—When you
got the call
That no one wants to have
Sick of hospitals
To paper over cracks
You weren’t scared at all
But never turned away
Well fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em, fuck ‘em all—
A chill ran down his
spine.
His hand ached,
fingernails bitten to the nailbed.
Why, oh why hadn't he
listened?
Kyle
His eyes, moist with
tears, sorrowfully looked at the headstone. His feet dragged through the
well-kept grass.
I’m still here
I should have done more.
I should have tried
harder.
Why didn't I--
You left him alone
"I'm sorry. I'm
sorry." He whimpered, lip trembling as tears threatened to spill over.
It was your fault
His stomach knotted and
turned as he quickly threw down the small bouquet atop the grave.
Kyle cracked open the
leather-bound book and placed pen to paper. His therapist suggested it may help
him think or sort out the emotions of the grieving process. The same therapist
Dan had visited before his--
Kyle swallowed back the
bile collecting in his throat.
"Today I only had one
instance of screaming and survivor's guilt."
I wake up and it's cold
and I think I can see him, in the mirror standing behind me, waiting for me
blaming me
his skin is pale
his eyes swirl between
the deep blue of life and milky white of death
it came for me
"I went to a
meeting meant for people dealing with grief tod
there was a long, deep
scratch mark on my window
ay, I think it may
really help with my healing. They tell me that I really couldn't have known.
IT WAS YOUR FAULT
I still doubt
that."
YOUR FAULT
Kyle signed at the
bottom of the entry before closing the book and sighing.
YOUR FAULT
He set the book down and
found himself wandering into the kitchen.
YOUR FAULT
His face contorted with
regret as he brewed a cup of tea in a fruitless attempt to calm his nerves. He
sipped, eyes closed and hands trembling as guilt wrenched in his chest. A few
scalding tears slipped from his eyes.
don’t ignore me
Kyle's heart skipped a
beat.
He glanced up.
The cup slipped from his
hands, cracking against the tile floor.
The dark tea spilled
across the tiles, mingling with a mysterious brown liquid that assaulted Kyle's
senses with the stench of advanced rot.
Kyle's blood froze in
his veins.
Standing in front of him
was Dan.
"K....kkh--g...Kyyyyyyyy--"
It rasped in a voice that sounded as if it hadn't been used in years.
"Ky--le... Ky----le... K--?" Its neck cracked as it tilted its head,
milky eyes seeming to request a response.
"You're not real
go away." Kyle said through grit teeth without pause.
The corpse, looking
exactly as he had that day, save far gaunter and more sunken, raised an
arm and pointed accusingly.
"Y...ou....
could.... have--sssss----me." slurred off a rotten tongue.
"I... what?"
Kyle asked in a tiny voice.
"YOU COULD HAVE
SAVED ME!" It shrieked. "YOU COULD HAVE SAVED ME! YOU COULD HAVE
SAVED ME! YOU COULD HAVE SAVED ME!"
but you didn't
Across from Kyle
something smashed the window, grabbing the living corpse by the waist and
pulling it through. Dan screamed in the voice he had possessed in life; one
Kyle knew well. The sound chilled him to his core. A crack resounded through
the night air, followed by what Kyle suspected were a cruel mimicry of Dan's
final moments.
The screaming finally
stopped with a squishy snap.
The air was still.
Kyle slid down the
cabinet behind him until he was sitting, letting out an anguished sob.
—There’ll be no bad days
You’ll have no more bad days
When you’re gone, gone
There’ll be no bad days
You’ll have no more bad days—
Lying in bed, Kyle
stared aimlessly at the ceiling.
scritch
scritch
scratch
His mouth ran dry. It's
not real. It's not, it can't be. Dan died from a horrible combination of binge
drinking and pills and it's not--
"Let me in,
Kyle."
No.
scraaape
"Please?"
Go away.
"Pleaassse?"
Kyle froze, eyes pricking with tears. The elongated plea slowly mutated into a
mockery of a voice he knew all too well.
