Jon Fore - Black Water

“Ethan! There’s another hall! Come on!” Abby voice was as high pitched and strained with horror as Ethan felt.

“Don’t wait for me!” he shouted back as he began to fire. The large caliber hollow tips struck the figure and blossomed into explosions of gray flesh and puss. He pulled on the trigger repeatedly until the explosive retort became a metallic click. Even with the large, snot-filled holes, the thing continued its pursuit, slow and purposeful, intent on some wicked deed.

Ethan sprinted to the door the girls had gone through and turned just in time to see the thing tear an ember from its own flesh, affix it to the cinder stick, and begin to burn Chris’s corpse, already deeply branded, already long dead. Ethan closed the door and turned to see the two flashlights bobbling from floor to ceiling and back to floor as the girls ran down the passage.

Ethan started running, and after a few moments, found he was having trouble catching up to them. They were running headlong and hazardously as if Death on its pale horse rode behind them.

The passage ended in a crossway. To the left were doors and more passage; to the right, a large room.

The girls slid to a stop, Madison bumping the wall before turning back to Ethan. She saw him coming, his face a grim standard, and screamed for all she was worth. Abby threw her arms around her and tried to staunch her own scream.

“What the fuck was that! Oh my sweet Jesus! What the fuck was that?” Madison screamed at Ethan.

“I don’t know! We have to go—now! I shot it six times; it didn’t even look at me!”

“Wait…stop…think…holy shit, guys, what do we do?” Abby seemed to be trying to regain control of herself, her eyes flickering down the passage.

“We get our asses out of here!” Madison shouted.

“We have to think, guys! We can’t just go running through here like prey! God, where are you?” Abby’s voice spun down to a whimpering cry.

“Alright, think…” Ethan said, the empty revolver still in his hand. “We can’t just run, I agree, but which way?”

“I don’t give a frog-fucking damn, people! Let’s just go!” Madison sounded on the verge of bolting.

“Okay, alright, let’s go this way,” Abby said, indicating the large room. “Its closer and we can always run back here. Where is that thing?”

“It stopped to burn holes into Chris. Did you see what happened to him?”

Abby did not answer and headed off to the large room. Ethan yanked the box of shells from his bag and started to fill the revolver as he followed her, Madison trailing by his shoulder, her eyes behind them, seeking the abomination.

The room was large and centered with a square hole the size of a car. All around the room, chains hung from the brick walls with tight loops of iron on each end. Inside these loops were the skeletal necks of many souls who lay scattered about the room in varying positions, only some of them complete. Near one side of the room, a skeleton leaned against the wall, as if sleeping, and around him were scattered many of the long bones of those closest to him. These bones had been broken or smashed and clearly picked clean.

“What kind of place is this?” Ethan asked. “This is sick.”

“They let them starve,” Abby whispered.

“It looks like they started to eat each other.” Ethan whispered. “What kind of demented person…” he began but did not finish.

They entered the room more slowly, uncertain of the reality of it all considering the visage giving them chase. In the center and over the edges of the hole lead three of the chains, at the end of each the remains of those finding suicide a better release than starvation.

“They hung themselves,” Madison said with breathy horror.

“Or were thrown in by the more cannibalistic of them.” Ethan’s voice sounded as if he were about to be ill. “There’s more in the hole,” he added after shining his flashlight down. “That’s a bit of a drop.”

“Let’s go back; we can’t get out here,” Abby urged as she started for the door.

They headed back toward the passage and stopped when they hit a wall of stench, the stench of burning flesh.

“Oh my God, it’s coming!” Abby gasped, frozen where she was.

“Go, before he blocks us in!” Ethan shouted.

The greasy tangle of hair made a lazy turn around the corner and stopped. The head rolled back with a crunching sound and the thing’s sword came free of the rotting belt. Its hand shook slowly, like an old person fighting a losing battle with age. It made a sinister sound, a wet hiss, but not like an angry snake, more like rusted iron drug across stone.

“Go back!” Abby pushed. “Go back!”

Ethan let the girls push past him as he raised the gun once more. He fired, striking the thing in the head. Behind him, one of the girls screamed at the sudden loud noise. It fell from the force of the round and struck the wall behind it. It slid a bit before trying to work itself back up. He fired again, each shot releasing more of the rancid ilk to splash across the wall and filling the passage with a rotting sickbed stench.

The second shot caught the thing in the chest, and this time, it fell flat on its back, yet it did not drop the sword or the cinder stick, still sizzling around bits of Chris’s flesh.

Ethan turned and ran after the girls.

He found them on the far side of the room, clutching each other, trying to shake their terror free.

“Did you kill it?” Madison screamed.

“No, the damn thing won’t die! I hit it in the head, and it didn’t even drop the sword.”

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed…” Abby began, her eyes clenched tightly.

“What do we do? We got to get out of here!” Madison screamed. She was clearly losing her mind, and doing so rapidly.

“Down! Let’s climb down the chains.”

“…on Earth, as it is in…”

Madison rushed for a chain and started to scramble down, leaving Abby to her prayer.

“…this day, our daily…”

“Abby! Come on! We are leaving!”

She looked up at him, but clearly frozen in terror. The stench of burning flesh and the gritty sound of iron and stone began to invade the room.

Ethan rushed to her and dragged her to the hole on her knees. “I can’t carry you down, Abby. You have to do this yourself.”

Madison had reached the end of her chain. “It’s not far enough to reach the ground.” She screamed, “Ethan, help me!”

Ethan was quickly approaching a point where he would snap. When he did, and this was his greatest fear, all bets were off, and he was sure that for an eternity, he would walk these halls seeking prey like this thing entering the room. “Abby, climb down, sweetie,” he said calmly as he brought the revolver back up. “Climb down, Abby.”

She finally rose and grasped the large links of one of the chains. Ethan fired a round, carefully aiming for the thing’s head. It flew backwards again, flinging the mockery of blood from the other wounds as well. Abby suddenly got hold of herself, shocked by the sudden retort of the gun, and scrambled over the edge, dropping quickly.

Ethan waited a moment for the thing to gain its knees and fired twice in rapid succession. Without checking his shots, he grabbed a chain and slid down, leaving flesh in the rust adorning the links. He had trouble stopping himself before sliding completely off the chain. He dropped his flashlight and pistol to use both hands, and he heard the unmistakable sound of dried bones crunching beneath their weight.

“I can’t hold on much longer!” Madison whined, the skeleton that once hung from her chain now shattered and fallen to the floor below.

Abby had managed to get her feet to clamp on the iron loop at the end of her chain, and seemed rather capable of holding there for some time. Ethan found himself stretched and swinging slowly back and forth almost by the tips of his fingers. “I’ll drop first. Try and hold on, Madison,” he ordered through clenched teeth then let go of his chain.