He felt as though he were floating. A red balloon filled with helium almost to the breaking point. He was lost in a never ending sea of darkness, drifting wherever the tides carried him. Then the lights came on, dim at first, everything in dull shadows. Brighter and brighter the overhead lights got, spilling out unforgiving rays of helium beams too bright to look at. Brighter than the sun. It made the pounding beneath his temples even worse. The aches that he felt all over his body stood up and cheered.
Mike shielded his eyes, and peeked through the tiny slits his eyelids had closed into. A moment and his eyes adjusted. He looked around and realized that he was in the hospital that he worked at. Everything else was a haze. The drive there, what happened just five minutes ago, why he was standing in the hospital basement hall which lead to the morgue, staring at the elevator doors.
"Look behind you."
It wasn't really a voice. More of a feeling from somewhere deep inside. That urge that might make any average Joe get up and grab a bag of potato chips even when he wasn't hungry. That little twinkle of desire that always seemed to move people, but never had their best interest in mind.
He was about to turn when he heard it and stopped himself. Whatever it was, it was big, and it was feeding. Chewing. Slurping. Smacking its lips and tearing flesh from bone. Dread filled him like the rising tide and washed over him, drowning him in an ocean of fear.
"No thanks," he told the urge. "I don't think I want to see it, whatever it is."
The elevator doors parted in front of him as if on cue. Inside was one of those old projector screens that you pulled down from a metal green tube resting on a tripod. On the screen was a still picture of a chubby kid. A boy of seven, sporting a crew cut and looking out of the screen at him, a question mark on his face.
Mike stared at the screen, his brows furrowed and his mouth a gap. He knew who the kid was, had recognized him instantly, but continued to stare as though there was something alien about the boy.
"It's me," he finally said.
There was a click and the boy's position shifted on the screen, almost too small to notice. Another click and the boy moved again, further to the left and his expression began to change.
CLICK….CLICK….CLICK….CLICK
The boy smiled at him from the screen, spreading his chubby cheeks ear to ear and showing his teeth as he happily rocked side to side.
"Damn," he smiled himself as fond memories of Christmas and Easters past entered his mind. "I was even fat as a kid."
The boy's smile began to fade and his eyes grew large, filling with terror. They overflowed and spilled onto his mouth, turning his smile upside down. The boy turned and ran, leaning forward and arms pumping.
"Don't look at it," Mike shouted to the screen of the feeding creature behind him. "Just don't look at it and it can't hurt you."
The picture faded out.
"Come back little buddy."
The screen lit up again, this time with a freeze frame of his parents in heated debate.
"No," Mike studied the picture. He eyed the man. Something wasn't as it seemed, though he couldn't figure out what. It toyed around with his brain, slithered over it like a serpent after a rat before he was finally able to grasps it. "He's not my father."
The clicking noise filled the air again as the image before him stumbled into life. His mom and Earl, her boyfriend, or at least one of them, argued on the silent screen. You didn't have to hear them to know that they were shouting at the top of their lungs. They drew in deep breathes before they spoke, exposing their teethe like fangs, and yelled out the words with so much force you could see the veins in their throats rise, threatening to exploded from the strain.
"I remember this," Mike's face was the drama mask of sadness. "No."
Earl suddenly rocketed off a punch that caught his mother in the eye. She spin, her head first from the impact, followed by her body and finally her arms which sailed through the air like handle bar tassels in a strong wind. She hit the ground and Earl was on top of her, shoving her arms out of the way as she fought to cover her head and having his way with her face.
The camera panned and zoomed in on the chubby boy, a year older than before. He was sitting on the floor, his back against a wall and his knees pulled to his chin as tears ran down his cheeks like a summer storm.
The pain in Mike's head attacked his brain like red hot spikes being driven in by a small girl with no hammer, instead slowly tapping each by hand. No sudden release to bring the pain to an end. Only an eternity of suffering. A living, hellish thing that seemed to enjoy his torment.
"Look behind you."
"I said no," Mike rubbed at his temples in a vain attempt to squash the pain.
The scene cut to the chubby boy at seven again, still running away from Mike and whatever it was feeding behind him.
"It's okay," he spoke more to himself than the boy on the screen. "It's okay. It'll all be okay."
