Dark: A Horror Anthology
Page 10
I started runnin’ faster and made my entrance by takin’ the front door off its hinges with my foot. The wood splintered and shattered as it tore away from the frame, sending shards across the room. I stepped into the dark lobby where the ticket desk still sat. My rushed entrance disturbed dust on the floor. That only confirmed that they hadn’t left the place in some time. It was eerily quiet and, thankfully, nothing seemed to move in the darkness.
“Maggie?!” I called out to the seemingly empty home. I paused longer than expected to try and remember Maggie’s girl’s name. Pretty thing. Mute too. Some would say that’s the perfect woman. I got more class than that. “Muriel?” That was it.
There was a long silence and then I heard Maggie shout. “We’re on the landin’!”
I lowered my rifle and took the stairs three at a time. There they were, huddled ‘gainst the wall starin’ at the closed bedroom door. All of the bedroom doors, and this was a whorehouse so there were at least six of ‘em, were closed. But one near the middle was shudderin’ and screeching with an awful noise.
“What the hell’s goin’ on in there?” I asked pointin’ at the door in question.
“Them things. We boarded the windows in time but they got through that one before we could get it so’s I locked the door there.” She was remarkably composed. ‘Spose she had to be for Muriel. Poor girl looked awful frightened. Maggie was clutching an unlit lamp to her breast.
The door was creakin’ as the center of it bulged out. The wood seemed to stretch to the point of breakin’ and then drew back to normal. It stopped for a moment and began to shake violently. It was the only noise in the entire house. The cuttin’ sound of them things outside was barely there anymore but I was sure they were still out there. The door started to bulge out again and I decided it wouldn’t last much longer.
“Gimme that.” I said pointin’ to the lamp. She did.
“I…I been keepin’ it out so’s they couldn’t see the light an’ all.”
“When I say so, you two get up and run, y’hear? We’re headed to Barrett’s.”
Muriel and Maggie both nodded quickly. The door let go an awful whine at the latest push of them things on the other side. I smashed the lamp at the bottom of the door, lit a match and dropped it in the oil. The place caught fire quick and I heard the cuttin’ noises get loud over the fire. Could mean them things turned and flew away. I raised my Winchester, made for the stairs and shouted for the girls to follow me.
Wasn’t even at the bottom when two of them things were standing in the doorway. The fire from the church lit their devilish features from behind as they stalked towards me. I fired four times and they disappeared into nothing. I kept firin’ in case more of them stepped out but I guess I scared ‘em off.
The street was even worse than when I left it. Townsfolk were screamin’ and runnin’ wild. Some of ‘em were bein’ picked up and dragged into the black thing in the sky. It was mayhem. Rawls and Barrett were still pickin’ them fuckers off from the front door of the saloon. The sound of fire crackling and gunshots rang in the air. I looked behind me to make sure the girls were payin’ attention and took off runnin’ for Barrett’s.
It was dark out, but the fires burned bright and lit the entire town. Even the black thing in the sky was easy to see. Bu t I think that was because it had lowered itself closer to the ground. It was just above the rooftops then.
*
The first little while inside Barrett’s I spent catchin’ my breath. Been a while since I exerted myself like that and I wasn’t any younger than the last time, that’s for sure. My breath came hard and my knee was fittin’ to pop it hurt so much. Guess I didn’t have time to stop and limp. Should’a known better than to kick the door with my right leg.
The saloon door and windows were boarded up, and as I learned when I got there, that’s what the few folks inside were doin’ while Rawls and Barrett held the door. The looks on the faces of the people in the saloon told me they didn’t feel too safe regardless. The way the screams outside were dyin’ down, I can’t say I blame them.
