by Ray Garton
It was 9:12 P.M.
Casey could not calm the trembling in her arms and legs. Her stomach churned sickeningly and a burning sensation passed over her skin in waves.
Churning and burning, she thought as she hugged herself on the cushion, rocking back and forth. Churning and burning, burning and churning...
She stood clumsily and walked around the cushion, trying to overcome the weakness in her legs. As she passed the candle, the flame stirred, sending flashes of soft orange light over the walls.
Casey turned to the table lamp in the corner, felt for the switch, and turned it on. Her eyes snapped shut against the sudden light, but it cut through her eyelids like razors and her head instantly began to pound. She switched the light off again and let the darkness wash over her eyes like cool, cleansing water. She leaned on the small table for a moment, spinning around when she heard the door open behind her.
“You should be feeding,” Shideh said softly as she entered the room and closed the door.
“I don't want to,” Casey replied, turning away from her.
“Yes you do.” There was a smile in her voice.
“I won't."
“You will."
Casey turned.
“I can see the trembling in you now,” Shideh went on. “Your skin is beginning to burn, am I right? And soon, each breath you take will be like inhaling fire.” Her smile widened. “Are you sure you won't feed?"
Casey remembered putting her mouth on the fleshy, disembodied penis that stuck through the hole beneath the window; she remembered using her tongue to find the pulsing vein, then briefly sliding her teeth over it, puncturing the skin and hearing the man's muffled cries of pleasure as she sucked his blood...
Her throat closed at the memory of the warm, sticky fluid and its coppery taste and, worst of all, how good it made her feel.
Turning again to Shideh, Casey avoided her eyes. “I won't,” she said again.
“Fine. In a while, you'll beg me to let you feed. You won't last as long as you think."
“I want out."
“Hmm?"
“I said...” Suddenly the trembling and burning were too much and Casey found herself clenching her fists at her sides. “I want out of this Goddamned room!” she shouted.
The corners of Shideh's shapely lips pulled downward slightly, and she took a step toward Casey.
When she saw Shideh's right hand slowly rising toward her, Casey moved back until she was against the wall. Shideh moved closer to her, so close their breasts were touching. She placed her hand on Casey's neck, her thumb over Casey's throat. She began to press down, slowly increasing the pressure until Casey's throat was closed and she felt as if the thumb would pop through the skin and cartilage.
“You will learn,” Shideh breathed, “never to shout at me."
Suddenly the thumb was gone and her throat was open and she was able to breathe again. She put her hand on her throat and tried to take a slow, deep breath.
“I'll come back later,” Shideh said as she turned to the door, “to see if you're ready to feed.” She didn't look back as she closed the door.
Casey lay down on the cushion again, massaging her bruised throat and praying Davey would come soon.
When Davey rounded the corner into the alley beside Live Girls, he found three men huddled around the basement window. One of them, a thin, spindly-necked black man with stubbly white whiskers and a crooked, hand-rolled cigarette between his lips, looked up at Davey with a blank expression for a moment. The middle man wore a hat; rain pattered on its floppy brim and dribbled over the edges, veiling his face. He held a dirty, unlabeled bottle in his hand and touched it to his brim in greeting.
Davey stood behind them, looking over their shoulders at the dirty window that was only a quarter of the way open. To Davey's right, a man with bushy, matted brown hair and a beard squatted before the window, his hands dangling between his legs, his fingers flitting and squirming.
“Excuse me, fellas,” Davey said. “I'd like to get through that window."
The middle man craned his head around slowly and looked at Davey over his shoulder. “You wanna get warm, son?” the man asked.
“No. I want to get in."
The twitchy one stood up and laughed; his laugh sounded like the chittering of an oversized beetle.
“Aw, you don’ wan’ do that,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You, aw, no, man, you don’ wan’ do that."
“Why not?"
“Aw, ‘cause there's, like, things down there, man, yeah, things, like, we can hear ‘em. Sometimes they talk.” He shook his head. “Aw, you, no, man, you don’ wan’ do that. Naw."
There'th thingth down there...
Davey looked down at the window. It was narrow; it would be an uncomfortably tight squeeze. There was only darkness beyond.
What could be down there? he wondered. Probably just more of them. Then he thought, As if that's not enough.
“I have to go down there,” he said. “There's something down there that I need."
The men stood and stepped aside.
Davey moved forward and touched the window with his foot, seeing if he could push it open any further. With a harsh squeak it opened all the way. Davey almost lost his balance and plunged his leg into the window; he pulled his leg away from the window and stumbled against the cold brick wall.
Someone laughed; it was a repressed laugh, as if coming from behind a palm.
Davey looked at the three men; he thought, at first, it was one of them. But it had been a young girl's voice...
“I wouldn't stick around this building if I were you guys,” Davey said nervously.
“You're, aw, jeez, man, you're gon’ let ‘em out, aren't you?” the twitchy one asked, backing away slowly, fearfully. “Aw, man, you can’ do that, man, I hear ‘em in there, talkin', they always talkin’ ‘bout bein’ alla time hungry, man, so, aw, shit, no, man, you can’ do that.” He swept a jittery hand through his matted hair before turning and hurrying down the alley.
The other two men remained, standing a good distance from the window, watching curiously.
Davey hunkered down before the window, trying to decide upon the best way of climbing in. It would have to be feet first, of course, and probably faceup. He took the penlight from his coat and shone it into the window. The narrow beam cut through the darkness and swept over the dirty, cracked floor. When he shone the beam deeper into the room, it was swallowed by the darkness.
His palm had begun to sweat and there was the familiar fluttering of fear in his chest.
For an instant, the window resembled an open mouth.
Davey sat down on the wet ground, lifted his feet, and stuck them through the window. Scooting forward a bit at a time, he edged himself inside. When he was through the window to his waist, he looked up at the two men watching him.
They'd taken another step away from the window and were slowly inching their way backward.
The fear in their faces made him stop, made him want to pull his legs back up now before something down there in the dark grabbed his ankle and began to pull...
But he continued to squirm through the window.
His movement jerked to a halt; his coat was snagged. He heard the fabric tear with a hiss and a piece of wood creaked as Davey tried to pull the coat away from it, but it didn't come free, he would have to pull harder, probably ruin the coat, and where was he gonna get the money to buy another coat, Goddammit, he couldn't afford it, but it didn't matter, did it, not in light of everything else, things like the sound Davey was hearing below him, the sound of something heavy sliding across the dirty, cracked, cement floor beneath his feet, something sliding toward him, and Davey tried to jerk the coat from its snag once again, just as something clutched the material of his pants leg and pulled hard, tearing the coat away and slamming Davey to the floor in a heap.
He began kicking his legs to push himself against the wall and to kick away whatever was in the dar
k before him. Pressing his back to the wall, he reached into his coat pocket and clumsily removed the gun and pen-light. He flicked on the light and held it between his teeth as he gripped the gun in his right hand and prepared to use it.
At first he saw nothing. The air was dusty and smelled ... diseased. It conjured up images in his head of gaping, cauterized wounds and freshly sawed bone. Something dripped steadily.
Then the blackness beyond his light began to take shape and move. There was a whisper. Another. A stifled giggle.
Davey heard the shuffling on the floor again and swung his beam downward to what looked, at first, like no more than a big lump in the floor, until its head looked up, its eyes squinting at Davey, and reached its stub of an arm toward him, its smile revealing rotted teeth.
Davey pushed himself to his feet and moved along the wall away from the creature.
It pulled itself closer to him with its other arm, except it wasn't an arm, it was a stiffened twisted wing, a bat's wing with leathery folds and nail-sharp claws curling out of the top and dark veins that mapped the moist, tender-pink flesh. It had no legs. Saliva glistened on the creature's lips as they pulled back even further into a rigid, black-tongued grin.
“Another live one,” it gargled, sliding closer, its fleshy stumps trailing behind.
Then the darkness behind the creature began to move with a chorus of shufflings and slitherings and a heavy, ominous thump-sshhh ... thump-sshhh.
The faces oozed from the dark.
All of them were looking at him.
All of them were smiling.
Benedek fumbled a cigarette out of his pack and flicked his lighter.
“Hey,” the driver said, scowling back at him. Her face was round and rather flat and piggish. “No smoking inna cab, I toldya once before."
Did she? he wondered, tucking the cigarette back into its pack. Guess so.
He wondered exactly what Davey was doing at that instant, if he'd loaded the furnace yet, or if they'd stopped him already.
Benedek rubbed his eyes, then realized the driver was staring at him with her arm stretched across the back of her seat.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I'm, I'm fine."
“Don't look so fine.” She studied him a moment, then added, “Look, if you need a smoke that bad, go ahead. It just stinks up the cab, y'know?"
Benedek almost laughed despite his anxiety, and decided to take advantage of the offer. “Yeah,” he said, nodding as he took out another cigarette. “Matter of fact, I do need a smoke that bad.” He drew the smoke in deep and let it out slowly.
“Your friend gonna be long?” the driver asked.
Benedek slowly shook his head. “I hope not."
It was 9:18.
A hand with only two fingers reached from the darkness.
Something waddled toward Davey making a smacking sound.
There was a flutter overhead and Davey shone his beam upward. It landed on something the size of a baby hanging upside down from a pipe, something dark and wet that licked its claw with a pink, flicking tongue.
Sweet holy God, Davey thought, backing away. The penlight beam sparkled in the eyes that watched Davey from the web of pipes and ducts overhead.
The creature on the floor was much closer. When it spoke again, its voice sounded phlegmy.
“Just gimme your foot,” it said. “Just your foot..."
Davey lifted the gun, steadying his aim on the wrist of his dead, disfigured hand, and fired.
The creature's head jerked backward and the rear of its skull splashed over its pink bare back. Its wing began to flap, slapping wetly against the concrete floor. Its head fell forward with a crack and Davey took another step back when he saw the white, puffy, sluggish worms...
The wing continued to slap the floor.
There were murmurs in the darkness.
Davey pointed the gun at them, moving it back and forth slowly; his hand trembled.
“It bites.” A woman giggled. Her voice was thick, as if she were speaking through a mouthful of pudding. When she stepped forward, Davey saw that her mouth was horribly twisted, sloping across her face at an unnatural angle; her lower jaw was crooked and lumpy. Her body was shapely and her skin pale, but she dragged something behind her, something that sounded heavy and looked, in the brief moment of light, pink and gelatinous.
Davey spun around when he felt warmth behind him and the penlight beam flashed over the rusty body of the furnace hunkering in the corner, a small bank of gauges and knobs at its base. But there was no oil tank. Two pipes went from the back of the furnace into the wall behind it.
The oil tank was beyond that wall.
There was a flurry of movement behind and above Davey and he turned around, gun raised, to see the creature that had been hanging from the pipe diving toward him, its wings flapping rapidly, its mouth gaping and its pendulous testicles bobbing beneath a huge, glistening erection.
Davey fired the gun again and the creature dropped to the floor like a wet towel, spinning around in circles like a crippled moth. It began to vomit.
Davey's knees almost gave way and he staggered to his right. His jaw was beginning to ache from clasping the penlight and spittle was dripping over his lower lip. The light wobbled between his teeth and its beam passed over a doorway to his right. He aimed the light again and held it.
The doorway was just a few feet away from him and led to the room beyond the wall, the room in which he would find the oil tank. Davey moved toward the doorway.
Something dripped on his face and he jerked back, looking up.
It was only water dripping from a pipe. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment to enjoy his relief. When he opened them again the woman's face was leaning close to his and she hissed:
“Give me ... a kisssss."
Then she touched his face with a sticky hand...
Casey gasped when the door burst open and Shideh rushed inside in a flurry of black garments and flowing white hair. Casey was curled up in the corner holding the cushion around her protectively, her limbs quaking, her teeth clenched, exhaling in puffs through her mouth. Shideh towered over her.
“What are you doing in here?” she snapped.
“N-n-nothing."
“What was that sound?"
Had there been a sound? Casey had heard two loud cracks earlier but had thought, rather distantly, that they were the sounds of her skull breaking open because of the intolerable pounding within it.
“I d-d-don't know,” Casey stammered.
Shideh bent down and pulled away the cushion, taking Casey's arm. Shideh lifted her to her feet.
“You're going to feed now,” she said.
"No!" Casey began kicking and hitting until she broke away from Shideh's grasp.
Shideh tossed the cushion aside and crouched beside Casey, who was huddled, once again, in the corner.
“You will feed now,” she whispered, “or I'll throw you down there.” She pointed to the trapdoor. “With them."
Davey made a deep-throated gasping sound as he threw himself backward, jerking his head away from the woman-creature's hand. He smacked his head against the wall and grunted at the sudden, sharp pain. In his effort to get away from her, his right hand had lowered and his left raised protectively before his face.
She froze, her arm still outstretched, staring at Davey's left hand. She leaned a bit closer, and as Davey turned his face to her, putting light on her again, he saw that her blue eyes had lost their cold, hungry look. They were soft, shimmering, almost as if they were filling with tears. She gently touched her fingertips to the side of his numbed, gray hand.
“You're like us,” she whispered wetly. Her head tilted to the left, and if he ignored the rest of her disfigured face, Davey could see the sympathy in her eyes. “You believed the lie, too."
Davey pulled his hand away from hers and lifted the gun again, aiming it at her head as he inched along the wall toward the door
way. Dirt and pebbles and bits of rubble crunched beneath his feet.
The creature by the window through which Davey had entered was still slapping its wing to the floor, but more slowly now.
The thing that had dropped from the pipe was scuttling over the floor, retching.
The woman-creature watched Davey as he neared the doorway and she chuckled; it was a chuckle without humor and without malice.
“Welcome to hell,” she said.
The others moved forward.
They bled out of the darkness toward him, some of them waddling on stumps, others slithering over the floor like great fat worms, and still others walked upright, cradling their deformities in their arms or dragging them heavily.
Davey turned away from them and made a move for the door but hit his foot on something heavy and soft. He looked down.
The face of a young girl peered up at him; it was attached to a squat three-foot-long body covered with matted brown fur and trailing a tapering pink tail. The girl's nostrils were flaring; she was sniffing his leg.
Davey almost dropped the penlight from his teeth; he stumbled into the doorway and looked once more over his shoulder.
They were still shuffling toward him.
Davey darted quickly through the doorway and scanned the room with the light beam.
Just inside and to the left was a steep, wooden, ladder-like staircase that led to the ceiling. It was directly beneath a trapdoor that was scarred with deep slashes like those Anya had left on Davey's windowpane.
There were some boxes and crates stacked against the far wall and eyes blinked between them, rheumy, lost-looking eyes. Things moved, shifted.
Cobwebs dangled from the pipes overhead.
Something moved above them. It cooed like a happy toddler, then laughed like a drunk.
In the corner to Davey's right was the oil tank. It was fat and rusted and stood on four short metal legs against the wall like some resting, bloated, metal beast. At the top were two gauges that sparked in the light like watchful eyes. Behind the gauges was the opening, flat and round and closed. Davey went toward it.