by Anthology
She slammed the door against the horrifying sight. She found James had placed a link of his chain beneath the table’s steel leg. He lifted the heavy table and brought it down hard on the link. After the fifth attempt, the chain gave way. He fed the chain through the cuffs and let the remnants clatter to the floor. His hands were still cuffed, but his movements were no longer hobbled by the choke chain. He grabbed the chair and smashed it against the wall and handed a jagged leg to Melanie and took another for himself.
“Remember what I told you about Yog-Sothoth’s ability to manipulate reality? Well, you’re about to experience it firsthand. Ready?”
“For what?”
“We can’t just sit here and wait for our deaths. Eventually this room will change as well. Better to go out fighting, what do you say?”
Rees didn’t wait for a response and he opened the door. Melanie followed, but quickly discovered the dense fog had already swallowed Rees. Faint lights glowed at intervals and Melanie realized they were streetlights. She reached out a hand and cringed as she felt the damp, moss-like feel of the building. The light spilled from the room she’d just left and she was loath to leave its implied security.
“James!” she hissed. The fog reacted to her voice and seemed to rush at her. She screamed as something slid up her bare arm. The sensation was slimy and slithery and her nostrils were assaulted with unsettling seawater, smell. Abruptly, something else grasped her, but this was more solid. She collapsed against James with relief. “Easy now,” he said. “This is going to be tricky. They can’t fully exist on our level of reality, that’s why we can’t see them. Be thankful for that, you don’t want to see what his avatars look like,” he added.
“What the hell was that?” Melanie asked as she furiously rubbed the place where the monster had caressed her. A burning sensation was quickly building there. She could just make out what appeared to be round indentations on her forearm. “Wait! What happened to Hewlett and Miles?”
“Miles is most likely dead,” James replied. “Hewlett is headed for the circle.”
The fog was low lying, reaching to the midpoint of the buildings. Standing against the night sky, Melanie could clearly make out the stones on the hill directly in front of them. They cast a purple glow. A roar sounded from that general direction. The sound was so unearthly, unlike anything Melanie had ever heard.
“He’s close. We must hurry,” James urged. He grabbed her hand and started off a brisk pace down the street. His steps were sure and he didn’t deviate. Melanie found it difficult to keep up as he dragged her along. She consistently stumbled on unseen potholes. They came to the end of the gauntlet of buildings. In the fog behind them, Melanie could hear the invisible monsters slithering across the cobblestones, keeping pace with them.
“Watch out!” Rees shouted. He shoved Melanie to the ground just as something whizzed by and crashed into a building. Melanie coughed and blinked as centuries old plaster rained down all around them. She peered through the swirling fog and dust and glimpsed a figure silhouetted against the glowing stones on the hill. The sudden closeness surprised her. She glanced behind her and gasped in surprise. The town was far below. How could she not recall climbing the treacherous hill?
“What just happened?” she wheezed.
“I’ve brought her,” James addressed the figure, ignoring Melanie’s question.
“So you have,” Hewlett answered.
Melanie struggled against his iron grip on her arm. “What’s going on? Tell me what’s going on, right now! Let go of me!”
James pushed her forward and then brought his handcuffed hands down around her neck. Melanie gagged as the linking chain tightened around her throat.
“Shhh,” James soothed. “Take it easy now, my dear Dr. Caffy.”
Hewlett smiled and motioned for them to enter the circle, but when James refused, her smile disappeared. In its place, a fury brewed. “We had a deal,” she reminded him.
“What’s she talking about?” Melanie cried.
“She’s the last one,” James said as he struggled with his captive. “You need her, but can’t touch her unless I freely give her to you.”
“Give her to me!”
The voice came not from Hewlett but from somewhere around the altar. Hewlett cringed as the force of the voice buffeted her.
The realization struck Melanie like a tidal wave. “You were working for it, not against it!”
“My dear Dr. Caffy, you’re the last,” James said, a real sadness evident in his voice. “You’re enough to make a devil.”
If you enjoyed this story then you might enjoy Thomas’s collection of horror and dark fantasy THE MONSTER WITHIN IDEA from Apex Publications.
The monsters lurk in everyone: monsters of greed, of guilt, of the pleasure found in pain, of the pain found when pleasure dies. Carefully disguised, the monsters can sit down beside you or take up residence within you at the slightest twist of fate. Will you try to stop them? Will you want to?
This collection of 18 stories from R. Thomas Riley deftly explores the monsters born of the human mind. “Attrition” offers a future prison system that frees only those who repent sincerely—but what can an inmate do if he finds that sincerity is not really the key? “Twin Thieves” and “Tautology” throw a devilish spin on relationships gone wrong, while “The Lesser Evil” twists the abuses of race and power into a gritty, noirish nightmare of the choices a man must make to protect a lesser man and a greater good. In “Touching God,” a young man’s past catches up to him when worlds bleed into each other and the past crosses into present, bringing back the abuse he once escaped and the brother who wasn’t so lucky.
