Grueberfest '06 R2 'The Hallway' (404 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.76 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2006-10-10 18:57:14 EDT
THE HALLWAY
The six boys who had come to Walmsley House entered the hallway.
The door slammed shut behind them with a hollow boom and Cam jumped as the sound rolled down the hall.
"This is impossible," Ricardo said. "This hallway has to be as long as a city block. Longer than the building we're in."
Cam didn't say anything, but he agreed with Ricardo. The older boy might be the most dangerous kid in the neighborhood, but he was also smart.
That's probably why he's the leader of the Little Kings, Cam thought. And why the Little Kings never get caught by the cops no matter what they do.
"That's fuckin bullshit," F-Word said. "We must be in the basement or sump'in. Who gives a fuck. We gotta roll. I bet the old man called the po-po the minute we left.
Ricardo nodded, but he didn't move. Not yet. There was something just too damned weird about this hallway.
The floor was old boards, probably varnished pine, like the floors of the apartment he'd grown up in with his momma and little brothers. The walls were drywall and paint. The paint was so old it was almost powder, and he could see cracks in the drywall. The entire length of the hallway was illuminated by weak light bulbs dangling from dusty wires. The lights at the other end of the hallway were so far away they were as small as the heads of pins.
The hallway was about seven feet wide.
At the end of the hallway, Ricardo thought he could see another door, the brass doorknob throwing off a spark of light. Just like the door that had slammed shut behind them, most likely locked.
JJ turned around and tried opening the door that had just closed behind them. It was locked.
"I can't be here, man," JJ said quickly. "I can't be stuck inside like this with no windows and shit. I can't, man."
"Cool it," Ricardo said. "Stop acting like a little girl. Look at Cam, he isn't losing his mud, and he's only eleven years old. Man the fuck up."
F-Word laughed. Eight Fingers, who had lost two digits to a bottle rocket, joined in, as did Harley and Boner.
They're acting like tough guys, Cam thought, but they are all scared.
"Can't," JJ said, darting forward, his sneaks squeaking on the old wood. "See ya's on the street, motherfu—"
Yellow light from the 25-watt bulbs flashed on metal, and two massive, square blades like the cleavers they had all seen Mr. Pittoli using behind the counter at the Sav-Lots supermarket erupted from the walls.
The cleavers were silver and blue, and as big and broad as the hood of the old Lincoln Continental JJ's dad drove around the neighborhood.
JJ was taking huge strides, and as his left leg surged forward a cleaver lopped it off just above his knee. He stumbled and fell, his severed femoral artery spraying blood. The cleavers pivoted and dropped low to the floor.
JJ saw what was coming and screamed.
There was a cacophony of dull thuds as the cleavers chopped away at JJ's limbs, and he continued to scream until the cleavers began hacking away at his torso.
Chips of varnished pine danced into the air and streamers and splashes of blood sprayed the dull walls. Pieces of JJ bounced and rolled away from a pile of twitching tubes and pipes that whistled and flopped and spurted fluids of every color.
The cleavers drew back into the walls, and not a trace of them remained.
"Screw this noise," Harley said. "I'm not moving another step."
The door behind them exploded and covered them in splinters and dust. The doorknob bounced off of Harley's knee and he let out a hollow yell.
Where the door had been there was now a series of round spinning blades. The blades were stacked horizontally, a few inches apart, and they were as wide as the hallway. Some were revolving so fast they were metallic blurs; others were moving slowly enough that the boys could see the circumference of each blade bore long, hooked metal teeth.
The blades began moving down the hallway and toward the boys at a slow pace. Tendrils of dust leaped out from the walls where the blades cut into the old paint and drywall.
"We gotta go guys," Ricardo said. "Let's move."
F-Word grabbed the sleeve of Ricardo's denim jacket. "But what if there's more fuckin meat cleavers and shit in the walls down there, man?"
"We don't have any choice," Ricardo replied. He took a step forward.
Cam followed Ricardo, fighting down feelings of panic, unable to forget that it was all his fault they were here in the first place.
*
Cam remembered the last thing his Uncle said and did.
"You can survive what is coming," Uncle Lyman had said, "If you use this..."
He had tapped the side of Cam's head with a twisted old finger, and then had rolled over in bed, turning away from them.
*
The boys moved in a cluster, staying close together. Boner pointed at JJ's remains.
"He looks like a pile of steaks and chops."
They had moved about fifty feet down the hallway when the floorboards ahead of them began to bubble.
Ricardo was walking fast. "I don't give a fuck what might be waiting up there, all I know is we got those saw blades behind us."
Cam was a few steps behind Ricardo.
Boner and Eight Fingers were right behind Cam, and the younger boy could smell Boner's cigarette breath wafting down on him in quick bursts.
Harley was limping, his face red and strained. "Slow down guys, c'mon. My knee is killing me."
"Fuck," F-Word said. "What the fuck is that, man?"
The floorboards were bubbling like molten metal. The affected area was a rough circle as wide as a manhole cover.
As the boys watched, the circle began to expand.
"Adios, boys," Ricardo said. He took a running jump and leaped over the bubbling floor.
Boner pushed Cam to the floor and performed the same leap, laughing out loud before his boots hit the solid floorboards on the far side of the bubbling area.
The circle of bubbling whatever was even larger now, and wisps of steam were rising from it.
Ricardo waved an arm. "C'mon, you pussies!"
F-word ran by Cam, his denim jacket flapping. He was moving so fast he actually put two feet on the wall as he ran and leaped around the weirdness in the floor.
Eight Fingers was tall and gangly, and he darted across the expanding anomaly in the floor like a stork taking flight.
Cam was about to take a step when Harley grabbed his shoulder.
"Don't leave, kid. Jesus, I can't cross that. My knee is killing me."
Cam pulled away. He approached the bubbling floorboards and passed around them on tiptoe, walking on a few inches of solid varnished pine on one side, his body pressed against the wall.
"Come on Harley, you fuckin dick." F-Word was angry and scared. "Just jump that shit, man, fuck it!"
Harley ran, limping painfully, and jumped. One foot connected with solid flooring. One foot sank into the bubbling mess. Harley let out an ululating shriek and pulled away from the bubbling mass, blood pouring from half of a dirty white sock wrapped around a reddened stump.
The boys watched Harley's foot bob on the surface of the bubbling floorboards. The cloth and rubber of his sneaker began to burn and melt.
Sitting on his ass, Harley turned and raised a fist at the bubbling floorboards. "Fuck you," he shouted, "I fucking made it!"
There was a loud an furious gurgle and a streamer of brownish fluid shot out of the bubbling mass and splashed into Harley's face.
His scream became a burbling wail and then nothing but a rasping rush of air. He turned to face the others and reached out to them.
"Oh, fuck me," F-Word said. "His fuckin face, man. His whole fuckin face is gone."
The bubbling liquid ate away at the front of Harley's head, turning his skull into a charred bowl.
Harley shuddered and slumped to one side. The expanding pool swallowed him whole, and then the floorboards were solid once more.
"Shit," Ricardo said. "Let's keep moving."
*
"My uncle has money," Cam had said. "He's nuts, but he's rich. He lives in the big house at the end of Highland Street. The Walmsley House."
That was how it started.
The Little Kings always shook down younger kids in the neighborhood for money, shoes, ipods, whatever was worth taking.
Cam's dad had died six months ago, and now he and his mom had moved into a shitty apartment in a shitty part of town. His mom had said her brother-in-law lived in the house on the hill. She was sure he would help them out, but he never returned any calls, and Cam was furious that anyone would treat his mom in that way.
