Helplessly Above It All

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015 ~ jonolsonauthor ~ 20 Comments

I’m fourteen days, three hours and twenty seconds into the mission. So far the spacecraft has performed flawlessly, surpassing all expectations. It’s been rather comfortable as the capsule was designed with more room for the occupant than previous spacecraft.

When I was selected to be the commander of this mission, my wife got the biggest kick out of watching me jump around our little apartment with a big shit eating grin on my face. She said that…

…she said… why am I even bothering to mention her?

She’s dead.

So is everybody else.

I should never have taken this assignment. Prior to the launch, the administrators had told me to say a proper goodbye to her as tensions were high with our rivals across the pond. The risk of nuclear exchange was at its greatest, even more so than during the Cuban crisis.

I didn’t take it seriously.

The officials were still going ahead with the launch and I treated it as business as usual. I cringe remembering my last words to her.

“Keep the steaks warm.”

I watched helplessly above it all as hundreds of nuclear missiles launched from their silos. Had it been a simulation, I would have described the mushroom clouds sprouting up from the impacts as mesmerizing; however, knowing each one signaled the eradication of civilization, I felt numb. My radio had gone silent after a partial scream was obliterated in a roar of static.

That all happened on the second day of the mission.

Through each window, I can see the planetoid carcass that was once Earth. It used to be a beautiful sight with shades of white, blue, green and brown; a source of wonder and full of life. Now it’s an inhospitable cancer, smothered with the unnatural, burning clouds.

I left my radio on over those twelve days but only empty static and the ghosts of my memories kept me company. I would have loved to hear another human voice – even if it had been the enemy.

Not anymore.

I’ve just initiated my reentry procedure. Within minutes, my ship will fire its rockets one final time, propelling me back towards the nuclear polluted earth. When the moment comes to deploy the parachutes, I will simply sit back and enjoy the ride. I’d rather die in an impact crater on the earth’s surface than orbiting above it.

They fire right on cue and I feel the ship slowly descending into the atmosphere.

“Can anybody… me?” The voice crackles through my headset. “My name is…” A burst of static hisses then fades. “If anyone can hear me, please acknowledge…”

I lean forward to reply then stop. There’s no way I can interrupt the reentry procedure. Even if I could, what would be the point? As the flames begin to engulf the outside of my ship, I turn the radio off and lean back into my seat. There’s no reason to give him a false sense of hope.

Sorry buddy. You’re on your own.

~ Jon Olson

The Remains

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015 ~ Veronica M.Nero ~ 17 Comments

Emily was woken by the sound of chopping wood. Jimmy was swinging his axe early that morning. Thick logs cracked, split in two and fell with a dull thud. It was a familiar and comforting sound.

She didn’t have the energy to move around much anymore, even the slightest movement left her gasping with pain. Emily gazed at the large glass of water on the bedside table, wishing she could reach for it. Her throat was scorched and her mouth was sour. She coughed and her chest felt like a rattling heap of bones. Her breath was a loud, tender wheeze.

Jimmy would be in soon. He would stroke her hair and smile down at her. She closed her eyes and pictured him out there in the cold, preparing for their evening fire. She began to recall all the fires they had shared together. It was an exercise she liked to do often. It comforted her and kept her mind occupied, which helped to alleviate the pain. She wondered how long before the fire would be hers alone. Flames flickered in her vision, in shades of orange and yellow, stretching into long, howling faces that mocked her. She didn’t open her eyes again.

***

The first time Jimmy and Emily started a fire they were fifteen years old. They lived in the outer suburbs, a sprawl of dilapidated houses, trashy chain stores and franchise family restaurants, cut through the centre by a highway.

Surrounded as they were by drugs, alcohol and violence, fire became the one vice they couldn’t resist. Fire opened up a secret space, theirs alone, to reside in for a while, as the cold brutal world faded from view. Fire was the secret they protected and which, in turn, protected them.

One day they had climbed a high wire fence into an abandoned car yard. The yard was scattered with the hulls of stripped cars and an assortment of discarded junk. They rummaged through the remains. They sat on a red vinyl back seat perched on top of a pile of old tyres. Jimmy pulled out a couple of bent cigarettes he had stolen from his father.

Jimmy played with the lighter as they smoked, flicking the flame repeatedly. He was feeling agitated and restless. That morning his father, already drunk for the day, had flown into a rage over the electricity bill. Jimmy and his brothers had scattered from the house like insects.

He touched the flame to the seat and the vinyl began to melt instantly, oozing like an open wound, the smell of burning plastic a toxic high. Emily stared at the tiny flame licking the plastic seat.

Jimmy’s face changed as he watched, becoming thoughtful and calm.

“Wanna start a fire with me?” he asked suddenly.

Emily exhaled a grey plume; she shrugged and nodded casually but she was excited by the idea. They jumped down from the seat and searched the car yard for things to burn. There were scraps of foam and rubber around and lots of scattered rubbish. They shredded old newspapers into a big empty drum.

“Do the honours?” said Jimmy and handed Emily the lighter. She lit a wad of paper then tossed it in.

They stood back and stared at the flames that flashed and grew quickly; a stream of black smoke began to curl skywards.

Jimmy reached for Emily’s hand and she took it without glancing at him. A sense of wonder enfolded them, a strange relief and elation.

They both felt it. They knew they both felt it because they squeezed hands, communicating something that couldn’t be spoken.

They were jostled out of their thoughts when someone began shouting.

An elderly man dressed in overalls had appeared and was shuffling towards them from across the yard.

“Hey you kids, what the hell are you doing?”

Jimmy yanked Emily by the arm and they bolted. They easily scrambled over the fence and ran. A few streets away they stopped, out of breath, and doubled up with laughter.

“Fuck!”

“Yeah!”

They looked at each other in amazement. They kissed then dissolved into giggles again. That was the beginning of a lifelong love affair between the three of them, Jimmy, Emily and fire.

***

Jimmy swung his axe slowly to the ground. He looked up at the bedroom window and an acute fear swept over him. He rubbed his tired eyes. He couldn’t bare this anymore. It happened often now. He would find himself running to the house and up the stairs in a panic, rushing into the bedroom, to find Emily sitting in bed reading.

“Do you need anything?” he’d say, relieved and embarrassed, and she would shake her head no.

It had been a year since Emily was diagnosed. Jimmy watched her whittle away; the disease ate her from the inside out. He watched her endure hostile treatment and medication until there remained nothing left to resort.

***

During their life together fire had come and gone. There were years when they didn’t light fires at all. And there were times when everything caved in, like when Jimmy’s dad died or when Emily suffered a miscarriage, and their need for fire returned. They would find a good location, start a small fire and watch as it burnt away their pain, consuming the anger and despair until they could take a deep breath again. They were careful and they were never caught.

Years ago, they had moved to a property in the country. When they saw the large fireplace in the house, they grinned at each other.

As Emily’s condition deteriorated, they lit fires every night. It was the only thing that made Emily feel better for a while. The fire cast a glow of life back onto her face; she nestled in comfortable silence to watch it and a soft rising euphoria dulled the pain.

When Emily was still able to, they went for walks together in the surrounding bushland, collecting kindling and large branches.

It was on one of these walks that Emily told Jimmy what she wanted to do. He hated the idea; it scared him, and he didn’t know how to respond. They had walked home in silence.

***

Jimmy looked up at the bedroom window and fear gave way to something far more bottomless and dreadful.

He climbed the stairs slowly. The door of the bedroom seemed to swing open by itself as he touched it. From where he stood in the doorway, he could see that Emily was gone.

