‘Black as holes within a memory
— Third Eye by Tool
and blue as our new second sun.
I stick my hand into his shadow
to pull the pieces from the sand,
which I attempt to reassemble
to see just who I might have been.
I do not recognize the vessel,
but the eyes seem so familiar.
Like phosphorescent desert buttons
singing one familiar song…’
THE PREDATOR
The house sits in the middle of that field.
Its wooded frame swelling and contracting with the ever constantly changing temperatures of the days and nights. The field spawned the most unusual grass in that they were beyond being perfectly healthy. They waved and danced with the tall pine tree forest that surrounds them, a forest so thick that the trees could form the planks of a fence or a row of wooden fangs.
The house itself was old, but not so old that it was beyond imagining. Most of its wooden panels still clung to its aged and weathered walls and all of the windows were intact within their frames. The roof was tattered, yet still performed its function dutifully, keeping the outside out, letting only things of its choosing, in.
It is here, that the house sits patiently, and waits, in the middle of that field…
THE PREY
The car was making its way around the curve of a lonely road, through a mountain pass between the Pacific coast and Portland, Oregon. The trees flew past like ancient fence posts, which kept out long-forgotten nuisances. Night had fallen an hour before, though the moon was still hidden on the other side of the mountain. The stars were nothing but a faint glimmer, like jewels at the bottom of some fetid pond.
With a sudden lurch, the car began to struggle, heaving and choking on the final breaths of fumes from its tank. With one last unglamorous gurgle, twenty-year-old blue two-door passenger car of Japanese design came to a sluggish stop along an all-too-small-emergency-lane overlooking a decently sized cliff that led to a grand valley below, as well as other hills in the distance, all thickly covered with more trees than any one mind could comprehend.
The car’s headlights slowly faded away as if some invisible hand waved in front of them, putting the car to sleep, and even though the battery was brand new, the darkness overwhelmed it, leaving the car’s two occupants in the shadows of the night; a night as black as holes within a memory, the kind of memory one chooses to forget and prays to every god, known and unknown, to never have to remember again.
‘I guess that’s that,’ spoke a man. Regret is etched over his every word. ‘Now before you say anything, the GPS said that we only had ten miles to go.’ He paused, looked down at the steering wheel through the charcoal gloom. ‘That is before it stopped working…and still had half a tank of gas left.’
‘Unless the tank gauge is broken, too,’ replied the woman, flatly. The man turned and looked at her, opened his mouth to say something, but then opted not to, knowing full well that, despite the improbability of it, he knew that she was most likely right. She usually was and that’s why he loved her.
The pair sat in the shadows, letting the silence mull over them. Not even the gentlest of breezes disturbed the stillness of the land. Suddenly – the man slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, and reached into his pocket.
‘What? What is it?’ inquired the woman, as she watched the man pull out a sleek rectangular object from his pocket.
‘Sometimes I forget that I have this thing with me,’ he says with delight, his smile illuminated from the glow which emanated from the object; icons and symbols were scattered across the screen like digital graffiti. ‘I’ll just call AAA, and they’ll get a tow truck for us in no time.’
Yet before the hope could settle in the cabin of the car, disappointment beat it to the punch, plastering itself to the man’s square face. He lowered the mobile phone and stared at the screen: a bright and bold —NO SIGNAL— sign told him everything he needed to know.
The woman placed a hand on his shoulder.
She doesn’t see the notification, only the dejection in his face, which she read just the same.
‘It’s alright, hon. We’re in the middle of nowhere, that’s all.’ She spoke, wearing her most comforting smile. ‘Do you think we could wave anyone down if we stayed put?’ The man turned his head to face the woman, his face devoid of emotion.
‘I doubt it, I haven’t seen a single car ahead, or behind us since we left the hotel and took this godforsaken road.’
‘Michael,’ the woman spoke softly, full of comfort and trust, ‘It wasn’t your fault. You trusted the Garmin as much as I did.’ Michael looked around, then at the woman, and smiled the kind of smile which spoke through every level of love.
‘Thanks Rae,’ he replied, choosing her nickname for the intimate moment. Michael then reached out and pushed Rae’s raven black hair for which she was named, revealing her green eyes, as she blushed at the tenderness in his affection. ‘Come on, let’s go for a walk, maybe we’ll come across someone who lives here, or something,’ Michael suddenly suggested.
‘Do you think that’s wise?’
