Come

by ~reido

We drove up to the house in our shiny four-door economy car, feeling distinctly out of place. It was an older house, in an older neighborhood, in an older town, full of older people. Imagine a young couple driving into town and seeing no-one less than double our ages. The house itself was a dull brown, and looked like it was falling apart at the seams.

"So what, did your uncle just never put any thought into keeping the place looking nice?" I asked Sharon as I climbed out of our car. "It almost looks condemned."

"He was a really old guy," she replied. "Hell if I know, I hardly knew him."

"Then why are we here?"

"Who else is there?" She shrugged at me and headed inside.

The interior of the house was actually a bit nicer than the exterior, if a little dusty. "I'm going to check upstairs. Everything up there's probably really moldy, he hadn't been able to get up there in a couple years. Bedroom's down that hall, check it out, would you?"

"Yeah, sure," I said, distracted. The entire house was a mess, with bits of whatever just strewn all over the place. "Should've hired him a maid or something, this is a little ridiculous."

The bedroom was worse. The bed was unkempt and stained, the dresser drawers askew, and it was virtually impossible to take a step without trodding on who-knows-how-old dirty laundry. Judging by how much of it was piled up in the corner, the old man hadn't cleaned his clothes in months. The smell of mold and... something else I didn't really want to explore pervaded the room. The biggest pile of laundry was directly in front of the closet door.

"Upstairs rooms are totally empty, and holy shit what is that smell?" Sharon said, coming up behind me. "Jesus, it's like something died in here." She paused a moment and it sunk in. "I mean, geez, other than my uncle."

"Classy, hon'."

"Stuff it. Okay, we can probably throw all this stuff away. I mean, that smell's gonna be all over the clothes, I wouldn't want to donate them anywhere." She sighed. "We'll just have to go through it all in case something's buried under all of it that's worth selling or hanging on to. I'll go get some bags, clear away in front of the closet and we'll see what we can find in there."

"I'll go get the bags," I interjected.

"No way. You're job is going to be picking up clothes and putting them in bags. My job is going to be holding said bags."

I frowned, glaring down at her. She's several inches shorter than me. "And why do you get to make all these decisions?"

She glanced down, indicating the very nice view I had down her shirt.

I chuckled. "Oh, right. Okay, nasty-clothes-touching job goes to me, then. But maybe first, we could--"

"Oh, no way, baby."

"But--"

"Seriously, we are not having sex in this house."

"Too soon?"

"No, it's just not... clean. And I get a weird feeling. Now get started and get us into that closet." She smacked me on the ass and slipped out of the room to find some trash bags.

I began digging into the big pile in front of the closet; it was about waist-deep, honestly. I just started tossing clothes around--and then I found it.

"Honey?" I called out, taking a step back. "Sharon, baby?"

"What?" she said, coming up behind me. "You sound--what the hell is that?"

"Does this house have a basement?" Directly in front of the closet door, exposed now, was some kind of square, flat hatch. The carpet had been cut away in a square, leaving the slightly-moldy wood floor exposed. "Or a storm shelter?"

"This close to the lake?" She poked me in the ribs. "Maybe it's some kind of shallow cell or something, to hide valuables? Hurry up and open it."

"You open it."

"No way, buddy, be a big strong man and open it already."

"Fine, fine," I muttered. I walked across the room and knelt over the strange hatch. There were three strange marks on its surface, almost like letters, but not in any language I'd ever seen. "This is so weird." A small ring stuck out of the hatch; I looped my finger around it and lifted, ready to spring away.

"Well?"

"I..." I frowned. Under the hatch was a darkness, deeper than my eyes could penetrate. At the top it looked like some kind of round well, a bit wider than the hatch itself, easily large enough for a full-grown man to fit through. Secured into the stone wall directly under the hatch's hinge was a cast-iron loop, tied around which was some kind of long rag or towel. "I have no idea. Flashlight?"

My wife stood over me, looking down into the hole. "Out in the car. I'll go get it."

"Wait--we'll both go."

"Scared?"

I didn't answer. Outside, while Sharon rummaged around in the trunk of the car, I looked at the house again. It was almost... menacing, then, but I figured I was just spooked. Sharon walked past me towards it, a flashlight and our revolver in her hands.

I asked, "What the hell's that for?"

"Looking down the hole."

"You know what I mean."

She looks down at the gun, then at me. "I am sufficiently weirded out that I think we should be prepared to protect ourselves," she said, tucking it into the back of her jeans. "Call it irrational fear if you want, I just felt like bringing it inside. That okay with you?"

