"I'm so sorry," Geoff whined. "Why is this happening? He never did anything to deserve this."
"RUN!" Dink shrieked. "It's here! I can feel it. RUN! RUN! GET OUT!"
Dink's screams turned to wet, gargling barks as the Skryel found him in the darkness and killed him over and over again in the blackened void.
It was laughing.
Geoff turned, wide-eyed and howling, scanning the room for a weapon; anything to break the wall between them and put an end to his friend's torment. He ran to the staircase, pulling and kicking at the posts holding the banister. After a few attempts, one broke free and clattered to the floor as the house groaned its disapproval.
Clutching the sturdy post in his hands like a baseball bat, Geoff wound up and struck the barrier, narrowly missing Eric as he jumped out of the way. The house grunted like a living animal as the floor bucked beneath his feet, sending him and Eric flailing to the ground. Geoff uttered a short, disgusted moan as the floorboards heaved and pulsed beneath his hands like living flesh. In the endless, blackened gulf beneath the house, a steady rhythm pounded an insistent beat that Geoff felt in his bones.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
The diseased heart of the Skryel's refuge rumbled to life as blood pumped through hidden veins behind the rotting plaster.
"Please stop," a voice cried on the second floor. Romeo's voice. "It's going to kill us for what you've done! It's going to punish us..."
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! It's not YOU!"
"Geoff, get a hold of yourself. You're doing exactly what it wants."
"I don't fucking care anymore," he cried, swinging the post at the plaster. A large chunk crumbled and fell to the floor in a billowing cloud. He didn't stop until he reached the lath beneath. He tossed the post aside and dug into the brittle wood with his bare fingers, pulling sections from the wall and creating a pile of rubble at his feet. Rusted nails squealed and groaned as Geoff burrowed into the partition, deeper and deeper. With one final tug, a large portion of the wall buckled and collapsed, forcing him to cover his eyes and hold his breath so as not to inhale the ancient dust.
He heard Eric gasp and quickly opened his eyes to see what he'd unearthed. He didn't know what to expect, but this didn't even come close.
Buried beneath the man-made framework was something organic... alive, a patchwork of interwoven capillaries and thicker arteries pulsing with fresh blood. Bundles of nerves were nestled between larger slabs of living tissue; muscles tightened, glistening in the dim glow.
"It's alive," Geoff said, winded from his exertion. "The whole fucking house is alive."
"It's like the Skryel has become part of it," Eric added. "An extension of itself."
The house's heartbeat quickened and echoed hollowly through the open rooms as Geoff covered his mouth to suppress his gag reflex. When it passed, Geoff looked at Eric and grinned. The boy stepped away, sure that something inside him had snapped.
"No, it's okay," Geoff assured him. "I'm okay."
"Then why the hell are you smiling?"
"It's alive," he said and paused. "Which means it can be killed."
Eric thought about it for a second and nodded. "Any ideas on how you want to go about doing that?"
"We bleed the fucker dry."
Without waiting for a reply, Geoff turned back to the wall and dug his hands deep into the warm meat of the house's innards, clutching thick cords of muscle and ripping them free with a wet snap. Eric joined him, grabbing pulsing veins between his hands and pulling them apart in a hot spray of sticky blood. It rained down around them, covering their skin and soaking their clothing as they dug deeper into the quivering mass of living tissue.
The heartbeat quickened.
"Don't stop," Geoff yelled. "Gut the son of a bitch."
Eric did as he was told, filled with revulsion as blood ran down the wall in a river and pooled on the floor. Yellow gobs of fat clung to his arms as he reached deeper, searching for the thickest veins and ripping them to shreds. Geoff brushed his hands against a hot cable of flesh and found it was too thick to grab with one hand. He dug deeper, leaning into the bloody opening, smearing his face with fresh blood and torn gristle. Once he got his arms around it, he tugged with all his might and pulled it free with a loud squelch.
The crimson tube was as thick as a fire hose. He heard blood rushing through it like water in a storm drain. Eric stopped what he was doing and looked at Geoff with surprise, like a kid finding a particularly tasty treat hidden in a birthday party pinata.