After months of avoiding the Little Kings, Cam was finally caught. He had two dimes and a penny in one pocket, a piece of Bazooka bubblegum in the other. He didn't have any fancy toys to entertain him, just a pad of paper and a few pencils in his ratty backpack. His shoes were dirty and worn.
"I don't have anything you guys want," Cam had said.
Ricardo had given Cam a sad look and said, "Well, the way it works is you are buying your way out of a beating, okay kid? Pay up or we put you down."
That was when Cam had told the teenagers about his uncle, a man he had never seen.
"He used to work for Disney a long time ago. He was an animator. He made some money and moved here. My mom says this was a nice part of town back then."
"Fuck, man," F-Word had said. "You fuckin know how to get in that house? Big fuckin place up on a hill like that? Gotta have some shit worth takin."
"Yeah," Ricardo had said with a sure grin. "And if we get caught, we just tell the old prick his nephew let us into the place."
Cam had panicked. "But I don't know how to get in—"
"Save it, asswipe," Harley had said, giving the young kid a shove.
*
"Hey," Boner said. "Look. The hallway looks clear, guys."
Without a word they all started to run. Cam fell behind, and soon the older boys were fifty feet ahead of him.
Cam heard a series of sharp sounds and saw what was left of the Little Kings turn and start running back toward him.
Cam ducked low as Ricardo dashed by him and F-Word leaped over him. Eight Fingers was letting out a long wail that echoed down the hall and seemed to blend with the sound of the whirring saw blades behind them.
Boner was coming up last, and Cam could now see what they had been running from.
Wolves.
Six gaunt silver wolves with massive jaws were literally snapping at Boner's heels.
Boner raced by Cam, and Cam rolled himself into a ball. He heard the feet of the wolves as they passed him, pads and claws pattering and clicking on the wooden floor. He smelled wet dog and dog piss.
One of the wolves leaped, and Boner went down. As the wolves surrounded him and began to tear into him, Richard, F-Word and Eight Fingers edged by the animals and away from the advancing saw blades.
Cam heard "Come on, kid," and felt strong hands under his arms.
Ricardo grabbed Cam and lifted the kid as they ran down the hall. When he felt they felt they were a safe distance from the wolves, he turned around.
Two wolves pulled off Boner's right arm and he screamed. Another wolf tore away the crotch of his pants, exposing his fear shriveled genitals.
"Guys," Boner whispered, "Please..."
Two wolves struck at the same time, one tearing into Boner's throat and the other ripping into his crotch.
The saw blades struck the wolves and Boner just as he let out a final cry.
Cam saw Boner's head separate into ten distinct slices and turned away.
*
Before breaking a window, The Little Kings had seen a single light glowing in a window near the back of the house, three floors up.
The place was a dusty ruin inside, and the teenagers were pissed at Cam.
"There's fuck all here, you little shit," F-Word had said. "Where the fuck's all the good stuff?"
"I don't know," Cam had replied. "I told you I've never been here before."
"Guy," Ricardo has whispered. He pointed to a stairway. "This probably leads right up to the old man's room. I bet he's got something stashed there."
They went up the stairs, passing dark corridors and silent rooms. On the top floor they paused before a door. The door was open just a bit, and light was spilling into the corridor.
*
"We're almost halfway there," Ricardo said.
They walked forward slowly, the teens walking three abreast, Cam following behind them.
The air ahead of them seemed to thicken and twist, and then their path was blocked.
Cam blinked. "What is that? Is that a man?"
"Yeah," Eight Fingers said. "It's a man made out of paper. Well, fuck him."
Ricardo was shaking his head. Without saying a thing he walked forward cautiously, as Eight Fingers closed in on the paper man.
Cam followed the leader of the Little Kings. The paper man looked harmless, as if he was made of crushed and rolled brown paper shopping bags, but Cam wasn't going to take any chances.
"Let's go, motherfuck," Eight Fingers said. He pulled a knife out of his jeans and opened the five inch blade.
F-Word was silently following Cam, looking down at his shoes as if making eye contact with the paper man would damn him.
