Digger - The Doctor Will See You Now by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 29

As soon as he was dressed, Ryan drove to Portland. Silverware could be purchased anywhere, but there was a store just outside town in Scarborough where one could get almost anything on the cheap. He would find what he wanted there. And after walking into the large department store, he asked a clerk to direct him to the housewares department. After several minutes of searching, Ryan located the stock of silverware. There were many styles to choose from, but he was only interested in purchasing steak knives and as many as he could find. He walked out of the store with every knife in stock. At checkout, the girl at the register looked at the number of knives Ryan had laid in front of her, then gave him a suspicious glance. His response was not only quick but brilliant. He informed the young woman that he was having a party at his cabin at Lake Sebago, and he needed more steak knives than he had. He even went so far as to invite her. Seeing that he was only buying steak knives, she gracefully declined.

Ryan’s next stop was Home Depot. His plan required rope, and he thought two hundred feet would probably be enough. The color was important. It needed to blend in and finding brown braided hemp, he bought an entire roll. This time, there were no strange looks from the staff. People bought items in bulk all the time, so this was no more unusual than anything else they had seen. On his way back to the cabin, Ryan went over his plan in detail. He would string the rope between numerous trees at the edge of the woods. Surrounding each of them would be a group of steak knives. Their handles pushed deeply into the ground, leaving their shimmering steel blades pointing menacingly skyward. He would, however, put one aside for his own use. When the time came, he would act quickly and without the slightest shred of mercy. Often, with the absence of sanity comes the disappearance of one's conscience. It wasn't that Ryan had lost his sense of right and wrong. He had lost everything -- right versus wrong, real versus fantasy, thinking versus acting. His intentions had taken on a single-minded life of their own. His only goal was to chase down the thing that menaced him and invaded his home. He refused to let whatever it was, human or otherwise, gnaw at his fear and steal away his life. If his actions amounted to murder, so be it. The result would be another specimen for the table. He had already killed once. What was one more? In the grand scheme, no one gets out alive anyway, and Ryan made no attempt to rationalize what he was about to do. Anything that could crawl up the side of a house couldn't possibly be human, in spite of the tracks it left. He would chase it into the woods, towards one of the trip ropes, and hopefully onto one of the many blades standing amongst the edge of the Pines. Only when it was dead would he regain his life. He could move on with his work, unimpeded by the specter, whose only trace was the remains of flour stamped out around his cabin, up the side and into his open bedroom window. It no longer mattered how it got in or out. What mattered to Ryan was that it ended up dead.

He spent that afternoon cutting lengths of rope, tying them between pairs of trees along the edge of the woods. About five feet on each side, he placed two or three steak knives -- their handles buried, their blades at a slight angle toward the ropes. After setting up a dozen traps, Ryan withdrew to the cabin, where he was prepared to stay up all night if it meant catching this thing. Once inside, he put on a pot of coffee and planned on spending the night in complete darkness, watching, listening. Hearing the wind rustle through the pines surrounding the cabin sent his heart racing. But it was only the wind, and the threat it presented came only from his imagination.

Throughout the night, Ryan fought to keep his eyes open. In spite of the almost constant flow of coffee, his mind became insistent on drifting off into a much-needed sleep. But after a few hours, his mind was jerked into alertness by the sound of scuffling just outside the cabin door. At least, that's what it sounded like. The night tends not only to magnify sounds but leave them twisted and bent out of shape. The flow of a river could easily become mutated into the sound of traffic or a crowded room's random chatter. But it was only one sound, a single occurrence of something that felt out of place -- something that should never be heard in any wooded area, day or night.

He got up from the kitchen table, and, picking up the steak knife, Ryan carefully made his way through the darkness towards the door. Putting an ear to its rough, grainy surface, he listened. Even the smallest sound might be tracked down and its source vigorously eliminated. But the night revealed nothing, and Ryan wondered if one small, indistinct note played from within the dark symphony of the night was worth the risk of roaming the woods, only to scare off what he vowed to kill.

