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Chapter Eight

He reached up and took my hand. His face still concealed by shadow. Whenever he reached out, it was like he was reaching out of the darkness itself.

"Are you scared?"

His fingers were cold. I felt them all the way down to my bones (again, I think -- my feelings are just thoughts now in this... place).

"No."

And it was the truth. I had the feeling that my heart was racing. I had the feeling that I could piss myself at any moment. But I also had the feeling that I needed to smash through any wall that stood in my way. I needed to press forth. I was overwhelmed by the notion that I didn't have anything else to worry about. Maybe ever again...

Whatever tiny bit of sanity I had left went out the window when my dead baby brother clasped my hand and led me forward.

His face remained covered in shadow whenever I saw it. Only his face.

Our steps begin to slow. My feet are dragging, like they're sinking into mud. I look and wish they were. Instead, I'm lowering ever so subtly deeper into the blood stains that covered Aunt Hay Hay's hall the day everything went to Hell. To think of things going to Hell at that age when it first happened... it wasn't a thought I had at the time. I just referred to it as the Bad Day. Sorry for just telling you this now, it's been a busy few days.

I trudge through the blood. Aunt Hay Hay's room is just a few feet away. The door ever so slightly ajar. I've sunk down low enough that the puddles of blood are halfway up to my shins. One rainy day, Timmy and I went outside without telling are mom. We slid around a bunch, but there was a hole in the ground. Probably gophers is what I remember my dad saying. But that ground ate up Timmy's ankle and twisted it hard. When I went to help him, it seemed like his whole leg had fallen in. The hole wasn't that deep, his legs were just that small.

That's how I feel now.

What consequences will I face? I'm not in a world my own. I'm either dead or somewhere between life and death. My kid brother — who disappeared on the grisliest day of my life more than two decades ago — stands beside me, leading me down a hall of blood that I'm sinking down into.

And yet... I fear nothing.

But the boy... "Timmy"... if he really was my brother, I'm not so sure he feels the same way. He's slowed down to the point where he's just standing behind me, watching as I press on.

"You coming?"

Timmy remains still. I stop moving myself. And I can feel myself sink.

"Are you coming?"

A stream of liquid trickles out from his pants. Puddles around his ankle. He's paralyzed with fear. Pissing himself. Does this... does he process fear? Is this thing posing as Timmy afraid? Or is it really him? And if it is Timmy... was that really my Aunt Hay Hay that melted into a mess of blood earlier?

"You don't have to be afraid. Take my hand. I'll go in there worth you."

I hold my hand out to him. I hear a sniffle. It sounds like Timmy, as though he was far away, in a cave somewhere, despite standing just a few feet behind me.

He speaks with a tone so soft it feels like the wind, "Please, don't make me go."

"Why not? What's wrong?"

He raises his hand and points, the same jagged way that Aunt Hay Hay did.

He points it at the doorway where there now stands a figure. A tall, skinny man. His body shrouded in darkness, yet the outer edges of his body are just barely illuminated. A living silhouette giving way to crimson skin. It's fingers are long and feel like they could reach out and touch me without it taking a step.

This Red Beast...  it's face was shrouded in the same darkness as Timmy's.   Until it opened it's eyes.  Like little pebbles of lava, resting in the beast's sockets.   Burning crimson.   Smoke emanates from the sides of its eyelids.   The eyes look like they could melt the rest of the beast's head, yet they sit there, doing nothing but what feels like burning a hole in me.   It's a hellacious disturbing creature.  It's skin looks like sweat covered wax, pulsating as though snakes are slithering up and down its veins.  It's so unreal I almost feel as though I'm dreaming even harder than I felt like I was before.

I admit that I'm finally feeling tinges of fear.  It's not the Red Beast that scares me.  What scares me is how much it terrifies Timmy.  It's the one bit of emotion that I've seen in this world. 

It speaks, with a rattle that rocks me to my core.  It's both deep and screechy all at once.  Like boulders rolling down a mountain side and a rake scraping against grave all at the same time.  Like I was listening in to Hell itself.  It speaks with long, drawn out pauses, as though it's breathing, despite the lack of air.

"He's mine."

Timmy screamed.

"No!"

Timmy clutched my leg. His fingers dig into my legs. Then I saw that, defying all physical space and time, his fingers were in my leg.  Like pushing your hand into mud and making a fist.  I didn't feel a thing.

Two doors on either side of the hall seamlessly appeared between us and the Red Beast, as though the hall had been stretched.   Another of this world's instant manipulations.

From out of the door to my left steps a man in a flannel and blue jeans.  Blood all down his face, making his already red shirt into a dark maroon.  I recognize that blood soaked garment before I recognize the face -- it's Bill.   Looking exactly as he did the last time I saw him save for the whole "lying dead on a gurney" part.  

Aunt Hay Hay steps out of the door on my right.  Her eyes are open, but her whites are pitch black.  And her pupils are crimson.  

Bill cries out with thunder.

"He's mine!"

Aunt Hay Hay unleashes a primal scream.

"He's mine!"

The Red Beast unfurls his hands in a childish, gimme gimme, manner.   The same way Timmy would do to me when I climbed up the kitchen stool and snuck cookies out of the top shelf of the cabinet.  

"MINE."

Timmy cried out again. 

The creatures advance.  Arms outstretched.  All of them reaching for me.  For Timmy.  

Aunt Hay Hay's once humanoid hand has now turned into a sharp claw of almost blade-like fingers.   The finite tips of which are now aimed at my eyes.

I fight every instinct to look away.  Every reflex to shut my eyes.  

I already felt like I may be dead.  I have no clue what horror awaits me past this moment.  

And then,  as the claws were mere inches away from contact... 

I found out...