The Hours of Creeping Night - a Collection of Dark Speculative Short Fiction

by Sophie Playle

  ‘... I’m just freaking out a bit, y’know?’

  ‘Just shut it.’ Ren snapped.

  Marv’ raspy breathing became louder and louder, until he was grunting like an angry pig.

  ‘Marv, snap outta–’

  There was a thud and an ooof as Marv slammed the boy against the wall with a snarl.

  The kid screamed. ‘Get him off me! He’s biting me, he’s biting me!’

  Denton backed deeper into his cell as the shadows shuffled closer, like curious school children watching a playground fight. A few of them swiped at the air, growling. There was an almighty roar from the cell, followed by a snap and a terrible ripping sound. The boy went quiet. Somewhere, Denton could hear sobbing.

  ‘Screw this shit.’ Denton heard the deep, undeniable voice of Big John.

  Big John and his cellmate, Jay, were the biggest guys in the joint. Near seven foot tall, and muscles as big as footballs. ‘Over here, motherfuckers!’ Big John’s voice boomed through the chaos. The two of them started banging on the bars, shouting. Denton’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he saw the shadows more clearly now. They looked like people. Most were upright, hunched over. Others crawled like beasts, knuckling the ground as they ran. Their eyes were wide and white, reflecting tiny pinpricks of light. They screamed through raw throats, jaws stretched to breaking point, and ran as one mass of darkness towards Big John’s cell.

  Slam. They hit, a hammer of flesh. Slam-slam. They crawled up the bars, their screeches so shrill they made Denton’s eardrums reverberate in his head until he thought they would split. Big John and Jay spurred them on, banging on the bars. The concrete crumbled. The cell door came off. Big John and Jay grabbed it like a shield. The creatures pressed in on them, pushing the barred frame into the cell. ‘One, two, three!’ Big John boomed, and with a roar they pushed.

  They pushed the door out of the cell, forcing the mass of creatures back, knocking most of them over and crushing some beneath the bars.

  The creatures snarled, clawing wildly. They grabbed Jay’s leg and pulled him down. He screamed as they began to tear him apart, but Big John ignored him and bolted towards the cellblock door. Denton considered banging on the bars and shouting to draw the creatures away from him. If he got out, he could get help for the rest of them. But Denton knew that he and Ren had little chance of holding off the creatures if they broke through into their cell. Big John might not even bother getting help.

  Denton was glad he had kept quiet when he heard the cellblock door rattle. ‘No, no!’ Big John cried. The creatures swarmed to him. Big John grabbed one of the thing’s heads in his huge hand and crushed it against the wall. He lifted his fist ready to punch, but they were too fast and too many. He didn’t even get a chance to scream before they ripped out his throat.

  Ren was pacing the cell, clenching and unclenching his fists. When Ren got scared, Ren got angry. Riled up from Big John’s escape attempt, Denton could tell Ren was just about ready to do something stupid. He grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to stand still. Leaning in close enough to smell his cellmate’s rank breath, Denton whispered in his low, gruff voice, ‘Calm the hell down, Ren. We gotta think about this. Best thing we can do right now is stay quiet, off the radar, or we’re canned meat ready for the eatin’. Okay?’

  Ren’s breathing slowed. He nodded. They moved to the back of the cell and sat down, deep in the shadows. The concrete wall was cold and hard against Denton’s back. In all these years, he had never felt so caged.

  It didn’t take long for Denton to realise that there was nothing they could do but wait and hope. Hope that some outside force would come to their rescue. It took him even less time to realise that if there were more of these creatures outside, saving a bunch of thugs and murderers wouldn’t be a very high priority. On the other hand, if the things down here were the only ones in existence, Denton doubted anyone would risk letting them loose from the cellblock, their convenient isolation chamber.

  Every now and then, the thing that used to be Marv would thrash about in its cell, wailing and trying to escape. The other creatures ignored it. Sometimes Renton would see a bloody arm angling round awkwardly and trying to reach into their cell.

  Time dragged on. They sat in silence for what must have been days – weeks, maybe – until their stomachs were empty and their mouths dry, listening to the creatures shuffle across the concrete. Denton sometimes heard the crunch of a bone, but the slurping and gnawing gradually ceased. That worried him.

