Lord of the Mountain

April 10, 2024March 31, 2024 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 6 Comments

With no place left for me among the people, I fled to the mountain, my face wet with tears. Better to be alone than tormented. But on the fourth night in the forest, I heard God growling in the darkness and knew I was saved.

I climbed from my tent and stood swaying under the midnight moon. For days I’d eaten only mushrooms and drunk rainwater trapped in puddles and stumps. Sleep had been elusive. I was tired and emptied of everything inside of me from four days ago. And yet, I felt peace for the first time in my life.

God snuffled amid the trees beyond my fire. I heard him cracking sticks and digging at hollow logs. I heard his incisors sharpening themselves as he chewed at some sacrament forbidden to me. I knelt and prayed. I asked his forgiveness; I asked his love. He did not answer

Perhaps, I thought, my fire kept him away. I doused it to blackness. I lay on my back and spread my arms as if crucified, opening myself in invitation. And God came to me. He wore a hair shirt like the ancient saints; he smelled of cedar and hot sweat; his breath was full of meat and blood.

I lay stiff and still. God sniffed my body, between my legs, up my chest, across my face. His tongue was rough when he kissed me. And I put the knife in his throat and ripped it across.

He did not cry out, not with his windpipe severed. His attempt at a roar birthed itself in a dark and sticky rheum that flooded my mouth. The great spirit reared onto his legs and clawed silver streaks in the ebon sky, then collapsed on top of me. His weight was like the kingdom of heaven. I thought I would die from lack of breath.

But I did not die. I lay for a long while beneath him, until the warmth of his body cooled. Then I peeled off his shaggy coat and pulled it around my own shoulders. It leaped and twitched with life. In past times I might have named that life as fleas and ticks, but I knew now they were angels, which live always on the body of God. And so now they lived on me. For I had ascended to my rightful place.

Far down the mountain below me, I saw the lights of the village I’d fled so recently. It made a place of emptiness, of great loneliness. Just as, a few days before, I had been lonely myself amid its crowds.

I took off the ex-God’s hands and fitted them over mine, with their long, curved black claws. I pulled his sharp white teeth and placed them in my own mouth, though I had to cut my jaws wider to accommodate their majesty.

I would go to the village now, clad in glory. And they would believe. They would know how foolish they’d been not to recognize the God inside me. For that, they must be punished.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Heaven

January 3, 2024December 15, 2023 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 4 Comments

The spaceship jarred as it landed. The computer had brought me down safely from orbit, but I was half dead, choking for breath, mind spasming from lack of oxygen. The recycler had broken down. Even my space suit was nearly bled dry of air. Somehow, I made it to the airlock. I didn’t know this planet. Was the atmosphere breathable? I had no choice but to find out. The outer hatch opened under my desperate palm. I staggered through, fell to hands and knees, slapped my helmet release.

A breath shuddered into my chest. Warm. Languid. It fed me. My lungs filled; my body drank the air like nectar. I coughed myself back to life, then forced myself to my feet. The view froze me. A low mist coiled around my legs, as if I stood on a cloud. But up through the fog thrust metal trees, of copper, black iron, gleaming platinum. Their leaves chimed in a zephyr breeze. Above me, the sky was clear and golden, like melted butter.

And in that sky drifted a silver city. I heard trumpets belling, and rising over the city’s spires swept a flock of beings. They were white, blindingly white, with feathered wings.

For an instant I wondered if I had died, or if I lay dreaming with a brain damaged from oxygen loss. But I’d always understood the difference between fantasy and reality, and the reality was that the creatures who dove toward me were angels. They began to sing. My heart swelled with the beauty. I lifted my own voice to join theirs.

The angels swirled before me in diaphanous glory, with luminous eyes honed and piercing. Their wings beat the mist. Their voices lifted higher and higher. For a moment I knew the harmonics of heaven. Then my voice faltered; I couldn’t match theirs. No human throat could capture this music. No human body could contain it. My heart hammered and hammered. Again my breath labored. The angels swarmed closer.

I wondered why they pointed at me as they sang? Why were their sweet lips drawn back over sharp, sharp teeth? Only when my ears and nose and eyes begin to bleed did I understand. This song was no song at all. In a rage of laughter, the angels of God tore me apart.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Spot

October 11, 2023October 9, 2023 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 8 Comments

Spot is my pet and I love him. My daddy brought him home last week, but already we’re inseparable. He sleeps on the floor by my bed and I feed him scraps from the table when no one is looking.

