S79 The Horror in the Swamp

by Brett Schumacher

  Son, only savages survive in this shitty world. We’re all part of the animal kingdom, like it or not. In that kingdom there are two types of animals—predators and prey. If you wanna live, you gotta be the most savage predator; more savage than the other guy.

  This wisdom had been imparted to a nine-year-old Robert upon witnessing two wolves fight to the death on a hunting trip. He had been scared and disgusted. His father’s words had not helped him overcome the traumatic experience, but standing in that room, wondering what creature was stalking him through the abandoned bunker, they made perfect sense. Although the other guy wasn’t a guy at all, and Robert had no intention of hunting it. But he would be ready if the creature came back, if it continued to hunt him.

  Never considering himself a badass, Robert wasn’t sure what to do next. He needed a weapon, but there were none in the facility that he had found. That did not negate the fact that he still needed something for self-defense; something sturdy enough and strong enough to kill the thing that had so easily mangled those metal lockers.

  He set the lantern on a desk and walked to the doorway, listening for movement. There was nothing except silence and darkness. Pacing from the door to the middle of the room and back again, he tried to put a plan together. With so many unknown variables, it proved too difficult to come up with anything more than a broad, general plan. Make a weapon, keep searching for an exit, and then find the assholes who put him there, and kill them. Then he could go back to Julie and Lilli, and finish building his family’s future.

  Thoughts of his little family fueled his urge to continue against terrible odds, but the notion of being able to dole out revenge solidified his resolve even more. The greasy, oversized mechanic and his creepy friend had dumped him in the middle of nowhere after beating him unconscious and robbing him of what little wealth he had on him. They had to pay for that. If they had bothered his family, the retribution would be slow and brutal.

  His head wound had mostly stopped bleeding, but it still throbbed bad enough to screw with his vision. After several minutes, Robert started down the hallway and took the first turn he came to, marking it on the wall with an arrow. His reasoning was that the facility could only be so large; it was not infinite, even though it certainly felt that way when he was being pursued by a murderous animal. If that thing was an animal. If he searched fast enough, he would eventually come to a place where he could get out.

  Offices gave up no secrets and all the map placards were ruined. Thirst bore down on him hard. The need for water became overwhelming in the sweltering dead air of the building. He plodded more slowly down a passage, searching as much for water as for a weapon or a way out by that time.

  Keeping the lantern high, he moved to an open doorway and peered inside. It looked to be just another quickly abandoned office with multiple identical desks. Before he stepped back out, the distinct sound of two men’s voices reached him. He froze. Their words were indistinct. They spoke in whispers as they stalked through darkness. He saw no light from their direction. His limbs tingled as he ducked into an office and doused the lantern’s flame.

  The voices drew closer, but the words never grew clear. Robert stepped behind the door and didn’t breathe. He strained to make out any part of the conversation. It was useless. Vertigo swooped in and forced him to put his hands against the wall to remain upright. If his back had not been against the wall, he would have fallen. The men would have heard him, and it would have been over.

  The babbling, whispering voices passed the doorway and faded very quickly. The vertigo did not fade as fast.

  Robert breathed a sigh of relief and stepped carefully, slowly out of hiding. Something about the close encounter was off. Something besides the nonsensical talking. He studied on the encounter before he relit the lantern. They never used a light, yet they walked straight past his door without stumbling or staggering. But there was still something else wrong that he couldn’t pinpoint. It nagged at him as he took to the hallway again.

  The last wave of the vertigo sluiced through his head, leaving him nauseous and hanging onto a wall for support. His knees buckled but not enough to dump him to the floor. Dry heaving several times, his entire body tensed, sending jackhammers of pain through his skull and silver specks through his vision.

  With his body back under a semblance of control, Robert moved ahead. His thirst redoubled. The nausea had made it worse, no doubt. He walked toward the next turn in the corridor. He had come to loathe closed doors and blind turns. The anticipation of not knowing what lay beyond them was excruciating. He wondered if he would ever be able to stand closed doors in his own home again.

  He approached the bend in the hallway with his back to the wall and a coppery taste in his mouth. All seemed quiet and abandoned. On the right side, a hallway lay angled sharply back toward the way he had come. On the left, there was another room lined with metal shelves. Another wide tunnel for vehicles was straight ahead. Knowing he would find only more blockaded passages, he turned away.

  Looking between his choices, he decided to check the hallway first. Walking a few feet in, he could see the hall turned back toward the left farther up. It skirted the offices he had passed. Were there other offices on the other side of that hall? Would he find more acres of abandoned facility, or would the end be close? Would freedom, perhaps lie at the end of that hallway?

  Doubting he would find anything but more offices, he turned back and moved to the room with shelves. He would investigate that hallway, but not before he had found something out of which he could fashion a weapon.

  The supply room in front of him looked like a good place to find that something.

  Before he could step inside, the dizziness swept over him again, sending him crashing to the floor. The sound was immense in the sepulcher of the empty building. The lantern bounced once, the glass shattered, and then rolled to the opposite wall. The bit of fuel that had been left in the tank poured onto the concrete and caught fire.

