Rustle, Oklahoma

The night was in stark contrast to four hours ago. Thick clouds blanket the moon turning the world black. As if the small town of Rustle was inside of a dark orb. Out on the dirt road going to Lisa’s, it felt like I was traveling through a tunnel. The only lights were the small orbs from the porch in the distance and my headlights.

I arrived at Lisa’s gate, fifteen minutes after she called me, and got out of my car to open it. The hinges screamed as the gate went inward. I quickly drove my car into the lot, parking behind Lisa’s car, and got out. While driving, my eyes kept closing and my breathing was heavy, now I was awake. The more I drove the more I thought of Lisa’s scared voice and Richard writhing around waiting for me to arrive.

I sped walk on the gravel path leading to the house’s front steps. In the dead of night, the house was intimidating and shrouded by the same darkness taking over our town. It looked abandoned and empty if not for the light reflected on an upstairs window and the white porch light. I stepped up and tried the knob. The door didn’t open. I gave the door three loud knocks. Waiting, I turned and scanned the empty field. Rubbing my face, wondering what might be out there. Suddenly, a chill crawled down my spine. I would have shuddered, but the opening door snapped me around.

Lisa’s grey streaked, auburn hair was done up in a messy bun. Her eyes were swollen red from crying, she was in a rose-pink silk gown. She had put on a white, plush bathrobe over her nightwear and white, fluffy slippers. “Billy, thank God,” her voice squeaked mixed with fear and desperation. “Quick, up the stairs into the bedroom.”

I stepped inside and she shut the door. Light came in from the living room. It’s orange, muddy glow made the house seem lonelier and quieter. As I walked up the stairs, I felt like a specter. Occupying, haunting, a dead and forgotten place. Walking up, I began noticing what I missed before. Finally seeing the dust on the frames and handrail. Finally spotting the cobwebs at the corners. I realized now just how deeply the shade resided inside.

I looked over my shoulder at the tiny, frail woman. Catching a glimpse of just how shaken she is. Her hands rubbed and moved around one another nervously. Her shoulders were scrunched and trembling. Lisa was taking deep, quivering breaths that rattled her skeleton. My heart began beaten faster. Mental images of what would be behind their bedroom door shot through my head. Each worse and worse than the last. When I made the last step and began walking down the hall. My strides became shorter and shorter. I felt my hands tremble. Why am I so afraid?

Suddenly, ashamed by my fear, I puffed up my chest and marched forward. Deterred once more by the painful gasping coming from the crack of the bedroom door. I was only twenty feet away, and I could hear his terrible, rasping breathing. It sounded like the buck my brother and I had hunted with my father when Henry had turned thirteen. Lisa whimpered behind me. This isn’t right…I took a step and made the sign of the cross. Lord, give me strength.

I threw the door open taking in the full view of Richard laying on the bed. He’s only wearing blue briefs. His shiny, sweat covered pale body rising and falling. Richard’s pot belly shook slightly as he took another raspy breath. Richard’s fist griped the green linen sheets tightly, twisting them and revealing the mattress. Richard was burying the back of his head into a white pillow, he rubbed it back and forth, lips pulled back revealing his clenching teeth. Richard heard me walking towards him. He opened his eyes and whispered softly, “Billy?”

“I’m here, Richard. Let’s get you to the hospital. C’mon,” I moved my arm under his legs and try to get him to raise his body for me. Richard didn’t, he closed his eyes and moaned, then a burst of breath came from his lips. He arched his body up slightly. It was just enough for me to slide and squeeze my hand between his back and bed. His body was clammy, drenching the sheets with sweat.

“Billy’s going to take us to the hospital, Richard. You’re going to be alright, ok? It’s going to be fine,” Lisa spoke to her husband. She stood beside his head, stroking it, and then planted a kiss on his forehead glistening from the same muddy orange glow as below.

He opened his eyes weakly. They fluttered, closed, and opened slightly. “Wait…”

“Let go of the bed Richard. C’mon, I’ll get you help,” I tried pulling him up, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Stop…” his voice was too light to hear. But Lisa, standing beside him, leaned closer. “…wait…stop…”

“Billy, he’s saying to stop,” Lisa gripped my right arm with skeletal hands.