"Sure, sure," I replied, raising my hands.

When we got back to the bedroom everything was as we'd left it. I took the flashlight and squatted over the hole again, shining the light down. "Still can't see the bottom," I muttered. "But--I think this is a rope made out of... of clothing. Look, it's a bunch of pieces knotted together." I shined the light at the weird cloth hanging from the loop.

Sharon sighed behind and above me, once more looking down the hole. "What should we do, call the cops? 'Hello, officer, I found a strange hole in my dead uncle's house, could you come check it out?'"

I chuckled and stood up. "Hell if I--" And somehow, I managed to step on a shirt or a sock or something that was on the hardwood floor where the carpet had been pulled away. It slipped out from under me and I tripped, stumbling forwards, and landed across the hole, grasping desperately at the hatch.

I heard Sharon yell, "Steve!" in that brief, terrible instant, and then the hinge gave way and the hatch snapped off of the floor, dropping me with it. I scrambled to get a grip on the edge of the floor, on the carpet, on Sharon, on anything, and then I fell.

The long rope of tied-together clothing shot past me and I grabbed for it and manged to get a hold of it, and then my own weight hit my arm hard and yanked me loose and I hit the bottom--I guess I stopped my fall pretty close. The back of my head slammed into what felt like stone floor, and I blacked out.

When I came to the first thing I noticed was that I was cold. "Ah, Jesus," I muttered, sitting up. Nothing felt broken, just incredibly sore. The back of my head was wet and sticky. Nearby, I heard something move, and a light shone in my face, and I heard a little gasp I recognized as Sharon's.

"Oh, thank God, I didn't know how much longer I could take sitting down here waiting for you to wake up." She shined the light down out of my eyes, walking over to me from where she was standing. Behind her I could see, in the dim light, a tunnel stretching back into blackness too deep to penetrate. "You okay?"

"Hurt," I grunted. "But not too bad. Let's get the hell out of here, this place gives me the heebie-jeebies." I stood up and dusted myself off, hearing joints pop and groan.

"Slight problem, that."

"Oh?" I wasn't exactly surprised.

"I climbed down the clothesrope to check on you. I was gonna call an ambulance once I figured out how bad you were, if you needed one." She held up something with her free hand and I let out a groan--it was the torn end of the clothesrope. "Got about half-way down before it gave. And as if that wasn't a big enough kick in the head, I've got no cell coverage down here."

"No kidding," I grumbled, looking up at the hole in the cave's roof, the light of my uncle-in-law's bedroom shining down like a taunting beacon. "That's, what, a hundred feet?"

"Something like that. If we could get up fifty we could reach the rope..." She sighed. "And then even if we could, it would probably just give out on us again and we'd be even farther up shit creek."

An idea hit me. "Hang on. Shh." I held up a hand, put a finger to her lips. After a moment the echoes died down, and silence filled the cave. And then we heard it, the faintest of whispers, almost nothing at all.

"Water," Sharon whispered. She kissed my finger and threw her arms around me. "You're a genius, the lake must drain off into the cave further on--we can follow the water backwards to the source."

I grinned at her in the flashlight's glow. "Come on, let's get moving. I'll lead." I took the flashlight from her, and we took off down the only tunnel out of the cave I'd fallen into.

We must have been walking something like an hour when Sharon stopped, tugging on my hand. I asked her what was up.

Then it was her turn to hold a finger against my lips, shushing me without words. We stood in the silence, listening. "Sounds like..." she murmured, and the yelled: "Hello?! Is there anyone who can here me?"

As we waited for a response, I could barely hear anything over the sound of my own heart beating. I knew what it was she'd heard that made her stop: the same sound we'd been following, only then, a smidge louder, it didn't sound like water at all, but like someone whispering just out of view.

I put my arms around her, face in her hair. We could still hear it, just barely: whispering voices. I felt Sharon shiver once in my arms, then pull herself free. "We're just nervous," she said. It sounded like she was trying to calm herself down. "The echoes are just playing tricks on us. Come on, let's keep moving."

I nodded, and again led the way, Sharon's sweat-soaked hand held tightly in my own. The tunnel didn't fork again, and we walked for nearly another hour, sometimes forced to crawl on our hands and knees. When we stopped to rest we sat down on the cave floor side-by-side and I put my arm around her shoulders. It smelt like her uncle's room all around us, and the farther we traveled the worse the smell got. It was clearly freaking Sharon out, and I admit I was pretty terrified. The fact that the whispers were getting louder, and sounded less and less like water, didn't help.

