Old Flames, Burned Hands

by McGregor, Tim

  HE SIGNALLED FOR HER to be silent, took her hand and ran for the door. Every step creaked loudly under her feet as they spiralled down the stairwell. Gil on the other hand, seemed to make no noise whatsoever. A dull thud echoed overhead from the apartment they were just in. The scrape of a door flung open. She hustled, almost knocking Gil down.

  They gained the landing, Gil reaching for the exit but then stopping cold. He flattened his palm against the door as if feeling for a fire on the other side but it was the chill he determined. She could feel it too and when he snatched his hand back, her stomach dropped. Whatever they were, they were clearly outside the door. She cast about in a panic, saw another door and pulled Gil by the hand.

  He shook his head. No.

  “The basement,” she hissed. “Come on.”

  There was no other option. He popped the cellar door open and they fled inside. The light from the stairwell blew out as the door shut and Tilda was blind. A tug on her hand, leading her down more steps. Gil whispering to watch her step. Soft light glowed up ahead, a dirty bulb pushing back the pitch. They descended into a cavernous boiler room and he pulled her along, ducking under old steam pipes. Moving further into the gloom.

  He stopped short before a door in the far wall. Old and sealed shut.

  “Where does it go?” she hushed.

  “Steam tunnel. It leads out into the university campus.” A rush of stale air blew against her face as he cracked the door open. But he didn’t pass through. A foul smell exhaled from the tunnel and Tilda gagged until he eased the door shut again.

  “Damn it.”

  “Don’t tell me…”

  “They’re in the tunnel.” He retreated for the stairs. “Come on.”

  A scuttling noise issued from the way they had come, descending towards them. Tilda winced as his hand crushed hers. Gil snapped his head around like a bird, as if willing some other exit to appear.

  The door to the steam tunnel cracked, dust billowing the air.

  He yanked her fast across the room. A square metal panel under the stairs, tall enough for a child. A service access with a louvered vent in the door. He flung it open and Tilda felt herself being shoved inside.

  “Wait,” she said. It was even darker inside the access door. She didn’t want to go in.

  “Not a sound.” He pushed her inside. “Don’t even breathe, or they’ll destroy us both.”

  She folded her legs into the cramped space and the panel door slammed back into its frame. The darkness was total.

  Light spilled in through the panel’s louvered vent, allowing Tilda a partial view of the boiler room outside. Gil scissored over the massive pipes, moving quickly away from her hiding spot. Leaping onto an enormous elbow joint, he folded his legs up under him and sat quiet. As if he’d come for the view.

  Tilda strained her eyes but nothing seemed to happen. Just Gil perched on the steampipe like a commuter waiting for a bus. Then the smell leeched through the vent and she pulled back in revulsion. A stench of decay and death unlike anything she had ever encountered. It smells evil, she thought.

  She heard them scuttling in from the darkness and when they shambled into the light she clamped her palm over her mouth to keep from screaming. Like the figures in the painting but more repulsive because they moved. Pale wraiths with dark hollows for eyes and ragged pits where their mouths should have been. They moved with a strange twitch and jerk as if their joints were rusting dry. They closed in around Gil like a deputation of nightmarish spastics surrounding some bedraggled fugitive.

  Gil remained still, watching them press in but said nothing.

  Two of the wraiths hissed at Gil like cobras. Others snarled or popped their teeth like rabid dogs. Another made odd clicking sounds, as if its jawbone was misaligned.

  Gil spoke to the things before him as if he understood their hissing and clicking. Tilda strained her ear to the vent to listen.

  “No,” Gil said. “That’s bullshit.”

  The pale figures twitched their heads atop their necks, their jaws articulating with that awful clicking noise.

  “Where am I gonna go?” Gil spat with contempt.

  One pointed a thin finger at him, an accusation sputtered in a snarl.

  “Yeah. I’ve been avoiding you,” Gil said. “Why would I hang around? You make me sick.”

  A pale hand clutched at him. Gil pushed it aside. “Don’t bullshit me about loyalty. You know that I am. And you know I’ll come if you call. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna nest down with you every morning.”

