FICTION BY K.L. PATRICK

K. L. Patrick is a writer, philosopher, and playwright. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his work is mainly focused on Appalachia and the horrors that can lie in the mountains’ unknown regions.

He has a Bachelor’s degree in theater. Before pursuing writing, he channeled his creative energies through music and theater, with his first play debuting next summer. He has worked on over ninety plays, in every role: from director, to lighting designer and to actor.

He has a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. His inspiration comes from the monster stories of old, as well as older slasher films. The question always bit at him when watching them those movies. Could this happen in this tiny rural area, and if it does, what does it look like?

IN THE DARK, THEY WAIT
by K. L. Patrick

Jared stared into the chasm that sliced through the earth—the one Jessie had entered of her own free will.

He contemplated his inner self as he stood a few feet away from the large hole that jagged like lightning across the ground. His life had not been his own—always going out of his way to help another person. But as the years went by, less and less people seemed to want him in their orbit.

Secretly he was a coward and when he focused upon others’ problems, it allowed him to ignore his own. These days, he dwelled solely on his wife. Shoot, even his adult son, who could be a handful at times—and right now they weren’t talking—but he couldn’t think about that. If only Sean knew how much he loved him. He couldn’t say the same about Jessie.

He glanced over his shoulder at his farmhouse. Two stories, three if you counted the basement, and old as dirt. He considered all the work had done in the past two years. Fixing up the old homestead had become a hobby of his. The house was easily over a hundred years old. It was his grandfather’s and father’s before him and was tucked nicely in a holler on the mountain.

The second floor was accessible only through a tiny door, one he had never gone through on the warnings of his father. He could hear him now, “Don’t go up there, it ain’t safe.”

The windows of the upstairs stared back at him, taunting him.

He looked back at the chasm.

It had started innocently. Just a little bit of erosion from the creek. Then the fence started sinking. A small sinkhole maybe, that’s all he could think it was. Then one morning when he looked out the ground-floor window, there was a chasm. He didn’t know what else to call it.

It had widened to four feet wide and six feet in length. Bessie, the lone milk cow, was near it, most likely having just finished at the creek. Jared moved as quickly as he could to get to his beloved cow. He couldn’t have her falling in.

Bessie turned her head and stared at him, the white parts of her coat reflecting the rising sun. She ambled over to where he was standing.

“Girl, get away—” knowing dang well she wouldn’t mind him.

Bessie bellowed as the ground gave way under her feet. She flipped head over heels, falling into the hole beneath her. The fall lasted forever in Jared’s mind; she may have done another flip. Her bellow turned into almost a screaming, deep and guttural. It echoed throughout the holler and reverberated in Jared’s mind. He had to slam his hands over his ears.

He fell to his knees. He had raised Bessie from a calf. She was more like a kid than his own son was, and shoot, they got along better if he was honest. He scuffled to the edge of the pit.

“Bessie, where you at, girl?” Jared called. The pit was almost too black to see inside. Tears tickled at the corners of his eyes. The silence unsettled him as he squinted, trying to catch any sight of her below.

And then he heard her. He peered intently into the chasm.

There! He could see his cow standing on some sort of ledge. Jared cried out into the dark hole, “Bessie! I’ll get you out!”

Suddenly hands appeared out of the darkness, at least twenty of them. They were gnarled; fingers splayed in all directions. The fingers closed, gripping Bessie’s hind legs, and jerked. Bessie’s legs pulled out from under her. She landed with a plop on her belly. A crack echoed through the silence as her legs either broke or dislocated. Bessie bellowed as she disappeared into the darkness. The bellowing faded after what seemed like days.

Jared was horrified. “What the hell is down there?”

He didn’t realize that he had spoken out loud.

*****

Each day, the hole expanded in both directions.

Jared kept being drawn to the chasm, visiting it every day, watching it grow but feeling powerless to do anything about it. It had taken his cow…what else was possible for those frightening hands to do? And what was connected to those hands? It had been too dark to see.

Was the giant hole some sort of portal to hell? Were those hands connected to demons?

He pondered whether he should call some sort of authorities. Eventually he dismissed that idea, because the residents in the tiny farming community a few miles away already thought he had mental problems. This would prove them right.

