Come Into Darkness (18 page)

They’re coming.

The hairs on his body sprang up in readiness of the next hideous touch.

Kerry moaned, more like a sleeper than a lover. Mario shook her.

“Kerry, wake up!”

She fell, and her arms wrapped around him. Her chest pumped against his.

“Mario…?” she asked, groggy. “What…?”

He held her, every muscle in his body twitching in electric terror.

“There are…t-things in here,” he said, voice trembling. “They…they…”

Something brushed the back of his right leg, and he cried out.

“They’re everywhere,” he screamed.

“What are you…?” Kerry flinched. “Something’s touching me!”

Mario’s leg received another inquisitive stroke. He yelped and kicked back. The blow glanced, but the exploring snout fell away. Mario hoped he’d knocked the damn thing over.

Kerry held him tighter.

“I can hear them,” she squealed. “Help me!”

“I…I can’t,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. Nothing touched him, but that would change in seconds if the others found him. They sounded so close in the darkness; their stench stung his nostrils. He heard one behind Kerry, snout rubbing on her pants.

“One’s touching me,” she cried. “Get it off!”

They cowered in the dark, clutching each other and listening to the creeping, wet circle close around them. Mario held his breath, waiting.

Click!

Mario opened his eyes. It had sounded like a key in a heavy lock.

“Mario!” Kerry screamed.

He pulled her to the side and lashed out with his foot. The creature collapsed in a rancid gush of thick slime.

“Mario,” Kerry grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “A door!”

Mario turned back and sure enough, on the far side of the room, a door slowly creaked open. He squinted in the light that flooded through. It revealed the decadent corridor beyond, the crimson walls and carpet had the depth of blood.

Mario nearly screamed in relief, but then focussed on the rest of the room. Between them and the door lurked a dozen of the squat monstrosities, shuffling around in the mucus. More emerged from the oval holes. The walls and floor glistened.

He covered his mouth.

At the wall by his side sat two of the creatures, about a metre apart. Above one, an erect penis was poked through one of the openings. A snout slipped over it, granting a long, slow suck. The guy on the other side cried out. The creature swallowed his cock once more.

The second horror had stabbed its snout up inside its cavity in the wall. From the high sounds of orgasm ringing out, Mario had a good idea of what it explored.

Kerry gagged and staggered a few steps back, her hand clamped over her nose and mouth.

“Come on,” said Mario and grabbed her hand. Careful not to slip, he dragged her across the room. They zigzagged between the black, ambling pustules.

Almost to the exit, Mario stopped and whipped Kerry ahead of him. She bolted through, nearly hitting the far wall of the corridor. Mario followed and slammed the door shut behind him. Releasing a cry, he spun and pressed his body against the thick, aged oak. It contained a sturdy, metal deadbolt, which he hammered shut. After a final scream, he leaned back against the door, his chest pumping. He barely registered the nervous twitch of his limbs, and the relentless, heavy pulse in his ears. The air smelled of fresh paint and varnish, rich and delicious. He relished each precious lungful like a man trapped in quicksand.

Kerry, also leaning back and panting, stared at him from across the narrow corridor.

“What the fuck is wrong with this place?” she gasped.

Mario slid down the wall, resting in a crouch and covering his face with his hands.

“I don’t know,” he moaned. “I just don’t know.”

He looked up, meeting Kerry’s eyes. Greasy smears covered the groin of her uniform. His stomach clenched.

“We…” He swallowed. “We have to get someone. The police. Anyone.”

Kerry tilted her head back.

“And what do you think they can do?” she said. “Fuck it, maybe someone tried. Maybe they were caught or went crazy before they had the chance. Can’t you feel it?” She stared at him. “The madness?”

Hands tightened into fists, Mario pushed them against his eyes.

“It’s always there,” he said. “Like background noise.” He waved his hands around his head in a cloud. “Right here. And every room, every goddamn room we go through turns it up.”

Kerry lifted up her head. “What did you say, Mario?”

He sighed. “The rooms-"

“No,” said Kerry and stepped to the middle of the corridor. “Background noise! Listen.”

