Then Came the Last Days of May

Then Came the Last Days of May.

Part 1: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

A 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 colored Royal Maroon drives up to the front gate of an old farmhouse on the outskirts of Ibaraki, dark clouds stretching over the skies, inside of the car sits two men.

“So… gray skies, dead grass, and a spooky American Farmhouse in one of Japan’s agricultural hotspots remind me again why we’re at murder central number 101?” The man in the driver’s seat asks.

“We gotta do our job.” Answers the other man.

“Why couldn’t we just be carpenters?” Kane asks sarcastically.

“Because this is easier.”

“Ya don’t say, Samuel.” Kane answers sarcastically, turning off the engine and putting the car keys in his pocket.

“I do.”

The two men climb out of the car; Sam doing a few stretches, “Damn I’m stiff.”

“Old age catching up?” He retorts sarcastically.

“No, sitting on a leather seat for the past 7 hours.” Sam says leaning against the roof of the car.

“Well, you’re gonna have to get comfy for the ride back.”

Sam and Kane move towards the trunk of the car. Kane lifts the trunk; he takes out the spare tire and places it on the ground. He lifts the cover, revealing a secret compartment full of all sorts of weapons, pistols, and shotguns all sorted together in a row, along with them are an M4A1 Carbine, a MK13 Mod 5, and a Winchester Model 1887 Shotgun strapped to the roof of the compartment, next to them are strapped several melee weapons including a pair of machetes, a cross with the tip sharpened, a silver knife, and a hatchet. Hanging from the compartment is a Kotsu-anzen Omamori charm. Next to the pistols and shotguns there are bullets and trinkets all neatly packed and sorted together. Additionally, there is a tank of gasoline, a bag of salt, and a small bag. Finally, the entire far right side of the trunk holds an M202 Flash with 3 rockets still inside it.

Kane looks inside the trunk. “Beauty of dimensional storage, we can fit enough firepower for World War 3 in the trunk of a Mustang.” He looks over at Sam who is looking in the direction of the farmhouse. “So, what’s this place’s problem?”

Sam doesn’t respond to Kane.

“Sam!”

Sam scrambles to put a pen and book with a leather cover away in his pocket, turning to Kane. “Well, a couple of days ago the owner of this farm was reported dead in the field, wife found him, drained of blood, his skin was so thin and stretched to the point where his bones were visible.”

“Ah…” Kane turns his head back to the trunk, wide-eyed.

“That’s not all. Three days before that, the farmer reported every single one of his cattle dead. Same thing. The police sent out one of their own, he never came back.”

“When was that?”

“A day ago. No one came looking for him.”

“Could be a ghost. Farmer probably grieving over the loss of his cattle to a plague or something, never got over it.”

“Kane, what did we say about assumptions?”

Kane shrugs.

Kane reaches into the trunk and takes out an M1911, engravings running all along the silver metal, the handle has a special carving on it of a pentagram surrounded by the twelve zodiacs. A handgun made to kill anything supernatural or otherwise, the Silver Bullet. “Someone will eventually, get the IDs.”

Sam walks over to the passenger’s seat while Kane works in the trunk. “You sure it’s not a vampire?” Kane says slamming the trunk shut. Sam freezes while reaching for the IDs, looking at his shaking right hand. He regains his focus and reaches into the glove compartment taking out their fake PSIA, Public Security Intelligence Agency IDs, “Impossible.” He gets up, closing and locking the door behind him. “Let’s go.”

Sam and Kane walk in front of the gate. Kane takes a deep breath and climbs over the gate. “Ya coming Sam?” Sam looks at Kane, at the gate, then at Kane again, opening the gate and walking through it. “I… knew it was open, I just needed the exercise.” Kane tries to hide his embarrassment. “Suuuree.” Sam pats Kane on the shoulder as he walks past him.

“Where do you want to start?” Kane says inspecting his surroundings.

“Well, farmhouse, fields, barn. So quite a bit of ground to cover. I’ll take the fields and barn.” Sam starts to walk forward, but Kane grabs him by the shoulder.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Why do I gotta take the murder house?!”

“What?! Big man scared of a bit of dust and a squeaky floor?” Sam says that with the biggest smug smile on his face.

