“GO, NOW!” Tyson shouted.
Kavi’s bottom lip was quivering and Judy pulled him close to her.
Tyson’s legs were still weak as he made his way through the darkness. Slowly, the basement came into focus. Faded light bled down through a stairway across from them. Tyson could hear what sounded like Rice Krispies crunching under his feet and he didn’t need to look to know what they were. More than a dozen flies were already buzzing around each of them. One landed on Tyson’s lips and he slapped it away and spat on the ground. He scooped Kavi up into his arms and started for the stairs.
A sound came from upstairs and all three of them stopped. The floorboards above them were moving. Something was in the house and it was directly above them, scurrying around frantically. Judy’s eyes were like saucers.
“Daddy?” Kavi gasped.
“Hold on, son. You gotta keep real quiet right now, okay?”
Kavi stared blankly at Tyson.
Tyson could hear its nails scuttling along the loose floorboards. It was heading for the basement, as if it knew exactly where they were. Judy’s eyes were transfixed on the ceiling. There was no escape. Tyson tugged on her shirt and motioned with his hand toward a corner in the back of the basement behind a shelving unit. She nodded and for a terrible moment Tyson felt crushing guilt for having mixed her up in all of this.
A second later it was on the stairs and he could hear it breathing. Rough scaly hands groping from riser to riser. Slowly the three of them inched backward. Their only hope was to hide. Hide in the corner and hope it didn’t see them. Or smell them. He knew charging past the beast wouldn’t work. It would snatch one of them for sure. And what would happen to the two that were left as they tried squeezing through that hole in the kitchen wall? They might have enough time for a single scream, before it yanked them back inside.
Judy and Kavi were already nestled behind the metal shelf filled with junk. Piles of faded magazines. Torn off doll’s heads. An old box of matches. Judy was waving at him frantically to come. She seemed to do everything but shout his name. Surely she was wise enough to know the creature could hear everything they said. Tyson’s back hit the wall. Judy’s hand found his and pulled him to the ground next to her and Kavi. His legs bent and it fired off a sharp pain in his left knee, but the discomfort vanished entirely as he watched the thing clamor into the basement. The way it breathed. For some reason that was what sent gooseflesh crawling up Tyson’s arms. That its legs had been replaced by a small fleshy tail, or that it moved around by pulling itself along the ground with his hands, didn’t seem nearly as upsetting as the way it breathed. It had all the snortiness of a pug. In fact, in the dim light, Tyson could swear its face had the same squashed shape.
The creature raised its pug face and drew in several deep breaths and that’s when Tyson realized what it was doing. Tasting the air. Sniffing for them. It’s head swinging back and forth in a wide arc like a Komodo Dragon and with each swing it seemed to narrow the angle of its search. Soon its head stopped and it stood pointing directly at the three dark shapes hiding behind the prefab shelving unit.
Tyson’s hand slipped over Kavi’s open mouth. The boy was trying to scream, but nothing was coming out.
It was less than five feet away. Its skin grayish brown and wet and Tyson was sure that somewhere upstairs was a trail of gore leading from a cocoon just like the one he had found split and oozing in his kitchen. The creature reached out with one of its hands.
Tyson’s breath hitched in his throat. His mind was racing. He would wait until its arm was all the way through the prefab shelving filled with old toys and then he would grab hold of it and hope he could tie it up long enough for Judy and Kavi to escape. The muscles in Tyson’s body tensed.
Then without warning, that clawed hand stopped and he watched it close around something on the shelf. The severed doll’s head. It had been reaching for that child’s toy and now it was bringing it to its chest and cradling it as delicately as Tyson was cradling Kavi.
All three of them watched as the hand with the doll’s head seemed to do a little dance and the creature’s mouth, filled with tiny triangular teeth, opened and closed. It was hard for Tyson to even wrap his head around what he was seeing, but from here it almost reminded him of the way Kavi played with his toys, mouthing the words to the imaginary dialogue in his head.
