His arms dangled off the table above his head. The machine clicked as Randall was moved to and fro through the opening. The sound echoed around him infuriatingly.
He tried to remain still, but he couldn’t help crying out from the pain.
“Are you okay, Mr. Bell?” The irritatingly calm voice asked.
“Spectacular.” Sarcasm laced his tone.
The bed returned to its resting position, and Randall was helped into a wheelchair. God, how he hated all of this; being treated like some invalid.
“Augh!” He hollered, doubling over. Damn this thing!
As he was led back to 4B, Randall Bell could feel the nasty creature crawling around in him, scraping its claws against every fiber of his being, as if it was trying to figure out just what made him tick.
He was emotionally and physically drained. What did that damned thing do when it forced Randall to black-out?
The pulsating entity was pushing its way up his esophagus again, and when he felt his throat tighten and the breath being knocked out of him, he tried to let out a terrified scream.
There was a flurry of activity as the doctor rushed in. Randall’s throat looked swollen. He heard someone say through his haze of confusion, that they thought he was having an allergic reaction to the iodine. He tried gesturing with his hands, but they were busy shooting medication into him to counteract the reaction he wasn’t even having.
Blood spewed from his mouth, splattering the doctor. Randall was howling in agony.
“Dilaudid. Stat!” The older nurse that had been there earlier handed the doctor a clean towel. A younger girl beside her hurried after the doctor, and came back within minutes, handing the older nurse a syringe.
“Mr. Bell, this is Dilaudid. It’s for the pain.”
Some relief would be nice. There was sincere concern etched on her wrinkled face. He wasn’t aware that his eyes were bulging.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as a prickling sensation briefly overwhelmed him Then a wave of warmth washed through him, and his body began to relax.
“There, there,” the older nurse cooed at him as if he were a baby. At thirty-five, to her maybe he was. He was feeling fuzzy. That dil . . . dila . . . whatever the hell it was, it was some good shit, he thought. Even the monster seemed to settle. Randall wondered if the thing was just biding its time.
“Thank you,” he murmured drowsily.
The nurse left the room, and the menace inside Randall Bell began to slither up his brain stem.
***
When he stood, Randall Bell was a little woozy at first. It took an extra minute or two to gather himself enough to get dressed. By the time he straightened his cuffs and tied the laces on his Italian shoes, he was perfectly fine.
Or, rather, IT was. Bell was sound asleep.
Hmmm, now where was that delicious nurse that had greeted him earlier? What was her name? Michelle something . . . ?
***
Two doctors stared at the films from Randall Bell’s MRI. Their logical minds not fully comprehending the images of the horrific face staring back at them.
MUTED
Hollie Snider
Hollie Snider's short works appear in anthologies such as Read the End First, Best of Evil Jester Digest, Volume I, and The Wickeds. Her fantasy novel, For the Rank of Master, is available on Amazon.com. Cancer first touched the author's life when she was 17, taking her paternal grandmother, and has since threatened other family and friends. To learn more about Hollie, please visit www.holliesnider.com
Flat, discordant chirps fill the air. Harsh against the ear, grating. Growing louder. I cringe at the sound and sit up, searching for the birds, finding none.
A forest of trees surrounds me. Muted, sickly, unnatural greens and browns before my eyes. Leafy, spiny fingers stretch toward a washed-out blue sky, almost real, nearly alive, but not quite.
The sun, a weak, jaundiced image of its familiar brilliance, rises higher, moving even as I watch. Changing from one pale hue to the next. Bilious yellow to dull vitelline to tarnished old gold.
Time passes quickly here.
Pushing against the ground, I stand and brush pine needles, along with other forest debris, from my jeans and shirt.
Odd.
No feeling.
No physical sensations.
I pick up a handful of earth—evergreen needles, moldering leaves, dirt, a few small pebbles. I can see them, can smell the dampness, the mustiness of decay. Gingerly, I touch my tongue to the humus in my hand. Faint, on the back of my tongue, more an aftertaste than a real flavor.
Curious.
All my senses seem to be working, off just enough to make me wonder.
Except touch.
Strange.
I toss the dirt in my hand. Up and down, pine needles shift as soil rises and falls with faint raspings, but I can’t feel anything against my skin. I spread my fingers, letting the debris trickle through.
Nothing.
No tickle. No scratch. Clean. Sterile. Nonexistent.
A shadow moves in front of me. My shadow. Wandering without me. Animated by the traveling sun.
Time passes quickly here.
I walk, listening to my own footfalls. They sound far away. A distant echo, but not quite. Empty. Where did the birds go? I can’t hear them anymore. Only the hollow repetition of my own footsteps.
I stop again. Silence, then dissonant screeches, subdued caws, artificial birdsong. Each following the other, never overlapping. Only one sound at a time. Strange. Alien. Have I gone to some sort of parallel universe? Another Earth? One that’s almost perfect, but not quite? Could this be what the sphere felt like in Flatland? Out of place? Out of reality?
I resume walking, brushing my hands against trees, flowers, rocks. Still nothing. Not even cool shade against my arms or sunlit warmth against my skin. My knuckles scrape against a boulder.
