Tag: Horror Fiction

Memento Mori

~ Joseph Pinto ~ 41 Comments

Within Mr. Vanitas’ snifter, fine Scotch swirled; it clung in languorous beads along the rim. At length, he admired its legs. Then he spoke. “And so friends, yet another month we commence together. The floor is now open.”

Nine in total shared the silence of the café. But Mr. Vanitas, he did not quite call them friends. Aficionados, perhaps. Chairs creaked anxiously. Larkish shadows, spit from the occasional candle, canvassed the walls.

“May I?” Eyes wide and far too dazzling, a middle-aged woman inquired of the room.

“Of course, Rita.” Mr. Vanitas smiled between sips of Scotch; an oaken subtleness teased the plastic smoothness of his lips. He knew the café owner forbade drinking on its premises, but fistfuls of hundreds turned the cheek of many a steely individual. Besides, no one possessed the nerve to rebuff him. Of that, Mr. Vanitas always remained quite confident.

“Thank you.” Her smile infected the gathering, eyes so very, very bright, but gourmet finger sandwiches soon passed through the room; her giddiness discarded for poached shrimp and alfalfa sprout delectability. “I died last week.”

A smattering of polite applause. “Excellent, Rita.” Mr. Vanitas, enthusiasm sincere, placed his glass down and brought his hands together. Only four meetings under her belt, and already she absorbed his teachings without question. “So very wonderful. Do you wish to share further with us?”

“Yes, Mr. Vanitas, I would. It was so much easier than I could ever have imagined, really. Completely impulsive. A car accident. The road had been very slick, and I took the turn—”

“How fast were you going?” interrupted a pudgy man jammed into a tweed coat.

Mr. Vanitas glowered at Jenson; the vibe of the café quavered. Even Rita’s eyes dimmed—just a tad. Scotch eventually moistened Mr. Vanitas’ lips back to a reassuring smile. “As you were, Rita.”

“I took the turn rather fast,” daring a curt glance toward Jenson, “and then skidded. My husband has told me countless times what to do if such a thing occurred. Of course, I ignored it all. The ravine came up quickly. The tree quicker still. I never stood a chance. Beyond that, however, I’ve sadly nothing more to recount.”

From the gathering, disappointed sighs.

“Everyone, it’s okay.” Mr. Vanitas raised a bandaged hand. “What is important is that Rita took her first step. I am so very, very proud of her. Now the next time, Rita, you must focus on the retention of your sensations. What did you smell, taste…this is most important for your development.”

She withdrew a compact mirror from her purse, dabbed makeup around the concave dent in her brow. “I will certainly strive to do my best, Mr. Vanitas.”

He nodded appreciatively. “Anyone else?” His fingers worked between his shirt buttons, scratching atop ribbons of gauze.

“Yeah.” Jenson’s meaty face shimmered—a prancing goblin—within the flickering café. “I got something.” He rose from his chair, shook the coat from his arms with a chuff. Then he yanked hard on his sweater collar, revealing a welt that ringed his neck. “Hung myself,” altogether cool and matter-of-factly, “while I had my dick in my hand.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” gasped Mrs. Delancy from across the room.

“I’m not shitting any of you. Rigged the noose from my attic rafter.”

Alexander Green balled his sandwich to the other side of his cheek. “I’m surprised it held.”

From the gathering, sly chuckles. “You assholes want to hear or not?”

“Now, now, Jenson,” Mr. Vanitas scolded. “We’ll have none of that.”

“Well, we’re always talking about pushing the envelope,” Jenson snorted. “I figured, why not off myself while choking my chicken, you know?”

“Autoerotic asphyxiation is what you mean.” Glancing at the disgust creasing the pruned ruins of Mrs. Delancy’s face, Mr. Vanitas silently amused himself. “And while some within our group may be somewhat…put off…by the visuals your death may induce, I will admit, it was another admirable effort on your part.”

Jenson settled back into his chair. “Yeah, well, that ain’t the best of it. My wife tried getting me down. Dumb fuck, who would’ve figured she’d stand below me? Crushed her on my way down.”

“Cheese and crackers!” Stanley Henderson covered his mouth.

Jenson chuckled, spittle spraying his jolly cheeks. “Never even had a viewing. Her family disowned her before we met, and you know we had no kids. My own kin died awhile back, and fuck knows I never needed friends. Only ones there were the funeral director and his partner.”

Mr. Vanitas eyed Jenson carefully from above the rim of his snifter. “I was not aware of that.” He pulled his gaze away, slowly scanning the group, fixating finally on a man seated in the corner of the café. “Robert.”

The gathering froze; Alexander Green shoved shrimp back into his mouth while keeping entrails from escaping the cavity of his torso; Ms. Bernadette fingered the bubbling hole in her throat. Even Jenson stiffened, jowls blue tinged.

“Robert?”

“Yes, Mr. Vanitas?” squeaked a shaky reply.

“What do you wish to share with us tonight?”

The man absently fumbled with his shirtsleeves. “I slit my wrists right after last month’s meeting, Mr. Vanitas.”

“Yes, of course you did, Robert. As well the meeting before that. And the one before that. Where is your sense of adventure?” He shook his head sadly. “I believe you’ve strayed from the intent of our group.”

From the gathering, a strained hush.

“I haven’t, Mr. Vanitas.”

Mr. Vanitas knocked back the remainder of his Scotch, then shattered the snifter upon the floor. “Memento mori! Do you know what that means, Robert?”

“No, Mr. Vanitas.”

“It means, remember that you will die. But do you understand what it means, Robert?”

A pitiful shake of his head.

Mr. Vanitas rose, lurched through the small arrangement toward the man. The gathering shrunk in their chairs. “Death is our inevitability, Robert. Born we are only so that we may die. Raised as children so that we may one day fit the black jeweled crown of death upon our skulls. Only the chosen may come to revel in its splendor, lather its sweet decay across perpetually damned flesh. We live only to die, and die only to die again. A fortunate lot, are we not?”

A resounding yes reverberated through the café. “And so we indulge ourselves, over and over again. But it’s never enough, Robert. In our deaths, we live out our agonies, our ecstasies, our artistic splendors. But it’s never enough…” his voice trailing away.

“So then we never die, do we, Mr. Vanitas? Not now…not ever?”

Mr. Vanitas paused in the middle of the room—deftly unbuttoned his shirt, bandaged fingers moving with fluid grace. It dropped to the floor, besides Jenson’s tweed coat. Exposed, the expanse of bloody bandages wrapping his torso; a fine mesh network. He picked at it, laboring meticulously, unsheathing ribbon by ribbon, layer by layer, until ruinous, smoking flesh peeked through; a glint of bared rib. Then lastly, with a wet rip, the veil of gauze that surrounded his head came unwound. Before them, Mr. Vanitas preened—bandages clutched tightly within each hand, a figure of charred wickedness. “Perhaps Jenson is better suited to answer your question.”

Jenson winced, the stench of broiled muscle full in his nose. “What are you talking about?”

“No one remained to see you off, is that not what you claimed, Jenson?”

The fat man’s eyes widened as Mr. Vanitas wrapped his dressings tightly around Jenson’s neck. “You see, Robert, we do not truly die until the very last person we know in life dies. Not until then.” He jerked mercilessly until Jenson’s final death wheezed from his throat. “I do expect you to die in the best interest of our group from this moment forward, Robert.”

~ Joseph A. Pinto

© Copyright 2013 Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

Beyond Trapped

~ Tyr Kieran ~ 27 Comments

Beyond Trapped

I blink my eyes, but nothing changes.

