by David Greske
Although the inside of the house wasn't nearly as dark as the cave, it might've well been. With Bob's poor eyesight, he had a difficult time seeing much further than the end of his nose. But he knew the door was right behind him, so he turned, took two steps forward, and grabbed the knob. Even though it turned in his hand, the door wouldn't open. It had slammed close with such force, it was wedged tight in the jamb.
Bob turned and fell back against the door. His right foot kicked the baseball bat, sending it across the floor and under the sofa.
"Larry? Larry? Are you here? Answer me, dammit!"
Perspiration trickled down the sides of his face, his mouth tasted like cardboard. He didn't like this. Trapped alone in a dark house, he felt like a fly entangled in a spider's web.
Bob had been in Larry's home often enough to know there was a phone on a plant stand about three feet in front of him. He could call the police. They'd come and get him out. They might have to break a window, or do whatever they do in cases like this to get in, but he'd gladly pay Larry for the repairs. He just wanted out.
Now!
Arms outstretched, Bob shuffled through the house like a blind man. He ran his hands across the back of the sofa until his fingers found the octagonal-shaped table. Feeling the shape of the phone, he worked his fingers around it and picked up the handset.
The light of the key pad spilled across Bob's round face and made it look like a ripening lime. He poised his fingers above the numbers and was about to dial 9-1-1 when he saw her by the stairs.
Millie.
His wife.
His dead wife.
She was dressed in a flowing gown the color of dirty cotton, and her skin was so translucent Bob saw the staircase behind her. An aura of cold, greenish light pulsed and rotated around her.
"Millie?” Bob croaked. His breath puffed in front of him in small clouds. The room's temperature had dropped to near freezing.
"Why? Why did you do it?” The specter's arms reached forward.
"I didn't ... mean to.” The phone slipped from Bob's grip and banged the tabletop. The dial flickered, and then winked out.
Bob Wright murdered his wife. Well, not really, but you couldn't very well reason with someone that was already dead. Like Bob, Millie also had a heart condition, only hers was much more severe.
Doc Addlerson prescribed both of them those little white pills they were to hold under their tongues when they felt an attack coming on. Millie kept her medicine next to her bed in an antique, silver pillbox.
One day last winter, Millie took ill, and Bob took over the household chores. He was cleaning the nightstand, when he picked up the pillbox and dropped it in his pocket while he tidied the tabletop. When he was finished, he intended to replace the things he'd removed, but became distracted by a phone call. When the conversation was over, he'd completely forgotten about the pillbox that was still in his pocket.
Later that afternoon, Millie had an attack. A bad one. She ran into the bedroom and her face twisted into a mask of horror when she couldn't find the pillbox.
"Bob! Bob!” she screamed, clawing at her chest with her right hand. “My pills! Where are my pills?"
Bob shot out of the bathroom, holding up his pants with one hand. “On the table where you always leav—” He stopped in mid-sentence. The pillbox was gone.
He did a quick search of the room, looking under the bed and around the table.
"Jesus jumped-up-Christ,” he muttered. His wife's face had turned ashen and white foam bubbled from her mouth.
Bob grabbed the phone, dialed 9-1-1, but before the call connected, his wife fell to the floor, dead.
Twenty minutes later, after the ambulance hauled her away, he found the pillbox right where he'd put it—in the watch pocket of his Levi's.
He tried to lock away the events of that day, but the guilt haunted him ever since. The past two weeks, the memory had been eating at him like a rat on cheese. He had trouble sleeping, and when he did, he was tormented by nightmares of Millie. Now she had come for him.
The specter moved forward, floating a few inches above the floor. As it did this, her gown billowed around her like it was blown by a gentle breeze, yet there was no air movement in the house.
Bob felt straps of fear clamp around his chest. His heart pounded wildly, missed a beat, and pounded harder. He flexed his left hand. An uncomfortable tingling had started in his arm.
