Violet Eyes (37 page)

An 800 phone number flashed on the screen as the blonde smiled and gestured behind her at the sports arena behind her. “The Red Cross has brought in cots and supplies here to keep everyone comfortable until tomorrow. It’s expected that this will be a short evacuation, and once the fires are out and the leak contained, people will be going back home tomorrow.”

“Can
we
go home tomorrow?” Eric asked. He sat on one of the two hotel beds, with very little expression. Earlier they had walked through the industrial park and down a quiet main street through the center of a town called Milo. After having burgers at a local grill, they had found a small motel on the outskirts of downtown, and booked a room.

“I don’t think so, sport,” Terry said.

“Why not?” Eric asked.

“Because they’re lying,” Rachel said.

“What do you mean?”

“There was no chemical spill,” Terry explained. “And I think they started those fires. They probably intend to burn the place to the ground. Did you notice they didn’t say anything at all about the spiders? Nobody is going back to their homes tomorrow. They’re just inventing a cover story about why nobody is going to hear from anyone in Passanattee for a while. They don’t want people to panic. And by the time people really start to question…the whole place will have been sterilized, and cleaned up.”

“But what about all the people?” Eric asked.

Terry nodded. “What about them indeed?”

“How are they going to explain where all the people went?”

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “Maybe the fire will take a ‘tragic turn’ and wipe out the temporary shelter they’ve set up. The government is pretty good at containment. They’ll lock this up tight. Our job, is not to get contained!”

“How do we do that?” Eric asked. He stifled a yawn with his fist.

“Let us worry about that,” Rachel said. “Right now, I think you should try to get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

“A long
crazy
day,” Eric added.

She nodded. “Long and crazy indeed.”

She knew just how tired he was when he didn’t protest. Eric started to take his shirt off, but then stopped. His expression looked puzzled. “I don’t have any pajamas,” he said. One arm was out of the sleeve, pulled up to his chest, while the sleeve hung slack at his side. He was frozen, not sure whether to keep undressing. “And what about brushing my teeth?”

Rachel smiled. “You can sleep in your underwear with grungy teeth tonight. There’s nothing to do about it right now.”

“Okay,” Eric said, though he sounded less than sure. He pulled the shirt all the way off, unbuckled his pants and stepped out of them, and then dove into the queen bed as Rachel pulled the covers back. Terry sat on the other bed as she tucked Eric in. She leaned down to kiss him, and whispered in his ear.

“Sleep tight,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Ma,” he said, and rolled over, clutching his pillow. He was asleep in minutes.

Rachel sat down on the other bed with Terry. Her breath came out like a balloon deflating. She felt as if she couldn’t hold any of it in anymore. “What about the military?”

“What about them?”

“They’ll be looking for people who got out, won’t they?”

Terry nodded. “Probably. And hotels will be the first place they’ll look. We’ll check out in the morning. My aunt’s got a place up in Georgia we can head up to. There’s gotta be a place in this town we can rent a car or catch a bus. But I think we should get out of Florida for a while.”

Rachel nodded. “I’m not sure I ever want to come back.”

Terry grinned. “You will after you stay with my aunt a few days.”

Rachel snorted, and pulled the covers down on the bed. She pulled the shirt over her head, and unbuttoned her jeans, shimmying them off to the floor. Clad only in her bra and panties, she slid a bare leg under the sheets, and then let the rest of her follow. Her sigh was louder than she intended as she let her head sink back into the pillow.

Terry watched her undress, not moving. After she’d settled, he stepped around the bed, and bent to give her a kiss. Just a peck, on the lips. Then he reached over her for the spare pillow.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m being a gentleman,” Terry explained. “I’ll grab the spare blanket in the closet and sleep in the bathtub.

Rachel snorted again. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “If you think I’m going to let you sleep in the bath, you’re a complete moron. Get in here!”

She threw the covers back, exposing her bare thigh and the curve of the pink panties that clung to top of her hip.