“Fine, then we settle this the right way.” Kane puts his closed right fist on his open left palm. “I win, I take the fields and barn. I lose, I take the house.”

Sam takes up Kane’s offer and readies himself.

Both shout “ROCK PAPER SCISSORS!!!” at the same time.

Sam throws scissors and Kane throws rock. Sam throws his arms in the air in defeat as he walks to the farmhouse. “Maybe someday you’ll win Sam.” Kane says as he turns to face the poorly lit, window-less barn and realizes the mistake he made, hanging his head in defeat.

Sam opens the front door and steps into the house, immediately noticing the smell of rotten eggs and rusted metal. Standing in the living room everything is dusty, barely touched, odd for a house that had people living in it only days ago.

“So, what secrets are you hiding” Sam wipes the dust off the table, the dust covering the entire palm of his glove. He wipes the dust off on his pants and looks around. “Two floors.” He looks down the hallway to his left. “Kitchen too.” He walks towards a door sitting just beneath the stairs at the back of the living room. Opening the door, he finds a long flight of stairs reaching into the darkness.” And a basement.” He walks over to a window on the right side of the room and looks at the barn where Kane amps and hypes himself up before going inside. Sam shrugs and gives a disappointed sigh, “Looks like I’m eating diner food again tonight.” He says in an almost sad tone.

He turns around and walks towards the kitchen, as he walks through the hallway connecting the kitchen and living room. Taking note of the paintings and portraits. One of the paintings is hanging on by a single nail and the portrait at the end of the hallway has the glass frame broken with another lying on the floor. He notices a large mark on the right wall, 5 claws cutting into the wall, approximately 5cm deep, and 3cm across. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen that type before.” Entering the kitchen, it is a mess, food, pans, and all sorts of goods strewn over the floor, the fridge and freezer wide open. The table in the center of the room has a rotten stench coming from it, with a bloody blanket covering it.

Lifting the blanket, Sam finds a mangled corpse, drained of blood, the same way the husband was found in the field. Sam searches his pockets to find any form of ID, inside the right coat pocket, he finds the man’s wallet, along with his police badge. “Officer Norioh Natsuki, explains why you didn’t come back.” He decides to take the money out of his wallet as he places it back on him, he’s already going to hell, so he might as well extend the sentence. “The backdoor’s still locked, windows intact.”

He takes out the book and pen from his pocket, the investigation is listed as Case #672. He starts walking around the kitchen, observing everything he sees. “Cabinets, all open, high, and low, the food and contents inside are a mess. Someone or something was scavenging. Just look at the mess on the floor, rotten fruits, and vegetables, maybe three, four weeks, someone only reported this a couple of days ago… the owner’s wife no less… the fridge door, ripped off the hinges same with the freezer.” He looks inside the wide-open freezer, now hot and the food inside spoiled. Meat packets are torn open, once again fruits and vegetables are left behind. He notes all this in his journal. He looks out the window at the dying trees. “Winter’s a week away. It could be stocking up… what is this ‘it’ though.”

Inside the barn, Kane walks around with an EMF meter in his hand, but it stays silent, so he throws it in his pocket. He takes a deep breath, then sighs and shakes his head. “Jackshit.” As he steps forward, he steps on something mushy and checks under his boot. “Literal jackshit.” He walks through each of the stables, his arm swinging wildly back and forth, stepping into one of the stables. He comes across the mangled corpse of a sheep, just like the cattle, drained of blood.

His footsteps being the only sound to break the eerie silence. He crouches down in front of the sheep and rolls it around, looking for an entry wound, finding one on the stomach of the sheep, too small to be a tooth mark, combined with the lack of other surrounding wounds. He presses on it, but it feels empty, hollowed out, with no gut or any other internal organs. “Welp… one way to find out.” He takes out his knife and plunges it into the stomach of the sheep, cutting it open with ease, with no tension from the cut. Shining his flashlight into the gut of the sheep, he finds nothing inside the body. No organs, no blood, just a husk. “Now I know for a fact… sheep don’t shed their skin.” Thinks for a solid second. “Do they?” Thinks for another second and shakes his head. “No-no!”

