Howls From Hell

by Grady Hendrix

  “Gab, I am going to start taking samples,” Renford exclaimed. “We should collect as much as we can, and a secondary crew can come back for the rest. This is great though—between this and the advanced tech in the outer control room—we could really start to expand our research, maybe even our technology!”

  “There’s a room back here,” Mendoza called.

  “Let the next crew worry about that. We’re going to grab some samples and get out of here.” Gab was as surprised as the others to hear her voice crack.

  A strong, undeniable desire to flee, to escape, consumed her. It overpowered the fantasies of promotions, of money, of talks, and travel to other colonies for lectures. She became convinced that if she were to remove her mask, this whole chamber would reek of an animal’s hot musk, the kind of animal that stalked its prey and played with it before going for the killing blow. Her suit beeped, warning her of an accelerated breathing, reminding her to conserve her clean air.

  “Get ready to go in fifteen,” she barked at Sloane and Mendoza, who were still at the far side of the room, at the feet of the dead giant.

  She returned to the head of the creature where Berry and Renford waited.

  “This construction, it’s—” Berry started.

  “We are out of here in fifteen. That’s an order.”

  The two men stared at her.

  “We still have six hours left until we’re expected back, Gab,” Renford said.

  Gab’s initial desire was to tell them the truth, that she was frightened, and she felt like there was something very, very wrong in this room, but her training took over, first and foremost, so she hid her fear.

  “It would be better if we came back with some engineers and biologists with tactical skill sets. Let’s clean up and clear out.”

  Renford, ever loyal, nodded. He plucked out samples of synthetic hair, scraped miniscule segments of false flesh and muscle, sealing them into baggies. Berry, on the other hand, frowned.

  “This is an important discovery,” he said.

  “It’s waited for a few kiloyears, it can wait a couple days more,” she snapped.

  The student turned and gazed up at the gaping throat of the artificial giant.

  “A tremor could bring this whole place down on it. We could lose everything.”

  “A tremor could bring this whole place down on us. With or without you, we are leaving.”

  Berry fixed her with a pure, unadulterated look of loathing.

  “Of course, ma’am. I’ll wrap up my specimen collection,” he said.

  The next moment was one she never forgot.

  Berry, a look of utter disdain and frustration on his face, took his knife from his belt. He reached out and grabbed one of the tubes projecting from the giant’s gullet. Gab realized, a second too late, what the student intended to do. The blade came down, a brilliant arc in the artificial alien light. It sliced through the strange tubing like it was nothing. Then he was holding just a section of it in his left hand, looking down at it with a reverence that bordered on mania.

  Reality paused, sucked in, and held its breath. Gab’s eyes grew so wide that they ached.

  Then it all came crashing down.

  The giant lurched, its chest rising, back arched, the lines of its great body contorted in the very image of agony. From the other side of the room, Sloane and Mendoza cried out.

  “Run!” she screamed, to them, to everyone, to herself.

  Her brain whirled with disbelief and terror. She lunged forward, grabbing Renford by his collar, and yanked.

  The behemoth thrashed back and forth, and the whole chamber shuddered with its rage. Its great hands rose and dug into the ceiling, dragging ragged nails across the stone.

  Gab looked across the room where Sloane and Mendoza were running for the door.

  The monster rammed its knees into the ceiling, like living pistons, causing the whole chamber to shudder, stealing the floor from under Gab’s feet with the shockwave. Her mind fizzed out in panic, then she landed on top of Renford.

  Screaming.

  She didn’t know if it was her own or someone else’s. Gab looked up. The giant jerked its jaw to the side. If it had had eyes, it would have been looking at her. A massive hand descended. Gab tried to call out to warn the others. Her eyes met Sloane’s. The hand slammed down and Sloane was gone. The force of the impact painted the nearest wall in hues of crimson and burgundy. Chunks of bruised purple, shattered bone, and pinkish globs.

  Mendoza, the faster runner, was only clipped. He flew forward and slammed into the top of the exit, his body folding around the frame. Gab heard the snap from across the room. Falling to the floor, he screamed in pain, in terror.

