Come Into Darkness (17 page)

“Find it. Quick,” said Kerry, her voice low. “I…I keep hearing noises…”

Mario padded the floor, coating his hands with more slime. He leaned forwards and bumped his forehead on the edge of the hole. Cursing, he bowed his head and dipped inside, exploring the floor deeper in the hole. His fingers brushed an object.

“Found it,” he said. He wiped the slippery lighter on his shirt and held it up, thumb ready to strike.

Mario hesitated.

“What are you waiting for?” said Kerry. “I thought you said you found it!”

“I have,” said Mario. He imagined something crawling down the tunnel towards him, one of the giant slugs, mouth filled with teeth, squirming closer…and closer…

“Mario!”

He flinched, and the flame jumped from the lighter.

The tunnel stretched away into darkness. Empty.

“Thank Christ,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

Mario stood. “Nothing. Let’s keep going.”

Heart still racing, he took Kerry’s hand and proceeded along the wall. The golden glow revealed more of the strange, oval holes. Mario counted five in all. He quickly moved past, almost dragging Kerry along behind him. They reached a corner, and he put out the lighter, allowing it to cool.

“One wall down,” he whispered. “Hope we find another door. Don’t want to go back into that duct. They must be onto us by now.”

“Rather stay down here than in another of their games,” said Kerry.

“Our future. They have one more game for us. Unless…you don’t think…”

“That this is the game?” said Kerry. “Find your way out of the darkness, some metaphoric shit like that?”

“They seem to have a taste for it. Let’s move on.”

Along the second wall, the mucus thickened underfoot. Whatever had caused it had given this side of the room special attention.

“Careful. I don’t know what this stuff is, but there’s more over here.”

Mario froze at the sound of a voice.

The duct?

They’re here.

They’ve found us.

Kerry’s hand returned to his upper arm, gripping him hard.

Mario hushed her.

The voices continued, and Mario strained to make out the words. They sounded from the opposite side of the room, perhaps on the other side of the wall. In the darkness, Mario struggled to be sure. Kerry’s sudden, rapid breathing almost drowned out the phantom voices.

“Keep calm,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and fighting to follow his own advice. “Keep calm and still. They might not have found us yet.”

Another sound: a heavy scrape like a manhole cover sliding open.

Mario’s breath caught in his throat. The noise sounded close. He opened his eyes and gasped.

A few metres away, a circular cavity, about the size of a tennis ball, had opened at hip level. Bright light from the other side entered the murky room in a narrow beam, casting a hazy patch on the opposite wall.

Mario licked his parched lips. The opening of this round hatch brought welcomed light, but also people. The voices approached, an excited chatter. He walked towards the light.

“What are you doing?” hissed Kerry.

“I have to see,” said Mario. “If they’re coming to get us, I doubt they’d be so loud. This might help get us out.”

A second hole slid open beside the first. The hatch rolled aside, forming a crescent moon of brightness that swelled to a full circle. The two beams looked like headlights.

Mario crept closer and at the first hole, he crouched, bringing it to eye level.

The white room on the other side appeared tiny, the opposite wall only metres away. Mario changed his position, trying to see more.

“Mario!” whispered Kerry. “Come back.”

He glanced away. Kerry remained in shadow.

“Mario,” said the disembodied voice once more.

“What?”

Sounding like she pushed out each word, she said: “There’s-something-in-this-room!”

Mario turned, almost slipping on the floor. He pressed a hand against the wall. Rigid, he listened. Kerry’s breathing in the dark proved to be the only sound inside the room. Ignoring her, he looked back through the hole. The voices sounded very close.

But where are they?

“Mario?”

“Be quiet,” he snapped, and softer, “someone’s coming.”

“..and if you’ll just step into your respective booths, I’ll see you out here when you’re both done.”

Mario frowned. The words sounded familiar.

Through the hole, the opposite wall swung open, and Mario realised he’d been staring at the back of a white door. He ducked away from the cavity, allowing the shadows to conceal him.

