Fear the Abyss: 22 Terrifying Tales of Cosmic Horror (11 page)

THE AMERICAN

S.C. Hayden

SC Hayden’s short fiction has been published in a number of journals and magazines including:
Shadowplay (from Post Mortem Press),
The Dirty Goat, Portland Review, and Underground Voices. His story, The Face, was selected as the South Million Writers Award Notable story of 2009. His debut novel, American Idol, was published by Black Bed Sheets Books in 2012.

Something large, dark, and heavy crashed throug
h
the underbrush and into the path ahead. Father Mancini loosened the machete hanging from his belt. The American’s machete was already at hand. The pig snorted, turned and faced them, 200 pounds, maybe three. It pawed the earth several times but did not charge. Red stained the pig’s dark skin, darker holes where its eyes should have been. Blind and bleeding the animal wobbled, staggered, then collapsed.

It was the second eyeless animal they’d seen.

Hennrick, their guide, had spotted an eyeless albino boa coiled in a low hanging branch just the day before. That was when he told them they were on their own and turned back. He’d taken them as far as he dared. It didn’t matter. The dense jungle had opened and the once all-but invisible path was clear. Even without the path they would have found their way. They could feel it. Something drew them on. Something wanted them to come.

They hiked in silence for the next few hours. Sister Asty walked between Father Mancini and the American. She had grown up in a village at the base of the very mountains they were climbing. If they encountered any locals, Father Mancini reasoned, she could mediate. But the American knew they wouldn’t encounter any locals. They were too close to ground zero.

Sister Asty stopped short and gasped.

The American stepped up behind her and looked over the nun’s shoulder. A man hung, arms stretched and hands nailed, in a twisted banyan tree. His abdomen was split and his intestines had been pulled out and strewn about the great tree’s branches like party streamers. A crucifixion. The kill was fresh, the smell still thick and wet in the sultry air. Sister Asty fell to her knees. A shrill sigh escaped her lips like a teakettle coming to boil. She shouldn’t be here, the American thought. It was a mistake to bring her. 

Father Mancini helped her to her feet and hurried her past the grizzly maker. The old priest was stoic. He was guided by purpose. But the American knew what lie ahead and held no hope that the priest was equal to the task.

All three of them had seen the footage.

Three years earlier, a man stood before a video camera in a small room in Port-Au-Prince Haiti. The room was filled with the familiar trappings of Haitian Voodoo; bottles of liquor, candles, bones both human and animal, a crucifix. The man wore a threadbare tuxedo and bowler derby. He identified himself as a
Houngan
, a voodoo priest, and said he was going to channel a powerful spirit he called Mr. Humbaba.

The
Houngan
placed a live chicken on a chopping block and slit its throat with a carving knife. The bird squawked and fluttered then went still. The man smeared the chicken’s blood on his face. He drank from a brown glass bottle then spewed clear liquid from his mouth over the dead bird, shaking a rattle in the air and muttering some unintelligible cant all the while.

All at once he fell to the ground jerking and flailing and frothing at the mouth. It looked like a standard Tonic-clonic seizure, but it was what happened after that convinced the Vatican to take the video seriously.

The spasms stopped abruptly and the man leapt to his feet, snatched the carving knife from the chopping block and slit his own throat. Bright red arterial blood fanned the room. The man, seemingly unaffected, sat cross-legged on a small wooden chair, lit a cigarette and calmly smoked while blood gushed and bubbled from the meaty slice below his chin.

“Let those who suffer come to me and I will make them strong,” he said in perfect German.

“If a woman is barren,” he continued in Arabic, “she need only lie with me and her womb will quicken.”

He looked directly into the camera and smiled. Blood still welled from his severed arteries. Cigarette smoke billowed from his nose and neck.

“Whosoever believes in me,” he whispered in Hebrew, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

The video ended.

After that, rumors circulated of a man who was dead yet walked and talked and performed miracles high in the Haitian mountains. The blind could see again, the lame walked, the barren swelled. Later there were darker stories, stories of mass rape, crucifixion, mutilation, and human sacrifice.

The jungle path steepened and the vegetation thinned with elevation. Banyans gave way to palms and thick spiky bushes bristling with hidden thorns. As they crested the final ridge, the village revealed itself. Crumbling huts of mud and stick stood neglected in a small clearing ringed by a sea of fronds. In the village center, a single masonry structure, a small white tin roofed building affixed with a crucifix.

