by Aaron French
A cigarette sat in her bloodied mouth, there between the broken teeth.
She jeered, rubbed at where her breast once was. “Didn’t you think I was perfect already?”
He wanted to speak. He couldn’t find the words. His mind working overtime but his mouth, that was lost somewhere in last week. Something awkward in his gait, the way he was standing, a void in the pit of his soul, as if his real self was drowning in the bile that took him back to when he was a child. A gawky teenager covered in acne. He was more than furious that this was the way his body was reacting. He didn’t want this. Not now of all times. Not before her. He was aware that he was naked as the day he was born, nothing he could do to hide that. Far too late to be bashful. Particularly after what had transpired between them.
She stared on as his cock hardened, noticed the movement of his chest as he breathed, the finger that went absentmindedly to his nipple and traced ever decreasing circles. Perhaps purposely, perhaps not, she licked the tip of her cigarette and contemplated her own situation as his engorged penis entered the fray. She knew it was wrong – but then again whilst it may indeed be the last time, it was by no means the first! She smiled as she thought back to those lonely nights when Daddy was away working. Preaching. The end is nigh.
Suddenly, though, she became aware of what she was doing and feeling. She coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat it to the floor – where, after a couple of harsh seconds, it grew legs and scuttled off into the shadows. That this happened surprised neither of them. This was the world they now inhabited. He looked around for support from the arachnid army, but they kept their opinions to themselves and stole themselves deep within the caverns of his own mind.
“I didn’t expect to be back so soon,” she uttered. This seemed to influence his poor excuse for an appendage, as, once again, it started on its downward journey. “I expect I have you to thank for that,” she added. “If thanks is the right word.”
He didn’t reply. His heart was doing all the talking – and she was listening. She could hear it racing, pumping the blood, not able to get the oxygen to his brain swiftly enough. There was a putrid taste in his mouth: fear. It was true. He was so scared by what was in front of him that he was about to shit himself.
“Billy.” How he hated being called that, she could see the look on his face. “William. Why do this? Why call me back? I was having the time of my life. Wherever I was.”
“I... I...” he stammered. That was the only explanation she was going to get.
“It was cold,” she added. “So damn cold.” She shivered, making her point.
She looked around again, tried to take in her surroundings. How pitiful this world appeared, so colourless, drab, grey. She was crying. “This seems so dead to me now.” She wiped away a dirty tear. “Once, I could hear oceans. And now...”
“Now?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer right away, just sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.” She paused again, the agony of remembering etched into her expression. “It is so heavenly there. I don’t want to be here, looking at you. So pathetic. A little boy in a man’s body.”
He stared at her for a moment before asking, “Then what do you want?” He thought back to the last time he had really seen her. Before this. She was in the box. They had nailed it shut and buried her six feet under. He must have been mistaken. Obviously.
She stood up, ignored the popping sound that what remained of her muscles made, started (with great difficulty) to walk towards him. “Do you remember one of Daddy’s teachings – ‘Do to others what you’d do to yourself?’ ”
He glanced sideways. Of course he did and more besides. Not that he was going to admit to her, not now, not after all this time. Not after what he had become. Like father like son.
“Don’t suppose it matters.” She reached over, onto the table – lying there was some of the wire he had used on her earlier. She tested its strength, the barb cut into her hands, black blood poured. But if there was pain, it didn’t register.
“This is how it begins,” she murmured as she made herself a noose and placed her head inside. Though she didn’t pull the wire tight; there was plenty of room for the both of them.
“I don’t understand,” was as much as he could get out before she was on him, embracing him. Such strength for a corpse, he thought, as she lay the noose around his neck and slowly, so slowly, began to pull. “Will you take me to be your bride? Isn’t this what you always dreamed of?” She laughed. “You always wanted to be your daddy, didn’t you?”
Unlike his mother, William did notice the pain and he did far more than wince. He began to scream. Not that it did him any good, no good at all.
The more he screamed, the tighter she pulled. Leaning into him, her tongue in his mouth. Now was the time for consummation. Not what they had done before. That was just sex, but this, this was something altogether different. This was Magic. This was Enchantment. This was Faith.
“I am the way,” she whispered, as she ground her hips into him.
How he struggled. Though there was nothing he could do to escape the Cacophony of Misery. A desert so evil he instantly became corrupted. He could taste the very blackness of it on his tongue. He was drowning in the sand as it scratched away at his body and then his soul.
However, as the sorrow and despair overwhelmed him, there came a moment when he wondered if what he was experiencing was indeed the Gloom, the Desolation, the Wretchedness that she waxed lyrical. As insane as it sounded, he realised that there was some truth in what she said, between the lies, the misdirection, the bullshit – she was right about one thing: this was just the start of it. And as the darkness came for him, one wave at a time, he fathomed there were other agonies lying in store for him. Creatures bit at his ankles, at his wrists, his other extremities, demanding to take him to their worlds, their pain. Sores grew on his skin, bursting, exploding, peeling away to reveal the raw flesh underneath. The scorched words burnt into his bones.
Father, why have you forsaken me?