Mario held his breath. With them both silent and still, he heard a distant thump thump thump of bass and vibration ripple through the wall.

“Music…” he said. “We must be close. Somehow we got down to the ground floor.”

Kerry flashed her white teeth in a snarl. “Fucked up building worked against these bastards. Its brought us back to the beginning!”

Clambering to his feet, Mario turned left and right and back again, straining to hear the music. The light throb seemed to come from all around. He noticed the chandeliers swayed slightly.

“Which way?”

Kerry also glanced both ways along the corridor. The spark of hope appeared to have burned away her fear. She looked alert again.

“There’s only so many doors we can try,” she said. “Let’s keep moving. But if we can’t see, we don’t go in. I’m pretty fucking sick of the dark.”

They headed right. The music sounded clearer; screeching guitar riffs and booming drums emerging with the heavy bass. Mario quickened.

“Ignore the doors,” he said, running past the first one. “Follow the music.”

Each step took them closer. The chandeliers danced in time, and the carpet pulsed.

“This is it,” he said.

The corridor ended in a wide, mahogany door, its surface adorned with delicate carvings.

They smashed to pieces as the door crashed open.

Mario and Kerry stopped, reaching for each other.

Music blared out from beyond: full on thrash metal. In time with the beat, an army of Stuarts filed into the corridor in step. Each sported the same intense grin, staring eyes and coiffure blond hair.

“Shit,” said Kerry, scrambling backwards.

The goliaths progressed up the corridor in two single lines. They halted suddenly and turned inwards.

From the open door, a wizened silhouette emerged from the flashing lights, and Worth leisurely strode between the ranks. He paused and straightened his jacket.

“Sir, Madam…” He bowed. “You’ve had your fun, but now we have the little matter of your futures to deal with. The management requests your company…”

Mario also stepped back. “Run, Kerry!”

“Well?” said Worth, and glared at his ranks.

The doppelgangers exchanged glances, their expressions set like marble.

“Do I have to spell everything out?” Worth sighed. “Fetch!”

16

The men proceeded up the corridor, hands opening and closing, eager for the grab. Their mannequin grins never faltered.

Mario and Kerry fled, feet pounding the soft carpet.

We were so close!
Mario kept pace a few metres beyond Kerry; her uniform stiff and confining, slowing her down. She ran in jerky movements, arms unable to cut through the air and drive her on.

Mario glanced back. Their pursuers stalked with intense purpose, steady and unblinking. The two single lines strode with militia precision.

They passed the old oak door, which still held the black creatures on the other side, and rushed on.

“Try one of these doors,” cried Mario. “Lose them.”

Kerry stumbled, and Mario paused to snatch a handful of her jacket and pulled her on.

“Keep running,” she gasped. “No more doors.”

They pressed on, increasing the distance between them and the hunters. Still, the relentless beat of the march reverberated down the corridor. To Mario, it sounded like the rhythm of a machine, slowly chewing its way after them. No matter how far they ran, they would eventually tire, and the obstinate chase would swallow them up.

We have to choose one of the doors. Please let it be open.

Chest tight, and rivulets of sweat snaking from his armpits and brow, Mario slowed and stopped.

“Kerry…wait,” he panted.

She turned, jogging backwards.

“What’re you doing?” she said. “Keep moving!”

“This isn’t going to work,” he pleaded. “We need to lose them.”

Kerry also slackened her pace and stopped. She looked past him down the corridor.

“I can’t take much more of this,” she said. “Let the fuckers come.” Her head bowed, and her mouth dropped open, swallowing down air.

“I didn’t go through all this just to give up now,” he said. “We can pick any of these doors, and once they’ve gone past-” He gazed at the door Kerry stood beside. “No. Oh no…”

Kerry straightened up. “What now?”

“The building,” he said. His throat seemed full of prickly dry grass. He coughed. “The building is fucking with us.”

He pointed at the old wooden door. The door the creatures banged against to get free. The door they’d already ran past.

Kerry also stared at it. “Fuck no.”

“We
have
to get out of this corridor,” said Mario. “Otherwise we’ll be sent round and round in circles till Worth and his goddamn army catch us.”