I looked at her incredulously. “But Lisa—”

“STOP!” Richard twisted his body away from my hands. I tried to grab him, despite his cries and pain, he needed medical attention. This was bad, perhaps I was being rash, but he looked near death. Staying here any longer would not do him good. Resting any longer would only kill him, I thought and tried to say. Instead, I gave a shout of pain.

“AH! What the—” I pulled my right hand away from Richard’s back. My palm was red and hot to the touch. It felt like that time I grabbed a log from the fire my dad had made out at a campsite. I wanted to hold a flaming stick, to see how it felt to like the explorer I seen in a movie. Instead, the smoldering wood burned me good. This felt just like then. Richard’s back was smoking. His skin crackling. The burnt smell of flesh and body hair filling my nostrils.

“Richard!” Lisa cried, her hands hovering over him. Lisa’s eyes were bulging with terror. She jumped away with a yelp as Richard twisted around to her with another cry, “Graaah!” His fists clenching the sheet twisted them closer to him. His feet kicked out, striking, shaking the frame of the bed. Richard slammed the back of his head into the pillow. Spittle coming from his mouth. His eyes were red, tears streaming down the side of his face.

“Buuurrrns!”

“Lisa! You said the doctor prescribed cooling cream? Grab it and bring it,” I ordered Lisa, but she was too shocked to move. “Lisa! Focus.” She looked at me with blurry eyes. “Grab the cooling ointment or whatever it is and bring it to me.” Lisa nodded and ran towards the restroom in the room. I walked over to Richard and leaned towards his face.

“Richard,” he continued to groan as I spoke. “I need you to let go so I can flip you over,” there smell of burnt flesh filled the room. The thin, tendrils of steam coming off him filled my eyes and caused me to sweat. “Richard, let go so I can turn you.”

He opened his eyes and gave a grudging nod. I saw Richard’s hands open slowly and began turning his body. I heard a terrible sound followed by a nauseating smell. It was the sound of gum being smacked, the squelching of mud, and the tearing of cloth. The smell was almost like the meat from the barbecue, sweet and meaty, it made my stomach roil. Lisa gasped and I heard something fall on the ground. I didn’t turn to look.

Richard’s flesh from where it had been burn sloughed off and stuck onto the sheet in a black, crispy, mess. There were blacken holes in the sheet. Pieces of linen stuck around the burn marks on his back. There were six of them. Two columns, in rows of three. The blackened spirals of burned muscle like coiled snakes. Each of the columns began just below the shoulder blades going to just above the waistline.

“Lisa, call nine-one-one. Now,” I heard her feet shuffling on the ground. I moved around the bed to get a better hold on Richard, my back to the windows. He looked exhausted, his mouth hung open sucking in wheezing breaths, his eyes were opened staring blankly at the floor.

“Billy, it won’t go through,” Lisa then began to weep.

I plunged my hand into my left pocket. Pulled out my phone and flipped it open. I dialed nine-one-one, it dialed once then the screen went became distorted, the letters and images becoming a jumbled mess. Then the screen went black and that was that for my phone. “My phones on the fritz,” I looked at Lisa who had pulled out two phones from the drawer of a nightstand.

“They won’t turn oon,” she cried.

“Screw it. Open the door, we’re leaving,” I announced. I squatted down, wrapped my arm around the back of Richard’s knees and went to put my arm under his left pit then the lights flashed. The light bulb in the room blinked rapidly. The one in the restroom, Lisa had left on, flashed on and off with white light. Lisa asked me what was going but I didn’t hear her. Lost in the electrical show going on in the room. The acrid smell of burned flesh became stronger.

