BOOM: A Lovecraftian Urban Fantasy Thriller Read online

  Boom

  by

  Ben Farthing

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  BOOM

  First edition. May 15, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Ben Farthing.

  Written by Ben Farthing.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six | INTERLUDE

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen | INTERLUDE

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven | INTERLUDE

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty | INTERLUDE

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six | Epilogue

  Author’s Note | Thanks for getting lost in the Periphery with me.

  Chapter One

  Three minutes before Everard Harrison was attacked by the Perforated Woman, he switched off a Bowie/Mercury duet to rehearse both parts in an impending argument with his girlfriend.

  D.C. traffic grumbled motionlessly around him, stuck in the heavy August air.

  He spoke to his toolbox on the passenger seat. “Abby, here it is straight. I’d love to spend Christmas with your parents, but I can’t risk applying for a passport.”

  Despite eleven months together, Everard didn’t know how she’d respond. He’d never opened up to anyone about the legalities of his identity.

  The light turned green, but some idiot in an SUV blocked the intersection.

  Everard skirted around the backup by detouring into an office parking lot. A wall of pine trees isolated the property, dulling the traffic noise.

  The traffic noise faded. The lot was strangely empty of people.

  His phone rang through the stereo. “Call from. Abby.”

  “Nope.” He jabbed the ignore button. “Not yet.”

  A woman stumbled out from behind a parked car. Everard stomped on the brake, launching his tools onto the floor mat.

  Not eight feet in front of him, the woman tripped. She fell to her hands and knees, frazzled black hair hanging over her face, either breathing deep or sobbing.

  Everard had a policy against asking strangers why they were crying. He wasn't sure what his policy said about crying strangers who were in your way. Everard tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

  He wanted to get home, sit back in his recliner, and watch Alex Trebec’s condescending banter.

  "This counts as my good deed for the month." He parked the truck and approached the woman.

  She breathed in deep gasps. Not crying - hyperventilating.

  "Hey, are you all right?" A stupid question.

  He spotted a scrap of paper next to her that she must have dropped. He picked it up and touched her shoulder. She looked up. Her expression wasn't panic, but exhaustion, like she'd just run a marathon. Sweat beaded on her skin and glistened in her hair. She was slender, slightly older than Everard—probably mid-thirties—and gorgeous despite the blemishes across her cheek.

  "I'm fine," she breathed, gently pushing his hand away. She looked excited to see him.

  "Then why are you sitting in the parking..."

  He forgot his words as the blemishes moved, crossing her nose and mouth to rest beneath her ear.

  Everard jerked back.

  It wasn't acne, or age spots, or scars. It was a swarm of holes, moving both together and independently like a school of fish. Each deep enough to show teeth or bone, but instead only revealing pink flesh descending into shadow.

  His stomach clenched, his throat tightened.

  "What..." he said. The word promised more, delivered nothing. He wanted to run back to the truck, but fascination mixed in with revulsion as he watched the perforations.

  "You're going to make him so handsome.” Her soothing voice amplified the oddity of her skin. The holes swam out of sight beneath her shirt, appeared on her hand, then disappeared back up her sleeve. She saw him watching. "Entrancing, aren't they? Imagine how they feel."

  The holes glided over her face, over—oh, God—over her eyes, her open eyes, tiny fleshy pits slipping along whites and blues and irises. He should run. That's what he should do, and he would, as soon as he could figure out what was going on with her skin.

  She pulled a narrow, golden rod from her pocket, like a leather awl or a nail punch. Humming to herself, the woman touched it to her cheek as the swarm slid past, and Everard thought maybe the swimming school left one fish behind, pulled into the golden awl. The woman tilted her head and pursed her lips, like a child with a crayon, deciding where to color first.

  Everard's gaze locked on the awl. He didn't want that near him, but still, his feet wouldn't move.

  Drop it, he thought, the awl coming closer, pulling hand and arm and the woman behind it. Drop it. Callused fingers with painted, chipped nails gripped the awl tight. You're going to drop it. It's going to slip out of your fingers, and then I'm going to run back to my truck. Still it came, and a sensation under his eye, beside his nose, of a single pore widening, opening into a gaping maw to welcome this unwanted intruder.

  Why can't I move? Drop it. His opening pore yearned for the gold, the empty presence it carried. You can't keep your grip. You've been exerting yourself and your sweat is too slick you can't hold on you can't.

  The thought pushed through a gritty dredge, a scratching silt that squeezed it, shoved at it, until the thought exploded through into openness.

  The awl slipped out of her fingers, tinged on the asphalt.

  The world snapped into focus. Everard touched his face to find smooth skin, no gaping pores.

  Finding his legs worked again, he didn't pause to appreciate the coincidence of her dropping the awl as he imagined it.

