Terrible Cherubs: Tales of Sinners, Mistakes, and Regrets

by Steve Wetherell

  “I guess the crazies take care of their own,” Joshua quipped.

  Cap stepped back into the bedroom, and stood next to Francine’s body. She’d put up a good fight, more so than Robert. “This is going to be one hell of a report. Think she’s what he says she is?”

  “You did find a red hair at the warehouse,” Joshua reminded him. “Forensics haven’t finished analyzing it though.”

  “If it matches hers… just, holy shit. Poor Robbie.”

  “Think it was the Stripper?”

  “Not sure. Maybe. The Bloodletter’s still on the loose too.” Cap rubbed his bald head. “Let the creeps process this shit. I need a drink.”

  Joshua nodded and walked to the door. Cap stood for a moment surveying his handiwork. “Fucking amateurs.”

  Continue reading or return to table of contents.

  The Raven’s Claw

  J.W. Kent

  I find myself thinking a great deal about old Winthrope these days. That horrid little man was my tutor when I was a boy. I can hear him even now, his quiet voice at odds with the violence he displayed whilst employing his switch. “You are in error, Jeremiah. Be not dismayed, we all make mistakes. The secret of life is to learn from them, move on, and benefit from those lessons.”

  Well, riddle me this... how can one benefit from a mistake that only leads to a multitude of pain and suffering? Is it not difficult to “move on” from an error that renders naught but eternal damnation?

  Yes, I had a tutor, when so many others in the early eighteenth century did not. I count myself fortunate for the education, if not the abuse that loathsome toad subjected me to in my defenseless youth. While my family was not wealthy, we did rather well for ourselves. My father was a respected member of the merchant class, and we lived in a fine old manor house in Yorkshire. As the third son,I had no hope of an inheritance. My mother, bless her, aspired that I join the church, but my fondness for the charms of the female form made me quite reluctant to impose the limitations of a clergyman upon myself. I could have purchased a commission in the King’s Army, but I lacked the funds, and had no desire to take the King’s shilling as a private soldier, or associate with the riff -raff that make up the ranks. Therefore, when the opportunity presented itself, I made my way to the New World, and found myself in the valley of Virginia.

  Two years did I spend in the Opequon settlement, where I quickly found my skills as a farmer were much lacking. I was able to make a modest living for myself writing letters, and thanks to old Winthrope, who had insisted that I learn the German language, I taught English to the many German settlers that made their way to the frontier. Life in the valley was hard, but when war broke out with France, it became almost unbearable. The Shawnee, employed by the French to spread terror throughout the valley, raided, murdered, and burned. We were not encroaching on their lands, and indeed, the warriors of that tribe had to journey several days to create their mischief. Their leader, Killbuck, was a most canny general, and knew his trade well.

  During this time of fear and uncertainty, I fell in love with one of my students, Cloe by name. She did not return my affections, however, and spurned me, saying she had no desire to wed a man who did not have the ability to grow his own crops. Despondent, I joined the Provincial Rangers, and was sent farther west to the valley of the Cacapon and Fort Edwards. My skills at woodcraft were little better than my farming, and I endured a large amount of ridicule at first. Luckily, my ability to read and write soon made me a valuable asset to the garrison, and I enjoyed a great deal more freedom than most of my associates.

  It was there that I met Polly. She seemed so innocent. Her intense blue eyes, jet black hair, and fair complexion instantly infatuated me. She laughed when I asked her why she lived all alone, so far from the protection of the garrison, and said that she had naught to fear, the Indians left her in peace. She sweetly insinuated that a handsome young man such as myself would be a welcome caller to her cabin, and I was shocked to learn that she was far from the innocent young lass she appeared. Indeed, for a few coins, she would share the secrets of her charms, and twice I blissfully dallied with her, losing myself in her milk-white skin.

  After my second visit, she gave me a gift at my parting. It was a pendant, and she told me it would please her if I wore it about my neck when next I called. Polly also said she needed a few yards of cloth, and if I were to bring along a companion who could pay well, she would allow me any liberty I desired.

