by P P Corcoran
You need to get to your phone and call 911, but in your confusion and pain, you can’t remember where you left it. A trembling hand reaches out in a feeble attempt to draw back the shower curtain, but the cheap plastic slips from your grip as you begin to go numb, the beehive of noise in your ears building to an excruciating cacophony. You anticipate a flood of pain as the shower floor rushes towards you, but it doesn’t come...
There is only darkness.
#
You come to. You are lying on the couch in the living room, fully dressed. The television is on, the screen bright blue with no input. Confusion and terror settle over you like a black pall, and it takes a long time for your eyes to adjust to what they are seeing, like a newborn registering its world for the first time.
Standing up you call out your partner’s name. All you hear in return is the steady tick of the clock above the television. Everything around you swims in and out of focus. You manage to focus enough to make your way down the hallway to the bedroom, where you stand at the door, a trembling hand hovering over the knob. After a moment’s hesitation, you enter.
The curtains covering the open window billow above the sleeping form of your partner. Stepping closer, you see the reassuring rise and fall of their chest with each steady breath. They stir slightly and turn away from you, conscious, perhaps, of your presence in the room.
Heart racing in your chest, you command it to slow sensing that normalcy is still holding reign, even if your head is swimming with troubling possibilities regarding what has just happened to you.
You try to clear your mind of clutter in order to get a better handle on the situation. Something off has happened, something you can’t explain or simply let slide. But what can you do about it? Waking your partner is out of the question, they work nights and would not appreciate being disturbed from their pre-shift slumber; going to the hospital is a possibility, but you’re not exactly sure what good it would accomplish. What would you tell a doctor? That you had a vivid and extended dream you confused with waking life? That in said dream you experienced a distressing series of physical phenomenon, the catalyst being some unexplained lights in the sky?
Closing the door to the bedroom you head back down the hall. Plopping down on the couch you spend a few minutes trying to concentrate. Shaking your head in resignation, you make your way to the front door, deciding that fresh air is what you need most.
Opening the heavy oak door you step outside. Night has fallen and with it a shroud of fog thicker than any you have ever seen. Overhead, restless clouds move swiftly across a jet-black sky.
Your attention focuses on a car, stopped in the middle of the road directly across from your house. The driver and passenger side doors are open, and the interior light is on. Slowly, with unease knotting your insides, you make your way down your front porch and across the path that splits the front lawn. As you hit the sidewalk, you hear the incessant ping, ping, ping of an open-door sensor.
With deliberate, slow steps, you approach the car. Looking inside the interior appears to be a jumbled mess of random objects: garbage, clothes, dog toys, a toolbox with its contents spilled all over the back seat. A deep-fried smell, pungent with age, rises somewhere from within the car’s depths. Hesitantly, you slide into the car on the driver’s side.
The digital face on the car’s expensive looking satellite radio reads 1:17 PM — roughly the same time that the episode in the shower happened. If that episode even happened at all.
Something must be wrong with the stereo. The minute keeps alternating between 1:17 and 1:18, as if time is struggling to inch forward in its usually implacable march.
You turn up the volume on the radio. The stations are all awash with static, save for one: a twenty-four-hour satellite news station.
“—something in the rain” a clipped and barely audible voice pronounces. “Government authorities have determined—”
Static overtakes the signal. You adjust the tuner, and the voice returns, clearer, but only for a moment.
“Health officials have issued a warning that all citizens of the greater—”
The rest is swallowed by white noise.
Fumbling with the keys you kill the engine before your eyes settle on the windshield. Rivulets of a dark liquid run down the glass, but you can’t tell if it’s on the inside or the outside, so you wipe the pane. Examining your hand you find the palm to be stained red, a rich coppery smell rising from it. In a horrified instant you realize what the liquid is. Breathing heavily, your heart banging in your chest your eyes search the mist-enshrouded street struggling to make out familiar shapes and forms.
You see three dark figures standing in a circle on the sidewalk four or five doors from your home.
“Hello?!” you call out, voice echoing in the stillness. There is no response, no movement, and after a moment the shapes simply dissolve into the dark and roiling mist.
A sound like an exploding tire rings out. Turning in the sound’s direction you make out an indistinct figure emerging from your neighbor’s house. The figure moves with an unnatural, limping stride that reads of panic or agitation. You quickly give chase, calling out your neighbor’s name. The figure unlatches the gate to the backyard and disappears into the darkness, gate hinges squeaking in its wake.
Reaching the gate, you open it and step through. A floodlight clicks on, illuminating the yard. The sudden brightness confuses you, and you trip over a plastic lawn chair, almost doing a faceplant onto the wet grass.
Your neighbor is standing in the center of his lawn, back turned to you. There is a long object in his left hand that glimmers dimly in the emerging moonlight. You approach him slowly; his attention seems to be fixed on the sky above, as though he were searching for stars in all that cloudy dark.
You’re only a few yards away from him when he raises the long object in both hands and places it under his chin. A startled cry tries to escape your throat, but is choked off as you recognize what the object is.
