Growl Read online

  Most of my former friends hopped from the back of one pickup truck bed to another during our high school years. Once they learned power rested on their chest and between their legs, they used it. Daily. Like every other woman had done when her hips widened, her rump spread, and her boobs appeared since the dawn of time. Hell, Tami Kilgore (nee Rogers) lived the high life at the Kilgore place because of her skills, her offspring the newest heir to the Kilgore fortune.

  Well, she used to live there. Now, Drexel and his parents were raising little Drex alone. What pieces of Tami left big enough to gather and bury were crammed inside a pink casket six feet under in Ridgemond Cemetery, Tami’s plan to reign as the “Queen Bee of Locasia County” ripped to shreds.

  Right along with her innards.

  No stripper pole for me, though. I had big plans which included a move to Memphis with Dane. We had it all worked out. Graduation, summer break in Panama City, then on to the excitement of living in a big city, away from the backwoods muck pile we’d been raised in. Dane’s stellar basketball skills landed him a full scholarship with the Tigers, and my knack for science won my acceptance to the same school—though not on a full ride. After the first year of living in the freshman dorms, Dane and I would move in with my cousin, Corinne, in her two bedroom apartment. Corinne offered us the opportunity to stay rent free until we graduated. It was a sweet deal because I would get to keep part of the tip share while I cooked three nights each week at Corinne’s restaurant. My parents agreed to help with financial aid, excited their only child would be a college graduate—the first in our family.

  Best laid plans…

  I raised my misty eye from my backyard. I looked past the tops of the little houses lining the streets beyond the central part of town. My gaze landed on the blackened patch of earth known as Cohestra Industries. The place used to take up over twenty acres, parking lot included. Nothing was left except the grain silos and the smaller outbuildings. The silos stood next to each other like two orphaned children in front of the soot-covered debris of their childhood home.

  A surge of energy prickled in my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck stood erect as my hackles raised. My fingers gripped the table with such force, my thick nails dug into the hard wood. A low rumble rose from deep within. My chair shook from the vibrations. The guttural growl reverberated inside the walls of my chest. It was one thing to recall the night in my head, but looking at the charred leftovers of the real thing was quite another. The strong pull of the evil inside, buried under the piles of rubble, made me gasp in pain. I blinked and moved my gaze away, focusing on the Newcomb’s Diner sign about six miles from town.

  In ignorant bliss, generations of townspeople born and raised inside the confines of Locasia County lived quiet lives. In the heart of the Mississippi Delta country, the roots to the founding fathers ran deep and long, like the namesake mighty river. The entire region lived, breathed, and died farming. Mostly rice but a few cotton and sugar cane fields remained. Unlike the rest of the region, our county was profitable—and relatively crime free. Over the years, some adventurous souls slipped through the cracks and escaped. Unwilling to live around the stubborn, old fashioned etiquette and pace of the place, they wanted the fast lane lifestyles only found in the bigger cities—like I intended to do. But those escapees were few and far between. Most stayed because their roots, like my own, tethered them to the fertile soil.

  Once the first breath was drawn in the town, the tie was sealed. Forever.

  Guess I haven’t been fair with my portrayal of Junction City. As with all places where humans live, it was peppered with people with hearts full of hate, but also those with hearts of love. Kind souls like crazy Nana, sweet Meemaw, Mom, and Dad. Of course I felt that way about them, for they were family, so it didn’t seem fair to include them. But folks like Papa Joe and Shirlene—both of them worked at the diner ever since I could remember. Papa Joe cooked and Shirlene waited tables for over thirty years. They were real, down-home people full of warmth and kindness. Most people in Junction City would literally give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it or a warm meal and an interested ear to listen to your grievances. The majority of our community was full of good people.

  But when weighed against the few evil ones, it didn’t matter.

