by Amy Cross
Suddenly something grabs my arm. Spinning around, I find one of the fleshy creatures leering at me. I pull back, but it keeps coming so I flash the knife toward his face, catching his cheek and sending him stumbling to one side. After a moment, however, he turns to me with blood running down his cheek, and his smile is wider than before. He lunges at me again, this time shouting something in whatever-the-hell language these people use.
Nearby, a couple of the others seem to be egging him on, calling out encouragements.
Slipping out of the way, I slam against the wall and then duck just as another of the creatures reaches for me. They're still encircling me, and the circle is getting smaller as they edge closer. Finally, realizing that I have no other options, I stumble forward and push between two of them, spilling out the other side and almost falling as I run into the middle of the street. The pain in my gut is getting stronger, but I know damn well that I can't stop now.
I turn and see that they're already after me again, and more are arriving in the distance. Soon there'll be a swarm, and I won't have a hope.
“Go to hell,” I stammer, with the bloodied knife still in my right hand, ready to swing at them. As I turn and find more of the bastards approaching from behind, however, I start to realize that I might already be in Hell, or at least some version of it. I swing the knife at the nearest creature, before turning and stumbling toward the front of the apartment building. There's one creature in the way, but it's a little smaller and more stooped than the others and -
Stopping suddenly, I stare at the approaching figure and realize that I recognize it.
Or rather, her.
“Mrs. Monroe?” I whisper, too shocked to really believe what I'm seeing. At the same time, although the figure is bloated and in places rotten, with bloodied, bruised flesh and hate-filled eyes, I can just about tell that it's my elderly, doddery, gossipy neighbor from down the hall.
I take a step back, but she's babbling the same strange language as all the rest as she edges closer.
“This is a nightmare,” I stammer, feeling as if the entire world has turned on me. “It's just a dream, I'm still -”
Suddenly something sharp grinds into my shoulder, and I pull away with one of the creatures still biting down hard against my flesh. I finally break free, but the goddamn asshole got a chunk of my flesh along with some scraps of my shirt, and blood is now running from the wound.
“You bit me?” I whisper. “You actually -”
Another of them lunges at me from behind. I swing the knife and catch his face, causing him to squeal as he pulls away. I might be wrong, but for a moment I thought I recognized the creature as a twisted, distorted version of Sanjay from the store. I turn and hurry toward the apartment block's front door with only the hideous version of Mrs. Monroe still in my way, and I raise the knife as I get closer.
“Out of the way!” I shout, my voice trembling with fear. “I'll use this! I swear to God!”
She limps toward me, and I can see thick, glistening saliva dribbling down her bruised chin.
“Please,” I continue, hoping that somehow she'll recognize me, “I don't want to hurt you, but -”
Suddenly she lets out a gurgled roar and reaches for my arm. I instinctively swing at her, slicing the knife against the side of her face and knocking her down. Stepping over her, I hurry to the building's front door and manage to get it open, and then once I'm inside I pull the door shut and slide the knife through the handle, sealing the place from the inside. Stepping back, I watch as several of the creatures try to force their way inside, but their efforts seem limited to pulling over and over on the door.
A moment later, I see that Mrs. Monroe is on her feet again. Blood is pouring from her mouth, but all she seems to care about is getting in here. She joins the others in pulling on the door, but the knife seems to be holding for now, even if the entire metal door-frame is shuddering as more and more of those things try to force their way through.
I reach out to take the knife, before realizing that it's the only thing holding the door shut. I guess I'll just have to find some other weapon.
Turning, I head toward the elevator before realizing that the stairs might be a better option. As I reach the stairwell, however, I spot a message smeared in blood all over the wall.
“If you get this far, Mr. Holland,” I read out loud, “you must turn back. I warned you.”
Making my way up the stairs, I hurry past the message.
“Thanks for the advice, Wolonovsky,” I mutter, “but I have to get to my wife.”
