The Black
by Ian Robert Krueger
WARNING: the following story covers a topic that people may find sensitive, and any views, expressed or perceived, are not the necessarily shared by Jakob’s Horror Box. Please use your discretion as necessary.
I was seventeen when the incident happened.
I was lying in bed, hot, angry tears in my eyes. Me and Mom had been arguing. Arguing real hard.
"I don't know why!" she screamed, chucking an empty beer bottle at my head. "You think you have any right to tell me to keep it!"
I ducked. The bottle shattered on the wall behind me. Bits of glass tinkled down onto my hair. "Because it's my sister, Ma!" I shrieked, face red and pumping with blood.
"Oh, bullshit!" she sneered. "How do you know what it is, anyways?"
"I just feel it, Ma!" I stomped my foot.
"Oh, Jesus Christ!" She threw up her hands and thundered down the stairs. "You and your goddamn feelings!"
I stood there, gasping for breath, fists clenched. The closet clicked open, there was the shuffle of heavy winter clothing. I rushed down the steps. She stood in our main foyer, yanking on a coat and mittens. "Where are you going?" I cried desperately, hanging onto the bannister.
She shot me a bitter look. Then she stomped outside and slammed the door in my face.
I cried myself to sleep that night, lonely as all hell, my skinny body writhing on cold, sweat-soaked sheets. Darkness came like a gunshot, and my consciousness winked out.
* * *
The vinyl rumbles round the turntable, murmuring to itself. I'm pulled by invisible strings, closer closer closer, like a ghost drifting on midnight winds. The room is flickering red hellfire. I hold my breath. The murmurs grow louder. Everything melts to blood.
A flash. I'm on the other side, dressed in a white nightgown. The carpet is ghastly green. The room is wood-paneled and windowless. The air is thick, claustrophobic-hot, and there's this infernal pumping sound that won't let up.
A door creaks open. I step through, glancing about. Nothing but distant rumbles and that unrelenting pumping sound. The hall is long and dark, with that same ghastly green carpet and claustrophobic paneling. Portraits leer down from the walls. Their mouths are wide and red. I shudder.
1
A blood-curdling scream. I whirl, so fast my blonde hair catches in my mouth. I stare in amazement. Crouched down at the opposite end of the hallway is a tiny girl, small as a newborn. Her hair is pure white, her eyes, pale blue. She's hugging her knees, shaking with terror.
"Hey," I say, stepping forward. "It's okay. I'm here to help."
The walls rumble. She looks up, her huge blue eyes staring into mine. I kneel down. She's dressed in a cute pink dress and white stockings. I tenderly brush back her ghost-white hair. Her skin is fever-hot.
"I think they're trying to kill me," she says, voice trembling.
"Baby, no," I say, wrapping my arms around her. "It's just a dream. You'll wake up soon."
"No," she says firmly. "They are trying to kill me."
The pumping grows louder. The walls shudder.
"It's just a dream," I say, gathering her in my arms and lifting her from the floor.
She puts her tiny head on my chest. "When I'm gone," she whispers. "No one will remember me, except you. None of them have seen me yet."
"Who's them?" I ask.
"I don't know," she whispers.
I walk down the hall, holding her close. The paintings grimace down at me, fanged smiles wide, red lips drooling with hunger. The light flickers. The walls shudder. And that dreadful, thunderous heartbeat grows ever louder.
"They're coming," she whispers.
Something hot and sticky spatters across my face. I looked up. Blood and slime dribble from the ceiling. A footstep, just behind me. I whirl, and my blood runs cold.
He's tall and clinical-white, forceps grasped in his bloodstained fingers. His face is smooth and featureless. The scent of ammonia permeates the air. He steps forward, hand outstretched, his bloody rubber-gloved fingers clawing for the little creature at my breast.
"Go away!" I roar. "You can't hurt us!"
The girl buries her face in my nightgown.
"You're just a figment!" I scream. "You're nothing!"
2
The spectre towers above us, sightless eyes glowering down. He reaches for the girl.
"You're nothing!" I spit in his face.
The spectre wavers, vanishes. Melts down into cool-nothing mist.
I clutch the girl close. "It's just a dream! See?" I press my face into the top of her head. "It's all a dream. It's all a dream. He can't hurt us." The girl is silent. I crouch down on that vomit-green carpet and rock her, praying she'll start dreaming something more pleasant.
"All my life," she murmurs, eyes wide and staring. "I've been dreaming. And I was just hoping I'd wake up."
"You will," I whisper in her ear. "You'll wake up, and you'll jump into bed with Momma. And everything will be okay."
"My Mommy hates me," she says matter-of-factly.
"How do you know that?" I ask.
"I just do," she says.
We sit like that for awhile, me rocking her, her just lying there like a sad forgotten spirit.
The walls shake so hard I think it's all gonna come down on top of us. I leap to my feet. The heartbeat thunders in my ears, faster faster faster, like a drowning swimmer. The floor melts down like ice cream, turning thick and soggy. The portraits cackle.
"We're going to eat you!" they howl at the girl. "We'll eat you forever!"
I scream and tear down the hallway, running as fast as my legs can carry me. The girl is shaking uncontrollably. "Don't look," I whisper, holding her close. "It's nothing..."
The floor crumbles beneath my feet. I scream, pitch forward. Slam down hard. The wind is knocked out of me. I gasp. Plaster and wood-splinters shower on top of us as the girl locks her arms around my neck. The white man towers over us, staring with his sightless eyes. He grabs the girl’s foot in his plastic-gloved hand, and in one violent jerk, she's torn away from me.
"No!" I scream. Her eyes go wide with terror. He slams her down on a big, white sacrificial table. The portraits swarm through the air, red maws dripping with hunger as they cackle with glee. He raises the forceps. I leap forward, but it's like I'm caught in slow motion. I watch the forceps lock around her head. The man's glove-clad fingers, wrap around her torso. I close my eyes and scream.
A horrible, tearing-splatter sound. Like a pig being ripped in two. Hot-stickiness spatters across my face. Red. Everything's red. The heartbeat is gone. I see the girl's corpse, sinking away into ammonia-white nothingness. The faces gibber above her.
3
"We'll eat you forever!" they shriek.
I sob uncontrollably, reaching my fingers out into that cold, clinical void. She's gone. Gone. Vanishing into nothingness...
Darkness. The thick, tangible smoke of burning incense. It pours into the burning white sacrifice-room, hot with vengeance, righteous hatred permeating the air. The portraits cringe. The man vanishes. My heart freezes with terror, and I wrap myself into a tiny ball, trembling uncontrollably. Then, I hear the voice. It roars like a tornado, fell with the force of ten thousand atom bombs. It's bargaining. It orders the things to give the girl back. They refuse. Then there's an explosion of rage and hatred, and I hear him smashing them to bits. They scream in agony, and he burns them to cinder. And as the ashes fall, I can still hear them screaming, cut into infinitely small pieces of nothingness.
I peek out from beneath my arms. What happened next I can't really describe. I think he picked up the girl. I think he was crying as he cradled her. Then, he breathed all over her, and she was soaring, roaring up into the darkness like a meteor.
Then I'm crouched on a carpet of stars and galaxies. I look up. The girl is perched in some kind of tree, but the fruit are made of jupiters, and the branches are nebulae.
"Are you okay?" I whisper.
"I am," she says. "But you can't stay here."
"What happened?" I ask.
"They killed me," she says. "But don't worry!" she laughs with a smile. "Now I'm alive for ever and ever."
"We aren't dreaming, are we?" I say.
"We were," she laughs. "But now, I'm the only one who's truly awake."
4