Ryan stepped away from the door, unsure if he should be relieved or scared out of his mind. The quiet can wreak horrible madness on the unprepared psyche. He took a deep breath in an attempt to clear his mind, to push the mounting tension from his body. But as he walked back into the kitchen, Ryan froze into a nearly catatonic stillness by a form that darkened the bottom half of the window. The moonlight shone through the window, rendering it a silhouette and, thus, absent of detail. But there it was, whatever it was, staring through the window as it examined the cabin’s interior. Was it just curious, or was it looking for something specific? Ryan stared in terror as he heard what sounded like fingernails scraping down the window pane. He took a small step closer when the dark figure suddenly turned towards him, and in its own fearful response, it leaped off the ground, clamored up the side of the cabin, and scampered across the roof.

"Jesus Christ!" Ryan yelled.

He ran to the window and looked up toward the roof. "What the fuck is that?!"

He heard footsteps circling from the top of the roof, then become silent. Still gripping the knife, Ryan ran toward the door. He fumbled with the locks until all three were free, and throwing the door open, he jumped down the stairs and ran towards the dirt road. Looking back towards the cabin, the unearthly light of the full moon revealed nothing. Whatever it was, it had simply disappeared. "Fuck!" he screamed.

He began to feel as though he was fighting a losing battle. What could he possibly do against something that could jump off the ground and crawl up the side of the house? He suddenly became lightheaded and dropped to his knees. His breath quickened as he began to question what his eyes and ears had shown him.

"This can't be real," he whispered. "God, I hope this is just a bad dream."

But there was nothing Ryan had ever dreamed of that was this vivid -- this visceral. Dreams can sometimes mislead the dreamer. Their lifelike clarity can bring an intensity that can be remembered for days, leaving the mind haunted by its own dark creation.

Ryan's mind was abruptly alerted by a glimpse of movement from the woods, and seeing it from the corner of his eye prompted an immediate reaction. But as quickly as he turned his head, whatever it was that drew attention was gone. Once again, Ryan felt the night crowd itself around him. He knew he wasn't alone and could feel the staring of eyes upon him. He could yell and curse all he wanted, but he got the impression that if it came out of the woods, it would do so when it chose to. He felt its presence everywhere. Just another glance of movement was all he needed, and within only moments, he saw the dark form pass through a small open area to the right of the cabin. Ryan's body suddenly filled itself with adrenaline as he sprang to his feet and ran into the darkness, darting through the trees and leaping over roots the moon was gracious enough to reveal. But his elusive quarry had escaped, leaving Ryan staring out among the trees, hoping to glimpse it again.

Ryan stepped lightly through the woods. Having only moonlight to guide him, he was forced to make a slow but steady advance. Searching several yards beyond the tree line, he made certain to keep the cabin within view while also making sure to avoid the traps he had previously set out that afternoon. Occasionally looking out at the cabin's open surroundings, Ryan was hoping the thing he hunted would come out of the woods, knowing it had something of a habit of circling the cabin. Perhaps it would come out long enough to do so again. With that in mind, Ryan thought it might be to his advantage to stay put and wait. He continued to see movement in the woods. It was both brief and slight. So much so that Ryan couldn't be certain if he was seeing anything at all. Its silence only made him even more doubtful of his senses. But there were many creatures in the woods that could move with such silence. However, they could not be the size of a man and still able to climb the side of a two-story cabin.

He sat for what felt like an eternity, waiting. Ryan didn't care how long it took. He wanted this over. He wanted whatever he was chasing dead. But as quickly as it had disappeared, it suddenly reappeared. It lightly trod the ground in short, quick steps as it ran from the front of the cabin and toward the woods. Ryan acted quickly, knowing that it was unlikely he'd get a second chance, and getting to his feet, he broke out from the tree line, running straight toward the figure whose shape had been silhouetted by the moon. As he closed in, he brought the steak knife back to his hip. The blade caught a glint of moonlight as Ryan prepared to attack. There was no time for fear. There was no time for anything. Ryan closed the distance like a wild animal. He was right on top of it, close enough to lunge out with the knife. But just as his arm began to move the blade, the shadowy figure vanished. It was as if Ryan had run straight through it.