"Give me a hand," Geoff ordered. "Help me get it out of there."
Eric wrapped his arms around the giant artery, putting his foot against the wall for leverage. After a brief struggle, they managed to expose a three-foot section of the vein, watching as it filled and deflated with every heartbeat.
"Now what?" Eric asked. "We're not going to be able to open that thing with our bare hands."
Geoff leaned in closer so his face was only a few inches away. He felt heat baking off it in waves; he wrinkled his nose at the smell of blood and raw meat.
"If we get out of here, I'll never eat meat again," he said.
He lunged forward and sunk his teeth into the vein - shaking his head from side to side in an attempt to breach the thick skin - but it remained undamaged.
"Here," Eric exclaimed. He bent down and cautiously grabbed a large, rusty nail from the increasing river of blood flowing from the damaged wall. "It's better than nothing."
Geoff grabbed it from Eric's outstretched hand and turned it over in his palm, smiling.
"We're going to give this bastard a serious case of tetanus," he laughed. "If it doesn't bleed to death first."
Geoff reached out and punched the nail into the vein, shocked at how easily it broke through the surface. When he tried to remove it, it got caught on something and wouldn't budge. Fresh blood dribbled around the edge of the wound as he fought to pull it free. As he bent over to find another weapon, the artery ripped open with a sigh and steaming blood sprayed across the room in a geyser. They were knocked to the floor by the sudden torrent where they writhed against the rising tide of the metallic-smelling liquid. Eric coughed and spit as the blood entered his mouth and clogged his nostrils. Strong hands grabbed him by the arms and yanked him above the surface; the level of blood had risen to Geoff's knees in a matter of seconds.
"We have to get out of here," Geoff warned.
"No! Really?"
Geoff tried the front door to no avail. "Why did I think it would be that easy?"
"It's not enough," Eric sputtered. "We have to find the heart and destroy it."
"We have to go down?"
"We have to go down."
"We're going to have a serious talk about life choices, kid."
"We don't have a choice, only a solution."
Geoff grabbed Eric's hand and pulled him down the hall toward the cellar door. The blood on the first floor was now up to Geoff's thighs. He reached for the knob - remembering it had been locked the first time he and his friends had tried it - and the door opened a crack. He pulled against the opposing pressure, nearly falling as the door opened and the river of blood cascaded into the depths. The steady flow pulled at their legs, making it impossible to stand, and before they knew it, they were pulled along by the raging river and sucked into the deep, cold labyrinth beneath the house.
***
The space beneath the house wasn't anything like Geoff had imagined. The chamber was massive, lit by a self-sustaining glow with no discernible source. The floor was made of thick, twitching flesh; arteries ran along the ceiling and walls like electrical conduit. Never had the phrase 'in the belly of the beast' seemed so literal and so absolutely terrifying.
Eric groaned and climbed to his feet, wiping bloody sludge from his arms and face. His relief of being uninjured from their descent quickly gave way to confusion and disgust as he scanned his surroundings. Dozens of quivering openings dotted the walls of their living prison,
leading into the moist, dark bowels of the underground.
The booming heartbeat was louder than ever.
"Now what?" Geoff whispered. "How the hell are we going to find a way out of here?"
Eric shook his head, still reeling from the hidden world beneath the house. The pulsing rhythm of veins expanding and contracting beneath his feet made him nauseous. The raw stink of viscera and fresh blood assaulted his senses, making his eyes water.
"What are those openings in the wall?" he pointed. "Doorways? Halls?" He didn't know what to call them. Doorways didn't feel right... not considering how they were carved out of living tissue like fresh wounds.
Geoff gagged and tested his footing. He understood what Eric was trying to say. There was no way to describe their surroundings. It wasn't a room; the floor wasn't really a floor; the walls weren't really walls. They were inside a living entity, a breathing abomination constructed of flesh, bone, and sinew.
"I feel you," a voice grumbled. "The pests are in the pantry."
"Where is that coming from?" Geoff whined.
"From everywhere!" it replied. "You are unwanted guests in my house and you must be punished for your trespass."
