Chapter Three: Terror In The Depths Of The Fog
Once when I was little, maybe around six or seven, I can't remember which, hell, I'm surprised I even remember this, I had a dream. The reason it's stayed with me so long and hasn't evaporated into the hidden portion of my mind is because it's a dream and yet it isn't. It seemed too real to be nestled in the cushions of the dream world, yet too farfetched to take its place in the fast paced, uncertain real world. It was as if I was actually there….
I still remember the night as well. It was a Tuesday, I had just gotten in bed, nine o'clock. Or to put it more accurately I just almost reached the blissful melody of sleep. My mother and father had had a fight that night, I can't remember about what though. It took me so long to fall asleep because I was intensely paranoid of the monster in my closet and the shadows reflecting off the light of the moon and permeating into my room, taking refuge on the walls. Lying there taunting me. The claw like branches of the tree just outside and the horrifying grunts of the thing inside my closet. I've seen him before, one night, I was alone in the house. My father was in the hospital, and God knows where my mother was, with him probably. I had a babysitter, but I'm pretty sure she must've left, because when He came out of the closet, I yelled and screamed, like the banshee of the badlands, but no one came, no one even acknowledged me.
He came out slowly, the doorknob turning uncertainly, as if He was afraid He'd be seen. But the only thing that saw him was that of my unworthy and delusional eyes. He was the most horrific thing I've ever seen, well at that time. At the present moment I've seen more terrifying things that even your deepest creativity, curiosity, and even your imaginary worlds, you wouldn't, or more accurately couldn't picture, not even the slightest slither of an explanation. He came out with that horrendous, mutilated body. He had a faceless, rotted, face. The only distinguishable features being his faint shadows of eyes and the open wounds of his flesh which showed nothing but rotting body. His torso was slim and caved in about halfway down on either side. Much like His face, His torso was ripped and void of skin is some places. His skin was a dark tan color, stained with blood and rot. His arms extended down about three feet of pure rotted and burnt muscle and flesh, and then they curved into to form a six foot long blade like claw on either side, both being stained with a crimson liquid, pieces of flesh dry, stuck to them. His legs, thin almost needle like things, three of them in total, and two more, one on each side of His mutilated hips. As He walked forward a faint mist like vapor began to emit from His body and a low moan erupted from somewhere.
He approached slowly carefully moving His arms in proportioned with his body. He was too large for my room, standing almost eight feet tall when my room was about only nine. His arms a total length of about fifteen feet, my room's width only being approximately thirteen. He positioned his claw like blade arms forward like a gun and continued walking, hell bent on reaching me. Me, the sad little boy crying alone on my bed, begging God to save me from what ever the ruddy hell this terrifying was. I gave Him a name back then, a name which at the time suited Him, for what He did with people. How He ripped their flesh open and tore it away. Like a dog digging. Digger the dog. I once remember a dog from somewhere, I'm not sure where or do I know even the slightest ounce of comprehension surrounding the memory, but it's there and it haunts me.
A blurry mist like haze, a hot summer day, the sun pouring out intense heat, deep dark shadows cast on every building, of cars, people, buildings, and of course. The little dog named Digger. A small dog, still a pup. Grey hair mixed in with an odd array of white, brown, black, and an orangish color in a variety of places. He was running down a deep, in the process of turning yellow, slope. Searching for a buried treasure to which only he knows the location of, for he's the conniving pirate who hoarded it away for know one else to see or ever find a again. X marks the spot, doggie. A few curious snivels in the air, whiskers reflecting off the creamy orange light, leaving a shadow on the floor which is capable of misinterpretation. He sprained his scraggy neck down into the exact location where he had left a dark secret not too long ago. The memory too fresh in his head too be easily forgotten. Swift, ripping motions explode as the dog delves his front paws into the patch of dirt, his hind legs in a firm unforgiving stance, slowly moving backwards as he digs. Every few seconds readjusting himself and then getting ready for the dive again. Fierce, unforgiving, fatal blows at the coward dirt, kicking it up in the air like an ever real mist spawned on the spot with no identifiable source. It swirls around, the dog's expressions turns violent as he continues the ripping a the innocent ground, teeth bared, a river of throth emerging at the corners of his mouth, his nails extending and becoming sharper, his cute bluish eyes turning a deep black until all he has left is massive pupils. The mist like dirt swirls around more violently blocking my field of vision, and then, I'm cut off completely.
