by Bryan Hall
He glanced around the living room, unsure of what to do. Finally he set out down the hallway, his steps measured and punctuated by brief moments of concentration. His eyes were trained on the light seeping out from beneath the door, his ears straining to hear something.
Rick stopped and cocked his head towards the door, holding his breath. Finally, he hissed his companion’s name through clenched teeth.
“James?”
Silence.
He took a final step and reached the door, placing his hand on the handle. “James?”
Clutching his flashlight like a club, Rick turned the handle and pushed open the door. The room beyond was only a shade less dim than the rest of the house. The source of the light that had escaped underneath the door was James’ flashlight, laying in thick beige carpet at Rick’s feet now, shining between his legs and down the hallway behind him. A few inches from the flashlight was a hand. A motionless heap of shadow, James lay silent on the floor.
His adrenaline barely had time to surge at the sight of his partner before a dark shape charged from one side of the room, swinging something down through the darkness as it came. Rick felt a flash of pain before blackness swallowed him.
***
The pain woke him in waves so vivid they brought flashes of color behind his closed eyes. He lingered in that half-awake state for a moment, mind trying to sort out dream and reality.
Out of reality came the metallic taste of blood, triggering a domino like surge of realizations.
The left side of his head was agony incarnate, a high pitched squeal slicing through his mind.
He was sitting upright, head hanging like a bobble head doll with a busted spring.
He couldn’t move his arms or legs.
That last thought stirred his body into action. He jerked his head upward, forcing himself to open his eyes as he made the motion.
His left eye would barely obey and he felt the numb, alien sensation of massive swelling there. The vision through it was blurred and dim, like peering through moving water.
There was light now - too much of it. He was tied to a wooden chair, his arms lashed to the chair’s arms, in a room that seemed another dimension from the one he had left. Plain cinder block walls, a pale and naked concrete floor, raw exposed rafters stretching from wall to wall. A basement that seemed more like a tomb.
On the floor ten feet or so away lay James’ body, still an unmoving mound. He was facing Rick, eyes closed. There was dried blood caked around his nose and mouth and a fresh rivulet dripping from each. Much of his face and head was swollen and discolored, black and blue and yellow. His chest moved shallowly, irregularly. As bad as Rick felt, he was sure that James was in far worse shape.
Behind him Rick could hear movement. Shuffling footsteps, heavy breathing.
“You sure fucked up, friend.” The voice came with a light chuckle for accompaniment. “You guys saved me a lot of trouble, though.”
Rick sat silent, staring at James’ mangled face.
“I said you fucked up.” The chuckle was gone.
Rick wasn’t sure of what to do.
Something blunt and hard poked into his shoulder forcefully. “Tell me!” The man said loudly.
“Yeah.” Rick’s voice was weak, a whisper that still seemed to echo off the cold grey walls.
The man walked from behind Rick and squatted down before him, clutching a wooden baseball bat in one hand. He was middle-aged and balding with a thick five ‘o clock shadow covering his face. The scent of alcohol hung heavy on his breath. He studied Rick’s face as if searching for the answer to some centuries-old riddle. “When I was a kid, one of the first things my Dad told me was that there was nothing lower on earth than a thief. Except a liar.”
Rick stared at him, heart pounding in his head with so much intensity that he had to focus just to hear the man as he talked.
“But…desperate times, you know?” The man smiled faintly and cocked his head to one side.
A silence passed between the men.
The man’s smile turned to a frown. “Desperate times, goddamn it. What do they call for?”
Rick hesitated a moment. He knew what the man wanted him to say, but should he play this game? No choice, he told himself as he said: “Desperate measures.” The words were barely a whisper.
The balding man smiled and nodded his head, pleased. “Desperate measures. That’s right.” He stood up and began circling James’ motionless body as he talked. “Times are tough. I know you’ve got your reasons. Believe me, I know. Every sin is forgivable. That’s what Jesus said, you know. Every sin. Even thievery. Hell, even murder.”
The breath stalled in Rick’s lungs as the man spoke the word. Was that it, then? Was that his fate, to be killed while strapped to this chair in this basement at the hand of this man?
“He’s not wearing a ring. But you…you’re married.” He spoke the words flatly, emotionless.
Rick stared in silence.
The man rolled his eyes. “Desperate fucking times, man. Desperate times. I know what it’s like! To have a wife and kids and have to provide for them and get in a spot where you aren’t sure if you can or not.” He pointed the baseball bat at Rick. “That’s why you’ve stooped to breaking into houses, right? Pay a mortgage? Feed your family?”
It was the truth. He had spent thirty three years without ever even shoplifting a piece of gum. But the building industry in Ashton had collapsed upon itself, and thousands were unemployed at the moment with no hope of change in sight. After three months without paying the mortgage and two weeks of Clarissa and their daughter Maggie subsisting on little more than ramen noodles and beanie weenies, Rick had taken the only course of action he felt he had left.
