Halloween is a little bit away so in the spirit of Spooky Season I’ve written a scary short story. Midsommar guy, please option this.
Running From Freedom
The walls shed blood. Crimson pools formed on the linoleum. The cascade of ichor soon rendered the floor’s pattern of grass green flowers and bright yellow suns invisible. The blood-dimmed tide rose. The fluorescent bulbs that hung bare from the ceiling cast harsh white light on the entire proceedings. The surface of the newly formed ruby lake threw back the light, small waves glinting and gleaming as they reflected the brightness. Eventually, the bleeding ceased. The crimson lagoon slowly went still. All was silent. After a certain amount of time small lumps disturbed the surface. Old blood coagulating and rising to the top. More and more clots, a darker red almost black in color, became visible. The smell of drying, rotting blood soon leaked from the charnel chamber. As this happened a pair of fans ticked on. They sent the rank odor back into the room. A small electronic whirr filled the room. Several small holes opened in the floor. The blood drained. No sign of the gore remained, except for perhaps a slightly darker tinge to the sun and flowers that stained the ground. The grates closed and the fan turned off. The walls bled no more.
Ted Ansby swiped his fare card on the reader and looked down the length of the bus. An open row of seats had his name on it. He sat down, checking to make sure nothing unsavory besmirched his becarpeted throne. A few dark spots spoiled the blue green covering, but nothing that seemed overly suspicious. Sitting down revealed that the marks were merely the products of lax cleaning methods, nothing untoward. Ted breathed a little sigh of relief. His breath came out in a much sharper hiss than he intended. Several other denizens of Chicago bus route number 76 gave him a look and then immediately returned to whatever attention-occupying device took up their time. Ted kept his eyes down, furious with himself. Why did he have to make such a fool of himself? Couldn’t he just keep it together? Ted shook his head. No need to get caught up in it, something so small. His world was about to change. He’d quit his job, moved out from his parents. Everything was going to be alright, good even. Nothing in the world could change how good he felt right no. Not even a weird noise. There, he was okay. More than okay, he was fine. Nothing to it. Ted felt the world slipping away from him. The bus went sideways, spiraling down a drain, the people, colors, and noises of weekday public transportation all running into each other, headed down some cosmic sink. Ted tried to scream, to run, to follow the bus down the drain, but some force held him still. His mouth could make no noise. He strained, his muscles taut as iron ropes, but they pushed fruitlessly against solid bands of power. He pushed harder, throwing every ounce of energy he had against this restraint, but it was if he tried to lift the Great Pyramids. Ted expended every ounce of vigor he could and blacked out. The pressure pushing against him had constricted the blood flow to his head. He slumped to the ground unconscious.
Sally Lassar hadn’t stopped running. Branches whipped against her face as she staggered through the trees. Dead pine needles covered the forest floor, cracking each time a foot fell. She struggled against the evergreens, their tiny limbs filled with hundreds of spiky leaves scratching her wherever she ran. This was one of the few natural growth forests left. Not a tree farm or nu-type forest planted by do-gooders. The carpet was thick with the detritus of nature and Sally had to be careful. Sally looked back, still moving forward, trying to strain into the darkness. She heard her pursuers but did not see them. She couldn’t stop. Not for them, not for anyone. She had almost reached the river. The river meant safety and she planned on reaching it. Freedom would be hers. Sally hadn’t meant to steal the grapes. Or at least she hadn’t thought of it as stealing. She had picked so many that day, she should be allowed to have at least one bunch. That sweet deep rich flavor of the concord bursting open in her mouth. She deserved it, to have that feeling time again. She had been put on that farm for a crime she hadn’t committed. And she’d never let that happen again. But the metal spies had been watching, always watching, and as soon as she ate one, alarms went off around the entire complex. Guards had come running, their thin metal whips snapping in the light. Body armor gleamed in the sun, laser lights pointed in her direction. They were going to kill her. So she ran. Ran as fast as she could. She used the dead spot in the electric fence that all the workers knew about to escape the farm. She thought that the others might have helped her. There was no way she could have survived this long if they hadn’t. Throwing a prayer to Gurta, the goddess of luck, she turned her head back around. The bank of the river was right in front of her. She could see the silver reflection of the moon in its waters. She ran right to the edge and leaped, legs pushing off the mud with all the force she could muster. Her arms continued their constant churn, hands opening up trying to catch the air. She landed feet first in the water. It’s ice-cold embrace took hold of her. Like a kick in the gut it knocked all the air out of her and Sally Lassar saw black.
Sally came to consciousness first. She looked around her. She saw Ted leaning in the opposite corner. Patterned linoleum covered the floor, suns and flower shapes everywhere. Uncovered fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling providing the bright white glare that filled the room. She started to get up but Ted moved and she sat back into her corner waiting to see what he’d do. Ted looked around, saw her and started.
“Where am I?”
Sally tried to speak, but nothing came out. She gave it another shot.
“No idea. One idea I was running from the guards and then I was here.”
“I was on the bus and then the world turned all funny.”
“I was in a river.”
Ted looked at her slightly askance, but said nothing.
“How long have you been out?”
“Not sure. Maybe eight hours, probably less.”
“How do you know that?”
“If it had been more than eight, I’d be very hungry.”
Sally laughed. She nodded and went back to her corner. At least she was safe. Ted didn’t seem like a freak. He might look a little weird, but that was fine. Even if he was a freak, she had made it off the farm. She had escaped hell. That part of her life was gone. That was something to celebrate. Ted, in his own corner, had similar thoughts running through his mind. This wasn’t really a setback was it? His parents still weren’t on his ass, he still had his new job. Sally seemed kinda cute. Maybe this would all work out.
As Sally and Ted contemplated their old lives a door-shaped section of the wall turned clear. A shadow walked through. Ted jumped to his feet, fists up and out in front of him. Sally rose more slowly, but stayed on the balls of her feet, muscles tingling, ready to pounce if necessary. The shadow grew larger, more solid. It twisted and turned, black liquid inside a shell the shape of which neither of them could comprehend. A ringing squeal started to emit from the being, erupting from its body. Sally clasped her hands against her head and fell to her knees. Ted stayed up for a moment longer before falling to the ground. They both writhed in pain, fighting against the sound as it drilled its way into their inner cortexes. The being, now a man, now a triangle, now an undulating mass, began to move toward Ted. Ted screamed as his body started changing, his arms elongating, tiny specks of blood appearing in each of his pores. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything, He beat his fists uselessly against the beast as it overpowered him. He had been free, he had won. Why was this happening to him?
The shadow consumed.
It turned to Sally.
Sally forced her way off the floor, fighting against the noise in her head. She ran for the transparent spot in the wall. On the other side she glimpsed a darkness, a void she could not, would not reckon with. Closing her eyes she ran toward it, more terrified of the creature in the room than the unknowable. She took four steps, reached full sprint speed and she felt herself bounce back against the wall, crashing down on to the linoleum. She turned and saw the shadow on top of her. It snaked out two tendrils and pulled her into its gaping mass.
The shadow consumed.
The grating ringing ended and the shadow moved toward the transparent door in the wall. It went through. The wall turned white again. The walls shed blood.