Flesh Tubes

My own personal fiction stories

[redsightstories]

In The Land Of Nod (Part 2)

I made my way down the main staircase of the apartment building, the elevator unfortunately non functioning with the power in the city cut off. That had happened surprisingly quickly, but then again, these were surprising times. There was a cluster of people gathered around in the lobby of the building, everyone going through the large pile of material goods that had been piled up in the center of the room on a group of tables that had been pushed together. After everyone had more or less pulled themselves together this morning, I had gotten them to grab everything of interest in the building and put it down here, so that we may sort through it and assess what we had available to us. There were a lot of clothes, of course, of all shapes and sizes, which were currently being picked through by about five people, Hagar among them. She looked up and smiled nervously at me when she noticed me descending the stairs, and I gave her a slight nod. Good, it looked like she was doing as I told her, and there had been no mention of my little outburst earlier. But the clothes were not what I was interested in at that exact moment.

Instead, I made my way over to the considerably smaller pile of food that had been haphazardly arranged on the tables. I grimaced as I pushed my way through the crowd of people who were digging through it, the smell causing my nose to wrinkle. Already some of the meats were starting to rot, with the fresh fruit and vegetables seemingly not far behind. That’s what happens when refrigeration goes out, I suppose. Perhaps I should have told them to leave the fresh food in the refrigerators, but it would not have lasted long anyway, and then it would have been a huge pain to collect it all up when it begain to decay. Yes, again I was sure I had made the right choice. Instead, I turned my attention to the canned food, of which there was an appreciable amount, but not nearly as much as I perhaps would have liked. This would last a group this size a week, maybe two if we rationed it, tops. We were going to have to go get more, just as I had said to Hagar earlier, and we would have to do it soon.

I clapped my hands together, causing the attention of the room to turn to me. “Alright everyone, first of all, I would just like to say, great job yesterday!” I paused for a moment, and a smattering of applause rang out from the gathering. I would have liked more, but it was a small crowd anyway, a lot of people were still in their rooms sleeping or recovering from their injuries.

“Now, I know we lost some people on our way here, but we have gained some too! Those that were already living here have graciously agreed to join our flock,” At this I nodded at a man who had indeed been doing that and was now sulking around the edges of the room. He nodded back sullenly, his eye black from the persuasion of yesterday. “And that is just the beginning! I know that as we continue forward, there will be more and more that rush to us in search of leadership and friends, and we will of course welcome them with open arms.” A larger amount of applause in response to that. It seemed people liked the idea of growing our numbers. I know I did. I smiled at the crowd, pleased, but then allowed my face to grow more serious.

“But there will be concessions that will have to be made as well. We are a strong people, and we are used to living through harsh conditions, but these will be like nothing we have ever seen before. Strange beasts roam the streets, but it is not them I truly fear. Nor is it other survivors of this madness, who yes, may attack us, but I know we are strong enough to hold off. No, what I fear is something that comes from within.” Murmurs circulated through the crowd. “What I fear is that there may be people who disagree with our way of living, people in this very building! I know that none of you fine folks would ever even think about hurting those that you care about, but I am ashamed to say that is not the case for everyone.”

Now there were no more murmurs, everyone’s attention was fixed solely on me. Perfect, I had their undivided attention. I even saw a few people descending the staircase from the other apartments, quickly joining the group, causing it to swell in size. I paused for a moment, allowing tension to build.

“Yes, I am deeply saddened to tell you all this, but just yesterday, on our way to this very sanctuary that I so carefully selected for us, I was attacked!” Shocked gasps, eyes darting to and fro in the crowd, looking at me, at each other. “Not by anyone here, of course, but by the man who verbally attacked me when I was informing you all of the plan yesterday! The bearded man!” This time there was a gasp from a particular woman in the crowd, one who I recognized as often hanging around the bearded man. Perhaps the two had been in a relationship?

“You can’t be talking about Jehoiada!” She said, looking at me with surprise and worry in her eyes. Was that his name? Context clues made me suppose so. I pointed at her, yelling out:

“Yes, it was him! Jehoiada! He made his move when the great three-legged beast attacked, attempted to take my life with his weapon while everyone was distracted by the creature! It was terrible, the way he waited until we were at our most vulnerable to strike! There is no doubt, no doubt at all in my mind that he was going to slay me so that he could then attempt to seize power in a bloody coup, perhaps with people he had already planted within our very ranks! You, woman, you say you knew him? What is your name?” The woman recoiled at my accusing finger, nervously glancing at the crowd that now surrounded her.

“M-me? My name is Jehosheba, bu-but you can’t honestly think that I would try to hurt anyone, I was just-”

“You say this, that you would never attempt to harm anyone, and yet you freely admit to consorting with the traitor Jehoiada, so what are we supposed to think? That you seriously had no idea that he was going to make an attempt on my life?” I glared at her, and she attempted to back away from me, but found herself surrounded by the crowd of people, unable to escape.

“Yo-you have the wrong idea. He was just a person I talked to sometimes, we-we were never close or anything. I was just su-surprised to hear that he would do something so heinous to you Ms. Athaliah, that’s all!” Jehosheba sputtered out, nervously smiling at me. I pretended to consider what she said. Obviously, I knew she had nothing to do with his attempt on my life, as there had been no attempt on my life, but I still needed a moment to think about how to proceed with this situation. Do I deny her, and have the congregation throw her out? It would put up a strong front, that was for certain, but on the other hand, I could be forgiving and let it go, and show the people that I was a kind ruler.

I pondered these two options for a moment. Throw her out, or allow her to stay? Strong, or kind? Finally, I made up my mind, and opened my mouth to tell the people, before I saw something that caused the words to dry up in my throat. There, standing in the doorway to one of the hallways branching out from the lobby, was the man in black, the one from my visions. The man who had stood at the top of the staircase. The man who had run by me in the hospital. The pale man, with the black coat and dark stubble and midnight hat, he was here, in this very room, watching me. His face was covered in shadow, and his clothes almost seemed to blend into the dark hallway that he stood in, but he was undeniably there. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but still he stood there motionless, and even though I couldn’t make out his face from its place in the deep dark, I knew he was staring at me. The lights seemed to dim and warp, as though they were being pulled into him and being snuffed out simultaneously. I felt heat rush through my body, from the tips of my toes up to my face, hot flashes running up and down and up and down, hitting everything except the tips of my fingers, which were somehow ice cold. I felt as though I couldn’t move, rooted to that spot as I looked at the man, so much like the vision that had occurred just a few minutes earlier, but so much worse. The other me, it had been aggressive, coming after me, assaulting me. The man in black? He was waiting for me to come to him.

“Ms. Athaliah?” The voice seemed to come from far underwater with how distant it was. I barely acknowledge it, terrified to take my eyes off the man for the fear that he would disappear as quickly as he appeared. “Ms. Athaliah, what should we do with her? She was friends with the traitor, should we throw her out on the street?” I didn’t even know who was talking. I managed to move a single foot by summoning up every ounce of strength I had, taking a tiny, minuscule step towards the man. Wait. The thought came from deep inside me, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. I need to say something first; I can’t just run off.

“Well? What do you want us to do?” The voice said again, and I finally managed to spit out a few words, not really caring what I was saying. The only thing I could do was keep my eyes on the strange, dark man.

“What?” I mumbled. “Um, she can stay I suppose. She didn’t know anything. It’s fine. Uhm, excuse me for a moment.” I heard a sigh of relief from the woman, whatever her name was as I pushed my way through the crowd, but I paid it no mind. I tried to rush over to that strange dark man, but the crowd was thick, and I was terrified of losing him. Who was he? Why did he keep appearing in my visions? I needed to talk to him, but at the same time, I was deeply afraid of him. There was a terrifying aura to him, and I knew in my heart that only bad things would come from chasing after him, but I needed too anyway. I needed to know.

I shoved my way through the crowd, but as I got closer he retreated into the darkness of the hallway, movements smooth as black velvet. “Wait.” I muttered, words falling out of my mouth as I tried to catch up. “Wait!” I said again, more force behind it this time. I finally broke through the circle of people, and made a break for the hallway, rushing into it just in time to see the man retreat around a corner, something silver flashing in his hands. What was it? What did he have to do with me? Why did he keep showing up? I needed to know, I needed to. I ran down the hall, turning the corner to see him standing in front of a door, his back to me. I could just make out the thing in his hand. It was a gun, shining bright silver despite the dark gloom that surrounded everything else. He opened the door with his other hand and stepped through into a strange, warm orange glow that came from within it, gently shutting it behind him. With the gun and its shining light gone, the hallway seemed to become even darker, if that was even possible, but I couldn’t, didn’t, let it dissuade me.

I ran to the door, stumbling and tripping, nearly slamming into the wall at one point, but it seemed to get only further away from me, as though the hallway was stretching with every step I took. Still, I pressed on, and somehow managed to make my way to the door, grabbing onto its handle as tightly as I could to make sure it didn’t get away. I yanked it open as fast as I could to prevent him from making distance, but when I did so I was instantly blasted with heat and flames from the newly opened doorway. I stumbled backwards into the opposite wall, fire quickly engulfing the entire opening as my face seemed to crack from the heat and my lips became dry and blistered in an instant.

It was an inferno; there was no way the man, any man, could have walked into that so casually and survived. “But” I thought to myself as I stared into the flames, the heat overwhelming every sense I had, “Maybe he was not a man. Maybe he is something else. I was unable to continue that line of thinking, however, as the flames seemed to swell even more, driving me to retreat back down the hall from which I had come. I shielded my face from the fire as I inched backwards on all fours, barely able to see anything through the smoke and the heat haze. But still, I couldn’t help but attempt to peer into that door, trying to get at least one more glimpse of the dark man who seemed to haunt every step I took.

And, yes, there he was. At least, I think it was him. The figure that stood within the flames, the man in my visions, peering out through the smoke with eyes that glimmered like stars in the night sky. He watched me, never taking that piercing gaze off of me, and I suddenly knew in my heart that no, this was no man. It was undeniable. Perhaps it had taken the form of a man, fooled me by making me think that the person I saw was a human being like me, but here, in this moment, with its strange and powerful eyes glittering at me like cut diamonds, I knew that this was something else. Something undeniable and unstoppable and most of all, angry. It was something stronger than the monsters, stronger then Mother, stronger than any weapon that man could ever even dream of making. It was the cosmos incarnate. And it was looking at me.

I whimpered and covered my face with my arms, attempting to get away from its gaze, flames and fire forgotten. But even through the flesh and bone of my arm, even with my eyes closed, I could still feel it watching me, could still see it watching me. I felt as though it had always been watching me. It felt as though it would always be watching me. I screamed, backing up even further, wrenching my arm away from my face and looking away, looking anywhere else to get away from its Judgment. My eyes happened to turn upwards towards the ceiling, and I was terrified to see that its eyes were there too. Or at least, one was. I could see, through the roof of the building, see through the many floors above me, even see through the millions of miles of space that separated us and yet seemed to not matter at all, that there was a single eye of the Thing That Was Not A Man watching me. Only it was not an eye. It was a star.

My eyes snapped open to an empty hallway, with not a single doorway or judging eye in sight. It was just me, a flickering electric light, and my own labored breathing to fill the space. I flung my gaze back and forth, but there was nothing to see. It was, for all intents and purposes, a completely normal apartment hallway. But how could I be sure that this was real, and not yet another vision? I snapped my hand to my mouth, and before even thinking about it, bit down on it, hard. The pain shot through my arm into my body, screaming at me to stop, but I didn’t, instead pressing down even harder until the metallic smell and taste of blood flooded my senses. Okay, this was real. Or, if it wasn’t, then I really didn’t know what to do about it. I thought about the fire, the way it had burned my face. I reached up and touched my lips to find them a little chapped, but otherwise fine. It was starting to get very difficult to tell reality from fiction.

I stood up, using the wall behind me for support. I had to get back to the group. They were probably wondering where I was. I needed to think of a reason for why I had run off like that. I began to walk back the way I had come, slowly at first as to not stumble, but then gradually moving back up to a normal pace as I re-found my footing. I glanced back at the doorway, with not a single burn mark or scratch on it. I looked at the ceiling, which was in no way transparent. I looked at my hand, blood still trickling down it.

I’m fine. This was fine. I mean, it was a little unusual, sure, but it really wasn’t anything to be worried about. This was just another vision, just something for me to unpack and understand. I slapped my hand onto the hard drywood wall next to me for no particular reason, just to do it. I slapped it again. And again. Harder and harder, until my palm stung and my arm hurt from swinging it so violently. I felt the need to scream, but I didn’t, because that would attract unwanted attention, and I really didn’t know how I would explain it to anyone who came running. Instead, I just breathed deeply, which was really just as good if you don’t think about it.

I was important. I was powerful. I was selected to receive these visions, because I was special. I thought about those shining eyes, and their judgment. They didn’t matter. I thought about the burning room. That didn’t matter. I thought about the fingers that squirmed under the duct tape on my side. That didn’t matter either. All that mattered was the here and now. I just needed to keep going.

I know that I am very important, and obviously I am up to that level of responsibility, but I will say this: I sometimes wish I had someone to talk to about this. Not Hagar, obviously, not anyone in the flock, but someone on equal footing with me. Someone who was as special and important as me. The woman under the tree suddenly popped into my head, quite unexpectedly.

Of course! Mother! Well, she wasn’t actually my literal mother, obviously, but for whatever reason, I had begun to think of her that way recently. Perhaps it was as simple as I looked to her for answers when I didn’t know what else to do. She did tend to act as a guiding force, always there for me, always helping me figure out what my next step should be. Her methods were a little vague, but that was alright, I figured them out. Like how I figured out what to do with the bearded man, the one who thought that he could take my place as leader away from me. Even now, her advice to get rid of him (represented by the squashing of the bug) was still paying dividends, helping to draw the flock closer together but making them fearful of an outsider trying to tear them apart. Nothing brings people together like an outside enemy!

But more than that, I just felt…warm when I was with her. Not literally around her, of course, I had only ever seen her through the strange visions, but almost all of the other ones were painful or frightening. I thought of the very first, being trapped in the trenches of a war and being hunted, or the one of being consumed in a basement, and especially this one, this terrible one of fire and stars, and I shuddered at them, even in hindsight. But hers were always warming and comforting, like a pleasant day at the beach, or curling up by a nice fire with a good book. Or at least, I assume it’s like those things. I have never done either.

I wish I could go to her, see her, talk to her, ask her questions, get comforted by her when I was frightened. Like now. I was so scared, so confused. But alas, I was on my own. But that was okay. I could handle myself, and whatever was thrown at me. Even if I didn’t have Mother to give me advice, I could figure it out by myself. I was strong like that. I was approaching the end of the hallway, which meant it was soon time for me to rejoin the flock. I would have tell them why I had suddenly left them, right in the middle of a big empowering speech. I would figure that out too.

[redsightstories]

In The Land Of Nod (Part 1)

“Hagar! Hagar! Come here for a moment!” I shouted out through the door, tapping my foot impatiently. I scowled down at the pile of crumpled clothes beneath me. Disgusting. Surely I deserved better. I was a leader, and leaders needed to look their best. This wasn’t a matter of vanity, but of respectability. There was a reason president’s always wore suits, that kings bared purple and gold. It showed nobility, power, stature, influence, and I saw no reason why I should be different. But glancing at my current outfit, I did not see any of those traits in the slightest. It was better than what I used to wear, this was true, but then again, that was an exceedingly low bar. I had been wearing what were, in essence, rags. These “new” clothes were, at the very least, not full of patchwork stitches and holes, but they were also simple. The kind of clothes that any random person on the street would wear. Simple jeans and a plain gray shirt. I was better than that. I was.

Hagar finally made herself known, knocking on the door lightly to signify she was outside my apartment. “Yes yes, come in.” I said, already growing annoyed with her idiotic face and meek stature, despite the fact she hadn’t even entered the room yet. I sighed. She was useful, at least. If that ever stops being true, however, I couldn’t see myself keeping her for long. The constant whining and questions and blah blah blah, it’s enough to drive anyone crazy. Why couldn’t she just do what she was told, quickly and quietly? It wasn’t like I was asking her to do the impossible, just a few simple tasks here and there. Frankly, she should feel honored that I was generous enough to allow her to work so close to me at all. I was meant for great things, after all, big important things, and she should consider herself blessed I deigned her competent enough to spend any appreciable time with me. Most could not consider themselves so lucky.

“Ummm… Ms. Athaliah? Did you need something?” Her voice broke through my thoughts, causing me to focus back into reality. I looked over at her, taking in that she too had changed into some much nicer, if slightly ill-fitting, clothes. We had been at my old apartment building for a while now now, and people were beginning to settle in, scavenging what they could, choosing various rooms and furniture to claim for themselves. I of course had gotten first pick, but my dissatisfaction with what we had found was why I had called Hagar to my room in the first place.

“Yes, I do. Look at these clothes, Hagar.” She stared at them blankly, then looked back at me for an explanation. I sighed. This was the kind of thing I was talking about. Not a single brain behind that girls eyes. So I explained it to her. “None of these are acceptable Hagar. Soon, perhaps within a couple of days, maybe even today, we’re going to need to form a search party to find outfits that don’t look like they were dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. I think I’ll lead it myself; I want to show the people that I’m not just all talk, that I actually am their leader. Besides, there are some very specific clothes I want. I was thinking that a red dress would look nice on me, don’t you think?” She opened her mouth, but I didn’t give her a chance to respond. “I think it would look lovely.”

I sighed again, happily this time. I could see it now, clear as day. Me, standing here in front of this mirror, but wearing a long, velvet deep red dress with frills and accents and all sorts of little things. I would be so beautiful, so powerful. I had never worn anything like that before, in fact I had never even worn a dress before, but well, things were different now, weren’t they? If I wanted a red dress, I would get one. I said, and it was done. Just like that. It was so perfect in my mind’s eye. Everything exactly as I wanted it. But, as my fantasy continued, as I thought more of it, of me spinning around my room in that lovely thing, I saw the door to my room creak open.

I did not wish for this to happen, it seemed impossible, but there it was, happening within my own imagination. I tried to will it away, to imagine the door closing once more and leaving me to myself and my wonderful dress, but I found I could not. It was as though I was dreaming, but I was wide awake. This was not like my previous vision, those had always been through the eyes of others, seeing things that I needed to interpret and understand. I was still me, in my own room, looking through my own eyes, feeling my own strange fear over a door that I did not want to open, but opened anyway. I could feel the door calling to me, telling me to gaze upon it, and almost against my will, I turned, despite everything in my body telling me not to. And in that door, in that blackened frame, a dark figure stood. Behind it laid nothing but an endless void that seemed to stretch on to infinity, where moments before there had been a normal apartment hallway. But I could scarcely bring myself to even acknowledge that, much less focus on it, when all I could seem to see was the thing standing in front of me.

It simply stood there, illuminated only by the suddenly dim light that struggled through the murky glass of the window on the opposite side of the room, and I could only make out the barest of features from its visage. It seemed to be nothing but a void, devoid of any life. As I froze, rooted to the spot, it walked forward, slowly, methodically, and as it left that empty frame, I saw that it was me. It was me, but it was not me, for even though it bore my eyes and mouth and nose, I knew it could not be me, for it was covered head to toe in terrible aberrations, insults to the flesh made real. Its naked body quivered and shook before me, strange lumps of skin and muscle that were arranged seemingly at random moving in unison with it. There were mouths, so many mouths, gnawing and mashing and chewing on air or worse, eating other parts of the terrible creature in an act of self-cannibalism that made me nearly lose my lunch. Even as I watched, a red rimmed mouth on the right arm, near the elbow, somehow stretched itself forward, biting into a finger that laid just underneath it. It tore it clean off with a sickening crunch, and I could only stare as it chewed and swallowed the appendage. I do not know where the chewed meat went after that.

Eyes gazed around, some of them at the walls, some at the ceiling, but mostly at me. All sorts of different colors, from brown to blue to red, none of them where they should be. One particularly beady eye glared out at me from the neck of the thing that bore my face, squinting as though I was a particularly disgusting bug that had just crawled out from underneath a rock. I suddenly felt as though I perfectly understood how the man with the scar must have felt moments before I beat him to death. The thing took another shambling step forward, and finally I could move, managing a shaky step back, mirroring it in a way I did not like to think about. Drool dribbled from its many, many orifices, pooling down onto the carpeted ground, sinking into the fabric. I had a wild thought about how that was going to leave a stain. Another step forward, another step back, and suddenly I was falling backwards, tripping over the beautiful red dress I had forgotten I was wearing, now a detriment rather than a boon. Right, that was why I had never worn dresses before.

It took another step forward, then another, and suddenly it was on top of me, it’s pale and putrid flesh reaching out to grab me. I fumbled backwards, hitting the wall on the other side of the apartment with nowhere else to go. It reached out a hand to touch me, small pustules bursting into strange fluids as it extended its arm, eyes that covered its body squinting as the sickening fluid got into them but never taking their gaze off of me. It touched me then, and I screamed as I saw its horrible limb simply sink into my own, becoming part of my body like the way two streams merge together. It spoke then, in a voice that like everything else about it, was my own but not my own. It said to me “soon.”

Suddenly I opened my eyes, no longer wearing a velvet dress but rather my ordinary everyday street clothes, no longer staring up at that monstrosity, but instead Hagar’s concerned and confused face as she peered down from me as I huddled in the corner of my room. I had no idea how I had gotten there. Strangely, someone was screaming. It took a moment to realize it was me.

I quickly shut my mouth, muffling the sound but still hearing it come from deep within my chest, as though someone had just covered my face with a rag to shut me up. I breathed heavily, trying to stop but being unable to. I stole a glance toward Hagar, who looked as though she was about ready to bolt out of the room, and I knew I needed to get it under control now. I forced myself to swallow, feeling as though a bowling ball was rolling down my throat, but I managed to get it down somehow, stopping the screaming. I gave Hagar what I hoped to be a disarming grin, but I am sure came across more as the look of an abused child that was just told to smile for the picture, and shakily stood back on my feet.

The silence was deafening from the woman as we stared at each other, and I knew I needed to reassure her with something fast. I cleared my throat to help get rid of the aforementioned bowling ball, saying: “That, was, uhm, not appropriate. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just pretend it never happened and move on. I believe we were talking about sending people out to get supplies?” Hagar’s mouth dropped open, staring at me in shock. I attempted to continue, listing off more things that we were going to need in the near future, perhaps a little faster than strictly necessary. “Of course we will also need food, water, batteries, medical supplies, things like that. Make sure to be writing all this down, it’s important.” Hagar finally spoke then, voice soft and uncertain.

“Ms. Athaliah, not to be uhm, rude or anything, but are we not going to talk about what just happened? You just collapsed, screaming and crying while crawling away and yelling something about how you ‘won’t let it touch you’. Is…is everything alright?”

My nervous speech ground to a halt as I listened to her say those words. Well, yes, actually, Hagar. I thought to myself. Something did happen, excellent input as always. You see, my fantasy was just invaded, already a bizarre thing to happen, but don’t worry, it gets better. You see, it was by a beast that looked like me and talked like me but was actually a nightmare made real and it told me something was going to happen “soon”. But I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Certainly not something worth worrying about, or telling the others about, because then I would look insane and unfit to lead, and that is simply unacceptable. So, let’s just keep this between us, hmm? Somehow, I didn’t think that would be particularly reassuring.

Maybe I should just kill her. It would make sure she would never speak of this again, and it’s not like it would be particularly difficult. She was a weak, frail thing after all. My eyes flicked to the bent and twisted metal pipe in the corner. I wasn’t sure why I had hung onto it, but I had brought it all the way up to my room, going so far as to prop it up in the corner like some strange modern art piece. Call it a reminder, I suppose. Or perhaps nostalgia. Whatever the case, it was available to me now. But could I kill her in such a way that it wouldn’t be obvious that I had done it? Probably not, we were alone in this room, after all, and everyone knew that she hung around me constantly. Besides, as I had said earlier, she was still at least somewhat useful, although that cost-benefit ratio was rapidly dwindling. If something like this happened again, I would most certainly have to dispose of her. So instead, I smiled at her, more confidently this time, and sat down at the end of my bed.

I gestured for her to come and sit down in front of me on the floor, so she was peering up at me the way a small child would. She looked at me strangely for a moment, confused, but slowly did what I said, even sitting in a crisscross pattern. That was good. That was what I really liked about her, why I kept her around. She did as she was told.

“Alright, I understand.” I began. “That was weird, and scary. I know that you want to know what is going on. So, allow me to explain.” I took a deep breath. Obviously, I couldn’t tell her the truth. That information was for me, and me alone. If she were to find out, then that would introduce uncertainty into the mix, and as loyal as she was, I simply couldn't risk it. A secret is only truly safe when in the company of one, after all. So instead, I thought up a lie. “You see Hagar, I have been under… a lot of stress recently. What with trying to lead everyone to safety, and trying to provide for everyone, and just keeping our whole family here happy and healthy, (and hiding the fact that I have an eyeball on my stomach) it, uh, really takes its toll on a person. You understand that right? Of course you do. So, as a result, It seems that there was a small episode of me releasing said stress, and unfortunately you were there to see that. But I assure you, it really is nothing to worry about. We all have moments where it is just a little too much for us, I’m sure you know that perfectly well, I have seen the way you struggle to navigate everyday life, and that’s alright. Not everyone can be as well put together as I can.”

I saw Hagar take in a breath to say something, but I continued on anyway. “Now, don’t you worry, nothing like that is going to happen in front of you again, or indeed anyone else. This was a one-time deal, a brief…moment of…(don’t say weakness don’t say weakness you are not weak) … a, um, a moment of self-expression. And you don’t feel the need to tell anyone about this, do you?” I shook my head slowly, indicating that she should as well. A moment, a brief pause, and then she mimed the motion. “That’s very good, Hagar! Like I said, we don’t want to worry anyone, right? So, no need to bring it up again. Hey!’ I suddenly stood up, causing Hagar to quickly fumble to her feet as well. “You know what, why don’t you go ahead and head on downstairs, pick something nice out for yourself from the goods we have collected. Whatever you want, your pick. You deserve it for being such a good girl and doing what your told.”

She glanced towards the door, then back at me, uncertain. I gave an encouraging smile and nod. “Yes, its alright, go on! I’ll catch up with you in a bit. I just need to do some stuff here first, but it’ll just be a moment!” She gave me another glance, then slowly started to head for the door, going to pick up some blasé outfit or something like that, I’m sure. I couldn’t really care less. Actually, now that I think of it, there was one thing I didn’t want her to take.

“Oh, actually, hold on a moment Hagar.” She paused at the door, hand on the doorknob but turned back towards me, eyes wide. “You can have whatever you want, but no red dresses, okay? I want to look through them, maybe we won’t have to go out on a gathering party after all if we already have a suitable one here.”

She spoke, her meek voice even quieter than normal. “But uhm, Ms. Athaliah, what about uhm…the food and things like that…” Her voice trailed off towards the end as I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Do you think that I had forgotten about that? I just meant that we didn’t need to send a party out for clothing, specifically. We will need things like food, obviously. Don’t be dense Hagar. Now go, I have things I need to do.” She looked at me as though she still wanted to say something, but left anyway, closing the door behind her. I let out a deep sigh, sitting back down onto my bed. What a mess. What a mess indeed. It was simply embarrassing.

But what was that? Never had my visions been like that before, so personal and involved with me as an actual participant. It was worrying, to say the least. I had to hope that this wasn’t an indication of things to come. A thought crept into my brain, slow and oozing, like a worm covered in slime. I wonder if this vision was connected to the appearance of the things on my body. Now that I thought it, it seemed so obvious. The thing in the vision had been covered head to toe in them, and did a second one not just recently make its appearance on my person? I rushed over to the mirror, quickly pulling up my shirt. There indeed sat the eye, glancing around and looking at everything and nothing. And yes, if I pulled my shirt down just enough, there was the mouth, gnashing away above my heart, eating the air. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that it did not begin to speak.

Oh, but what’s this? No, my luck continues to spiral. For there, on the side of my torso, fingers of indeterminate size and feature sprouted from my skin like the way a plant sprouts from the ground. They waved around slowly in the air, attempting to grasp anything that came near. Well, that was very much not good. As the old saying goes, once is bad luck, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. I was changing. I came across the idea that I did actually know what the creature in my vision was referring to when it said “soon”. It meant that I would “soon” look like it. And I did not like that thought very much.

I pulled my shirt back down, covering up the offending digits, or at least trying to. But these did not seem to want to be as cooperative as the eye and mouth, for they stubbornly extended to their fullest length, causing my shirt to swell as they poked at it. No no no. Not when I was finally where I deserved to be, not when I was finally in charge. They would not take this from me. I turned and rummaged through my bag on the ground, looking for something nobody should ever do without. Ahh, there it was. Duct tape. Never go anywhere without it. I ripped off a piece, using my teeth to tear it, taking mild enjoyment out of the soft ripping noise. Very satisfying. I then pulled up my shirt, and, with little fanfare, taped the fingers down so they were as flush with my body as I could get them. The tape was rough and sticky against my skin, but where it made contact with the fingers, I felt nothing. Whether that was a good or bad thing I did not know.

I pulled out and stuck on two more pieces of tape for good measure, just to make sure that they really would not be wiggling free. No such thing as being over-prepared, after all. Afterwards, I threw the tape onto the bed and pulled my shirt down, admiring my handiwork. There was a slight lump there, it was undeniable, but If you weren’t looking for it, you would never have noticed it. I nodded to myself, pleased. That was one problem solved. But what about the vision, and the way it had arrived unwanted and uninvited? That was not good. If it happened again, in front of a large group, it would be impossible to cover up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything to do about it. Well, actually….

My eyes strayed over to my bag, and I walked over to it, pulling out the container of meat that I had stashed away at the very bottom. It appeared to be a perfectly normal hunk of nondescript animal flesh, except for the fact that it had been stored in a backpack in a plastic container with no cooling, and yet showed absolutely no signs of rot or decay. It’s not as though it was even particularly cold out. That was probably unusual. I eyed it cautiously. Pretty much everything that had happened up to this point could be traced back to this meat, and that faithful encounter with that man in the room in the sewers. I had seen a man fall into a pit of acid, and what was my response? To take the strange flesh from that place and consume it, even give it to others as a way of increasing my own influence and standing. Why? Had it been out of sheer desperation, I had been so hungry that I was willing to do something so unseemly? Or was it something more? Had I been called to that room, by something I didn’t quite understand, called for the reason that I was special and important?

Could it even be that it was some form of destiny, of taking my rightful place as a leader with the aid of this unexpected force? Everything I had seen up to this point would suggest yes. The visions that only I would get, even though other partook in the flesh. My ability to see the future and divine it into usable information. One could even argue that there was the increase in my social standing and my sudden rise to leadership. It all seemed to line up, to suggest my importance. The only thing that didn’t seem to fit were these horrible...things…. that were appearing on my body. But, I reasoned with myself, perhaps they are simply an unavoidable side effect, one of those things that nobody really wants but simply has to happen anyway, akin to taking medicine to help with a disease and it causing you to become tired.

Yes, yes, that made sense. I nodded to myself in the mirror, pleased with this conclusion. It all made perfect sense. And thus, I turned and walked out of my room, worries gone from my mind. Time to go and lead my flock, as I was chosen to do so. In fact, thinking about it, I already had an idea on how to further cement my place as ruler. It was a tad risky, but I had faith in them. And in my own powers of persuasion.

[redsightstories]

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

“What do you think we are going to find there? In Eden, I mean.” I said, startling Mary a little with the sudden statement. Apparently, she had been deep in thought. But she quickly recovered, her eyebrows knitting together as she considered the question.

            “What do you think we are going to find there? In Eden, I mean.” I said, startling Mary a little with the sudden statement. Apparently, she had been deep in thought. But she quickly recovered, her eyebrows knitting together as she considered the question.

            “I don’t know.” She said. “Eve, I guess. Whoever that is. A woman, probably. I think that’s a feminine name, though I have never heard of anyone who went by it before. A woman, with a strange name, that drove a doctor to suicide and may have something to do with the giant meat monsters that are emerging from nowhere and slaughtering people. Oh, and of course there is a strong possibility of others, because if that memo we found was anything to go off of, she seems to be the head of a large, cult-like organization. And all of her followers, or lackeys, or whatever you want to call them, will probably be none too pleased with the two of us simply rolling into town in a beat-up old car and a lot of questions. And of course, there might simply be another massive, terrible beast made of what seem to be human body parts that is only interested in devouring everything that draws near. Did I miss anything?” She said, looking at me. There was a long pause before I spoke.

            “The ocean, too. Don’t forget, it’s a beach town.” I added seriously, causing Mary to punch me lightly on the shoulder.

            “Really, Joe?” She said with mock exasperation, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Your right, I’m sorry. I just thought we could use a little levity.” The smile slowly faded from my face. “But really, if this place is as dangerous as it seems like it is going to be, then we should try to prepare. Take stock of what we have and what we know.” Mary nodded at that. She was never one to be caught unprepared, and she latched onto this idea instantly. Perhaps even a little too fast. I didn’t want to go guessing, but I had the distinct feeling she was looking to distract herself from her own thoughts.

            “Alright, yeah, sure, good idea. Gives us something to do too. Alright, okay, um, let’s start with the physical. We have us, two people that are fairly experienced in dangerous situations. We have a car, which, while it can be a little unreliable, has so far stayed true through thick and thin. We have The Seventh Shot, and… how many boxes of ammo?” Mary asked, looking to me expectantly. I grimaced.

            “Just one, unfortunately. But we- oh shit!” I said suddenly, causing Mary to jump with the outburst.

“What? What is it?” She demanded.

“We forgot to get your damn Glock! We never went back for it; we just immediately left the doctors house and started heading to Eden!” Mary’s eyes grew wide, and then she groaned, leaning her head back against the seat as she looked up at the ceiling in frustration. She closed her eyes, not looking as she asked me the question.

“Do you think we should go back?” I shook my head despite knowing that she couldn’t see me. It didn’t matter, she already knew the answer.

“No, we’ve already been traveling for hours. To turn around now…it almost feels like it would be inviting calamity. We knew from the moment we left that we were in a race against time. We can’t afford to waste what little we have left.” She nodded slowly.

“You’re right, but I’m not happy about it.” I made a hum of agreement at that.

“Trust me, neither am I. I would much rather my partner and backup be armed.” She nodded but continued her breakdown. She lived and died by the policy of no use crying over spilled milk, I suppose. At least, most of the time.

 “So, we have one gun then, and a box of bullets. We have the briefcase, and all the papers within, however useful that may or may not be. A change of clothes, a suicide note from a doctor….and is that really it?” I thought about it, but couldn’t bring to mind anything she was forgetting. Mary’s mouth twitched in annoyance.

“Not great. We don’t even have on police vests or anything like that. If we encounter another one of those beasts there, or any sort of large group, or who knows what else, we essentially have nothing but your gun and our wits to keep us alive. And frankly, the guns never seemed to do much against these creatures.”

I hummed in response. “We managed to delay the thing in the hospital, remember? Like when I shot a hole in one of the arms, and you hit it with the briefcase to save that kid.” She pursed her lips at that.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, but delay is all we did. We have yet to actually kill, or even stop, one of these things. I hate to say it, but I really feel like we are outmatched at every turn.” She made a noise of frustration. “Three things. A gun, a box of bullets, and a briefcase. You wouldn’t happen to have anything that could help us in the case, do you?” I shook my head.

“Not unless you count a tube of antiseptic I carry around.”

“Great, we can use it to kill any bacteria that make it into the weeping wounds we are sure to get from one of those beasts.” A moment of silence fell over the car as the realization of how bad the situation truly was set in, before Mary spoke again.

“What are those things, really? Every time we have the misfortune of running into one it’s different from the last, different body parts in different places, yet with consistent throughlines in all of them, like the tube in the back. But what’s the purpose? I know that’s what we are hoping to figure out by going to this Eden, but I still can’t help but think about it now.”

“Hmmmm. Perhaps they aren’t anything new at all, but something old that has been twisted into something that looks new. Thinking about it now, and looking back, you know what comes to mind? It was something I saw in the street, and this had to be around a month ago, but I feel like it may be related to those… things.” Mary gave me a look of interest, which I took as a sign to continue.

“Well, you know there has been the pork ban in effect, right?” Mary nodded.

“Sure, but I don’t think anyone really cares about that much at this particular moment.”

“Well, obviously, but see the thing is when that ban was first put out, it was because they said that pigs were getting some weird disease. I figured, you know fair enough, it happens, but then I saw something while I was walking down the street. It was a pig, just running around. I don’t know how it got there, maybe it fell out the back of a truck or escaped a slaughterhouse or something, but the main thing about it was that it looked just awful.” I shuddered just thinking about its cold dead eyes and shriveled, wet skin.

“It was foaming at the mouth, and had no sense to it at all, just running through the street, not even reacting in the slightest to cars missing it by inches. I mean, this thing looked like it had just risen from the grave Mary.”

“Did you get near it?” She asked, and I shook my head in response.

“No, I never got the chance. Before I could barely react to it, there was an animal control van screeching to a stop in front of it, and far too many men pouring out. They got it good alright, making damn sure not to touch it. But you know what I saw Mary, as they were leading that poor thing into the van?” I turned and looked at her here. “I saw a third eye, right in the middle of its forehead, big and yellow and rolling every which way. Now doesn’t that sound familiar?”

Mary narrowed her eyes. “What, you think that pig you saw is connected in some way to these creatures that have been attacking us?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t bet against it. Just seems like one hell of a coincidence is all I’m saying.”

“And you think that these pigs they were, what, the first things infected, or taken over, or changed, or whatever?” She shook her head. “It sounds absurd, but then again, there have been some truly absurd things I have seen in these past few days. What’s one more to the pile?” I let out a heavy sigh.

“Hopefully, we will get some answers at this Eden. Or at least someone to yell at.” She shook her head at that, the slightest of smiles passing over her lips. Then she yawned, and I knew the conversation would come to a close soon, for better or for worse. I had to fight down my own desire to yawn alongside her, as I knew there were still miles to go before I slept.

