Old Bone Tongue @oldbonetongue - Tumblr Blog

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I clean up roadkill as my day job. Not glorious, but it's something that needs doing, especially since we live near a pretty busy highway that sees a lot of wildlife traffic.

It's grisly work, but I've never really had much of a sense of smell thanks to some medical problems, and honestly, it's not so bad once you get used to it. The county pays me well enough.

As you'd imagine, my dating life is basically nonexistent. Living out in the middle of nowhere with a beat-up old truck with weird red stains on it doesn't exactly scream "Hey, I'm not a serial killer!" to potential dates.

Still, I'm not exactly lonely. I set up feeding spots for some of the local wildlife, nothing crazy. A bird feeder here, a less secure bird feeder there for all the local squirrels, including one particularly fat one I named Chunky, along with some... less conventional animals.

And no, I'm not just talking about the possum mama with her kids or that group of feral cats drifting in.

See, while it might not be technically legal, nobody really cares about me and my little "friends." I use the term loosely because they're by no means tame. Just used to my presence.

They've come to recognize me coming home as a sign of dinner and start flocking around me, keeping a good few feet of distance between us but still happily hopping along as my truck slowly rolls up to the usual spot.

There are days when I come home and they're already circling, ready for lunchtime.

Vultures can be surprisingly gentle animals when you get to know them.

Plus, the county pays me a little extra to dispose of anything that can't be taken to the local processor and donated to food banks. Even if I didn't enjoy having them around, and I do, I doubt I could keep them away from the little pile I've made in a bare patch of woods a good distance away from my home and... mostly downwind.

I even named them. Inky, Blinky, Winky and Moe. There were others, but these four seemed to stick around.

Inky had darker feathers. Blinky was a little tall and kind of dopey. I think Winky is a female and is a bit on the small side, and Moe is...

Well, he's as generic of a vulture as they come, aside from a scar on his bald head. They became part of my routine.

Then one day, there was a new face. A big one.

This guy, I assume he's male anyway, stood a good few inches taller than the others and seemed just a bit wider, stockier even. When he drifted down from the sky to land near the relatively fresh meat I'd tossed into the pile, he nearly gave me a heart attack.

They're not exactly noisy animals, but they're not what I'd call stealthy.

They're big things that circle overhead long before landing. You ever seen a vulture on the ground? It's kind of cute how they walk. They sometimes even make little grunts or hisses at each other.

But not this guy. I almost never saw him circle. I'd just turn around and he'd either be on the ground or in the process of landing, maybe perched up somewhere just watching. I never saw him hopping around or awkwardly waddling along. He'd just appear out of nowhere, like a ghost.

So that's what I named him.

I chalked the differences up to him maybe just being a different kind of vulture. He had the usual bald pink head, but the rest of him looked just different enough to make you think. His beak, for one, was a bit longer, and his plumage was nearly jet black compared to the others, which were more of a dark brown that lightened up around the edges.

On my days off, I'd rarely ever see him when I went to do my rounds around the property. Only once in a blue moon would I catch sight of him outside of when I brought in new carcasses. If I was lucky, he'd be up in a nearby tree, looking down at me as I walked by.

He was a picky one. The others were more than happy to eat rotten scraps, so they were almost always around. While Ghost did sometimes peck at bigger bits of roadkill, he only ever seemed to really dig in when it was relatively fresh, a day old at most. Looking back, I think that's why I never really saw him outside of working hours. Sure, if we hadn't gotten anything fresh in a while, he'd nibble at the less rotten bits, but not much more than that.

Aside from that, he had his own particular way of eating. To save you the unsavory details, vultures usually go for entryways, open wounds and soft flesh, then work their way out, not really caring as long as it's soft meat.

Ghost? He liked throats. Heads in general but always the throat. It was the first place he went whenever he got a chance at somewhat fresh meat. He would mostly turn food down if he didn't get first pick, or if the upper half wasn't... "intact" enough. It worked for him just fine. If Ghost was at a carcass, then the others would shuffle away, moving to the far side of the kill pile or sometimes even just straight up flying off.

Speaking of the head, he also seemed to go for faces. I'd leave and come back to find Ghost having plucked almost all the flesh from a skull, with the lower body mostly untouched.

He also didn't seem to like me watching him eat. He'd tolerate me being there, but he would take slow, careful bites, avoiding sticking his head in so he could keep sight of me. Once or twice on my way out, I'd hear a ripping sound or catch sight of him in my rear-view mirror guzzling down a hunk of flesh.

It didn't really occur to me that something was off until maybe a month or so back. Ghost followed me. Every time I'd show up to a call, he'd be there, perched over the kill...

But not eating. He'd just take a few slow steps away when I'd walk up, maintaining a little distance. I remember seeing his head tilt when I took out a shovel to clean up a particularly rough bit of gore off the road...

Like he was trying to figure out what I was doing.

He'd always be there right up until I'd scooped up the mess and started to drive off. Only once did he ever leave early, and that was after I'd had to put down an unlucky deer that hadn't been killed, but rather knocked out and severely injured. If you're ever in this situation, call a game warden. If they're like mine, they'll let you do what needs to be done. It's not unusual to have a rifle mounted on a rack in your vehicle around here, and I kept one handy for situations like this.

At the time, it was kind of nice. It felt like I'd really made an animal friend. Sure, I liked the other vultures, but it's not like they really seemed to care about me past just being a sign of dinner. I felt like I might have just become the most disgusting Disney princess of all time.

Until I saw Ghost eat a squirrel.

No big deal, right? It's just meat to a vulture. Well, thing is... This squirrel wasn't dead. He was just sitting there on the roadside, off in my peripheral vision, as I bagged up a rabbit that had an unfortunate meeting with a speeding minivan.

Then Ghost was there. I heard something akin to a loud squeak and a sound similar to somebody snapping a carrot.

The tail was hanging out of his beak. It wasn't limp either. It was twitching.

Vultures might eat something wounded and not moving. After all, if it smells like a corpse and looks like a corpse… But not living, moving animals.

