“Gillian’s Marsh” is published in the US and A by MorbidbookS and the Grace of God. Copyright: Michael Faun for words and music, Justin Coons for cover art, 2017. Edited by Chris Kelso and Sophia Faun. Cover Designed and stage direction by The Grim Reverend Steven Rage, 2017. The moral right, such as it is, of this author and his various disjointed proclivities have been asserted. All Rights Reserved. No part of this dark, erotic and viscerally violent novel may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, alien or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, drawing stick figures, seventeenth century printing press, chain mail, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of The Reverend, Michael Faun, The Great and Powerful Oz and the Hand that turns the Big Wheel, except where permitted by law or whatever the hell you think you can get away with. But if you do, please be advised that you will incur the righteous disdain of The Reverend. And that is no Bueno, primo. The characters in this vicious tome are fictitious. Duh. Obviously. Any resemblance to real persons, be they living or dead, demons, succubae, demi-gods or the ‘formerly living’ (zombies) is purely coincidental.
CONTENTS:
PART I
Under the Blood Oak
Forbidden Meat
Path of the Pale Serpent
Maleficium per con Lustrum
Principle of Cyrus Reiterman
Lure of the Roots
Principle of Cyrus Reiterman (pt.2)
Mark of the Pale Serpent
Innoxius Mortem / Noxius Genesis
PART II
Caper in the Woods
Mirth and Murder
Servant of the Pale Serpent
Ordeal of Murky Water
Statement of Cyrus Reiterman
PART III
Battered Old Belle in Gillian's Marsh
PART ONE
~
Of all the trees in Gillian, stands one so notably vile
Crimson bark and bleeding boils and veins from which seeps bile
Blood Oak, Blood Oak, what might in thee be hidden?
Dreaming in ye hollow trunk, haunted and ghost-ridden
One must never step too close, never be too nosy
'Tmight just pierce ye with its twigs, and drain ye of yer rosy
Blood Oak, Blood Oak, slakes its greedy thirst
A wicked wooden drunkard, that drinks those who are cursed
Spidery arteries, thick and endless roots
Calling for her unkempt beau, listens for his heavy boots
Blood Oak, Blood Oak, udders sore and achin'
Suck and lap her crimson milk, from spirits she has taken
~
UNDER THE BLOOD OAK
September 1866
Louella Lee Wishum staggered through the cold moon-draped woods, pausing for a moment to catch her breath and hide her clumsy dress behind a bush. She slung her drawstring bag over her shoulder and fumbled to pry off the tormenting corset that concealed her full-swing pregnancy.
“You can't run away from me, you bedeviled strumpet!” her father's grating voice bellowed through the rustling trees. He was hot on her heels, twigs snapping in rapid staccato.
The corset came off and fell to the ground and Louella Lee drew a deep breath of relief, when a roaring gunshot sent a flock of crows on flight. Teeth chattering, she wrapped her arms around her half-naked body and ran deeper into the forest.
She hadn't come far before a wave of pain surged through her womb and forced her on her knees, pressing her hands against her belly. Whimpering, she managed to rip off her pantaloons just before the amniotic fluid rushed out of her. She got on her back with her legs stretched widely apart and dug her nails into the frosty ground, pulling up big tussocks of grass while her tearful eyes darted to and fro.
The pain grew and she pushed harder with each contraction.
She gave a final thrust and freed her baby, its tiny voice bawling from between her bloody thighs.
The pain dissipated and she became aware that she was lying in a beautiful clearing beside a giant gnarled oak, whose autumn foliage hung over her like a crimson canopy. Her gaze caught a red leaf that tumbled toward her, and listening to her father's keen breaths drawing near she closed her eyes and let her mind drift away.
* * *
Red Swanson stood on his cabin porch when a gunshot followed by a woman's scream echoed from deep inside the black woods, triggering his predatory senses.
He carefully put down the burlap sack with the dead rabbit and snuffed his kerosene lantern, peering out at the tree line flanking the path that led into the dark forest.
He saw nothing save for a few fireflies and flitting moths.
“The hell?” he grumbled. Cocking his ears, he chewed harder on his Beech-Nut tobacco when he picked up the faint voice of an agitated man. Though garbled, he could've sworn he was listening in on a sermon accompanied by the chirping gospel of crickets.
Red hurried inside his cabin and fetched his old ax before skulking into the woods, guided by the trespassing preacher's distorted hymns that were carried by the cool gust of the night.
Passing Black Trout Creek, he ascended a small slope and found himself in the eye of the nocturnal racket. By the Blood Oak in the gloomy dell before him stood a burly man in a fur overcoat and a trapper’s hat, looming over a naked young woman with an infant resting on her pale chest. The man was aiming a long-piped rifle at the baby's head while snarling his midnight sermon.
He didn't notice Red sneaking toward him with the ax raised in scalp height.
“Deliver me from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gap; that with self-loathing—”
TWACK!
Red sank his ax into the back of the preacher's fur-clad head and abruptly ended his tirade.
BANG!
The rifle went off as a result of the preacher's death-twitch. The bullet shattered the child's soft head into pieces, coating its mother's face in a cloud of blood before the preacher fell atop them both.
