He wakes up.

Something is dragging itself along his bedroom floor.  Something wet and small.  Something red and glistening.

A thin shard of dusty moonlight slices through a gap in the curtains, falling across the floorboards like a wound in the darkness.  It almost reaches across to the bedroom door, which is open only a couple of inches.  There is nothing in the room to intercept the moonlight, except for his iron-railed bed, and this sits against the wall furthest from the door.

The sound of tiny nails scrapes, scrapes, closer.  He can’t tell if he’s sweating due to fear or the heat.  Without giving it too much thought, he sits up and looks across his room.  Whatever was there, is now gone.  Wiping sweat from his chin with a clammy forearm, he sits breathing heavily.  He has no idea what time it is, or even what day.  How long has he been sleeping?

Slipping out of bed, he welcomes the cool hard touch of the wooden floor.  The air seems to be heavy with dust, pressing down on his chest and pushing against the sides of his head.  He takes a number of slow, steady breaths, using the thin duvet to wipe more sweat from his face and body.

After a few moments he gets up, taking a few steps towards the window.  Perhaps he’ll feel better with it open.  Pulling the curtains aside, he stands there, semi-naked, facing out on the street.  But the houses across the road are silenced by the night and hidden by the rain.  He didn’t even realise it’d been raining.  He touches the radiator under the sill.  It’s stone cold.  Why is the house so fucking hot?

He casts his gaze down upon his front lawn.  The mushroom’s there, in the far corner next to the brick wall that separates the house from the street.  It’s small but white enough to stand out against the wet grass.  He can’t remember exactly how long it’d been growing there.  He doesn’t think he even saw it growing; it probably just appeared.  He remembers sitting in the living room watching television, and noticing from the corner of his eye, this mushroom.  It’s white but covered in flaking skin, a bulbous head sat atop a squat veiny body.  He’s never seen a mushroom like it before, but he knows there’s something inherently wrong with it.  It shouldn’t be there.  It should be dead.  No birds peck at it, no bugs crawl along its unhealthy surface.  He can’t sit in the living room now without watching it.  It’s almost as if he’s waiting for it to spread, to grow pallid babies from its base.

Sweat runs into his left eye, the salty sting causing him to shake the memory from his mind.  Pressing his forehead against the glass that’s been cooled by the rain, he sees what’s covering the edges of the window.  Patches of milky lichen, their centres a dark grey, cling in frilled lumps along both the left and right sides of his bedroom window.  Each piece is roughly the size of the palm of his hand, and pulses slightly, just slightly. He instinctively knows this growth has consumed all the downstairs windows, just as he senses a bloated white worm with a shiny black maggot’s head throbbing through parts of the house.  It’s sickly bulk makes a muted wet crunching sound as it constricts it’s innards with each movement, releasing them as it’s body concertinas forwards.

He turns from the window, all thoughts of opening it to embrace the cold night air abandoned.  He stares at his bedroom door.  Is there something moving around behind it, peeking inquisitively through the gap as it sits slightly ajar?  A small hallway’s beyond it, with a tiny spare bedroom to the immediate left, a bathroom ahead, and two more bedrooms on the right.  Separating his bedroom from the next one along on the right, are the stairs, descending between picture-less walls towards the front door.

He turns from the stairs and enters the bathroom.  The cold tap on the sink turns easily, gushing out a heavy stream of water.  He bends down, cocking his head to the side so as to drink.  The water feels warm in his mouth, and he spits it out.  Rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand he looks for a moment at the frosted glass of the bathroom window.  Blurred dark shapes throb slightly along the edges outside.

Stepping back out onto the landing, he briefly wonders why he’s still in this house.  Miscellaneous junk fills the tiny spare bedroom, and he can’t even remember what’s in the other two; he has no real need to go in them anymore.  A sound from downstairs attracts his attention.

Stood at the head of the stairs, his body dripping and pulsating with heat, he looks towards the bottom.  The front door’s less than a metre from the base, with a door on the left of the stairs leading to the living room, a door on the right leading to the kitchen.

Vague blue moonlight filters through the patterned glass in the middle of the front door, seemingly hovering a few feet above the actual floor.  The stairs themselves also seemingly end a few feet above where they normally would.  A dry sighing sound, almost like leather rubbing softly against itself, echoes up the stairs.  It’s constant and follows the shift of the moonlight as it highlights the mass of tiny writhing bodies that have flooded the downstairs of his house.  He starts to take steps towards them, realising it’s a sea of maggots.

Sweat pools in his left ear, curves around his right eye and tickles his upper gum, drips onto his tongue as he licks his cracked lips, slides down the inside of his pyjama leg, sticking the light fabric to his skin.

The house is filled with a darkness like hot dust as he descends the steps.

