Too Far Gone

Chapter Two

     Brushing his short and curly chestnut hair out of his vision, Eric attempted to push the horrific events that occurred a week ago from his mind. The well-done sirloin rested, untouched, in front of his chocolate-brown eyes, but he felt no desire to eat it. In the days following that unspeakable call, much had been discovered. While Eric never watched the news, his friends had filled him in on the situation, despite his protests. Since then, the police had traced the call back to a house downtown and found a gruesomely mutilated female corpse, defiled beyond recognition. The phone was next to her, and it was decided that this was Tracey Smith. Blood caked the walls, and the door had been broken down and completely shattered. Her husband James Smith, the alleged attacker, was never found. All that was known was that he had suffered from a severe attack while out jogging, and the perpetrator remains on the run. His injuries were severe enough to necessitate a hospital visit, and he had just returned from the hospital when the phone call took place.
     Pushing the plate away from himself, Eric sighed in exhaustion. It had been nearly three days since he had last slept, and he didn't plan to pick up a phone and say those well-rehearsed words again anytime soon. Slowly lifting himself to his feet, Eric made his way over to a closet near the front door of his house. The man opened the doors and, in one smooth motion, withdrew a simple and unadorned green jacket. Hastily donning it, he turned around and stepped out the door, carelessly slamming it shut behind him as he stepped across his diminutive yard to the sidewalk. Looking upwards into the sky, Eric frowned. The sun was going down, and darkness had begun to settle all around. Well, that certainly doesn't help things. He thought morosely to himself, retraining his sight onto the dilapidated sidewalk at his feet.
     The area was unusually quiet, and even the birds, cicadas, and crickets seemed to be absent. As with most things in his life, Eric had prepared a routine when it came to his walks. He planned to walk around the block first, and if that wasn't enough, he would head to the park about half a mile away and saunter back. As he walked by one house, painted a nearly blinding shade of yellow, a dog began to bark behind him. It wasn't the sort of barking that one expected to hear, but was instead a bark of anger, fear, and desperation, and it appeared to be getting steadily closer. Turning to face the sound, Eric nearly collapsed into the street as the dog dashed by faster than the eye could see. The dog, however, was likely the least of his worries, for a raspy groan began to echo in the distance. As a figure, somewhat obscured by the setting sun, slowly rose from beneath the horizon, Eric realized that the sound was almost identical to the final sounds he had heard in Tracey Smith's desperate 911 call.