The Beast In the Basement Part 4 (821 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesLabels: the_beast_in_the_basement
Rating: 1.92 on 20 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Anansie (View user info) at 2004-01-26 18:41:28 EST
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23801
Part 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23902
Part 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/23978
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Annie got off the train in Stanton. Gilford itself was too small to boast something so sophisticated and urbane as a train station. The rental car office was conveniently located next door. As Annie signed the papers for the 2003 Cutlass she was renting, she imagined Maggie filling out the same papers. Maggie signing her name in that strong, self-assured script, not knowing death lay in her path, just a few hours away.
Annie was struck by a vision of a body, lying naked in the grass. Blood poured from the gaping wound that was left of its neck, and pooled below the wrists, filling up the space where the hands should have been. Flies alighted on the body, buzzing here and there, crawling in and out of the throat. A few of them had been too eager and now found themselves struggling in the pools and rivers of blood, as a drowning man struggles in a river. But Maggie's hair was blond. That tuft of hair between the roadmap of gashes that formed the thighs was dark brown, almost black. Annie realized that the body was not Maggie's, but her own.
She shook this last thought from her head, still firmly attached, and forced a wan smile at the clerk, who beamed at her as she handed him the papers. Annie looked down at her shoes; she could only smile for so long.
"Don't I know you?"
Annie looked up. The clerk stood there, still beaming at her. Her eyes traveled from the ghastly white of his capped teeth upwards. Blood had pooled and congealed in his hollow eye sockets, the pink flesh behind his lids leered at her. Apparently the clerk didn't realize what had happened to him; he was still speaking.
"Aren't you Annie Denning? Wow, it's cool to see someone from Pennington out this way. Most of the kids that go there are from upstate."
"What?" Annie gaped at the man. Fresh blood had dribbled down his cheeks and ran into the cracks of his teeth. And yet he kept smiling.
"It's me, Jamie Tannin. Oh come on, you don't remember me? We danced at the Sophmore Ball? I stepped on your left foot?"
Annie closed her eyes. She took off her glasses and rubbed her temples.
"Hey, are you ok?"
Annie laughed, and the laugh did not sound like her own. It sounded more like a laugh that might echo through the hallways of the psych ward. She did not open her eyes, but continued to rub her temples.
"Oh I'm just fucking dandy. Just fucking dandy. In fact, I can't remember a time when I was ever quite this fucking dandy. How are you doing, Jamie? Are you fucking dandy, too? Read any good books lately?"
She thought of the eyeless wonder standing behind the counter trying to read War and Peace and laughed again.
"Uh . . ."
"Oh come on, Jamie, you can do better than that. You used to be quite the witty wordsmith. Yeah I remember you, my fucking toes were sore for a week after that goddamned dance. But really, what I really want to know, is how you managed to get a job, when you look like the goddamned cryptkeeper got a hold of you?"
Annie opened her eyes. Jamie was slightly blurry, but she could now see he had eyes after all. Which made sense considering five minutes ago, he'd been handing her the rental papers and pointing those baby blues right at her. Annie put her glasses back on. He sure as hell wasn't beaming anymore. He was looking at her warily, the way a cornered mouse eyes a cat. Cracking up Annie, she thought. Cracking up.
"Look, I'm sorry, I just got some really bad news, ok. Someone very close to me . . . my best friend . . . she . . . look something bad has happened to her. Maggie and I have been friends since high school and she is . . . was . . . oh fuck it, I need to get out of here."
"Maggie Donnell? Hey, I remember her. She was in my Lit class. Is she ok?"
"As a matter of fact, Jamie, she is not. She's fucking dead. Do you have any more questions? Would you like to talk about the corpse I saw when I was seven? How about waiting in the cancer ward for my mother to die? Wanna talk about that? Fucking Christ."
"Jeez, I'm sorry. I . . . I guess I put my foot in my mouth, huh? I wasn't trying to be rude or insensitive. Um . . ."
