by Scott Hale
Connor dropped his arms, shrugged. He could’ve sworn he felt something crawling inside his veins.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“From who? My readers?” Connor scratched his arm like a junkie, and wished for a belt to tie off the annoyance.
Herbert North shook his head. “Monsters talk, too. There’s a lot of dark places in Bedlam. You’ve shone too much light on them.” He drew a breath. “Connor, they were coming for you.”
In one overwhelming second, Connor revisited every strange occurrence from the past two weeks: the creaks outside his room, the graveyard smell of his pillow, the fleeting shadows around every street corner. There had been whispers, too; cold and distant exchanges, purposeful but meandering, like two scientists observing a subject—or two hunters observing prey.
“That machete of yours, Camazotz’s fang… there isn’t much it can’t stop.” He grabbed two flashlights and, with the shotgun in hand, slammed the trunk shut. “I saw Seth in you and decided a warning wasn’t enough. If I’m wrong and this line of work isn’t your calling, at least I can sleep easy at night knowing you’ve got something to defend yourself with. A lot of people in the world… they like to say they know what’s going on. But most don’t. And most don’t want to actually know. And we don’t want to flat out tell them either. Destroying that ignorance can be almost as bad as taking a life. Scarlet was… eh, yeah. Yeah.”
Again, Connor took up the machete, but his blood was safe for its hunger had been sated. “Was I adopted? Are you my dad?”
Herbert North shook his head and laughed. He handed a flashlight to Connor. “Let’s go. Tired of standing here in the rain like we’re about to make out.”
“Good thing you’re not my dad, then.”
“Humor is my coping mechanism, too,” Herbert admitted as they marched towards the front door. “Let that blade feed on your blood every two weeks and you won’t have a problem.”
Connor’s arm had stopped itching, most likely because the curse had finally found a warm place to lie in wait. “You couldn’t have given me something a little less evil?”
“Stop whining. It’s not like you don’t have an endless supply of the red stuff. I’m not asking you to pump quarters into it.”
By the time they reached the front door, all the light had left the world.
Grabbing the doorknob, Herbert said, “Don’t wander off. When we talk, we look each other in the eyes; otherwise, you can’t be certain who’s speaking.”
“Bullets will work?” Connor took a step back as Herbert slowly opened the door. “It’s unlocked?”
“It’s made of flesh and blood. And of course it’s unlocked. It’s expecting us.”
Eerie—that was how Connor would describe the inside of the Zdanowiczs’ house in Issue 7—if he survived the night. There was nothing overtly sinister about the place, but Connor knew that homes, like parasites, were quick to perish without the complicated, little hosts upon which they depended.
Connor noted how the walls had turned ashen and buckled, as though the house were collapsing in upon itself, the want of rot having finally got its way. His eyes went to the floor and followed the scratches that ran across it, from where someone’s nails had clamped down to the point where they’d given up. He took his first breath since entering and gulped the heavy, musty odor that had been sealed away until now—a foul perfume of dashed hopes and human suffering.
“Downstairs first,” Herbert North said, finally breaking the silence. He turned on the flashlight and shone it on the staircase in front of them.
Connor cringed as the light landed on the bottom step, where a dark stain splattered the wood. “Good idea,” he said, remembering the step had been where Anika Zdanowicz, the mother, had been found shoved inside herself. “It’s time to tell me what we’re up against.”
“Martin Zdanowicz was a businessman. He traveled a lot and always brought something back from where he’d been,” Herbert said, turning them away from the foyer, down a hallway. “Take a guess what he brought back the last time.”
“Herpes?” Connor’s voice echoed down the hall. Herp, herp, herp, herp.
“That’s it. We’re fighting a herpes monster,” Herbert said sarcastically, pausing for a moment as they passed the kitchen to their right. “No, an antique.”
He moved his light across the dinner table, to the old clock in the corner now permanently stopped at 7:45. “You know why people’s clocks always stop when something supernatural happens?”
Connor shook his head.
