Never Fear

by Heather Graham

  “NO! FUCK!” Frank screamed.

  He grabbed the wheel with both hands and yanked it to the left. The truck lurched and narrowly missed the woman. He tried to correct the steering but the speed was too much. The truck leapt from the road into the woods.

  Frank bounced around inside the cab until there was only blackness.

  ***

  Frank woke up some time later. A dim yellow light glowed above his head. Von Haussen stood above him looking down.

  A nurse stepped in. A needle pricked into Frank’s shoulder.

  “It’s nap time, Frank. We gotta go to lunch. Try not to cause any trouble this time, eh? “ he heard Nixon say.

  “Welcome to Laurel Mountain, Mr. Daggets,” von Haussen said with a crooked smile. “Enjoy your new home.”

  15

  merinthophobia

  fear of being tied up

  jason pozzessere

  Boston

  Traditionally when he received what he liked to refer to as “his inspirations,” Vitale had a complete vision of what the finished subject would look like. This time it was different, and that unnerved him. It wasn’t because he didn’t have complete confidence in his skills. He was a grand master of his craft after all, and his work was highly sought after worldwide, but no matter what he tried material-wise, nothing seemed right.

  Unsure of what to do next, the craftsman decided to put down his tools and take a break. He took a look at an old grandfather clock behind him and saw that it was only 2:43 in the morning. The sun wouldn’t be out for at least a few hours he understood, and maybe a walk would clear his head. He pushed himself up from his workspace and grabbed for his coat from the back of the chair. As he exited through the old wooden door of the workshop, he took a glance back at the marionette’s sad and unfinished countenance. It seemed to stare back at him pleadingly, with unfinished, hollow eyes. This was to be one of the special ones, he realized with a sigh. “This fantoccini” he thought, “must be just so”.

  Lexington

  Nicholas woke with the taste of copper in his mouth and the sound of an odd, rasping voice whispering into his ear. He didn’t recognize the words, but knew there were indeed phrases being spoken. It was odd; this rough sounding voice seemed almost beautiful, both rhythmical and melodic. He tried to open his eyes and realized he couldn’t. He tried to open his mouth, again realizing that he could not. Panic began to settle in when he understood clearly that he wasn’t going to be able to do anything at all. Anything that was, except to listen. To make matters worse, he had absolutely no idea where he was. Where were his parents? “Mom?” he tried to scream “Where I am? What’s happening? Please…” He wanted to sob, understood fully that he couldn’t.

  The musically vocal rasping seemed to be reaching a crescendo. The boy realized to his mounting horror that it wasn’t actually musical in nature, it was more of a chant. It was an unnatural sounding and horrible culmination of words that he did not understand, but knew deep in his soul was evil. He knew this because he had read about dark rituals and rites in his favorite “Time Life” book series. He basically loved anything having to do with witches and wizards, warlocks, sorcerers and more. But in his readings he also ran into stories of demons and rituals meant to appease the Devil. Maybe this was his punishment for “Delving into subjects that God had never intended for decent human beings”. That was what his Catholic school teacher, Sister Angela, said to him when she discovered him trying to hide one particularly interesting pamphlet on the modern day witches or “Wiccans” as they liked to be known, of Salem.

  He considered for a moment and began trying to piece the most recent events of his day together. This must be a prank put on by some of his friends. Was he with them earlier? He must have been. Was it Randy, or possibly Levi? It had to be one of them he decided, probably both. “Ha ha, very funny you douchenozzles. Epic fail on my part not recognizing it sooner, but whatever you all did to knock my ass out really fucked me up. I can’t move!” He tried to move again, and failed. He was going to kick those fuckers’ asses when this was all over. He enjoyed pranks as much as the next guy, but this was just not cool.

