Nightmare Magazine Issue 25, Women Destroy Horror! Special Issue

by Nightmare Magazine

  “Intruders at the perimeter. Mormo has them chasing her already—easy meat for our best huntress.”

  Gorgo rose, nodding, to shuck the last of her clothes. She left her footwear on, since running barefoot through the woods was like asking for lockjaw, but Aglaia didn’t say anything—possibly since her good right hand Phoibe had apparently decided much the same, albeit sticking with sandals instead of Gorgo’s comfortably weighted hiking boots.

  Charis handed her one more dose, which lit her up like a punch. Someone she couldn’t quite see hugged ‘round her from behind, smearing two mud-clay handfuls across both breasts at once, then down over her abs, to cool her thighs’ hot vee. Gorgo tossed her hair and pulled loose; Charis caught her mid-stumble, grinning. “Y’all ready?” she asked.

  “Sure am.”

  “Thyrsus, baby girl?”

  “Brought my own, thanks.” The scythe-handle fit nicely into her palm. “You comin’, big sis?”

  “Bet your ass,” Charis growled, voice dipping lower than she probably wanted it to, not that that mattered: the ekstasis was on them both, pumping their blood, stiffening every sinew. Around, Gorgo saw the rest of the pack assembling, all the familiar faces. Iris, Scylla, Polyxena, Deianira . . .

  They took off running, like Artemis Herself led the way.

  • • • •

  And here they were, now. The tiger-pit’s displaced covering, lid of the kiste, the sacred basket. Gorgo kicked it aside to reveal a third young man—boy—staring up, down on one knee and crying with pain, at least one ankle probably shattered from the fall. He was a sweet-looking piece, muscled like a wrestler, hair picked out into a soft natural; his skin gleamed, shade falling somewhere between Deianira’s ruddy bronze and Aglaia’s warmer, darker hue. Which was a fairly apt comparison, as it turned out—because when he caught sight of Aglaia peering down on him over Gorgo’s shoulder his eyes went wide, fixed with shock, and awe, and terrified recognition.

  “Mom?” he managed, voice breaking. “Mom? What . . . what’re you doing . . . here . . . ?”

  Aglaia didn’t answer, not immediately. Just drew herself up, turning to stone; crossed her arms and waited, possibly to see what happened next.

  “Mom, shit . . . you have to help me. They’re crazy, these women’re all—Mom!”

  Gorgo back-shifted, waiting as well. Until finally, another voice chimed in: “Well?”

  Aglaia, without moving: “‘Well’ what, Phoibe?”

  The woman in question came shoving her way through, pale as a twilit ghost, ‘til she stood almost at Aglaia’s side—almost. But not quite.

  “He’s penetrated the mysteries, hasn’t he?” she declared, nodding downwards, voice pitched to ringing. “Seen things done, heard things said, just like the rest of them. Should the priestess’s son go free, and other women’s sons pay in his stead? Is this Her will?”

  Posturing little hooker, Gorgo thought.

  “Didn’t hear Aglaia say what she wanted done with him, one way or the other, myself,” Gorgo pointed out. “And since I’m a hell of a lot more likely to listen to her than to you on the subject . . .”

  “Ha! The unbeliever speaks.” Phoibe threw her arms wide, addressing the whole cult, now flocking in around Gorgo’s hunting team. “See how she mocks? Ask yourselves why Aglaia would ever let somebody like this in in the first place, let alone allow her to stay. Then ask yourself if it isn’t obvious that the Goddess chose to punish Aglaia for her hubris by sending her first-born to the killing floor! How else could it have happened?”

  Defend yourself, idiot, Gorgo tried to project Aglaia’s way, watching heads on all sides begin to nod, albeit reluctantly. But Aglaia’s eyes stayed on the pit, her whimpering child. She might as well have been a statue.

  Murmuring spread in every direction, like a tide.

  Time to run, maybe, Gorgo thought, reluctantly, gripping her scythe hard enough to hurt. Save yourself, before this shit shifts on you; drop out, get gone. This was a bad idea. It’s like Missus Gast used to say, my third foster-Mommy—someone like me just needs to stay the hell away from people I want to keep safe . . .

  (. . . unless I’m killing ’em.)