  Ren and Denton drank from the dripping tap at the sink, lapping at the cool droplets of water, too afraid to turn it on fully and attract unwanted attention with the noise.

  Someone across the block started sobbing. ‘Help us!’ he screamed. ‘For the love of God, help us!’ He continued to sob as the creatures attacked the cell, tore through, and ripped his screaming body to pieces.

  All the dead meat was beginning to rot. The block swarmed with flies. The rats were multiplying, but the creatures chased and smashed them when they scuttled across the block, so they took shelter in the cells. Every time Denton fell into unconsciousness, the rats would sneak up in the darkness and try to take a chunk out of him.

  Ren’s stomach rumbled. The gurgling echoed around the cellblock. Shadows turned their heads. A grunting figure began to shuffle towards their cell, sniffing the stale air. Denton held his breath. The creature drew closer – the closest one had been to them. Denton could see its eyes, wide and white and dead in the darkness. It leaned closer to the bars, trying to listen. Ren’s stomach rumbled again.

  The creature cried out and raised its arm to bash at the bars, but as it did so, another arm reached out from the cell to the left. Marv grabbed the creature. He twisted its arm until it dislocated with a thwop and pulled it through the bars, dragging the creature with it. The creature wailed as Marv fed on its flesh.

  This commotion excited the rest of the animals. They began scrapping with each other, some of them ran round the cellblock, jumping at the bars and shaking them, like rabid monkeys. Denton heard someone cry out in the darkness and the creatures flooded towards the sound. Their cries and howls escalated. Metal banging, people screaming.

  ‘... so hungry,’ Ren whispered. ‘I can smell roast pork.’

  Denton raised an eyebrow. He looked over at his cellmate. In the gloom he could see that Ren was shaking. The dim light reflected off the drool running down his chin.

  ‘They’ll come for me, eventually, Dent. Not for you, but maybe for me. I wasn’t so bad, what I did – it was an accident, everyone knows. I got family out there. They won’t come for you, not after what you did. If I can just survive – survive till they come and get me. But I’m starving, Denton. I’m gonna die if I don’t eat. I need food.’

  Denton stood up, adrenalin shooting through him. He stood facing Ren, fists clenched.

  Ren stood, uneasy on his feet. He looked down at Denton. ‘You know, I heard once that human flesh tastes like pork.’ He lunged at Denton, hands as big as meat hooks reaching for his throat.

  Denton sidestepped Ren and landed a quick punch on the right side of his jaw. Ren swung clumsily at Denton in the darkness, but Denton sprung onto Ren’s back. He grabbed Ren’s head and tried to twist his neck to break it, but Ren’s thick muscles were too strong. Ren rammed his weight backwards, crushing Denton against the concrete wall. He repeated this again and again, before Denton got a better hold on Ren and dug his fingers into his eyes.

  Ren began to scream, but with a now tighter grip on Ren’s head, Denton twisted hard. Crunch. Ren fell to the floor, limp. Denton was still clinging to his back, his fingers still embedded in his eyes. He pulled them out of the warm gunk with a squelch.

  Most of the commotion in the cell had gone unnoticed by the rioting creatures. Denton looked down at his cellmate, now just a lump of meat cooling on the concrete. He thought about what Ren had said. About staying alive until help came. He had water from the tap. And now he had meat.

  Blood b
egan to trickle out of Ren’s downturned face.

  Denton climbed onto the top bunk and pressed his spine into the corner of the room. He had done some bad things in his time. But he’d always had his reasons.

  He listened to the howls echoing off the walls. He listened to the sound of ripping flesh and wet, bloody slurping, chewing, crunching. The metallic odour of blood and the hot acidic stench of rotting flesh stung the air.

  Ren’s blood pooled across the floor, a black lake in the darkness. One by one, the creatures caught the scent. One by one, they slammed against the metal bars.

  All these years, people had called him an animal.

  At least I’ll die a man, Denton thought. He tore strips of linen from his bed, slowly wrapping the cloth around his knuckles as the creatures’ manic screams escalated with desperate excitement. Let’s see how many of these motherfuckers I can take with me to hell.

  The bars gave way.

  Bump in the Night

  Cynthia poured the imaginary tea from the plastic teapot. First for Mister Spears, then for Grobble, then Lucy-Loo. Baby Bub was too little to drink tea. Mister Spears sat stiff-backed, waiting for Cynthia to add the milk for him.

