The space was not big, not big at all. But it seemed huge because the wall on the far side of the room was home to a giant hole.
Looking at the aperture, Patrick’s expression revealed a surprised kind of bewilderment. It seemed safe to say––at least in his eyes––that the giant creature had chewed its way through the wall. When he looked beyond the opening he could see another hole in the far wall of that room too. The creature, he assumed, had been busy.
There was a door on his left. He walked past without looking at it, eager to see the next room. He stepped through the hole in the wall. The room, like the one before it, was mostly empty. There were a few boxes stacked in a corner and debris at his feet, but that was about all.
More gunshots blasted.
Why the empty rooms? he wondered, approaching the next hole.
Then he noticed a hole in the ceiling, every bit as big as the first two. He thought about the creature, about the crates in the big room––the unopened crates.
“They were just moving in,” he whispered. And with that Pat closed his eyes, creating a full-blown scenario inside his mind:
A strange and wealthy apocalypse-fearing eccentric built the shelter and loaded it with army supplies. After the supplies were delivered, the movers found themselves face to face with a giant bug and left the shelter in a hurry. The eccentric, perhaps named Rockefeller, complained because the shelter had not yet been organized the way he wanted it. The movers didn’t care. They were not going back down and that was final. Neither threats of law suites nor increased wages could convince the men otherwise. Finally Mr. Rockefeller reached into his pocket deeper than he thought he should. He said that he’d pay fifty thousand to any man willing to finish the job. It was a lot of money, and the men found themselves weighing the pros and the cons. Some said money means nothing if you are not alive to use it. Others discovered that fifty thousand was a number worth risking your neck over. After the deal had been negotiated and money exchanged hands, eight men returned to finish the job. Several crates were opened. Several items were placed in different rooms. Then things turned bad. The beast returned and it wasn’t alone. The men found themselves surrounded. One man escaped while the others died. Rockefeller learned his lesson and built a house on top of the shelter, concealing the fact that it existed. The one remaining man––
Patrick opened his eyes and put a hand to his mouth. “The men were surrounded?”
There’s more than one of them, he thought. There has to be.
He didn’t know if his scenario was the least bit accurate but he knew one thing for sure: animals procreate; it takes two to tango.
He looked down.
There was a giant hole in the floor, lost in shadow but there. It was seven feet in diameter and looked like something a four thousand pound groundhog would have dug if it could chew through concrete.
Pat stepped away from the hole with a new scenario brewing.
Rockefeller stumbled upon something resembling a gigantic anthill beneath the earth but he didn’t know it. He built the bomb shelter and one of those creatures dug its way inside. But it wasn’t alone. Oh no. It was never alone. There are hundreds of those creatures, maybe thousands of them. And, and––
Thinking changed gears, becoming a mental question and answer debate inside his mind: Why had the creatures not surfaced until now? Man invaded their space, and keep this in mind Einstein––they didn’t surface; we came to them. But why had the species not been discovered before? Simple. Most animals have a native land, and many animals are on the brink of extinction. This might be the only place on the planet that this species exists.
Pat stepped forward and looked down. He couldn’t see much, but he had the feeling that his little anthill scenario was right on the money.
An anthill, he thought, an anthill for giant, mutant ants. Damn.
Five gunshots blasted within a matter of seconds.
He turned his head left; there was a door. He hadn’t noticed it before but he noticed it now, and he had a pretty good idea where the door would lead him. He approached it and put a hand on the knob. Doing so caused enough pain that his eyes squinted and his nose wrinkled. He turned the knob as much as he could.
It was locked.
Of course it was locked. It was locked a few minutes ago and it was locked now, but things were different now, because now he could unlock it.
Pat turned a latch and unlocked the door. He opened the door and was right where he knew he’d be: in the hallway. On his left was the hole he created in the wall. On his right was the big room with the cocoons. He could see the creature there, facing the opposite direction. It had several legs raised high in the air. He assumed the beast was being shot at.
This is my best time for escape, he decided.
He ran towards the beast, screaming, “Here I come! Don’t shoot me, whoever you are! I’m alive and I’m coming out of the hallway! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
And that’s when he heard Daniel shouting…
23
“Patrick? Is that you?”
Pat came running out from behind the creature with his hands in the air and his eyes wide with fright. He said, “Yes! It’s me! It’s me! Don’t shoot!”
The creature turned.
Daniel fired another shot.
Pat figured he’d be hit. When he realized the gun wasn’t pointed in his direction a moment of serenity washed him like sunshine.
The feeling didn’t last.
Crabs were everywhere. Some were scuttling towards him; some were sprinting away. He had no idea the cocoons would hatch so quickly, but they did. He looked towards the ceiling and saw something Daniel hadn’t: a big cocoon with crab-critters pouring out of it.
As Pat made his way towards Daniel, who was still sitting on the ground, he punted a crab like a football. The crab split into several pieces. White and red pussy goo splashed up his leg and a chunk of meat soared through the air as something resembling spray cheese squirted against the floor.
