From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (176 page)

“Need
to show you,” it gargled.

“Show
me what?” Drew asked, fearful of the answer.

“What
eaters do. The consumption. Your consumption.”

Drew
shook his head in the dream, his actual head shaking on the pillow in perfect
synchronicity. “I don’t want to see what you have to show me.”

The
creature laughed. The wet, gurgling sound pushed a new wave of stench into the
air, and it made Drew vomit. He wiped a swinging strand of saliva from the
corner of his mouth.

“You
must. You Gaki now.”

“I
am not, you fucking piece of walking garbage. I am not Gaki.”

The
creature shook its head, all the while trying to wrangle more feces into its
mouth. “Spirit released. He gave it to you.”

He
felt the creature’s words becoming more human, evolving beyond the guttural
sounds it made from the dark corner.

“I
don’t want it.”

It
laughed again. “Not your choice. Nobody chooses hunger. Feel changes inside
you? Feel greed and consuming fire?”

Drew
shivered. He shook his head, hoping the motion would wake him from the
nightmare. He realized the hopelessness of his captivity and began to cry.

“Hunger
knows no mercy.”

A
long finger reached out and turned Drew’s chin toward the left wall. He saw the
single, dangling lightbulb and the folding chair. However, a figure occupied
the chair, one that had not been there when he first entered the subterranean
hell of the dream. Drew saw the naked flesh and head of dark hair hanging low
and realized the totality of the vision.

“No!”
he cried.

Gaki
laughed. A profane melody escaped the thin mouth and filled the chamber with a
song that pulled at the hairs on Drew’s neck.

“Vivian?”
Drew asked, directing the question at the figure on the chair.

At
the sound of her name, Vivian raised her head. One eye looked at Drew, the
other swollen shut in a mass of black, bruised flesh. Her nose pointed left at an
unnatural angle and a swollen tongue poked through the gaps vacated by four
teeth.

Drew
closed his eyes, squeezing the lids in hopes of releasing Vivian from the suffering.

“Drew,
stop. Please stop.”

Sobs
shook her entire body, the ropes burning deeper into her wrists and ankles. Drew
thrashed about in a vain attempt at flailing from the dream by incurring pain
in the real world.

“Stop
it. Stop showing this to me. She’s already dead.”

Gaki
tilted a finger back and forth, taunting Drew and ignoring his plea. “You must
see. Feed on her fear.”

Vivian
moaned and yanked her right arm tight against the hemp shackles. Dried blood
stained her breasts and the tops of her thighs.

“Please
kill me, Drew. I can’t take it anymore.”

He
took a step toward her and for the first time caught her scent, a wounded
animal at death’s door. He placed a hand on her shoulder, which transported
Drew into a memory, a vision within a dream.

***

He
saw the memory through his own eyes, heard the words spoken by his own mouth. It
took Drew only seconds before realizing where Vivian’s touch had taken him.

Another
college kid sat across the table, a clear, plastic pitcher of the cheapest beer
between them. A Soundgarden video played on the television at the end of the
bar. Drew remembered that night in 1992 as it replayed. Tommy sat next to Joe
across the table, and Vivian sat to Drew’s left. They spoke about music, and
midterms, and whether Pearl Jam could top Ten. They called CDs “albums” as if
yearning for a more pure time in rock history.

“Cornell
is hot,” Vivian said, smiling into Drew’s eyes with the devilish look of a
college junior.

“Not
like me,” said Tommy, eliciting a laugh from the entire table.

A
few members of the basketball team threw plastic darts in the corner. The machine
buzzed and flashed.

“It’s
the sum of the band,” said Drew. “Cornell is a great vocalist, but only because
he plays so well off of Kim’s riffs. And man, that rhythm section is
incredible.”

The
other three college students at the table nodded. Joe grabbed the pitcher and
topped off the plastic cups before pointing toward the bar.

“Who’s
up? C’mon, you cheap assholes, who’s up? It’s fucking four-dollar pitchers.”

Tommy
looked at Vivian, who was gazing bright eyed at Drew.

“Let’s
get this round. Help me out, douchebag.” Tommy winked at Drew while grabbing
Joe by the arm. “We’ll get a few more pitchers and some wings. Hot, medium,
mild?”

