Ashes to Ashes, Blood to Blood

January 22, 2013February 8, 2013 ~ blazemcrob ~ 27 Comments

The breeze, gentle at first, carries the voice to my mind. “No, not again!” I think, cupping my hands over my ears, trying to keep from hearing its taunting, knowing that I can handle only so much of this.

Night after night it comes, and even though I expect it to surround me, it finds a way to sneak in when my guard is down. I’m leveled by its assault, barely able to think, and unable to retain any semblance of vertigo. I fall to the carpet, writhing in pain, and my mind gets ever so close to the abyss separating sanity from insanity. Nearer and nearer I approach the gash dividing reality from what does not exist. And the drop from the precipice to what lies below is long and deep. Yes, it is like a bottomless well, devoid of water and waiting to fill itself with whatever it can.

“No, you can’t have me!” I shout. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

Laughter . . . laughter joins in with the whispered words, knowing I will crack, that it is only a matter of time. If anything, the laughter is worse, forcing its way on my entire body, its vibrations rubbing against my flesh, working along the distraught hairs on the back of my neck and radiating outward from there. I retch from the sensations of thousands of bugs crawling over me, knowing they will bite, but not sure when. The remembrance of biting bed bugs from a long ago place and time reach my mind, and I fear that they are here in my study and attacking me with their taunting presence before they bite and suck out my precious life-giving fluid.

Slapping wildly against the onslaught, I know I have stepped over the line when their teeth find their mark and my body convulses in the agony.

Just enough biting; just enough blood removed; and just enough crawling. Always the push is ever so close, enough to push me to the brink, but not all the way over. Yes, the voice knows; it always knows. Enough of the voice! I must defeat it.

“You cannot ignore me forever, you know,” the voice whispers in my ear, the words moving the bugs to the side. “You will listen to me; you have no choice.”

“No! Leave me!” I holler. “You don’t exist.”

Silence . . . blessed silence, but it does not last.

“Ah, but I do exist. I existed before, I exist now, and I will exist in the future.”

The present; the future. I must not allow this creature access to these two-time continuums. If I do . . . No, I cannot even think of what might happen.

I force myself up, working against the vertigo problems, not wanting to subject myself to attacks from above. No more can I grovel before the beast. It must be dealt with from a position of strength. Heh, heh. This is how I will defeat it.

A clap of thunder encapsulates my room, and a rumbling beneath me rises up and splits it in two. One of my feet is left on one side, and the other one struggles to maintain balance on the opposite side of the tearing. The chasm becomes wider, and I push off with my right leg, attempting to propel my body to the other side, but my efforts are not enough. My hands grasp the far side as I slip and slide back, reaching for a secure hand-hold but not finding one. Ever closer I get to losing my grip and falling into the darkness below. My body flails against the side of the abyss, looking for a place where I can gain a foothold.

None is to be found.

Blood pours from my hands as I pull myself up ever so slowly, getting away from the forces waiting below. Every hand hold comes with a price attached, my body wracked in pain from the physical assault and the tearing inflicted on me. Finally, with a last heave, my entire body is out, and I am secure under my desk. The two sides slam together in defiance, as if to show me the power still resides within the room.

This time I’m not in any hurry to get back up. My body is beaten down, and I need to recoup. There is more to come; there is always more to come.

The breeze switches to a gale-force wind and blows a dense fog into the room. This is no ordinary fog: I’ve experienced it before. Now! Now is the time to get up.

My head demands release from the torment, but my body is not cooperating. I bob and weave like a punch-drunk boxer having gone one fight too many. Yes, I can’t conceive of fighting even one more round.

The fog is up to my chest, concealing what lies beneath. More suspense; more agony.

Serpentine entities wrap themselves around my legs, squeezing, relaxing their grip then repeating their torture. The veins and arteries in my already pummeled legs scream out in pain, not knowing what the next moment will hold.

“I take it you’re not enjoying the massage the vipers are affording you?”

Staring into the coal-black eyes of the horned beast speaking to me, his prominent brow and deeply creased face glaring at me, the hairs on my body once more tingle. All the stops are being pulled out tonight.

“I’m talking to you, boy” he says, “And I don’t like to be ignored.”

Rage replaces my fear. “Fuck you! Your presence is unwelcome here.”

Lightning and thunder reverberate through the room, being the outlet for his anger.

“Not welcome here? You have no choice in the matter. You don’t dictate what happens. I do.”

Scenes from days gone by play like a panorama of horror against the walls, ceilings, and floors of my room. And then . . . and then they become alive once more, the dancing, naked bodies and their conjuration circle; the altar with a frightened virgin laid out upon it, her virginity attacked mercilessly as demon after demon take her and inject their seed into her, so many of them that the blood from her womb flows out onto the altar and then to the floor, the rivers formed from the confluence of blood and juices beating a horrid staccato against the floor.

And they come to me, tearing my clothes off and leading me to the altar. As before, I am always the last one to penetrate the woman lying before me. I cannot fight it. The forces against me are too strong. How I am able to rise up and perform as a man is a mystery. I am disgusted at what I am forced to do, and yet, at the same time, excitement bursts from my loins and I do what is demanded of me.

She stares at me, still in shock at what has transpired, but her eyes tell me she understands.

“You are weak,” the horned one says. You have always been weak. But that doesn’t matter. You were not conceived for the purpose of your own strength. Yours is another facet of birth.”

His words fly into my mind, knocking my mental stability down even lower, but the anger in me from what he has implied – no, more than implied – keeps me from going over the edge. What is he saying? I must know.

He laughs. “No need for you to speak to me. I know your thoughts. Ah, it is not for me to answer your questions tonight. She . . . she will answer them.”

My mind swirls from all I have seen and done, my eyes closing, attempting to refocus. When they open again, my study is as it was before anything happened, and I am clothed once more. It is as if everything that happened was only present in my mind.

But I know better.

The voice returns to me again, this time more insistent, not attempting to convince me now. Demands are hollered into my ears, my head shaken by the impact.

No more can I hide in my study. It is time to confront my demons.

I follow the voice to the cemetery. Yes, I know where it is coming from. As much as I have feared this moment, I realize it is necessary for me to attack the demons running rampant through my mind.

The mist, the same fog as before, has settled over the grave, but it parts when I arrive, exposing a shovel resting against the headstone. Trembling with fear, I take it into my hands and start digging.

With each pass through the dirt, the voice gets louder, telling me to dig faster, echoing its need for release. Sweat pours off me, my confusion and fear melding together. What do I do when the source from which the voice emanates is laid out before me? Releasing the demon cannot be a good thing but, then again, how do I silence the voice forever?

Shovel after shovel removes the dirt until I hit the top of the coffin. Instead of an increased volume from the voice, there is silence. A trick! Yes, this is a ploy. I am supposed to be lulled into a sense of false security, but that won’t work. I can’t be tricked that easily.

But what do I do now! I need to open the coffin and satisfy my curiosity once and for all. If nothing is here to worry about, then I can put my mind at ease.

Then again, the possibility exists that maybe all of this does reside entirely in me. Am I losing it? Is my mind going?

