Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3

by Cheryl Mullenax

  Lola harrumphed before she interrupted. “Listen numbnuts, my sister fancies you. She’s fucking beautiful and kind, and yet she’s chosen you. You should be honoured that she ever spoke to you. I’ve never met a nicer person and I’d trust her with my life. If she ever cheated on you, which I highly doubt, it would be because you would’ve had to have cheated on her first!”

  Jake’s cheeks flared red in the firelight. He had no words.

  Everyone else in the group was looking their way.

  “Is everything okay, brother?” Ziggy asked. “Would you like to talk about it? I would never come between Katy and you. We’re just friends. Well, now we are.”

  Ziggy was far too amicable. He was a bit of a dick at times, but he wasn’t an arsehole.

  “It’s okay Ziggy, I’m just …” Jake paused, his eyes fixing on a branch above Ziggy’s head. Katy followed his alerted gaze. Even in the light of the fire and the torches, it appeared darker than the rest and looked to be slowly descending with a sinister slowness towards the trio sitting at the bottom. They watched as the angle of it moved, twisting towards the tree and group. If it fell, it would land on all three of them. Was it a rotting branch that was slowly bending towards the ground? No, it had too many angles in it, the branch seemed to adjust and bend at different points along its length.

  Ziggy saw that Jake’s and Katy’s gaze had shifted above his head and turned to face the strange branch as it suddenly lurched forward.

  “Move!” Jake barked, and Ziggy did as he was told, ducking to the ground as instinct took over. The dark branch shot over his head, catching Johan in the left side of his neck, disappearing deep. He squealed, gurgled, then was lifted up and off the floor of the forest as easily as one would lift a newborn from a crib. The old man’s legs kicked against the tree, drumming out a sudden and deranged tattoo. They all watched helplessly as the branch retreated upwards, taking Johan with it until the chain met the end of its slack, halting him from being lifted farther, but still, the thing tugged on the old man.

  Clementine turned to where her husband had once been, only to see the back of his feet frantically kicking notches out of the bark. Screaming, she recoiled backwards, jangling her own chains as she tried to pull away.

  The others watched as Clementine grabbed at her husband’s flailing ankles and tried to pull him back to earth, getting a kick in her teeth for her troubles. She lurched back with a high yelp.

  Ziggy looked up at Johan, his teeth bared in fear, wanting to help, but being ultimately powerless to do anything. He jumped up and wrapped his sculpted arms around Johan’s kicking legs, then dropped his own, leaning on his heels and using his weight to pull the old man back down.

  All the while, Johan was screaming. They could see that the black branch (or whatever the fuck it was) was lodged in his neck, the stubby ends moving in an almost repetitive pulse.

  All of the girls screamed along with Johan. Even Phil was making a panicked uhhhhh noise as his only response to the unfolding horror he was witnessing, giving the once silent forest a peculiar soundtrack.

  After a few liquid gasps, Johan stopped screaming. A loud, wet farting sound resonated from Johan’s mouth, then deepened to the gurgle of a blocked drain being emptied.

  The sound was involuntary, but forced like a rude child draining the last drips from a juice carton. He legs were shaking violently, kicking out as if a deadly current circulated throughout his body. Unable to hang on any longer, Ziggy released his grip. Fearing for his own safety now, he lunged toward the forest floor and picked up the small hand axe he’d used to chop kindling for the fire. He ducked and lay down as far from Johan as he could, the axe held up to his cheek, elbow bent and ready to retaliate.

  Whatever had gotten hold of the old man gave up and let go. Johan dropped down, landing on top of Ziggy. Katy didn’t watch him fall, instead she watched the strange length of angled blackness retreat behind the tree. She thought she saw something else.

  A shadow.

  A body.

  Lola and Georgina were screaming hysterically. Gasping in deep breaths of air that seemingly weren’t enough to calm them, then screamed again, replenishing and depleting, replenish and deplete.

  Katy’s eyes flicked down to Johan. He was dead. Or at least he looked dead. If his brain somehow still fired electrons inside that papery skull of his, it would be both a miracle and a tragedy.

