At the Gates of Madness
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At the Gates of Madness
At the Gates of Madness
A collection
Shaun Meeks
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form, mechanical, digital, electronic, photocopying or recording with the exception of a review.
All stories that appear in this collection are a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
This one is for Mina. You’ve been my muse since the day we meet. Thanks for the push.
Contents
Introduction to the Madness
Open Book
The Edge of the Abyss
Treats
As Long As It Ends
When the Darkness Came
The Great Nothing
The Tennessee Top Hat
End of the Leash
The Little Bastards
I Am Fear
All Things End Terminal
You Can’t Always Run Away
Madcap
Simcoe Sally Ain’t No Lady
Stripped Away
Atheist in the Foxhole
Tail Pipe Dreams
The Creek
Afterward
Introduction to the Madness
I have had people ask me in the past why I bother to write short fiction when most people prefer to read novels. I have written my share of full length novels, one which will be coming out in the near future, but I do love short stories; reading and writing them. Sitting down with no clear story in my heading and just writing and letting the story take me wherever it wants to go is a journey I do enjoy taking. Many of the stories in here started off as a simple sentence, a character sitting on a bus or standing at a window and just letting it take off. The idea of a quick glimpse at something that could be a larger story is so appeal, and I think that other people enjoy reading stories like that as well.
The first story I ever wrote was when I was in grade seven and my English teacher gave our class an assignment to write a fiction story that is based on our family members. My story was about my brother and his friends becoming a hybrid between vampires and cannibals. They were killing people in our town and storing the partial eaten bodies in our cellar. The story, which I still have, is seven pages long and though it is full of some of the cheesiest gore and violence that my teacher called “shocking but original”, it is a pretty terrible story. Lucky for you it does not appear in this collection.
What is important about that story is that my teacher, Mrs. A., gave me feedback that really made me focus on a writing career. She told me that the story gave her nightmares and was one of the most disturbing things that a student had ever handed in. I was upset at first, thinking that she was going to give me a low mark or send me to the principal’s office like my fourth grade teacher did when she found me reading Stephen King’s The Shining. Instead, she sat me down and told me that I had great potential to be a writer and should keep writing to hone my skill. I had never really thought of what I wanted to do when I got older before that point, but when she said it, I thought it was something I would love to do, especially if it meant writing horror. After all, I was already a horror movie freak at that point, watching anything I could get my hands on that was weird and gory, and during the 80’s that wasn’t a problem.
So for the next few years, I would sit in front of the T.V., watching movies by Argento, Frank Henenlotter, Lloyd Kaufman and Stuart Gordon to name a few and would write stories that were of the same vein as theirs, handing them into my English teachers through the rest of middle school and all through high school. In grade eleven, I wrote a series of short stories, put them in a collection I had called “Dark Recesses” and handed it in. The stories ranged from comic horror to bizzaro; tales of talking cocks, fleas travelling across the country on the backs of dogs, soul eaters, slumbering demons and cockroach gang members fighting for turf. My teacher returned the stories to me a week later with a big “A” on the front and tears in her eyes. She told me that three of the stories I had written had given her such bad nightmares that she hadn’t slept well in days. She also told me to keep writing and to pursue it as a career, telling me that if my stories could get to her, then they would surely get to others as well. She said to write something and get an emotional response from the reader should be every writer’s goal and that since I had made her feel terror and fear, that I should keep at it. I personally thought it was silly, since other people who had read the stories hadn’t thought they were anything special. I have even included one of the stories here to test it and see what people think. It’s called “I Am Fear”.
So you might be asking, if I have been writing since middle school, why am I only now getting around to putting out a collection and novels for people to read now?
It’s a good question and quite simple; the time is right.
When I first graduated high school, I had wanted to keep writing, to get published and have my work out there for everyone to read, but found doors closed to me time and time again. There seemed no good way to get a book out there without first getting an agent, and getting an agent in Toronto to pick up a writer that tends to lean mainly towards horror is not the easiest thing in the world. So I just kept writing and piling up stories at home, frustrating the people I lived with that told me I was squandering my talent.
Now, some twenty years later, I have found my way to just doing it, to let all my fears at rejection fall to the side and take the chance that not only will I find a publisher to take this on, but that I will have people willing to buy it and read it, to spread the word and enjoy what I offer. I am not doing this to get rich or famous, but to share what I have in my mind, the darkest corners as well as the brightest. If you are reading this, then I can only assume you are willing to come on this journey to my darker side and for that, I thank you.
