Breathe Deep Fear Vol. 1 Read online

“It’s not bullet proof.”

  “I thought so.”

  He rolled out onto his stomach and fired up at an angle. Firing level would only alert the attackers to their position. It wasn’t a matter of taking them out, just buying time. The super monster just had to show up. Encouraged shouts came from the other side and man after man piled onto the deck, charging into the door.

  They started screaming.

  Cale listened as the gunfire was diverted away from the building and towards something else. The shouts became more wild, the shots more frantic.

  Everything went silent.

  Alone, the group slowly picked their heads up, the frigid outside air softly whistling in through the bullet holes. Julia and Cale exchanged looks and then scrambled to their feet and ran for the door. He pushed the desk aside as she unlocked the front. Pulling it open, a blue glow radiated out towards them, the substance coating a large portion of the deck.

  They flinched as someone shouted and fired another gunshot over to their right.

  Cale jumped off the deck and ran around the corner.

  Mullen was backpedaling towards the river, his empty gun clicking with each finger press.

  A large human-like skeleton loomed over him. Hunched over and bleach white, the monster drummed its long bladed fingers in the air as it approached the redneck with a reptilian grace. The blue gel swirled between joints, up through the gaps between abnormally thick bones, and filled the empty sockets of its large eyes and toothless mouth.

  Mullen whimpered something incoherent as the front of his pants dampened.

  The creature sprang forward in a blur, taking victim and all into the river.

  Cale ran over to the ledge and aimed his shotgun down into the night colored water. There wasn’t a trace of either the man or the monster, not even an air bubble. He glanced over his shoulder as Julia ran up.

  He took a step back, the ledge giving out and sending him flailing into the dark water.

  Hundreds of icy needles stabbed at his skin as the freezing water forced the air from his lungs. He struggled through his daze to get upright and swim to the surface through the black, his vision tunneling as his muscles started to numb.

  And glowing blue eyes rushed up from beneath him.

  Chapter

  25

  Darkness; it elicits something primal in man. Perhaps it is because it takes away the primary sense of sight. No … that isn’t it. If a blind man is stuck in total black, he still feels that same level of fear. A knowing terror that sits at the bottom of the gut and will always, slowly, agonizingly, creep up into the chest. Perhaps it is because the true dark is suffocating. A black so thick it smothers even sound.

  Yet sound itself is, in a way, an ally in the dark’s never ending struggle to capture man. The slightest of sounds evokes terror, causing the mind to question whether there is truly something hiding or if it has just surrendered to insanity.

  Cold, alone, and frightened almost beyond reason, Cale found himself curled up with his eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t dare breathe, not knowing whether he was dead and in Hell or worse. The last things remembered had been a monster attack, the water- drowning, and then nothing.

  His eyes had opened when he’d regained consciousness. Pitch black had greeted his vision followed by a harsh screech. After that, he’d huddled like a child on the cold, hard ground. It was pitiful, but lacking something to spur him on and protect made it far too easy for fear to get a hold of him. When his attention was on the safety of Sam and Dean, or the group at the station, there was no hesitation in throwing himself in harm’s way, despite being afraid.

  But, only being brave for others wasn’t an option now, and it was going to get him killed.

  Clenching his teeth, he reached back and pulled out a penlight from his pocket. His finger hovered over the smooth button as if an invisible forced prevented it from pressing down, the fear of the unknown fueling hesitation. He took a few ragged breaths and turned it on, a bright thin beam casting a one foot diameter onto the ground.

  It was a nightlight in space.

  Guiding the pen around the room was like unveiling a puzzle one piece at a time.

  He was in a long hall that reached down toward a set of wide stairs. Jagged swaths of concrete had been gouged out of the floor with chunks of wall scattered across the ground, highlighted by splashes of dried blood. A hint of fresh air cut through the musty blandness that permeated everything else.

  It was coming from the stairs.

  He stepped forward, the contact with the pavement booming like a gunshot in the dark. His heart leapt up into his throat, every muscle tensing, preparing for some snarling creature of nightmare to attack. Moments passed with breaths held as the echoes died, leaving silence.

  Painfully cautious, he slowly took another step – then another. His eyes remained glued to the little circle the entire time as it scoured the floor. Every brush of his clothes and every breath resonated down the hall until he reached the top of the hall, where all sound and light died.

  His pitiful pen light was enveloped by the darkness after three steps, the black emanating from the bottom seemingly even darker than the lightless space he was already standing in. It scared him. No, it tore at his rational thoughts and made him want to curl up in a ball.

  But the fresher smelling air was coming from there, which meant that was the most likely exit.

  Why had he let go of the gun when he passed out?

  He descended slowly, nursing each step for as long as he could before taking another one, the echoes becoming fainter as each sound was snuffed out. The fresh air became more noticeable, as did a stale, rotted odor.

  Reaching the bottom far faster than hoped, Cale looked around in awe.

  Computers, smashed and burnt, were discarded haphazardly around the room. Some lay on the ground, others on overturned medical equipment. The rest had tumbled into the fractures of the broken steel tables that were scattered about … the kind of tables that kids were told to duck under in the event of a nuclear explosion during the Cold War. Papers were tossed all over the expansive room, some torn, others bloody.

