A blonde woman danced around the massive ballroom. She’ll do quite nicely, Eternal thought. What a slender and delicate neck – a ripe subject indeed. Eternal’s fangs sank into her flesh and blood erupted from the dancer’s neck.
Three dark creatures drifted across the marble floor. Long black cloaks and dark hoods partially concealed their faces. Blood dripped from their crimson lips and splashed across the floor. One hooded creature threatened her with a pointed finger.
Eternal scoffed at such a display for she knew nothing could stop her. She was – Eternal. That word echoed around the ballroom, becoming louder and more insistent. With desperate eyes, she looked around the vast room for her true love. Where was he? She must have him, for nothing else mattered. Her ancient eyes became transfixed by the most beautiful of men with auburn hair and eyes so green. His eyes held a sea of love, smiling at her, sending her heart soaring to the mistress moon. So this is what my true love looks like. What was his name? I must have his name!
Eternal posed naked for a female artist. Her tormentor leaned against a door, her captor, ever watchful. She had been allowed out of her prison, but his leash was short.
Eternal dropped a red rose. Her gaze traced the falling petals to see a woman, tantalizingly familiar. The artist lay sprawled on the floor with lifeless eyes now focused upon another world. Blood had started to congeal at the wound to her neck, mixed with splashes of paint.
Eternal’s hand delicately closed those dead eyes to shut out the look of condemnation. Her bloody hand drifted upwards to her hungry mouth. Oh, how wonderful the artist’s sweet offering tasted – a taste as heavy as strong red wine and as sweet as ripe strawberries.
The bald man with long, pointed ears loomed over her. He seemed so familiar? Blood trickled from his full, ruby-red lips and splashed over the dead artist. The artist sprang to her feet showing wicked fangs.
Pure terror gripped Eternal. The fear coalesced into a pool of raucous ravens. The tall hooded creature revealed its face. Scream of silence! It was Him, come to take all her blood for his own and so become immortal as Eternal. The room faded with a scream. Sounds became distorted and otherworldly. Eternal desperately tried to hold onto her brief existence, to grasp the moment, but it was not enough. With an agonized gasp the grotesque illusion slowly faded into another dream. Cries of despair echoed in her mind, ending in a single word – Eternal.
Still in her dream state Delicate Rose returned to the chateau, the site of the massacre, sitting at an elegant dining table with an equally elegant couple. They were obviously in love as they looked into each other’s eyes with that particular familiarity that only comes from marriage. Blood dripped from their mouths. They poured blood wine from a bottle. The female artist pointed to a familiar painting of a naked woman – Delicate Rose. The naked woman spewed blood from a fang-filled mouth.
The fork! Something about the fork in Delicate Rose’s hand terrified her. The fork changed into a set of sharp incisors, dripping gore. She began to whimper, sick with fear. The bloody fangs fell from her hand as if they were red hot. The elegant couple looked to her with concern. The blood vanished as she put her hand to her mouth and sucked. She slipped off her chair and crawled under the table. She started to convulse. A heartbeat later she heard a crescendo of shattering glass.
She relived the moment of her escape. Bare feet with black painted toenails appeared. A male voice screamed. He was here. She bit her hand to stop crying out in terror. A thunderous explosion echoed around the room. She saw a man slump against a door and fall to the parquet floor. One of the intruders left. She heard the name Sebastian. Déjà-vu! All exactly as it happened before. Sebastian was the husband. A bottle fell to the floor. My poor Ellise is dead! She cried for her friend.
The blood from the bottle slowly trickled towards her. She stared in horror at the dark red seeping fluid. She backed away from the blood, all the way to the corner of the table, making sure not to be seen by the intruders.
His harsh voice shattered the dream. “You dance with the Devil … you sleep with the Devil.”
The words brought her to the murky surface of reality. But what reality? As hard as she tried she could not remember her real name. Where was she? Was He close by searching for her? Had she actually escaped Him this time? Why did she need to escape Him? Delicate Rose shuddered as the awful memories of her dream lingered. She drifted back into her dream world with the word “Eternal” echoing in her mind.
