John stumbled, bleeding, into the graveyard. He had become immune to
the innate human fear of them since the accidents that befell his family,
but after what he had just seen, he didn't know what to expect. He wandered
around, hitting his shins repeatedly on the ruins of headstones. He
couldn't see anything through the fog, his shins hurt, he was cold, and
hungry, and scared, but most of all alone.
For the first time since he was thirteen, John began to cry. He sat down amid the gravestones as his face contorted itself into a grimace of sorrow, and sobbed for the better part of twenty minutes. Afterwards, he stood, composed himself, and began to walk. He didn't care where he was going, he figured he'd eventually find a wall and follow it. He was just becoming used to the complete lack of anything in the fog, when there loomed the shadow of a massive building. He paused, scanning the doorframe for any clue to what lay inside. It was apparently a church. "Churches are sanctuaries, right? I could use some God time right about now," he thought.
The door creaked as he swung it open. Inside, there were several rows of pews, with debris blocking most of the aisles. As he approached the altar, John became aware of a growing sense of unease. Something wasn't right. When he emerged from the maze of debris and pews, his senses were confirmed; he was standing in a slowly, slowly spreading pool of blood emanating from the altar. Nothing in his young life had ever prepared him for this sacrilege. Sure, he'd read about crazy cults out on the West Coast, or in the deep South, and he'd seen a lot of horror flicks, but this...
Something caught his eye on the altar, however. Biting back his distaste, he gingerly stepped through the blood to the center of the room. A faint noise was emanating from—he picked up the small object and wiped away the blood—a... radio? It looked like it had been used in WWII, and was working about as well. A few tinges of static, but nothing else.
The soft sound of a child's laughter pealed out from the balcony. He turned, startled. "Hello?" His voice echoed throughout the hall. The echo of a woman's scream rang out. "HELLO!? Is anyone there?!" he yelled. He turned and hurdled over the pews and sprinted to the staircase at the back of the sanctuary. John flew up two at a time, and paused at the top. Nothing. Cautiously, he began to silently pad down the hallway. The rooms were cluttered with broken chairs and tables, and a dark red liquid he presumed to be blood, mixed with an unnatural amount of rust and decay.
As he scanned room after room, progressing down the hall, he didn't notice the slowly waning light until he realized he couldn't see his feet below him. John looked back. The last visible edge of light had vanished at least twenty feet behind. He turned to start back, when he heard a heavy stumping. He froze. The sound was getting nearer. As John began to edge towards the light, he froze again. There, emerging into the hallway, was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.
It was a massive, nightmarish creature that didn't seem... possible. A grotesque wad of flesh, heaving its way through the hall, it looked as if it was turned inside out and John could clearly see what looked like frantically clawing arms and appendages trying to rip their way out of its side, but to no avail. It twisted and contorted in ways that seemed to defy both physics and plausible anatomy. What scared John most, however, was the hole. A gaping maw, it gnashed its gums and secreted quarts of whatever it used for saliva. It consumed everything in its path; chairs, tables, debris, all were absorbed with a sickening sucking sound. John bolted into the room nearest him, shut and latched the door.
Mistake.
In actuality, John had been completely hidden in the shadow of the hallway, and due to his freezing response, silent as well. The thing had no idea he was there until he moved and loudly slammed the door.
John began to breathe again as he slammed the door and heard the satisfying thunk of the deadbolt. This is how it happens in the movies, right? The monster tries in vain to open the door, while the protagonist has a chance to catch his breath and regroup. John wearily got to his feet and began to examine the room.
Trouble is, this wasn't the movies.
As soon as John took his first two steps into the middle of the room, the creature plowed through the doorway and buried its massive hole into where he had been sitting two seconds prior. His brain pounded with adrenaline. In the space of a second, he looked around the room, saw a window, and crashed through, though to him it seemed an eternity. Amidst the shards of slowly flying glass, his adrenaline-soaked brain had time to notice a crude drawing of what he had just seen flutter out of the window beside him before he plunged fifteen feet to the ground at normal speed.
And John did walk in the valley of the shadow of death, but lo; he was not shopping for real estate.
He woke with a start, but immediately regretted it. He winced as he slowly became aware of his body and surroundings. John had, in fact, cracked a rib in the fall, not to mention scraped off a good deal of his left cheek and had landed in glass shards. He wasn't dead, but looked and felt it. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, surveying the surroundings of his fall, and grimacing with pain as he removed glass shards from his back and arms. As he brushed himself off, he spotted the paper that had accompanied him on his little fall. John picked it up and examined it. On the stained paper, a crude scribble of what he had just seen was drawn in the most startlingly realistic blood red he had ever seen. He turned it over, and was rewarded with this:
JOHN yOu ARE Not WELComE HErE GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY I'LL KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE ruN AwAY RUN AWAY RUN AwAY RUN AWAY!!!!
