As his mind was rushed beyond the limits of his own understanding, a thousand voices all belonging to him howled for the mercy of death before his sanity was irreparably shattered. His gut cried out, begging him to flee the gruesome scene, and yet his legs were fixed in place. His gaze remained frozen as the unnamable abomination savagely ripped open Jody’s exposed throat and she surrendered to the darkness that had overtaken her. The blood lurching from her arteries seemed to be driven by fear, escaping the corrupted vessel which was once her flesh, pouring down in sheets over what was once her desirable bosom.
Her defiled corpse thudded to the ground as the amorphous creature continued its work decapitating her once beautiful head, which was so envied by the other girls in school. Relief filled Wayne’s heart as he understood her suffering was over while the abomination danced upright in exaltation, celebrating victorious domination over its infected victim. For a moment, he dared to believe the danger was over and he sighed in despair at Jody’s loss.
Within the same moment, Wayne abandoned all hope as the predatory limb reacted to his enfeebled sob; it hissed and trilled into the air in his direction. He believed he saw a lidless eye filled with rage flash in his direction from what was once a thumb. The loathsome tentacle recoiled back as it sought to free itself from its decaying host. Its bloodthirsty maw struck against itself where Jody’s shoulder segued into what had become the beast’s body. The abomination was chewing itself free from Jody’s blood-drenched torso.
Wayne’s hearing was overwhelmed with girlish screams of terror as he realized it was his own voice crying out against the darkness in defiance. Finally, his survival instincts took hold and his legs were released from their frozen prison. His only thought was to escape the crater without regard to his numerous pains and injuries.
As he crested the crater’s ridge, he stumbled over a downed pine tree, smashing his left arm into its firm trunk. He felt the snap of bone in his forearm, yet his mind suffered so at the horrors it had beheld, he knew the pain was a gift for still breathing and clinging to life. He pivoted his head, careening wildly to look back at the grisly sight and awakened to the notion that the beast had freed itself from its gruesome anchor. That’s when he discovered the other untainted arm fitfully writhing as it awoke to consciousness of its own accord.
Without hesitation, Wayne quickly got back to his feet and made his way to the Barracuda.
“What the fuck is going on out here!” a feminine voice demanded to know.
Wayne looked up to see the confounded expression that covered Shannon’s face. Jody’s best friend looked angry and afraid.
“Get out of here, Shannon!” Wayne pleaded. “Jody’s gone, we’re all gonna be gone if we don’t run.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Wayne?” Shannon said, huffing.
He reached for Shannon’s wrist with his right hand.
“Let go of me, Wayne!” she cried out as she slapped him hard across the face.
“Hey, you get your hands off her, fucker,” a male voice commanded.
“Fuck you, Tommy Thompson,” Wayne screamed. “We are all gonna die. We will all be infected.”
Wayne started to ramble incoherently as he released Shannon’s arm. He hated everything about Tommy. Shannon had always annoyed him, but still, he wanted to save them both.
“Oh my God, Tommy, Jody’s dead!” Wayne heard Shannon scream from the crater’s crest.
“What the fuck did you do, you sick fuck?” Tommy reared his fist back and punched Wayne square in the nose. Blood began to gush from Wayne’s nostrils. Tommy turned at the sound of Shannon’s screams and rushed to her aid.
Wayne knew the unfathomable abomination was already upon Shannon as he heard the trilling sound filled with a hiss that echoed with a sickness through the forest. Tommy was gonna get it too.
Wayne made his way to the refrigerator and leaned on it for support when he was surprised by a slithering sound on the other side. He froze and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness on the floor of the woods. Fear gripped him as he observed what was once a human leg snaking along the ground, looking for prey. As it neared Wayne’s position, he used his good arm and both of his legs to flip the doorless fridge on top of the monstrosity. It flailed and thrashed against the inside of the appliance thudding against the walls of his makeshift trap.
