Hordes of Horror January 7, 2013

Armed with only his daggers, Jack moved into the flickering darkness that claimed the eighth floor. Behind him, more flapping and lumbering noises ascended from below. He did his best to bar the door with an abandoned chair and then hurried on. He had never visited his mother in her current locale, but knew her apartment number and headed down the hallway toward where he hoped she would still be.

The walls looked wet and glistened with a black film. The throbbing tendrils he had seen in the stairwell were also visible here. They traveled along the walls, but as he looked closer, Jack discovered that each veinish tube exited out of one of the rooms.

“This whole place is screwed.” He wanted to check on the rooms he passed, but figured he’d save the bad news for his own flesh and blood. He made it to his mother’s room unopposed. “I almost feel like they want me to see this,” looking back the way he came, he added, “and be trapped.”

His mother’s door loomed before him like a tombstone. More of the thick grey veins could be seen creeping into the hallway from under the door.

Jack took a step back and kicked the wooden door into splinters. Inside, the place was a checker board of dark and darker. Shadows poured over the floor like spilled ink. He went in anyway. Flicking on his pen light, proved to be just enough illumination to keep him from tripping over tables full of tumbled bric-a-brac. Almost at once, he heard a shallow moaning coming from the living room. “Mom,” he whispered and his booted feet rushed him forward.

It was his mother, along with an older woman he had never met. They could have been sitting on the sofa watching television if it wasn’t for the fact that the room remained in solid darkness. Once he moved in closer, he heard labored breathing, but it least they still lived. More disturbing were the origins of the veins. They appeared to be attached to his mother and this other woman’s ankles.

Going to the window, he tore back the enclosing curtains. The shallow moonlight revealed the weeks of debris that had accumulated. “Oh mom, I’m so sorry,” he choked out. She moved and let out a groan, but didn’t revive.

“Well, screw this place,” Jack said, while drawing in closer to his mother. “I hope this doesn’t end up killing you, mom.” Then, with a powerful whack, Jack severed the foul ropey veins that were attached to his mother’s ankles.

She arched back and let loose a violent gasp, but Jack barely heard for as soon as he had cut the veins a loud wailing began. The angry caterwauling sounded like it came from the stairway he had so recently exited as well as the elevator shaft.

“Crap, mom, we need to get you out of here.”

“Jack, my baby, is that you? I must be dreaming.”

“No ma, it’s me and if this is a dream it would be the worst nightmare either of us has ever had.” He picked her up. He body felt dangerously light and her head rolled on a neck too weak to support it.

Moving to the window, he looked down. Eight floors separated him and the ground. Cursing his luck, he turned back toward the doorway, but from the sounds of it, twin streams of howling monstrosities already poured into the hallway from both ends.

“I was barely able to fight of one of those freaks and that was when I had all my weapons. Now with me having to protect you I…” Uncertainty claimed Jack as the hordes of horror flowed toward them.

To be continued next Monday…

Find out how Jack’s Adventures Started… Here!