Hoofbeat Hill (not a fantasy)

[Nautipus]

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Not all small towns welcome expansion. As a matter of fact, most don't. Not all small towns are entirely openarmed to new additions into their community, either. Some towns wont accept newcomers until several generations down the line. Then there are the towns that, while completely unaccepting of new blood, arent entirely unfriendly. Though these towns do care for their new citizens, they are loath to allow them into their most inner circles.
But there is another type of place. One with a heart the color of noble's silk, and just as smooth. They stare down from their high branch onto the outsiders, and, if they cannot push these people out, they remove them focefully. They do away with them the way a gardener might remove a weed: with precision, speed, and brutality, a single fluid event. The only thing that could indicate a former prescence is a small patch of disturbed earth, one which a skilled gardeder who is long practiced in this activity could remove easily. Though these places reject outsiders, they also hold onto their own with bonds of blood and steel. Their hold on some runs deeper than the roots of the mountains, and is just as stable and lasting.
Sometimes, though, a few do get away. And sometimes, these towns are hostile for a reason. Sometimes they have something to protect. Sometimes they have secrets in their closets. Or under them. These secrets are sometimes never revealed until their protectors are long gone, or they are done protecting it. When that happens, the scattered seeds of these places are called home.

[Nautipus]

Chapter 1

Have to run.

And she did. She ran full tilt through the thickening forest. The branches of hibernating trees slapped against her, tearing at her clothes, her hair. The narled and blasted hands seemed to grab at her, trying to pull her back into a world she thought she would never know, and never wanted to again.
The trees continued their frantic seizer of her clothes and hair, as low-lying brambles tore at her skin. the summer clothing she had on was not suited to the winter weather around her. These early hours also had a chilly and thickening fog rising from the nearby lake, and it chilled every square inch of her exposed skin. The cold caused every score dealt her by the forested army to reach its sting that much deeper into her skin. She crossed her arms infront of her head and continued blindly in the darkness of the morning, holding out the knife she had used to effect her escape in her right hand.
She ran until exhausted. Holding the knife out in a feeble protective posture, she slumped against a tree. She couldnt see much, but she felt as if she had reached the end of the phalanx of trees. She felt dirt, instead of forest detritus, under her shoes. She felt her eys closing, then a bright light assaulted her. She covered her head with her arms and shook with fear, exhaustion, and rage. The last thing she saw before slipping into sweet oblivion, was the radiance, backlighting the Angel of Death.

[Nautipus]

He rolled over, searching for the phone. Instead he pounded the top of the alarmclock, inadvertently setting it off. The relentless beeping launched him into a state of full awareness. He looked over the edge of the bed and saw the cordless lying on the floor. He grabbed it and lay it against his ear.
"Hello?"
"Tyler?"
He cleared his throat, "Yeah."
"They found her."



She lay quietly in the hospital bed, a product of the strong sedatives that were being infused with her I.V. drip. Though lying silently, she was still awake. She lay, staring at the ceiling, her eyelids heavy, but more powerful than the drugs circulating through her system was the fear. the fear that if she fell asleep, she might wake in the place she had fled, wherever that was.
She couldnt remember where she had come from, she just knew that it was a bad place. She didnt remember what may, or may not have happened there, and there wasnt a mark on her body besides the shallow cuts she had sustained while running through the forest. She barely remembered that, just the trees and eventually the road. Still, she felt that she had ended up in a much better place than she had started out in. She felt the drugs continue their steady pull on her eyelids, so she finally surrendered, and fell back into the embrace of a cold dream.

[Nautipus]

Tyler Davis strode quickly into the hospital's patient wing. At 2:43 in the morning, there were few people to stop him. He walked quickly towards the far end of the hall, where he saw his brother Alex talking to two policemen, apparently getting quite upset. He was talking loudly enough for tyler to hear him all the way down the hall, and was probably disturbing the patients.
"what's going on?" Said Tyler as he reached his brother's side. Alex was the larger of the two, and more heavily built, but they looked alot alike: Dark hair and eyes, tall frame, tanned skin that showed their native American bloodlines. one could say that Tyler was the more handsome of the two.
Alex turned to face Tyler in a rage, "They wont let me in to see her!"
Tyler cast a sharp look towards the policemen flanking their sister's room.
"She's too drugged up to talk right now anyway, besides, that's what the doctor ordered. No one is to see her until he finishes his tests and she's strong enough. Now, we'll call you when she ready, but you'll still have to wait on the detectives."
"But she's our sister", growled Alex, "We havent seen her for almost six months. You guys gave her up for dead! Your detectives", Alex pushed the word out like it was bile, "should have to wait on us!"
One of the policemen stepped forward and placed a firm hand on his right shoulder.
"Now listen here big fella", he said, "we did the best we could for your sister then, and we're gonna do the same now. So, you can either spend the night here in the hospital, or in my jail, it doesnt really matter to me."
Alex opened his mouth to say more but tyler turned him away, "We've waited this long, we can wait one more night." Alex looked from Tyler to the cop, and turned to go back down the hall.
After a moment Tyler asked, "Where'd they find her?"
Alex slowed his pace as he talked, "Some remote logging road. An old guy was going home from one of the bars here in town and happened to see her on the side of the road. he was pretty drunk but not so tanked he couldnt call the right people."
"What was the man's name?"
Alex gave a tired shrug, "Don't know, just some old guy. He already gave a statement and left." he threw a glance back down the hall in the direction of the two cops, "They havnt even spoken to tasha yet."
"Smal blessings." said Tyler, "Did they tell you exactly where they found her?"
Alex stopped in front of the door to the lounge in which they were going to stay, "I already told you, some old..."
Tyler shot him a withering look, "You know what I mean, Alex."
Alex sighed heavily, "Yeah, I know." He looked back towards the cops, far down the hall, "The road was on the outer edge, near Hoofbeat."
Tyler nodded, he had suspected.