“What about Eric?” Terry asked, still looking unsure. She thought he was cute. Trying so hard to do the
right
thing.

“He’d better get used to it. I expect he’ll be seeing you next to me a lot from now on.”

Terry grinned, and flipped his shirt off in a heartbeat, exposing a wide chest thick with black curls. His jeans joined Rachel’s on the floor and he slipped in beside her. She loved the feel of his leg as it slipped next to hers.

“Thank you,” she said softly, and rolled over to put an arm around his shoulder. “We wouldn’t have made it here without you.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to make it here without you,” he said. His face was serious.

“Well, good thing that you didn’t have to,” she smiled, and kissed him. He pulled her closer, and it was awhile before Rachel came up for air.

“Hang on,” she said, breathing hard. Her heart was pounding. “Eric doesn’t need to see this.”

She reached over him and turned out the light.

Rachel woke to the sound of SpongeBob laughing on the television. The morning sun was blinding through the crack in the blinds; they hadn’t pulled them quite tight enough. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear the haze of dreams from her head. She’d been thinking of something happy, something pleasant, something like…her smile broadened, as she looked at Terry still out cold on the pillow beside her. His mouth hung open; he looked like a statue, frozen in place in her bed.

“Turn it down a little, okay?” she asked Eric.

The boy was sitting up in his bed watching. He nodded and pointed the remote at the TV. “Sorry, it was all that was on.”

The volume diminished, and Eric got out of his bed and went to the bathroom. The flush is what finally woke Terry. He stretched and rolled onto his back as Eric walked back from the bathroom.

Rachel put her arms out to him, begging for a morning hug.

“My head hurts,” he complained, walking up to her side of the bed, and gripping her tightly.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I think so.”

The boy pulled back from her then, and Rachel could see a look of puzzlement on his face. His brow furrowed, and he stretched out his arm. A small spider crawled across his wrist. It darted to the tip of his forefinger and dropped to the bed.

Rachel slapped out her hand to crush the thing. But even as she did so, Eric reached up to the side of his head and rubbed it. When his hand came back, another spider was crawling across his arm.

“My head really hurts,” he said again. His eyes were glassy with unshed tears. He was trying to be brave. But he knew.

He knew.

That’s when Rachel saw the motion on the pale skin of her son’s ear. Two hairlike arms reached out from the opening. The feelers almost looked as if they were sniffing the air. And then, when they decided it was safe, they pulled a black body etched in a purple bolt of lightning from the depths of Eric’s ear. Gestation time was over.

Trembling at the ticklish feel of the spider’s touch, Eric giggled slightly. But he knew it wasn’t funny. And even as he smiled, a tear finally escaped his control. Somewhere in the distance, came the sound of helicopters.

Terry swallowed hard, and put a comforting hand on Rachel’s shoulder. There was nothing he could say. His touch was all he could offer. His strength. She was going to need it.

Eric looked at his mom and said the hardest words she would ever hear.

“I don’t want to die.”

Rachel pulled him close, squeezing him tighter. Her action only seemed to make matters worse. As if in response to her hug, a stream of small black spiders exited faster and faster from Eric’s ear to run down his shoulder. She ignored their bites on her arms, and only held her son tighter.

Silently, Rachel began to cry.

About the Author

John Everson is a staunch advocate of the culinary joys of the jalapeno and an unabashed fan of vintage 1970s European horror cinema. He is also the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of seven novels, including the erotic horror tour de force of
NightWhere,
the occult/urban legend mystery of
The Pumpkin Man
, and the dangerously seductive dark fantasy of
Siren
. Other novels include
Covenant, Sacrifice
and
The 13
^th
.

 His tales have been translated into Polish, French, Italian, Turkish and German and optioned for potential film development. His short stories have been gathered in a handful of collections, including
Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions
and
Needles & Sins
. A 10th anniversary edition of his V
igilantes of Love
was reissued in 2013, and the full story of what happened to Billy, Casey, Mark and Jess on Sheila Key can be read in “Violet Lagoon” in the collection
Creeptych
.  