I must find out! I must!

With a vengeance, I tear the shovel into the coffin, not caring about any damage I might incur. What difference does that make? She is already dead. When I’m done, I’ll cover everything back up again.

I grasp at the last remnants of the lid and tear it off. I must see her now!

Looking down, a bright moon at my back, I stare at her and smile.

There’s nothing here to worry about,” I think. “She’s dead. As dead as they come.”

Starting to shovel the dirt back in on top of the coffin, I stop as soon as I start. She sits up, pieces of flesh dangling down from areas on her skeleton, teasing me with their very presence. The musky odor surrounding her almost forces me to pass out, and her eye sockets, long ago remaindered to empty holes, take on a red glow and stare at me. A smile breaks out on her skull, flashing those perfect teeth she always had when she was alive.

“I knew you would come, my son,” she says. “It took you a while, but my faith in you never wavered.”

My heart beats faster than it has ever beaten before. Never have I been so afraid. All the things happening around me when I was growing up are nothing compared to this. My mother, dead for five years, is still alive: if you can call her condition anything close to normal. All these years, she has called to me, imploring me to come to her, but I refused. Until tonight. My supposed closure is anything but.

“I gave you life years ago,” she says. “Now . . . now it is your turn to reciprocate. You will give me life.”

My mind reaches for an answer to what she is saying, but none is forthcoming.

“You are confused, my son. Don’t be. I pushed you out into the world forty years ago, and now you will do the same for me.”

Horror burns through every fiber of my being as she grabs me and pulls my body into what remains of her vagina. She and I both convulse as my adult persona is totally absorbed into her birth canal. She writhes in pain as the size of me works past her vaginal opening and rejuvenates her long dead body, bringing life back to her once more. My blood pours out of me and into her, supplying her with the precious liquid she so needs to live once more.

I scream out in pain, the sounds muffled between her thighs and that part of her expelling me so many years before.

She lies in the coffin a little longer, waiting for the pain to subside and the transformation to become complete. Five years is a long time to wait for a second coming.

“He was such a good son,” she says . . .

~ Blaze McRob

Deluge

January 15, 2013November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 25 Comments

The crack of the loudest thunder clap roars; my body vibrates with the echo, an untamed longing for more.

The joy washed away; a vile deluge now pouring, the razor’s slash of the cruelest tongue.

Pain inflicted with intent to harm; ripping at my sanity in an unjust tumult of words, the harshest weapons of all.

My mind torn to pieces; this voice carries devastation, wielded with nary a care for the moments yet to come.

A shattering silence; how loud the quiet has become, how lonely this false sense of solitude.

The patter of a different storm; a shedding that cleanses, gently this time in a subtle downpour.

If only you’d count the raindrops with me; do you see – they are beginning to fall…

~ Nina D’Arcangela

The Devil Inside

January 8, 2013July 22, 2020 ~ jlwallen ~ 14 Comments

The vestments were always a bit tight, heavy. With each attack upon my faith, they burned my skin and made bitter my memory. They were, however, my duty. The Vatican, my employer. No matter how many times I’d been spit at, violated, and broken, my goal was to cleanse the colors of evil from man’s palette.

“Father, oh Father. Thank God you have arrived. The boy, he’s grown worse.”

“Your name?” I had little time for pleasantries, but knowing the names of those that would serve as my assistants made the rites and rituals far easier.

“I am terribly sorry. My name is Isobelle. I am the Abbess of St. Belle’s Orphanage.”

“Do you know the Rite of Exorcism?”

The sister gave pause, looked at the cracked and aged hardwood floor at her feet. “I must apologize, Father, I do not.”

“Ignorance of the Rite was one of the hurdles of having such a secretive arm of the Holy See. It is not a problem, Sister, I will guide you.”

As I was taking off my rain-soaked jacket, a low, creaking moan filled the air. The ambient temperature noticeably dropped.

“We have carefully examined the files and recordings you sent. Have there been any changes?”

Sister Isobelle stopped. The look on her face was drawn and hollow. “Yes.”

I stared, waiting for the thought to be completed. The Sister remained silent. The low moan was joined by a chorus of hideous screams. As the retched sounds reached a fevered pitch, Sister Isobelle slapped her hands to her ears. Tears flooded her mottled cheeks.

“Sister, you must be strong. Now, take me to the boy.”

Isobelle pulled out a handkerchief, blotted her eyes, and blew her nose. The simple act was an island of genuine humility.

“This way.”

Sister Isobelle placed one nervous foot in front of another. At the end of the candlelit hall, Isobelle opened a flimsy wooden door. The creak of the hinges only served to add another layer of macabre to the horrific scene I was about to witness.

Halfway down the cellar steps, I could feel the change. It wasn’t just another drop in temperature; the air felt heavy, corrupt.

“He’s in this room.” Isobelle’s shaky hand reached out and unlocked the door. For some odd reason, I expected the heavy wood to be blown to bits as the demon-infected child sensed the presence of a holy champion.

Instead, there was only low, arrogant laughter. The laugh insisted itself upon me, made sure I knew whatever unclean spirit existed within the room had no fear of the Cloth of God.

“Please, won’t you come in Father.”

The voice was simple – but not that of a child. When I glanced at the boy bound to the bed, the laughter stopped. His oil-black eyes addressed me.

“Did you expect me to speak in tongues? Latin? Something older? I can see the disappointment in your eyes Father. This isn’t the movies. My head will not spin ’round, nor will I spew pea soup. But if it so please you, I can begin afresh the theatrics.”

I sat my bag down and began to pull out the tools of my trade.

“Ahh yes, the weapons of holy war. Sprinkle me with God’s water Father. Speak your clean words into the ears of this infested child. Fight me. Force me to begone. By the power of Christ, compel me! By the power of Christ, compel me!” The boy writhed on the bed as he mocked me and my position.

“Father… ” Isobella started to speak. I held up a hand to stop her.

“Sister, you should know better than to interrupt a man of the cloth when he is near a young boy.” When the last of the demon’s vile words spat from his mouth, the door to the room slammed shut, nearly splintering the wood.

“I can smell it on you Father. Delicious corruption. It was only a matter of time – ”

“From all evil, deliver us, O Lord. From all sin, your wrath.” I began the chant. The sister recited back the words.

The beast roared me to silence and, with little more than a glance, flung the sister across the room. The woman’s head roughly smacked the floor; she lay motionless.

“Sorry, Father. She was weak, and I wanted to have you to myself.” A vile smile slithered its way across the monster’s lips. “It was only a matter of time before the blinded Holy See would send to me a man with such a tenuous grasp on his faith.”

I continued my chant. “From sudden and unprovided death, from the snares of the devil, from anger, hatred, and all ill will, from all lewdness, from lightning and tempest, from the scourge of earthquakes, from plague, famine, and war, from everlasting death.”

“From child-molesting priests, from bigotry, from young men gunning down innocent children, from mothers beating their babies, from hatred, from homophobia, from lust of the flesh and the coin… Shall I continue Father?”