Digger approaches me, as I sit there crying for help, none comes. A thicker layer of mist spurts out of the open wounds on His torso, legs, and head. The crimson liquid on his claws, momentarily freezes, and then like a hundred gallons of water it pours all over the floor, He dives at me, claws piercing into my stomach, blood rushing up to my throat and spurting out, massive amounts of red spray across the walls and floor, my vision goes blank and a pool of darkness opens up at my feet. I dive in.
Much later, darkness has taken over the skies, a dark barely noticeable layer of dense mist lie in the air. My head and back are pressed against something hard. A concrete barricade, blocking off the entrance into some building. Amazingly, though, upon close examination, my body bears no visible wounds except the ones when I took my hectic dive out of the pool onto the unforgiving asphalt. My head was spinning in all directions as I just spun around in one solitary circle over one million times. A uneasy feeling erupted somewhere from my stomach, wanting to expel something that didn't belong there, something dangerous, capable of harm. I fought the feeling and surprisingly beat it. It was then that I took a keen and possibly haphazard interest in just where I was and if He was here with me.
An alleyway, layered with rundown buildings that barely looked as if they were barely suitable for any type of living inhabitants. Windows shattered, graffiti lined the bricks of the buildings along with boarded up holes and their were parts where everything collapsed on itself for no apparent reason, or none, in my ignorance, that I could think of at the time. Walls, large impenetrable ones separated me from getting anywhere closer than five yards from the building. Thick layers of oddly eerie looking moss and mold covered the dense walls which separated here and there. The darkness slowly began to dissolve into a slow swirling patterned mist. A dense, thick, heavy mist. Visibility was completely cut off to little more than a few inches in front of my face. The buildings, everything, slowly sank into shadows which quickly became nothing more than sad looking silhouettes etched into the background of the unreal mist. As I walked forward the ever gaining so thick mist swallowed me up until I became nothing more than a lonely silhouette, alone in the mist, alone in the darkness, alone in the abandoned town of nightmares. I could only imagine what could have been possibly running through my mind at that time. And it was then that the mist turned into what it really was, a dangerous and intoxicating fog.
I had little to none perceptibility to where I was going. I simply followed the lines on the road like a dazed lunatic tracing a love letter in his own blood against the padded prison cell which he was forced to inhabit for eternity, knowing nothing of the joys of the world, but only the dark despair which lie deep within the human heart. Hidden away as if not to let you in one its truth, it's oh so terribly dark truth which few people can comprehend without going insane, I was one of them. Well I was one of the one's who managed to hold on to a small piece of my sanity whilst the others did not.
I stayed right on top of the parallel yellow lines in the middle of the road, knowing that while I may be so blatant to give away my position that I have the best focus point on the entire street. I knew He was here, He brought me into his world, the world of many different worlds, a world of darkness….
I made a lot of turns in my search for God knows what. I had no idea of what the hell I was doing. Only looking down upon myself now I realize that familiar look upon my face. The dull, dazed, stupor in which the young me was in. For he had no control over his movements let alone his thoughts, someone was in his mind telling him what to do. Drool leaked out of the left corner of his mouth and fell to the floor like blood.
He walked in a daze, sure of the destination in which he was headed. I wasn't. I have no recollection whatsoever of this morbid affair. But that makes me ask myself, why am I seeing this now? A question in which the answer so desperately tries to be answered but isn't. I was let down.
Motivation. What motivation does this young boy have that seems to drive him into this madness and uncertainty. A world penetrated by the thick, devilishly cold fog. And insanity ensued from that moment on. Low static rumbles echoed from near every direction: up, down, left, right, you name it. The noise was small and faint, struggling with its newfound existent, still unsure of what is out to do. As seconds passed on and psychotic boy continued down the fog smothered empty street the noise resonated louder and louder until it was like a TV on at full blast trying to show a snowy channel that didn't come in. The kid showed no notice to it, not even the slightest twitch or blink or recognition of the terror lurking in the depths of the thick hellish fog. He pressed on, wearing nothing but a thin almost silk like nightshirt, the cold clearly making an impression on his body. His face was of a thick texture and turned a pale shade of blue and green, his eyes pulsed as his blood vessels inside them grew rapidly larger, his nose started pouring out a watery reddish substance. It slid down his face and onto his clothes.
