Dark Side Darker

by Lucas T. Harmond

  “Is that the one?” Josh asked as Rufus paused at a door.

  He just shrugged and knocked. That the door slowly creaked open didn’t fill either of them with confidence. Rufus turned his gaze on his friend and finally removed his sunglasses.

  He pushed the door open slowly, revealing a darkened corridor with three doors leading from it. There was no denying there was a sickening smell coming from inside. Again Rufus glanced at Josh, and then with more caution than normal knocked the now open door and quietly called out Rob’s name.

  “I don’t think he’s here.” In truth, Josh knew he wasn’t. Still, the flat felt far from unoccupied.

  “Should we just go in?”

  Now Josh shrugged. He felt no great desire to, but pushed past his friend anyway.

  Another wave of sickness swam through him and he shivered hard. “Jesus.” He whispered.

  ‘Help me.’ The voice scythed through his senses.

  Rufus didn’t react and Josh could tell it was only him who had heard the voice.

  “Rufus,” he caught his shoulder as he moved towards one of the doors. “Man, be careful.”

  The other said nothing and turned the handle, cautiously opened the door.

  An olive green toilette stared at them, next to it, a grubby shower curtain over a bath of a similar colour.

  “Yo, Rob?” Rufus called out to the rest of the flat, then turned to Josh. “I don’t think we should just go around in his flat while there’s no one here.”

  Josh looked nervously at the other two doors, before speaking. “He’s probably just in bed.” It was a complete lie, he just needed to reassure his friend.

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any better. If we just burst in, it’ll scare the crap out of him.” He laughed suddenly. “And what if he’s having a little ‘me’ time? I don’t want to see that sucker beating the meat!”

  Josh was barely aware of the last comment, as he opened the door at the end of the hallway. Rufus grumpily said something but he didn’t hear what. The other door opened behind him, but when he turned he saw it was just Rufus looking inside. Rufus paused a second then moved into the kitchen he had just discovered, leaving Josh looking at a surprisingly large living room.

  The walls were bare, apart from a few strips of remaining wallpaper and pieces of a leftover boarder, which was largely peeling off. An oldish television and video sat on the floor in one corner and the whole room was drenched in light from the large windows that looked out onto a small balcony. The only other things there were a few arm-chairs and a cardboard box full of videos. Beside that the room was empty.

  Blocks of flats faced him from across a small green with some long-disused swings. Charcoal clouds drifted behind them, slowly. Terraced streets and old factory buildings stretched out in most directions in the distance, below him.

  Another door led from the room. He stared at it for a long time.

  “Is he in there?” Rufus called from the kitchen.

  “I’m just going into the bedroom.” He told him. He was well aware of the barely hidden fear in his voice.

  “Fine, I’ll just check he’s not in the fridge.”

  The presence he could sense behind the last door was terrifying. Every sense in his body was alive with energy and the sharp pain inside his head was threatening to crack open his skull, accompanied by a constant chattering sound inside his mind.

  Josh braced himself and pushed the door hard. It barely moved an inch before hitting something with a large, solid thump. For a second he stood stunned, then there was another two thuds from inside as, whatever it was, now began to thrash back against the door. Something stirred inside, moving wildly and there was a definite hiss.

  Josh jumped back, felt his footing slip beneath him on something and hit the floor, the wind being blasted out of his body. An empty plastic cylinder that looked like it might have held aspirins rolled across the floor into a corner.

  Again, something pounded against the door, slamming it shut.

  Rufus’ voice came from the hall. “He wasn’t in the fridge, but I did find a beer. The bastard owes me at least three pints...” He stopped as he entered the living room and saw his friend on the floor.

  He followed Josh’s terrified gaze towards the door he lay in front off. The look on his face instantly unnerved Rufus.

  “Yo, what happened?” His voice became a low whisper for the first time since entering the flat.

  Josh struggled to speak, still heavily winded.

  “Something’s, in, there.” He managed after a few seconds of forcing air back into his lungs.