"You'renothim
you'renothim you'renothim you'renothim, you're not, you're not, you're not, YOU'RE
NOT!" Kyle screamed. "YOU'RE NOT HIM, BECAUSE HE'S DEAD!”
"Kyle..." It
whimpered, "Help... Help me. HELP ME KYLE, HELP ME!"
"SHUT UP!"
Fists banged against the
glass of the window.
Fists?
No...
A single slender finger
pounded against the glass until it shattered, showering the floor in a hail of
glass.
"Hey."
A perverted, whispery
voice casually snuck between the glass shards. A pearly white grin glinted
under the artificial light of the streetlamps. Lined up, the majority of her
teeth would have reached Kyle's knee.
Kyle began to
hyperventilate.
"Goawaygoawaygoaway--"
"Kyle." Deep
and smooth, his skin prickled when he heard it. "What's wrong? Why are you
on the ground? .... Why're you crying?"
"I-I--"
Kyle cautiously cracked
open one eye.
"...I-It's you."
His voice cracked, tears springing to his eyes as he gratefully took Dan's hand
and pulled himself off the floor. “Th-Thank God… Thank God, I-I thought…”
Tears began to stream down Kyle’s cheeks, staining Dan’s shirt a darker shade
of grey, “I thought you were…”
A horrible stench
assaulted Kyle’s senses, slimy, stinking fluid bubbling through the fabric of
Dan’s shirt and crawling down Kyle’s hand.
“Dead?”
A bead of cold, clammy
sweat raced down Kyle’s back as he turned to face the thing he dreaded most.
Those perfectly shaped pink lips, hiding just behind them certain death,
puppeteered Dan’s every word it seemed.
“…No…” Kyle
whimpered.
“You should have believed me.”
“No…” He fell backwards as the gorge of his own guilt rose.
“But I’m dead.” The facsimile rasped.
Kyle found himself cowering, screaming at the top of his
lungs as the monster’s finger plunged into his room, The nail sparkled the deep
purple of a midnight sky just before it rammed and speared its way through
Dan’s belly, painting the razor tip with gore.
“Look.”
“N…” Kyle heaved, frantically pushing back vomit, “N-No.”
“Look.” Dan said, not flinching in the slightest
as she wrenched her nail like a key, splattering and spilling blood and guts
all over the pristine floor.
“I did it to him, and now?....”
Kyle flinched, screwing his eyes tightly shut as he felt
warm air encompass his back.
“Now I’m going to do it to you.”
“DON’T!” Kyle shrieked, intaking sharp breath. “N-Not…
real… Y-You’re not…. You’re not real…”
He froze, cautiously uncurling and finally daring to turn
around.
Kyle wished he hadn’t.
A wide, feral grin encased his window, blotting out most
of the light. Two jean-clad legs and sprawling, desperate hands kicked and slammed
against the impossibly enormous teeth that kept him pinned.
Dan’s torso and forearms fell unceremoniously to the floor.
Thin, black appendages like spider’s legs crept seemingly from beneath its
gums, hemming strewn bits of flesh and entrails into its mouth with the same
motions a spider would use to build a web.
“He was stupid.” It asserted. “Stupid, breathing, meat.”
Strings of thin, brown drool rolled down her lower lip. “Sweet, delicious meat,
warm blood spilling from your wounds… Squirming, writhing bodies sliding down my
throat—”
“Stop.”
“I’ll gouge out your eyes and tear off your jaw, suck the
flesh from your bones and rip out your guts—!”
“BE QUIET!” Kyle screamed, heaving amongst the
menagerie of gore and severed body parts.
Searching the darkness with teary, bloodshot eyes, Kyle
saw nothing.
No blood.
No limbs.
No monster.
… No Dan.
Kyle breathed a tense sigh of relief.
“Fucksake…” He groaned, lowering his face into his
hands, “Fucksake, I must be cursed… This is because I didn’t listen, isn’t it?
Some guilty conscience shit because I didn’t listen to him…. Gh—Fuck.”