“I’m tired. I think I’m going to try and get some shuteye. Will you be good to drive for now?” Mary asked me, to which I gave a small nod.

“Yeah, go ahead and get whatever you can. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a very busy day.” With that affirmation, she gave me a small nod and rested her head against the window, and within a few short minutes her breathing had become slow and steady, and I knew she was out. I was alone, with nothing but the sound of wheel against pavement and my own thoughts to keep me company. I turned the radio on, keeping it low to hopefully not wake Mary, hoping to get some updates on the world at large, but only static filled my ears no matter what channel I turned it into. Now, was that just because we had no signal out here, or because all the radio stations had gone down? I wanted to believe the former, but I knew that it was almost certainly the latter.

So, that left me with nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company, and I really didn’t want to do any thinking right now. So I made the conscious choice to focus solely on the road, not thinking about the fact we had no idea what would be waiting for us in Eden, not thinking about the fact that every single station on the radio was out, not thinking about the creature that had to be at least thirty feet tall eating a man whole in front of my very eyes. I didn’t even think about the doctor who had committed suicide, who apparently felt so terrible about whatever it was that he did that he decided to take the most permanent solution there was. I didn’t think about any of that.

No, I just concentrated on the road as night slowly, ever so slowly, turned to day, as the dark sky first grayed, then brightened into orange and red, then blue. I watched as the stars winked out one by one until only one remained, the one directly in front of me, still guiding me forward, towards Eden, until even that one was swallowed by the sun. That very celestial body started to beat down on the roof of the car, slowly increasing the heat until I was forced to turn the air conditioning on. This continued on for many more hours, until the sun was high in the sky, almost directly above our heads. It was nice, in a way, almost relaxing, just me and the road.

However, as I drove a new problem presented itself, one I simply couldn’t ignore. We were running out of gas. The light for it had been lit for at least half an hour now, and I frankly couldn’t believe the poor car was still moving. I had been hoping to run into a gas station, or a house, or even another car I could siphon gas from, but there had been nothing for the entire trip, just the repeating road in front of me and the desert landscape all around. Finally, despite my best whispered pleading at the car to not give out for just a little bit longer, the engine sputtered, gasped, wheezed, and finally died, managing to roll us a few feet further before we ground to a halt.

The noise woke Mary from her slumber, to which she squinted at the bright landscape, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Confusion slowly morphed into understanding, causing her to glare at me.

“Dammit Joe, you let me sleep for way too long. It’s gotta be midday, you’ve been driving way into my turn. You need sleep too, you know.” I shook my head at that.

“We have bigger problems Mary. We’re out of gas, and there is nothing around for miles. I think we’re going to have to get out and walk.” She looked at me, confusion on her face, before looking back out the windshield and back at me. I put my hands up in exasperation, unsure of what she was doing. “What, Mary? I know it’s not ideal, but I don’t really see any other option.”

“I don’t want to be presumptive Joe, but what about that town right there?” She said, pointing out the window.

“What?” I said, turning and looking, surprised to see that there was, indeed, a small collection of squat concrete buildings right in front of us, most of them facing into the road, like an old western cowboy town. Not that there was really enough here to call it a town there couldn’t have been more than twenty buildings total. Just beyond them, the coast lay, waves gently splashing up on the shore, and even further beyond that, far out in the ocean, there was a structure only just barely visible. I couldn’t believe I had missed it; I must have been so worried looking for a wreaked car or something of the like that I had glossed right over it. Either that, or Mary was right, and I was far more exhausted than I thought I was.

“You think this is it, Joe? You think this is Eden?” Mary asked me, and I simply pointed to a small sign almost directly across the road from where we had rolled to a stop, on which that very name was painted in worn-away green letters. It was good to know that I wasen’t the only person that could miss the obvious.

“Looks like we made it after all.” We both got up out of the car, stretching our legs after the long ride. Nobody came out to greet us, in fact there were no signs of life in this place at all. It might as well have looked exactly like this for the past one hundred years, untouched by human hands. The only sound was a distant one, the waves of the ocean lapping against the shore, and even that seemed strangely muted. As we walked slowly down the center of the street, my hand on my gun and Mary bringing up the rear, I looked back at my car, the old clunker that she was, and gave it a silent goodbye in my head. Something told me that no matter what happened here today, I would never see it again. There was that sort of sense of finality in the air.

“Joe, come check this out.” Mary said, shaking me out of my farewell. She gestured for me to join her at a window she had her hands cupped against, which she was using to peer into against the glare of the sun. I went over and joined her in her snooping, becoming privy to an empty living room which looked as abandoned as the rest of the town. However, on closer inspection I noticed something strange, difficult to see through the dusty glass, but undeniably there. Thin red lines, almost like yarn or string, sprawled up from beneath the floorboards to cover the walls and ceiling, covering the whole room like a disturbed child’s art project. As we watched, they pulsed slightly, the movement slowly, almost lazily, moving up from the bottom to the top. The more I looked the more I realized there were, and I became aware that it was not red striped wallpaper that covered the room, like I had initially assumed, but thicker versions of the red objects that spread out and covered everything. Even the furniture, in all its moldy glory, had the tubes wrapped around it, seemingly rooted into its very fabric.

“What the fuck….” I whispered softly, having trouble understanding what I was really seeing here. This was nothing like the beasts we had seen before. Those had always seemed like independent creatures, operating of their own free will and instincts, if they even had such things. But this seemed more like an infection than a creature, taking over the very structure it had literally sunken into. I glanced over at Mary, who gave me a look that told me she was as unnerved as I was. She turned to gaze in the opposite direction, and I noticed the door to the residency, shut firmly closed. Another exchange of looks with Mary, and she nodded silently, walking over to try the doorknob, with nothing but the crunch of dust underneath her shoes and the sound of the ocean in the distance to fill the silence.

I realized suddenly that there was more than just the sound of the ocean, the smell of its salt was sharp here, almost overpowering, and I felt the most intense sense of Deja vu I had ever experienced. I watched as Mary reached for the doorknob in what seemed to be slow motion, wanting to scream at her to stop, that we had made a mistake and that she should not, could not, open that door, but finding myself unable to muster the words from my mouth. I could only watch in silent horror as she touched it, and, with a swift turn of the wrist, found it to be locked.

I released a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding, leaning against the building for support. Mary turned at me and shrugged, and all I could do in response was nod. She gestured for us to head to the next house, and I followed, trying to pull myself back together. She waited for me to catch up and together we peered in, not knowing what we were going to see, terrified of what it might be, but knowing we had to look anyway.

It was a kitchen this time, with nice tiles, a built-in sink, and even a gas range with a lovely looking hood over it. There was a doorway leading out of the room deeper into the house directly across from us, and resting next to it was a bag looking item. Unfortunately, all of the amenities were overshadowed by more of the strange red tube things, which covered the appliances, walls, and even the window we gazed through to see the strange sight. The bag in the corner had it worst of all, with it being covered top to bottom in the strange tubes, so much so that it was impossible to discern it’s original colors.

I shook my head, trying to think of an explanation for what this could possibly be and coming up short. It almost seemed like a mold or fungus, but like none I had ever seen nor heard about before. Beyond that, I found it difficult to believe that any sort of mold could survive in this oppressive desert heat, but I was no mycologist. Suddenly, I heard Mary take a deep, shuttering breath, and she tapped me on the shoulder, pointing at something in the corner of the kitchen. Peering close, I saw that the thing I had initially assumed to be a bag or duffle left on the ground was slowly squirming, back and forth, back and forth.

We just stared at it for a long minute. I wasen’t sure if we were waiting to see what it would do, or what would happen, or even if we were waiting at all, and just processing it. We just stared at it is at slowly squirmed in place, back and forth, back and forth. It was almost hypnotic. Finally, I broke the silence, my voice coming out hoarse and raspy as I asked:

“Do you… think we should go in there and… cut it open…or…?” I ended with uncertainty, not sure of how to procced. Mary just shook her head; uncertainty etched in her face. This wasen’t the adrenaline high that the other beasts had been, this was something quiet and terrible and so very, very slow moving. I finally managed to pull my face away from the window and look around the street, half expecting to see one of the beasts rushing at us, jaws dripping with saliva and hands grasping, but it remained as silent and undisturbed as before. That is, until I heard something. It was almost imperceptible at first, so quiet it was beneath the soft wind and the distant ocean waves, but it was unmistakable. Someone, or something, was eating something crunchy. I turned back to Mary, who still had her eyes pressed up against the window, enraptured by the strange, softly squirming lump. I tapped her on the shoulder, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“What?” She hissed, and I put my finger to my lips, indicating for her to remain quiet as I simultaneously tapped my ear, letting her know to listen. I didn’t know what was making that noise, but I knew it was a bad idea to go advertising our position to whatever it was with our chatter. Mary nodded, understanding my signal, and we both stood there for a long moment in silence. At least thirty seconds had to pass before we heard it again, just long enough that I was beginning to think that I had imagined it. But there it was again, that soft crunching sound, and this time, with me concentrating on it, I could tell it came from across the street, on the other side of the buildings there. I gestured for Mary to follow me, and she once again nodded, getting behind me as I slowly grabbed The Seventh Shot from its holster, slowly walking across the street towards the sound.

It was quiet once more, and we made it to the opposite side with little fanfare. I peered down the small alley that was formed from the two buildings, seeing a surprising sight. Green grass sprouted from the ground, at odds with the red and yellow sand that surrounded us on all sides. I gestured with my head to Mary to point it out, and all she could do was simply shrug. She was as lost at what was going on as I was. There was only one way forward that I could think of to get answers. Slowly, we crept forward, The Seventh Shot’s safety off and finger resting next to the trigger. I didn’t know what we would find here, but I wanted to be as prepared as possible. After what seemed to be an eternity, my boots finally left the hard crunch of sand and entered the embrace of the soft grass, signaling the end of the alley and the beginning of the strange grassy area.

I gestured for Mary to stop and positioned myself right on the corner of the building. Looking out directly across from where we stood, the grass continued on for perhaps a couple hundred feet before quickly transitioning back to sand and rocks, after which the endless desert stretched. Peering to the left, back towards the road, I saw that the grass patch was even shorter there, only going about fifty feet in that direction before terminating behind some buildings, which explains why we didn’t see it when we first arrived. Finally, I turned to the right, peeking out towards the ocean.

There, as if waiting for us, was a single tree, tall and strong but with wilting leaves and branches, as though it were dying. Despite that, it had magnificent red apples practically dripping from its branches, begging to be eaten. Behind it rested the ocean, with the same structure we had seen earlier resting in it, which now that we had gotten closer could see was an oil rig, red and rusted. Finally, under the tree, resting without a care in the world, was a small, petite woman, with pale skin and long blond hair. She seemed almost ethereally beautiful, elven like, as though she didn’t belong here on this earth, most certainly not in this dry, barren desert. She was wearing a white dress, somehow perfectly clean despite the dust in the air. And at last, the source of the noise, as she takes a bite of an apple she has clearly plucked from the dying tree, creating a clear crunch the likes of which we had just been following as she looks out to the ocean.

Despite how lovely she was, despite her calm demeanor and non-threating stance and expression, something about this woman was deeply, deeply unnerving to me. It was as though I was looking at a painting of a beautiful woman whose proportions were just ever so slightly off, not enough to be aware of them but just enough that the subconscious mind picked up on it. It was, in a way, scarier than any beast we had encountered.

I glanced back at Mary for reassurance and found her staring intently at the scene from around my shoulders. I make a motion to my partner, asking if she thinks it’s a good idea to make our presence known despite my misgivings. If we are going to do anything, we are going to do it together, we have come too far to start making decisions without consulting one another by now. She took a long moment to think about it, staring at the strange woman and the strange tree and the off feeling the entire scene produced, and in that moment, I wished I had the ability to read her mind, to know what was going through her head without having to communicate out loud. But finally, she slowly nodded, and, despite my worries, I agreed with her. This was the way forward.

I took a deep breath, held it, and stepped out of the alleyway into the odd clearing, making my presence known, Mary following shortly behind me. We stood side by side, looking at the white dressed woman in the broad light of day, and it took her a moment to recognize our presence, enamored with the ocean that she was. When she finally did, she turned, looking at us with blue eyes that seemed to sparkle like light reflecting off a still, murky pool. There was no surprise on her face, indeed she seemed almost pleased to see us. When she opened her mouth, it was with perfectly straight white teeth and a voice that was both reassuring and terrifying at the same time that she asked a question I never would have anticipated.

“Oh, visitors, how unexpected. I assume you brought gifts?”

[redsightstories]

Gold, Frankincense And Myrrh

The drive had been surprisingly uneventful up to now. Mary and I had snuck out of the doctors house under the cover of darkness, making every effort to avoid attracting attention as we could right after deciphering what the note was really saying. Or at least, hopefully deciphering what it said. Mary had seemed to accept my reasoning about Eden actually being about the town readily enough, but in all honesty, I still had my doubts. It all just seemed to work out a little too well, this idea that Dr. Saul had intentionally left a note that gave a cute little clue on where to go for any random detectives that happened to wander into his house. It all just fit together a little too cleanly, like someone or even something was trying to pull us towards that town. And frankly, I do not enjoy being pushed around like a pawn piece in a chess game, but what was there to do about it?

            What was the point of bringing it up to Mary anyway, or even arguing with myself about it? There was no other place to turn to, no other place to go. It was either go to Eden, or bunker up in some random hole and wait for either the creatures or the military/police to find us, whichever came first. And I knew that neither her nor I would be willing to take the second option. So that meant it was time to hit the road. Mary had insisted on driving, saying that I needed to get some sleep and that she had gotten plenty in the hospital. I had attempted to protest, saying that her leg was still injured, but she had just glared at me for several excruciating seconds before I relented.

            “You’re tired Joe.” Is all she had said, and I couldn’t find it in myself to argue. I was tired. So I got in the passenger seat of my old beater, and I gave some basic directions to Mary until she managed to get on the highway. Despite my best attempt to keep my eyes open for any creatures that may appear, before I knew it my eyes had slipped closed, and I was gone.

            My sleep was mercifully heavy, and I didn’t have any dreams. When I awoke later, my eyelids were heavy like they always are after a hard rest and it was still dark out, but the moon had shifted it’s position in the sky somewhat, indicating that at least several hours had passed. I glanced out at the passing scenery, seeing only the occasionally dimly lit bush or scraggly tree. I turned to look at Mary, who glanced at me and gave me a small smile before returning her eyes to the road. Stretching, I attempted to blink the remaining sleep out of my eyes. I would kill for a coffee right now.

            “Where are we? How long have I been out?” I asked, trying to get my bearings. It always took me a second to reoriented upon waking up, especially when it was in a moving car. Something about it just threw my internal compass completely of kilter.

            “It’s about one in the morning. The sun went down right as we left the house, and you fell asleep shortly after that. It’s been about six hours. You can keep resting if you want. Nothing has happened, at least not yet, and if I see… something, I’ll wake you up.” I knew what that pause meant, of course. She meant a creature, one of those creatures that I still could hardly believe was real.

            I stretched and yawned, adjusting in my seat. It was a tempting offer, but I knew that there was no way I would be able to get back to sleep for at least a while. There was simply too much swirling around in my mind to be able to drift back off. No, blissful unconsciousness would not visit me again, at least not on this car ride. Instead, I gazed out the window, watching the arid landscape fly by me.

            Now that I finally had a moment to think and process everything that had happened, the insanity of it all really started to sink in. Giant, multi-armed monsters? Pillars of flesh hiding in the basements of women’s shelters? A cult, seemingly behind it all? And somehow, me and Mary had gotten mixed up right into the middle of it. My earlier thought about being pushed and pulled around returned to me, and I gazed up at the sky, at that oh so bright star that always seemed to be guiding me… guiding us forward. Even now it sat at the end of the road on which we were traveling, shining like a lighthouse guiding a boat to shore. I might not have thought anything of it, except for the fact that I was certain it was the north star, and we were heading south.

            I sighed and turned to Mary, taking a moment to really look at her. Despite her protests otherwise, she looked exhausted. Heavy bags hung under her eyes, and I saw a slight wince of pain every time she moved her legs. Her clothes were tattered and filthy, not that mine could be said to be much better. We really needed to find a moment to stop and change. But beyond all of that, I could see something in her that she didn’t have the last time I saw her. That fire in her eyes that made her such a good partner. She was on a case now, she had a lead, and nothing was going to stop her from getting to the bottom of this.

I thought back to that day, the day when we first met. It had been a cold, rainy day, like so many of them seem to be, and we were each doing an individual investigation into a case. It was a murder of a particularly unfortunate young man, a nobody who’s most noticeable trait was his peculiar white hair. Poor bastard was electrocuted to death, a real nasty way to die, and both me and Mary suspected foul play. We ran into each other while on the crime scene, and we almost instantly started butting heads as we kept getting in each other’s way. We almost lost the ability to work on the case entirely because of it, with our bickering driving the police up the wall. It wasen’t until we decided to suck it up and give it one last try, to set our differences aside and compare notes like adults, that we finally started to put the pieces together.

To cut a long story short, one really best left for another time, the poor guy was killed by some dame by the name of Abigail, a real psychopath type. She had done an excellent job covering it up, which is what led to us agreeing to work together in the first place. We found that by working together we were able to cover each other’s weaknesses, see what the other couldn’t. Mary had a knack for noticing the small details that often-escaped others sights, and she could keep a cool head no matter what, a trait that was very useful when shit hit the proverbial fan. But on the other hand, it was easy for her to lose track of the big picture, only see the forest for the trees, which would often lead her to circle the same dead lead for days. But worse than that, she didn’t really get people, get their emotions and the way those feelings would affect their actions, the way I did. And I’m not saying this to tear her down, she has said this to me multiple times herself, even once referring to it as her “greatest flaw.”

I, on the other hand, almost understand the Why, the motivations, the reasons for doing it, if given enough time. It’s the How that I would struggle with, and that’s where Mary comes in, putting that together like one builds a tower, starting at the base and working her way up with each individual piece until she’s got a mountain of evidence that is impossible to dispute. It’s a thing of beauty to watch, really.

Back in the present, I really took in Mary, that cold fire in her eyes, and I was truly grateful to see it again. “Hey, remember how we met?” I asked her, and I saw the ghost of a smile flicker across her face.

“Sure. We somehow managed to both be investigating the Abigail case at the same time. We hated each other, at least at first.” I laughed at that, which caused Mary to raise an eyebrow.

“Well, I don’t know if I would say I hated you, I just thought you were a bit of a tool.” I laughed, and her eyes flicked to me for a moment, an action that would have probably been nothing to anyone else, but to me told me she was as amused as I was.

“A tool, huh? Well, that’s fair I suppose, considering I thought you were an old man who would be better off sitting on a front porch, talking about how much better the good old days were.” She said, never taking her eyes off the road. I looked at her, watching for any trace of mirth, but her stony visage betrayed nothing, I sighed, leaning back in my chair.

“I’m only a few years older than you, you know. I am not old. Still in the prime of my life, even. But besides that, there are some traditions that stick around for a reason, because they work and work well. You would have to be, well, a tool to ignore that.” I said, watching the road just as intently as she did in faux interest. I could almost hear her roll her eyes at me.

“But then you asked me to go get a coffee with you. I thought you were hitting on me.” She reminisced. I scoffed at that.

“Hardly. That was the furthest thing from my mind, I hated you, remember? Or so you say.” I almost heard a hint of a laugh from her. “We were on a case, and nothing helps get a fresh perspective like a warm cup of joe. I remember, you got a black coffee, bitter as all hell. Like you.” I ribbed. She shook her head, but kept the story going.

“And you got a double shot espresso, one sugar one cream. The same thing, every time. A man of habit, you are.” I smirked at that. It was true. “We got out the paperwork, laid it all out right there on the table, middle of the day in a crowded dinner. The chief would have killed us.” I nodded thoughtfully.

“The case hadn’t gone public yet.” I continued. “He wanted it on the hush hush, but at that point we were just about at our wits end. We were willing to do anything to try to get a foothold, regulations be damned. And if someone saw us, well they could just about go screw themselves. Ha!” I had to laugh at that, a real laugh. It felt good, I hadn’t laughed like that in what felt like months.

“And then we saw it.” She said, a smile finally gracing her lips. I knew what she was going to say, so I joined her, saying it at the same time. “The school.” She shot me a wry smile, then continued. “It all connected back to it, but it was so infrequent that nobody had made the connection until then. I pointed out that it kept popping up, but I couldn't figure out why. Not until you pointed it out.”

It was my turn now, and I continued, almost able to see the dingy dinner and taste the mediocre coffee now. “The victim was enrolled there, that’s right. Nobody thought anything of it, until I saw that one of his fellow students was taking a little too much interest in the case itself. It was more than just trying to be a good classmate; it was an obsession for her.”

Mary nodded, eyes still on the road but far away, clearly thinking back to that day. “Once you pointed that out, it all clicked into place. The way she kept popping up in his life, the way they were in several classes together even though she far exceeded him academically, and, like you said, her strange need to keep up with the investigation. Once we saw that, it was easy to take it to the police and get a warrant.”

What a day that had been. It was Mary’s first time raiding a house, and although it wasn’t for me, it was by far the most unnerving, and it remained that way until the woman’s shelter’s basement. The whole place had been filled to the brim with gizmos and gadgets, most of them impossible to parse what they actually did. “She thought she had discovered the secret to eternal life.” I murmured. “Insanity.” Mary gave an exasperated sigh at the memory of that day but nodded for me to continue.

“All holed up in the basement, screaming about how she was going to live forever, that we were nothing compared to her.” Mary stole a quick glance at me, knowing what happened next.

“I never should have gotten that close to the door.” She frowned, and I waved away her frustrations with a flip of the hand.

“We were all excited. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. She wanted to kill someone that day, it's obvious looking back on it now.”

“You took a bullet for me Joe! If you hadn’t shoved me out of the way it surely would have hit something vital. It was damn lucky that you were wearing a bulletproof vest.” Now it was my turn to scoff.

“Lucky? Luck had nothing to do with it Mary, it was preparation. You gotta be prepared for anything when you’re in those sorts of situations. A lesson I know you took to heart.” She gave a small nod at that.

“I never forgot that day Joe. I never forgot how close I came to the end of everything, and I never forgot how you saved me from it. Thank you.” I felt the corner of my mouth tug upwards into a slight grin as she started to do it again. Thanking me, that is.

            “Mary, I told you. You don’t need to keep thanking me. The first time was more than sufficient, and besides, it’s not like you haven’t paid it back many times over since then. We’re partners, helping each other is what we do.” She sighed at that.

            “I know, I know, that’s what you say every time. But I never stop being thankful Joe. For what you did, and for you.” She turned and looked at me then, and I saw in her eyes that she was being truthful. “I know I said this at the hospital, but I don’t know what I would have done without you. I’m sorry I left.” Her face barely changed at all, she was good at hiding her emotions like that, but I could tell from her voice that she was truly upset.

            “Mary…I’m sorry too. This is my fault, honestly. When you left, I thought that maybe you just needed some space, to think things through. I thought you wanted to be left alone. But then you just…didn’t come back, and I didn’t do anything. First it was days, then weeks, then months, and I never once tried to contact you. That was wrong of me.” I was surprised at the amount of emotion in my own voice, I had never realized how much it bothered me that she was gone until right now. But that was a lie, wasen’t it. It had bothered me from day one, I had just chosen not to think about it. Because that was easier. I registered on some level that Mary had pulled over onto the side of the road, probably because she was having difficulty concentrating.

            “And I thought it was because I wanted to give you space, but looking back it’s because, well, it was easier for me. I hate confrontation of that kind, you know, the emotional sort.” She snorted at that. “But it was wrong.” I was repeating myself. “Uh, I guess what I am trying to say Mary, is that I missed you. I’m glad you’re back. Even if it took the end of the world for it to happen.” She shook her head at that, suddenly looking incredibly tired.

            “I’m happy to see you again too Joe. And, again, it’s not your fault, it was mine. I never even told you why I left.”

            “Mary... it was pretty obvious. I knew you were pregnant; it’s not like you kept it a secret from me. You talked about how excited you were to raise a kid all the time. Then you disappear one day, don’t contact me for months after, and now that we are back together you have never once mentioned… well, a baby.” The final word hung in the air long after I said it, so heavy it almost felt like it was physically suffocating me. Mary didn’t say anything, but instead just put her forehead on the steering wheel, hiding her face. It struck me once again how tired she looked, in this beat-up old car in the desert in the middle of the night. Finally, I spoke up, saying something I probably should have said a long, long time ago.

            “Do you want to talk about it?”

            For an extended moment, she didn’t say anything. It got to the point where I was starting to consider the idea that she had fallen asleep. Not an unreasonable thing, we had been through quite a lot, and she had been driving through the better part of the night. But finally she sighed, reassuring me she was still in the land of the waking.

            “I don’t know Joe.” A pause. “Will you take the wheel for a bit? I think that we need to keep moving. Who knows how much time we really have.”

            “Sure.” I said, and we quickly got out of the car and switched places. The night air was cold on my skin, and I once again glanced up at the stars, unable to not notice the brightest one of them all. The sky was especially clear tonight, out here in the desert where there was little light pollution. But looking around, I realized it was more than that. The streetlights that peppered the highway were off. There was no power flowing through their wires. I wondered if that was just out here, or if the entire state had lost power. I wondered if the entire world had. But then I was back in the car, and the universe, at least for now, again shrunk down to just me, Mary, and the creaking of old leather.

            My hands easily gripped onto the steering wheel, I had been using this old girl for so long that there were practically indents at the ten and two marks. Thankfully it only took a couple of tries to get the engine to turn over, and then we were back on the road, me in the driver’s seat and Mary resting her head on the passenger window. A long stretch of silence ensued, with me just trying to concentrate on the road and not think about anything in particular, trying to ignore the strange atmosphere that filled the car. I watched the scruffy plant life flicker by, and I wondered why we had encountered no beasts since we had left the hospital. I barely knew anything about what was going on, of course, but if I had to wager a guess it was due to the fact that it was, well, the middle of the desert. There were no humans out here, in fact there was barely any animal life. These things, they always targeted people or at least living things, and there was none of that here. Why they were doing that, who knows, but one thing at a time.

            “Do you look at the stars at all Joe?” Mary suddenly spoke up, startling me a little. But after that split second, I knew what she was asking immediately. I glanced away from the road for a moment to look up and confirm that yes, we were still heading south, towards the north star. Mary wasen’t just making idle conversation, that was for sure.

            “It’s odd, isn’t it? I was never much of an astronomer before.” She continued. “And yet I find myself looking to the sky often nowadays.” I nodded.

            “Because of it right? The one that shines brighter. That seemed to guide you.” We both looked up at the inky blackness again.

            “Let me ask you a question Mary. Do you ever feel like you’re being yanked around, like you’re a pawn in a much bigger game?” I asked, and she narrowed her eyes ever so slightly.

            “Only recently. But what can we do about it? Should we do something about it? It’s not like it hasn’t been helpful.” I was surprised to hear that.

            “What do you mean? Did it do something for you?” I asked, causing Mary to seem surprised herself.

            “Did I not mention it before? That’s odd, I could have sworn I did. Well, when I was in the woods, trying to get Casper back, it was almost like… almost like the star helped guide me too him, and then helped guide me away.  As strange as it is to say, I’m almost certain I would have died in those woods if it wasen’t for its help.”

            Despite Mary assuming that we had talked about this before, this was all news to me. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, had I told her about the star guiding me to the woman’s shelter, and then helping me find I window to escape the fire?

            “Did I tell you about how it helped me? When I was trapped in the fire, it guided me to a window so that I could break it open and escape. I would almost have certainly died in there without it.”

            Mary shook her head slowly. “No Joe, no you didn’t tell me that. It’s pretty unlike you to omit such an important detail.”

            “The same to you. One of us forgetting to mention it, I could buy, but both? Mere days after it happened to us? That seems most strange indeed.” There was a long moment of silence between us for a moment. I glanced at the sky yet again, half expecting the star to be gone now that we had finally acknowledged its existence, its influence that it was exerting over us, but no, it remained in the sky, still guiding us forward. Mary sighed.

            “So, what, first giant aberrations of flesh attack us, and now a celestial body is somehow manipulating us into doing… something? Why? For what reason? None of this makes any sense Joe, I hate it.” She aggressively shook her head.

            “I agree, it doesn’t. But, like you said, it has been nothing but helpful to us. And right now, we need all the help we can get, even if that help comes from the sky. At night. As a star.” I suddenly wondered if perhaps I had simply gone insane and was just imagining all of this. But the aching of my joints and the hardness of the seat pressing into my back assured me that this was all very real. Mary let out a harsh bark of a laugh and turned to look out the window, only allowing me to see the back of her head.

            “You know what, sure. Why not. Better to be a star’s pawn than to be eaten alive by an abomination, I guess. Might as well see this through, it’s not like I’m doing anything else.” Her voice turned bitter. “It’s not like I have any goddamn obligations. I wonder if that fucking star took that away from me too.”

            I knew what she meant. She was talking about the child, without prompting, perhaps for the first time since it had happened. With that slight encouragement, I figured now was as good of time as any to ask a question that had bothering me for a long time, as we had nothing better to do and, well, I may not get the chance again.

            “Mary, can I ask you something?” She gave a nod, the movement barely noticeable as she continued to watch the blackness of the night roll by.

            “Why did you want a child? I apologize if that comes across as blunt but, well, you never really stuck me as a “mother” type, no offence, and when you first told me you were pregnant, I figured a question like that would uncouth. On top of that, you never even mentioned who the father was. I must admit, I was, and am, curious.”

             Mary didn’t turn away from the window, and for a long moment she didn’t respond. I had figured it might take her a moment, but her answer came much quicker than I anticipated. I got the feeling that perhaps she had been thinking about this for a while.

            “It’s alright, that’s a very fair question. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Why does anyone want a child? I guess, when I think about it, the idea of bringing a new life into the world, watching it grow and learn and hopefully, become something better than me, it gives me this sense of joy that nothing else does in that way. It’s almost like hope, you could say. It makes me optimistic about the world, and that everything continues on, despite it all. With our line of work, we see so much death and despair that something like that seems almost mythical to me. Does that make sense?”

            I looked over at her, but she was still looking out the window, staring at nothing. I returned my eyes to the road and answered. “I think so. A better reason than most, even, I would say. It’s just you just never really seemed to be that interested in that sort of thing. You never mentioned it to me.”

            “Well, it was always in the back of my mind, but it never made sense financially or timewise before. That is, until about a year ago. The jobs were coming in steady, I had built a decent amount of capital, and I was officially a homeowner. I figured now was a good of a time as any.”

            “Just like that?” I said, to which Mary made a strange noise.

            “No, not ‘just like that.’ I thought long and hard about it before making the plunge. But at some point, you have to stop thinking and start doing. So, I went and did it. As for the father, it was an anonymous donor. I have no idea who he was or what he was like, beyond some basic info like height, weight, education level, that sort of thing. I didn’t think it was super important.”

            I nodded slowly. “So, you wanted a child…but without the father? I’m not sure I fully understand your thought process Mary, but if it made you happy, then who am I to judge? It’s not as if I have never done unusual things in the pursuit of happiness.”

            For the first time she turned to look at me, a mild look of shock on her face as though she had just realized something. “I was happy.” She murmured, almost surprised. “It was the happiest I had ever been, I think. I woke up every day looking forward to the next.” A small smile crept onto her face. “Everything was right in the world.” Slowly, the smile faded, and she was back to the stony expression that so rarely seemed to go away.

            “But then everything just… fell apart, so quickly I could barely keep track. It was like a nightmare that I couldn’t stop, it just kept going faster and faster and I was just holding on for my life. My parents died in a car accident Joe; did I even tell you that? Just weeks before I was due.” I shook my head slowly. I didn’t know that. I had no idea.

            “Man, that had been a rough couple of weeks.” She gave an ugly, terrible laugh at that, and I grimaced at it. I didn’t think it was very funny at all.

            “But I thought to myself, ‘They would want me to keep going.’ That was the kind of people they were, ones that always persevered. I thought of myself that same way too. I thought I could do it. It was hard, so hard, but I knew that I could handle it. But then…but then…” Her voice trailed off her, leaving us in silence.

            “You lost the baby.” I said softly. I knew it needed to be said out loud, to finally be acknowledged in plain words. No more dancing around it. She looked at me then, and her expression was the same as it ever was, unreadable, but now silent tears ran down her face. I wouldn’t have even known if I hadn’t looked at her.

            “That’s the thing Joe; I didn’t lose the baby. He was born, happy and healthy, crying with good strong lungs. The moment I heard that, I knew he was going to be perfect, an amazing child that would change the world. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, knowing that he was okay. That it was all going to be okay. But then they took him away. They took my boy, said they just wanted to run some test. I only got to hold him for a moment. I didn’t want to give him to them, but they were doctors, and they assured me that it would only be for a moment. So I did. I did Joe, and he never came back.” For the first time her voice hitched.

            “Died from an allergic reaction to the needle, that’s what they told me. They had been drawing a blood sample and he just died from it. I was so weak from everything already, and when they told me that it was like I broke, and I don’t think I have ever recovered, not really. That’s why I never contacted you, why I went full AWOL. I just couldn’t handle anything anymore.” She took a deep shuttering breath here.

            “The hospital never even gave me the body back. And I thought to myself, ‘that can’t be standard procedure, right? There is no way they don’t give the children back to the mother, so they could at least hold a funeral.’ But, and I’m ashamed to admit this but it’s true, I was in such a bad way that I could barely feed myself. If that cat hadn’t basically thrown itself at me, I think I would have died there. Not through suicide, but because I had simply given up on living. That was the kind of state I was in.” I was speechless. It must be incredibly hard for her to be talking about this. I couldn’t even imagine the pain she had gone through, was going through.

            “But I did keep going, and not just because of the cat, although that did help. But because of something that was constantly at the back of my mind, no matter how bad it got, something I couldn’t let go no matter how hard I tried.” She didn’t need to tell me. I knew her, and I knew what it was.

            “Why?” I said, and she nodded.

            “Exactly. That little question kept me going, always tugging at me even when the pain was almost too much to bear. I was a detective, goddamn it, figuring stuff out was my job no matter how close I was to the case, and I can’t shake it off. Why did he die? Why did I never get to see the body? Why was I escorted out of the hospital so quickly when I, by all accounts, was in no shape for even being moved in my condition?”

            I had to admit, I had felt the pull of those questions as well as Mary had told her story. It was in both of our natures, I suppose. We just couldn’t let a stone like that go un-turned.

            “I don’t know the answer to those questions Joe. But, once this is all over, I am going to find out. That is my reason to continue on.” Her voice got a little softer here. “And maybe, along the way, I’ll find something else to keep going for. Who knows? It’s funny, in a way, how that is so much more important to me then this whole…situation.” She gestured broadly around her. “Is that insane? Am I crazy, Joe?” She looked at me, expression back to unreadable, tears dried on her cheeks.

            “You know, it’s funny you ask that, because I was just wondering the same thing about myself. Maybe we are crazy together.” I sighed. “But I don’t think so. Sometimes I think we might be the last two sane people on earth.”  

            “Perhaps you’re right on that. Or rather, maybe we are the only two that have any clue what is going on. A small difference, but a distinct one.” She shook her head. “I wonder what we are going to find at the end of this road. I wonder if we are going to find anything at all.”

            I glanced over at her, and she gave me a small, noncommittal shrug. “Are you alright?” I asked. She sighed.

            “I don’t know. I feel like I’m on the verge of tears, all the time. I hate it. And, honestly, I don’t know if that feeling is ever going to really go away. I don’t think it does. It just sits with you, forever at the back of your mind, weighing you down. I think it’s just something I am going to have to learn how to deal with. It’s the new normal, whether I like it or not. But, talking about it here, with you, has helped. Thank you, Joe, again.” I shrug.

            “Of course. Anytime.” Silence descends over the car, and for a long time neither one of us says anything. I knew that she hadn’t fallen asleep from the way she was sitting, but I was okay with the silence, a moment for both of us to catch our breath, and if she didn’t want to talk then that was fine by me. But finally, I simply had to speak up, for there was a question that I had been mulling over for a while in my head and that I needed to ask.

[redsightstories]

Just A Burning Bush (Part 2)

I wasen’t just worrying about the beasts or looters, you see. I feared that I may be struck by a vision at any point during this journey. Not only would it be obvious to everyone that I was experiencing one, as I was the center of attention of the entire group right now as they followed me, but it was actively dangerous. If we were to be attacked, by human or beast alike, and I were to experience a vision, I would be totally defenseless. I could be kidnapped, or killed, or maybe even something worse. And then there was the issue of the accursed eye, that while I could not see, I was now acutely aware of its existence as it constantly looked around, almost feeling like a light tugging on my side. If anyone were to discover that, serious issues would almost certainly arise.

            And it was this frustration and fear that kept me company as we continued to walk, past debris and wreckage that seemed to stretch on for eternity. This walk, that was supposed to be a mere few hours, was looking as though it would turn into an all-day excursion. This was due not only to the previously mentioned issues, but also to the fact that the roads were much worse than initially expected. At one point we had to turn around entirely because of a collapsed building blocking the road, costing us at least half an hour. And yet, despite the carnage, we met very few people, and not a single beast. It was strange, and more than a little worrying. It felt as though the city itself was watching us every step of the way, waiting to see what we would do.

            We were about three-fourths of the way there when I sent Hagar to go check on everyone, wanting to see how the group was holding up. She came back with news that did not improve my mood. The group in general had slowed way down from the already snails-pace that we had been going to a bare crawl, and some of the more elderly of the group were essentially on the verge of collapse. I hung my head in defeat, knowing that I had to do what I had so desperately been trying to avoid. We were so close, but looking back I could see that what Hagar had told me held true. Everyone was in a bad way; the constant vigilance and difficult terrain had taken its toll on the weak and frail. And thus, I called out to the group, telling them we would be taking an hour long break here, no more and no less. I made it abundantly clear we would be at the building before sundown, something nobody refuted. Perhaps they agreed it was the best course of action, perhaps they were simply too tired. I really didn’t care.

