Baker's Dozen

  Contents

  Title/copyright page

  Abominabooks

  Beneath the Soil

  Inanimate Voices

  12 Feet Under

  Detached

  My Pain

  The Sculpture

  Demon-Thing

  The Unforgettable Highway

  The Sound from Kingwood

  Drip-Drop

  Number of the Beast

  Hypervision

  A Shadow on the Upstairs Wall

  About the Author

  Baker's Dozen

  Tales of mystery and the macabre

  By

  Troy McCombs

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Troy Ray McCombs

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Abominabooks

  Visit troymccombs.com for updates, info, new stories and books, free stuff, and more. Subscribe (it costs nothing and only takes a minute) to get a FREE ebook!

  Other works by Troy McCombs

  Puppeteer of the Dead I

  Puppeteer of the Dead 2

  Strandead (Prey)

  Damaged

  Imaginary Friend

  Music of 1997

  The First Level of Hell

  Baker's Dozen

  The Clown Picture

  Darkworld

  The House on Mayberry Road

  Surviving High School (a coming-of-age story)

  Triple Threat

  Short stories

  Devil's Root

  The Patient

  Inside Out

  Spiders

  Rag Doll Free!

  The Black Place Inside Free!

  The Graveyard Free!

  The Void Free!

  The Gift of Life Free!

  Beneath the Soil

  I’ve been living on the top floor of a high-rise apartment building in Chicago for most of my life. Being twelve stories above ground has kept me safe, away from any natural soil, which I dread even more than death. Concrete is all right for me to step foot on, given it is thicker than six inches, but any thinner and it will begin to crack. I have never been to mountains or deserts before, so I do not know what would happen there. My problem is so bizarre that some nights I stay up crying, sweating, trying to keep my sanity. I guess it's possible I have been insane all my life, terrified of dirt and grass for reasons basically unknown. Whether it's the truth or a delusion is left up to interpretation. I have been searching for years to find another like me; I have not found a soul.

  Everybody on this big green and blue ball takes everything for granted: walking, jogging, sitting on a blanket in the park. I can do none of those things. I can't walk on any natural soil, really. I have done so a few times before, with almost dire consequences. The hands are there waiting for me, waiting to thrust out of the ground and pull me under and take me somewhere I can't begin to imagine. I don't know where they come from, what they are, or why they're there ... but I do know that the very moment my foot touches down, I might as well start screaming.

  Maybe they come from hell. Who knows? They certainly did not attack my mother and father who were standing by me when I was three, when I went running after the dog in the yard for the first time. But the hands were there. That is why my parents had left me up for adoption.

  Paralyzing fear can conquer true love.

  I've gone through about two thousand books on the subject of myth, occult, ancient monsters—you name it. I've read everything, can explain every detail of every mythological being I have ever read about, but have not once come across this.

  My ball and chain.

  Though I can walk anywhere in the city, the concrete jungle (you gotta love it), I chose not to. Because, not much farther down, I know that those decrepit old fingernails are scratching to break through with my every tread. I just can't live with that. So all I do is stay in bed, read, watch television, and just hope that God, if he exists, will take me as soon as possible.

  Everything changed on July 2, the day I got the letter.

  "Dear Jason,

  My name is Ivolsky Olysen. I come from Russia. I now live in United States. I, too, see the hands. I've moved around quite a bit. I've lived in France, Germany, Italy—they're everywhere. It's not just in one location, the undergrounders are all over the planet. Not even sand is safe. I was once pulled almost fully under a sandy beach some years ago before some American saved me. The hands grabbed my foot so tightly, it broke in four places. To this day I have trouble walking.

  “Only three people have seen me being pulled under: the American at the beach, and two of my family members, who have not spoken to me in many years. I know they're afraid, but what about us? We have to live with this curse.

  “It's not a hallucination. It's not insanity. It's nothing we can analyze or understand. But we must band together and try, even if it's just two of us. I believe there is another one in the States who's experienced the hands, and together, we shall find him soon.

  “It's taken me seven years just to find you—one person. We must meet. I will come to you. Give me a call at 714-555-2239 as soon as you get this. I live in Ohio state—“

  I felt like breaking something, making myself heard. I thought it was complete bullshit. The whole letter, this person—a complete hoax. I first believed Ivolsky, or whoever the hell it was, found out about me through some unorthodox means. Was he a psychic? Did he dig through my trash at some point and find the letters I used to write to people ... who dismissed me in the first place? How did this son of a bitch know?

  I went to the bottle. Jack was my best friend. He took my pain away every time. There was no fail in him, my liquid redeemer.

  I laid on my stained old mattress and struggled not to break something, even myself. I've been broken dozens of times, from nightmares, from visions of being pulled so far underground that no matter how loud I scream, nobody could hear me. So deep beneath the soil that it, alone, would suffocate me while hands would tear me apart.

  The bottle was already gone. That's okay. I had four more in the fridge. Where there were unlimited TV dinners and pudding snacks, there was always a readily supply of alcohol in my ice box.

  I did not want the letter to be real—this, I can't fathom. I've always wanted to find my twin, that rare breed who shared my dark secret. Now that I may have found him, I didn’t know if I wanted him any longer. Was it best to call? To give it a chance? Or was it best to drink away the rest of my life and watch reruns of Full House and Home Improvement?

  I cursed. I cursed God. I cursed everybody else for being normal. I cursed the fucking solid ground that pampered the feet of everybody else. I cursed myself for being a freak.

  I did not get up to get another drink. I did not reach over and grab the remote. Instead, I grabbed the phone. It was probably a big mistake to call him at all. For some reason, I could not stop myself.

  I dialed the number, waited, my heart palpitating like a broken machine.

  "Hello?" Ivolsky said.

  I said nothing.

  "It's you," Ivolsky said. His accent was Russian, easily, but was fairly understandable.

  "How do you know me?" was the only thing I could say. I wish I could have said something better.

  "Don't worry about it," he said, as if the phone were tapped. "I have good contacts. There is a direct link between us, don't you see? That's how I know about you. You know everything about me, as well. You just haven't searched."

  That seriously pissed me off.

  "Are you home? At your apartment?"

  "But how did you—" I said, The Daniels screwing up my brain.

  "I will be there tonight. Eight. Your place. Make sure you don't go anywhere."

  "How do you know where I live? Where did you get MY information?" I almost cursed him and made a remark about his nationality; but fortunately, I stopped myself. "All right. Eight. Don't be late, Ivorkian." I knew it. I'd insulted him. That damn liquor talking.

  "Good-bye."

  The hum of an open line…

  I slammed the phone down, cracking off a piece of the plastic as I did. Then I knew nothing.

  ***

  The pounding on the door woke me up three hours later. Since nobody hardly ever knocked on my door, I was afraid it was the hands at first, but quickly realized who it was a moment later.

  I checked my watch. It was eight on the dot.

  I got up, knocking over an empty bag of chips, and hurried into the next room.

  More pounding. Just to be safe, I said, "Who is it?"

  "Ivolsky."

  Unbolted, unlatched and opened.

  He was tall, overweight, and smelled of old, cheap cigars. The odor of that, plus the scent of his pungent cologne, almost made me slam the door on him. He was wearing expensive clothes, but he wore them like they were dime-store scrubs. The huge glasses shaded his eyes so well, he might have had Disneyworld trapped behind them. The final thing I noticed about him was his shoes. Steel toed boots with a hard sole. Gotta love em.

  "Nice to finally meet you," he said, shaking my hand before I got a chance to reach for his.

  H
e came in like he owned the place, limping heavily on his right leg as if it were made of wood.

  "You too," I managed to say.

  "I've been waiting a long time for this. We are the rarest breed on this planet, son. There's Progeria victims and there's us. We are one of a kind. Not in a good way, neither."

  "What are we?" I demanded.

  "Get me a drink with enough alcohol to kill a horse and I'll tell you what I know."

  I got him a screwdriver, got myself another bottle of Jack Daniels, and sat across from him on my couch. He was sitting in a chair, more paranoid than a schizophrenic on angel dust.

  "Now, I'm sure you've read mounds of books on every sort of mystery, yes?"

  I nodded.

  "What we are—what we might be—is trapped. Trapped in two different worlds all at once. At least two worlds, maybe more. This is just a theory, not a fact. It's just something I concluded. What if there's this world, on the exterior of the planet, and one below, that we're really a part of, except our souls got trapped in between."

  At this moment I thought he was already dead-ass drunk. I nodded anyway.

  "Maybe the things underground aren't happy we're here, so they're trying to pull us under. Maybe they want to be here and aren't for some reason. They can track our footings through some unknown means and know where and when to pull us under." He raised his eyebrows at me as if I thought his theory was plausible. I couldn't agree.

  "But why? Why us? You know, if we're standing five feet away from a normal person, on a boulder, and have the soil around the normal person excavated, they won't find a thing. But if we, in turn, jump onto that soil, they'll be there in an instant. The whole thing is—what if we tried that? What if we got someone to chop off one of their hands when we stepped foot on ground? Then they could do tests on it, see what the hell it really is?"

  He nodded and gulped down the rest of his screwdriver.

  "What experiences do you have with the hands?" I asked him.

  "Besides what I told you in the letter—well, one time when I was a child, I told my friend about them and he didn't believe me. I proved him he was wrong. He stood in a field. I was standing on a car. I jumped right beside him. The hands grabbed MY feet, knew exactly where I was standing. They did not even touch my friend, who ran away and I never saw him again. The closest I ever got to any truth was when my father took me to a medical facility that studies the paranormal. I was around twelve years old at the time. I showed them what happens when I walk on ground. They were stunned. Appalled. They also ran tests on my whole body. Found nothing.

  "At least until they run tests on my lower body. Now, everything living has an aura, a colored life-force surrounding it. They said they had never tested one person, not even the top psychic—not even a person with extreme -PK ability—who had a bigger aura than my leg down to my foot. Imagine Christ, or someone with that power, but not that powerful... now imagine the blinding aura around their head. It's no comparison to my feet. They said they could have taken an aura photo on flat land from two miles away and it would have been bleached out."

  I could not believe it, but I did. This middle-aged man, who looked like he was falling apart, was telling the truth. I identified with him to the end.

  Now I wanted to know more—everything there was to know about this supernatural disability.

  "What have you gone through?" he asked me.

  "Basically, I've sheltered myself most of my life. Mother and father abandoned me at a young age. I almost died once when I decided it all was just a dream and ran outside. My first foot that hit the soil was grabbed. I fell, then the next thing I knew, I was coughing mud. Neighbor saved my life. Last time I heard, that neighbor was sent to the loony bin."

  "Someone once told me something that I reflect upon all the time. Goes: beneath any surface is the truth; above that is all a lie. Is this truth? Are those white, yellow, rotting hands the truth? We're all a lie? This whole world of working people with kids and faith in God, all false? Is the truth around us, within us, underneath us especially—is that more real than everything we've build over thousands of years?"

  I could not answer him. He had a point.

  I took a big chug of Jack. Ivolsky reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. "Here," he said, holding it out, "I found his phone number. Thank God for the World Wide Web!"

  I took the paper and read it: Darren Kongor, 211-555-6261. "Who's?"

  "The third of our trio. You see, there are three of us in this world. That's all there is. I searched the ends of the earth for you and Darren. I just never dreamed you and him would be in America."

  "What's wrong with America? Do you think it's full of wackos who are afraid of dry land?" I joked. Ivolsky did not chuckle. He did not even accidentally grin. He just stared ahead like I wasn't there. "Are you kidding me?" I said, looking at the phone number.

  "Excuse me?" he said.

  "This is right outside of Chicago, this number. I recognize the area code. This is less than two hours away."

  "Away from here? Now?"

  "Yeah. I'm sure of it."

  "Then what are we waiting for?" he said, standing. I finished my drink. We left soon afterward.

  Neither of us owned a car, let alone a driver's license, so we taxied our way to Paniksina, Chicago to match up with a piece of our unlikely puzzle. I'd never felt so anxious to be somewhere than I did then. The whole drive was a blur, but drawn out in my head like some brilliant Da Vinci painting. At some point I expected hands to tear out of the asphalt and pull the cab under with us inside, but I'd been in vehicles before, and knew that that wouldn't happen, all thanks to the rubber tires and thick concrete base.

  We arrived at the man's house at eleven on the button. I first figured this to be a rare coincidence until Ivolsky turned to me and said, "No time is coincidental." He continued on: "Whether we're late for an appointment, or end up anywhere we never expected, it's meant to be on their time"--he said. The hands, I believed he meant. I also suspected he meant this to normal people, as well.

  "Jason, some of us wake up in the middle of the night because the soil turns over, and it just so happens that some of us can feel it."

  I did not follow him from thereon.

  Darren Kongor's house sat in between two much larger houses in an area so suburban you would have thought there was something grotesquely wrong … with the nearby kids playing without any insecurity or rebellion in their manner and the white-collar adults mowing their lawns as if they actually enjoyed it. Darren's house was the darker one, literally shaded in darkness by the two half-mansions squeezing it together. Apart from that, I could tell Darren had done his homework. His front yard had purposely and hurriedly been dug out and covered messily with cement. Rusty metal bars secured the windows from any intruder, or possible hand, from getting into his world. Funnily, I saw some cracks on the sidewalk that led up to his house, and by the way the pavement was broken, I could tell without a doubt that he'd once stepped on it and accidentally summoned them.

  We got out, Ivolsky and I, onto the paved street, neither one of us feeling comfortable being so gravity declined. I could faintly feel the ground move ever so slightly, as they were trying to break through.

  The cab drove away after Ivolsky paid the driver. I looked down at the small patch of soil that separated the road from the sidewalk, wondering if the hands would pop out if I merely lifted my foot over the ground. Well, I tried, and I was okay. My new Russian friend followed me onto Darren's little concrete yard. Before we even got to the door, it opened.

  It was Darren. We both knew it. Darren looked at us as if he'd seen us a thousand times before, along with a twinkle of complete terror in his dormant brown eyes. He was younger than both Ivolsky and I, probably not over thirty, and definitely no younger than twenty. There was no hair whatsoever on his head or eyebrows. He did not look healthy, either. His skin was eerily white, smooth, his features long and drawn out. His arms were freakishly long and slender, along with the rest of him. I had seen my dead relatives in caskets who looked more lifelike than this young man.