There was a gentle sound as the tear drop splashed against the wood. Whilst she laid there upon the floor, she could see her foot gently tapping, the sole of her red stained shoe against the exposed floorboards with an unnerving thump, thump, thump. She could feel the impact resonating through the wood as her left ear was pressed to the floor. A small stone caused slight discomfort against her lobe, but she could not move her head. She had nothing left now, only the hunger that always plagued her. Her last hope, her last grasp to life was gone, a final act by the one she loved told it all to her. As she let her last grip on humanity fall, she could feel the urge to feast and gorge herself fill her soul, she want to tear, rip, gouge and swallow it all. The drumming of her foot becoming more and more intense as the hunger filled her senses until she could not hold back anymore. Her mouth opened wide baring her teeth.

…

She had watched her go past her home for many months now, never able to approach her, never able to ask her out for a drink. She gazed across the road to where her love worked in the small cake shop. Faint wafts of baking would travel on the gentle breeze in the summer when the door was left open. When the light was right, she could see in through the window at the front of the little shop. She would watch her serve customers, smile and laugh. Once she had watched her cry after a visit from a police officer. She had not come to work for many days after, and when she did finally return, her step was slower and her smile gone. The cake lady would often stare out of the window and across the road, always with a sad expression of mourning, a sense of loss. It was during these times her feelings for this once happy cake lady intensified. She wanted to reach out to her, hold her, kiss her, make her smile again. But still she never approached her cake lady, she hid in her home, behind the walls, behind the old oak tree, never leaving, even when the gate was open by day.

She had stayed in this place for over a year now, long enough for her to call it home. It was dangerous outside, and even when her stomach ached with hunger, she stayed hidden from the outside world. During daylight when she was not watching her love, she stayed in the darkness, hidden inside. At night she would allow herself to wander upon the grass and beneath the trees in the grounds of her home. She would imagine them together, hand in hand, as they walked the paths between the stones. Some nights she would become violent and smash herself again the walls, both physical and mental, fighting the hunger when she had the strength to.

She held on to her humanity the best she could, but temptation sometimes strayed inside the old brick walls. Young couples on a midnight stroll seeking a scare to make them hold each other closer, drunks looking for a quiet place to drink and sleep and then others who came to embrace the solitude that this place brought as they could or would not go home. Not even she could hold back then, and afterwards, when the hunger briefly died away, she would be left tormented, unable to face what she had done and what she really was. Once the police came, when she had left her meal in the open after being disturbed. It was then they had spoken to her beloved cake lady, as well as searched her own home, but this place was old with many secret places to hide and after a few days the police had gone, no wiser to her existence.

His scream was muffled as an abrasive hand clasped across his mouth, toxic hairs like needles dug into his skin and lips, irritating, piercing flesh and gums. Pin pricks in his flesh let blood flow into the bath water as the pressure of the hand increased. He involuntarily inhaled, breathing hundreds of tiny irritant hairs into his throat, nose and lungs. His internal organs reacted in ferocious defence against the foreign elements that had entered their domain. The increasing pain began to overwhelm him, his breaths became panicked as his body tried to gag on his own bile, mucus and blood. The face of the monster moved closer to Darren’s own face, which still struggled with its fight against the paralysis that sat in his muscles like black glutinous tar beneath his skin. Darren rasped in desperation, his eyes staring at the looming face that drew closer and closer to him. Eye sockets that had been grown over by the dishevelled skin of the demon seemed to peer deep in Darren’s eyes. Whilst it had no eyes to see, Darren could feel the penetrating presence burrow deep into his own eyes and ripping his soul in an organised but savage search for his past, as random events of his life rose and fell in his mind. Fetid breath exhaled from the monster’s repulsive mouth. The cavity was long and drawn out vertically, the bottom of the rough lips flowing out into separate limbs each with a single curved claw glistening as they moved around the cavity, cleaning and preparing. The reminiscence of his past increased in momentum. Unable to cope with the bedlam, his mind began to adulterate the memories and the vision that towered before him. The monster no longer stood over him, his mother was holding him down, her mouth opening in a sickening movement and clawed limbs ripped out tearing her face into a deformed manic grin. Blood fell like a waterfall from the coarse wounds, pouring over Darren’s chest and spilling into the already pink water, turning it a deep red. Black congealed lumps fell from his mothers face, each linked by umbilical-like cords. The lumps that hit his bare chest exploded, releasing dark clotted fluids that burned into his flesh. Skin fell away from his ribcage, sliding into the bathwater. Muscle followed and bone began to dissolve, the residue dripping onto his lungs and heart. Darren fought for breath as his lungs deflated and dissolved into the flesh soup bathwater. Finally this butchered vision of his mother pushed him in, down into the vile substance and a final resolve.

