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“Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.”

H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls

                My world is darkness. I’m standing before a television turned to a dead station. The white static washes across my face as I stare down at its incessant buzz. It’s on old TV set, the kind you see on Leave It To Beaver. The white/gray glow from the screen is radiating across me, washing out my face. I step towards the screen.

                It goes live.

                I’m staring at my back. On the screen. I see behind me, looking over my shoulder.

                A shadow darts across the screen.

                I whirl around, staring into the darkness.

                Nothing.

                I turn back to the television screen. Now it’s showing something different. I can see the corner of a wall, looking into a kitchen. The screen image is fuzzy, like I’m looking at a hi-def computer screen. I can see the tile floor and the very edge of a dinette set. The white apartment-like kitchen wraps around the side, so most of the room is just beyond the edge of the wall. I realize I’m looking through a doorway.

                And something drops to the ground.

                I step towards the screen to see better. The image pans down a bit, so I can see down onto the pristine clean tile floor.

                It’s a finger.

                A small pool of milky red blood is spilling out from the edges as the finger jerks spasmatically, the life not yet gone from the flesh. It wiggles and flexes across the floor, flipping around like a fish caught on the sand as the tide washes out.

                A drop of blood splatters down onto the finger as it wiggles and tosses, covering the flesh and skin with still more blood, the drop splattering and splashing across the floor of the kitchen. I tilt my eyes first. I look up towards the top of the screen. The image moves with my eyes, looking up farther.

                The top of the doorway obscures most of the ceiling. And the narrow width of the doorway obscures almost the rest of it. But I can see the shadows created by the ceiling light. I can see the white-cast hue from the incandescent glow.

                And I can see them move.

                I’m only able to see the shadows. But I can tell there are at least two of them. There might be more. I can see the shadowed outline of their shapes as the haunch over on the ceiling. I can tell their shape, their form. Large backs. Long arms. Long, long spindly fingers. As I lean in close to the screen, I can see the detail of one of the shadows. I can see its head open up, it’s needle-thick protrusions from its mouth, like dozens of tiny spikes longer than my fingers, spray out and as it places something in its mouth.

                But it breaks up as it enters the mouth. A piece of it falls. The screen moves as I look down to watch it fall.

I

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S

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The eyeball hits the floor with a wet splat. The bottom of the eye cracks and the clear, viscous fluid begins to ooze out like snot mixed with sparkling glue.

I look back up at the roof. The shapes continue, bent over the light of the room, devouring away. I can hear their wet smacking and slimy motions. I can feel the air’s rank putrid gas as their odor and stench begins to infiltrate my senses.

One of them moves. My breath burns in my lungs, threatening to burst out. But it leans back. And in its new posture, I can see just a tiny corner of it. The edge of the door is just barely far enough over that I can see just a bit. And I can see its arm and the very small edge of its body. I can see its bony elbow move as the arm moves, the wet tearing of flesh echoing with the action. The army moves with a hard, jerk, like the only way the thing can move is through a spasm.

Its grimy arm moves against its body as it stays bent over, the sick, slobbering sound filling the darkness around me.

                And the television goes dead.

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