One of the main symptoms of schizophrenia is not being able to distinguish between dreams and reality: For a schizophrenic, the line separating the two is not as defined as it is for other people. Lugosi knew this from his research, but never thought he'd experience it for himself.
Then it happened.
He was lying in bed long after midnight Friday morning, his wide eyes staring into the darkness. The voices were gone and he listened expectantly to the night, his breath bated and his heart aching in dread. He knew something was going to happen, and for hours he waited, the waxing and waning moonlight the only thing marking the passage of time.
Finally, a low, ghostly moan drifted down the hall, freezing his blood. He gripped the blanket and tried to pull it over his head like a child hiding from the bogeyman, but instead, he slipped out from under it and stood, his heart blasting and his brain screaming frantically for him to get back in bed where it was safe. He wanted to listen, but he was not in control.
His greatest fear had been realized: He was a literal prisoner in his own body, watching helplessly as something guided him to the door and then into hall, where pitch black held endless court. He shuffled to a stop and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity, shadows dancing around him like evil incarnate. Then a shuffling scrape sounded from the direction of the back stairs, followed by a thump.
A lump of ice formed in his chest.
Something was coming.
Scrape. Thump. Scrape. Thump. A dead, broken foot dragging as IT slowly made its way up the steps, indisuadable as death. He started to shake and tried to break free from the grasp of whatever held him, but it tightened its grip around him, forcing him to remain. Another moan filled the world, closer, and every nerve in his body crackled.
Thump. Scrape. Thump. Scrape.
It was almost on top of him now, and as he watched, it emerged from the darkness, a stooped, white -faced apparition with sharp, contorted features, wide, yellow eyes, and lank red hair framing its sunken cheeks. A blue dress clung to its gaunt form, and it held its skeletal hands up in front of it, long, gnarled fingers twitching with impossible and unholy life. Lugosi's soul withered and a sharp pang of terror tore through his center like the spinning blade of a buzz saw.
Zelda. From Pet Sematary.
"I've come for you, Lugosi," it said, its voice an ominous echo.
Electric fright shot through his body and tears welled in his eyes. He strained against the invisible shackles binding him, but they were too strong.
Zelda took a jerky step forward, and Lugosi's heart exploded. A wicked smile crept across her thin lips and her eyes burned with hellish light. "Now you'll cum for me."
She dropped stiffly to her knees and reached for his crotch. A scream of horror lodged in his throat and escaped his lips as a hiss of air. She pulled down his zipper and reached in, her bony fingers cold as clay on his flesh. A tingle raced up his spine and he pulled left and right, trying desperately to free himself, but his body did not move, nor did the hysterical shrieks make it past his windpipe. Zelda curled her hand around his dick and pulled it out.
Squeezing him, she wrapped her lips around his tip and pushed down, her dead mouth like ice, her slimy tongue squirming like a graveyard worm.
He broke down and cried, his head hanging and his shoulders shaking.
Suddenly, the scene changed: He was flat on his back and Zelda was on top of him, her hands pinning him to the bed. She was naked now, her sagging breasts swaying with the motion of her body and her sallow skin tight on her ribs, putting Lugosi in mind of starving children in Africa. Her chapped lower lips enfolded his head, and her frigid walls slid dryly down his shaft. His hands, lead by an unseen master, went to her deflated tits, and he cupped them in his palms, his thumbs kneading her leaking nipples. She increased her speed and stared down at him with sadistic arousal. "I'm gonna twist your dick so you'll never get out of me again...never get out of me again...NEVER GET OUT OF ME AGAIN! NEVER GET OUT OF ME AGAIN! She slammed her hips to his at the end of each threat, her wasted cervix digging into his apex like razor blades.
Through tearful eyes, he saw her begin to go dim...watched as she faded away, her final laugh lingering like a puff of smoke. As soon as she was gone, the paralysis broke, and he sat up, his hands going to his forehead. Sometime later, he turned the lamp on and curled up facing the wall, unblinking and traumatized.
He thought he slept after that, but he wasn't sure; his shattered mind blanked and for a while, he knew nothing...then the voices came back. Mocking him for being raped. Laughing because he lost his virginity to that...thing, telling him it would happen again tonight, and the night after, and the night after, and the night after until he snapped and killed his parents. Zelda wants blood or cummys, Lugosi. The choice is yours.
