by C. V. Hunt
The faint beam from the night light near the kitchenette was enough to illuminate the scene but my brain struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. Brent was in our place. He was naked and straddling Dan and repeatedly slamming his fists down on his chest. No. He wasn’t slamming his fists down on Dan’s chest. He had a firm two-handed grasp on the kitchen knife I’d left on the bathroom counter at the house. Brent was stabbing Dan. I screamed and tried to scramble away but ended up falling off the bed.
I tried to get to my feet and slipped several times. I was to my feet before I realized my backside was covered in blood.
Brent continued to stab Dan. Dan lay unmoving. My brain felt like it was on the verge of cutting out. How much trauma could one person take before their brain stopped working?
“Stop!” I shrieked.
I rounded the bed and lunged at Brent. I grabbed at his arms to try to stop him. He jerked away from me and swung both of his fists, still holding the knife, at my face. I saw the knife coming and braced myself for pain, severe disfigurement, possibly death. Instead of stabbing me he managed to backhand punch me in the face. I saw a white-hot flash when my nose broke and I fell to the ground. The pain in my face was tremendous and I could taste blood. Hot blood ran from my nose. I had to keep moving. How long would it be before he turned the knife on me?
Once I had my senses back I realized Brent had stopped stabbing Dan. He lowered his head to Dan’s chest and began slurping the blood from one of the wounds.
I got to my feet again and began screaming unintelligibly as I charged him. I had no idea where the knife was and I didn’t care. I began beating at Brent’s head with my fists but he seemed unfazed. He continued to drink Dan’s blood. I tried to grip his arm and pull him off but he was covered in blood and he kept slipping out of my grasp.
I began screaming, “You killed him!” over and over while trying to pull him off Dan.
It quickly became a demented wrestling match on top of Dan. We were both nude and covered in blood and some sick part of my brain thought of those sleazy wrestling matches where the nude or nearly nude girls were covered in baby oil or in a vat of Jell-O. Except our vat was Dan’s corpse and his blood was our baby oil.
Brent got away from me and scrambled off the bed. Wherever the knife had been, it clattered to the floor by the bed in the commotion. I jumped for the weapon and my leg got caught up in the blankets and I went headfirst toward the floor. I put my hands out to catch myself and my left wrist popped when my palm hit the floor and pain shot up my forearm. I refused to let the pain stop me and snatched up the knife. The handle was slippery with blood. I gripped it like my life depended on it, which it did, but the firmer my grasp the more the knife wanted to slip out of my hand like a wet bar of soap.
Brent was on his feet and less than five feet from me. He actually hissed at me like a wild animal. I raised the knife and pointed it at him as I slid the rest of the way out of bed. The remnants of the pot were making me clumsy and it was challenging to steady myself. Everything was happening so fast and my vision was swimming.
It was difficult to see in the low lighting but Brent’s eyes were wild with something I’d never seen before. Brent wasn’t there. He had checked out. And whatever had taken his place was dark and bottomless and inhuman. There was no emotion there.
“You killed him.” It was the only thing I could think of to say. I choked back a sob and gagged on the blood running down my throat from my broken nose.
Brent growled and started backing toward the door. I got to my feet, keeping the knife pointed at him. I looked at Dan and could see there was no life left in him and sobbed again.
Brent continued to inch toward the open door. I wasn’t sure what to do. Did I try to stop him? Should I wait until he’s gone? Was this some elaborate plan of Brent’s to frame me for Dan’s murder? No. Brent was lost to something I couldn’t comprehend.
He dashed out the door.
I ran to the door and shouted, “Stop!”
I couldn’t see him but I could hear him scrambling through the hole. I dashed back into the room and found my pants on the floor. My patience and time were gone. I set the knife on the bed and grabbed the flashlight clipped to my belt loop and yanked. The belt loop broke and the flashlight came free. I snatched up the knife with shaky hands and ran out the door, turning on the flashlight as I went.
I approached the hole cautiously, holding the knife and light out. A cold, light breeze came from the hole and made my skin prick and my nipples harden. I shone the light in the hole and looked in to the left and right. To the left, the tunnel continued straight and there was no sign of Brent. To the right, the tunnel made a ninety-degree turn about twenty feet from the hole and the turn was in the direction of the murder house. I listened carefully and thought I could hear the slap of feet but couldn’t be sure. I climbed into the hole.
I didn’t know why I was following Brent. I should call the cops. But there was some deep pull to avenge Dan’s demise. I’d never wanted to hurt anyone, only myself in times of deep depression. I was giving myself over to something I didn’t understand and decided to follow it through to the end. If that meant the end of my life or the end of Brent’s or both of us, I didn’t really care. What did I have left to lose?
The cool breeze that came from the hole was nothing compared to the temperature drop once I was in the tunnel. It felt as though I’d walked into a refrigerator. The flashlight wasn’t the greatest and it cast long shadows and did nothing to calm my fears. I tried not to think of the darkness or the unknown or what if I got lost or the tunnel collapsed. I had to catch Brent. Never mind I had no idea what I was going to do with him once I caught up with him. I was going to let instincts take the lead.
