STRANGE WEATHER by William Pauley III
"No one knew what it was or where it came from... It was as if the shape just formed there, all in an instant. There was nothing, then there was the shape."
STRANGE WEATHER
by William Pauley III
I'll never forget the day the shape appeared above our town.
It was as wide as a warehouse—a single line bent into a triangle, broken only at the tip of its most northern corner. It hung just below the clouds and blazed this intense hot pink, brighter than neon beer signs in the dead of night. Every inch of the sky and surrounding buildings were tinged by its brilliance. I've heard folks as far as Joliet were bathed inside its light. Here, in downtown Chicago, it hurt to look directly at it, but even still, my eyes were constantly drawn to it. Truth be told, I could hardly look away.
No one knew what it was or where it came from, and perhaps even more curious, not a soul in this bustling city even saw the thing as it moved in. It was as if the shape just formed there, all in an instant. There was nothing, then there was the shape.
It hung in the space directly above the Eighth Block Tower, perhaps the city's biggest shithole of an apartment building. In a megacity run rampant of rats as big as dobermans, being the biggest shithole of anything was quite a feat.
I was walking back from the corner grocery store when I first saw it. I won’t lie, I stared at the thing until the retinas melted clear out my eyes—or at least it felt that way at the time. The thing was just so impossibly bright, it was difficult to see just about anything else.
Once I finally made it home, I immediately turned on the television set, hoping the news had more information about the shape than I did.
"...we're reporting live from Jackson Bark, southside’s most popular dog park, where the bodies of six adult chihuahuas were just found dead —frozen. Seemingly victims of the unforgiving chill of Chicago’s historically cold winter. However, upon closer inspection, it seems something much more sinister than the nipping of Jack Frost’s breath may be at play. Curiously, every ugly-cute, stiff little corpse sport the same bizarre injuries: teeth marks—possibly human teeth marks—right at the center of their necks..."
I remember thinking the report to be odd, but at that moment I cared about nothing more than the shape. I had to know what it was. Without giving the report a second thought, I quickly changed the channel over to another news network, in search of answers.
But instead of answers, I found myself greeted by a most unsettling sight: a man—or at least it appeared to be a man—standing a little too close to the camera. He was inside a familiar room, specifically the newsroom of The Network, one of the area’s most popular news stations. Something about his appearance caused me to leap from my seat the moment he manifested there on my television screen.
First, I suppose it was the eyes that got me. He didn’t seem to have any—well, pupils I should say. He had eyeballs, at least the gooey white bit, but that was it. Not a hint of color in any shape or form. Oddly, though the appearance of his eyes suggested he was totally blind, it still felt as if he was staring at the camera. Honestly, it felt like he was looking straight at me, as if he could see me standing there on the other side of the television screen, but I knew it to be impossible, so I shook that eerie thought off straight away. But now, looking back, I wonder…
When I finally managed to break free from his hypnotic glare, I noticed there were a few other features that didn’t sit well with me either. For one, he had no chin. His face ran directly into his neck, as if the man had no jawbone. This caused his mouth to hang open slightly, and at all times, exposing the man’s hideously oversized teeth. His teeth couldn’t have been human. No way. They looked to be more equine in nature. They were so clunky and big I was certain, had he tried, the man wouldn’t have been able to wrap his lips around them fully.
And his hair… it was unkempt and imperfectly cut, but that wasn’t the part that bothered me. It was clearly a toupée, an unfashionable hairpiece that was glued to the man’s scalp, and quite sloppily too, as several spots along the edge of his hairline peaked in places it shouldn’t have, places seemingly treated with an inadequate amount of adhesive. It just looked so haphazardly thrown on that I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it was. Typically, toupées were used to improve a man’s physical appearance, however in this case, it only served to make him even more unpleasant to the eye.
But that wasn’t all. The most disturbing feature was so utterly bizarre that it haunted me more than anything else I’d seen that day, even more so than the mysterious blazing neon triangle hovering in our forever pink sky.
You may want to sit down for this, if you aren’t already.
The skin of the man’s neck hung from the bottom of his skull as if it was some insane flesh-colored pillowcase instead of real skin. It was impossibly loose, and seemingly folded and tucked inside the collar of his white button-down shirt. I’m telling you, it appeared as if he was wearing some kind of latex mask. Nothing about the man felt real. Nothing.
And all he did that day was stare directly into the camera, for hours on end, not once moving or making a sound. I sat and watched, waiting for him to break—to look away, to do anything at all—but he never did.
Then, without warning, the image of the man on the television screen disappeared all at once, instantly replaced by an illustration of The Network’s logo, along with the words “off the air,” displayed prominently at the center of the screen. A piercing high-pitched tone accompanied the image, and had it not been for the tone, I probably would’ve sat there and watched the television all night, anxiously awaiting the strange man’s return. Instead, I turned it off and went to bed, hoping the nightmare would all be over in the morning.
It took me hours to fall asleep, as the neon light leaking in through my bedroom window was blindingly bright, even through my set of blackout curtains—but eventually I managed.
The next morning, I was stunned to discover the peculiar man from the night before was once again standing there inside my television set. I nearly dropped my bowl of cereal upon seeing his face.
Curiously, this time however, there was a map of downtown Chicago filling every space within the backdrop. Also, the man was no longer staring lifelessly into the camera. Instead, he was gesturing in a wide range of motions, quite animated and not at all normal—it felt as if I was watching a live-action cartoon. Every now and then he’d point at a place on the map and bark out a single word, so harsh and abrasive, it almost seemed like abuse. Strangely, he was always barking out some number: “Seventy-six!” “Seventy-three!” “Seventy-six!” His voice was unlike any I’d ever heard before—nasally, and somewhat difficult to decipher given the size of his teeth. I was confused at first just what he was doing, but soon enough it became clear to me. He was calling out temperatures.
It turns out he was The Network’s new weatherman.
“This just in: an update on what locals are now referring to as ‘the Jackson Bark Massacre,’ where the bodies of now eleven adult chihuahuas have been found, completely depleted of the substance that gives us all life—their blood. Authorities are now reporting that the autopsy results of the first six animals—found frozen, yesterday morning, in a pile next to the doggie doo receptacles—show that the saliva samples and teeth marks found on their necks were, “one-hundred percent, without a doubt,” not human. In fact, the species of animal responsible for such grisly murders has yet to be revealed. It is known, however, that this kind of behavior is not typical of animals native to northern Illinois, sparking concern in the surrounding community, who’ve since dubbed the stalking creep as none other than ‘the Chicago Beast Tick.’ The autopsy results have authorities baffled on just what to do next. They’re asking for any eyewitnesses to come forward, before the Beast Tick has a chance to strike again. They’re also asking that local chihuahua owners be more relaxed in the next few days, and allow their pets to make boom-booms and squirt-squirts inside the safety of their homes, at least until they have a better understanding of how to deal with this new threat. We here at The Network will be following this story as it progresses, and of course we’ll be updating you as soon as we hear anything. So, stay tuned. Now we go back to Ernie, or new meteorologist, for hopefully better news. Take it away, Ernie…”
The camera cut away from the anchorman, back to Ernie (the strange man from the television, the night before), who was once again standing, facing the camera, staring into oblivion with those white, soulless eyes of his. A goofy, animated smiling sun wearing a pair of dark sunglasses danced around joyously on the screen behind him, but he paid it no mind. Instead, he just stood there staring, sucking in breaths between his giant horse teeth.
Finally, after what had to be a full minute of stunted, audible breathing, Ernie suddenly barked, “Seventy-one!”
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