The scene had been so surreal and hypnotic that even Tyson was startled when Kavi started screaming. Tyson’s hand had slipped for no longer than a second or two, but that was the very second when Kavi had finally found his voice.
The pug faced creature recoiled. The doll’s head hit the ground with a hollow clop and rolled grotesquely along the floor. The temporary flash of fear on its face quickly became something ugly and harsh. It was getting ready to lung at them and Tyson knew he had to act now or they would all be dead. In one quick motion he nudged Kavi into Judy’s arms, grabbed hold of the shelf and rocked it forward with everything he had. The aluminum unit didn’t weigh more than twenty or thirty pounds and Tyson knew it would take that deformed monstrosity no more than a second to shrug it off. And that was why Tyson had gone crashing down with it. If his extra weight could keep it pinned for a few more precious seconds then Judy and Kavi might have a chance to make it out.
The creature scrambled to get free. The impact it made as it landed nearly sent Tyson bouncing right into a pile of broken wood and cinder blocks. His head whacked one of the supports and for a moment all he saw blooming before his eyes was a vivid starburst. But he held on. Through the pain and disorientation, his grip never waivered. He knew there wasn’t any other choice. Kavi and Judy were still hunkered in the corner.
A thick pool of dark blood was spreading out from the creature’s tail where one of the metal shelves had split the flesh.
“Run, goddamnit. Get Kavi out of here now.”
Beneath him, he could see it working to free its arms and he knew that once it did, he would be torn apart. Judy scooped Kavi into her arms. The boy’s face was ashen and expressionless.
The shelf was bucking wildly.
“I can’t hold him much longer.”
Judy and Kavi were at the stairs when she stopped and turned around, a pleading look in her eye.
“Go!” he shouted.
They paused and then they were gone.
Tyson looked down just long enough to see two clawed hands reaching for him. Felt them wrap around his throat and tighten like a vice. He grabbed at its wrists. They were thin, but powerful and a part of him suddenly knew that it was stronger than he was. Knew that it would keep squeezing until Tyson’s world went black. He just hoped that he had bought Judy and Kavi enough time to get away.
The life was slowly being squeezed from his body. He was as helpless as a child and an old memory began floating up in his oxygen deprived brain. A plastic bag was over his head and through it the blurry outline of a woman smiling as thick tape was wound tightly around his neck. Black spots were bursting before his eyes and Tyson knew he was about to die. Although part of him might have accepted his fate, his physical body refused to give up. All the while he’d been gasping for breath, his right hand was clamoring frantically inside his pocket for something that might help.
For a moment, everything went black. Probably for no longer than a second or two, but when the lights in his head came back on, there was something in his hand and it was jingling. He had fished the car keys from out of his pocket. The ignition key was long and fat and he braced it against the palm of his hand, sharp end out. He cocked his arm and brought the point down against the creature’s face. A long gash appeared in its cheek. Tyson’s second blow went glancing off the side of its head, tearing away a flap of flesh as it went. When his hand rose again it was slick with a black horrible smelling liquid.
His arm rose again and he thought of Ruma. What this monstrosity had done to her. How terrified she must have been fighting it alone as he was doing now. He swung a final time and heard the creature y
elp. Through the haze Tyson could see that its right eye had burst open and part of it was trailing down the side of its face. Its head jerked wildly, the key to Tyson’s car poking out from its eye socket. An unquenchable blood lust had seized hold of him. A kind of insatiable primeval rage. He closed his hand around its neck and rammed the key all the way in until he heard a crunching sound. Almost at once, the pressure on his neck slackened and then fell away completely.
The creature’s remaining bulbous eye was looking back at him blankly. Tyson rolled off the pile of now crumpled aluminum and onto his knees, gasping for air. His throat felt raw. His hand disappeared inside his pocket and came out with his asthma pump. He depressed the tab, felt the cool swoosh of air, but this time there was no accompanying comfort. His lungs were fine, albeit greedy for oxygen, but it was his crushed throat that was the problem. Slowly he rose to his feet and padded across the dark basement toward the stairs. He was almost there when he realized he had left behind something terribly important. Buried in the creature’s brain were the keys to his car.
