The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Porcelain Teeth 
by Kathleen McCluskey 

   The K-9, a black German Shepherd named Ranger, pulled hard on the leash. Deputy Morales struggled to keep pace in the thick underbrush. They went further into the deep forest.

“Easy boy,” she muttered, wiping sweat and dirt from her brow.

They were two days into the search for Eli Harris, age nine. He was last seen playing in his backyard near the treeline. No footprints. No signs of a struggle. Just his toy fire truck left at the edge of the treeline and a mother screaming herself hoarse.

Ranger growled low and pulled even harder.

That’s when they found it.

Tucked between trees like a cancerous growth, the small white playhouse stood in a forgotten clearing. Its paint was warped and blistered, windows blackened like sockets. The roof sagged, rust eating holes through thin metal.

“What the hell…” Morales whispered.

Ranger snarled then darted through the child-sized doorway.

“Ranger!”

She followed.

Inside, the smell hit her instantly. A cloying, rancid sweetness that clung to the air like wet velvet. She lifted her flashlight, the beam trembling and she gasped. Four bodies, or what was left of them. Four children.

They sat in a row against the far wall, little hands in their laps, legs straight. Heads were titled just slightly, like broken marionettes. Their skin had been carefully peeled off and stretched over small, wooden forms. Porcelain teeth were glued into smiling maws. Button eyes. Yarn braided with human hair was crudely stitched to waxy scalps. One had a bonnet. Another held a delicate tea cup in its tiny hands.

Morales swallowed her own bile. Her hand went to her radio. “I need immediate backup, coordinates to follow on your phones. Ranger found four.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Ranger found four DOA…four kids…Jesus Christ.”

Ranger barked sharply. He was pawing at something. It was a trapdoor, half rotted and buried in the floorboards. Morales opened it. A draft of cold, stagnant air breathed up from the darkness. Wooden ladder, stone walls and something below shifted.

She drew her weapon. “Ranger. Stay.” He whined but obeyed

She slowly descended.

At the bottom, the beam of her flashlight caught bones – piles of them. Toys. Teeth. Bits of torn fabric. In the corner of the room there was a child limp in the arms of something not quite human.

The boy’s mouth had been sewn shut, eyes glassy and wide in death. His limbs had been jointed with wire. His tiny hand clutched a plastic army man that had been melted to his palm.

Cradling him was something that might have once been a man. Its skin was slick and grayish, stretched too taut over a hunch backed frame. Its arms were too long, fingers like sticks of charcoal. Its head tilted up at the sudden movement, its eyes black. It hissed at Morales, she froze.

The creature dropped the child and darted back into a jagged tunnel at the far end. It vanished into the darkness with an animal shriek. Footsteps thundered above, she could hear muffled voices. She climbed back up, pale and shaking as detectives Grant and Nunez stormed in, their guns drawn. Ranger barked once, then licked her hand.

“There’s a chamber beneath us,” she said, her voice hollow. “The last boy, Eli, is down there. He’s gone. There was something else with him.”

Grant raised an eyebrow. “What kind of something?” She didn’t answer. She just looked down  into the darkness, cold wind whistled up like the ground was breathing.

“Bright lights,” she finally said. “Body bags. Lots of body bags. We need forensics.”

Then she descended again, not alone this time. Above the trapdoor slowly creeped closed behind them.

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Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!