  Robert groaned and shielded his eyes against the bright flare. If he couldn’t find another source of light, he was doomed to roam in the dark, maybe never getting out alive. His lighter would only hold out for so long, and he did not think that was long enough for him to find his way back to the other supply room where there were other lanterns and more jugs of oil.

  Not knowing if the creature or the men were close enough to hear the clattering and thud, Robert got his knees under himself and pushed up again. He had to move fast and use the fading light to search the room.

  Staggering, he moved inside quickly, holding onto any solid surface like a drunk. There were two lanterns, both used, on the far shelf. He struggled to light them, but only one had any oil in it. The other had dried out years ago.

  In the odd flickering twilight, he saw duct tape, spray paint, twine, and a stack of duffel bags that had probably been new around 1970. The shelves were in decent shape. The rust had eaten through the legs of one shelf and sent it askew.

  The legs were lined with precut bolt holes to make shelf height adjustments simpler. The bottom of the leg had a flat, square, metal foot. The square against the floor was a six-inch square. He tried to loosen a bolt with his fingers but couldn’t budge it. With an idea firmly in mind, he searched the shelves for a pair of pliers or a wrench, but there was nothing.

  Running his fingers over the leg again, he looked to the rusted shelf. Balls of twine lined three of its six levels. The other three held a variety of medical supply kits. The back leg had rusted in two at the third shelf up. The rust had gnawed at the bolt on the second shelf. The first one was intact, but the shelf had ripped apart at a jagged, blade-like angle. That piece was still attached to the leg. He chuckled under his breath.

  He stepped to the door and looked in both directions. Nothing made a sound.

  Whispering, he said, “If that noise didn’t draw anything or anybody here, I hope this doesn’t.”

/>   Grabbing the shelf, he tilted it forward into the middle of the floor and then stood quietly listening. There was no chittering noise, no garbled whispers, there was nothing. He chuckled again and rubbed his hands together.

  There was a three-feet section of leg held to the shelf by a single rusted bolt. Straddling it, Robert took hold of the foot and pushed and pulled the metal leg until the rusted bolt began to move. Once the thick scrim of rust had been broken loose, he could unscrew the bolt from the shelf. With the leg freed, he held it up in the sickly yellowish light and turned it over and over.

  Nodding, he reached for a roll of the duct tape. That shit held the universe together, he was pretty sure, so he trusted it to reinforce his homemade weapon.

  He used nearly a whole roll of tape wrapping the handle section—it wouldn’t do to have it cutting into his palms every time it made impact—leaving only two holes at the very end uncovered, and then he grabbed another roll. Using that roll to make the piece of jagged, sharp shelf steady, he was proud of being able to envision such a weapon from the broken shelf.Unfortunately, he thought it made him a little more like his father than he had ever wanted to admit even to himself.

  By the time he was finished with the tape, the weapon looked like an axe with not one head, but two. The piece of shelf jutting from the tape was jagged like a broken blade and the ends were sharp enough to cut through flesh, and maybe bone, too. He was sure if he put enough force into a swing, it would cut through almost any living thing. The six-inch square topped the weapon off with stability and bludgeoning power. The corners weren’t very sharp, though.

  He used six pieces of twine, wrapped them in duct tape, and fed them through the hole in the end. Tying them in a knot, he put several layers of tape around it, also. The axe was heavy, but not so heavy that it would tire him out to carry it.

  Tossing tape, spray paint, and rolls of twine into the duffel, he shouldered the bag and moved to the doorway again. The light from the lantern sparked off a placard on the wall to the right of the door, drawing his attention.

  Peering closer, looking through the glare on the glass, he expected to see another unreadable map, but that’s not what he found. The map was intact, and it showed the way out of the facility. Actually, it showed five exits. Working it out in his head, he had found at least two of those exits blocked completely. A third was at the back side of the parking garage, which was equally unreachable because of the security gate. The other two exits marked were on the floor above.

  The tunnels and hallways between his underground level and the above-ground level were difficult to follow and the light, small labels for the rooms were badly faded. The nearest exit required him to follow a convoluted path through hallways and offices to a set of stairs and then more hallways and offices to the exit. The other exits were farther away, and one looked like a roof hatch accessible only by a ladder.

  There was no quick way out of the facility from the underground levels except for the blocked vehicle access tunnel. There were too many turns for him to memorize. The dark and unfamiliar territory exacerbated the problem. Using the axe, he broke the glass over the map and carefully removed the paper. The edges were browned with age and flaked away no matter how gently he handled it, but the important parts of the map were still intact.

  Holding the map close to the lantern, he moved to the hallway and oriented himself. He used the spray paint to mark arrows at each turn. The possibility that he would have to retrace his steps necessitated precautions.

  The dizzy spells were sporadic and were gone as quickly as they hit. The sensation was akin to the feeling he always got in an elevator after it stopped but before the doors opened. The head wound caused most of it, but he also knew that having nothing to drink only made it worse.

  Following the path on the map, he could feel the constant, slight uphill grade of the floor as he walked. That little extra pull he had to put into each step. The muscles in his thighs protested, threatening to cramp.