‘To paraphrase Tennyson: it’s better to have gone out and tried than to have never tried at all.’
‘You and Tennyson,’ scoffed Raeven, ‘Sometimes I wonder if you love him more than you love me.’
Lord Alfred Tennyson. The man who brought them together; her unabashed hatred for the author, and his unfettered love for the same. She still remembered his first words to her, and while she despised the infamous quote, Michael had spoken them with an unbridled honesty, laced in every letter, every syllable, that she ignored her hatred:
‘Tennyson once wrote that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, and with God as my witness, I have loved, and will love, the person who now stands before me, and should I lose you, I can die happy with the knowledge that I have seen the meaning of love in another person.’ That is what he said to her, and they’ve been together ever since.
With some resignation, Raeven reached into the backseat and pulled out her sky-blue cardigan, and put it on. After she opened the door, and placed one foot on the ground, Raeven looked back at Michael and smiled, ‘Well, are you coming?’
He simply nodded, opened his door, and stepped outside. Raeven soon followed suit, yet neither took notice that none of the car’s interior light came on when the doors were opened, nor the strange mucus-like ooze that was beginning to seep through the seams and the seals of the backseat.
The couple stood in front of their broken down vehicle and stared at the darkness before them. With a deep breath, the pair took their first steps down the unknown asphalt road.
THE STALK
The night grew heavy as
the continued silence stalked
Michael and Raeven, who continued to march on
the deserted mountain road pass.
The moon had come out of hiding,
light casting shadows
all sorts of queer shapes
figures.
The forest remained a still and quiet witness
to the trek being undertaken
by the lost couple.
‘How far do you think we’ve walked?’ asked Raeven
as she trudged along the smooth road.
Despite the lack of obstacles
and hindrances,
her feet, and legs,
ached.
‘By my estimate, we’ve gone a little over a mile. Maybe a mile and a half,’ Michael replied.
‘What makes you say that?’ Raeven said, turning towards
Michael with a raised eyebrow,
channeling her inner Spock.
‘I’ve been counting the marker posts.
I think they’re a tenth of a mile each.
I think.’
Michael looked at her with an unconvincing smile that said, I may have just made all of that up, but still he smiles, nonetheless.
She had always loved his smile,
as wide and bright
as the Cheshire Cat,
without any of the dubious nonsense.
The two of them continued to walk
at a leisurely pace along their lovely path.
Michael looked at his smart watch,
blinked a few times,
then lowered his wrist again.
He did this several more times,
his face a visage of disbelief.
Either he was seeing things,
or his watch had decided to go
FUBAR on him as well.
He let out a deep sigh,
which catches Raeven’s attention.
‘Is everything alright?’ she asks,
turning her head to face Michael.
The moonlight highlighted the strong lines
and angles of his face,
and while she found him very handsome,
the moon’s aura left him
in an eerie shade of white.
‘Yeah, it’s just my watch…’
‘What about it?’
He holds up his wrist,
showing her the face
of the high-tech
timepiece –
47:36
‘Forty-seven thirty-six in the evening? Must be an Apple thing,’
quipped Raeven with a smirk. ‘Do you think the timer still works?’
‘I don’t see why not. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m thinking if we don’t find anything
in the next half hour,
we should just head back to the car
and wait it out there.’
Michael stops for a moment
and looks back down the desolate road.
Despite the clear night,
the veneer of darkness
cuts off his sight
after a mere hundred yards.
‘Alright, half an hour, then we turn back.’
Michael places his arm
around Raeven’s shoulder
as they continue their search
for some kind of help or assistance.
The evening continued to drag on
as the couple’s thirty minute time limit came and went.
As agreed, they both turned around
and began to head back to their car. The road was
still as empty as a vacuum, devoid of any travellers.
The whole area was as silent as a crypt. Michael’s
eyes occasionally drifted to the drainage ditch at
his right, but for the most part, focused on the
road ahead.
That long asphalt void
which gently hugged
the side of the mountain,
always turning to the
right it seemed.
An endless loop of the
same section, giving off
the illusion of travel.
‘Do you remember if this road ever went straight?’
Michael asked,
half to himself,
half to Raeven,
but her attention was elsewhere.
Ever since they turned back around,
she had been staring off
into the distant sky
where a rogue cloud had covered up
the moon;
the only cloud in sight.
