by Ray Wallace
At the bottom I halted, and gasped, and simply stared for some time at what I did find there.
My journey had brought me to a giant, dome-shaped cavern which rose to a height of at least thirty feet at its center. Semi-transparent stalactites of nearly every imaginable color hung from the ceiling and refracted the light emitted by the strange, glowing fungus which grew everywhere I looked. The effect was quite spectacular and gave the great, subterranean chamber an unearthly, almost magical aura. Two granite stalagmites - each twice as tall as myself - stood like silent sentries to either side of the cavern's entrance. And there, some ten feet beyond the stalagmites, was the edge of a lake that filled most of the chamber, its water dark and perfectly calm, disturbed only by the occasional, random drop of moisture that fell from above.
Awestruck, I walked slowly between the stalagmites and stood at the edge of the small lake, stared at my reflection in its mirror-like surface. The odor of mildew was very strong down here but I did not find it unpleasant; quite the opposite, in fact. Something about the place soothed me, comforted me, made me feel silly upon remembering my earlier anxiety. There was nothing to fear here. Nothing at all.
Then my reflection wavered. I looked further out across the lake and saw a small bubble break the surface. Then another. Three more in rapid succession. The bubbles then became larger and more numerous. What was this? A shifting of rocks in the lake's bed? An opening of a fissure filled with air somewhere below? I knew, however, that these explanations were incorrect. The Earth had nothing to do with this strange occurrence. Something was rising from beneath the water. Something big, I realized as the bubbles began to literally pour to the surface.
Leave now, a voice whispered from somewhere deep within my mind. Just turn and leave. Quickly. But I didn't leave. And the reason for this is a simple one: I wasn't afraid. I knew I should have been, but I wasn't. Instead, I actually wanted to see what was causing this disturbance. I had stumbled upon a mystery of epic proportions. A mystery that, within a matter of moments, would be revealed. To me and me alone. At that moment I felt honored. No, blessed would be a better word.
Seconds later, all I felt was numbing terror.
I watched, entranced, as it slowly broke the surface of the lake, the upper half of a great, hairless head, its skin slimy and grey in the strange lighting, a long slit upon the side facing me its only feature.
Run!! screamed the voice within my mind. I took a hesitant step backwards to do so just as a group of long, black tentacles snaked out of the water and onto the shore at my feet. They quickly wrapped about my legs, my waist, my chest, grabbed my arms and pinned them to my sides. Within seconds I was immobilized, helpless amidst a growing sense of panic and revulsion. I struggled against my living bonds in vain then ceased all resistance after what I saw next, the horror of the sight paralyzing me for it was just too much for my mind to handle.
The slit opened to reveal a single, monstrous eye, milky-white as the moon except for a deformed, coal-black pupil. The abomination stared at me for a time, unblinking, conveying no hint as to what it could possibly be contemplating, displaying no form of recognizable emotion whatsoever. Then another appendage crawled forth from the water's darkness, a tentacle thicker than the others with an opening at its end. It came straight for my face. As I let forth a scream that reverberated off the cavern walls, it leaped forward and entered my mouth, gagging me, choking off my voice. The hideous thing was covered in some tasteless, oily substance and slid easily into my throat. My mind was close to breaking. I felt the tip of the grotesque appendage move downward, ever downward, until it was able to probe the walls of my stomach, touch the inside of me with a sickening intimacy I could have never imagined.
And then, mercifully, my consciousness shut down and I slid off into blackness...
I awoke gasping, retching, completely unaware of how much time had passed, realizing only that the monster was gone, that the surface of the lake sat undisturbed. Forcing myself to my feet, I turned and stumbled out of the cavern, up the stairs and back into the tunnel, stopped to weep and dry-heave along the way. I felt nauseous and violated, knowing that the hideous creature had forced some part of its monstrosity into me, a certainty that I would live with until the day I died. Now I knew why the cave had been boarded shut, why the path had been allowed to grow over. But these measures were not nearly enough. The creature needed to be destroyed, the lake poisoned, the cave collapsed. Only then would the world be safe from such a horror.
I ran past the flashlight, leaving it where it lay, giving no thought to the darkness that lay ahead. On and on I stumbled through the tunnel - which now seemed so much longer than before - until I saw dim light ahead. Breaking into a sprint, I plunged through the opening at the mouth of the cave, the boards to either side tearing at my overcoat. Then I ran along the path through the woods, crying with joy at the fact that I was gone from that hideous place, had once again rejoined the surface world of Man where I belonged.
Five months have passed since that awful day and here I sit, writing this tale. The servants have long since left my once-happy estate, unable to tolerate the changes they had witnessed in their master, to live with the screams they must have heard in the night issuing from behind the closed door of my bed-chambers. For at night is when the pain is the worst. But it should all be over soon. How do I know? Because it will have to be. I eat constantly but still lose weight, too much weight for a man of my age. And even though I appear all the more emaciated as time goes by, my stomach becomes larger as the thing within me grows. At times I stand in the kitchen and simply stare at the knife rack, think about grabbing the handle of one, turning the point towards my midsection... But it is only a thought. Something prevents me from committing the act, just as something drew me along that path five months ago.
