Descent: Part Seven

Mary pressed tighter against me, I could feel the ragged staccato of her breathing as we stared into the perfect darkness. Straining my eyes, I tried desperately to see anything; going truly blind has always been a massive fear for me, and now, I fought down a rising scream.

Briefly, she pulled away, leaving only the fading memory of her warmth against my arm. In that space the hands came for me.

One landed on my shoulder, and the scream won its battle. Like something out of an 80’s horror movie, I shrieked at the top of my lung, batting at the cold, slimy, scaley hand whose claws I could feel through Mary’s blazer. Remembering the self-defence module in phys. Ed. the prior semester, I grabbed the muscular arm; I shifted my weight, pivoted, threw my hip out at just the right angle for a throw, but the creature didn’t move.

No matter how hard I pulled on its arm, it stayed perfectly still, grip slowly tightening.

Visions filled my head, off kilter, crazy visions. I imagined the seemingly infinite dark around me as wall to wall monsters with scaly, slimy hands reaching out, ready to grab hold and – another hand grabbed my free arm, holding me back.

It trembled slightly, shaking the way people do when they laugh really hard. The second creature tugged, trying to pull me away from the first one as I fought desperately to get away. The shoulder one tightened its grip even more, pulling me hard, nearly popping my shoulder out and wrenching me out of the second one’s grasp.

Held tight against the first one, my face mashed against the scales on its chest, it screamed. The sound cut through my own panic, making me suddenly aware that I had been howling profanity at the thing, the dark, Mr. Sage, Saint Martha the bitch, anyone and anything that popped into my head.

The thing’s breath smelled like something had died. The way the compost bin smells after getting forgotten two weeks in a row in the summer. Rotting meat, sour milk, expired eggs, it made my stomach heave. I wretched against its chest, prompting another howl from the monster.

Undulating through the total darkness, it seemed almost like it was talking. Almost like it was saying something that it needed everyone around it to hear. Even as it screamed, I felt clawed fingers brushing my sleeves and hair. There were more out there, and they wanted to tear me away from this one.

“AMY!” Mary’s voice cut through the scream of the monster, silencing a shuffling sound I hadn’t noticed before. The shuffling of feet, the steady dripping of something wet and sticky. Suddenly, Mary’s question about dripping the tunnel came back to me, and I pushed away from the monster and opened my mouth to shout back, but my jailor clamped its clawed, webbed hand over my mouth.

Hissing, it pulled me backwards, away from where Mary’s voice had come from. The other unseen hands fell off me, the shuffling sounds moving away, towards Mary’s voice as she shouted out, “Amy! Where the Hell are you? Answer me, please!”

*CRACK* the sound of solid wood hitting something hard and scaley rippled through the darkness.

“Fine,” Mary’s growl was barely audible over the thundering of my own heart in my ears as I struggled desperately against the monster still pressed tight against my back. “You wanna play that game? We can play.”

More painful-sounding cracks echoed through the dark, followed by Mary screaming obscenities as the monsters swarmed around her. “Get some, you creepy freaks!” More cracks, faster now, closer together – the monsters were closing in.

Acting on pure instinct, I wrenched my head back just far enough to free my mouth and bit down hard on the monster’s hand. It shrieked, a distinct sound from the speech it gave earlier, and pushed me away from it. My first sucked in breath tasted bitter; a salty, sandy bitterness that was somehow just textured wrong.

That breath came back up in a dry heave, my body rejecting what I had bitten.

Out of the darkness, more harsh cracks sounded followed by challenging shouts. They were coming closer, maybe she could hear my retching. Or maybe she was just moving, trying to stay ahead of whatever she was fighting. I tried to make my next retch louder, hoping it would cut through the racket surrounding her.

Something slimy stroked against my cheek. Its slime was different, something new. It was long, Jell-oy yet firm, and rippling like barely contained water. I gasped, feeling a trail of something disgusting run into my mouth and screamed for all I was worth. Mary shouted something indiscernible back, the sounds of her fight picking up even more.