Closer, closer.

He can’t remember if he walks into the sea or falls in, but it doesn’t really matter anymore.

It doesn’t matter at all.

–
©2009 Wayne Goodchild

George was nervous. He had never played ’seven minutes in heaven’ before. He knew what it was. You got to do whatever you wanted with the other person in a dark closet for exactly seven minutes.

He was to go in there with Angie. He didn’t know much about her but she was better than average looking for a freshman. He had seen her around the hallways at school and had thought about her before.

She didn’t seem as nervous, as she smiled, grabbed his hand and pulled him into the large pitch black closet. The door clicked shut and all was silent except for the muffled hoots and hollers of the party-goers on the other side of the door.

Angie giggled and grabbed both of George’s sweaty hands, then pulled him closer so that their bodies were touching. He could feel himself growing against her abdomen and he began to kiss her.

The kiss was fine at first. Her lips were soft and their tongues danced about playfully; teasing each other. Then, she bit his tongue. Hard.

“Ow, what the fuck?” George grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away, then touched his fingertips to his tongue and felt blood gushing out. She had ripped his tongue open with her teeth.

Angie giggled again. Louder this time. “Sorry about that cowboy, I just can’t help myself sometimes. It just tastes so good!”

“Crazy fucking bitch!” George reached for the door but Angie’s hand grabbed his arm and twisted it back her direction. Her grip was more powerful than George could have ever conceived. In one swift motion, she kicked his legs out from under him and pinned him to the ground with her hands and knees.

Blood continued to pour from the fresh wound. George felt it trickling down his face and he began to gag  as it bubbled in his throat. Angie greedily slurped up the blood from his mouth and face then took a large bite out of his cheek and chewed ravenously on his flesh; giggling and slurping.

George screamed in terror at the top of his lungs. Blood splattered out of his ravaged mouth as the scream escaped it. He thrashed about, managed to get a leg free and kneed Angie in the side. She rocked to one side of his body so that his arm was free and he punched her in the chin with all the strength he could muster. She yelped and retreated towards the back of the closet.

George jumped up, bewildered, and grabbed the handle of the door. He twisted the handle and pushed, but was met with resistance. The party-goers were holding the door shut.

Someone whooped with laughter. “Aw shit, someone is tryin’ to get out before their time is up! You got about 4 minutes left there, lovey-birds!”

Several people were laughing wildly now.

“Let me the fuck out of here this bitch is crazy she’s gonna kill me!” George yelled as loud as he could.

“Pussy!” Someone teased from the other side of the door.

“Yeah, nut up Georgy-boy! Whattaya a homo?!”

More laughter. George panicked and backed up a step with the intent of slamming the door open by forcefully kicking it. When he backed up he felt two cold hands grip his shoulders. Angie giggled and bit into his left shoulder, tearing away a large chunk of skin and ligaments. He could hear a disgusting tearing noise as the flesh was separating from his body. His eyes bugged open with shock and his body began to convulse violently. He kicked at the door as hard as he could but it didn’t budge.

“Whoa, nelly! George is totally pussin’ out!” Someone shrieked with glee. “Help me keep him in there!”

George twisted away from Angie’s grip and heaved his body towards the closet door with every ounce of his waning strength he could draw upon. It was no use; there had to be at least three people on the other side helping to keep the door shut. He slumped to the floor and put a hand over his shoulder to try and slow the bleeding. Angie grabbed his leg and bit hard into George’s Achilles heel. He heard a crunch and felt something snap, followed by the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced. He let out a high pitched scream.

Someone opened the door and George looked up. Adam Randall was there looking down at him. Adam looked different. George tried to stand but the pain was too severe. He started crawling away from the closet towards the front door.

“Keep that fucking bitch away from me!” George pleaded as he scurried hopefully towards the exit. The words gurgled out from his bloody throat.

Several people approached George and grabbed him, then held him in place. The people all looked different than they had before. They almost looked like zombies from a horror movie. George wondered if he was dreaming, or in hell.

“She was gonna kill me!” George managed to say. Nobody seemed to hear what he said so he said it again.

“Not sweet Angie.” Adam said as he approached George. “She just wants to finish the game with you.”

“What?” George was astonished. Did they not see what she had done to him? “Look at me! Look at what she did to me!” He had trouble speaking with his mangled mouth. He was losing a lot of blood and the pain was very bad.

Adam grabbed George off the floor and brought him over towards the closet. “You can’t come out until your time is up.” Adam said in a monotone voice.

Angie slowly opened her eyes and turned her head toward George.

“You owe me 3 minutes.” She said, then giggled. The deranged party-goers eased George back into the dark closet.

—
© 2009 Jeff Mount