The bricks of the tunnel were cold and my feet were starting to go numb. I had to get moving. I dashed down the tunnel but stopped at the turn. For all I knew Brent had stashed another weapon down here and was hiding around the corner, waiting for me to round it so he could kill me. I stood back and shone the light around the corner cautiously. My wrist hurt as I turned it. The pop I’d experienced when I fell on it must’ve been bad. I held the knife at the ready in my other hand.
Brent wasn’t there. Instead I found another long stretch of tunnel. I had no idea how long it went on as the light didn’t stretch that far. I could see another tunnel T into the stretch in the distance. I made my way down the path until I reached the T and did another check with the light and knife before proceeding. I tried to gauge how far I would normally walk from The Meditation Temple to the house.
The shadows began to play tricks on me. The fear and adrenaline gave my mind too much fuel and I swore I began to see things in the darkness ahead that my flashlight couldn’t reach. I thought I could see the reflection of animalistic eyes with gaping mauls filled with the venomous and dripping fangs of a viper. A hissing sounded somewhere beyond the beam of the flashlight and I knew if there was anything in the darkness it didn’t like the light and would stay away as long as my light was working. It dawned on me slowly that I didn’t have a light to shine behind me at the same time to keep whatever it was at bay. I found myself spinning in a circle, trying to surround myself with the light. I began to hyperventilate.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Relax.
Stay Calm.
I took a couple seconds to get reoriented and to make sure I was headed in the right direction. I passed another T in the tunnel before I came to a pipe. It was low and barely big enough to crawl into and as much as I hated the thought of doing so I knew it was most likely the pipe that led to the hole in the basement wall of the house. I involuntarily made a whimpering sound as I dropped to my knees and shone the light in the tunnel. I wasn’t sure why I expected Brent to be waiting there to scare the shit out of me but I found the tunnel empty.
I groaned softly as I dropped to my belly. The cold bricks nearly took my breath away
. I began to crawl, mindful of the blade of the knife. I could see the light from the basement ahead and stopped. I had a dilemma. There was no way I could make it though the hole quickly. The act of crawling out of the hole would make me vulnerable if Brent was waiting for me. I stilled my breathing and tried to listen. I couldn’t hear anything and I had the sudden fear that maybe Brent hadn’t come back to the house. Maybe he was still in the tunnel. Maybe he was going to come up behind me. This type of thinking sent me into a panic and I suddenly didn’t give a fuck if he was waiting for me in the basement or not. I wanted to get out of the pipe and I wanted out now.
In a scramble I managed to nick myself with the knife and bit back a yelp. I ignored the scrapes and future bruises and made my way to the hole as fast as I could. It was definitely the hole for the basement. My fear and panic doubled as I pulled myself through the hole and was greeted by a wordless bellow that nearly made me piss myself.
In the opposite corner of the basement was a man, or what was left of a man, and a chain was padlocked around his neck and attached to an overhead beam. His arm and legs were gone and the remaining stumps were tied off with tourniquets and it appeared the ends had been cauterized, as they were black. He lay in a pool of dried blood and when he opened his mouth to bellow again I noticed his tongue had also been removed.
I covered my mouth, afraid I might vomit. My voice sounded strangled. “Oh my god,” I whispered.
The man began to flop around and yell wordlessly.
“Shhh.” I held my hands up and realized waving a knife at the guy was probably a bad idea. I could only imagine what I looked like to him. Here was a naked woman emerging from the hole in the wall, covered in blood and dirt and wielding a knife. “I’m not going to hurt you. If you keep making noise he’ll know I’m here. Is he upstairs?”
The guy stared at me with glazed eyes and didn’t say anything. He waited a beat before he nodded. I made my way toward the stairs and climbed them as soundlessly as I could. The man began to yell again once I was at the top and the sudden break in the silence nearly made me scream out of fright.
The door to the basement was open. All the lights were on but I didn’t see any sign of Brent. I could see the kitchen table and the smell hit me as soon as I realized what was on the table. It appeared Brent had wrapped the man’s limbs in plastic wrap and left them on the table and the downstairs was swarming with flies. Stacks of paper were strewn about the severed limbs and spilled onto the floor. Maggots covered everything. I spotted a business card for Brent’s publisher lying among the wreckage and began to wonder about the identity of the man in the basement.
I cautiously made my way through the living room and went to check the bathroom. The bathroom was empty but there was a stack of yellow legal pads on the counter by the sink and I recognized Brent’s nearly illegible scrawl. I picked up one of the notebooks and tried my best to decipher what was written on it but even on the best of days I always had a hard time reading Brent’s handwriting. I swear he should’ve been a doctor.
I dropped the notebooks back on the counter and when I looked up I caught Brent’s reflection in the mirror as he stood in the doorway. I spun toward him and lifted the knife and pointed at him.
“Brent, I don’t know what’s going on but you need help. I think you’re sick. I think the water is making you sick. You have to stop drinking the tap water.”
