The Void (4 page)

The noise from outside woke Embry, hazy snatches of his nightmare lingering in his mind. It was his wife falling in a hole, except… it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real, an amalgamation of fiction and reality. His sister in law was missing and in his dream the woman who jumped shimmered between his wife and her sister, which added to the intensity of the dream. In reality, Embry’s wife was beside herself with worry and had been badgering the police, without success, to investigate the interior of the hole to see if she had happened to fall in. There were more lingering memories from his dreams, all of which seemed to revolve around spiders.

He tried to recall specifics, but, as it always was with his dreams, it had faded away into frustrating obscurity. He coughed, reached over, grabbed his cigarettes, and upon finding the pack empty, began to poke around the overstuffed ashtray, looking for a decent sized butt worth relighting. Outside, horns honked and raised voices were heard. It was enough to make Embry forget his craving for nicotine for the time being.

He climbed out of bed and walked to the curtain, pulling it aside, and squinting at the clarity of the day.

The hole was bigger. His hedge and part of his lawn were gone.

He looked at the scene and could read well enough what had happened. Somebody, it seemed had fallen into the hole, which raised gooseflesh on his arms as his nightmare flashed into his mind. The police had arrived and cordoned off the hole as fire crews pointed and gave orders. Men in camouflage jackets and boots directed the curious citizens to move back, making Embry wonder what the hell the army was doing getting involved.

Down the street, beyond the blockade, were news vans, an ambulance, an unmarked RV, and beyond that, anxious news crews were assembling their equipment, hoping to snatch a decent piece to go on the evening news.

Embry was trying to work out who was in charge when a jolt of electricity hit him. A sharp, agonizing heat in his stomach made him wince and double over in agony.

His cancer was awake.

He squeezed his eyes closed, and counted backward from ten, hoping the pain would pass. Often it did, but sometimes it would leave him incapacitated, curled up on his side and praying for death. Today was the worst it had ever been; it was ravaging his insides. His cancer seemed to be growing at the same pace as the hole. Embry continued his countdown.

At the count of four, he could open his eyes. By one, he was almost back to normal. He looked out at the scene below. His wife’s coupe was out of the driveway, away at work. There was a teenage girl there with her father. She was crying—crying about someone called Isis.

He sighed, dressed, and went downstairs to take a closer look.

II

“Okay, let’s go over this one more time,” Clifton said as he folded his hands on the table and watched Candy intently. James Clifton was an ex-marine who worked for the bureau, a secret investigative force who tackled terrorism and developed counterterrorism methods.

“I told you already,” she replied, still shaking as she picked at the lip of her polystyrene coffee cup. “Eddie went into the hole. Then he never came back out.”

“So, he fell?”

“Yes, I think so. I don’t know. But I think that’s what happened.”

“But you didn’t see it?” Clifton shot back, a faint ghost of a smile forming on his lips.

Sporting a blonde crew cut, he was built like a tank and somehow squeezed his massive frame into his expensive black suit. Candy looked at him again. She thought he would look more suited in army khakis, clutching a machine gun and chewing on an oversized cigar.

“Miss Robins?” Clifton pressed, fixing his cold gray gaze on her.

“Yes— no— I mean…” she sighed and took a nervous sip of her drink. “ I didn’t actually see him, but I know he fell.”

“I see,” Clifton said, giving her time to find the words.

“Look, I didn’t make it up,” she blurted, wishing he would stop staring at her.

“Oh, we found his rope, there’s no doubt he had every intention of climbing down there. I just happen to be of the opinion that he changed his mind.”

“You should be searching for him. He could be dead or hurt or…” she trailed off and looked at her hands as if the answers were written there and would present themselves if she stared hard enough. She looked around the room. Windowless and small. Clifton followed her gaze and smiled.

“This is called a MOCOM. Or Mobile Command Unit. It’s a place for us to operate in the field.”

“Are you with the army?” she asked.

“Government. I can’t say too much, and to be frank, it’s skirting the issue here. Now I understand you have explained and, for the record, I have no reason to disbelieve you. But I don’t think what you’re saying is the absolute truth.”

“Why would I lie, what would I—”

He silenced her protests by holding up a large, calloused hand, then smiled and leaned forward.

“Miss Robins, please, calm down.”

“I don’t understand why you’re interrogating me,” she said, sobbing.

She banged the desk in frustration. Clifton smiled, a predatory expression that revealed his perfectly veneered teeth.

