He didn’t go back for the machete. In fact, he no longer had the water bottle in his hand either, but he kept crawling along on hands and feet, scurrying faster and faster to the throb inside his head…a mechanized rhythm that seemed to be unrolling, even manufacturing, the Tunnel ahead of him…as if nothing but oblivion existed ahead of him until mere seconds before his advance.
A heap of debris, at last, blocked his path. Boards, spiked with nails. A musty armchair. A carpet, impaled on some of the more jagged boards. There was no more electric light here, but a pale bluish glow leaked down from high above. Noon took in his surroundings more closely and noticed that the walls were no longer of packed dirt, were covered in boards instead. The floor itself was of a spongy, thick black soil that his hands sank in to their wrists. (A nightcrawler slithered over his fingers, unseen beneath the loam.) Finally, he lifted his agonized, tear-streaming eyes to the ceiling far above him.
The ceiling was of wood, with a broken hole through which that misty bluish light shone. He recognized the light. He realized he recognized the armchair and the carpet in the heap of debris that had fallen from above. They were articles from his own moldering home in the old, old city.
He had, at last, come around to the beginning of the Tunnel again.
A sound on the other side of the heap of debris caught his attention—a little groan, as of pain. Noon hunkered down lower to the ground, straining his hearing, but it was difficult to hear past the boom, boom, boom, clank, clank, clank. There truly seemed to be a whole factory crammed inside his skull, so terribly swollen and heavy did it feel. Something slithered down the back of his head, and then over his shoulder. He thought it was another centipede until he glanced quickly and saw a wispy hank of his own hair falling to the soil. As his hair was sliding away, so did his final rags of clothing seem to be drooping off of him. Impatiently, he clawed the last remnants away from his body.
Another groan, and through the tangle of boards he saw a figure rise up. It was the most human-looking Foeti he had seen yet. Its long hair was tied in back with a black ribbon, and it slapped the black soil off its full set of clothing. It seemed to be trying to get its bearings; looked up at that hole in the ceiling so far above. As Noon spied through the fallen debris, he saw the upright Foeti walk to the wooden wall, dig its fingers and toes between the warped old boards in an attempt to climb all the way up to that bluish light of freedom.
He must not let his enemy, his nemesis, escape. He must kill it before it killed him.
With a terrible cry that sounded inhuman even to himself, Noon lunged out of the shadows. The human-appearing Foeti dropped off the wooden wall, looked his way only for an instant, and then began running off down the Tunnel.
Noon chased after him. Pursued him. Running. And running and running.
Author’s Biography
JEFFREY THOMAS is the author of the novels Letters From Hades (Bedlam Press), Monstrocity (Prime), Boneland (Bloodletting Press), Everybody Scream! (Raw Dog Screaming Press), and The Sea of Flesh and Ash (with brother Scott Thomas, from Prime). His collections include Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood (Delirium Books), Terror Incognita (Delirium Books), Punktown (Ministry of Whimsy Press, a story from which appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #14), an expanded special edition of Punktown (Prime), and a German language edition of Punktown featuring cover art by H. R. Giger. He lives close to the fictitious town of Eastborough, Massachusetts.
INNOVATING DARK FICTION
www.darkside-digital.com
Table of Contents
Rat King
Chapel
The Yellow House
Fallen
Mrs. Weekes
Psychometric Idol
Black Walls
John
Empathy
Mass Production
John Sadness
Thunderheads
Pale Fruit
Lost Alleys
The Red Spectacles
Gun Metal Blue
The Sister
Hapi Birthday
Family Matter
Dust
Ouroborus
Author’s Biography