Fear the Abyss: 22 Terrifying Tales of Cosmic Horror (23 page)

Neil leapt, spinning in mid-air and finding the ceiling like a cat. It amazed Aiden how Neil was able to cling to the wooden crossbeams as if he were some horrible spider. On closer inspection Aiden identified the keen fingertips digging into the grain of the wood. Neil hissed.

Aiden heard the straining noise again and saw Neil heave, as if he were going to throw up. Aiden watched from the bottom step wishing he had followed Jasmine up, but not yet finding his legs. He stayed long enough to witness his brother hacking up something awful. Neil launched the black ooze at Aiden as if it was a wad of chewing tobacco.

The dark blob missed him by inches. He located where it had struck the stairwell wall and was intrigued to see how the goo continued to desperately reach out for Aiden. Confident if the secretion reached him it would eat away his nose and climb inside, Aiden kept his distance. Tiny pained cries escaped the ooze as it fell lifeless from the wall. Another fit of coughing and hacking shook Aiden out of his daze and he dashed up the stairs.

Neil pursued, managing the basement ceiling as if it were a jungle gym. When Aiden reached the third step from the top he heard Neil plunge to the base of the stairs, crashing through the wood. Aiden jumped all three steps at once, toppling to the kitchen linoleum and attempting to kick the door shut.

He rose to his hips and leaned his weight against the door. It banged, shaking on its hinges. The knob turned in Aiden’s hands, twisting as Neil tried to force it open. He nearly succeeded, but with Jasmine’s added weight Aiden managed to secure the lock. They were safe, but for how long?

He scanned the room for a weapon. His initial thought was to raid the kitchen knives, but they were safely packed away. He stared at the boxes trying to remember which one he had put them in. His eyes centered on Jasmine’s purse and he remembered she kept a small gun for protection.

Aiden rushed to her bag leaving Jasmine to brace the door alone. She was crying, tears streaming down her face through dark streaks of mascara. Aiden rifled through the contents of her purse. He had no regard for anything but that one necessity. Upon obtaining the gun he was overcome with instant empowerment.

A confused Jasmine wandered away from the door, seeming both concerned yet anxious of what Aiden was doing. He was glad she had moved. The poundings continued and with each blow the basement door rattled. It splintered and then gave way to the alien force behind it. At first there was only darkness, the light bulb having been broken in the scuffle.

As he maneuvered Jasmine to safety a whirling sensation shot past his ear. Another black ooze missed him by less than an inch this time. The wind of its path cooled his ear lobe and he thought he even felt tiny claws taking a brief hold on his ear.

Neil spun out of the darkness and made a steadfast path to the wall. With a hiss he sank his boney fingers deep into the plaster and clawed his way up to the ceiling. Aiden leveled the gun ready to fire. Neil dove at him, knocking the gun loose before he got a shot off. The gun slid away.

"Jasmine, I need the gun." She didn’t respond. "Jasmine!"

His brother wrestled him to the ground, the filed bone of his fingers burrowing into Aiden’s flesh. Neil hissed, his body retching as heaved. Aiden stared into the bloody mass of the nasal passage and saw his brother’s special passenger. It looked right back, a single tentacle eye descending from the sinus cavity to behold Aiden.

Unable to hold back his dread Aiden screeched. He kicked and punched knowing what Neil was about to unleash. The torn flesh around Neil’s mouth quivered as the boney grin opened wider exposing where there had once been a tongue. All Aiden saw now was the ooze loaded and ready to propel itself outward.

He arched his back, remembering his days of high school wrestling. Aiden threw his brother to the side and tried to find his feet while Neil continued to grab and claw at him. Aiden scurried for the gun with Neil finding one of his feet and taking a tight hold of the shoe. Aiden pulled free of the sneaker and seized the gun.

When he rolled onto his back it surprised Aiden to see another ooze flutter by, missing him. Neil was already in the air and Aiden braced himself for impact as he brought the gun up. This time he got the shot off.

The gun recoiled, a thin smoke rising from its barrel. Neil’s ruined face now had a much larger hole the size of a grapefruit. Blood and black goo dripped from the wound, but still Neil’s body lurched. Aiden fired at Neil’s forehead, this time striking his brother dead.

Neil’s body collapsed on Aiden. Without hesitation Aiden shrugged off the dead weight and rolled away. He didn’t want any of the black touching him. Aiden scampered away refusing to take his eyes off his brother, the sorrow of what transpired becoming all too real. When he finally did look away he discovered Jasmine’s fate and it stung.

