by Pete Kahle
The thing sidestepped him and ran into the front door of his home. He could hear it rummaging, trashing the place like it was just another pile of junk.
Something snapped in him then. He had managed to keep his composure when the end came. He had seen everyone in the world die around him while he, for some un-fucking-known reason, still stood. But now, at the end of the line, in his own home, he could not fathom this thing spitting on his childhood.
He screamed. His voice had not seen such action in too long. It was hoarse and desperate and not unlike the grunts of the thing that was stalking him. He charged the front door, kicked it open, and stepped inside his home.
The sounds died, save for his own voice, which eventually faded out. He listened closely for breathing. He had caught a glimpse of the thing through the living room window frame but now there was only the torn couch and battered television.
From above the ceiling crackled. He began to run but stopped himself at the foot of the stairs. There was no sense in rushing toward his death. It would come soon enough.
He took the stairs one at a time. They creaked with each footfall. At the top he looked down the hall and thought he saw a shadow outside his bedroom door. It could have been a trick of his eyes. The sky was thick with clouds and it was hard to separate anything from the darkness. He walked down the hall, looking in the bathroom, his parents’ room, and finally stopped just outside his own room.
He stood with his back against the wall, listening. The thing was in there, rummaging. It was looking through his old things, mocking his memories.
He gritted his teeth, spun around, and dove inside.
For a moment he thought the thing had somehow quartered in size. It was no longer pitch-black and its hair was much shorter, nothing like the beast that had sped past him. It looked more like a dog. Not a stray or the flayed corpse he’d seen on his way into town. It was young and vibrant. It was Skippy, the Border collie they’d had since he was sixteen.
Skippy sniffed at something under the bed, licking at a few crumbs on the floor, and cocked her head when she saw him standing in the doorway. She wagged her tail and ran toward him, jumped up and nuzzled his thighs like no time at all had passed.
He patted her head, itched behind her ears, and began to cry. Not because he had found her alive after everything that had happened but because he knew it was impossible. His mother had phoned him a few months after he’d moved to Hartford, telling him about the car speeding down their street, the driver paying no attention.
He looked into Skippy’s eyes. Any moment now the dog would melt away and he would be alone again.
No, not alone. There was something else in the house with him.
Skippy began to bark but there was something wrong with the tone. It was distorted, like her internal speaker was blown. She started to growl, leaning back and readying to pounce. Strands of saliva hung from her mouth.
He dove out of the way just as Skippy made her move. She landed in the hall and ran.
He closed his bedroom door, locked it, and sat on his bed, trying to catch his breath and talk some sense into himself. There were only so many options to explain what was happening. You had your insanity theory, which seemed to add up nicely.
You’ve heard your dead girlfriend and seen your dead dog in the same day.
Then there was the possibility that he himself was dead. Perhaps Howard had blown both their brains out. His murder had been so quick he hadn’t even noticed. He was in some sort of purgatory now, being tested with memories.
It had to be one of those two because the third option made his stomach churn even worse.
What if there really was something in the house with him, something that truly had stepped out of its hiding place, whether from the woods or a cave somewhere? What if it had evaded human detection all this time and was now making the world its oyster?
What if it could get inside your head and make you see things you shouldn’t?
Like the dead.
From downstairs the noises started up again. It sounded like an ape now, grunting and tearing things apart. Mugs fell from broken cabinets. The kitchen table was snapped in half.
He opened the door once more and made his way down the hall and stairs until he was in the kitchen and staring at the mess. As he stepped toward the stove his nose detected a smell he had not known for over a year.
Bacon, greasy and freshly frying in the pan.
He looked at the burner. There was an old die-cast pan but it was rusted and empty. His senses protested. How could he smell something so present when there was probably no bacon left unrotted in the world?
“Smells good, doesn’t it?”
He nearly fainted at the voice. It came from just behind him, the tone as cheery as the day he’d moved out. His mother had never wanted him to leave. He was an only child and she wanted to keep him within her reach for the rest of her life. But she’d never held that against him when he left. She was a good mother.
A dead mother.
He turned around. She had not aged a day. She walked past him and went to the stove. He heard the bacon crackling as she used a broken spatula to flip the invisible strips.
His mind began to unravel. It told him to sit down at the table and enjoy his mother’s cooking. Then it told him to run as fast as he could because there was something horribly wrong in this house.
“I always knew you’d come back, you know,” his mother said. “I know this town can be boring as hell. I was young once too, if you can picture such a thing. I even thought about leaving just before I had you. But there’s just something about this place, something that calls you back. Would you like some toast too?” She began to hum as she cooked.
He took a step toward her, holding the knife in front of him. He would’ve liked to believe the world hadn’t really ended. But he could not give into such a thought. This was not his mother, no matter how badly he wished the opposite were true. But this was still his home.
