The Extreme Horror Collection Page 7

  They.

  No wonder the man, without eyes or a face, had been so eager to fight. For all he knew, he was fighting for his life.

  Which meant they all were now.

  The clanking of the chains drew Ashley back to the moment, but Craig was making no headway.

  ‘So how do we get in?’ he asked desperately.

  ‘I think we leave it,’ Tim said.

  All three turned to face him.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Craig said. ‘Jesus, Tim, there’s a kid in there.’

  ‘Leave it alone,’ Tim said, almost ignoring Craig’s comment. ‘There’s nothing but trouble down there.’ He stepped away, back into the kitchen. ‘Come on,’ he said, waving them toward him. ‘Let’s keep looking.’

  Ashley couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She again thought back to the words she and Tim had shared earlier and how happy it had made her. But he was not the same man she thought she was in love with.

  It seemed Tim was not that man at all.

  Perhaps he never had been.

  ‘We aren’t leaving a kid in there,’ Kim said.

  ‘You should listen to me,’ he said. ‘If you’d have listened earlier, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

  ‘No,’ Kim said, ‘we are not abandoning him.’

  ‘There has to be a key,’ Craig said, turning back to the task at hand. ‘For the padlock. Maybe it’s close by.’

  ‘We should search the kitchen,’ Kim said.

  The three of them filtered out of the small room, and Ashley noted that Tim wouldn’t even look at them as they passed. She stopped next to him.

  ‘Tim,’ she said. ‘How can you be so careless?’

  ‘How can you be so stupid?’ he answered coldly.

  The comment stung. ‘I... I don’t understand. Help me to understand. What’s going on?’

  ‘Like I said. You didn’t listen to me before. And you’re ignoring me now. So, if you’re all so eager to bring more trouble down on you, go right ahead.’

  ‘But it’s a child,’ she said. ‘And it was you that wanted to come in here in the first place.’

  He just shrugged. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said and walked away, back to the hallway door. She thought he was going to walk through, but he simply leaned against the jamb like he had done outside.

  She couldn’t understand him, and her mind was reeling, but she knew she needed to focus on the immediate issue. They needed to find the key, if it was here, and get the hell out.

  She joined Kim and Craig in their search, sifting through drawers and cupboards, searching frantically. Ashley had a feeling they didn’t have long before whoever lived here returned.

  Come on, she prayed. Come on, come on, come on.

  Then she pulled open the bottom drawer, one filled with scraps of paper, old photos, and other junk. As she pushed around the rubbish, she saw it slide into view; a large, iron key.

  She snatched it up. ‘Is this it?’

  Craig quickly hobbled over. ‘Might be,’ he said, taking it from her grasp. She and Kim followed him back over to the door, but Tim stayed where he was.

  Craig put the key to the lock and, thankfully, it slid into place easily. He jiggled and turned it, and the loop at the top sprang open.

  ‘It worked,’ he said, pulling away the lock and dropping it to the floor with a heavy thud. ‘Just hold on,’ he yelled through the door. ‘We’re coming in to get you. We’ll get you out of there, buddy, I promise.’

  The child didn’t respond at all, and that didn’t sit well with Ashley, but she was too concerned with getting in there to give it too much thought.

  She watched as Craig quickly pulled the chains loose, and they dropped to the floor alongside the padlock. He wasted no time pulling open the door, and a breeze of cold air hit them. Through the door, in the darkness, Ashley could make out a set of creaky wooden steps running down into the black void below. A wave of sickening stench rose up and hit them.

  ‘Hello?’ Craig yelled down. His voice echoed, but no one responded.

  ‘Little boy?’ Kim added. ‘We opened the door, you can come up. We’ll get you out of here.’

  Still nothing.

  This seems wrong, Ashley thought to herself.

  ‘I’m going down,’ Craig said.

  ‘Wait,’ Ashley replied, instinctively grabbing him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why isn’t he responding?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Craig said, ‘but that’s why I’m worried. Maybe he’s really hurt.’

