Dark Enemy

August 20, 2013March 7, 2018 ~ blazemcrob ~ 23 Comments

A hot night. Damn hot! Even during the monsoon season over here it never got cold. But now the rain is far behind us, and the moonless evening drips with heat and humidity. Shit!

My fatigues cling to me, and my GI issue boxers are giving me one hell of a wedgie, threatening to strangle my balls. Some of the guys have taken to not wearing the boxers to prevent this, but I tried it once and the jewels looked like someone had taken a meat pulverizer to them. It’s a no win deal. Wearing the boxers is a better option for me.

There is no resting tonight. Charlie is just the other side of the hills. If our intelligence is right, they have no idea we’re in the area. Yeah, right! How many times have I been told that, only to wind up in the middle of a bloody ambush? Who tips these damn Cong off? If I only knew . . .

The sounds of the jungle, the myriad forms of wildlife scattered everywhere, add a buffer to the sounds of our feet plodding through the dense underbrush. There is not much of a trail here. In terrain such as this with optimal conditions for forest rejuvenation, paths can vanish rapidly, replaced by new growth.

However, it means the enemy has not been through this area too recently. Not even here could the jungle put up a fence of vegetation to deter interlopers that rapidly.

It’s rough going through this terrain without light, but the darkness is our friend for now. If we can’t see, neither can our enemy. That makes us even. At least for the moment.

A weird odor attaches itself to the moist air, strangling me with the very obscenity of its foulness. Something tells me not to go in the direction of its source, but that’s not possible: the Cong are in that direction, and we have to strike while the irons are hot.

The air circulates more and more the closer we get to the hills, and the stench builds. I have smelled it before. It is the odor of death and rotting flesh. Human flesh.

Wondering if something is wrong with me since the others appear not to notice anything out of the ordinary, I say nothing about my increasing fears of death closing in on us. This goes far beyond any battle experience I have encountered up ’til now. And I’m not certain war has anything to do with this. Not this war; not a war between humans.

Jesus, I’m suffering some kind of sensory hallucinations reaching beyond my ability to fight them off! I appear to be rational, but rationality is an abstract concept, one not readily agreed upon.

“Straighten up, man!” I say to myself. “Something’s going down. You know it, even if the others don’t. You have to be alert.”

The night gets darker; the stench gets worse; and the comforting sounds from before lessen the farther we go. We are thrust into a vortex of darkness so deep that it seems no light has ever existed here before. Darker and darker, the closer we get to the center the more we are drawn to whatever mystery resides within.

The center explodes outwards, enveloping us in an unbelievable cloak of invisibility, forcing us to use our other senses to navigate, touch being the dominant one because taste and smell are too intertwined with what lies ahead, and we need to be concerned with what is here. In order to forge ahead, we need to conquer the present.

Hairs on my neck signal that a power resides here that is all around, sizing us up before it acts against us. For the moment we are safe, but that will change. Our acquaintance with what looms ahead will not be pleasant.

The enemy has shifted from the Cong to whatever is waiting for us, drawing us into its realm: a place where no prisoners are taken. My mind is telling me these things, but how could I possibly know? I can’t fucking see, damn it ! But I feel it . . .I feel it watching, eyes everywhere, knowing we are to come in to its lair.

Still, the others are unaware, walking along as if nothing is wrong. To them it is another day in the jungle looking for Charlie, waiting for a chance to come out on top in this topsy-turvy war.

But I am aware.

The spinning orb, totally bereft of any light, draws them to the right. Fools! They are being drawn into a trap, one from which there is no escape.

“No! No!” I shout. “Don’t go there! That’s what they want.”

No reaction. It’s as if they don’t even hear me, yet I know they’re still here. Their footsteps surround me as they steadfastly march towards their impending demise. Darker and darker; quieter and quieter. That’s why no one reacted to my warning yells! All sound no longer exists. Along with the sense of sight, we can not hear either. It is almost as if we are in another dimension, another plane of existence playing tag with our own.

My skin crawls, the stench becomes worse, and the taste in my mouth becomes a smorgasbord of filth and decay. Close. We are close now.

The air around me shakes from my comrades struggling, but struggling against what? And then I know! A sticky, rope-like substance grabs me, and the more I attempt to break free, the more entangled I become. The . . .the web, a very thick one, is increasing its mastery over my every move. I am powerless to escape. It has me in its grip. What the fuck has a hold of me?