[Nautipus]

The official police report had stated that she probably had gotten lost in the woods after leaving her car. She'd been going to visit their hometown, Hoofbeat Hill, Kentucky. They had left as kids: Tyler and Alex were 18, Tasha was 16. They had run because of something that their parents had tried to indoctrinate them to. Tasha wasnt old enough to know, so they had taken her with them to try and make sure she never did. Tyler and Alex had sworn never to go back, Tasha had not. She was going back for the first time in twenty years.
When the police had found her car they had suspected that she was probably nearby. They searched but found no trace of her. They had found her car where a logging road had dead-ended. it was supposed to have been finished over a month before. It would have connected with a more modern road, which would have led into the center of town, making the trip shorter.
When the police couldnt find her they tried to contact the Hoofbeat Hill PD, with no success. The isolation of Hoofbeat Hill made tracking it difficult. Few people entered the town, even fewer ever commuted elsewhere. So when they didnt receive an answer they assumed that the PD was already out on a call. They tried several more times over the course of a week before sending in a few county patrolmen. They found an empty town.
There was simply nothing left in Hoofbeat Hill. There were no animals of any kind, and no people. Several teams were sent in from lake biologists to botonists, trying to find out where everything went. The mountain lake that Hoofbeat Hill bordered, Shultz Lake named after the founder of the town, was devoid of any kind of life. All of the plant life around the town was either dead or nonexistent. The houses and buildings had taken on a ramshakled and disorderly appearance. All of the material property in Hoofbeat Hill was in place, but there was no life. All the cars in the town, anything mechanical for that matter, had stopped working. All the mechanical clocks were set to one time:3:33.
It was as if all life in Hoofbeat Hill had ceased. Alex and Tyler were familiar to this.

[Nautipus]

Chapter 2

She was dazed and disoriented as she awoke from the drug-iduced sleep. She looked around the hospital room. It seemed okay. She tried to shift in the bed, but found she could'nt. She looked down at her body. She was wearing the shorts and shirt that she'd had on during her run through the woods, and there were decaying leather straps wrapped tightly around her torso and legs, securing her to the bed. She struggled for a moment, then there was a deep rumbling from behind her.
Because the bed was tilted upward at a slight angle, she couldnt lift her head to look behind her, and the straps fastening her to the bed prevented her from torqueing her body around. She struggled frantically, trying to loosen the strapps that held her so securely, as the rumbling continued to grow. It grew in volume, and the sound seemed to have a density of its own, so that it surrounded her. It towered over her and pushed up from underneath, squeezing her uncomfortably. She closed her eyes at the unbearable onslaught.
Then it ceased. The sound stopped, and she opend her eyes to look around. The room seemed as it had been before. She began to relax, slightly. Then she heard another sound. Faint, almost below the threshhold of hearing.

Almost like a human sigh.

She looked above her. The wall that her bed was pressed up against was stretching, pulling itself out like skin, changing into the shape of a great mouth. It leaned out over her bed, its horizontal jaws glimmered as if wet, anticipating the meal to come. She screamed, and the jaws descended.

[Nautipus]

Tyler and Alex waited, shifting inmapiently, outside their sister's door. They had heard her screaming in the night, so had called the attending doctor, right before the two hard-nosed policemen had pushed them back into their sleeping quarters. She had apparently had a bad dream, as had Tyler. Alex, however, had simply dreamed of putting one of the two policemen through a wall, then hanging the other one to his heels like a painting.
Now, they waited for the detectives to finish their questioning before making their own appearance. They had waited a long time to see their sister again: six months, to be exact.
As they waited, Tyler pondered his dream. he could only recall bits and peices of it, but he knew what it was. It was the basement of a very old house. Their parents had always told them as children that they shouldnt ever go into the house. They had listened. But not all children were as obedient as were the twins. One child had gone ito the house. A friend had dared him to go in, alone, but the child had argued. Eventually, the diplokacy of children found both of them inside the house. Only one had come out. He, Charles Damachy, was the one who'd dared his friend to go in. The other, Timothy Gann, was found. The official story was that he'd fallen through a peice of flooring, and into the boiler room of the old house, where a thousand pointed edges had scored his body.
That alone had kept the rest of the kids out of Crimson House. Thats what they had always called it. Mostly because of the metal parts of the house: the railing, gutters, window frames and such. They'd rusted over time, coloring the house in grey and red.
Tyler and Alex had never even thought about going into the house, until they'd heard their parents talking one night. The twin's 18 birthday was the next day, and they had mistakenly assumed that what their parents had in store for them was a party in Crimson House. They, meaning Alex, had decided to infiltrate the house in secret that night. That was Tyler'd dream. He and Alex descending into the bowels of the house, trying to find out what was in store for them, maybe even see the gifts that their parents had prepared for them. They had always hated surprises. That was the night they had run from Hoofbeat Hill.
They had found their present.
Mom and Dad could keep it.

