Charnel House by Fred Anderson Page A

while he was digging— okay, let’s not kid ourselves here, my friend, it was maybe a little more than a buzz —was gone now and he was left alone in the crawlspace with his black thoughts and the boy he’d killed. It was time to get himself cleaned up, to ditch the booze and start over fresh. Take a little responsibility and go out Monday to look for—
    “Toomey,” the kid said in a thin, reedy voice that was more wheeze than words.
    Garraty froze. A world away, the faint discordant blast from a train horn rose in the night like the cry of a prehistoric beast.
    Imagined it, just like I thought I heard my name. Who wouldn’t be imagining things in my situation?
    The thought of exactly what his situation was right now hit him funny and he barked out a sharp peal of hysterical laughter that was a little bit like a shriek, high and feminine. The sound struck him as even more funny than his original thought had and he laughed harder, this time closer to normal, without the scrim of terror around the edges. The kid was dead alright, no one could survive those injuries.
    But what if he had spoken? What if he was still alive, trying to communicate? Maybe Toomey was his last name.
    The laughter withered in his throat, and silence ruled the cramped space. Garraty reached over and picked up the Maglite and shined it down into the hole.
    The boy’s eyes were half-open and filled with blood.
    “Oh Jesus,” Garraty said. He didn’t like the way his voice wavered. “Oh my fucking Christ in heaven.”
    The Maglite winked out and perfect darkness fell on them.
    Before he could stop himself, Garraty jerked up and away from the opening, certain that the boy was clambering out of the hole with his misshapen head and shit-filled pants. Coming for him. A nail sticking out of one of the joists raked across his left shoulder, tearing his shirt and digging a fiery furrow in his flesh, and he yelped. His head banged on the subfloor above and a shower of crawling things fell on him, skittering and skating on his skin and clothing in a frenzied race to get away from his flailing hands. A spider darted across his ear and onto his face, the tickle of its legs maddening in the inky blackness, and he slapped it away.
    Garraty bit back the scream trying to build in his chest, thumbing frantically at the button on the Mag. His heart thundered in his ears, and gooseflesh prickled his arms. Don’t lose it , he told himself. He’s dead, and you’re letting this shit get to you. Hold it together. Bugs aren’t going to hurt you. He blinked furiously in the darkness, trying in vain to see something. Anything. The blackness was complete. He shook the flashlight and tried the button again, his breath coming in short harsh gasps that sounded like barks. Nothing. It was as dead as the boy in the hole before him.
    The Mylar blanket crackled in the grave.
    Garraty moaned in a low voice and felt sudden warmth spreading in his crotch. Bugs. Gotta be the bugs. He shook the flashlight again, then gave it a solid whack into his open palm and when the light came back on, weak and flickery, and he nearly burst into tears. Cave crickets crept on the floor around him, leggy and spider-like. He ignored them and shined the light into the hole. The boy hadn’t moved, of that he was certain. He still lay on his side, head twisted at that awkward angle.
    Garraty exhaled in a shuddering whoosh. He resisted the urge to keep the light trained on the boy, daring him to move, and instead turned it on his shoulder, which burned like a motherfucker. The nail had plowed a row deep enough to plant corn in, he thought. Hot blood oozed from the gash and ran in a trickle down the back of his arm. A square steel head, black with age, jutted out from the joist on his left, shreds of skin hanging from it. Calgon, take me away , he thought, and his old friend the giggles came back, threatening to take him away for real.
    He didn’t think he’d like where he ended up.
    Toomey.
    Had