Category: Mercedes M. Yardley

This Broken Love Story

~ Mercedes M. Yardley ~ 18 Comments

She loves him in pieces, in separate parts.  A sliver of this, a morsel of that.  He is tasty and delicious and she savors him bit by bit by bit.  There could always be enough to go around, maybe.  If she is careful.  If she only sups a little at a time, just enough to whet her taste.  If she keeps her hunger sharp enough to appreciate, but never to devour whole.  She keeps a spare collarbone in her back pocket.  She warms her hands on it, nibbles it delicately with sharp teeth.  When the desire becomes too strong, she puts it away again.  Anything else would be untoward.  Anything else would be far too terrifying.

He doesn’t nibble, or take dainty sips, or deny himself.  Anything.  He takes mouthfuls of bone, of meat, of soul.  When you’re starving, it’s difficult to hold back. When the gas tank or stomach or heart is empty, nipping away at a brandy snifter is ineffectual.  Better to gulp great big lungfuls before it’s gone.  Take the loss. Take the teasing.  Take it before it’s rescinded, or before he grows tired of the game, or before they both wake up and realize that this isn’t reality.

“It isn’t ideal,” she murmurs, mouthing the underside of his jaw. Just enough for a taste. Just enough to keep the bloodlust at bay.

“It isn’t ideal,” he agrees, and when he pulls away, she’s missing her right shoulder, most of her ribs.

This story is broken, and they both know it. But it is their story.  It is still a story of love.

∼ Mercedes M. Yardley

© Copyright Mercedes M. Yardley. All Rights Reserved.

 

Damned Words 43

~ TheDamned ~ 8 Comments

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Fate
Nina D’Arcangela

Jabba-jaw, raking claw, with haste to the frenzy you did make.
The fray engaged, you are quick to slay any beast brought to slaughter.
Fierce clashing, teeth snapping, bones split beneath hammering rage.
Yet fleet of feet, it has you beat, as it fells your carcass to ground.
The battle fought, fury spent naught; your grin the jester’s call.
With placid lips and eager sips, it sups where you did fall.

The Bones of Her Earth
Charles Gramlich

Her name at ten was Melody. She lived amid the avocado green woods on Millstone Mountain in Arkansas, near a town called Liberty. Melody had hair like a thicket of weeds and eyes no one ever looked into. She had thoughts no one offered a copper penny for, and all her words she kept in her mouth so they couldn’t be slapped away by Mama.

Her name at twelve was Holly, after the necklace and wristlets of red berries she always wore. Most days, she spent in the woods, eating hickory nuts and wild cherries in season, eating other things no one ever thought to name. She caught tadpoles and carried them in her pockets until they dried hard and dark as rabbit turds. Then she buried them and made wishes over their graves. The wishes never came true.

At fourteen, her name was Harmony. She’d learned to sing the pain of her bruises through the heat of the summer like the cicadas. She would lie in the creek and place flat stones on her belly. The smooth weight comforted her scars. Sometimes she slept out under a roof of cedars and stars and dreamt of flying through the trees like dragonflies. She always awoke before she grew wings.

At sixteen, she threw away her names. That was the year she found the jawbones, white on the ground amid frost-killed leaves. She prayed to them as Gods. They answered. Carrying them in her fists, she returned to the house she’d never called home. The bones were no longer white when she was finished with Mama.

Wednesday
Marge Simon

Today is Wednesday, the day the Beast people come for the dying. The grown-up’s call them ghouls. Once, the Beast people lived deep in the earth and ate dead bodies. But now they came up to stay here. They wear long, hooded cloaks and their breaths rattle as they move. It’s like the sound his father made when he was so sick. Papa coughed all night, even in his sleep. On a Wednesday, the Beast people came and took his father away. Now Mama is very sick too.

When the sun passes to afternoon, he is worried about her. If he stays in the house, they’ll come in. They’ll hide in the shadows and wait for Mama to die. That’s what they did when his father got so sick. He’s sure they want her too. Two miles up the road is the cemetery. He decides he will lure them away from Mama.

When he sees them coming, he goes outside and runs as fast as he can all the way to the cemetery. He is out of breath, but first he walks around, searching the gravestones. One of them has to be his Papa’s, but he can’t remember where it is. He’d come with Mama to put flowers on it last week, but there are no graves with flowers and he can’t read. Exhausted, he sinks to the ground, bumping into a peculiar shape. The headstone creaks, the ground gives way and he falls in. When his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sees the cavern is filled with long skulls and old bones. The skulls have the Beast people’s faces.

Above, he hears the rattle of their breathing coming closer. This must be their secret burial place. There’s nowhere to hide. He starts to cry.

In the Forest
A.F. Stewart

Shall I tell you a story, little one?

No, no, wait, don’t back away. Stay here, with me, and listen. I’m sure you will find it fascinating. My tale is about this forest, you see.

They say this woodland is haunted, don’t they? Well, they’re correct. Spirits move past the trees, within the wind, and worse, the ravenous dead walk here, among the bones.

Can’t you hear their murmuring voices growing closer?

They’re hungry. Always hungry.

I think you understand now, why the villagers told you not to come, not to hunt here. This forest kills everything that enters, and nothing ever leaves.

They’re here now. Can you see them, those pitiful skeletons, gnashing their jaws? You can run if you like, but you’ll be dead soon whatever you do. The forest takes us all.

We all remain.

Until we are nothing but bones.

And cursed souls.

New Friend
Lydia Prime

As little Melanie burst through the back door, curtains flew and the screen-door slammed shut. Mommy yelled for her to stop, but she was going so fast in her slippery shoes that she skidded halfway across the room. She could see her mother eyeing the mud on her new lace dress. With hands on hips, and a scowl on her face, Mommy’s pinched lips said everything her mouth didn’t need to.

Melanie started to protest before Mommy could speak, but one quick snap of the towel she always wore over her shoulder was enough to silence the child. As mother’s hand reached out for what Melanie was hiding behind her back, a pot lid rattled on the stove. Mommy turned thinking it was boiling over, but it wasn’t. Melanie took a step backwards.

Focused on her daughter once again, mother reached out and gestured, but Melanie didn’t want to hand over her prize, it had told her not to.

As Mommy took a step forward, she heard something rattle in the ‘fridge. Melanie was slowly sliding backwards into the hallway as she watched her mother open the icebox. The eggs were tipped and fell to the floor with a smash! Mommy bent down to clean the mess, and when she did, the large, glass milk bottle began to jiggle.

Melanie quickly turned and brought her new friend up to her face, panic flashed in her eyes. The chuckle that ran through her sent a shiver down her spine.

Watch, the voice slithered through her mind.

Melanie turned as the heavy jug crashed into Mommy’s skull and split it in two. Now put me in the puddle to feed, the bones intoned. With little choice, Melanie did as she was told. She was, after all, a good girl.

Mask
RJ Meldrum

Cody heard the truck. Pop was back from hunting. He parked in front of the house. Pop had been successful. A buck. Pop climbed down.

“I want this dressed. Skull needs to be bleached, I want it in my trophy room.”

That was where he kept his skulls and stuffed heads.

“I was gonna go swimming.”

His father’s face went dark. He grabbed the scruff of Cody’s shirt.

“I didn’t raise no pansy, I raised a man, one who can see to his own meat.”

“Yes, pa.”

“Now, get working, while I grab a beer.”

Cody went to the back of the truck to see a bloodstained deer on the truck bed. He got to work.

It took hours. His hatred for his father grew. Every day he was forced to ‘man up’. Forced to play sports he hated, crushed by boys twice his size. Forced to shoot helpless animals. Forced to cut them open, cleave their flesh, rip out their bones for display. He hated it all and he hated his father.

