T.R. Lansing (darkertides) wrote in horror_story, @ 2012-10-31 10:43:00 |
|
|||
“Eden?”
No answer. It was fast becoming downright eerie. How far did the woman have to go to get cell phone reception? Rob frowned at the long, twisting drive. It was not unlike the driveway at the York estate home, however this one hadn’t seen a groundskeeper in some time. There were weeds everywhere. He picked his way gingerly through the brambles, trying to stay on the walking path. There was a house up ahead. Dilapidated, possibly condemned, but it was possible that there was a landline, and probable that Eden had chosen it for a destination, as well. “Eden! Ms. Williams?!”
Useless. Either she couldn’t hear him, or she didn’t want to answer. Could be either, really, given the spat they’d had when all four of the rental car’s tires had blown simultaneously. As if that could possibly be his fault. He scowled into the impending dusk and practically marched up to the old house. His foot hesitated slightly before falling down on an obviously decaying porch step, but the wood held. There was an unsettling creak, but nothing caved in under his weight, so Rob allowed himself to ascend to the wraparound porch.
From close up the entire structure looked as though it were somehow tilted. All kinds of things could be dwelling in a place like this. Hantavirus, for one. Untold amounts of vermin. Hopefully, an irate personal assistant. Jaw set in a tense, determined way, Rob tugged his shirtsleeve down so that he could ring the bell without actually touching it. When there was no answer, he used a similar trick to try the door.
It wasn’t locked.
---
Inside the house, Konstantin lounged in a dusty chair in a dusty room in a dusty house. He was thankful not to have allergies. He’d been hanging out in the house for some time now. No electricity meant no charging his phone. His battery was running low but he hadn’t taken it from his pocket in some time so that didn’t actually matter too terribly much. He hadn’t brought anything to entertain himself, thinking that entertainment was going to be provided. Hopefully, it was on it’s way. Exploring around the house had crossed his mind, but that required more effort than he really wanted to put in. His energy was better served for when the entertainment arrived.
He startled when the door opened but chastised himself. He was expecting the door to open, so why would it scare him. He blamed the setting. The house was as creepy as fuck. Dust and old furniture and cobwebs. No one around. And a few broken mirrors just for effect. Such a stupid place to meet up. He had had to Google Map the damn address to find the place the first time. But people did stupid things in October in the name of getting drunk and wearing idiotic costumes, usually at the same time. And scaring other people and getting laid. Some of this was hopefully going to happen at this fucked up house. He wasn’t exactly sure which part, but he was game.
He looked up when the door opened. “It about damn fuck time.”
---
Everything about the scenario seemed expressly designed to take Rob aback. The dust, the presence of an unfairly tall other man, said man’s accent... not to mention the attitude that he was somehow expected, and that he might be late. Having never been late for anything in his life, Rob initially took offense at the tone more than anything else. He’d have to process the other details later. Large, foreign men were not allowed to sit back in filthy armchairs and chastise T. Robert York for tardiness. If there wasn’t a law against such a thing already, he’d lobby for one.
“Excuse me?” His voice took on a dangerous cadence. Incredulity mixed with a distinct haughtiness. Years of entitlement had bred that tone. “What did you just say?”
---
Konstantin rolled his eyes. That tone. He was far too used to hearing that tone from Americans. All through college, there were plenty that looked down on him for his accent. Obviously he was there to steal their spot in the top school and their jobs going into the future. And their women. Or men. Depending on his mood. That last one was true. But he was hoping not to have to steal anyone’s job. Work was dull. There were better ways.
A sound from somewhere upstairs or down the hall caught his attention for a moment, but he couldn’t place it and he let it go. The creepy ass house had been making all kinds of sounds. It was either rabid animals that had broken in or something nasty that wanted to scare them. Either way, he was close enough to do the door to get the hell out if he had to. He just prayed it wasn’t mice. Little fuckers.
He gave the man a slow once over. Stuffy and uptight. Not much else obviously there to see. Huh. Not what he would have picked for himself. Anything too kinky would probably break him. And the way he was looking around, nothing kinky was on his mind. Well that was fine. Entertainment came in many forms. He was open to all possibilities.
“You get here.” He looked at his watch, “I be wait, you get here now. About time you do it.” He gestured to the empty room, “No other come. It be you. Well?”
