We Will Rise by Tim Waggoner

Author:Tim Waggoner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: supernatural horror; gothic fantasy; dark fantasy; flame tree press; creepy stories; zombies; undead
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2022-06-23T12:54:23+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Faizan stared at the rusty tools on the stainless-steel tray, paralyzed with indecision.

Just pick one, his father said. It’s not like you’re going to be performing brain surgery, you know.

Pliers, hammer, chisels, knives…. None of them were appropriate for what he needed to do. Then again, he didn’t think the tool had been created for the task that lay before him. He turned back to the creature reclining in the dental chair, his nose wrinkling at the thing’s stench. He wished he had a barrel full of mouthwash to douse the creature with. He doubted it would remove the stink entirely, but it might make the smell somewhat bearable. In the harsh glare of the dental light, the thing looked even more nightmarish than it had before – a conglomerate monster formed from hundreds of dirty and diseased teeth. Inside its mouth miniature living people protruded from its jaws, one of them his mother. She kept waving her hands as if to get his attention, her mouth moving as if she were speaking, but she was so small he couldn’t make out her words. He knew what she was saying, though. She wanted him to leave this place before something bad happened to him. Maybe she feared the tooth monster would claim him the same way it had done to Smiles, Inc.’s staff and patients, shrink him down and add him to the collection in its mouth. But as frightened as Faizan was right now, he couldn’t abandon his mother, nor could he leave the other people without trying to do something to help them.

A noble sentiment, his father said. Foolish, but noble.

“Be quiet,” Faizan murmured. “I’m trying to think.”

The people were embedded in the creature’s jaws up to their waists. But the question was, how strongly were they embedded? Real teeth were firmly seated in the gums and attached by roots. But this creature appeared to be made only from teeth. It had no fleshy parts that Faizan could see. Were the people simply wedged into spaces between its teeth? If so, they had to be in there pretty tight, otherwise those hanging from the upper jaw would fall out.

Do you remember when you started to lose your first baby tooth? Asad asked. When it became loose, I told you to wiggle it to loosen it further, but you were afraid and refused to do it. Eventually, I was forced to hold you on my lap, grip your tooth with my fingers, and wiggle and twist and pull until it finally came free. How you squealed in pain! It was so satisfying that afterward I began pulling your teeth before they became loose. I had to work much harder, and you screamed like you were dying. Those are some of my favorite memories of you.

Faizan remembered those tooth-pulling sessions. How could he forget them? The pain, the blood, the feelings of helplessness as his father – so much bigger and stronger than Faizan was – did whatever he wanted to his son’s body.

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