  So it was, on that fateful day after Martinmas, in the year of our Lord, 1757 that I trod the forest toward her home, with that horrid pendant about my neck, my manhood already swelling in anticipation. My companion, Adam, was one of the few friends I had made in that dreary outpost, and was of about my age. I wish my greatest sin was in coveting his lovely Virginia Rifle, with its sliding wooden patchbox, and elegant carving on the stock. The fowler that I carried seemed mundane, and poor in comparison.

  It had been a warm autumn. The trees were bedecked with a gorgeous display of yellow and red leaves, and we walked with reverence for the sheer beauty of the wilds. We had assumed the Shawnee would be in their homeland, preparing for winter, but we were much mistaken.

  The ambush took us entirely unawares. I managed to discharge my fowler, and the thumb-sized lead ball turned a painted face into a red ruin. I had never before killed a man, and my emotions were torn between horror at the ease in which I did so, and satisfaction that I had at least taken one of the savages with me to the grave. I had little opportunity to reflect on my action, as I was immediately thrown to the ground, and one of the savages then kneeled on my chest.

  Poor Adam was unable to get off a shot, as a Shawnee warrior with mighty thews grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms to his side.

  The man atop me raised a trade axe as if to strike, but stayed his hand when a Frenchman earnestly shouted something to him. The coward had hid behind a tree until the both of us were captured, and I wish to this day that his words had been but a moment too late.

  I was stripped of my belongings. One of the ten Shawnee raiders donned my hunting jacket, dyed a dark brown with the hulls of black walnuts, and another my fine linen waistcoat. Even my tri-corn hat was taken from me, so it was bareheaded that I was led the mile or so to my captors’ camp.

  They started with Adam. Perhaps they made me watch to prolong my agony, since it was I who had slain one of their own. While they brutalized Adam, I endured the anticipation of knowing I was next. He was stripped naked, and bound to a large stake. Their festivities began when they discharged their firearms, Roman-nosed French fowlers for the most part, into the ground at his feet. They reloaded with not even a patch to contain the powder, and one at a time fired the blank charges into his flesh at close range. The burning powder penetrated his skin, and continued to burn. His screams haunt me to this day. Over, and over they reloaded thusly, firing the charges into his body, leaving black, ugly circles of torment on his belly, legs and buttocks. One even gleefully sent a blast into his scrotum, and Adam’s wail echoed off the trees.

  After forty or so such blasts, they built a small fire close to his feet. Horribly, it was not large enough to immolate him, but the heat began to slow cook him, as I preferred roast pork. My bowels turned to water as I watched the hair on his legs first smolder, and then burst into flame. After a time, his skin split like an overcooked sausage, and turned dark brown. The fire was then pushed back with branches, to allow access for yet further torment. Poor Adam did not even flinch when first one ear, and then the other was sliced off. He did however struggle enough that his head had to be restrained, when his eyelids were removed. They next held a large burning brand close to his face, and the noises he made while his eyes boiled in his head were not anything that should ever issue from a human mouth. Twice during his torment, poor Adam lost consciousness, but was quickly revived when water was thrown into his battered face.

  During all of this, the Frenchman laughed, and poked at me, mocking my terror. I sincerel
y wish that he is rotting in hell. My only hope at that point was they would be exhausted from Adam’s torment, and tiring from their sport, would kill me swiftly.

  I knew my time was near, when one of the warriors drew his knife, and removed Adam’s scalp. My unfortunate companion was cut from the stake, and thrown face-down into the coals of the fire. I still find it hard to believe there was any spark of life yet left in him, but he desperately struggled for a moment to remove himself from the coals, before becoming still. And then it was my turn.

  The apparent leader of the Shawnee war party strode up to me, carrying Adam’s rifle. He spoke, and I was raised to my wobbly, shaking feet. He stepped close enough to me that I could smell the rancid fat that the pigment of his war-paint had been mixed in. His ears, stretched by plugs or some other method, were cut along the outside edge and hung almost to his shoulders. From his nose hung a fan-shaped pendant, probably fashioned from a scrap cut from a trade pot, and my mind incredulously wondered what it would be like to sneeze with such an ornament in place.

