The Yaak House, Part Five

 (Originally published on my main blog, Andi and I Write, on October 12, 2020.)

((Special thanks to the talent of  McCallum J. Morgan for his incredible illustrations for this series! You can view his blog in the link on his name there.))

Thaz’ra watched the beast go down and Jasper retreated several steps, his long arm darted into the tent and swept his bag up onto his back in a single motion as he picked up the light Gerald had dropped. The popping of bone echoed in the forest behind them as Thaz’ra and him made their retreat; then Thaz’ra veered to the left.

“Thaz!”

“It’s after me. I will always protect my boys,” Jasper hesitated, then veered to join her.

“You are a fucking martyr-”

“You know what Clipper was into,” Thaz’ra hissed, “He was going to butcher Rin and I like animals…” Jasper could feel the anger that boiled in her veins as the brush rustled behind them. They ran out to the clearing, Thaz’ra whipping about to fire another round.

Boom-whack! Another solid hit knocked the beast back.

“What... Did you DO?!” he demanded as the beast gave an unholy cry from its human mouth; the face was unmistakably Clipper, their old pimp. The investigators in the bust that freed them had assumed a competitor had killed him after he had vanished. Several of these competitors had vanished as well; mutual destruction had been assumed.

“I don’t know how to explain,” Thaz’ra choked out.

“Don’t you dare start lying to me now, not if I’m going to risk dying out here,” he followed Thaz’ra across the clearing, chancing a glance back. 

“I have done a lot of things, but I have never lied to you,” she forced out in a choked voice, “I have never lied to you, I promised I would never lie to you, and I meant that.”

The Clipper beast had stopped, looking around. Gerald turned back to Thaz’ra and saw she had paled by the moonlight when the beast turned toward the direction of the group.

“Clipper!” she called out to the thing. It stopped, turning slowly to her, “I have your cost, bastard!” Jasper was confused by this; he had more pressing worries though, watching as the creature squinted at her from Clipper’s skull, and then, the ribcage gaped open wider, and wider, then wider still until they appeared to be wings. The horrifying thought of the thing flying after them crossed his mind, and he pushed it away.
He found though, that he couldn’t push his eyes away from the sight of the creature; watching in horror as withered human ribs seemed to drop down from where they had been on... no, they had been in the human torso. The ribs had started to warp and twine with one another, and then they slid down and around the bones that had once belonged to a deer.

He stood frozen with disgusted fascination as these merged and monstrous masses slid further down; beneath the leathered hide of the broken legs by the light from the muzzle flash of Thaz’ra’s gun.

The beast fell at last as the lower section of the cervid backbone holding it up shattered, scattering vertebrae about and blowing the thing effectively in two. The human jaw flew off on impact with the pine littered earth. Jasper looked away at last, seeing too many ribs within, writhing like maggots.

Thaz'ra took a step back; Jasper saw tears rolling down her face. He didn’t understand at first, then he heard a click. He realized, heart sinking into the acidic fear in his stomach, that Gerald had the ammunition for the rifle with him. Gerald had run.

Still more ribs slid down to fill the gap left by the gunshots as Thaz’ra pulled Jasper along, more ribs than were human, were cervid… were natural. 

Thaz’ra pulled him along in the dark, the forest becoming a choppy series of pine and cedar stills by the light in his hand as he moved under her instruction as he had always done without question. 

Until this moment, when his heart sank; they were headed to the cabin.

“What happened in the cabin Thaz-”

“Just run,” she choked out, slinging the rifle over her shoulder with a heavy thump against her back as she ran. Thaz’ra wasn’t one to run, but he was one to follow her lead.

Was it wise to follow her?

The question curdled his heart as bones popped and leather groaned in the clearing behind them. 

He found himself running harder beside Thaz’ra. They cleared a downed log in a graceful unison that came of dancing together for years, exploited and exotic first, then ballroom. It was this same grace that saved Jasper a moment later when a branch rolled beneath his foot and he began to fall; but Thaz’ra swooped in and righted him with ease, with grace. He knew better than to doubt the strength of her form, her curve was muscle, he had seen her wrestle Boris and win. He had seen her rip a car door off; but he had never seen her look like this as they neared the cabin. 

He had never seen her afraid.

No, it wasn’t just fear, it was guilt… but now the cabin loomed before them, distracting him as they jumped the wooden steps to the decrepit porch with ease.

Jasper watched the beast stop at the edge of the clearing, as though a force held him at bay. Thaz’ra was shaking, and Jasper found himself watching in horror as the skull within the ribs became whole once more, a hand holding the human jawbone that had fallen off up as leather twined around it by the moonlight.

Crooked teeth, exaggerated in decay, smiled from the nightmare of Jasper’s now undead memory, one was chipped, one in the back was gold. 

It was not the sight of his abuser’s face that almost broke him, but the smell that reminded Jasper of him. The breeze carried the smell of bourbon and lavender layered over tobacco smoke and menthol. His breath hitched in his throat as the memories clawed his skin like the hand that had clutched his hips while the other covered his mouth before crushing his throat; he could feel the scrape of stubble and drunk, wavering breath against his neck again. The memory threatened to drag him back. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists; the man who had done those things was dead, Thaz’ra had clearly seen to that with mixed results.

