The Watching: Redux
William Becker
Introduction
The Watching was the first book I ever worked on. I was 13, obsessed with creepypasta like Slenderman, The Rake, and the whole Marble Hornets canon. Found Footage movies like V/H/S, Creep, and REC captured a sort of DIY aesthetic that spoke to me. And so, I set out to become a horror writer.
The book was published originally through CreateSpace, which has now been taken over by Amazon KDP. I wrote it under a fake name, FurthermoreFiction, which was my way to get my super edgy writings out into the world. Ultimately, I became embarrassed by the name and the writing underneath. I destroyed what copies I had left of The Watching, deleted anything related to FurthermoreFiction, and the bones of that story became what would eventually be Weeping of the Caverns, my first real story.
At the time of the release of the Redux, Weeping of the Caverns will be celebrating its tenth anniversary. In a self-congratulatory fashion, this story will be free on my website for your reading pleasure.
Special Thanks to Emily Barton (TheHauntedShelf) for editing this. This was my first time reading this and she was an integral part of making sure the story was readable for the wider public. She understood the vision and helped me run with it. I always think a good editor should help a writer go from good to great.
Cover art by John Nies
I: From A Dead Man, Greetings!
Cold sweat brought Frank Sampson into consciousness, an escape from the black infinity of darkness. A burst of thunder shook the house and Frank sat up in fear, grabbing the purple comforter and squeezing it against his chest. His heart thundered and it was hard for him to slow his breathing. Frank leaned over to check on his wife, Jamie, but found that her place in their bed was empty, the covers torn askew.
“Jamie?” he called out. A rhythmic knocking caught his attention from downstairs, like someone was tapping their knuckles against the front door. Chills crept up his spine, and for a moment, he considered hiding in his bed. Most likely, she had gone down to the bathroom and would be back in a matter of minutes. The knocking sound was likely a tree-limb brushing against the house. Still, it was rhythmic in a way that made him… uncomfortable. It was organic, a wet, fleshy sound. The object knocking lacked the hard sound of branches, and sounded softer like—
Frank rolled out of bed, grabbing his cane as he straightened himself. He cleared his throat, then hobbled to the bedroom door, jerking it open. Lightning flashed through the skylight, filling the cabin with brilliant, white light. From the interior balcony that looked over their living room, Frank could see the lights were off. If Jamie was using the bathroom, she’d at least turn the light on, right? He trembled, hobbling over to the stairs. His bum leg screamed out in agony when he accidentally shifted his weight on the first step and then he almost rolled down the stairs.
“Jamie?” he called out, finally making it to the front door. The knocking was louder now and clearly coming from outside. Frank strained, glaring through the peephole. A walkway connected the exterior garage to the house. A white, wood-paneled door led into the garage, but it was wide open, revealing the white fluorescent light in the space. Jamie would never leave it open in a storm. A shadow swung back and forth in rhythm with the knocking sound.
Frank peeled the front door open, feeling the torrent of rain as it hit his face, then went across the walkway and into the garage.
For a reason he wasn’t sure about, the first thing he noticed was her feet. Her toes were a deep black, like a shadow had infested her veins and drained the color. They swung back and forth with the wind, tapping against the wall, rigid and lifeless. The knocking sound. Staring at her feet made it easier to not focus on her face.
“Jamie,” Frank said under his breath. She hung from the ceiling, a garden hose tying her throat to the rafters. Her dead, brown eyes stared uselessly at the wall.
There was a tap of footsteps behind them, so quick that Frank did not have time to react. Then, came the pressure in his stomach. There was a sharp tingling sensation from his lower back that made his knees buckle, like an electric shock. His nerves screamed out and he released his cane, but he was shocked when he didn’t fall to the ground. He tried to catch his breath but couldn’t. He glanced down to see a curved blade sticking through his stomach, impaling him. He coughed, watching the blade bob through his flesh as he did, then his vision blurred and the black washed over him. The last thing he heard was the sound of Jamie’s feet tapping against the wall.
II: And The Horse You Rode In On
A sliding camera bag that read WCU FILM STUDIES slammed into the side of Jonathan’s face, pulling him from the comfort of sleep as the Jeep went soaring around a bend on CO-13.
“Watch your head there, cousin!” Drew screamed out as the blast beats of death metal rumbled the vehicle. Always the wild child, he had a way of not getting his ass kicked by laying down copious amounts of obnoxious humor and charm. Amongst them, it had always been amusing that he had the practical major: business. He was double dipping. It made sense for him to take a film course as an elective, what didn’t make sense was for him to find a way to turn in his final project for that class as his thesis project for the honors college.
From the rear driver’s side seat where Jonathan was sitting, it was clear they were going too fast. Logan, Jonathan’s best friend, reached over the stack of film equipment and grabbed his camera from Jonathan’s lap.
“You break it, you buy it!” Logan snapped, as stuck up as ever. He had a tendency to bring his own equipment that his parents had bought out of pocket, as opposed to the somewhat too well-loved film equipment from the university. Jonathan had known Logan since freshman year and had grown to love him for all of his quirks. Film was his hyperfixation. He had next to no friends and even fewer social skills. This was informed by his semi-regular bathing skills.
From the front seat, Chris laughed. Chris, by contrast, was everyone’s friend, whether they liked it or not. When Drew had made an effort to join every film studies project possible, Chris was always there. That didn’t mean that Chris was actually working on set: half of the time, it meant Chris was sitting on a couch or chair, chatting it up with anyone not actively working. He always tagged along. Jonathan was convinced that he sold weed to half of the program. Interestingly, he was the only one of the group in community college, yet somehow he had a full time job in roofing and mowing and most of what he did was remarkably inoffensive. He had a lovably, goofy quality to him, even if he sometimes was a bit of a houseplant.
The motley crew made up their final film studies project for Professor DiAngelo’s documentary class: a project on how tourism makes small towns economically destabilized in off-season months. Part of the assignment was in budgeting and connections, which conveniently allowed them to rent an Air BnB from Professor DiAngelo’s family in a small town called Pinevale.
The carload of college students began its ascent into the Rocky Mountains, where the air became thinner, the slopes steeper, and cars fewer and farther between.
Finally, a large billboard in front of an overlook greeted them with a painting of a mountain range, and over top of it, there was a sigil: a blue O with an X through it, like a target. Over top of the symbol, there was a calligraphy font that read: Welcome To The Peaceful Town of Pinevale.
Just past the billboard, there was a small hut, beyond which there were a handful of parking spots. A guard rail protected the edge of the cliff, past which there were miles of thundering mountains and impossibly deep valleys and canyons. On one end of the overlook, there stood a brown sign that read: Lover’s Overlook. Elevation: 7,222 FT.
