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Thomas Joyce

The July Featured Story is by

Thomas Joyce

Please feel free to email Thomas at: tjoyce10@gmail.com

Thomas Joyce

FROM THE INFINITE ABYSS
by Thomas Joyce

Snow was beginning to fall as Dan Wilson left the diner and made his way down Mayer Street. He turned the collar of his jacket up against the wind and thrust his hands deep into the pockets. Leo had given him plenty to think about.

The job would take a few hours at the most and afterwards he could take his wife and daughter and get as far away as possible. But he could not take the job without telling Susan what was going on, and that would mean having to explain all the stuff he and Leo had done as kids, stuff he had never intended for her to find out.

He sat at the bus stop and watched as the dull, grey winter light continued to fade from the day, the sun seemingly hidden by clouds and by the increasingly heavier snowfall. He observed the numerous signs hanging above boarded-up shop-fronts, offering great commercial opportunities to those affluent enough to start their own business. He sighed and thought, Don’t those real estate people know the country’s going down the toilet? Don’t they know people are losing their jobs?

He was startled from his daydream by the horn of a car that was parked at the bus stop. He looked up to see Leo sitting behind the wheel of a very recent model Porsche.

“Want a ride?” asked Leo, peering over the top of an expensive pair of sunglasses.

Dan looked back up the block and saw no bus anywhere. He felt a very cold snowflake penetrate his jacket’s defense and melt somewhere in the middle of his back. He got up from the bench and made his way to the passenger door, appraising his friend’s fancy car.

“Don’t you think this is a little conspicuous?” he asked as he settled into the leather seat and felt the installed heaters warming his back and legs.

“The thing to remember, Danny,” Leo said as he quickly pulled away from the curb and accelerated to beat a red light, “is that as long as I look like I belong in a flashy car, the cops won’t bother me.”

Dan cast a sideways glance at his friend and had to admit he had the look covered: the tailored suit, hundred-dollar haircut and the wholly unnecessary sunglasses. He looked every bit the big-city yuppie driving a big-city yuppie’s car.

But all of this was so far removed from the car thief Dan had known as a teenager. Now Leo looked more like a career criminal, the successful type with big ambitions and a bank account to match.

Dan looked out the window and frowned. “I thought you were giving me some time to think it over.”

“And you left the diner five minutes ago,” replied Leo. “You’ve been thinking about it for three hundred seconds. That’s more than enough time to do the math and recognize the amazing opportunity I’m offering. Unless you don’t trust me.”

“Of course I trust you, man,” Dan said, pushing the gnawing doubt deep down into the pit of his stomach, lest it give him away. “But I only just met those other guys and that casino guy gave me the creeps.”

He was not exaggerating. When he had first set eyes on Lloyd, the former employee of the now closed Paradise Falls Casino, he had felt that the man had been in some terrible car accident and had walked away, but had never quite lost that shocked expression or nervous disposition.

“I hear what you’re saying,” Leo said, sounding every bit the yuppie negotiating with a nervy client. He’s just a bit…eccentric. He’s only coming along to show us where the vault is. I can handle him.”

“What about the other guy? The doorman? Can you handle him?”

“Of course. You forget that I’m a people-person. I keep everyone happy and we all go home rich.”

The car slowed to a halt just as Leo finished talking. And Dan realized they were not outside the flat he shared with Susan and their three-year-old daughter Tess.

They were parked in front of the boarded up facade of Paradise Falls Casino, once an attraction that brought business from as far away as Ogdenville, fifty miles north. Now it was just one of many plywood store-fronts, the fabulous neon replaced with a ‘For Sale’ sign and offering a different kind of gamble now, where all you had to wager was your livelihood, and hope the suits in Washington could come up with a miracle to fix the economy.

But sitting there, in Leo’s luxurious toy with the heated seats and wonderful interior, parked in front of a big, fat golden goose, Dan could not help but feel hopeful. Optimistic even. And these were words Dan rarely used these days.

It was a little after midday and the streets were all but deserted; nobody wanted to drag their feet through the rising snow and it was still too early for Christmas shopping. And, as Leo gazed at him expectantly, Dan smiled a hopeful, optimistic smile.

*****

At exactly quarter-past two the following morning, a black SUV pulled up in front of the casino and four men got out. One of those men seemed outwardly jittery, his arms twitching, his head snapping back and forth at even the tiniest sound, most of which heard by him only. He had the mannerisms of someone not prone to drinking coffee and having just finished their thirteenth cup of the day.