Sacrifice, selfishness, and the worst of good intentions: all combine in The Monster Within Idea. From vampires and aliens to hit women and Wild Bill Hickok, Riley gives a subtle psychological turn to dark science fiction and horror. Let the monsters walk the paths of your mind. The idea is already within.
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FLASH OF LIGHT
Jason Sizemore
Jason Sizemore is a writer, editor, and publisher—as evidenced by this anthology. He lives in Lexington, KY where he experiences an exciting life as a geeky software developer who dreams of becoming a world-famous publisher. Mr. Sizemore’s most recent work can be found in Dark Discoveries, Shroud Magazine, and Writers Workshop of Horror.
I hope you’re enjoying this particular e-book and will take the time to find more work by the many talented individuals showcased within. I also hope you enjoy the story below enough to look over the fact that this is technically a self-published story.
“Flash of Light” originally appeared in Aoife’s Kiss in 2008.
—§—
Daddy was home.
Screaming away and pounding on his desk, he could be heard across the little two bedroom ranch home. Two children, one six, the other eight, pushed the remnants of their Thanksgiving dinners around their plates, flinching at every noise. They were nervous, they new Daddy would be into eat soon.
It could be said that Daddy—Gerald Malcolm Linden—gave them plenty to be nervous about. Gerald had been drafted in the year 2046, the third year of the American-Asian war, at the height of the Pacific conflict. His first assignment was a cozy spot as a logistics officer, hidden safely behind the lines and helping the real men, the generals, map out important battles. The job treated him well, that is, until he messed up. Four thousand marines dead in six hours, recognized as the worst slaughter of American lives in the history of the country. The generals thought him a spy, tortured him for information. When none was forthcoming, they placed him in the frontlines of the battlefields, in the jungles of Vietnam, fighting a resilient enemy the Americans had lost to seventy-years before. Let the Vietnamese get rid of a problem they didn’t want to deal with.
The youngest child, tiny Michelle Renee, balanced a shriveled pea on her thumb and sent it flying across the table
with her index finger. Michelle was proud of her pea sharp-shooting skills, and her talent didn’t let her down this time. The pea found its target, plinking harmlessly, but effectively, against her brother’s forehead.
“Ouch!” shrieked Mark, as he laughed, scooping up a portion of mashed potatoes with his hand, readying a counter-attack. Mark felt it was time for a full-fledged food fight, especially before Daddy came to the table.
“Don’t you dare, Mark Gerald Linden!”
Mark wanted to argue, but one look into his mother’s authoritative cloudy blue eyes emptied his mouth of rebellion. In the background, Mark heard his father screaming at the video-phone in his office. The screaming was punctuated by the sound of crashing furniture and plenty of swearing.
Another pea bounced off Mark’s forehead.
“Hey!” he said to Michelle. “I’ll get you for that.” Mark jumped from his chair. He made monster noises as he rounded the table and grabbed his sister in a bear hug, tickling her. Michelle squealed with laughter. The pair wrestled, giggling and wrestling, prompting their mother to join in the fun.
The office door opened, and Daddy sulked into the dining room.
“Goddamn it!”
A man in his forties, crew cut, sharp blue eyes, that wore a patented military man bulldog sneer stormed into the dining room. Mark narrowly avoided running into his father, as he scampered for his place at the table. Nobody dared say a word. They knew Daddy was angry.
“What’s wrong, Gerald?”
“We’re fucked, that’s what’s wrong.”
“Gerald, the kids…”
“It doesn’t fucking matter. They should hear this.”
“Hear what?” asked Lydia.
Michelle began to wail, as she often did when Daddy was mad.
“The psychologist refuses to sign off on my papers. Says I have to find real work, not draw a pension. Six goddamn years in the jungle and not one fucking penny.” Gerald pounded the table with his fist. One eye tended to drift during his mad spells. Right now it stared at Mark while the other looked to the ceiling in exasperation.
Mark cleared his throat. “Daddy?” The eye glared at him, broadcasting a threat of physical violence for his insolence that interrupted his father’s thoughts.
In a flash, Gerald swept his arm across the dining table, sending bowls, plates, and glasses smashing against the dining room wall behind Mark. Mark ducked the shards of shattering glass and crockery. He didn’t know what to think. He’d only seen his dad three times in the past few months. Daddy stayed at the bars till late at night, and often went to the doctors during the day. This man was not Daddy, but a scary stranger.
“There’s only one thing left to do.”
“Gerald, you’re scaring the kids and you’re scaring me,” Lydia said. She reached her hand out to Gerald’s now bleeding wrist, using her most consoling voice.
“They always think they’ve got me,” Gerald mumbled, this time smacking the tabletop with his open right palm. “But they’re wrong. So very wrong.”
“Gerald?”
Outside, a freak November thunderstorm brewed over the marine base. Mark could hear the wind picking up, pelting their house with sand and grit.
Gerald hunched over the table and placed his head in his hands. Mark knew Daddy had a temper, but this was different. An ill-defined danger surrounded his father.
“Who are you, little girl?” Gerald asked.
“Mommy?” Michelle asked. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”
The family sat quietly around the dinner table.
