Easter Eggs and Bunny Boilers: A Horror Anthology

by Matt Shaw

  She let the cheerful townsfolk merry-go-round her to the side of the church, where the crumbled, mossy gray stones of an old graveyard became visible on a green hill, the flat gray sea beyond it. Madison looked up at the steeple and bell tower, meeting the googly eyes of a gargoyle made to look like a monkey sticking out its tongue. Ahead of Colin and the dark-haired seductress, the pinwheel spun in the girl's limp pale hand as the wind took it, the girl herself hidden behind trudging legs.

  Reverend Jack the Rabbit sprung from a doorway, throwing up his hands, and several people screamed, including the dark-haired woman, who smiled embarrassedly over her shoulder at Colin. They all laughed when the reverend raised the mask, and he smiled down on Madison as she passed.

  "I hope we don't ruddy go 'round for very much longer," the old veteran said to Madison as they marched around the back of the church.

  Madison smiled politely. She considered asking him about the medal Colin had pointed out earlier, but a woman's voice called out, "Now, round and round anticlockwise!" It took a bit of fumbling, laughter and apologies for people to get themselves turned around and traveling in the other direction. They passed the doorway where the reverend had jumped out and scared them, and for a moment, she felt Colin's hand slip from hers before snatching it again.

  "Do you have the time?" the old man asked over his shoulder.

  Madison twisted the hand he held to look at her watch. "It's quarter to two."

  "Quarter of two, already? Cor, I'll need my kip in an hour!"

  Madison didn't know what a "kip" was, but she smiled in sympathy. Colin's cold fingers grasped hers tighter, and she turned to smile back at him, startling when she saw that a freckled young man with thick, dark eyebrows held her hand instead of Colin. "Where's my boyfriend?" The young man scowled at her. She called out Colin's name, prying her hand loose from the young man's, who held tight. "Have you seen my… my boyfriend?"

  The young man continued forward, shoving her brusquely out of the way. Men and women gawked at her, suddenly not so friendly. The fields were empty. Gray clouds scudded across the sky. "Colin!" she cried, hurrying along in the other direction, disoriented by the blur of townsfolk trudging forward. "COLIN!"

  The little girl's pinwheel stood alone in the grass, spinning in the wind. A simian-like gargoyle stood on its perch displaying its genitals, mocking her.

  Madison stopped running when she reached the doorway, a part of her already certain Colin had slipped off with the dark-haired woman into some dark corner of the church. Everyone was out here, mindlessly circling. Inside, they would have privacy. She had to get in. The queue kept moving forward, blank stares meeting her frightened eyes, no one kind enough to break the circle and let her through.

  "Excuse me!" The townsfolk gave her bewildered looks. "Get out of my way!" she shouted, ducking to squeeze in under the arms of an elderly couple, pulling their hands apart and temporarily breaking the circle. She stood in the alcove where the reverend had hidden, hugging the door in bewildered terror as the glowering eyes of the crowd still circled.

  Nervous about turning her back on them, Madison kept an eye on the clipping circle and tried the doors. She spilled into a small dark vestibule as they opened. She closed them behind her, cold eyes peering in at her as the doors came together.

  "Colin!" Her own voice echoed in reply. Madison pressed her palms against her eyes, adjusting them to the darkness. The small, round chamber contained a door and a winding set of stone stairs. She tried the door, found it locked. Upstairs then, or back outside with the insane people and their poor, oblivious little children.

  Madison called out his name once more on the stairs. The damp walls were cold to the touch, but the height made her nervous. She felt her way up to the top, where another door muffled voices in whatever room lay beyond. She pressed her ear against it, not ready to get caught by surprise, worried she might die if she saw Colin with another woman. Difficult to identify the sounds beyond the door: moaning or talking or some kind of rhythmic chanting.

  Only one way to find out, she thought, and twisted the knob.

