Rushed (9 page)

Taylor scratched the gray stubble on his chin.  “Well…  That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“There’s a problem?”

“There is.”

“Of course there is.”

“You see, you’re supposed to follow
that
guy.”

Eric turned in time to see the bald man making another trip into the largest of the seven buildings.

“But I’m not supposed to trust them.” 

“I know.  But he’s standing between you and the path to the cathedral.” 

Eric’s heart sank.  “So this…
him
…whatever he is…set another trap for me.  Except this time I can’t avoid it.”

“Looks that way.”

“Another wardrobe monster?”

“Wardrobe monster?” 

“The thing back in the farmhouse…”  He shook his head.  “Forget it.”

Taylor shrugged.  “I don’t know what you saw back at the farmhouse and I don’t know what you’re going to find in here.  But I’m sure it’s going to be nasty.”

“Great.” 

“If one of these things starts after you, it’ll keep coming until it catches you or loses its focus.  If you can find a way to distract it, it’ll forget about you and go back to sleep.”

Eric nodded.  He recalled Grant telling him that the wardrobe monster wouldn’t harm him as long as he didn’t go back in to stir it back up.

“It’ll have to be something big, though.  You won’t be able to just throw a stick.  It’s got to be something it won’t see coming.  Something sufficient to tear its attention away from you utterly and completely.”

“Like a tractor coming through the front door?”

Taylor laughed heartily at this.  His voice carried over the open fields around them and startled one of the curious, coyote-deer creatures into retreating a few steps toward the safety of the cornfield.  “Oh damn…” he gasped, nodding.  “Good old Grant.  Yep.  That’d definitely do it.”

Eric recalled how close that stunt had been for him.  If Grant’s timing had been just a little off, things could have turned very bad for him.  At the time he hadn’t known why he would take such a risk, but now he understood.  Anything less than that and the thing would’ve simply kept coming.  It would’ve chased him down and killed him. 

Now he stared at the main building, wondering if he might not be running dangerously low on luck.  He didn’t like the idea of going in there.  He had no clue what might be waiting for him.  And he didn’t have a tractor. 

Looking back the other way, he saw that all three of the creatures were still watching them.  One was lying down, its oversized head resting on the ground in front of it, its big eyes staring back at him. 

“I’m not going to have any help for this one, am I?”

Taylor was wiping at his eyes.  The smile quickly faded from his kind face.  “I’m afraid not.”

“Do you at least know what I’m looking for?  Where I’m supposed to go?”

“The stairs at the back of the kitchen shouldn’t be there.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They shouldn’t lead anywhere.  But they do.”

“Oh.  I get it.  Thanks.” 

“Sure thing.  And as for what
he
left for you…  Just trust in yourself.  You’ll find a way.  Use the advantages you have.”

“I don’t have any advantages.”

“That’s not true.”

“Not unless blind ignorance and dumb luck count for anything.”

“They
do
, actually.  But you have more than that.  For starters, you have the
dream
.”

“The dream,” Eric repeated.  He recalled Grant telling him that the dream would help guide him.  It would show him things that were different between now and when he should have come.  But he already knew something was different.  The difference was precisely what concerned him.

“Trust in yourself,” Taylor said again. 

“I’ll try.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” 

Eric glanced back one more time at the creatures that were watching him and saw that they now numbered four.  Another had joined the first three while he was looking the other way. 

He was willing to take Taylor’s word that they weren’t dangerous, but he still didn’t care for the idea of them gathering in large numbers. 

He walked across the courtyard toward the main building.  It was still difficult to imagine people running around here naked. 

As he climbed the steps, he looked back one last time at Taylor, who smiled broadly back at him and waved. 

Eric waved back, then turned and walked inside. 

A large, open room that probably served as a cafeteria and a meeting room as well as a dozen other purposes waited just inside the front door of the main building.  A very large fireplace stood in the center of the wall opposite him.  Six aged ceiling fans hung from the high ceiling.  Eric tried to imagine people in this room, eating, dancing, playing games, all of them stark naked.  It seemed strange to him, utterly alien, in fact, but he was sure a great many people would also find his fascination with Shakespeare equally boggling.  To each his own, he supposed. 

Off to the right was an open door leading into a small room, likely a management office.  Next to that was a storage room.  Farther down along that wall were restrooms.  He could see the gender signs on the door, which struck him as a little bit funny in a nudist resort.  What was the purpose in segregating public bathrooms if those using it were unconcerned with privacy? 