Skin sloughs off. Blood wells and oozes.
No pain.
I lick at the blood. Stale. Brackish. Old.
“ . . . unlikely.” The sound is whispered, barely audible.
Ghost voices again. I’ve heard them before.
“Hello?” I call. “Hello? Where are you?” Turning in slow circles, I stare at the darkening sky, study the graying forest. My own voice comes back to me. Distant. Hollow. Alone.
“How much . . . ?”
A pause. Strident bird calls. Wind trembling leaves, swaying pine, ruffling my hair. Unnatural quiet.
“Probably . . . ”
“Probably what?” I call. No answer.
“Answer me!” I demand. Nothing. The ghosts are gone.
Orange creeps quickly through the sky, pushing back the washed-out blue. No fire. No spark. No beauty. Just orange. Sunset already.
Time passes quickly here.
Night. Stars glint in strange, unfamiliar constellations. No moon, yet there is moonlight. From where? From nowhere, yet somehow, from everywhere.
Eyeshine flashes in the forest. Silver. Metallic. Reflective. Alive. Out of place in this vacuous, muted world.
Footfalls. Growing louder, crunching against the earth. Mine, running now.
A howl then. Behind me, and in front of me. Surrounding me. Long. Low. Mournful. Beautiful and eerie, strange and scary in this discordant world. More follow, echoing.
Something knocks me to the ground. Hot breath in my face. Rank. Putrid. Septic.
Luminous eyes stare at me, through me. I’m not real here. Am I?
Blunt claws rip at my legs and belly. At my arms and face. Flesh and muscle tears, a rough, ripping sound.
Pain!
I can feel! Hot, raw agony. Oh God, the pain!
Teeth snap. Miss. Snap again and bite. Growls and snarls fill the air. Blood droplets land in my mouth. Different now. Fresh. Coppery. Strong.
Thrashing against the things, the beasts, I scream. Over and over. And my voice comes back to me.
Real.
Anguished.
Lingering.
***
Slow, steady beeps emanated from the monitor next to the bed, counting the heartbeats.
“Is she . . . ?” asked Angela.
“She’s all right,” interrupted the doctor. “Resting comfortably.” His voice sounded soothing, yet false, devoid of emotion.
Angela walked toward the door then glanced back. The doctor straightened the sheet around her sister’s cancer-thinned body.
Angela sighed, dejected. “Are you sure she’s not in any pain?”
“I assure you, there is no discomfort. There is nothing.”
Hinges hissed as the hospital door opened, then swung shut with a quiet thump.
DREAMS OF SHADOWS
Robert S. Wilson
Robert S. Wilson is the author of Shining in Crimson and Fading in Darkness, books one and two of his dystopian vampire series: Empire of Blood. He is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor of Horror for Good: A Charitable Anthology and lives in Middle Tennessee with his wife and two kids.
Timmy opened his eyes, replacing the pitch blackness of sleep with the blurry twilight of that other place. It was happening again. He stood surrounded by thousands of tall thin trees crowded together in a lush dark forest flooded with soft white fog. It was cold. The kind of cold that sends moist chills up the length of your back when it hits you. One step forward and the snap of a twig beneath his foot sent him spinning around in search of them. But only the faint distant sound of an owl acknowledged his presence. He took a deep breath and began moving forward, gently setting each foot down in front of the other as quietly as he could. Maybe, just maybe, this time they were gone or wouldn’t hear him.
Up above, the reaching dead branches shattered the moonlight into shards of glowing crystal in hues of gray and blue within the thickening fog. Timmy continued along the uneven ground, dodging tree stumps and holes and bushes of poison ivy. Between the layers of mist, all that was visible onward in every direction were more and more trees. A gust of icy wind blew from the opposite direction of the moon and the rustling of many leaves enveloped Timmy with a shifting white noise. It should have been a peaceful wind. But long ago Timmy had come to associate it with something so frightening and terrible that no such wind would ever bring peace.
And with the consistency of a faithful sunrise, the whistling faded in from behind the wind. It was a gloomy sort of tune, if you could call it a tune at all. A series of gradual notes that called out to the boy whenever he was in this place, just before they would come for him. The whistling rose with the fury of the wind until it ascended into a kind of screaming and Timmy bolted forward away from the piercing sound of it. The screeching grew in volume and pitch and Timmy tried to turn around and run the way he’d come from, but still their call rose higher and before long he remembered that there was no way you could go to get away from them. Silver light seemed to spill out from the moon and pool down into the fog. Shadows stretched up over the light and Timmy turned to run again.
The glowing fog lit the ground ahead of him and he could see a clear path leading between clusters of trees and bushes. He ran with all he had, jumping over the stumps and the holes, and twisting around the bushes. But still the shadows followed. Dead leaves crumpled beneath his shoes and trees floated past him in a brown blur of texture until he came to a small clearing. A solitary circle of dirt bordered by rocks of all different shapes and sizes sat in the center. At first it looked like the remains of an old bonfire, but there was no charred wood in the center, just clean soil. Looking behind him, Timmy could see the shadows stretching and gaining on him. He circled around the strange pit looking for somewhere he could run to get away. But the shadows seemed to be swirling all around him from every corner of the clearing. There was nowhere left to run, so Timmy stepped into the pit.
