The floor was soft with thick carpet, and Mike allowed his spent body to sink into it for a moment.
A music box played from the corner of the room, and as Mike listened, nearly falling asleep, he realized he didn’t hear the flies. The incessant buzzing was absent here.
A tap on the shoulder. Mike bared his teeth as he lifted his head. The doll-faced girl rocked back and forth from heel to toe, cocked her head to the side, waved.
“Y-you said you know where my brother is,” Mike said. He sat up, groaned and whimpered; he could feel his body being slowly hollowed out. “Please…p-lease show me where…”
Then he saw him. Lying on the floor across the room, under the ivory music box.
“James!” Mike found new strength, hopped to his feet and dashed toward his brother’s motionless body. He turned him over, ran his hands over the boy’s face. “James, wake up. Wake up, fool.” He lightly slapped James’s cheeks, shook him by the shoulders, but the boy wouldn’t wake. Then Mike saw the tiny bulges all over him, moving under his skin, saw the small holes that decorated his flesh, each one deep and crying a thin drop of blood.
Another tap on the shoulder. Dollface waved, kept rocking on her feet.
“What did you do to him?”
She shook her head, shrugged.
Mike almost attacked, but he just couldn’t find the strength. He scooped up James’s body, cradled it, held it close to his chest. “Please…can you help us? I-I gotta get him home, I gotta keep him safe.”
She nodded. Jumped up and down and clapped. Her plaid dress ruffled as she ran to her bed, climbed on top of it.
Mike grunted as he rose to his feet, clutching his brother in his shaking arms. His knees buckled and he nearly crashed back to the floor, but he stayed up, took slow careful steps toward the bed.
He waited for Dollface, expected her to show him some kind of secret exit, a tunnel that would take him back outside. “Now what? Tell me where to go.”
She jumped up and down on her bed, waved at him, clapped and spun in the air.
“You gonna help us?” His voice cracked and his knees shook.
She nodded, threw her feet in the air and landed on her rear. She bounced excitedly on her backside, put her hand to the white mask’s mouth as if laughing, but no sound came.
The music box started playing faster, the notes became out of tune, metallic pings. She hopped back to her feet, kept jumping on the bed, faster and faster.
“You little bitch. I’ll fuckin’… ahhh!” He dropped James to the floor with a heavy thud. Mike felt the maggots deep within him now, crawling into his innards, gnawing on his core. It felt like his insides were liquefied, and his body felt like one big open wound. He dropped to his knees and clawed at his chest, stomach, face. His legs from the knees down were numb, and when Mike pulled up his pant leg, he saw they looked thinner, with maggots burrowing in and out, his skin bulging with them.
An arm wrapped around Mike’s head. Dollface held him, stroked his scalp with her boney fingers. She patted him on the back and nuzzled the cold porcelain against his neck.
“Get away from me.” Mike shoved her away. She tripped backward over James’s body, crashed into the wall. Under a window. Mike hadn’t noticed it before, and all he could do was stare at it.
He coughed, hoisted James back off the floor, and struggled toward the window. The girl was back on her feet and got to clapping and jumping again as if she were cheering him on.
Mike squinted as he tried to peer through the glass square in the wall, but it was blacked out, too dark to see. He shifted James to a fireman’s carry, nearly fell backward when he did it, but steadied himself on the window’s ledge. And with a burst of determination, he shoved the window up.
“Oh, God. W-what the fuck…”
Meat. A pulsating wall of rotting meat blocked the window. Putrefied juice dripped down the wall, leaked from the cracks in the decomposing barricade as it pulsated. A bulge appeared on the surface, then broke open to reveal the pasty face of a fly-faced munchkin. It gurgled and spat a gelatinous goo from its mouth before disappearing back into the rot.
