by Ian Fortey
Behind him, the sound of an exhalation caused him to turn quickly, brandishing his trowel. The breath came out ragged and gurgling. But there was no one there. No one he could see.
“Axl, are you there, buddy?” Dezzy asked. The old man didn’t answer. He crouched down, blindly feeling the ground. The old man was gone. The barrel he was leaning on was gone. He swiped his arms about in all directions. There was nothing anywhere.
“Oh, man. Okay. Listen, shadow guy, I’m really just looking for—”
The smell of sour meat filled his nose and mouth, and he gagged over his own words. The air was wet and oily. He covered his face and stepped back.
A quiet rattle ticked in the near darkness. It was a clicking sound that started slowly and picked up the pace. It preceded a wet, squishing sound, like someone had dropped a sack of damp laundry on the floor. But no matter what direction Dezzy turned, he could see nothing.
“Maybe we can talk?” Dezzy suggested. He had not felt fear in a long time. But he felt it now. He felt his stomach twist, and his flesh covered in goosebumps.
Something cold and wet touched his face. He tried not to make a sound, but a startled gasp escaped as he swung the trowel around. It hit nothing. His face was cold, a streak of something wet and sticky was left on his cheek.
The moaning sound filled the darkness. It came from all sides, like Dezzy was inside whatever was making the noise. It shook him and filled his head, as the pain and anguish of the sound took hold in his chest, and a dark and intense panic gripped him.
“This is not me,” he said out loud, grasping the trowel in both hands and holding it before himself like a shield. “This is not me. I am not afraid.”
Cold, wet fingers wormed into his mouth. He gagged on the soggy flesh. It tasted like brine and rotten fish and felt like raw chicken skin. The fingers choked him, pushing down past his tongue.
He bit down on the fingers, trying to keep them from probing deeper and making him vomit. He grasped at the arm, tried to pull it free, but it was like iron. It felt bloated and damp. There was a sludgy coating that made it hard to hold.
The fingers resisted him. He couldn’t see the arm in the darkness, or what they were attached to. He bit harder and the bones broke in his teeth. The hand pulled away from his face. Sour, thick ooze filled Dezzy’s mouth as the fingers separated from the hand. He spit them into the darkness and gagged, trying hard not to throw up.
Something hooked around Dezzy’s ankles and pulled him to the ground. He fell back with a thud, his head crunching painfully on the stone floor. A cold, wet weight was on top of him in moments. His arms and legs were pinned, and the darkness before his face swirled and parted. Pale, bloated flesh emerged from the shadows. Lips like fat, gravid leeches parted over stained, cracked teeth. The swampy smell of rancid flesh billowed out.
The moan belched out from the face and puffy, green eyes fixed on Dezzy’s own. The skin was rotten and hanging loose across the entire face, bulging where it had filled with fluids or other soft substances. It hung like melting wax, rotten and green with murky decay.
A gelatinous coating was smeared across the flesh and it dripped onto Dezzy’s face in heavy blobs. He struggled under the body, but it was strong and dense and would not move. It looked like it had once been a man, but long since drowned and forgotten.
The jaws spread wide as the painful wail gurgled from the depths of its body. A flaccid, pale tongue crept past the thick lips and lapped blindly at the air, splashing Dezzy with briny saliva.
Dezzy tried to gain leverage, to pull his arms free or buck the heavy body off of his own. Nothing worked. The bloated monstrosity held fast, like it was made of stone.
The hazy eyes seemed to gain focus as they stared into Dezzy’s. The spark of something alive was in them. The thick lips curled up into a smile.
“Let…” the creature gurgled. Its voice was rough and sounded forced, like the very act of speech was a chore. More sour air and viscous gel erupted from its throat and rolled across its tongue.
“...me…” It leaned in closer to Dezzy, a wave of stench rolling with it. He could hear a churning inside of the bloated creature’s mouth, something deep inside its belly was moving.
“...taste…” Dezzy turned his head, looking away from the creature as he continued his struggle. It lowered itself closer to him. The flapping, probing tongue flicked across his flesh, trailing jelly from his cheek to his ear.