The creature had nearly burrowed its way inside. With most of it having squeezed into the tiny hole it had begun excavating Jasmine’s nasal passage to secure itself. The bone and flesh sizzled, reminding Aiden of the sound of bacon cooking, as the black ooze continued to maneuver itself into her skull. She sat cross-legged, breathing heavy, her eyes already beginning to eerily change color as her passenger observed the world through her eyes.

Aiden broke into tears, falling to his knees. He still loved her. Saddened by her fate he aimed the gun and fired. A horrid click followed where there should have been something more devastating. Panic set in as he fired again, once more producing the empty sound.

He spun the chamber revealing the vacant spaces. An aggravated Aiden threw the gun aside. His heart raced as the creature squeezed the last bit of itself into Jasmine. He whirled to a pile of boxes marked "kitchen" and began tearing through their contents.

Behind him her breathing eased. His pulse quickened feeling as though it were going to explode with the knowledge of what his fate would soon be. He tossed various non-threatening utensils aside searching for something fierce. Aiden heard her footsteps as he seized a picture of them together. Regret found him as he tossed it aside. Her shoes clacked against the wooden floor. He threw aside a crab cracker, digging deeper. A distinguishable sound followed of her flesh tearing as her jawbone exposed itself in a horrid smile. He found what he wanted, secured it, and turned with the large knife raised in defense.

Jasmine was gone, the front door still open and revealing the setting sun beyond. A light breeze crept in and Aiden felt the sudden impulse to close the door. Jasmine was someone else’s problem. It was selfish, but he had lost too much for one day.

He inched forward clutching the knife against his chest as if to ward off any evil. A chill ran through him as he passed his brother’s corpse. A dark pool covered much of the floor beneath Neil. Aiden took a wide berth around Neil toward the front door. He reached it and took a cautious step outside. Aiden grabbed the handle and as he found the cool metal a strange foreboding feeling washed over him.

Above, clinging to the side of the house was Jasmine. She spat the black ooze at Aiden. The passenger found his face with Aiden twisting and trying to steady himself on the door. Already the ooze was excavating.

He collapsed to his knees, the molten sensation on his flesh intolerable. The pressure of the creature clamoring inside his sinuses, squeezing in every last bit was unbearable. He was aware of his heavy breathing, his panting and profuse sweating. Horrid pain incapacitated him as the tentacles pried his jaws apart to reveal his teeth. Aiden’s skin tore away in shockwaves of agony as this parasite invaded his skull.

The agony never went away. He could see what his passenger saw. He felt the torture, the anger, the hopelessness. His memories remained and it pained him that he would end up with Jasmine after all. With her by his side, he felt the need to spread, a yearning to reproduce. They left together, the ring still upon her finger, binding them.

Thomas
M.
Malafarina

Thomas M. Malafarina is a horror writer from Berks County, PA. He has two novels,
Ninety-Nine Souls
and
Burn Phone
as well as a short story colle
ction,
Thirteen Nasty Endings
. Thomas lives in South Heidelberg Township, PA with his wife JoAnne. They have three grown children and three grandchildren

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

--
Mark 9:47

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

--
Matthew 5:29

The cold October evening drizzle fell relentlessl
y
upon the lone figure sitting cross-legged on the wet pavement in front of the liquor store. The proprietor of the establishment was a kindly man, conscientious of the troubles of others and as a result, had not been able to bring himself to ask the vagrant to leave. Nor would he call the police to do the unpleasant job for him.

The store owner assumed the disheveled man was such a sad and pathetically harmless creature, sitting and begging for the unwanted change of those more fortunate than he that the most considerate thing he could do for the man was to just leave him be.

The squatter was dressed in faded, torn jeans, a well-worn old black leather coat, under which he wore a soiled grey hooded sweatshirt, which drooped downward under the weight of its sodden condition, hiding his face in shadows. Despite the time of night, he also wore dark black wrap-around sunglasses further shielding his appearance from any curious onlookers; not that anyone paid attention to what seemed to be nothing more than a burned-out homeless beggar.

On the ground in front of his folded legs was a tin cup with a few dollars in change inside. It had been a slow night and by the obvious absence of the sounds of metal against metal, he suspected not too many people had been willing to part with their change that evening. That was, of course, unless they had dropped a few dollar bills into his cup, which he knew was highly unlikely.

