Hand of Credence

August 8, 2018August 8, 2018 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 4 Comments

Rugged knees on hallowed soil, I kneel before its mighty stature. Blistered palms meet below my bowed posture—I beg clemency. It extends an ebon finger, the tip sears my flesh. Pain struggles down a swollen throat that cannot utter its cry. Vocal chords are restrained only by conditioning. One must always be faithful. Its form defines beauty and terror as one. Love, hate, fear, and all between exhales with each breath it takes.

As its dark hand retreats, my skin slows its boil. The scent of forbidden meat teases my senses. I’ve been touched by that which brings life and death, that which gifts all and reaps the tortured stalks hidden among this field. I pray that my time is still young.

It speaks to me for the first time. “Your heart is pure.”

My faculties nearly retreat.

Its dark palm covers my face, fingers wrap around my head. All is gone but the void which is the color of its flesh. But within it are terrible things—colors of wrath and fury, fluids of the human body, suffering of unimaginable design. Deep into its grasp, my mind drills forward into unknown places, forced to go on, made to see.

And see I do—things inhuman, vile enough to burn any eyes that witness them. But mine survive. They live to force these sights to memory, where they’ll burn like hellfire until death snuffs them out with cold hands.

When its hold releases my weakened body I collapse. Mutterings from the subconscious echo between my ears. I look to the dark figure. Its mouth emulates an expression of pleasure—but whether it is approval of my soul or the joy of punishment I cannot tell. Time will be short with an answer.

It takes a few steps back, stares with glowing eyes. I remain motionless, penitent. Guilt riddles every drop of blood in my heart. I know I’ve not done its creed wrong, yet I still feel a disgust for my flesh. How repugnant and feeble it is; ugly and without strength. It pities us. It must.

With an arm extended, it points toward the cliff. “You are permitted.”

The words are surreal. Difficult to believe I’ve been accepted. I stand, legs trembling, and walk to the verge. The ocean crashes against the rocks below. In the dark water I see something darker yet—a conical blotch spearing deep beneath the surface.

I look back to it and it nods approval.

I step off the edge to join my brethren.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

Maxwell’s Cellar

October 4, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 17 Comments

“Brett, wake up.”

His voice echoed, came to my ears from great distance.

“Wake up, you worthless slag.”

Cracks of light burned my eyes. Slowly they grew until I saw the familiar boots of Sam Brooks. Those stupid fucking skull buckles… Peculiar how my first thought lent itself to something so unimportant.

He grabbed my collar and pulled me from the floor. “Come on, you shit, we’re going to see the boss.”

My attempts at a response led to no success. Throat dry, lips cracked, desperate for water—I couldn’t even croak. Not that I knew what the fuck I would say. I had no idea where I was and little memory of how I got there. Something about a bar and a yellow neon light; I’m pretty sure it was shaped in the name of some cheap beer.

Sam dragged me down the hall, jeans riding along the splintered wood floor. The dark stains didn’t instill comfort about where I was headed. They spoke of bad things, blood spilled.

His fist against the door thundered in my ears. Three hard knocks and the door opened. Sam dragged me in and dropped me on the floor at the foot of an old metal desk.

“So here he is,” Maxwell said. “Where ya’ been? You know I hate when I have to look for someone. It just gets to me.”

Sam kicked me with his stupid fucking boot. “I found him at the bar on East Main,” he said.

Maxwell laughed. “Figures.”

“He was all liquored up and ready for the taking.”

“So you didn’t give Sam here much trouble then, did ya’ little fella.”

“No, Boss,” Sam said. “No trouble at all.”

“That’s good. That’s very good.” Maxwell shook his head, took a half-smoked cigar from his ash tray, and lit it.

With great effort I managed to cough out a few words. “What am I doing here?”

They laughed at my question.

“I think he’s a bit confused,” Sam said, still chuckling.

“Won’t be for long.” Maxwell pulled deep on his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke in my face. “You took my money from Bobbi. Now why would you go and do something like that?”

I tried to focus, tried to remember who the hell he was talking about. I repeated the name in my head until it lost meaning.

“Come on, Brett,” Sam said. “Just admit what you done.”

“Bobbi?” I asked. “She’s the one with the scar on her cheek, isn’t she?”

“Well look at that. His memory is starting to come back.” Maxwell sat up from his chair and walked around the desk. He grabbed my hair and lifted my head, looked me in the eyes. “Why’d you take my money?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t take any money.” I couldn’t remember whether I did or not, but it didn’t seem like something I would do.