Eternal was trapped in her attic prison. Flashing images scorched her brain. Bloody fingernails scratched at the door. The gory groove in the wood finally split wide enough for her fingers to slip through. With an ear-shattering of splintered wood the door was torn apart.
Delicate Rose rushed along the upper hall fully dressed in elegant evening wear. She paused to clean the blood from her hands and listen. There were three beating hearts in the rhythm of sleep. She entered a bedroom and rifled a long coat to remove a spray bottle. She smashed the bottle in the hall, covering her face from the Forbidden Kiss. Her broken fingernails looked awful. She covered them with fine silk gloves. Blood stained the gloves.
Her distorted dream revealed her escape from the attic prison in Montmartre. Montmartre! Paris! She had lived in Paris. Please remember it all! Please! The Ritz! Salvation awaited her at the Ritz with Ellise and Sebastian. She made haste across Paris, dodging crowds of curious shoppers and desperately clinging to the shade of side streets and alleys.
The sun had dipped behind tall apartment buildings, offering some semblance of comfort. Delicate Rose stopped before a florist. She had to enter. The impulse was overwhelming. Her one true love awaited her on the other side of the door.
Eternal needed her true love, but she had no name to attach to such a picture of sublime beauty. Where was her true love? Who was he? He must help her or all would be lost for eternity. Her tormented screams echoed down a dark tunnel. The sounds of horse’s hooves encroached upon her fractured mind.
Chapter 5
AS THE MORNING sun banished the last wisps of ground mist, Delicate Rose snapped out of her dream world to the sound of her savior tugging the reins to direct his horse onto a gravel driveway. Tears flowed for the loss of her friends. The crunching of fine stones was unmistakable. She sensed the misery imprisoned within the nearby stone walls. A desperate need to escape overwhelmed her, but the sunlight trapped her beneath the coat.
She slowly drifted into another dream where she was plucked from her birth mother’s womb. She glared with terror into a face of such intense brightness. The face of angelic infection was so searing she repulsed all the air from her lungs, sensing hatred from the bright angel. She struggled to avert the angel’s sun – a golden shaft of light slowly raised above her. Her eyes could not stray from that sword of redemption. The golden sword slashed down. Darkness enveloped everything as oblivion ruled supreme.
As a suckling infant she was handed to a woman whose demeanor was most dour indeed. The woman crushed her face to her swollen bosom and proceeded to name her. But as the sickly liquid filled her stomach, her screams prevented her from hearing her name spoken for the first time. What was her name? A name thrust upon the innocent by those empowered with God-like presence. Perhaps her name was not her destiny? Or was it?
~~~~
Busson drove his cart up the long driveway towards the imposing Douvrey Institute du Psychologique. He stopped outside the front doors of the converted chateau.
“Papillon ... sit!” He hopped down and rushed up to the massive oak doors and hammered the brass knocker with a resounding thud.
A few moments later, a middle-aged, fearsome-looking shrew of a woman, as thin as a rake, opened the door. “What the Devil is going on at this hour?”
Busson guessed the hardness on her face reflected the years of misery spent at the institute. He showed the nurse what he had in the back of his cart. He stepped aside as the nurse lifted the coat covering the woman.
The woman immediately screamed
in agony. She snatched the coat and hid under it with a hiss.
The nurse smiled at Papillon. Papillon whined and cowered down under the seat with his tail wrapped around him.
Busson looked curiously from Papillon back to the nurse as she lifted the coat once more. He grimaced at the nurse’s reaction to the disheveled state of her new patient.
She checked the patient’s pulse and frowned. The nurse hurried back into the institute and returned a few moments later with a barrel-chested, savage-faced orderly pushing a gurney.
The nurse tore the jacket off the young woman. “Well, look what we have here!” she said, tossing the jacket to Busson.
Delicate Rose opened her eyes to the blinding brilliance of the sun’s rays searing exposed patches of her white skin without mercy. The stinging sensation brought forth her stronger otherworldly self – Eternal.
