Stone WALLS

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4507-7410-9
Verlag: Independent Publisher
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 462 Seiten

From out of the walls they come in this horror novel.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stone, Joseph

Leseproben

PART ONE
THE NIGHTMARES I.   Rob Barton was dreaming of his first memory, which he always figured might itself be just a dream. The memory/dream was in first-person point of view. It was not one of those third-person dreams where you could watch yourself and others from some floating seat up above. He saw crib bars rising high around him on all sides. There was muted, heated arguing pulsating itself into the room. He had no idea what he was doing, but in hindsight, he seemed to be sort of escaping from it all. His pudgy little right hand went down and grabbed his own infant crotch firmly. Then he began to hum. It was one long, sustained low note that had such a power in it that his arm broke out into goose bumps, which then spread to the rest of his body.   Then it happened. The wall began to thud, crack, and splinter from the middle and then ripple up to the ceiling and down to the floor. The breaking pattern resembled the shapes light makes in the bottom of a swimming pool or the broken dirt on a sun-baked, dry lakebed. The rippled area of wall completely fell away, leaving a giant, black, gaping, jagged, maw, wide enough for several people to stand in, like a skeletal jaw of a long-dead megalodon. The room was painted in the dark of night and wallpapered in the designs the dappled light was bringing through the window. Despite the dimness, he could see it approaching from somewhere deep inside the giant hole. Then it was at the edge of the room and easily seen. It was larger than any man he had ever seen. The top of its head was just a bit below the ceiling. It looked humanoid. It was naked and dark purple, had no face, and the genitalia of a Ken doll. It had a somewhat bulky, masculine, muscular build. He didn’t know if his memory was distorting it, but he was pretty sure it had no fingernails, and its feet resembled the head in the fact that they were completely featureless. It had ankles, but there was no separation where the toes would be. It turned its hairless, faceless head toward the crib. In some positions, the head looked like a helium-filled balloon attached to a thick neck and would have been comical if the memory/dream wasn’t so genuinely disturbing to him. It entered the room and looked down at the summoning babe. He, in turn, looked up at his visitor with overwhelming wonder, and just as its arms reached to pick him up…   Everything went black and he was awake. It was twenty-two years later.     Rob washed off the remnants of the nightmare in the shower and got ready for work. He was a banker. He hated it. He was dumped on by any schmo customer off the street (which was the main description of his customer service-based job), dumped on by the management, and only glanced at from the corners of the eyes of fellow employees. He didn’t mean to, but he wore his life experiences like a shroud, which was intriguing and off-putting at the same time. People were grudgingly envious of the knowledge that inherently came when you had tread down many hard roads. Movies were his escape. Horror movies were his favorite; he thought perhaps because they made him nostalgic. So far, the one he related to the most was ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. There was some truth in there. It was buried under a Hollywood/Vietnam plot with a ‘Twilight Zone’-like ending, but the gist of the antagonists and the atmosphere was pretty damn close. People couldn’t be trusted. His dog truly was his best and only friend. Max was a big, sweet half-Rottweiler/half-Doberman with the same aloof but decent qualities of his owner. He’d had Max since he was eight years old, and many a rough road had been traveled with Max right along at his side to help him though it. Rob’s biggest recent concern was Max’s inevitable death. He was in relatively good health, but age was taking its little tolls. He was getting slower, and his bones would creak every time he got up. Every time Max slept, which was becoming more and more frequent, Rob would look away from the TV, and wait until Max’s chest would rise and fall, and then he would look back at the carnage on the screen. By then, the dream was completely forgotten. He got off the bus and entered the bank. He got his caffeine fix in the break room and then went to his desk. “Good morning, Rob,” his wannabe frat-boy manager said to him. “Hey,” Rob replied. As Rob approached his cubicle, the sports-loving beer-bonger who resented Rob’s existence for some reason, asked him to meet him in his office. That was never good. Rob entered first with the scumbag right behind, who shut the door when they were in. “We need to discuss your attitude again,” said the dickhead. “What is it now?” Rob’s attitude was relatively diplomatic. “People here are uncomfortable around you. You never talk to anyone, and whenever you talk to me, you argue every little thing.” “Because you nitpick things that don’t matter or have any real relevance to the job.” “There you go again.” “Look, why do you keep riding me? I do a good job here. The customers are happy with me.” He didn’t mention that they were happy with him because he took all their yelling in and didn’t just pass the buck around and absorbed a lot of their bullshit and usually got the issue resolved himself. “I do everything I’m supposed to, and all you do is threaten to fire me every week if I’m even a second late. It’s August, and I’ve only missed two days this year, been late three times under fifteen minutes combined, and just because we have nothing in common and I don’t want to be your best friend, doesn’t mean you can keep threatening me.” “You do a good job, huh?” the bastard replied. He pulled a sheet of paper out of a file in his desk drawer and continued. “What about this?” He pointed to the page. “Why did you leave early? You’re not scheduled to be out of here until six p.m.” The time pointed to was 17:59:44. Rob said, “I left sixteen seconds early…” “Yes!” said the schmuck. “Also, you turned off your computer over a minute early.” “Yeah, but I get here fifteen minutes early to boot up that slow computer, so I just took a minute to shut it down so I could catch my bus so I can get home and let my dog out.” Rob lived in a single apartment near downtown L.A., and the dog who (before Rob moved out) was used to having a yard to piss and crap in all day long, was always grateful to see him for some bladder relief. “You are off at six. If I see this again, I just might have to let you go. I don’t want to have to do it, but you are giving me very little choice.” The asshole tried to look sincere. “You’d love to fire me. You just don’t have enough on me.” Although Rob was aware that it was what they called an employment-at-will basis, he foolishly thought he still had some rights. “Now,” the retarded jerk-off went on, “We are having a bowling match against Gerard’s team next week, and I want you there. You need to start contributing to our team.” Gerard “the gerbil” was another manager. He was an okay guy, but he was just as gung-ho about the job as the prick. Apparently, it’s not just a job; it’s a way of life. “I can’t. I have to let my dog out.” “Then do that and come back up here by eight and meet us down the road at the alley.” “I can’t. The bus is almost an hour each way, and I’ll be too tired, and besides, I already have plans.” “Oh please, what would a loser…” the cocksucker trailed off. “What?” “Nothing. Just get to work.” Without another word from either of them, Rob exited the office alone and sat at his desk. He glanced at his ‘Fangoria’ magazine and half-smiled. He put on his headset and answered his first call. “Good morning, customer service, this is Rob.” “Rob?” an abrupt voice said. “I just got a fee for a bounced check from your fucking bank, and you are gonna reverse it, or I am gonna come in there and break some skulls.” Rob looked at the information that automatically popped up on his ancient computer screen in its bright-green print and said, “Well sir, you haven’t made a deposit since last month, and you’ve been using your debit card almost everyday and… Well, the money ran out.” “What? No it didn’t! You fuckers are stealing my money!” “Right sir, I’ve got it right here in my pocket,” he snapped sarcastically. “ROB!” the shithead he worked for yelled from his desk, wearing his own headset. It was obvious the pig in the tie had been listening in or monitoring his call, as they called it. Rob, feeling defeated, said, “I’m sorry sir. I am unable to reverse the fee unless it is an error on our part.” The customer called him a motherfucker and hung up. Rob, later that day, waited until the clock on the phone said 18:00:00, six p.m. on the dot. He turned off his computer and ran for the bus. He just missed it. Max, who had been holding it for almost ten hours by then, would have to...