Free Charnel House by Fred Anderson

name. Knew it in the flutter of fear in his belly, and in the jitters of his hands. Coming for him to deliver swift retribution for what he’d done to the boy. I know your sins, Joe Garraty , it would say, its mouth stretching impossibly wide as it reached for him.
    Garraty lurched forward to get the piece of roofing over the opening, fingerprints and blood smears be damned, and as it blocked the dim light shining under the house he caught a glimpse of that pallid face with the big dark eyes rushing at him, its wide mouth pulled into a knowing grin that showed sharp black teeth.
    The tin slammed over the rectangular doorway an instant before something smashed into it from the other side. Garraty tipped back as the thing surged forward, fighting to get through the hole, and for a long moment he thought he was going to go ass over teakettle and let the thing out into the under-porch with him to do whatever it was going to do, but then the pressure from the other side simply stopped and he got his balance back and clapped the sheet of tin into place. He leaned into the metal, pressing so hard against it his muscles cried out from the strain, the pain in his palm forgotten for the moment. Where had the thing gone? Was there another way out?
    In that terrible movie screen that lurked deep in his mind, Garraty saw the slumped shape scrambling out from under the house through a rotted section of the siding he hadn’t noticed when he was in the crawlspace. Saw it loping around the outside of the house on spidery limbs, its mottled slate skin turned blue by the moonlight. Coming up behind him right now, just about to rip through the undergrowth thicket with hands that no longer felt pain so it could feed on him, the way Jeremiah Barlowe had fed on those children in 1943.
    Garraty reversed his position and leaned back into the metal. One of the v-shaped crimps bit into his lower back and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. Nothing was coming toward him. He felt exposed sitting there in the beam of the Maglite. Maybe the thing was just watching him from out in the yard now, because he was so easy-peasy to see in the light.
    Or maybe it was never there at all.
    Bullshit. Something had hit the piece of metal hard enough to almost knock him over. That wasn’t imagination. Christ. Whatever it was had been under the house with him the whole time he was in there with the boy. He reached over and picked up the tire iron, pleased with its comforting weight. Thank God the metal had cut his left hand.
    Garraty leaned to one side—making sure to keep his back firmly against the tin sheet—and used the tire iron to roll the flashlight close enough for him to grab with his left hand. He turned it outward and bathed the rotting steps and dense green curtain of growth in its weakening beam. He saw nothing, but the hedge was so thick something could have been halfway through it and still been invisible to him. But if that were the case, he would have heard the rustle of leaves and the brittle snap of old dead twigs.
    Because there’s nothing out there, just like there was nothing in the crawlspace. You’re letting this place get to you. Too many stories, Garraty my man.
    Unless the thing on the other side of the metal was still there, biding its time in the darkness. Calculating. Waiting for him to let his guard down, like any predator. The minute he took pressure off the piece of roof, it would come for him, grinning that cold dead grin as it reached out to take him in its pale gray arms.
    So we’re at an impasse, amigo . A Mexican standoff.
    But how long could he hold out? His bladder was already full again, and he needed to get the cut on his hand cleaned up before an infection set in. If he sat here much longer the ground was going to start to get uncomfortable. Already his tailbone was gearing up to file a complaint with management.
    Garraty thought back to his initial look under the house, when the Maglite was strong and cut