---
“I don’t know who you’re expecting,” Rob informed him, allowing for the fact that the man might actually legitimately be expecting someone, and not just a lunatic of some sort. “But I didn’t intend to come here at all. I’m looking for my assistant. She’s supposed to be calling the rental car company. There... was a mishap.”
A mishap involving all four of their tires and what had seemed to be a mislaid spike strip in the middle of the road. The local authorities were going to hear quite a lot about that. Rob doubted that there were all that many car chases in this town, or crime in general... what was there worth stealing, really? But that didn’t justify leaving dangerous police equipment out in the public. Someone could have gotten seriously hurt. Luckily, Rob didn’t drive at high speeds. If Eden had been driving, they’d have surely been killed instantly. He’d have to remind her of that, once he found her, to prevent her from asking to drive in the future.
“She’s a woman about this tall,” he said, lifting his hand to Eden height with practiced ease, as though he’d described her in the past, many times. “Thin, somewhat attractive, dark-skinned, impractical shoes with a three-inch heel, ankle strap and open toe.”
Not particularly caring for the way the man was looking at him (it reminded him of when he arrived to casual meetings overdressed), Rob shifted, somehow managing to straighten even more. Perhaps by force of will alone, he could look like he was well over six feet tall, himself. “Is this your -” hovel - “home? I’ve need of a working phone.”
---
Konstantin laughed. Oh that’s who he was. He wasn’t planning to be entertainment. But he would be. In spades. He stood up slowly. He’d noticed the stranger trying to add inches, but he wouldn’t let him get away with that. He was taller and he would know it. “I see she.” The smile on his lips was miles away from anything friendly or even pleasant.
He took a few steps towards the man, “She be here.” He glanced over his shoulder again at the noise. Damn animals or whatever. “Pretty girl, I see her. I wait for entertain, she come. Phone, nyet. Not much entertain also. They have you come also? You entertain?” He paused a moment, as if to think.
“She have shoe you say. I think they on her feet now. Maybe.” He looked at his watch again. “I wait long time for you. Not my home, I have need to be this place so I be here. You... you need to be this place also. Nyet on phone you need. It matter not much, you not need it.” He took a step to the side, “You sit? Not much comfort, better than bench in тюрьма, maybe.”
---
Rob did know that the man was taller. It was a fact that vexed him. He was shorter than both of his brothers, even the youngest. 5’10” wasn’t a height to be ashamed of, but when his mother opted to wear heels, she matched him, so Rob had lifts put in his shoes to make him 6’, and had impeccable posture. That way, when he stood next to his 6’2” brothers, he wouldn’t be dwarfed. Standing, this man looked taller than either Stephen or Joseph. That alone was enough to make Rob nervous. That the man was also oozing confidence and a casual aggression didn’t help. The cruel smile, the easy laugh... Rob knew that type, and had to struggle to keep his disdain in check, as well as his nerves. Funny, that the two couldn’t be mutually exclusive. He shook his head. There was no way he was going to sit on the furniture here. Mites, bedbugs... hell, Hantavirus still wasn’t ruled out.
“No, thank you,” he said in clipping each of his words neatly, willing to chalk up the remaining confusion to the man’s being foreign and not understanding the language. Rob had no patience for language barriers. He also had no Russian, however. Some French, less Spanish, and a small amount of Japanese. No slavic languages at all. They weren’t useful to him, as he didn’t really have any Russian business contacts. “You weren’t waiting for me. You’re waiting for someone else. The woman you saw, where did she go? Is she still in the house?”
Gingerly, he stepped further into the entryway, and began to look around for a likely path Eden would have taken. It was possible that she’d also asked for a landline, gotten a similarly cryptic and nonsensical answer, and had went in search of one, herself. He frowned, looking away from the overly elongated Russian and towards what was likely the kitchen. “You can go back to whatever it was you were doing. I’ll find my assistant, and we’ll be out of your way.”
The way the man kept mentioning entertainment suggested that there was something planned. Didn’t raves happen out in the middle of nowhere like this? Is that what he’d stumbled into; some kind of drug party? Oh, hell, that would be just his luck. He’d have to leave before people started doing... whatever it was they did at those. Acid. Ecstasy. Orgies. The last thing he wanted to do was get arrested with a cavalcade of deviants.