That squirrel definitely wasn't roadkill. After that, I started paying a little more attention.

The family of possums I used to have around? I hadn't seen them in a good while. Same story with the stray cats that had been living nearby.

The bird feeders were mostly untouched. If that wasn't a sign that Chunky was gone, I don't know what would be.

And speaking of birds, the usual calls and chirps? Maybe a third of what they were around this same time last year. Not dead quiet, but definitely muted.

Now, Ghost wasn't exactly being pampered. Some days, we just didn't get anything bigger than a squirrel or two. Some days, we got nothing. But there was always -something- in the carcass pile. He should never have been hungry, not really, certainly not hungry enough to push him to eat something that, within all reason, was still alive and kicking.

It was a day after that squirrel that I found them. A cardinal first, judging by the bright red feathers. That was the only way to tell, considering the head was gone.

I would've chalked it up to the cats if there hadn't been a cat skull, picked clean, lying just a foot or so away from what looked like a freshly dead, headless tabby. Its blood was still wet and pooled underneath it.

They'd been added to the kill pile.

But not by me.

And there was Ghost. Up in the tree, hunched over with his head tilted slightly. Watching me. Like he always did.

A stray dog showed up not too long after. Big, skittish pit bull mix by the looks of it, probably attracted by the smell of meat.

I poured a couple of bottles of water into a paper bowl I'd used for lunch and watched him down it pretty readily. I figured if he hung around long enough, I might get him to trust me enough to get in the truck.

It wasn't a day later that I found him on the pile.

My first thought wasn't Ghost. Sure, maybe he'd started making his own lunch, but this wasn't something like a cat that wouldn't see it coming or an unsuspecting squirrel.

This was something big enough to seriously hurt me, never mind a vulture. I called it in and told the town that somebody had to be dumping animals off on my property.

They didn't take me seriously. They even suggested somebody might've shot the dog if it harassed their livestock and just dumped it out on my land, since a few local farmers knew roughly where I lived.

Didn't make me feel any better. So I bought and set up a few game cameras, figuring I'd catch the license plate of whoever was screwing with me and get them trespassed.

And as I worked, there was Ghost. He'd been around a lot more lately. He watched me as I pulled out my extension ladder and started putting up the cameras. He even flew over to the tree I was working on when I moved out of sight, just to stare down at me from a higher branch.

I got a good look at his feet then. At the sharp tips of his nails that looked like they'd be more at home on a hawk than a vulture.

For a few days, nothing really happened. I was actually relieved. It let me hope that maybe whoever had done this got wind that I'd called the authorities and decided it wasn't worth the risk. Still, I took my laptop out with me so I could check the game camera footage on-site.

I expected to see vultures, maybe a few returning bits of wildlife if I was lucky- or an unfamiliar truck if I wasn't.

I didn't expect to see a blur drop in from above the camera's line of sight, bouncing off the carcass pile below. When I went to check the pile the next day, I found out that it was the headless body of a rather large rabbit.

Then came the rustle of leaves and the shaking of branches near the camera... followed by Ghost's face moving into frame, illuminated in black and white by the camera's night vision. One eye fixed on the camera before he tilted his head and stood there motionless until the camera stopped registering movement...

The next clip was just more shaking branches. That was the first time I'd ever felt unsafe on my own property.

Anger won out over fear in the end.

I'd had enough of this nonsense. I tossed the laptop into the cab of my truck and reached for my rifle, fumbling to load a round while scanning the area.

There he was, perched up in the trees. Staring down at me. When I brought the rifle up and started lining up a shot, he looked almost...

Shocked. The tilt of his head was whiplash-quick, going from casually observing me to full-on staring me down.

I took the shot when he started to spread his wings and saw a small explosion of black feathers. He dropped like a rock into the underbrush, crashing onto a branch before hitting the ground.

I loaded another round into the rifle and marched toward the spot where I'd seen him land. Freak or not, I wasn't going to let him suffer if I hadn't put him down.

I should've let him bleed.

When I got close enough, the bastard shot out of the brush, letting out a loud, rasping hiss as he batted at me with a bloodied wing and tore at my hands with clawed feet. It forced me to stumble and land hard on my back, knocking the breath out of me.

Somewhere in that mess, the gun went off, thank God. I think if it hadn't, Ghost wouldn't have stopped.

By the time I'd managed to pull myself up, he'd already taken off, listing slightly to the left before correcting and disappearing into the trees.

That was two weeks ago, and things haven't gotten better. I thought he'd leave after all that, but he's only gotten...

Stranger.

He doesn't follow me to jobs anymore. I only catch sight of him now as he's leaving. He's started leaving his kills on my doorstep.

But that's not what's got me writing this out. I'm trying to convey this in a way that doesn't make me sound as crazy as I think I do.

See, I'm writing all this from my kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee and trying to take it easy. I got into what everyone's calling an "accident."

Two days ago I was hauling ass, hoping to get to the scene of some poor creature that had died on a particularly busy stretch of road.

It'd been raining pretty hard the night before, and it was still drizzling, with a call for more rain moving in.

The longer it sat on that road, the longer it'd take to clean. According to the call, it looked like a dog, but it'd already been hit once or twice and might've already been missing chunks of its upper half.

Just as I reached to adjust the knob on my radio, I caught a glimpse of something above. A black outline.

Then something smashed into my windshield.

It just barely missed me, but the explosion of glass made me slam my foot down on the brake, causing me to fishtail.

After that, I just remember feeling weightless for a second and then waking up in the hospital. I took a pretty nasty knock to the head. My phone thankfully survived the crash. I'm home now, resting up. I got a call not too long ago.

They found out what hit my windshield. It was a dog skull. It seems silly, but...

Sitting here, looking out the window as I sip my morning coffee...

I gotta wonder.

What if he put that dog in the road?

#bonetongue #writeblr #horror #horror writing #creepy #original horror #vulture #ghost_the_vulture #writlbr

Below is an excerpt taken from a biblical text recovered following a previous incident.