The look on the vile demon’s face was painted with arrogance as he tore his hands free from his bonds and sat up.

“Father, it’s time the truth be set free. I am that truth. I am The Way.”

“Lord, have mercy!” I called out.

“Lord, have mercy!” The demon replied with a laugh. “How can the Lord hand you mercy when he’s none to give? The Lord is a lie. In the beginning was The Word and the The Word was a lie.”

A splash of holy water danced across the flesh of the beast’s face. The demon licked his tongue around his lips.

“The taste of your Lord’s tears is sweet.”

“Do not keep in mind, O Lord, our offenses or those of our parents, nor take vengeance on our sins.”

“Silence Priest!” The demon raised a hand. A gentle calm overcame me. “Please, have a seat. I want to tell you a story.”

From my pack came the written word – the holiest of holies, entrusted to me by my Cardinal.

“Hide that book of filth and shame from my sight or I will burn you Priest.”

Waves of heat rose from the skin of the boy. I assumed the threat honest and tucked my Bible back inside my case.

“Everything you know is a lie. The words in your tomes are little more than trickery to blind you to the greater truth – that some day your kind will be nothing more than fodder for God’s cannon. Once upon a long lost time, God and Lucifer stood side by side. It wasn’t until God realized that all within his dominion saw he and Lucifer as equals, that he decided to cast the loveliest of Angels aside. The Great Fall was tragic and God knew he’d made a grievous error. The Light of Perfection, however, could not admit to his wrong doing, else his power be lost. And so, since that great gaffe, your God has been amassing souls in preparation for Lucifer’s return to the heavenly dominion.”

The lilt and melody of the voice held me fast. I wanted to weep, to fall at the feet of the demon, and beg for some mercy I’d never receive.

“Had I not found you, Priest, your never-ending soul would have joined the Army of God. That is not to be now. Instead, you will fight for the truest truth. My God has been waiting for this chance since before you were nothing more than a shot of sperm from the prick of a self-righteous, ego-maniacal man of the soiled cloth.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you need me to fight your unholy war?”

A great puff of sulfuric smoke spilled from the nostrils of the boy.

“You are going to help me into the Vatican. From within the Holy See, I will gain access to a very special tome. The ‘Santus Bellum’ – or ‘Holy War’. Within that book is the very plan for God’s war to be waged against Lucifer and the dominion of Hell.”

I stood, a righteous fury fueling my voice. “You will never gain access to the Holiest of Holies.”

The demon released a moan, his eyes rolled to gaze within. As the temperature in the room dropped, the boy floated from the bed and into a crucifixion position. Wind howled through the room and ripped pages from the Bible I had stowed away. The gilded paper lashed about the air, slashing the tiniest of paper cuts over my exposed skin. With each slice I could feel my strength drain. I had never experienced such power, such raw emotion.

As an atonal chorus sang an unholy psalm, I felt the demon attempt to enter me, to take root within my spirit, give succor to a wanton soul. The blessed core of my conscience fought back, until a singular memory boiled up from the recesses of my mind.

I was young, innocent, lost in my ways. Until I was found by Father Stephenson, my life was little more than thievery and corruption. The Father took me in, cured me of my indecent ways, and taught me… Taught me love.

The simple memory shattered my trust, my faith. Stirring at the core of my being, my spirit was released from The Way. As the memory was released, a peace I hadn’t known for such a long time encompassed my heart.

“I welcome you demon. I embrace your light. I pledge my fealty to your cause.”

My proclamation brought stillness to the room. The boy’s body dropped back to the bed, his countenance returned to innocence. Isobella roused from the floor, rushed to the boy’s side, and held him in her frail arms.

“You did it Father. You’ve saved the child.”

As I placed my hand on the handle of the door, the wood fell to dust. I left the room and my holy relics behind. My cause was clear. I was to serve the true King of Kings. It was time to arm the Lord of Loss and tilt the scales of righteousness back to the side of truth.

~ Jack Wallen

Run

January 1, 2013July 29, 2013 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 46 Comments

A run; a run no different from any other morning that had come before. The sun groped with lazy fingers the mounds littering the reed-choked hills. Above the slickened grass, the evening gasped its last breath in wispy tendrils of fog. Boots pounded broken road; dew kicked up against sodden pants. A run; a run with the dirt-laden shovel cradled in his arms. The mounds forgotten at his back.

But on this morning the old-timer sat. Waiting.

He froze, keen to the presence of another set of eyes, sweat in long strands down his cheeks. Tongue darted corner to corner along his mouth, tasting, swallowing. He enjoyed the tang of his toil. Eventually he cocked his head. Saw the old-timer slumped within a rocker, set up on a sunken porch just off the lane. He stared the old-timer down. The old-timer stared back.

“Ayup,” old-timer grimaced, lips pinched by unseen fingers.

Gravel crunched beneath boots; slowly the shovel lowered from his arms. “What are you doing out here?” he uttered, stoic in the middle of the backwoods road.

Old-timer: “Naw much. Jus joyin anotha morn.”

Chest heaved despite his calm; he took a step closer to the old-timer’s ruined cabin. He had run past it a dozen times. Always seemed deserted. He regretted that he never checked. Never bothered to force his way inside. “Too chilly for your bones, don’t you think? A fellow your age should keep inside. Stay warm.”

“Wutha-man says gonna warm soon nuff. I believe in wut tha wutha-man says. Don’t ya?”

He looked around. Chewed at the bottom of his lip until it oozed coppery satisfaction. From the road: “I don’t believe in much at all.”

Old-timer: “Nope, I s’pose ya don’t. I s’pose ya don’t look tha type ta believe in anythin tha wutha-man might have ta say. Ya look a different type ta me.”

“And what type might that be?” The blade of the shovel tapped his boot; fingers squeezed upon its hilt.

Old-timer laughed; a warbled thing like a frog caught in death throes. “Type tha takes mattas into his own hans.”

He propped the shovel against his side, studied his hands. Nails chewed and rimmed with dirt, calloused palms caked black. Intrigued, he looked back up. “Never seen you before.”

“Were ya s’posed ta? Ya do nuthin but run. Run is all ya do.”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “So you’ve watched me.”

Old-timer: “Ayup. Lotsa times.”

He clutched the shovel again, scraped it along gravel in the road. “I enjoy my runs,” hissed through clenched teeth.

“Course ya do. Yer fit as a fiddle. I wus like tha once. Long time ago… long time.” Old-timer shook his head, jostling sparse white hair. “But things change afta long times go by, ayup.”

He stepped closer to the cabin’s decayed porch. “Time changes everything.” No bother taken to disguise the rattlesnake in his tone.

Old-timer, squinting: “Yer him, I’m sure ya are,” then swatted at ghosts circling his skull. “People been talkin bout ya ‘fore tha wutha-man comes on at night. Yer him, yessir ya are. Tha runner.”

Eyes drifted to his boots, laces awash in mud. “I told you, I enjoy my runs.”

Old-timer nodded, pleased. “Ayup, tha runner. Knew it was ya. Just knew all tha time. So tell me, runner, where ya runnin to?”

