’s proffered phone, scrolling through the pictures of our grisly find.  He handed the phone back, his face set in a grim line, and the room grew deathly quiet – until Jimmy slammed his hand down on the table so loudly we both jumped.

          “Damn it all, it’s come back!”  he snarled, and then let loose with a string of profanity that my old Navy buddies would have been proud of.  He finally wound down after a couple of minutes, and then let out a long sigh.

          “I was hoping it was gone for good, or at least, that it wouldn’t come back in my lifetime,” he said softly.

          “What is ‘it’?” Dan asked, unconsciously foreshadowing the final question he would rasp out to me in about twenty-four hours.

          “No one rightly knows,” Jimmy said.  “Only a few people ever caught a glimpse of it, and none of them in broad daylight.  Last time it came around was in the nineties, around the time they impeached Slick Willie.   Before that, it was when Reagan was President.  Once during Vietnam, and before that, not long after Pearl Harbor.  There’s stories going back further still, to the days of the Indian Wars, but I can’t vouch for them.”

          “Stories about what?” I asked.  I was incredulous but still fascinated – I’ve always loved a good real-life mystery, from the Bermuda Triangle to Oak Island.

          “It always starts with cattle,” he said.  “They go missing, and then parts are found – always neatly severed, never torn up.  Scavengers won’t touch them.  Some say that, if found soon enough, they’re covered with some sticky green, snot-like fluid, but it melts away when the sun hits it.  It goes on for a few weeks, and there’s stories – I don’t know if they’re true or not, but my Pop swore at least one of them was – of people being taken too.  During the war they found a boy’s head in a tree over in Johnson County right after a string of cattle were found cut up, and both his eyes gone neat as you please.  Then, for whatever reason, it stops.  Cattle quit disappearing, people quit seeing strange things, and we persuade ourselves that it’s gone for good this time.  But it always comes back.”

          He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and then stared at Roger.

          “Look,” he said.  “I gave you two permission to come out here, and I don’t mean to be ungracious.   But if you wanted to go home and come back in a month or two, when this is all over, it’d ease my mind a bit.  If something happened to you out here, it’d weigh on my mighty heavy.”

          How I wish we’d packed our gear and headed home that night!  But Roger shook his head slowly.

          “We won’t have another chance to come down for a couple months,” he said, “and by then it’ll be a hundred ten in the shade, and the ground will be like concrete.  We found a sweet-looking midden across from the spring, and I’d really like to get in just one day of digging.  Tell you what – if it’s OK, we’ll cut out at sunset tomorrow; we’d be back in Bandera by dark and drive home Sunday morning early.  But I’d really like to get in one more day of hunting, since we drove all this way.”

          Jimmy nodded slowly, and then stood up, gathering our plates.

          “I reckon as long as you’re out by dark, it’ll be all right,” he said.  “But stay in your cabin tonight!  And take this with you tomorrow, just in case.”

          He reached into a nearby cabinet and pulled out a huge, gleaming silver pistol, a .44 hogleg that looked like something out of a war movie.

          “I don’t expect you’ll need it, but I’d feel better if you had it,” he said.

          “Thanks, Jim,” said Roger.  “We’ll be careful.”

          After we retired to our cabin, I looked at my friend closely.

          “Do you believe any of that tall tale?” I said.

          “I remember seeing something about cattle mutilations in the news back in the 90’s,” he said, “and I remember my Dad talking about finding a huge bull sliced clean in half on their ranch, one county over, when he was a boy.  I always thought he was spinning one, kind of like you thought Jimmy was tonight. But – I tell you, west Texas ranchers don’t scare easy, and that old man looked scared to me.  I don’t know if this whole thing is real or not, but I’ll guarantee you HE thinks it's real.  As for me, I’m going to take a long shower, climb into that bed, and not think about it till tomorrow.”

          I nodded, and as he trudged back to the ranch house for a shower, I looked out the window at the dark bulk of the limestone hill rising behind us.  As majestic as it had looked under the warm springtime sun, by the faint light of the waning crescent moon it took on a more sinister aspect, like some enormous beast buried deep in slumber, dreaming of its prey. Then I noticed a small but very bright red star gleaming just above the tree line.  It shone brighter than Mars or Venus, and as I watched, it seemed to split into two for just a moment – and then it winked out. Must have been an airplane or a drone, I thought.

