I Live In A Small Town In Texas Called Sanderson, And I Can Tell Something Weird Is Going On

“I was talking to mama, Wade,” Daryl whispered. He grabbed my shoulder down into my collarbone. He led me forward, almost carrying me as my feet dragged across the floor with each step. “She wanted to tell you how much she misses you.” He pushed me through the drapes and towards the bed, my hands desperately trying to pry him off me. He jerked me to a stop, hovering over the edge of the bed. The covers were almost completely up, but I could see a patch of hair poking from the top of the hidden figure. My sweat from the fear and pain was dripping down onto the undulating sheets.

“Mama…Wade’s here,” Daryl said in an almost sweet voice. “Don’t you have something to say to Wade?”

For a few seconds, there was nothing but heavy breathing. Then, all at once, the sheets ripped away and there she was, inches away from my face. Wild white hair sprouting from atop a dark gray wretch. Her skin was like something between tissue and scales, and aside from a bloated gut, she was rail thin and stretched long. Her hands were foot-long claws, tied by restraints at the wrists. Her face was some horrible distortion of the woman I remembered growing up with. Her lower jaw was sunk into her long neck, leaving a gaping hole guarded by a row of three-inch long yellow, rotted upper teeth. Her eyes were long slants of pitch black and her nose was little more than two flaring nostrils. She screeched and spit at me as I squirmed and screamed in response. I couldn’t shake free of Daryl’s iron fucking grasp. He was droning on behind me about something to do with his mama’s illness. How she couldn’t hold back what she was. What she needed. I couldn’t hear most of it, and I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t want my damn face eaten off by this beast. I gave up trying to pry his hand off, and I went for whatever I could grab or punch directly behind me. My hand brushed my back pocket, and that’s when I felt the familiar bulge of my pocket knife. I pulled it free, flipping the blade out as soon as it left the pocket. I jerked it up and over my shoulder. I could feel the blood spray onto my hand as the blade sunk into Daryl’s eye. He threw me aside, joining in his mama’s awful fucking screeching. I smashed into the cabinet and on to the ground. I quickly sprang back to my feet and saw Daryl attempting to pull the knife out from his eye.

“That’s not how we treat family, Wade!” Daryl screamed in a half human voice. His head started to stretch upward as his neck grew long. His upper teeth glided down from his gums while his lower jaw detached and sunk back into his cavernous mouth. He walked towards me as he became more monstrous. With no time to think, I spun around and dove straight through the glass and out of the window. I fell from two storeys onto my side on the hood of the Sheriff’s squad car. My side was on fire with pain, but I scrambled to my feet, with my life on tow. I wasted no time in hauling ass away from the house and towards town. I could hear a single screech echo in the house behind me, quickly joined by two or three others. I didn’t look back.

I somehow made it to the edge of town and darted into an alley behind the general store that was closed for the night. I slid on my knees in between two dumpsters with barely a foot between them. I was already panting pretty heavily and the screeches were starting to echo from every part of town.

I caught my breath between the stench and shadows for a minute as I judged my next move. Thankfully, the switching station was on my side of town. Only a few buildings and the Stripes gas station separated me from it. That’s when I heard a wondrous sound: the distant whistle of an approaching train. This was it. I wasn’t going to get another shot like this. The screeching was still all around, and I could hear them in homes nearby. Things were being broken and shattered as more high-pitched calls into the night arose. Was I the only actual fucking person left in Sanderson? It was time to knock that number down by one and get the hell out of there.

After a brief but thorough scan of my surroundings, I sprinted out of my hiding spot and ran towards the Stripes. I could see that big beautiful neon sign, shimmering like a beacon. I darted behind two buildings and a house before making it to the gas station. As I rounded the last corner, I saw at least half a dozen of those tall, scary motherfuckers. They were lurching through the street with a gangly grace, heads tilted back and foot-long claws dangling forward. I dropped to the ground as soon as I saw them and crawled into a ditch near the gas pumps. They were directly between me and the switching station, and the sound of the train was getting closer. I could even see the light from it start to cut through the night fog a few miles down the track. I couldn’t make it through them, and I didn’t have enough time to try to sneak around long way. I was running out of time. Then, I had an idea.