Yet his soul was strong, even if his body was not. Teetering there, on the edge, in the life-death limbo, his cock spurted forth his seed for which he hoped was not the last time. As something darker, something malevolent reared its monstrous head in his groin (fashioned from his own desires – his skin, his bone, his dreams), he prayed that this moment would be over quickly, yet his hands began to caress the thing, marvelling as it grew beyond human proportions, how he yearned for somewhere to insert it. Some cave of delight. Scared though he was of the teeth on the thing, monstrous, razor sharp – jelly where its eyes should have been. He knew to be taken by the thing would be the ultimate pleasure, even if it meant his excommunication from this ordered world. Something was alive inside him and it was remaking him in her image. There was no way he could go back to what he was before.
This though was just a distraction, as mechanical creatures moved to his head, through his nostrils, into his eyes, his ears, each with their own voices, their own screams, their own terrible imaginings of the hereafter. Was he a boy again? Had he regressed – or was it the future that was being played out before him – once a man, twice a child? As the Roads to Immorality opened up before him (no, of him – paths were formed of his flesh, the rivers and streams from his blood, structures from his bones) he realised he had no choice but to travel wherever they led.
There were spiders left in the trail of the rising sun and these spiders had replaced the pupils of William’s eyes. With their movements, he saw that the roads eventually reached the ultimate destination: the centre of a hellish wood, a living, breathing monstrosity – a lair where even Demons feared to tread. An abyss that he was now happy to call home – even for just a moment. Divinity had been reached. He was now ready to call himself Monachos.
Was it a moment that was to be fleeting, or was it a moment to last forever? He looked around him as he began to take the first step. Of Mary, his mother, there was no sign (if indeed she had ever really existed), thou
gh he could still smell her – her fetid aroma floated in the air like the dank cloud it was. But as one step became two, became four, became eight and so on, the stark realisation hit him – his mother was the Hellwood and as his journey continued to her deep dark centre, he prayed that she would be there to guide him home, where he belonged, their union complete once again – he, her beautiful child... a made up character in this, some kind of nasty fairy tale... he wondered if it would ever end... he prayed not... if it wasn’t for hate, if it wasn’t for love, well, he had no hope of survival... but he had Faith, and he would keep on searching until he found the answers he was looking for – the answer to when he would be born again...
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner... created in Your image... blessed be Your name.
About the author: Dean M. Drinkel’s short stories have appeared in such diverse publications as Literal Translations, Estronomicon, Theaker’s Quarterly and Morpheus Tales. His story Y for Yahweh which appeared in the anthology M is For Monster was very well received. He has had several short films screened at the Cannes Film Festival and his plays have been staged in various theatres throughout England. He was runner up for the 2001 Sir Peter Ustinov Screenwriting Award. He is currently editing a Phobias anthology for Dark Continents Publishing due to be released late 2011 and completing a horror novel set in the South of France to be published in 2012. He divides his time between London and Paris.
Brethren of Fire
Zach Black
“Keep up, slowpoke,” Archer yelled, bounding over the broom bushes and rotting branches which littered the mulch of the forest floor.
Dean lumbered in his wake with little grace, stopping every so often to tentatively step over the obstacles his companion had energetically hurdled. He panted with exertion and the hint of a deep rasping wheeze. He tottered to an abrupt halt, the excess weight around his chest and abdomen wobbling like mounds of blancmange.
“Archer, wait up,” he hissed, but his voice died in the stagnant air of the crowded forest. Archer had already disappeared into the dense thickets ahead.
He stood in a small clearing, breathing heavily, as looming oppressive trees appeared to close in on him from all directions, muffling every sound he made. He began to panic.
The excursion was Archer’s idea. Dean had protested vehemently but as always, Archer finally got his way. There was no point in even trying to change the boy’s mind. If Dean had refused to go, Archer would simply have gone solo and would have probably gotten himself into far worse trouble than a severe reprimand, or an obligatory grounding from his parents.
Now he was doomed to spend the remainder of the school holidays searching for a way out of the Mill Chapel forest. That is, if he didn’t get eaten by some wild creature first. Dean shuddered at the thought. There might be anything creeping through the undergrowth: spiders, venomous snakes; hell, even bears, wolves, psychotic killers—the list was endless when left to Dean’s imagination.
Standing in silence, he listened to the sounds of the forest, the chirrups and twitters of various birds and the incessant buzzing of flying insects. A slight ruffling breeze wafted the organic scents of plants and shrubbery; nature’s perfumery filled his nostrils as he breathed deeply in a meagre attempt to calm himself. He jerked with fright when a twig snapped to the left, creating a brittle echo and breaking his daze.
“Archer?” he called.
Nothing.
“Archer! Is that you? Come on, stop messing around.”
Still no answer.
Dean was sure that he saw someone hiding behind a dense thicket, probably Archer playing silly buggers with him. He strode through, pushing the narrow branches and leaves aside; it wasn’t Archer. There, a few yards away, a group of dark figures draped head to foot in hooded robes moved through the underbrush with their hands clasped before them.
Dean considered stopping one of the men and asking for directions, but something made him hesitate. Something in their gait. Some of the group lumbered, staggered and weaved, narrowly missing a collision with the trees, as if inebriated; others jittered fiercely as they walked.