[Nautipus]

One hour and several cups of coffee later, the detectives had finished their questioning of their sister. Tyler and Alex moved out of the path of the doorway as the detectives left, and then they went into their sister's room.
It was a typical hospital room: sterile white reflected light off of the floor, walls and ceiling, their was one bed and two chairs positioned at either side of it, in which the detectives had sat no doubt. Tasha lay under a thin white sheet, and she was wearing the usual blue-checkered smock of the hospital wardrobe.
She looked just as she had when she'd left, with shoulder length dark hair, a bit tangled right now, smooth, dark skin and and high cheekbones. She was without question a beautiful woman, but the brothers saw through that to the beautiful girl inside. They saw a sixteen-year-old girl with freckles and glasses, vulnerable, abandoned. Tyler walked slowly towards the bed, but was thrown aside as Alex moved his 270 pounds into the room. As soon as he saw Tasha in the bed he rushed towards her. As if sensing her brothers, Tasha opened her eyes. Her talk with the detectives had been long, and somewhat hurtful, but she was only tired from the drugs coursing a drowsy path through her veins.
Alex Rushed to the bedside and grabbed her up in his arms, wrapping her in a bear-hug.
She huged him back, but said, "Easy, there. I'm a little sore."
Alex would'nt relent, "I dont care. They wouldnt let us in, I was scared that they were keeping something from us, that you were worse off than they'd let on."
"Do I really look that bad?" She asked through his arms.
"No, you look great." said Tyler from the other side of the bed.
Alex released Tasha and stepped back, anxiety carving his face into a severe look that Tyler had thought they'd long left behind, "So where were you?" He asked.
"I really dont know." She said sitting up in the bed, "All i remember is running through the woods, then waking up here."
Tyler said, "Do you remember who it was that picked you up?"
She shook her head, "I dont even remember being picked up."
Tyler continued, "And you're sure that you dont remember where you were?"
"Yes, I'm sure. But if it's anything like the dream I had last night, then I dont think I want to." She paused and her forehead wrinkled in consentration, "as a matter of fact, I cant even remember most of the dream, just a loud noise, then silence."
Tyler and Alex exchanged looks, this seemed familiar. One of their friends had gone through something similar. He'd had a traumatic experience, one that he blocked out in a form of amnesia, he couldnt remember anything. It was like that for several weeks, life went back to normal. The only thing to suggest anything had gone wrong were bizzare nightmares, fragments of the actual experience, that couldnt be fully recalled. Then, suddenly and without warning, the memories came rushing back, and they were to much for him. The experience had molded his psyche to a point where the twins could hardly say they knew him.
They feared the same for their sister, but remained silent. They just wanted their little broken family to be healed, at least for this long.

[Nautipus]

The next day, Tasha was ready to be released. She signed the papers, and left. There was no need to gather anything up, the clothes she'd come in with were ripped, filthy, and too revealing for the season, so had been trashed, and the twins had brought her some new clothes to wear.
She and the brothers walked slowly across the parking lot, Tasha behind the twins as they led the way to the big Ford Expedition.
"What do we do now?", asked Alex as quietly as he could to his brother.
"We pack."
"That's what I was afraid of."
They walked in silence for a moment before Tyler said, "We need to leave Tasha behind."
Alex smiled even before Tasha said, "I dont think so!"
Tyler whirled on her, brotherly love and worry mixing with a fatherly rage that made his feature turn almost canine, he said, "Dont start Tasha. You cant go back, not ever again. I dont know why we just sat back and let you go the first time!"
"Excuse me?!" she said with almost as much hostility as Tyler had expressed, "Let me, oh no. I am a grown woman now, Tyler! I dont need my possesive older brother to tell me what to do!"
Alex, speech stuttered by laughter, said, "She means you, man."
"I know who she means!" he said, now turning on his brother, "And I dont see what you find so funny! Your the one who let go by herself in the first place! You shouldnt have even let her go at all! None of us should EVER have to go back to that hell-hole again!"
Alex, still snickering, said, "Alright, first off, if I hadnt stepped aside and let her go, she would've chewed through me, secondly I wasnt the one who left."
Tyler's face began to burn, "That's personal, Alex!"
Tasha practically beamed at Alex, "So, why did he have to leave?"
Alex beamed right back, "Well"-"No!"-"See there was this"-"Alex, SHUT UP!"-"girl back in Hyden-"Im gonna KILL you!"-"and apparently he-" and Tyler punched Alex in the side of the head.

Thus, the family was healed.

[Nautipus]

Alex tightened the shoulder-mounted holster, as Tyler finished packing his own suitcase. Tasha, who'd already packed, sat on the edge of one of the twin's hotel beds. They didnt live in Manchester, the town where they had been staying in the hospital with Tasha, but instead lived in a town called Somerset which was a good distance away. Tasha, on the other hand, lived in Lexington, which was not. She did not share the brother's bond, and their need to work together.
"Still wearing that?" Tasha asked from the bed.
"You know what they say about old habits."
Tyler looked at Alex strangely, but said nothing.
Alex holstered his .357 magnum, his gun of choice, and said "I'll never get used to this one."
"Oh, please." said Tyler.
"What? You never had to have yours replaced, you dont know what it feels like."
"You big baby, I havnt needed to replace mine because I havnt been careless with it."
Alex grunted, and Tasha sighed.

