Ethan approached and looked down at the thing. It was bits of gooey flesh and white bone in a mixture of blood and clear fluid. “It looks, you know, more human, less diseased.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Maybe we could use the bleach as a weapon. I really thought that thing was dead.”
“The girl did not spill much bleach on it,” Ethan mused.
“Got me. What I do know is it took a mag and a half of nine millimeter ammo and whatever Shannon hit it with to kill it, at least to what we saw before the bleach.”
“We should at least carry some bleach with us I guess,” Ethan reasoned.
This decided, both men went back into the store and retrieved a number of jugs of bleach and a couple of large hiking backpacks to carry them.
Shannon was sitting with Kayla just outside the store, waiting for the men to return. “Now what?” she asked as they approached.
“I vote we just get out of here,” Stan suggested. “There are two roads leading out of town: one toward Black Water Mountain, the other towards Interstate 79.”
“I vote away from the mountain,” Ethan voiced.
“Me, too,” Kayla added.
“Either way is fine with me,” Stan said as he turned and began walking away.
“Let’s keep up with him,” Ethan whispered softly. “I don’t think he cares about much more than himself, and he could leave us behind.”
They caught up to Stan and began walking slowly, cautiously searching the buildings almost completely obscured by the smothering fog for any movement, for any threat, for the source of the sounds now echoing around the town. Somewhere, a creature was gnawing on something wet, another was dragging something, and far in the distance, a voice rose in a single heart-wrenching scream before cutting violently short.
“I don’t want to leave the house. You said I could stay for as long as I like,” Madison whined.
“Ah, my young girl… but we have found him, the escaped… and now we must collect him and make him one of us.”
“But I so love it here!” Madison exclaimed as her hands found the more sensitive parts of her body. The gown she wore gave her easy access to these parts just so she could bring herself pleasure whenever desire filled her.
“And you will return… Remember, you are the mistress of the Heart House now… That could never be taken from you…”His voice was sweet and reassuring, like it had been when he gave her communion and brought her to a place she loved so.
Her fingers found pleasure spots between her thighs and her back arched deeply. “Send me the tall one again, and I will go. You know, I don’t even like him, this escaped one, but I did want to fuck him once.”
A large black man came into the dining hall and mounted Madison on the table. She found deep, internal pleasure at the man’s thrusts, and she would have agreed to just about anything at that moment.
“So, you will go now? Or do I need take him away from you?”
“When… I… am… done…” Her breath came in short bursts as she reached her peak and exploded in an avalanche of pure pleasure. She rested a moment, feeling her desire already growing anew. “Now, I will go and bring him.”
Chapter 27
They walked for some time in silence, each taking in the dilapidation of the buildings and streets, the aged wood and mortar crumbling and threatening to collapse entirely. The air was still thick with the ash-colored fog. Random strangled screams drifted to them occasionally, the ending of some survivor by some other survivor.
One thing only Ethan seemed to noticed were the puss-colored hanging plants that had begun to grow on just about every horizontal surface, hanging and dripping moisture, engorged and sweating with a yellowish fluid. These were the same as the plants within the cave, but this time they were not as dry, not as dead.
Somehow, what was in the cave was extending, reaching down into this small town, and bringing it ruin. The filthy bum reached up, popped one of the pustule bulbs allowing it to drain into his upturned mouth. He turned and smiled at Ethan, the yellowish fluid dripping from his chin like rancid milk.
“You should give it a try; sweet as rotten baby feet!” His words formed around the stained bone collision that was the bum’s teeth, still wet with the puss of the plant.
Ethan looked away finding the tolerance for his delusional nightmare not as strong as when he was little. He had spent years dealing with this bum as a child, and some of the calluses remained. Not until the bum began to gargle with the plant’s thick juice did Ethan feel nauseated.
Kayla had begun to warm to Shannon, even with the distorted swelling along her jaw and eye. The little girl was surprisingly unharmed, and Ethan found it difficult to imagine this little girl had hidden so well or ran so fast as to escape the nightmares of the night before. She was an innocent, not a creation or influenced, mindless thing, but clearly resourceful and determined.
The bum suddenly leapt in front of Ethan, grabbed a hand full of bulbs hanging from a light pole, and squeezed them until the liquid ran freely from his hands. His face split in a wicked grin, teeth gapped and pointing in many directions at once as he began to run his slime-coated hands along his body in a mock sexual way. Ethan looked towards the ground as his imaginary friend began to pleasure himself through his stained and torn trousers. This time Ethan finally gagged.
“What’s wrong with you?” Stan asked with crinkled eyebrows.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” Ethan replied, unwilling to let this stranger know of his difficulties. Ethan knew that the bum was not real, that his existence was the product of his slightly deranged thoughts, the parts of his mind not under his control. Once the doctor had convinced him of this, the bum had vanished…well, that is, until now.
“She’s coming… Your first murder did not go well… She is coming…” the bum hissed at him as he jerked savagely at himself.
Ethan wanted to ask the bum who was coming; he knew somehow it was important, but he had not murdered anyone.
“She comes as the Lady of Mist, and fuck is she hot…” This brought on a more savage grip and a greater violence to his self-manipulations.
Ethan had slowed his pace somewhat, not wanting to make contact with the filthy man tormenting him, so Stan skirted around him and moved ahead at a quicker pace.
“I don’t know about you, but I want to get out of…” Stan suddenly stopped, as if he had struck a soft wall. “What the…?” he hissed under his breath.
“What is it?” Ethan asked as he caught up with Stan, Shannon and Kayla close behind him.”
Ethan could see that somehow the fog had congealed, clotted here into a wall of solid, roiling smog.
Stan reached up and touched it, running his hands along the misty solidity. “You can actually feel the fog— it’s like it has a skin on it or something.”
Ethan touched the wall. It felt much like the plants: a thin pliable skin and a snotty membrane with some thick something just beyond. What was most disturbing was the sensation of motion just underneath the cold moist skin, as if the smoky fog was alive and could feel their touch. Ethan withdrew his hand and wiped it absently on his leg.
“What is it?” Shannon asked, her face further contorted with disgust and wonder.
“I bet we could get through it, though,” Stan said absently.
“I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think we should try to get through it. It’s wrong, vile.”
Stan pushed a little harder on the membrane, and it gave under the pressure. A chill wetness coated his hand as it passed through the skin, but it was nothing but fog beyond. “It’s like a skin on a cold bowl of soup, you know? Just beyond feels like fog. I bet we could force our way through.” Stan reached deeper into the toiling mass of gray wetness.
“I think we should try to go around it, find another way,” Shannon added as Kayla began to whimper. The girl
