Howls From Hell

by Grady Hendrix

  I see my sign up ahead and veer into the exit lane, not bothering to indicate. Had I always been like this? If I’d changed, then I’d never noticed it—changes in a person are barely noticeable because they always occur simultaneously, constantly reacting to the present and intertwining with the past. Does everyone feel this way? Perhaps some are just better at stuffing it inside. I leave the exit ramp.

  My car twists and turns around the dimly lit streets. I occasionally glance at those making the treacherous walk home, darkness lapping at their feet like a rising tide. I pass a house that has been for sale for months. Someone has graffitied the word scum over the face of the real estate agent.

  A stop sign ahead, I briefly slow down, and my headlights illuminate a dead bird lying in the middle of the street. It appears to be someone's pet cockatoo, its white feathers now maroon from the blood and dirt. As I accelerate, I see its beak widen and eyes glisten. I speed closer, seeing tiny, grey, wriggling maggots erupting from its mouth like liquified television static spilling out of a screen. A bloody screech pierces my ears as the tires flatten its feathery corpse. The music plays again—the radio has turned itself back on at full volume. I turn it off with a trembling hand. Surely it was just a glitch of the stereo. Guess I need to get that fixed too.

  I park my car in a cramped spot on the street, squeezing it between a decrepit Holden Commodore and a weathered Mitsubishi Magna. One of the Magna’s windows is missing, a duct-taped garbage bag peeling from the corner, flapping in the wind like a trashy flag for the neighbourhood. Opposite from it is a playground with a broken swing set, the seat missing, its loose chains flailing and clinking.

  I live in a large apartment complex, sandwiched somewhere on the third floor between a multitude of identical rooms. When it was being built, someone fucked up and failed to account for the number of rooms when paving the car park—so it’s first come, first serve. And once again, I’m late getting home, so all the parks are probably taken. I switch off the ignition, and the streetlight flickers, blinding camera flashes pulsating through the car window.

  As I slam my car door, the sound breaks the eerie silence like a stone thrown in a placid lake. Crooked trees reach out onto the sidewalk, roots bursting decaying pavement. No moon glows in the black sky. No stars pierce the clouds. The silence is so palpable that I am conscious of each step I make, heavy thumps on the sidewalk.

  As I look up at the towering apartment building, dark windows stare back at me, no light behind the glass. My hands slick with sweat, I imagine the building empty and echoing, everyone having agreed to leave, together and all at once. Was there a bomb threat? A fire? I take a quick peek into the car park. From where I can see, it’s full, the cars crammed together like chickens in a coop. Where the fuck is everyone? Was there some stupid party I wasn’t invited to? Doesn’t matter, I don’t need them. Perhaps my loneliness is manifesting paranoia.

  I make my way into the apartment stairway. Each footstep reverberates off the stairs as I ascend, and the bright, clinical lights of the stairway waver rhythmically as if spirits are following me. I wipe a bead of sweat off my brow. My body is reacting without my permission. There is nothing wrong. It’s all in my head. And then I see my apartment door. A cold wave washes over me. I freeze. My arm hair prickles as my mouth goes dry.

  The door is wide open; the intruder—if my suspicions are correct—made no attempt at concealing the break-in. The yellow glow of my living room lamp spills out into the hallway. I creep towards the door, ready for anything. I have no instinct to retreat. This is my home. The police would roll their eyes at me; another drunk povo shitting where they eat. This dilapidated apartment is all I have.

  I slip my car keys between my fingers like claws, the cold metal digging into my skin as I form a tight fist. I’m eager for a physical encounter; it’s been too long since I've truly felt alive. Someone I can finally lay into, a vessel for all the shitty bosses and gossiping colleagues. Lost in thought, I step into the kitchen, barely aware of the open drawers, scattered cutlery, broken glasses, dirty dishes, and half-drunk beer bottles. I’ll punch the greasy robber in his neck, slam him to the floor, and jam my keys into the whites of his eyes until I feel the blood and jelly splatter on my fingers—I will be the final image burnt into his brain. “Self-defence,” I can say. These thoughts leave my mind as I enter the living room, dissipating the moment I see the intruder.

