‘I understand,’ William said. ‘I won’t fail you.’
‘See to it that you do not.’
Beth then watched as the entity pulled open its robe to its chest and held up a hand, palm facing upwards. The entity started to grimace in pain—actual pain—something else Beth hadn’t seen previously. Then, a section of its chest cavity burst open, the ribs breaking apart.
A black, beating heart, misshapen to the point of looking more like a tumour, sloshed from the opening, arteries splitting and snapping as it did. The heart drifted over and settled in the palm of the entity. Beth noticed that the being actually seemed to be panting now, whereas previously, she couldn’t even recall noticing it breathe.
‘Will you survive?’ William asked, sounding concerned. The Dark Priest nodded.
‘It will… reform… but will take… time.’ Its voice, previously deep and powerful, was now strained. The entity looked down to Beth. ‘Now… complete… the bargain.’
Beth slowly stood to her feet and looked in disgust at the black, pulsating mass. She then looked the being in the eye, ready to tell it to go fuck itself. She sensed its weakness and aimed to act on that. But William spoke instead, shouting out an order to his followers, ‘If she does not comply, cut Josh’s throat.’
Josh was quickly apprehended by four cultists. A blade was brought up to his neck.
‘Wait!’ Beth screamed. The Dark Priest grinned at her as black blood dripped from its mouth.
Fuck.
She had no doubt William meant what he said. By complying, she would likely be unleashing hell onto her world, but she could not bear to see her brother killed.
She took a breath and picked up the beating heart secreting the same vile blood she had tasted only minutes earlier. The organ was cold and slimy to the touch.
‘Very good, child,’ the entity wheezed. Beth brought the heart to her face with a shaking hand. The odour was horrific, not like anything she had ever encountered before. Beth opened her mouth, moved the heart towards it, then paused for a moment. She desperately hoped something would happen to stop this… but nothing did.
She bit down.
A foul taste filled her mouth as she struggled to tear a bite from the tough muscle.
Beth held her nerve, wanting more than anything to gag, and eventually ripped a lump free. Chewing was like torture, as the rubbery mass resisted in her mouth. Eventually, she was able to break it down and swallow, and felt chunks of meat fall into her gut.
‘Keep… going,’ the entity demanded.
With tears in her eyes, Beth did, and slowly worked her way through the revolting task. She bit and chewed, again and again, swallowing every mouthful until the last of it was in her belly. She felt beyond nauseous, and it was a constant struggle to fight back her gag reflex. The disgusting organ had tasted of rotten and spoiled meat.
‘It’s done,’ Beth said, coughing and gasping. ‘Leave my brother alone.’
But the being leaned closer to her. ‘Not quite. Still one thing remains.’ Then its hand shot out again, quicker than she could have expected, and grabbed Beth by the throat. She fought against it as the Dark Priest dragged her towards the titanic, cylindrical tower—the thing the entity had called ‘Mother.’
She kicked and lashed out against the weakened Dark Priest, but William was quickly by its side to help, and he held tightly on to her arms. Against her will, Beth was forced over to the vast surface of the tower. She saw red light and moving shadows within.
‘We have merely… primed your body,’ the entity said. ‘But to truly birth a Great One, you need to have the essence of one inside of you.’
Beth's face was then forced closer to the dark and alien structure, where she felt an intense cold emanate from it. She then screamed as something wormed its way free of the previously solid form, sliding out like it had punctured the surface of water. It wriggled and writhed and looked positively alive—a black tendril with tiny, skittering legs to its underside. Beth screamed in horror, and the appendage quickly jammed itself into her open mouth. She closed her eyes, helpless, as something was secreted into her. Not a liquid, but a solid form. Whatever it was, it moved, and she detected small legs on her tongue. The thing then quickly crawled and pushed its way down her throat, despite her best efforts to clamp her gullet shut. Beth then felt the living thing move around in her stomach, and the tendril quickly pulled out from her mouth. She was again released, and bent double, falling to her knees before heaving and retching. But, no matter how hard she tried, Beth was not able force herself to vomit. She felt the Dark Priest kneel next to her and bring its face close to hers.