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s get out of here!” Pat said, offering Daniel a hand.
Daniel grabbed the outstretched hand. He squeezed it tight and hauled himself off the ground.
Pat screamed; he had forgotten how mangled his hands were. They hurt so much. He couldn’t be doing things like that; he had to be more careful.
“What’s wrong?”
With both arms held out in front of him, and blood dripping from his fingertips, Pat said, “My hands.”
Daniel snatched a quick glimpse and pointed his gun at the big creature. It was backing away, giving them room. Two crab-critters flew past. A damp smell followed. “We can’t get up the ladder, and I’m almost out of bullets.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause I’ve been using them.”
Pat raised his knee to his waist and stomped another enemy. Guts splashed up his leg. “No, you idiot. I mean why can’t we use the ladder?”
“Oh. Those things are all over it.”
Pat crushed another crab and kicked a different one a second later.
Daniel saw what Patrick was doing and liked what he saw. He lifted a leg high and stomped on one too. White puss and red gore squeezed out of the creature’s side like toothpaste. A second later he squished another, surprised to have it pop like a balloon.
Killing them was a sick form of fun, he realized; the crabs had no bones. They were like insects that way, and when you stomped on them they turned into twitching, bloodstained, mush. He wished he had of known earlier; he could have saved his bullets and used them on the big guy.
“Listen,” Pat said, backing away from the big mama. He stomped on another critter with his eyes growing wide and intense. “We can’t stay here, we have to get out. These little guys might grow up to be big and strong, but right now we can handle them. And look up there!”
He pointed towards the ceiling. Blood dripped from his finger.
Anot
her winged critter flew past.
Daniel took his eyes off big momma and looked at Pat’s damaged hands. After making a mental note of how bad they were, he looked up. There were a least seventy-five crabs crawling around on the ceiling.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“Holy shit is right. This place isn’t getting better; it’s getting worse. And I found great big hole in the ground. I truly believe there’s more than one of these big guys. I think there’s a whole bunch of them.”
“Really?”
Pat killed another small creature; innards squirted onto his sock. “Do you think these little ones are done growing… yes or no?”
Dan, moving away from big mama, felt his shoulders slump. “Jesus.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”
Dan didn’t want to be negative about everything; he wanted to be positive. Pat was being positive and his hands looked like they had been caught in a blender. He said, “Crawling up the ladder is going to be tough, so be ready.”
Without missing a beat, Pat said, “I know it’ll be tough, but we have no choice.”
Big momma bolted towards them and Daniel shot it again. The beast stopped on a dime and backed away; it didn’t like getting shot and was smart enough to know it.
“That was it,” Dan said.
“What?”
“My last bullet.”
A sigh. “Then let’s get the hell out of here,” Pat said. “Before it’s too late.”
Stomping another crab, Daniel agreed.
24
Nicolas Nehalem placed the shotgun into his gun rack next to two riffles and another shotgun. Then he put the kettle on, washed a few dishes, wiped the counter down, swept the kitchen floor, and turned his boiling water into a fresh cup of lemon tea. Between sips he ate a banana, dissected the peeling into four pieces, and flushed them down the toilet, one piece at a time. After the water in the toilet bowl had settled he flushed the toilet again––just to make sure––and he took his tea to the back porch. There he released an embellished sounding sigh.
Nicolas enjoyed gazing across his little piece of Cloven Lake with a tea in his hand; it made him feel nice. It reminded him of his mother and the happy days he had spent with her before she disappeared, before his father had been convicted of killing her.
The area in front of Nicolas’ place was marshland for the most part, and not the type of place people visited for long periods of time. Some nights the bugs were so bad that you’d get bitten every few seconds and after ten minutes you’d look like you had a case of the measles. The marsh was the reason he had no neighbors, the only reason. That wasn’t a bad thing, just a truthful one.
Having no neighbors was fine with Nicolas. In fact, he quite liked it.
In his humble, questionable, and often psychotic option, the marsh was doing right by him. It was a good place to put things that needed to be put away.
Crickets sang and frogs croaked. A squawking crow flew overhead and Nicolas looked up wondering where it was going and what it was doing and how long it would take to get there. It was too dark for him to see the bird but he ignored the obvious and looked up anyways.
Darkness and stars blanketed the sky in a 1000:1 ratio.
Once his cup of tea was nearly empty he considered going for a late night swim in the marsh. He did that from time to time when things were bothering him. He had to be careful though; there were snapping turtles in there. There were snakes and leaches too. Tonight he considered risking it. He had a whole cluster of items grinding his mind into a sharpened point; his thoughts were making him antsy.
A swim might be nice.
He killed people and left them on the road.
It was a bad move, one he had never done before.
So now what? Should he go back and deal with the mess or pretend nothing happened and enjoy a nice brisk swim?
