Here is the horror tale:THE GROWLING

The Growling
“Stop it! Stop it, for Christ’s sake! You’re killing him!”
The voice was distant, a dream within the nightmare, fogged by fury and the need to
get even, to set things straight; rage fuelling the repeated pummeling punches; blunting
the pain in the knuckles as they parted lips, mashing them against teeth, the sickening
crackle of a nose disintegrating under the onslaught. The gurgle of warm blood in the
back of the throat.
Retribution is a cold beast, but Cory Anderson was warmed by it, juiced up on it,
getting positively high on it and all the time his heart pounding, pounding, pounding; in
beat with the beating he willfully doled out.
Hands upon him now, small hands, hands with nails that used to rake him in the
throes of desire; Jennifer Spencer loved to do it, hell, he loved her to do it, loved her
leaving her mark on him.
A sign of her love.
But no love now. No love for quite a while, in fact. Just lies and deceit and
distance.
And Malcolm.
Malcolm with his Ford Tigris and faux gold Rolex that rotated on his twig thin
wrist. Malcolm with his thin laugh and wide boy charm. Malcolm with his bloodied lips
and pulped nose.
“Get off of him, Cory!” Jennifer was back in his head, insistent, the tone in her
voice lilting and frantic, and the nails raking his neck.
Anderson dislodged her, knocking her aside as he climbed to his feet. Jennifer was
on her knees, mouse-blonde hair hanging, strands of it clinging to the sweat about her
neck.
God, even pissed off she looked great.
Malcolm lay sprawled across a coffee table, his face splattered. He waved an arm
feebly in the air and one of his loafers had fallen off. He was making thick mewling
sounds.
Jennifer scuttled over to him, her hands unsure of where to go. They settled on his
chest.
“Why did you have to do this?” she sobbed without taking her eyes from her lover.
Her little secret, now in the open and bleeding out on the green carpet.
“Why did you have to do that?” Anderson said, his sneer made even uglier by his
breathlessness. His eyes caressed her lithe frame in an attempt to avoid any possibility of
meeting hers.
“You just don’t get it do you, you fucking animal?” she spat. “You and me, we’re
done. And that was before this. Now GET OUT OF HERE!”
Her skin on her neck was mottled red fire. With some incongruity Anderson noted
that it was the same colour as when Jennifer came, hot and hungry and holding onto him
breathless and sated. That was back in the days when their lovemaking had actually been
informed by love. Anderson felt a tear in his chest, realisation that he would never again
bear witness to such an act. Never again feel her warmth lying against him, around him.
His remorse chased off the remnants of his anger. His desire for vengeance now
giving way to his desire for her. He opened his mouth to say something but nothing
wanted to step up to the mark. Nothing wanted to be shot down in cold blood. Instead he
turned and without looking back left Jennifer’s flat to the sound of sobs and ragged
breathing.
* * *
Threlfall House had fourteen floors; a stalagmite of shite brought from the brink of
demolition on more occasions than anyone could remember. The housing estate that
existed in its shadow was no better; tried, run down, the people who lived there pretty
much the same.Anderson loathed the place. The smell of stale piss and booze pervaded
the stairwells. And the lifts were something else. Floors eroded by years of drunks using
them as latrines, the top layer of linoleum a corroded ovoid, a mini piss-lake for all to
avoid.
But if Anderson was totally honest, it wasn’t this that kept him from using the lift. It
was something far more primordial, far more basic.
Confinement wasn’t a friend of Cory Anderson. The thought of those small cars and
the long drop had him shivering and heading straight for the stairwell. What were nine
floors amongst friends? Besides he’d have guilt and the sharp stinging in his knuckles to
keep him company on the way down.
He’d not meant to lose it like that. He just wanted to know why Jennifer had traded
him in for a no-mark like Malcolm. And then the little shite had answered the door, the
grin on his face, Jennifer’s lipstick on his neck, pushing all the wrong buttons and setting
the green eyed beast loose. It had started with a shove and then went from there.
