his body as they swelled, pressing against the suit of flesh that was suddenly far too tight. His lids pinched tightly shut as his eyeballs threatened to pop out of his head from the pressure. His brains swelled against his skull to the point that he feared that gray matter would begin to seep out of his ears.
Pressing his hands tightly against the sides of his head, he bared his teeth against the pain. Flopping from one side to the other, he battled against the intense, searing fire that pumped through his bloodstream. Even the thin air in the room was torturous against his sensitive nerve endings. Tears streamed from his clenched eyes. The voices chattered louder and louder, grinding out his own thoughts within his mind, until all at once… everything stopped.
Slowly, Matt rolled back his eyelids and stared into the dark room. The clock atop the shelf next to his bed burned bright red. 2:35 a.m. His brow creased as he worked the quick math. He had been in the attic for nearly eleven hours, the time passing as though it had been a mere twenty minutes. Pangs of hunger roared in his stomach as he sat up and dangled his feet over the edge of the bed.
He could sense the presence of the voices in his head, hiding deep in the recesses of his mind, thundering from one invisible corner to the next. They were quiet all right, but the pressure was still there, burrowing into his cranial tissue. There was an overwhelming sense of warmth, as though from an unseen sun, covering every inch of his body.
His heartbeat slowly returned to normal and he rolled onto his stomach, dropping his feet onto the bottom bunk and hopping down to the floor. Pulling back the curtains, he stared out into the night. The cloud-drenched sky appeared a deep gray, muffling the thin glow of the moon. The snow still fell with enormous flakes, burying the row of pines that lined the back yard. Through the small walkway between them, he could see the trampoline hidden beneath close to a foot of powder. There was something else out there as well.
A long shadow crossed the pristine plain of snow on the lawn. It moved slowly, creeping across the grass until it was out in the open. A large buck stepped into the gap. Turning, it appeared to stare straight up into his bedroom window, its glowing eyes reflecting a bright gold from the vaporous light above. It just stared at him, motionless for a moment, its huge five-point rack silhouetted like matching dead trees against the white-capped hedges.
His eyes locked on those of the stag and he felt himself drawn into the deep gaze of the animal. The world around him ceased to exist, at least for the moment. A sense of comfort, of understanding, washed over him as his own voice joined the others within his brain, no longer dominant. His mind was empty of conscious thought. The only sound was the muffled whisperings of all of the voices at once, calling to him from the depths of his skull.
Turning back into the night, the stag bounded over the fence and into the field behind his house, disappearing into the masses of scrub oak.
Matt could still feel the animal, though, out there in the frigid darkness, calling to him from out of the blackened night.
Nodding to himself, Matt turned and walked through his bedroom, opening the door and stepping into the hallway. A note that had been attached to his door fell onto the rust-colored carpet. Picking it up, he just stared at it for a moment, the words just jumbles of letters, his mind unable to decipher the writings on it. Dropping it back to the floor, he walked down the hallway and down the stairs onto the main level. The rubber soles of his shoes squeaked on the tile floor as he passed the kitchen and stumbled down the next flight of carpeted stairs into the darkened family room.
The deep black shapes of the large, fluffy couches crouched in the center of the room. He had to dodge them to get to the garage door. Throwing it back hard enough to bang against the wall, he gripped the side of the door for a moment before stepping down into the garage.
There wasn’t a conscious thought in his head. He was working purely on instinct now. Whatever had been in there—call it a soul or a mind or whatever you like—was no longer there. He was a hollow shell, unthinking, unfeeling, skulking through the pitch black within the garage. Sliding past the Bronco and into the third garage, he walked straight to the tall, wooden cabinet next to the workbench. Reaching toward the high shelf above the table, he fumbled past a can of WD- 40, grabbing a small stack of keys on thin rings. Holding the mass of keys in his right hand, he dropped them onto the floor one by one until he found the small set of two identical keys that he wanted, gripping them tightly between his thumb and forefinger and shoving them into the lock on the closet door. With a click, he popped the lock, looped it through the holes, and tossed it onto the concrete floor.
Opening the hollow wooden door, he reached within, his right hand grasping the well-oiled steel of the barrel of his shotgun. Bringing it to his body, he cradled it beneath his left arm and walked to the back of the garage to another row of closets. Opening the middle one, he pulled out a small metal box. Taking it back to the workbench, he shoved aside the clutter of tools and set it down. Throwing back the lid, he reached inside and pulled out a small rectangular, gray cardboard box. Tearing back the flaps, he pulled out three bright red shotgun shells and headed back towards the inside door.
He slipped the first two shells into the bottom of the shotgun, and then pressed the small lever beside the trigger guard, and shucked one into the chamber. He crammed the third shell into the gun. Opening the door into the house, he walked straight through the doorway and into the family room, oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t even closed the door.
Up the stairs he bounded, two at a time, stopping at the top of the stairs to glance out the sliding glass door in the kitchen to the left. But there was nothing out there… nothing but the snow.
Whirling, he crossed the foyer, turning onto the stairs and bounding up them. The floorboards creaked loudly beneath the plush carpeting. He passed the bathroom, turning down the long hall that led back to his mother and father’s bedroom. He slowed his pace, watching his shadow as it appeared on the bedroom door in front of him. Reaching out, he pushed the door inward. The hinges made a slight whine as he brushed past, standing at the base of the king-sized bed.
There was no Matt inside of his head now. There was nothing resembling conscious thought. His body was a vessel, coursing with the evil that enveloped every living tissue within. Matt was merely the smallest of the voices in the back of his mind, drowned out by all of the others that now swelled in unison, crying for blood.
This was not what he wanted… not what he wanted at all.
His body leapt up onto the bed with both feet, the mattress bouncing beneath him. He raised the stock to his shoulder and fired twice. Brilliant flashes of light pulsated in the darkened room, one, and then another, the deafening report echoing explosively, resonating deep within his brain.
Hopping down off the bed, he could feel warm fluids running down his face, the bare skin of his arms. He smiled, the coppery blood dripping over his lips and onto his exposed teeth. Bounding down the hall, he turned into the bathroom, resting the gun beside the opened door. He kicked his shoes against the far wall of the bathroom, his eyes rolling back into his skull. Yanking his shirt over his head, he tossed it onto the floor with a wet slap and began to hop out of his jeans, allowing them to lie in a pile in the middle of the carpeted floor.
He cranked the knobs on the faucet and the water burst from the showerhead, splattering against the back wall. Shedding his underwear and socks, he hopped into the hot stream of water and began to rinse the thick, red fluids from his body. A small tear appeared for an instant in the corner of his right eye, the hot water washing that tear, and whatever else was left of Matt within that body, down the drain.
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THE BLOODSPAWN
Michael McBride
© 2004 Michael McBride. All rights reserved.
PART THREE
III
Friday, November 12th
6:20 am
Matt pulled a long sleeved black shirt over his head, forcing his arms all the way through the cuffs. There
