"That's stupid," she said. "My beer was never out of my sight, and I've never heard of anyone sharing the same trip."
"Okay, then we died, and this is Hell."
"You're an asshole, I'm trying to be serious."
"So am I," he shouted. "You wanted answers and I'm giving you answers. There is no simple explanation, is there? Even if the snow was somehow possible, it doesn't explain how we got here or where the others went. It won't explain what we saw in the store or what we heard outside. I can't give you a pretty explanation that is going to make you feel better."
"What if the stories are true?"
"About Elmview? I'd say for certain there's something going on here."
"You know what I mean," she huffed. "What if the reports were true? What if something... supernatural did happen here, and what if that house is part of it?"
Geoff grabbed the vodka and took two large swallows. "That shit isn't real."
"Why are you so fucking dense? One minute you're saying something is going on here, and the next you refuse to believe it. It's either real, or it isn't. There is no gray area."
"You're right," Geoff yelled. "Okay? You're fucking right. Is that what you want to hear? I'm scared to death, I'm freezing, and I'm trapped in a goddamn Chiller movie. I don't have answers. I'm barely keeping it together. All these years, and all the things I've heard about this town... and now here we are, living the worst day of our lives and trying to have a conversation about something that can't be explained. I just want to go home."
Stacy put her arm around him and placed her head on his shoulder. She'd always thought how poorly people behaved in horror movies, how absolutely unreal the situations were, and how the characters came together to fight some unimaginable foe, simply accepting what was happening to them without asking questions. She wondered how anyone could keep going when their world was turned ass over tits, but the reality was slowly becoming clear.
What else could anyone do? Fight the nightmare, or lie down and die.
Stacy wasn't ready to give up yet.
"We'll figure it out," she said. "For now, we're okay."
"I don't know if I'd call this okay, but at least I can feel my toes again."
They passed the bottle back and forth, relishing the fire that had grown in their bellies. If not for the drab, dusty room and the threat of impending doom, it would have felt like any other winter night, wrapped up on the couch and watching old black and white movies. Stacy sighed and put it out of her head.
She was about to say something when Geoff put his hand on her thigh and squeezed. She turned to him and saw his face pale as his eyes widened. She knew better than to ask if something was wrong.
On the floor above, feet shuffled quietly down the hall. Voices murmured from behind closed doors as a stiff breeze extinguished the lone candle, plunging the room into shades of gray.
"Is there someone here?" Geoff asked, trembling.
A loud, hollow bang emanated from the kitchen.
"Please, we mean you no harm," Stacy pleaded. As soon as it left her lips, she felt stupid for having said it.
The light outside quickly changed to deep red, painting the interior of the house in hues of crimson. The overhead lamp flickered and stayed on as the house grew uncomfortably warm. The thick layer of dust covering the furniture seemed to melt away, and the smells of cat litter and pot smoke grew stronger by the second. The level of vodka in the bottle slowly rose.
A shape materialized on the floor, sitting in front of a television that suddenly turned on and blared with hissing, white noise. The fuzzy image on the screen cleared, showing the snow-covered streets of Elmview, and the shape in front of the TV took form.
That of a blond, teenage boy wearing a grime-spotted Mario Bros. T-shirt.
"I told you to turn that fucking idiot box off," a woman's slurred voice screamed from upstairs.
The boy turned to look at them, his face a mask of sadness.
"Don't worry about her," he said. "She's too drunk to make it down the stairs."
"Who... who are you?" Stacy croaked. "How'd you get here?"
"My name is Eric," he smiled, "and I live here."
"You live here? But how?"
Eric laughed and stood, frowning as Geoff and Stacy backed away, pressing themselves into the back of the couch as far as they could.
"Don't worry, I'm not going hurt you," he said.
"Where did you come from?" Stacy looked around the room, one that had been dark and empty just seconds before. "What is this place?"
"That's not a simple answer," the boy explained. "You're safe for now."