And he was going to keep it that way.
“I love you, Mom.” His lips trembled a bit. “I know I never said that a whole lot you must’ve known that much.”
Her humming died, replaced by laughing. “Love? Of course you didn’t love me, Dear. If you loved me, you would’ve never left in the first place. If you loved me, you would’ve visited more than twice a year.” She slammed down the spatula too hard, the pan falling to the floor. “If you loved me,” she said, spinning around, “you wouldn’t have let me fucking die.”
It was not his mother anymore. Not entirely. She began to grow exponentially, her skin turning dark and furry, her face evolving into a snout. The thing reached forth just as he brought the blade down into its shoulder.
It howled and pushed him away. His hand came back free, the blade still sticking from the wound.
He ran through the kitchen and toward the downstairs hall. The back door was blocked by debris. The grandfather clock had fallen and snapped into two jagged pieces. He heard the thing approaching, its footsteps shaking the house’s foundation.
He only had a few seconds before it turned the corner. He backtracked a few feet, opened the basement door, and sped down the stairs into the darkness.
There was something rotting nearby, an animal that had come down here to die. He felt his way around, trying to remember where his father had left his box of tools. Eventually he touched cold metal and opened the lid, finding a flashlight.
He pushed the switch and a flickering beam lit up part of the basement. There were mildewed boxes everywhere he looked. He did not see the dead animal. Somehow that made it worse.
The thing knocked over furniture upstairs, not pausing once in its search for Mark. He looked for hiding spots. There were plenty but once the thing got down here it wouldn’t matter much. He took stock of possible weapons: saws and screwdrivers, drills and chisels. None of them could take the beast down if the knife hadn’t.
He wondered how a creature like that could have gone undet
ected all these years. They’d managed to capture pictures of Bigfoot, Nessie, and Mothman but this…this thing had evaded the spotlight without so much as an urban legend. He had never believed in ghosts or aliens or anything out of the ordinary but it was hard to deny when the bogeyman was trying to rip your throat out.
Don’t think so much, he told himself. What if that’s how it gets in your head? What if you clear your mind, hunker down, and stare at the wall? Maybe your thoughts are feeding it information, telling it who to turn into and what to say to make you give in. Maybe if you just close your eyes and hold your breath—
The basement door opened.
A square rectangle of light appeared at the foot of the stairs. And in that light there was a shadow, nearly filling the doorway. It was not deformed or ape-like. It was in the shape of a man and as the figure began to descend the stairs, he saw it was the most familiar memory yet.
The thing had turned itself into a carbon copy of Mark.
It was like looking into a fun-house mirror. You could almost believe your reflection was real but the longer you stared, the more you began to realize it was more like your evil twin.
He tensed, took a step back. The mock version of him did the same. It looked sickly, its skin pale and sweating. He did not need a mirror to know it matched his look perfectly.
“Whatever you are,” Mark said, “whatever place you crawled out of, you better make sure I don’t have a single pulse in my body when you’re done. Because if I do, I’ll find you. I have nothing but time to kill and I’m not afraid to die.”
“I’m not afraid to die,” the thing echoed, its voice shrill like a teasing child. “Of course you’re afraid to die. Everyone and everything is afraid to die. Some part of you thinks you defied death. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t walk around each day and think you’re somehow immune to the end.”
Mark backed away toward the corner, covering his ears, though the words still found him. It felt like they were coming from within him now.
He searched for more weapons but there were only old photo albums and dust. He thought he heard something move from under the stairs but he knew it was impossible. There was nothing else in the world besides him and the thing that was about to end his life.
“I’m not sure how you managed to survive,” the mock-thing said. “But it doesn’t matter much now, does it?” It began to shift once more, turning into his father. He looked tired and worn just as he had before the stroke. Then it shifted into Mindy Larson from two streets over, his first crush and the girl that had taken his virginity. Then it was his childhood doctor, then a few of his teachers, then a writhing mass of black fur and black skin and black eyes that seemed to grow larger with each plopping step it took toward him.
Something sounded behind Mark once more. He did not dare take his away from the thing but he was almost certain there was something else nearby. Perhaps the animal had not come down her to die. Perhaps it was alive and rabid.
Something grabbed hold of his foot. At first he thought the thing had grown a tentacle but he as he looked down he saw a grimy hand wrapped around his ankle. He lost his balance and tumbled face-first to the floor. Blood spurted from his nose and mouth. When he rolled over he saw a tall man with a knotted beard. He pulled something from under the stairs. It looked like a shotgun.
It sounded like one too when he began to pump and fire, pump and fire, until the writhing thing let forth a shriek that was equally horrid and lovely. Mark tried to smile but his face was bleeding too much.
Eventually the thing stopped moving and fell to the floor. It twitched every few seconds, as if trying to change forms even then.
