by Brian Hodge
"You okay, Baby?" her daddy asked, pulling her close and scruffing her hair.
She looked up at him and smiled bravely. She knew how worried he always was about money and things, but she really was enjoying this little emergency. As long as the oilman knew he could fix the furnace, it was a fun adventure just being down here with him. She was about to tell him that when a sudden noise made her jump. She first thought that it was the oilman, slamming the door behind him as he went outside, but she immediately realized that the sound—a faint, scratching rasp—had come from the wall behind the furnace.
"Did you—?" she started to say, then stopped herself.
"Did I what?" her daddy asked following a brief silence.
Holly looked at her daddy and ran her teeth over her lower lip.
"Oh, nothing," she said, shaking her head and letting her gaze slide past him to the furnace. "I just—"
"Maybe you should run upstairs and see how your momma's doing," her daddy suggested. He was using that calm voice he used when he wanted her to behave, but Holly could hear an edge of nervousness behind it.
"No. I wanna stay here with you," she said, trying not to sound whiny.
Her daddy's smile widened as he pulled her close to him. Because of the cold, his hug wasn't as warm as it usually was, but she reached her arms around his waist and held on tightly. She was about to tell him how much she loved him when the dull, scraping sound was repeated, louder this time.
Holly looked at the wall behind the furnace, then up at her daddy.
"Daddy. What was that?" she asked.
A cold, tingly rush ran up her back, but she tried not to let it show. She wanted her daddy to know that she was a brave girl and that she could handle whatever was going on.
Holly wasn't sure if her daddy had heard the sound or not, but it had been clear enough to her, and she was certain that it had come from the wall behind the cold, silent furnace.
"I dunno, baby," her daddy said as his eyes twitched back and forth, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Stacked against the wall was a large dust-covered pile of junk—numerous cardboard boxes, rusty tools, old books and magazines, coils of frayed rope and electrical wire, half-empty cans of paint, and an assortment of other useless stuff that her momma had said should have been carted off to the dump years ago but which had accumulated down here instead.
Her daddy took a breath and held it as he leaned forward and scanned the junk pile. Holly was thinking that something must have shifted in the pile. She was afraid it might be a mouse or maybe even a rat scrambling for cover because of all the racket down here in the cellar.
"You wanna run upstairs and get Daddy a flashlight?" her daddy asked
For a moment, Holly couldn't move. She didn't hear any trace of nervousness in his voice, but she stood there, staring at the deep shadows cast by the junk pile. The darkness looked like ink. Chunks of cement and dust covered the floor by the pile. All Holly could think was, if her daddy looked behind there, he'd probably find a rat's nest or something.
But she didn't have to be asked twice. Anxious to please her daddy, she turned and dashed upstairs. The cellar steps creaked and snapped under her feet, and halfway up the stairs she had the sudden frightening feeling that something was chasing after her. That fear propelled her even faster up the stairs until she reached the relative safety of the kitchen. In a matter of seconds she rifled through some cabinets and drawers until she found the flashlight.
"Got it!" she yelled, closing her hand on it.
"What have you got?" her mother shouted from the living room.
"Nothing," Holly replied as she raced back down the cellar stairs and over to her daddy. Smiling, she held the flashlight out to him. He scruffed her hair again and thanked her as he flicked the switch and directed the beam of light over to the junk pile.
"Hmm. I'm surprised the batteries are still good," her daddy muttered as the weak, yellow beam wavered back and forth across the junk. The oval of light rippled along the irregular surfaces, casting sharply defined shadows that shifted from left to right as her daddy moved a bit closer.
"See anything?" Holly asked. Her voice was edged with anticipation, and she moved forward in step with her daddy just to stay close to him. As nervous as she was, she wanted to be brave, and she knew she was safe as long as her daddy was around.
Holding the flashlight in his right hand—his swinging hand, she thought, like maybe he thinks he might see something and have to whack it!—her daddy stepped up close to the pile.
