|
Spy horror
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 02:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 00:21 |
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 02:36
|
|
|
Sword and sandal horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 02:47
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 02:50
|
|
|
Generational saga horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 02:53
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:15
|
|
|
Cyberpunk horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:23
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:24
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:24
|
|
|
Low Fantasy Horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:31
|
|
|
Space Opera horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:33
|
|
|
You know what? Count me in, spooky man.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 03:55
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 04:09
|
|
|
in and for my outstanding crits by the deadline as well
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 05:37
|
|
|
In.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 06:26
|
|
|
Taletel posted:In. Superhero horror Weltlich posted:in and Post-Post-apocalyptic horror J.A.B.C. posted:You know what? Count me in, spooky man. Romance horror High school drama horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 06:52
|
|
|
In.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 07:24
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 07:27
|
|
|
Pulp sci-fi horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 07:40
|
|
|
Heist horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 07:42
|
|
|
In
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 08:42
|
|
|
Magic Realism Horror
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2021 09:00
|
|
|
Crits for week 478 This is what it sounds like by The Man Called M The one where a guy with a humorous name listens to VH1 talking heads, is sad about his breakup, hears a dove crying. I'm not sure what's going on with the Capitalization in this story, but as a person who randomly capitalizes words in order to show Importance I'm not too put out by it. I'm also uncertain about what's supposed to be happening in the narrative arc of the story. There's an inkling of something psychologically interesting here with his fears about the sex, and therefore he himself, not being good enough. But then it doesn't really go anywhere, it just ends with a dove making a weird noise outside his window. This needed revision and probably more words, not even a lot more words, just a couple hundred to expand on any part of it to give it more emotional weight. Cross My Heart and Hope to Die by Idle Amalgam The one where a man tries to revive his dead ex in order to harangue her into forgiving his infidelity, and is then killed by the monster to which he has given unnatural life. This had some great description in it, especially of the Wastes and of the hosed up machinery used to bring her back to life. I loved the pettiness of his reasoning for bringing her back, and that his first words are a repetition of this argument. It's pathetically human. His death was also pathetic, and I liked that. It was not immediately apparent to me that she meant to kill him, or that she knew she was “days away from molecular instability and unlife,” and I kind of wish I'd gotten to see more of who she was when she wasn't a bunch of body parts/a shambling monstrosity Rosie's by Barnaby Profane The one where they fight with knives I loved this. It was self-contained, obviously connected to the prompt, had emotional resonance, and a twist that felt both surprising and satisfying all at once. I loved his death scene in particular, the release of not just his body but all the emotional content he'd been holding on. And you earned the ending by setting up a solid tale of semi-ritualistic mob violence, gang warfare, and the spiderweb-fragile code of conduct that Lupo assumes is going to protect him. Good stuff. My favorite of the week. Pigeon Coup by My Shark Waifu The one where pigeons depose the pigeon queen in order to get with the sexiest of male pigeons I love bird drama, and I love how the story takes the premise of bird drama entirely seriously. You do an excellent job describing the male pigeons, I kind of wish you'd have taken the time to describe the hens as well, at least the three sisters and the queen. I would also have liked to see more examples of the rivalry between the hens than just a backhanded compliment. But this was quite nice! Well thought through with clear stakes and a satisfying ending. What It Means to be Olisipian by Azza Bamboo The one where a princess is given an ominous gift by a prince from a rival kingdom. More bird drama! I'm thrilled! Unfortunately, I wish I understood the full stakes for the princess a little bit better. Beyond the destruction of her budgie breeding program, that is. Is the prince trying to marry her and take over her kingdom? Is there some complex economic takeover happening in the background that this is a reference to? There's clearly more here, and I want to know more about it. You set the scene beautifully, but ultimately it feels like a scene in a longer story rather than a complete story itself. Perspective by t a s t e The one where a man sees the world accelerating past him toward its end while he stays in place The question of “is this magical realism or a psychotic break” is easily one of my favorites, and this story does it well. I wish, however, that you'd spent more time discussing the hosed up ritual that made him like this and less time discussing his masturbatory preferences. I also wish he'd have engaged in a bit more conjecture as to what he thinks we're accelerating toward. But I loved the psychological horror of his perception being broken and the description of how it was broken. How It Works by Carl Killer Miller The one where he joins AA and finds out that vulnerability loving sucks and is absolutely worth it The dialogue in this is fantastic and relatable. I can see every alcoholic client I've ever had in Luis and Tim. I really, really appreciate the way that apologies are handled here, the line “You're supposed to still feel like poo poo, because the apology isn't in the words” hits perfectly because of how true it is. I like that this isn't a feel good story, I also like that it isn't a story about an addict getting kicked while he was down. It's an honest look at what recovery takes. Very well done. The Neon Girl by Captain_Indigo The one where a robot pet is bought, loved, taught to lie, and discarded. This is creepy in a very Paolo Bacigalupi way and I enjoy it. The rapid pace of the dialogue without tags did occasionally feel a little disjointed, but the characters had clear enough voices that it wasn't too difficult to tell people apart. I wish I knew why Mark hated Celeste so much, but I suspect Celeste wished that as well. The only actual critique I have is that I would have liked to have seen more of Celeste's environment, what does the home look like? What was she cleaning? Catalyst by Thranguy The one where some teens vandalize a wall to celebrate the legacy of their friend who may or may not be dead in a cyberpunk hellscape I do love me a cyberpunk hellscape. The kids were written realistically, their slang felt organic and still made sense. The dangers they faced in this world felt real, and the exhaustion I felt when considering the optimism required to believe you can fight corporate hegemony with spray paint was also very real. Joyriders by Antivehicular The one where actors in cool cyberfuture bodies find out that they actually love one another in their actual bodies. This is a very sweet story in the midst of a horrible surveillance dystopia and I very much enjoy it. I'm extremely glad that you resisted the urge to make it so that they didn't actually care for one another when in their “real” bodies, their caring for one another makes me care about the story. That's what made the violation of their privacy by the camera upgrades sting. There was definitely some confusion with the perspective change, it was hard to keep track of four different names for the same two people in such a short story, and it might have helped to have a clearer internal voice for each individual. Lapidaria by Sebmojo The one where a guy works on a gem farm and the gems make him fall in love with a girl and stay on the gem farm. A beautiful backdrop for a story that doesn't quite go anywhere. I very much felt like there wasn't enough Story to ever cause me to suspend my disbelief about people growing and eating gems, despite the fact that it was presented as Unquestionable Fact in the story itself. The characterization wasn't bad, he had a voice, it just wasn't a voice that really gripped me or felt like it shone as brightly as the backdrop. It may have genuinely been a better story from Marta/Marda/Lapis's point of view, since it's her desires being more clearly warped and acted on here. Ch Ch Changes by Chairchucker The one where a guy grows wings instead of arms, meets a girl who helps him out, and they team up with his old friend to Solve An Attempted Murder. This was fun to read! You have a lot of characters for a short story, but the ones that matter have distinct enough voices that it's not a problem. I did find the sudden shift into “and now we solve a mystery!” to be a little baffling and abrupt, but upon reflection the reason it was irritating is that I wanted to know more. And that's far from the worst crime a story can commit.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2021 02:06
|
|
|
Sign-ups are closed. One cojudge spot remains open.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2021 09:02
|
|
|
Ketchup Crits: Week #476 The man called M - My Strangest Patient: Yay: It's the first time you've posted in Thunderdome! Boo: Nearly Everything else! So the quick lowdown is this feels more like a character sketch or something that you'd do as a pre-writing for a more substantial piece. That's not bad in-and-of itself because just vomiting out words to figure out what you want to write is part of the process. Unfortunately this didn't have a lot of story to go along with that, but keep on entering and you keep getting better. Captain_Indigo - Dangerous Woman: Yay: Good use of an unreliable narrator. Boo: Some awkward sentences here and there. I was a fan of this one this week. It was sort of dumb, it was sort of weird, but it was also really fun. This isn't one I could see being published outside the dome because it was really tailored to to the prompt and I don't think it holds up if you don't know the prompt...BUT within the borders of what it is it's a hoot. Chernobyl Princess - Restoration: Yay: A nice take on the genre and a story where I felt the motivation of the MC rang true. Boo: The story sort of drags in the first paragraph, and the end had a little clunk in it. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and the characters felt "real" to me. I think it was "good sci-fi" in the sense that it takes contemporary issues and drags them into a new setting in order to peer and poke at them from different angles. The first paragraph was sort of ho-hum, but the story really got legs under it after that. The ending could have used a little tweaking, as it didn't really land for me on the first pass--I originally thought it would be more of a satisfying end if Anatoly destroyed the art and was gunned down at the gala. After a second read, the original ending resonated more since his final act hurts the CEO far more than the destruction of the art piece would have by depriving the CEO of future income. In any case, I'd plink around with the end to play that up just a little more. My Shark Waifuu - The Detective Kireyev: Yay: Really nails the "look and feel" of a gritty police drama set in revolutionary Russia. Boo: Leans on that "look and feel" as a crutch just a little bit too hard. So this isn't a bad story, it's just a little cliche with some added jank that booted me out of the narrative. Is the city really that lousy with psychics and tea readers? Can't walk down the street without bumbling through a palm reading? Other than that the detective story is sort of your boiler plate Loose-Cannon-with-a-Straight-Laced-Chief. All that said, you pulled the story together in a workmanlike manner, and honestly that's not a bad thing. Sometimes the dome is about trying new far-out wacky stuff to see how it lands, sometimes the dome is about writing a story in a well known style that you personally haven't worked with before. Sometimes the dome's just about getting a story in before deadline. In any case, this was a solid, if sort of well trodden story. Sitting Here - Foulbrood: Yay: Weirdness that doesn't need to apologize for itself. Boo: Damning with faint praise--it was alright. I liked this story pretty well, and honestly the only reason it didn't HM this week is we had a couple of stronger contenders. What kept it out of contention? If memory serves I think it was a slightly weak ending with an "...and we're done here" vibe. It wasn't bad in any way I can quantify, it was just fine. I think as part of a larger collection of stories about this post gotterdammerung world, it might be better. Yoruichi - Parasitoid: Yay: More Bees this week! Boo: Bees don't scream! I've said many times before that breakup stories and post-relationship stories are a hard sell for me. This story did a pretty good job of threading that needle because it was more about the walkabout than the relationship...but then the bees screamed. That just booted me right out of the story. Not a bad little story, but screaming bees (which would be a great Screaming Trees cover band name) sort of kept this one from HM consideration. Hawklad - the one answer that is waiting to be heard: Yay: A good monster story and period piece. Boo: Niggling details and some points of prose that didn't quite land. So overall this was one of our favorites this week (It HM'd, obvs). I'm going to focus on a few things that might tighten this up well enough to send for publication instead of focusing on what you did "right." First, be really careful about "setting omniscience." What do I mean by that? Well the PBR captain would surely know about VC and NVA and what was going on along the river, but ARVN tunnel rats were more of an upland phenomenon in the hills. He might know about them in a general sense but for a Navy guy to be thinking in Army terms is a little off. Beyond that really look at the casting off from the village scene where he sees his ex and her new boyfriend and other people he knew standing on the dock. I sort of get where you were going with that imagery, but it still sort of "clunks" for me in reading it. Anyway, good job, this was a good story. Carl Killer Miller - Become Memory Forever: Yay: The creeping horror of looking back at previous story elements in a new and sinister light. Boo: Heavy handed mad science machines Once again, this was an overall good story that HM'd. The point that I specifically recall enjoying was thinking back to the photos the professor presents his student with at the diner, but seeing them in a new and awful way once I realized what they were. I'm generally not a fan of stories that want to pull A-ha! moments on me because they're usually done poorly, but you managed to pull it off and that stuck with me. I think both Derp and I appreciated the "MAD SCIENCE" lab in the prof's basement, but this didn't work quite as well. I think this is a case of where it wasn't subdued enough or camped up enough to really work. Mad science tropes are one of those things that really need to be super subtle or totally over the top to really work for me. But congrats on the HM. Idle Amalgam - False Negatives: Yay: I cared about the MC in this Boo: A few too many characters, and an ending that took a punt. I think both judges were in agreement that this story can be salvaged. First, there's a few too many family members running around in this story and very few of them get enough "time" in the story to make me care about them. I care about the MC, his wife...and that's about it. The others just sort of flit through and they're more scenery than characters. The thing that really annoyed us, though, was the "twist" ending. It got some eye rolls and groans, but not in a good way. I think if the story had ended two paragraphs earlier it'd have been a No Mention instead of a DM. Thranguy - Song and Dance: Yay: Unapologetically weird. Boo: Preexisting knowledge of the Grouse ruined it for me. So this was a fun, really strange dream story, but for me the gel didn't quite set. The intro wasn't quite explicit enough for me to figure out what was going on during the first read, and as a result it felt like the ending had been tacked on out of nowhere. My larger problem was that I cannot possibly conceive of a Grouse being a threat in any way, shape, or form. At least once a year for the past seven years, one of those dummies plows headlong into my kitchen window, snapping its neck and netting me an effort-free roast grouse dinner during late autumn. (Speaking of, I expect it to happen any day now.) In any case, having to shoe-horn in a grouse as the "monster" in this because of the prompt really sort of killed the drama for me. t a s t e - Meet Cute: Yay: Hobos and Taoism, two of my favorite things. Boo: A little prosaic clunk here and there. Congrats on the win this week. Not much to say here other than good job on "going off the rails" (lol) with this while still keeping it somehow believable. Nearly every thing here is a stretch, but it's never stretched quite to the point of breaking the story. And anytime I see an unabashedly Taoist character in a story, I always smile a little. My only advice would be one more read-though to catch a few minor errors that stuck out at me on the read, but I can't even remember now. sebmojo - Tapes Recovered from the Midnight Zone: Yay: Purestrain mood Boo: Light on the story I'm guessing that I'm not telling you anything you don't already know but this was a sort of fun little vignette that was heavy on atmosphere and mood and light on the story. I'm also thinking that anyone without knowledge of Thomas Bernhard, or that Thomas Bernhard was the prompt would be sort of at a loss on this one. But if you know both of those things it's a fun little read that brings Austrian depression to the vasty deep. Chairchucker - Always Breaking and Entering, Too, Totally Suss: Yay: Strong MC voice, "a Chairchucker story" Boo: A goes nowhere, does nothing story This is one of those "something that's really fun to read even if it's not terribly profound" stories. Using Santa for lists was a little on the nose but what the hell, and the voice of the MC really carries what exists of the narrative. As it is, it's sort of like listening to someone with a marginal grip on reality go off on a weird rant. But that's what makes it charming. It was fun, I think both judges liked it, but I'm just not sure where it would fit outside of the dome. BabyRyoga - Weapon of Choice: Yay: You posted in Thunderdome! Boo: Death by a thousand cuts Let me start by saying that I don't think either judge hated this story. It just had too many little "wait, what?" elements in it to keep the narrative flowing properly. For me it was things like a soccer player (Argentinian) expecting to be served Boba Tea (Korean/Taiwanese) instead of Yerba Mate. And why did the magnets only start working once they were in the guys intestines? He said they were tough, but surely magnets would crack your tooth if you tried to chew them? You see where I'm going. In any case, thanks for playing and we look forward to your next dome entry!