  “Professor Richmond! We have to go, get up! Get your fat ass up!”

  Even just the sound of his reedy voice was enough to snap her back to herself. Berry was yanking at her arm, pulling her off Renford, and then he jerked her assistant to his feet as well. Gab saw the construct’s throat working, and the mess of tubing writhed against the floor, making a sickening pitter-patter. The monster rolled to one side, facing them.

  A pause.

  A moment of absolute certainty of death.

  Then the giant braced a hand on the ceiling and one on the floor. Its tubing acted intelligently, like living things, reaching out with a probing hunger as it bent its knees and lunged off the wall.

  Gab hadn’t even realized she was running until she tripped over Mendoza at the base of the massive door. Renford was already stumbling through the control room to the opposite door that led to the narrow catwalk. Mendoza gripped her leg.

  “Please,” he said, blood painting his lips red.

  Behind her rose a wet, hungry gurgle. Berry slammed into her, shoving her away from her student. She reached out for Mendoza, nonetheless.

  “Leave him. He’s dead weight now,” hissed the student in her ear, and she hated him and was thankful to him that he had made this decision for her.

  They raced through the control room to the other side, and Gab could see the catwalk. It was now lit by an ethereal violet light cast upon it by the gaping eyes of the many Anubis heads. She looked back as the giant picked up Mendoza. Her student stared at her, too weak to fight this final horror. Lacking an upper jaw to aid in chewing, the giant pressed Mendoza’s back against its single row of teeth under a massive palm and proceeded to grind him back and forth.

  The fangs sliced through Mendoza’s skin, cut through his spine, tore him to dripping ribbons of flesh, bone, and organ. The blood poured down, and Gab looked away at the first soul-rending howl. She kept her eyes on Berry’s back after that.

  The remaining three ran as fast as was safe across the catwalk, between the glowing gazes of basalt heads. A meter from the end of the catwalk, the ground shuddered. Gab’s right foot landed just on the edge of the catwalk, the boot failing to catch, slipping and plunging downward. She felt her body tilting, vertigo spinning, as gravity took control. Then she managed to fall to her left knee, saving herself, while her right leg dangled in the abyss.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The goliath was trying to force itself through the doorway. It managed to jam its jaw through the opening but was stuck at the shoulders. Its fangs glistened with Mendoza’s blood. A rope of intestines hung from them like a garland.

  Renford knelt in front of her, pulling her up.

  “It can’t catch us,” she said. “We’re safe, it’s too big!”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that.” Berry was on the other side, his face obscured by his beloved camera as he documented the giant’s struggle in the doorway.

  Gab stood and ran with Renford to join the student. Behind them came a soft, wet sound.

  She didn’t want to look, but she did.

  The beast was stretching, its body lengthening, slimming, sinuous and sinister as the tubes from its throat suctioned onto the surface of the catwalk and pulled. Its shoulders wrenched back, flattening, and its chest seemed boneless. In this state, it
convulsed across the narrow bridge, slowly, but steadily. Like a snake.

  “As I thought. Its body isn’t made up of a conventional skeleton. I think those tubes can harden and soften at will,” Berry said, his voice hushed with awe.

  “Fuck this,” Gab grabbed both men and jerked them away from the catwalk, into the tunnel.

  “We’re dead!” Renford cried out.

  Gab ignored him, keeping a tight grip on his wrist. The tunnel was endless. Another crash sent chunks of limestone tumbling down. She glanced over her shoulder again.

  The long, savage jaw was forcing its way in, moving faster now as if remembering all it was capable of. Several wriggling appendages launched from its throat, whipping toward them with terrifying speed. Gab threw herself on top of Renford, hurling them both to the ground, and the tubes swiped the air above them. She rolled onto her back and pulled her laser cutter from her belt, turning it to its highest setting.

  A prayer on her lips, she flung it, and the brilliant blue blade struck true, burning its way into the very tip of the giant’s jaw.

  The giant reared back, smashing against the ceiling. Gab immediately regretted her decision to attack as dozens of fissures appeared in the stone above her and sand began to rain down.

