THE CAT'S MAW

CHAPTER II (Part 2)

Billy spun around and saw the mouth of a giant tube – a pipe – with more rats gathered at the opening. They crawled over each other, lashing their hairless tails in frenzy. The wriggling, oily mound grew and grew, eyes blazing like hot embers in smothering smoke. 

"We have waited so long, We have forgotten. It was LOST–" said the voice, and Billy looked up to its origin. Something emerged from the darkness above and crouched on the rim of the pipe. "Now We FIND it."

The thing looked human. It had arms and legs and what appeared to be a man's body. It was clothed in a quilt of soiled rags, like a cloak that had been sewn together from countless old garments. A filthy patchwork hood concealed its face. 

"Where am I?" Billy cried. "What do you want?"

The room filled with hissing. The shadowy thing lifted a limb and raised a skeletal hand to its face. Its eyes flared with crimson fire like the rats' eyes did, and the sudden light revealed the true horror of it.

Sallow, rotting flesh. A gaping hole where a nose should be. An impossibly wide mouth filled with jagged, broken teeth. Black, cavernous eyes cradling stars of angry fire.

It was the terrible face of the Grey Man.

"LISSSTEN," hissed the Grey Man, pressing a bony finger to diseased lips. "That is what you DO! You will listen, and WE will remember. Then you will help us FIND it."

The rats squealed and shrieked in chorus, and the room rumbled. Billy backed away from the thing, and the rats, and the ominous sound coming from the pipe. It was only a few steps before he felt the cold, slimy stones against his back. Again, Billy was trapped.

Water burst from the pipe, sweeping the frenzied mass of eyes and teeth towards him. The water rose, and the rats with it, churning the flow as they swam. They clung to him – to his arms and his legs, to his skin and his hair – and as the water passed Billy's knees, they began to bite.

"Get off me!" the boy screamed, "I want to wake up!"

 The Grey Man stood to his full height, eyes ablaze and arms outstretched. His hands tensed and his body went rigid. From the darkness above him, something descended. Four squares of stone. The shapes hovered in the air, forming an arc above his head.

"We can SMELL it on you. The KEY is close. The GATE shall open," the Grey Man snarled, his voice drowning out the rising water and squealing vermin. "The one who HEARS through the Veil of Tears, with the FANG o' the Great Cat's maw! You will help USsss!"

The water was up to Billy's chest, and the rats had doubled their attack. They swarmed around his face and dove underwater to gnaw on his injured leg. He swatted and squeezed and hurled as many as he could but they kept coming. The stench in the air, the sight of his own blood, and the thought of his imminent drowning crippled the boy with dread. 

"I WILL," Billy shouted, "just make it stop!"

 The air grew hot, and the stones floating above the Grey Man's head burst into flames. In the fiery light, Billy could see carved shapes on the four slabs. Symbols.

The Grey Man grinned, clapped his hands twice, and the stones vanished.

The rats continued to tear at the boy's flesh. The flood rose up to his chin. Billy choked and cried as he struggled in vain. He was alone in the dark, at the false mercy of a demon from his dreams.

"PLEASE!" he begged, fearing that his next breath would be his last. "Please...help...me..."

That's when Billy heard it over the rush of water in his ears – the scratching – just to the left of his head. He turned and gulped at the air, willing to use his last breath to show them that a boy's bite could be just as fearsome as a rat's.