  Thinking of cool, he hoped to God no one was filming this. He had seen the videos of people coming to from their dentists visits and didn’t want to be one of those pathetic assholes on YouTube. He didn’t know what his friends had used to fuck him up, or how they did it, but he knew the shit was really strong. Not X, or acid, nothing like that, probably just a bunch of ground up over the counter PM pills. “Fuckers,” he thought again. He had just worked up the nerve to send a “friend” request to Marissa Kyle on Facebook and she’d accepted. If he was made to look like an idiot and she saw it he knew that…

  Agony, fear, and confusion enveloped him as what seemed like a thousand fire ants tore into his flesh all at once. Blisters felt like they were beginning to form and burst suddenly and randomly throughout his body, the ooze dripping over the few areas of his skin that were not on fire. And still, he could not scream, still he could not move, still he could not cry.

  Nicholas would not remember exactly how long he endured his torment. It felt like he had been boiled in oil, thrown into a fire, flayed and could do absolutely nothing to end it. All he wanted to do was scream, and he couldn’t. The worst part was that he didn’t know why. Why oh God why was he being put through this? He wasn’t a bad kid, he knew, as far as teenagers go anyway. He never spoke back to his parents or teachers, even when he really wanted to. And aside from reading up on the macabre when getting a little bored during lectures and catechism classes, never really did much of anything to get into trouble. Who was doing this to him, and why wouldn’t they finish it already? He was not resisting, and he knew he wasn’t screaming, although he dearly wanted to. “Please make it stop… just… please.”

  Sometime later it did, but not before he heard the voice speaking to him again, soft and sympathetic. This time the boy did indeed understand the words, and they did nothing to reassure him that everything was all right. They told him of more pain to come, but that it would be brief. He knew then that he was going to die, and he accepted that. Then, in a language that he thought might be Latin, the voice was chanting again.

  Nicholas saw something other than darkness when a misty green color began to coalesce in his mind. He felt a sharp blade invade the area of his chest where his heart was located. He felt his ribs being cracked and torn, and then the valves around his heart being slowly sliced through . He felt hands entering into his chest, and then the heart itself being carefully lifted and removed from his body. Afterwards he felt those same strong hands reposition his head. A cloth wiped away debris his eyes. As the skin was methodically and precisely peeled away from first the left and then the right eye sockets he got to see the world one final time. A green light, an aura really, surrounded everything faintly in his line of vision. There were hands just above his head now and he could still not turn either his head, or his eyes. They looked to be strong and covered in gore, his gore, he understood. He tried to whimper. Still he could not.

  A man’s head then lowered close to his. Two faintly glowing eyes looked down on him from within a stern, elderly face. The man was holding a small knife delicately in his left hand, while the other hand held his face still. The old hands did not shake as they held the boy still. They did not shake as the man proceeded to remove Nick’s blue. When the task was finished, the old man kept his promise to put an end to the boy’s pain. With a wave of his hand he released more of the green mist, and Nicholas was finally allowed to drift into oblivion. “Sleep sweetly, my precious piccolo” Vitale said as he looked down upon the mangled body of the boy and kissed him gently on the forehead. It was an unnecessary part of the ritual, but he insisted on doing it anyway. He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and delicately wrapped the two bloody blue eyes inside. “Che bello,” he thought depositing the precious bundle into his pocket. As he finished packing his tools a melody came to him, one he hadn’t t
hought of in quite a while. Gabrieli’s La Spiritata began to take hold in the mind of the old craftsman. The rise and fall of the fiffaro in this piece always put him in good spirits. It was time to go he decided, the sun would soon be out and he wanted to be sure he was home before morning had fully broken.