A complete, debilitating darkness veils my vision. For several moments, I wait, hoping that my eyes simply need to adjust, but no details emerge from the ink-black void.

I turn, looking for something, anything, and the hair on the back of my head crackles, like coarse sandpaper in motion. Then, my ear makes contact with a cold, hard surface and I realize I’m lying on my back.

Where am I? Is this a dream?

I experience nothing but total darkness in either direction.

Maybe I fell and cracked my skull. That might explain the memory loss and malfunctioning vision.

Though I can feel—feel my chest rise and fall, my eyelids moving, my tongue sticking to the roof of my pasty mouth—I sense no pain; in fact, my entire body tingles as if I’m floating atop ocean waves.

In the process of raising my arm to grope for head wounds, my hand smacks into resistance. I search that surface instead, finding it to be cold and smooth, just like the floor. The overhead barrier resides a mere four or five inches away. I can feel the faint rebound of my rapid breaths, tickling my pores and eyelashes—the exhalations smelling sweet, like fruit, but also a bit stale and skunked.

How long have I been here?

I slide my hands along the overhead plane and it doesn’t take long to reach corners—side walls. I’m enclosed. Trapped. Contained in a box.

Oh, fuck! Is it a coffin?

Maybe I’m dead and this is my purgatory—confined in a world of my own making, crafted by a life riddled with bad choices and ruled by lazy indecision.

I frantically feel for the game-over tattoo, the topographical Y carved into a cadaver’s chest during an autopsy. Yanking up my shirt, I pull through the levels of resistance as buttons pop off. The revealed skin is smooth, uncut.

I’m not dead, but the sigh of relief never comes as my thoughts quickly turn to the next possible explanation:

Oh God, I’m buried alive!

My lungs seize and I can’t breathe, the air suddenly locked away.

The momentary break in exhalation allows a different odor to permeate my senses. It overpowers my olfactory system with the rank properties of sour milk, raw hamburger, and fecal matter drizzled with corn syrup. It’s an unmistakable aroma; one that even an inexperienced person like me can instantly identify… death.

Hot bile surges up my throat and is only held at bay by my desperate need to breathe. In a convulsion, I cough out the old and choke down the new. Gasping, sweating, and on the verge of tears, my frantic hands stumble onto something other than the walls or myself.

The object isn’t exactly solid… or dry. My fingers explore the round surface sitting to my left: brittle fibers, sticky fluid, and a spongy covering that slid around under my inquiring touch.

This time the rising bile is unhindered and I vomit. The warm acidic chow flows over my shoulder—most likely splattering the rotting corpse next to me. The putrid odors swirling around my nose threaten to keep my stomach in a perpetual state of upheaval, a tailspin of sorts in which I’m the pilot watching helplessly as death grows nearer with every rotation. Thankfully, my stomach hits Empty after two retched sessions.

My thoughts begin to swirl again as I battle a few lingering dry heaves. Even the most moronic funeral homes in the country, the ones that mislabel mausoleums or bury coffins before their viewings, couldn’t mistakenly shove two bodies into one casket, especially when one has been dead for quite some time. No, someone put me here… intentional entombment, but, why?

Panic strikes. Casting aside all previous hindrances—the thick stench, a convulsing stomach, seized lungs in terror—my breaths pull hard and fast, surpassing the pace of my lurching heartbeat.

Why would someone do this to me?

“I’m a nobody,” I sob, moaning the words to myself in the dark. “I don’t know anything! Why am I here? WHY?!”

The plea echoed painfully around my head like a vehement swarm of wasps. When the ache subsided with the last reverberations, cold silence poured in, bringing attention to sounds I hadn’t noticed before. I held still, listening.

I could decipher a faint mechanical whirring, a droning that ebbed and flowed in quiet waves. And, there’s another sound, too. It’s intermittent… a faint, single bell like the victory chime of a distant carnival game.

If I can hear these things, whatever they are, then maybe I’m not buried deep.

A surge of confidence urges me to action. I feel the surfaces of my confines again, but this time searching with greater care and determination. If there’s a way in, there’ll be a way out.

Eventually, I have a discovery. The sensitive pads of my fingertips detect a line. Directly above my face, there’s a tight seam in the otherwise smooth metal. I don’t know what type of coffin would feature a center seam running the length of the vessel, but I can’t think of one that would have a flat metal lid, either, and there’s no time to contemplate the limits of my knowledge base.

I finger the center line, trying to find a grip on the edge, but it’s too fine, too smooth. Fumbling and growing frantic, I keep at it. Sweat beads on my face, I can feel the prickling heat tickling my pores. At last, I gain purchase; a sliver of fingernail jammed into the seam. Surprised at the sudden change, I pause, forcing my heavy breathing down to an inadequate hiss like that of an officer disarming a bomb. Slowly, I wedge more fingernails into the tiny crack—eight in all. Then I start to pull.

At first, there was mounting pressure, but that quickly escalated into sharp pain. The resistance is too much. I stop to think, to rest.

Could I do this? Could I pull it open enough to get fingertips in there before…

Something stirred in the darkness.

Ice crystals bloom inside my skull and my eyes bulge, still seeing nothing. My ears twitch and tingle in wait of a sound. Then a sound came.

A muffled string of words calling from the void, too distorted to comprehend despite their utterance so close to my ear. My entire body jerks. Startled and instantly terrified, I start screaming. My shrieks, too loud in the confined space, shoot spikes through my eardrums, but that pain is overshadowed by the agony coming from my fingers as I pull at the seam. I feel my nails tear free as a paper-thin beam of light slices into my eyes.

The gap widens, bathing me in blinding light.

I feel myself shaking.

Something has my shoulders, gripping me.

A sharp slap across my cheek.

My eyes adjust and two elderly faces gaze back at me.

“Wha—”

“What the Hell’s a matter with you?” The gruff voice came from a burly old man.

“I, uh—”

“Yeah, look at his eyes,” the woman mumbled. “They’re dilated.”

“Hey,” the old man said, shaking me again. “You’ve been freaking out in the elevator. Poor Charlene, here, nearly had a heart attack when you started screaming in her face on the way up.”

I look around, blinking hard, and finally begin to comprehend the situation. Mr. Koplouski, my landlord, stood in the hall with 83 year-old Charlene Eldelman at his side. At the end of the hall, behind them, the Sunday morning sun blazed in through the window. Glancing down I see my favorite clubbing clothes, a blue patterned button-down shirt and black leather pants. I also see my undamaged hands, fingernails and all.

That’s the last time I partake in the free sugar-cube handouts.

“Sorry, Sir. It, uh, won’t happen again.”

“It better not, or I’ll rent your apartment to someone else! Now, go home and lay off the goddamn drugs, will ya.”

“Yes, Sir, Mr. Koplouski. Sorry.”

I shuffle past them and down the hall toward my apartment. The floor rippling beneath me with each step and every door started oozing blood from the blinking peep-holes.

Fuck, I gotta get to bed!

~ Tyr Kieran

© Copyright 2013 Tyr Kieran. All Rights Reserved.

Lullaby

~ Joseph Pinto ~ 45 Comments

It became my ghost, that lullaby—its virulent strain infecting not only the cloaked woods that surrounded us, but also the ears upon which it fell.  It haunted us all, wormed its way into our brains and cored our frightened eyes to hollowed orbs.  Unlike the other girls, who mewled in dread as those tinny chords crackled out from the absolute darkness, I sought to discover its origin.

