by Troy McCombs
Tears formed in Bill's eyes and flowed down his cheeks. "But it can't be. You're dead. You died back in—"
"Et out!" the voice interrupted, suddenly shaky and hurried.
"I can't see you." Bill squinted his eyes. "Come closer. I want to—"
The voice interrupted him again: "Ge-t-now!"
Bill took two steps forward. "But, Grandpop, how can this—"
The voice interrupted him once more, and this time he heard the words as plain as day...
"Get out of here now! Hurry! Before—"
The mist, the light, the figure, and the voice were simply gone.
He carefully thought about what Jack was trying to tell him.
Then, he knew.
Dust fell from the ceiling. The floorboards quivered beneath his feet. The walls on either side of him slowly began moving toward each other by themselves. They approached the soldier an inch a second, two bone-crushing slabs guaranteed to turn anything into a pancake.
Bill went straight for the door, pounding on it, yelling for help, twisting the knob. But no one heard him. The door was made of heavy wood, so breaking it down was out of the question. At one point he pulled on the knob so forcibly that it came off in his hands. The walls closed in on him, the room drastically shrinking from twenty-by-twenty, to fifteen-by-fifteen, to ten-by-ten. Panicked and terrified, Bill preceded to ram the door as hard he could with his shoulder, hoping a hinge would bust or the lock would break.
***
"So, at last we meet, Jonathan. Fear, you are? You quiver inside your body. I feel it. It gives me fuel like food does for you."
"What are you?"
"Simple question...and you have so many you want to ask—need to ask. You're a slightly intelligent life-form, very curious, very stupid yet." The body of the beast quivered as it laughed. Its quiet chuckle made John think of war, death, suffering.
"Stupid how?"
"There's two questions from the human. Ah, impatient creatures you are. You give me little time to answer the first."
John forgot the first one he'd asked.
"We are a life-form, like yourself. We exist in another plane of planet Gaia than you, a much higher plane. We have no gravity. We are not as mobile as you, and yet, we are more so. That's why you stick to the ground and I do not. You, I see from a distance, procreate exponentially. For every ten million of you there are, there is one of us. In some sense, we're more...controlled than your kind." The thing laughed again. Foam dripped onto the floorboards above its hideous head. John hated the grin that appeared on its face.
"This earth has been around for eons, just one dancing among others. We are the oldest life-form here. We've been here for millions of years before your so-called dinosaurs. That was a different time, then. The barriers between worlds were not so thick. Tyrannosaurus Rexes served for some important cuisines. No, we are not entirely constricted to your sets of rules and laws of physics. We can sometimes fly; can sometimes turn from certain forms of matter to certain forms of energy. We have the power sometimes to even enter new worlds, such as here."
"This house is haunted by you? You've come through and—"
"Yessss." It sounded like a slithering reptile just then. "It is all in my power. The thing that almost deafened your dog, and the smell that almost killed you when you first examined the house...those are from my reality."
For some reason, John didn't buy it.
"That's a doubtful expression, if I say so. What? You don't believe me, my friend?" It giggled again. As it did, John thought he felt his heart skip a beat.
Skip two beats...
"What's the matter? Heart murmur? Rollings, I can end your life with no effort on my part. I can do things to you that would make you want to expire. All I have to do is make small gestures and your heart will rupture, or your brain will explode. Your body, being nearly one-hundred percent physical, makes you weak in numerous ways. Tangible. Inferior. Your brains would bleed out if you merely saw a glimpse of my world. The odor that sent you to the hospital, that's our air. It's what binds and separates our particles. It does more for us than yours does for you. It has more energy to it. In it. The worlds are set apart for a good reason. You could never live there without going mad. In fact, there are many worlds that would damage your frail human bodies. We, however, are the perfect beings designed by the God named Cthulhu."
John recognized that name. He'd heard it somewhere before.