“You boys wanna smooch me up here?” Drew asked.
“Remind me to drive separately next time,” Logan replied.
The road continued up the side of the mountain, winding and curving through the dense walls of pine trees.
Finally, the Jeep turned left, connecting with a narrow tunnel. Jonathan noticed another painted wooden sign that showed a mountain peak with the words: “welcome to the town of Pinevale” before the tunnel began. How Redundant, Jonathan thought to himself, and then they were squeezing through the cobblestone tunnel, which barely felt large enough for a car.
Once the group came through the other side of the tunnel, it was as if night had fallen. The town of Pinevale, for the most part, existed in a bowl. The buildings on Main Street were placed in between a semi-circle of cliffs, on top of which were a sea of pine trees that served only to block out the sun.
Immediately, as the group passed through, they were greeted by the peaceful and ambient glow of the lamps on the side of the church to the left of the tunnel: The Hope Baptist Church of Pinevale.
Jonathan checked his phone, perhaps out of instinct, perhaps in the hope that the notification that had been hovering on the screen would go away. It was like a bruise that he didn’t want to press, but he had to. It wasn’t going to heal on its own.
The road turned left in front of the church just as it came to a hotel that jutted out from the cliff-face to the right. Fashioned from a dark oak-wood, it was a three-story dilapidated looking thing that looked over the main section of town. It was tiny despite the three floors, with only three windows per floor, like it was smooshed into the corner.
Directly in front of the church’s entrance was Main Street, which intersected the tiny stretch of road they were on. It was oddly cramped, with each corner requiring a sharp turn as though the buildings had been constructed before the road.
In the southwestern most corner of the strip, tucked along the road and behind the church, practically opposite the tunnel, there was a bank. There was a light-up sign that read: The Red River Pinevale Trust. It was only a single story, but its roof was made from white stone, emulating a courthouse or building in Washington D.C.
The road intersecting the entrance road ended on the right by the hotel against a cliff face, then on the left by the bank against another cliff face. This made the town feel unnaturally compact and doused in deep shadows.
Following the bank, there was a shiny, chrome diner that had a sign above it that read: “Dempsey’s Filling Station” in neon lettering. Separated only by an alley, there was a wooden hut of a building next to the diner that was called “The Parlor” and had a graphic of ice cream painted on its side.
Across from the filling station and the ice cream shop, but just after the hotel, was a brick building divided into two different tenants: Martha’s Bakery and a small sheriff’s office. The back right, or Northeast, just after the brick building, held Pinevale Drug.
After this, the road sloped up with the outline of a hill that connected to the cliff faces, then it continued for about thirty feet, before curving to the right. About a hundred yards down this road, there were two houses, one on either side of the road. The one on the right was a three story McMansion of a cabin, with an exterior bridge that connected a two-car garage. They had been told about the neighbors: an old man with a cane named Frank Sampson and his wife, Jamie. Their lights were on upstairs, penetrating the fog.
Across the street from this cabin was a small two story Barndomnium that was connected to the road by a gravel path.
In the distance, on top of a hill, a skinny radio tower stretched into the clouds, looking down over the town of Pinevale. Owen’s Point, Jonathan thought to himself, reflecting on some of the information that Professor DiAngelo had given about the town. The red light at the top of the rickety, ancient looking thing blinked, like an eye that was staring down upon them.
Drew turned the Jeep down the bumpy road, then slammed on the brakes in front of the door to the Barndominium. Across the way, the Sampon house still glowed. A beacon.
“Alright, pussies,” Drew barked, “stake your claim!” The group launched out of the Jeep and to the oddly square house, carrying grocery bags, the camera equipment, sound gear, and suitcases. The chestnut front door that was blocked by a small wooden porch gave the house a worn-down, cozy feel. It opened into a living room, and if not for the exterior, it was so tight that it could have been mistaken for the living room in a mobile home. Directly as they came in on their right, there was a leather couch, two oak-wood arm chairs, and a plastic dining table. On the left, there was an old-fashioned, box TV. The walls were painted a sunshine yellow that made the floor seem bright and warm.
“Dibs on the couch,” Chris said. No one argued with him.
Hugging the right wall, just past the couch, there was a rickety, enclosed staircase that led to the second floor. Beyond the staircase was a small kitchen and a single bathroom with a shower.
“Who wants some world famous Mac N’ Cheese?” Logan asked as he put a bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. Drew cringed.
“Kraft Mac N’ Cheese is not world famous,” Drew said.
“You haven’t had mine.”
“Bro, fucking box mac and cheese peaks at a certain point,” Drew barked.
“It really is baller,” Chris chimed in.
“You know what, fine, someone else cooks,” Logan said with a huff, then he marched out of the room and to the stairs, flicking the lights on as he did.
“Alright, Chris, it’s on us,” Logan said, leaning beneath the sink to grab a rusty-looking pot.
Jonathan hurried out of the room, scrambling after Logan up the stairs so that he would have first dibs on one of the beds. With his bag of clothes and toiletries in hand, he darted up the creaking wood stairs.
At the very top of the stairs, there was a door leading to a bathroom. To the left and around the corner was a very dark hallway with a single, red lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. The chain almost smacked Jonathan in the face. He yanked on it, casting a bright, nearly demonic looking glow through the hall. At the same time, Jonathan felt a burst of heat hit his legs and he began to sweat.
It made him comfortable yet at the same time, faintly nervous. The glowing, blood-red light revealed four doors: one at the end of the hall fashioned from steel or some kind of heavy metal, a tan door on the left, and then two white doors on the right, as though the builder had run out of the same kind of door halfway through the project.
Jonathan noticed that scratched into the door at the end of the hall, seeming at first engraved, but upon closer inspection, revealing itself to be melted into the surface, there was the O with an X. The same from the billboard outside of town. A sigil. It gave him chills. It was as if someone had pressed an object into clay. It wasn’t just a scratch, it had depth. Something was meant to be placed there. A recess.
He shook his head, realizing that he was just in a cramped cabin and that there wasn’t anything to worry about, then he opened the tan door on the left. This room spanned the width of the building. On the wall closest to him to his left, there were two twin beds separated only by a small bookshelf, then on the furthest wall to his right, a single twin bed with a larger bookshelf alongside.
A long, red rug connected the two halves of the room, linking the two bookshelves together. All seemed normal, except for on the larger of the two bookshelves, there was a long, diagonal scratch that began on the top right of the shelf, cutting through the spines of dozens of books and revealing the white paper within.
