Darkness Rising: A Novella of Extreme Horror and Suspense

by Brian Moreland

  Seth started to skate across the bridge. Framed with rails and overhead metal beams, it looked like a giant ribcage. This bridge always gave him the creeps at night, so he hurried along, listening to the rapids below. The river that gave Riverdale, Oregon its name was a tributary that flowed south from the lake where they’d killed earlier that day. Many nights Seth suffered nightmares in which the people he had filmed being murdered returned. In some of these dreams, the river below flowed with blood. He thought again of that hitchhiker’s body they’d sunk to the bottom of the lake. Could it somehow have broken free from its chains and floated down this river? He imagined the fish-eaten corpse scaling the ravine below and coming after him.

  Seth skated faster.

  He hoped to hell that Tara and Zane had been right. That all the drugs in his system had made him paranoid.

  Just get home and sleep it off.

  He heard a car coming behind him. Headlights lit up the bridge and reflected off the rails. The muscle car he’d seen back at the bar was creeping along, keeping its distance. It was a blue, vintage Monte Carlo. A bitchin’ set of wheels. Its engine growled like a stalking animal. When he turned for another look, the super bright headlights blinded him.

  Shielding his eyes, Seth waved at the car. “Dude, go around me!”

  When the guy didn’t pass, Seth skated to the opposite lane. The car slowly swerved into his lane, drawing closer.

  Driver must be shitfaced. Seth skated back to the right lane, only to be followed. Shit. The asshole was playing cat and mouse.

  Seth looked towards the far end of the bridge. He had another hundred yards or so before the road widened. There were no medians, no places to hide, just the railing and a sheer drop into fast-moving water.

  The car advanced within ten feet and Seth got a look at the face behind the wheel. The papery skull, the hollow eyes. Only now the ghoul wore a wicked grin. He gunned the engine. The car burned rubber and lurched forward.

  “Shit!” Seth kicked his foot against the asphalt, skating faster and faster. He zigzagged from lane to lane, but the car wouldn’t let up. Its front bumper gained within inches of his legs. Just as he thought it was going to run him over, the car braked hard. Seth, skating too fast now, lost his footing and skidded across the road, hitting his head on the rail.

  Chapter 9

  Seth awoke sometime later to the smell of exhaust fumes. A car engine was rumbling. Red tail lights filled his vision. He was no longer on the bridge, but on some wooded road. He struggled to keep his eyelids open. The effects of the Valium made everything hazy.

  A rigid hand slapped his cheek. “Wake up.”

  He looked up at the thing that had walked out of the lake and into his living nightmare. It cocked its head, staring back with pools of black water. “Remember me, Seth?” It spoke in a deep, gurgling voice. “The one you wanted to make your dog? Look who’s on a leash now.”

  Seth tried to move, but a chain confined his arms and chest. “What the hell!?” His hands were free, but he couldn’t bend his arms to unwrap the chain.

  “You and I are going for a little joyride.” The ghoul hooked the other end of the chain to a loop beneath the car’s back bumper. It picked Seth up with ease and put him on top of his skateboard. “You might want to hang on.”

  “No, wait!” Seth pleaded, but the driver from hell climbed back behind the wheel and closed the door.

  Seth gripped his skateboard. “Oh, Christ!”

  The engine revved. The tires spun, shooting gravel and exhaust into his face. Then the car shot forward. The chain snapped taut. The skateboard beneath him began to roll.

  Seth screamed as his thighs, knees and feet dragged across the asphalt. The car sped faster and faster. Trees whipped by. His crotch scraped the moving ground, and its ragged surface tore flesh from bone. Agonizing pain sobered him. He hung onto the longboard, as the road ripped his lower body to shreds.

  * * *

  Marty listened to the Rolling Stones sing “Paint It Black” as he pressed his foot down on the accelerator and watched the speedometer climb.

  Twenty. Twenty-five. Thirty.

  He had forgotten how good it felt to take the Monte Carlo out for a fast ride. This long stretch of empty forest road was perfect. The headlights carved a path through the pines. The full moon hung just above the mountains ahead. He glanced into the rearview mirror. The skateboard was swerving side to side, its rider shrieking in pain.

  Cerulean was enjoying the ride too, urging Marty to drive faster and faster. As the song got to the chorus and Keith Richards’ guitar reached full throttle, Marty pressed down hard on the gas.

  Forty. Fifty. Sixty.

  The skateboard shot out and bounced off a tree. The screaming stopped soon after.

  Marty drove another half mile at 70 MPH before finally coming to a stop.

  When Mick Jagger was done singing, Cerulean said, “Let’s see the damage, shall we?”

  Marty and his dark friend walked around to the back of the car. What was left of Seth’s ravaged body lay facedown. On the road beyond his feet, a bloody trail stretched into the darkness.

  Off in the distance, a man cried for help.

  “What was that?”

  “Marty, stay near the car,” Cerulean ordered.

  “Someone’s in trouble.” Marty hurried towards the voice. Had he run someone off the road? Someone out for a late-night stroll and Marty hadn’t seen him?