Anderson’s muse unleashed in the tiny flat in a giant turd of a building.
Anderson began his descent, his footfalls amplified by the concrete space about
him. He kept his hands in free space, avoiding the stair rail. His hands hurt enough
without coming across a hypodermic strategically placed to catch an unsuspecting police
officer or Community Nurse.
Junkies and their sense of humour.
He made the seventh floor before he heard it. It was loud enough - close enough - to
make him stop in mid stride.
Growling.
His first thought was that a dog was loose in the stairway. There were plenty of
them in the building after all; their owners mostly drug dealers or games machine junkies.
He tried to place it. Was it above or below? He waited; his breath on hold for a while.
It came again, from the landing below, thick and gruttal. And no matter how many
times Anderson told himself the contrary, he knew now that it was definitely not a dog.
He knew this for many reasons, but the main clue making him sure enough to start
backing up the stairs, was the click clicking sound accompanying the growls; the sound
of big claws tapping against concrete.
Someone had once said that we fear the unknown more than anything else in the
world; and it was this adage that had Anderson going against his instinct to get the hell
moving and encouraging him to peer over the railings, to make known the unknown, to
quell the gnawing fear in his belly.
Slowly he inched over the banister, the vertical corridor of railings coming into
view and dropping out below in a dizzying sense of height. He leaned over a little more,
trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was on the next landing, and began to question his
initial trepidation. He was about to call time on his misplaced anxiety when he saw it.
And it saw him.
Anderson pulled sharply away from the railing, his back slamming against the
pistachio coloured wall behind him. He wished that the concrete barrier could absorb
him in some way, make him invisible to the thing he’d seen on the floor below. The thing
that was slowly making its way towards him.
It had been a brief glimpse, but the image was branded upon his brain, seared there
as though he’d inadvertently stared at the mid-summer sun. Red eyes, it had red eyes and
they bore into him, marked him far deeper than the nails of his ex-lover ever could. And
teeth, oh God it had teeth, lots of them that cluttered its maw so much so that the mouth
had been forced into a razor sharp grin.
Anderson noted the door leading to the seventh floor flats. It was made of wood and
glass and had no chance of stopping the thing coming to introduce him to those terrible
teeth.
But through the glass he saw something else: the steel doors of the lift were open;
wide and inviting. And although Anderson never thought the day would come when he’d
welcome such a thing, he found himself weeping with joy. He edged towards the
stairwell’s exit, eager to get inside the lift before the creature could get anywhere near
him. The door to the exit opened smoothly for the first few inches, then the squeal of
neglected hinges carved its name in the air.
“Shit!”
An explosion of movement now; heavy footfalls from below, the hideous growling
a soundtrack to the event as the creature pounded up the steps. Anderson moved too,
throwing open the door and launching himself towards the lift, his feet slipping
haphazardly on the greasy linoleum.
But he was a few feet away when, to his total horror, the doors began to close.
* * *
He threw himself at the doors, his arm stuck out in front of him in an attempt to
activate the opening mechanism. He got lucky, his hand made it through and the sensors
picked it up. The doors slid lazily open with the incongruous, bright chime of a bell.
Just as Anderson bundled his body into the car, the doors to the stairwell were
yanked open, the noise loud as the frame came with it and the remains were cast aside
with the din of splintering wood and shattering glass.
The growling was louder now, filling the landing, filling Anderson’s world. The
reek of piss was overwhelmed by another stench, the stench of something he couldn’t
immediately place until it was so powerful it was difficult to suppress.
The stink of dead meat.
Not the clinical butcher’s shop stink, but that of road kill, or something trapped
under a floorboard or behind a skirting board.
In his frenzy, Anderson flailed at the buttons on the wall. The lift doors began to
close just as Anderson’s new buddy came into view, the eyes - ruby red and devoid of
empathy – scanning his, a streak of viscous saliva swinging from its lower jaw almost
hypnotising the trapped man with its pendulous motion.