  Berry was already fleeing. Gab pulled herself up to follow with Renford on her heels.

  The monstrous abomination thrashed behind her. A tremendous lurch shook the ground. Gab looked back to see that the brute had managed to punch through the wall, the ceiling crumbling from the assault.

  The three were back in the large hieroglyphics chamber where giant orb lights mounted along the tops of the columns now shone brightly. With the room lit up entirely, it revealed a secret.

  Sprinting to the staircase at the other side of the room, Gab happened to look up and see the rest of the monster’s head suspended above her by fine golden chains. It was, indeed, the exact replica of the head of the Anubis figure depicted on the walls: dark, cruel, and intelligent. Its tall, pointed ears brushed against the top of the vaulted ceiling, its open eyes glinted like amber in the dim light that reached its height, and the upper row of teeth were savage porcelain stalactites hanging like guillotines as the head swung in its chains. The head was adorned with a crimson crown that framed its savage countenance. As she stared in awe and horror, its left golden eye flicked down and met her eyes—she could swear that its upper lip lifted in a half sneer.

  Berry ascended the shaking stairs, but he stopped to pull out his camera and snap a few pictures of the head. Gab clung to the wall, feet spread for support as she tried not to be thrown from the stairs, screaming at Berry to keep moving.

  A billow of dust exploded outwards as the giant’s body burst into the room, a tsunami of malevolent flesh.

  All the while its hanging head continued to watch the three humans struggling on the steps. Gab shoved at Berry, forcing him up step by step.

  Finally, Gab scrambled off the exposed landing into the tight spiral stairs that led to the upper rooms. But any hope Gab had that the claustrophobic space would prevent the monster from following was soon dispelled as, with a horrible grinding noise, a completed snout soon appeared close behind them. The thing had found its head.

  The three tumbled over each other out of the stairs into the small antechamber, to the next room, and finally into the lasered tunnel. Gab could see light at the very end of the passage, but it seemed long—too long.

  A great howl, a blast of fetid breath with a storm’s strength beat at their backs, actually helped them run faster, as the giant called out for blood. Gab’s whole body thrummed in terror, convinced she would feel a great hand catch at her and pull her back into the darkness.

  She ran, feet pounding on the rippled, faceted glass, while behind her came the whisper of flesh against stone as the monster gave chase. Any moment now.

  Any moment it would catch her, catch them. It would grind her across teeth taller than herself, blood pouring down in a crimson waterfall.

  Any moment—

  —then they were out.

  “To the ship! The ship!” Gab screamed.

  Behind them, the whole ground humped upward, exploding into the sky as it birthed the subterranean leviathan. The manufactured god darkened the dim, ashen sky. Gab was frozen in a crouch as boulders fell all around her and she watched the beast reform itself from a twisted snake back into a muscular humanoid. Its black nostrils flared, its head lowered, turned, and she met its golden gaze again.

  Next to her stood Berry. He stood without fear, camera gripped tight, snapping photos. The giant’s jaws opened, and its writhing nest of tubing shot out. Gab grabbed the student’s wrist and ran, but they wouldn’t be fast enough, they couldn’t escape. Boots pounding over rubble, she burst through a cloud of dust, and there was Renford, standing with legs spread wide and his little stun pistol in hand—its charge wasn’t strong, meant more for deterring than killing.

  “Renford! Run!” she commanded.

  For once in their long careers together, in their lives together, Renford disobeyed. He opened fire, and bright red flashes of light glittered the air. She heard the impacts behind her as they struck the tubes.

  “Get to the ship and launch!” Renford shouted as she passed him.

  She tried to stop, to beg him to come with them, but now it was Berry pulling her forward, and he was stronger than her—or maybe she was too scared to resist. She looked over her shoulder.

  The giant stood above Renford, murderous hands reaching, and he had time to make one more shot.

  Gab was proud to see that he made it count as the small electrical shot pierced the horror’s left eye, exploding it in a splatter of ichor. Then Renford was gone, crushed in an unfeeling, inhuman hand, without even a whimper to mark his passing.