  Rufus laughed, but it was a nervous sound. “Who?”

  Josh was silent, wheezing.

  Rufus walked towards the door.

  “No!!!” Josh screamed with as much intensity as he could muster. “Seriously, don’t go in there.”

  “Why? Who’s in there?”

  “Cally.” Josh answered without thinking.

  Rufus smiled to himself, leaned forward and placed his ear to the wood. He stood there listening.

  Josh sat watching him intently, wishing he had enough breath to fully convey his horror. He knew there was something deeply repellent behind those thin inches of wood that his friend held his vulnerable ear to.

  Rufus turned with a dirty smirk. “Well someone’s moving about a lot in there. I guess Rob’s having his wicked way with Cally. God knows it don’t take much with that girl.”

  He knocked gently. “Rob?”

  “Don’t do it!” Josh warned scurrying backwards across the floor.

  From behind the door came a loud scurrying sound.

  Rufus was smiling as he began to open the door. “Cally?”

  This time the door met no resistance. For a second Josh saw nothing, unlike Rufus. The scream exploded around the space, he yelled so hard his voice threatened to give. His body darted backwards with all the ferocity of someone who had been hit by a car. Josh tried to see past Rufus as his body lunged backwards, trying to put as much space between him and whatever he could see.

  There was an alien buzz of thoughts and possibly words assaulting Josh’s mind now.

  Rufus slammed backwards into a wall, pinning himself there like a cornered cat. He didn’t seem satisfied however and appeared to be attempting to force his way through the plaster.

  His cracking voice was repeatedly asking. “What the fuck is it? What the fuck is it? What the fuck is it?!?”

  Josh looked for a second still crawling away on his back, kicking with his feet on the carpet.

  He gathered himself slightly. He had been prepared for what he could now see skulking in the gloom of the bedroom.

  “It’s... it’s Cally!!!”

  “What the fuck are you on about!? That isn’t Cally.”

  The thing was screaming at Josh, inside Josh. It was scared, confused and consumed with a blind rage. It didn’t want to be there any more than they did.

  Josh didn’t know Cally, knew of her reputation but had never spoken to her. Still he did know her face and he saw it now looking at him with insane and desperate eyes. Only it was warped, as was the whole naked grotesque body. A vast canvas of naked, discoloured flesh spread across the entire room, squirming and bulging as energy rippled and expanded beneath her skin. In places she looked like a Francis Bacon painting. A physical form that didn’t make any sense.

  Couldn’t exist or at least shouldn’t. Holes appeared in her randomly as her body expanded like some kind of living abstraction. Sometimes these chasms revealed the wet, pink interior of her body and glimpses of twisted internal organs and sometimes just a flesh-sealed passage directly through the body. Then they would re-seal, shift or grow larger only to suddenly be absorbed back into the rest of the flesh.

  The right-hand side of her face was twisted up into a demented leer that moved into her expanded and impossible form, past where the mouth should have ended and was stretched over the bone that showed beneath.

  She shifted constan
tly as if the very structure of her body was no longer stable.

  Her naked body was bloated with alien energy and obese to sickening proportions.

  It wanted to kill them, he sensed that clearly, but was unable to move towards them. One leg, half-consumed by fat was twisted and twitched spasmodically. The other had become some kind of ridiculous tentacle that thrashed around the room wildly, using the broken and bleeding foot as a club. Blood was smeared around the darkened wall from it’s frustrated thrashings. In places her body seemed to have welded with the surrounding walls, awkwardly. A network of vein-like tendrils had spread out like vines over the walls of the room, cracking plaster, all moving with slow determination. One arm was normal for a few seconds, then seemed to inflate, then shrank inside her own bloated form,swallowed by it.

  Josh vomited so hard it was painful, hot bile spilling over his legs. The thing disgusted him more than he could believe, but more than that it was the consuming sounds it was screaming from within his own skull. Ugly and alien. Worse was that at some level he could still feel Cally, screaming hard to be killed. Terrified and in excruciating pain. She desperately wanted to die.

