Stamped // Post Your Work
Hm. So. This is just a little scary story I wrote in honor of Halloween, which is my favorite holiday. Hooray!
The stench, it was everywhere. Not sewage; not anymore, anyway... instead, a heavy dankness infused with rot. Old things. Wet leaves and decomposing rats, their skeletons sinking into the squelching layer of decay as mud slid across their tiny black eyes.
As this image oozed its way through Thomas Faber's mind, he couldn't keep the shudder from twitching across his shoulders and down his spine. Beside him, Mallory G. touched his arm and shone her flashlight down the narrow concrete stairs.
“I thought this thing wasn't being, you know, used,” she said, her nose wrinkling. Thomas shrugged.
“It's not. I guess it's just...” He trailed off. “Whatever. It goes all the way to the subway station downtown; I bet we can get into all kinds of places between here and there.” He looked at her. She tilted her head and nodded. Thomas took a careful step down, and Mallory grabbed his shoulder. She hesitated, hovering in the mouth of the sewer entrance. “We've got everything, right? The map, the radios, all that?”
“Sure,” Thomas said. “Come on,” he added, trying to sound reassuring. She smiled at him, and for a second, there was something not-so-nice there. Then, Mallory followed him into the dark.
This was not the first urban exploration he'd done; after going through that old apartment building in Chicago two years before, Thomas had made a point of seeking out the people like him. People who actually like the ghostlike feel of abandoned buildings, the eerie excitement of secret passageways and broken tunnels. Urban explorers. Unnatural spelunkers. Or, as the less sophisticated of them call themselves... Creepers.
Still, it was the first time with Mallory, and only the second time he'd met her in person, and the first few minutes are always the most nerve-wracking. Exploring with a partner is the only way to go; otherwise, what happens when your flashlight dies, your rope snaps, a rotted floor caves in? What happens if you get lost? People go into the tunnels, the vast labyrinths of sewer beneath cities like Paris or Manhattan, and just... disappear. Bodies turn up every so often, but just as many simply sink away. So you never creep alone. But the first time-- it's intimate; requires absolute confidence and trust... and if someone panics, it can mean disorientation, claustrophobia--
Thomas shook off those thoughts, concentrating on the sound of Mallory's breathing. Her disgust at the smell of the place seemed to be under control, and now there was nothing but the wet muddiness beneath their booted feet and the hollow rhythm of air moving past their faces. Mallory held the printed map of the out-of-use sewer system in one hand and her flashlight in the other; she paused to look it over. A few places had red circles, and one was starred.
“So where are we going first,” Thomas asked, looking over her shoulder. He had helped mark up the map the week before, when they'd met to plan the trip, but the star was new.
“Well, here's the Haven Mall,” she murmured, the tip of her thumb brushing against one of the circles. “We could probably get up through the grate in the back. And here's-”
“What's that?” He touched the starred dot with one finger. Mallory hesitated, and her face went sly. Her large, dark eyes glinted.
“That's the Golde house.” Thomas blinked. Somewhere, something skittered against the curved tunnel wall, and they both jerked around. The sound, over as soon as it had begun, echoed softly. “I forgot,” Mallory said slowly, turning back to face him. “You aren't from around here.” He waited. “The Golde house is our Rose Red,” she continued. “You know, the haunted mansion type? They say Old Man Golde is still in there.” Her voice fell, and its natural rasp turned into a low scritching hum that was both pleasant and oddly unnerving. Thomas held her gaze. “Of course, that'd be impossible... since Old Man Golde died twenty years ago.”
“You mean he's like a ghost?” Thomas felt his lips quirk upwards. Still, he kept his voice low. Mallory shrugged.
“I mean he's like something,” she said noncommittally. “Something that... eats.” She paused. “Of course, that's just a story they told us when we were kids.”
“And you want to go there?” They were very close, now. Thomas could feel the cold ooze of whatever he was standing in, pressing on his rubber boots.
“I happen to know for a fact that this sewer, or a branch of it, goes right up into that cellar,” Mallory replied, and her voice was normal again. “A friend of mine tried it once. She said I should go.” Thomas took the map, glancing over his shoulder. The door that led to the stairs, to the light, was open by barely a crack. He looked back at the map, and traced a path.
