A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (22 page)

Ernest merely watched,
remaining near the open door to the basement. He didn’t say
anything in response, nor did he move to assist Jefferson in his
effort to help the people outside, stranded in the
storm.

Jefferson paused for a
moment, in disbelief. “Are you not going to open this for them?
There are people out there Ernest, people like you and I! Open the
shutters. We need to let them in.”

Ernest’s body shook softly
from his place and he quickly shook his head, denying the request
silently.

“
Ernest!” Jefferson
shouted over the cries of the small assembly outside, banging on
the windows.

“
They are the wicked. They
are the unbelievers. They are where they deserve to be.” Ernest
said, harrowingly, with a sort of uncompassionate, glazed-over look
in his eyes.

“
W-What?” Jefferson’s own
eyes went wide as he turned, resting his back against the metal
shutters, able to feel the pulse of the desperate beatings on the
other side of the door rattle through his body, making the fear
beyond his own personal safety inside more real with each
successive blow to the glass outside. “Open the shutters!”
Jefferson shouted.

The commotion stirred
those below and one by one, the Quinn family emerged, nearing their
patriarch, while the others in white remained near the steadfast
Ernest.

Miranda asked, worriedly.
“What’s going on, Jeff?”

Jeff pointed a condemning
finger in the direction of Ernest and his group. “They won’t open
the shutters! There are people out there, people that may die if we
don’t help them! And they won’t do anything!”

Miranda, Chelsie and
Bradley all looked to the small group. Bradley watched as Fallon
stepped back carefully and slipped back into the door to the
basement, away from the rest of the group, a moment after she
gestured for Bradley to keep quiet with a lone finger over her
lips. Then, suddenly, a siren droned outside of the post office,
its long, warbled tone saturating the town beyond their haven,
reminiscent of an old World War II nuclear warning.

Jeff turned around,
looking at the metal shutters over the door. The beating on the
other side stopped the second the siren began. Jeff looked back to
Ernest. “What is that siren for? Is that the tornado siren?” Jeff’s
stomach sank. Still, there was very little sound beyond the
shutters. Even the storm seemed to almost die out
completely.

Ernest shook his head
solemnly. “That is not a warning for weather, Jefferson Quinn. That
is the signal fire that shows that the time of reckoning has begun.
We will witness it together.”

The entire group in white
began clapping their hands in a cheerful applause. Members of the
group hugged one another and pat each other on the backs.
Meanwhile, the Quinn family watched in awe of what was
transpiring.

Chelsie spoke up, tugging
on her father’s sleeve. “I told you! I knew something was wrong
with these people.”

Bradley merely stood
behind his mother, watching the exchange with the group in white.
While most of them cheered, Ernest continued to stare at the
family, with a stoic, stone gaze that was unrelenting. His stare
twitched as the sound of helpless, desperate people beating on the
windows sounded again, only this time, their cries were much louder
and thick with terror.

“
It’s getting hard to see!
Oh, open the door! Open the door! It’s everywhere around us! It’s
hard to breath! Please, oh, please open the door! Open the
door!”

Jefferson turned, pulling
on the shutters over the door again. He cried out, “Miranda,
Chelsie, Bradley, pull! Pull, we need to get these doors open!” And
they all worked together to try and save the stranded people
outside.

Ernest laughed softly.
“There’s no saving them now, Jefferson Quinn. He’s come for them.
He will have them. He will have all of us.”

In unison, the group in
white chanted, “Consume us! Consume us! Consume us!”

Jefferson didn’t bother to
look back to the queer group. He pulled with all of his might but
the shutter didn’t give
—or until the
motors that deployed them earlier started humming, turned on, and
started suddenly drawing the shutters in reverse. The Quinn family
stepped back, and the group in white stopped with their unsettling
chants.

As the shutters rose,
Ernest spun quickly back. “Who’s opening the doors?!” Ernest
pointed to the basement door. “Fallon! Fallon is not here! Go down
there, close the shutters at once!” And reacting to Ernest’s order,
two members nodded and ran quickly down the stairs, where it could
be assumed the controls for the shutters were.

The Quinn family backed
away from the opening shutters in unison, standing near one of the
cluttered, envelope-ridden post office desks. The feet of three
people, a man, a woman and a child could be seen first. The
pounding ensued. A little girl lowered to her knees to peer at the
group beneath the rising metal shutters. Behind the three was a
sort of thick miasma, obscuring the small town beyond them. The
little girl’s bright, youthful eyes shined like a beacon amid the
obscuring, misty cloud.

Jefferson neared the door
again as the other inhabitants of the room remained still,
including Ernest, who watched the unfolding events with
uncertainty. The confidence of his ritualistic behavior only
moments prior faded to concern.

As Jefferson stood near
the door and the shutters rose to about waist-level of the people
outside, Jefferson shouted to them. “We’re going to save you! Just
one minute! The shutters will be up in just a minute.” The shutters
rose to their chests, then to their heads. The small family watched
Jefferson through the glass in relief and absolutely everything was
silent; not a lick of wind, not a roar of thunder, only the
stranded family, the mist, and then something else...

That’s when something
unexpected occurred.

Behind the three, the mist
cleared
—repelled—from the being behind the
stranded family outside of the post office. Long arms hung nearly
to the ground, clad in a white jumpsuit, ratty and torn near the
long, twisted feet. The head was bald, inhuman and vile. First,
there was no mouth on the creature, only those violent, slanted
eyes staring into Jefferson’s soul.

Jefferson slowly stepped
back, mouth dropping open at the terrible sight. The father of the
stranded family pounded on the door, asking, unaware of the
ghoulish being behind them. “What are you doing?” His muffled voice
came through the door. “Are you going to unlock the
door?!”