He stared down at the skull, boiling in the huge pot on the outside gas burner. After a couple of hours, he removed it from the water and scraped all the meat off. Cody stared down at the eye sockets. What had this creature felt, just before it died?

He knew what he had to do. He had to avenge the deaths of all the slaughtered creatures. He had to avenge himself.

Later, after sunset, he stood on the threshold of his father’s bedroom. Cody had split the skull in half and reattached the two parts with leather straps. He was wearing it, his face obscured. He was no longer Cody, he was nature. He held Pop’s favorite hunting knife.

The moon emerged. It was time.

What Remains
Mercedes M. Yardley

“Hey. Hey. Marissa.”

She ignored it, ignored the way that it chattered and teased and always called her by the wrong name. She walked past it resolutely, a discarded piece of bone nipping at her heels as she strode by.

“Hey. Melanie. Just pick me up. Take me home. Let’s play together. There are so many different ways to play together.” The animal skull grinned at her. Funny how skulls are always forced to grin. She didn’t believe being dead was as much fun as the living were led to believe.

She pulled her laundry from the line and spun around quickly, avoiding the snapping of the skull’s jaws as it lurched at her feet. She hopped over it and headed home.

“Wait. Wait,” it called after her, and she closed her eyes as she heard it whimper and snarl. It buried itself under the leaves and debris, crafting a safe little home for itself until she passed by again in the morning.

Offering
Mark Steinwachs

The streak of sunlight across the bone makes the situation seem worse. The gods illuminating what I could plainly see. Not a scrap left. I crouch down and take the lower jaw, turning it over, hoping there would be some bit of flesh. Clean. My fingers trace the scratches left in the bone. I shudder and set it down. I lift the upper jaw, not wanting to turn it over. Like the piece before, its clean. The teeth marks in this one etched deeper in bone, its hunger not satiated. I stop myself before throwing the bone across the forest. What good would that do? I did the best I could, and my offering wasn’t good enough. I stand up, remove my shirt, and draw my knife. I slowly run the sharpened blade across my chest, blood oozing.

No animal makes a sound. The wind rustling dried leaves stills. I join nature in stillness, my last moments. Silence. A sharp, hissing breath from behind me followed by searing pain. My last vision is its unholy darkness and razor, white teeth.

Apotheosis
Scarlett R. Algee

Find me, the bones had whispered. Find me. Feed me. Let me protect you.

I’d discovered them by accident last night as I’d crunched through the snow blanketing my backyard: the two damaged halves of a jaw, lying in a cocoon of dead leaves atop the powder. What they were, I didn’t know, except that they were too white and too gleaming: scraped clean.

And that they were exactly what I needed.

Now I lay them, still reverently cradled in my gloves, on my laboratory table, apart from all the other pieces I’ve gathered in the past year. Ribs. Vertebrae. Limbs. Teeth. All of them had whispered to me, little indistinct murmurs, little urges of wanting to be again. None had spoken clear words until I’d found the jaws last night.

Find me. Feed me.

Some sort of intelligence resting in the bones. I shake out the rest of my tools: hammer and chisel and screws, lengths of wire and leather thongs. Enough to bind these shards into something whole, because the urge to be is strong.

Listen, the bleached jaws whisper, and I bend my ear to their words and begin to work. First the bones, then skin, then blood.

Listen, I hear again, and I know that whatever I’m creating this night, it will be enough.

Unburied
Lee Andrew Forman

Soaked in crimson, its feasts had been legendary. Limb from body, head from torso, sinew and organs consumed; yet its appetite never fully sated. Memories that live deep within the remains of a banished soul. Unwritten from scripture, cast from history, forgotten by time; these bare, arid bones wait for the caress of the unsuspecting. A taste of copper-tang that will bring about its awakening.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2020
Image © Copyright Lee Bachh Photography

Damned Words 42

~ TheDamned ~ 5 Comments

DW_42

Awakening
R.J. Meldrum

The house had stood alone for years, shunned by the locals.  It was supposedly haunted, dangerous. They broke in, looking for something worth stealing. The first room was empty; the paint peeled away from damp walls, dust and cobwebs lay everywhere.

“There’s nothing here.”

“Let’s try another room.”

They opened the door to find a fully furnished drawing room. No dust or cobwebs. The furniture was polished.  A fire burned in the fireplace.

“What?”

They glanced back at the first room. It had transformed into a dining room, the table laden with sparkling crockery and glass.

“What’s happening?”

Piano music tinkled and they could hear the murmur of distant conversation. Above them, footsteps. Something was moving. After years of dormancy, the house had woken.

Forgotten
Nina D’Arcangela

Hell has laid claim to places on this earth, places that are lost, forgotten; for all intents and purposes, no longer exist. I woke in such a place.

For days I screamed for help, but none came. A failed attempt to reach the sill reminded me of shattered tibiae and why hope was a fool’s delight. Day would come, the glass above amplified the sun’s rays to the point of roasting me. My infected legs gleamed in the blinding light near filled with puss and putrefaction—they ached for the skin to crack, but no such salvation offered. An uttered prayer barely mumbled through cracked lips as ignored as the others; divinity’s attempt to further mock me.

I’m left to devour with eager greed what crawls my tomb; to lick dry the weep from the peeling walls. Now I wait. Death will find me, it’s the only thing my diseased mind is sure of.

Weeping
Lee Andrew Forman

The room immured my weak sack of flesh. I dreamed of limits in waking agony, a threshold which mortality cannot pass. But as my knees throbbed where blood of descent stained the floor, I knew this place existed outside the place it was in.

Ever-searching was that boy. He found something. My feet carried a slack frame—with grief holding both eyes blind—to places our kind weren’t meant to see.

Like father, like son. Like son, like father.

They say Jesus wept. And so did I.

Still Life With Window
Charles Gramlich

My life is lived between two walls of peeling paint. Nothing exists behind me except howling shadows. I do not turn my head to see them. There is enough howling within to hold my thoughts. When I’m tired, I lie upon the floor and let chips of fallen paint cradle my face. The chips are sweet when I nibble them. I must be half paint by now, and half flesh.

Of course, there is the window. I do not speak of that.

True food is rare, but I have enough. Ants and roaches and inchworms come across my walls and floor. Sometimes a bee or a butterfly appears mysteriously. Perhaps it arrives through the aperture that I do not discuss. I catch them with my blackened tongue; I crunch them between my teeth, which are mostly functional though they rattle in my jaws.

Once a bird came to me—flitting out of painful light into softest darkness. I caught it and held it for a long time before I fed. Over and over I shred those precious memories, of a warm thing, a thing that throbbed with heartbeats between my fingers.

And sometimes my memories reach further. Even though I fight them. They reach out through the white hole between my walls, out to where lives a beast called the sun. Today, I heard from that place, beneath that light, some wild, free language—a voice other than the one in my head.

It spoke of love, but I don’t know what that means

Charred
A.F. Stewart

The smell clung to the scorched room, buried in the blistered paint. I knew it well in my line of work.

The smell of death.

Three people died here a month ago, in a fire, trapped with no way out. A tragedy, the papers called it. The police called it an accident. I knew better.
Because I had an advantage over them.

But the reasons behind the fire weren’t why I was here, no my extracurricular abilities to commune with the dead led me here. I came to find restless spirits.

I was not disappointed.

I felt their presence the minute I entered the room. The echoes of terrified screams filled the space and their memories of pain lingered in the air, all bouncing off the blackened walls. The people who died here remained, caught in the agony of their last moments.

I smiled.

Every one of them deserved their manner of death. They deserved their pain. The fact they would live in that moment for eternity made me want to sing. I had jumped at the chance when offered the contract and rejoiced when I struck the match that sent them to this hell.

Sometimes I loved my job.