Men and women wandered the village slack jawed and aimless as though shell-shocked. Two men holding ancient-looking AK-47s stood near the entrance to the derelict church. Eyes sunken, faces angular, they were skin and bones. They looked as though they hadn’t eaten for weeks. Strange when one considered the chickens and village dogs wandering about untended.

Sister Asty, Father Mancini, and the American dropped their heavy packs onto the ground and pressed into the village. They walked slowly, carefully, towards the church. Somehow they knew the object of their quest dwelled within.

A haggard old woman with onyx skin, snow-white hair and bloodshot eyes sat cross-legged in the dirt regarding the three travelers. As they drew past her she pressed her palms to her face and dug her fingers into her eyes.

Sister Asty gasped. She reached out to stay the old woman’s hands but it was too late. The woman pulled her eyeballs out of her head and held them out to the sister.

“Take them,” the woman whispered, “I can see so much more without them.”

Father Mancini pulled Sister Asty back. Once again, the American wished she hadn’t come. Father Mancini crossed himself. He was guided by Christ. The American was guided by a simple truth; energy is power and power is money. The American had no doubt that Father Mancini had exorcized some lower-level demons in his time but the being that inhabited that white church was an entity of tremendous power. A full-fledged Class-1 demon.

The American looked at his watch. Rather than measure time, his “watch” measured the strength of nearby electromagnetic fields. The meter read 200-tesla, the highest he’d seen in over six years hunting demons.

The men with the AK-47s ignored the three travelers as they approached the church. If the entity that dwelled within had considered them a threat, the American reasoned, the gunmen would have cut them down. Instead, they stared into space as if they weren’t there at all.

The church’s interior stank of corruption. There were corpses in the pews. A shifting miasma of flies buzzed in thick swarms around the assembled parishioners. Men and women, eyeless and disemboweled, littered the floor and center aisle. The man they had seen slit his own throat in Port-Au-Prince, the
Houngan,
sat quietly smoking on a large wooden chair at the head of the church. His throat was a dark ragged hole. His eyes flashed blood red in the smoky nimbus surrounding his head.

“Father Mancini, Sister Asty,” the demon said. His English, like his German, Arabic and Hebrew, was perfect. Sister Asty was going to serve as a translator but it was clear that her skills would not be needed. Mr. Humbaba was an exceptional communicator. “And who is this? He smells like an American.”

“He is a man of God,” Father Mancini said, “His name is not important. It’s he whose name he comes in that is important.”

“Some young priest who wants to play exorcist,” the demon snorted. “How’s your faith, boy? Is it strong?”

The American remained silent.

Father Mancini wasted no time. He raised his crucifix and stepped forward. “In the name of Christ the redeemer, I revoke you!”

The demon ignored him.

“Is it true that all priests are pederasts?” the demon asked the American. “Or do you want to fuck Sister Asty? You can have her if you want her. Kneel before me and I’ll give her to you.”

“Away Satan!” Father Mancini commanded. He stepped forward again, fearless, stalwart, his voice filled the room. “Inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of mankind’s salvation, tremble and flee before the almighty hand of God!”

The demon, eyes like glowing embers, dropped his cigarette and stood. His grin was wicked and the second smile he wore beneath his chin was wickeder still. He raised his right hand and Father Mancini halted his advance. When the demon’s hand became a fist, the priest’s clothing burst into flames.

“No!” Sister Asty shouted. She ran towards the burning priest but when the demon raised his left hand she, too, stopped as still as stone. The priest, frozen in place, became a burning statue. When the flames rose over his head he tried to scream but all that escaped his rigid mouth was a high pitch squeal.

Sister Asty, frozen, motionless, eyes wide open, was forced to watch him burn to death, just out of reach. More than twenty minutes passed before the old priest fell lifeless to the floor. The American, although not frozen, never moved. His face betrayed no emotion.

The demon twisted his left hand and Sister Asty pulled her clothes off as though they burned her skin. When she was completely nude she got down on all fours, thrust her ass into the air and hissed. The American watched her squirm. He remembered what the demon told him. He could have her if he wanted her. She was young and beautiful. Her dark skin, now coated in perspiration, glistened. She reached between her knees with one hand and touched herself. Her mons was swollen and wet, her nipples erect. She moaned, hissed and meowed.

A cat in heat,
the American mused.

“Say the word exorcist, and she is yours,” the demon said, “or you can burn like your friend.”