“What could have done this?” Jonathan said to himself, approaching the shelf. On the floor before it, there was a leather-bound copy of the Bible. Someone had painted a bright red X on the face of the thing. It gave Jonathan the creeps.
He stepped backwards and back into the hall, then tried the first white door on the right. He yelped as he opened the door, coming face-to-face with Logan. In the distance, there was the sound of someone moving a chain around. Logan looked unwell. His eyes had dark circles underneath them and his skin was pale.
“Jesus, man, are you alright?” Jonathan asked. Logan didn’t so much as flinch. The chains sounded close, as if someone was dragging something down the street outside. Logan just stared through Jonathan.
“Logan?” he asked. Logan continued silently staring.
“LOGAN!” Jonathan roared.
“What?” he asked, more nonchalantly than normal, glancing behind him as if he was awoken from a bad dream.
“Shut the fuck up!” Drew screamed from downstairs at the commotion.
“You okay, man? You don’t look too hot.”
Logan shook his head. He put his palm against his forehead, wiping a bead of sweat to the ground.
“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Okay, man, just… get some rest, I guess.”
“I gotta unpack my stuff,” Logan said plainly, then slammed the door to the bedroom in Jonathan’s face.
It wasn’t uncommon for Logan to get anxious spells where he looked like he had seen the devil, Jonathan knew this by now. He didn’t fare very well in social situations or when he was tired.
“Yo, Jonny boy, come get some fucking food!” Drew hollered from the bottom of the stairs, making Jonathan jump. He set his suitcase down in the room with the bookshelf, then went jogging downstairs.
Chris and Drew sat around the dining table in the living room, shoveling Mac and Cheese into their mouths.
“You’ve been taking a nap or somethin’, bro?” Drew asked in between mouthfuls of food.
“No, why?”
“Well, for starters, I thought you were gonna help us get some stuff out of the car. You’ve been up there for like half an hour. The food’s getting cold.”
Jonathan blushed. He didn’t realize it had been that long.
“What’s up with the slamming doors?”
“I dunno. Logan was being moody.”
“Bro, what?” Chris said with a laugh.
“What?”
“He went outside to go test the camera. He already ate like ten minutes ago.”
“I just saw him—” Jonathan protested.
“You didn’t, bro,” Chris said.
“Now, now, silly boy,” Drew said. Jonathan grabbed a plastic bowl from the kitchen. His head hurt. Maybe he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Proof had a way of outliving apologies. There was something nagging at him. Once again, his perception was different from everyone else’s.
III: RIP ROACH
In the hour or so they had spent inside, a light rain had begun to tapdance over the cabin and the surrounding forest. Jonathan was interested to see that upon opening the door to look for Logan, he was greeted by a thick wall of fog that made the air cool against his skin. Through the fog, like square eyes, the lights on the Sampson house flickered at Jonathan. Did those people ever leave? He stepped onto the porch, then sighed, glad to get away from the obnoxious sounds of Chris and Drew slurping on mac and cheese. The sound of the rain in the forest was relaxing and relieved the stress headache that was beginning to form. He stepped down the wooden stairs, then let his feet meet the white pebble path that wrapped around the side of the building. Still, the crunching and feeling of pebbles giving way for his feet was therapeutic.
The path went just beyond the back of the barndominium and in between a group of dense, white pine trees that seemed overbearingly dark in the mist and rain.
Then, the path curved around a wall of thicker trees, soon revealing a structure that was hidden from the road and the house: a shed constructed from rotting wood and with a tin roof. The wood was so rotted that the roof seemed to dip in the center, and the supports beneath it seemed so wet that the very core of each plank appeared slimy. Where the walls met the roof were various gaps and holes from years of neglect.
As Jonathan approached, he noticed Logan’s black camera bag on the ground, propped up against the ruined wood of the structure. Leaving the bag in such an area was decidedly unlike Logan. It gave Jonathan a sense of dread.
This feeling of dread only deepened as he gazed at the door leading into the shed. Scratched in with something no thicker than a pocket knife, there was that symbol once again: the O with the X. What was it? Professor DiAngelo’s family crest? Something belonging to the town itself?
Jonathan came to the door, placing his hand on the symbol, then gently pushed on the wood. The smell that wafted into his nostrils was a blinding, sickly stench, like spoiled milk. He coughed, fighting the urge to vomit. Glimmers of foggy sunlight drifted in through the holes in the walls, highlighting what was actually in the shed: along the edges, workbenches covered in tools, screws, dead insects, and various old books with titles in foreign languages.
Towards the back wall of the room, cut into the concrete floor, there were a set of stairs that descended into the ground. If not for a lens case for Logan’s camera lying on the top step, Jonathan wouldn’t have so much as glanced.
The source of the foul smell became immediately apparent: a heavy, cellar door made from thick logs was at the bottom of the stairs, and nailed to the wood was a squirrel in a T-pose, like it was on a cross.
Its furry back paws began normally, but at the knee level, the skin had been removed, blending bone with blood and fur. The guts hung out like a mass of worms, coiled together, one organ indistinguishable from the next. The skin surrounding its stomach was held back by nails, before coming back together at the chest level. Jonathan pulled his phone flashlight out, revealing a circle behind the squirrel painted in its blood, with the unmistakable X painted through.
“Jesus,” Jonathan said.
The door leading into the shed popped open as Drew and Chris pounced in obliviously.
“You smoking reefer in here or—“ Drew was interrupted by his own gagging at the stench.
“Bro, what is that?” Chris asked. All Jonathan could do was point.
The other two joined him at the top of the stairs.
“You know how we always yell in horror movies when people go down the stairs?” Chris asked.
“Yeah,” Drew said plainly.
Sweat trickled down Jonathan’s brow.
“I think Logan went down there.”
“Well, he can fuckin’ stay. I ain’t going!” Drew snarled, just as Jonathan and Chris slowly crept down each step. Jonathan kicked his foot out, hitting the side of the door opposite the hinges, his flashlight barely illuminating the darkness of the next room. Drew reluctantly followed.
“Logan?” Jonathan called out, noticing his voice reverberating off the stone walls of the basement. It was larger than it needed to be, yet so dark that he couldn’t see the other end. He looked to his right with the phone flashlight, catching a glimpse of the carved walls.
“What is this?” he said to himself, studying the scrawls of text in a language he didn’t recognize. Not quite hieroglyphics, but not quite any language or symbol he was familiar with; every square inch of the walls was covered in the strange, alien writing. Something told Jonathan that the writing wasn’t about anything good. At the end of the room, there was a steel door that matched the one at the end of the hall in the house. Jonathan didn’t dare try to open it.