  He dashed for the truck and smashed into a man. The newcomer grabbed Everard's shoulders to inspect his face.

  "Yep, you're him," he said with a harmonic lilt that sounded like two voices. He gave Everard a wide, open-mouthed grin, revealing two tongues, side by side.

  Everard's stomach twisted. He'd never heard of a birth defect that split your tongue in two.

  "Walk away." The woman approached the man, tiny weapon in hand. The swarm of holes spread out across her face, condensed on her chin, then disappeared down her collar. "Undone Duncan has already claimed him."

  Doubt flickered in his expression, but the man spat back in his duel voice, "Get in line."

  Everard kicked a steel-toed b
oot into the man's kneecap. Something popped, and his second attacker crumpled to the ground, screaming a duet. Everard jumped in the truck, slammed and locked the door. He dropped the paper as he fumbled for both the gear shift and his phone at once, needing to both be gone and call for help.

  The woman brought the bottom of her fist against the window. The awl in her grip cracked the glass into a tiny spiderweb.

  Everard threw the truck into drive while trying to dial 911. Right as he hit send, the screen switched to the "Receiving Call" animation and the truck speakers played a split second of his ringtone.

  He maneuvered the truck around the man still writhing on the ground. The woman hit his window again, and the spiderweb grew to the size of his fist.

  Abby's voice filled the cab. "Everard?"

  "Hey," he grunted. He floored the accelerator. The truck lurched between gears.

  "What are you doing?" asked Abby.

  He wanted to say, "Running for my life from Ripley's Belive-It-Or-Not rejects," but it came out as, "um."

  The woman hit the window once more before the truck outdistanced her. Everard swerved out of the far end of the parking lot, forcing a BMW to brake to avoid hitting him.

  "What was that noise?" asked Abby. "Are you okay?"

  Everard breathed deep, watching through his mirrors to see if the woman with the holes was still following. She wasn't, but the guy in the BMW gave him the one-fingered salute.

  "Hey, sorry," he said. He almost told her to call 911, that he'd just been attacked, but what would he say attacked him? Instead, he went with, “I’m here.”

  "What's going on?"

  He opened his mouth, but the words didn't come. He'd been attacked by a two-tongued man and a woman with a roving swarm of holes in her skin. Abby wouldn't believe that. He didn't think he believed it. "Nothing. I was, uh, trying to call someone else."

  He stopped at a red light.

  "I called you."

  He touched his face again, reassuring himself in its completeness, thinking he'd feel more reassured if it was Abby's fingers playing against his cheek.

  It was just acne, he told himself. Some acned, crackhead homeless woman and her friend with a botched tongue-piercing had attacked him. That's all.

  But they’d been looking for him.

  "Everard? I called you."

  "Right, I mean—"

  The BMW honked. The light was green. The scrap of paper he'd picked up by the woman caught his eye. He grabbed it.

  "Please," said Abby. "Can we talk? I think I freaked you out the other night, but come on, it’s just my parents. It’s not like I’m asking for a ring."

  "Yeah, let’s talk. But let me call you back." The scrap was a ripped photocopy. The top had half a photograph, the bottom a block of text.

  "No. I have questions. When you fell asleep at my place the other night, you got like four calls in a row from someone named Liz."

  Fucking fantastic. Abby finding out about Liz was a disaster in itself, but Everard would deal with it later. Right now he couldn't look away from the paper. "I really need to call you back."

  "You can't be serious."

  The photo was of Everard unlocking his front door. Whoever they were, they were watching him, tainting the peace and privacy of his own home.

  The truck rolled forward as Everard's foot slipped off the brake. The BMW roared around him on the shoulder, tires spitting up gravel. Everard pulled over.

  "I'm really sorry," he said. "I'll call you tonight. I promise."

  "Fine." Abby ended the call.

  Below the photocopied picture, the printed text that hadn't been ripped away read:

  -rard

  -rison

  And then scrawled below, originally in marker but now photocopied:

  other

  Someone had finally discovered him, realized that his real identity had disappeared years ago, and Everard Harrison was a creation of a bribed system administrator at the Social Security office.

  And now that someone was sending people after him.

  A tiny, dark blur swept over his wrist. He jerked back, smacked it hard enough to sting. A stinkbug had landed on the window, casting a shadow.

  He wanted to get home, sit in his recliner, and turn on Jeopardy. But now he had to figure out what—who, he corrected himself—was after him.

  Everard pulled onto the road and switched back on his music. He headed home, numb, while David Bowie ignored ground control's pleas to respond.

  Chapter Two

  Everard parked his truck in front of his townhouse thirty minutes later. He peered around the parking lot, searching for cars that didn't belong.

  A few other neighbors were getting home, slamming car doors, swinging by the mailboxes, hurrying to their respective homes to escape the August humidity.