I love my daddy, too. And not just because he brought Spot home after my dog, Rover, died. Daddy knows everything. He teaches at a major university and is a doctor, though I’m always sposed to remember he’s not a “med doctor” but a doctor of Sperimental Psychology. He says med doctors are just plumbers.

I’m eight years old and one thing that worried me at first about Spot was that he was older than me. So was Rover. But when I asked Daddy if he thought Spot might die soon from old age, he said not to worry, that Rover had died from barking too much and Spot doesn’t bark.

Spot plays all the games I like, as long as I give him clear orders. I especially like to play fetch with him, and he never gets the ball all slobbery like Rover did. The only thing I don’t like is that he’s not as much fun to pet as Rover. Part of it is that he doesn’t have Rover’s soft fur, but I think a lot of it is the ugly black box attached to his head. It gets in the way a lot.

Daddy says the box is really important, though. He says it has lectrodes that control Spot, and that without it Spot would run away. I don’t want that, so I’ll just have to live with the box, I guess. I sure wouldn’t want to see Spot’s picture on a milk carton like those other lost kids.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Once Upon a Time with the Dead

July 19, 2023June 29, 2023 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 6 Comments

Alkali dust under the white blaze of a Mexican sun.
Riders are coming. To a village standing idle on a ghostly quiet day. Or so at first it seems.

Then, from the bell tower of the adobe church a lone guitar chord rings out. Quick fingers pluck a haunting tune. From one blank window comes a wink of silver. From another a click-click snap. Men are waiting: good, honest men who are aware only that an old hatred is sweeping across their land.

The riders drift into the village square, long gray coats flapping in the dry wind that moves the dust. There are five of them. Known men. Wanted men who covet what doesn’t belong to them. Men with strange, dangerous names like Doc, Clay, Jesse, Ringo, Sundance. Their eyes are black, colder than the single-action Colts at their hips. The leader is Jesse. He dismounts, spurs chinking on the paving stones that mark the square.

Jesse’s movements are a signal. The guitar clashes, strings shredding with sound. From the windows of the town rifles speak smoke, and the rolling crack of gunfire hammers the brilliant sunshine. Bullets tug at gray dusters. A horse drops, and another, their riders leaping free, hands diving for pistols, coming up belching fire.

Jesse takes a shotgun slug to the chest, a .44 round through his shoulder. But his own guns are banging. Splinters and glass fly from the building above him. A man tumbles through a broken window, crashes through fleeing pigeons to the street.

The villagers are outmanned. This is not the predictable evil they had expected. Their bullets tear holes in flesh and tattered gray, but it is only the defenders who fall, until they all lie crimson and still against a canvas of light and stark shadow.

But the gray riders? They do not bleed. They will not lie down. Though dirt has been their friend before.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Hunger

April 26, 2023April 8, 2023 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 6 Comments

Sunlight fogs the clearing where the dying trees watch; nothing stirs. But the quiet will soon break. Riders are coming from north and south, and before them fly the ravens. They come in flocks, light spilling dark from flashing wings. Their cries rasp the sky. A wind moves with them.

The ancient oaks shiver as the black birds settle raucously in their branches. The ravens’ agate eyes spark with red as they turn their heads in the sun. The grass stirs now, whispering with gossip as the wind arrives. And there is a rumble in the distance that might be thunder but which the ravens know as the pounding of iron-shod hooves.

Up the last hills toward the clearing the riders come, their thunder shaking the earth now, shaking the trees and stirring the birds into a frenzy. Light ripples off armor, off the heads of lances and the bright pennons that snap with eagerness.

The sky roars with sound, then falls nearly silent as the armies draw to a halt facing each other. In the trees, the ravens preside. And the charge comes, as the birds expect. Battle is joined. Carnage riots in the clearing.

First blood soaks the earth, moistens the dry soil. More crimson follows. Buckets of it. It’s what the dying oaks have waited for. It’s why they’ve been sending hate over the years into weak human minds, urging them toward war, urging them toward this moment and this place.

Quietly, the oaks begin to bloom. And in the trees’ awakening hunger, the ravens are the first to be devoured.

The first. But not the last.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Creeping Woman

February 1, 2023January 18, 2023 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 5 Comments

My neighbor killed his girlfriend. I’m sure. For three weeks she was a regular visitor to his house. Then she came over one night and didn’t go home in the morning. She never went home.