“Guys!” Chris said, pointing his flashlight at the ground. Jonathan whipped his head around to see what was in his light.
Sprawled out on the floor, his body motionless, was Logan, curled into the fetal position. His clothes were in shreds. Deep scratches covered his chest and his arms, like he had been mauled by a cat, only there seemed to be splotches of blood mixed into the rags that served as his clothes. On his right side were three parallel gouges.
“You napping or what?” Drew called out.
Logan groaned. Chris knelt down, placing a hand under his arm.
“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked, staying at the edge of the room.
“Is he dead?”
“He’s passed out.”
“My cumruh,” Logan muttered. Chris put a hand under his armpit, grunting as he tried to pull Logan up.
“Let’s get him back to the cabin,” Jonathan said.
“My cumruhhh,” Logan muttered, not opening his eyes. There was a thud from behind the door, then the pattering of feet, as if a pack of rats was scattering.
“Help me,” Chris said, putting another hand under his ribs to hoist him up.
“My cummmmmruh!” Logan grumbled.
“The fuck is he saying?” Drew asked.
“His camera,” Jonathan answered. A rat squeaked behind the door, then there was the sound of something sliding against the concrete behind the wall, like a pitchfork catching.
“What is that?” Drew asked, holding himself beneath Logan’s other arm. Logan opened his eyes, hazily looking to the door.
“My camera. Wait.”
There was a deep, pained whine from behind the door, then a metallic creak as it cracked open.
“Hello?” Jonathan asked. Chris and Drew backtracked to the other door leading to the stairs, holding Logan between them.
Jonathan pointed his light at the steel door, the bright reflection shining back at him. He stared at the slightly open door, breathing a sigh of relief. It was just a draft.
Then slowly, from the shadows in the door’s crack, there came three-finger-like appendages. In the bright light, they were unmistakable as pieces of sharpened bone, as long as a femur, but each no wider than three inches. They were thinner at the end than they were wide. Jonathan’s stomach flipped as the three fingers pulled the door open wider, and then, from the shadows came the creature.
It looked at first like a naked man, but its skin was deathly pale, and it was perhaps only four feet tall, thanks to an unnatural slouch or bend in its spine that seemed almost as the result of being struck by a car. The bones that stuck out from both of its hands connected to veins, which were readily apparent beneath the skin that was wrinkled as though pulled too tight. And yet, it was completely hairless and had no mouth, just a skull, its head like a perfect sphere. There were eye holes, but the light reflected a pinkish-red color of flesh, as though its eyes had been plucked out. It let out a wet inhale that seemed to come from beneath the skin.
Jonathan glanced over to Drew and Chris, who stood holding Logan’s body, but now they were silent at the appearance of the thing, which seemed unreal. A violation of nature. Something that didn’t belong.
The creature stepped forward, its right leg turning at an angle when it walked, prompting Jonathan to take a step back. He didn’t want to take his eyes off it. The creature stepped again, and then Jonathan followed his friends through the door. With no eyes, the thing seemed to study Jonathan as he slowly shut the door. Jonathan said nothing, his legs trembling.
That’s when the group bolted up the stairs, Logan now halfway conscious and limping along, panting as the two people carrying him ran back into the rain. Just as he stepped outside, Jonathan heard the sliding noise of the claws on concrete and bolted to the car in front of the cabin.
IV: The Mask Of The Red Death
Chris and Drew tossed a barely conscious Logan into the backseat of the Jeep. Logan moaned as he was unable to hold himself up. Jonathan had barely been able to pile in alongside him before Drew had flipped the car in reverse, then he slammed on the gas, speeding up the gravel driveway. Jonathan looked through the back window, the fog obscuring all visibility.
“Call the police!” Jonathan barked as they pulled onto the street, flying past the Sampson house.
Chris pulled his phone out then quickly dialed 911, placing his phone on speaker. There was a dull beep from the other end. Dead air.
“What the fuck, dude?” Drew said in between pants. “That isn’t how that works, right?”
Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief. Even if they couldn’t call for help, no service meant nothing new could surface, or at least, Jonathan would be shielded from the outside world. The town was a blanket from the cold airs of discovery.
He turned the car down the road that led back into downtown Pinevale, speeding almost faster than he could control down the hill leading onto Main Street.
Immediately, the group noticed the town: all of the lights were on in the buildings, yet there wasn’t a single car parked in any of the parallel spots or a pedestrian wandering on the sidewalks.
“Where is everyone?” Drew asked, clearly panicked as they drove in front of the diner and ice cream shop.
“Dead season,” Jonathan said, “plus, it’s foggy.” He looked in the diner, noticing that even though the lights were on, there wasn’t a single person standing inside, as though all the wait and kitchen staff had just disappeared.
“That ain’t right,” Chris commented.
They turned left in between Pinevale Local Drug and the brick building with the bakery and the sheriff’s office, quickly pulling into a spot. Drew, Jonathan, and Chris leapt out of the car, rushing to the front door. Like the diner, drug store, and ice cream shop, the lights were on: Jonathan could see a single desk through the front door window. The window was labeled with a gold star and the word SHERIFF in bold text. An open laptop sat on the desk, along with a jacket.
“I too like to quit my fucking job when it gets rainy,” Drew said, then he pounded his fist against the door.
“Drew,” Jonathan said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Drew slammed his fist against the door so hard that they thought he might break the wood.
“Open. The. Fucking. Door!” Drew shouted. His voice echoed off of the walls of the bowl, so loud that if anyone was in town, they were bound to hear it.
“We need to go home,” Chris said to himself. Jonathan thought that he had a point: there was some kind of thing… lurking beneath the shed. Who knows what had happened to Logan? At a bare minimum, he needed medical attention. Jonathan pulled his phone from his pocket, then dialed 911. There was the dead line sound again.
“Dead air,” Jonathan said. The top of his screen showed an SOS symbol. No signal. Drew punched the door again. Jonathan walked to the car, noticing that Logan’s eyes were closed and he was resting his head on the window. Jonathan sighed, scanning up the hill for any sign of the creature, then he paced towards the street. That was when he saw a woman standing on the top of the church stairs.
At first glance, Jonathan thought she was a ghost. She was dressed in a black tunic with a white cloth fitted to her head and neck. She stared through the mist at Jonathan, seeming almost like an angel of light.
“Hey,” Jonathan shouted up at her. She shot him a look as he jogged towards her.
The woman waited, her face calm, yet not welcoming: the edges sharp and jagged. As Jonathan jogged to her, it became clear that she was a nun.
“Hey!” Jonathan screamed out to her. She remained locked on him, as if studying his intentions.