The running boy faded away and the screen went blank again.
"Look behind you."
"Look behind you."
"Look behind you."
The creature behind him was still feeding. Still tearing into the flesh of whatever had been unlucky enough to have been caught by it.
"It's been feeding for awhile now. Whatever it caught must have been pretty big. Turn around see what it is."
"Go to Hell," Mike hissed. "I'm out of here."
He had intended to walk into the elevator. To get in with the movie screen, reach for the row on buttons with his left hand and not turn around until the doors had closed. That was the plan, anyway. Reality had other plans for him though, and he wasn't about to move from that spot. Not a step. Not an inch. No matter how hard he tried.
"You can turn around if you want. Go ahead. Look behind you."
"Shut-up god damn-it!" He wished that the urge was a real thing. Something solid and made of soft flesh so that he could hit it and release the frustration building inside him. So he could make it bleed.
The screen came to life again, this time with the image of a girl, perhaps seventeen, with stringy brunette hair that looked like she had brushed it while standing next to a power line. A so-so face, flat chested, and a natural beer belly, she was nothing to go bragging to the guys about in the locker room, but she had been Mike's first, if not in the traditional phrase of the word.
"She never would give up that qooch," Mike mused. "But she did let me in the back door. Saved a bundle on condoms."
He started to laugh, but the pain reasserted itself throughout his body as if to say it was no laughing matter.
He stared at the girl, trying to remember her name. It buzzed around his brain like a fly that you wanted to swat, but never could get your hands on.
"What's her name damn-it," his agitation grew. He had dated the girl on the screen for over three years. All through high school until…
Something broke them up. Something he did.
"What's her name," he closed his eyes tight in an effort to remember, but he might as well have kept them open. "Shit."
He opened his eyes and stared at the picture of a girl with small breast and a large gut.
"…"
For the life of him, he didn't know who she was, but could escape the feeling that he knew her.
"Look behind you."
"Fuck off and die," he spat.
The girl vanished, replaced by some kid running. A chubby kid that would every now and then look over his shoulder at Mike in terror.
"That's right kid," Mike gazed at the boy, almost not seeing him at all. "Run fatty. Run your fat little ass off because the bad people are out tonight, and they want to know what your insides feel like."
The boy faded away, leaving only the dull flat screen for Mike to stare at.
"God to fucking hell, what's wrong with me."
Three women appeared on the screen, all naked. One looked like she may have been a great grand mother. The second was little more that a walking skeleton with track marks on her arms and the burn marks of crack pipes on her fingers. The third was large enough to look like she may have eaten a fourth.
"…"
His brain fought hard to reach through the pain and place the faces.
"…"
"…"
"The shit I'd stick my dick into," he smiled.
CLICK…CLICK….CLICK….CLICK….
The picture came to life and the women walked towards him, smiling and mouthing his name.
A sharp pain in his head like somebody slapped a vise onto it and kicked it into the squeeze direction made him close his eyes. When he opened them again, three woman that he didn't recognize stood nude on the screen in a still photo.
"…"
The women vanished, replaced buy a fat kid, running in the opposite direction.
"Who the fuck is that…," his brain fought to find the word. It was a losing battle. "…him. Who the fuck him… doing. Little mother fucker. Mother fucker!"
A crack formed in a dark and damp place deep within him and anger began to ooze out like toxic waste in a city's drinking water.
The kid faded away and Mike was glad to see him go. An urge had taken root inside of him and began to grow like a weed to attack the projection screen in an attempt to get to the kid. A soft thumping that entered his thoughts like…
"Look behind you."
"LEAVE EM FUCK ALONE." Mick shouted at the top of his lungs as if trying to drown the urge out.
The picture of a man standing in a hospital morgue appeared on the screen. Mike instantly didn't like the man. He reminded him of the running boy, only bigger. As the seconds passed, Mike was more and more sure that if he could, he would hurt the boy, big or not.
The man on the screen was looking down at something. Mike followed the man's gaze and realized that he was staring at a dead woman. She laid on the metal slab, her silky black skin a contras to the reflective chrome. Mike's gaze went to her chest, her perfectly shaped breast, her delicious looking darker nipples.
"Good," a line of drool ran from Mikes lip and landed on the front of his sky blue smock.