He stopped dead, tripping over his own feet. Standing up, Ryan held the knife out, aiming at something that was no longer there. Looking in all directions, he discovered that what he had come so close to overtaking had completely disappeared. He wondered if he had simply been chasing empty space, a moving hole created by a mind balanced on the fulcrum of reality. But there he stood, his fear boiling to the surface. The moonlit woods had become hauntingly still. The screaming silence was mind-numbing and absolute. Ryan felt as though he had been suddenly transported to another world—cold and lifeless. One was ruled by living shadows floating among the rocks and trees, against a dimly lit landscape that quietly whispered its warning to anyone who dared enter.

The night was growing old. Still, it maintained its terrifying darkness as the moon's unobstructed light stretched out a host of living shadows. But the abundant silence was suddenly broken by the almost inaudible fracturing of something that had found its home in the forest. It was loud enough to catch Ryan's ear, pointing him towards its exact location. By this time, he had become so single-minded in his chase that caution had been completely discarded as he walked quickly toward the woods, still clutching the knife. Among the trees, Ryan again saw a flash of movement, a torso and head. An arm reached out to a pine tree as it quickly darted through the woods. Ryan quickened his pace to a jog, and although the moment had been brief, he believed he'd seen enough to make a guess as to its direction.

Racing toward the edge of the woods, he drifted left. His guess had been correct. It was right in front of him, but running into the moonlight still left it only as a dark shape leaping through the woods. He was almost within stabbing distance when he stumbled again. Even in the moon's glorious light, it was difficult to see the ground. He reflexively put his arms and hands out ahead of himself so as to break his fall. But in a momentary lapse, Ryan had forgotten where his hidden traps were set, and between the force of his falling body and the placement of one of the knives, the tip of its blade pierced his eye. The continued movement of his head only served to drive it in deeper. The stainless steel blade had sliced through his eye, leaving it almost in exact halves. Ryan’s screaming could be heard from the main road, two miles away. But with no one to hear it, he lay at the mercy of what he had been hunting. Now, there was another problem, one that was far more serious, and Ryan should have seen it coming. The trip ropes were everywhere and nearly impossible to see in the dark. Ryan had managed to stumble over one, landing on one of the upturned steak knives. Although the wound was oddly painless, Ryan could feel its blade lodged deeply in his chest.

Turning his head to the side took the pressure off his cleft eye, amounting to only a slight reduction in pain. But given his newly discovered circumstances, this would be of little use in prolonging his life. Somehow, Ryan knew the blade had struck something critical. Many injuries can be mended if properly tended to. But some things are simply beyond repair, and Ryan knew the clock was ticking. He began to feel the warmth of his blood soaking into his shirt as he heard a familiar voice from several feet in front of him. Tipping his head up slightly, Ryan was surprised to hear the voice of his mother.

"Mom?" he said quietly.

His voice was weakening by the moment. "What are you doing here?"

His mother was alive and well. But there was no possibility she could be wandering the woods of Lake Sebago at night. However, as his life ran out onto the ground, something deep within him needed his mother, perhaps for just a few lasting moments of comfort. Her image knelt in front of him.

"Ryan," she began. "Everything's okay. This won't take long."

At that moment, something grabbed his ankles. He knew that if the knife moved, even in the slightest degree, death would certainly arrive much faster. But his inborn need to survive refused to yield, and Ryan again screamed in terror, and as his legs were being raised off the ground, his fingers began to dig themselves into the cool earth. The backward motion of his body forced the knife to quickly become angulated. It's edge carving through the topmost vessels of his heart. Death followed immediately, and as Ryan's body was being dragged back to the cabin, a wide, heavy smear of blood trailed from his chest. There would be no rescue, no intervening of divine will. It seemed that God had written him off as a lost cause, a soul polluted by madness, damaged beyond repair -- even by the standards of the Almighty.