Spooky Challenge 2024 — Day 5
It’s day five, hopefully you’ve been enjoying my stories and are preparing yourselves for the most Hallo of Weens.
Today’s prompt is:
“When I found the dead man in the abandoned bowling alley, he was wearing shoes two sizes too big, and there was a rattling wheeze coming from behind the pins at the end of the lane.” – TJ Price
Waldo’s Wacky Wanes
I carefully picked my way through the ankle high rank water that flooded through the abandoned bowling alley. The air stunk of mildew. I couldn’t help but imagine mold growing in my lungs with every breath.
My flashlight picked out the bolted down tables and chairs, loose bowling bowls, floating bi-coloured shoes.
I’d risked coming inside to escape the skin rending acid rain that had come pouring down. I’d had to abandon my jacket, smoking and disintegrating, out in the lobby.
Now, I searched for a place to rest, to escape the damp and the water.
Instead I found a body.
A man, bloated and pale in my bright light. Face down, his clothes were drained grey by the water. His shoes dangled comically on his feet. A pair of nice leather boots. Too big for him. His arms were out flung at his sides, one hand resting on a pink bowling bowl spotted with gray mould.
The boots could be salvable. If I could dry them. Good footwear was rare these days. I reached down, rolled him over with a grunt.
The stench of blood and guts made me reel back. There was no front to him. His face, his chest, his belly – all had been hollowed out to the point where I could clearly see the back of his skull, his spine. I swallowed back a gag.
Somewhere in the darkness, towards where the pins would live, something splashed.
A rattling wheeze pierced the quiet and I froze.
The boots suddenly didn’t seem worth the risk.
I tucked the flashlight against my chest, stifling its light.
The wheeze came again. More smashing as something moved in the darkness. Something that had probably eaten this poor sap.
I slid my feet backwards, trying to be as silent as possible.
Something clattered, pins maybe, bones.
I bumped into something, reached back, fumbled at the edge. A table.
A maddening chitter punctured the quiet.
Anything could be in here with me.
Since the Days of Drowning, things had become strange in the world. Streets had become knee deep rivers, homes were sour stagnant ponds, and humans became the prey.
I edged around the table, backing further away from the sound.
The floor shook as something very heavy crashed through the water. I froze again, closing my eyes against the darkness. Another wheeze. Then heavy snaps as though of bear traps activating.
I heard the crunching of bones, the slick sound of rending flesh, then the sound of something feasting on the body of the man I’d found on the lane.
The air was rank with the smell of brackish water, salty fishiness, and rot. I shivered in the gloom. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, faint light filtering in from the rain shrouded sun outside. Something massive, disc-like hunched over the body. A body pocked with hundreds of blind, weeping eyes, milky white and hopefully blind. Six segmented legs, two claws, as big as I was, tore the body to pieces and shoved those pieces into a chittering, dripping maw.
I waited.
Outside the acid rain burned holes into anything soft, inside the horror before me consumed the man.
My feet grew numb in the cold water, my body shivered uncontrollably, my teeth chattered so hard that I was afraid the thing would hear so I jammed my tongue between them and risk biting through it than to become dessert.
The body reduced to crimson crumbs, the thing turned, lumbered deeper into the bowling alley, disappearing into the shadows. Its wheezing, gasping breathes hinted at rotting, failing lungs. Water splashed, its shell knocked against something loudly, then it went still, quiet.
I waited longer, hoping to hear it move further away.
The stale water in the bowling alley sloshed with fading ripples.
My legs itched, the skin prickling all over.
The cold seeping deep inside. I held fast. The rain still thundered outside, death to any soft skin who would attempt travel without shelter.
The prickling rose to my hips, my belly. I couldn’t help but gasp at the pain. I reached down with my free hand to run some sensation into my skin and instead found the prickly shells of crawling horrors on my body.
I screamed, stumbling back. Dropping my flashlight, I swatted at the things crawling up my body. The light sunk into the water but still revealed the thousands of horrid young that skittered towards me. Their thousands of eyes were milky but malevolent, their claws tore through my clothes, dug into my skin.
I screamed again.
The floor shook as the young’s mother thundered towards me.
The sour spawn overwhelmed me, swarming my face. Their tiny claws tore open my lips, plucked out my teeth and tongue. They punctured my eyes, pierced my ears.
I fell to the water and prayed the mother would find me soon and end all of it, all the pain.
x PLM
