Flash Fiction No. 53

#flashfiction

Screaming Whispers

The slick splash tickled dazed ears, the scent of stale urine and sweat stinging his nostrils. Dull pain vibrated through his skull, pulsing as a vehement sound wave that jangled his insides. The darkness of the dank room was too bright for his eyes.

Scratching tore at the outer walls.

He put his hand to his forehead, eyes still tightly closed, and felt the sticky smear of blood that laced his temple. Beneath him, his broken ankle throbbed. He’d fallen on it when the unexpected drop had cut across his path. Travelling too fast to stop, his feet had sent him plummeting, the sound of them tearing his ears.

He listened carefully to the sound of their nails on the outside of the walls. They moaned and screamed and cried, setting a chill on his insides, but he dared not move. If he moved then they might find him easier.

He hadn’t meant to drag them there. It had all been a terrible accident.

Gnashing teeth and rotten flesh flashed across his brain. He pulled his arm in front of his face to shield himself from the image but it only served to make them more restless. The freshly dead clawed and screamed with blood gurgling in their throats while the long since deceased rattled and wheezed with dust dry air ways, their eyeless sockets burning through the brick to find him.

He could feel them moving around the room. They wanted to get in. They wanted to touch him and run their decaying hands over his life pink skin. He shuddered, hugging himself and wishing it all away.

The graveyard had seemed like such a quiet place to think. He’d always liked it, but he hadn’t known why.

He hadn’t meant it.

The sound of the scratching changed, fingernails finding wood instead of stone. Twisted laughter reached his ears. They’d found the door.

He crawled backwards, dragging his blood soaked limb. There had to be another way out. There had to be somewhere to go. It couldn’t end like this.

“Little boy, we’re coming,” hackled laughter crackled.

His trainers kicked against the grimy tiles, shoving himself away from the noise of their feet and hands as they struggled with the door. Their sinewy tendons were too dusty and frail to pull it straight away. He’d seen them. He’d watched their skeletal fingers claw at the rich soil of their graves, dragging their bodies from the earth with shrieks of joyful agony.

“Please,” he whimpered. “Please, I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know I could!”

“You called us,” crackled the voice. He watched in the dim light as the door knob turned and horrifying faces, half decayed and dead peered in at him, maggots dropping from their sockets. “You called us and now we are come, master necromancer.”

Tongues like blackened slugs ran over half-frayed lips as they advanced on his fallen figure with reverence laced hunger.

“And now we are come, master necromancer, and we shall have you too.”

| [Did you enjoy this post?] |
| [Why not leave a comment or check out my books?] |