Hardly nobody made it down to the saloon. The Porters, a big family of eight kids, were all there, almost all of ‘em, anyway. Old Mr. Porter clutched his youngest, his only daughter, to his chest and his boys were outfittin’ themselves with weapons. A lot of rifles. Nice to see they came prepared. Mrs. Porter was nowhere to be seen and by the look on the old man, she didn’t make it. Sally Hunt and her little boy sat cryin’ near the bar. Wallace Hunt obviously didn’t make it. Then there was Arliss Hopkins and Paul Werther. Both of them’re prospectors from up north who come into town every other week or so for supplies and liquor. They both sat in the corner drunk as skunks. Then it was just Barrett, Rawls, Maggie and her girl, me and the negro boy.
“What the hell are we goin’ to do, now?” one of the Porter boys bellowed. He was a slight kid. I ‘spose you never got fat when you were competin’ for food with a bunch of other kids.
“I got a cellar. It ain’t much but a dugout really. It won’t fit more than two.” Barrett was lookin’ ‘round the room. I guess he was gaugin’ reaction to his little hidey-hole and since there was round ‘bout twenty people there, that wouldn’t do.
Rawls looked at me and I nodded at him.
“A’right now. Just keep your heads on!” He peeked out the space between two slats of wood. “Right now, seems that them things have stopped flyin’ round. I don’t see ‘em out there. That might mean it’s over.”
I struggled to get to my feet on my achin’ knee and grunted when it seemed like it wouldn’t buckle under me. “I don’t see any reason why we should be doin’ anything but waitin’ to see what happens.”
The entire bar looked my way.
“Wait in here for those monsters to do to us what they did to my dear Audrey? You’re a fool!” They were the first words Mr. Porter had spoken since I got there. If I couldn’t keep my cool, they were goin’ to be the last he ever said.
“They just wanted the book. Rawls, you got it?” I spoke carefully and deliberately. No need to stir up the den of frightened folk in here even more.
“It’s on the desk in the office.”
“Then they prob’ly got it. We’ll wait it out.” I was satisfied with that.
Mr. Porter pushed his daughter off his lap and stood up quicker’n I ever seen him move. He made for the door and started pullin on one end of the table that had been nailed into the doorframe. “You can’t make us wait, we’ll die in here!”
“You’ll die in here if you don’t go and sit on your ass old man!” Rawls yelled so that everyone could hear him. The oldest Porter boy stood up with a rifle pointed at Rawls and three of his brothers followed suit.
“Now, now. Let’s all calm down. Rawls, holster your revolver. That’s an order.” I trained my gun on Porter and his oldest turned the rifle on me soon as Rawls holstered his gun. The place was on edge. Cryin’ and hollerin’ all over the place. I spoke only as loud as I needed to. “Porter, I ain’t never shot an innocent man in front of his children before and I don’t think I’d appreciate it if you forced me to tonight.”
He stopped and looked at his children. All of ‘em had tears in their eyes. The armed boys were red-faced and itchin’ to pull their triggers. The girl was bawlin’.
“Go and sit with yer girl. She needs you right now. An’ maybe we can all calm down and figure out a plan, y’hear?” my hand loosened around the grip of my revolver as I talked. Porter’s face dropped as he walked back to the girl and the boys lowered their rifles.
I holstered my gun and looked at the three boys. With my finger pointed right at the oldest, I spoke between clenched teeth: “You little fuckers point a gun at me again and I’ll tear you down like the rabbits you sissies use ‘em on. Y‘hear?!”
The boys nodded and one made an apology before sittin’ down and puttin’ their rifles on their laps. The place had finally calmed. The prospectors got back to drinkin’ and the cryin’ got quieter.
I hobbled over beside him, my knee achin’ worse and worse. I peeked through the same spot he did and didn’t believe what I saw. I ran to the far side of the bar, knee be damned, to look through the farthest window.
“What is it, Mason?” Rawls was walkin’ to the spot I just left.
“The black thing. It’s gone.” I spoke happily. Others ran up to the windows to see for themselves. “The winged bastards’re gone too!”