  I don’t know where I found the courage, but I met his gaze. I saw no evil in his eyes. He was after all, only doing his job, and since I can not fault a man for being good at his trade, I found it in my heart to forgive him. A strange thought under the circumstances, I know, but it lent me a little peace. We looked into each other’s eyes for at least a minute, before he nodded, and my shirt was torn off of me, revealing Polly’s gift. He stepped back, his eyes filled with both fear and disappointment.

  The pendant Polly had given me is a wretched looking thing. Hanging from a thin leather strip, was the dried foot of a large raven, curled up like a talon. Copper wire had been carefully wrapped around the stub of the leg, and three short, black feathers were attached by it.

  The Shawnee leader spoke a few terse words. My hands were so numb from the tight leather straps about my wrists that I wasn’t even aware that my bonds had been cut, until the rush of returning circulation sent agonizing pins and needles into them.

  One by one, the Shawnee warriors deposited my belongings at my feet: my fowler, my jacket, my waistcoat. The pile grew as my shot-bag and powder horn joined them. Even my stag-handled knife was returned. Confused beyond words, all I could do was mutely stand there.

  The Frenchman shouted in protest, and the leader calmly raised Adam’s rifle, and sent a fifty four caliber ball into the son of a bitch’s heart. Never argue with a Shawnee when his mind is made up.

  The savages then vanished into the woods. The last look the leader gave me was one of pity. Bastard.

  I sobbed with relief, not knowing they had doomed me to a far worse torment than poor Adam. I had believed then that his death was horrible beyond imagining; if I could, I would laugh at just how naive I was. I would gladly trade places with him. I envy him, at least he is free. You might suggest I could have saved myself, had I fled in the other direction, rather than heading straight to Polly’s cabin, but my skin had already touched the Raven’s Claw. I am her slave. She owns my soul.

  Polly, she named herself to me. She has been known by many names over the ages: Lillith, Ishtar, Ate, and I unknowingly went to her like a lamb to the slaughter. I have witnessed, and have been forced to partake in acts that would fry your mind. I am denied the blissful retreat of insanity, I am not allowed death. I cannot age.

  At some point in the last hundred years or so, she found that it is great fun to cause madness in otherwise normal people, and let them do her work for her. Children still disappear wherever we go; an evil demonic bitch still has to eat, after all, but for the most part my job is to get the latest victim to touch the cursed claw. I am the perfect tool for this job; handsome, with the ability to put people at ease. Remember Jack the Ripper? Yeah, that was our doing. The most successful effort, at least from her perspective, came about after our stay in Germany during the late 1930s. Before you put all the blame on me for the horrors of what transpired afterwards, I think part of the blame should rest on the head of old Winthrope. It was his insistence on my learning German that allowed me to get close enough to that arrogant little prick with the goofy moustache to set it all in motion.

  Even now, I await the reason for our visit to Milwaukee. Such a squalid, ugly town this is. At least San Francisco had some charm; sure, I would love a little peace and love to go with the madness and death… Groovy.

  Ah, here he is now, the poor bastard, boarding this smelly modern contrivance so inelegantly called a bus. His name is Jeff. Pardon me while I am forced to do the mistresses bidding...

  “Hello, Mr. Dahmer? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “No. Wow, man, that’s weird as shit... Hey, how do you know my name?”

  It really doesn’t matter, the dumbass touched the claw. He is hers now. If I had a heart, it would break.

  Continue reading or return to table of contents.

  The Dawning

  Allison M Dickson

  We agree to meet at Freshies, a local café where the coffee is bad and the lighting is bright. It’s the perfect place for making sure the person you’ve met online is really a person. Sure, I could ask if Ethan is human over a candlelit dinner, but it would be a waste of breath. Analogues aren’t legally required to answer the question truthfully, based on some nonsense about companies having the right to protect their investments from thieves and poachers. Convenient for the Analogues, but not so much for the rest of us.

