The Ovum Horror Read online



  T H E

  OVUM HORROR

  Written by

  Wesley McCraw

  Copyright 2016 Wesley McCraw

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. No matter how this ebook was obtained, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage others to download their own copy. Thank you for your support.

  The Ovum Horror

  Cook: What good is a dream?

  Dreams are for those with autonomy.

  The Queen in Yellow needs to be fed.

  It's my lot until I'm dead.

  The Queen in Yellow. Act I. Scene 2.

  My bedroom door doesn't have a lock. I watch the doorknob from my bed, imagining the handle’s slow turn. I hug my knees and rock in sweat-drenched anxiety. On the other side of the door is a foul mist, and in that mist waits a yellow thing, a Grimm fairytale come to life.

  A metallic taste clings to the inside of my mouth, like my fillings have turned to copper.

  Before I could slam the door to the thing in yellow, I gasped and sucked in the mist without meaning to. I’m now physically ill. My nose runs. The crumpled tissues I scrounged from my wastebasket have disintegrated from repeated use. I'm out of breath for no reason. I keep probing two loose molars with my tongue.

  I am too frightened to open the door again, to see what I almost saw.

  Loose teeth are common in nightmares. Yet no matter how desperately I wish this to be a dream, I know it’s real. The solidity from moment to moment is relentless, with none of the shifting that is so common while dreaming.

  I've called out and pounded on the wall. No one has come to my aid. My roommate's room is next to mine. I would go to him if he yelled for help, but I'm not braving the mist without a damn good reason.

  Black ink seems to have coated the windowpanes of my room. That's what it looks like. Something is faulty with the world outside. Daylight should have come hours ago. Instead, all I see is a darkness darker than any night.

  My cell has no service.

  My tablet won't connect to the Internet.

  I’m cut off.

  There should be sounds: cars, construction, cooing pigeons. I hear my breathing and the creak of the bedsprings underneath me. I try to be quiet. I don’t want to draw attention.

  If the world ended, why am I still here? If everyone is dead, why am I still alive?

  I keep waiting for a sun that never comes up. I've filled three whiskey bottles with urine, the liquid in each bottle darker than the last. What I wouldn't give for a drink! My stomach rumbles and swells. I don't want to defecate in the corner, but sooner or later, I'll have to relieve the pressure building in my bowels.

  How long can I cower in my bed?

  Something more than sweat dampens the seat of my pants. I wipe my ass with a stray sock. A white, milky discharge coats the argyle. I resist the urge to smell it, to try to understand what it could be, and nausea rises. I throw the sock in the wastebasket.

  Outside my window, even if I can't see it, is an alley that leads to a cross street of the main thoroughfare of Eddington, Massachusetts. It's all still out there. It has to be! I could climb out my window into the darkness and escape the yellow thing.

  Just the thought of it waiting for me on the other side of the door causes a fresh wave of cold sweat. I climb back into bed as if that makes me safer somehow.

  The thing was obscured by fog, but it saw me. I’m sure of it.

  I can’t keep waiting. I can’t keep watching the doorknob, hoping beyond hope that this is all a dream. I should run.

  I throw off my blanket.

  The black outside is absolute.

  I pull up the window, the scraping squeak bracingly loud in the silence. Past the ledge is nothing. It has to be an optical illusion. The world has to still exist.

  The silence is what frightens me the most.

  I need to perform a test. There has to be some way to make sure there is still pavement out there to stand on. I pick up a broken peanut shell. I'll drop it out the window and see what happens. More curious than frightened, I reach toward the void. My fingertips enter the onyx. It feels wet and I hesitate.

  Blood patters the sill.

  My blood.

  A horrified scream escapes my throat. The inch of my right hand that entered the void is gone. The four nubs that remain gush blood onto the sill, onto the floor, all over my other hand as I try to stop the bleeding.

  I grab a shirt off the floor, and I find myself sitting on the edge of my bed. The hard ends of the stubs press against the shirt and against my palm. It’s bone! I’m feeling my own finger bones! If I didn’t find a seat, I’m sure I would be on the floor right now, passed out. The feeling of bone beneath the fabric makes me understand the injury too well. It’s too real. It makes me woozier than the blood loss. I hold my hand above my heart and let out a panicked moan that rises in pitch.

  This can't be happening.

  The world outside is gone—just like the ends of my fingers, God help me!—but my building is still here. Focus on that. I’ve got to hold it together! Think this through. Think. This building is special. I don't know anything about this building. Parts are old, or made with old masonry, but it's just a building. It has the same New England architectural style as the building across the street.

  My room still has electricity. It makes no sense! The rest of the world can’t be gone!

  The mist has stayed out of my room for a reason. If the building isn't keeping me safe, maybe it's something in this room.

  I stand slowly, so as not to pass out. Spots speckle my vision. I picture hidden symbols carved into the floor under my bed. In a story, maybe it was Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House,” there were these sigils under a bed that made a man dream and do horrible things. I drag my bed away from the wall, but only reveal dust, old magazines, and my scuffed hardwood floor.

  There isn't much in my room to look through: books piled along a wall, my desk, two windows...

  The one window is still open. I want it closed, but I don't want near the black. The part of my hand that had entered the nothingness became nothingness. The air near the void is perfectly still. This isn’t possible! This is insane! I use my anger to slam the window closed.

  Feeling a little safer and self-possessed, I search through my books. Most are mass-market paperbacks and cookbooks. A biography by Khallikan. A book of short stories by Chambers. The collected works of Poe and Lovecraft. Nothing here to save me or damn me.

  It seems unlikely that my chintzy particle-board desk ever belonged to an occultist. In my desk drawer is a box of cigars, along with a fancy cigar cutter to snip off the tips. I bought the cigars to celebrate my girlfriend's pregnancy. My search through the desk gets everything bloody. We fought on the front steps in the rain, and Dana lost the baby. I didn't see her again after that. I don’t even remember what we were fighting about.

  Has the void killed her?

  Has darkness snuffed out all life, like it does every night in my dreams?

  Something arcane could be in the attic above, protecting me. Or in the basement below. I haven't the strength to break through the floor.

  I sit and wait. Tears run from my eyes, but not about anything in particular. I feel numb. Logic will never explain this. I'm just a guy, a sous chef at a three-star restaurant. I'm no one.

  I know I can go three days without water. Less now that I've lost blood. How long has it been already?

  I blow my nose on the sheet while avoidi
ng the blood splotches. The thread count is high, but the old mattress underneath should have been replaced years ago. Acid burns my throat and pain twists inside my chest. It's funny: my heartburn hurts worse than my hand. Blood drips from my elbow. I'm getting weaker and more exhausted by the moment.

  Fifteen feet from my door, through the mist and past the thing in yellow, is a bathroom.

  The bathroom has water.

  And gauze for my hand.

  And if I make it, I can finally take a shit.

  Maybe the thing in yellow has left. Or maybe the incomprehensible horror was a trick of my imagination. Maybe it was Dana's yellow slicker draped over a chair.

  "Hello?" I say to the door, my trembling voice emphasizing how fragile and weak I am.

  The longer I wait, the weaker I'll get.

  I hold a terrified cry in my throat and open the door.

  The mist swirls, recently disturbed. The chair is empty. The room reeks of rotting cabbage and dead things. I hold my breath, squint, keep my head down, and rush to the bathroom, half blind.

  I lock the bathroom door behind me.

  The mist is in here too, collecting on every surface. Maybe the fan will clear some of it out. With a hand towel, I wipe the mirror, smearing a sticky substance across the glass. I'm death warmed over, my skin white ash, my eyes bloodshot and haunted. I hardly recognize myself.

  At least the tap water runs clear.

  My roommate has some Oxycodone left over from oral surgery. I swallow the three remaining tablets.

  I take out a good-sized roll of