  ‘Not too much, girl!’ he snapped. The thin line of his mouth did not move as he spoke. He polished his monocle on his white cotton handkerchief before picking up the teacup and sipping, sticking out his little finger.

  Grobble didn’t drink. He just sat there, like he did most of the time. Limp and covered in bandages. He didn’t move much when the others were around. But unlike the others, he stayed through the night. When Cynthia was on her own, he lay under her bed, scratching his long nails across the floorboards. Otherwise, he crouched in the cupboard, and Cynthia could see the pin-pricks of light reflecting from his eyes through the crack in the door. Grobble liked to watch.

  Lucy-Loo was busying herself dipping Baby Bub’s chubby plastic fingers into the scalding tea, cooing at him as he cried. Cynthia couldn’t stand to look at Baby Bub. He had big pools of black ink for eyes, and his head was swollen and blue.

  ‘Cynthia!’ Mister Spears boomed. The girl jumped, nearly spilling her tea. ‘Let me see those hands of yours!’

  Cynthia set down her teacup, trying hard not to clatter it with her shaking hands. She stretched her arms out across the table. Mister Spears grabbed her hands. His bony fingers dug into her flesh. ‘You disgusting child. Your fingertips are filthy. How dare you serve me tea with hands as disgusting as these!’ He took the ring finger of Cynthia’s left hand and snapped it backwards.

  She cried out and recoiled into her chair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  Baby Bub started to cry even louder. Lucy-Loo slapped Cynthia across the face. ‘Look what you’ve done to the baby!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry...’

  ‘Go and wash your hands,’ said Mister Spears.

  Cynthia got up, and as she reached the door, dipped her good hand into the pocket of her dress. She pulled out a small box of matches. Before the others even noticed what she was doing, Cynthia had thrown a lit match into her waste paper basket, which began to smoke. Then she threw two more onto her bed and another at the net curtains. The flames began to spread.

  ‘What are you doing? You stupid girl!’

  Cynthia stepped into the hall and slammed her bedroom door shut. She slid the bolt across.

  ~*~

  From the back garden, Cynthia watched with her parents and baby brother as their house burned down. Her mother, wrapped up in her pink dressing gown, cradled the baby in her arms. They were both weeping.

  Her father stared stoically at the burning building, his back straight, his mouth a thin line. He pulled his white cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.

  ~*~

  They stayed in old Mrs McKenzie’s spare room, Cynthia on a camp-bed, her parents in the double bed and the baby in the open bottom drawer of the dresser. The shadows were just as dark as those in her bedroom at home. Cynthia lay awake, listening to the rumbling snoring of her father. It had taken the baby ages to stop crying. Her mother and father had ignored it, and Cynthia thought about Lucy-Loo hitting Baby Bub.

  The wardrobe here was made of cheap plywood, peeling at the base. It wasn’t like the deep cupboard built into the wall in her bedroom at home. So deep that Grobble fused into the shadows, the only thing giving him away the reflection of blue light in his eyes as he stared out through the crack in the door. Even so, Cynthia kept her gaze on the wardrobe and wondered how Grobble would have looked without all his bandages. Now she’d never know.

  Her father’s round spectacles sat on the bedside table.

  Cynthia couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to think about her father, so she thought about her friends instead. She hated Grobble and Mr Spears, but they were the only friends she’d ever had. She had to check. To make sure they were gone. She pushed back her blanket and slipped on her shoes. Closing the door quietly behind her, she ran down the street to their old house. It stood there, like a half dissolved shadow.

  She slipped in through the back door. Inside, everything was black and wet. The house groaned as Cynthia climbed her way up the semi-collapsed stairs.

  The top of the bedroom door had burnt away. The bottom half remained, scorched. The bolt was still firmly in place. Cynthia climbed over the fractured door into the room.

  Relief. They were gone. Everything had turned to ash – even the little table they had been sitting at.

  Just as Cynthia was about to leave, she saw a movement in the corner of her eye. She squinted in the darkness, but there was nothing there.

  Then she saw it. The ash was shivering. It began to pull itself together, like a statue shattering in reverse. It formed into tall, elongated body. Cynthia could see that its eyes were made of tiny diamonds and they sparkled in the darkness.

