by Shawn Mackey
A disheveled hunchbacked man knelt over Rob’s corpse. A dead face gazed at me in agony. His killer was sifting through his split belly, more a pile of entrails and organs than a clean-cut hole. He was pulling out clumps of innards and artfully spreading them out on the floor, though his work and front side were hidden. I considered tackling the grotesque man, but thought the better of it. He was much larger and probably much stronger than me.
I fumbled around my pockets and felt a crushed pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I heaved the lighter at the back of the man’s head and sprinted down the hallway. The sound of shattering glass overshadowed its heavy footsteps, alarming the party. All eyes were on me the moment I entered the room.
“What the fuck happened?” Brian shouted.
“He got Rob,” I said.
“What the hell you talking about?
“The thing outside, you dumb fuck. You want to take a look or keep sucking on that bong until he comes back and kills us all?”
“Come on,” Brian grumbled, heading for the hallway and adding: “It’s cool. Everyone chill out.”
The broken patio window was noticeable from a distance. Brian froze for a second, shook his head, and carried on. He saw Rob’s corpse, stopped again with another curse, then threw up his arms. I went into the room first. Red footprints led straight through the glass wall, leaving an almost comical looking human-shaped door next to the real one. Rob’s guts were mashed into a pile next to his corpse. A few cracked bones spelled out a sentence, but the words had been scattered at the man’s hasty exit.
“Isn’t that your name?”
“Yeah.”
It said: MICHAEL IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.
“How does he know my name?” I said, shaking my head in feigned disbelief.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That I’m calling the cops. Let them figure it out. Until then, watch your back.”
Beatrice was waiting for me at the end of the hallway. Brian barged past us both toward the kitchen. I figured it’d probably be better to show everything to my new friend than explain. Despite my overblown swagger earlier, the time had come for her to take this seriously. She didn’t flinch at the sight, but I was pretty sure I heard her swallow down nausea.
A drawn out shout was cut off by loud crash. It came from the kitchen. I seized Beatrice by the wrist and darted toward the party. Most were too engrossed in their intoxication to notice the noise. Victoria muttered something about Rob to another girl, then stood up and approached us. She seemed fairly sober compared to the others.
“Where’s Rob? Is he with Brian?”
“Don’t go into the kitchen,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulder. She swatted my hand away and proceeded down the hallway.
Seconds later, she let out a screech, tumbled back through the doorway, and screeched again. Everyone was paying attention now. As she opened her quivering mouth to speak, a massive hand wrenched her by the neck. The hunchbacked giant hoisted her by the throat. His twisted face appeared more like a group of jumbled features than a coherent countenance. He started to squeeze Victoria’s whole neck, cackling like a hyena as she futilely kicked her feet. Blood erupted from her nose and mouth. She let out a guttural gag and convulsed before going still. He tossed the body aside and lumbered toward the group, which had crowded at the nearby window.
Beatrice took initiative and shattered the locked window with a chair. Some guy turned over the diamond table to barricade the group as they climbed outside one by one. He tried moving the sofa as well. The creature honed in and pounced onto him, sinking his jagged fingernails into the poor sap’s face. The monster ripped open the man’s cheek down to his neck and then pushed him aside to bleed out from his grievous wound. A girl tried reaching out to pull him into the group, and the hunchback clutched her by the head, smashing it into the diamond table and cracking her skull straight down the middle. He dug his fingers into the gap and spread the slit, spilling brains and crunched bits of skull.
While he indulged in the slaughter, we all managed to slip outside and run for the cars. The tires were slashed to ribbons, though it didn’t stop some from trying to drive away. Someone had the brilliant idea to light one of the torches. His friend took out the gallon of gasoline from the trunk. I grabbed it from his hand, insisting that I should be the one to douse the hunchback. It wanted me dead; I was going to make sure this went right.