  Somewhere in his mind he was aware that Rufus was screaming his name and tugging his shoulder.

  “Come on, Josh. Run, run, run!!!! Jesus! Fuck!”

  He allowed himself to be dragged away. Crashing through doors towards the exit, with the thing still echoing inside his mind.

  “Wait!” he yelled suddenly, jolting back Rufus as he exploded out of the flat.

  Rufus said nothing, just looked at him with wild and intense eyes.

  “Sarah’s still in there!”

  “What!?” His voice shook with disbelief. “Josh, there’s nothing there but,” Rufus’ wanted to say “Cally,” but he couldn’t fully face the fact that the abomination within was actually the same girl.

  “That ‘thing’ man! That thing!” He yelped like a child.

  “Wait!” Josh commanded and Rufus found himself obeying.

  Josh re-entered the gloom.

  The thrashing noise had increased. Cally was moving. He felt certain it had somehow managed to reach the bedroom door and was now trying to squeeze through. Still, there was no way he was going to check.

  He darted into the bathroom, again noticed the strong smell of urine. His shaking hand reached for the shower curtain, hesitated and then with all the will he could muster, tore it aside.

  Sarah looked tiny. Curled up in fetal position, in a lake of her own piss. The flesh which showed from the gaps in the black net and lace blouse she wore looked drained of blood and she felt like ice. It was a few dreadful seconds before Josh realised she wasn’t dead. She was speaking or possibly she wasn’t. One sentence, constantly repeating. “So cold, so cold, so cold, so...”

  He reached down, wrapping his arms around her prone form. Her black silk dress was soaked and stank and she wore only one large combat boot on her foot. He was surprised at how easily he lifted her, aware that he wasn’t the strongest of folk. Still, he managed and— cradling her in his grasp—ran from the unholy place.

  Behind him, what was left of Cally scraped and bashed its way awkwardly forward.

  BURN BABY BURN

  CARTHY WAS FROWNING. He would have really liked to have handled the situation he was currently in a lot more discretely. Instead he sent another wave of petrol sloshing over the tatty wall paper.

  Behind him the thing was still hissing and wailing. A chaotic fusion of thoughts as two separate minds fought and tore against each other. The psychic battle was erupting inside his own skull. It was a form of intense psychosis, only with the two minds fused together in languages neither understood.

  Some sort of limb lashed out at him again. He dodged it by the smallest of margins, hearing the dull sound as it smashed against the wall behind him.

  “Fuck you!!!” He growled and hurled what was left of the petrol can’s contents over the hybrid.

  Part of him grimaced at the thought of what he was about to do. He could still sense the mind of the child inside the thing. A young confused girl who hadn’t asked for any of this shit. A young girl who was about to end her short unhappy life bathed in flame.

  Carthy pushed that aside as much as he could. The one thing he sensed most from that mind was its desire to die. It disturbed him that that desire had existed long before her current condition.

  A worm of flesh, thick tendon and muscle shot out from somewhere in the mass of skin, knocking the can from his hands. It thunked against the wall and bounced to the floor.

  He reached inside his jacket’s pocket and removed a small tin of lighter fluid.

  The creature screamed its rage at the doorway that blocked its escape. It was basically destroying itself. Organ falling into organ, bones breaking under the strain, knitting themselves together in structures which served no purpose. A mad sculpture of skin being restructured by something which didn’t understand any of it.

  The agony he sensed was incredible. It washed into him and became his own.

  He squirted the liquid about randomly like a priest spreading holy water. Avoiding slashing tentacles, knocking them aside. He drew lines up the curtains, the sofa, the carpet and then tossed the can at what had been Cally. He hoped it would be enough.

  A last moment of doubt, then he spoke. “I’m sorry kid.”

  He dropped his lit cigarette to the carpet. It smouldered for the smallest of time before a wall of fire erupted upwards and forward. It ran quickly, meeting other routes of fuel as streams of fire.

  CARTHY WAS ALREADY IN the corridor by the time the creature had begun to burn and to sound its dying agony. He closed his eyes but he couldn’t close his mind.

