From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (180 page)

“That is how
the creatures appeared. They had large heads and protruding abdomens, and their
eyes lost the sparkle of life before receding back into the skull. Bedraggled
hair stuck to open sores on their skin. They sat in darkened pools of waste. Their
mouths opened and closed at random intervals, neither speaking nor acquiring
sustenance. The creatures hung at death’s door without enough strength to die.

“But they were
not the source of the sounds. Another creature sat with its back to me, facing
the captives. I recognized the green fatigues worn by the Americans and knew
this man was a Marine. His weapons lay in the dirt as if tossed without care. A
green helmet lay beside the one wall. He was sitting, hunched over so that I
could not see anything above his shoulders. The man’s elbows shot out randomly
but in conjunction with the ripping sound. I thought of a jungle tiger huddled
around its kill, tearing the flesh with its teeth. I knew he did not know I was
there. I wanted to turn and run, but my feet became loose and moved me towards
the cavern, not away from it. Tears stung my face and I struggled to keep the
odor from releasing the last remnants of food in my stomach. A force pulled me
closer to the beast, and when I could no longer fight the inertia, my bladder
gave way. I felt the warm liquid running down my leg.

“The creature
froze and I heard a sniffing noise. It raised its head, a short military cut
bespeckled in grime and the filth of war. He had heard me, and yet I still
could not run.

“The shackled
wastes moaned but could not do much more. They also sensed my presence and
could no more help me than I could help myself. I shuffled my feet closer and
the smell became unbearable. To the left of the Marine sat a pile of human
feces. Even at night, flies buzzed about it.”

Ravna held the
mug of chai in one hand. The powerful scent of cardamom and cinnamon could not
mask Mashoka’s description. He sniffled and wiped his nose.

“My eyes felt
as though they might burst from my head. A ringing started at my temples and
vibrated down my spine until my entire body shook. The creature turned to face
me and I wished for death at that very moment.

“Excrement
covered the man’s face as if it had been painted by a blind man. Dark streaks
shot up from his lips and across his cheeks. He had piles of waste in both
hands, and with a wet slap, brought them to his mouth. I caught an occasional
flash of white from his teeth as he chewed and swallowed the vile substance. The
man’s stomach would protest after several handfuls, sending the contents
backwards and out of his mouth. He would pause, shake the browned saliva from
his face, and then resume the profane feast. A golden coin hung by a chain
around his neck, tangled with his dog tags. His hand would grasp it, caressing
the object as he mumbled to his chest.

“I wanted to
speak but my mouth would not obey. I felt fastened to the spot with only my
eyes free to move. The man made no motion towards me. He did not stand and
threaten or pursue me either. He simply continued gathering and consuming the
feces dispelled by the captives.”

Ravna moved to
the edge of his seat and opened his mouth to speak when the old man raised a
hand in the air, indicating that it was not yet time for that.

“The man was a
Marine and he appeared normal. It was the look in his eye that I can never
erase from my memory. Pure evil, dark and malevolent. But it was more than
that. The creature oozed desire, craving. The kind that cannot be squelched. It
was as if he was an addict of the universe, unable to slake a thirst for the
most wicked. The more feces he shoved into his mouth, the more he vomited, and
the more feces he had to shove into his mouth. I could see the cycle continuing
until the captives died or the man collapsed under the self-poisoning he
continued to perpetrate.

“A rooster in
the village shrieked. I believe that filthy bird saved me from this monster. It
shook me from the spell and I looked over my shoulder to see the first glimmers
of the new day cresting the mountain. The beams of fresh sunlight split the
darkness and crawled along the floor of the cave. I took a step backward until
my heels struck the cave wall. The man stood and turned to face me. Again, I
did not feel pursued but more like an animal caught in the snare. The hunter
had no reason to rush the slaying of his prey as I was trapped by his gaze. He
reached to his belt and removed an egg-shaped object which I later surmised to
be a grenade. He looked at me with those eyes that made me want to die. The
Marine held the object up and his hand removed the pin from the top. I realized
what he had planned on doing so I broke completely from his power and ran for
the opening. My feet propelled me as fast as they ever had and I began to count
in my head. I had seen enough of the war to understand what was to happen next.