"Here," he said, holding the flashlight out to her. "Hold this for me, will you?"
Holly took the light and tried to keep it steady as her daddy started removing a few boxes from the top of the pile, placing them to one side. The pile was taller than Holly, and it looked like it might fall over on her, but her daddy moved everything slowly and carefully so nothing would fall. Clouds of dust swirled up into the air, and a dry, stinging sensation reached deep into her nose and throat, almost gagging her.
Holly stayed close behind her daddy, the fingers of one hand hooked protectively through his belt-loop. The dust bothered her, but she wriggled her nose back and forth, trying hard not to sneeze.
Her daddy had moved five or six boxes when they heard the upstairs door open and then slam shut. Craning her head around, Holly watched the cellar stairs as a large shadow loomed in the doorway. She didn't feel much relief when she recognized the scary oilman's round, bulky silhouette.
The stairs snapped and creaked loudly as the oilman started down, all the while whistling a nearly tuneless song. Holly's eyes widened as she watched him approach.
"Yup. Had one in the truck after all."
Phil sniffed as he raised his hand to show the small cardboard box he was carrying. He skinned his snow-flecked woolen hat off and used it to wipe the moisture from his forehead. "Took a bit of lookin' 'round, but still, s'quicker 'n if I had to drive all the way back to the shop."
"Uh-huh," her daddy said. He seemed suddenly embarrassed to be pawing through the junk pile and stepped back. Holly aimed the flashlight beam down at the cement floor.
"It was snowing like a bastard," Phil said, "but now it seems to be lettin' up a bit. Flakes are getting bigger." He knelt beside his toolbox and sorted through the tools until he found what he was looking for and then, with a screwdriver and a small wrench in hand, set to work.
Still hanging onto her daddy's belt-loop, Holly did her best to keep her daddy between her and the oilman, but she was curious and wanted to see what he was doing. She watched in silence as the oilman worked, muttering curses under his breath whenever a screw or bolt was particularly unyielding. All the while, though, Holly kept shifting her gaze to the pile of rubbish by the wall. She wasn't sure, but once or twice she thought she heard faint scratching sounds masked by the clanging and banging sounds the oilman was making. She was tempted to snap on the flashlight to see if she could catch any hint of motion in the shadows but decided not to if only because she didn't want her daddy to know how nervous she was. If he did, he would send her upstairs for sure.
After ten or fifteen minutes, Phil let out a loud satisfied sigh.
"Here 'tis," he said, holding up what Holly guessed was the intake valve for her daddy to see. "This here's your culprit."
He studied it from several angles before casually tossing it on top of the tools in his toolbox. Then he shook the new intake valve out of the box and, still whistling, set to work replacing it.
Holly watched all of this with interest. She had no idea—and could care less—what the man was doing, just as long as the furnace started running before dawn, and she and her daddy could go back upstairs. Her daddy had said something about wanting to make sure the water pipes didn't freeze, and Holly could just imagine the argument he and her momma would have if that ever happened.
"Christ on a cross, it's getting cold" her daddy whispered as he shivered and hugged himself and bounced on his toes.
"Dadd
y. You shouldn't swear," Holly said, tugging at his arm. She had heard worse—much worse when her momma and daddy argued, and she didn't like it even when her friends at school swore to try to impress each other.
Looking surprised that he had spoken aloud, her daddy glanced at her and then, scooching down, turned her around so she was facing him. His smile widened, looking for real, now, as he pulled her close and gave her a big hug. Holly hugged him back, feeling the warmth of his breath against her neck, but suddenly her body stiffened. An instant later, a deep trembling ran through her. Her daddy drew back and looked her in the eyes.
"Baby...? What is it?" he asked.
Holly knew her face must be as white as paper. Her eyes were wide and staring, and her mouth hung open. She was trying to say something but couldn't get the words out. Her thin lips barely moved.
"Holly?" her daddy said, his voice rising with concern.