---
The looks the other man was giving were really starting to piss Konstantin off. He understood that he didn’t like the place or him, he didn’t need to keep reminding him. Being looked down on set him off like very few other things did. It wasn’t that he couldn’t control himself, it was that he didn’t want to when he was presented with someone that dared to give him a look of such disapproval and disgust. Ever since he arrived in this country, he’d been given looks like that. Many people heard the accent and assumed a lot of things about him. Most didn’t bother to find out if those things were true or not. This guy was one of those. He could tell, he had that written all over him. He clenched his fists, but being punched was much too good for this guy. He deserved what was coming to him. He was one of the few that really did deserve it.
“I wait.” Konstantin paced a little, always keeping his eyes on the stranger. “I wait for entertain. Nyet, nyet. She not good at this. All done. You.... I see you more badder. So bad for you. Maybe you be less badder, you be okay.” He frowned suddenly. “I tell you sit. You sit! You be good.” He stepped closer to him, invading more of his personal space than he knew the man would be comfortable with-- more than anyone would be comfortable with. He gave him a short shove towards the chair, not enough to knock him down unless he was extremely weak, but enough to know that he was serious when he told him to sit. His eyes never left him for a second.
“She that be here, not here no more.” He shrugged a little, glancing back towards the sounds in the other rooms. He looked back at the man, adding matter-of-factly, “Ваш друг мертв. Они ели ее.” He shuddered, subconsciously holding the saint medal around his neck. They weren’t really something to talk about, even to scare the stranger. Even if he deserved it. He wouldn’t stop it, he might even help. But that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it.
---
“You’re not making a word of sense,” Rob complained, though he did go sit down after being shoved. As an adult, Rob very rarely had to follow orders from other men. Not since his father had died, anyway. By default, he had to be treated with deference. Well, his brothers didn’t treat him with any deference, but they weren’t generally physical, either. Stephen was perpetually too distracted with his own life to boss anyone around, and Joseph... Joseph was quiet. Both of them respected the fact that Rob hated to be touched. Everyone else wasn’t in a position to take any such liberties. Even if they didn’t respect him as a person, they feared his wealth and position enough to feign it. Keep their distance. No man would dare push T. Robert York as an adult.
As a child, on the other hand, he’d not been unfamiliar with bullies. Surviving an all boys’ private school had involved quite a lot of his doing the homework of others for protection, and even that sometimes hadn’t been enough to stave off the occasional round of torment. He’d been a strange, standoffish child, and many of the other children had delighted in taking advantage of his peculiarities. Internally, he seethed at being made to feel that way again past the age of thirty, and his mind was already plotting revenge. Elaborate, costly ways to destroy this man’s life for bullying him even this small amount. Outwardly, however, Rob essentially sulked. Familiarity with the mindset of a bully meant that he knew better than to argue and risk a more physical altercation, which he would surely lose. He sat gingerly on the very edge of the chair, arms folded, with his back straight. As though he were propped on an interrogation bench instead of sitting on a dusty, overstuffed armchair. Rob had an ability to make any piece of furniture look woefully uncomfortably just by placing himself upon it.
“If Ms. Williams isn’t here anymore, then I should leave to find her,” he explained, appealing to logic. He didn’t understand the Russian or the backward glances. Though, that was becoming unsettling. Why did the man keep casting looks towards the back of the house? What were those noises? Rob’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits behind the wire-framed glasses. “Who else is here?”
---
Konstantin didn’t roll his eyes at the man’s sulk, but he did notice it. It made him want to punch the guy in the face. He wasn’t always so violent, but sometimes an impulse just struck him. He had been placed in hockey quickly to help with that. He was known as a hard checker. And sometimes a late checker, sometimes an unnecessary checker too. But he was Russian, the Americans expected that of him. The Swedes were fast, the Finns were scorers, the Russians played hard. Even their forwards played hard. It was a country, at least formerly, where even their superstars were expected to be Selke candidates. If Konstantin hadn’t had a temper, he wouldn’t have been a proper Russian. He didn’t like to let it loose at all times, but he could let it go at a moment’s notice. This stranger was making him want to let it go. But he held it in.