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 18:39
|
|
|
Catsup Crits: Week #478 So a big note on these: I'm just doing mini-crits here because Yoruichi, Chernobyl Princess, and I did a live-judging that had our full crits in it. If you want to know more, you should really check that out here: click4critz Beyond that, feel free to harass me with questions about these in the super secret discord channel, which isn't so secret at all. The man called M - This is what it sounds like: Yay: This was closer to a story than your initial entry! Boo: This still was vignettish at best, with neither a solid plotline nor a solid punchline to finish it as a joke. Idle Amalgam - Cross My Heart and Hope to Die: Yay: You properly camped up mad science to the point where it was proper MAD SCIENCE. Boo: The beginning of the story really clunked along until it found its legs. Barnaby Profane - Rosie’s: Yay: One of the most aesthetic stories in a week about aesthetic stories. Boo: The shaving scene at the beginning slowed momentum into the "real story," and the end went on too long for a proper death scene. My Shark Waifuu - Pigeon Coup: Yay: David Attenborough gone bonkers. A fun read. Boo: Sort of split the voice between something that would appeal to kids with gore that was only suitable for adults. Azza Bamboo - What It Means to be Olisipian: Yay: Feels like a compelling intro to a longer story. Boo: Sort of just ends with no resolution. t a s t e - Perspective: Yay: A really interesting concept paired with a possibly unreliable narrator. Boo: Played a little too fast and loose with some of the symbolism to the point where the meaning was lost. Carl Killer Miller - How It Works: Yay: An incredibly "real" story that feels lived in and relateable even for people not going through the hardships of the MC. Boo: Some profound punctuation decisions, especially in dialogue. Lots of commas where periods ought to have been, left us unsure if that was an oversight or "style." Captain_Indigo - The Neon Girl: Yay: A really, really interesting concept that has good potential for a rewrite. Boo: Wanton cruelty and a flubbed ending left this one unsatisfying and slightly icky feeling. Thranguy - Catalyst: Yay: Big on aesthetic and mood Boo: Story elements feel skimped on Antivehicular - Joyriders: Yay: Really loved the concept of person vs. form and how the two inform one another. Boo: The final perspective shift to the corporate voyeur left a bad taste in my mouth. sebmojo - Lapidaria: Yay: Raised some interesting questions about the nature of happiness and how we define success and fulfilment. Boo: Left a lot of meat still on the bone. Chairchucker - Ch Ch Changes: Yay: A crazy, surreal story about learnign to live with unexpected change and opportunities those bring. Boo: Sort of an ADHD ending where the characters all decided to go do something else and dropped the story cold. SurreptitiousMuffin - One More, With Feeling: Yay: Poems don't get enough love in the dome. Boo: Shameful late posting!
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 19:00
|
|
|
Amelia, Saint of the Miners Steampunk horror 1998 words I should know by the pull of gravity whether it's my head or my legs that are dangling from the end of my grappling rope, but both feel like they're being pulled outward from my core. I never imagined how fully my sense of direction would be destroyed in this sort of dark. I grab at my belt for my neon lantern, but the latch was broken in the blast and the light lost. There is no ocean of blackness, no deep void. The dark is only as far away as the lenses of my goggles, and envelops my vision entirely. "Help!" I call, the sound muffled by the firedamp-filter mask over my mouth, and the vague echoes return swiftly and repeatedly. From here, I can only pray. Maybe a minute, maybe an hour passes before I hear her voice. "Hello!" she calls out. "Are you okay?" "I need help!" I say. "Who are you?" There hasn't been a woman in the Miner's Corp for over a century. "Amelia," she says. A papery hand grabs my arm and lifts. I briefly remember which direction is up before I am again lost in the black. When I am certain there is ground beneath me again, I cut the rope. "How did you find me without a light?" I say. "I'm blind," she says. "Always have been. Had to learn to get around on the surface, and by the time I came down here it was as easy for me as any of the boys with real eyes. What's your name?" "Hugo," I say. " I suppose you don't have a light." "No, but I know the way out. Here, something to eat." She presses a wrapped package into my hand. I peel away the cloth wrapping and bite into the meat. It's terrible, dry and stringy, but it's food. "There was a blast. Our drill engine must've burst," I say. "I got thrown down here. What are you doing so deep, alone?" "I'm a scout. They sent me down here to map out the cave networks." "Must be hard to draw a map as a blind woman." "It is. That's why I just dictate. Believe me, there's less for me to worry about down here than there is up there. I can throw stones down the canyons and judge distances by their echoes. There are always walls for me to feel to find my way. No need to worry about getting hit by a passing motorcar, no getting lost in an empty field. You'll get used to the darkness too. I assume you can't tell which way is up and which way is down? Your sense of direction will come back before we're out of here, and you won't lose it again. Now we should be on our way. It's two days to the surface. No need to climb; there's a tunnel all the way there." She takes my arm and moves further into the dark. My legs move, always seeming to hit the ground by pure chance. Amelia doesn't seem to understand how famous she is, how impossible it would be for any man of the Miner's Core not to know who she is. ... We stop to eat. She gives me another package of meat. I sit, or lean on a wall, I don't know, I just know my rear end is against a hard surface. "Do you have anything to make a fire?" I say. "Yes," she says. "But it's not a good idea. Every stone here is coal, the greatest deposit I've ever felt. Miles and miles of it. The air down here is so thick with firedamp that a stray flame could blow it all away." "It's all coal? That's incredible!" I say. "The God has been getting hungry." "The God?" she says. "Yes, the great steam God," I say, a little shocked. Of all people, she should know. "How have you not heard of Him?" "I return to the surface only to make my reports, then I go back into the caves. I couldn't even tell you who the Prime Minister is. What's this great steam God?" I have seen Him once, during my required Pilgrimage to join the Mining Corps, the colossus towering into the sky's horizon. "An enormous automaton, higher than any tower or any mountain. A machine that makes it rain just enough for the crops to grow in bounty, but never ruin a baseball game. With His steps He can redirect earthquakes to hit barren, empty lands. He can generate enough wind for airships to cross the Atlantic in an hour. But He needs coal, lots of coal, more coal than everything else put together." Amelia hums curiously. "I think I've felt Him before, the shudders of His footsteps in the cave walls." I swallow another horrid mouthful of her awful meat. "The Prime Minister is Apollo Chamberlain, by the way." "Hmm," she says. "Never heard of him." … As I rest, I dream of the woman with a stark face and pale eyes, who went missing in the caves a hundred years ago. When we continue, Amelia asks me about my life on the surface as she walks and I stumble, my footing a little more secure than when our journey began. "What is there to tell?" I say. "I live a miner's life." "Wife? Children?" "A wife, all but assigned to me by the company. A decent woman, but not one that I ever felt any real love for. She'd take no offense hearing me say that, we've all long accepted our lot. I have three children, two boys and a girl. The boys are in the Corps' primary school to learn how to mine when they grow older. The girl's at least learning to read, but mostly to sew." "So you'll be miners all down your family tree, from now until the Earth is waste?" "Maybe so," I say, allowing myself a chuckle. "My father wasn't a miner. He was an engineer, designing railroads. But when the God was built, it seemed like mining was the only job of any use." "To whom?" "Everyone who wants to travel the world in an airship and everyone who doesn't want to be rained on at a baseball game." "Have you ever been to a baseball game, Hugo?" she says. "Many times, but only as a child. The price of a ticket went up to account for the lack of rain." "And have you ever stepped foot on an airship?" "No, and it's impossible for me to imagine a circumstance in which I would," I say "I didn't expect a Saint of the God's Church to speak so ill of Him." She stops, and I can hear bones creak as she turns. "You know of me?" she says. "Of course. You're Amelia, Saint of the Miners, the blind woman who discovered half the deposits we know about. The chapel in the mining camp is named for you." "I'm sorry, Hugo. I'm not your saint. My soul belongs to another god. Still, I will bring you into the light." "Of course," I say. "When I was trapped on the ledge yesterday, I did not pray to the God. I prayed to you. And now you've done more for me than He ever has." … By the time I awake from our second rest, I can rise without Amelia's aid. We walk together down into the tunnel. After a few hours, I stop. "What is it?" she says as she hears my footsteps pause. "I need you to be honest with me," I say. "Okay," she says. "I can promise you that." "You told me I would regain my sense of direction, and I have. Not all the way, but I know my ups and downs, enough to know that you're not leading me to the surface. We're going deeper, much deeper." "How long have you known?" "I started to suspect it yesterday. If we were going up, I would have to bend my knees more on the incline," I say. "And yet you continued to follow me. Why?" "What's waiting for me on the surface?" I say. "More days, years, decades of mining? Maybe what's down here isn't better, but it must be freer. Anything would be. I will follow my patron saint into hell." For once, the silence overwhelms the darkness. No bats beat their wings, no water drips, and even the gases making their way through the mountain seem to cease. "Then it's to hell we go, Hugo." Her footsteps continue further down into the Earth. It's too late to turn back into the upward, equal darkness, too deep to clamber into that new unknown. "Come on, Hugo!" she yells, far away now. I follow. The darkness where she leads me is even heavier and denser. "We're here," she says. "What now?" I say. "I'm sorry," says Amelia. "I enjoyed the time I spent with you. It's lonely down here, and you've been my best friend in a hundred years. But in the way your God needs coal, mine needs blood." I hear the soft wrustle of a dagger being unsheathed. "Wait," I say. "I don't have to die like this. You don't have to live like this. Come with me up to the surface." I hear a valve being turned. For a second, I am blinded by the light as powerfully as I have been by the dark, but my eyes adjust to the dim little flame of an oil lamp. The lamp is held by a mass of dry, bloodless flesh attached with melted skin: torsos, legs, hands, little forearms still wrapped in the antique sleeves of old miners, forearms which I now realize have been sustaining me these last two days. In the center of this blob of humanity is the head of the woman I've seen on history-book daguerreotypes and votive candles. Behind the beast, barely-lit, dark-upon-dark, is an enormous mouth with teeth like the roots of rotting trees. Amelia turns off the lamp after only a moment. "I don't want to feed you to it, but its hunger is becoming my own. Run away now," says Amelia. I remain still. "GO! GOOOOOOO!" she hollers as her voice ruptures into a slobbering growl. Then the sound of the flesh-mass scrambles towards me, all her mouths ravenously gurgling. I turn and run into the dark, and keep running until I can hear her no longer. ... When I leave the mountain days later, I am skin and bone, delirious. I'm taken away from the mine and brought to the hospital in the city. As I recover there, I read in the morning newspaper that the whole mountain had erupted in flame shortly after my escape. Something must have ignited a firedamp line that ran through the whole cavern, the journalist speculates. I don't know what sanity or madness finally drove her to burn her god, but she gave me enough time to flee before she did. I receive a telegraph from my wife assuring my family's safety, but none from any of the miners I called friends. The camp is abandoned, left to burn through the centuries. The Prime Minister declares the whole thing a great loss to the steam God, who will not be fully functional until new shipments of coal can be imported from the American colonies. Airship flights will be delayed for some time. There was a baseball field not far from the foot of the mountain. When the mine burst, flaming coal rained down upon the baseball diamond during a well-attended game. Had it rained that day, there may have been survivors. Every day now, after I return from the mines of some new, coal-poor mountain, and before I return to my quarters for my wife's potato stew, I walk into that little shack, the New Chapel of St. Amelia, to say my prayers. She's the only saint to ever reward my faith.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 21:46
|
|
|
one of a kind 1750w I noticed one October evening that a maple tree behind my house was moving in a strange way, as if being buffeted by a gust, while all the other trees stood still. I thought perhaps someone was shaking it, and looked through my binoculars. I saw nothing, except that the tree was now standing still while those around it rocked in the wind. I decided to investigate. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe an animal, or some kids climbing in the branches. But there was nothing, not even wind. I put a hand on the rough bark and looked up through the leaves with my binoculars. They were just beginning to turn orange. I didn’t notice anything at the time, but thinking back, maybe there was a shift in the air. A minute but sudden change in pressure or temperature. As I reached the edge of the trees I felt certain something was amiss. Perhaps I had noticed it subconsciously some time earlier, but it was only when I stopped to contemplate what was bothering me that I noticed my bedroom light was on. I had certainly turned the light off before I left. It is a habit of mine to turn off all the lights in the house whenever I leave, even for a stroll. I was starting to think I was losing my mind when I saw some motion in my room. Someone was standing at the window. I peered through my binoculars, and saw a man also looking through binoculars, looking out the window in my direction. My heart pounded, and I thought burglar! Then he lowered the binoculars and I saw his face. My face. It was me in my room, looking out at the trees. Now I was moving away from the window, now turning out the light, now coming out the front door. I stood there frozen and watched myself stride across the lawn. That was me, heading over to check the tree. If that was me just a few minutes ago, going out to check the tree, then... Impossible connections clicked into place. Impossible, but I was looking at it. It made sense, in an impossible way. Somehow that tree had sent me back in time, and there I was, the other me, about to complete the circuit. But what if... Before I could contemplate the consequences, I darted out of the trees and jumped in front of myself. “Wait,” I said. We locked eyes and it was the strangest sensation. It was nothing like looking in a mirror. His mouth dropped open, he tensed and his eyes widened with surprise, but he said nothing. To see myself give such candid reactions was like nothing I’d experienced. I knew exactly what he was feeling and thinking, and each facial twitch, each minor movement of an arm or shift in position of his feet made perfect sense. We stared for minutes. Each time I was about to speak, I realized that he-I must know exactly what I was about to say, so I didn't bother. Without a word we walked back into the house and sat at the dinner table. After several silent minutes, he spoke. “The tree?” he said. And I, knowing exactly what he meant, said “Yes.” There followed a mostly mute conversation scattered with muttered ‘do you suppose...’ ‘...but then’ and ‘ah, yes...’ vocalizations, which would have been completely incomprehensible to anyone watching. We came to the unspoken but completely clear agreement that the ‘time rift’ was likely one-way, and that we were stuck with each other. We also realized that the power to be in two places at once might be exploited in many very profitable ways. We set to cooking dinner together, and I realized that we were not exactly the same. We both knew what we were going to cook without any discussion, but instead of tripping over one another by both reaching for the same pot, or grabbing at the same ingredient, we worked in perfect sync. I realized that this was because I had a different outlook than him. Since I had left my time and come to his time, I viewed myself as a guest in his house, and he must have thought of me as a visitor. Because of that, our actions were subtly different. As we ate, ideas for a multitude of scams ran through my mind. After we washed the plates, we sat out on the porch to watch the sun set. At once we noticed the same strange behavior of the maple tree: it moved while the others were still, then was still while the others swayed. We exchanged a glance, and immediately stood. “Wait,” I started to say, but he was also placing his hand on my arm and saying the same thing. We ran into the bedroom and he opened the wall safe, shoving stacks of cash into my arms. We emptied out the 60,000 dollars I kept in there, then headed to the tree. Could it possibly be? We wondered, as I touched the trunk. He followed my lead and caressed the bark as well. We wondered, could it happen again? A moment later we walked out of the trees and saw ourselves sitting on the porch. I immediately knew which one was ‘me’ from before, because he was much more surprised than the other to see us walk out of the trees with armfulls of cash. A problem immediately presented itself. We had doubled our fortune, but now had four times as many people to split it amongst. The idea of one of us going through the rift alone was out of the question, because we knew that the one who went would be going on to ‘other’ people, and would not come back to us. We decided we needed something bigger. We needed to duplicate something hugely valuable. We planned late into the night, then fell asleep in the bed, couch and lounge chairs. I didn’t take the bed, though for some reason it seemed they expected me to. In the morning we sat on the porch, watched the trees, and ironed out the details to our plan. After an hour it seemed obvious that the tree was continuing to move strangely, and that the rift was not going away. We initiated the plan. Each of us would spend several thousand dollars to rent a luxury watch for the evening. The most expensive one we could find available to rent was worth nearly 100,000 dollars. So for the price of less than five thousand, we could get 400,000 worth of watches. It was a good start. It was strange to be separated, and to know that I was at four locations across the city. I felt I knew exactly what I was doing at each place. We got back that afternoon, and went up to the tree once again. Then, there were eight of us. We all knew it was quickly getting out of hand. But what else was there to do? Some of us set out to find places where we could sell the watches, others of us went out to rent even more jewelry, the most expensive we could find. Once we had enough money we could start buying in mass quantities, then returning our purchases for a refund after they were duplicated. We milled about the house, coming and going like bees in a hive. Everywhere I looked was my own face. My own all-knowing, perceptive face. It came time for the eight of us to go through the rift again. We strode toward the tree, our arms laden with jewels and gold. I noticed half the group was hanging back, and I realized they were expecting more of us to come out of the woods before they could go in. The majority of us, I realized, had seen themselves come out of the woods more times than they’d gone in. I should have thought about this more, I really should have. There were sixteen, then thirty-two of us. I lost track of what everyone was doing, but things still ran like clockwork. We talked in groups of threes or fours and everyone knew exactly what they were doing. Everyone but me, that is. For some reason I was lagging behind, and had to ask questions constantly, while everyone else still communicated in the half-verbal mumble speak that I’d known the first few days. By the time there were 64 of us, I was bumping into people and interrupting conversations and messing up plans and causing constant disturbances in the house. As soon as I realized it, of course, I knew everyone else did as well. As soon as I thought I should probably get out of there, they knew I’d be trying to leave. A dozen pairs of my hands grabbed me and led me to the basement. I knew it was useless to struggle or yell, and they knew they wouldn’t need to force me. I was different, yes, but I was still me. I knew exactly what I’d do if I were one of them. I’m sitting here in the basement now, wondering how I could have missed it. It was such a minor difference, but one that affected my perception of everything. As time passed, the difference compounded, until every other me noticed that I was a stranger among them. Out of all of us, I was the only one who had never seen anyone come out of the woods. Maybe that made me the ‘original,’ maybe not. It made me different, is what it did. I hear them upstairs now, mumble-discussing my fate. I’m thinking about it myself, and I’m having a hard time avoiding the inevitable conclusion that they’ll have to get rid of me. They can’t have me out in the world, disrupting their plans, adding chaos to their formulas. I hope they’ll send me through the rift on my own, but they don’t think like I do. They think that if they send me through the rift, that another me who another group sent away might come out of the woods to trouble them again. No, I know what they’ll decide to do. As soon as I come to the realization, of course, they do as well. I hear dozens of chairs scoot and dozens of feet pad across the floor above me. They’ll be coming down to get rid of me. Not two or five or ten of them, no. Like everything, they’ll do it together. Every one of them. The door opens, and a swarm of my uneasy yet determined faces pour into the room.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 23:11
|
|
|
Athos and the Living Dead 1431 Words Sword and Sandal Horror Long ago, during the days of the Roman Empire, the land was infected by a plague of the undead. A plague brought about by Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. Due to not wanting to waste his soldiers, Emperor Nero sent out common Gladiators to fight off the undead menace. The strongest of them was known as Athos. He and his legendary muscles posed the greatest threat to the undead menace. We truly start our story during one of those battles, where Athos led the Gladiators again to battle. During this battle, Athos, built like a true man, was separated from his group and fought multiple undead at once. It appeared that even the colossal girth of Athos was outnumbered, when suddenly, another man’s blade smashed an undead trying to ambush him. “Well, well. Is the mighty Athos finally losing his edge?” Said the Gladiator. “Cut me some slack, Nikos!” Athos mentioned, muscles in tow. “Even a mountain like I can be toppled by a group!” Athos treasured Nikos’ assistance. In the world of Gladiatorial Combat, fighters are discouraged to be friends. After all, why be friends with someone today, who you were going to kill tomorrow? But when fighting the undead menace, Nikos was a valuable ally for both Athos and his muscles. After the day of battle has ended, the Gladiators that still lived headed back to their quarters. Most of the Gladiators were former slaves, trading one slavery for another. In the Colosseum, brave men fight to the death using sword, spear, or whatever weapon they can find. The battle ends when one man kills another. In other words, two men enter, one man leaves. As said before, there wasn’t any room for friendships in Gladiatorial Combat. After the battle, the victor is rewarded with a feast in his honor. It was a rule set in place by Nero himself, “After glorious combat, there must always be a feast.” There were some who questioned that decree, but as long as the food was good, they did not care. The next day, it was decided who would fight in glorious combat tomorrow. There were a few preliminaries, but the main battle was decided as Athos vs. Nikos. After the matches were announced, Nikos talked to Athos privately, showing him a unique opal encrusted ring. “My sister and I were taken away from separate places, and we were each given these rings. I swore to the gods above that I would do anything to find her. Of course, that also means killing you, my friend.” Athos truly understood, as he also had a worthy reason to fight. Back when he was a child, he fell in love with a local girl named Seline. For her, the feeling was mutual. Unfortunately, she was forced to become one of Nero’s concubines. This did not stop Athos from making love to her behind his back, however (Which, given the size of Nero, isn’t that hard). Athos hoped to one day take Seline away from Nero’s clutches. The day of combat has finally come! The first few matches were nice and manly affairs, but what the audience wanted to see was the main event. The time soon came when the two finest Gladiators in Rome fought to the death. To merely say that it was a fight of epic proportions would not do it justice. There was no trickery here, just two muscular men fighting it out with their swords. In the end, Athos was able to cut off Nikos’ arm. In the stands, Nero gives the thumbs down, ordering Athos to finish him. “I’m sorry, my friend.” Athos says regrettably, as he decapitates his friend. Before the deed was done, Nikos appeared calm, as if he was telling Athos, “No, don’t be.” Afterwards, while the crowds were cheering, some soldiers came to collect Nikos’ corpse, including his head and arm. Regrettably, Athos prepared for the feast. A few hours later, Athos came to the castle cleaned up after a hard fight. While he had fought before, his fight with Nikos was perhaps the hardest, physically and emotionally. Athos came to the dining hall, where all that were there cheered him. Among them were Seline and Emperor Nero, himself. “Come, champion!” Nero says. “Sit, so that the feast can begin!” Athos is used to these feasts. After all, they serve the same similar meat. The kind of meat that one might consider nice and lean. Quite a few people come to these feasts, and there’s usually meat for everyone. Athos didn’t find anything odd in this feast as well, until he felt something hard open his mouth. He took it out to see what it was. It was a ring. After cleaning it off a little it became abundantly clear that the ring was encrusted with an Opal. Strange. This is similar to the ring Nikos showed me earlier! Very similar! Then he realized a disturbing thought. He thought of his fellow Gladiators. Those who were slain for the amusement of the masses. There were some characteristics that made them different, but the thing that could be said of all of them was that they were all quite muscular. Not as muscular as Athos, but then again who is? There is also another phrase that they could be considered: Nice and Lean. By Jupiter’s Beard! Athos thought. Could it be that all this time, the meat for these feasts were fallen Gladiators?! It was all coming together in Athos’ mind (The strongest of all his muscles). The mere thought that Nikos died so he would be nourishment for Nero infuriated him. In a rage, Athos stands up, flexes, and yells, “NEROOOOOOOOO!!” Nero turns his neck of fat towards Athos. “What is the meaning of this?!” Screamed Athos. “Whatever do you mean, Sir?” Nero exclaims. “Am I right to say that all these feasts, we have been eating my fellow Gladiators?!” “Oh, of course!” Nero exclaims, sounding proud of himself. “What did you think we were going to eat, the Christians?” Nero chuckles. He looks around, wondering why no one else is laughing with him. The other guests appear horrified, as if they were as disgusted, if not more, as Athos. Nero gets up and grabs a sword. “It appears that I am still hungry, Sir Athos! And might I add, you look rather tasty!” Nero slowly charges towards Athos. Athos and his muscles disarm him, and stabs Nero with his own sword, killing him. The other feast guests run away in terror. Some guards come up to see what has happened. When it was obvious what took place, the guards all bow and yell, “Hail, Athos Caesar!” After they leave, Athos decapitates Nero’s corpse, and smashes his head on the table. He treats on some of Nero’s brain. His curiosity sated, he understood why the undead preferred eating them. Soon after, Athos comes to Seline’s quarters. While she was disgusted by what took place, she had no love for Nero. “However, I believe Nero was right about one thing.” Said Seline. “You do look rather tasty.” They made love soon afterwards. During their session, Athos discovers Seline wearing a similar ring to the one Nikos had. “Forgive me my love.” Remarks Athos. “The man I killed in the Coliseum was your brother.” “And I am sure he is smiling at us both from above, darling.” Seline remarks. Afterwards, the two of them pay their respects to the fallen Gladiators, including Nikos. May you rest with the gods, old friend. Athos thought, remembering Nikos. From that day on, Athos and Seline would lead Rome into an age of Prosperity. Though after Nero’s death, the Living Dead seemed to disappear. Meanwhile, in the Underworld, Nero finds himself as its newest addition. “Where am I?” He speaks. “You are in my domain!” Says a dark figure. It is none other than Hades himself. “I sent my undead armies to go after you, Nero! They are quite mindless, so they attacked everything and everyone and everything, but they are quite effective!” Hades explains. “Fortunately, Athos did the deed quite well!” Nero was suddenly surrounded by many figures. He recognized them as former morsels that he himself have eaten. “Now, I have quite a few souls who are quite hungry, and who am I to deny them a good meal?” Hades exclaims, with a smirk on his face. “FEEDING TIME!” As the souls charge towards Nero, he could only yell, “NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOO!!!!” as they rip into Nero’s fatty flesh. They cannibalize him like wild animals. And then…. …silence!
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2021 23:33
|
|
|
Love as sweet as blood 1192 words ------------ I kill the engine at the edge of the woodline, the lights focused on the broken windows of that old schoolhouse. The only thing left standing after a forest fire decades ago, left to rot with the bones of those who couldn't escape. I pick up the bag resting on the passenger seat before stepping out into the cool autumn air, pine needles and fallen twigs crunching under my boots as the door slams shut, lights out. I slip on my mask in the full moonlight, removing the cleaver from my bag before hefting it onto my shoulder and heading inside, the night perfectly still aside from my own footsteps. Inside, the air is thick with the scent of mold and a deathly silence, quiet enough to hear my own breath in my mask as I make my way up the stairs, the webs in the corners swaying in the air currents. When I hold my breath I can hear the chittering from down the hallways. The scent of fresh blood begins to mingle with the mold, the sharp metallic scent like ambrosia on my tongue. She's close. I hear her stumbling in a classroom, chairs and tables clattering as she gives away her position. I rush to the door and throw it open wide, my frame filling the doorway as I look it at nothing but a pile of broken furniture. Her weight hits me at the shoulder blades and I roll with the impact, watching the woman in the white dress jump to the wall. Her double-jointed limbs clinging to an old chalkboard, claws digging into the cinderblocks, hissing at me with hinged jaws and bloodshot eyes before leaping at me again. This time I'm prepared, my shoulder slamming into her to drive her back before swinging with my cleaver and missing her again. We dance. Her lunges met with my swings, her swipes met with my steps. I never land a clean strike, her nails only make scratches across my arms. But I swing wide, and her lunge drives the wind from me as she slams me to the ground, her claws at my chest. I can feel the tips pressing against the skin, each heartbeat threatening to pierce my ribcage and pull my heart out clean. But she doesn't move. My cleaver at her neck keeps her at distance, and she knows that if she killed me I would not go alone. Her head lowers to mine and we embrace, putting out weapons aside on that dusty floor. --------------- I watch her spin in the moonlight from that broken roof, seeing her chirp and smile as she inspects her new dress, my bag tossed away into a corner and forgotten as I watch her sway and spin. She was as beautiful as the first night I had met her in that old spillway, seeing her handiwork webbed to the concrete walls, desiccated and half-devoured. I found her covered in the viscera of my prey, glistening with blood and dressed in rags. She attacked me then as well, nearly took my life before I could escape. But I couldn't stop thinking about her. I brought her a dress that I had taken from one of my victims, unable to bear the sight of such a wonderful being in simple rags. And from there, we came to an understanding. We would continue to try to kill one another, of course. We couldn't defy our natures after all. But if she won, I could die knowing that my body would be a proper vessel for her eggs. And if she fell to my blade, I would throw away every skull in my collection to make place for her, to see her visage forevermore. She finishes her reverie and comes to rest at my side, her arm around me as I hold her close, a hand teasing one of those soft raven locks as we sit in the moonlit silence. Then we hear the laughter. We grow still for a second, straining to listen as the voices approach. Four...two men, two women. Most likely campers coming to explore the haunted school, probably drunk and looking for a place to sate their animal needs. We look to one another and stand. She passes me my cleaver and my mask, and I place a kiss to her forehead before we separate and make our way downstairs. I use the far stairwell, taking care not to let my footsteps echo before I reach the first floor, the sound of sweet laughter and desperate kissing coming from a classroom. The door is open as I look in on them, the woman pressed up against the wall, eyes closed as she embraces her lover, leg riding up on his waist as he fumbles at her jeans. They're too busy to notice me, even when I raise the handle of my cleaver and strike the man at the temple, sending him reeling to the ground. The woman screams and it sounds like music to my ears, my hand clasping over her mouth and driving her against the wall before I bring my cleaver to her neck. Bones splinter under the blade. I feel her arteries and veins sever and pour out over that well-forged steel, the twitch of her windpipe felt in the handle as her eyes flutter and roll upwards before going glossy and slack. The lifeless meat falls to the ground at my feet, and I hold her head up by those red locks. She'll make a good addition to the collection once the maggots pick her clean. I hear the man starting to rise up once more and place a boot to his head, driving him back down before tying his hands to a bolted-down cabinet to keep him there for my love. I hear a scream from down the hall, taking my time to walk to where she had captured the other couple. The man was dead already, eyes bulging and his neck black with venom as he hung from the ceiling, the wound in his chest webbed up cleanly. She'd even left me a gift, the woman looking at me with hope, then despair as my love comes to me and leans in close. I give her hair a ruffle and point down the hall, and she chirps before disappearing into the darkness. It's good to give and receive, after all. The man will make another good incubator, though she may have to move them to her den below to ensure the eggs are safe from the search parties. And with two extra bodies, she'll have more than enough food for her children. Speaking of bodies. I turn my gaze to the brunette stuck to the wall, watching the tears roll down her cheeks. The look of broken realization. The knowledge that not even a miracle will save her now. It's nectar atop the feast that is this wonderful anniversary. As my cleaver bites through the brittle bones of her neck and the life leaves her eyes, I can't help but pity the poor girl. Because she'll never know what love truly is.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 00:58
