What the #@&% Is That?

by John Joseph Adams

The first of the grow-lights come on, simulating dawn. The garden, once quiet and beautiful, is our prison.

  I visualize my route to the infirmary and back. In my head it takes me only seconds, but I know if all goes smoothly . . . “Five minutes,” I whisper to myself.

  I clip the O2 cannula against my nostrils and concentrate on slowing my breathing.

  I press my ear to the door.

  All quiet.

  I move the trencher just enough to allow me to squeeze through without damaging my suit, and prop the pry bar near the door.

  My body trembles, and I will my hands to stop shaking. I leave the garden.

  The door shuts behind me, pushed by the outflow of warm air.

  My breath crackles as it crystallizes. I breathe through my nose, drawing warm oxygenated air through the cannula.

  The circle of light from my headlamp plays down the walls and across the floor. Ice rimes the conduits snaking along the ceiling and the metal support struts that rib the corridor. On the floor, a black line smears off into the darkness. Dried blood.

  I move quickly from intersection to intersection, picking my way through the dark toward the infirmary. Even with my light, it’s black as a grave, and the cold bites hard into my fingers and nose.

  A clang shivers through the metal floor, and I freeze. Metal groans.

  Quiet settles again.

  I’m breathing so hard now, the O2 enricher labors to compensate.

  I hustle on; several turns, and I’m there. With the power out, my thumb chip won’t cycle the door. The manual release is frozen fast with condensation.

  I flash my light down the corridor in both directions. Shadows scatter away, but otherwise, it’s empty.

  I slam the butt of the nail gun against the release. A dull thud rings out. I hammer the lever a second time, and the ice gives with a loud crack.

  I listen into the dark, but it’s hard to hear over the pounding in my chest. I swing the hatch aside and pull it closed behind me, but there’s no lock to secure it.

  The infirmary is a jumble of overturned furniture and medical supplies spilled onto the floor from rifled cabinets. Glass and metal crunch underfoot, a carpet of broken surgical tools, syringes, and vials. I can’t remember which cabinet held the medicine, so I search haphazardly. Nothing.

  The front room, the clinic, has been thoroughly ransacked. The door to the surgical theater doesn’t open, but a blow to the handle with the end of the nail gun gets me inside. The cabinets here have been ripped open too. I search the debris on the shelves, the countertop, and the sink, finding sutures and bandages, broken glass, gauze, tubing, but no vials.

  I throw my hands up, spinning, but see nothing except my failure.

  A small bottle glints in my light as it skitters across the floor and under the surgical table. I drop to my hands and knees and peer underneath.

  “Where are you?” I mutter, maybe out loud, maybe in my head. Either way, it’s loud in my ears.

  I move my head lamp around so I can see between the cables and struts of the table’s hydraulics. I see it! I can’t read the label, but it’s the only medicine I’ve seen, and anything is better than nothing at this point.

  I work my hand into the narrow space. My fingertips touch the curve of the bottle, but I can’t get enough purchase on it to roll it toward me.

  “Dammit. Dammit.”

  The sound of crunching glass freezes me. I don’t move, not even my eyes, as I strain to hear. Maybe my mind is playing tricks, but I still can’t bring myself to take a breath.

  Crunch. Louder this time, coming closer, slowly.

  Crunch.

  I can’t move, paralyzed by my fear.

  Crunch.

  At the door to the surgical theater. It’ll be on me in seconds.

  My bones compress as I force my hand into the tight space until I can get my fingertips around the backside of the bottle’s curve and tap it so it rolls closer to me. Extracting my hand, I gash my thumb. Blood drips onto the floor and steams, but fortunately, my hand is numb enough that I don’t feel it. I scoop the bottle into my pocket without looking at the label.

  The glass crunches on the other side of the surgical table.

  I scramble away, tearing a hole in the thigh of my suit on the debris. The gun thunks as nails blur through my headlamp beam, clattering off the table edge and flying into the blackness.

  A high-pitched scream. Slender arms flash through my lamp beam as a small person rolls away from the stream of nails. Glass crunches as Owen scrambles back into the clinic.