Geoff waved Eric forward, motioning to one of the wet openings with a grimace. He imagined being trapped down here, searching for a way out, slowly digested by the writhing flesh. Eric felt his trepidation and put a hand on Geoff's shoulder.
"Whatever happens, we have to try," Eric said.
"I know, but I didn't expect this. That smell..."
"Are you finding your accommodations satisfactory?" the voice chuckled. "Because you're never leaving here. This is your home now."
"Shut up!" Geoff yelled. "Don't you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?"
"On the contrary. I think I have a wonderful voice." The garbled, bloodcurdling shriek that followed made them dizzy. It drilled into their brains, turning their sinuses into faucets. Clear snot ran from their noses in a torrent. Geoff covered his ears and closed his eyes, but the shrill, warbling cry pried into his head and momentarily made him lose all sense of direction. The glistening walls seemed to close in on him until finally, the Skryel's cry died in a series of choking barks.
"Move," Eric demanded. "I can't go through that again."
"But you will, Traveler. You'll behold the cacophonous hum of entire cities screaming out in one voice... entire planets, races choking on their own guts and offering their death rattles to a broken sky. You will stop nothing."
"Without this house to hide behind, where will you go?" Eric asked. "Back to the void where you belong."
"You think I can't find another? Another house, another factory, another sleepy town where I can feed and start anew. All you're doing is buying time for a civilization that has been breathing on a ventilator for centuries."
"It's not your choice," Geoff cried. "You don't get to pick and choose who lives and who dies."
"That's where you're wrong. I extinguished your friends' lives like blowing out candles. There's no one left to stop me. Not your gods or your heroes or your little boys playing big boy games; not your Travelers, your Doorways, or your absent Guardian. You're alone... and you will die alone."
"It knows it can't stop us," Eric whispered. "It's stalling."
The Skryel laughed as formless blobs of flesh grew from the ground beneath them. They quickly solidified, rising from the muscle, waving like a field of wheat in a windstorm. Arms. Long, skinned arms topped by webbed hands and sharp, black claws. They reached out, groping at their clothing and trying to drag them to the floor. Eric screamed and kicked out, knocking them aside as they scratched at his shoes.
"Go!" Eric ordered. "Go, go, go!"
It wasn't easy running on the slick, uneven surface and was even more difficult dodging the waggling fingers of dozens of disembodied limbs, but soon they'd reached one of the jagged holes in the wall, pausing only briefly before stepping inside. Here, the sound of the constant heartbeat was muffled.
More importantly, the Skryel had stopped talking.
The tunnel was claustrophobic; hot and heavy and dripping with thick fluid that clung to their bodies like tar.
This hell was worse than anything Geoff had seen on the surface. Nothing even came close. As the passage began a steady descent, he wondered what else awaited them below. His resolve was slowly crumbling.
"It's getting closer," Eric said. "The heartbeat. Can you hear it?"
Geoff could, now that the boy had pointed it out; the muffled thuds had grown nearer. His ears were still buzzing from the Skryel's god-awful cry... a sound he'd never forget until tucked snugly into the silk lining of his coffin.
If he made it that far.
The tunnel went on forever, but with each step, the sound of the beating heart grew louder until they were forced to shout to one another to be heard.
"I can see the end." Geoff pointed at the brighter circle of light indicating the exit just as a skinned arm erupted from the flesh of the wall and grabbed his wrist. "Jesus Christ! Get it off!"
He tore at it as it squeezed painfully, but the hand remained wrapped around his wrist. He beat at it furiously to no avail as others burst from the floor in a spray of blood. He stomped them, crushing probing fingers beneath his shoes as the strongest one continued pulling him away from the center of the tunnel. Eric wrapped his hands around the arm and tugged, and for a second it appeared to slip. When Geoff opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into it, Eric looked away, suppressing his gag reflex. He listened as Geoff chewed into the gristle, tearing away hunks of meat and spitting them on the floor. There was no bone; it was a solid mass of muscle, one that seemed to liquefy and turn to a bloody pulp as soon as it hit his tongue.