Maybe it was because no self-respecting female would care to share a restroom with the gender responsible for the kinds of abominations Eric had discovered in far too many public restrooms to count. 

His eyes drifted to the far left, where a hallway waited.

He was already familiar with the building.  He was here in his dream.  He explored all these rooms.  He could describe them if he wanted to, without even entering them, though there wasn’t much to describe.  The building was mostly empty. 

The kitchen was off the hallway.  The stairs Taylor described to him were behind a door on the far side of the right-hand wall, in the corner beside the refrigerator.  Except that there would be no refrigerator.  The appliances had been removed long ago. 

The stairs led down.  But this building had no basement. 

He had no recollection of whatever monstrous thing the foggy man left for him, of course.  According to Grant, the dream only showed him what he would have seen if he’d come here immediately after waking from it the very first night.  At that time, the foggy man hadn’t been here yet.  But last night, something in this building changed.  Something was here now that wasn’t here before.  And it wasn’t going to be gentle about revealing itself. 

It was going to scare the living hell out of him. 

Ignoring the rooms on the right, he turned left and walked to the hallway.  Then he stood in the kitchen door, staring in.  Ugly tile floors.  Bland countertops.  Stained ceiling tiles.  Spider webs and dust.  He could see the faded shadows on the walls where the refrigerator and stove once stood.  Directly across from him was the back door with a grimy window that let in the sunshine. 

He focused on the dream, tried to remember every detail he could, but he couldn’t find anything that was changed.  Everything seemed utterly untouched. 

Cautiously, he stepped forward, his eyes watching the cabinet doors for any sign of movement, ready to bolt at the first sound of a creaking hinge. 

But nothing attacked him. 

Just to the right of the back door, directly between the corner and the refrigerator’s lingering shadow on the wall, stood the door to the mystery stairs.  He walked to this door and then looked back into the kitchen again, holding his breath with anticipation. 

Still nothing jumped out at him. 

He turned and opened the door. 

Nothing awful waited behind it.  There was only a narrow hallway leading to a dark set of stairs. 

Again, he looked back at the kitchen, half-expecting something to be rushing toward him now, but still there was nothing. 

He dared to hope that perhaps the foggy man had left the trap on the other side of the building and that he wouldn’t have to deal with another wardrobe monster. 

Then he glanced at the back door and saw a terrible face staring in at him. 

Chapter Ten

Eric wasn’t entirely sure whether the door exploded before or after he ran screaming down the hallway.  He also couldn’t recall which obscenities actually made it out of his mouth and which ones became knotted together into incoherent nonsense as he rushed precariously down the dark and narrow stairs.

He did not dare look back, but he could clearly hear the thing tearing after him and uttering horrible, unearthly noises that filled him with indescribable terror. 

He did not notice when the concrete walls changed, but by the time he reached the bottom of the stairs he was no longer inside the resort’s main building.  He was now running along a narrow concrete path between a tall stone structure and a dense hedge. 

Off the stairs now and at a full run, he finally risked a look over his shoulder.  The thing was nine feet tall, pale green with sickly black blotches.  Huge, grotesque legs, like deformed tree trunks, pounded the concrete almost at his heels.  He saw massive arms reaching out for him, terrible claws slashing the air like the blades of some hellish machine.  And that awful face…  Oozing, bloody eyes, pulsing gashes for a nose, countless gnarled and jagged teeth gnashing together.  But it was worse than all of that.  He couldn’t quite grasp the entirety of everything he saw before he could no longer bear to look at it.  Despite having a face, he didn’t think it had a head.  And though it had arms and legs, it lacked a discernable torso.  It also had many other appendages, most of which he could not seem to even comprehend. 

Eric ran.  He reached the end of the stone wall and turned the corner.  He found himself in some kind of overgrown garden.  He dodged an ivy-covered statue and an ornate bird bath, ducked under a low limb and barely avoided falling into a weed-choked fish pond before launching himself over a stone bench and darting behind a small, brick structure. 

Behind him, he heard a series of crashes punctuated by his pursuer’s terrifying yowls.

Already, he was gasping for breath, his body aching.  He couldn’t go on like this much longer.  He had to find a way to break the monster’s focus.  But how the hell was he supposed to do that?  He could barely think clearly enough through his terror to keep running. 

A set of steps ascended a small hill.  At the top he would find a patio with enormous, fifty-gallon planter pots overflowing with gnarled weeds.  He remembered these pots perfectly.  They were in his dream.  They were clay, with ornate designs.  They looked very expensive. 