I was as terrified as the rest; perhaps more so, for I managed to keep my mind threaded to reality while preventing the lullaby from wholly poisoning my thoughts.  I needed to if any of us were to survive.

The other girls shoved into a uniform mass of shuddering limbs against the bars of our cage whenever the lullaby serenaded us, yet I remained apart, prone and flattened atop the floor, face pressed against the cold, slickened bars, focusing on its source.  At first, tracking it eluded me, my emaciated stomach becoming its own troublesome din.  Eventually I learned to ignore my hunger growls, as well the sobs from our band of captives.  Soon, I gained a morsel of information; useful as it was.  Somewhere—from an old phonograph, perhaps—the lullaby popped and hissed its chords away into the night.  This had to mean the old woman lived in a dwelling close by.

As for the creature, that remained another mystery altogether.

By my measure, captivity had defined me for nearly five months.  Abducted in spring as I took my morning stroll through the park—a chemical soaked rag ripped me from my normal life.  I had since stopped wondering if my husband and children believed I was still alive.  Even if by some miracle I managed to escape, I knew I would return home a husk of the woman they once knew.  During this past week, a chill threaded our nights of imprisonment under the stars; autumn made herself known, and my gut instinct whispered that I would not come to feel winter’s grasp.

Within the cage, I remained the only grown woman; the others ranged in ages from seven to sixteen, their body development my only means of guessing.  Fear had worn our faces down to indistinguishable masks.  I used to glow whenever my husband told me that I looked much younger than my years.  I always smiled when mistaken for my oldest daughter’s sister.  Such cruel irony that my youthful appearance served to bring this misfortune upon me.

Tonight, a breeze rose again from the sentient woods and while our sunburnt, naked bodies trembled under its touch, a scent of something fetid clogged my throat.  Though dirt and feces caked us, this horrible stench was not that.  It had soured my stomach on many occasions before; ultimately, the precession to the lullaby. And so I steeled myself.

I stretched flat atop the cage floor, and peered between the bars out into the nothingness and waited.

“What are you doing?”  A whisper from behind.

Katie—perhaps only sixteen.  She reminded me so much of my oldest daughter that my soul ached.  “Listening.”

“For what?”

The woods then crackled, releasing a static charge into the air.  Behind me, the girls scuttled like manic bugs.

Baby mine, don’t you cry

Unreasonable terror descended upon us all.  The girls’ high-pitched shrieks pierced the night, but my gaze remained unwavering through the bars.

Baby mine, dry your eyes

Katie threw herself down beside me; she was shivering like a leaf.  I gripped her hand.  “Let me concentrate,” I said.  She nodded, teeth chattering inside her skull.

Rest your head close to my heart

The girls screamed as one.

Never to part, baby of mine

Soon thereafter, the footfall of the creature pounded through my chest.  Katie must have felt it too, for her breath drew ragged in my ear.  “What do we do?”

“Pray that neither of us is taken.”

Little one when you play

Indifferent to the hysteria within our cage, the lullaby wafted in its heavenly timbre.  It betrayed us every time.

Don’t you mind what they say

A lantern’s glow floated to us from the darkness, its purpose one we knew all too well.

Let those eyes sparkle and shine

The creature’s footfalls resonated stronger through the floor.  Desperation suddenly gripped me—the lullaby, the constant and promised threat of death.  I turned toward the girls, the churning mass of desperate bodies, those agonized faces cast under pale moonlight, and sobbed against the bars.  But Katie squeezed hard upon my hand and snapped me back into focus.

Never a tear, baby of mine

An apricot radiance fell upon us.  The girls’ shadows swayed all about, and I did my best to hide within their shallow pools; I hoped it would be enough to detract attention from Katie and myself.  The old woman emerged from the thicket, face shimmering at the door of the cage.  Much like us, she wore no clothing; her skin affected, however, not by the elements, but by age.  A ragged sack hung from her hip.  Her puckered mouth moved to the tune of the lullaby.

If they knew sweet little you,
They’d end up loving you too

She placed the lantern at her feet.  The keys to our prison jangled within her fingers.  “Who’s my lucky one tonight?”

The hysteria resumed.  The old woman stared through the bars, oblivious of it all.  Oblivious of us.  Now unlocked, the cage door squeaked open and she shuffled in, the lantern behind her silhouetting her hunched form.  From her sack, she withdrew a tattered, old nightgown as well as a six-inch bladed knife.  I pressed myself down hard onto the floor of the cage.  Beneath us, the ground tremored, and I could hear the snap of tree boughs as something advanced.

“You,” the old lady spat, her gnarled finger jabbing toward a girl whose knees were drawn to her chest as she rocked back and forth upon the floor.  “Put it on.”

She was no more than seven.  I am confident those crippled eyes of hers once carried the warmth of the sun, but not anymore.  The little one wet herself in distress.  With a deftness that always astounded me, the old woman lunged and seized her by the wrist.  In wide arcs, she swung the knife with her free hand, keeping any would-be rescuers at bay.  In one motion, the old woman draped the nightgown over the girl’s soiled head and then dragged her from the cage.  Aside from the desperate gouges her fingers dug through the loose dirt upon the floor, the girl offered no resistance.

They never did.

All of those people who scold you
what they’d give just for the right to hold you

The creature’s roar shattered the night.  Girls bayed; cries for their momma went unanswered.  Worse still, the cackle from the old woman’s lips, and the glint of lantern light captured within her beady glare.  She slammed and locked the cage door behind her once more.  Off she lurched, the point of her blade at the young girl’s back, the lantern’s glow bobbing along.  Together, they disappeared into the woods.  They left us alone with the chill gnawing our bare shoulders, the metallic resonance of the lullaby failing to soothe our ears.  From somewhere out in the coagulated canopy of darkness came a deep-bellied roar.

Then awful, earsplitting silence.

***

The following morning, Katie pulled me to the far side of the cage.  Sometime during the night, after we had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, the old woman had returned and thrown ladles of porridge through the bars.  At least, I assumed it had been the old woman.  The girls ate, scooping breakfast from the churned dirt with their hands.  “You said you were listening.  For what?  Maybe we could have saved Monica and the others before her.  Maybe we could still save ourselves.  We can’t let the old woman take us away like she does.”

“Please, keep your voice down.”  I surveyed the cage.  While some of the girls shoveled dirt and porridge into their mouths, most sat with empty gazes.  “Something is out in those woods, we know that.  The old woman must summon it with that lullaby.  And whatever is out there obviously hasn’t harmed her.”

“There must be more people helping her.”

“One would tend to believe, but there is no certainty.  All the times I’ve listened, I’ve yet to hear anyone else.”

“The girls who’ve been taken.  Do you think they might still be…?”

“No,” I said, far more curtly than I wished.  “It’s time to stop dwelling on the maybe’s and the why’s.  We need to focus on finally getting out.  And I may have an answer.”

A glimmer of hope flashed within Katie’s eyes.  She must have been a beautiful girl once; I wondered if she ever had the opportunity to kiss a boy.  “The old woman’s peripheral vision is nonexistent,” I continued.  “She’s never noticed me lying on the floor.  It unfortunately took me some time to realize.  But as the oldest one here, I’ve still some wits left about me.”

“Oldest?  You’re no older than I am.”

For the first time since my abduction, I smiled.  “Katie, I’m old enough to be your mother.  It’s what got me into this.  It’s what might get us out.”