Darren looked at the tinfoil that his friend offered him along with the make-shift pipe to inhale the smoke with. He had never tried heroin before and was unsure of it now. Part of him wanted to find out the hit, another part told him where it would lead. As he stared at the tinfoil, he caught a reflection in part of the foil of a dark figure in a brimmed hat. He turned around only to see nothing there, breathing heavily with paranoia of potential actions.

“You want it or what?” said a voice.

The End

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

The figure stood tall, the tip of its fedora hat only just missing the moist ceiling as it approached the bath. It moved without step, gliding with an unnerving slithering across the black and white chequered floor, its legs hidden by the long, heavily stained trench coat. The collar of the coat was pulled up, hiding the visitor’s facial features, all that showed were the eyes, black and abyss-like. They reflected the image of Darren, his naked scrawny body partly submerged in the bath water. As the figure moved closer towards Darren’s still body, the reflection that viewed like a movie in an empty movie theatre pulled in closer to Darren’s upper torso and his head. As Darren’s eyes came into focus, his dilated pupils moved to look directly at the intruder that now stood over him. The waterfall that his drugged mind had perceived shrank suddenly, dragging Darren back to the surface, back to his reality.

Darren’s brain screamed inside his skull, but that was as far as the scream got. His senses exploded with repulsion, the smell wanted to make him vomit, the sickly presence that invaded his personal space made his skin crawl. But he could not react, no muscle operated, no limb moved and no sound came out. Only his eyes could move and all he could see was the horror that stood over him. As he laid in the now suddenly cold bath, naked and prone, all he could do was stare at the figure above him. His internal dialogue begging for his life, knowing it made no difference as whatever stood over him could not hear his pleas. The figure just stood and stared at the pitiful man below him and did not move. Under the trench coat, things slithered and moved, making strange bulges across the visitor’s chest and back. Darren’s mind tried to reason with itself, the rational part saying that his enemies had finally found him and his life would end soon, very soon. But then the part of his mind that told him to fear the dark screamed out at him and took control. This was not human, not even earthly, this was his demon that had come for him. His deeds, his sins were now to be accounted for. He had destroyed his life and all those who had given a damn about him. Through his addiction he had condemned himself, not just to death, to Hell. The drugs… “Wait” his thoughts told him, It’s a hallucination, just a hallucination. His face twitched into a manic smile with the realisation. In the maelstrom of his mind, Darren suddenly felt like he had hit the eye of a storm and peace descended over him. His thoughts moved with ease and took only moments for long thoughts to process. His suddenly clear head analysed the figure above him, he could see it now, his mind understood the horror that affronted him with a sense of calm. Even though his mind took in and understood the horror, his thoughts acted like he was casually sight-seeing. Slowly the figure raised an arm over Darren, extending gangling fingers. As the figure moved the collars of trench coat fell away revealing the face that was hidden beneath. Darren screamed.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