Hearing something falling from the floor above him, he immediately turns around, sits on one knee, and points his gun at the shadows. Holding a flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, he scans the shadows for what could’ve knocked it over. Slowly stepping over to the fallen item, he sees it is a crate full of grass and wheat. He hears something scurrying around on top and then it crashing through the top of the barn, he runs out of the barn to catch a glimpse of the creature as it runs into the trees. Small, half the size of a human, four-legged, dark brown skin, almost malnourished, with two wings on its back that each have large holes in them, making it incapable of flight. Kane scratches his head with the barrel of the gun, “I have seen some freaky stuff, but that’s just… I don’t know.”

Sam searches through every single room in the house and finds nothing further. It barely seems touched, some of the dust in the rooms seems to have piled up for days even, with no further signs of a struggle or somebody being in here. Opening the closet in the bedroom, he finds a small book wrapped in leather. “What do we have here.” Sam says with curiosity in his voice as he grabs the book. The front page says it belonged to one Victor Helligan. He starts reading off the entries in the journal.

“Date: 02 August 1873. I finally leave this godforsaken country behind me. I do not yet know my destination, all I know is wherever I shall end up, I will be far away from them. They can take the farm for all I care, there are thousands of miles between us now. My only concern now is that the crew doesn’t find me before we touch land.

Date: 04 August 1873. That lasted real long, the crew discovered me eating their rations in the cargo bay. Most of them wanted to kick me off the ship, but the captain calmed them down, I am now forced to work off the rations I ate and the money I wasted in turn. We are heading to a land somewhere between Australia and India, a simple cargo exchange they say.

Date: 10 August 1873. The captain says we’re but a day away from our destination. When we get there, I’m going to make a run for it. They say when we’re done with this land, our next destination is going to be someplace near Asia. Then after that, we’re going back to America, where they’re going to hand me back to the Sheriff. I can’t have that; they will hang me.

Date: 12 Augus-“

“SAM!!! SAM!!!”

Sam turns to see Kane standing breathless in the doorway, Sam closes the book to look at him. “Did you check the fields too?”

Kane stands up straight his breath gathered. “I saw it. It’s not a ghost.”

Sam and Kane walk out of the house, carrying the dead body. “So, you saw a small, skinny, pale, winged quadruped, and didn’t shoot it? Wha-haha-what happened to the Quick Shot Legend you were bragging about last night?”

They place the body down on the ground and they both sit down. “Yeah, I hesitated because I thought it was you for a second, didn’t want to kill my brother just yet.”

“Ha-ha” Sam laughs sarcastically.

Kane sinks his knife into the man’s stomach, just like it has no tension whatsoever, allowing him to easily cut it open. “Yup, just like the sheep, nothing inside him. You know I can almost see through him.

Sam turns the man on his stomach, he sees the same type of wound the sheep had on his back. He turns him back on his back and plunges his fist into the cut that Kane made to feel around inside him. “You could’ve just asked me to open him up further.” Kane says holding back vomit.

Sam reaches around to his chest area. “I feel his ribs and spine. It’s not just the intestines, he’s got no lungs either, or a heart.” Sam seems unaffected.

Kane facepalms, “Samuel please.”

“For the insides of a dead guy, he doesn’t feel wet at all, no spare blood. He’s dry-oh-OH that’s a muscle, so he’s got something.”

“Please- *gulp* please stop describing it.”

Sam pokes straight through the guy’s skin. “No wonder there was no tension when you cut it.”

Kane pulls Sam’s arm out of the body. “Okay-okay that’s enough poking around inside the dead guy. What is it?!”

“I’m inclined to say Chupacabra, but not only are we several thousand miles away from Mexico, but Chupas aren’t known to go after humans, let alone suck them dry of everything. If it was only the cattle, that’d be one thing, but now… I don’t know.

“What do we do?”

Sam stands up and takes the book out of his coat pocket. “I haven’t checked the basement yet; I found this book too. Seems unrelated, but you never know.”

Kane stands up too. “Well, you enjoy your fine reading, I’ll go check the basement.”

Sam opens the book on the last page he read, and Kane just stands there while Sam reads. Sam glances up at him. “You want me to come with, don’t you?”

“Yes please.”

Sam sighs and puts the book away again. “Alrighty then.”