"For now?" Geoff asked. "What are you talking about, for now?"
Eric turned and looked at the television sadly as the image of Elmview came in and out of focus. He pushed the vodka bottle aside, grimaced, and sat on the edge of the coffee table.
"You're going to have a lot of questions, some I might be able to answer..."
"Where the hell are we?" Geoff interrupted.
"A version of Elmview," he explained.
"A version? What does that mean?"
"We have some time, and I'll tell you what I can, but we can't stay here forever." He paused for a moment, deep in thought, thinking of some easy way to explain to them what was going on. "Elmview was a real place, my home. I had friends here, but all of that is gone now. The Elmview you know is dead, haunted by the ghosts of those who died there, but Elmview still lives on, and in those places, you're the ghosts."
"That's your way of explaining?" Geoff erupted. "You're going to have to do better than that, kid."
Eric sighed and nodded. "And I will, I promise." He pushed the now full bottle of vodka toward them. "You're going to need more of this."
***
Romeo opened his eyes and gasped at the burning, stinging pain in his arms. He sat up quickly and waved his hands around his face, worried the angry swarm was still nearby. His tongue was swollen and dead from the nasty sting he'd gotten in the underground, but he was no longer in the black labyrinth beneath the house, but rather in a large, moldering bedroom devoid of furniture. The floor was coated in grime and several inches of muddy brown water. The sun was out, and the room was miserably hot.
He stood and squeezed the moisture from his shirt. The lingering memory of the snow, the wolves, and Trina's dancing corpse had become vague images of something he'd remembered from a nightmare. The itchy patches of irritated skin on his arms and neck were nothing more than mosquito bites, a well-deserved punishment for not zipping the tent all the way. Relief flooded through him as he filled the large room with booming laughter.
He couldn't wait to tell the others about this. They'd think he'd gone insane, but it would be worth it.
"Guys," he called, "where are you?"
Outside, startled birds screeched and took flight from a giant pine tree. Romeo splashed toward the door and opened it into a long hallway. There was also water here, covering the floor in a warm, stagnant stream. Now he understood the bites on his arms. He hadn't passed out in the tent, he'd somehow wandered back into the house where standing water covered the spongy floor in every direction. It was a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Suddenly his biggest fear was coming down with the West Nile virus.
"Come on guys, seriously. You're going to love this."
As he walked down the hall, he noticed the water had gotten deeper; it was now up to his ankles. He had no idea how so much water could have pooled on the second floor of a house, but now his biggest worry was if leeches lived in the reeking muck. This little field trip had been a bad idea from the beginning.
"Is anyone in here?" he shouted. "Of course not," he uttered, "they're all smart enough to stay outside."
He just wanted to get out, go home, and take a hot shower to wash the filth from his skin. On his left, he gripped the wooden banister and turned down the steps leading to the front of the house, when he stopped with a shout.
"What the fuck is this?"
His legs were now under a foot of water. He shook his head and looked down, seeing that not only had the second floor become a river, but the first floor was entirely submerged. He stepped back to the floor, dumbfounded, holding onto the railing to maintain his balance.
"It can't be."
Quickly, he walked back in the direction from where he'd come, reentering the bedroom with no clear idea of where he was supposed to go. His back pocket vibrated, and he instinctively reached back for his cell phone. He'd remembered sitting in the SUV and checking the same phone, only to find it dead, but he'd already come to the realization that the storm, and their frantic attempt at escape, were only in his mind.
He pushed the button to answer the call and held the phone to his ear. "Hello?"
"Romeo," Dink said cheerily. "Where the hell are you?"
"Where am I? Where are you?"
"Can you believe that storm last night?"
"The storm," he said slowly. "The snow?"
"Snow?" Dink laughed. "Are you still drunk, it's fucking July. The rainstorm, dummy."
"It rained?"
"Like the sky opened and tried to wash us from the face of the Earth. Buddy, you better stop drinking."