He lay in the bath staring at the ceiling through wisps of steam, while his mind was trying to explain his earlier experiences. At the time it all seemed so real, but now it looked like the drugs and his own paranoia were becoming partners in the reality game. Monsters don’t exist, not in the real world he hated so much. The hot water did its best to relax his tense body, but his mind was still working overtime. He thought about needing more heroin, his death on someones agenda and why in Hell’s name had he hallucinated those creatures in all their sickly glory. His head started to hurt and his muscles started to twitch and convulse as his body and mind cried out for another hit. Darren dragged himself out of the bath and walked into the other room, leaving a trail of wet footprints across the threadbare carpet. He picked up the various tools and supplies for his temporary escape. He placed the tools and substance of his addiction on a chair by the bath, and began the preparation for loading the syringe. He stepped back into the bath and slid into the warm comforting water. He reached over for his belt, and tied his arm ready for the delivery. This was the last of his stash, after this it is either face those who he has crossed or face cold turkey. He would face that bridge later – for now he could escape once more.

He found a vein amongst the various pinpricks trailing along his arm. They looked like a highlighted journey on a map, except the map got you nowhere good in the end. Picking up the syringe, he flicked it, making sure there were no air bubbles. Get one in your bloodstream and it could kill you. He considered the irony, if that finished him off. He found the spot, feeling the point of the needle on his skin. He applied force and the needle went in cleanly. He pressed the plunger and the brown liquid shot into the vein, to mingle with the weak red blood that flowed through him, keeping him alive. The hit was almost instantaneous. He sunk into the bath, the now murky water lapping at his lips. As he lay there in a self-inflicted state of paralysis, he stared passed the ceiling, his mind somewhere else, no longer in the same scape as his body. He sunk further and further into the water. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, the water flowed vertically down as he fell below the water level. Like the giant waterfalls he had seen on television, mist erupted as it fell upon his flesh. The turmoil of liquid ignited the senses of his skin. The pressure pushing down and the heat mildly scolding, but all pleasurable as it scoured his sins away. He let himself sink deeper and deeper into the bliss that wrapped him up and made everything safe again. No one could touch him here, no one. Those who wanted him dead could do their worst, he would live forever if they found him now. He looked up at the rectangular hole in the water above him, it seemed so far away now. He could only see the ceiling above him and the naked light-bulb that steamed in the moisture-filled air. He could not see the bathroom walls or the door. This was when the bathroom door opened and a figure moved towards the bath.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

As consciousness swirled back to Darren, he felt about six foot under, in the grave of his own digging. When will the maggots come and take what is left of his flesh, to release him to another existence, a second chance to feel alive? He looked up at the ceiling of his bedsit. The ceiling was a murky yellow colour, years of smoke and living had produced a masterpiece up there, and he could see patterns and shapes on the blotches and damp stains. He saw a barren desert with small settlements of mould. As he stared, the ceiling had moved. This was normal, the visual distortions of so-called reality brought on by his choice of addiction, if he could call it a choice now. The atmosphere in the little room had become oppressive, the air heavy and difficult to breathe. The cupboard loomed over Darren, its doors slightly ajar. His mind started to play tricks – something in the closet was looking out, one eyeball peered from the crack. Its iris studied Darren on the floor in his sorry state.  He could see the thing in the closet looking at the puddle of piss on the floor between his legs, the acrid smell making him feel like an incontinent old person who belonged in care. Darren looked away from his mind’s invention of self-judging, knowing it is just his head messing with itself.