  The moon offered just enough light to make out the bloody ribbon of asphalt that stretched between a pine forest and a field thick with scrub brush and scattered boulders.

  “Help me!” The man’s screaming voice was suddenly drowned out by other sounds.

  Growls.

  Up ahead, a pack of wolf-like shadows were fighting over a man lying in the middle of the road.

  The closer Marty got, the more he could see the things tearing at the man’s limbs weren’t wolves, but four-legged phantasms made up of black mist slightly darker than the night. One of the specters growled at Marty and turned solid. It had the body of a jackal, but the face resembled no animal he had ever seen. Its elongated jaw split open with too many fangs. Its thorny tail whipped the air.

  “Marty, stay back,” Cerulean warned. “They’re not here for you.”

  The creature returned to the feeding frenzy. The jackals snarled as they fought over a dark shimmer in the road that appeared to be Seth, only now he was transparent. As Marty watched, the asphalt beneath Seth turned to quicksand. Seth’s soul, half-submerged, was sinking quickly. He reached for Marty, crying, as the shadowy creatures pulled him downward, into the liquid asphalt.

  The road closed over Seth’s head until all that was left was his outstretched arm. Then it, too, sank beneath the surface. The road turned solid again.

  While Marty remained frozen in shock, Cerulean smiled. “One down. Two to go.”

  Chapter 10

  Tara and Zane stayed at the Razor’s Edge until 2:00 a.m. As the band started packing up, a six-foot-four Serbian bouncer named Dragic told all the drunks it was time to go the hell home. Everyone in the bar made their way to the exit.

  Tara and Zane stayed at their corner table, which was littered with longneck bottles and an overloaded ashtray. She nudged her boyfriend. “Baby, go outside and make some cash. We’re gonna need it to fund our next film.” He had a good supply of coke, speed, V, X, and a list of clients always happy to hear from him. It was time to turn some of that shit into another camera.

  “But I want to be with you when you meet with Razor.”

  She patted his leg. “Don’t worry. I can handle him just fine.”

  When it came to discussing the business side of making films, Zane was never part of the negotiation. He was just feeling overprotective since shit had gone so haywire earlier.

  “All right, baby doll, but text if you need me.”

  As Zane headed outside to work the parking lot crowd, Tara drew on her cigarette and blew out smoke into the already t
hick, smoky air. She felt both bored and anxious. Her coke high and Valium low had ended over an hour ago and now she just had the jitters.

  The burly bouncer approached. “Razor can see you now.”

  Tara took a deep breath as she followed Dragic to the back of the bar. He stopped at a gray metal door that had suffered its share of poundings. He pushed a hidden button near the threshold and looked up at a video camera. A few seconds later the door buzzed and unlocked. They entered a dark, narrow wooden staircase that led to the second floor. At the top landing was a second metal door painted red. Dragic pushed another hidden button, facing the video camera.

  A Slavic voice crackled through a speaker. “Is the rabbit with you?”

  Dragic stepped aside to let the camera take in Tara’s face.

  The door buzzed and she entered by herself. Dragic closed the door behind her and it instantly bolted shut. She took a deep breath. Coming up here always put her on edge.

  The entire second floor above the bar was a maze of gloomy, cluttered rooms. All the windows had been painted black, sealing out any natural light. As she made her way down the meandering hallway, she heard tortured screams. Each room she passed was an edit bay for violent porn and snuff films. Pale-skinned editors, who rarely left their caves, hunched over keyboards in the glow of computer screens and cut together digital footage. A bony chain-smoker named Cricket turned and squinted at her with beetle-black eyes, then returned to his editing. On one video screen, a woman was being gang raped by a group of men in black leather bodysuits and gasmasks. Not Tara’s thing, but she wasn’t into judging either. Everyone’s fetishes were different. In another bay, a chainsaw whirred and a man screamed as the spinning blade dug into his neck, spraying blood on his face and the wall behind him. These weren’t Hollywood horror movies, but real rape and death scenes captured on video. They weren’t all shot here. Razor bought porn and snuff films from several countries, edited them here, and then streamed them to special subscribers from a website based in Serbia. He did have a few film crews in the States. Oregon was Tara’s territory. Mostly small towns and campgrounds in the deep woods, but occasionally she and her crew ventured into Portland for some city people. It was also a great scene for pub grub and live music.

  Working for Razor, she’d grown numb to watching other people being tortured and killed. When she starred in her first series of snuff films like Rabbit Kills, Rabbit Cuts Deep, and Rabbit Runs Red, she discovered that there was power in being a dominatrix, and she enjoyed losing herself in her alter ego as White Rabbit, a mistress with a mean machete. Her identity was protected, because she always wore a mask and fake tattoos, and a sound engineer altered her voice to sound ultra deep and erotic. Eventually, she felt not only empowered as a woman, but inspired to produce and direct her own films. She had made Razor so much money on the world black market that he was more than happy to fund her projects. Except the ones her crew fucked up. Then the reshoots were on her dime.