Finished packing, the siblings checked out from the hotel and walked to the Expedition.
"Alright, I'm gonna go buy us some more clothes, you guys go to the sporting goods store and get a tent, some flashlights, and all the rest. Alex, you know what to look for." They nodded. The clothes stores were on the otherside of town so Tyler would take the car, but the sporting goods store was just across the street: a Mahoney's. They split up.

[Nautipus]

After garnering their supplies they repacked, and set off. The drive to Hoofbeat Hill would be a long one, but they knew the route. Despite having beeen seperated from the town for over twenty years, the twins knew most of the old roads, so they relied on instinct for a while. Eventually, they needed Tasha's help, as they were going to hike in where she had, hence the camping supplies.
Eventually, darkness set in, and the animals of the night began singing their song. They were easy to hear through Alex's window, he had rolled it down for the express purpose of listening. With the headlights dancing along the rutted dirt road, it looked as if phantom stalkers were leaping from one side of the road to the other, making Tasha nervous. She had gone through something horrible in the town that was their destination, but she still was willing to go back, again. That spoke volumes for her character, but was also a scribble on a wall.
As they neared the place where she had to abondone the car they realised something:All of the night noises thst had accompanied them along the road had fallen silent, and the only noises they could hear out of Alex's window were the sounds of the engine running, and the car bouncing along.
They were going home.

[Nautipus]

Chapter 3

They left the car on the side of the dirt road, near where the police had found Tasha's car. Then they had proceeded on foot into the woods with their supplies, and had camped the first night. It was uneventfull, and each of the siblings breathed their own sigh of relief. Each, in their own way, was expecting to be pounced upon or discovered in an unsightly manner.
The next day they made their way into town. The day was bright and chilly, the rays of the sun mocking the cold travellers as they meandered through the woods and ended up in the commercial district of Hoofbeat Hill.
To call it the "commercial district" is to imply that the town was large and well situated, which isnt entirely true. The so-called commercial-district consisted mainly of some tourist attractions farther along, but first and foremost was the Hoofbeat Hill Steel and Coal building. It also served as a mill for the booming lumber business, which was left out of the name for the sake of PR.
They passed the grey-sided building and continued on, the silence chasing them down the road that wound around the lake and connected them to the other side of Hoofbeat Hill, the side that contained most of the residences, as well as a few other businesses. They walked on, eventually reaching the center of town, and Hoofbeat Hill Highschool.
Though commercially of little importance, the town did have a relatively large populace, and was in need of its own highschool. It had an older building which had served that purpose for many years, but they had decided to build a new building. It was initially destined to be a college, but simply put, no one came. all of the larger, more established colleges were attracting the student base, and put a stranglehold on it. So, the building became a kind of open-air highschool campus.
As the siblings passed through, they felt alien, like they were trespassing on something sacred. The blatant strangeness of it all was unnerving, and the creeping silence began a skeleton dance down their spine, as the wid played a dread cadence on a loose piece of metal siding somewhere in the town.

[Nautipus]

They decided to set up camp in their old house, which was towards the lake in the middle of the northern-most district of town. Walking there was like a scene out of a Twilight Zone episode, there were cars parked along the sides of the street, some of the shop's doors were open, they even came across several carwrecks, as if their drivers had stopped operating them.
There were no signs that the vehicles had failed their drivers in anyway, but it was hard to say either way, seeing as how they had been abandoned for so long. They continued on until they passed their old church, Harvest Outreach of Hoofbeat Hill. It, too, was deserted, but one of the many doors was open. Tyler thought about suggesting they go inside, but it might have been hasty. They hadnt yet figured out the situation. Alex stopped suddenly and said "Where are the cops?"
The first words said in the town seemed to muffle their silent surroundings, as if the buildings and abandoned tenements were waiting expectantly for an answer.
"What do you mean? The place is abandoned.", said Tyler.
"Yeah, but werent they supposed to be looking here for, well, you know, Tasha's assailants?"
Tasha nodded, "That's right, the detectives who questioned me said that they were going to start searching her immediately."
Tyler looked around, "They couldnt have finished up an investigation that quickly." he said, somewhat confused. "Even if they found the guys, there'd still be a scene, and some tape to keep whoever might come in out of it."
"Who would come in?" Tasha asked.
"Reporters for one, they see a crime in empty Hoofbeat Hill as a real reader." Alex said.
"Yeah, I guess." Tasha nodded. They continued on in silence.


When they reached their house, the siblings were surprised by the lack of emotion they felt as they neared it. It was a small, simple two floor house. It didnt have a basement, which was unusual for houses in this part of Kentucky, but it did have an attic. The attic also had a window, but when Alex looked up he noticed something amiss, "Hey, why's the attic window shut up?"
The other two siblings looked up as well. The attic window was boarded up from the outside, completely covering the opening. The job was neat and drilled, with purpose, as if it was closed off to conserve heat, which the siblings agreed must be the case. They ventured into their house just as the rain started.