  Salem

  For Mona, Sunday morning began as Sundays mornings generally usually did. She went into the into the kitchen, pulled out a bag of green tea, poured water into the metal boiler and turned it on. She was in a foul mood. Yesterday had not gone as planned. She was supposed to have received the package she had ordered for the wax museum so that she could put the final touches on her newest and greatest exhibit: Alexander the Great! She had worked long and lovingly for months to perfect his scarred and yet undeniably beautiful physique. He would be the epitome of male masculinity and perfection. And she should know. Mona had had plenty of experience with men. She had enjoyed them greatly throughout her forty-plus years, and she would continue to enjoy them as long as she could, but she knew she was older, and she was more particular about her men and the endowments they needed to possess if they wanted to make it into her bedroom. She had never met a perfect man, and believed that in the world there were no perfect men. But in her museum, she had almost finished creating her own perfect man, her Adonis. Well, she would once she received that fucking package.

  Mona poured herself a steaming cup of tea, grabbed a cereal bar out of her cupboard and headed downstairs. Even if some of the other locals didn’t want to admit it, she felt that her wax museum was the true pride of Salem. It was more popular than even the witch museum or the Old House. Seventeen glorious rooms were filled with all sorts of wonderful scenes out of history and literature. None of the others came close to hers in either detail, charm, or beauty. However, she felt her greatest achievement up to this point was her Chamber of Horrors. Her attention to detail provided guests with unequaled repulsiveness and an unapologetic assault on their senses. She had taken pride when members of one of the local church groups told her that her Jesus on the cross was a disgrace to not just Christians, but to any human beings with a sense of morality. She received a letter stating her work was a “blasphemy” which needed to be” dismantled and destroyed.” Knowing that simply reaffirmed that she was a true artist. For is not the purpose of art to delve into the true feelings of the soul?

  Her store, while small compared to others in the city, made more money in a week during the regular tourist seasons than most of the others in a month and in the off months she still had the doors opened at least four days a week. Sure, she sold some of the typical knickknacks found throughout the town, but she was also good at following trends and knowing her typical client base. Take a few herbs, package them up in an authentic looking cheap leather bag and you have a love potion. Go on a hike and pick up a few interesting twigs leaves of different colors and you have yourself a wand of the Green Man or the Great mother. Sell traditional candies that you can pick up at any bulk supermarket and a parent usually caves into the demands of their little brats whining for a sugar fix. Life was there and for the taking, and at this point in her life she knew how to get what she wanted, and when she wanted something she always got it.

  Knowing that made her mind start to reel at the thought of that egotistical and ironically dimwitted Carl. Where the hell was he with her order? She was becoming impatient and she hated having to wait too long for anything. The unveiling was only five days away and she needed the hair. She took solace in remembering that he had always followed her details explicitly and had never failed when he had promised that he would get for her the perfect specimen. He was a dimwit, but had impeccable taste, and was one man that had never fallen too short of her expectations, as long as she kept those expectations minimal.

  As Mona took her morning walk around the galleries she decided to get a few errands done before opening. She made her way briskly through the rooms, then headed back upstairs to her living quarters. Before she could leave she needed to take a shower and make sure to take out the trash from the night before. She could hear him snoring in her bed.

  Boston

  If someone had asked him, Nicholas would simply have said he felt he had gotten lost in a terrible dream. He relived his last visit to see his grandfather over and over again. The old man lay sick and dying from lung cancer in his hospital bed, coughing and wheezing so violently that Nicholas was sure he would see Pop Pop Joseph literally cough up a lung. He remembered his mother clutching him tightly, weeping softly while she spoke to him. She made him promise over and over again that she would never catch him using tobacco, ever. She told him how she could never lose him, and if she did, she wouldn’t want to go on living. He loved his mother dearly, and hated seeing her in pain. He promised her she would never lose him, and believed she never would.

  As he sat motionless on the worktable where he had been placed, Nicholas wondered how many of the other puppets lining the shelves contained trapped souls trapped like as his. He wondered if they were as terrified as he was. He wondered if they had promises they could no longer fulfill, loved ones who were probably desperately looking for them. He wondered how many parents might be begging to God for them to just be alive, not understanding that to do so was pointless.

  And all for what? What future torments awaited him at the hands of that old devil? He didn’t remember much about how he got here, but what little he did remember was enough to convince him that the sick fuck wasn’t done using him for some foul purpose.

