by Jacob Rayne
Something brushed his shoulder, hidden in the gloom. He cried out, despite his promise to not let the pricks in charge get to him with their childish pranks.
He turned to swat it away, thinking it was a fly, but it felt like human hair.
As he shrugged it away, his hand hit what he took to be a human face. At least it would have been had the surface not been raw and oozing with thick streams of blood.
13
Utterly ashamed of his cowardice, Campbell rose from the floor, wiping tears and snot from his face. It was his fault his family had been taken and he’d never forgive himself for that.
He wondered how Osmo had coped as he had actually witnessed most of his family dying.
No wonder he’d been a card-carrying member of an asylum at one point.
Still, there was some trick to this grief lark that was eluding Campbell.
With his crazy friend in mind, he flicked through his phone to the O section.
His finger hovered over the send button, and then he threw the phone to one side.
He doesn’t want to hear from me, he thought. I’ll just make him feel like this. That’s if the poor sod hasn’t already done himself in.
Maybe I don’t have to go out in a blaze of glory. I can still find another way to do this.
He left the room, avoiding looking at the gun on the bed – it seemed to deride him for his cowardice – and went to raid the kitchen cupboards.
14
Gary started and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
The light was woefully inadequate but still felt reassuring in the dark.
He shone it on the face and saw a man hanging upside down from the thick pipes running along the ceiling.
The poor bastard’s clothes were soaked through with thick gore stains.
Most of his face looked like it had been eaten away, one eye still staring mournfully out of the raw bloody mess.
‘Nice fucking try,’ he said, raising both middle fingers and turning three-sixty to ensure his voyeurs got the message of defiance.
He peered a little closer, noting the ragged wound across the man’s throat that looked like a savage second mouth.
‘Good effort on the makeup,’ he said, reckoning it was just a dummy. His mind refused to believe it was real.
As the cart’s front wheel snagged something in front of him he let out a low curse.
He shoved past the hanging dead man, jumping as a slick coating of congealed gore wiped across the back of his neck.
The feel sickened him, though he was still adamant that it was a prank.
He knelt by the front of the cart, his phone a pathetic impediment against the relentless darkness.
What looked like a sleeve from a suit jacket was twisted and tangled up in the wheels of the cart.
There was no chance he was laying his bare hands on Thornton’s shit-smeared sheets, not for fucking minimum wage anyway, so he had to free the fabric from the cart.
He pulled out his Stanley knife and began sawing at the fabric. The sooner he got out of here the better.
Despite his utter defiance of the wankers who’d sent him down here he was starting to get unsettled.
The room was starting to play with his mind now, turning the creak of the pipes and the floor above into murderous predators lurking in the darkness.
And there was one hell of a stink down here; death mingled with the hot coppery tang of blood.
The jacket sleeve came free from the wheel as he pulled it towards him. It had more weight than he’d anticipated.
He stifled a cry as he saw a blood-smeared hand curled up in the sleeve like a hermit crab in a newly-acquired shell.
He pulled, and the limb came freely. Where the arm should have met the shoulder joint was a ragged stump, thick with blood.
The bite marks in the bicep unnerved him greatly. They were fucking massive.
He momentarily wondered what could make such a big bite mark then caught himself.
‘All a fucking prank, Gary lad,’ he muttered, now not really believing it.
Still he was loathe to admit defeat and not get the sheets into the furnace.
He shoved the cart faster now, eager to get out of this hellhole and swing for his arsehole of a boss with renewed vehemence.
His foot hit something that he thought to be a rock.
As his torch beam slid down to it he saw that it was a severed head, the meagre remnants of flesh marked by what looked like huge teeth marks.
‘Nice props, seriously,’ he said.
Something in the darkness moved slightly.
‘Ah the final scare,’ he muttered. Whoever it was was going to get a right hook that would knock them into next week. ‘Come and fucking get some,’ he said, sounding much fiercer than he felt.
There was a sound in the distance, up above his head. He shone his torch up, failing to pierce the shadows.
He shoved the cart harder, over the uneven floor that impeded every inch of movement. His ankle twisted slightly in a pothole, making him curse the day he’d come for this shitty job as he fell.
Grabbing the side of the cart, he gingerly tested his weight on his ankle. It was a pleasant surprise when it held up.
The cart banged into the wall where the glow was coming from.
He winced as the furnace’s red hot handle blazed a hole in his palm.
‘Fucking thing,’ he spat.
Reluctantly, he pulled down one of Mr Thornton’s shitty sheets and wrapped it round his hand. With this as a barrier his hand escaped further injury as he pulled the door open.
The flames illuminated a little more of his surroundings.
He glanced behind him to the source of the sound that he’d heard earlier and let out a little scream as he saw a pale, man-sized bat hanging upside down from the pipes above his head.
15
Campbell jolted awake, sitting upright as suddenly as if he’d been slugged in the belly.
Stinking liquid sprayed from his mouth as his stomach rejected the litre of Jack he’d used to chase down an entire bottle of antidepressants.