|
|
|
Flotsam and Ruin 1997 words Prompt: Pirate Horror ** September 15, 1813 Shipwrecked! The privateer Antelope and her crew are lost, save we four. I preserved the ship's log and will keep a record while I can, being the only lettered man among us. Yesterday we overtook an American packet ship bound for Mobile. Our position that noon had placed us due north of Havana. After exchange with the swivel-guns we got broadside, but the Yankees proved faster at their guns. Our masts were smashed and the ship took water. The crew leapt into the water and made for the American, but they pushed us off with boathooks and fired pistols at us as they made sail. Clinging to a crate of ship's biscuit I drifted the evening and night, until morning revealed a wooded isle on the horizon. I bestirred myself and at last stood on solid land. Ere long I was joined by Jones and MacPherson, green crewmen like myself, and finally old Cobb, the cook, all clinging to bits of cargo. I marvel at his tenacity, for Cobb's left leg was cut off at the knee years ago. At this time our stocks consist of: one crate ship's biscuits, one small barrel salt pork, one hogshead rum, two dozen matches, this log book, two pencils, four knives, and a hatchet. MacPherson and Jones have gone to look for water. ** September 16, 1813 We found water, thank God. The island is about a mile long and half as wide, rising several hundred feet at the center. We made land on the windward side, and making our way along the waterline eventually found a small stream. It led us uphill to a pleasant pool (although muddy on one side) below a spring. We have dragged our provisions here, as the strand is rather pestilent with flies. Jones found a quantity of local fruit, peculiarly-shaped red things the size of a turnip. The skin has an unpleasantly rubbery feel, but slips off easily when squeezed, and the men were soon gorging themselves. Cobb said the fruit looks somewhat like mangoes, but declared that he wouldn't eat it, and advised me to do the same; having been shipwrecked before, he says he prefers to subsist on biscuits and pork rather than chance his digestion. We hope for rescue soon, as this area of sea is much traveled. American, British, Spanish, or French, I have no prejudice; I pray only that I may return to my native Halifax! To this end we have lit a large, smokey fire on the strand, above the tide-line, and will take it in shifts to keep the signal alight. Even old Cobb, having whittled himself a new crutch, has volunteered to take his turn. ** September 17, 1813 The basic requirements of life having been provided, I am amazed at the speed with which we have adapted to our new situation. Jones and MacPherson seem content to lie about, eating their mangoes, crushing the fruits with rum and swilling it down. They mock Cobb and me, as we yet subsist on the biscuits and salt pork, although the others have not yet shewn any ill effects from their new diet. I spent most of the day on the beach, watching for ships. I kept near the smudge fire, but was still bitten many times by the stinging flies which infest the place. When I returned, Jones expressed a similar complaint, though he had been all day by the pond. I have not noticed many insects there, but perhaps there is stagnant water nearby which breeds mosquitoes. ** September 19, 1813 Still no ship. MacPherson and Jones both afflicted greatly by insect bites, covering their bodies entirely and itching intolerably. Cobb and I seem to be spared, and I cannot find the source of these biting insects. I believe they may crawl about at night unseen, and have therefore proposed a change of bed sites. ** September 20, 1813 No ships today. J & M woke covered in sores again, despite changing their beds. Jones cursed me when I told him not to scratch. Both spent the afternoon wallowing in the mud of the pond like beasts, claiming it soothes their skins. ** September 21, 1813 MacPherson did not take his turn tending the signal fire, so that I was forced to use one of our precious matches to re-ignite it. He and Jones instead spent the entire day in the mud, emerging only for more fruits and more rum. Despite the mud, they still scratch themselves continually, moaning in disgusting fashion as they do. I have heard that those who witness great tragedy may sink into lethargy or even catatonia; I fear that these two may be so afflicted after the wreck of our ship. ** September 22, 1813 I was awakened this morning by Jones and MacPherson. They were in a frenzy of panic, having discovered that beneath their constant coating of mud, the small bites and sores had become wounds, gaping the width of a thumb and shewing horribly the very muscles beneath! The skin around moved loosely when touched. They washed the mud from their bodies while Cobb and I tore shirts and jackets to make bandages. We wrapped their wounds, offering our thanks to God that they did not bleed as much as we expected. J & M express renewed desire for rescue, but are in no condition to tend the fire; that duty now falls to Cobb and myself. ** September 23, 1813 I have checked the bandages on Jones and MacPherson and found no improvement; if anything they are worse than yesterday. They speak little, and that crudely, as if their wits are slipping. I can still discover no physical cause for their affliction, and have failed utterly to locate any of the suspected insects. ** September 24, 1813 Woke in the night to the sound of movement. By the light of the full moon I saw MacPherson and Jones unwinding their bandages. I leapt up and reprimanded them, but was answered by a blow from MacPherson! I lay on the ground as they finished removing their bandages and shuffled into the pond, then eased into the mud and began rubbing it over their bodies. I went down to the smudge fire and stayed there until nearly mid-day, when Cobb came down to find me. He begged me return to the camp, saying the others were acting very queerly. On our return, I saw that Jones and MacPherson were both rubbing at their arms through the mud coating, which had begun to dry in the warmth. They seemed to be peeling away plaques of sticky mud and flinging them onto the land. As we came closer, I saw Jones peel away a particularly large piece, then, observing my approach, he grinned and flung it directly at my feet. My stomach turned when I saw that what I had taken for dried mud was in fact a piece of his skin, lying red and limp on the ground! His forearm glistened stickily, revealing a swath of bare red muscle that looked all for the world like a quarter of beef hanging in a shop. Jones looked me in the eye, grinning wildly, as he took up a handful of mud and slapped it over the freshly bared flesh. I write this while Cobb takes some sleep, having agreed that we should keep watch lest they try to do us some harm in their lunacy. We would move, but there is no other fresh water on this island! We must sup it from the spring, not a dozen feet from where two madmen calmly and with every appearance of pleasure flense the skin from their bodies! ** September 25, 1813 I have resolved that I must leave this island, if I must swim. This morning MacPherson rose from the mud and walked to a tree, leaning against it as if to scratch his back. He rubbed himself slowly against the trunk of the tree, sighing in satisfaction, until he finally stepped away, leaving the entire skin of his back hanging from the rough bark like a cloak on a hook! The sight of his transformation moved Cobb to utter an oath I will not reproduce here, but what blasphemous words can compare to that vision of muscles and sinew, exposed to the world in such a way? As MacPherson lay back in the mud, Jones stood and made for the same tree where the grisly flag still hung. I could stand no more; I gathered this logbook and the hatchet, stuffed a handful of biscuits into my pockets, and fled. Poor Cobb hobbled after me for a few steps, calling, but to my shame I paid him no heed. I write this from the edge of the beach, near the fire. I must abandon Jones and MacPherson to their madness, returning only when I must for water. I will build a raft at the water's edge and, should no rescue come, will launch and let the wind take me where it will. ** September 26, 1813 Have felled several trees for the raft. Labor keeps my mind from the miserable creatures with whom I share this island. I had to return for water in the afternoon. Cobb said that J & M had been quiet so far, and he hoped the worst was past. As we spoke, Jones crawled from the mud toward us. His mind was clearly deteriorated, but by gestures and grunts he begged a ship's biscuit. He bit a piece and chewed, but then pushed the crumbs out of his mouth with his tongue rather than swallowing, with every indication of disgust on his ruined face. I saw that his lips were half gone, hanging in shreds around his glinting teeth; soon he would be unable to speak at all. I begged Cobb to come with me, but with one leg he would not stray far from water. I pressed one of the knives into his hand, then carried the other three back with me, lest Jones or MacPherson try to do him some mischief. As the biscuits and pork were beginning to run low, I left those to Cobb and instead gathered several of the mangoes for myself. ** September 29, 1813 I am rescued. I am safe. Two days past I was at work on the raft when I heard screams. I ran uphill to see MacPherson and Jones grappling with Cobb. They pulled him to the ground, biting him with their horribly lipless teeth. They were covered in mud, but Cobb's struggles brushed some of it aside. Nowhere did I see normal skin, but only terrible flexing, pulsing musculature and bones. I must confess myself a coward--I ran back as I came and hid up a tree. There were no more screams. I stayed there the rest of the day, venturing down only to feed the fire and carry some mangoes up to eat. They are sweet, and caused me no internal distress. By the hand of Providence, a ship saw my signal the very next day. They were Spaniards and knew no English, but I convinced them by signs that there were no others, that they should take me to their ship immediately. As they rowed for the ship, cries burst from the island. I turned to see Jones and MacPherson loping down the beach. They were covered in mud, but it was darkened and streaked with blood, and it cracked off their limbs as they came on, revealing the raw and sticky meat below. The Spaniards made to row back, but their lieutenant, after peering through a spyglass, immediately ordered the riflemen to fire, crossing himself after and refusing to look back at the beach. The ship's chaplain speaks English; he says we will be in Havana soon. The Spaniards cross themselves when I pass, but they are kind people. I regret only that the ship seems infested with fleas; after but a single night, my entire body itches abominably with their bites!
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 01:26
|
|
|
Be Fruitful… Post Post Apocalyptic Horror 1912 Words I heard my mother curse the ground from halfway across the orchard a moment before she shouted my name. “Ymal! Didn’t you test this soil last week?” she bellowed to be heard over the susurrus of the shrub nams. “Come here this instant!” “Be there in a minute, Mom!” I hurried to finish grafting a new scion onto a nam as it twisted gently in protest, rustling in agitation before I could spray the antiseptic and anesthetic onto the T-shaped slice I’d made in its bark-like skin. Plucking a slowly writhing scion from a nearby bucket of enzyme laced water, I scored the joint end of its stem and slid it into the incision before wrapping the job tightly in grafting tape. With luck, the nam shrub would accept the graft and the scion would grow into a new limb over the winter. It would bud photosynthetics next spring and generate oxygen all summer long. When I arrived by my mother’s side, she fixed me with a baleful scowl, her hand flying to point at the foot of a nearby nam. “Look at this. Look at it,” she commanded. “Tell me what you see, Ymal.” The foot of the shrub was withered and ashen in color with lesions etched across the surface. Instead of toughened skin, it was visibly bloated and soft with pieces sloughing off close to the ground. As my eyes made their way up the trunk, I saw vertical red streaks and swelling—telltale signs of the poison drawn up into the body of the nam from the soil below. “Well?” my mother asked. “It’s radrot,” I mumbled. “Yes, it is. I ask you again: Didn’t you test this soil last week?” “Yes, mom.” A half-truth, if not an outright lie. A week ago, I had tested the soil…in spots. This field hadn’t a single case of radrot since long before I was born, and my friend Andru was hosting a game of cribbage the same evening. When my mother asked me to check the field for rads, I’d furtively poked around the orchard with the counter, sampling the earth at maybe one shrub in ten. Listening for cesium’s malevolent purr or plutonium’s slow tick of death, I heard only silence. I took the counter back to the toolshed and walked to Andru’s house before the sun had set. What were the odds? Yes, I’d been told many times that the old evil was still lurking underground and that the frosts and rains would sometimes bring it closer to the surface. But we also learned that every year that passed weakened the ancient poisons and soon they would be no more. This was hardly negligence…just a stroke of bad luck! “I tested the soil,” I insisted, racking my brain for a plausible excuse this spot might have gone undetected during my search. “The downpour three nights ago must have washed something from the soil. Besides, isn’t that why the institute made the nam shrubs? Isn’t it a good thing that it will die and pull the poison out of the earth?” I was locked in my mother’s gaze. She would not call me a liar without proof. But she knew. “A good thing? It is a waste,” she hissed as she turned to look at the young, doomed nam shrub. We’d planted it only a few weeks earlier. “Do you know how difficult it is to secure new grafting stock? Do you know how the quotas have shifted and how expensive they have become? I raised you better than to be so blasé about casting aside a life! “You take this for granted, young man,” she swept a hand at the nam, its few grafted scions just beginning to bud with photosynthetic leaves. “Your ancestors never tasted the air outside an oxygen mask. They never knew a moment without hunger, and yet they brought the world back from the brink of death. Some of this grafting stock was cared for by your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather. Honestly Ymal, the least you could do is not carelessly waste what they struggled and sacrificed to provide.” “Yes, ma’am.” I looked at the nam shrub because it was somehow less upsetting than looking at my mother. It shifted uncomfortably, and I could see subtle swelling around the joints and nodes where the scions had been grafted onto it. Mom heaved a sigh. “Well, go fetch the ossuaric saw from the tool shed. We’ll need to get it down and into the cart so you can haul it to decon in the morning.” “What about the soil?” I asked. “That will keep,” she said, reaching into her tool belt to pull out her grafting knife. The nam shrub shivered and its neighbors moaned sympathetically as she knelt down beside it, finding an artery and a vein. She lowered her voice and whispered, “Steady now, it’ll be over soon. You deserved better.” As I walked back from the toolshed, the earth had been stained red and black. Mom had just finished cutting back the outer layer of skin above its feet and took the ossuaric saw from me as she rose. “What about the soil?” I asked again. “You’ll dig it up and take it to decon later. After your placement exam.” She sighed as she set the saw and began pulling it back and forth across the base of the culled nam. “I know you don’t like life in the orchard, Ymal. You’re a smart boy. Do well on the placement exam and you’ll have a bright future ahead of you. Now go fetch the cart and I’ll help you load up.” *** “She said what?” asked Andru, a bemused smirk creeping across his face. “She said that I was being wasteful, and disrespectful to my ancestors,” I replied, staring up into the night sky. “She’s right…but it doesn’t make it any easier to keep working in that miserable orchard. I can’t wait to get out of here.” Andru leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You will soon enough. You’ll be away from here and those dreadful shrubs. Imagine getting that worked up over a dead nam! By their very definition they’re wastes!” I made a noncommittal hum as Andru sat up and snatched a lit coal from the fire with a pair of tongs. Producing a clay pipe from his coat pocket, he held the glowing anthracite over the bowl and puffed deeply until whisps of smoke pearled forth. Then he passed it to me. “Kiff?” He nodded cheerfully, then blew a cloud from his nose. “If the great evil ever returns, kiff and scorpions will make it through.” I took a weak puff. Compared to Andru I was a lightweight and I felt the warm buzz beginning to build in my chest from even that tiny hit. The buzz built to a thrum before it caught in my throat and I coughed so hard that I nearly retched. Andrew laughed and thumped on my back with his left hand until the moment passed. “Two weeks to go,” Andru said as we laid back down. A few clouds were blowing in from the west on a cool wind, obscuring the moon. We scooched closer together, and closer to the fire. “Have you decided what to focus on for the placement exam yet?” I thought about it for a few moments. The honest answer was that I’d focus on whatever I thought would take me the furthest away from here. I didn’t know how to tell Andru that, though. Every night, my mom would send me