The Flock

October 16, 2012February 28, 2013 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 22 Comments

The boys flock screeching to the locker room, their faces red and wild from the cold. One runs, arms outstretched, as though attempting to take-off. Another rushes, flapping, to his locker. A third hops onto the benches at the centre of the room and, his head thrown back, croons loudly. His throat swells, victorious; his was the winning football team.

One boy follows afterwards, calmly and more quietly than the rest. He does not screech or flap his arms, and if his face is red or wild from the cold, it is because it is his face, and helpless to be otherwise. He cannot change his face, although he has wished for this many times before.

The room fills with the flutter of sleeve arms as the boys begin to get changed. Socks grow long where they are pulled from the toes; longer, longer still, until they tear from ankles and snap like synthetic sinew through the air. It is early afternoon and the autumn wind is playing with the tree outside the window. Red leaves press like outstretched hands against the opaque glass.

The same boy pauses, his sweatshirt around his shoulders, and studies the scarlet palm-prints. Their redness reminds him of other things: burst berries, flushed cheeks, the colour of split lips and the stains down the arms of his school shirt. He wonders how a colour can be so many things, how it can mean so many things, and still be beautiful. It is just a colour, after all, the same wherever it is seen.

He stares intently for several seconds, the world around him fading beneath the bright red of the leaves. Then he loses himself once more in his sweatshirt. The name label, which tickles his neck and then his face, reads Bran Thomas. The room smells damp and feels cold against his goose-pimpled skin.

Around him, the others prance and preen. Sometimes their faces are expressive, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Other times, it seems, they barely have faces at all. One is studying himself in the mirror above the sink, moving left, then right, his reflection doing likewise in the glass. From where Bran stands there is no nose, no mouth, no face that can be seen, but he imagines a sharp beak and two unblinking eyes in their place. He knows that beak. He has felt it before, or one like it, and the ceaseless peck of its words.

Shouts ricochet from the locker room walls. When they reach the communal showers they distort, in that way all sounds do when they bounce from bathroom tiles. Bran hears jubilation in those sounds, and taunts, and mimicry; so much mimicry. It is cacophonous in his head. He wishes that worms turned in the ground beneath them, or that the pink throats of their parents hovered above, come to regurgitate food into their mouths, silencing those hungry beaks for one solitary minute!

The shrieks escalate, grow shrill. He steps back to his locker, which is already open, and shields himself behind the metal door as the boys fly into a flurry of movement. His little heart rattles, like a cage of frightened lovebirds in his chest. He fears for his sanity in the midst of such madness. He fears he is the mad one, the outsider of the flock.

He thinks of lovebirds, and wonders why they are called such. Do they love? Are they more than birds because of it, or indifferent except in name? What of scaredbirds too, and deadbirds, and whatdoesitallmeanbirds?

One of the boys falls into his locker, so that the door swings into Bran’s face. It is a senseless gesture, accident or otherwise, and Bran feels reaffirmed. He feels pain too, where the door has struck his nose. He sinks to the floor. The rich metal-taste of red fills his mouth.

The tiles are cold beneath his feet. Blackness encroaches on his vision, then whiteness, growing from the strip bulbs above. The bird-boys circle overhead, beaks clacking, and he hears malice. He hears stupidity and joy and inconsideration. If there is an apology, he cannot hear that. He does not think there is.

Bran’s toes scrunch slowly, over and over, feeling the mud that has been trawled in from the playing fields. With conscious effort he takes a long breath. The fluttering in his chest begins to slow. The grit between his toes is grounding. It is a moment, the moment, in which he realises he is not like the other bird-boys. They hop and screech and peck for giblets, their beaks black, like the crows in the ditch behind the football field. They are a faceless flock, drawn to shiny things, or thrashing insects in the ground. Their bones are light. Their forms slight.

Bran’s chest is heavy with petrified lovebirds. They sit like stones behind his ribs and he knows he will never fly. He will never be as the other bird-boys: the crows, the magpies, the voracious playground vultures.

They swarm from the locker room, these other boys, the corridor ringing with their shrieks and the beating of their feathered arms. Bran is left alone, with the grit between his toes, the slap of scarlet at the window and the taste of the colour in his mouth.

~ Thomas James Brown

Mercy – Chapter 2

October 9, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ Hunter Shea ~ 24 Comments

(continuation of ‘Mercy‘ chapter 1 s2iKoL-mercy )

Jessamine slept often, those first few days after her return. I was allowed to take her to the garden for one hour each day, where I read poetry to her and piled dozens of fresh picked flowers on her lap. The hail storm had laid waste to our vegetable garden, but the heartier flowers that lined the old house were spared its wrath.

“Do you remember how it felt when…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the question. Father had told me to never mention the word exorcism again, especially in front of Jessamine.

She shook her head. “I don’t remember a thing. It just felt as if I’d disappeared, like sleeping without dreaming.”

“Please don’t go away again.”

“I promise, I won’t. Big sisters are supposed to take care of their little sisters, not the other way around. Thank heavens you had Lucy to watch over you while I was…gone.” She cradled Lucy in her hands, smoothing her thumb over the tiny fracture.

I had to say something that had puzzled me ever since her possession. “You’d think living in the Reverend’s house would have prevented something like this from happening. I mean, this is sacred ground of sorts. ”

Jessamine stares at the old stone manse, at its tall windows and gabled roof. Her eyes glazed over as if with fever. Her lips were dry and cracked and her voice was soft and distant when she replied, “Yes, you would think so.”

Despite father’s insistence that we put Jessamine’s episode behind us, lest we give the evil the power to creep back into our lives, it was hard for me to stay silent. I had so many questions.

I lay in my bed letting the questions twist round my brain. The moon was full and brilliant and cast silvery shafts of diaphaneity across our small bedroom.

How did the evil worm its way into Jessamine?

Why her?

Where did it go?

How did it go? Was it simply a matter of saying the right words by the Reverend, or was it something more, something that couldn’t be seen or heard?

“I’m sure it’s in hell, where it belongs,” my sister blurted from her sleep. It was if she had read my thoughts!

It gave me a terrible fright. I touched her lightly on the shoulder but her heavy exhalation told me she was in a deep state of sleep.

The house took on a preternatural silence and the radiance of the moon no longer seemed so gay. Sleep did not come easily.

I was awakened by Esther’s piercing scream. Jessamine and I threw off our blankets and rushed down the stairs.

Esther was still in her nightclothes. A wide, dark streak of blood marked the trail of her pained walk from her room by the kitchen to the dining room.

She reached out to us with shaking hands. “Help…me!”

It was awful. Her round face was red with strain and rivers of tears flowed from the corners of her eyes. Our charwoman had always been a source of invincibility in our home. She lay upon the floor like a helpless rabbit caught in a trap. Her leg was a mass of gore. With trembling hands she tried to stanch the flow of blood.

My father brushed past us and knelt by her side. He asked her how she had come to be hurt but poor Esther could only babble. The house was awash with our cries.

Mother had been given a prescription of laudanum to help her frayed nerves, so she remained oblivious to the commotion.

“Jessamine, fetch me that cloth over there,” he said.

When he turned to ask for her help, I saw the red, pulpy swath that had been carved into Esther’s leg. The edges of the wound were ragged, as if…

As if something had gnawed the flesh from her leg.

Esther’s moans died in her throat when she passed out, and I ran to the well to fill a basin with water.

The doctor arrived an hour later. He took Esther with him to the hospital. She awoke when Father and he lifted her from the floor and screamed like a madwoman all the way to the doctor’s carriage.

None of us ate that day. We couldn’t get the image of her gnawed-upon leg out of our brains.

“Father, what could do such a thing to Esther?” I asked. “Could it have been a wolf?”

He shook his head and smoothed the sides of his great, bushy mustache. “I’m not sure dear. Esther was in no state to tell us. Perhaps when she settles down at hospital, she’ll recall. I’d say it had to have been some animal she encountered in the yard. I want you girls to pray for her recovery and that it wasn’t…rabid.”

When mother awoke in the early afternoon, she shuffled throughout the house, calling for Esther, wondering about supper.

It seemed we couldn’t escape the madness.

~ Hunter Shea

Chapter 3 will be available on Halloween Day on Hunter’s blog, www.huntershea.com. To be concluded on Pen of the Damned in December!

A Fouling Wind

September 18, 2012January 14, 2014 ~ Daemonwulf ~ 42 Comments

Papa’s gone. And I’m alone. Again.

As dusk is swallowed by night, I peer through the glass of the front door at a world that carries on without me. In the dirty, etched glass that serves as my window into the world I rarely enter, the reflection I’ve grown use to stares back at me. As the years have passed, I’ve come to realize the face is mine. But I know it’s not the one I was born with.

There’s a smell in the air. It frightens me…

Outside, tall oak trees cast long shadows across the road that snakes past our home — sharp fingers scraping the pavement, desperate to crawl away from the setting sun. Their branches are engaged in an ages old battle, pummeled by the invisible fists of a foul-smelling wind. Between the rustle of leaves, I hear the roar of the metropolis that lives around me. It must now stretch for miles beyond our neighborhood – a secluded enclave reserved for the city’s elite. We were once the families of the ruling class – the wealthy, the industrialists, and ‘the ones with the most to lose,’ as Papa would often say.

Automobiles rumble by in the distance, their angry horns bleating dissatisfaction. A trio of motorcycles growl, carving their own paths down paved streets far beyond where my eyes can see. Overhead, gleaming airplanes leave white streaks in their wake as they crisscross the sky. The patterns remind me of Tic-Tac-Toe played on scraps of paper with Mama, so many years ago. The din of the sleepless city invades this home that Papa built, as he says, ‘to protect us from the evils that dwell beyond our granite walls.’

Inside, my guts churn. Something’s coming…

Papa is a good man — a proud man. But even though he doesn’t say it, I know he’s also a very sad man. There was a time when Papa feared nothing. Now, it seems, fear consumes him. Sometimes I imagine I can see the terror that hides behind his eyes — wicked shadows living just below their surface. I can’t help but feel that he wants to make sure his fears find a new home, somewhere deep inside of me.

Papa doesn’t want me to go outside alone anymore. He never explains exactly why, saying only that so many horrors ride on the back of every wind, and that they’re particularly dangerous for a ‘little boy like me’ — a phrase he’s very fond of using.

While I often ponder what Papa sees on the wind, something tells me I already know, without him having to speak the words.

When the wind blows, I believe I can sometimes sense Papa’s fears. I smell their rotten odors as they arrive on the slightest of breezes. And their stench grows stronger as frenzied gusts howl through the trees. I like to believe that what I smell is simply the decay of the city; but deep inside I know it’s actually something far, far worse.

Deathhhhhh…

The thought turns my skin to gooseflesh.

While known for his honesty, I don’t know if Papa’s been entirely truthful with me. If nothing else, I fear he’s keeping things from me, sharing only what he wants in order to protect me from what he’s sure exists outside – ‘evils too dangerous for a little boy like me.’

I can’t count the number of times Papa’s told me how much he can’t bear to see me hurt. I know he’s talking about something much different than scraped knees or broken wrists. And I can’t help but think it’s my ruined face that has him so concerned.