He turned around, wondering if he’d find a crumpled heap of metal with nothing underneath it. But it was still laying there, a gray slab of meat. A pool of blood around its head.
Tyson approached. The key was still there, sticking out of its eye socket. He watched it for a moment. He had seen those scary movies. The ones where the beasty plays dead, then snatches its naive and unsuspecting victim.
His fingers closed around the hard plastic key handle. He was pulling at the key, a wet distasteful sound, when he stopped. Had he seen that other eye move? From here it seemed to be watching him, but it was dark and the thing was dead, he was sure. Tyson jerked the key in one clean movement and slid the tiny metal shape, gore and all into the pocket of his pants.
Against the far wall was a collection of paint cans. Tyson kicked through them until he found what he was looking for. Paint thinner. The lid wasn’t on very tight and he flung it off and doused the creature’s body. That was when he noticed its fingers starting to twitch. There had been a box of old matches on the shelf before the whole thing had gone crashing to the floor. Where the hell were they? The gapping hole in the creature’s eye was slowly closing up. Its clawed hand was closing around one of the metal supports when he found them. Tyson scooped them up and slid open the box and fumbled out a handful of wooden stick matches.
The aluminum shelf went flying and struck the back wall with a loud booming sound. The creature was rolling onto its stomach, covered in paint thinner and blood. Tyson ran the match heads along the sandpaper surface and watched them bloom. He dropped those into the match box itself and flung it all at the creature as the entire box burst into flame. It struck the thing’s head, a split second later engulfing it completely. Tyson raised his arm to shield his face from the heat. He could see it trying to claw at him, the flesh around its face and body bubbling and melting away. That was when he decided he’d seen enough.
Without wasting another second, Tyson ran up the stairs and back out through the hole in the wall where he had entered, hoping to never see this place again.
Chapter 34
A thick stream of blood pumped out from the quarter inch sized hole in Bowes’ forehead and Hunter stood watching it with an amazed expression on his face. Bowes lay on the ground, but he wasn’t dead. Not yet. His twitching lips had worked up a thick frothy lather that was rolling down the side of his face. His eyes fluttered and Hunter wondered if he was trying to speak.
KILL ME!
The plastic bag was in Hunter’s back pocket and he removed it and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist. It had taken awhile with Bowes. The man was about as stubborn as they came, but in the end he had understood Hunter’s point of view.
It was quite simple really. Bowes would forget this silly research paper idea of his and more importantly, he wasn’t going to murder Brenda.
At one point, when the drill came out, Bowes had even offered to give Hunter every penny he owned. It would have added up to a tidy sum, no doubt. But even Hunter knew you couldn’t trust the word of a man with a drill bit inching toward his face. Hunter hadn’t even made it completely through Bowes’ skull when the old guy stopped shrieking and admitted he’d been wrong about Brenda. And this time, Hunter could tell he meant it.
Nevertheless, Hunter had pushed the drill in all the way and Bowes had let out a queer sort of scream that seemed to taper off just as the drill bit disappeared completely into his brain.
An incredible amount of blood had followed, along with the foaming and the twitching face routine that had started once he’d pulled out. Now Bowes was down on the floor begging to die. At least, that was what Hunter imagined he was saying.
Hunter scooped Bowes’ head up off the ground with one hand and slid the plastic bag down to his neck with the other. He cinched the loose end and watched the bag pull in and out as Bowes gasped for air.
The old man’s breathing grew more and more shallow. His eyes were starting to bulge. Then, gradually, they closed and Bowes lay still.
Hunter checked his watch and let out a little squeal. He was ten minutes late for his rounds on seven and eight. Late meant people might come looking for him. Late meant they might discover what he’d been up to.
Hunter studied Bowes’ lifeless body. The plastic bag over his head, filling with blood. He would come back later, he decided, and chop him into more manageable pieces. Then he would wrap each chunk in several garbage bags, filling each with trash as he went. After that he would take a trip to the compactor.