  I took a deep breath and focused my attention back to my original plan. The fear of being outside had finally been conquered, so it was time to confront the last hurdle looming in front of me. In one of our last conversations, Papa Joe said I needed to pass the truth along to the next generation. Prepare the next guardian. It was part of my duty. Plus, I had to dislodge the memories and remove them from my dreams before I went completely bonkers. Well, not dreams. The appropriate word for the broken sleep, ear-splitting screams, and sweat-soaked sheets would be night terrors.

  Mom brought home a new typewriter yesterday. Her rationale was if I started to write things down, they would leave my head and vanish into the air. Or stick to the pages and be trapped forever. I had not told her about Papa Joe’s admonitions to keep the next generation informed. I smiled at the memory, Mom’s face so full of love and worry after she set the ancient thing on my desk. I still wasn’t used to the snow-white hair on her head and had snickered a bit at the messy mass of curls that stuck up every which way. I pecked at the dirty, old keys a while last night, but soon realized I would never get the hang of using it—there was no backspace key. So I decided to use pencil and paper.

  I planned to write about ancient evil, so I may as well do it old-school style.

  With shaky fingers, I picked the pencil back up and hovered over the blank pages. The decision of where to start first seemed difficult. The beginning would be the most appropriate spot, since most stories start out that way. But I wasn’t entirely sure when everything changed—at least in my life. The history of what I had become, and why, I understood from countless hours spent listening to Papa Joe. His sweet, rhythmic voice explained with the utmost patience the ancient ways and answered my multitude of disbelieving questions with ease. He never flinched, never balked at my rude responses and some of the hateful things I’d said to him in the beginning.

  God, how I miss him.

  To exorcise the awful memories, to try and dislodge the painful thoughts from my mind, I shouldn’t start out by lying. I knew the moment things changed for me. A tremor of fear made my heart beat faster. Was I really doing the right thing by letting the wickedness from my head escape, knowing it still lingered in the town? In all the years, the story had never been written down, only passed orally from one generation to the next. Mom worried about that too, which was why she bought me a typewriter rather than a computer. Once the words were freed from my mind, she wanted me to burn them, chapter by chapter, so no copy would be around. That way, nothing would be left but a small pile of ashes—gray, lifeless ashes to be spread out over the blackened embers of what had been the wicked heart of Junction City before it burned to the ground.

  Mom hoped the soot of my mind-altering fear would be the adhesive that kept the lid sealed shut on the evil that nearly killed me…and the entire town.

  I would let Mom continue that line of thinking for a while. After all, she had to heal as well. So did Dad, for that matter. I wasn’t ready to drop the next bombshell on either of them yet because if I told them the real reason I was writing, they would flip their proverbial lids.

  I gripped the pencil harder, the sweat beginning to bead on my brow, and began where I should.

  At the beginning.

  PART ONE - THE PREVIOUS ELEVEN YEARS

  CHAPTER THREE

  I woke up from deep, innocent slumber with a strange sensation I had never experienced before. The hairs on my nine-year-old arms stood on end, my bare limbs covered with small little bumps. I brought my hand to my eyes and rubbed the crusted sleep stuck to my lashes. A sense of uneasiness settled over me. I was fully alert although I didn’t know why.

  With the aid of the nightlight in the corne
r, I looked around the room, searching for my cat, Tinker. Maybe he was prowling around my room. I figured he knocked something over, which must have been the reason I woke up. I eased out from under the covers and slid to the edge of the high bed, quietly calling his name. “Tinker…Tinker…here kitty kitty.”

  I waited, straining to hear any noise, only to be greeted with the silence of the night. A cold breeze swept over my pajamas, causing a shiver to race down my spine. My body twitched in response. My eyes focused on the bedroom door. It had been closed when I went to bed less than fifteen minutes before, but now it was ajar.

  I froze, my eyes locked in terror. A shadow covered the door. A huge, bulky man stood there. One arm raised, he held what looked like a knife. My mind tried to grasp it all, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. I drew in a ragged breath and tried to comfort my thoughts. I must still be dreaming. With shaking fingers, I pinched my arm, hoping it would make me wake up. All it did was make me all the more aware I was awake.