Rather than risk his pain, I now try to do as Papa asks. I stay inside as much as possible.

Here, locked behind the door, I stare through the window and wait, watching day bleed into night and then back again. It’s an endless procession of time that marches past in a world that has forgotten I ever existed.

The wind blows harder. And the stench grows stronger. Oh, Papa, where are you…?

Today had been the same as most. Papa was dressed in a meticulously appointed suit — the creases of his pant legs pressed so sharp they looked as though they could slice a finger. Like clockwork, he placed atop his head a matching black top hat. When he dressed this way it reminded me of the days when he used to work at the bank. That was when Mama was still around.

“Son, I’m off to pay a visit to the Goldbergs. You remember Samuel and Rita Goldberg, no?” Papa asked. I nodded, even though I didn’t.

“I’ll be lunching with the Rubensteins, and then need to check in on the Schultz sisters before returning. You know, they don’t have many callers these days, the poor, lonely dears.” I thought his last statement rather ironic.

This was almost verbatim what he said every day. Only the names changed from one to the next.

“And Robert, remember…stay inside. Don’t open the door for anyone but me,” he said, pausing. “You know how much I care for you, son. You’re all I have, and I don’t know what I’d do if anything happens to you…”

He stopped before uttering the final word, but I knew, even though unsaid, he meant to end his sentence with ‘again.’

Papa rubbed my head, mussing my hair.

“I’ll give Mrs. Rubenstein your best wishes,” he said, with a flash of a smile and a wink of his right eye behind which I was sure I could see the darkness that terrorized him. Then Papa was out the door.

He’s afraid. And so am I…

Hours had passed since Papa had left, and he was still not home yet. This was unusual, even for a man as busy as he.

Staring out into the dimming light, something felt strangely different about today.

That’s when I noticed the car approaching on the road. Anxiety chewed at my insides.

Oh Papa, Papa…you need to come home soon.

It was almost unheard of to have visitors these days. We never saw the friends or family who once streamed into our home for dinners, holidays, or simple chats. I suppose time takes its toll on everything, including the memories of those you once loved.

While not exactly out of the ordinary to see cars pass by on our private lane; it was a rare occasion when they actually stopped. Usually, they’d be filled with loud, drunken teenagers who’d roam across our lawn, not hesitating to relieve themselves behind hedges or at the base of our trees. This would continue until Papa grew weary of the cacophony and put an end to such escapades. He’d step through the doorway — voice booming — and send them scattering back to their cars where they were quickly on their way.

Taking special effort not to be seen, I hunkered down and peered through the bottom of the window in the front door. Through the security bars bolted to the outside, I watched the car creep into full view. It was one of the late-model sport coupes that interested me so; but it was badly in need of a wash. Beneath the grime I could tell it was probably a brilliant red.

I gagged on the decay…

I breathed a small sigh as the car continued past, sure it would be on its way. Then came the tell-tale flash of red that erupted from its back end as the driver brought it to a halt. My heart slipped into my throat. I slid to floor.

The car was still, its engine rumbling in the early evening. A fine mist of exhaust belched from the tailpipe.

Then it backed up to our concrete walkway.

It’s coming here…

The shadows of the oak trees threw the car’s internal compartment into darkness. Somehow I knew this vehicle carried no mischievous teenagers, but instead something far worse.

The air around me was heavy with the smell of rot. It squeezed my body in its tight grip, choking me and calling to attention the hairs on the nape of my neck. The last time I had this feeling was so many years ago it was barely memorable. But the reflection of the gruesome face staring at me in the glass broke the dam that held my memories in check.

Oh Papa, Papa…WHERE ARE YOU?!

The windows of the car were tinted. It almost impossible to see inside. I noticed movement behind the darkened glass. It was nothing more than a shadow turning to look at me. Inside the darkness, a set of green eyes stared out at door behind which I cowered.

Cold fingers scraped my spine as its gaze located me through the thin layer of glass. My reflexes slammed me backward, away from the window. I squeezed my body into the wall, willing myself flat, hoping to disappear and remain unseen.

Too late…

In the few minutes that my heart threatened to jump through my chest, an eternity seemed to pass. Then, from outside, came the distinct sound of fallen leaves crushed by heavy footfalls as something crossed the lawn.

Then came the sound of leather soles on concrete.

Click… Clack… Click-clack…

No matter how much I willed it, I couldn’t summon the courage to peel myself from the wall and race to safety far from the door.

Click-clack. CLICK-CLACK!

The shoes grew louder as they neared the door. Tears streamed from my eyes.

CLICK… CLACK.

It stopped.

Then the crash came, reverberating the door and echoing through the house.

My body frozen, I watched the knob on the inside of the door turn slowly — first to the right, and then back again to the left, creaking with each movement.

Drums beat loudly inside my ears, and my thoughts were a chorus of screams.

Again, the doorknob moved — this time a complete turn.

And the door opened. A foot stepped inside. Followed by a leg.

The crease in the pant was as sharp as a knife.

I ran to Papa, grabbing him tightly around the waist — an act I’d normally think better suited for a child than for the full-grown 14-year-old boy I was.

Rivers of tears flooded from my eyes. They flowed over the rugged landscape of my scarred face, salting my gums and dripping onto my tongue through the hole where my right cheek had once been.

Cautiously, I peered around Papa. The car was gone.

It was my imagination after all… Papa’s fears HAD found a new home.

But in the distance, the flash of brake lights caught my eye in the night.

A new breeze blew across the threshold of the open doorway. I could taste the hint of rot as it dissipated into the cool, evening air.