He wondered how big the chasm had grown. Fifteen by fifteen would be his guess, as he stood staring at it. Jared didn’t even want to be here. He wanted to be with the chickens out back or working on his damn tractor. But Jessica had to be stupid. Sometimes he wished he didn’t marry her.

Jared had told her every day since Bessie fell in to stay away from the chasm, but the stupid woman had to do things her own way. As always, she promptly ignored him. He couldn’t blame her, though. Jared had been curious, too.

Watching Jessie disappear into that abyss gave him mixed emotions. In one sense, he was free of her. In another, people would notice she was gone. He should report her missing to the authorities. But maybe they would think he pushed her.

And was she really missing? He knew where she was. Sort of.

She had told him before she fell in that she heard voices from it.

“I thought I heard my nan,” Jessie said.

Jared had only grunted. It wasn’t possible because her nan had been dead for ten years. He wondered if perhaps he was not the only one with psychological problems. Not that it mattered. They both were in their own individual isolations.

The water from the creek funneled into the darkness in front of him. Yet there was no sound. None at all. Jared expected to hear a waterfall, but all he got was silence. Shoot, ever since the fissure opened, he hadn’t heard a bird or seen any insects either. How could that be?

He briefly wondered if that enormous hole in the ground sucked in anything that came too close to it, which is why Jared always stayed a few feet away from it.

Was it really deep? Again he wondered if it was some sort of portal…

They wait.

It popped into his head suddenly. Those were the last words his wife spoke to him the night before after she told him about her nan.

They wait.

Was that why she went in? Was that the key to everything? Who—or what—was waiting down there?

Jared ran his hands through his hair, and then let it fall back down in front of his eyes. He wondered if he should he go in after his wife.

He tentatively took a few steps closer to the chasm. He reached his hands out in front of him like a blind man groping in the darkness, except it was high noon and he could see everything. He felt the air with his palms. It was cool because a breeze floated out from the hole. Could it be a cave?

Jared suddenly turned and ran back toward the house. It had only been a few hours. Maybe his wife was just exploring. Yeah. That’s what was happening. He could wait for her. If she wasn’t back by tonight, he would go in.

I mean, I watched her walk in. She wasn’t snatched like Bessie. He couldn’t jump to conclusions. Or was that his cowardice talking? Dammit. No, it wasn’t. He tried to convince himself by exploring all possibilities, even while knowing that none of his explanations made sense.

Avoidance had been his method of operation all his life. 

He entered the back door. To the left was the kitchen, which was old-school. Just how his grandmother had loved it to be. Little ducks ran across the walls. Sunflower curtains draped over the sink. The flooring was new. He found some exactly like what was there before. It wasn’t easy, but if you talk to enough old timers, you can find anything.

Why was he admiring the house when his wife was missing? It made little sense. These days, so many of his thoughts made no sense. Maybe the townsfolk were right—maybe he was crazy. No…everyone knew crazy people didn’t think they were crazy. So if he wondered if he was losing his mind meant he wasn’t losing his mind. Right?

And then he heard it. They wait.

He looked around, confused. Where had the voice come from? Hearing voices wasn’t a good thing. Didn’t crazy people hear voices?

In the abyss, they wait for you. Arms wide open. Jessie is waiting. So is Bessie. They miss you.

Jared screamed and ran to his bedroom. He didn’t even bother taking anything off. He jumped into his bed and covered his head with the comforter. The voices still taunted him even when he grabbed a pillow. Nothing could make them go away. Is this what his wife had felt? Is this the damn madness she endured? Or was it just him?

Something sounded on the second floor. Jared sat straight up. Did he just hear footsteps?

He removed the pillow from his ears and listened intently; waiting for the sound to repeat so he could hear it more clearly without the muffling of the pillow. He listened to the rhythm of his own breathing while he again wondered about his mental state.

Suddenly Jared realized the house was completely dark. His sense of time was skewed. He must have dozed off. He wondered how long he had lain in his bed? Where had the time gone? It was the first night without his wife in a decade. Being alone was making everything so much worse.

Something ran upstairs. Little feet running across the floor.

Now he was really frightened. Jared’s heart rate increased, and a pressure built up in his ears. His body numbed as fear rushed through him. His hands shook against his will. The only time he felt this afraid was when the hood of his car flew up while driving. When it happened, he was sure he was going to die, and almost pulled himself off the road. Was death waiting upstairs? Or was it outside?