  That was when it happened, sharp as a wound—that same unfurling times ten thousand, the kykeon’s blow suddenly felt all over, a general uproar. This lurching, queasy sensation of opening up so far it was like her insides were out, skin shifting, one massive neuron blur. Blood broke from her nose, mouth, the corners of her eyes; later, she’d find burst vessels on both eyeballs, a pair of tiny red flowers. For now, however, it was as though something else had a hold of her, puppeting her from the gut. Making one hand fly out, scythe’s point sticking deep into Phoibe’s still-babbling throat, then jerking free again, conjuring a flood. The spurt slapped across Gorgo before hitting Charis, who gasped, and Aglaia, who didn’t; a general cry went up, cultists reacting as one. Phoibe fell, flopping, while Gorgo shivered still upright, mouth opening against her will. Words torrented free, garbled, unfamiliar, Greek-accented. Saying—

  Fury-source, Wrathful One, All-Ruling virgin,

  Kore Semele, light-bearer incandescent

  Horned Maiden, Earth’s vigorous daughter

  When Death comes, we go willingly to Your realms

  Until again You send us forth, into this world of Form.

  She didn’t know this prayer, Gorgo realized, unable not to complete what she could only assume was the verse’s ancient formula. Not one she’d heard, nor one she’d read. No translation of The Bacchae she’d ever taught could have left it behind in her mind’s folds, waiting to suggest itself under pressure—no, this was something else. Something Other.

  At her boot-tips, Phoibe had almost ceased shuddering. Gorgo found herself pointing at her, mouth stretched Body Snatchers-wide, pronouncing: “How’d it happen? Ask the hacker. The girl with the math. Ask her how she sought him out online, groomed him, brought him and those friends of his here—because she wanted to mount a coup, thought he’d make Aglaia look weak in front of you, that she could turn you against Her chosen. But nothing happens, ever, except that She allows it.”

  “Praise be,” Charis chimed in, wiping Phoibe’s blood straight into her mouth; “Praise be,” Iris agreed, kicking Phoibe so she flipped, so her last breath went down into the earth itself, Persephone-Perswa’s home. To which Aglaia finally nodded, dignified as always, and put her hand on Gorgo’s still-shaking shoulder, palm-print burning a hole, all the Goddess’s presence suddenly drained from once more, leaving her numb and cold, scythe drooping.

  “Praise be,” Aglaia agreed, approvingly. “I’m so happy for you, Gorgo. It’s seldom any of us feels Her grace directly—to have that one be you is a rare honour, and welcome. Especially since I’d’ve had trouble killing a woman, myself, even one who’d betrayed Her covenant.” A lovely smile. “But then, that’s what She sent us you for.”

  “The fuck you say,” Gorgo replied, all out into a rush, with no time for self-censorship. Her nervous system was still twitching, refusing to obey, or she would’ve cut Aglaia’s throat next—something Aglaia seemed to know, since she glanced at Charis, who gently pried the scythe from Gorgo’s limp hand, folding her into an embrace.

  “C’mon now, baby girl,” Charis said, soothing. “You got nothing to be afraid of. We all want to feel her hand on our souls the once, like you just did. It’s why we’re here.”

  “Not . . . why I’m here . . .” Gorgo said, muffled, into Charis’s pectoral, her implant-springy breast. But Charis only laughed.

  “‘Course not,” she replied. “We all know that. Is now, though—and that’s beautiful, don’t you see? Hell, it’s divine.”

  “Literally,” Aglaia agreed. “Oh, Gorgo! You’re a saint to us now, a true Maenad. The very proof of our religion.”

  And that murmur was back again, eddying right, left, and every which way, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. They seized on Phoibe’s body and bore it away, tearing off pieces as it went; probably en
ding up on the pyre with the rest of the meat, fit for the celebratory feast, with the bones all divvied up and buried wherever individual cultists went home to, after.

  I’m trapped, Gorgo thought, hanging there in Charis’s arms, while Aglaia and the others clapped, cheered, and ululated in approval, each according to their preference. They’ve got me now, these freaks, them with their goddamn Goddess. I’m altered, forever changed. Like I don’t even know my own self anymore.