to my room to study and I’d stare at the books and imagine that I was a million miles away. The practice exams didn’t give any clue about how to answer to get a specific outcome—only which answers were right, and which were wrong. Would the questions about analogies send me to Evergreen to be a writer or a journalist? Would the math problems get me into the Institute engineering school at Deep Harbour? All I knew for sure was farming, and I resolved to get all of those answers wrong on general principle. The last thing I wanted was to be assigned to another orchard—doomed to tend the nam shrubs until the day I dropped dead and they sent me to the recycling vats. “I dunno,” I said. “Is it even worth studying for? I’m just going to wing it. What’s your plan?” “I think I’m going to concentrate on the ones about electricity. I heard they’re building a new power plant here in Brookside.” Andru reached down and took my hand. He squeezed it gently. “I know you don’t want to stay, though.” I squeezed back. Andru leaned over and kissed me on the cheek again. “If I can’t convince you to stay here forever,” he said, “maybe you’ll at least stay the night?” *** It might have been a cool autumn day, but the layers of the envirosuit and the respirator kept me plenty warm. Scoop after scoop, shovel after shovel, I heaped the contaminated earth into the cart. By mid-morning I’d managed to free the roots of the dead nam shrub from the ground. It went onto the cart as well. All around me, I could hear the other nams as they stretched their limbs. The articulated joints bent at odd angles to point their photosynthetics at the sunlight, but I felt like they were shifting to watch me as well. They watched as I poked the counter down into the ground to see if the telltale chatter of evil was still present, and I kept digging until I only heard silence. The decon center was a couple of hours from the farm. As I passed through the outskirts of Brookside, it occurred to me that this might be one of the last times I’d ever see the town. I didn’t know how I did on the placement exam, but I knew for sure that farming wasn’t in my future. I’d made sure to answer every question remotely related to the vocation incorrectly. That I’d just completed what might be my last big farm chore put a little spring in my step on my return trip. “Mom,” I called as I walked back into the house. “I’m back. The guys at the decon center were nice enough to hose me off and scrub down the cart. No more rads on the farm.” I heard nothing. Maybe she’d gone out to the orchard, or maybe she’d gone to town while I was gone. Then I heard a quiet sob from the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, head buried in her elbow as she cried. “Whats…what’s wrong?” I asked. She finally raised her head and stared at me for a long few moments. Then with her voice hoarse from grief, she asked, “How could you?” “What did I do?” She said nothing but thrust a tearstained sheet of paper at me. The top bore the letterhead of the Institute and then my name was directly below. My results had come in! I eagerly scanned down the page to see what the future held. Then I read it again. Then a third time, because there must have been some sort of mistake. It ordered me to report to the processing center in Brookside within the next three days. The list of suitable placements contained only a single entry in block letters: GRAFTING STOCK
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 01:49
|
|
|
Prompt: Teen Drama Horror Akron ‘84 ~1850 words The Cloverleaf Mall in southwest Akron, Ohio, was the most dangerous place in the world for 15-year old Daniel Jacobsen. The jocks hung out at the Orange Julius, letter jackets stretched tight across hypertrophied physiques. The metalheads gathered by the Sam Goody, a petulant sea of demin, leather and electric blue eyeshadow. And the goth kids could crop up anywhere, at any time. You just never knew. Danger lurked everywhere. Daniel darted between the Lane Bryant and the Waldenbooks, keeping his gaze low, moving beneath the shadow of the large ferns surrounding the central fountain. Things seemed quiet, but then the unmistakable scent of Drakkar tickled his nostrils: the jocks were close. Daniel paused, keeping his head down, utilizing the age-old (and thoroughly disproven) theory that if you can’t see them, they can’t see you. Holding his breath, he waited for the group to pass, but he was in an awkward spot at the bottom of the stairs. Confrontation was unavoidable. “Look at that loving nerd!” a cheerleader cackled, bouncing down the stairs, and reached out a bony hand to slap Daniel across his head. He flinched and banged his elbow against the handrail. “What a spazz, oh my gawd!” The group surrounded Daniel and pinballed him back and forth between them. A jock from his algebra class—who he’d let copy his last quiz--tore off his backpack and tossed it into the shallow fountain. Daniel avoided eye contact and kept quiet. Eventually, the strategy paid off, and the jocks lost interest and moved onward to the Orange Julius. Daniel fished his backpack out of the fountain. Checking inside, he was relieved to see the contents stayed somewhat dry. He would need them later. Cloverleaf Mall was, unsurprisingly, shaped like a four-leafed clover. Each “leaf” was a circle of shops surrounding a fountain area dotted with stained lounge chairs, sunglass kiosks, and brooding high schoolers. Daniel’s destination was in the northwest sector, across the tiled expanse of the food court that linked the clovers in the center. He approached the food court with caution. Bits of wrapper and stray French fries littered the brightly lit linoleum. A pair of metalheads tore into a plate of corn dogs, smacking and drooling, splintering the wooden sticks as ketchup ran down their necks and stained denim. Elsewhere, lone mall employees munched on the occasional dry burger and cement milkshake, sneaking furtive glances before returning to each bite. In the far corner a middle-aged, uniformed mall cop sat hunched over, unmoving, staring at the floor. Daniel navigated the maze of tables and chairs, keeping his distance as best he could. His backpack felt like a cold, clammy hand across his back as the moisture soaked into his skin. A lone speaker mounted to a central pillar crackled a discordant, tinny melody. A heavy scrape sounded as Daniel bumped a chair, and for a moment all eyes locked onto him. Panic bubbled up and his stomach clenched. He almost stopped, but that would have been a mistake—instead he kept his eyes forward and tried to ignore their burning glares. He’d made it across the food court to the other side before he heard more sounds behind him. A quick glance confirmed the corn dog metalheads were rising from their chairs, turning towards him, rictus grins across their ketchup-and-mustard smeared faces. They’d caught his scent. Daniel was close now, but the most dangerous leg of his journey lie before him. Ahead loomed the Piercing Pagoda. Brooding goths hovered around it, glowering him from beneath jet black spiked hair. They passed around clove cigarettes stained with black lipstick, and their pallid skin glowed sickly white under the fluorescent lights. Taking a wide berth, and keeping one eye on the metalheads behind him, Daniel jogged around the far side of the fountain, head low. The blinking neon, chirps, and squawks of safety lie ahead: a blank storefront that housed the Cloverleaf Mall’s arcade. A warded zone: the jocks and metalheads and goths stayed clear. A gaggle of preps stumbled out of the United Colors of Benneton store, clad in garish bright pastels, pants parachuting as they pushed each other, right into Daniel’s path. They spun towards him, pink bloodshot eyes fixing upon his frail form. “What’s this?” the leader stepped forward, a blond boy with feathered hair and scaly skin. “Oh look it’s Daniel from school," the last sung in a mocking, sing-song voice. But it came out in a raspy wheeze, as if the boy’s vocal cords were paper dry. Daniel ducked under his outstretched arm and made a break for the arcade. His shoes squeaked across the tile and his heart hammered in his chest, this was it, his only chance, but as he looked over his shoulder he saw none of them were giving chase; no, they watched instead. Even the metalheads from the food court. Dozens of cold eyes upon him, watching, and waiting. Inside the safety of the arcade, the cigarette smoke and dim light washed across him like a healing prayer. The jocks, preps, goths—this was holy ground, and they were not welcome. Daniel pulled two crumpled dollar bills from his pocket—his dad wouldn’t miss them, passed out as he was (again) on the couch when Daniel had returned home from school. He’d pilfered the bills, then headed straight to the mall. There was maybe an hour or two to play before the sun dropped below the horizon and the mall changed. “Hello Daniel,” an angel’s voice sang. The Change Girl appeared from behind a Q*bert machine. She was older, but still in her teens. Freckles and light brown hair, a pixie tattooed on her arm. She was, well, an angel. “What’ll it be tonight?” she smiled. “Yeah, uh,” Daniel stammered. “Just two please.” As she ejected the change from her apron, she gave him a sideways smile. “No, what game will it be tonight?” “Ah, uh, dunno. Maybe Battlezone.” “A good choice, but I can think of something better. A game where you are alone, one man, pitted against a variety of foes in an ever-escalating battle to escape--to escape once and for all.” Her gaze softened for a moment. “To escape forever.” Daniel just stared at her, his jaw numb. Never before had a girl *gotten* him like this. “What is it?” he asked. ‘Oh, it’s a new one. Tron. You ride motorcycles and fight spiders and there’s like, tanks and poo poo.” The Change Girl snapped her gum. “It’s over there.” Daniel knew the movie, of course. His father had taken him, at Daniel’s insistence, and had almost made it halfway through before the Jim Beam kicked in and he stood up and began yelling at the screen to not be so goddamn bright, people are trying to sleep here, and what the everloving gently caress is a MCP anyway? So it was with some reticence that he approached the machine, the quarters in his palm already damp with sweat. Daniel put in a quarter and the world disappeared. He gripped the electric blue joystick and it was just him and the screen, two souls connected, man against machine in the battle of eternal will. He laughed his way through the absurdly easy early levels, blasting spiders and encircling lightcycles like a cybernetic Jeff Bridges on steroids. “See, I knew you’d like it,” the Change Girl said from over his shoulder. Maybe it was the Strawberry Bubblelicious on her breath, or PTSD from his journey through the mall, but Daniel’s hand slipped. The light cycle crashed into a wall, and it was game over. “Oh, that’s too bad, you were doing so good!” the Change Girl said as she walked on. Daniel put in another quarter. It was the last one he would need. By the time he’d reached sixth level, he’d pretty much figured out the game. When he passed level ten, a few watchers had assembled. He looked for the Change Girl among them, but saw instead unwashed denim and prepubescent mustaches. And the unpleasant smell of teen body odor. Level twenty-two was the last. Daniel was locked in, with extra lives and a smattering of arcade-goers watching him silently. No problem. His breath caught in his throat as he lined up the final tank for destruction, when the screen flickered, then went black. Daniel stepped back, bewildered. The Change Girl stood beside the machine, holding the power cord in her hand. She gave it a small twirl, then tossed it aside. “Forget it, Daniel. There’s no escaping. Not from here, and not in there.” “There’s always a way out. And, like, wow, you broke my game. Not cool.” She looked down at the power cord at her feet. “Yeah, that was—“ “—not cool. But, it’s okay. It’s only a game.” “I don’t know why I—“ she started. “It doesn’t matter. But you’re wrong,” Daniel said, and grabbed her arm. “We can get out. Together.” Daniel walked her to the front of the arcade. Before them lie a pulsing mass of arms and legs and dead souls. The sun had set, and the mall had transformed. From under the neon lighting, shambling, hungry forms lurched towards them, colorful Swatches dangling from diseased wrists, empty eye sockets and grasping mouths gnashing. Cloverleaf Mall was hungry, and it was time to feed. Daniel took and knee and unzipped his backpack. From it he pulled out a slightly damp RF transmitter. He turned the dial to the first tape mark and with a click sixteen ounces of Blastgel ignited behind the ferns around the central fountain. The explosion ripped through the assembled high school zombies. A shower of limbs rained down across the clover. “My dad’s in construction,” Daniel said to the shocked expression on the Change Girl’s face. “C’mon,” he whispered. “We can escape. Forever. You and me.” Daniel looked into her green-flecked eyes. She gave him that pixie smile and nodded. Together they dashed into the carnage. Three more explosions shook the Cloverleaf Mall before Daniel and the Change Girl burst through the front doors and into the cold Ohio night. The mall shuddered and shook behind them, furious at its loss. They stopped and turned around to watch the flames reflect off the overcast skies above. Daniel, adrenaline surging, put his arm around her waist. She gave him a curious look. “We did it, Change Girl! We escaped!” As the words came out, Daniel’s face crumpled. So stupid. He didn’t even know her name. He felt like an awkward freak. “You loving nerd,” she said. “My name’s Holly. And that was—awesome.” “Thanks,” he said lamely. She gave him a warm smile. “Let’s go. My car’s over there. If we hurry we can make it back to my place in time for Cosby.” Daniel held her hand tight, too afraid to let go.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 02:54
|
|
|
a good day 1998 words, spy horror archived. Tyrannosaurus fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jan 10, 2022 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 03:15
|
|
|
Graven Pastoral 1882 words Flash rule: Sports horror The southwest wind roared across the plains of rural England. In long-gone days, its coriolitic humidity carried cold rains, but now it only whipped dust eddies over the barrens. Arfaa trudged the baked earth, surveying the once-verdant moor. She’d returned empty-handed from her last three specimen hunts after pulling useless scans from dwindling flora. The scientist squinted into the sun and spied a tuft of sickly green in the grey-brown dirt. “Oh hello, little fellow.” She knelt low and examined the tiny sprout. Good coloration, fair architecture, and potentially preservation-quality. Arfaa unholstered her hefty Decompiler and held it close to the sprout’s stem. The device blinked through DNA sequences and phylogenies as the plant withered away and evaporated, its biodata absorbed and uploaded to the genetic cloud. Arfaa sat on the hard-packed dirt and read through the sprout’s data. A nearly flawless genetic sample, ready for cross-checking and reproduction. She looked out over the desolation and sighed, imagining a field of identical, defiant little sprouts. The air in her helmet was starting to smell fishy and nitrous. It was almost time to head back. She began to rise when she noticed something peculiar: a half-buried tube jutting diagonally from the ground, its lip caked in rust. On closer examination she spied little dots of silver, the remnants of finely hammered inlay. An ancient rifle, way out in nowhere. The analyzer momentarily forgotten, Arfaa touched the edge of the relic and recoiled in shock. It was ice cold through her bulky gloves, made colder in the searing desert heat. The chill crept up her hand, her wrist, her shoulder. Her breath fell solid in her lungs. Everything went white. --- Arfaa’s eyes snapped open in panic. She sat up and took in her surroundings, speechless: a field of stars, the radiant gibbous moon, and gently swaying fields of endless emerald grass. Trembling, she removed her gloves and ran her hands through the abundant green blades, feeling their edges and collars and crispy little sheathes. Arfaa laid back, laughing in sheer delight at the sensation. She spied something up above, flitting against the stellar field. A bird, a real wild bird, the first she’d ever seen. Arfaa worked decades in labs and growth chambers, countless midnights spent trying and failing to reproduce just a single frond. But here, the flora sprawled bucolic. The scientist tentatively reached up and undid her helmet locks, then whipped off the bulky thing and took a careful sniff. Cool air, so fresh and sweet she could taste it. She got to her feet, still taking in the splendor, when a voice split the silence. “You there, shake from your repose! Come now, come now.” A man in rich oiled leathers emerged from a copse of oak and sauntered toward her, his expression aristocratically disdainful. “Introductions, I believe?” Arfaa tried to back away but found herself rooted to the spot. This close, the man smelled of aged hides and petrichor. She watched wisps of silver smoke rise from his body and curl into the air. “I am Sir William Heathcote of Hursley, third baronet.” His voice was high, harsh, and immune to repudiation. William worked off a glove to reveal blue-white bone, his fingers raking spectral contrails in the night air. “To curtail your impending interrogation, the answer is yes. I am dead, or something quite beyond it. And no, you are not.” Arfaa’s mouth worked into a scream, but the sound didn’t come. Her chest felt weighty, leaden. Sir William continued. “You are here for a most special event, a tradition in old Hursley. Tonight, we shall have ourselves a fox hunt.” He looked at her expectantly, his eyes a field of shimmering blue. Arfaa swallowed hard, not knowing where to begin. Sir William rambled on. “The rules are simple, my dear. We shall have ourselves a grand sport, spare of hounds and stallions. We go on foot to the daybreak. The one who returns to this spot with the greatest prize of tails as the sun crests-” Arfaa cut him off. “I’m not dead?” William stopped short. “No. And it’s a ghastly habit to interrupt. Do you make a practice of it?” Arfaa took a few steps back, her eyes still locked on the ghoul. “How do I get home?” The baronet paused. “Well, I