“Seems easy to get to.”
She smiled.
Moving again, Thomas led the way. Behind him, Mallory was quiet enough, though he noticed that she jumped every time something moved in the dark of the tunnel. Still, he'd had far worse partners. Mallory, for all her initial hesitation and pretty face, was not as girly as he'd feared.
And she wanted to explore the haunted house.
Because the silence was weighing on him, like it always did after a certain amount of time, Thomas spoke over the squelching splashes of their footsteps.
“So how big a mansion are we talking, here?” Her breathing sounded a bit labored, but she answered readily.
“Pretty damn big. You know how the Taj Mahal was this giant tomb?”
“Right.”
“Well, so my father told me the Golde house was the same way, more or less. Apparently Old Man Golde built it for his wife, because she was dying. Cancer. And he wanted a place for her to die, a big place. A beautiful place. There used to be grounds, you know? But they got bought up. No one bought the house, though; it's too huge and too broken down.”
“So what happened to the guy who built it? Golde?” He turned his head to look at her, swinging the flashlight with him, and a black sewer rat scuttled out of the path of the beam. Thomas kept his mouth shut, and Mallory went on. She hadn't seen.
“Well, that's the thing. No one really knows. He died; he must have died... but they say mail still gets delivered to that house, even though no one lives there, and that lights go on inside some nights. And that if you spend the night there-”
“Let me guess. You're never seen again.” Mallory gave a practiced mad laugh.
“Most of you isn't,” she corrected. “Sometimes parts show up on the lawn.” This idea was gruesome enough to be funny, in that way that if a thing isn't funny, it just might be the most awful thing in the world.
“That's disgusting.”
“You asked,” she said, smug. Thomas shook his head, about to say more, but the light in his hand suddenly wavered.
“Hey.”
“Problem?” He jiggled the flashlight, and the beam came back strong.
“My light might go in a few minutes. I don't know, maybe the battery slipped.” Mallory caught up enough to walk beside him, feeling in the pockets of her cargo pants.
“I swear I brought more batteries. Didn't you?” She frowned. “Where did I put those?” Thomas reached in his own pocket, and brought out two double As.
“It's cool; I've got-” Mallory gave a short shriek, her body convulsing towards Thomas. Her elbow connected with his upper arm, and the batteries bounced from his palm to the dark sludge at their feet.
“Shit!”
“I'm sorry! There was- I stepped on-” Mallory bent, shining her light straight down. A tree branch, gnarled end covered with scrawny roots and half-rotted twigs, stuck out of the muddy ground layer. The batteries, however, were nowhere to be seen. Mallory straightened, face pale. “The branch, it felt like- I could feel it through the boot. I thought it was a...”
“It's okay,” Thomas said, cutting her off. Saying the words 'a body' wouldn't help anything. “Must have gotten washed down here from some drain. You've still got your flashlight, and this one doesn't look like it's going just yet. It's fine.”
“We could find the batteries,” Mallory said after a moment. “If we tried hard enough…” Thomas could hear the reluctance in her voice, and felt it mirrored in his own mind. Still, he told himself it was for her that he shook his head.
“Are you kidding? I don’t even want to know what else is down there.” She nodded. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
“Really?” Thomas gestured with the map.
“Apparently that entrance is less than a mile from the house. That’s only underground, of course; it’d probably take a lot longer following actual roads.”
“I thought sewers did follow the roads.” Thomas shrugged, tucking the useless flashlight into a pouch on his belt.
“Stop lights and traffic,” he decided. “Makes all the difference.” She snorted.
“Right. Down here we’ve just got sewer sludge and rats.” They started moving. Thomas stayed in front, holding the map pinned beneath one armpit as he searched his pockets for more spare batteries. There was the cheap Walkie-Talkie, which took triple As; there was the masking tape; the heavy duty glow stick; the cell phone (which, he didn’t doubt, got little to no coverage beneath the city itself); the Swiss Army knife with the notched blade. No more batteries. His flashlight wavered again, dimming. Thomas shook it, hearing the rattle inside the plastic, and the light died.
“Well, so that’s good,” he muttered. “Mallory, I guess you lead.”
