Darkness in Appalachia

At the police department, Officer David Michel sat down at his desk and loaded the thumb drive onto his computer. He wanted to get a good look at the security footage to see if there was anyone suspicious and part of him was hoping to get a little bit of a hint about what Robyn was up to out there. Like he had suspected, officer blondie had began talking with the others about how his ‘friend’ Robyn Elmore had invited him inside and treated him to sweet tea. He was regaling the dispatcher with stories of the inside of the house and an inflated version of the conversation they’d had.

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair scanning the footage while listening with half an ear to the conversation. Like Robyn had said, there wasn’t much to see. She only left once during the past two weeks and no one else had come up the driveway or was seen around the house. Even so, there was one portion of the video that he kept coming back to. Something was off about it but he was having trouble pinpointing exactly what that was. There was something in the woods that seemed just a little off. Sounds around him faded into the background and he leaned forward, intently staring at that portion of the woods. He backed the tape up again and tried to see if he could zoom in a little. At first, he still wasn’t sure what he was seeing but then it came to him.

Antlers! There were antlers moving through the woods. Not surprising considering that Robyn had said that she ran off trespassers and hunters but there was still something off about them. He couldn’t decide what the problem was and decided to take a break by looking through the pictures of trespassers she had given him. Maybe his subconscious mind would come up with the reason why whose antlers bothered him so much and, with any luck, there would be someone in there that would prove to be related to the girl or would have a record.

He ran the faces against local records, finding nothing but minor infractions. Trespassing or hunting out of season, a couple of dui’s and drunk and disorderlies. Nothing that would lead him to believe that they were capable of what happened to the girl in the woods and no missing children reports that matched the child either.

All this took a couple of hours to go through and, when he finally looked up from his computer, Blondie was gone and the station had mostly cleared out. The dispatcher and a janitor were the only ones in sight and the dispatcher was preparing to leave for the next shift. That meant he had been working on the pictures and things for several hours and that his shift had probably been over for a while or was about to be over.

He stretched and decided to take one last look at the video footage before calling it a night and heading home. Once again, he forwarded to the part with the antlers, zooming in on them and watching as they followed the driveway for a couple of feet before turning and heading into the woods. And once again, he couldn’t see anything wrong with them. Just a pair of antlers showing through the tree branches and moving deeper into the woods.

That’s when it hit him. Deer in this area only get to be at most 4 feet tall and that meant the antlers couldn’t possibly show more than five feet off the ground. But, unless he was mistaken, these antlers were about twelve feet off the ground. That just wasn’t possible with what he knew about deer. It might be possible for some other animals but not for anything from this area. He studied the ground and underbrush around them, looking for signs of a hidden hill and rock but nothing showed on the monitor. Leaning back, he considered whether this information was important. It probably had nothing to do with the dead child but it could be a hint as to what Robyn was doing up there. In other words, interesting but not helpful to the issue he needed to be concerned with right now.

Leaning back, he stretched before turning off his computer and gathering his things. He glanced out the window to see that it was starting to get dark but there was one more thing that he wanted to do before going home. He could stop by the morgue and get another look at the body before the state boys showed up. There was a niggling in the back of his head that something might have been missed earlier and the hospital where the morgue was located was on his way home. One quick stop there to ease his mind and then he would be able to stop thinking about it for the rest of the night.

Robyn drove into town just after dark with Walker and Puk in the car with her. Walker was sporting a collar and leash per town rules about dogs just in case they were spotted by anyone. They were going to park in the employee lot and go in through the loading doors at the hospital. Bobby was supposed to have them open for them and would meet them in the morgue when they got there. Puk would make them invisible to the security cameras. They would get into the morgue and perform the rite for the child and get out hopefully within thirty minutes.

In the parking lot, Robyn waited for Walker to check the surrounding area. They didn’t really expect to see anyone out and about since this town pretty much shut down after dark but they couldn’t take any chances either. Once given the all clear, they moved through the parking lot to the loading door, Puk invisible to everyone, Walker on a leash, and Robyn trying her best to act natural. Puk assured her that the cameras couldn’t see them but Robyn always worried.

