New Hell Story part 1

-Late December-

   A long day of working the cash registers, especially for a 36 year old man with a bad diet. A long day filled with parents who think the universe revolves around them and their children, and about a dozen accusations of hiding stuff in the back as if he had children of his own; people acting like they know his life story just by looking at him. To make matters worse this was a long day with a new supervisor just hired during the Christmas season who is ten years younger than him and he can tell this suit wearing kid considers him a complete failure for still working at a cash register. A long day that ends at nearly 1am, driving home bundled up in three layers of a coat, sweat shirt, and a long sleeved shirt and two layers of pants and even doubled up on socks. It is a very cold day arriving home to a very cold house.

  Tony isolates himself to one room after checking to make sure the faucets are still dripping to try and prevent them from freezing and thus breaking. He turns on the tv and his PS4, switches to the USB card and a movie as he turns on the space heater, quickly undresses and leaps into the pile of blankets, sheets, sleeping bag, and pillows he has since he had to throw out the mattress he previously had lying on this floor. He could never stand sleeping with clothes on, but all these blankets and the space heater make it okay as he drifts off to sleep.

   ******

   As his eyes closed from beneath the layers of blankets he saw three things, one was the glow of the television playing an episode of his favorite show, the second was his calendar, the third was pinned to the wall by it a christmas list. Not for himself, a list of the six relatives he still cared about or felt obligated to buy presents for. Each one had two boxes beside them, he wanted to go all out, spread the paycheck, maybe risk being two house payments behind; get each of them two gifts this year. When he woke up though it was still dark out, no glow from the tv or the space heater, not even any light trying to peek out the corners of the privacy blinds, he felt so cold. Every joint in his body felt stiff like it wanted to pop, painfully so, but they wouldn't move, he felt paralyzed. His joints only got stiffer, his neck felt like it was being broken from the inside out, he wanted to scream but his jaw was stuck, his ears actually felt "cloudy" being the best way he could think to describe it. He could hear it, like wood creaking, the sound was coming from his own jaw and neck traveling up into his ear canals. He stared into the darkness horrified, realizing his skin was numb and cold, and inside him his gut felt like it was on fire somehow while his arms and legs felt like needles were being pressed out from the inside; he wanted to scream, he tried to scream, but nothing came. He couldn't close his eyes as the stabbing of countless tiny blades protuded into the corners of his eyes, a glazed image as ice formed over his eyes.

   "I should be dead from this...pain..., why? Is it a miracle? Please, God no...I don't want to die."

   ******

   Eventually the pain stopped, but the darkness remained. It was as if trapped in a dream, unable to feel, only seeing shadows playing on the wall as light bathed against the wall from the corners of the blinds, he couldn't think, he couldn't question it, the inside of his head was a constant pounding headache, like a core of heat that kept trying to blast out against a frozen shell, only bringing him constant currents of pain as it painfully released and then constricted and cut him once more; in retrospect that would be how he would describe it, but at the time it was only experience. Then came the day he screamed. His entire body cramping all at once, every muscle trying to shake and constrict for warmth, like a massive snake wrapped around his body it felt like his insides were exploding, a scream he never could have imagined he could make. His abdomen and head felt like mush, hazy, liquidy as his body contorted and he shook violently from his soaked blankets, tiny thin chunks of ice shattering as he thrashed about from the blankets and his own body. It was dark and he couldn't see. But as he stopped he had to curl up in a fetal position on the floor, his body hurt, as if covered in a combination sunburn and bruising. He breathed heavily on the floor as feeling slowly returned, feelings other than pain. The darkness releasing him.

   It is now for him, he can think again. But something is wrong. He feels his arms and legs, warm again, no indication of bruising, they don't hurt anymore. There is enough light coming in to see that aside from being soaking wet he looks just fine.

   "What," he mumbles, the unfamiliar sensation of speaking returning to him, "a dre..." his thought is cut short as he looks around frantically. The space heater is there but there is no plug, his blankets are the wrong colors, the tv is a much older model, instead of a little rectangular flat tv sitting on a coffee table, its an old box television sitting on a milk crate. Everything else in the room is missing as well. His clothes are there, at least, clothes are there, a pair of jeans and a grey T-shirt along with a pair of socks and black tennis shoes. He dresses and opens the door.

