To read Part Three, please click here.
The handle of my flashlight was warm where I gripped it. I began to rotate in place, methodically scanning the walls with my sterile white beam. They were bare and painted over. No grates, no fissures.
I needed to know that it was just a rat.
It seemed as though the sound was all around me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, straining for the source.
Then I froze. I understood why I knew this place.
It was that little room I had backed away from, what seemed like years ago. The chamber with the space-black hole in the ceiling, which I hadn’t dared illuminate.
I stood there for a moment with the flashlight pressed against my thigh and I didn’t want to look up. I knew I would. I’d never been one to leave well enough alone. But I sat with the fear for a moment or two, even as curiosity waited patient and knowing in my bones.
The girl must have noticed my change in demeanor from her spot in the hall outside. She tensed in the corner of my eye, but I had already thrust my beam toward the ceiling before a warning could escape her lips.
I had only a millisecond to comprehend what I was seeing, not nearly enough time to remember to scream.
Yawning only a few feet above my head was that hole as black as space, just where I had left it. Except with the darkness stripped away, it wasn’t empty. It was teeming.
I didn't understand the sight as a whole, and I remember only snatches: eyes engulfed in liquid pupils, clawed feet and writhing tentacles, all jostling for position. Every inch of that square in the ceiling was filled with creatures of eldritch anatomy. They clustered, leaning out over my head. Somewhere within their masses, the scritching noise continued.
When confronted with my trusty flashlight, however, they fled in a single motion, with a whoosh like a released breath.
I stood blinking in vertigo, my flashlight beam now illuminating useless attic beams, unsure whether to move now would end this dream or cement it further into reality.
All was quiet, but silence was a facade of safety — it meant nothing to me now. So I waited it out, and after a few seconds caught sight of a motion around the edges of that gap. It was indistinct as static but growing in confidence.
A single eye, detached from its skull, peered down at me over the edge. An enormous blunt claw hooked itself around the ceiling.
Finally, I had the good sense to back away so that I wasn’t directly beneath the hole. My neck was twisted painfully, my insides a confusion of thrill and fear.
The things seemed to be experimenting with every motion forward, testing to see whether I would make any more threatening gestures. But I just stared, my every molecule tingling with awe. So they continued on a rising tide of hoarse whispers, revealing more and more of their amorphous bodies. I saw things without faces and things with too many faces, kaleidoscope eyes and contorted wings, dripping feathers.
Finally, the bravest of them all dropped down into the room itself, landing with a crouch on all fours. This sent my heart pounding.
The creature seemed slightly more humanoid than the rest. It had a head and four limbs, though its fingers were far too spindly, and skin was webbed over the space where its eyes should have been. It was hairless, pale as the underbelly of a mushroom, and that awful noise slithered from its wide toothy mouth. That scraping, clicking, grinding sound.
For a nauseating moment I was reminded of my cat, the way she liked to chirp back at the birds, gnashing her teeth in predatory hunger. Indeed, the thing seemed to be stalking me. Our steps mirrored each other: one motion forward for one motion back.
My eyes never left the monster before me, but I could clearly picture the door to the hall; I was sure it was at my back. All I had to do was take one calm step at a time, and as soon as I reached the threshold I would run.
I never did reach the threshold, though. Something pressed against my shoulder blades. I whipped around, forgetting my escape plan, and was faced with the blank wall.
No time for flight then; the thing’s muscles were bunched and spring-loaded. With a silent apology to my trusty flashlight, I hurled it forward. The dense, utilitarian metal smacked against its jaw. I saw a small shower of loose teeth mingling with the bulb’s shattered glass. The creature yowled pain and surprise, scuttling backward. Good. That bought me some time.
I glanced around for the exit, ready to sprint, except . . . no. That wasn’t right. Where was the door?
A few more monstrosities from the attic were edging toward me. A spider the size of my head, a bat with human teeth.
“Back. Off.” I stomped my foot, attempting to make myself seem larger, like I was scaring a black bear away from the campsite. “Just . . . just give me a minute.”
