Occultus by Mark Cassell

A story in the Shadow Fabric Mythos

by Mark Cassell

When a photographer falls he’s going to protect his camera, and when gravity snatches my clumsy arse that’s precisely what I do. Birdshit and moss, tiles and rotted wood fall with me. The jagged shape of daylight shrinks. I hug my camera and plunge into the darkness, and…

Pain explodes.

My lungs burn and my vision morphs into lightning flashes that betray the black void. I squirm, cradling my SLR. I try to breathe but the agony rages. I clench my teeth as air rattles my lungs and I taste a metallic stickiness. My legs, my arms; I feel them, thankfully. The pain subsides, marginally, so I guess I’m okay.

With a free hand, I reach out to claw wooden boards, dragging grit and filth. I sit up and squint into this nothingness. The stink of damp, of cold stone and decay, strangles me. I cough and pain stabs me in the chest.

Something moves nearby; a wet sound, a slurp like something dislodging.

Silence squeezes me. Had I actually heard it?

The SLR lurches in my hand. A clamminess brushes my arm and grips the camera. I pull it closer, muscles straining.

It’s wrenched away in a spray of slime.

“Hey!” I shout. Somehow the darkness swallows the word.

More slurping, wet and heavy.

I shuffle backwards and kick out. My flailing arms slap the curved brickwork. No exit. Mortar scratches my skin. No. Exit. The cold wall presses against my spine.

The darkness thickens, tightens.

My heart crashes against my ribcage, stealing the silence.

The camera’s flash pulses for a moment, and an oval whiteness fills my vision; a face, blank, featureless with only dark veins beneath glistening skin. The flash goes off fully, lighting the surrounding brickwork and that faceless monstrosity attached to a bulbous sweaty body, squat and seething atop splintered floorboards.

The bare, curved walls—no exit!—prevent any further retreat. I claw at the filth I sit in.

Black. Cold.

Again, that wet shuffling sound. Something flops. More slurping as before, yet this time frantic. Eager perhaps?

Silence, once again. Just my heartbeat punching the seconds that pass…

Bio:

Mark Cassell lives in a rural part of the UK with his wife and a number of animals. He often dreams of dystopian futures, peculiar creatures, and flitting shadows. Primarily a horror writer, his steampunk, dark fantasy, and Sci-Fi stories have featured in several anthologies and ezines. Rayne Hall has included his work in three of her Ten Tales anthologies: Fiery Beasts, Cogwheels, and Fiends, and also a Shadow Fabric mythos story can be found in April Grey’s Hell’s Garden anthology. His flash fiction often features in the popular ezine, Sirens Call, and he writes a series for the Sci-Fi ezine, Future Chronicles, in which we follow the adventures of Alpha Beta Gamma Kill. His upcoming short story collection, Sinister Stitches, is only a fraction of an expanding mythos that began with his debut novel, The Shadow Fabric.

The Shadow Fabric: www.TheShadowFabric.co.uk
Sinister Stitches: http://amzn.to/1SuHihP

Blog: www.beneath.co.uk
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/_w58j

Twitter: @Mark_Cassell
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorMarkCassell