Part One.

Something Appears.

Halishine City never seemed so morbid to Patrick Arthur as he drove slowly through the crowded treets, packed with desperate, honking people, eager to get home. One hand on the wheel, stalled at a red light, Patrick took a few seconds to gaze at the overcast sky above which quickly darkened into what would surely erupt into a torrent of heavy rain. Flipping the knob to signal his turn, Patrick pulled at the wheel and turned to the right once the light changed in hopes of gaining a quicker route to his destination just as the first drops of rain cascaded from the sky and landed on his windshield.
Numbly, Patrick took several turns through the crowded traffic and finally turned onto Rustic Harbour Avenue when the rain picked up. He mechanically pulled up to The Circle’s Corner, a well known clothes store for the more financially stable, and parallel parked just outside. Turning the ignition, Patrick sighed with the car. He waited. Seconds ticked by while his hands remained clamped on the wheel before he decided to chance the rotten weather.
Pushing the door open he jumped out of the car and sprinted underneath the large sign of the store. The black Audi beeped twice, signaling a successful lock. Sighing to himself, Patrick leaned against the thankfully dry, brick wall and pulled out a small pack of cigarettes and a green lighter. Pulling a single cigarette out, he shoved it into his mouth and lit it quickly thereafter. Taking a long drag, the corners of Patrick’s mouth turned up into a grim smile which then depleted into a frown.
Lillian would appear by his side in a matter of minutes which, a few years ago, would have made Patrick incredibly elated. Unfortunately, those years are gone for him. Patrick married Lillian, his college sweetheart, two months after graduation; a day that seemed to promise great things for the two of them on their road to life. But the fairytale all but disintegrated right in front of Patrick’s eyes as he and Lillian fought nearly every day over the littlest things. They always seemed to be on edge with the other; always nitpicking.
He took one last drag before dropping the cancer stick and smothering the ash underneath his shoe. He traded cigarette for breath mint. Lillian absolutely hated when he smoked. Pulling his dark green hooded sweatshirt closer to his lean body, Patrick shivered slightly against the chilly wind which ruffled his pants and short auburn hair.
The door opened and Lillian, the love of his life materialized from the void carrying a small purse and pulling out an umbrella. She barely glanced at him before flipping her black hair to the side and fully opening the gray umbrella.
“Hey,” she sighed.
“Hey,” he muttered simply in return.
Seeking shelter from her umbrella, Patrick unlocked the car and led her to it. Opening the door for her as only a gentlemen would, Lillian slipped quickly into the car, a polite smile on her face. Patrick grinned back, hopeful for this day to be a less stressful one and ran around to the other side of the car. He opened the door and sat down, neatly folding the umbrella before tossing it into the backseat.
“How was work?” he asked, casually pecking her on the cheek and pulling out of his spot.
“Work as usual,” she sighed, her song-like voice ringing through the silence. Patrick accelerated slightly as Lillian continued and leaned back in her seat. “The same people seem to walk in and walk out. There’s no meaning to life anymore.”
“You’re bringing home the bacon, babe,” he chuckled lightly, breathing in the sweet smell of Lillian’s perfume. A fragrance concocted of mango and a flower of some sort.
She snorted before letting the car fall to a low, awkward sort of silence. Patrick turned the wheel down the last street and sighed in relief once the car cleared the city limits. A bright flash of lightning illuminated the dark sky filled with clouds as black as pitch followed by the low growl of thunder. Patrick’s fingers drummed lightly against the steering wheel to the beat of no music but his own when he decided the silence had gone on long enough.
“So-”
“You’ve been smoking again,” she interjected flatly, arms crossed.
“Yes, but-”
“You know I hate it when you do that, Patrick,” she chastised angrily. “Why can’t you just… listen for once in your life?”
Patrick closed his mouth, conceding defeat and continued to drive and attempt to get the two of them home safely. The only sounds in the car was the inexorable torrent of rain as it fell onto the car and cascaded down the windows and windshield. Patrick sighed halfheartedly and signaled the turn onto Bleak Road, the only road to and from Bishop’s Hollow, a small town barely big enough to be put on the map.
Patrick side glanced his wife, though she seemed way too young to be called such a name. Lillian looked like an angel in the soft light, brought upon by the car clock as she gazed out the window into the darkness of the black forest that lined both sides of the road. He returned his attention to the vast expanse of the road just as something flashed and caught his eye to the right. He shook his head, sure he was seeing things; images created from the lightning which flashed frequently now. Then he saw it again, a pair of pale yellow lights which disappeared as soon as they’d come.
“Babe, what’s that on the side of the road?”
Lillian leaned forward to gain a better view of where Patrick was pointing. At first, she thought he was playing a joke on her, then she saw it: pale yellow lights.
“Its probably just a deer,” she murmured and looked at him. He shook his head.
“No, deer are taller and their eyes shine blue or green, not yellow.”
The two of them watched in silence for a few minutes as the yellow lights appeared every couple of feet, then close together as they lined the side of the road.
“Turn on your fog lights, we’ll see what it is better,” Lillian suggested in an awed voice while Patrick flicked the lights on.
They gasped in unison at what the light revealed. Hundreds of dogs lined the both sides of the road, sitting still on their haunches, watching the passing car intently with the silent stillness of a lion watching its prey right before an attack. Their pale yellow eyes reflected the light eerily as Patrick guided the car past them. A sudden fear wrenched at Patrick’s insides and twisted them with anxiety and an eagerness to get home as quickly as possible, safe and unhindered.