A vision of his parents chopped into little pieces came upon him, and a strangled sob escaped his lips. The voices laughed and laughed.
Somehow, he got dressed and made it downstairs with no memory of getting up. His mother sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a worried frown on her face. He saw himself going to her, snatching the mug out of her hand, and smashing it against the side of her head; saw her falling to the floor, shaking on her hands as knees, blood coursing down her face. Do it. Do it. Do it.
His stomach turned violently and hot vomit shot up from his depths. He clamped his mouth closed and swallowed it. "You look sick," she said, "are you alright?"
No, I'm not, I'm having terrible thoughts and hearing things and I think it's the house but it might be me, maybe I'm crazy and dangerous and I don't know...I don't know, I just want it to stop. He almost broke and let all of it out in a torrent of tears, but held it in. "I'm fine," he croaked, "I just didn't sleep well."
To his horror, she got up and came over. CHOKE HER! CHOKE HER! CHOKE HER!
He balled his hands into fists and exerted every ounce of self-control he had to keep them that way so that he didn't choke her, even though the thought repulsed him. She stopped in front of him, lifted up on her tippy toes, and pressed her cool, dry hand against his forehead. He flicked his eyes shamefully away from hers, self-concious of the sickness he knew must be in them. "You're really warm," she fussed and rocked back on her heels; her features, usually so placid, tightened in motherly concern, and hot guilt at the thoughts he was having swept through him like a fire. Tears threatened to well in his eyes.
"I'm fine," he said and turned away so that she wouldn't see fear and self-loathing on his face. He opened his mouth to add something else, but the voices screamed at him to punch her instead, so he hurried out, terrified that he would give in and do what they wanted.
Outside, he waited at the foot of the driveway for the bus and tried to ignore the shouts, jeers, taunts, and commands. He wouldn't do any of those things...they could tell him to, but they couldn't make him. Mentally ill people who hurt others do so because their minds are often muddled and they believe that they themselves are in danger. The guy walking behind them isn't simply going in the same direction, they're an agent of some dark conspiracy following them; the old lady who gave them a nasty look at the grocery store wasn't just a curmudgeonly bitch, she was actively involved in a plot to kill them. Lugosi, for his part, wasn't paranoid, and his thinking, despite the voices and hallucinations, was relatively clear.
For how long, psycho?
He took a deep, shuddery breath.
Yeah, how long until you really go crazy?
A gust of wind blew a drift of yellow leaves over his feet - embers from a celestial fire. The trees flanking either side of the street swayed back and forth, and more leaves drifted from their fiery boughs.
If that happened, he decided...if his thinking started to cloud...he would kill himself.
After Lugosi left and she was alone, Lucy sat anxiously at the kitchen table, her back stiff and her fingers curled around a coffee cup that trembled when she lifted it to her lips. Her stomach was in knots and though she was the only one in the house, she could feel presences around her - the air was thick and crackled with dark energy, and several times she caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye: When she turned, nothing was ever there. The atmosphere, so recently light and happy, was now heavy and brooding, and it struck her that in less than twenty-four hours, her dream-come-true had turned into a waking nightmare. Lugosi was clearly terrified of something, and Lincoln acted like a man in a trace, his movements stiff and wooden, his voice hollow and toneless. He woke her before he left with a dazed "I'm going to work now." She was curled up in the armchair where she fell asleep the night before, and before she even came fully awake, he was gone without so much as a goodbye kiss.
She took a sip and turned her eyes to the thin layer of dirt spread across the linoleum in front of the basement door. More tracked through the living room and up the stairs in the form of footprints that terminated at hers and Lincoln's bed. More was clumped on the sheets, which suggested that Lincoln was doing...something...down there, then dragged himself to bed afterwards. She was not brave enough to go down there and see what it was...not until Father Mancuso arrived.
Taking another drink, she checked the time on her phone. 8:05. When she talked to him yesterday, he said he would be here at nine. While she waited, she closed her eyes and cleared her mind of all thoughts. As a girl, she could induce psychic visions if she tried hard enough, but hadn't been able to in over twenty years.
What's here? She asked into the darkness.