  At the end of one hallway, he turned right, into a room lined with those creepy, identical desks. No matter how many times he saw similar rooms, he thought it would always give him a shiver. Something about being in a space that was meant to be occupied by many people, but was instead devoid of life, made him uneasy the way an abandoned hospital or a school at night would make him uneasy.

  The next door was at the back of the office. The top half was shatterproof glass. Bumping into a desk with his hip, Robert grunted in surprise and the desk leg scooting on the floor filled the silence with screeching that set his teeth on edge.

  In the wake of the noise, he heard tennis shoes on concrete. The little squeak-squelch sound was unmistakable. Rushing back to the main door, he pushed it completely closed and set his foot against the bottom of it. Through the small diamond-shaped window, he watched for light to approach.

  The steady faint squeaks of approaching steps continued, but he never saw a light source at all. The sounds continued and he ducked under the pane of glass to avoid being seen as the sounds passed the room, only slowing for a few steps and then moving past the door.

  As soon as he felt the coast was clear, he craned to look out the small window again. There was nothing but darkness. Confused, he pulled the door open and stuck his head out, looking each way. There was no light. Not even the dim flicker of a lighter.

  Standing in the hallway, allowing the total darkness to envelope him, he listened and watched. The footsteps receded and he never saw a light.Do they know this place well enough to walk through it in complete darkness? He wondered. He couldn’t wrap his head around that. Surely, there was no way they could walk the many hallways and navigate the furnished rooms without so much as a lit match to guide them.

  It seemed perfectly impossible.

  It seemed the no-good thieves, the wannabe murderers, knew the layout of the facility literally like the backs of their hands. Either that’s the case, he thought, scowling into the quiet darkness all around, or it’s something I’m not prepared to deal with at all. Something this axe won’t protect me against.

  Robert had never put any stock in the supernatural. He didn’t believe in magic, gods, goddesses, demons, devils, or ghosts. He admitted to himself, though, that if the noises he had heard were not being made by the mechanic and his one-eyed buddy, it might be ghosts.

  Shaking his head, he went back into the room, walking slowly. Carefully, he closed the door until he heard the small metallic click. Mumbling, “Don’t need that shit floating around my head. Maybe it’s hallucinations from the concussion.”

  With the Zippo’s flame, he relit his lantern and took up the course to the exit again, trying hard to keep stray thoughts of ghosts and ghouls out of his conscious mind.

  Opening the door at the back of the office, he found another room. Not much bigger than a broom closet and completely bare. To his right was a short set of concrete steps leading to another door.

  Smiling, he mounted the stairs, eager to reach the exit at the end of the next set of stairs. Forcing himself to open the door slowly, he stuck the lantern into the stairwell first and the flickering flame sent dancing shadows up both walls. The stairs were narrow and steep. The black door at the top looked small. He could just make out the dull red word Exit across its middle.

  A breathy chuckle escaped his throat and he immediately regretted it. The noise echoed in the enclosed space, sending back eerie replicas of the sound. Closing the door behind him firmly, he headed up the narrow stairs. He counted thirty-two steps to the exit door.

  Taking a deep breath, he held the doorknob in his hand for a moment, bracing for the possibility that it might also be blocked. It would not come as a shock to him if it was, but he would be seriously disappointed.

  Turning the knob with exaggerated slowness, he pushed. The door moved over something solid and grating. His heart fell as he turned up the flame and saw broken concrete and
cinderblocks littering the floor.

  Looking up, he shook his head. “Fuck! They really sealed this shithole.” He slammed his hand against the door in anger.

  There was nothing but crushed debris in front of him and on both sides. There was nowhere to go, nothing to see. And no choice but to retrace his steps.

  At least I used spray paint from the supply room to here, he thought as he trudged back down the skinny stairwell, shouldn’t be too hard to follow them back to it.

  His mind navigates back to revenge as he moved through a maze of rooms —that was better, and he deemed it healthier than his previous thoughts of ghosts. Revenge on the assholes who had landed him in his current situation.

  “Stupid fucking, backwater thugs,” he grumbled under his breath and through gritted teeth.

  The hairs on his neck prickled as another sound came to his ears. He had thought he could hear a very faint chittering noise barely hidden under the sound of his own voice. Holding his breath, he pulled the lantern close to his stomach and stood motionless.

  Another sound, much more intimidating, and much more frightening broke the silence. It was the click of nails on the concrete behind him. The sound was underlined by the continuous swishing of fine-grained sandpaper on the concrete. His mind conjured a plethora of scary images. Every monster from childhood stories suddenly flooded his mind’s eye, joined by the cyrptids from the few horror flicks he had watched as an adult.

  As if to punctuate the idea of a monster, the thing coming around the corner behind him snorted. It was a low rumbling sound that reverberated in his bones. Needing no further cajoling, he fled into the first room he saw and pushed the door closed. There had been no arguing with the sound, no attempt to convince himself that it might all be a hallucination. All his earlier doubts fled.

  He dimmed the lantern but didn’t put it out. He had to see once and for all what was following him. The large window in the wall by the door allowed him to watch for movement.