            Accepting defeat, I sat a short distance away from the crowd, eating a bit of the meat from my backpack. I made sure to consume it in such a way that they could not see what it was that I was eating, so as not to raise questions that I did not particularly feel like answering. When I had declared that we would be taking food from nearby stores shortly after deciding that we would be heading to the apartment building, there had been relief. Clearly, nobody liked eating the meat of dubious origin of which I refused to explain much to their chagrin. While they were willing to do what they had to for survival, they would much prefer food with labels and wrappers. Even now, I saw several of my group come out from a nearby abandoned grocery store carrying fresh fruits and vegetables to cheers from the crowd. Those were things that once fetched a high price, something I knew all too well.

            So then, if we no longer had to eat that twisted and grisly meat, why so did our wonderful leader continue to do so? That was not something I particularly wished to answer, and thus I kept my distance. I shuddered as it slid down my throat, feeling it settle heavily in my stomach. I narrowed my eyes and gritted my teeth as I felt the aberration in my side begin to move frantically, as though reacting to the unnatural meal. I shuddered as I felt bile rise in my throat, but managed to keep it down. I would do it for the abilities, for the visions. That being said, I had not received any visions since the one of the deathlike man in the basement, and I had not heard voices for even longer. Perhaps they were becoming less common as time went on, but it had only been about a day; I may be jumping to conclusions. I stared down at the meat in my hand, wondering if what I was doing was wise.

            I ran down the hospital corridor, fear turning my veins to ice. I could hear the thing behind me, grasping and devouring anything that moved. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that I didn’t want to meet it. The lights flicked and faded, and I found myself stumbling, slamming into a gurney and falling to the floor, coughing and panting, barely able to breathe. Feet slammed down around me, kicking me and making it impossible to get up, so I pulled myself underneath the gurney, hoping to find some shelter there. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to make myself as small as possible, hoping that all of this would just go away and that I would wake up back in my own bed, not the hospital one, and mom would come in to tell me to get ready for school. I made a silent promise that as long as nothing happened to me I would study my algebra, I swear, and I would admit to mom that I was the one who had broken her favorite vase, not the dog, and there would be no more playing around at the junkyard, which is what got me into this mess in the first place. If I had never cut myself on that nail I wouldn’t have to be in this stupid hospital in the first place. Freaking Tetanus.  

            I opened my eyes, just to a squint, and saw a pair of people limping down the hall, making the turn and nearly slamming into the very gurney that I was hiding under. “Where is the exit to this goddamn place?” I heard a woman growl, and I peered out from my hiding place to get a better look at them. One was a woman, presumably the one I just heard talking, dark skinned and carrying a briefcase. She had bandages around her leg, something that was clearly slowing her down. Supporting her was a man, tall, pale, and gaunt with a bit of stubble peppering his face. His dark coat almost seemed to almost swallow both of them, and he wore a face of grim determination. Neither of them seemed to notice me.

            I nearly called out to them, to beg for their help to get me out of here, and indeed I stretched out a hand and nearly grabbed onto the man’s coat, before they abruptly moved forward, going around the gurney and once again leaving me alone. I pulled my hand back underneath the gurney and once again tried to make myself as small as possible. The power suddenly cut out for good this time, casting everything into darkness and I screamed in fear, terrified of the inky blackness that suddenly surrounded me. But through it, I smelled something new.

            It was a blessing, helping to calm my nerves, to relax. It was the smell of my mother cooking my favorite meal, tuna-fish casserole. I could almost see it being placed down in front of me, and could almost taste it as I dug into the delicious warmth of the noodles. My breathing slowly started to calm as I took in the smell, and for the first time I began to relax. I heard the sound of wet flesh being dragged down the hall, but I chose to ignore it, instead immersing myself even further into the smell. I felt the grasping of hands around my body, but I instead thought of my mother’s face as it was basked in the warm glow from the afternoon sun. I even ignored the feeling of being lifted up, instead choosing to concentrate on the tuna casserole that I could almost taste. It wasen’t until I felt the bizarre sensation of being swallowed that I finally opened my eyes, and it was in that moment that I saw the mistake I had made. But it was far too late now. And so I closed my eyes again, and went into the waiting arms of my mother, so that she may hold me.

            “Ma’am? “Ma’am?” I snapped my eyes open to find Hagar hovering over me, shaking my shoulder. I quickly pushed her off me and stood up, startling her backwards.

            “Don’t touch me.” I hissed, and her eyes widened as she backed up even further, nearly tripping over her own feet.

            “I’m-I’m sorry Ma’am, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that you fell asleep and the hour had passed and I figured you would want to get moving so I thought that maybe it would be best to wake you up but your right I shouldn’t have disturbed you I-” I held up my hand, cutting her off. I pinched my nose, trying to quickly pull myself together. Just when I had started to think about how the visions were fading, I was of course overwhelmed with one. Thankfully, it seems that they thought that I had simply fallen asleep. I quickly tried to marshal my thoughts, even as I looked around to see how everyone was doing. I recognized the man from my vision, oh yes indeed. He was the very same person from vision the night the beasts attacked, the one standing at the top of the basement stairs. The woman, however, was new. What did it all mean? What was it trying to tell me? I decided that I would have to figure that out later, once we were safe inside the apartment building. For now, I would have to shove it aside and focus on the here and now.

            “Alright everyone, you’ve had your hour! Let’s get moving!” I suddenly shouted, surprising the group and sending Hagar scrambling for her stuff as to not get left behind. I tapped my foot impatiently as everyone got everything together, glancing down the street both ways to make sure we weren’t being snuck up on. The vision had put me on edge and with it my patience for delays had worn out. Even as I tried to put it out of my mind and focus, I kept thinking about it. Why did the man reappear? Why the hospital? Why do I always die at the end of them? These questions I had no answers to built up in my head until I felt like my skull might explode, until finally, after what felt like an eternity, we were able to get moving. With the ability to focus on only putting one foot in front of the other, I was able to hold myself together. Barely.

            Step. Step. Step. Look out for that knocked over sign. Step. Where are the beasts, why are we not being attacked right now? Step. Who is that man? Step. Take this turn here. Step. Someone just tripped, and now everyone needs to stop for some reason. Step. There is an eyeball growing out of the side of my stomach. Step. Maybe I am going insane. Step.

            Finally, after what felt like far too long, we were on the correct street. Just down the way I could see my old apartment, in all of it’s graffitied glory. I breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn’t been consumed in a fire or destroyed in some other way, as I was not sure what I would do if that had happened. It would have been deeply embarrassing.

            “There it is everyone! We’re almost there!” I shouted to the crowd, which responded with a tired cheer. It seems that everyone was ready to call it a day. We begin to make our way to it, the end being in sight reenergizing us. But something was wrong. It was in the air, there was an electricity that everyone could feel. People glanced around nervously, clearly wanting to slow down, but I pushed forward regardless. I would not back down, not this close to the end. And they followed, as I knew they would.

            We heard it before we saw it. A thumping noise echoing down the street. The ground seemed to tremble with each noise, and it was clear that something big was approaching. And it was clear that whatever it was would not be friendly. “Cmon! Get to the building! We’ll be safe in there!” I yelled, leading the charge as I broke into a sprint. I heard the crowd behind me pick up speed as well, nobody wanted to be the last one in. I dodged around a destroyed car, sparing a glance back at everyone. Most of them were somewhat keeping pace, but several had fallen behind, mostly the sick and elderly, those that had been delaying us the entire way. But it was what was behind them as well that nearly froze me in place, with only momentum carrying me forward.

            It was huge, towering over us, nearly reaching the top of the buildings on either side of the streets. Walking on three huge boney, sinewy legs it strode with huge strides, each step taking it dozens of feet forward. It seemed to be composed entirely of pink, raw flesh, and at the top of the thin legs was an oblong sphere of the same terrible meat. The majority of this “head” was taken up by a mouth that had to be the size of a minivan, constantly opening and closing in a silent wail. Surrounding the mouth was a ring of eyeballs that were always moved in every direction, never seeming to focus on any single thing for long, as if it were trying to watching everything at once. And of course, as with all these things, there was a thick tube running out of the back, leading back off down the street to who knows where.

            One of the members of the crowd noticed me staring and glanced back, shrieking when they saw the thing rapidly catching up to them. This quickly led others to notice the thing, causing panic to rapidly spread through the crowd like an infectious disease and chaos quickly ensuing. People began to scatter in every direction as they tried to make as much distance as possible, leading to mass confusion. The things eyeballs constantly tracked people as they ran, each one working independently of each other.

             As I watched it raised a giant leg and speared it through a woman’s leg in a single swift motion, quickly putting an end to her flailing. Her scream pierced through the air, and everyone temporarily froze, whether out of fear or a sick curiosity or perhaps both, I do not know. We all watched as the leg raised up to the mouth, bending on too many joints to facilitate such a feat. It would have been almost impressive, the way the thing balanced on two legs to do so, if it wasen’t like something out of a terrible nightmare. It’s gaping maw opened and for a moment all the eyeballs on the great and horrifying creature finally focused on a single thing, the poor woman, still screaming as she was tossed into the mouth of the beast with all the fanfare of a person eating a grape. It was only when her screams were finally cut off did the spell seem to break, and everyone resumed their panic with renewed screaming.

            “This was! This way!” I screamed, trying to get everyone to head to the building, and the general crowd surged in that direction, but it was nowhere near organized. People were shoving and tripping and screaming, and all the while the thing kept slamming down and picking up new victims with frightening speed. An old woman, a man who I knew had been struggling with the flu, an amputee missing a leg, all of them were speared and lifted in what couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds. It was working its way back to front in an almost methodical way, which naturally led to it picking off the stragglers first.

            I braced myself behind the car wreak, trying to shield myself from the flood of people rushing by me in a reflection of what had happened to the man and his friend just earlier today. As I watched, I saw several members of the congregation wielding weapons run at the creature, attempting to hack and bash its legs in. However, the moment they made contact with the beast, the machetes and pipes simply became stuck within a thick film that covered its entire body, not only rendering the men as dangerous as an insect but leading to them getting stuck like one. I saw one try to pull his weapon out, unthinkingly pressing his hand against the creature to get leverage, leading to his arm sinking into the film. He screamed as the creature lifted its leg and he got dragged along with it, flailing like a doll held by an excited child.

            As he struggled, he let out a piercing scream even louder than everyone else, and I could only stand dumbfounded as the beast quickly moved its leg to the left, causing his entire body to swing with the arm as the anchor point. It was too much for the poor fool, and his arm was wretched out of its socket, leading to him dangling from it as he passed out, presumably from the pain. This terrible sight finally pulled me out of the near hypnosis that I had been placed under. I turned and began to run, stumbling over the debris as I tried to make distance from me and the thing.

            I ran towards the building, hoping that it would protect me from the beast. I heard more screaming behind me, but I dared not look back, intent on making distance between me and the thing. I panted heavily, out of breath like a dog that had been pushed too hard and stumbled because of it, barely able to keep one foot in front of the other. I crashed to the ground, scraping my hands on the hard pavement from trying to catch myself, pain shooting through my arms. Legs and feet stormed around me, and I shielded my face from them, trying to avoid being kicked. I screamed at them to be careful, that I was their leader and they must help me up, but nobody heard me over their own panic and terror.

            I curled myself into a ball to try to get as small as possible, daring to peek an eye out from between my arms to try to orientate myself. I had landed behind another car, this one in slightly better condition, and as I focused, I realized there was a man underneath it. He looked back at me with the same wild eyes that I was sure I was wearing right now, and with a start I realized that I knew who he was. It was the same man who had called me out in front of everyone earlier, the one who had known that I was going back to the apartment building for my own personal revenge. He stared at me, terror in his eyes. Understandable. There was a giant monster attacking us right now. But then something strange happened. I saw his eyes flicker downwards toward my waist, just for a moment. If my adrenaline wasen’t running so high, I might not have even noticed it. But I did.

            I glanced down at myself and saw that my shirt had been pulled up from the fall, revealing my torso. And the eye that still rested on the left of my stomach. It felt like a splash of cold water had been thrown on my face. The rest of the world faded away, the cries and screams becoming nothing back distance noise as I slowly looked back to the man underneath the car, seeing the way that he looked at me. His face was difficult to read, with so many emotions passing through it in mere seconds. I knew that, despite my efforts to keep a blank face, mine looked much the same way. What to do now? I really couldn’t have him going and talking about this, now could I? That would undermine everything that I had been working towards. No, that wouldn’t do at all. What was a girl to do then?

            I blink, and when I reopen my eyes I am back at the beach, with the woman under the dying tree. The red ocean boils behind her, and I can smell the sweet scent of candy in the air. I always did have a soft spot for candy. I cannot move, as always, but as I watch the woman takes a bite of her apple. This time, it is not night, but instead the sun is setting, reflecting off the crimson sea. In the dying light I see that she notices something on the fruit. She picks it off with delicate fingers, a look of disgust distorting her otherwise perfect face. She is terrifying for a reason I cannot fully understand. She looks down at the thing in her hand and I see that it is a caterpillar, slowly inching its way forward on her hand blindly. She throws it to the ground and stomps on it with far more strength then I would expect from someone with such a small frame. Far in the distance, barely visible through the shine of the setting sun, I see a structure in the ocean.

            I blink again, and I am back on the street, the pain from the scratches on my palms confirming that this is real. I look at the man in front of me, and it all becomes very clear. There is no need to try to puzzle out what that particular vision was telling me. My leadership, their loyalty, they are my red fruit. And I am looking at the insect that is trying to eat it. Thoughts run through my mind at a mile a minute as I look at them, but finally I stick out my hand for him to grab onto. He looks at it, confused, and I smiled at him.

            “The eye thing is pretty weird huh? I know it’s scary, but we can talk about it later. For now, we have to get out of here, it’s not safe.” He looks between my outstretched hand and my face, clearly confused and a little apprehensive, but finally take it after hearing the beast take another step closer. I hold on with a firm grip and help pull him out from underneath the car, glancing back at the giant creature behind us as we stood up. It was nearly on top of us now, and it was only a short matter of time before it noticed us. I glanced around and saw that due to being behind the car the car, nobody further ahead near the building could see us from their position, and those that were on this side of the vehicle were much busier focusing on running away than on what we were doing.

            “What are you doing? C’mon, lets get out of here before that thing notices us!” He said urgently, trying to pull away. However, I kept my grip tight on his arm tight and didn’t move. He looked back to me, confusion etched on his face before it slowly morphed into understanding.

            “Really? You really think I’m that dangerous to you?” He asked, and for a long moment we just stared at each other, nobody saying anything. But it didn’t last. I suddenly reared back and punched him in the face, sending him stumbling backwards. I quickly picked up my pipe from the ground, with it dropped at some point in all the confusion, and hit him on the head with it, sending him falling backwards, gasping and bleeding. With him stunned I didn’t let up the assault, hitting him in the face, stomach, anything soft I could reach until he finally kneeled to the ground, at which point I kicked him in the back, causing him to collapse with a gasp.

            Panting for breath, I glanced around, making sure that nobody had noticed what had just happened. But it seemed luck was on my side, as nobody had paid us any attention in all the chaos. I looked back towards the creature, which was now nearly on top of me, towering over my field of view. I knew that I should be terrified, but I found myself feeling very little fear. I simply looked at it, taking in monstrous form, it’s giant stature. Honestly, up close, it really wasen’t that bad. No more terrifying than the average hobo, at least. That thought caused a bubble of laughter to swell up my throat and escape through my mouth in a strange sort of chortle, which I quickly choked back down.

            This outburst caused the beast to finally notice me, with it moving swiftly to spear me with one of its giant legs. I quickly dodged out of the way, barely avoiding it as it slammed into the ground and split the pavement. I scrambled back up and started running in the opposite direction, throwing the pipe away as I attempted to make it to the building with all the strength I could muster. I heard a moan, and I glanced back, seeing the bug-man slowly rising to his feet. He scarcely made it a few steps though, before the inevitable happened and he was impaled, his screams filling the air as he was raised up to the beast’s mouth. I turned away, back to the apartment building, where I saw members of my congregation waiting for me, stretching out their arms to try to get me inside before the thing made its way to us. They screamed that I was the last one, I just had to make it inside and we would be safe. I stumbled forward, moving as fast as I could, finally making it through the doorway. Warm hands grabbing me, comforting me, before finally pulling me inside, slamming the entrance behind me, cutting off the sounds of the screaming. We had made it. And I felt great.

            After that, we had all huddled inside, waiting with baited breath to see what the thing would do. For a long, long time it had simply stood out in the street, looking around with its many eyes. One of them, a particularly beady one, constantly watched the doorway to our building, as if it were waiting for us to emerge for its depths. But of course, we never did, and eventually it moved on, almost certainly to look for more wayward souls like ourselves. Taking a headcount, I found that we had lost about twenty people to the creature, which, while not ideal, was a number I was willing to find acceptable. There was crying, of course, and mourning for the lost, but eventually people began to disperse out into the various rooms that were now available to them, finding it much easier to sleep on a proper bed than it was to think of those that they had left behind.

            I was of course planning to join them, and I wanted to quickly make my way to my old room, intent on taking back what was rightfully mine. But first, we had to survey my new kingdom. It was to my great chagrin that my old landlord, the old bastard, had apparently already fled and/or died, as he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was almost no one left in the building at all, and the few that remained I quickly managed to convince to join us, with perhaps a few intimidation tactics. We did have the numbers, after all, and everyone likes to be in a group. It makes them feel safe. But with these minor inconveniences out of the way, I called it a night and told everyone to get some well-earned rest, much to their relief. I was feeling tired myself, but there was one more thing I had to do before I could call it a night. I went up to my old room, locking the door behind me to make sure I wasen’t disturbed, especially by Hagar, who was insisting on following me around like an annoying mayfly, constantly saying my name to try and get my attention and tell me of banal things. “Athaliah, Athaliah, Athaliah.” It was a insistent buzz that I was eager to rid myself of.

            I sighed upon finally closing the door and locking it, relieved to have a moment to myself. Looking around the room I saw that it was still fairly similar to how I had left it, with only a few minor changes like some pictures being hung up by the new resident. Those could be easily fixed tomorrow. But the main draw of my attention was the long full-sized mirror propped up in the corner of the room, just how I had left it. Perfect. I quickly made my way over to it, taking off my shirt once more.

            The eye of course stared back at me, as strange and unnerving as it had been in the morning. I grimaced upon looking at it, but it was not the only thing that grabbed my attention. There, on my chest just above my heart, a mouth silently chewed on nothing, gnashing its small teeth together. I felt as though I should be feeling a stronger emotion, more fear or disgust or something along those lines, but I found the only thing I could muster was a slight worry about it being seen. I stared at it, this abbreviation, with its red rimmed maw and unclear anatomy, and the only thing I felt was exhaustion.

            I crawled into the bed, all of a sudden feeling as though I could sleep for a thousand days and nights. And as I drifted off to sleep, soon to dream of the woman under the tree once more, I wondered distantly to myself if it was not just my body changing, but also my mind. But then unconsciousness overtook me, and I dreamed of mother, sitting under the dying tree with a canopy of night over her, and not a single star to illuminate her.  

[redsightstories]

Just A Burning Bush (Part 1)

            I see a woman in my dreams. She is blonde, and beautiful, like an ancient Greek statue. She sits underneath a dying tree near a beach, eating an apple. There is a structure in the water, far off in the distance, glowing. The woman is saying something to me, I think, but I can’t hear her, despite her mouth moving. I think she is calling to me. I try to reach out and touch her, but I can’t move my arm. I look down and see that I have no limbs, and instead of my body there is a squirming pile of flesh. I try to scream, but I cannot. The woman is speaking, and I try to tell her I cannot hear her, but I cannot speak. I want to cry, but I cannot. Please, help me mother. I say, but there is no sound. Nothing but the lapping waves of the ocean as it tries to consume me. The water is blood red, and despite it being night, there is not a star in the sky.

            I jolt awake in my bed, sweat streaming down my face. The same dream. The same woman. The ocean. It means something, I know it does. Every time I go to sleep, I see the same scene. It’s getting to the point where it is difficult to rest at night, knowing that I am just going to show up in that same place again. This lack of sleep among…other things… that I have recently been afflicted with is making it difficult to lead my congregation, and I worry people are starting to notice. Especially at such a trying time, they are looking to me to be a guiding force and I cannot show any signs of weakness. I will simply have to power through it and figure out what these dreams mean so that they stop, or at the very least I need to learn how to tolerate them.

            But the day is upon me, and it is time to make myself look presentable. I do, however, take a moment to relish the fact that I have a proper room now, and not some pathetic tent out in the cold. The previous residents of the building fled when they heard the news of the beasts on the radio, although I have no idea where they are running to, and the few that remained I was able to convince to join us with the help of some of the bulkier members of the flock.  Unsavory? Perhaps, but one must do unsavory things to get what they need to survive, especially when law and order breaks down so quickly. When the beasts had first emerged on the faithful day of my rise to power, they had attacked anybody and everybody in the streets, scooping them up to take them who-knows-where to do who-knows-what. It was chaos. I thought back to that night, only shortly after giving my speech to the crowd.

            After the chanting had died down, I rounded everyone up to prepare them. We had no real weapons to speak of, so the few people that had various pocket-knifes and homemade machetes came to the front where I instructed them to keep an eye out around our camp. They nodded, a strange glint in their eyes as they did as they were told. The whole environment had an unworldly feel to it, as though we were all collectively holding our breath for the next big thing to hit us. Which we were, I suppose, but it felt more like we were at the top of a roller coaster and preparing to plunge down the first hill, rather than preparing to possibly fight for our lives. Perhaps it was due to my speech, or maybe it was the absurdity of what we had heard on the radio, but nobody seemed to be taking the threat too seriously. Nobody, that is, except for me.

            I knew what we were in for, what was to come. The visions had shown me so, the woman who was consumed by the pillar of flesh, the soldier attacked by the beast in the trenches. These things were real, and I had to prepare. I was a shepherd, and my flock was relying on me. But, as I was soon to discover, it didn’t matter if they did or didn’t believe in the threat. It was coming to us. We began to gather ourselves, some people checking supplies and others attempting to throw together some kind of weapon, some even curling up to go back to bed in their various nooks and crannies. It made me think back to when I had first migrated people out of the sewers, so that we didn’t have to live with the rats and smells anymore. Some had refused, saying they liked living down there. It was sheltered from the rain, and warmer they had argued. Those people I left behind to their own devices. Perhaps they were right, it was more practical in that respect, but I had no interest in living in the muck like that. I wanted to see the sky, feel the wind.

            It did result in the cold and weather being much more of an issue, as they predicted, however. We had tents and things of that nature, but I craved walls and roofs made of sturdier stuff. And I had a feeling that this “invasion”, so to say, was just the opportunity to do so. But first we would have to weather this initial storm. I hadn’t been lying to them about any of that, as I really did want to raise them, and of course myself, from the ashes of this conflict, which I knew deep in my heart was going to be so much worse than anyone could ever imagine. Chalk it up to the visions, I suppose, or even simply intuition. It would not be long now.

            It was, in fact, only a few hours before it began, shorter then even I had anticipated. I heard it before I saw it. Sirens, in the distance. Not an uncommon sound in the city, not at all, but then they began to increase in quantity and volume, seeming to come from every side. That quickly caused the chatter to stop around the camp, and instead people began to look around in fear, trying to figure out what was going on. Some of them even turned to me, the expressions on their faces making it clear they were hoping for guidance, and I knew that this was my chance.

“Rally, everyone! Come together now, we’ll be safer as a group!” I instructed, putting as much authority into my voice as I could manage. They began to gather near me, worry in their eyes as the sirens filled our ears. I looked around, trying to figure out what I had available to me and what to do next. It wasen’t safe to stay out here in this clearing, that was for sure, we needed shelter. I went and stood on the same box on which I had given my speech previously, attempting to get a better view of the surrounding area, as well as seeing who had come to me. It was a rather motley crew, mostly being composed of scraggly looking men and a few elderly folks, but it would have to do. I peered around at the surrounding buildings, but none of them were suitable.

I knew one that would do, however. It was a smaller apartment building made of brick and stone that was only a few blocks away from here, nestled in between two other larger buildings. The back of it faced out into a drainage basin, the very same one that I had first discovered the strange meat room, but a ways up from that particular location. The apartments were mostly empty, and the area would be a fairly easy place to defend from any intruders, as the street it was situated on was narrow. All of those justifications were fairly reasonable, and that is what I would tell the congregation, which I knew they would readily accept.

            But there was another reason I wanted to take that particular apartment building for our living quarters, one that I kept to myself. This was the building that I had been kicked out of when I failed to make rent, you see, and so I wished to return as a conquering general, to prove to that pathetic, stupid landlord the terrible mistake that he had made. While perhaps it was a tad petty of me to take advantage of the general situation to satisfy my own personal grievances, I didn’t really care about that. I wanted my revenge. I attempted to keep the gleeful smile off my face as I informed the people of my decision, finding it difficult to not take joy at the imagined face of the fool when me and my small army appear.

            My self-gratification was cut short, however, when one of the men I had sent out to guard the perimeter came rushing back into the clearing, panting and covered in filth and grime and blood. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, desperation in his eyes as he stopped in front of me, crimson red running out of a cut on his face.

            “What is it?” I questioned, not looking forward to the answer.

            “We were attacked Ms. Athaliah. Me and Potiphar, we were keeping watch, just like ya said, and as we were talking all these people started to run by, just a huge crowd, had to be at least a couple hundred. Potiphar, he yelled at them, asked them what they were running from, but nobody answered, they just kept moving. It was something terrible, the way they were running Ms. Athaliah. They were pushing each other and shoving; I even saw a guy get trampled underfoot by the crowd. If me and Potiphar weren’t up sitting on the wall, we would have been dragged in right along with them.”

            He gulped here, and I could see that he was physically shaking. His eyes darted around nervously, looking at the crowd that was silently gathering around him as he told his story. He rubbed his arm, drawing my attention to the fact that there was a long cut along it.

            “Well, Potiphar, he always liked to be in charge, ya know? So, he starts shouting at them, trying to get some sort of organization going, or get some answers from them, or something, I don’t even know, but nobody is listening to a word he says, they just keep running. So he stands up on the wall, and I tell him, I tell him you gotta get down from there it ain’t safe, but he doesn’t listen to a word I say ever, he just keeps shouting at the crowd all angry. So, cause of that, I notice it first.”

            He takes a heavy breath here, and I narrow my eyes, having a sinking feeling I knew what he was going to say. The vast majority of the congregation had gathered around us at this point, hanging on to every word of his tale.

            “It was a…a beast, Ms. Athaliah. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was huge, the size of like, a bus or something, and it had legs, so many legs. It scrambled around on them, climbing over cars and signs and junk. And it had mouths, more than one, that extended way out away from its body. They were like elephant trunks, but thick as a telephone pole. They were…” His voice broke here, and he stifled back a cry.

            “Keep going, it’s alright.” I said gently. I needed him to finish his story, so that everyone would know what we were up against, to eliminate any lingering doubt in their mind about what I had said. He nodded as he inhaled deeply, and continued.

            “It was eating people. Just picking them up and swallowing them whole.” A gasp rose up from the crowd as I nodded grimly. “The mouths, it would grab a person and lift them up in the air, and the people, they would just scream and scream. Then it would gulp them down, still screaming, right down the gullet. I could see their bodies traveling through the trunk part, a big bulge traveling all the way down. Sometimes…sometimes they would still be struggling, I could see them kicking and punching the damn thing. It was like…like a baby inside a woman, pushing against the walls of her stomach.” He shuddered violently at that. “And behind it, it had this big tube running out of the back, stretching off back down the street where it came from. I don’t even know where it went too.”

            “But the worst part was the smell. Mixed in with the blood and sweat, I could almost feel it oozing from the beast. It was the smell of my ma’s apple pie, all sweet and tasty like when it had just come out of the oven. I almost fell off the wall when I smelled it. It was weird, Ms. Athaliah, it was real weird. I felt like I was almost falling into a trance.” His whole body shivered again, and there were now murmurs circling around the crowd as he continued.

            “Well, I guess I did a bit of a better job of holding it together than Potiphar, or maybe he just slipped, cause the fool finally stopped screaming at the people, who weren’t even listening to him anyway mind you, and went and fell right into the fucking crowd.” Another gasp from the crowd, louder this time.

            “He landed on the street see, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of where he went on account of all the screaming and running, and there was still the goddamn thing, getting closer as it kept eating up more and more people. That snapped me right out of it. It couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred feet away, and the crowd was so thick that it was like a river of people. It was a nightmare, so much screaming and crying and pushing, and I was trying to find Potiphar while staying on top of the wall, but there was a snowballs chance in hell of that happening. So, I jumped down after him. Looking back at it, maybe not the best move, but it’s what I did.”

            “The ground was madness. Pure madness.” He reached up and touched the cut on his face, which had crimson streaks still running out of it, staining his fingertips. “People slammed into me left and right, I could barely stay standing. I wandered around, trying to find him, barely able to think above the noise. Screaming, fighting, and behind it all, the noises of the beast getting closer and closer. It’s no doubt a miracle that I actually found him. Bumped right into him with my foot, nearly stumbled and fell myself. If that hadn’t happened, I would never have seen him. The crowd was running right over him, stomping him. I saw a woman step on his hand with her boot even as I watched.”

            “I tried to pull him up, but it was no use. He…he was dead.” He looked down at the ground now, his voice choked, and I saw tears running down the faces of some of those in the crowd. I said nothing, waiting for him to continue. He took a moment, gulping heavily, and a man behind him gave him a reassuring pat on his back. Finally, he inhaled deeply and resumed.

            “I couldn’t get to him, you know? The crowd was too thick, I knew that I would never make it out of there in time. And…And worse, when I looked up, the thing was right there, its mouths grabbing anything that moved. I saw it reach down and pluck up a woman right next to me, like it was nothing. I could hear her scream, right through the flesh of the thing.” He put his head in his hands at this point. “I didn’t even try to grab her. I just ran, pushing and shoving my way through the crowd. I climbed back over the wall, I don’t even know how, and ran all the way back here.” He started to cry now, big racking sobs. “He was my friend! He was my friend and I left him there for that thing to eat!” He cried out, and the same man who patted his back earlier put his arm around his shoulders, comforting him.

            “Thank you for telling everyone this.” I said to him, causing him to tearfully nod his head. I climbed back up on top of the box, drawing all eyes to me. “Here you can see, proof of what I said to be true! There is no more time to waste, there may be more of these things coming, and as they do, even more people will panic. Do you want what happened to Potiphar to happen to you, to your loved ones?” I yelled out, causing a chorus of “No!” in response, with people glancing at the weeping man. “Then gather your belongings and tell the others to do the same, and meet back here in ten minutes! We are getting to safety!” I shouted, causing a loud roar of approval in response.

            I hopped back down from my stand to do the same, smiling grimly to myself. This was exactly what they needed to kick their asses into gear. Before, they hadn’t been treating this nearly seriously enough, almost acting like it as a joke, but as I looked around now, I saw the determination etched into each and every one of their faces. Oh yes, they would follow me anywhere now. I went back to my small tent, intent on gathering my meager items. It really wasen’t much. My mirror, a couple changes of clothes, and of course, my cooler of meat from the subterranean room. I doubted I would actually have need of it in the coming days, for if everything went according to plan we would be able to scavenge for food in the surrounding area fairly easily, but I wanted it for myself. I knew that this was what gave me my visions, and I had no intention of giving that up anytime soon.

            I started to strip, wanting to get into something fresh before we begin our potentially dangerous journey to the apartment building. None of my clothes were what I would call particularly clean, but some were better than others. As I changed, however, something caught my eye in my scratched mirror, causing me to suddenly stop in the middle of putting a new shirt on.

            A sick feeling rose in my stomach as I took the shirt back off, staring at what I had caught a glimpse of before. There, on the left side of my stomach, was an eyeball staring back at me. It was nestled into my skin like a mole, as though it had always been there, and even as I looked at it in the mirror it itself looked around the room. Slowly, I tore my gaze from the mirror and looked down at my stomach, causing the eyeball to stare back at me from its lower vantage point. I was finding it difficult to breathe at this point, and I could feel a scream rising in my throat, one I was barely able to choke down. Slowly, ever so slowly, I reached a hand toward it, causing it to tear its cursed gaze away from me and look at the approaching finger. I gently touched the corner of the eye, causing it to squint in annoyance. It was soft and squishy.

            I realized I had been making a low droning noise for a while now, like the last terrible note of agony being pulled out of the agape mouth of a dying man. But suddenly, perhaps mercifully, the moment was interrupted by the voice of Hagar coming from the outside of the tent. This caused me to quickly snap my attention to the entrance, which she thankfully didn’t enter through.

            “Ma’am, is everything alright in there? Almost everyone has gathered in the clearing, just like you asked, we are all waiting for you.”

            “Yes yes its fine!” I snapped back without thinking. “Leave me be, I’m almost done in here!”  

            “Yes Ma’am. Sorry Ma’am.” She responded quickly, and I heard her move away from the tent. I took a deep breath, glancing back at the terrible eye. It was looking at the entrance, and as I watched it blinked slowly, causing a great and terrible emotion of which I do not know the name of to well up in my throat. I quickly threw the new shirt over my body, finally covering the aberration up. That was something to deal with at a later time. I gathered everything up and hastily exited the tent, not even sparing it a glance back. I had bigger, and hopefully better things to look forward to. And to worry about.

            Quickly I assessed what I had to work with. A group of about sixty, not a huge amount, but most certainly not small. It was quantity over quality, however, as almost everyone was in some state of dishevelment and sickness. A reigning army this was not, but there is undeniably strength in numbers. These people, with their humble lives on their backs in the form of bags and backpacks, they were my congregation, no matter how pathetic they may be. I stood back up on my box platform, turning to address them one final time on it. Hagar stood by my side, ready to execute any orders I were to give her.

            “Do we have everything assembled? Is everyone here?” Murmurs of affirmation ran through the crowd, which I determined to be good enough. “Good. We head for the apartment building immediately, which we will take for ourselves and turn into our new base of operation. Once we are there, we will figure out the future, but for now we must focus on the present. Already we have lost one of our own to the monsters that now roam the streets.” I gestured to the man who had lost his friend, who nodded in agreement. I didn’t remember his name, but that was not particularly important.

            “We must all stick together. I will lead the way, so make sure to never lose sight of me, but you should also pick a partner to keep track of them and for them to keep track of you, so that we don’t lose anyone else in the chaos. I will not lie to you, it’s going to be a difficult journey, but if we move as one, we should all make it there in one piece.”

            A hand shot up from the crowd to my mild surprise. I had not intended for this to be an open seminar, but nevertheless I humored them, pointing at them to speak. “You. What is it?”

            “Well, I was wondering, why that apartment building in particular? It’s a fair bit away, why not one of the ones that are right here?” I narrowed my eyes, looking closer at the man who had spoken. I didn’t recognize him, but he had a hard face, with a long scar running down the side of it and a grizzled look about him. He stared back at me, gaze unflinching. This man may be a problem.

            “Well, it is quite simple. While these apartments may be closer, the one I have selected is next to water, in case that gets shut off or disabled for some reason. It is also in an easily defensible position with tall buildings on either side, thus making it difficult for any would-be looters or even the monsters to get ahold of us. I think those are good enough reasons, don’t you?” I said, smiling sweetly at him. He simply raised an eyebrow, undeterred.

            “And it has nothing to do with the fact that that building is the one you used to live in before you got kicked out of it?” I felt my heart skip a beat, but I attempted to maintain my smile, although it may have been more of a grimace at this point.

            “No, I assure you it is not. And how did you know that, exactly?” I said, smiling still through gritted teeth. He shrugged, undeterred.

            “I was just here when you first joined this little group, that’s all. I remember you ranting and raving about it for days. It ain’t nothing personal miss.” Ah yes, I remember that. I had been quite upset indeed, but still, not my proudest moment.

            “Well, if there are no more questions, then I think it’s best we get going everyone. We don’t want to burn anymore daylight then we must!” I shouted to the crowd, pointedly ignoring the man as I gestured to the rising sun. Yet another problem arisen that I may have to deal with in the future. For now, the night was done and we had a journey to make. Everyone nodded, a little less sure now, and I hopped down from the box, signaling for them all to follow me. The best thing now was to keep everyone moving and on the alert, so that they would not think too hard about that particular line of questioning.

            Hagar ran up to be at my side as I took the front of the pack, everyone falling behind me in a loose group. She handed me a metal pipe, which I took in my hands, feeling the reassuring cool weight of the metal. We moved in silence for a moment, heading to the edge of the clearing to get on the road towards the building. In the distance, there was screaming and sirens, but here it was almost deathly still. She was silent for a moment, walking alongside me, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. I didn’t mind, to be perfectly honest, as there were some things that I would rather not think about right now. For instance, the terrible eye that even now I could almost feel underneath my shirt. In comparison, the seeming end of the world seemed almost cheery in comparison.

            “Where do you think the police are? And the military? Shouldn’t they be doing something?’ Hagar asked, breaking the silence as I knew she would. I sighed. It was a fair question. We could indeed hear sirens, as previously mentioned, but we had yet to actually see law officers doing any sort of defense. And, as dimwitted as she was, Hagar was right. This…incursion most certainly warranted military intervention.

            “I don’t know, to be honest. Perhaps the military is dealing with even bigger threats somewhere else. The radio did say that this was happening all over the world. As for the police…” I stopped for a moment here, looking back and checking the group as we reached the street. They were all still there, as far as I could tell. “Maybe they were the first to go.” Hagar had nothing to say to that.