"Josh? Did you write this? What in the hell..." he muttered. If he had, his brother was spending the rest of his life hugging himself in a rubber room. John turned and looked at the window he had just plummeted out of. The gaping hole glared back down at him. "Seems an improvement... fits the rest of the décor, anyway," he thought. He examined this side of the church. He knew he had distinctly heard a child laughing and a woman scream before, at the altar. What if they were still in there with that thing?
His consciousness was suddenly jerked back down to the paper in his hands. Down in the corner of the back side of the page, there was a mass of scribbles he hadn't noticed before. The same paranoia began to assail his sanity, and his senses expanded again. The scribbles started to undo themselves slowly, but John was a little more ready this time. He tried to focus, through his expanded senses, on the church. A new wave of even greater fear washed through him, but in his panic John was able to focus. He got a whiff of a woman's hair... basement, closet... he tasted... tears?
The scribbles ended, along with his extrasensory abilities and the animalistic fear. As he examined the message, his hands shook and his heart raced. His mind had cut through the paranoia, but his body had not. John was grateful he had not wet himself. The message revealed was a simple one.
i'm sorry, run fast now john
He arched his eyebrow, then looked up in time to see a single shadow on the top of the church stagger forward and fall. As the figure approached the ground, the radio quietly began emitting static. John didn't notice; he walked forward towards the impact site.
It was a single, man-sized form, a little on the short side. An odd clicking noise, like a clock, began to emanate from the radio. As John came up upon it, lightening suddenly flashed somewhere from the foggy sky, illuminating the figure. He froze. Before him was yet another grotesque, disturbing amalgamation of flesh... except this time much worse. It was a machine, a... robot? With flesh haphazardly sewn over the arms and torso... or was the machinery randomly replacing organic parts?
John inched closer, and immediately regretted doing so: his foot nudged a rock down the slight crater the clockwork monster had made, smacking into its head. The clicking noise got louder, and suddenly the arms and legs began thrashing wildly, and the head began ratcheting around in circles. John stepped back, but curiosity overtook him when the monster suddenly froze. He inched forward again, and this time, the clockwork abomination began to ratchet up into a sitting position. A hideous voice whispered in John's head: "I thought I told you to run." He backed up as the beast stood. Its hands had been replaced with ridiculously large blades.
John ran. The clockwork man followed.
For the first time since he was thirteen, John began to cry. He sat down amid the gravestones as his face contorted itself into a grimace of sorrow, and sobbed for the better part of twenty minutes. Afterwards, he stood, composed himself, and began to walk. He didn't care where he was going, he figured he'd eventually find a wall and follow it. He was just becoming used to the complete lack of anything in the fog, when there loomed the shadow of a massive building. He paused, scanning the doorframe for any clue to what lay inside. It was apparently a church. "Churches are sanctuaries, right? I could use some God time right about now," he thought.
The door creaked as he swung it open. Inside, there were several rows of pews, with debris blocking most of the aisles. As he approached the altar, John became aware of a growing sense of unease. Something wasn't right. When he emerged from the maze of debris and pews, his senses were confirmed; he was standing in a slowly, slowly spreading pool of blood emanating from the altar. Nothing in his young life had ever prepared him for this sacrilege. Sure, he'd read about crazy cults out on the West Coast, or in the deep South, and he'd seen a lot of horror flicks, but this...
Something caught his eye on the altar, however. Biting back his distaste, he gingerly stepped through the blood to the center of the room. A faint noise was emanating from—he picked up the small object and wiped away the blood—a... radio? It looked like it had been used in WWII, and was working about as well. A few tinges of static, but nothing else.
The soft sound of a child's laughter pealed out from the balcony. He turned, startled. "Hello?" His voice echoed throughout the hall. The echo of a woman's scream rang out. "HELLO!? Is anyone there?!" he yelled. He turned and hurdled over the pews and sprinted to the staircase at the back of the sanctuary. John flew up two at a time, and paused at the top. Nothing. Cautiously, he began to silently pad down the hallway. The rooms were cluttered with broken chairs and tables, and a dark red liquid he presumed to be blood, mixed with an unnatural amount of rust and decay.
As he scanned room after room, progressing down the hall, he didn't notice the slowly waning light until he realized he couldn't see his feet below him. John looked back. The last visible edge of light had vanished at least twenty feet behind. He turned to start back, when he heard a heavy stumping. He froze. The sound was getting nearer. As John began to edge towards the light, he froze again. There, emerging into the hallway, was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.