Sam and Kane walk into the house and stand in front of the basement door. Kane pulls his gun out and points it at the door as he pushes it open. The door slowly creeks open revealing the darkness of the basement below them.

“Go on cowboy.” Sam says as he reaches for his gun.

“Pfft, you’re the one with the Single Action Army.”

Sam shrugs and nods at the same time. They step into the basement with their flashlights the only light source, Kane tries flicking on the lights to no avail.

The basement is a mess, with rubbish strewn all over the place, dust so thick it makes Kane resist the urge to sneeze his brains out, and a table thrown on its side in the middle of the room.

“You’re telling me someone LIVED here?” Kane says holding back a sneeze. “This place hasn’t been touched for years.”

Sam scans the walls and floor and notices the same claw marks as before. “Unless no one did, not officially. Think about it, an abandoned house, untouched for decades with no one coming near it. The perfect squatter’s house. All you must do is leave the place untouched so that it doesn’t gather any suspicion, well, aside from the rustled bed, your cattle, and generator for your fridge.”

“So, then you find your partner, and the sheep you probably stole, dead and drained of blood then you run to the police and cry that your husband is dead in the house you’re ‘living’ in.”

“Exactly.”

Sam tracks the claw marks to another room, a small circular one with brick walls and even more claw marks all over it. The side of the door for the inside of the room is fortified by steel and concrete. Stepping inside he notices the roof of the room is covered in concrete. “This is the well outside.”

“Weird way to store water.”

“I don’t think they were keeping water in here.”

“That thing was kept in here; did it push the door open from in here?”

Sam points his flashlight at a body across the room. “Or someone opened it.” He starts piecing everything together. “The squatters moved in with their cattle. Enjoy their life. One night one of the idiots decides to go down to the basement. Opens this door, that thing kills him.”

Sam walks up the stairs and down the hallway to the kitchen, Kane following behind him. “The thing makes its way into the kitchen and tears it up looking for food in their fridge.”

Sam steps outside and observes the fields. “Then it gets outside to the fields where the sheep were being kept, starts sucking them dry. One of the dumbasses hears the ruckus and comes out to investigate, then he gets dried out.”

Sam walks over to the police officer’s corpse. “Then the woman that was with them sees this in the morning, goes to the cops, one officer gets sent out to investigate. And here we are now. Still… something’s confusing me, why did they send out a police officer, who never came back, and they never came looking for him.”

Kane looks at the dark storm clouds approaching them, blocking out the sunset and the last bit of light with it. “I don’t know, but what do you say we find a place to rest for the night, come back tomorrow?”

“Why? I mean, we were here first. We might as well deal with it while we're at it.”

“Gah fine! But I’m sitting inside the warmth and comfort of the car.”

“Oh! So, a flannel shirt, a field jacket, and a sweater aren’t enough? I’m surprised!”

Kane throws his fist in the air. “Ah shut up duster coat!”

Sam has a smug grin on his face as he sits down on the porch of the house and opens the journal, he found in the house to continue reading it. Kane sits inside the car and puts a cassette tape with “Kane’s Greatest Mix Vol. 1 of 19” written on it, inside the radio. He sits back in his seat as he listens to “Enter Sandman” by Metallica.

“Date: 12 August 1873. I- I made a run for it, we were dropping off the goods, and when no one was looking I made for the forest. They chased after me, I made it real far in too, but there were too many of them, I tripped on something, a branch, I think. But what I saw thereafter… still haunts me. It was a beast, small, it stood on four massive legs and those wings, like a bat out of hell. It was like a man, corrupted, its head had two massive horns on it, with long hair and two pointed ears. Yet, the thing that haunts me most… its face, those piercing yellow eyes, the small nose, and its jaw. It opened wide enough to swallow one of the men’s head whole. I couldn’t get a look at its teeth, but… it shot its tongue into Robert’s throat, and sucked him dry, his skin and bones were the only thing left of him. I ran and ran until my legs felt like they burned away, the captain caught me, I explained it all to them, but they didn’t believe me, and honestly, I’d take a hanging over being prey to that thing. I’ll never forget the sight of it.