I got my own shower when Roger came back, and as I padded back to the cabin in my shorts and t-shirt, I thought I heard the screaming bellow of a wounded cow far off in the distance.  I shivered involuntarily, but then reminded myself it was calving season, and decided all I’d heard was a new calf being born. With that rather positive image in my mind, I quickly faded off to sleep.

          The next day, as soon as we’d wolfed down breakfast, Roger and I headed straight to the midden we’d found the day before and started digging.  The rich black soil was full of snail shells and charcoal, and within a half hour Roger pulled out a nice Pedernales spearpoint nearly four inches long.  A few minutes after that I found a Marshall point with flared, delicate barbs, and from that point on we forgot about mutilated cattle, missing children, and mysterious disappearances.  I will say this about that day – it was the best dig Roger and I ever had together. Between the two of us, we found fifteen points that day, several of them large and perfect examples, nearly all of types that rarely, if ever, were to be found in North Texas.

          We hung the .44 in its holster from the limb of a tree that overhung our dig, but neither of us ever really thought about it after that.  The sun was shining, the soil was soft and damp, and the artifacts abundant and beautiful.  We talked about our friends in the hobby, some still around and others long gone, and about how much fun we’d have showing off our finds at the big show in Temple, TX in a couple months’ time.  The sun seemed to fairly leap across the spring sky that day, and long before we tired of digging the shadows started to lengthen.  

          We filled our holes back in and gathered our things, rescued the .44 from its perch, and headed back down to the ranch house as we’d promised. Jimmy seemed relieved to see us and told us to go ahead and take a quick shower while he grilled us some cheeseburgers as a parting meal.  We’d barely stopped digging to eat our sandwiches at lunchtime, and those burgers were delicious. Our bellies full and our flint craving satisfied, we thanked Jimmy many times over for his hospitality and climbed into my truck to head to town just as the sun dipped over the horizon.

          It was a bumpy mile down a rock and gravel road to the nearest pavement, and as we neared the farm to market road, I noticed that the wheel was thumping a lot harder than it should have, rough road notwithstanding.

          “Well crap,” I commented to Roger.  “I think we have a flat!”

          “Here’s a level spot,” he said.  “Pull over and let’s get her changed before it’s full dark.”

          We were within sight of the paved road that led back to Bandera, and there was perhaps a half hours’ worth of twilight left.  I jacked the truck up quickly, and Roger got the spare out from under the bed of the truck, where it was held in place by a cable and winch.  I was just loosening the lug nuts when I first heard the sound that still haunts my dreams.  First there was a whistling, whooshing sound from somewhere overhead, not too close, but not far either.  And the sound that followed – God, I have taught English for nearly thirty years, and I have two master’s degrees, but I’m not sure our language has any words that convey the horror of that awful noise!  It seemed to combine the worst elements of mechanical sound – the screeching of an engine on the brink of shredding itself – with the most haunting ululations a predatory animal can make. Screeching, warbling, roaring, and whistling all at the same time, and still I can’t convey the horrible other-ness of it.  It was a sound that had no place on this world, or on any other world created by a sane God.

          “What the hell was that?” Roger gasped, straightening up, and then a dark shadow came between us and the fading light in the western sky. I looked up too late to catch more than a glimpse of something huge swooping above us. Its wings were somewhere between those of a bat, a giant insect, and a biplane. Three long, forked tails twisted and curled in its wake, and as it banked and swooped back towards us, I saw the same red lights I’d glimpsed in the distance the night before blazing through the dark in our direction.

          “Get back in the truck!” I shrieked at Roger, even as I dove for the door myself.  He was right behind me when two whiplike appendages came lashing out from an unseen orifice beneath those blazing red – eyes?  headlights? portholes? – and wrapped around his waist and neck.

          I didn’t have a gun of my own with me, but I had packed along a razor-sharp machete to help clear the stubborn mesquite roots and branches while digging. I reached into the bed of the truck and grabbed it as Roger was dragged helplessly along the ground behind that winged monstrosity. 