He smoothed out the wisps of hair that framed her face. Tears swelled in his eyes and a painful lump lodged in his throat. He sat beside her for a long time in disbelief, holding her lifeless hand. Pale and frail, it was impossible to tell whether it was life or death that had eaten her away. He could feel every bone and joint in her fingers; he squeezed her forearms and the bones were sharp and thin. Useless bones that no longer animated her. She began to appear like a macabre puppet – a revolting thought – and he had to pull away.

After a while, he walked over to the window and threw it open. A cold gust of winter air rushed in. He looked down at the pile of wood gathered in the yard. He needed to get started as soon as possible.

He began to pace the room, staring at Emily’s body. Panic set in. Suddenly it all seemed like such a bad idea. How could he possibly go through with it? What kind of person would do such a thing? His mind scrambled desperately with thoughts. He didn’t want to do it. It was cruel of her to have asked him. They had talked about the plan a lot and she had made it sound so natural. It was her dying wish.

“I can’t do it!” he shouted then burst into tears, but it was too late. He had to keep his promise.

He scooped her up, gathering her carefully. She was like a bag of sand slipping from his grasp as he walked. He had to stop several times to heave her back up. Slowly he carried her down the stairs, through the house and out into the yard.

The staggered walk to the pyre was a ludicrous funeral march. His heart was thumping and his mind was numb. He had been building the pyre for days now, arranging the logs just right. He had a feeling the time was near.

Relieved to relinquish her body to the pyre, he placed her upon it as gracefully as possible. The body flopped over the logs, the head rolling back at an awkward angle, the limbs sprawled indecently. He rearranged the body until it looked right.

He tried not to look at her as he picked up the heavy jerry can and began to splash kerosene over the wood and body.

Finally the can was empty. He stood there for a while, lost in thought. His eyes and nose were streaming with silent tears.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve then fumbled in his pockets for the matches. He struck one and held it until it burnt out. He did this many times, burnt matches collected at his feet.

Her voice echoed in his head: “I want to burn, Jimmy.”

A flash of anger arose. She was always the more reckless between them. Many times Jimmy had to persuade her against lighting a fire that was too dangerous, too public. He felt cheated and manipulated now by her final act of defiance.

Then the anger disappeared as quickly as it had come and he took a deep breath. With trembling lips, he struck another match. He closed his eyes as he threw it at the pyre and then it was done. It was done and it couldn’t be undone. He stepped back in surprise as instantly the wood went up in huge, crackling flames. The box of matches dropped from his hands.

Flames engulfed and rolled around the body, quickly beginning to scorch the skin. He stared at the horrific vision unfolding before him, unable to move. The flames were mesmerising and in the centre of them was Emily, like a broken discarded doll.

The heat assaulted him in nauseating waves. A terrible thought occurred to him; he should walk into the fire and join her, if only he had the courage.

Before long, the smell began to assault him, a stench of cooking meat, sweet and peculiar. He had not considered what his wife would smell like as she burnt. He covered his mouth, tears streaming down his cheeks.

The smell became a gut retching stink. He ran inside and slammed the door. He leaned against it, sliding to the floor. He held himself tightly and began to weep.

The fire burnt all day. He was furious he had agreed to do this and incoherent with grief. He paced and stormed inside the house, on the brink of madness, unable to escape the smell that hung in the air.

And the ordeal was far from over. There was one more thing he had to do.

All through the night, the fire continued to smoke while he sat awake in the dark. He was thankful when the morning came, hoping the fire had done its job. It took him a while to gather the courage to go outside. He carried with him a small wooden chest.

Emily’s remains were at the bottom of the burnt out pyre. A piled of charred bones, cracked and crumbling. Her skull and hips were still intact; her skeletal form visible. Jimmy wore heavy plastic gloves. He couldn’t bear the thought of her dust on his hands.

Trembling, he picked her up piece by piece and put her into the chest. There was so much ash and there was no way to tell what was Emily and what was not.

He scooped up most of the ashes, added them to the chest and slammed it shut.

***

The wooden chest sits in Emily’s armchair by the fireplace. It makes Jimmy uncomfortable but he can’t decide what else to do with it. It feels like she is still there beside him, watching the fire every evening. The fire throws dancing shadows over the chest. Its brass rim and fittings shine brightly, as if there is a treasure inside waiting to be released.

~ Magenta Nero

Monarch-Man

March 3, 2015February 28, 2015 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 25 Comments

“I am a winged creature who is too rarely allowed to use its wings. Ecstasies do not occur often enough.” Anais Nin

It has gone midnight when I cross the park but he is quite visible by the street lamp. Stick limbs. Wild hair. The sickly-sweet scent of honey. He is filthy and beautiful, this Monarch-Man, my Emperor of Flies.

I have been following him for months now. Sometimes it feels like my whole life has been lost to his search. Rather, it has been lost to my search for him. He takes no part in my hunt. I would be surprised if he knew that I sought him at all. But I had, I have; from the first moment I set eyes on him, crawling from the tube station.

I alone watched him tumble through the turnstiles and into the street. He reached the curb on his side of the road at the same time that I did on mine. I could not have said what it was about him that made me stop and stare, but stare I did. For a second he lingered there, hovering on the spot between pavement and road. Lifting a bare foot, he seemed to test the air, as though tasting the city with his soles. Then his legs gave way beneath him and he fluttered to the gutter.

He looked small at the roadside, smaller even than I was sure he was. His coat was much too large, and I was reminded of a child wearing his father’s clothes. In another life he might have been carved from marble; smooth lips, blonde hair, eyes vast and shadowed in the hollows of his face. But he was no classical beauty. His skin was pale and marred with fatigue. Hunger had made him lean, and in a darker street I might have mistaken him for a woman. A taxi braked beside him, its headlights in his face, and for one moment his eyes shone like gold. Then he recoiled, his hands flying to his face, and the taxi drove on.

I saw him many times after that first encounter. Perhaps it was chance. Perhaps it was that face. I can see it now, upturned to the street-lamp, bathed in the orange glow. I see his tight lips, his dusty skin. His eyes are like two orbs of polished stone. I see myself in them a thousand times over, growing larger as I approach through the park.

The third time we met was at rush hour. That day I had waited for him, and I thought my heart might burst when I saw him stagger from the station. A dozen men and women swept after him, throwing his face back at me from the polished toes of their black shoes. It was the evening commute, the streets busy, and his reflection was a hall of mirrors in their gleaming footwear. I am not sure that he saw himself, whether he can see at all, in fact, but I saw. Standing outside the large bank on the opposite side of the road, I listened to the drone of traffic and the chatter of conversation and the raw voice of the Lebanese singer on the street corner, and I saw his face a hundred times over.

When I think back to the dozens of times I have seen him, it is easy to imagine the world fast-forwarding around me. I see streets filled with blurred shapes as people speed home, streaming through the city in a black tide of business suits and smart shoes. Traffic becomes one long course of light and motion; a film strip racing on a reel. Everything stretches and grows, even the dying sun melting in the sky, except for the man on the pavement, my Monarch-Man, the Emperor of Fractured Faces.

The Lebanese singer frequents the station at least as much as me. I suspect she does well for herself there. On those occasions when we are both there at the same time, her songs carry clearly across the street, made stronger by a microphone, and I imagine her voice is the wind. Sometimes I turn to her while passion spills from her mouth. Her eyes are usually closed while she sings. Seeing this, I close my eyes too and allow myself to be carried away by her voice. The sound is heat and flowers and dry summer air. I can smell roses, taste honey on my tongue. When I open my eyes again, I am always staring at the man in the gutter.

