Pay Back
by HORNS

   I hate the rain. I really don't care about anything, anymore. I'm driving to her house and I'm looking up at the moon.

   It's a full moon and it's as red as a ripe cherry. I start to laugh, and that's something I haven't done in a long. long, time. Hell, as a kid I can't even remember fucking laughing! Aren't kids supposed to be happy?

   My father was a drunken salesman who never came home on Friday until he had finished screwing the red-headed whore that used to walk up and down the street, near the main market place in my home town. The crazy thing about it was he'd let the whole neighborhood see it, and my mother, with her weak will, wouldn't say a word to him. Although I'd hear her crying in her room, all the time. I used to feel sad for her,  until the day , she took me to Father Berklin. And then later when she heard me crying and turned her ears away from the sound. Luckily, my so called father shot himself in the head with a double barrel shotgun, before my ninth birthday and before the judge sentenced him to thirty years for sexual misconduct with a twelve year old girl. My mother is still breathing somewhere in Ohio, but her air is limited now.

   NOW , that thought snaps my mind back into the present, and I swerve my car a hard right to avoid the on-coming bus. I think how delightful it would be if that bus, (carrying all that unless meat that most think of as people), would swerve right of the side of this back country road, ending in a glorious explosion. I look at the CD console and my ears finally tune in the sound of ROB ZOMBIE's howling vocals. My right hand pats the left pocket of my jacket and assures my mind that the object is still there. I drift back into the past again.

  I see Father Berklin, wearing his godly robe and his snake-like smile, as he whispers to my mother who is crying and dressed for travel. She kisses my fore-head and then leaves for good. Father Berklin, with his sour- sweaty smell and black eye's, those same black eye's that watched all the boy's,( whom were unlucky enough to be left in God's care), as they bathed and dressed. I was taught that the man hanging on the cross cared and loved me, just like my mother had. But when Father Berklin hit me with his fist every Wednesday night after sleep time began, always pulling down my underwear after opening his robe, and molesting me and at times biting the back of my head, and never once did he forget to whisper in my ear that God would forgive me for provoking his sin. I knew that helpless looking fool hanging on that cross was exactly like my mother, he turned his ears away from my cries too, just like my mother had. Father Berklin is now a crippled old fuck that gets his ass wiped by some nurses aid at a nursing home not to far from here. Although no courtroom judge or jury has made him pay for his crimes, he's soon to get a speedy trial and execution, any day now.

   A cold gust of wind hits my face, I barely feel it and I start thinking about her. When I first met her I started to feel again, I became weak again. I might have even been in Love. Carrie, her long blond hair and tight ass, and the way she smiled, all of that began to break down my defenses. I started to care again. But it was her that I cared for, only her. In the end, like the rest of them, she betrayed me. I found her two night's ago, (the night before I met the man), with some punk ass loser's dick in her mouth. After all I had given of myself to her, she would turn her back on me!


   I see her house, the light is on in the living room. My mind screams out " Carrie you could have been the one! Carrie you could have shared the power I've been given. But your like the rest, ……..just………sheep! " I stop the car, and leave it running. I walk to the front door, looking at her bedroom window to the right, knowing that she is sleeping. I bust into the trailer home, kicking the door open, just like a police officer in a drug raid. Her mother screams from somewhere in the living room, to my right. I ignore her. I walk down the hall, turn right, and kick open her bedroom door. I can barely see her outline as she jumps up from her sleep. I think to myself, "Damn, soon my senses will be heightened far beyond this mortal shit! " She screams now, or at least I think she does as her mouth widens in fear.

   Grabbing her by the hair, I then drag her up and out , all the way to my car. She's screaming my name, just like when we had sex. But that was when I thought it meant something. I put her inside the car through the drivers door. She scoots over and tries to open the passenger side door. It takes her a long time before she realizes I have removed the lock and window handle. We're moving, fast. She start's crying and yelling at me. I want to rip her head off, her whimpering irritates me like a dog that hears a high frequency transmission. Isn't it funny how when they're wounded and afraid , that they seem to lose their power. Fuck! The whole world is a lie! I'm all I got , and that's the way it's always been.