Romeo closed his eyes and tried to remember, but all he saw was darkness and the swarm of wasps billowing from between Trina's dead lips. He shuddered and looked around the room, glad to be under a bright, warm sky.
"Well, it would certainly explain why the house is flooded."
"You silly, intoxicated bastard," Dink giggled. "Just stay put, Trina's coming to get you."
"Trina? What?" The line had gone dead. He put the phone in his pocket and walked over to the window, shocked by the sight.
There was water in all directions. It lapped quietly at the house's outer walls, twenty feet above the ground. The tops of waterlogged trees peeked above the surface of the newly-formed brown lake that had appeared out of nowhere. Dink wasn't kidding when he said there'd been a rainstorm. This was apocalyptic. He'd awakened from one dream and had slipped right into another.
The silence was broken by the loud, grinding roar of a small engine. The trees parted and a silver fishing boat approached from the direction of the driveway. From Romeo's window, he saw the boat quickly near the house and float toward him. The engine shut off, and a smiling Trina waved as she steered closer.
"Now I know I'm dreaming," he chuckled. "You hate boats," he shouted to her.
"All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream," she said, quoting Poe.
"You also hate poetry."
"It seemed fitting." The boat bumped against the front of the house and sidled up next to the window. "Are you getting in, or are we going to spend all day out here?"
"Sure," Romeo replied. "I'll play along."
He grabbed the sides of the window frame and pulled himself into the boat. It was the first time he'd seen the extent of the flooding. If this was real, the entire valley would have been under water.
"Remind me never to do this again," he said. "I've had some fucked up dreams before, but this is something else entirely."
"You don't say." Trina started the motor and steered them away from the house. Romeo looked back, amazed. Three-quarters of the building had disappeared beneath the murky water.
"A few minutes ago I was under the house looking for you, and now we're floating above the house in a fishing boat. I'd say that officially makes this the craziest dream I've ever had."
"Why do you say this is a dream?" Trina shouted above the engine. "Floods are real. Boats are real. I'm real."
Romeo sat back and smiled, staring into a cloudless, summer sky and wishing he could somehow show his friends what he'd experienced. Trying to explain this would be impossible.
They were silent as the boat cut through the water. Their muddy wake led back to the house, the top of the roof the only thing visible. When Romeo turned forward again, he felt his mouth hanging open and quickly clamped it shut.
"Would you look at that?" he said.
On their left, a small grassy island sat atop the water. Their campsite. The tents had been tattered and torn, their color drained to a dull gray. Geoff's RAV4 sat on flat tires; the paint had been replaced by years of rust, the windows broken, the soggy interior covered in green mold and stunted weeds. Nature's takeover was strikingly beautiful.
The further they went from the house, the darker it became. Romeo didn't notice at first, as it was so gradual, but by the time the island-camp had slipped from view, the sky had turned the color of slate, and clouds hung low on the horizon.
"Where are we going, anyway?" he asked.
Trina didn't respond.
He turned to repeat the question, but Trina was slumped over, her hand on the tiller.
"Hey, did you hear me?"
The motor sputtered and died as it coughed out a cloud of black, oily smoke. Still, Trina remained hunched over and unresponsive. The boat slowed and finally came to rest. Romeo couldn't see anything on either side except for miles of unbroken water. The valley had become a vast lake.
"Okay, I'm ready to wake up now. This is getting ridiculous."
"Wake up?" Trina growled. "And miss out on all the fun?"
Romeo met Trina's eyes and choked on the vomit that suddenly filled his mouth and nostrils. Her face was a ragged, glistening lump of bloody meat, covered in flies that entered and exited through wormholes that had been chewed into her rotting flesh. Her leg ended in splintered bone, and her body was shedding skin like a molting reptile.
He screamed and jumped to the front of the boat, holding on for dear life, afraid of what horrors lurked just below the surface of the water. Trina stood and rocked the boat violently from side to side, trying to shake him like a pesky gnat.
