“Me?” I gave a wry smile. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m an accountant.”
“It matters not. You have been chosen by the Realm of Powers that Guide Men.”
I stared at the beast. “I don’t understand.”
“You are wise and you are pragmatic. If you exercise those qualities over the course of the next few days they just might be your saving grace. Without you the human race will surely perish. But alas, nothing has been written, the future has not been cast. So be warned, my friend and take care of your own.”
“Who are you?”
“I am neither human nor kindred. Trying to explain would be futile. Now I must go. Please remember this meeting and the chance you have been given.”
Well, I came up out of the bed in a cold sweat, my body shaking with sobs. Just the memory of it was raining a cold kind of terror down on me. I’d been jumpy all day and Megan had begun to pick up on it.
“Come on,” Megan said. “What’s going on?”
“I had a dumb dream last night, that’s all.”
Megan stiffened and I saw terror swell in her eyes. “Tell me,” she said, her voice husky with emotion.
I squinted curiously at her. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Just tell me!”
“Okay, sure.” I began relating the story to Megan, but before I was halfway through it I could tell that she’d experienced something unusual as well. “What?” I said.
“I woke up and saw this creature coming in through the window. I thought it was dream.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you would have laughed at me. You know how you are. You don’t believe in anything you can’t see, hear, touch or taste.”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking about what the ghoulish creature had said to me. “You’re right. I don’t”
“But we had the same dream, Bobby.”
“Tell me something, Megan, in your dream, was the creature talking to you or was he talking to me?”
“He was talking to you, Bobby, and you were talking back.”
“Then apparently it wasn’t a dream.”
“Oh my god,” Megan said. “Tell me we’re not both crazy.”
“Perhaps we’ve both been reading too many Stephen King novels,” I said, trying to lighten the moment. I turned away from the door and took a step back into the living room. Megan grabbed me by the arm.
“Look at us,” she said, pointing at my Dracula costume and running her hand down the length of her own. “Why do you suppose millions of otherwise rational people go out of their way every year to celebrate Halloween if there’s nothing to it?”
“Fun, Megan. It’s all in fun.”
“No! We do it because we are compelled to do it. Because there is something to it. That’s why.”
Something suddenly slammed against the glass of the door, rattling it in its frame. Actually it was more a ‘fwaap’ sort of sound than a slam. Like something heavy and wet. Megan screamed. I grabbed her and jumped back. One of our arriving guests trying to frighten us, was my initial thought. I turned and saw a demon staring me straight in the eyes. Its face, plastered against the glass, had fleshy lips that were pulled back in a grimace, exposing teeth that looked like long ivory needles. The eyes were two brilliant emerald pinpoints surrounded by a glowing aura of green luminescence. Its wet, leathery face hung there on the glass for a long moment before it slowly slid down the door leaving a trail of gray slime in its wake. It thumped down onto the porch like a sack of wet laundry.
I turned back to Megan in wide-eyed disbelief. She just stood there, balled fists pressed helplessly against her mouth. I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. A huge bat-like creature lay there twitching its membranous wings. I knelt down, wanting to believe that it was a child in costume who had stumbled accidentally against the door. My pragmatic mind refused to accept any explanation beyond that. “Are you all right?” I asked, reaching my hand out. The thing hissed and snapped at me, the ivory needles gnashing together, just missing my fingers. I pulled away from the awful thing, stumbling back on unsteady legs. My body had become numb with fear, my mind: mush. In the distance I began hearing a mingling of terrifying sounds. Some were screams, human I knew, high and shrill, some were not human at all, grunts and commands in a language that I’d never before heard. Terror gripped me with paralyzing force. Out on Front Street a car came to a screeching halt with a loud crash. Then I heard someone bellowing in utter terror. That moment seemed to stretch into an eternity and I could not move. What finally spurred me into action was Megan’s harsh screams. “Heather!” she shrieked. “Oh my god, you’ve got to find Heather!”
