Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala (22 page)

Her daddy had moved five or six boxes when they heard the upstairs door open and then slam shut. Craning her head around, Holly watched the cellar stairs as a large shadow loomed in the doorway. She didn’t feel much relief when she recognized the scary oilman’s round, bulky silhouette.

The stairs snapped and creaked loudly as the oilman came down, all the while whistling a nearly tuneless song. Holly’s eyes widened with fear as she watched him approach.

“Got lucky. I had one in the truck.”

The oilman sniffed as he raised his hand to show the small green cardboard box he was carrying. He skinned his snow-flecked woolen hat off and used it to wipe the moisture from his forehead. “Took a bit of lookin’ ‘round, but still, s’quicker ‘n if I had to drive all the way back to the shop.”

“Uh-huh,” her daddy said. He seemed suddenly embarrassed to be caught pawing through the junk pile, so he stepped back. Holly aimed the flashlight beam down at the cement floor.

“Snowing like a bastard now,” Phil said, “but it might be lettin’ up a bit. Flakes are getting bigger.”

He knelt beside his toolbox and sorted through the tools until he found what he was looking for and then, with a screwdriver and a small wrench in hand, set to work.

Still hanging onto her daddy’s belt-loop, Holly did her best to keep her daddy between her and the oilman, but she was curious and wanted to see what he was doing. She watched in silence as the oilman worked, all the while muttering curses under his breath whenever a screw or bolt was particularly unyielding.

All the while, though, Holly kept shifting her gaze to the pile of rubbish by the wall. She wasn’t sure, but once or twice she was sure she heard faint scratching sounds masked by the clanging and banging sounds the oilman was making. She was tempted to shine the flashlight beam to see if she could catch any hint of motion behind the boxes but decided not to if only because she didn’t want her daddy to know how nervous she was. If he did, he might send her upstairs, for sure.

After ten or fifteen minutes, Phil let out a long, satisfied sigh.

“Here ‘tis,” he said, holding up what Holly guessed was the “intake valve” for her daddy to see. “This here’s your culprit.”

He studied it from several angles before casually tossing it on top of the tools in his toolbox. Then he shook the new intake valve out of the box and, still whistling, set to work replacing it.

Holly watched all of this with intense interest. She had no idea—and could care less—what the man was doing … just as long as the furnace started running before morning, and she and her daddy could go back upstairs. Her daddy had said something about wanting to make sure the water pipes didn’t freeze up, and Holly could just imagine the argument he and her momma would have if something like
that
ever happened.

“Christ on a cross, it’s getting cold” her daddy whispered as he shivered and hugged himself while bouncing on his toes.

“Daddy. You shouldn’t swear,” Holly said, tugging at his arm. She had heard worse—much worse when her momma and daddy argued—and she didn’t like it even when her friends at school swore to try to impress each other.

Looking surprised that he had spoken aloud, her daddy glanced at her and then, scooching down, turned her around so she was facing him. His smile widened, looking for real, now, as he pulled her close and gave her a big hug. Holly hugged him back, feeling the warmth of his breath against her neck, but suddenly her body stiffened. An instant later, a deep trembling ran through her. Her daddy drew back and looked her in the eyes.

“Baby …? What is it?” he asked.

Holly knew her face must have gone as white as paper. Her eyes were wide and staring, and her mouth was hanging open. She was trying to say something but couldn’t get the words out. Her thin lips barely moved.

“Holly?” her daddy said, his voice rising with concern.

Very slowly, Holly raised her hand and pointed at something behind him. As her daddy turned, a cold prickling sensation ran up the back of Holly’s neck. Her hand holding the flashlight involuntarily squeezed the metal cylinder so hard her forearm started to ache. She whimpered … or maybe her daddy had made that noise. She wasn’t sure.

“I … There’s something …hiding under that stuff,” she whispered, surprised that she could speak at all.

She wanted so much to be brave. She knew that’s what her daddy expected of her, but the shifting shadow, darker than the shadows cast by the junk, fixed her attention. She couldn’t swallow. Her breath burned in her throat when, for just an instant, large, glowing eyes stared back at her from under the pile of boxes.

“Dad
dy
,” she said, her voice rising higher but still not much more than a ragged whisper.

But her daddy didn’t turn to look at her. He straightened up and, taking the flashlight from her, moved slowly forward with the beam of light aimed directly at the spot where she had seen … whatever she had seen. The glow of the flashlight seemed much too weak to pierce the shadows. The only sounds in the cellar were the clanging and grunting noises the oilman was making as he worked, unaware that anything was happening and the distant hiss of snow against the cellar window.

“I saw …” Holly said, but her daddy waved her to silence as he kept inching forward.

“Yeah … I saw it too,” he said.

Holly was hoping he’d tell her it had been nothing more than a mouse or a rat, but if the eyes she had seen were any indication, it would have to be the biggest darned rat in the world. She moved with her daddy closer to the pile of junk, not wanting to lose touch with him even though it meant getting closer to … whatever it was she had seen.

An icy tightening weaved through her chest, and a voice inside her head told her to run … to get upstairs as fast as she could. But another voice told her that everything would be all right. She was safe. As long as she stayed with her daddy, nothing was going to hurt her.

Leaning forward so he could see better, her daddy shined the flashlight into the gap between two of crushed boxes. Moving ever so slowly, he skidded one of the boxes to the side. It made a loud grating noise on the cement floor that set Holly’s teeth on edge. She realized that she was holding her breath and let it out slowly as her daddy, on his hands and knees, shined the light deeper into the gap.

“What the
hell
could’ve done this,” he said.

