From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (175 page)

What
the hell is she doing in bed?

He
walked into the living room and sat on the love seat. The bed squealed in
random bursts, like Molly was having a nightmare, wrestling with the comforter.

Drew’s
heart thundered in his chest until he could feel it in his ears. The bed
upstairs squeaked again. The heater kicked on and the blower now competed with
the refrigerator motor for the noisiest device in the house. Drew sat back and
rubbed his forehead with one hand. He stood with his feet glued to the hardwood.

“Nothing
good will come of it. Leave. Go back to the office and then talk about it once
you’ve calmed down or doused yourself with Jack Daniels. Don’t do it, man.”

He
wiped a tear from one eye and shook his head. Drew wanted to scream, to rip a
hole in reality and crawl through, to be embraced by an eternal, suffocating
darkness. Disobeying a direct order from his brain, and not heeding his own
mental warning, Drew placed his right foot on the steps, beginning the ascent
to the master bedroom and everything that might come after.

Ravna knocked
the glass back until the last ice cube slammed into his teeth. The Johnny
Walker Red dulled the pain but left a vague stinging that seemed to penetrate
to the root of his front tooth. He winced and wiped at his watering eyes. The
remote sat on the end table, beckoning for his touch. Ravna looked at his
laptop open on the coffee table, the article deadline on his calendar app
staring back in menacing, bold, red, Times New Roman font. He reached over with
his foot and pulled the clamshell screen down with one toe poking through a
hole in his sock. He picked up the remote and waited for the electronic
impulses to dash through the air and bring the beast alive.

“Thank you, and
welcome to Channel 7 News. I’m your anchor, Melanie Sampson, and this is our
top story. Authorities have discovered another mutilated body in the Crooked
Tail River. What was a gruesome but isolated murder yesterday looks now to be
the work of a serial killer. Let’s go back out to Nan Roles, who has been
covering the story for us.”

“Melanie, authorities
are hesitant to call these crimes the work of a serial killer, but the evidence
is pointing in that direction.”

“How so?”

“Just over my
shoulder you can see the yellow tape surrounding the remains of the latest
murder at the Crooked Tail River. Like Vivian Cabmel last week, this victim
appears to have been battered and mutilated before being dumped on the
riverbank.”

“Another woman,
Nan?”

“No, Melanie. This
victim is a man. Several kids playing in the woods noticed a messenger bag
strewn in the snowbank and called the police. The man has not been identified,
but investigators have told me that he appears to be white, middle aged, and
unmarried.”

“Did the victim
have a wallet or any identification on him?”

“Like the last
crime scene on the banks of this river, the authorities are not releasing much
to the media. If he did have identification, they are not divulging this,
probably out of respect for the family of the victim.”

“Thanks, Nan. Has
anyone on the scene given you any indication that the two deaths are related?”

“No, that
hasn’t happened, Melanie. Police are going through their normal investigative
procedures and do not want to jump to conclusions at this time. An officer told
me that they do not want to unnecessarily alarm the citizens should this turn
out to be an accident.”

“That sounds
like quite a coincidence, Nan.”

“That’s the
general feeling here as well. We’ll be on the scene through the night and be
sure to keep you updated on the investigation.”

“Thanks, Nan. And
now we take you to an interview with Dr. Sharon Slider, author of
The Mind
of the Serial Killer
. She’s here to help us develop a profile of the
suspect. . . .”

Ravna hit the
remote again, ending the interview with Dr. Slider, knowing exactly where that
conversation was headed. He decided it was time and stood. The whiskey had
rubberized his knees and he collapsed back into the recliner. He glanced at the
car keys hanging on the rack next to his coat.

“I guess it can
wait until tomorrow.”

Ravna closed
his eyes and turned sideways in the chair, too drunk and too tired to make it
to his bed.

***

He woke to the
tinkling sound of freezing rain landing on the window. It clinked and rattled
like the sound of broken glass on a tiled floor. Ravna’s mouth felt dry and his
head rang with phantom chimes. He stood and immediately sat back down to regain
his equilibrium. The calendar next to the phone stared at him, the date circled
with “deadline” scribbled in the box beneath it.

