by Guy Riessen
About halfway down the hallway, stairs went up on the left. The carpet on the stairs was old and threadbare across the middle of each step, with long threads of black and beige hanging like dead antennae over the edge of each riser. Moving past, they continued methodically down the hallway. On the left, just past the stairs, was a half-open doorway. Its hinges screeched in protest as Derick pushed on it.
Derrick stepped to one side and Howard pushed the protesting door open the rest of the way and they both shined their lights inside. The carpet stopped at the threshold and a rough wooden landing inside gave way to bare wooden steps going down.
“Basement?”
“Yeah,” said Howard, “But let’s clear this floor, and we’ll hit the basement before we head upstairs. I’d rather not have anyone, or anything, blocking the only exit.”
Derrick nodded, “check,” and pulled the squealing door. “I’ll close the door, so we’ll know if something comes up to join us.” The door clicked shut.
They continued down the hallway. There were two more doors on the right and one more on the left. The two on the right were bedrooms, dusty, with tall beds draped in fabric. Motes swirled in the air when they opened the doors, but there were no tracks in the dust on the floor. In both rooms, the window panes were intact, though the water damage to the walls was significant, with rot and mold seeping through the walls where they bulged near the baseboards.
The room on the left was some kind of food storage. Metal racks lined the walls and free-standing shelves stood in the center of the room, bolted to floor and ceiling. When Howard pushed the door open, the smell of rot was powerful enough to make Derrick gag and back up, stumbling a few steps back down the hallway.
Leaning against the wall, the damp plaster sagged inward. He turned and pressed his hand against the wall, his hand sank into the plaster, leaving a shallow five-fingered impression when he withdrew it—a doughy, moldy parody of a kindergartner’s turkey drawing. He peered closely at the wall, then pressed a single finger against the surface, it punctured through easily and a black ooze squeezed out like licorice toothpaste.
“Gah,” Derrick choked. The dark slime was viscous, and he wiped it on his pants leg. The odor of rotting meat and forest detritus was so strong, Derrick expected maggots to pour from the weeping ooze that ran down from the hole his finger made. He fought down his gag reflex as he stumbled back toward Howard where the smell from the storage room hammered his senses.
Howard pulled a bandanna up from under his shirt collar and over his nose, dug in his pocket and produced a small bottle of spray breath mint. He doused the front of his bandanna as Derrick coughed, “Jeez, H. how’d you think to bring that with you?”
“Boy Scouts are always prepared, and you should show some gratitude, because this Boy Scout even has another one,” Howard said, pulling another bandanna from a belt pouch, he tossed it to Derrick.
CHAPTER FIVE
EVEN BREATHING THROUGH a bandanna, the smell in the room was as foul as anything Derrick had ever experienced. As they moved into the room, Derrick’s eyes watered and itched, and he blinked, trying to keep them clear.
It was surprising how much of the food had rotted because it was cold in the room, almost like a walk-in freezer. That didn’t make any sense for dry and canned goods storage. Cool, sure. But cold? No. Howard moved past some of the racks, the light from his rifle mount moved left and right, and up to the ceiling then back down. Derrick could see Howard’s breath puffing from under the bandanna.
Derrick shined his own light up around where the walls and ceiling met, then across the entire ceiling. There were no air vents.
“How can you have a walk-in freezer without a way to circulate the cold air?”
Howard just grunted noncommittally.
The metal racks against the left wall appeared to be dry goods stock, but they were hardly dry anymore. The sacks of flour slumped and split like sunbaked pumpkins left to rot. Brown viscous sludge spilled from ragged tears in the bags, pooling in yellow caked mounds on the wood slats that formed the shelves. In the seams between the slats, the mixture had dripped, forming semi-dry stalactites reaching for the shelves below.
On the center racks, canned goods bulged with grotesque roundness that tipped some on their sides. Near the far wall by the broken window frame, several of the cans had burst, spewing their contents across the wall and broken window glass panes. The cans were large, restaurant-size and many of the labels had partially flaked off and were no longer legible. Pools of unidentifiable liquids puddled in the middle of the room, speckled with colonies of molds and cultures of bacteria.
