Ghost Shadows (16 page)

His stomach turned over not only from the vile smell but the idea of the nature of the substance that was now was all over him. He turned his head and vomited on the highway. The animal fell to the roadway as Chad dropped the deadly stone and it rolled a few feet away from the creature's corpse landing next to the steaming puddle of vomit.

Chad was bent over waiting for his uncontrollable retching to stop. After it finally did, he stood for a moment taking in the horror before him. The grundie was most
certainly dead; its ruined body was now just a mass of glistening unrecognizable fur. He had actually killed it although he could scarcely believe it himself. Chad knew if he returned to this same spot in a few days, after the scavengers had done their best to decimate the corpse and numerous other vehicles had run over the remains, there would be nothing left but a flattened mass.
 

“Road pizza” is what he had often jokingly called such a sight. He had seen such similar creatures squashed flat countless times before. Whenever he and his wife were driving and saw such an unidentifiable furry pancake along a road they often simply referred to it as “a dead”; as in a dead skunk or a dead raccoon or a dead groundhog. But since it was no longer identifiable, they just called it “a dead.” And what he now saw on the highway definitely fit into that particular category. At those previous times when he had said “a dead” it had seemed funny in the darkest of senses. But now nothing about what he saw seemed in any way funny to him.

He picked up the large rock and turned to return it to its original location as there was no point in having some other car strike the stone and blow out a tire or perhaps cause an accident. As he did so he heard a chorus of wild hissing, chittering, and whistling coming from the woods beyond. He also thought he saw many sets of glowing eye staring at him from the underbrush.

Grundies! He thought, realizing that the now dead creature likely had been part of a larger community and perhaps even had left baby groundhogs behind. Seething with anger and frustration at the unpleasant situation he had found himself forced into, Chad hurled the boulder with all of his strength in the direction of the woods secretly hoping to hear one of the things screech in pain as the stone found its mark; although all he heard was the creatures scattering with fear it gave him a great deal of satisfaction.

Chad was no longer feeling quite like himself; at least not the man he thought he was. The events of the day made him feel very different; as if he had earned his rightful place at the top of the food chain. Despite his earlier reservations, Chad now felt some deeply hidden recessive and primal rush of adrenalin, which he assumed primitive man must have felt when hunting for his food.  

He could smell his own sweat mixed with the raw, woodsy stench from the felled creature and it made him feel savage and alive in a way he had never felt before. His breathing was deep and seemed to echo in the now silent woods. Then the rush faded quickly and Chad's momentary emotions of being master of all he surveyed likewise began to dissipate.

Now he suddenly realized he was transforming back to being just regular white-collar Chad standing in the middle of a highway with stinking groundhog gunk all over him, wild-eyed like a madman panting and sweating like a rutting hog. Although he still felt the slight remnants of the previous euphoria, he was rapidly coming back to reality.

His mind now returning to its proper perspective, Chad realized that as soon as he could find a cell phone signal he was going to have to reschedule his meeting, likely changing it until the following morning. After the trying day he had experienced so far, Chad was certain he would need to find a roadside rest stop or somewhere to clean up to the best of his ability and then find a hotel to crash for the night.

He planned on taking the longest and hottest shower he had ever taken in his life and then would find a way to dump all of his soiled clothing in a trashcan or dumpster somewhere. He had no intention of taking them home for his wife to wash; not with all the grundie gunk on them. Next he planned on finding a bar and drinking very heavily before heading back to his room and collapsing early into bed. A good night's sleep would be just what he needed to make all of the badness of the day go by the wayside. And now, as his adrenalin rush diminished, his strength seemed to wane right along with it.

In the distance he saw his car, the front door still standing open and the interior light illuminated. The car couldn't have been more than thirty feet away but in his exhausted condition, the slow trudge back felt as if Chad had been walking for miles. The day's events were definitely taking their toll and Chad could feel himself mentally and physically crashing rapidly.

When he reached his car, he literally fell behind the wheel and it took all of his strength to fasten his seatbelt and pull the driver's door closed. Once inside the close confines of the car Chad was immediately aware of just
how rank he smelled. He started the engine and put down all of the windows. He felt as if he might start vomiting all over again. Chad hoped once he got moving and the wind began whipping through the windows it might blow the worst of the smell away.
 

“Woo baby I really stink!” Chad said aloud with an unexpected chuckle as the stress finally began to leave him, quickly and surprisingly replaced by an insane sense of glee. In fact, he was so relieved that he began to feel almost giddy. “I guess it's a good thing I'm not near Punxsutawney or else old Groundhog Phil might have seen his last shadow today.” Then he began to laugh madly as tears of relief streamed down his soiled face. That was the exact moment when he felt the first lightning bolt of pain as a tiny pair of teeth sunk deeply into the back of his neck.

Chad tried to reach back and fight off whatever it was that was gnawing on his flesh but could not reach the thing. Then he heard a chorus of whistling which sounded less like a warning cry and more like a war cry. He then felt dozens of other sets of tiny teeth chewing away at him in various places; his face, arms, legs,   and his throat. He screamed and thrashed about madly trying desperately to free himself from the bonds of his safety belt while he could feel himself being literally eaten alive. Amid his wilt convulsions of agony blood flew wildly splattering the car's interior and windshield with gore.

The last thing Chad ever saw were two tiny angry red eyes staring into his own eyes from the heavy, furry thing that had perched atop his head as it bent over showing him its yellowed teeth, which popped one of his eyeballs like a grape. Groundhogs might traditionally be herbivores by nature but for at least one moment in time these particular grundies had changed their ways in order to partake in a very special feast of vengeance.

