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He entered the corridor, walking on loose floorboards that betrayed their stability. The walls seemed to curve at odd angles, as if mysterious hollows cradled some hibernating evil behind the peeling wallpaper and caked drywall. There were no lights, so he walked slowly and squinted into the darkness. The smell was that of human remains and ignited sulfur. It smelled like someone had died in here long ago, concealed by shade or apathy for time unknown.

The stairs throbbed with his weight. How can this building stand? He thought. It should be demolished. He reached the second floor and heard a door close upstairs. Where are the rats? There aren’t even any rats!

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In the center of his web, Cole waited. His last bit of devilry, a particularly nasty trifle which keeps the brain active for hours after blood stops flowing, allowing innumerable pain messages to be sent beyond the point of fainting or even dying, had a somewhat short window of opportunity. He would have to unwrap that present just before the cop opened the door. His safety was insured however, and he had other tricks up his sleeve.

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The third floor landing remained completely dark. He smelled soot and ash amidst the suffering and misery. He brought out his lighter to see and found no shock in the den of blankness which surrounded him. Just like on the street, the landing was devoid of any life at all. Matte gray-black encircled him, betraying only the slightest sheen on a doorknob down the hall. He started for it.

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He was coming now; Cole could hear his final footsteps. He closed his eyes, and very quietly started unleashing his blackest magicking.

-

A rustling rose from behind the door. He hesitated a moment, listening closer. Shifting, rolling mystery chuckled from behind the door. He closed his eyes, took a breath, drew his gun with one hand while holding his lighter with the other, and kicked open the door.

A horrid stench rolled out and filled his flaring nostrils. He thought he saw a glint off something wet and then a gristly maw, compacted with jagged yellow teeth, leapt into his vision. He could see where flesh no longer hung onto the moldy bone of this strange skull, matted patches of rough fur writhing with hordes of nestled worms underneath, a hundred eyes reflecting off his lighter as the very bonfires of hell, tongue black and puss-filled, leaking thick foam and the hot stench of regurgitated rotten meat into his face.

What is this thing!?

The maw’s exhaust blew out the light.

He fell to his back on the brittle used-up wood of the floor, smelling the thing’s unhinged jaw inches from his neck in the pitch. A weight was on him now, pressing on his chest and into his groin. He tried to hit the flooding form with the butt of his gun and found a yielding sponge of muck take in his hand. He punched into the gore and felt those invisible worms in the creature’s brain quickly search his skin for purchase. He felt one open up a small cut between his knuckles and start burrowing into it.

He let out a scream and felt the mass on top of him multiply. Loose hair and slick fluid spread over him. Stars flashed across his blanked vision now as the weight on his chest increased to push out the breath in his lungs. He tried pulling his hand from the nest of writhing parasites with all his strength. He felt a moment of resistance and then release, rupturing sucking sounds filling the air and hot torrents flooding across his face. What could only be the open neck was now unloading itself onto him, and he felt the first tingles of leeches grab onto his face and neck moments later. He closed his eyes just in time as he felt something try to slither in between his lids and the soft jelly underneath. His face started swelling, conducting his blood from their vessels to whatever thing it was spread on top of him. He tried to roll to his side and found it too heavy to move. A worm was now in his hand, stretching the skin as it crawled upward underneath it. His tongue felt hot and dry against the top of his mouth as he used all his focus to keep from opening it to scream.

And that was when he saw his hand. Not through his eyes but as if he was a spectator standing next to him. In the shadows of the landing he made out his own form, writhing on the floor in the darkness, weighted down by invisible monsters.

“There’s nothing there,” he heard someone whisper.

A moment of crazy refusal crossed him. But there’s no LIGHT! I can’t see ANYTHING!

“Then use your lighter,” the whisper continued.

He grappled for a moment, struck by the pain in his hand and face and the dimming fireworks in front of his closed eyes. He traveled down his other arm and saw from this queer third person view that he was still holding his lighter. If he could just flick his thumb, he might be able to ignite it.

He could now feel the metal in his hand, hot with sweat and ichor. He flicked it and discovered that he’d have to open his eyes to see if it worked. I’m dying anyway, what difference does a leech on my eye make?

He opened his eyes and saw the flame, but he was not alone. He saw Susan standing above him, smiling down at him with that face, full of color and light now as he’d never seen, yet exactly as he imagined in his dreams. Death could not take her beauty.

He inhaled sharply and felt the flood of oxygen rough and ragged down his windpipe. A Trick? He looked over and saw his hand, still holding tightly to his gun, uninjured and completely dry.

He looked back for Susan, but could not see her. She was still with him though; he could feel her warmth in this cold place.

He stood quickly and poked his lighter in the room. The phantom sensations of such horrid things writhing and biting into him still remained, but rage overshadowed them. He called out “I will give you no more of my fear!” and stepped inside.

-

Cole could not hide his surprise at the Sighted man. His little pet had taken a lot of his energy but he deemed it worthy to enjoy the taste of his fear as he prepared the mind harness. Now he was standing! Maggots ate into his eyes and snakes slithered into his mouth to feast on his tongue, yet the man paid no mind. His whole face glittered a sticky mixture of black and red from the remains of the gouting decapitated thing which he brought forth, yet this man… this Sighted man… didn’t mind! Cole couldn’t help but be impressed, for it was too early for fear. He leaned back into his sanctuary and started his final arrangement.





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©2002 Brian Miller