Chapter 5 – The Body Count Rises

PART 5

**STEPHEN PARKER: “**Ya’ll see the roadblock, too?” Bubba yelled at us. We yelled back at him all at once, something all mixed up and borderline unintelligible. A mixture of “Look out!” and “Get back in your truck!” and “Run!” and “Call for help!” and “Get outta here!”

He looked at us all like we were crazy.

HAILEY ADAMS: We were all shouting and screaming out the windows, waving our hands. I’m sure that we looked like a bunch of lunatics. Bubba was just like, “What’s up with y’all?” I think he was so freaking drunk that he didn’t even know his truck was wrecked behind him. There was steam coming from his hood and the fender was all crumpled to shit.

SKYE BRIGGS: Amanda just had her hands on her knees, face staring up at the sky with her eyes close, this sleepy grin across her face. She was swaying back and forth. She definitely hadn’t gotten more sober since the last time we saw her.

STEPHEN PARKER: From out of the steam of the smashed radiator a face appeared. Just pitch black eyes and grimy skin. We started screaming even crazier, telling Bubba to look behind him. I’m sure we were all incoherent, but he deduced that much. Nick, he starts up the truck, tries to put it in reverse. The tires were spinning. He was revving the engine. Gravel was kicking up and we must’ve been knocked off into the ditch from the previous collision.

SKYE BRIGGS: From the back Hailey’s shouting, “We’re high center! High center!”

HAILEY ADAMS: We could only watch in terror at what happened next.

STEPHEN PARKER: It was like we were lobsters at a seafood restaurant watching the fate that was bound to befall us next. The big guy rounded Bubba’s truck. He was just simply massive. He was carrying that giant blade in his fist like it was nothing. It looked like it was just a flat piece of solid steel and I dunno, three feet long?

SKYE BRIGGS: Bubba, he gets the picture of what we’re all saying and he turns to face the giant guy. It’s too late for any sort of defensive or fleeing response. He’s caught completely off guard and the blade enters him right under the center of his chest and his feet slowly lift off the ground.

STEPHEN PARKER: He just raised him with one arm like he was a fucking beer stein or something, and Bubba was a pretty big and tall dude. He was lifted up by that blade until he was several feet in the air and the weight of his body further impaled him on it. He didn’t do anything except kinda grasp at the metal as he slid down towards his murderer’s fist, like he could push himself off the back end, the blade stained red as it exited somewhere from his back.

HAILEY ANDERSON: I was screaming and crying hysterically at that point. Skye was dead silent. Nick was still trying to maneuver the truck, saying, “C’mon, c’mon.”

SKYE BRIGGS: At this point, drunk Amanda is keen to what’s going on and starts to run. She’s screaming and crying and running. The only thing is that she is very drunk. She starts off in a sprint away from us, clips the trailer hook up thingy on Bubba’s truck and goes airborne.

STEPHEN PARKER: That part had to hurt. If you’ve never bashed your shin on a trailer hitch before, you’re missing out on one of life’s shitty gifts.

HAILEY ADAMS: Amanda pushed herself up. The big guy—we’d all eventually take to calling him Big Baby or Man Baby—he dropped Bubba and started off in pursuit. We saw the back of his bald head look down into the bed of Bubba’s truck and grab something.

STEPHEN PARKER: It was like a 4×4 I think. He through that thing like an all-star quarterback from hell. I’d been to museums where they show how a tornado can spit out a piece of lumber so quickly that it will imbed into a tree or a brick house. I have no doubt that he threw it with the force of that.

SKYE BRIGGS: You could hear the clunk of the wood on her skull from all the way over there. Her screaming and crying were instantly cut off. It was lucky that she was unconscious for what came next.

STEPHEN PARKER: Big Baby kinda nodded at his marksmanship, returned to where Bubba was bent over and leaning against his truck, just dripping. Big Baby grabbed the blade and pulled it out of Bubba’s back.

SKYE BRIGGS: He raises it high above his head and brings it down. Once. Twice. It clangs off of the pavement, but at this point we’re shuffling out of the truck in a panic. There’s no way we’re moving this truck. We’re taking off on foot.

OFFICER DANIELS, MOMADAY COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPUTY**:** We arrived at the initial scene at approximately 0500 hours. There we found two vehicles: a Ford F250 in a ditch and a Chevy Silverado smashed against the bridge. There were 3 deceased bodies at the scene. First, was Charles “Bubba” Morgan. He had suffered a severe penetrating injury through the trunk and appeared to have exsanguinated on the scene. Next, was Dylan Baker. He had suffered a significant amount of head trauma and didn’t survive these injuries. The last was Amanda Brackeen. She had a significant amount of head trauma and trunk injuries as well. These were unusual as they had been orchestrated in a sort of criss-crossing X pattern across her back, separating the body. All of these initial victims were teenagers.

STEPHEN PARKER: It was pandemonium exiting the truck. I don’t even really remember the sequence of events. Skye was first and then she opened the quad door for Hailey, who had been in the backseat. I think this was how we got split up. This act caused her to step back a little bit away from the ravine that the Crybaby Bridge spanned. All that I know is that I felt Nick’s hand on my back, I took a couple of steps, it was dark and I really couldn’t see, and before I knew it the ground disappeared under my feet. I was falling.