The trapdoor finally opened and Tyler looked in. This time, however, he wasn’t smiling.
“Kent—”
“Get me the fuck out of here!”
Tyler made a face, but he leaned into the basement to grasp Kent’s arm with the intention of helping him out. It was then, just an instant before their fingers touched, that the entire staircase collapsed.
14.
Dust.
There was so much dust, and it was everywhere.
It was in Kent’s eyes, a gritty layer that coated his corneas, forcing him to blink rapidly and continuously. It was in his mouth, drying it out and making swallowing a painful experience. It was in his nose, making it difficult to breath. It covered his entire body.
He was lying on his back, a piece of the stairs—a step, maybe, or part of the bannister—pressing into his spine. He thought he was staring upward at the ceiling, but he couldn’t be sure; it was too dark and dusty to tell.
He shut his mouth, his tongue scraping at the earthy texture of the dirt, and forced air through his ears, making them pop. Almost immediately, his hearing cleared and he heard the voices.
“Tyler! Kent! You guys okay?”
It was Sergio’s voice, and he sounded desperate.
Kent blinked again, and the grittiness faded somewhat as his eyes began to water—his vision, however, remained dark. A pain just above his left hip shot through him and he gasped, but it faded quickly. As he probed the tender area, he realized that one of his fingers must have been cut, based on the way his palm felt tacky when he made a fist. But—he slowly rolled onto his side, and then pushed himself onto his haunches—he thought that he had managed to avoid serious injury.
He coughed, the action forcing more sandy grit against the back of his teeth and onto his tongue. He spat.
“Tyler? Tyler, you okay?”
There was a sputtering, gasping sound from his right, and he turned toward it. Then he heard the other noise—the one from before, the one that sounded like someone quietly cracking there knuckles. It was hidden beneath his and Tyler’s raged breathing, but it was there—quiet, subdued, but there.
“Tyler? Kent?” someone hollered from above.
Sergio. It was Sergio again.
“Yeah,” Kent hollered back, “I’m all right—I think.”
He did another cursory patdown of his body as if to convince himself. Aside from the pain in his left side and his sticky palm, he found no other source of injury—but, then again, he had only been on the third step when the staircase had collapsed; Tyler had been at the top.
“And Tyler?”
“I don’t—”
Another sputter followed by a cough interrupted him.
“I’m here—I mean, I’m all right.”
Tyler coughed again.
“My ankle is a bit fucked up, but I think it’s just sprained.”
“Fuck.” Sergio let out a sigh. “That was fucked up.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have come here.”
It was Baird’s whiney voice.
Tyler groaned.
“Shut the fuck up, Baird.”
Kent nodded.
Seriously, shut the fuck up.
Kent looked away from the barely recognizable shadow of a head peaking in from the opening to the floor above and tried to locate Tyler in the darkness. He heard movement, and thought he saw a shadow flicker to his left—and then he heard that cracking noise again.
“Stop cracking your damn knuckles, Tyler,” he grumbled, bringing himself to his feet. His back was sore, too, he realized, but he was still amazed that he didn’t seem to be seriously injured.
“I’m not fucking cracking my knuckles,” Tyler replied.
Kent froze. Tyler’s voice had come from his right, the cracking sound his left. He scrambled to his right, groping blindly for Tyler.
“What the fuck is that, then?” he whispered hoarsely, still moving to his left.
“A rat, maybe?” Tyler said, his voice now just a few feet from him. Kent jumped at the sound.
Rat—it’s not a rat… that cracking… a rat doesn’t have knuckles to crack.
“We have to get out of here,” Kent said.
“No shit.” Tyler grunted again. “Help me stand.”
Kent took another shuffling step to his right and his outstretched arm finally found Tyler’s head at roughly waist level. He squatted and wrapped his arm around the slender boy and helped him to his feet. Tyler leaned heavily against him, presumably to avoid putting any weight on his injured ankle.
“You guys all right?” Sergio asked again from above. The man’s usually nearly infallible demeanor was beginning to falter; there was a hitch in his voice.
“We’ll live,” Tyler replied, then added, “could use some more of that vodka, though.”
Kent ignored him, and again his attention was drawn to the shadowy figure above.
“How are we gonna get out of here?”
The cracking sound came again, and Kent’s head snapped to his right. Only this time it didn’t so much sound like knuckles, but a rhythmic snapping. Tyler must have heard it too, because his body, which was still propped up against Kent, tightened. Maybe Sergio and Baird had heard it as well, as they seemed to go quiet, but he thought not—the sound was distinct, but it wasn’t all that loud.
There.
The sound repeated, and this time Kent counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The cracks came at what sounded like regular intervals.
“That’s no rat,” Kent whispered, and a tremor coursed through him.
Tyler suddenly lurched in the direction of where the staircase had once hung, the urgency in his shuffled steps evidence that he didn’t think it was a rat anymore either.
Together they hobbled forward, careful not to stumble over what was left of the stairs. Three steps, and Tyler cried out and started to fall.
“What happened?” Baird yelled.