Until Wayne felt the sting in his hand, he did not realize the creature had managed to tear into the flesh of his index finger. He didn’t want to end up like Jody. A bloodcurdling scream that sounded like Tommy echoed throughout the dead-end road. Perhaps Shannon and Tommy becoming new hosts would buy him time to get away, but first, he needed to tend to his wound before he became afflicted as well.
Remembering the small bottle of whiskey Jody had stashed, Wayne made his way to the Barracuda and grabbed her purse. It was difficult for him to open the bottle with his practically useless left arm, but he managed to pry the top off using his teeth. He acted quickly to disinfect the wound on his finger, then chugged what remained of the bottle to calm his nerves.
Wayne became aware Tommy had left his Chevy truck running. He had always hated the piece of shit, which looked like it was falling apart, but the irony was Wayne saw it as a miracle. It had not been close enough to the meteorite’s blast radius to be damaged. He jumped in, grateful it had an automatic transmission. He put the truck in gear and turned it around quickly. As he spun out in the gravel, he realized he could no longer hear Shannon or Tommy’s screams.
Wayne pressed the old truck as fast as it would go, hitting several patches of piled rocks on the remote gravel road. He hit a large pothole where the rain runoff had washed out part of the road. He had carefully navigated his way in. He knew he needed to slow down if he wanted to make it out safely.
The sound of a sharp thud against the back glass of the truck made him panic. Turning, he prayed to see Tommy’s stupid face, but in his heart, he already knew Tommy was dead. When tears of desperation began to swell in his eyes, Wayne trembled defiantly with shame as an ululated sound escaped his pursed lips. He turned, howling with apathy, to see the fanged maw of what was once Tommy’s arm still wearing Tommy’s watch like a neck collar as it bared its teeth at him. The abomination struck against the glass once more causing the window to crash into the truck’s cab.
An ominous feeling gripped him as the truck’s headlights illuminated the abandoned road grader on the opposite side of the ditch. Wayne knew he’d lost control of the vehicle before it drove into the ditch headfirst, causing the Chevy to flip end over end. Fuck Tommy Thompson and his top-heavy truck.
Wayne wasn’t certain how long he had remained prone on the ground. The smell of burnt motor oil filled his nostrils as he opened his eyes. He could not tell if the white fog around him was mist or smoke. Afraid of being discovered by one of the beasts, he lay motionless and listened to the eerie silence around him. He could only hope and pray to whatever gods existed that the reviled abomination had been destroyed in the accident. Lady luck was definitely not in his favor.
As the cold ground began to seep its icy fingers into his exposed chest, Wayne wished he had put on his shirt and letterman jacket before following Jody into the unknown horrors that sought to destroy them. He realized then that he could no longer feel his toes. Was that because of the cold or because of what was happening? He tensed the muscles in his legs and was relieved to know he still had control over his body. A faint scuttling sound nearby made his heart threaten to leap out of his chest. He knew he was exposed and vulnerable in the open and his mind raced in panicked exasperation.
Decidedly, Wayne believed his only safety lay with the abandoned road grader. Its metal walls were thick, as was the glass. One headlight on Tommy’s Chevy still beamed at an angle toward the old equipment. He noticed there was a missing piece of glass in the lower part of the door, but it was small enough he could possibly find something inside the cab of the tractor to cover it.
Knowing he couldn’t linger, he mentally prepared his body to leap from the ground and dash to his refuge. If one of those accursed fiends was nearby, it would rapidly overtake him. He took a slow, deep breath as he readied himself for action.
As he lurched into motion, Wayne was not prepared for the additional damage to his body. Nevertheless, he did not allow his agony to slow him down. His ankle was injured, and he was sure several of his ribs were cracked and broken. Fortunately, he discovered his right arm was still good and strong as he scaled the tractor. He heard what sounded like a slurping sound behind him. He turned, and for a moment, he believed he’d seen a black gelatin-like shape shamble along the ground. Trepidation overcame his senses as he struggled to open the rusted door. Finally, after throwing his weight against it as he tugged and pulled, the door opened with a satisfying metallic creak.