Gagging from the odor of whatever else is trapped within the morass of servitude I’m stuck in, I feel them coming. They move quickly, and there are many of them. At this moment I’m glad I can’t hear or see anything. The frenetic shaking of our gooey prison tells me all I need to know. My fellow warriors are under attack, and they’re going down.

Within moments, they’re on me! Long fangs tear into me, some kind of liquid flowing into my body, numbing me but not doing a complete job. I struggle against all they do, even managing to grab a hold of one, feeling long, sharp body hairs, and I’m able to gouge out some of its eyes. This thing has more than two eyes. I feel them rubbing against my hands and arms. The creature goes berserk and tears huge chunks of my flesh out of my carcass with its strong jaws.

The others respond to the pain their comrade is in by upping the attack on me. They bite, chew, and drag their many legs across my wounds, twisting as they go, as if attempting to teach me a lesson.

Pushed against the web even more from the brutal assault of my adversaries, I’m totally trapped, unable to move, as bit by bit they tear into me, feasting on my flesh as if there is no food left for them or ever will be.

Even as my limbs separate from the rest of me due to the incessant, never-ending attack from their jaws, I refuse to give in, figuring and hoping that something will stem the tide, and maybe, just maybe, there will be a way . . .

Blood gushes out of me as the demons once more inject something into my body, the numbing more complete now, but putting me into a whole new hell as I am still alive, just barely perhaps, but still able to feel my body for what it is: a buffet table for my antagonists to come by and suck out what juices and eat what flesh they want, long after I’m dead. Soon, very soon, I am to join and become one with the stench from the earlier assault on my nostrils.

I don’t need sight or hearing to know that I have become fodder for entities so many humans have become accustomed to stomping on.

Who is doing the stomping now?

The giant spiders attack what is left of my body and eat their fill. The Black becomes blacker as I fade into a state of semi-awareness.

At the moment my genitals are ripped off and devoured, my spirit leaves my body. I hover over the monsters and can see them for what they are now. But it matters not to me anymore.

They can’t hurt me any longer . . .

~ Blaze McRob

The Devil Comes To Whitby

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

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

When darkness falls the Devil comes to Whitby.

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

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

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

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

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

Each night the Devil wears a different shape.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hello, Joseph.”

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

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

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

This is the shape the Devil has picked today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Thomas Brown

Grieve

October 23, 2012May 1, 2013 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 58 Comments

Enter.

Sit before the Tale Weaver.

Through this open sash wafts the spice of golden autumn, yet lulled into complacency dare be not. A harbinger, this essence, of sinister entities soon to stalk the sanctity of your threshold. Hastened your pulse, and so should it be. For in due time the graveyards beyond shall be born once more. My skeletal hand now take, and open your dormant senses to such truths as only the Tale Weaver can reveal. Yes. Yessss. One foot fore the other; step now from my tenebrous haunt.

Behold my playground! Behold the majesty of rot neath your apprehensive feet, these glorious, rusted arches serving as gateways for the dead. Across the chilled flesh of your cheek doth flit moonlight embers, or so your consciousness should have you believe. Tis the fingers of lost souls caressing your countenance, mourning the shell of humanity you now possess. This wayward wind aches under the weight of their listless repose; cease the shuddering of your limbs and heed their moans! As you are now so once were they; for what they are now so soon shall you be. Death, perhaps for you, is final, yet for these entities only in death do they flourish.

Cautious, ever cautious should you step tween the ever-sentient monuments and moss crusted sepulchers; their domain you tread. Respect these hallowed grounds, respect this kingdom of decay, for to the purveyors of putrefaction tis their crown jewel. The swirling mist; it jerks at your wrist, starving and desperate for your attention. Yes, ignorant one, tis the dead! They watch us…watch you…their doleful eyes shimmering tween the slender silvered cobwebs of the tombs. Their tendrils seek you, enamored with the stink of humanity, and in slow solitaire turns do they wish to dance at your side, their darkened cathedral of sorrow echoing with the strained chords of the damned.

The pathways, the hills, teeming with specters of eras long gone; this necropolis of the horrific busying itself for its grandest day — All Hallows Eve — so bear witness the blessings of death these hapless beings do perceive. In turn, treasure your own worthless existence and end your common grievances, lest you return, doomed and fated to roam deeper chasms of despair than you can possibly comprehend.

