Underneath Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
There had been too much blood spilt. Renwick had been on the run,
he was soaking with sticky sweat. The ground rumbled and shook as if there had
been an explosion or earthquake. Renwick didn’t know what was happening. He had
seen too much blood though. Much too much.
Twelve men stood in a circle and slit the throats of twelve women.
The women shook and bled. None of their deaths had been quick. Renwick didn’t
know what he had seen or whom he had stumbled onto. He just knew he was in the
wrong place at the wrong time and took off running.
The women fell to the ground. Their necks bled out. The blood
soaked into the ground. The ground rumbled, coming to life, hungry for more.
The twelve men saw Renwick, but they did not react. Their
discovery did not matter. There was nothing that Renwick was going to be able
to do to stop them. They had already done what they had come to do.
The ground shook and like a mighty volcano erupting, it burst.
Renwick was thrown through the air, crashing to the ground with great force. He
was disoriented and concussed. He tried to stand but lost his footing. His legs
were weak and his body was numb. He let himself collapse back to the ground.
He lost his focus. He was fading in and out of consciousness. He
smelled something nasty, something rotten. His head hurt. He touched his
forehead and it was slick and sticky with blood.
The ground moved again, but it wasn’t an explosive force or an
earthquake. It was a slow and deliberate rolling and shifting as something
below tried to ascend. Renwick saw it move. He watched as the earth pushed
itself up as something dug upwards. There was a hole, a black pit that he could
not see into. Anything could come out of it. Anything was possible.
He saw the earth move again and then an elongated grey claw slowly
rose from the blackness. It was sickly and leathery looking. There were strange
bones and unnatural protrusions. Suddenly the entire appendage burst from the
darkness. The earth exploded around him as the beast was called forth.
The beast was hungry, its appetite whetted with blood. Strange
shards of a set of shattered teeth were the last thing Renwick ever saw, the
creature biting down, draining him of his life force and growing its own. The
earth rumbled as it moved forth, looking for more.
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