“This sack of shit, though.” The man’s gaze fell on James and turned to ice. His voice grew in intensity, in disgust, as he spoke. “I remember being a single man, living alone. You can live on scraps when you need to. But instead of struggling and fighting like a man he comes here to steal from me. This isn’t to keep his wife from leaving him or feed his kids. This is for his own comfort. His own selfish fucking desires. He can be first. Hell, I may only need one of you, anyway. And he deserves it. Goddamn right he does.”
Suddenly the man swung the bat down and connected with James’ right knee, a sickening crack echoing off the walls of the basement. James moaned and twitched slightly as the bat slammed into his knee for a second time. Once more and the man seemed to be sated for the moment, turning his back and walking away from James and Rick.
He stood staring at the cinder block wall in front of him, his voice altered slightly as it bounced off the wall and echoed back to Rick. “I’ve struggled and fought for everything I have. Hell…I’ve fought for the shit I’ve lost.”
The man whirled back around, leaning against the wall and sliding down it to a sitting position, cradling his head in one hand and using the other to fidget with the bat.
Even with his vision still blurry and his ears still ringing Rick could see that the man was crying, or at least on the verge of it.
“Fucking bitch. Fucking economy. I’m not losing anything else. I don’t have any other choices, goddamn it.”
When the man looked up, his face didn’t show any sign of tears. It was cold and determined. He was biting his lower lip and nodding his head as if he had finally made an important decision.
The man dropped the bat to the ground and walked over to James, grabbing him by his legs. James didn’t make a sound as the man started to drag him across the floor, the two of them disappearing behind Rick leaving a thin trail of blood on the concrete.
Rick heard James’ legs hit the concrete as the man dropped them, followed by near silence. He turned his head as far as he could, but couldn’t see James or the homeowner.
Rick heard what sounded like paper being ruffled or pages of a book turning.
A moment later, when his captor started chanting rhythmically, Rick began to realize what was happening behind him
. At first he shook off the idea, it seemed too crazy to be plausible. But after a moment, there was no question as to just what the man was doing. Rick turned his head again, straining hard to see over his shoulder but having no success.
He thought about jerking his body to try and twist the chair but decided that even if he had the strength to do it, the chance of tipping the chair over and slamming his face into the concrete floor was too great to risk it yet. And besides that, he wasn’t completely sure he wanted to see what was happening.
Long strings of words in another language filled the room, each round of foreign words punctuated by the man crying out “I offer myself to you.”
That decree itself was followed by the man grunting. A wet sound, the sound of metal scraping rock, another groan.
The process was repeated three times, the man’s voice riddled with deep breaths and gaining in fervor as he went on.
“I offer this soul to you,” the man bellowed. There was another sickly wet sound and a moan, and without seeing a thing Rick knew that James had just been killed.
Silence crept through the basement, only broken by the heavy breathing of Rick’s captor.
Then the smells came.
The homeowner started gagging at once, choking on the putrid stench of sulfur and shit, burnt hair and rotten meat. Rick assumed that his blood had clogged much of his nose, but the smell was still almost unbearable and he fought back the urge to vomit.
A moment passed, and then Rick realized that the room was growing warmer by the second. Sweat was beginning to pour from his pores as a low rumbling noise began to echo off the bare walls. His heart began to race with panic.
The man was screaming with joy now. “It worked! I can’t believe it!”
“Get me out of this fucking chair, man,” Rick screamed over his shoulder. “It worked, right? You don’t need me! Let me go, man!”
The man didn’t respond to the pleas. He just continued with his jubilation, cackling like a madman as the smells grew stronger and the heat grew more profound.
The rumbling noise stopped suddenly and there was a split second of silence that was followed by an immense sucking sound, as if the room itself was taking a deep breath. The sound was short lived, however, and ended as violently as the entire ordeal had begun.
A silent flash of heat and force erupted from behind Rick so powerful that it sent him flipping, chair and all, across the room. For the first time that night luck blessed him, and when he slammed into the wall it was back first, shattering the chair and knocking the air from his lungs. A black wave washed over him and he teetered on the verge of unconsciousness once more, fighting against it until he began to slip back into reality.
He tried to move but couldn’t - his vision had become a cloudy grey blur, able to make out indistinguishable shapes but unable to focus on anything. At the moment his hearing was the only sense that seemed to be functioning for him, and he heard the homeowner speak from across the room.
“It worked,” the man said.
The swarming sound of a million flies and bees replied, forming words from the hellish noise; a buzzing insect horde speaking with its wings.
“Yes.” Was all it said.
“And…you can help me,” the man said. There was hope in his voice.
Hope was also creeping into Rick’s limbs, as they began to respond to his desires. His arms and legs were regaining feeling, and he pushed himself up onto his knees.
“It is not my place to help you.” Each word came independent of the others, slowly fading in and then out of the constant swarming sound that was growing louder with each second.
Rick’s vision was clearing somewhat now, he was able to clearly see objects a few feet from him: the remains of the chair scattered on the floor, the baseball bat the man had discarded earlier, his own arms and hands. But more importantly, he could see stairs leading up and out of this hell, beckoning for him from twenty feet or so away.
The man’s voice was pained now, panicked. “But I want her back! My money!”