He stalked deliberately, leaning against the old-timer’s fence post, rotted and crooked as a hag’s nose. Shovel tap-tapped atop his boot. “I’m not running from a thing.”

“Nah, ya wasn’t hearin me. Ya wasn’t listenin careful nuff. Didn’t say ya was runnin from somethin. Asked what ya runnin to.”

Doubt lit his eyes. He always had answers.

“Man runnin from somethin is a man in fear. Man runnin toward somethin is a man ta fear. Ayup.”

Tongue slithered inside his mouth, toyed with a pulpy strip caught between molars. He had eaten not too long before; suddenly the urge to eat again seized him. He licked at his lips. “You have something to fear, old man? Maybe something like me?”

Old-timer quipped: “Fear ya? Not t’all.”

He always had answers. Now he searched for one.

Old-timer jerked his head. “Lemme see em.”

“See what?”

“Yer hands, course.”

Hesitation. Eventually he raised one above the fence. Old-timer, eyes sparkling a shade below madness, rose from his creaky chair. Head crooked atop stooped shoulders, old-timer hobbled down the porch steps, across the front path, alongside the fence. “Ayup, tha runner alright.”

“I’m getting tired of this,” he hissed, the shovel slowly ascending above his head.

With deceptive speed, the old-timer sprang over the fence, seized his free hand. “Tha runnerrrrr…” he cooed.

They remained that way, runner and old-timer, hands interlocked like lost brothers now found, eyes fixed and steely. The runner blinked first, noticing the old-timer’s chewed nails, crusty black around the beds, grime etched into wrinkled skin. The shovel lowered.

Old-timer’s hands. So much like his own.

He always had answers. Always, his victims spoke to him. Now he had none.

“I wus fit like ya once. Long time ago… long time ago.”

He jerked his hand back, but old-timer would not let go.

He glanced over old-timer’s shoulder.

“Somethin ya should know. Somethin ya should learn right quick.”

He looked beyond old-timer’s cabin. Glimpsed what had been hidden from his sight for so many runs. Glimpsed for the first time the uneven rows, the shovels pitched crookedly into the dirt, marking each grave.

Mounds littered the hills, both new and old.

“Ya see, I wus tha runner long before ya came ta town, son,” old-timer sang quietly. “And I gots no fear of ya t’all.”

He broke the old-timer’s grasp; shovel clanged to the road. For the first time, the runner ran from something. Ran, boots stumbling across divots in the backwoods road, rising sun looming large in his frantic eyes. Ran from old-timer and his dirty, chewed nails. Ran from old-timer and all the ghosts that kept pace at his side.

“Wus a runner long ‘fore ya came ta town,” old-timer continued to sing. He turned and hobbled back atop his porch. Hobbled into his chair. Sat. Waited. He had plenty of time. Even more shovels. “Be tha runner long after yer gone. Ayup.”

~ Joseph A. Pinto

Empty Hearts, Empty Stockings

December 25, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ moondustwriter ~ 15 Comments

Empty Hearts

On a brisk December morning

Children dreamt of Holiday delights

A vile storm was brewing

To extinguish 27 lights

Little sisters with their new clothes

Little boys in wintry white

A storm thick was waiting

To extinguish 27 lights

The end of a new day

Who could see the darkest spite

A storm now was ready

To extinguish 27 lights

As the stars are just dawning

Look up high in the night

They are singing others playing

Missed, Precious 27 lights

Empty Stockings

27 stockings hung…

My empty heart

Joins you on the pyre

Feelings are completely rung

no hope of life’s gift

of your love I am bereft

perhaps…

If I flung

myself before finality did start

into memory’s fire

flames would purify and lift

casting this pain adrift

…alas

No presents slung

On Santa’s jolly cart

can satisfy under ache so dire

no happy hugs to sift

this cold pale Christmas

~ Leslie Moon

The Devil Comes To Whitby

December 18, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 23 Comments

“One must be possessed of the Devil to succeed in any of the arts.”
Voltaire.

When darkness falls the Devil comes to Whitby.

As the sun fades, an old man sits writing in his study. He has lost track of time, though he knows from the light that it is evening and the day is almost spent. He has been sitting here for hours, his head bowed, spine arched from the back of the chair. The study is warm. The house quiet. The soft sound of pen against paper fills the room.

Outside the great bay windows, the seaside town of Whitby passes him by. Traffic backs up in the road; a line of brake-lights glaring like red eyes through his window. Sometimes, as now, the road is busy. Cars shudder and moan as they inch slowly forwards, exhaust fumes pouring into the cold. If he looks carefully, he can see figures in the drivers’ seats. Faceless shapes press against the car windows, their mouths long, eyes wide, limbs thin and hard from living. Life makes ghouls of most men, he thinks, and skeletons of the rest.

Dusk paints the vehicles orange and deep purple. The sea too catches the last colours of the day, the cold tips of its leaping waves silver and gold. It makes a magnificent sight in the evenings. From where he is sitting he cannot see those waves, but he knows that they are there, just over the hill, behind the Church of St. Mary. He walked there often enough with his old girl, before she passed. Pearl loved the sea. His knee still remembers the grainy dampness, from when he proposed to her on the beach almost fifty years ago. His eyes still remember the glimmer of the ring, so much like the shining tips of the waves.

“Sleep tight,” he says quietly. His breath is barely words. His fingers tighten around the pen, which flies faster down the page.

Outside, the shadows lengthen. The street begins to grow dark. The bay windows allow for light into his study, but there is little of it left. The old man stiffens in his seat, knowing without turning that soon the shadows will reach his chair and then they will not be shadows at all, but other things. It is the same every evening.

Each night the Devil wears a different shape.

The road is not always busy. Sometimes hours will pass without him seeing a single soul, except for the cats that stalk the streets. He has always been more of a dog person. Their last, Russell, was a haggard Highland Terrier. The dog had loved Pearl almost as much as he had. She had chosen Russell herself. He still hears the dog, sometimes, barking at the morning post, although he knows that is not possible.

He hears many things, though he does not hear the Devil when He comes.

The sun is a sliver over the rooftops, then it is gone. Darkness spreads through the room, followed by the cold that accompanies it, and for the briefest moment the old man pauses in his writing. Then the lamp on his desk flickers on. With a cavernous gurgle the radiator revives itself, a wave of warmth spilling into the study. Shadows flee across the walls from the lamplight, scuttling like vast beetles into the corners of the room.

He can feel the Devil standing over him. There is no reflection in the bay windows. He sees only himself at his desk, and the inside of the study reflecting in the blackness of the glass, and the weak, sporadic flashing of the Christmas lights in other gardens down the street.

Sea breath blows down his neck, accompanied by a voice.

“Hello, Joseph.”

His hand is a flurry of movement now. Words spill across the blank pages beneath him. The room begins to spin. He writes more than he has written all day. The words are not especially eloquent or sophisticated but they are honest and – he dares to think – beautiful.

The Devil is by his side now. He can see Him out of the corner of his eyes; a small, naked figure in the lamplight. Sensing He has been noticed, the Devil barks and begins lapping hurriedly at his jeans.

