Michael disentangled from Fran’s clutches and stood straighter. “Look, Guy… I’m not going with you.”
“We’re not going with you,” Fran said, taking hold of his arm.
Michael looked at her. Staring at him so confidently, for the first time she actually looked… lovely. He looked back at Guy. “We’re not going up there.”
Guy stared at them for what seemed a long time. “You know you’re going to die, don’t you?”
Michael swallowed hard. “It… it doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Up, down… none of us are going to get through this night alive, are we?”
Guy gave a rueful shrug. “I don’t know. But I do know that there’s only one person with experience dealing with these things, and that’s not you, Michael.”
“Come with us, Guy. You’re the one who said if we stick together then we make it out alive. The Others have to better than facing…”
Guy suddenly put his finger to his lips. “Do you hear…?”
At first there was nothing but a smothering blanket of dreadful silence. Then it became worse. A thumping sound became distinctly audible; the sound of something heavy carelessly banging against the stairwells as it descended.
Guy raised his shotgun. “Get ready.”
The thumping grew louder, closing in on where they stood drenched in a cesspool of apprehension. Michael wasn’t sure what he expected, but what finally descended made him want to vomit until he blacked out; the only thing that stopped him was his throat clamped by the choking fingers of his own fear.
It was Drake.
Only his upper torso remained as he hung upside down. The rest of him was just… missing. The flesh was torn raggedly and bonded to the webbing. What happened to the rest of him was something Michael didn’t want to consider.
Ghostly strands dangled him like a macabre puppet; his head jerked spasmodically as though searching for what his eyes could no longer capture. They had been replaced with cotton webbing. The same lined his mouth when he spoke. His sound was muffled, and the voice nothing like Drake’s at all. The strands pulled; one of Drake’s arms swung as though beckoning.
“It’s safe now,” it said through its web-lined maw. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you, I promise…”
Cryptid Trucidation
Fran turned away from the blood-spattered puppet, gagging. They had averted the flashlights, but that only made the shadowy form all the more hideous. The top half of Drake still dangled from the thick ropes of webbing that was lost to darkness above them. Something even worse waited up there; something that had torn Drake in half like a soggy piece of rotten chicken. The strings jerked again. Drake’s head and arms bobbed morbidly; the voice that was not his spoke again through his cotton-stuffed mouth.
“Don’t be scared. Nothing is going to hurt you.” Blood dribbled from its lips.
She wished it would stop, that the disgusting thing would just die, even if it was Drake; or that she would wake up and find out that this was all a sickening nightmare. But she knew it wasn’t. Her stomach was a mire of gas and froth. She couldn’t remember any dream where she had flatulence.
“Come on up. Don’t be afraid.”
Michael held an arm around her protectively, the only comfort she had to cling to. So long as he was there, she could clutch to the foolish hope that they might make it out alive. She and Guy both had their guns trained on the Drake puppet, but neither had fired. There was no need. Drake was obviously dead; the thing that jerked spasmodically in front of them was just a pulpy wad of lifeless flesh.
They backed away slowly, creeping down a few steps until Guy stopped. The puppet continued its gibbering.
“Don’t be scared. All you have to do is come up a few more steps.”
They tried to ignore its babble as it gesticulated impatiently.
“No way we can go up further, Guy.” Michael’s voice had tapered to a ragged whisper. “Not with something that can do… that. Come with us. We’ll have a better chance against the Others.”
“No.” Dry ice coated Guy’s voice. “They have fully evolved now. There is no way to get past them. You have to trust me, Michael. We can get through this if we stick together.”
“Don’t be afraid…”
“Guy… I can’t.” Michael’s sweaty face contorted in indecision. Fran wanted to cry at his expression. “This is beyond sick. I can’t go up there… you understand, don’t you? I just can’t.”
“Come on up…”
Guy looked at them for a moment before he reluctantly nodded. “I understand.”
“Come with us, then.”
“I can’t.”
“Don’t be scared…”
“You can’t face whatever’s up there, Guy! None of us can. You’re just going to die like Drake did.”
Guy’s face was almost hidden in the gloom, but his eyes shone with terrible intensity, making his words all the more ominous.
“You are closer to death than I am, Michael. You forget that I’ve seen these kinds of things before. If you go back, you go without me. We never look back. There is nothing except death behind us.”
For some reason she desperately wanted to tell Michael change his mind. It was something in Guy’s voice, something dark and terrible, like… prophecy. Yet her tongue thickened; her throat constricted on the words before she could utter them.
The instant shattered when Michael turned away with an inarticulate cry.
“Come on, Fran. We have to go now.” As he pulled her away, she realized how good it felt to move, to recede from the perverted scene. Guy appeared terribly alone as she took a last look behind; he stood in the darkness with a shotgun and a pen flashlight; small defense against the heavy gloom that coagulated with every step that separated them. The Drake puppet was a bizarre shadow that writhed among other shadows, a whispered voice that crawled in her ear in a final attempt to drive her mad.
“Come back. You’re going the wrong way…”
She turned and descended after Michael, leaving Guy to his fate.
“Come on, Fran.” Michael’s whisper was urgent as he seized her arm. It struck her then that Michael was terribly afraid. He had been able to summon a façade of boldness before, but that house of cards had collapsed when they had separated from Guy. Now that it was on him to make decisions, she could see the doubt and fear that flickered across his face.
They stopped at the fifth floor doorway. Michael looked around frantically. “Did you hear that?”
She tried to swallow the sagebrush that dragged in her throat. “What is it?”
“I thought I heard…” His eyes stretched to golf balls, but the gloom was thick and his light grew dimmer by the second. He rapped the flashlight, but it stubbornly continued to defy him.
“Damn… Let’s step inside for a minute. The emergency lights are still on. I can’t take this darkness anymore. Do you still have that pistol?”
Fran pulled the .38 from her pocket and nodded.
Michael hefted the hammer. “Don’t know what good this will do, but it’s better than nothing. Ready?”
She raised the pistol and took a deep breath. He nodded and slowly opened the door.
The red glare of the emergency lights blinded them momentarily. They winced as they frantically searched the room. Fran swiveled the pistol from side to side, gasping.