Now, Millie's face peeled back to reveal a black, decaying skull. Worm-eaten eyes hung from their sockets by sinewy, rotting stalks. Hair grew in matted clumps on top of her head. Thick, puss-like goo dripped from the thing's cheeks and chin. Skin sloughed from the arms and hands, exposing the twisted skeleton.
This was the real Millie. This was the remains of a Millie eighteen months dead.
Bob's heart pounded like a worn piston. Each pump felt like a thousand nails being driven into his chest. Sweat coursed like a river down the sides of his face. His throat began to close.
Hissing, the Millie-thing came closer.
Bob squeezed his arm, trying to force the numbness out. He felt his chest tighten, as if steel clamps were squeezing his heart.
My heart! Bob's mind screamed. There's something wrong with my heart!
He took a step backward, tripped over the leg of the sofa, and tumbled. On his way down, he hit his head on the corner of the phone table, knocked it over, and opened a gash on the side of his face. He landed so hard on his backside, he bit off the tip of his tongue when his teeth came together. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth like a broken lawn sprinkler.
Crying, he crab-walked away from the Millie-thing. He backed himself into a corner, and the ghost continued to move steadily forward, closing the gap between the two of them.
Bob heard the blood rush through his head. Flashes of red pulsed in front of his eyes. The numbness he felt in his arm had traveled to other parts of his body: his legs, his feet, his buttocks. An odd wheezing sound whistled from his nostrils. Breathing was difficult.
The thing with a melting face kneeled down in front of him. Its breath was like a winter's wind and stank of the grave.
"Do you need your pills?” it croaked. An antique, silver pillbox appeared in its hand. “Well, I needed my pills too, but you kept them from me."
"But I didn't mean to!” Bob pleaded.
A bony hand closed around the tiny tin, and it disappeared in a flash of green fire. Then, the Millie-thing leaned forward and brushed Bob's cheek with its rotting claw.
Bob Wright screamed until his heart exploded.
Chapter 30
Darkness spread across the cemetery like oil spilled from a tanker. It caressed the headstones, shrouding the granite and marble markers in a veil of slime. Greasy fingers penetrated the ground. Darkness seeped into the caskets and covered the corpses within them.
Colors danced within the Darkness, moving faster and faster, as if driven by some unheard beat. Then, as if shocked by a jolt of electricity, the corpses jerked and opened their eyes. A puff of rancid breath issued from rotten lungs. They clawed at the coffin tops, tearing through the silk linings and scraping the worm-infested wood.
Above ground, the reanimated dead of those entombed in the mausoleum roamed the grounds, listening for the wails and scratching of those below. Hearing this, zombies would gather around the grave and scoop dirt away with their twisted, putrid hands until their comrade was free to walk with them. Until all those buried in the cemetery walked among the living.
* * * *
Pete Underdahl closed the blinds, took off his clothes, and opened the bedroom closet. He took out a blue satin party dress and slipped it over his naked body. Looking at himself in the mirror, he frowned. Something wasn't right. Something was missing.
Opening a dresser drawer, he pulled out half a dozen socks and shoved them down the front of his dress.
Better. He admired himself in the mirror again. Much better.
Pete leaned forward and kissed his image, le
aving a bright red lipstick smudge on the glass.
He walked into the living room. As the cool satin ruffled against his body, he felt himself become aroused. He turned on the stereo and found a station playing love songs. Pete closed his eyes and let the music wash over him.
Almost as if he were in a trance, Pete moved about the room, dancing with an invisible partner. All the while, the hot passion within him continued to grow, and he knew this dance would end like all the others.
"You look better in that dress than I ever did."
Pete was shocked back to reality. His erection withered and died.
"Gladys?” He whispered and turned around.
"I said I'd never leave you,” his wife said. She was smiling, and her brown eyes sparkled, despite the dimness of the room. Gladys reached out to him.
He ran into her arms, pulled her close, and kissed her heavily on the lips. His erection had returned.