“I counted down.
When I reached eight I was thirty yards from the entrance, thirty yards from
fresh air and the survival of another day. Six and then five brought me closer,
my heart pounding in my chest in a desperate attempt to put me clear of the
impending doom. I remember the feeling of flight, of being launched through the
air after getting down to three. The hot air pushed me out of the cave and
dropped me into jungle brush before the fire followed and scorched the walls I
had just run past. Loose pebbles and bits of stone rained down on my head as
the thunder of the explosion rang in my ears. I turned to look at the cave. Several
boulders had collapsed over the entrance and rolled to a stop, blocking the
cave and effectively sealing it forever.

“I
scanned the area and saw no sign of the captives or the Marine, and my lungs
began to draw air again. I sat and brushed the pulverized stone from my
garments when I heard the cackle. I stood and took three steps toward the cave,
sensing movement in the jungle to my left. Thin trees waved as if moved by a
silent wind. Before I could take another step forward, I saw his form climb
onto the rock ledge towards the far end of the mountain. White and gray dust
covered his fatigues, but I knew it was the Marine. As if reading my thoughts,
he spun around and grinned at me, his bloody mouth covered in brown smears. He
winked before climbing over the rock and dropping from my sight. I ran in the
opposite direction as fast as I could until I found the trail back to my
village.”

***

The sun shone
through a crack in the blinds like a dagger in Drew’s eye. He pulled a pillow
over his face and turned to throw an arm over Molly. It landed in a crumpled
sheet vacated by her hours earlier. He listened to a few songbirds, the first
ones back to the party after the long winter. The heater came on, reminding
Drew that the Earth had a ways to go in its revolution before the sunlight
would warm the surface back into spring.

He rolled onto
his stomach and looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. It read 10:34 a.m.
Other than the dry, warm air pulsing through the house’s ventilation, there
were no other sounds.

Molly had responded
well to the temporary suspension of the office. She volunteered to ready the kids
and take them to school, allowing Drew time to himself to pull his thoughts
together. He relished the freedom, but realized her sympathy had limits and
that he would eventually need to pull up the bootstraps. He thought back to the
time his father had lost his job and the way his mother had picked up the
slack. Dad worked in that factory for over thirty years, and they tossed him
out like a bag of garbage. The multinational that purchased the company
dismantled the machinery as quickly as they dismantled the lives of the workers.

“They don’t
give a fuck about nobody,” he remembered his dad saying. The memory stuck, one
of the few times Drew recalled his father’s use of a four-letter word.

Molly had left
the coffee pot on, and Drew filled his cup while standing in the kitchen in his
robe, water dripping from his hair. He was not used to having so much privacy
and considered going back to bed, but then the phone rang. He looked at the
caller ID and recognized Molly’s cell.

“Hey, you up?”
she asked.

“Uh-huh. Thanks
for the coffee,” he replied.

“Any word from
corporate?”

“No. Haven’t
checked yet. Any issues with getting the kids to school today?”

Molly
hesitated, deciphering “issues” in her head. “Normal. Sara pushed Billy on the
way in, and then they argued about who was going to hold the door.”

Drew smiled. “Thinking
of you,” he said.

Molly giggled. “Got
some errands. I’ll swing by before I have to pick them up.”

“I’ll be here,”
Drew replied.

She purred and
hung up. Drew smiled and walked to his laptop. He brought the machine out of
hibernation and launched his e-mail application. He looked at his in-box and
lost all interest in playing with Molly.

The “fwd” at
the head of the subject line indicated that this had been resent to him. Drew
was not sure if the label was accurate, as anyone could type “fwd” at the
beginning of a subject line. He scanned the “from” column and saw it was blank.
The e-mail contained a link to a news story that had been posted three hours
earlier on Channel 7’s official website.

“Authorities
are now close to apprehending a person of interest in the slayings of Vivian
Cabmel and William Johnson, both employees of Rede Design, both bodies found in
the Crooked Tail River last week. While police are not revealing the identity
of the person of interest, detectives told us that they have strong suspicions
that this person was the last to see the victims prior to their murders. They
would only say that the person of interest was most likely an employee at Rede
Design.”