  His flashlight almost fell from his fingers as the beam swept up to a platform. A large transparent box, five or so inches thick, rested on it. The chair inside had been wrecked, the restraints in tatters. What shook him the most though, was the giant hole in the front side. Something had broken out from the inside, and it was strong.

  He crouched down and picked up a discarded paper. The scientific gibberish from the sheet was beyond anything he could understand, but whoever wrote it definitely seemed excited by what they were doing. Bet the poor fool wasn’t too excited when what was in the case got out.

  He grabbed another one missing the bottom left quarter of the page. It wasn’t much better, referring to project after operation all under codename. The only thing of note was the remnants of a signature at the bottom.

  merch

  He jumped up as a high pitched squeak came from further in the darkness. Flicking the light off and diving behind the table, his fingers grasped his knife with practiced precision. The squeaks came closer along with a faint light radiating from a corridor roughly twenty feet from where he was. Crouched and ready to spring, he rested his head against the cool remains of the stout table as the light became brighter, taking on a bluish hue.

  He could feel his already pale cheeks go completely stark white.

  It was that other one!

  What the hell was he supposed to do? That thing had killed over twenty armed men in open territory. It had been almost impossible to aim at, and if memory served, the claws in place of fingers on its hands would have diced the bear to pieces. Mullen’s group had rifles, shotguns, and even one or two automatics.

  He had a knife.

  The glow completely illuminated the room, and the squeaking ceased, being replaced by deep heavy breaths that were almost labored, but more powerful that any animal he’d ever heard.

  “Yo
u can come out from hiding behind the desk.”

  Cale blasted out from behind the desk, his knife held up defensively and a grim line on his lips. Maybe, just maybe, he could maneuver around enough to get past it, trap it in a room or find a path its ridiculous height couldn’t get through. Although from the curve of its shoulders, there was a chance it could briefly move on all fours.

  The creature leaned with one razor bladed hand on a stained old garbage cart, its pupil-less eyes of swirling blue watched him calmly.

  God, it almost looked human.

  The creature’s free hand casually reached up and pressed a short microphone looking thing to its neck.

  “Nice knife, but against me it’s nothing more than a toy.”

  The voice was robotic and had a strange buzzing noise emanate with the words it produced.

  “You can talk?”

  “Not without this thing – one of the lab monkeys was a heavy smoker. With him dead, I thought I’d borrow it. Although, it’s not like I’ve had to use it much. You can only talk to the trash cart for so long before the conversations get old.”

  Cale’s jaw must have almost hit the ground. This monstrosity was intelligent enough to find a mechanical larynx, and then even speak. It had more personality than Julia did for crying out loud! When he’d entered this world, nothing really caught him off guard. Surprised him, sure – scared him, definitely, but nothing had thrown him for a loop.

  Was he sure he wasn’t still sleeping?

  “Who are you?”

  “That’s a nice question, son. Most people would have said ‘what’ first. You’ve been raised to have some good manners.”

  “… Thank you?”

  “Sorry, I haven’t talked to anyone in a while. So if I ramble on just stop me.”

  Cale nodded cautiously and lowered his knife. If this … person did decide to kill him, there wasn’t anything he would be able to do. He may as well relax and keep talking to it politely.

  “Alright, so who are you?”

  “My name’s John, and I think we could use each other’s help.”

  Chapter

  26

  Trent Moore shifted against the rough bark of the tree trunk as his leg dangled over the branch he sat on. His eyes remained locked on the ten story building ahead of him. He kept his right hand close to the camera around his neck; ready for the moment he would finally be able to get proof.

  He sneezed and hugged himself tighter as the wind kicked up and stripped the last few remaining leaves from the tree. It was stupid not grabbing a heavier coat. Seattle winters were milder than others, but wetter and more unpredictable. When the ‘copters had flown near his house in the direction of his dad’s old workplace, he’d been so excited he hadn’t taken the time to dig through the closet in his hurry to follow it.

  His mother was going to freak.

  She’d find the spare car missing, and him. At fifteen, he was pretty sure he could handle something like taking a few pictures, but she’d freak for certain.

  Eh, she’d get over it, especially once he found proof.

  It was something he’d been trying to do for months since his dad died. They had said he’d been out on the loading docks managing something and a forklift with too heavy a load had tipped and mashed him into paste. They said they weren’t even able to identify his body.

  He thought it was a load of bull and smelled the same way.

  Trent was convinced they had killed him. His dad had started working there a little less than a year ago. Cutters, a small shipping company hoping to start a modest chain, had hired him on as a manager for one of their departments. It had been great. A giant jump in pay and benefits, more free time at home, and a ten minute drive from the house were a far cry from his dad’s last dead end job.

  His bosses were kind and friendly. When he’d busted his arm skateboarding, they had practically kicked his dad out of the office for a week to stay home with him.

  It was the happiest any of them had been. More time together and fewer bills. It was almost too good to be true.

  Eight months in, something changed.