   "Where the fuck am I?" he askes aloud seeing before him an empty wide room with a large double folding doors closet made to look like wood panels on one side, and double glass doors to a small yard with like five feet of grass and a concrete wall. Looking through and up there is a ceiling with the florescent lights. There is another door opening to carpeted stairs going up..and metal grated stairs going down. Upwards there is light coming down that looks to be sunlight, downwards, darkness and the eerie sound of distant splashing. He eyes the closet doors but gets a really uneasy feeling so proceeds up the stairs.

   The door opens to a house that looks like it was built from sound stages of sitcoms, a massive living room with a couch and huge old box television in an entertainment center with a VCR, NES, Atari, and the remote control sitting on a coffee table between the couch and television. Not far off is the kitchen with a bar counter, oven with stove tops, fridge, a dining room table, and a window and door leading out to a yard with a white picket fence. Tony is stairing in disbelief, his mind still reeling from the horrific experience he just awoke from, only to find himself in this weird old tv show looking house. There are carpeted stairs leading up, he walks up slowly and silently as possible. Up stairs he find four closed doors, one leads to a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and a full tub with sliding glass door, there is room beside it decorated in pink stuff, unicorns, pony dolls, however the stuffed dolls in the room look off with their old designs, button eyes, and twisted smiles. He closes the door slowly, the next room is a very 1980's boy room with toy robots, space ship print blankets, a globe, a poster of a mule on the door...or rather as it dawns on him this house and these rooms look like those one would see in a tv show from the 1980's not a real life house. There is only one room left, and it is the master bedroom which seems to consist mainly of one large bed with an end table on either side with seperate lamps. A creaking sound makes him look back.

   He stares with a start as in the hall outside the other two rooms a doll and a toy robot are sitting the hall outside the doors. He pauses and just says, "nope", runs, leaping over the toys, bounding down the stairs and out the door in the kitchen to the front yard.

   ******

    Tony barely notices the front yard until he is past the sidewalk like walkway leading straight to the front door and over the white picket fence's gate to the white sidewalk. He takes a moment to breathe, behind him is the house. It is not his house; and the idea he was in this strange post card looking house's basement feels unreal. The front door has two white pillars holding up an awning over the front door, the address is obviously not his address, and he takes a step back noticing that the window to the living room has that same doll and toy robot in it. He puts his hand on the gate just staring at them, expecting them to move, afraid to take his eyes off of them when something else draws his attention. The grass is too even, and there is a basebal sitting ontop of the blades of grass, an old charcoal grill sitting by the patio, and an old pushmowever leaning up against the flower box under the kitchen window. The flowers look fake, the petals too perfect. The same grass as the yard is on the outside of the fence between it and the sidewalk. Tony leans down and gently touches it "ow," he exclaims putting his finger in his mouth as the grass is sharp as needles.

   He stands up and backs away from the fence, the sidewalk is straight in either direction, nearly identical looking houses with only slight differences like flower arrangements, gardens under windows, stone walkways for some, concrete walkways for others. The sidewalks all take right turns and the road is the blackest asphalt he has ever seen.

   "Where is everyone?" he mutters aloud, his head aches as he tries to remember, he went to bed, the pain he can barely remember, then waking up in that basement. As he walks down the sidewalk he ponders going back, thinking maybe someone was there with answers, however turning around is taken back by how endless these houses seem. No hills, no curves in the roads. No signs of people. As he continues on other things begin to dawn on him, there are no birds in the sky, none of the houses or yards have trees unless there is a tree house in them, and the asphalt feels weirdly soft as he crosses the roads, continuing in a straight line. Turning to look at houses he sees things that make no sense, like a potted plant that seems to turn as if watching him, flower petals spinning quickly as if they were pin wheels but there is no breeze and they look too solid. There are no smells either; he looks down at his feet, "I am dreaming, I have to be, just keep going, wake up Tony, wake up."

   He sweats as he realizes after an unknowable amount of time has passed that he has suddenly been going up hill. looking behind him he is shocked to see how steep the hill is and the fact there are no houses on other side of it, instead there has been wire fencing seperated tall brown grass from the road. He trudges up the hill and stops as a grass hopper leaps from the fence, he watches it hop off the sidewalk into the road and then, he blinks and it is gone. He looks back and forth but, the large green grasshopper is just gone.

