The Horror From Beyond the Outhouse

“Ye-uh… yeah. How’d…”

  “And ya got some kinda weird landscapin’ thingy showin’ up in the middle of your house like you was in the middle of a bad scary movie? And it made your body all rubbery and weird-like?”

  “Uh… yeah.”

  “And big ol’ cockroaches, an’ somethin’ sounds like it’s a-buzzin ‘round your head?”

  “The very thing,” Earl whispered. “But how’d you know?”

  “Well, hell, skinner, same shit’s goin on all over King Holler. You ain’t special.”

  Earl felt icy fingers trail down his back. If this was going on all over the Hollow, then it was probably already spreading beyond Solace Springs, and that put the chances of escape somewhere near a popsicle’s in Hell. “Really?” he asked, his voice shaking.

  “’Fraid so, hoss. Ain’t no one getting’ off easy this time ‘round.”

  “Whaddaya mean ‘this’time’, LeRoy?”

  LeRoy didn’t reply for a long moment, and Earl was just starting to think the line had been cut when he finally answered.

  “We-elll… I reckon now’s as good a time as any for a little truth ‘mongst friends,” LeRoy sighed. “You ‘member three year ago and ever’one was actin’ all freaky? When Floyd done kilt his family and all that, y’know.”

  Earl nodded. “Yeah, that has been on my mind for…” He glanced at his watch without thinking about it, saw it was still flashing “6:66” and looked away. “… for the last little while. What of it?”

  “Well, I reckon me and Martha and partly to blame for all that, and this as well. Hey, Earl, hang just a sec, willya?” Before Earl could reply, he heard LeRoy set the phone down and shout at someone or something that was just out of earshot, “Hi! Ya best keep off’n mah porch! Ya done got the still and the outhouse, ya crawlin’ nether sumbitch! Don’t think yore getting’ up here too!” This last was punctuated by a pair of coughing whumps, and twin bolts of ice drove themselves into Earl’s head. Reality rolled over, and he felt the skin flayed from his body and replaced by sweating jelly for what had to be eternity. That mewling whine pierced the center of the world and trailed on for nearly a full minute.

  As Earl felt his body return to normal, he realized LeRoy had picked the phone up and was speaking to him.

  “Sorry, Earl. Nether critter. Loud sumbitch, too.”

  Earl could think of nothing to say to that.

  “Now, where was we? Yeah, like I was sayin’, I reckon me and Martha had a hand in all these things, but we wasn’t meanin’ no harm. We didn’t know things was gonna go so bad, y’know?

  “See, it was all right about when little Deke had his eighth birthday, three year ago, and we was lookin’ for somethin’ to get for him. Well, Martha’s lookin’ on ebay an’ shore enough, she finds this here book called the Necrynomicon, and she said that sounded like somethin’ that be right up Deke’s alley. You know how he’s all the time lookin’ for new thangs to get into.

  “Well, it were on there for dirt cheap, and we figgered that’d keep him goin’ for a coupla weeks. ‘Least, until he give it up for kickboxin’ or goatherdin’, somethin’ like that. I mean, you ‘member how quick he went through his cow tippin’ phase.”

  Outside his bedroom door, the rats started to stir again. Earl heard their claws on the wood and looked at the space under the door. Their shadows flicked back and forth, but they didn’t seem likely to get into his room any time soon, so he returned his attention to LeRoy.

  “I reckon we didn’t really read the fine print on the thang,” LeRoy was saying. “I mean, we just figgered it was kinda like them old science sets you could get, where they had actual mercury and uranium an’ shit you could mess around with. We didn’t know the damn thang was s’posed to be used for summonin’ up Elder Gods and openin’ up pandimensional portals an’ such.

  “Well, next thang y’know, Deke’s been up and gained access to the Upper Planes, an’ now our reality’s stuck through ‘bout five other dimensions, an’ people are choppin’ their families up inta hamburger and shaggin’ cheese goats and such.

  “’Course, we tanned his conjurin’ little backside up real good, an’ took his book away from ‘im, an’ told ‘im if he cain’t summon responsibly, then he cain’t summon at all. He cried for days, but I took an’ hid the damn thang out under the barn with m’Playboys. Figgered he’d finally get tired a’lookin’ for it after a while.

  “Damn. Hang on a sec.”

  Earl heard the phone scrape on the porch as LeRoy set it down again to yell at whatever he had yelled at before.

  “What’d I tell ya!” he shouted. “Keep ye pseudy-pods off’n the porch!” Another muffled blast drove the point home, while the world writhed in exquisite agony. “I’ll get th’ god-damn Howitzer out if’n ya don’t leave off!”

