I live in a coastal town, way up on the northwest coast. Historically, my community has had little to no experience dealing with natural disasters of any magnitude. The worst natural catastrophe we have had within living memory was the tail of a typhoon hitting us in ’73, causing mild flooding in some of our downhill residential areas. Minus some minor trench foot and patio furniture washing away, the town was nearly unaffected.
Needless to say, no one was even remotely prepared for the storm that hit us last week. A rogue hurricane hit our beaches, quickly passed the dunes, and entered our community with a vengeance. Whether our emergency alert systems were too late to warn us due to underfunding or shell-shocked denial by the humble town’s coastal volunteers is a coin toss. I remember looking out my window, expecting the torrent of rain to be a pleasant afternoon’s hymn, until I saw the coming sky. A mobile, swirling blackness was looming on the horizon, filling the entire sky.
My elderly next-door neighbor Steve was nice enough to check on me: “Never seen anything like it here!” He said in my doorway, “A real monster coming this way, by golly!”
I gave a polite but nervous smile. “I sure as hell never seen anything like that since I moved here. You and Janice gonna be ok? I know you guys don’t have a basement.”
I’m one of the few people on my street with a basement, aka “shelter”. Steven gave a reassuring grin. “Oh, we’ll be ok. If the kids still lived with us, I would care more, haha. I got the windows boarded up. I think that’ll be enough for me and the ol’ ball and chain.” He gave me a masculine tap on the chest, expanding his kindly grin. I shook my head, smiling. “You two take care. Call me if you need anything.” With that, he nodded and waddled off the entryway. I gave him a wave goodbye before locking eyes with my neighbor across the street, Ben, who was quickly throwing lawn chairs into his garage. Closer to my age and a married man with a kid on the way, I could understand his frantic preparations. We locked eyes; I gave him a sympathetic wave. He grimly nodded, unable to mask the concern painting his otherwise naturally pleasant features. My forced smile now gone, I looked up and hurriedly closed the door. In that final moment before the door clicked shut, I could see Ben through the slit of the doorway staring at me with nervous, yet envious eyes. He also did not have a basement.
Within the hour, I saw that sprinting black canvas, only a mile or so away, and I bolted downstairs with some meager food supplies, flashlights, portable phone chargers, and other essentials. I never had to do a panic emergency protocol like that before, so my expectations were skewed, to say the least.
I HAD expected a strong, but somewhat enjoyable storm, one that was an exciting mix of crashing thunder and the occasional gust, with minor property damage. It would dance on that fine line of exhilaration, but never violate one’s fundamental sense of safety, allowing for an ultimately comfortable pastime.
It did more than violate that line. It abolished it. As soon as it entered the town, a torrent tore through the streets, creating a haunting, never-ending whistle of wind as gusts swept through the neighborhood, scattering all shrubbery and untethered lawn equipment.
I could hear it all from my basement as it bashed and bounced off my house. I composed my nerves by making a guessing game of what each crash against my exterior could be: A lawn chair? Too soft to be. Must have been Mr. Finch’s rose bushes. Oh, that must have been a tree branch, too solid yet hollow-sounding against my home’s brick walls to be anything else.
‘
Thunder soon followed. My composure evaporated, along with the childish game upon that first clap. The foundations of the house shook as a boom I could only compare to a warship’s cannon filled the air. My only warning was a flash so bright it beamed through the crevices of my basement door. There was never enough time to prepare for the clap that followed.
I was in a full-blown panic after I heard the first upstairs window shatter. The debris was only intensifying. The whole world outside must have been a hailstorm of destroyed gardens and summertime commodities. Then there was the humming. A low, barely audible humming, like that of a microwave, remained ever-present in the torrent. Never shifting in tone or volume, it lingered, implicitly, in the belligerent storm. I didn’t know why, but this scared me more than anything. That alien hum of unknown origin filled me with a dread no natural disaster could ever compare to. Once the power went out, I found myself almost instinctively hiding my head under blankets and pillows, waiting out the storm, praying and begging for it to go away.