[Nautipus]

The house, though abandoned, was in good repair. There were no leaks, and it kept out the chill that had been hanging around the town. The siblings didnt know what they were doing there, they just knew that they needed to come back. They knew that something from their childhood remained in Hoofbeat Hill, and that it was behind the mystery surrounding the town. Somehow, they werent surprised. They'd always known that the place was not right. How no one ever moved away, and those few tourists that decided to stay always left suddenly or disapeared. There were at least six mysterious disapearences that occured while the siblings resided there, and in each case the police filed a formal report, but there was never any indication of an investigation.
They decided that they had better buckle down for the night, as the rain was still coming down pretty hard. Alex tried the electricity, just in case, and found that it wasnt running, as expected. They unrolled therir sleeping bags and settled down on the floor of the living room, setting up some lanterns, but making sure that the shades were drawn. not that it would make much of a difference, thought Tyler, if someone was here they would have already spotted the trio. There would be no watch the first night, and they all drifted into sleep.


Sometime in the night, the twins awoke. Tasha was still asleep, but the twins' senses had been honed through years of necessity. they looked at each other as they listened. There was one lantern left alight, and they could just make out each other's faces. They listened.
They could hear something in the distance, a whistling. It was almost inaudible over the din of the rain, but it was getting louder. Under any other circumstances, it may have been consideres melodic, if not beautiful. It consisted of a low note, whistling, long. Then grew higher sharply, before tapering off. The sound was like that of an old ship's whistle, but not exactly. It did seem to be coming from the direction of the lake, and it was getting closer. They listened to it for a while, then it went silent, and another sound awoke in the distance. Something rough and keen, loud enough to be heard clearly over the rain. There was the crying of something, no, many somethings in the night. And they were drawing closer. Tasha was awake at this point, but Tyler motioned for her to stay on the floor.
It was as if a croud was walking down the streets from the lake, toward Hoofbeat Hill, and they were getting closer. Alex was trying to gauge their distance, then it was made apparent. The wailing crown had apparently drawn up to the nearest of the houses. There was a harsh, scraping sound that was both loud and clear, and grew in volume as more houses came under the assault. Tyler reached out and dimmed the light and waited.
The crown was outside their very door now, its wailing and crying louder than ever. They could hear the voices clearly, men, women, maybe even younger people. Then their door rattled in its frame as something, no somethings, began scraping the door. They could hear whole chunks of the door falling to the ground, and the wailing of the things outside. The wailing was not that of someone in great pain, but rather the crying and wailing of something in the throes of emotional anguish. That weary, pleading cry was not one of torture, but of the expectation of death. And the twins were afraid.

[Nautipus]

It was morning. The siblings had not gotten any sleep after their episode last night. The crazy, wailing things had been at their door for some time, continually assaulting it, then they had stopped,and the wailing increased in volume as all the things began to halt their macabre mission. They sounded not menacing, but scared, and the effect was chilling. Then they could hear things rushing down the street, crying, screaming, and pleading. As if they were being taken against their will. Including the things at their door. Afterward, Alex had moved close to the door, to see if he could hear anything. He heard a whispering, whimpering sound outside the door, and froze. It continued its silent pleading, then there was a gasp, and the thing let out a single word. Alex paled, and found himself firmly rooted to the floor. the thing was now silent, then came the whistling from the lake again. And the thing began to scream, loud, peircing. It sounded as though it were being dragged off of the porch forcefully and painfully, and their was a scraping sound as the thing fought to stay, and then it, too, was wisked away to the lake, and they could hear it go the whole way.
Now, Alex and Tyler stood alone next to a window, as Tasha had sought the releif of the downstairs bathroom. Alex turned to Tyler and said, "I don't what's going on here, man."
Tyler just nodded.
Alex leaned in closer, just in case Tasha came back, "That thing on the porch, it said something to me."
Tyler looked at Alex, "What did it say?"
Alex looked back down the hall towards the bathroom and said, "It said, 'forget.'"

The twins decided that they should have a look at the porch, and left Tasha to start cleaning up. They were horrified by what they saw. They quickly came back inside, and Tasha looked up. Both of their faces were pale.
"What? What's out there?" she asked.
They both shook there heads.
Tasha got up and crossed to the door, "Tash-" Tyler started, but it was to late. She opened the door and stepped out.
The rain had stopped in the middle of the night, but now a heavy fog had settled on the town, making it hard to see the houses around them. But their own porch was easily visible. The first thing she saw was the step leading off of the low porch, and at its edge, leading all the way from the door, were fingernail marks. They were bloody, and there were only seven actual grooves, the rest were thin trails of blood, not a trail of gore, just small spatterings.
She turned to go back in, but the door had swung part of the way shut and she could see the outside of it. Scrawled in huge, primitive letters that were carved into the wood were the words: ADULTERERS SUICIDE BABYKILLER
And sticking out of the wood were two fingernails, a woman's fingernail like her mother had cultivated, and another, shorter, sturdier one. Her father's.
She retched over the porch railing as her brothers brought her inside.

[Nautipus]

The twins decided that getting out of the house and into more fortified surroundings was their first real priority. But they were slightly delayed. Alex had gone to the attic so that he could see what was up there, but failed. The attic was accesed by a stairway on the second floor of the house. All one did was open a closet-like door and there were stairs that led upward to the room. At the top of the stairs was another door, but this time it was bared shut from the outside, and even with Alex's heavy experience with doors, he couldnt break it down, and he didnt have his usual lockpick set. Alex's desire to see behind the doo is what delayed them. Alex thought that it may be important, so they decided to first hit the small hardware store on this side of town.
They left via the back way and crossed around to the street. Despite being a mountain town, Hoofbeat Hill's houses were clustered together much like in a larger city, and they had to make their way by the streets, rather than cutting across yards. When they got to the hardware store they were shocked.