            The street was surprisingly quiet, with only a few people frantically moving through it, sparing only a quick glance at our comparably large group. It looked as though a riot had taken place here, with cars tipped over and smashed windows all around. Even as I watched, some looters poured out of a jewelry store cackling about their ill-gotten goods but, thankfully, not bothering us. Animals. They had no idea how worthless those trinkets really were. It seems that aside from them, however, almost everyone had elected to stay indoors, as per the radio’s instructions. Or what had happened to the man and his friend had been more common than we thought, and there simply were no more crowds left. Either way, the silence was unnerving.

            “Alright everyone, this way. Remember, stick together, keep track of your partner.” I addressed the crowd, who turned to the left, same as me. It should only be about a couple hours walk, so hopefully there would be no incidents, and we would be able to make quick time. But, as anybody who has ever done any sort of leadership over large crowds will tell you, the group is only as fast as their slowest member. We moved at an excruciatingly slow snail’s pace, resulting in an increase to my frustration as the time dragged on as little inconveniences piled up. People kept tripping, or needing to stop for some asinine reason, or were simply slow because of injury or age. If I had it my way, we would have left the sick and elderly behind and only taken the somewhat healthy, but I know that would have caused mass outrage among the group. So, I gritted my teeth and dealt with it.

[redsightstories]

Judgment Day (Part 3)

            Me and Joe gasped for breath as he rushed us down the street, neither of us sure of what to say next. Despite it just happening, it all seemed so unreal, almost a dream. Finally, Joe turned to look at me, eyes deep-set in their sockets.

            “Are you alright?” He asked. I started to nod, but then thought about it and shook my head no instead.

            “Not really. Are you?” He shook his head as well, and for a minute longer we continued to drive in silence. I didn’t even know where we were going, and I didn’t ask. I noted with some trepidation that the roads seemed particularly clear for this time of day, but once again I said nothing. I wondered if I would ever speak again. Joe spoke up, voice heavy.

            “That thing. We have seen it before, or at least things similar. Do you think it was targeting us specifically?” A fair question. Slowly I thought back to it, that moment that had just happened mere minutes ago but seemed to be a lifetime away. I tried to disconnect myself from the incident, to think of it only as an impartial third party. I tried to ignore the hundreds of red hands, the moaning and wailing of it. The way it ripped off a car roof like it was nothing. I tried to ignore all of that. I tried.

            But past all of that, I thought of its behavior, of the way it acted. How it moved, who it targeted. And slowly, the thought came to me.

            “No.” I said. “No, it was just getting anyone it could grab. The little girl, the guy in the car, the people before it saw us. We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

            Joe nodded in affirmation, and then spoke. “Yeah, wrong place at the wrong time. Both of us happened to have a run in with these things, and then it happened to attack the hospital we were staying at. A lot of coincidences if we weren’t being targeted. Either that, or…it’s happening everywhere.” He once again looked at me, worry and fear in his eyes. “Turn on the radio.”

            I complied, reaching over and fiddling with the knobs. For a moment there was nothing but a brief burst of static, which made both me and Joe flinch, but then a voice broke through, wild and very unprofessional sounding.

            “-We continue to bring you live updates of these strange creatures’ attacks that seemed to have started around last night. We must once again urge everyone to stay indoors and keep your windows and doors locked as we attempt to figure out what is going on, and what plans the government has in store for us. If you are just tuning in, The United States Government has issued a nationwide alert and orders to remain calm.”

“There have been reports from all over the country and overseas of strange creatures emerging and attacking people, with reports on what they do afterwards being unclear, but the attacks most often resulting in them either dragging people back with them to wherever it is they came from, or horribly, devouring them whole. Small arms fire seems to be completely ineffectual against them, and while larger arms have seen small degrees of success, we still must insist that you attempt to avoid any interaction with these creatures at all costs. Stay indoors, and keep your windows and doors locked.”

The radio continued on like this, and I reached over and turned it down, making sure that we could still hear it while we talked.

“So. It’s everywhere.” I said simply, and Joe nodded in grim satisfaction.

“I didn’t want to believe it, but the coincidences were starting to pile up. These things are kidnapping people all over the continent, hell all over the world. And nobody has any idea why!” He suddenly slammed his hand into the steering wheel, startling me a little, but I understood completely. There was nothing more frustrating than having zero clue what was going on. I looked out the window, thinking to myself, before glancing back and realizing what I was looking at.

“Joe.” I said. “Look.” I pointed out the window on my side, and when he turned to peer at what I saw he blanched. There was a field on my side, and standing in the middle of it was a creature that had to be at least thirty feet tall. It stood on four giant legs, tall and spindly, all of them connected to a large, head-like blob at the top with a single, massive eye square in the center of it. From its legs there emerged smaller tentacles all around them that constantly searched around it, grabbing at anything they could. From the back of it, on the opposite side of where the eye resided, it had a long tube running from it as all these creatures seemed to, connecting back down to the ground and going into a massive pit in the middle of the field.

Me and Joe stared at it as it slowly made its way to the neighborhood on the other side of the field, scanning the houses with its horrible eyeball. Seeing something, it lifted a leg with frighting speed for something so big, slamming it down on the other side of a building where we could not see. As we watched we could see a person being raised up the leg, carried by the tentacles that sprouted from it as they passed him upwards like a game of relay. Once he reached the top a mouth that had to be the size of a small car opened on the bottom of it and consumed the person whole, sliding him inside with the ease of a man eating a grape. Very faintly, we could hear his screams. Afterwards, the behemoth continued to move, its eye like a spotlight, searching for any more people that were unfortunate enough to get caught in its gaze.

Something managed to pull my attention away from the thing for a brief moment, and I glanced out the windshield to see we were rapidly approaching a guardrail. We had been so distracted by that monstrously large nightmare that Joe had started to veer, and if we didn’t adjust now, we would crash.

“Joe! Look out!” I yelled, and he looked back, eyes widening as he realized what was happening. He managed to yank the car back onto the road just in time, narrowly avoiding a crash, and we both sighed in relief as we looked at each other, the relief quickly fading from our faces.

“What the fuck.” Joe whispered, and all I could do was nod in agreement. This was far, far bigger than either of us could ever have anticipated. I glanced back at the monster, still easily visible over the tree line, and swallowed hard. My mouth was dry and I felt like I was drifting further and further away, and I knew that if I wasen’t careful I was going to lose myself to the panic. Concentrate. Thirty seconds of panic, but no more. Breath. That was horrifying, that was for sure, but breaking down in tears over it would do me no good. Worse, it may get me killed. Slowly, I collected myself, pulling all those broken little pieces together as I tried to make sense of it all, or at the very least put it together enough that I was able to keep going. If I had to pack it all up and store it away somewhere deep inside of me, then that was fine. I could deal with this later. I needed to be in the here and now, or there would be no later to deal with it.

I snapped my eyes open, letting the coolness flow through me. Fire would just get you burned. “Joe.” I snapped, speaking fast. “Where are we going? Do you have any particular destination in mind?” Joe looked at me, blinking slowly. I had a distinct feeling he was also not in the best mental state right now.

“Um, no, I guess not. Once we got away from the hospital I’ve just been driving, hoping to get away from all this madness.” He said, gesturing to the massive thing behind us, which was mercifully getting smaller as we drove further away. “Do you have any idea on where to go?” I nodded.

“The doctor. Saul. We might as well check out the closer one, see if we can gleam any information from him. If he’s the wrong one, then I guess it’s going to be a pretty difficult drive to the other Saul. Do you know where we are.”

Joe nodded, looking a little more focused now that we had a clear plan in mind. “Yeah, I actually used to live near that neighborhood as a kid, though I never actually went into Bethal street. More of an upper-class place, no room for a troublemaker like me. It’s only about a half hour away.” He turned off of the highway, presumably heading to said neighborhood, and I decided to take this time to further collect myself, closing my eyes and trying not to focus on the rapidly collapsing world around me.

Several minutes passed this way, and I almost didn’t notice the change at first, it was so subtle. But as time went on it got more and more overwhelming, and I was forced to open my eyes and look around for the source in an almost panic, knowing what that smell meant. Thankfully, there was nothing around but us and the semi empty roads, with just the occasional panicked driver attempting to make their way out of the city as they whizzed past us, daring to brave the streets. I looked at Joe and he nodded, confirming what I already knew.

“Chocolate. And cake, and popcorn. I smell it too.” He said, face seeming to remain calm but eyes darting around.

“But that means that one of those things is nearby. We need to be careful.” I said, reaching for my gun before realizing that it was still at my house. “Damnit! Joe, after we get this “doctor” to talk we have to stop by my place to grab my gun.” He nodded, and glanced out the window again, but still there was nothing.

            “Mary…What if there isn’t one of those things near us? What if it just smells like this everywhere now?” He said slowly, clearly not liking the implications of that thought but still needing to say it anyway.

            “Then I guess things really have gone to shit Joe. Can I have your gun?” I said, to which he laughed out loud suddenly, surprising me. I didn’t mean it as a joke.

            “No Mary, no you cannot. We’re here.” He said, still chuckling slightly. We pulled up into the driveway of a small, unassuming suburban house with twenty-eight painted onto its mailbox. I glanced around, but didn’t see any creatures, despite the smell of cookies being so strong I could almost taste them. It was so strong in fact that I could once again smell the salt underneath it, a strange detail that was slowly driving me mad by how out of place it seemed. I didn’t know if I wanted Joe’s hypothesis on everywhere smelling like this now to be true or now, because on one hand, it would mean that something was not necessarily directly on top of us like it seemed to be, but on the other hand, it meant that these things were so prevalent now that there was no more getting a forewarning, one of the few small boons we had.

            Joe got out of the car, glancing around to make sure there was nothing, but only a gentle breeze greeted him. In the distance, we could hear sirens, but here there was nothing but the wind. I got out too, shivering a bit from the cold. Autumn was coming. We walked up to the house, staring at the front door, which was extraordinarily plain looking. I glanced at Joe, and he glanced at me before reaching out and knocking.

            Unsurprisingly, nobody answered. “Really?” I said, and he just gave a small smile before trying the doorknob, shocked to see that it opened easily.

“Maybe he just forgot to lock it.” I whispered, and now it was Joe’s turn to give me a funny look. That did seem rather unlikely, given the larger circumstances. I peeked inside, seeing nothing but a dark foyer and hallway before stepping though, Joe following close behind, hand on his gun. He made sure to close the door behind us, not wanting any sudden surprises from the back when we could very easily deal with one from the front.

 Inside was quiet, except for an odd buzzing noise with no discernible source. The place had that oppressive atmosphere that all houses have when you are inside of it without being invited. There was no movement, and the only light came from the slowly setting sun in the windows, which gave everything an orange-red tint. I walked in a couple more steps before suddenly being hit by the smell, which instantly overwhelmed the scent of desserts I was already being accustomed too. Rot. Something I was unfortunately also already pretty used to.

Joe moved forward, peering into each room on the right while I followed him, checking the ones on the left. I didn’t find anything particularly useful, but I did note that the occupant lived rather sparsely, with a mostly bare house except for the occasional odd-looking statue. An art man, perhaps.

“Mary.” I heard Joe yell from the other side of the house, and I could tell from his voice what I already suspected. “I don’t think we are going to be able to ask Dr. Saul many questions.” I walked over to where his voice was coming from, leg twinging but ignoring it as I passed a small statue of a man with goat horns. The smell was overwhelming now, and the buzzing was louder than ever as I saw Joe standing in front of a doorway holding a single sheet of paper.

“It’s pretty nasty in there. I don’t know if you want to take a look.” He told me, gesturing to the room, but he knew that I would look, just as I knew. I walked past him and stood in the doorframe, the smell of the decaying flesh nearly choking me now. In the red and orange of the sunset the body of who I assumed was Dr. Saul hung limply from the ceiling, skin slowly falling off of him. The noose hung tight, and I could barely make out his face amongst the flies that were now covering him. They were the source of the buzzing noise.

I grimaced and stepped out, gesturing for Joe to follow me back to the front of the house. I would have gone outside, but I didn’t really want to leave us exposed as we talked, and I could count on the dead body to not try to attack us. Probably.

“I found this in the room with him. His suicide note.” Joe said, handing it to me. The handwriting was messy, and it was short, only a paragraph long.

I have done terrible things, and worse things are going to happen, because of me. I’m sorry. I can only hope that one day I will find the peace and acceptance that she promised me, a promise I now know to be a lie. Eve, if you are reading this, know that I hope your Eden will crumble, and that you are there to crumble with it. This idea of yours will never work. For everyone else, I’m sorry. I really am. I only wanted to help people, and now because of me everyone will suffer. I’m a coward. I’m sorry.

I looked on the back of it, but that was all there was. “So, I guess this was the guy. This Eve woman was the same person who wrote the memo you found. He had something to do with all of this, and he couldn’t bear the shame.” I glanced back at the room where he still lay, forever staring at the wall, and tried to feel something. But really, the only thing I felt was tired. It was all so much, and now we have nothing to go off of. It was a dead end. Joe took the paper from me, and I let him, staring out the window at the nearly set sun. The stars were starting to come out, and I wanted to get a good look at them. I seemed to be looking at the stars a lot lately.

“What do we do now Joe?” I said, leaning against the cool glass. “That was our only lead, and now he’s dead. Do we just sit back and watch the world end?” I stared out into the street, waiting to see a monster with a million screaming faces come shambling down it or something equally as horrifying. It wouldn’t even surprise me at this point.

“I wouldn’t be so sure we have lost our lead Mary. I think the doctor told us something with this note.” Joe said, and I managed to pull myself off of the glass, turning to look at him.

“What?”

He pointed at a sentence on it, eyebrow raised. “I hope your Eden will crumble. That’s not a figure of speech. Eden is a tiny little ocean town, about a day’s drive from here. I bet if we go there, we find the source of all this madness.” He gave me a wary smile, pointing down the street. “If I remember correctly, and I think I do, it’s that way.” I peered out the window, looking down the street as the stars finally started to crowd the sky, joining the almost full moon in casting a dim glow on the scene.

“Do you really think that is what he meant?” I asked Joe, not sure what to think. He shrugged.

“Maybe. Do you have a better idea?” I looked down the street that he pointed to again, seeing a bright, twinkling star appear over it. It almost seemed to call to me, to tell me that this was the way to go. This was the way forward, it said. This is where you need to go.

“No Joe, I don’t. Looks like we are heading to Eden.”

[redsightstories]

Judgement Day (Part 2)

I handed the papers to Joe, who took them and carefully shuffled them into his briefcase, clasping it shut and putting it back down onto the floor next to my bed. We both stared at nothing for a moment, before he exhaled and turned to look at me.

“Wow. That was a… strong sendoff to that letter. What do you think?” He asked, turning to face me. I didn’t respond for a moment, just trying to take it all in. It was a lot to unpack. Finally, I spoke, being careful with my choice of words.

“Well, for one thing, we have no actual, solid connection between this… memo and the things that attacked us. They could be completely unrelated, for all we know.” Joe nodded, but didn’t seem convinced.

“Perhaps you’re right, but it seems like a bit too many coincidences doesn’t it? The woman, Ruth, she was collecting information on her boss. She didn’t know what he was doing, but it was clear that it was not very good. Then, she goes missing. And it just so happens that the day that I go there to investigate, there are two people there that clearly don’t want me messing around with her stuff, and attempt to feed me to that thing in the basement. A thing, I might add, that bares more than a passing resemblance to the other thing that broke into your basement and attempted to eat your cat, and then you.”

I nodded. “A fair point. Those are a lot of coincidences, even if we have nothing concrete connecting them. This Project G, and the organization that surrounds it, could be completely unrelated to everything and has been simply caught up with all of this by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Do you really believe that?” Joe asked me, and I sighed.

“No, not really. It seems pretty clear cut that whatever this is, it has something to do with that memo you just put in your briefcase. But I want to make sure we acknowledge every possibility.”

“A fair point. But considering that we have little more to go on, I say we follow this lead and see where it takes us. We can’t go back to the woman’s shelter, it’s nothing more than a burnt-out shell now, and I doubt going back to the woods would help us, even if we wanted to.”

I thought of those woods, the dark trees that were not trees and the trails of slime, the sloshing of the flesh as it moved in its strange, uncanny ways. No, I did not want to go back to the woods, and I shook my head to show my thoughts on that particular endeavor.

“Perhaps we should just contact the police, tell them what we know, let them take over for us. It’s not like we are at our best right now anyway.” Even as I said it, I could hear the lack of conviction in my own voice, which Joe obviously picked up on.

“You know they would never believe us. Giant meat…things, attacking us in the night? Some sort of shady organization behind it all? Perhaps if we had something, but the only proof we have a building that I was in when it burned down, some singed papers, and a forest that, from the way you described it, if we were to take other people into they would be eaten alive.”

I groaned in frustration, upset over how helpless I felt, lying in this stupid hospital bed. “I know, you’re right, you’re right! But we have to do something, we might be the only people on the entire planet who know about this and are trying to stop it. But what do we do?”

A slow grin spread across Joe’s face, the kind that tended to make me very nervous back in the good old days. It was the smile that said, “I know you said that we shouldn’t slip past this police tape Mary, but I just did and look at what I found.” It was a smile that said that he was about to do something dangerous. I missed that smile. It had been too long since I had last seen it.

He held up the briefcase, pointing at it. “We go after this “Dr. Saul” guy, whoever he is. He’s the only name we have, but it’s a clear connection. We find him, we get him to talk, and then we take it from there. Unless you have a better idea.”

I grimaced. “I really wish I did, but I don’t. But how do we even find this guy? We don’t even know if that’s his first or last name.” But this too, Joe had an answer for, as he reached into his briefcase and held up a phonebook.

“You carry that around with you?” I asked, slightly bemused.

“You never know. Besides, it’s like I always say, start with the basics. When it comes to tracking people down, don’t overcomplicate it, at least not until you need to. Want to find someone? Check the phonebook. If they aren’t in there, then that’s when you might have an issue.” He began to thumb through the pages, no doubt heading to the “S” section. This left me with a moment to myself, which I took advantage of to check my leg.

It wasen’t as bad as it could have been, thankfully, but the doctor had still told me that I should probably try to keep weight off it for at least a couple of weeks. When he had asked me what had caused such a messy wound, I had floundered, unsure of how to explain it. My initial idea of saying it was a burglar seemed absurd for such an injury, so I finally settled on a wild dog attacking me and my cat. The doc seemed satisfied with that answer, though then they had insisted that I made sure that I had had a rabies shot, which I assured them I did. I didn’t even want to think about what sort of diseases that monster might have been harboring in its mouth, but I didn’t really like that thought, and thankfully a distraction presented itself in the form of Joe, who was now scrolling his finger down the appropriate page.

“Here we go. Two Sauls, last names. One lives on 446 Cana street, which is about a four-hour drive from here, if my directions hold true, and they usually do. The other is on Bethal street, house number 28. About an hour away. I say we go over there and give them a little visit.”

It was pretty forward for my tastes, normally I would advise that we attempt to gather more evidence before we just go barging up to some random people’s houses, but honestly, I had no other ideas.

“Alright, but not right now, obviously. We need to give my leg time to heal, and time to think about everything that has happened to us. I say that we give it about a week, then, if we still have no other leads or ideas, we go visit these Sauls and see what they have to say.”

Joe nodded. “Agreed. I think that I will go check on the woman’s shelter, not go in of course but see if there are any suspicious characters hanging around outside of it.”

“Oh, like yourself?” I said, teasing, before actually thinking about what I had just said. I hadn’t actually told a joke in what seemed to be forever, but it had just slipped right out of my mouth. That was two in one day. It was a strange feeling, that, despite all the horrors and the nightmares of not only the past few nights but these last months, I was able to say something so lighthearted. Maybe it was seeing an old friend again. Maybe it was the sunlight streaming through the windows. Whatever it was, I didn’t hate it. It didn’t mean that pain was gone, of course, but it just wasen’t on the forefront of my mind anymore. I wanted to enjoy it, even with the ache in my leg and the knowledge that eventually, maybe even soon, we would probably run into those meat creatures again.

Joe seemed surprised at my little joke, but then smiled. “Hey, I don’t count. I’m one of the good guys.” He stood up, grabbing his briefcase but then, after thinking about it for a second, putting it back down again. “Here, you hold onto this. Feel free to go through the papers, see if there is anything we missed the first time around. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something.” He started walking out of the room, but then stopped at the door, turning around to face me again.

“Mary, listen. I know it’s been tough for you, and I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you like I should have, but I want you to know that-”

He was interrupted by a woman’s scream from outside, followed shortly by the sound of breaking glass. Wasting no time, he dashed out the door, leaving me alone in the hospital bed with nothing but the sound of the wind outside the window to keep me company. This silence did not last however, as quickly more screams filled the air, along with other, harder to place sounds. Sounds of squishing, and wet noises that unfortunately sounded very familiar. I struggled to sit up straighter in bed to get a look out the door as footsteps ran by my room, a lot of them very fast.

More screams now, and I started to struggle to stand up, using the bed as support as I worked my way around it so I could get a look around. I cursed my leg and those awful woods where it got injured as agony shot through me, but I managed to make it to the door as I heard thumping, as if something heavy was dropped as the screams continued. Peaking out into the hallway, I saw panicked people running past me, away from something further down the hall, but what they were running from I had no idea.

A loud boom slammed into my ears, the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired from down the hall from where the people were running away from, and I nearly stumbled from the shock of it. As I struggled to get my bearings a man slammed into me and then I did fall, hitting the ground hard as I was overwhelmed from a cacophony of noise. I struggled to right myself, gripping the doorframe, when a strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled me upwards, helping me stand.

It was Joe, the Seventh Shot in his hand and fear in his eyes. “What, what is it?” I demanded, confused and frustrated. “An attack of some kind?”

Joe pulled me into the room, leaving me to lean against the wall as he quickly grabbed the briefcase and my spare set of clothes. “It’s one of those things. The meat things. It’s here, in the hospital. It’s got like-” he wavered here, and I could see that he was struggling for words. “Like feelers, like a sea urchin or something, but not really. We got to get out of here, I saw it grab a man and lift him up like he weighed nothing. I shot it, but it didn’t even seem to notice. The bastard.” He spit, grabbing my arm with one hand and the briefcase in the other, shoving my clothes into my hands.

“What? It’s here? In the hospital? But, but it’s the middle of the day! In a crowded building! In the middle of the city!” I said, hardly believing what I was hearing as we stumbled out into the hallway.

“I know.” He growled, helping to lead me toward a glowing exit sign as several other people streamed past us, notably less than there had been just a moment ago. They must have gotten out already. Or maybe they didn’t. I didn’t really like that thought. We continued to walk down the hallway; Joe being forced to help me move as I cursed my leg once again. My breathing was heavy, and my head spun, trying to make sense of it all. Why were one of those things here? Was it targeting us, specifically? But why?

Joe nearly dropped the gun as a deep, throaty noise came from behind us, followed by the slick sound of raw flesh being dragged across clean tile floors. I glanced backwards, but there was nothing but the empty hallway, all the other people had already fled. Well, those that could. I felt terrible for the elderly or infirm that were unable to move on their own, trapped in their rooms as they listened to the noises that approached. We finally reached a turn in the hallway, making the sharp right and nearly slamming into a gurney that had been left in the middle of the hall in all the panic.

“Where is the exit to this goddamn place?” I huffed, feeling the frustration building in my chest. Thankfully, my question was shortly answered by a glowing red sign with that exact word on it, guiding the way out. We made our way to it, just a few feet away from the next turn when suddenly the power cut out, casting us into darkness and setting off a new round of screams from everyone else who was still inside.

“What now?” Joe groaned beside me, his face barely visible in the sudden darkness.

“It shouldn’t last long. It’s a hospital, they have backup generators.” I assured him, and indeed, an electric hum filled the air as the building came back to life. But now only the emergency lights were on, putting everything into a perpetually gloomy state. The shadows ran deep now, despite what had been a sunny day outside, and I felt fear slowly coil its way into my heart, but I refused to let it control me.

“Cmon. The exit is right there.” I said, dragging Joe with me, the sparce lighting making him seem so much older. We froze, however, when we once again heard the sound of flesh being dragged, much closer this time. But more than that, it was the smell. Once again, that disparate smell filled my nose, the smell of chocolate and cookies and cake, delicious smells that made my mouth involuntarily water, despite me knowing the truth. I glanced at Joe and I could see the fear in his eyes as he smelled it too, knowing what it meant.

“Delicious. It reminds me of my mother.” He whispered to me, and I nodded in agreement. The smell grew stronger, and we couldn’t help but turn to look back down the hall and at the corner, where a grasping hand grabbed from behind the wall, back where we had just come from. A second hand followed, then a third, and forth, and then many more as it dragged itself around the corner.

It was red, and raw, like the others, but this one squirmed and thrashed on the ground like a worm, a worm that had just been stepped on and was flailing about in confusion and pain. It had no eyes to speak of, instead grabbing at everything around it with its many, many hands that stuck out of the top of it, just like Joe had said. There were maybe hundreds. I could somewhat see his comparison to a sea urchin, though to me it looked more like a worm crossed with a porcupine, if the porcupine’s quills were human arms. It grasped at everything, leaving bloody handprints all over the walls, the floors, the gurney that we had so nearly run into just before. Even as we watched it reached up and grabbed the lightbulb next to it, shattering it and casting itself into even deeper darkness.

But even with that darkness I could see the way it moved, using its many limbs to drag itself down the hall as the main body thrashed, almost independent of the limbs that sprouted from its back. I could just barely make out behind it a tube that connected to its rear, stretching beyond the corridor back to where it had come from. It was the same as the “animals” that had chased me, I noted. They always seemed to be connected back to something. That felt like it was important, not that I would necessarily get out of this place to do anything with that information.

Joe shook me, and I realized that I had been standing still in shock, or probably fear, for far too long. He gestured with his head towards the exit, and I nodded, both of us trying to make as little noise as possible. We didn’t know if this thing was able to hear, but we didn’t need to take any chances. We crept slowly, me now holding onto the briefcase and clothes as Joe held me on my weak side and gripped the Seventh Shot with his other hand, never taking his eyes off the thing behind us. It groaned, despite having no obvious mouth as it continued to work its way down the corridor, only occasionally stopping to stretch its limbs into the side rooms, getting uncomfortably close to us as we continued our agonizingly slow escape.

“It’s searching.” Joe muttered under his breath, and I was surprised to see that he was right. It was almost methodical, check room, move down, check room, move down. There was almost a rhythm to it. But why? So many questions, so impossible to answer. I hated it.

A sudden shriek, and it seemed that the creature had found its prize. It lifted from a room a young girl, perhaps only seven, grasping her with several of its hands. She screamed again as it dragged her toward its main body, and I was moving before I even realized it, slamming the briefcase into several of its arms, causing it to gurgle in surprise and let go of her with them. It wasen’t enough, however, as even as she tried to run a limb still held onto her leg. A sudden boom, and suddenly there was a meaty hole in the arm grasping her as both me and the girl were dragged away by Joe as the thing screamed in undeniable rage.

“Cmon!” He yelled, pulling the girl to her feet as she stumbled over her own legs. I ran after them, sparing a glance behind me to see the behemoth giving chase, gurgling and shrieking. Joe slammed through a door and I followed, blindly trusting him to know where we were going. He led us true though, with us finally bursting out into the blessed sunlight as we ran through the front doors. I gasped for air as I watched the little girl squirm out of Joes arms and go running to a man and woman who seemed to just be getting ready to head back inside, clearly looking for her. She sobbed into their arms as they comforted her, causing a strange mixture of emotions to arise in my chest.

I was happy for them, of course, but still, as I watched this young girl and her parents, I couldn’t help but feel jealous of what they had. As I looked at them, someone placed their hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see Joe, haggard but in one piece, asking me something that I didn’t quite here.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Are you doing alright? That was pretty intense back there, and I know that you were already-” for the second time today Joe got cut off from his sentence as the doors to the hospital suddenly slammed open. Grasping red hands grabbed onto the double doorframes as gurgling noises filled the air, causing a fresh round of shrieks to arise from all the people that had gathered in the parking lot. We could only watch in horror as the thing dragged itself out through the door, covering the frame in slime and something that could only be blood. Me and Joe stumbled backwards, trying to make distance as it grabbed blindly with its hands at the surrounding area.

“The car.” Joe said, and I nodded, having trouble taking my eyes off the thing as it pulled itself forward more, almost completely out of the hospital now. It was bizarre, seeing it in broad daylight, the light causing the slime that was all over its body to glisten and making it easy to see every horrifying detail. Here, in the light, I could see that it had a mouth, no lips, only teeth, directly in the center of its back, which gave me the queasy realization that the people it had been grabbing had been almost certainly pulled into that maw.

I turned and stumbled forward, making my way to Joe’s beater, which I knew for a fact was more than a decade old, but right now it might as well have been a brand-new gleaming racecar. Joe rushed around to the driver’s side and unlocked it, throwing himself in while I did much the same, tossing the briefcase into the backseat. I slammed the door shut behind me as I looked out the window, seeing the monstrosity was still near the front of the hospital, but for how much longer that would hold true was anyone’s guess.

Joe turned the key over and over, causing the engine to sputter and gasp as he cursed every swear word I had ever heard, and a couple I hadn’t. As he struggled I kept my eyes on the thing, and as I peered out a car attempted to squeal past it, but before they could make any distance it reached over with at least fifty hands and grabbed it, simply lifting it into the air like it was a children’s toy. I watched in terror as the thing tore off the metal roof to the car and grabbed the man inside that had been driving. It lifted him towards its body, the arms holding onto him so hard they were leaving marks, the mouth on the back of the thing gnashing, and I wanted to tear my eyes away so I didn’t have to watch this terrible display, but at the same time I simply needed to know. The thing stuffed the man into its mouth whole, and I could even see a glimpse of his panicked face as he was consumed by it, never standing a chance. I came to the terrible realization that it was a miracle we saved that little girl.

“Joe.” I whispered, not taking my eyes off the thing as it dropped the car to the ground and started to feel around once more. “We need to go. Now.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do? Take a nap?” He yelled, turning the key over once more as the car made a strange noise before finally roaring to life. “Yes!” He yelled, but I did not share in his excitement, as I could see that all our noise had attracted the attention of the thing, and now it was rapidly squirming towards us, the hands reaching out desperate to try and grab the vehicle before it could even move.

“Now! Go now! NOW!” I screamed, and he slammed the gas, sending the car flying forward and just narrowly avoiding getting grabbed. We weren’t out of the woods yet though, as the thing was chasing after us, moving surprisingly fast for such a bizarre shape. Joe glanced in the review mirror, nearly losing control of the wheel when he saw how close we had been to being caught by it.

“Holy shit!” He screamed, and I was inclined to agree. It was keeping pace with us, only a few feet behind, and I knew there was a very real possibility that the car would give out, or Joe would be forced to slow down, or perhaps it would simply go a little bit faster. I watched as it inched closer and closer, nearly grabbing onto our bumper, and I said a silent goodbye to the world, knowing that this was the end. A finger brushed the trunk of the car, and a tear rolled down my cheek as I thought of all the things that I had wanted to do, but now would never get the chance.

The thing was suddenly yanked backwards, and it let out a shriek so terrible I thought my ears would bleed from the sheer volume of it. We sped away, far from its grasp, and I could see that it had reached the end of its rope, quite literally. The tube, the tube that stretched all the way back into the hospital, the thing that seemed to run out the back of all these horrible beasts, had reached its limit and had brought the creature to a crashing halt. It grasped at us as we sped away, but there was nothing it could do about it. We were free.

[redsightstories]

Judgement Day (Part 1)

The hospital room was small and cramped. My leg was painful, but I didn’t really pay it any mind. I had bigger things to think about. I hadn’t seen joe in months, not since the day I had left. I had barely muttered a goodbye, saying that I needed to be alone for a while. Well, it had certainly been a while. Several months, actually. But now here he was, sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair next to me, sorting through some suspiciously scorched papers in the rays of the midday sun. He barely looked changed since I had last seen him, but then again it hadn’t been that long, not in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps more tired, but that was it. Oh, and one other thing. His eyes.

            They had a deep, sunken look in them, as though he had just gotten back from some terrible war where he had watched his comrades die in his arms. He was staring at the papers, but I had doubts he had absorbed a single word from them. Just shuffling them, one after the other, thoughts a million miles away. It was a look I recognized. I had seen it in the mirror, every day since I had lost him. It was a look that said “What do I do now?” And to be honest, I didn’t really know. I looked out the small window that was next to my bed, looking at the sunshine filled street. It was hard to believe that only about a day ago, I was running for my life in the woods away from, for lack of a better term, monsters. It almost seemed like a bad dream now, but the pain in my leg from where that thing had dug into me gave me a sharp reminder that it had been very real.

            “Hey.” Joe said suddenly, startling me. When I had woken up after falling asleep in the hospital, exhausted from the events of the previous night, he had been there, sleeping in the chair next to me. He looked about as tired as I had felt, so I let him sleep until he finally woke up around noon. There had been no teary hellos or anything like that, he had simply grabbed the papers from his briefcase next to him and started looking over them. Maybe I should have thought it was rude, but honestly, I was glad. I had also needed the extra time to marshal my thoughts and process everything that had happened. But it seemed he was finally ready to talk.

            “When I first got here, you were muttering in your sleep, something about a cat. Do you have one now?” He asked. The question caught me a little off guard, but then I gave a slight laugh. Out of everything he wanted to know, that was the most pressing concern?

            “Yeah I do. A fluffy white thing. It’s name is Casper.” He nodded thoughtfully, staring out the window. Then, without even turning to look at me, continued.

            “Is it alright? You sounded pretty worried in your sleep.”

            I nodded. “Yeah, he’s at the vet now. He was pretty banged up, but he should be okay.” Now it was his turn to nod.

            “I didn’t realize you were a cat person.” He said, not addressing the fact that the cat was at the vet. We would wrap around to it, I suppose.

            “I found him not long after…I retired. Just wandering around in my backyard, a stray. I fed him and eventually he invited himself into my home.” I didn’t mention the hours I spent just sitting in the yard, staring out into the forest, not thinking about anything at all. That stray tomcat coming up to me was the only thing that broke the monotony. I was surprised at first, but eventually just accepted it.

            “I see.” Joe said, seeming to be deep in thought. Finally, after staring out the window for another long few seconds, he turned back to me.

            “So, what happened to your leg?” He said, unexpectedly changing the conversation. But a fair question. I told him everything, about the basement, the cat being taken, the things in the woods, even the meat tree-things. I knew that he knew I was telling the truth, and that I wasn’t delusional or insane. Perhaps another might have thought that I had lost my mind, but not Joe. Not with me. We had known each other for too long at this point, and he knew that I wasen’t the type to go making fantastical stories. The only thing I left out was my mental state, both then and now. I knew that he had some idea of what I had been going through, but I didn’t want to bring up just how bad it was right now, and it didn’t feel relevant at this particular moment. Plus, it was personal, and talking about it out loud would make it so much more real then it already had been.

            Despite my trust in Joe, I had expected at least a raised eyebrow in response to this story, if not for not believing me, then in the insane nature of the story itself. But instead, he simply nodded along, with no real change in his face other than somehow managing to look even more tired than he already had been, despite just waking up.

            “I’m surprised Joe. That was a pretty crazy tale I just told, and you barely seem shocked. I’m guessing you have a story of your own to tell?” He gave a slight huff of laughter and nodded his head slowly.

            “If you can believe it Mary, I don’t think my story is all that different from yours.” He took a deep sigh, and begin. He told me of the little boy, and his mother who had gone missing. When he mentioned the agencies struggling finances, and how he took the job anyway, I looked away with something like shame burning on my face, but if he noticed it, he gave no indication. He talked of the women’s shelter, and the notes he found. The assailants, and the basement. The pillar of flesh down there, and how it consumed one of his attackers whole. His escape, and the fire. Finally, he finished off the story by holding up the burnt papers, the ones he had been shuffling around.

            “This was what I wanted to show you.” He handed them to me, and I could see that they were covered in fairly large text, as though the author was trying to make it as easy to read as possible. But before I read it, before I really got into it, I had something I had to say.

            “Joe…” I paused for a second, unsure of how to proceed. He just looked at me, heavy bags under his eyes but expression otherwise unreadable. “I’m…I’m sorry I left without saying anything. That wasen’t fair of me, or right. You deserved to know why I was leaving, where I was going.”

            “Are you going to tell me that now?” He asked, face inscrutable. I looked at him, inside myself. I felt that red, raw wound of what I had lost, that seemed to have not faded at all, even with all the time that had passed. I thought of the long. lonely nights sitting in the dark, staring at the flickering TV screen. Of my parents. Of my child. I could feel their ghosts, calling out to me, asking of me something, but I couldn’t quite make out what. I was not a superstitious person, but I could almost hear them. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I fear that they were asking me to join them.

            “No, no I don’t think I am ready for that. I’m sorry Joe, but I just can’t. It’s too raw.” I looked up at him, and he gave a small nod of understanding. I was appreciative of that, and I felt like I couldn’t just leave it on that, so I quickly blurted out a different ending.

            “Soon though! Soon. When the time is right, and we don’t have-” I gestured to the papers. “Whatever this is going on.”

            He smiled slightly, the Joe I know peeking out just a little, and he stuck out his hand for a handshake, which I gave him in full. “Apology accepted, and deal. When you are ready. Besides, it’s not like I am completely absolved of blame. I could have reached out, tried to contact you.”

            “Don’t worry about it.” I responded. “I wouldn’t have returned your calls anyway.” He laughed at that, and it was a nice noise, but it quickly faded in the stark hospital room. An awkward moment of silence, and I finally turned my attention to the papers that he had given me. I was careful with them, as they felt as though they would fall apart with even the lightest of touches, and indeed when my finger brushed against one of the charred edges soot smeared off on my hand, leaving a black mark on it that I quickly wiped off onto the bed.

            “So, these are the papers huh? You went through a lot for them. Have you read over them already?” He gave a small shrug in response.