I fancy that I can smell roses now. It is not an impossible notion, in the park, and yet I know rose-beds are not the source. In thirty seconds I will be standing underneath the street lamp beside him. It will be the closest we have ever been to each other, and I imagine it is honey making my throat stick. Outwardly he is no different to the dozens of other homeless men and women whom I have encountered throughout my life in the city. His clothes are soiled but well-cared for. This close, I can see that rips in his jeans have been neatly stitched. The jeans themselves are faded almost to death. As I marvel at the needlework at his kneecaps, I wonder if he stitched them himself, or if he knows someone who fixes them on his behalf. I wonder how much the jeans mean to him, and when the last time was that he took them off. I wonder if I have ever cared about anything as much as he must care about the denim on his legs. I know that I have, because I have found him.

He smiles as I swarm in his eyes, this Monarch-Man, my Emperor. I smile back. Slowly he turns from the street lamp to face me. His arms are thin, bare bones really, concealed inside the loose sleeves of his old coat. I do not know for sure that the coat is old but it looks it; beige and filthy and treasured. He shifts slightly and I think I glimpse colour; a vivid flash revealed by his collar. I glimpse other things, too, under the coat, under the flesh, too much for me to take in all at once: the flailing limbs of a drowning spider, an egg as it cracks and drips with bright yolk, the sound of the egg’s shell as it breaks open and the crunch of mandibles and a cloud of butterflies, swirling silently over a flowering field. In the face of him, and in the fractured surfaces of his eyes, I am annihilated a million times over.

I realise I am cowering on the floor. My heart rages against my aching ribs. The first I feel of his touch is his hand against my own. I know it’s not a hand in the true sense, any more than those are fingers clasping mine, but that is what I can liken it to most. His fingers slide up my arm, dry and smooth like velveteen laces, until they come to rest beneath my chin. They hover there briefly, stroking my neck, their featheriness soft against my skin, before gently lifting me upwards. Then he takes my hand again, and together we dance around the street lamp, and the night whispers with wing-beats.

~ Thomas Brown

Sightseers

November 4, 2014October 30, 2014 ~ jonolsonauthor ~ 18 Comments

Becky Dunsworth could not believe her eyes when she and her boyfriend, Thomas Woods, emerged through the thick wall of spruce trees. Just as news agencies around the world had broadcast, Becky saw for herself that the town of Hume, Nova Scotia was dead. Some buildings remained intact; some were just shells surrounded by piles of rubble, and others had been completely demolished. She looked down at her feet and saw the paved street that they now stood on was badly damaged and showed years of neglect.

“I told you it was still here,” Thomas said, smiling.

“So that means their explanation all those years ago was just…” she trailed away.

“It was just a cover story to hide the truth.”

Thomas slid his backpack down off his shoulder, unzipped it and began rummaging around until he found what he was looking for – a digital camera. He took the lens cap off and turned it on, the LCD screen illuminating his face. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon but the sky was so overcast and grey that it made it seem closer to dusk.

“This is going to be great, Becky. We can finally prove that what’s his name, that Douglas guy, wasn’t off his rockers when he submitted his manuscript about what really happened here.”

Becky grinned, feeling excitement brewing inside of her but at the same time feeling a sense of dread. It was a small feeling and she quickly put it on the backburner so they could get down to business.

They started walking down what was once the main street in Hume – Williams Avenue. Every few steps, Thomas stopped and snapped off some pictures of the buildings. There were a few burnt-out cars scattered along the street but other than that, there was nothing obstructing their path. A Canada Post mailbox lay face down on the street, its slot wide open; a few yellow and weathered envelopes stuck out.

“Thomas, do you think what Michael Douglas wrote about was true?” Becky asked.

He lowered the camera and looked at her. “What, that strange creatures came out of doorways in our so-called reality that were made by flying discs?” He raised the camera again and took a picture of her. “I can tell you that I don’t believe that this place was destroyed by a tsunami, like the official reports said.”

“I suppose.”

They continued to walking with their footsteps echoing throughout the ruins. They soon came to the only junction on Williams Avenue and knew that they had reached the center of the town. Hume only had a population of three hundred when it was suddenly wiped off the map.

Only it wasn’t wiped off, Becky thought. Something had happened that the government felt the need to cover up.

A rustling of paper caught her attention and she looked toward the origin of the noise. In another fallen mailbox to her left, an old newspaper lay inside. She walked over to it, reached inside and pulled it out.

It was an issue of the Hume Daily News, dated July 3rd, 1990. The main headline was about Hume’s mayor stepping down, but the bottom right of the paper displayed a small story about reported UFO sightings.

“Hey Thomas, check this out.” She walked over to him. “It’s a paper from the day Hume was destroyed! I can’t believe it survived over twenty years inside that mailbox.”

Excitedly, Thomas took it from her and pulled a file folder from his backpack. “We have to keep this and put it somewhere in our book exposing the cover up.”

The wind had picked up and as they were about to continue on, a loud flapping noise made them both look around.

It sounded like heavy curtains molested by a strong wind through an open window. Puzzled, they started looking around for the source of the flapping.

“Up there,” Thomas said. He pointed up a street from the junction. He could barely make out the words Ferguson Road on the street sign. “Come on, let’s go check it out.”

Becky’s feeling of dread returned, stronger than before, but she again dismissed it as the excitement in Thomas’ eyes was infectious. They started up Ferguson Road but then stopped, mouths agape.

The sound originated from the edges of a large tear flapping in the wind. A fence encircled the tear, the base of which was roughly eight feet tall and made of solid concrete. Large steel rods poked straight out, reaching the top of the tear. Chain-linked fencing, as well razor and barbed wire, were strung up from pole to pole, coming together at the very top like a roof. The fence looked well maintained, which worried Becky.

“Holy shit, can you believe it?” Thomas said. “It’s just like he said it was.” A grin was starting to poke at the corners of his mouth. “The tears were… are real.” He raised the camera and started taking pictures. “Help me find something that I can climb to actually get a look inside that hole.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Thomas,” Becky said.

“Not a good idea? Are you crazy? I need to photograph it to get the evidence we need.” He looked around and saw a bench a few yards away. “Help me move that over.”

Before she could protest, Thomas was already sprinting over to the bench. She sighed and followed. The bench, at one time, had been bolted into the sidewalk but the bolts had long since rusted out. They each grabbed an end and began to carry it towards the fence. Becky glanced down and saw the initials “I.R. + L.E” carved into one of the boards, wondering who they were and what had happened to them.

“Set it here,” Thomas said. The bench was placed against the concrete base. “Pass me the camera once I climb up there.”

Becky nodded but her eyes protested. “I don’t like this.”

“I’m just going to snap a few pictures and then we can be on our way out of here. Okay?”

She nodded again.

Thomas stood on top of the bench and with a grunt, pulled himself up onto the top of the concrete base, careful not to cut himself on the barb or razor wire. He found a section of chain-link fencing and grabbed a hold, peering through it. His face gave an expression of utter disbelief.

“What is it?” Becky asked.

“Just like he had written in the manuscript,” Thomas replied. “It’s making my fillings tingle! There’s a bluish-grey light coming through this rip. I can almost make out some features on the other side!”

“Here, just take the camera and hurry up!” Becky thrust the camera towards Thomas and he squatted down to reach it. His fingers clasped around the camera’s body and pulled it up. Using one hand to keep his balance, Thomas stood, raising the camera to his face.

He got off two pictures before it happened.

A creature jumped up through the tear onto the fence. It was the size of a large dog and had what Becky could only describe as four spidery legs. Its head was level with Thomas’ and before he could react, a stinger shot from the creature’s face, piercing his eyeball. The stinger retracted quickly and the creature jumped down.

Thomas screamed and fell back to the ground, just missing the bench.