A thick paste of undigested tablets fought its way out of his burning belly.
His glazed eyes struggled to make sense of what was going on.
The world was a waltzer, his senses in seemingly eternal disarray.
His mind was too shattered to decipher what was happening.
Again his guts churned.
Raised voices came from outside his house, concern tainting them. They seemed to swim around him.
More of the poison seeped up his throat, burning everything it touched. Spit hung from his lips in dirty strands.
Then the knocking came, simultaneously right in his ear and miles away.
He made noises deep in his throat that even he failed to interpret.
The concerned voices came closer still.
He was dimly aware that they seemed to be in his home now.
‘Ah, Tommy what the hell are ya doing?’ came the panicked voice of Alfie, one of his neighbours.
He failed to recognise the faces of those with him, but he made out the dark uniform that he’d worn himself, seemingly a lifetime ago.
He grumbled again, still incomprehensible, but he knew he didn’t want to see any of them.
‘Officer Campbell,’ one of the cops said, and again the words swam around him, clear yet unclear at the same time. ‘We’re taking you to the hospital.’
He tried to kick out at them.
The first thing he’d said that made sense came from his vomit-covered lips: ‘Just let me die in peace.’
Between them they picked him up and bundled him into the back of the waiting ambulance.
He was too weak to put up a fight.
16
‘Holy shit,’ Gary said as he looked upon the creature.
Thick smears of blood were round its lips, which were bared slightly, exposing a small portion of what Gary felt sure were huge teeth.
The hideous t
hing chilled his blood despite the blazing heat rushing out of the open furnace door.
It twitched slightly, as though something had made it start in its sleep.
‘What the fuck is that?’ he whispered, keen to not disturb the sleeping creature.
It shifted slightly, relaxing the grip of its wings around its body as though feeling a little too warm.
‘Just get the sheets in and get out,’ he muttered to himself.
But he didn’t dare take his eyes off the thing, though he was still trying to convince himself it was a prank.
The thing was actually breathing, he could see its muscular chest moving in the lazy cadence of sleep.
His hands grabbed the sheets, now not caring when they sunk into a putrid mass of blood, shit, and fuck knew what else.
Eyes glued to the ominous bat thing, he shoved the sheets into the hungry mouth of the furnace.
The flames devoured the sheets with relish, spitting and hissing as they consumed the glistening bodily fluids contained within.
He grabbed another armful of sheets and shoved them in fast.
Too fast; his hand caught on the inside of the furnace door.
He wanted desperately to let it go, suffer in silence, but he was unable to.
‘Bastard,’ he hissed.
His heart leapt into his chest as the creature shuffled a little.
He watched it for a long second, trying to figure out a plan of attack.
Nothing sprung to mind.
Maybe he’d be best off running, but, in the grimy blackness, with the uneven floor, he was more likely to trip and shatter his ankle than escape.
Besides, he realised, with a sheen of sweat rising that had nothing to do with his proximity to the furnace’s roaring flames, he didn’t know how fast the fucking thing could move.
It was a vast relief when it didn’t move other than to tuck the wings round itself a little tighter.
It let out a sound like a snore, then a dark grey tongue poked from its lips and sampled a little of the blood around its mouth. Seemingly contented, it relaxed again.
‘Let’s just get outta here,’ he muttered.
He shoved in the final sheets, relieved to see the wire mesh at the bottom of the cart, then turned to push the cart again.
The wheel squealed like nails being dragged down a blackboard.
He stifled a curse, shrank back into the shadows behind the furnace.
The creature’s upper body seemed to stiffen and its head whipped round in his direction.
Its tiny eyes snapped open and he knew, one thousand per cent, that it had seen him, even before it unfurled its wings and let out a hideous screeching cry.
17
When Campbell woke up the world was still spinning, his head still pounding, his stomach still churning.
His blurred vision picked up a man in a white coat standing at the bottom of his bed.
His expression was thoughtful, his hand clutching his black goatee tightly, his head on a tilt like a curious dog.
‘Ah, you’re awake,’ he said, his tone jovial.
Campbell opened his mouth to reply but a thick mass of vomit gushed out instead.
His stomach contracted with a force that tore the breath from him and further chunks of vomit shot into his mouth.
He struggled to cough them up, for a horrible second fearing he was going to choke on the molasses-thick puke, then thought maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad after all.
Better that than—
Shit, had old Alfie really had the cops break in and found him in such a pitiful state?
Had it really happened?
‘It’s a good job your neighbour heard you arguing with yourself,’ the doctor said, as if sensing the tangled web of thoughts growing in Campbell’s mind. ‘Or you certainly wouldn’t have been with us much longer.’
‘Would that really have been so bad?’ Campbell attempted through a mouthful of thick vomit.
The doctor tilted his head again, his expression now one of sympathy.
‘You know, I thought I recognised you,’ he said. ‘The hero cop who took on the devil in his own hell and won. I kept up with all the press, and, I have to say, I’m very sorry to see you in such a state.’