Mark’s ears rang and he could hear his blood rushing as it sped out of his broken nose. He covered the wound with his hand and looked up at the bearded man.
“What in the hell was that?” the man said.
Mark shook his head, said nothing.
“Looked like the devil himself. I’ve seen some bad shit but that just might take the cake.” The man laughed. There was no trace of humor in his voice as he turned the shotgun toward the floor.
Mark held up his soaked hands. “You don’t have to do that. You already killed that thing.”
“Yeah and you’re the one who brought it here.”
“I didn’t bring it here. It followed me. This is my fucking house.”
“That so?” The man pumped the shotgun. A spent shell fell to the floor.
Mark nodded. “Yes. And what good will it do to kill me? How many people have you seen in the last month? I’m guessing none at all.”
“You’re right about that and I intend to keep it that way. I don’t know if you noticed, but people these days are just about as bad as that thing over there.” He raised the barrel. “I’d rather finish my days alone. Nothing personal.”
Mark closed his eyes and waited for the shot. There was a large thud and for a moment he thought the bullet had gone clean through his skull. He opened his eyes a few seconds later and saw that he was not dead.
The man with the beard was struggling on the floor. The thing had pulled itself onto the man and was chewing through his skin and bones with a mouth three times the size of a gorilla’s.
Mark grabbed the shotgun but did not take aim. Instead he forced himself back to his feet and made for the stairs, not stopping to let out a breath until he was outside. He grabbed his pack and ran faster than he ever had in his life.
# # #
It rained that night. It was a good thing he’d set up his tent when he did. Otherwise he would’ve been sleeping in the open. His camp was far from the road this time, a mile or so through the woods where he’d once hiked as a boy.
He sat still, a blanket wrapped around him. He’d found it on the side of the road. It reminded him of the afghan on his old couch. He hadn’t noticed if it was still there today, hadn’t thought to take anything from his home as a memento. He was too busy trying to survive, as if that mattered anymore.
Especially not when you considered the sounds from outside.
There were more than one now. Several large forms making their away around the tent. Running jagged fingers along the nylon and speaking in voices from his past. Natalia begged him to make love to her. Howard made a dirty joke and howled with laughter. His mother reminded him she was making beef stew for dinner tonight.
He imagined hundreds of caves crawling with those things. Had they been biding their time, waiting for humans to either kill each other or get sick and die like the vermin they surely were?
The shotgun tripled its weight in his hands. The steel was warm and wet from his grip. He held its barrel toward the entrance, his hands shaking badly. It was a shame he hadn’t checked the chamber before he left but it would have to do. He could make a choice if need be.
One bullet was better than none.
Patrick Lacey was born and raised in a haunted house. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, his Pomeranian, his mustached cat, and his muse, who is likely trying to kill him. Follow him on Twitter (@patlacey) or find him on Facebook.
The Client
By B.T. Joy
The media frenzy following the November 15th shootings was still going on. That much was certain. Though for all the data that was chattered down the lines of communication, by journalists and social media users alike, the international community were still very much in the dark about the events which had taken place in the state capital that morning.
What was known for sure is that one of the assailants had been neutralised outright with a shot to the head. One witness, a White House secretary, had later explained to CNN how the terrorist had laid there on his back, his head swelling like an outsized football, while he bled out onto the highly polished tiles. Fire had been returned and two members of the Secret Service had been severely injured in the barrage.
The President himself, and his family, had been extricated from the situation and flown by helicopter to a secure and undisclosed location.
As far as the public were concerned the attackers had been apprehended, detained and were being placed under questioning by the FBI’s counterterrorism division.
Kaleed, however, knew better than the masses; fed as they were on nothing but a corrupt and mendacious media.
He knew that, after they’d been captured in the White House, it had taken them nearly three days in a closed truck to get where they were now. Through the hood they’d thrown over his head he could hear Faisal breathing heavily under his own duct tape gag and something in his inner gyroscope told him that they were traveling south. Probably over the border with Mexico.
Kaleed couldn’t understand it.
He’d expected either death or capture when he’d undertaken the attack. That was a given. And, if captured, he knew there’d be some underground detainment facility where these kafir bastards kept their torture toys away from the eyes of the general public. But he’d never expected to be taken off of US soil, much less into Latin America.
He remembered his training. The months spent in the yellow hills around Tikrit; overlooking the shell that used to be old Saddam’s presidential palace before the kafirs found the former leader in his hole at Ad-Dawr, dragged him through their kangaroo courts and then plastered his hanging all over YouTube. He remembered being taught how to survive their interrogations and how to gather intelligence even while being held by the enemy.
When they’d reached their destination after the three days of unbroken travel, Kaleed had stuck to his training. He’d practically held his breath under the gag and hood and he’d listened as the kafirs opened the doors of the truck.