The monster burst through the front door. I twisted the cap off the gasoline container. As long as I acted carefully, I would have enough to ignite my nemesis. His attention was on me, and I did everything in my power to pull him in my direction. He lunged like a raging bull and took a splash of gasoline to the face as I side stepped. This happened three times before he wrapped his hand around my arm in a vice grip. I poured the remaining gasoline over the bastard’s head and slapped him across the face with the plastic container.
“Fire!” I shouted as the hunchback dug his claws into my stomach. Whoever had the torch threw it on cue.
He erupted in flames the moment the torch made contact with his soaked flesh. The bastard refused to release his grip, so I punched him in the face with my free hand. My other arm was engulfed in the blaze, and the fire already seared through my clothes. My skin sizzled and popped, and in a burst of desperation, I slammed the butt of my fist into his cheek so hard, the right side of his jaw snapped and hung limp. His flaming tongue darted back and forth with a shrill scream as he finally let loose his grip to fix his broken face. I fell to the ground and frantically rolled around to extinguish the fire.
Beatrice had gotten some kind of blanket and helped me put it out. The charcoal flesh, from the tip of my fingers all the way up to neck and down half my chest, didn’t hurt as badly as one would expect. The pain was still severe, but I knew with a little aloe and some bandages, I’d be brand new in no time.
The hunchback lay on the grass, the sound of his burning body crackling scarcely audible over the ear-splitting howl that seemed more like a faraway echo from some massive beast than this creature’s death throes. It gradually died down, leaving only silence and the foul stench of acrid black smoke. I managed to stand up thanks to Beatrice’s support, but found it difficult not to collapse and even more so to breathe.
“That was awesome, Mike. You killed that motherfucker,” Kenny said. “You okay? Looks like that hurts. We should get you to a hospital or something.”
“No.”
Heavy rains followed a loud crack of thunder. The hunchback’s flaming body was immediately extinguished. The blackened corpse started to dissolve. While the others were celebrating, I knew the worst was coming.
“Start running,” I said, pushing at Beatrice. She noticed the creature’s transformation and started to back off, slowly at first, then at a firm trot. The rain eased my wound a bit, but I was in the condition to run. “Get the hell out of here, Kenny! Come on!”
He caught on and started to flee. The others weren’t so keen. Slender tentacles shot from the muddy soil and latched onto two girls. They were yanked from their feet and sucked into the ground. Kenny, his new girlfriend, and another guy caught up to us in time. We made our way to the surrounding woods. I bore the pain as best I could and broke into a steady jog. Behind me, dozens of tentacles entwined and twirled into a tree-like figure, a girl’s pain-stricken face visible in the center of its trunk. The face screamed for help as twisted limbs sprouted from its body. More tentacles burst from its flesh and formed grotesque branches somewhat resembling hands and feet.
No matter how horrific the sight, I took a small relief in its awkward gait. The creature seemed unable to adapt to its current form, yet too anxious to complete its foul birth. We made it to the woods, out of breath and quite a distance from our pursuant.
“Is that him?” Beatrice asked. I gave a slight nod. “Asshole! You made it sound like a pushover.”
“It is.”
“You’re hal
f dead!”
“I’ll be fine when this is over. Quit worrying about me and keep your eyes open. It’s only dangerous when you get careless,” I said.
Kenny cradled his girlfriend in his arms, while the other guy paced back and forth, breathing heavy and trying not to cry.
“Fucking Cynthia!” he moaned. “It just pulled her into the ground. One second she’s there and in another second, she’s fucking dead!”
“And Jess! And Victoria and Brian,” the girl wept. “I want to go home!”
“Easy, Jenny,” Kenny said. “We should keep moving. I used to spend days at a time in these woods. There’s a highway a few miles this way.”
“Lead the way, pal,” I said. My body still hurt like hell, but at least I could breathe.
Everyone composed themselves quickly, especially given the circumstances. While I wasn’t in fear for my life, the prospect of seeing that monster again made my stomach curdle. Beatrice was taking it much worse.