“Guys,” Chris said as he looked towards Logan, who had fallen back asleep in the car, “I think we need to get Logan some help.” His skin had taken on a yellow-green quality, like someone whose liver was failing.
“Hey! Can you call the police, please?” Drew shouted, following after Jonathan through the mist towards the church.
As the two came to the foot of the stairs, she finally spoke.
“You aren’t local.”
Drew scowled, looking up at the woman in horror. She gazed down at them like an immortal upon her subjects.
“Yeah, no shit, we rented a place—”
“All who visit are lured here.”
Jonathan jumped back in: “Can you please help us? Call us an ambulance. We went by the police station over there, but no one was around.”
“There are no ambulances running in Pinevale. There are no operators who will pick up the phone when you call for help. There are no broadcasts, not ones they don’t want. Not ones that don’t call more people in. You’re stuck here,” the nun said plainly.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Drew asked.
She smiled.
“It starts at the radio tower,” the woman said, staring longingly at the fog.
“What does?” Jonathan asked.
“They run the town. They swallow everything. They pay for the billboards. The commercials. The radio ads. They bring more in.”
“Who?” Asked Jonathan.
“They worship the same Old One.”
“You’re talking about a god?” Drew questioned.
“I’m talking about God.”
“Is that what your church is for, then?” Jonathan asked.
She smiled, shaking her head.
“I was assigned here. To pray, to keep watch. A church with no congregation, no pastor. Just me. A haven. A way out.”
“Lady, are you on crack? Our friend is seriously fucked up. He was down in the shed. This thing came out. Looked like hell itself,” Drew spat out.
“Pinevale is a gateway. It’s where the thin walls between reality and the subconscious are at their thinnest.
Drew blinked slowly.
“Much of what you see—it’s a symptom of the disease.”
Drew looked at Jonathan, then returned to staring at the lady as she continued her ramble. They looked back to Chris and Logan, who both sat in the back seat of the car. They were running out of time to get Logan help.
“When the town was first developed, a group of people traveling through the mountains discovered a river that was red: a river of blood.”
Drew and Jonathan stared the lady down.
“Natives thought the area was cursed, but later, business men realized it was the result of iron sulfide minerals. It took only weeks for the town to turn into a mining town. They kept digging and digging for the iron but quickly found that it was submerged, impossible to reach.”
“Then what was the point?”
The nun smiled, then continued.
“But they tried, oh, they tried. And so many died down in those caves. Then they were shut down. The water stayed red and it became the chief tourist attraction of the town. It kept the area alive. It resurrected the corpse of this place. Unfortunately, it’s come with a consequence. A tear between worlds beneath the caves. An infection—”
Drew interrupted then.
“Lady, as cool as that all sounds, we’re not fucking interested.”
“Drew!” Jonathan shouted, desperate for what clues she had to give.
“Logan is fucked. We need to get the fuck out of here and get him some help,” he said. Jonathan smiled weakly at the lady. She nodded to him, then watched as the two sprinted through the fog back to the Jeep, then they threw themselves into the front seats.
“What?” Chris asked.
Drew turned the key, immediately putting the car in reverse, then slammed on the gas, letting the vehicle fly out into the street.
“We’re going the fuck home. Fuck Mr. DiAngelo and fuck this town.”
Jonathan studied the nun as the car turned in the road. She stared knowingly at them. Drew grunted, flipping the car into drive. The car screamed as they thundered down the road, narrowly passing the church and to the road leading into the tunnel.
“Easy,” cautioned Chris. Jonathan stared ahead into the dark abyss of the tunnel leading out of town. As the car stuttered, Jonathan noticed how endless it seemed. There was no light leading through. Nothing.
The group stayed speechless. Logan grumbled, rolling in his seat.
“It wasn’t this long coming in,” said Chris. No one replied, knowing the truth of his words.
Jonathan whipped his head around, studying the tunnel to their rear. There was no light pouring in behind them, as though they were rushing through a tunnel headed to nowhere. The dim headlights did little to penetrate the dark of the tunnel, barely illuminating the cobblestone on either side. The dread was palpable, suffocating even. Jonathan swallowed uncomfortably. Were they in hell? Jonathan wondered.
Finally, after what felt like miles of driving, the light at the end of the tunnel reappeared, a pinpoint in the nothingness. Slowly, it grew larger.
“What in the fuck?” Drew asked out loud. He slammed on the gas, but somehow, even with the roar of the engine, the white dot didn’t seem to get closer any faster. The speedometer climbed and Drew’s feet shook on the pedal, yet it didn’t feel like they were going any faster. It was like they were steadily creeping through the tunnel in a perpetual slow motion.
It grew like a spotlight, inch by inch, the white opening up, a portal to the underworld. Logan grunted again in his sleep, seeming to take deep breaths. Jonathan glanced back at him and gasped. Black circles had begun to populate underneath his eyes. He looked frail, weak even.
Finally, the white light took shape as daylight through the end of the tunnel. Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief, just as Drew eased up on the gas.
“Did you slip me something?” Drew asked, shooting Chris a disapproving look. They cruised through the opening, then Drew slammed on the brake.
Jonathan’s heart dropped. In the distance, he could make out the flashing light of Owen’s Point, the red light blinking as though it was laughing at them.
The church was still there on the left: its amber glow highlighting the darkness of the town. Across from it, the three story hotel chiseled out from the rock. Drew stepped off the brake. Jonathan’s heart thundered. The sun was setting in the distance, allowing the neon lights of Pinevale to shine even brighter. This was made even more uncanny by the lack of people and vehicles. A ghost town in the truest sense.
“It’s the same,” Jonathan said, his lips dry. They had gone in a circle.
Drew and Chris were silent. Logan’s head slumped uselessly against the seat. The car rattled over the perfectly paved street, passing in front of where the nun had been on the steps of the church.
“Where am I going?” Drew asked as they rolled past Dempsey’s Filling Station, the booths inside lit but empty nonetheless .
“Just go back to the rental,” Chris said, poking Logan with his finger. “We need to get him in a bed.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Jonathan asked.
“Do I look like a doctor?” Chris answered back, just as the car lurched up the hill and around the corner to the rental.
“Jonathan, do you mind helping me?” Chris asked as soon as the car was parked. Drew staggered out of the car, moping his way back to the front door underneath the setting sun. As Jonathan came around and put an arm under one of Logan’s shoulders, he nearly collapsed under the weight, coming dangerously close to dropping his unconscious friend. Chris grabbed his other side.
“Jesus,” Jonathan exclaimed. The left side of Logan’s jeans grazed his side. Hot. Like a miniature sunset. Enough to make him wince.