The doors dragged themselves together as the creature launched at them. The lift
began its descent as the beast’s bulk struck the outer doors, the impact bowing them
inward and shaking the car violently. Anderson cried out as he was dumped on his ass as
the car shimmied. The lift shaft creaked and groaned but the car was moving, leaving the
thing battering the external doors on the seventh floor landing.
“Guess again, you sonofabitch,” he said, his voice frayed with fear and relief. As
the car slid down the shaft, Anderson climbed to his feet, his mind trying to shrug off the
sluggishness his fear had saddled him with. Rational thought needed to re-assert itself and
fast.
He pulled out his mobile, his intention to notify the cops, to tell Jennifer and that
sorry fuck Malcolm to stay put. His brain was just registering that there wasn’t any signal
when a huge, distant thud occurred overhead. There was the distinct din of metal being
bent and twisted and then something clattering down the lift shaft, bouncing against the
sides with a series of dull echoes until it smashed into the roof of the car.
Again the whole lift bucked and Anderson was knocked into the doors, cracking his
forehead a good one as he went, and filling his head with bright shiny lights. The car
came to a shuddering halt as fell to his knees, his hands clutching his brow.
Then, the lights went out.
* * *
Darkness, complete and suffocating.
Anderson tried to stem the tide of horror threatening to wash over him and drag him
down into madness. The car remained stationary; the steady creaks from outside adding
to the ominous sense of threat.
He activated his mobile phone, the light from the tiny screen seemingly huge in the
pervading blackness about him. He checked his signal again, his heart scudding against
his sternum before falling into the pit of his stomach when he saw the “No Service”
warning on the screen.
Another squeal, another creak brought him into focus. The car jolted, skidding
down the walls of the lift shaft for a few seconds before grinding to a halt. Anderson
cried out in surprise and terror.
How the tables have turned, his mind teased. And it was wearing Jennifer’s voice
just to drive the point home. Who’s scared now, Cory? Who’s at the mercy of something
that has no care for the fear of others? How does it feel? How does it taste?
He tried to shut her out. But that would mean facing something else, right? Facing
his true fear: the confined space.
The darkness.
It brought back memories, memories as dark as the ebony piss perfumed cloak
wrapped about now. Hiding from Tommy, his psychotic brother, a perverse game of hide
and seek that always ended the same: a beating for being so shit; then confinement,
thrown in the cupboard under the stairs, a real life Harry Potter but wearing bruises rather
than a cloud of magic.
Even though Tommy was now kept somewhere with lots of doctors and nurses
keeping him a splendid isolation, courtesy of heavy doses of Olanzepine and dull brown
leather straps with bright silver buckles, Cory Anderson wore his brother’s legacy like an
ill fitting suit. Usually a quiet soul, nagging from a distance, but sometimes, times like
these for example, coming to the front of the stage and bringing the whole wretched
house down; the phantom bringing about destruction in a wreath of flame.
A huge crash on the roof of the car sent the phone tumbling from Anderson’s grasp.
The small screen splashed its watery light to the ceiling, and Anderson followed its beam
instinctively, his braised hands clamped across his mouth; not in an attempt to stifle his
scream but to stop a huge wave of vomit ejecting from his mouth. “Fear is nature’s
purge” Tommy had once said before beating Cory senseless with their mother’s old
broom.Now the purging was back and wanting to let off steam. He swallowed hard, the
acrid vomit burning his throat on its return journey. And all the time Anderson watched
the roof of the car, waiting for something terrible to happen.
His fear wanted to morph so badly into anger. Some of the hot stuff he’d dished out
to Malcolm not fifteen minutes ago as Jennifer begged him to stop. But impotence had
moved in, his fear consuming as the thing overhead began to pace, heavy foot falls
making the car tremble in a steady, sullen rhythm.
“Oh God, oh God,” he whispered behind the palm clasped to his mouth. “What the
hell is it?”
But he wasn’t really concerned about what it was; he was more concerned about
what it could do. What it would do. Part of him became convinced that there was no way
on this God-given-Earth the thing would be able to get into the car.
Get to him.