“This is far from an interrogation, Miss Clifton. If it were, I would already have my answers.”

There was no mistaking the threat in his voice, and the more frightened Candy became, the more he seemed to enjoy it.

“Now let’s try again,” he said. Leaning back in his seat and cracking his knuckles. “Tell me what happened.”

III

Embry had trouble even leaving his own house. He had been forced to argue his way through the barricade outside his gate, and only once there did he consider it might be even harder to get back in. Although it had looked warm from inside, there was a chill in the air, and now that he was close to the sinkhole, he could detect a faint smell coming from it. It reminded him of the time he had left a chicken fillet in the fridge and forgot about it for two weeks, it had a putrid, ammonia-like smell. His stomach churned as he looked over the barricade into the pitch black of the hole where he was certain he had seen his wife throw herself in. He shuddered.

“Deep, isn’t it?”

“Jesus!” Embry spat as he whipped his head around. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I think so. My mom said I don’t have to today.”

Morgan was looking up at him, his eyes darkly curious. Embry's eyes went from the kid to the jar.

“Holy crap, kid,” Embry said as he crouched down. “That’s some big ass spider.”

Morgan grinned and held the jar up for Embry to inspect it. Inside was a large blue-green spider with a brown abdomen. Embry looked at the boy, then back at the spider. It was way too big to be a house spider, its proportions more like that of a tarantula.

“Where the hell did you get that from, kid?”

“Found him. His name’s Greeny.”

“I’m not sure you should be messing with that. It could be poisonous.”

Morgan shook his head. “It’s not. I read about him, it’s a…” Morgan furrowed his brow as he tried to ensure he got the pronunciation right. “He’s a Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens, but most people call them Greenbottle blues.”

Despite himself, Embry grinned. “You know a lot about these things, huh?”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah, I have lots of ‘em. You always have to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Embry asked, somehow knowing that the answer wouldn’t be one he wanted to hear.

“To go down there,” Morgan said with a smile, nodding towards the sinkhole.

Embry followed the boy’s gaze, and for the first time wished he was nowhere near the hole in the ground. Morgan’s mother rushed towards them, wringing her hands.

“Morgan Brewster, in the house, please,” Meredith said, still flustered by the events at the school the previous day. The boy obliged, and stood beside his mother, who looked at Embry mistrustfully.

“This is quite the distraction,” she said awkwardly, trying to force some conversation. Embry nodded, realizing that although they had lived across the street from each other for three or four years, this was the first time they had spoken.

“It is,” he said, glancing into the sinkhole. “I just hope the thing stops growing before it eats any more of my lawn.”

“Yes, I saw that. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Embry nodded towards Morgan, who was staring into the jar.

“He’s a bright kid.”

“Thank you,” she said, pulling her son closer to her.

“He knows a lot about those things,” Embry said, nodding towards the jar.

“Excuse me?” she said, a frown crossing her face.

“His spiders. He knows a lot about them.”

A flashback to skittering, fast moving bodies entered her mind, but she forced herself to smile politely.

“He’s a good boy, but easily distracted,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

“I’m surprised you’re so comfortable with him keeping those, I know I’d freak out if I had something that big in my house,” Embry said, nodding to the beautifully colored arachnid in the jar.

You should see the one that was in the milk.

She almost said, it, and was sure it was going to come out, but she smiled politely, glancing every so often towards her son as they stood in awkward silence.

“Well,” Embry said, shifting his weight and looking around. “I ought to be going. Busy day.”

“Yes, me too,” Meredith said, relieved to be off the hook, and desperate to be behind closed doors so she could drop the fake smile.

“Take it easy, kid,” Embry said to Morgan, tipping him a wink. “And make sure you feed that thing. It looks hungry.”

“I will, mister, I’ll go do it right now,” Morgan said brightly, tapping the jar. Embry nodded and left, and Meredith ushered Morgan back to the house. She looked at the jar in his hands, and then over her shoulder at Embry, who was busy trying to argue his way back into his house. Her eyes flicked back to the jar carried by her son, and she wondered what was happening.

The jar was empty.

IV

Candy had explained to Clifton what had happened for the fourth time, and despite her obvious distress, still he kept his neutral gaze on her, and his predatory lion’s smile firmly in place.

“Look, I don’t know what else you want me to say,” she sobbed. “I told you everything I know.”