  Heart in my throat, time stops for a split second. Sitting on the couch is a thing not of this world.

  It appears to be in the shape of a human, except for the absence of any perceivable matter—as if some deity has sculpted a fourth-dimensional hole in the image of a man. What fills the space between is a moving, living static—all gradients of grey dancing and seething, like, I realise in terror, the bird in the street. There is no sound between us but the whirring spin of the ceiling fan.

  My exhilaration spills out in an audible gasp. The intruder turns its head—looks directly at me with eyes it does not have, yet I know it stares into my soul. Any idea of escape enters my head a moment too late. The door to my apartment slams shut. I scramble towards it, grappling at the knob as if I were dangling from a cliff. Clammy hands slipping, I steal a look back at the intruder. It sits still. Unmoving. Its absent stare unrelenting. To the left is the living room window—my last resort. I imagine the glass breaking and my bones shattering. Or my brains spilling over the concrete, a neighbour awaking to a nasty surprise. Either seems infinitely better than staying here with the intruder. As I consider the window, my stomach suddenly churns, and I fall to my knees, my throat constricting as the air turns toxic, an evil energy threatening to suffocate me.

  I push myself up with all the power I can muster and attempt a sprint towards the window. I am so close now. My hand inches from the latch, a crack resonates through the air like a whip. The intruder appears before me, and I fall into its emptiness like a neck through a noose.

  I free-fall through the blinding depths of an infinite dark. Thousands of otherworldly worms wriggle over me, digging tiny, corrupted needles into my skin. I try to cry out, some kind of pathetic whimper, but the worms seize the opportunity for entry. The pain passes beyond the physical, a war on my being, digging into the synapses. I want to cry, but the intruder will not even allow me these simple comforts. Instead, I see the image of my body breaking down from afar—convulsing, then spasming and dribbling like a dying child.

  My body slams into the ground. My vision returns, but it’s blurred, filtered through something charcoal-like, like a black rubbish bag. The fleshy darkness compresses rapidly until it clings to me like a second skin, paralysing me. And then it breaks through my skin. My consciousness refuses to leave despite an overwhelming desire. My organs collapse, bones break, and blood dries. I am but a tiny glimmer within myself. I hear myself laughing, and I feel my body move under its control as it lies on the floor of my apartment, drinking wine with my throat, laughing with my mouth.

  I wake up. I get out of bed. I have a shower. I put the kettle on for coffee. Last night’s horrific ordeal now feels like a distant dream. Perhaps it was. I pour the kettle.

  Later, when I arrive at work, a co-worker makes a risqué joke at the water cooler. I laugh. I don’t know if it is funny. I can’t quite tell what my laugh is. I finish work.

  This goes on. Things happen to me, but I don’t understand my reactions. The intruder sits within me now. Most days it remains subdued, but every day it influences me. Days pass more rapidly now. The longer I live with it, the more familiar it becomes. I now wear expressions like fresh coats of paint on a dilapidated house. I don’t know what lays inside me, but I’m not sure that it matters anymore. I remember something from the dream now.

  I must have left the door open.

  JUSTIN FAULL is an emerging writer from Gold Coast, Australia. Having recently graduated with a dual degree in Law and Arts, majoring in Literary Studies and Journalism, he now finds himself drawn to dark fiction. You can find him o
n Twitter @JustinFaull.

  * * *

  An earlier version of this story was originally published in Issue Five of 3 Moon Magazine.

  * * *

  Illustration by Joe Radkins

  When my right testicle popped, I think that’s when I realized how serious the situation was. That I wasn’t getting out of this alive. That I was going to die here. Maybe popped isn’t the right word. Burst. Exploded. You know how you can roll up a ketchup packet tighter and tighter, building pressure at the seams? Then one small weakness gives way to a sudden spray of red.

  I couldn’t move my head to see the gore that painted my inner thigh. That was probably for the best.