Kent rooted his left foot and pulled back, trying to keep both of them from tumbling. Thankfully, he outweighed Tyler by a good fifteen pounds and he managed to right them. When he went to bring his right arm back to his side, it struck against something hard, something that felt like a handle. In his hyper-agitated state, he cried out.
“What?” Tyler demanded, his sour alcohol breath hot on his ear.
Kent took a deep breath.
“I dunno, some sort of handle.”
The cracking sound returned—crack, crack, crack—and this time it sounded like it was coming from only a half dozen feet in front of them.
“A handle?” Tyler asked quickly, clearly trying to ignore the rhythmic cracking sound.
“I dunno,” Kent replied, “let’s keep moving.”
But when he went to take another cautious step forward, trying to make his way to directly below the trapdoor, Tyler resisted.
“What is it?” he asked again. “Is it a handle?”
Annoyed and frightened, Kent reached out—hesitantly at first, worried that he might put his hand on the furry object again—but when he felt the familiar feel of cold metal, he ran his hand along its length. It ended in a rubber grip.
“Yes, a fucking handle, now let’s get out of here.”
Still, Tyler resisted.
“Fucking crank it!” the boy nearly shouted.
Crank it? What the fuck is he talking about?
“Let’s just fucking go, man—let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Baird spoke then from above in his high-pitched voice.
“A lot of old places have crank generators, in case…”
Kent squeezed his eyes tight, ignoring the rest of the boy’s commentary. He was nearly in tears now, as he had come to realize that climbing out of this hellhole was not going to be an easy feat—even if Tyler hadn’t hurt his ankle.
“Turn it,” Tyler said again, almost excitedly, and nu
dged Kent to his right.
Kent started to silently cry.
What is he talking about? Fucking turn it, fucking turn it—let’s just get the fuck out of here!
“Turn it!”
Kent grabbed the handle and pushed. It was stuck.
“Turn it!”
“I can’t!” Kent shouted, nearly sobbing. “It’s fucking stuck!”
He felt Tyler reach across him, but before he fell and took Kent down with him this time, Kent pushed him back and drove the palm of his hand into the rubber grip again. This time, it moved a few inches, and he felt a small blast of air hit his side from beneath the handle. Tyler, who was now somehow in front of Kent, must have felt it too.
“It’s a fucking crank generator,” he said almost giddily. “Turn it, Kent.”
A fucking crank generator? What the hell is a crank generator?
But he didn’t have to ask the question, because Baird answered without initiation.
“A crank generator is a hand-powered generator,” Baird replied, returning to his annoying I’m smarter than thou tone, and repeating pretty much what he had said moments ago when Kent had shut him out. “They have them sometimes in old places, usually close to where the real generator is located. The idea being that if the power goes out—”
“Shut the fuck up, Baird!” Tyler shouted.
Generator. Generator means light.
Kent pushed the handle again, and this time it moved a quarter turn. He pushed again, and again, and soon whatever rust had laid claim to this archaic device seemed to break away, making every subsequent rotation a little easier, a little more fluid.
“Turn it, Kent!” he heard Baird holler down at them.
Sweat was forming on his brow now, and it was immediately soaked up by the layer of dirt and dust, turning it into an uncomfortable paste.
The next push resulted in a full rotation, and Kent had to shift his grip to pull it up the other side. A dim glow suddenly leaked toward them, the weak light trying desperately to penetrate the cloud of dust that still hung in the air. Shocked, Kent let go of the handle and the light immediately vanished. It had been so weak and transient that his eyes hadn’t been able to adjust in time to make out anything in the basement.
“Don’t stop!” Tyler demanded, shoving him again.
Kent grabbed the handle and cranked it around in a full circle, this time adjusting his wrist to keep the movement going into another circle. Slowly, the dim glow returned, but instead of stopping, this time he kept turning.
“Yes!” Tyler cried, and Kent heard Sergio and Baird make similar affirmative grunts from somewhere above.
Faster and faster he turned the crank, the light growing in intensity with every rotation. Squinting, Kent started to make out several shadowy shapes. He also heard the scurrying noise again, and this reminded him of the rhythmic cracking sound.
Maybe I don’t want to see.
But that was silly and childish—Baird-like—and he forced himself to continue cranking the handle despite his apprehension. The generator served another purpose, he realized; the room was no longer silent, the dusty air filling with the crackle of electricity and the whirring of the fan—which meant he could no longer hear the muted cracking sound.
As the light continued to penetrate the basement, Kent began to discern familiar shapes: the handrail, lying on the dirt ground; the wooden steps, scattered about the floor like smashed mahjong tiles. Part of the frame lay wasted on the floor only a couple of inches from his foot; it was a wonder that it hadn’t landed on the crank generator when it had collapsed.
“What do you see? Can you get out?” Sergio called from above.
The truth was, Kent couldn’t see much, what with the dust motes suspended in the air and the fact that Tyler was standing almost directly in front of him. With the arm not feverishly turning the crank, Kent gently nudged Tyler, and the boy obliged and moved to his left.
A single bare bulb hung from a thick black cable at the very back of the basement, illuminating a wall of red bricks behind it. The bricks appeared to glisten in the light, humidity beading on them like sweat. Kent’s gaze slowly traveled from the back wall toward where they stood, and again his breath caught in his throat. His hand froze and the basement quickly went dark again.