“I’m sure you think you know what happened. But it’s not what I think happened.”

“Look, you’re wasting time, you need to get down there, send someone after him I—”

“No,” Clifton said sharply, as he leaned forward. “Look, I’ll be frank with you, Miss Robins. I think your boyfriend had every intention of going down into that hole to impress you. Kids of that age do stupid stuff like that all the time. But I also think that when you walked away and left him to it, he realized he had no reason to go through with it, so he changed his mind.”

“He wouldn’t just leave me, or his car,” she sobbed.

“I think he was embarrassed and thought you might be more likely to forgive him if he thought you were worried about him.”

“He’s not like that, he wouldn’t…”

“And let me be clear here. I’m not prepared to put lives of good men at risk by sending them into an unstable sinkhole because you ‘think’ your boyfriend fell down it.”

She was weeping silently. Clifton watched indifferently.

“So what do I do now?” she said softly.

“My advice?” he asked, relaxing a little, “Go home. Wait for him to get in touch. My guess is you will hear from him before the day is done.”

“Can I go now?”

“Of course. Go right ahead,” Clifton said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

She stood and walked to the door, stepping out into the sunshine, and away from the intimidating man. She could see the hole, and knew that Eddie was down there. Possibly in pain, but nobody believed her. She was wondering what to do when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder.

She turned and couldn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing.

“Hey babe,” Eddie said with a smile.

Somewhere along the old elm trees which lined Maple Street, an owl hooted.

A quarter after three am, as the residents of the street slept soundly and the crowds and police were long gone, something slithered out of the hole. As it rose on its hind legs, it began to take shape, forming into a figure hooded in darkness. It limped toward Candy’s house. Reaching the front edge of the porch, it knocked three times. When nobody answered, the cloaked figure shuffled around the back, entering the fence that separated the backyard and the driveway. Its shadow slid along the long stalks of carefully groomed lawn. It crept on the side gate and pitched stones on the upper window where Candy slept.

Pebbles bounced off the glass with a rattle. As the stones hit the casement windows, the energy in the air became thicker, leaden with a heavy feeling of despair and hopelessness, as the size of the stones became larger. Finally, one smooth-faced rock broke through the glass.

Inside, Candy’s father, Partridge Robins, bolted wide awake. He bounced off the bed and slipped into his slippers. Mrs. Robins snored serenely beside him. He bent over, opened the drawer, and grabbed his semi-automatic pistol out of the box locked inside. It was a black 9mm Beretta and he verified the cartridge wasn’t a blank. The gold slugs gleamed back at him in the gloom. He popped it back in the gun and walked to the top of the steps, peering down into the gloom.

“Who’s down there?” Partridge called out, hairs on his arms standing on end. He felt an unflinching terror as he heard the back door open and close. Something rustled down there, a movement. Someone was crossing the floor near the living room. His heart whacked in his chest with a sickening cleaver thud. If an intruder had come in the house, he knew the alarm should have been triggered, yet, he heard nothing. He swallowed hard and started down the stairs.

Partridge raised the gun. Mouth dry, he extended his shaking arms and thumbed down the safety.

“Whoever it is, if you’re out there—I’m armed,” he said, as his feet touched the ground floor. “And I’m not afraid to use it.” He looked left, then right, eyes adjusting to the murkiness of his surroundings. Bracing himself, he padded across the hall, nervously twitching. A cold draft seemed to spill around his ankles and pajama pants. “If anybody’s out there, tell me now.”

Something rustled down the hallway. He inched around the corner, creeping across the corridor into the adjacent living room. In the gloom, he saw a figure. It was a moment of recognition
(an intruder),
and his hand closed around the handle, finger pulling the trigger, his one-stop motion already exploding a muzzle flash. It was trying to come at him, a thing in the dark, whispering across the floor.

It reminded him of the nightmare he woke up from. As he slept next to his wife, he saw an intangible leg scuttle out of his Nancy’s mouth, a thing of many legs shaped by wispy crepuscular blackness. It was like ectoplasm but with a definite form—the form of a fully grown spider. He woke up screaming every night. The dreams were so real; he felt he was still awake.

Like now.

The nightmare came unbidden, shuddering in the gloom. It shifted in the dark, a full-bodied apparition. It had long arms, and glowing rings of fire which were its eyes. And it was lurching towards him. Mr. Robins strangled a scream and fired over and over again, almost emptying his entire clip, before the thing slumped on the floor.