“They don’t. They’re just too stupid to fix the damn things when they break. Come on.”
“Antique? What kind of antique? What was wrong with it?”
Connor followed Herbert as they veered into the living room, where the bay windows sat smeared in saliva. The air here felt dense, as though each particle was working in unison to keep the intruders out. His body tensed—Is it still here?—and he raised the machete up, like the slashers of old.
“A necklace. From an estate sale in England. The Ashcroft estate,” Herbert said, lifting his shotgun up as though he’d spotted something.
A peal of thunder pummeled the house.
“The same Amon Ashcroft?” Connor asked.
A streak of lightning lit up the living room.
For now, they were the only two things standing in it.
“The exact same. That family has a long history that would be better told at a different time. There are several necklaces. I have one.” Instinctively, he started to scratch at the scar on his neck. “Martin Zdanowicz picked up one in an antique shop on the West Coast. The store owner was saving it for me, until he got spooked and Martin passed through and made him an offer.”
“He wanted it that bad?”
Connor looked at the belongings left behind—the television, sofa, grandfather clock, and bookshelves… objects which even the most repugnant of relatives and auctioneers would cart off with glee—and wondered why they still remained.
“I doubt it,” Herbert said, going to his knee and shining the light under the coffee table. “But objects like that have a tendency of getting inside you.”
Together, they marched forward like anxious soldiers in a contested war zone. Connor waved the flashlight across the room and then brought it to rest on the glass case on the back wall. Inside, there were twenty or so black-eyed dolls, each with their own unique embellishments and name placards. Standing there, with their blank gazes and pallid skin, they looked like dead children that had been turned into trophies, to showcase their parents’ parenting skills.
“These things have always creeped me the fuck out,” Connor said. “My grandpa would buy me stuffed animals all the time when was little. I used to love them. I’d stack them up on my bed and use them for pillows. Then, one day, I actually looked at their eyes and… god damn. The emptiness got to me. Felt like I’d seen something. Like I’d caught whatever was inside, and it knew I’d seen it.”
Herbert cleared his throat and turned away from the case. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but there’s a doll missing.”
“Fuck off, mate.”
“This thing we’re hunting,” Herbert said, changing the subject, “is bound to the necklace. Like a guardian. Martin Zdanowicz must’ve done something to coax it out.”
Cold air blew against the back of Connor’s neck. He slowly turned around, but found nothing. “What’s the necklace for?”
“A ritual, I think, to awaken something. I’ve never seen it done, but that’s my guess.”
“Kill the guardian, grab the necklace, and go? That the plan?”
Herbert North laughed. “Usually is.”
They doubled back the way they’d come and gave the kitchen a second look. The tiled floor was sticky, dirtied by the numerous feet that had trampled it for weeks after the murders. Cabinets, drawers, and pantries hung open, their innards pilfered for the unlikeliest of clues. The refrigerator sat silently, no longer humming that
drowsy drone that greets all hungry sleepwalkers at the end of their midnight trek.
Cautiously, Connor went to the sink, where short, stiff curtains had been pulled across the small window above it to hide from prying eyes what had happened in here. He looked inside the sink, shone the flashlight down its metal throat. Something glowed red in the teeth of the disposal, and he backed away. The police had missed a piece of five-year-old Kelly Zdanowicz, who’d been found in the sink, a soupy mixture of blood, bone, and dish soap.
“What do you think?” Herbert asked.
Connor felt two fingers tapping on his shoulder. He faced Herbert, but he was halfway across the room. Heart beating in his chest, he said, “I’m thinking it might be best to change some of the details to avoid an outrage. I don’t want ‘Black Occult Macabre’ to look like a tabloid.”
Herbert shrugged as he continued to search the kitchen, shoving the barrel of the shotgun into every hiding place. “Do you hear that?” he asked, suddenly stopping.