The advancing lines had halved the distance.

“Left, right, left, right.” Worth’s gleeful voice echoed down the corridor. “We’ve got ‘em now, boys!”

“Quick,” said Mario, gesturing to a plain white door on the other side of the corridor. “In there.”

Kerry stood transfixed, staring in horror at the proceeding giants.

“Kerry!”

She blinked, and turned her head towards him.

“Move,” he growled.

She staggered towards the door, grasped the handle and swung it inwards.

Two large hands shot out of the darkness and grabbed her hair. She screamed, pulling back.

Mario dove forwards, arms outstretched to yank her away from the door.

Another of the hulking, suited figures appeared in the doorway for a split second, his perfect white teeth glinting in the light from the chandelier.

“Kerry, no!”

The beast lifted her into the air, and she screeched, tugging at the gorilla-sized hands. As if she weighed nothing at all, she was swept, kicking and screaming, into the darkness. The door slammed shut.

Mario thundered his fists against it, but the door refused to budge. His kicks did little but scuff the paint.

“Bastards…” he roared, driving his shoulder into the door. “Bastards!”

Exhausted, he turned and fell back, his shoulder blades thumping the wood. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the cursed building and steadily approaching pulse of many feet on carpet.

“We were so close,” he moaned.

The chase drew near, the sound of gasps and the swish of trouser legs adding to the beat. Mario sensed them, too. The air seemed to have changed, becoming more vibrant, whipping about him, as if the approaching mass had generated its own miniature tempest.

Do what you want. What’s death compared to this nightmare?

The sounds of the march snapped to a stop beside him.

“Sir?” Worth whispered in his ear. “Mr. Fulcinni. It’s time.”

A jet of hot air blasted into Mario’s face, and he raised his hands and snapped his eyes open.

Worth and his men had vanished.

Shaking, Mario glanced along the corridor, expecting the old man to be playing some kind of trick. On the right, the carpet, walls and ceiling reached to infinity once again, but on the left, the corridor ended abruptly. He had somehow reached the door with the ornate carvings, and it waited within its elaborate frame, as if it had never been smashed open. The noise of the band still played beyond.

Death is still better than this cat and mouse, funhouse shit.

The thought stabbed through him like a white-hot poker, igniting a surge of anger. He cried out, fists so tight his nails bit deep into the skin.

“Enough games,” he bellowed. “No one plays with me. You got that, Worth? No one!”

He turned left and burst forwards, landing a solid kick at the centre of the door. It swung open, releasing dancing multicoloured lights and a wall of sound. The band had reached crescendo.

“Enough,” said Mario and stepped inside, grimacing from the skull-splitting volume of the music. The darkness swallowed him, and glints of neon light swirled over his face and body like playful fairies.

The short room opened out into the main body of the hall, dimensions hidden by the bustling bodies on the dance floor. Whereas earlier, the quite subdued crowd had merely bobbed with the music and watched the performers on stage, the revellers now whipped into a frenzy. They leapt around in a surging mass of sweaty bodies and thrashing limbs. They jumped on top of each other, always pressing forward, eager to reach the stage.

Mario crept along, staying close to the wall and out of reach of the circling spotlights.

He glimpsed the musicians, standing head and shoulders above the audience. The bass player, who straddled the edge of the stage and occasionally spat on the adoring fans, seemed familiar. In a blood-splattered white vest with a chain and padlock around his throat, he leered at the crowd. Thick, spiky black hair appeared as a dark halo, lined with the violet lights glowing behind him.

The singer rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, attacking his guitar with furious strums. He gazed up at the ceiling through greasy blonde hair that hung over his face, and his baggy black and red striped sweater swayed in time. He crooned into the microphone.

Mario stopped and stared.

It can’t be. He studied the face of the singer again. Cobain?

He shook his head and pressed on.

Must be a tribute act. Either that or the building is still fucking with me.

Ahead, the wall stopped, and the bar began. The red neon tubes cast hellish red skin on the drinkers, forming a group of thirsty demons. They glared at Mario as he attempted to sneak past.