Holly knew that he was talking to himself; he would never swear talking to her.

“
Daddy?
”

He was shifting the stack of boxes to one side when the pile suddenly erupted with an explosion of activity. Holly screamed and staggered backwards as a mass of black, tangled shape leaped out from underneath the boxes. For an instant, the flashlight beam shined fully into the face of one of the … things. The cellar filled with its shrill cry as it raised its clawed hands to cover its face and cowered from the light.

But the instant passed, and more creatures surged outward, rushing toward her daddy. Holly was so scared she didn’t see much of anything clearly. It was just a pile of writhing arms with claws, needle sharp teeth, and faces … small, dark, human-looking faces with huge, bulging eyes that glowed dull green in the dim light of the cellar. The squealing sounds they made reminded her of how her dog, Heidi, had sounded before she died the day she was hit by a passing car.

Frozen with terror, Holly was still screaming when the oilman wheeled around, reacting to the sudden activity and her screams. The gap in the pile of junk shifted and widened as more and more of these …
things
—they certainly weren’t mice or rats—spilled out into the cellar. The high-pitched sounds they made hurt her ears.

Her daddy started swinging the flashlight. One wild swing connected with something, and the lens of the flashlight shattered as one of the creatures he’d hit howled with pain. Then all Holly could hear was a wet ripping sound as her daddy spun around on one foot, his legs buckling and his hands covering his face.

Numb with shock, she watched as blood gushed between her daddy’s hands where his face used to be. In the dim light, the blood was as black as the oil smudge on the oilman’s face. The creatures—more than she could count—tore at her daddy, their claws raking across his back and his legs, shredding his clothes and ripping him apart. He spun around and staggered and tried to shout something to her, but his words were lost in a horrible, liquid gurgle as the claws laid his throat open.

“What in the name of Christ?” the oilman shouted.

He stumbled forward, blundering between Holly and the writhing mass of shrieking creatures that continued to boil out of the hole in the wall. As the gap in the junk pile widened, Holly caught a glimpse of a large hole in the cellar wall—a tunnel that was lost in darkness and obscured by the onrush of creatures.

“
Go on! … Run!... Get the Christ out of here!
” the oilman yelled, and he pushed Holly away before the gibbering mass of creatures overwhelmed him.

The cellar was filled with the raw, wet tearing sounds of shredded flesh as they piled onto him. Gouts of blood and gore flew through the air, splashing the walls and ceiling.

Holly knew she should run. The voice inside her head was screaming at her to get out of the cellar, but she was frozen where she stood, unable to understand anything she was seeing.

Her daddy was gone.

She couldn’t believe it.

Just seconds ago, he had been standing there, and then he just … disappeared, smothered by the savage, snarling creatures.

Finally, when Holly saw the oilman collapse beneath the crushing weight of the creatures piling on top of him, she found the strength and will to try to turn and run for the stairs.

They looked impossibly far away. The single light at the foot of the stairs cast a dull glow over the wood, making the steps look like something from a dream. Before she was halfway there, a dark shadow filled the doorway at the top of the stairs.

“What in the
hell
is going on down here?” her momma shouted as she started down the stairs.

Raising her hand and pointing toward the furnace, Holly tried to say something—anything, but her mind couldn’t process what she had seen, and the only sound she could manage was a faint blubbering that made absolutely no sense.

Her mother stopped at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes widened, and her face went white when she saw Holly.

“Honey …?” she said. “Are you? … Did
he
do
this
to you?”

Holly had no idea what she meant until her momma ran her hand over her face and Holly saw the smeared blood on her fingers. She stuttered, gasping for breath, trying to tell her mother what she had seen, but none of it made any sense. It was impossible that her daddy and that big, fat oilman could have been covered by those … those
things
.

Her momma was trembling visibly as she moved closer. She paused for a moment, then her gaze drifted past Holly as the sounds the creatures were making rose louder.

“What in the name of God—”

Holly pushed past her momma and started running up the stairs, sobbing so hard her chest hurt. Her legs felt weak, like they weren’t nearly strong enough to carry her all the way up the flight of stairs.

“
Run! … Momma! … Run!
” she wailed, but her momma didn’t run. She didn’t move. All she could do was stare at the dark forms that gathered in the shadows of the stairwell.

“It’s the light!” Holly shouted, feeling as though her voice was being ripped out of her. “They’re afraid of the light! Come on, Momma! We have to—”

“Where’s your daddy?” her momma shrieked.

Holly knew that she had to do what her daddy would expect her to do.

She had to be brave.

“
We have to get away, Momma!
” Holly shouted.

She had stopped halfway up the stairs and wasn’t sure she had the strength to go the rest of the way. She’d never make it to the kitchen before those creatures got her.

But she knew she had to.

She had to shut the door and lock it, but she couldn’t leave her momma and daddy behind. She still didn’t believe her daddy was dead.

“What the hell …?” her momma said as she took several quick steps backwards. She shaded her eyes from the overhead light and was about turning to leave when she tripped and fell—or was pulled—backwards, hitting the floor hard.

“
No!
” Holly yelled when something flew out of the darkness and, with a loud
pop
, the light bulb at the foot of the stairs shattered. The thing that had broken the light bounced off the ceiling and landed on the first step. Holly saw that it was a boot—the oilman’s greasy, scuffed work boot. There was some tangled red stuff hanging out of the top and a shattered bone sticking up out of it.

Blind with fear, Holly crawled on her hands and knees up the stairs and then collapsed on the kitchen floor. Hot tears streamed down her face, and she cringed, unable to scream as she listened to the sudden rise in the gibbering sounds the creatures were making down in the cellar.