Nothing responded.
She took a deep breath and asked again What's here? What do you want?
For a moment, nothing happened, then, like bubbles rising from the deep, inexplicable terror welled in her chest. The back of her neck tingled and her heartbeat sped up, clapping painfully into her ribcage. Pain flared across her neck, then, slowly, the fear drained away, leaving her cold and empty. Her eyes flew open and her fingertips fluttered to the side of her throat; they came away slick with blood, and her stomach sank.
A vampire?
No, no, that didn't feel right. Sometimes the things that came to her in visions were symbolic. This was one of them, she knew. But what was it symbolic for?
It came to her, and she swallowed thickly.
Fear.
Whatever it was, it fed on fear, and it was sucking it from them the way a vampire sucked blood. An image of Lugosi crossed her mind: His fear filled eyes, his jitteriness, his tension. She knew then that he was the primary target. Somehow, the thing in the house was scaring him so that it could feast on his energy.
Then there was Lincoln.
She closed her eyes again and called up a picture of his face. Darkness swirled around it, and the low, chattering din of many voices struck up like a phantom symphony. Slowly, he faded, and a rough stone wall took his place, crimson light glowing through the cracks. The voices got steadily louder and louder, their timbre increasing as their excitement grew.
Before she could make out words, a sharp knock cut through the vision, and it dispelled like smoke. She came back to herself with a gasp and sat back, her hand slapping to her throbbing forehead.
The knock came again, and her heart skipped a beat. Cautiously, she got to her feet and went into the living room, her hand closing on the cross. At the door, she looked through one of the flanking windows and let out a pent up breath. Father Mancuso, a short, bullish man with thin white hair and a face heavily ceased by age, stood on the step, clad in black pants and a green coat over a black shirt, a Roman collar denoting his occupation. A black bag, like that an old timey country doctor might carry, was clutched in one hand, filled, presumably, with religious artefacts.
She unlocked the knob and opened it, a rush of cold air blowing over her. Father Mancuso nodded curtly. "Morning," he said, his voice low and raspy.
"Thank you for coming," Lucy said and stepped aside so that he could enter. "It's worse than I thought."
The old priest cast an appraising glance around the room, his faded blue eyes searching for outward signs of the demonic but finding none. "There's certainly a strange atmosphere," he mused.
"I know," she said with a rush of shame. She knew it now, but not before yesterday - prior to the thing trying to get into her head, the house felt normal to her. Being a psychic, even a lapsed one, she should have noticed it instantly. That she didn't disturbed her.
She lead Father Mancuso into the kitchen and directed him to the table; he sat with a weary sigh and set the bag in front of him. She poured them both cups of coffee and sank into the chair across from him.
Lucy and Lincoln had known Father Mancuso for over twenty-five years, ever since he took over St. Peter's following Father Callahan's death. For a time, they attended Sunday Mass regularly, but drifted away over the years, as many Catholics are wont to do. They only went now on Easter and Christmas.
Many modern priests do not believe in the tangibility of evil - they discount tales of possession as fiction much the same way as everyone else.
Father Mancuso was not one of them. He was adamant that the forces of evil wage active war against human beings, and claimed to have presided over a dozen exorcisms. He also once alluded to having "destroyed" a vampire in a town in Maine. He was the only person she and Lincoln ever told about their own brushes with the supernatural, and he took both tales in stride. Lucy suspected that he had mild psychic powers, but that was based on a feeling alone, so she couldn't be certain.
"Tell me exactly what's been happening," he said now, his wizened hands coming to rest on the table's edge.
Taking a deep breath, Lucy told him everything, starting with what happened the previous morning and ending with the visions she had right before he knocked. He listened intently, nodded here and there, and urged her on when she faltered while recounting Lugosi's weird behavior. Half way through, he began to sweat and she paused as he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his glistening face.
By the time she was done, he was pale.
"This is an especially powerful entity," he said, "from what you've said, I think it might be one of the strongest I've ever encountered. Nothing evil, however, can stand up to the might of God." He opened his bag with trembling hands and pulled out a stole which he then put over his shoulders. He got cumbersomely to his feet, and winced in pain.
"Are you alright?" Lucy worried.