‘There’s a cloud up there,’
she spoke,
her voice,
the meekest of whispers,
as her grip tightened
around Michael’s hand.
‘That’s where clouds usually are,’
Michael replied,
almost sarcastically;
almost light-heartedly,
but even he knew
that something wasn’t quite right;
that something was wrong.
‘I know that,’ she says,
her eyes still locked on to the mysterious white fluff in the sky.
‘But it’s the only one in the sky.’
Without neither of them saying a word,
they both began to walk
a little bit faster.
Raeven
pulled
herself
closer
to
Michael
and leaned into his ear.
‘I think the cloud is following us,’
her voice was fainter than her whisper before,
a murmur of a murmur;
an echo of some long forgotten language,
barely audible to the human ear,
but the words themselves spoke volumes.
‘That’s impossible. Clouds aren’t sentient, how could it follow us?’
‘It’s been blocking the moon ever since we turned around.’
‘I didn’t really notice.’
‘But I DID. I don’t like it.’
Raeven took another look at the cloud:
sure enough,
it was still there,
hanging like an ornament
in front of the moon.
‘Let’s just get back to the car.’
Michael nodded without argument
as they both increase their pace
even more than before.
Onward they went,
further into the night,
when a sudden thought
brings Raeven to a complete and abrupt halt –
‘Did
you
remember
to
grab
the
keys?’
It was an innocent enough question,
but one that had concerned her.
‘Keys?’
Michael looked at her questioningly.
‘Of course I did, they’re right h-‘
As he reached
into his pants
pocket,
his expression
froze.
His eyes
grew wide
with shock
as his
lips curled
in
disgust.
Ever so slowly,
he pulled out his hand,
which he had balled into a fist,
and revealed it to be covered
in some kind of inky, tar-like substance.
He opened his hand and dropped the keys.
They fell to the asphalt below
with a gelatinous
— S P L A T —
as they, too,
are covered in the black mucus.
Carefully he raised his hand to his face and sniffed it. A steady stream of curses erupted from his mouth as he quickly held it out as far away from his face as possible.
‘Deer droppings on a Sunday afternoon, that stuff’s putrid!’
‘Michael, what is it?’
Raeven, controlling her curiosity,
wisely keeping a good distance from the muck.
‘And how did you
not know
that wasn’t in your pocket‽”
‘I don’t know
and I
don’t
know.
It feels like engine oil that is in dire need of changing,
but
that
smell…’
Michael takes a few steps towards Raeven,
waving his soiled hand playfully.
‘I swear to God,
if you get any of that stuff on me,
I will make you walk all the way home!’
Michael smiles at this,
but receives the message.
Raeven pulls off her cardigan and hands it to him.
‘Here, clean yourself up.’
Michael did his best to wipe off what he could
and even turned his
pockets inside out
to make sure there
weren’t anymore
surprises in his pants.
The pocket which held the keys
was completely clean of the tar,
but neither Michael nor Raeven made the vital connection.
Michael tried to hand back the now-soiled cardigan, but Raeven just waved it away.
Leave it in the ditch. No amount of cleaner can save it.’
And just like that,
the two are once again on the move,
with the stalking cloud watching from above:
an airy
taciturn satellite
in the night.
THE LURE
‘I feel like we’ve spent more time walking back than we did walking away,’
Raeven complained, yet power-walked
nonetheless.
‘I’m sure we’re almost there.
It’s not like the car
could have started up
on its own and drove off, right?’
Michael’s voice was calm, but was growing tired.
‘You’ve said that three times already.
Are you sure you put the parking brake on?’
‘Absolutely.
It’s a habit of mine.
There’s no way I could have forgotten something like that.’
The couple kept on walking,
letting the eerie silence return
to their ears.
After several more minutes,
Raeven tugs on Michael’s arm
and points towards something in the drainage ditch to their right;
something bright
and blue.
‘What’s that?’ she asks,
almost hesitantly,
but she already knew the answer.
As they approached the object,
Michael reached down
and carefully unfurled
the wadded up blue cardigan,
still covered in the strange
black substance he had wiped off earlier,
and faced Raeven.
Both of their eyes were wide with terror
and confusion,
all the while,
the forbidding silence found purchase in their
throats.
Then,
as if they were thinking the same thing,
the same thought,
the same primal intuition,
they both turned to face the cloud in the sky,
the one which hung in front of the moon.
No.