Above, Mary's screams have stopped. As I make my way toward the top floor, I can only hope that I'm not too late to save her, and that somehow I can still find a way to get us home.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as I reach the door to our apartment, I realize I can hear a snorting, grunting sound coming from inside. The door has been left ajar, so I peer through and see that just like everything else in this place, the apartment is dirty and covered in blood and grime.
A shiver passes through my chest as I realize that this is the world I saw in those print-outs. I'm finally on the other side of the printer.
Suddenly something large and heavy lumbers past the crack in the door, letting out more grunts in the process. I instinctively step back, but a moment later I realize the thundering footsteps are heading into the main bedroom. I peer through the crack again, and now I can hear more grunting sounds coming from far off in the apartment.
And sobbing.
I can hear someone sobbing.
Pushing the door open, I realize that while the grunting creature is in the main bedroom, the sobs are coming from the room that – in our world – belongs to Josh. I look toward the main bedroom door, but whatever the creature is doing in there, it sounds as if he's busy over near the window. I take a step closer to the door, before stopping suddenly as soon as I see the figure's bare, bloodied back. It's the same creature I saw in some of the print-outs, and he seems to be fiddling with something on a desk.
Suddenly I spot a familiar dark shape, and I realize it's the exact same printer that we have in our version of the apartment. The naked creature's grunts seem to be getting faster, and after a moment I see that he's tapping at a computer next to the printer, almost as if he's loading photos and getting ready to send them through.
Taunting me.
Nearby, hundreds of sheets of paper have been left on the floor, and I'm shocked to see that Mary's worksheets made it through to this world. All the time she was trying to print them, this is where they were ending up.
Hearing another faint sob over my shoulder, I turn and make my way quietly toward the door to Josh's room. As soon as I get there, however, I stop as I see a bloodied, glistening body on the bed, with chains around its wrists and ankles. In a flash, my chest seems to tighten immensely and I feel a sudden knot of shock where my heart should be, and although I tell myself that I have to be wrong, I can't help feeling that I recognize those sobs.
It's Mary.
Or what's left of her.
Most of the flesh has been stripped from her torso and left in small piles on the floor, while her body has been torn open from the crotch and up through the belly, like the trunk of a dead tree. Most of her chest is mashed and bloodied, while I can see that her right arm has been partially torn from its socket and is hanging by threads of muscle and flesh. Her face, meanwhile, is turned away from me, but I can still hear a series of low sobs and after a moment I realize that her entire body is convulsing.
But at least she's alive.
“This isn't real,” I whisper, taking a step back. “This can't -”
Suddenly she turns and looks straight at me. One of her eyes is gone, seemingly cut and pushed inward, but the other is flicking rapidly in its socket.
“Steve,” she gasps, her voice catching slightly. “Steve, please...”
Hurrying over to the bed and then around to the other side, I drop to my knees. All the injuries to her body are consist
ent with the horrific photos I saw, but somehow the photos seem to have numbed me to the point that only her continued, gasping sobs are able to reach through to my soul.
“Steve,” she whispers. “Please, find... You have to find Josh...”
“It's okay,” I stammer, placing a hand on one of the few remaining patches of skin on her waist. “I'm going to get you out of here.”
“Find Josh!”
“I'm going to get us all out of here,” I tell her, with tears in my eyes. “You'll be okay. Once I get us back, everything will...” My mind is spinning as I try to work out what I should do next. “It'll all go away,” I stammer finally. “It has to. Once I get us home, all of this will be undone, all your injuries, it'll be like it never happened. I just have to work out how to get us back.”
“Find Josh,” she gasps again, as fresh blood runs down her chin. “I know it wasn't you, Steve. Not really. Find Josh... Find...”
“Where is he?” I ask, looking around the room but seeing only blood and feces smeared all over the walls. The smell is thick, filling the air, and after a moment I spot a couple of thick, fat flies crawling along the windowsill.
“Find him,” Mary gurgles, as if blood is filling her throat.
