Anathema (21 page)

"You look better in that dress than I ever did."

Pete was shocked back to reality. His erection withered and died.

"Gladys?” He whispered and turned around.

"I said I'd never leave you,” his wife said. She was smiling, and her brown eyes sparkled, despite the dimness of the room. Gladys reached out to him.

He ran into her arms, pulled her close, and kissed her heavily on the lips. His erection had returned.

"Oh, how I missed you so much,” he whispered, breathlessly. Then, Gladys went limp, and Pete held handfuls of what felt like pudding. Suddenly, the room filled with the stink of things long dead.

He pushed himself away and stumbled back in horror.

Gladys had changed. Her flesh had wrinkled into gray leather. Wisps of white hair sprouted from a bald skull. The skin of her lips was drawn into a tight grimace that revealed broken, yellow teeth. Her eyes burned with the fires of Hell.

Pete's jaw flopped open as he mechanically shook his head. His testicles pulled themselves up into his body.

Two pairs of tentacles slid from the Gladys-thing's dried and shriveled vagina. They slithered across the floor, leaving behind a trail of steaming, transparent slime.

Pete took a step backward and fell over the Ottoman.

The tentacles wrapped around his ankles and wrists, pinning him to the floor. Now, the Gladys-thing was on top of him. Its dry, parchment-like flesh rubbed against him. The foul breath was like ice cubes against his face.

"Darling,” it growled and opened its mouth wide enough to devour him.

And the lights winked out.

Jake Monroe couldn't believe what was happening.

He had been sound asleep when he felt the first caress against his cheek. Jake had gone to bed with the window open, and he assumed the sensation was just the breeze blowing the curtain against his face. When the touch came again, he thought the tickle had somehow manifested itself from his dream. The third time, as they say, was a charm, and Jake knew the teasing caress was real.

Jake slowly opened his eyes to a world that was blurred with the leaden weight of sleep. As his vision cleared and things came into focus, he found the room filled with a dozen young, naked boys. They giggled and chanted like cherubs as they moved about the room.

This is just like my dream. Only, I was in an alfalfa meadow. I must still be dreaming.

The children danced around the bed, and he recognized some of them from school: little Hank Fischer, Tommy Jones, Matthew Burnsted. Jake was so entranced by their gracefulness, he found himself unable to move.

Then the children changed, and he realized this was no dream.

Their tender, pink bodies took on a gray hue. Their blue eyes turned yellow, and mouths narrowed to red slits filled with razor sharp teeth.

Jake struggled to free himself, but the mysterious dance had paralyzed him.

The children circled the bed, chattering in an unknown language. One of the biggest boys, the one that looked like Tommy Jones, took a spare pillow off the bed. He tossed it to a second boy; the second tossed it to a third. Like a strange game of Monkey in the Middle—Jake being the monkey—the boys threw the pillow to each other until it had been around the bed.

With the pillow back in the hands of the oldest boy, the cackling laughter stopped and the children bowed their heads. And when they looked up and smiled at Jake, his blood ran cold in his veins, for he saw murder in their hellish eyes.

They gathered around Jake's head like football players in a huddle. Raising the pillow, the boy placed it on Jake's face. The others scurried to sit on it.

Jake felt the weight on his face and knew exactly what was happening, but the paralysis prevented him from struggling as he suffocated.

Across town, Darkness rolled up the stairs of the Anderson home. It spread down the hallway until it found the bathroom. Then it slipped under the door.

Chapter 31

It had taken a while, but the men's eyes adjusted to the dim of the cave. It was still dark, but not that kind of you-can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face darkness they'd experienced when they first stepped into the place.

"You okay back there, buddy?” Jarvis asked.

"Yeah. So far, so good,” Jim responded. The corridor was narrow, barely four feet wide. The walls were worn smooth from years of...

Of what?

Years of water erosion could polish stone like this, but it was obvious there had never been any water running through this tunnel. Everything was dry, and the walls showed no telltale signs of seepage. There was no discoloration, no crumbling rock, and no old musty smell. Enough wind could've polished the walls as well, but Jim couldn't visualize the wind whistling through the tunnel. Given the circumstances, the only explanation could be that the smoothness was caused by something traveling back and forth through the passageway. Whatever they were, hunting had polished the once rough stone into a surface as smooth as glass.