At first the old man flinches. He does not want to look to the figure by his chair but his eyes are drawn there nonetheless. Turning, he looks down. His face contorts, the pen slipping from his hand.

This is the shape the Devil has picked today.

She is not as he remembers her looking. Her hair is matted and wet. Eyes stare back at him from the bloated cushion of her face. Arms that had once been soft and dry are limp and pale, like two starved eels at her sides. She is how they found her, when they pulled her from the sea that cold December afternoon.

Grinning, Pearl licks faster at his legs; long, lapping motions revealing a fat, discoloured tongue. Two beetles tumble from the hollows of her mouth.

Snatching up his pen, he gives himself to the Devil.

Tears fill his eyes as he writes. This is not the hurried scribbling of before but careful, considered work. Sometimes the Devil comes as strangers, or friends he has not yet met. Once, Old Nick wore the skin of his mother, and it had been her, down to the flick of her hair, the age of her eyes, the humble pink of her cheeks. She had passed less than a week before and he could have hugged her and kissed her and spent the rest of forever lying next to her on the hard wooden floor of the study.

Every time the Devil visits, he feels. Sometimes he laughs. Mostly he cries. Always, the Devil drains him dry. Hell hath no fury like a man inspired.

Presently, he realises he is alone. He senses it is very late. The hush of the sea is quiet in his ears. Looking down, he stares at the pages below him, though he cannot bring himself to read them back just yet.

He wonders who is better off; the ghouls who live or the skeletons in their graves.

He rises slowly from the chair. His hands push back against the armrests. Bones crack as he straightens up, and again when he turns. Switching off the light he exits the study, pausing only to kiss a photo of his wife as he passes it.

“Merry Christmas,” he says, “Rest in Peace, Love, even if I can’t.”

Taking himself to bed he falls quickly asleep, and half-wakes only once that night, his eyes wet, to the whimpering of a dog, downstairs.

~ Thomas Brown

Mercy – The Final Chapter

December 11, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ Hunter Shea ~ 22 Comments

(continuation of ‘Mercy’ chapter 3 http://huntershea.com/2012/10/31/a-gothic-tale-for-halloween-mercy/)

The striking of our grandfather clock woke me from a deep, bottomless sleep. The sky outside the lone window was still a dark gray, lightened ever-so-slightly by the threat of the dawn. I stretched my arms above my head and rolled my eyes, attempting to shake off my slumber.

My heart thudded in my chest.

I was alone, and on the opposite side of the parlor from my sister.

All of the candles were out.

How did I get here? The pile of books we had been reading lay a good seven feet from where I sat.

Jessamine was in the far corner, asleep and on her back.

I felt a tug at my ankle and stifled a yelp. I instinctively recoiled. In the dark, I couldn’t see what had gained purchase of the bottom half of my nightgown.

There followed the sounds of hurried clacking, as if a pair of rocks had skipped across the wood floor.

The ghoul!

Despite my inability to see it, I knew it had to be in the room with us. It must have waited until Jessamine fell asleep, then separated us so it could do its dirty deed.

“Jessamine,” I hissed, wanting to wake her, yet terrified of alerting the ghoul, lest I become its latest morsel.

There was no answer.

Willing my legs to stand, I inched my way upwards, using the bookcase shelves to hoist myself up inch by inch.

I heard a tearing sound, followed by something far worse.

The smacking sounds of mastication, broken by eager, glutinous breaths, filled the parlor.

“Jesssamine!” I shouted.

Still no reply.

I needed light. It was impossible to face the ghoul in the dark. My spirit wavered between bravery and death by panic. I fumbled around the desk until I found the matches.

I struck one against the desk. It sputtered for a moment, then fizzled out.

The sounds in the corner stopped.

I could feel the ghoul’s penetrating gaze cut through the dark.

I grabbed another match, and with unsure hands, tried again.

The match stick broke in half, falling to the floor.

Clack, clack, clack, clack.

Those odd footsteps again.

Now a gurgling sound, a bubbling death rattle of a cry.

“Please, dear God, help,” I whimpered as I reached to pick out another match.

My cry was answered, as my thumbnail flicked across the match head, a brilliant flame roared to life.

And in that same instant, I wished I’d never brought light into the parlor.

“Lucy!”

My doll, my porcelain companion, stood on two small legs, leering at me. Its face had turned a mottled green, and bloody teeth sprouted from a mouth that was never designed to open. Weeping warts covered it from head to toe.

Worst of all, a strip of flesh, Jessamine’s flesh, hung loosely from its mouth.

I yelled in horror upon seeing my sister’s exposed throat. She lay, still as death, as her blood pumped onto the floor.

The demonic ghoul had truly left my poor, dear sister.

But it hadn’t gone to hell.

It had made a vile home within Lucy.

The ghoul clenched and unclenched its gnarled hands and slurped up the shredded flap of Jessamine’s throat.

I don’t know what overcame me then. I had been living for half a year under the specter of Satan and his damned minion. Fear, as much as Lucy, had been my constant companion.

There was no longer room for fear. This abomination had destroyed my family, and I knew at that moment that I would never again be the same. My heart turned cold while my temper flared like the center of a great bonfire.

Snarling like a mad person, I grabbed the candle and leapt for the ghoul. Cackling, it tried to sidestep from me, but I snared one of its slimy legs.

Warts burst open like blossoming flowers and a vile, hot fluid leaked onto my hand, burning my skin.

Still, I held on.

It shrieked. It hissed. It chomped its jaws and just missed snagging its teeth into the back of my hand.

With a flick of my wrist, I managed to get it to flop on its back.

Lucy’s blue eyes had been replaced by obsidian pools of hate. I moved my hand that held the candle onto its throat. Once I had a firm grip, I transferred the candle to my other hand.

“This time, go back to hell where you belong!” I shouted.

I brought the flames tips to its eye and heard a satisfying sizzle as the onyx orb melted. I moved the candle to its other eye and didn’t stop until both eyes were gone.

Suddenly, the ghoul’s protests and flailing stopped. Its tiny body twitched once, and was still.

Reluctantly, I let it go so I could rub the burned skin on my hand. The ghoul was dead.

Keeping a close eye on it, I walked on unsteady legs to my sister. Her face looked so peaceful, as if she had died in the midst of the most wonderful dream.

The tears came in a torrent, and I held her head in my lap, ever watchful for signs of the ghoul’s return.

I stayed there in the corner with Jessamine’s cooling body for two days.

When father returned, I was too weak to run into his arms.

His face was aghast.

“What…what…what?” he stammered.

“It was the demon in Jessamine. It became a ghoul. When it left Jessamine, it hid inside Lucy. You can see it, right there!” I screamed, pointing at its lifeless body.

But when Father picked it up, he held only my Lucy, her little head fractured but still the Lucy I’d always known. Her eyes were tiny points of ash, but Jessamine’s blood had somehow been cleansed from her porcelain face.

Despite my anguish and exhaustion and vexation, I began to laugh.