The American stepped forward. The demon smiled. The American reached into his cargo pocket and removed a small silver flask-shaped object with a flashing red LED light on one side. The demon’s smiled faltered and the American saw what he had seen so many times before. The moment when a demon first realizes he’s not dealing with a crucifix-waving man of faith, but with a cold and calculated man of science, the moment when the demon’s mask of confidence turns into a flash of doubt.

The American raised the silver object and pressed a button with his thumb. The demon fell to his knees, his flash of doubt now a look of startled bewilderment. The red lights in his eyes guttered, darkened, then winked out entirely. Something that looked like smoke billowed from his mouth and funneled, as though drawn by a vacuum, into the flask like device in the American’s hand.

The man with the slit throat toppled over onto his side. The demon was gone and the carcass of a man over three years dead lay finally motionless on the floor. The American looked at the device in his hand, the LED had changed from red to green and a number flashed on a small screen, 1.8 Gigawatts, enough to power a small city. A demon as virulent as the one he’d just harvested would probably produce at that capacity for close to twenty-five years.

“Who are you?” The voice startled him. The American looked over his shoulder. Sister Asty looked up at him from the floor, arms drawn tight across her breasts. “You’re not from the church.” It wasn’t a question.

“EnergyCorp International,” the American said flatly, “Tomorrow’s solutions to today’s energy needs.”

He placed the device back in his cargo pocket and removed a small pearl handled revolver from another. Again, he wished she hadn’t come. He placed the barrel behind sister Asty’s ear and pulled the trigger.

It was a shame, but there could be no witnesses. Nuclear power was controversial enough. Demon power would put people in a tizzy. Another shame. It was clean and abundant, the ultimate green energy source. The only byproduct? Bad dreams. In the American’s opinion, the EnergyCorp physicist who developed the system deserved a Nobel Prize.

But people simply weren’t ready for the truth.

WHAT'S LEFT BEHIND

C. Bryan Brown

C. Bryan Brown was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.
No one's sure where all the really dark thoughts come from, but he chalks it up to a steady diet of horror, suspense, and action by legends such as F. Paul Wilson, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Lawrence Sanders coupled with watching Disney's
Beauty and the Beast
at least once a week.

The sun, forever silhouette
d
behind an atomic-damaged purple atmosphere, flared and highlighted the wreckage of the city's outer limits in pink and orange. The colors lasted only a few seconds, but in that time they chased away shadows and faded the burn marks marring the old buildings.

Jake Murdock stood on a century-old roof and watched the sky, absently thumbing open the cap of an ancient, brushed chrome Zippo lighter. He flipped it over, like he often did, and read the inscription:
With Love
. He set the butt of his rifle down on the roof's thinned tarmac, and leaned on the weapon.

"Must you?" asked Calvin, rubbing his beard.

"Yeah. I must."

Grief, his long, dark hair tied back out of his face, sniggered. Jake gave him the finger.

"You guys really need a new routine," Jessica said.

"That ain't no lie," agreed George.

Jake turned his attention to the alley they'd rigged with explosives. His fingers kept busy with the lighter as he ran over the reports again: vagabonds had spotted multiple, non-human, two-legged creatures near the Ag Plots and photographed them stealing small animals such as pigs, cats, and goats from their pens. When the reports stopped, an investigation found nothing but blood stains in the vagabond's makeshift huts. Two days after, one of the creatures attacked the Ag workers and dragged one away. The following morning, the military sent two soldiers with the workers and no one returned. This morning, they'd set up rotating watches guarding the two routes into the city's outer perimeter.

The attack started with thunder in the guise of hundreds of clawed feet. Their howls shattered windows as far up as the fifth floor and the falling glass shards whistled as they sliced the air. Mortar dust, shaken loose by the stampede, floated in the shafts of colored light like snowflakes.

George picked the transmitter up off the rail and his thumb tensed over the SEND button.

"Wait for them," Calvin ordered. "You blow it early and the mission is screwed."

George looked over his shoulder at Calvin and frowned.

"Pay attention, cuntnugget, or you'll blow it too late."

George whipped his gaze back to the alley and settled against the railing. He cracked his knuckles and watched the horde surge past the midway point.

"Get ready," Calvin said.

Jessica and Grief each took a position on either side of George. Laying their elbows on the rail, they sighted down into the oncoming mass of fur and claws.

"Waiting on a personal invitation, Jake?"