"Oh, he is somewhat known by humankind. He is neither dead nor alive, but is sleeping, dreaming about his return to consciousness. His half-physical form can be found in your realm. Actually, many parts of him exist in many different places in many different realms. He is unbound by time and space. One of your brothers has written about him, barely a century ago. A writer who somehow saw into our world without collapsing."
John thought of the author. Whoever it was was after Poe but before Stephen King. No name came to mind.
"It's even a mystery to us. There are mysteries to even the highest powers of existence. I do not know everything. Yet." It heaved a chuckle again. The hair on Rollings' arms and face singed, then melted away by some invisible heat source emanating from the entity that stared into him. He could see into its blinding array of eyes. He wasn't sure what he saw, except for a living darkness he could not, and did not want to, believe.
"What do you want from me?" John asked. It was more of a hiccup than a question, as it came out almost accidentally.
Its eyes changed color. "Now that's an intelligent question!" It laughed again, its whole body quivering violently. But John didn't look away, no matter how badly he wanted to or how much he wanted to bolt from the room. He was, in some sense, even hypnotized by the twisted thing.
Another, more important, hiccup arose: "If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already." He didn't know where his questions were coming from, but he was starting to learn volumes by asking them.
It wasn't just him that was saying them, either.
The thing was realizing this.
"Nothing in your world is powerful, Rollings, only the things around you..."
--The words echoed inside John's head like thunder across a valley.
"Your world is the only true world within a world within a world. I've never seen another like it. You're pampered because of it." The thing tried to look farther into the world beyond human reality. For a small instant, the entity showed a minute glimpse a fear, as if it couldn't see as far as it wanted to or thought it was able to. Something had blocked its sight.
John completely forgot about the horrified look on its face one second later.
"I know your name. Now I want you to know mine. It's D'kourikai.” When it said it, more blood leaked out from John's ears.
"See? There are certain syllables neither you nor your animals can emit with your pathetic vocal cords. Just my pronouncing them damages your system. Now that we know one another, I will answer your questions. Yes, I could have killed you any time I wanted. But I need you to survive. It's that simple. You're my last key, just like an organ donor to a dying child. There's something in you I need. I see it beneath your veil of human flesh. When I take it, I will be free to bring my God Cthulhu back to life, and I will be able to skip more easily through the forgotten wormholes masked for centuries. That is why I need you."
The thing still had no compassion for the human being; the human was just its stepping stone. They both knew it.
"Why me?" John had to know.
"You will know soon."
"I want to know now."
It raised its clawed hand and brought it down in a swiping motion. Though John was nine feet away, his shirt ripped open and one long scratch appeared on his chest. He shut his mouth after that.
"You demand nothing of me. Understand? I am in charge here. I control everything in, around, and about this place. This...this is my domain. I can do anything to stop you from destroying me. If you try to burn this house, I will burn you alive. If you tr
y to meddle in any way I don't like, I will say Cthulhu's name in the real way it was meant to be spoken. Your body will cave in on itself. I see every little thing you do, Rollings, from the way you brush your teeth to the way you investigate this house on library computers. I see all, hear all, know all. You're still not ripe enough. That's why I haven't taken you yet. I know everything you're afraid of, everything you regret."
Suddenly, the entity vanished. Something, or someone, took its very place. It was Sarah Pouster, the girl John had drastically failed. She was standing on a wooden chair, dressed in the same clothes she'd died in, with one end of a rope tied around her neck and the other end tied to the ceiling. She was not transparent, not a ghost. John could even smell her subtle perfume. Was it real? Was she real? Was this his second chance to save a child who thought of herself as cursed?
John knew in the back of his mind that it was a mirage, but that didn't stop him from running toward her as she leaped off the chair. He dove to catch her before the noose pulled taut, his hands outstretched, his knees scraping against the hard floor. What he caught was nothing. The chair, the rope, and the dead girl vanished. Gone like D'Kourikai, whose vibrating laugh resounded in John's poor ears.
