Brian Keene - Urban Gothic

As his full senses returned, he wondered how he was able to see if he was indeed in an underground cavern. Then he felt a slight breeze on the back of his neck. Despite his terror and confusion, the sudden gust of air momentarily soothed him. When Paul opened his eyes again, his wits had returned. For a second, he wished that they hadn’t, because with his wits came memories of what had transpired—his trip into the sewers, falling through the hole, landing in that foul pool of liquefied bodies and sewer water, and finally—the things that had been waiting for him there in the darkness. Paul raised his head and stared at his captors. His mouth went dry. He drew in breath to scream, but before he could, a particularly hard jostling knocked the air from his lungs again.

They were all around him. He counted at least eight—two on each end of the pole he was dangling from (he saw now that it was some sort of sewer pipe and iron rather than steel), their muscles bulging, grunting with effort as they carried him along. In addition to the pole bearers, there were several more beings scampering along ahead of them, as well as at the rear of the precession. He tried to figure out what they were. Humanoid, certainly, but Paul wasn’t positive that they were actually human. They varied in size and shape, and each was cursed with unique birth defects. Some of the mutations were almost mundane, while others were utterly horrifying. One of his captors was bare-chested and covered by a thick mat of curly black hair, out of which peeked four dime-sized nipples. Another seemed to have double the amount of joints in his legs, arms, and fingers. Paul stared at a misshapen lump of flesh jutting from the thing’s left shoulder, and then realized that the lump of flesh was staring back at him with one small, watery eyeball—a second head, a Siamese twin, not fully developed. What looked like a ragged pink scar was really a tiny mouth. A third creature, a female, appeared relatively normal, but she was obviously pregnant with either quintuplets or a giant lone fetus. Her distended belly stuck out before her, glistening, the bare flesh a sickly, swollen kaleidoscope of purple and black hues. Her massive breasts slapped her ribs as she walked. Clear fluid dripped from her mauled nipples. He wondered if she’d given birth before, and if so, whether it was her offspring that had chewed her nipples like that. Her wild thatch of pubic hair was filthy and matted. She gibbered as she loped along, a thin line of drool running from her mouth and dangling to a spot directly in the middle of her obscene cleavage. Her facial features were similar to that of someone with Down’s syndrome, but her expression was cruel and savage.

Despite the variations in height, weight, and physical characteristics, they all shared a few similar traits. Their skin pigmentation was a mix of gray and alabaster. They weren’t Caucasian or African-American or any other race he could think of. Nor did they appear to be of mixed racial heritage. These beings were something else, but he didn’t know what.

“H-hey,” he stuttered, working up enough saliva to speak. “W-what is this?”

An albino dwarf with pink, rheumy eyes and six fingers on each webbed hand darted forth and hissed at him. Its breath smelled worse than the sewer had. Its teeth were black and broken. Paul screamed, and the thing slapped him in the face. His jaw stung, and he bit the inside of his cheek. Paul’s fear gave way to sudden anger and humiliation.

“Hey, you little shit! What do you think you’re—”

Growling, it slapped him again. Then it grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked hard. Paul screeched as his hair came out by the roots. The dwarf scampered away, clutching its prize. The procession never slowed.

Paul began to sob. He was embarrassed by the reaction, but he couldn’t stop himself. Snot bubbled out of his nose and curdled on his lip.

“Let me go,” he pleaded, hoping they understood him. “Listen, I’ve got a wife and kids. Please let me go. Please? What is this? Tell me!”

“This is where we live,” the thing with two heads answered. Its voice was deep and somber.

For a moment, Paul was too stunned to reply. “W-what?”

“This is where we live. All of us.”

“I d-didn’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was trespassing. I thought the house was deserted, you know?”

Paul heard the plaintive, whiny tone in his voice, but he didn’t care. “I was lost. Just looking for directions. I didn’t know that . . . p-people lived here.”

They walked on in silence, not answering him; not even bothering to look at him. Paul heard distant howls from somewhere up ahead. They sounded inhuman.

“I didn’t know,” he tried again. “I’m really sorry. If you’ll just let me go, I can—”

“You brought tools,” Two-Head said, matter-of-factly.

“What?” Paul frowned, unsure if he’d heard the freak correctly. He had no idea what it was talking about.

“Tools.”

The creature took one hand off the pole and snapped its fingers. Another mutant ran forward. This one had a long, withered, tentacle-like appendage where its left arm should have been. The right arm was normal, and in that hand it clutched Paul’s tool belt.

“You lie.” Two-Head sighed. “You say you are lost, but you came with tools. You came to fix the sewer pipes.”

“No,” Paul protested. “I don’t work for the city. I’m from Uniontown, for Christ’s sake! I’m just here because—”

“It doesn’t matter. Either way, we still have to kill you.” The statement brought a fresh round of pleas and cries from Paul, but his captors refused to respond. They marched along, almost methodically. Some of them carried crude lanterns. A few had flashlights. Most of them were naked or covered with some type of dried red clay. A few wore tattered, dirty scraps of clothing. One—a child or another dwarf, he couldn’t tell which—looked especially bizarre. It was naked from the waist down, clad only in a once-white T-shirt that said, I GOT CRABS IN PHILLIPSPORT, MAINE. Another was nude, but wore a backward ball cap with a logo for Globe Package Service. Paul wondered if the odd scraps of clothing had belonged to other victims, and if so, what their previous owners’ fates had been.

His thoughts turned to Lisa, Evette, and Sabastian. He quietly wept, wondering if he’d ever see them again, wondering if they’d miss him, if they’d ever find out what had happened to him, if they’d go on with their lives without him. He wasn’t resigned to his fate—not quite yet—but things weren’t looking good. The cords binding his ankles and wrists were strong and tight. No way he could snap them. And some of his captors were physically impressive. Maybe he could have kicked their asses twenty years ago, but middle age had softened him. He swore to a God he wasn’t even sure he believed in that if he got away from here, he’d go straight. He’d get a real job again, something legal, and do right by his family. Sure, he’d justified stealing scrap metal as a means of supporting his loved ones, but look what it had led to?

Paul sobbed. His broad chest hitched with each shuddering, labored breath. The temperature in the tunnel grew slightly warmer. The breeze remained steady. The stench of his captors was foul, but there were other smells in the air. Mildew. An earthy odor—maybe clay or dirt or minerals of some kind? And something else, something that smelled like animal fat cooking in a frying pan. It wasn’t until one of the lanterns sputtered and hissed that he realized what the smell was. They were using fat as fuel. Paul had a sinking feeling that he knew what kind of animal the organic matter had come from. Bile burned his already raw throat. He opened his mouth to scream again, but paused as they came to a sudden stop.