Her face still stung from where the younger woman had knifed her earlier. Other cuts and bruises also sung for attention. Ashley was hurt and physically exhausted.
She thought of Kim.
Whatever had happened over these last few hours, the only thing she could think of now was her friend’s last, selfless act. And the words she had mouthed as those monstrous hands grabbed her.
I’m sorry.
Her sacrifice had given Ashley the opportunity to escape, so it didn’t matter how tired she was, how much pain she was in, she had to keep going.
She owed it to her friend.
The sound of the family’s bickering and Tim’s furious taunts faded more as she put further distance between them. And she was happy to let it drown out.
But then she heard something that spurred her on faster. A loud, metal screech, and more shouting from Tim. She couldn’t be sure what he said, but she knew that somehow they were through, and they were after her.
Ashley knew how quickly they could move, especially in these kinds of environments. It was almost inhuman. It meant they would gain on her, there was no question of that.
Her only hope was if she’d already put enough distance between them to get to the end of this tunnel before they caught up with her.
The knife Kim had dropped for her was wedged into the back of Ashley’s trousers, and she could feel the blade cut against the skin of her buttocks as she crawled. Regardless, she didn’t move it, and she didn’t adjust. Instead, she used the constant stinging as motivation to move faster.
The key for the grate was also tucked into her pocket as well, but she knew it was useless now.
She heard more yelling and excited chatter from the tunnel behind her, and it was growing louder. It was still a distance away, but closer than she would have liked. Still the tunnel went on, and even when she shone the light from her phone ahead every now and again, hoping to catch sight of the end, the way forward just extended out like a never-ending path.
Her muscles ached and the lack of air also made things difficult. Outside, in the woods, she could suck in as much of it as her body needed, but down here, under layers and layers of earth, it was more difficult.
She tried to push herself on as quickly as she could, but Ashley was also mindful of what could be waiting at the other end. She knew things wouldn’t be straight forward. After all, they had been wanting to bring her down here themselves, so it obviously didn’t lead to civilisation or a place where help would be waiting.
Once out of the narrow passageway, she knew there would still be work to do.
Someone else was down here. Someone the Webb family spoke of with fear and reverence.
Grandpa.
Ashley had no idea what to expect from him, so there was no real way to prepare herself. She just knew that she needed to be alert and ready to act. The knife Kim had gifted her may not do any good when all was said and done, but Ashley was glad to have a weapon all the same.
The voices were beginning to grow steadily louder, and closer, and her breathing had turned short and shallow. She tried to keep calm and move faster, working her arms and legs as hard as she could, trying to keep everything in a steady rhythm.
The tunnel ahead then began to close up, threatening to block off the way ahead. Ashley felt an increasing sense of claustrophobia as the walls closed in the farther she crawled.
Was it a dead end?
She had visions of getting stuck and being able to do nothing but wait until the family reached her and flayed her.
Thankfully, almost as soon as it had narrowed, the tunnel soon began to open up again, allowing her to crawl faster.
Then, as she checked up ahead again with the light, she saw it; an end to the never ending. The end of this fucking tunnel.
Ashley could see the space open out, but also a steady blue glow that grew a little brighter the closer she got to the end. She wasn’t sure of the source of the light, but she didn’t care.
She flicked the light off from her phone, not wanting to draw the attention of anyone who may be ahead.
She used the strange glow at the end of the tunnel as her guiding light; a point of focus to press on towards. The stings and scrapes of stone and rock against her skin, and the poke of the blade into her flesh, now mattered little. In fact, they motivated her more. Ashley worked her body quickly, pushing harder and harder.
Soon, she was out, through the opening, and into a staggeringly large space.
It didn’t take her long to realise she was in a huge underground cave system of some kind. Stalagmites rose up from the ground, and stalactites dropped from the rocky ceiling above. Looking up, Ashley found the source of the blue glow she had seen from the tunnel.
The entirety of the rock ceiling above was lined with thin, rope-like objects that hung down. The writhing things gave off a fluorescent glow, and there were so many that they acted as a light source. The worm-like creatures were not still; they moved, slowly, twisting and curling.
There were thousands upon thousands of them.
Ashley couldn’t be sure what they were, and they initially looked alien to her. The unnatural hue they radiated gave the cave an otherworldly feel.
An idea as to what they might be soon popped into her head: glowworms.
Ashley was still aware of the approaching danger from behind, and saw a clear way forward, a wide pathway that funnelled between the large rock formations and stalagmites that sprung from the ground.
In different circumstances, the whole area could have been considered quite striking and beautiful, if a little oppressive. Right now, though, it was dangerous. On top of that, the thought of one of those worms above dropping down onto her caused goosebumps to crawl along her flesh.
She shook off the notion and began to run forward, following the only trail she could. Hopefully, it would keep going and led to a way out.
If it didn’t, and there was no other exit, Ashley was going to be stuck down here with them. And, as big as this place seemed, she couldn’t hide forever.
As she ran, a sound caught her attention.