            “Only skimmed them. I was dead tired, so I barely understood what I was reading anyway. Mind scooting over a bit so I can read over your shoulder?” I made the necessary adjustments, holding the papers at a somewhat awkward angle so we could both see it, and then, in that stark white, sun-filled room, we began to read. There was no introduction or title, the paper simply began.

            “There is an ancient myth that states this. When humans first appeared on this earth, they did not look like how we look today. They were quite different, having four arms, four legs, and two faces. These humans were powerful, and they could achieve many incredible things. In fact, these humans were so strong that they threatened the very gods, who in fear of what the humans may do devised a plan. They split the humans in two, separating them so that they only had two of each limb and a single face. The humans, however, knew that this was not right, and thus were doomed to spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half, so that they may be complete once more.

            This is, of course, just a myth. A simple explanation for why we feel love, and the eternal search for our mate. But there lies inside of this story an idea of unity, of humans being stronger together then they are apart. And of course, this is true. A pair is stronger than just one, a group stronger than that, and a community stronger still. But we are cursed to endlessly squabble and argue, always drawing more lines to divide us and keep us from reaching our fullest potential. It is for that reason that I originally created our small organization, in hopes that it would eventually bring people together. And, for the most part, we have succeeded in this endeavor. However, as we have continued to grow, issues have begun to present themselves in increasing volume.”

            Me and Joe exchanged a look on that line, but continued to read onwards anyway.

            “There are people that are being selfish, taking our resources for their own gain. There are others that are meek, and are unwilling to carry out the tasks that were assigned to them. And worst of all, there are those that abandon us in our time of need. These people are traitors, and deserve all of the humiliation and scorn that comes with being so. But do not worry. Despite what those who leave us may think, they will get what is coming to them, in time. Rest assured, they will get their just desserts.”

            “Pretty intense for what seems to be a group-wide letter.” Joe muttered under his breath, and I found myself inclined to agree. Whatever this group was, they did not take kindly to people leaving.

            “But, enough of that negative talk. Let me tell you of something positive! Our organization has now reached over one thousand members, marking a very impressive milestone for us all. I would just like to say, congratulations! I welcome all of you newcomers with open arms. I know that some of you may be unsure of what sorts of rules we have in place and how we run this little operation. Below, I have taken the liberty of listing out those very things. Follow these, and we will all get along just fine.”

            Underneath that paragraph was indeed a list of rules, laid out in bullet point format. Most of them seemed fairly self-explanatory, such as not taking from the donations bin or being honest, although I had to wonder if these rules were strictly necessary to list out. However, some other ones stood out, such as “You must visit the ocean at least once a month.” and “sacrifice is important.” Joe squinted his eyes, clearly going through the same thought process as me.

            “I don’t even think that’s is a rule. It’s just a statement.” I said, pointing at the sacrifice one. He nodded, frowning.

            “So, this is a religious organization of some sort? It seems to be that; with the mention of donations and the way these “rules” are listed.” He said, brow furrowing.

            “Seems more like a cult to me. I wish we had a name, but perhaps it will present itself. A thousand members isn’t a ton, in the grand scheme of things, but still perhaps one of us would have heard of them.”

            Joe’s lips grew tight. “I would hazard a guess that they might be local. Like you said, a thousand is small, and I bet that these papers didn’t travel very far. They might even be in this very city. But that’s just speculation. Let’s continue to read.” I nodded, but as we prepared to resume, a thump came from outside. We both looked at each other, and Joe got up to peak out the window as I strained to see from my position in the hospital bed.

            “What is it?” I asked, and he didn’t respond for a long second.

            “Nothing. There’s nothing out these, just an empty parking lot.” He glanced back at me, eyebrows furled, then back out the window. “I got no idea what did that. Probably a bird or something hitting the building.”

            That made the most logical sense, and I wanted to agree with it, but after the night that both of us had had I don’t think either of us truly believed it. But still, Joe came and sat back down next to me, and we continued to read the somewhat scorched pages.

            “You have actually joined at an excellent time. We will soon begin to enter into the next phase of our process, which, while I cannot reveal to you right now what that phase consists of, I assure you will bring us all closer together as comrades in arms. I can understand if you have any questions, but I assure you they will be-”

            The text was cut off here from a scorch mark that ran down the entire length of the page, making it difficult to discern what the words even were, much less if they were important or not. I cursed, flipping over the sheet to see that it never had anything on the other side of it to begin with. I moved on to the next page to find it similarly desolate, only able to make out a few useless words here and there. Frustrated, I moved onto the next page, which thankfully had at least a couple of readable paragraphs.

            “While I must humbly accept the praise that I have received for the work I have done on Project G, I must also thank the ever-illustrious Doctor Saul for his contributions to the project, and I hope that I will be able to see him in the flesh shortly after releasing this letter, so that I may say my praises to him directly.”

            I pointed that out to Joe, excited to finally have any sort of lead. “You see that? A name. Doctor Saul, do you know any doctors that go by that?” Joe shook his head, deep in thought.

            “No, but it’s important to remember that he could very well be a doctor of something other than medicine, and thus would be less visible to the public eye.” He reached over and took the page out of my hand gently, getting a closer look at it, as though he was having trouble seeing the words upon it.

            “Project G… I remember that name. I read it on the first sheet of paper that I found on Ruth’s desk, there was mention of it and it proceeding accordingly. There was also some mention of animals or something, but I’m not sure. I got hit on the head right after reading it, so it’s a little fuzzy. I do know this though, the paper that I read that on isn’t in this pile we have here, so I have to assume it burned up in the fire.” He swore at that.

            “Shit. That seemed useful.” He chewed on his bottom lip, and I reached over to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

            “Hey, no point in beating yourself up over it. It’s a miracle that you were able to get these that we have now in the first place. Besides, it’s not like all is lost, we haven’t even finished reading what we have.” He nodded at that, and for a moment I was struck by the strangeness of me comforting him while I laid in a hospital bed. I didn’t blame him, of course, it was really down to luck and nothing else that I got injured while he made it out relatively unscathed. I think it more was due to the fact that for so long it had just been me sitting at home alone or stocking the shelves of some shitty convenience store by myself and stewing in my thoughts, which had led me to become use to the negativity of it, almost complacent. I had thought very little about my own emotional state, and it was only now, seeing the upset expression that I knew I had been wearing for days on end reflected back at me, is what finally caused me to really start to think about what had happened. I had been wallowing in my feelings for so long that I barely had even taken the time to process them.

            But it seems, ironically, that I still did not have time for this sort of deep introspection, as Joe had started to read again, and I didn’t want to be left behind. I knew that I would have to return to this thought, however, as it felt deeply important, not something to be discarded, but simply set aside for now until a later date.

            “In the meantime, I myself will be here, in the city, at least for a while to help oversee some of the final few steps in the process. I know that some of you may be excited to meet the leader of this wonderful new group that you have joined, and that is why I am happy to say that you may meet with me for the following days at this location:” Unfortunately, where there had been an address previously, there was now only the black edges of a burn hole in the paper and the faint smell of smoke.

            “Typical.” I muttered, moving on to the next paragraph as Joe gave an affirming, if frustrated noise. I noted that there was only a couple paragraphs left and so resumed reading with renewed vigor, hoping to squeeze out any information that I could with what remained.

            “I assure you, after I leave the city and return to my home, you will begin to see the impact that we have had on not only this city, but the world as a whole. No longer will we be the halved monsters running around in the mud, but rather we will build towers that stretch up to the sky, so high that perhaps even the gods will take notice.

            I leave you with this. A word of advice, as we head forward into these exciting new times. Things may seem strange at first, perhaps even frightening, but once we make the leap into our new ways of living, and integrate not only the American public, but the entire world, you will see that life will be easier. Simpler. Happier. I look forward to seeing you all on the other side.”

            A handwritten signature was at the bottom, simple but elegant. The flames had seared it, but it was still very much legible.

Eve.

[redsightstories]

Nimrod Part 2

I jerked awake, falling off the bench as the shock of returning to the world hit me all at once. The frosted grass felt cool under my fingers, but my entire body felt like it was burning up. I was shaking as I slowly stood up, seeing the evening sun in the sky as I tried to get my bearings. I managed to make my way back to the bench, sitting down and putting my sweating face in my hands despite the chill in the air. The bench, real and solid, was reassuring under me, but I still didn’t trust it. How could I trust anything after that? The feeling of mud under my fingernails, the terror of the thing reaching for me, it had been real. It was like nothing I had felt before. I reached up and touched my face, expecting to find it dirty, but it was as clean as it had been this morning.

            What did it mean? The hallucinations, the visions, they had never been like that. If you could even call that a hallucination. Could hallucinations let you feel the chill of cold rain running down your spine, the shockwave of an artillery strike rattle your bones? I don’t know, but I doubted it. No, this was something more. Perhaps… perhaps it was a warning.

            It sounded absurd, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I laid down on the bench, letting the cool wood of its seat press against me as my feverish brain spun, still hot from the experience. Ok, think, think. Put it all together. You started getting these…snippets when you first began to consume the flesh, the red raw from that room that you followed the man into so seemingly long ago. It had started out as just words that you would hear, audibly, before transitioning into visual hallucinations and now, after that, seemingly entire episodes of events that you have never witnessed. Despite your observations, no other person that has consumed the meat is experiencing these symptoms.

            I found it always helped sooth my mind to break things down into their base components, smaller and smaller bits until everything was a nice, clean line that was easy to follow. Doing that now, despite my panic, I could feel my thoughts settling, just a little bit. They were still everywhere, fragments of ideas and questions swirling around, but I was able to slowly pluck a few of them from the tornado and put them together, all while concentrating on controlling my breathing, focusing on the cool smooth surface of the bench. My eyes were shut, and I worried that perhaps one of my followers would wander over here and see me in this disheveled state, but there was no point in worrying about it now. Just concentrate on what happened, try to piece it together. Those who get lost in the present were dooming to never learn from the past. I think I read that in a book somewhere. Or maybe I imagined that too.

            Focus, focus. One thing at a time. What was causing these intense hallucinations? It seemed obvious, it was the meat, the unverified substance that I had been consuming for weeks now. Alright, that was an acceptable conclusion for now. Question two, why was it not affecting anyone else? That was harder. Perhaps it was because I had started to eat it earlier than everyone else? Perhaps, but it was not that much earlier, and I would assume that they would be showing at least some symptoms by now. Perhaps it was me, specifically. It could be that there was something about me that caused the substance to affect me in this extreme way, but what that could be I had no idea. It’s not like I was particularly special.

            Or…maybe I really was special. Perhaps that was what I had been missing. Perhaps I had been chosen. I had been thinking of the visions and hallucinations as something to conquer, to get to submit, but maybe I was thinking about it wrong. It could be that these were actually blessings, warnings even. I thought back to the phrase I had heard, clear as day when I had first started receiving these…these messages. It had told me to figure out who to trust. Sure, it had been in a roundabout way, but that was what it had said, in essence. I had followed that advice, and look where it had gotten me! I was top of the food chain, head-honcho, leader of the pack. There was no discrediting that. In my desperation to get the voices to stop, I had been ignoring them, and perhaps by doing that I had given up on so many opportunities that were presented to me. But what if I were to look into them, really examine them?

            The meat had given me ideas, this was true. From the very beginning it had put into me the idea of leadership, of leading the weak and foolish. Then the voices had begun, and I had thought that I was going insane. But, looking back at it, I realized that perhaps I had been being guided, instead. There was the reminder to figure out who you could trust, as well. I remember, near the beginning, I had suspicions of one of the men who had commanded a small group of vagrants, using them to commit petty crimes. I had taken him into my fold, put him into a larger position of power, thinking that with his already developed leadership skills he could be a powerful force. And indeed, at first it seemed that things were going well.

            But then one night, as I struggled to fall asleep as I often do, a snippet of words came into my head. I don’t want you hanging out with that Dismas anymore, he’s bad news! Once a thief, always a thief, that’s what mom always used to say. It was one of the first times that this had happened to me, and I had bolted upright, convinced that someone was in my tent with me. Looking around, I saw nothing, but still the words echoed in my ears. I had no idea what to make of them, at least until I was finally able to settle back down and let my mind wander and think of my newly acquired leadership and those that were underneath me. Now, the man’s name was not Dismas, but nevertheless I made sure to keep a much closer eye on him in the following days. And lo and behold, what do I find but him stealing food and goods behind my back, hording it all to himself. I had him banished, of course, kicked out never to return, and I had not thought much of it since then.

            But perhaps I had been too hasty to dismiss what had happened. Was I really getting warnings from the food I was consuming? Prophecies, even? I had never been one to believe in things like that, but then again, a lot of things have changed in these past few weeks of my life. And the fact that no one else had been affected… perhaps I really was special. An oracle, even. One who gets hints of the future, a touch of the divine. A slow smile crept across my face as I considered that, despite my throbbing headache. Oh yes, I liked that idea very much. Not many could claim to have the gift of foresight, or at least the knowledge of things they shouldn’t, but here I am, having done it multiple times already.

            My smile grew even larger as I rolled the thought over in my head. It just made perfect sense! The visions, the prophecies, they were not clear when I first received them, but when had any soothsayer ever claimed that the future was an easy thing to grasp? But I had figured it out, hadn’t I? Oh yes, yes I had. A slight giggle escaped my lips, and I quickly slapped my hand over my mouth to stop the noise. No need to start laughing by myself in the park, or else people really would believe that I was crazy. I slowly lowered my hand, smile still on my face but laughter under control, at least for now. It just felt so good to have that kind of power, that ability that put you so far above the common folk. I was more than special, I was unique. What more could one ask for?

            I was feeling quite pleased with myself, when suddenly a thought occurred to me. If what I had been seeing really was visions of the future, or knowledge of things I should not know, then what was I to take away from what I had just seen, moments ago? War, that was what. I had seen war, and monsters. A jolt suddenly sent me upright, as I realized what had been shown to me. I must return home immediately. Not only had the subject of the vision been one of the most foreboding things I had ever seen, but the intensity of it had far exceeded anything that had come before it. Clearly, this was something to be worried about.

            I headed back to my tent, hurrying but not rushing. It was important to not give off the impression that something was amiss, otherwise people started to panic, and panic made people difficult to control. No, I need to move with urgency, but also with grace. Thankfully, I felt I was under much more control now that I had given myself time to think this through instead of jumping to the worst possible conclusion. I slipped past the clearing where a large number of my congregation were gathered, eating food and generally just passing the time. I saw with some level of satisfaction that there were several people there eating the meat that I provided, proving that I was maintaining my sway over them, as I should be.

            I looked around as I got neared my tent, noting that the sun was nearly set. It would be night soon, and the chill in the air would be increasing. I didn’t mind however, I still felt hot from my experience earlier in the day and I figured it might even be good for me. As for everyone else, they could learn to deal with it. It wasen’t that cold anyway. Nearing my tent, I saw Hagar dutifully sitting nearby, nodding off as the day grew long. But I simply couldn’t allow that, I needed her now.

            “Hagar!” She shot up quickly, nearly falling off of the rickety chair she had been sitting in. I rolled my eyes but gave her a chance to recover. She wasen’t the brightest woman, but I could rely on her to carry out at least simple instructions to the letter. Yet another perk of being in charge.

            “Go and get as many people as you can to the clearing, the one with all the picnic benches. There is something I need to tell everyone and it’s urgent, so hurry.” She nodded, but then also gave me a strange look, which in turn gave me pause. She had never looked at me like that before.

            “What is it?” I said, but she simply shook her head and ran off. I narrowed my eyes, quickly ducking inside the tent to check myself in the small hand mirror that I kept in there. Perhaps I had some grass on my face from my fall in the park earlier today. The tent was the way I had left it, noticeably cooler now that the sun was going down, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, I went over and grabbed the cheap thing, expecting a smudge or grass stain. But that wasen’t it at all. Instead, in the scratchy glass I saw my own reflection, nary a hair out of place, except for the huge grin that smiled back at me. Shocked, I reached up and touched my mouth, surprised to find that I was, indeed, holding that expression. I hadn’t even realized. No wonder she had been looking at me like that, I was scaring myself with how wide the grin was, completely out of place on my normally serious face.

            I tried to return to a more neutral expression but found myself struggling, the corners of my mouth lifting back up without any input from me, entirely independent of my own desires. I felt a growing state of panic, but swallowed it down, forcing myself back under control. Concentrating, I made the smile sink, more and more, before I finally had my lips pressed together in a thin line. I stared at that expression for a solid minute, making sure that the smile didn’t return, but much to my relief nothing changed. This was…worrying, to say the least, but I didn’t have time to think about it too much. For now, I would simply have to compartmentalize it away and deal with it some other time. I needed to get everybody prepared, so that my little kingdom would not crumble so soon after I had constructed it.

             I gave myself a quick onceover, smoothing out any wrinkles that I could see in my clothes. I really needed to get a proper home to work out of. Perhaps that would be the next major thing I did, get everyone into a shelter or something like that. With everyone pooling their resources and perhaps securing some proper paying jobs, it may just be economically viable. But here I was getting ahead of myself again. One thing at a time, I needed to go address my commune. I reached for the tent flap, opening it to find that the sun had set and it was truly and properly night now. The streetlamps glowed with a slight hum, coating everything in their florescent light. I quickly approached the clearing, pleased to find that nearly everyone was there already. There were a couple of stragglers, there always were, but that was alright. They could hear about what I had said later, these things always circulated. I just needed the majority.

            I hiked myself up on a small box so that everyone could see me and peered out over the crowd. They looked at me expectedly, some with annoyance in their gaze. Just because I was the “leader” didn’t mean that all of them loved me. I would have to make sure to word this right, perhaps leave out some of the more unbelievable details. I felt a slight nervousness standing here, so many faces looking up at me, but I quickly suppressed it. This was no time for things like that. I took a deep breath, and began.

            “Everyone. Thank you all for coming out here late at night like this, but I am afraid that I have urgent news. I do not want to mince words, or waste everyone’s time, so I will get right too it. I was recently…contacted by a friend in the park, and I have reason to believe that we may all be in grave danger.”

            That certainly got everyone’s attention. Most of the crowd had been shifting around before, half-listening, but now they were staring at me intently, waiting to see what I would say next. I enjoyed that feeling, of being important, of being someone people would listen to. I realized quickly where this train of thought was going, and I casually lifted my hand up to my face to make sure that I wasen’t smiling. I wasen’t, thank goodness, as that would have been a very bad look after just telling everyone that they were in danger. Instead, I took a deep breath and continued.

            “Now, I know that this is seemingly coming from nowhere. But I have received warnings from this informant before, and I know that they are trustworthy.” I felt a bead of sweat run down the back of my head, but I made no indication of it on my face. “War is coming. There will be invaders coming to us, to our homestead, and we must be prepared. There is no guarantee that everything will be alright, but if you all rally behind me, I will make sure that we are ready for the trials and tribulations that we will face in the coming days.” I gestured broadly with my hands, making it clear that I was talking to everyone as I addressed them. “Individually, we are weak, but together, we are strong! We can do anything, as long as we work as one, and follow my lead!” I smiled then, trying to be welcoming, but also strong looking.

            The results were middling. My supposedly rousing speech was not getting through to them it seemed, for even these homeless, downtrodden folks were far too comfortable to want to hear about things like war and invaders. My shoulders sagged a little as I could feel them slipping away from me, and I felt that awfully familiar pressure of panic building up in my throat. Even now I could see some of them whispering to one another, throwing glances my way as they no doubt talked about my seemingly fragile mental state. This was the end of my short reign as monarch of the forgotten, this failed speech had shattered the fragile trust that people had put in me. I would need a miracle at this point.

            “Everyone! Everyone! Listen to this!” A man ran into the crowd, a person I recognized but did not particularly know very well. He held a portable radio in his hands, and as everyone crowded around him to see what he was talking about he cranked it up to max volume so that even I could hear a male voice speaking in a frantic tone, even from this distance.

            “-sightings of these strange animals as far away as eastern Europe. Reports are hazy, but it seems they primarily attack those who are isolated or in small groups. It is being said that they attack at what seems to be random and then attempt to drag people back with them to where they come from. We are unsure of the exact details, but it is being recommended by the authorities to stay indoors and in large groups for the time being as they attempt to figure out what is going on. In the meantime, make sure to keep your radio on as we- wait- wait hold on, we are receiving word that we have a person here who actually managed to encounter one of these animals and get away. We are putting them on now. Sir? Sir, you are on the air.”

            A new voice now, this one distinctly grainer, but with their words still clear. “Yeah um, hey, hi. It’s true, it’s all true. What they are saying, I mean. I was walking home, alone, when all of a sudden I heard something off in the woods to the side of me. I tried looking to see what it was, but there was nothing, so I kept walking. But then, all of a sudden there was this…this thing that jumped out at me. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like a bear, kind of, but it was all red and wet, and it had a mouth that was way too big. And the strangest part was, and you’re not going to believe me here, it smelled really good. Like chocolate, kind of, but more than that.”

            The radio cut back to the original announcer, who continued to talk about precautions for people to take, but nobody was listening anymore. They were murmuring among themselves, talking about what they had just heard. And me? I was ecstatic. My vision had been proven true, there really were monsters, and there really was a war! I truly was special! Nobody was giving me strange glances now, that was for certain. It was obvious who should be in charge around here, even a blind man could see it. Now I just needed to reign them all in. I opened my mouth and addressed the crowd.

            “Please.” I repeated again, begging the man in front of me. “Please.” I could feel the sharp pain digging into my leg, as the thing buried its long teeth into my flesh. I held on to the shelf with all my strength, but I could feel it slipping. I had known, I had always known that this was going to happen but now that the time was finally here, I realized I wasen’t ready, that I would never be ready. There was only one other way out for me now, and I needed the man in front of me, the man I had just attacked and tried to sentence to this very fate, to help me. All I could do was beg. He looked down at his gun, a revolver, and looked back at me.

            His face was pale and gaunt, his dark stubble a sharp contrast to his white face. His black coat swirled around him, so much so that I might have thought that he was the reaper. He looked me in the eyes, asking for confirmation without saying a word, and I nodded, telling him yes, that it was okay, that this was what I wanted, anything was better than being dragged back into the waiting maw of the thing that even now tightened its slimy, damp grip on me. He aimed his gun at me, and, never taking his eyes off of mine, pulled the trigger.

            And nothing happened.

I should have known. I didn’t deserve anything less, not after the things I had done, that I had enabled. But still I had hoped against hope that maybe I could avoid what was coming to me. The last of my strength left my body, and I flew backwards, Raw hands grabbing at my face and neck as I screamed, not even words but just noise as I got lost in the darkness. The last thing I saw was the man, his dark coat and white, shocked face looking at me as I fell into an endless pit. And then there was nothing at all.

For the second time today, I cracked my eyes open as heat ran through my entire being. I was still standing on the box, somehow avoiding falling off of it during my little episode. I was grateful to find that I was still upright, and glancing around it was clear that not much time had passed unlike last time. It seemed that it was at most a few minutes, and most people had not even noticed that I had been standing still with my eyes closed for that time, too wrapped up they were talking about what they had heard on the radio. Several people that were closest to me were looking at me with concern, however, so I flashed them a quick smile to dissuade their worries. I still felt like a fever was running up and down my body, but I knew I couldn’t miss this chance. I had to strike while the iron was hot, and worry about what I had just seen later.

“You see!” I yelled, getting everyone’s attention again. “This is exactly what I was talking about! These things, these were the invaders I was warning you about! They stretch as far away as Europe, and soon, they will be at our door. But I can prepare us, I can lead us. Put your trust in me, and I assure you, it will be their heads on the plate, not yours!” There was silence for a moment, as everyone glanced at one another, unsure of how to react. Then, from the back of the crowd, there was a cheer from the back of the crowd. Looking closer, I could see it was Hagar, yelling frantically with an almost desperate look in her eyes.

“Yeah! She can lead us! I don’t want to be grabbed by one of those things! She can lead us!” She cheered alone, at first, but was soon joined in by others, and then more and more until the entire crowd was cheering for me. I grinned at them, holding my hands up in the air as I yelled to be heard over the crowd’s cheers.

“I have already once warned you of what was coming, and I have been proven right! And I promise you, I will do it again, and again, and again! And I will keep us safe, and as long as you are listen to me, and do what I say, then I promise, once again, that no harm will come to you! With me, not only will you never go hungry again, but I will lead us to a new beginning, a new chance, full of opportunities! We will ride out this storm, and when it is over, we will be the ones on top!” At that, a new cheer rose up from the crowd, echoing off the tall buildings that circled us. Then, one person started to chant my name, and soon it was another, then another, until it was the entire crowd.

“Athaliah!” They yelled. “Athaliah, Athaliah, Athaliah!” I laughed then, unable to help myself, but nobody cared. I let their cries for me carry me up and up until it felt like I was floating in the clouds, with the ecstasy of it all nearly sweeping me off my feet. I laughed and laughed, and threw my head back to look at the sky and see the stars, almost as if to say that I was up there, equal to them. But the lights of the city burned too bright, and there were no stars in the sky.

[redsightstories]

Nimrod Part 1

            Things are looking up. Oh yes, yes they are. I used to be in such a bad place, nowhere to go, no one to turn to, all on my own in this difficult world. But sometimes, all it takes is that one really bad experience to kick you in the ass and say “Look, you need to get it together if you want this kind of stuff to stop happening to you.” I see that now, that the only person you can rely on is yourself. That doesn’t mean you can’t have people do things for you, not at all, but it does mean the important stuff, you must do that yourself. But if you really set your mind to it, and really flex your social skills, I think that one can achieve almost anything. Although, if you can manage to find a little help along the way from something a little bigger than yourself, well that can’t hurt either, can it?

            Yes, being in charge is great. Although, it does sometimes mean that you have to deal with people and their problems, which I am not a big fan of. I was a curious person, I wanted to learn things, and it was difficult to do that when people kept interrupting me. When would they learn that they should only come to me if it was really, truly important. And somehow, when the extremely ragged man and his even worse looking friend entered my tent, I felt like this was not going to be one of those times.

            “uhm, um, ma’am…” the first one drawled, giving me a nervous grin that showed off his three remaining yellow teeth. I sighed in annoyance, putting down my notes. He glanced at them, perhaps noticing the red lettering, perhaps the anatomical words that he almost certainly had no chance of pronouncing correctly. I had been doing a lot of reading at the library in these past few months. It was impressive how much your time could open up when you no longer had to worry about where your next meal was coming from.

            “What is it.” I intoned, already pissed. I had been that a lot recently. It probably had to do with the fact that people would just not shut up, both in my head and out of it. It made it very difficult to think.

“Well, me and uh, Legion here, we were uh, hoping you could maybe give us a little bit of your food. You know, since you got so much of that meat and stuff.” He twitched nervously, but tried to maintain his grin. His pal “Legion” just stared at me. I just looked at them, expression not changing, and he seemed to think that was an invitation to continue filling my tent with the smell of his unpleasant breath.

            “When you uh, when you gave us all some at the camp some the first time, you uh, you said you had found a way to keep us all fed. But you uh, you uh, um… aren’t giving….” He was withering under my increasingly angrier gaze but kept going anyway. “you ain’t giving as much anymore. Like very little.” He finished lamely. I continued to stare daggers at him for a long moment, causing him to shift uncomfortably. Finally, I broke into a wide grin, smiling sweetly at the two of them.

            “Oh, is that all? You just wanted some of the food, is that all it was?” I said, my words layered with honey. “Well, then you’re actually in luck, because I have some right here.” I opened a nearby cooler and from its ice filled innards I pulled out a plastic container full of red meat. It sloshed slightly as I held it up, the two vagrants eyes locked onto it as I moved it back and forth. “Well, sure I can give you that. You just have to answer one question for me.” They both nodded, looking more excited now that they could actually see the foodstuff.

            “What have you done for me recently?" I smiled at them as they glanced at one another, unsure. “I mean, you can’t expect something for nothing. If I am going to do something for you, I wish to be repaid in kind.”

            “Well, umm well ma’am we were just hoping you could… just… give it to us.” He smiled weakly. I sighed, disappointed.

            “Well boys, if you have nothing for me, then I have nothing for you. Goodbye. I have work to do.” I turned back to my notes, ignoring them. There was no time for this. But still they didn’t leave, just standing there awkwardly. I slowly looked up from my work, annoyed at their continued presence. I could feel a headache coming on. Another thing that was very much not helping my mood.

            “What.” I snapped, not even attempting to keep up a veneer of pleasantries anymore. I continued, not giving them a chance to respond. “If you don’t get out of my office in the next five seconds, I’m going to have James kick you and your stuff to the curve so fast it will make your head spin.” Now the two men looked confused, glancing around my office as if searching for an answer. One of them adjusted his suit, and for a moment I looked out my high-rise window, wishing I was back home with nothing but a nice glass of wine and the TV.

            “Ma’am… I don’t have the faintest clue what you’re talking about. Who’s James?” Legion asked, and suddenly I was back in the tent, staring at its back wall, the two vagrants wearing not well tailored suits, but rags. My headache intensified, and I felt very hot all of a sudden.

            “Get out.” I whispered, so quietly they had to lean in to hear me. “Get out, or so help me I will take both of you out back and stab you through the heart and put you on display in front of my tent as a warned to any other would-be solicitors.”

            They finally got the message at that point. They scurried out the entrance, stomachs still rumbling from lack of food. But that I cared very little about. I had my own problems to deal with. The strange hallucinations were getting worse, and it was making it difficult to keep up a veneer of stability around those that were looking to me for guidance. It didn’t used to be this bad, back when it was just the occasional whisper or word. Back when I could control it. But now it was happening more and more frequently, even when others were around.

            I knew what was doing it, of course. It was the meat. Ever since I had first bitten into it and tasted its juices running down my throat, I had known that it was a bad idea. But of course at the time, I hadn’t know just how terrible it would be. And there was something else. It was…addicting, in a way. I almost felt like it gave me a jolt of creativity, a new idea that would suddenly pop into my head. For instance, when I took my first bite and shuddered at the heavy feeling of it settling in my stomach, I was suddenly struck by the notion that I had, right here, the capacity to control the populace. We were vagrants, hobos, the part of the city that nobody liked to talk about, and we were hungry. They would eat anything, even mysterious food that I would give no information on.

            Some resisted at first, of course. Especially those that knew of where the meat came from already, those that had been aware of it before I stumbled upon it. Actually, I knew they would tell the others, so I got rid of them before I took charge. You would be surprised at how little rat poison it takes to kill someone. But everything went smoothly after that, a fact which greatly pleased me. Was it ruthless? Perhaps. Evil? I don’t think so. Evil is committing those sorts of actions with no purpose, and I most certainly had one. For too long we had been disjointed, at each other’s throats, unwilling or unable to cooperate. I changed that. I was both the carrot and the stick, rewarding those that did as I asked with food, and those that didn’t? Well, at first I could do nothing, but as my influence grew I was able to get others to do the punishment for me. It is simply incredible what people will do when they trust you, no need you, to keep their bellies full.

            There was something strange though. I made sure to keep a close eye on everyone who ate from my stash, waiting to see if they would have the same reaction as me. I didn’t say anything, of course, nobody wanted to hear that their new leader was an insane person who was hearing voices, but kept my eyes on them I did. But nobody, and I mean nobody, showed any signs of suddenly hearing or seeing things. If they did, they did a really good job of keeping it concealed. Well, all except for old man Peter, but he was hearing voices long before I took over.

            So, it was just me then. Even though everyone ate it, I was the only one who seemed to be experiencing these things. The only one who was… changing. Did that make me special? Or simply insane? A new voice in my head, I heard it even as I laid down on my cot, hoping that it might help the pounding headache.

            Hey, can I have next Monday off? My kid really wants to go see the ball game, and I promised him I would.

            A snippet of conversation, but unconnected to anything else that was going on. It was not Monday, it wouldn’t be for a while, and I had no child. Nor did I think there was a “ball game” happening anytime soon. Why was this happening to me? I closed my eyes, hoping for relief.

            What do you think? The orange, or the yellow? I think that the orange is too much, personally.

            I want to go home mommy, this is scary!

            If you buy this bad boy, I guarantee that you will be the envy of every driver on the road.

            Did you see that? Something just moved, there behind the tree.

            You’re screwed dude, you’re so screwed. She’s totally going to find out.

            I bolted up, sweat dripping down me. Maybe getting some fresh air would be good for me. I got up out of the tent, quickly throwing on some layers. It was getting colder out. I slid out of the shelter, trying my best not to stumble, but finding it difficult. It had never been this bad before, especially now with the hallucinations. I gave a slight nod to the people nearby, sitting on their old picnic table that we had scrounged up from somewhere. They looked slightly shocked to see me acknowledge them at all, but were sure to respond in kind. I would have appreciated that if I was feeling better. Instead I left, my shoes crunching against the frosty grass as I headed for the park.

            It was an old, rundown looking thing, but it was safe. I had made sure of that, when I had taken charge I had made one of my first acts to have the entire congregate head over there and clean it up. It had been nasty, with used needles and trash everywhere, but with everyone working together it only took a few days to get it looking, if not brand new, very well kept. I also made sure that we always had at least a few people comb through it once a night to pick up any stray garbage. At first, they didn’t understand, but once I explained to them how important it was to have nice areas to relax when things were at their worst, they got the message. Getting a homeless population to clean up a park was very difficult, they are famous for doing exactly the opposite, but there were two reasons for me making this my first order of business.

One, I really did just want a nice park to go to when I was feeling down. I always enjoyed the quiet, and it had disgusted me the state the poor place had fallen into. Before, I didn’t have the manpower to fix it. Now I did. And two, more importantly, was an idea that had come to me from the meat. I had bitten into it, feeling its dark hot juices, when the thought simply popped into my head, out of nowhere.

I tell you son, you must know who is truly on your side. You gotta figure that out. That’s how you get ahead in the world, you hear?

And it was true. If one wanted to know who they could trust, they must first test them. So that is what I did. A project, not enormous, but not tiny either, that would require the help of everyone. It was undoubtedly a positive thing, no one would get hurt by it and everyone would benefit. A net gain for all. Most of the group was, surprisingly, willing to help from the moment I proposed it. I doubt they would have been this receptive back when I was a nobody, but hey, when the person who has most of the food starts talking, people tend to listen. There were others that didn’t want to, of course, but the promise of extra rations to those who helped was enough to get almost everyone on board. Keyword being almost.

It was those that refused, due to not caring or being too lazy or simply because they didn’t like having others tell them what to do, those were the ones I was interested in. The people who were unwilling or unable to chip into a greater cause, those were the troublemakers. I booted them from the camp, making them wander the city alone. It was their choice, after all, they were the ones who refused to help. And if you won’t work with others, then you shouldn’t go around expecting charity, should you? The people who were left, the ones who accepted my leadership and were willing to work to better the group as a team, those were the people I knew I could rely on, at least for the most part. Of course, the person you should rely on the most is always yourself, but one person cannot carry the world alone.

I sat down in the middle of the park, taking in the cool, fresh air. I simply reveled in the silence for a moment, not wanting to let the busyness of what my life had so quickly become take over once again. For the moment at least, there were no voices in my head or out of it, just the subtle sounds of a squirrel in a nearby tree, a duck on the lake gently paddling, and the soft whisper of the wind as it blew through the leaves. Simply drinking it all in, I let my mind wander freely, not thinking about anything much in particular. The sounds of nature filled my ears, their gentle tones washing over me.

Suddenly, a high-pitched whizzing sound interrupted my thoughts, and I snapped my eyes open just in time to watch the artillery streak down, smashing into the trench just to the left of me. The explosion rocked me to my core, sending me sprawling into the muddy ground. I scrambled for my rifle, covered in dirt and grime that it was, the only thing I felt like I could trust in the entire world. I heard the sound of gunfire, the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun, the whizzing of the bombs, all of it only occasionally interrupted by the screaming of men, or the soft moans of the dying. What war even was this? Did it matter? I had to fight for my country, but that also meant I had to survive, so I could go back home and see my mother.

I placed my rifle on the edge of the trench, aimed towards the enemy. There was dirt in my eye, and I tried to wipe it away, but my muddy sleeve only seemed to make it worse. I shuddered as it started to rain, the cold-water pinging against my helmet as I felt its icy chill run down my back. I tried my best to ignore it and aim down the sights, looking to see if I could see any of the enemy. There, I thought I saw movement and so I fired, the boom of the rifle scaring me even though I had heard it many times before. I attempted to fire again, but got nothing but a soft click of disappointment as the gun jammed.

I cursed in disappointment as I pulled it back down into the trench, crouching to avoid my head sticking out. The damn thing was probably only about five feet deep. I desperately started to break it apart, trying to keep it clean and failing miserably in the process. The night was dark, and with only the light of the moon I was fumbling around half blind. Dropping a piece of the gun I cursed, fumbling around for it in the suffocating blackness. I glanced around, intent of seeing how the rest of my squad was doing, expecting to find other men fighting and praying, but instead found myself all alone. This cold and damp hell was inhabited by me alone.

I froze, listening carefully. Yes, I could still hear the sounds of others, the sounds of suffering and pain, but it came from far off, in other places. I dared to peak my head up out of the pit, but saw just scorch marks and explosion holes, interrupted by only shredded trees. There was no sign of life anywhere, none that I could see anyway. I ducked back down, peering down and to my left, where there was a slight curve in the trench. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a slight movement at the end of it, hard though it was to see through the rain and mud.

I started crawling my way down there, intent on seeing where everyone had gone. Perhaps there was a message from our leading officer or something like that. I crept alone, stopping only to adjust my helmet to keep it on straight or to spit out the grime that had made its way into my mouth. I wasen’t sure why, but I did my best to keep as quiet as I could, as though I was hiding from something. For some reason, every instinct was telling me to do that, even though I had no real reason to. It’s not as though the enemy would hear me crawling around in our trench from so far away. But still I persisted, grasping at the wet dirt walls to help me keep my balance. I finally reached a sharper turn, peaking my head around it to see what was going on.