He stood to greet his bedroom. It was only a bed and a dresser, nothing fancy. Just the way he liked it. Slowly he made his way into the living room. The sound followed him overhead as if it knew where he would go.

When he got to the kitchen, he glanced at the small door leading upstairs. The lock was undone. Why the hell was the lock open? It had been the same lock since he was a kid, always locked tight. Shoot, he didn’t even think he had the key.

His heart thudded in his chest. Jared’s stomach churned, and he had to swallow back the bile. He knew he needed to go up there, because it was his house and he hadn’t invited anyone inside. He had trespassers and he needed to throw them out. A brave man would confront the intruders. Yet his legs wouldn’t move.

He needed to get a grip.

Jared’s hands shook harder than ever as he forced himself to walk towards the door. He reached out and pulled it open. The steep staircase sat ahead of him, as if it were a window into another world. Maybe that’s what the chasm was as well?

He needed a flashlight because he wasn’t sure there were working lights upstairs. He grabbed one out of a kitchen drawer as quickly as he could. Turning back around, relief washed over him when there was nothing in the doorway, and no sounds from above. It had to be all in his head. Yet, who unlocked the door?

They wait.

“Shut up,” he muttered, then flinched at the sound of his own voice. It was as if he had gargled razor blades and tried to speak. All his usual tenor was gone. The tone was not his own, gruff, as if he hadn’t drank any water in days. Was it even his voice?

This isn’t real, Jared thought, calming himself. A hallucination can’t hurt me. I can go through the damn door.

He pulled open the door. It was a tight squeeze, but he made it through. The stairs were narrow and went up at an ungodly angle. As a kid, he always thought the upstairs was haunted. Jared’s grandpa had even told him so a few times. As an adult, he wondered if it was just a way to keep him out of the upstairs.

Shadows loomed in the flashlight’s beams and he shined it into the staircase. A shadow shifted in the light. Something was up there, and he was entering the mouth of the beast.

“It will devour me,” Jared said. He heard his heart beating in his ears. The thought of continuing up the stairs was almost too much to bear. He remained at the foot of the stairs, too afraid to venture up.

You’re being irrational. Jared thought. It’s just a normal house. Nothing more. You grew up here, and nothing bad happened during your childhood or during the entire decade you lived here as an adult.

Jared laughed like a crazy man. He took a step and the stair creaked under his foot as the shadows danced around him.

He began to climb.

A wave of cold hit him. That should not have been possible. The second story should be blazing hot. He stopped four steps from the top.

Something shifted ahead of him. What the hell was that? I should have grabbed the gun.

But he couldn’t go back down for it. He had a strange and unexplained need to press onward. With each step, his heart beat harder. The cold pushed deeply into his bones, as if he was dunked in frigid water. His legs threatened to fail him, but he made it to the top of the stairs and into the hallway.

Something small skittered in front of him, causing him to cry out before he realized it was probably a mouse. Something smelled bad. It was like curdled milk had been poured on rotten tomatoes. Vomit threatened to enter his throat, and he shot a hand up to stop it from spewing out. Jared didn’t want to add to the already disgusting smell. He swallowed hard, and the vile stuff slithered back down. The taste didn’t leave, though. It only intensified.

But he was facing his fears. It was the first time in all his memory that he was not behaving like the coward he was. Jared had to keep moving forward; to be a real man. To make his wife proud.

And then he remembered that his wife was gone, pulled down into a hole by who-knows-what.
Could it be them up here? Whoever the fuck them was?

No, they are in the abyss; he told himself. In the chasm with Jessie and Bessie.

Jared reached for the hallway switch and flicked on the light. He was surprised that the wall sconce lamp still worked. He didn’t need the flashlight after all, but he still held onto it for a sense of comfort. A mouse ran for cover, and he practically jumped out of his skin. He’d gotten himself so worked up over a mouse. Jared leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. This confirmed it was all in his head. He laughed.

“I got to quit doing this,” Jared said. A smile crossed his face. He was going to be okay. Time to go downstairs. He turned to head back to the stairs.

She will die.

He didn’t want to listen to the voice. More things scuttled. His head shot around. The scuttling continued, but he saw nothing. Nothing at all. Oh God. Jared gathered his courage so that he could continue. Of course I can’t leave. That would be taking the easy way out again.

