The large sifters in the center of the room shook back and forth; casting heavy shadows that rocked to and fro in almost sinister indifference. Nothing leaped out to seize them; no monstrous rats or spiders lay in wait. She sighed with relief.
A fluttering motion caught their eyes. Michael pointed with a trembling finger.
“Fran…”
A large shape clung to the ceiling, almost perfectly camouflaged. It was the wings that caught her eye, paper-thin delicate things that stirred from the movement of the sifters.
It was the largest moth she’d ever seen.
Michael motioned with his hand. There were more of the man-sized moths, clinging to the walls and ceiling so motionlessly that she had not noticed earlier. They did not appear threatening, but…
Michael put a finger to his lips, and pointed back to the door. She nodded. Better to err on the side of caution.
As Fran turned, her arm swung… and caught the edge of one of the sifters. The .38 was knocked out her hand with a metallic clang and clattered across the floor.
Someone screamed.
It was so desperate, so human that Fran looked around wildly for the woman in distress. Nothing was there.
Except for what dropped from the ceiling.
The wings were what had made it look moth-like. The rest was humanoid in shape with soft gray down covering its elongated body. Red eyes glimmered in its face, eyes that were too large, too alien to be human. The slightest flutter of its wings caused it to float from the floor as though its body was weightless. Guy had been right.
The Others had fully evolved.
It opened its mouth and screamed again. The rest became agitated, drifting from the walls and ceiling with answering shrieks. She pressed against Michael, covering her ears. He looked from one to the next with widened eyes, shaking the hammer at them to keep them at bay.
“That’s enough! Don’t come any closer!”
His voice quivered and did nothing to halt their advance. Their screams continued as they pressed in from all around in numbers so thick she could see nothing but ruby eyes and fluttering wings. Fingers touched her, soft caterpillars that crawled on her flesh.
She screamed and lashed out wildly. To her shock the hand tore apart in a cloud of powder. Michael swung the hammer; it easily penetrated a mothman’s chest. They struck repeatedly, but for every creature that fell another took its place. There was no blood, only fine powder that hung in the air. It filled her nostrils until she couldn’t breathe, until she coughed so hard that fire seared her lungs.
Screams vibrated in her eardrums, causing the world to sway in washed out colors; red gleaming eyes and soft gray bodies. Fingers clutched unnaturally strong, pulling with relentless insistence. She and Michael were yanked away from each other, lost in a sea of mothmen and floating powder.
Her own scream floated around her. “Michael!”
Transmuted Palpability
The room was barely illuminated. Pale powder fell unceasingly like fresh snow. The mothmen had vanished. Michael looked around. Beads of sweat tickled his forehead. He hastily wiped it away. “Hello? Fran… Guy? Anybody?”
“Hello, Michael.”
The familiarity of the voice was impossible. When he turned, he felt his eyes widen disbelievingly.
Cynthia was naked, her body grotesquely altered. Her hair hung to the floor and dragged behind her like a bridal train. She shuffled forward in simian fashion, bent over from the weight of her ballooning breasts. Her massive hips and thighs rubbed together as she walked, grossly disproportionate to her tiny waist and legs.
She fluttered foot long eyelashes and sputtered through lips as thick as sausages. “Aren’t you glad to see me, baby?”
He recoiled wildly, stumbling across the powdery floor. “Cynthia? What… what’s happened to you?”
Her body jiggled as she scuffled closer. The nearer she got, the more revolted he felt at her distorted appearance.
“I wanted to see you, Michael. What’s wrong? Didn’t you want to see me? How about a kiss for your sweetheart?” She pursed her oversized lips disgustingly.
He continued to back away. “No. No… I don’t accept this. You’re not real. It’s this… place. You’re just a manifestation…”
A frown distorted her face further. “You said you loved me! You said you would always love me!”
Her oversized breasts flopped and rippled as she rushed forward like a berserk gorilla. Michael tried to run, but she slammed into him with bone-crushing impact. His breath gushed from his lungs as they fell to the floor in a blast of pale powder.
Cynthia screamed incoherently as she tore at him with long painted nails. He managed to free himself from the mounds of sweaty, jiggling flesh. Tears streamed down his face. This isn’t real, isn’t possible…
His fingers brushed against cold metal. He snatched up the hammer that he’d dropped earlier and leaped to his feet, facing off against the grotesque creature that used to be his lover. He raised the hammer defensively.
“Cynthia… don’t make me do it!”
The room was barely illuminated. Pale powder fell unceasingly like fresh snow.
Fran looked around, shivering despite the sweat that dampened her hair and face. “Hello? Michael… where are you? Michael? Guy? Anybody?”
“Hello, Fran.”
Fran gasped at the familiarity of the voice as she whirled around.
A figure stepped from the gloom. Her face was shadowed, her hair lank. A tattered bathrobe hung loosely on her skeletal frame.
“Mom?” It couldn’t be. Even in her old age, her mother had been beautiful. Even though the face was indistinct, it still appeared a gross mockery; the polar opposite of her mother’s features.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you glad to see your mother? A good daughter should always be glad to see her mother. But… you’ve never been a good daughter, have you?”
Fran closed her eyes. No, not again. She shook her head. No, this isn’t real. It’s some… trick. Some design of this Aberration.
She opened her eyes. Her mother was still there. She shuffled forward with her hands raised, gnarled fingers hooked like claws.
Fran stumbled backward. “No. No, I’ve been good… no… you’re not supposed to be here…”
The skeletal thing hissed. “You think just because you ran away and went to college that you could leave me behind? Just because you moved away to a new town? A mother knows. I know what a filthy, sneaking, nasty little whore you’ve been, Fran. Dreaming of men. What you want them to do to you.”
Her face became more pronounced as she drew close. Wrinkles carved runes across her skin; pale eyes gleamed with malevolence.
Tears joined the sweat on Fran’s cheeks as she continued to back away. “Get away from me!”
Mother trembled furiously as she advanced. “You ungrateful little bitch! I don’t know how I gave birth to such a fat, ugly tramp like you. You’re good for nothing! You cheap, ugly slut! You think you can speak to your mother like that? Do you?”
“You’re not my mother! My mother’s dead!”
Mother’s face loomed closely. Her skin was rotted; maggots sprouted from her cheeks and her blackened tongue lolled form her cracked and blistered lips.
“If I’m dead, then what does that make you? Come give your mother a hug…” She shrieked as she raised her tattered arms.
Fran instinctively lashed out, raking her nails across the wretch’s face. The skin tore like rice paper; yellowed teeth flew from Mother’s rotted gums in a spray of black blood.