Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

His ears rang loudly and his head throbbed. The ringing eventually subsided — slowly, gradually — and was replaced by the cry of a baby.

No, no, the cry of two … no, three, maybe four … no, several babies.

Somewhere nearby, there were voices that barely rose above the crying of the babies.

But there was something else … something weird … something wrong …

The ground beneath him and the damp, cold darkness all around him was moving … tilting back and forth … this way, that way, back and forth.

He reached down to feel the surface beneath him, but suddenly realized that he could not move his arms. His wrists were tied together behind him and his ankles were tied together before him.

Then he noticed something else: A low rumble that made its way through the surface beneath him and up into his body, gathering in his chest like quivering indigestion. It sounded like an engine.

Are we on a bus, or something? he thought, then: We? We?

“Janelle?” he said, his voice hoarse and weak. “Janelle, you here? C’mon, Janelle, say something!”

“Who you talkin’ to?” another voice asked. It was the voice of a child, a boy, somewhere around Cole’s age.

“What? I’m … talking to my sister,” Cole said quietly, uncertainly.

“Who?” a little girl asked from somewhere in the darkness, her voice trembling. It wasn’t Janelle. “Who are you talking to?”

“My sister, Janelle. Janelle? You there? C’mon, Janelle, you gotta be there!”

The voices paused for a long moment. Cole could hear the babies crying, some of them gurgling and making spitting sounds, and when he listened very closely, he could hear the breathing of other children. Some were making purring little snoring sounds. There was a lot of rustling in the dark, squirming movement.

He called for Janelle a few more times, raising his voice in spite of how much it hurt his head, in spite of the way his stomach was beginning to feel sick because of the lurching back-and-forth movements.

Finally, there was a little voice … so small and weak and frightened: “Cole? You … are you there?”

“Yeah, Munchkin. I’m here. I’m right here.”

“Where?”

“I’m here, real close. You hear me?”

“I can’t see you.”

“Yeah, I know, but you can hear me, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good, then that’s all that counts right now. We’ll see each other soon, okay? You just stay still and don’t be afraid, ’cause I’m here.”

“Okay. Good. Okay.”

Her voice was so small, like a thread being pulled through the darkness by a dull needle.

They were all quiet.

A few of the babies had stopped crying.

Cole thought of the faces on the milk cartons and grocery bags.

We’ve been taken, he thought. Just like them.

He wondered what he and Janelle would look like on those cartons and bags. Would their faces be as splotchy and smeared? Would Mom even recognize them if she saw them?

The voices outside were more audible now, easier to make out. But Cole was able to catch only snatches of what they were saying.

“—’cause these here sharks are damned easy to catch, and ’cause most of the shoppers goin’ to their local fish counter in the grocery store are so fuckin’ stupid that they—”

“—don’t know what you’re figurin’, that they’re goin’ in to buy shark steaks and they don’t even know that we’re—”

One of the babies wailed for a moment and the voices melted together into a single meaningless sound, and then:

“—go into the grocery stores and restaurants as cheap scallops and swordfish steaks and, a course, shark steaks, so we pick up the money and they can—”

“—why that stuff’s so cheap in some places, ’cause we’re out here—”

“—people eating more fish these days to stay healthy and lose weight, so we’re able to—”

There was another noise behind the voices, a noise that was hard to identify at first although it was so familiar, as if it were a sound Cole had heard just yesterday, a sound he heard frequently.

Then, quite suddenly, he realized it was a sound he heard almost every day — the ocean! He was on the ocean! That was why everything was tilting back and forth — they were in a boat!

A door burst open loudly and sudden blinding light cut through the darkness. Cole turned his head away and clenched his eyes tightly shut.

Heavy footsteps sounded on wood and there was a sharp click! and the room filled with light that was bright enough to stab through Cole’s eyelids and into his head like a hot knife.

There was deep, booming laughter from one man while another barked, “See? Here they are! All we need! Lessee, whatta we want here, now, huh? Lessee …”

Cole tried to open his eyes. It was hard at first, painful because of the sudden bright light … then he tried opening them gradually, just a little bit at a time, until he was squinting. First, he saw only bright light … then shapes moving back and forth … then the light began to diminish and the shapes became more distinct and took on faces and features.

“Well, we’ll need a few a-them,” one man said, pointing to some shelves with rows of cardboard boxes on them.

The other man — taller, bigger, with broad shoulders and big arms — said, “Yeah, okay, you get them. I’ll get these. A couple of ’em. Lessee, lessee … which ones?”

By that time, Cole’s vision had cleared enough to see the enormous, bearded man looking down at him.

“You awake, boy?” the man growled through a grin.

“Huh? What?”

The man kicked him, digging the toe of his boot beneath Cole’s right knee. Hard.

“Owww!” Cole shouted, trying not to cry.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re awake, all right. You’ll do.”

The man reached down and slung an arm around Cole’s chest, carrying him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, until Cole could see only the wet wooden floor below.

“And you!” the man growled, his voice passing through Cole’s entire body. Cole could feel the man picking up another child. Then the man turned and said to his partner, “Go ahead and take four of ’em outta those boxes, just go ahead. We’ll need at least that many. Fact, we’ll prob’ly hafta come back in here and get more.”

Cole raised his head and saw all the children tied up with their backs against the wall or lying on the wooden floor. Then he saw Janelle. She looked up and their eyes met.

“Cole!” she shouted, her voice thick and trembling.

“Don’t worry, Munchkin, just stay right there, don’t you move, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll see you in a little while, okay? Okay?”

With her little mouth hanging open, all she could do was nod.

The man carrying Cole laughed long and hard. Cole wondered if he was laughing at the exchange between him and Janelle.

The children disappeared the moment the man slammed the door behind him.

Then there was sunlight, brilliant and blinding, and Cole groaned as he clenched both his teeth and his eyes.

Cole was dropped and hit the floor hard. The wind was knocked from his lungs. He gasped for breath, thrashed around straining against the ties on his hands and feet until he was on his back, staring up at the sky: patches of blue surrounded by dark, pregnant clouds.