For more information on his fiction, art and music, or to sign up for his e-newsletter, visit
www.johneverson.com
.

Look for these titles by John Everson

Now Available:

NightWhere

She yearned to go beyond... but some curtains should never be opened.

NightWhere

© 2012 John Everson

When Rae broached the idea of visiting an underground sex club, Mark didn't blink. He should have. Because NightWhere is not your usual swingers club.
Where
it’s held on a given
night
… only those who receive the red invitations know. Soon Rae is indulging in her lust for pain. And Mark is warned by a beautiful stranger to take his wife away before it's too late.

But it’s already too late. Because Rae hasn't come home. Now Mark is in a race against time - to find NightWhere again and save his wife from the mysterious Watchers who run the club. To stop her from taking that last step through the degradations of The Red into the ultimate BDSM promise of The Black. More than just their marriage and her life are at stake: Rae is in danger of losing her soul...

Enjoy the following excerpt for
NightWhere:

The world stretched away in a field of stalks. They were everywhere, as far as the eye could see. At first glance, it looked like a cornfield – branch after branch after branch of amber leaves standing quiet and still in the faint summer breeze.

But then Colum looked closer, and saw that the amber wasn’t truly amber. The color was lighter, more suffused with a blend of white and pink. They were waves of fleshy grain, not amber. 

And flesh was a good color description, because the stalks weren’t grain.

The top of each thin trunk held a head. Blonde hair hung in ragged curls down the shoulders of many while many other scalps were shaved. The brunettes stood out in the field, their dark locks looking almost like spoiled produce in the midst of so much pale flesh. 

Because it was truly a field of flesh. Thin naked bodies all standing straight and tall, arms at their sides, heads forced to stare straight ahead. Nobody hung their face, nobody lifted their arms. The sea of naked men and women stood as one, stiff and ready. They stared in one direction, and blinked only occasionally. 

Mostly, they just stared. 

And waited.

What the hell was this place? He’d gone down a corridor, looking for a private place to smoke. And somehow he’d gotten turned around. Meli always said he had no sense of direction. Of course she was always the one who liked to
give
direction. He imagined right now, back in the Blue Room, she’d already surrounded herself with five guys, all of whom were following her commands and working with hands and lips to pleasure different portions of her anatomy. He needed to get back there, to enjoy the view. But the old wooden door hadn’t led him back to the swinger’s club. It had led him to this… true obscenity. A Halloween nightmare.

He walked forward until he stood at the beginning of the field, and now could see the details of the bodies. He saw the breasts of the women, sagging or proud, and the bellies, wrinkled and taut. He saw the veins on their thighs, and the hair between their legs… or lack. He saw the men interspersed between the hags and girls. Some had torsos covered in dark wiry hair and others were pale and smooth. 

He walked through the field of naked humanity. As he looked closer, he saw not simply the bodies.

He saw open gashes, and the scars. 

He saw the rips across the women’s nipples, the trails of past abuse sewn back in heavy black thread to something near normal. He saw the jagged rips across the men’s bellies, pink worms of flesh that cut through the black hair. He saw the stumps where arms once had been, and the holes where earlobes once had covered. 

And he saw the blood, still flowing.

This field had been flayed, but left alive to grow back in place, to recover. The scarecrows of the damned.

“Get out now,” a whisper came from somewhere deep within the bodies.

He looked at the nearest face and saw a man missing his lower jaw. A mound of pink had scarred above his windpipe, and a handful of broken teeth still clung to a gnarled mass of pink flesh and yellowing bone that grew beneath a crushed mound that might once have been a nose.

The face did not move. Its eyes did not blink.

He looked down and saw a latticework of pink that cut across the man’s shoulders and chest. Scars from some horrible beating or accident. Scars like a roadmap to a destination that… he did not want to know about.