––––––––
Bryan stood in complete darkness. The lights had flickered several times before going out completely. The candle sitting on the floor by the broken altar had burned out several minutes earlier, leaving the entire church unlit. Even the candles that had been in the library must have gone out, as no light escaped from the broken wall.
“Everyone relax – the generator just ran out of gas,” Ben said.
Katie’s flashlight switched on, its beam lighting the floor in front of her. Travis and Joey also turned theirs on, but weren’t intelligent enough to do so without pointing them in their own faces first. They both swore as they jerked their heads back and pointed the flashlights to the floor.
“Didn’t you completely fill it with gas before we came inside?” Joey asked.
“Yeah, I put everything we had into it. The meter said it was full,” Ben said with a defensive tone.
“Piece of shit must be bad then. It’s supposed to be able to run for twenty-four hours straight,” Travis said. “I’m going to tear that salesman a new asshole tomorrow.”
“If the generator is busted, and we can’t power our gear, what are we going to do?” Ben asked. He looked at his watch and frowned. “It’s only two A.M.”
“Grab the hard drives and memory cards and leave the rest. We’ll get it in the morning,” Joey said. “The bidding war on our—”
Several thumps resonated through the church. No one moved.
“Please tell me you guys heard that this time,” Bryan said. He didn’t like being in the dark without a flashlight, it made him feel powerless and exposed.
“I heard it, but what the hell was it?” Travis asked. He shined his flashlight toward the center of the church, slowly moving the beam of light around the benches.
Katie and Joey did the same, trying to find the source of the sound. Bryan’s eyes followed Katie’s light, focusing in on the center.
The awful, wet dragging sound followed several thuds as it had before.
“That’s exactly what I heard earlier,” Bryan whispered. He instinctively hunched down, bending at the knees, his body preparing to flee at the sight of anything dangerous.
The stump that had been the base of the altar moved. It slid toward the group several inches as if pushed by something of great strength. Bryan knew that the incredibly strong Kyle probably couldn’t slide it across the floor like that. He had trouble just rolling it.
Katie angled her flashlight at the stump, its powerful bulb illuminating it and a few feet surrounding it.
Silence.
“Is it the black thing from the other room?” Travis asked after several tense moments. A slight tremble touched his voice as he spoke.
The stump slid again – a full foot this time.
Ben stood from his chair and moved toward the door. “I think we should get out of here.” He didn’t try to hide the fear that had overcome his face.
More thuds, followed by the squishy, dragging noise.
Bryan saw something move behind the stump, partially visible as it slid across the floor. The shadows were too deep, and their lights were too dim, for him to see what it was.
“Katie,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Come here and shine your light from my right side. I think I can see something.”
Whatever it was stopped moving when he spoke. He looked at Katie and raised a finger to his lips, warning her to be quiet as she walked to him. Looking back at the stump, he squinted through the darkness, trying to see what was hidden behind it.
Katie tiptoed past him and pointed her flashlight directly on the spot where he’d seen movement. Long, pale and jointed legs squirmed behind the stump and away from the light, the thumping sounds of their movement reverberating through the church yet again. Bryan’s eyes felt like they were about to pop from their sockets.
“What the fuck did I just see?” he asked himself out loud.
The legs looked like those of a grasshopper, angling up and away from the body before bending at a joint and running to the ground. They were thick, almost translucent, and Bryan saw at least a dozen of them.
“What?” Kyle asked. “I can’t see anything.”
“I don’t know. I only saw a piece of it, and I don’t want to see anymore,” Bryan said, his eyes glued to the stump. He began sidestepping toward the main door of the church. “I think we need to get out of here right now.” His legs trembled as he went and he struggled to contain the fear that built up inside of him.
It climbed onto the stump. Most of it anyway, its back half stretched down to the floor, leaving its full length unknown.
Joey screamed like a small child when their flashlights fell upon its body. Dozens of horrible legs stretched from its fleshy torso, with round, hooked pads for feet clinging to the stump. It had no discernible head, eyes, or mouth that Bryan could see.
It looks like a blob with legs, Bryan thought.
When the lights fell upon its pale skin, it lifted the front of its body off the stump, its front legs rearing in the air, and exposed its underbelly. A line ran down the center, slightly split with semi-clear liquid oozing from it. Dribbles of it plopped onto the top of the stump, wisps of smoking rising from where they landed.
Ben dry heaved behind his workstation, doubling over at the waist, his hand resting against the table. “What is it?” he cried, his whining hitting an even higher pitch.
The line running down the creature’s underside split wide open at the sound of his voice. Hundreds of teeth ran down each side of its elongated mouth, a shrill hiss escaping as it reared even further back.
The awful stench they’d dealt with all night came at them even stronger, making Bryan and Katie wretch as it overtook them.
“Christ save us,” Travis said. He turned and sprinted from the church, his short legs pistoning faster than Bryan would have thought possible.
Its hiss trailing off, the creature flopped back onto the stump and clambered over it after Travis.
“Run!” Katie yelled. She nearly knocked Bryan over as she sprinted past him, racing toward the front door. “I don’t think we want to be trapped in here with that thing!”
Bryan regained his balance and shoved Kyle at the door, hoping to jumpstart his friend’s giant frame. They crossed the distance in six large steps, trailing behind Katie. Ben and Joey ran behind them, yelling incoherently as they went.
They ran into each other as they stepped sideways through the broken door. Bryan and Kyle turned back to the church as Joey squeezed through the opening, grabbing at the large wooden door, trying to pull it closed before the worm monster could get through.
Katie shined her light at their backs, giving them enough to see the creature less than ten feet away. Its legs scampered in a wavelike pattern, flowing from front to back, dragging its thick body along the ground.
