HELL HOLE By: Lars Adams
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009Kyle didn’t hear the whispers anymore. That’s what scared him. He took another drag of a cigarette, his sixth, and stared at the hole. The landlord said he would fix it. He said. It was too late now. The basement apartment had a concrete floor, no tile, and this horrible fissure spanned three feet long by one inch, right across the entrance to his meager kitchen.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t hear the whispers. Sometimes they were loud enough to be heard across the apartment, sometimes he had to have his ear pressed to the hole, but they were always there. Whenever he had to cross it to get his beer, he would be certain something grotesque would leap at him.
It was different now.
The whispers stopped.
It had to be that slug thing, it had to be. But no, not really a slug. Like a blob of tar, the thing squirmed out of the crack.. Not really tar either, just different. Sort of like a deflated rubber ball that still rolled. And black. A deep black. It looked hard, like the carapace of a beetle, but nonetheless rolled, shifted, and contorted its shape.
Kyle watched in unbelief as such an alien creature came from those depths. It moved slow at first, regarding its surroundings perhaps, but with the speed of a cockroach darted to some unknown haunt. It was in there with him. And he didn’t feel anything evil from that hole anymore. It was all around him, choking him.
He coughed as the filter of his smoke burned and left a foul taste in his mouth. He spit on it to put it out and threw it in an empty coffee can on the counter. He didn’t even see the mouse staring at him until he nearly touched it. He jumped back, and was about to kill it, but something was off. This mouse didn’t flinch as it looked at him. Totally unafraid. Stranger, it was stone still. It didn’t lick its paws, it didn’t grind its teeth. Christ, was it even breathing? It looked like a well crafted taxidermy piece. Its eyes. Black as the tar-thing, with glowing white centers.
Kyle moved to the side, and the mouse’s head swivelled with robotic automation. Kyle shivered in spite of the August heat. This mouse had to die. He picked up a pot and was about to move in when a dark furred creature leapt to the counter. His cat, Toby. Toby pounced on the mouse, snapping is spine instantly. The mouse never protested. Toby was licking his paw and cleaning his face, but stopped. Twitched. Vomited. Its head was lowered, and slowly lifted it to meet Kyle’s eyes. Its once blue orbits were tar black, two glowing white dots in the center.
Toby wasn’t Toby anymore.
Kyle backed up slowly, his heart thudding. Gotta get out of here, never come back, he thought. I’ll live on the street if I have to. The cat followed him. It was as if some small part of the cat remained, trying to fight the movements of the puppeteer. The puppet master was stronger, making it walk a slow, rigid line toward Kyle. It wants me. Kyle panicked. This was too much. He ran to his room to get his gun. He tripped on that crack, that hell hole, but he couldn’t get up. He looked to his feet, and saw them fixed in place by the viscous mud that composed the first intruder. The ooze crept past his toes, engulfing him further. It wasn’t cold, it was hot, like it had been singed in the fires of hell.
This can’t be happening. He heard a thump as the cat-thing jumped off the counter. Whatever part of Toby was left had gone. Toby’s body did not breathe or twitch. Its only movements were those that were necessary to forward movement. It’s mouth opened. No. Its teeth were coated in the tar. No, no, no! It moved quickly, but not overly fast. Steady. It clamped its gaping maw on his throat. It did not tear or slash at his jugular, as a wild animal might do. It merely wanted to inject.
The stuff was hot, like the tar at his feet. He screamed at the white-hot agony. The cat collapsed, stone dead. He felt it inside him. Please no, please God! His brain. The heat reached his mind. His thoughts clouded, his vision obscured. There was someone in there with him, crowding him out. He felt the corners of his mouth turn up into a hideous smile he didn’t create. He felt himself slipping. It was as if his eyes were windows he was being pulled away from. He was dragged away, screaming, into the dark.
He heard the whispers again.
___
© 2008 Lars Adams
Lars is from Waukegan Illinois, factory worker by day and writer by night. Lars is currently finishing up his novel, putting the final polishes on it, and is doing short stories to keep him sharp while he proof reads and re-drafts. He too is struggling to stop talking about himself in the third person.