“Don’t move,” he shouted, panting. He was wired with fear coursing throughout his body.

He didn’t have to worry about that since it lay splayed with its arms distended and legs curled up in a fetal position. He went to the wall and switched on the lights. He looked back down and saw her huddled in a ball. He recognized that body—that shape—that small frame.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, face blanching, wanting to throw up. “Oh my God,” he repeated. There was blood. Why was there blood? He extended out trembling fingers. “Oh my God. Please tell me it’s not you, baby, please tell me it’s not you!”

But it was her. The nightmare had become fully realized. It had come back full circle as he turned over the body of Candy, he realized the horror—the magnitude—of what he had done. The immensity of his actions would come back to haunt him and manifest itself in the coming weeks, months, or even years.

He had shot his own daughter.

Candy looked up at him as blood streamed out of her nose and mouth. She spat out red lilacs in the waning moonlight. Partridge heard thudding footfalls as his wife raced down the steps. He saw her come around the corner and shriek with apprehension, nails digging into her face.

“Candy, talk to me. Are you all right?” Partridge yelled. “Tell me you’ll be okay, baby.”

“Eddie,” she burbled, propelling more blood as it splattered on their clothes. Grief and anger, more at himself, poured out of him in tears.

“What’s happening here? Who’s that on the floor?”

“Get away. Don’t come any closer. She’s gonna be fine. Right, honey? You’re gonna be alright, right?” He broke down, bawling.

Nancy got closer and saw her husband cuddling their precious girl, brunette hair spilling in a mass, she shrieked and shrieked. She climbed back up the staircase, screaming in agony. Mr. Robins wrapped his precious daughter in his arms and wept. From afar, he heard the sound of a little boy giggling.

And then, the earth trembled and moved underneath their feet.

II

Two hundred meters away, the girl standing outside also giggled. She was a Pakistani twelve-year-old, who came out every night to find her lost dog. The dog’s name was Isis, and she had seen it run into the hole.

She heard the loud report of gunshots. She walked to the hole, clutching her flashlight. There she stood over it, gazing in. She remembered weird things happening. One time, she watched ants all clustered streaming around the hole, as if some magnetic force pulled them there. All the insects seemed to skitter down that dank hole.

Every night for the past three days she came to the hole to talk with Isis. She knew he was alive because she heard his bark. It echoed. It sounded faint, but she knew it was the unmistakable sound of their lost puppy.
Bark bark bark.
Strange how there was nobody around her at this time. Tina Singh looked in the hole. The wind picked up and fluttered her long-sleeved shirt. Her father always told her to cover her head with the shawl, and that’s what she did.

“Isis! Isis!” she called out. “Are you in there?”

She heard something, a faint mewling noise, echoing down inside the walls of the fissure. She swept the beam of light as far as it could go, the dazzling cone revealing the pipes and underground network of sewage ducts, all of which were intact. Soft soil tumbled in the void. It clinked as it scattered in a fine spray, vanishing down the gulf.

The elm trees shifted and moaned. Another warble of the sirens pierced the night and ebbed away. Then a voice whispered out to her.

“Tinaaaaa…”

“Dad?” she asked, jerking her head up. Her dog barked from down the hole. “Isis,” she said, returning her attention. “Isis, I don’t know how to get you out!”

Bark bark bark…

“I know, I told my dad but he said you were dead. There’s no way you survived the fall. The police came too, do you know that? They don’t believe me either!”

Silence.

“Isis! Are you there?”

After a moment, the barking continued. They were faint, and growing fainter. The Pakistani girl went to her knees and extended an arm. In her hands, she was grasping a frozen meat she had stolen from the pantry of her parent’s apartment.

“Don’t go, not yet. I have food for you!”

A cold draft of air billowed out fluttering her hair. Tina smiled, wide and large, her teeth showing. “Hungry, aren’t you?” She tore a section of her meat and dropped it. It fell, plunging into the dark and merging with the black.

“Are you hungry, Isis? Is that what you’re calling me for? Would you like another piece?”

The sounds of barking had completely dropped off. She listened to her heavy breathing and heart pumping oxygen to her lungs.

“How far are you down there? What’s down there? Are you full now?”

She hummed Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Her pupils dilated and Tina sprung back on her feet. She had heard something menacing, hiss through the hole into her left ear. What had it said? Join us? Was that it? She stepped back and nearly slipped, falling backward. Suddenly, all the cars in the lot growled to life. The engines sputtered, hitched, and turned on. Headlights cut through the dimness, splashing Tina and revealing the hole behind her.