Eventually, the storm did pass. It lasted long into the next day, the waning sunlight just barely peeking through the dissipating clouds by then. The relief felt like a high. My chest was a cinder block, and I hadn’t taken a full breath in hours. Stretching myself onto the couch, I sent a ‘thank you’ up to the ceiling before pulling my phone out to call my parents, certain they had seen the news about my town’s insane typhoon.
No signal. Dead air. I figured this was only natural after such a damaging storm and thought little of it as I rose and marched upstairs to see the damage. Upon opening the basement door, a waft of that nauseating smell assaulted my nostrils. Plugging my nose, I entered the semi-flooded kitchen, and a broken window greeted me. The dim daylight illuminated the dank puddle of mystery liquid marinating in the middle of the kitchen. I skirted around it to witness the living room. All my furniture was battered and soaked through, and a thick tree branch was in the center of the room, encircled by broken glass—two broken windows. I didn’t care about that, though. I was too distracted by the unavoidable smell suffocating me.
A dank, potent smell of something rotten and regurgitated, like old, microwaved vomit that was left to soak into fabric while baking in the sun. I fled the room, unable to withstand the scent, on the brink of puking. I gasped for air in the kitchen, only to realize the scent was equally, if not more, foul in here. With a plugged nose, I rummaged through the cabinets, desperate for a candle and every ounce of Febreze to cover the smell, when a knock at my door made me jump.
Daring a deep inhale, I prepared for the plunge back into the reeking living room. Shifting around the pool and tiptoeing over the rubble of my furniture, I made it to the door. I opened the door immediately, grateful for the fresh air that greeted me. Until the scent of my guest wafted over my face.
“Howdy, neighbor!” Ben greeted me with a cheerful grin, despite his clothes being drenched in what I had to guess was the same vile-smelling liquid I had discovered in my kitchen.
“Oh, my God,” I reflexively exclaimed at the odor. “Sorry, hi Ben, what the hell happened to you? You fall into the puddle in YOUR kitchen?”
His rosy cheeks let out a chuckle. “No, just some rain got in, is all. Roof didn’t hold up too good, but I’ll get that fixed no problem. I came over to see how YOU held up? You seem dry as bone!” He reached out to pat my shoulder. I dodged, pulling back into my home.
“Ah, yeah,” I replied, trying not to be too rude about not wanting him to touch me in his current state. “The basement really helped with that. My whole living room and kitchen are just ruined though.” I looked into my home, gesturing at the furnishings. “Imma need to replace the rugs, the furniture, God, near replace the walls too if I could-”
Trying to be jovial despite the situation, I turned back to give a smile, only to have it melt away when I looked at Ben. For a split second, I thought I caught him staring at me. Like eyes bulging, staring, wide and red with intent. All while baring his teeth with a clenched jaw. Like a demon containing its rage. His face changed half a moment before I could fully register it, back to his neighborly smile. Flustered, I stuttered awkwardly, trying to regain my train of thought.
“Welp,” he interrupted, “If you need help with any of that, just give me and the wife a ring. We’d be happy to help!” With that, he walked off my lawn, a smile still plastered to his face. I stood in the doorway for a couple of minutes, running the scene over and over again in my mind, certain I had just had a weird brain glitch in my peripheral. Then I noticed the humming.
Looking up at the dark sky, I listened. It was fainter, but still present, yet another peculiarity.
Desperate for distraction, the otherwise horrific prospect of cleaning became a soothing idea. With a heavy sigh, inhaling one last gulp of fresh air, I turned inside, closing the door behind me. The bizarre fractured memory lingered in my mind as I began lifting tables and chairs in the living room. Like the penetrating odor, it clung to the very fabric of my thoughts, infecting it with its unease. Sweeping up shattered glass, I stuck my head out of my broken window like a diver coming up for air when I saw Steve from across my yard, standing in his dilapidated house. I jolted so hard I nearly fell ass first on a pile of fractured pane.
For a second, I saw clear as day that he was making the same face. Lips almost bleeding as they drew back, showing bared teeth, his eyes bulging and red. An indescribable rage contorted his face. However, as quickly as I had noticed it, his face melted in a flash to a pleasant smile, as he waved through a broken window.
