He didn’t care a bit if i were microwaved or not and scarfed it down quickly and easily, burping loud in satisfaction when he was done. Bernice was not even half way done with the equally sized plate that she had fixed for herself. She handed him a bag of marijuana to roll an after lunch joint as she finished her plate.
He rolled it but before he got it lit Hank began to feel light headed and tired. His vision got blurry and not just from the moonshine. He knew immediately that she had drugged him but was unable to do anything about it. He collapsed to the ground, paralyzed yet aware of everything that was happening. His entire body refused to move. All that he could manage to make work were his eyes. He lay there, completely helpless and under her power. Bernice could do anything she wanted to Hank and there was nothing he could do to stop her.
As she stood up and approached him, smacking her lips as she stood over him, Alan emerged from her front door. He walked out on the porch and put his arm around Bernice saying, “Look here cousin. We got us a bountiful harvest to reap this fall, now don’t we? I ain’t seen a crop like ‘is one in years. The buoy don’t even know what he did when he smashed up Matilda does he?”
Hank was flabbergasted. He knew that whatever they had planned for him wasn’t good. Alan walked over to Bernice’s truck and produced a heavy dog chain from the behind the seat. He tied one end around Hank’s feet and the other he fixed to the bumper hitch.
Hank couldn’t scream but he could still feel what was going on. They drug him slowly down the road, leaving twenty feet of slack in the chain. It began as pure unadulterated agony. The road was both a cheese grater and sandpaper slowly peeling his skin off with tiny chunks of gravel and bits of debris. It ate through his clothes quickly. They stopped every thirty seconds to a minute to make sure he was still alive. They made the short drive to his house a half hour hell ride. Every second torture. Every moment he begged to die so that his anguish could end.
Hank clung to the edge of life, fading in and out of consciousness by the time that they got to the house where he had lived for so long. All of the skin and much of the flesh of his back was gone. All that remained was a bloody mess. There were rib bones visible on his back when they unchained him and Alan was quite surprised to see that Hank still clung to life.
Alan picked Hank up like a groom carrying a bride and took him over the threshold of the house, into the foyer, then sat him on a chair under the chandelier. Hank faded in and out of consciousness, only aware that he knew pain and it was his inseparable Siamese twin. He had become so intertwined with pain that he knew nothing else. Even his own name eluded him. He wasn’t even sure if he were still being dragged down the road or not. Out of nowhere a memory flashed through his mind of the first time he had come to Marion County Kentucky. A memory of a man with a very thick hillbilly accent telling him, “The reason they call it Gravel Switch is cuz that’s where the road switches to gravel.” That would be Hank’s last reminiscence. A vague recollection of a time that seemed long ago.
Unaware of who or what he was, had ben or had become, Hank was oblivious when Alan put the chain around his neck. Bernice came back into the house, she splashed Hank in the face with moonshine. It stung him badly, exacerbating the already excruciating, transcendental pain. Hank’s eyes opened, empty and seemingly void of any awareness.
Bernice stripped off her clothes and began to paint on her flesh with Hank’s blood after she wiped her hand across his back, snapping him back into consciousness. Still too dazed by the pain to comprehend what he was seeing Hank just wanted to let go, just wanted to die. But the pain itself kept him in his mortal coil. Alan came back into his view and injected him with some sort of drug. Then there was darkness.
Hank came to and found that he was extremely intoxicated. He knew the high, it was heroin. He also knew that it was all that was keeping him alive. Hank didn’t know how long he had been out, but he knew it couldn’t have been long; he didn’t have that much blood left to shed. He saw that he was in a chair, with the dog chain around his neck. There were arcane, occult symbols drawn on the walls in his blood. Bernice was nude, she had painted the same symbols all over her body in his blood that were on the walls. She was on all fours, naked, facing Hank and speaking in the same strange tongue that Jared had spoken in as the high priest. Alan was behind her, groaning in pleasure as he thrust himself into her. Hank’s awareness had returned just enough for him to realize that he was seeing a sex magic ritual and not just watching two people screw.
Alan had an orgasm eventually and he stared Hank directly in the eyes as it overtook him. When he was done Bernice stood up and declared, “It is time.”
Alan got to his feet as well. Hank was still completely paralyzed. Powerless. He knew what her words meant. He knew he was not long for this world. That was the only solace that he had left.
