Chapter 35

David and Wendy: Wound too Tight. Chapter 35.

The figure ran from the shack ... but not from inside ... this time the camera was following the camera man as he fled.

There was just enough moonlight to see the square corners and straight lines of the shacks and packing crates and even tattered tarps artfully arranged so the good pieces covered the torn sections of the tarp below.

There was one lucky family, they had a trailer tarp. Sheet rubber reinforced with rope sewn edges and metal grommets for stake holes ... pallet flooring and some long tossed carpet from a real house. They never got rained on and the grease drum stove kept them toasty all the long winter. Hot in the sultry summer though.

The rushing man never noticed.

Behind him there was a garbling and grumbling ... faster! No ... not faster ... slink!

Behind a small grouping ... a square of shacks ... the moon shown it's light on two figures ... He stopped ... thought to give a warning ... then he saw the outlines of two heads ... long toothy snouts like possums mouths talking to each other ... black noses sniffing the air. A paw with long fingers tipped with fingernails like thick claws shown in the moonlight ... sparkling tips dripping with something dark.

They were grinning ... bending down and tearing something ... ripping and grinding it ... each one came up with something meaty and dripping ... he could see them swallow in the moonlight and grin at each other ... hair rough and shaggy around stiff collars.

They were man sized but he knew they weren't men. They looked his way but he must have been downwind and in shadows because they both dragged a dirty sleeve across a dripping mouth and bent to rip and tear again. This time ... when they came back up he could see the fingers of a hand, white in the moonlight, sticking out of the side on the larger one's mouth ... the bones crunching.

There in the moonlight feasting on some poor soul.

He crept back farther into the shadows ... back further still ... until ... he hit something softer than a tree but harder than a man ... it was all course and wiry hair...

David woke up again ... clawing at nothing.

"Something evil this way comes," he said quietly..."Something evil this way comes." Chanting it over and over ... louder and louder... "Something evil this way comes. Something evil this way comes. Something evil this way comes. Something evil this way comes. Something evil ... something evil ... something evil ... EVIL COMES!" Shouting now!

"David, wake up." Wendy was slapping his face.

"EVIL COMES!"

Slap! "Wake up!"

"EVIL COMES!"

SLAP! "WAKE UP!"

"DAVID!!"

"OW!"

"WAKE UP!"

"OW! Quit hitting me." David was trying to get his arms out of the covers ... He was all tied up in the sheet ... wrapped up like a winding cloth ... laid in a shallow grave ... his arms came loose and he threw them around Wendy ... trying to get close enough so she couldn't hit!

The light turned on ... everyone was in the room...

"Bad Dream ... Really Bad," he said. He started to explain...

"Don't!" Mina, Bill and Megan all spoke..."Don't tell it until you eat something. It'll come true if you don't eat first." It came out in a rush...

"I'm awake, I'm awake. Wendy ... you can stop hitting me. I'm awake."

"So is the rest of the house." Mina said, "Since we're up ... someone cook breakfast. I want to hear this one."