CLICK…CLICK…CLICK…CLICK…
The man in the morgue began to move. He reached down to his zipper and gave it a tug. He looked down at the woman's corpse was though they were old lovers on vacation as he climbed onto her.
"Good," Mike grunted. "Feel good. Good. Good inside. Good. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
The morgue vanished, replaced by a fat boy running away.
Mike howled like a bear caught in a trap. A mixture of frustration and anger that hit him like a tsunami. He had wanted to shout out "I'll fucking kill you," but the words wouldn't form, coming out instead as another howl.
The screen spun on the tripod like a wind chime before tilting forward and the boy was thrown out. He landed on his feet and stumbled forward before regaining his balance in front of Mike. The screen behind the boy continued it forward fall and crashed to the floor.
The kid stared up at Mike, doing his impersonation of a deer in headlights. Mike stared back.
…
…
The boy's eyes began to glow. A shimmering yellow like sunlight reflecting off of a freshly polished bar of solid gold.
…
…
The glow expanded over the boy's eyebrows and down his cheeks and spread over his head as if the sun was rising just to shine on him.
…
…
The glow ran down the boys neck and shoulders and chest. It covered his arms and hand and sparkled from his fingertips. It shimmered over his stomach, past his groin and down his legs stopping only when it coated his feet.
…
…
The glow was a happy thing. A desirable thing. The thing dreams were made of. The thing wars were fought for. The thing that broke promises and broke hearts.
…
…
Mike reached up with a hand that seemed to belong to someone else like the hand in a first person shooter game. At his command, but not really his. A lifeless and artificial thing that moved with the push of a button to coldly carry out its task. The dead hand touched the boy on the forehead, and he screamed.
It was a shriek of death and torment. Blood splattered out of the boys nose and his eyes exploded it their sockets. Dams cracked and crumbled as floods of crimson erupted from his ears. The boy titled his head back, hitched a breath and screamed again. Life blood left his body in a spray, rising up his throat and out of his mouth like a red water spout.
The boy's legs gave way and he hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. The turrets of blood subsided and there was no movement. Not a breath. Not a twitch.
The chewing behind Mike stopped. The pain went away.
…
…
…
Mike looked at his hand. It was covered with the boy's blood and glowing with the same yellow light that covered the boy. He brought his hand to his face for a closer look when the glow suddenly faded out like a spent light bulb.
He looked at the boy, and the glow began to fade from him as well, and in a hurry.
Desire ripped its way through Mike like a bolt of lightening, charging his jumbled thoughts with wild hunger, electrocuting anything else. Everything that once made the man, love, hope, and fear, died instantly, burnt beyond recognition, their ashes blown away by the wind. Desire filled him to the brim, selfish and heartless. He would have the boy's glow.
It would be his glow.
All his and his alone.
"Make it yours."
Mike roared at jumped on top of the small body like a wild dog on a field mouse. He tore at the boys clothes, trying to find the source of the glow, at once realizing that it was the boy's flesh that was glowing.
He opened his mouth and brought them down on the boy's throat, and the kid vanished.
Mike looked at his hands desperately, then to the floor and clawed at it as though he could dig the boy up from the tiles.
"Look behind you."
He turned.
A body was face down on the floor before him. It was a man, ripped apart by an animal, chunks of flesh eaten away from his arms and shoulders. The shredded blue smock the man wore was soaked red with blood like something out of a cheap B horror movie.
Mike could just stare at the dead man, not able to figure out what was so familiar about him. He just stared, and he felt himself begin to sink.
He was suddenly staring at the floor. It was white and covered with something red and wet.
With one quick motion, he lifted himself with his arms and threw his legs under himself, standing.
He didn't know where he was. Someplace with white walls.
A noise behind him.
He spun around, his eyes drawn to movement. It was a naked lady walking away from him. He didn't care.
She didn't have what he was looking for.
What was he looking for?
He didn't know, but he would if he saw it. Then, he would make it his.
He stood in his spot, watching the woman walk down the hall until she reached a corner and disappeared around it. He looked on for a minute longer before he turned and saw two large doors pressed together.
He looked at them, and slowly shifted his gaze to the single button beside the doors.
He stared at the button.
He then walked to it and the hand that was no longer his raised and pressed it.