presume that you need best me at the sport. A presumption, mind you.” William gave her a humorless grin. “You see, it’s never happened.” He began raising his fingers in turn. “There was the baker from Portsmouth, barely a foxtail there. Then the ‘rail baron’, purchased title to be sure, he got the closest. Killer instinct, that one, but so indelicate.” William sniffed dismissively. “New money, clearly. Then some bespectacled chap in a hooded smock, he barely moved the whole night. A humiliating showing. Some poor souls in between, to be sure, but the point stands.” He moved even closer to Arfaa. His breath was scentless and cold, his voice full of malice. “I am victor eternal, and mine are the spoils.” Arfaa shook her head and considered William’s proposal. Her voice rang even, calmer. “Look, I don’t understand.” Sir William threw up his hands in frustration. “Time grows short! Out with it!” Arfaa’s reply was hesitant. “Well, what’s a fox?” Sir William cupped his weak chin and regarded her quizzically. “Surely you jest. A fox. Vulpes vulpes. Sport.” Arfaa remained silent. Sir William leaned forward and began miming with his hands. “Yea long. Crimson fur. Pleasantly dodgy. Come now, be serious.” Arfaa shrugged, but her mind began working again. This was crazy. Maybe a dream, or radiation sickness. She gripped her Decompiler tight and began inching toward Sir William. The baronet had moved from sarcasm to worry. “You’ve never seen a fox? But where could they have gone? Oh, hath treacherous Atalanta-” Arfaa saw her moment. She lunged toward Sir William and jammed the Decompiler into the baronet’s breastbone. The scientist thumbed a switch and the device’s display lit up. It didn’t scroll DNA sequences or phylogenies, only rolling waves of pale blue static. The specter let out a furious howl, a thousand dissonant pitches all married in sound. Her vision rippled, went dirty brown at the edges. She felt hot and sick, suddenly weak. The Decompiler fell to her side. William stumbled backward, clutching the luminous tear in his chest. Radiant ichor welled up around his skeletal fingers. “Devil! Perfidity!” Arfaa marched toward the dead old hunter, brandishing the Decompiler like a crucifix. Sir William backpedaled, unsteady. He looked at the beeping Decompiler, then at Arfaa. The phantom spat a frothy quicksilver line into the damp grass, then turned to the treeline. Heels clicking azure, he fled into the forest. The scientist glanced at the fuzz on the screen, then back to the trees. She trembled from the intoxication of the hunt, every reptilian synapse screaming to give chase, but she paused and thought for a moment. Was there another way out of dead Hursley, another hunt to be had? Arfaa gripped the Decompiler and gave chase. --- The moon hung lower in the sky and the stars were just beginning to dim. Arfaa moved stealthily through the hedges, prowling low and looking for movement. Specks of gleaming protoplasmic hunt-blood marked a path deeper into the wood. She pressed on, laboriously working her way through the underbrush. Sweat dripped from her forehead. Time was growing short. Arfaa heaved through a last tangle of gnarled branches and emerged into a small clearing, then paused to catch her breath. She reached up and plucked a leaf from a winding vine. The scientist considered the fragile little thing, her eyes moving from petiole to vein to margin. Arfaa dropped the leaf, watching it twirl and dance in the cool breeze. She took a deep breath of sweet air, savoring it. With a mighty roar, Sir William erupted from a nearby thicket. Arfaa shrank at the ghoul’s horrible glory, his eyes flickering like lightning in a rolling thunderhead. Blood rang a steady beat in her ears. He reached back and withdrew a rifle, an ancient thing traced in familiar silver filigree. In shock, she recalled the icy touch of its barrel and her passage into undead Hursley. Sir William levelled it at Arfaa. She stepped back and put up her hands in panicked surrender. There was no time to run, no space. “William! You can’t! The hunt, you made the rules!” Sir William cocked the hammer. His voice was ragged and pained, but triumphant. “You’re run to ground, little fox.” He pulled the trigger. The rifle’s report rang like a distorted steeple bell and its barrel erupted in sapphire flame. Arfaa closed her eyes and braced for the ethereal buckshot. The roar faded. The glade was silent. She felt nothing. The scientist looked down at her chest. She was completely unscathed. Sir William was agog, the firearm hanging limply in his hands. Arfaa took the opening. She dashed toward the dead baronet and swung the Decompiler like a hammer, driving it hard into William’s face. The screen lit up, a scramble of phantom images flashing by as it drew more data than before. But this time, something changed. As William wailed in agony the grass faded brown and went crisp, dying to dust in a matter of moments. The trees dropped branches, their trunks forming huge wounded knots that threatened to swallow the structures whole. A bird plunged dead from the sky, feathers turning to ash as it fell. Arfaa gasped and withdrew the device. Her vision slowly corrected. The dead sepias of her home dissolved back to lush virescence. She collapsed into the grass. William’s voice came harsh and slow. “You yield? Why?” Arfaa tried to narrate what she’d seen. “The grass. And the trees, the birds. They were dying. It was like home.” With creeping horror, she realized the apparent cost of the specter’s annihilation. The pair was silent for a while. William propped himself up and looked at Arfaa. The rifle laid discarded at his feet. His eyes were dimmer now, his brow furrowed in pain and concentration. “Your home?” Arfaa sighed, clasping her knees close to her chest. Her voice was heavy with grief. “Our home. This place, your land, a long, long time from now.” She paused and wiped away a tear. “Nothing runs there anymore.” The two of them sat and watched the moon set in the sky as the sun traced a brilliant line on the horizon. William contemplated the terrible impending future, a desolation so far from pastoral foxhunts. Arfaa broke the hush. “What happens at sunrise, William?” The phantom let out a long, rattling breath. He looked toward the breaking dawn. “The hunt lies without a victor, for we are foxless. Perhaps, then, we fade to morning mist? Or perchance we return from whence we came, to deaths respective.” A bird cried out, the sound ringing and echoing through leaves and branches and grass. Arfaa hefted the Decompiler, feeling its full weight in her hand. She let it tip and drop into the grass. The baronet glanced at the device, then fixed his gaze on the horizon. His voice was soft and low. “Or perhaps we remain here, you and I, forever crystallized in this merciful hereafter.”
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 05:48
|
|
|
Down the Shaft (1578 words - Prompt was Heist Horror) Casino night at Soremburg castle. A velvet carpet draped over a drawbridge welcomes a bunch of rich fucks here, into the dazzling aura of golden flashing lights surrounding the entrance. Among velvet gaming tables —in this room whose carpet is all too soft— the murmur of vacuous conversations fills the air, as does the stink of cigar smoke rolling in from the veranda out back. Casino night is the one night this year the castle vault will be open, albeit with people milling in and out to bring more cash to its reserves. That’s why I put on a white suit: to make myself look as much like one of those guys as possible. Christie’s in my ear, no doubt watching the view from the camera in my buttonhole rose. She’s all “go left down here, right down there,” and so on and so forth. The only key I’m carrying is the standard elevator service key, but she's saying all the other butlers wear ID on a lanyard. “The elevator,” says Christie. They have a man inside, pushing the buttons. He’s a fat white bloke, with a moustache curled at the corners. He’s stood to attention in the ancient brass plated box, pushing ivory white buttons that light up with the warm glow of a filament bulb. “Bedroom,” I say, “boss wants something from her dresser.” He slides the concertina doors, which squeal until they slam shut. There’s a deep hum, and a metallic knocking, as we rise. He pinches my collar with a grip that’s cold with the condensation of a champagne glass. “You look a mess,” he says, shuffling my shirt about. I return the favour, adjusting his collar with a choke hold. He refuses to fall limp. The elevator pings, and its doors squeal open under my grip. With the service elevator key in my spare hand, I open the elevator door while I send the elevator up a floor. Almost to plan, I grab the poor man's lanyard, and kick him where no one will find him: down the shaft. “Nice room,” says Christie in my earpiece, looking beyond the lift door at the darkly bed, dressers, and furnishings —each of which is carved with a curl at the ends of its mahogany feet. I start heading to the dresser with the three mirrors, where jewelry is no doubt heaped somewhere in among the noble lady’s drawers. That’s when Ms. Buzzkill in my ear says, “We can’t do anything to raise suspicion,” and, “you’re trying to get to the vault.” I take the dead man’s job, lowering a batch of white-suited goons to the second basement from the foyer-cum-casino. These are three blokes with steel cases, no doubt packed with cash. I squeal the door shut. They stand quietly, regarding themselves in the mirror. There’s a hum, and a metallic banging, and the warm lights pass from one ivory-white button to the next. “Long night ahead, ay?” I say. They stand, quietly, brows furrowed. “Yeah,” grunts a lanky one with a soul patch. The door pings. They throw it open with a squeal. It’s a brightly lit and white-tiled space, with a steel vault-door hanging open. The goons head out of the elevator, their dress shoes clapping off the tiles. The money gets piled neatly on the other side of the steel door, where there’s five fold-out tables manned by more goons, who feed the cash into counting machines. The walls of that vault are each a grid of numbered lock boxes. I follow the numbers with my eyes. I catch sight of it: number 331. With the goons disembarked, I slam the doors shut. There’s a hum as I ascend. “I guess they want to let everyone know how much they’ve raised at the end of the night,” says Christie. I give her a thumbs down, then kneel in front of the control panel, to give her a good view of the button labeled ‘Laundry.’ “You’re probably on the money, there,” she says, “but did you see the keys hanging off the lock of the vault door?” The loving keys, right there! We just need to get those keys and open the lockbox in plain sight of the counting crew. The door pings, and I shove it open with a squeal. All the noise of the celebrations, and the stink of cigar smoke, wait on the other side. In steps a white-suited goon with a swagger stick; it has a crystal on the top the size of a fist. Red striping runs up the sides of his trousers. He’s a grey haired and skinny man with a slim, pointed beard. He looks at me with puzzlement. “Your blazer is creased,” he spits with his chin held high, and he presses the button at the bottom of the panel: the one labeled laundry. "I'm sure you know the expectations of our team," he says, "particularly when the public is in attendance." There’s a hum, and a metallic knocking. The bell pings and the door squeals. He drags me by the elbow into a dank cellar filled with worn out washers, dryers and ironing boards. “Sort yourself out,” he says, as he marches to the far end of this mildew pit, with his head held high. There’s a door, painted white, with streaks of rust crawling down from every rivet. He turns a key in its mortice lock with a loud clack. “I’ll go find someone to work the lift, while you’re doing that,” he says. The door squeals. The lift hums. There’s metallic banging, and I’m left behind. While the Iron warms, and the lift bangs away, I try the handle of the rusty door. It’s locked. “Are you okay?” says Christie. I give her the thumbs down. “You might have to kick his rear end,” she says. The elevator bangs. My iron steams, and clicks. The elevator shaft bangs. The lights above the door show that it’s up at the foyer, back in the cigar haze, but the elevator shaft bangs again. The concertina panels of the door, beneath the numbered lights, leap with each bang. “Hello?” says a voice from the other side, “Is someone there? I need help.” I unplug the iron, taking it with me in an icepick grip. With the key I open the squealing doors into the elevator shaft. “Holy poo poo; he’s alive?!” says Christie, as the bruised figure clambers up from the black recess beneath the elevator shaft, his suit brown with clotted blood. “Holy poo poo,” I say, kicking him into the recess with a thud. I dive in after, crunching his skull with the point of the iron, causing his scalp to hiss and crackle. Then I hear the hum, and look overhead at the shadow of the elevator lowering down the shaft. I crouch down in the recess, with the broken skull oozing blood at my feet. The elevator pings, its floor against my back as I crouch in the recess. Multiple pairs of footsteps clap off the cellar floor, into the laundry room. “What suspicious man? There’s no-one here,” says a gravelly male voice. “Right, my beauties: we’re looking for a man in staff uniform,” says the gray haired man, reeling off all my descriptors (while adding ‘pot bellied’ for no good reason). There’s a clap, sounds like he struck his swagger stick against the floor, but a flash comes through from the other room. “Yes master,” say the gruff voices, in unison with the flattened skull by my feet. “gently caress!” I mutter, planting my foot to the mangled mouth, pinching it shut against the greasy floor. He gargles and murmurs, “he’s here!” with a voice too stifled under the tread of my dress shoes to be heard above the elevator. The doors squeal shut over my head. There’s a hum, and the elevator climbs. I stand again, but not before beating that head three more times with my iron. I sigh when the door to the laundry room opens, my elevator key still in the outside lock. Bounding from the recess, I hear “Kick his rear end,” in my ear. The gray haired man turns to strike me with the gleaming crystal. Like a tiger I crouch to leap with all my might toward him. I plow him into the face of a stack of dryers, which chime and dent under the impact. “Help me!” he screams, and there’s a flash. The shaft of that stick flails while I press him into the groaning wall the dryers. My head pokes into a drum, whose concave rear reflects a pie slice of the room behind us. There I see that white and brown suit clawing its way up from the recess. Its caved head hangs from a sliver of a neck, and its legs trail underneath it like the foxtails of a frayed pair of jeans. Getting nowhere, I grab the top dryer with both hands, walking backwards. It slams the old man to the ground, still conscious and beginning to roll out from underneath it. With the swagger stick in my hands I seethe, “Just loving die!" I foam through gritted teeth. "Both of you, Die!” The rock splatters into his head. There’s a flash. The greying man falls still and silent. “Yes master,” says the caved skull, who drops with a slorp into his thick bloodtrails. “This has gotten too hot: just get out of there,” says Christie. I give her the thumbs up.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 06:57
|
|
|
Serenade western horror 1994 When I woke in my truck bed outside of Marie’s, the sun was already beginning its descent behind the Tucsons. Both Marie and the November weather had been gracious enough to let me sleep through the day, which was a blessing given that the crowd had been a bit too sparse to cover the cost of lodging afterward. It was to be expected, I suppose. I’d pressed a few records in my salad days, and had some radio play during the hard times, but now that you had to have either a face or a gimmick to make it in this business, I found myself out of luck. It had begun this way, playing every little spot in every little town, sometimes just for a hot meal and a room upstairs. I remember enjoying it more before. A place like Marie’s doesn’t really get busy until after dark, so I stood a reasonable chance of begging a free meal before I performed. Steeling myself, I made my way toward the rear entrance which led to the office. I could hear a conversation through the open office window. “-ask for your opinion, Mars. I came to say goodbye.” A man, but not one of the cooks I’d drank with the night before. “Believe me, Chuck, you don’t want to go to Yuma. There’s no money there, and unless you’ve added some Ranchera stuff to your repertoire you won’t even pull in the Mexicans.” That was Marie, but something was a bit off. I couldn’t hear the usual edge in her tone. “Well, what am I supposed to do? I’ve got nothing keeping me here.” “Stay with me. Play here tonight. I’ll bump the guy we’ve got.” poo poo. I’m typically a romantic at heart, but when matters of the heart start to affect matters of the wallet I can turn cold as quick as the desert night. Still, there was no point in barging in on the proceedings, so instead I made as if I was rolling a cigarette and kept listening. “Mars, the guy promised me $200 if I could play in Aguas Profundas tonight. I haven’t made anything near that in years.” “I’ve got something he can’t give you. Here, come see.” It had been a while, but I’d lived long enough to know where that was going without having to be there to come see for myself. I wouldn’t be getting that meal, but I did gain a destination. As far as I’d known, the resort in Aguas Profundas had been closed since things had turned sour all over, but the last time I passed through Yuma there’d been a rumor that someone was putting big money into the place. That same someone might not think much of offering $200 for a night’s work, and at the very least, I knew a few Mexican numbers as a last resort. I wasn’t sure if I could make the trip in time to collect on the offer, but if the object of Mars’ affection liked his odds, I figured it was worth trying. I’d driven the same route in the spring, and while the resort wasn’t quite in Yuma, it was close enough that I didn’t really have to focus on the road. Dusk became night, and in a few hours I found myself turning off of the main road and heading up the hill. The