It was then that I realized that Papa had been right. There are evil things in the world that are much too dangerous, especially for a little boy like me. And I knew it would be back.
(To be continued…)

~ Daemonwulf

Precious Death

August 28, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ jlwallen ~ 16 Comments

Tell me something secret

Whisper into my ear

Make love to my damaged sorrow

With your self-defeating fear.

What little light you brought to life

Is forfeit now and ever

We’ll dance a twisted spider walk

To begin a new endeavor.

My rusted blade it dives and twists

Between your filthy breath

I’ll carve for you a new beginning

Some delightful precious death.

Weep now, my dearest lovely bones

Your tears I will consume

And before your light is extinguished

I’ll waltz you to your tomb.

~ Jack Wallen

Wolf Song

August 14, 2012February 18, 2013 ~ Thomas Brown ~ 22 Comments

The babies are coming. They’re coming and Friedrich is not there. After everything they have been through; the heartache, the treatments, he is not going to miss this moment. He puts his foot down on the accelerator. The sigh of warm air from the heater blows against his face. He drives fast through the snow-flecked night.

The road seems endless. A stretch of black tarmac and black ice and black night. Eventually he sees lights. Not the moon, which is full, swollen in the sky, but other lights. City lights. He navigates the icy side-streets as only an expectant father can. Two minutes now and he’ll be home and everything will be all right. He has waited for this day for so long. He has wept at the thought of this day coming, and at the thought of it not coming, when it seemed that way. Her blood, his tears. They said she was barren. But now the day is here. One minute, if that. He brings the car round the corner, faster than he should –

A figure lopes across the road, running towards him, beside him.

There is a dull thud as it hits the driver’s side of the car. He catches it with the front wheels. Then a bump; violent, horrible, to match the feeling in his stomach, as it vanishes beneath the chassis. It might have been a dog. He only half-glimpsed it, before it was drawn under the vehicle, flailing then gone. He knew dogs didn’t flail; that helpless, human gesture, but then he had not seen it properly and a car’s wheels could do terrible things to an animal’s shape. Broken apart by wheels, a dog could flail. A dog could die –

He takes the turn and pulls into his drive. The car grows quiet beneath him. He tumbles out into the cold night, which hits him with a force; stings his face and brings sharp tears to his eyes. He moves towards the house.

It doesn’t strike him as odd that the front door is open. It saves seconds in unlocking it himself. He steps into the hallway with its long, lavender walls and family pictures: their wedding, that holiday in Morocco, Christmas with her parents last year. The hallway is cold. It is filled with night air. Why was the door open? he wonders briefly. He calls out to his wife.

Screams reach his ears. Infantile and distressed, they are the most beautiful things he thinks he’s ever heard. Almost slipping, he follows them to the front room.

His steps falter. He is unsure quite what he’s seeing. Two figures roll on the sheepskin rug. They are baby-sized with four limbs each but malformed mouths, like battered snouts. Their eyes, thin, unseeing slits, are his wife’s pale blue and each is covered in a growths of matted hair, black and slick with birthing fluid. On hearing a presence they scream and mew and roll a little faster on their backs. Short, angular limbs peddle the air.

His stomach heaves and he turns from the things to vomit. His sick splashes the expensive curtains his wife and he bought when moving in together. He is wiping his eyes when he sees the spots of red across the carpet – a heavy flow, petering out as he pursues it through the hallway, a bloody breadcrumb trail leading back into the cold dark of outside. He follows the trail; the movements of his wife, he guesses, as she sought to reach him, to escape the wolfish things that have crawled out of her.

He reaches the street. The night seems vast, as though he could drown in its depths. Struggling for breath, he follows the blood spots to the misshapen figure in the road. He realises that they would always lead here. He studies the shape, which is heaving and moaning. It rolls over, hand-paws slapping the pavement, and he stares into the face of his wife.

Lights flicker on down the street. Figures appear in their doorways, drawn, he supposes, by the sounds. His wife is crying, her jowls quivering, a whimper slipping from her throat. He begins crying too. He kneels beside his lady, taking her matted fur in her hands. He thinks of the first time they met, in a queue at the bank. Their first date on the seafront, the salty breeze in their faces. The first time he cooked for her. He tells her their babies are beautiful, and that their curtains are ruined.

He smells salt now, but it is coppery and rank. A crowd is forming, shapes drawing closer. The vastness of the sky is replaced by a pressing constriction, formed by the figures around them.

He smells other things too. His wife’s blood, the stench of exhaust fumes, the hot wetness of animal breaths. He hears panting and the slop of tongues against teeth. Under the light of the moon he sees his neighbours, his friends, their snouts long, eyes shining in the moonlight.

Kneeling over his wife he takes her in his arms, to cover her, to protect her from the circling beasts, before realising his hands are also paws. His flesh is covered with hair, his teeth long and sharp in his mouth.

He hears a mewling again. His ears twitch, rising to attention. He turns, smelling blood and urine, and finds their neighbour walking towards them. She moves upright as a person and is fully clothed, but sloped eyes bridge her face, her muzzle glistening in the moonlight. In her arms she carries their two children, struggling in that way all new-born babies do, when first faced with the enormity of the world. As she approaches him, one of his neighbours howls. Another joins it, then another, until the city fills with the haunting sounds.

The pups are deposited against his flanks. Beneath him, his wolf-wife turns her face and smiles. Then she shudders and expires. The wolves continue to howl, their cry at once celebratory and mournful. They sing of life and death, blood and heat, the earth and the sky, and the night sings back at them.

~ Thomas James Brown

Unearthed

July 24, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ Tyr Kieran ~ 23 Comments

Time has become meaningless. I can sense the rise and fall and the wax and wean of the moon, but I’ve long past the point where it matters. I am a forgotten relic.