Not just any cloud,
rather the
E X A C T
same
cloud,
frozen in the sky
like some kind of Broadway
play scenery cutout prop.
No words passed between the couple as they both
took off in a wild sprint,
leaving the filthy cardigan behind.
‘That’s impossible –
that’s just impossible –
please tell me that’s impossible!’
Raeven managed to exclaim
after some time,
between raspy breaths
and aching muscle spasms.
‘We never changed roads
or took different paths!
How could we have passed that thing again?
HOW‽”
Michael’s face conveyed all she needed to know.
He had no idea at all.
So on they ran.
Ran until their muscles burned and veins pumped acid;
they ran until their mouths ran dry and throats grew sore,
but no matter how fast or far they ran,
they kept coming back to that soiled blue
cardigan:
the unwanted puppy
that kept coming back.
After the seventh pass,
Raeven and Michael came to a prolonged stop,
they we’re out of breath,
they couldn’t take anymore steps;
they couldn’t run anymore.
No matter how much their minds willed it,
their bodies
could no longer keep up the pace.
Exhaustion had taken its toll.
Michael leaned over with his hands upon his knees,
his breathing ragged and erratic.
Raeven was on all fours,
gasping like a fish out of water,
out of the sea.
Neither of them paid any heed to the now absent
cloud and moon.
‘What’s going on?’
Raeven asked aloud between breaths.
Her eyes were wild with panic and delusion.
Adrenaline still coursed through their bodies;
their instincts told them that something highly unusual was happening,
something dangerous was nearby;
their logic was threatened to come unhinged,
but even with all that,
Michael straightened himself up,
placed a gentle hand on Raeven’s shoulder,
and proceeded to help her up,
as they both continued walking,
albeit at an incredibly slow pace.
By the time they had caught their breathes,
they came across yet another anomaly:
the little blue two-door car
was right
in front
of them,
pulled over to the side of the road,
with the passenger side tires partially in the drainage ditch.
Aside from being on the opposite side of the road
from where they left it
and turned completely around,
the car appeared to be unchanged.
Neither Michael nor Raeven said a word.
They had simply accepted the oddity and had given
up on logic for the time being.
As they approached the car from the rear,
Michael noticed the pitch blackness of the interior.
While the night carried it own shadows,
the inside of the car was like a black hole,
absorbing what little light was around
and was reflecting none of it back.
So dark was the interior that even with his face
pressed against the driver side window,
he couldn’t see the steering wheel or driver’s seat.
He looked back at his partner,
who stood a few feet back behind him,
and merely shrugged.
‘We might as well get in and wait.’
Raeven just stood where she was,
silent and still like a statue.
Michael turned his attention back to the car,
gripped the door handle, and opened the car.
With a sudden yelp of disgust
and more creative swearing,
Michael leapt backwards,
nearly running into Raeven,
as the same insipid gelatinous ebon ichor poured out of the car,
and inched its way to the road
and surrounding area,
like the slow withering charge of The Blob,
but far more wretched in smell.
The car was filled to the ceiling with the
stuff and would most likely never be clean
of the goo.
‘Well, so much for that idea,’ Raeven spoke in a dull,
monotonous
voice,
devoid of any emotion
or opinion to the absurdity before them.
Michael walked over to her,
wrapped his arms around her petite shoulders.
His eyes were full of dismay as his heart filled with uncertainty.
A soft breeze blew by them,
then abruptly stopped,
only to return again.
Coming and going
like the restful breathing of a bear.
The couple had began to walk past the car,
arms wrapped around one another,
unconsciously following
the source of the breathing wind.
Onwards they went, following the eternally curving road,
being led
by the air
of the mountain,
neither speaking a word;
neither putting up a fight;
neither having any hope,
just walking along
the endlessly repeating stretch of road.
With their eyes to the ground,
they kept their resolve
nothing was going to pass them
on this strange road.
The breeze continued to lead them on,
when it suddenly changed direction:
blowing to the right,
causing Michael to stop
and turn in its direction.
His eyes widened with astonishment.
He simply could not bring himself to
believe what he was seeing,
despite everything that has happened in
the past few hours.
Raeven took notice of her partner’s movement
and lifted her gaze from the ground.
She immediately saw what had grabbed Michael’s attention.
There, not ten feet away from where they stood,
was a dark mailbox with the numbers
4 7 3 6,
followed by a most unusual name:
INQUE.
‘I.