resort sat at the very top, built around the hot springs that gave the town its name. Last I’d heard, most of the people here had left when the springs dried up, but clearly it wasn’t the case. The main street was empty, but as I passed by various homes and businesses each window bore a single burning candle. I’d been through plenty of dying towns before, and this one was far too well kept to even seem in decline. Further up the hill the resort shone brilliantly against the dark sky. The resort was built on a bluff overlooking the town, so I parked my truck as close as I could to the path and strapped my guitar on my back. The footpath didn’t seem too treacherous, especially as it was lined with lit candles along its zig-zagging ascent of the cliff face. The climb was a bit tiring, so when I’d reached what I guessed was about halfway I stopped to catch my breath. I looked back toward the town, but to my astonishment, I couldn’t make it out. I thought I must have climbed further than I’d thought, as below me lay only blackness. Stranger still, the footpath I’d just walked seemed to trail off into that same darkness without any sign of my truck. I ought to have turned tail and climbed back down, but the prospect of $200 outweighed the growing sense that something was amiss. Instead, I pushed on. Whoever had funded the restoration of the resort did so with classical taste. The front-facing windows had been replaced with stained glass, and though I couldn’t make out the patterns, the light shining through them added a strange, lovely glow to the last stretch of the path. It was magnificent, as if it had been set ablaze with every color I’d ever seen. I hastened my pace toward the main door and began to hear the cacophony of a hundred conversations inside. After taking a moment to smooth my hair and straighten my jacket, I rang the bell. The sound of conversation stopped. It wasn’t a gradual thing, as if someone had drawn attention and asked for quiet. Instead, it was like my pressing the bell had cut off the other noise entirely. After a moment, I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. It opened. I had expected some sort of doorman or bellboy to appear on the other side of the door, but the man standing before me projected strength and authority. He was incredibly tall, and his rigid posture somehow amplified the sharpness of his features. For some reason, he was wearing a long coat indoors, one that closed tightly around him in such a way that I couldn’t really make out whether he was thin or stout. “May I help you, sir?” “Ah, I’ve, uh, come to play music tonight. A friend of mine in Tucson said he couldn’t keep his engagement, but he sent me instead.” The man stared blankly at me for a moment. “Can you read sheet music?” “Yeah, sure. If you’ve got something you want me to play, I’ll be happy to. I’ll need a bit to look at it first, though. You ought to know that I had some originals that were a pretty big hit on the radio a while back, so-” “That won’t be necessary, thank you. If you can play the music we’ve prepared, that will be sufficient.” “Just one song? My friend told me you were offering some real money, so I assumed you’d need a full set.” “It’s as I told Mr. Edmonds. $200 for what we’ve prepared, then you can leave. Come with me a moment and I’ll find you the music.” The tall man quickly turned and walked away, leaving me to close the door before I followed. He moved forward through the main hall, and as I quickened my pace, I saw dozens of guests in different rooms turn to watch me as I passed. They, too, all wore the same long coats. The interior of the resort was even finer than it would have seemed from the outside. It was about the nicest place I’d ever seen, and I’d even hit the private clubs full of oil men. The tall man opened a door near the end of the hall and beckoned for me to enter. Inside was one chair and one table, which bore a pitcher of ice water and a single glass to drink from. It was as if the room had been arranged just for me. “I will return in a moment with the sheet music.” Again, he turned and left with no ceremony. As soon as he closed the door, however, it opened again. To my surprise, the tall man now had a stack of paper in his hands. He set it down on the table and looked at me. “Here it is. When you feel comfortable playing the music, press the button next to the door and I’ll return. When you’ve finished your performance, you can return here to collect your pay and take your leave.” Once again, he turned and walked out. I picked up the first sheet and looked it over. There wasn’t anything particularly difficult about the music, but it couldn’t be right. There was no rhythm or pattern to it, rather just a random string of notes, chords, and breaks between. I flipped through the other sheets to try to see if the piece ever came together, but it was like that throughout. It didn’t make any sense, but I wouldn’t need any more time to prepare. I pressed the button. The door opened instantly. The tall man was there again, smiling in a way that made me uneasy. “Wonderful. Follow me and we can begin.” Following the tall man was more of a challenge than the first time through the hall. He seemed to be accelerating through the building, taking sharp turns and opening nondescript doors to halls that seemed to mirror those which we’d already walked. I’d completely lost my sense of where in the resort we were, but I knew that again and again we progressed downward. Suddenly, we had arrived. The dozens of guests I’d seen must have made their way down before us while I reviewed the piece. They had gathered themselves in the grand empty bath at the center of the room, and as the tall man and I finally entered every one of them turned to look at us. “Stop there, now. Begin when I am with the others. Play the piece in full.” The tall man began to walk forward. “I’m sorry, I’ll need a stand for the pages.” He looked over his shoulder. “No, you won’t. Begin.” He spoke with such conviction that I felt compelled to try. I placed the first page down on the ground before me, readied my guitar, and started to play. From the moment I struck the first note, I lost control of myself. My hands moved to each note and chord of their own volition, and as I continued to play the tempo increased. I looked to the crowd in the bath and saw them removing their coats. None of them wore shirts underneath, and on every chest was painted one of several strange symbols. They circled around the tall man, who was last to remove his coat. Unlike the others, he lacked a symbol, but instead began to sing. He did not open his mouth, but he sang anyway, and as he accompanied me on my guitar the music began to make sense. He sang until the earth began to shake, and he sang even louder once it opened. He sang as the waters rose and sang louder still as the thrashing and screeching from under the water led to screams of agony as the guests were all pulled under. By the time I finished the piece, only the tall man and I remained. The water receded, and the earth closed. It’s been a couple of weeks since Aguas Profundas, and I’ve mostly come to terms with it. The tall man was nice enough to let me stay the night for free after we talked about his work, and I’ve lined up a regular performance there at an even better rate. I’ve added his song to my sets, and every time I play it, I see faces that I’ll recognize the next time I return to the resort. The road isn’t easy, but I’m starting to enjoy it again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 07:01
|
|
|
The terror of the Cosmo-Khan Pulp Sci-fi Horror (1995 words) The old man was roused to life by the sound of the ground cracking beneath leather boots. He opened his dark eyes and blinked wearily into the sky. Above him, semi-eclipsed against the two suns, stood a figure. Tall, thin, and muscular with smooth, golden skin and vibrant, kinetic eyes that swirled like galaxies. A spacesuit of red leather and black glass cloaked his body and a horn of pink neon crackled like a flare in the center of his parted golden hair. Within his great talons, he clutched a strange, insectoid pistol. For a moment, the old man thought he might recognize the alien physiognomy – but then he spoke and the memory dissolved. “Awaken, and face your fate!” The old man wiped his eyes with the back of a huge hand. He spluttered, then choked, then coughed up a lungful of phlegm and mushrooms. They were small, bulbous, nodular and white. The entire planet on which they stood was covered in lumpy growths of the things. The barren rock was carpeted entirely in winding webs of white mycelium and fungal roots weaved inches thick. “Please,” the old man muttered emotionlessly. “Whatever I have, you can take it. Just leave this place and don’t come back.” The new arrival’s eyes flared a bright emerald and he gave a smile filled with razor-sharp fangs. Whilst the old man towered over him in both height and bulk, there was a vicious, cunning edge to his appearance that made the old man uneasy. “You think I have come here to steal from you? Do you know who I am?” The old man stared the new arrival down. Perhaps he did know them? “I’m sorry,” the old man said. “Cosmo-Khan Exellox!” the new arrival shouted. “That is your name?” The Khan blinked at him. “I was told of an ugly rock with a pathetic old man – a wretched corpse with a brain full of holes. That must be you!” the Khan spat. The old man cautiously rose to his feet. His old bones creaked like an ancient ship at sea. He sniffed and then covered one nostril and blew a stream of clear liquid flecked with mushrooms from his nose. Where the mushrooms touched the ground, they were instantly absorbed by the mycelium. “I am all alone here. You should leave.” “You will remember me!” the Khan roared. He raised his weapon and fired it into the air. PA-KEOW! The needle mandibles at the end of the weapon spread like splaying fingers and from them a pulsating round of energy shot into the atmosphere. The old man flinched, despite himself, and shielded his old, dull eyes from the intense flash the weapon created. “I think.... I think I remember the name... a long time ago.” “You will remember!” the new arrival thundered. “The name strikes fear across every galaxy. I have led warbands throughout the known worlds, enslaved billions. I have carved a campaign of brutal victory throughout the universe.” The old man nodded slowly. Yes. It was coming back. It was a name to fear. He nodded and turned his great back. He began lumbering towards a nearby ridge. Where his feet touched the ground, the network of fungus snapped and creaked. As he moved on, the roots and threads rewove behind him. “Halt! None walk away from the Cosmo-Khan!” the Khan called after him. “I am going to my hut. You are welcome to join me. I cannot remember the last time I had a visitor.” The hut was little more than a shelter constructed from detritus. Metal plates were adhered to scraps of plastic and beams of wood. These were barely visible beneath the thick crust of fungus that had grown over them. Yet, without the fungus to bind them together, the Khan doubted they would stand. The old man sighed, reached down and tore away chunks of the fungus to reveal an entrance hatch, scattering them around as far as his simian arms would allow. “This is where you live? Pathetic! All alone, in the depths of space, on a fungal wasteland?” the Khan cackled. “This is where you spend the twilight of your years? How long do your race normally live?” “I don’t remember,” the old man said. The full extent of his possessions lay scattered about as they stepped inside– a metal cup, more scraps of plastic, a pillow or perhaps a canteen made of leather and cloth wrapped in decaying tape. “Help yourself to my bounty oh great and terrible warrior,” the old man chuckled. The Khan’s eyes flashed as he struck him across the face with the peculiar weapon. The gun tore a deep gash from his nose to his ear. Blood splattered the ground where it was eagerly absorbed by the fungal roots. “You would strike a lonely old man in his home?” he muttered. “I do as I please. I am the Cosmo-Khan and answer to nobody!” “How brave of you,” the old man replied. He drew his hand away as his cheek closed around the wound. Strands of fungus, thinner than cobweb, thinner than hair, sprang forth and weaved the injury together. After a few moments it was a discolored scar, then a patch of rough skin, then unblemished. “Your body regenerates?” the Khan asked. “It’s the fungus,” the old man replied. “I am a nest, no a nest is what animals have. I am less than a nest. I am a... a... a... pustule, a node of fungal growth.” The Khan’s face remained as still as night, but the old man could sense the revulsion. “I cannot die. Every inch of my insides crawl and blossom with mushrooms. I wake each morning with them in my lungs – great growths of the things like coral. I am half deaf where they fill my ears. They bloom behind my eyes some nights, and I must dig back there with a finger and scrape them out. Spores fill my blood, my piss, my vomit. Everything here is fungal. I am a meat husk filled with fungus.” The Khan scratched the back of his head and retreated slowly from the ceiling and walls. He holstered the alien weapon. “So, you see, Khan, you do not scare me. You can take everything apart from my life.” “What if I were to scatter your entrails in spa...” the Khan bellowed. “I’d wake up here tomorrow, just as I am now - an old, old, lonely old man. The fungus remembers me. My exile would continue.” “You were exiled?” the Khan said with a raised eyebrow. “For what crimes?” The old man licked his lips. The Khan grimaced as he glimpsed a pustule of tiny white mushrooms blooming from his green tongue. “I don’t remember. I was old and forgetful when I came here, I was old and forgetful when I died here, and now, I am old and forgetful when the fungus resurrects me. When I starve, or when I fall into a crater or when an organ fails me, I am reborn as I was. Whatever I did, I did not deserve this undying hell.” The Khan sniffed the air, then spat hard at the ground. He scratched his scalp. Perhaps the fungus was trying to take root in him, or perhaps he was just imagining that it was. As if reading his thoughts, the old man waved a great wrinkled hand. “Relax. The fungus won’t root in you alive. It takes hold in corpses. I had to die here before I became what I am. What about you? I take it you were sent here to share my terrible fate? The great Khan was finally apprehended?” A thin smile crept across the Khan’s lips but he said nothing. “Tell me of your crimes,” the old man continued, “it feels as though it may have been eons since I have learned new information. Even your voice, something new, is music to me.” The Kahn raked a talon through his golden hair and smiled. “My exploits must be known to you, fool. All know of the Cosmo-Khan. All know of my terrible pilgrimage.” “Indulge me.” “It was I who raided the settlement rigs in the Aliax system! I who committed the Mondoran Creche Massacre. It was I who looted the life-seed of the Generians so that they may never spawn young. When I led my cosmic horde to The Vener Syratone, the Venerian Council opted to detonate an AME within their dimension rather than face me at the gate. When children all the way from Rostrad to The Begenezerat Lighthouse speak of fear, they speak of me. My crimes are immeasurable and irredeemable. All that I touch is bleached, scorched, shattered and razed. On Bistricia, I am known as Father of Ghosts. On Hoj’dahen, I am The Great Tusked Wyrm Who Brings Judgement. On the moons of Sixcth, I am one of only two entities to earn the honorific ‘Xshar’. The other is death itself. The planets and stars trace their celestial paths filled with fear that one day I might slay all living things and turn my unquenchable fury upon them.” The old man nodded to each statement, but his face registered no recognition. The names and places washed over him like a thin mist. “Perhaps most famous was my genocide of Istralakia? A system of lives ended – all but an entire race entirely wiped from existence. The culture, the philosophy, the religion, the technology, all crushed to dust within my hand. A thriving and beautiful civilization made ash by my whim.” The old man shrugged his great shoulders. “These places mean nothing to me. The only world I remember is this one.” “You should remember Istralakia.” “I do not.” “You should! You see, there were rumors of a few survivors. A handful of lost souls who managed to flee the destruction of their home world. Why else do you think I am here?” “Aaah, I see,” the old man said. He reached behind his ear and scraped away a fingerful of damp fungal mush from his flesh. “I see. If you are saying I am one of these Istralakians then I believe you... but it means nothing to me. My people, my home, they are no more dead to me now than they were before. I remember nothing of them. Kill me if you like, then return to your ship and leave this cursed rock. I will not beg for my life from one who has committed crimes as unforgivable as yours.” “It is good to know that you consider the crimes unforgivable,” the Khan replied, drawing his weapon once more, pointing it at the old man’s weathered face. He kicked the old man in the back of the leg and forced him to one knee. “I have hunted for you for so long.” The Khan hissed. “To think, I would have been satisfied with killing you. Now, I have eternity to get my revenge, an eternity where you are old, frail and dull and I am young, sharp-witted and strong. An infinity of superiority to you. An entire world to explore for more and more creative ways to kill you. A private planet of murder and regeneration! You have grown old and amnesiac as well as weak and feeble, haven’t you...Cosmo-Khan Exellox?” Fear gripped the old man’s chest. Memories, as dull and dusty as ruins awakened in his mind. The vaguest recollection of his life before exile began to flood back. The murders, the pilgrimage of blood, the unending bloodlust of the intergalactic horde. The genocide. The ancient Cosmo-Khan remembered the black talons and neon horns of the Istralakians. “I suspect we will grow to know each other VERY well over the infinite years.” “No! Wait!” The old man stammered. The new arrival tore his weapon away and placed it against his own temple. “I will see you tomorrow, Khan! I will see you every tomorrow. For Istralakia! ” PA-KEOW!