As Mike stared at the meat wall, his tears blurring his vision, he squeezed his brother’s body against his chest. He pressed his forehead against James’s, sniffled. “I’m sorry, man. It’s my fault. It’s all my…”
He felt the pain in his stomach before he heard the gunshot. He collapsed, James’s weight landing hard on top of him. The boy rolled off as Mike clutched his leaking belly. Blood gushed, maggots wiggled out. He tried to breathe but couldn’t, and then all at once, as if his nerves were trying to catch up, the pain was there. It swept over him, swallowed him whole.
“Ngghhh… Fuck!” He rolled to his side and a rush of blood soaked into the carpet. The larvae kicked around in the red puddle, crawled away leaving thin bloody trails.
Dollface stood over him now, held Mike’s smoking pistol in both hands. She raised one hand to the mask’s mouth again, did a silent mock giggle. She walked around Mike, gave him a sideways glance as she pointed the gun at James.
“Wait… don’t—”
The gun went off and Mike saw his brother’s body jerk once. Mike tried to scream, but a choked sob came out instead. He slammed his fist into the carpet, wept from the increasing pain in his abdomen and the loss of his brother; his baby brother.
You’re worthless. I should have known you wouldn’t be able to protect him.
Mike rolled onto his stomach, nearly blacked out, then crawled toward his brother. The tips of his fingers dug into the carpet as he pulled his body along, then he wrapped his arms around James.
Dollface dropped the gun and was back on her bed, jumping up and down, clapping.
“B-bitch. I’ll k-kill… you.” He used his elbows to crawl to the pistol, felt a surge of power as he gripped the handle.
The door blew open and a hurricane of flies exploded into the room. It only took a moment for them to cover everything, and all the while, Dollface still jumped on her bed, never making a sound besides the squeaking of the mattress. The vibrations from the flies’ buzzing entered Mike’s head, cracked his skull open, and stabbed at his brain.
And then the old man was there, rolling into the room on a wave of maggots. A dense cloud of horseflies surrounded him and he grinned down at Mike as he entered. His stomach bulged here and there in rapid rhythm as if something was trying to get out. The hairs of his mustache flexed and wiggled.
Mike scooted back toward James, pointed the pistol at the old man.
“Are we still playing this game, boy?” A gust of flies blew from his mouth, was sucked back in by his laughter.
Mike’s eyelids fluttered as more blood pumped from his stomach. Deep needles of pain shot through him as his body continued to be tunneled through.
“Did you acquaint yourself with the children?” The old man bent down, hovered his head just above Mike’s. The flies of his eyes crawled about his face.
“You can’t have him… I w-won’t let you.” Mike pressed the gun under the old man’s chin and pulled the trigger. An explosion of flies and violent buzzing polluted the air just above him.
The old man roared, and Mike fired again. Mike managed to climb to his feet, nearly passing out midway. The old man’s head was a mess of black fluid and swarming bugs.
Dollface jumped and jumped, her music box still playing out of tune. Mike took aim and fired.
The porcelain mask exploded into white shards and she flew backward into her headboard before bouncing face-first on the bed.
Mike stuffed the pistol into his waistband, bent down and scooped up James’s cold body. He was running on fumes now, and James felt heavier, but he managed to stay on his feet, managed to sling his brother over his shoulder.
The old man cackled as the flies reformed his face, repaired the ruined flesh with chaotic ruckus. He did nothing to stop Mike as he rushed past, bolted out the door and into the ocean of white and pink grains of flesh waiting outside.
Mike pushed forward, grimacing and moaning as the searing heat spread through him, promised him death. He almost wel-comed it, but he had to try to get James out. Maybe if we can escape this house, he thought, we can get help. James doesn’t have to die.
You’re both dead already.
As Mike made his way back to the stairs, he glanced once over his shoulder, saw that the children were back out to play, watching from outside of their doors. From further down the hall, the fly munchkins marched toward him, all twitching and jerking as they waded through the maggots.