“Hot,”
said Vivian.

After
Joe and Tommy slid from the booth, Drew felt the heat of Vivian’s leg on his. He
could smell the strawberry conditioner in her hair and the electric touch of
her finger on his knee.

“I’m
having a lot of fun.” She tilted her head at Drew, let it rest on his shoulder
for a moment, and then raised it again.

“Yeah,
me too. This is the place to be on Thursday nights.”

“That’s
not what I’m enjoying.”

“I
know.”

Vivian
used the tip of her index finger to draw a swirl on Drew’s thigh. She pulled
the phantom trail from his kneecap to the bottom of the front pockets on his
jeans. He gave up trying to conceal the excitement behind his zipper.

“Viv,
you know I belong to Molly.”

She
lifted her finger from his leg and turned Drew’s chin to face hers.

“She
left, Drew. God knows who she’s out with right now.”

“I’m
leaving. In May. You know this. I’m trying to be honest here.”

Vivian
raised her plastic cup and drained the remainder of the beer in it. She slid
closer, pushing the side of her breast against Drew’s arm.

“I’m
here now.”

Before
Drew could reply, Tommy and Joe returned with three pitchers and a basket of deep-fried
wings dripping in bombastic, red fury.

“Wings!”
Joe tossed a handful of sanitary wipes on the table along with napkins and
plastic forks.

“What
the fuck are those for?” Drew asked, looking to Vivian and then to Tommy.

“I
don’t know. I grabbed a bunch of shit from the counter. If you’re going to be a
dick about it, then . . .” Joe grabbed the chicken-wing basket
and gave it a fake heave toward the garbage can at the end of the bar.

Drew
chuckled as the two guys sat down in the booth across the table. Vivian rested
a hand on Drew’s knee. Without looking down, he placed his palm on her leg. Vivian’s
heat pulsed through the black, sheer stockings. He slid his hand from her knee
toward her inner thigh at a slow, even pace. Drew felt Vivian shiver. She placed
her hand on top of his, giving him full, nonverbal permission to continue the
exploration. Drew circled back around, creating a figure eight from Vivian’s
knee to her inner thigh, a laced edge from her panties. As the conversation
floated back to Soundgarden and then on to Alice in Chains, Drew caressed
Vivian’s skin.

***

“Kill
me.”

The
request, spoken through a broken mouth and swollen lips, burst through 1992 and
yanked Drew back into the subterranean chamber where Vivian sat before him,
bloodied and ready to die. Gaki now stood behind her, thrusting.

“He
rapes me for hours until I’m bleeding and I pass out from the pain. When I wake
up he’s still going.”

Drew
tried not to look. He tried to avoid the grin on Gaki’s face where the corners
sat caked with drying feces.

“It’s
just a dream,” said Drew.

“Smell
her pussy,” replied Gaki.

Drew
shook and stepped back. Vivian’s breasts swayed with every thrust of Gaki. She
moaned from the pain rather than pleasure.

“Please,
Drew. Kill me.”

“Satiate
your hunger,” Gaki said to Drew. “Do her.”

Drew
closed his dream eyes. Vivian lay facedown on the stone floor. Iron hoops sat
between the stones, fastening her wrists and ankles. The blood and grime that
covered her skin was gone. Vivian’s dark hair spread out over her back,
complete with a healthy shine.

“Take
her,” said Gaki. The creature’s voice floated through the air and hung like an
early morning mist.

Drew
looked down and saw he was now naked. He was also aroused. Vivian turned and
looked over one shoulder with inviting eyes.

“Put
it where you want, hon,” she said to him.

He
dropped to his knees and used them to nudge her legs apart. Drew caught a whiff
of her excitement and the earthy, pungent fragrance of desire. He grabbed
himself with one hand and placed the other on the small of her back.

“Fuck
me, Drew.”

Drew
heard Gaki laugh and felt his heart racing. As he was about to penetrate
Vivian, she looked over her shoulder again. This time, he saw death. Her face
morphed back into the misshapen, swollen mess it had been when he first entered
the dream world. Dried blood caked her cheeks, and her words whispered through
holes where her teeth had once been.