Jefferson’s shaking hand
rose and pointed toward the figure at the stranded family’s flank.
Miranda’s eyes began to well with tears and she pulled her children
into her body, both of which were watching the figure with the
same, unspeakable terror.

The father outside stopped
for a moment and turned slowly. As he turned, his small family
turned with him and each of them recognized the figure then, each
of them slamming their backs against the door, but there was
nowhere to go. The father pounded on the glass with the back of his
fist. “Open the door! Open the door!” He cried, followed by the
others.

Slowly the sound of their
cries began to fade, as if muffled by the covering hands of the
fog, or absorbed by something much worse. A different sound
replaced those cries, a creeping, guttural noise that rose from the
belly of the beast beyond the stranded family. The creature’s eyes
began to stretch downward, elongated into two ovals that were both
blackened pits of madness. The greater the sockets stretched, the
more the figure’s greenish, decayed flesh ripped and rippled, and
eventually the two eyes tore the separating flesh between them,
creating a single, large, dark void that grew and consumed the
entirety of the figures face. The body of the creature shook and
twitched, with sharp spasms pulling its shoulders back. The hole in
the creature’s head grew, and huge rows of squared teeth began to
line the conjoined sockets, making it into more of a violent,
hungering maw. Larger and larger it grew, the head of the figure
stretching, its jaw elongating to its chest, then to its waist and
eventually until its chin hung from its head to the ground. Then,
with a pit of a mouth the size of a person, the mouth expanded
horizontally, each violent tear and rip, each vibrating, deep groan
and breathe as clear to those inside of the post office as if it
were being grunted against their very ears. And when the mouth of
the figure was but an unnatural hole to oblivion, the sound stopped
and the entire family turned with tear-filled eyes to those
inside.

The only sound that was
heard in what was an ear-ringing silence was a final plea, “Help
me.” The sound was whispered from the child outside. In a single,
wheezing, ragged breath the whole family was drawn into the mouth
of the creature as if being sucked into the funnel of a tornado.
Into the pit they went, like a stone through space, until they were
so far into the infinity of blackness that they were gone forever.
Inside, everyone stood watching absolutely stunned and helpless.
The wheezing continued. It was a maddening sound that shook sanity
to pieces with each successive breath. To call such a thing a
breath at all was a defilement to raw action that often promoted
life. This sound: this was the sound of true death. It was only
subdued by the sudden hum of motors and the reeling of metal
shutters that began their way back down, first obscuring the top of
the creature, then the middle, then the bottom, discernable in no
other way, because now the figure was but a mouth. The second the
shutters closed, there was a violent quaking of the earth, one that
shook the entire room, a room that was now complete darkness but
for a meager light coming from the cracked door to the
basement.

The group in white looked
around confusedly. Ernest cried out. “Quickly! To the sanctuary! He
has returned into the earth! It is time for the consumption!” And
the group began into the stairwell and down the stairs. The Quinn
family stood in the darkness. Bradley cried against his trembling
mother.

“
W-What
in the world is going on, Jeff? Did you see that?!
What
was
that?” Miranda asked her husband, knowing the question was
unanswerable.

Jefferson shook his head.
“I don’t know. These people know what it is and if they know what
it is, maybe they can stop it. Com’on.” And Jeff ushered his family
toward the stairs in haste, making his way down them ahead of his
family, looking for the group. As they arrived at the base of the
stairs, the last of the group in white was running into the storage
room door. Jeff marched after them, tailed closely by his
family.

When Jefferson arrived at
the other side of the hall, he opened the storage room door to peer
inside, just as another violent quake shook the hall, inspiring a
feeling of falling vertigo, that often experienced in a sharp dip
while in a car or on a carnival ride. The only light left in the
hallway fizzled out, leaving it dark and empty in a world already
becoming increasingly less stable. The only remaining light
flickered from the other side of the storage room door. Carefully,
Jeff cracked the door open to witness the events transpiring
within.

Inside of the storage room
was a sanctuary, the one referred to by Ernest prior to his retreat
from the events upstairs. The room’s walls, which were lined with
metal shelves and parcels, were covered with encompassing white
sheets, closing the room in and masking its true use. The room was
a storage room for the post office, but this makeshift sanctuary
was established for a ritual the group
knew
was coming. The revelation was
only more disturbing to Jeff, realizing that it was quite possible
the group was prepared for the arrival of the figure beyond the
walls, now claimed to be “in the earth” and would have left the
Quinn’s outside to be swallowed by the beast should they have not
entered before the shutters were closed. The Quinn family huddled
close to Jefferson as they watched the events unfolding
within.

“
Lord of Earth, Consumer
of Life, Maw of Eternity, hear our praise unto you!” Ernest’s
fervent words illuminated the room almost as much as the
candelabras stationed around the center desk, one turned into a
sort of ritual slab by covering it with a white, embroidered sheet
bearing the image of the figure. The embroidery resembled the straw
effigy near the Glencoe city sign. “Tear from this earth this
fertile land and be renewed with the power of our honoring spirits!
Taste of devotion and cleanse your palate of the wicked perversions
that rejected your call! Wash your tongue of the pitiful naysayers
and take in our rich vitae!” Ernest’s hands shot up as he called
out for the monster, waiting for an answer. It came in another
powerful quake. For a moment, the Quinn family thought the ground
beneath them was giving away, but their world stabilized a moment
later. The droning siren, what Ernest called “the signal fire,”
began again, sending a chill down Jefferson’s back.

Miranda spoke near her
husband’s ear. “Jeff, the siren, it’s going again! Do you think
that thing is coming back? We need to stop this!”

Jeff nodded, looking
through the room again. He was trying to find the best method of
disturbing the ritual. He eyed the sheets and the shelves, then the
parcels and the individuals all surrounding the center desk, hands
high, sharing praise in unison.