Eric yanked on the arm again, and this time it tore in half, snapping like a rubber band. The bottom half retracted into the wall like a flailing earthworm as the hand relinquished its grip and fell to the floor with a plop. Geoff kicked it and crushed it beneath his foot until it stopping moving, unaware that he'd been screaming the entire time.
"Get moving," Eric pleaded. "One more minute in here..."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's not like I asked for that fucking thing to grab me."
He turned and focused on the end of the tunnel, running as quickly as he could on the shifting carpet of living tissue. The heartbeat had grown so loud, Geoff felt it more than heard it; a pressure in his head, a dull ache that throbbed in time with the beat.
They burst from the tunnel and slowed to a stop, winded and covered in bloody muck.
Geoff stared in awe at the size of this new chamber; it was easily larger than any stadium he'd ever seen... any two stadiums combined. The ceiling was so far above their heads that it was completely lost in the gloom. One hundred feet? Two hundred? They may as well have been at the bottom of the ocean.
One thing was perfectly clear.
The house's heart.
The one thing keeping the Skryel anchored here...
...and the one thing that would send it screaming back into the abyss.
***
The rancid, twitching heart hung suspended from the ceiling by thick cables of vein and muscle, pumping blood to the house above. It wasn't the house's life force, nor was it the Skryel's, but rather a shared construct that kept the beast tied to any world of its choosing. Every second it was in front of them was a second it wasn't on his Earth, and if what Eric had said was correct, the monster was now too weak to run, exhausted from chasing them through the multiverse.
"Destroy the heart and break the connection," Eric explained.
"Easier said than done. Look at the size of that thing."
"Do not try to use your power, Geoff. One wrong move and you'll bring the mountain down on top of us."
Geoff nodded, but was clearly irritated; having this hidden power he never knew existed, yet having no idea how to harness it. It was like buying a new car but not knowing how to drive. In life, Geoff was never considered a man of action, but he h
ad a way of figuring things out.
But this... this was completely different. How can you fight against something that should never exist in the first place?
The steady beat pounded into his head.
They walked forward drunkenly, closing the distance, looking for a weakness. Standing so close, they felt heat baking from the blackened, pulsing muscle. Bursts of hot air washed over them in stinking waves.
"Your bitch is dead!" a voice bellowed. "Turn around now and I'll let you see her one last time before I peel her like a grape."
"NO!" Geoff wailed. "You leave her alone. She has nothing to do with this."
"Geoff, don't. Stacy is safe, trust me."
"Trust me, he says. You'd trust a boy who dragged you into this mess? A boy who watched his friends die and did nothing? You're on the wrong side, Geoff. Can you imagine the wonders I could show you? Sitting by my side would mean never having to feel pain again."
"Just stop," Geoff said. "You've already lost. I'd die down here before helping you. Surely you know by now the human race will never lay down, never stop fighting. You chose the one enemy that will never give up. You've been fighting a war for millennia - one you can't win - but you're too stupid to realize the universe no longer needs you."
The room rumbled as the heart beat faster. Trickles of blood seeped from the flesh and dripped to the floor. The heart was out of their reach, hanging a dozen feet above their heads, swaying side-to-side as the beat quickened. Several large arteries anchored it the floor, each one the size of a covered water slide. Eric wasted no time, wrapping his arms around one and pulling himself up as if climbing a tree. He shimmied to the top of the vein, motioning for Geoff to do the same.
He cried out as he wrapped his arms around the slick, pulsing tube, revolted by the vibration of the quickly flowing blood beneath his fingers. As he slowly climbed, he wondered if there'd ever come a time when he could live any semblance of a normal life... one where monsters were only stories told by children.
The heart trembled.
Faced with the wall of black, beating flesh, Geoff didn't know what to do other than to strike out, pounding on it with a closed fist. The meat beneath his hand seemed to flinch and pull away as he struck it over and over again, but it was getting him nowhere. Sweat popped from his pores and made it difficult to hold on. He could no longer see or hear Eric but assumed he hadn't gotten any further. When he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, he stopped and cried out, watching as Eric fell and tumbled across the floor.
The Traveler (The Great Rift Book 2) Page 20