Mr. Downs,” Amy said.
The sound of her voice made Ben look at her again. She was on the verge of tears and Ben suddenly knew why.
“Ben, what did it look like?”
He spoke slowly, never taking his eyes off of her: “It looked human, but in a really fucked up sorta way. It was sorta hunched over, and its arms were too long. They dragged on the carpet. Its head was just a bulb on the end of its monstrous torso. But the shape of it, it wasn’t a solid shape. When it moved toward us, its body shifted back and forth, sunk in on itself, stretched back out—I don’t think there was any skeleton under there. It was made of the sludge. That’s the best way I can explain it.”
“Did it have eyes?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see any, but it happened so fast I probably didn’t notice.”
Ben could see Amy turn pale, and as hard as it was, he kept talking: “It was too big and awkward to run. When it was in the room it more or less lunged at us, one of its long heavy arms coming within an inch of my face. Fortunately, when it reached to grab us, the weight of itself made it collapse on the floor. I’ll never forget the sound it made when it hit the floor. It was a wet popping sound, kinda like a cork popping from a bottle.
“We were backed up all the way against the wall, standing on my brother’s bed. The thing was too big, there was no way to get around it and out the door. I could imagine it getting a hold of us and squeezing until our guts gushed out. That thought, combined with the smell and the look of the fucking thing, almost made me pass out. Almost. My brother, seeing the state I was in, I guess, clutched me tighter, sinking his nails into my neck. ‘The window!’ he yelled. Right, I thought. It was our escape, our lifeline that I was prepared to use since the beginning. The window was only several feet to the left of the bed, at the far wall of the room. The window was at ground level outside, five feet high for us. One of us would have to hoist the other up, and I always knew that Billy was going to be the one saved, if it came down to it.
“That’s when my father came in.
“He brought his rifle, his prize hunting rifle that hung over the mantle upstairs that we were absolutely forbidden to touch. He was in boxers and nothing else. We were at the far corner, away from the door. The Sludge Man between him and us.
“‘Help!’ I remember calling, even though I knew it was useless.
“‘What the FUCK!’ I heard him yell, but by then I already turned away towards the window. ‘Come on, Billy,’ I said, and I hoisted him up. As tired as I was after all that time, I managed to lift my brother to safety. ‘What about Dad?’ he yelled. ‘Just go,’ I said, ‘Just go!’
“My brother was out the window, standing in the deep snow. I heard three gunshots. Then a scream. Then a thick THUD. I didn’t look back, but Billy saw it through the window. Maybe if he didn’t look back he would still be alive today.
“At one point in between, the light went out in the room completely. There was only the pale light of some distant stars, reflected on the fresh snow.
“I climbed through the window, pulling myself up with sheer adrenaline. Billy tried to crawl back through the window. Before I could process what was going on he was halfway through the window again. ‘Are you insane!’ I yelled.
“Then the scream. A higher, louder scream. I had Billy by the legs and The Sludge Man had him by the arms . . .”
Tears started to roll down Ben’s face. “I was no match for it. In one final yank Billy was back in the room, and it was too dark inside to see what happened to him. But I didn’t want to know anyway. I knew he was gone.”
“Ben, I’m so sorry—”
“I ran through the snow, probably for a good half-mile. When someone found me, I had been passed out in the snow for a while. I was nearly frozen to death. Nobody saw The Sludge Man in the house. They just saw the corpses of Billy and my father, and the mess it left behind. I never asked in what condition they found my family.”
Ben was silent for a while. Amy didn’t ask any more questions.
Ben calmed himself down and finished the last sentences of his story. “No rational person believed me, and no rational person could come up with an explanation for what happened. Nevertheless they put me here and this is where I’ve been since.”
“I’m sorry.” Amy said, and Ben knew that’s all she could say. Her eyes, Ben’s gateway to the truth, started to water.
Ben stared at her. The story was over and he needed to know. “I don’t get many visitors.”
“I know.”
“Reporters come, but look at what they did to me. They tried to blame me! Can you believe that? They made my life even more miserable.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“So you believe me then,” Ben said.
“Stranger things have happened.”
“To you?”
Amy looked away. “Yes.”
Finally, the truth. She’s definitely no reporter, Ben thought. “The Sludge Man?” he asked. “Did you see it too?”
Amy was shaking all over. Still, she managed to look at Ben straight in the face. “We . . . we just called it The Monster. It came from the pipes. It crawled up from the sewers, but I think there are some passageways that lead to places much darker than that. And it did have eyes. Small, red eyes that would drive you insane if you stare at them too long. Barely any life in them, but enough to kill you and everyone you care about.”
“How long has it been?”
“Twelve years.”
There was silence. In that silence, they understood each other. They were normal to each other. They were friends.
Ben took a deep breath. “Listen,” he said. “There’s something else.”
“What is it?”
It’s time, he thought. He finally had someone who believes in him, and he knew, although he hated to think it, that she came just in time. He had to say one last thing.
“I’m sorry I have to tell you this, but at this point it is more important that you know this than me. I’ve been in this fucking loonybin for most of my life. I’ve been in one place too long. And you know what? I think, after all these years, it’s finally tracked me down—”
Amy’s tired eyes flared with life, with fear, but Ben knew he must continue, “—it’s somewhere in the pipes in this asylum, waiting for nightfall. I heard it gurgling. I saw a ring of sludge in my sink drain. My door’s locked on the outside this time. I’m a goner, believe me. There’s nothing either of us can do. You’re the first person to believe me since my brother, and that’s only because you saw it yourself. It’s only a matter of time before it attacks. And I’m plenty tired and weak already.”
Ben’s face was solemn, he looked like he was ready to accept the death he cheated years ago. He was dignified in defeat. He spoke clearly, calmly: “Listen, leave this place. And drive fast. Go far away. If our Boogeyman can sense me it can sense you, and if it has crawled through a maze of pipes to find me it will find you too. Go, please . . .
“Run.”
Against her conscience, Amy did as she was told. Her notebook lay on the table where she left it, and she jogged down those white halls less free than the lumbering shells of men behind those steel doors. For a brief second, she wanted to look back at the room in which a sane man awaited his death. But Amy knew she couldn’t turn around. Unlike Lot’s wife, or Ben’s brother, she knew she couldn’t look back.
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