I grow tired and the thing within me is hungry, so I must feed it and lie down and try not to think about the pain. In recent weeks, I've spent my time wondering how all of this is going to end. When it is ready, will my unwanted child climb up my throat and escape through my mouth stretched wide in a scream? Or might it tear its way through my abdomen, performing its own c-section from the inside out? Soon I will know, I'm sure. For lately, when I manage to find a few tortured hours of sleep, I've been dreaming, vividly dreaming of the cavern and the monster there that awaits the birth of its offspring, a rare and most wondrous event to which it will certainly want to bear witness.
- LETTING THE DEMONS OUT -
Author's note: Throughout the late eighties and much of the nineties (yeah, I know, I'm really starting to date myself here) my brother, Andy, and I were in several metal and industrial music projects together. They had names like Last Rite and Havoc Mass and Inhuman. Song titles included "Ashes of Humanity" and "Into Nothingness" and "Why I Hate." Fun stuff like that. At some point my brother came up with a set of lyrics (I don't think the song was ever fully written which is too bad, really) that went like this: "Drill a hole in my head... and let the demons out." A few years later I read an article on trepanation and an idea for a story was born. When I sat down to put this collection together, various titles came to mind but, in the end, Letting the Demons Out seemed the most appropriate. To me, writing a horror story is a sort of exorcism. Those nasty little ideas that bounce around inside the writer's head, they're the demons insisting on being let out. And there's only one way to be rid of them: you have to sit down and start typing. Thankfully, this form of exorcism is a lot less traumatizing than the method used in the story that follows...
*
There is a hole in my head about two inches behind and below the crown. My father put it there when I was eight years old. He said the Lord had told him in a dream it would let the demons out. He used a scalpel to open the skin then a drill to start the hole, a chisel to widen it, sewed the skin shut over it, said the demons could pass through flesh much easier than bone. I believed him. I believed everything he told me because he was a Man of God and he wouldn't, couldn
't tell a lie, especially to his own son. Like when he said that Mother was possessed by demons of her own, was how they had gotten into me, while I was still in the womb. How her demons would make her do bad things, would make her go out and fornicate with other men. Dirty, evil men.
I remember the night we waited up for her, how she had come stumbling through the door, stinking of cigarette smoke and alcohol, how my father had grabbed her, how I had helped carry her down to the basement. Earlier, we'd brought a table down there, a picnic table the three of us used to sit at in the back yard. Sometimes we would cook out and eat dinner there and listen to the crickets as the sun went down, back before my mother lost the war with her demons and started doing all the terrible things father told me about. In the basement, we laid her on the table and tied her down. All the while, she cursed and shrieked until my father stuck a rag in her mouth, looked at me with a grave expression on his face and said those were the demons talking. He ran his hand over her hair, told her that what he was about to do was for her own good, that everything would be better soon. That everything would be the way it used to be.
I was in charge of holding her head still.
She passed out when the drill bit into her skull. That made my job much easier. There was a lot of blood. The sight of it made me a little queasy. But I would not fail my father. I stood there and I held my mother's head in my hands and I watched my father pick up the chisel and the hammer. As he went about his work, I remembered the way it had felt when it had been done to me. All of it. I hadn't passed out and I was glad for my mother that she had. The pain had been severe to say the least. It was a small price to pay, though, to be free of my demons. I couldn't wait to see mother when she was free of hers. I was looking forward to having the mother of my early childhood returned to me. We would have dinner in the back yard. We would go to the movies and the park and the beach and I would watch mother and father smile at each other, would smile at them when they looked my way.
Yeah, just like it used to be.
Father's hands were shaking as he held the chisel, as he brought the hammer down. Was he fighting demons of his own? No. Impossible. He was a man of God. No demon would dare enter him.
He swung the hammer, too hard, yes, too hard by far, and about an inch-and-a-half of the chisel sank into my mother's head.
Miraculously, she didn't die.
But we never did have dinner in the back yard again. We never went to the movies or the park or the beach.
Mother couldn't speak after that night. She couldn't eat on her own either. Or go to the bathroom. She would just sit there in front of the TV, spittle dripping from her chin. Sometimes she would moan. Several times a day she would soil herself.
Father didn't really say much after that night either. Something had changed in him. He wore a haunted look on his face, seemed to have some trouble recalling where he was at times, even who he was. It was scary to see him like that.
Two years later I turned seventeen, graduated from high school and moved out, left behind the quiet little town where I had grown up. I never saw my parents again. They said that the fire was an accident, that my father must have fallen asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand. In all the years I lived there, I had never seen the man so much as even touch a tobacco product let alone use one. But I kept my mouth shut about it. Didn't want to get involved. What would have been the point?
After making my way by bus to a nearby city, I got a job waiting tables at an all night diner, found the cheapest apartment available. Actually, it was little more than a room with a communal bathroom down at the end of the hall. The place was infested with roaches and it smelled of mildew, but it was home.