  “Owen!” I leap over the surgical table. In the front room, the door to the corridor hangs open like a black maw. I sweep my light around, whispering my boy’s name and praying he hasn’t run into the corridor.

  I find him curled up in an open cabinet, shaking but unhurt. I kneel next to him. Set the nail gun on the floor. He tries to squirm away, but I get him into my arms. “It’s okay,” I whisper. Eventually, he turns into my shoulder and hugs me. His warmth spreads into my limbs.

  “I wanted to help you. I wanted to help Daphne.”

  “I know,” I say, then shush him. I should be angry, but all that matters is he’s safe, and that I keep him that way. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I pick up the nail gun as Owen climbs out of the cabinet. At the door, we pause while I peer down the corridor. “You know the way?” I ask.

  He nods, and we head off.

  I keep Owen behind me but within arm’s reach. We stop at the first intersection. I hold my breath as I peek around the corner. A series of metallic clangs echoes in the distance.

  Owen’s eyes are large and glow white in the blackness. “What was that?”

  My finger shakes as I hold it up to my lips.

  The noise stops. As we dash through the intersection, I look down the corridor, but my headlamp doesn’t cut the darkness deep enough to see anything. The Fiend is close. I sense it, as clearly as I sense my boy laboring a step behind me.

  At the next intersection, we don’t stop—nor the one after that—but fly through like panicked dogs.

  The garden is near.

  The gash on my thigh aches and my muscles burn.

  I run harder. Owen’s ragged breaths fall behind me. I slow as I approach the last intersection and turn to find my boy. He materializes at the edge of my lamp beam, his skin pale and translucent as a specter. His eyes widen; his mouth stretches open to scream, but only a terrified rattle comes out.

  I spin. My light glares off the Fiend’s milky skin and the smooth dome of its head, shiny like the carapace of a beetle.

  “Run!” Nails spark off the ceiling and walls. The gun echoes in the tight space. We must have surprised it as much as it surprised us, because it falls back into the dark.

  I run without looking back, my headlamp wiggling such that I can’t see where I’m going, so I run on instinct.

  I catch up with Owen as he’s slipping through the crack in the door.

  “Go, go, go!”

  Behind me, the Fiend comes clicking up the corridor. I fire the nail gun, hoping to hold it off long enough for Owen to get through. The nail belt is almost empty. Firing one-handed, I dig the medicine bottle from my pocket and push it into Owen’s hand. “Get this to your mother.”

  My last nail zings into the darkness.

  I push Owen’s shoulder, and he squirts into the garden. The door slams shut with the finality of a coffin lid.

  Behind me, the Fiend squeals angrily. I don’t look back; I don’t want to see it.

  Warm piss runs down my leg.

  I throw my weight against the door. It opens wide enough for me to get a shoulder and arm through. I topple over, half into the garden. The empty nail gun pops from my hands and clatters out of reach.

  Fingers wrap around my ankle.

  I kick at the claws with my free foot, but the hard blows don’t weaken its grip. Any second, it will rip my leg off and feast on the bloody muscle.

  I grab the pry bar
from next to the door and stab through the opening, hoping to hit the Fiend’s arm. I strike my own leg. Pain burns up into my gut, but I don’t stop, swinging again and again until finally the Fiend’s claw releases me.

  I drag the rest of my body inside.

  The door snaps shut.

  I lie there, drawing labored breaths. Out of the corner of my eye I see the medicine bottle on the deck. In his panic, Owen has forgotten it. I roll over and grab it. Pain shoots up into my hip and across my groin.

  I see now my leg is in a bad way. The Fiend’s claws have peeled the flesh down on the front of my ankle. Blood soaks my shoe and the tattered pieces of my skin-suit.

  My stomach betrays me, but there’s nothing in it, so it only convulses painfully.

  The door clangs into the back of the cart. The Fiend chitters and clicks in frustration. I nearly black out scrambling away.

  How I get back to the house, I’m not certain, but I stumble inside, weak and light-headed. I leave a trail of blood smeared across the tiles.