Tina stared in disbelief. All the cars lined up and down the street were coming alive—by themselves. The cars transmission gears dropped to drive. They began to roll linear at a slow pace like insects at a cafeteria, as they steered along the side of the road. She couldn’t believe it. They were all going into the hole. Stretches of cars, SUVS, trucks, big and small, disappeared inside the opening of the yawning chasm, one by one, plummeting into the darkness.

III

Nancy Robins checked on her three children, opening every door to their rooms in turn. First was Madeline’s. The ceiling lights flooded the two separate beds, the computer desk, and the bookshelves full of stuffed animals and YA fantasy stories. In one of the beds, Madeline slept soundlessly. The second bed that was supposed to Candy’s was empty. Down the hall, Nancy rushed to another room. Victor, the youngest child, awoke and rubbed his eyes.

“Mom?” he said in a tiny voice.

She went in and hoisted him up on her chest as she returned to rouse Madeline from her sleep.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. The ground moved suddenly. “What was that?”

“I’m scared, Momma,” Victor said.

“Kids get your most important things and go. We have to move,” Nancy said, rushing around in a flurry of activity. She set Victor down on the floor. “I think it’s an earthquake,” she said, pulling luggage bags, opening the wardrobe cabinet and the dressers, dumping clothes inside the bags. “You two, take all your necessities the most basic stuff you need.”

“Where we going, Mom?” Madeline cried. “Are we leaving?”

“Hurry up and do as I say. We don’t have much time.”

“But Mom—” Victor started. “What about Dad?”

“I said
NOW!”

Nancy left the bedroom. She crossed the narrow hallway and stood in front of the master bedroom. She heard a shuffling noise from inside.

“Mom,” a voice called out to her behind the doorframe. It sounded exactly like Candy, but that didn’t make sense because her daughter was lying in a pool of blood downstairs.

“Candace, is that you?”

Silence.

She twisted the knob and entered the room. It was dark in there. Cool air blanketed her face and prickled the hairs on her skin. They stood up, goose bumps forming. She flicked the light switch. No light came on. The nightstand where Nancy’s favorite lamp was positioned glowed feebly. Next to the table, the blankets on Nancy’s bed bulged as if someone was sleeping underneath it. The coverlets undulated with each respiration, rising and falling. The sheets rippled.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

Clamping a hand over her mouth, Nancy grabbed the blanket with her other hand and yanked it away from the lumpy contours. That’s when the overhead lights snapped back on and something hideous and bulbous slithered out from under the covers. Nancy reeled as a slim figure with shadowy legs crawled out, rising on its hindquarters.

It darted to the back wall and rushed up to the ceiling, where it stared at Nancy with unblinking eyes. Then, as Nancy watched, it turned into a man. It was Eddie. He crawled on the ceiling and passed over the light bulbs spreading an incandescent yellow. As he passed over it, grinning upside down, the bulbs shattered. Glass tinkered downward. Nancy was screaming.

The door slammed shut behind her. And, as she tried unsuccessfully to open it, the thing came closer to her. It was right behind her. She tried the knob again, screaming for help. “Maddy! Victor! Somebody! Help me, for the love of God,
help meee!
”

She felt something tighten its grip around her chest, and she was paralyzed. She couldn’t move her arms and feet anymore. Through the doorway, on the other side, her children banged on the wooden frame. A black mist shrouded her body, enveloping her. Her feet were lifted off the ground. Nancy levitated four feet into the air as she rocked near the broken lights.

That’s when the entire house trembled on its foundation and collapsed in on itself.

IV

The ground under Candy’s house gave way. The foundation tore loose; floorboards lurched upward, bending out of shape. Walls cracked and whipsawed, sending dusty powders of plaster ringing in a heap. The entire frame of the house buckled and shuddered, squealing away rusty nails and insulation that ripped out like a motorized bull. The rooftop canted to the right, and then, to the left. Chandeliers fell, showering jewels. Lights flickered on and off.

The entire house lifted off its structure and canted over, tilting badly. Shingles dropped like domino pieces. The ground started to vanish. Floorboards lifted up. The hole expanded and grew larger. A root of an elm tree that was exposed during the sinking caught the base of the house, preventing it from falling farther into the hole.