  Johan had crumpled on top of Ziggy, his limbs folding at inexplicable angles as if broken and bent like a discarded puppet. His clothes now hung loosely from his frame. The whole process had taken less than a minute.

  The real horror of it all was in Johan’s face. His skin was white, almost translucent, sagging away from the skull beneath it like his clothes loosely hanging from his body. Before, he was charmingly wrinkled and wise-looking, but now the laughter lines were folded over and the mouth was a slack and perverted orifice that gaped with twisted jaw behind puckered lips that sloped to one side. Blood had bubbled from his lips, giving a dark crimson circle to the beard around his mouth. But the eyes, the eyes were the worst. Now broken windows to a lifeless soul. They’d sunk inwards and deflated, the whites had gone, the liquid of the irises had burst, making them sad little sacks of milky greyness. The centres of twin blackness staring not at Katy, but straight at Jake, with the twisted mouth caught in an airless whistle, as if singing to him …

  This is about as bad as it gets Jakey boy …

  * * *

  The liquefied innards and blood of Johan Loft were already being digested as he was breathing his last. Even as his brain was being sucked through the tight little circle at the base of his skull it was still receiving pain messages from the nerves that hadn’t yet snapped and pinged off towards their fate. Moments of his life had flashed before his eyes, he’d felt the urge to evacuate his bowels and bladder, but these were already gone, and the creature had zero concern for that of its prey. It had fed, but still it hungered. It moved back for more.

  Moving around to the other side of the tree, it unfolded a whelk-like proboscis. Sensing the heat of food, it jabbed forward with the intention of immediately hunting its next course. The sensory organ at the end of its feeding implement felt flesh then hard bone. Its tri-claws gripped tight, breaking the skin and the weak skeleton in one vice-like motion. Three thin tongues wormed into the break in the skin, inflating as they pulsed forward, creating room to manoeuvre its food sack. Valves opened deep within its elongated carapace, forcing out air from within, creating a vacuum. Once pressurised, sphincters opened along its trio of tongues and the evacuation of its latest meal began.

  As it began feeding then a new sensation shook the entirety of its being, something new that alarmingly altered its pressures without warning. It tried to repressurise the expanse of its stomach, but it wouldn’t take. Instead it lost what it had just taken.

  The pain wouldn’t leave the end of its proboscis. Danger flared, it was an uncommon feeling, but erring on the side of caution, it retreated up the tree, outstretching its limbs, fleeing away from the light.

  Light meant danger. It had learnt a lesson.

  * * *

  The thing had come back, on Clementine’s side of the tree this time, punching that long dark limb into her rib cage with a horrible crack that chilled the others left watching. From this new angle, Katy could see more of it. The limb was attached to something else hidden behind the tree, a larger body. It wasn’t a tree branch, but an actual thing.

  Clementine gave a terrified yelp as she was stabbed. Ziggy had the axe poised and didn’t waste a moment in launching into hero mode. He raised the blade, pushed Clementine flat against the tree and swooped the axe down on the intruding attacker. It took him four swipes, until finally the great angled limb cracked like a crab claw and pulled back up into the tree above, spewing blood and yellow bile like a garden hose.

  Clem collapsed to the ground, the remnant of the axed-off proboscis still embedded in her torso like a spear. She gave a few sh
ort shrieks. Georgina gave one long, ear-bleeding scream.

  “Stop fucking screaming!” Jake blurted, his hands over his ears. No one took any notice of his request.

  Katy grabbed her sister and clung onto her for dear life after the inexplicable horror they’d witnessed.

  “Stay close,” she whispered to Lola.

  Georgina’s scream faded to a croaking hiss, her hands clasped to her face in an attempt to block out the images before her. Phil was tugging desperately at his chains, trying to wiggle it past his belt and ignoring the others.

  Clementine fell into Ziggy’s arms, blood pumping freely from the obscene open tap that stuck out beneath her right breast. She gasped for air, bubbling blood and god knows what else from her mouth. Her insides had been churned. They could all smell odours that they’d rather not smell.

  “I’m sorry, Clem. I’m so sorry. It shouldn’t be like this …” Ziggy wittered.

  “What the fuck is that thing?” Jake half-screamed. “What the hell are you?” he asked the silent darkness, dreading the devil’s response.

