The Inbred

The day was October 19th, 1923. A poor family of four lived in a rural town in South Carolina. There was a father, a mother and two sons, one of them was an infant. The family owned an old, two story cabin, which was mostly made of wood. The family couldn't afford to bring both kids to school, so the older boy, Caleb, would walk two miles to the schoolhouse. Most of Caleb's classmates told him about "the inbred", a family of deformed cultists that committed crimes in their town since the 1850s. However, Caleb saw no deformed cultists to speak of. Caleb thought that the other boys were trying to scare him. Halloween was coming up after all.

Hours later, the bell chimed its deafening whistle and all of the kids rampaged out of the building and ran to their houses. However, Caleb calmly walked home with his head towards the ground, looking at the fire ants burrow into a grasshopper and drag it back into their anthill. Caleb thought about what it was like to be that grasshopper, being ripped to shreds by a colony of predators. He quickly erased the thought from his mind as he looked left and right, seeing nothing but large cornfields in the distance. Caleb was walking on a makeshift, blank path that would guide him on his trip back home. Dust and long, yellow strips of grass flew into Caleb's dirt brown hair. He started scratching his head as he looked to his left once more. He saw a hunched figure peek at him about 50 feet away and duck back into the cornfield. Caleb stopped walking, he tried to observe the figure once more. He stood on his toes and even jumped so he could see the figure. There was nothing. He decided to resume walking home, passing off the figure as a deer or a mirage.

Martha, Caleb's mother was watching her husband, William, chop wood outside. She held her baby in her arms, singing a lullaby, in a sweet tune. She cradled the infant in her arms as it slept soundly. Caleb unlocked the door with a rusty key and walked inside of the house. "Hello, mom." He said in a sweet voice. "Oh hi darling, how was your day at school?" His mother asked. "It could've been better." Caleb said, "I saw a deer on the way home."

"Caleb," Martha said, "there aren't any deer around here." Caleb nodded slightly, a tear streaming down his face. "Be careful out in the cornfields, honey. You don't want to run into them." Martha gave her son a serious look. Caleb walked up the wooden stairs, into his bedroom. The stairs creaked and squealed as the baby in Martha's arms started to whimper softly. Caleb looked out of his bedroom window as Martha tried to console her child. He saw the figure again. It almost blended in with the cornfield, its fleshy head peeking out at him. Caleb could see that it has long, gangly arms and fingers messily merged into one bony growth on the thing's hands, as if the fingers have been glued together. That thing was no deer. The figure bent down into a crouching position as the corn started to stir. Caleb realized that the creature was crawling in the cornfields, towards his house. Caleb ran down the stairs as loud shrieks echoed from the steps. Caleb ran towards the door and locked it. Then, he saw his father outside, chopping wood. William looked at his family, inside the house. He was trapped outside. He heard a low growl as he knelt to the ground and huddled into a ball. He started to pray, whispering to himself, and to God. The creature emerged from the cornfields and into plain sight. Caleb then noticed that it was human. It was one of "the inbred". Then another one emerged from the cornfields, this one had short, stubby fingers and it had a red, bloated face. They all wore small, torn robes, yellow in color. The robes each had a mysterious symbol on them. A crudely drawn star, with an eye in the center. They walked up to William. The one with the merged fingers patted his head softly. Another figure emerged. A small one was hobbling towards William on the ground as it chuckled and gagged in a raspy voice. Its arms were longer than its torso and its legs were short and fat. The creature walked like a gorilla and it was about three feet tall. "Join the family." The small one repeatedly mumbled. "Join us."

It was naked. Instead of a robe, it had the symbol carved into its back. A tall one then crawled out of the cornfields with a goat skull covering his face like a crude mask. He pulled out and axe and walked up to William slowly. Caleb didn't want to see his father get beheaded right in front of him, so he made a risky choice. Caleb opened the door. "That's a good boy." One of the cultists said, as the small one rushed up to Caleb with surprising speed and leaped onto his back. It laughed and hollered as it knocked Caleb to the ground. His baby brother started crying as Martha rushed over to the creature and picked it up. She was knocked down onto the porch. She pushed the creature back into the house. "Caleb, close the door!" She yelled. The creature tried to rush over to her as Caleb got up and slammed the door into the creature's head, crushing it. The creature's head blew into a thousand pieces as it fell on the ground, dead.

The cultists started to mourn their fallen comrade as the one with the goat mask rushed over to the door and started to chop into it with the axe. Caleb rushed upstairs into his parents' room to grab his dad's shotgun. Martha tried to calm down her crying baby as she carried him to the basement. She opened the door and slammed it shut as the creature entered the house. Luckily, it didn't notice her.

Caleb was sweating, he gripped the gun with red palms and white knuckles. His teeth clenched in anticipation. The creature with the deformed hands came into view. It sniffed the ground and started to crawl up the stairs. It looked up from the ground and started to hobble up the stairs as it let out a scream like that of a banshee. Caleb cocked the rifle as the creature pounced on him, its mouth agape. Caleb pulled the trigger as a bullet pierced the back of the creature's throat. It stood up and weakly wobbled for a second. The creature then fell down the stairs as a pool of blood leaked from its mouth. It twitched for a second, and then it died.

Martha was covering her child's mouth as one of the cultists opened the door. Its bloated face made Martha's eyes widen. It started to mumble a soft speech as it walked down the stairs, "A family everlasting, our voices may be rasped, we may be ugly on the outside, but that's the devil and his blast." Martha gently placed her baby on the ground and she picked up a plank of wood. Her baby saw the thing's face and it started to wail. "Hello sweet child." It said as it turned its head and reached over to the baby. Martha yelled as she smashed the creature's face in with the wooden plank. The fleshy growths that covered its face popped like balloons as its long snake-like tongue detached its mouth and fell onto the ground.

The creature with the goat mask rasped and breathed, his family has fallen and now he is nothing. "What have you done?" He rasped. "All of them, dead. My children, God's children! All dead!" He started to walk up the stairs as Caleb ran into view and shot it in the chest. The thing didn't even flinch. It ran up the stairs and grabbed Caleb by the neck. Caleb was lifted into the air as his face turned blue. "Your face, blue like the sky," the masked cultist said, "like Heaven, and thy God and thy angels. Thou art fallen, in Hell." The thing ripped off its mask to reveal a disgusting, putrid smile. It had no lips, and its eyes were bloodshot, as if the devil's blood were its tears. It opened its putrid maw as Martha suddenly ran up the stairs, ramming the wooden plank into the creature's head. He screamed as nails pierced into his flesh. Caleb grabbed the gun and shot the creature straight in the head. William then jumped through the window, ran up the stairs and jumped onto the creature's back. Martha grabbed the goat skull and slit the thing's throat with one of the horns. William and the cultist fell down the stairs as the creature took its last breath. "Oh good God!" Caleb yelled. He ran into his bedroom and looked outside.

There were more cultists, they were all standing in the cornfields. Waiting to strike.