Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

“The fuck?” Simon said, scowling.

Troy half-ran, half-fell along the hallway and pulled open the front door.

“Let me drive you, son,” his dad said, hurrying along behind.

“No, I want the walk. The fresh air.”

“It’s a scorcher out there, the car has AC–”

“I’m fine! Thanks though. I’ll see you soon. Sorry!” He pulled the door closed and strode off along the path towards the street. As soon as he knew he was heading back to his egg, his head cleared a little.

The front door opened again, his family crammed in it, looking out.

“Troy?” his mother called.

“Honestly, I’m fine,” he shouted, without looking back. “I’m really sorry. I’ll call you later.”

He turned onto the footpath and walked as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. He needed to be home, simple as that.

Standing back in front of his tank half an hour later, he stared in wonder. The egg had grown again, almost filling the tank. The fish and plants had become a part of it, multi-coloured appendages to the mass. The finger-like growths all around its edge had also begun to blur together, making a thick skirt that rippled softly in the current.

Troy tore away his clothes, left them piled on the floor, and lifted his family from the water. He held it tight against his chest, both arms wrapped around it. It was so hot, and so heavy. Orgasmic waves of satisfaction pulsed through him. He sank to the floor under the weight of it, nestled one end into his lap as he sat cross-legged. Hugging it tightly, he rocked gently, murmuring words of love, promises of protection, soft gasps at the pleasurable sensations it sent through him.

Time passed, hours or even days he didn’t know. Or care. His phone rang repeatedly, but he ignored it. Eventually it stopped. He assumed the battery had quit. On several occasions, he heard banging on his door. People called his name. He recognised his mother’s voice, then his father, more stern. A female voice at one point that might have been Rose, might have been Cindy.

The skirt of clear flesh around the egg spread over his shoulders and merged into his skin. The thickening, purple, blistered flesh of his arms and chest spread to cover his whole upper body, burning with a delicious, insatiable itch. He felt it creep up his neck, spread across his face where he kept his cheek pressed to his beloved.

His vision began to blur, everything tinged purple. His bones grew, spreading up and outward. Over time irrelevant, his spine arched back, his ribs flowered open. His legs shifted and reformed beneath him as his face tipped back. The egg was heavier than ever, more than a metre across, maybe almost as deep, nestled in the cradle of his reforming flesh.

There was purpose to his transformation, he knew. It was the next stage his family required. First the water, now this. Next? It didn’t matter, he would do whatever it needed. He would be whatever it needed. He exulted in the twisting of his flesh and bones. His arms had merged with it and with each other, wrapped protectively around. His torso had become a basket of blistered, purple flesh atop the thick short stumps of his legs. His head and neck had swollen and become one, pressing out somewhere from the edge of the new entity he had evolved into. Purple sheened his vision, a sound of distant waves constantly filled his ears.

Something called to him, some presence beyond normal hearing. An urge irresistible. On stocky limbs he shifted awkwardly towards the door of his flat and heard them gathered on the other side. He realised he had known they were coming. Or the egg knew, which was the same thing really. They knocked, and he tried to tell them he had no hands to open the door. Instead his voice was a thick slurry of noise, his tongue five times its normal size twisted up inside his contorted face, letting out only strangled coughs and barks. He leaned, tipped one purpled eye towards the door as the knocking became pounding.

“Yeeessssstthhhh,” he called, as loudly as he could. “YEEESSSSTTHHHH!”

The door burst inwards, the lock splitting from the wooden frame.

Four people stood there, all pale as chalk. An incredibly old man, a young woman in her late teens, a middle-aged woman in jeans and a red jumper, long hair tied back, and a middle-aged man who had kicked in the door.

“It’s time,” all four said together in voices that resonated with vibrations he felt right through his new self. A fungal aroma hung around them.

“Tiiimme,” Troy slurred, staggering on his crooked legs, the swollen, blistered bulk of his egg-cradle body ungainly on top.

“For so many months we bided our time,” the four said as one. “Prepared. Waiting. We knew you were coming.”

They helped him through the door and supported him down the stairs, out into the night air. It was hot, redolent with scents of night jasmine and the sea. The egg buzzed and trembled in the nest of his flesh.

“Whhheerrre?” Troy managed to say as they surrounded him and hurried along the footpath.

“A place is arranged,” they said in unison. “Not far. The re-emergence is imminent. The return is upon us.”

“Yeessss,” Troy slurred as he trundled between them. “I ffeeeeelll itttt. Sssoooonnnn.”

In Clooney’s, Carterleaned on the bar talking to Chrissy. He didn’t often come into the pub, but now and then he liked to get a taste of life down in town. And it was his pub, after all, named after his great-grandfather Clooney P. Carter. A colonial settler, Clooney had built the place by hand, so the story went, and though he named it The Gulpepper Inn, everyone then called it Clooney’s, and the habit had stuck. He suspected few people knew that story any more. Time marched on.

Chrissy said something, but Carter shivered, then looked up, instantly forgetting whatever she’d been talking about.

“You okay?” Chrissy asked.

“Something’s changed.”

“Changed?”

“The energies around us just rippled.”

Chrissy nodded. “It’s starting?”

“Yes. We knew something was coming. Well, I hope Ingrid Blumenthal got the vessel for the ritual. She was dealing with the Macedonian.” Carter frowned, lips pursed. “Come to think of it, I should have heard from her by now. It’s been weeks.”

“She’s a strange one,” Chrissy said with a shrug. “She’ll come through, right?”

“I hope so. I wonder why she’s been so… absent. Normally Talbot keeps me up to speed, but I haven’t heard from him in ages either.”

“Her husband?”

“And her brother,” Carter said distractedly.

Chrissy frowned, opened her mouth to say more, but he turned away. He went to the door of the pub and looked out into the night, sniffed the hot air.

The old woman who was always at the harbour stood on the low wall surrounding the water, staring up into the stars. The sea witch, the locals called her. Carter thought maybe it was a fair moniker.

She felt him looking and met his eye. Even from this distance, he saw her old face was twisted in concern. Carter lifted his chin in a question, and she nodded, resigned. She climbed down and shuffled away towards the lighthouse.

“You okay, boss?” Dace Claringbold asked, strolling up to the pub.

“Yeah, son, I think so. But gird your loins, we might have work to do soon.”

“You know me, Mr Carter. I was born ready.” He slipped past, heading in towards the bar.

“Time marches on,” Carter said to himself. “A new time is coming.”

He wondered what might be required of him soon. And he wondered why it felt like Ingrid Blumenthal wasn’t in town anymore.