They used to watch over me, wary of any changes and They have remained vigilant for many lifetimes—passing down, from father to son, the responsibility of guardian and the knowledge with which to prepare themselves for corrective action should change take place. But of course, time devalues all things. Each generation of vigil grew more indifferent than his predecessor until, eventually, no one came or cared.

The world lived on without me, just as They had intended.

And so, I reside here, in this unmarked grave, for longer than I can recall. My motionless body, a dried husk in the earth, imprisoning my mind, waits for… for what? The end of eternity, I suppose. I don’t have much say in the matter. I’m a slave to time and fate, and fate has firm control of my reigns.

When last was I in control? My final night of freedom?

It was a blood bath.

– – –

I was drunk with power, glutting myself on the life-force of men distracted by war. I cared little about the reasons or results of the conflict. The Polish and Lithuanian’s uprising against Teutonic rule—paltry bickering of feeble men and I was no longer one of them. My strengths and abilities were developing far faster than the world around me. I believed myself nigh invincible.

War raged through the land and I gladly accepted its invitation for indulgence—deaths were expected, blood spilled in abundance, and no one questioned wounds or hunted for missing bodies. I could feed freely without all the games and subterfuge. Yet, despite this reprieve from scrutiny, one still needs to retain a sense of caution.

Temptation got the best of me.

Feeding at the battle’s fringe, I pulled men off their feet and into the shadows along the cliff basin. I drained nine men—six too many—before I was forced to purge. With my vision blurred and my legs weak, I fell to my knees. Consumed blood vacated my body like the violent purge of water through a broken dam. The crimson pool was massive.

A small band of men saw the lake of death oozing from the shadows and were compelled to investigate. I spat the last bit of bloody bile and stood in time to see four Knights arrive. They stopped at the pool’s edge and stared with jaws agape. I wiped my mouth with a long drag of my sleeve and stared back.

It didn’t take long for them to see me as a threat to the religious purity of their world. I witnessed the realization change their expressions from wide-eyed pallor to tight-lipped scowls with hooded eyes.

“Go back to Hell where you belong, Demon.” The lead knight said, pointing his sword at my throat. His silver armor glistened in the vibrant moon light. His dark green eyes stabbed from behind a sharp angular nose. His shield and helmet trappings spoke of nobility.

My senses stabilized. Hunger returned, gurgling and aching in my empty stomach. Overconfident again, I smiled. My sharp, two-inch-long fangs glimmered like their armor. “Hell? What do you self-righteous soldiers know of Hell?”

“Enough to know that you are a blight upon God’s earth and we must see to your destruction.” To his credit the Nobleman held firm, unwavering despite the sight of my razor-blade smile.

“Choose your next actions wisely Nobleman! Your mistakes might come to haunt your descendants.”

“You’ll not pester anyone from the bottom of your grave,” he said and swung two fingers through the air.

I leaned forward, preparing to lunge, when a flurry of flaming arrows pelted my chest. I stumbled back against the cliff wall, batting at the flames.

“Bleed him out and let him burn.” The lead knight looked me in the eyes as he ordered my execution. The others rushed in, swords drawn, and stabbed me repeatedly. I tried to fight back, but without sustenance and my own life-force draining away, it accomplished little. Then the nobleman stepped in and slit my throat.

I crumbled to the ground with my flesh crisping in the flames and my blood soaking into the soil. Consciousness faded from me as I caught his final orders for my disposal.

“Cover the demon in leaches and tar, then bury him in the forest.”

– – –

Many generations later, I lay buried and bored, deep in the Bialowiea forests of Warmia. The blur of time, relentlessly marching, has silenced my inner obsessions over the how’s and should-of’s, the dreams of retribution and plots of revenge. Chalk it up to the erosion of hope, if you like. I prefer to label it as patience.

Tonight the moon is high, full of promise, and it seems I have guests.

Two hikers veer from the path and stop above me.

Through the dense earth between us, I could sense their steps, their weight, and their heartbeats. Muffled voices filter down to my sensitive, dried-out ears. They’re a youthful male and a female couple, talking and laughing. Then a flurry of movement, mostly from the heavier male, before each thumped to the ground. Sitting?

Maybe he set up camp for the night. No, it was a moonlit picnic, the odors of bread, cheese, and grapes… correction, wine, wormed into my sinuses like a wraith through cemetery soil. My empty stomach turned.

They ate and drank amid short bursts of conversation. I could hear the wine in its work to lighten their tongues and heavy their limbs. Their hearts beat faster. Their blood flowed more freely through their veins. It was an agonizing tease, an unnecessary torture before the inevitable return to solitude.

Of course, when the refreshments were gone, their appetites shifted toward each other. Fumbling, chaotic thumps and knocks against the earth soon found rhythm. The percussion of love worked toward a crescendo, accompanied by moans and whispered pleas. My stomach turned again, but a sudden shift drew my full attention.

The air pressure changed. I could feel a greater density like a charge that precedes a lightning strike. Their hearts fell out of sync. Their rhythm slowed, becoming disjointed.

She whispered a question in a voice still overwhelmed by passion.

He answered with action.

Thrusting, he stabbed deep into her, over and over, but not with his member—he used a weapon of a different kind. The woman’s gasps and coughs played to me like a symphony. The sensation of surprise was exquisite.

Her gurgling breaths told of punctured lungs and severed arteries. I could feel his hatred for her, pulsing from his heart in shock waves that tickled my bones and weighed against my chest. He shouted obscenities, punctuating each with another blow from his knife.

“Whore! You had to sleep with him. You tainted your chance at salvation. And now you’ve ruined mine. Damn you! Slut!”