The entirety of your neighbor’s head explodes in a red mist as a deafening report bounces off the surrounding houses.
A hoarse scream escapes you, the exclamation deafened by a painful ringing in your ears. In a gruesome display of postmortem vitality, your neighbor’s headless corpse stands perfectly upright for a moment before crumpling soundlessly onto the grass, hands still gripping the stock of the smoking shotgun.
Bile rises insistently in your throat. You clasp a hand over your mouth, but it’s no use — an intense coppery smell hits you and you double over, the reeking contents of your stomach spilling out in a steady stream covering your shoes. Falling to your knees, choking and retching, an unrestrained torrent of warm tears spills from your eyes. You stay doubled over, sobbing, gasping, trying and failing to regain composure.
The absurdly redundant idea that you need to call an ambulance comes to you right then, and you can’t help but emit a hysterical little giggle. Your whole-body trembles violently as you. wipe the acidic taste of vomit from your lips. Still in a daze, you walk back in the direction you came, opening the gate to the backyard as the floodlight clicks off behind you. Rather than returning home you move steadily towards the side door of your neighbor’s house. Finding it unlocked, you enter, navigating around a pile of shoes left on the mat. It’s been a long time since you have been inside of your (now former) neighbor’s house, so everything is unfamiliar. Before you runs along hallway, a light shining dimly to the right where it ends. The master bedroom.
Cautiously you make your way down the hall and enter the bedroom. The first thing your eyes register is a single slipper discarded on the floor; pink with a tuft of white fur on top. You search for its match until your eyes light on a smeared red spot on the carpet. With growing dread your eyes follow a trail of red splotches until they reach a figure sitting slumped against the wall, its entire upper body covered with a curtain torn hastily from one of the windows. It’s your neighbor’s wife, legs splayed in an unnatural fashion beneath he
r; dark blood soaking through the curtain covering her face. There is a riot of red all over the bright yellow wall behind her.
You register a dull shock at the sight of the body, mind unable, or unwilling, to grapple with what it’s seeing.
Taking a tentative step forward you know you shouldn’t touch her, but some horrible force within compels you to move closer, extending a trembling hand towards the bloody curtain. You pinch the soft fabric lightly between forefinger and thumb, pulling the curtain away with a flutter.
What remains of her face is a tattered red concave filled with shattered bone - one of her eyes, still intact, dangles loosely from a thin thread of connective tissue. He must have shot her at close range. You pray, idly, that she felt little or no pain as her brain fired its last neurons.
Leaving the room, you make your way back down the hallway in a half stupor. Stopping where a landline telephone hangs from the wall you lift the receiver from its cradle, press it to your ear, and dial 911.
The line is busy.
You hang up and try again with the same result, then you walk down the remainder of the hallway and back out the door. You head down your neighbor’s driveway and crossover onto your own property. You feel weak, drained, on the verge of collapse.
Reaching your front porch steps you register a figure out of the corner of your eye: a tall, thin man approaching from the sidewalk, features blurred, made indistinct by the tears still welling in your eyes. He begins to move toward you, his hand outstretched imploringly.
“Help,” you manage to croak, not sure if the man hears you. “Please, I need help. There’s been a-a-”
The figure steps into full view, hideously bathed in the sickly hue of your porch light. The face that stares in your direction is a mockery of the human form, its waxen skin painfully tight against bulging and distorted bones; lifeless black eyes, insect-like in their size and prominence, gazing from too large sockets; a gaping, lipless mouth revealing a manic arrangement of sharp yellow teeth; thick drool clinging to the pocked skin over its chin.
You back away swiftly, heel catching on the runner of the first step and sending you sprawling backward onto the porch stairs. A jolt of pain courses through your back, even as you struggle to crawl away from the approaching figure.
The thing — surely the only word for what it is — moves steadily toward you, extending arms that terminate with long nails that have no business being attached to a human hand. A dry wheeze escapes from its throat as the vocal cords pathetically attempt to form words that must be “Please help me,” but come out more as “Preese hurp muh.”
Frantically you scramble towards the door and heave yourself by the handle onto your feet. Sweaty hands fumble with the knob, the hair on your neck rising as you feel the thing closing the distance between you. For a terrifying moment you’re sure the door is locked. At last it opens, and you hurl yourself headlong inside. Slamming the door shut, you press all your weight against it, still feeling the thing’s presence on the other side.
After a moment you hear footsteps descend the stairs, pausing a second before moving away from the house.
Your heart rate begins to slow to a tolerable jog, and you close your eyes against the all too bright lights inside your house. Van Morrison belts out “Wild Night” from the stereo in the kitchen.
All the lights are on. You only remember the light in the foyer being on when you left. Your partner must be awake. A long shadow falls over the hallway wall, bobbing up and down before moving out of sight. You move through the living room towards it and catch a quick glimpse of your partner as they turn towards the bedroom.
You think you hear them sobbing, though the sound is muffled, indistinct.
You call their name. No reply.
Entering the bedroom, you notice the curtains fluttering. The air is damp, acrid with the scent of freshly fallen rain.