Leo knew all about the mannerisms of the former casino employee and they did not interest him at all. The only aspect of Lloyd’s character that mattered to him (and it mattered a great deal) was his knowledge of the casino, specifically the location of the forgotten money and how best to retrieve it. The man led the way to the building’s entrance, pulled the loose board away and turned to Smith, his ‘doorman,’ and nodded. Smith placed his toolkit down and knelt to get a closer look at the lock. He frowned, paused for a brief moment, and then turned the handle of the heavy wooden door.

Suddenly a howling cacophony blared.

“The alarm!” cried Leo as he reached for the handle, wishing to close the door before the shrieking noise brought every cop in the city. They all froze as though the cold winter night had encased them in ice, and waited for the inevitable.

And just as suddenly, the alarm stopped.

Nothing happened. The alarm silenced and no flashing blue lights appeared to herald the arrival of the city’s police officers. The only thing that changed was the sight of a slender strip of light on the snow-covered path leading to the casino’s entrance. They waited, and listened.

The only sound that came from within was the electronic jingles of machines, one-armed bandits and video poker games. The casino appeared completely defenseless against thieves and looters.

“I took care of the alarm earlier,” Lloyd said. “It’s not connected to the police station anymore. Don’t worry about it.”

Dan looked around inside the casino at all of the lights in the ceiling and flashing on the machines, and thought, This place could be open right now. All it’s missing is people.

But just as he had completed this thought, he felt a cold breeze on the back of his neck and turned to look for the source, only to find a shadowy figure standing just inside a doorway at the rear of the game-floor. He was about to alert the others to the stranger’s presence when somebody quickly obscured his view.

“Something catch your eye?” asked Lloyd.

“I saw someone over there,” Dan hissed as he tried unsuccessfully to see around the creep. “If you’d get the hell out of my way I could show you!”

“Of course, Dan. Let’s go inside. After you.” He made a grand gesture of stepping aside, smiling that nervously insane grin all the time.

Dan ran past the flashing displays and joyous sounds of dropping coins. As he reached the doorway that led to a darkened corridor, he was struck by two things: there was no sign that anyone had been standing there only moments before, and the scent of diseased meat in the air.

“What the hell is that smell?” exclaimed Smith as he reached the doorway, quickly covering his nose and mouth with his arm.

Leo stopped just short of the doorway, his face showing no sign that he could smell anything, only that he was still focused on the job they had come here to do. “Never mind the smell. Let’s just get the money and get out of here.”

“The vault is at the bottom of the staircase at the far end of this corridor,” said Lloyd, who had casually sauntered over to join them, the sudden sound of his unnervingly calm voice at close quarters causing Dan to visibly jump.

Ten minutes later, the burglars found themselves at the bottom of the dark staircase in a subterranean corridor lit only by those few overhead light bulbs that had not burned out. A hand fell on Dan’s shoulder and Leo whispered in his ear: “Lloyd says the vault’s at the end of this corridor.”

Suddenly a black figure glided down the stairs and flew towards them. Leo tripped over his own feet and landed on top of Dan as the shadow flew overhead and collided with Smith, crushing him against the corridor wall.

Dan lay on his back and looked up past his friend’s shoulder, waiting for the creature’s body to pass over them. But it never did. It seemed to stop in mid-air before flying backwards towards the stairs again.

He watched for a sign that it was human, that they had not fallen through a trapdoor and into the goddamn Twilight Zone. But by the time the creature had retreated up into the darkness, Dan had seen no clothes, no limbs, no features of any kind. Just a smooth, black, seemingly endless mass.

Leo leaped to his feet, his eyes darting from the prone figure of Smith to the stairs and covering every inch of darkness between. The expression of panic and sheer terror displayed in them caused Dan’s heart to sink. Gone was the cool-headed, pragmatic leader that had planned this expedition. He was now just as lost and scared as the rest of them.

Dan knew one thing for sure; Leo was not going to get them out of this. This was not part of the plan. And then he saw that Leo was hurt; that thing had somehow attacked and drew blood.

Just as they were about to get a second chance to identify the thing sliding into view on what Dan assumed was its front, descending from the darkness into the gloom, Lloyd ran past the others, waving his arms excitedly and grabbing at their arms.

“Quick, follow me! There’s an emergency stairwell further along the corridor, past the vault!”

Dan could not help but feel that the creep was somehow enjoying the horror show playing out before them, but he had to grab hold of any hope of escape they may have, and not let go. So he followed Lloyd, too terrified to consider anything else.