The Larder
Marge Simon

Just at twilight, the old woman hustled to the kitchen. It was time to prepare her son’s special meal, a duty she took particular pleasure in. The larder was cold and damp, even when stocked to capacity. It had once served as her son’s nursery, with Disney characters on the walls. Even the window had darling curtains to match. Of course, it no longer opened to let in fresh air and sunshine, which would likely cause dissention among the chattel. The panes were painted black and covered with solid iron bars. Some of the livestock were crawling around, searching for crumbs and mistaking them for strips of wallpaper. Deftly, she grasped one by the neck. Before he could bite her, she knocked it senseless with a rolling pin and dragged it down to the kitchen.

She settled in a chair to slowly massage the deep groove at the base of the skull. As she worked, she smiled, for this particular male looked a lot like the President. At last, the trembling eased and the head fell forward into her lap. It gave no sign of feeling the knife press deep into its jugular. The cut was neat, and she directed the gusher into her best brass pot.

Vlad appeared yawning. “Smells good, Mom. But I told you my cholesterol was over the top, remember? Just a salad for me tonight.”

Home
Mark Steinwachs

No one used the word abandoned, but that’s what happened. My life didn’t matter in their eyes. I wasn’t alone either. Many of us were left behind. And then our home, no it was a prison, was no longer used. We needed them to live. We fed off their fear, their hate, their worry, and so much more. Our numbers dwindled but some of us kept fighting, we believed we could make them return. Those few of us left grew up as those we were born of did the same somewhere out  in the world. Fight and belief are not enough though, and the last few began to perish. There was one thing the rest didn’t have that I did.

Hate.

I refused to disappear and it will all pay off today. I felt him coming to me. My hatred for him has kept me alive and more importantly kept the most tenuous bond between us. He could never be rid of me fully. Now he is here. Walking down the hallway, his memories flooding back. He knows where I am, drawn to me, but has no idea I exist. He opens the door staring into the broken, barren room. He is back, a full-grown man for me. I coalesce from the darkened corner, a perfect replica of him only in the form of shadowed smoke. He screams as I shoot forward, slamming into him.

This is my home and now it is time to repay those that left me here.

View From an Upstairs Window
Scarlett R. Algee

I can hear my parents downstairs; my mother chatters as dishes clink and pots rattle, my father’s muffled replies and heavy footsteps. I can’t smell what she’s cooking, haven’t smelled anything for days, but it doesn’t matter – there’s no food for me, not now.

I don’t remember anything between the bite and waking. Only opening my dry, stinging eyes and finding myself on a bed in this moldy room, this place that hasn’t been used in decades. My father apologized through the door. “We have to be patient.” he tells me. Either I die again, a proper death, or…something will have to be done.

It’s been a week inside these walls and that something hangs heavy in the air.

I haven’t slept since waking. I pace, circle, throw myself against the door that won’t budge; gouge at the cracked walls. I howl invectives in a voice I don’t recognize; snarl from a mouth that can no longer form words.

I’m getting hungry. That’s the worst part. After feeling nothing for days, the sensation of hunger has come roaring back. I can hear them moving around downstairs, they sound so soft, so delicious.

Going to the window, I lean my face against the glass, leaving smears of black saliva behind. My stomach cramps with need and I scrabble at the sill. Putting my head through the opening, the air is damp against my eyes, dewy inside my gaping mouth. It’s such a long way down, but I’m so hungry. I lean further out, steadying myself.

Either I’ll die a proper death, or something will have to be done.

The Manor of Krystiahn Koryci
Lydia Prime

The twisted branches from the tree outside remind me of just how long I’ve been waiting here. Waiting in an empty home, no one to comfort me, no one to care. But still, I stay, and I watch as the outside world moves on. The day gives way to night just as the seasons flutter by.

I can almost see the faded memories as I stand inside my forgotten room. A smile, a giggle, a hug to be cherished – but no longer felt. The faces have left my mind, however, figures from the past still taunt me.

In another time this room’s decor was perky enough to make me gag. Now that the mauve and flowered wallpaper has almost completely flaked away, I sort of miss the sight. The floorboards creak with each step I take, I’m not sure if my dusty bones creak louder. Closing the flimsy door behind me, I shuffle across the room to the uncurtained window. I watch the sky; the white fluff quickly spinning – warping into a gray warning of sorts. The storm is coming.

I watch the tree, its limbs stretch far and taught, forever reaching for nothing. Perhaps we have something in common. I lean against the wood pane and watch a truck drive up the hidden driveway to the front. A man steps out and smiles, staring up as if he can see me. His wife climbs out of the passenger’s side and joins him, he slinks an arm around her shoulders. She rubs her engorged belly and they grin, taking it all in.

How ridiculous, that these stupid people think they can take my house from me! They must be insane. I’ve been here for longer than I can remember, this is my house. With that final thought, the window shatters and I leave the decrepit room to learn about these trespassers.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2020
Image © Copyright Lee Andrew Forman

The Story of You

~ Mercedes M. Yardley ~ 10 Comments

How would you live the rest of your life, she had wondered, if you knew you only had a finite number of days left? How would that change things? Would it make the sad, lackluster time sweeter? Would something shine?

Jesus Christ knew the number of days left before his death. So did killers on death row. Did it change things? Make the quality of your final days differ? She wanted to find out.

She gave herself ten days. Ten final days, and what would she make of the rest of her life?

Ten. She quit her job. Not only did she quit, but she quit with joy, with verve. She said, “I quit,” and did a little dance on her boss’ desk. She threw her head back and laughed as she was escorted out by security. She flipped the building off and stopped for a midday ice cream on the way home.

Nine. She slept in. She got out of bed to answer the door and eat the Chinese she ordered. She ordered everything on the menu that she had ever wanted to try. All of the shrimps and the sauces and everything delicious. She laid in bed with her food around her, watching lame reruns on the TV because she could. She ate trash, watched trash, and let the trash of the day pile up around her.

Eight. She spent the day throwing up trash, trash, trash. She wanted to simply forget day eight.

Seven. She showered and shaved and plucked. She powdered and perfumed. She put on that darling dress in the back of her closet that she’d purchased for a special occasion. There had never been a special occasion. Today wasn’t that special occasion, either, but she looked at herself in the mirror with clear eyes and a small smile.

Six. She called her mother. She called her best friend. She called the guy who had given her his number a few months ago. He was surprised to hear from her, but still remembered her.

“I’ve had your number in my wallet ever since the party, just in case I decided to call,” she admitted shyly.

He laughed and it was a beautiful sound. “I’m so glad you did,” he said. “What changed?”

She didn’t answer but asked him if he wanted to go to a play with her later that week. He agreed. She bought tickets and also wondered what she should wear to her funeral. Most likely the special occasion dress.

Five. She bought the grand piano she had always wanted. It was glossy and gorgeous, and they brought it right to her home. The piano tuner tuned it, and then played the most intricate music she had ever heard.

“I think I’m going to cry,” she told him, and when he played the old song her father used to sing to her, she did.

Four. She played the piano.

Three. She played the piano. She slept beneath it that night. There was plenty of room and her dreams were ethereal.

Two. She pulled on her favorite scarf and went to the park. The trees were bare and the wind bit at her, but it tasted fresh. She had always wanted to go to Iceland, or to Finland. She wanted to drink the purest water in the world and watch the aurora borealis. She felt a tight pang in her chest when she realized that would never happen. Was this sorrow? Yes, it was definitely sorrow, but then she saw a fluffy white dog and there was no room in her heart for any type of sadness. It was full of oversized paws and soft fur and a warm puppy tongue and everything inside of her heart fit perfectly.

One. She wore her special occasion dress and met her date at the theater. He was charming and his eyes squinted when he laughed. The actors were talented and she caught her breath during the play several times, but it caught most when this kind man gently took her hand and held it. He held it for the rest of the show and as they walked outside into the moonlight.