The volume itself remains in remarkable condition despite evident attempts at destruction. The outer edges bear signs of burning, though the pages within suffered little harm.

Several pages are missing.

The following passage does not appear in any known record.

1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And afterward she bare another son, and called his name Lyrin.

3 And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground; and Lyrin was a hunter of the field, and kept watch among the trees.

4 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

5 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.

6 And Lyrin also brought of the choice of his hunting, and of the fat thereof.

7 And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

8 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And concerning Lyrin’s offering the LORD spake neither good nor ill.

9 And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

10 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

11 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

12 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and Lyrin heard them from the edge of the field.

13 And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

14 And Lyrin saw the hand of Cain lifted up, and saw the stone thereof; and his mouth was opened, yet no cry came forth from him.

15 And Abel fell upon the ground, and his blood was received of the earth.

16 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

17 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

18 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

19 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

20 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

21 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

22 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

23 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

24 And the LORD called unto Lyrin, where he stood among the trees, and said, Lyrin, son of Adam, what hast thou seen?

25 And Lyrin answered and said, I saw Cain my brother rise up against Abel my brother, and I saw Abel fall.

26 And the LORD said, Wherefore didst thou not cry out?

27 And Lyrin said, I knew not that such a thing could be, though mine eyes beheld it. I saw, and believed not, until the blood was upon the ground.

28 And the LORD said unto him, Thou hast not shed thy brother’s blood, neither hast thou lifted thine hand against him.

29 Yet didst thou behold the hand raised up, and thy voice was silent within thee.

30 And Lyrin bowed himself unto the earth, and said, My sin is not the sin of Cain, yet it is before me.

31 And the LORD forgave him not, neither did He curse him as Cain was cursed.

32 But the LORD said unto Lyrin, Remember.

33 Remember the hand that was lifted up against thy brother. Remember the blood that cried from the ground. Remember thy silence in the day of need.

34 And Lyrin lifted up his eyes, and from that day forth he watched the hands of men, and the stones of the field, and the wrath that hideth in the heart.

35 And Cain bare the mark of his deed, and Abel slept in the ground, and Lyrin bare the burden of witness.

36 And he went not eastward with Cain, neither rested he with Abel; but walked the border of the field and the wilderness.

37 And all the days of Lyrin were remembrance, and he taught those that came after him to watch, and to remember.

#my writing #biblical horror #apocrypha #weird fiction #folk horror #cain and abel #gustave dore #religious horror #manuscript fragment

A time. A tune.

#bonetongue #old bone tongue #dark ambient #ambient music #horror music #dark cinematic #atmospheric horror #horror aesthetic #eerie aesthetic #creepy ambience #ominous music #original music #indie horror #youtube #Youtube

Something happened at my moonshine shack

I make my own shine.

The proper way, like my granddad did. Out in the woods, in an old wooden shack he passed down to me.

Moonshine is legal in a lot of states.

But not the way I do it.

The right way.

I keep a fair bit of it for myself, but I sell or trade quite a bit more to a few friends.

Cash from Darla, who works at the club. I guess she uses the stuff to refill bottles. Also a few bikers who like it cheap and mean.

Meat from Bill the rancher. Writes it off, I guess, but it keeps me fed for cheap.

And yeah, I'm not proud of it, but more than a few people use their food stamps to bring me some other staples.

A little shine never hurt nobody and Uncle Sam didn't really need my petty cash.

All that and my retirement? I'm doing pretty well for myself.

Or at least, I was.

I have enough shine stashed away for a while, but it won't last forever.

And I'm not sure I want to go back.

I don't keep a lot of shine on hand, just in case somebody with a badge comes knocking. I keep a decent supply of it in the root cellar of the old bootlegger shack I maintain a good hour's drive into the woods. There's an old trail that cuts right through the brush and eventually fades into the trees, but if you know where you're going, you can drive a good bit farther.

That's where I see my first landmark. Won't say what it is, but if you know to look for it, then it's plain as day. From there it's just a ten-minute walk or so to my setup. I keep a wheelbarrow out there for hauling shine to and from the truck. There's also a camo net I use to cover up my ride that I keep out there in case I decide to spend the night.

It stinks of booze and old musty wood, but I've spent more than a few red-faced nights listening to a battery-powered radio and sipping on some of the sweeter stuff I keep on hand.

I was making a run. One of the biker guys was having some big meetup in two weeks and wanted a case of shine. I'd been wanting to go out and spend some time to unwind anyway, so I figured I'd bring my old shotgun along, pop myself a rabbit to cook, and spend the rest of the week relaxing. I'd done it dozens of times.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary right up until I went to grab the door handle.

And just as my fingertips brushed the knob, the door creaked open.

Unlocked.

Now most people would think, "You just forgot to lock it."

No. No I didn't. I never do. I'll forget a lot of things. I'll forget my keys when I walk out the door, forget my wallet when I walk into the store.

But I would never forget to lock up my goddamn still-shack. I especially wouldn't leave the door open. That's just begging for some critter to make itself at home.

Taking a step back, I let the cooler I was holding hit the ground with a soft thud and the rattle of ice on plastic. I needed both hands to hold the old double barrel I'd been resting on my shoulder.

I used the tip of the barrel to push the door open and then took a quick step back, leaning to the right to see if I caught sight of anything pressed against the left side of the doorway.

Then I pushed the door flush with the wall to make sure nobody was behind it before moving in myself.

I'm still not convinced a damn animal didn't move in, but at the very least, it wasn't the only thing that'd been inside, judging by all the opened jars lying around.

The cellar door was open and it looked like somebody had been helping themselves to my apple pie flavored shine.

And then there was the trash...

Old chip bags, smashed jars, newspaper and bits of twine...

Soiled underwear. That's an image that's not going away anytime soon. Whoever had been here was living like a damn pig. Even found a few cigars around the doorway. Looked like whoever they were, they'd been putting them out by snuffing them against the door frame.

Which honestly pissed me off more than the underwear.

I'd say that I was worried, but really, I was just more pissed than anything else. Not many people knew about the shack. Just a few cousins of mine who'd use it to camp out every now and then.