“I’ll come up here,” she said, walking beside him. “Better if we can both see, instead of you just following my back.”
“Don’t worry,” Thomas declared, holding the map into the light. “When we reach this Hell House, which should be in… about five minutes, I’ll go first.”
“I’m not worried,” Mallory told him, walking a bit faster.
“Sure,” he said. “Sure.” They lapsed into silence broken by a faint, but steady, dripping sound.
Rounding a bend, Thomas ducked into a branching tunnel. Mallory stepped in after him, the light bobbing down, then sharply up again as she steadied herself against the tunnel wall. Mallory made a face and wiped her palm down the side of her pants. The dripping noise was louder, now.
“It should be off to the right up here,” Thomas said.
“There.” Mallory pointed with her light, the long, pale angle of it barely eating into the shadows. There was a hole, there, up ahead; the tunnel wall dipped and broke, leaving a hollow darker-than-dark indentation. More slowly now, they approached.
“Shine the light in there.” She did so, illuminating a metal ring that quickly gave way to musty shadows. Thomas put one hand on the edge where the tunnel wall ended, stepping up. The opening that led to the Golde house cellar was a good six inches above the sewer bottom, but the floor of the short passage was clean and dry. Concrete, Thomas thought. Or steel. He helped Mallory up after him, and ducked his way through the passage. It was only a few feet long, and at the end there was a round metal door. It had no handle.
“Push it,” Mallory suggested. Thomas quirked a brow at her. She shrugged. He handed her the map, angled his body away from the door, and pressed one shoulder against the cold surface. To his surprise, the door opened easily, with barely a shove needed to make it swing free. Carefully, feeling with his booted foot, Thomas stepped down into the cellar.
Mallory hopped down after him, the light jogging in a wild arc. Before she steadied it, Thomas saw dirt walls, wooden shelves covered with cobwebs and what might have been canning jars, and a rickety-looking staircase. Then, Mallory shone the light around the room. Sure enough, the walls were caked dirt, solidly packed and very old. Two of them were lined with shelves. The staircase was narrow, and led into blackness. Water, brownish and stale, dripped from the ceiling into one corner.
“So,” Thomas said after a moment. “I don’t see any body parts.” Mallory said nothing, moving to look at one of the shelves.
“Check it out,” she called. “Tomatoes.”
“Really?” He grinned, heading for the other wall of shelves. “Let’s see if there’s anything worth taking.” The flashlight let off a strong enough glow to make the cellar’s darkness not absolute. Thomas squinted at the shelf at eye level. There were more jars, and a few dusty boxes. “Bring the light over here,” he said, reaching for one of the boxes.
Almost before he’d finished speaking, the beam snapped off, the plastic flashlight clattering to the floor.
Thomas jolted, whirling around.
“Mallory? Mallory, what the hell-” He stopped, frozen. There was no sound from across the room.
No screams. No apologies. No breathing.
Heart pounding, the fear suddenly alive behind his lungs and very, very real, Thomas edged forward. He knelt, feeling along the concrete floor for the flashlight.
“Mallory? Where are you?” His fingertips touched a hard plastic handle, and he snatched up the light and thumbed it on.
Mallory was gone.
Thomas had an instant of plain, unadulterated disbelief, and then the metal door leading to the sewers clanged shut.
Now, the shock was gone, crumpled down by the horror. It was in him, building, his legs trembling and his elbows locked, hands out in front of him, flashlight shaking. Thomas turned, moving for the staircase, free hand snagging a glass canning jar. He held it beside his head, ready to smash it against whoever- whatever- had taken Mallory.
Up the stairs, in the cold, Thomas in the dark with the canning jar and the flashlight.
And then the door at the top of the stairs swung open, and the canning jar crashed to the wooden steps. Shards of glass sprayed back into the cellar, catching against Thomas’ jeans.
Mallory smiled at him from the doorway, and it was not-so-nice again, and there were teeth. Too many teeth. Too many sharp, sharp teeth.
“But you know,” she said lightly, stepping down into the stairwell, “those stories were all wrong. It wasn’t Old Man Golde kids were supposed to be afraid of,” she continued, taking another step, taking the flashlight out of Thomas’s numb hand. “It was his daughter.”