  He lay his head back and closed his eyes, mind racing in circles, figuring out what to do next.

  A deafening boom resonated through the city, rattled the hammer and prybar in his passenger seat. He jumped, then took a breath.

  His scurrying neighbors stopped and looked around, confused but getting used to confusion. They shrugged at each other and continued with their scurrying.

  Five times now this boom had interrupted the peace of the DC metro area. Everard didn't bother switching to the news, since he already knew what they'd be saying. Yes, we heard it, too. Yes, it's bizarre. No, there's nothing to worry about. And then some experts or government grunts would come on and say it wasn't an explosion, just a noise, no need to worry about Al Qaeda or ISIS, it was probably a prank, even though you could hear in their voice they didn't have a clue, either.

  A few hours ago, Everard could have cared about the community mystery. Now it seemed trivial, next to what he’d just escaped from. He felt powerless.

  He kept his Walther and a box of ammunition in his nightstand drawer. Once he got that loaded and in his hand, his options for his next step increased exponentially.

  The eerie movement of the swarm of holes leapt back to his mind, the opening sensation on his own skin. The image clung to his thoughts like a remembered papercut.

  He shouted, then punched the steering wheel to clear his head. He tried to convince himself this flyer wasn't about him. The picture was kinda blurry. "-rard" could be the ending to plenty of names.

  Gerard.

  Other names he couldn't think of right now.

  That was stupid. Someone was after him. Multiple someones, probably headed here right now, since that photo meant they knew where he lived. Who had he pissed off?

  The August humidity pressed down on him as he stepped out of the truck. As he walked to his front door, he noticed the back of the ripped paper.

  Reward

  House of Burg-

  Only information delivered-

  Regulars will not qualify-

  This was a bounty. Someone organized, and with deep enough pockets to throw money around. Living and running a business under a made-up identity meant that the IRS, or the Social Security Administration, or the D.C. Corporation Division would be unhappy with him, but photocopied wanted flyers weren't really their MO.

  And he didn't know any government office that started with "House of Burg."

  This was something else.

  He realized he was standing out in the open, and hurried to his door.

  "Everard?"

  He practically jumped out of his skin.

  His elderly neighbor stuck his head outside. Wild white hair, snowball sideburns, and undone suspenders made him look like a hobo who'd charmed his way into a nice townhouse.

  The curtains in the window were literally sackcloth, and he decorated his tiny front yard with brown and orange plaid plastic flamingos. It pissed off the HOA, which Everard thought was hilarious. He didn't even know where you bought plaid flamingos.

  The old man introduced himself as Bill Bill when he moved in a month ago. Everard liked the guy, loved how he scandalized the neighbors. He even had him over to watch
the 'Nats lose and listen to his old-man-ramblings every week or so.

  But there was no denying that Bill Bill marched to the beat of a differently-abled drummer. Not the kind of man you wanted around when you were being hunted. Better to get rid of him.

  "Hey, Bill Bill. I'm kind of in a hurry."

  "You hear that boom?" he spoke with a Maryland drawl. He asked the question like a little boy who'd seen a wild animal. Excitement, with a little fear.

  "I think everyone did."

  "Wild, huh?"

  "Annoying, but wild, too, I guess."

  "Say, could you lend me a hand with something?"

  Everard swallowed a groan. Bill Bill had been asking for more and more odd favors. Pick up a rare spice from a Lebanese butcher in Falls Church. Go knock on his aunt's door in Bethesda to ask her favorite color (the woman must be a hundred and ten). Ask a rare book dealer about a signed edition of Once, Under the Bridge by Edgar Allen Poe (on which a Google search pulled up nothing).

  Eating wings with him was one thing. Running his errands was another. He'd always found an excuse, but the last two times, he'd promised "next time." Although today was especially bad timing.

  "I'm sorry, can it wait?"

  "It's really important. Life or death, almost." Bill Bill's cheery tone was not that of a man dealing with a life or death situation.

  "Next time," said Everard.

  "Well, when you've got a second, give me a holler." Bill Bill went back inside, leaving his door open.

  Everard stuck his key in his deadbolt. He wished he could relax in front of the TV, and open up his aquarium catalogue. But he needed to get his pistol and then deal with this whole situation.

  Inside, the floorboards creaked.

  Everard hesitated, listened. Another neighbor pulled into the parking lot, but even over the motor's rumbling, Everard thought he heard the soft groan of someone gently stepping off the loose spot in his hall.

  Chills ran up his spine. He stood in the same position as in the photo, on his front porch, hand on the doorknob.

  Someone was in his house. Invading his life. He'd left his tool belt in the truck, but he didn't need a hammer to break someone's jaw. He ignored thoughts of roving perforations, letting his anger take over. He unlocked the deadbolt and jerked the key out of the lock.