“Mommy?”
“Nothing Michelle. Daddy’s just tired, that’s all.”
Gerald smiled at his daughter. He stood up and hugged her tightly where she sat.
“You know Daddy loves you, right?”
“Yes. I love you, Daddy.”
Gerald walked over to Mark, who leaned away from the man, Daddy, suspicious.
“Mark, you know your daddy would always do what’s best for you?”
Mark peered over to his mother. She nodded “Yes”.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Outside, a brilliant flash of lightning crackled nearby. For a brief moment, the power flickered off. Without anyone at the table noticing, Gerald had disappeared.
Lydia jumped to her feet and gathered her children in her arms. She pushed them in the direction of their bedroom. “Go on, get in your room. Mommy needs to find out what’s wrong with Daddy.”
“Mommy,” cried Michelle. “I’m scared.”
“It’s ok, sweetie. Daddy is a little upset and Mommy is going to find out what is wrong. And besides, Mark will protect you, right Mark?”
Although on the verge of tears, Mark nodded silently and put his arm around his little sister.
Mark recognized the sound of his father’s shotgun being loaded with shells from within the office. Quickly, he herded Michelle into their bedroom and locked the door. They huddled together in the corner next to a giant plush Winnie-the-Pooh that had been an early Christmas present from their aunt and uncle in Orlando.
“Mark, what’s going on?” Michelle asked. Her tears rolled down her face onto Mark’s arm. They tickled as they made their way to his fingertips.
“Daddy has a bad headache, ok? The army doctors told Mommy it’s because he’s been away from his family for so long.” He felt Michelle nod in his arms. “Mommy wants us to play ‘hide and go seek’ until he’s not mad anymore.”
Through the thin plaster walls of the house, Mark heard an argument raging over the sounds of the building storm.
“They think they got me, but they don’t; the sons of bitches.”
“Gerald, put that away.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m a goddamn corporal.”
“Put the gun away, Gerald. Let me call Dr. Fiesler.”
“Dr. Fiesler? He told me all the sick shit I’ve done; it’s in my head. In my head, Lydia.”
“I don’t think Dr. Fiesler understands,” Lydia said, her voice calm and modulated.
“I think you’re trying to confuse me.”
Silence ensued, followed by some muffled pleas.
“On your knees.”
“No.”
“Don’t make me shoot you in the face.”
“Gerald, no! The kids.”
“On your goddamn knees!”
“Fuck you.”
A second later, a gunshot blast rocked the house. Then another. Then nothing, absolutely nothin. The only sound Mark could hear was the pattering of rain on the rooftop. Michelle sobbed silently in his embrace.
Footsteps.
Mark’s eyes narrowed. They were attentive to every movement inside the bedroom and around the doorframe. Quietly, he placed his hand around Michelle’s mouth and placed a finger to his lips, indicating for her to remain quiet. Then he walked her over to the closet, slid the door open and shoved her gently inside. Once again, he motioned ‘quiet’ and shut the closet door.
Outside the room, in the hallway, he heard the shotgun reload.
Mark slid underneath Michelle’s bed, one of the two twin sized beds the siblings shared. Kissing his face was Michelle’s favorite baby doll. It stared at him an inch away with those faraway, empty black eyes.
The doorknob rattled.
“Open this door, Mark.”
Silence.
“Your father orders you to open this door.”
A few seconds passed, then a shot rang out. The middle of the door and part of the frame disintegrated.
“I promise not to hurt you.”
Horrorstricken, Mark watched his father’s boots stomp through the door. Gerald knocked the debris aside and entered the room.
“Your mother is hurt, real bad,” Gerald said. “She needs you to help her.”
Mark eyed the closet, praying that Michelle wouldn’t fall for this obvious bit of trickery. Enraged, his father upended the mattress and frame of Mark’s bed. Bedding and pillows fell all a
bout the room. The boots moved into the bathroom and yanked the shower curtain off the rod. Cursing, Gerald ripped the linen door off its hinges.
“She’s bleeding from her eyes,” Gerald yelled. “Like those goddamn Viet-Cong when I tortured them. Their eyes bled, too.
The boots marched to the bed that hid Mark. They paused. The barrel of the family’s Winchester made black smudges against the white carpet floor. Mark could smell the fresh cordite. The doll’s plastic face became warm and alive, transforming to the face of his mother. “I love you,” it whispered, before exploding in a spray of blood and brains. Mark stifled a cry, blinking away the tears and the horrible image. When he looked again, the doll’s head was normal, with the black eyes and plastic body.
Without warning, the boots rushed toward the closet. Acting on instinct, Mark sprang out from under the bed and threw his body into the back of his father’s knees, sending him tumbling to the floor. For now, the closet door remained closed.
“Son of a bitch!”
Gerald grabbed Mark by the ankle and tried to pull him closer. With his other hand, the man reached for the shotgun. Mark twisted onto his back and sent the ball of his right foot into his father’s shin. Gerald howled in pain, grasping for his left leg, allowing Mark the split second he needed to slip free. He jumped up and found himself in the hallway.