For days I watched closely, phone set to record, in case I saw him carrying wrapped up body parts to the trash. I saw nothing, and his trash remained the usual junk any young man living alone throws out—beer cans, pizza boxes, dirty mags. She must have still been in the house, maybe buried under the floorboards like Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart,” or probably stuck in a freezer in the basement. I’d have called the police but I couldn’t prove anything. Besides, I’d been warned about making “false accusations.”

An idea finally hit me, something to shake my neighbor up and make him crack so everyone could see his crazy. I still had mannequins around from my days in retail, and various clothing and wigs. I dressed a mannequin in a blonde wig, stockings, and heels. I didn’t have the short, white silk dress the girlfriend had been wearing on her last visit so I ordered one from Amazon. It arrived two days later and my plan was ready.

My neighbor worked. He kept his house locked up tight, with a security alarm set, but while he was out I snuck across and put the dressed-up mannequin on his porch by the door. Then I waited. I had a directional mike to record with at a distance so I set up a stakeout in my front room where I could look directly at his porch. He came home. Man, it was a surprise. But not the kind I expected.

“Leslie!” he shouted when he saw the mannequin. “Leslie! My God! I thought you’d left me. I thought I’d never see you again.” He took her in his arms, hugged her tight. “I’m so glad you’ve come home to me. You’ll never have to leave again.” He picked her up like a bride and carried her across the threshold into his house.

For the next few days, whenever my neighbor was gone, I’d see “Leslie” standing in the kitchen, or maybe reclining on the couch with a glass of wine nearby, or perhaps leaning hipshot next to the open blinds in the upstairs bedroom as she stared down toward my place. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t think of a thing to do. My neighbor was clearly insane, and I wasn’t feeling too good myself.

Two days later, my doorbell rang. I assumed it was Amazon delivering packages so I threw open the door. Leslie stood there in her white dress, which was uncomfortably stained by now. “What do you want?” I blurted, without thinking.

She answered. She answered! “I wanted to make an omelet for my hunny when he gets home but I only have one egg. Can I borrow a couple from you?”

My heart pounded. Something had to give in this insane situation. I strove to sound normal as I said, “Of course. Come on in the kitchen.”

She followed as I went, her feet clunking on the floor the way real human feet do not. I took a dozen eggs out of the fridge and opened them on the counter. “Take whatever you need.”

She smiled, and I grabbed a butcher knife from the block on the counter and stabbed her through the chest. She didn’t scream as she crumpled to the floor, only wheezed as if air were escaping her hollow form. I taped her up in two black trash bags and threw her out back by the garbage bins.

The next day she was gone, and I was more worried than ever. Because I’d left the knife in her chest when I threw her out. I don’t know where she’s at. And now she’s got a weapon.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Forest Full of Mirrors

November 16, 2022November 13, 2022 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 7 Comments

The forest is full of mirrors that reflect the thirteen angels of the land. It is the only safe way to gaze upon them. To see their glory directly would hammer one to silence. It would chain a throat with despair.

The first angel is the angel of moss. She has long hair that drips gray from the limbs of oaks. Her wings are invisible but you can feel them in the breeze as they stroke your sweat to coolness. On hot days I sit beneath her perch, though I dare not sit too long. She might notice.

The angel of leaves wears many colors, changing them with every season. Green is her favorite but sometimes her silks flame red and yellow. At other times they are threadbare, showing the branching of her veins. In the cold, damp winter they are rotted black.

The angel of stone has pitted eyes that glitter like mica. Those orbs watch the little creatures wandering past. They study those who squirm and crawl and hop the forest floor. They decide who to sacrifice and who to spare.

There is another angel who lives in the hives of bees. Striped in black and yellow, she has feelers upon her head. It is said that her coat of pollen is an aphrodisiac. I believe that is true though I have never chanced a taste.

The angel of owls sweeps in silence through the tangled woods. Nothing hears him in flight, but everything flees when he calls. I have heard this piping on eldritch nights—and remain haunted.

The misted angel wears a diaphanous gown. She is cool to the touch. Through the darkest hours, she pants wetly with want. But in the dawn she floats in innocence to heaven. Do not bother to wave. In return she will offer naught.

The river angel’s wings are white in the rapids, deep and green in the pools. Like a child, he chuckles and laughs as he plays. But do not make him angry. He thrashes against his banks then. He turns the world to shambles.

The angel of light glitters like a hoard of gems. She dances with the mirrors, preening for the trees. I suspect she is vain. But why shouldn’t she be? She is more lovely than the sweet face of the moon.