Alan went into another room and came back in a moment. He had a large, industrial sized container of salt. He poured a triangle of salt around Hank, followed by other curvilinear shapes that Hank neither recognized nor could focus on. Hank became aware of blue, vaporous, amorphous shapes. Vaguely human they loomed all about him, outside of the triangle, on the edges of it, but not within it. He became aware that they were there for him. They were there to take him. His essence would fade from his body and he would be one of them. Trapped forever in the house like all the other ghosts. At that final moment Hank knew what it had all been about. He knew that his destiny had always been to suffer horribly and be sacrificed to the house. To whatever demon that the structure was a front for. He began to chuckle to himself. He knew that the Hickman’s and Alan Fox were just us much fools as Jared was. In their hubris they would try to command powers that they could not comprehend.
Hank felt a strong tugging on his neck and became aware that he was being lifted into the air by the chain. Alan and Bernice were working in unison to hoist him up. It took time and Bernice positioned the chair under him so that he was standing on it, or more like flopping on it as he was finally strung up to the chandelier.
There was another round of chanting in weird tongues and Hank would have laughed, had he been able to, at how obligatory it seemed. How trite. They thought that they were buying power from beyond the veil. They thought they were offering him up as a harvest to their demon lord. A dark offering to appease a dark master. He knew what he would become and he welcomed it. He had a bone to pick with Quan anyway and he wanted to settle that score sooner than later, even though he would have all of eternity to do so.
He smelled cannabis. They had lit a joint up as they were about to off him! He couldn’t believe it and in an extreme use of his last willpower he puckered his lips a few times, letting them know that he wanted to hit the joint too. Alan laughed as he held Hank up by the legs, making sure that he didn’t collapse and hang himself until they were ready. Alan knew the paralysis would be wearing off, but Hank was nowhere near able to stand on his own.
Bernice noticed that Alan was completely uncaring and although they had a job to do together in sacrificing her tenant it wasn’t in her nature to deny a dying man his final wish. She let Alan know he was being an ass by the tone in her voice as she said, “It’s the least that we can do, Alan. The poor kid has suffered enough, soon he’ll be our lord’s forever. Let’s give him this one last thing. Put the joint in his mouth.” Bernice had decided to show the tiniest bit of compassion and Hank was quite thankful.
Alan put the joint up to Hanks lips and he pulled a deep toke off of it. Exhaling he managed the tiniest nod to let Alan know that he wanted another. After five tokes Alan and Bernice were both at the end of their compassion. Alan stomped the roach out on the hardwood floor. Hank could see the vaporous figures much more clearly, especially when a cloud of the marijuana smoke rolled over one. Then he could see their features clearly, see them for who they were. The little girl in the white dress came forward, into the triangle of magical sigils and protective signs, throwing Hank off guard. She took his hand as Alan kicked the
chair out from under Hank.
Hank Ramsey fell from the chair, snapping his already lacerated neck. He choked to death slowly as he spasmed. His eyes bulged out of his head as he gasped involuntarily. As his bowels emptied and the last beats that his heart would ever beat rang inside his chest and pounded in his ears Hank let go of all the pain and suffering and succumbed to death. He walked willingly into her cold embrace, not struggling against her nor trying to flee. He wished that death were his final destination, he found the void to be such a peaceful place. The darkness, the nothingness, the nonexistence was a pure peace he had never once in his life known. As his consciousness faded to black he knew only a deep serenity.
The peace of death lasted but a mere moment as he was snatched by grasping talons and pulled through a tunnel of spiraling light and darkness. The shock of being torn through dimensions, of being given a consciousness again with which to perceive, was a tornado of sensation. Everything he had ever done in his life, everything he had ever felt, all occurring contemporaneously. Then there was a calm, the eye of the storm that he was passing through. The spirit awoke to find himself in the foyer of his house, again the identity of Hank Ramsey was the mantel he wore, although he understood he was now a spectral being; at least to some extent. Hank had suspected that he would end up like Quan and Sheridan and all the others, but there was nothing he could have done to prepare himself for staring at his own corpse hanging from the chandelier.
Sweet oblivion was gone.
Epilogue
“Hi Lester. How’ve you been? You know you are my favorite uncle don’t you?” Bernice spoke loudly into her cell phone, knowing that her great uncle was getting hard of hearing.
“Oh I’m just fine dear. Just callin’ to let you know that we found you some new tenants. They don’t smell quite as good as them last ones we found you, but they’ll do just fine,” the old man spoke jovially, happy to hear the voice of his great niece.
“You weren’t kiddin’ about that last one. He sure was somethin’ special. We had a great harvest, me and your grandson Alan took care of everything,” Bernice assured him.