Very slowly, Holly raised her hand and pointed to something behind him. As her daddy turned to look, a cold prickling sensation ran up the back of Holly's neck. Her hand holding the flashlight involuntarily squeezed the metal cylinder so hard her forearm started to ache. She whimpered. Or maybe it was her daddy making that noise. She wasn't sure.
"I... There's something... under that stuff," she whispered, surprised that she could speak at all.
She wanted so much to be brave. She knew that's what her daddy expected of her, but the shifting of a shadow, darker than the shadows cast by the junk, held her attention. She couldn't swallow. Her breath burned in her throat when, for just an instant, she saw large, glowing eyes staring back at her from under the pile of boxes.
"Daddy," she said, her voice rising higher but still no more than a ragged whisper.
But her daddy didn't turn to look at her. He straightened up and, taking the flashlight from her, moved slowly forward with the beam of light aimed directly at the spot where she had seen …whatever she had seen. The glow of the flashlight seemed too dim, much too weak to pierce the dense shadows. The only sounds in the cellar were the clanging and grunting noises Phil was making as he worked unaware that anything was happening and the distant hiss of snow against the cellar window.
"I saw..." Holly said, but her daddy waved her to silence as he inching forward.
"Yeah, I saw it too," he said.
Holly was hoping he'd tell her it had been nothing more than a mouse or a rat, but if the eyes she had seen were any indication, it would have to be the biggest rat in the world. She moved with her daddy closer to the pile of junk, not wanting to lose touch with him even though it meant getting closer to whatever it was she had seen. An icy tightening weaved through her chest, and a voice inside her head told her to run—to get upstairs as fast as she could; but she told herself that everything would be all right. She was safe. As long as she stayed with her daddy, nothing was going to hurt her.
Bending down so he could see better, her daddy shined the light into the gap between two of crushed boxes. Moving slowly, he skidded one of the boxes to the side. It made a loud grating noise on the cement floor that set Holly's teeth on edge. She realized that she was holding her breath and let it out slowly as her daddy, on his hands and knees, shined the light into the deep gap.
"What the hell could've done this," he said.
Holly knew that he was talking to himself; he never would have sworn, talking to her.
"Daddy?"
He leaned forward and was starting to shift the stack of boxes to the side when the pile erupted with a sudden explosion of activity. Holly screamed and staggered backwards as a mass of black, tangled shapes poured out from underneath the boxes. For an instant, the flashlight beam shined fully into the face of one of the …things. The cellar filled with its shrill cry as it raised its clawed hands to cover its face and cowered from the light
But the instant passed, and the creatures surged outward toward her daddy. Holly didn't see anything clearly. It was just a pile of writing arms with claws, needle sharp teeth, and faces... small, dark, almost human-looking faces with huge, bulging eyes that glowed dull green in the dim light of the cellar. The squealing sounds they made reminded her of how her dog, Heidi, had sounded before she died the day she was hit by a passing car.
Gripped with terror, Holly was still screaming when the oilman wheeled around, reacting to the sudden noise and her screams. The gap in the pile of junk shifted and widened as more and more of these... things—they certainly weren't mice or rats—spilled out into the cellar. The high-pitched sounds they made hurt her ears.
Her daddy swung the flashlight once... twice. On the second swing, he connected with something, and the lens of the flashlight shattered as one of the creatures yipped with pain. Then all Holly could hear was a wet ripping sound as her daddy spun around on one foot, his legs buckling and his hands covering his face. Numb with shock, she watched as blood gushed between her daddy's hands where his face used to be. In the dim light, the blood was as black as the oil smudge on the oilman's face. The creatures—more than she could count—tore at her daddy, their claws raking across his back and his legs, shredding his clothes and ripping him apart. He spun around and staggered and tried to shout something to her, but his words were lost in a horrible, liquid gurgle as the claws laid his throat open.
"What in the name of Christ?" the oilman shouted.