His eyes traced back to the ceiling and its swirling desert storms, and as he stared harder, the lines of yellow started to move. The shades changed colour, only slightly, hints of other colours mixing in with the tobacco yellow. Shapes were forming, they formed creatures from the dark places. He could hear voices hissing and wet tendrils slithering like eels caught in a net. Darren felt a dead weight all over his body, more than is usual for his state, his brain ached and thumped. He closed his eyes to the forms on the ceiling, the darkness engulfing his brain, as did the entities he was trying to hide from. He could see them clearly now, no longer were they patterns on a stained ceiling but images in his head. They looked too real to be the drugs, the edges too clear and crisp, the detail intensely sickening. These creatures with drool falling from salivating mouths, between razor-like teeth. Their eyes bulging from half decayed sockets and stems, tendrils reached out to grab at him, he could feel the cold, damp secretions of these monsters. The smell that came with them was worse than any cesspit he had called home over the years. It felt like barbed wire being pulled through his nose and throat, his stomach convulsed and he vomited, still the stench was drawn into his lungs, his eyes started to stream. The noise they made became louder and louder, it made his ears hurt and the intense riot of screaming, insane laughter and stomach-wrenching noises overtook his senses, it felt like his head would explode. He continued staring at the evil which clawed at him, the smell burned his insides, the primeval grunts and groans too loud.  Darren screamed and opened his eyes. They were gone, it was just the same old yellowed ceiling, no monsters, no pounding noises and no vile smell, just him and his room. Darren breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He noticed the puddle between his legs was growing as his mind and body relaxed and escaped into unconsciousness.

Darkness had fallen by the time Darren woke up. He could feel stinging on his thighs, remembering that he had pissed himself. Suddenly, Darren remembered the ceiling and the horrors he had seen. He looked up and started to shake, and then relaxed when he saw his ceiling was still just the ceiling and not horrific entities trying to take his pointless life to another place, a place worse than this. He got up and put the light on, a dull light spreading across the room. He went to the cupboard and opened it, screaming as he fell to the floor expecting to see glistening teeth surrounded by decaying lips, wanting to smother him in fatal kisses. Darren lay there for a few seconds, then realised that what had come from the cupboard was only junk. He started to laugh, more of a delirious giggle, growing louder until his chest started to hurt, but the laughter would not stop. A coughing fit took over the insane laughter and Darren forced himself to calm down and sit up. He started to wonder if he was finally losing it, too much heroin and too much paranoia. Leaving the contents of the cupboard on the floor, he stood up and shuffled to bathroom to run himself a bath.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

The tap dripped repeatedly, as it had done all night and the night before that, as it had done for weeks now. The water droplets had become a repetitive beat, the beating of a solitary drum, reminiscent of the last beat to be heard before criminals were hung in old London. Darren stared at the drips, watching for them to fall and disappear. He had stared at the tap now for a couple of hours, looking deeply at the lime scale which had built up around the drain hole. It’s porous miniature landscape showed hills and caves all in a scaly white-brown colour. The surface looked like his life, potentially clean white mixed with a brown sludge and full of holes. It looked like hardened heroin – there was his brown sludge, too many days and nights lying in his own faeces with his mind in that place that hides so much of his fucked up excuse for a life since he became a so-called man. The holes in his life mixed in with the dream induced shit, those holes of a caring woman, not the whores or rabid junkies he had quelled his urges with all those months ago. It had been too long now, but he didn’t care any more, those blurred evenings were stale now, as was he.

The only reaction he showed now was either tears, violence or silence. He felt numb to anything that life could throw at him, nothing mattered any more. Well, apart from the numerous people who wanted him dead, including himself.  But that was his choice, not anyone else’s. That’s unless God got in way, if he can? It was his choice when to extinguish his life. This was an insane stand considering he knew of at least one hit have been put out for his life. The problem he had was that his soul-destroying habit cost money. It’s a catch 22, you’re too trashed or ill to earn money; at least legally, anyway.  Mugging and robbery usually worked, but these days it’s not enough money and you usually end up running from guns protecting their owners’ homes and purses. He tried drug running a few times, but temptation got too much and a non-delivery earned his first hit to be taken out on him. The police got involved when the hitman fucked up and shot a kid dead, while only crippling Darren’s leg. Once in hospital, he told the police that he knew nothing. Then they showed him a photo of himself alongside spent cartridges, the photo taken from a distance and obviously without his consent, more like a paparazzi shot or surveillance. Darren broke down and told them everything, and once he was healed the police approached him again, this time they offered cash and protection in return for information.