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 07:15
|
|
|
Big Rite in Little Vietnam 1842 Words Noir Horror It was a hazy night. The type of night where this city would cry its eyes out, trying to wash away the stench of corporate capitalism. My father always had her pegged for a commie, and after two decades in the dregs, I was sure she'd gently caress us all if it were up to her. I sat behind the fogged glass of my office windows, gulping down a mouthful of gin when I heard heels clacking against the stairs outside over the rain. I set the empty bottle down on the desk in front of me and grabbed the last cigarette from the pack. I was lighting up when the door swung open. "Any luck, Mr. Narc?", she says, raising her left hand, pulling a silver quellazaire entombed with a cigarette to her lips. Not a single drop of rain befouled her. She wore a low-cut sequined dress that shimmered with a dazzling gleam. Thighs Mcgillicutty was her name, and I had come to fear the night when we would be face to face, again. "Straight to business as usual, Ms. Mcgillicutty. Fancy a drink?" I say, glancing to the empty bottle. "I've got a fresh one in the file cabinet over there, if you would be so kind." I gestured. "I have no time for games, Mr. Narc. Did you find the book or not?" I had done some digging, of course. Bruce Narc always gets his man. "I'll be frank with you," I say, rising to my feet. "The stuff i've learned in the past month would drive a lesser man to madness. I'm afraid I can no longer take on your case." She scoffs. "That book has been in my family for generations. It is a priceless heirloom-" "Spare me the details, honey," I interrupt her starkly. "You have no idea what you are dealing with. It's too dangerous." "My dear, dear Mr. Narc. I am quite capable of handling myself!" she exclaims, arrogantly. "It seems you've taken on a mystery you can't solve," She says with a pompous smile. "Oh, i've got the news, toots. I've got the extra. Bruce Narc knows the facts, and Bruce Narc knows when to 'skidaddle." I inhale, and blow some smoke off to the side, throwing my feet up on the desk. "My mother has kept that book from me my whole life," She says, spitefully. "God rest her soul. I'm not about to let her tyranny continue from the grave." I swing my feet back to the floor. "YOUR MOTHER WAS A WHORE!" I yell, slamming my fist against the desk. The empty bottle wobbles and falls with a crash. "How DARE you!" she screams scornfully, advancing towards the desk. I rise to my feet. She raises her right hand to slap me. The cigarette in my mouth flies off to the side, scattering ashes among the shards of broken gin bottles that line my office. I contain my anger. "Get out. Never come back." I point towards the door. She reached between those voluptuous mounds of hers and retrieves a card, slamming it down on my desk. "If you won't help me, I'll find someone who will," She says, turning tail and marching. The floorboards creak an unsettling howl as her heels thump against them under the weight of her imposingly long legs. As she reaches the door, she shoots me a glance. "Hell hath no fury, Mr. Narc." "You know nothing of hell," I call out to her as she disappears into the storm. I pull another cigarette out of a fresh pack and light up as my eyes turn towards the card. As I lift it, a whiff of her perfume tickles my nose like an unwelcome itch. Jacob T. Ladder. Ladder? poo poo. He's as sharp as a tack being carried in the gnarled beak of a falcon. Tonight, I have a date with the bottle. Tomorrow, a flight to catch. --- You can't breathe in this smokestack-riddled shithole without sucking in a mouth full of diesel dust. I take a long puff of my cigarette as the night-drizzle gently taps against my umbrella, and throw it off to the side, stomping it out. I always take full measures, especially in a place like this. I start walking. Municipality City. The Big Show. The After-school Special. The Devil's Bake Sale. All the leads pointed here. It was right in the thick of it all: the sewers beneath Little Vietnam. Vile waste from every corner of Municipality City flows through these pipes and tunnels, right to the underground central waste treatment plant. If there's one thing Bruce Narc knows, it's that this Ladder fellow always gets his man, and if my calculations were correct, She'll be there with him; the stakes were too high. It would not my first time down there. Like a well-oiled fact finding machine, I had done my reconnaissance and knew these tunnels like the back of my hand. Tonight was not a night for the scenic route. I make it to the storm drain at Central and Main, and toss my umbrella to the side. I reach for the crow bar under my jacket and begin prying at the rusty grate bars. I'll have her singing in minutes. I widen the gap between the bars enough to slip through, and squeeze by. I cross my arms on my chest, stick my legs together, and launch myself feet first into the darkness. The soothing sound of raindrops fades into a violent sloshing of torrential proportions as I am propelled through the tunnel, and slide out the other end into a chamber dimly lit chamber. I stand up and reach for a cigarette. "Bruce? What are you doing here?" A voice calls out to me from the center of the chamber. I recognize the voice as Ladder's. "Bruce Narc always gets his man," I say, lighting up and walking towards him. I catch a clear glimpse of his chubby baby-cheeks as the light of his cigarette hits his face, illuminating any doubts. He takes a puff. As I approach, I see several lip-shaped cherry red marks of affection scattered around the nape of his neck. He puffs away, awkwardly. "Damnit Ladder, Look at yourself," I say, frowning. "Didn't think you the type to heed A siren's desperate song and dance." "Hey, gently caress you Narc. Business is business. And Jacob T. Ladder always gets the girl." He says, ashing his cigarette. "Now now, Mr. Narc. A girl can't wait forever, can she?" Thighs Mcgillicutty called out from further in the chamber. She was standing at a stone pillar, holding a book in her hands. She holds it up for me to see, flauntingly. Her dress shimmered blindly in the faint light of the chamber. I lunge forward, but Ladder grabs the back of my coat and holds me in place. "It's just some book, Narc. What's the big deal." "Ladder, you got sloppy. Ever consider doing a background check on "Thighs Mcgillicutty"? I say, threateningly. "There are candles lining this chamber, for god's sake." Ladder shrugs and puffs away at his cigarette as Thighs flips open the book and begins reading. "QUOD SEMEL DEPERDITUM EST..." Ladder's eyes widen with fear. His cigarette falls out of his mouth to the floor of the chamber. "H- Hey, you crazy cooze. You never said Latin was involved," he yells, visibly stricken with panic. "NUNC INVENTUM EST. AUDITE ME..." He starts to turn as if to make a break for it, but I grab him by the collar and give him a steely glare. "It's just a book Ladder, stick around." "I'm only sure of three things in this world, Narc, Death, Taxes, and DON'T EVER READ loving LATIN OUTLOUD." "MAIORES, ET DATE..." Ladder thrashes about and breaks free, falling face first into the small pool of musky water at the chamber's floor. "MIHI DEXTRAM ASCENSIONIS!" The ground begins to quake with a rumble as Ladder is stumbling to his feet. He manages to maintain his balance and pull himself together through the shaking. I light another cigarette, and slowly walk towards her. "Thighs Mcgillicutty, aka Bella Tepes. Heir to the house of Drăculești. I knew you were one to get into trouble the moment I set eyes on you." "I underestimated you, Mr. Narc. Alas, you are too late. As the eldest heir to the house of Drăculești, my it is my birth-rite to manifest in myself the ancient mysteries kept by my ancestors for centuries. I walk towards her slowly, taking one last puff and throwing my cigarette haphazardly to the side. "I didn't want it to come to this. I was trying to protect you, toots." She laughs, "My dear Mr. Narc, why would I ever need your protection? I told you before, I am quite capable of handling myself." "And I told you Bruce Narc never lies." I shudder uncomfortably as the skin on my back begins to ripple. As I advance on her, my skin begins turning a blue-ish white. I can feel the blood in my veins moving at five times the normal velocity as my muscles swell. My clothes begin to tear as my body mass multiplies. Her lower lip begins to quiver. "No, this can't be. I read it wrong..?" She stumbles backwards and splashes rear end first into the muck at her feet. I loom over her, and my voice rasps, echoing throughout the chamber. "I told you your mom was a whore.." I grab her by the head and pull her up off the ground and smile. "Our mom.. was a whore!" She screams and curses god as I sink my fangs into her, unable to pace myself upon feeding for the first time. I might have overdone it, but i've never been one to turn down a drink. Now more than ever, a drink is sometimes the only thing a man can hope to clear his mind with, is this dog-eat-dog cesspool of a city. I turn, and leap over to Ladder, unaware that he has readied the concealed piece he likes to keep with him, and get a helping of cold, hard, steal right in the neck. I groan loudly and sigh, as my muscular hand crumples his gun into a useless ball of scrap, and pull a cigarette out. "Sorry, Narc. Reflexes." As Ladder looks into my glowing eyes, I sense his franticly beating heart slowing down. He pants heavily and begins to catch his breath, before patting himself down as if looking for a cigarette. I stick the one I had readied for myself into his mouth and invoke a flame from the tip of my pointer finger, lighting it for him. "You know Narc, I never met anyone quite like her." I jam an unlit cigarette into the hole in my neck, and another into my mouth. "Forget it Jake," I say, lighting them both. "It's pyro town." My hand lights up with fire, and I assure him he is in no hurry to learn of hell.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 07:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 00:21 |
|
|
Grandpa wouldn’t let us into his study when we used to come over after school. 1300 words ancestral horror Me and my sister would clatter through the front door, slamming it behind us so the bell tinged and the little bits of stained glass in the leadlight rattled, then whoop and holler up the stairs to our rooms to hang our bags on the bag hook and put on our house clogs, then clip clap downstairs to watch the Honky Tonk Half Hour on the black and white television in the sitting room, but we never looked into the study. Sometimes on weekends we would be clambering round outside the house, climbing on the rickety scaffold that surrounded the house even though it hadn’t been painted for years, old silver wood bleached in the sun, little holes where the two tooth longhorn borer had done their burrowing, daring each other to walk across the precarious plank that crossed between the corner of the second story back bedroom and the bathroom that never had any hot water, but we never tried to get into the study. Grandpa would always be in there when we woke up in the morning, a flickering light coming from under the dark wood of the door, but we never knocked and asked him what was for breakfast. Instead we sat on our bums, giggling, and slid down the stairs so our clogs wouldn’t clonk on the treads and risers. We made toast out of slices of white bread we cut from the paper-wrapped loaves the boy dropped off twice a week, clamped them between the tennis-raquet wire crisscross of the toaster and carefully turned on the gas. As oldest, my sister reserved to herself the right to light the gas flame, but I always watched – the soft ‘whoomf’ and billowing plume of blue flame made me smile. I’m smiling now, remembering it, so many years later. But even as oldest my sister never suggested investigating what it was Grandpa did in the study. We only asked him about it once, when we were all sitting around the dark heavy wooden table with its hundreds of scars and slashes, eating the last of the cattlebeast that Zachary the old farmer had dropped off the week before. It was getting a little gamey and I was focusing on getting it down when I heard my sister clear her throat and realised, in a sudden flash of sibling gestalt, that she was about to ask Grandpa about the study. I stopped mid chew, and the resulting silence was absolute until she broke it: “Grandpa…?” His face is a little hard to bring to mind, these days. I remember it was craggy, deep. I saw a painting once of a man viewed from behind staring down into a deep valley, and you could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was witnessing something extraordinary; Grandpa’s face was something like what I imagine that man to have been looking at. I sometimes thought of Grandpa like the man, too, hunched over something in his study, eyes ablaze. Grandpa didn’t answer, though to be fair she hadn’t asked a question. But his gaze swung towards her, and his heavy white brows drew close together. We didn’t talk to Grandpa much. In fact as I sat there, bolus of stringy flesh stil in my mouth like a cud, I recall the odd prickly sensation of realising that I hadn’t heard him speak in months, and simultaneously realising that I was realising that. I date my existence as a conscious being from that moment, sitting opposite my sister in the murk of my Grandpa’s kitchen, around the old table. “We were wondering what it is you do, exactly, in the, the…” She stammered to a halt. I was transfixed, across from her, willing her to finish her sentence, but she didn’t. After a time, which might have been short or long but was in any case entirely singular, he made a gruff noise, a kind of harrumph, and pushed his chair back, making it skreet across the wooden floor. As he stood up he looked first at my sister, then me, then he turned and walked out of the kitchen, and up the stairs, leaving the cleaning up to us as usual. His odd angularity struck me as it often did, the way he seemed to contort himself to get through the door, though the frame and head jamb were amply sized to allow him to pass. As he climbed the stairs, thumping steps on the treads loud in the quiet house, I was looking at my sister, caught between awe at her boldness and frustration at its limits. Then she held up her finger. “Listen!” she said. I did, and heard nothing, and told her as much with my expression. She frowned. “No click. He didn’t close the door." The few steps to the stairs seemed to take a long time. We weren’t even walking carefully or trying to be silent, but every little sound we did make seemed magnified by the empty house, by the possibility of the tiny crack between door at the top of the stairs and its dark wooden frame. We crept up the stairs, slowing as we reached the top, crouching down, me in front for once, my sister so close behind I could hear her quiet breath, feel the warm air on my neck. We were both on our hands and knees, wriggling like snakes, when we got to the last tread and looked, breaths bated tight in our chests. The door was open a crack, just a crack, and a cold flickering light was coming out of it. I reached out a hand, ready to crawl towards it, but my sister but a hand on my shoulder. No, she mouthed. I could see something wild and primal in her eyes, something I'd never seen before and wouldn't want to see again. I hesitated, torn. I could tell she wanted to go to our room, to the dark wooden room we shared, perhaps to read our books and talk in quiet voices about the day. I wanted that too. Perhaps we could nudge the door shut, almost accidentally as we passed, hear it click into comforting place. We could pretend Grandpa had forgotten to shut it, just this once. I looked into her eyes, and knew that I wasn't going to do that, and knew that she saw it, and knew that she knew that I'd seen her see it. We crouched there a moment, trembling together at the knowing, then she jerked herself up and ran off down the corridor to our room, and slammed the door behind her. The door was within the reach of my hand, so I pulled it open. Grandpa wasn't there. It was a little study, narrow walls, a desk, and on that desk was a book. The book was familiar, somehow, with its heavy yellow pages and fine cramped writing. Lists of names, nouns, verbs, things, feelings, in the tiniest writing. There was no-one in the room. I stood up, feeling a creak in my bones I hadn't ever felt before, and sat myself in the chair. There was a pen there, and I picked it up, and wrote the first word that came to me: door. Then, wood. Then, sister. And as I wrote each word it vanished from my head, as though I had never known what a door, or a sister, or wood was. I kept writing, things I'd seen or read about, or thought of, and with each word the fine trail of ink obliterated its counterpart in my mind. After a time I stretched my hand, noting an age spot I hadn't seen before. Down below there was a clatter as the children arrived, again. No matter. They never came into the study.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2021 08:06
|
|