“Remember,” I said. The others were farther off then us. Still, I spoke barely above a whisper. “All that thing wants is to kill us. It’s an idiot, leagues below your average animal. It doesn’t have senses or instincts. It’s like a shark out of water. Just keep your hand away from its mouth.”
“That’s not making me feel any better.”
“You’ve got what it takes to survive. We—”
“I get your point, Michael.”
“Not exactly. What I mean to say is,” I paused. “I’m sorry. A pretty girl like you shouldn’t have to run around the mud and see all this heinous stuff. Thanks for putting the fire out, by the way.”
“Thanks for setting that thing on fire, even if it made things worse. You seem eager to die.”
“I can’t die. Neither can you. We’re in this for the long run. Get used to it, Beatrice.”
“What if we end up like the ones back there? What if that fire burned just a little more?”
“First sign of danger and you’re already taking the pessimistic approach.”
“I can’t help but wonder what I did to deserve all this.”
“And maybe it’d be easier to die.”
“No.”
“Well, if you haven’t thought of it yet, you will sooner rather than later. I’m not going to let that happen, though. No matter how hard you beg me.”
“You got a funny way of saying sweet things. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”
She would’ve been better off if we hadn’t met. Beatrice had had it pretty good so far. Other than the lack of understanding, of which I wasn’t exactly privy to either, she would have gradually grown into this kind of living. The company was nice, but that extra baggage was likely to become maddening—like traveling through rough terrain with something extraordinarily fragile. This wasn’t exactly the case, but it certainly had grown to feel like it.
The sky grew darker and darker and the treetops thicker and thicker. Kenny muttered something about being halfway there and stopped. He asked the other guy, William, if he had a cigarette for him and Jenny. As they rested on a broken stump, I searched behind us for any signs of our pursuant. We heard nothing but the sound of rustling leaves, which got louder and louder, though I hadn’t caught sight of its source.
A hand sprouted from the dirt, followed by another. They rose up to the elbows and flailed around. We stood back and watched as a head and neck, too covered by filth to distinguish, poked from the ground, followed by an upper torso. Jenny let out a scream and threw herself onto the newcomer, pulling the rest of her from the dirt. She burst into tears as she brushed clumps of mud from her long strands of hair.
“Cynthia?” William said. He let out a cry and embraced the girl.
“That’s the other girl?” I asked Kenny. He nodded, looking as warily as Beatrice and I.
“What happened?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t know,” Cynthia said, coughing up clouds of dirt. She picked out bits of rock from her mouth. “I remember that thing grabbing me. It was dark for a while. Then I moved my hand and touched air. Where are we?”
“On the way out,” Kenny said, pointing east. “The highway isn’t too far from here. You okay to walk?”
“I think so,” Cynthia said, still coughing. She was utterly caked in mud too thick to brush off her clothes. Jenny wiped most of the filth from her face, but gave up on her hair. The girl looked like she had crawled her way out of hell.
Other than Cynthia’s intermittent bouts of coughing, we were silent for the rest of the way. When we reached the edge of the hill overlooking the highway, Kenny turned around and opened his mouth to speak, but instead motioned for us to follow. Despite the highway’s emptiness, the lights were a welcome sight. At the bottom of the hill, we maneuvered onto the paved road and gradually stopped walking.
“There’s no cars. Not even one,” Kenny said.
“Then we keep heading south until we find one,” I said.
The howl returned, much louder than before. Behind us, one of the trees looked darker than the rest. The moment Kenny pointed at it, the tree collapsed into a shadow. We were running again, now on a paved road rather than in the mucky woods, which wasn’t exactly as advantageous as we’d hoped. The black slime trickled down the hill and chased us at an alarming speed. Not enough to catch up, but enough to keep us sprinting at our limits. For a second, I actually thought my legs would give out.
And then it was gone. We gradually slowed to a brisk walk and finally to a complete stop. The chase had covered plenty of ground. More lights were visible in the distance. Kenny pointed out a rest stop, and through a fresh burst of energy, started to run again. He didn’t keep it up long.