Boxes of cereals were stacked on the top near the other door, their color faded and gray, their bottoms spread outward and puffed like a paperback book dropped in a bathtub then dried out.
“Yelp review says, ‘Food was unusually spiced and didn’t appeal to most of our group. Service was practically nonexistent, and something was wrong with the thermostat. Upside is there’s never a wait for a table. One-star,’” Howard said through his bandanna.
Derrick laughed, though he immediately regretted the sudden intake of breath ... and the smells that went along with it. “Good one. You notice the cold?” Derrick shifted his rifle, then thinking better of it, removed the flashlight from the rifle’s rack, then slung the weapon over his shoulder. Howard could take care of anything that needed shooting. He swiped the screen on the box he held.
“Kinda hard to miss it, D.”
“Forty-seven-degree drop from the hallway,” Derrick said, reading the graph on the display, “In less than ten seconds. And Oh!” He clicked another dial, “Wow, we’ve got a huge spike in EMR.”
Howard asked, “Electromagnetic radiation?”
“Yep,” Derrick said.
Howard turned toward him, and Derrick could see his bandanna was iced white everywhere except directly in front of his nose and mouth. His breath fogged out from under the bandanna in large plumes. “It’s still getting colder, D.”
Derrick swung his sensor around, he stopped his slow circle. He was facing the door they came in through.
“Something in the hallway?” Howard asked.
“Maybe. Could be in the basement?”
Derrick looked up, and Howard shrugged. “Let’s keep moving and clear this area,” Derrick said.
Howard nodded and started to step forward. The house shuddered, and Howard, catching movement from the corner of his eye, ducked left. A five gallon can of tomato juice tumbled from the top of the shelf to his right, glancing off his shoulder as he spun to the side. His assault rifle snapped up and its light traced a line along the width of the shelf, illuminating only canned goods. The can split when it struck the cement floor. The red fluid disgorged itself with sickening thick sounds of splatting liquid.
“Oh dang, was that an earthquake?” Derrick’s flashlight moved around the room. Derrick was afraid of earthquakes, the idea of the planet shifting mindlessly beneath his feet was terrifying.
“Yeah could be. Trinity is located along a volcanic chain, according to the briefing papers Sarah sent.” Howard looked up, rubbing his shoulder.
“Yeah. May be related to whatever we’ve got trying to manifest here?”
As they moved through the room to the opposite side, they found the door was unlocked. The hinges squealed in protest as they pushed their way through and entered a large kitchen.
Two large six-burner stoves dominated the left wall, while two brown-stained porcelain sinks, set in filthy counters covered in leaves, sat against the wall directly across from where they entered. A series of four large windows above the sink were shattered with broken mullions and wicked slivers of glass mixed with the dirt and wet leaves. The rain hammered that side of the house and it was blowing in and mixing the detritus into a dark sludge. The floor was all broken tiles and exposed cement. There was a large butcher-block table in the center of the room sitting at an angle on two broken legs.
Dim light streamed
in through the broken windows mixed with shadows cast by the trees outside. Their flashlights lit up rusted knives that had spilled from a slot along one side of the butcher table. Red-brown streaks of oxidation ran down the wall from several large meat cleavers that hung from the wall next to the two giant ovens. Although the blades were heavily corroded, glints of metal reflected in their flashlight beams.
“Ugh,” Derrick said, noting among the cleavers, several of the hooks set into the wall were empty. “Hey H, if you were a poltergeist, would you pick up, let’s say a rusty knife or cleaver, and try to stab us with it?”
Howard turned around and looked at Derrick, his eyes alighting on the camera strapped to the top of Derrick’s FBN cap.
“Yeah totally ... I’d sure as do my best, and I’d go for you first because you’re wearing that stupid-looking camera on your head. So why don’t you swivel that camera around, record your goofy footage, and let’s get the hell out of here before one of those cleavers floats off the wall.”