“I wish it didn’t have to end,” she said, and the beauty of the world was nearly too much. There were grand pianos and fluffy dogs and delicious food. There was art and plays and friends she didn’t even know existed yet. She wanted to see the Northern Lights. She hadn’t wanted anything in years.

“Who says it has to end?” he asked her, quizzically. “This could just be the beginning to everything.”

The beginning or the end. She would stay up tonight and decide. She blinked at him and her eyes reflected the moon.

∼ Mercedes M. Yardley

© Copyright Mercedes M. Yardley. All Rights Reserved.

 

Murder House

~ Mercedes M. Yardley ~ 9 Comments

Everybody in town called it the Murder House, but Mia simply called it home. Here is the front porch where (he stood and hacked open the door with a hatchet) she used to play with her dolls. This is the parlor where (Mother was slain) she learned to sit up properly and greet guests nicely. Here’s the kitchen where (the knife was taken) Mother cooked breakfast and here is the master bedroom where (the rest of it happened) her parents kept a small chair, a lamp, and a basket of books. It was her favorite spot in the house, keeping her (hidden while her father’s blood splashed the walls) safe and happy.

Before, she had just been Mia, a quiet girl with big eyes and dark hair pulled back by a bow. After, she became The Only Survivor, the little girl who witnessed her family’s slaughter. People didn’t ask her to play ball or Freeze Tag anymore. They asked her what it was like to hear her father scream, or how did she feel knowing that the scary man could turn around and find her at any second?

“You were in the chair, right?” they’d ask. “Quiet as a mouse, but he still could have seen you, couldn’t he, if he had just turned and looked? If he had stopped chopping at your dad’s face for long enough? If he had taken a breather from stomping through your house, his feet echoing on the hardwood floors, as he called for your mother in that creepy voice? What if he had seen you?”

Mia didn’t answer. She didn’t have to answer anything, her aunt told her, not even to the police, unless she wanted to. Being a survivor gives you certain privileges, her aunt said, and keeping your own council is one of them. They lived together now, and probably always would, unless Mia wandered off on her own and simply disappeared one day. Or fell down a hole in the ground or staggered into barbed wire or ran into the pointed end of somebody’s ice pick several times. You know, however accidents occur.

Or maybe she’d live forever and become an angel like her mother. She hadn’t believed in angels before, but suddenly she needed to, desperately. She needed to think of her parents floating around in unearthly white with thick, beautiful wings, instead of how she saw them last. Parts of her father. The crumpled sack of her mother, still wearing her prettiest shoes. She always joked that she wanted to be buried in those shoes, but the police had kept custody of them. She was buried in a new, stiff pair instead.

Her aunt never let her come home, saying that the house had been irrevocably changed by what had happened. “It isn’t your home anymore, Mia,” she said, her fingers fluttering to fix Mia’s perfectly straight hairbow. “It’s become something else. It’s become…” Mia could tell she was going to say the “Murder House, but she took in Mia’s dark eyes and changed her wording.

“…more like a memorial,” she said, but Mia knew what her aunt was thinking. Yes, the Murder House. Something ghoulish and sensational and carnivorous.

But today, Mia had slipped away and let herself into her home. She still wore her house key on a chain around her neck. The carpets had been cleaned, the couch was removed, and the walls had been scrubbed and coated with fresh paint.

She walked past the bathroom where (the man had washed his red, red hands) she had carefully brushed her hair before bed. Past her room, decorated with (bloody handprints and DNA) carousel horses and stuffed animals. She hovered briefly in the doorway of her parent’s bedroom, and then padded gently to the reading chair in the corner. She sat on it gingerly and pulled her legs up beneath her.

She had been reading a book that night. The Secret Garden. Her parents had both assured her that she would love it. She had been deep in a world of English roses and creeping vines when everything had happened. Then suddenly the room was noise and heat and that strange, warm smell, red roses and red satins and red everything that streaked across the curtains and wall.

The man was a stranger, someone she didn’t know, but as she stared at the eerily mechanical movements of his chop-chop-chopping arm, he turned and looked at her directly. His face was expressionless, blank, but his eyes burned black and began to smoke.

He pointed at her, pointed to his own temple, and put his finger to his lips. Black oil leaked from his eyes and ran down his face and neck. He put his finger to his lips again, insistently, and Mia nodded. The man looked satisfied and turned back to what was left of her father.

She hadn’t spoken a word since that night. Not a single sound. When her classmates asked her what she would have done if the man had turned to see her, she couldn’t tell them a thing. He had seen her. She had seen him back. They had both looked.

∼ Mercedes M. Yardley

© Copyright Mercedes M. Yardley. All Rights Reserved.

 

Damned Words 41

~ TheDamned ~ 6 Comments

DW_40

Triton’s Curse
Marge Simon

Though banished and beheaded, a godling never dies. Now his face is frozen in a scream of rage. In his teeth, an iron bar barrister. Beside him, mouths drawn back as if still breathing flames, his dragon comrades of the seas. Visitors are struck with awe, so alive appears this sculpture on the rail.

Son of Poseidon, once his name was legion. He ruled the ocean winds. His conch could trumpet hurricanes or becalm merchant ships. It’s said that at the sound, goliaths fled in fear of dark leviathans, such was the power of his horn.

A woman was involved, as women are so often blamed for the folly of both gods and godlings. Some say she was a mermaid, gifted with a Siren’s voice for song. Others claim she was a silkie and half human. They say she walked on land to do her business, was no better than a whore. At any rate, she stole his heart.

Gods do not tolerate such alliances, though allowances were made among their own. Their children had no such right to privilege, and thus the punishment was swift and cruel.

He thinks her body lies within the bricked-in door behind him. He believes she died for love of him, believes he guards her crypt. Surely they would leave him that, but it’s not so. His scaly tail and torso lie within the wall. Her soul became the phosphorous light known only to the denizens of stygian depths.

In a place beyond the myth, she visits him in dreams.

They
Charles Grammlich

They are always watching you—the figures with hollow eyes and hungry teeth. Some look like faces, some like dragons, some like men and some like monsters. They hang on fences, stand in parks, squat on the roofs of cathedrals. They are very still. You never see one move. No human can pay attention long enough to do so. But what about when your head is turned, when your gaze is diverted? Think of that the next time you feel a touch that shouldn’t be there. Think of it when you hear the sounds of life but there is no life in the room but you.

Perhaps you believe the figures are made of steel or stone. They are not. They are a strange flesh, the fruit of alien loins. And they multiply. There are more today than there were yesterday. Tomorrow that total will increase. How many will there be in a year, in ten years? When will they outnumber us? What will happen then?

I know. Don’t you? Don’t lie to yourself. You feel it the same as I do. You recognize the wrongness in them. You shrug it away. You laugh. You call the very thought of it silly. Yet still you shiver in the feral night.  Still you cry out after dreams you cannot ‘quite’ remember. Still you pull the sheets up tight beneath your chin. None of that will save you.

I know exactly how you feel. Do you wonder how? It’s because I’m watching too. Right now.

Sanctuary
A.F. Stewart

In this world, we still exist.

In the corners, in the shadows, in the icons and the ornamentation. The images the humans created have become our places of refuge. Where we fled when the world changed. When the humans took what was ours, killed our kind.

Once, we were dragons, shapeshifters, worshiped as powerful creatures. We flew amid the clouds, breathed fire and lightning, swam the seas, walked and loved among the humans, even taking their form.

We ruled as gods.

Until our hubris become our undoing.

Pandora seemed so docile, subservient, yet she let our secrets into the world and laughed as we fell from power. One small woman gave the humans the power to destroy us.

