Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation (15 page)

Roger shook his head. Once. Twice. Three times.

The man rested his hand on Roger’s shirt collar. “Look around you,” he said. “This is human nature in its most primal state. We are truly
monsters
.”

The moment Roger was waiting for had arrived. He quickly brushed the man’s hand off his person and snapped a picture in the man’s face. The flash lit up the room, blinding the Man With No Tie. He grimaced and stumbled backward a few steps. That allowed Roger enough time to duck into the closet and shut the door, locking it behind him.

Excellent
. Now he had everything he needed to cripple Wonderworld Industries once and for all. The pictures in his camera would look great on the front page of the paper, and the sheriff would be very interested in his morbid testimony.

Stone Creek would be safe at last.

Tucking the camera into his jacket, Roger prepared to climb back into the ventilation shaft. But he stopped short. Not because he forgot something or wanted to snap more pictures before he left, but because a malformed, headless figure stood in his path.

Chapter 8

Five years later …

Little Alex Pritchard looked out the window of the purple-colored minivan. He watched the road whip past, saw the little yellow lines disappear into the distance. His father, Adam Pritchard, was at the wheel. They had been driving for almost four hours, and still saw no significant sign of civilization. There was just field after field of corn, and each one seemed to stretch infinitely into the horizon.

“
Dad, are we there yet?” Alex complained, taking the headphones from his ears. “We’ve been driving
forever
. Are you sure we didn’t drive off the map?”

Adam laughed. “I can safely say that we haven’t driven off the map yet, but I don’t know how much longer until we reach town. It shouldn’t be too far.”

“
Are you sure we haven’t driven into hell?”

Alex screwed up his nose and peered into the cloudless blue sky. The sun shone down with all its might, coaxing waves of heat from the blacktop. It must be a hundred degrees out there. Hot enough to boil an egg, or roast a steak, or melt a marshmallow. Take your pick.

Alex didn’t like the heat. Not as much as his dad, at least. He took after his mom. Warm-blooded, even though the last time Adam checked, most reptiles were cold-blooded creatures.

“
Dad?”

“
Yes?”

“
Why did we leave Chicago?”

Adam glanced in the rear view mirror, trying to see his son’s eyes beneath the newly acquired
Colorado Cougars
baseball cap. How could Adam tell his son that the reason they’d left Chicago was because his mom was sleeping around with company executives? That his father couldn’t stand to look her in the eyes? That every time someone spoke her name, his heart broke all over again? That they were moving to Colorado to start a new life, free from the shackles of his previous marriage? He couldn’t. So he decided to change the subject.

“
Hey, did you see that new
Battlefield Warrior
game that’s coming out?”

“
Yeah! Oh my gosh! It looks
awesome
!”

“
I’ll buy it for you when we get into town.”

“
Really? Wow. You’re the best, dad!”

Adam couldn’t help but smile. When in doubt, talk about video games. It never failed. Just mentioning the subject was like having two virgins walk into a gentleman’s club. It always made for hours of conversation, and you got bored after the first five minutes.

Adam cast a weary glance at the map in the passenger seat. It wasn’t a very good map. He’d bought it at a tourist shop in Kansas from a man with long sideburns, but it got the job done. It had all the major highways listed, at least.

If the map was right, they were only a few miles from their destination: Stone Creek. He had run across it accidentally one afternoon while researching historic US towns. Every source he encountered spoke of its small town appeal, and judging by the quiet agricultural atmosphere it seemed like the perfect place to settle down after a messy divorce. Better than a bar in downtown Chicago, at least.

The thought of alcohol made his mouth water, but he’d promised to kick the bottle. Not for his sake, but for Alex’s. The kid deserved a better childhood than he’d had. Alex deserved a good, supportive father and a loving mother, but since
she
had been erased from the picture, Adam needed to fill both rolls. That was part of the reason he’d decided to leave the big city. He couldn’t possibly devote enough time to Alex with all the pressures of big-city life.

Here in the country, it was quiet. There were no bustling city streets, no jam-packed suburban strip malls, and no ridiculously long company meetings to sit through. Here all the businesses were family owned and had been for generations, so there was no need to compete for jobs. There were no hostile takeovers, just friendly, old-fashioned business transactions.

But that wasn’t all. He heard that the air in Colorado was “Rocky Mountain Fresh,” unlike the polluted sludge that inhabited Chicago’s atmosphere. Alex needed to experience real, clean air for once in his life. He’d been born in Philadelphia and raised in Chicago, so his only exposure to country air had been through their semi-annual vacation to the Philippines.

Adam stroked his chin. He was a handsome man, generally speaking, with dark brown hair and like-colored eyes. The only problem was his height. He was, at least in his opinion, unnaturally short. This was probably due to the fact that his father had been Italian and his mother English, which put him in a category somewhere between Italian soda and English muffins, respectively, but he was happy with his appearance. One had to be, after living with one’s self for almost thirty years.

Alex thumbed at his portable gaming system, playing some weird version of Minesweeper. It was hard to believe that he was almost nine years old. It seemed like just yesterday he’d been riding in a booster seat and watching
mommy
make faces in the rear view mirror.

“
Dad, what does that sign say?”

“
Stone Creek, 2 Miles,” Adam recited. He was surprised Alex had seen the sign, considering his nose was buried two-inches deep in the video game screen.

“
Does that mean we’re almost there?”

“
Yes, son, I think it does.”