  Gab turned away, closed her eyes against the tears, and ran. She and Berry made it to their ship. The monster, perhaps hesitant after suffering such an attack, had not pursued them. It stood, towering over the bedrock crags and ruined buildings, watching them with its remaining eye. Its tubes slithered back up its body, tucking away once more, but its jaw worked as it chewed on its meal. Gab collapsed just inside the small ship, staring back, and as the bay door closed, she could have sworn she’d seen it smirk.

  P.L. MCMILLAN is a Canadian expat living in the States after having taught English for three years in Asia. She is a victim of a deep infatuation with the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, and Algernon Blackwood. To her, every shadow is an entryway to a deeper look into the black heart of the world, and every night she rides with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind, bringing back dark stories to share with those brave enough to read them. Her stories have been published in various anthologies, such as Terror at 5280’, Strange Lands Short Stories, and Hinnom Magazine. Her fiction has also been adapted into audio episodes for Nocturnal Transmissions podcast and NoSleep Podcast. You can find her at her website: plmcmillan.com, on Twitter @AuthorPLM, or on Facebook.

  * * *

  Illustration by Joe Radkins

  Glass crunches beneath my flip-flops as I lurch across the steaming pavement. Already shouting, asking if he’s okay before I reach the red door. Sun’s never been more in my eyes as I fumble for the punch buggy’s handle, missing twice before finally curling fingers around metal and throwing it open.

  “And what do you think you’re doing?” the man snarls.

  I stop, stare. He stares back through a film of blood, sporting an oozing gash on his forehead where it bounced against the steering wheel.

  “Geez, mister,” I say. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  “Excuse me?” he snaps. “First you break into my car, then you threaten to call the cops? What kind of holdup is this?”

  “I think you’re confused. I’m not a mugger—I’m the guy who hit you!”

  “You hit me?” He feels his face, smears a red handprint around his wound. “Nobody’s ever punched me before. What’s your problem?”

  �
��I didn’t punch you, I rear-ended your car. You need an ambulance, dude. I think you’re suffering brain damage.”

  Vehicles swerve around us, eager to make the green light regardless of the drama playing out along the side strip. A kid stares, their face pressed flat against the glass to render their gender undefinable, giant teeth squeegeeing the divider. Then they’re gone, whisked along and into the never-ending roar of traffic.

  “My brain has never been better,” the balding man spits. “I don’t know why you’re bothering me, but the light has turned green and I refuse to engage in shenanigans any longer.” With that he speeds off, tires squealing, front door still hanging wide.

  “Wait,” I cry. “We didn’t even exchange insurance!”

  Does he flip me off in reply, or is he only trying to close his door? Either way, it slams shut and his ride vanishes into the angry blur of rushing metal known as morning traffic. Leaving me alone, the sole dumbass on the side of a busy street.

  I glare at my busted headlight as I stomp back to my crappy-as-crap Toyota. Yeah, the accident was my fault, but I still wanted to swap information. Dude’s head was already swelling up around the impact point. If something bad happens, I should be held responsible, or at least made to pay for his paint job—I dinged utter hell into his bumper.

  I slump into the driver’s seat to shake with anxiety. My very first car accident, and what a weird one. Feels like I’m doing something wrong. Probably supposed to call the police, report the accident, tell them a man with a potential brain injury is out there operating heavy machinery. Then I catch a glimpse of the clock and realize how late I am. Shit!

  Twist of key, roar of engine, stomp of gas. Vroom vroom, baby! Peel out like a banana and blare pop music from a singer who does the splits. At least, I assume that’s how his voice goes so high.

  I run into one glaring red light after another. Pass a donut shop whose drive-thru line is backed into the street. Pull over so a procession of wailing ambulances can pass, a too-scarlet fire truck in the rear. Drive, stop; drive again, stop again. A motorcycle passes me in flagrant disregard for the rules of the road. I know bumper stickers say motorcycles are everywhere but, rather than engendering sympathy, it makes them sound like cockroaches, an infestation in dire need of a pesticide holocaust.