Read Online Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales by Simon Strantzas - Free Book Online Page B

let his light crawl to the top and for a moment was jarred. What he thought had been a large animal sleeping in filth was in fact a pelt covered in soil. He picked up the edge and saw another beneath, less dirty, and another beneath that. He had no explanation for their presence. Disturbing them, though, released a meaty smell into the air, a sour medley of musk and decayed flesh that stifled his breath until it wheezed from his lungs. Sounds emanated around him, strange distortions possible only in the absence of light. Harvey felt his hand taken by another, smaller hand, and swung his flashlight quickly, but it was not fast enough. Everything looked different, however, as though shifted in the dark then returned before the light struck it. He shook his head. He did not like what he was witnessing. There was something wrong in that underground room, something that he wasn’t seeing but knew was there. He pointed the Maglite at the bent branches overhead, searching for evidence he was being watched. He felt a strange set of eyes intently following his every move, but again if they were there in the dark they were gone before the light found them. The sound of his raincoat rubbing against itself was overwhelming, as was the crunch of his shoes on the tiny bones underfoot. He had to get out of that pit and off the Douglas Creek grounds. He’d been there so long he was hearing chanting when there was no way he could. It was stuck in his head, repeating over and over again.
    He strode to the spot he had descended from and realized the drop was further than he’d thought. He wasn’t tall or young enough simply to pull himself out. He considered climbing the bent branches, but even if they might support his weight there was no way he was going to touch them. He tried jumping half-heartedly, but only succeeded in raining further dirt down on himself. He was in a predicament, and he had few options. He couldn’t allow himself to be discovered by the protesters, but when he tried to think his way through, all he could see was Emily’s face staring at him smugly, all he could hear was the sound of her respirator gasping. Maybe if he tried climbing on the wooden structure at the rear of the pit, pushed aside the fur pelts, and stood on the wooden frame, he could get enough height to escape.
    He staggered back across the mud floor, his panting echoing close to his ear, the damp seeping through the soles of his shoes, and found the half-buried frame. But before he could climb he was stunned by the revelation of the Maglite. The bunks were empty, the fur gone. He shone the flashlight quickly, scoured the ground, found nothing but dirt. Even the tiny teeth had vanished, the claws, the bones. It made no sense. He raised the Maglite and aimed it across the walls of the underground room, and when it finally discovered the furs it did not stop. It did not want to stop. Yet Harvey returned the circle of light to the pelts of dirt-filled fur that hung from the farthest corner of the pit. He took a step closer, willing his eyes to focus, willing everything to make sense. He took another step and the world around him started to shift, his reality warping as time slowed.
    His every sense became hyperaware: the sound of panting he mistook for his own; the smell of thick musk and foul breath; the taste of bitterness; the sight of darkness swirling around him and becoming solid; the feel of his dead daughter’s pendant crushed in the palm of his sweating hand. The fur hanging in front of him, the fur he had seen minutes before on the other side of the room, started to move without aid. Then in the light across the room glittered too many eyes opening, flashed too many rows of razor-sharp canine teeth. But what mesmerized Harvey most was the debilitating wave of guilt that washed over him, froze his limbs in place until a rumbling growl shook him. He stepped back and instinctively put his hand in his pocket. Shadows moved around the creature like