Until the man sat. The way he was sitting was as if he had been asked to put his delicate ass on a bed of hot coals. That ticked him off. He had been sitting in that very chair just a moment ago. It was fine for him, but it was too dirty for this sonofabitch? Nyet. He moved closer to the chair, giving his shoulders another shove. “You sit like person.” He ordered. He was about to say something else when the sounds in the next room caught his attention again.They were getting louder. He tried not to show that it was making him nervous. He backed up a little, away from the doorway, incidentally away from the chair too.
But he kept his eyes on the stranger. He had to keep control here. Not showing that the sounds from the other room were making him nervous was key to that. He put his focus on the man, watching him get ‘concerned’ had a calming effect on Konstantin. “She that here, not here no more. Pretty girl. She be...” He frowned. Damn English. “She be...” He shook his head, “Fuck it. She be no more. She be here. After, she be here no more. She be no more.” He shrugged, “She run no good. Bad shoe. They get her.”
---
“Stop touching me!” Rob hissed, putting both hands up, palms forward, after the second shove. Honest confusion contorted his features. He wasn’t sure what the other man wanted. He was sitting. After taking a breath, he adjusted his glasses and moved back on the chair, still positioned like there was an iron rod inserted through his spine, but at least no longer on the very edge. He might have gone on to say more, but the sounds in the back had caught his attention, as well. The man kept looking back, and hadn’t answered the question about who else was here. When the Russian backed up, Rob shifted his gaze towards the direction the other man was looking. Nothing. There was nothing there.
For some reason that was making him even more nervous than the irrational foreigner. Rob hadn’t carried an inhaler for years, now. Not since he’d been a child. However, he was starting to feel a familiar tightness in his chest that made him wish he still did.
Then the larger man started talking again. More nonsense. Yes, Eden had been here. Yes, Eden was pretty. Rob could admit that, in a detached sort of way. He understood that Eden had left, so he didn’t know why the man insisted on repeating himself. Of course she’d left. Why would she stay? A filthy house, a raving lunatic, possibly a raccoon infestation judging by the increasing volume of the noises. He wanted to leave, too, but for some reason he was supposed to sit. And of course she wouldn’t have been able to run very well, her shoes were bad for it. Those inappropriately tall heels. Rob hated that she insisted on wearing shoes like that to business functions. It just seemed so wrong, like a plunging neckline, or --
Wait a minute.
Eyes widening considerably, he turned his attention back to the babbling Russian. Nervous was becoming an understatement for how Rob was beginning to feel. “Why... why would Eden- er. Ms. Williams... Why was she running? Who ‘got’ her?”
---
Konstantin smiled-- or maybe smirked-- as the man finally got it. He had only been dropping hints and flat out telling him what had happened for most of the conversation. The stranger was the kind of guy that didn’t listen, he was beginning to figure this out. If the person had been deemed not of use to the stranger-- as Konstantin knew he had been judged-- he was ignored. He had seen his type before, both here and at home. And they were as disposable as those impractical shoes the woman had been wearing. He was starting to actually feel glad that this guy was going to go the same way she had. He was annoying.
“I say it.” He shook his head, taking a few steps towards the door into the kitchen before backtracking quickly at the sound of rustling and assorted other unpleasant sounds. They were getting louder, restless. He forced down his panic response. Do not show fear, he remembered his mother teaching him that. That’s how she dealt with threats, face them and make them submit. She was a scary woman, but not as scary as what was in the other room. Even she couldn’t stare them down and win. And if she couldn’t, no one else could. Sure as hell not the prissy man in front of him.
“She do bad entertain. Stupid shoe. She go, fast. She have stupid shoe, I say, stupid clothes. They get her.She not go out. She be no more. They make it. You see?” He locked his eyes onto those of the stranger, hoping he would at least return the gesture long enough for him to get his point across visually. Since he had asked so nicely not to be touched, Konstantin would wait at least a full five minutes before he thought about doing just that. Maybe five minutes.
---
All of his instincts were telling Rob to bolt. He could see the front door that he’d just come through, and he actually did run fairly quickly. His shoes weren’t ideal for running, but they weren’t strappy pumps. There was the Russian, of course, who could move to block. However, the reason Rob didn’t jump out of the chair wasn’t fear of the bigger man. It was a bizarre need to cement what - exactly - had happened to his employee. Some unknown they had apparently rendered her into a state of being no more, which meant murder. To which this man had been an accessory. Rob would even be happy to give the man full credit, in fact, were it not for the noises, and how skittish he acted in response to them. There was something else in play that intimidated even a giant Russian. Rob had to know who or what that was. So instead of running, he resigned himself to that fact.
