Sheep's Clothing by Gary Lewis (dark books to read TXT) 📗

hall that he felt in his boots. "Police! Identify yourself!" he shouted, raising his pistol to take aim at the curtain, staring very intently at it as he slowly paced forward. The thick fabric twitched just a bit, freezing him in his steps. "Identify yourself!" he repeated. His heart beat harder as he took another step, trying to visualize who or what was just behind the hanging drapery. It moved again with a large bulge that swayed across. "Hello? Is anyone there? Police!" He switched off the safety and rested his finger on the trigger as he continued closer.

The curtain began curving and shifting around in a slow, continuous motion. Benning's heart was now pounding as he got close enough to touch the red fabric. He poked at it with the end of his barrel, feeling for something solid standing on the other side. After several failed attempts to prod the source of the movement, a breeze blew the edge into a sway. The wind? Inside? He swept the curtain aside, revealing busted, blood-stained walls all down the hallway, leading to an opening that was once a backdoor, now ribboned with shredded metal.

Benning quickly paced down the hallway, stepping over jagged chunks of wall ripped from the left side, revealing the two bedrooms and then the bathroom. Swaths of blood that streaked along the wall and spattered among the debris led to a deep red puddle that shined as his light casted upon it from where it pooled in front of the final bedroom at the end of the hall.

He snatched his portable radio from the side of his belt with the same hand as his flashlight. "Officer Benning reques-" The floor burst beneath him. In an instant, his left ankle was jerked from below. As his leg was yanked underneath to the knee and the radio tumbled into the wreckage of the wall. The beam from his flashlight flew all over the darkened, destroyed trailer as he heard it bang against the floor. He screamed as loud as he could, tugging with all his might. Strong fingers clenched and pulled from deep beneath the torn linoleum flooring. Shards of metal ventilation duct sliced through his calf and splintered particle wood floor boards ripped into his knee.

As he screamed for help and beat the floor with his hand, fighting to win the tumultuous tug of war, his fingers slapped the handle of his gun. Benning felt around the pitch-black floor, shuffling through pieces of rubble. He clenched his firearm, turned and took aim just beside his leg. The sound blasted his eardrums as Benning fired three shots into the busted floor. A loud yelp barked from below as the creature's grip released with a skin tearing scrape that tore his boot from his foot.

Officer Benning carefully pulled his injured leg from the rugged pit of death it had endured. "Blood-stained sock and a few cuts," he mumbled with a grin. "Better call it in. Let the experts make sure that thing is dead." He laid on the floor for a moment, taking a huge breath and let his head roll to the side. Benning gazed outside through the back doorway. The woods were peaceful and quiet. With a big sigh, he blew out, deflating the fear of life and death that had finally subsided.

Pulling himself up from the floor and twisting around, Benning focused, staring through the dark hallway toward the wrecked wall for his radio. His flashlight dimly lit the bathroom on the other side from where it laid to rest. He reached through a pile of torn paneling, loudly pushing the rubble apart as he felt around the disaster that was once a wall.

The tumbling noise he made dragged out into a scratchy grumbling racket that froze his skin numb as he realized it came from behind. He held still in the floor, hunched over the pile of debris in front of him. It got louder and deeper, a snarling growl that he could feel crawling up the skin of his back to his neck. Through the corner of his eye, he saw his gun lying next to him on the floor. In a blink, Benning went for it. Huge teeth slammed into his shoulder, disabling him. They sank deeper with a few forceful biting clamps, splashing blood up the side of his neck and face.

Benning struggled and groaned as he reached for his shoulder with the only arm he could move. Suddenly he was tugged to the side then back and forth with a bite force that sent sharp knives of pain from his shoulder through his chest and spine. The powerful jaws that squeezed the feeling from his entire body jerked him up from the floor. Benning tried to scream as he was bashed through the remaining wall into the bathroom. The jagged, torn paneling ripped through his neck, spraying blood across the bottom of the mirror. A momentary glimpse of a large, dark wolf like figure stood, reflected in the mirror as Benning's legs went limp and he tumbled into the floor. The dim light from his flashlight went dark and a puddle of warm liquid soaked around him until he sunk into its depths and all became nothing.

#Vance#

As the hours passed, sirens broke through the dark, quiet countryside, heard clearly from the old recreation center where Vance waited patiently in his truck. "It's time," he said, cranking his engine into a roar before throwing it into gear and spinning a cloud of dust behind. "Should have known it was you all along," he said, turning a hard right as he gunned it back toward his place.

From the passenger seat, his phone began to ring. Terry's name showed above eleven missed calls. Vance tossed it into the floor board, turning his attention to the faintly painted, broken yellow lines zipping by on the narrow road ahead as he squeezed the steering wheel tighter, flexing his massive forearm, veins bulging with anticipation.

The densely wooded properties broke apart into sparsely treed fields as the chicken