Just as the noise reached a new level of intensity, the boy took a turn down another alleyway. Just before he broke the barrier between the alley and the road in his little bare feet, he hesitated, but only for a moment, as if unsure what to do. He strained his face in contemplation and confusion. And then, a sudden dawn of realization fell upon him. Right foot first, he stepped onto the line. Instantly the whole scene in my eyes was ripped backwards as my head whipped back damn near touching my neck. I saw straight up into the sky. The fog was speeding behind me, as if being sucked up by something, and a strong, and undeniably black darkness followed it. Complete darkness, no shred of light, none whatsoever. The evil world just beyond the terror of the fog. Hell. The boy acknowledged and smiled, continuing his unknown excursion into the dark alleyway, leaving the angel's nipping at his heels.
Reluctantly, I followed him. It seemed foolish I know, but I'm here for a reason I can deduce that much. The darkness was too much for me, I couldn't see a thing. I had to rely on the tiny patter of the young boys footsteps splashing on the damp alley floor. It began to rain. The boy continued forward in the darkness, drawn like a magnet to whatever it was he was seeking, a small giggle erupting from his tiny mouth now and then and muttering words in some unknown language.
The rain lessened to a mere drizzle with monolithic echoes throughout the closed quarters. Instead of tiny patters of feet I instead heard the metallic clinking of metal on metal. I looked down, we're on a fencelike walk. I wobbled up and down for a few seconds, daring myself to test its stability. Up I went with and down too like a trampoline. Suddenly, from exactly below erupted an piercing shrieking cry of pain and agony. A male's voice, distorted, though, almost to the point of no recognition. It screamed again, shattering my nerves like glass. Louder, painful sobs of attempted atonement. More voices echoed throughout the underground. Screams, unbearable, mind scratching screams like they were being tortured, women, children, men, dogs? The damp and moldy concrete walls thinned out into a makeshift barbwire fence, mangled cadavers impaled upon them, hanging there to remind them for their sins. Their punishment? Their faces were rotted and distorted to the climactic point to where making out that the expressions did in fact belong to that of a human an extremely difficult task set at hand. Fresh gusts of blood pouring out of their mouths like a waterfall, falling on the ground like a faucet and down the sewer pipes which were conducting a faint bright light. The screams continued regularly. People begging for help from something, what could be down there? What can make someone beg and scream like that? The more I thought of the question, the more I tried to intensely avoid it. I ignored it.
Eventually as I followed the thing, overhead a matted section, almost like a ceiling, appeared of barbwire. Bodies of fallen birds and children lay twisted up. Intestines hanging down, a hand with fresh blood dripping of a torn finger exposing bone, and a baby's head impaled to almost the width of a pancake, it's brains coiling outwards, it's facial features bashed in violently. We were in a sort of barbwire fence rectangle pathway about three feet wide and about ten high. The sloshing of our feet increased as the water became ankle high, too much to pour down the sewers at once. It wasn't water though, as I had previously thought, it was blood. The blood pouring out of the victims of this hellish contraption. Bodies lay twisted in as if they were running from something. A song began to play in my head, a long smooth one, called "Promise", I've forgotten from where I heard it. It played along with the nerve splitting screams, the gushing blood, the mangle cadavers, the barbed wire cage and the demon child guiding me deep into the truth depths of hell. Not intense fire and heat and suffering, but loneliness, isolation, desperation, despair, loss, and pain. Into the darkness which man is condemned to traverse for ever for punishment for his most brutal and deadly sins. A psychological nightmare. The song picked up, a little more heavier than before. The raining blood picked up pace as we walked to Hell. The cage showed signs of giving in support and it bent downwards as crude stairs, bloody, etched out into thin air, beckoning us to step on them. He went first without them collapsing, blood pouring out and down each of them into tiny slithers of streams. The urge was too much too deny I began to descend the stairs into the madness, the darkness that lurks in our minds, ripping away at our sanity constantly begging to be free.