Your attention…drawn to the small clearing just yonder. Investigate you may; the ghouls I shall restrain whilst you stride tween the jagged teeth of plot and stone. Yet you turn to me, confusion etched deep into your brow. Aye, tis what you believe it to be…here the obscure sorrow more profound than anywhere else…here the cloying agony more suffocating than anywhere else…here the tiny monuments adorned with docile lambs, yet greater in stature than anywhere else…the final resting place for the young souls given no choice tween exemption and sin.

Dare not judge me, for your God I am not and do not wish to be. Even I cannot fathom the laws of what you call fate; aye, nor abide by its rules if I could. But these younglings I do watch from the distance, ever mindful of their misplaced light in this land so very lost.

You hear her, do you not? The long, drawn mewls of agony and torturous sobbings of a heart long since raped; tis the guardian of these younglings, there…there…tattered wings draped in black strands over the faceless, nameless tombstone upon which she perches. Yes…she…the dark angel for these beacons of light.

Gaze upon her grotesque beauty, this devourer of purity, yet your head turn from her tears. Her anguish respect. Protects these younglings at all costs and yet mourns her greatest loss, this dark angel does. I speak of a soul abandoned by its Maker; a soul denied entry by equal parts Heaven and Hell. A soul delivered from the abyss, cast back to the abyss. For eternity has the dark angel brooded upon her cold throne of shattered dreams, compassionately embracing the young that seek comfort at her thorn laced feet whilst inconsolable her own charred essence bleeds dry. For eternity agonizing over the light left unclaimed as her own.

The dark angel seethes – such is the price of unsatiated grief. Mouth jagged, a twisted hole of silent fury; swarthy locks entombing stricken face. Yearning, yearning for the sunbeam she may never hold. Beautiful, wondrous and macabrely awful…the dark angel bemoans what is beyond even my capacity.

Leave now. I command – leave now! Across unholy crypts do run with tail tween legs, and pray your ragged breath not be stolen by the ghouls at your heels. No longer I offer protection; no longer your welcome honored in our sanctuary of desolation. For on this Stygian night the abomination I am becomes something wholly else; only on this Stygian night do I ignore my own sentence of perpetual condemnation and become something other than the insidious being you loathe. Into these debased arms do I lift the dark angel and remove her from her watch. On this endless night of Stygian nights, protector I become. Upon my lap I lay her wicked head down, my sweet angel of depravity, and so she will mourn. And hold her evermore, until all that remains of us is the rot tween our bones.

Until next I summon you, be gone.

So the Tale Weaver speaks.

~ Joseph A. Pinto as the Tale Weaver

As a proud participant in this years Coffin Hop 2012 blog tour, I’m giving away an e-copy of my novel Flowers for Evelene, plus a print copy of Twisted Realities: Of Myth and Monstrosity featuring my story Memorial.

If you’d like to be one of the winners of my give away, please leave a comment on this post, and on November 1st, two random recipients will be chosen.

Don’t forget to visit the rest of the Coffin Hoppers at coffinhop.wordpress.com!

Chewing

July 31, 2012November 17, 2014 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 24 Comments

Ripping, rending, tearing at me, every – fucking – night!

Why does it always have to be this way? This thing over and over again? It wasn’t supposed to be like this, not for me. I was always a good girl; I excelled at everything! What did I do to deserve this? Why did he choose me?

I swear to God there is no reason it should have been me! Not that I wish it on some other girl, I mean, I’m not like that – that’s not right, right?

Do you have to chew so fucking loud?

Isn’t it enough that he took what he did? Isn’t it enough that I have to live it every fucking night when he comes home? Do I really have to hear it again and again? I swear I’ll puke if he starts slurping! Whom I kidding, does he ever not slurp? He always fucking slurps; he rips, he tears, he chews, he slurps! I mean seriously, fuck me!

I just wanted to see the kittens, that’s all. I wanted to see their cute little faces all snuggled up and hear them making tiny little mewling sounds. That’s what he said… how was I supposed to know he was a complete douche bag? Jay said he was cool, we’d hung with him a few times – I mean, sure, we all knew he was lying about his age, but he was so fucking hot and didn’t mind pick up beer for us, maybe I flirted a little… Why didn’t I just stay outside and fucking wait for Jay like he told me to?