  The Thing stepped towards Cynthia, smiling widely. It flexed its long fingers over her shoulder, and whispered, voice toneless and rough as dried leaves, ‘I know that you burned them. But that’s okay, I won’t tell anyone. Because friends share secrets. And we’re friends, aren’t we, Cynthia?’

  Cynthia didn’t move or say a word.

  ‘Aren’t we? Because, if we’re not, I won’t be very nice to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cynthia whispered. ‘We’re friends.’

  The Thing squeezed Cynthia’s shoulder until tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘That’s right,’ it whispered. ‘Our little secret. Now don’t say a word.’

  Blood Obsidian

  Four snarling dogs snapped at my heels, their chains taught, as the officers threw me into the cell. ‘So, you’re all they’ve got? Pathetic,’ they laughed. The cell door clanked shut, the lock clicking. I saw them leave through the haze of red dust, their scarlet uniforms fading as they walked away.

  Rising shakily to my feet, I brushed off my rags and spat out a mouthful of blood. I rubbed my temples. It felt as though I’d just been wrenched out of sleep, my brain not yet fully engaged with reality. The room before me spun. Though the cell was small, the open air around me felt empty and exposing. I longed for the close proximity of warm earth pressed around me.

  My skin was snaked in pale pink scars, flowing over my veins in a lattice of forgotten pain. I ran my fingertips over the smooth ridges. I trembled, amnesic with trauma.

  Two shadows recoiling in corner of the stone cell shifted, catching my attention. Their sunken black eyes were like empty pits in their hollow faces. Their skin was yellow and leathery, tightly stretched over their meatless bodies. Like mine, their heads were shaven and they wore tattered rags.

  ‘What is this place?’ I demanded. ‘Where am I?’ I marched over to the vertical slit in the wall that served as ventilation and the only window. I tilted my head, lining up my eyes with the gap. A wasteland of red desert stretched out across the horizons, at least a hundred feet below. My stomach twisted as I saw hundred upon hundred of skeletal people sla
ving slowly with pick-axes and other tools, contorting while they ground gigantic boulders into sand at gunpoint. Scarlet uniforms punctuated the swarms of rags. Gunshots echoed between boulders and stone towers. I flinched as I watched a uniformed man open fire on a group of women and children, heard their brittle bones shattering. Their mouths stretch open, but their throats are too dry to make a sound. I closed my eyes and pressed my back to the wall. The stone was warm and comforting. A cold sweat dripped down my face in spite of the heat.

  ‘What is this?’ My voice cracked. I looked to the men on the floor, but their faces remained blank. The subtle rise and fall of their ribcages gave the only sign of life; otherwise they would have looked like ancient dried-out husks. Then slowly, stiffly, one of them began to move. He shifted forward and reached into the dust with gnarled fingers.

  It spilled from the folds of his palm. He croaked hoarsely, ‘All we have to eat is sand and dust.’ Closing his swollen eyes he lifted his hand above his mouth and let the grains trickle onto his cracked tongue.

  I slid back along the wall. ‘They don’t feed you?’ I asked.

  The second man responded, crawling forward on his hands and knees. ‘All we have to eat is sand and dust,’ he repeated monotonously.

  I became dizzy. My limbs felt weightless and heavy all at once. I collapsed to the floor where I fell into hazy unconsciousness for I don’t know how long. It could have been hours, it could have been days. I dreamt of liquid fire, endless tunnels, the warm press of grazing sand – and felt the most overwhelming emotions of love and fear... they flooded through me until I felt I was going to overflow.

  I awoke to a terrible rumble that shook the cell. More dust crumbled from the ceiling. I lurched toward the window, my joints stiff and achy but my skin itching with energy, and peered out through the slit.

  Pandemonium. Gigantic plated creatures snaked through the desert sand, diving and descending like sea serpents, coiling their long, metallic bodies around boulders and people indiscriminately and crushing them effortlessly. Their underbellies were protected by transparent plates, through which I could see a tangled network of pipe-like vessels containing bubbling blue liquid. I watched as one of the creatures coiled its body around a group of people, soldiers and prisoners united in attack, and witnessed as the blue substance burned purple then red, as the creature’s body oozed smouldering, liquid fire, incinerating the helpless beings.