Still, my equipment was mostly untouched, and whoever did this probably wasn't around since I didn't see any cars parked on the way in and as far as I knew, there weren't any other good clearings for miles in any direction.

By the time I'd gotten everything swept out of the shack and into a pile to burn, I'd managed to convince myself it was probably cousin Teddy. After all, he was the only one I knew who smoked those nasty grape flavored cigars. Everyone in my family was what most would consider an alcoholic, but Teddy took it way too far, especially after he and his ex-old lady broke up last fall.

The idea of catching a rabbit would have to wait until tomorrow. The sun was already starting to dip and even if the biggest predator you see around here was the rare fox or two, I wasn't going to push my luck.

I settled into the old armchair I kept in the shack and fired up the old wood stove. The still wasn't running and the place had already aired out, so there wasn't any real danger of the place going up in flames.

Another thing that annoyed me, the damn fireplace was full of ashes. Newspapers, by the look of it.

Teddy was going to get his ass kicked if he'd clogged up my stovepipe.

Either way, I cracked open the book I'd been reading about some guy who got stalked by a mountain lion as a kid and settled in with the last jar of apple pie shine.

Before I got too drunk, I slid the old iron slide bolt into place just in case. At that point I really did think it was just Teddy, but I wasn't willing to test the theory either.

Lemme tell ya', my stuff's good. At least for getting drunk. I'd just gotten to the part where the kid got to a little shack of his own in the woods when I passed out.

I don't even remember getting my blanket out of my truck, let alone wrapping up in it.

I'd brought a few packs of hotdogs, a couple cartons of eggs, some green beans, and seasonings to keep me in case I didn't nab anything to eat, so breakfast that morning was just

hotdogs and eggs.

Is what I would say if I'd actually managed to cook any.

I'd left the cooler outside. I guess cleaning out all the trash distracted me enough to just forget about it, and something had helped themselves to just about everything. Even the water from the melting ice was mostly gone, like something had just drank it all.

It didn't make sense. What could clear out a whole carton of eggs, a pack of hotdogs, and a good few gallons of water without making a mess? Let alone noise.

A family of raccoons? A pack of dogs?

This was around the time I decided I'd bag myself that rabbit, load up on shine, and head out the next morning. I'd come back to check things out later, maybe with some backup from the family and after I'd had a good chat with Teddy. Maybe him leaving all this junk around was drawing some scavengers in.

I still don't know if that's true or not.

Still managed to get myself a hare. First shot hit wide, and while the thing would probably die quick, I wasn't going to let it suffer. Dad, drunk bastard though he may be, always did say, "It's bad enough you're killing it, may as well be nice about it."

He taught me a lot about living out here. He's the reason why I never forget to lock the door, to make sure the still's off before I light a smoke or cook a meal.

To sleep with a gun.

So when the door rattled that night, drunk or not, I had my shotgun trained on that door right quick.

My breathing slowed. I didn't want whoever it was to know I was in here. Besides, even if they could pick the lock, they still couldn't get past the slide bolt.

Imagine my surprise when, by the dull light of the moon, I heard a loud thud on the door followed by a soft, repetitive scratching.

Around the third thud...

The bolt shifted. Not a lot. Not violently.

But it definitely nudged back.

Somehow this son of a bitch was getting the bolt to move.

The click of an empty shotgun was deafening in the quiet of the night.

All noises stopped almost immediately.

My dumb ass had forgotten to reload after this morning.

Just as my feet hit the ground, the thudding picked up, followed by a rapid shaking of the doorknob and louder, more aggressive scratching on the door.

My box of ammo was sitting on a little nightstand beside me, and in my drunken stupor, I'd knocked the box over, sending shells spilling out everywhere and getting lost in the dim light coming from the stove.

I only managed to grab one before I heard the bolt clatter against the wooden door.

My shoulder ached with the force of me slamming my body into it. I heard something outside hit the ground with the distinct sound of something crashing through leaves. In my scramble, I managed to slide the bolt in and take a big step back, single shell loaded and waiting.

When the door handle shook, my finger twitched.

The shot peppered the door and caused a few of the more worn chunks to fall away.

Silence. Whoever it was, there was no way that'd killed them, not instantly.

My lungs started to hunger for air as I held my breath, waiting for a groan, scrambling... Anything.

Instead, all I got was a bloodshot eye peeking at me through the stomach-high hole in the door...

And a thin-lipped smile with no teeth and too much gum showing through the hole beneath it.

Out of reflex, I jerked the shotgun barrel towards the eye, which I guess was enough of a threat to run the guy off.

Now this is where you'd imagine I'd left. Where I'd loaded up my shotgun and got the hell out of there.

Well, I tried to.

I spent that night in the root cellar, back pressed against a wall and shotgun trained up, until my watch finally told me it was morning.

When I tried to open the shack door, I found that the slide bolt seemed to catch and stick to the door. Not enough to stop me from opening it, but enough to keep it from falling loose like it usually did.

When I stepped out and took a look at the door, I saw it.

There, stuck to the screws poking out the other side, was a large fishing magnet.

Sneaky bastard.

After throwing what little I'd brought with me into my bag, I hoofed it to the truck, dead set on hauling ass out of there.

The cut-up garden hose sticking out of my gas tank told me that probably wasn't happening.

The rat had siphoned nearly every drop of gas in the tank. Why? Was he trying to keep me out here so I wouldn't call the cops? Did he have his own truck somewhere nearby and just steal it to drive outta' here?

My hands started to shake and the familiar feeling of anger started to fill my gut. It took more restraint than I'd like to admit for me to not throw my shotgun at my truck. I settled for my hat instead, flinging it out into the woods.

That's how I found the marks. Little white lines around knee height sitting on a tree just a foot away from where my cap landed.

They weren't uniform. Some were almost even lines, where others were just white splotches of runny paint.

I'm too old, not as quiet or steady as I used to be, but I'd been hunting out here long enough to avoid making too much noise as I followed the marks.

I didn't love how little time it took me to stumble into what I can only call a hoarder's campsite.

