Sabine woke the next day and dressed for class. She was determined to try to stick to her routine. Maybe it would help her feel a little more normal. Sabine nearly screamed and bolted back into her room when she opened the door, seeing her neighbor, Jean, down the hall, standing there with a slashed throat and blood covering the white t shirt and jeans she wore. Sabine slammed her eyes shut and forced herself to calm down. She opened her eyes again, and Jean was standing there, but her white shirt was clean and she was not harmed at all.
Jean was watching Sabine’s strange behavior, so Sabine smiled and gave an awkward wave before she hurried down the hall and out of the building. Once outside, Sabine took a few deep breaths and looked at the sky that normally calmed her. Today it seemed ominous and offered her no solace. The dark clouds seemed to roll over themselves like waves, barreling down on her. Sabine gasped and wrenched her gaze from the sky. She moved toward her first class, delighted when the first people she saw looked completely normal.
She kept walking, not having any more crazy visions and starting to feel better. That’s when she heard the voice.
“Kill. You know you want to. I see it in you. The darkness, the rage, it's all there. Festering away at your soul, clawing itself out. Take that knife in your hand and kill.”
Sabine looked down to see herself clutching the same knife she’d found in her dorm, its blade crusted with dried blood. She screamed and dropped the knife, running toward the geology department and class, hoping to lose herself in the lecture and drown out the voice. Sabine needed to pretend that everything was all right. If nothing else, she could sit quietly and close her eyes so she wouldn’t see these horrible hallucinations.
She chose a seat in the back of the classroom, with no one near her. Sitting down, Sabine got out her notebook and pen and waited for the teacher to start lecturing. She zoned out and stopped paying attention, just letting the teacher’s voice wash over her and lull her into a trancelike state. Tria smiled from the seat she occupied a few rows away from Sabine. Now was the perfect time to start the waking dreams she had planned.
The teacher droned on and on and I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. I felt an unfamiliar anger growing in the pit of my belly. It seemed to radiate out through me until my entire body tingled with rage. I wanted to kill something. To watch the life leave the eyes of another sentient being.
I heard the voice again, “Yes, Sabine! Let it out! Give in to your dark desires. The knife, you have it. That teacher, he never liked you. Always thought you were a pathetic little mouse who was scared of her own shadow. Stand up now, and show him you are not afraid!”
I felt the heavy knife in my hand and the rage boiled over. I stood and took a few steps toward the front of the room, the knife behind my back when the teacher looked up at me.
“Sabine? Is everything alright?” Sabine shook her head and realized that she had been dreaming. This room was different; the colors different, the lights brighter, and there were more students here. She also realized that she had actually stood and taken a few steps toward her teacher. Shock overwhelmed her, and her face lost all its color.
“I’m not feeling well. I’m going back to my room.” Sabine said before gathering her things and quickly dashing from the room. She collapsed into a stall in a nearby ladies room and wept bitterly. What was happening to her? Nothing made any sense at all.
She dried her eyes and rested her head against the wall of the stall. Sabine closed her eyes for a moment, trying to summon the will to walk to her room, chancing the hallucinations she would likely have on the way.
I was walking home and could not fight the feelings of dread and horror that overcame me as I reached my dorm hall. I looked down that hall and everything seemed normal at first glance. I looked again; sure that something was horribly wrong. There! The doorjamb of Jean’s dorm room had a strange dark smear across it. I know it wasn’t there this morning. I got closer, wanting to investigate. As I neared the door, I could see that it was open and the smear seemed to be a sticky red handprint. I looked in the doorway and screamed before lunging to check for a pulse. Jean lay in a crumpled heap just inside the door, her lifeless face frozen in a mask of terror; blood drenched her slender body and formed a drying pool on the floor. I stood and ran into the room to call for help when I saw Jean’s roommate sprawled across her bed, her throat slashed and blood drying everywhere. I stood there in shock, unable to comprehend the awful truth before me. Then my mind stared flashing with pictures, flashing quickly to play out a scene. I saw myself knock on the door, and when Jean answered, I stabbed her multiple times. She tried to stop me, but I was relentless. I pushed her hand out of the way and continued to ram the blade into her stomach. She grabbed for the doorjamb, but her blood-slicked fingers could not find purchase. When she dropped to the floor in a lifeless heap, I saw myself in the mirror on the wall and my eyes were the fathomless black pools I had seen on the evil vision. The bloody tears streaked down my death pale face and I smiled, wickedly and with no remorse. Then I continued into the room to take care of the roommate, my rage and desire to kill again taking over my body. She saw the bloody knife and me and she started to scream.
Sabine jerked awake and struggled to control her breathing. She picked up her bag and ran from the ladies room and back to her dorm, refusing to look up from the ground. She arrived at the dorm hall breathless and nearly fainted when she saw the dark smudge on Jean’s doorjamb. She didn’t stop to examine further, Sabine thrust the unlocked door open, surprising both girls with the intrusion. Sabine was flooded with relief when she saw them alive. “Oh thank God, you’re not dead! I didn’t kill you!”