Now, though, after millennia, those secrets have been forgotten.

I am Zeus, watching the world from my wrought iron sanctuary. Each day I can feel my strength returning, hear the voices of my fellow dragons. We are angry, ready.

And I am tired of hiding.

It is time for the dragons to rise and reclaim what is ours.

It is time for the humans to bow to their gods once more.

Dark Boys for Dark Girls
Mercedes M. Yardley

If he had said,
Let me be the Donnie to your Marie or
the sprinkles to your sundae or
the warm sand under your feet
I would have walked away

But no
He said
Let me be the Hades to your trapped Persephone
the chains that draw your body to the floor of the sea
I’ll be the rope around your neck so when you swing
you won’t swing alone

He said
You don’t need trinkets and parties and balloons
You need somebody strong enough to climb into your casket
and close it over us both.

Mixture
Mark Steinwachs

I stand slightly behind the emissary my client sent me and the man leans in closer, drawn to the intense depth of darkness. It’s the only one in my showroom, which is set up as meticulous as the piece itself, the lighting and background designed to mimic a sunny day.

“How did you get the coloring like that? Will it be the same on all your pieces? It’s remarkable,” his voice quiets and his last sentence is almost said to himself even though it’s only the two of us in the room. He inspects the dragon closer.

“It took me years to get the mix correct. The sacrifices I made, but when I got there …well, I would say it’s worth it. And now that he sent you as the down payment I can begin.”

“He didn’t send me with any down payment,” he says and starts to turn.

I grab his head and slam it against the dragon’s ear, the slurp sound of bone and flesh splitting fills the room. I pull back and finish the job. I drag the lifeless body from the room to the basement where I can drain him for my next batch.

A Waited Burden
Lee Andrew Forman

Within the cage rests not a full being, not a complete form of limitless power, only the tip of infernal intent born for destruction. Both head and spine intact are encased in the solid prison. One wonders if thoughts of fire and death still linger within. A life so mighty cannot be so easily undone even in post-severed condition. The lives of all which surround it know nothing other than its ornate appearance. None but myself and few others remain to guard it. The world around it may have grown, but our coven retained its youth, its knowledge. Each day we question when time will wither its unnatural enclosure and free this Earth the burden of life.

The Sky, The Song
Scarlett R. Algee

It’s never not been raining, at least not in my lifetime.

We build up and up, brick and concrete and iron, and every year the city sinks and sinks, the sea gnawing at the land from below, the sky weeping it away from above.

Everyone knows the story, wrought as it is on almost every fence and railing: the scowling god, the snarling beasts. How the god our ancestors worshiped lost his two daughters to the wrath of a spurned siren, who sang them into dragon-like fiends that fled their father’s countenance. How he, mad with grief, gutted the sky with his trident and tore the siren’s voice from her throat.

How the spell-song remained unbroken, the sky did not mend, and the daughters did not return.

It sounds ridiculous, on its face: a legend, a fairy story. And I thought as much myself until the day the package arrived, jagged shards of unearthly metal that gleamed like spilled oil, that I pieced together on my dining table into the shape of a massive three-pronged spear.

Until I read the letter, and learned that sirens have daughters too.

Maybe, at bottom, it’s still just a story. Maybe it’s a stranger’s idea of a prank.

Or maybe the grief of a god can be mended, and skies made whole again, and sisters sung back home.

Drowned
R.J. Meldrum

They huddled together, watching the cracks spread as the waves splintered the wall sheltering them.  The levees had already been overwhelmed, now it was just the wall holding back the ocean.  This was it, the last piece of terra firma, the last piece of land not covered by the rising oceans.  The rich had taken to vast floating palaces, while the poor drowned.  John and the others had sought higher and higher ground until they were at the top of the world.  On top of the peak that people had died to reach, the small group sat, protected only by the wall…and now it was collapsing.  John stood.

“I’m going to die on my feet.”

The others joined him.

Just for an instant there was the sparkle of blue water at the top of the wall, then the mortar gave way and the water consumed them.

Caged
Nina D’Arcangela

Iron mask; unyielding carapace that stifles. Crown of thorns; the lock upon an opaque prison. Eyes blinded; no sight – ebon madness encroaches. Lips shrouded; no utterance escapes. Ears aware; the slush of bodily fluids draining. A hiss heard left then right:
Sissssss… …terrrrrrrr; the sound slithers.

 My guardians keep watch; vestigial, vile.

There’s Always Tomorrow
Lydia Prime

Cursed to an eternity with the most bothersome creatures imaginable, I try to stay my tongue, but their incessant complaining makes me pray for reprieve. Perhaps a building inspector will come to condemn the land we sit upon with bulldozers and wrecking balls that dance until I am finally set free from their infantile chatter.

Good lords, do they whine and mutter constantly. Someone leaned on me! Something just shit on me! Boo-fuckin-hoo, you little twits. Their disgust at these events immediately falls to my ears, “Can you believe the audacity!?” they croon, indignant to their pathetic little cores. Fools! If only they knew who they were speaking to.

I was a sorcerer once, one with great power known for aiding in the conquest of lands further than today’s world remembers. Now, well, what am I? Trapped, that’s what, in this accursed metal tomb by those I’d have considered friends... Friends, what a notion. I should have slaughtered them all and taken their breath as they have ensconced mine.

I wipe away my thoughts as the day draws close to its end. My knight in mismatched orange and blue polyester will soon be here to shelter behind me – his cart of belongings reeking as much as his body. A brief evening’s worth of reprieve from the vapid serpents, his babbling I understand; war, famine, the pang of thirst. I watch as the world winds down only to await the next morning in false death, seeing nothing more than darkness and concrete before me. I’d kill for a new view…

There’s always tomorrow.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2019

Damned Words 40

~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

DW_40

Sunrise
A.F. Stewart

Some said we would never see the sunrise, but there it shines in the morning sky. As we huddle within the church, I can hear people weeping, from a relief at being alive or in mourning for those dead, I cannot tell. I will shed no more tears. Mine already fell for those I lost in the carnage.

Voices murmur and I turn to glimpse the vicar passing food to those with appetites, and cups of water. At least we can be grateful for that. We will not have to worry about provisions for a while yet. The church has its own well, and donations from a food drive in storage.

It is silent outside, with the daylight hours, but we know it will not last. With night they will return. They will surround the church with their footsteps, with their growls. They will scratch at the ground and howl, fraying nerves, making it impossible to sleep. Memories will flood back, of blood, of teeth, of running while others died. And we will sit here among the pews knowing this holy place is the only thing that keeps them out. It will be the same tonight, as it was last night, and the night before that. Once again we will wonder if we will see the sunrise.

We are trapped here. Praying, surviving. Waiting for our inevitable end.

Ash Wednesday
Charles Gramlich

At midnight the police began to disperse the dense French Quarter crowd. The partiers didn’t want to stop the festivities but reluctantly gave way, breaking into twos and threes that gradually streamed off toward homes or other celebrations. Fat Tuesday was over. Lent had begun.

As the crowd split, a cold, hard gust of wind swept over the Quarter. It gathered other gusts to itself, swirled across the Faubourg Marigny and up Bourbon and Royal streets like a dust devil. It carried a mélange of beads and other Mardi Gras trash. It picked up the stench of sweat-soaked people, the stale odors of alcohol, urine, vomit. It gathered the thoughts and feelings of the revelers—their joys and rages, laughters and sobs, lusts and sins.

And when the wind had all that in its grasp, it struck the roof of the cathedral. The steeple shook; a dirty shadow enveloped it, then shrank, took darkling form. For a moment, a long-armed man squatted like a clot of evil on the roof. Then the figure leaped down and faded into the dispersing crowds as if it had never been.

The first deaths came within an hour.