"Oh, how I missed you so much,” he whispered, breathlessly. Then, Gladys went limp, and Pete held handfuls of what felt like pudding. Suddenly, the room filled with the stink of things long dead.
He pushed himself away and stumbled back in horror.
Gladys had changed. Her flesh had wrinkled into gray leather. Wisps of white hair sprouted from a bald skull. The skin of her lips was drawn into a tight grimace that revealed broken, yellow teeth. Her eyes burned with the fires of Hell.
Pete's jaw flopped open as he mechanically shook his head. His testicles pulled themselves up into his body.
Two pairs of tentacles slid from the Gladys-thing's dried and shriveled vagina. They slithered across the floor, leaving behind a trail of steaming, transparent slime.
Pete took a step backward and fell over the Ottoman.
The tentacles wrapped around his ankles and wrists, pinning him to the floor. Now, the Gladys-thing was on top of him. Its dry, parchment-like flesh rubbed against him. The foul breath was like ice cubes against his face.
"Darling,” it growled and opened its mouth wide enough to devour him.
And the lights winked out.
* * * *
Jake Monroe couldn't believe what was happening.
He had been sound asleep when he felt the first caress against his cheek. Jake had gone to bed with the window open, and he assumed the sensation was just the breeze blowing the curtain against his face. When the touch came again, he thought the tickle had somehow manifested itself from his dream. The third time, as they say, was a charm, and Jake knew the teasing caress was real.
Jake slowly opened his eyes to a world that was blurred with the leaden weight of sleep. As his vision cleared and things came into focus, he found the room filled with a dozen young, naked boys. They giggled and chanted like cherubs as they moved about the room.
This is just like my dream. Only, I was in an alfalfa meadow. I must still be dreaming.
The children danced around the bed, and he recognized some of them from school: little Hank Fischer, Tommy Jones, Matthew Burnsted. Jake was so entranced by their gracefulness, he found himself unable to move.
Then the children changed, and he realized this was no dream.
Their tender, pink bodies took on a gray hue. Their blue eyes turned yellow, and mouths narrowed to red slits filled with razor sharp teeth.
Jake struggled to free himself, but the mysterious dance had paralyzed him.
The children circled the bed, chattering in an unknown language. One of the biggest boys, the one that looked like Tommy Jones, took a spare pillow off the bed. He tossed it to a second boy; the second tossed it to a third. Like a strange game of Monkey in the Middle—Jake being the monkey—the boys threw the pillow to each other until it had been around the bed.
With the pillow back in the hands of the oldest boy, the cackling laughter stopped and the children bowed their heads. And when they looked up and smiled at Jake, his blood ran cold in his veins, for he saw murder in their hellish eyes.
They gathered around Jake's head like football players in a huddle. Raising the pillow, the boy placed it on Jake's face. The others scurried to sit on it.
Jake felt the weight on his face and knew exactly what was happening, but the paralysis prevented him from struggling as he suffocated.
* * * *
Across town, Darkness rolled up the stairs of the Anderson home. It spread down the hallway until it found the bathroom. Then it slipped under the door.
Chapter 31
It had taken a while, but the men's eyes adjusted to the dim of the cave. It was still dark, but not that kind of you-can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face darkness they'd experienced when they first stepped into the place.
"You okay back there, buddy?” Jarvis asked.
"Yeah. So far, so good,” Jim responded. The corridor was narrow, barely four feet wide. The walls were worn smooth from years of...
Of what?
Years of water erosion could polish stone like this, but it was obvious there had never been any water running through this tunnel. Everything was dry, and the walls showed no telltale signs of seepage. There was no discoloration, no crumbling rock, and no old musty smell. Enough wind could've polished the walls as well, but Jim couldn't visualize the wind whistling through the tunnel. Given the circumstances, the only explanation could be that the smoothness was caused by something traveling back and forth through the passageway. Whatever they were, hunting had polished the once rough stone into a surface as smooth as glass.
The floor was rough and uneven. Even through the thick soles of his boots, Jim felt the sharp stones poke at the bottom of his feet. If any of them stepped wrong, they would no doubt twist, or break, an ankle.