Jean looked confused and a little frightened. “Of course we aren’t dead and you didn’t kill us. What the fuck are you talking about, Sabine?”
Her roommate just looked angry, “This is not a funny joke, Sabine. Get out!”
Sabine turned and ran from the room in embarrassment, slamming and locking her door behind her. Safely back in her room, Sabine pulled out her cell phone and called the local hospital. She asked to speak to someone in the psychiatric department. When a nurse answered her call, she outlined the last few days and asked what she should do. The nurse said she should come in and talk to one of the doctors, immediately. Sabine decided that she would rather be crazy than some psychotic murderer and left for the hospital right away, stopping only to pack a small bag with essentials.
Chapter 6
Tria was delighted with her progress. This pathetic human was proving easier to break than she’d thought. Sabine was on her way now to the hospital; she had finally accepted that she was not of sound mind any longer. Tria thought the murderous daydreams had been a nice touch. But she hadn’t quite anticipated the reaction Sabine had experienced. Clearly the threat of turning evil was worse than the threat of going insane. That would be the key to pushing the girl over the edge into madness. And Tria planned to take full advantage of it. Sabine teetered on the edge of insanity already, and tonight, Tria planned to finish her task.
Sabine checked herself in and the doctor talked to her at length, listening to everything she had to say. Completely baffled by the conflicting information he got from her. She was clearly showing signs of advanced schizophrenia, but she was aware of the mood swings and fugue states. She acknowledged that she was having hallucinations and hearing voices that were not real. The doctor had never encountered anyone this far gone down the road to madness that was still capable of lucidity like this. He wanted to keep her for observation, and Sabine readily agreed, not wanting to be alone tonight.
The doctor gave her some paperwork to fill out and they found her a room. The doctor did not want to give her any medication yet, so she sat in her room filling out paperwork and trying not to fall asleep. Sabine turned on the TV for ambient noise and despite her efforts, was soon asleep.
I was in a black marble room. The vaulted ceiling, walls and floor were polished to a glasslike shine and my image was reflected
, as were the torches mounted on the wall. I turned around and saw a strange looking arch. The symbols etched around it were unfamiliar to me, but I could sense a dark energy emanating from them. The center of the arch looked like a shimmering purple liquid, somehow backlit, with odd black tendrils reaching inward from the edges, writhing together. I heard footsteps behind me and turned again.
A man was approaching me, a very terrifying man. He stood nearly ten feet tall, with deep red, scaly looking skin. His muscles bunched and rippled as he walked. He wore only a tight pair of black pants, the fabric leaving nothing to the imagination. His face was all sharp angles hard lines, with black hair and black eyes. The black horns protruding from his forehead shocked me. The eyes reminded me of my vision woman, and I wondered how they were related. He smiled cruelly at me, revealing rotted, jagged teeth. ”Sabine, are you ready for hell?” he said, his guttural voice grating on my nerves.
Hell? But I didn’t do anything, I thought. “Who are you? What are you? Why would I be going to hell? I haven’t done anything!” I protested.
“You will. You’re going to kill soon. There is a fount of evil and darkness within you. Already you dream of releasing your evil. I can feel your hold on it weakening, soon it will claw its way to the surface, and you will be mine.”
“Yours? Who and what the fuck are you?” I shouted.
“I am the demon who owns your soul. No one can save you now, you belong to me.” He said smugly.
“That isn’t possible. I didn’t sell my soul, and I sure as hell didn’t give it away. How could you possibly own it?” I asked, confused.
He laughed wickedly. “Ah, little human. It was not truly yours to give in the first place. Everyone has forsaken you. I bought your soul from your Guardian.”
“My Guardian?” I asked, still confused and terrified.
“Yes, your guardian angel. He said you were boring. Although, admittedly, he is not a particularly good angel or he would never have made the deal. Not any more though, my pet. You already had darkness hidden within yourself and my influence has amplified it nicely.”
“So, I’m not going insane?” I asked, trying to make sense of what he’d said. While refusing to think of the angel and the God who had apparently turned me aside.
“No, pet, you are going evil.” He handed me a strange looking knife. The handle in the center looked like old bone and the blades that curved outward from both sides of the handle looked like demon horns. The blade just felt evil. I could feel the dark purpose it expected to be used for.
Sabine woke with a start when a nurse walked into her room to check on her. She asked for a glass of water and sat up in her bed. This last dream had deeply disturbed her. She was turning evil? Her? Sure, she had a temper she’d always been afraid to show, and she sometimes had some pretty morbid thoughts, but demon serving, murdering, God forsaken evil?
Tria sat in the unoccupied room next to Sabine’s. She tuned into the girl’s recent memories and decided that this was the perfect time to complete the plan. Sabine was already at the hospital. They would care for her when her mind snapped. Waiting for an opportune moment, Tria watched the nurse check on Sabine.