I failed her.
I can't defeat this thing called...D'kourikai?
I don't know if I can even stand up.
But he knew he had to when he heard Bill's bloodcurdling screech from the next room across the hall.
Chapter 11
The tentacle wrapped around his leg so tightly this time that it broke it in half. The solitary crunch was whip-snapping loud. Bud screamed as the thing yanked him away from the door, his only escape. George heard his unremitting shriek even through his own covered ears. A second later he felt the floor tremble and heard Bud's powerful outcry die out cold. The unseen tentacle—if that's what it was—had slammed Bud against the ceiling rafters. The long, leafy limb wavered around relentlessly, swinging the Negro's now limp and lifeless body around like a child with a teddy bear. Blood flung everywhere, spraying, gushing, and splattering. A torn human brain fell onto a shelf beside the fruit cellar door. An eyeball landed beside a small bucket near a drain; the static flashlight beam lit it up from the front. Strangely, one shredded leg fell upright on the floor, the kneebone poking up through lacerated tendons. Bud was dead, had just been battered and ripped to pieces by a creature no earthly mortal had ever seen before. The basement soon went quiet but for the sound of a few broken hanging lights swaying back and forth. George just watched, waited. His eyes did not blink once. He liked the silence even less than the noise. He gazed into the void, wondering if Bud was going to reach out for help...or if the monster was going to yank him away from life and from reality. Still, nothing happened.
Nothing happened for a while...
But a while could have been seconds in the frame of his overanxious mind.
He would not budge at all. He forgot how to move, how to breathe. He thought he lost control of all his motor functions...until something did happen.
***
Upstairs, John bolted out of one room and went to the closed door across the hall, behind which Bill was trapped. The psychic thought the man screaming within was a girl at first, the pitch of his vocals was so high and piercing. Additionally, he could hear wood breaking and creaking violently—the sound of the room folding in on itself...
"Bill?" John raised his voice.
No response.
"Bill! Can you hear me? Open the door!" He pounded on the solid oak with the bottom of his fist.
"Joooohn! Get me the fuck outta here right now. Help me! The walls are—"
"Open the door. Can you open the door, Bill?"
"It won't—the knob is broke."
John grabbed the knob and twisted it. It came right off in his hand. Three sweaty, jittery fingers poked out through the knob hole, reaching for help.
"Break the door down!" Bill screamed, his throat hot. John knelt down and looked through the little round hole. He didn't know what he expected to find, but he didn't expect what he actually found.
The left and right side walls were coming together like an accordion, not seven feet apart now. Bill was standing smack dab in the middle. He didn't have more than a minute before his body would be crushed beyond recognition.
John carefully and quickly examined the door frame. The door opened from the outside in.
"Bill, stand back just a little! I'm going to kick it in."
"Geeeet meeeee ooooout!"
Bill complied. John took a step back and lunged forward, striking the door full-force with the heel of his foot. The surface felt more like solid steel than wood. But he ignored the pain and kicked it again, again, again, and again. It didn't give at all. No cracks...not even a shoeprint. Bill's intense pleads grew more intense and desperate.
On his side of the door, he was hyperventilating, trembling, crying. The walls closed in, squeezed tighter.
How's this going to feel?
How bad will it hurt when they come together?
Is it going to be a fast death?
Death?
I can't die! I just got engaged. I have so many more experiences to look forward to. I'm going to die an old man.
But what if I DO...
Bill snapped. He ran full speed toward the door, leaped into the air, and side-kicked it with as much force as he could exert. It was not powerful enough to break the oak...
But it was powerful enough to break his kneecap.
He fell to the floor, in too much shock to feel any pain.
"Bill? Bill?" John looked through the knob hole once more. He could see Bill's stunned, doom-filled face close-up. The guy wasn't all there. Pure panic beamed in his glassy eyes.