“Shit.”

The shower
helped to rinse the hangover from his body, and the sports drink replenished
the lost fluids. Ravna dressed, combed his hair, and finished with the morning
ritual. With a towel around his head, he shuffled into the kitchen and opened
the cabinet containing his French press and coffee beans. He knew as soon as he
lifted the brown, paper bag that it was empty. Ravna shook his head, uncertain
he could even make it to the coffee shop in this condition.

***

Each carpeted
step felt like a mile, the kind of steps carved by the ancient Maya that lead
to the sacrificial Chac-Mool at the top. Drew struggled to lift each foot but
was powerless to stop. He was going upstairs whether he wanted to or not. The
squeaking of the bed continued at an erratic rate without pattern or consistency.
Drew made it to the landing, pushed a finger through the blind on the window,
and looked at his neighbor’s empty driveway.

He turned and
looked at the five remaining stairs. His legs pushed upward as his arms grabbed
the railings until he stood at the top, heaving.

He
paused. A slight moan came from the master bedroom at the end of the hallway,
through the six-inch gap where the door was pulled but not shut. He knew it was
Molly. He recognized that moan, the one she used when they played on Saturday
mornings. The game was always the same. He’d do things to her, pleasure her in
ways that forced her to stifle it so the kids would not hear the moan over the
cartoons and crinkly cereal boxes. By the time she came, he was so close it
didn’t take much more than her breath on his erection.

It’s that
moan
, he thought.

Drew placed one
foot before the other, capturing every detail, every sense pulsing on overload.
He could see the wispy spider webs in the corners of the hallway, and the lay
of the carpet fibers in shapes of feet. He smelled the scent of Molly’s body
lotion as a delivery truck roared down the street, its payload battering the
inside of the cab. A coppery taste flooded Drew’s mouth, his lower lip pinched
between his teeth.

He passed
Billy’s room, complete with hockey cards and dirty socks on the floor. He
passed Sara’s room with naked Barbie and Ken dolls embraced in asexual, plastic
sex. He stopped two feet from the master bedroom. Drew could see the comforter
moving. He sniffed the air and smelled her, an aroma that aroused a burgeoning
erection in his pants. Another short moan, followed by a longer, drawn-out
sound muffled in a pillow. Drew placed his hand on the outside of the door and
felt the coolness of the painted wood. Pushing with an even, steady motion, he
stood in the threshold.

Drew saw
Molly’s foot jut out from under the comforter and then withdraw quickly. He
stood, transfixed, aroused, and angered. The moans escalated in volume and
frequency. He looked down to see one hand in his pants, reaching for a
throbbing erection that pleaded to be released.

The phone in
the kitchen came alive with its shrill ring. Molly’s moans lessened, but
continued. Drew lost his erection, the phone making him furious. After the
third ring, he turned and pulled the door back to the position it had been in
before he arrived. He walked down the steps until he stood in front of the
phone. With one motion, he ripped the handset from the wall and left a dangling
cord swaying in the air. Drew walked into the bathroom and slammed the door as
hard as he could. The creaking bed upstairs stopped.

***

“What are you
doing?”

“What are you
doing?” Drew mimicked.

Molly faced
Drew, her hair tousled and a terry-cloth robe wrapped around her waist. She
shook her head and flipped the switch on the coffeemaker. The electric coil
came to life followed by the short, dark drips of the store-bought dirt she
called coffee.

“How can you
drink that shit?” Drew asked.

“Fuck off,
Drew. I’m not a coffee snob like you.”

He sat at the
kitchen table with his hands folded and head lowered to his chest. “I felt like
shit, so I came home. I do still live here, don’t I? I can still come through
that door whenever I want to, right?”

Molly let her
mouth fall open with a short gasp. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought
someone was in the house.”

“Was there?”
Drew asked.

She slammed a
mug on the counter and turned her back on him, the mug swaying back and forth
next to the filling coffee pot. “What the hell are you talking about, Drew?”