  Another snatched at Gil’s collar as if to throttle him. Gil spat in its face and shoved it back to its brothers. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  The hissing grew louder, the wraiths twitching more as they became agitated. Two of them stepped aside to make room for another, this more nightmarish than the last. Not so much inhuman as completely alien and the others scuttled around him in deference. Even Gil lowered his eyes as it sklathed in.

  The stench of the things grew worse, rolling in waves through the vent into Tilda’s face. She had to turn away to keep from gagging. Covering her mouth, she looked back through the louvers, unable to keep her eyes from the awful things assembled out there.

  The tall spectre hissed at Gil, its slash of sharp teeth snapping. Gil averted his eyes, the way one does before a sovereign, and shook his head in response.

  “What does it matter?” Gil said. “I do what you want. You know where I am. What the hell does it matter if I don’t nest with the rest of you?”

  The sovereign lashed out, fast as a rattlesnake, and snatched Gil by the hair. It threw Gil to the floor and began pummeling the mutineer with its fists. The others piled on, kicking and beating Gil mercilessly.

  Tilda bit the scream back down her throat. She couldn’t see Gil, only the monsters swarming over him. Were they killing him? The bastard things shrieked in a frenzy but she heard no sound from Gil, no cries or pleas for mercy. When a gap in the swarm opened, she caught a flash of him on the floor, curled tight into a ball to protect himself from the blows.

  The frenzy waned. The tall one clicked and the others backed off, fresh blood on their claws and faces. Gil unfolded his limbs with a loud groan. He got to his feet slowly, clothes torn and face bloodied. Beaten back into the pecking order, he kept his head down and his mouth shut.

  The wraiths gibbered and twitched, agitated from the mob beatdown and hungry for more. The chieftain snarled for silence and curled its arm, waving something forward. A fresh noise echoed through the boiler room; a whimper and a sob. Tilda strained to see, wondering if one of the things held a frightened dog but there was no dog. Two people were hauled into the center of the room. A young man and a young woman, their eyes crazed in terror as they were pushed down and forced to kneel. Street kids, like the squeegee punks who clean windshields for spare change. The woman begged to be let go while the man just cried, as if he knew already knew what was coming.

  “Wait,” Gil barked. His eyes shot for the vent where Tilda hid and then quickly looked away. “Don’t do this. Not here.”

  The others screeched at him, the smell of another frenzy crackling the air.

  The woman spun her head towards Gil, catching sight of him for the first time. The only one in the room who appeared human, she dove for his knees like a life preserver. Begging to be let go, her pleas coming so fast and urgent that she clicked back into her native Quebecois. Even the young man had stopped crying, looking to Gil with childish eyes of hope.

  The monsters pressed in around the pair, like convulsives from some alien shore eager for violence. Gil stepped back, shaking the crying woman loose. The coven snatched up the couple and tore their filthy clothes from them until the two were left naked and cowering on the cold floor. Their sunburned arms and necks etched stark against the white flesh of their exposed torsos. The boy cried anew, whimpering the Lord’s Prayer through a string of tears and snot. The woman simply shut down, curling onto the floor with a blasted sheen glazing he
r eyes.

  The room went quiet and all Tilda could hear was the sound of water dripping from some dark corner. Then a sharp click as the sovereign dipped its pale face towards the captives.

  The coven pounced.

  Shrieks of terror and pain as the wraiths swarmed the boy and girl like piranha. Tilda’s heart stopped, watching the monsters feed. Blood sprayed across the room, splattering even through the panel vent with an ejaculate of gore. She jerked back, wiping the blood from her face like it was poison. The victims cried out for help and for Jesus and for their mothers. Tilda clamped her palms over her ears to block out the unending torment of their screams.

  The screaming ended. She chanced a look through the metal vent. The monsters were on their hands and knees, rolling in the gore like dogs. Only Gil remained standing but his gaze was transfixed on the bloodspill and Tilda watched in horror as he succumbed, dropping to his knees to join his fraters in the filth. She turned away, stoppering her ears against the obscene sound of the feeding.