The floor was rough and uneven. Even through the thick soles of his boots, Jim felt the sharp stones poke at the bottom of his feet. If any of them stepped wrong, they would no doubt twist, or break, an ankle.

Jim turned the flashlight upward. The light, combined with the cave's darkness and his imagination, made it look like the ceiling was moving.

"Spooky,” Jim mumbled.

"What's that?” Cal asked. He was the second man in line, right after Timothy and just before Jarvis.

"Nothing. Just mumbling to myself.” Something warm and leathery brushed against his cheek. “Is it much further, Reverend?"

"No, we should be there soon."

Jim felt a weight on his shoulder. He trained his flashlight on it and turned his head. He was greeted by two black, beady eyes and a pair of razor-sharp teeth.

"Christ!” Jim exclaimed.

Then the ceiling descended upon them.

Jim heard his father's voice bounce around in his head.
It's okay, son, they won't hurt you.
This was followed by his mother's warning:
Be careful. Don't let them get caught in your hair.
He knew his father was right, but at this very moment, his mother made more sense.

When he'd shone the flashlight across the ceiling, he disturbed the roosting bats. Agitated, the winged creatures swooped down at them.

The men dropped to their knees and covered their heads. High-pitched chirps resounded off the walls of the cavern as the flurry of furry creatures pelted them from above. Hundreds of membranous wings slapped against Jim and the others. The beatings felt like pin pricks against their bare skin.

A couple of critters landed on Jim's back, walked across it, and took off flying again. Another one actually did land on his head, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he thought the thin, paper-like wings might become entangled in his hair.

He batted the thing away with the back of his hand, hitting it hard enough that he broke the delicate wings and crushed the small, fuzzy body.

Then it was over. As quickly as the bats had attacked, they relocated to another part of the cave.

"Is everyone okay?” Timothy asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine.” Jim's knees popped as he stood. The bat that landed on his head was dead at his feet, but he still felt where its tiny claws scratched at his scalp like the teeth of a comb.

"I'm okay,” Jarvis replied.

"Me too ... I think.” Cal's cheek burned and when he touched it, his fingers came away tinged with blood. He had either scratched himself as he ducked out of harm's way, or one of those bastards had taken a chunk out of him.

Cal pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the wound.

"How much further is it, Reverend?” Jarvis asked.

Timothy looked at them sheepishly. “I don't know. I don't remember the cave being this big last time. We should've been there by now. I think we might be lost."

Patrons inside the Stumble Inn were unaware of what was happening beyond the four walls of the tavern.

Chester, the part-time bartender, was busy pouring beers for a half dozen regulars. He had a hard time keeping up with demand. Everyone in the joint was boozing like there was no tomorrow. And they were ornery. Chester couldn't remember the last time he'd served such an ill-tempered bunch.

Strains of an old Bob Dylan song filtered from the jukebox—one that still played records, not CD's—and a couple danced clumsily to the offbeat melody.

Daily's gang was in the back, drinking and shooting pool. They'd been at the bar since it opened. By two o'clock, they'd all be wasted.

A slew of obscenities came from the back, followed by the clap of a pool stick being thrown to the floor.

"Whatdaya fuckin’ mean, ‘the shot don't fuckin’ count'?” Johnny Quest snarled. Although he shared his name with a cartoon character, the straw-yellow hair was the only thing they had in common. The living Johnny wore black, plastic-framed glasses held together by a piece of adhesive tape across the bridge and smoked cheap dime store cigars that made his breath smell like dogshit on a hot summer day.

"'Cause ya didn't call the pocket, asshole,” Kevin Kane answered. Daily's body was barely cold and Kevin had already taken over as the gang's leader. “You know it don't count unless you call the pocket."

"Hey, Chester,” Johnny hollered. “You think that shot should count?"

"I don't hear nothin'. That's between you boys."

"Pussy."

"Told ya.” Kevin grinned. With a missing front tooth (he lost it last week when he and some of the boys got into a scuffle Friday night), he looked a lot like the guy on the cover of
Mad Magazine
.

Johnny groaned and put another buck and a half on the table. Loser always paid for the next game. That was one of Kevin's rules.