   "Dreaming," he tells himself, "I have to be,"

   He continues, reaching the top of the hill the fence stops and turns, seperating the tall grass from a field of short grass, which upon closer inspection is totally normal grass. The black asphalt road continues as does the sidewalk in a straight line towards a what in the distance looks be warehouses, maybe factories, but before that a big red barn. He continues down the sidewalk. He pats his stomach realizing he doesn't feel hungry or thirsty, but hours must have passed from now, and stopping for a few seconds seems to be all that he needs when his muscles start to feel tired, "Definetly a dream," he mutters.

   Out in the seemingly endless grassy fields he spots up ahead a strange patch of very tall black grass, like something ornamental or an odd bush. He stands there watching it, it is very thick and looks to be layered with very tall blades over shorter ones sweeping back, and much shorter blades circling around from one end around the front.

   "Weird" he mutters and takes a few steps towards it, stopping as it rustles on its own. He takes a few steps to his right and left, the blades remind him of porcupine quills only more hair like, especially with how one end has the longest strands that sweep back, then ones half as long that mix in, followed by much shorter ones with the tall ones hanging over then, a somehwat thing patch of the much shorter ones starting at the base of the shorter end and curling around the front.

   "Huh," he says aloud standing in front of the end with the tallest strands, "Its...shaped like an animal."

  "Oh shit!" he yells and leaps back as the whole thing rustles and at the base he sees a pair of red slanted eyes poke up from a shallow ditch; he hadn't noticed the dirt at the base of the "tall grass" was bunched up like it had been dug out; the thing has a triangular shaped face with no signs of a nose or mouth, only two large slanted red glowing eyes. He backs up slowly to the sidewalk realizing its not moving and the eyes are drooping as it looks back down in the dirt, shadowy movements perhaps arms and slender shoulders as the thing rustles about making its self comfortable again.

   He backs up the sidewalk, "I am dreaming some weird shit."

  "How far away is that fucking barn?" he exclaims after what feels like hours, noticing the sun going down.

   "I am dreaming right?" he says aloud again, "I mean...dreams don't normally,"

   He bites his finger and *yelps*, holding his hand as the pain slowly goes away, the bite marks slowly fade unnaturally quick but the pain was real. He finds himself suddenly paralyzed with fear in the middle of the sidewalk, the barn maybe now a mile down the road, its all real. He really has mysteriously found himself in some place devoid of people, the only movement he's seen being from things that shouldn't move, a grasshopper, and...that creature.

   He turns and looks down the road, it is a few miles away but against the flat landscape he can make out the black spec and as the sun goes down see it standing up. He makes a break for it, running to the barn. He at last makes it, a big old fashioned red barn, and next to it an old fashioned farm house. Although hidden by the barn he even sees some goats and a horse in the fenced in yard. He walks up and knocks on the door, no answer. But he hears heavy foot steps inside walking towards the door. A horrific loud *shriek* like owls crossed with bats pierces the air, coming from atop the barn, the footsteps inside can be heard running away from the door and a door inside slamming shut. Tony is paralyzed once again, atop the barn, hunched over, a creature black as midnight, its precise shape hard to make out as as its head is sporting a massive mane of long black hair like something one would expect to see from a demon in an anime, from its shoulders and back too mixing in with that from the head, lower back, and a long squirrel like tail with the quills on the top side and more fuzzy on the bottom side. As it moves, adjusting its weight Tony can see that it has a thin build, very long thin arms with long thin claw like fingers, long thin legs with claw like toes as well. Its body as a feminine shape to it, maybe small breasts he can't tell; but its head has no face; a triangular head with just those two glowing red eyes. He looks at the house, this thing staring him down, and the barn. Back at the yard the horses and goats are acting like nothing is happening; but no sooner does it turn that way then a black blur with a strong breeze brushes right over the top of his head, impacting one of the goats. The horses whinney and run as does the other goat. The thin from atop the barn has just lept down over fifty feet to strike a goat dead on impact. He watches this bundle of quill like hairs from the back, hearing horrific crunching sounds. It turns slowly towards him, blood all over this things claws and face, he sees bits of meats slurping into a thin slit like opening that seems to extend the length of the head where a mouth should be; proven as it opens its massive almost Pac-man like mouth filled with a red glow and many white but small and many rows there of cone teeth and chomps down into and crushes in one bite the head of the goat.

