5. Flight From Terror

As the wave of pestilence crashes upon the group, panic arrives. While the mobsters were used to atrocities, what confronted them in the night was not meant to be. Ripping someone's teeth out, cutting fingers off, even burning alive were all somehow right compared to what confronted them in a tidal wave of vermin. Running where was not important, just away from the horrors that seemed to be flooding into their current reality. Without communication and with competing instincts, the group scatters. Jimmy runs south, towards Blackwater Creek. Manny runs to the northwest in search of the beacon that calls to him. Lenny and Mickey run to the west, away from the Jarvey house.

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Manny runs with a sense of purpose, something thrumming in his chest and telling him each footfall brought him closer to his destiny. The man paused as he turned to regard a six foot tall fence he had just leapt in a single bound. Manny blinked in surprise and looked down at his body. There was no flab, no hint of fat. His arms were lean muscle with exposed veins and a power. A power like Manny hadn't felt since... well since forever. His stomach was not visible, showing clearly his muscular thighs that had somehow propelled him better than an olympic athlete over a fence with barbed wire ringing the top.

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Jimmy runs until his legs and his belly ache from exhaustion. He ran through wheat, corn and grass, stopping finally to dry heave to the side of the path. Ahead of him is the small village of Blackwater Creek. The only light seems to be coming from the church that stands across from Dick Sprouston's house. Jimmy hears the occasional clap and murmur coming from the church, a sign that some kind of service is happening.

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Lenny and Mickey run to the West, keeping ahead of the tidal wave of rodents that seems to be ever at their heels. As they run, Mickey keeps having to fight the urge to turn to the northwest, shaking his head and forcing himself to follow his brother. In the mad scramble, the brothers run into a fence, at least six feet high with barbed wire lining the top. As they survey the almost impenetrable barrier and look at each other, they hear a voice calling from within the corn behind them. It is a spectral, breathy kind of voice that almost sounds like the combination of insect chitters and wild animal groans combined to give voice to some preternatural entity. Mickey Valentine... I long for you...

A massive grasshopper with bulging black eyes lands on Lenny's chest. The thing is at least four inches in length.

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As Jimmy sits down, the reverend takes up his sermon, but Jimmy is focused on the congregation. As he looks at the people, he notices that on any exposed skin he can see welts, blisters or raised areas that seem to be leaking a black viscous goo. As Jimmy notices it, he realizes there are black stains and residue on the very pew he sat down in. What's more is as he looks closer at the surrounding congregation, he begins to notice things "missing" from their bodies.

A couple rows up, one person's ear seems have eaten away, the black liquid pumping seemingly continuously from the remainder of the ear. To the right and up four rows, Jimmy sees someone's jaw that seems to have partially dissolved exposing the bone underneath the flesh. Jimmy looks to his left just as a woman of the congregation turns to look at him and her cheek flesh has been eaten away up to under her eye. The orb is white and lifeless looking amidst a mass of rotting flesh that weeps the black fluid down her chin.Jimmy's ears catch up to Dick's sermon.

...we all felt that pain. We shared it together. It's what brings us together tonight. For we know that pain is just a fraction of what we must give up. God calls us to give up more of ourselves, more of this sinful world that tries to cast us astray... But just like Abraham on the mountain, who was called to give up everything and willingly would do it... God gave him mercy and sent to him the ram that was to be sacrificed. Brothers and Sisters, I tell you truly that our Holy Mother cares for us the same for in her tender mercy she has sent us the fatted calf to be sacrificed.

Dick points at Jimmy, at which point the entire congregation turns to look at the man. Their eyes carry the weight of a religious fervor Jimmy hasn't seen in a long, long time.

Jimmy feels a pain shoot through his hand as he looks down and the skin splits apart, black fluid immediately begins to seep from the wound and Jimmy finds himself wondering what his body would look like without all this excess skin covering it. Jimmy blinks and finds himself back in the church with the glaring congregation looking back at him.

Manny moves through stalks of corn, although their appearance is no longer really corn like. The stalks themselves seem to be swollen, nearly three to four inches across. And thought the plants would normally stand at least fifteen or twenty feet tall, they all sag from the weight of the enormous ears of corn. Those ears are at least five inches in diameter and look more akin to a football than corn. The smell of overripe fruit mixes with the earthy smell of the corn and each of the plants seems to be weeping a black fluid from every joint and crevice.

As Manny moves, the black fluid seems to saturate his shirt sleeves and trousers. Manny is surprised at the strength and vitality he feels. It feels like someone is inflating his muscles and every movement is easy and fluid. The liquid is almost like molasses, just sticky and clinging to everything it contacts. As Manny pushes through the last stalks of corn he feels splitting pain from his right arm and left thigh. Manny sees his shirt sleeve and pant leg saturate with the black liquid from underneath as he is overcome with the thought of a balloon pumped with too much air and bursting.

Manny pushes forward as the terrain begins to change. The relative flat area at the base of the Miskatonic Valley gives way to the valley wall as the ground begins to meet the surrounding ridge. As Manny walks he finds himself entering a near alien landscape. He sees wild lily flowers, bulging and almost scraping the ground with their massive petals and stems that seem too small to support them. He comes across a mulberry tree laden with massive berries, one of which might cover his entire hand if picked. The entire land reeks of the smell of overripe fruit and an earthy almost moldy undertone.

Suckling at the flowers and fruit are bulbous flies, at least three inches in length that seem barely to be able to fly their massive bulks with their miniscule wings. The buzzing of these insects seems constant, rhythmic and almost entrancing. There is an underlying "beat" to the atmosphere that Manny finds himself walking, even breathing too. A oneness that is alarming and comforting at the same time. Manny occasionally feels a wave of disorientation come over him in which the colors seem bright and foreign, hurting his eyes. In these periods he can't shake the feeling that his skin, his body is alien. Something... else... something... to be discarded.

As Manny walks, he feels one of his teeth dislodge in his mouth. There is no pain associated with the dislodging. It falls into Manny's palm.

The bulbous mulberry pops like an over inflated balloon, filling Manny's mouth with a rush of black viscous fluid. For an instant it almost seems to choke Manny, until he begins breathing through his forearm. Manny watches with an impassive expression as his skin seems to break apart and reform into a deformed mouth with needle teeth protruding from its depths. Manny feels a tightness to his back as large teeth seem to erupt from his skin, tearing his shirt. Manny raises his left palm to see the hand balloon and a separate heart take shape, thumping to the rythim of the land. He lurches with the odd perspective as his right eyeball seems to extend from his face on a oily tendril, pivoting this way and that.

Manny hears clearly as if someone was sitting next to him. There you are, sugar... Oh, I've been waitin so long fer you to show... Now, be a dear and go get me yer friends. It's been so long since I've eaten... and I do so LOVE the fresh ones.

Jimmy makes it to the bridge and stash of weapons with no issues. He does not hear pursuit from the town following him.

Mickey gets to the fence and looks back into the surrounding fields. He sees the rolling tide of vermin as they pour through the stalks of corn. He sees something else walking among the corn. A humanoid figure, misshapen and malformed. It appears to be missing its lower jaw allowing Mickey to see into its exposed throat. Black fluid streams from the elongated hole that was the thing’s esophagus. Its hand looks like a large pincer of a crab and is covered in boils and pustules. Its eyes are milky white as it twitches its head violently side to side at if listening.

Mickey hears the rasping voice that seems to be coming from the vermin, not the man. Oh… Mickey… It’s been so long. How’s the leg? This time you won’t be limping away…

Mickey turns and scrambles up and over the fence as the barbed wire cuts his hands.