‘Now, it is done,’ the entity said.
Then, a horrific screeching noise drew all of their attention. Up ahead, from the direction of the houses and the Overview Lodge, a horde of creatures came skittering across the ground towards them. From a distance, Beth could make out elongated forms pressed to the floor with grey, wrinkly bodies—about the length of a person—and long, thin legs, like a disgusting meld of spider and worm. Large, gaping mouths filled the circumference of the creature’s faces.
‘Protect her,’ the entity said, pointing to Beth. The Dark Priest then stood to its full height and clenched its fists. Beth ran, sprinting back over to Josh and Jim, still coughing and wheezing. She collided with Josh and hugged him tightly.
‘What the fuck are we going to do?’ Josh asked.
Beth turned to see the entity hold up its arm. With one motion, it scattered several of the approaching beasts. But not enough. In its weakened state, Beth was not certain it could hold off the swarming creatures on its own.
Beth quickly moved Josh and Jim to the rear of the cult members—who all huddled closely together—and ushered the two of them back. ‘We escape,’ she whispered to Josh. ‘Get ready.’
34
As the skittering creatures closed in, Josh noticed that they swarmed away from the dark entity. It fought them off with sweeping arcs of its arms, skittering the monsters to the ground. The things did not seem to be targeting the entity, Josh realised, but the other members of the cult.
Josh felt Beth drag him away, and Josh and Jim ran alongside her as she led them to the left, roughly ninety degrees from the incoming attackers. Josh quickly figured out Beth’s plan, hoping that whatever carnage was going to take place between these monsters and the cult would give them a chance to slip away.
The small group sprinted as hard as they could away from the clash. Josh looked back over his shoulder and saw the crawling nightmares spill into the huddled mass of the Order. The monsters leapt with frightening speed and accuracy, landing on screaming targets and forcing them to the floor. The sharp points of their thin legs pierced flesh. Round mouths at the end of the maggot-like bodies opened, but the creatures did not bite down. Instead, a sickly yellow goo escaped, dropping onto the screaming victims. The air soon filled with the smell of cooking meat as the shrieking intensified. Josh saw that the fallen were trying to scrape the thick fluid off themselves, but in doing so only succeeded in pulling away their own melted skin and flesh, leaving melted meat and fat—as well as exposed bone—beneath. Then the creatures started to feed in earnest, chewing and chomping and slurping on the dissolving matter.
It was horrific, and the thought of succumbing to a similar fate pushed Josh on.
‘I… I can’t keep up,’ Jim said, wheezing. He was starting to fall behind, and if not for Beth pulling him along with her, he may have even dropped to the ground.
‘Keep going,’ Beth ordered. ‘We’re nearly there.’
The line of houses ahead was getting closer, and that meant the road beyond was as well. None of the creatures had paused to give chase, and the entity seemed occupied expending whatever energy it had in dealing with the savage attackers. The Dark Priest was able to sweep many of the giant bug-like things away, and caused others to explode in a shower of sickly yellow goo, but it was down on one knee, clearly struggling. Some of the Order were wiel
ding the weapons they’d used to dismember Alicia and the other two sacrifices, and were actually putting up a fight, but their numbers had thinned.
Josh saw the entity, still down on one knee, look over to them. It shouted something to the rest of the Order, but Josh could not make out what. Despite the suddenness of the attack, Josh could see that his former brethren—mostly thanks to the entity—were going to survive.
‘We need to keep going,’ Josh said. ‘They’re going to come after us. William and that thing won’t let us escape. They need you, Beth.’
‘Then don’t stop!’ Beth stressed. ‘Keep running.’