His face already started to swell; the pressure pushed the remainder of his eye from its socket. Becky put her hands to her mouth and was about to scream when three gunshots rang out. Thomas’ body jerked three times as bullets penetrated his chest, putting him out of his misery.

Becky realized that there were masked men on either side of her.

One held a flamethrower and shot a thick stream of flame onto Thomas’ body. There was a sickening crackling, like logs burning in a campfire, as the flames engulfed his corpse. The swelling along his face burst open and smaller versions of the creature that stung Thomas’ eye came crawling out; in high-pitched squeals, they met their death within the flames.

“Holy shit that was close,” one of the soldiers said.

Becky turned to look at them, counting six soldiers in all. They were all wearing some sort of metal body armor that she had not seen before. The armor completely covered their bodies, appearing bulky yet light enough as to not impede the soldier’s speed or agility. Their helmets connected to the shoulders, the lenses covering their eyes giving off a faint green glow, and their breathing sounded like it was going through a respirator.

All were heavily armed.

Three of them, including the one with the flamethrower, moved towards Thomas’ body to dispose of it while the rest remained with her.

One moved to lift his helmet. There was a hiss of air escaping as he did so.

“Is there anyone else here besides the two of you?” he asked. He had a handsome yet hard stereotypical soldier face.

Sobbing, Becky shook her head no.

He raised a finger to his ear, activating a radio.

“General, the situation has been neutralized,” he said. “Only two of them, one casualty.”

Becky could not hear the reply but she could tell by his expression that he was being told something.

“Understood, sir.” He switched the radio off.

“My name is Corporal Bollea. We’re going to escort you to a safe location and make sure you’re alright before we get you out of here.”

He pulled the helmet back down and started walking. Two soldiers, on either side of her, gave a gentle push to encourage her to follow their presumed leader.

They didn’t walk very far before they stopped in front of one of the buildings that was still intact. A faded and partially burnt sign read Jerome’s Bakery. Corporal Bollea pushed through a boarded up door. Becky stepped through and stopped when she saw what was in front of her.

In the middle of the room was a giant pit and in the bottom were piles of bodies. There were human and animal corpses, and even some that she couldn’t identify. Horror dawned on her as she realized it was a mass grave.

She heard a click behind her as Corporal Bollea held a pistol up to the back of her head and fired a single shot. Her body fell forward and landed on top of the heap of bodies with a heavy thud.

“That’s a shame,” one of the soldiers said in a deep voice. “She was a pretty girl.”

“The general wants us to make alterations to the perimeter so that we won’t be having any more visitors,” Corporal Bollea said. “These fucking kids. Why do they think this town is a playground?”

“They don’t believe the bullshit cover story they were given so they want to find out for themselves,” another soldier said. “Hell, I didn’t believe it when they told me.”

Corporal Bollea ushered the two soldiers out of the way and stepped from the building, pulling the door closed.

“The general wants us from this moment on to neutralize any intruder the minute they step foot in Hume. Is that understood? No more sightseers.”

~ Jon Olson

Hybrid

August 12, 2014August 2, 2014 ~ Veronica M.Nero ~ 32 Comments

Scampering on all fours, the deformed arch of his spine protrudes through his flesh, the flex and buckle of his bones twisting him painfully. Night has fallen but he can’t sleep or stop for long. They are hunting him, getting closer, the more they track him the more they learn about him. He keeps his mutating body shrouded, only in the most quiet and private moments can he bare to look at himself. He scuttles under his damp blanket through the dense shrub of the city foothills.

The worst thing is the hunger. A perpetual, insatiable hunger that festers within his empty gut and grates against his bones. A hunger he has only begun to understand. The last time he was inside a supermarket his desire for human food had almost diminished completely. He roamed the aisles, restless, agitated, trying to find something that looked appetizing. He dragged dirty fingertips along rows of tins and jars, everything was pickled in salt and sugar. He stared blankly at cuts of flesh packaged neatly in little trays. He stuck his nose into piles of fruit and vegetables, sniffing deeply, fascinated by the smell of pesticide and wax. Everything on display was rotten; toxic. How can people eat this shit? he thought to himself but he must have spoken out loud, a woman standing nearby gave him a sharp stare and stormed off. He scuttled over to the bakery section where he fondled the bread. He crushed a loaf in his hands, his fingers easily popping the crust and sinking into soft, white pulp. He longed to crush something alive, something with a still beating heart. The store security guard appeared, strolling up to him casually. Crossing his arms over his bulging chest, the guard said, “I’ll have to ask you to leave now, sir.”

What is his name, what did they used to call him? He lifts his sleeve. The scar says ‘BEN’. He cut it into his flesh himself, clumsily, with a razor blade. They have taken away almost everything but he won’t let them take his name.

“Ben,” he mumbles to himself “Ben, Ben, Ben…”

It becomes a dangerous chant and he covers his mouth to make it stop. He must not let them hear him.  He stops under low-lying branches, his stomach in painful spasms; he’s shivering. It has begun to rain softly. He picks up the waft of a familiar smell and he freezes, perfectly still, as the scent invades his flaring nostrils. Something to eat, something delicious, but he is too tired to move, to hunt, he needs rest. His eyes are so heavy, burning with exhaustion. Sleep circles him.

Rarely does he sleep, he knows better by now. When he does nod off, even for a few moments, the dream comes and it is always the same.

They are sitting side by side on the roof of a high-rise, their feet dangling over the edge. He is clean-shaven and dressed in a suit; his polished black shoes gleam.  “Remember the lights in the sky?” asks the little boy next to him.  He turns to glance at the boy but never sees his face, he is startled by the sound of smashing glass. He looks down to see the windows below him shatter one by one. Huge jagged shards begin sailing down to earth. Then the windows blow out in the surrounding buildings. He is watching a sea of falling splinters, glittering in the sunlight. The buildings begin to crumble, folding in on themselves and rushing toward the ground. Far below the people look like insects, disturbed from their ordered paths, they scatter chaotically. The little boy is laughing hysterically. The building they are sitting on begins to tremble.

He wakes sweating and dizzy with nausea; he vomits. He checks his scar to make sure he is really awake, ‘BEN’. The scar is the only thing he can be certain of, the only thing he can trust.

He was already a wasted man when the change began; who would listen to him, who would help him? Just another homeless drunk sleeping under the bridge, paranoid and hallucinating. That’s why they chose him. A flourish between his toes, skin dying and turning white, flaking off in patches. He didn’t pay it much attention at first, his body bore many scabs and wounds from living on the street. It spread quickly, crawling up his leg. It sprouted between his fingers, flowered along his arms. He scratched and clawed at the infuriating itch. A new skin was revealing itself as the old was shed. A smooth, slippery skin of tightly laced brown scales. Terrifying to look at and even more terrifying was the thought, the distinct feeling, that what was emerging was his true self; his real body. There is constant pain in his joints as his bones squeeze and knit themselves into new shapes, his feet and hands are now mangled claws.

Maybe it began long before these physical changes. He has vague recollections of his past, not that he can rely on the past, anyway. His drinking habit got worse; he began stumbling into work until they told him not to come back. His marriage collapsed; he didn’t fare well in the divorce. He ended up homeless with a box of useless stuff his wife left him: a hair dryer, a blender, a crystal vase, a few books. He pawned it all, enough for a room for a few nights and a bottle of bourbon.

