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Authors: Bryan Hall
Whispers From The Dark
Whispers from the Dark
By Bryan Hall
Whispers from the Dark
Whispers from the Dark Copyright © 2011 by Bryan Hall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For more information:
www.bryanhallfiction.com
[email protected]
For My Son, Levin
May The Whispers Never Claim You
"...This guy is scary good!"
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Joe McKinney, Stoker Award nominated author of Flesh Eaters, Apocalypse of the Dead, and Quarantine
"...A horror master's sense of scene and scares."
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Jonathan Moon, author of Heinous
"... dark, fast and fun...a compelling read."
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Nate Kenyon, award-winning author of Sparrow Rock, The Reach, and StarCraft Ghost: Spectres, on Containment Room Seven
Table of Contents
Bonus Excerpt from Containment Room Seven
SECRETS BENEATH
Bobby was the first one to see her. We were sitting on Tony’s front porch drinking beers as cold as the day was hot, swatting mosquitoes and listening to Ralph explain all the things he was planning on doing to Katie Sutton during their date on Saturday night.
Just as Ralph finished up Bobby held his hand over his eyes, squinting against the August sun. “What the hell is that?”
You could barely see her. The house was in the middle of a thirty acre field, the field itself surrounded by the forest. Tony’s parents had left the property to him after they passed. Blanton was probably the smallest, most secluded town in the state, and Tony’s was a ten minute drive from it. As far as isolation went, if you were at his place you may as well have been in the middle of the Sahara.
The girl was a dot on the far side of the field, cutting a path through the tall grass as she ran towards us. The heat waves, liquid bands floating above the field, made her seem almost like a mirage.
“Looks like a person to me, Bob,” Ralph said.
I wiped the sweat from my brow. “They come outta the woods?”
“Hell…I reckon that’s about the only place they coulda come from.” Tony took another pull of his beer.
“Listen.” Bobby whispered it, cocking his head towards the oncoming figure as if he were a dog. “You hear that?”
I heard it too. “She’s screaming.” I whispered the words, not wanting to believe them.
Tony jumped up from his seat and threw open the screen door, vanishing inside. We all looked at one another, all of us knowing where he was going but none of us wanting to speak it out loud.
“Goddamn it,” Bobby said. “Not again.”
By the time Tony came back onto the porch with the twelve-gauge I was fighting back the urge to puke up the three beers I’d just had. Ralph took one look at Tony’s gun and headed for his truck, returning in an instant with a handgun.
Tony walked down off the porch, staring out at the girl. She was about a hundred yards away now. “Call up Walt, tell him to get Danny and Austin and get over here.”
Bobby picked up Tony's cordless phone and started punching numbers.
By the time the girl reached us we were all standing together at the edge of Tony’s yard. She was a hiker, from the looks of it. Still in her twenties. Her shirt was torn and dirty, dried blood caked on her legs and arms. A cut just at her blond hairline still oozed fresh crimson. She fell into my arms, sobbing and repeating the same two words: “Help us.”
“How many of you were there?” Ralph’s voice was grim.
“Four.” The word was a whisper, trailing off as she passed out.
We put her on the porch swing and stood silently, staring at the tree line as Tony went inside and grabbed me and Bobby each a rifle.
Twenty minutes later Walt’s pickup pulled into the driveway. His grandson Will sat in the passenger seat. Walt was pushing sixty now, but looked ten years younger. The hard life of a small town farmer had kept him fit and trim, his hair still black and his skin hardly wrinkled. The two got out of the truck, each one carrying a rifle.
“Where’s Danny and Austin?” Ralph asked.
Walt shook his head. “Ain’t coming. Danny threw out his back last week and ain’t been off the couch since. Austin said he can’t do it again after last time. Jenny won‘t let him.”
Bobby leaned in close to Walt, eyeing Will and whispering. “What’s your grandson doing here, Walt?”
“He’s thirteen. We’ve told him ’bout this for years and now he’s more than old enough to see it, I reckon.”
“Where’s his Dad?” Ralph asked.
“Drunk.” Walt said. There was no emotion in is voice, just a cold statement of fact. “Like usual.”
We passed some hesitant glances at one another while Walt glared at us, daring us to challenge his decision. My first trip into the woods with my father had been when I was fifteen. Like Will, I’d spent my life before that hearing stories preparing me for what I would inevitably see and do.