Your partner sits on the left-hand side of the bed, opposite the dresser, their back turned to you. You call their name several more times.
Still no reply.
Reaching out you place a firm grip on their shoulder. Finally, they turn toward you.
Something inside of you snaps, but you don’t scream. Unappeasable horror pushes all rationality down inside of you, like gravity, to that comfortable, buried place where madness resides.
Your partner stares back at you with pleading insectile eyes, one hand gingerly caressing their new face and its obscene features, trying to make some sort of sense of them. A single tear runs down a strangely protruding cheekbone. They open their mouth to say something, to beg, perhaps, for some sort of explanation — all that comes out is a dry croaking sound that couldn’t possibly be words. You turn and walk towards the bedroom door, almost seem to float towards it.
You’ve gone completely numb now, the terror and confusion receding, in their place a sort of pleasant understanding. An acceptance.
Passing the open bathroom, you catch the reflection of a stranger in the mirror above the sink. It’s funny, really. The stranger shares many features similar to your own, including the very clothes on your body, but there’s a taut translucency to the skin, a bulging quality to the eyes - they seem to grow larger as you stare into their jet-black surface.
You smile at this stranger, and the stranger smiles back at you with yellowing teeth that don’t quite seem to fit properly.
Your partner appears behind you, placing a hand on your shoulder. It almost feels reassuring.
Outside, barely audible beneath a growing din of emergency sirens, you hear thunder rumbling...
- THE END -
About Alexander Harrington
Alexander Harrington, born April 12 1989 in London, Ontario, will never forget the fateful night his young self was sat down in front of a grainy television set to watch a late night airing of Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World, an experience that still resonates powerfully in his imagination. Raised on a steady diet of comic books and age inappropriate film and television, the Examination Day segment of the 80s Twilight Zone still triggers him, he is a journalism major who has contributed freelance movie reviews and entertainment articles to several publications.
Alexander has also created works in the world of independent theater, writing, directing and acting in a number of limited engagement stage plays, including the surreal and macabre thrillers Last Echo and Painkiller, both of which deal with twin obsessions in his writing: identity and the nature of reality.
He is currently working on a play anthologizing several short stories by the great H.P. Lovecraft, and is also developing a podcast with a focus on pop culture and the murky and problematic politics currently plaguing it. He is a rabid genre fan, particularly of weird and pulp fiction, and spends a potentially unhealthy amount of time in bargain basement book dealers, amassing a collection of obscure, B-grade VHS tapes and musty paperbacks.
Alexander divides his time between a busy work schedule in the industrial sales industry, writing, traveling, drawing, volunteering, and stalking the floors of horror and science-fiction conventions. He lives with his wife and two children in the greater Toronto area. Altered is his first published short story.
Connect with Alexander here:
www.castrumpress.com/authors/alexander-harrington
Within The Storm
by Beth Frost
The sun is rising high in the cloudless blue sky, turning the white buildings into pillars of molten gold. The automaton in the corner deals with the remnants of my meal as I take this moment to stand and look out over the city.
Below me, the streets are thronged. Bright colors abound, and I know if I open the window, the sounds of the festival will rise up to me, borne on wings of laughter. There is always a carnival on Rest Day.
I don’t think this will be the day that I leave my suite and descend to the party. I’m getting too old to dance in the street anymore, even if I would love to celebrate. Today, the carnival will come to me.
I watch the people belo
w, letting the time pass in reverie, until I hear the stampede of footsteps outside of my door. They don’t stand on ceremony, and my door is flung open. Little Alyson is first in, dressed in vivid orange, waving a handful of streamers around, trailing glitter behind her in a cloud. Markus is beside her, smart in dark blue, and with his face painted with a crystal and green mask. Polly and Paul, my beautiful twins are in sunshine yellow and sky blue, their hair braided with bells that sweetly chime with every movement. Baby Ruth is in the arms of Anne, a giggling scarlet vision as she tries to catch the ribbons in Anne’s hair. And lastly, my oldest grandchild, Nocturne.
He wears silken blacks, translucent greys and sparkling white, and is desperately trying to pretend he doesn’t want to be here, for the benefit of the two friends I can spy lurking, unsure of their welcome. But I know him, and he comes to me for a hug as eagerly as any of his siblings do.
They sit around my feet for a while, telling me of all the things that they have done and seen in the days since I’ve seen them. Nocturne and his friends sit together, heads bent as they whisper and gossip amongst themselves. But the conversation fades, the pauses longer, the silence deeper, until they all watch me with wide eyes.
They want the story.
And so, I begin.
#
It was common knowledge that trouble comes in threes. When my Dad tripped and fell over a particularly ornery sheep, that was the first sign. If it had only been a strain or a sprain, then Dad would have just shrugged and carried on walking the hills. But he broke bones, and even for my Dad, that was a bit much. And so, he was housebound with my very patient mother hovering around him, trying to keep him distracted.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time. We were in Life Season now, and everywhere on our farm, new life was coming into being. Our herds and flocks had survived the Cold Season well, and Dad was hopeful for a good number of babies. Ours was only a small farm, and every life, especially a new life, was precious.