Jonathan glared down at Logan’s jeans: there was something circular in his pocket, a thin outline of something two inches across and maybe a half inch thick.
“What is it?” Chris asked, noticing the same thing. Jonathan couldn’t control himself, ignoring the discomfort of reaching into another grown man’s pocket, then was surprised when he made contact with something metal and warm. Like something that had been pulled out of the oven recently, but not hot enough to cause any damage.
Jonathan gripped the object in between his fingers, but struggled to find the strength to yank it out of Logan’s pocket. It was denser and heavier than it should have been, like he was pulling on a bowling ball. It was too heavy for its size and the give revealed that it wasn’t just stuck.
They dragged Logan to the front steps of the house, then set him down, allowing Jonathan to pull the object from his pants. It thundered onto the wooden porch, which creaked and groaned under its weight.
“What is that?”
The piece of metal that clattered to the ground was smaller than a frisbee and was fashioned from silver, but the size was deceiving for its immense weight. There was an ornate O with an X chiseled on its surface: the sigil. A crest.
“Something evil, probably,” Jonathan said, leaving it on the porch as they dragged Logan inside, tossing him onto the couch. Jonathan slammed the door behind them.
Logan grunted.
“What do we do with him?” Chris asked.
Logan groaned as if to answer, his limbs moving awkwardly over his chest, as if scratching imaginary itches over his sternum and ribs. Chris backed away.
Logan then became further animated, even though his eyes were closed. He writhed, coiling until he was at the edge of the couch. Jonathan stared, mouth agape, watching as his friend seized and convulsed, then fell onto the floor in front of the couch, his head smacking into the wood.
“We gotta get him upstairs,” Jonathan announced plainly.
“What’s that gonna do? He’ll just freak out up there.”
Jonathan shook his head. “He’s already freaking out. He needs a bed. He’ll hurt himself.”
As if on cue, Logan’s movement halted. His limbs fell against the wood with a dull thud. Chris looked over to Jonathan, who nodded. The two went to either side of Logan, each grabbing an arm. They both grunted, forcing his weight over their shoulders as they struggled to get him up the stairs. Jonathan felt the heat from Logan’s pocket against his hand. The crest.
“Huh?” he said out loud, letting Logan’s feet bump into the stairs. Jonathan nearly fell into the banister. The object was warmer now, hot like a bee sting. In a rush of anger, Jonathan jammed his hand into Logan’s pocket, then grabbed the object. He didn’t know where he planned to put the thing , only that he hated it, that he needed it to go away. He growled, chucking it up the stairs with all of his might. It flew further than Jonathan expected: the object spun for a moment, then clattered dramatically at the top of the stairs with a sound that shook the house.
“Didn’t you leave that thing on the porch?” Chris asked.
Jonathan swore under his breath, marching faster up the stairs, his body barely able to squeeze through the tight space with Logan’s unconscious body and Chris helping. The stairs creaked and flexed under the combined weight.
Jonathan stepped over the object in the middle of the hallway, feeling the heat kiss at his ankles like a scorching sun. The feeling of heat came just as they were washed in the dim glow of the red light.
“C’mon,” Jonathan said between gasps, lurching down the hallway to the room on the left, lugging Logan’s dead weight through the hall. He pushed the door open with his foot, then they brought Logan to the bed closest to the door, which swung shut behind them.
“Here,” Jonathan said, watching Chris as they hoisted Logan onto the bed. He sank onto the squeaky, thin mattress with a breath that stuttered. For a moment, Jonathan thought he heard Logan’s teeth chattering as he hit the bed, which made a noise like crushed styrofoam.
“Stay with him,” Jonathan commanded. He needed to take a deep breath, a moment of reprieve.
“Okay, boss,” Chris replied. Jonathan paced out of the room, yanking the door open, and then back into the red hallway. Oddly, it seemed brighter and more full, the shadows now dimmer. A stain in the air that made his skin look bruised and alien. It buzzed, a womb-heat of dread. There was a sensation that the house was occupied now, like he wasn’t alone in the hallway. His heartbeat was louder in his ears now, like he was underwater.
Jonathan glanced at the steel door at the end of the hallway, expecting to find a figure or entity waiting for him, but was surprised when he found the silver crest lying in the middle of the hallway. It had moved from the top of the stairs to just a few feet in front of the door. It had somehow gone around the corner. A scratch on the wood floor trailed behind the object, as though someone had dragged it through the hall.
Jonathan looked from the crest to the indent on the door, which now seemed a bit deeper, a black abyss that lured him. It was hard not to look at it. It seemed to absorb all the light. A perfect circle in the steel. It made him uncomfortable. He looked down at the crest. He had to get it away from Logan. He had to plug the hole. Before he was really conscious of what he was doing, he hobbled over, gripping the edge of the silver crest to bring it down the hall. It screeched against the wood, scratching the surface. Jonathan groaned as he came to the steel door, lifting the object with all of his might. He grabbed the crest with his other hand, then pushed it into the hole. There was a click from the house that echoed, sending a groan through the structure, as though he was opening a tomb that hadn’t been opened in years. That was when the door cracked open.
V: Photographic Evidence of Crucifixion
Jonathan smelled the overwhelming stench before he understood what was lying before him. The red light from the hallway penetrated the room. It had now learned patience, a room that had somehow prevented decay.
He tried to steady himself as he studied the wall across from the door. A naked corpse was nailed into the wall, its thighs and knees bent at angles that looked like he had caught it mid-collapse. Large nails penetrated the legs just above the ankles, where the skin had been torn away like a frog dissected in a science class.
Its arms were sprawled out, like the person had been crucified. The corpse’s wrists had been slit open, revealing rotted tendons and browned bones.
To complete the scene of the mock crucifixion, its jaw had been torn away, leaving a hole that peered into the black abyss of its skull. On the corpse’s chest, there was a recess where the person’s heart used to be, like a bowl had been scooped out of the flesh and the heart had been pulled out.
Jonathan nearly gagged as he glanced towards a metal rolling cart a few feet in front of the corpse. On top of the cart was a mason hat, inside of which there was a disfigured and shriveled black organ. The man’s heart.
There were two deer that followed the same pattern of the man on both the left and the right wall. Each were similarly crucified, nails penetrating their hind and front legs to secure them to the walls. Their hides were slit open at their bellies, ankles, and wrists. Compared to the human, they appeared less rotted—fresher, even. It was as if they were rehearsing, or awaiting instruction.
Behind Jonathan, someone retched.
“What in the fuck?” Drew growled in between gags. Chris stormed past him and into the room. He stared around.