  Making everything worse was that Nicholas knew he was absolutely powerless to do anything about it. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t weep, he couldn’t scream. He couldn’t do anything but sit there, staring silently outward in the same direction. He would be the plaything of a devil, and would probably be used to entice other children into the clutches of this sick and twisted monster.

  Nicholas began to think of the unmentionable and disgusting acts a degraded old man might do to a child and fell into an even deeper state of despair. He hoped that he at least had put up a fight. He wanted to think he made the ass-munch bleed, but in truth, all he remembered was pain and a green mist. Had he been raped? Jesus no, he would definitely remember something that twisted, wouldn’t he? Those ideas and more floated through his mind for hours.

  Sometime later that day, his consciousness retreating in on itself, Nicholas drifted back into a state of hibernation.

  When he emerged from his trance, Nicholas found himself repositioned and looking up at the countenances of two individuals. Even though the room wasn’t particularly well lit, Nicholas saw enough of the first one to immediately recognize the old man, his tormentor. The madman was rubbing a damp cloth directly into his immediate field of vision. Surprisingly he didn’t feel any pain, or the need to recoil away from someone pushing something directly toxic into his exposed eyes. The man took a small step back to admire his handiwork.

  “Gli occhi, sono cosi belli,” the old man murmured to himself as much as anyone else present. Nicholas didn’t need to understand Italian to know that the elder craftsman was making some sort of reference to his eyes. Looking back helplessly at the old man, he took in all the details of his face. He would never let himself forget the bushy eyebrows, the sharp beak of the nose, or the deceptively kind eyes, which had housed the glowing demon eyes of a madman, despite the fact that there was no illumination in them now.

  The man situated next to the old devil was larger, much younger, and hauntingly pale. In stark contrast to his skin, the man’s hair was the color of night. He possessed a pronounced and dimpled chin, prominent cheekbones and startlingly beautiful eyes. Interestingly, they were almost golden in color. They observed him almost sympathetically, and Nicholas’ gut feeling told him that the expression was genuine. “Please help me” he tried to scream. “Please tell me you can hear me! I know you can sense that something is wrong here, why else would you be looking at me like that? Please... I just want to go…” Go where? He didn’t kn
ow, but felt anywhere would be better than here.

  The spectacular and beautifully pale gentleman nodded as if in understanding and said, “Soon, young man, all will be made clear.” He turned to look at the old man. With a resounding sigh he nodded and said, “Master Vitale, you have my permission to finish your work.” Vitale simply nodded his agreement adding, “It must be just so.”

  The pale man moved in closer and looked directly to Nicholas. “Fear not young one, for soon you shall enter one final slumber.” The boy heard the words, although the man hadn’t seemed to have spoken, “When next you awaken you shall be released from your prison.” Two massive hands then appeared from seemingly out of nowhere. They reached down to cradle the boy by each side of his face. The man inhaled deeply, lifted Nicholas gently, and proceeded to lower his lips to the puppets. Nicholas saw the man close his eyes and then heard him exhale slowly. As he slowly drifted back into oblivion, Nicholas was happy to realize he was no longer afraid. He didn’t feel as if he were anything at all.

  Salem

  Package in hand, Carl strutted confidently into Mistress Mona’s Museum of the Mysterious using one of its main entrance’s double doors. He had hoped that Mona’s new greeter Dominick a fancified word for cashier, he mused, would be at the front desk today. He enjoyed toying with the young man, making some subtle and some not so subtle remarks about the boy’s good looks and how he’d make a true man out of him if only Dom would let him. In truth, the adolescent was pudgy, a little slow, and to Carl’s taste, a little too easy to make uncomfortable. It’s not that Carl wouldn’t follow up on any of his promises to teach him what pleasure truly was, but the boy had proven more dense than reluctant up to this point, and Carl wasn’t sure if he felt the gimp was really worth his time.