He made his way across the musty hallway and popped into a room filled with junk. Three generations of crap; honestly, it was probably stuff that hadn’t been touched in fifty years or more.

Look.

Something lit up the darkness outside the window. He pushed his way through the old trash to approach it and see why it was suddenly so bright out there.

Jared looked out the window and his eyes were drawn to the deep chasm in the ground, as though a supernatural force turned his head against his will. Bright eyes shined from where the fissure was. They stared at him. Wanting him to come. He wanted to go to them. That was probably how Jessie had felt, right before…

They wait.

He thought of Tartarus. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t. His windpipe had dried up. He needed a drink.

Jared forced himself to look away, but suddenly something pushed hard against his back so forcefully that it hurt him. He caught himself on a nearby box.

Something was in here with him!

Jared ran his hand along the wall and found yet another light switch. The flashlight dropped from his fingers and clattered on the floor; the sound startling him even further.

But with the effect he achieved by turning on a bright light, he could no longer see out the window. Instead, in the glare of the inside light, he could only see his own reflection in the window’s glass. It looked so strange to him because his face was pale and his hair disheveled. His eyes were huge, almost bulging in their sockets.

Jared glanced around the room; all the stuff was gone. Wait; no, he was in a different room. Out the window wasn’t the hole. From this angle, it would be the barn out back. How had he gotten here? He couldn’t even remember moving at all. How had he blanked out for a few minutes in time?

Maybe he was crazy.

He opened the door to leave this new room and staggered into the hallway. Jared needed to look out the window again in the first room. See if those lights were still there. He turned the handle. Locked. The original room where he had seen all the eyes through the window was now inaccessible.

“What the—” His voice gave out. Water. He really needed water.

Jared hurried back to the hallway to get to the kitchen, where everything would make sense. Where everything was sane. He went down the steps two at a time, and in his rush to leave, he slammed into the small door and the wood broke, shattered. He tumbled through and fell onto the kitchen floor, rolling a few feet before he could stop his momentum.

Jared scrambled to his feet and grabbed a glass from the cabinet. Filled it from the tap. The cool water was just what he needed. Refreshed, he found himself no longer scared. He filled another glass. Maybe he just had a brief psychic break, and Jessie was asleep in the other room, like always. Yes, that had to be it. He just lost it for a little while.

Come back…or she dies.

The glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor. He no longer loved Jess, but he couldn’t let her be victimized by whatever these fucking things were.

Be brave for once, he told himself.

Here was an opportunity to prove that he was not a coward after all. Here was an opportunity to change his life. To be a better man, a better husband, a better father. It didn’t matter that his child, and probably his wife, didn’t love him.

Before his mind could catch up to him and stop him, he ran out the front door and headed straight for the hole.

Come to us.

The voice echoed through the trees. It wasn’t in his head this time. It wasn’t all in his head! Something really was going on!

Shit. The hole was dark in front of him. Jared almost ran into it. Had it gotten bigger while he was inside? A scream echoed all around him.

“Help me!” Jessie screamed.

Jared leaned forward.

“Jess, where are you?”

Hands appeared in front of him. Hundreds of them, latching onto him. Their touch burned; the hands sunk deep into his skin. He pulled back to get away, but he couldn’t move. Jared was completely and totally trapped by those unnaturally strong hands.

The hands weren’t loosening. Pain rushed through his body. His nails dug into the ground as he was forcefully pulled back. The bright full moon appeared from behind a cloud, and he could clearly see what was in the hole.

Ours now. You are ours.

There were hundreds of gaunt figures that had arms which stretched to uncertain lengths. Something snapped within him as long claws pierced into his flesh. These were monsters and he finally knew them; understood them.

Jessie flashed into his mind, as did Sean; then his grandfather’s face floated in front of him. His entire world flashed before him. He saw vignettes of his cowardice; of his fears, of his shallowness. He relaxed. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe the world was better off without him.

Ours now.

The one closest to him grabbed his mouth; its long, razor-like nails dug into his chin, pulling his mouth wide open. Water rushed in. His lungs enlarged as he breathed in cold water that filled his chest. The ice expanded within him. His bones cracked and were replaced with something else. The beings in the chasm became one with him, washing into him until there was nothing left of the person he was. He became an empty basin, being refilled with insanity.

He floated into eternity, unable to right his wrongs.