“...you.”
It grasped Dezzy’s face and turned his head up again, forcing him to look it in the eye once more. The creature’s mouth spread wide and then wider still. Bones popped inside the jaw and reminded Dezzy of his grandmother dressing a chicken before dinner. The mouth gaped massively, and something dark and pulsing crept up the back of its throat. The thing was glossy and wet, and blacker than the shadows that surrounded them. It looked segmented and smooth as glass, as it writhed at the back of the monster's throat.
Dezzy gritted his teeth and continued to struggle. The hideous mouth over him hung limp like raw steak. The lower teeth wobbled and shook. The black mass in it bulged and throbbed as it extended out of the throat, dripping slime as it moved.
The smell of briny, rotten fish was overpowered by the sharp tang of acid and eye-watering fumes of hot peppers and ashes. The water-logged monstrosity lifted its head. The black, slug-like thing in its gullet retracted as the mournful wail picked up again.
The shadows surrounding them flowed like clouds moving in a stiff wind. The monster cried out, and the stench of Chaos got mixed with a deep, woodsy smell like a thousand old potatoes. It was a storm of primal magic exploding all around.
The black swarm of shadows swirled, as if in a whirlwind. The basement became visible again; the fires flared brightly. Dezzy could see the monster on top of him, the bloated remnants of something that was once a man, now sodden and fat with age and rot. Hair clung to parts of its limp, waxy skin, like bristles on the hide of a pig.
Dezzy had seen some people in the past who had died by drowning, but he came across their spirits well before such serious rot ever set in. This thing was different. It was something put in the basement to be tortured.
The walls of the basement shook and broke apart. The illusion of the room was failing. The fires appeared along with Axl and then vanished again. Soft light streamed in through windows in thin shafts, piercing the veil of blackness.
“No…” the creature groaned, spewing up foul water. The air behind it shimmered, and five points of darkness solidified. Dezzy watched as they pushed through, changing from points, to curved spikes, and finally fingers.
A hand forced its way out of nowhere. It was massive, covered in black fur, each finger capped by a thick, curved claw. The hand fell on the drowned monster’s back and closed into a fist. Then the entire basement illusion crumbled.
Dezzy watched as the enormous body of a fur-covered man with the head of a wolf appeared before him. It lifted the drowned man as though he were made of paper and hurled him across the room.
“Oh man,” Dezzy muttered to himself. The wolf glanced down at him with disinterest as it stormed past, heading for the shafts of light and the window. Dezzy got to his feet, looking at Axl and then the wolf, as the final remnants of the illusion collapsed around him.
Across the basement, Vincent ran from the shadows and then skidded to a stop in the center of the room. He turned in a quick circle.
“Dezzy?”
“Hey, man! You’re alive!” Dezzy said. It wasn’t the rescue he had planned, but it was something.
The basement was a normal basement. Small and quaint and mostly empty. A wooden staircase led up to a door. One of the far walls was lined with shelves. There were board games and some jars of what looked like pickled vegetables. The furnace sat in the corner alongside some Rubbermaid totes.
Axl was sprawled on the floor. His appearance had not changed at all. He breathed raspy, deep breaths and blinked in th
e light that streamed in from a handful of small windows set high into the walls.
On the other side of the basement, a body lay slumped against the wall. There was no sludge or slime any longer. There was only pale, wrinkled flesh. It sobbed uncontrollably.
“Marchosias,” Vincent yelled. The wolf monster stood at the window that Dezzy had broken into. It turned, yellow eyes staring back at the man.
“You are free, Necromancer. A gift from me to you,” the wolf said.
“I don’t need gifts, thanks,” Vincent said. The wolf chuckled.
“As you wish. We’ll meet again sometime.”
It pulled itself up and out of the window—its body compressing like a cockroach to fit through the small opening—and escaped into the garden. Dezzy came to Vincent’s side and gave the man a hug.
“Are you covered in fish guts?” Vincent asked.