A second later, there was a soft ding as the elevator doors slide open.
(Special thanks to Chases Aces for keeping me going for your great reviews and little nudges. Also thanks to Zarbok. I hope you enjoy the rest)
Mike shielded his eyes, and peeked through the tiny slits his eyelids had closed into. A moment and his eyes adjusted. He looked around and realized that he was in the hospital that he worked at. Everything else was a haze. The drive there, what happened just five minutes ago, why he was standing in the hospital basement hall which lead to the morgue, staring at the elevator doors.
"Look behind you."
It wasn't really a voice. More of a feeling from somewhere deep inside. That urge that might make any average Joe get up and grab a bag of potato chips even when he wasn't hungry. That little twinkle of desire that always seemed to move people, but never had their best interest in mind.
He was about to turn when he heard it and stopped himself. Whatever it was, it was big, and it was feeding. Chewing. Slurping. Smacking its lips and tearing flesh from bone. Dread filled him like the rising tide and washed over him, drowning him in an ocean of fear.
"No thanks," he told the urge. "I don't think I want to see it, whatever it is."
The elevator doors parted in front of him as if on cue. Inside was one of those old projector screens that you pulled down from a metal green tube resting on a tripod. On the screen was a still picture of a chubby kid. A boy of seven, sporting a crew cut and looking out of the screen at him, a question mark on his face.
Mike stared at the screen, his brows furrowed and his mouth a gap. He knew who the kid was, had recognized him instantly, but continued to stare as though there was something alien about the boy.
"It's me," he finally said.
There was a click and the boy's position shifted on the screen, almost too small to notice. Another click and the boy moved again, further to the left and his expression began to change.
CLICK….CLICK….CLICK….CLICK
The boy smiled at him from the screen, spreading his chubby cheeks ear to ear and showing his teeth as he happily rocked side to side.
"Damn," he smiled himself as fond memories of Christmas and Easters past entered his mind. "I was even fat as a kid."
The boy's smile began to fade and his eyes grew large, filling with terror. They overflowed and spilled onto his mouth, turning his smile upside down. The boy turned and ran, leaning forward and arms pumping.
"Don't look at it," Mike shouted to the screen of the feeding creature behind him. "Just don't look at it and it can't hurt you."
The picture faded out.
"Come back little buddy."
The screen lit up again, this time with a freeze frame of his parents in heated debate.
"No," Mike studied the picture. He eyed the man. Something wasn't as it seemed, though he couldn't figure out what. It toyed around with his brain, slithered over it like a serpent after a rat before he was finally able to grasps it. "He's not my father."
The clicking noise filled the air again as the image before him stumbled into life. His mom and Earl, her boyfriend, or at least one of them, argued on the silent screen. You didn't have to hear them to know that they were shouting at the top of their lungs. They drew in deep breathes before they spoke, exposing their teethe like fangs, and yelled out the words with so much force you could see the veins in their throats rise, threatening to exploded from the strain.
"I remember this," Mike's face was the drama mask of sadness. "No."
Earl suddenly rocketed off a punch that caught his mother in the eye. She spin, her head first from the impact, followed by her body and finally her arms which sailed through the air like handle bar tassels in a strong wind. She hit the ground and Earl was on top of her, shoving her arms out of the way as she fought to cover her head and having his way with her face.
The camera panned and zoomed in on the chubby boy, a year older than before. He was sitting on the floor, his back against a wall and his knees pulled to his chin as tears ran down his cheeks like a summer storm.
The pain in Mike's head attacked his brain like red hot spikes being driven in by a small girl with no hammer, instead slowly tapping each by hand. No sudden release to bring the pain to an end. Only an eternity of suffering. A living, hellish thing that seemed to enjoy his torment.
"Look behind you."
"I said no," Mike rubbed at his temples in a vain attempt to squash the pain.
The scene cut to the chubby boy at seven again, still running away from Mike and whatever it was feeding behind him.
"It's okay," he spoke more to himself than the boy on the screen. "It's okay. It'll all be okay."
The running boy faded away and the screen went blank again.
"Look behind you."
"Look behind you."
"Look behind you."
The creature behind him was still feeding. Still tearing into the flesh of whatever had been unlucky enough to have been caught by it.