Connor cocked his head and listened for sounds beyond the rain. He leant forward, towards the second hallway that led deeper into the house. The noises were coming from there, from the doorway at the hall’s midpoint that—he trained the flashlight on it—led into the basement. It sounded like footsteps over splintering wood, like fingertips over metal rungs. Then, he heard something else. He crouched down, pointed the machete at the vent register beside his foot. It sounded as though something were tumbling through the vent, end over end, wet smack into hard thump. And more: a pounding; a rhythmic throbbing that increased in volume with every passing second—a hypnotizing music best suited for occasions populated by hooded figures and sacrificial altars.
Connor tried to isolate the thudding notes, afraid that he’d mistaken them for his own heartbeat, but the focus only pulled him deeper into the chorus. He found himself feeling faint as an ocean of white noise crashed against the shore of his mind, stabbing jagged wave after jagged wave into the backs of his eyes. His jaw went slack and all the arteries and veins in his face tightened until he was certain they would snap. Something wanted his skin, and the only way to have it was to get him out of it.
“It’s coming from the basement,” Herbert said matter-of-factly.
Connor exhaled slowly and shook off the seduction. “Of course it is.”
“Want to check upstairs first?”
Connor nodded. “Hell yes.”
Before tonight, Connor had already decided on the direction “Black Occult Macabre Vol. 1 Issue 7” would take. However, after learning what he had from Herbert North, his stories concerning possession and cannibal morticians didn’t compare. Would he have to change the names? Any Bedlamite who knew anything about anything would immediately make the connection. But should he really be worrying about that? Connor was now privy to things most only discovered after the straightjacket went on. The implications were staggering. He felt compelled to make good on the old man’s revelations, but how? Would the magazine really be enough? No, of course it wouldn’t. Just as horror had consumed him all his life, so, too, would his newfound purpose. He was ready for it, he thought as they headed back towards the staircase, until he wouldn’t be; until that moment when the claws came out and the teeth sank in, and the only cut that came wasn’t to another scene, but black nothingness.
As they hoofed it to the second floor, Connor turned around and caught a glimpse of Bedlam through the window above the front door. The storm had turned savage, and in its ceaseless savagery, it had drained the power from the town. Standing there, machete tip grinding into the step, he half-expected the Zdanowicz house to be torn from its foundations and hurled into the thick of Maidenwood. If nothing else, the uprooting would at least put an end to this terrifying game of hide-and-seek with the killer inside it.
“We’ll start there,” Herbert said, pointing the flashlight down the hall ahead. “The children’s rooms.” He stepped onto the second floor.
Connor ran his hand along the banister, pulling it back as it brushed through a spider web. “If this thing catches us—”
“Got to name it to know it,” Herbert said, watching Connor shake the desiccated flies and pill bugs from his fingers.
“What’s the necklace look like?” Connor stepped onto the second floor and, for a moment, his knees gave out, as though something had hit them from behind.
“Silver, with a red gem inside a tangle of worms… or snakes… or roots. Hard to say when you’ve only seen one and no one else is talking about them.”
“We’ll call the monster ‘Argento,’ then.”
Herbert North scratched his neck and snorted. “God damn you’re a geek.”
He blushed. “What? It’s clever. Don’t—”
Connor woke up sprawled across the staircase. His mouth tasted like a grease trap—a gagging combination of old food, mildew, and expired dairy. Immediately, he vomited, leaving a puddle of meatballs and pasta for the police to find if they ever returned here. His head ached, as though something had been scratching at the inside of his skull, trying to work its way out.
“Ugh, fuck,” he said, rolling into his own throw-up as he pulled himself along the stairs. He grabbed the machete and flashlight at the top. “Herbert?” He’d meant to shout, but his voice refused to go much higher than a whisper.
I need an adult, he thought, suddenly remembering the time at the mall when his mother had gone down the escalator without him. To his five-year-old mind, it had been the greatest of betrayals.
“Her-bert?” he panted, slowly coming to his feet. The flashlight started to flicker. How long was I out? He checked his cell phone: 11:50 pm. That can’t be… We got here at seven or eight. “Herbert, where are you?”