The carcass, or perhaps was it was truthfully a corpse, grinned not at him though, but Thaz’ra, who stood shaking, looking pained as the thing opened and closed the human mouth, as if testing to see that it still worked as it approached slowly now.

It smiled in a way that felt like the sound clean steel scraping over rusted to behold; making nausea claw up Jasper’s throat. Worse though where the guttural, sounds it uttered, pointing at Thaz’ra in spite of a round he spent into the human skull, in fear, from his weapon. The beast just looked calmly to Thaz’ra.

Tears poured down her cheeks and she slumped against the doorframe of the cabin. The ribs of the thing closed up around the human torso like a vile fly trap, and Jasper turned to Thaz’ra slowly. Her trembling hand had pulled her sweater down to reveal a geometric stag tattoo on her right collarbone.

She had told him the stag on her collarbone was a tattoo to commemorate a miscarriage… two years ago. She had never told him about it getting it, he’d had no recollection of her healing from a tattoo either.

Then he saw the mark of the stag pulse, dark red ink seeming to slither down and away through her veins. His blood boiled even as it ran cold through uncertain veins in the space of the same heartbeat. The beast lingered by the porch steps; he saw then the runes carved into them as a cloven hoof stepped onto the old boards. Thaz’ra pushed the door open and Jasper sucked in a breath as she slid into the cabin, taking him with as the Clipper beast lunged at them. A skeletal hand managed to dart in, and it grabbed at Thaz’ra. The ancient nails raked down her face; one drew blood in a thin line over her left eye. She cried out and slammed the heavy door with a crunch of bone. Jasper shone the light on the arm and watched in revulsion as it crumbled to sand. He heard heavy breathing outside the door still.

“Clipper found something better than renting us for profit,” Thaz’ra blurted, “he found power, a cult,” Jasper had long known that their old pimp had been into the occult, but this was new, wretched. The air left his lungs with a shaking sound.

“I want to hate you right now Thaz’ra,” he murmured, hearing footsteps outside wander off into the forest.

“Why don’t you?” her voice was small, afraid. He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“That’s not what friends do,” he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

“…I’m so sorry,” Thaz’ra choked out, leaning into his embrace, “but neither is… neither is what I have done…”

“I know you’ve killed men,” Jasper breathed, “Clipper wasn’t the first, the last,” he felt her shaking in his embrace, his light shining up the side of her face to highlight the tears rolling down the gentle planes of her face like veins of white flame, “You’ve never acted in anything but our best interest… That’s why I’ve loved you…”

“Please don’t say that,” her hands came to cover her face, “Not here, not here, please not here… please don’t say those words here…”

“Thaz, I know that Gerald, you, and I have a weird relationship as a triad-”

“That’s not-” her breath hitched, and Jasper continued gently.

“-and I know you don’t think you deserve kindness…” he rubbed her back and she crumbled further into his embrace, “Gerald and I know you do.”

“Please for the love of god stop,” she hiccupped, shaking her head, “Please; just please stop-” he lifted her chin, “Just please stop fucking talking about- about how g- good I was-”

“Are,” he corrected, “The past is the past, I love in the present,” Thaz’ra made a defeated sound and Jasper cradled her face in his hands, flashlight tucked under an arm, “Whatever you did… I know it was to protect us, your family… our family…” he watched the color drain from Thaz’ra as she looked up.

“Who told-”

“Your aura changed a few weeks ago. I support whatever you decide, because our family is what each of us chooses,” Thaz’ra shook her head and turned away from him, “I trust you to do what is right by you, Thaz…”

“You should look the fuck around the cabin already,” she rasped, “Then… Then decide if… if you still believe that,” she had stiffened in his embrace, stepping from it only to turn and raise his pistol when the door opened. 

In the doorway, Gerald stood wide-eyed in the moonlight at the end of the barrel, and Jasper’s hand wavered as he lowered it, horror that he had been ready to fire in his eyes, “Babe I’m-” Gerald pulled the two into his arms, hushing Jasper’s stammering guilt after a moment with a featherlight hand caressing the other man’s face, thumb wiping stray tears free from the sharp line of his cheekbone with a gentle hush, pressing a chaste kiss to Jasper’s lips.

“I will never fault you for protecting the ones you love Jaz,” his voice rumbled in the dark like thunder as his foot pushed the door shut behind him, “I’m sorry I ran.”

“I mean, I don’t blame you,” Jasper’s laugh wavered.

“This is my fault,” Thaz’ra murmured from where she was sandwiched between the two. Jasper stepped back from her, Gerald leaning in to kiss her temple as Jasper rubbed her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her opposite cheek. 

“Thaz, you and the ba-” 

“Jaz, there won’t be,” she choked out, “I’m sorry Jaz… just please look around this place…” Gerald, by the edge of the light under Jasper’s arm, looked confused, “The cabin will explain things…”

“There’s a loop here…” he said warily, taking the light from Jasper.