“Maybe. It was curse puke, I think. We should probably run away now,” Dezzy suggested. The odds of the witches not sensing something amiss with their spell were pretty slim.
“Who is that?” Vincent asked, pointing to Axl.
“That’s my friend Axl. He lives here, I guess. For like three hundred years. The other guy is, um, not my friend.”
“He’s Nicholas Humphrey,” Vincent said suddenly, looking at his reflection in the broken windowpane. “Cursed by Eloise Crawford. Left in this room to suffer for all time.”
“Oh. I like Axl more,” Dezzy said. A rockstar name suited the old man better. But Selena was probably talking in Vincent’s head. And she knew what was going on better than any of them.
“How did you find me?” Vincent asked.
“I smelled magic and then I followed the scent, saw some witches, and then I broke in and got trapped, and then the Wolfman saved me. Was that the Wolfman?”
“That was a marquis of Hell and the father of all werewolves,” Vincent said. Dezzy frowned. That made sense. Demons were always ripe with Chaos magic. It was bad stuff to be around.
“Should he be loose in the garden, then?”
“No, not really. He was summoned with blood magic and no one bound him properly. I don’t really know what that means.”
“Me neither. Not good, I guess. We should run away,” Dezzy said. Vincent nodded his agreement and made his way to the window. Dezzy stayed next to Axl.
“Hey, Axl, man. We can leave. The world is going to blow your mind, but wait till you try hot dogs.”
Axl rolled his head to the side, squinting at the window. His breathing was slow.
“Have you ended the curse, Dezzy?” he asked.
“Not me personally, but I think it’s over.”
Axl smiled, tears welling up in his eyes again.
“I did not think to see such a day. When she told me I was to suffer forever, I thought her mad. I thought the words were bluster. But as the years drifted by, I came to know my own folly. I knew she meant it and that I would never see the sunlight again. But you have proved me a fool once more, though in such a wonderful way. Thank you, Dezzy.”
“Yeah, for sure, man. Why don’t you sit up so we can go?” Dezzy said. He took Axl’s hand and tried to help him up. The old man winced, and Dezzy felt the man’s fingers snap in his grip.
He let go quickly. Axl only smiled.
“I cannot move. I have not moved in a very long while. She told me I would never die down here, you know. And I shall prove her wrong.”
Axl’s breathing was shallow and raspy. Dezzy placed a hand on the old man’s chest as gently as he could.
“When you meet Emmanuel, please tell him I said hello,” Dezzy said. Axl blinked, his smile wavering. He exhaled loudly. Dezzy waited a beat, but there was no inhale to follow it up. The man’s bright blue eyes stared up vacantly.
“That sucks,” Dezzy said, getting to his feet.
“Without the enchantment, there was nothing to keep him alive. After so many years…” Vincent said. Dezzy nodded.
“Yeah, I get it.” He looked over at the other man. He was no longer sobbing. His body was still and silent.
“Cursing people for hundreds of years is cold,” Dezzy said. Vincent nodded.
“Selena said they deserved it.”
Dezzy looked at his friend, peering into his eyes. He could see no sign of Selena, but he knew she was there. Watching and listening. Chatting in Vincent’s mind.
“The Chaos Lords do something similar. When they seek vengeance on those who trespass beyond the Dimensional Rift, they create these pocket dimensions of pain, where time stands still and a moment could literally last forever. A heartbeat in which your body endures all the pain imaginable in time unending. They call it ‘tempering’. Those who escape—and there have been a few—call it torture. The Chaos Lords call themselves gods. But most people call them demons. I guess the suffering that people deserve really depends on which end of the suffering you’re at,” Dezzy said.
“Remind me to never go to the Dimensional Rift,” Vincent said. Dezzy nodded his head.
“Yeah, not worth the trouble.” He went to the window as Vincent began to climb out. After another look around the basement, Dezzy followed him into the garden.
The breeze outside felt good after being trapped in the basement. The yard was brightening as the rising sun crested the horizon. They had spent the entire night trapped in the Nightmare.