"It's been feeding for awhile now. Whatever it caught must have been pretty big. Turn around see what it is."
"Go to Hell," Mike hissed. "I'm out of here."
He had intended to walk into the elevator. To get in with the movie screen, reach for the row on buttons with his left hand and not turn around until the doors had closed. That was the plan, anyway. Reality had other plans for him though, and he wasn't about to move from that spot. Not a step. Not an inch. No matter how hard he tried.
"You can turn around if you want. Go ahead. Look behind you."
"Shut-up god damn-it!" He wished that the urge was a real thing. Something solid and made of soft flesh so that he could hit it and release the frustration building inside him. So he could make it bleed.
The screen came to life again, this time with the image of a girl, perhaps seventeen, with stringy brunette hair that looked like she had brushed it while standing next to a power line. A so-so face, flat chested, and a natural beer belly, she was nothing to go bragging to the guys about in the locker room, but she had been Mike's first, if not in the traditional phrase of the word.
"She never would give up that qooch," Mike mused. "But she did let me in the back door. Saved a bundle on condoms."
He started to laugh, but the pain reasserted itself throughout his body as if to say it was no laughing matter.
He stared at the girl, trying to remember her name. It buzzed around his brain like a fly that you wanted to swat, but never could get your hands on.
"What's her name damn-it," his agitation grew. He had dated the girl on the screen for over three years. All through high school until…
Something broke them up. Something he did.
"What's her name," he closed his eyes tight in an effort to remember, but he might as well have kept them open. "Shit."
He opened his eyes and stared at the picture of a girl with small breast and a large gut.
"…"
For the life of him, he didn't know who she was, but could escape the feeling that he knew her.
"Look behind you."
"Fuck off and die," he spat.
The girl vanished, replaced by some kid running. A chubby kid that would every now and then look over his shoulder at Mike in terror.
"That's right kid," Mike gazed at the boy, almost not seeing him at all. "Run fatty. Run your fat little ass off because the bad people are out tonight, and they want to know what your insides feel like."
The boy faded away, leaving only the dull flat screen for Mike to stare at.
"God to fucking hell, what's wrong with me."
Three women appeared on the screen, all naked. One looked like she may have been a great grand mother. The second was little more that a walking skeleton with track marks on her arms and the burn marks of crack pipes on her fingers. The third was large enough to look like she may have eaten a fourth.
"…"
His brain fought hard to reach through the pain and place the faces.
"…"
"…"
"The shit I'd stick my dick into," he smiled.
CLICK…CLICK….CLICK….CLICK….
The picture came to life and the women walked towards him, smiling and mouthing his name.
A sharp pain in his head like somebody slapped a vise onto it and kicked it into the squeeze direction made him close his eyes. When he opened them again, three woman that he didn't recognize stood nude on the screen in a still photo.
"…"
The women vanished, replaced buy a fat kid, running in the opposite direction.
"Who the fuck is that…," his brain fought to find the word. It was a losing battle. "…him. Who the fuck him… doing. Little mother fucker. Mother fucker!"
A crack formed in a dark and damp place deep within him and anger began to ooze out like toxic waste in a city's drinking water.
The kid faded away and Mike was glad to see him go. An urge had taken root inside of him and began to grow like a weed to attack the projection screen in an attempt to get to the kid. A soft thumping that entered his thoughts like…
"Look behind you."
"LEAVE EM FUCK ALONE." Mick shouted at the top of his lungs as if trying to drown the urge out.
The picture of a man standing in a hospital morgue appeared on the screen. Mike instantly didn't like the man. He reminded him of the running boy, only bigger. As the seconds passed, Mike was more and more sure that if he could, he would hurt the boy, big or not.
The man on the screen was looking down at something. Mike followed the man's gaze and realized that he was staring at a dead woman. She laid on the metal slab, her silky black skin a contras to the reflective chrome. Mike's gaze went to her chest, her perfectly shaped breast, her delicious looking darker nipples.
"Good," a line of drool ran from Mikes lip and landed on the front of his sky blue smock.
CLICK…CLICK…CLICK…CLICK…
The man in the morgue began to move. He reached down to his zipper and gave it a tug. He looked down at the woman's corpse was though they were old lovers on vacation as he climbed onto her.