I have also had some people ask me who have read this, if I am worried about how dark some of my stories are. I don’t think I have ever worried about something like that, or went about to change a story to make it more “likeable” for people that might read it. To me, a story is its own beast, something that seems to choose the way it wants to go, no matter if it ends with kisses and hugs or everyone dead. I think the day you sit and write a story and push aside your own voice so that you can sell a few more books to people that are too afraid to read something that has a not-so-happy ending, is the day you should just stop writing. I write the way I want, loving to push my story to whichever way it wants to go and hope that I will enjoy it as well as anyone else that reads it. It doesn’t always work out though. I have a stack of stories on my computer right now that I decided not to finish because I felt they became boring and strained. And if I find it boring, why would I want anyone else to read it? I don’t want a collection to end up being like an album by some band that has two great songs amongst a record or fifteen. Who does?
So I think I have said enough for now. I hope you all enjoy the stories ahead and know that there is more on the way. I want to thank everyone that has picked this book up, shared it with friends or just supported me through this journey. Without everyone that has supported me and that gave me a chance, this book wouldn’t be here. I especially want to give a big thank you to Jeani Rector for giving me a big break when she did, accepting a story that had been rejected two times and putting it in her amazing book, A Feast of Frights from the Horror Zine.
Welcome, to my madness.
Shaun Meeks
Toronto, Ontario
2
012
Open Book
Is it the wind that whispers the name, or is it some ghost that has risen from its slumber when I opened the book and read words I was told not to. Jafar had also read the book; it was at his house that I procured it. I went to visit him two weeks ago and found him lying on his floor, shriveled like a raisin, curled up in the fetal position where the book sat only three feet from him. He had bragged about finding it, the mythical Anna, and I knew that one day it would be mine. As a rare book collector, we all hear tales of lost books, but it is the rumors and stories of books that can drive you mad or even kill you that push us forward. I have heard talk of the Necronomicon, that if read front to back, it will drive you mad, or of culling song that could kill the reader or others it is read to. The Anna though was a different beast all on its own. Some say that if read it can open doors, turn the reader into a portal or simply suck their soul from their body leaving them an empty husk.
When I found Jafar’s body, his skin gray and sucked inward the way it was, I thought that maybe the tales were true. Maybe I should have used caution, but the bibliophile inside demanded that the book be taken, and it was.
Every time I lie in bed and close my eyes, I hear whispers of passages from the book, like the wind is reading it to me again and again. When I open my eyes I find the room is darker than it should be, yet from the corners of my eyes there is movement. Whatever is there disappears when I turn my head towards it, but I know there is something in the room with me now that my stupid eyes will never see. I wonder if Jafar had the same problem or if the reader gets a personalized Hell after turning the last page. Perhaps I opened a door, that is why I smell the musty smell of basements and the coppery scent of blood wherever I go and I cannot close my eyes without hearing the ghost whispers of things that lie beneath the surface.
Sometimes I feel cold prickles moving across my skin, as though something bug like is walking across it, but when I look, there is nothing there but the fear inside me. Maybe I am going insane, or perhaps the myths are true and I have opened something I can never close. I will read the book again and hope that something changes. Maybe I will end up like Jafar, or maybe I will open the door a little more so that I can fully hear the whispered voices.
The Edge of the Abyss
“Last night I dreamt of wastelands and crying beasts, while I stood at the shores of an empty void that should have been the sea.” Josh whispered these words to himself, time seeming to have lost all meaning for him, the remnants of his former life in his hand, as the darkness swirled in front of him like some great beast wanting to swallow him whole. His words were nearly lost to the din around him, the occasion scream that floated on the smoke thick air which he seemed able to taste as well as smell. He stared into the great nothing before him, squeezing his hands into white knuckled fists and cursed the man he had been, letting regret fill him in a way that it never had before.
All his life Josh had been the hunter, the jock in school, the cool kid, the boss, the guy all the chicks wanted. He had been the class president every year, the quarterback of the football team, the valedictorian, the top three of his graduating class in law school and the youngest to make partner at his law firm. Men envied him and women wanted him. He was the guy who when he walked down the halls of his high school, everyone watched him go by, tries to say “hi” and lusted after who and what he was. He had perfect hair and teeth, a smile that could melt hearts and was always dressed in the latest fashions, making him the guy to look up to and try to emulate.
Work was no different for Josh. He had an air about him, a glow that sang out, “I am someone special. You know you want to be close to me and know me”. Men flocked to his side hoping to feed off his energy and women threw themselves at him in hopes of being wanted by him.