I went down, following my hellish guide and his devilish grunts and giggles. The screams became louder and more distinct and I was able to make out some of the voices; a woman. Heavier but still melodic.
"NOOOO, PLEEEAASEE! DOONN"TTT, I BEEGGGG YOOOUUU! Her scream was muffled off by a gagging noise and a earsplitting screen as a ripping noise echoed throughout her mind. No doubt about it, I know what happened to her, her skin was just ripped off. I heard the dead carcass land against a wall as it was thrown against it. Song continues with renewed vigor. Returns to begging slower and softer, the requiem for the wasted lives. Those who have died here for know reason at all.
The darkness never let up as we traveled downwards. I moved like a dull zombie, following my master, yet intently, strangely though, I seeing the human slaughterhouse which rested just at the bottom. New chord struck, piano picks up slowly accompanied by a melodic guitar and bass. I felt my head, the stickiness of the raining blood.
A chainsaw roared from somewhere as the song entered its climax. A whirring noise. Screams. Begs, pleads, everything you can imagine. A little girl this time, a little girl, just like Addie. The chainsaw revved up and I heard heavy, harsh footsteps approach the girl's voice. Her scream was instantly muffled by what sounded like some kind of scarf being forced over her mouth. I could still hear her though, her stifled cries and futile attempts to ward off her captor and the demon bearing the murderous chainsaw. Song enters a crescendo into a high note, piano, guitars continue regular beat. A stream of tears poured down my face. I fell to the stair, thrusting my head in-between my legs my hands over the top. Song getting louder and more violent. I rocked back and forth violently tears pouring out of my eyes and down my face falling into the blood. The chainsaw revved again. The girl's mouth partially became uncovered and she screamed,
"NOOO, MOOMMYYY!" The footsteps got closer to her, her voice died down. Song slows into rhythmic beautiful beat of piano and guitar. Stops. The chainsaw cut through her body. Her bones cracking, blood spurting against the walls. Loud Cracks and thuds as parts of her body went flying across the walls.
"NO!" I screamed. "You Batards, how could you! How the HELL Could You?" Song starts over from beginning, sad and depressed. I fell face forward but the child stopped me. He looked at me happily, like he was enjoying the torture and the deaths, the blood, the darkness, their screams of pains before they were killed, brutally murdered! I sobbed uncontrollably, trying to find a leg to stand up on but I found none. My mind kept throwing nostalgic memories at me from every direction. I saw Addie, as clear as day, playing outside, rolling in the flowers, smiling, laughing. I hear the screams of that poor girl who was just shredded apart by some madmen. What the hell is going on? What the hell is going ? What the bloody hell does this all mean? What possible explanation can you give me for this God? Huh? And no I don't want anymore of you damn bullshit! Why don't you tell the truth this time, if the world is perfect like you say, then what the hell is this! You bastard! How can you just let that little girl die like that? Why the hell did you even give her the blessing of a life when you would just take it away from her in the most brutal of ways, you bastard!
I broke down, started to cry even more, yelling, kicking, punching, screaming inaudible words, childish words not meant to make sense, but said just to……. All the while the madness never stopped countless victim's continued to be slaughtered and there's isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Oh no. No! The poor little girl! Why'd she have to be? Newfound anger erupted in my veins and directed my violence towards the first person I saw, the demon that is wearing my face. The little boy, with the sadistic smile and pleasurable look in his eyes. I grabbed him by the neck, sinking my nails deep into the sides of his throat, warm blood spilling out over my fingers. He showed no reaction to what I did, he merely started to laugh and giggle. I screamed harder, harder, and harder. I was up in his neck to my knuckles, blood shooting out of him like a shaken pop bottle or a wine bottle. He showed no reaction. Song continues as my depression deepens. I'll kill him.
I squeezed both hands in an instant and one and only rush of energy and severed his neck apart. A volcano of sticky blood erupted from where his head once belonged. It fell down the stairs echoing each thud it made on the barbwire stairs as it fell down into the abyss.
I fell down to my knees, barbwire permeating its way into my skin. It hurt like hell but I paid it no mind, how could this tiny pain possibly compare to having your body mingled by a ruddy chainsaw. It means nothing, it's the dollar in a rich man's pocket. Just as my eyes felt exhausted and dehydrated a new burst of warm tears blew out of them and down my face, cleaning off the blood of the other me.