The larger man didn’t have to wait long before his gaze was met. He had Rob’s full attention now. All the eye contact he wanted. Excessive eye contact, in fact, since Rob wasn’t really blinking much. “I see. You’re saying that my personal assistant is dead.”
Outwardly, Rob had expressed more duress over being touched or having to sit on the furniture. His expression was set into one of contemplative neutrality as though it had been carved that way from birth. He was good at that. Playing the robot in the face of soul-crushing, cosmic-altering news. That his employee might fall victim to an insidious madman, or a great evil, was about to be expected. There were horrors in the world beyond all comprehension, and Mankind was one of them. It was starting to look likely that he wouldn’t fare much better in the situation, which meant his options were to flail about, or accept death like a goddamn man. Death was final. Death wouldn’t mean subsequent consequences for him; he’d be dead. It wasn’t the same as infection, prolonged pain, or humiliation, all of which were more terrifying to him as a concept.
In a way, he was trying to take solace in thoughts of his own mother. Christine York wouldn’t waste time shedding tears for her son, or the young Ms. Williams (who, really, wasn’t all that annoying and in no way deserved to have her life ended; Rob would even amend his prior stance on not letting her drive, if it turned out all of this was some kind of sick jest, and that the Russian had been hired just to fuck with them). Christine would see murder as an affront, and become angry in the face of it. She would rain fire and brimstone on the house, as well as anyone who’d ever been involved in its construction, maintenance (or lack thereof), and residents. After she’d finished, there would be no noises - strange or otherwise - in a radius of at least five square miles. It didn’t matter how much money, firepower, or time it took; she’d make a special project of it. Not because of the loss of her middle child; Rob had no delusions of how much his actual presence was worth to his mother. No, her wrath would be for the affront to the family.
If he died, he wouldn’t have to suffer his mother’s response, either. He felt sympathy for whoever gave her the news, and a part of his mind wondered if he’d be blamed for this. It didn’t seem unlikely. At least he wouldn’t have to hear it.
“My assistant is dead because she wasn’t entertaining, and didn’t run fast,” he reiterated to the larger man, to show that he had been paying attention to the words spoken. Aside from not caring for the word choice to begin with, Rob had no illusions about his ability to entertain anyone in any setting. He’d steadfastly refuse to, in fact. Whatever this man and his associate wanted, Rob would not provide it for them. If that included running, then fuck them. He could stay on this horrible chair forever. “You killed her, or helped kill her. How?”
---
The prissy man wasn’t scared anymore and that disappointed Konstantin. He could see him steel himself to the fact that the end was there and he was okay with it. The original fear response was much more entertaining, that was when they ran and screamed and fought. But it seemed to be true for almost everyone that there was a point where they stopped being afraid and just gave in to the fact that death was coming and they had no escape. That was the boring part. After that it was just the sounds. This guy didn’t even know that death was coming for sure, but he had already given up. Boring. And totally disappointing. He already knew he wasn’t going to be any entertainment past the look he got when he pushed him into the chair.
“Eat up.” He shrugged. That was close enough. It may or may not have been the actual cause of death but it was one of the events that occurred around the time of death so it might as well count. There were so many contributing factors in the final act that it was hard to pinpoint exactly what had caused her to stop moving, or if death had even been the cause of that at all. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t want to think about what actually caused her death in a specific sense. It was hideous. And loud.
The sounds were the worst. They always were. The house was so quiet that the sounds were very noticeable, extremely intrusive to the peace that the old house provided way back here in the middle of nowhere. The sounds she made and the sounds they made combined together to make the whole thing alarming. He wasn’t sure which were more horrible, but in the end it didn’t matter. At times one was louder, at times the other was louder. In the end, it made the scene nothing he wanted to watch. He looked over to the side room to make sure they were staying in there. So far, so good. “She be no more.”
He put his full attention back on the man and his really creepy non-blinking eyes. “You....” He reached out to pat the top of his head. It had been less than five minutes, but oh well. He let that hand fall onto the man’s shoulder just to bother him. It wasn’t terribly comfortable to be standing like that, but if it annoyed the man, it was worth it. He knew he wouldn’t entertain, but he had to try. It was his job after all. “You be no good entertain. But! You have better shoe. Better clothes. Maybe you go more longer.” He shrugged. “We find out now? You okay ready?”
---
“You’re insane,” Rob informed the larger man, eyes narrowing into a glare. It was hard to keep up a neutral, stoic front while being touched like that, in such a dismissive, invasive way. Maybe the Russian kept a pack of dogs in the back and set them on visitors. That scenario made the most sense, given what he knew. Didn’t it? There hadn’t been any barking, but dogs could be devoiced through surgery. Had there even been time since the car breaking down for Eden to be chased down and eaten by dogs? His mind rejected the thought, not knowing what to do with it. That was ridiculous. The house was ridiculous. The Russian was also ridiculous. While the Russian couldn’t altogether be denied, what with having a hand planted on Rob’s shoulder, everything else was clearly the result of an overworked, hallucinating mind.
The only thing to do, really, was to flinch away from the hand, stand back up, and go straight to the front door. If a crazy Russian wanted to set dogs on him, so be it. Whether or not he lived or died, someone would eventually come. He was sure of that. The police could sort out what the psycho had done with Eden, put down all the dogs (with a meat grinder... mother will have them taken to processing plant, the resulting food donated to a pound...), and scorch the earth the house had been built upon. Fuck it all! Hell, if he did survive, he’d take pleasure in lighting the match, himself. For Eden. That was actually a decent enough reason to make the attempt.
Rob stood abruptly, pushing away hard from the offending hand, and made a sudden dash for the door.
---
Konstantin laughed. Insane? Well, probably. Maybe not originally, but by now he was. Most people weren’t rude enough to state it flatly like that. It was in really poor form for someone as stuffy as this guy. But then when presented with a situation like this, people did lose most of their preconceived ideas of right and wrong. All that ‘women and children first’ stuff went out the window most of the time. It was every man for himself. This guy didn’t even know if his friend was really dead, he was taking the ‘insane’ man’s word for it, but yet he was already running for himself, forgetting her completely. If he survived, what would the rest of his stuffy friends think of that? Not that he was going to survive.
Of course, getting out of the house wasn’t as easy as just running out the door. He could try, but the house wasn’t about to let him go. The house always got what it wanted, no matter what. They got what they wanted too. The house made sure of that. People stupid enough to come in were never allowed to leave. But running was a good sign for the man. He might be entertaining after all. Konstantin made no move to stop him. He didn’t have to. As he opened the door that he had entered-- the supposed door to the outside-- he would be greeted by a hallway full of doors. And more of those sounds. They were restless. It was some scratching, maybe? Footsteps, maybe? And something else if he listened really carefully.
Giggling.
--
That was unexpected, though it added weight to the theory that none of this was real. Perhaps he was still in the car, having some kind of vivid nightmare. Perhaps Eden had drugged him. It was possible. Nobody could really be trusted these days, and she hadn’t been working for him all that long. Hallucinogens, then. Lovely. Either he was in the house - or a house, at least - and he was hallucinating just enough to disorient himself, or he was hallucinating everything. Maybe he was in an asylum already, and his brain had seized on a hatred of one of the doctors, who probably had a Russian accent and no regard for personal space. What was the protocol for recognizing one’s own delusions?
Not knowing of one, Rob responded by closing the door. He opened it again, and then a third time, just to be absolutely sure that the illusion of a hallway was going to greet him every time he did so, then he shut it and locked it. It made no sense to do that, given that he was in the house and the hallway was clearly an extension of the rest of the house, but he wanted nothing to do with fictional hallways just yet. Which left him the real hallway as an option, which had its own noises to contend with and might very well be equally fictional, or continuing a conversation that was clearly one-sided and uninformative, given that it was also taking place within a delusion.