The Order of Sanctification
Marge Simon

The church bells tolled for many hours after they caught the latest resistor and slit her throat. Pytr had been chosen to carry the infant cut from the womb. They marched through the streets, chanting in clipped unison. The newborn squalled, its limbs still slippery with blood. Pytr tucked it closer inside his furs to shield it against the cold. When they reached the Temple of Free Souls, he gave the infant to a waiting orderly. Shivering, they kept formation until the Grand Priest appeared.

“Who brings this babe?”

“We of the Righteous, Sector Five.”

“Who carries the babe?”

“I, Holy One.” Pytr stepped forward.

“And your name?”

“Pytr, zero five zero two. Sworn by birth to the genetic cycle evermore.” He was careful to keep his voice in a cadence. It would have been blasphemous to do otherwise.

“Ah, Pytr, I recognize you. You were,” the old man smiled, “one of my favorites. And not long out on your own, either. Very well, excellent.” He rubbed his hands together, his fingers stained with a garish orange dye. “And what say the rest of you?”

“We are the children of Sanctification. We copulate no more. We bow to the sperm bank and Ovum of White. Pure is the Ovum. Pure are the Righteous born.”

The presentation ended, Ptyr joined the others as they formed lines to march homeward. He smiled to himself. He’d done his part to ensure the purity of one small soul. Babies must be protected from sin. Future generations of the Righteous would be produced and raised in the Sanctified Laboratories, as the currently popular Supreme Holiness decreed.

The Good Book
R.J. Meldrum

The book was found in the hundredth year after the war. It was buried beneath the ruins of a pre-war building. The scouts were looking for tinned food, but because they’d never seen such a thing before they picked it up. The wise men, the ones who had been taught to read, recognised it for what it was, although none of them had seen a complete book before. They analysed and discussed the words. After due deliberation, they proclaimed the book a miracle and claimed it was the word of God, written by his prophet. By following the doctrine outlined in the book, they too would achieve immortality.

Sermons were held every week.  The priest intoned the holy words.

“The prophet requires a gift of blood for his Lord, to assure eternal life.”

“We shall obey,” intoned the faithful.

A girl was brought forward to the sacrificial altar.

“What are you called, my child?”

“Mina.”

The congregation murmured its approval of her name.

Compliant, she exposed her neck.  The priest, his canine teeth filed to sharp points, bent forward to collect the blood sacrifice that would satisfy their Lord.

Scarlet Milk
Lee Andrew Forman

Hooded faces lined up in the abbey to drink divine milk; they waited with reserve to wrap anxious lips around the papilla of the six-breasted obelisk. Its scarlet liquid dripped for ages, kept the cabal well-fed. Its sweet blessing held their souls within preserved bodies, entombed behind reverent, ever-young eyes. Sustenance from the fleshless bust of the ancient lord was their only indulgence. They observed all outside their congregation reach for the heavens; ages, generations—all seen, all judged. When the bosom of life dried up, they knew the lord’s decree was to be fulfilled.

Abandoned
Lydia Prime

As the sun slowly began to dip beneath the horizon, the colors danced across the pews and paint chipped walls, releasing something more insidious to the building. Footsteps echoed in the distance, slow at first but their pace quickened as a single set became several.

The stranger raced through the nave hoping to make it to the massive oak doors without incident. Voices swirled around the empty cavity though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. As he reached for the rusted latch he noticed the glass was no longer full of colorful images. He yanked on the latch as hard as he could, but couldn’t get it to budge. The other sets of footsteps caught up to the exploring man. They stood in the shadows and whispered unintelligible nothings to one another. His heart beating through his chest, he pounded on the wooden barrier before him and pleaded to see another day.

As the creatures drew closer an unearthly chill rattled through his bones. One of them moved into the light, it had no features of anything he’d ever seen, but its mouth bore rotten needle-sharp teeth; Its tentacle-like appendages edging near him. They made no noise as they leaned in and he screamed for his savior.

Perfection
Nina D’Arcangela

I’ve watched him fall before, The Morning Star. He’s been falling for millennia it seems, but then it always does. This world, these creatures, they lose fear, tell tales; forget fate is coming for them. I remember, I always remember for I am their reminder. I’ve watched it unfold myriad times. The clock resets, he is granted entrance, my reward—to be forsaken.

The rabble are born anew. Creation they hark as they build; or rebuild as it were. They know nothing of the former that perished among the rubble, their blood feeding a new world, their crushed bones the foundation this ground is laid upon. They eat the bread, drink the wine; expect absolution for debauchery’s lure. They seek a second coming while I walk quietly amongst them watching as the star falls yet again on perfection.

Light and Dark
Mark Steinwachs

My skin is the battle ground for the sun in the cloudless sky and the crisp fall air. Two steps and I will be out of its rays. Sun to shade. Light to dark. “I gave them light. I gave them everything,” I say, not looking back at the seven others. “And this is how they repay me; ornate structures with false prophets inside. They twisted my words and teachings, picking out whatever scriptures they needed at that moment. I love them and they cast me aside.”

A man in a tailored suit walks out the door, “It’s time to move along, gentlemen. We can’t have you loitering while service is going on.”

“Not even an invitation into my own home,” I say as I cross into the shade. “I can pick and choose scriptures too.”

The man’s eyes go wide as wings unfurl from the seven. Fear radiates in his soul where there should have been love. I snap my fingers and his neck twists at a grotesque angle before he crumples to the ground.

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the lord.”

Sleeper
Scarlett R. Algee

She wakes to the darkness she expects, and the silence, and the gnaw of hunger deep in her belly, toothy and raw.

She strokes the rough inner surface of the sarcophagus’ lid, splintering her overgrown fingernails, before putting palms to stone. The lid moves a fraction—in the face of the hunger, her strength is always slow to stir when she wakes from the long sleep—but it moves; that’s enough to let in a peep of blue-tinged sunlight, not direct enough to harm but sufficient to keep her uncomfortably awake. No matter; in this place of sienna brick and cobalt-stained windows, she’s been deemed a saint. Of course someone will come.

The pain of the light dulls until she can almost doze again, but a noise catches her attention: low shuffling footsteps, brisk scrape of a broom on a stone floor, quivery low-pitched hum.

That human music makes her gut knot and her teeth ache, but she swallows her slaver and forces her hands to relax. The sweeping musician sounds old and slow, but the footsteps are dragging closer. The intruding sliver of sunlight is ebbing away.

She can be patient a little longer.

 

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2019

Bleed

~ Mercedes M. Yardley ~ 10 Comments

“Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would do absolutely anything to get it?”

Marlys’ words were breathless. Her eyes shone with a kind of dark hope that turned Wallen’s stomach.

“Maybe some things aren’t meant to be gotten,” Wallen said gently. Marlys reared back and slapped him, hard, her palm making a sound against his flesh that brought him back to childhood, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t cower or scream or hide. He stood there, a man now, letting a grieving woman beat him with her hands and fists while he stood, resolute.

“I love you and would never hurt you, no matter what you do,” he said, and her rage kicked up a notch before she sank to the ground in tears. Wallen sat beside her until her tears dried.

Marlys didn’t let it go. She couldn’t. She stopped eating, picking at her food and moving it around so it looked like she had a mouthful or two, but Wallen knew better. She stayed up at night, glued to the computer, the screen illuminating her face in the dark. She looked up people and practices and phone numbers and things that took a shadowy turn.

Wallen drove Marlys to her therapist and waited outside in the car. He leaned his chair back in the cool air, watching the leaves as they shook in the breeze. He listened to audiobooks and podcasts and sometimes simply the silence. So much more comfortable than sitting in the beige waiting room with a bunch of vapid magazines. He didn’t want to know how to drive a man crazy in bed or write his congressperson. He just wanted to know how to make his wife better, make her whole, when half of her had been abruptly severed and left to bleed out.