"Good," Mike grunted. "Feel good. Good. Good inside. Good. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
The morgue vanished, replaced by a fat boy running away.
Mike howled like a bear caught in a trap. A mixture of frustration and anger that hit him like a tsunami. He had wanted to shout out "I'll fucking kill you," but the words wouldn't form, coming out instead as another howl.
The screen spun on the tripod like a wind chime before tilting forward and the boy was thrown out. He landed on his feet and stumbled forward before regaining his balance in front of Mike. The screen behind the boy continued it forward fall and crashed to the floor.
The kid stared up at Mike, doing his impersonation of a deer in headlights. Mike stared back.
…
…
The boy's eyes began to glow. A shimmering yellow like sunlight reflecting off of a freshly polished bar of solid gold.
…
…
The glow expanded over the boy's eyebrows and down his cheeks and spread over his head as if the sun was rising just to shine on him.
…
…
The glow ran down the boys neck and shoulders and chest. It covered his arms and hand and sparkled from his fingertips. It shimmered over his stomach, past his groin and down his legs stopping only when it coated his feet.
…
…
The glow was a happy thing. A desirable thing. The thing dreams were made of. The thing wars were fought for. The thing that broke promises and broke hearts.
…
…
Mike reached up with a hand that seemed to belong to someone else like the hand in a first person shooter game. At his command, but not really his. A lifeless and artificial thing that moved with the push of a button to coldly carry out its task. The dead hand touched the boy on the forehead, and he screamed.
It was a shriek of death and torment. Blood splattered out of the boys nose and his eyes exploded it their sockets. Dams cracked and crumbled as floods of crimson erupted from his ears. The boy titled his head back, hitched a breath and screamed again. Life blood left his body in a spray, rising up his throat and out of his mouth like a red water spout.
The boy's legs gave way and he hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. The turrets of blood subsided and there was no movement. Not a breath. Not a twitch.
The chewing behind Mike stopped. The pain went away.
…
…
…
Mike looked at his hand. It was covered with the boy's blood and glowing with the same yellow light that covered the boy. He brought his hand to his face for a closer look when the glow suddenly faded out like a spent light bulb.
He looked at the boy, and the glow began to fade from him as well, and in a hurry.
Desire ripped its way through Mike like a bolt of lightening, charging his jumbled thoughts with wild hunger, electrocuting anything else. Everything that once made the man, love, hope, and fear, died instantly, burnt beyond recognition, their ashes blown away by the wind. Desire filled him to the brim, selfish and heartless. He would have the boy's glow.
It would be his glow.
All his and his alone.
"Make it yours."
Mike roared at jumped on top of the small body like a wild dog on a field mouse. He tore at the boys clothes, trying to find the source of the glow, at once realizing that it was the boy's flesh that was glowing.
He opened his mouth and brought them down on the boy's throat, and the kid vanished.
Mike looked at his hands desperately, then to the floor and clawed at it as though he could dig the boy up from the tiles.
"Look behind you."
He turned.
A body was face down on the floor before him. It was a man, ripped apart by an animal, chunks of flesh eaten away from his arms and shoulders. The shredded blue smock the man wore was soaked red with blood like something out of a cheap B horror movie.
Mike could just stare at the dead man, not able to figure out what was so familiar about him. He just stared, and he felt himself begin to sink.
He was suddenly staring at the floor. It was white and covered with something red and wet.
With one quick motion, he lifted himself with his arms and threw his legs under himself, standing.
He didn't know where he was. Someplace with white walls.
A noise behind him.
He spun around, his eyes drawn to movement. It was a naked lady walking away from him. He didn't care.
She didn't have what he was looking for.
What was he looking for?
He didn't know, but he would if he saw it. Then, he would make it his.
He stood in his spot, watching the woman walk down the hall until she reached a corner and disappeared around it. He looked on for a minute longer before he turned and saw two large doors pressed together.
He looked at them, and slowly shifted his gaze to the single button beside the doors.
He stared at the button.
He then walked to it and the hand that was no longer his raised and pressed it.
A second later, there was a soft ding as the elevator doors slide open.
(Special thanks to Chases Aces for keeping me going for your great reviews and little nudges. Also thanks to Zarbok. I hope you enjoy the rest)