Fear Me

7

Romero woke and he had no idea what time it was.

It was just late.

And dark.

Something was going on and he wasn’t sure what the hell it could be, but it was real or otherwise it wouldn’t have woken him. He listened. Heard his own breathing, the kid’s above him. But something else, too, something that made his throat go dry and the flesh at his scalp go tight and hot. It was a funny wet sort of sound, all squishy and slimy-sounding like something was being pulled out of a drain with a coat hanger.

The springs above him creaked ever so slightly and Palmquist shifted up there… only Romero could still hear him breathing deep and long. He was thinking that whatever was moving up there… it wasn’t the kid. He didn’t know what it was, but he could hear it sliding around with a moist unpleasant sound like a baby crawling free of afterbirth.

Jesus… those sounds… what the hell is happening up there?

Romero figured he didn’t want to know, because whatever it was, it was just plain bad, something you just didn’t want to look upon. The air had gone hot and dank with a gassy odor like rotting cabbage and Romero was gripping the edges of his bunk as if he was on a rollercoaster and was afraid the car might tip him out at any moment. It was a wild ride and his guts were slicked with cold jelly, his eyes wide and sightless in the darkness. He was thinking about that homemade knife behind the radiator… but he didn’t dare go for it, didn’t dare make a sound.

Didn’t want what was up there to hear him.

So he lay there, stiff as a plank, his muscles bunched and his nerve endings jangling like Christmas bells, a scream lodged in his throat in a sharp, cutting mass.

More movement.

Whatever was up there with the kid, it was in motion now, moving along the bunk with a stealthy, slithering sound. It found the wall, slapped wetly against it and started to inch along, making for the bars. Romero was thinking something like a slug here, but big and fleshy and horrible and he didn’t know all what. As it pulled itself along the wall, it made faint chirruping noises, clicking sounds like claws or teeth kissing that concrete.

It would ooze forward a moment or two, then pause… as if checking now and then to see if anyone was listening.

Romero was listening, but not moving. For hearing it was one thing, but seeing… no, the idea of that curdled his guts like sour milk.

And then it… leaped through the air, hit the bars with a splattering sound. Romero could hear it breathing, gurgling. In the wan light from the guard’s station, he could see something large and shapeless spread out on the bars like a huge, rubbery spider, contorting boneless limbs spread out in every direction. It was shuddering and pulsing, taking its time and Romero just squeezed his eyes shut, could not look at that thing any longer, told himself it was a nightmare and the thing was just some nebulous horror that had crawled alive and kicking from one of his childhood dreams.

And then… it was gone.

It went right through the bars with a sound like bacon grease dropped in a bucket or mush stirred with a spoon.

Romero was shaking, sweating, doing everything he could not to piss himself or vent that scream buried in his throat. He lay there, trying to catch his breath, wiping perspiration from the gutters under his eyes. Above him, Palmquist was dead asleep, breathing deep and even, lost to the world.

Romero started to think all kinds of awful things, but none of it made a lick of sense and his mind was full of shit and he wondered, really wondered, if maybe he could have dreamt it all.

And part of him latched onto that, told him in an authoritative, reasonable voice that, yes, of course it was a dream… what else could it have been?

About twenty minutes later, though, somebody started screaming.

And the screams… they didn’t last long at all.