“Good call. On it,” Derrick said, his head turning back and forth, following the light from his flashlight, letting the camera record everything. He watched the temperature on his sensor, but it remained steady.
Howard was moving toward the other door when the floor groaned. He stepped back. “Maybe scan the floor with your ‘rat-dar’ before I take the shortcut to the basement?”
“‘Batdar,’ H, it’s ultrasonic ... works like a bat’s sonar, man. You’re the linguist, how can you not get it?”
“I know, just yanking your chain, D.”
Derrick swapped metal boxes and flicked the device on. “Take about three steps to the right, then you’re good.” Derrick pointed his light right in front of Howard. The tiles were completely gone there, and the wood sub-flooring was pitted and spotted with black and orange. “The floor’s pretty much rotted through right there.”
Howard backed up a bit, then turned as something caught his eye. Moving toward the sink he said, “Hey D, come look at this.”
Derrick moved over near Howard and looked. The porcelain sink was chipped and streaked with black and brown stains. In the basin were a couple aluminum “dishes” that weren’t exactly bowls and weren’t exactly plates. They were covered in swaths of mac and cheese that had dried to a yellow-white cement.
Derrick said, “That food looks relatively fresh. Dried on those dishes, but not moldy or anything.”
“And those aren’t just dishes, those are military mess kits, like we used in the field in Iraq.”
“Do you need to sit down? Are you having a Mac & Cheese PTSD flashback?”
Howard swatted the back of Derrick’s head, “Very funny, Mr. Politically-Correct-Not. But no. It probably means the mess kit is less than fifteen years old though.”
“Right. With the front door and its ‘alarm’ and food debris, it’s clear we’ve got people involved.”
Howard swung his rifle over toward a table with six wooden chairs arranged haphazardly around it. On the table was a camping-style propane tank and a two-burner camping stove. “Looks like it, yeah.”
Derrick turned and peered out through the broken window above the sink. He could feel a cool mist being thrown up as the rain battered the window frame. “With the temperature drop and stuff, I don’t think it’s just people—there’s some kind of supernatural influence here, for sure, man.”
“No evidence of marijuana growing—no clippings, no drying room, no smoking kits—so why the front door alarm, and where’s whoever set it?”
“Maybe the doorbell or alarm rings somewhere else? Local grow field maybe?” Derrick rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Or, since the wire went up into the ceiling, it could even go to a roof transmitter and ring in another location altogether. Maybe it’s just straight-up cultists, and we’ll find ‘em in the basement ginning up a Shoggoth or demon or something. Let’s pick up the pace and get it sorted, this place is creepy as heck.”
As if on cue, lightning cracked across the sky, casting the trees across the small meadow outside the kitchen in stark black relief.
“Beautiful timing, D.”
“Like I said, creepy as heck.” Derrick stared down at his glowing LED display while moving across the open floor to the door that led back out to the hallway. Howard followed, careful to step exactly where Derrick stepped.
In the hallway, they paused briefly by the door to the basement, looking at each other, then at the door. Derrick swallowed hard and said, “What d’ya think? It’s just the basement, right?”
“Yeah, dude. Nothing ever happens in the basement, right?”
“Sure. I totally got your back, H.”
“Wait ... what?”
CHAPTER SIX
“GO AHEAD AND HOP ON in there, guns blazing. We don’t want to get cut off right, man?” Derrick said, looking left and right down the hallway.
“Someone’s gotta overwatch till the house is cleared.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You’re on point, I’ll cover you,” Howard said. “Guns blazing,” he added. The light was dim, but Derrick was sure he was grinning like he had a mouthful of canary.
“What? Why me?”
Howard pointed at Derrick’s camera. “Anything bad pops, you light it up, I’ll shoot it. That’s why I’m here.”
“We’re flipping for it.” Derrick pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, turned it on and tapped the image of a coin. The app opened to a big button with the word “flip” across it. “Call it, man.”