Ignoring the Russian madman (or possibly doctor, or psychiatrist, or figment), Rob fished his phone out of his pocket on the off chance that it might find a connection. When that failed, he began looking around the room for something that might serve as a weapon. On the off chance any of this was real, he might as well arm himself. If none of it was real, then there was no harm in arming himself against fictional entities with a fictional object. If the delusion were only partially false, having something in his hands that he could swing or stab with would at least deter the taller man from touching him again. Altogether, it was a decent plan, except there didn’t seem to be anything of use. Broken mirror fragments. Old sofa cushions. Candle holders that - upon lifting - weren’t heavy enough to bludgeon anything with, and added no range. He wished he’d at least taken the tire iron from the trunk of the rental with him, though there would have been no reason to do that. Besides, if he were able to wish himself back to the car, he might as well go whole hog and wish he’d never stepped out of it. He could have driven on the flats. Slowly, yes, but it would have been possible. Eden would have been irritated the whole way, but eventually they’d have found a gas station or something. Reached a service line, procured another car, and not have fallen into psychosis.
Unless she’d deliberately induced the psychosis for some reason, in which case she was a traitorous bitch and he’d have to deal with that once he regained his senses.
Still ignoring the Russian, Rob gave up his search for a suitable weapon in that room and moved to where he thought the kitchen should be, thinking there’d at least be cutlery to choose from there, if not something cast iron and blessed with a handle.
---
Konstantin didn’t move but his eyes followed the man. He scoffed when he picked up the candlestick. As if that would be anywhere near enough to defend himself against them. There was no defence against them, you could only hope they got to someone else first. He tried not to flinch when he went for the kitchen. That was such a bad idea. “Nyet.” He didn’t raise his voice, but that was a warning. He did warn him and anything that happened after wasn’t his fault in the least. Okay so he had held him there and he didn’t give him any specifics or help him escape. But he didn’t owe him that. He didn’t owe him anything and he had given him a chance to be entertaining first. He might have been able to save himself. He hadn’t even tried to go down the hallway. Boring. So very boring.
He took a few steps back, bracing himself for the man to open the kitchen door. Don’t show fear. He kept trying to remind himself, though it wasn’t working. They scared the shit out of him. They were worse than mice! And he hadn’t previously thought anything was worse than that. He knew that he couldn’t run, there was no point in trying. The fucked up hallways were going to be the same for him that they were for the prissy man. He was reassured in the fact that they would get the man before they’d get to him anyway, but the very thought of them coming out of there made him want to run as fast and far as he could. He could only hope that the man was enough for them and they’d go back in there when they were done with him like they had after they were done with the woman.
He knew they were were getting restless. And hungry.
---
Blood on the walls. That was Rob’s first thought. Blood on the walls, the counters... it would be so difficult to get the stains out of the wood. Impossible. The cabinets would have to be replaced entirely. A lake of blood on the floor... was that tile? Not linoleum or vinyl, so it must be. It looked like stone or ceramic, too. Porous. It would never come out. Never be completely sterile again. The whole room would have to be gutted and renovated to make it serviceable. No kitchen that had been so drenched in blood could produce uncontaminated food. How many health codes were being violated here? Yet, they were in there, eating right off the bloody floor. Using their bare hands to pluck up bits of viscera from the mess and plop them into gaping maws. Unsanitary. Dangerous. There were so many foodborne pathogens. Diseases they might be catching.
They looked like small children, naked in the blood. The teeth weren’t childlike, and the hands were wrong, somehow, but they had arms and legs and opposable thumbs. Fishbelly pale skin, but sensible haircuts. His brain registered the short hair and the thumbs, but ignored the fact that they had no eyes, just as it had taken note of the blood, but not the pile of bones spilling out of the pantry.
He couldn’t ignore the shoe lying on its side on the counter. Just the one shoe, stained and torn almost beyond recognition, were it not for the saucy little ankle strap. Rob took a breath, and responded as though someone had just successfully explained an elusive concept to him. “Ah.”
The children stopped eating, turned towards the kitchen door, and tilted their heads as if in curiosity. That was when Rob finally looked at their faces, saw with clarity that the flesh had grown smooth and unmarred above their noses; there weren’t even injuries where their eyes should have been. There was a moment of perfect stillness as he stood there, observing them, struck motionless by panic. Then one of the things in the kitchen sniffed the air deeply, and its mouth split open into a wide grin.
It giggled.
They began to move, unhurried, the rest of them smiling now, getting the joke. Rob also got the joke, now, but he didn’t find it so amusing. He ran, but his impulse didn’t take him down the hallway or out the front door. He ran for Kostya. There hadn’t been a knife or a heavy iron skillet within reach, but he did know where he might happen to find a human shield.