   We drive for about a half hour. I pull off the main road onto a trail that hasn't been used in a long time. It takes us about a mile into the woods before I have to stop. She is screaming and I look over at her, not really looking at her but through her. In a voice that seems alien to me, I say: "Its pay back time!". I backhand her with my right hand, hard, and she falls unconscious. I step out and move around to her door. I open it and pull her out. Her feet drag against the earth as I pull her over to a nearby tree. With my right hand I search my pants for the key, then realize I left them in the car. Have I forgotten anything else? There's no time for mistakes, no time for anymore weakness! My life begins now, for the first time, it begins! I feel for the object in my jacket and find it's still there. I get the keys and walk to the car trunk. I open the trunk and pull out the chains, I'd put there earlier.

   She starts to become aware again, as I walk over to her. I bend forward to grab her arm and she kicks me in my crotch. One last time she has managed to cause me pain. I drop the chains in reflex to the pain, and she runs for the trail. A second later I begin laughing out loud. I regain my composure and take the object out of my jacket. It's wrapped in a black silk cloth, and I remove it. It's a black glass vile, the size of one of my hands, and it's shaped just like the full moon that's being reflected in it. The cap is made of pure silver. I feel the contained liquid shift around inside it. The man that gave it to me, said it was his blood. The blood of the old ones, the blood of the Beast. The chains were used on him when he showed me his Beast. The same chains were going to be used on Carrie, and I was going to show her my true self. That doesn't matter anyway, she's going to see. She's going to see me as I truly am, and no more will her lies hurt me. I untwist the cap, and a musty smell hits my senses. Looking to the blood red moon I lift the vile and pour a black viscous liquid into my open mouth.

   I lick my lips and a strong metallic taste is in my mouth. Then after a few seconds it hits me, full force, like a freezing lake some dumb ass ice skater fell into when he shouldn't have been on the ice. Am I dying? What's wrong with me? Goddamn, the pain is tremendous! This fucking pain is unreal! I scream and I cringe my body up. I hit the ground hard. The pain makes me flip unto my back, and I arch my back upward. I let out a long scream and then the scream changes into a howl. To my own ears it sounds like some kind of hell hound that has broke loose from Hades.

   The pain stops and my eyes close involuntarily. I'm changing, my body is changing. I really don't feel any suffering as I alter, and then a sudden inhuman strength rushes through every vein, every muscle, and every bone in my entire body. I am strong and I know it! My eye's open and I see a New World before me, the true world that hides behind the facade of mankind. A dark world where hidden motives are no longer
hidden.

   My senses are god-like! I can hear her running, hear her breathing heavy and crying, and I can hear the small rocks roll as they loosen from the earth beneath her feet. But the thing that draws a smile across my salivating snout, is the smell of her fear. I stand about 7' tall, and weigh a ton, I have claws that would make Freddy Kruger run home to his momma, and my teeth are the lengths of dagger blades and just as sharp. I am
covered in a thick midnight black fur and I have a fucking tail!

  I am the monster that hides under the bed at night. I am the devil that the minister speaks of when he throws his fist out at his followers and warns them to stay clear of. I am anger manifested in the flesh, and I'm death to those who have harmed me! I am the hidden side that is kept in a cage by every man. I am a wolf and a man, and Its pay back time!

   I begin the hunt now, and everyone of those bastards will die. If I run into you, I hope you show me the respect I deserve. If you do, then I will respect you likewise. If you don't, then you'll see the devil and you won't like him.

   It's starting to rain again and her blood washes off my claws , jaws, and fur. I have many more people to visit tonight. And I begin running with an incredible speed. The water starts to mat my fur and I remember how much I really hate the rain.

© HORNS

August 1999 HofP