          “Hold on, buddy!” I cried, and then managed to catch up with him after a short sprint.  I swung with all my strength, and the cord or tentacle or whip around his neck was cleanly severed.  The monster retracted the damaged appendage quickly, and as it shot past my face some greenish fluid struck my cheek and burned on contact.  A second time that horrific sound assaulted my ears, much closer and more discordant than ever.  Aware of nothing except my desperate need to make it stop, I hurled the machete at the giant shadow that filled the sky over our heads.  One of the glowing red orbs suddenly winked out, and the horrible screeching doubled in volume, so loud that I fell backward with my hands over my ears trying to blot it out.  But I’d injured whatever it was, and the cord around Roger’s waist released him as the shadow retreated upwards, the awful shriek falling silent for a moment.  I crawled to my friend and helped him to his feet, staggering back to the truck while trying to keep him upright.

          But whatever it was, it had not given up.  Just a few feet short of the open door, we were struck in the back and knocked flat as the thing swooped even lower than before.  I felt a sharp pain across my shoulder blades, and later that evening the doctor at the local hospital would stitch up six parallel gashes, about an inch apart, that had cut clean through my tough denim jacket and flannel shirt.

          For some reason, the flying entity was focused on Roger.  The huge bulk settled to the ground on top of him, and I saw multiple legs and tentacles and some sort of tubular proboscis that was neither descending upon his body.  He jerked and shrieked as they penetrated his flesh.

          The closest thing to a weapon I had at hand was the long, curved “wiggle pick” I’d used to dig for points earlier in the day.  I staggered to my feet and grabbed it, lurching forward towards the nightmare shape that was trying to devour my friend.  I swung as hard as I could and buried the pick in one of its limbs, which was covered with prickly black fur but jointed, like a spider’s.  A second limb swatted at me and knocked me flat, and then the nightmare creature dropped Roger and advanced towards me.  I scrambled away, unable to get to my feet.  In the gathering darkness, I saw the winged shape lift its four front legs off the ground as it prepared to spring.

          A flash of blinding light and a report like a thunderclap sounded from behind the creature, and I felt droplets of that burning liquid strike my face and hands.  The monster shrieked again, and I detected a note of pain and anger in its roar this time.

          “Get off them boys, you bastid!!” Jimmy’s voice came roaring out of the darkness.  “Get back to whatever hell you came from!”

          Three more deafening shots were fired, and by the muzzle flash I could see Jimmy standing there, legs apart, the .44 leveled at the creature that had been trying to kill us.   I heard that awful cry for the last time, and then the thing launched itself into the air, hurling itself at the sturdy West Texas rancher as he squeezed the trigger for the last time.  The thing angled upwards, passing a few feet over his head, but as it did, a narrow, whiplike appendage lashed out, wrapping around Jimmy’s neck.  The old man barely had time to let out a choking scream before the creature tightened its grip and his head was severed from his body, dropping to the ground between his feet.  Jimmy’s headless corpse remained on its feet for what seemed like an impossibly long time before slowly toppling backwards, the gun still gripped in his hands. Then, with no more sound save the rush of air over its four wings, the creature flew back towards the dark mountain in the distance.

          I struggled to sit up and pull my phone out of my pocket.  My skin was burning in a dozen places where the creature’s blood – or was it oil? – there was something in the way the thing moved that was more mechanical than biological – had spattered on me.  I dialed 911 and then crawled over to Roger.  He was bleeding profusely, and one of his hands was neatly severed just above the wrist where the thing had wrapped one of its appendages around him.  Of the missing hand there was no sign, and I shuddered as I thought of whatever foul gullet was now digesting it.

          The paramedics were there in less than a half hour; an impressive response time considering how remote the old man’s ranch was.  I sat there, holding Roger, trying to stem the flow of blood, as we waited.  He barely spoke, whimpering in pain as the life drained from him, but after they arrived and placed him on the stretcher, he reached out to me with his remaining hand, grabbed my sleeve and pulled me close.

          “What was it, Dan?” he rasped out.

          God help me, I still don’t know.