The whistling rose to a deafening pitch and the wind gusted in a circle causing the trees to bend like dominoes falling all around him. Shadows grew from every corner, rising up with the wind and swirling into the vortex until they became one giant shade of darkness looming over him. A dark hand reached out from the blackness and Timmy ducked down into himself like a ball. The dirt beneath him started to sink. Timmy screamed and in an instant of courage, he dove from the pit and took off for the forest again. The force of the wind nearly knocked him off his feet when he broke from the circle. The screaming pitch of the shadows echoed behind him so loud that it too threw him off balance.
Refusing to look back, he ran harder.
The ground started to shake as the screaming pitch of those things hit a new note and then behind him, something exploded. The shock wave sent him tumbling forward and as he rolled over he saw the darkness approaching. When his body lost its momentum, he rose to his feet and broke into another run but his sense of direction was confused and before he could stop himself, he stumbled right into the darkness. His body shook as his abdomen absorbed the shadow creature. Timmy screamed. They had only ever managed to touch him before. A brief brush against his skin that left a burning here, a dark willowy hand grabbing a hold of his leg there, but nothing like this. He didn’t want to imagine what this would mean.
When the shadow was fully inside him, he could feel it in there writhing and spreading. Slowly, but there was no relief in knowing this. It was in him now. And no one would understand. No one would believe him. And with that thought, he collapsed face down into the leaves and closed his eyes, replacing that bitter place with darkness again.
***
When Timmy woke, he was covered in tubes and shivering in a bright white sterile room. His mother stood over him caressing his forehead and mumbling words of consolation as tears streamed down both sides of her face. He tried to talk but only a loud rasp came up from the back of his throat, making him sound like a frog trying to speak its first word of English.
“It’s okay, honey. Don’t talk. Just try and go back to sleep.”
But Timmy couldn’t sleep. He could only think about the shadow inside him. He knew it would do something bad and now he was in the hospital with tubes sticking out of his throat and chest. The only thing he could think to do was try to talk to her, with every ounce of energy he still had. He opened his mouth and another thick rasp of gravel came out. His mother sobbed and shook and picked up a small plastic device attached to his bed by a long thick cord and pressed the big red button. Timmy tried again to call out to his mother but only managed that same gargled noise.
A nurse came in and talked to him like he was a rock in a garden as she pushed some buttons on the machine next to the bed and everything started to fade again.
Darkness.
***
When reality came back, Timmy was lying in a different bed in a different room, all alone. Most of the tubes were gone, but one still poked into his hand and two were still suctioned to his chest. His fingers made their way to the little box sitting by his leg. It was like the one his mother had used to call the nurse before. He used it, instead, to raise the bed. When he was upright, he sat a while just trying to get his bearings. Would he die now that the darkness had finally gotten him?
He lifted up the neck of his hospital gown and looked down at his chest. There were places where the tubes had been suctioned to him and a couple of marks where someone had stuck a needle in him, but otherwise, his body looked normal; his skin pale, his ribs poking out from a skinny chest, and a little potbelly poking up from below. But he was experienced enough to know that something bad inside you didn’t always show up on the outside.
Before long, being left with his thoughts led to boredom and Timmy turned on the TV and watched cartoons. Several episodes of Adventure Time later, the door opened and Timmy’s mother came in with a smile at the sight of him. She set her purse and Styrofoam coffee cup down and gave him a long hug, like she always did when she was worried about him.
“Mom, what happened,” Timmy’s voice croaked.
“I don’t know exactly, hon. When I came up to check on you last night, you had a blazi
ng fever over a hundred ‘n four so I took you to the hospital. They gave you somethin’ to cool you down, but they found . . . ” She started to sob again. “Honey, they found another cancer. This time it’s bad—”
“It was the shadows again, Mom. One of ‘em got inside me last ni—”
“Honey, this is serious,” his mother snapped. They stared at each other for a long moment, Timmy’s mouth agape, and his mother’s face trembling and wet with tears. There had been tumors before. They were always small; they’d always caught them early enough to operate. Each time Timmy had dreamed of the shadows just before. Each time he’d told his mother, and each time she’d refused to listen. “They’re just bad dreams, sugar. Bad dreams never caused no one to get sick,” she’d told him. But now the shadow was inside him. And he knew that meant there would be no hope of cutting out the tissue as the doctor had put it. Timmy let his eyes find the floor and stared at it in shame.
He wanted nothing more than for his mother to believe him. Even more than he wished the darkness would leave him, would go away and never come back to haunt his dreams and eat away his body. His mother let out a moan, then came by his side, soothing and mumbling as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“The doctor’s talking about chemo. I know we’ve talked about the possibility of that before. But we were lucky then.” She let out a long sigh and the cool sting of a teardrop touched Timmy’s shoulder. He took his mother’s hand and squeezed. Regardless of whether she knew it or not, he’d grown up a lot during all those surgeries. Though he occupied the body of a twelve year old, Timmy knew he was much older on the inside. He’d long ago stared death in the face and learned to expect its ominous shadow waiting at the door.
Bleed Page 23