He cocked his head like a dog as he stared at me with blank eyes. A fly landed on his forehead but he didn’t seem to feel it or couldn’t be bothered to swat it away.
“I’ve been seeing things too.”
I’d barely gotten the sentence out when he lunged at me, screaming like a banshee as he did so. As terrified as I was for my life I was also too scared to actually use the knife. And as far gone as Brent was he was still with it enough to know to get the knife away from me. He grabbed my knife-holding wrist with both hands and began to smash my hand against the counter. I still had ahold of the flashlight but my wrist still hurt from the tumble out of the bed. I did my best to try and beat him in the head with the flashlight but only ended up pissing him off. I felt something crack as he slammed my wrist into the counter again and I switched tactics. I raised my knee as hard as I could into his naked crotch.
All the air escaped him and he loosened his grip on my wrist enough that I was able to wrench my hand away. I tried to push him away but he tackled me to the ground. I hit my head on the toilet as I fell and saw stars. He screamed in my face and began clawing at my knife-holding arm above my head. I squeezed the handle of the knife as hot pain shot up my forearm and swung my arm down. The knife landed right below his shoulder blade and his expression changed to one of shock. He began to tremble and opened his mouth. A wet gurgling sound came out before the blood came. I tried to take another breath to scream and I pulled the knife from his back and sunk it into another spot. My wrist screamed in protest. His body jerked with the second knife wound and his body began to go slack. I tried to pull the knife from him but the blood had made it too slippery and my wrist hurt when I tugged at it. I gave him a hard shove and he collapsed beside me on the bathroom floor. He lay on his side, blood spilling from his mouth, as he stared at me in terror and his lips opened and closed like a fish gasping in the open air.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you killed Dan. And I don’t know who the man in the basement is. And you wouldn’t snap out of it. If I hadn’t done it you would’ve killed me.” I took his hand as he took his last few breaths and once he was gone I cried for a long time.
Later, I woke on the bathroom floor. Flies covered Brent’s body. One crawled in and out of his open mouth and a couple others walked over the surface of his open eyes.
I got to my feet and realized I was still holding the flashlight. I dropped it in the sink and stepped out of the bathroom. The floorboards popped as I made my way through the house and tried to avoid any splinters since I didn’t have any shoes. The man in the basement screamed. I took a look around the kitchen and didn’t see what I was looking for so I took the stairs to our bedroom. There were piles of human excrement in the upstairs hallway, covered in flies, and I gagged several times before entering the bedroom.
I found the cell phone plugged in and fully charged. It was out of minutes but luckily there was still one number that worked no matter what. I dialed the number and listened as it rang twice before someone answered.
“Nine-one-one. Where’s the location of your emergency?”
In a calm voice I replied, “Seven thirty-two South Crossley Street.”
“What’s the nature of your emergency ma’am?”
“There’s been a murder.”
“A murder? Who am I speaking with?”
“Laura Dyer.”
“And who’s been murdered?”
“A couple of people. And there’s a guy in the basement with no arms or legs.”
“Did you say there’s a—”
“You need to hurry.”
“Ma’am, I need you—”
I hung up the phone and dropped it on the bed. I was halfway down the stairs when the phone started to ring. When I reached the living room I yelled so the man in the basement could hear me, “The police are on their way!”
A wordless bellow responded and I kept going and walked out the front door. The air was cold and raised gooseflesh over my entire body. I stepped out onto the crumbling concrete steps and took a seat next to Dan. He didn’t seem to notice the gaping wound in his chest and stomach as he stared up at the sky.
He turned to look at me and said, “The sky is on fire,” before he returned his gaze skyward.
I looked to the sky. It was there and it was beautiful and it sang like a siren growing in the distance.
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to Casey Morris for going above and beyond to support artists they enjoy. The world should be filled with art you love and more people like you.
Other Atlatl Press Books
No Mu
sic and Other Stories by Justin Grimbol
Elaine by Ben Arzate
Fuck Happiness by Kirk Jones
Impossible Driveways by Justin Grimbol
Giraffe Carcass by J. Peter W.
Shining the Light by A.S. Coomer
Failure As a Way of Life by Andersen Prunty
Hold for Release Until the End of the World
by C.V. Hunt
Die Empty by Kirk Jones
Mud Season by Justin Grimbol
Death Metal Epic (Book Two: Goat Song Sacrifice)
by Dean Swinford
Come Home, We Love You Still by Justin Grimbol
We Did Everything Wrong by C.V. Hunt
Squirm With Me by Andersen Prunty
Hard Bodies by Justin Grimbol
Arafat Mountain by Mike Kleine
Drinking Until Morning by Justin Grimbol
Thanks For Ruining My Life by C.V. Hunt
Death Metal Epic (Book One: The Inverted Katabasis)
by Dean Swinford
Fill the Grand Canyon and Live Forever by Andersen Prunty
Mastodon Farm by Mike Kleine
Fuckness by Andersen Prunty
Losing the Light by Brian Cartwright
They Had Goat Heads by D. Harlan Wilson
The Beard by Andersen Prunty