***

Six days had passed since my conversation with Katie.  On the third day, the skies opened and so we drank from putrid shallows of mud.  My strength had ebbed considerably.  I paced the corners of the cage, keeping my limbs as agile as possible.  No one spoke; we huddled in cold discomfort.  Six days…and on the sixth night, the lullaby crooned anew.

From your head down to your toes,
you’re not much, goodness knows

A cacophony of turmoil gripped the cage.  The girls were beyond reason.  I grabbed Katie by the shoulders, and pulled her face to mine.  “It’s time,” I said.  With that, my desperate plan was set into motion.

I crawled along the floor, Katie beside me, and then pressed my face against the bars.  Like a clone of my panicked heartbeat, the creature’s heavy footfall assaulted the ground.

But you’re so precious to me,
sweet as can be,
baby of mine

The lantern approached, the knotted woods sputtering in its glow.  Beneath the melodic beckoning of the lullaby, I thought I heard the creature snort.  “It’ll be alright,” I soothed Katie, wondering if I lied only to appease myself.

A rattle of keys—the crinkled face appeared at the door of the cage, once more wearing a crooked smile.  “Who’s my lucky one tonight?”

Katie waited until the old woman entered, and then rose from her position beside me.  Cautiously, she entered the fringes of our jailer’s vision exactly as I had instructed.

The old woman’s misshaped head snapped toward her.  She scrutinized Katie for a moment, and then drew the nightgown and knife from her sack.  Katie glanced at me nervously as I held my breath, praying she would not reveal my position.  The old woman tossed the nightgown at Katie’s blackened feet, and I exhaled.  “You.  Put it on.”

Side to side the blade swung as Katie placed the nightgown over her head.  I sprang from the ground then, pushing my withered body to its limit; the sheer action of launching from my bare feet ignited agony in my joints.  Whether or not the old woman saw me attack from the side, her blade still managed to slice my brow; now my own vision was compromised by blood.

I tackled her, clumsily wrapping my thin arms around her leathery body.  Far stronger than I deemed natural, the old woman stood her ground, and I screamed my throat raw as her knife pierced my shoulder.

I collapsed—the whinnies of the girls surrounded me, and a growl sounded from the creature in the woods.  Above it all, my ghost, that lullaby, sang to me.

If they knew sweet little you,
they’d end up loving you too

I staggered to my feet.  The old woman suddenly yelped—Katie had done as told.  Through the scarlet mask covering my eyes, I glimpsed Katie yanking the nightgown over the old woman’s head, which caused her to drop her knife and keys in surprise.  I scooped both from the floor, spun her around and jabbed the tip of the blade into her back.  “Walk,” I demanded and shoved her from the cage.  By the lantern’s glow, I quickly shut the cage door, locking the girls in behind me.  I tossed the keys between the bars.  “Keep yourselves locked inside until daybreak,” I ordered Katie.  “If I don’t return by then, free yourselves.”

I grabbed the lantern, then pushed the old woman forward.  She howled, understanding her predicament—if she removed the nightgown from her body, I would kill her in cold blood.  Like an obedient calf, I prodded her along; she babbled uncontrollably, but the lullaby and the snorts of the creature smothered her pitiful sounds from my ears.

We trudged deeper into the woods.  The brush tore at my feet but still I pressed on; to where, I did not know.  The lullaby seduced me as the lantern flame flickered and gradually went cold.  The dark suffocated my senses; only then did I question whether my surmises held merit.

Then it emerged, a blackjack oak snapping at its feet, something so huge it threw the very pitch of night aside.  Its foul stench rolled from its mass as it stooped over us both.   “There, there,” the old woman whispered.

The creature sniffed my body.  I gagged upon its putrid breath.  Its moist snout moved slowly along my neck as a sharp talon grazed the top of my shoulder.  Feeling.  Touching.  Pinpricks of white twinkled in one eye—the starlight reflected back from within its inky, remorseless orb.  It peered upward, measuring my response.  Urine trickled along my legs and I dropped the knife to the ground.

All those same people who scold you,
what they’d give just for the right to hold you

“That’s right,” the old woman cooed.

The shadowy outline of a thick, knobby arm touched my bare skin.  It hesitated, and then reached for the old woman, tugging at the nightgown.  “There, there, baby,” her voice suddenly becoming strained.

A horrendous growl burst from the creature’s jaws, then it knocked me aside.  In an instant, all faded—the old woman’s cries for mercy, the thump of the creature’s footfalls as it dragged her deep into the woods.  I lay there shivering atop the moss and lichen.  Eventually I rose, praying I could find my way back to the girls, the chords of my ghost, that lullaby, keeping company at my side.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

© Copyright 2013 Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

Oats

~ Joseph Pinto ~ 46 Comments

Folks ask all the time how I came to be raising my brothers and sisters. I tell them that my Mama and Daddy, they just run off. Guess they tired of having us kids. I tell folks that. It’s much easier than the truth of things.

We was poor back then. We still poor right now, but we was piss poor then. My brothers and sisters, we ate oatmeal from the same bowl. Notice I didn’t say shared cause when it come to five hungry children, well, five hungry children they don’t share. Five hungry children bite and scratch when food comes near. Mama, she gave up getting between us early on, on account that we needed to learn to fend for ourselves. I ain’t raising no babies, Mama would say, even if we was only babies in our own right. My brothers and sisters and me, make no mistake, we all loved the other, but we learned right quick to eat that oatmeal the second Mama ladled it into the bowl.

Now Daddy, he be out working all day long. Sometime I hear him rustling around when the sun still down and then the whoosh of the front door as he left. If he was lucky, he’d come home just in time for dinner, all us still round the table. We ate that oatmeal for dinner, too. That’s the only time we did share, ’cause Mama always ate first. Daddy too, if he was home in time. He’d scoop it right up from that bowl, right up onto his plate with those black hands of his. Daddy scrubbed his hands all the time with that bristle brush atop the slop sink, but Mama said when you work so hard sometime the dirt, it just curl up inside your skin.

Daddy worked real hard, I know that. He was never no lazy man. Sometime when you work construction, the money, well it just ain’t there to be found, I remember Daddy saying. “Ain’t no money to be found,” he’d tell Mama and me and my brothers and sisters as we ate our oatmeal. “Still ain’t no reason for me to ever stop looking.” I was always proud of my Daddy. Proud of him and his black hands.

I eventually learnt that being hungry and poor does funny things to grownups. Us kids, we made do, mostly ’cause we didn’t know any better. Us kids, we forgot we was poor until oatmeal time rolled round, mostly. After awhile Mama and Daddy though, they started grumbling under their breath about it. Time went by, their talking got louder and louder. Sometime us kids was sleeping, but other times, Mama and Daddy kept us up at night bickering about it. All that shouting. Cabinet banging, too.

Mama, she got real quiet round Daddy when we was all together. She got jittery-like. That made me nervous. And Daddy, we noticed the change come down over his face. He started coming home earlier and earlier every day. His hands not so black any more. Heard him whispering to Mama how the construction was nearly dried up. When Mama told him forceful like that he’s got to look harder for the money, he turned around, face all swollen and red like he just got himself stung by a bee.

***

I remember real clear the time Daddy told me he was gonna rob the Tooth Fairy.

I was hanging laundry on the line for Mama. Daddy come around the corner of the house, wringing his hands worse than Mama wringing the washcloths. He called my name. When I see how wild his face looked, I nearly spilled my clothespin bucket. “How long that front tooth of yours been loose, girl?” Daddy asked me, voice all strangled like.

“Week or two,” I say.

“Should fall out soon then. Real soon. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir. I reckon it should.”