“Did you know about this?” Chris asked, studying the rotting bodies.
Jonathan shook his head.
“You’re a little more connected than it seems.”
“What are you talking about?”
Chris glared at Jonathan and said “Logan told me about the pictures. You’ve got a bad streak in you.” It became clear then why Chris had been quiet around him.
In between coughs, Drew leaned up against the wall.
“Jonathan, what’s he talking about?”
Jonathan fought to keep his heart from thundering out of his chest. Like in therapy, he knew to stand his ground, to own up, but to never be defensive or angry. His face burned red-hot.
“Are you gonna tell him? Or do I need to?”
“Chris, what I did is between me and God. It certainly never rose to the level of… this,” Jonathan said, motioning to the bodies.
“Then how’d you know about it?”
“You saw the crest move back into his pocket,” Jonathan argued, “mistakes aside, how could I do that?”
“Guys, we’ve got bigger fucking issues,” Drew interrupted.
“It’ll sort itself out,” Chris snarled, “always does.”
Drew punched into the wall.
“Hey, assholes,” he said, gritting his teeth, “I don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about, but if it was bad enough to matter right now, I’d already know about it. Or, Chris, you’d tell me if Jonathan was such a bad guy, right? Because not saying anything fucking enables whatever you’re talking about. So I think someone here is full of shit.”
“Drew, he—”
“I don’t give a fuck. Don’t argue with me, shit stain. Not in front of the fucking rot room. Logan’s dying. That’s what matters.”
Jonathan was silently thankful, staring at the ground in hopes that Drew wouldn’t turn the rage around on him.
“Jonathan,” Drew ordered, “I need you to stop being a pussy. Try 911 again. Otherwise, we’re going across the street.”
“Isn’t it safer here?” Chris asked.
“That isn’t permission for you to be a pussy, either. Professor DiAngelo said it was an old couple next door. What do old people have?”
“401ks?”
“No, fuck face, landlines.”
Jonathan’s eyes wandered back to the room. He studied the corpse as Chris and Drew bickered, then almost instinctively, grabbed the door and brought it shut. Jonathan marched past, wanting to avoid the conflict. He came to Logan’s room, studying his friend, but silently glad he wouldn’t be able to reveal anything else.
“Rest well,” Jonathan said, shutting the door.
“We’re just gonna leave him here?” Chris asked.
“You wanna stay with him?”
Chris shook his head. Reluctantly, the three hurried down the hallway.
Outside, the sun had fallen completely beneath the horizon, leaving a grayish-black fog that curled through the trees. In the distance, the street lights of downtown Pinevale provided a gentle glow through the fog, while the dominating lights of the Sampson house towered over them. The upstairs light cast golden cones over the ground, and if it weren’t for the absence of life, they might seem comforting.
The house was a Goliath, a beast that glared down upon them, all three magnificent floors of the log cabin making them feel small.
As they crept up the rustic, wooden stairs, Jonathan looked to the garage, which was connected to the main structure by a short bridge on the right-hand side. The side door was hanging open, revealing light pouring into the night-time air.
“Over there,” Jonathan said.
The group hushed, listening to the sound of a wet, rhythmic tapping, like a branch slapping into the wood of the house.
They crept along the porch that wrapped over the front of the building and walked over the bridge to the garage. The group was silent as the wood creaked beneath them, soundtracking their journey with anxiety. The light that poured from the garage was like a portal to another dimension. With hands shielding his eyes, Jonathan came to the door, then threw himself through the threshold, Chris and Drew in close pursuit.
What greeted them sent a chill down Jonathan’s spine. Hanging from the rafters of the garage was a woman, a garden hose tied around her neck. The gentle gusts of wind smacked her decaying feet into the side of the wall. Beneath her, there was a black puddle of dried blood that seemed to trail towards the door.
Her skin appeared melted from decay, brown bones poking out from flesh that peeled away from her center of mass. Not far from her, an old man lay face down, his cane halfway across the room. The group was silent as they gazed upon the grizzly scene: words couldn’t form a response. They both had been killed and it was clear they had been dead for quite some time: perhaps even before the group had arrived. This was made evident through the sickly sweet smell, like spoiled milk. Something wicked was infecting the town. They had to find a way out. Drew gagged at the scent.
“We… we gotta get out of here. Someone call for some help. We shouldn’t be here,” Chris said, then looked at Jonathan. “The violence seems to follow you.”
“With what phone service?” Drew asked.
Chris looked to the floor, stepping away from the scene.
“Maybe it was an accident. But it always seems that way with you, Jonathan,” Chris said.
“I need someone to grow the fuck up and tell me what Jonathan did. Keeping it a secret isn’t helping. This town—it wants us to be divided, to fight.”
“I never meant for it to get out of hand. I just couldn’t control myself. There were pictures. I wanted more. I couldn’t stop pushing. Trust me, I’m paying for it. I’m repenting,” Jonathan explained. Chris snickered mockingly.
“Are you telling me you diddle little kids, motherfucker?” Drew growled.
“No, nothing like that. She was my age. It just got out of hand. She told university police. I almost got expelled—”
Drew dry-heaved at the scent.
“Guys,” he said in between clenched teeth, “as much as I’d love to argue this, we can do that after we get help.”
Chris sighed, then went to the door, leaving Jonathan alone with the corpses and his thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said to himself. He glanced through the open door, watching for a moment as his two friends roamed towards the side door of the house.
As they came up the set of small stone stairs and tried the door, Jonathan couldn’t help the feeling that something was watching his friends enter. Eyes without faces. He jogged after them, hurrying up the stairs and into the Sampson house.
Jonathan felt his feet meet the tile floor of a kitchen, but the air was stale and heavy, as if they had entered into a tomb. Drew pulled his phone flashlight out, illuminating a large grandfather clock that rhythmically ticked. Time was still moving. A pantry was alongside the clock, its doorway framed by hanging pots and pans. In the center of the space was an island with a kitchen sink, from which water still dripped.
“Nice place,” Drew said, pointing his light at the ceiling. As they passed the island, they came into an open living room space with a sectional couch, a large tv, and two open balcony floors above them. It was like an atrium with different levels looking down upon them. From the second floor, a wooden pillar held a stuffed elk head that gazed down at them. Its glass eyes stared at them. Empty. Full of death.
Jonathan glanced at the other two, watching as they explored the room, searching for a phone. On the left side of the room, there was an exposed staircase that connected to the second floor balcony. Beneath it, a wooden stairwell descended into the basement. Drew and Chris were silent as they paced to the basement stairs. He stood still, watching as the two disappeared below before moving. He told himself it would only take a second to look upstairs, and as he quietly tiptoed up the creaking stairs, he came to a glass door that led into a master bedroom. A window peered down into the atrium, and at the back of the large master bedroom, there was another glass door, only this one was foggy.