John sat in the shadows, mumbling incoherently to himself as he always seemed to do more and more of late, while pedestrians hurried by anxious to get to their destinations. Whatever it was he was babbling was indistinguishable to anyone but himself. And most of the passersby either didn’t see him or simply ignored him. Still others might glance at him with angry looks of disgust before hurrying past, many forming a deliberate arc of avoidance around him. Occasionally, someone would drop a coin or two into his cup and John would mumble "Thank you" or "Bless you" or some other phrase of appreciation. He kept his replies to a minimum, not wanting to engage anyone in actual conversation.

His hands were tucked deep in the pockets of his coat, their purpose two-fold. First, the worn cloth liner of his pockets managed to still provide some warmth for his ungloved fingers; and secondly the deep pockets offered a hiding place for the switchblade he held tightly in his right hand. He knew he could never be too careful when living on the streets. There were plenty of evil souls out there in the world and no one understood that fact better than John Martin, himself.

*****

He hadn’t always been the babbling street beggar he appeared to be, sitting in the shadowed darkness, avoiding contact with his fellow man. John had once excelled at everything he did, no matter how difficult, and with ease. Yet he was also naturally lazy, unambitious and as such had no desire for higher education.

What he longed for more than anything else was simply to have the time necessary to sit quietly and let his mind contemplate the one subject which was of the most importance to him: the existence of the human soul. He didn’t consider himself a theologian or philosopher by any stretch of the imagination, but he had always believed that buried somewhere deep inside of him, he had the natural ability to not only someday prove the soul’s existence, but to actually see it; if he were just able to figure out how.

Once, as a young boy, while suffering with a flu and extremely high fever, John noticed something strange about his elderly grandfather who had been visiting for the day. It was a fleeting thing, only the briefest of glances, but he was certain he had seen it. A glow had momentarily surrounded the man and John wished he had been able to see it more clearly. It had appeared then disappeared so quickly, he had not been certain of what he had seen, especially in his feverish and weakened condition. But he was sure he had seen something. Then a week or so later, his grandfather died suddenly of a massive heart attack. John believed that, had he been with his grandfather at the time of his passing, and in the same feverish state as he had been in the previous week, he might have actually seen the man’s soul leave his body.

Many years later, one of his friends talked him into trying a hit of LSD. Although he had found the incident quite unpleasant and one he wouldn’t want to repeat, John had to admit he actually did learn something from the experience. The hallucinogenic effects of the drug seemed to temporarily open his eyes, giving him the ability to see things he had never imagined before. From that day on, John believed if he could find the right combinations of drugs, he would someday be able to open a door inside of his mind, which would lead to his developing a sight beyond sight, and likely the ability to actually see the human soul.

John worked a series of low-skill, minimum wage jobs; each of which he made sure he was guaranteed to eventually end up losing, finding himself collecting unemployment compensation. This bouncing on and off of the unemployment rolls suited John just fine. Whenever the long-awaited day arrived when John would find himself back collecting government checks he would do his best to ride it out for as long as he could and only work when he absolutely had to. During times of severe economic recession he was able to enjoy numerous government-sanctioned extensions of unemployment benefits and had more free time than he could have ever hoped for.

Prior to his last layoff John had worked as a stockroom helper for a local pharmacy. Being a small, privately-owned business it didn’t have the stringent inventory controls of the larger chain stores. Since the high school LSD incident, John had experimenting with a variety of drugs, as he was certain the answer to his quest for the soul lie in the proper combination of pharmaceuticals. While working in the stockroom John had managed to accumulate a number of pills which he labeled and properly recorded. He broke up the pills and combined them into various concoctions for his experimentation. He kept a detailed log of his research, documenting the exact weights and measurements of his mixtures as well as his successes and failures.

Sometimes the drugs just made him sleep. Sometimes they caused him to hallucinate. And sometime the results of his drug experiments were nearly catastrophic. But despite the risks, he was sure he would eventually find the precise combination to give him the outcome he was looking for. He didn’t have to wait long, as after a short time he was not only successful, but more successful than he ever would have imagined in his wildest dreams or most terrifying nightmares.

One day, about a half hour or so after taking his latest mixture of various over-the-counter sleep aids combined with alcohol John was sitting on the stoop outside of his apartment observing people walking by, hoping for some positive results. A pretty young woman named Nancy, who lived in the apartment across the way, came out of her front door and waved a greeting to John as she had done many times before. He always found her attractive and could tell by the way she acted around him; she was interested in him as well. John had thought about asking her out, but felt he truly didn’t have the time or energy for a girlfriend at this point in his life, so he had always tried to keep things somewhat distant between them.

He cordially returned the wave with as much enthusiasm as his latest drug-induced stupor would allow. That was when he noticed it. At first he saw a glowing aura form around Nancy’s body and he knew he might have finally found what he had been hoping for.