“Oh, you took it, alright,” Maxwell said. “Bobbi wouldn’t lie to me. Isn’t that right, Sam?”

“Damn right, Boss.”

“Now you gotta pay for what you done. And a few black and blue marks aren’t going to cut it. Are they, Sam?”

“No, sir. Not even close.”

I knew I was a scumbag. Who didn’t? But I was pretty sure I didn’t take any money, not from Maxwell.

“Take him to the cellar,” Maxwell said.

“Jesus, Boss. Isn’t that a little harsh?”

The uncertain tone in Sam’s voice spoke of something more horrible than I could imagine. He had an iron stomach and no conscience. The wavering of his words told me it was something even he wasn’t going to enjoy. And that terrified me.

Sam tied my hands behind my back and lifted me off the floor. He dragged me back through the hallway and outside into the alley. Normally that would be where it ended, with a bullet to the head. But I knew they had something more sinister in mind.

He opened the back door of his old Chevy and threw me in. I heard the engine roar to life and he drove with a heavy foot. I watched familiar streets go by until we ended up in an unfamiliar place. We must have traveled a few miles without seeing a single house.

The car stopped and the engine went silent.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said.

It was that moment reality became apparent. Sam probably never apologized to anyone his entire life, especially not to someone like me. But he did, and by the sound of his voice he meant it. The sadistic bastard was actually sorry for what he was about to do.

I thought back on my life; years flashed by in moments. I saw things I’d done and it put a sour taste in my mouth. I’d been a good for nothing piece of shit since I was able to raise my middle finger. But if Sam felt sorry for me I didn’t deserve what was coming.

He dragged me out of the car and walked me toward an old wood shack surrounded by dark forest. Few stars shined through the canopy above. My guts felt like they were about to come out of my ass.

Sam stopped at the door and stood motionless. He took keys from his pocket and looked at them for a while before undoing the padlock and pulling me inside. We descended stairs that went down into the pit of the Earth. At the bottom a pale yellow light glowed.

I heard something move and Sam jumped. It was then I realized why Sam had an issue with what Maxwell ordered—even he was afraid.

“What’s down there?” I asked, my voice barely able to formulate the words. “What the fuck is it? Just tell me!”

Sam ignored my pleas and took a deep breath as we got to the bottom of the stairs. A wood bar stool sat in the center of the cellar. The yellow light came from a neon sign just like the one at the bar, with that same logo for cheap beer, the one I sat next to most nights of my shitty adult life.

Sam pushed me toward the stool. He kept me at arm’s length, keeping his hand on my back. He forced me to sit and tied my hands and feet to the wooden legs.

Black, stringy appendages shot out from a dark corner of the room and latched onto my skin. Dozens of them stuck all over my body. It was as if they each contained thousands of tiny teeth that chewed through my clothes and bit down on every nerve receptor within their vicinity. Intense pain flooded through me like electricity. Whatever it was could not be seen. It was blacker than the emptiness of space, something that didn’t just absorb light, but pulled it completely out of existence.

A foul looking tube crawled along the floor like a serpent. Its slime-covered surface glistened in the yellow light. It worked its way up my leg, pulsating and releasing a nauseating odor. The intestine-like appendage entered my mouth and forced a slick mucus down my throat. I gagged against it but it flowed like a fucking river. I felt my own vomit forced back into my gut. It was feeding me, feeding me so it could keep me alive for who knows how long while it suckled on my flesh.

“I just wanna let you know something,” Sam said as he backed away toward the stairs.

My eyes rolled in his direction.

“It was me. I took the money.”

∼Lee A. Forman

Consigned to Oblivion

July 19, 2016July 14, 2016 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 13 Comments

The catacomb swallowed him like the throat of a great beast. With kerosene lantern in hand, he crept down long spiral staircases which led deep into the subterranean bowels beneath Hillside Cemetery. Cobwebs clung to his neck and tangled in his hair. He swiped at them with his free hand and shuddered when his fingers brushed against a hairy body. Tiny legs scrambled to escape but it couldn’t move fast enough; he flung the arachnid against the wall. At the bottom of the stairwell, uncovered remnants of the once living slept eternal in their wall crypts. He eyed them as he walked by and wondered how old they might be.

Vastly ancient, he thought. Beyond compare…

A set of piercing eyes appeared in the dark. The lantern revealed a large rat, its fur soaked in filth. It squeaked as it fled his presence and crawled into a crack in the wall.

This place must be crawling with them. I’m probably surrounded. An involuntary shiver shook his body.