"Nope," Jake said and laid the lighter, inscription side up so he could read the words at a glance, next to George's elbow.

Calvin positioned himself next to Jessica. "Steady."

The seconds roared by, scaling louder, matching the pandemonium below and when the first creature crossed the plane of the alley's mouth, Calvin gave the order. George pressed the transmitter's button and six pounds of C4 detonated. The alley disintegrated into a shower of pluming brick dust. The roof rumbled as a wave of heat and debris assaulted the lower floors of their building.

Jake gripped the rail, which shifted and cracked, as the roof bucked and threatened to pitch him off into the street far below. He let go as the rail crumbled, his free hand snatching for his lighter. Jake watched it tumble into the red mist, flipping ass over teakettle next to George.

"George!" Jessica screamed as he fell.

"We've got to get down," Calvin bellowed, "before it all falls."

Jessica slung her gun and took point, skipping down the stairs two at a time, gripping the banister and pulling herself faster. Jake descended behind her, weapon ready, caution slowing him.

"Jessica," Jake yelled. "Slow down. I'm losing you!"

He made the second floor landing and Jessica was out of sight. Crimson dust curled around his ankles like miniature tornadoes and the stairs blurred into a pinkish smear. Jake missed the last step, and stumbled into the wall a few feet from the exit door. Jake listened; Calvin and Grief were still several floors up.

Wait or go
?

A howl decided him and Jake pushed off the wall. Bracing the gun against his shoulder, he kicked the door open. The sudden motion let in a maelstrom of microscopic brick pieces that scratched the inside of his nostrils and burned his eyes. Cursing, he blinked away tears and moved into the ground cloud that was the explosion's aftermath.

The alley was only a dozen yards or so straight ahead. He'd been above the door, George off to his right, and that's the way he went.

The murk stole the light and bent it around the floating particles, cutting Jake's visibility to only a foot or so. That was fine with him: this part of town looked like shit.

"Jessica! Sound off!"

Brick scraped and tumbled straight ahead and he stopped. "Jessica?"

Silence greeted him like a bill collector. His stomach twisted and spasmed, tried to climb into his throat. Jake clenched his teeth, relaxed his grip on the rifle's trigger, and toed forward, the brick dust clinging to his skin like a layer of soap scum. The rifle's barrel cut through the cloud, parting it much the same as Moses did the Red Sea. More scraping, reminiscent of fingers on a chalkboard, drew him on.

"Jessica?" he hissed. "Is that you?"

She didn't answer and Jake's pace increased. There'd been no more howls since that first, but
they
were here, skulking in the darkness, and the further he walked, the more disadvantages he listed: they could probably see better than him and, based on the size of their snouts, he was confident they smelled almost everything.

It doesn't matter
.
Do your job
.
Come on, Jessica. Where are
—

Jake's foot caught on something soft and, as he fell, his rifle fell and bounced out of sight. Jake landed on George, whose head, malformed and flat, lay in a pool of blood. Jake rolled away and pushed up to his hands and knees. He searched the ground for his gun and found his lighter next to George's left arm. Jake whimpered as he picked it up and wiped it clean.

"Jake? Is that you?"

"Jessica?"

He stared at a pile of rubble a few feet away.

"It's me," she whispered, crawling out. Jessica rested a hand on George's chest and stared at him for a long moment. She straightened George's shirt and brushed his hair back from his forehead.

"Jake? Jessica?" Calvin called.

"Over here," Jake answered.

Calvin and Grief materialized out of the gloom, grime clinging to their sweat-stained faces, as though they'd been targets in a mud-flinging contest.

Calvin tossed two backpacks on the ground. "You both left your packs on the roof. Next time, I'm leaving them and docking your pay."

"We have to go," Jessica said. "Some of them survived. I've heard them, mewling and whining, like wounded animals. When Jake started calling my name, they all shut up."

"We heard the howl when we were coming down the stairs," Grief said. "And something ran away when we came through the door."

"The dust is starting to clear and we need to get back to the city and report in. Jessica, you're on point. You two carry George's body. The wall is only a few blocks north."

Jake stuffed the Zippo in his pocket and grabbed George by the ankles. With Grief under George's pits, they lifted their friend. A clipped bark and an answering chorus of howls broke Jake's flesh out in bumps. Another, more vicious bark came a few seconds later, then another, each from a different direction.

"Hells," Jake said. "Are they talking to each other?"