  She couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t slow her heart from clanging like a fire bell in her chest. It thrummed so loud in her eardrums she feared that those things would hear it. She tried to remember the Lord’s Prayer but couldn’t recall anything past the first verse.

  Our Father, who art in Heaven,

  Hallowed be thy name,

  yadda yadda yadda...

  She lowered her hands. The awful sounds had stopped. She peered through the vent but the things were gone. So was Gil. And those poor kids. The room appeared to be empty. But she wasn’t ready to chance it and she waited a long time before making another move.

  The panel scraped as she eased it open. Nothing rushed at her, no monsters roared out from the dark to eat her. Tiptoeing slow over the tangle of steam pipes, the urge to sprint for the exit was primal and difficult to restrain.

  Then she saw the blood.

  Pooled into black puddles on the floor and spray-painted against the walls. Dripping from the ceiling. It was everywhere. All that was left of the couple was wet gristle and bone scattered about the room. Small pieces, torn asunder.

  There was no way around the gore and she was forced to step in it. Something crunched under her heel and she looked down. A molar in a puddle of blood. She doubled over and retched.

  Staggering on, looking for the way out, she spotted the door that Gil had said was a steam tunnel. Ajar by an inch, the stench wafting from the breech.

  Ignore it

  Find the stairs

  Get out

  A synapse misfired. She reached for the door and pulled it back, scraping it across the floor. The stink rolled out over her. The wretched things were inside, huddled on the floor in a tangle of limbs. The coven, coiled up in a nest like a ball of wintering snakes, as still as death.

  Her throat stitched seeing Gil tangled amongst the others, as unmoving and ossified as the rest. One more wretch among the repugnant filth.

  The hair on her arms bristled to attention at the horrid sensation of being watched. Eyes on her. The tall one, the rector of this blasphemous cabal, reposed like a dead fish amongst the others but its eyes were slung open and fixed on Tilda. Clouded with cataracts and blank without iris or pupil, the dead eyes stared without blinking or moving. Was it awake or sleeping with its eyes open? It didn’t stir but the thing seemed to stare right through her.

  Tilda backed away, groping for the stairs. She bolted up the steps two at a time until she burst through the exit door. She ran for the lights of the street, desperate for a cab but the street was arid. No cabs or traffic of any kind. She ran west, feeling her knees jelly under her but spurred on by two thoughts.

  No more. Never again.

  MOLLY SHUFFLED INTO THE KITCHEN to, once again, find her father alone at the counter and her mother absent. This was becoming a habit. “Where’s Mom?”

  “In bed.” Shane splashed milk over cereal, getting more of it on the counter than in the bowl. “Sit down and eat. We’re running late.”

  She glanced at the clock. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s sick.”

  “Oh. Is that why she’s being so weird lately?”

  “Here, catch.” He slid the bowl across the counter to her like a saloon-keeper. It sailed over the edge and splattered across the floor. Molly yawned.

  “Damn it!”

  “Smooth move,” Molly said.

  “You were supposed to catch that.”

  “I don’t catch anything before eight ‘o clock.” She watched him cram something nasty looking into a sandwich-baggie. “What is that?”

  “This? This is a new umbrella,” he barked. “It’s your lunch, goofy.”

  She turned her nose up. “Peanut butter?”

  “You love peanut butter sandwiches.”

  “I can‘t bring peanut butter to school,” she clucked. “I’ll kill half the student body.”

  “What? Oh, right.” He turned to the coffeemaker on the counter. It sat quiet and still instead of gurgling and puffing. “What is wrong with this damn thing? Is it broken? Doesn’t anything in this house work?”

  Molly crossed to the counter and pressed the power button. Shane had done everything but that. He groaned at his mistake. Molly turned and headed back upstairs. “I’m going to get dressed.”