Connor grabbed the flashlight and the machete—feast; you can have as much as you want—and went ahead to the children’s rooms. What had happened? The flashlight flickered with every step he took. He rubbed out his mouth with the cleanest part of his shirt. He’d been attacked but why’d the Argento spare him? The floor creaked and moaned, as though each board sat atop a grave. Where was Herbert? He couldn’t do this, wouldn’t do this on his own.
Thunder boomed outside, sounding as though a boulder had been released in the house. Connor fell against the wall, beads of sweat burning his eyes. “Herbert?” he tried again, not wanting to brave the rooms of Kelly and Brian Zdanowicz alone. They’d found Kelly downstairs in the sink, but eight-year-old Brian had died in his room, with his entrails hanging from the ceiling fan, like streams of confetti.
“Herbert?”
“Get your ass away from there… Get your ass away from there.” The words were guttural, forced, as though they were being dredged out of the speaker’s throat. Connor clung to the wall as he slid down it. Herbert?
“Get your… get your… away from there. Get your ass from your ass away from there.” As he crept closer to the room—Brian’s, he assumed from the sport’s posters he saw through the crack in the door—he knew he’d found Herbert. The hell is wrong with him?
“Get your get your ass from your from your,” the old man rattled on.
Connor took a deep breath. He’d never meant to live the life he loved. Scaring up his last bit of bravery, he tightened his grip on the machete and snuck into the room.
Herbert was on the ground, kneeling before the shadowy creature he’d come to kill and now appeared to worship. The Argento had the old man’s head in its hands, and its thumbs in his eyes. No blood was spilt or screams wasted as the gangling monstrosity pushed its fingers further into each cavity. Knuckle-deep, the Argento opened its mouth and let loose its tongue over the rows of teeth inside. The tongue draped over Herbert’s shoulder, the dripping, swollen muscle weighing heavily upon him, and then, as the old man continued to ramble like the lobotomized, snaked upward and forced its way down his scarred throat.
Connor couldn’t take it anymore. He ran into the room, nearly tripping over a stack of video games, and swung the machete. The Argento twisted, its sil
ver eyes flashing hell light. The blade screeched as it tore through the air. It caught the creature’s arm, and like old scissors through paper, cut across the beast jaggedly.
The Argento released Herbert as its arm fell to the ground and exploded in a cloud of dust. It looked at Connor, taking the pain in silence, and then, as though pulled by a rope, shot upward into the shadows on the ceiling.
“No, no, no,” Connor said.
He caught sight of Herbert’s shotgun and flashlight and dove for them. Trading his gear for the old man’s, he whipped around, turned the light on, and fired the gun into the shadows. Plaster and paint showered the room as he pumped pellets into the ceiling. Each blast was deafening, blinding; he’d never fired a gun before. But as Connor carved away the Zdanowicz house, feeling the rock of each shot in his bones, he could see the appeal. It put a barrier between him and the beast—a few seconds of reprieve from the pants-shitting fear that would find him when the chamber ran dry.
Two shells later and Connor was fair game again. Sluggish from the adrenaline high, he dropped the shotgun and took up Camazotz’s fang. He scooted across the floor until he managed to come to his feet. The flashlight shook in his hand; its beam darted across the room every time he tried to train it on something.
“It’s gone, Terminator,” Herbert mumbled from the floor, each word a puff of chalky dust off his lips. “It got what it wanted.”
“Herbert? How are you…?” Connor checked the ceiling: He could see the attic through the wreckage, but there was no sign of the creature.
“It imitated you,” Herbert said, coughing as he sat up. “Couldn’t kill me until it got in my mind first. Wanted to… fuck.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.
“It wanted to have sex with you?”
“Story of my life. Oh, god.” Herbert stood, punched himself in the side of the head. “Didn’t see it wasn’t really you until it was too late. What time is it? Felt like I was fighting that thing off for ages until it finally broke in.”
Connor checked his phone. “Almost midnight. Your eyes, man.”