TORMENT - A Novel of Dark Horror

by Jeremy Bishop

  That’s when the first body ran through the flames and ignited. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. Didn’t really matter. The fire didn’t stop it. Or the next fiery person to emerge. Or the next. A flaming army followed, glowing as they ran, screaming in pain, and in sorrow.

  Mia didn’t wait for Austin. She followed the path. The tall grass clung to her legs, slowing her steps. Her arms burned from holding Liz. Her legs ached. She slowed, suddenly weary.

  She put Liz down on her feet.

  “Auntie Mia?”

  “Run,” Mia said. “Go!”

  Elizabeth shook her head quickly and raised her arms up to her.

  “I can’t,” Mia said, bending over to catch her breath. “Run!”

  A crashing in the grass spun her around, raising her gun.

  A hand reached out, took hold of the weapon and pushed it aside. Austin moved in a blur. He had Elizabeth over his shoulder one second and a tight grip on Mia’s arm the next, dragging her forward. She looked back and saw bodies that should be dead, burning bright, running through the grass behind them and setting the whole field ablaze. The dead trees at the bottom of the hill snapped and fell away, crushing several killers.

  A fiery Henry Masters emerged.

  Mia found her feet and ran hard without Austin’s help.

  They reached the end of the field and hit sand. The loose earth beneath them sunk. All three fell.

  Austin was up first, pulling Mia and Liz to their feet.

  “Over here!” Garbarino shouted.

  They turned to find him standing knee deep in water, a canoe beside him. Collins was already inside, sitting on the floor of the boat. They rushed to the boat. Austin put Liz in first. Mia went in next, sitting behind Liz.

  “Get in the front,” Austin said to Garbarino.

  Garbarino slid deeper into the water. “Lean the other way,” he said, “so my weight doesn’t tip us.”

  Collins and Mia understood and leaned away from Garbarino.

  “Fuck!” Garbarino shouted as he leaped up. He lost his grip on the side of the boat and fell forward, striking his head on the side. But something had him spooked and frantic and he scrambled inside the canoe.

  “What happened?” Mia asked.

  “Something grabbed my foot,” he said, pulling himself into the seat and keeping an eye on the water.

  A roar pitched them all forward in the canoe.

  Masters charged out of the blazing field, his body burning.

  “Go!” Austin said, pushing the canoe deeper and leaping into the back. He and Garbarino picked up the paddles and stabbed them into the dark water. The old white canoe was dirty and held a disconcerting number of patches, but it cut through the placid water with ease.

  They were twenty feet from shore when Masters reached the water. He rushed in, steam hissing off his burning body as flame met water. If the water had been shallow, he would have reached them, but the lake deepened quickly and the water rose to his chest ten feet from shore. He pounded his fists at the water in frustration. The burning horde entered the water behind them, a cloud of steam rising as the flames were extinguished. They watched in silence until a single shouting voice said, “Go! Run!”

  It was Chang.

  Unlike the other voices that shouted apologies and urges to run, Chang’s sounded genuine. She remembered who they were and honestly wanted them to escape, not just from her, but from the horrors of this new world.

  Mia stood in the boat and met Chang’s eyes. She watched as the charred flesh around Chang’s eyes flaked off and fell away, replaced by new skin.

  “Go!” Chang said.

  Masters must have heard the slight difference in Chang’s tone because he roared again, picked her up and tossed her into the air like a football. Her now limp body sailed over the water, toward the canoe, but landed twenty feet short. The small wave created by Chang’s body hit the canoe’s side and the sudden motion knocked Mia off balance.

  Garbarino’s hands locked on to her hips from behind, holding her steady. “Sit down,” he urged.

  Mia turned her eyes down, but instead of watching where she sat, she caught a glimpse of something in the water. She froze, looking over the side of the boat. Something white shifted beneath them.

  Austin saw her attention on the water. “What is it?”