Then suddenly, without warning, he felt a tremendous pain inside his skull and for a moment he worried that his brain was about to explode. His first fleeting thought was of a possible stroke or aneurism, but then just as quickly the excruciating pain subsided and he was elated to discover he was still both alive and hopefully still healthy.

"Are you all right, John?" he heard Nancy say from a distance. She must have noticed his reaction to the crippling headache. Not looking up, he signaled with a wave and replied, "Yeah…yeah…I’m fine…just had a headache or some…" But before he could finish his sentence he had looked over at Nancy and was suddenly stunned speechless. Nancy was gone. That is, the Nancy he knew was gone and in her place stood some sort of horribly disfigured animal-like creature.

It was one of the most hideous sights John had ever witnessed. The thing stood about as tall as Nancy but appeared to be hunched slightly. Its hair, though the same color as Nancy’s was wild and frizzled shooting outward in every direction in long greasy strands. Its flesh was grey and mottled and even appeared encrusted with scars and scabs in places. It was completely naked from head to toe and had lots of long body hair. The creature’s drooping breasts hung long and pointed downward like two horrible pendulums swaying to and fro. 

John chose not to look at the rest of the creature’s body fearing what he might find lurking down below the waist. Instead, he made what might have been a greater mistake and looked at the beast’s face. Its cheeks were sunken in appearance and its giant eyes bulged from its dark and hollowed-out sockets. The thing’s nose that of an ape. Its mouth was an oversized cavern filled with large yellowed fangs. Drool spilled down over the creature’s huge lips as the mouth began to form a strange smile.

John had no idea what it was he was seeing. How could someone as lovely as Nancy be suddenly turned into such a revolting slobbering thing before his very eyes?

"John? Are you all right?" The hideous creature asked discordantly in Nancy’s sweet voice. "You look like you just saw something terrible."

For a moment, John just sat and stared at the hideous sight before him. He could not comprehend what was happening. He could hear Nancy’s voice but it was coming from the horrid thing which scarcely resembled the woman he knew; or at least the woman he believed he knew.

"I…I…" John stammered. "I gotta go!" And with that he jumped to his feet and staggered on wobbly legs down the street, hurrying around the corner and away from the wretched thing. He kept his eyes cast downward, deep in thought, trying to make sense of what he had just seen, while still fighting the mind-blowing effects of the drugs he had taken. After a moment he was startled by the angry honking of a car horn and realized he had inadvertently stepped off a curb and into traffic.

"Hey! Watch where you’re going, you stupid asshole!" he heard a driver shout at him. John looked up to see who had shouted at him and was horrified by what he saw seated behind the steering wheel of a taxicab. Like Nancy, the creature behind the wheel was a horrifying twisted version of a human so dreadful as to no longer be considered a man. The thing was even uglier than the Nancy creature had been with a huge, hairy muscular, vein-riddled ape-like arm hanging out the driver’s side window. That same arm was now extending its fat middle finger in John’s direction and might have actually seemed comical had it not been for its incredibly ugly face. Large, pulsating veins similar to those in its arms traveled up the creature’s thick neck and continued up the sides of its mottled face, disappearing into its hairline. Its grinning mouth seemed impossibly large with what appeared to be hundreds of razor sharp pointed teeth. Its eyes were huge and filled with an anger and hatred the likes of which John had never seen before. The creature looked like it epitomized the essence of evil.

"Get off the street, you drunken bum," the horrible man-beast said in the driver’s gruff human voice. In terror, John stumbled backward much too quickly and tripped over a curb, landing down hard on his backside on the pavement behind him.

"You ok?" Someone asked from behind John. He heard the sound of young children chuckling, as they sometime do in such situations. The voice he had heard sounded like a young woman, likely the mother of the laughing children. He looked up cautiously, fearful of what he might encounter and was relieved to not find some heinous creature, but was eye to eye with a normal pretty-looking little girl; a toddler, perhaps almost two years old.

But upon closer examination, John noticed she was not quite as normal as he originally thought. Her eyes had something of a strange look to them as if they were in the midst of a gradual transition from human being to something else. Likewise the luster of her young skin was not a pink as it should have been, looking slightly gray in color.

John began to crab walk backward away from the strange child when he noticed what must have been her two older siblings perhaps six and eight years old. He was shocked to notice as the ages of the children increased so did the hideousness of their appearances. It was as if they were gradually changing and evolving into something horrendous. That was when he observed the children’s mother and the crowd gathering behind her.