“That is not my concern,” the swarm responded.
“Well what the fuck is your concern?” The man screamed. “I brought you here, I called for you, I gave you what I was supposed to, goddamn it!”
Agony coursing through his battered body, Rick grabbed the bat and leaned against the wall with his shoulder, sliding up it until he was standing. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look toward the source of the conversation.
His vision still wouldn’t allow him to make out the smaller details, but Rick could see enough to know that that was something to be thankful for.
The homeowner was on his knees, staring up at a huge dark shape that spanned floor to ceiling. It wasn’t human in shape; Rick could see no single arm or leg to speak of.
But even through his still blurred vision, he could see that it was pulsating.
Squirming.
And as it did, tendrils slithered out and then back into it, sometimes only one appendage emerging from its ever-writhing body, sometimes a dozen. It was like a giant mass of worms or snakes all formed together to make this beast that had been called forth tonight.
Neither the homeowner nor the shape seemed to notice Rick as he crept towards the steps, still leaning against the wall for support.
“You think a few fingers deserves what you ask for?” The swarming voice asked.
“Yes, damn it, I do! And what about the man--”
“He was nothing. He was mine anyway.”
“There’s another,” the man pleaded.
He turned his attention to where Rick had been tied and released a panicked whimper before scanning the basement. As soon as the man’s eyes found his prey he leaped into action, making his way across the room in a half-run, half-walk.
A mere ten feet from the base of the staircase, Rick turned to face his attacker. The man was scowling, staring at Rick with contempt. His right hand was outstretched, brandishing a blood-soaked knife. Rick glanced to the man’s other hand and saw that three of the fingers were gone, blood pouring from the stumps where they had been.
Either the man didn’t notice the baseball bat or he didn’t think that it posed a threat, because he made no effort to dodge or block it as Rick swung it towards his head.
The weapon connected with a crack that echoed off the cinder block walls like a gunshot, the left side of the homeowner’s face caving into his head as he dropped to the floor.
The stinking, squirming thing sprang into motion. It lurched towards Rick, moving nowhere near as quickly as the man who had summoned it.
Rick flung the bat toward the charging beast and watched as the bat disappeared into the creature, absorbed into its writhing mass like a sponge soaking up water. He pushed off the wall and stumbled across the floor, falling onto the stairs.
Surprisingly, it was easier for Rick to crawl up the stairs than it had been to walk to them, and he was over halfway to the top by the time the thing reached their base. He glanced over his shoulder and saw three of the worm-like tendrils emerging from the creature, snaking their way up the steps towards him. The room filled with the sound of a million swarming insects.
He reached the top of the stairs and threw open the wooden door, looking over his shoulder to see the writhing mass struggling up behind him, its hideous body still close to the base of the steps but its tentacles mere inches from his foot.
Rick passed through the doorway, pulling himself to his feet as he did so. He stumbled down a long hallway and into the living room. The sight of the door he and James had entered the house by breathed new strength into his body and he crossed the room in a dash, flung open the door and ran outside.
It took Rick three long, quick strides to cross the porch and he leaped off it into the driveway, sucking the cool night air deep into his lungs as he hurried to his truck.
As he opened the door, the thing charged through the front door of the house and the night filled with the stench of rotting meat and sulfur
. Rick jumped into the truck and turned the key. The sound of the engine roaring to life nearly brought a tear of relief to his eye and he slammed the pickup into reverse and floored it, flying backwards down the long driveway.
Before he could reach the end of the drive the truck began to sound different. At first Rick thought the engine’s low hum was changing somehow, but then he realized that it wasn‘t the truck making the noise. It was the swarming, buzzing sound of insects that the hellish creature spoke with, so loud that they drowned out the truck’s motor entirely.
And now he could see them, too.
The back window of the pickup was filling with bugs. At first he only noticed a couple in his peripheral vision, but second by second more were joining them. There were locusts, bees, beetles, and hundreds of bugs he’d never seen before. It was quickly becoming hard to see through them enough to make out the road behind him.
Panicked, he turned his head to use his side mirrors, but the windows on either side of him were filled with insects as well. The windshield was covered too; the truck seemed to be cocooned by the things.
The pickup lurched to the left, tilting towards the driver’s side and then slamming into something. With a frustrated scream, Rick dropped the transmission into drive, but the vehicle wouldn’t move.
The bugs began to flit out of the air conditioner vents and Rick tried to swat at them but soon the cab of the truck was alive with them.
Rick threw open the door, falling out of the truck and tumbling a few feet down a steep slope.
He glanced up at his pickup, still swarming with bugs. He had driven it off the side of the driveway a mere five or six feet from the intersection with the main subdivision road and now it sat precariously with its rear end folded around a large oak tree and another tree on the driver's side of it, holding it from rolling down the mountain towards where he was now.
As he struggled to rise to his feet Rick felt something move below his hands. He looked down just as the earth beneath him heaved and came alive with millions of worms. They squirmed up through the dirt and fallen leaves for as far as he could see, the moonlight giving the teeming forest floor an even more hellish appearance.