Shaken by the image, and even more by the coincidence, I couldn’t even wave back. I pulled my torn curtains, concealing what I had just witnessed. With no open exit, the stench in the room grew in intensity. I choked as the whirlpool of sensory violations overwhelmed me. Worse yet, I had felt a crippling thought sprout inside of me, something I tried to rationalize away, yet couldn’t. The open, broken windows, the broken fence, all left me exposed in my own house. And for the first time since I moved, I was petrified of the lack of security. And I knew something was wrong with my neighbors.
Childishly, I went to lock my front door, knowing damn well the several broken windows were an easy entry point for intruders. The rest of the day blurred by in a haze of paranoia and meager attempts at regaining some security. I placed stools and damaged tables in front of the kitchen window, unsure how to handle the much larger living room one. I tried mopping the geyser in my kitchen, to no success. The substance steamed and gorged my mop, seeming to sizzle and eat away at it.
So, floor tiles remained coated in the yellow ooze, no matter how hard I scrubbed. The odor never left. By evening, I had given up on the kitchen and began hauling my ruined furniture out of the house, their fabric, beyond saving, fully saturated with the bile-like liquid. In a vain attempt to restore some security, I stuck the couch out the living room window, hoping it would act as a barrier of some kind. At the very least, it would block my line of sight to Steve’s living room window.
As I shoved, my hand tore through the wet fabric. A crunch greeted my fist. Pulling my hand free, I screamed at the cause. A gaggle of writhing worms, or parasites, something, was coating my hand. Shaking my palm violently, I ran to the kitchen. Drawing a kitchen knife, I scraped the leech-like things off into the trash compactor. They hadn’t latched on yet, so within several panicked scrapes, they were all squirming in the bottom of the sink. I stared at them as they clambered over one another.
Like a beating organ composed of centipedes and spiders, they convulsed in the sink before I washed them into the compactor and flipped the switch. Blood spewed from the hole as the machine ground them. Their hiss of pain lasted only a moment. The silence that soon followed was interrupted by that familiar humming outside.
I was shaken from the grueling task when another knock at the door echoed through the house. I wished with all my heart that I could pretend to be out, but I already knew who it was. And they knew I was in. Steve greeted me, also soaked through with the smell of liquid rot, and a larger-than-usual smile. Before I greeted him, he said, “Hi, friend, the ol’ ball and chain saw you got hit pretty rough over here, and she insisted I come over to help! Let me get a look at the damage.” He was about to press past me when the image of his enraged face flashed like an alarm in my head. Barring the doorway with my arm, I replied, “Ah, no need, thanks, Steve. I got it under control, just some minor interior damage. It wreaks in here anyway.”
He looked irritated, despite his cold smile lingering. “Oh, come on now, don’t play the tough guy. I may be old, but I know even a young man like you still needs two pairs a’ hands to move a couch. I saw you got it stuck in your window! At least let me move that for ya.”
“No, that’s ok, it’s not stuck. I just wanted it there to…keep the critters out while I wait for repairs, is all.” I said, my eyes never leaving Steve’s. A nearly imperceptible twitch fluttered through his reddened eyes before he responded, “Come on now, let me help ya out here. The miss is gonna crucify me if I ain’t active, haha.” His laugh sounded hollow. The humming filled the atmosphere.
Every fiber of my being replied before I did: I cannot let this person in my home. Giving a stern but cordial shake of the head, I said, “No thanks, Steve. I’m just about done for the day anyways… just gotta mop the kitchen. Got that weird ooze puddle still in there, stinking up the place.”
Curious for his reaction, I examined his face. I couldn’t help but feel like he was on to me, like he knew I was suspicious of him. His face was nearly stone still, polite smile unmoving, before he finally gave in, saying, “Ok, ok, not gonna twist your arm anymore over it. If you wanna blow your back out and end up with a spine like mine at your age, be my guest. I’ll stop by tomorrow to see how you’re coming along! Goodbye and goodnight.”