  He ran down the hall trying to put distance between himself and the flaming room. Excruciating pain filled his skull, slashed the back of his eyes.

  As he passed a fire alarm the glass imploded. The new wailing drowned out some of the other sounds. Only some...

  No other choice, he told himself. The police had already been called and if they’d seen what had been in that flat...

  In truth, he wasn’t even sure what would have happened. He had no idea what department would have been informed or how high it would have gone. There probably was no organisation even capable of understanding what they had found. He didn’t know what course of action they would have took, quarantine, maybe, call the army? Fuck knows. All he knew was that they wouldn’t have been able to deal with it.

  Somewhere beneath he sensed the arrival of the police and grimaced at the thought of having to detain them.

  The whole thing was a mess.

  Again he wondered if he had been wrong. The boy’s vision was incredible, the routes he had seen. Still, he wasn’t truly able to decipher what he was seeing and that was dangerous for everyone. Carthy couldn’t let him continue to blunder around semi-blindly, he saw that now. Calling the police had been exactly the wrong thing to do.

  The girl too, was now a problem.

  As he ran down the concrete steps, jumping four at a time, he realised both had to be intercepted and fast.

  AFTERMATH

  “What the fuck was that!???”

  It was a reasonable question.

  Josh was sitting in the back seat of Rufus’ car, cradling Sarah’s shaking body.

  “Cally, man! That thing was Cally!” Despite being prepared there was still an edge of hysteria to Josh’s voice.

  “That wasn’t Cally, man! The fuck it was! I know Cally and that, Jesus, I mean, I once...” Rufus paused and took too long a drag on the joint he held in his shaking hand. “That wasn’t Cally.” He finished quietly.

  Josh fell silent and looked down at Sarah. Her body felt like stone and she looked past death. The ammonia stench was overpowering.

  The car tore over a speed bump double the speed it should have, throwing its passengers about like dolls and making the vehicle groan in several different ways.

  “Jesus Christ, Rufus, will you chi
ll the hell out!”

  Rufus shot a wild fire glare back at him. “Did you see that, that thing?? And what about her? What the fuck’s wrong with Sarah? Is she dead or...”

  Josh cut him off. “She’s not dead!”

  “So what the hell’s wrong?”

  Josh was silent. “I don’t know,” he said softly after a while.

  “Jesus, we’ve got to get her to a hospital.”

  “No way man, what would they do? I mean, look at her eyes.” They were just shiny pits of obsidian. “That’s not normal. I mean, you saw... Cally. This isn’t anything they can deal with. Besides what are we gonna’ say? They’re gonna’ ask a lot of questions, the police will want to know what the hell happened to her.”

  “That wasn’t Cally,” Rufus said so quietly that Josh barely heard him, then continued. “So what’s the alternative? Get her home to a warm bed with some Lemsip? you know, just to take the edge off?”

  ‘Kaaaa shhhhh na ruh nine meah hospice snaaa Caaaaasally god no Cally!’ The words were half-shrieked, half-snarled into Josh’s mind as Sarah seemed to come back to life, clawing at his clothes in pleading terror. Those hollow black eyes were the most terrifying vision he had ever seen.

  He looked up. “I don’t think Lemsip and an Aspirin are going to help much!”

  “Fucking A. We’re taking her to Hospital. We’ll dump her in the lobby and some one will find her.”

  “We’re not dumping her anywhere, Rufus! Were gonna’ take her to Karen’s house, it’s closer than our flat, then we’re going to find Rob and find out what the hell happened.”

  “You think he did this to Sarah? To... Cally? What the hell did he do?”

  “Not him as such. I mean, Christ, I’ve been living with this for a lot longer.”

  Again the car swerved and Rufus turned his full attention behind him. “With what Josh? What the hell is going on?”

  Josh laughed bitterly. “Jesus, even I don’t know, I just think we’re caught up in this somehow.”

  “Does that fuck at the shopping mall have anything to do with this?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how.”