There was a church down the street. It was part of a strip mall. There was a cross painted on the front window next to a flashing neon sign that said "Church of the Living God." I started attending services there.
The preacher was a black man named Father Isaac which made me a bit wary at first, as father used to tell me to never trust a colored person. I came to find out that he was a nice enough fellow, as were most of the blacks who were part of the congregation. They were there to worship the Lord and so was I and, when it came down to it, that was all that really mattered.
Looking back, I find that my memories of that place are quite fond. It was a much different church than the one father used to take me to. That had been a cold and joyless place, a place of solemn worship. Not so the Church of the Living God. Father Isaac was a fiery preacher, would often leave the pulpit, would come down among his flock and join in singing praises to Jesus Christ. There were a lot of Hallelujahs! shouted in that room, a lot of Praise the Lords!!
Eventually, I found a better job running a printing press for one of the city's smaller newspapers, moved into a nicer apartment on the other side of town. I started attending a different church closer to where I lived. Fellowship Baptist Church it was called. It had its own building with a steeple and everything. Mostly white people went there.
I would sit towards the back and listen in silent awe to the words of Pastor Williams, a great bear of a man with a voice one could imagine emanating from the burning bush. The teachings of the Good Book came alive when he spoke them, seemed to be coming to my ears through a direct link to the Lord Above Himself.
I had been attending about ten months of Sunday services there, sitting in my usual spot, when I was surprised to find an attractive blonde girl who looked to be close to my own age sitting in the pew next to me. She gave me a shy smile when I looked at her, a smile that made my palms sweat and my heart skip a beat.
When the sermon was over she turned to me, held out her hand and said, "Stacey Rhodes. Stacey with an E."
I told her my name then, unsure of what was expected of me, took her hand in mine, brought it to my lips and gave it a light kiss.
She giggled and said, "My! How forward!"
I could feel myself blushing furiously which only made her giggle all the harder. Finally, I laughed and we stood and walked outside where Stacey informed me that she was attending the local state college, had no religious friends there - "At least none religious enough to actually go to church." - how she had decided to come to today's service alone.
"Well, I hope to see you here again," I said. Now I really was being forward.
To my secret elation, I saw her again the following week.
Two weeks after that the Lord granted me the strength to ask her out.
"I was wondering when you'd find the nerve," she teased me.
That Friday she picked me up in the little sports car her father had bought her as a going off to college present. I didn't have a car of my own, nor a driver's license for that matter. (In the city, I had discovered, one didn't really need either to get around.) We went to dinner then to a movie where Stacey kissed me and I fell in love.
We went out together the following weekend and the weekend after that. A month after I had first met her, at the end of yet another date, she asked if we could go back to my place. "Sure," I said and the moment we were there, the moment the door closed behind us she was in my arms and our lips and bodies met and I thought that I was actually going to die right then and there. Within moments we were both naked and I was touching the bare flesh of a woman for the first time and I knew that it was wrong, that two people should be married before they were together in that way, but right then I didn't care. I was trembling as she pulled me down onto the couch and said, "Are you a virgin?" I nodded, no false bravado there. Then she said, "Trust me, it will be all right." She smiled. "It will be more than all right..."
And it was.
Six months later I asked Stacey to marry me and she said, "I was wondering when you'd find the nerve," and we laughed and I figured that I had to be the happiest man in the world...
*
Four years have passed since we exchanged "I do's" and I made an honest woman - her words, not mine - out of my beloved Stacey. The four best years of my life.
After g
raduating college with better-than-average grades, my wife got a well-paying job designing software apps for a prominent computing firm. I'm now the head typesetter at the newspaper where I started out running one of the presses, make a more than decent salary myself. We purchased a house in the suburbs and I finally learned how to drive, bought a flashy little Nissan two door. Stacey drives a sports utility vehicle. We still attend Fellowship Baptist Church.
Last week, Stacey went upstate on a business trip. She was only gone a couple of days but I missed her so much. She is my world. She means everything to me.
The other night, while Stacey was taking a shower, I decided to go through her purse. I don't know why. Something made me want to. Maybe it was my guardian angel whispering in my ear. Among the makeup and the tampons and the spare change there was a sheet of paper. On it the name Jacob was handwritten. Below the name was a phone number. A local number.
"Were you going through my things?!" she wanted to know when I asked her who Jacob was. "How dare you." So much anger there, unlike anything I had ever seen in her before.
I knew it wasn't my Stacey talking to me like that.
"If you must know, he is a business associate, nothing more."
The venom in her voice. Not like her at all. No, more like something...
Demonic.
This morning, I called in sick to work. Then I went down to the local hardware store. There I bought a length of rope, a drill, a chisel, and a hammer. I came home and pulled the cloth off the dining room table. It's a heavy table, made of oak, more than sturdy enough to support the weight of a fairly small woman.
I find myself wondering, not for the first time, what this Jacob fellow looks like. My hands start to tremble every time I think about him, every time I think about them, so I have to force myself to stop.
Because all too soon my Stacey will be home from work.
And then it will be time.