I turn back to her.
Suddenly she grips my hand, squeezing tight as her remaining good eye remains fixed on me.
“I knew you'd find us,” she gasps. “Now take him... Find Josh... Take him away from...”
“I'm going to get you both away,” I tell her, “and then -”
I stop as blood suddenly erupts from a hole in her neck, running down onto her ravaged chest.
“I'll get you out of here,” I sob, “I swear. Mary, everything's going to be okay.” I wait for her to reply, but her whole body has fallen still now and a moment later one final, gurgled sigh leaves her mouth.
I reach over and place a hand on the side of her face, but she's not responding at all. Even her remaining eye has fallen still.
“Mary!” I hiss, gently shaking her shoulder. “Mary, you have to stay with me!”
I wait, but she's completely still.
“Mary!”
Blood is still leaking from the cuts all over her body, but when I check her wrists and then the side of her neck I can't find any hint of a pulse.
“Come on,” I stammer, with tears flowing down my cheeks, “Mary please, you have to -”
Suddenly hearing a bumping sound somewhere else in the apartment, I look out into the hallway and spot a shadow lumbering into view. I duck down behind the side of the bed, and to my shock I find myself face-to-face with my trembling, sobbing son. He must have been hiding under the bed all this time.
“Josh!” I mouth silently, as I spot a pair of bloodied, bruised legs stumbling into the room on the other side of the bed.
I freeze as I hear the creature sniffing and grunting, and then the bed creaks slightly. Looking up, I see that Mary's hand is hanging over the edge and her body seems to be shuddering slightly. A moment later, there's another creak and I realize the creature has lifted Mary up. I watch in horror as the bloodied legs turn and head out the door, and then I see the creature drop Mary's lifeless corpse onto the floor in the other bedroom. Whereas the Hellforms out on the street seemed frantic and savage, this specimen appears to be calmer and more focused.
Turning to Josh, I see a shocked, glassy expression in his eyes, and his mouth is hanging open.
“I'm going to get us all out of here,” I whisper, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder. He seems unhurt so far, but he still hasn't responded to me, and after a moment I realize that he seems almost catatonic. “Have you been hiding under here all this time?” I ask, figuring that if that's the case, he must have heard everything that happened to his mother directly above his head. “It's going to be okay,” I tell him. “Even Mummy will be fine, once we get her home. Do you understand? We're going to...”
I pause as I think back to everything Wolonovsky told me earlier. He mentioned something about smashing the printer as a way of breaking the connection between the two worlds, and he said that once the connection was broken I might end up going home. I don't know if that was one of the many lies he told me, or if it was a scrap of truth, but it's the only idea I have right now.
“I'm going to save us,” I tell Josh finally. I reach out and put a hand on the side of his face, but still he doesn't respond. “Once we get back, everything will be okay, everything'll go back to normal, we just -”
Suddenly I see that the creature is coming back in here. Before I can react, I see a bloodied hand reach down and grab Josh's ankle, and my son is quickly pulled out from the other side of the bed.
“Stop!” I shout, stumbling to my feet and finding myself face-to-face with the creature.
Its whole body is covered in cuts and bruises, with patches of dried blood caked to its flesh. Parts of its body appears to be rotten, too, and I can see maggots wriggling in holes around its collarbone. The more I stare, however, the more I realize that something seems vaguely familiar about the creature's face, even if its body is massively bloated and damaged. As we make eye-contact, a slow sense of realization begins to creep through my thoughts, although it takes a moment longer before I'm able to contemplate the possibility that I'm right.
It's me.
The hideous, distended, rotten and bloodied monster on the other side of the bed, holding my catatonic son by his ankle, is me. A foul, disgusting distortion, but still me.
It lets out a faint gurgle, but for a few seconds it seems as shocked as I am. After a few seconds, however, a broad smile starts to spread across its lips.