The corpse of the demon child arose, animated by some unknown source, unseen, deep in the abyss. It's head stumbled back up the stairs with unbearable scraping noises as it made its way to its owner which now stood a stair below where I stood. The head floated back up the neck and twisted on like a screw, a twisted smile on the thing's face. After it reconfigured itself it continued down the stairs, like this whole last fifteen minutes was a well needed break in a lengthy run. And by that same urge I felt compelled to follow him, down, down, down, the murder stairs of hell.
As we continued farther and I still struggled with the emotional implications of the sudden death of the innocent little angel by the most gruesome ways. A faint light, barely noticeable at first that I didn't even notice began to etch itself well down into the darkness, a rectangle with elongated widths. It seemed from where we stood about another good four miles but lights in the darkness are deceiving. We continued down. The rain heightened again, that sad song still playing in my mind, yet growing fainter and fainter and become more static as I traversed down the bloody stairs. More screams erupted from the bottom somewhere as many more were mercilessly killed for damn logical reason. More bodies, a lot more became tangled up in the wire in the most awkward positions. The stairs had been too much for them, whatever they were running from they took a jump and landed diagonally legs first, head first, all positions, and somehow the bodies, while they looked terribly old and rotted, were still spurting tremendous amounts of blood from them, new blood, fresh. I I know this isn't some sort of sick joke, the blood it's real, I would know, I've been around it a lot. When I was younger, when my mother would make me feel absolutely terrible about being the way I was, and mocking me, teasing me, calling me a "freak" I would satiate my anger towards her by cutting myself in any place you can thinks of. Wrist, legs, toes, fingers, ear, the back of my neck. I would sit there and play in the blood and breathe off the intense pain for I know that my mother would never be the one to cause me the most pain, I wouldn't allow her the pleasure of treating me like a dog. No, I did that myself, and I feel guilty as hell about doing it.
We went deeper and deeper. Eventually the song faded away and the blood rain stopped. The barbwire fences on all sides slowly became pressed up against a rock and dirt wall. A caved in wall, layered with missing and thick heavy boulders. The screams were muffled and the bodies slowly began to disappear. My tour guide moved onward. A light seemed to be coming from no where showed up, just glowing. The steps turned into hard rocky one. Thank god, we were finally wherever the hell it was that we were now; the underground. I took the steps reassuringly that I wouldn't fall through or that the sight of mutilated corpses and the shrieks of pains from the victims haunting me anymore. One step passed and…
The light vanished and once again we were immersed in darkness. The steps became narrower and narrower, tiny chips of clay and dust breaking off the edges as I walked on them until I fell face first into an icy cold pool of water face first. I didn't float thought, I just fell face down, down , down, like a rock into the darkness, unable to breathe struggling to gasp for air, but inhaling nothing but cold water, I choked on it and nearly drowned when I began to float back to the surface, still face down. My face tingled with numbness and the burgeoning of death. I looked deep into the water and saw the smile of my little sister, Addie, and the horrible pain stricken face off the girl who had been cut apart with the chain saw. Blood was spilling down her face, it split in half, the bottom part sliding under the top and that falling sideways exposing her skull, brains, and a burst of fresh blood. Her cold, lifeless hand floated up towards me, it was on its own, a stand alone mission, it detached itself at the wrist, a green blur of the water behind it. Like the wake left from speedboats on a lake. The strange rumbling and uneasiness in my stomach returned. I turned over and spit up a hell of a lot of water, in it I tasted the familiar taste and scent of blood and puke. I crawled up to an edge. Barb wire fence again, I was in a cage, a perfect square with a tiny square in the floor revealing a pool of dark water. The path continued on, the faint light could still be seen which marked the end of our journey through true terror. My little friend was waiting just ahead for me. We set off again down the path of darkness. The rain, the screams, the dead bodies all restored to their former glory. I couldn't take it anymore. At that very moment I snapped. I pushed the monster in head of me aside and ran down the rest of the stairs. I don't know why I did that, but some feeling of hatred towards the monsters down there, I wanted to make them suffer, maybe to avenge that little girl, I don't know but all I know is that it seemed right at the time but later turned out to be a decision I would deeply regret.