But then Anderson’s rational mind suggested that if it could smash its way into a lift
shaft and jump three floors onto the roof of the car, then it would be near enough able to
do what the fuck it wanted. And what it wanted now was to torment and tease and show
that it called the shots. It wanted its prey to know that it was cornered, and although he’d
fought against his darkest fear and entered the lift, Anderson was yet to know what fear
truly was; what it could truly do.
The power save mode kicked in, throwing the lift into total darkness.
“Jesus H Christ!”
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and the sounds of pacing
overheard came to a sudden halt. And then the growling returned, deep and coarse and
powerful.
Anderson scrabbled around for his phone, trying bring back the light. “Are you
nuts?” his mind sang. “You really want to see what’s about to tear you apart?”
From far away, he made the decision, that yes, perhaps, after all of these years the
dark could become a friend. He would make his peace with it. Just for this one day, the
last day of his life.
The roof overhead groaned as a huge force struck it, and the lift was suddenly full
of light, Anderson covering his eyes from the brilliance as the fluorescents came back
online. Through his blurred vision he could see a portion of the roof had been hit with
such might it sagged inwards. Another blow opened the dent like a lanced blister.
Anderson could only stare as the big gnarled hand came through the gap, probing,
searching for the edges. Twisted fingers - thick as rope and blending seamlessly into
wicked, wicked talons - curled around the ragged hole they had carved and then yanked
backwards, peeling away a section of roof as though it were a swatch of fabric.
Below Anderson watched, his eyes so wide that to any onlooker they appeared
about to leave their sockets, his fear morphing into terror, not the mind numbing kind, but
the kind that is bright and final. Anderson opened his mouth and gasped, and it came as a
reed-thin sound.
And when the growling began, filling the car with its savage music, Cory Anderson
added to the lift’s aroma by pissing his pants.
* * *
Sitting in a cooling pool of his own urine, Anderson watching the thing as it
emerged through the makeshift opening. First came those hands, fingers hooked and
eager, followed by a long slim wrist, the skin smudged with whites and purples, the veins
knotted and so close to the surface Anderson could see the blue-green blood pumping
through them. Saliva dropped into the car from the dark, ragged hole above in viscous
strings, a terrible rain that purged nothing.
Then came the face.
And those eyes.
Up close Anderson was mesmerized by them, twin orbs of fire locking onto him,
piercing him, branding his very soul with their intensity. The rest of the creature’s face
was no less incredible: a high brow, thick black hair matted and plastered to its skull, and
the side of its head so the pointed ears jutted from the mane like twin shark fins cutting
through the surf.
Then it was in the lift, landing with a heavy thump and bringing with it the putrid
reek of decaying meat; forcing Anderson’s gut to unload its contents again, and there was
no stopping it this time, his puke slapping down his chest and into his lap, where it made
its acquaintance with his piss soaked pants.
The thing reached down and took hold of Anderson by the throat, lifting his dead
weight as though it were nothing at all. Instinctively, Anderson’s hands went for the wrist
attached to the vice now crushing his larynx. The world turned to fog as his oxygen
supply was severed, but in the mist of his fading consciousness, he realised that the hands
he’d clamped about the beasts wrist were making contact with cold, hard metal. Before
he could make sense of it the creature was savaging him, teeth making contact with the
flesh of his face, ruining it, severing lips and ears and the nose, chewing on the skull as
though engaged in a brutal, bloody kiss.
Then powerful jaws clamped down and cracked open the skull, and Cory Anderson
ceased to exist. The beast sucked out his brain and swallowed it in two bites; releasing
the mutilated corpse almost immediately and leaving it to crash to the bloodied floor.
For a short time the thing watched Anderson’s remains, its eyes unblinking, and as
red as the blood splashed across its misshapen face. Then it was moving again, its long
scrawny arms reaching up to the ceiling and hooking onto its crude exit in the roof.
And as the beast reached up and hoisted itself out of the car, a small object slipped
down the creature’s wrist, an object made from cheap steel and plated with yellow paint.
A fake Rolex watch.
END