"They're animals," barked Calvin. "They can't talk to each other."

Jessica squeaked, her voice punctuated by fear, and Grief dropped George. Jessica slid passed Jake on her back and he twisted around.

Jake had only seen them in the pictures, and those had all been taken from a distance, reminding him of old Bigfoot pictures in the Britannica: blurry and indistinct, hard to make out specific features other than arms and legs.

But this thing was real, and it towered over him by at least two feet. Matted, rust colored fur covered its body except the paws and the area around its eyes. The canine snout protruded further than any dog's he'd ever seen in pictures and its long, muscled arms ended in leathery, human-like hands. Quarter inch talons tipped lanky fingers. The legs, thick stalks of fur, permanently bent at the knee, tensed and its toe-claws scraped furrows in the concrete.

"Holy shit," Grief muttered.

One of the creature's pointy ears twitched toward Grief. It growled low, a sound that bubbled into the air, and Jake's muscles shivered in response. The creature snapped its jaws once. Jake dropped George's feet and grabbed for his pistol. The creature moved far faster, and bashed a paw into Jake's chest.

Jake fell aside, gasping, and clutching his chest. Rifle shots boomed and dirt spattered his face as booted feet stumbled away. The creature howled, long and angry, before its voice faded away.

Rough hands grabbed the back of Jake's clothes and lifted him up, spun him around. "It took George's body!" Grief screamed in his face. Jake shoved him away. Calvin bled from a gash on his temple. Ignoring them, Jake helped Jessica to her feet. He touched her shoulder, back, and neck, examining each part.

"I'm fine, Jake. It just threw me," she said.

"Let's go," Calvin said, "before it comes back."

"We need to go after George," Jessica said.

"We need to get back and warn people," Calvin said. "Who knows how many of these things are still alive."

"I want his body," she said.

"I don't care. We're going—"

Calvin's voice gargled off into a scream as one of the creatures rose up behind him and bit into his shoulder. Jessica raised her rifle and pulled the trigger. The creature fell away, most of its head missing, and Calvin dropped to his knees. Jake cursed and hurried to Calvin's side. He gripped Calvin under the arms, holding him up.

"I'm dying," Calvin said.

"You're not dying," Jake told him.

"No, I really am."

"You're not. I promise." Jake held up his Zippo and showed it to Calvin. He slid it into Calvin's breast pocket. "I'm going to want that back. Grief?"

Grief stood rooted, staring at Jake. His mouth opened and closed in silent words. His pupils enlarged until the whites vanished and a thin stream ran down his chin. Grief's jaw opened wider, as if he wanted to speak louder, and through Grief's open mouth, Jake saw the retreating maw that had torn out the back of Grief's throat. Grief crumpled and revealed a dozen hairy bodies hugging the ground, creeping through the mist.

"Jessica!" Jake screamed. "Run!"

Jake hauled Calvin up over his shoulder. Jake's shirt absorbed Calvin's blood like a sponge and stuck to his back. His stomach heaved at the tackiness, but he ran. Howling chased him across the ruined pavement and the air filled with the heavy panting of pursuit. The mist thinned with every step and before they'd gone a hundred yards, they emerged into clear air.

"To the right," Jake panted, indicating the mouth of another alley.

"Go," Jessica said and pressed her body against the corner of the alley.

Trash covered the alley and Jake kicked aside boxes, empty cans, and the bones of small animals. Sludge caked the ground and Jake slid as much as he ran. Gunfire echoed off the walls and he found an open doorway. Jake stumbled over the threshold and went down, dumping an unconscious Calvin to the floor. Jake turned his head away and vomited into a corner.

Jessica followed seconds later and slammed the door. One of the creatures rammed the door, jarring her loose; she lunged forward and grabbed the twisting handle, yanking the door shut again.

"I need your belt!"

"What?"

"Your belt," Jessica repeated. "Wrap it around the handle and then the pipe here."

As he secured the door, Jake listened to their nails rasp against the door and their harsh, guttural utterings. Their smell, mildew and mud, seeped through the door. He stepped away, gripping the butt of his pistol, and waited as the creatures tested the door. The leather creaked under the strain but it held.

Safe for the moment, Jake ripped off a piece of Calvin's shirt and folded it into a square. The bleeding had slowed considerably; it looked as if the creature had only bitten and not ripped. If he could get the bleeding to stop, Calvin would probably live to see tomorrow. He pressed the shirt against Calvin's wound.