The wings of the ninth angel make a gate. It opens and closes like a bellows. Sometimes things come through. Awful things. Monstrous things. They hide in the light; they stalk the night. Even though they may know your name, do not make them your friend.

The angel of wicked dreams leaves his feathers scattered on the forest floor. Never seek them. Their promise is honeyed; their taste is foul. They often resemble mushrooms and toadstools. Sometimes they follow you home and beg to come inside and bleed.

Even the worms have an angel. He is small and ugly and his pinions are lost. He crawls on his belly in the soil. He has no throat with which to scream. But listen close and you still may hear him. Pray that you don’t.

I once knew the angel with the dirty wings. We were lovers in a snake’s embrace. She left me a gift when we parted, half of one of her fangs broken off in my heart. The thirteenth angel is the worst. Or the best. If you should look right at him, you’d only see yourself. He is a mirror all his own. He would laugh when you laugh, cry when you cry. But in the end he’d eat your soul with a wink.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Soul Unturned

August 31, 2022August 30, 2022 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 13 Comments

Entwined beneath an afternoon sun, two lovers work in a tiny graveyard in an orchard gone to seed. Sweat pearls their limbs and beads their hair. Their voices moan and echo. The moment passes. As evening shadows begin to sing, they kiss and sigh.

“You sure you want this?” Dean asks. “No changing minds later.”
“I want to be young and in love forever.” Leandra replies

Dean nods, kisses the hollow of her throat. Her blue veins shed warmth. Her life beats there. He can drink it when the time comes. Already they’ve been drawing each other’s blood with needles and sharing it to deepen their bond.

Dean lies back on a grave, drawing Leandra down beside him. They wait, holding hands as their last sunset comes creeping. Shadows stretch. On the horizon, earth colors of red and yellow give way to metallic purples and pulsing blacks. Darkness caresses daylight into oblivion.

Leandra sits up. “You hear it?”
Dean joins her. “Yes. They’re coming!”

A humming seeps from the air. The night sky blossoms, as if god has set off fireworks meant only for them. Brilliant scarlets and muted maroons build a backdrop against which gold and white droplets spray. An image of a great raptor appears, striking from ebony space.

Dean closes his eyes against the glory. “The Angel!” he shouts.
Leandra says nothing. Her eyes are open; they bleed crystal tears with razor edges.

The angel lands with a snap of crimson pinions. It is legion; its eyes are moonlets.

“No,” Dean pleads.
“We seek forever,” Leandra counters.

The angel wraps its wings around the lovers, containing them within its umbra. From a spider’s mouth of chelicerae, the being extrudes a single fang upon which gleams a venom-pearl. Leandra licks the pearl. It bursts on her tongue into oily rivulets of purple, blue and green. Dean will not open his eyes but she shares the venom through a kiss. Spasms strike them both. They jerk and writhe, convulse and scream. Limbs twist; bones snap. From human, they are reborn. Into nothing human.

Leandra recovers first. Her eyes are wider now. They see the electromagnetic spectrum in infinite shades. Her ears are opened. They hear the beat of hearts across miles, the scurry of beetles under her feet, the twisting of worms beneath the earth.

“Thank you,” she says.

The angel holds out a tentacle and pulls her to her feet. She feels a weight at her shoulders, the fast-growing wings that will give her the sky. Laughing, she turns to her lover. Dean lies still, as if with exhaustion. She calls his name. He opens his eyes; they are ruins of rot. She cries out and drops to her knees, touching his face. He mewls from a mouth of blackened tongues and the stumps of broken teeth.

With tears, Leandra looks up at the angel. “What happened?” she pleads. “Help him!”

“The venom did not take,” the angel replies. “This is as far as he goes. We’ll have to leave him for the beast.”

“No!” Leandra protests. “It was supposed to be both of us. Together. Forever.”

No mercy in the angel’s voice as it speaks again. “You’ll find better lovers where we’re going. Come. Or stay. Your choice.”

Leandra glances at Dean. He doesn’t seem to recognize her. He grunts like a toad as his broken limbs scratch in the soil as if to burrow. Leandra stands. Her tears are of sorrow, and of joy, as the angel and the once-a-woman rise and arrow toward the portals of heaven. Behind them in the dirt, Dean digs his slow way to Hell.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Wizard and Waif

June 15, 2022June 13, 2022 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 3 Comments

Passing through the woods one dark and dreary day, an old wizard found a shivering waif sitting dejectedly beneath a tree alongside the road.

“Child,” the old man said. “Where are your parents?”