“Heather?” I said stupidly. And then I suddenly realized that Heather, our eight year old daughter had gone out trick-or-treating with her best friend Matt. Panic seized me, and I can only remember bits and pieces of the next several hours. I leapt to my feet, ran inside and grabbed the car keys. I bolted from the house, telling Megan to lock the doors and not to let anybody in. From out of the sky (or perhaps it wasn’t the sky at all, but perhaps some sort of rent in the space/time continuum) dark shapes, most without substance, swooped down on me, buffeting me as I ran. Something heavy glanced off my right shoulder and went cartwheeling across the lawn. I shook in revulsion, daring not look directly at it, fearful of losing my sanity. In the distance, blood-curdling shrieks violated the stillness of the night, and now I could not tell if the sounds were human or beast. The world had become a hive of unrecognizable dissonance. I got in the car, and backed out of the yard, looking out through the windshield as I did so. Dozens of dark shapes flew in front of the moon. The night-sky was filled suddenly with flying beasts on beating, leathery wings.
But the flying creatures were only a small portion of what I was to encounter as I drove the streets of River Landing. Everywhere cars were stopped at skewed angles, doors hanging open. Hideous shapes slunk through shadows, crossing my path and running away when the beams of my headlights struck them. And things, large and small flew into my windshield, leaving grotesque stains like the remnants of giant bugs. I had to turn my windshield wipers on to clear the mess. Every so often some dark shape would dart out into the street and thump under my wheels. I saw humans being eaten by shapeless creatures with green fluorescent eyes; some were as large and as dark as grizzly bears. And as I drove I realized the night was getting darker; a giant curtain of inconceivable night was being drawn over the world, blacking out the moon and the stars, and perhaps everything humans had come to know. Streetlights began popping like gallery gunshots, raining down glass and phosphorescent streaks that reminded me of errant fireworks. I looked out and up through the windshield and realized that the bat-like creatures were responsible for the bursting lights. They were flying into them like Kamikazes, sacrificing their lives in order to plunge the world into an endless night. It wasn’t long before the entire town was dark in a way I’d never before seen it. If not for my headlights I would have been driving blind. I saw no living humans. Perhaps there were none left. The thought turned my blood to ice.
Knowing the path Heather always took on her trick-or-treat route, I retraced it. My heart was heavy with the burden of her safety. Up and down, over and around the town I drove. To no avail. All I saw were beasts and the dead humans they were feeding on. I was beginning to lose hope when two small figures danced into the street directly in my path, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Frankenstein monster. I thought my heart would burst with relief. It was Heather and her friend Matt. Their arms were flailing wildly; they were busy trying to ward off attacks from above, even as a host of unspeakable creatures closed in on them from all sides. My foot hit the accelerator as the car slammed into dozens of them, mowing a path through them. I slammed on the brakes even as several of the creatures came at my car shrieking wildly and going for the headlights. Both lights popped abruptly, sizzling like frying bacon. I suddenly realized that they were afraid of light, that’s why they were try
ing so desperately to extinguish it. I was out of the car in an instant, my hand going for my pocket. I was tackled from the side and bowled over by something that felt like a linebacker. I could not see what it was but its breath smelled like sewage as it panted in my ear. I heard Heather scream. I twisted to the side and managed to get my hand in my pocket. My fingers touched the cigarette lighter there but I could not grasp hold of it. The creature’s leathery wings were crawling around my body trying to entangle me in their death grip. It would squeeze the life out of me then it would eat me. And then Heather and Matt would be desert. The thought both repulsed me and gave me strength. No way was I going to be eaten by a giant bat from some fucking netherworld. My hand closed around the lighter and I ripped it from my pocket. I spun the wheel with my thumb but nothing happened. I felt sharp needles at my throat as the breath was being squeezed from my lungs. With my last ounce of strength, my thumb twisted the wheel for a second time. The lighter flamed to life. The bat-thing shrieked and let loose its grip on me, fluttering away and slamming into the side of my car with enough force to cave in the door panel. I scratched my way to my feet, brandishing the lighter like a scepter. Creatures shrieked and scattered, falling end over end and slamming into one another. Heather and Matt had both been overpowered and taken to the ground, but now even those creatures had abandoned their potential feasts in the face of the awesome power of an ordinary cigarette lighter.