The door was open, just as promised and they quickly made their way inside and down the hallway. Bobby had told her that the morgue was on the first floor just a short walk inside the loading doors and that she would see signs telling her where to go. Everything was just as promised and they found the morgue with no problems. Walker waited outside and would alert them if anyone was coming, he hated the smell in the morgue and wasn’t too fond of Bobby either.

Inside the morgue, Bobby was working on a corpse on the table. It was an old man who had probably died in the hospital sometime earlier today. The man’s chest was open and Bobby was cataloging the organs inside. Later, he would likely cut small pieces off of the most desirable and take them home for him and his brother. He looked up when they came in and smiled broadly, revealing a nearly perfect smile thanks to the fake teeth that Robyn had helped him get.

“Robyn, it’s been a while. I haven’t seen you since my brother and I left the reserve. I never expected to run into you here. Are you sure that you’re not just checking up on me and making sure that I am following the rules?” It was spoken jokingly but Robyn knew that there was a little fear there as well.

Bobby and his brother were ghouls, entities that feed on the dead. Normally, he would have a gray complexion, no ears, black eyes, and teeth more suited to a shark than a humanoid entity. He and his brother had come through the gate over a year ago and Robyn had shown them what they needed to do to pass for human and introduced them to jobs that would allow them to satisfy their hunger without exposing themselves. Bobby worked in the morgue cataloging, storing, and ensuring that the corpses were properly marked and transferred. His brother worked in the only mortuary in town as the mortician. Like any entity that wanted to leave the reserve, they had to pass for human while in public, couldn’t do anything that would expose them or the reserve, and wasn’t allowed to harm humans. Breaking of any of these rules would send an alarm to Robyn and she would come to collect them and punish them however she saw fit depending on what rule they broke.

“You’re good, Bobby. I really did just come here to check on that body that I told you about earlier. She died on my property and I need to see what killed her if I can. Do you know which drawer she’s in?”

He shuffled towards a wall of stainless steel doors that covered an entire wall of the morgue, aiming for one on the lower room towards the middle of the room. “Of course I do. I checked after you called earlier and even made sure that she was in the most accessible place. She doesn’t look very good, though. Are you sure this is something that you want to see?”

Robyn followed slowly, reluctant now that she was face with it. “I don’t really want to see. Truth be told, there’s nothing worse than seeing a dead child, but I want to perform the rites for her and maybe see if there are any clues as to what happened to her. Walker says that he can’t recognize the smell but that he doesn’t like it so there’s no telling what did this to her.”

By this time, the drawer had been opened and Bobby was drawing back the sheet to reveal her body. It was unlike anything Robyn had ever seen. The face was twisted into a mask of intense pain and fear but was otherwise untouched, the ribs were cracked open nearly at the spine and splayed out nearly like wings. Her internal organs were damaged but appeared to all be present. No other damage was found on the body. Not even scratches or marks to suggest the child had fought back against her attacker.

Bobby’s voice was soft as he looked over the body, “Normally, I would have attempted to make her look somewhat normal but the police wanted nothing done to her except her clothes removed. Said that we might damage tool marks by closing her up and that the state boys would have our asses if that happened. The clothing had to be marked and cut between the marks after multiple pictures were taken before, during, and after the procedure so that they couldn’t claim we had damaged something during that process. I’m not human but I nearly broke my heart to leave her like this.”

Robyn’s stomach was churning and she was only half listening to what Bobby was saying. She couldn’t think of any entity that she had ever heard of or read about that killed this way and didn’t take something for food or some other purpose. This was just senseless cruelty, which was something that humans were known for but didn’t affect most entities. But Walker had said that whatever did this wasn’t human or from this world. It just meant that she would need to do a lot of research in order to get any kind of hint as to what this was.