  “What about him, down there?” she asked, finally, through trembling lips.

  Throughout the preceding action, the still pit-trapped boy—Aglaia’s unlucky son—had fallen silent long since, in terms of pleas. Now it was just grunts and cursing, oh God oh God oh shit, help me please, with the kid scrabbling at the walls like a crippled badger, trying his level best either to heave himself free or bring the walls’ earth in on top of him, so he could suffocate before they pulled him free and ripped him apart. Perhaps having stared enough, however, Aglaia didn’t even look, this time. Simply shook her head, curls lifting slightly (softer than his yet similar, Gorgo could now see), and said—

  “Phoibe called him, but She made him answer. This is not for him, for any of them, yet still they come: anathema, to be dedicated, to be cursed. He chose his own fate.”

  At that, the scrabbling stopped, as if kicked. Gorgo heard the kid moan out, instinctive, maybe in supplication, maybe in protest: Mom, oh Mom, Mommy, no. Please, God, please.

  True Believers, true belief; not such an arrant hunk of legitimized murder wrapped in bullshit fairytales after all, as it turned out. More’s the fucking pity.

  No God here, little boy, Gorgo thought, as close to sadly as she was capable of. And closed her eyes.

  © 2014 by Gemma Files.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born April 4, 1968, in London, England, Gemma Files is the child of two actors (Elva Mai Hoover and Gary Files) and has lived most of her life in Toronto, Canada. Previously best-known as a film critic, teacher, and screenwriter, she first broke onto the horror scene when her short story “The Emperor’s Old Bones” won the International Horror Guild’s 1999 award for Best Short Fiction. Her current bibliography includes two collections of short work (Kissing Carrion and The Worm in Every Heart, both Prime Books) and two chapbooks of poetry (Bent Under Night, from Sinnersphere Productions, and Dust Radio, from Kelp Queen Press). Her first novel, A Book of Tongues: Volume One in the Hexslinger Series (CZP), was published in April 2010. The trilogy is now complete, including sequels A Rope of Thorns (2011) and A Tree of Bones (2012), and she is hard at work on her first stand-alone novel. Files is married to fellow author Stephen J. Barringer, with whom she co-wrote the story “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” for Clockwork Phoenix 2 (Norilana Books).

  To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

  Sideshow

  Catherine MacLeod

  “You have ten minutes to convince me not to kill you,” Minos said.

  “Spare me the melodrama.” It wasn’t as if I hadn’t noticed the gun. It wasn’t much uglier than the hand holding it, or the expression he wore when I tucked my hair behind my ears. It’s a common gesture, but apparently not one he expected from the likes of me.

  I usually keep my face covered in polite company.

  No one’s ever accused Minos of being polite.

  I took the seat he hadn’t offered and willed my stomach to stay down. I didn’t really think he’d shoot me, but I wasn’t betting, just in case. I wasn’t surprised that he was armed, not with another group of animal rights activists phoning in a bomb threat. My knapsack and rain coat had been searched for weapons at the door.

  A wall of monitors showed different views of the Labyrinth. “Don’t you ever turn them off?” I asked. I’ve been told my voice is surprisingly pleasant. No one’s ever said compared to what. “Were you watching when . . . ? Yes, of course you were.”

  Minos shrugged. Good suit, silk tie, polished shoes: he still dressed like a king. An old, tired, and forgotten king, but his dark eyes missed nothing. “Nobody’s seen you for six months,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you back. Why do you want to see me?”

  “I don’t. You had the bouncer drag me in here, remember?” He’s used to being hounded by crackpots and gold-diggers. I wondered which he thought I was. I’m sure he would’ve paid me to disappear after the attack if I hadn’t already gone into hiding. But I hadn’t wanted to be hounded, either.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Waiting until the crowd thins.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m going into the maze.” His look of horror didn’t faze me; I’ve seen it on too many other faces. “I’m not here to cause a scene. If I was, I’d have shown up when the doors opened.”

  “Then why not come when the club’s empty?”

  “Because I need witnesses. I want someone to notice if I disappear.”

  “And you think that might happen?”

  “Absolutely—I know who you are. If I turned up dead the police would have questions, but you’d be rid of publicity you think you can’t afford.”