Josh’s lungs burned and his limbs ached. He hated to think how Jim was handling the physical strain. Eventually, the group of three burst through the line of houses, passing between two bungalows, and emerged on to the road in front.
It was carnage. People in the road were fighting off other monstrosities and being pulled apart in the process.
‘Keep going!’ Beth commanded. ‘Back into town.’
They set off running again, descending deeper into hell.
35
The bodies of the dead surrounded William Kent. Many brethren had been lost. Alicia, and his brother, had been snuffed out by the Master.
Was it all worth it?
It had to be, he reasoned. Especially now, given what had been sacrificed. William had come too far, given too much, for it not to be, and therefore had to put faith in the teachings. He'd been given command of this sect following the death of his father, and the Order had high hopes for what he could achieve. Especially given the arrival of the entity—the thing that had become his Master. Or at least, so it thought.
But the knowledge and insight it brought to the Order was undoubtedly invaluable, and it could yet help to create a permanent doorway. However, William’s orders—given by Ainsworth himself, one of the higher Elders—were to also watch this being, as it was not fully trusted.
The truce between the Master and the religion he served had always been an uneasy one.
But what could he possibly do against such a thing with such unimaginable power?
William had managed to avoid the onslaught, and he’d only watched as his compatriots fell around him, killed in horrific fashion. Their bodies were now just a melted and devoured mess on the ground. The immense black pillar stood high, and the titanic creature out in the boiling sea, the harbinger, continued its bellowing roars.
While the Master looked like it may have been overrun at one point, it had managed to save most of the brethren. However, now it looked absolutely exhausted.
The girl still had to be retrieved. She was needed to make the connection between realities permanent, and that was still William’s priority. Both his and the entity’s aims were in line in that regard. But then what? William knew the Master had no intention of helping his people achieve ascension. It would hold them down. So, perhaps there was a way to keep the door open and somehow end the entity. Then they could directly commune with the old beings that existed in this world.
But for now, William had to follow and obey.
‘Get the girl,’ the Master commanded from its kneeling position on the ground. It was struggling severely. ‘Make sure she does not die.’
‘I won’t fail you,’ William said, knowing he had no choice—for now. But he sensed an opportunely could soon come to rid himself and the Order of the festering problem fast outliving its usefulness. He turned to his remaining kin.
‘Retrieve the girl!’ he said, giving his best rallying cry. The Elders would offer little in combat, of course, but the lower pledges were younger, fitter, and stronger. They would carry out their duties and protect those of more worth and importance—or they would die trying.
As they readied themselves to leave, he noticed that a handful of the Order were just standing and looking up at the sky. Or, more specifically, to that great eye. William made sure he did not look directly at it again. The brief time he had, he’d felt a strange draw, and odd voices started to whisper in his head. The souls who gazed to the heavens were mumbling and scratching at their skin. William had noticed a number of his brethren doing that before the attack, and these few must have survived by blind luck.
‘Hey!’ William snapped at them. ‘Move!’
‘They are lost,’ the Master said. ‘Their minds have been broken. They are no good to you now.’
William wanted to walk over to each one and strike them for daring to disobey, but he knew there were more important things at hand. So, he led the rest of the group away from their slumped-over Master, and past the terrifying form of the cylindric Old One that towered above them. First, they would get the girl. Then, they would kill the two men that accompanied her. Lastly, he would command his followers to then cast the Master out into the boiling sea. If the lower members were able to act quickly enough, William hoped that the Master would not be able to withstand them all.
36
‘These monsters must be coming in from outside of the town,’ Jim said, panting frantically. The old man’s face was beet-red, and his brow and cheeks glistened with sweat. Beth agreed with his assessment. The town itself still seemed intact, as normal, but the landscape beyond it had changed to an alien world. They had obviously punched through into this otherworld, replacing what was there before it.