N.
Q.
U.
E.?‘
Raeven read with a raised eyebrow.
Spock had momentarily returned.
‘That’s a strange way to spell ‘ink.”
‘What hasn’t been strange about tonight?’
Michael’s voice was flat,
yet his eyes wandered from the mysterious mailbox
to the new gravel road that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Raeven and Michael looked at one another,
a thousand questions silently passed between them.
Another breeze blew by,
almost urging them to go the new path.
Michael shrugged his shoulders,
not really sure about anything anymore,
as he grabbed hold of Raeven’s hand,
and they both began to walk down the dark road,
unaware of the black inky ooze which
carpeted the forest floor on either side of
the shadowed passageway.
THE POUNCE
‘Do you think this is another looping road?’
Raeven asked cautiously.
The couple had no
reasonable way to tell
how long they had been
walking,
but it didn’t matter.
They still held on to one another
like a newly minted alliance.
The rhythmic breathing wind was still
pulling them along
the shadowy gravel road;
the tall and ancient pine tree tops
pushed towards one another,
covering the night sky
only to separate again,
contracting like the muscles
of an enormous
esophagus swallowing
a meal.
Up above in the sky,
the moonlight highlighted the tips
of the great trees,
though itself was nowhere to be seen.
The sounds of the disturbed gravel
and dust seemed to echo in every direction.
Eventually,
the straight path turned to the left
and led into an open,
circular field
bordered by the tall,
jagged
pines,
and capped by the blank,
s
t
a
r
l
e
s
s
sky.
The wind continued to blow
gently across the grass,
going from the couple
and towards the middle
of the field.
There,
a rickety
and a seemingly derelict house sat.
Its beige colored paint
was peeling in various places,
from the foot of the first floor
all the way to the top
of the roof
on the third floor.
All of the windows appeared to be intact,
though several were covered
by wooden blinds.
Moss and other vegetative growth
was visible in between the roofing tiles,
but the roof itself
gave the image of stability.
No lights could be seen from within,
but the reflection of the ghastly moon
hazily glowed in two windows,
each flanking a dark door,
presenting a haunting visage of pareidolia;
some bygone monster of old.
So
very,
very
old.
So
very,
very
ancient.
Michael and Raeven approached the house
timidly.
Despite its unkempt appearance,
they did not believe it was in disuse.
A set of tire tracks led to the rear
of the abode,
and along the front porch
was a fairly new pile of firewood.
‘Do you think anyone is home?’
Michael asked as he walked up the small
steps to the quaint porch.
Raeven followed not far behind him.
‘Only one way to find out,’ she replied.
They both took a long look
at the simple door as Michael formed a fist,
giving the door several hefty knocks.
‘Do you think they have a phone?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow,
channeling her inner-Spock once again.
He only gave her a dubious look.
‘Why wouldn’t they have a phone?
I’d expect someone out here,’ he said as
h e s p r e a d
h i s a r m s w i d e
and motioned to the wilderness around them, ‘would at least have a landline.’
‘I guess you’re right.’
They both waited
a full minute in silence
before looking back at the door as Michael
knocked upon its wooden surface once
more.
Nothing,
but the same hollow breath of nothingness,
replied their beckoning.
‘Maybe no one’s home,’
Raeven said,
defeat danced along her tones and inflections,
as she turned
a
r
o
u
n
d
s l o w l y,
and away from the door.
Then,
with a sudden shriek
which cut through the night,
she unleashed a sound of surprise.
Michael immediately snapped
his attention
away from the door
only to discover
the cause
of his partner’s
sudden outcry.
‘I’mma sorry ta have scared ya folks,‘
spoke an old man.
His body was like that of a skeleton
wrapped in dried turkey skin,
a macabre sight.
The top of his head was bald,
save for a thin gossamer
of white hairs,
yet either side held a healthy,
albeit aged,
tufts of hair:
a messy bird’s nest of age.
‘I dinnit mean ta startle ya both,‘
he said, emphasizing his intentions.
‘It’s- it’s alright,’
Raeven began to say,
her hand on her chest,
trying desperately to calm herself down.
‘Our car had broken down
not too far from here
and we thought you could help us.
Maybe you have a phone
we could use?’
The old man
looked at them both curiously,
then smiled wide.
His lips were a thin line of salmon
that had been left out in the sun
and his teeth were as yellow as french fries.
