She knew that voice. Oh yes she did.
It belonged to her late husband Hal.
7
Hal’s voice had become hard to recognize. The best way to describe it might be by saying he sounded half human, half cement mixer cooking up a fresh batch of mud. But as soon as he said the word babe––a term he picked up from Stephenie and used many times before, she knew who was hiding in the shadows, like some terrible beast from a monster movie. There was no two ways about it, she knew.
Hal, the living corpse-thing, plunked a hand into the light; his fingers were bony and thin. Several fingernails were missing. Knuckles gleamed white. Skin and muscle had morphed into one another, becoming knots of soft, mushy paste covered with insipid, writhing worms. Several worms dropped from his hand in a small bunch; others squirmed deeper into his flesh.
Hal shifted forward again, bringing a half-dozen flies with him.
Now Stephenie could see his arm, long and wilted and stinking like last year’s garbage. Forearm muscles hung from his ulna bone, bugs scurried on the furry mold.
She put a hand to her mouth, to her lips. Her eyes expanded, her stomach clenched and her heart pounded hard inside her chest.
She didn’t want to see any more; she wanted that thing to stop moving.
And no, it was not Hal. It was a thing. Oh please, oh please––it couldn’t be Hal because Hal would never turn into something like that, right? He wouldn’t turn into a bundle of rotting meat, tattered limbs, and mold. Tell me it isn’t so; tell me I’m imagining things…
Hal put his other hand into the light, the one with the wedding ring on it. The ring shifted; it no longer fit. The finger––bony and withered and decayed beyond reason, black in some places and green in others––had grown thin.
Stephenie forced herself to move towards the creature, not away. She had to know, had to see. She reached out, placed a hand on the flashlight and pulled it towards her. With a trembling grip she squeezed it between her fingers and lifted it.
She pointed the flashlight at the corpse.
The beam cut the darkness.
Just then, as the light beam hit its mark, Hal gripped the floor and pulled himself forward again. Flies buzzed. Now his face was beneath the hanging light; his features were well lit.
Stephenie didn’t need the flashlight to see the horrors before her. Not now. She could see much––too much in fact, and she didn’t need the flashlight to help her see anything more.
Yes. It was Hal.
His hair fell to the ground in singles and in small clumps. His eyes had recessed deep into his skull, which was cracked open at both sides. Mounds of festering brains had pushed through the split above his ears. His teeth, smashed apart and pointing in all directions, sat together in his mouth horrifically wrong. His jawbone had been dislocated and flattened. His nose was gone now; there was nothing left but a hole and a memory. Maggots clung to withered lips, which were thinner than shoelaces and tougher than leather. His black tongue was boated, fattening his words as he spoke them.
“Stephenie,” he said, sounding strangely arrogant.
Stephenie dropped the flashlight in front of her and looked away from his face, but her eyes were none too kind. They fell to the floor for less than a moment before returning to his chest, causing her to see more, rather than less.
The expensive white dress shirt Hal had been married and buried in was wet and sticky––brown, green, and red. The collar was lopsided, the buttons undone. Something was living inside his chest now; Stephenie could see it moving behind his shredded muscles and broken bones. It was clearly visible, bigger than the maggots and worms. Was it the size of a man’s fist? Was it bigger? Stephenie thought that it was. She considered two possibilities. Either Hal’s heart had become a living thing that was trying to crawl free, or a rat had chewed its way inside him.
The corpse pulled closer. He––or perhaps it––grinned a terrible grin, with a mouth so rotten and fractured that nothing shy of a miracle could have possibly made it right.
“Stephenie,” he said again, with his tongue pressed against his broken teeth. He crawled closer still. A maggot dropped from his chin. And then, with something that might have been a smile, he said that word again: “babe.”
“Don’t,” Stephenie replied.
The single remark seemed to say it all: don’t come near me, don’t be real, don’t touch me; don’t exist.
“What’s wrong?”
Stephenie didn’t respond.
Hal shifted closer, not once, but twice quickly. His terrible face became lost in shadow and for Stephenie that was okay, because for a moment it seemed like someone else was hiding behind his terrible and somehow ancient and primitive eyes, which looked foreign and not at all from this world.
Stephenie pinched another look.
Hal was only half there. Oh God, he was severed at the waist. Black and red entrails hung from his belly, stretched out behind him like pasta. He almost looked like a snail, crawling the way he did––a snail with arms maybe, a snail from another world.
Stephenie, astonished, fell back, breaking free from her kneeing pose. Her legs found their way in front of her. One leg banged off the flashlight making it roll towards the wall. Stephenie looked at it; then she eyed the hatchet still gripped tightly in her fingers.
Hal shifted closer, clearly swimming with larva.
Then it hit her: he was only a couple feet away. If she didn’t do something Hal would be close enough to touch her and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want his decomposing digits wrapping around her leg. She didn’t want his stink pressed against her.
Hal shifted, moving closer still. Then he reached out with both hands and allowed himself to fall forward. His guts squished. He grabbed her foot––her wounded foot––and gave it a good squeeze.
Stephenie shrieked in equal portions of surprise and pain.
