Radio Waves of the Macabre [On Hiatus]

Chapter 36 - Fight or Flight (Part 2)

    Tess didn't realize that she had let go of the boarded up door until she felt herself falling in time with the flashlight, each impacting upon the concrete simultaneously, the light then flickering out leaving Tess and Alex shrouded in the pitchest black.

    Time slowed as Tess lay upon the coarse patio. The air fell stale upon her frozen cheeks, as still as she was motionless, paralyzed by the fear that now pulsed through her. She could not see, unable to penetrate the unnatural dark that had slowly engulfed them, a darkness deeper than a moonless night. It had descended so gradually, easing Alex and herself in so that they had not until this very moment noticed the true extent of it.

    And there in that dark, that putrid stench welled up, that sickly sweet rot of decay, and Tess tasted syrup tickling at her tongue - only it mingled with the spoils of the long-thawed refrigerator from the overnight power outage, and her stomach churned. Had she already not retched up the complete contents of her stomach only minutes previously, she would have surely done so then. Instead, she felt her throat constrict and her guts clench, as she fought to remain as still as possible.

    As she waited there, paralyzed in the dark, a shuffling sounded ahead of her, stuttering forward from the direction in which she had last seen that blistered hand. With each rasping rustle signaling that monstrosity's slow advance, that syrupy scent drew ever closer, its pungeant aroma choking Tess on every inhale.
She could stomach it no longer. Without turning she scuttled backwards, her hands outstretched behind her in an awkward crab-walk. She knew only retreat. There was no other option.

    The panic surging up even as her guts tightened and her extremities numbed under the icy chill that clung to the station, Tess pressed back as far as she could until at last she hit up against the splintered board barring the doorway. Even then she huddled further back, crowding in upon that door, as if were she to just push back hard enough she could create more space behind her, and better yet, more distance between her and the unknown lurking in the shadows before her. Then, as she curled agaist that barred door, something warm landed upon her shoulder and she made to scream.

    Immediately a hand pushed over her mouth, and the pressure tightened on her shoulder as Alex turned her towards him, pressing his face within an inch of hers so that even in the darkness she could see him, a dim shape piercing the inky black; though it was that warmth baking through the all-consuming cold that delineated him most, like a signal fire in the night.

    "Shhh..." he intoned, removing his hand from her mouth and pressing one finger before his lips.

    Tess didn't say a word, but she took comfort knowing that Alex was there with her; that no matter what was out there, shuffling just out of sight, she would not face it alone; not like Ricky.

    The guilt washed back over her again as she thought of her cousin, and once more Tess knew that she could not be forgiven - that somehow she was unclean. Yet, despite the cold grip of that certainty, something else also burned with her, fueled by Alex, as if kindled by his warmth and the knowledge that she was not alone: a spark of courage.

    Slowly, Tess stood, grabbing Alex's hand as she did. They could do this, she thought. Not face that thing, of course. They had a broken hammer, their bare hands and two bandanas between them, nothing that would be of use. No, they could not confront it, but they could escape. She wouldn't let it to find them cowering, waiting for it to come claim them.

    She closed her eyes and thought hard about what she had seen. About the three-fingered hand; the crisp flaking flesh, burnt, bubbling, and peeling back; the shattered frame of that hand, broken and twisted as it reached for the light. She thought about how far back she had crab-walked to reach the door, and where she had been when she started. Which direction had she looked to see that hand? How far had it been from her then, and what direction had it been moving? She strained to remember, and she was certain she could place it, that she knew where that thing had been: off to the right at least six feet from where they were hiding now, but angling at them. There had been a wall and shelves to the right, but open space to the left. A rush to the left would put them roughly in its projected path, but a dart the right would corner them. Even if they made it around the shelving and to open space, they hadn't been that way and they wouldn't have any idea where to go. They had to go right.

    She gripped Alex's hand tighter, tugging at it. The moment had arrived. Time to run. Her legs tensed, ready to bolt, and she could feel Alex's pulse through his wrist, beating ever faster as his own nerveds gripped him, he reading her intention as he always did.

    It was then that a great rattling boomed behind them, and both jolted, lurching forward with the shock of the sound. The barricaded door shook witihin its frame, the handle turning impotently, entry to (and exit from) the station still barred; yet something inside wanted out.

    For the breifest of moments Tess froze. Inside that place awaited the answers that she so desperately needed, and her only chance to cleanse herself of the stain that she felt eating away at her; but as much as she needed to see what was inside, she knew that inaction could well be fatal, and her growing of mortality, a fear born that day on the jetty, tore at her.

    "Run," she shouted, and bolted to the right, glancing back as she did, searching the dark for Alex. She could feel the warmth of his hand held in hers, and yet that wasn't enough. So she ran one way, looking back the other, probing the increasingly unnatural night for her friend. Sure enough, his bobbing shadow lurched in the darkness behind her, and as comforting as the certainty of his presence felt, it did nothing to eliminate the primal fear surging through her.

    Alex's shadow held a painfully stark clarity, his body silhouetted against an eerie blue light now flickering behind them, circling up a vaguely humanoid shape loping towards them. The light entwined up its leg, disappeared in its torso, then reappeared snaking down from the thing's skull-like nasal cavity. Other blue lights also began to shimmer, like fireflies dancing about the abomination behind them. And still further back, the door rattled - and in that in blue glow she could see a child's hand pounding against the fogged glass.

    Then, as suddenly as the terror had taken over, Tess and Alex emerged into the bright afternoon light, all evidence of the terror that they had just experienced vanished, and they turned around the corner of the station running as fast as their legs could carry them. Tess knew that if they had turned back, the icy shadow of that place would have returned to consume them, drowning them in its depths as suddenly as splashing through the shimmering surface of a lake.