Then the old man floated from Dollface’s bedroom on a hectic swarm, stretched his mouth wide, and showed Mike the dark abyssal pit of his throat, the endless hive of flies that lived there. Dollface stepped out, her mask gone, and clapped some more. Her face was a milky, segmented mess of maggot flesh. Her eyes were black smudges rolling under a layer of translucent film.
“You stay the fuck away from us. Get the fuck back!” Mike descended the stairs, tried his best not to trip. He could hear the approaching horde of bugs and children, the roaring laughter of the old man. Panic tried to take over Mike’s thoughts, but he forced it back down; had to focus, had to escape.
As his feet touched the bottom floor, he was already running toward the front door. The inhabitants of Infinity House poured down the staircase, rushed over the floor like flood waters.
Mike pulled his gun out, fired into the crowd. Flies came at him, blinded him, stung him on impact. The bigger ones bit him, tried to crawl into the orifices of his face. He swatted at them, still held on tight to James.
He opened the front door.
Blocked. There was no way out.
The meat wall bled a dark putrid liquid that ran down its surface and puddled at Mike’s feet. Thick veins bulged and pulsated; chunks of yellow fat melted off and splashed on the floor.
“No escape. You belong here now,” the old man said.
“No!” Mike plunged his arm into the meat, all the way to the shoulder. He dug into it, threw wet chunks behind him. Black liquid rushed over him, poured from the wall; it stung his eyes, flooded his mouth and nose, but he ignored the potent taste and kept digging.
The children sang together. So many voices, all in unison, like a demonic church choir.
“Locked inside Infinity House, we’ll be here forever…”
Mike pulled the gun back out, fired into the meat. More of the black blood poured, and he clawed his way deeper. His body felt rubbery, the increasing weight of James on his shoulder almost bringing him to his knees.
“If you want to be one of us, you only have to enter…”
The kids’ voices became muffled as the meat began closing up behind him, trapping him like the womb of some giant decomposed demon.
“The flies won’t let the time pass by, the maggots are our brothers…”
As the surrounding muck engulfed him, he kept burrowing through it, forced his feet to move him forward.
Gurgled buzzing. A pale face with huge red eyes appeared in front of him; he pressed the pistol to its spongy forehead and fired. The creature disappeared into the meat stew, but another swam toward Mike, chattering and reaching for him with tiny clawed digits. A bullet burned through its head and it was gone.
His breath was nearly cut off completely, and out of desperation, he fired two more shots. The gun clicked empty and he dropped it, shoved his way deeper. The sound of the old man’s laughter and the children’s singing was pinched off, and the surrounding flesh tightened. Mike’s hand was outstretched, and through the cloud of panic that took over his thoughts, he felt the breeze on his fingertips. Just a tiny whisper of air, but he felt it.
With a final lunge, and a cry cut off by liquid meat, Mike stumbled onto the front porch and rolled down the steps. James tumbled with him, but he never woke, never even stirred.
Mike retched into the dirt, let the soupy mess slide out of him. With no time to waste, he cradled James in his arms and sprinted toward the street, giving the house one more glance over his shoulder.
Dark and quiet, the house looked abandoned again.
The streets of the Oak were black with shadow and as Mike rushed toward home, he noticed how empty they were.
Just gotta get home, he thought. Call somebody, get help.
Even though he thought calling an ambulance was pointless, he didn’t know what else to do. He would have to try, hope they got there on time.
His legs wobbled under him as he turned onto his street. Blood pumped from his stomach wound, and the throbbing agony twisted his gut, mixed with the overwhelming suffering that filled his body, but he made it to his front door, managed to open it.
Grandmamma’s coughing echoed from her bedroom, and Mike thought about calling out to her for help. James lay on the floor, his shirt soaked in blood. Larvae still roamed his body, dripped from his bullet wound.
Mike clawed his way across the room on his belly, clutched the phone and pressed the cold plastic to his ear. His red and black-stained finger shook as he pressed 9-1-1.
It rang. He whimpered.
Grandmamma’s door creaked open. “Boys?”