In the next instant my daughter was sobbing in my arms.
“Daddy, I’m so scared. They almost got us.”
“I know, sweetheart. It’ll be all right.” I ushered her and Matt into the car, told them to lock the doors. The lighter was still burning but it was getting hot and I knew I had to let go of it soon. I made for the drivers door. Something caught my ankle, upending me. The lighter flew from my hand and disappeared into the darkness. I hit the ground with a dull thud as all the air went from my lungs. I was gasping for breath, knowing that I probably had only seconds to live but unable to do anything about it. I twisted around and saw one of the beasts, (a particularly large specimen) his talon-like claws wrapped around my leg, drawing me toward the ditch. More were coming to its aid. The night was alive with fluorescent-eyed monsters. The children were screaming in the back seat. I was being dragged across the tarmac.
“Knife!” I screamed to Heather. “In the glove compartment!”
“What?”
“Knife!” I screamed again. “Hurry!” I heard scratching around and a door open.” Be careful!” I shouted.
“Here it is, Daddy.” I felt my jackknife, blade open, being firmly placed in my grasping right hand. I heard Heather scream and a door slam. “Jesus?” I cried out. “Don’t let them get you!” There was no reply. My heart was beating like a trip hammer. I twisted around and sat up, my right hand rising above my head, the knife poised for the kill. The grip was tightening on my ankle. I brought the knife down in a vicious slash, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t cut my own ankle. The knife severed the beast’s leathery claw cleanly. It shrieked and pulled back, and in the green and glowing luminescent light of the creature’s astonished eyes, I saw a jet of vile black liquid spew from the wound like ink from some macabre fountain pen. I struggled to my feet and staggered against the car, breathing in harsh rasps. When I opened the door, the dome light showed that Heather and Matt were both scared as hell but safe.
In the car, crawling home through dead streets I switched on the radio. Static filled most of the familiar stations. The rest were simply gone. I swung the dial until I found an emergency broadcast station.
“They’ve come through from the other side,” the frantic announcer was saying. “There is no explanation for their arrival. There may never be. New York and Los Angeles are both silent. But I’m here and I will be until they drag me from this studio. Please stay tuned for further updates.”
It is four am as I sit in the locked basement of my house writing this all down. All the house lights are blazing, but just in case, I have placed a lighted candle in each of the basement windows. Megan, Heather and Matt are asleep beside me, safe, for now, but for how long? I can find no rest. There are too many sounds from outside. Hideous screams, scratching at the windows, a persistent buzzing that fills the night-sky like the sound of hungry locust. The phone-lines are all dead; the television stations show nothing but static. I wonder how long it will be before the power goes off. I turned the radio on a few moments ago, and that brave announcer was finally gone as well. I do not know what the dawn will bring. I do not honestly know if the dawn will come, and, if it does, what it will look like out there. As I scrawl this final passage there is one phrase that keeps coming to mind; a phrase written by Alexander Pope which is as old and as true as the human experience. I’ll write it down now before I go . . . before my sanity deserts me and I’m incapable of writing:
“Where angels fear to tread, hope springs eternal.”
The Swamp
Listen, Sims. It was no accident that I found you after all these years. Now that I have, I’m going to jump straight to the heart of the matter. Because it’s important. Because you need to hear this. You remember the swamp, don’t you? Yeah, I thought you did.
I can't help but wonder if Johnny ever crosses your mind? After you went away, I tried to forget what we’d done. But I couldn’t. How about you, Sims? Did you forget?