  ‘It’s just... isn’t it strange?’

  ‘This whole thing is strange, Ashley,’ Craig said. ‘In fact, it is beyond strange. But that doesn’t mean we leave a little kid down there.’

  Ashley nodded and looked to the floor, embarrassed, and felt her cheeks flush. How could she let fear override her compassion like that, especially towards one so innocent and helpless? They’d all heard the little boy’s cries, so there was no doubt he was down there.

  Even so, given the boy’s silence, and Tim’s reluctance to help, and his warning to leave it all alone, something seemed very wrong to Ashley.

  ‘I’m going down,’ Craig said. Despite the brave gesture, Ashley saw it plastered all over his sweaty face; he was scared as well.

  ‘No,’ Kim said. She bent down and plucked up the heavy branch that Craig had earlier dropped. ‘We go together. Ashley, you coming?’

  Ashley closed her eyes, took a breath, then nodded.

  And so they descended. Craig took the lead, slowly creeping down the steps with his torch lighting the way. The stairs were simple wooden slats, but because there was no handrail, Ashley felt off balance, like she could easily fall over the side at any moment. The beam eventually found a dirt floor, and as it swept up, she could see that the walls surrounding the basement were stone. Not shaped or carved, but random sections wedged together in wire mesh casing, holding back the ground outside. Streaks of old and new water lined the stone, and it was clear that whoever lived here felt no need to damp-proof the area.

  Craig swept the beam around the room, looking for the child, but instead found something else.

  Something horrible.

  Ashley took a sharp intake of breath.

  If she had been scared before, what she saw here took things to a whole new level. It was reminiscent of the room upstairs, the one where animal carcasses hung from the ceiling.

  Things hung from the ceiling here, too, but they were not animals.

  These dead things were once very much human, all strung up and hanging upside down. Those that still had arms had their hands bound together.

  ‘What the fuck,’ Craig uttered.

  After seeing the morbid scene of death and desecration, Ashley doubled over and vomited.

  The hanging bodies were in various stages of decomposition, and some were so stripped of flesh that they were little more than skeletal. Where flesh still remained on others, it had withered and yellowed. The skin on the heads had shrunk, pulling back over the skull, lips twisted up into a grimace. The eyes, where there were eyes, bulged out from sunken eyelids.

  Some of the bodies were men, some were women, but worse, some were...

  Ashley vomited again.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ she heard Kim say, her voice now small and quiet, like a scared child.

  Craig didn’t reply, but she could hear him start to hyperventilate.

  Ashley got to her feet, legs feeling like they were going to melt away beneath her, and took Kim’s hand. ‘Let’s go. Now.’

  ‘But…’ Craig said, casting around the beam of light, ‘where’s the—’

  He didn’t finish the sentence, because the beam stopped on another monstrous sight. This one standing in the corner of the room.

  And very much alive.

  Ashley screamed at the hulking monster that stood so tall it had to hunch over to fit beneath the basement ceiling. It must have been over eight feet tall, grotesquely fat and bulbou
s, wearing little more than rags. Where pectorals should have been, swollen, bloated pockets of fat spilled over the rotund gut. Whatever it was, it was disgusting, the repulsion made worse by its face, which looked cherubic.

  The thing was mostly bald, with only small tufts of fair hair scattered about its scalp. It had big cheeks and tiny, beady eyes. Its mouth, however, looked wrong. Too large, too wide, and as it pulled back its lips into a smile, Ashley saw that its yellowed teeth were short and stumpy.

  ‘Oh look,’ it said in the same childlike voice they’d heard through the door. ‘People have come to play.’

  Chapter 13

  They were in his home now.

  The family home.

  This was good.

  He’d worried things would go wrong, especially after he’d been seen earlier, but everything had worked out well for him. However, he was confused at the silence. If they were inside, then he should be able to hear them screaming; a symphony of pain and terror. Had the family left the house unattended?

  Regardless, at least they were inside, trapped like flies in a web.

  Helpless.