Date: 13 August 1873. The captain has gone mad, he says he’s going to capture the creature. That thing, that unholy beast will slaughter us all. I will be surprised if we make it back to our home. Please, if there is a God up there, make our trip as peaceful as it possibly can be.

Date: 14 August 1873. We came to this land with 34 men. We leave with 8. We lost a few when I ran. We lost almost everyone when the captain went out with his expedition crew. I was held captive on the ship and as such I am unable to tell this story myself, but from what I heard, it was bloody and horrific. It tore apart nearly every member, including the captain, before the last two could capture it. The second in command is too broken to properly act, with every other member unfit to main the ship, I will take up the role of captain and eliminate this beast once and for all.

Date: 17 August 1873. I have attempted everything there is to kill this monster, I had the entire fire at it at once, I tried to impale it with blades, I tried to burn it, it has not had food for days, yet it lives, I hear its screeching every night, haunting me. I don’t know what to do.

Date: 19 August 1873. There’s no time for doubt. I know what must be done. When we reach this land known as “Japan” I shall take the beast and lock it away, I shall start my new life here. Keep this monster from ever hurting another person.

Date: 23 August 1873. The last of the goods have been unloaded, with me and the beast with it. The last of the crew will now return to America. I shall build a home here, one just like my old farm. If I cannot kill it, I shall torment it with centuries in darkness.

Date: 25 July 1874. It’s been a long time since I’ve written in here, I just found it again too, I lost it while I was building the house. Nothing much special about this place, except for the locked and sealed-off well that now holds my old friend, the door is impossible to open from the inside. I love it here; the locals are friendly when they aren’t giving me an odd look. They call this place “Akuma no ie” or “The Devil’s House.” Guests don’t stay long, the screaming and screeching must be scaring them off, I’ve gotten accustomed to it. So long as this monster cannot hurt anyone else, I shall be grateful.”

Sam skims through the rest of the journal. “All just normal things from here on. Nothing important.”

Sam opens the passenger seat door and sits inside the car with Kane, he turns the music down. “So? Nice reading session.”

“Wonderful actually. No wonder no one came looking for the poor cop because it’s called ‘The Devil House’ the screaming coming from the basement kept people away, probably became a local myth or something.”

“Great, so what do we have to kill?”

Sam hands Kane the journal. “That’s what I’m going to find out, you read to get caught up.”

Kane hands the book back to Sam. “I don’t wanna.”

They have a back-and-forth with the book. “Come on, didn’t you ever read a book for high school English?”

“Ha-ha, I dropped out, dumbass.”

Sam hits Kane with the book so hard that it knocks the wind out of him. “I didn’t know 1st Grade was that hard for you.”

Kane holds onto his chest. “Says the one who never went to school.” He says exhausted and pained.

Time passes deep into the night as Sam does research on his laptop and Kane reads through the journal. Sam sitting in the front passenger seat, and Kane lying down in the back seats. Sam throws his arms in the air and says “Yahtzee!” Kane throws the book down and folds his arms. “Good hopefully that means I can stop reading about his pan and plate collection, it really fell off after the first act. What do we get to shoot?”

“A Mandurugo.”

“Amanda-what-now?”

“It’s a variety of Aswang, originating from the Philippines. It’s described as a vampiric creature that sucks out the blood and organs of cattle… and people. It uses its long tongue to suck out the blood, then sucks out the organs.”

“Oh.”

“They probably visited the Philippines during the voyage which explains how that thing got all the way over here. Plus 130 years inside a cell, it’s probably blood starved.”

“How do we kill it, Helligan tried everything short of the woodchipper. When in doubt, woodchipper it out.”

“Silver. Nothing special.”

Kane takes out his gun and loads it. “Let’s go get this thing then.”

Sam and Kane step out towards the house. Kane signals Sam to go into the forest while he goes to the other side of the field. Walking into the forest, Sam is met with immediate silence, not a bird, not an owl, nor a bug. Only the crunch of leaves and snapping of twigs as he steps on them. Sam continues his search around the forest, keeping his eyes wide and ears open for anything.

Kane walks around the field, gun in hand. As he walks around the edge of the forest, he finds a heap of dead sheep that the Mandurugo sucked dry. “Where are you? Did I scare you off last time?” He whispers to himself.