  See, I’d always had a thing for hippie girls. Maybe I was too young the first time I watched Dazed and Confused. Too impressionable when I saw that documentary about Woodstock. Whatever it was, whatever switch got flipped, it worked for me. Give me hairy armpits and flowing skirts, chunky hair and the scent of patchouli. Gets me going every time. Everybody’s got a thing, I guess.

  The first time I saw Lilian, I was at a friend’s birthday party. Well, I knew someone who knew someone, and somehow I ended up standing around a bonfire in a dried-up cornfield surrounded by strangers in the middle of October. The beer was free, and there were enough joints being passed around that for once I didn’t feel like leaving as soon as we got there.

  Someone had strung together a series of extension cords from the nearby farmhouse to power a makeshift stage, and it was far enough outside of town to avoid any noise complaints. The music sounded like a mix between surf rock and doom metal, but if you didn’t listen closely, it wasn’t too bad. The microphone had cut out soon after the band took the stage, so the singer wandered off into the crowd with a tambourine while the other members kept playing.

  “I really should’ve worn a jacket.” Troy rubbed his bare arms, then stuffed his hands back in his pockets. He had texted me for over an hour to convince me to come out that night, but couldn’t be bothered to check the weather. “Why aren’t any of these chicks dancing?”

  “I’ve seen three people trip just trying to walk out here,” I said, kicking at a rut left in the ground by the harvester. The soil was already hardening as temperatures cooled. “I don’t think anyone wants to break their ankle dancing.” I took a sip of beer and used my free hand to make sure my stocking cap was covering my ears, watching my breath float away from me in the frigid air. Even though the bonfire was raging, I couldn’t feel the heat from where I stood. “You ready to go yet? We’ve been here for hours, and I want to get at least a little sleep—I’m picking up an overtime shift at the mill tomorrow.”

  Troy hopped back and forth a bit, trying to warm up. “Yeah, I gotta go piss first. And see if I can find Doug to tell him happy birthday.” He turned to walk away, then stopped. “Wanna come talk to him?”

  I shook my head and stood watching the fire. Doug had always been more Troy’s friend than mine. He shrugged and walked off. I finished my beer and absently toyed with the knife in my coat pocket. A nervous habit, but other than a couple of scars, it was the only thing my old man gave me before he bailed.

  A sudden chill shuddered up my spine, as though a vibration had crawled from the fertile earth to burrow into my body. Despite the cold, I started sweating. Dread overcame me—the “I’m going to be in so much trouble when Mom gets home” terror that I hadn’t felt since I was a kid. That icy, heavy stone that lodges in your stomach when you realize that both fight and flight have left you defenseless.

  Standing there, slightly buzzed, a little high, and wishing desperately to be somewhere else, the feeling passed.

  I dropped my empty beer cup on the ground and stared into the flickering fire. My eyes followed embers floating into the night until I noticed a strange movement.

  A slender, feminine shadow spun in front of the fire. Twirling, twisting like a leaf on the wind. Dancing. She moved as if her life depended on it. As if her body were designed only to dance. She weaved through the crowd unnoticed, her movements graceful and violent in equal measure, her bare feet kicking up dirt with every step as she circled the fire.

  I was transfixed. Hypnotized. She was the feather from Forrest Gump. The plastic bag from American Beauty. My eyes watered. I hadn’t blinked. I didn’t want to. She spun around to the opposite side of the fire again, and our eyes met briefly. Flowers graced her hair. Tears rimmed her eyes.

  “Ready?” Troy smacked me on the shoulder.

  I looked from the fire to him. From him back to the fire. I rubbed my eyes, but she was gone.

  My body convulsed against the bed of moss and soft earth beneath me. I felt the skin on my arms splitting, muscles flexed to the point of tearing, bones dislocating. The webbing between my fingers ripped as my hands clenched and spread repeatedly. My fingers bent backwards and dug into the warm soil, taking root like tendrils searching for water.

  I tried to scream. Tried to draw in oxygen with lungs that no longer functioned.