Annie sighed. This guy didn't deserve this. He was just some clerk who happened to cross her path at the wrong time.
"No, I'm sorry. I was out of line."
"Look, I really am sorry to hear about Maggie. I always liked her. She was so smart and funny and all, and she always seemed to have such a good head on her shoulders."
Jesus. This conversation had to stop. Without another word Annie turned to walk away from Jamie Tannin, the friendly idiot. Her stomach churned and before she made it across the parking lot, she found her self kneeling by a burgundy Lexus, retching and staring the scant lunch she had eaten an hour ago. She stood up and looked around, guiltily.
"Hey, your car's over here, Ma'am." Jamie the friendly idiot stood by the Cutlass a few rows over, his eyes ripe with sympathy.
"You know, usually we drive it to the front for you. Why don't you wait up there?"
"Uh, sure."
She gingerly stepped over the steaming puddle at her feet, and walked to the front of the building. She stood by a column, dizzy and nauseated, and thought about the night she and Maggie had investigated their basements, and had found the strange markings by the door to her father's wine cellar. She thought about the blood caked fingernail they had found in Jason Curry's storage shed. She thought about the night they saw moonlight reflecting upon a pair of red eyes, eyes that stared menacingly at them from the darkness of the woods. Mostly she thought about Tonia Donnell's hollow eye sockets, and how the stink of rotting flesh had hung palpably in the air around her neighborhood in the summertime.
User Reviews
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-06-02 13:27:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-06-02 11:07:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Rads_wife (user info) at 2005-06-13 23:10:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/68315
WINNER!!! WINNER!!!!
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-01-03 18:57:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"Look, I really am sorry to hear about Maggie. I always liked her. She was so smart and funny and all, and she always seemed to have such a good head on her shoulders."
daaaaaamn
Submitted by JohnGalt (user info) at 2004-04-07 22:57:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Deisangua (user info) at 2004-04-07 17:11:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lordofthepost (user info) at 2004-03-03 02:15:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
God you paint a pretty picture
Submitted by fell-8-me (user info) at 2004-02-25 12:50:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2004-02-25 00:14:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Getting even better.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-02-06 01:37:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Well, perhaps not obsessed. But a bit preoccupied at the moment. I was weaned on horror stories as a child.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-02-02 01:33:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Holy crap Spike! That's the coolest thing I have ever read. I am obsessed with the removal of body parts, which I am sure you will gather from the story.
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (user info) at 2004-02-02 01:21:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wanna know something weird?
I think I did read part of this, and I forgot to review it. I've been obsessed with eyeballs for the last few days. I now blame this story.
I wrote this last night, and I had no idea where it came from. Now I think I know.
"Deirdre didn't hesitate. She pushed the long bangs out of his eyes and bent down so that her face was next to his. No heat rose from his body; he'd been cold as death for at least a few hours now and his face had almost gone slack. His skin draped over his bones like a mask. She pressed her mouth to his left eye and rolled the lids apart with her tongue. She pressed her fingers around the soft protruding roundness of his eyeball and sucked until her cheeks caved in. With a tiny sound the connecting tissue gave way. She rolled the blue eye tenderly over her tongue and let it roll in her mouth like a soft wet marble."
SpikeGoddess
Submitted by shark25 (user info) at 2004-01-27 11:08:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Great, this was just fucking dandy!
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-01-26 19:39:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Dammit, TaK, when are you going to post the next Chainlink?
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-01-26 19:38:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Heheheheh.
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2004-01-26 19:30:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn you. Damn you straight to hell. This is really good.
I hate you.
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2004-01-26 19:06:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
aight... that chick needs to learn to not loose her shit so bad, jesus...
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-01-26 18:57:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Oh, and Brickhouse, I have thought about the error in my last post, and I figured out how to fix it. It will be later on in the story, though. Thank you for your feedback.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-01-26 18:53:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
What was wrong with the last one? I need specific criticism if I am to improve it.
Submitted by PolPot (user info) at 2004-01-26 18:45:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Better than last one.