The hall led straight as far as the lantern allowed him sight, both walls lined with those laid to rest innumerous centuries ago. He followed its dark stretch with haste, wanting desperately to find the ossuary he’d obsessed over for so long.

He remembered the last thing Horace said before he left. I’m telling you, don’t go down there. That place was forgotten for a reason.

Booker disregarded the warning; it only made his fevered passion burn brighter.

A cold breath of air blew by, ruffling his shirt and swinging his lantern on its handle. He spun on his heels and scanned the dark, heart rattling against his ribs. He took labored breaths and put his hand to his chest.

“Holy shit.” His voice came out weak, stifled, toned down in the ancient stone chamber.

He turned and quickened his steps. The gust of air made him uneasy; he couldn’t fathom where it might have originated and how it reached the depths of isolation he traveled. But he had to continue. So close after years of research, nothing could dissuade him.

He wondered how long it had been since a living being last tread the ground he paced. Difficult to imagine a pre-historic civilization, uncharted and known only to a select few who had extreme enthusiasm about such things. Surprising how they remained absent from art and literature, unclaimed by the scholars of history. But he, Booker Thorn, walked the sacred ground of their forgotten corpses.

An arch stood at the end of the tunnel, behind it, the ossuary he hoped to find.

“I finally found it. It’s real. And here it is right in front of me.”

He made hesitant steps when he heard the scrape of metal against the floor. With no foreknowledge of what the chamber contained, the possibilities both allured and terrified his curious mind. He certainly hadn’t expected movement. But the inconsistent sound of metal dragged against stone told not of treasure and artifacts, but of something possibly much more interesting and rare. Movement indicated life, as impossible as it seemed in the house of death.

He stretched his arm to extend the light by which he could see. It revealed a chain on the floor, but not what it connected to. His eyes followed the links into the ebony shadow that filled the room. The chain moved again, pulled further into the void by an unknown force. The lantern rattled in his hand and he steadied it with effort.

Breath heaved in and out through a raspy throat. Booker listened intently, silencing himself to hear.

Whatever’s in there is alive. But how could that be? How could something live down here for millennia? Did someone beat me to this place?

The breathing quieted and Booker sat still. He waited for the unknown to make a move; he didn’t want to go first.

The chain flew across the chamber with force, scraping the stone blocks on which it rested. The sudden movement sent Booker reeling back. He dropped the lantern and the glass shattered. The light flickered and went out.

Breathing intensified as darkness consumed him. He retrieved a book of matches from his pocket, tore one from the pack and struck it; fire exploded into existence at the tip, lending poor light to the situation. He swallowed hard and crawled along the floor, bringing the flame closer to the coveted chamber.

The chain moved, ran its cold metal over his fingers. He barred his teeth and stifled a cry.

Hot breath descended on his neck, followed by a snort which shot a foul cloud of decay around his head. The contents of his stomach spilled with brutal force.

A strong hand gripped his thigh and lifted him from the floor. He dropped the match, allowing darkness its return. He dangled in the air, trachea closed, unable to scream. No intelligible thought could formulate in his mind—terror decimated reason and ripped primal fear from deep within the psyche.

The unseen hand that held him tightened fingers until bone snapped. Shock spread like fire as he gasped for air involuntarily.

A flare of agony came with a stabbing sensation and ended with the flesh of his leg torn open. Liquid caressed his side, dripped from his head to the floor. The cut ran deep, sliced through fat and muscle, and scraped the broken bone inside.

He heard a crack when the femur was wrenched from his thigh, followed by the wet slap of boneless skin falling against his torso. Eyes opened wide and waves of visceral imagery crashed against his screaming brain.

His twitching body dropped to the floor. He sensed his arm pop from its socket, the flesh torn away, but it felt distant, the pain only a dull throb. His chest hitched in feeble attempts to get air as his ribs snapped one after another.

A sliver of light appeared above, shining down from an opening at the peak of the vaulted chamber.

Light… There’s light…

Skeletal frame extracted, his body sagged into a muddle of human pulp. All thought coalesced. A crunch echoed, crisp and clear. Eyes lolled toward the sound and a glimpse of what occupied the room burned into his final memory.

Long teeth chewed blood soaked bone, shoved into its mouth with thin, curved fingers. Its leathery brown skin pulsed with thick veins and creased in endless folds and wrinkles. Two black discs stared from a misshapen head.

The light dimmed and went out as the opening in the ceiling closed, the underworld of forgotten things again consigned to oblivion.

∼Lee A. Forman