I turned a full, slow three hundred and sixty degrees. All four walls were smooth and featureless. The exit had simply disappeared.
I needed to know that it was just a rat.
It seemed as though the sound was all around me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, straining for the source.
Then I froze. I understood why I knew this place.
It was that little room I had backed away from, what seemed like years ago. The chamber with the space-black hole in the ceiling, which I hadn’t dared illuminate.
I stood there for a moment with the flashlight pressed against my thigh and I didn’t want to look up. I knew I would. I’d never been one to leave well enough alone. But I sat with the fear for a moment or two, even as curiosity waited patient and knowing in my bones.
The girl must have noticed my change in demeanor from her spot in the hall outside. She tensed in the corner of my eye, but I had already thrust my beam toward the ceiling before a warning could escape her lips.
I had only a millisecond to comprehend what I was seeing, not nearly enough time to remember to scream.
Yawning only a few feet above my head was that hole as black as space, just where I had left it. Except with the darkness stripped away, it wasn’t empty. It was teeming.
I didn't understand the sight as a whole, and I remember only snatches: eyes engulfed in liquid pupils, clawed feet and writhing tentacles, all jostling for position. Every inch of that square in the ceiling was filled with creatures of eldritch anatomy. They clustered, leaning out over my head. Somewhere within their masses, the scritching noise continued.
When confronted with my trusty flashlight, however, they fled in a single motion, with a whoosh like a released breath.
I stood blinking in vertigo, my flashlight beam now illuminating useless attic beams, unsure whether to move now would end this dream or cement it further into reality.
All was quiet, but silence was a facade of safety — it meant nothing to me now. So I waited it out, and after a few seconds caught sight of a motion around the edges of that gap. It was indistinct as static but growing in confidence.
A single eye, detached from its skull, peered down at me over the edge. An enormous blunt claw hooked itself around the ceiling.
Finally, I had the good sense to back away so that I wasn’t directly beneath the hole. My neck was twisted painfully, my insides a confusion of thrill and fear.
The things seemed to be experimenting with every motion forward, testing to see whether I would make any more threatening gestures. But I just stared, my every molecule tingling with awe. So they continued on a rising tide of hoarse whispers, revealing more and more of their amorphous bodies. I saw things without faces and things with too many faces, kaleidoscope eyes and contorted wings, dripping feathers.
Finally, the bravest of them all dropped down into the room itself, landing with a crouch on all fours. This sent my heart pounding.
The creature seemed slightly more humanoid than the rest. It had a head and four limbs, though its fingers were far too spindly, and skin was webbed over the space where its eyes should have been. It was hairless, pale as the underbelly of a mushroom, and that awful noise slithered from its wide toothy mouth. That scraping, clicking, grinding sound.
For a nauseating moment I was reminded of my cat, the way she liked to chirp back at the birds, gnashing her teeth in predatory hunger. Indeed, the thing seemed to be stalking me. Our steps mirrored each other: one motion forward for one motion back.
My eyes never left the monster before me, but I could clearly picture the door to the hall; I was sure it was at my back. All I had to do was take one calm step at a time, and as soon as I reached the threshold I would run.
I never did reach the threshold, though. Something pressed against my shoulder blades. I whipped around, forgetting my escape plan, and was faced with the blank wall.
No time for flight then; the thing’s muscles were bunched and spring-loaded. With a silent apology to my trusty flashlight, I hurled it forward. The dense, utilitarian metal smacked against its jaw. I saw a small shower of loose teeth mingling with the bulb’s shattered glass. The creature yowled pain and surprise, scuttling backward. Good. That bought me some time.
I glanced around for the exit, ready to sprint, except . . . no. That wasn’t right. Where was the door?
A few more monstrosities from the attic were edging toward me. A spider the size of my head, a bat with human teeth.
“Back. Off.” I stomped my foot, attempting to make myself seem larger, like I was scaring a black bear away from the campsite. “Just . . . just give me a minute.”
I turned a full, slow three hundred and sixty degrees. All four walls were smooth and featureless. The exit had simply disappeared.