He wracked his brain for some kind, any kind of a solution. Taking a deep
breath, Kyle pulled a worn cardboard box out from under his bed. Dan’s mother
had given it to him after the funeral, saying Dan would have wanted him to have
it. Kyle opened one of many spiral-bound notebooks, filled to the brim with
neatly written lyrics. He flipped through a few pages, his stomach cramping
with painful nostalgia. Not there. Kyle opened another. Not there
either.
Finally on the fifth notebook about halfway through was
an impressively illustrated picture of a stringy-haired female. Her eyes were filled
with blood, as if every capillary had simultaneously burst. The edges of her eyes
were rimmed with grim, sickly green bruises. The mouth… Dear God, the mouth…
like some bizarre hybrid of a human and a snake, a thin webbing of ligaments
the only thing keeping its jaws chained together, having been near completely
cleaved in half. The words “true form?” were written beneath the image in
all capital letters in Dan’s own handwriting and underlined twice. Swallowing
hard, Kyle turned the page and discovered Dan seemed to have begun using it as
an impromptu diary, spanning approximately three months before his death. Kyle
gnawed the remnants of his fingernails and started reading.
July 14th
All I can see over and over is that monster flaying
them alive. My back being carved open, the crippling cold, my intestines splayed,
and I feel all of it.
I see Will being crushed to death, over and over
and over again.
Even now I have a slicing phantom pain against my
spine and twisting a knife in my belly.
There’s something dark floating on the edge of my
vision.
I need a doctor.
July 30th
The pills aren’t working. It’s still here. It’s outside
my window, have to keep watch. I tried to tell the doctor what it says to me,
but she says it’s just auditory hallucinations and everything’s going to be
fine. The new pills block her out sometimes but that only gives her more opportunity
to plan, I should probably stop taking them.
August 5th
The nightmares have gotten worse. I can feel it eating
me. It’s dark and hot and everything burns and no matter how much I scream no
one can hear me. There’s no air and all I can do is sit there as my flesh melts
away. No God, please no don’t let it happen again
August 8th
can’t sleep
August 19th
Nightmares
won’t
stop
can’t think
can’t write
can’t breathe
September 1st
I told Kyle about her today. About what I saw, what
she did to him.
Kyle flinched uncomfortably, a small, agonized noise
erupting from his throat.
He said I have an active imagination, and, taken as
a metaphor, it would be an interesting song.
September 7th
I have to stay awake.
I have to.
September 14th
Two months since this absolute nightmare began and
no one believes me. I can’t take anymore I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t
I just want it to end
Please just let it end
September 17th
I tried to slit my wrists today.
I woke up.
September 25th
I tried to tell them again, to make them believe me
but it was useless.
I tried to warn them.
Some friends.
October 1st
She’s outside my window
October 2nd
I can hear her breathing
October 3rd
I can feel her breath on my back
October 5th
how can a mouth do that?!
October 6th
Oh god oh jesus christ
October 8th
haven’t eaten
haven’t slept
Kyle noticed the final entry was smeared, printed blue guidelines
warped and crinkled by abundant water stains.
October 14th
Three months now. Three months I’ve tried to get
help. I’ve tried everything.
But it was worthless.
This is the end
Kyle paled, slamming the notebook shut and throwing it
against the wall.
“It’s not my fault.” He whimpered. “I’m sorry… I’m
sorry…”
He dragged himself down the stairs, deciding it would be
safer to sleep on the couch where he couldn’t feel her staring at him.
—Stop signs, run ‘em
Bills, don’t pay ‘em
Who would care at all?
Burn your money
Ain’t worth nothing on your curtain call—
The soft dripping and wet splatter is what made Kyle open his
eyes. Immediately filling his vision was a chasm of pink and red glistening
wet. A clear, disgusting liquid dripped from within, coating Kyle in sticky
fluid.
Pure terror filled Kyle’s chest as, in a single moment, he
realized what he was looking at.
Did you really think you could run from me?
He flinched, eyes quickly tearing away from the horrific
monster mouth. It was…
Dan couldn’t.
It was in his head.