  She saw Reverend Jack Rabbit first, standing at the far end of the bell tower, reading from a book he held out in one long-fingered hand. Candles burned and smoldered from crevasses in the walls. Below the old brass bell, Colin lay shirtless on a stone slab. The dark-haired woman lifted his head by his beautiful silver hair and before Madison could raise her voice in alarm, she dragged a curved blade across his throat.

  The blood came in gouts, splashing the dark-haired woman's coat and showering Colin's chest as his tongue wriggled in strangled chokes, his warm brown eyes locked on Madison. She stumbled back, reaching out to grab hold of the arch, only vaguely aware of the steep drop behind her. Cold hands snatched her from behind and forced her roughly into the room.

  The reverend pulled up his mask with a grin. "Ah… you've arrived just in time, my dear child, to bear witness to the conclusion of the ritual."

  Madison struggled against the hands. "Let me go! What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

  "Wrong?" He closed the book. "Funny you should ask. You see, this town is quite old, and so are we. Several of us are older than this church, aren't we, Carwen?"

  Carwen, the dark-haired woman, winked and smiled, allowing Colin's head to strike the stone while his gurgling abruptly ceased. As the reverend crossed to Madison, Carwen unbuttoned her long red coat, revealing her pale, freckled body, small breasts with puffy, perky nipples, a triangle of dark hair in the crease below her jutting hipbones.

  "What's she doing?" Madison wanted to know.

  "Never mind her. Listen to me, my dear. If we're to prosper, this town needs children. You could live with us, the two of you."

  Behind him, Carwen unzipped Colin's jeans and jerked them and his white briefs down to his knees. Colin's penis, slightly crooked in its thatch of salt-and-pepper pubic hair, sagged over his tightened balls while his lifeblood trickled down the slab to the cold stone floor, and his dead eyes stared vacantly at the interior of the bell above his head.

  "You ki— you killed him…" Madison wept, as the reality of it sunk in. "You killed my Colin!"

  "Ah yes, but the power of resurrection!" Reverend Jack said. "St. Francis was right… it is possible to know the power of resurrection! To become like Him in death. He will rise again, my dear. We have all risen again."

  "This is insane!" She struggled against the cold hands, hot tears streaming down her face. "You're insane!"

  The reverend unbuttoned and removed his collar, revealing a jagged pink scar across his throat. "Do not doubt me, Thomas," he said to her calmly. He nodded to whomever still held her tight. "Show her."

  The hands let her go, and she twisted round, face to face with the young man with thick eyebrows. He pulled up his shirt, and she turned away, not wanting to see.

  "Look at him, dear."

  She didn't want to look, but the reverend wore the rabbit mask again, and Carwen had straddled Colin's body, crouching over his hips and thrusting herself back and forth on his limp cock, now glistening with her juices. She'd always thought she would die if she saw Colin with another woman, but here she was still alive and Colin dead. Reluctantly, Madison turned. The young man smiled at her, fingering a large open wound like a fish gill under his ribs.

  "The same wound Pontius Pilate gave to Jesus," Reverend Jack said. "Do you still doubt?"

  Madison shuddered. "What is this…?" she managed to groan.

  "We need more children," the reverend said. "Only the dead can impregnate the dead."

  "But… but he's…" She turned to her lover, tears filling her eyes, causing her vision to blur. She blinked them away, startling as Colin's prick began to stiffen, rising like a snake from the bushes. Carwen grasped it, and slipped it into her dark, wet tomb.

  "He is risen," the reverend smiled, and Madison fainted dead away.

  Bio

  Duncan Ralston was born in Toronto, and spent his teens in a small town. As
a "grown-up," Duncan lives with his girlfriend and their dog in Toronto, where he writes about the things that frighten and disturb him. In addition to twisted short stories found in Gristle & Bone, The Animal, and the charity anthology The Black Room Manuscripts, his debut novel Salvage is available now.

