Kyle 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.

The young man was tall, with black shaggy hair and thick, black rimmed glasses. He felt as awkward as he looked, never comfortable in his own skin. But it wasn’t his skin, at least not yet.

He heard the sirens and knew they were not really there, but the knowledge did little to comfort him. If he were to die in the simulated world, his brain would die in the real one.

The house looked just like the archive photos, and old Victorian set back from the road and surrounded by a black wrought iron fence. There were differences. Like the door, with reinforced steel and dual three-inch deadbolts. He was prepared for that. He set the charge, stepped to the side and door exploded inward as the sirens grew louder.

Two bodyguards opened fire from the living room. The force of the slugs against his body armor pushed him backward. He drew his own guns and with two shots, silenced the men forever. The guns were old, Colt revolvers. A matched set of dark engraved killing machines with sandalwood grips. They weren’t practical for prolonged combat, but it only took one of the big caliber slugs to kill.

Two more bodyguards burst up from the basement letting loose with fully automatic MP-5’s. Two more shots and they joined their friends. He ran to the basement stairs. He pulled out a strip that looked like double sided tape, peeled off the plastic covering and stuck it to the doorframe. He bolted the door closed and there was a burst of heat and light as the door was welded to the frame. He’d always known that it would be a one-way trip.

The basement was crammed with shelves and boxes. No sign of a door. He clipped on what looked like sunglass lenses over his glasses and couldn’t hold back a smile. X-ray vision. Just like in the comics when he was a kid. Except he was never a kid, and these weren’t his memories. They were His.

The bodies showed up behind the wall in front of him. He also saw the mechanism that held it in place. He reached up, flipped the switch and the shelf swung out to reveal another armor-plated door. He’d expected that, but not the speed of the police response. He could hear them working on the door at the top of the stairs. They hadn’t brought a laser. Doom on them. He pulled his own laser out and started cutting. He saw the larger of the two bodies in the safe room standing in front of the smaller.

He needn’t worry. I’m only after him.

The kicking and swearing were getting louder upstairs and the frame groaned under the strain. He finished burning through the lock and slid the door open. The older man had a gun and pointed it at him, but then older man’s eyes went wide and his hand started to shake.

“What are you?” the older man asked.

“I’m you. As close as the scientists could get. I’m here to set you free. I’m here to take your place.”

He’s confused. Of course he’s confused, but there’s no time to explain it all. Damn it, I don’t want him to die afraid.

“Listen to me. This isn’t Maine, and that isn’t your wife. I know you’ll have a hard time believing but I’m going to tell you anyway. We owe you so much more, but there’s no time. You just finished your latest novel. You think it’s the hundredth of your career, but it’s not. It’s your one thousandth.”

“That can’t be. You’re crazy,” the writer said and stepped back to better protect his wife. Upstairs the door began to fail.

“Your body died over five hundred years ago. The publishers kept your brain alive and after a few years and a billion dollars, they were able to create this virtual world where they keep your mind trapped. They delete memories of the many books you’ve written to entertain the masses while making trillions. But I’m here to set you free.”

The writer lowered his gun and put a hand to his head. He knew it was the truth. Once revealed, the program broke down and things fell into place.

“Why do you look like me?” he asked.

“I was engineered from your DNA. I have your memories, and when they reset the system, I’ll become you and continue your work.”

“For the love of god, why? If this is true, why would you do that?”

“Our ancestors tampered with their genetic code. They eradicated disease, made themselves more attractive and they lived longer healthier lives. But there was a price. Creativity was inadvertently sacrificed, but not the hunger for entertainment. There are only a few others like you, some painters, musicians, even a few writers, but no others that write in your genre. No new writer has been born in over five hundred years. But the people are just victims of their forefather’s mistakes, and they need your stories. Even so, you’ve done enough. It’s time for you to rest.”

Tears welled in the ancient writer’s eyes as the full weight of five centuries crashed down on his mind. The door at the top of the stairs was ripped from its hinges and heavy boots thudded toward the safe room.

“Thank you,” was all the old man said.

The young gangly man cocked the hammer of the old Colt and squeezed the trigger.

***

A young man with bright eyes and a lopsided grin opened the refrigerator and fished out a cold one. His glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back into place as he made his way back to the laundry room of his trailer. His typewriter sat on top of the dryer. There was a blank page waiting and he had a new idea. He took a long pull on the beer, sat down and started to type.

___

©2008 R. Scott McCoy

R. Scott McCoy was born in Kodiak Alaska and raised in Bemidji Minnesota. He currently lives in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities with his wife, two daughters and three dogs. His work has appeared in Blazing Adventures Magazine, Anathema, Bewildering Stories, The Drabbler, Help Anthology for Preditors & Editors, Abominations and Northern Haunts Anthologies from Shroud Publishing, an his 1st Novel, Feast of Evil is due out also from Shroud Publishing in Spring 2009. Runner up in Shroud Magazine’s Flash Fiction contest in issues #2 & #3. Editor’s Choice, 1st quarter, 2008 Bewildering Stories. Scott is the Publisher of Necrotic Tissue, a horror ezine and is an Affiliate Member of the HWA.