Drew ran to the
living room and turned on the television. He grabbed the remote and changed
from the Cartoon Crazy channel to a local station. He immediately recognized
the front of his office building through the bubbling mass of reporters looking
to eat from the carcass of the story. Tall antennas spiraled out of trucks
designed to send remote feeds while young, blonde women in slutty business
attire held microphones. Even with the volume muted, Drew knew there had been a
break in the story and that the on-site broadcasting was not happenstance.

A knock at the
door shook him from the television. He glanced at the bay window of the living
room and saw a police car alongside the curb. Another knock rattled the door,
followed by the doorbell. Drew dashed for the back door while tying his robe
around his waist. He slipped into his work boots and burst through the screen
door as the first officer walking down the driveway rounded the corner into the
backyard. Drew heard shouting as he placed both hands on the chain-link fence
and vaulted over it. His robe caught a rusted peak. The fence held tight until
Drew released the tie and ran naked through his neighbor’s yard. He spotted an
open garage door and ran for it. Drew yanked the emergency rip cord and slid
the door shut before the pursuing officers saw him. He slid to the cold, damp
floor amidst the smell of gasoline and lawn fertilizer, listening to them run
past.

He closed his
eyes and let his head drift back to rest on the wood-paneled garage door. Drew’s
eyes adjusted to the dark room. He saw a door leading from the attached garage
into the house and wondered how much time he had before someone came down to
investigate the noise in the garage. Drew’s mind shuffled images of his
neighbors, but he could not recall who lived in this house. His backyard butted
up against the backyard of the people living on the next street over, neighbors
beyond the usual sphere of contact. Before he could decide on a course of
action, he heard a hand on the doorknob and watched the door from the house
swing open.

***

“Molly?”

“Hey.”

“Yeah. It’s
me.”

“What’s up?”

“Have you
talked to Drew today?”

Molly shifted
the weight of the brown bag of groceries to her hip as she hit the button on
her car remote. The hatch lifted with a stifled hiss. She pinched the slim
phone between her ear and shoulder.

“He was
sleeping when I left.”

She heard Brian
take a deep breath.

“Have you seen
the news?”

“Brian, what’s
this about?”

“Can you call
Drew?”

Molly slammed
the hatch down and swung her purse over a shoulder. She slid into the driver’s
seat, staring at the rain crawling down the windshield like tears. Molly
replaced a lock of hair blown by the heavy winds and dabbed a smidge of
lipstick from the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah. Can’t
you?”

“Molly, I’ve
tried. He’s either not picking up his phone, or . . .”

“Or what?”

She heard the
rustling, as if Brian were flipping through a newspaper while they spoke.

“Can we talk in
person?”

“Brian, I’ve
got to pick up the kids from school later and before I do that I have to swing
by the dry cleaners and then—”

“Molly,
please,” Brian interrupted.

She stuck out
her lower lip and blew at the bangs sliding from her forehead. Molly looked at
the mirror again, examining her eye shadow and the placement of her cleavage.

“We shouldn’t
be seen together,” she replied.

“There’s a
Turkish restaurant at exit seventeen off the interstate. I know they’re open,
and they have high booths. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”

Molly snapped
her phone shut and tossed it onto the passenger seat. She started the engine
and jumped at the radio as it came alive at the previous volume. She put the
car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, heading east toward the
interstate.

Brian arrived
first. Molly parked next to the green Jeep Wrangler and ran through the rain to
the front door of the restaurant. She pulled the brass handle and released the
aroma of basil and butter, an arresting combination. She had to wait for her
eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Heavy, velvet drapes covered the windows
except for a tall, thin V of space that allowed the dingy gray of early spring
inside. A rectangular bar sat in the middle with an arc of tables beyond it and
booths lining the walls. A middle-aged man with dark skin and dark hair stood
behind the bar with a wine glass. He twisted a towel inside before holding it
up to the light of the bar and placing it on a shelf next to the alcohol.