  You can connect with him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/duncanralstonfiction) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/userbits), and at his website The Fold, www.duncanralston.com.

  The Chickens and the Three Gods

  By Kit Power

  The four chickens our tale concerns were adopted young, within a couple of weeks of coming of age – measured by chickens, naturally enough, from the time they start laying eggs. They were taken from their siblings – two brown, two white – and placed in a small domestic garden. The home they were given was spacious, with a nesting box and feeding area. For three days they were kept in there, fussing and fidgeting and engaging in displays of dominance. Sorting out the pecking order.

  In this period, they met their first God.

  The first God was a Hen-Human. She brought them food, water, changed the bedding straw, took the eggs, and gave them foraging seed in the afternoon. They named her C’ra, which is chicken for ‘Mother’. They loved her (as much as chickens can love, which sad to say is not a great deal) and revered her, and attempted to reward her by laying regularly.

  C’ra often set them loose in the garden of an afternoon. There they ate the grass, dug for worms and grubs, and shat on the patio.

  Here they met for the first time their second God.

  He was a Cock-Human. He also gave them foraging seed, and sometimes he would crumb bread and throw it for them. He scraped out and cleaned their home every two weeks, removing all the accumulated shit and matted straw, and replacing it with clean. Though they saw him less frequently, his kindness meant they revered him too, and called him R’ak, which is chicken for ‘Father’. In deference to him, they tried their best to shit in a particular section of the dwelling, to make his work easier (unfortunately, chickens are largely incontinent, and this effort was therefore not hugely successful).

  Three weeks after their arrival, the four chickens were loose in the garden, enjoying a late summer afternoon bug hunt. C’ra and R’ak were sat in chairs, talking in the gabbling human noise, holding their strange featherless wings together, and drinking from brown bottles something that smelt to the chickens like rancid water. After an exchange, R’ak got up and walked into the Human House.

  He returned with a miniature human on his wing.

  The miniature human smelled like a Cock-Human to the chickens, but it was so small they couldn’t be sure. It only just came up to R’ak’s thigh, and was pink-fleshed save for shoes and comically large white pants. The mini-human made gurgling, oddly pitched noises that made the chickens' heads hurt, but R’ak and C’ra smiled and cooed at every sound, apparently immune to the pain.

  Whilst the chickens marvelled at this, R’ak let the mini-human go, pointing in the general direction of the garden.

  What followed was pandemonium.

  The mini-human uttered a shriek that pierced the chicken skulls like a drill, and then charged. Its gait was lumbering and ungainly, but its purpose was unmistakable. The chickens turned as one to the source of the noise, and beheld what dwelt in its eyes.

  What they saw filled them with dread. They knew one of their own.

  They scattered at its approach, understanding instinctively that the herd is a bigger target. This elicited another awful shriek from the creature, and it put on an alarming burst of speed. The pink mini-human pursued one, then another, changing course seemingly at random. The chickens clucked and squawked their terror to R’ak and C’ra, but their lamentations fell on deaf ears - the two Gods simply observed, smiling.

  Quickly, the chickens realised that the creature would pursue whoever it was closest to, and so began a quite horrible game of Tag, where each hunted animal would run close enough to another to draw the staggering monster's attention, until all the chickens were ragged and terrified.

  Finally, one of them, more through luck than judgement, fled back into their new home. There was a moment of pure existential terror as the creature began pursuit, but C’ra suddenly intervened, plucking up the awful noise-producing thing, with a tone that implied admonishment.

  The other chickens, relieved at the notion that they had sanctuary, retreated in short order to their home, and cowered until the creature was removed from the garden.

  They had met their third God. They named it B’rok, which is chicken for ‘Chaos’.

  B’rok became a constant source of terror over the following weeks. It would kick the side of their home, and bang on the wire roof of their run. It would sometimes feed them bread, but it would break it too big, causing the chickens to fight, and often it would only wave the bread at them before simply consuming it, producing its hateful sound the whole time.