Drew balled his
fists and clenched his teeth. “I heard you two. I could smell you.”

She slammed the
kitchen cabinets looking for a sugar packet. Unsuccessful in the search, Molly
tied her hair back and walked over to Drew until she was inches from his face. “I
was masturbating, you asshole.”

“Your coffee is
done,” he replied.

Molly grabbed
the handle of the coffee pot. The liquid swirled back and forth as her shaking
hand filled the mug. Molly turned her back on Drew and walked upstairs. He
heard the bedroom door slam shut followed by the metallic ring of the bar bolt
sliding into place.

He walked to
the counter and turned off the coffee machine. Drew grabbed the pot by the
handle and poured the rest of it down the drain. He smiled like a child
watching a firefly die in a jar.

***

Drew pulled
into the driveway at a quarter to eleven. A single lamp shone through the
living-room window, but the rest of the house was dark. He struggled to pull the
key out of the ignition. The alcohol created three ignitions, and remembering
the old joke, he aimed for the middle one.

The
kids’ toys lay scattered on the floor. A plate covered in aluminum foil sat on
the kitchen counter like a miniature, alien spacecraft. He peeled the corner up
and saw the yellowed noodles of a macaroni-and-cheese dinner. Drew picked it up
and slid the contents into the garbage can. He dropped the plate in the sink
and tossed his keys on the counter, along with his phone and wallet. He grabbed
a pillow from the floor and a blanket that served as the roof on a couch-cushion
fort. Drew curled up on the floor next to the register blowing hot, dry heat. The
warmth and the alcohol lulled him to sleep within moments.

Drew
opened his eyes within the dream. He stood in the middle of a concrete room. There
were no windows and a single-file line of fluorescent shop lights stretched the
length of the room. Pipes and ductwork wove across the ceiling, occasionally
spiraling down a wall and disappearing through a hole cut in the cinder block. Puddles
on the floor reflected the light in shimmering waves. The air felt moist and
cold, like that in the most sinister of caves. A single bulb dangled on the
left wall over a folding chair. Chains lay coiled like snakes underneath it. A
metallic taste touched his tongue, carried on a stale breeze pulled through the
room by a spinning exhaust fan at the end. Drew heard a faint rumble that shook
the puddles on the floor for several seconds before fading out again.

“Eater.”

Drew
turned to his right. A voice came from the dark corner where the light from the
fluorescents overhead would not extend.

“What?”
he asked.

“Eater.
You’re now an eater.”

Drew
shook his head, disgusted at the words and the slithering voice that spoke
them. “I’m dreaming.” A gargled cough. “This is a nightmare.”

The
creature stepped from the darkness far enough for Drew to see its profile. The
smell made him gag, reminding him of the pungent stench that floated across Highway
286 from the water-treatment plant. That foul odor forced folks to roll up
their windows for two or three miles until it passed. Drew often wondered how
the people that lived in that town could do it.

“
Redux
.
”

Drew
shook his head, unsure if the word was a comment or a question. Before he could
reply, the thing came completely into view.

The
gray skin of the creature appeared thin, almost translucent. He saw bones and
ribs protruding like a finger pushed through a child’s balloon. Its skull sat
like a chiseled rock atop a dead tree trunk, limbs like leafless branches. It
was the monster’s face that made Drew shiver. Its eyes sat deep in the skull,
two black points of eternal nothingness. A black slit sat below what might be
considered a nose. Its tongue slithered, thin and serpentine. Drew knew the
source of the stench when he saw the brown smears on its face and the dripping,
steaming piles of feces in its hands. The creature lifted a hand and shoved it
toward the slit. Sludge squirted from between the thin fingers and across its
sallow cheeks. The creature moaned; the harder it pushed the less of the fetid
substance made it inside. Drew watched it stamp and holler with the sound of a
wild animal.

“Gaki.”

The
creature stopped and dropped its hands to its sides. “You know me.”

Drew
nodded. It was as if the creature had always existed in his head, but naming it
gave the monster incredible power.