She came back from therapy looking exhausted, or thoughtful, or invigorated, or stripped of all her humanity.

“How was it today?” he would ask each time. He was supportive. He was calm. He was all of the textbook things a perfect husband would be toward a grieving wife.

“My sister is still dead,” Marlys would answer, and Wallen would hold her hand if she wanted to be touched or simply drive, looking straight ahead, if she didn’t.

Marlys was a different woman every day.

“Don’t ever leave me,” she’d say. He promised to stay.

Or

“I’ll never feel normal again. You should just go.”

He still promised to stay.

There were the days when she said nothing at all, but curled up in bed with their cat sleeping on her chest. She didn’t look at Wallen when he took her hand or made the bed around her or drew a bath and gently led her to it. He would wash her hair and pour water over her like she was a small child. Afterward, he would wrap her in a towel and hold her on his lap.

“We will get through this,” he said. He wasn’t certain she really wanted to, but that was okay. Wallen had enough will to live for two of them. That’s the thing you do with someone you love: you take turns leading. It’s when you both break that you have to worry.

It was their birthday. Marlys and Mary. They bought a cake and Wallen drove them to the cemetery. They spread out a cheery blanket and set up a little picnic at the headstones. Marlys carefully served pieces of cake. One for Wallen. One for her. One for dead Mary, one for dead Max, one for dead Zariah, one for dead Jaleel. Mary and her three children shared one big, beautiful headstone, all with the same death date. Mary’s husband, who also shared the same date, was buried far away, all alone, nowhere near his family.

“They’re not his anymore, are they?” Marlys had told Wallen when they were making funeral arrangements. “He lost his right to them when he shot them in their sleep. Instead of a murder/suicide, he should have gone right to the suicide. He didn’t have the right.”

Time passed as it always did, but Marlys became more obsessed. She watched movies and documentaries about zombies, about living vampires, about the undead. Wallen found bird skulls and other strange objects around the house. He’d come home to see strangers with shaded eyes sitting in his living room.

“You’re scaring me,” he told her. Marlys’ hands were always cold whenever he held them, which was less and less often. “They’re gone, my love. You can’t bring them back.”

Oh, but she would try. She tried spells. Voodoo. She beseeched God and gods and goddesses and anything that would listen. She had people pray over the bodies and use crosses and blood and faith and dead cats and urine and everything else anybody told her to do. She desecrated Mary’s grave over and over and over and over.

And over.

And over.

“You asked me not to leave you, but you’re leaving me,” Wallen whispered one night. He wrapped his arms around the husk of his wife. The shine of her eyes told him she was awake.

“Please come back, Marlys. I can’t go through this world alone.”

“Everybody’s alone.”

He thought he heard her voice, but when he looked, the eye shine was put out and she looked asleep. Perhaps he had misheard. He certainly hoped so.

He was afraid he knew how this would end. Marlys would stop believing in ghosts and angels and devils. She wouldn’t be able to bring her sister and the children back. Life wasn’t Pet Semetery or The Monkey’s Paw. The dead stayed dead.

But they’d be reunited in another way, he was sure of it. Family was meant to be with family, and you couldn’t escape the ties that bind. Wallen went to sleep every night listening for the click of a new gun in the house. He knew it would come.

∼ Mercedes M. Yardley

© Copyright Mercedes M. Yardley. All Rights Reserved.

 

Damned Words 39

~ TheDamned ~ 7 Comments

 

Inner Matters
Lee Andrew Forman

The sounds of the world bring peace: crunching gravel, leaves dancing with nature, songs sung by the creations of life. Reality has other sides, some which only a vagabond can see along their journey. The pleasant are never left unappreciated. The darkest sit atop your shoulders, ever apparent in your sight.

A band of three delinquents emerge from the brush to intercept my path, smoke-filled ugliness trailing from their mouths. Their eyes immediately find me: the derelict, the tattered wanderer, the lonely victim. But their eyes only see what their minds can imagine. I sigh in response to their vile introductions.

Before they can hassle me further my front-side expands and splits down the middle. My innards expel themselves and splatter the deviants in carnage. Fluids dissolve their flesh; they scream a futile cry of agony no one will ever hear. Only when my would-be predators are mere remnants of ooze do my organs crawl back and nestle themselves where they belong, happy and well-fed.

Tracks
Charles Gramlich

“Shhhh, I’m here.”

The man shuddered, not quite sure yet what had happened to him. I rested his head in my lap, then pushed sweat-matted hair back from his face to see his terrified eyes.

“Help…me,” he begged.

I shook my head. “Sorry. This could have been avoided, but…” I gestured for him to look at himself.

He turned his head to gaze down his body. I let him scream at what the passing train had done. He tried to struggle, to thrash his arms and legs. He had no arms or legs. Shredded remnants of his severed limbs looked like piles of cooked raspberries strewn along the tracks. And, as I’d read would happen, the train’s weight had cinched the torn veins shut. He wasn’t bleeding out; he’d live a while yet. No one would find him here, though, where I’d tied him to the tracks.

“Please,” he begged again.

I shrugged and rose. “I warned you about those spam calls from your site.” Taking out my cell, I punched a number. The phone in the man’s pocket buzzed obnoxiously. “Press 2 to be placed on my do not call list,” I told him.

Family Honor
Mark Steinwachs

When I pulled the trigger years ago, I knew my turn would come. There is only one of us in the family at any time. My death is their first hit.

Blindfolded and with hands tied behind my back I shuffle along rocky ground. Whoever is behind me helps guide me. He nudges the back of my knee with his foot and I awkwardly let myself fall to my knees. He lays me flat, my face touching cold metal, then pulls the blindfold back enough for me to look down the long track. Not the same track I used of course, but the scene floods my memory. There is only one person who knows the story of my first hit. I never thought he would be the one.

“Thank you,” a male voice says, one I’ve known since he was born. “Your place of honor awaits.”

Those words, the exact ones I spoke when it was my turn, linger in my brain as I hear the click of the safety releasing.

Now You Stand and Wait
Scarlett R. Algee

They’d picked up her clothes along the track, almost too shredded to bother, and the whole time Shep had been grumbling you’re a damn fool, it ain’t the same no more; so when Shep squats by the rail and picks up a tuft of fluffy black fur, Ben hates him a little.

He clutches the ruined clothes, swats away Shep’s offered rifle, stares down the slope to the ground beneath the trestle bridge. Squints. Wonders. “She’s still my girl.”

Shep toes the claw marks along a rusted edge of rail. “You think that now.”

“She’s still Ellie. You just wait here.”

Alone, Ben treks down to the darkness under the bridge, stands at the bottom to a warning growl. He glimpses eyeshine in the black yards away. “Ellie, it’s Daddy.”

He steps closer. Another growl, deeper, but Ben can see the shape of her now, huge and magnificent, tail held out stiff. He clears his throat. “It’s gettin’ late. Your mama’s got supper waitin’.”

Ellie’s snarl is softer this time. Ben decides to take the chance. Sure, maybe he’s a fool, but she is still his girl.

Step by step, he walks into the darkness, toward the waiting wolf.

The Flattened Penny
A.F. Stewart

I can still smell the copper stench.

And hear the way the train’s wheels screeched as it rolled over the penny on the track, squashing it razor thin. I watched Denny pick up the flat coin, after it cooled down, and wave it around laughing.

I didn’t laugh.

Denny never heard the whistle of the other train, the death train. The one I had seen before, that should have been my ride. One penny to the conductor as payment, but that foul creature didn’t care much about who held the coin. Easy enough to cheat him.

Poor Denny.

That’s the smell of copper I remember. His blood.

But better him than me.