  I’ve no feeling in my foot. From the floor where I have fallen, I drag a rag off the table and wrap it around my ankle. The blood soaks through before I can tie the knot.

  “Elise.” My voice is just above a whisper.

  I know she’s in Daphne’s room, straining to hear the smallest rustles of our daughter.

  My vision blurs. I won’t die in my house like this. “Owen.”

  The boy comes out of Daphne’s room. His eyes widen, and I know now it’s as bad as I thought. He covers his mouth and steps back.

  The look of terror on his face bites into my heart.

  “The medical kit,” I say.

  Owen backs down the hallway, dissolving into the shadow.

  Don’t leave me, boy. I need you.

  Outside, something rustles near the door. Claws scrape over the lever.

  With a cold lump in my belly, I realize the nail gun isn’t with me. There’s nothing in the small room—no club, no knife, nothing I can wield against it. I curse my stupidity.

  I struggle onto my good foot. The adrenaline masks the pain.

  The door latch lifts with a click loud enough to shatter my eardrums. I charge, but my foot cannot hold my weight, and I crash to the floor. The Fiend descends on me like the hunter it is.

  I scream, driving strength into my limbs, and thrash around trying to buck it off me, but it’s too heavy. It claws at my arms and head, chittering and squealing.

  “Run, Elise! Run, Owen!”

  A needle drives into my leg. Weakness spreads through me as the toxin works its evil.

  “Elise . . . Owen . . . run.” The words come hard and quiet across my lips. I hope they escaped out the back and find a place to hide until it drags me away.

  But how long will they last without me? Owen is not ready to protect even himself. Elise is wrapped in a shroud of grief, and Daphne—I’ve already failed Daphne.

  A click and a hiss of air.

  With effort, I turn my head.

  A woman in an environment suit shakes out her short hair. She sets her helmet on the table and touches a small boom hugging her cheek. “Request medical assistance at my location.” She does not take her eyes off me, and all I can do is stare into them.

  “My name is Nadia,” she says, kneeling next to me. “We found your SOS beacon.” She has strong bones in her face but a soft nose and lips. “I’ve given you a sedative, but you need to lay still. I don’t want you to hurt your leg more than it already is.” She takes my thumb and presses it to a scanner pad on the wide wristband ringing her left forearm. She reads the information that scrolls up the band’s display.

  I try to move, but my body is slow, like I’ve spent an hour in the sauna making jelly of my muscles. “It killed everyone. Have to—” My head spins and threatens to float away.

  “You need to stay still, Paul.”

  I don’t immediately recognize my name; I haven’t heard it in a long time.

  Two more environment suits arrive. They crack off their helmets and set the domes on the table next to Nadia’s. One of them kneels over my injured ankle.

  “Delman’s going to fix you up,” Nadia says. “You’re safe now.”

  I reach out toward her. She takes my hand and finds the medicine bottle wrapped in my fingers.

  “My daughter,” I say. “She’s sick.”

  Nadia looks at the bottle. Her brow pinches into a vertical line. “What happened here, Paul?”

  “My daughter . . . the Fiend . . .” Why can’t they understand me? “First door on the left.”

  “Try to relax.” She pats my shoulder, then goes to confer with the standing man. Snippets of their hushed conversation reach my ears, but I can’t piece them together, because my attention is absorbed by the outer door, which they’ve left unlatched.

  Elise peeks out from Daphne’s room. I call out loudly, attracting everyone’s attention. When that happens, Elise quietly backs into the shadow.

  Nadia returns to my side. She repeats my name several times, gradually drawing my attention back to her. “Timmons will check on your daughter.” She continues to talk at me while the man goes into Daphne’s room. I strain to hear anything, but Nadia is speaking too loudly.

  “—ship records say your daughter was injured in an equipment accident—”

  No, no. The Fiend hurt her.

  “—and put into a medically induced coma—”

  I crane my head, trying to see around the kneeling woman. Down the hallway, Owen’s door is ajar. Through the narrow crack, his eyes glitter with fear.

  A soft chittering outside the window drives a spike of fear into me. My breath leaves with a force that spins my head. “It’s coming,” I say, the words insubstantial as fog.