One stooped, bent double as if his spinal column had lost its rigidity. He flopped from side to side, bouncing as he walked with his back bent at an impossible angle. Dean crouched low, burying himself in the bushes.
As the group passed, one tall straggler stopped and looked around, as though he was aware of being watched. Slowly, step by step, the dark figure ambled toward the bush which barely concealed Dean’s bulk. The monk kept his head bowed and his face hidden in the shadow of his hood. Dean pushed his knees into the soft carpet of mud and rotting organic mush beneath him, hoping he would not be spotted.
The monk stopped mere feet from Dean. Slowly he tilted his head, searching the darkening sky between the crisscrossing branches. As he did, his hood slid back.
Dean gasped, immediately slapping both hands over his mouth. The flesh on the monk’s head was blistered and charred; it appeared to be little more than a scorched, blackened skull. His eye sockets were empty black voids, like pools of molten evil, spilling dark essence into the air. The monk-creature wore a rigour mortis grin. Shrunken lips pulled back from its white teeth, which seemed to glow, contrasting with its blackened face.
Dean held his breath for an eternal moment, stunting the urge to exhale, lest he be heard by the horrifying corpselike creature. The stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils and he almost gagged.
Finally the creature lowered its blind gaze and fixed its empty cavities on his freakish brethren slowly dispersing in the distance. Dean, unable to hold his breath much longer, pushed his hands harder over his mouth but it was no use. He exhaled involuntarily and the compressed air escaped between his fingers, creating a high-pitched farting sound.
The creature shot round, sightless eyes searching erratically for the source of the outburst. Dean whimpered, scuttling backwards on all fours like a crab, desperate to escape the terrifying apparition. His whimper became a cry of mounting fear as he scampered to his feet and bolted through the dense bushes. He ran as fast as his bulky body would allow. Protruding branches scored his bare arms and snagged at his clothes. He ventured a fleeting glimpse over his shoulder, and without breaking stride, ran full pelt into the trunk of a tree.
The pain was unbelievable. It reverberated throughout Dean’s entire body as he lay on the ground, writhing and riding waves of agony. His ribs throbbed but his arm hurt the most. He lay still, clutching his wounded limb, waiting for the pain to pass. Then he stumbled to his feet.
Scanning a three hundred and sixty degree circumference, Dean finally deduced that the monk had not followed him. It looked like a corpse—a walking corpse—but that was impossible. He knew it was impossible. That stuff only happened in horror movies.
An icy shudder coursed down his spine as he thought of those empty dark cavities where the corpse’s eyes should have been. He began walking hastily, hoping that sooner or later he’d bump into Archer or find a way out of the woods.
No sooner had he taken his first step when a figure jumped out from behind a tree. “Boooo!” Archer screamed.
Dean let out a high-pitched squeal of fright and recoiled, readying himself to flee. Archer doubled up, clutching his belly, and hooted with laughter.
“Shh!”
“Hah! You scream like a girl!”
“Archer, be quiet, they’ll hear you.”
“Wait till I tell the guys that one. I got you good.”
“Archer, shut up.”
“You should have seen your face, you crapped your pants.”
“Archer, SHUT UP!”
Archer stopped, finally noticing Dean’s fear and the crisscrossing scratches and bruises on his face, legs, and arms.
“What happened to you?” he asked, wide-eyed.
“There are these things in the woods, one of them chased me,” Dean blurted; then he hesitated because he didn’t want to look like a rambling maniac. Besid
es, Archer wouldn’t believe him anyway, and he’d already taken all the ridicule he could stand.
“Was it bears, wild dogs, foxes?” Archer asked excitedly.
Dean considered these options for a moment. He had been told numerous times by his parents that the only bears round here were in zoos. They had seen a number of foxes since entering the woods, but they were small and scampered at the slightest sound.
“Dogs,” he said at last in resignation. “Loads of them, glowing red eyes, massive teeth, hackles raised and snarling.” He gesticulated wildly as he spoke, attempting to instil a little fear into Archer.
Archer eyed him and frowned. Dean knew he didn’t believe him, so he changed the subject.
“Do you know the way out of here? It’s getting dark and I wanna go home.”
Archer’s eyes wandered their surroundings. His expression faltered. “Yeah, that way.” He pointed in one direction at random. It was his turn to lie. Each boy knew they had just exchanged a lie for a lie, but since neither had a better plan they both decided to continue through the woods.
***
“What the heck is that?”
Archer gaped at the massive, crumbling edifice before them. Night had fallen in the Chapel forest and a thick, syrupy darkness descended, enshrouding the landscape. The boys found themselves in a clearing, illuminated only by the stark glow of the pale moon high above, giving the contours of the old ruin an eerie glow.
A deep chill had set in, permeating the air. Dean shivered uncontrollably, rubbing the gooseflesh on his bare arms in a feeble attempt to circulate some heat around his trembling body.
“Looks like a church or a chapel, or maybe a monastery or something,” Dean replied. He thought of the monk-freaks he had encountered earlier as he studied the blackened fascia of the looming building, draped in a tangle of thick vines. He hoped they hadn’t stumbled upon their haven.