  His dad tried to hide it, and most didn’t notice it, but it was like his dad had become afraid of something. Constantly on edge and jumpy, his parents said it was just stress from the company’s insane growth. It made sense, since a lot of people weren’t happy with how picky Cutters were with whom they hired, and a lot of it was supposedly outsourced. He would have believed them, if it weren’t for one thing.

  Friday fright nights were no longer allowed.

  Watching scary movies at the end of the school week had been a tradition for as long as he could remember. His dad loved them, and always said they helped him overcome real fears by experiencing them where it couldn’t hurt them. He remembered how the last time they had done it, his father came home late. A zombie flashed on the screen and he had flipped, not angry, but scared flipped.

  This was the dad who laughed at every stupid victim or badly acted evil creature.

  His dad had come up with some lame excuse about how the company had watched a really gruesome video on workplace safety failure, and he just didn’t have the stomach for the fake thing anymore. Mom had bought it, and they had dropped it and switched to comedies. He knew better.

  A month later, his father had supposedly had an accident. His mom wasn’t even allowed to identify the body, ‘cause there was ‘nothing left.’ Sure, he’d shouted and raged that the company was up to know good, but nobody believed him. Cutters was just about boxes, and that he was acting out.

  That was two months ago. He’d gotten smarter since then.

  Instead of throwing around accusations and drawing attention to himself, he had spent his free time snooping. Unable to actually get into the building, he had gone to the internet. The Cutters site was legit, but there wasn’t any real information on it. And for a company that lived on shipping boxes, their online purchase system was almost always on the fritz. It was like they didn’t want anyone using their service. The few names he searched for didn’t have much presence or credentials on the web. It was like they didn’t exist.

  Accessing his dad’s record at home wasn’t much help either. Everything was so compartmentalized, no one could know what was going on without a higher up’s explanation. The entire thing just stunk. Of course, when he brought it to his mother’s attention she had thought it was a coping mechanism and that he was ‘trying to find an excuse’.

  Anyone could have found what he had if they weren’t so used to accepting the pretty sheen on the surface. The entire thing was so flimsy any person digging at it would find flaws. Of course, no one bothered.

  Which was why he was out in the biting cold at one in the morning clutching a camera. The helicopters were so quiet he would have missed them if he hadn’t been taking the garbage out for the night. They really were quiet. They had to be government or some other top secret group. It was just the chance he had been looking for and his gut yelled at him to head to the Cutters building. Sure, it had done that three times over the past two months; but this time, the barely visible ‘copters landed right on the roof.

  The flash of gunfire brought his attention back to the present. It was on the top floor, obscured by tinted glass. He readied his camera. The shot had to be perfect so no one could say it was edited. Of course, the zoom on this camera wasn’t that good. It would be better if he got close, or better yet, got inside. Any security would be drawn that way, so he should be able to sneak in by the loading docks.

  He gulped at another flash. There was an awful lot of shots being fired.

  Dropping to the ground, Trent sprinted for the dock on the right. This was probably going to get him killed, that was without a doubt, but it was worth it – getting real justice for his dad was worth it. He just had to get in there and find out why people were shooting.

  Lifting a broken shipping pallet out of a nearby dumpster, he slammed it up against the closest window. There wasn’t even a scratch
. The second attempt wasn’t any different. He tried a different window, and the rest of the pallet fell apart. Tossing the remains down with a frustrated groan, his hands ran through his unruly brown hair. Why the hell did a shipping company have reinforced glass in its windows?

  He’d just have to get something from here.

  Pressing his face up against the cold glass, a disappointingly normal scene lay out in front of him. The dark made seeing anything difficult, aside from the outlines of several tables and chairs. It looked like the employee break room. His heart sank, the window fogging up with a hopeless sigh.

  Damn it, he was so close and there wasn’t anything there! No, no, it was too early to give up. Something would eventually come by the window. He’d waited this long, a few minutes or hours more of patience wasn’t that much to ask.

  He angrily wiped the fog away with his sleeve and leaned in.

  A pale hand crashed down against the glass, causing him to tumble back with a yelp. His breath caught in his throat as a partially decomposed face emerged from the shadows and pressed itself fully against the glass. Its milky white eye stared directly at him with a feral intensity, and there was no doubt in his mind that the zombie had memorized his face. It just had that kind of look about it.

  No wonder his dad was so scared.

  He scrambled to his feet and started snapping shots. The thing pawed on at the window, and as wary as he was, a nervous smile came to his face. With these developed, everyone would see what a bunch of sickos these guys at Cutters were.

  Taking a few more snapshots, he backed away slowly and than hightailed it back to his car as the first snowflakes started to fall.

  He never noticed the creature follow his every move, or how its fingers elongated and sharpened … the glass starting to fracture in a sick, horrid crack.

  Chapter

  27

  The door shut behind them with a rusty screech, and John motioned for Cale to follow. Dark dank hallways were illuminated by John’s bioluminescent glow as they went deeper into the corridor. The same stale rotten smell from earlier was growing more intense … and fresher. The walls were damaged less than those where he had awoken, but grime coated everything, the moisture in the air thick enough for mold to form.