Bryan held the door toward the bottom, Kyle above him, frantically pulling at it in timed jerks. It slid a few inches every time, cutting off their view of it. The watery dragging sound of its body came through the slimming crack.
With one final heave they closed the door all but two inches. The thing crashed against it less than a second later, slamming it the rest of the way just as they pulled their fingers clear.
Bryan fell backward, landing on his ass. He scampered to his feet, backing away from the church, his breathing short and ragged. Bumping into Kyle, he turned and faced his friend, having trouble seeing his face in the darkness.
“It had no eyes. Dude, it had no fucking eyes!” Kyle said. He kept repeating himself, over and over, as if trying to rationalize what he’d seen.
“We need to get the hell out of here. Who knows how long that door is going to hold – one of the hinges is already broken,” Bryan said. He tried to keep his mind from the thing that continued to slam against the door, afraid that his sanity would further erode if he thought about it.
“Look at the church,” Katie said quietly from behind him.
“Screw the church, we’re out of here,” Bryan said without turning around. He took a step away from the building, intent on getting in his car and fleeing as fast as the gravel roads would allow.
The generator was gone. Not broken or shut off, but physically gone. It hadn’t run out of gas – it had disappeared entirely.
“I think one of those things took the generator,” Bryan said, pointing to the spot where it had been. No one reacted to him, but kept looking in other directions.
Katie’s hand grabbed his elbow, her fingers digging in. “Bryan, look at the church.”
He spun around, tearing his arm from her hand. “We don’t have time for−”
The church was different. The changes were small, but stuck out at him as he followed the beam of her flashlight over its surface. The coloring of the stones seemed altered, more vibrant. Cracks in the paint on the doors were smaller. The entire structure seemed less dilapidated.
“That ain’t the half of it,” Travis said from behind them.
Bryan and Katie turned around, peeling their eyes from the changed building. Travis and Joey were shining their flashlights along the ground in front of them, sweeping them in wide arcs.
The crevice was gone. Their cars were missing.
“What... where...” Ben said, his voice trailing off. He held his head in both hands, slowly shaking it back and forth. “I don’t...”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Bryan silently counted to three and reopened them, hoping he’d only imagined everything. The area before them was empty with only dry, packed dirt remaining. Katie moved her light around them in a semicircle, finding nothing but dead trees.
The forest had changed too; the trees seemed impossibly tall and thin. Very little underbrush sat on the ground, leaving the dirt bare and dusty. It felt like they were on a long dead planet, its life extinguished ages ago.
The door behind them slammed against its frame again, making everyone jump.
“Where are our cars? Where is the giant goddamn hole in the earth?” Bryan asked. “What is with the woods?”
Katie titled her head back, looking toward the canopy of trees above them. She pointed her light up, inspecting their utter lack of foliage.
“There aren’t any stars,” she said.
“What?” Bryan asked, following her gaze. She was right – not a single star appeared in the sky. The tree branches above them were thin and didn’t obstruct their view of the sky, but only a deep black appeared beyond them.
A loud crash came from the door as it weakened under the creature’s frenzied attack.
“We need to move,” Kyle said. He grabbed Bryan and Katie by the shoulders and pulled them away from the church.
“Where are we going to go? Where are we?” Joey asked. His voice had become high and whiny again.
“Anywhere but here – that door isn’t going to hold much longer.” Kyle took long strides away from the church, using his phone as a light. In the midst of the insanity they found themselves in, Kyle’s resolve strengthened, and he began to take charge of the situation. Bryan was glad to have his friend with him in that moment, keeping him moving forward.
The forest they walked through wasn’t thick, but they continually stumbled as they tried to make their way over fallen trees and large rocks in the dark. Bryan followed Kyle, trying to stay close to him, looking around in every direction for a sign of their cars. Had he been confused about where they parked? Where was the bridge and the massive crevice it crossed?
A small branch snapped to their left, startling Bryan and nearly sending him head first over a thick tree that he was in the process of climbing over. He stopped in place, straddling the trunk, and snapped his head in the direction of the sound, trying to quiet his breathing.
“Kyle,” Bryan whispered. “Shine your light over there.” As he lit up a group of trees thirty feet to the left, something crashed through the woods, fleeing the area. Bryan’s mouth fell open as he caught a glimpse of it as it streaked through the forest.
Its skin was pale, like the worm creature that had chased them from the church, but it was significantly larger and faster. Its body had been hidden behind the group of trees, but Bryan had seen several appendages hanging from the side of the unseen torso. The biggest, sitting higher than the rest, had a large, thick pincher snapping open and closed.
Bryan rolled off the log, scrambled to his feet, and broke into a full run, pushing at Kyle’s back to get him moving. “Run!”
“What was it?” Kyle asked over his shoulder as he plowed through a dead bush.
“Just run!” Bryan huffed heavily as he followed behind Kyle, his eyes twitching as twigs snapped into his face. He focused on his movements, trying to keep his mind from the lobster like pincher. Though he could hear the rest of the group struggling to keep up, he didn’t dare slow down.
They trampled through the woods, trying desperately to escape whatever horror had been close by. The ground angled down, their pace slowing as they tried to descend the rock covered slope. It grew very steep after only a few steps and their progress ground to a halt. Bryan heard a cry from only a few feet behind him, before something crashed into his legs, sending him tumbling the rest of the way down the hill.
Through the darkness he fell, rolling over rough ground and jagged rocks. His mouth connected with a large tree branch, his teeth biting into his tongue as he continued to slide. Sharp-edged stones, and thorns from long dead bushes, bit at the exposed skin on his arms and face, leaving shallow cuts in their wake. Finally, he reached the bottom of the hill, landing on level earth with a thud, his shoulder breaking his fall.
He lay on his back, blood seeping from dozens of small cuts, his opened eyes seeing nothing but blackness before them.