Sam finds a small group of 4 deer dead on the ground of the forest, and he kneels in front of them. “Damn… by now it’d have most of its blood back. Which means it isn’t just hungry anymore, it’s just plain angry.”

Kane finds himself standing in front of the barn, with the monster nowhere in sight. Unbeknownst to him, the Mandurugo stands on top of the barn, and when it catches a whiff of his scent it crawls down the wall facing his back. Moving along as silently as possible to catch him off guard. Sitting just above him, the creature opens its jaw wide and straightens its long, slender tongue aiming it directly at Kane’s throat. Just as it shoots its tongue out, Kane turns around and fires a silver round straight into the monster’s chest. This alerts Sam who starts running towards the gunfire.

The Mandurugo screeches and wreathes in pain as the silver bullet burns the flesh surrounding the wound. “Did you think I’d fall for the same trick twice?! Yeah, Helligan never tried this did he?!” Suddenly the creature plunges its tongue straight into Kane’s throat just in time for Sam to see this as he runs out of the forest. Sam screams no at the top of his lungs as he shoots at the creature three times, enough for it to let go of Kane, Sam shoots it another time in the right hind leg, making it unable to run away, the creature hisses at Sam at tries limping away. “Get back here you vampiric bastard!!!” He screams as he runs towards the monster, holding his hand out.

From the forest comes flying a scythe. The snath is approximately 90cm in length, with no grips, tang, heel, or ring as the blade is built directly into the snath. The blade is thicker than any normal scythe and incredibly sharp all around. The blade is a pure black color, with silver engravings of a rose bush, the thorns of the roses dripping with blood, the edges of the blade are made of pure obsidian, allowing one to cut into anything with extreme ease. The snath is made of rose pink colored wood, and carved into it are finger grips surrounded by leather for increased grip strength.

The Mandurugo stands its ground against Sam and shoots its tongue into his shoulder. “You want my blood huh? Then go ahead and enjoy the side dish of silver with it.” It starts sucking his blood, but its tongue gets burnt and he pulls it out, Sam catches it and cuts it off with the scythe. Sam’s shoulder starts bleeding, the blood however is mixed in with silver, creating a red and grey mixture of blood.

The monster leaps at Sam one final time and bites into his left arm with all its force, its teeth will just not sink in, they start cracking and ultimately all of them shatter. It falls, defenseless, and tries to get away from Sam, but he kicks it in the stomach. Then he raises his scythe over his head and screams as he plunges it into the Mandurugo’s back. He takes the Scythe out and keeps plunging the Scythe in, over and over and over, the outside world just seems to fade to him as the blood spatters on his face. His mind flashing with painful memories and the voice of a woman speaking to him. “Sam? Sam! What are you doing? Sam? Sam?”

“SAM!!!” Kane screams at him

He jumps back to reality as Kane shakes him. He looks over to Kane with his blood-soaked face. Kane looks at the destroyed body of the Mandurugo, no longer a monster, but a fleshy pulp of blood, with a few bones mixed in. “Holy shit Sam.”

“I-I thought you were… I-“

“Sam. You should know a little knick to the neck and a bit of blood being drained isn’t going to kill me.”

Sam is out of breath and lowers his scythe to his side. “Yeah… yeah…”

“Well, thank fuck you’re a Reaper.”

“I guess so.”

Kane holds onto his neck. “Let’s bury the bodies, burn this thing. The head home, whaddya say?”

Sam takes a deep breath and then swallows to wet his throat after the screaming. “I say yay.”

Sam breaks off one of the horns of the Mandurugo to take as a trophy.

After Sam and Kane have finished burying the bodies and burning the Mandurugo. They sit inside the car and look at the house. “Well, Sam if we ignore all the dead bodies, squatters,

and monsters being kept in the well. I’m sure it would go for a high price on the real estate market. It’s got that real exotic feeling.”

“Well, all the spooky stuff’s gone. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Sam and Kane smile at each other as they leave a sign at the gate.

“Property for Sale for the Low Price of 6 000 000 Yen! Contact R&P at 13 429 1034! Live Today, Pay Tomorrow!”

They drive off into the night listening to “I Want It All” by Queen.

Chapter 1: End.