He gave a nod and waddled off my property to his still very distraught house. I realized as I watched him enter his home that it was still in complete shambles from the storm. Not even an attempt at cleaning was made. With a shake of my head, I looked across the street to Ben’s place. Same story. The lawn was still in disarray, and the windows were all broken and devoid of any covering except for a curtain hanging haphazardly on a broken pole, allowing a peek at the interior.
My anxiety was intensifying by the minute. I couldn’t help but question my borderline rudeness over the last couple of hours. Was I overreacting to a fabrication brought on by stress and a sleepless night of havoc? A twinge of guilt hit me due to the possibility that I was a dick to two very friendly neighbors who were just trying to help out. Desperately, I tried to rationalize those images away. Vigorously spraying every scent I could to overcome the putrid geyser of mystery was an effective distraction.
Exhausted from an overwhelming day, I decided to sleep in the basement again, as it remained the only asylum from the smell of decay. The sky was clear, and the moon was bright, beaming into my living room while I was trudging through it, toothbrush and extra blanket in hand like a child staying over at a friend’s house. Nose plugged, I maneuvered around the sections of hardwood floor still moist with stink when I gasped, fresh terror pushing the air from my lungs.
He did not move. He did not change his expression. I don’t know if it was because he thought I didn’t see him, or perhaps he thought the night veiled him. Nevertheless, he was in the yard, between our two homes. Peeking around my couch. The moon’s rays illuminated a face contorted with rage, those unblinking eyes beet-red and almost protruding from their sockets. Teeth gleaming white, encircled by lips drawn and bloodied in intense disdain.
His hair was matted with heavy sweat. His flesh gleamed with it. The stains of rotted liquid remained on his unchanged clothes, pooling in every crevice. Still as stone, he remained there, staring. Frozen in place, I had to contain my immense surge of terror and panic. I tried to think of a way to maneuver casually to the basement to avoid drawing his ire. Inhaling deeply, I looked straight ahead and took several steps toward the kitchen, where the basement entrance was next to. I felt his gaze searing my face all the while.
Bracing myself for that single moment, when my back would be to him, I shut my eyes. Exhaling sharply, I whipped my body into the basement entryway. The second my foot hit the initial step, I turned to shut the door behind me. In that fraction of an instant, before the door was closed, I saw him. Now standing directly in the broken window, hands clasping the frame, bleeding as his palms mindlessly dug into shards of the remaining pane.
After hastily locking the basement door, I stood there frozen. Ears perked, waiting for the crunching of glass to signal his entry. None came. Only silence filled my ears with its static apathy. My shaking hands released their sweaty grip from the doorknob, while I stared into the door, picturing with precise clarity the sneering face that could be burning through from the other side.
I waited for several minutes longer, certain that any moment, I would hear the shuffling of my neighborly intruder above me. Despite this absence, no relief came. Hurriedly barricading the doorway with what small furniture I could haul up the basement steps provided no comfort, no sense of safety. Cradling myself on the couch, I sat in confusion and terror.
Unable to sleep, the night dragged painfully on. The sound of crickets leaked into my basement, along with hints of the nauseating stench. Desperate for the comfort of the sun, I stared the hours away, waiting for the wall-mounted clock to ring in the morning. I thought perhaps the new day would bring straightforward and lighthearted answers to the haunting experiences.
The clock struck seven AM before I dared unlock my basement door. Inhaling deeply like a diver before a great plunge, I opened it. The odor. It was beyond description. It stung my eyes, forcing them closed as I stumbled forward. My nostrils burned despite my held breath, and my throat began to react when I saw the kitchen floor. Through watery eyes, I saw the tiles were warped and sunken, as if the liquid sin that pooled over it had gained weight or burned into it over the last day.
I ran around it, barreling for the front door, when I froze in the living room. Wiping my eyes, I forced them open. Blood stained the shards of the broken window, right where Steve was standing. The stains had dripped down the wall and pooled at the foot of the window. That was where I saw the first bloody footprint. Clear as the breaking day, I saw the faint trail of crimson steps enter my living room. I followed the trail with a suffocating foreboding as it led into the kitchen, before they paused, which clearly caused more blood to pool from what I imagined were butchered palms. It then continued past the rotting pool. Before stopping, dead center in front of my basement door.