There are a couple of earlier memories he toys with for comfort: looking up from his book in maths class, a girl across the room turns to him and smiles shyly, her blonde hair shining; playing football with his brother in the park, the ball sailing fast and hard into his face; tucking a comic book into his jacket and making a swift exit, the bell ringing as he slips out the door. Through out it all, they were always there, sinister figures looming at the foot of his bed. He caught glimpses of them in those moments between sleep and waking. He remembers only what they want him to remember, he is aware of that, and it may not be the truth. Does he even have a brother?  Stop thinking, he commands himself, keep moving. He stares at the name carved into his skin.

The delicious smell is coming closer. A dog wanders past, sniffing the ground. It spots him and lowers its head, growling. Without hesitation, he leaps the distance between them with ease and pins it to the ground. The dog lashes and snarls as it snaps at him; the battle is exhilarating. They toss in the rain, two desperate beasts. The dog lunges, sinking its teeth into his thigh. He pulls its jaw free then snaps its neck with a dull click. He is too hungry to waste any more time.

He bites at the dog’s stomach, spitting out mouthfuls of coarse fur. When finally he breaks the skin, he tears the body open with his hands. He scoops up the entrails, eating madly. He cracks the ribcage, chews on rubbery lungs, sucks the small heart still hot with life. Finally his hunger begins to subside. Panting, he crouches over the gutted dog; his face dripping gore. The dog’s blood is sweet and thick and he begins to fantasize about the taste of human blood. He clasps his claws to his face, revolted. He may be capable of anything, he doesn’t know what he will be compelled to do next.

As if to salvage some inkling of humanity, he decides he must bury the dog’s body and he begins to dig frantically in the mud. He manages a shallow pit and pushes the carcass into it. Something on the ground shines and flickers in the dim light, catching his eye. He stares at it suspiciously before he decides to pick it up. It is a round, smooth metal blank; cold between his fingertips as he wipes it clean. The tag from the dog’s collar. There is something etched on it and his heart begins to race as he holds it up. He knows what it will say. There in fine, elegant letters ‘BEN’. He wants to laugh, he wants to shriek. He emits nothing but a dry, lifeless chuckle. Clutching the tag with both hands and curling beside the remains of the dog, he begins to cry softly.

~ Magenta Nero

Do Not Recycle

April 29, 2014April 27, 2014 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 23 Comments

From where she sprawls in the overgrown grass the dog snarls wetly, while underneath her bulk, a litter suckles on her teats. She watches Johan as he passes the chicken-wire outside the garden, and he sees madness in her black eyes. The pups feed noisily. Clouds slide beneath the sun, turning her young into a shapeless mass of eager fur.

The house behind is grey and still. Half-light shines in the broken window panes and on the children’s toys in the garden; gaudy plastic tractors and oven sets still speckled with rainfall. There is a potting shed that does not look as though it has seen use in twenty years, flower beds filled with a mixture of daffodils and weeds, and at the front door a thin woman in a dressing gown. She sucks on a cigarette while the door frame supports her weight, and it is not difficult to associate the sounds of the feeding pups with her own lips as they pucker and twitch, milking the cancer stick for every ounce.

He is almost past the house when she catches his gaze. For a few seconds, eyes not unlike those of the bitch on the front lawn, burn into his and he sees the rest of the street reflected in their dejected depths. He does not belong here; a well-fed, clean-shaven man in his work suit, treading the pavement in shoes black not with dirt but strong polish. There is a reason he does not come here often, a reason that he has not visited his sister’s family for over a year. It shines in the woman’s yellow eyes, the yellow fingers by her mouth, the faded yellow lines beside the road; symbols hiding just beneath the surface of the street, in this place where the illusion is shattered and one does not have to strain to see life as it is.

His feet lead him down three more roads no different than the first before he comes to a signpost marked Pasture Street. The house could be any of the terraced red-bricks ahead, and he is thankful its number is committed to his head. He fancies that the street smells cleaner here, the houses newer, the sky brighter at the edges. It is not saying much.

As he walks up the garden path towards the crumbling white-plaster front of the house, his stomach squirms. It is several months since he has spoken to his sister, and they did not part on good terms. That was when she stopped taking his phone calls. He wrote; sometimes defensively, sometimes in anger, even apologetically towards the end, but his correspondence went unanswered.

It did not seem out of place to ask her to move away from here. Theirs was an idyllic childhood, on the farm in rural Sussex. He still remembers days spent running through the paddocks, their fishing lessons with Father, the seasonal festivals heralding summer and winter with wicker offerings; straw men and fruity women paying homage to the spirits of hearth and home.

This hard street is no place for a new family. They deserve better, especially little Chloe.

His finger finds the bell. A shrill sound fills the house, echoed somewhere above by the distant screech of a gull. The seconds tighten his ribs around his heart. He presses the bell again, then knocks against the door.

The windows either side of the house are obscured by curtains of the same floral design they grew up with. Dust clings to the glass. The rooms behind are black, unlit, and it is impossible to see or hear anything within. Hope mingles with concern inside his chest, and he wonders if they have moved house after all, if that is why Liz has not been writing back. Certainly, the battered Vauxhall that he had hated so much is nowhere in sight.

He knocks again, then crouches to the letterbox. His suit trousers ride up the backs of his legs. Lifting the metal sheet, he peers inside. Two wide eyes stare back at him through the slat.

“Chloe?”

His breath catches in his throat as the young girl vanishes from view. His niece would be six now, he guesses, or maybe seven. They haven’t moved, then. He realises he is shaking; nipped at by the teeth of the street, the stress, poisoned by anxiety and more than anything else a deep, underlying worry for his sister and her family. They are his only family now. Everybody needs blood-ties.

Straightening himself up, he stretches, flexes his arms and throws his weight against the door. When it does not immediately give he goes again, hurling himself into the wood. Each crash fills the street but none of the neighbours notice, or if they do, they do not seem to care. On the fifth try the lock splinters and he falls into the house.

Dust swirls on the unsettled air. It fills his eyes, his nose, the back of his mouth. He tastes ash, and the sweet tang of decay. Slowly his eyes adjust to the still dimness of the hallway. A chest-of-drawers emerges, an empty coat-stand, one small pair of child’s shoes, all covered in a grey coating of hoar-dust.

“Chloe?”

For a second he sees her in the kitchen at the end of the hallway; a small, thin shape standing beside the dinner table. Then he steps towards her and she flees from sight behind the door.

“Liz? Chloe?”

The girl is fast. She leads him on a chase throughout the house. Twice he almost catches her, in the sitting room and the kitchen, but each time she slips away. Clouds of dust fill the air, mingling with the rotten aroma of the refuse in the kitchen. Rubbish spills out over the lino. Cupboards leak. The fruit bowl swims darkly by the sink. In the sitting room, dust rises from armchairs like ghosts from beige two-piece tombs. He notices the curtains again; lasting impressions from a different life. A small wicker doll, a remnant from his sister’s childhood, watches him from the mantelpiece. The house shifts with silent whorls in his wake.

“Liz,” he shouts as he returns to the hallway. Ankles like bone flash past the bannisters and he realises Chloe has gone upstairs.

Another smell catches in his throat as he ascends through the house. It is deeper, more sickly, cutting through the squalor from the kitchen, reminding him with numbing dread of his father’s study. He found the man four weeks ago, sitting quite cold at his desk next to the photograph of Mother. When Liz had not attended the funeral or so much as picked up his calls, he had been compelled to come back here, where he had sworn he would never come again.

The second-floor seems brighter, where light falls on the landing. Beside it, shadows pool like moisture in the recesses of the walls. He follows the scuff marks around the landing to the room at the far end. The door is already open. Inside, the curtains are drawn, and after the glimpse of sunlight, it takes his eyes a moment to readjust.