There was a set of keys hanging in the door, the keys that would have unlocked the store during its running days before. They walked slowly into the store, Tasha in the rear. Alex and Tyler took the two sides of the door, then went in, sweeping as they went with Alex in the lead. Their military experience was paying off and they went quickly and stealthily, clearing all of the downstairs rooms. The hardware store owner's home, who was probably the same guy that had owned the store when they'd lived in the town, was above the store, so Alex and Tyler made their way there, leaving Tasha at the base of the stairs to watch their rear. The door to the owner's home was similarly ravaged as their own house, but the scrawls were diferent. They said, GLUTTUN, ADULTERER, GREED, DISSENT. But they were none-the-less sinister, and there were fingernails imbedded in the wood here too.
The door was locked, so Alex and Tyler left it and went back downstairs.
Tasha was right where they'd left her, so they went around the store together, silently. Then they happened by the register and Tasha gasped. On the back, sides, and front of the register were hearts that had been drawn with a thin smeer of blood. The register was open, and all the cash and coins were laid out on the counter-top, and each one had a small heart drawn on it, as if with a thin red coloring pencil. But on the checks, the money amount was circled by a heart, but the name of the person was blacked out. The siblings couldnt tell what material had blacked out the names, but they didnt care to know. They'd found all they could and decided to get out.

Coming back from the hardware store, they passed close to several homes and shops, and on some they could see the primative scrawls that had adorned their own house, but they never investigated. Alex and Tyler stood on either side of Tasha, escorting her. But the town was entirely quiet. The weight of the silence was oppresive, much like the noise Tasha had heard in her dream, and she shivered. But the shiver was not entirel brought on because of the silence, the town was cold. Winter was approaching, and its iron-fisted grip would soon cover Hoofbeat Hill, and with none of the electricity on they had a very limited time here. They needed to finish what theyd started out to do, whatever that was, and get out.
At one point during the trip the trio stopped. The road continued forward, but there was a turnoff that led south, towards some of the more remote, lakefront property. Somehow, they all new that there was a greater thing down that road, and eventually they'd have to traverse it. They could feel the sentience that permeated the town. A sentience not born of the town itself, but one with a locus along that road. That was where they needed to go , but they were loathe to do so. They'd all heard the whistle, and were afraid.
The silence hovered.

The fog was still laying heavy over the town, but it was also sprinkling now as well as they made their way back into the house. They made their way upstairs and Alex used the proffered tools to force open the door. What they saw inside was horrific.
There was a chair in the middle of the room, and above it was a noose. Against one wall was a mirror, and on the floor in a corner was a small group of razors, and against another wall was a small toaster oven. The room was all clean though, almost spotless. The chair looked as if it had been oiled and wiped down, and the rope could have been braided the day before. The mirror shone and the razors glistened, intensifying the crimson stripe that adorned each one, and the toaster looked fresh from the box. The siblings stopped and looked around. The room was dark, but there was enough ambient light coming from...where? The room was lighted but there was no source.
Then, as they were looking around, the chair under the rope was thrown across the room, hitting a wall and falling to the floor in a corner. The noose grew taught, as if straining under a weight, they heard a tinkling in the corner, and turned as they saw a razor fall from nowhere and land amidst the growing pile. Then the toaster shocked and sputtered, and sparks flew from its mouth. Then the light ceased, and a bolt shot up the wall.
When the ambient light returned, they could see a cross shaped burn on the roof of the attic. Tasha was backing towards the stairs. Tyler was following and Alex was as well. Then there was a cracking sound and Tasha bolted, Tyler chasing her. Alex reached the door and turned around.The mirror in the corner was shattered, but no pieces had falled. Alex continued to stare, and the light vanished yet again, and when it came back, the mirror was healed, the chair was under the rope, the burns were gone from the ceiling, and the razors seemed one short.
Alex went downstairs to get ready to go to the church.
The rain began again.

[Nautipus]

The twins were debating wether or not to go out into the rain to get out of the house, when they again heard the mournful whistle. It echoed out across the town from the lake, spreading slowly, like a tide washing over the town. Tasha stepped to the door and opened it, watching the rain come down.
The whistle's echo bounced off of the mountain walls around them and, though quiet, could be heard over the mounting din of the rain. It seemed that this rain was harder than the others, like it was trying to wash the town clean.
The twins decided that they had better stay in the house this last time, and wait out the storm. Then their decision was made concrete as something rushed over the house, so close that the walls shook. Alex pulled Tasha from the door and slammed it shut, then the siblings back-tracked to the living room, and waited.
There were more sounds from outside, sounds familiar, but now rendered in an environment that made them threatening. The sound of somethings breaking through the asphault in the road outside, of the flying thing like a huge bat, the whistling from the lake, both beautiful and horrible.
The siblings waited, and listened to the town changing. They could hear the sounds from the attic, as they intensified, and the wailing of the things in the lake.
They could also hear sounds from other houses. Sounds organic, and not. The siblings simply sat, not daring to look outside, lest they encounter some Lovecraftian abomination, some thing that crawled from a dark dream. Alex and Tyler could hear sounds from their own house that had'nt been there before. They heard what Tasha would not, her hands over her ears. The sounds of things black and terrible emanating from the basement door, around the corner in the kitchen.
They waited, and kept their guns at the ready.
The sounds continued.