“Don’t turn it off,” Tyler shouted, his voice desperate. “Don’t turn it off!”
15.
Kent stared wide-eyed at what looked like a dozen or so fur blankets stretching from just a few feet from where the last step of the stairs had been, all the way to the back wall. The blankets were thick and hairy, and as his bulging eyes scanned their surface, he noted a myriad of colors: dark grey, brown, and even black.
At first, he thought that the comforters were simply piled several feet high, hiding more blankets beneath, but as his eyes continued to adjust to the dim light, he realized that they were covering something else; a number of round shapes jutted from beneath, as if the patchwork of blankets had been stacked on top of several pillows.
It looked like discarded bedding.
But it wasn’t.
The objects were too perfectly shaped, too round—in a word, they looked organic.
“What the fuck are they?” Tyler whispered.
Kent offered a grunt as a reply as he continued to ream the crank, trying to spin it faster and faster to generate more light. But no matter how quickly the crank turned, the glow from the bare bulb remained the same: dull and yellow.
For a moment, they just stared. Then Sergio spoke in a voice that didn’t sound his own.
“Eggs?”
Kent’s hand slipped and the light faded again. Somewhere above them, he heard Baird cry out. Fumbling in the darkness, his hand found the handle and began to turn it again.
Eggs.
A shudder ran through him.
“There,” Tyler whispered, and Kent followed his friend’s outstretched finger.
When the stairs had collapsed, the handrail must have landed on the one of the blankets and struck one of the—eggs—objects beneath, making a huge dent that ruined the perfectly round surface. One edge of a dark brown blanket had fallen away, revealing a small section of a translucent pink sphere beneath.
“What the fuck is that?”
It wasn’t a question, not really; more a statement, an incredulous utterance. Fear. Incomprehension.
Kent didn’t know who said those words—they were incredibly high-pitched, which suggested Baird, but they could have easily have been his own.
A frothy pink substance seemed to be spilling out of a ragged hole in the side of the orb, soaking the brown blanket that still covered most of it.
Then Kent heard the cracking sound again, and his eyes snapped away from the strange pink sphere and scanned the back wall. This time, it had sounded muffled, as if the culprit had burrowed beneath one of the thick brown blankets.
Tyler inexplicably took a shuffling step forward, and then another.
“Tyler!” Kent hissed.
He reached out for the boy, but with his hand still winding the crank furiously, he could only stretch a few inches. He missed the back of Tyler’s sweatshirt by a hair.
“Tyler!” he hissed again, but either Tyler didn’t hear him, or he simply chose to ignore his pleas.
Tyler took three more steps forward, and on his fourth step he was within reaching distance of the frothing pink orb.
“Tyler!”
It was Sergio this time.
“Get the fuck out of there! Jump up, and we’ll grab you and pull you up.”
But Tyler appeared as if he were in a trance, and continued to shuffle forward on his injured ankle, oblivious to their shouts. To Kent’s horror, Tyler bent down, an awkward half twist obviously meant to protect his injured ankle. But instead of touching the pink liquid or the translucent sphere—thank God—he grabbed the loose corner of the blanket instead. Then he hesitated.
Tyler, let’s get the fuck out of here!
Kent’s
tears returned. His arm was burning, and he could feel blisters beginning to form on his hand.
The blanket had an odd thickness to it, and Tyler’s fingers sunk into the material when he tightened his grip. Without warning, the boy pulled the corner upward violently, but it didn’t fly off like Kent expected. Instead, it seemed to catch as if it were attached, fused to the pink object beneath.
As Tyler held the blanket there, suspended in midair, Kent caught a glimpse of the underside. It was smooth and damp, but that wasn’t what caused his heartrate to double; even in the pale yellow glow from the bare bulb, he made out a vast network of vessels embedded deep within the blanket. Where the blanket still clung stubbornly to the round pink object, Kent could see the vessels migrate out of the smooth underside and merge with the round surface.
Vessels. These are vessels and they are feeding it.
“It’s like a fucking skin,” Tyler whispered. “An animal skin.”
He pulled again, and there was a sharp tearing noise like separating Velcro, and Kent saw the blanket peel away a few more inches from the top of the round shape.
Egg. It looks like an egg. Only this was egg was broken—this egg was hatched. The palil has hatched.
Kent shook his head, unsure of where that word—palil—had come from; he had never heard it before, and had no idea what it meant. But, somehow, he thought it fit.
Palil. The palil has hatched.
“Tyler, don’t—” But once again his words caught in his throat.
The cracking sound interrupted him, but this time it wasn’t rhythmic as it had been before, but several cracks sounding in rapid succession.
Then he saw it.
It was just a shadow at first, a blur of darkness scampering on top of the blanket nearest the wall before it scuttled toward where Tyler was standing. Except Tyler was still inspecting the blanket—or skin, or whatever the fuck it was—and he failed to take notice. Kent knew that he should warn him, yell out, fucking scream, but he was unable to do anything but turn the damn crank like some sort of robot.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 35
