Robert Duperre - The Gate 2 - 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

Hours passed before it all ceased and she was able to fall into a restless sleep.

The midday sun blazed as Abigail walked along the boundary of her land, examining the livestock. Its glare turned her shadow into an image of Medusa, her kinky-curly hair transforming into a wig of snakes. Shaking off a shudder, she went back about her business.

The twenty heads of cattle wandering about had come with the farm, and though Mr. Hollis had promised they were of good stock, all she saw were sickly, mutated beasts. Some had missing or extra legs, some had too many or too few eyes, and all were slender to the point of starvation. Not exactly the perfect specimens, but she shrugged, assuming it would be hard to find better out here in the wastelands, especially considering there were still invisible pollutants lingering in the air that made plants whither and animals spit out teeth, bleed from their gums, and perish in the night.

She’d traveled out here in hopes of building a better life, a quiet existence far away from the crowds of frightened people back home; or at least that’s what she told herself. In reality she was on the run from her pain and her guilt, from the knowledge that the one thing that defined her—motherhood—had been ripped away, leaving her empty inside. Over the last few months she’d pushed her body to the breaking point, traveling when she should have rested her tired bones, withholding nourishment when she should have eaten, staying out in the day when she should have sought shelter from the sun. She lifted her arm and gazed at the hands that emerged from her long, tattered shirt. Her skin had been dark to begin with, but now it was reaching the point of blackness. There were blisters on her feet and fingers, and she had frequent, massive headaches. Sometimes she wondered why she pushed herself so hard, but that line of questioning was nothing but a cover for the truth.

Abigail Browning was torturing herself.

She approached one of her disfigured cattle, a female with an extra withered leg protruding from its hindquarters. It stood apart from the others, facing away from her and releasing a strange, rumbling groan. The beast let out a snort as her fingers traced its bony spine. Its head shot to the rear suddenly and it kicked out with its hind legs. The superfluous leg flopped about and Abigail jumped back, barely avoiding a hoof in the face. She slung her rifle from behind her and shouldered it, just in case the frightened animal decided to charge. It didn’t. Instead it trotted toward the others, who were gathered around the feed bins, feasting on a meager supply of grains.

Abigail stepped to the side as the cow left the scene and spotted the reason the creature had been acting so strangely. There was a calf there, lying on its side. It shivered as if cold, and a puddle of red expanded around it. Abigail moved closer, trying to see over its side, and froze. The poor creature wasn’t moving on its own accord. There was another animal there, a tiny thing with gray, peeling skin, squatting in front of the calf with its head buried in its stomach. Its neck twitched back and forth, causing entrails to flow from the gaping wound in the calf’s underbelly. Abigail slid back the bolt of her rifle, chambering a round.

“Hey!” she shouted.

The monstrosity pulled out of the calf, revealing a bulbous skull and a blood-soaked face that might have once been human. A pair of milky white eyes with tiny black dots for pupils stared at her. The creature had not a hair on its head and its grayish flesh was stretched and shredded. There was a hollow gap where the nose should’ve been. Its cheekbones were too wide, the jaw too narrow, and blood dripped from its frayed chin. It hunkered down, thin ropes of muscle tense, and then leaned forward and hissed. Abigail backed up a step.

The creature swayed from side to side before rising on its skinny legs. In a moment of panic Abigail almost squeezed the trigger, but she paused. There was something about the thing’s posture that hypnotized her. It was no bigger than Nathan had been when he died, and the way it scrunched up its empty nose cavity, exposing its sharp yet gapped teeth, reminded her of the expression that came over her son’s face whenever he tasted something that didn’t agree with him. Her breath hitched and she lowered the rifle. The creature’s shoulders sagged as it stared at her. Its head tilted, with one nub of an ear almost touching its bony shoulder, while virtually nonexistent lips puffed out, making it appear strangely innocent.

Abigail slung the rifle back over her shoulder and stepped forward, wondering why Mort Hollis had never mentioned the presence of these odd beasts. Her old leather moccasins sunk into the blood-drenched dirt. When the liquid swished beneath her feet, the tiny monster bared its jagged, dagger-like teeth and crouched into a defensive position.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

She leaned over the calf and reached her hand toward the thing, waggling her fingers to let it know all was okay. She didn’t know why she did this. The creature had just mutilated one of her cattle. It was a monstrosity. And yet her heart pattered while she stared at it, and somewhere deep down she knew the tiny thing wouldn’t hurt her.

“Take my hand.”

The creature hissed one final time, spun around, and took off. It was fast—faster than a horse, from her perspective—and it cleared the fence in one leap. In a matter of moments it was but a speck on the horizon, rushing up and over the red clay cliffs until it disappeared from sight.

Abigail frowned, staring at the landscape. She wondered how the peculiar little thing survived being out there, all alone in the desert. Strange as it sounded in her own head, she wished it well.

With a sigh she shrugged the rifle off her shoulder, placed it on the ground, and knelt before the dead calf to inspect the damage. She ran her hand over its weathered hide, feeling bumps beneath the flesh, tumors that would’ve one day sprouted extra hooves or tails or whatnot had the poor beast lived. She purposefully kept her eyes away from its gashed stomach. It’s not that she was weak in the presence of blood; she just didn’t want to think of that strange little beast as anything vile.

When she reached the calf’s neck she paused. There she found a festering sore, black and white and red, dripping pus. Lines of infection ran from the wound to its chest, along its sides and across its split belly. She sniffed and smelled the distinct tang of rot.

The calf must have died in the night, which meant her monster—and that’s how she thought of it, as hers —was simply scavenging a carcass. Abigail smiled.

That evening the chorus of howls emerged yet again. Abigail once more tried to block them out, but the wails were louder this time, more insistent, more present. She covered her ears. It didn’t work. So instead she thought about the odd little creature she’d seen earlier that day, praying it would be safe from the beasts that cried out in the night.

“So how’s the old Batchell place?” asked the toothless old woman behind the counter.

Abigail raised her tired eyes. “Fine,” she said. “Not getting much sleep, though.”

The old woman nodded. “The Howlers keeping you up at night, eh?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll happen.” Her crinkled hands tied a knot in the bag of feed Abigail had just purchased and handed it over to her. “That’ll be seven silver.”

“How about four silver and ten copper?”

“Fine.”

Abigail dug through her satchel and removed her coin purse. After dropping the last of her money into the old woman’s hands, she asked, “What are the Howlers, anyway?”