He nodded, but it wasn’t a nod like a man agreeing to something. Daddy nodded like he was sentenced to death. I ain’t never been so scared in all my life. “Good,” he said, but he ain’t talking to me no more, he’s talking to himself. “Good, cause that tooth meant to fall any day now. Maybe any minute. I’ll be ready. Sure as shit, I’ll be ready.” My Daddy, he realized he never used cuss words in front of us kids, and it snapped him back to the here and now. “Listen, honeysuckle,” he said, ’cause that’s what he called me, honeysuckle. “Daddy found a way to make money. I ain’t proud ’bout it, but it’s a way. Now you keep this secret from your Mama, and brothers and sisters too, you hear? I’m gonna take the money from the Tooth Fairy when it come for your tooth, you understand? Don’t look scared now, girl. You know Daddy ain’t never find no reason to stop looking for the money. Well, I been looking, and I been thinking, and I found us something real good.”

“Stealing ain’t never good. You taught us that, Daddy,” I said, close to tears.

Daddy brings his face real close to mine, and my tummy hurt when I realize I don’t know this man no more. “That’s right, honeysuckle. But I know that Tooth Fairy gonna have more than enough of what we need.”

***

I slept with my hands stuffed in my mouth, terrified about that tooth falling out of my head, pressing just as strong as I could press to keep it up inside my gums. I remember waking that morning, waking with my arms down along my sides. I scraped my tongue all around inside my mouth ’till I felt that horrible hole where that tooth should have been.

Daddy stood, just waiting there in the doorway, body all slumped like the air’d been sucked from his chest. His eyes was wilder than any animal I’d ever seen. He brung a hand to his lips and shushed me real gentle like. Leaving me trying to decide what terrified me more…the fact that the black was gone from his hands, or that he was rolling my tooth between his fingers.

“Don’t go waking your brothers and sisters now,” he says to me, ’cause we all crammed into the same room, our mattresses squeezed up one against the other. “I’m gonna lay this tooth ‘neath your pillow tonight, honeysuckle, and come the morn I wager we’ll be set just a little bit better.” And with that, he just slipped away like a ghost in the stories me and my brothers and sisters scare each other with at night.

I did as Daddy said; I didn’t say nothing to nobody. Didn’t feel much like eating oatmeal that day either. I guess it was ’cause of keeping that hole in my mouth a secret.

Mama tucked us all in that night, and Daddy came in after. He kissed me last. I wrapped my arms round him like he was the teddy bear I wished he and Mama could buy me. His lips were tender on my cheek. Then I felt him fumbling under my pillow. He pulled away, and I wish I could of said Daddy don’t do it, Daddy there’s got to be better way! But he swore me to a secret, and I ain’t never disobeyed my Daddy. It was late by the time I fell asleep, that tooth beneath my pillow giving me dreams something wicked.

I’m still not sure what time it was when that window started sliding upward. Mama kept it locked come autumn, but the draft still found its way in and the nip, it always got right down to your bones. But somehow that night, that window come unlocked and sliding upward. Sure enough, the wind start moaning through the room. I squeezed my eyes real tight and did my best to make-believe I was sleeping. The window, it just keep creaking open. I started praying to the baby Jesus that the wind howling through our room was the worst thing I’d hear. But it wasn’t.

I heard it. It was a whole lot raspier than my brothers’ and sisters’ breathing. Real harsh, like nails dragged across shingles. I straight near piddled my panties when something meaty dragged itself over the windowsill. I sensed something hovering over me, its shadow darker than the dark of my closed eyes. It snorted, its stinky breath wetting my cheek. Next thing I know, my pillow done lifted straight from the bed, then settled down again. Coins start rattling in my ear.

Our bedroom door suddenly banged open, and I heard a big tussle. Groans and grunts and screaming… god-awful screaming. Then a shotgun blast. Something splattered all over my face. When I opened my eyes, Mama was sliding down the wall, but she ain’t got a head no more. And my Daddy, he be choking on a knife stuck straight through his throat. I grabbed my brothers and sisters and dragged them half-asleep from the room quick as I could. We ain’t never slept back in there again.

Since then, I ain’t never had the chance to stop looking for the money. My hands are black now, just like Daddy’s used to be. And those folks, they ask all the time how I came to be raising my brothers and sisters. No one’s gonna believe the truth. The truth of how my Mama and Daddy really done killed each other. The truth of how I saw the Tooth Fairy leaving through the window. Crooked finger at its yellowy lips, shushing me real gentle into yet another secret. I don’t tell no secrets, never have, never will.

We still eat that oatmeal. Got to—especially since I used Daddy’s old pliers to pull out every last one of our teeth.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

© Copyright 2013 Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

The Other

~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 36 Comments

With a steely-eyed gaze, she watches those far below performing their meaningless and menial tasks. Her clawed feet grip the head of the gargoyle she squats upon as the wind tunnels down the avenue. Her wings flutter slightly; she tries to hold them closed yet they begin to unfurl nonetheless. This one has no control. She caresses the stone creature she clings to. I see longing in her expression for the days when their corporeal brothers took flight with the likes of our kind.

Tasked with watching her movements, yet instructed not to intervene, I take a perverse pleasure knowing that she hunts so near the house of their current prevailing god. Glancing over, I survey the cathedral of this Saint Patrick. It’s a magnificent structure, shame it serves no purpose other than to collect lost, frightened sheep. This urban sprawl is no different from any other these humans have littered the ground with – houses of false worship, dens of inadequacy, squalor in the name of ownership. They do love their tenement housing and the riches it brings them to take advantage of the less fortunate. Even the well-to-do who buy into their own lie of opulence live like rats in a sinking cage. Some are enlightened and grateful for what is shared with them, but most – they display undignified arrogance, believing they’ve the right to divide the land among themselves.

Visually sorting the wriggling maggots below, she spots one that holds her eye longer than the rest. She scents the human while I watch her. Then I look down and immediately know what she is taken with. No, please no.

My gaze slowly rises to watch her once again; she is patting her stone companion on the head, scoring it with her talon and a smear of blood so others of our kind will know it belongs to her. Task complete, she sets off in steady yet slow pursuit of her prey.

The girl on the ground is not going far – I know exactly where she is going. A short taxi ride takes her to her chic-to-be-common Tribecca residence guarded by an ass in a ridiculous hat. Settling in a stone archway a short distance away, I wait for what will happen next, though in truth, I already know.

The girl enters her building. Minutes later, the entire top floor illuminates. I picture it in my mind’s eye: she removes her coat, hanging it on a hook as she pulls the clip from her hair, allowing her mane to fall freely about her shoulders. She kicks off her stilettos, sliding them to the side with a delicate bare foot. She drops her mail on the sideboard as she begins her evening ritual. Why was she on Madison Avenue today?

I watch as sly satisfaction crawls over the Other’s features. I’m sure she’s wondering if the advantage of enjoying the finer things in life will make the girl taste sweeter – I would wonder myself. Meanwhile, I nestle deeper into the cloaking mask of twilight as the shimmering refection of the Hudson glimmers in my eyes.

***

Night has fallen, her prey has settled comfortably in for the evening, or so the poor girl thinks. I feel regret, but like all other things, this too shall pass… Dropping to the ground, the Other opts to visit the door-monkey, an unnecessary cruelty. He rushes to grant her egress. Most of our kind hide their true nature from these humans. She prefers to flaunt it… let them see her shimmering wings, her clawed feet, her taloned hands; let them see all she has to offer – haughty bitch! Her hold over him masks his fear until she decides to let him feel it; I am guilty of wearing the same mask, but not for the same reason. As she walks past the door-monkey, I watch while she mockingly thanks him for opening the door. He bows in supplication; her left arm strikes out, crushing his head against the marbled wall of the foyer. Kneeling beside him, she removes the ring of keys attached to his belt and shakes the ichor from her hand at the same time.