But instead of my squad mates or commander, I instead saw…something else. It was difficult to see, though all the inkiness of the rainy night, but I knew in my gut that it was bad news. It squirmed and shifted in the loose dirt, sending the muck flying everywhere. The clouds parted for a moment and the moonlight shown down, but even with this light it was difficult to tell what exactly I was looking at. It was long and gangly, difficult to make out how many limbs it had or where they were on its body. I did see one thing for certain though, it had a huge mouth, gargantuan, far too big for the thin body on which it rested.

Even as I watched it slowly started to pick itself up as it grasped at the wet dirt like I myself had done not so long ago. It rose up and up, until it would have towered over me even if I was standing at my full height. There should have been calls of panic from the other trenches, hell even from the enemy as they should have been able to see the monstrosity rear itself, but I heard nothing but the patter of rain and sounds of distant guns firing. Nobody was coming. It was just me and the thing. It stood on two legs, and despite their strange and twisted appearance it didn’t stumble at all, even on the unforgiving terrain. Long fingers on one of its arms swept over the trench walls, as though it were searching, and I saw the second, smaller arm in where I suppose its chest should be, holding something. It dropped it to the ground, and I saw that it was a soldier’s helmet, rimmed with a dark liquid that I could not make out.

            I could scarcely breathe as it slowly circled around, making strange moaning noises as it did so. Its misshapen leg bumped one of the walls of the trench and sent a small avalanche of dirt cascading down, but the thing hardly seemed to notice. It seemed intent on finding something. Finding me, I realized as I stared at the helmet it had dropped. I had to get out of here. I slowly started to crawl backwards, cursing the wet dirt that clung to my clothes and weighed me down. I attempted to move as quickly as I could while remaining silent, no easy feat when you are in a half-flooded trench. I made a splash as my foot hit a large puddle, and I flinched as the thing turned its upper torso towards me, bending in terrible ways. It was like an owl turning its head, only here it was entire upper body twisting, making deep crunching noises that were audible even through the rain.

            Staring at the thing, I dared not move, my breath catching in my throat. It had no eyes, none at all, just a wrinkly expansion of flesh surrounding a large, gaping mouth. It shuffled towards me as its long fingers scrapped against the wall, desperately feeling for its prey. As it moved towards me, I was surprised to find that I felt almost nothing. Just a horrible, dark sense of despair that seemed to seep deep into me, deeper than the rain could ever penetrate. It went all the way down to my bones. I knew that I would never be able to escape this thing. It was just me, and it, here on this war-torn battlefield until the end of time. I tried to think of my life before this, but I couldn’t seem to. I tried to think of the future, but I couldn’t. It was just the rain and the mud and the noise of the thing approaching. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I couldn't do anything.

            I felt its long, long fingers wrap around my body as it picked me up, but still I couldn’t move. My gun, forever jammed, slipped from my fingers and splashed down onto the wet mud below me, but I only could stare at the sky. Even as the thing lifted me up, inevitable towards its mouth, I still didn’t move. All I did was stare up at the sky, letting the rain patter against my face, almost calming. I felt the searing pain, so different from the water striking me, as the thing put me into its mouth, but I still didn’t move. You see, I was desperately searching the night sky for anything, any sign of the heavens. But the cloud cover was thick, and there was not a single star in the sky. And then there was nothing at all.

[redsightstories]

Project G Part 2

I fell to the ground, colors flashed behind my eyelids as the pain shot through my entire skull, which caused me to drop my flashlight and the folder, papers scattering everywhere as I hit the floor. I landed facedown, thankful that the floor was carpeted. Groaning, I turned my head so that it was resting on its side, even that simply movement shooting agony through my entire being. Getting hit on the head was never pleasant.

The carpet was beige and rough and more than a little dirty, and I foggily wondered when the last time someone vacuumed was. As I continued my in-depth analysis of the cleaning schedule of the office, I noticed two pairs of legs approach, moving to stand over me.

“What is he doing here? Who is he?” One of the pairs of legs asked in a male voice.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. What do we do?” The other pair asked, this one distinctly feminine. Both of them had a distinct tone of panic in their voices that betrayed that they had not expected me to be here, but the pounding pain that was now rhythmically coming out of the back of my head was making it difficult to concentrate.

“He was at Ruth’s desk; do you think he was telling the truth?” The Feminine voice asked.

“I don’t know, but does it matter? What do with him now, we clearly can’t just let him go.” The masculine one responded. A brief moment of silence passed as the two of them thought about it. I myself was doing some thinking, mostly about the gun that was now sandwiched between me and the floor. Oh yes, I was doing a lot of thinking about that. Unfortunately, my hands were up near my head, and I feared that any sudden movements would result in a quick blow to the head again, this time probably from a kick. It wasen’t worth the risk, at least not yet.

“Do we, you know, kill him?” The woman asked, turning my blood to ice. But I relaxed slowly when I heard the man respond.

“No, you know better than that, that’s not what we do. Besides, think of how upset “She” would be. We need to take him to It, it’s what’s going to end up happening to everyone anyway.” Well, at least they aren’t going to kill me, but I had no idea what “It” or who “She” was, and that was almost as worrying as just being killed, as I was apparently being taken to one of them. They both reached down and grabbed me by my shoulders, hefting me up between them. I let them, keeping myself fairly limp. I was Already starting to recover, and while the pain was still a dull pounding at the back of my head, I felt like I was now able to move around fairly freely.

There was no need for them to know that though. Try to get as much information as possible while giving them as little as you can in return. Be small, be underestimated. I subtly turned my head to try to get a better view of my assailants-come-kidnappers, but the darkness of the room made it near impossible to get anything but the barest of outlines. That was alright though, although this had started off poorly, I was feeling more and more confident. These people were clearly amateurs, they hadn’t even bothered to pat me down, a rookie mistake I would make sure they would come to regret. We were nearing a door now, perhaps to a supply closet or some such, and I decided that would be when I made my move, as one of them was busy opening the door. As we got closer, I spared a glance out a nearby window, intent on seeing if the noise we had been making had attracted any attention.

It seemed as though it hadn’t, but I was once again struck by the stars in the sky and how bright they seemed to be, especially the North Star. It shined down on me, even through the window, far outstripping the other celestial bodies. It was the strangest thing, but it almost felt as though it was trying to warn me of something. How a star warns you, I’m unsure, but nevertheless that was what I felt, and it gave me a sinking feeling that whatever was on the other side of the door we were even now standing in front of, I was really not going to like. The person on my left, the man, reached out to grab the doorknob, and I knew that it was now or never. I suddenly twisted myself as hard as I could, wrenching my arm free of the woman, causing both of them to make noises of surprise. My arm now free, I reached into my jacket and grabbed the revolver, pulling it out and aiming it at the man, who in shock and fear let go of my other arm and staggered backwards. It was now me with my back to the open door, which I spared a glance to see where it led.

There was a dark staircase behind it, leading down into unknown depths, with the meager light of the window barely illuminating the first couple of steps. I quickly moved away from it, keeping both the assailants in front of me and in my line of sight. For a long moment we all stood there, nobody moving, just staring at one another through the gloom, barely able to make out each other’s outlines. I finally opened my mouth, intending to ask them several burning questions, but I never got the chance, as in that moment the woman rushed at me, a wordless cry coming from her mouth.

I quickly jerked my gun to her and fired, the bang filling the room and tearing at my eardrums. If nobody was aware of us before, they were now. The woman plowed into me, but her movement was jerky and uncontrolled, and I had a feeling my shot had landed. But still, despite her wound she grabbed at my arm, trying to get the gun, but I resisted, slamming my elbow into her stomach and causing her to double over. But now the man was here too, trying to restrain me and move me backwards into the staircase. We struggled, but then the woman was back and, while I managed to keep them from grabbing the weapon, their combined strength -even with one injured- was enough to push me back towards the looming portal downwards, its open door waiting like a gaping mouth.

I attempted to jerk free, or maneuver the gun into a more advantageous position, but I was simply overpowered by them and their seemingly maniacal strength. They fought as though they had nothing to lose, even with one injured, and in desperation I fired the gun again trying to angle the shot so that it hit the man’s leg, but I only succeeded at putting a hold in the carpet and making my eardrums ring once more. We were at the top of the staircase now, and they were attempting to push me down it, with me hanging onto the frame of the door with all the strength I could muster.

“Why are you doing this?” I grunted, the words coming out hoarsely as I breathed heavily. They didn’t respond, but instead doubled their efforts on pushing me, as though they didn’t like me asking questions. I saw the man back up for a moment, but before I had a chance to do anything he delivered a sharp kick to my chest, knocking the breath out of me and nearly sending me tumbling. But I knew if I let go, or even tried to maneuver my hand so that it could fire the gun, the woman who was still attempting to pry me off the door frame and push me down would take advantage of that and send me downwards. Another kick, and I cried out in pain as I lost my grip on The Seventh Shot and it went tumbling down the staircase, thankfully not going off. One more and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold on.

I saw the man winding up and, at the last second, I let go of the frame and grabbed the woman, sending us both down the stairs as the third and final kick connected. We slammed against the stairs, both of us gathering an impressive amount of bruises as we fell all the way down. Finally, we came to a stop at the bottom of the steps, with myself resting on top of the woman as we both groaned in pain. We both slowly started to move, trying to gain our bearings when we heard the door slam shut above us. I looked around, surprised to find that despite how dark it looked from the top, there was actually a lightbulb on down here, it was just the saddest, dimmest light I had ever seen. What little illuminance it produced showed that we were in a basement of some kind, with several shelves of dusty paperwork surrounding us, with the room continuing to stretch off into darkness that the bulb didn’t have a hope of breaching.

However, in our small pool of light I saw my gun lying on the ground a few feet away from where we had landed in a heap, just off to the left of the staircase. I quickly got up, stumbling over to it and grabbing it. Just in time too, as the woman was starting to really stir.

“urhhggg.” she mumbled, looking around. I once again pointed my gun at her, this time keeping my distance. I could see in the light now that she had angry red marks appearing all over her from our tumble down here, mirroring mine, but also a nasty cut on her arm, presumably from when I had shot her earlier. I suppose it just grazed her, but she was tenacious indeed to keep going through the pain, and I would have commended her if she hadn’t been trying to kill me. She sat up now, noticing me and my position over her as her eyes widened. Instinctively she backed away from me, deeper into the basement, but with a shake of my head she stopped. I had some questions for her.

“Who are you? What’s going on here? Why were you two trying so desperately to shove me down here? You better start talking, my patience is thin, and it’s been a really long day.” She didn’t even seem to notice my threat though, as at the mention of the basement she seemed to finally truly acknowledge where we were, causing a look of fear to flash across her face.

“Oh no.” She whispered, panic etching its way into her face. “Oh no, oh no, I can’t be here, I’m not ready!” She started to move towards the staircase, clutching her arm, but I stepped in front of it, causing her to pause.

“What’s going on here, what is this?” I demanded, but even now, in this dire circumstance she gave no answer. Instead, she started to beg.

“Please.” She muttered, as if she was trying to keep her voice low. “Please, just get out of the way, I can’t stay here.” She looked unstable, and her eyes had a strange look to them I couldn’t quite figure out. Suddenly, she shouted up the staircase, seeming to abandon the idea of staying quiet.

“You can’t leave me down here, you bastard! Come help me!” But she got no response from the passage up. She started to shake, as though she was having a breakdown, but I could tell from the way she was eyeing me she was seriously considering rushing me again. However, she seemed to think better of it, probably because for one, she was now injured, two, I was not caught off guard anymore, and three, it hadn’t even worked out particularly well for her the first time. She finally looked at me, really, directly, looked at me for the first time, and started to beg.

“Please.” She repeated. “Please, I’m not ready.” Now I was really at a loss for words.

“What are you talking about? What on earth is going on?” I demand, not lowering my weapon. Things were getting stranger by the minute; no way was I going to let down my guard. Besides, this could still all be some bizarre trick, a way to get me to do exactly that. That was a hard thought to believe though, as she started to cry ugly tears and started walking slowly towards me.

“Look, I’m sorry, I really am, but please, please, let me pass, I’m sorry I hit you, please…” Her voice, already low, trailed off and she stopped moving. We both felt it. Something had changed. It started subtle, at first. It was hard to believe. But there, in that dark, dusty cellar, under a flickering bare bulb, I smelled chocolate. Candy and chocolate and freshly popped popcorn, it was amazing and overwhelming, completely out of nowhere. It was like just out of range of the light, there was a carnival with every known treat and dessert, sitting there waiting to be eaten in the blackness. I had never felt anything like it. It was bizarre, but it reminded me of the first time my mother had taken me to the fair, so many years ago.

I had been amazed at the colorful lights and strange attractions, but the thing that had grabbed me the most was the variety of food. The candied apples, the funnel cake, even the cotton candy. I had to try them all, and try them I did, though I regretted it that night with the worst stomachache I had ever had. But it had been delicious, an explosion of flavor, and even now my mouth was watering thinking about it. I looked over at the woman, barely even able to acknowledge her presence but managing to dimly note that she seemed to be in a similar trance to myself, as she wobbled slightly as a glazed look came down over her eyes. I was about to say something, when I saw it.

There was something coming out of the dark behind her. It moved along the floor, squirming and slithering, leaving a wet trail behind it, glistening in the dim light. At first, I thought it was a snake, but no snake should be so red, so raw, should have teeth on the outside and a mouth that looked like that. It was long, stretching back into the darkness of the basement, impossible to tell where it ended. It was so difficult to think with the sweet smell of candy in the air, but I swear I saw it hesitate, looking between me and the woman, even though it had no eyes with which to look, just smooth flesh where a head should be. But then, perhaps due to instinct or a miracle or even just dumb luck, I took a single step backwards, not even thinking about it, barely even realizing I had done it. But that was enough.

It decided it would take the easier prey, and snapped forward, sinking its round toothy mouth into the woman’s leg. That seemed to finally wake her up and she screamed, a bloodcurdling shriek that filled the small room. She tried to run but the thing kept her anchored with its long, hooked teeth, causing her to stumble and fall down onto her stomach. I gasped and staggered backwards, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe through the thick stench of blood and chocolate. I bumped into the staircase behind me, barely keeping my balance as I tried and failed to tear my eyes away from the sight in front of me.

What was this? This thing, is that what they had been talking about earlier? Had they been planning on giving me to this? The snake-thing pulled, yanking the woman backwards several feet with a horrible ripping noise as her flesh tore, but she grabbed onto one of the nearby shelves, hanging on with all of her strength. It was a twisted mirror of what she had been doing to me, only now she was the one clinging on for her life, and the thing trying to pull her free was no human.

“Do something!” She screamed, but I didn’t move, couldn’t move. It was all too much. And the smell was so overwhelming. The sweetness, the coppery tang of blood and the stink of sweat, and, deep beneath it all, salt. It was so difficult to think. I walked up a step, trying to put distance between me and this nightmare.

“Noooooo.” The woman moaned, seeing me move to leave her behind. She struggled forward, grabbing onto the shelf with her other hand, still desperately fighting for her life. For a moment, it looked as though she might even break free, get the thing off her leg and come up the stairs with me, and then we could flee together into the cool air of the night. But then hands, almost human hands but with too many fingers and red and raw and skinless like the snake-thing shot out of the dark and grabbed onto her lower body. There were four, no five, no maybe four, it was so difficult to tell with the darkness and their movement. They were warped, much too big with forearms and upper arms that had be at least three feet long each. Finally, something inside me snapped and I pointed my revolver into the darkness from which they had come, firing once, twice, three times, and then finally a fourth. It’s in those brief muzzle flashes that I got a glimpse of the full form of the thing.

It was a pillar of flesh, bone, and sinew, coming out of the floor like an obelisk made of meat, raw and dripping with slime. Hands and legs sprouted from it like sick branches of a tree, and bloodshot eyes stared at me from seemingly random points on its body. It rose up and up, nearly brushing the top of the basement with its gargantuan size as it flailed around. At the top of this garish display lay a round mouth, big enough to shovel a horse into it and have extra room, with hundreds of teeth lining all the way around it and all of them pointed downwards. I heard someone screaming, and came to the realization that it was me. And then the flashes were gone, and I was just staring at this poor woman, whose name I didn’t even know, being dragged backwards into the darkness.

She too, had seen what I had seen, and had gone quiet, now the only noises she was making were soft murmurs. I slowly realized that she was whispering one word “Please” over and over, looking up at me desperately. She was being taken to hell, or maybe somewhere even worse, and I knew what she was pleading me to do. I aimed the revolver at her head, and she gave me a slight nod to confirm it. She knew it, I knew it, It was too late to stop this. All I could do was spare her from whatever nightmare this thing had in store for her. So, never taking my eyes off of hers, I pulled the trigger.

And nothing happened.

It was empty. The Seventh Shot had already fired six, there was nothing but a dry click as the hammer fell on an empty cylinder. Both of us were unable to speak for a moment as the whole world seemed to fall silent, and then all hell broke loose. The woman finally lost her grip on the shelf, the hands grabbing her around her neck and face as she was dragged backwards out of my sight, screaming all the way. I couldn’t see what happened next, but I could hear it. It was something I wish I could forget, but I know that for as long as I live, I never will. The scream abruptly cut off as a sound only comparable to a pound of ground beef being shoved into a container too tight for it to fit reached my ears. The squelching and the sloshing noises… why was there sloshing? It was so horribly wet sounding. Unasked for, an image entered my head of a whole raw chicken being dropped onto the kitchen floor by mistake, where it was then immediately attacked by the slobbering family dog. That sweet smell of carnival foods was long gone, replaced by a far too familiar metallic scent. No one, not even the very person who tried to condemn me to the same fate, deserved that.

I vomited then, the hot bile burning my throat as I lost the cup of coffee I had drank so very long ago. Its stench barely made a dent. I had to get out of here. I stumbled up the steps, leaving behind me what might have actually been a glimpse into Hell. But it seemed I wasen’t out of the brimstone yet, because as I neared the top step, stumbling and tripping, I was forced to squint as something started to sting my eyes. Smoke. It seemed the other attacker, the man, was taking no chances. I pushed against the door, but as I suspected it had been jammed shut, I slammed myself against it, knowing it was my only way out. There was no way I was going back down to look for another exit.

I hit it again and again, beginning to cough from the fumes, but I could feel it slowly giving. Finally, I got it open just enough to squeeze through, smoke now pouring into the staircase. There was a small office sofa shoved up against the door, clearly meant to keep me in. The fire raged on the other side of the room, blocking the main entrance.  The smoke was thick here, and I got low to the ground, coughing and wheezing from it. Even from this distance I could feel the heat from the flames.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I thought to myself, almost hysterically. But down here I could see something else, just barely making it out through the haze. The folder that I had taken from Ruths cabinet, its papers scattered everywhere. I quickly grabbed as many as I could, stuffing them into my coat. But I knew that this was not all of them, even now I saw one get sucked into the fire and burned, lost forever. There was no time to mourn though, I had to get out, now. I pulled my shirt up over my face to help filter the air, and it helped. A little. I looked around, trying to find something, anything. There, on my left, a bright light, not from the fire, but something else. I had no idea what it was, but it was better than staying here and dying of asphyxiation.

I crawled to its guiding light, a beacon in the dark as its form slowly became clear as I got closer. It was a window, through which a star shined brightly in. It was impossible for a star to shine this bright through all this gloom and smoke, I knew, but in that moment I didn’t much care. It had shown me a way out of here, and for that I was grateful. I heaved myself up to it, only to find that it was the kind of window that didn’t open. I looked around, panicked, but quickly found a small metal office chair. I picked it up and threw it with the remainder of my strength, thankfully shattering the window open on my first try. I took my coat off, quickly swiping the remaining glass shards away that were still attached before tossing it outside, following behind it. I was coughing so bad I was worried I would lose a lung, but the cool night air was soothing on my skin and airpipes.

I didn’t take the time to enjoy it though, as I staggered away from the fire, and that cursed building itself, intent on making distance between it and me. I spared a glance back, seeing smoke now pouring from every hole in the place, but especially so the window I had just broken. I finally made it onto a small patch of grass, stopping there to catch my breath. I glanced up at the sky again, but it seemed to be a normal night, with all of the stars in their proper place. Looking back down, I saw across the street a crowd gathering, mostly composed of women. They must have been from the shelter itself.

It was unfortunate that they were losing this place of safely, but to be honest the only thing I felt at the moment was relief. Thankfully, it seemed nobody had noticed my escape from the building, because if they did, they would have a lot of questions I did not have the answers for. I breathed the night air deeply, relieved to find that it was clear, and did not have the smell of cotton candy, or funnel cake, or smoke, or blood. I got up and started to walk, getting away from that place as I heard the sounds of sirens approching even as I did so. I had a destination in mind.

Several streets away, I found an empty phone booth, maybe even the same one I had used earlier, I don’t know. It didn’t matter, there was someone I needed to call. She was retired, yes, but I knew I had stumbled into something big here, and if anyone could help me, it was her. She had been going through a tough time, I knew that, and I had been trying to give her space, but she was needed. She was only person I knew that could keep a cool head, no matter what, and that was exactly what I needed right now. The phone rang once, twice, and then was finally picked up.

"Hello?” said the person on the other end of the line. It was her voice, and although it sounded tired it still had that underlying hardness to it that made her such a good detective. And to be honest, it was just nice to hear my old partner’s voice again.

“Hello Mary. It’s Joe. I know you’re retired, but things have changed. I need your help.”

A slight pause, and then perhaps the most shocking thing that I had experienced all night happened. I heard her laugh.

“Things have changed? Yeah, I can believe that. Alright, but you are going to have to give me a bit. I need to go to the hospital.” There was no trace of humor in her voice. There almost never was. So I didn’t ask. She would tell me everything in time.

“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine. I know which one you are talking about, the one on the east side of town, right?” She confirmed it, so I continued.

“I’ll meet you there. I have something I need to show you.” I pulled out the papers, some of them slightly charred at the edges. I knew it was incomplete, but it was all I had for now. “I think… I think it’s something big. But first, there’s something I need to do.”

“What?” She asked. I sighed.

“I need to tell a little boy what happened to his mother.”

[redsightstories]

Project G

            I’m a big fan of newspapers. I know they’re obsolete and outdated, that most people get their news from the radio or even television nowadays, but I quite like the feel of a newspaper in my hands. I guess I’m old fashion that way, a lot of people would say that, and I guess it would be pretty accurate. But I think something a lot of people discount is the privacy of having a big piece of paper in front of your face that newspapers can afford you. You don’t even have to be reading it, just hold it up and it’s like you disappear in plain sight. No need to do anything silly either, like cutting a hole in it to look out of. That just makes you look ridiculous, and usually, just listening to conversation is enough anyway. And, of course, you can read the news from it, which was the whole point of the thing in the first place.

            A truly undervalued piece of medium in this modern age. I had my face in one even now, as I sat at a small diner and enjoyed a cup of coffee. One sugar, one crème. Nothing wrong with a little sweetness in your life, that’s what I always say, and that should carry over into your food as well. The headline of the oh so often forgotten paper was screaming about some politician I didn’t give a rat’s ass about, so I skipped over it and went deeper, looking at some of the smaller articles. The pork ban was still in effect, which did sour my mood a little. The paper said it was an illness similar to mad cow disease, but for, of course, pigs.

Maybe it was even true. I had seen one of them once, wandering the streets, just right there in the middle of town. Somehow, it had escaped from a slaughterhouse or something similar, wherever pigs were kept. That wasn’t important, what was important the animal itself. It had looked awful. Stumbling and frothing at the mouth, it moved like it had no sense of self-preservation at all, walking directly into the path of traffic and right up to people, who shrank away from it immediately. As I stared at it, with its strange clammy skin and white foam dribbling from its mouth, an animal control van rounded the corner, going much too fast for what seemed strictly necessary. Perhaps they were worried about rabies, which didn’t seem out of the question for this poor thing. But as they captured it, using long poles and nets, I got a good look at it before it was taken away. As wild as it may seem, I could have sworn that from the center of its forehead grew a giant third eye, right there, yellow and rolling. Then it was gone, but I knew what I saw.

So, while I love my newspapers, I know that you can’t always trust what you read, what you hear, what you see from the media. But just because you can’t always believe it, doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it. So I shook off those memories, so different from this quiet midnight diner, and went back to reading my paper. I took a small sip of my coffee as a piece about world news grabbed my eye, and I began to read it. According to it, the number of disappearance all over the world had been skyrocketing recently, leaving experts baffled. This was funny, in a macabre sort of way. You see, I knew of a disappearance myself, so in a way, I had made the news. It was a mother, seemingly vanishing off the face of the earth, and I had been hired to find her.

The waitress approached me from the other side of the counter, holding a pot of coffee.

“Refill sir?” She smiled, that sort of bland, tired smile that all service workers seemed to have. She was a nice woman, pretty, but much too young for me. Besides, no one liked to be bothered while on the job with that sort of thing, especially in the middle of the night, especially by middle-aged men, who for whatever reason couldn’t seem to let go of the old styles of media.

“No, thank you.” I said, and she nodded before going back to standing behind the register and got busy looking bored. The entire establishment only had a scant few patrons, including myself, so there wasn’t much for her to do. It was dark out, and this was one of the few places still open this late into the night, but even with that fact there were very few people in the place. I took a discrete look around, getting a feel for the other individuals who found themselves here at this odd time. There was the waitress, of course, a single cook in the kitchen, myself, an elderly man sitting alone in a booth, and finally, a young couple, sitting at the other end of the counter, talking to one another in low tones. A very slow night indeed. A glance out the window confirmed that the street was as deserted as this place was. Good, it should make my job tonight a little bit easier. I went back to reading my paper, but my mind wasn’t focused on it. I was thinking about what had led me to being out here in the first place, watching others to see if they were watching me.

I had been sitting in my small, cramped office, where the light was dim and the tiny window behind me did little to break the gloom. Perhaps the fact that I had shuttered it didn’t help, but I liked my privacy. I had been working on some paperwork, cursing how bad I was with numbers, when there had been a knock at the door.

“It’s open.” I had said, barely even looking up from my work. The door creaked open and peering through the stuffy room I thought for a moment that perhaps it had opened on its own, as there was nobody there. But then I looked down and saw him. He was a young boy, couldn’t have been older than ten, holding a piggy bank and trying to hide how nervous he clearly was. He took a deep breath, clutching the small object to his chest. It was white, with green clovers printed all over it. Perhaps he thought it would bring him some luck. The boy walked over to my desk, him and his brightly colored toy looking very out of place in my dark and dingy office. He stopped right in front of me, his face barely clearing the top of my desk.

“You’re a detective, right?” He asked quietly, struggling to make eye contact.

“That’s what it says on my door. But listen kid, I’m not gonna find your missing tricycle for you.” I said, perhaps a bit gruffer than I meant to. I hated paperwork.

“No, it’s not that.” He said quickly. “It’s, well, it’s my mom. She’s been missing for a couple of days, and I was hoping you could find her for me.” He uncorked his piggybank and dumped the contents onto my desk. Various coins went rolling amongst a few crumpled one-dollar bills. It couldn’t have been more than ten dollars at most. I sighed.

“What did you say your name was kid?”

“Seth.”             “Listen Seth, where’s your dad?” He frowned at that, still struggling to look me in the eyes.

“He’s with the police. He said that they have the best chance of finding her, but when I lost my red scooter, they wouldn’t even listen to me when I tried to tell them.” I suppressed the urge to smile. I liked this kid, he had drive, went to the second option when the first didn’t work out. But still, I couldn’t just take every sob story that came through my doors. I had mouths to feed. Mainly, mine.

But then I looked at the kid again, and I saw that despite the fact that he had been putting on a brave face, he was on the verge of tears. In this kid’s eyes, I was his last hope of finding his mother. I didn’t know how to tell him that she had probably run of with some other man or got tired of the domestic life or something like that. It wasn’t romantic and was in fact always disappointing to find, but I knew from experience that’s what it ended up being about ninety percent of the time. Still, with his big misty eyes staring at me, I just couldn’t bring myself to be the person who broke that hard truth to him.

My old partner, she would have told me that I was being a big softy again, that this kind of thing was why I was operating out of a one room office. But she wasn’t here, so with a weary sigh I reached across the desk and took the meager payment. The kid lit up as I did so, and I couldn’t help but give him a small smile, before quickly hiding it behind a scowl. No need to let this whole thing get out of hand, I still had somewhat of a reputation to uphold.

“Alright, tell me what you know.”

What he knew, it turned out, was not very much. He knew his mom worked for a company called “Looking Forward” which was, as far as I could gather, was a charity organization for abused women. Very noble. He couldn’t tell me what she actually did though, just that it had something to do with numbers. I guess that’s what I get for trying to get information from a probably eight-year-old. I wanted to talk to his father about it, get some more information than what meager amount Seth was able to give me, but the kid insisted I didn’t bother him, to the point that when I argued with him about it, I was worried he was gonna have a nervous breakdown right there and then. Finally, when I simply asked why, he just got real nervous looking and insisted that his father was a very busy man and that he wouldn’t want to be bothered by something like this.

This was clearly bullshit, and I considered asking about it further, but even just that simple question was clearly a no go, so I let it go for now. Besides, I’ve taken cases with less to work with anyway, and I was never one to shy away from a challenge. But that did mean I was mostly flying blind. I was able to gather that his mother’s name was Ruth Levi, which Seth told me, and she worked for accounting at the charity. I had the Yellow Pages to thank for that information, which is where you should always start when you are trying to find anything about anyone. It really was as easy as looking up “Looking Forward” in them, but then again, it wasn’t like anyone was trying to hide them from me, this was public information. Even better, when following this trail another name grabbed my eye, a woman who also worked accounting, same last name, same company. One would have to assume that they were relatives, and that seemed the most logical place to follow next. So I called her, on a payphone of course.

“Excuse me, is this Hannah?” I asked.

“Yeah, whatcha want?” The voice on the other end was rough but feminine, and the tone made it clear that she was not interested in being sold anything.

“I’m calling about Ruth Levi. I understand you two are related.” No need to make it complicated.

“What, is something wrong with her? I haven’t seen her in a couple days, sure, but that’s my sister for you, always going AWOL at the most random of times.” My eyes widened in shock, but I made sure to not make any noise. She didn’t know that Ruth had gone missing. That meant that not only did Seth not tell her, the police didn’t ask her any questions either. Following that, that meant that most likely the only people that knew about her disappearance were me, Seth, and his father, as they definitely would have asked a close relative about her. Thus, the only conclusion I could draw was that Seth had lied to me about his dad working with the police. But why? Why would he lie to me about that, what was he keeping from me? I had only just started this case and already I was finding holes, things weren’t making sense.

“Hello?” Hannah’s voice on the other end sounded impatient, but in fairness I had been standing there in silence for at least thirty seconds, processing all of this. The silence was becoming noticeable, but I was unsure of what to tell her. I had to make up my mind quickly.

“Um, no, nothing is wrong. I’m just calling from work; she was supposed to help me with some papers.” I lied quickly. On the other end of the line, a dismissive noise.

“Yeah, sorry about that. You might want to just go and do the work yourself.” Her voice lowered, just a bit. “I really do wish she would stop doing stuff like this. It worries me every time.” Another pause, this time from her, before she seemed to suddenly remember that she was talking to a stranger. “Oh uh, never mind, didn’t mean to get all personal with you.”

“It’s alright. Thank you, have a good night.” I said.

“You too.” She responded, then hung up, leaving me alone in silence, with nothing but the sounds of the wind blowing outside the glass phone booth. A short conversation, but very enlightening indeed. I needed answers, and there was only one person who could give them to me. I headed home, intent on getting some rest. Then, me and Seth were going to have a little talk.

The next day, I went to the address of one Ruth Levi, where I had a feeling I would find a certain young boy. The home was a modest one-story affair, but with a well-kept front yard that had a few small children’s toys scattered around. There was no car in the driveway. I knocked on the well worn door, and I heard a scuffling noise coming from inside. A moment later, the door cracked open, and I saw a small face peeking out at me through it.

“You lied to me.” I said simply. Child or not, I didn’t appreciate being led on like that. For a moment, there was nothing, and I had a feeling that he was seriously considering closing the door on me and just hoping that I went away. But then he pushed it open, revealing a messy hallway and a little boy wearing a shirt with a movie monster on it and an old pair of jeans. He stared down at the ground, refusing to look at my face. Instead, he gestured for me to come inside, which I did. He closed the door behind me, and I glanced around, taking in the house. It was well lived in, to say the least. The hallway was honestly the worst part, with most of the mess being concentrated in it in the form of various coats and jackets being scattered around. The connecting living room and small kitchen, in comparison, were fairly tidy. Light streamed through several large windows in said rooms, giving the whole place a warm feeling. Satisfied, I looked back to the boy, who still hadn’t looked at me once.

“I’m sorry.” He muttered to the floor, almost inaudibly. I raised an eyebrow.

“Why didn’t you tell me your dad didn’t contact the police? Why does it seem like no one else knows about your mother? Why are you home, right now, when you should be in school? What are you keeping from me?” I wasn’t yelling, exactly, but my voice had gotten much harsher. His voice on the other hand trembled as he gave his answer, he was trying very hard to hold back tears.

“I-I didn’t want them to take me away.” He sniffled. Another moment of silence. In the distance, I heard a dog barking. I sighed, and gestured for him to come with me. He followed in silence, tears streaming down his face, as we went and sat at the worn kitchen table, sunlight covering us both in its golden rays from the window. For a long moment, I didn’t say anything.

“Where’s your dad kid?” I said, my voice just a little bit softer.

His finger traced the grooves in the old wood of the table as he looked at it. “I don’t know. I never knew him; it’s just been me and mom forever.” He sounded a little bit better now that my tone was calmer, but he was still threatening to burst into tears at any moment. “Sometimes Aunty will look after me when mom has to go away, but it’s pretty much just me and her.”

“Kid…” I started, and it was pretty obvious what I was thinking.

“Please.” He whispered pleadingly, looking up at me for the first time. “Please, just find my mom. Don’t make me go to an orphanage. I know she’s still out there. She’s gone away like this before, but she’s always come back, but it’s been days this time and she didn’t say anything and-” His voice broke here, and he didn’t say anything else.

Another long moment of silence. I looked around, at the dishes piling up in the sink, the dirty clothes, the child in front of me that should be in school.

“Does your aunt live near here?” I finally asked. He looked at me with surprise.

“Uh, yeah, not to far away, just a couple of streets away.” He said.

“And why didn’t you go to her earlier?” I asked.

“I uh, well normally mom drops me off there, and I don’t know it seemed like I would be bothering her and yeah.” He looked at me lamely. All I could do was shake my head. Children. I never really understood them. His mother was missing, and he didn’t want to bother his aunt about it.

“Go, stay with her.” He looked at me, and I knew what he was going to say. He was going to beg me not to tell her, because he was scared that he would be sent away. I have no clue where he got that idea, most likely he would go to live with his aunt if he really was parentless, and I told him this. He seemed surprised at this, and after a bit more talking, he agreed to go over there and tell her that his mom had gone missing again, and that he needed to stay with her. He agreed. I told him that I would go and check out her work, tonight, but that he had to tell his aunt everything. He agreed again. And that was that.

I gave the house a look through with the boy’s permission, seeing if there was anything I could find that may be conducive to the case, but found only standard living affairs, nothing that may hint on where his mother went. So then it was time for me to go, and there I was standing at the threshold of the house, looking back at the kitchen, at the little boy that was sitting alone at a table as he got ready to go to his aunts, and I felt like I needed to say something. It felt wrong to just leave him there like that.

“I’ll find her.” I promised. I normally didn’t make promises like that, they were too easy to break, but I had to say something, anything. He looked at me, with just a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“Thank you.” He murmured, almost too quiet to hear. And then I was gone, out the door and down the street, leaving him alone in that empty house. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. I still don’t. Maybe I should have just gotten the police involved. I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe it was pride, because I wanted to be the one to solve the case. Maybe I just had a bad feeling about it. I don’t know. But I did it, and that is how I ended up here, sitting at a late-night diner, drinking my coffee and biding my time, looking at the other customers to make sure they weren’t looking at me. Finally, when the clock on the wall read eleven, I stood up, folding my newspaper and tucking it under my arm. I left payment for the drink, cash, with a small tip. And then I was gone, out the door and into the cold night. There was one other place I wanted to check, the place that was perhaps as important to Ruth as her own home. Her place of work.

The streets were quiet, of course. Who in their right mind would be out at this hour? I didn’t want to say that this was a bad part of town, it wasen’t, but you can never be too careful, so why take the risk? But some things had to be done under the cover of night, and besides, I had protection. The revolver on my belt under my coat was a comforting weight, reassuring me that I wasen’t defenseless. “The Seventh Shot”, I had named it. My partner- ex-partner- had told me that was a bad name, that it only had six chambers. I told her that was the point. She just shook her head in exasperation at me. Bad name or not, I really hoped I didn’t have to use it tonight. That always made things messy, but it was always good to have some insurance.

I looked up at the moonless sky, wondering if she was doing alright. My partner, that is. When she had quit, she had been in a pretty bad way, and I had figured the best thing to do was let her be, so that she could figure things out. But that had been a long time ago, too long. I wondered if I should call her after this, check up on her. Maybe. But that was for another time. I kept walking while thinking, my destination close in mind and at hand. It was darker than usual, with it being a new moon, but there were a couple of streetlights scattered around, and a few stars shown down from high above. One in particular seemed to shine much brighter than the rest, hanging in the sky directly in front of me, seeming to be directly where I was walking too.

The North Star, I think. I don’t know for sure, I’m no astronomer. Did it always shine this bright?  I was so caught up in these thoughts that I almost didn’t realize that I had arrived at my destination. A small, squat building that lay at the end of the street, with the surprisingly bright star hovering directly over it. Big words on the windows confirmed that this was “Better Tomorrows” and that I was at the right place. There was a smaller section of building off to the side where the women who were taking refuge there actually slept, but that wasen’t what I was interested in. Rather, it was the office area, which made up the front of the building.