  Waiting to be devoured.

  They just didn’t know it yet.

  Then he heard a faint scream that seemed to come from the basement below.

  A lopsided smile formed over his cracked lips.

  They knew it now.

  He surveyed the area and saw the rest of the family silently making their way through the trees towards the house. Father saw him and waved.

  He was excited now, truly excited, almost giddy.

  This was it.

  Now it was time.

  Chapter 14

  The hulking figure took a heavy step forward. As it did, Ashley saw rolls of fat drop down over his ankles.

  ‘Goodie, goodie,’ it said, still with that childlike voice. ‘Come to Henry.’

  Ashley screamed again, and Kim joined her. Craig looked horrified as well, but was making no sound. They all began backing up.

  The monstrous man lifted an inhumanly heavy arm and pointed a fat finger at Craig.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘You get to play first.’

  That was the catalyst for them all to flee as one. Turning on their heels, they rushed for the stairs, bolting up them as fast as they could. Craig, with his injured ankle, was slower, but both Ashley and Kim made sure to each take a hand and drag him along. Kim threw the thick length of wood she had been carrying at the thing, but her throw was weak and it didn’t reach its target.

  They clattered up the stairs, feet hitting the timber with loud thuds. The wood creaked ominously beneath them, and Ashley prayed the stairs didn’t break and send them tumbling down below to be trapped with that thing.

  She could hear it waddle quickly after them, its footsteps a mix of shuffling and heavy slapping as its bare feet hit the dirt.

  She allowed herself a look over her should and saw the thing that called itself Henry was already at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at them, as if all of this were some kind of game.

  ‘Can’t run,’ he said. ‘Nope. Can’t, can’t, can’t. Nowhere to go.’ He licked his lips, sloppily, and began his ascent. The three of them spilled through the door at the top and Kim slammed it shut. They heard the beast run quickly up the steps with loud thuds, seemingly moving far too quickly for something of that size.

  Craig thrust himself against the door to brace it. ‘Help me,’ he said.

  Ashley and Kim both pushed against it as well, readying for the force that was about to work against them.

  ‘Tim,’ Ashley yelled, ‘we need help.’

  She turned to look back into the kitchen, expecting to see him still leaning against the door frame, but he was gone. ‘Tim,’ she yelled again, louder this time.

  The booming footsteps reached the top and stopped.

  They all waited.

  The handle slowly turned, and the door pushed against them gently. Craig pushed back, clicking the latch back into place.

  They heard the hulk laugh from the other side of the door. It was a disturbing, high-pitched titter. Like a child enjoying an exciting game.

  ‘Can’t keep me in here,’ he said. ‘Ma and Pa tried, but you’ve let me out. They won’t be happy, but the chains are off now. That means I’m allowed to come out.’

  All three tensed up and readied themselves.

  But it was useless.

  The door was shoved open with such force they were all thrown to the floor and slid out to the kitchen. When Ashley regained her orientation, she looked up to see that the door was open and Henry was coming through. He almost looked too big to fit through the frame, and her heart raced as she hoped he would be, but those hopes were crushed as he hunched down and squeezed himself through with a grunt. They all backed up as quickly as they could and got to their feet as Henry began to advance towards them.

  ‘What do we do?’ Kim asked, frantic.

  Henry laughed again, another excitable titter.

  ‘Run,’ Ashley said. ‘We have to outrun it.’

  ‘Oh,’ it said, still smiling. ‘Are you going to hide? Should I come find you? Sounds like fun.’

  Ashley had experienced many different levels of fear over the course of the day, but what she was seeing now eclipsed all that.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Craig said, ‘run.’

  They turned and bolted, but the thing was quick to react. It squealed in delight and bounded forward, moving quickly across the kitchen. Ashley and Kim managed to get through the door to the hallway, but heard a gasp, then a scream.

  They turned to see that Henry had hold of Craig, one arm wrapped around his waist. The brute quickly hoisted the blonde man up like a rag doll. Or, Ashley thought, like a kid holding a teddy bear.