The group of three, after escaping the cliff top, had weaved their way down the hill and towards the town centre, avoiding the chaos around them. They had then ducked into a narrow alleyway at the bottom of the bank, hoping for a brief respite. On the way down, Beth had watched people die, attacked by creatures beyond comprehension.
One young man was pinned down by a winged creature that feasted on his eyes with a long, needle-like mouth. The poor man screamed and writhed as Beth heard a loud suckling sound from the needle. Another man was pulling himself along the ground, his legs gone—only bloody stumps trailed behind. A huge, fast-moving mollusc-looking creature with a translucent body and thick, wriggling hairs along its base quickly moved over to him and parked itself atop his body. The man was lost from view and his screams suddenly cut off. Beth gagged as she saw the internal watery mass of the creature start to fill with thick crimson chunks and pluming red swirls of blood.
Some of the monstrosities even fought and killed each other, giving Beth an indication of the savage nature of this new world.
She leaned against the brickwork behind her and drew in rapid breaths. She was shaking with a mixture of adrenaline and fear.
For the last six hours, Beth had been acting on impulse. And, since coming to this nightmarish realm, that impulse had been running on overdrive. Her mind reeled.
She was living an impossibility. It had occurred to her that perhaps she was actually someplace else. Maybe she was in a looney bin, arms strapped together, muttering to herself in a padded room as her mind created horrible fantasies for her to live out.
It would be preferable to what was actually going on, however—potentially the end of her whole world. By protecting her brother, she could have doomed them all—every man, woman, and child in existence—to a living hell.
The thought overwhelmed her, and she had a sudden urge to break down and cry.
It was perhaps the least of her worries that a demonic creature could soon catch them and feast on their entrails.
But, if something caught her, at least, would that be such a bad thing? It would be one way—perhaps the only way—to foil the Order’s plans.
‘Josh,’ she said, softly. Both her brother and Jim turned their attention to her, even as the screams and roars of chaos echoed around them. ‘I need you to do something.’
‘What?’ he asked.
She smiled, knowing what she was about to say would need some convincing. ‘I… need to die.’
Josh’s eyes went wide. ‘What? What the fuck are you talking about, Sis?’
‘I can feel something changing in me,’ she said. And it was true. Since their escape from the cult u
p on the clifftop, Beth had felt decidedly… off. She could feel something churn and writhe in her gut. But it was more than that. A feeling that she couldn’t describe ran out from her stomach to every extremity. ‘What happened up there, what they did to me... it’s going to work, Josh. Whatever their sick fucking plan is, it’s going to work. But only if I’m still alive.’
Josh shook his head vehemently. ‘No. No way, Sis. There isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to let you die. Not after all you’ve done for me. Forget it.’
She smiled and caressed his cheek. ‘There isn’t any other way.’
But he took hold of both her hands and stared at her with an intensity and seriousness she had never seen from him before. ‘We’ll find one. I’ll find one. We’ll get that thing out of you and get back home. Away from this place. And we’ll leave that fucking cult and its leader behind. They can live here in their paradise.’
‘Josh—’
‘No, Sis!’ he stated firmly. ‘Don’t talk like that. Because if you aren’t here, then I sure as shit can’t make it. Ever since I found Mum’s body, all I’ve ever felt is lost and alone. That whole time I had you by my side, yet I didn’t even look. I’m not going to let you die for me. It isn’t happening.’
Beth wanted to argue with him further but could see that he wouldn’t be swayed. She loved him for it, and it broke her heart that it took the end of the world for them to open up to each other.
‘Listen to the lad, Beth,’ Jim added. His cheeks were still red, but thankfully his breathing had slowed. Beth was worried that they were pushing him towards a heart attack with all the running they’d needed to do. She hadn’t heard him talk in a while, so was grateful he was showing a little more life and awareness. ‘Don’t be giving up now. Not yet.’
Beth nodded, still not convinced, but as she went to take a step forward, her legs gave out and she dropped to the ground.
The Netherwell Horror Page 18