  “Just a minute more,” says Delman, tearing a strip of tape from a roll.

  But there isn’t a minute. It’s coming.

  Timmons returns from Daphne’s room, his face grim. He pulls Nadia to the side.

  A shadow darkens the crack under the unlatched door. My breaths come shallow and rapid, but no one seems to notice.

  “Two of them,” Timmons says softly. “One in a chair; a child in the bed. From the looks of them, they’ve been dead for years.”

  Nails like needles scrape the lever.

  “I found these lodged in the skull of the one in the chair.” Timmons hands Nadia gray slivers of metal.

  “What the hell is that? Nails?”

  The latch moves.

  “It’s here! Oh, god, it’s here!” I kick away from Delman, surprising the medic and knocking him over. Nadia lunges at me, but I scramble under her hands. Behind me, the door bursts open, and the Fiend rushes in, chittering insanely. I don’t look back but claw my way across the floor to Daphne’s room. Furniture tumbles behind me. Nadia and Timmons scream, but their words are swallowed by the staccato of the Fiend’s clicking mandibles.

  I slam the door and fumble the lock into place.

  The Fiend screams.

  Fists pound on the door, but I push my back against it, even though I know the lock is strong.

  “Paul! Let us in. Paul!”

  Elise cowers in the chair at Daphne’s bedside. Owen stands in the corner, his back to me. In the darkness, he looks like a standing lamp covered with a black sheet, but I am relieved that he’s here and that he’s safe.

  “Paul!”

  I shove my fingers into my ears. The noise outside is horrific and it echoes painfully inside my head.

  Elise’s lips move silently in the shadow of her face.

  “I will protect you,” I say. The dull thuds of fists on the door slow. Everyone in the room is still and quiet like shadows in the night as we wait for the Fiend to finish its grisly work and leave. Then we will go on, like we always have. Now and forever.

  #CONNOLLYHOUSE #WESHOULDNTBEHERE

  SEANAN McGUIRE

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:42

  Hello boos and ghouls, and welcome to a very special episode of Go
For Ghosts, the Internet’s BEST, TOTALLY UNSTAGED ghost-hunting show!

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:43

  For the live camera feed, go to goforghosts.com. Be sure to follow

  @screamking @screamqueen and @deadhot for CONSTANT UPDATES.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:45

  We have permission to explore one of the most INFAMOUS haunted houses in all of Maine: the Connolly House on Peaks Island.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:47

  If you are unaware of this terrible MURDER PALACE and its HORRIFYING HISTORY, we have resources linked at goforghosts.com.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:50

  The current owners of the house, Harry and Jenna Connolly, have agreed to this UNPRECEDENTED ACCESS because the house . . .

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:51

  . . . which was the site of SEVENTEEN BRUTAL MURDERS in 1903, is to be torn down at the end of the summer.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:52

  We will be the first and last people to film there. And it begins in EIGHT MINUTES. Follow #connollyhouse for all the terrifying details.

  Boo Peep retweeted

  Scream King @screamking • 19:55

  Ha ha can’t wait to see you run out of there in tears.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:55

  @screamking oh please you’re totally going to be the first to snap. :) :) :) @screamqueen and I will be first in/last out. #horrorgirls

  Boo Peep retweeted

  Scream Queen @screamqueen • 19:56

  You tell ’im! GIRL POWER 4EVR.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 19:57

  @screamqueen You know it girl. ;) You + me = the TRUE ghost hunters.

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 20:01

  HERE WE GO! #connollyhouse #thebigscare

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 20:03

  Front porch. Cold—too cold for July. Lots of dead leaves. No spiders. Sort of weird. Rest of the island is WEBBED. #connollyhouse

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 20:04

  Key doesn’t want to work. What, @deadhot, have you never unlocked a door before? #connollyhouse #haha

  Boo Peep retweeted

  Dead Hot @deadhot • 20:06

  Bite me. I got it open. #connollyhouse

  Boo Peep @boo_peep • 20:08

  WOW. I hope you’re following the video feed, horror fans! You can FEEL the cold in the living room. #connollyhouse