The phone kept ringing. Come on, Mike thought. Pick up the fuckin’ phone!
“Are my boys home?” She shuffled out of the darkness and entered the living room. Her robe lay in a pile behind her and with each step, her sagging nude body jiggled.
And Mike saw the maggots boiling over her, dripping to the floor like living rain drops.
The phone clicked and a penetrating buzzzz swam into Mike’s ear.
He threw the phone and wept as he backed away from the approaching hag.
She pointed at him. “You can’t escape us. You’re home now.”
“No. No!” But when Mike turned toward the door, he froze. He saw himself standing there.
The hooded Mexican held his loaded backpack and pointed his shotgun at James. “My treat.”
Then the shotgun blew a hole in James’s chest. The boy left his feet as he flew backward and landed hard on his back. Mike watched himself rush toward the shooter, but wasn’t fast enough. He took the second blast in the middle of the face, and the Mexican was out the door before Mike’s body fell over.
“What… what…?”
“You’re home now,” Grandmamma said. As she shuffled toward him, it looked like she was melting, flesh sloughing off in wiggling drips. She tipped over, hit the ground, and a sea of maggots poured into the room, covered the floor.
And with only a blink of his eye, Mike found himself back in the living room of Infinity House. Flies suckled his face and buzzed into his ears.
The old man floated in the air on his iridescent cloud, arms outstretched like a maniac Christ, mouth spread wide in a sinister grin. His children, impossible to count, sur-rounded him, some still on the stairs. The fly-faced creatures gurgled phlegmy, chattery gibberish.
“We’ll never age, we’ll never die, we’ll never see our mothers.”
It came from behind Mike and he turned to find James sitting up, smiling, his eyes wide open and jet black. Maggots wiggled from his tear ducts, nostrils, and mouth.
Mike couldn’t move, couldn’t fight anymore.
James climbed to his feet, faced Mike with a hideous grin that split his face in half.
“You are part of Infinity House, Mike,” the old man said. “And you’ll never leave.” He glided toward James, embraced him, held him gently by the chin, and ran his palm over the boy’s head.
Mike wanted the pain to stop, wanted to slip peacefully into death. But I’m already dead, he thought. And this is hell.
A special hell just for the children of the Oak. You didn’t get him out soon enough, Mike. It’s all your fault.
“Time is ever rotting, and the flies and maggots will devour each moment as it passes.” The old man leaned over and kissed James on the lips, smiled. James returned the smile and stepped toward Mike with open arms.
As his brother embraced him, Mike could
only hug back. James felt bigger, and as Mike looked around, he realized all the children had grown; the old man loomed over them. Maggots squirmed between the brothers, and just before darkness took Mike, James whispered into his ear, sweet and tickling.
“We’re home now.”
And then he was awake. Came rushing back to consciousness with a violent start. He was disoriented… lost for a moment.
Was it a dream, he thought. A nightmare? Please God let it be a nightmare.
Yes, Mike. A nightmare. But you’ll never wake up.
It was in that instant that he smelled the rot. Heard the flies. Felt the maggots inside him. He sat in a room… a square bedroom. Green army men, the same kind he used to play with when he was a kid, littered the floor, left almost no room to walk.
“What’s going on…” He slapped a hand to his mouth. It wasn’t his voice, but a child’s that came out, squeaky and prepubescent.
He raised his hands to eye-level. Small and almost hairless, but bulging with maggots that dove in and out of his child flesh.
Then the bedroom door creaked open.
“Hello, child.”
“No… stay away!” Mike tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. The sharp edges and points of the army men lodged into the padding of his feet, but he felt no pain. He only felt the maggots thrashing within him.
Running to the corner, he hugged his knees and rocked himself. He wept wiggling fleshy tears.
The old man unstrapped his suspenders and let them dangle at his sides. Shapes writhed from inside of his bulbous belly as he licked the front of his teeth and smiled down at Mike. “I love the little kiddies.”
Infinity House Page 5