He felt his foot apply pressure slowly to the accelerator.
“Patrick, slow down. What if you hit one of the dogs?” he heard Lillian’s voice beside him. For once, her clear, bell-like voice didn’t register in his brain.
“Patrick,” she warned him again, yet the impulse to press on grew and spread throughout his body like a bacterium.
Watching those glowing eyes seemed a siren’s song to Patrick as the car accelerated through the rain and torrential winds, through the lightning and through the thunder. Lillian’s voice seemed more urgent now and Patrick wasn’t sure what he was in a hurry for. He knew he needed to get home.
Then, illuminated by the electricity in the sky and the car’s headlights, a black, hulking figure stalked out from the deep forest. Its body shone in the fog lights as the frame walked in a limping, doubled over fashion. The rain pounding in currents upon the strange creature’s body.
“PATRICK!” Lillian screamed and slapped him on the head with as much force as she could to bring him out of his trance. She watched Patrick, in horror, shake his head and pound on the break, lurching the car as well as its passengers forward. The tires squealed and slipped on the slick road as Lillian watched her husband yank the steering wheel to veer the car to avoid hitting the mysterious creature.
Lightning flashed, illuminating bright eyes, swirling with an inwardly fire. The pair of luminous orbs locked with Patrick’s own pale green ones before the side of his black Audi connected with the inhuman creature with a satisfying crunch. With a sight of relief and the squealing tire sounds fading into the distance, Patrick finally released the wheel as the car had come to a complete stop.
Beside him, he could hear Lillian’s thin, quick, whimpers as she clutched the seatbelt in front of her. Resting his forehead on the steering wheel Patrick let out a choking exhalation of breath.
“A-are you okay?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she replied breathlessly. Then she looked at him, her eyes full of questions and accusations. “What did we hit? What was that thing?”
Forehead still on the wheel, Patrick shook his head and numbly shrugged his shoulders.
“That was no deer,” he murmured and faintly felt his arm reaching to push the door open, letting the rain drip on his pant leg.
“What are you doing?” Lillian asked cautiously, reaching out to put a hesitant hand on his arm.
“I need to see what I hit, you can come of stay in the car,” he replied curtly and stepped into the pouring rain, slamming the door behind him.
Letting the cool rain slide down the length of his body and dampen his clothes, Patrick slowly made his way to the dark bulk which lay on the ground in a crumpled heap, illuminated by the lightning crawling across the sky. He took a quick look around him and saw several pairs of eyes illuminated by both the head and tail lights, gazing intently at him, unmoving and unblinking. Moving closer to the body, he heard a door slam shut and footfalls behind him. Lillian appeared by his side in a matter of seconds, holding an umbrella above their heads with her right hand, and a flashlight in the other.
Flipping it on, the beam flew across the space and remained locked on the dark body, only to be interrupted by the droplets of rain falling through the light. Patrick inched from underneath the shelter of Lillian’s umbrella to inspect the strange creature. When he neared a two foot radius of the carcass, a strong, rancid odor invaded his nostrils, causing him to gag audibly.
“Patrick, are you alright?”
Placing a hand over his nose and breathing from his mouth, Patrick answered with the affirmative. He stooped down as best he could in his soaked clothes to inspect and ebb his raging curiosity. He motioned to Lillian who skittered up behind him and placed the flashlight in his outstretched hand.
Lillian watched as her husband aimed the flashlight to get a better view of the body and even dared to touch it.
He uttered a disgusted noise and, when he pulled his hand away, Lillian watched as a clear substance stuck both to his hand and the carcass. Shaking his hand frantically, the clear ooze flew every which way as Patrick stood erect.
“What is it?” Lillian asked cautiously.
“I don’t know. Some kind of animal I think. No animal I’ve ever seen,” he replied. He strode past her, ignoring the sickening wet feeling of his clothes clinging to his legs. Lightning flashed again as Patrick opened the trunk and rifled through its contents.
“Pat, what are you doing?” Lillian asked. When he didn’t answer, she waited in a huff, crossing her arms as best she could while still holding the umbrella, her legs wet from the torrent they stood in.
When he turned around, Patrick held up two large garbage bags and a three multicolored bungee cords. He stooped down next to the body and slid it awkwardly into the garbage bags. Lillian stood behind her husband, holding her nose due to the stench, and held the umbrella over his head in vain as he was soaked to the bone.
Releasing a grateful sigh for the absence of the deathly smell, Patrick sealed the bags with the bungee cords, hitching each one around the body.
“You’re not going to take that thing with us,” Lillian said, it wasn’t a question.
“We can’t just leave it here, someone will hit it.”
“What are we going to do with it, Patrick? It smells terrible, we don’t even know what it is!” On either side of the road, a frantic stirring distracted the two adults. The strange dogs were on their feet now illuminated by the intermittent flash of the lightning.
While she was distracted, Patrick picked up the body and lugged it to the trunk of the car, making a great effort as the body was unnaturally heavier than it looked. Lillian’s sharp protests bounced off Patrick’s consciousness as he heaved the body into the car and shut the trunk securely.
He jogged around to the driver’s side and opened the door, gazing at Lillian.
“Either you get in now, or you’re walking home,” he said. Lillian quickly surveyed the dozens of different dogs standing at attention before wrenching open the door and sliding inside, throwing the umbrella into the backseat.
They drove in silence the remainder of the way home, all the while watched by the mysterious flashing eyes of the stray dogs, standing at attention gazing at the car longingly and as if the two inside were on Death Row.

Author's Note

Enjoy.