We both looked at Richard’s back. The edges of the spiral marks smoldered a deep, ruby red. The lights went crazier, as if the house was freaking out as much as us in the room. On the nightstand, there sat a digital alarm clock with ocean-blue lights. The number two flashed, the numbers five and one flashed along with it. Then Richard swung his right arm back onto the bed smacking his opened fist into my lower jaw. My head whipped back, and I stumbled away. Lisa’s shriek cut through my soul. Richard’s bellowing roar shook my eardrums.

His fists dug into the exposed mattress. His feet planted themselves on the crumpled linen. Richard arched his back and raised his belly towards the ceiling. Thin streaks of black smoke touched and stretched on the ceiling. The charred smell sickened me, but I forced myself to breath. And continued watching as flesh fell away from Richard’s back. The burnt mush plopping in clumps onto the green sheet. In the flashing room, the constant light came from Richard’s back. The same color you get when pressing the tip of your finger onto a light.

As the horror show of flickering lights continued. As Richard’s bellows continued to fill the home mixed with Lisa’s crying. As my heart began beating louder and louder, a thin hum shout like a straight line through my ears. And, from out the windows, came the sound of rolling thunder.

Then, as abruptly as it started, it ended. Richard fell limp. His body pale and his face red from the yelling. The black snakes hissed as they met the linen. The lights flickered, slower and slower, until they steadied. I looked over at the alarm, the numbers were out of control. Lisa turned away from her husband to stare at the digital numbers. She gasped as the clock stopped. The clock stood at a still 3:11.

“How…” her voice trembled. Nobody moved. Lisa and I were dumbstruck.

I finally broke the silence in the room, “Open the door, Lisa.”

I scooped Richard out of the bed, avoiding his back but taking a quick peek. The spirals had grown larger. The tops nearly reaching the shoulder blades and the bottoms had burned through the back of the band of his underwear. I walked out of the room, Lisa following.

She followed like a lost child. Her hands clamped together like in prayer. Her feet shuffling along behind me. Blue-red lights shone through the windows from downstairs and reached us at the top. “Look Lisa,” I said through my huffs and puffs, “maybe they received our call after all.”

I couldn’t tell if she heard me. We went down the stairs, I went slowly, behind Lisa. Careful not to knock Richard’s head against the handrail. Lisa reached the bottom first, staring up at me carrying her burned husband down. “Lisa, get the door please,” I told her when I reached the bottom. She nodded silently and opened the front door.

The officer standing on the other side of the door had his back turned to it. He spun around in his brown, suede jacket with a black patch that has yellow letters stitched onto it reading: R.P.D.

He was one of the younger officers, his face slim and rectangular, with big eyes that made him look innocent and sweet. His eyes got even wider when he spotted me with the ghastly looking Richard. “Bil-Billy! Jesus, what’s going on?” He asked surprised and stepped out of the way as I exited sideways out the front door.

“You’re here alone?” I asked, my voice full of despair, standing on the porch staring at the driveway. There were only our vehicles and the officer’s.

“Yes. Why?”

“We called for an ambulance,” Lisa whispered behind me.

“No, I’m here because Henry said you might be at the Rush’s if not at home. He and Mary have been trying to reach you,” the officer said. I didn’t answer right away, registering what he said and heading straight towards his police car. The officer followed at my side and Lisa shuffled after.

“Open the back door,” I told the young officer, and he did as I asked. “Lisa, get in on the other side. Do you have everything you need? Keys? Wallets?”

“I have my stuff in my pockets,” she said as I put Richard gently into the backseat.

“Good, go to the other side. Officer, open the door for her, please,” I told him as I held onto Richard. I was trying to keep his back off the seat.

“Sure, but about—”

“Open the door first,” I spoke louder this time.

Lisa entered the other side and helped keep Richard on his left side. She stroked his head, tears streaming down her eyes. I closed the door on my side and faced the officer, staring down at him, “You get them to the hospital, fast.” He nodded. “Now tell me about Henry and Mary,” my voice was rough and terrible. I was afraid, afraid of this new news, and afraid of what happened in that room.

“Henry and Mary have been trying to reach you since three, shortly after calling us. Billy, you should go to your brother’s house. His son, your neph—Lenny, sir,” the officer swallowed, “he’s missing.”