He considered marching over to the police station and telling the authorities that he’s was just a regular Joe––a normal guy with no interest in killing innocent people or turning his neighbors into his own personal possessions. But would they buy it? That was the question in the forefront of his mind, as noticeable as an alligator in a daycare. Would the authorities buy it?
The police would come knocking before long, he knew. There was no use in denying it; they would come knocking for sure. Probably check every house in town, too. So what should he do?
He considered running. That was an option. That was always an option. He had done it once before, but should he do it again?
No, he thought. I don’t want to run away. This is my town. Mine.
And what about Cameron, where was she? Where’d she go?
Nicolas slapped a fly from his arm and went back inside. He finished his tea and washed out the cup. After returning the cup to the cupboard he went into his bedroom and opened a drawer. Inside the drawer were a handful of bullets and a loaded Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver. It had a four-inch barrel, a royal blue finish, smooth trigger pull, and a tight cylinder lock up. It was one of the finest guns Colt ever created and the only handgun Nicolas owned.
Nicolas put some bullets into his front pocket and tossed the gun in a backpack. He wore the bag like a schoolboy and put a baseball hat onto his head to complete the look. The hat was black and it said: New York Yankees. He nabbed it from a kid he pushed in front of a subway train years earlier. It was a tad small for his head, but that was okay. He liked the way it looked.
Nicolas entered a bedroom. It was filled with all kinds of stuff. Tools, mostly. He grabbed a cordless drill from inside a toolbox and put a nice fat drill-bit in it. He licked his teeth and smacked his lips together.
Stepping outside, he started to chuckle.
This was going to be good.
25
“Hey,” he said, with a tough sounding voice. “Hey... you in there!” He pounded an open hand against the trunk of the car. “You still with me?”
He heard the fat woman say, “Yeah.”
Nicolas didn’t know Beth was curled up into the best striking pose she could manage. Or that she had a tire iron in her hands and she planned on smashing him in the face with it as soon as he opened the trunk. If he had known her intentions he might have done things differently. Then again, he might not have. He was unpredictable that way. His thoughts changed direction like the wind.
“I want to talk to you about your friend Cameron,” he said. “And I’ve got something for you.”
Beth gripped the tire iron even tighter. “Okay. I’m ready to come out now.”
“You ready for what I’ve got?”
“Yep.”
“You sure?”
Just open the trunk, you asshole, Beth thought. Yeah, I’m ready all right. I’m ready to knock your block off as soon as this trunk opens.
“Alright then,” Nicolas said, after a moment. “Here it is!”
He pulled on the drill’s trigger and started drilling into the trunk.
Beth screamed. She didn’t mean to scream, or want to scream, but she had been burdened with a momentary loss of bodily control. The sound of the drill chewing its way into the car caught her by surprise causing a scream to sneak from her body like a burp after a large swig of Coke.
Laughing, Nicolas pushed hard on the drill. Sparks flew and shavings appeared around the spinning bit, growing into something that resembled a metal anthill.
Beneath the drill, Beth regained her wits. She had a pretty good idea where the bit would come through; she could feel the weight upon her shoulder. She had to move. That seemed to be a fact. If she didn’t move into a different position that sharp, twirling cylinder was going to zip its way into her arm, and what that would feel like she didn’t want to know.
She dropped the tire iron, placed her open hands in front of her body and pushed as hard as she was able, into the corpse. Muscles bulged and her face curled up like a fist. Flies started buzzing and maggots crawled actively. Until that moment Beth didn’t think she had any room to m
ove. Turned out she had lots of it if she was willing to squeeze into Pauline’s rotting shell and ignore the fact that doing such a thing made her want to be sick.
Beth kept pushing.
The drill bit pierced the metal and came into the trunk like a bullet, slamming into her extended arm. A light mist of blood sprayed her face and chest. She yanked her arm out of the way and the drill bit carved a groove into her muscle.
She was screaming again, screaming and in serious pain.
She heard someone say, “I’LL KILL YOU, YOU ROTTEN MOTHER-FUCKING PRICK! I’LL KILL YOU!” The voice turned out to be her own.
Nicolas slammed the drill up and down and few times. He was laughing and smiling and having a great time. He didn’t know if he was hitting Beth or missing her completely; didn’t care either. This was the best, the absolute best. Like a linebacker tackling a quarterback and loving it, this was a sport to him. He never thought of it that way, but he felt it. After he pulled the drill from the car he laughed until tears rolled down his face.
“Oh that’s priceless!” he said, allowing the drill to die in his hand. “That’s completely priceless! I’ll kill you; I’ll kill you… ha-ha! Lady, you’re too much!”
Nicolas stepped away from the car and put the drill on the front porch, still laughing and grinning. Eyes, wet with tears of joy, were wiped clean as he walked down the driveway and along Stone Crescent. He was having quite a day. It was a strange one, and he may have put himself into a big heap of trouble, but was quite a day nonetheless. It seemed obvious to him that the best type of fun was the dangerous kind. Living on the edge. How much fun would it be to turn things up a notch?
Terror Town Page 19