  My parents never had to worry about this sort of thing. When they met on the Internet thirty years ago, the most basic assumption—that they were human beings—was a safe one. Now it’s the hardest bet of all to make, and I’ve lost it more times than I’m willing to admit. I am nonetheless taking another swing at finding an organic mate in our increasingly inorganic world. People like me are the new optimists, the hopeless romantics. Others might say we’re just too stupid to know when to quit, but I don’t know if that’s what’s driving me on this crazy mission. It’s something else, intangible, this notion of the right person, the one for whom I was made, waiting for me out there. I search for him like early prospectors sifted pans of pebbles in search of those elusive gold nuggets. It’s too soon to tell, but Ethan may just be the one.

  Of course, he has to show up first, and those odds are never in my favor.

  Having arrived a few minutes early, I order an Americano and take a seat by the window, all the while reminding myself what I need to look for when he arrives, as if I couldn’t recite the routine in my sleep. While no corporation or government entity has provided official rules for determining if people are real or Analogue, advice has been available in countless books, blogs, forums, and news articles worldwide for the last few years, and everyone knows it by heart. Even little children are learning the cues. What must it be like to grow up in a world like this, with suspicion bred into your DNA? It drains me.

  I have decided he won’t show. No one I’ve met online actually has. It must be a defect I have, something weak and gullible. I should just get up and leave in order to avoid yet another embarrassment. The employees likely call me a lost cause behind my back.

  A bell chimes just as I put my purse strap over my shoulder, and a tall gentleman with a flop of dark blond hair walks in. I can only see his profile, but I know it’s Ethan Kindred. My guy. Well, not my guy yet, but seeing him breeds a warm familiarity in my gut, probably because of the rapport we established online. My giddiness is nearly all-consuming, but I take a shaky breath and adjust my hair and skirt, ignoring the cartwheels in my stomach.

  He scans the room for a second and heads over when he sees me, flashing a smile the whole way. His teeth are white, but not blinding, and I allow myself another nip of relief. We shake hands and linger at it a bit. Not for intimacy’s sake, at least not completely. It’s a tactile test, flesh meeting flesh. Even the most rudimentary contact can tell you a lot. Though his hand carries the chill of early spring, warmth radiates from beneath the flesh. I feel callouses, confirming what he told me a
bout being a carpenter.

  Good signs, but far from definitive.

  “Hi, Renee. It’s great to see you in person.”

  “Yes, same to you. I’m glad you came.” Both true and not true. My nerves are howling and I want to leave, but in my current state, if I ran out of here right now, I would trip over my own feet and crash through the glass door. The only way out is through.

  “You seem a little nervous,” he says, grinning.

  “I am. But only a little.”

  “It’s okay. I am too. I’ll grab a drink and be right back. Do you need anything?” I shake my head, and he steps up to the counter to order his coffee.

  His movements seem normal, human, but that’s as meaningless as warm flesh. They all move fluidly, they all feel warm to the touch. If they didn’t, it would save us a lot of time. I have to admit he is more handsome than his pictures looked online, but not enough to set off any red flags yet. Pleasing is a better word to describe him. It’s the sort of face shaped by the softness of a womb rather than the hard edges of a machine, but this is the sort of confirmation bias I’m trying to avoid.

  He carries his drink over and sits down. I see he ordered standard black drip, which, if I know Freshies as well as I think, has been sitting on a burner for the last two hours getting nice and nasty.

  Neither of us speaks for the first few minutes as we conduct the first part of the ritual: sensing all the senses. Authenticity is determined not by one factor, but by the total sum. It isn’t enough to read about a love of coffee on our profiles. We must also watch each other’s manual dexterity as we pick up our mugs by the handles, avoiding the hot spots, and then listen for the sound of a slurp as we carefully sample the scalding liquid to avoid burning our tongues. Ethan passes both tests easily enough, as do I.

  His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows the drink, but that isn’t what I’m looking for. It’s subtler, and if you blink you miss it. There it is, the slight downturn of his mouth as he registers the pungent acidity of the unadulterated java. All but the most hardened souls wince when they get a taste of Freshies. It’s why this place exists, to host these ever so precarious first dates in our paranoid new world. Even my Americano feels like a hard bite on the tongue.