The Damned Thing

The Damned Thing

I
One Does Not Always Trust What is Written in Blood

Detective Robert Jones had decided he hated morgues the first time he ever stepped foot in one. The cold air sent shivers throughout his body, and the dim, flickering lighting allowed the shadows to taunt him as they vanished and reappeared. Sometimes, as was the case presently, a body lay on the blood-stained table in the center of the room. Despite this, it was the rows of steel doors that terrified him the most, with their silent secrets concealed within. One too many horror movies always made the normally suave detective uneasy whenever he had to visit this dreary place.
Jones’ gaze fell on the cold body before him. The man’s face looked so calm and peaceful that he could have been sleeping, if not for the gaping tear in his throat, and the strange message scrawled in blood across his chest. John Marcus, the chief of police, was once again speaking, drawing Jones’ attention back from the naked corpse on the table.
“What did the autopsy reveal Horris?” The chief addressed a diminutive man with skin the color of printer paper. As far as Jones knew, the beady-eyed coroner hadn’t left the morgue since being appointed there decades previously.
A broad smile sprouted enthusiastically across the ancient face as he laughed in a wheezy voice, “Haha! This one tried to trick me, he did.” Horris turned, now addressing the corpse. “Thought you could pull the wool over me eyes, didn’t cha? But old Horris is cleverer than you!” Horris began dancing around wildly, giggling and spinning his arms with delight.
The chief seemed prepared to wait for this outburst to stop. Jones, on the other hand, was not so patient. Two quick strides placed him directly in front of the ludicrous coroner. With a firm hand on Horris’ shoulder, Jones stopped him from spinning and looked straight into his eyes.
“What did you find,” Jones said, enunciated each word slowly and carefully.
The coroner, still smiling, emitted a shout of delight and scurried over to the corpse. “This,” he said, pointing to the slashed throat, “is not what killed him!” Suddenly Horris burst into laughter, collapsing to the floor and rolling side-to-side while clutching his sides. Jones shuddered. The coroner’s sense of humor had always unnerved the detective.
Jones decided he had had enough. In one swift motion he hefted the still chuckling doctor from the floor, pinning him to a column of steel doors.
“If that didn’t kill him, what did?”
“His heart… it’s gone!”
Jones released his grip, stepping backwards in shock. “Gone,” he gasped, “but how?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue!” announcing this seemed to delight the coroner. “There are no wounds or incisions, it is just gone. Poof!” Horris made a cryptic gesture with his hand before he was overcome by laughter once more.
Jones glanced up at the police chief, and saw the horrified look on his face reciprocated on his superior’s. Horris may be as mad as they come, but his word could be trusted. If that old fool said that the heart was missing, then missing it was.
“So the throat was slashed to get blood for the message?” Jones looked to the chief as he spoke.
“It seems that way,” the chief replied, “speaking of that message though, do you have it recorded?”
Jones nodded and produced a small pad from a jacket pocket. He began to read.


II
What May Happen When Followed by Death

This man’s death was set; nothing could have stopped it. He was next on the list, and once you’re on the list nothing can save you.
As soon as I discovered his identity I rushed to find him. I searched everywhere for this man, and to my delight I was successful. I found him first, so there was still some time.
For a while I followed him at a distance. I studied him, made note of his habits, but it wasn’t long before he noticed my presence. It was his dog that gave it away. That giant husky could smell trouble a mile away. I believe it sensed my intentions, and it growled and whined if I ever got too close, putting his master on alert.
I was determined to give this man as much time as possible before I completed my task, but it seemed that what time he had left was running out. He began setting traps for me, trying to catch me as I wandered trailed behind him discreetly. My footprints began to appear all around the grounds of the cabin in which he lived. Every day I heard him swear angrily as he inspected the most recent set of prints with shotgun in hand.
Soon the voices started. I knew because of the screams that tore into the night in that generally isolated and quite area. Strange behavior began too; sometimes he would spend all day sitting on the stump outside his house, staring at the knife poised over his chest. There wasn’t much time left.
Then one day I knew the end had come. It was the middle of the night and I had been sleeping curled up near the house. The man didn’t sleep much anymore. He spent most waking hours searching for me, for by now he was convinced some great creature was stalking him. He was right too, if I do say so myself.
That night he walked out of the house much later than was typical. He carried no weapon, but looked straight a head and marched to a small hillock. Once there he gazed upward at the moon. Suddenly he seemed to snap back to reality, looking around quickly. No doubt he was wondering why he was outside in nothing but his Mickey Mouse boxers.
He turned back to his house and yelled in surprise when he saw the name scrawled in blood there. I looked too and memorized it quickly. The next name on the list always appears right at the end of the previous one’s life.
I knew I had no choice then. There was only one way left to protect this man, so I took it. He heard my approach, and I was glad to see the fear in his face replaced with acceptance. In an instant I held his heart in my jaws.


