center of the face. And before he even knew what he was doing, his left followed, slamming just to the other side of where the last blow had landed. Then his right rose again and then his left. Again and again his swung, the soft tissue of Matt’s face feeling like nothing more than a side of beef as he hammered at it, the skin splitting wide as blood raced to the surface.
“Stop it!” Matt cried in a voice that sounded as though it was ten years younger, like the voice of a teenager.
Scott staggered backwards, allowing his tightened fists to fall to his side, blood dripping from his knuckles onto the ground. His mouth dropped as he stared towards the face once again; this time the shadows peeled back to allow him to view the bludgeoned face.
It looked nothing like he had seen it look over the course of the last several days, the yellowed, decomposing flesh on the face appeared flush with color. The eyes, which had been little more than dried orbs, cracking and blistering had been replaced by softer, whiter eyes that seemed to glimmer beneath the dim light with a coating of tears. The cracked blue lips were now fuller, engorged with blood as they fleshed out. To either side of the bloodied, broken nose, blood ran in streams down the pink cheeks.
His right ankle rolling as he stepped atop a rock, Matt fell to the ground, landing on his rear end. Still moving backward, he dragged himself across the dirt, his eyes unable to look away from the face that hovered above him. His back met with the wall as he still fought to drag himself further but to no avail.
“Matt,” he gasped, the cloud of dust he had stirred clinging to his darkened lips.
“Please, Scott,” he sputtered through the blood in his mouth, still in the voice of a child. “Please help me.”
Scott just shook his head, unable to vocalize the sudden swarm of thoughts that raced through his barely comprehending brain.
“Oh, God, please. You have to help me.”
Slowly, Scott slid his back up the wall; both hands pressed to it as he shied away from the overwhelming image that hovered just a few feet away.
“Don’t listen to it,” Harry whispered from across the room. He had just now been able to clamber from the floor to his knees. In the dim light, Scott could see that his forehead was covered with blood, matting his light gray hair. A thin stream of red ran straight down the bridge of his nose before rolling to the side and clinging to the edge of his split lip. He cradled his right arm against his chest, the bone protruding straight through his ruptured flesh. Wincing, he staggered to his feet, each pained breath bringing with it a wave of pain that rippled across his face as tears burst from his eyes.
Scott whirled back to the apparition, staring intently into the face of the friend that he had known as well as he had known himself so many years ago, and for an instant, he was once again that same child as well.
“Please help me, Scott,” Matt whimpered.
“What can I do?” Matt choked through the tears that ran down his dirt- covered cheeks from his shimmering eyes.
“Don’t listen!” Harry shouted. “That’s not Matt! That’s not your friend!”
Matt’s young eyes locked tightly on his own as Scott felt himself step from the wall towards the cloaked figure.
“Don’t do it!” Harry screamed from the other side of the room, but his words appeared to fall on deaf ears as, entranced, Scott took another step forward.
“I never wanted this to happen,” he whispered, staring into the familiar eyes of his old friend. “All I wanted was for all of us to get along.”
“But you abandoned me when I needed you the most,” Matt said, the corners of his lips bending into a snarl. His arms raised to either side, his fingers bending into claws.
His face soaked with tears, Scott took another step forward, his face now less than a foot from Matt’s.
“It’s all my fault,” Scott whispered as the tears clung in drops at the line of his chin.
But as he watched, the light in the eyes that had been there but momentarily faded. Where there had briefly been life, there was now nothing more than the promise of death as the eyeballs faded back to the cracked, yellow marbles that had been there before. The formerly fleshed face reverted to the tautly stretched, dried face that resembled the mummified remains of an unearthed Egyptian.
Feeling his jaw drop to his knees, Scott could do little more than watch as the clawed hands were raised even higher, peaking briefly before whistling through the air towards his head.
“No!” Harry shouted as he lunged through the air, tackling Scott at his midsection like a blitzing linebacker.
The two slammed to the ground, kicking up a huge cloud of dust. The jacket tore away from Scott’s shoulder as it was the first to land, bearing the brunt of the load. His head bounced off the ground twice as they slid before finally coming to rest.
Matt roared from the center of the room as the house rattled atop its foundation.
“Get up,” Harry sputtered through the blood that filled his mouth, clinging to his teeth.
Grabbing Harry by the collar of the jacket, Scott clambered to his feet, stepping backwards into the dense shadows as he dragged Harry along the ground. Turning from the enraged apparition he yanked on Harry, trying frantically to pull him from harm’s way.
“Do you think there’s any prayer for you!” Matt shouted in a voice no longer his own. It was demonic in its tone, resonating from every molecule in the room. It was a combination of what sounded like a thousand damned voices all crying out at once through the one mouth.
The shadows sprung to life, the darkness twisting and writhing in pained ecstasy as it tugged at their flesh.
The slick collar of Harry’s down jacket slipped from his hand, his head landing on the hard ground with a fierce crunching sound. Scott immediately bent over, trying to grasp onto anything with his hands, but before he was even close, Harry was gone.
He slid across the ground towards the center of the room on the waves of shadows, his right ankle caught firmly in the tight grip of the bloodspawn.
Scott was helpless but to watch as Harry was heaved feet first into the air, where he dangled in front of the black cloaked monster. Blood seeped from his open mouth, running along his upper lip and over the rim of his nose as his face reddened with the sudden rush of blood towards the gravitational pull. The look on his face betrayed the pain that he was in, but there was something in his eyes: a glimmering look of understanding that almost brought with it something of a smile.
“No,” Scott whispered as he reached out desperately with both arms.
Harry closed his eyes, a peaceful look of bliss trickling across his face.
“No!” Scott shouted, lunging through the air towards Harry’s dangling body.
A clawed fist burst right through Harry’s chest, sending a spray of fluid throughout the room. Bone and tissue littered the floor as a wave of crimson fluid poured from the hole that had been punched straight through his lungs and ribcage.
Smiling, the bloodspawn grabbed hold of Harry’s spinal cord, ripping it straight out the back side and allowing the mere pile of spent flesh to slough from the bone, falling into a heap on the floor. He stood there, triumphantly holding the red length of clustered bone above his head into the air.
Scott slammed into him, right in the hips, but before he even knew what was going on, he had been clubbed on the back of the head several times with the remnants of Harry’s shattered spinal column. Feeling the tight grip on the back of his jacket, he was suddenly hurled through the air. There was little more that he could do than just throw his arms out in front and prepare for the impact with the furnace that was coming directly at him.
There was a loud boom and a metallic crunch as he slammed into the furnace, the sheet metal buckling against his momentum. Slamming to the ground, something heavy, with a sharp edge, fell atop his head from where it had rested in the dust atop the furnace, tearing a seam beneath the hair in the flesh on his head.
Wincing in pain, Matt grabbed the object as it bounced to the ground, the bloodied edge still damp