A ragged tent, half-collapsed and stained. Trash all over. Empty food cans, shredded paper, a few worn tires...

Empty soda cans hung from trees by rough twine next to what I hoped were animal bones.

And the smell isn't something I'd ever want to think about again, like cat piss and rotting meat.

Somebody had been here, and judging by the bare dirt and the amount of bones, they'd been here a while.

In the center of the clearing was a circle of stones with some black ashes sitting in the center and some fresher looking bits of wood.

I could just barely smell the scent of gas coming off it. That's when I noticed the milk jug, lid off, sitting next to what looked like some chunks of styrofoam and one or two of my

mason jars. Nudging it with my foot a little bit of pale yellow came out.

My gas.

I paused, just long enough to look around the little clearing, eyes lingering on the half-collapsed tent before slowly lowering myself down. The cap for the jug lay on top of the little pile of styrofoam, and while I didn't like the idea of taking my hands off the shotgun...

I had to get out of there. I tucked the butt of the gun under my arm, capped the jug, grabbed it with my free hand, and slowly backed my way out of that hellhole.

The sound of a limb breaking somewhere in the distance made my whole body tense. I nearly dropped the jug in my rush to bring the barrel to bear in the direction of the sound.

That's when I heard the first giggle. It's the only way I can describe it. It sounded like a grown man giggling like a child who just got caught sneaking up on somebody.

When I took another step, the sound stopped. Abruptly. I didn't make a sound. There was no way they could've heard me.

Which meant they saw me.

"Teddy?"

I let the word hang in the air for a moment.

Then it started again, low and slow, a single snort building into that deep hiccuping laughter.

The sound was echoing, but I could just barely pin it to somewhere to my front and left.

It stopped again after the echo of the gunshot faded into the distance, replaced by the sound of something crashing through the leaves...

Thankfully away from me and away from the truck. Still, the entire walk back was spent with me constantly looking back over my shoulder.

I don't think I'd ever been so grateful to myself for keeping a funnel in the bed of my truck. As soon as I got fuel in the tank, I got the hell out of there.

As soon as I got cell service, I tried calling Teddy. I wasn't really too surprised when he wouldn't answer the phone.

Not too unusual for Teddy, but what was unusual was his sister not having seen him in nearly a month.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get anybody to come help me check the place out anytime soon, and I don't know if I'm up to go back just yet. I swear I can still smell that campsite, that stench stuck so deep in my nose that it makes me want to gag.

Those are problems for tomorrow.

As for tonight? I've got a load of shine to deliver.

And a jar to help me forget that laugh.

#horror writing #horror story #original horror #short horror #creepypasta #nosleep #rural horror #backwoods horror #folk horror #moonshine #cryptid horror #writeblr #old bone tongue

Something happened in tunnel B at the chicken plant

It's hurting again.

I can still feel it. Tightening. Coiling.

That cold slimy grip.

My friends tell me to talk about it but honestly they all look at me like I'm crazy.

I'm not crazy.

It happened three days ago. I work at a local chicken plant as a maintenance worker. They process tons of meat every day, from start to end. Usually these kinds of places break up the processes into smaller factories, but not here.

From live hang, de-boning, dicing, prepping and even a few lines cooking chicken that you yourself might have eaten at some local fast food joint. They did it all. But see, it's not all clean efficiency.

There's dirty jobs too.

Most giblets, bits and other scraps get turned into dog chow but that doesn't mean there isn't still loads of wasted meat that gets flushed into the company drainage system. A series of interwoven grates, pipes and channels that feed out into a large wastewater pond.

Yeah I hear ya, can't be great for the local environment but I guess by the time the stuff reaches the drainage pipes it's mostly sterile and diluted enough to release out into the world.

It's a nightmare in the summer. The entire town hates it. But that doesn't stop them from letting their teenagers, friends and family work there. After all, there's almost nothing else around.

That's why I'm here after all. It pays better than working the lines and it's mostly basic handyman work.

A loose bolt here, a replaced power cord there. Really all you had to do was pay attention to what the older guys did and maybe watch a few YouTube videos here or there on lunch breaks. However there was one job you'd never catch any of the old hands doing.

Pipe clearing. Every once in a blue moon some big glob of skin, fat and maybe a plastic bag or two will get caught somewhere and cause some backflow or start clumping near one of the tunnels that fed out into the drainage pond. It's usually pretty simple work.

And you always come back smelling like rotten meat. That's why they make the newer guys do it. Guys like me and Mikey, who did it the last time there was an issue, so apparently it was my turn. Great.

I elected to have lunch before going down into the pit, figuring I wouldn't really be in the mood after. The report talked about slower drainage, a few of the grates taking an hour to fully drain when they should take minutes, and a lingering odor of rot coming up from tunnel B.

That meant checking every grate and channel from the factory floor all the way out to the concrete outfall that jutted over the pond by a good six or seven feet.

So I set to work. Grabbed a radio, some of the large rubber gloves we used for cleanouts, and a three-pronged garden cultivator maintenance had started using to dredge stubborn clumps out of the grease-filled waters.

Checking the grates they reported, I found no obvious signs of blockage aside from the backflow. Still, I pulled the metal covers off and tried to sift through the red-brown liquid. The tip of the cultivator scraped against concrete and only managed to pull up a few scraps of fat and a half-shredded feather.

I followed the line down and repeated this process a couple of times before figuring it would just be easier to find where the water wasn't backing up.

So down the maintenance stairways, into tunnel B, I walked. The further down I went, the deeper the water got. Not anything dangerous. Well, aside from the risk of losing my lunch to the smell. Just an inch or two of dirty water.

The splash of my steps turned to sloshing as the water got up to ankle height. I was never so thankful for those ugly uncomfortable rubber boots they made us all wear as I dragged my feet through the stuff.

Then finally shin height. By then I was starting to get nervous. My boots went up pretty high but if the water got any deeper I'd end up needing to turn back and get a pair of waders or something. Thankfully it seemed to stay pretty consistent as I reached the last stretch of the drainage tunnel. I wish I could say the same for the smell.