A dim light reflected off the foggy glass, luring Jonathan into the next room. As he opened the door, he was faced with a smaller room with a window that also overlooked the living room. In front of him, there was a desk with a large computer monitor. The time bounced across the screen in a white font: 8:42 PM. Files, pieces of paper, and notebooks were littered over the table. It was as if someone had been interrupted from their work.
Almost with no control of himself, Jonathan tapped the keyboard with his finger. The screen came to life, revealing a black and white grainy camera feed. He recognized the hallway immediately. It was the second-floor hallway in the rental, the red light was now dimmed, casting deep, black shadows in the feed. What caught his attention almost immediately was the figure: a black shape of a man standing in front of the steel door. It was a shadow, barely noticeable, but the glow of light captured the edges of whoever it was. Jonathan got goosebumps. He gulped.
“Jonathan!” Drew shouted. “Where are you?”
“Guys, there’s a—” Jonathan glanced back at the camera feed. The shadow was gone.
“What?” Drew shouted up.
“One second!” Jonathan replied. He slowly walked backwards, his eyes trained on the scene, as if looking away might allow the silhouette to glare right back at him.
Jonathan nearly screamed as he turned his head around to the master bedroom. At the edge of the bed, there sat four ragdolls crafted from worn burlap. Black button eyes, a single stitch for a mouth, and tiny denim overalls made up their physical characteristics.
The one closest to the surveillance room was stiff, its back sharp and pointed. The button eyes were at least an inch across. Attentive. As if focused on the room. Watching. The one next to it was larger and across its belly, there was stuffing visible, like it couldn’t contain itself. The third doll had its arms crossed, facing away from the others. Its mouth was tighter stitched. While the fourth was lying face down, as if unconscious.
Oddly, its skin was bright white, as if freshly cleaned. Jonathan had the sudden, irrational sense that if one of these dolls were moved, someone downstairs might feel it. Their placement felt… intentional.
Jonathan glanced back at the room, then saw it: the silhouette’s head directly in front of the camera. Jonathan yelped, then the screen was filled with static, like a cough in response.
“Jonathan! Where the fuck are you?” Drew roared. Jonathan sprinted out of the room and back down the stairs.
VI: The First Betrayal
At the bottom of the steps leading into the basement in the Sampson house, there was a wall fashioned from stone. It was obviously done by hand, with cement holding together misshapen pieces of rock. An oak cellar door was cut into the space and a piece of rope served as a door knob. How medieval, Jonathan thought to himself. He tugged on the rope, the fabric cutting into his hand, then pulled the door open to reveal a small workroom, inside of which there were several steel drums, a metal workbench, and some rusted cans of paint. Drew and Chris stood over the workbench, their flashlights falling on a leather-bound book.
“What did you find?” Jonathan asked.
“The Sampson family didn’t have a lot of respect for God,” Drew announced, motioning Jonathan over. The leather-bound book was revealed to be a bible, whose pages had been torn and taken to with a red marker. Words had been crossed out and replaced by drawings of the sigil: the O with the X. It made Jonathan uncomfortable.
“What happened to the pipes?” Jonathan asked, noticing in the corner that there were two steel pipes that had likely fueled propane into the house. The pipes had been twisted, as if something with superhuman strength had tied them into a knot. A heavier, metal padded door was a few feet away from the pipes, only it appeared as though it was dented from the inside, revealing strange bumps over its surface. Something had been pounding on the other side, trying to get out.
A rope handle was tied to the right side of the door.
“I don’t like the feeling of that,” Chris said. Jonathan, however, felt lured to the door. They were in too deep to simply not go further.
“You can’t be fucking serious,” Drew said, noticing as Jonathan slowly stepped to the heavy door.
“We came for answers,” Jonathan said plainly, gripping the handle with a grunt.
As the door slid open, there was a buzzing noise that became apparent: a vibration that ate through the wall of the basement.
It was low pitched enough that Jonathan almost mistook it for the sound of the door sliding into the wall.
Beneath the noise, there was the heavy, sour scent of rotten eggs. Sulfur. It made his stomach turn. The three stared down the dark hallway beyond, the four sides of the rectangular prism colliding together in the darkness. It was endless. Eternity.
Then, a distinct sound: metal against concrete, like a pitchfork clanging into the stone and dragging past. It echoed through the darkness.
Jonathan laughed uncomfortably.
“Just the wind?” he asked the others. They were silent.
The sliding noise came again, closer this time, but still a distant metallic rumble. A scythe on stone.
The next sound was similar to a wet, phlegm-filled cough, but as if through a mask. A smoker’s cough. Deep, pained.
There was another slide of the metal on the concrete, followed by the cough. It was louder, no, not louder, closer. Distinctly human.
“Nope,” Drew said, taking a step back. There was no joking in him. Jonathan silently wished that he could follow him.
“I’m not doing this,” Drew said, then he backed away. “This is fucked up. I’m gonna get Logan. Find a way out of here.”
The sliding grew deeper and more laborious, as if the person dragging the object was growing more tired.
Chris stepped past Jonathan, crossing the threshold into the dark hallway beyond.
“Hey, whatever you are, we aren’t interested!”
The sliding noise sped up then. skrrrraaaatch, thud. A labored, deep breath. skrrrraaaatch, thud. Whatever it was, it was speeding up.
Jonathan glanced behind them to find that Drew had already darted away.
shrrrrrk, thud. shrrrrrk, thud.
Jonathan watched numbly as Chris took a step further. He said nothing, becoming buried in the dark shadows of the hallway.
Then, the thing in the shadows stilled for a moment, as if watching them from just beyond where they could see in the dark.
Krrtch… Jonathan waited for the thud and could feel the air shift.
“Hello?” Chris said. He sensed the danger and the proximity of the beast just as Jonathan did. There was a rattling of chains.
Chris turned to run, just as two, long legs cut through the shadows, like the front legs of a spider. The beast’s head was covered by a grey gas mask with long pipes extending from its face into the darkness. Chris sprinted away, wailing in fear as he did.
Jonathan watched, unmoving.
Then he reached for the heavy metal door, meeting Chris’s eyes as he did. Jonathan pushed his weight against the metal.
“Jonathan!” Chris roared.
The door slammed, cutting Chris off, trapping him in the hallway with the beast. Jonathan pressed his back into the door, listening to his friend’s muffled screams.