III
A Man Though Bloody May Not Bleed

Jones looked up at from message. The room would have been silent if not for the cackling of the deranged coroner.
“Could the killer really have written this?” Jones whispered, still horrified over the possibilities. The chief was gazing across the room, deep in thought. Jones noticed in his hand a video camera, which the detective had not seen before. “Sir?” The chief snapped back, looking straight at Jones with a concluded look on his face. The video camera quickly disappeared into his pocket.
“Sorry I was distracted. What were you saying? Right, right, the killer. It seems the only explanation. This man lived far away in the woods in an area rarely used by hunters.”
“The throat was slashed perhaps only moments after the heart was removed.” Horris had momentarily stopped his giggling, but his face contorted as he collapsed in hysteria once more.
“That proves it,” Jones put in. “It must have been written by the killer. “What’s on the videotape boss?”
Chief Marcus hesitated for an instant then replied, “this camera was found on the victim. It seems he recorded his last hours and some time before that, but the files were corrupted. Little was discernable save the time stamps on each clip.”
Jones sighed. Things never seemed simple anymore, but he knew there was one chance. Never in his life had Jones seen the chief hesitate. Something was not right.
“Let’s get out of this place for now,” Jones said as he turned hopefully to the exit. “Crazy over there doesn’t need our help. We’re just slowing him down.”
The chief nodded and the two men quickly climbed the stairs, escaping the horrific room. As they climbed Jones noticed the chief seemed absorbed in thought once more. Suddenly he bumped into Marcus, uttering a hasty apology as they reached the top of the stairs.
Some hours later, Jones arrived home. With fumbling fingers he removed the camera he had snatched from the chief’s pocket and connected it to his TV screen. He held down the rewind button until he reached the beginning of the film. It was definitely not destroyed.


IV
The Desperation Before the Tomb

The camera caught flashes of the inside of the cabin, as the dead man yelled almost hysterically at it. His quavering arms offered no stability for the camera and his face kept popping in and out of the frame.
“The voices,” he yelled, “they won’t leave! They are starting to take over! Last night I found the prints again; I think this is the creature’s doing. Look I’ll show you! I’ll prove I’m not mad!”
Suddenly the camera began bouncing around as the man from the cabin. Nothing distinct could be made out until the camera settled moments later on compression in the ground. The camera waved back and forth, revealing a trail of these strange prints across his yard.
“See?” he shouted excitedly, “I’m not crazy! The prints are real, and so is the voice! My hunting dog noticed it first! He started growling the day the prints first appeared. He’s been growling at something every day since.” The clip ended and the next one started.
This time the man was crying, a look of mixed frustration and terror on his face.
“It won’t stop,” his screams were interspaced between heavy sobs. “There is nothing I can do! It tells me to kill them, the townsfolk. It says to bring down my gun and kill them all. I can’t, I won’t! I’m no killer!”
He suddenly clutched his head, wailing loudly, “Get out! I won’t do it!” A knife had appeared in his hand, and hovered inches from his heart. “Let me do it! Why won’t you let me end it? I just want to die!”
The screen went blank once more, and a slightly more calm face appeared on the Television screen.
“It’s saying I have to kill them. I don’t think I have a choice anymore. I keep waking up by the front door holding enough ammunition to take out the whole town. I think it can control me in my sleep!”
At this point the false calm slipped and the exasperated terror returned. “It’s even taking control when I’m awake! I keep trying to kill myself but I can’t. I want to call the cops but I can’t! He stops me. I am trapped, isolated with no hope of escape. I don’t want to escape anymore!” The furious sobbing had started again. “I just want to die! Please just let me die!” A shivering hand reached forward and ended the clip.
The last segment was indistinct. The dead man held the camera in his hand, but did not aim it at anything in particular; it swung in his grip, catching blurred images of the ground. Suddenly he stopped, and after a few moments he gasped in horror.
“How did I get here!” he shouted, “No no no no no! It has control!” At this point he seemed to notice the camera in his hands. It jerked and twisted, and then settled on a compressed patch of grass much larger than any of the footprints.
“It’s there!” he said quietly. “It’s watching us! It’s the Damned Thing!”
Suddenly the patch divided into to four smaller prints, which began hurrying towards the man.
He shouted with glee, “Yes, come and kill me! End my pain at last!” He laughed with delight as the invisible force seemed to impact him, and then collapsed to the ground. The camera fell too, the video flickering as it impacted the ground. The final few frames saw the cabin clearly, and a name scrawled in blood across it.
Smeared across the wall in deep red was the name Robert Jones.

Words: 1995