The stench was quickly ramping up, no longer the stale smell of sterilized but rotting poultry.

This was almost akin to sewage or like that time I had to pull a dead possum out from the neighbor's shed.

Sweet but wrong, like rotting fruit up until the point where that greasy musk hits you and lingers in the back of your throat.

The walk had taken me to the outflow. A square culvert that led directly to the outfall. They kept the tunnels pretty decently lit but I could still see the reflection of sunlight coming through the large grate that separated the tunnel from the outside world.

I could tell even from a distance that the water wasn't moving right.

The usual even flow out was something more of a slow lazy spiral, like it was choked off and just barely draining from some hole near the bottom of the grate. The sound of a steady flow of water was now a trickle followed by an occasional splash as the waste occasionally flowed over whatever the stoppage was.

And the sound of buzzing.

God the flies must be having a field day with this.

I walked along the edges where the walkway stayed level despite the drainage tunnel itself sloping down. That meant whatever was causing the blockage was big enough to cover up several feet of grate.

This was gonna suck. No way it wasn't some big glob of skin, fat and feathers that had somehow slipped through processing. It happened. Maybe not this bad but it did happen from time to time.

The pool here had begun to murk, looking more like the pond outside than the usual brown-red liquid I was used to seeing flow out these grates. It was thick enough that I couldn't even make out the bottom.

So naturally I took the cultivator and pressed the head deep into the water, dragging the tip from as low as I could get it and starting to scrape upwards.

And there was definitely something there, a rubbery sort of resistance between the cultivator and the metal grate. Whatever it was, I couldn't get purchase on it. When I pulled the head back it was trailed by a glob of green algae-like slime.

I nearly gagged. The stench got worse when I pulled the mass out from the water. A smell like pond muck mixed with putrid meat.

It was enough to distract me from the fact that the water around my feet wasn't just shifting with my own motions.

The fact I threw up, that sudden jerk as I felt the cheap company-provided chicken meal leave me and join with the water below, made me close my eyes just long enough.

Something clamped down.

Hard.

It wasn't painful yet. Like somebody had reached up from the murky muck to try and pull me down. A grip tight enough that in all my flailing I couldn't even pull out of my boot to get away.

A grip that found itself on my other foot, causing me to fall back onto the grate.

The whole thing shook with the impact. The sound of shaking metal bouncing through the tunnels.

I would say that I took a deep breath, calmed down and tried my radio.

But I didn't do that. No, instead I screamed, thrashed and dug my fingers into the grate behind me. I desperately tried to leverage myself up and out of the water, away from whatever was touching me, pushing me back against the grate.

The more I pulled, the tighter the feeling got. Every time I'd get pulled back down while frantically yanking my legs, whatever it was would shift up maybe another inch or so.

I didn't stop thrashing until it wasn't just holding my boots, but in them, pouring into them and rubbing against my feet.

You ever held raw chicken skin? Felt the cold, rubbery texture? That's all I could picture at the time, my boots filling with wriggling loose skin.

The smell. I will never forget that smell. No matter how hard I scrub my legs I swear.

Sometimes when I'm alone. When there's nothing going on.

I smell that waterlogged, sickly sweet scent of rot.

Somewhere in my panic the cheap clip of the radio must've snapped, or maybe it just got pushed the wrong way when I hit the grate. Don't know. They never recovered it.

So there I was, hyperventilating and gripping onto greasy metal for dear life while something slowly inched its way up my legs. It seemed like the less I struggled the slower the thing moved.

That's when I got a look at it, or at least part of it. The patch that was working its way up me was mostly a clear slime with flecks of yellow-white blobs in it that I eventually pegged as bits of fat alongside some patches of bubbling discolored liquid held in its form.

As it met the water below I saw a mix of rust-red patches that lazily shifted, suspended in whatever was holding this thing together.

And deeper in the water, just barely visible under the surface, were more concentrated black blobs that occasionally bobbed up close enough to see as it shifted its way up my body.

I screamed, cried, shouted. This deep in the tunnels nobody would probably hear me. Sure maybe if they went into the maintenance stairwell but like I said.

Nobody came down here unless they had to.

Worst part of it? I could see the town. Through the grate, there in the distance I could just barely see the road leading away from the factory and into the town proper.

None of my shouting mattered. The cars kept driving, town kept moving while I got to stand there and wait for this thing to finish me off.

I think it was an hour in when I threw up again. It wasn't exactly in any hurry after I'd stopped struggling. At that point I was hoping somebody would just notice I'd been gone and come get me. The ooze had worked its way up slowly to my stomach and was still squeezing. That, coupled with the fact I could make out what looked a lot like mosquito larvae twitching in those little pockets of yellowed water trapped inside the ooze, made the urge hard to resist.

That was a mistake.

I couldn't exactly lurch forward so a good bit of it just ran down my work suit.

And when it made contact with the thing, I could see the shifting stop. The whole thing seemed to freeze up.

It started drinking. That's the only way I could describe it. It sucked the trickle of vomit into itself. I could see the bits of white and brown from the breaded chicken meal getting sucked down into one of the darker parts of the stinking mass.

It moved in contractions, like a throat swallowing over and over again.

I still see it. Still see the moment where it began to trace up the vomit trail.

Still remember the sticky feeling between my fingers as I ripped at it, threw chunks of goo off and away only for it to react by binding my fingers so tight I heard something pop.

It was pinning me to the grate. Not creeping up anymore but moving in short pulsing bursts, tightening, squeezing.

I felt my head getting light. I tried to move my leg again but the thing responded by gripping down on my right leg with a crushing force. I felt something give followed by a blinding pain that made me cry out.

The last thing I remember is something cold, wet and slimy trailing up my chin and the taste of mildew and mold poking into my mouth.

And then nothing. According to the doctors I must have fallen into the water while trying to clear a blockage which apparently I did because by the time somebody got around to checking on me the water was draining normally.

With me laid splayed out, propped up against the grate.

I don't know why it let me live.