Raeven then noticed a pair of logs
between the strange old man’s arms.
Were they always there, she asked herself.
‘Oh, of course, come in, come in.
I was jus gatherin’ up
some wood for my stove.
It’s almost time for dinna.
I suppose y’all are a bit famished?‘
The old man’s voice carried the air
of southern hospitality
as Michael’s stomach
replied for the couple with a loud rumble.
The old man continued to smile
as he opened the door to his abode,
leading the anxious couple inside.
As they passed through the threshold,
Raeven couldn’t help but look back at the haunting night sky:
the stalking cloud
was back and took its place
in front of the shy moon.
She stared at it,
scrutinizing it,
trying to figure out its purpose
for being,
before continuing inside,
shutting the door behind her,
like the jaws
of some unknown beast.
Inside the house,
it was neatly furnished,
although nothing appeared to be from the modern day;
nothing seemed to be after 1940.
The frail old man
motioned for the couple to take a seat upon a simple leather couch.
Their curious host then proceeded towards the kitchen area,
which lay just out of sight.
The sound of the logs
hitting
the
hardwood
floor
snapped through the quaint house,
and was soon followed by the noise
of platter-ware being rummaged,
glasses being set,
and utensils being pulled from their drawers.
‘Would either of y’all want something to drink? Coffee, tea?‘
the old man offered, unseen.
Both Michael and Raeven requested tea.
Sometime after, water was heard being poured into
something metallic and placed on a stove.
‘Did you hear him come up behind us?’
Raeven asked in a low whisper,
leaning close to Michael’s ear.
‘I wasn’t exactly paying attention at the time.’
‘I think it’s a little weird, and where did he get that wood from?’
‘The woodpile next to us would be the logical conclusion.’
‘So you’re saying that this frail old man
was there the whole time
and we
walked
right
by
him
and
neither
of
us
realized
the
other?’
Disbelief covered her words like an ink spill.
‘Maybe there’s another woodpile
somewhere behind the house.
Isn’t that where he came from?’
Michael’s face contorted
as if he was asking himself
the same question;
searching for some kind of reassurance
in what he was saying.
‘I still don’t like it.
He couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere.’
‘I wasn’t saying that he did,
only that we were both
a little preoccupied
when he did show up.’
Their discourse was left at that
as they both receded into the unbelievably
comfortable couch.
Several moments of silence and reflection
passed when the old man finally returned
carrying a tray with an ornate, albeit
ancient looking tea kettle with two
matching cups.
He sat the set down on the coffee table before them.
Both Raeven and Michael slowly
drank their drinks.
The warmth of the hot beverage
put the couple at ease
as their bodies further relaxed.
Before they knew it,
the old man could be heard back in the kitchen,
working on some sort of meal for the evening.
‘Excuse me, sir,’
Michael spoke suddenly,
‘but you said you have a phone we could use?’
‘Ah yes,
yes.
A phone.‘
The old man’s voice was filled with wonder,
as if the very concept
had only occurred to him
and he was fascinated by the idea.
‘Yes, I have a phone in my bedroom,
but first,‘ he comes walking out of the kitchen area,
carrying another tray,
though significantly larger than the previous.
‘Dinna is served!‘
Both Raeven and Michael perked up and took a gander at what their odd host prepared for them:
three sizable plates
of chicken Alfredo pasta,
topped with various vegetables;
a portion of broiled fish of some kind;
and a serving of roasted potatoes.
Michael’s stomach made itself known as
the aromas from the feast filled the room.
Raeven unconsciously licked her lips as she
was handed a plate.
‘Well, what are y’all waitin’ for?
Dig
in,
dig
in!‘
the old man urged on.
With that said, the couple buried their faces into their meals.
They had never felt or even realized how hungry they were.
For a time,
the only noise was the sound of clinking utensils and chewing mouths.
Even the old man ate with enthusiasm.
This was, in fact, the best pasta dish
Raeven had ever had.
She was about to turn her attention to their gracious host to share her love of the succulent dish only to not proceed to do so.
She only froze
with her fork suspended in the air
from her hand,
a tangle of pasta coiled around its prongs.
Her eyes grew wide and threatened to bulge out of their sockets
as her blood ran cold
and drained from her veins.
Her stomach twisted into a gordian knot
of terror as it filled with
the stones of fear,
falling down to the pit of her being.