Rushing up the steps, he realized that he had a marginal advantage here.  He did not recall being attacked by a monster in his dream, so he must have had time to explore.  That meant that he was already at least minimally familiar with this place. 

The patio was located against one wall of the enormous structure that had somehow replaced the main building of the abandoned resort.  Though he still didn’t know what this place was, he suddenly recalled that there were signs of construction.  It was obvious that no one had been here in a very long time, but the last time anyone was here, all of this was either still being built or undergoing repairs because just off the patio stood an aging set of scaffolding. 

He had barely passed the first pair of giant planters when he heard the distinct sound of one of them shattering.

Uttering another stuttering barrage of curses, Eric forced himself somehow to run even faster, rounding the ledge and racing along the narrow, paved path that ran alongside the building and past the scaffolding. 

Quickly, calculating his movements, he leapt onto the side of the scaffolding and began to scramble upward, desperately hoping the whole thing wouldn’t collapse or tip beneath his weight. 

He dared a quick look down in time to get his foot out of the way of a slashing claw and scurried upward with renewed energy, spouting a frenzied string of words that he was pretty sure were not words at all but merely half-assembled grunts and terrified blubbering. 

Something crashed against the bottom of the shaky structure.  He heard the clanking of metal rods striking the pavement and felt the platforms lurch beneath his feet, tilting perilously to one side, threatening to spill him into the reaching arms of the monster below. 

He forced himself not to look. 

Slipping between the support rods and onto the highest platform, he immediately began to crawl on his hands and knees back toward the far end of the structure as it wobbled beneath him, praying it would continue to support his weight. 

Another crash.  Another reverberating clang of metal against stone.  Another sideways lurch. 

His heart thundered in his ears.  He swore loudly, his voice cracked and shrill.  If he survived this, hopefully he’d recall this moment in a manlier light, but right now, he just couldn’t make himself care about that sort of thing. 

Rising to his feet, he surveyed his surroundings.  He saw that he was standing just under the guttering, within reach of the roof.  He also saw that the beast was climbing over the far side of the scaffolding. 

Something beneath him finally gave way.  The scaffolding jerked, tilted.  A thunderous clattering rose up.  The wooden platform snapped.  The monster dropped with a shriek.  Eric felt it move beneath his feet. 

The very next instant he was clinging to the edge of the roof, his shoes scraping the brick surface of the wall, trying to find a footing as the entire structure beneath him collapsed into a pile of metal and wood with a clamor that might have carried for miles. 

He could almost imagine hundreds of those coyote-deer things lifting their oversized heads and looking this way. 

Desperately, he clawed his way upward, trying to pull himself to safety. 

He glanced down to see what kind of mess waited beneath him, hoping there wouldn’t be a half-dozen steel bars jutting upward at him, waiting eagerly to run him through.  What he saw was the monster rising from the wreckage, its horrible face glaring up at him. 

“Oh come on!”

Freshly fueled by the panic of realizing that he had failed to break the beast’s focus and therefore remained in imminent mortal danger, Eric somehow managed to hook his leg over the edge and pull himself onto the roof. 

Gasping for breath, he dragged himself away from the ledge as huge, yellow claws sank into the shingles and that grotesque face peered over the gutter at him.  Its bloody eyes were filled with rage. 

“Just go away already!” 

He scrambled to his feet and ran up the slope of the roof to the peak, scanning these new surroundings.  None of the rooftop looked remotely familiar.  Apparently, if he’d come the first night, he would not have found any reason to climb up here and enjoy the view.  He would have simply wandered through the grounds around this building, strolling leisurely. 

This must be karmic payback for all those times he crabbed at his students for procrastinating on their papers. 

Looking back, he saw that the monster had already climbed onto the roof and was now moving toward him, its teeth gnashing horribly.  He still couldn’t quite make out how the thing fit together.  Its huge arms hung at its sides, its claws almost dragging at its feet.  Those other limbs seemed to slither strangely around it.  They weren’t quite tentacles, but they weren’t quite arms, either.  He couldn’t seem to comprehend them.  Its green and black skin reminded him of tree bark, as if the thing were nothing more than a particularly ugly old tree come to life. 

There was nowhere to go.  He was now stranded on the rooftop with no way down.  He might as well have locked himself in a room with the thing. 

Out of ideas, Eric simply ran.  He made his way across the rooftop, toward the far side of the building, where the taller portion of the structure met the two shorter wings, hoping desperately that he would find a window he could escape into or a ledge from which he could climb safely down. 