In a last chance of survival, Bill slapped the palms of his hands against the oncoming mashers and pushed. John continued kicking at the seemingly-invincible barrier. When he sprained his foot, he offered his shoulder as a battering ram.
"Bill, hold on. Just hold on."
Bill's cheeks turned bright red. He shook uncontrollably as he used every muscle fiber in his arms to hold the walls at bay.
I'm not getting outta here...
Snap! His right arm broke.
I'm not going home...
Crack! His left arm broke.
So this is what it's like to die...
The walls contracted together a little faster now, and a plethora of cracks, pops, and snaps invaded John's ears. Then, as he went to throw another blow to the oak door, it eased open by itself.
The walls were once again like they were before, the room in perfect, normal shape. It was as if nothing had happened...
But something did happen.
On the floor, three feet away, a twisted, lifeless, broken and bloody body of Bill Johnson lay in a crumpled heap.
***
The darkness below ground began saturating the faint shafts of natural available light that lit up the entrance to the basement. The broken railing, the curved ceiling, and the few chewed top steps, were soon engulfed by a void darker than any black George had ever seen. It was a living, breathing entity, a real live color—or lack of—eating away physical objects in his field of vision. It made a sound like fire, but felt like ice as it came his way.
He finally moved. A warning sign flashed in his head, and he jumped to his feet quickly. He knew that whatever had killed Bud now wanted to kill him. It wasn't through yet.
George ran out of the pantry and into the kitchen, where he stopped when he saw the entire wood floor crawling with a blanket of bizarre, glowing insects. They smelled like rotten eggs and sounded like crickets. Their ribbed, transparent bodies didn't just pulsate; they changed from one color to another in amazing symmetry. The floor resembled a large blazing puddle of lava one minute, then a green, slimy plutonium-like agent the next.
George did not stick around to observe. He crunched across the sea of bugs and toward the open entryway to the living room. He did not look back when three
huge plant-like tentacles crashed through the basement door. Its suckers, tulips working also as heat sensors, wavered up and down and from side to side, searching, finding, then zooming aside when they saw the orange, glowing human step out of the kitchen.
George entered the living room, a much more brightly-lit room than any other he'd seen so far. He could have gone straight for the front door, but went to the window, instead. It was closer, and it overlooked the real world.
But he wasn't getting there. Something was impeding his progress. Greatly.
He was stuck. The bottoms of his military boots were sticky with insect guts. Not only was this stuff stretchy, it was acidic; it was already eating away at the lining of the leather soles.
Toxic smoke rose into the air, found its way up George's nose, and burned away some of the lining of his nostrils. He tried to ignore the pain and continue forward. He took a few more quick strides, gradually approaching the window. He commanded his legs to keep moving, but suddenly they stopped. The stringy goo connecting his boots to the floor solidified instantly into dense, hot cement. He wasn't going anywhere now.
George cursed and wiggled, lost his balance and almost fell twice, trying to yank his feet out of the tight black boots which were disintegrating under him. Sounds from the rear echoed through the room: meek, slimy sounds and sharp, scurrying ones. Still, he didn't look back. He kept his eyes glued to the window an arm's length away. Outside, tree branches were swaying in a soft gust of wind. Leaves danced in a small cyclone above a small patch of dirt. The sun shined gloriously up in the cloudless sky. George felt like he was looking at freedom through the bars of a prison cell.
Though he didn't think he had enough time to do it before it came, he knew it was his only shot at escaping.
He dropped down, grabbed his boot laces, and untied them as fast as he could with his trembling fingers. He could feel the heat of the acid brushing against the heels of his feet, could smell the smoldering of leather melting to the hardwood floor. He yanked his foot out of one boot right as a red flame engulfed it. His hands then shot to the other one. Face drenched in sweat, he yanked the string, loosened it, pulled, and loosened it some more. Another red flame shot out of the cavity, burning his sock and blackening his foot, but leaving him fairly unfazed. He was now free.