She lifted the hatchet, wondering if she’d be brave enough to use it. She felt her muscles tingle, like they were getting ready for battle, ready to fight. This monster, which was crawling with worms and maggots and insects of all sizes, needed to be dealt with. This wasn’t her late husband Hal, who she loved more than she could possibly express. This was an abomination wrapped in Hal’s discarded flesh for reasons she couldn’t possibly comprehend. She didn’t want him touching her skin. She didn’t want––
Her thoughts were severed.
Hal screamed something incomprehensible and dug his fingers deep into her wound.
Stephenie fell onto her back with her eyes bulging. Pain, gigantic and unforgiving, dominated everything. The hatchet fell from her hand. Her meat was being ripped at, torn open, shredded apart. Blood splashed. Her hands gripped the sides of her head and her fingernails dug into her skin. She screamed, letting it all out. And with that––as if she had summoned them with her shrieks––the rats came.
Not dozens, not hundreds, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.
She was covered.
8
Stephenie yanked her foot away and flipped onto her belly just as the rats arrived. One of the critters, a fat black rodent with long white teeth and eyes that seemed to sit on top of its head, managed to find its way beneath her chest before she turned all the way over. She landed on it and felt it struggling beneath her. The rest of the vermin scurried across her head, back, and limbs, sometimes stopping, sometimes not. This all happened very fast, causing Stephenie to release another scream. And the rats screamed with her. Squeals came from every direction, echoing off the walls and assaulting her senses.
Suddenly she had four hungry animals in her face, trying to bit her lips, nose, ears and eyes. They seemed to fancy her eyes the most, but they weren’t opposed to biting her everywhere they could. A pair of rodents chewed on her hair. Several more gnawed her legs and neck. The smell of dirty animal fur was tremendous. She was getting pinched, nipped and nibbled overwhelmingly.
Then she felt something different. Something not rats.
Hal’s fingers were circling her ankle like a snake. And as she felt his tombstone grip tighten, he cackled insanely, with a voice that rose above the squeal of the rodents. It was a dry and evil sounding snicker, not unlike wood crackling in a campfire.
More rats came––crawling, biting and squealing.
She kicked Hal’s hand away the best she could, which is to say she tried. But Stephenie was covered with vermin and the kicking didn’t come easy. She was covered head to foot, swimming in them, submerged. Of course, Hal was submerged too, but that didn’t stop him from playing his little games. Nothing would stop him, for Hal was dead and the dead are not easily swayed.
She screamed a second time, a third time, a fourth time. She kicked her legs and waved her arms wildly.
Hal held on with all his strength, still laughing, still amused.
Stephenie felt a claw in her eye, tasted blood in her mouth. And fur. My God, she tasted fur––she was biting one of the rat’s head off.
More screaming came, followed by more yelling, more chaos, and more insanity.
A block of time passed, might have been thirty seconds or longer. And in that time, as she kicked and punched and bit down where she was able, her thoughts, feelings, and fears, became too much to handle. Her mind shifted gears, becoming nothing more than a swirl of black and red. And when she arrived on the far side of this moment, which came none too soon, nothing had changed. She was being picked, clawed, and nipped relentlessly. Blood ran from her wounds without restraint. She was still kicking her legs, waving her arms and screaming madly. But at least she was thinking again, and that meant a lot.
A rat bit her nose and tore a piece of it clean off.
Stephenie punched it twice, breaking its back. Then an image came: Carrie. Oh shit, what about Carrie?
If Carrie was waiting around the corner she was covered in rats too, which was the worst thought of them all.
Stephenie couldn’t dwell on what might be happening, wouldn’t dwell on what might be happening. Not now. Thoughts of Carrie needed to be put on hold, otherwise the rats would eat her alive in no time. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees and pulled free of Hal’s cold-blooded grip easier than expected. Rats scurried beneath her. Some were as large as housecats; others were small like mice. They found their way into her shirt and started biting her belly and chest. Her face was exposed now, and the bastards seemed to know it. One managed to cling onto her chin for a handful of seconds before she was able to shake it free.
Crawl, she thought. Go Stephenie, go!
And with that, she began to move. With her head lowered, her hands and knees shuffled forward. She was constantly landing on something that squirmed, clawed and chewed what it could find. She paid no mind to the critters and their attack. She leaned a shoulder against the wall, closed her eyes and crawled as fast as she was able. And when the wall fell away from her shoulder she knew she found her exit. She turned the corner and suddenly there were fewer rats to content with. She opened her eyes and saw a living blanket of fur beneath her, running like wildfire in all directions.
She wanted to scream but managed to hold it inside.
Her arms and legs moved rapidly, trampling what they would. Surely the exit wouldn’t be much further. And it wasn’t. Without warning, her head slammed against something solid. Stars appeared before her eyes.
She reached out. Dizzy now––dizzy, and on the verge of fainting. She touched something solid with her bleeding fingers and suddenly a dreadful comprehension came crashing in.
Kicking rats with her feet, she said, “Dear God, I’m locked inside.”
And she was right; the door was locked tight.
She was trapped.
