Read Online The Realms of the Dead by William Todd Rose - Free Book Online

corpse draped over the edge like a saturated rag doll. The thing’s back was mottled and streaked with black, as though one continuous bruise ran from the shoulders to the base of the spine, but the skin beneath the discoloration was shriveled with wrinkles. Water poured off its body and pooled on the tiles below. Halfway out of the tub, it seemed as though whatever dark magic had reanimated the cadaver had fled, leaving it as limp and lifeless as it deserved to be.
    Even so, Lydia took a step back as she cupped her hand over her nose. The smell emanating from the body was overpowering and so much worse than the stink that had accompanied the creature in the hall. The stench had a wet quality to it, as if everything within the dead woman’s skin had turned into a slurry of liquefied tissue and clotted blood.
    The corpse’s body jerked as though a jolt of electricity zapped through it and its shoulders flexed. The dead woman rocked from side to side, gaining momentum as her torso snaked forward. Within moments, she had slid over the edge of the tub and her body plopped into the puddles on the floor with a squish as Lydia scrambled backward a few more steps.
    She knew she should be racing toward the broken sink, but was loathe to turn her back to the corpse. Even though it seemed incapable of standing, her imagination tortured her with images of it suddenly springing, knocking her to the floor, and smothering her beneath the chill of waterlogged flesh.
    Lydia tried to keep herself from blinking as she studied the monstrosity on the floor. It didn’t exactly crawl, but waddled, rocking its body from side to side as it inched across the tile. The swaying motion squeezed water from the thing’s pores as if its flesh were a sponge and a wet trail marked its passage as it edged closer to the woman with outstretched arms. The left hand was practically useless; the wrist was severed so deeply that it seemed as if only a thin ribbon of flesh kept it from falling off. When the hand was lying flat, the injury wasn’t noticeable. But the slightest movement caused the hand to bend backward, revealing gristle and shredded muscle surrounding bone. This happened every few seconds, the hand flapping in a macabre wave while the rest of the body wriggled, its intact twin digging fingernails into the grout as the corpse pulled itself forward.
    The thing may have tried to speak. Its mouth moved, but the only sound released was a faint gargling from somewhere deep within the remains of its lungs. Even if words had been produced, they probably couldn’t have made it past the thing’s swollen, blackened tongue.
    Unexpected emotion paralyzed Lydia as she watched dirty water leak from the corners of the thing’s lips. Her eyes warmed with tears and her mouth hung open as she tried to form words of her own. She, however, was just as incapable. Though she felt like she should say something, there simply were no words.
    Instead, another snippet of memory slammed into Lydia’s mind. An injured dog dragging its carcass off the street, crawling toward a mailbox shaped like a scaled version of the house behind it. She sat in a car, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that it felt as though her knuckles were about to burst through her skin. The beagle had come out of nowhere, had darted between two parked cars, and she’d slammed on the brakes as she jerked the wheel to the left. The stench of burnt rubber accompanied a thud that she felt more than heard as the car fishtailed and her hatchback straddled the center line. It would have been kinder if she’d hit the dog head-on. A bloody swath marked its progress across the road, smeared onto the pavement by the intestines trailing behind its mangled hindquarters. With her window down, Lydia could clearly hear the breathless whimpers that accompanied each movement and knew the dog had to be in excruciating pain. And yet it continued on inch by inch, pulling itself ever closer to the house.