And the light clicked off.
The stench, it was everywhere. Not sewage; not anymore, anyway... instead, a heavy dankness infused with rot. Old things. Wet leaves and decomposing rats, their skeletons sinking into the squelching layer of decay as mud slid across their tiny black eyes.
As this image oozed its way through Thomas Faber's mind, he couldn't keep the shudder from twitching across his shoulders and down his spine. Beside him, Mallory G. touched his arm and shone her flashlight down the narrow concrete stairs.
“I thought this thing wasn't being, you know, used,” she said, her nose wrinkling. Thomas shrugged.
“It's not. I guess it's just...” He trailed off. “Whatever. It goes all the way to the subway station downtown; I bet we can get into all kinds of places between here and there.” He looked at her. She tilted her head and nodded. Thomas took a careful step down, and Mallory grabbed his shoulder. She hesitated, hovering in the mouth of the sewer entrance. “We've got everything, right? The map, the radios, all that?”
“Sure,” Thomas said. “Come on,” he added, trying to sound reassuring. She smiled at him, and for a second, there was something not-so-nice there. Then, Mallory followed him into the dark.
This was not the first urban exploration he'd done; after going through that old apartment building in Chicago two years before, Thomas had made a point of seeking out the people like him. People who actually like the ghostlike feel of abandoned buildings, the eerie excitement of secret passageways and broken tunnels. Urban explorers. Unnatural spelunkers. Or, as the less sophisticated of them call themselves... Creepers.
Still, it was the first time with Mallory, and only the second time he'd met her in person, and the first few minutes are always the most nerve-wracking. Exploring with a partner is the only way to go; otherwise, what happens when your flashlight dies, your rope snaps, a rotted floor caves in? What happens if you get lost? People go into the tunnels, the vast labyrinths of sewer beneath cities like Paris or Manhattan, and just... disappear. Bodies turn up every so often, but just as many simply sink away. So you never creep alone. But the first time-- it's intimate; requires absolute confidence and trust... and if someone panics, it can mean disorientation, claustrophobia--
Thomas shook off those thoughts, concentrating on the sound of Mallory's breathing. Her disgust at the smell of the place seemed to be under control, and now there was nothing but the wet muddiness beneath their booted feet and the hollow rhythm of air moving past their faces. Mallory held the printed map of the out-of-use sewer system in one hand and her flashlight in the other; she paused to look it over. A few places had red circles, and one was starred.
“So where are we going first,” Thomas asked, looking over her shoulder. He had helped mark up the map the week before, when they'd met to plan the trip, but the star was new.
“Well, here's the Haven Mall,” she murmured, the tip of her thumb brushing against one of the circles. “We could probably get up through the grate in the back. And here's-”
“What's that?” He touched the starred dot with one finger. Mallory hesitated, and her face went sly. Her large, dark eyes glinted.
“That's the Golde house.” Thomas blinked. Somewhere, something skittered against the curved tunnel wall, and they both jerked around. The sound, over as soon as it had begun, echoed softly. “I forgot,” Mallory said slowly, turning back to face him. “You aren't from around here.” He waited. “The Golde house is our Rose Red,” she continued. “You know, the haunted mansion type? They say Old Man Golde is still in there.” Her voice fell, and its natural rasp turned into a low scritching hum that was both pleasant and oddly unnerving. Thomas held her gaze. “Of course, that'd be impossible... since Old Man Golde died twenty years ago.”
“You mean he's like a ghost?” Thomas felt his lips quirk upwards. Still, he kept his voice low. Mallory shrugged.
“I mean he's like something,” she said noncommittally. “Something that... eats.” She paused. “Of course, that's just a story they told us when we were kids.”
“And you want to go there?” They were very close, now. Thomas could feel the cold ooze of whatever he was standing in, pressing on his rubber boots.
“I happen to know for a fact that this sewer, or a branch of it, goes right up into that cellar,” Mallory replied, and her voice was normal again. “A friend of mine tried it once. She said I should go.” Thomas took the map, glancing over his shoulder. The door that led to the stairs, to the light, was open by barely a crack. He looked back at the map, and traced a path.