A man had entered the booth, although from this low angle, Mario couldn’t see his face. The man slid off his black dinner jacket and let it fall to the floor. Watching him in his white shirt and black tie, Mario thought of James Bond, but what would 007 be doing in a nightmare like this? Wannabe Bond unfastened his belt, slid down his zipper and dropped his trousers, revealing dark blue boxer shorts.

Mario watched on.

The beam shining out of the hole blinked out as the man blocked the light. He laughed, deep and hearty.

“My favourite part,” he said.

Realising what was about to happen, Mario scuttled back, nearly slipping in the slime.

The other beam silently slimmed and vanished, leaving Mario and Kerry in total darkness.

“There’s something in here with us!” Kerry insisted.

“It’s these people you can hear.”

He paused, listening. No metallic squeal had come from the grate covering the ventilation duct. Confident it hadn’t been opened, Mario crept over to Kerry, using her ragged gasps as a guide. He reached out and brushed her.

She yelped and shrank back.

“It’s me,” he hissed, drawing closer. “Listen. You know where we are, don’t you?”

“N-No,” she said. Her body shook.

“I think this is the pleasure room, or at least one of them.” He swallowed. “Which means someone has to come in here and do the…pleasuring. You remember, don’t you?”

Silence.

“Don’t you?” he said again.

“Y-Yes.” She tensed and grabbed his hand. “There it was again!”

Mario reached up between them with the lighter. He lit a flame.

Kerry’s tear-streaked and startled face came into view. She leaned in close, lips brushing his ear.

“Can’t…you…hear it?” she whispered.

Mario opened his mouth to reply.

In the dark, something made a sound like licking lips.

Mario’s fingers tightened around Kerry’s hand, his muscles pumped rigid.

“I heard it,” he whispered.

Behind them, the unseen guest moved across the room. It made a wet, smacking sound on the sticky floor.

“What is it?” said Kerry.

Mario held the lighter out. The feeble light failed to reveal the intruder. He flicked out the flame and stepped away from Kerry.

She pulled him back. “Wait!”

Mario stopped.

“Don’t…leave me. Not in here,” said Kerry.

The slurping noises had progressed to the opposite wall, close to the pleasure room holes.

Move! Get your cock out the hole and let some light in. I need to see who came in here!

Mario closed his eyes, irrelevant in the dark.

The girl in the white blouse and miniskirt smiled back.

It’s happening again.

The young girl, returned from his first visit to the pleasure room, winked in his mind and lowered her hand to the top button of her blouse.

“Stop it,” Mario said. He rubbed his temple with the ball of his hand.

Keeping her eyes locked on his, the girl pouted and proceeded to pop the button open. Slowly, she moved her fingers farther down the increased triangle of pale skin and clasped the next button.

“Stop it,” he said again. “I…I know you’re not in here!”

The girl frowned before offering a playful smile.

Mario clutched Kerry’s hand tighter.

“You’re…here?” he said, more to himself. “You’re…real?”

Kerry moaned.

The slick sounds across the floor had increased. Wet noises surrounded the couple.

Another button down, the girl spread her blouse wide, revealing a modest cleavage held within a pure white bra of lace. She played with the tops of her breasts, watching Mario.

The guests, still blocking out the light, groaned and sighed. A girl gasped in delight.

“Get…out of…my…head,” said Mario, straining.

The girl remained in his mind, teasing…beckoning…

Mario opened his eyes and fumbled with the lighter.

The sounds drew closer.

“Kerry?”

She cried out. “Oh…God! Mmmm!”

It’s happening to her, too.

He flicked on the lighter and turned back to Kerry.

Her head tilted to one side, and her eyes were closed. Deep breaths billowed her nostrils. Mouth closed, she bit her lip.

Mario lowered his gaze to her chest.

She cupped her left breast, squeezing and rubbing with urgency.

“Oh,” she sighed. “Oh…fuck!”

Mario’s eyelids fluttered, and despite his fight, lowered completely.

The girl undid the final button, and Mario gasped at her flat stomach and delicate tattoo of a rose wrapped in barbed wire just above her hip. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her skirt and winked once more.

“No!” Mario roared and forced his eyes open.