“Gone, Sir,” replied the waif, who appeared to be no more than ten or eleven.

“Gone where?”

The youth shrugged. “They sent me to gather wood for our campfire, but when I came back they were gone. I don’t know where.”

“Well, perhaps we can find them,” the wizard said, though he did not really believe it likely. This forest was infamous as a place where unwanted children were abandoned.

The wizard held out his hand. “Come with me, Lad. I’ll help you.”

Without hesitation, the waif rose and took the man’s hand. His grip was strong, and he was smiling. The wizard smiled back.

Knowing it would be dark soon, the wizard did not lead the waif far before stopping to camp.

“Do you want me to get wood?” the boy asked in a frightened voice.

The wizard smiled again. “Not at all, lad. You merely need to sit and watch.”

And as the boy watched, the wizard conjured up a swirling emerald campfire out of nothing but some glittering dust scattered on the ground. The fake fire crackled and spat like true flame. It gave off needed heat. The boy scooted close and held his hands out gratefully.

“It’s wonderful,” he told the wizard.

“Yes,” the wizard replied as he took a bundle off his back and drew out a packet of dried meat. He offered some to the boy and ate a few bites himself. He’d elected to start his fire near where a large, square stone rose from the soil. With a few groans and the crick/crack of old bones, he seated himself with his back to this stone. When he was comfortable, he found the waif looking at him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I…I was…wondering. I’ve heard…stories about this wood. People say bad things live here.”

The wizard chuckled. “No need to worry.” He lifted his hands and waved them about while murmuring strange words. The air around the little campsite began to glow a faint green. The color deepened until the two sat within a sphere of glittering light.

“There. Evil cannot cross that barrier. We’re perfectly safe in here.”

“No monsters?” the waif asked.

“Nope.”

“Not even werewolves and vampires?”

“Not even them.”

The youth sighed and relaxed. He finished his dried meat, then shivered and scooted even closer to the fire.

“Cold, small one?” the Wizard asked.

“A little.”

The wizard smiled and patted the earth beside him. “Come sit close to me and we can share our warmth.”

The boy hesitated a long moment, but then rose and moved to sit next to the wizard. The old man put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and drew him close. The lad rested his head on the wizard’s chest.

As the old man idly rubbed the youth’s back, the lad looked up at him. “I just have one more question,” he said.

“Yes?”

The waif smiled: “What if the evil is already inside the sphere?”

~ Charles Gramlich

Fractured

April 6, 2022April 5, 2022 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 15 Comments

Sun bright.

Autumn cool.

Cul-de-sac road.

Two story colonial home.

White.

Pine forest all around.

Pickup truck in driveway.

Driver’s door open.

Engine running.

Cell phone on seat.

One text message.

“He’s with her now!”

House’s front door thrown wide.

Entrance foyer.

Pine wood floor.

Shotgun shell.

Empty.

Dining room to the right.

Chair shattered.

Tabletop scored by lead pellets.

Doorway into kitchen.

Droplet of red on tile floor.

Granite counter tops.

Neat and tidy.

Wood block knife holder.

One slot empty.

Through the house toward the back.

Crimson petals the floor.

Bottom of stairs.

A woman’s house shoe.

Empty shotgun shell.

Stairway railing shattered.

Top of stairs.

Bedroom on right.

Door open.

Room empty.

Hallway.

Photos on the wall.

Blond man, blond woman, blond children.

Bathroom on right.

Broken door hanging on frame.

Shotgun shell.

Still smoking.

Shower curtain shredded.

Red splatters everything.

Man face down in tub.

Dark hair.

Partially dressed.

Not asleep.

Empty hallway.

Master bedroom on left.

Door open.

Floor carpeted in brown.

Dropped shotgun.

Shell jammed in the breech.

Dead woman on bed.

Blond.

Eyes staring.

Neck and face, purple and bloated.

Satin sleeping robe in disarray.

Blood drenches it.

Not the woman.

Master bathroom.

Gouts of scarlet.

Blond man on floor.

Breathing in rasps.

Wedding ring on finger.

Woman’s wedding ring in hand.

Steak knife between shoulders.

Other knife wounds dribble red.

Rasping stops.

Through the window.

Sun bright.

Autumn cool.

Dark haired woman by truck.

Gloved hands pick up cell phone.

Message erased.

Trees swallow her.

Along nearest highway.

School bus sighs to a stop.

Two blond children disembark.

Laughing.

∼ Charles Gramlich

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