What I do know is when I came to I tried to vomit. Could still taste that stale rot in my mouth, smell it in my nose, feel it in my skin. It was too much.

Water. Mostly anyway, thick and warm with a stench that was too familiar.

The doctors sent me home with a cast and some antibiotics, told me to call if I feel any flu-like symptoms.

Now I'm stuck sitting here, wondering as I try to forget the painful throb in my leg and that taste that won't go away no matter what I eat.

Did it stop at my mouth?

#horror #horror fiction #short horror #nosleep #body horror #industrial horror #workplace horror #monster horror #weird fiction #Bonetongue

hannahorca

Successfully molded and cast The Creature! Stay tuned for painted figurines :)

oldbonetongue

The chosen one.

#hannahorca #creature art #artists on tumblr #sculpture #creature design

The third brother.

The old tale of two brothers. Nobody speaks of the third.

After all, how would we know the story if nobody remained to tell it? Cain would tell no one of his shame. Abel could no longer speak. Nobody speaks of Lyrin. The eye in the brush. They speak of the Murderer. The Victim. In hushed tones, we speak of the Witness.

Art by Gustave Doré - Doré's English Bible,

#horror #biblical horror #folklore #my writing #weird fiction #gustave dore #bonetongue

Ollie took me for a walk today.

Just Ollie and I.

That's how it's been for years. Ever since I retired from my job at the bank.

I got him as a pup just before my retirement party. He keeps me company. I never bothered with getting married.

Had a few flings over the years, but in the end nothing ever stuck.

This morning Ollie had some big plans apparently. When I woke up, he'd already made his way into the yard to do his morning sniff around. I could just see him trotting along the little fence we put up for him.

He came in just before I got his breakfast ready. Normally he waited for me to shake the bag or for the sound of the sink turning on as I got his "gravy" ready, but today it's almost like he knew.

I wasn't complaining. The company was always welcome.

I gave my best boy a pat on the head and settled into my chair after putting his bowl on the ground by my feet.

A bit rougher and more wiry than the soft fur I remember, but then again, he's getting old and I can't say my hair's exactly any softer nowadays.

It was part of our routine, a good breakfast and a chance to sit down and take it all in.

A good dog, hot coffee, some warm eggs and a nice view. Things I'd worked for years to get.

Well, it used to be a nice view.

There in the corner of the window, breaking up the view of that luscious green.

That dirty yellow-brown of one of my ex-neighbor's trailers, like a smear on clean glass that you can't ignore.

The Johnsons were a nice family. Their kid was always a little off, but when he moved out Mary and Joe kept on being good neighbors. Kept to themselves, kept a tidy little garden that brought a little color to the place.

Then when Joe passed, Mary's health wouldn't let her stay, so when she moved into the home, their son moved back in..

Jackie ruined that place. What used to be a nice little trailer and yard quickly got overgrown with junk and weeds. Beer cans, broken glass, the usual trailer-park trash behavior.

Then he started moving in his "friends".

One nice little trailer with hand-print paint from the boy's childhood turned into a field of half-baked car

projects and odd visitors late at night.

It didn't surprise me or the local cops when one of the trailers exploded. The fire from the meth lab burned hot and violent, consuming most of the other mobile homes that'd been crammed into the lot.

Jackie claimed to not know anything. I didn't bother to look into the story much past that. All I know is it's been abandoned ever since the cops cleared out the equipment and remains.

The morning glories that Mary used to keep so well pruned have now formed dead vines that coat the burned-out cars. Her hostas which had been beautiful at one point were now just untidy clumps of green and brown.

Right there in my window was just another reminder of why I hated neighbors. Why I just preferred living alone.

Just me and Ollie.

Speaking of, the spoiled brat was nudging my leg and tapping his paws in place. This was his own way of saying "hurry up Dad! I gotta go!".

Draining the last of my coffee, I gave the guy a quick pat on the back. "Alright buddy, let's go." This set him off to spinning in excited circles as I pulled myself up, using the table as a brace.

I clipped the old leather leash to the blue collar around his neck. My rule of thumb was to always keep it one finger loose. I don't want to choke the little guy, but he did have a tendency to pull when some new scent caught his nose, and it seemed a little loose that morning.

Normally he drifted towards the little patch of forest behind us. There was a feral cat colony or something out there that I think a little old lady down the road was feeding. Not a big deal and it gave Ollie something to check out, I guess.

Today, though, he was pulling me the other way.

Down the gravel driveway. Maybe a stray had marked the mailbox or there was some roadkill up the road. I don't know what about today made Ollie wanna walk out there, but he was digging his little paws in. Dragging me away.

Away from the house, towards the long stretch of nothing road that led from the loose collection of houses that made up my "neighborhood" and into the larger parts of town.

I wasn't really paying attention.

I guess that's how the Doberman snuck up on me.

There was a moment where I noticed him. Where the ears started to flatten and a low growl rumbled up from its throat.

I know not all of them are violent, but the way this thing was growling.. The way it limped towards me with its ears drawn back and teeth bared.

It looked hurt. My first instinct wasn't to run. I knew better. I kept Ollie behind me and tried to calm the thing, hoping if I just kept my back straight and didn't flinch that it'd back off enough for us to get back inside.

This wasn't the first angry stray I'd dealt with in my life.

But it was the first I'd dealt with while walking Ollie.

"Easy boy.."

Then a bark from behind followed by a yank of the leash.

Ollie had pulled away from me and was now barking and lunging towards what looked like a German shepherd mix with half an ear torn away and bald patches on its rear that had managed to circle around behind me.

It all happened so fast. I was so busy trying to keep an eye on the other dogs that I didn't realize Ollie had slipped the leash.

Snapping, biting, and a white furry body along with a brown one tussling in the street.

I cried out, desperate to call him back, when my call turned into a shout of pain as something clamped down on my leg. I turned, kicked and scrambled back, landing on something hard with a loud thunk and the feeling of something giving beneath my weight..

My car. I'd parked it at the end of the drive a few days ago after hearing about a storm moving in. The driveway always

turned to mush during the rain and I didn't want to get stuck in case things got bad.