I felt a little offput by breaking into a place like this, where so many vulnerable innocents were staying, but I had to shake that off. I was doing this for a good cause, and besides, there was no reason that I should encounter any of the residents anyway, I wasen’t going anywhere near where the women slept. The office section was shut and the lights were off, making it clear that it was not currently open for business. I stared at the door for a moment, thinking about the best way to get in. I didn’t want to stay out on the street for too long, a man standing in front of a woman’s shelter in the middle of the night is a really bad look.

I reached out and grabbed the door handle, only mildly surprised to find it unlocked. One would be surprised at how often people forget to lock up after work, but I would hope that a shelter would do a better job at security. I may need to send an anonymous letter about that later. But for now, I didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and slipped in, gently pulling the door shut behind me as I pulled a small flashlight from my pocket, shining it around the reception area. It cast a small circle of luminescence on chairs, tables, and a large desk, all of them empty and silent.

The air felt oppressive around me, in that way that all places that you aren’t supposed to be do. It was as if the room itself was glaring at you, telling you to leave, that you were not welcome here. But it wasen’t as if I could just come in during the day and take a poke around. That would raise far too many questions that I didn’t have answers to, and then it would turn into a big thing, and I really didn’t want to deal with all of that. Not yet anyway, not before I had done some looking around myself first.

So I worked my way to a door at the back of the room, taking it slow and making sure to not shine my flashlight out the shuttered windows. I opened the door, the light causing dark shadows to stretch far away from me, giving everything a cave-like quality to it. Looking around I saw that the room was composed of several small cubicles, each separated by low barriers between each one. Jackpot.

Stepping through the door, I checked the outer walls of the small offices, relieved to see that they had small name cards on each one of their rough off-white exteriors. There were only six, but that would cut down the amount of rummaging I would have to do substantially. I worked my down the hallway going left to right to check, with the third one being the winner. The words “Ruth Levi” was written on it in small brass letters, indicating that this was the place I was looking for. I entered the cramped space, surrounded by dark shapes that, during the day, would just be standard office equipment, but by night, in the dark, could be anything.

I dared not turn on any sort of light though, for fear of drawing too much attention, so I had to make do. Her desk was clean, with only a few scattered papers about the financial state of the shelter, which after a quick once-over assured that it seemed to be doing alright. As I looked around the desk, though, for a moment my gaze hovered on a small, framed photograph that rested in the corner of the desk. The picture inside showed a young boy, who I recognized as Seth, with an older woman with a similar face and hair, who I figured must be Ruth. She was holding him in her arms as they both smiled at the camera, blissfully unaware of the current situation that they were in. It disheartened me, in a way, the fact that this small happy family could be torn apart so easily. Things like this was why I had gone into this line of work in the first place.

But then the moment passed, and I tore my gaze away from the photo. I had limited time, I couldn’t waste it staring at pictures, no matter how sweet they may be. That being said, I wasen’t exactly sure what I was looking for. Some sort of hint, a message from a disgruntled ex-lover or coworker, maybe even something to suggest she was unhappy with her current state of affairs, but all I found were office supplies and clearly labeled files on the shelter and how it was being run. I pulled open the small filing cabinet, sifting through its contents, but it was all very self-explanatory work.

That is, until, at the very back of the bottom most drawer, I found a small, unlabeled folder. It grabbed my attention, with everything else being so clearly marked it was strange that this one was blank. I opened it, finding inside several papers and a handwritten note. I took that out and put it on the desk, reading it by the light of my flashlight.

Dear son. It read, the handwriting clear but a little scratchy, as though it had been written in haste. If you are reading this, then I fear that something terrible has happened to me. I-

I heard a noise, muffled, maybe not even there. I quickly swung my flashlight around the room, It’s beam illuminating empty cubicles and silent chairs. I scanned again, but there was still nothing. I was alone. But still, I felt unease in the pit of my stomach. I needed to hurry this up. Licking my lips, mouth suddenly dry, I went back to reading, trying to process it faster.

I want you to know that I love you, and no matter what, that will always be true. But I think that I might be working with some very bad people, and they might know that I know about them. I am going to be taking the evidence to the police tonight, but in the meantime I am writing this note in case something happens between then and now. I pray that it doesn’t. I’m going to ask my sister to deliver it to you, and if I don’t come home soon, I want you to stay with her. Don’t forget, there is ground beef in the fridge, you either need to have aunty cook it for you or put it back in the freezer. DO NOT try to cook it yourself.

Alright, I love you honey. See you soon. Love, Mom.

That was all that was written. Clearly, it had not been delivered as promised, and I had no illusions to think the reason as to why was innocuous. Something had caught up to her, but what? Was the shelter performing some sort of illegal activity? That was what the note seemed to be implying, if not outright stating. Perhaps tax fraud, or drug peddling, or even human trafficking. A grim thought, but if it was bad enough that they were willing to make anyone who was on their trail “disappear” then they must really not want to get caught. I turned my attention to the one other note that was in the folder, which was actually several papers stapled together. There was a post-it note attached to the corner of said packet, which simply read “Found on bosses’ desk”. The paper was simply titled “Project G.” With no date, name, or location attached to it. Intrigued, I began to read.

The Project is proceeding accordingly. That being said, there are certain variables that we have not accounted for, such as the reaction that there has been to various animals/wildlife, as well as certain volatile individuals who have been able to interact with the Project in ways we were not expecting. Despite this, We believe that if everything proceeds accordingly, we should have at least a forty percent saturation by-

A sudden noise made me quickly look up from the paper. That one was definitely real. I stuffed the contents of the folder back into it and stood up, holding it in one hand and the flashlight in the other. Running my flashlight around the room again, this time I caught movement as someone or something quickly ducked down behind one of the low walls, trying to avoid my light. Shit. This wasen’t just some random office worker pulling a late night, this person was actively trying to avoid being seen. My hand crept toward The Seventh Shot, but I stopped myself. I was the intruder; I was the one who shouldn’t be here. It may just be some terrified cleaning lady who thought I was a robber. Besides, there was an entire building of sleeping women who were already in a bad part of their lives right next door, I didn’t want to scare them or, god forbid, accidently hit one. Instead, I cleared my throat and called out. “Hello? Who’s there? I’m not going to hurt you, I’m just… I’m grabbing some papers for a friend.” Only a partial lie. But it seemed to work, as I saw someone slowly coming up from behind the wall, but I only caught a quick glimpse of them before I felt something hit the back of my head, hard.

[redsightstories]

At The Heart of Things (Part 2)

The dark forest surrounded me, rushing back in with its gloom. Gone was the sunlight and brightly lit kitchen. The only thing that remained was the scent surrounding me, trying to drag me back to that too wonderful place. Oh, and one other thing. Another tug, and I fell flat on my ass, causing a sharp pain to shoot up my back as I hit the rocky ground. I looked forward to see that something had wrapped around my ankle. I shone my flashlight at it, hands somehow still steady, and it was exactly as I feared. A tube, about as thick as a garden hose, red and purple and black, glistening in the dim light of the dying flashlight. At the end of it lay a mouth, circular and raw and with far too many teeth for how small it was. It reared back and struck down, sinking into my flesh as sharp pain shot up my leg. I screamed in shock and pain and horror, and even as all of this was still happening it kept dragging me forward, trying to take me even deeper into the woods.

I could only see the end of it, you see, as the part that wrapped around my leg was just a small section of a monstrously long body, with the rest of it leading off into the darkness where it seemed it was trying to take me. Another tug and now I was moving forward, being dragged across the rough ground to God knows where. I twisted and turned, legs and bottom being scrapped by sharp rocks as I struggled to even stay facing upright as branches and leaves smacked into my face. This creature was far stronger than it first appeared, pulling me forward with relative ease even as I resisted, grabbing at the ground and tree roots to try to halt my progress. I wanted to scream, but instead took deep ragged breaths, trying to stay calm even in the middle of this nightmare.

I gave up on trying to grab something, instead pulling my gun forward, which I had somehow miraculously managed to hold on too. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t dropped it during the initial scuffle, or how it hadn’t fallen out of my hands while I was being dragged. I guess chalk it up to muscle memory and blind luck. I aimed it forward, realizing that while I hadn’t dropped the gun, the flashlight had fallen away at some point and I was using only the dim light of the stars as my guide. I could just barely see the tube thing glistening on the forest floor, and I took a precious second to aim, a difficult endeavor while still being dragged forward by the leg. I had to contort my body so that I was just barely able to look down at my lower torso, using everything I had just so I wouldn’t go face down and get a face full of dirt.

 I fired twice, the sudden bangs of the weapon rolling through the forest. The first shot missed, I could tell by the puff of dirt that appeared just inches from my own leg, but the second hit the tube thing, causing it to finally stop dragging me and letting me get a grasp on myself and everything around me. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it looked as though the impact of the bullet had nearly severed it in two, leaving it connected by only a thin strip of flesh. A dark liquid leaked out of the wound, the color of which I couldn’t quite make out in the dark. I quickly reached down and grabbed the end with the mouth that was still sunken deep into my thigh, noting that the whole thing had gone limp, not just the severed area. I could see now that it had wrapped around my leg twice before biting down into it, reminiscent of a snake strangling a mouse before consuming it.

I grabbed the tube like creature after setting my gun down next to me, shuttering at the raw meat like texture of its body but keeping my grip strong. Even this slight movement sent shocks of pain up my body, so intense that it felt like I might pass out, but I tried my best to keep the noise to a minimum, though it wasn’t easy. I was clearly in hostile territory and I very much wanted to attract as little attention as possible. That felt a little pointless after the two gunshots that had probably just alerted every living thing in this forest to where I was, but still, no need to give up more then absolutely necessary. Plus, I wanted to make sure that I could hear anything that was trying to sneak up on me, and for that silence was imperative.

I yanked the creature, trying to pull it free from my leg, but it was stuck fast. I pulled again and again, difficult though it was with the slickness of its and my own blood covering everything, white-hot pain rolling up my leg every time I did so, but still I persevered. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I managed to tear it off, pulling a not insignificant chunk of my skin and meat with it. In the dim light I could see that it had hook shaped teeth, perfect for grabbing onto flesh and not letting go. I tossed it away from me where it landed a few feet away, disgusted with it, where it thankfully laid limp. I checked my leg, which was now bleeding heavily. The wound was ugly, jagged and meaty, looking more like raw beef then a human leg. I took off my jacket and tied it around the offending area, where red almost instantly started to bleed though, but it seemed to help slow down the blood loss.

I finally took a second to look around and get my bearings, making sure to pick my gun back up while doing so. I was surrounded by giant trees on all sides, their outlines the only thing I was able to see in the darkness. Behind me was heavily disturbed earth, with large ruts in the ground and clear signs of fighting carved into it. It was too much of a mess to have been caused by just my own resistance I realized, looking back down at the now limp tube that had dragged me here. I was not the first animal to be dragged here, maybe not even the first person. I thought about how often people seemed to go missing it these woods, and I felt a cold chill go down my spine. It was difficult to make out much more of anything in the gloom, so I stood up, using a nearby fallen branch to support my weight.

That was when I finally noticed the smell. Now that things had slowed down, I realized the smell that had so nearly gotten me killed earlier was overwhelming now, so thick I felt like it was seeping into my skin. But more then that, it was layered now, there was something underneath the syrupy sweetness, a much more sharp scent. Salt. It was such a strange combination I almost didn’t recognize it at first, but now I was certain. It was as though I was standing right next to the world’s biggest desert platter which was set up directly next to the ocean. It was so overwhelming that it was making my head spin, or maybe that was the leg injury.

So much had happened, and I still had no idea where the stupid cat was, the whole reason I came out here in the first place. Well, it followed that if this tube-thing that had grabbed me was related to the one that had taken the cat, or was even the same thing, then it was almost certainly trying to take me to the same place. Where ever that was. I glanced down at the tube-thing again, which was now in a glistening pool of its own blood. The back of it led off into the darkness straight ahead, almost like a guiding line. My head spun from the overpowering smells and the bloodlessness and everything that had happened, and I felt an intense urge to just sit down and give up. Gone was the clear-headedness that I had left my house with, now I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open.

No. I had to keep going. Not for me, for him. I wasn’t sure if I was thinking of my lost child, or my cat, or maybe both at that moment. They seemed to blur together in my mind, lost in the haze and the sweet smell of chocolate and cake and seawater that surrounded me. “Keep moving.” I told myself, but I couldn’t seem to summon the energy. “Alright, take a break. Thirty seconds, a minute at most.” I agreed to my own terms. Just a moment to catch my breath, but then I had to keep moving. Who knew what was happening to the poor animal right now. I limped over to the nearest tree trunk, intent on using it to rest. However, as I got closer,  I noticed something off about it. It was difficult to tell in the darkness, but it seemed shinier then a tree reasonably should be. I look up to its top, expecting to see branches and leaves, but the trunk simply ended, making it look for all the world like someone had come out here to middle of the woods and stuck a giant cylinder in the ground as an art piece.

I realized that all trees around me looked like this, just giant trunks with no branches or leaves to top them off. Slowly, almost fearfully, I stuck my stick out and poked the tree I almost leaned on. I watched in horror and revolution as the stick sunk into the trunk, revealing that it was covered in a thick film. I tried to yank the stick out, but it was stuck fast, and no matter how hard I pulled I couldn’t seem to make any leeway. Finally I pushed the stick downwards trying to get some leverage, causing a large snap as it broke in half as part of it remained wedged in the dark surface of the thing that looked like a tree. For a moment, there was silence.

Suddenly, the tree bent down, lightning fast. It attacked the place I had just poked with the stick, revealing that at the top of its trunk laid a gaping maw filled with sharp teeth. It slammed into the ground just about a foot away from me, sending debris everywhere from the force of its impact. It’s dark shape twisted and squirmed in the starlight, looking for whatever had disturbed it. I quickly scrambled backwards, never taking my eyes off of it but making sure I didn’t bump into any more of the “trees” around me. It was a nightmare. It moved like nothing I had ever seen before, with both fluidity and jerkiness that it was almost impossible to describe. What made it even worse is even though all of this, the sweet smells still persisted, creating the strangest disconnect between what I was smelling and what I was hearing and seeing.

The noise it made was disgusting. Like a meat grinder that had bones shoved into it, a grinding and squelching sound that made my teeth rattle. I did my best to remain as still as possible, hoping that it wouldn’t notice me. It was hard to tell in the suffocating dark, but I didn’t see any eyes on the thing, so perhaps it operated solely on touch. That was the working theory at least, but I was operating with very small amounts of information. I tried to control my breathing, which had become quick and uneven, unsure if it could hear me. “Stay calm and stay in control.” I remember that being drilled into my head when I had still been in training.

“The key to being a good detective” I had been told, “is that you want to make yourself as inconspicuous as possible. Try to get as much information from people as possible while giving as little as you can. Be small, be underestimated.” I was certainly trying my best right now to be as small as possible. I had no information, I had only my gun, and I still didn’t know where the damn cat was. Just then, I heard a strange sound. It was a desperate meow, but muffled and strained. At first I thought I imagined it, it had been difficult to hear due to the noise of the not-tree still moving around and how quiet it was, but then I heard it again.

I looked around, hoping that what I heard was what I thought it was. There. Another one of the thin tubes, like the one that had grabbed me, behind me, up near the top of the branch-less “trees” that surrounded me. It seemed to wind around the larger flesh thing, connecting to it near the base. It was slowly climbing up the not-tree in a clockwise fashion, moving forward in undulations that made my skin crawl. But there, at the end of it, was the cat, wrapped up tight and with it mouth covered so it couldn’t make too much noise. It was being slowly pushed up, toward the top of the strange growth where I knew a gaping mouth laid, hungry and waiting. Above even that the night sky sparkled, with the one I think is the north star seeming to hover directly over this gruesome display.

No time for stargazing though, no matter how unusually bright that one seemed to shine. The first flesh growth, the one that I had stuck with the stick, was getting closer to my location with its unnerving methodical movement, sweeping around itself in increasingly large circles. It was only a matter of time before it reached where I was cowering. At the same time the cat was being pushed upwards, only a few seconds away from reaching the top. No more time to think, it was time to act. I aimed the gun, it’s cold metal gleaming in the night. Take a second, deep breath, safety off, aim, fire. Three shots. The bangs echoed in the night, sending a flock of birds some distance away from here shooting off into the sky.

The first and second connected, cutting the thin tube like a hot knife through butter. The third missed, sinking into the flesh of the large tube and quickly coming to a halt in the thick film that seemed to cover its entire body, causing seemingly little to no injury. Two out of three on a dark night on a thin target. Not too bad. Seems I hadn’t forgotten everything from training. Sure one had missed, but the damage had been done. The thin tube collapsed downward like a puppet with its strings cut, the cat falling with it, it’s mouth now free and screaming bloody murder. I could see that it was covered in blood, whether it was its own or the tubes it was impossible to tell. I could just barely see that part of the thin tube was still latched onto the poor animal just as it had been with my leg, teeth still digging in. That didn’t stop the feline though, the moment it hit the ground it streaked off into the night, dropping the remains of the thin tube with it as the larger one just barely missed it with a quick strike to the ground. And then I was alone in the middle of these things.

They were all moving now disturbed or woken up or some equivalent, some swaying back and forth, others sweeping the ground like the original. I don’t know how many there were, there was so much movement and noise in the dark it was impossible to tell, but I knew I was surrounded. What now? It was only a matter of seconds before one of them happened to bump into me and then it was curtains closed, goodnight and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Well, at least I had done what I came here to do. The cat was saved, mission accomplished. Who really cared what happened to me? If I was ripped apart and swallowed by giant flesh tubes in the middle of the forest, well, like I said earlier, it is what it is. Besides, what was I going to do, go back home, go to bed and get ready for my shift of stocking canned beans? Pointless, especially after all of this.

Another sweep from one of the creatures, just a couple feet away from me. I got a whiff of it then, its true scent. Through the chocolate and cake I could almost taste it, the underlying scent of something akin to rotten flesh. I nearly vomited from the sudden shift, but I somehow managed to keep my dinner down. A sudden thought occurred to me. It was a simple thought, but a powerful one. I really didn’t want to die here. Maybe later, but not here, not in the dark surrounded by these monsters. That kind of death seemed so pathetic, I guess. I mean yes, I saved the cat, but I felt like there was more I could do, and I didn’t mean in the grandiose, general sense of the term. I meant like something big and important was unfolding and I wanted to be there to see it. And to help, with whatever it was, with whatever this was. Then after that, well, we can see what happens in regards to me.

I looked around again, with fresh eyes. There had to be a way out, but I couldn't see it if there was. Another sweep, just about a foot away now. Alright, think, don’t get distracted. I tried to block out the noises, the confusing mixture of salt and sweets and rotting that assaulted my nose, the terrible sight of the creatures getting closer. Focus on what you know. They didn’t seem able to see, they had no eyes and they only reacted when one of them was touched or one of the smaller tubes was disturbed. Could they hear? I would venture no, they hadn’t reacted to the gunshots earlier, only when they were shot. That didn’t really seem to hurt them, at least not the “main” body. There was no way for me to kill them, as far as I could tell. Not with what I had on hand. That was all I really knew.

The closest creature was coming around again, and I could tell from its arc that it was going to hit me. I tried not to think too hard about the red-rimmed mouth, the giant rings of teeth and the horrible squelching noises it was making as it moved. Time to act. I pulled out my gun, no time to steady myself. Aiming at the one furthest away from me, but still in the opposite direction of where I thought my home was. I fired, and fired, and fired again. I don’t know how many of the shots struck, because immediately after I was off, running as fast as I could with my hurt leg. I heard noises behind me, but I didn’t look back, not wanting to see how my plan had worked. I figured that they seemed to all be connected instead of individual creatures, as once I had broken the cat free from one of them, they had all sprung to life. I could only hope that they remained distracted by the impact on the one I had shot long enough that I was able to hobble out of their range.

And it seemed to be working too, as I ran the giant pillars ignored me, instead stretching towards the one I had disturbed. I nearly bumped into one, its disturbingly flexible body thrashing about just inches away from me. But then I was through, away from the cluster of them and back among the normal trees. I almost laughed out loud, but only a strained noise made it out of me, a sound that sounded more like an expression of pain than a laugh. But I was clear, I was free. But as soon as I had that thought, a heard a noise that caused me to freeze in place as my blood turned to ice.

The things behind me, they were screaming. It was ear-piercing, like a baby’s cry but a million times more guttural, and they gargled as if their throats were full of blood. If they had throats. It seemed as if they had discovered their prey had gotten away and were not very happy about it. I didn’t know why they were doing that, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. I started to run as fast as I could, which was infuriatingly slow with my leg. My back was to the shining north star, the only thing that was giving me any sort of guidance in these dark woods, but it would have to be enough. The screams were getting quieter now, farther away, but I still pushed myself even further, intent on putting as much distance between them and me as I could.

But even now, as I ran, I was not safe. I saw things out of the corner of my eye, creatures running after me, alongside me, trying to catch me and drag me back to that hell. I couldn’t get a good look at them, but I could see that they looked wrong, hairless and slimy in the starlight. One of the smaller ones, that seemed to had the vague shape of a rabbit but with only one eye and much too big of a mouth, nipped at my heels, trying to get me to trip. I could see that it had something coming out of it, leading back into the dark woods, keeping it connected to whatever it had been that was back there. I shot it without hesitation, sending it careening back into the darkness behind me. I took wild aim at anything I saw moving around me, firing my gun over and over again until it clicked empty. And then all I could do was run, as even after all of that I was still being chased.

But there, up ahead, a glow. My heart was racing, and I could barely breathe as my leg screamed in agony as I pushed it even further. I felt like I couldn’t even stand, but my house was right there, I simply couldn’t give up now. I broke out of the tree line, stumbling and flailing, a trail of blood from my leg leading back into those cursed woods. But I was not the only one desperate to get inside, for who did I see but my cat, soaked in red and wild-eyed, scratching wildly to be let in. I pulled the door open so hard that I felt like I almost yanked it off its hinges, both of us tripping over one another to get in.

Slamming the door behind me, I locked it for good measure, though I had no idea how effective that would really be. I slid down into a sitting position, leaning back against the hard wood as I tried to catch my breath. I almost couldn’t believe that I had made it out, the regular kitchen that now surrounded me seemed so unreal. Everything seemed unreal, did all of that really just happen? I looked down at my leg, the jacket wrapped around it thoroughly soaked in blood. Oh yeah, that was real. And I really needed to get it checked out, it looked bad.

I pulled myself forward, the cat’s eyes watching me from underneath the couch where it had gone to hide. Staying low to the ground, I pulled myself up on the windowsill and peered out into my backyard, watching the tree line. Nothing. It looked exactly the same as it had every day for as long as I could remember. But now I knew the truth. I slid back down. “I need to go to the hospital.” I thought to myself blearily, looking down at my leg. “And the cat needs to see a vet.” I looked at him, and he looked at me. I really needed to give him a name. After today, everything we had gone through, I think he deserved that. I glanced back out the window. Still nothing, or did I see for just a moment the glimmer of eyes watching me in the dark? I ducked back down.

“What would be a good name?” I thought to myself as I slowly stood up, out of sight of the window. I took another glance at him, his white coat, now stained in red. “Casper.” Yeah, that seems as good as a name as any. Like a ghost and all that. I started to make my way to the phone, intent on calling for medical help. Perhaps I would tell them an intruder broke in, that seemed believable. Plus, it was technically true. I just felt very tired, and I simply didn’t have it in me to try to tell the truth. It was just so unbelievable. As I reached for the phone, I took one last look out the window. The sky was turning gray, the night slowly being swallowed up by the sun. I had been awake all night.

“Guess I’m going to have to call out of work.” I thought to myself, giggling almost hysterically. But right as I put my hand on the phone, it rang, seemingly of its own accord. I stared at it, and it rang again. A third time, and I finally picked it up, putting it to my ear. “Hello?” I said, surprised at how harsh and guttural my own tone sounded. The person on the other end responded, a person I knew well. His voice was low and quiet, but still conveyed total self-control, even across the tinny phonelines. He sounded almost as tired as I felt, but still spoke clearly and concisely, just as he always did.

“Hello Mary. It’s Joe. I know you’re retired, but things have changed. I need your help.”

[redsightstories]

At The Heart Of Things (Part 1)

Do you ever feel like a loser when you’re sitting alone in your house, watching TV while eating leftovers from the night before in your reclining chair? I probably shouldn't feel like that, I’m sure everyone has been in that exact situation, when there are no parties to go to or your families out of town. Maybe loser isn’t the right term. But I think alone is. It’s in those moments that I feel the most alone. Honestly, I feel like that a lot. My life isn’t bad, per say. I have a decent house, no debt, I never worry about getting food on the table. I have a pretty normal schedule, I guess. I get up, I eat breakfast, I drive to work, I think about swerving into oncoming traffic, I do the work in at my boring stocking job, I come home, I eat dinner alone in my chair in the living room. Standard stuff. Everyone does it.

I have a cat, although I don’t know if I really want one. He doesn’t have a name, I guess I just never got around to giving him one. He is lying in the chair next to me, sleeping, making soft noises. The only light in the room is the soft blue glow of the television as I passively sit in my reclining chair and watch the news. They are talking about how the global number of disappearances in the world has sharply increased recently, causing worry and confusion. They talk about how in a city far away from here, an entire block has been evacuated and cornered off from civilians, with the government only giving vague answers about dangerous gases in responses to the reporters’ questions. There are a bunch of homeless looking people in the background of the report, seemingly arguing about trying to get back into the closed off section.

“They look pretty upset.” I think to myself absentmindedly. Then the TV cuts to a commercial about cars and I stop thinking about it. I really try not to think about anything that isn’t right in front of me these days. I take a bite of my food. What am I even eating? I don’t remember. I look down at the plate. Spaghetti. No sauce, no cheese. I’m not even really enjoying it. I think that sauce would probably be an improvement, but for the life of me I can’t muster up the energy to go get it. It’s so much easier to just leave it as it is. So, I take another bite of my plain pasta, glancing over at the cat next to me. Still sleeping. The cat is another thing that is vaguely uncomfortable, like the pasta, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. Or maybe I just don’t have the energy to. It’s complicated.

It's not a bad cat. We get along fine actually. Sometimes, he sits in my lap and I pet him, and he purrs. That’s pretty nice, probably the nicest part of my day. I feed him and water him, and once, he caught a mouse. So pulling his weight, I suppose. Still, I think it would be easier if he wasen’t around. He kind of… gets in the way, if you’re catching my drift. Not physically, but emotionally. But I can’t stand the thought of leaving him all alone, with no one to take care of him. He deserves better than that.

I hear a clattering from downstairs, in the basement. I look over at the cat, who has just been startled awake, and is now looking at me with wide eyes. He is just as confused as I am. I wait a moment, but there are no more noises, so I start watching the TV again, and he starts to slowly settle down as well. Something probably just fell off one of the overcrowded shelves that I have down there. I can pick it up later. Or maybe I won’t, I don’t go down into the basement too often. It’s a lot of work, climbing up and down the stairs when it really isn’t necessary.

It’s the same reason I don’t really talk to anyone at my job, I just don’t have the energy to put in the effort. I just stock shelves and then go home. Once, my boss called me into his office. He told me that he thought that maybe it would be good for my mood if I chitchatted with some of our coworkers, got to know them a little better. I stared at this man, with his off-white shirt and nametag in his tiny office at the back of the store, as the florescent lights buzzed above us. I told him sure, yeah, I would do that, and he seemed satisfied with that response, so I went back out and proceeded to talk to no one. And I thought to myself, “I’m too old for this kinda crap.” But really, I’m on the younger end of middle-aged. I know that there are people out there that are my age and they have a social life, friends and families that they see on the weekends. I just can’t seem to have the time or energy to do that sort of stuff.

There is another clatter from the basement, and I let out a deep sigh. God damn it. I guess this is something I have to deal with after all. I slowly get up out of the chair, putting my plate of spaghetti on the side table. It’s going to be cold by the time I get back from my little adventure, but I can just warm it up again. Maybe I’ll even get some sauce to put on it this time. As I get up, the cat hops down off his chair to follow me. Whatever, he can do what he wants. I walk down the dimly lit hallway, with only the soft glow of the TV behind me to illuminate the way. Pictures line the walls, and I do my best to avoid looking at them. I really have got to take those down too, but not only do I not have the energy for that either, this time it’s actively painful to think about.

The doctor said I was suffering from depression, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to cry a lot if you’re depressed, and I haven’t cried once. I still remember that day as if it was yesterday. “We just have to take him away for a moment.” They had said. I had only been able to hold him for a moment. Just a moment. I never saw him again. They said he died during the checkup; he’d had an allergic reaction to the needle they used to draw his blood. I never even got to bury him. That can’t be standard procedure, right? I don’t know. I don’t really remember much else about that day. The next thing I remember was waking up at home, in a cold sweat and crying while screaming.

I had no one to talk to about it, even. It had been an artificial insemination, so I didn’t have a partner to help me through it, and my parents had died just a few weeks prior, in a car crash. Those were the pictures that looked down upon me even now as I walked through the hallway, smiling empty smiles. Man, that had been a pretty rough couple of weeks.

I let out a rough bark of a laugh at that thought, startling the cat. Yeah, that’s one way of thinking about it. You know, a rough patch. A bit of a snag. A real downer for a bit. I finally reached the basement door after what felt like an eternity of walking, a plain white door that said nothing about what laid behind it. Another thump from below, louder then the previous, though if this was because it was getting more intense or because I was closer I wasn’t sure. I gripped the cold metal of the doorknob and turned it, pushing open the portal to reveal a dark decent down. What little light from the TV that made it this far did nothing to penetrate the gloom, it was so black I couldn’t even see the first step.

There was a heaviness in the air, one I didn’t know how to explain even if I tried. My life had changed a lot in these past few months, not for the better, and I could feel that if I reached over to turn on the light and see what was down there, it was about to change a whole lot more. It was just one of those things you knew, when you were standing on the edge of something, something that hadn’t happened yet, but you could feel the anticipation in the air. As if the universe had drawn in a breath and was holding it, waiting to see what you would do next. It was electric, and for the first time in a long time, I felt excited. Just the barest spark, but it was there. I haven’t felt like that if what seemed to be forever. I used to live for it, the thrill of the hunt, the joy of solving a particularly difficult problem or making it through a dangerous situation.

But did I really want to take this risk? Did I want to see what laid behind door number one? A not-so-little voice in the back of my head said no, it wasn’t worth it. I could just not do this, I could turn back and keep things the way they were. Was I happy? No, not really. I wasn’t even comfortable in all honesty, but at least what I had now I knew, at least if I stayed where I was it couldn’t get any worse. Could I really afford to lose any more? I looked around at my house, I looked down at the cat that was now beneath me. If I were to lose these too, and I felt deep in my heart that was a very real possibility, I don’t think I would be able to…. Keep going, as it were. I was having enough trouble as it was, without tempting fate.

But on the other hand, I did want change. I didn’t want things to remain like this forever, even if the future was scary and I had no idea what it held, and yes that included what was at the bottom of these stairs. But I just couldn’t handle the idea of losing even more. It was just too much to bare, and I knew that I just wasn’t strong enough. I began to push the door closed, deciding then and there that whatever it was, I just couldn’t deal with it. If it was a robber, or wild animal, then they could have whatever they wanted from the basement, and hopefully they wouldn’t come up here. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with that, with all of this. It was all just to much. Just then, there was a flash beneath my legs, a quick movement, and suddenly the cat had darted through the almost closed door. The last thing I caught was a flick of his tail as he disappeared into the darkness.

God damn it. God damn it. What do I do now? This was not the plan. Do I just leave him down there, to his own devices, and let what happens, happen? But I couldn’t do that. I had just said I didn’t have the strength to lose another, not like this. I know that I was just seconds ago willing to let whatever was down there run rampant in my house, but that was different. There was a separation there, a door between us and them. I know that doesn’t really make sense, but that was how it felt. A distance that felt impossible to cross, at least in my head. But the cat had run in without a second thought and now he was involved. So that meant I had to get involved too, whether I wanted to or not. So, I flipped the switch for the stair’s lights, and embraced whatever came next.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a man with a gun at the bottom of the descent, looking up and ready to shoot me. I figured there wouldn’t be, a burglar wouldn’t make this much noise. I gave it a solid chance it was some sort of wild animal that somehow found its way in and was panicking on how to get out. The cold concrete of the stairs felt harsh against my feet, but down I went anyway, with no sign of the cat in sight. The stairs were positioned in such a way that I could only see a small bit of the basement itself, and with the lights off at the bottom there really was not much to see at all, just a thin strip of light illuminating an empty concrete floor. I finally reached the bottom, flipping the switch and at last getting a good look at the basement.

Several shelves of stuff that had varying degrees of usefulness had indeed been tipped over and spilled. The resulting mess was everywhere, making it difficult to walk without hurting myself by stepping on something with my bare feet, but I did my best. Looking around for the cat, I quickly spotted him in the corner, hissing at… something. I’m not really sure what it was, to be completely honest. It was coming down from the small window in the top corner of the room, the only other entrance to the basement beside the stairs. It was difficult to see, cast in shadows that it was, but its appearance was long and thin, sort of shaped like a garden hose, and it was thrashing around, hanging from the window. Even as I watched it smacked into another shelf, knocking it over and sending random debris everywhere. It must have quite a bit of strength in that small frame.

“Hey” I said softly. “Hey, stop that.” I’m not really sure why I did that. It’s not like I was expecting it to listen. But I felt like I had to do something. It was all I could think of in the moment. The thing didn’t listen anyway, it just kept jerking around in a way reminiscent of a small snake under someone’s shoe. The cat hissed at it again, his back arched high and tail up in the air. I felt so very tired all of a sudden. I didn’t ask for any of this, whatever this was. Why can’t I just slowly rot away in my house by myself? This was all far too much. I had no idea what to do in this position, but I knew I couldn’t just leave it be and I hated that. Because now I couldn’t let this go, I had seen it and heard it and now it was a part of my life, and it wasn’t something that I was able to ignore anymore. Even if this thing were to pull back out the window and never return, I would be thinking about it everyday for the rest of my life, wondering what it was and where it came from. That was just who I am. I wonder if there is anyone out there that could just let something like that go. Maybe. But it was a bad habit of mine, left over from my working days I suppose. At my real job.

Should I shoot it? I had a gun upstairs, a Glock 22 left over from when I was still working my real job, but that seemed like overkill. It would be extremely loud for one thing, and it would probably alert the neighbors, who would then call the police. I didn’t really want to see anyone on the police force, there might be someone I recognized and then I would have to talk with them and catch up and I really didn’t want to do that. I felt somewhere deep down that maybe that my feelings regarding old faces was not the most important thing right now, but that was a distant thought and I ignored it. Besides, maybe this was some super important scientific discovery, some undiscovered species that would revolutionize the way we saw life as we know it. Granted, said wonder of science was currently destroying my basement, but still. Also, I was never super into biology or anything like that, so I don’t know, maybe this was a weird tree root or something and actually wasen’t anything special. I mean I know it’s not a tree root, probably, but you get the point.

Maybe I could call… no, not him. I can do things without him, I’ve solved cases before without him and I could handle this one on my own, as I have many before. And I didn’t want to see anyone, but definitely not him. To many memories. “Goddammit.” I thought to myself, suddenly angry at everything. I grabbed an old rake, intent on smacking this thing until it went away and I didn’t have to think about this anymore. But before I could do anything, the limb-like thing brushed against the cat, causing him to jump backwards, but far too slowly. Faster then I could follow it grabbed the animal, pulling it up and out the window before I had any sort of time to react as the cat screeched in fright.

Well, that’s not good. That’s the second time tonight that my inaction had caused things to happen out of my control. It was unacceptable. My life wasting away was one thing, but the cat did not deserve to suffer because of my indecisiveness. So no more thinking, now was the time for action. I rushed back up the stairs, tripping over some of the junk that still lay scattered about, but didn’t rush outside, not yet. Instead I ran to my room, pulling open the cabinet that was built into the bedside dresser. There laid my Glock 22, still as clean as the day I retired. I made sure it was well maintained, it was really the only “extracurricular activity” that I did anymore. I wasn’t planning on using it for… that, it’s just important to make sure that your equipment is always in good shape. You don’t want to find out it’s jammed when you really need it not to be.

I quickly pulled out the mag, giving a quick onceover of the weapon. Unloaded of course, I knew that, but you still want to treat all weapons as if they were armed at all times. I grabbed the box of .40 calibers that lay just next to the gun and loaded it deftly and efficiently. Fifteen rounds. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to fire any of them, but I had no idea what I was dealing with here. Whatever it was that had been in my basement, it was like nothing I had seen before, and I wanted to be prepared for any eventuality. As I did one final check, I realized that my head felt strangely light. Everything had this sort of dreamlike state to it, as though I was swimming through water as I moved out of my bedroom and toward the back door. It all felt so unreal. My pulse was pounding and I felt like I was shaking with adrenaline, but I looked down at my hands and they were perfectly steady.

I realized that I didn’t really care what happened to me. I think that was what this weird disconnect between my brain and body was. My life was already such a mess, so beyond salvaging, that it didn’t really matter whether I made it back or not. Nobody would really miss me if I was gone, there wasen’t anybody who would probably even notice. Except the cat. That was really what I was fighting for, him. and what he represented to me. A better life, one I used to have so very long ago, or at least that was how it felt. I almost didn’t even care about how unusual this situation actually was, my cat being kidnapped by an unknown entity through my basement window. It was what it was, and that was all there was to it.

I slid open the backdoor, peering out into the darkness behind my house. The light from my outdoor lamp shone brightly, but died quickly when it reached the tree line. The forest beyond looked like it stretched on for infinity, no end in sight. I hesitated for a second, then went back to the kitchen and grabbed my flashlight and threw on a jacket and shoes. No point in wandering around the woods in the cold and darkness like a moron. I stepped out onto the lawn, barely noticing the slightly damp grass beneath my feet. I glanced around, before going over to check the window from which the thing had retreated. I had the gun out, finger perpendicular to the trigger but not on it, other hand holding the flashlight up as I looked. There was the window, and it was only just now that I realized that it had shattered inwards, probably from the initial break-in. I hadn’t even realized it when I went in the basement earlier, the glass was mixed in with all the other garbage on the ground and I had been too distracted to pay too much attention to the window itself.