Once inside, Wayne slammed it shut and pressed down the rusted locking stem. He felt something heavy and round near his feet and reached down to find a weathered metal thermos. With some effort, he forced it into the exposed hole in the door.
His body began to tremble as relief washed over him in large waves of release. He reached up to cover his face with his hand as he wept uncontrollably. His life before tonight withdrew into the obscurity of his own subconscious as the horrific visages of the living nightmares he’d witnessed bore into his mind, searing his thoughts with desolate apathy. Honestly, he asked himself what the point of surviving would be, for he knew his future would be one filled with sleepless torment and waking terrors.
An awful lumbering sound at the front of the road grader pierced his disjointed thoughts, bringing Wayne back to the moment. Unconsciously, he held his breath as his gaze fixated toward the foreboding sound. Slither. Thump. Slither. Thump. He could feel the vibration pulsating through the metal of the cab. Slither. Thump. Slither. Thump.
Something was now on the extended boom of the road grader. It was large. Slither. Thump. The hair on the back of Wayne’s neck stood on end. No matter how badly he wanted to close his eyes to the aberration lurching in the shadows, he needed to know what it was. All the pains in his body dulled to nothingness as the darkness around the cab stole away the warmth, the life within his body. Slither. Thump. Slither. Thump.
Wayne stared into the depths of the darkness knowing his mind would shatter under the weight of what he was about to witness. The moment of his anticipated dread was being stretched beyond the measure of space and time, careening against his will to survive and crashing against the only reality he had ever perceived. His mind opened to the chasm of endless delirium filled with perpetual melancholy as he beheld the horror of Jody’s dismembered, inverted torso coming down into the head beams of Tommy’s old Chevy. Thump. Her lifeless back folded in on itself. Slither. Like an inchworm, it raised its front and unfolded. Once again it thumped against the metal of the road grader as it came back down to drag the rest of its body along. Slither.
As another resounding thud echoed through the metal machine, Wayne noticed how the steel caved beneath the strength of the creature. He understood the thick glass of the road grader would not be strong enough to keep it at bay. Attempting to escape, he reached to undo the locking mechanism to the cab of the tractor, but it would not give. Panic overwhelmed his senses as he began to futilely wail with bloody fists against the thick glass and rusted steel door. Mortified, he did not recognize the sound of his own detached screams.
Wayne resigned himself to the absolution of his situation. Somehow, he knew he had exhausted all of his options for survival. It was Jody’s torso—he’d recognize those beautiful breasts anywhere, even if they were blackened by the primordial ooze that had seeped from the meteorite. Madness overtook his mind and he smiled as he remembered suckling that beautiful bosom. He wasn’t even bothered by the fact that her areolas were now a pair of lidless black eyes that peered through his soul. Slither. Thump.
A disembodied voice cried out to him, “Do you want to join me, lover?”
Wayne cackled with excitement as his mind plunged into the abyss.
About the Author:
W.O. Cassity grew up in the Mississippi Delta Valley dreaming of new worlds fueled by his passions for writing and playing tabletop games with his friends. As an adult, he relocated to Nashville, Tennessee where he pursued a career in IT and Telecommunications, working for companies such as Dell Computer Corporation, Verizon Wireless and Asurion. Will returned to his childhood passions sharing those experiences with his children. He went on to release his debut novel, "Heir of the Blood King" which was well received. He was accepted as a member of The Ed Greenwood Group (TEGG) Sessorium of Creatives in September 2015, where he will write novels set in Mr. Greenwood's new campaign worlds. Will and his wife, Barbara, currently reside in Arkansas with their four children, three dogs and one very stinky cat.
For the latest news and information, please visit:
www.wocassity.com
Amorphous Madness: A Short Journey Into Darkness Issue 1 Page 2