There were exultations of relief and prayers to God. The prospectors cheered loudly and toasted their good fortune. Sally Hunt hugged her boy even tighter and the Porter boys were hollerin’ and huggin’ their Pa and sister.
Barrett tossed me his keys and told me to go check ‘round back to make sure and got Rawls to help take the table off the doorframe. I usually don’t like bein’ told what to do but the sooner I had a drink in me, the sooner my knee would calm down. I hobbled to the back of the bar and was just started walking through the hallway when the negro boy stood up in the middle of the bar and spoke. I stopped and leant an ear for a second out of curiosity.
“They came for the book.” The voice was not the stable hand’s from earlier. There was no evidence of a stutter. And it sounded like nothin’ I heard before. Like it was being spoken but was so powerful it filled the room. I turned and looked at him and couldn’t believe it. I could only see him from behind as he stood looking at the other folk in the bar but he was as tall as a horse is when rearin’. He wore somethin’ funny and gold on his head and nothin’ but bedsheets ‘round his body. His skin had gone from a black man’s skin to literal black. There was no color to him. He was as black as that thing in the sky was. He turned towards me but I ducked behind the wall in time.
Shit. He turned into someone else real quick. Funny to think, but that still wasn’t the strangest thing I seen last night. It got real cold all of a sudden and my knee was throbbin’. The whole feelin’ of the place was off.
“They came for the book,” he repeated, his voice sounded unearthly and seemed to rattle in my ears somethin’ fierce. “and I came for the survivors.”
I spun around the wall to see what the hell he was on about and somethin’ was happenin’ with the front of him I just couldn’t see. Whatever it was had everyone terrified. They all began screamin’ their heads off. He bellowed a loud noise and arched his back. It helped me see a little bit of what was goin’ on. There were snake-like things hangin’ off his face and shaking violently. I drew my revolver, the only gun I had on me seein’ as I left the others on the bar to help get this place up and runnin’, and pointed it at the strange fella.
I felt like I was drunk all of a sudden. I was woozy and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I could clearly see the gun waving side to side in front of me and decided not to shoot. The place had exploded into madness. Whatever the stable hand had turned into was makin’ everybody go crazy as shithouse rats. The screamin’ grew louder and Sally had started to scratch at her boy’s face and neck while the Porter boys took turns touchin’ their sister all over. Mr. Porter sat back and touched himself. The prospectors were vomitin’ all over each other. Buckets of the stuff. Maggie was carvin’ something in her leg with a nail she pulled from a board as her daughter Muriel was speakin’ in tongues. Ten minutes earlier, she couldn’t talk if you put a gun to her head. I tried to call out to Rawls but thought better of it when I saw him beating Barrett’s head in with the butt of his pistol. Over the ruckus I could hear the soft wet sounds of the impact of gun on broken face. I absolutely couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That is, until I wanted to join in.
I closed my eyes and ducked back around the wall. My head started to slowly come back to normal, or as close as it could. There were stars in my eyes as I made my way to the back door down the long hallway.
“You are mine.” The voice continued to echo in my ears but much quieter than it was before. “Join me. Be my Brotherhood of the Beast.”
I was fittin’ ta run back there guns blazin’ an’ at least put the townsfolk outta their misery. But the voice was too much. I didn’t want to end up like one of them and my head was swimmin’ this far away. Whoever it was the stable hand turned inta, it wasn’t anythin’ I ever heard of. Seems to be a runnin’ theme for today.
The voice in my head faded the farther I got down the hallway so I knew I had ta get outta there. But when I got to the door, I realized that my horse wouldn’t be in its stable anymore. Neither would any of ‘em, I figured. Seein’ as the stable hand was behind alla this, he wouldn’t ‘a wanted me to escape so easy.
The mud room by the back door was sparse, ‘cept for a few coats hung up on hooks. I slowly and quietly unlocked the deadbolt of the back door and peered out onto the street. It was quiet. The only thing I could hear was the mayhem goin’ on down the hallway behind me. Somethin’ told me not to chance it outside. I’d have no horse and a man couldn’t survive longer’n a couple a days out there. Black Water was at least a two days ride by horse from anywhere else with a name. I was trapped in the town I failed to protect.