I scrambled back, away from the tentacle that had brushed my face, only to run into something that had the same awful consistency, but somehow was much more solid. A memory broke through the constant, screaming panic that had taken over my mind. A memory of something solid but yielding, cringing away from my foot as I swung it wildly in the dark.

Without thinking, I clenched my fist with thumb wrapped around the outside of my fingers the way my older brother had taught me and brought it crashing into the Jell-oy mass. Just like the first time, as I made contact my fist sank into the semi-solid mass, feeling a little like one of the blue padded arm shields they use for football practice; just like the time, the monster shied away from me, leaving me completely alone in the perfect dark.

Mary shouted again, I could pick out words this time. “Amy,” the word was raw, tired, said on a gasp as though she could not breathe. It was scared, desperate.

On instinct, I fumbled around inside Mary’s soiled blazer. It had to be there, she was wearing the skirt, there was nowhere else for it to be. Inside left pocket, that’s where it was, the other one was empty, I could feel the thin rectangle, but my slimy fingers scrabbled against it, trying to get purchase

The tentacle was back. As I struggled to pull the phone out of the blazer, I could feel it brushing my calf, slowly twining its way up my leg, tightening as more of it latched on. Steadily squeezing, it wound slowly up my body, trapping me. In the dark distance, Mary screamed again, a wordless cry of pure desperation.

“You’re feisty,” said the voice of the thing pretending to be Mr. Sage. “But I’m afraid this is the end of your education. The final test. Can’t say I’m over impressed with your performance thus far, I’m afraid.”

Just as a second tentacle latched on to my other leg, quickly entangling me as it tried to catch up to its twin, I finally grabbed hold of the phone and pulled it out. Mr. Sage’s voice echoed around the chamber again, “you know the funny thing? I actually had you both pegged as more valuable than this. But I suppose not being the brightest was on your side this time, eh? First time in your life, I bet, that your intellect was our greatest strength. But don’t worry, we have uses even for the likes of you. Just ask Sasha, when she arrives.”

Trembling, I dashed the slime from my fingers on the last clean bit of Mary’s blazer and jabbed the phone screen. Light exploded into the darkness. My eyes slammed shut against the brutal onslaught as I blindly waved the flashlight around me; hopefully, straight into the over-large near-blind eyes of that science class warned me these monsters likely had.

Screams erupted around me. Agonized wails and the scraping of claws against cold stone, mixed with the wet-leather slaps of bare, slimy feat as they stampeded away from the hated light. Cracking one eye, I tried to find Mary, but the light was still so harsh that I couldn’t seen anything through the tears. Lacking any better ideas, I took one tentative step, then another, holding the light ahead of me like a torch in some horror movie. I could only hope that they were actually afraid of it, unlike the Mummy Brendan Fraser had to take on.

Finally, I opened my eyes, just the hint of a crack to try and see what was going on. The sounds of running and retreating had stopped, and the chamber was silent aside from my hesitant footsteps. And the ragged, staccato gasps of Mary.

Kneeling on the floor about five meters away from me, sides heaving and eyes shut tight against the glare from the flashlight, she still held the cane in a white knuckled grip. Something greyish brown dripped from the beagle’s head to the floor, unheard over Mary’s gasps despite the silence.

I rushed over to her, throwing my arms around her shoulders and sobbing into her neck. Her whole body was splashed with sticky, stinking crap, but I could not care less. She was alive! She was alive! Beautiful, even with the gore that matted her hair and was splashed across her, she was…

Gore?

Barely able to tear my eyes from her face, I looked at the floor around us, feeling my empty stomach churn at the sight.

-0-

"A Community Story [Challenge]" By Donna Fox (The whole inspiration for this entire series)

"Descent: A Community Story Challenge" by Yours Truly

"Descent (Part Two)" by Mackenzie Davis (who is amazing and everyone should read)

"Descent (Part Three)" by me

"Descent (Part Four)" by this guy right here.

"Descent (Part Five)" by some guy named Alex, seems cool.

"Descent (Part Six)" by - drumroll please.... me!

"Descent (Part Eight)" details restricted. Await further information