  "Run," he whispers,  before screaming"run...FUCKING RUN!" he takes off towards the barn only be hit from the back, taken off his feet and smashed into the side of the barn, the wind knocked out of it and head smacked into the side making him dizzy. He can feel it against his back, it feels like a thin woman indeed, but its breath is hot as fire and it is making almost insect like clicking sounds as he slides to the ground losing conciousness.

   ******

   Tony blinks, all around him is darkness, his face on the ground. His hand brushes something soft, he pause feeling up a long thin stand and *winces* as it gives him a paper cut. He holds his hand and sits up, realizing that to his side is the creature, buried once again in the dirt with only its quills exposed. He would back up, however there is another beside him, in front of him, and behind him. He slowly stands looking up into an impossibly starless night sky illuminated by a three moons, yellow, blue, and red. He is in a field of dozens if not hundreds of these creatures, however not twenty feet away is the sidewalk and road. In the brightly lit night he can see the farm house, it is in ruins, as is the barn, torn to pieces.

   "These creatures," he thinks, "they must have..."

   A loud crocodilian roar stops his train of thought as he sees another impossible sight, a massive dark green crocodile emerging from the road as if it were black water, the asphalt rippling as liquid waves as the beast brings its bulk up onto the sidewalk. it opens its massive jaws at one of the bundle of quills, however the quill backed creature turns as do severl others near by, their quills stiffening and sticking straight up. The crocodillian beast's eyes glow red as it lets out a frustrated hiss trying to adjust its jaws that open wide like those of a snake. The quills suiddenly extend, impaling the beasts through its jaws and head, those of nearby creatures spring out like tendrils stabbing into the monster's head and neck. Tony ducks down seeing several of the creatures standing up, the red glow from their eyes matched by that of their wide mouths as they let out a series of horrific *shrieks*. At least eight of the creatures, including one right near where Tony's feet had been when lying down leap into the air and onto the beast, clawing at it, ripping of scales as the beast tries to struggle in vain, pinned down and being torn apart, they drag it further out of the black water, those that been impaling it retracting their quills to stand up and slice into the beast's throat, in mere seconds it is decapitated and they are chomping into its body, everything is eaten, even the bones are being devoured. Tony can only stare in horror, letting out an invulentary *yelp* when the one behind him stands up, dozens of pairs of red eyes stop and look his way; only to ignore him and return to eating.

   "The fuck," he whispers, "what the fuck?!" he exclaims as a blue glow comes over the farm house and barn, like grids in a game the ghostly forms of both structures appear over them and new material appears fixing them; however the broken rubble parts remain on the ground around them. The creature that had been lying down beside him the closest now stands up and looks directly at him, staring into his eyes. Tony notices there is a path through the creatures as several have joined in eating the thirty foot crocodile; he tries to back up but stops as the one in front of him smiles, a red glowing line stretching across his face in the shape of a smile, it opens its wide mouth suddenly and spews out a pink mist into his face; he falls over, seeing the creature now nearly faceless again standing over him as he falls unconcious again.

   ******

   Tony comes to once again, this time in daylight, although it only now occurs to him something he should have noticed yesterday; it may be daylight but there is no sun; it is if the sky its self were illuminated. Clouds  cast shadows as Tony stands up shaking his head, nearly leaping off his feet as one of the quill backed feminine creatures is still there, hunched down like a monkey watching him as he walks towards the sidewalk. He backs away, or rather side steps slowly to the sidewalk keeping an eye on the creature, as he approaches the street he remembers the giant thing from last night and taps the asphalt with his toe, "Solid," he says.

   A rock lands in the street, thrown by the creature. He looks over at the creature but with one long finger it points; Tony can't take his eyes off it, despite the daylight it is if shadows cling to the creature's body. it lets out a low growl and justs it finger past him. He turns to see the rock, and fears a bubbling sound, it is slowly singing, he can make out liquid just around it, in its shadow and it *plops* down as if falling through melting ice. The road has a wet looking spot for a few seconds more but then closes up as asphalt.