“Seems easy to get to.”
She smiled.
Moving again, Thomas led the way. Behind him, Mallory was quiet enough, though he noticed that she jumped every time something moved in the dark of the tunnel. Still, he'd had far worse partners. Mallory, for all her initial hesitation and pretty face, was not as girly as he'd feared.
And she wanted to explore the haunted house.
Because the silence was weighing on him, like it always did after a certain amount of time, Thomas spoke over the squelching splashes of their footsteps.
“So how big a mansion are we talking, here?” Her breathing sounded a bit labored, but she answered readily.
“Pretty damn big. You know how the Taj Mahal was this giant tomb?”
“Right.”
“Well, so my father told me the Golde house was the same way, more or less. Apparently Old Man Golde built it for his wife, because she was dying. Cancer. And he wanted a place for her to die, a big place. A beautiful place. There used to be grounds, you know? But they got bought up. No one bought the house, though; it's too huge and too broken down.”
“So what happened to the guy who built it? Golde?” He turned his head to look at her, swinging the flashlight with him, and a black sewer rat scuttled out of the path of the beam. Thomas kept his mouth shut, and Mallory went on. She hadn't seen.
“Well, that's the thing. No one really knows. He died; he must have died... but they say mail still gets delivered to that house, even though no one lives there, and that lights go on inside some nights. And that if you spend the night there-”
“Let me guess. You're never seen again.” Mallory gave a practiced mad laugh.
“Most of you isn't,” she corrected. “Sometimes parts show up on the lawn.” This idea was gruesome enough to be funny, in that way that if a thing isn't funny, it just might be the most awful thing in the world.
“That's disgusting.”
“You asked,” she said, smug. Thomas shook his head, about to say more, but the light in his hand suddenly wavered.
“Hey.”
“Problem?” He jiggled the flashlight, and the beam came back strong.
“My light might go in a few minutes. I don't know, maybe the battery slipped.” Mallory caught up enough to walk beside him, feeling in the pockets of her cargo pants.
“I swear I brought more batteries. Didn't you?” She frowned. “Where did I put those?” Thomas reached in his own pocket, and brought out two double As.
“It's cool; I've got-” Mallory gave a short shriek, her body convulsing towards Thomas. Her elbow connected with his upper arm, and the batteries bounced from his palm to the dark sludge at their feet.
“Shit!”
“I'm sorry! There was- I stepped on-” Mallory bent, shining her light straight down. A tree branch, gnarled end covered with scrawny roots and half-rotted twigs, stuck out of the muddy ground layer. The batteries, however, were nowhere to be seen. Mallory straightened, face pale. “The branch, it felt like- I could feel it through the boot. I thought it was a...”
“It's okay,” Thomas said, cutting her off. Saying the words 'a body' wouldn't help anything. “Must have gotten washed down here from some drain. You've still got your flashlight, and this one doesn't look like it's going just yet. It's fine.”
“We could find the batteries,” Mallory said after a moment. “If we tried hard enough…” Thomas could hear the reluctance in her voice, and felt it mirrored in his own mind. Still, he told himself it was for her that he shook his head.
“Are you kidding? I don’t even want to know what else is down there.” She nodded. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
“Really?” Thomas gestured with the map.
“Apparently that entrance is less than a mile from the house. That’s only underground, of course; it’d probably take a lot longer following actual roads.”
“I thought sewers did follow the roads.” Thomas shrugged, tucking the useless flashlight into a pouch on his belt.
“Stop lights and traffic,” he decided. “Makes all the difference.” She snorted.
“Right. Down here we’ve just got sewer sludge and rats.” They started moving. Thomas stayed in front, holding the map pinned beneath one armpit as he searched his pockets for more spare batteries. There was the cheap Walkie-Talkie, which took triple As; there was the masking tape; the heavy duty glow stick; the cell phone (which, he didn’t doubt, got little to no coverage beneath the city itself); the Swiss Army knife with the notched blade. No more batteries. His flashlight wavered again, dimming. Thomas shook it, hearing the rattle inside the plastic, and the light died.
“Well, so that’s good,” he muttered. “Mallory, I guess you lead.”
“I’ll come up here,” she said, walking beside him. “Better if we can both see, instead of you just following my back.”