It was a massive, nightmarish creature that didn't seem... possible. A grotesque wad of flesh, heaving its way through the hall, it looked as if it was turned inside out and John could clearly see what looked like frantically clawing arms and appendages trying to rip their way out of its side, but to no avail. It twisted and contorted in ways that seemed to defy both physics and plausible anatomy. What scared John most, however, was the hole. A gaping maw, it gnashed its gums and secreted quarts of whatever it used for saliva. It consumed everything in its path; chairs, tables, debris, all were absorbed with a sickening sucking sound. John bolted into the room nearest him, shut and latched the door.
Mistake.
In actuality, John had been completely hidden in the shadow of the hallway, and due to his freezing response, silent as well. The thing had no idea he was there until he moved and loudly slammed the door.
John began to breathe again as he slammed the door and heard the satisfying thunk of the deadbolt. This is how it happens in the movies, right? The monster tries in vain to open the door, while the protagonist has a chance to catch his breath and regroup. John wearily got to his feet and began to examine the room.
Trouble is, this wasn't the movies.
As soon as John took his first two steps into the middle of the room, the creature plowed through the doorway and buried its massive hole into where he had been sitting two seconds prior. His brain pounded with adrenaline. In the space of a second, he looked around the room, saw a window, and crashed through, though to him it seemed an eternity. Amidst the shards of slowly flying glass, his adrenaline-soaked brain had time to notice a crude drawing of what he had just seen flutter out of the window beside him before he plunged fifteen feet to the ground at normal speed.
And John did walk in the valley of the shadow of death, but lo; he was not shopping for real estate.
He woke with a start, but immediately regretted it. He winced as he slowly became aware of his body and surroundings. John had, in fact, cracked a rib in the fall, not to mention scraped off a good deal of his left cheek and had landed in glass shards. He wasn't dead, but looked and felt it. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, surveying the surroundings of his fall, and grimacing with pain as he removed glass shards from his back and arms. As he brushed himself off, he spotted the paper that had accompanied him on his little fall. John picked it up and examined it. On the stained paper, a crude scribble of what he had just seen was drawn in the most startlingly realistic blood red he had ever seen. He turned it over, and was rewarded with this:
JOHN yOu ARE Not WELComE HErE GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY I'LL KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE ruN AwAY RUN AWAY RUN AwAY RUN AWAY!!!!
"Josh? Did you write this? What in the hell..." he muttered. If he had, his brother was spending the rest of his life hugging himself in a rubber room. John turned and looked at the window he had just plummeted out of. The gaping hole glared back down at him. "Seems an improvement... fits the rest of the décor, anyway," he thought. He examined this side of the church. He knew he had distinctly heard a child laughing and a woman scream before, at the altar. What if they were still in there with that thing?
His consciousness was suddenly jerked back down to the paper in his hands. Down in the corner of the back side of the page, there was a mass of scribbles he hadn't noticed before. The same paranoia began to assail his sanity, and his senses expanded again. The scribbles started to undo themselves slowly, but John was a little more ready this time. He tried to focus, through his expanded senses, on the church. A new wave of even greater fear washed through him, but in his panic John was able to focus. He got a whiff of a woman's hair... basement, closet... he tasted... tears?
The scribbles ended, along with his extrasensory abilities and the animalistic fear. As he examined the message, his hands shook and his heart raced. His mind had cut through the paranoia, but his body had not. John was grateful he had not wet himself. The message revealed was a simple one.
i'm sorry, run fast now john
He arched his eyebrow, then looked up in time to see a single shadow on the top of the church stagger forward and fall. As the figure approached the ground, the radio quietly began emitting static. John didn't notice; he walked forward towards the impact site.
It was a single, man-sized form, a little on the short side. An odd clicking noise, like a clock, began to emanate from the radio. As John came up upon it, lightening suddenly flashed somewhere from the foggy sky, illuminating the figure. He froze. Before him was yet another grotesque, disturbing amalgamation of flesh... except this time much worse. It was a machine, a... robot? With flesh haphazardly sewn over the arms and torso... or was the machinery randomly replacing organic parts?
John inched closer, and immediately regretted doing so: his foot nudged a rock down the slight crater the clockwork monster had made, smacking into its head. The clicking noise got louder, and suddenly the arms and legs began thrashing wildly, and the head began ratcheting around in circles. John stepped back, but curiosity overtook him when the monster suddenly froze. He inched forward again, and this time, the clockwork abomination began to ratchet up into a sitting position. A hideous voice whispered in John's head: "I thought I told you to run." He backed up as the beast stood. Its hands had been replaced with ridiculously large blades.
John ran. The clockwork man followed.
