Drerys' Guest

THE 3RD MONTH

It was now November. The weather was unusually warm on the night the moon took the shape of a sickle. They all sat down for dinner: Mr. Drery, Mrs. Drery, Madeline, Annie, Mr. Cobbs, his fiddle and, of course, ole Chester. The dinner was enjoyed in relative silence. There was an implied duty and a need to be ready. It felt as if their home had become a refuge, fortified with a guard to protect its inhabitants. Even Madeline was more quiet and reserved than usual. Still, in amongst their solemn demeanor was a reassured comfort. Even Mrs. Drery, who forbade the use of firearms in the presence of her and her child, found new respect in its purpose. When the meal was through, all assumed their post-dinner behaviors as they had before. Mrs. Drery sketched and hummed to herself, Madeline played by the fireplace with Annie, and Mr. Drery and Mr. Cobbs smoked pipes while touching upon past nostalgias.

Nine came too quickly and it was time for bed for Madeline. Her father draped her over his shoulder and carried her upstairs. She would be sleeping in their room. No need to risk another incident. Madeline’s room would be closed off. Her window, too. He made sure of this and meticulously checked to make sure everything was secured. He then settled her into his bed and walked downstairs to meet with the old man.

He stood vigilantly out on the porch, ole Chester rested on his shoulder like it would a soldier’s. His other hand secured the pipe in his mouth. He stood there relatively still, occasionally splitting his mouth to release smoke out from between his cracked lips.

“Ain’t much goin’ on tonight, Drery,” he said, breaking the silence. “It be a bit too quiet for my likin’.”

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Cobbs. We all truly appreciate your concern.”

“No worries here.” He puffed on his pipe and then cleared his throat. “But, call me Cyrus.”

“You got it,” Mr. Drery replied.

“I be keepin’ watch tonight. Not even the wind be gettin’ past me.”

Mr. Drery turned around to go inside.

“Have a good night now, Drery,” Drery heard the old man say as he walked inside to shut the door.

As Mr. Drery got to about midway up the stairs, he heard the faint sound of bow upon string. The old man began to fiddle. Its warm melodies floated up into the stairwell and disappeared as Drery shut the bedroom door.

Outside, the old man broke the still with his playing. Soothing melodies filled the night sky like stars as he played. But he didn’t play like he had before. He played quietly, keeping his watchful eyes on the trees beyond their yard. The old man played and played and played. It seemed as though he had played forever. But in reality, it had been but an hour or so at most. But before long he was interrupted by the movement of foliage just inside the orchard’s boundaries. The old man laid his fiddle to the side where he sat and perked his ears. With pipe stuck in mouth, he scanned the mist’s horizon looking for the source of that movement. Then, something startled him so that he leaned back in his chair and dropped the pipe from his mouth. He squinted and adjusted his specs. He stood up and grabbed the lantern next to him. He held it up and lit it. There, just above the mist, a figure poked up. And as quickly as it had done so, it disappeared amongst the vapor.

The old man grabbed ole Chester and readied him. With lantern in one hand and Chester in the other, he slowly crept down the stairs and onto the damp yard. The old man was fearful, Chester or no. He was almost frozen in his footsteps. But he had a job to do, so he pushed on until he turned the corner and saw it. He stopped in mid-stride. It was the biggest cat he had ever seen. Only, it wasn’t wholly feline. Parts of it that was still very much human. And that part of it set it back as it struggled to climb the side of the house where Madeline’s window resided. But by the time the old man had regained his courage to confront it, it was at the sill right outside Madeline’s room. And it was pawing at the window.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The old man held the lantern up to get a better look, and Chester followed. It looked down at the old man and a hiss escaped it that was not purely of feline origin and most certainly not of human. Perhaps on impulse and fright alone did the old man fire, sending the thing shrieking through the window and into Madeline’s room. From the inside of her room the shrieking continued, paired with hissing and spitting and yowling from a frightened, and possibly injured, beast. The old man wasn’t sure that he had hit it or not. It was too dark to make out injury of any sorts. Perhaps he had just frightened it. But a moment later he heard yet another crash and the tearing of wood. The thing had leapt from inside the room, through the remaining window and frame and had hurled itself into the mist and run off.