Puk, still invisible bumped her shoulder gently to get her attention. Robyn broke out of her reverie and spoke, “Just so you know, Bobby, I am going to use some herbs to release her soul and it might take a moment to speak with us before it moves on. The herbs will disappear after it’s done and there won’t be any residue left for whoever does her autopsy to find. I wouldn’t risk you getting in trouble for tampering with a body.”

Bobby was nodding along with her words, “That’s fine, that’s fine. I didn’t think that you would do something that could be traced. But is this something that I need to leave for. I will if you need me to but I really do hate leaving the morgue without a good reason during my shift.”

Robyn pulled a small leather satchel out of her pocket while shaking her head. “It’s fine if you stay. This rite doesn’t require privacy or anything but I might suggest that you take a few steps back. The soul can sometimes be scared and we could lose our chance if you startle it.” She waited until he obediently stepped back several steps before beginning the rites.

Chanting an old spell over the herbs, she sprinkled them over the body and around it, making specific runes that were supposed to ensure safe passage. Then, she called to the nameless soul, encouraging it to leave its current form and move onto the next stage, whatever that might be. Normally, at this point, a faint mist would begin forming over the body and there would be a feeling of something big entering the room. Often, these souls left right away but sometimes they would stay and make requests of the living or offer information. This is what Robyn was hoping for.

Instead, a soul rending scream emanated from the body, seeming to reach into the very core of her and trying to pull something loose. Robyn immediately covered her ears and dropped to the ground, unconsciously curling up into the fetal position. She was vaguely aware that she was screaming and that the others had also dropped to the floor in apparent pain. The sound probably didn’t last long but it felt like an eternity that it pulled at her insides, striving mightily to rip something free that she instinctively knew she couldn’t lose.

When it stopped, they lay on the ground gasping for air for several minutes. As Robyn climbed to her knees, she became aware that Walker had come in from the hallway and was still lying prone and not moving. It would probably affect him more since he couldn’t cover his ears. She was about to crawl over to him and make sure that he was alright when someone else stumbled into the room.

Officer Michel entered the morgue looking wide-eyed but with his gun drawn. He took in the scene quickly and began to bark orders at Robyn and Bobby. “Both of you, against the far wall with your hands over your heads. Don’t touch anything and leave that body where it is.” They struggled to their feet to comply but it seemed that they were moving a little too slowly for him. “Ms. Elmore, I want to know what you are doing here and what you were doing to that body? And you,” he gestured towards Bobby, “I want to know your name and what you have to do with this.” It almost seemed like he was making a list of what he wanted to know rather than asking questions.

He advanced into the room, keeping his gun trained on them while his eyes searched everywhere for the source of the scream. Seeing no immediate cause and finding no danger close by, he focused on the two of them. He needed to get them both in cuffs before anything happened but he didn’t have any backup and no longer had his handheld to call for help. He could do the standard movie thing and toss them his cuffs but he only had one pair on him. Cuffing them together wouldn’t do him a lot of good if they were still able to run. Noticing that the autopsy table was bolted to the floor, he tossed his cuffs towards them. “Cuff yourselves to the autopsy table. One wrist each with the chain wrapped around the leg.”

Robyn raised an eyebrow and remained where she was. “Is that really necessary, Officer Michel? It’s not like we’re any danger to you and you know where I live if I decide to run.” Robyn was hoping that Puk was still close by but it was hard to tell since she was invisible. Walker was starting to move around a bit but he was in front of Michel and would be an easy shot if he tried something. Puk was the only one that could do something right now without becoming a target.

“Yes, it’s necessary. You will handcuff yourselves to that table and I will put my gun away and call for backup. Once I’ve done that,you are going to answer some questions for me.”

Behind him, a cabinet opened and a metal pan floated out and towards Michel. Robyn watched as it came within a few feet of him, reared back, and slammed into the back of his head. Michel crumpled to the ground, unconscious and his gun skittered across the floor. Puk appeared, standing over him and holding the metal pan in both hands. For once, her characteristic smile seemed to have deserted her and her eyes glowed a darker, more reddish purple than usual.