You know, I went back there. Yes, I had to find out if it was real. I needn’t have wondered. Nothing had changed. It was like a place lost in time. I parked and just sat there looking out through the willows and ashes. The old road was still narrow and overgrown with weeds. I wondered how many people had been down there in the past twenty years. My guess would be none. I tried to read something into that, tried to see beyond the swamp’s benign façade, but you know something, Sims, that’s what happened that day we went in there. It wanted us to think it was just a place. I know, I’m sounding like a mad man, but bear with me. I’ve recently found out something quite curious about the swamp. But that’s the best part and I’m saving it for last.
You remember what happened? You and I were fourteen and best friends. Johnny was just twelve. It was the first time we’d been allowed to go hunting without one of our dads along. Of course the swamp was our first choice. The place was like a magnet. It was supposed to have been just an innocent day of deer hunting, but in our hearts we both knew that it would be much more than that.
After most of the day trudging around in that swamp without any success we tried to go home. But something didn’t want us to go home. It wanted us to hang around until night so that it could take what it wanted, or perhaps what it needed. You remember how we walked for hours in all directions and couldn’t seem to find our way out? The swamp’s not that big, Sims. Look at a map. It’s shaped like a triangle, bordering the bay on one side and roads on the other two. It was as if it had swallowed us.
By nightfall we were too exhausted to continue, so we found a hummock, built a campfire, and dried our clothes out. We lay down and fell immediately to sleep, and we both dreamed the same dream. Surrounding us were a million tiny, suffering souls with gaping mouths and abysmal eyes. We both awoke in the midst of the dream and realized it was real. The swamp was alive with them, and Johnny stood in their midst screaming in terror as they devoured him. They weren’t just in the swamp, Sims, they were the swamp. I realize that now. The swamp asked us for a sacrifice and we gave it Johnny. I gave my brother away just to save my own neck. And you went along, Sims. After we got out they searched that place for weeks and were never able to find Johnny. But of course we both know why, don’t we?
I’ve been doing some research and I found out that a meteor crashed in the swamp in 1832. And you know what I’ve concluded, Sims? I think that meteor opened up a fissure into Hell. And the tiny gaping mouths are the damned, just as you and I are both damned.
And that’s the reason you’re tied up and gagged, old buddy. The swamp needs to feed, and you’re its next meal. I’
m going to drag you in there and build a campfire, and then when night comes I’m going to dream of a million gaping mouths and a million suffering souls as the swamp comes to life and takes its next sacrifice.
The Rain after a Dry Season
Mary Landers sat in her kitchen, rocking in the old Windsor chair by the window. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was wringing them nervously. There was a tight, fearful expression on her face. It was 3:15 AM.
A man walked slowly into the room and stopped, staring down at her. Mary saw that his face was tired, his smile reluctant.
“Is my little girl all right, Ed?” Mary asked the man.
Doctor Ed Wellman, lean, gaunt, bony arms protruding through rolled-up-sleeves stood hunched. There was a look of madness on his face. Not a grotesque outward appearance of it. Instead it was subtle, restrained, more hideous somehow. Fingers of his right hand splayed, he combed them through thick, white hair and emitted a long, rueful sigh.
“I’ve given her a mild sedative, Mary. She should sleep peacefully for the rest of the night.”
Mary slid forward to the edge of her chair, looking as if she might bolt from it. Her red-rimmed eyes implored Doctor Wellman. “That’s not what I asked, Ed. I need to know the truth. Is she or isn’t she all right?”
“In all honesty, Mary, I can’t say. I’ve examined her as thoroughly as possible under the circumstances. I would need to take her to a hospital to be sure—”
“No,” Mary said firmly. “No hospital.”
“All right. Then I’ve done all I can.”
“Was she . . .?”
Raped?” Wellman said. “Yes she was raped.”
The woman moaned. “Oh my God,” she said. “My poor baby. He blindfolded her. Then he did things to her.”
Doctor Wellman went to the window, looked out into the night. He stood for a long time with his back to the woman, not saying anything.
Servants of Darkness (Thirteen Creepy Tales) Page 7