  Henry began to laugh excitedly.

  ‘See,’ he said. ‘I told you that you would be first, little man.’

  He laughed again and began to bounce up and down, shaking Craig as he did.

  ‘Help,’ Craig screamed, kicking wildly, his feet not even touching the floor. ‘Please, help me.’

  His face was pale and his eyes were wide in absolute fear. Ashley had never seen a human look so terrified in real life.

  ‘Craig!’ Kim yelled, horrified.

  Ashley didn’t know what to do. It had been scary enough when the faceless man had grabbed Craig earlier, but this? This was something else. There was absolutely nothing they could do to help Craig against the giant freak of nature.

  Henry then turned Craig, who was still dangling in mid-air, to face him, and wrapped another bulbous arm around him. ‘Want to know what I do when I catch people who try to hide?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Please,’ Craig begged. ‘Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone about this place, I promise. Leave us alone and we will never come back.’

  ‘But I don’t want you to leave me alone,’ Henry said. ‘That would make me angry.’

  ‘Just don’t hurt me,’ Craig said.

  ‘Hurt you?’ Henry asked, feigning confusion. Then a mischievous smile formed over his lips. ‘You mean, like this?’

  He squeezed Craig suddenly and violently, pulling his arms in tight like a bear hug, engulfing Craig into his mass. Craig let out a horrible shriek of agony and the monster laughed even more. It slowly relaxed its grip, but, even so, Craig still screamed and writhed. He began to cough violently.

  ‘Please,’ he pleaded weakly. ‘Let me go.’

  Ashley had no idea what kind of damage had been done, but the thing seemed incomprehensibly strong. He might have cracked Craig’s ribs, or worse.

  ‘No,’ it said, its face turning into a frown. ‘So stop asking.’

  ‘Please,’ Craig begged. In response, Henry squeezed him again, eliciting more screams.

  ‘You’ll make me angry,’ he said, before again easing up. ‘Just like my brother did, and you should have seen what I did to him. So, if you don’t want the same to happen to you, then you need to shut up. And do what I tell you. Okay?’


  Craig was just a whimpering mess, and he dangled helplessly from Henry’s grasp. Henry squeezed yet again, causing more howls of pain.

  ‘I said, okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Craig answered as tears streamed down his face. ‘Yes, yes. Okay.’

  ‘Good,’ Henry said, a smile returning to his face. ‘If you’re good, then I might let you pick out your own place to stay in here. Most of the others in the basement just get put wherever. Won’t it be nice to choose where you live?’

  Ashley thought of the bodies of the dead that hung from the ceiling in the basement, and Craig must have realised the same thing. He began to weep, drawing more laughter from the enormous hulk.

  ‘They always cry,’ he said and then looked over to Ashley and Kim. ‘You will too. Both of you.’

  They both took a step back.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ Craig begged, seeing their movement.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Henry said. ‘They aren’t going anywhere. If they try, I’ll catch them too. You’ll all be together here with me and my family.’

  ‘And where are the rest of your family?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Out looking for my brother,’ he said. Then added, in a conspiratorial whisper: ‘They won’t find him, though. When they asked where I left him, I lied.’

  He laughed, evidently pleased with himself.

  ‘What do we do?’ Ashley whispered to Kim. A recurring question, she realised, since entering these damn woods.

  Craig was staring at them both through tear-filled eyes, and he began to sob loudly, pleading with them to help him. Or at the very least, not abandon him. Ashley’s stomach knotted up. She knew there was nothing they could do for him, and they’d die if they tried. So, did that mean she had already decided to leave Craig for dead? Was she that selfish and careless?

  And, if the situation was reversed, she wondered if the others leave her as well?

  ‘Tim?’ she called out, yelling out of pure desperation. She didn’t know where the hell he was or what he was doing, but he was the only hope she could think of. If any of them had a chance of saving Craig, it was Tim. They needed the same person who had so sickened her earlier, the person who had smashed the man’s head open with a rock.