[Nautipus]

They set out from the house the next morning, even amid the rain. The rain was in season, but not entirely right. While winter was quickly approaching, and already beginning to wrap its hands around Hoofbeat Hill, the rain was surprisingly warm. And as such, it was kicking up a mist so thick that it was hard to breathe.
The siblings walked down the middle of the street, so as to have an open space on either side, they didnt want their backs to a wall in this town. As they made their way slowly down the road back toward the church, the mist thickened, making it difficult to see past ten feet. it was like travelling through the cotton stuffing of a child's toy, with the white, cloying veil all around; it was madenning.
They continued on until they passed the road to the lakeside properties. Throughout the town there had been noises of various kinds, all menacing, but here there was the silence of an incomplete map. Here there be monsters.
They looked down the road as far as they could see, about ten feet, and listened. No sounds penetrated the clinging whiteness that surrounded them. Tasha made to step towards the road, Alex and Tyler watched, curious but wary. Then they did hear a sound. Something large was in the road with them, but being at an intersection there was extra space all around. Plus with the dampening effect of the fog they couldnt pinpoint the source of the sound. The twins looked towards Tasha.
Her eyes were glazed and she was hugging herself as if cold, but the rain wouldnt have permitted it.She continued to move slowly towards the road and, the twins suddenly realized, the source of the sounds in the intersection. Alex moved infront of her and pointed his gun forward, toward the thing there, while Tyler shook her out of her daze. All this they did silently.
Suddenly, the thing gaurding the road stepped forward, and they could make it out: it stood on two feet like a man, but there the semblence ended. The feet were huge and swollen, with dull claws balancing their circular shape. They tapered slightly upward, almost 6 feet, to the waist. The waist was relatively thin, and long. Almost graceful in its lines. It ran up to a large, broad chest, from which swung didproportionately long arms, which the thing was using to keep itself steady. The arms wer long and thin, but at their tips was a bulbous end, and from it protruded more thick, dull claws. The head was situated on a thin, wobly and disjointed neck, and was flat and featurless. The only organ on the face was a slit-like opening for a mouth, which was now closed. The thing stood, hunched, at over eleven feet tall. It watched the trio (no eyes) and awaited their next move. Alex looked at its chest.
The things heart was exposed, and the sound they'd heard was it slow, steady beat, which sounded like somebody pushing sand through a pipe. Alex took aim, and fired. the creature took the bullet without fliching, the heart was a smashed pulp, and from the wound issued black sand. The thing's only reaction was to open its slit, and open it and open it. It folded back along the strange and brocken looking neck, its brown mottled skin stretching, and the only sounds were of the foot long teeth that extruded from the hole. It foled its head along its neck and bared its enormously long fangs, it seemed there were hundreds of them, and let out a keen wailing, very different from the sounds they'd heard their first night here, that deepened to a painful groan. They ran, through the rain and mist, into the town and towards the church.

[Nautipus]

They ran, all the way to the church. The doors they had noticed open before had stayed that way, and no blasphemies marred them. But when they entered the annex of the church and looked at the far wall, which stood around eightteen feet tall and through which one entered the main sanctuary, were the defamations that they had seen prevalent through this town. This time, though, the words werent scratched into the wall, rather, they were situated at the top of the wall, and arched, like would a title or announcement, and looked like the paint, and the wood beneath, had rotted, forming words. A word, and a picture, as it turned out. Along the top of the wall was the word,

M I N E

, and under that was the image of a tree, also rotted looking, but words were spelled out across it in portions that were clean, they spelled

R O A N O K E
S O D O M
G O M O R R A H
L A K E A N J I K U N I

The siblings shivered, and not from the warm rain. The doors to the sancuary were open, and they walked in.

There was only a single light on in the large room, and it was coming from a flashlight, held in the hands of the pastor of the church. He was rapidly turning the pages in what the siblings assumed was a bible, they turned on their own flashlights. The pastor was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didnt even look up until Alex called out. He startled up, and looked out at them. His lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. The church groaned. It came from the walls themselves, but the vibrations could be felt through the floor of the church: something was in the basement. The pastor (Timothy Johnson? Was that his name?) spun and screamed at the floor "Wait!"
The groaning subsided. Tim turned back to the three and screamed out across the sanctuary: "The only way out is for you to forget!!" Alex and Tyler visibly started, remebering the crying thing on the porch. Tyler was the first to speak, "Forget what? What do you mean?"
Again the church groaned, and again Tim spun and screamed, not yelled, but screamed like a child scared of a berating, "Wait! Just wait!"
He spun back around, "You know!"
Tyler shook his head "No. We dont."
Tim shouted again, his voice urgent "There's a balance, It needs you to forget, the rest have already gone to It, but It doesnt have you. You have to forget!"
Alex spoke this time, "What? What's 'It'?"
The church groaned yet again, Tim, "It nearly had you, then you left. You were connected to this town, so It needed to bring you back. It used" here he waved at Tasha "her to bring you here"
The twins looked at Tasha, and suddenly things were more clear.
She spoke: "What do we need to do?"
The groaning church shuddered, sending the podium that Tim was standing behind crashing to the ground, Tim raised his hand and shouted:"And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be abhorring unto all flesh."
Suddenly, three round, smooth tentacles burst through the floor. At least, it seemed they had. The had come through the floor. It had not parted for them, nor rippled, nor changed in any way, they had simply....come forth. The wrapped around Tim, and unbidden into Alex's mind came the image of Laocoon, battling two sea serpents for the lives of his sons. But here, it was the pastor Timothy Johnson, batlling for his own. His struggles were futile. At their thinnest, the tentacles were as big as his head, and, though clumsy looking, they were deft, with alarming alacrity. They wrapped his arms close to his body, breaking them, and pulled him back through the floor. But Timothy Johnson's body was not made from the same ether that the tentacles were manifested from, and was pulled with such force that the wood splintered around him, and he was pulled into the dark of the church basement. This happened in less than a second. They could here his screams. The raw, organic screams of a man in mortal suffering. There were no words. He had been plunged into a reality of primal thinking, an era before words. His death would not be quick.
The siblings ran again, into the hostile town.
They ran, to a home they didnt want.