The monstrosity followed him, snatching at him with its claws.  Its strange, unearthly cries filled the air at his back, drowning out all other sounds, even the thunderous pounding of his heart. 

Something caught his foot and he fell.  Kicking and thrashing, he tore free of his shoe and rolled down the slope of the roof.  The rough surface of the shingles ground against his exposed skin, but he barely noticed the pain.  His only conscious thought was that he had to keep moving.  He had to put distance between himself and this monster. 

Coming to a stop, Eric tried to lift himself onto his hands and knees, but the thing was already upon him again, its terrible cries right on top of him. 

He threw himself out of the way. 

It seized his arm. 

He kicked at it, yanked his arm free and rolled again. 

The shingles bit his elbows, his forehead, his nose.  They burned his belly and back where his tee shirt rode up. 

His left hand slipped over the edge of the roof and he found himself looking down at a four-story drop.  Hard concrete waited patiently to break his bones. 

Built on a slope, the building was much taller on this side than it was on the side he’d climbed.  There was no way down and nowhere he could go that this thing couldn’t follow him. 

Out of places to run, he rolled onto his back and looked up as the monster leapt atop him, its huge foot crushing down on his thigh.  He cried out, his voice tinged with sharp pain and numbing terror.

The world around him swirled into a chaotic blur. 

This seemed to be it.  He was out of places to run.  He was going to die. 

A huge mass of yellow claws passed over him.  His ears were filled with the howling and yowling and shrieking of the beast.  A hot flash of pain painted itself across his face, his shoulder, another across his leg. 

He felt himself sliding closer to the ledge.  He clutched for something to hold onto, but his arm flailed uselessly at the air high above the ground.  His shoulder inched out over the drop.

If the creature didn’t tear him apart, he would fall to his death. 

The creature’s weight shifted.  Its foot rolled across his thigh, threatening to break his leg.

Claws dug into the shingles beside his head.  The gutter tore away beneath his shoulder with a great screech of shredding metal. 

Teeth snapped before his face and he jerked his head away, closed his eyes, braced himself for the agony to come. 

Then the creature’s foot was no longer on his thigh.  Its unearthly yowling suddenly and rapidly receded. 

A heavy thump, a clanking of aluminum as the gutter followed the beast down. 

Eric lay there, gasping with fear. 

He could hardly believe it.  In all the commotion, the monster’s foot had slipped over the edge. 

It fell. 

And by some miracle, he didn’t. 

Carefully, he pulled himself away from the edge of the roof and then rolled onto his stomach.  He was trembling badly.  He did not dare try to stand for fear that he might yet manage to fall to his doom.

Seconds passed.  Then minutes.  Everything remained quiet. 

The monster was silent. 

Finally, he crept back to the edge and peered over. 

He could see the shredded guttering lying on the pavement, precisely where it had landed, but the monster was gone. 

Apparently, a four-story fall was as effective at breaking a monster’s focus as a charging tractor. 

Yet he hesitated to believe that he was really so lucky.  It couldn’t actually be over.  That he should survive by nothing more than a simple misstep on the part of the monster was utterly absurd.  Surely the thing must simply be circling around, looking for another way up here.

He stood up, retrieved his lost shoe and made his way back up to the peak of the roof, where he sat down.  He was still trembling, his heart still thumping.  He couldn’t seem to quite catch his breath.  He didn’t feel like he’d ever be normal again. 

He looked down at his leg and found that his khakis were torn.  There was a long cut visible through the rip.  He was bleeding, but not profusely. 

His shoulder, he found, was worse.  Blood trickled down his arm, soaking the sleeve of his tee shirt and dripping from his hand.  And his face was bleeding, too.  A shallow, but freely flowing cut ran from beneath his left eye to just under his left ear. 

How he managed to not get his entire face peeled off was beyond him. 

He’d received other, smaller injuries as well, including a gash in his ankle, which he received when he lost his shoe, and two bloodied elbows from rolling around on the rough shingles.  He had friction burns all over his stomach and lower back.  His face was scraped up, his nose and forehead raw. 

There was a first aid kit in the glove box of the PT Cruiser, he recalled.  As if that would do him any good. 

He pulled his cell phone out, confirmed that he still had no signal and then pocketed it again. 

He was on his own up here. 

The cuts on his shoulder were the ones he needed to worry about.  He rolled up his sleeve so that the fabric covered the entire injury and then pressed his hand against it and stood up. 

The first thing to do was find a way down from here.  He couldn’t go back the way he came, obviously, but perhaps there was another way down.  Preferably one that didn’t involve breaking both his legs.