Jim turned the flashlight upward. The light, combined with the cave's darkness and his imagination, made it look like the ceiling was moving.
"Spooky,” Jim mumbled.
"What's that?” Cal asked. He was the second man in line, right after Timothy and just before Jarvis.
"Nothing. Just mumbling to myself.” Something warm and leathery brushed against his cheek. “Is it much further, Reverend?"
"No, we should be there soon."
Jim felt a weight on his shoulder. He trained his flashlight on it and turned his head. He was greeted by two black, beady eyes and a pair of razor-sharp teeth.
"Christ!” Jim exclaimed.
Then the ceiling descended upon them.
* * * *
Jim heard his father's voice bounce around in his head. It's okay, son, they won't hurt you. This was followed by his mother's warning: Be careful. Don't let them get caught in your hair. He knew his father was right, but at this very moment, his mother made more sense.
When he'd shone the flashlight across the ceiling, he disturbed the roosting bats. Agitated, the winged creatures swooped down at them.
The men dropped to their knees and covered their heads. High-pitched chirps resounded off the walls of the cavern as the flurry of furry creatures pelted them from above. Hundreds of membranous wings slapped against Jim and the others. The beatings felt like pin pricks against their bare skin.
A couple of critters landed on Jim's back, walked across it, and took off flying again. Another one actually did land on his head, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he thought the thin, paper-like wings might become entangled in his hair.
He batted the thing away with the back of his hand, hitting it hard enough that he broke the delicate wings and crushed the small, fuzzy body.
Then it was over. As quickly as the bats had attacked, they relocated to another part of the cave.
"Is everyone okay?” Timothy asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine.” Jim's knees popped as he stood. The bat that landed on his head was dead at his feet, but he still felt where its tiny claws scratched at his scalp like the teeth of a comb.
"I'm okay,” Jarvis replied.
"Me too ... I think.” Cal's cheek burned and when he touched it, his fingers came away tinged with blood. He had either scratched himself as he ducked out
of harm's way, or one of those bastards had taken a chunk out of him.
Cal pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the wound.
"How much further is it, Reverend?” Jarvis asked.
Timothy looked at them sheepishly. “I don't know. I don't remember the cave being this big last time. We should've been there by now. I think we might be lost."
* * * *
Patrons inside the Stumble Inn were unaware of what was happening beyond the four walls of the tavern.
Chester, the part-time bartender, was busy pouring beers for a half dozen regulars. He had a hard time keeping up with demand. Everyone in the joint was boozing like there was no tomorrow. And they were ornery. Chester couldn't remember the last time he'd served such an ill-tempered bunch.
Strains of an old Bob Dylan song filtered from the jukebox—one that still played records, not CD's—and a couple danced clumsily to the offbeat melody.
Daily's gang was in the back, drinking and shooting pool. They'd been at the bar since it opened. By two o'clock, they'd all be wasted.
A slew of obscenities came from the back, followed by the clap of a pool stick being thrown to the floor.
"Whatdaya fuckin’ mean, ‘the shot don't fuckin’ count'?” Johnny Quest snarled. Although he shared his name with a cartoon character, the straw-yellow hair was the only thing they had in common. The living Johnny wore black, plastic-framed glasses held together by a piece of adhesive tape across the bridge and smoked cheap dime store cigars that made his breath smell like dogshit on a hot summer day.
"'Cause ya didn't call the pocket, asshole,” Kevin Kane answered. Daily's body was barely cold and Kevin had already taken over as the gang's leader. “You know it don't count unless you call the pocket."
"Hey, Chester,” Johnny hollered. “You think that shot should count?"
"I don't hear nothin'. That's between you boys."
"Pussy."
"Told ya.” Kevin grinned. With a missing front tooth (he lost it last week when he and some of the boys got into a scuffle Friday night), he looked a lot like the guy on the cover of Mad Magazine.