Howard sighed. “Fine. Heads.”
Derrick pressed the button on the screen and the image of a coin flipped before landing and rolling to a stop ... with heads showing. “Dang it, H. That’s like, what, eight in a row you’ve called?”
“Dude, you programmed it—deal with it. Get down there.” Howard opened the door with the butt of his rifle. The hinges gave a whining creak.
Derrick stepped inside, shining his flashlight twelve feet down the flight of stairs to an earthen floor at the bottom. He moved down, swinging his flashlight around at each step. Howard listened for any movement in the hallway, but kept his rifle trained primarily where Derrick was pointing his flashlight.
Halfway to the bottom, the room opened from Derrick’s perspective. It was a single room with rough concrete walls, and a dirt floor. The walls glistened with wetness. Derrick started as he shined his flashlight down into the center of the dirt floor. “Oh man. Not good.”
“What d’you see, D? Talk to me.”
“Nasty stuff. That’s what it is.”
“Hold,” Howard said.
Derrick looked up at the top of the steps as Howard pulled a metal box from his shoulder strap and flipped it open. He pulled various packages out and stuffed them back into the same pocket.
“Jeez, H, now’s not the time for reorganizing your toy collection.”
Howard finished moving stuff from the metal box to his shoulder pouch and set the metal box on the floor at the top of the steps. Raising one boot high, he stomped the edge of the metal box. It crumpled flat, and he kicked the box under the edge of the door, forming a wedged doorstop. He tugged the handle experimentally. It held.
Howard moved down several steps and added his own light to Derrick’s.
“Oh shit,” Howard whispered.
“I know, right?” Derrick said.
In the middle of the room, the dirt floor was smooth and swept free of clumps. There was a circle of runic characters burned into the floor—harsh, angular shapes, scooped out and scorched into the dry dirt. The shapes looked dark compared to the rest of the dirt. Arranged at five equal points around the circle were some kind of remains, possibly human. And in the center, was a human male torso with no arms or legs. It was sliced open from the neck to the groin, all the organs and viscera removed—cut free from the surrounding tissue but still attached by blood vessels, internal tracts, and long glistening strands of nerve fiber. The body’s ribs and sternum were cracked and pulled open, an
d the spine was clearly visible in the back
“What’re those other things arranged around the circle, D?”
“I think those were people too.”
“They’re arranged in the five points of a pentagram. You know—air, earth, fire, water, and spirit.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah, but my point is, pentagrams aren’t generally associated with Mythos-based magic.”
Derrick was shining his light around the circle of runes. His flashlight gleamed and reflected in the runes. “Some other branch of magic then? I think the runes are filled with blood.” He moved his light back around one of the bodies at a cardinal point as he moved down the steps.
“Ugh. Yep, these are human bodies, H. But look.” Derrick pulled his tactical knife from the sheath on his thigh and shifted the remains. “It looks like this is muscle, fat, skin of a whole person.” Derrick used the tip of his blade to tug at the skin, pulling it out until it was clearly two legs, two arms, a torso, and the collapsed features of a face that looked for all intents like a gory Halloween mask.
Howard shined his flashlight around the room, but there was nothing else to see ... no doors, no storage, no nothing, besides the runic circle and the bodies.
“The skin and muscle has been sliced, but they’re missing all the bones and the internal organs. How is that even possible?” Derrick looked up at Howard.
Howard moved his light from the remains and around the runic circle filled with blood. “How much blood is in a human, D?”
“Uhm, high school biology said around five liters or so for an adult human.”
“Would it fill the channels in the floor?”
“You tell me ... I can’t tell what the volume might be by looking at it ... although, based on, you know, creepy cult junk, I’d be willing to bet it is somewhere right around twenty-five liters.”
Howard looked at Derrick in the dim light of their reflected flashlights, “If these bodies at the cardinal points have no bones or organs, then why’s the guy in the middle have bones, but no arms and legs?”