Taking the Ride
Nina D’Arcangela

The rumble loosens my gut; thrums through my body. My eyes quake in their jelly as teeth shiver saliva from plump, rouged lips. Searing heat washes over me as the screech assaults my core. I feel the shatter of my sinus cavities as the revolution of iron pressed upon iron crushes my head. Body thrashing in the wash, I Pollock the scree, feed the weeds; slick the rail for the next eager rider.

Definitely Not a God
Lydia Prime

Beneath the rocks and rails there lies a secret that our tiny town holds. We keep quiet and everything stays peaceful, that’s how it’s always been. Mama says it’s God under those tracks, says he protects us even in his sleep. I don’t think Mama knows what God is.

Late at night I sneak down to the tracks and kick the rocks as I walk past the iron ties. I can hear it, sometimes it sounds like snoring, but other times… If Mama could hear the noises I know she’d change her mind.

Just a ways ahead, the rocks shift and I sprint to see who’s there. The air smells of earth and death, my eyes settle on a gnarled looking creature hunching over in the moonlight. All six of its eyes blink then lock on me. I’ve never seen anything more gruesome, it grins and licks its crooked lips.

I turn to run but my foot snags the rusted rail. As I scramble to my feet, four more creatures step into sight. I was right Mama, definitely not a God.

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2019

Damned Words 38

~ TheDamned ~ 8 Comments

Below Stairs
A.F. Stewart

Upstairs the music plays, a tragic operatic aria of lament and loss. It drowns out the hiss and creak of the steam and wheels, and the crunch of bones. Oblivious laughter—from the latest guests—mingles with the song, their merry voices drifting into a preceding silence of parties long forgotten.

For the dead no longer scream.

Beneath the gaiety, the servants’ footfalls tread along the stair, from back rooms and the kitchens, down to the deepest level. There, they feed the machines stockpiled flesh. Watching the meat grind, the blood and bone pulverize into dripping globs of raw spat out into vats, waiting for dinners to come. In another corner, maids tuck away silks and jewels to sell.

Nothing to be wasted. No remains to be found.

Above it all the people circulate, eating canopies and drinking wine. The host, he smiles and makes the rounds, greeting and exchanging pleasantries. He gives them all the best of times, a fitting end before they become his next feast.

Bones
Lee Andrew Forman

Firm structure to fine dust—machines turn in unending drudge. Bleach powder, chalky, light, stirs endless with their rusted labor. Ill fated are the powers which motivate the process; knowing soon they’d become its product. Weakness feeds the goods produced, monsters purchase its favor. With delicate pouf, makeup, attire; they parade around with gratuitous chortles. Their faces worn in layers of death, they grin ever wide with flavor. For a bit of coin, their color reborn, pale as frosted glass. Those suffered the gift of an end, worth only a minute of reception, would be stripped of flesh and ground to pleasure each patron.

Every Last Damnèd Soul
Scarlett R. Algee

It’s a tricky business, distilling souls. Always have to boil the bitterness off first; it gunks up the works if you don’t, and it’s a bitch to clean out, pardon my saying. Take this lot—they’ve been stewing for three days just to get the residual resentment out. Drowners, all of them. We leave the salt water in, though; customers say it adds a little something to the finished product.

Some of the souls scream while they’re rendered. Some of them sing. I’m told it’s quite enticing. I’ve mostly learned to ignore it, myself.

Madam. Madam. What are you doing out here on the floor? No, you may not touch the machines. The experience would be damnably unpleasant for both of us, pardon my saying.

Madam, please—what’s that? Your son? You think you hear your son? You have my condolences, but that’s quite unlikely. They aren’t really identifiable now, so for your safety I must insist—madam! Madam!

Oh…not again.

Patterson? Yes, idiot, of course we stop the process! We need an extraction here! She’s the third one this month!

But save the blood. Every drop. The customers say it gives a certain ambiance. Besides, she sings prettily already, doesn’t she?

Rust
Charles Gramlich

He fled. And the wicked followed. Their boots banged like gunshots as they chased him through the abandoned factory where he’d sought refuge. Down empty corridors, they went, through shattered doors. He knew this world and lost them in a room of silent turbines. The search moved on.

The hunters hooted through the vast spaces, first in glee, then frustration. The sounds faded, but the hunters were cunning. He stepped from his hiding place only to meet a brutal blow to the back. Tricked, he went down in terror, and rolled over to find himself encircled by humans. Snarling, they hefted steel bars torn from the factory’s rusted machines.

He threw up an arm; they hammered through that defense, smashing his limbs, crushing his abdomen, sending pieces of him clanging across the floor. Within moments his body lay in a heap of torn alloy. One eye sparked and sputtered. But with his other eye and the last of his consciousness he watched as they set him afire. His vision bloomed, then blackened. A human curse was the last thing he heard.

“Robot slag! Now let’s get the rest of ‘em.”

The Machine
Mark Steinwachs

I cough as my gnarled hands run over the tarnished machine. “It’s amazing how many people don’t believe it happened. Proof that humans are fools. Wirths, Mengele, Clauberg; they would have been nothing without me. Mere footnotes.” I lead him amongst the tanks, my fingers gently caressing them. I shuffle along as best I can, years of dust getting caught in the sun coming through the windows. The tiny particles remind of …“I killed millions. Let that sink in. Millions. And here I am. I live my life hidden in plain sight, just like her.” I kiss the tank gently. “Now it’s your turn. Go back and make your country great again, and then the world. Go, my lieb enkel, my dear grandson. Finish what I started.”

“I promise,” he whispers and kisses my forehead then walks away from me.

I lay down on the cold floor. The screams of decades ago flood back. Smiling, I close my eyes for the last time. I only wish I would get to hear that sweet anguish again.

Once
Mercedes M. Yardley

He was hungry. He was always hungry, always starving, always ravenous. His face was far too sharp and his cheekbones cut against his skin in the most visceral of ways. Once he had a name and even people who called him by it, and food was a bit easier to come by. Never quite enough, surely, but not too little.

He slept in the abandoned factory, catching rats and spiders when he could. It didn’t matter if they were malformed by radiation, because so was he. He stuffed them in his mouth, piece by piece, bit by bit. If he just held on, if he just stayed alive, all of this would make sense one day. He had to believe it.

Yes, Father
Lydia Prime

After closing the door, the towheaded child turned, “Father, I’ve returned the chalice. Is there anything else you need?”

“No son. Thank you for your service today.”

As the boy turned to go, he hesitated, turned back, “Father, one of the other boys mentioned a puddle in the basement, I thought I should tell you.”

Glancing at the boy, the Father headed toward the door leading down the stairs. “Where is this puddle?” he asked, hands clasped.

“Just to the left, Father, down the hall.” The boy looked shamed, almost embarrassed as though he’d heard the rumors. Could this one be asking? It seemed unlikely, but he couldn’t help himself, he ran his tongue ever so slightly across his lips.

“The generator room?”

“Yes, Father. The generator room,” the flaccid faced boy stood still and expectant.

“After you, my child.” The youth led him into the room, the light dim as always. Confusion took hold of the robed man, there were others there…waiting. The row of young boys tensed with anticipation. “What’s going on here? Did you all find the puddle?” A nervous chuckle.

“No father, we’ve found redemption. The shame isn’t ours.” As each youth smiled, the glint of their sharpened teeth told of a different indiscretion.

Feed the Machine
Nina D’Arcangela

Bones crush; the mechanism churns, always turns. Spinning, crunching, consuming. The snap of a skull; shrapnel slices the air nicking tympanic membrane. Those that man the machine have no hearing, they are born without; the ear a remnant from long ago. Chattle of the cause, a war not ours, we breed only to feed the machine.

 

Each piece of fiction is the copyright of its respective author and may not be reproduced without prior consent. © Copyright 2019