For the first time in my life, my only choice was to turn and run. I didn’t like it but I couldn’t do nothin’ about it. I closed the back door as quietly as I opened it and looked at the floor. I saw the deadbolt ‘fore I saw the outline of the hatch.
I heard ‘a worse ways of bein’ put in the ground.
*
It was cramped but it was cooler in there than even the mornin’ air outside. Barrett wasn’t foolin’ either; this wasn’t more n’a clay pit. Only took me a few minutes to pull a couple’a crates of whiskey outta the ground to fit in there. I left one crate in with me seein’ as I might’a been in there a while.
But after near half a bottle, I was as sober as I was when I started. I decided not to push it since my head was swimmin’ like it was when I walked down the hallway. What I wanted was some water and a quick bit ‘a shut-eye.
I was close to driftin’ off when I heard the scratchin’. It was unmistakable. Rats. I was under the ground an’ all. There was bound to be rats.
That infernal scratchin’ was enough to drive me cracked and I figured the bottom of a whiskey bottle had to be a good rat hammer. So I fished around my pockets for matches ‘til I found the rattlin’ little box. It wasn’t easy getting’ ‘em out as cramped as I was but I did an’ all it did for me was make me want to have a see-gar. Hell, even a cigarette would do ‘bout now. Over the rattlin’ of the matchbox, I heard the scratchin’ get louder.
I lit one match off my belt and held it up in front of my face. I leaned in ta see the rats on the other side of the crate when a face appeared out of the black and stared back at me. I was so scared I dropped the damned match. Torn between goin’ for the revolver on my hip and the matchbox on my lap, I panicked as the scratchin’ got louder. Got so loud I couldn’t hear a thing ‘til the only thing louder than the scratchin’ was my screamin’.
*
They come for me by dusk that day. I was still screamin’. I must’a sounded a mess.
As it turns out, someone from town made it out on horseback durin’ the night and run into a bunch ‘a injuns from Caddo. The all brung a ranger from Binger to Black Water. Whole dang town went ghost after one night. I thought ‘bout tellin’ ‘em what happened, an’ I still do, but seein’ as they already got me ‘hind bars, I shouldn’t push my luck.
The only thing they found in Black Water was what’s left ‘a Barrett and the Porter girl. Only thing more horrific than what happened to Barrett’s head’s what happened to the poor Porter girl’s body. T’make matters worse, somehow I was holdin’ the gun Rawls used on Barrett when they found me.
I don’t think I even know what happened that night anymore. I still hear the rats scratchin’ when things get quiet. I do know that. I also know that the face I saw down in that hole looked a l
ot like the stable hand, only darker.
*
Red Noise
By Sean Keller
Terry pulled a gold record off the control booth walls and lowered it gently into a cardboard box. The recording studio was smaller than you’d think. Three chambers separated by double-paned soundproof glass. A drum kit sat mic’d in one room, a piano in another. A rather large analog mixing board seemed to swallow the control booth.
A month had passed since that last day on tour and he figured that the something new for which he was so desperate would never roll around until the old had been swept away. He reached for another framed record, this one platinum, and paused. The Thrill - “Thrill Me Deadly.” He chuckled, looking at the younger version of himself alongside Duke, Bill and Eric on the album cover. Eric was an ethereal beauty, part Bowie, part Plant, part something else, something new Terry thought he was something new.
Danielle stepped into the booth sipping a beer. “Last waltz down memory lane?” She was in that perfect state, a woman at the peak of femininity, full and soft and lived in. Confident in a way no young girl could be, confidant enough to know that the road is the road and home is home - two separate worlds with separate rules.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be.”
“You don’t have to do it, you know. There’s nothing wrong with leaving it up. You should be proud.” She smiled and sipped her beer.