  “I’m not su—” Heat lightning ripped across the sky above, lighting the lake in dazzling orange light. The bright burst cut through the water and revealed the faces below. Dozens of pale, swollen faces with white eyes and open mouths stared back at her.

  Mia dropped into the canoe, clutching Liz close, more for her comfort than the girl’s. “Paddle,” she said, looking up into Austin’s eyes. “Paddle!”

  The boat shuddered as something thudded against the hull.

  Mia’s eyes grew wide and wet. They were too late.

  37

  “What’s down there?” Garbarino asked. “What is it?”A second bump against the hull answered his question. He put his paddle down and drew his weapon. Before he could ask again, the sounds of splashing reached them.

  A man rose to the surface, floating face down. Dead. The gases of decomposition had finally made his body buoyant and returned him to the surface. His skin was wrinkly and pasty white.

  A second body emerged, bobbing to the surface like a buoy that had been cut loose. This was a woman, her slight body hanging on the surface, her long black hair flowing like stringy seaweed.

  “Are they dead?” Collins asked.

  A third body bobbed to the surface. Austin reached out with his paddle and pushed it away. “Dead.”

  Mia shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?” Collins asked, motioning to the three bodies. “Look at them.”

  She shook her head again and held Elizabeth close, doing her best to cover the girl’s eyes. She didn’t want to look. Not again. The lifeless faces she saw would haunt her for the rest of her life, not because they were dead, but because she somehow knew they weren’t. Not really.

  A fourth body came up. Then a fifth, this one far away.

  A sudden splashing and gasp for breath startled all of them. The first man to rise thrashed in the water. He coughed and sputtered. Water poured from his mouth. He breathed in loudly, twice, and then shouted. “Help!”

  The group froze. His request was simple. Save him. But he had been dead and the sight of the now revived man shocked them so much that all they could do was watch him struggle.

  More bodies rose up. Hundreds. They filled the center of the lake. And one by one, they returned to the world, panicked and desperate.

  The man who awakened first grappled with a woman next to him, each trying to hold onto the other. “Help me!” the man cried.

  But there would be no help for him. As more bodies returned to life and began their own struggle in the water, the mass of hands reaching, grabbing, scratching and pulling became overwhelming. The man went under. His hand reached up and caught the woman’s hair, pulling her down, while he returned for a breath. But others were waiting for him, hoping to keep themselves above the water and they pushed him down again. Still sucking in air as he went under, water rushed into his lungs. He fought for the surface, but was pushed deeper. His body twitched and then sank, lifeless once more.

  “Oh God,” Collins said. “God no.”

  A heavy thud on the side of the canoe tore them away from the sea of struggling bodies. White hands clung to the side of the canoe. A woman with wide open, milky white eyes pulled herself up. “Help me,” she whispered, her voice shaky and wet.

  Everyone stared at her, the living dead, and not one of them moved to help. She wasn’t violent or trying to kill them, but she wasn’t one of them, one of the living, anymore. Not really. The sight of her repulsed them.

  A second set of hands rose up behind the woman and latched onto her face. A man pulled himself up, desperate for air. For rescue. His eyes went wide when he saw the boat. He reac
hed for the side, but the woman, who he was pushing down, fought against him. Their combined weight and struggle tipped the boat, dunking both of their heads underwater. They both let go and fought to reach the surface again, pushing and pulling at each other.

  The boat tipped the other direction. More hands reached up.

  “A boat!” someone shouted.

  “Help!” shouted another.

  A mass of writhing bodies struggled toward them, some pushing others down, sliding over the drowning bodies of men and women who had just reached the surface. More hands reached out.

  “We’re going to tip!” Collins shouted, hugging his still unfired shotgun like a life preserver.

  A gunshot ripped through the air.

  Mia flinched and Elizabeth screamed.

  A second shot. Then a third, each coming faster than the last and from two directions. Austin and Garbarino quickly shot everyone clinging to the canoe and then worked their way out to those still en route. After reloading and firing several more shots, they stopped.