She could still hear Michael eating,
but he seemed so very very far away,
and she dared not look at him;
she couldn’t look at him;
her eyes were transfixed
on what she beheld before her own sight.
She just kept staring at the old man,
who eventually took notice of her
e x a s p e r a t e d
expression.
‘Is sumthing wrong, m’dear?‘
The old man asked.
‘I overcooked the pasta again, didn’t I?‘
Raeven did not reply.
Her ice cold gaze remained on their frail old host.
Her eyes drifted,
ever so slightly,
towards a full length mirror
which leaned against a wall,
adjacent to them all.
The old man caught this tiny motion
and traced her line of sight.
The old man then caught sight of his own reflection,
he began to chuckle.
‘Oh, I absolutely hate it when that happens.‘
Turning to face the couple,
the old man smiled,
i m—
———
—p o s s i b l y w i d e
with the head of his fork stuck upon his lower lip
and severed from the handle.
The ripped ends dripped
with the same inky ichor-like substance
the couple had been encountering
throughout their eventful evening.
‘I guess that means dinna is ovah,‘
the old man grunted as he started to stand up,
the mutilated prongs of the fork still firmly
in place through his mouth.
Raeven immediately reached over,
intending to grab Michael’s hand and run away,
but all she felt was her fingers sliding through his
arm as if it were made up of a thick,
rancid yogurt.
Her head turned to face her partner;
her terror doubled upon itself.
her terror doubled upon itself.
her terror doubled upon itself.
her terror doubled upon itself.
her terror doubled upon itself.
her terror doubled upon itself.
her terror doubled upon itself.
Michael was still going through the motions of eating the delicious pasta,
but it was now a pile of black gelatin
as parts of Michael himself had begun to fall off and into the decrepit plate,
couch,
and floor,
leaving a trail of mucus wherever it went.
Michael attempted to speak as if nothing was wrong,
but his voice sounded like someone trying to speak with holes in his neck and mud was seeping out in fetid chucks.
Raeven jolts to her feet and at once begins to run towards the front door,
but here mere progress
is hindered by the simple,
yet impossible fact that the floor
of the house had begun to lose its form,
making it as hard to thread through as the deepest of swamps.
The whole house,
it seemed, was
c
o
l
l
a
p
s
i
n
g,
con
tor
ting,
di s i n t e g r
a
t
i
n
g,
muTAtiNG,
convoluting,
ERUPTING,
and giving in to entropy,
leaking and transforming into the formless muck.
When she finally got close enough to the door,
she reached out with all of her might to grasp the door knob,
only to find her hand to be swallowed up by the mephitic goo.
It was now everywhere.
She turned and noticed that the old man had disappeared and what had remained of Michael was now one with the dated couch.
She had no time to mourn,
no time to cry out,
no time to humor the notion of him
becoming one with the couch;
hilarious had it been in any other situation;
cosmically fitting even,
but this was not the time.
The stairwell had morphed
into a slow moving torrent of ebon ooze
and the kitchen was no longer recognizable.
Raeven could feel herself sinking ever deeper into the floor,
but she was not about to give up.
Not now.
Not ever.
She made her way back
to where the couch was
and looked around,
trying to keep her calm.
If everything was becoming this ooze, she told herself, then I should be able to just run through the door.
With the last remnants of her strength,
she mustered and gathered up as much speed as she could in the swamp like conditions, bolting towards the door.
Bracing herself just before making impact,
the preceding collision
was somewhat
anticlimactic
as she pushed herself through:
one arm, then the next.
Grabbing hold of whatever she could that was still solid and pulled with all her might.
Her head broke through next,
followed by her chest.
Eventually, her entire upper body was through.
She felt like she was going to make it;
she felt like she was going to be free;
she felt like this nightmare
was going to come to an end,
until
a
sudden
T
U
G
pulled at her feet.
She then felt something wrap itself around her legs,
like an enormous snake,
the tendril of an unspeakable Eldritch
monstrosity from aeons long forgotten.
Soon,
its grip was so tight,
that it halted her advance.
She did her best to struggle free;
kicking and screaming
as if her very life hung in the balance,
for it most certainly did.
But despite all of her efforts,
all she managed to kick was her own legs.
Frustration began to mount
as she continued to crawl
with all desperation
out of the accused house,
reached out,
wanting to find purchase
to anything that may aid her plight,
to no avail.