The squelching sounds leaked from the darkness. It lingered below their chests like swamp water.

For a moment, Kerry became the dream girl, writhing and tempting. The urge pulled Mario with a gravity of lust.

Take her.

Take her now.

His erection throbbed, helped by sudden, pliant fingers that circled and pushed against his growing bulge. Already the pleasure was building.

“Yes,” Kerry screamed. “Oh God, yes!”

Face imposed over Kerry, the girl smiled in the golden, flickering light. She opened her mouth and ran her tongue across her pink lips.

Somehow Mario knew they tasted sweet, like the most succulent strawberry that had ever graced his palette. He longed to sample her delights. He craved it…

The fingers, cloaked by shadow, rubbed him in eagerness, responding to his every movement, every thought.

Mario lowered the lighter, and the flame illuminated his chest, his waist.

She’s here. She’s really here. I can feel her.

This can’t be an illusion.

Lower. The flame revealed something black, prodding Mario like a striking snake.

Kerry came, screaming in pleasure.

Mario screamed in terror.

The thing lurking by his knees pulsated and shifted position. The reflection of the flame licked across its shiny black hide. Mario jumped back, and its long, thin appendage poking from its top waved in the air after him.

“Fuck,” cried Mario, flopping back and landing on his rear with a thump. He held the lighter out like a talisman, hoping the thing of darkness feared the light.

The creature bobbed around on a small foot that looked more like a hand, fingers spread and pressed into the floor. Its body, round and bloated, quivered and fell still. Mario imagined it full of blood and pus and mucus. A small pinprick and it might pop, spilling filth across the floor. At the base of the probing limb, a yellow eye rolled in its socket. The light from the flame had reduced the pupil to a tiny, black dot.

Mario retched, still feeling the thing’s touch on his groin. The thought of standing so close to it, let alone the horror of coming into contact, sent chilly waves across his skin.

The girl had slipped from his thoughts as easily as she’d slipped from her blouse.

“Christ yes!” moaned Kerry.

Shaking, Mario slid his legs beneath him and rolled onto his knees. The thing’s probing length, which Mario realised was its snout, swept the air before it. Mario dared not take his eyes from it.

“K-Kerry?” he said.

She ignored him, lost in bliss.

The wet noises continued in the dark room. Mario thought with mounting fright that several of the creatures may be in the room.

“Kerry!”

“Fuck me!” she gasped.

The lighter, hot in Mario’s hand, guttered out.

Blind and groping once more, he attempted to strike the flame back into life, but burned his thumb. He cried out. The lighter fell from his hand and clattered on the floor.

No mental illusions or subtle suggestions this time; pure adrenaline-fuelled panic held Mario and tightened around his chest like a leather belt. With a whimper, he jumped to his feet, sensing those that dwelt in the dark approach.

To his side, the two other guests continued to moan and cry out, distant in their pleasure and oblivious to the drama.

Terror drove Mario’s foot out, and it clipped the creature, his toe prodding its membranous body. It felt like a giant, moving water balloon. Disgust shuddered through him, and he whipped his foot back. Hot tears rolled from his eyes, and his bottom lip trembled.

Kerry sighed again.

Mario screamed and pounced forwards. In his momentum, he kicked out hard.

As if made from tissue paper, the creature’s skin collapsed around Mario’s shoe. Its body popped in an explosion of warm, foul liquid that coated his leg.

Arms thrashing in the air, Mario managed to stay upright. His wet trousers clung to his leg like a second reeking skin.

Choking back vomit, he felt around for Kerry, trying to ignore the sounds that slid and sucked towards him.

“Kerry!”

Using her sighs of ecstasy as a beacon, he stepped closer. Brushing her with his fingers, he quickly grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Kerry!” he cried. “We have to-"

Something moist prodded the back of his other hand.

He shrieked and drove his foot down. The creature gave way as easily as the first, and air rushed up the moment it burst. It sounded like an egg breaking.

Mario swayed and, using Kerry for support, stayed up on the lubricated floor. Balance regained, he padded Kerry around the legs and groin. They were wet, but none of the creatures caressed her.

Not yet.

His mind raced.