9
For a moment Stephenie seemed to be falling; that was the only way to describe it. She pushed on the pint-sized door, realized it wouldn’t open and her mind just snapped. Colors zipped past. Things (rats mostly) morphed in and out of focus like she was caught in a time warp. She felt her stomach flip and for a time she thought she’d faint.
A rat the size of a small beaver chomped on her left nipple hard enough to draw blood and she sat up, turned herself around and rammed her back against the door. Blood poured down her chest in a stream. The rat that bit her found itself trapped beneath her ass and she knew it, so she shifted her weigh forcefully and felt something snap inside the pest.
It twitched; it died.
Good riddance, she thought, but she felt far from victorious. Rats scurried everywhere. They were on her legs, biting her shoes, clawing her legs.
What am I going to do? she wondered, still bleeding from the chest, among other places. Truth was, she didn’t know.
In desperation she placed her hands on the floor and pressed all of her weight against the door, praying it would open, praying for a miracle.
The miracle didn’t come. The door never budged.
A rat jumped onto her chest. She lifted a hand off the floor and smacked the critter towards her feet.
She felt like crying and feared she would, but she wouldn’t. She needed to get tough, think offensively, not defensively. She needed to attack these little fuckers if she wanted to see the light of day. But could she do it?
Could she fight an endless army of rats?
The rodents were plentiful and they could smell blood, her blood. It was making them aggressive, hungry and insistent. They wanted to eat her alive and they’d do just that if she let them.
A rat bit a chunk from her knee and she slapped it away with the back of her hand. She looked at her hands, both of them. They were empty. The hatchet was gone; the flashlight was gone too. It was almost funny but holy shit, it wasn’t funny at all.
How, she thought, with her eyes watering and her hands beginning to tremble, how am I going to escape this?
“I need to be strong,” she said out loud, tasting rat’s blood on her lips. Her voice didn’t sound strong. It sounded defeated and weak. So she raised her voice higher, made it sound stronger, thinking she could scare them away if she sounded mean.
Pushing out her chest, she said, “Get the hell away from me, rats!”
But the rats didn’t seem to notice her voice, or care about what she was saying, so she swung her hand across her waist and sent several of the creatures flying. Physical assaults seemed to be the only thing that made a difference.
Just then, a rat with pink eyes and large hands started clawing at her wounded ankle.
She kicked it away screaming, “FUCK OFF!”
But screaming at them wasn’t going to change anything and she knew it. She needed to block them out, or kill them with something. And she didn’t have anything to block them out with, so what did that leave?
The knife!
Stephenie’s eyes sprang open and her shoulders lifted. The butter-knife! She had forgotten about it!
She reached into her back pocket feeling hopeful, but was suddenly struck with a terrible thought: the knife would be gone. After all, that’s the way her luck had turned, was it not? Yes it was, but the knife wasn’t gone. It was right where she left it: in her back pocket, right-hand side.
She held the knife in front of her with her right hand, eyeing it like Excalibur with a magic sword.
She looked at the rats.
They were crawling along her legs again, nipping her where they dared.
“Fuck you,” she whispered, grinning a little now. The smile was anything but happy; she looked insane.
Stephenie opened her legs spread eagle and picked out her first victim. It was a sixteen-inch rat with black fur, a fat belly, small ears, and pink hands. She lifted the knife high and licked the blood from her teeth.
And with that, the battle had begun.
10
Stephenie’s muscles tightened as she slammed the knife into the creature’s back, impaling it. She lifted the weapon in front of her eyes and using her fingers, she cleaned the rat off the blade like a mechanic wiping oil from a dipstick. The rodent s
quealed and twitched as she washed it away.
A grin bullied its way onto her lips.
She had to admit: killing the little bastard was fast, easy and a whole lot like fun.
She picked out her next victim and plunged the knife into its neck. The rodent’s back-legs twitched madly and a little squirt of blood shot into the air. She wiped the creature off the knife and moved onto the next. It was a black rat, twenty-one inches long. She stabbed it near the tail and when she lifted the knife the rat stayed on the floor, squealing wildly. She stabbed it again. Bull’s-eye. Got it right in the heart. She wiped it away and plunged the knife into another. It cried out; she wiped it away and repeated the motion.
Just like that, there were fewer rats around her.
Stephenie pulled her legs in, shifted her position and sat upon her knees, crouching.
Two rats came running between the twitching bodies and she stabbed them both without having time to clean the blade. The first one ended up impaled on the handle, trying to bite her wrist. The second one fell from the knife and landed on its side. Its mouth opened and closed franticly, like it couldn’t get enough air. She wiped the first rat away, pushing it off her weapon from the handle end.
Seven rats were dead or dying. Her victims were piling up.
Behind the fallen, a hundred more were in view. They scurried and scuttled and did what they pleased.
An energetic rat came zipping along the wall, bobbing and weaving.
Stephenie rammed the knife into its face, and when she raised her hand the rat slipped from the blade and flopped onto its side. Its back legs kicked, recoiled, and kicked again. A moment later she held the creature in her fingers. She threw it into the crowd and more rats arrived, giving her little time to react. A black rat scrambled onto her arm and she knocked it against the wall. A thin brown rat, looking a little bit like a weasel, bit her neck and she screamed.
Into Hell Page 13
