Monster

So there I was, buried under a railroad track.  I may sound calm now, but I can tell you that wasn't the case then. 


I felt the rocks pushing into my flesh for the first few days and that was pure agony, but it was actually worse when the numbness set in.  Then the pains of my joints and insides from not being able to move nearly broke my mind.


It might be in your mind by now as to why I was there in the first place.  A few of the more thoughtful of ya'll have gone a step further and are wondering how in the hell I could be telling this at all.  If neither of these have occurred to you, well no shame there, higher education isn't for everyone, is it?


No need to deny it was mostly my own actions that put me there.  Nobody ends up where I was without fault, plenty and enough for anyone to put considerable effort to settling it.  Too bad I hadn't put that much thought into the start.


It wasn't a particularly beautiful day and I can't say I noticed all the pretty nature things around.  The sun was in the sky, the ground was underfoot, trees were all around, and blood was on my hands.


Someone else's blood, as circumstance would have it.


I had to admire the strength and precision of the attacker, demonstrated upon the dead body splayed over this log.  The girl had been opened like an axe splits kindling.  My back country post-mortem told me the liver was gone, likely other soft organs, but with the damage I couldn't really tell more.


Not that I needed to be all that exact.  It did this, the thing I was hunting.  There was a trail of the maimed and killed just like this across the state, starting at my parent's house.  I'd been after the monster ever since.


And now I was close.  This was a fresh kill; she wasn't even reported missing yet.  I was in its head, or it was in mine, and either way this was almost over.  I dropped my pack and commenced to stalk down a monster.


It killed, it fed, it rested, then it moved fast and far.  To my mind it acted like a criminal, not an animal - strike once and move, careful not to be seen, even cross jurisdictions between attacks.  It knew what it did was wrong, but did it anyway.  Like a criminal it felt guilt, and I knew all about that myself.  


Time was I acted a lot like that.  I blamed tequila, meth, or my Daddy, but I always knew right from wrong and too many times I picked wrong.  Time; I did plenty of that, but it was prison that saved me from worse.  I met a lifer named Peanut Grimes who taught me the secret of guilt.  Guilt was there to keep me from doing bad, not weigh me down afterward.  If I keep carrying it around, it gets easy to do more bad things, easy to tell myself, 'go ahead, ya done worse.'  I didn't recall if old Peanut said anything about revenge.


Just like I thought, it hadn't gone far.  It was getting more sure of itself and figured the body wouldn't be found until it was long gone.  It hadn't counted on me; I soft-footed right up beside where it was hidden in the brush.  There was my sister, Lily, curled up in the dirt like an animal.


"Lily," I whispered, "can you hear me?  Wake up."  I touched her shoulder gently.  We'd have more time if I didn't scare her.  She stirred and slowly started to come around; the monster would be deep asleep for awhile longer.  Then she rolled over on her back and opened up her eyes.


I couldn't help myself from looking at her naked body, but I looked away fast as I could.  She'd grown up since I'd been gone, a woman any man would be happy with.  "You're going to hell for that, Joshua Lowe," I said out loud, then I had to snicker at myself.  I took off my jacket and covered her as she blinked up at the trees above us.


"Lily, it's Josh," I said a little louder.  "Time to wake up, little sister."  She didn't look at me, but tears began to run out of the corners of her eyes.


"Go away," she said.  "Go away before I kill you, too.  Please?"  She trembled and sobbed; my heart turned over for her.


"Don't worry, you hear?  It's gonna be okay, I promise."


"Liar.  No, it won't be okay.  I killed. . . so many, so many.  Mama, I'm sorry."  I couldn't answer right away, so I scooted around and put her head in my lap.  We cried together for a little while, if you want to know, but I didn't dare let it drag on.


"Lily, listen," I said.  "You're sorry for what you done, I know, but we can stop it."  She blinked at that, swallowed, and rolled her eyes to see my face.


"Anything."  She shuddered and closed her eyes.  "I don't want to kill again."  So I snapped her neck.


Wasn't that easy, of course.  Her eyes popped open again and gave me a look straight from hell, which wasn't too far off, I reckon.  It worked her mouth, but couldn't get much more going until it fixed her neck some, and I wasn't about to give it the time.  I got up on my knees, pulled my heavy hunting knife, and chopped at her neck.


My Granddad used to tell me stories about the monster before he passed, how only kinfolk could kill someone the monster was in, that it had been in our family a long time, like a curse or something.  I never really believed the old coot, not until I came home for crazy Aunt Darlene's funeral and found my parents ripped apart like Thanksgiving turkey.  


According to Gramps it was worse for kin with blood close to our origins, accounting for a lot of nuts and jailbirds in our family tree.  The unlucky ones, like Lily, went plumb scary movie werewolf from it.  Worst of all, if you did manage to murder your kin, or kick off like Aunt Darlene, the thing inside just hopped to someone else in the family.  


I'd been thinking on this the whole time I was hunting it.  As far as I knew, I was the last, aside from some distant cousins I might not know about.  If I kept Lily dead enough, it might give up on her and come after me.  Then it would be stuck with me and I had some ideas about that situation.


The human head don't just pop right off, but four good whacks with my knife got it done.  Then I emptied the can of lighter fluid over my jacket on her body and fired it up with my Zippo.  I propped up the head so it could see what was going on.


"I can keep this up all night, bastard.  Can you?"  It tried to make Lily speak for it, but without lungs or vocal chords it failed.  I was sure it could still see and hear me, though.  "I'm takin' her head with me. Come get it if you can."  Then I ran.


From there it was pretty straight forward.  Back at my backpack I pulled out a fifth of tequila, some sleeping pills, and started a party.  Lily's head in my pack, I ran about half-a-mile to the railroad main line.  I followed those east to where a line of machines were laying a new spur track.  Of the construction projects nearby, this one would best serve my purpose.


The workmen were gone until tomorrow morning, so I got to it, popping pills and swigging tequila.  Before I passed out I managed to bury me and Lily's head deep in the gravel bed.  I didn't wake up until, well, y'know.


So, there I was, buried under a train track.  I didn't like it, but the monster hated it and that was good.  He made me suffer for that, and that was bad.  We even chatted kinda like cellmates, after a fashion.  It bragged how much more powerful I would make him, how nothing could stop him when he got free.  I practiced cussing at it.


What worried me, when I was sane enough to worry, is that I thought it was learning how to shift the gravel.  Like now, it takes over and flexes just so, and sometimes I think I hear shifting gravel.  Of course, I may be worrying about nothing.


Oh hell.  I just saw daylight.


The End