  After touring the funhouse of screaming victims, she reached the end of the hallway. The back office was the most cluttered of all and smelled of stale pizza and cigar smoke. All the walls were covered with posters of black metal bands—Burzum, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth and Satyricon, all autographed. A waif-thin Goth girl named Trixie, Razor’s latest snatch, was sitting on the couch, eating from a bag of Doritos and watching late-night TV. She turned anxious when she saw Tara. So, she’s seen the Rabbit films.

  At a desk covered with heaps of CDs, DVDs and fast-food wrappers, Razor counted money with a cash machine. Even though the bar downstairs was just a front for his illegal video operation, the place brought in plenty of green.

  The sight of Razor always made Tara’s knees go a little wobbly. He was the most confident and dangerous man she’d ever met. An ex-Serbian soldier. In his Serb-Croat war days, he had been in charge of torturing Croats for information. He got his nickname because his signature kill was to make his enemies swallow razorblades. In all the years she’d known Razor, Tara never learned his real name, not even in the beginning when they were lovers. The old me died in Serbia, he once told her during a rare moment of being drunk and vulnerable.

  When she first met him, he had been handsome in a vicious, ruddy-faced sort of way. Now, many pounds overweight, with a receding hairline that tightened into a silver ponytail, he looked like an aging rocker who was letting himself go. Still, he was the only man who could make her nips perk up with just his presence.

  Tara had barely gotten through the door, before Razor gave her that penetrating look and spoke in his Slavic accent, “Where’s my footage?”

  “What footage?” she asked teasingly and sauntered over to him.

  “Don’t play games. Where is it?”

  “I don’t have it yet.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “The gimp botched tonight’s shoot.” She explained how the victim had resisted and tossed the video camera into the fire, destroying all the footage from the last two films.

  Razor stopped counting bills and sat back in his chair. Turning, he snapped his fingers at Trixie. “Get the fuck out.”

  “Yes, Master.” The girl hurried out of the room and shut the door.

  Razor stared at Tara with eyes so intense she could feel their heat. “Do you know how much money I’m losing right now? Do you have even a fucking clue how many subscribers are waiting for the next Rabbit movie?”

  The questions made her gulp and she shook her head. She never really knew how much money he made from her films. He paid her three grand for each one and that was all she cared about.

  “Four films a month,” he said. “That was the deal. And when I pay you in advance, I expect you to deliver on time and good quality. The last footage was so shaky it was unusable. You’re getting sloppy, Rabbit.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not liking how this meeting was going. “We’ll work overtime to shoot two more.”

  “Three more by the end of next week. And tell your cameraman he can get coked up on his own time. If you can’t control him, then I’ll replace him.”

  All crew members who got “replaced” ended up starring in their own snuff films. The girls who betrayed Razor got far worse. He once told Tara that if she ever skipped town without telling him, he’d hunt her down and stuff all her holes with razorblades. Once you agreed to work for Razor, you signed on for life. That was the Devil’s deal.

  Tara had always been loyal, but had lost a few friends and crewmembers who didn’t follow the rules. She didn’t want to lose Seth. He was a total mess, but at least he knew how to frame the shots the way she liked them. “I’ll keep my boy under control.”

  “And don’t start thinking you’re not replaceable. I’ve got half a dozen sluts who’d be happy to put on a rabbit mask and get paid what I pay you.”

  Tara felt stung by the comment. He had always told her that she was one of a kind, a gifted dominatrix and filmmaker. To hear that he could replace her with any of his other girls was a kick in the crotch.

  Razor pointed at her. “I need you to get your shit together. Or you, your cameraman and that ape you’re banging know what happens when I lose my patience.”

  “I’m sorry. We’ll do better.”

  He sighed, squeezing the handles of his chair. “Now, you’ve gotten me all tense.”

  Knowing there was only one way to get back on his good side, Tara got down on all fours and crawled towards his lap. “Is there anything Rabbit can do to release the tension?”

  She reached to unzip his pants, but his hand caught her wrist. “I’ve got a better way in mind.” He turned up a raging death metal song on his stereo. Then he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a black leather flogger.

  Chapter 11

  In the bar’s parking lot, Zane sold coke and X to some vamps who wanted to continue their party at home. When the dealing was done, he stuffed a wad of cash into his pocket and then checked his phone. An hour had passed with no text from Tara. What was taking her so long? He
hated that she worked for that Serbian prick. Zane had tried to get her to break free from Razor and go off on their own, but she was afraid Razor would come after her.

  Zane had a good mind to call some of his old L.A. gang members to come up here with some guns and cap the ugly bastard, along with every cockroach who worked for him. Zane didn’t need this shit. He only helped make the snuff movies because it pleased Tara. The girl was passionate about her art, and Zane was passionate about Tara. Now there was a girl who wasn’t afraid to bring her real face to the surface. He admitted he enjoyed the chance to work his knife on people’s faces, his true calling, but he didn’t need to be in a video to do that. And he didn’t need Razor to dictate their life.