In this altered state of heightened awareness, Eternal saw what others, including Delicate Rose, could not. And the first thing Eternal laid eyes on was a disgusting fat demon with a horribly scarred face, leering down at her. The demon licked its lips with a bloated black tongue. She immediately panicked and tried to escape.
Eternal had no idea where she was or what was happening. Fear took control. She screamed and screamed. The demon laughed at her, drooling with its stinking tongue hanging limp from a fetid mouth circled by fat lips.
Eternal turned to see the dog sitting on the cart and barking furiously at the vile creature pretending to be an orderly. You can see him for what he is, can’t you? When the demon whistled, the dog hid back under the cart seat in terror, tail between its legs.
She watched the man who saved her hop onto the cart and comfort his dog.
“Good boy, Papillon.” He patted the dog’s head. “What did you see, boy?” The farmer looked most concerned as he stroked Papillon’s head. The look on his face showed his confusion.
She sensed his inner turmoil as he wondered if he had done the right thing.
Eternal turned to a new source of terror as a vile, rotting witch, covered in festering warts, slapped her across the face.
The witch spoke with a husky rasp to the demon at her side. “Hold her tight, Bonbon ... this one is going to be trouble.”
Eternal had a sickening vision in her mind’s eye of the demonic Bonbon manhandling the female patients, most of whom experienced his molestations many times over.
And hold her tight the demon did. His harsh grip on her slender wrists brought a squeal of agony. He held her down, arms crossed over her chest, as the demon’s knee clamped her madly kicking legs. She tried to turn away from that monstrous countenance but was slapped again by the diseased witch.
Eternal watched in terror as thick leather straps were used to bind her tightly to the steel cart. Not the straps! She would be helpless to stop his molestations! She tried to scream, but the words fell to a croaking whisper from her dry mouth. Squirming with disgust, she watched the stinking demon grope her breasts and fondle between her legs. The vile witch looked on with a lecherous grin. The searing pain of the sun’s rays confirmed she must be in hell and shuddered into her subconscious.
Delicate Rose re-emerged into her reality and was so scared. She looked around frantically, no idea what was going on. Acrid bile stung her throat for she could not tell if this was nightmare or reality. The waking nightmare continued as a giant’s maw opened up before her with a sinister creaking, swallowing her up. The maw slammed shut with her rasping screams.
~~~~
Having witnessed how they treated the terrified woman, Busson became more dubious of his actions. Had he done the right thing? She was definitely traumatized and needed psychiatric help. But after seeing those two monsters enjoying their brutal manhandling of their patient he had second thoughts.
Busson hopped off his cart and rushed to the door and pounded. The door opened. He was confronted by the brutish orderly who shoved him down the steps to land on his behind.
The ugly bastard smiled wickedly and slammed the door shut, possibly sealing the fate of that poor woman. And even though Doctor Vernier had saved his life during the Great War, Busson came to the conclusion that whoever worked in a nuthouse must be equally as nuts. He hopped back on his cart and nudged his horse into a canter.
Busson looked down at Papillon to see that same look of trauma. He glanced back at the asylum and wondered what the hell goes on in there?
Chapter 6
DELICATE ROSE COULD not move while she was carted across the vestibule by the ugly man and the equally vile woman. The distant wails and screams of the tortured confirmed she had been delivered to hell. An overpowering sense of revulsion caused her to look towards the noise.
She saw an attractive blonde female smiling at her, but the smile lasted only a second, to be replaced by a disgusted grimace. Delicate Rose held onto that picture of smiling beauty as if all her sanity depended on it.
The orderly turned from the blonde, leaned closer to Delicate Rose and pinched her breasts. Her pain and fear awakened Eternal.
Now that the moment was spoiled, Eternal looked up at the demon’s revolting attempt to attract her attention, pursing its lips and blew a kiss. She could do nothing but experience these horrors as if they were happening to someone else. She became detached from her reality. Eternal! I am Eternal! I – am – Eternal!
The witch unlocked a door into the bowels of this dungeon of horrors with a key attached to a chain around her waist. Fate was sealed as the door slammed shut and locked with a grim smile. She walked ahead of the demon and opened another door.