Though it was dark, the old man could see something held in its jaws. For fear it might be the little girl, the old man took aim and fired at it as it sped with incredible speed through the orchard, hissing and growling the whole way. The old man then dropped the lantern and sat down harshly upon the lawn. What he saw wasn’t real. This animal ran on two legs just like a man.

The sound of feet closing in behind him urged the old man to get up and turn around.

“Oh, ya scared me,” the old man said, relieved.

“I’m sorry. You scared us, too. We heard several shots and a crashing noise. What happened!?” Mr. and Mrs. Drery stood there, panting.

“It be that thing. I seen it comin’ to the window! I shot at it twice an’ it disappeared in them trees there.” He pointed out to the orchard. “I think I hit it, but I ain’t sure.”

“Daddy, Mommy!” They could hear their daughter cry out from outside her window.

The three of them raced as best they could up to where her room was.

“There’s something in my room!” Her straining voice pierces the silence of the house as her parents who rush in, dutifully avoiding the protruding end of their daughter’s toy chest. They’ve done this before, many times. But this time was different. It felt serious. She’d never screamed like this before. Not once.

“What’s wrong, honey. What’s wrong,” her mother begged between rasps of labored breathing.

“It, it-it was in my room,” she cried. “It came to try to take me.”

She let go of her inhibitions and began sobbing.

“Now, now, now. Are you sure it was just a bad dream? We’ve been through this before. Remember?” Her mother tried to lull her with shushing as she rocked her back and forth.

“Remember honey?”

“N-n-n-no, it’s true. L-look at the floor, the window.” She pointed to a place on the floor of her room not two feet from where she slept.

It was then that her mother dropped the charade. It was then that she could no longer stand beside her skepticism and doubt. For what her eyes now beheld, that which would only stand as rational in fictional stories and fairy tales, now breached the boundaries into reality. Before them lay a foot of grotesque monstrosity. With flesh torn and twisted, it was clear that at least one of the two shots fired by the old man’s Winchester rifle had indeed hit its mark and that there was some strange, unidentifiable beast still out there.

The foot, for certain, was proof of such an abomination. It was long and shapely like a human’s, but was matted with fur like an animal’s. Its individual toes were the most interesting and, albeit, terrifying feature of this appendage. They hosted nails like that of a human’s, but were rather long and transparent like a cat’s. They were long and thin and curved down and outwards. Immense blood loss was evident and there were footprints that tracked outside the window. One footprint, however, resembled that of a peg, or a cane print. It was round and narrow and of such a deep red that it almost stained the carpet black. The other print resembled exactly that of a large cat’s paw. There was no human resemblance or quality to it. Such physiological conflict came to suggest that this thing was in some progression or metamorphosis of physical change. Then something else reflected upon the sliver of moonlight that crept through the broken glass and into the bedroom. It was that of a black button.

“Annie!” Madeline sobbed. “It took her, Daddy!”

Mr. Drery looked at his wife and looked at the old man. They knew what had to be done. She wouldn’t stop crying otherwise. The old man had injured it, perhaps mortally. But there was only one way to know for sure.

“Love, you keep Madeline close, we’ll be back before sunup.”

Mrs. Drery nodded and began to tend to their daughter. The old man and Mr. Drery walked downstairs and out into the night.

Outside they began their hunt. Mr. Drery held the lantern close to ole ‘Chester, who was cradled in the old man’s arms. They turned the corner to the side of the house where the thing had entered Madeline’s room. Drery held the lantern close to the side of the house and up as high as he could to illuminate the window.

“There,” Drery pointed. “Blood. And lots of it.”

It amassed upon the sill and oozed down the siding directly below it. It almost reached the foundation, but stopped, drying in vein-like streams. As Drery shone the light upon the ground where it stopped above, there was broken glass and twisted, splintered wood from the window frame. It too was decorated with the thing’s blood along with fragments of broken glass that were streaked and spotted.

“Where did you say it went,” Drery whispered to the old man, his mouth agape and mind racing.

“It went off that way,” he replied and pointed in the direction it had fled.