She ascends the stairs, walks across the well-appointed lobby and calls for the elevator. It arrives and as she has guessed, the Penthouse unit requires key access for the lift. She inserts the key into the slot, smears a finger across the button labeled ‘P’, and the doors close behind her. I can see no more from where I am. I move to the building’s ledge, finding better vantage to watch what is to unfold.

The elevator doors open onto a comfortable yet highly privileged loft. The thought that the girl living here knows of her arrival must have crossed her mind by now, but to one like her who enjoys terror as much as flesh, the squealing pork is that much sweeter. My heart rises to choke me.

She begins to walk through the apartment; I see confusion on her face. There are antiques of great value here; stone carvings hang upon the walls that are far too reminiscent of our kind’s past. She runs a finger across a 17th century credenza in exquisite condition, a Celtic dragon carving hanging above it. She glances at my latest gift, a Victorian fainting chaise poised below the windows opposite the entry. Most Manhattanites, wealthy or not, don’t posses such things. Her interest is piqued… and the hostess in residence has still not come out to play. I swallow the sickening feeling in my gut.

The Other sniffs the air; I know what she smells. The scent of warm honey and jasmine coming from the left – it often greets me. She heads in that direction.

Following along pace by pace on the outer ledge of the building, I reach the room the scent is emanating from the same time she does. She slowly pushes the door open as I peer through the window. What I see confounds me for a moment. The girl, my girl, my pet, is lying placidly in a tub of warm water, steam rising from it, hair pinned atop her head, with a cloth resting across her eyes. I simply stare. She must know by now it isn’t me, why hasn’t she run?

My lovely pet begins to speak, the movement of her lips the only thing disturbing  this twisted diorama.

“She won’t like that you’ve come here. You should leave.” Even through the glass wall of the window and the vying sounds of the street below, I hear her taunting the Other. My eyes sting in the biting wind. Goodbye my beautiful pet.

Shock freezes the Other in place for a moment, indecision caused by the unexpected brazen nature of the creature resting in the water. Then realization dawns upon her; this human is already kept by another. As if sensing this comprehension, my pet lifts her arm from the water to display a small black feather inked on the inside of her left wrist. It is the mark I make upon my own.

Moving her hand to the edge of the cloth, my pet lifts it slowly from one eye; I see my own arrogance radiating from her gorgeous emerald lens. Lowering the cloth once more, her arm sinks back into the water, she waits. I am to blame for this.

The Other loses what little control she has maintained up to this point. She dives at my pet, ripping her throat open with snapping teeth. I watch as she tears apart tender flesh with raking talons and scratching claws. Honey and jasmine scented water splashes the room as my own vision tinges red. Within, I silently howl my rage. Throughout the encounter, my pet does not struggle… not once. She dies with dignity.

I slowly withdraw from the glass as the Other withdraws from the bathroom; she backs down the hallway. Sensing she is being watched, her head whips toward the bank of windows set into the exterior wall, her eyes narrow, nervously searching. There, in the darkness, I crouch.  Waiting…

skull_fangs2

~ Nina D’Arcangela

© Copyright 2013 Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.

FILTHY

~ demonauthor ~ 37 Comments

Randy was a portrait of self-control. He typed furiously to keep his mind off of his bursting bladder. His left leg quaked and sweat beaded on his brow. He brushed a damp clump of hair back into place and looked nervously out of his cubicle. He typed some more.

It wasn’t a deadline he feared. It wasn’t a tyrannical boss with plans to keep him late or work him over the weekend. It wasn’t even a woman he’d slept with from another department, one who might swing by to make his life miserable. He swabbed the counter with a wet wipe and tossed it in the trash.

“You okay, buddy?”

It was a co-worker. Randy looked into a joke rear-view mirror that was taped to the top of his monitor to see to who it was. People in the mirror may be more annoying than they seem, was printed along the bottom. He recognized the face as Sam. They’d worked together for several years.

“Fine, just busy.”

“You sure? You’re sweating, dude.”

Randy checked his face in the little mirror and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. The pain in his full bladder twinged again.

“Fine. Lots to do is all.”

Sam shrugged and left him there. He said, “Lunch at twelve, don’t be late,” as he walked away. “Yeah,” Randy muttered under his breath.

He looked at the clock to see lunch was still two hours away. Then he looked at his coffee mug and regretted the second cup. He couldn’t stand it anymore. His chair rocked up on two wheels, almost falling over as he shot from his cube. Stray papers slid off the desk and floated, like autumn leaves, to the floor.

Randy cringed, focusing all of his energy on the ice pick in his crotch. He felt the moisture on his temples start to drip down the sides of his face. The noise of the office, droning on as usual with phone calls and clacking keys and Xerox machines, seemed to grow in volume.

“Morning, Randy,” a chipper voice said.

He didn’t compute who it belonged to, but nodded. He could feel the eyes on his back, the concerned looks on the faces as he passed by, sweating, walking in a stilted, gotta-go manner. Then he reached the break room, feeling like he might explode, wetting himself in a moment of embarrassment he would never live down. His feet drug the carpeted floor with a scrubbing sound, and then he stamped them as if they were asleep. It helped briefly with the pressure before making it worse.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he whispered with each subsequent step until he reached the bathroom door. His hand wouldn’t reach for the handle. He stood staring at it, biting his lower lip and without realizing grabbing his penis with his other hand. The flow had released from his bladder and was only damned up by a finger-and-thumb tourniquet.

His eyes lingered on that brass knob, sparkling in the fluorescent light. He gritted his teeth. The knob pulsed along with the capillaries in his eyes. He could see things swimming on the handle, tiny things with legs. Globular things with cilia or flagella that slid across the metal as if they were taunting him. Randy increased the grip on himself. His stomach turned at the thought of touching the handle, boiling bile at the top of his esophagus. He was going to vomit or he was going to piss himself.

Voices from around the corner distracted him from the handle. They were walking toward him; they would see him holding himself and perspiring like some schoolyard pervert. The footsteps tapped on the linoleum of the break room floor. In a moment, they would hit the carpet and it would be too late. Randy grabbed the handle with a grunt, bursting into the bathroom and rushing to one of the three stalls. The door swung mostly shut behind him.

“Thank God,” he whispered.

The bathroom was empty, but he didn’t notice. He was busy unzipping his fly around his gripping fingers, rolling his boxers down to reveal himself to the porcelain receptacle.

“Thank God,” he repeated.

Then he let loose, spraying urine on the wall and the toilet seat before gaining control and letting the painful relief consume him. His sweat-covered body shuddered in the air conditioning. When he was finished, finally empty, he leaned against the wall of the stall, from one cubicle to another, and closed his eyes.

Someone else came in. The creak of the self-closing arm on the door caught Randy’s ear. There were two voices, some he didn’t recognize.

“Catch the game?” one said.

Randy relaxed at the dull banter. They weren’t checking on him and that was all that mattered. He would be able to plan his exit. How not to touch anything before getting back. His mind cranked out ideas, but all of them stopped at the bathroom door. He could get out of the stall and wash his hands in the sink, even leave the water running, but then what? He had to touch the door handle. It was crawling with bugs… just like everything else.