  “Make it snappy,” he shouted after her. Looking down at the mess of cereal on the floor, he cursed and went to get the broom and continued cussing as he picked pieces of broken bowl from the milky mush. Although annoyed at the mess, the focus of his cussing was directed upstairs where his wife lay hidden under the covers. She hadn’t even looked at him when he’d tried to wake her, pulling the blanket over her head and asking to be left alone. When he had opened the drapes to let in the sunlight, she had barked at him to keep the room dark.

  She’s just tired, he told himself. She’s going through a big change right now. Giving up music, taking on the new job. Give her time. She’ll be back to normal soon.

  He chewed over these excuses to mollify what was poisoning his guts like an ulcer. A sour, evil little thought that he couldn’t shake no matter how many lame excuses he gnawed on.

  She’s fucking someone else.

  Your wife has grown tired of your sorry ass and this boring existence and found someone else to fall in love with. Someone younger and better looking. More fun to be around, more exciting and better in bed.

  The flimsy handle of the dustpan cracked from squeezing it so hard. Like a little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, once he took it away, the flood was unstoppable. It seemed ridiculous. Tilda wouldn’t cheat on him. She wasn’t like that, wasn’t that kind of woman.

  Still.

  He dropped the dustpan and beelined for the hall table where his wife’s handbag lay. The one he’d gotten her for her birthday. It was wrong and petty and paranoid to go snooping but he dug into it anyway. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. A motel receipt? Love notes? Condoms? Nothing of the sort was excavated from her bag. Keys and loose coins, old lipstick. He thumbed her phone on and scrolled down the list of calls. Home, work, a few friends he recognized. No strange numbers or names.

  See, you idiot? You’re being paranoid. He dropped the phone into the bag and went back into the kitchen, scolding himself for being so foolish. That settled the matter. He just wished that the slow burning ulcer in his guts would let up.

  IF she stayed perfectly still, it didn’t hurt so bad. In the scramble through the boiler room, she’d scraped her arms and banged her shins, adding to the bruises already marring her body. And now they were hurting and there was no position she could find where something didn’t ache.

  She hadn’t slept. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind flashed onto those two people, naked and prostrate on the floor. Their cries for help and the absolute awful sound of those things as they tore into them. Even after seeing all that, the aftermath of it, it was still difficult to believe it was real. That those monstrosities were not some nightmare conjured up from
a fever but were real. Things that moved and lurked in the same world as she did. Monsters that preyed on the weak while the rest of the world carried on oblivious.

  The door unlatched. Molly came in and sat on the edge of the bed. “You okay, mom?”

  Tilda didn’t move, keeping her back to the girl. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” Molly looked at the drawn curtains. “It’s so dark in here. Do you want me to open the windows?”

  “No. I want it dark.”

  “Do you want an aspirin or something?” Molly reached over to touch her mother’s brow.

  “Don’t do that,” Tilda snapped, shrinking away.

  “Okay.”

  “I just don’t want you to get sick too.” Tilda coiled up tighter. The last thing she wanted to do was see her daughter’s eyes. “I’m fine. I just need some sleep.”

  “You guys had a pretty big fight last night, huh? Dad’s acting weird too.” No response came from the mound of blankets. Molly twisted the hem of her shirt in her hands. “What did you two fight about?”

  “You don’t want to hear all that stuff, honey.” Tilda turned her head slightly. “It wasn’t about you.”

  “Maybe I need to hear it,” Molly sighed. “I hate when you guys hide stuff from me. I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t have to protect me from anything.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what’s going on? You haven’t been yourself lately. What’s going on with you?”

  Tilda had to bite her lip. The girl knew something was wrong and of anyone in the world right now, Tilda wanted to tell her the whole thing. Would Molly despise her for what she had done? Probably. The girl was very black-and-white about things, given to extreme positions that only the very young and inexperienced were privileged to. Save the planet, stop the war, give up oil. There were no grey areas, no complications. Her daughter would be sickened if she knew what she had done.

  Tilda raised her head to find the bedside clock. “You’re going to be late for school, honey.”

  “Fine.” Molly stood and turned for the door. “Keep your secrets.”