  The afternoon garden forages became fraught also – the chickens simply could not relax, always on edge, awaiting the arrival of the pink bundle of miniature malevolence, and the inevitable chase that would ensue. The chickens grew increasingly agitated, and despite their continued and sustained prayers, their Gods offered neither relief nor succour.

  The final straw came during one such chase session. B’rok had become more and more agile, faster and harder to avoid. A couple of times it had managed to grab at the tails of the slower brown hens, and the shrieks from B’rok that followed such moments were excruciating.

  On this occasion, B’rok had managed to corner one of the white hens – the head hen, as it happened. R’ak and C’ra were indifferent, sitting and making noises. The head hen was frozen in panic. B’rok laid both hands on her wings and squeezed, gurgling its demonic noise directly into the hen’s face, vibrating her thin skull and utterly enraging her tiny chicken brain.

  She was the head hen, and she’d got there the way head hens always do. The paralysis broke, all at once, and she did what came naturally.

  She pecked.

  Her beak pierced the fleshy lump in the centre of B’rok’s face. She tasted hot flesh and blood. B’rok jumped back, stumbled and fell, then threw it’s head back and bellowed.

  The head hen thought the sound was wonderful. Like music.

  So fascinated was she by the beautiful noise (and also by the feel of fresh blood and meat in her belly), she was scarcely aware of the two other Gods running over to investigate.

  C’ra swept the suddenly-musical thing up into her arms, breaking the head hen's spell, and, too late, she became aware of R’ak, swinging his foot towards her.

  The blow lifted her off her feet. She collided with the wooden fence and landed badly, winded. Even in her shock she saw R’ak closing in again, making a noise she’d never heard before, deep and loud. She understood he had turned Predator, and meant to kill her. Instinct took over. She fled into her home.

  She remained in there for several minutes, until the fear faded. She ventured out of the hutch and into the enclosed run, but all the Gods had gone, and the other chickens were back inside with her.

  The chickens went about their business, and then the Gods returned. C’ra was cradling B’rok, who was still making that sweet sound. The injury to his face was covered, but the head hen could still smell the blood.

  R’ak opened the cage, and the chickens shrank back, fearing another attack. Instead, he grabbed their water and removed it from the cage. He pointed at B’rok, making that same low, loud noise, then at the head hen, then at their water. Then, with slow deliberation, he poured it all out over the grass, before throwing the empty container back in the hutch. He then went to the Food Place, removed The Lid, and took out a cup of foraging seed – their afternoon food. He pointed again at B’rok, at the injury, then the head hen, then he scattered the seeds on the ground outside the cage.

  The cup and lid were replaced, and the Gods left.

  The chickens were distraught – it was warm, they had been
chased, they were thirsty – but the Gods were indifferent to their lamentations. They became hungry too, and could see the seeds on the ground, but their beaks were not long enough to reach them. Instead, they had to watch as local birds, drawn by the commotion, feasted on their seeds before flying off, unafraid. Their territory had been violated.

  The chickens became angry.

  That night, after a full afternoon and evening of no food and no water, they held conference in the sleeping area. Chickens have no words, of course, but through clucks, movement and scratching, they manage rudimentary communication. They expressed dismay, despair, hunger, fear, anger. Their Gods had forsaken them. They had given the chickens over to B’rok, and punished them when their leader stood up to it.

  B’rok had turned the other Gods against them.

  The head hen waited for a moment, then scratched once with her left foot, decisively. The others fell silent at once.

  Our Gods have forsaken us. B’rok is to blame. B’rok rules them.

  B’rok is our enemy. B’rok makes the Bad Noise that pains us so. B’rok chases, hurts. B’rok grows bigger, stronger, faster.

  The head hen let this sink in, feeling the fear and rage rising in her sisters. Letting it build. Then:

  B’rok tastes of prey.

  The others burst into excited song, happy, anxious.