The pungent scent of her blood birthed my hopes anew. My bones quivered in anticipation.

Pumping away more and more of her life-force, her heartbeat slowed to a stop. Her killer flopped back and fell still, whimpering in the night air.

Blood trickled down through the soil. The first drop hit my sternum. With the leaches and tar bindings long withered to dust, the drop absorbed uninhibited. It felt like ice against skin baked in the desert sun, a burning cold that takes your breath away.

More claret drops reached me, soaking into my brittle flesh, and reactivated my cells. The drips grew into steady streams, painting my corpse crimson. Tendons stretched and fused to bone. Muscle fibers rehydrated. Organs swelled and pulsed. My body burned under the fires of rejuvenation—the pain was both unbearable and exhilarating.

I sucked down my first breath and clawed for the surface.

Finally free from my grave, I stood tall, brushing dirt from my shoulders. With a deep breath I took in the night sky—at last, one again with the lunar pull.

The man’s whimpers turned to screams as my eyes found his. He fumbled to his feet and tried to run, but I grabbed his shoulders and lifted him in front of me. Face to face, I took in his dark green eyes pleading from behind a sharp angular nose. I smiled at fate’s ironic sense of humor.

“How’s your family, boy?”

~ Tyr Kieran

Eternal Incineration

July 17, 2012January 14, 2014 ~ Daemonwulf ~ 36 Comments

Everything I once had is gone. It wasn’t a lone thief who’d snuck in during the middle of a single night to clean me out. It was instead a series of small burglaries, committed by an efficient team over more years than I recall. Their robberies began when I was just a boy and when, like most children suffering from few friends and social isolation, I spent most of my time alone — hidden away in my room, surrounded by the few possessions that made life bearable. I didn’t realize it then, but it was this solitary life that offered the opportunity for the shadows to begin slipping into the world of walls that I’d built…

————

When I awoke this morning, my sheets were wet with sweat. It may have been due to the nightmares that had returned with renewed fervor, or maybe it was only my body signaling the return of the heat. The mercury in the thermometer was rapidly approaching the 90-degree mark; and it was only 9:00 am.

Outside, the Sun burned through a cloudless, blue sky. A single step onto the porch allowed the Michigan heat to wrap its humid fingers around my throat, squeezing the breath back into my lungs. Down the block, amid joyful screams and shouts much too raucous for early morning, a group of overheated kids cooled off in the gallons of water that gushed into the street from an open hydrant. Their shrieks turned urgent as a sad-eyed, pony-tailed lookout alerted her comrades to the approaching police cruiser. As the children scattered, I stepped back inside to begin what looked to be a long, hot and profitable day.

————

Even as a child I knew the shadows that haunted my nights were the manifestation of something very bad. They gained access to my room by flattening themselves as thin as pieces of paper and sliding silently beneath the door. As I cowered in my bed, with my sheets bundled tightly under my chin, I watched their darkness stream across my threshold. Once inside, they’d pick themselves up off the floor, some of them growing so tall that their jagged heads bounced off the ceiling. Then they’d creep slowly around the walls, slipping into the corners of my room where they’d wait, sitting quietly until my body was forced to accept the sleep that my will denied it. All the while, the shadows flashed gashes revealing stained teeth, and their yellow eyes glowed at me from the dark…

————

The years haven’t been kind to Detroit. The loss of jobs, home foreclosures and increased suicides as savings accounts vanished have made life hard and finances tight for those left behind in this dying city — myself included. While I rarely credit my painful experience growing up on the farm for much of anything, I do attribute that life to my enduring work ethic and the reliance on self that’s led to my having survived in the city all these years.

While I work hard when I have the work to do, my job itself is seasonal. As such, it’s important I take advantage of the warm months when fresh food is more plentiful and less expensive. Falling back on farm tradition, I still spend much of my time preparing foods to carry me through and earn extra money during this off-season, when I’ll sell some of the canned preserves, cured meats and pickled sundries I store in my pantry. It’s curious, but the demand for life’s basics never seems to dry up in the city.

————

Thinking back, I remember so many nights spent lying in bed in the farmhouse, the fear paralyzing my body, as I stared out at the monsters through squinted eyes. With my heart beating so fast I thought it would jump from my chest, I’d sometimes work up the nerve and risk a peek at the shadows that now shared my room. I’d look on as they tore themselves from the darkness, only to have some of them crawl onto my bed and stick sharp fingers in my ears or rub greasy palms across my skin, all while their slithering tongues dribbled hot spittle into my face. Others would go to work searching my room. They’d rifle through my belongings, snatching from me whatever they chose to make their own…

————

I can’t really complain about the work I do. Growing up without much of an education, I’m become quite satisfied with my how life has turned out. I’m my own boss. I control my destiny. I’m able to provide for myself well enough; and I still find the time to help so many.

While not very social, it’s rare that I get the chance to discuss my humanitarian passions with others. But when I do, people are rarely impressed. Nobody much cares about the needy anymore. So, when the topic is raised, I’ve learned to just say I work in heating and cooling. This keeps the pain of conversation short.

————

It wasn’t until sometime during my teenage years that I allowed my intruders to know I was aware of their break-ins. That’s when all Hell broke loose. Once the shadows realized I knew they were there, they began pilfering at an alarming rate. I suppose after so many years of my acceptance it was only logical their thefts would become more purposeful. And, unfortunately, I didn’t realize the extent of the damage being done…

————

Beyond the obvious wrinkles on my face, not a whole lot has changed in my life. I still spend most of my time alone, giving me plenty of time to think. I don’t much enjoy looking backwards. There are too many memories I’d rather forget. But I learned long ago that such is the way with life. It often has its own plans for us.