We got up and started walking again, hand in hand. Sometimes Sharon took the lead, and sometimes she stayed behind me. I don't know how long we traveled through the tunnels, but eventually we hit a dead end.

"Fuck! God damn it!" Sharon shouted, throwing her arms in the air. And then, "Mom, shut up!" The words echoed around us, and for an instant it sounded like the cave was calling us fuck-ups. Laughing at us. The whispering was even worse now, clearly audible, sometimes understandable. And very, very familiar.

"Look," I said, quietly, "I don't want to freak you out, honey, any more than you already are, but my dad is telling me I'm a failure for dropping out of school. I thought it was just from me hitting my head, but..."

Her lips pressed into a tight line--but looked strangely relieved. "When my mother was alive, she didn't approve of you," she said. "She's reminding me now. You know, that's almost worse than thinking I'm going crazy." She backed up against the termination of our tunnel, one hand in her hair--and immediately twisted away from it, spooked. "Jesus," she muttered. "Touch that."

I stepped up next to her and put my palm on the cave wall; it was warm to the touch. And not just a little warm--it was like putting your hand against a hot cup of coffee. "What the hell," I murmured. "That's got to be the sun. I have no idea what direction we're facing, but if it's west... it's after noon by now, so the sun would be shining right on the other side of the rock."

Sharon seemed doubtful. "If the other side or the rock is outside."

"If," I replied. I wasn't so sure myself, but it was better than nothing. I leaned my shoulder against the rock face and pushed, and felt it give a little bit. "Stand back." I took a step back, and then threw my self against the surface bodily, once, twice--and the wall started to give, crumbling, light--light!--shining through the cracks. I took a moment to catch my breath, grinning, and soon we were working together. It only took a minute or so, and the wall came tumbling down at our feet, and we stood there, bathed in the light.

We stood there, side-by-side. Sharon dropped to her knees, a hand over her mouth. The awful smell washed over us, making the hot, muggy air thick. The light, which had a certain shimmer to it, was shining from above us, but neither of us was looking at it. The tunnel now opened up into a nearly unimaginably massive cavern. The floor of this cavern tilted down into a sort of crater, and it was at the center of this crater that our eyes were locked. I'm not sure... exactly how I can describe what we saw, but I'll do my best. It was round, a sort of spherical object half-buried in the dirt and rock. It's surface, it's skin--which moved in and out slightly, breathing--was a blueish-gray hue, and hung loosely on what looked like giant ribs, arranged in a circle, their points coming together at the top of the sphere, where they formed... I don't know, teeth, and a mouth. Around the circumference, slanted slightly so that some of them were half-buried as well, sprouted hundreds, maybe thousands, of tentacles, all different thicknesses and lengths, swaying side-to-side, hypnotically. The sphere itself must have been a a hundred-fifty, two-hundred yards across. Massive. And some of the longer tentacles were two-thirds-again as long as it was wide. I can't do it justice with words--it hurt my eyes to look at it, it just didn't make any goddamn sense. It lay something like a hundred yards away and somewhat below us.

I dropped to my knees beside my wife and was noisily sick. I heard Sharon stand back up and take a step forward, and I quickly reached out, grabbing her ankle. She stopped, and whispered, "What."

"What are you doing?"

I looked up at her, and she shook her head slightly. "I don't know."

And then I heard it: the whispering had stopped completely, and I heard a soft voice, both familiar and unfamiliar: "Come."

"Come," I whispered.

"Come," Sharon whispered.

And the voice said again, clearly, "Come." It sounded like both my parents--no, it sounded like everyone I ever knew, all talking at once. Even Sharon's voice was in it. Even my own. "Come."

Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I stood up, unable to control my movement, and took a step forward. Beside me, Sharon did the same--and then stopped, and shook her head from side to side, as if trying to shake off a headache. I walked past her.

The voice repeated, "Come."

I whispered again, "Come."

Behind me, Sharon said, "Steve."

I turned towards her and held out my hand, a smile I wasn't smiling on my lips. "Come."

She just shook her head again and took my hand, walking up close to me. "No." She rose up on her toes and put her hands on my face, kissing me full on the lips hard, so hard it hurt. "No," she murmured against my lips, her fingers in my hair. "No, please."

She grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me back, kissing me again, walking backwards until we both stood at the mouth of the tunnel again. It was only then, once she had placed herself between me and the thing, that she let go and stepped back, looking me in the eye. I looked past her, and she reached up and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look right at her.

The voice came again, "Come." It never seemed louder or softer, or more urgent.

"No," Sharon repeated. Her cheeks were lined with tears too, but she wasn't crying, at least not anymore. She looked at me very intently and said three words: "I love you."

And again, behind her, "Come."

"Are you with me?" my wife asked.

I nodded twice, afraid to open my mouth, afraid of the single word that might come out of it. I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around her legs and buried my face in her stomach. I felt her fingers in my hair again, stroking me, comforting me. I don't know how long we stayed that way.

The voice continued to repeat its monosyllabic mantra, but we ignored it.

When I had finally composed myself, I stood up and took a deep breath. "Look," Sharon said, pointing up. "You think that thing's weird, get a load of this." It sounded like she was grasping desperately at something close to humor, to keep herself going. I followed her gesture, looking up at the roof of the cavern--

"Come."

Only it wasn't there. "Jesus," I whispered, wincing. "Looking at that gives me a headache." It was the surface of the lake. At first I thought that somehow, insanely, we were above it, looking down, but then I realized the sun was shining down through it, illuminating the chamber and the creature within it with a hazy, wavy light. We were at the bottom of the lake, somehow. "We've either died and gone to hell, or we're both somehow crazy together," I said, and I couldn't help but grin.

Talking helped distract me from the repeated "Come" that still filled our minds.

Sharon let out a chuckle. "If what we're seeing is real, then at some point, the slope hits the lake. I don't know how--and I can't believe I'm saying this--how thick the water will be, I mean vertically, but in theory--"

"We could swim out."

"Bingo," she said, with a bright smile. "I mean, it's water. Look at it, it's moving like water, it's not like it can be solid. So, any objections to getting the fuck out of here?"

"Come," the voice replied.

"Not one," I said.

For almost another hour we climbed the slope, which was never so steep that it was difficult, but we were both so exhausted and the air was hot and muggy that we couldn't keep moving constantly. The pervading tug of "Come" did not help, but we tried to not look back at the thing.

When we finally reached the "surface" of the water, my head ached from trying to understand what we were looking at. Looking out over the cavern it was clear that the "surface" wasn't flat, but round like a humongous bubble. Where we stood, straight up, we couldn't see the sky--the water was too deep and murky.

"Are you sure about this?" Sharon asked, holding my hand. She dropped the clothesrope--she'd been carrying it the whole time--on the ground and reached out, touching the water. It reacted exactly as you would expect water to react, only hanging in the air.

"I'd rather drown than spend another minute down here. And I can't think of anyone I'd rather drown with." I smiled and pulled her close, kissing her on the forehead.

"Come."

"Okay," Sharon said. Before taking the plunge, so to speak, she tied the clothesrope to the front of my belt, and the other end around her waist. We stripped off our shirts and shoes, and stood for a moment, staring upwards at the water. "Ready?" she asked.

"Come."

"Yeah." We stepped forwards and up the slope and into the water, and a moment later we were floating--and then swimming desperately upwards.

"Come."

Like so much else during the ordeal, I don't know how long it took us. My lungs burned, my brain screamed for air, silver threads of light appeared in my vision, my head pounded--and then my lungs gasped air and we broke the surface, panting and gasping and laughing, so very happy to be alive, to be in the open air again. I threw my arms around Sharon and kissed her over and over, laughing, grinning.

The lakeshore was on the horizon, and we swam for it, slowly, leisurely, holding on to each other now and again, until finally we lay on the sand beach, a tangle of limbs and filthy, sodden laundry, staring up at the sky, laughing with a bubbling, uncontrollable joy. We must have made a strange sight, two soaking people sprawled all over each other on a beach, wearing only our jeans and Sharon her bra, tied together by a rope made up of someone else's clothes.

"Come."

I sat up, eyes wide, looking out over the lake. Sharon sucked down a laugh and it turned into a shocked gasp, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Come."

We walked back to the house, barefoot and filthy, my arms around my wife's shoulders protectively. The voice never left us for long, coming, it seemed, from inside our heads. When we got there, we dragged out luggage out of the trunk and got dressed, then sat in the vehicle, afraid to go into the house.

"Come."

We left for home without so much as a call to the real-estate agent, staying overnight in a motel along the way, laying fully dressed on the bed, Sharon in my arms, eyes wide open the whole night, listening.

"Come."