It was Liz and Mark’s bedroom, once. Gradually the furnishings emerge from the gloom: the wardrobe, the dressing table, a television mounted on one wall, the king-sized bed, and mounted atop it, propped up against the headrest, two figures, fully-dressed.

Unease sinks into horror as he glimpses limp arms, tattered clothes, heads lolling where they rest on their shoulders. Almost immediately he turns away.

The bedroom feels colder than the rest of the house. The wall in front of him is cream, speckled with damp near the skirting boards, and something else, steaming on the carpet. He realises it is vomit, and that it has come from his mouth. He wonders if it is the damp that he could smell coming upstairs. He knows it is not.

Forcing himself to turn, he looks up; not at the figures on the bed, but their murky reflection in the dressing table mirror. When he grows familiar with their vague silhouettes, he reaches for a wet-wipe from the dressing table. It has long since stopped being wet, but it proves effective all the same when he lifts it to the mirror.

Dust smears from the glass. Wipe by wipe, the couple on the bed become more visible. Realising that a lump has settled in his throat, he swallows it down. His hands are trembling, but he forces himself to address the sight on the bed.

Something is wrong. Even through his tears, through the dirt-spotted glass, he can see that. The trembles have spread to his arms and legs but he manages to turn from the mirror to the bed.

Mark’s legs are flat. Shoes filled with sticks and stones and clumps of soil sit slightly separate from his hollow trousers. The shirt above might have been white, once. Now it is mustard yellow with stains; rot and the brown juice of the fruits used to stuff it. He can see pips, and things that look like pips but wriggle with small lives of their own.

Liz’s tights are not much better; misshapen cloth-limbs stuffed with more clothes. Liquids seep from her torso and the dark gap between her legs. Something that could pass as a pillowcase fills out her form while arms made of bundled branches drape by her side.

Their faces are white polythene bags, filled with what he cannot begin to guess. Children’s paints and marker pen account for the rest; grinning expressions imbued in black ink that they might last forever. Liz’s mouth is drawn in a wide, vacant smile. Stepping closer, Johan notices more branches, moss, shredded paper, teabags and strips of plastic. Where the figures’ hands meet, black twig fingers intertwine and he realises the white-faced macabre effigies are those of motherhood and fatherhood; thin, skinless things filled with silent love of the undying sort that can only be manufactured from crude oil and recyclable waste.

Wicker-Liz shudders, pitching forward, and Johan falls back from the bed with a shout. Mark moves next, head rolling from one shoulder to regard him with wide, empty eyes. Johan flounders across the floor as a third figure climbs spider-like from behind the debris-dolls.

Chloe does not look to have eaten properly for many weeks. Breaths wheeze through small, near-translucent teeth. Her dress might have been pretty, once, but those days are long behind it. She rests on her haunches between mother and father, and even in the dimness he can see the thin bones in her legs. Long arms grope for Scrap-Mark, her skeletal face finding his squishy fruit-chest. She begins to sing.

He doesn’t know where his sister is, or why Chloe is alone. When he tries to approach her, she clings to her makeshift mother and shrieks until he backs away. Sinking cross-legged to the carpet, he stares up at his niece and smiling Wicker-Liz. Caught in her scribbled eyes, time slips away from him, until Liz as he remembers her stares back; beaming as she runs just ahead of him through warm crops of corn, laughing when she turns back to him, goading him faster through the fields, beneath blue cloudless skies. At some point he joins in Chloe’s song, and for a brief moment, in a dark room, in a house filled with dust and decay of all kinds, a broken family finds ragged peace.

~ Thomas Brown

Pandemonium

June 18, 2013March 7, 2018 ~ Daemonwulf ~ 36 Comments

The Call of Pandemonium

Staring out at the city of death, an exhausted Hannah sat sucking into her lungs the humidity that drifted in through the empty windowpane. On a side table, her dinner plate of raw meat was brimming with life as a cadre of beetles enjoyed her ignored meal.

With an appetite for only one thing, Hannah remembered her hunger. Sipping from a goblet of wine, she watched the fire burn in the distance.

Without anyone in the city concerned about extinguishing the blaze, the fire made an easy feast of the abandoned building. Its shuttered windows and splintered timbers providing the right fuel for the eager flames.

Smoke billowed up into the night sky as a series of new explosions rocketed skyward, sending fingers of death boiling through the surrounding streets. The silhouettes of a hundred riderless horses stood before the blaze, their black shapes stomping at the ground as if they themselves were enraged.

Raising her glass, Hannah finished with a long swallow as the entire city block was consumed in red hatred.

Standing, she removed her stained blouse and soiled leather pants, dropping them on the floor beside the bed. Her clothing made the room smell of smoke.

***

The girl labored among the rubbish, moving across the mounds of filth with the deftness of an accomplished thief rather than that of the young child she actually was. Her ability to scamper nimbly up and over the detritus spoke to her eternity of slavery.

No more than nine years old, she had the gait of a woman whose body had seen far more years of labor than it otherwise should have. A dull haze coated once-bright blue eyes revealing her truth — that of having been broken long ago.

Working among the acres of rot, her bared legs and shoeless feet were sucked deep into the mouth of death with each step she took. Navigating the piles of dismembered bodies, the child retrieved one bone after another, scraping into a gore-soaked bucket the remaining meat that clung to each discarded limb.

Paying little attention to the itching on her arms, she continued about her tasks, ignoring the hordes of maggots that swarmed her flesh, turning it into a writhing mass. Such was the nature of her work for the Prince’s harvest in the killing fields.

***

Hannah walked into the bathroom and flicked on the light switch. The dim bulb set the floor into motion as cockroaches scattered.

Stepping into the shower, the cold stones lining the compartment providing the slightest hint of relief to her aching feet, she turned the faucet with a rusty creak, and a baptismal spray of rank water stung her skin.

Subconsciously, she scratched at the droplets as they beat against her body. As broken fingernails rubbed her arms raw, all she could think of was maggots.

***

“GIRL!” The deep voice boomed across the field as two sharp cracks from a whip opened red gashes on the child’s bare shoulders.

Cowering, the pain like a slice of ragged glass across flesh, she fell to her knees in the abattoir.

Again, the voice.

“Are you not listening, you insolent little bitch?” More statement than question.

The blade of the dressing knife in her left hand dribbled unknown fluids onto the ground as a swarm of flies buzzed the cage of small human ribs she held in her grime-caked right hand. Hesitantly, she looked up to meet the gaze of her attacker.

Xaphan, the harvest commander and one of the Prince’s recent conscripts stared down at her with serpentine eyes that were the color of jade. He sat atop an armor-clad steed that belched cold mist from its nostrils and kicked at the ground, snapping human remains under its feet.

“Why is it you ignore me, you filthy abomination? Do you somehow think yourself of far more importance than to listen when the Commander of the Harvest addresses you?” Xaphan snarled.

“Forgive me, but I was simply busying myself with the tasks that have been selected for me,” the young Hannah responded, her voice tentative, a single tear clearing a path through the human grime that smeared her face.

Xaphan studied the girl, an air of superiority evident on his face. For an instant, he thought he noticed the familiar spark of hatred in her otherwise darkened eyes. Sure he was correct, he flashed a gratified smile.

“Come here, you little gutter pig,” he ordered, the whip snapping again, striking Hannah’s bare legs where they poked out beneath a tattered dress. “I’ve been instructed to find you among this filth and deliver you to the Great Hall. By the death of me I don’t know what the Prince wants with shit such as you. But you must come. And somehow find some way to clean yourself up!”

Hannah dropped the carcass of the human child from which she’d been scavenging. It landed atop the pile of cleaned bones with a hollow clatter. Retrieving the bucket of harvested meat, she cautiously edged her way toward Xaphan and his steed. Both of the monsters stared down at her – two pairs of matching green eyes.