[Nautipus]

They got out the doors and ran 5 feet, before they stumbled back inside. They coughed and hacked, trying to draw a breath. What before had merely been an enclosure, had become a poison. The mist thrown up by the rain had become so thick that it was like trying to breathe underwater. Besides that, there had been a smell outside, the smell of rot. Decay stood outside, somewhere hidden, and because of the dampening effect of the mist, it was probably very close. They stood before the open door of the church, watching as the mist swirled and eddied, but it only crossed the threshold in thin skeins, to grace their naked faces and hands.
The siblings watched and waited. They could here the thing walking outside the door, and it was heavy. They could hear its labored breathing, the heavyness of its footfalls, and the intermitent clack of tooth on tooth. They dare not move. Tyler edged slowly towards the door, and pushed it closed. It snicked shut quietly, but any noise was too loud here. They looked back into the darkened sanctuary. By now, the pastors cries had been silenced, and no other sound could be heard. The siblings knew that to go outside was as good as suicide, and the sanctuary was also inoperable. There were two doors in the annex, one on the left, the other on the right. They led down halls that branched out, like cappilaries. To the right was the adult and teenage youth side, to the left was for the younger kids. Each side had a basement, seperate from the other, including a third for the sanctuary. Whatever had taken Tim was under the sanctuary, but that didnt make them feel any better. It whatever it was had found a way under the sanctuary in the fist place, then it could be anywhere in the building. But how did it get there?
"Alright", said Tyler, "Let's find a place to rest and recover."
The other two simply nodded, Tasha because she was in shock, Alex because he was watching Tasha. They chose the left because there was a game room that had been added on to the church, and didnt sit over a basement. Besides, it was made from steel reinforced cinder-block. It was originally intended for a more utilitarian role.
They moved down the hallway, three wide. Then they stopped. Ahead, the hall snaked on, making a left, before continuing straight, making it impossible to see the entire length of the hall. But they had heard something. Something around the bend. To their left was a small room that housed a copier and fax machine, it was open, empty, and easily sealed.
"Tasha", Tyler said, "into the room"
She looked him square in th face, incredulous, "What? Are you kidding? You cant leave me-"
"Tasha, shut up", Alex, "Your going to draw attention, now be quiet." They forced her into the room and closed the door, telling her to lock it. Then the brothers continued dow the hall. They peeled around the bend, and covered the hall. Halfway down the hall was a room that was fed into by a door on the right side of the hall, standing in front of this room was a middle-aged woman. A Mrs. England. She was standing with her arms spread out beside her, faceing the open door. She turned her head and faced them.
"It's a lie." she said.
Suddenly, three arms sprung from the doorway. They were brown and mottled, like the thing at the road had been, but beyond that the similarity ended.They were long and lithe, having an extra joint in the middle of the forearm. Mrs. England's eyes opeded wide, and her mouth followed suit. It was as if she hadnt expected it, but she'd been looking right at the door. One of the hands covered her mouth, it had the five fingers of a man, but they ended in long, sharp claws, and grabbed her with such unreigned rage, that it missed slightly in its trajectory, and the top four claws pierced her forehead, sending it skittering along the floor, spilling its contents. The other two each grabbed an arm. The appendages were so savagely made, they were incapable of being gentle, they flayed here to the bone. Mrs. England was screaming at this time, somehow still alive, but incoherent. She was dragged toward the door, where she grabbed the frame with her outstretched hands. She was jerked savagely, until one shoulder separated, but the thing didnt simply drag her in, but impaled her on two long, scythe-like claws, that emerged from her midsection. She was then dragged, screaming into the room. Alex and Tyler ran towards the door, and in.
They went in, Alex up front, Tyler behind, just like in training. Alex placing his shots, while tyler stood back and took time to aim. The thing hung from the ceiling, and had its massive maw over Mrs. England's head. It bit down, ignoring the .357 slugs tearing through it's flesh and bone. It dropped Mrs. England's lifeless body, which had taken a stray bullet, and turned towards the two brothers. The mouth was oriented sideways, and looked like two human Jawbones facing one another.It had three arms, radiating out like an equilateral triangle had replaced its rib-cage, and had a single, powerful-looking leg that anchored it to the ceiling. From between one of the arm pairs sprouted two long appendages, that may have been wings at one time. They ended in the scythes they had seen. It roared at them as they continued to fire. Alex and Tyler placed their shots well, and the creature fell from the ceiling, Bullet holes pockmarking its hide. ts head looked just like the thing from Tasha's dream.