It was easy money for stitching up mates, not that they were mates, only associates. Any one of them would stab you in the back and sell your clothes if they could get scag for them. But the police weren’t interested in punters, they wanted the dealers. Those who served death or salvation at a price, depending on who you spoke too. He had given them names and details, enough to put many of them away. As tax payers’ money rolled in along with seized goods, so the enemies built up along with the paranoia. Now his front door has not been opened for over a month. The stash that Darren had stockpiled to keep him going, while he hid and tried to find a way to escape from the hitmen, was rapidly depleting, only enough left for a day at the most. Darren felt panic spread through him like a bush fire – he can’t run out now, by now most people knew of his dealings with the law and he will only get a kicking or worse if he tries to get any more scag. That was it, he needed to relax again. He forced his eyes away from the dripping tap and walked over to the small table. He looked at the burnt spoon and the needle, and in less than three minutes Darren was on the floor. The needle dropped from his veins with a little squirt of blood. Something in the room breathed in anticipation.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

The boy ran into the classroom, his class friends sat at individual desks looking down at the books in front of them. No one looked up at his manic entrance, as if he was not there. The teacher leant against her desk at the front of the class, also reading from the same book as the children, but she read it aloud; or so it seemed. Her lips moved as her eyes scanned from left to right, but he could not hear the words. The noise was there, but faint and garbled –  he knew he should be able to understand, but it was as if this reality was now out of reach for him, a veil had fallen between him and them.

The boy fell to the ground, his back sliding down the wall, removing the edges of dry paint cracks, revealing dark red brickwork underneath. He looked around the room at everyone. Not one glance of acknowledgement from any of them, even those he counted as friends. Why had the teacher not seen him? She must have seen his distress, his terror, and like adults do, come to the rescue and make it all better, make the bad ‘it’ go away.

It all had become too much, the familiarity of what was his normal day no longer his to seek comfort in. The boy knew he was alone as he lowered his head into his huddled arms, tears streaming down his cheeks, his ability to act with composure gone. He was alone now; knowing only that ‘it’ was getting closer and closer.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

His eyes, his eyes could not stop staring at the girl’s face. The way her pretty face was contorted in sheer terror, her reasoning gone as she threw herself at the door again and again, her head smashing against the reinforced glass, already cracked; now even more so.  The high sun silhouetted the girl, a darkness that bled. The red left behind on the wire-crossed window became  deeper with each impact. As she moved back to run at the door again, the light of the sun projected the colour of her blood across the boy’s face, masking him with her terror that seeped into his retinas. Electrical pulses carried the terror to his brain, overloaded synaptic terror found his reasoning, and a second later he ran as he heard the final impact and something solid finally broke. He was pretty sure it was not the window or the door.

His heart was pumping fast now as he tried to leap up the stairs, as many as he could at a time.- all he knew is that he had to get away from it. His foot slipped on the edge of the step as he reached the corner and gravity took care of the rest: his shins and knees hit the stone edges, sending pain through his body. The boy screamed in pain, and he was almost thankful for the moment of distraction, but it was only a moment. He looked up as he pushed his hands down to bring his body up and carry on up the stairs. In the corner of the stairwell turn was a wicker chair, on which sat a clown doll. It was a large toy, taking up the entire seat, its white face and red suit very apparent against the dull wicker and industrial magnolia walls. The clown’s eyes lined in a solid black glared at the boy, retaining the boy’s attention in response.  Deep red lips curled upwards at the edges, creating a malevolent smile across the doll’s face, as if it knew what was coming for the boy and what ‘it’ would do to him when he was finally caught.