He could wait until one of the others—the bacteria infested—came in and the door would be open long enough to escape.

He waited for the other two men to leave. They laughed and washed their hands without a care, but Randy knew better. When the door closer creaked again, he let the stall open, and pulled the door in with his shoe.

He scanned the room, even bent down to look under the other two stalls. They were empty, but his face was only a foot from the floor and he caught a whiff of stale urine. He straightened slowly, watching the floor crawl with life. Cold shot up his spine causing goose bumps on his arms. Randy rushed to the sink, seeing the same things swirling and rolling across the hot and cold handles. He scowled at the soapy fingerprints on the mirror, the mysterious, brownish drip marks in the sink, the wadded up paper towels on the counter and on the floor. He twisted the handle for the hot water and waited to put his hands underneath it.

The water wasn’t pure. Randy could sense it. The soap dispenser had a button to push, but it was caked with liquid soap, crawling with life—demonic, microscopic death that was just waiting to engulf him and eat him molecule by molecule. Waiting to get inside his body and rot him from the inside.

He detected a hint of color to the water and his paranoid eyes grew wider as he stooped for a closer look. They were there, little monsters, swimming in the stream amongst the aerated bubbles. Then Randy lost his balance.

His shoe slid, just a bit, on the wet ceramic tile and a purely involuntary action sent him into fits. His hand touched the floor to keep him from falling. He mouthed a scream, but nothing came out. His body jerked to stand, rigid as a piece of dehydrated spaghetti. Holding his hand up in dramatic fashion, he stared in horror. Millions of crushed organisms coated the skin of his palm; millions of others swarmed the tiny carcasses and began to devour them. It was only a matter of time before they would multiply and start eating him.

He looked at the water. Swimming. The soap, completely engulfed. The mirror, covered in spatters of miscellaneous liquid and fingerprints of the uneducated. Back to his hand. Had they doubled already?

Tripled?

He backed into the corner praying the door would open. He could rush to his desk and sanitize his hands, then go home to his pristine shower. No one came in.

The creatures ate, growing larger, then dividing. So many he could feel them dancing across his skin, moving up his wrist to the flesh of his forearm, headed for center mass.

“No,” Randy whispered.

He started to shake, rubbing one hand over the other in an attempt to slough them off like an old skin. They just grabbed his other hand, splitting and multiplying, covering both hands.

“No,” he said, his voice wavering like a goat.

He dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to scrape them off. Then into his forearms, digging curls of skin loose. The scratch marks filled slowly with blood, then dripped onto the floor. He watched the floor bubble with microbial excitement, closing in on the red drops. Then, like tiny vampiric ants, the mass crawled toward him, covering his shoes, then up under his pant legs to his socks and onto the skin of his shins and calves. Randy screamed.

“Get them off of me!”

He clawed at the flesh of his arms, then his legs, pulling his pant legs up and scraping meat loose from his lower legs. He shrieked with fear, oblivious to the damage he had caused to his own body, blind to the blood and chunks of himself that he held in his own hands. He pulled at his cheeks, clawing at his eyeballs and penetrating one. One fingernail came off in a vicious yank. Terror was his anesthetic.

Sam entered the room in a rush just as Randy’s shrieks were dying down. His skin was pale, bluish. He glared at Sam with the eye that still worked.

“Jesus, Randy, what happened? What’s going on?”

Randy continued to dig hunks from his body.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, croaking the words out like a bullfrog. “They’ll get on you. Don’t touch me.”

Sam shouted for help, bringing others to the office restroom. He dialed his phone, calling for help.

“Don’t touch me,” Randy said again. “Filthy.”

He kept repeating the word, filthy, as the blood drained.

~ Dan Dillard

© Copyright 2013 Dan Dillard. All Rights Reserved.

Sweet Nothings

~ Joseph Pinto ~ 58 Comments

Little bitch.  Thought I’d never find out.  I found out all right. Oh yeah, I found out.  Knew it from day one.  Just kept my mouth shut.  Knew it all along.  Six months and counting now.  Kept my trap shut about it.  Sealed my lips.  Think I’m crazy, don’t you?  Think I’m pretty sad for sticking around.  Keeping her.  Hey, I know what I’m doing, man.  Been waiting it out.  That’s right.  Patience is the best revenge.  Fucking hard to do, man.  But I been waiting it out.  My girl’s been playing a game.

Too bad by my rules.

You know the best part?  My girl’s been coming home late at night.  Shit, the wee hours of the morn.  Me all in bed like I’m sleeping when I’m not.  Watching her in the dark, eyes squinty and all.  Watching her peel her clothes off.  Feeling those titties I’ve had in my mouth a thousand times brush against my arm as she gets into bed.  I make believe like I’m waking up and all.  Run my hands over her tight little body even though I know she been worked over by other hands not too long before.  Course, she’s gotta lay there and take it.  Then my prick gets hard and we fuck.  I fuck her hard too, cause she can’t deny me.  Can’t make me suspicious.  I fuck her hard.  There’s a nasty grin on my face.  It’s too dark in the room for her to see it, and I laugh to myself when I whisper all sweet shit into her ear.

Little bitch.

I know what her guy looks like.  Passed him a few times out on the street.  Once in a bar.  He don’t know who I am.  Don’t know me from Adam.  Besides, I blend with the crowd.  That’s my way.  None too special on the outside.  Just special on the inside.  That’s what momma always told me.  I was special on the inside.  Nobody else quite like me.  Took me awhile, but momma set me right.  Told the truth.  If she was still around, she’d be proud.

I know where my girl’s guy calls home.  Some apartment.  East side of town.  Where trouble lives, at least that’s what they say.  Gotta laugh when I hear that.  See, I was born on the west side and made trouble too shit scared to stick around.  That’s the only reason trouble lives there nowadays.  On account of me.

I told you, patience is the best revenge.  Been biding my time like a big old dog slobbering over a bone.  Never get too tired of gnawing on it.  Oh no.  Not at all.  Tastes sweeter the longer you work it over.  Understand what I’m getting at now?

Paid her guy a visit today.  Don’t look at me like that.  I had to do it. Only so long you carry a charade.  Look at me, using big words now and all.  Yeah, momma would be proud.  All grown up and I finally know what I want to be.

A better man.

Yeah, had a nice face to face with her guy and all.  Told him the way I see things.  Good thing to talk your grief out with another man.  Real good being social.  Separates us from the animals.  Told him I didn’t appreciate him fucking my girl.  He understood.  Told him I didn’t appreciate him getting my girl home late at night.  Not safe.  Plus it ruins my night’s sleep, especially when I get up early and all to open the machine shop.  Boss depends on me.  Got to give a good example.  Can’t do that with eyes half shut.  He understood that, too.  Real good being social, I told him.  We’re getting somewhere.

Then I slugged him with the claw hammer I had under my coat.

Gonna leave a nasty mark.  But you never know.  He’s got long hair and all.  Might just cover up the dent.  I apologized to him.  I have a conscious, you know.  Yeah, I apologized.  Except he couldn’t hear cause I knocked him cold.  Hey, I tried.  Counts for something, doesn’t it?

Dragged him into his bedroom.  Spread him on the floor at the foot of his bed.  Yeah, the same bed he been fucking my girl on.  Gotta make that right somehow.  Gotta balance things out.  So I strip the pillowcase off a pillow.  Maybe the same pillow my girl’s head been on?  Maybe.  Probably.  Don’t matter anymore.  Drop the pillowcase at my feet.  Close my eyes and jerk off across it.  Think of my girl as I do it.  Feel closer to her somehow.  Like we just had…what do you call it… a menash ah trah, or something like that.  A three-way, for Christ sakes, is what I’m saying.  When I’m all done, I shove the pillowcase into his mouth and gag him.

