There was a time, when Martin and I were first starting out on our path toward what we ultimately became, that we killed animals. We always did it humanely, and never with any great frequency, but between that and the years of cadavers that followed, I had already seen a great many wonders and horrors of the internal body by the time we found ourselves in that old tire factory, caught between a wall of the dead and the thing that was rising out of the black pool to meet us.
I mention that mainly because the first thing I thought of when I saw it was intestines. Coils upon coils of black and glistening entrails that were somehow given independent life. Perhaps that’s what they were. But that’s not all they were.
As these seemingly endless masses of sliding, writhing meat pushed up out of the dark water in the middle of the floor, I began to see the irregularities of the thing. There were bulges—bulges the size and rough shape of human bodies—being squeezed along the snakelike interior halls of that thing, the distended outline of a person shifting obscenely along until one of the numerous terminating points of the creature vomited it out like an unwanted bite of beef. Without hesitation, one of the men that were working for it stepped forward and drug the body away, and within moments it was added to the top of the corpse wall surrounding us.
Worse than that were the mouths. All the damn mouths. I first noticed one when it regurgitated the body—a series of hooked teeth ringed the opening at the end of that wriggling tube of meat, and I realized with a shudder that similar mouths existed on the ends of all the similar tendrils, as well as at irregular spots along the surface of its twisted, gleaming core. Occasionally, as one of the body bulges would pass near one of those smaller mouths, a black ichor that I imagined was part blood and part waste, along with whatever vileness the creature was stewing in, would push its way out between those yellowed lamprey teeth with a thick, wet gurgle that made my stomach clench.
I had stopped screaming, but only because I was so far down the well of despair that I knew there was no point. They were going to feed us to that thing. There was no chance of escape, no hope of help. I looked around and found Martin’s eyes. He had grown quiet too and I knew he was thinking the same thing. We were lost.
As though to confirm what was to come, one of the men holding us approached and took a middle-aged woman from next to me and drug her to the water’s edge. She and the other man that made up our quartet of sacrifice victims had been brought in separately, and both looked significantly worse for wear than Martin or I—she was bruised and battered with tape over her mouth, and the man that was further around curve of the body wall was wholly unconscious, and had what looked like a shin bone sticking out of his right leg.
The woman struggled weakly at first, but as the first questing tendrils of the monster found her, she began to thrash wildly. I remember seeing the insanity slipping over her eyes like a veil as the barbed mouth opened wide and began to swallow her whole. The man who had sacrificed her didn’t pause to watch. He was already moving over to drag the unconscious man to another spot at the water’s edge. He met my eyes as he stood up from depositing the sleeping body, and then he did something strange.
He winked at me.
My first reaction was a flush of anger and fear. I thought he was mocking me. The unconscious man’s body was already halfway consumed, and he was letting me know I was next. But then one of the other two servants of that thing began to yell something.
“Hey! Fuck! That’s Bill! That’s not food! That’s…”
His words were cut off as the man who had winked at me put two rounds into his chest. Without hesitating, he turned and killed the last of their trio as he was scrambling over the body wall. Except I was beginning to realize the winking man wasn’t a part of their group, and likely one or both of the people he had just fed to that thing were our abductors’ friends. I was no less afraid as he approached Martin and I, but I was distracted from my fear by my confusion. Then he leaned down and spoke to us.
“You may want to close your eyes for this next part. When you open them, it will either be close to over or you’ll need to run. Use the low point on the wall…the place the man I just killed was coming over. Understand?” I nodded to him, and I remember even now that the thing that stood out to me the most was that he was so calm. It wasn’t that he didn’t seem afraid, because I could tell there was some mild apprehension in his eyes as the thing behind him began to move around more violently, perhaps finally realizing what was interrupting its feast. But he seemed so sure of what he was doing. Sure enough that he took the time to warn us and give us instructions if things somehow went wrong. As he turned back to face the monster, I felt my fear melting away.
Black tendrils with hungry snapping mouths were weaving closer and closer as the thing hefted its bulk out of the water more. The man seemed to watch it with interest as he pulled something out of his jacket—a small device with a square green button under a plastic, flip-up cap. The man flipped the cap up and quickly punched the button four times with his thumb. Before he was finished with the fourth press, dull concussive blasts began to echo from inside the creature, causing it to first shudder and then blow apart in wet rags of black meat and foul-smelling liquid. It never made a noise really, but you could hear the hiss of its flesh cooking from the inside as it flailed around in its death throes.
But then it seemed to disappear a split-second before all the work lights went out. I felt a new scream building in my throat when the greenish glow of a lightstick snapped to life above us. The man handed it to me and then gave a second to Martin before activating a third for himself. He then stepped forward towards the water’s edge where a young boy lay gasping for breath.
The boy was maybe ten years old, and my first thought was that he had somehow been inside the monster and was miraculously blown free while he was still alive. But then he looked up at the man crouching over him and his face was marred by the hate and fear of a much older mind. In the ghoulish green light of the stick, he somehow looked every bit as dangerous as the thing he had replaced.
“You. I’ve heard about you. You think you will kill us all? You are wasting your time. We are the…” The boy’s words were cut off as the man stood up and put his foot on the boy's neck while turning his head to the side. “What are you doing?” He rasped. “Wait, I can tell you things. Many, many things.”
The man pulled out a large swiss army knife and unfolded the corkscrew as he let out a short, dry laugh. “Yes, I’m sure you can. Some of it might even be true.” He gestured around at the piles of dead people encircling us. “But I think I know enough about what you are and what you do. Your time is over.” He thrust the corkscrew into the side of the boy’s head and began to twist viciously as the thing beneath his foot thrashed and flailed like a caught fish. I almost closed my eyes, but then I felt a small wave of force like a sonic boom through us. The boy’s body was gone. Disappeared in front of our eyes and taking the man’s pocket knife with it.
He looked over at me, his eyes hard but not unkind as he gave me a thin smile. “You didn’t close your eyes.”
I swallowed as I gave a weak nod. “I wanted to see.” It was the truth. I’ve always wanted to see, I suppose.
The man nodded his understanding and extended his hands to us—big, strong hands that seemed to swallow ours as he led us over the obscene wall and out of that terrible place. When we were outside, I felt tears springing to my eyes. The man noticed and patted me on the shoulder.
“It’s okay. It’s over. That thing won’t ever hurt anyone again.”
On impulse I stepped forward and hugged him—this man that moments before I had been sure was going to kill us. He let out a surprised grunt and then hugged me back. Behind us, I could hear Martin's relieved laughter.
And that is how I met your grandfather, Dr. Patrick Barron.
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