  All that answered were the whimpers and sounds of the dying that were louder than anything else.

  It was Lola who spoke next, uttering the only thing that made sense. “The meteorite. It has to be the meteor.”

  Yes, that was it. Whatever it was, it was a fucking alien. That was the only explanation, they all realised in a grim unison.

  Katy’s thoughts on the matter became diverted when Phil suddenly jumped away from his tree, shaking the chains from his ankles. He’d dropped his trousers and squeezed the chains down his legs then simply stepped out of his bonds, then pulled his trousers back up.

  “I’m sorry, Jake. I’ll go get help. Gimme your keys.”

  “What? Help us get out you fuck!”

  “I’m out, I can get a phone signal, I can get help, now give your keys!”

  “For fuck’s sake, Phil,” Jake chided, then dug into his pocket, fished out his car keys and tossed them to Phil.

  Phil caught them one-handed, turned and ran through the darkness towards the gravel lane where they’d all parked their cars.

  They watched as Phil disappeared deeper into the darkness, wondering if he even knew the way. His silhouette faded until it melted into the shadowy forest.

  “Do you think that …” Lola started to speak, when above them the branches creaked with movement.

  Twigs fell.

  Leaves fluttered.

  The five of them looked skyward, each shivering back towards their own respective tree.

  Much of the detail was lost in the darkness, but between the glow from their torches, the fire, and the moonlight descending from the skies above, the outline of the creature could be made out as it pulled itself from branch to branch with a multitude of spindly limbs. It was earwig-shaped, elongated with overly long limbs and god knows what other appendages. It moved swiftly through the trees with a frightening deftness, following the direction Phil had fled.

  “Oh shit, oh Phil, oh no,” Jake muttered before he started screaming his friend’s name.

  “Jesus Christ, Phil, don’t stop! Keep running!”

  Inspired by Phil’s abrupt escape, Georgina had dropped her jeans, revealing a tiny pair of lacy panties. With her thumbs tucked into the chain, she attempted to push her bonds down her body, but as with her plentiful breasts, Georgina was also blessed in the buttocks department. The unrelenting metal dug into the skin around her hips and rump, bulging the flesh, but refusing to budge any further down her legs. Still she tried, desperate to free her bonds.

  Sometimes it was hard to be a woman.

  A masculine scream echoed from the darkness and through the trees, probably Phil. The scream lasted for just a few seconds, enough time for one last breath before the cry ceased. They all thought they could hear other accompanying noises, and each of them strained to listen with dire intensity that saddened them with each passing moment as the reality sank in.

  Ziggy lay the deceased Clementine down and stood up.

  “Katy, I’m going to get us out of here,” Ziggy said, then picked up the small hand axe and began to chop notches out of his own tree.

  Katy looked at her phone again. “Everybody check your phones, let’s see if we can get signal. We need to call for help.”

  “Fuck all,” Lola spat grimly. No one else responded with a positive.

  “We need to try our chains at least,” Jake suggested. “Pants down.”

  He dropped his trousers and tried the same trick that had worked for skinny Phil but failed Georgina. He couldn’t get the chains past his hips; he’d strung it too tight around his waist. Katy tried without removing her jeans, but gave up almost instantly on realizing she’d never work the chain past her wide, childbearing hips.

  Lola didn’t even try. She was young. She still had an abundance of puppy fat that hadn’t been burnt away by hormones and the pressure of modern beauty norms.

  “Shit! Fuck!” Jake cursed, pulling his trousers back up. “Ziggy, give me the axe.”

  The ancient oak tree Ziggy was hacking at was roughly two feet in diameter; it would take him hours to get through.

  “Why?” he replied without pausing.

  “There are three of us on this tree. We should be given the chance to escape first.”

  Lola looked up at Jake with part awe, part amazement at his selfishness.

  “Yeah, he’s right. There’s three of us,” she said, nodding. “Plus, I’m younger. I deserve to survive.”

  Ziggy stopped. He glanced at them, but wouldn’t look them in the eye.

  “I’m faster with the axe. It’s our best chance.”

  He continued chopping. Nobody else said anything. Ziggy had chosen for them.