Maybe no one will ever know; maybe no one will ever find out; maybe no one will ever smell it… Oh God, why me? I’m not the one this was supposed to happen to! I’m not, god-damn it! Fuck him, fuck his apartment, fuck his blonde hair and fuck his blue eyes! I knew better, I know I did. I just didn’t think it would happen to me…

Ugh, chew with your mouth closed PLEASE!

How did I let this happen? I was just hanging out on the porch waiting for Jay when jerk-off drove up and asked if I wanted to see his kittens. Of course I wanted to see his kittens, what girl wouldn’t want to see his kittens? It was kinda weird the way he asked me to come around the back to go upstairs, but we’d hung out at his place before… it seemed cool.

Ah, crap, he’s friggin slurping again… dude, really?

Like I said, I’d been to his place before, Jay wasn’t gonna be back for at least another half hour, so why not go see the kittens, right?

So I walk around to the back and go upstairs with him ‘cause he doesn’t want to bother coming around front to let me in – yeah, I’m a friggin idiot, I know, you really don’t have to say it. We get up to his apartment and he’s holding a bag of groceries and asks me…

Come On… more chewing? Doesn’t this guy ever get sick of it?

I say sure when he asks me to hold his sack (yeah, he’s real fucking funny, this one) as he opens the door to let me step in. Okay kiddies, time to pay attention because this is where the ride gets interesting.

The door closing behind me takes place in a sane and still perfect world; but as the sound of the deadbolt being thrown begins to echo softly through the darkened living room; time begins to ebb away from me in a way I’ve never experienced before. It slows down; not the slowness of an extended moment when a bottle crashes to the tile floor, but the acute awareness of an animal that instinctively senses a predator nearby; heart racing, hearing razor sharp, eyes dilating to fix on the impending threat.

As the deadbolt is thrown, I begin to turn wondering why lock the door? In the span of a heartbeat that last 7, 8, maybe 9 seconds in my distorted time frame; he locks, I turn; he smiles, I drop …the bag hits the floor. Before the scream can escape my lips, he reaches out and yanks me back into a vise-like grip. This is wrong; every fiber of my being is screaming it, my brain is trying to process it, my body is in shock – utterly immobile. What’s happening? Oh God, I know what’s happening…

That’s when I hear the crack.

It’s odd really, in movies or on TV, when you see someone get their neck broken, there’s always a sigh followed by a pregnant pause, then the body falls to the floor and…. cut! that’s a wrap folks; thank you very much – the Craft food cart is set up in the lot! Well, it doesn’t go down that way for me.

In a single fluid motion he snaps my neck to the side and begins dragging my body through the double doors into his bedroom. I’m not supposed to be able to feel anything at this point, right? Then again, this wasn’t supposed to happen to me, remember?

Every one of my senses is in overdrive. I feel the fibers of the carpet scrape my bare legs; I feel the overly indulgent sheets that this low-life piece of shit sleeps on hit the side of my face as I’m tossed on the bed; I feel his disgusting fetid breath on my neck tainting my skin with its rotting odor. I’m pulsing with terror as he rips my sundress off with one swift yank from behind. I’m desperate to protect myself; desperate to get away; desperate to strike back – but I can’t, my limbs won’t move! My quivering flesh responds only to his septic touch. The pain is excruciating; my broken and abused body lies there waiting for the release that only death will bring it.

…I must have passed out…

Ripping – rending – tearing – slurping; what the fuck is that noise? I can hear the sheets on the bed as they wrinkle beneath me, I can smell how green the pistachio paint is on the walls, I can taste the blood of the small man nailed to the cross that hangs above his dresser, I can even count the change laying on the bedside table; but I can’t feel a fucking thing – and have no clue what that noise is! Then he grants me a view by shifting so I can see him in the mirror, and what I see is him carving slices of meat off my now paralytic back while he chews them in ecstasy. Sticky red blood mixed with fatty globules slide over his chin and down his grotesquely malformed chest – he’s eating me! First he used my body like I was an extra in a grindhouse flick, now he’s fucking eating me?

Oh God… Am I awake again?

Why am I still here? Why must I lay on this bed day after day, waiting for it to end? Why didn’t I just die like I should have?

Dude, really? Do you have to fucking slurp when you eat me?

~ Nina D’Arcangela