“We need to find whoever summoned that wolf,” Vincent said. “They’re using primal and blood magic together and not very well, from the looks of things.”
“Aren’t we trying to run away from them?” Dezzy asked.
“Yes. Sort of.”
“I don’t know what you were doing in the basement with the Wolfman, but I was in there with a bloated, pirate-looking corpse that I think had a leech inside it that was, maybe, going to eat me. So I would vote for us to keep running away, man.”
“What?”
“For real,” Dezzy added. He turned around in the yard and pointed to their right. “Also, I left my poutine under a bush.”
“What?” Vincent said again.
“I’ll show you.”
He started walking toward the side of the house.
“I don’t know,” Vincent said to himself. He followed after Dezzy.
Chapter 5
“What do you think a bloated, pirate-looking corpse is?” Fix asked.
“I don’t know” Vincent said. He followed after Dezzy.
Dezzy jumped over a waist-height chain link fence and then disappeared. Vincent stood still in the garden for a moment, confused. Birds chirped in the trees.
“That was odd, where did he go?” Fix said. “And why is he shirtless?”
“I have no idea,” Vincent said.
Dezzy appeared again from nowhere, leaping out of space back into the yard.
“It’s some kind of enchantment. The front yard is over here.”
He hopped over the fence again, vanishing once more. Vincent followed him, jumping the fence and feeling pain blossom in his ribs from the beating he’d received earlier. Dezzy was waiting for him a few yards ahead, between the witch’s house and a new house that appeared from nowhere.
Dezzy led them between the houses and across the next lawn. He stopped and pulled a small plastic bucket from beneath a bush. It was half full of French fries and what looked like gravy.
“Man, there’s bugs in it. This trip keeps getting worse,” Dezzy said.
“Did you see where they went, Dezzy?” Vincent asked. Dezzy dumped the poutine back under the bush but kept the greasy bucket.
“They were in the house when I got here. But they could be in the bakery now,” Dezzy said. “They’re selling evil cupcakes, man.”
“What’s an evil cupcake?”
The two of them crept across the lawn to a large tree. Dezzy stood behind it for a moment, then peered around the corner down the sidewalk.
“No sign of anyone... The cupcakes are full of primal
magic. Tastes like dirt and parsnips. It’s pooling all over the town,” Dezzy said.
Vincent could see the watery sheen of primal power everywhere as well. It was like the town of Burnham was set into a kiddie pool of it. But there were those bursts of blood magic all over the town as well, like flowers growing in a field of weeds.
Selena was convinced none of her sisters used blood magic. But it was too closely threaded into everything they were doing. That meant one of them was lying to Selena. If he had to guess, it was Abigail. She had a mean streak in her, if nothing else. He thought it was just anger over thinking Vincent killed her coven sister. Maybe it was more than that.
“We got witches,” Dezzy said suddenly. He ducked back behind the tree and crouched down low. Vincent crouched down with him.
“How many?”
“The one that left with you. She seems like bad news, don’t you think?”
“The woman that locked me in a torture basement? Yes, Dezzy, I do think that,” Vincent agreed.
“That sounded sarcastic, man. The basement changed you.”
“It was not good, Dezzy. But thank you for getting me out as soon as you did. They’re planning to pull Selena’s power out of me, I think. But they don’t know she’s in there, too.”
“Can they do that?”
“No idea. But I don’t really want to find out.”
“We need a plan of some kind. These witches seem to be ahead of us in terms of plans,” Fix said.
Vincent still wasn’t sure if Fix had seen or heard any of what happened in the cellar to know what Selena had said. He had pondered telling Dezzy about Fix, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not. It was bad enough that he had Selena rattling around in his head. He wasn’t sure if Dezzy would understand him having a second voice in there.
Abigail walked up the path to the yellow house and vanished inside. Vincent looked around for some kind of reflective surface. He needed Selena to help him with this. And that meant finding a way to convince her to help him.
Vincent crept toward the house again, staying low to avoid being seen.
“What are we doing?” Fix asked.