Despite the seething sting in my eyes, I stared at those prints, a creeping doom climbing up my spine all the while. It took far too long for my brain to click back into gear and realize the hidden horror that looked back at me. A horror that sent me reeling out of my disheveled home. Those footprints marked the end of the trail. They never left the house.
I sprinted out of my home, lungs gulping in the toxic smell as I dashed. A dark, looming sky still hung over me, like an encroaching wing of some demonic bat. The gloom muffled the rising sun’s light, leaving me to stare at the shadowy home I had fled. My own house now felt alien to me, like some destitute nest I stumbled upon. Filled with hidden vipers hissing quietly out of sight.
A strong hand landed on my shoulder. I nearly jumped across my lawn. Flinging myself around, I was greeted by another insincere smile, “Hi again, neighbor. Everything alright?” Ben asked, still clothed in yesterday’s moist attire.
“No, I mean, yes, just had a run-in with a rat in my house is all. Damn thing chased me out of the house…” I watched his face as I lied, waiting for a reaction, anything to cement Ben’s involvement in the neighborhood’s bizarre events.
“Sounds horrible! Why don’t you stay at my house for the afternoon while I hunt the bastard for ya? My wife is planning on making tuna sandwiches.” He replied.
“No, it’s ok. I’ll find him. Just needed to collect myself is all.” I answered, while I slipped my hand into my pocket, gripping my house keys in a balled fist.
“Him?” Ben blinked blankly at me.
“Just guessing, since the thing was so aggressive…” I bumbled.
“You should really let me help you in there.” He stood unmoving in the middle of the road. Sweat accumulated on my brow. “Ben, I got it,” I said sterner than intended. A droplet of rain splashed between us.
I turned my gaze upward. The sky furrowed and swirled, its vortex growing in speed. And the humming. The humming seemed to growl. Another sparse patter of rain fell. Its scent was immediately both familiar and revolting. I spun to retreat to the cover of my home, to hide beneath my awning, my instincts screaming from some unknown source, begging me to stay dry. Steadying myself against the front wall, protected by a slim cover, I watched as the downpour intensified. The smell filled the air, its gas choking me and blurring my vision. Keeling over, I gagged and rubbed my eyes vigorously as the torrent now roared down my street.
With watery eyes, I glanced up to see Ben still in the road, motionless. I gasped as I made out his face. His twisted face. With each spatter of rain, it blotched and melted. Sinew and muscle exposed to the air. That seething rage remained painted across his features. Through gritted teeth, he spoke, “Forget your umbrella? No worries, just run on over to my house while I take care of that RAT.” He enunciated, beckoning me to leave the protection of my awning.
All my worst fears were beyond confirmed. I slammed the door behind me as Ben charged, bounding splashes across the flooding street. I flipped the lock just as the violent thud of flesh against wood shook the doorframe. I turned, remembering the gaping window in the living room. The bashing at the door stopped almost in tandem with my recollection, followed by quick sloshing steps trodding to the side of the house.
Fleeing to the kitchen, I skirted the now crater-like indent, pooling with fresh bouts of sewage from a leak in the ceiling directly above it. Pulling a knife from a drawer, I retreated to the basement. Through the locked door, I heard the tinkling of glass shards splashing on the living room floor above. Heavy thuds stormed throughout the ground floor. Furniture was flung, doors were broken down. I never heard a word spoken, nor any heavy breathing or physical struggle. Only the steps and the storm assaulting the house.
I sat shaking atop the flight of stairs, hands firmly clasping the knife. Desperately, I searched my mind for an answer, a solution to this horror that wouldn’t result in my death, or in my killing of Ben. The sickly, acidic rain was the plain cause, yet I could not understand how or why. It was as if the sky had unloaded its stomach, releasing its bile and digestive juices on the town. And I was only spared because of this basement, this refuge in the storm.