With the vision of the doll with its underlying evil and corruption burned into the boy’s mind, he jolted and carried on running up the stairs. At the top he almost fell through the double swing doors, his arms outstretched to let his hands take the force without thinking. As he ran down the corridor his eyes searched the windows into the classroom on his left. Frosting in the lower part of the windows prevented him from seeing with much clarity, but he could see shadows of a tall figure standing at the end of the room, with hunched figures sitting neatly in rows. He knew it was his class as he got closer to the door, reassured by the familiar silhouettes with the edges broken by the pattern of the frosted glass. Finally, the old green painted door was in reach and he grabbed the tarnished bronzed doorknob, pulling it towards him.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

From somewhere inside she resisted, using every ounce of will left in her fragile essence to force her vision away from the eyes of the children, those who no longer existed for themselves, willing slaves of the source of her terror, her ‘it’. A wave of fear flowed over her; her body reacted, wanting to get away. She found herself being thrown forward by her own muscles, commanded from somewhere beneath her terror. Clinging to the fence she dragged herself along until she fell again, the wire support moving away from her as a gate swung open from her weight. She looked up, her eyes trying to focus on the mass of swirling colour upon the brickwork and that is when she saw it.

Shapes formed in front on her, rectangular and a dull green, they wavered until they became one. A light flickered from it, stark white and almost blinding as it became constant, forming a square in the rectangle. It called to her, a desperate comfort and respite from her horrors. Then something blocked the saving light allowing her eyes to settle and that was when she realised it was door. A door into wall, an escape from all those who looked on. Their stares hitting hard into her mind from behind and maybe even escape ‘it’.

She looked further into the square window to see what was now silhouetted by the light. As she crawled closer the darkness faded and revealed a set of eyes peering through the reinforced glass. She jerked back, as she feared that them and ‘it’ were also behind the door, but then the eyes blinked and she realised that behind those eyes was life, someone else who was like her. It was enough. She got up off bruised knees and ran towards the door. She slammed against it, hoping for it to fall open and the room inside to catch her, shutting the courtyard, the other dead children and ‘it’ outside and away from her. Her shoulder ached as it slammed into the surface that did not move, her fists hitting the blistered paint upon the solid wooden door. She wrenched at the handle, blood causing her hand to slip – even when she did get grip it was with no effect, as the door was locked.

She screamed for help at the figure behind the smeared dusty glass. She saw that it was a young boy, maybe eight or nine years old. His face showed panic, his hands gripping his t-shirt with a desperateness only innocence could bring. She could see him looking at her helplessly, his eyes absorbing the terror from her own eyes, from ‘it’. Her soul shattered and she was lost.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The monolithic walls loomed over the large courtyard. Weathered graffiti spread across the crumbling brickwork telling its story of despair. Sprayed eyes stared unblinking across the concrete, their gaze reflecting the lifelessness of the children’s own eyes; those who stood entombed within the four walls. Silent screams emanated from the young bodies, filling the acrid air like an invisible mire that drowned those who are drawn to its haunting ethereal mists or fell into its deathly caresses when everyone else pushed them away.

The girl tried to run, one leg stumbling in front of the other, her own exhaustion tripping her up whilst her mind tried to concentrate on escape, getting away from them and ‘it’. The dry, thick air stifled her breathing, her head was pounding and exhaustion ravaged her limbs. She could not see straight any more, blurred repetitions of the world around her, fading like ghosts. As she turned her head looking from an escape, she could only see more and more wire fencing blocking her path as if she were a prison inmate.

The colours blurred and edges became lost to her. She fell against the rust coloured wire fence, its lattice weaving digging into her face. Dried encrusted dust separated from the rusting metal, billowing into her mouth and removing what little moisture remained as she choked, bile rising from her empty stomach. She clawed with her fingers at the fence, trying to pull herself up with no avail as her legs gave in again and again. As she fell to the floor, her tired limbs finally giving up, she turned her back against the fence, gouging flesh on broken wire. The clay-like dust mixed with the red blood added further agony upon her senses, layering on top of her exhaustion and terror and almost bringing a torrid sense of peace amidst her panic ridden mind.

She gazed randomly upon all the children, her eyes tearing from one child to the next. They stood like statues, all facing her, all motionless; all dead in their souls. Their eyes bore into her and penetrated her fractured soul, threatening to shatter it like a mirror; breaking her. Unspoken voices tell her to give herself to ‘it’ and let go of life, for she would be all the sweeter to feast upon.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4