The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Thing in the Walls   
by Kathleen McCluskey

Miley explored abandoned hospitals, factories and even a church with its altar split in half but this place felt different. Older. Hungry. Waiting. She broke the lock and entered.

When she first stepped inside, the building smelled of rust and old stone. Dust briefly choked the beam of her flashlight. Though the thrill of exploring a new place prickled her skin, the deeper she walked the more it felt like unseen eyes trailed her every step. Her excitement was slowly souring to unease. She nervously looked back at the broken lock and open door, sighed loudly and chuckled. A laugh that seemed to echo and warp against the walls. She shook it off and continued into the darkness.

She began to climb a large set of metal stairs, spotted with rust and grime, groaning loudly as she placed her foot on the first step. Dust plumed with every step as Miley climbed the stairwell.

Her flashlight beam skittered across the walls, her normal exploratory nature had been replaced with one of anxiety. There was something wrong with this building. A gouge caught her eye. Long. Deliberate scratches, not the random scrawls of rats or the homeless. She brushed away the plaster dust with her sleeve.

DON’T LET

The words made her chest tighten. She lifted her beam higher, but the gouges ended there. Just crumbling wall. She shone the beam down the darkened stairwell, the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention.

A few steps more. The light flashed over another piece of plaster.

IT FOLLOW

Her breath hitched. She stopped and listened. She could hear a faint dragging, like something crawling inside of the walls. She pressed her palm against the plaster. It vibrated softly beneath her hand. Breathing. Her light slipped further up the stairwell. Another gouge.

YOU DOWN

The full message sank in, carved one fragment at a time. Like somebody had clawed it into existence while running the same path she was on. A cold shiver ran down her back.

Don’t let it follow you down.

The wall behind her gave a soft groan. Dust sifted down. She froze, fighting the urge to turn. In the edge of her vision the plaster seemed to bulge, something shifted beneath the surface. She bolted down two flights and stopped.

The stairwell narrowed as she reached the landing. Pale light streaked through the cracked window, washing across the steps like salvation. She staggered toward it. Relief stirred inside of her until she looked into the glass. She felt as though all the blood had drained from her body, she stood frozen.

It didn’t show the street outside. It showed the stairwell behind her. In the reflection, she wasn’t alone. Something pale and jointed clung to the wall. Its limbs were too long, bent at awkward angles, like a spider crushed flat against a surface yet somehow still moving. Its fingers, too many of them, sank into the plaster like it was warm clay. Its body pulsed with slow, spasming jerks, dragging itself forward, its soft sounds echoing like gunshots. Its faceless head rose to the level of her own.

Her heart seized. She spun around, nothing but cracked plaster.

She turned back to the window. The thing had shifted closer in the reflection, so close it seemed to brush the hair on the back of her head. The glass shuddered under her breath, fogging from her panic.

Scratches erupted beside her, gouges carving deeper and deeper into the wall. The letters drag downward, trembling as though carved by desperate, frantic hands. 

YOU CAN’T LEAVE

The stairwell rattled, dust rained down. Miley ran, plunging downward, the beam of her flashlight bouncing off the walls. Her lungs burned, her chest threatening to tear open with every gasp but the walls wouldn’t stop vibrating. Louder and louder. More lines etched themselves into the wall in frantic, jerking lines.

DON’T LOOK BACK

Her body screamed to obey. But terror made her turn. That was when the wall opened.

Something forced its way through. Fingers first, long and gray, bending like wires. Then an arm, slick and wet, then another and another. It peeled itself from the wall as though it had lived inside, waiting. The sound was wet, ripping, stone and flesh tearing at once.

Miley screamed and stumbled down the stairs. The stairwell groaned as if alive around her, every surface cracking, every wall bleeding dust.  She clutched the railing until the rust bit her palms, she slipped, slamming her head into the steps.

When she raised her head, the walls in front of her were splitting open, the thing’s limbs unfurling on either side like a rib cage. Closing in. Her flashlight spun from her hand. Its beam catching the final words etched large enough to cover the wall.

YOU BELONG HERE

Then the walls folded shut.

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!