  I scoured my friends’ social media accounts, looking for anyone that knew her. Adding friends of friends, looking for even a single tagged photo or comment. Searching desperately for her name, or a place to find her. She was a ghost. An illusion, floating away from me like snowy ashes in the night sky. Dandelion seeds in a summer wind.

  I barely worked the next week. The few shifts I showed up for, my boss sent me home early. Something about “distraction causes workplace accidents” and how I needed to “focus on my future in the industry.” For all I cared, the paper mill could die right alongside printed media. I stopped calling in.

  I didn’t speak to my friends. I drove around town in a daze, not knowing where I was going, not caring where I ended up. I hardly ate. Food bored me. The memory of her sustained me. Her silhouette against the bonfire planted a seed in my mind. Her eyes and tears, the sun and rain. Giving life. The days passed. The seed split. Grew. Became a sprout of obsession.

  One particular day, I found myself on the eastern edge of town, passing by the rundown strip mall there. The long, low brick building sat mostly vacant, and the few stores that remained held no interest for me. I tossed my cigarette out the window and pulled into the parking lot next to the empty husk of a video store. I put the truck in park and rolled my window the rest of the way down, enjoying the cool air in my lungs.

  I think it was the smell that hit me first: lavender. Vegetables and flowers. A perfume of nature. Every scent seeking dominance, but weaving with every other into a tapestry of life. Growth. A wave of smell, ebbing and flowing, so full and calming that I could almost see it. A mist surrounding me and pulling me out of the pickup and into its depths.

  It was a nursery. A greenhouse. An oasis of life among the orange, red, and brown leaves that littered the parking lot where I stood. A breath of life across the street from a world that was slowly dying around me. Numbly, I stumbled forward, crossing the threshold into the lush garden.

  I walked along rows and rows of flowers, vines, and vegetation. Out-of-season blooms and exotic fruits. My skin prickled, and I shivered, despite the humidity in the building. I felt unwelcome, but unable to leave. The greenhouse was silent, a miniature jungle whose inhabitants sensed an approaching predator. The only sound, the sleeves of my hoodie brushing against branches that seemed to reach out to grasp me.

  “Hi.”

  Her voice rustled like leaves, spinning in a circle, caught by an errant gust of wind. Part whisper, part sigh. Suddenly lightheaded, I reached to steady myself with a nearby shelf as the blood left my extremities to pool in my loins. I knew it was her before I even turned around.

  “Umm.” Real smooth, asshole.

  She turned a corner beside two flowers I couldn’t name. That could not exist in any sane world. As she passed between them, long magenta petals parted and spread to reveal waving cone-shaped leaves. I could have sworn they weren’t there when I had passed that way a few seconds ago. As if satisfied with what I’d seen, the petals lowered back
down. She smiled.

  “I’m Lilian.”

  She walked to me, her long skirt wafting above her bare feet, as though caught in a breeze that flowed only around her. She was at home, in her element. She reached out, brushing the leaves and thorns around us.

  “Hello,” I said, my voice cracking into a pubescent squeak on the second syllable. Some of my blood found its way to my face, and my cheeks flushed.

  She moved past me, indifferent to my embarrassment. She smelled like peat moss, like the bottom layer of leaves on a forest floor. Wet and musty and already composting. She smelled of the earth. Of growth, ripeness, fertility. Of life and death, rebirth and decay. I leaned in closer to pull more of her scent into my lungs, not caring how blatant the gesture looked, and unable to stop myself. The flower in her hair seemed to angle toward me as she turned, a cobra bobbing its head hypnotically. The dark red petals seemed to spiral around a thick green stalk. It smelled sweet, with a hint of something darker. Heavier. The sweetness caught in my throat, holding on. Scratching. Squeezing.

  She was everything I had ever wanted, but yet the only things I’d ever truly feared. The first hint of sunlight after a rainstorm, yet the creeping shadows behind trees at night.

  “What are you looking for?” When her green eyes locked with mine, I realized I was holding my breath.