  Earl was panting as the effects of the last jolt to reality wore off.

  “LeRoy, what is that noise?” he asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer.

  “Oh, that’s the 10-gauge,” LeRoy replied. “I switched to that when the thirty-aught-six failed to achieve the level of penetration the situation called for.”

  “Your shotgun?” Earl asked, confused. “What, you got Feds on the land again?”

  LeRoy snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I wish it were just Feds. You can kill ‘em quicker, an’ the bodies’re easier to get rid of.”

  Earl thought he sounded a little too knowledgeable about that.

  “What you got that’s worse than Feds?”

  “Well, now, you gotta just let me tell the story m’own way, I’m gettin’ ‘round to ‘er. Now, like I’s sayin’, we took an hid Deke’s book from ‘im, figgerin’ he’d look for it I few days, then give up and move on, an’ that’s what it looked like he did, for a while. But I reckon that damn thang musta been callin’ out to ‘im or somethin’ all this time, ‘cause sure enough, coupla days ago he actually dug the sumbitch up. It was all moldered and slimy, an’ covered with worms an’ bugs, but there ‘twas. Me nor Martha even knew he’d dug it up.

  “Now, last night, I found I had me a sheep missin’, so I go out lookin’ for it. Weren’t out long, though, an’ I hear Martha screamin’ bloody murder back t’house, so I come back to see what’s a-goin’ on.”

  LeRoy paused to pump another round into whatever was on his land. Earl steeled himself for the screaming pain which hit like a hot spike in the middle of his forehead.

  “That’s for m’dog, ya slimy sumbitch!” LeRoy shouted as he picked up the phone again. “Sorry, hoss. Bastard’s goin’ for the beer cooler.”

  “No problem,” Earl said through clenched teeth.

  “Anyways, like I’s sayin’, I go back t’house to see what’s a-goin’ on. Ain’t no one in the livin’ room, but I can hear Martha a-hollerin’ somethin’ upstairs, so up the stairs I go.

  “I get to Deke’s room, and shore ‘nuff, there’s my missin’ sheep, strung up an’ bled out where’d he’d cut ‘er throat, an’ there’s Martha in the doorway, a-yellin’ at him, ‘How’m I s’posedta get that blood offa the carpet before Pastor Sims comes ‘round for tea! You know animal sacrifices upset him so!’ An’ she just busted out cryin’.”

  Earl risked another glance toward the door. One of the smaller rats had tried to squeeze in and gotten its head stuck under the door. It had fixed its red eyes on him. He shuddered and turned his back to it.

  “That ain’t the worst part, though,” LeRoy was saying. “Little Deke had done opened up some sorta dimensional vortex or some such, and wouldn’t ya know, here come some critter crawlin’ up out of it. It was weird, too, hoss. It was like it was there, and it was kinda small, like a little dog or somethin’, an’ I thought, ain’t that cute, but that was just the part of it ye could see with yer eyes. It’s like it were a lot bigger’n it let on, but it hurt yer brain too much to study on it, y’know?”

  Earl wasn’t entirely sure he did know, but he mumbled an agreement just to get the ball rolling.

  LeRoy continued. “Wel
l, wouldn’t ya know it, right then Bobbi Jo walks in the room t’tell us Teen Mom is comin’ on, and right then, that thang just shoots out like some kinda tentacle or somethin’ and hits Bobbi Jo in the belly. It’s like it went right through her, but it’s stuck in ‘er too, and she gets all big-eyed and tries t’scream but she ain’t makin’ no sound. But Deke’s makin’ enough noise for five or six people, ‘cause he’s jumpin’ up an’ down like a wild man, shoutin’ somethin’ like ‘Cthulhu fhtagn Cthulhu fhtagn’ or some such nonsense. But his hair’s done turned white as snow an’ his eyes is all sunk down in his face.

  “Then the tentacle-thang lets Bobbi Jo go and everthang gets sucked back up inta the wormhole or whatever it were, an’ she just kinda stumbles outta the room, with ‘er stomach startin’ ta swell up like she swallered a basketball or somethin’. Martha took off after her an’ left me with Deke.

  “’Yore grounded for at least a week, mister,’ I says. ‘An’ don’t you even think about leavin’ this room.’ ‘Course, I don’t think he’d’a left that room anyways, what with all his summonin’ supplies an’ black candles an’ what-have-ye all over the place. But I left out after Martha an’ Bobbi Jo t’see what’s goin’ on.

  “Well, they was just goin’ out the door when I got downstairs, an’ Martha’s askin’ her if she wants an aspirin or somethin’, and all the while Bobbi Jo just keeps getting’ bigger’n bigger. It’s a wonder she