Though it wasn’t quite clear enough to pinpoint or recognise, Ashley could have sworn it sounded like a whisper.
Impossible.
She had to keep going and not get distracted. Not let her mind run away with itself. She needed to keep her wits about her.
The she heard it again, clearer this time.
Now there was no doubt.
It was a whisper, and it formed a word she recognised.
The whisper had called her name.
Ashley.
She stopped dead, listening intently, her blood running cold. The words seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time.
She could hear her pursuers growing in volume from behind; their sounds were starting to echo around the stone surface of the cave. But she tried to hear beyond that.
Ashley, it said again.
‘Who’s there?’ she asked out loud, disappointed at herself for the fear she heard in her own voice. After all she had been through, what did she really have to be scared of anymore?
Yet she was scared.
Terrified.
Something about all of it just felt wrong, worse than what she had encountered up above with those cannibals. She couldn’t explain it, but she could feel a profound sense of dread creeping its way up from her gut, spreading its icy tendrils through her body.
However she also knew that, regardless of whatever was down here, she needed to keep going. Standing here wasn’t going to help her in the slightest.
Again she began to run, determined not to stop again unless she was physically made to. She heard that whisper again and couldn’t be sure where it was coming from, but ignored it as best she could.
The single word the voice uttered carried weight and menace with it. Hearing it set off waves of foreboding and unease inside of her.
Then something clicked.
There was a reason Ashley
couldn’t pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It was because it wasn’t coming from anywhere.
Not really.
She had been hearing it inside her own head.
Already terrified for her life, the realisation that something was in her head scared Ashley on a new level. Had her mind snapped? Was she crazy?
If not, then what in the hell was speaking to her?
Another sound, but no longer a whisper, this time a mad tittering. It was like nothing she’d ever heard before.
This can’t be real, she thought to herself. It’s happened. My mind broke. This isn’t real.
To her horror, she received a response to her own thoughts.
It is very real.
More mocking laughter as she ran, growing louder and louder and impossible to ignore. Ashley wanted to clamp her hands over her ears to drown it out, but knew that would do no good.
‘There she is,’ she heard another voice call, this one very much real and outside of her own mind. It was a voice she could place too.
It was Ted.
As she rounded a large boulder, she looked back and saw him sprinting towards her. He had closed on her quicker than expected.
The escape, it seemed, was over. Potentially so close to freedom, too.
No escape for you, little thing. You stay here with me.
Ashley’s heart was beating faster than she thought was possible. She felt her legs wobble as she ran.
Keep going, keep going, keep going, she thought to herself.
Yes, keep coming. Come see me, lowly thing.
She tried to ignore it and concentrated purely on pushing forward.
As she sprinted round another curve in the path, she saw it.
Ashley stopped dead.
The thing up ahead was impossible. Something so horrific that her mind struggled to process it.
It wasn’t of this world.
Couldn’t be.
But Ashley knew instantly who this was.
Her voice was shaky as she spoke, unable to hide her fear. ‘Grandpa?’
The thing smiled at her. She saw that it had too many teeth for its mouth.
Chapter 33
It made no sense, this thing before her.
It couldn’t be human, at least not anymore, but Ashley got the vague impression that perhaps it once was.
Its form was still vaguely human-like, though somehow it had completely melded into a large expanse of rock.
No, that wasn’t right. The wall this thing was fused to was not rock, at least not the same as the rest of the cave. It was black and wet, with small, thin, white veins running from the thing to the wall’s outer reaches. The black surface slowly moved and pulsed.
The form at the centre of it all, the thing smiling at her, was of roughly humanoid shape, but its head, and most of its body, had been painfully elongated and twisted, partially melted into a deformed shape. Its bloated, yellowed skin was split and torn, revealing blackened insides beneath. The face still had a mouth, one that was the full width of the head, and it had large sockets that may or may not have contained eyes. One corner of its top lip curled up, giving the mouth a natural scowl, but kept going and met an opening where a nose should have been. A feature she had seen on others in the Webb family.
The monster’s torso was unnaturally long and thin, and its ribcage actually sat outside of the skin. Arms splayed out to its side, but instead of hands, the arms ended with writhing tendrils that broke off at the wrists. Its waist simply sunk back into the pulsating wall behind, hiding its lower half.
There was another detail that horrified Ashley as well. Though the large eye sockets were sunken so deeply that what lay beneath was lost to their depths, the thing did have eyes, of a sort. Small, dirty yellow orbs with black pupils lined the length of its body in no definable pattern. Each of them rolled and moved of their own accord, taking in different parts of the surroundings.
Most of these grotesque eyes were now locked on to Ashley.
She noticed something else too. Thin, glistening tubes of flesh ran from the pulsating wall that entombed this thing and up to the ceiling of the cave above, getting lost between the wriggling worms that hung down. From within these translucent tubes, Ashley could see a trickle of crimson liquid working its way down towards the being. It dawned on her that they must have been directly beneath the room where Craig was killed, and she now knew where that stone table was draining the blood to.