“We’re so close,” he said, heaving in deep breaths. “There’s got to be people. All we need is a car. Just a car.”
“We’re with you, pal. Keep on leading the way,” I said.
The rest stop was much closer than it had looked. We passed the sign within minutes. Everybody had gotten a second wind, except Cynthia. She shook tremendously and nearly collapsed after a long coughing fit. After breathing in gulps of air, she nodded her head and continued.
“Poor girl,” Beatrice whispered to me. “She was buried alive. How the hell is she able to even walk?”
Among plenty of gas pumps and a large building advertising just about every fast food restaurant, we did not come across a single car. The bright lights showed a row of pay phones near the building’s entrance. Kenny picked one up and dialed a number. He waited a few seconds and tried the next phone. After using all six, he threw aside the last receiver with a curse.
“Dead?” Beatrice asked.
“There’s a tone, but the buttons don’t work. It doesn’t make any sense!”
“We better get inside,” I said. “Maybe there’s a working phone. Your friend isn’t looking too good either.”
The interior looked like a mini mall, much larger than it appeared from outside. I was surprised to find it had two floors. The bottom had a few burger restaurants and some snack stands, and the top had a variety of travel supplies ranging from over-the-counter pharmaceuticals to book shops. Since we weren’t hungry, we went up the escalator.
“My stomach hurts,” Cynthia moaned. “My throat too. And my legs.”
“Here,” Jenny said, helping her friend toward the convenience store. They made it three steps before Cynthia fell to her knees. Jenny and William placed her on her back. She had gone pale white and her breathing was sparse.
“What’s wrong with my stomach?” she groaned, pulling her shirt up to reveal a large patch of throbbing black bubbles. They created a wet popping sound with each pulse. The patch and hundreds of red veins spread throughout her ghostly, almost translucent flesh. She screamed and thrashed uncontrollably as those veins grew fatter, bulging. With each thump, the black bubbles grew larger and larger. When the first one popped, a foamy concoction drooled from her lips. A few more burst, increasing the amount and thickness of the foam. As Cynthia�
�s chest rumbled and let off rapid pops like machine gun fire, the sheer volume of the substance engorged her entire neck, bursting blood vessels. From those thin strands of blood, tiny red spiders crawled out and spread across the gaping wound on her chest, gnawing away at the surrounding flesh. The white bubbles expanded to the size of pearls and continued to grow. A pair of feelers poked from the spiders’ feast, followed by two hairy black arms.
Jenny had left her friend’s side the moment the black bubbles began popping. William, however, sat next to her in shock, utterly deaf to our pleas. The peril sank in when the child-sized, wingless fly emerged from the girl’s corpse. It was too late. Hundreds of full-grown spiders hatched from the white bubbles and latched onto William’s legs. He stood and ran a few feet, fell to the ground and rolled around. As he tried to swat them off his limbs, he pushed off clumps of his own flesh. The fly leapt onto his face and the spiders burrowed into his belly. When they had nothing left to consume, the spiders spread onto the fly. It leapt off the balcony and splat onto the marble floor below. The spiders dined on the white ichor as the fly’s broken husk wildly twitched.
The whole gruesome ordeal allowed us a few minutes to search the vicinity. I contemplated jumping out the window until Beatrice found a set of stairs that led to the roof. It was a dead end, but beat the hell out of the sea of spiders below us. They appeared unaware of our presence, probably too busy devouring each other, though it was only a matter of time before they ate their way to the second floor.
The rooftop and the parking lot were dark, leaving only the moonlight to provide sight of nothing but a vast stretch of empty roads for miles. Directly below, black slime slithered around the pay phones. It clung to the wall and started to slide upward.
“We’re fucked,” Kenny shouted. Jenny broke into full-blown sobs.
“What do we do?” Beatrice asked me.
“Keep away from the edge,” I said. As soon as those words left my mouth, a tentacle darted across the roof and latched onto Jenny’s leg.