Red spat a hock of tobacco juice and pulled the ax out of the preacher's split open skull. Brain fragment clung to the gritty blade. Ramming it into the Blood Oak, he grabbed the man by the collar of his coat and hauled his heavy corpse off the woman and her headless baby.
The dead preacher plopped over onto the cold ground and Red pressed his thumb over the woman's jugular.
She was still alive.
Unsheathing a hunter's knife from his belt, he severed the umbilical cord and picked up the baby, carefully placing it among a cluster of wild flowers that grew around the trunk of the oak. He lifted the unconscious woman and flung her over his broad shoulder, dislodged his ax from the tree and hurried back home.
* * *
In Red Swanson's eyes, 150 pounds worth of meat was a downright mother lode of food gold. If he could manage to cut it up and smoke it before the bears and insects got to it, he wouldn't need to go hunt for squirrel to stay fed for the entire winter.
“I's goin' to be a darn busy fella', that's fer sure!” he concluded and stroked his bushy beard, slogging back to his cabin with the woman hanging on his back like a trophy buck.
Back at the cabin, he cleaned off the worst of the gunpowder and blood from her face. When he was finished, and her skin wore a soft pink glow, he marveled over her beauty: almond-shaped eyes, a pointy nose and full heart-shaped lips reclining between high proud cheekbones.
She couldn't be a day older than seventeen he thought as he admired her slim frame and perky breasts.
Red cleared out his dry-wood storage and roughly put together a bed using some leftover boards which he stuffed with hay and sawdust. He furnished the bed with h
is extra set of bedclothes and a blanket, dressing her in his cleanest nightshirt before he gently placed her senseless body in it.
He brought in a chair and a jug of fresh creek water and went out again. Back to the Blood Oak. This time with rope, a shovel, a wheelbarrow and the leather parcel containing his butcher tools.
Field dressing the preacher's corpse was pure hell. Just ridding the body of its garments, glued to the skin from all the frozen sweat and sticky blood was a pain in the neck, but when he finally dangled from a sturdy branch, toes pointing skyward, the cutting went smoothly.
The roots of the parched tree soaked up the blood as Red daftly worked the strong blade around the bones, weighing in his hand each ample fillet that came off.
When nothing but a tissue-wrapped skeleton hung in the tree, Red sat down on a rock for a quick breather. He fished out a flask of moonshine from his belt, took a swig and smacked his lips before he proceeded with burying the headless infant under the oak. He muttered a quick funeral prayer and left the gory glade, pushing his heavy meat-filled barrow back home.
Soon, the crows would come and pick the preacher's bones clean for Red to bury them too.
* * *
Louella Lee awoke to her baby crying, but it died out the moment she opened her eyes.
She shot straight up in the bed she was in.
Where am I?
Her eyes darted across the unfamiliar room. Small and cozy, with log walls and a barred window from where a bleak sun shone through, creating white cross-shaped prisms on the grimy floor. A worn wooden chair stood beside the bed and a jug filled with what she hoped was water rested on its seat. Parched, she lifted the jug and ravenously chugged down the clear fluid.
The cold water instantly revitalized her numbed body and she grew aware of her sore sex and aching abdomen. Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of the too large nightshirt she had on, her hand traveled down to her nether regions and came back flecked with clotted blood.
A shadow passed over her face from the ill-boding indication.
“My baby!” she gasped when the door to the sunny room creaked open. She did not recognize the savage-looking man standing in the doorway.
“Who are you?” Louella Lee whimpered in the bed, shielding her chest with one arm and tugging at the blanket with the other.
“Relax, woman, I won't hurt ya. I'm Red and you's in my home.” Red snorted and reached out his dirty hand as he cautiously approached her bed. “I saved ya from that hideous fella that tried to kill ya in the woods... 'member?”
Louella Lee curled up against the corner of the log wall, pulling her bruised knees up under her chin. “Where's my baby!?” she said, her lips trembling.
“You's been out for two straight days, I reckon you must be starvin',” Red said and kneeled by the bedside, folding his offered hand and resting it over his knee.
“I just want to see my baby!”
Red's expression darkened and he stared sadly at the floorboards. “Sorry, ma'am...,” he said and looked her straight in the eyes. “Them angels took it away.”
FORBIDDEN MEAT
“There ye go, child, eat it all up. I's got plenty more of that meat,” Red said, watching Louella Lee wolf down the smoked meat-stew he'd cooked out of the preacher. She didn't even pause to breathe between spoonfuls.
“So,” he continued while pouring himself a mug of 'shine. “You mind telling me who that man was? Why he wanted you dead?” He took a slug and revealed a crooked set of teeth.
“That man back there in the woods... was my father,” Louella Lee said after finishing her plate.
Red frowned, tapping the mug. A pang of revolt churned in his stomach at the thought of her eating her next-of-kin?
That is just wrong!
“Is he... dead, too?” she asked.
“No,” Red lied, feigning probity, “I dealt with him like a gentleman. Won't be botherin' ye no more, that's fer sure.” Sipping his 'shine, he noticed she had spilled some of her father on the nightshirt.