I laughed while my father pulled me away, and in his carriage, all the way into town. I laughed when he brought me to hospital, and even when they carried me to a room that smelled funny and was so bright, it felt like I had been thrown into the center of the sun.

And I still laugh now, ten years later.

They think I did it.

Esther passed on from infection.

Jessamine perished from her wound at the ghoul’s hand.

Mother never regained her sanity. In fact, she’s in a room not very far from my own. I pass her in the yard sometimes. She spits curses at me and blames me for the evil that befell our family.

Only I know it was the ghoul; the demon that slipped into our Old Manse and within my departed sister, the dearest person in my life. And when it tired of a human host, it found Lucy.

I tell everyone but no one will believe me.

Evil is real.

The ghoul was real.

And Lucy is still somewhere, outside these four walls. If you see a doll with burned eyes, run. Run and pray your soul hasn’t been tainted.

Run.

And pray.

~ Hunter Shea

An Offer

December 4, 2012November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 27 Comments

Bending down in front of this fawn who has wandered far astray into a place she knows nothing of, I tip her head back, cupping her chin in my delicate hand as I gaze into the enormous glistening pools that serve as her eyes.

“An odd turn of phrase, wouldn’t you agree? I give you my heart. How does one go about giving their heart away? If you were to give me your heart, you would become useless to me. A mass of tissue, cartilage, sinew, and bone pulsing with – nothing. And nothing is exactly what you would be worth. Do you wish to be worth no more than slop for the beasts to have their fill upon? Offering me your heart is a ridiculous thought. Besides, what makes you think I would allow you to give what I could so easily take if I chose it?”

A tinge of fear seeps into her eyes, her creamy throat swallows a hard lump, I release her but do not rise.

“Perhaps what you mean to say is that you offer me your unconditional devotion. Yes? Ah, now this I understand. This has a place in my world, this I can make fair use of. You proffer yourself before me and offer fidelity by choice. There is great value to be extracted from such a deed, unlike the sickeningly tender gesture of giving away your heart. A fool’s notion that. But you are a foolish creature, are you not?”

Her eyes shimmer, and I pace several steps away to allow the searing warmth of the sunlight to penetrate the chill I constantly feel radiating from within. This one, she affects me… After a moment of silent contemplation, I turn back to her. Our gazes locked once more, she still on her knees, me standing above her – as it would always rightfully be.

“Should I choose to make you my pet? Allow you to exist only on a whim? To please me when I see fit, perform for my enjoyment? Or perhaps even allow you the coveted honor of prostrating yourself at my feet for all to see; recognition of what an obedient thing you have become. Or should I simply accept your heart here and now, ending what will surely be an eternity of anguish for you?”

Circling her kneeling form, I allow my hand to trail through her mane of flaxen hair. It glistens so enticingly in the brightness of the day. The feel, that of swirling one’s hand through warm buttermilk; the scent, Anise. Delicious. Too delicious. Fisting a clump of this glorious silk in my hand, I yank her head backwards, redirecting her gaze to mine once more. A small squeal uttered, her hands fly up in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain I am causing her. My stare unwavering, she slowly lowers her arms to her lap once more.

“Do not expect to receive the abundance afforded my loyal servants, I have broken them! They have not groveled their way into my good graces. They have earned their allowance, their right to breathe for as long as I deem it useful. Unlike you my soft lovely dove, they have withstood a trial of pain and torment that you could not begin to fathom; and they have lived – if life is what you wish to call it. But you, you have earned nothing more than my attention with your soft curves and deep somber eyes. When I no longer find amusement in your attentions, then perhaps you will give me your heart as initially intended.”

Fear radiates from those bottomless orbs as they now watch me with trepidation, fear, and, of all things – judgment. Snarling, I release her head more roughly than intended and move to stand before her once more, bellowing at her audacity in a harsh ugly tone.

“This frightens you? My apologies! I don’t see why it should. You served the opening volley; you began this bid for my affection with your profferance of dedication to ‘my wants, my needs, and dare I say it – my most sacred desires’. Yes, I am mocking you and your attempt at securing my affection! Ah, I see you understand the spark of anger flashing behind my eyes, the couched venom spiting through my words, yet still you do not understand your own part in inciting me. This haughtiness of yours will need to be stripped bare if you are to be of any use at all. You are an ignorant animal, you know nothing of what I want, need or desire – yet you bear enough conceit to believe you stand any hope of satisfying me with your pathetic attempt at comprehension. Do you not see it? Do you still not understand who or what I am? No, I believe you do not!”

In a near frenzied pitch, I force myself to stop. She cowers before me, trembling, terrified by what now stands before her. Glancing down, I realize that my hands have begun to morph into clawed appendages; I can feel the second row of razor teeth beginning to protrude from my rending gums. The realization that this gentle creature before me is a far greater danger to my world than I initially thought decides her fate for me. Eyes brimming with tears, mine not hers, I crouch before this lovely timid thing, allowing my deformed talon to graze the soft flesh of her flushed cheek, and speak in a hushed tone.

“More’s the pity. I would have enjoyed the game, no matter how briefly it may have lasted.”

One more sweep through her luxurious hair, but my changing flesh is no longer capable of feeling its soothing texture. I gently cradle the back of her head and pull her soft form against mine. Blinding rage engulfs me, the cold from within takes over. With a slow deliberate stroke, I open her from pelvis to throat with the pointed tail I have kept hidden all this while; being sure to take enough time to truly feel the pain this is causing her. A single tear tips from my shuttered eye and with it, the last pretense of my humanity is shed. Leathery clawed wings tear free of their flesh covered prison and enshroud us.

After what lives in me is sated, and I have consumed my fill, I rise, releasing her corpse to the beautiful grassy field where I have defiled her. The warmth of the sun no longer as tantalizing as it was earlier. Glancing back at her remains one last time, I allow those that serve me to clean the foul mess I have made.

One dares to catch my eye as if to pass its own judgment upon me. Weakness amongst my kind is unheard of, and not tolerated.

With a feeling akin to what I understand to be shame, I spit at the thing before me, “Provided I do not choose to slit your throat for the disloyal thought I see passing through your eyes, I’ll allow you to keep your life and you will keep your tongue as to what you have seen here this day!”

He has the nerve to grin at me. She was but a frail morsel; the darkness beating in the soul of this servile beast shall sate me fully. I believe I shall begin by allowing him to give me his heart.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

As the Fire Burns

November 27, 2012January 14, 2014 ~ Tyr Kieran ~ 27 Comments

The flames are hypnotic.

Fingers of light play against the night in contrast like a calico kitten beneath a massive ball of black nylon thread. Its harmonious colors of red, yellow, and orange blend and battle in a dance that never ceases to lose its novelty.

Fire is damn fascinating—the breath of dragons and gods and other mythical beings bent on destruction. Yet, its beauty is beyond compare. One could lose his soul gazing into its fiery maw. It’s not predictable and monotonous like most would think after a cursory glance; it’s more fluid, impulsive, opportunistic. After all, it is a living thing. It breathes. It consumes. And, at times, it even appears to fear and hate.