  All around the lake, the recently revived were drowning again, either pulled down by other victims or too tired to hold themselves above water. But the group around the canoe hadn’t drowned. They’d been shot. A large red plume of blood encircled the canoe.

  Austin and Garbarino searched the red water, looking for anyone else who might try to latch onto their small lifeboat. But no one emerged. The lake had gone silent again.

  Mia looked up. The water, placid once again, smelled like copper. She looked in both directions, searching for white bodies, sure that one would rise up and try to snatch Elizabeth from her arms. If one of them had fallen in... She pushed the thought from her mind as it threatened to start her down a spiral of anxiety.

  Motion on the distant shore, perhaps a mile away, caught her attention. Movement. She looked back to the shoreline they had launched from. The burning church glowed like a massive lighthouse on the hill above the lake. The forest beneath it and the field beyond burned brightly. But the shore, where Henry Masters and the crowd of killers had nearly caught them, was now empty.

  She looked back at the distant shore. Between dead trees and brush she saw people. Running. And at the front, an unmistakable hulking man. She looked to the other far shore and saw more of them there.

  “They’re circling in both directions,” she said.

  “What?” Austin asked as he set his paddle to the water and said, “Let’s go,” to Garbarino.

  With both men paddling again, they moved quickly over the water, but Mia wasn’t sure it would be fast enough. “Masters,” she said, “and the others. They’re circling around the lake!”

  Austin glanced to the far shore and caught a glimpse of movement. He looked the other direction and saw the same thing. He put all his weight into the next paddle. “Garbarino!” he shouted. “Faster!”

  Both men fought against the water, pushing as hard as they could while keeping them on a straight course for the shoreline opposite the burning church. They would reach shore long before the horde circuiting the lake did, but once on foot again, their advantage was lost. And staying in the water wasn’t an option. If the drowning victims didn’t pull them under, the killers and Henry Masters could just encircle the lake and wait them out.

  It was now or never. Run or die.

  38

  “Start running as soon as we hit the sand,” Austin said, digging his paddle deep into the lake water. A few times he thought he’d struck one of the bodies below, but he paid little attention to what lay beneath now. He need to focus more on what was ahead, and to the sides.

  They could hear the voices of the horde growing closer. As disturbing as the shouts of horror were, Austin was thankful for them. If the killers were silent, he had no doubt they would have been caught long ago.

  “Run where?” Mia asked. Her hands had gone tingly and her legs felt heavy. She noticed her breaths coming quick and shallow. She forced herself to take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly.

  “Straight ahead,” Austin replied. “Any other direction will take us closer to them.”

  “Right,” she said, looking at the beach ahead. The sandy shore rose up slowly for twenty feet, most of it sand. The beach and woods beyond were separated by a small dirt road. Beyond that, a series of paths, picnic tables and mobile homes were scattered throughout the tall pine trees. The campground would have been an inviting sight under different circumstances and Mia could imagine children enjoying the beach, family picnics and lines of people fishing along the shore.

  When Garbarino’s paddle struck bottom, he stood and prepared to jump.

  A voice called out behind them. “Help!”

  “It’s happening again!” Collins shouted, pointing back behind them. White bodies bobbed on the surface of the lake, many of them reviving already.

  Ten feet from shore, Austin gave one final paddle and prepared to leap from the boat. “Do not slow down. Do not stop to catch your breath. If you do, I won’t—”

  A loud splash followed by a hoarse intake of air burst out behind the canoe. Mia turned around in time to see white arms wrap around Austin and pull him over the back. He disappeared into the water. They struck shore a moment later.

  “Austin!” she shouted, standing and moving to the back of the boat.

  “Mia, move!” Garbarino shouted.

  She turned and saw Collins already running up the beach.

  Garbarino plucked Liz from the boat.

  Shrieking voices grew louder all around them.

  “Now!” Garbarino shouted and then ran up the beach with Liz in his arms.