During spring and summer, I drive seven days a week, sometimes for up to 12 hours a day, and with only thoughts and music for company. The truck is old and the tunes play through bad speakers, often repeating the same few songs in what seems an endless loop. While not everyone’s cup of tea, my music has become the soundtrack for my repetitive life; and it does help drown out the many voices from the past that scream inside my head.

————

I realized several years ago that I had advanced well beyond any normal state of self-denial, choosing to believe I’d simply misplaced the things that, in reality, the shadows had stolen from me. With each incident of their private looting, I became more willing to overlook the evil taking place, choosing instead to leave them to their thievery in peace…

————

My best customers live among the idyllic, tree-lined avenues in places far outside the city. The streets here flow with enthusiasm as the residents embrace the hope that money and possessions instill. It’s in these bedroom communities where the financially fit make their lives meaningful, choosing to seclude themselves behind groomed hedgerows and manicured lawns where the darkest of life’s shadows often hide unseen.

I sometimes feel like a modern-day Pied Piper, stealing them away from the false pleasantries of pool parties, baseball games, family picnics and lives spent replacing nighttime fears with the daytime horrors of video games. They chase me down with sweat-soaked dollars gripped in eager fists and clamor at my window while the music explains how ‘Weasels’ sometimes go ‘Pop.’ Their voices bark orders, but instead I hear a cacophony of pain crying out for something they don’t realize exists. Sadly, my inventory of fudge bars, frozen treats and waffle cones offer only a momentary chill from the fires I know burn within them. But always among every group of smiling faces seeking sweet salvation from the ice cream man, there’s at least one child whose eyes melt from the heat of the same sadness I know all too well.

————

I suppose if I’d been a more capable person, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be consumed by the shadows that have waged war on my world. Because of them I now live in a place of secrets filled with sorrow, lies and the searing pain they’ve brought. I no longer care that the darkness inside me has free reign. After all, it was I who allowed the shadows entrance in the first place. And it was I who let them rip me apart, slowly chewing me into pieces over the years, permitting them to ultimately take everything from me and leave only fire in their wake…

————

With the children long gone, their fires temporarily extinguished, I pull away from the curb as ‘It’s a Small World’ blares from the loudspeaker. Glancing into my rear view mirror, a pair of sad, fearful eyes stare back at me. The delicate gaze of the brown-eyed boy who’s wedged himself between the coolers in the back of the truck may fool some; but he doesn’t fool me. I’m all too familiar with the shadows that visit him as he lies paralyzed in his comfortable bed at night. I know how he yearns to be free of their thievery. And oh how he wants to beg me to extinguish the pain that burns inside him; but the bandana tied around his mouth doesn’t permit it.

Even through the mirror, I can see the dark faces of the demons reflected in his tear-filled eyes. The monsters don’t yet know it, but they’ll soon be evicted from their new home. Won’t they be surprised when I pluck his eyes from his skull and secret them away with the others inside the pickling jars that line the shelves of my pantry. I smell the flesh on his bones. It’s laced with fear, making it by far the best cut of meat for curing. And most importantly, the innocent little heart beating in his chest needs protection from the evil that seeks to steal it from him. It’s this delicacy that I’ll remove with utmost precision and all the tenderness that such an important possession demands. It’ll be stored away safely inside my airtight freezer, where its virtue will be forever preserved from the shadows that seek to cook it on a spit over the flames of Hell.

It is I, alone, who must save these innocents from the demons that intend to steal their souls, leaving them hollowed out and eternally incinerated on the inside. I just can’t allow the shadows to turn another child into the monster like the one they made out of me.

~ Daemonwulf

I am Seir

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

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

It is the approach of death.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Adriana Noir

Beast

June 19, 2012March 7, 2018 ~ Joseph Pinto ~ 23 Comments

Enter.

Sit before the Tale Weaver.

Be still; your incessant fidgeting only diminishes your concentration. Do you not hear it? There. There. Aah, stark terror glazes your eyes…but it should not be so. Relish instead, such a strange and horrid note, that awful baying from beyond the window sash. Silence yourself! I share with you now what knowledge I possess of the beast.

Yes, beast I say, but beast quite not. An unspeakably magnificent specimen of what should not be yet most certainly is. Born to walk this earth of two legs, but through the nether, hunts upon four. A most fascinating creature of wretched beauty, resigned in its existence of perpetual condemnation between its own genesis of dawn and gloam. Humanity its filthy cage. Bestiality its cherished home. Torn and ravaged by the tumult within its sorrowful soul.

You gaze upon me in naked incredulity, yet persistent your hands do wring; aye, even you cannot deny the awful splendor laced within the hoarseness of its throaty howls. Be attentive! Open not only ears but your narrow mind…listen beyond the ferocity of the echoes in the valley. Tis true, this abhorrence of nature will rend of you flesh and bone as a child strips wrappings from a gift if its disposition should see fit. The hunt it relishes, for only then does it truly live, the timbre of its environment razor-sharp, ally to its preternatural senses. You cannot outrun this thing, for how do you outrun that which already resides within you?

Swift, powerful, majestic…a wholly somber and evil thing. But I inquire of you – what is the gist of evil? The unnatural to your eyes; the obscene to your senses? Or is evil some broken yet unbowed pet, unwilling to yield to the shackles that seek it bound? If you should learn one thing from me this moonlit night, then heed this—true evil is the fiend that hides behind man’s mask, not the beast that allows its mask known.

Listen closely to that mourning song, that pitiful melody lamenting of deprived freedom from behind unseen bars, for tis the true conflict deep within its dark, fated core, and so it starves. Longing for the wild. Longing for the matte of fresh dew beneath its pads and the sparkle-slivered caress of Mother Moon across its rippled back. Longing…forever longing…this beast so much more than man.

