Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

Author:Eric LaRocca [LaRocca, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CLASH Books
Published: 2023-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A s they descended the cellar steps, darkness awaiting them down below, Ghost couldn’t help but sense the air thicken with an electrical charge—a hissing current winging through the air like a tide of small nighttime insects. He wondered what gibbering, eyeless atrocities might await him—what Mr. Crowley was planning. He pondered unreasonable scenarios, wondering if Mr. Crowley were some type of advanced alien species and preparing to use him as his next host body. No matter the horrendousness of the thoughts that overwhelmed him, Ghost continued to inch down each step as if he were tethered to Mr. Crowley.

When they reached the final step, Mr. Crowley turned to Ghost and eyed him with an invitation.

“Well—?” he said, gesturing to the dimly lit space stretching in front of them.

Ghost squinted. In the darkness, he could barely make out the shapes of several people kneeling, their heads lowered respectfully as if in prayer. When he looked closer, he recognized one of the figures kneeling—it was Gemma. Her skin was as clear as wax paper, her hair soft-looking, like freshly spun cobweb.

Without hesitation, Ghost leaped across the room until he was at Gemma’s side. He knelt beside her, gently stirring her.

“Gemma?” he said, shaking her limp body as if she were a mere rag doll.

“You know Ms. Carlisle?” Mr. Crowley asked, circling Ghost as he continued to rattle her body to no avail. “I had such high hopes for her. Of course, I have the utmost confidence in all of them when I first bring them here.”

Ghost’s eyes drifted to the others kneeling beside Gemma, their heads lowered and their lips moving with muted prayers. It was then that he recognized several of the other figures as people who had recently gone missing or had been missing from town for several months—Ms. Childers from the church thrift shop, Mr. Crenshaw from the bank. All were present and made up Mr. Crowley’s grotesque collection.

“What have you done to them?” Ghost asked, the little wraith around his throat tightening its grip.

“It’s not what I did to them, dear boy,” Mr. Crowley said. “Look.”

The old man gestured to a far corner of the room where two walls met. Ghost’s eyes followed, widening when he finally saw it—a seething mass of energy floating in the corner. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief as he studied the formless shape as it swayed in place. The entity was a bright, glowing orb—an ornate latticework of veins and arteries sprouting from the center of the light like filament inside a bare lightbulb.

Ghost covered his mouth at the sight, rising from his knees and desperately trying to comprehend.

“What is it?” he asked.

Mr. Crowley was at his side in a matter of seconds.

“You believe in God, don’t you?” the old man asked.

Ghost could hardly believe it. Was this thing—this churning mass of energy—was it really God? Of course, he had imagined the moment when he might come face to face with his creator, but he hardly expected that day might be today.

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