  Never taking my eyes off the shadowy figure, I inched my way backward and slid off the bed. I crouched down, using the bed as a shield and peeked back over the fluffy comforter. The figure hadn’t moved. I stared in silence a few more minutes as my fear began to dissipate with each passing moment. The Shadow-Man wasn’t coming after me. It was motionless. I shook my head and laughed out loud, mocking my silliness for being so frightened.

  I decided the shadow must be coming from the nightlight. Confidence growing, I stood up and strode over to the corner where it was plugged in. I waved my hands in front of it, knowing I would soon find what was making the scary-looking thing appear on my door. While I waved my hands, the air turned cold once again, and my breath came out like it did when snow covered the ground. My heart lost its spirited glow of success. The shadow was not affected at all by my arms.

  The head turned and looked my way.

  Fear pulsed through me and exploded out in one giant eruption. I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Moooooooooommmmmm!”

  The shrill scream from my lips filled the house. I crushed my eyes shut to the vision in front of me, willing the shadow to disappear from my mind. Suddenly, warm hands latched onto my shoulders and shook me violently from side to side. My screams ended after my brain shut down all bodily systems, except for my bladder. The hot liquid pooled around my feet after running down my legs.

  “Honey, what’s wrong? Wake up…wake up! It’s ok. I’m here now!” chirped my mother as she shook my little shoulders. “You’re only dreaming!”

  The sound of her sweet voice broke the paralyzing terror in my mind, and my eyes flew open. I shot a glance over to the door where the Shadow-Man loomed before. He was gone, banished by the overhead light and the presence of my mom.

  “Mom, it was awful! The man, the big shadow man, he…he…he had a knife and was lookin’ at me!” I managed to eke out, my voice a hoarse whisper. I collapsed into Mom’s gentle arms, sobbing.

  “What man, honey? Oh, you were just dreamin’. It was only a nightmare, baby,” Mom cooed in her quiet voice, gently stroking my hair. “Sssshhhh…it’s all right now.”

  “No, Mom, he was real! I saw him! I even pinched myself, and I was awake! He was right there at the door!” I whimpered through my tears, pointing at the bedroom door.

  Mom turned her head and followed my shaking hand, and upon seeing nothing, she lifted me up off the floor. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you cleaned up. It was just a bad dream, that’s all. See? Nothin’ is there…just your door. No bogeyman, I promise.”

  “He was there, Mom, I swear! And he moved! He was watchin’ me. I woke up feelin’ funny and then it got really cold, and I saw my breath! Please, please let me sleep with you and Daddy!” I whined all the way into the bathroom.

  “Baby, let’s get you cleaned up, and then we can go have a secret, nighttime snack, okay? You’ll be fine once your tummy is full.”

  Before Mom shut the bathroom door, I glanced back over her shoulder into my room, eyeing the bedroom door sharply. That’s when I noticed the little white stray cat I named Tinker was in the room. His back arched, ears flattened back against his head and teeth exposed, as he hissed at the door.

  “There now…all full! That’s my girl,” Mom said. She rinsed out the hot cocoa from my empty cup. “I told you a midnight snack would do the trick!”

  I had tried desperately to prolong my snack, chewing slowly and sipping the hot chocolate for so long that it turned into cold chocolate milk. I had begged Mom the whole time to let me sleep anywhere but my own room, all for nothing. For some strange reason, Mom was adamant that I go back to my own room to sleep—something about conquering my fears. Well, I didn’t want to conquer them (whatever that word meant). I wanted to never sleep in my room again. Ever. Mom tried to convince me during our snack time it was a dream.

  I knew better.

  Even Tinker knew.

  “Mom, Tinker saw him too! He was hissin’ and growlin’ at the door!” I whined, hoping she would give in.