“Let us go,” I stammer, as I finally start to understand what Wolonovsky meant when he talked about the Hellforms. It's not only our world that's mirrored in this place, it's our bodies too. It's all of us.
Taking another step back, I feel for a moment as if my entire mind has suddenly been emptied of all thought. All I can manage is to stare in shock at the creature's face. In turn, it seems equally shocked by my appearance, although it's clearly amused too, and after a moment it lets go of Josh's leg and starts limping around the bed, coming closer.
Spotting the printer in the other bedroom, I suddenly realize that I have to smash that thing if I'm going to get us out of here.
“Please,” I say after a moment, backing away as the creature comes toward me, “we just want to go home.” I hold my hands up, hoping against hope that I might be able to reason with it, but finally I clamber over the blood-soaked bed until I reach the other side of the room. “Josh, take my hand,” I say firmly, reaching down toward him as the creature comes back around toward us again. “Now, Josh! Take my hand! We -”
Before I can finish, the creature lets out a sudden roar and lunges at me, grabbing me by the shoulders and slamming me against the wall.
“Get under the bed!” I shout to Josh. “Wait while I -”
Snarling, the creature leans closer, and I can smell its foul, rotten breath as a distorted version of my own face leers at me. Its mouth opens, revealing a row of stubby black teeth, some with their nerves sprouting out through holes and clinging like vines to the enamel, and I can just about make out a partially-decayed tongue with maggots crawling through the meat. For a moment, all I can do is stare in empty-minded horror at this vision of my own disgusting features, as if the mere sight is enough to push all sensible thought from my mind. And as the creature lunges closer, as if to bite me, I simply turn my face away and wait for the inevitable.
“Help,” Josh whimpers suddenly from under the bed. “Mummy, please...”
Suddenly remembering why I have to get out of here, I push the creature back and turn, rushing out of the room and hurrying toward the other bedroom. Something grabs me from behind and I drop to the floor, and I turn to see that the creature is holding my leg and crawling closer. Kicking its face, I'm shocked when the heel of my boot bursts through one of the rotten sacs of pus around the creature's cheek, and a
patch of flesh sloughs away from the bone. At the same time, the flesh around the creature's eyes also comes loose, causing the monster to let out a howl of pain as it clutches its face.
I turn again, scrambling to my feet and stumbling into the main bedroom. Ahead, the printer sits on a desk, and I hurry over, determined to -
I let out a sudden gasp as I feel something slicing into my back. Falling forward, I hit the side of the bed and turn to find a second creature towering above me with a knife in its hand. I stare at the rolls of rotten, infected flesh all over its naked body, and when I look up at the face I realize that I'm seeing an alternate version of Mary. Like the other Hellforms, she's putrid and discolored, and there's a smile on her face as she limps closer.
“Please,” I stammer, “I just -”
Reaching down, she slices the knife into my leg.
I cry out and pull away, but I can already see the other creature stumbling to its feet behind her and lumbering through. For a moment, all I can manage is to stare in horror at this nightmarish vision of myself and my wife transformed into a pair of rotting, degenerate monsters, like two bloated bodies that have been pulled from a river and somehow reanimated.
Nearby, a bloodied pile of flesh and bone is all that's left of the real Mary. My Mary.
“Help!” Josh shouts from the bedroom. “Mummy! Daddy! Help me!”
The Hellform version of Mary lunges at me with the knife again, slicing the sleeve of my shirt. Pulling back, I get to my feet and hurry to the desk, where I grab hold of the printer and rip it away from the cables connecting it to the computer. As the two Hellforms stumble toward me, I raise the printer high and then smash it down against the desk, although I succeed only in knocking the paper-feed tray loose.
Ducking out of the way as the Hellform Mary tries to grab me, I slam the printer into the wall, but even this isn't enough to destroy the damn thing.
The Hellform version of me shouts something in its own twisted, warped language, and Hellform Mary replies. Whatever they're talking about, they seem amused by my attempts to destroy the printer.