Hunter grasped Bowes’ arm and began dragging him toward the service closet. In went the drill and it made a thumping sound as it landed on Bowes’ corpse.
A bright blinding flash. That was how it had felt as the drill bit burrowed into the soft tissue of his boss’ brain. His communion with God.
Oh Brenda, wrathful and all knowing, please accept this sacrifice…
Hunter’s legs felt nearly as weak as when he’d imagined Brenda giving him a BJ in Cindi’s messy apartment. But here was the funny part. Since the ecstasy of that orgasmic moment, his level of exhilaration had begun to fade almost at once, to the point where Hunter wasn’t sure anymore if it had even really been there in the first place. He wanted that feeling again. And soon.
• • •
“You’re safe now,” Hunter whispered into Brenda’s ear. “Dr. Bowes wanted to turn your life support off, said you’d passed some silly threshold and there was nothing more he could do. But I knew those rules had some room for give in them. Bowes just hadn’t thought things through properly, that was all; otherwise he would have seen how foolish he was being. There’s nothing to worry about,” Hunter wiped her forehead with a damp cloth. “Not anymore. Dr. Bowes and I had a little chat. It took some convincing, sure, but the old curmudgeon eventually came around.”
Hunter paused and tilted his head. Words were blossoming inside his mind as clearly as if they’d been his own.
Where is Bowes now?
“Sub basement 3. I stuffed him in the concierge’s closet.”
You killed him?
“Yes, of course. I couldn’t let him hurt you.” A sudden shuddering pain in Hunter’s head brought him to his knees. His hands went to his temples as though he were trying to keep his brain from exploding. He moaned in agony.
I’m so very disappointed in you, Dr. Hunter. I specifically asked you not to interfere and you did just the opposite.
The pain intensified. Instead of the worst migraine in the world, his head now felt as though six-inch ice-picks had been jammed into each of his ears. She was killing him and he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He had let her into his mind freely. Let her walk about as she pleased and now she was trashing the place. Hunter slumped to the floor.
“Please,” he said. It was all he could manage.
Then the pain began to slacken. The door to Brenda’s room flew open and in charged Cindi Jaworski. She dropped down beside Hunter and c
radled him against her great bosom. Beside her was a panic button and she pressed it frantically like an over zealous contestant on Jeopardy.
Inside Hunter’s head, a final foreign thought was forming.
Next time, you’ll do as you’re told.
Chapter 35
Tyson pulled into the Marlboro Regional Hospital parking lot, jerked the car into the first spot he could find and killed the engine. The letters MAIN ENTRANCE were etched over a wide canopy. For a town suffering its own hardships, this place seemed to be doing just fine.
On his right, Kavi was curled up in Judy’s arms. His face pale and lethargic. She was singing some kind of lullaby to him. It sounded familiar and for a reason he didn’t quite understand, it made him feel uneasy.
Tyson scanned the peculiar feeling for anything remotely akin to jealousy. Was Judy becoming too protective of Kavi? And was all that nurturing highlighting his already overwhelming sense of parental inadequacy?
He could see Ruma in his mind’s eye, shaking her head with disapproval. But it was too late for that now, wasn’t it? The damage was already done. The doorway was open and closing it, if that was even possible anymore, was all he could do.
Tyson looked over at Judy who was dabbing a Kleenex at the sweat forming over Kavi’s brow. Perhaps there had been a touch of jealousy.
She ran a finger over the purple ring around Tyson’s neck.
“Did you…?” She didn’t need to finish for Tyson to know what she was asking him.
“Yes. You know, I half expected it to disappear. The way the Wicked Witch of the West did when Dorothy threw that bucket of water at her. It was still burning when I left.”
Judy was patting him up and down.
He caught her hand and held it for a moment. “I’m okay. Course my throat feels like a fat kid mistook it for a seat, but apart from that I’ll live.”
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