The nurse returned with the water and left Sabine alone. She tried to settle back into sleep, but that was not an option. She couldn’t focus on the television either. She fidgeted in bed for about an hour when she heard footsteps outside the door. Tria assumed her Sabine glamour and opened the door. Sabine’s breath caught when she saw herself walk calmly into the room. Sabine pinched her arm to be certain she wasn’t dreaming. Her dark clone thankfully did not have the black, bloody eyes this time.
“What is happening? What do you want from me?” Sabine asked desperately.
“I need you to go insane.” The doppelganger replied simply.
“But I’m you, you’re me! Why?” Sabine stuttered, stunned.
Tria resumed her own human form and said smugly, “You’re not me actually.”
Sabine’s mind reeled with confusion and betrayal. Tria had been her friend! Sabine felt her mind teeter more precariously on the edge of madness. “What are you?”
Tria smiled without humor, “I am a demon. I am able to cause insanity and I feed off the energy released by your broken psyche. Everything you have seen or felt for the last two weeks was carefully crafted by me to loosen you from your sanity. I even left you the ability to recognize you were losing your mind. All the visions and the dreams and the voices, that was me.”
Sabine felt her tenuous hold on sanity quickly slipping away and forced one last question past her lips, “But why, why would you do this to me? Why destroy my life?”
The smile Tria gave her was full of malice. There was no trace of the friend she’d made over coffee. Tria’s image flickered between her perfect human visage and her grotesque demon form. The demon form seemed to shift and change, becoming whatever would disturb Sabine most at that moment. “To see if I could.” Tria said without emotion, as if destroying Sabine’s life meant less than nothing to her.
The sudden knowledge of the horrible truth was just too much for Sabine. Though she tried to fight it, she was powerless to stand against the weight of all the mental torment she’d received. She felt the balance shift and the last few fine threads of mind tethering her to sanity snapped free. Suddenly all the fear was gone. She didn’t have to be afraid anymore, she didn’t have to care. She felt separate from her body, as if she were watching from the outside. Sabine was aware of a terrible, screeching sound around her and halfheartedly realized that she was screaming.
A team of nurses swept into the room, trying to calm her. They restrained her hands because she was tearing out her hair and scratching her skin. Quickly and effectively they forced her on to her bed and injected her with fast acting medication. Tria, dressed as a nurse, bent down and whispered, “Shhh, Sabine. Everything will be all right. Sleep now.”
Sabine’s eyes were drifting closed when she saw Tria walk through the wall, surrounded by black streaked violet light. Then the medication took over and Sabine sank gratefully into oblivion.
Blood and Soil
by
William Greer
“Veronika, the spring is here.” Lena sang quietly as the sun’s shadows crawled across the wall. She had not heard that song in years, because of its singers’ ‘Jewish blood.’ Hardly a good reason to deprive the world of beautiful music, but it was doubtful the Nazis would ever learn that all blood tasted more or less the same. At the moment, the radio offered one of Joseph Goebbels’ latest speeches. The Propaganda Minister called Churchill a gutless criminal and declared imminent victory over Stalin’s Bolshevik dystopia; strident words which only reminded Lena that the radio in Berlin played more music than the broadcasts available to settlers in the East. Rural farmlands afforded greater privacy, though. So living space was not without its trade-offs.
She lay on the settee, safe from sun’s reach, but could still see out the window. About sixty feet from the house, a gnomish Pole labored over a patch of tomato plants. His audacity to work shirtless made Lena scowl. Even at a distance, she saw ragged tufts of hair creeping out from under his armpits, and greasy, glistening sweat on his hirsute back. If she’d felt like slathering herself with zinc oxide and lugging her parasol out into the dirty, late afternoon, she would have tracked down Ernst or Peter, who’d make sure the cow regretted his immodesty.
A car appeared on the road, glinting chrome leading a charge of swirling dust. When it turned onto the driveway winding up to the farmhouse, Lena donned her sunglasses and sat up. Being so close to the sun’s path made her wince. A few seconds of direct exposure could turn her skin bright pink, drawing fat white blisters soon afterward. Before long, it would start broiling her insides. She squinted at the flag waving above the car’s fender and dropped back onto the settee, sighing. It was the SS. She needed to put on her shoes and jot on some make up.
Lena rubbed her lips together, smoothing out her lipstick as she closed the drap
es. She crossed the living room and checked herself in a mirror. Good enough. She turned off the radio, and was starting to heat some water in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door. “Just a moment!” she piped. Lena positioned herself behind the door as she opened it, keeping away from the sun but still visible to her guest. The SS officer at her door had sharp brown eyes, a small nose, and not much of a chin. Judging by the tabs on his collar, he was fairly high ranking. He was also Gestapo, which made Lena take a slow breath through closed teeth.
With a polite nod, he said “Good day, Frau Memminger. I am Major Kübler. May I come in?”
Lena coquettishly tilted her head to one side. “Of course, Major. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He strode into the living room and slowly turned his head, taking in the décor: the Swastika’d throw pillow, a framed poster advertising a past airplane race, photographs from Lena’s days as a night club singer. Kübler leaned over the table next to the sofa and picked up a picture of Lena and a man holding hands inside a church. “This is your husband?”
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