Aaaiiieee by Thomas Jeffrey

Author:Thomas, Jeffrey [Thomas, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Darkside Digital
Published: 2010-10-26T20:00:00+00:00

Thunderheads

The tentacle came through the ceiling and slithered down toward Warren’s face as he lay back on his bed fully dressed. Unshaven, unemployed and partly unconscious, he had been watching the TV at the foot of the bed in a half-doze of thoughtless ingestion. Game shows, glamour. His country’s hypnotic empty promises.

But the sight of the tentacle undulating toward him roused him to alertness. He spun sideways to the floor and scrambled to his feet, then bolted from the room…and the tentacle followed him. He slammed a door to block it, but it passed through the door as if it were an illusion, immaterial. Yet it was the tentacle that was immaterial, he realized. Though it looked solid, like a clear rubber hose filled with dark smoke, it was the searching limb of some apparition.

In the kitchen of his apartment, Warren slid open a drawer and clawed madly amongst his oddly matched cutlery until he lifted out a formidable bread knife. By now, the blind groping extremity had found him, and was swimming through the air in his direction. With a cry, Warren swung his blade and simultaneously ducked.

The tentacle withdrew sharply, shivering violently in the air. He could see that somehow he had hurt it, as ethereal as it might be. Maybe the sheer energy of his emotion, rather than the steel itself, had wounded it. Whatever the case, thus encouraged, Warren leapt toward it and slashed it again and again. A foot or so of the tentacle was severed and dropped to the linoleum, curling in on itself with a spasm. The rest of the limb, whipping angrily, withdrew. When Warren glanced down again for the severed portion, it had vanished.

Outside, a peal of bass heavy thunder rumbled, rattling his window in its frame.

* * *

Warren had always considered himself a “sensitive”, having seen ghosts on several occasions in his life: that soldier in the Civil War uniform staring in his bedroom window on the second floor, the cowled monk at the foot of his bed. But today was the first time he had ever seen the creatures that assail the minds of humans.

Afraid that the owner of the tentacle would seek him out again, Warren had gone down into the bustling city streets to immerse himself in the comfort of anonymity. But now the source of the tentacle that had sought him out became horribly apparent. Within moments, he saw that dozens of the people moving about on the sidewalks and even driving along in cars had already been successfully attacked by the creature. From the tops of their heads, tentacles like the one that had come for him ran up into a dark sky with a ceiling of thunderheads.

They must have been tremendously long to keep up with moving cars, and flexible beyond man-made elastic. And when victims crossed paths the tentacles neatly passed through each other instead of tangling up.

Warren staggered along the street, gaping, observing, trembling. He flinched back when a victim passed too close, afraid that the limb jammed into his crown would quit that person to attack him instead.

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