“My father is a circuit rider.” Louella Lee shot a glazed look at the table, wiping the corners of her mouth with the shirtsleeve. “Preaches to the settlers in the small villages just outside of Gillianswick and...” she hesitated, cheeks burning with shame.
“Yeah?” Red said, feeding a quid of Beech-Nut into his cheek.
“He found out I was with child and forced me to hide it. He imprisoned me in our house's cellar, told my mother I had sinned and that he intended to keep me locked down there till 'my demons were driven'. I spent months in that murky place before I dared to escape. All I remember from that night is a giant oak in the woods, with red mushrooms the size of custard apples growing on it.”
“Now, that'd be the old Blood Oak yer talkin' about.” Red said. “I's there piddlin' around when I found ye and yer cotton pickin' excuse for a father. So, where's ye headin' next? Got any place to stay?”
“No,” Louella Lee said quietly and shook her head. “I have nowhere to go.”
Red scratched his neck and cleared his throat, watching as a tear trickled along her delicate egg-shell cheek.
Don't feed the chicken if ye ain't gonna keep it, boy... Red heard his mama's raspy voice echo in his head. He downed his 'shine and laid his rough hands over hers, cherishing their soft warmth. “Well, if ye don't mind a li'l householdin'... cookin' an' cleanin', I reckon ye can stay here fer the winter.”
Sniffling, Louella Lee bored her radiant light-green eyes into Red's. Her smile made his gully grow all warm. “I'd love to stay.”
A few hours later, as the sun retracted its pale tendrils and trundled off, Louella Lee lay fast asleep in the bed in her room.
In the kitchen, by the crackling heat stove, Red sat listening to her soft snores, grinning each time she yelped from some dream.
After a while he got up from his leather chair and moved silently toward her room, peeking through the door that stood ajar. A warm amber glow radiated from the kerosene lantern on the chair. He stood for several moments marveling over her smooth silhouette. She looked so peaceful with her eyes closed, her braided red hair coiling over the pillow like a copper snake.
He slipped soundlessly through the door-gap and tip-toed over to the drawstring bag that laid by the foot-end of the bed. Kneeling, he gingerly untied the string and fished up a black book and slunk back out again.
Back by the fire, he eagerly flipped open the purloined book which he learned was Louella Lee's private diary. Her handwriting was elegant yet simple Red observed as he began to read the first entry, dated November 1st, 1865.
Dear Diary
What more wretched misery could life hold in store?
I fear that the Devil is pulling Father's strings. I dare not think otherwise, lest I will be confined to the lunatic asylum.
He sneaked into my chamber last night after the harvest festival and I could smell the cider on his breath all the way from my bed. I pretended to be sleeping when he crept under my covers and drunkenly rambled about the sins of women. His hands were cold and dirty and I cried in the dark while listening to the creaking of Mother's rocking chair downstairs.
God help me, for my innocence has been bereaved...
Intrigued, Red flipped forward a few pages to November 13th that same year.
Dear Diary
I wonder if Mother knows. Can she tell my flower has withered and died?
The nightmare has plagued me ever since All Hallows Eve and I fear that the Devil is toying with me. I was carrying water the other day, when a white snake appeared out of nowhere on the path before me. It writhed lustily and stared at me with lewd eyes before suddenly lunging at me. I barely managed to evade it and spilled the water all over myself. The snake hissed and disappeared into the snow.
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I realized that it was the same hideous serpent as in my nightmare!
Prayers could not save my soul now...
Skipping to yet another entry, penned on the day after Chris
t's Mass, he read:
Dear Diary
My dreaded misgivings have turned out to be true.
Come December, my monthly bleeding was late. The past week I've awoken every morrow feeling ill. Yesterday, at the feast held in our house, I was still a bit green around the gills when the guests arrived. As I sat down to table and watched the cod’s head, calves’ feet pie and chine of lamb, my stomach turned upside down and I got sick all over the fares. Father scowled horridly at me, the others were mostly worried about my health. Especially Doctor Gray, who gladly offered to have me examined, Father kindly dismissed him, saying that he objected to any kind of labor during the very Mass of Christ and escorted me upstairs where I was punished...
Red closed the diary and found himself gritting his teeth in anger. He struggled to put aside the repulsive images teeming in his head.
Stealthily replacing the diary where it belonged, he headed out to the smoke hut where he rounded off the night with a late snack. “Best darn meat I's ever tasted...,” he muttered between hearty chews; happy to have ridden the world of such an abomination.
PATH OF THE PALE SERPENT
Louella Lee drops the bucket of water and falls down on her hands and knees. She whimpers as the cold brook water gushes out over the path and the transparent tendrils soak her dress. Her stomach hurts so much she wants to take a knife and cut out her uterus.
A full moon hangs in the twilight sky and colors silver the thin wisps of fog that dance around her head.
Her breath is heavy and intense. She tries to control it but the pain wins. Her thighs feel slick and warm and she smiles with relief watching her menstruation coat her milk-white legs and pool on the frost below. The tiny ice crystals turning red.
Gillian's Marsh Page 1