  * * *

  The fire in the centre had started to dwindle, so Lola, being the closest to the pile of logs between her and her sister, grabbed a few and tossed them onto the glowing embers, soon stoking the flames and creating a warmth that brought little comfort.

  “Holy shit!” Georgina yelped, startling the group, who readied themselves for another attack.

  “What?” Katy asked.

  “The keys, why didn’t I think of this before?” Georgina dropped to her knees, jabbed two fingers into her mouth and began to dry heave as she tickled her gag reflex.

  “Holy fuck, she’s right!” Lola exclaimed, then followed with fingers to the throat.

  Jake looked at Katy and they both shrugged at one another with a “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude. Then they both began to gag themselves with fingers down their throats. Apart from Ziggy, who continued his determined chop with the axe, they made a chorus of gut-wrenching noises as they tried to vomit up the keys to their escape.

  Georgina was the first to succeed. A heavy gob of bright yellow bile left her mouth. She spat again in effort to remove the bitter, stinging taste from her mouth.

  “I’ve … got it …” her fingers searched the forest floor detritus and carroty chunks of stomach lining for the glimmer of silver she’d evacuated along with the thin river of fresh vomit.

  She found it, and wiped the clinging muck off on her jeans when something flew past her head and crashed into the small fire, sending the embers sparking off like stray fireworks.

  The shock of the sudden arrival made her drop the key.

  They all tensed, silently alert, until their eyes locked onto the abhorrence that had skidded through the fire. It was a twisted and saggy mess, like a wet bag of bones, but somehow familiar. It took them a second for recognition to set in, but after the moment of shock and horror had passed, they realised that the sad sack was wearing Phil’s clothes, which was now starting to smoulder and smoke.

  The fire had been knocked out, taking the majority of the light with it. They still had their individual torches and the few islands of embers cast about, but now darkness was clamouring for the advantage.

  Now the darkness held more teeth than ever.

  Georgina
started to laugh, a loud, insane cackle inapposite to their situation. Her eyes were wide and white, trying to take in as much light from the destroyed fire, trying to comprehend what had happened to Phil who was now nothing more than a deflated-skin sack of bones, already trying to expel the memory as it was burnt onto her retinas.

  Then she remembered the dropped key, and the fact that her survival was pretty damn important.

  She was laughing.

  She was crying.

  She was jibbering words that didn’t even make sense to her, but for the soundtrack of the situation, they made perfect sense.

  Dreading the same fate as poor Phil, the desperate trio of Jake, Katy and Lola began with fingers in throats again. Ziggy continued with his axing, confident that his way was the only route to safety.

  Georgina searched the forest floor for her lost key. Within seconds, she was holding it up for the others to see.

  “Found it!” she mumbled to herself as she jabbed the key into her padlock and began to twiddle with the mechanism. The padlock dropped just as something inhuman and not of this world in the slightest crashed through the branches with the breaking of twigs and a shower of leaves.

  She took a step forward, the chains dropping in the same moment as her body suddenly tensed in spasm. She screamed. Not the kind of scream you get in the horror movies, but one that went quickly high-pitched before it curdled to a gurgle in the sudden wetness of her throat.

  With the scream chilling their blood, the trio looked up, Ziggy did not, furiously focused on his act of the killing the tree that he was so intent on saving at the start of this debacle.

  The alien creature was in the tree above, emerging from the thick limbs. Some of its thin, insectile appendages descended from the camouflage of branches. One poised behind Georgina’s back, just above her left hip, another planted firmly on top of her scalp, the tri-claws embedded deep, both twitching as they sucked hungrily.

  Georgina’s eyes were on the others, arms out stretched, yearning for a helpful embrace.

  But they couldn’t look at her.

  Their eyes were drawn to it, the thing, the unnamable evil that plagued them all, in all of its grotesque glory despite the lack of light. They could see its long, earwig shape with a thick ridge of armour down its back. The spindly, multitude of limbs that seemed to melt into the maze of branches and its armoured, flat face. There was no mouth. Just a single, curved plate, which sat below two gauzy, light blue eyes which seemed to entrance those that stared into them, with their calm, arctic coolness.