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BEWARE THE BANDAGE MAN:
A NORTH COAST HORROR STORY
PART II
Story by RYAN HUME
Illustrations by DYLAN TANNER
FOR COAST WEEKEND
I
t was Saturday, October 20, 1973.
Ben Driscoll woke up that morning
with a pinch. He had slept hard,
drooling on his pillow and flinging one
arm off the side of the bed. When he
shot awake he found a Dungeness crab
clamping the pink meat of his wrist.
“What the hell?” he said, shaking
the crustacean loose.
He collected 11 free-range crabs
from around the cottage and put them
into the kitchen sink as the kids slept.
Sultan was nowhere to be found. The
skulls were gone, too. The front door
had blown wide open during the night,
but this kind of thing didn’t just happen.
There was only one man who could
be responsible for this.
Ben knocked on Earl Sloane’s door,
seething, a Dungeness in hand. After
a few long minutes, Earl opened the
door, still crutched against the shotgun.
“Pete,” he said. “Wasn’t sure if I
would see you again.” Earl looked at
the crab in his hand. “Gift?”
“What is this?” Ben said, raising the
crab. “Do you think this is funny?”
“No,” Earl said plainly. “I think that
is delicious.”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re
playing at, old man,” Ben said. “But
leave me and my family alone. And
where’s my dog?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“If I hear one bark from this direc-
tion … ” Ben wagged a shaky finger at
Earl’s chest. “One bark, and I’ll—”
Earl’s face drained of any friendly
pretense until it set in a hard scowl.
“You’ll what?”
“Just wait,” Ben said, backing up on
the porch. He chucked the crab at the
doormat. “Just wait.”
As Ben began to walk away, Earl
called from the door, “Pete! I tried to
level with you!”
“Oh yeah,” Ben said without turn-
ing around. “Your dead son. Right!”
“He’s always looking for a ride
home!”
When he returned to the Surf’s End
House, the kids were awake.
“When did you get home last
night?” he asked Audrey.
“What’s with the crabs?” she
replied.
“Tonight we eat like kings.”
“I’m going out tonight,” she said.
“Suzy A. might be in love.”
“Where’s Sultan?” Sam asked.
• • •
What kind of cruel world would
take a boy’s mother and dog in the
same year? Ben asked the cloudy sky,
but received no answer. He was begin-
ning to lose Audrey, too, but fathers
spend years preparing to lose their
16-year-old daughters.
They combed the neighborhood,
but the mutt never turned up. Night
came early as the rains blotted the sun
and stirred a heavy wind that rattled
every branch, bush and beam. The
squalls didn’t stop Audrey from going
out when a cherry-red Chevy pickup
emerged out front.
Sam stared at the crab on his plate,
his one good eye rubbed raw by tis-
sues. He had barely even given its claw
a handshake. Ben couldn’t be sure the
crab he was eating was the one that
had bit him this morning, but he took
a satisfaction in imagining that it was
every time he snapped shell to reveal a
lump of sweet meat. Wouldn’t life be
easier if you could douse all of your
enemies in melted butter?
“It’s so cold out there,” Sam said. “I
bet he’s really scared.”
“You need to eat, buddy,” Ben said.
“Keep your strength up. We’ll find him
in the morning.” But thinking about
those posters they had seen downtown,
Ben wasn’t so sure.
After he cleaned up the kitchen, set
the rest of the crabs to the wild, and
got Sam to bed in flannel pajamas,
Ben poured four fingers of bourbon
and plotted at a ghostly face built of
three dark knobs glazed into the knotty
pine. He was one hundred percent Earl
Sloane had his hands on this. He has
another key — it’s that simple. Ben’s
grip tightened around his glass as he
imagined that old kook limping down
this dark hallway as he snored, as
his son, as his daughter … No, don’t
even go there. Stay focused. Perhaps
he could return the favor? He could
just peek in through one of Sloane’s
windows. Once he saw Sultan in the
house, he could … do what exactly?
He’d squeezed himself into a position
where he couldn’t call the police. What
would he do next?
Rain spat against the windows.
The downpour gushed enough to dim
the orange throb of light that winked
across the sky and also hid the bulky
shadow that appeared outside the
window. When it spanked the double
pane with its bandaged palm, bourbon
snuck through Ben’s nose as he let the
glass slip, shattering on the floor. He
knocked over his chair as he stood.
The creature rubbed its palm across
the glass, staining the window with its
dark grease as its breath birthed little
cumulus clouds. It was breathing. For
a moment, Ben caught his own reflec-
tion in the window, his face transposed
upon the near-featureless gauze of the
creature’s bandaged head.
Then they both looked to the front
door.
“Sam!” Ben yelled.
He ran across the room and made it
to the lock.
“Sam! Get up now!”
He flipped the table over and but-
tressed it against the door just as the
knob began to spasm and the soggy
smacks of the creature’s fists shook the
wood in its frame.
Continued on Page 22