Except there was only one problem: the town didn’t look anything like he’d thought it would. Instead of bright sunshine and bluebirds chirping merrily, the sky was dark and thick, covered by a cloud of charcoal-colored smoke. Most likely the bluebirds had been eaten by the grossly fat crows that swooped overhead.

Adam checked the map one more time. Yes, this was the place. Stone Creek, Colorado. But it looked like they’d crossed into another dimension. Even the trees were unnatural. Instead of apples, strange white objects hung from the branches, excreting some sort of slimy pus. He thought he saw one of them
move
, but he had no idea that what he’d seen was actually maggots.

Big, juicy maggots, writhing with life.

Alex plastered his face against the glass. “Wow! This place is awesome!” he exclaimed. “It’s like Chiller Falls from
Return of the Undead Creeper
!”

Adam accelerated slowly into town, looking left and right at the rundown buildings. “First off, it looks deserted. And second, how do you know about Chiller Falls? You aren’t supposed to be playing those games.”

Alex rolled his eyes and looked out the window, focusing on the ethereal landscape around him rather than his father’s voice. He was a good kid, he really was. He just had a rebellious streak about him. Then again, all kids did at his age; most of the time he was quiet and mild mannered, listening carefully to his elders.

“
I’m hungry.”

“
We’ll find a place to eat once we get settled into a motel,” Adam said simply. However, judging by the looks of the town, he didn’t really
want
to stay. A voice in the back of his head told him to turn around and hit the road for greener pastures. Maybe he should have listened to it. Maybe he should have pulled a U right then and there and gotten the hell out of Dodge, but the fact of the matter is, he didn’t. He was determined to sink his roots into good soil and settle down.

Little did he know that the soil was toxic.

Chapter 9

After a ten minute drive through town, Adam managed to find a motel. It wasn’t much, but it was better than sleeping in the minivan. God knows he’d tried that before. He’d had a stiff back and sore neck to prove it. Teenagers could pull it off—hell, they could do more than
sleep
in a car—but not a twenty-eight year-old man. No. He needed a queen-size mattress, two fluffy pillows, and a thick blanket in order to achieve a good night’s sleep.

The term “vehicular escapades” had different connotations when he was in high school.

“
Dad, my mp3 player died.”

Adam circled around the minivan and slid the passenger-side door open. Alex was sitting inside, poking at his mp3 player as if that would somehow wake it up.

“
That’s okay. It just needs to be recharged.”

“
Is this where we’re staying?” Alex changed the subject the moment his eyes fell on the decrepit motel. “Wicked! Do you think it’s haunted?”

Adam pulled his suitcase off the back seat. They’d packed so much shit into the minivan he could barely reach it. Whose brilliant idea was it to put groceries and perishable items in the back and suitcases in the middle, where they were least accessible?

Adam sighed. The downside to being divorced was that he no longer had anyone to blame for his mistakes. Like leaving the milk on the counter or forgetting to lock the front door. God knows he’d done that enough times.

Of course,
she
would never do such a thing.
She
would never admit to such a silly mistake.
She
always seemed to have an answer for everything she did, no matter how ridiculous.

“
Oh don’t worry,” she’d said. “I would never sleep with another man.” And then when he discovered her disloyalty: “It was all for you, Adam, you and Alex. Our family needed more money. Our family needed
security
.”

But he’d seen through her lies. He’d seen through the false pretenses of love and devotion. She’d been tired of waking up beside him every morning. He could see it in her eyes. She wanted excitement and spontaneous fun, something he could no longer give her. That was the real reason she cheated on him. Not for the money or the love or the security, but for the thrill of waking up in a stranger’s arms.

Feeling the beat of a stranger’s heart.

“
Dad? Dad, are you okay?”

Adam looked up. Somehow he’d managed to lose track of reality and spill the contents of his suitcase all over the sidewalk.

“
Yeah, I’m okay. Just thinking.”

“
Then hurry up,” Alex urged. “I want to see what this place looks like on the inside.”

Adam shook his head, stooping to gather his clothes, which now smelled pleasantly like gasoline. Alex gave him a reason to smile, a reason to wake up each morning and see the sun in the sky. Without him, he wouldn’t be able to see past the storm clouds that lined the horizon.

Speaking of storm clouds, there were some massive ones overhead.

Adam snapped his suitcase shut and hurried inside. He didn’t want to risk getting his last pair of clean clothes soaked in a freak rainstorm. That would have been the perfect ending to an otherwise cheery day. Smile at the camera!

“
Hello? Is anyone home?”

Adam stepped into the small lobby, glancing from left to right. Not much furniture decorated the room. There was a desk that sat against the far wall, and a retro green chair pushed into the corner. Other than that, it was drab and ordinary. However, there was a strange atmosphere about it. The room secreted a sense of inertia that permeated the very nerve endings in his brain, and turned his whole sense of reality upside down. Like a roller coaster ride at some fucked-up carnival.

“
Creepy,” Alex murmured. His attention had focused on the far wall, where whole sections of drywall had been blasted to pieces. “I wonder what happened.”

“
I thought you would,” a disembodied voice chimed in.

Suddenly a man appeared behind the desk. He was tall and lean, though not
too
skinny, and rather well dressed. He wore a perfectly-tailored three-piece suit that complimented his distinguished looks. The only thing missing was his tie. Either the ornate band of fabric had leapt off his chest and scurried away, or he’d chosen not to wear it for some reason.