“Please,
kill me.”

Drew
shuddered. He looked at Vivian’s shackled hands. Her left held a dagger. She
curled her fingers, angling the handle up in the air as far as she could.

“Take
her!” screamed Gaki. He materialized from the darkness and reached for the
knife.

Before
he made it to Vivian’s hand, Drew grabbed the handle. He took the weapon and
drove the blade into Vivian’s neck at the base of her spine. He heard the air
escape from her lungs as her tense body relaxed and collapsed on the stone. A
dark-red line of blood ran from the wound and puddled in the small of her back,
where moments earlier Drew’s face had been. She sniffled and gasped one last
time before her body ceased to move.

“Consume
her!” screamed Gaki. The intensity of the words bored to the center of Drew’s
brain. He threw his hands to his ears in hopes of defending his ears from the
horrid yell. Gaki thrashed about, slamming his fists into Vivian’s lifeless
body. Drew knelt between the legs of the woman’s remains, one that had been
starved, abused, raped, tortured, and finally stabbed.

Gaki
grabbed Drew by the shoulders, putting his face within inches of Drew’s mouth. The
fetid stench brought Drew to the edge of unconsciousness inside the dream. The
creature hissed and shook Drew’s chin to keep him from passing out.

“Your
salvation is through their pain.”

Drew
felt the words strike deep in his soul before he awoke on the living-room floor,
covered in sweat.

“Corner.”

“Bullshit. You’ll
kiss the five and scratch.”

Drew smiled
while chalking the tip. He knocked the blue dust from the end by tapping the
cue on the edge of the table. He mocked a childish good-bye wave at Brian while
putting his finger on the twenty-dollar bill.

“Corner.”

Brian shook his
head and stood back. He set his stick on the rack and picked up his beer,
fumbling through his pocket for quarters with the other hand.

Drew hovered
over the cue ball and closed his left eye. The talc powder helped to ease the
stick between his fingers. He drew it back once, twice, and then a third time
in order to make sure he hit the cue ball in the proper place. A millimeter
could cost him the shot, the game, and the bet. Brian coughed, pushing the
staged act as far as he could.

The cue ball
launched from the end of Drew’s stick. It slid effortlessly and without sound
across the green felt until slamming into the shiny, black eight ball. The cue
ball stopped moving and the eight ball rocketed into the corner pocket, where
it rattled and then dropped into the chute beneath the table. “Fuck!”
yelled Brian as Drew rolled his stick across the table with a victor’s touch. He
scooped the twenty-dollar bill from the edge.

“C’mon, punk. Next
round’s on me.”

Drew tossed an
arm around Brian’s head and pulled him close into a faux headlock. They
shuffled to the bar, where Drew slapped the money down and raised one finger
toward the bartender at the other end. She pushed the head of the tap back on
the beer she was pouring and winked at Drew, acknowledging his round would be
next.

“Why do I
continue to let you hustle me?” Brian asked.

“Oh, you let
me?” Drew replied.

The bartender
served two rum and cokes complete with a bright, plastic stir. They walked to
the booth behind the pool table and sat while the next group of players stepped
up with a handful of quarters.

“We haven’t
been here in a long time.”

Drew whistled
to add emphasis to the observation. “Maybe since college?”

Brian nodded. “Yep.
It’s been, what, fifteen, almost twenty years?”

Drew looked
around the bar. The faces had all changed, the games had changed, the jukebox
had changed. The place had a digital jukebox loaded with thousands of songs and
not one full-length recording. He thought about the obscure cuts they would
punch into the old jukebox, the ones that only the real fans knew. He had
played “Slaves and Bulldozers” far more than “Black Hole Sun.”

“Used to be our
Thursday-night hangout, remember that?”

“Some of them,”
said Brian, smirking. “The four-dollar pitchers erased a lot of memories.”

“There were
never many chicks here. Something about the place didn’t appeal to them.”

“Maybe it was
the filthy beer taps, or possibly the jukebox loaded with metal and grunge, or
maybe it was the hole in the floor of the bathroom that functioned as the
toilet, or possibly the bullet hole above the condom machine.”