  He stands starng at it, stiffening up as the creature crawls over to his side, its long hairs brushing against his side, surprisingly soft now instead of sharp. It holds its thin hand over the road casting a shadow. Tony watches as a few seconds pass and the space inside the shadow turns to black liquid. It pulls its hand away quickly revealing a hand and arm shaped spot of liquid that in a few seconds crusts back over as asphalt. The thought occurs to him, each time he had crossed this same road, had he stood still in the road for even a few seconds it would have vanished under his feet thanks to the shadows under his feet and his own shadow stretching around him; into a darkness that may hold other creatures like that crocodile last night. He backs away from the road and utters a, "Um..thanks."

    He steps around the shadowy creature as it watches him continue down the sidewalk towards the town. He stops and turns, "Um...do you..." He takes a deep breath and looks away from the creature to the grassy field, something about it triggers some primal fear within him, "D...do you understand me."

     It leaps twenty feet into the air and does a spin like its trying to immitate Sonic the Hedgehog and lands in the field, perching on the ground still watching him.

   "O...kaaay," he says, continuing down the sidewalk.

  As he approaches the sidewalk where it breaks to a gravel driveway leading up the farm house he stops and stairs at it. Looking up as he hears the strange shadowy creature land on the barn, the memory of the day before playing in his head. This time there are no goats or horses in the yard, but he can see through the window, there is a man inside, a very large man wearing overalls, no shirt, a burlap sack with one cut out eyehole, and a cowboy hat. The large man gets up and walks over the door, opening it, "Hey boy," says the dirty looking man, he makes a beckoning gesture with his hand, "comma here."

   Tony makes a few steps towards the drive way intending to cross it back to the other side of the sidewalk.

   "Comma here boy," the man says again, "I said..."

   He reaches off to the side inside the doorway and pulls out a rifle aiming it at Tony making him stop, "Does critters at ma eatles boy, gots no breakfast, you do, so comma here, lets ma take a bite outta ya,"

   The burlap sack unwinds on its own forming a mouth, a made full of straw and sharp metal needles.

   The man lets out a horrific sound as the shadowy creature leaps down and severs his arm making the rifle drop into the yard. The man's arm is full of straw, like human skin stretched over straw like some demented scarecrow.

   The man screams and tries to turn but the creature grabs him and throws him into the yard, puncing and tearing him apart, bits of skin, overalls, burlap, and straw everywhere, with the one exception being a thick blob like worm about two feet long, the head end opening up and screaming, its mouth nothing but wrinkles of slimy flesh and rows upon rows of hook shaped teeth.

  The creature grabs this thing and throws it into the street. A few seconds later its shadow turns liquid, it squirms around, and something that Tony can only describe as the head of a catfish covered in a hard shell with crab pincers around the mouth juts out quickly and pulls the worm thing down.

   "Uh...thanks again," says Tony he walks into the yard and picks up the rifle, "I...have no idea how to use this properly," he *sighs*, "Honestly first time I've ever held a rifle."

   He taks a step towards the house, but the shadowy creatures leaps between him and the house and shakes its head; it then points at the gun and then the road and makes a throwing motion with its hand. Tony clutches the rifle only to have it painfully pulled from his hands by the incredibly fast creature which proceeds to snap the rifle in half, which screams, it is flesh inside. She throws it to the ground as a half dozen smaller worm things squirm out and burrow into the ground.

   Tony holds his hand and pauses, "Hold on...didn't I get a paper cut last night? Where, is it?"

   The creature tilts its head as Tony steps back to the sidewalk and looks towards the city.

   "So you either do understand me," he says as he watches the creature walk some distance from him, keeping pace with him, "and just can't talk, or you don't and are following me for some reason."

   He stops and sits down on the sidewalk, the creature stops and sits down on its haunches watching him, "So...where are the other ones?" he asks pointing at her and gesturing all around. To his surprise she turns and points at the city.

   "So you do understand me?"

   It pauses as if thinking and nods its head slightly.

   "I don't suppose you can tell me where I am or how I got here?"

  It crawls over to the sidewalk about seven feet in front of him and scratches the sidewalk making an arrow pointing to the city with a square under that with a Hospital's cross mark in it.

  "Go to the city," he says, "to the hospital?"

  The shadowy creature nods again.

  Tony stands up and the creature leaps off to the side in the grass.

  "Better than nothing," he says and continues down the sidewalk, the city insight.