  Beneath the water, Austin fought against the hands gripping his clothes. For a moment, he became a child again, struggling to save his father in the pool. He took hold of the arm around his chest and felt the same cool, slippery skin. He felt the same desperation. But the man holding him down couldn’t be saved. He was already dead. He just didn’t know it.

  Austin pulled the man’s arms away and slipped down, out of his grasp. His feet struck bottom.

  He looked for his brother, ready to count to three. Instead he saw corpses. Dozens of them, glowing white beneath the water. He pushed off the bottom, aiming at an angle while desperate hands reached out for his feet.

  Mia stood knee deep in the water, torn between diving in after Austin and fleeing up the beach. The choice was made for her a moment later when a body rose from the waters and reached out for her. Hands wrapped around her shoulders. Deep breathing filled her ears. She nearly fell over under his weight, but managed to keep herself, and Austin, upright.

  Austin shoved her toward the shore. “Go!”

  She ran. The lake water clung to her as though trying to pull her back, but she reached the shore a moment later, and with a surge of adrenaline, she pounded up the beach. Collins, Garbarino and Liz were already across the road, climbing the hill into the maze of camper trailers and brown pine trees.

  “Shit,” Austin shouted.

  She looked back at him as they crossed the road. “What?”

  He lunged up the hill next to her. “Lost my weapons underwater.”

  As they reached the first camper, a voice shot out of the woods to their side. “I don’t want to!”

  “Austin,” Mia shouted. When he turned to her, she tossed him her handgun. Having it made her feel safer, but Austin would put every round in the gun to good use while she might miss every shot.

  He caught the weapon and pulled the trigger once. The shot clapped loud in Mia’s ears. A man stumbled out of the woods and fell.

  The hill’s grade grew less steep as they neared the top, allowing them to run faster. But as they crested the hill, they found Garbarino facing them with a gun raised. He pulled the trigger three times. Bullets buzzed between them. A thud followed. Neither looked back. They knew he’d dropped at least one of the killers.

  Atop the hill was a field of short brown grass. A paved road cut through the middle of the field, leading downhill
to a chained exit. Beyond the exit, the hill continued down, further down than anyone could see.

  Henry Masters roared from somewhere behind them.

  “We’re not...going to...make it,” Collins said, out of breath.

  Austin ran past him, toward a large RV parked on the side of the road, pointed downhill. The giant vehicle was dirty, but looked new enough and sported a turquoise swipe of paint along its side.

  “Get in!” Austin shouted.

  “What are we going to do,” Garbarino said, “push it?”

  Mia and Liz entered, followed by Collins.

  “Won’t need to,” Austin said, pointing to the hillcrest. Henry Masters rose up, scanned the area and upon seeing them, charged.

  Garbarino climbed into the RV’s passenger seat. “Hold on!” he shouted back to Mia, Liz and Collins, who were sitting around the small dining area, clutching the small table.

  Austin jumped inside and threw himself into the driver’s seat. He grabbed the shift and threw the RV into neutral. “Brace yourself!”

  The impact felt like a large truck had struck them from behind. Mia fell to the floor, striking her head hard on the side of the mini-fridge. She shook her head, stunned, and looked toward the back of the RV. The rear end beneath the large window was dented in.

  “We’re moving!” Garbarino shouted from the front. The impact coupled with their downward pointing front end pushed them onto the smooth road and gravity took care of the rest.

  Mia felt a tug on her shoulder and turned to find Liz standing above her. “Auntie Mia?”

  Movement behind them caught Mia’s attention. Henry Masters was charging again. “Liz, get—”

  The force of Masters’s fresh assault dwarfed that of the first. The back end imploded. Glass and fragments of metal shot toward the front of the RV like confetti from a compressed air popper.

  Liz dropped down, silent. She hit the floor at Mia’s feet.

  Mia reached for her. “Liz!” But the sudden increase in speed kept her pinned to the floor.