"You guys are so fucked,” Sanford said.

Marcus Sanford was sloughed in a chair next to the table, sucking on a long neck Budweiser and puffing on a cigarette. He didn't play pool. Partly because he thought it was boring, but mostly because he was no good at it. He'd lose all the time, and losing was the one thing Sanford didn't like. He did enjoy watching Quest get his ass beaten, however. No matter how many games he'd play with Kevin, he'd never win. Which, in Sanford's mind, seemed only logical. Kevin was the town's pool champion for the last five years. No one could beat him. Everyone in town had wised up to that fact long ago—everyone, that was, except poor Quest. Johnny just kept coming back like a dog looking for more poisoned meat.

"Fuck you, Sanford,” Quest cursed. “I should shove this pool cue up your ass, but you'd probably like it."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever."

Quest gripped the pool stick tighter, and Sanford stiffened. If he had to, he'd jump from his chair like a spooked jackrabbit and beat the daylights out of Quest if he tried to go queer on him.

"Come on, dudes. Knock it the fuck off,” Kevin said. “I'm bored with this game anyway."

Quest grabbed his money off the table and stuffed it back into his pocket, and the three of them staggered to the bar.

"Yo, Chester,” Kevin bellowed, “three long necks, here."

Chester reached in the cooler, took out three Buds, twisted off the tops, and put them on the bar.

"That'll be four fifty,” Chester said. He wouldn't release the bottles from his grip until he saw someone pony up the money.

"A buck and a half a piece. That's fuckin’ highway robbery.” Quest slapped a five-dollar bill on the counter.

"Well, boo-hoo. I remember when a candy bar cost a dime and a whore was even less,” Chester chided. “So quit your whinin’ or go drink somewhere else."

Chester was about to collect the money, when the whole tavern shook. The lights flashed; the jukebox hiccupped; the bar went dark.

"What the hell?” Kevin said.

"Hey,” Sanford grumbled, “who turned off the juice?"

"Everything's dark,” Quest said. He had moved from his bar stool to the front door as soon as the lights started to flicker. “The whole town's as dark as a nigger's ass. Someone must've hit a power pole. We've got ourselves a fuckin’ blackout."

The other customers gathered around and stared out the door. Blackouts were one thing in a big city, but they were unheard of in Prairie Rest, and all the dark store windows were just plain eerie. But there was something more than just the dark windows that made them feel uneasy. Everything had lost its color. They were living in the black and white world of TV Land's Ricardoes and Mertzes.

"Look.” Quest nodded toward the western sky. A black cloud rolled across the horizon. Streamers like black crepe paper dangled from the belly like sinewy spider's legs. The legs touched the ground, then recoiled into the cloud again. “Must be a storm coming."

"Damnest storm cloud I've ever seen,” Kevin whispered. The cloud's strange movement had sobered him.

From behind them came laughter, and when they turned around, a dozen golden-eyed children stood by the jukebox.

"How the hell did you kids get in here?” Chester asked, sternly.

There was no answer. Instead, the children leapt on them, and like a pack of starving dogs fighting over a strip of meat, ripped them all to pieces.

The power failure threw the asylum into darkness and the patients into a panic. Wails and screams and sobs of the frightened filled the hallways.

Nurses dressed in white smocks looked like ghosts as they ran up the corridors following the yellow light that beamed from their flashlights.

"Why haven't the emergency lights come on,” one nurse yelled. “Someone call maintenance and get that generator going ... now!”
Piece of crap,
he whispered under his breath.

Hospital assistants unlocked the doors, and patients flowed out of their rooms and into the hall. The women were dressed in hospital-issued pajamas; the men wore green boxer shorts. Some were crying; some wore the blank expressions of shell-shocked war veterans. Confused and disoriented, they milled about the corridor like roaches caught in the light.

"Listen up! Everyone hold hands and form a line.” A young assistant shined his flashlight across the frightened patients. They were like children afraid of the dark, he observed. And he couldn't blame them. He was just as scared. There was more going on here than just a power outage. It was the middle of the afternoon, and it was as dark as midnight outside. “We're going to the Rec Center. You'll be all right there. The lights are working.” Fortunately, the Rec Center had its own genny that was working fine.