It was while I was reeling in these questions that I noticed something that struck me like the cold press of steel on flesh. Something so vital to my safety that all I could do was moan in defeated horror upon its recollection. The stink of rot was now in the basement. Steven. In my rush to flee, I had forgotten about Steven.
But he had not forgotten about me. The crash of intense thunder was followed by the power flickering out. My windowless basement, now a tomb of some decrepit terror, swallowed me whole. The darkness’ hostility radiated up the steps, as I lay there whimpering, pathetically vulnerable. The footsteps above had marched directly in front of the basement door. Ben stood as the sentinel, eager for my attempted escape. I was trapped.
My mind was blank, my body tense. Wide-eyed, I begged my sight to adjust to the encroaching darkness. Staring down the stairway, I listened.
A soft creak from the foot of the stairway echoed below. A whimper escaped me as I meekly extended the blade in front of me—another creak. Behind me, I heard a pair of strong hands grip the door handle. I knew it was only to keep me in. My vision shifted, allowing me to make out the immense silhouette approaching me. My nostrils burned as the rotten stench rose with it.
My heart throbbed, my vision tunneled. All closing in, as that horrid, twisted snarl crept within inches of my face. My shaking hands drove the knife up, thrusting the blade through the bottom of his jaw. Not a sound escaped Steven’s fierce face, his teeth bared, nose flared. I felt his cold, moist hands wrap around my throat, while I stared into his viscous, bloodshot eyes. As if finally satisfied, his mouth opened, his rage now tempered by a hint of catharsis. Through burning tears, I looked into his maw, seeing the glint of my knife jutting up and through the roof of his mouth.
What thrashing I attempted was useless. In the last moments before unconsciousness, I heard the basement door be torn open. Gloomy light from the kitchen window highlighted the frame of Ben standing over me. His snarling face veiled by the basement’s darkness was the last thing I saw before drifting into the blackness.
Here I awoke, tied and strapped down. The road’s pavement beneath me softened and has become sponge-like. The monstrous clouds hover above me, their animalistic intent apathetic and cold toward my screams. Steven and Ben lay in the growing pool of acidic sin by my feet. Their apparent goal accomplished, they now sit motionless on the earth, their bodies dissolving and sinking into the flood. Their melting flesh and bubbling bones demonstrate the fate I am to meet. Their contorted, rageful faces remain looking up at me, pockets of skin and muscle sloshing off as burning rain pelts them.
Ben’s eye pops like an engorged grape, revealing a knot of writhing parasites embedded in his skull. Their tendrils and antennae thrashed in pain in the open air. One by one, they shriveled and screeched, plopping to the toxic ground, dead.
I scan the empty homes of the street, all slowly flooding with the greedy excrement as it searches for any undigested victims to consume. I am certain none remain alive. I can almost picture Ben’s wife, reduced to a bubbling pile of sizzling flesh, being digested just below their shattered bedroom windows.
A storm came to my town. Whether conscious and coordinated, or a form of unfeeling, apathetic natural circumstance, I will never know. The results are the same either way– rapid and engorging consumption of my flesh and the flesh of my neighbors.
The only solace I find in these final moments is the clouds. Their cyclone of spiraling darkness is oddly hypnotising. And their humming. It suddenly sounded more like a cooing than a growl to me. The pain has dissipated. Whether that be from my body going into shock, or a mercy of the storm, does not matter. I still feel the holes burrowing and spreading across my legs, torso, and face, like a faint pressure. They grow wider and deeper, as if my flesh were but an ice cube melting on a hot summer day.
A final sob shakes through my wretched body, the last sights, sounds, and thoughts I’ll ever have drowned out in the downpour and the humming syphon twisting toward me. My eyes melt into my skull. My gums reduce to a bloody pool where my teeth swim, awaiting their turn. My heart now lies exposed to its fate, free from its fleshy castle. The humming grows as the clouds descend, like a gaping maw, eager to feed. With bursting lungs, I am allowed one final wail.
Watch for the storm.
Seth Witherow Collection 
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