“God no… Fuck, no… Get out of my head! Get out, get out, GET
OUT, GET OUT!”
Something pale gripped its tongue and slowly went about
extracting itself from her throat.
It was an arm.
It was D—
Kyle could barely find the time to scream as his friend
grabbed him by the wrist, pulling nearly half his body into the giant mouth
with inhuman strength.
“You should have listened.” The grotesque mockery wheezed. “But
now it’s too late. Too late for me, and too late for you.”
The pain came to Kyle gradually, excruciating as it was.
Trapped in the damp, disgusting dark, his mind was slow to realize the pooling
warmth wasn’t saliva but rather his bodily fluids and organs spilling from an
open chest onto her tongue as her cruel teeth had relieved him of his lower
half. Through his watery, fading vision he watched Dan disappear effortlessly
into the throat. Kyle groaned softly in agony as he became hyper aware of his
own innards trailing behind him like party streamers as he was pulled further
and further back by contracting musculature and icy hands, the monster eager to
embrace a meal of fresh meat. Kyle whimpered quietly as he heard the audible
swallow, bitterly surmising there was no going back now. He closed his eyes,
letting out a sob as he was dragged into Hell by someone he’d considered a
friend.
When Kyle awoke, he found himself screaming as his nightmare
was seemingly reality. Hot, humid darkness embalmed him, smothering him as he
desperately gasped for air. He flailed, crashing to the floor and tearing the
blanket from his face as he took in a deep, desperate breath.
He was alive.
He quickly checked over his body, vivid nightmare already
threatening his sanity. Never before in his life had he been so grateful to
have legs.
Seconds from panicking, Kyle picked up his phone. He had
to tell someone.
“CHRIS!”
“Nnnghh… Hullo?”
“D-Dan was…” Kyle choked, “Dan was telling the truth.”
“…ngh… What?”
Kyle suddenly got the feeling he was being watched and
shuddered at the thought, continuing in a cramped whisper.
“He was telling the truth. There’s something here.
S-Something… horrible. I don’t know how it knows, but it knows. It
knows I’m looking for it. It’s waiting for me, waiting to kill me just
like it killed him. C-Chris…” He stammered, already crying with fear, “Chris,
you have to help me. I-I don’t…” Kyle made a tiny, nearly inaudible
whimper, “I don’t wanna die.”
You can’t escape me.
“Kyle, have you been drinking?”
“Wh--…” He stammered. “This is SERIOUS! How can you say
that?!”
“You sound nuts.”
I AM INEVITABLE
A little, pathetic moan squeaked from Kyle’s throat as he
caught the glimmer of far too many teeth on the edge of his vision.
“It’s coming for you, too.” Kyle said ominously after
a long pause before hanging up the phone.
—So your future’s lost
But they can’t take your past
Well fuck ‘em fuck ‘em fuck ‘em fuck ‘em
all—
Kyle saw Dan,
looking surprisingly normal, leaning against the doorframe.
“He didn’t
believe you?” Dan quirked an eyebrow and smirked. “Tch. No one believed me,
either.” He walked calmly towards Kyle, eyes slowly filling with blood and
illuminating through the darkness. Grabbing Kyle’s wrists, he leaned in close
enough that Kyle could see the madness in his eyes and the beads of tar
dripping down his chin. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“How much
longer do I have left?” Kyle murmured, pulling his hands out of the monster
proxy’s grip, pouring a crystalline glass full of whisky and downing it in one
go.
“‘til she
gets bored. And right now…” It leaned into his face, making him flinch, “You’re
not being very fun.”
“Why us?”
“Wouldn’t you
like to know.” It answered smugly from outside the window, nearly making Kyle
jump out of his skin. The words sounded wrong, slightly mumbled and slurred at
the edges as if she had difficulty pronouncing them, and he could see why. He
watched in mute terror as he stared back at a never-ending wall of human teeth,
as if someone wasn’t content with the amount and decided it should be doubled.
