Fear the Abyss: 22 Terrifying Tales of Cosmic Horror Read Online Free Page B
Author: Jack Ketchum, Tim Waggoner, Harlan Ellison, Jeyn Roberts, Post Mortem Press, Gary Braunbeck, Michael Arnzen, Lawrence Connolly
sweaty gales of the aroma in my direction. The lab is hazy with the stuff. I'm convinced my dick has split open and is pouring blood down my legs, but when I pull aside my lab coat, I see that the river of blood starts at my belly—at the enormous growth on my belly, more precisely.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" a woman asks. For once, I stiffen from her beauty, not the strange perfume. I would fuck her in a second, but something tells me she wouldn't want the man with a football-sized tumor to stick his dick inside her. The knot looks more like brain than skin, and with each increase of nausea, another vein pops, oozing brown soup down my pants.
People scream at the throbbing mass. I'm afraid, too, but the fear is so much worse when I take in all of the faces: blanched in terror, green in revulsion, their throats burbling with the upward travel of vomit. Against every desire, I start to cry and can't stop. The brown tears burrow through my face, dropping entire panels of skin to the lab floor. I try to dam the flow with my fingers, but the burning liquid causes me to shake my hands in pain, spattering bare arms and faces with molten tears and slivers of soggy skin.
I catch my sloppy reflection in the cabinet and promptly coat the mirror in hot heaves of thick, chocolate vomit. My brain tries to cling to consciousness, to the last few drops of blood that haven't defected to the tumor overcoming my innards, but its grip is weak, and down I go. I could swear my face smashes like a melon when I hit the floor, but I can still smell perfume in the seconds before I black out, so I think my nose is fine.
My nose is not fine. I know it as soon as I wake up. I can't quite see my reflection in the glass of the transfer window, but I see enough to know that my face as I knew it is probably still on the floor in front of my liquor cabinet. What's left wouldn't even make for a passable companion in a peanut butter sandwich.
My vision is fuzzy, but from the chair I'm tied into, I can tell I'm in a lab. I don't recognize it, but there are lots of labs at BioTech I've never seen. As my vision clears, I spot Regina in the entry way, zipping up her sterile suit. I'm surrounded by tanks of Extraction Buffer, each one labeled with my handwriting. What the hell is going on?
"Harvey," Regina says as she enters the lab.
My throat is full of clotted phlegm. I try to cough it up, but it hurts my stomach too badly to clear it. I look down at my belly's new bloody friend and groan. It takes up most of my torso now, but some of the connective tissue has been detached, so it hangs low on my waist.
Before I know what's happening, she's holding a few vials in front of my face and I am pummeled by the familiar smell. The tumor swells, and my erection spews ropey mud.
"What is that smell?" I scream.
"A highly concentrated dose of secretion from—as far as we can tell—the prostate gland of a female Kathonian," she replies.
"A what?"
Regina grabs a pipette aid and sticks a 50mL tip into the nozzle. She pushes the trigger and the pipette hums. She sucks up a heavy dose of Extraction Buffer and advances on me. The tip presses against my face, scraping through the slop as it draws closer to my cornea. She dispenses the buffer into my eye, sending burning liquid throughout my skull. The buffer eats through the meat in the socket, making it easier for Regina to slip in and start digging under my eyeball. The humming and sucking drown out my screams, which continue after the tip pops the eyeball out onto my lap. My jeans sizzle beneath the lump of tissue until she knocks it to the floor, squishes it under her protective boot, and goes to work on the other eye.
Once my eyeballs are gone and the sockets stripped by the buffer, the oozing stops completely. But I can still see Regina. She nods to the other suited technicians in the room and is handed a clean scalpel.
"I am sorry about this, Harv. You were just too obvious," she says.
"About what?"
"You
"Oh my god, are you okay?" a woman asks. For once, I stiffen from her beauty, not the strange perfume. I would fuck her in a second, but something tells me she wouldn't want the man with a football-sized tumor to stick his dick inside her. The knot looks more like brain than skin, and with each increase of nausea, another vein pops, oozing brown soup down my pants.
People scream at the throbbing mass. I'm afraid, too, but the fear is so much worse when I take in all of the faces: blanched in terror, green in revulsion, their throats burbling with the upward travel of vomit. Against every desire, I start to cry and can't stop. The brown tears burrow through my face, dropping entire panels of skin to the lab floor. I try to dam the flow with my fingers, but the burning liquid causes me to shake my hands in pain, spattering bare arms and faces with molten tears and slivers of soggy skin.
I catch my sloppy reflection in the cabinet and promptly coat the mirror in hot heaves of thick, chocolate vomit. My brain tries to cling to consciousness, to the last few drops of blood that haven't defected to the tumor overcoming my innards, but its grip is weak, and down I go. I could swear my face smashes like a melon when I hit the floor, but I can still smell perfume in the seconds before I black out, so I think my nose is fine.
My nose is not fine. I know it as soon as I wake up. I can't quite see my reflection in the glass of the transfer window, but I see enough to know that my face as I knew it is probably still on the floor in front of my liquor cabinet. What's left wouldn't even make for a passable companion in a peanut butter sandwich.
My vision is fuzzy, but from the chair I'm tied into, I can tell I'm in a lab. I don't recognize it, but there are lots of labs at BioTech I've never seen. As my vision clears, I spot Regina in the entry way, zipping up her sterile suit. I'm surrounded by tanks of Extraction Buffer, each one labeled with my handwriting. What the hell is going on?
"Harvey," Regina says as she enters the lab.
My throat is full of clotted phlegm. I try to cough it up, but it hurts my stomach too badly to clear it. I look down at my belly's new bloody friend and groan. It takes up most of my torso now, but some of the connective tissue has been detached, so it hangs low on my waist.
Before I know what's happening, she's holding a few vials in front of my face and I am pummeled by the familiar smell. The tumor swells, and my erection spews ropey mud.
"What is that smell?" I scream.
"A highly concentrated dose of secretion from—as far as we can tell—the prostate gland of a female Kathonian," she replies.
"A what?"
Regina grabs a pipette aid and sticks a 50mL tip into the nozzle. She pushes the trigger and the pipette hums. She sucks up a heavy dose of Extraction Buffer and advances on me. The tip presses against my face, scraping through the slop as it draws closer to my cornea. She dispenses the buffer into my eye, sending burning liquid throughout my skull. The buffer eats through the meat in the socket, making it easier for Regina to slip in and start digging under my eyeball. The humming and sucking drown out my screams, which continue after the tip pops the eyeball out onto my lap. My jeans sizzle beneath the lump of tissue until she knocks it to the floor, squishes it under her protective boot, and goes to work on the other eye.
Once my eyeballs are gone and the sockets stripped by the buffer, the oozing stops completely. But I can still see Regina. She nods to the other suited technicians in the room and is handed a clean scalpel.
"I am sorry about this, Harv. You were just too obvious," she says.
"About what?"
"You
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