Eight-Fingers slashed at the paper man, tearing a gash in one paper arm.
"Yeah, baby! You ain't so tough!"
He slashed again, and this time he heard a faint clink, metal on metal.
Eight Fingers reached out and grabbed the paper man's chest to shove the thing out of his way, when the paper came away in his hand revealing the skeleton beneath.
"Oh my fuckin..."
F-Word saw what was advancing on his friend. "Fuckin shit!"
Ricardo gave Cam a shove. "Don't look. Just run."
Cam did run, but he couldn't help looking over his shoulder and watching the thing that had been wrapped in paper advance of Eight Fingers.
The skeleton of the paper man was made of dark, gleaming steel that glinted under the weak lights.
"Razor blades," F-Word said. "That muh-fuckah is made out of razor blades."
The razor blade man flailed its arms at Eight Fingers. The boy got out one hoarse shout, and then he was being skinned alive, clothes and flesh being torn away in scraps and strips.
As Eight Fingers staggered backward, bloody and dazed, the razor blade man began to spin its arms and legs, and soon its entire body was spinning in the air, a long whip of razor blades that wrapped itself around Eight Fingers again and again and then drew tight.
Eight Finger's body was instantly reduced to a thick soup that splattered on the floorboards, and the razor blades began disappearing one by one into a crack between two of those boards, until they were gone.
*
An old man had been lying on a bed, wrapped in filthy sheets. He had silently watched the boys enter his room.
After a moment, the old man had begun to laugh.
F-Word had looked around nervously. "The fuck?"
"Stupid boys," the old man said.
Cam had whispered, "Uncle?"
"Stupid, stupid boys," the old man said.
The Little Kings searched the room, finding nothing of value. There were crates of bottles water and boxes of soda crackers in a closet, and there was a bathroom that hadn't been cleaned in years, with a stack of old and yellowed newspapers beside the toilet.
"This is bullshit, man," Boner had said.
"I once broke into a home," the old man had croaked, now lying back and staring at the ceiling. "Long, loooong ago..."
"We should go," Eight-Fingers had said to the others.
Cam saw a picture in a tarnished frame resting on the bare table by the old man's bed.
"I was with my friends, just like all of you. So cocky. So young."
Cam took a step forward, and took a good look at the picture.
"We broke into a house that was supposed to be haunted," the old man had said. "We found nothing but horror. You see, when we tried to leave, we found ourselves in a deep pit with only a tiny ball of daylight far over our heads."
JJ had opened the door and stepped into the darkened hall. Harley had followed him.
"Oh yes," the old man had said, almost crooning. "As we tried to climb up to the light the most disagreeable things happened." The old man cackled. "I was the only one who got out of that pit alive. One by one my friends were torn asunder by unimaginable monsters... as the pit began to fill with boiling water, driving us upward in a fruitless climb."
*
F-Word, Ricardo and Cam stopped dead. There was another man standing in front of them.
The man seemed to be completely naked, and holding a purple bowling ball.
F-Word cocked his head. "What the fuuuuck?"
The naked man turned aside, as if posing.
Cam felt his eyes widening as Ricardo let out a laugh.
The purple bowling ball was the engorged end of a two foot long prick that was as thick as Cam's waist. The engorged organ was covered in pulsating veins, and as it bobbed up and down muscles ripped across the man's stomach.
Cam looked the man up and down and realized that the further you got from the naked man's face, the fewer features he had. His feet were mere fleshy lumps, and his face was almost a blank slab of flesh. His dark eyes were the size of raisins.
"Nah," F-Word said. "Nah, nah, nah. This is fuckin bullshit, man."
The naked man stroked himself, and his incredible prick grew a few inches longer.
Ricardo whispered, "Sorry man," and then he shoved F-Word as hard as he could toward the naked man.
"Run, little man," Ricardo hissed.
F-Word said, "What the fuck?"
The naked man handled F-Word like a toy, tearing off the boy's jeans, spinning him around, and bending him over.
Even as Cam ran alongside Ricardo, he couldn't help but wonder if Ricardo was saving him, only to use him later on.
Cam looked over his shoulder, winced, and looked away. He bent over to puke, and Ricardo dragged him by his shirt collar even as he vomited on himself.
F-Word met a quick end. He had been bent over, and the naked man rammed that massive prick up F-Word's ass.
The first thrust brought a gusher of blood that ran down F-Word's legs. The second thrust displaced something inside the boy, His moth opened and he brought up blood and something bluish and ropy. The third thrust blew F-Word's head off of his body, and then he and the naked man were engulfed by the advancing saw blades.
*
I had money and a good life for a while," the old man had told them, "But eventually the memory of what had happened in that pit returned, and I went a little mad. I bought that house that contained that long-ago pit, and searched for the pit, finding nothing."
"That's this house," Cam had said, and the old man had nodded.
"Yes, and I have frittered away my life and wealth looking for the dark secret of this house. I never found it..."
A wiry hand had grabbed Cam's chin and turned his face this way and that.
The old man looked from the photo to the boy, and back again.
"That's me," Cam had said, pointing at the old photo. "And my mom and dad. He died."
The old man had let go of Cam and stared off into space. Cam had heard a sound he could not place until he realized the old man was pissing into the bed.
Eight Fingers had shaken his head with disgust as he and Boner stepped into the hall.
"Fuck this, "F-Word has said. He had stepped into the hall, and Ricardo had followed him.
*
They were now at the halfway point in the hallway.
The hallway ahead of them began to stretch out further and further, until the far end was a dark vanishing point. The spinning saw blades behind them leaped forward, and began advancing as fast as they could run.
Cam took three big steps and suddenly he was on his knees, gasping for breath.
He punched me, Cam thought. He tried to breathe and felt a terrible pain in his midsection.
Ricardo was running away, looking as if he could run forever.
The saw blades behind him were closing in fast.
Almost insane with fear, Cam shrugged off his backpack and took out his pencil and pad of paper.
*
The old man had been as crazy as hell, but Cam felt sorry for him.
"So... how did you escape that pit?" He realized the whole story was ridiculous, but he thought he'd humor the old man.
"I made a living drawing, once upon a time," the old man had said. "Your father was the same way. I like to think you are the same..."
There was a long silence.
"Let's go, kid," Ricardo had said. "No hard feelings, man. MY grandma is fucked up too. I know what it's like."
The old man whispered something.
Cam leaned close.
"I gave myself wings."
Just before the old man turned away from Cam and rolled over in bed, he had tapped Cam on the head and said, "You can survive what is coming... If you use this..."
Cam had stepped into the hallway. Lights had come on in the hallway ahead of them, and the door had slammed shut behind them.
"This is impossible," Ricardo had said.
*
The saw blades were only a few feet behind him. Cam winced, sucked a little more air, and began to draw at a furious pace.
Cam's uncle, a man who had made a living drawing, had said he hoped Cam was the same.
Cam was the same.
He drew a pair of roller skates.
The pitch of the blades grew higher, and he realized they were moving even faster now.
He tore the sheet of paper off of the pad and put it on the floor.
Then he squatted, and added one more thing to the skates.
Rockets. Big ones.
He stepped onto the drawing just as the saw blades sliced through his shirt. He felt a sting on one shoulder blade.
There was an incredible roar that filled the entire hallway, and then Cam was racing to the end of the hall, passing the blur that was Ricardo, bursting through the door and tumbling downhill onto soft grass.
Cam sat up. It was night, and he could see the stars.
He thought he had dreamed the whole thing, until he looked back up the hill and saw the old Walmsley place, and heard a strange, distant buzzing and a long, horrified scream coming from deep inside the house.