“Jared almost fucked everything up for all of us. But these past few years have been full of bounty since we had that sweet harvest,” the old man smacked his lips as if licking barbecue sauce off of his fingers and savoring the tanginess.
“Oh, yeah. He took it upon himself to try to force the infinite to his own twisted will. He dared to command our lord, when he should have been on his knees. He deserved everything he got. Still, seeing that much power come through. Our lord may not come for many more lifetimes, but he blessed us with a glimpse of his…” the words for what she had seen when the veil between dimensions had lifted eluded her.
“I remember dear. I remember. It was a blessing to us all. Ia Shub-Niggurath!” the old man was excited remembering that night when they had seen their god.
“Okay uncle Lester, I’m gonna go now. It was good to talk to you. I expect the new tenants will be calling me tomorrow?”
“They sure will dear. You take care of yourself. Tell Alan and the twins I said hi. How old are they now? Ten?”
“No unlce Lester, they’re twelve now, believe it or not. Oh, one last thing. Do you think I should bother putting a new roof on the house?” she asked, genuinely concerned.
“If you have the money, well, I’d do it. But don’t do it for any renters. Hell, they probably ain’t gonna be around too long anyways,” the old man laughed a cantankerous cackle at the thought of feeding the young couple he had met earlier that day to the house. To his dark, demon-god.
“That’s what I was thinking uncle Lester. That’s what I was thinking. Tell aunt Betty that I said hi,” Bernice said, feeling awkward that she had forgotten her aunt.
“I will dear. When she gets in from the toolshed. She’s out there breakin’ in our new pet. Some yuppie from San Francisco. I don’t know how the hell he ended up out her, but we’ve had him about a two weeks now. Betty just loves him to death, but I don’t know. He kinda smells like cheese farts to me!” the old man guffawed so hard he began to choke a little and went into a deep coughing fit before hanging up the phone.
The next day she got a call from a Louisville number. The number of the young couple that were looking to rent a serene place out in the country. They left a long voice mail and Bernice could tell by the sounds of their voices that she would have another great harvest very soon.
“Hi, this is Bernice Hickman and I’m returning your call about my house for rent.
Yes. Gravel Switch. Uh-huh. It’s four hundred and fifty dollars a month. Ok then. Sure. See you tomorrow…”
Afterword
Writing Gravel switch was one hell of a ride. It was three years after my best friend died and his wife killed herself and I was still finding that I was unable to cope with my feelings about it. Rather than write a book based on the true story, which is scary enough on its own, I chose to write a fictionalized account of their deaths. In doing so I tried to produce a story very much like the sort of B grade horror movies that Hank was so fond of. I tried to keep the feel fast paced and never take the story too seriously. Creating fictional characters loosely based on real, albeit deceased, people was quite a fun challenge. It was also emotionally draining in a very masochistic way.
I was inspired to write Gravel Switch as an amalgamation of the truth, which is itself extreme and hard to believe, and those kind of horror stories like Evil Dead and Creepshow. When reality is so over the top then the art that pays homage to it should itself be over the top.
-Aleister
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge that without the encouragement of my dad and the patience of my wife I would not have been able to write this book. Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.
A special thanks to H.P. Lovecraft for creating the mythos that so many of us write stories in. What a beast you unleashed!
Gary Gygax will always have my undying gratitude for showing me at such a young age that imagination is without limits.
I would like to thank my dear friends who allowed me to use their own real life experiences in Gravel Switch as a catalyst to do horrific things to them in this book. I had a great time torturing you guys!
Finally I would like to thank Henry and Annette. Without your tragic deaths under such extreme circumstances I would not have been inspired to write Gravel Switch. May you Rest In Peace.
About the Author
Born in Lexington Kentucky and living in Oakland California for the past twenty years Aleister Davidson is a writer of horror, science fiction and fantasy stories. Preferring to keep his themes weird he loves cosmic, Lovecraftian elements. He is a guitarist who has been playing since 1983, but steadily since 1986. A master of several genres from punk to jazz, funk to metal he brings an eclectic flavor to his writing that is reminiscent of his music. Although primarily a horror and science fiction author Aleister's main influences are George Orwell, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Moorcock, H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
Aleister is a proud Oaklander and lives a quiet life in the hills with his wife. He loves cats.
For more information visit the author’s website below. While you are there make sure sign up for his email list for news about upcoming releases and the occasional free short story.
www.aleisterdavidson.com
Gravel Switch: the black goat chronicles book 1: a Weird Tale of Extreme Horror Page 20