"I am fine," he said and took a cross and vial of holy water from the bag. "It's just very hot in here."
Lucy's brow knitted in confusion. It didn't feel hot to her. In fact, she was cold, but that was most likely the inner chill permeating her bones.
Turning to the basement door, Father Mancuso tightened his grip on the cross. "This creature dwells in the cellar," he said, "and that is where we must start."
Standing, Lucy followed him, her stomach clawing with expectant dread. He reached out and took the knob in his hand...then yanked it away with a pained hiss and staggered back, the crucifix clattering to the floor. Lucy's heart jumped and she grabbed him to keep him from falling. "Are you alright?" she asked.
Sweat sheened his face and his chest heaved for air. She helped him back into the chair and knelt beside him, feeling his forehead; his flesh burned with fever, and sickly mist swirled in his eyes. "I...I don't know," he managed at length.
Getting up, she went to the sink, filled a glass with water, and gave it to him. He drank deeply and sat it on the table. Some of the color returned to his cheeks and he took a deep breath. "I don't know what this thing is, Ms. Loud," he said, "but I advise you and your family to leave at once."
Leave?
Lucy opened her mouth to speak, but no words would form. "What about the might of God?" she finally asked.
Swallowing with a click, Father Mancuso looked at her, his expression drawn and grave. "Whatever is in your basement," he said, "has nothing to do with God."
Lincoln stared blankly at his computer , hands poised over the keyboard. A spreadsheet filled the screen before him, and while he'd done a million of these things over the past fifteen years, he couldn't for the life of him remember exactly what he was supposed to do.
Dig.
No, not that. He cocked his head to one side in thought, but nothing came; his mind was muddled and sluggish, and if he tried to think, he'd go back to the basement, to the thrill of digging, to the promise of peace, love, and serenity contained behind the stones.
Sighing, he sat back in his chair and looked over his shoulder as someone passed his cubicle. He wasn't in love with his job, but he liked it enough and he never slacked or missed a day. Even so, he was close to getting up, walking out, and going home to -
Dig.
Yes. To dig. They needed to be let out.
He turned his head to the other side now, trying but failing to remember just exactly who they were. His sisters? That didn't make any sense, but when he thought too hard about it, shadows crowded his brain.
The who of it didn't matter - all he knew was that he needed to dig, the way a squirrel knows that it must store nuts. It doesn't know why it must do what its instincts are telling it to, but it does it anyway.
Last night, he made good progress...he thought. He tried to remember but it was a haze. He vaguely recalled pulling stones from the wall and stacking them in the corner, then digging into the soft dirt where they used to be, but maybe that was a false memory.
Presently, his stomach rumbled and he got up, wincing at the soreness in his back and arms. He didn't know how long he worked, but it felt like it was a while. When he woke that morning, he was draped across the bed on his stomach, his face buried in the cover and still wearing the same dirty, sweat drenched clothes from the night before. Getting to the shower was hard, but after letting the hot water soothe his weary muscles, he felt better. The next thing he knew, he was sitting at his desk and typing a response to an email he didn't remember reading.
Deep in his heart, he knew something was strange, but the irresistible urge to dig blotted it out. It was a gnashing need that would consume him if he didnt feed it, and as he made his way to the lunch room, he seriously entertained the idea of sneaking away.
There was just one problem.
Lucy.
She couldn't know.
In the kitchen, he took his lunch from the fridge and closed the door, a yellow sticky note coming level with his eyes. Whoever threw my lunch away, that was not nice. The message was punctuated with a frownie face. Something about it struck Lincoln as devilishly funny, and he threw back his head and laughed. He plucked the note from the door and threw that away too.
Back at his desk, he ate while looking at the screen, the blinking cursor hypnotic. Dig, it flashed. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. A snatch of song bubbled up from the depths of his mind, something from a children's movie that Lugosi liked when he was little. Dig a tunnel...dig, dig a tunnel. One corner of his mouth turned up in a grin and he started to hum around the food in his mouth. Dig a tunnel...mud and clay are a Lincoln's friend...always more around the bend...and when you get to your tunnel's end...Hallelujah, let's dig again!
Now he wanted to dig. Badly. He pressed his knees together like a schoolgirl feeling the first pinch of sexual desire and swallowed a lump of mushy sandwich. The tuna was gritty today. Almost like...dirt.