Leave now then, but be mindful to keep a hastened pace along the timber’s fringe. Pull tight the collar to your neck, and do not afford yourself a moment to pause. For if the long howl of a doleful ballad plucks at your heartstrings, and the hapless allure of eye shine keeps measure with your gait, pray to your god that on this night the beast remains satiated.

And the man within it holds fast to its rein.

Until next I summon you, be gone.

So the Tale Weaver speaks.

~ Joseph A. Pinto as the Tale Weaver

Skeleton Key

June 12, 2012February 8, 2013 ~ Hunter Shea ~ 14 Comments

Hank was finding it difficult to keep his balance as he thrust his hips between Silvana’s long, parted legs. She moaned in delight as each drop of sweat splashed onto her taut belly. Normally, such erotic groans, coupled with the warm tug of her deliciously wet sex and the steady bounce of her perfect, soft breasts would have been enough to send him over the edge, but he was so busy trying to keep himself from falling onto his side that he ended up grinding away like a porn star, which, in this case, was not a bad thing.

Maybe there was an advantage to losing a leg.

It had been six months since his motorcycle had tipped over on that tight curve as he exited the highway to his house. Unlike the Gretchen Wilson song that they had played several times at the pig roast that night, he was not one Bud Wiser when he hopped on his Harley. By the time he and the bike had stopped their skid (with a bone rending crash against a tree that stopped him from going over a cliff), his left leg was nothing more than a few strips of flesh and a stump of exposed, splintered bone.

Every aspect of his life from that moment on had been pure hell, with one exception.

Silvana.

She’d been his nurse right from the moment he’d been brought unconscious into the ER. When he needed pain meds, she was there. When he woke up crying or freaking out, she was at his side, holding his hand.

Now here he was, two days out of the hospital with the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, his comforter and healer, Silvana. Amazing how he had managed to step up in his class of women exactly when taking any physical step up was a journey that usually led back to square one.

“Oh God, I’m gonna come,” Silvana squealed. She grabbed his ass and pulled him deeper inside, shaking with the wildest orgasm Hank had ever seen, heard or felt. It was like riding Space Mountain and Splash Mountain at the same time! And Jesus, did he love her mountains.

Before he could take a breath, she had managed to switch positions. Her breasts swayed across his face, her dark nipples brushing across his lips. “Now it’s your turn,” she whispered.

Between her full, tan breasts dangled a long white key held around her neck by a thin gold chain. If she moved down any closer the key was bound to smack into his nose or worse yet, poke one of his eyes.

Silvana shifted her weight and he winced.

“I’m sorry baby, did I hurt you?”

“It’s okay,” he stammered. Pain and pleasure were now conjoined twins and he didn’t know whether to come or scream. It only took seconds for the former while he did his best to hold back the latter. She remained straddled across his hips while he grew limp inside her.

“Wow,” she huffed, out of breath.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

Hank’s eyes roved up and down her flawless body, covered in a delicious sheen of sweat. “Pinch me, I must be dreaming,” he said.

To his surprise, she reached down and tweaked the flesh of the stump that was once his leg. He recoiled in pain.

“Hey, that fucking hurt!”

“Can you forgive me?” she cooed. She massaged her breasts together, smothering the strange white key between her cleavage. As much as he hated to admit it, because the woman had just intentionally hurt him, he was helplessly hypnotized.

When the key reemerged, he said, “That’s an interesting necklace. Where’d you get it?”

Tracing her finger across its ivory edges, she said, “Someplace very special. It’s a real working key, you know.”

It was about two times the size of a normal house key with a considerably sharp point.

“Must open a pretty big door.”

“The biggest,” she replied with a husky giggle.

It suddenly dawned on Hank that even though they had spent a ton of time together during his recovery in the hospital, he really didn’t know much about her. In the hospital, she was a competent, caring nurse. In her apartment, she was a barely contained erotic hurricane. And now she was giggling over this strange key like a little child who knew a secret that no adult could ever understand.

“You know, you’re not my first,” she said, inching up to rest on his stomach. At least she was further away from his wounded leg.

“I kind of got that feeling.”

Again with the giggling. “Not that. My first, you know…” She tilted her head to look down at the spot where his leg should be.

“You mean amputee?” he said, a cold prickle of doubt inching up his spine.

“I guess you could say it’s like a fetish of mine. You’d think they’d be grateful, but they never are. I mean, look at me!”

She removed the necklace and held the key in her hand.

A bilious swarm of dread made Hank’s flesh grow cold. He tried to move out from under Silvana but was as weak and defenseless as a baby.

“When they brought you in that night, no one told you that your leg came in thirty minutes later, or what was left of it.”

“What are you saying? They could have reattached my leg?”

She shook her head. “But I saved it. The thing about a leg is there’s so much bone to work with.”

She brought the alabaster key to her cherry lips and kissed it.

“It helped me make the key to your heart, baby.”

“No, no, no!” Hank struggled to move out from under her.

“And now that I have the key, I’m going to lock you up nice and tight.”

Silvana raised the key above her head and plunged it into his chest, expertly finding the gap between his ribs and puncturing his heart. It beat wildly for a moment and the world spun.

“Silvana,” he whispered.

His heart slowed, and the pain that had been his constant companion ebbed into the ether.

Her face slipped out of focus. The sound of her labored breathing grew distant, fading as he hurtled into the unknown.

Hank felt the blood grow still in his body and his life seep into the musky sheets.

“Now you’re mine forever,” she whispered, and twisted the key.

~ Hunter Shea