“Don’t worry,” Thomas declared, holding the map into the light. “When we reach this Hell House, which should be in… about five minutes, I’ll go first.”
“I’m not worried,” Mallory told him, walking a bit faster.
“Sure,” he said. “Sure.” They lapsed into silence broken by a faint, but steady, dripping sound.
Rounding a bend, Thomas ducked into a branching tunnel. Mallory stepped in after him, the light bobbing down, then sharply up again as she steadied herself against the tunnel wall. Mallory made a face and wiped her palm down the side of her pants. The dripping noise was louder, now.
“It should be off to the right up here,” Thomas said.
“There.” Mallory pointed with her light, the long, pale angle of it barely eating into the shadows. There was a hole, there, up ahead; the tunnel wall dipped and broke, leaving a hollow darker-than-dark indentation. More slowly now, they approached.
“Shine the light in there.” She did so, illuminating a metal ring that quickly gave way to musty shadows. Thomas put one hand on the edge where the tunnel wall ended, stepping up. The opening that led to the Golde house cellar was a good six inches above the sewer bottom, but the floor of the short passage was clean and dry. Concrete, Thomas thought. Or steel. He helped Mallory up after him, and ducked his way through the passage. It was only a few feet long, and at the end there was a round metal door. It had no handle.
“Push it,” Mallory suggested. Thomas quirked a brow at her. She shrugged. He handed her the map, angled his body away from the door, and pressed one shoulder against the cold surface. To his surprise, the door opened easily, with barely a shove needed to make it swing free. Carefully, feeling with his booted foot, Thomas stepped down into the cellar.
Mallory hopped down after him, the light jogging in a wild arc. Before she steadied it, Thomas saw dirt walls, wooden shelves covered with cobwebs and what might have been canning jars, and a rickety-looking staircase. Then, Mallory shone the light around the room. Sure enough, the walls were caked dirt, solidly packed and very old. Two of them were lined with shelves. The staircase was narrow, and led into blackness. Water, brownish and stale, dripped from the ceiling into one corner.
“So,” Thomas said after a moment. “I don’t see any body parts.” Mallory said nothing, moving to look at one of the shelves.
“Check it out,” she called. “Tomatoes.”
“Really?” He grinned, heading for the other wall of shelves. “Let’s see if there’s anything worth taking.” The flashlight let off a strong enough glow to make the cellar’s darkness not absolute. Thomas squinted at the shelf at eye level. There were more jars, and a few dusty boxes. “Bring the light over here,” he said, reaching for one of the boxes.
Almost before he’d finished speaking, the beam snapped off, the plastic flashlight clattering to the floor.
Thomas jolted, whirling around.
“Mallory? Mallory, what the hell-” He stopped, frozen. There was no sound from across the room.
No screams. No apologies. No breathing.
Heart pounding, the fear suddenly alive behind his lungs and very, very real, Thomas edged forward. He knelt, feeling along the concrete floor for the flashlight.
“Mallory? Where are you?” His fingertips touched a hard plastic handle, and he snatched up the light and thumbed it on.
Mallory was gone.
Thomas had an instant of plain, unadulterated disbelief, and then the metal door leading to the sewers clanged shut.
Now, the shock was gone, crumpled down by the horror. It was in him, building, his legs trembling and his elbows locked, hands out in front of him, flashlight shaking. Thomas turned, moving for the staircase, free hand snagging a glass canning jar. He held it beside his head, ready to smash it against whoever- whatever- had taken Mallory.
Up the stairs, in the cold, Thomas in the dark with the canning jar and the flashlight.
And then the door at the top of the stairs swung open, and the canning jar crashed to the wooden steps. Shards of glass sprayed back into the cellar, catching against Thomas’ jeans.
Mallory smiled at him from the doorway, and it was not-so-nice again, and there were teeth. Too many teeth. Too many sharp, sharp teeth.
“But you know,” she said lightly, stepping down into the stairwell, “those stories were all wrong. It wasn’t Old Man Golde kids were supposed to be afraid of,” she continued, taking another step, taking the flashlight out of Thomas’s numb hand. “It was his daughter.”
And the light clicked off.