“But, it’s not for me to question His motives, only to do as He asks. Follow me, girl!”

With that, Xaphan jerked the reins of the great beast, steering him through the human debris. Hannah fell in behind, following them from the killing fields. It would become her last time working Satan’s Harvest.

***

Running wet fingers through her filthy blonde hair, Hannah massaged her scalp under the blood-tinged spray. The water sluiced off her bare skin, sweeping away the coating of death that was her normal state of being. Hell worked its way into each and every of her pores until she, now, had almost become one with it.

Almost, Hannah thought as she watched the drain at her feet swallow the shit of her existence.

Rubbing the muscles of her arms, Hannah thought about how much she hated the Prince; and how much she despised even more his disciple, Xaphan.

***

Even freedom following an eternity of torture is incapable of removing the pain inflicted during captivity. Nor does it absolve the actions of one’s tormentors. By now, Hannah knew this all too well, which is why she had spent an age searching Hell for the soul of the murderous human known as the Hunter. She ultimately found him in the last place she wanted to look – the killing fields.

Himself having suffered at the hand of Xaphan when he’d foolishly bargained with his own soul in the human world, the Hunter had spent far more years trolling the boneyard than even Hannah herself. If there was a single one of Hell’s denizens that would be able to get her what she needed, she knew it was him.

Confident in the knowledge that the Hunter was unaware that the shadows following him contained anything more than darkness, Hannah was able to hide within the murk with ease. After years of practiced invisibility living within the Prince’s dominion, she had become highly skilled at navigating the streets of Hell unseen. She now watched as the Hunter, a bag slung over his shoulder, entered the abandoned structure. And, as expected, a few moments later, a dark figure flashing green eyes slipped from the shadows, following him inside.

The time has come, Hannah thought, as she followed them into the building.

From deep within the gloom of the warehouse, Hannah saw the flash of those familiar serpentine eyes. And then she heard the booming voice of Xaphan for the first time in uncounted ages.

“Why you ungrateful murderous deviant, we had a deal,” Xaphan spat the words into the Hunter’s face. “Don’t you remember? In that special spot of yours where you realized so many desires of the flesh?”

“That was then. This is now. And this time, Xaphan, I hold the cards.” The Hunter responded, shaking the sack in front of him, the wound that Xaphan had long-ago sliced into his bare chest visible in the dim light.

“But that’s where you’re wrong, fool. As long as your soul exists, you’re mine. I carry the collateral within me always,” the demon said, patting his stomach.

“But, as we know Xaphan, deals made between liars are likely to be broken. It just depends on which liar strikes first.”

“Give me what’s rightfully mine,” Xaphan ordered, reaching a taloned hand towards the bag.

“Not this time, oh great commander of the Harvest,” said Hannah, stepping from her hiding place.

“Ah, do my ears and eyes deceive, or is it my little scavenging pig?” Xaphan asked, turning in Hannah’s direction.

As planned, the Hunter turned the bag upside down, spilling the contents onto the floor with a clatter. Inside the bag was a pile of bones. Each one meticulously stripped clean, the flesh long ago having been harvested, consumed and then shat out by the denizens of Hell.

Reaching into the deepest pocket of her overcoat, Hannah removed a flare, striking the end and lighting the flame. Sparks flew through the air and bounced along the floor where they landed. For the first time that she could remember, she saw fear in Xaphan’s eyes.

“Go, Hunter. Your work is done,” Hannah ordered.

Having maintained his end of the bargain to locate the demon’s human remains in Hell’s boneyard, the Hunter ran from the building, his footfalls echoing through the void.

Once again alone and facing her demon torturer, Hannah spoke evenly, sure of her every word.

“Funny it is that how an eternity in Hell can change everything, and yet nothing at all…”

The flare in her hand illuminated all that remained of the human man who’d become the demon Xaphan after his own millennia of torture.

Refusing to beg, the demon explained, “Oh Hannah, even with all your years, what you still do not yet know about the ways of existence. It never actually ever ends. Once one is over, the next begins and so we experience yet another in a series of painful paths.”

“Well, if that’s the case, commander of lies, it appears it’s now time for your soul to find that new path. As it’s said: ashes to ashes…”

With those words, Hannah dropped the flare onto the pile of Xaphan’s brittle bones. At first they hissed and then burst into blue flame.

The demon let loose his last blasphemous cry. It was a scream that echoed throughout the city of death. As the last vestiges of his humanity burned, Xaphan’s demonic soul began to melt, pieces of it slapping onto the floor at his feet.

Hannah took a few steps backward as flame consumed the human bones, bringing an end to the demon. Fire licked upward, sparking the rafters and spreading through the building. Hannah turned, walking out the doorway and out into the perpetual darkness.

Far off in the distance, from the direction of Pandemonium, she heard the sound of a hundred sets of hooves as the horses thundered through Hell. The Prince’s dark forces were on their way.

Hannah merged into the shadows and walked away unseen by the lost souls who now gathered on the street to watch the death of one of Abbadon’s greatest angels.

***

Refreshed from her shower of blood, Hannah poured herself another glass of wine. Surveying her handiwork, she watched as Hell burned. The landscape of decay, bathed in the blood of tortured souls, spread as far as she could see until it melted into the eastern horizon.

Somewhere outside, within the city of death, she knew that a Hunter was running for his life. Perhaps he would find a place to hide. Or maybe he would simply return to the familiarity of the killing fields. To Hannah, it didn’t matter either way. She knew that the angels of death would pursue him far beyond the fields and for time without end, sure that it was he who had been responsible for bringing about the destruction of one of the Prince’s own.

Confident with her plan now in motion, Hannah sat and consumed her victory. One glorious day, she would take her rightful place. It would be the day she re-entered the Great Hall of Castle Pandemonium and claimed the throne of Hell after finally defeating Prince Abbadon himself.

~ Daemonwulf

This post is dedicated to Hannah Sears, our own Angel of Death and Damnation and winner of the Pen of the Damned anniversary sweepstakes

I am Seir

July 3, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ Adriana Noir ~ 23 Comments

Every particle of my being strains, rebelling against the knowledge flooding my veins. It’s not nature that lingers on the horizon, poised and on the verge of attack. This is something much worse, a force far darker than the world ever dared imagine.

It is the approach of death.

The economy has brought about its own kind of strain. People cave beneath the stress and pressure of everyday life. They turn on themselves and each other with the ferocity of rabid wolves. Nothing is held sacred anymore. The world pulses to the beat of frightened mortal hearts.

I’d like to say I feel pity watching humans suffer, but I don’t. If anything, they have it coming. Mortals are greedy, self-centered creatures too blinded by their own desires to realize the damage they have done. They think they are impervious to the fate that looms above them . . . but they are not.

There will come a time when the sun no longer dispels the shadows cast by mankind. Perpetual darkness will entomb the world and smother it against her callous breast. The final battle draws near, a pointless war for a worthless prize.

My words may offend you. I only speak the truth. You are nothing but puppets to my kind. Weak and desperate you call our names, bleed us dry, and offer nothing but petty trinkets in return. You’re ungrateful, self-centered sheep, too blind to see that mortality is a blessing. Death is a blessing. To roam these forsaken planes for all eternity with no expiration date—that is the true definition of hell.

Bitterness paints my soul with vile shades of grey. Exiled and far from home, the infinite waves of loneliness batter my forsaken shore. I am faced with an infinite nothingness, knowing that the drums of war rise in the distance, and those in my company press close. They gnash their teeth in eager anticipation, starving for a mere taste of mortal blood. They will relish in your downfall and take glee upon hearing your wails of despair. Like the Pied Piper luring rats from the city, your screams will serve as music, calling forth the bloodthirsty and damned.