The heat warms my prickled skin with the friendly itch of a wool blanket. Despite the outer comfort, it chills my heart—my leadened chest now burdened with an irreparable chunk of ice. I’m not here for recreation. My childhood memories of joyful campfires with toasted treats, spooky yarns, and hickory-smoke aromas are irrelevant tonight and I struggle to keep them at bay. The nature of flames may be intriguing, but I hate this fire.

I hate it and it knows.

When my glare falters and my focus succumbs to the rhythm, easing into a hypnotized gaze, the burning creature stokes my hatred anew with a taunting flare streaked in blue or green like it’s flipping me off.

I try to rationalize the event—must’ve scorched its way to a copper pipe or pocket of propane—but, I’m not buying what I’m shoveling. It knows it’s in control now, too strong to quash. Its hungry fingers claw up past the second floor windows and reach for more.

Those were the kids’ rooms.

When we moved from D.C. to West Chester fifteen months ago, we got more space for less cost and the twins gained their own rooms for the first time. Their playful argument over the larger room nearly killed me… literally. I was choking on inhaled chunks of soft pretzel from an ill-timed bout of laughter. Karen, my loving wife, was too busy to help. She was leaning sideways in her own giggling fit while struggling to keep Caleb and Rachel within the eye of her phone’s camera.

They fired up the competition with a spirited debate. Their deductive reasoning and good-natured mudslinging is what almost got me to perform the self-Heimlich Maneuver and what, ironically, aided in coughing my airways to freedom.

With the debate too close to call a clear winner, they took the next logical step—who could eat their lunch the fastest.

Rachel was chewing her last bite of sandwich when she noticed her mother’s phone held in their direction. “Recording this? Oh, now you’ve done it,” she crowed spitting food particles.

“I don’t know about you, Sis, but I’m still hungry,” Caleb said, grinning at their mother. Rachel matched his smile and added, “Yes, me too and Mom looks awfully tasty!”

They both lunged at Karen, grappled for the phone and pretending to devour her while I moved our drinks to safety.

After catching his breath, Caleb realized the dispute was still unresolved. He stole two tomato slices from his mother’s hoagie and smashed them against the nearest window; the last slice clinging would earn its designated owner the bigger room.

That very window was now engulfed in flames. They’ll never have the chance to play in those rooms again. The house was beyond rescue and repair. Karen’s phone and that memory’s video were now lost forever, along with the rest of our belongings.

I shouldn’t have left without grabbing a few things, but the damned flames spread so fast. With a gasoline drenched carpet, I guess the sprinkling of whiskey was overkill—not to mention a waste of good drinking.

I could barely hear the roar of the blaze over the pulsing blood in my head, droning on like a swarm of salacious cicadas.

The flames taunt, trying to drive me mad with guilt, but I had no choice. Fire was the only recourse—it all had to burn.

They had to burn.

My sweet children, my true love, may they rest in peace and walk through Heaven’s Gates together. Please God take them in!

Reflecting the fire’s light, tears tumble from my eyes like orange diamonds, melting as they slide down my warmed skin.

They didn’t deserve this. This fate of fire was not meant for them. They were so innocent and pure… until tainted by the infection.

Who would’ve guessed that it would originate from something in plain sight, something long thought benign? It didn’t come from an overzealous lab with lax security measures. It was from a fuckin’ museum in eastern Pennsylvania!

God, this house… we moved right next to ground zero.

Some poor sap accidentally broke open a pickled punk or some other fermented mutation at the Mütter Museum a few miles from here. He sliced open his hand trying to clean up the mess and contracted the wrong bacteria.

It spread from person to person faster than this goddamn fire. We didn’t have time to doubt or panic before it struck our community.

One of those things barged onto the twins’ school bus when the driver opened the doors at a railroad crossing. Their terror must have been unbearable as they watched the rancid thing chew its way toward them—the kids never got the emergency door open, they were trapped morsels like sardines in a can.

My children, corrupt and infested, made their way home. By the time I arrived they had torn their mother into three gnawed-open pieces. The twins attacked and Karen’s parts slunk their way toward me with the same vicious intent. I will never forget that sight or what I did next.

Their warm, healthy flesh had putrefied. As I pushed and pulled them away from my body, their skin slid from the meat of their limbs, further amplifying the eye-watering smell of roses and rotting roadkill.

Were they still in there or were they empty corpses? I couldn’t take the chance that they were suffering. I ripped my ornamental sword off the wall, finalized their death march, and set a cleansing fire to work.

Sirens wail in the distance now, and I finally notice the chaos around me. Other homes were in flames too. Cars were left abandoned in the middle of the street. Gun shots echo in the distance and screams stop short every few minutes.

It won’t be long now.

My time is dwindling.

I probably won’t see my loved ones in the hereafter—the crimes of taking their… lives may have stolen that right from me.

Guilt weighs heavily on my will to live, like the crushing stones of a Salem death sentence.

The night is filled with fire. Such a beautiful creature it is, fluttering plumage as it climbs higher and higher.

The flames are hypnotic aren’t they?

One could certainly lose his soul staring at them too long…

~ Tyr Kieran

Diseased

November 20, 2012January 14, 2014 ~ Daemonwulf ~ 34 Comments

I’m infected. Chewed up by an army of secrets, I’ve felt a thousand sets of viral teeth feasting on me over the years. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but there really wasn’t much I could do.

The noise surrounding me is deafening. It’s a tremendous ringing in my ears that pushes the memories of the many things I’ve done first into, and then out of, focus. At times, it seems almost a blessing that remembering has become difficult.

From somewhere far away, a woman’s voice calls out.

“Gaaaaaaabrieeeeeelllll…!”

The veil of clarity parts, and I realize who I am.

My name’s Gabriel Merchant — of Hastings, Nebraska. I was a small-town, farm boy who once played wide receiver for the Kenesaw High Blue Devils. On the outside, I was popular — at least for all those things I allowed people to see. But on the inside, I couldn’t have been any more alone.

“Gaaaaaabe! C’mon in! Supper’s on the table…”

I see Mama. She’s standing on the back porch. A grease-spattered apron tied around her waist covers the house dress she’s worn most days since Daddy’s departure. Her sad eyes search the yard and periodically gaze into the cornfields as she nervously dries her hands on the filthy dish towel she keeps by the sink.

At my feet, the body of the dying calf convulses, belching its fluids onto the dirt floor of the barn. The slit I’ve opened in its belly is a jagged line connecting groin to gullet. Blood, bile and bits of undigested food create a stew of filth on the ground, while layers of exposed flesh, splayed open, begs me. It will need to wait. Mama’s calling…

I drop the still-warm carcass into the hole I’ve dug. It lands with a heavy thud atop the pile of rotting animal skins and maggot-scavenged bones of the others. Anticipation stirs my groin, promising more pleasure than any unfulfilled romance I’ve contemplated. And my insides quiver with the knowledge of what’s to come, feeding my illness.

Mama’s urgent calls echo in my head as I drop the cover on my secret grave. Before the plywood slams shut, I reflexively avoid the empty gaze of the human skull that stares up at me.