Ashley, it said again, still inside her head. Its next words, however, were spoken physically, through a mouth that struggled to form the words.
‘Pretty,’ it said, its voice a strained growl. With its misshapen mouth and lack of lips, enunciating each syllable wasn’t easily accomplished. ‘I. Will. Claim. You.’
It heaved out an excited, wheezing chuckle.
The being was far beyond Ashley’s understanding of the world, or of the universe. More so than encountering the seemingly inhuman Webb family, seeing this thing shattered what she thought she knew about how things were, and how things were supposed to be.
Her mind reeled.
Then she remembered the knife. But the idea of using it against that thing just seemed absurd. Like sticking a rhino with a pin.
Ashley didn’t hear Ted run up behind her and was only aware of him when he lunged into her, tackling her to the ground. She landed face first and struggled to adjust herself. Not to fight him off, but, for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, she needed to get herself into a position to look upon the thing that so repulsed her.
‘A. New. Child,’ it said.
‘What... what is that?’ Ashley stammered out.
‘That,’ Ted said from on top of her as he pulled her arms behind her back, ‘is Grandpa. Say hello.’
‘It... it isn’t human. It can’t be real. It can’t be real.’
Footsteps grew louder from behind and Ashley became aware of others joining them. Henry panted as he reached them, his mother just ahead. Ashley heard a gurgling and spluttering as the father, Benjamin, also followed behind, still spitting blood, and still gripping his oozing throat.
The blood seemed darker now.
Tim was nowhere to be seen.
‘What took you?’ Ted whispered to his mother.
‘Henry got himself stuck in the tunnel,’ she whispered back. ‘It wasn’t easy pushing him through.’
Ashley was barely taking in any of this, still looking at the abomination before her. She was then hoisted to her feet by Ted.
‘She got away from us, Grandpa,’ Ted said, as if answering a question. One Ashley hadn’t heard being asked. ‘We were going to bring her down to see you, but something happened and she got ahead of us.’
‘I know that,’ the mother said respectfully. Again, as if in response to something. ‘It was a mistake. She should never have been down here on her own.’
A pause. Then Ted again; ‘It was his fault,’ he said, pointing to Benjamin, who was now down on one knee, looking like he was in absolute agony, like he was about to pass out. ‘A girl got the better of him, did that to his throat, which let this one get ahead of us.’
Another pause, then Benjamin tried to say something. It was a gurgling mess and blood spluttered from his mouth.
Ashley realised that there was some kind of conversation going on she was not party to. And after the way that thing had spoken to her inside her head before, she knew exactly how it was taking place.
‘Yes,’ Adela answered, looking over to her husband. If he were actually her husband, Ashley now thought. ‘It’s true. It’s his fault this happened. And because of him, we only had one body to feed on. The other girl is dead, and the meat and blood will soon be too cold. Not enough time to make use of her.’
The smile that seemed a permanent fixture on the thing’s hideous face faltered, then fell. It took on a seething quality, though Ashley wasn’t quite sure how she deduced that. It was more a feeling that the thing gave off, something it radiated.
Benjami
n pulled himself to his feet and began to gurgle incomprehensible words again, this time with more urgency. Ashley couldn’t be certain, but it seemed like he was trying to give some kind of apology. He had one bloodied hand held out before him in supplication.
The thing in the wall began to breathe heavily, pushing out its skeletal chest. All of the small eyes on its body rolled in the same direction to focus on Benjamin, who continued to plead in gibberish.
Ashley felt something change in the air around her, as if it somehow became charged with power.
Something was happening.
The rest of the family were looking at Benjamin with an expression she hadn’t seen from them before.
Fear.
And soon she saw why.
As Benjamin uselessly tried to reason and beg for his life, Ashley saw his skin slowly begin to change. It was almost unnoticeable at first, but soon it became clearer. Small, black marks began to form on the surface, marks that started to grow and redden in the centre. Then, a familiar smell began to drift towards Ashley, one that reminded her of barbecues on a summer day.
Cooking meat.
Smoke began to rise from the growing, dark patches, and finally Benjamin seemed to realise what was happening. His eyes widened in horror and he shook his head frantically. All of the creature’s eyes bore down intensely on Benjamin and, suddenly, he began to shriek in pain.
He dropped to his knees and his skin began to bubble and blister, crisping before Ashley’s eyes. Though there was no visible heat source, there was no mistaking what was happening; he was being burned alive.
The man continued to scream as the black and red blisters grew and completely covered him, scorching him, stripping him of his hair.
Soon he was unrecognisable as he rolled around desperately on the floor, the entire expanse of skin now nothing more than bubbling, burnt flesh. The horrific sight, coupled with the smell of cooking meat, was enough to make Ashley gag and dry heave.
Still, Benjamin suffered. Despite all he had done, Ashley actually felt a small amount of pity for him and just wanted the obvious torture to end.
Rather than end, the suffering went on. Benjamin’s melting, wax-like skin sloughed from his bones, dropping to the floor.
The Extreme Horror Collection Page 17