He stumbled forward, blundering between Holly and the writhing mass of shrieking creatures that continued to boil out of the hole in the wall. They looked like twisting, scaly worms, spilling from an overturned bait can. As the gap in the junk pile widened, Holly caught a glimpse of a large hole in the cellar wall—a tunnel that was lost in darkness and obscured by the onrush of creatures.
"Go on! Run! Get the Christ out of here!" the oilman yelled, and he pushed Holly away just before the gibbering mass of creatures overwhelmed him.
The cellar was filled with the raw, wet tearing sounds of shredded flesh as they piled onto him. Gouts of blood and gore flew through the air, splashing the walls and ceiling.
Holly knew that she should run. The voice inside her head was screaming at her to get away, but she was frozen in place, unable to understand anything she was seeing.
Her daddy was gone.
She couldn't believe it.
Just seconds ago, he had been standing there, and then he just...disappeared, smothered by the savage onslaught of these snarling creatures.
Finally, when Holly saw the oilman collapse beneath the weight of the creatures piling on top of him, she found the strength and will to start for the stairs. They looked impossibly far away. The single light at the foot of the stairs cast a dull glow over the wood, making the steps look like something from a dream. Before she was halfway there, a dark shadow filled the doorway at the top of the stairs.
"What in the hell is going on down here?" her momma shouted as she started down the stairs.
Raising her hand and pointing toward the furnace, Holly tried to say something—anything, but her mind was a blinding white sheet of terror, and the only sound she could manage was a faint blubbering that made absolutely no sense.
Her mother stopped at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes widened with terror, and her face went white when she saw Holly.
"Honey...?" she said. "Are you?... Did he do this to you?"
Holly had no idea what she was talking about until her momma ran her hand over her face and Holly saw the smeared blood on her fingers. She stuttered, gasping for breath, trying to tell her mother what she had seen, but none of it made any sense. It was impossible that her daddy and that big, fat oilman could have been covered by those... those things.
Her momma was trembling visibly as she moved closer. She paused for a moment, then her gaze drifted past Holly as the sounds the creatures were making rose louder.
"What in the name of God—"
Holly pushed past her momma and started up the stairs. Her legs felt weak, like they weren't nearly strong enough to carry her all the way up the flight of stairs.
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br /> "Run, Momma... Run!" she wailed, but her momma didn't run. She was frozen, staring at the dark forms that gathered in the shadows of the stairwell.
"It's the light!" Holly shouted, feeling as though her voice was being ripped out of her. "They're afraid of the light! Come on, Momma! We have to—"
"Where's your daddy?" her momma shrieked.
Holly knew that she had to do what her daddy would expect her to do.
She had to be brave.
"We have to get away, Momma!" Holly shouted. She had stopped halfway up the stairs and wasn't sure she had the strength to go the rest of the way up into the kitchen. But she knew she had to. She had to shut the door and lock it, but she couldn't leave her momma behind.
"Just what the hell is going on down here?" her momma said as she took several quick steps backwards. She shaded her eyes from the overhead light and was about to turn to leave when she tripped and fell—or was pulled—backwards, hitting the floor hard.
"No!" Holly yelled when something flew out of the darkness and, with a loud pop, the light bulb at the foot of the stairs shattered. The thing that had broken the light bounced off the ceiling and landed on the first step. Holly saw that it was a boot—the oilman's greasy, scuffed work boot. There was some tangled red stuff hanging out of the top, and a shattered bone was sticking up out of it.
Dizzy with fear, Holly raced up the stairs and collapsed onto the kitchen floor. Tears streamed down her face, and she cringed when she heard a sudden rise in the gibbering sounds the creatures were making. Any second now, Holly expected to feel razor-sharp claws slice into her back, but—somehow—she found the strength to get up, turn, and look back down into the cellar. The creatures were swarming on top of her mother, their angry snarls filling the air as their claws and fangs flashed in the darkness. Her mother's screams rose to a shrill note and then trailed away with a gargling sound only to be replaced by the sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bones.