(I just wrote the last 2/3 of this fucker in a white heat with no time to proof read, so ghola's gonna kick my ass. I wouldn't mind revisiting this some day, since the idea is fun even if the rushed execution is shitty. Enjoy!)
User Reviews
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-17 15:29:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I meant Stephen. And it's "she."
Submitted by VileSin (user info) at 2006-10-17 14:42:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-10-12 00:42:36 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-10-11 19:03:16 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-11 18:48:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
Have you read a lot of King?
--
Omar King?
The 'King of Softcore Stroke Books' who came back from WWII France in 1945 missing and arm and took up writing smut novels under a shitload of pen names?
The guy who wrote Whips and Phalluses, The Bitch Had Me Coming, She Likes the Hard Stuff, The Meat Counter Man, Cash On Delivery, The Perfect Pair, Ed & Mrs. Whinnaker, It Ain't Incest... Yet, Indian Jawbone, etc?
Or did you mean someone else?
________-
I think he meant Stephen King.
-------------------------
I thought he meant Kaos.
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-10-12 00:42:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-10-11 19:03:16 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-11 18:48:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
Have you read a lot of King?
--
Omar King?
The 'King of Softcore Stroke Books' who came back from WWII France in 1945 missing and arm and took up writing smut novels under a shitload of pen names?
The guy who wrote Whips and Phalluses, The Bitch Had Me Coming, She Likes the Hard Stuff, The Meat Counter Man, Cash On Delivery, The Perfect Pair, Ed & Mrs. Whinnaker, It Ain't Incest... Yet, Indian Jawbone, etc?
Or did you mean someone else?
________-
I think he meant Stephen King.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-10-11 23:33:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-11 13:59:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
Thankfully you didn't make them lollerskates.
===
I was hoping they WOULD have been lollerskates. Sometimes we share a brain, I think.
That's one fucked up house.
Side question: Does anyone ACTUALLY say "po po"?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-10-11 19:03:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-11 18:48:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
Have you read a lot of King?
--
Omar King?
The 'King of Softcore Stroke Books' who came back from WWII France in 1945 missing and arm and took up writing smut novels under a shitload of pen names?
The guy who wrote Whips and Phalluses, The Bitch Had Me Coming, She Likes the Hard Stuff, The Meat Counter Man, Cash On Delivery, The Perfect Pair, Ed & Mrs. Whinnaker, It Ain't Incest... Yet, Indian Jawbone, etc?
Or did you mean someone else?
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-11 18:48:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Have you read a lot of King?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-10-11 14:11:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-10-11 14:08:56 (#)
Ranking: 2
you are more obsessed with penises than i.
--
Probably. Sometimes I wish mine was tiny so it wasn't always THERE and making me think of penii in general...
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-10-11 14:08:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you are more obsessed with penises than i.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-11 13:59:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thankfully you didn't make them lollerskates.
You brought a big story here, and at first I was of the mind that the flashbacks were taking away from the rest of the story. Then they started to grow on me. I think I wound up enjoying them more than the story proper, but damn did you ever call up some freaky images.
Bloody, direct and violent. Like Irish terrorism and upper class divorce.
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2006-10-11 13:22:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-10-10 23:17:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Heh!
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-10-10 23:12:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2222222222222
woooooooooooooooooooo
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-10-10 22:45:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice!
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-10-10 20:59:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-10-10 19:31:31 (#)
Ranking: 2
I mean come on Jack...roller skates with rockets? This isn't jackass.
--
Yeah, but they would be cool, man.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-10-10 20:21:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I swear I'll try to find time to read this!
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-10-10 19:56:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
kinda like 'Cube'
real good man, I dig it
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-10-10 19:32:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was different! I likey!
BTW, give your cats a treat once in a while you feline Gestapo!
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-10-10 19:31:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was really good. I like how the flashbacks came full circle. Other than some of the mispellings and roller skates with rockets this was really good.
I mean come on Jack...roller skates with rockets? This isn't jackass.