With mounting dread, Eternal watched the demon happily whistling while pushing the wheeled bed down a white corridor contaminated with the stench of bleach and carbolic. The fumes caused her to cough. She sensed the demon drooling over her dark v-shaped mound, clearly visible through her ruined dress. In her mind’s eye her trembling fleshy folds were ravaged by the creature’s serpent-like tongue probing deeper and deeper.
She had a powerful urge to cover herself but couldn’t. As hard as she tried her hand failed to cover the place where the demon’s lust dwelled. She was trapped. Bile rose up her throat forcing her to look away from the hideous monster blowing her a kiss as the steel trolley entered a white room adorned by instruments of torture hanging from the walls.
Eternal looked from the female demon witch to the male version and wondered which one would devour her first. She was relieved when the male demon skulked towards the open door, but was immediately repulsed as she sensed its urgent need to spray its seed in her face.
The demon blew her a kiss and winked. That wink promised so much more, and soon. It left the room with a hiss of its serpent tongue.
Eternal wanted to scream, but she was so dry with fear her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. She looked desperately around the small room, breathing frantically. Her head swam with terrifying visions of bloody torn bodies, screams of death and those leather-clad legs. She tried to understand what was happening to her, but couldn’t. The screams of ravens pecked at her sanity. Tears ran down her face as her other name eluded her. Nothing surfaced except sheer terror, a terror which had stripped her of her very existence. She convulsed. Nothing came up.
The festering witch gently comforted her by stroking her hair and Eternal relaxed, allowing her sweet other self to surface.
Delicate Rose saw a woman in a white uniform. Was she in a hospital? Was this frighteningly ugly woman a nurse? She sensed the cruelty within.
“You’re in safe hands now my dear.” The nurse examined several cuts on Delicate Rose’s face. “Oh you poor little thing.” The restraints were loosened. Gauze was used to clean the cuts. “That’s better isn’t it?” She tossed the bloody gauze into a nearby bin.
Delicate Rose screamed at the sight of her blood. Her blood! It cannot be wasted. Her blood is precious. Her blood is eternal. Delicate Rose was forced back into subservience by her stronger personality.
Eternal opened her eyes to a sl
ap across the face. She struggled but was shoved back down. The straps were tightened once more. She stared into the mask of hate glaring at her, unable to cry. She felt so dry with fear she thought she might turn to dust. Where was she? Why was this happening?
“Do that again and I’ll let Bonbon have his way with you,” the evil witch said with a sneer.
Eternal did not move a muscle. She didn’t even flinch as the festering old hag held her head firmly with a rough hand while dabbing at more blood oozing from the numerous superficial cuts. Brief flashes of the hag’s tormented soul, dressed as a nun while beating a child, seared her mind.
“There ... there ... we’ll have you cleaned up in no time at all. Now try to stay calm so the doctor can examine you properly. Can you do that?” the nurse asked in a pleasing voice.
Eternal once more relaxed her grip to allow Delicate Rose back in. She grabbed a firm hold of that word “doctor” and clung to it with all her strength. Was she in a hospital? Delicate Rose could do nothing but let the nurse finish cleaning her scratches, but the blood continued to ooze from the thin lacerations. She sensed the nurse’s confusion at this loss of blood and her disgust at such use of heavy makeup, the deep red fingernail polish. The evil within the nurse welled up to the surface, bringing Eternal into control.
Eternal sensed the witch thinking of her as a worthless harlot.
“What is this world coming to?” the witch said like a rasp on rusted iron.
Eternal resigned herself to her fate at the hands of this vile creature. She trembled like a trapped bird while her feet were cleaned. The constant disapproving sighs, revulsion and hatred assaulted her senses. This witch hated all her patients with equal venom.
Her keen senses picked up deeper feelings of religious fervor, beaten into her helpless flock. The torrent of evil this witch believed to be kindness had been inflicted upon the unsuspecting world ever since her dismissal as a nun from The House of Benign Providence. Overall, the thing considered itself righteous and could do no wrong. The ravens finally stopped screaming.
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 179
