Matt Hults - Husk

“Under the circumstances, I’ll learn,” he replied, and reached up for the handle.

The latch clicked and the doors flew open, expelling a humid breath of repulsive mist and the overpowering odor of decay. The blast hit them like a toxic cloud, and all three staggered away in disgust, coughing and wheezing and gasping for air. The vehicle’s battery did have a charge, and the moment the doors began to open, the overhead lights popped on to reveal the unimaginable horror that lay waiting inside.

Becky shivered, unable to take her eyes from the sight.

Lisa’s whole body flexed, expelling silent screams.

Adam vomited across the front of his shirt.

The entire interior of the ambulance dripped with gore.

Blood and gnarled chunks of dark red meat made up the majority of it, but Becky also spotted yellow blobs of fat, tufts of animal fur, and dark streaks of excrement. The filth coated every visible surface, splattered on the walls, ceiling, and medical equipment, leaving nothing untouched. In some areas, heavier bits of butchered viscera dangled on sinewy tethers from the ceiling.

But all that blurred into the background as she gaped at what hung suspended in the center of the compartment.

A body.

Not the remains of a human or animal but a mixture of both, an abomination of flesh and bone. The basic structure of the creature looked humanoid , and if the thing had been standing upright, it would’ve easily measured eight feet tall. In its current state, the thing hung by thin wires that had been secured through the roof of the vehicle and attached at various points on the monstrosity’s shoulders, torso, arms and legs.

Becky stood powerless in the grip of terror, her gaze locked on the monstrosity, attempting to dissect the components of its form.

The thing’s torso had been made to resemble the physique of a human body, but the bones and tissue were so oversized Becky could only guess at their origins. Its legs proved equally massive, displaying muscles large enough to have come from a horse. Thick tendons and barbed wire bound together half a dozen human arms below each knee, their open hands serving as the thing’s feet. Four more arms sprouted from the sides: two large and two small. The smaller set appeared human, while the larger arms reminded her of the powerful forelegs of a bear. All the fingers ended in wickedly hooked claws, and thick horns jutted from the skin at various points across the shoulders and chest.

The head had the general shape of a human skull, but a long gash cut down the center from the forehead to the chin, creating a vertical mouth in the middle of its eyeless, nose-less face. Sharp fangs bristled from the flesh to either side of the opening, framing a dark red interior.

To create some sense of unity among the assembly of different body parts, the entire creation had been stripped of its original skins and reupholstered with black animal hide. Large irregular patches of it had been fitted together with crude sutures, and a complex network of stitched seams crisscrossed the body like a roadmap of scars. It must’ve hung unattended for several days. Along with the overpowering stench, it was crawling with maggots.

Becky shook her head, unable to fathom what kind of demented soul would labor through the uncountable hours required to gather and construct such a detestable giant.

She clutched her stomach and took a step back, but the hideous scene proved inescapable.

The entire floor of the compartment swam with discarded scraps of cut tissue and ruptured organs left to rot by the corpse’s maker. The putrid mass had begun to liquefy in the advance stages of decomposition, and because of the incline of the ambulance, small rivulets of fetid fluid now trickled out the open doors. In fact, looking at it now, Becky realized that the whole ghastly bulk seemed ready to—

The entire mass of remains slid out of the vehicle and spilled over the edge. It hit the rear bumper step and splashed in all directions, catching the onlookers in the legs.

Becky gagged, felt her stomach seizure. She leapt away, stumbling out of the surge, and staggered to the left into a tall cluster of weeds. Her foot caught on a raised mound of dirt, and she fell forward, landing flat on her chest before a ten-foot-wide pool of inky liquid.

She froze in place, no longer concerned with throwing up.

Something’s wrong here, a voice screamed from the center of her brain. The ambulance was nothing; this is worse.

She could feel a coldness reaching up to her from the dirt beneath her body, the wickedness of a hidden presence, and she scanned these new surroundings with darting glances.

At this level, she could see that she’d stumbled over the lip of a shallow pit, a hole someone had excavated in the ground and filled with the strange black fluid. Her gaze glided across its murky surface, noting how it churned in lazy circles.

At the center of the pool stood an even more outlandish relic, a stone obelisk that rose eight feet from the black surface to a sharply tapered point. A host of unreadable characters had been carved into the jagged rock, alien lettering that warped and shifted with an eye-straining three dimensional effect.

Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the pool. For the briefest moment, the unyielding surface became clearer than a thermal spring, and Becky saw an uncountable number of twisted figures jerk and spasm within its bottomless depths, writhing in a water ballet of agony.

The station wagon’s engine revved louder, its mangled wheels casting hunks of shredded rubber into the air. Orange sparks sprayed from the bare hubs as they cut into the gravel.

Frank stood his ground.

He struggled to recall the ancient verses he’d studied, prayers once believed capable of subduing baleful spirits and banishing them from existence. Indeed, the words all came, but in his panicky state, their order became a disjointed rambling.

Something metallic snapped between the two cars, and the wagon rolled free of the Mercedes. Electric light flashed within its broken headlights and out through the demolished front grill. The vehicle reversed from the wreck and turned to face him.

He raised the shotgun out of instinct but knew the weapon couldn’t help him now.

“Frank,” the beast’s voice hissed in his head. “How fitting you should be here tonight.”

“It’s over,” Frank shouted back. “Without the girl, you don’t have enough power to bond with Kane, and without him, your time here won’t last long. He was your link to this world, your anchor, but now that he’s dead and rotting you’re due to go back to where you came from. And this time, you won’t have a body to hold onto for five years. You’re weaker now. This time, it’s done for good!”

“Even weakened, I am a god,” the entity roared. “What concept could you have of my strengths, of my power? My kind has spilled the blood of pharaohs; we’ve watched the fall of Tenochtitlan ; we scattered the bones of the Anasazi like sand.”

“And yet this world is still ours,” Frank shot back.

The station wagon’s windows exploded outward, spraying Frank with a thousand shards of shattered glass.

“NO, HUMAN! NO MORE!”

Frank staggered backward, feeling an ominous energy charge the air.

The station wagon rolled closer.

He readied his shotgun, hoping to keep the creature’s attention off the church long enough for Paul and the kids to get inside.

The monster’s voice rumbled inside his head. “You claim that I am weak Let me show you the frailty of your flesh.”

The vehicle’s hood exploded open with the sound of a metal bar thrown into a wood chipper. A river of mangle machinery spilled forth from the engine compartment. Frank leapt away. He snapped his hands to his chest when the animated scrap formed two steel pincers and seized his shotgun, snapping it in half. He retreated, patting his clothing with both hands, searching for his cell phone.