Seeing his terrified expression, it feigned compassion. All that did was make
Kyle’s stomach flip. “Aw, do you not like looking at me? Why not? Because I’m
going to rip your face off? How about I bring him back?”
“K… Kyle….”
Kyle threw his
whisky glass at the shimmering apparition out of sheer reflex. It only gave a
slight, pathetic cry as the cup phased right through him.
“No…
You have to be another trick; you have to be… It’s not… You’re not—”
“I was so
fucking stupid.” The ghost berated himself. “I wanted fame so badly I
didn’t think about the consequences for a second. N-Now—we—” Dan was cut
off by a throat-rending scream, He writhed in agony.
“That’s… enough.”
She said curtly. “I want what I’m owed.”
Dan’s spirit was
seemingly released from the hold his master had on him. Ice plunged into Kyle’s
heart, spreading through veins he wasn’t even aware of as Dan attempted to
place comforting hands on his shoulders.
“I’m right
behind you.” Dan murmured as if he knew there was no way out and had given up. “It’s…”
His face twisted into an epitome of sorrow, “… It’s easier if you don’t fight
back. We both know there’s no getting out of this.” Kyle nodded slowly, closing
his eyes and climbing over her lower incisors, surrendering fully to what
happened next. Darkness surrounded him; a sickening cacophony dragged him down,
down, down into the abyss of smothering liquid fire, truly Hell on earth. And
yet, even as his nerves were eaten, his senses, his very being rotting away,
the sensation of two warm, comforting arms wrapped around his waist stayed
until the end.
----
Chris yawned,
lazily glancing at the paper in front of him. He warily eyed the sticky note
pasted to its corner.
“YOU MADE
FRONT PAGE, CONGRATS”
“SECOND
MEMBER OF FOUR MAN BAND FOUND DEAD”
“The victim’s
eyes and lower jaw have been removed, as well as his tongue ripped from his
mouth. Neither the victim’s eyes nor jaw could be found at the scene of the
crime, it is currently theorized—"
“Oh fuck.”
Chris said quietly. “Oh fuck, oh no—”
---
Chris trudged
into the living room, hands shaking as he tried futilely to calm himself down.
“He can’t—H-He’s
not dead, this is just some fucking sick freak’s idea of a joke.” Chris
asserted in a wavering confidence.
Chris
blinked.
There was a
black, leather-bound book open in the middle of the floor.
“That…” Chris
stammered in utter bewilderment, “Wh-where did that come from?” He picked up
the book out of morbid curiosity. Chris yelped in surprise as little black
bubbles seeped into the paper from beneath, as if coming from within the book
itself. “Wha… What the fuck? I-It’s… Ink?”
It’s dark.
It’s dark and everything around me is burning, I am burning everything hurts in
a way I could never have even imagined in my wildest nightmares. Something thin
and wiry crawled under my skin and I can’t get it out, pulling it only makes it
grip on tighter and its barbed teeth tear out my flesh
I can see
the others in the darkness, they’re standing there, smiling at me, as if they’re
telling me everything is going to be alright. Dan says that he’s sorry, that he
wishes he hadn’t done it, that he wants to wake up. Just to wake up. I want to,
too.
It’s so
hot and it won’t
Seconds become minutes become hours become days become years
Always burning
Always suffering
Is this
Is this
forever?
It was so
easy to give in.
There’s no
point in fighting it anymore.
There’s nothing
we ever could have done.
A chill
crawled down Chris’ spine as he realized as he read that the light was slowly
fading from the room, despite it being a cloudless early morning. He refused to
look up, refused to acknowledge the two abominations in the shadows waiting for
him, an eyeless, jawless monster and a sickly pale black and blue freak.
A repulsive
stench overcame Chris’ senses. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a bead of
thin brown fluid race down the window. He let out an anguished whimper, falling
to his knees and covering his mouth to keep from vomiting as his mind finally
came to understand the words smeared on the outside of the glass.
There was
no hope.
—There’ll
be no bad days
You’ll have no more bad days
When you’re gone, gone
There’ll be no bad days
You’ll have no more bad days when you’re
gone—