I had been taken off guard then, but I felt calm now, probably too calm for what the situation called for. I was back in my element, doing something I had done a million times before, and it was, in a way, comforting. I felt an absurd urge to turn to my partner and ask him what he thought, if he was thinking it was just a standard break-in, but I shook it off. I was alone, this was my house, and it certainly was not a standard break-in. It was time to get too work. I checked the window, noting the way the glass had shattered inwards. I already knew that obviously, but one step at a time, you didn’t want to rush or you might miss something. Of course I was on a time limit, I has no idea what was happening to the poor cat, but still. I was already working with very small amounts of information, I had to gather as much as I could. I felt like I was thinking clearly for the first time in years, as though a fog had been cleared. There was still the dreamlike quality to it all, but it was almost helping me, making it all easier. Maybe it was the sheer insanity of it all, it was all so unreal that I was able to, at least for now, push my negative memories out of my head and focus only on the here and now. It was almost like I was letting muscle memory take over.

There. On the ground, a long trail in the wet earth, as though a heavy snake had dragged itself through my yard. And surrounding the trail was torn up grass, as though something had been desperately trying to cling to anything it could. The cat of course, being dragged away kicking and screaming. Both metaphorically and literally. I followed the trail with my flashlight, where it lead into the woods only about fifty feet behind my house. Great. That was not a small forest either, it stretched on for a long, long time. It seemed like every year there would be a new missing person case, and every year they would find the body in these woods, picked over by scavengers and nothing but bones left behind. The trees loomed over me, inviting danger behind every corner, just begging for me to get lost in their shadows.

I peered up, over the tree line. It was a new moon, so it was an especially dark night, but it seemed like there were a million stars shining down, twinkling with their far-off light. One in particular shone directly over the trees, brighter than the rest. It seemed to glimmer, as though it was trying to say something to me, though what that was I had no idea. Was that the north star? Perhaps, astronomy was never my strong suit. Besides, I wasen’t out here to stargaze. I had a mission. So, with a drawn in breath, I headed into the deep dark woods, with only a flashlight, my own wits, and the cold glint of starlight to guide me.

Look around. Check everything, miss nothing. A broken branch, the sign of a struggle. The hoot of an owl, far away. Gashes in a tree, low, near its base. They were freshly made, a drop of sap even oozed out of one of them. The wind rustled through the leaves, bringing with it a cold chill, but also something else. A strange smell, one that seemed out of place in this dark and foreboding forest. A hint of chocolate, of all things. That didn’t seem right. I was much too deep in the woods to be catching the whiff of something like that through an open window. But before I had time to really think about it, my flashlight flickered, and I had to smack it to keep it lit.

Damn it, I hadn’t checked the batteries, and they were clearly in need of change. Amateur, amateur! What a stupid mistake, clearly my head was not nearly as much in the game as I thought it was. I considered going back, getting fresh batteries, but decided against it. I know I said to take your time and do it right, but twice now I had been too slow and gotten taken by surprise, I didn’t want to get jumped again. Besides, it seems the flashlight, while dim, had stopped flashing, so I pressed on, following the subtle trail left by whatever that thing was. I wish I knew what I was getting in too, but I also strangely didn’t really care. It was what it was, and if something happened to me, then it happened. It seemed I couldn’t shake that thought, ominous though it was.

That being said, I still wasn’t even sure what I was looking for, leading me to be constantly swinging my frustratingly dim flashlight around constantly in an attempt to prevent anything from sneaking up on me. This, combined with the fact that I was also attempting to keep track of a trail that was made up of little more than broken twigs and trampled plants in the middle of the night, led me to not noticing what was happening until it was overpowering. The scent, the smell, what had just been a hint earlier, was everywhere now. It was… divine.

Like cookies and cupcakes and warm summer days, it was like pine trees and flowers and bacon sizzling in the frying pan. I could think of nothing more out of place for a dark forest than what I was smelling, it was so jarring that it was almost comical, but I didn’t even care. I closed my eyes, meaning to just for a second, but it was so intoxicating that I could barely resist indulging. As I did, a powerful image filled my mind.

It was me, in the kitchen with my mother, and we were laughing about something. She was baking something delicious, perhaps a pie or cake, and I was helping her, having a wonderful time. My son, my beautiful baby boy, was in the living room, playing with his grandfather, but when he saw that the treat had been pulled out of the oven, he came running over. He was desperate for some as all children are, and he looked at me with big round eyes, the color of which looked like melted chocolate. He smiled at me, trying to sweet talk his way into getting a slice early, but I shook my finger no at him, giggling. “No eating before dinner.” I heard myself say, and it sounded so close, but so far away. My father chuckled, saying I should give the poor boy a slice, a growing man needs his food, and he nodded vigorously, agreeing with what he said, not that he necessarily believed it. I tussled his hair, looking out the window at the sun-soaked yard. I felt something tug on my leg, and I looked down, expecting to see the cat rubbing up against me. But there was no cat.

The sensation was warm and sticky, almost to the point of being wet, but nothing was there. My perfect son, the one I never had, tugged on my shirt again. He wanted the pie. Or was it cake. I couldn’t remember. I looked out the window again, but the sun was gone. It was a cold night, with a chilly wind. A single star twinkled down at me, the only one able to break through the trees, seemingly trying to warn me. Of what, I wonder? Another tug at my ankle, this time harder, so hard that I almost fell over. But this place was so nice, and the smell of pie (or cake?) was so pleasant. I looked out again, at the star, and I told it that I didn’t want to leave, that it would be so nice to stay here where I was warm and happy. The star said nothing, because stars can’t talk, but I knew what it was saying anyway. “What about the cat.”  The star said. “What about him.” and I knew it was right. I had come out here on a mission, and I couldn’t very well stop now. “Goodbye my son.” I said, and before he had time to say anything back, I opened my eyes.

[redsightstories]

Children

            Through the forest I ran, and I was free. I loved it, the wind whistling past me, the trees flying by on either side, the sounds of birds chirping in my ears, the smell of the morning dew filling my nose. There was nothing like it, nothing in the whole world. My family praised me for being so brave to go out on my own without any help so often, and I accepted their praise with my head held high, but in truth it was not a difficult task for the most part. I just ran, looking for threats and possible food. Sometimes, I would hunt the food myself if it was small, like the rabbits. Other times, if it was too large, such as with the deer, I would go back and get help. But mostly, I ran. That is what I loved the most.

            I returned to my home, where my mate and children perked up upon seeing me. They would often get nervous when I scouted, even when I had been successful many times before. But I knew that it was out of love for me, not out of thinking that I was inept. I loved them deeply as well, so I greeted them all individually upon my return. One mate, three children, and me. A family. The children were playing with one another, roughhousing so that they could get big and strong and one day, replace me. Such was the way of things. I asked my mate how things were while I was gone. She told me that it had been fine, but she felt it was going to rain soon.

I felt that way as well. It was something in the air, the way the wind blew. The way it smelled. You could just tell. I told her that we should stay in for tonight, that we would go hunting tomorrow together. The children were old enough that they would be alright if left alone for a couple of hours. She agreed, and gave me a small nuzzle as I curled up beside her. We watched the children play for a little bit longer, but it was getting dark and I soon told them to get to sleep. They agreed with reluctance, and soon we were all dozing peacefully. I did not have any dreams.

The next day me and my mate left our home. She told the children to stay here, and not to wander. They just looked at us with their big innocent eyes. I huffed in exasperation, but we left anyway. Hopefully they would not do any serious damage to their home or each other while we were gone. My mate questioned her coming along and wondered if she should stay with the little ones, but we needed to hunt for bigger game then normal, as I had not found any thing last night. Perhaps a deer would do. So off we ran, and once again I was free. The wind rushing past me, my mate beside me, nothing but the grass beneath my feet and the trees flying by.

As we ran, I kept stock of our surroundings, keeping a mental note on where we were. There was the creek, and there was the fallen tree that made a large triangle, and there was the big rock. I knew this area well, as I had lived here for many years. It was actually this area where I had met my mate, and where we had decided to call home. Thus, it was for this reason that I was surprised to find something new and out of place. It was a hole in the ground, circular and fairly large, at least several paces long. I came to a quick stop, as did my mate. We kept our distance, checking out this strange new phenomenon with trepidation. What did it mean? Where did it come from? From this distance I could see nothing strange about it, other than the fact that it now existed. It was just a hole in the ground.

I looked at it. I listened to it. I smelled it. I did not want to get closer, so I did all of this from a distance. There was nothing immediately notable about it. A faint smell of salt came from within, but that meant nothing to me. I went over to it slowly and peered down it while my mate kept watch. There was only darkness. I told my mate this, and she asked if I thought there was possibly any food to hunt in there. I told her I doubt it, I had seen nor smelled nor heard anything. So we left, there was no need to continue to do anything here. It was just a pit.

As we hunted, we wandered far and wide. After much time, we finally found a deer, a small doe that was all by herself. As we approached quietly so as to not alert it to our presence, I noticed certain things about it that caused me concern. The deer had its mouth hanging open, with its tongue lolling out as it panted. Its eyes rolled around its skull, looking at nothing and everything, with a sort of thick film over them. Its fur looked strange as well, thick and matted, much more so than the other deer that we had hunted before. There was also a long trail of what seemed to be its intestines dragging behind the creature, coming out of a red hole in its stomach, leaving a thick white liquid on the ground as it walked.

The innards were quite long, simply hanging loose and catching on the rocks and twigs that made up the forest floor. Even now I could see various plants and refuse stuck to it. Despite the fact that this was a very grievous wound, the deer did not seem to acknowledge it at all, instead choosing to spend its time running in circles and going nowhere. As we watched, it reared its head back and slammed it against a tree trunk, causing a large, red wound to open on its head and blood to begin spilling onto the ground below. Then the deer simply kept walking in circles, indifferent to the now large amounts of blood it was losing.

I bristled at the sight of this, as did my mate. There was clearly something very wrong with this doe, it appeared to be deeply, deeply sick. Being sick was not necessarily a dealbreaker, we ate things that were sick before, but this was far too much to deal with. The strong ate the weak, that was the way of things, and the weak were often sickly, but there was a limit to what was acceptable. It was clear that if we were to kill this deer and eat it, the meat would be rancid and almost certainly unfit for consumption. My mate turned and looked at me, and I could see in her gaze that she was still considering taking it down for ourselves. However, I simply would not allow it. We were not yet that desperate to resort to eating such a terrible looking creature. I signaled to her this, and so we continued onward, leaving the sick deer at the mercy of whatever strange aliment ravaged its body. Thankfully, we were able to find a pair of healthy rabbits fairly shortly afterwards, and with some quick yet stealth movements and a flash of our fangs, the rabbits were ours.

As we carried them back home, I could not rid myself of the image of that strange deer from my mind. I had never seen a sickness like that, and it disturbed me. What if my mate, or one of my children got it? They would most certainly end up dying from it, and on top of that, I would have to exile them for sure, which did not appeal to me. The risk of them spreading the sickness was simply too high to risk everyone else’s safety. I did not even want to think about what would happen if I were the one to get the sickness, I do not know if my family would be able to continue on without me.

Our group was smaller than most, and with so many young children it would be difficult for my mate to continue on without me. This is why all of them often got so nervous when I went out on my own, but I was not worried about that for much longer. Soon the little ones would be big enough to join us on our hunts, and we would be able to move as a pack, much stronger than one or even two. Still, I had my concerns. When I begin to teach the children how to hunt, I would need to stress upon them the importance of making sure that the food they were eating was fit for consumption.

But that was something to worry about for another day. For now, we had just gotten home, and the children were running out to meet us. They nipped excitedly at the meat, and I had to gently prod them back into the den before giving them their food, as it was starting to get dark out. I laid down near the back, content to gnaw on the lower half on the second rabbit while my mate got the other half. The children fought among themselves for the other rabbit, knocking each other around and growling. I let this go on for probably too long and was about to tell them to knock it off when my mate beat me to it, barking at them to settle down. She came over and curled up next to me, having eaten her fill. I gave her a kiss to say thank you, to which she responded with only a sigh. Children can be difficult.

As I laid there, my family curled up around me, I thought of the deer I had seen earlier. I thought of the strange hole in the ground as well. I had lived in these woods a long time, and I had never seen anything like those things before, and now for both of them to happen on the same day? I was not one to normally worry about these sorts of things, I prided myself on being able to take the world in stride, but this was very unusual. And yet, what was there to do about it? Nothing, so I put it out of my mind. I would simply have to avoid anything that looked as though it had what the deer had, and me and my family would be perfectly fine. I was not concerned about the pit. It was a pit, it wasen’t going to do anything. And with that, I shut my eyes and went to sleep, surrounded by warmth, even on this cold night.

The next day a storm passed overhead once again, signaling that we were truly in the rainy season. Two rainfalls in three days was not insignificant and was making hunting difficult. Nobody likes getting wet when they don’t have to, myself included, so we once again passed the day in our shelter.  It was a quiet day of not doing much at all. I always found the sound of rain to be peaceful, and it kept me lulled into a half-asleep state. I knew that outside it was cold and wet, but here, in my home, it was warm and dry. We passed the time mostly napping, with only the occasional interruption of the children making a ruckus as they messed about. I did not think about deer or pits in the ground. I had better things to do. Such as sleeping.

The sun rising in the sky awoke me in tandem with my stomach growling, reminding me that I had not eaten yesterday. I yawned and stretched, getting ready to head out and begin looking for food. A noise from my mate made me turn and look back, however. She looked at me expectantly, then down at the kids. They looked between the two of us with wide eyes, not understanding. I sighed. They would have to learn how to hunt sometime. Now was as good of a day as any I suppose. I grunted, and they ran over to me excitedly, dodging between my legs while chasing one another and generally being a nuisance. I turned to look at my other half, but she had already turned away and was now lying back down on the ground to sleep. I huffed at her, to which she did not respond. Guess I was doing this alone.

We walked through the forest, the leaves still glistening from the rainfall. The ground was muddy, so we left prints on the earth wherever we went. I sniffed the air, seeing if I could find anything worth hunting, but I only smelled rainwater. However, it was not in vain. I looked back and saw the small ones copying my movement, putting their noses first high in the sky, then low to the ground. They didn’t understand the reason behind the motions, not yet, but they had taken the first steps. I was pleased, perhaps this was going to be easier than I thought. Then one of them tripped on their own tail, falling face first into the mud, squealing. Perhaps not. I picked him up by the scruff of his neck and kept walking.

As we walked, I made sure to keep an eye on the kids while also attempting to see if I could find anything worth tracking, a difficult task. With my attention so split I almost didn’t notice what we were approaching until we were right up to it, with the smell of salt making its way to my nose in a sudden burst. It was the pit that me and my mate had run into the other day. I wrinkled my nose at it, the smell of salt was overpowering. My children peeked around me to get a view of what I was looking at, but as I turned away to go somewhere more pleasant, they followed in my footsteps. We were only several paces away however, when the sound of tumbling rocks from the pit made me quickly turn around.

At first there was nothing. A silence overtook the forest, the birds stopped singing, the wind stopped blowing, and it even felt as though the dripping of the raindrops from last night’s storm froze in place. Then, slowly, a limb emerged from the pit. Red and deformed and ugly, it had four short appendages like toes attached to the end of it. It was slimy and raw, as though it was a newborn coming out of its mother’s womb. A second limb followed shortly after, just as disgusting as the first. The two of them grasped around the edge of the pit, clawing at the dirt and twigs and plants, trying to find something to hold on to. Finally, it found a tree root that it managed to awkwardly wedge its left limb in, grabbing the top of the root with the other limb. With this leverage it was able to drag the rest of itself out of the hole, exposing its body to the morning sunlight.

The body was even worse than its limbs. It walked on four legs, like myself, but they were wet and gooey and veiny, pulsating every couple of seconds. The main body was hairless and smooth, colored a deep red and covered in a transparent film that glistened in the sunlight. There appeared to be small hard objects that were randomly scattered across its entire shape, that I realized upon closer inspection were actually teeth. Small little teeth everywhere, on the legs and face and back. The head, which also had random teeth strewn around it, appeared similar to my own, with a long snout and two short ears that came out of the top of its head.

That was about where the similarities ended, however. The mouth on the strange creature was far too large for its face, if it were to open it all the way the head would almost split in two from how far back it went, and it had no nose. There was only one large, yellowish eye that rested in the middle of its head, that was constantly peering around itself in seeming confusion, never focusing on one thing for too long. If it noticed me and my children, it did not acknowledge us. Where a tail ostensibly should have been there was instead a thick tube of meat, stretching off of the creature and into the pit from which it had emerged. It was seemingly made of the same type of flesh as the creature itself and pulsated alongside it in rhythm with the body. In addition to this, every now and then a large bulge would emerge from the beast and head down the tube back into the pit.

Overall, it was about the same size as myself, and had the same basic build, but that was where the similarities ended. This… thing looked like a mockery of me and my kind, a poor attempt at a copy from a creator that only understood the bare minimum of what it was trying to make. I positioned myself between the thing and my children, assuming a defensive stance. A low growl emanated from me as I warned it to stay away. It didn’t seem to even notice me however, instead turning back to the pit it emerged from and opening its mouth to let out a long, guttural howl. For a moment, nothing happened, and I took this opportunity to back up a few paces away from the creature, never taking my eyes off of it. I spared a moment to glance down at the children, who were shivering in fear. I needed to remain strong and confident for them, as if they panicked, I wouldn’t be able to keep track of all of them at once. This is why I remained slow and steady with my movements.

However, before we were able to make any real distance from the creature, two more similar looking beasts emerged, both of them as slimy and pink as the first, both trailing the long umbilical cord looking tube back into the pit. They grunted and yelped at one another, seeming to communicate. I took advantage of this distraction to turn and start pushing the children away, trying to make distance from whatever this was. I did not understand or want to understand what was happening here, all I wanted was for me and my babies to be far away from here. Once again though, before we had taken more than a couple of steps, the creatures quickly moved to intercept us, stumbling and tripping over the roots and debris of the forest floor, but still moving surprisingly fast. Before I had any real time to react, they had us surrounded, drooling and staring at us with their cyclopean eyes.

I got low and growled again, flattening my ears. They circled us, dragging their long, tail like appendages with them as they still led back into the depths of the pit. The leaves crunched under my feet as a wind blew through, rustling the trees around us. They left trails of slimy substance behind them as they slowly walked, which glistened dully in the bright sunlight. Somewhere, a bird cried.

I reared my head back and howled, the noise piercing through the air. Following my lead, The children did the same, adding their voices to my call. We held like that for a long moment, before petering off, the sound echoing through the forest. A beat of silence passed once again as the creatures paused in their circling, curious about what we were doing. However, after the moment passed and nothing happened, they began to make strange guttural noises, thick with liquid and phlegm as the effort caused liquid to pour from their mouths. The noises eventually turned into something similar to our howls, but much lower and with voice breaks, the octaves of the calls raising and lowering seemingly randomly. And unlike us, something answered their call.

It, like them, emerged from the pit. It rose, pink and fleshly, as hairless as the three creatures. It walked on two spindly legs and stood perhaps twice the height of myself. Two arms emerged from the top half of it on either side, and at the top of the body sat a head, with the same huge, gaping mouth and single yellow eye. I saw now that the tubes that came from the creatures circling myself and my children led back to this thing, going into its stomach, which was fat and bloated, with the skin so tight it seemed like it might rip open at any moment. Two large sagging breasts hung from its chest, dripping a stinking, off-white, viscous fluid that ran slowly down its entire body onto the ground below it.  From its back emerged yet another fleshy cord that once again led back into the hole it had emerged from, perhaps connecting to something even bigger and more grotesque than this thing standing before me.

It ran its eye around everywhere, gibbering and panting like the others, taking in the surroundings around it. However, unlike the others, it quickly focused in on us, a glimmer of intelligence flickering in its single eye. It simpered and grunted, seeming to give instructions to the creatures it was attached to. They obeyed, moving in closer despite me growling and snapping at them with my sharp teeth. The head creature approached too, walking on unsteady thin legs as its fat upper torso waved forward and back. With four of them now the smell was overwhelming, a thick putrid scent permeating the air that was making it difficult to breathe.

One of the creatures got only a hairs breath away from me, biting at my side. I dodged backwards, taking the opportunity to strike myself as my children cowered underneath my legs. I darted forward and bit into the creature’s pink rubbery flesh, sinking my teeth into its slimy, stinking hide. Thick dark blood ran from the wound as I tore into it, attempting to inflict as much damage as possible. The taste was horrible, like rotting meat and disease. The creature retreated quickly, whimpering, and I quickly spit out the hunk of flesh I had ripped off, where it laid on the ground and continued to pour out what seemed to be far too much blood for its size.

The hurt beast retreated to the leader, whimpering from its wound. It leaned onto the larger creature, begging for help as the rest of us watched. Slowly, clearly not used to this sort of motion, it knelt down, holding its companion in its arms as it made soft cooing noises to it. It stroked it for a short moment, before laying it down onto the ground, letting it rest. It clumsily gathered up some mud off the ground, pushing it onto the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding as it whispered softly, its eye never leaving its companion. It grasped the creature’s mouth and brought it to its strange bosom, attempting to feed it the thick liquid that still ran from them, but struggling due to the shape of the mouth and its general clumsiness. It was disgusting, yes, but at the same time… I glanced down at my own children, who I had been standing over protectively this whole time. I understood the creatures’ feelings, yes, but I did not sympathize with it. It had started this fight.

As if it had heard that very thought, it stood back up, letting its companion stay down. Finally looking back at me, it roared through thick saliva, rallying the others to move in closer to us. This time it advanced as well, picking up a large rock off the ground with a wet smack as it pried it from the mud and fluids that they had been leaving everywhere. It swung it around haphazardly, nearly hitting itself several times but holding significant force behind each swing. All three of them advanced, and I knew that this time a simple bite would not be enough to stop all of them. They wanted revenge. My children cried in fear, but I stood strong over them, ready to fight to the last breath.

Thankfully, however, that moment never came, as right as the beasts were about to attack as one, a howl announced the arrival of help. A flash of gray streaked out from behind a nearby tree and slammed into the leader, knocking it to the ground with a heavy thud. My mate stood in its place, panting heavily from the run. She howled, and I howled back, greeting her. We wasted not a second, making a break for the new opening in the circle. The knocked over leader screamed, its jaw stretching back so far that it was at nearly a 180-degree angle, calling for the others to attack us.

We sprinted, avoiding the creatures attempting to bite or knock us over. One of the children was lagging behind, stumbling and falling, so I made the snap decision to turn around and grab them in my mouth, holding them as gently as I could by the scruff of their neck while I whirled back around to run for safety. This decision cost me however, as one of the creatures took advantage of me slowing down to bite me on my leg. I cried out in pain, nearly dropping my child, but managed to hold on. I struggled to pull myself free, but it was too strong, biting down with exceptional force. I yelped, but thankfully, before things could get any worse the other children returned, attacking the creature and forcing it to let go as they bit into its underbelly. We were off again, sprinting for the trees as they gave chase.

I was struggling with the extra weight already though, and now with an injured leg I was moving noticeably slower. Still, I persevered, running as fast as I could while hearing the creatures gaining on me from behind, making their odd gibbering noises. I spared a glance back and saw one right on my heels as it leapt into the air to jump on me. However, it was suddenly yanked backwards, and I could see that it had reached the full extent of the tube that connected it to the tall creature, who had just now managed to stand up. The momentum of the jump sent it falling over again however, as it also brought the pursuer to a dead stop mid-air, crashing them to the ground. And then we were gone, deep into the tree line as the creatures screamed behind us, in pain or fury or maybe both. And I heard the tall one, the one who seemed so much like a mother to the others, wailing, wailing like a baby’s cry.

[redsightstories]

A Girl’s Gotta Eat.

Did you know that underneath New York City, there are miles and miles of man-made structures? Electric cables, water pipes, sewer systems, subway tunnels, the works. Not only is pretty much the entirety of the city crisscrossed with these pipes, but they go deep too. Sometimes hundreds of feet deep. A lot of it is abandoned too, just covered up and forgotten about, never to be thought of again until someone accidentally digs into it, or it collapses, at which point the construction workers decrees its existence and try their best to work around it. It’s crazy the things that get abandoned though. Entire subways abandoned, huge sewer pipes left to rot, you can find a lot of crazy places down there if you know where to look. I’ve never been to New York, specifically, but I think this is true with a lot of highly developed city’s in the world.

Like hobo camps for instance. Hobo cities even. Huge communities of people that simply go down into the tunnels underneath these metropolises and don’t emerge for weeks, living off of only the things they brought down with them and that they can scavenge. It’s almost like an entire civilization, separated from the city that exists just a few feet above them. Not to say that said encampment don’t rely on the city above it, they do, but they can also find ways to sustain themselves in other ways as well.

For instance, I once saw an older woman who had a bona-fide greenhouse set up near her lean-to. I’m talking like dirt and rows of planters and sunlamps and everything. It was crazy, she grew tomatoes and carrots and stuff. People loved it, they would trade for her crops at a pretty good price even when they didn’t have that much to spare. Guess it had to do with getting fresh food, not something you get too often living in the sewers. Living off junk food and stale bread, it gets to your head after a while. So yeah, people were pretty desperate for new stuff to eat. Always on the lookout for yummy new delicacies.

I think a lot about how every single civilization has their own special little food dish. Food and culture are so intrinsically linked, and it makes sense if you really think about it. Everybody eats after all, so it follows that people would build identities around that. Indian food, American barbecue, sushi from Japan. But it’s not just cultures that develop identities this way, it’s smaller groups too. Down to family units, and even individuals. How many times have you heard people talk about their grandma’s secret recipe, or call themselves a foodie? So, when this new food started popping up around my encampment, I was naturally curious.

I saw one of the older folks eating it first. They were cooking it over a barrel fire, watching the smoke disappear up into the sky. We weren’t in the tunnels then of course, keeping a fire lit in an enclosed area is discouraged for obvious reasons. They had it set up on some metal poles, these big chunks of red meat skewered on them. They were sizzling and browning and smelling delicious, all coming together to making my mouth water. And yet, something about it seemed strange to me. The meat didn’t really look, or even really smell like anything I had eaten before. It wasn’t really beef, though that was probably the thing it seemed the closest to. It wasn’t chicken, that’s for sure. Maybe something a bit more exotic, like bison? But how would a bunch of hobos get their hands on bison meat? I’ve eaten pig once, before it was outlawed due to contamination. It hadn’t really looked like this meat either. At a loss, I asked them what it was and if I could have some, but they just told me to fuck off, it was theirs. Assholes.

Still, I couldn’t get the meat out of my head. I was curious certainly, but more importantly it had smelled so delicious I just had to get my hands on some. So I kept watch, secretly, on that little group of meat eaters in my spare time to see where they were getting if from. And I had a lot of spare time, you tend to when you don’t have a job. Finally, days later when I was just beginning to get bored enough to give up, one of the meat eaters said something to one of the others, this big guy with an even bigger beard. The first person, a woman with an intense look in her eyes, turned and spoke to him, seemingly agitated. I was too far away to make out what they were saying, didn’t want to get caught watching them after all, but I could see her gesture to the empty meat skewers, clearly not happy about that pervious adjective. Beard argued with her for a moment, but when the others began to join in on the conversation l, clearly on Eyes side, he relented and left his spot by the fire.

With a start, I realized that this was probably my best chance of figuring out where the meat came from. I started to follow Beard, making sure to keep my distance so he didn’t realize that he was being tailed. I had to make sure to be subtle, people who live on the outskirts of society tend to be pretty wary, and he was looking around not infrequently to check if anyone was following him, which of course there was. Thankfully my years on the streets made it easy for me to keep out of his line of sight, you learn how to keep a low profile pretty quickly when you are as nosy as I am. I followed him until he hopped down into a large storm drain through a hole in the fence alone the side of it, at where I paused.

It was going to be notably more difficult to not be noticed in a large empty divot when following him, but I also didn’t see anyway to keep up with him that didn’t involve going down there myself, both sides of the drain had a lot of junk piled up next to the fences which would make it difficult to keep track of him. I had to make a decision quickly, every second that I sat here and thought he was getting further away, becoming harder to track. Finally, I slipped through the hole, making up my mind. If he saw me and wasn’t happy about it, I could always just run in the opposite direction. He was a fairly big guy; I doubt he would be able to keep up with my smaller frame. I hoped so anyway.

Down in the drain there was a bunch of crap, like old washing machines and discarded plywood. There were a lot of washing machines actually, way more than one would expect in a drain. Maybe a laundromat went out of business nearby? Anyway, I saw Beard slip around a pile of junk right as I landed at the bottom of the drain, and I quickly sped after him, trying to stay quiet while I did so. This was a lot of work to find out where some meat was coming from, but then again it wasn’t like I had anywhere to be. Rounding around a corner I once again caught the tail end of the man, this time climbing into a smaller drain pipe that connected to the larger one I was currently in. Unlike this one, the one he went into was not open air, but rather a true pipe. This was getting pretty weird. I thought Beard guy was just heading out to meet with a peddler or dumpster dive behind a supermarket or something, but that clearly was not what was happening here. This could be dangerous, he might have realized I was following him and was trying to lead me into a trap.

Then again, he had given no indication that he had any idea something was amiss, and at this point I felt like I had to commit to the bit. Besides, in my pockets was a small flashlight and more importantly, a knife. I could defend myself if push came to shove. Oh, did I not mention those earlier? My bad. But yeah, into the pipe I went.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was… strange. Not unbearable, but not particularly nice either. It was like… I’m not sure. The ocean maybe. Maybe. It definitely had an underlying saltwater smell to it, but it wasen’t the primary scent. It smelled sort of like the dust janitors put onto vomit when someone was sick, but it already had the vomit in it. If this was where they were getting their meat, I was starting to get concerned about the healthiness of eating it. a curtesy glance of the entrance to the pipe didn’t present anything particularly notable however. Fairly clean, for a storm drain, and there wasen’t even any water coming out of it.

As I went further into the pipe, I was forced to turn on my flashlight as the bright sunlight slowly faded away. I really didn’t want to, because if the bearded man was ahead of me he would definitely notice a bright light turning on behind him, but there was no way that I was just going to just crawl around a unknown pipe without any sort of illumination. I could easily fall down some random hole onto a bunch of rebar and that would be curtains for me. Thankfully, it seemed that there was no large man ahead, and for that I was thankful. As long as the pipe didn’t branch out that was. If it did, I was screwed.

Thankfully though, it didn’t, but it did curve to the left and then sloped downward. As I traveled even further below the surface, I noticed something. It had been happening the whole way, but it had been subtle before, The smell was getting stronger. And it was changing as well. There was a humidity in the air, getting thicker with each step I took, making the scent more and more powerful to the point where I could now taste it, and let me tell you it was not a pleasant taste. The vomit aspect of it was way stronger than before, and I was cementing the idea in my head that the meat was indeed, not healthy to eat. Not if this was where it was coming from. I took a second to put a hand on the wall and take a breath, but I quickly retracted it when I felt the side.

It was squishy. Squishy and damp and not at all pleasant to the touch. It was still inorganic, stone or metal or what have you, the stuff that pipes are made of I’m pretty sure, but it felt like it had been wet a long time. I guess that made sense, with the amount of humidity that was now all around me, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Plus, the air was getting warm, notably so, which did not help my uneasiness.

Hey, wait a minute, what kind of storm drain curves downward when you are going into it from the exit? Shouldn’t it curve up, or at least stay straight? There was no way for the water to flow up and out of these pipes, it didn’t make any sense. That was when I decided it was time to leave, mystery be damned. This was getting too strange, and I was not so invested into this meat that I was now certain was coming from a rotting alligator or something that I was willing to go any further. But, just as I turned to leave, I heard something coming from deeper down. The sound of meat being cut through.

Look, could you turn around in that situation? When you are so close you can hear the meat being sliced, the sound of the knife slicing through the flesh? Don’t shake your head yes you liar, you would check it out too. You would never be able to live with yourself without checking it out, seeing what’s behind door number three. People have died for less. Getting on great ships to cross the oceans, knowing that they may never return, but doing it anyway. Humans are nothing if not curious and inquisitive, it’s our greatest strength and our biggest weakness. So yes, I kept walking down that pipe, because I knew I would never be able to sleep at night if I didn’t. Maybe you would be able to turn around, but I couldn’t. I wish I did, but I didn’t.

How do I describe what I saw? It was a room, the pipe went into a weirdly rounded room, but inside of it…. what do I even say? I guess I will start with the floor. It was more than squishy at this point; it was downright spongy. More than a little difficult to walk on actually, what with my feet sinking into the floor by a couple of inches every step. And the smell…. My God the smell. Horrible. Once, when I was young, I was walking down a stream, and by down, I mean I was literally wading in it. I decided to poke underneath the streams surface with a stick, because that’s what you do when you are a little kid. At one point though, the stick got caught on something, and when I pulled it up it was a carcass of a dead animal. Its skull was exposed, but it was still mostly all together, just no fur, so all the red muscle was visible. It had a slick look to it, which made sense, it was at the bottom of the river. The smell of that poor dead animal, all waterlogged and rotting but still somewhat fresh, still with meat on its bones, that’s what this rooms smell reminded me of.

There was a big pit on the other side of said room, and from it came gurgling sounds, but what was in it I couldn’t see. Some sort of liquid probably, that’s what it sounded like. The walls were reddish, and seemed as spongy as the floor I was currently standing on. Finally, the ceiling was probably the strangest part, and that’s saying something. It had the same reddish color as the rest of the room, but it was shaped in waves, with bulges coming out of it in regular intervals.

It was with a start that I realized that I wasn’t alone in the room. There was a man in the center of the room, carving into the floor with a large knife. He had a small lantern next to him that he was using to see what he was doing, which, even when paired with my flashlight that I had been swinging wildly around, did little to get rid of the dark shadows that infested every corner of the space. It was Beard, the man who I had been following in the first place, and he didn’t even seem to realize that I was there. He just kept cutting into the floor, carving out large chucks and throwing them into his knapsack with a sickeningly wet smack.

Rivers of red liquid poured out of the sides of the holes, quickly filling them back up like a sick waterfall. The liquid flowed thickly, and was a deep crimson, giving it the appearance of blood. And it was blood, I realized. Seemingly endless blood flowed through the floor of the room I was standing in. And that meant that the ground, the walls, the ceiling, they were meat. Everything was meat. I was standing in a meat room. Meat below me, meat above me, meat in front of me. Meat Meat Meat.

I felt like I was going to vomit. I stumbled backwards, my feet squelching in the meat. The smell of waterlogged corpses and coppery blood filled the air, and then I did vomit, all over myself and onto the floor. The floor made of flesh. For some reason, that was what finally got Beards attention, who stood up and started shouting at me, screaming about how I shouldn’t have gotten sick on the meat, that now it was going to taste awful. I could only stare at him. I wanted to ask him about how he had found this place, about what this place was, who had the insane idea to eat the room meat in the first place, but the words simply wouldn’t come. I just stood there like an idiot as he got up and started to approach me, and it was only when he forcibly grabbed me by the shoulders did I finally react.

Without thinking, I swung my flashlight up and around to hit him on the side of the head, with it making a sickening Thwack as it struck the side of his temple. He fell backwards, stepping onto the holes that he had cut into the floor which caused him to stumble and collapse. His feet kicked up some of the blood that had filled the holes, and it sprayed onto me, covering me in it. It was hot and sticky and disgusting, like a nightmare. This whole situation felt like a nightmare, and I probably would have assumed it was one if it didn’t all feel so crystal clear. I could even taste some of the blood that landed in my mouth, with that classic coppery taste that anyone who has ever bitten the inside of their cheek knows. I spit it out, desperate to not let any of it into my mouth.

“You Bitch!” I saw the man standing up, slipping a little in the blood that now coated his shoes. “I’ll kill you!” he ran at me with his knife, stabbing me in the left arm. I let out a scream of pain, instinctually kicking him in the leg. He slipped backwards again, this time due to how slick the entire floor was becoming because of our scuffle, and I knew that I probably was not going to get another chance. I ran up to him and slammed into him with my good arm, sending him stumbling even more off balance. He fell backwards and was now at the edge of the pit that was at the far side of the room, full of the gurgling liquid I had yet to see. We were still for a moment, me standing and him kneeling, both of us panting heavily. The only sounds were our own labored breathing and the gurgling of the pit behind him. Suddenly, he stood up, but before he had a chance to run at me, or say something, or really do anything, I threw my flashlight at him, by some miracle hitting him square in the nose. He fell back a third and final time, falling into the pit behind him, screaming the whole way down.

I peered over the edge, grabbing my apparently lucky flashlight to look down. At the bottom there was a strange yellow liquid, maybe fifteen below me. It burbled and bubbled, and I saw the man sinking beneath it, the liquid burning his skin like acid. I think it was acid. I didn’t want to think about this anymore. I really didn’t want to look at this anymore. The thing I wanted, more then anything in the world, was to be out of this room, with its slick bloody floor and walls made of meat and pools of acid.

So, I did just that. I ran out of the room, up the pipe, and back into the sunlight of the real world, where rooms didn’t pulsate and men didn’t eat the floor. But before I left, I grabbed the man’s bag where it lay, still full of his harvest. I guess I wanted proof that it was all real, that this wasen’t some psychotic breakdown that I had just experienced. And maybe, and maybe, it was because despite everything that had happened, despite what I had just witnessed, I could still smell the meat cooking on that barrel fire when I had first gotten too curious. Against everything, that delicious smell persevered in my mind. When your homeless, any food is good food. And I mean, a girls gotta eat, right?