"Trina, please, don't..."
"I wish you'd stop calling me that," she replied, spitting out a chunk of her rotting tongue. "Trina is a corpse left behind to feed the machine, and you're soon going to join her."
"I want to wake up now," he cried. "I wanna wake up, Iwannawakeup."
"There is no awake, and there is no sleep. In the void, you just are."
"GOD HELP ME!"
"Your God is but a festering memory on the skin of the universe. Soon, you'll scream my name."
The Trina-thing rocked the boat a final time, dumping them both in the waters of a drowned world. Romeo grabbed for the upturned boat, but couldn't get a hold on its slick hull. Trina's corpse laughed as it dipped beneath the dark water, and the sky opened with a roar. Romeo swam away from the boat as it sank beneath the surface; he paddled as quickly as his arms and legs would allow, but had no sense of direction.
Something brushed against his foot and he screamed, spitting out a flood of dirty water as he fought against the panic rising within him. Something else hit him from behind, spinning him around and tugging on his arm with cold, swollen fingers. A dozen pale arms broke the surface and splashed around him, swimming ever-closer in a tightening circle. He screamed as he was pulled under, fighting the groping hands as they found purchase in his clothes and hair. He fought his way to the surface, preparing another deep gulp of air, but just as he inhaled, strong hands pulled him down again. He filled his lungs with rancid, gritty water and felt himself slip away.
The pressure grew as he was yanked down into the depths. His chest burned from lack of oxygen and his eyes felt as if they'd pop from their sockets.
By the time he'd reached the bottom, and his flesh slowly dissolved into the mud, he was completely insane.
Romeo had the distinction of being the last human in a dead world...
...and the final one to die there.
Chapter 6
"We have to go back inside," Lisa sobbed. "I don't want to be eaten by those things."
"Just be quiet and let me think," Roger growled.
"We don't have time to think!"
The wolves stood several feet away at the bottom of the porch steps. Their fangs had grown to a cartoon-ish length,
some dragging on the ground between their front legs. The largest of the pack - the one that had eaten Trina - walked forward and growled deep in its throat. It stood on its hind legs, howling at the sky, and it stayed that way. The others followed their master's lead, each one standing on its rear legs like grizzly bears preparing for an attack. Not one of them was less than seven feet tall, and not one of them fell.
Dink was the first to move, every muscle tight and ready for a quick escape if one of those things suddenly darted forward. He slid against the wall to the open front door and backed inside, grabbing hold of Beth's arm as he passed.
"Come on, Roger," he whispered. "There's no way we can fight them."
"I don't even know what they are."
Lisa grabbed Roger's hand and followed Dink's lead as more of the abominations crept out of the forest. They snuffled loudly around the campsite, trampling the tents into the snow and playing tug-of-war with Roger and Lisa's sleeping bags.
This was fun for them.
Roger and Lisa joined their friends inside as Roger reached out and slowly closed the front door, afraid to move too quickly for fear of triggering an attack. The creatures watched them with glowing eyes but held their ground.
"Are they... werewolves?" Lisa asked.
"Of course not," her husband scoffed. "There's no such thing."
"Oh, good. That makes me feel a lot better. If they don't exist, maybe they'll just disappear. As a matter of fact, if I don't believe in snow, maybe that'll go away too."
"Stop talking nonsense..."
"Nonsense? Do you hear yourself? If they aren't real, then what the hell are they? A figment of our imagination?"
Plaster dust rained down on them from the ceiling and large cracks had formed in the walls. The structural integrity had been compromised; the floor tilted just enough to make standing straight feel awkward and unnatural. The fire still crackled in the dining room.
"Come on guys," Beth said. "Fighting won't get us anywhere. I just want to sit down, okay? Sit by the fire and clear my head."
The Traveler (The Great Rift Book 2) Page 9