At least they had before everything around him had crumbled and toppled like a tower of playing cards. Josh remembered hearing about a poem, something to do with the center not holding, that all things fall apart eventually, and he wished he had read that so he could look back and say the quote word for word and let it have some sort of meaning. In his former life though, as the cool guy, he would never have picked up a book, especially one with poems in it. Poems were for nerds and fags, so he could be bothered with either in case someone decided to start a vicious rumor, tarnishing his impeccable reputation. He was also too busy playing drinking games, chasing tail and working on his car to bother with books and art, Hell, even actual school work was something he blew off. Why would he want to bother with books and reading when he had women to sleep with and his marks would just be handed to him anyway? His teacher never gave him bad marks, even when he knew he flunked on a test or botched a project. He was a star in the school and the teachers knew it and played into his popularity and his ego. He never studied for a test or spent too long on any one thing because he knew life was about living and having fun, getting the things you wanted, not about school and hard work. His father had taught him that lesson years ago, showing him that if you were one of the special people, the rich, the powerful, the model type, then the work gave itself freely to you. Not the other way around. Fame finds the beauty, not the mundane.
Again, Josh looked down at his hand, looking at what he had once been and knew that he had been wrong, that his father had been wrong. His father had been his only source of learning as he was growing up; he had been a large and powerful man whose voice carried a kind of power that most men only dreamed that they could own. When he spoke, everyone around listened, especially his son who only wished to grow up and be just like his father and have his dad’s undying love and respect. The fact that his father had never once told Josh that he loved him or was proud of him only made him strive for that affection ten times more. He looked away from his hands then, back towards the undying darkness ahead of him and thought about what a fool he was, what a complete idiot, both he and his father. How could he not feel that way now, that he had wasted every bit of the life he had on such stupid things as his father, fame, respect, fear and sex. Above him, the sound of leathery wings echoed and he heard the far off screams again from people as bad off as he was, maybe worse for all he knew. Part of him wanted to cry as he thought about all of the things that had brought him here, all the bad choices he had made and could do nothing more than blame the man who he had been trying so hard to win over and make love him.
Looking down at the scorched ground, it’s black and grainy texture seemed to glisten in the darkness, Josh thought back to his years of school, where he had walked around on his high horse, knowing he was better than everyone around him. One of the “nerd squad”, as Josh referred to them, a pimple faced train wreck named Pete Shutter, but known to all thanks to Josh as Puss-Faced Pete, was his tutor in a way. The kid had written papers for him for free, slipped him answers for tests and pretty much was the reason, other than the teachers marking him on a grade, for being able to graduate high school at all. The zit faced kid, who wasn’t even half the man that Josh was, would skulk around the halls, trying not to be noticed for fear of getting beat up, teased or locked in a locker. Josh himself had tormented the kid on numerous occasions as he felt he was expected of him. He had put Pete head first into a toilet, thrown water balloons made from used condoms at him and knocked his lunch flying more times than he could recall. He never felt guilty about it, even when asking Pete to write him an essay on the War of 1812 or a book report on Watership Down. Josh believed, as his father had told him, that everyone had a place in life, whether it was school or the real world. Some people were leaders, some followers and others; they would always just be the victim. His dad had told him never to feel bad from the ugly kids in school because they would grow up to be the gas station attendants, the shoe polishers and the maids of the world; things that successful people would never consider being themselves. The world need the ugly and less fortunate people to do all those things so that people like Josh and his father could do the real work and not work about such frivolous
things as laundry and cooking. There was no way for Josh to change the ways of nature, so instead of fighting it, he just went with it and did his job.
“If I could change those things, knowing what I know now, I would.” Josh said and wished that he could cry now. He wished he could just let out all the fear, hate and horror that had built up in him since he had come here. He couldn’t though. Not because he felt it would make him less of a man, though his father had always told him that, told him that only the weak, women and fags cry. His father said that crying showed the world that you had a weakness, a chink in your armor, and once that was shown, the vultures would swoop down and try to consume you through it. Nobody respected weak people, nobody would fear you if they saw you break down and lose your shit so easily. Josh thought back to his dad and his lessons and wished that he had never listened to any of them. In hindsight, our vision is always 20/20.
The real reason that Josh couldn’t cry, no matter how hard he wanted to, was the fact that his eyes had been burnt out of his skull on the day he arrived. He remember laying on the hot sand, naked, and as he sat up and tried to look around, the horrible flame flew towards his face, appearing out of nowhere and he only saw it for a second before it hit him in the face and burned his eyes right out of his head, the flesh of his face sizzling and scorching the meat and muscle off his skull. Josh had screamed, joining in the chorus all around him and he felt the hot flames boil the eyes out of his head, the sound of them popping before they drooled down his bone exposed cheeks like egg whites made him cry out even more. He was still able to see though, not the way a normal human can see, but there something that resembled sight left. His optical nerves, which flickered about in the blackened pits of his eye socket, were able to make things out, though it was mainly darkness that he saw. What he could truly see clearly, was what he held in his hand, the remnants of that which he once was, the rest was a blur of dark shapes and flashes.