  “Sheryl, you had a nightmare, baby. A dream. It didn’t really happen. As I said earlier, dreams are just the mind workin’ overtime at night, makin’ a big movie out of bits and pieces of the memories in your head. Sometimes those movie images don’t make sense. They come in random patterns that don’t have any meanin’. But sometimes, they form a movie that you can follow and can seem so real, especially using stored images of familiar things, like your room. What you saw was in your head. For goodness sake girl, your eyes were closed and you were still sleepin’ when I came in there!”

  Mom took my hand and started out toward my room.

  “But Moommmy…” I moaned, trying in vain to pull her back toward the kitchen. “It was real. I can’t stay in there. I just can’t!”

  “Sheryl Ilene Newcomb! I have tried to be patient with you, but this is enough! Look,” she said, stopping in front of the door, “there is nothin’ here. Just your door…same as it always was.” Mom rubbed her hands along the lines of the door. She grabbed my hands and placed them on the door, forcing me to feel it with her. “There, see? Only wood, baby. That’s all. Nothin’ else. Now, enough with this nonsense. It’s time for bed.”

  My body shook as she guided my hands along the surface of the wood. It was slippery and cold—nothing at all like wood was supposed to feel. I opened my mouth to protest, wanting to ask why it felt like ice, but I realized Mom didn’t notice it.

  Only I did.

  I inhaled and let out a long sigh. Mom didn’t believe me, and wouldn’t, no matter what I said or did. I was doomed. Mom wasn’t going to budge, forcing me to sleep in my room—a place I was terrified of—all alone with nothing except my fear to keep me company.

  I looked quickly around my room, searching for something, anything, I could use as some sort of protection from the Shadow-Man. “Mom, can Tinker sleep with me?” I begged, my eyes boring into hers, hoping she would grant my request.

  “Fine, but don’t tell your father. You know what he thinks about Tinker sleepin’ in your bed. He’s a stray and your father worries about him bitin’ you. Plus, all that cat fur will be impossible to get out of your hair in the mornin’,” she said while she tucked me in under the fluffy pink comforter. “I’ll go get him and bring him right back. Remember though, he won’t stay if you leave the door open. Cats are nocturnal creatures, and he’ll soon want to go out and prowl around.”

  I cringed at the idea of being trapped in the room. But somehow, I had the idea that Tinker, with his huge white feet full of very sharp claws, would protect me from the Shadow-Man. Maybe he would warn me with a loud hiss if the Shadow-Man showed up while I slept. If I ever slept again.

  After she walked out of the room, I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around my chest. I buried my head under the protection of the warm comforter. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what Nana always said. I clung to the hope that my kitty-guardian would save me.

  Mom talked in soft whispers to Tinker as she came dow
n the hall. Tinker had a really loud, deep purr that would usually make me giggle when I heard it, but tonight, it sounded more like a roar. A terrifying growl, which was exactly what I needed to keep me safe in the dark. Tinker the Terminator was what he needed to be—a strong lion to be my constant companion and keep me from harm.

  “Okay, Tinky, you stay here and keep Miss Sheryl warm tonight…and no gettin’ up and wanderin’ into my room or any hairballs for me to find in the mornin’!” Mom quipped. She handed Tinker over, and I buried him under my comforter. His soft fur tickled my arms as he nuzzled into my chest. I let out a small breath of relief when he started to purr.

  “You’ll be a good boy, won’t you Tinky?” I said, stroking his blocky head.

  “Good night, sweetie. Sleep well. I love you,” Mom said. She swiped her warm lips across my damp forehead.

  “Night, Mom,” I squeaked from under the covers.

  After Mom closed the door behind her, I closed my eyes and began talking to Tinker. I rubbed his silky coat with stronger strokes. Sweat beads formed on my brow, making my hairline wet. The harder I rubbed, the louder he purred. The rumbles sounded like he was growling, and I prayed that his growls would keep away the Shadow-Man.

  I wasn’t sure how long it had been, but at some point during the night, I stopped petting Tinker after my hands and body began to relax and my arms grew tired. My constant chatter with Tinker became soft murmurs and eventually subsided when I began to drift off to sleep.