He took another bite and savored it, his jaw working from side to side and his eyes lidding in rapture. When he was done, he frowned at his empty hands. He needed more
Getting up, he returned to the kitchen and rummaged around the fridge, finding a Tupperware container with a sticky note on top. No touching. He took it out, grabbed a fork from the drying rack by the sink, and went to his desk, where he ate pilfered mac and cheese pretending it was soil.
Dig a tunnel
Dig a tunnel is what we do
Life's a tunnel, we'll dig it, too
Dig a tunnel is what we sing
Dig a tunnel is everything
He was vaguely aware of his dick getting hard and his heart racing. Dig...dig...dig…
When he was finished with the stolen lunch, he threw the Tupperware into the trash can and went back to his work, humming to himself and nursing a throbbing erection. He imagined thrusting it into cold dirt and a shiver streaked down his spine.
"Hey, Linc," an annoying voice said.
Lincoln glanced over his shoulder and inwardly groaned. It was Bill from accounting. A hefty man with black hair and a soft, pink face, Bill wore a dark suit over a white shirt stretched tight across his bulging gut; he leaned against the wall of Lincoln's cublical and held a paper cup in his hand, reminding Lincoln of a redneck at a kegger. He labored under the perpetual impression that Lincoln was his best friend in the world, but Lincoln secretly didn't like him. No one did. He was a motor mouth and talked about the most banal things under the sun, like sports. He was a huge Red Sox fan; during baseball season, he listened to games on his radio and when his team scored a touchdown or goal or what the fuck ever it is in baseball, he'd jump up and yell like an Indian celebrating his fifth scalping of the day.
Dig a tunnel...dig a tunnel.
On a normal day, Lincoln did not like Bill, but right now, ansty with the need to dig, he hated him and the horse he rode in on. "Hey, Bill," he said, trying to keep the disdain from his voice but failing.
Bill was too dumb to notice. "How's it comin'?" He gestured toward the screen with his cup, and a little bit of water sloshed over the side, landing like droplets of rain on the floor.
"It's coming," Lincoln said. "You?"
Any sensible person would give a curt and professional reply (it's going fine, real fine), but Bill was not a sensible person. He drew a deep breath, and Lincoln cringed, already knowing he was in for this guy's life story. "I been better. Someone tossed my lunch in the trash yesterday, then today, it's totally missing." He shook his head sadly. "Can you believe it? Some people are just that inconsiderate. I was really hungry yesterday and today I was looking forward to my wife's mac and cheese. It's the best. She uses this…"
Lincoln tuned him out.
Dig a tunnel...dig, dig, can you dig it, yes I can, dig faster, deeper, harder, dig me, baby DIG DIG DIG.
"...piece of my mind." Bill took a drink of water and sighed, "Anyway, you have a good day, I gotta get back to it."
Lincoln nodded absently. "Yeah, you to it," he muttered, not realizing he mixed up his thoughts. He meant to say you too.
Alone, he went back to his work; while talking to Bill, his hard-on fell limp, but now it came roaring back and he grinned at the thought of what he was going to do to the dirt when he got home. Dig a tunnel, dig, dig, dig a tunnel. He blinked when he saw that phrase staring back at him from the screen.
Dig a tunnel
Dig a tunnel
Dig a tunnel
Dig a tunnel
Dig a tunnel
Dig a tunnel
Kind of lost its meaning.
He laughed and started to hit BACKSPACE but his finger froze when a loud, piercing wail of desperation exploded in the middle of his skull.
COME HOME NOW HELP US GOD PLEASE!
Before he knew he was moving, he was on his feet and hurrying toward the door to the hall like a man in a dream, the world going gray around him and his heart squeezing in a vise grip of terror. Something was happening his tunnel was in danger he had to get home and stop it stop the threat stop Lucy stop Lucy stop Lucy kill her if he had to protect them they're not strong enough yet KILL LUCY KILL LUCY KILL LUCY.
Just before he reached the door, a woman passed by; Lincoln shoved her roughly out of the way and slammed through, her cries of pain and the shocked gasps of horrified witnesses falling on deaf ears. His mind was choked with fog...he was completely under their control.