They ran as fast as they could, Dan using one hand to drag Leo and the other to feel his way along the wall, trying hard not to think about the sticky, dark red substance smeared in patches under his hand. He glimpsed movements in each of the rooms that opened onto the corridor—dark shapes that seemed to mirror the movements of the thing now chasing them along the corridor. Of course, thought Dan, there are more of them. Surrounded by monsters and our only hope is this nut Lloyd.

And then he realized their guide through this nightmare had come to a halt in front of a secure door. Lloyd stood, frozen.

“This the vault?” Dan asked as he reached the door and tried to prop Leo up against the wall, his friend now nothing more than a blubbering, oversized child.

“Yes, this is it.” The response was eerily calm. Lloyd remained facing away from Dan, his body perfectly still.

Dan looked around at the nearby doors as he tried to block out the increasingly loud slithering sounds coming from the darkness behind them, and could not see the words ‘Emergency Exit’ anywhere. Ahead lay the closed vault. On his right was only bare wall and on the left were two elevator doors, one closed and the other slightly open to show a drop into a seemingly infinite abyss.

Then Lloyd began to talk and, in the most bizarre way, everything began to make sense. “Yes, Master,” he said, seemingly addressing the vault door. “I have brought you what you need.”

The tone, as cold and as hard as a glacier, was like a spark to Dan’s motor. He turned his attention to the elevators, or more accurately, the glass case on the wall between them.

“Yes, Master,” continued Lloyd in his emotionless, business-like tone. “You are hungry. You need much more. I will bring more next time.”

And Dan buried the fire-axe in Lloyd’s head.

As Lloyd’s lifeless body fell face-first over the threshold, the axe-handle standing upright and his blood pouring over the blade buried in his skull, the beast within the vault screamed. The psychic connection it had shared with its servant was now severed, but not before it had felt the curved blade crack open its minion’s skull.

The scream became a high-pitched squeal and before Dan could act, a mental barrier within his own head fell and his mind was bombarded with gruesome images; a giant squid-like creature, as black as a starless sky at night, erupting from its subterranean lair onto a sleepy suburban street, his sleepy suburban street, hungry and coming for him. But not just for him…

Dan forced this last image away and opened his eyes, aware that the screaming was no longer coming from the vault, but from his own mouth. His body shook. His teeth began to grind together until he thought he could taste the enamel and blood on his tongue. He stared into the darkness of its lair and, unable to make out more than a huge black shape, knew that the creature was smiling.

It knew where he lived.

Without hesitation, Dan planted one foot on Lloyd’s head and withdrew the axe from its death blow, not disliking the squelch sound it made. He reached over to Leo and pulled him upright until their faces were intimately close.

Leo screamed as the beast’s long, black tendrils shot out of the doorways, along the darkened corridor and flew between them. Dan let loose an almighty war cry and threw himself into the gloom, after the retreating tendrils, swinging his axe in all directions.

*****

“All right! I’m coming!” moaned Susan Wilson as she struggled to close her robe and answer the front door before the lunatic leaning on the doorbell wakened her daughter. She realized it was five o’clock in the morning, but she figured that Dan had lost his key again.

When she swung open the door, all ready to give Dan a piece of her mind, she found her husband holding a fire-axe and covered head-to-toe in what looked like crude oil but smelled like something rotten.

She let out a yelp and almost fainted. Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor, one trembling hand covering her mouth, the other clutching at her robe. She stared at the two large, white circles that were her husband’s unblinking eyes and tried to ignore the blood and saliva seeping from between his gritted teeth.

“Get Tess and pack a bag,” he said. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“Just do it!” said Dan as he knelt down and pulled her up by her shoulders. “We need to get as far away from here as possible.”

Susan looked into those big, white saucers, held his gaze, and nodded.

As his wife headed to their bedroom to retrieve the big suitcase from under their bed, Dan let out a sigh and considered taking a hot shower before they started driving. He stepped over the threshold and, just as the front door swung closed behind him, a car alarm began to sound from two streets away. It was soon followed by more alarms, growing louder until the alarms of the cars on their street were blaring.

Then the ground began to rumble and Dan began to weep.

It’s too late, he thought. It’s found us.

Thomas Joyce lives with his fiancée and their daughter in Dumbarton, a small town in the west of Scotland. He writes in his spare time, but there are never enough hours in the day. “From The Infinite Abyss” is his second story accepted for publication. His first, “The Midnight Mirror,” is included in the Cover of Darkness anthology, Denizens of Darkness, published April 2013.