  “What do you think I can afford?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Aren’t you here to blackmail me?”

  I snorted. It’s the closest I can come to laughter. “I don’t want anything from you, Mr. Minos.”

  “Except my permission to enter the maze.”

  “If you try to stop me I will cause a scene, and then the tabloids will have tomorrow’s headline.”

  “Sounds like blackmail to me.”

  “Fine, it’s blackmail. What are you going to do about it?”

  • • • •

  Bravado was the best plan I had. “Why do you want to see me?” I asked.

  “I don’t. You showed up where you knew you weren’t wanted.”

  He was still territorial, even if he didn’t like the territory. He hadn’t lived this long by showing weakness, either. He thought I hadn’t seen the cane behind his desk.

  I watched him watch me. Probably thinking the usual: that I seemed intelligent for one of my kind, whatever that was.

  He said, “Is your name really Rumer?”

  “I couldn’t possibly be fact.” I smiled. He looked away. “It’s an old joke. I hear it all the time. My name means unique. I was named after my grandmother. She was pleased until she saw me.” Having never met my grandmother, I can well imagine how that scene went. A baby girl with soft dark hair, brown eyes, long eyelashes, but not even vaguely pretty. My body looked human enough, but no one would ever have modelled a china doll after me. Little Miss Minotaur, they called me at the circus. Even as a child the name fit.

  I shifted, trying to get comfortable. “Everyone knows my name, Mr. Minos. What did you really want to ask?”

  Once, I would have been out of place there, among polished wood and soft leather. But now the sofa was worn and the panelling scratched, and I was no shabbier than the rest of his office. I almost felt pity—his life didn’t need more monsters.

  I said, “Is it true time has no meaning in the Labyrinth?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because the tape is only four minutes long, but I’m sure my rape took longer.”

  He nodded. “It did.” He stared at nothing for a moment. “Where are your companions from that night?”

  “I don’t know.” And it’s in their best interests not to be found. You can hear them laughing on the security tape, under the Minotaur’s grunts and the sound of tearing meat. Only one wall away, and they didn’t try to save me. Justin, Marcus, and Caroline just patched their handscreens into the camera and watched the whole thing.

  Minos said, “Tell me what happened.”

  I didn’t want to need him. I said, “You know.”

  “I saw. It’s not the same thing.”

  “They thought I’d be eaten alive. I’ve heard there were doubts they meant for me to be raped, but not
many, and none of them mine. Your bartender said he heard Justin call me that ugly cow. Which was unkind, even if it was apt.”

  I knew how the lies would go: “I guess she’d had too much to drink. We saw her stumbling into the maze and went in after her.” Since there probably wouldn’t have been enough of me left for a tox screen, who could prove otherwise? Considering the Minotaur’s fabled appetite, their treachery was well-planned.

  Except for something no one considered.

  I said, “I think the Minotaur needs me.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t eat me, even though he was hungry.”

  “How would you know?”

  Parents can be clueless about their children. It worries me. “Because he once dined on seven youths and seven maidens. But not anymore, right?”

  “Right. People in this time tend to be less understanding of such things. And—” He actually sounded amused. “I doubt I’ve ever had fourteen virgins in here.”

  Any other time I would have laughed. I knew he was feeding the Minotaur fowl.

  I said, “I’m alive because he tried not to kill me.”

  “Because?”

  “He’s lonely. He’s hungrier for touch than for food. And the lonely, you know, we tend to seek out our own kind.”

  I saw him understand. I saw him not want to.

  I said, “I’m as close as he’s going to get.”

  He said, “Tell me the rest.”

  • • • •

  It’s an old, well-known story. All stories are; only the details ever change.

  “Justin, Marcus, and Caroline were pretty people. I knew them from the office—Daedalus Engineering. They worked out front where they’d be seen. I worked in back where I wouldn’t. I was in the archives, putting old files on disk. They didn’t work for the money; they were there because their families have interests in the company. But I needed the job. I didn’t want to go back to the freak show.”

  It had been hard when the circus manager, Mr. Avery, died while we were here in Las Vegas. His son Ken had taken over the job. He had ideas for making the “human oddities” even more interesting. His plans for me started with a nose ring and tattoos, and then got ugly.