He’s stirring a bit.  Coming around.  See, I didn’t hurt him all that bad.  I slam the claw hammer across his knee.  Just to make sure he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.  Eyes damn near pop from his head.  I grab his throat good and tight.  Just getting his attention.  I think I got it.  Tell him if he wants to walk again, he best stop flapping his arms and leg around.  He listens.  Good.  I pull pliers from my back pocket.  A box cutter from inside my boot.  Then give him his choice.  Your fucking fingernails come off one by one.  Or I cut your dick off and shove it through your fucking eye socket.

***

I find a Heineken inside his fridge.  Import shit.  But it’s beer.  And it’s cold.  Bites the back of my throat a bit, and that’s all I want.  I scrub my hands real good.  Pulp going down the drain makes me laugh.  That poor fucker never had no choices.

It’s gonna be a long night.  But I can’t wait to see my girl later.  Gonna fuck her.  Kiss her hard.  Look into her eyes.  Tell her I love her.  I really, really love her.

There’ll be a nasty grin on my face.  It’s always too dark in the room for her to see it, and I’ll laugh to myself when I whisper all sweet shit into her ear.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

© Copyright 2013 Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

Heed the Tale Weaver: A year of decrepitude we have suffered at the clawing hands of our Damnlings; now the punishment is upon us. Come forth from the shadows, “WANDERER”, and claim from us our Damned souls as your prize!

Visit this wicked, wandering one at secondstaronther.wordpress.com

Sex-Starved Thing

~ Joseph Pinto ~ 73 Comments

Nails grate across stone; she comes for me.  Hellish echoes impaling the frailty of my senses through the back of my skull.  Scratch, ssssscratch.  Blistering pants herald her arrival from somewhere deep within my institution of darkness.  Blistering, born sodden with covet, sin.  I am unsure to whom those breaths belong.

She comes for me.  My sex-starved thing.

Beg

Limbs twist; these cords bite into wrists, offering little freedom, holding fast my famished body to this chilled limestone.  So chilled.  I strain to see her; this dark surrenders nothing.  I shudder with the callousness of a desperate want.  So desperate.  Nails grate across stone; ever closer she slinks.

Beg

“Choke me,” into obscurity, I gasp.

Nether’s inviting ledge…always upon which I teeter.  A void exists below, an oblivion so familiar; I will be lost should I fall.  Much the same as this thing…this thing the light of sun has never licked.  “Choke me,” mouth too careless, eager.  My dick throbs, pulsing with a life I wish I myself had known.

I will taste you first

Toes curl; shadows shift so subtly beyond blind eyes.  Fingers clench; shadows shift so subtly beyond screaming senses.  She is all around me, shifting so subtly beyond wildest imagination.

Open

My sex-starved thing I never disobey.  Mouth parts; beads of moisture tease my lips.  I arch against my bed of gypsum, slam inhibitions atop stone, aching for her to break me.  Delirious, this wait.  I swallow dank air, the fester of her home; finally, her tongue fills my mouth with the sweetest taste I could ever despise.  Swirling, swirling over teeth, probing, probing deep into ragged throat.

Fire, raging through my head.  I gag; her tongue clogs my passage.  I desire more.  Always more.  “Choke…me…” I bite down upon pulsing meat in my mouth.  Chew upon festering wretchedness.  Deeper her tongue thrusts, sealing pharynx, sealing remains of wasted breath within my gut.  Endearing, her plague, burying my last wail deep into chest…snuffing life as I asked…interring me with the usual disclosure: she will never belong to me.

I have found the perfect end.  She was born to make me hurt.

Nether’s inviting edge beckons; body numbs, stars bursting behind my lids the only light mine.  From the cusp of unconsciousness, she gently rouses me.  I cannot see.  I am blind.  Her leer fondles; the skin crackles over her jaws.  Somewhere from deep within, the dissonant scuttling of things bloated with far worse than abandon.  She nuzzles my cheek; her tender, moist lips nuzzle my own, grazing so softly the diseased affection left unspoken.  With razor teeth, my sex-starved thing rends flesh from my face.

Sweet agony.  Howling…so desperate for her tease.  Fingers rake my heaving chest—Heaven.  Hades burns beneath her nails.  Squirm squirm squirm I do—her little slug.  These cords do not yield; in turn, she yields no hope.  Into my abdomen, sink her nails.  I spit the contagion of my devotion from reverent mouth, screaming for more.

Within the deadened, inky blanket of her lair, the fervor of her gaze singes my engorged organ.

“Consume me,” I offer.

My sex-starved thing snorts cruelly over my body; the chill she illicits delicious.  Breath swirls across pelvis.

Beg

Those bloated things, they scurry away.  Reverberating between the stalagmites, feelers seeking some other form of rot.  Done with me before even they start.  My beautiful destroyer, she has only begun.  “Consume me!”  A challenge from bloody lips.

Beg

“Please…”  Terribly deft fingers wedge a spreader bar between my legs.  “Consume…”  Cuffs snap, bite into ankle, nearly to bone.  “Me!”

I am numb to her affliction.

A chortle, repulsive beyond limits of known sanity.  Brutal, pitiless—a stony palm seizes my shaft, squeezing as her sadist mouth engulfs, razor blade tongue sucking, lapping.  Shredding skin from my dick, shredding as she bobs.  Coarse hair pricking my stomach, shredding shredding until I erupt; an orgasm of blood.  My essence, it escapes in rhythmic pulses, filling her mouth—the seed of all my sin.  Slowly I bleed out, for me, for her.  Body stiffening; this sensation of depletion exquisite, my only regret that no longer do I die virgin deaths for my sex-starved thing.  She has murdered me more times than I can count.

“Now steal me…”  Mouth betraying me always.

My sex-starved thing lies atop me, my death rattle commencing beneath her jaded eyes.  She laughs, the sweet music of all gone wrong.  Lowers her head.  Tears my throat apart.  She eats, she snickers; spits blood, semen back into the wheezing hole in my neck.  Taunts some more.  The joke is always on me; I love my sex-starved thing.

She slides along my body.  Nipples graze skin.  The stone, it chews spine.  I remain mutilated beneath her—an emasculated piece of nothing, a chunk of meat detained by her lure.  Broken, so willing for her promise.  Ruined, left yearning for more.

Blistering, the tortured pants between us.  Still unsure to whom those breaths belong.

“Steal me,” pleading to the worst of all I am.

She obliges; it is what she does.  My curse the blessing she delivers.  Fist deep she plunges into my chest, twisting, tearing at my very corruption.  Her brutality unmatched, rending my heart free of its cage.  The lump of flesh now my dick twitches.

It belongs to me

She devours my heart.

The gagging nearly immediate.

The gurgling incessant from her mouth.

Resurrect…me…

Somewhere in the dark, she collapses.

“Never,” voice oily in her lair.  I wait until silence clots my ears, shred wrists free of her knots.  For all the Devil in me, I love my sex-starved thing.  I could never tell her of the poison within my heart.

~ Joseph A. Pinto

© Copyright 2013 Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.

Ashes to Ashes, Blood to Blood

~ 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

© Copyright 2013 Blaze McRob. All Rights Reserved.

Run

~ 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

© Copyright 2013 Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved.