by Abe Moss
“It spoke to me,” she said.
She regarded Emmett differently. Like he was different. A mystery.
“It told me I have nothing to fear.” She swallowed, taking in the destruction of her mother’s home. Her childhood home. “Ever again.”
By the sound of her voice, Emmett surmised she might believe it. It was a drastic change, the person he saw standing in front of him now, reduced to an animal not long before. Wild and cornered. The shift he witnessed was nothing short of a miracle.
“I’m ready to leave,” she said.
Emmett offered his hand a second time, which she took and allowed him to lead her through the foyer, around the dangerously wide hole in the floor. She peered up at his father as they passed, and his father—in a state of constant transformation—seemed to follow them across the room with his formless, faceless presence. They arrived at the door. Emmett reached for the handle when she spoke beside him.
“What are you, Emmett?”
He dropped his hand. He looked down at his feet, feeling the dark presence of his father behind them. Across the room, he could see the shapes of Clark and his mother’s vessel on the ground.
His family.
He struggled to think of something to say, and so he simply shrugged and said the first truth which came to mind.
“I don’t know… but I turned eight yesterday.”
Eileen didn’t smile so much as she tried not to frown.
“My mom says we’re going to change the world,” he told her. “Make it a better place.”
Eileen shivered. She reached for the door herself, ready to go.
“I hope she’s right.”
She opened the door and that gloomy red light poured in, glowing off her skin. Her eyes widened. She stepped out onto the porch, releasing his hand, and Emmett stood in the doorway watching as she comprehended what she saw. The rain was still falling. The porch was soaked in it. The blood. The yard was puddled with it from one end to the other. Over the trees, the crimson storm clouds stretched as far as the eye could see. They brightened with lightning in the distance—a truly remarkable sight to behold.
Eileen sighed. “I guess that’s one way to change it.”
She moved toward the head of the porch steps, the rain falling on her head, staining her hair and clothes, but she didn’t seem to mind that. She looked at the clearing, at the sky, at her jeep parked beneath it all.
“I have no one left,” she said in a loud voice, over the storm. “They took my girlfriend from me. There was nothing I could do for her… or for my mom… or my dad…”
Emmett stepped toward her, took her hand one last time.
“You can stay with us,” he said.
Holding her gaze to the sky—blood-rain speckling her face, old, haunting memories swimming around inside her head—she squeezed his hand in hers.
Was that a smile he saw?
“Maybe I could,” she said. “At least until the storm passes.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Clark awoke eventually and, like Eileen, was a bit touched in the head following Emmett’s father’s arrival. But it was nothing a quick pat on the back wouldn’t fix. Emmett’s father seemed to have the magic touch about him.
“I don’t feel it on me anymore,” Clark said. “That place…”
They were sitting near the hole together, his father touching the ceiling over their heads. His tendrils rested in a circle around them, breathing and shuddering quietly. The blood-rain was still falling uninterrupted outside and the thunder rolled through the thick skies loud as ever. Emmett held his mother in his lap.
“Once we get started…” His mother sighed, imagining to herself. “The world will adore you. The incredible things you’ll do… the power inside of you… Things are going to be so different, and they’ll have you to thank for it. They’re going to worship you, Emmett. Almost as much as I do.”
Worship? It made him a little uneasy to imagine.
“Your heart is so big,” she said. “You have such kindness in you.”
Bodiless or not, she’d hardly changed since he saw her all those months ago. He reached down the front of his shirt and removed the pendant he wore. He peered up at his father as he held it, beaming.
“Look what I have,” he said, hoping his father would recognize it. “My mom said you gave this to her…”
The wormlike arms drew near him, around him. One of them extended out to him, flattened. Emmett set the pendent on its surface, and watched as it glowed bright and pink at his father’s touch. The tendril rolled it up, clutching it tight. In his lap, the light faded from Officer Hollings’ head.
“Mom?”
His father, unfurling his arm, uncovered the pendant once more, revealing it whole again. The glass stone was intact, centered pristinely. It glowed pink as his mother spoke.
“This will do for now,” she said amusedly.
Without a second thought, Emmett rolled Officer Hollings’ head over the edge of the hole, down into the abyss where they would never hear the sound of its reaching the bottom.
The storm raged on outside. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Emmett wondered where Tobie and Jackie were now. Hopefully safe—as safe as they might be in those facilities. Did they see the rain, too?
“Can we help other people?” he asked his mother, thinking of his friends. “The way my dad helped Eileen, and Clark?”
“That’s the first thing we’ll do,” she said. “And you’ll be the one to do it.”
“I will?”
“Now your father is here, he can teach you. It’s already there inside you. His power. Like I’ve always said… you have all the world’s knowledge in you. You just don’t know it yet.”
Emmett peered hopefully up at his father—that twisting, squirming, shapeshifting tower of flesh and scales and bones.
“You’ll teach me?” he asked.
Clark and Eileen stifled gasps as those tendrils moved all around them, making their way to Emmett. They glided over his body, up his sides, his arms, his legs. One of them picked the pendant up from his hands and draped it delicately over his neck where it belonged. The other tendrils wrapped firmly around him, hugging him tenderly, and he gave a shout as they hoisted him into the air. That warmth emanated from them like before, radiating into him. Tingly and seeping. Up, up, up, they lifted him. A grin spread over his face and he couldn’t help but laugh as his father carried him higher still, toward the top of his vast form. Emmett bore his eyes into its unstoppable shapelessness, as close to being face to face with his father as he could ever hope to be.
MY SWEET, SWEET BOY
He shut his eyes as his father’s love burned through him, hot as desert sands.
IT IS NOT A MATTER OF TEACHING YOU
He caressed his mother’s pendant, brushing his tired fingers over its smooth, black surface.
YOU NEED ONLY BE REMINDED
“Oh, Emmett…” his mother crooned, hanging delicately from around his neck, her light upon his face. Her love was always there, he realized. Pumping through his veins, through the very core of his being—the seed from which he’d grown. They were all together, just as she wished, and he couldn’t deny that she was right to want it so badly, now he knew what he was missing. All eight years of his tiny life had led to this moment, and suddenly it didn’t feel so tiny after all…
“Brilliant as the sun…
“Beautiful as the moon…
“Ancient as the stars…”
He breathed softly in their embrace, seduced by the overwhelming comfort they provided. That irresistible temptation of sleep just out of reach. His hands slipped away, dangling dreamily beside him, rocked in his father’s numerous arms, soothed by his mother’s mysterious lullaby.
“I will always love you, and keep you safe…
“Forever and ever…
“In this life, and the next, and the next…”
Those other worlds invited him in, opened their gates to him with the pro
mise of comforting visions. He yawned, curled atop the bed his father’s tendrils made for him.
“Sweet dreams, little Emmett…”
Finally he slept, and his dreams were full of love.
A SPECIAL THANKS
Dear brave, adventurous reader,
I must say thank you. Without readers like you, authors like me wouldn’t be allowed a paddle in this violent, everchanging sea—otherwise known as the publishing world.
I was just a scrawny eighteen-year-old when I wrote my first novel, The Writhing. A bit nervous and unsure of myself, I held onto it for TEN YEARS, writing a couple more novels in the meantime which I was equally unsure about. It took me a decade to realize my stories weren’t doing anyone any good just sitting on my laptop, and in 2019 I decided it was finally time to take the plunge. All I can say now is thank you. I only write this disturbing filth with the utmost love and sincerity. To be granted your curiosity means more than you can ever know. You are truly the best.
If you have a moment, let me know your thoughts by leaving an honest review. It’s a simple gesture that means the world to us indie publishers and helps other curious readers such as yourself find books like mine. I’d greatly appreciate it.
Thanks again! There’s plenty more horror to come!
Visit www.abemoss.com and sign up to receive a FREE SHORT STORY download and announcements on future releases, or to message me personally via the “Message The Author” page. I’d love to hear from you! Let’s talk horror!
MORE DISTURBING FILTH BY ABE MOSS
THE WRITHING
BATHWATER BLUES
BY THE LIGHT OF HIS LANTERN