Finally Tony grunted. “Well, here she is.”
Walt walked onto the porch and looked her over. “Goddamn hippies,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you take her inside?”
“Don’t want her in my house. She don't need to be in there.”
“She said there was four of ‘em,” I told Walt.
“I reckon one of us needs to stay here,” Walt said. “Keep an eye on her. Bobby? You feel like doing it?”
I could see the relief wash over Bobby’s face like a wave. He nodded, eyes locked on the girl.
“You know what that means, don’t ya?”
The relief left as quickly as it arrived. Bobby pursed his lips as he chewed over just what it did mean. After a minute he nodded.
Walt turned from the girl and headed for his truck. “Alright then. Rest of ya, pile in my truck and let’s get this over with.”
Will joined his granddad in the cab of the pickup while the rest of us climbed into the back.
Within a few minutes, we reached the edge of the forest. We climbed out of the truck and gathered in front of the truck.
I looked over at Will, his face as pale as the December snow. The old man put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Just remember, son. Whatever you see…however wrong it seems to you…we ain’t got no choice.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to let Walt’s words comfort me too. It didn’t work. I still had that sick feeling in my gut, like something was alive inside me and trying to claw its way out.
Tony took the first step, the rest of us matching his pace. A few steps into the woods, the dead leaves from last fall crunching like brittle bones beneath our feet, Will spoke in a hushed whisper. “You said if the people had turned we had to kill them, Grandpa.”
“Yes.”
“What if they ain’t turned? You said we always had to make sure nobody from out of town found out.” All of us knew what the boy wanted to know, but nobody responded.
It took Walt a few minutes to answer. “We ain’t got no choice, Will.”
We fell quiet again, the crunching of the leaves and the occasional birdsong the only sounds. There was no trail to follow, and we made slow progress as we navigated our way around the underbrush and briar thickets. Will walked beside me, and I could see him start to speak a few times, always stopping himself before he did.
I took it upon myself to try and help him understand. “If people find out what’s in the woods here…on Tony and Walt and half the people in this town‘s land…”
“The government would come in. They’d kick us off our property and steal our land,” Will finished for me.
“I’ve already told him all that, Joey.” Walt snapped the words out, clearly annoyed that I’d said anything.
“So even if that girl ain‘t turned...” Will paused a moment, clutching his gun so hard I thought there was a chance he was going to bend the barrel. “Is Bobby going to kill her anyway?”
We passed around glances, pretending we hadn’t heard the question. Will eyed his grandfather. “Grandpa? Is--”
“Shhhhh!” Tony stopped dead in his tracks, hissing at the boy. The rest of us followed suit.
I didn’t see anything, but I heard it. The crunching of dead leaves. A snapping branch. The sounds got louder, joined by a gurgling, wheezing noise.
A moment, and I saw him. His clothes were caked in mud and blood. With clumsy steps he bounced off the trees like a drunk stumbling through a crowded bar. He was fifty yards from us but I could tell he had turned. His face was bloated, white fluid dripping from his ears, nose, and eyes. When he stumbled a few more yards towards us, you could see his swollen face shifting. Here and there, his skin pulsated.
Ralph raised his gun and squeezed the trigger. The impact turned the man into a human top, spinning him as he dropped to the ground. He lay still except for his skin, which continued pulsating and throbbing. We kept our guns trained on the body until the movement underneath his skin had stopped.
After a moment one of them slithered out of the bullet wound, followed by another two out of the man’s mouth. They were shaped like worms, a foot long and as big around as a thumb with little curved hooks sticking out of one end like teeth. All over their pale yellow bodies were tiny red versions of themselves, small little whisker like things that waved and twitched around.
The three things crawled out onto the ground and writhed around on the ground for a minute or two before dying.
Walt walked to the body and poked it with the barrel of his gun, studying it for a moment before nodding in satisfaction.
We left the body where it was, walking deeper into the woods, the next thirty minutes passing without even a whisper between us.
Finally Tony whispered “We’re getting close, guys.” It was his property, his devil. He’d learned years ago just where the forest was no longer safe.
Walt stopped and turned to his grandson. “Watch where you step, Will. It’s hard to see the thing’s goddamn arms. They blend in with the leaves.”
Another hundred yards or so and we were there. Ralph stopped and gestured with his gun ahead of him. “There’s one of ‘em…what’s left of him, anyways.”