Do not call on me when that day comes. I care little for the wants and needs of a dying society. You brought this upon yourselves. Each lie that flowed with ease from your tongue, each withered promise whispered brought you one step closer to despair.

There was a time when I loved your pathetic lot, but time has a way of eroding our resolve. I would like to forget this time of weakness, but I cannot. Unending reminders brand my skin. My essence is tethered, weighed down by the layers of damnation draped around my soul.

I am no angel. I am a Fallen, forsaken, damned—and your time has come.

~ Adriana Noir

Diagnosis: FEAR

May 29, 2012January 14, 2014 ~ Tyr Kieran ~ 15 Comments

“Dr. Anton Strah M.D. August 12th, 2011, 8:46 am. Patient #34, Mrs. Johnson, will arrive shortly for her appointment. This will be our 9th session. Mrs. Johnson has shown significant signs of debilitating fear and phobia. She is scared of her future, fearing for her well being in the days to come.”

The man placed his recording device gingerly on a polished end table. He sat in a tall leather chair, his right leg draped over his left at the knees, exposing a few inches of pale, imperfect skin above the sock. His age was starting to show in new colorations across his body, but his lean face still clung to a somewhat youthful complexion and his gray hair projected experience and intelligence rather than an air of depreciation.

Leaning against the right armrest and pursing his lips with effort, the doctor burrowed into his pants pocket for a tobacco pipe and matchbox. He lit the Revyagin and, waving the exhausted matchstick through the air, he sat back with a sigh. His posture eased as he puffed. A few moments later, still staring reflectively at the far wall, he continued speaking to the empty room.

“In paranoia, Mrs. Johnson has closed herself off from the world, keeping communication to an absolute minimum. She has begun to lash out violently at the people around her. Over our few sessions, she’s regressed to more instinctual behaviors. There is much more to unearth here, but current findings and theories are as follows:

“Mrs. Johnson’s fear, along with all previous patients, follows a natural progression that begins with anxiety. This first stage is quite common. Anxiety is a wide-spread occurrence in society. It is one of several emotional manifestations of what I’ve come to call the Fear Index: Anxiety – Fear – Horror – Terror.

“Experienced emotions progress sequentially—one building upon the other. There are many variables that affect the speed of progression along the Index, some examples of which are re occurrence, personality traits, life experiences, and sobriety levels, but the sequence always remains intact.

“In some cases—let’s call upon Mrs. Johnson’s reactions of horror during session 2, for example—it seems the initial emotional reaction is from the top end of the Index, but with close examination the theory still holds. The stages are indeed experienced consecutively, simply at an accelerated pace. After all, one cannot experience horror without anxiety, nor terror without fear. The logic behind the Index becomes clear when each stage is defined.

Anxiety = Stress caused by minor and/or subliminal worries or problems.
Fear = Amplified anxiety from unknown dangers, real or imagined.
Horror = Fear coupled with knowledge; knowing what dangers will or are happening.
Terror = Horror with understanding, realization of helplessness and lack of control; the danger is imminent and inevitable.

“Physical variances within my patient group seem to have had no affect on the uniformity of their reactions. The noted physical characteristics are as follows: gender, nationality, age, height, weight, and physical deformities/limitations. Unpredictable variances have occurred, however, from psychological characteristics, which are, of course, more difficult to identify and catalog without more extensive analysis. Therefore, I have decided to allocate more time in that area.

“Taking Mrs. Johnson, again, as an example, she has displayed a fascinating speed variance in her Fear Indexian manifestations based on Motherhood. Her own distress yielded more subdued reactions than in the situations which focused on her offspring.

“This variance has also occurred in other patients and their array of relationships, indicating a solid pattern of behavior. Even in documented studies where the direct distress was greater than that on the familial connection, the pattern persisted.”

Dr. Strah fell silent for a moment. Puffs of smoke danced and whirled before his calm blue eyes like ethereal projections of the gears working in his mind.

“It never ceases to amaze me, this contradiction that all humans have in fear and violence. We try like Hell to avoid problems and stress. We run from confrontations and shelter ourselves with paranoia and antisocial tendencies. We scoff at the military. We shake our heads at the news. But we watch. Oh yes, we watch. And they continue to feed us violence and fear, because it’s what we want. It’s what we crave: rubbernecking at car crashes, dangerous sports, bloody horror movies, stunt videos gone wrong, snuff films, war after war after war. It’s clear we can’t live without fear and violence… our lives would lose value and become utterly meaningless.

“Ah, but I’ve run off track. So… today’s session with Mrs. Johnson will pick up where session 8 ended. I anticipate the three days between sessions has served as a period of recuperation for her, and a catalyst for amplifying the direct link to her phobias through reflection.

“I also anticipate that it will take little prodding to send her up the Fear Index. Once at top of the Index, her comprehension will be documented and discussed in the hopes of seeing improvement in her current destructive and rebellious behaviors—the road to acceptance.”

A buzzer cut through the doctor’s thoughts, humming sharply on the phone next to his recorder. With calm slowness, he tapped the embers from his pipe and propped the sculptured briar against an ashtray. Depressing the illuminated button on his phone, he answered the call. “Hello, Edward? Allow me a moment in preparation then please bring her in.”

“Of course, Doctor.”

Click

Dr. Strah, with recorder in hand, walked around the leather chair and back to a massive desk. The path beneath his shiny Oxford shoes changed from carpet to tile with a sudden clacking rhythm. A nearby coat rack supplied him with a white clinical jacket. Depositing the digital recorder on the desktop, he opened the upper-most side drawer and tugged twice on the latex glove box, as if pulling tissues from a dispenser. With sounds of stretching rubber, he pulled on the gloves and laced his fingers for a snug fit. Then, he pocketed a vial of clear liquid and a syringe before closing the drawer.

The double doors behind him opened as Edward wheeled Mrs. Johnson into the room and positioned her at the center of the tiled flooring. He was impeccably dressed and groomed in a manner identical to the doctor; black and white semi-formal attire topped with an earth-toned sweater and lab coat, slicked back hair, short beard, even the rubber gloves. He was the spitting image of a young Dr. Strah, if one could only ignore the thick scars that ran down his cheeks like streaming tears and the vivid oddity of his hetero chromatic eyes—bright blue in his right and vibrant green in his left.

Edward walked around her gurney, locking the wheels and checking the straps. Satisfied, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and leaned in to offer her a warm smile before going about his work throughout the room.

A bright light kicked on as the doctor stepped over to the gurney. He held up the syringe, filling it with liquid from the vial. “Mrs. Johnson,” he said, leaning close. “It’s good to see you again.” She squeezed her eyes shut. He pumped the hammer on the syringe, shooting a stream of morphine into the air. “Let’s begin, shall we.”

Bringing the needle down in a swift, sure arc he injected himself—eyelids fluttering as the cold tingling rush coursed through his veins. He moved his eyes across the room in a slow sweep of fascination and wonder. Eventually, they settled back on the woman and he smiled in a wide jackal’s grin. “Much better.”

Edward wheeled over a cart brandishing an array of metal tools that shot a band of reflected light across Dr. Strah’s face.

Mrs. Johnson’s quick breaths neared hyperventilating levels. Tears ran down, collecting in the curves of her ears. Her gag only allowing muffled vowels and whimpers.

Selecting a scalpel from the tray, Dr. Strah spoke with a calm passion. “As always, please depress the appropriate button to indicate your emotional level. And remember, this is for posterity, so please… be honest.”

~ Tyr Kieran