With Rusty my Pointer at my side, his tail battering my leg, I leave the barn. The mare in the corner stall snorts her approval of our departure.

Mama’s face fades. Rusty’s no longer there. Instead, I’m lying in the mud. It’s dark. It’s still raining. I’m back on the island. And there’s so much blood on my hands…

The clouds have been open for hours. And a cold wind blows across the field. The frayed leather chinstrap on my helmet tickles my right ear as heavy droplets of rain fall from the sky. They slap at my face and bounce off my helmet – a tinny metal drum that beats inside my mind.

Tap…tap…tap…

Bullets whiz past my head. Incoming artillery fire spits mud into the air. It splashes in great chunks around me as I listen to the roar of the propeller-driven engines on a squadron of planes flying overhead. The earth rumbles, shaken by the impact of the payload dropping through the night sky. In the distance, explosions draw a hellish orange line that stretches across the horizon as far as my good eye can see.

My situation’s clear. I remember who I am. I’m Private First Class Gabriel Merchant, 4^th Marine Division. It’s Wednesday, March 7, 1945. I’m on Iwo Jima. And I’m dying.

Tap…tap…tap…goes the drumbeat of rain on my helmeted skull.

My left eye looks out into a hazy world of liquid red.

There’s so much blood on my face…

I know its blood — I’ve tasted it so many times. What most people don’t know is that’s quite different depending upon how it’s drawn. Mine is warm and oily on my tongue, laced with the familiar notes of fear. It streams into my throat, and I feel it dripping out again through the hole in the back of my skull.

My disease is killing me.

This isn’t how I’d imagined my end would come. Not that I ever gave it much thought. But it never crossed my mind that I’d die alone, lying in the mud, in a place I’d never heard of, somewhere in the middle of ocean I’d never seen, and with my right arm holding my stomach tight to keep my bowels from escaping their rightful place inside my gut.

Tap…tap…tap…

I didn’t see him coming. His first strike entered my body just beneath my right eye and continued on until it shattered bone at the back of my head. As he withdrew his weapon, my spine shuddered, his blade scraping against bone much like fingernails on a chalkboard. He offered only a momentary pause, before plunging it in again, this time deep into my abdomen.

Slamming me onto my back, he drove me into the mud with a force that ripped the M1 from my shoulder, shearing its leather strap in two. Now, my only weapon lay somewhere off in the darkness out of reach.

Amid the barrage of gunfire and the shouts of the others in my platoon frantically barking orders back and forth, a familiar odor assaults my nostrils. It’s the smell of cinnamon, or what I know to be the scent of death.

For the first time in my life, I realize how they must have felt.

Tap…tap…tap…

There’s so much blood on my hands.

Back home, I was always the predator. Without much else to do, hunting was my life. I never tired of the comfort of a trigger or the satisfying kick into my shoulder as the bullet left its chamber. Maybe the only thing better was the heft of a knife and the satisfaction as it cut life short, shearing off the fingers that, inevitably, tried to fight back.

Tap…tap…tap…

He stabbed at me with a fury I hadn’t thought possible. The speed and precision of his attacks were almost painless as he stabbed through layers of my flesh and into bone. The missing fingers on my left hand ache, having been sliced off, reducing my arm to a leaking stub that now spilled blood onto my chest.

Even through the din on the battlefield, I hear him breathing. While I haven’t seen his face, I imagine the look in his eyes. I sense his accomplishment as it oozes from his pores and slickens the skin beneath his clothing. Oh, the satisfaction. I know it all too well.

Tap…tap…tap…

I became infected at the age of 10. It all began, innocently enough, with a rabbit in a trap. While only a few months old, it had so much zest for life that it nearly chewed through its own leg to escape. And, once released, it was barely able to move. But I followed it for nearly an hour as it dragged itself around the pasture. I’ll never forget the brightness in its eyes as I lowered my axe on its neck. I watched, intently, until its lights went out.

Afterwards, my disease quickly spread — my actions growing worse as each day passed. If Daddy had been basic training, the Marine Corps was my proving ground.

Tap…tap…tap…

The bringer of my own death stands quiet. As he moves to my side, I see the outline of his body for the first time.

A criss-crossing pattern of tracer bullets strafe the night sky, cutting through the smoke from anti-aircraft fire. The shape of Death strobes in and out of focus. I find it hard to believe what I’m seeing. He’s much larger than expected. And he smells of shit.

The odor fouls the air. It takes a moment, but I realize it’s the smell of my own bowels as they evacuate my body for the last time.

In his left hand, Death carries multiple blades. They glisten with a mixture of blood, viscera and rain that courses off their impossibly sharp points.

Funny, I think, I’m left-handed too.

Thump… Thump… Thump…

My heart slows.

The rain falls harder. The bombers continue past.

How long has it been? Two minutes? Five?

Time no longer has meaning, but it’s the only thing left.

Breathing heavily, Death closes in, lowering his head toward whatever is left of mine. I can barely see him, but I smell his diseased breath. It’s sour with the same infection that feeds on me.

Thump……. Thump……. Thump…….

As my lungs drown in blood, Death kneels at my side. Rainwater streams off his contorted head and batters my face as he brings his nose close to mine. I see his eyes for the first time. They’re blue, like mine.

Thump……………… Thump……………. Thump……………..

Blood rushes into my throat. I spit it from my mouth. It splashes onto Death’s chin. An impossibly long tongue slithers from between his thick lips and licks it away.

Thump………….…………………..…. Thump………..…………..…………..

His jaws open, revealing a maw of sharp, yellowed teeth. Their tips glitter in the darkness as long tendrils of saliva slip from his gums. The face of Death isn’t at all what I’d expected. Death wasn’t a man at all…

Thump….…………..…………..

My heart stops. The final beat ends the symphony of rain, gunfire and battlefield shouts. Now there is only silence; and the blue eyes of Death staring into mine.

Then come the screams. They were the anguished howls and the cries of all the souls whose lives I’d ended. They pummeled me. Daddy’s was the loudest.

I’m no longer inside my body, but instead somewhere above, peering down at the wreckage of the life I’ve created.

Death calls me. I go.

Drawn into him, I’m instantly no longer alone. His eyes became mine. The talons on his hands move as my own. And he shares all of his memories with me, and I with him. There was a sense of communion unlike anything I had felt before.

Death had been the source of my disease. He was also my cure.

Looking down at my old self now, I watch as filthy raindrops baptize my broken body in the mud. I lean in closer, inspecting my farm-boy face. And with a new set of razors in my mouth, I strip the skin that was my mask from my one-time skull.

Bombs explode in the distance, ending uncounted lives and sending the fires of my new Heaven mushrooming into the night sky. With the flames dancing around me, I place upon my head the last remnants of the old me. And from behind my new, contorted features of shaved flesh and pure hatred, I howl at the rising moon.

I’d always thought I’d been infected. But after a lifetime of searching for a cure for my disease, I now realize I was always as I should have been.

I, Gabriel Merchant, am home. And along with all those who came before me, I’ve become Death. And together, we are the destroyer of worlds.

~ Daemonwulf