Campbell brought up another mouthful of vomit in reply.
‘The vomiting should stop soon,’ the doctor reassured him. ‘We’ll be taking extra special care of you, with you being a local hero and all.’
Campbell gave him a fake smile.
Alfie appeared, a mournful expression hewn into his wrinkled face. ‘You coulda talked to me about it, Tommy. For Christ’s sake. It wasn’t your fault. You need to accept that.’
Campbell didn’t deign to answer. Instead he clutched his pounding head.
‘I heard ya saying, “It should have been me,” again. I know you’ve got that gun in there with ya and I feared for ya life, son. I care about ya, so whatever you’re thinking of doing don’t do it. I’d be devastated.’
Campbell still didn’t respond, just stared at the floor, hoping Alfie would get the message.
‘I brought ya some fruit, to get some vitamins back in ya. I hope you feel better soon. And, really, take it easy on yourself. None of what happened was your fault.’ His thick white eyebrows knitted together in a frown.
‘Thanks, Alfie,’ Campbell said as his neighbour left.
Alone with his thoughts, he decided to go to sleep rather than risk another attack of guilt.
18
Before the creature got off its perch, Gary shoved the heavy cart for all he was worth.
He’d been a keen amateur boxer until he had broken his hand in the previous year and had gained fast reflexes and the knowledge that to pre-empt an attack was the best way forward.
Still, he surprised himself with the speed of his thinking.
With a wet thud that echoed around the dank basement, the cart slammed into the creature’s head.
The creature let out a harsh cry that chilled his blood and made his hands dart to his ears to prevent the sound drilling into his ear drums.
The lights should come on now, he thought. If it is a prank the lights’ll come on now.
They didn’t.
The extremely pissed off creature dropped from its perch, its movements slightly jerky as though his blow had hurt it.
Taking heart from this, he scanned the floor for a weapon.
The best he could come up with were a few chunks of loose masonry.
He picked up a fist-sized lump of concrete and over-armed this as hard as he could at the creature.
To his delight it drew a thick stream of dark blood when it bounced off the creature’s head.
The creature’s eyes lit up with hatred.
As its jaws unlocked to their full extent he saw the huge teeth that lined its gaping maw for the first time.
He immediately regretted his actions when it let out a chilling cry and lunged forwards with startling speed.
Hot, fetid breath steamed against his face as its teeth snapped shut just shy of his cheek. The scents of blood and death lingered before him; a terrifying glimpse into the future.
It flew at him, hitting him hard in the chest and knocking him back. The world inverted as the back of his head hit the concrete floor. He had no idea which way was up for a good few seconds.
By the time he’d regained his senses, the creature’s bulk had landed hard on his chest, crushing the breath from starving lungs.
Blood-flecked spittle dropped from its jaws and landed on his chest.
Its tiny eyes seemed to bore into him as it met his gaze.
It paused just long enough for his frantic hands to locate his knife.
He drew the blade out to its full length and swung it hard, jamming it into the side of the creature’s gaping mouth.
The creature let out a hideous cry as thick gouts of blood spattered his face and chest. The reeking fluid seemed to cling to his skin.
As he pushed with his legs, ti
pping the creature off him, its hands flew up, the bony knuckles of its left hand crashing into his temple.
Gary could take a punch, had never been knocked down in the ring, but this was something else entirely.
His teeth slammed down on his tongue, filling his mouth with blood that sought to run down his throat and choke him.
He kicked out, knocking the creature away, trying desperately to regain his senses.
A thick fuzz had settled over his thoughts.
His vision blurred, his skull pounded, his entire body seemed to crave unconsciousness and refused to obey his frantic instructions.
The creature was already recovered, on its haunches, readying itself for another lunge at him. He saw the laundry cart and his mind lit up with hope.
He dived for it, landing on the back and flying forwards just as the creature’s face lunged for him. The edge of the cart slammed the creature’s head hard enough to knock it back a few feet.
Knowing this might be his only chance, he ran for the doors.
He shoved them, pulled them, did pretty much everything he could to open them, but he saw that a pair of bloody hands were holding them shut.
In dismay, he turned back.
He was going to have to find another way out.
‘Ok, you got me,’ he cried out. ‘I admit it. You fucking scared me. Now please stop the joke.’
His words echoed back at him.
The creature seemed to be regaining its senses, so he put his head down and ran straight past it, feeling the breeze as its clawed hand just missed taking his throat out. The warm drops of blood that landed on his face sickened him to his stomach.
He ran to the right of the furnace, reasoning that this was the part of the sub-basement he hadn’t explored.
As he reached the corner, the creature’s breathing filled the darkness behind him.
He could not let it get close to him again, he had no doubt that his sanity would desert him for good if it did.
Hope came in the form of a breeze coming from the wall behind him.
He moved closer, grinning like an idiot at the sliver of sanctuary this could potentially provide, and saw a large mesh grille set into the wall.