The field around the house
was completely
covered in the
diabolical ichor
and appeared to rise and fall
like the tongue
of some enormous creature
attempting to swallow its food.
The house began to tilt backwards,
forcing Raeven’s field of view to shift
from the field to the sky,
that same dark sky that had haunted
her through the night,
and there in the middle of it all,
like the main star on some grand theater play,
hung the same ominous cloud.
She then noticed the wall of trees around the area had begun to close in towards the house in a manner that reminded her of a Venus flytrap.
Still she kicked;
still she screamed;
still she struggled,
but it was all futile.
Two malformed arms
suddenly sprouted on either side of Raeven’s body,
both resembling the ooze;
both holding the wrong number of fingers,
and enclosed around her face and chest.
The old man’s head emerged soon after,
distorted
and even more abnormal than before,
and settled right next to Raeven’s face.
‘Time for dinna!‘
the old man howled in a bubbling gargle
before pulling Raeven back into the
ruinous home.
Just as the ooze closed
around Raeven’s vision,
she took one final look at the night sky
to see the moon,
brilliant and beautiful,
until her focus found more of the ooze seeping out of every crater.
Then everything faded to
BLACK.
THE KILL
Raeven jolted awake,
causing her seatbelt to dig into her shoulder with a sharp pain.
Her brow was sweaty
and her mouth was dry.
She reached down
between the seats
of the car
and pulled a bottle of water
out of the cup holder,
taking several deep chugs,
before putting it back into its holder.
Michael was focused on his driving
and hadn’t noticed her sudden awakening.
A dream,
she told herself,
it was all just a bad dream.
With much restraint and effort,
she reached out and softly held Michael’s hand,
giving it a strong and reaffirming squeeze.
He’s real.
Michael squeezed her hand back in return
and glanced at her with concern.
‘Is everything okay? You seem a little pale.’ Raeven responded with a smile.
‘Yeah, I’m alright. Just a bad dream, that’s all.’
‘Must have been one hell of a dream.’
‘It was,’ Raeven paused, struggling to find the right words. It had been so real, so pure, so intense. ‘It was terrifyingly realistic,’ she finally said.
‘Our minds are powerful things.’ Raeven smiled once again at the notion.
Yes, our minds are indeed powerful things.
Onward they drove through the night. The trees flew past like ancient fence posts, which kept out long-forgotten nuisances. Night had fallen an hour before, though the moon was still hidden on the other side of the mountain. The stars were nothing but a faint glimmer, like jewels at the bottom of some fetid pond.
With a sudden lurch, the car began to struggle, heaving and choking on the final breaths of fumes from its tank. With one last unglamorous gurgle, the twenty-year-old blue two-door passenger car of Japanese design came to a sluggish stop along an all-too-small-emergency-lane overlooking a decently sized cliff that led to a grand valley below, as well as other hills in the distance, all thickly covered with more trees than any one mind could comprehend.
The car’s headlights slowly faded away as if some invisible hand waved in front of them, putting the car to sleep, and even though the battery was brand new, the darkness overwhelmed it, leaving the car’s two occupants in the shadows of the night; a night as black as holes within a memory, the kind of memory one chooses to forget and prays to every god,
known and unknown, to never have to remember again.
‘I guess that’s that,’ Michael said, regret etched over his every word. ‘Now before you say anything,
the GPS said tha- what’s wrong, Rae?’
Raeven’s skin had gone paler than before;
the horror of her eyes was greater than before;
all of this has happened before.
A light in her mind began to poke around,
illuminating those black holes
within her memory.
This has happened before,
many,
many times before,
in different ways,
in different variations,
but always ending in the same way,
and will continue to happen,
will happen,
and has always been happening.
Raeven snapped her sight out her window,
aimed towards the night sky,
praying not to find what she dreads,
what she fears,
but there it was,
indifferent to her prayers:
the ooze seeping moon,
in all of its cratered glory.
She looked back at Michael,
tears welling up in her eyes.
She began to open her mouth,
to say something to him
when the
o l d
m a n
r u p t u r e d
from
Michael’s chest
in a spray of black ichor,
cleaving his body in two.
‘Time for DINNA!‘ the old man howled.
Raeven tried to scream,
but the terror stole it away
before it could escape her throat:
the ooze had already filled
the interior of the car…
The house sits patiently, and waits, in the middle of that field….
FIN
A Place for Stories 
Amazing!! ✌
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed my story!
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