I won't say I was relieved. I wasn't. The only thing running through my mind was getting away.

Getting Ollie.

The mutt came free with a chunk of my house pants and more than a little skin, foaming mouth shaking and thrashing the cloth, not yet realizing it had lost me as I scrambled to the top of the beige old thing I called a van.

I'd never been so thankful for how rounded the corners were on this thing. Scrambling up it was hard for me with hands and feet.

The dogs couldn't find traction with their nails and paws.

A sharp yelp of pain followed by more snarls forced me to look away from the Doberman and two other mutts that'd joined in the chaos and were now jumping and snapping as my body curled into a ball on the top of the hail-damaged roof.

I saw a flash of white go behind the hostas, followed by that brown mutt crashing through the green.

The sounds I heard after..

I knew he wouldn't make it.

My leg throbbed painfully as I brought it to my chest. The torn edge of thin blue cloth turned a darker shade as the wound on my leg pulsed.

I'm not ashamed. I cried. I curled together and sobbed like when my mother died.

Maybe some of you will judge me, but he was my baby boy.

I was only pulled out of it when one of the bastards managed a lucky nip at my back that had apparently been just a little too close to the edge.

I pulled myself away from one edge only to see a dog jumping higher to try to reach me on the other.

Something cracked beneath me.

Sunroofs aren't really made to support a full-grown man.

It wasn't exactly clean. The glass panel shattered into dozens of small tinted glass pebbles.

I scrambled to grab the edges of the roof as my left leg painfully fell down, causing my hip to jerk.

When I felt the warm breath and spittle from one of the leaping dogs, the decision was made for me.

I adjusted, pulled myself up just enough to get my other leg in and slid awkwardly into the now glass-covered driver's seat.

The sound of claws digging at glass windows, the repetitive assault to my ears that was the bark of several mutts that now circled my car, looking for entry.

It wasn't exactly comforting, but knowing there was at least -something- between us at least gave me a chance to breathe.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a part of me was still trying to figure out a way to Ollie.

But the saner parts of me, the ones that had kept me alive working the oilfields, knew that wasn't going to happen. Knew I had to call for help and maybe find a way back home.

Back to the shotgun I kept leaned up in the corner of my doorway.

My initial thoughts were animal control, maybe the police department. In the end it didn't really matter.

Hard to make a call on a shattered phone. I guess somewhere between me falling onto the car and my scramble onto the roof, I'd managed to land on my phone. I tried, I really did, but the thing wouldn't even let me get past the lock screen.

I'd only learned later that I could've used the voice assistant to make the call for me. Sue me, I'm old.

A paw slamming into the window next to me, followed by a series of short deafening barks, made me jerk away from the driver's side window. I'd unconsciously started to lean into the door.

My face fell into my hands, elbows resting on the dash as the aches I'd previously been ignoring started to come back into focus. The bite wound throbbed, my hip and back twitched painfully with every shift.

My eye went to the blanket I kept in the passenger seat for Ollie. It didn't feel right, getting it dirty.. But my leg was still bleeding and he wouldn't be needing it anymore.

The barking was trailing off. The hope that maybe they'd lose interest died when two of the pack took to laying down in the middle of my driveway, panting and looking all the world like normal dogs.

Nothing like the picture of the snarling monsters that had forced me in here.

Somewhere to my right something slid across one of the fenders. In the passenger side wing mirror I could see a gray dog with a more pit-bull-like build digging and sniffing at one of my back tires before sitting down.

They were settling in.

No phone, no car keys, no gun.

Stuck.

I'd probably have panicked if I wasn't so drained from the experience. The makeshift bandage seemed to be helping, so bleeding out wasn't really something that worried me.

What worried me was how long they could wait.

Have you ever thought about what a dog does when they run a squirrel up a tree? You hear about it, but how many of you have actually seen it?

The squirrel probably just hops to a different tree, up and away..

But what if the squirrel didn't? What if the thing the dog wanted was just there? Just out of reach?

At one point I tried to poke my head out the sunroof to get a peek down the road, partly out of desperation to just do something, partly out of hope I'd see a car I could flag down.

Apparently that was enough noise to set the mutts off again. The one by my wheel well let off a bark and that got the attention of the others, brought them back to circling my car and making half-hearted leaps towards me.

Any time I made a major move in the car, it'd seem to set them off.

Looking down to my cup holder, I could just barely make out the time from the ruined screen of my phone.

One hour.

Just as the thought of reclining back and trying to sleep crossed my mind, though I doubt I could've managed it, a loud "Honk" forced both me and the dogs to look towards the road.

A truck, dented and green, was slowly creeping down the road. Maybe one or two of the pack had been loitering in the road? Maybe they were guard dogs that this guy was rounding up. Never did find out.

The thing that mattered was it drew them away from me.

I gave it a solid minute before working up the courage to try and make a break for the house.

The first step out of the car felt unreal, like I'd open the door and they'd suddenly turn around or come out from behind the bush.

But the most I saw was the hint of something furry running down the road in the direction the truck went.

The hobble I managed wasn't fast, but it got me down the driveway, to the door and into the little hall that served as the entryway to my house.

No phone meant no ambulance. I needed to get to a hospital to get my leg looked at.. But my keys weren't hanging in their usual spot on the keyring by the door.

Cursing myself for leaving them on the nightstand, I started the awkward hobble to my bedroom, down the hall, past the living area..

In through an open door where something sucked the breath out of my lungs.

Ollie was on the bed.

Splayed out on my pillow like he owned the place, tail giving one slow wag when he saw me.

He crawled his way over to me, dragging his belly across the bed and messing up the sheets..

My hand was shaking as I reached out, still not believing what I was seeing..

My thumb brushed the red leather at his neck, the same one he always wore. His fur felt soft in my hand and I almost lost it when the wag picked up speed.

I sat on the bed, dragging the old dog into my lap, and just rocked back and forth.

My baby boy was alive.

But..

Ollie was here.

Ollie had been here.