 

 

 

The Shutter

 

 

To say Eddie Johnson loved craft shows would be incorrect; the truth was, at best, Eddie tolerated them. His wife, Maxine, however, adored the events. In an attempt to be a good husband, Eddie made a point of accompanying his wife to every craft show or fair she chose to attend.

There was one obstacle Eddie had to overcome however, and that was the simple fact
that
he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in anything having to do with crafts. So he found a way to tolerate them, and his solution was food.
 

Early on, Eddie found one similar thing about every craft-type event; they all sold some of the best junk food in the world, and it didn't matter what time of day either. If they attended a show in the early morning, there were always plenty of vendors selling every type of unhealthy breakfast food imaginable—pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, hash brown potatoes, home fries, you name it—most of which was dripping with butter.

If they arrived at or after noon, he would find steak sandwiches, sausage sandwiches, ice cream, funnel cakes, soft pretzels
,
and other such normally frowned upon delicacies. For Eddie, it was like finding an oasis in the middle of hell.
 

Maxine would wander from table to table examining the various handmade items while Eddie followed in her wake dripping ice cream, slurping a soda, wiping sauce off of his shirt or powdered sugar out of his beard. As long as Maxine was happy and Eddie was fed, everything else would take care of itself.

After several years, and many pounds later, they happened to find themselves on one particular Saturday at a new craft show about two hours from their home. It was the first time the community had scheduled the event and judging by the successful turnout of both artisans and customers, it would likely become an annual show.

There were literally hundreds of craft stands set up with their pop up canopies, folding tables
,
and makeshift shelving, each holding countless treasures waiting to be purchased. Many of the vendors had handheld satellite credit card machines, allowing them to process cards on the spot. One vendor was having trouble with reception and had to stand on a chair every time he had to make a transaction, but Eddie assumed it must still be better than the old credit card imprint swiping method.
 

The particular types of crafts Maxine especially liked were those made from old used wood products
that
had been cleaned up a bit and painted with some country design; the more rustic and primitive the better. She especially liked those types of items
that
could be hung on the wall rather than those
that
took up floor space.
 

Their house was adorned with a variety of former cabinet doors, window panes, desktops, wooden ironing boards
,
and other such common items. These things had found new lives in the hands of the artists who had probably picked up the items for next to nothing, painted various country images and scenes on them, then slapped on a fifty or hundred dollar price tag, to be sold to people such as Maxine and Eddie. Eddie usually didn't mind the cost and for the most part paid little attention to the items Maxine purchased, as home décor was not his forte.
 

“Look, Eddie!” Maxine shouted with the boisterous giggling glee of a schoolgirl. “Isn't it great?” she cried. “It will look perfect in the first floor hall, just outside your study.”

Eddie looked at the item in question, doing his best to seem excited while thinking about how great an ice cream sandwich would go down right about now. “Yeah. It looks fine to me,” he replied. The fact was, it did not look fine at all. It actually looked like a worthless piece of junk to Eddie.

The “work of art” was an old wooden window shutter, consisting of three pieces of wood perhaps six inches wide and five feet long, connected by iron cross pieces. The thing still had its rusted hinges attached, he supposed for authenticity or some such thing. It was grayed and weathered from years of exposure to the elements, and it seemed to have been scorched or burned at one time.

The craftswoman, who created the piece—for some reason they always called the worst junk “pieces”—explained how she coated the entire shutter with many layers of shellac to seal in its original “essence” and eliminate the charred wood smells.

Eddie found the woman rather odd and Bohemian in her appearance, but he often found many such vendors to be strange. Next the woman explained how she then painted her artwork on the shellacked surface. To Eddie, it looked like just another boring country-fied scene, consisting of a tall, elongated
,
brightly
-
colored rooster with a farm scene behind him including a rustic split rail fence, a barn, some hay
,
and several little chickens running about.
 

Maxine was giddy with excitement. “Eddie, you won't believe the deal I am getting
,
”
s
he whispered conspiratorially
.
“This piece usually sells for one hundred and fifty dollars, but we can have it for half price.” Eddie thought seventy-five dollars was about seventy-three dollars more than he would have paid for it but hid his displeasure and handed over his credit card.
 

After the transaction was complete, Maxine suggested, “Honey? Why don't you take this out to the van so you don't have to carry it around all day, and I will meet you at that booth over there.”

All of the stands looked the same to Eddie, but then he saw a landmark he actually could recognize near the approximate area where Maxine was pointing. “You mean the one next to the caramel popcorn stand?”

“Yes, that's the one,” she replied. “I will meet you then after you drop off the artwork.”

“No problemo,” Eddie said and proceeded toward the parking lot, wondering how such nonsense could be considered artwork. By the time he got all the way back to the van, the shutter had started to become quite heavy. He opened the hatch of the van and laid the shutter in the area reserved for their newfound treasures.

He was busy thinking about munching on a nice bag of caramel popcorn when he causally glanced at the shutter and thought he noticed some strange image forming in the background, between two rungs of a split rail fence. It was a horrible scarred face of a man, whose eyes seemed to be wild with insanity. When he blinked, the image was gone. “What the Hell!” Eddie said and looked again at the shutter, but no matter how he cocked his head, he could not get the image to reappear.

On his way back to meet Maxine he walked by the stand where they purchased the shutter and saw the woman watching the crowd for another potential customer. He decided to inquire a bit more about the mysterious artwork.

“Excuse me,” Eddie asked the artist. “That shutter we just bought—”