Voices of the Damned

by Barbie Wilde

  She heard the sound of the surgical drill starting up. The voice of the Martian Mastermind echoed in Lorraine’s mind, saying: “You really should have listened to your father, Earthling. On our planet, we are taught to respect our elders. Now relax. We are using our technology on you, not his. You will not die. In a few minutes, you will be one with us. You will understand.”

  Then the drill cut through the first layer of the skin on the back of her neck and Lorraine blacked out.

  * * *

  Her father forgave her, of course. He had a bit of a headache for a while, but he’s fine now. And Lorraine understands. She understands everything now.

  Writer’s Block

  “I’m Your Greatest Fan”

  Words ... words used to flow like honey for Bartholomew Atkins. No, that’s not the right expression, is it? Words used to flow like wine ... like water ... like ... oh fuck! The words were now stuck in the basement of his mind, festering like three-week-old mushrooms, fetid and dying and never coming up to the light.

  WRITER’S BLOCK. Just the phrase sent dread into his heart. He read somewhere that it was writer’s block that provoked fellow American Ernest Hemingway to grimly gobble his shotgun and blow the back of his skull off—or was it the fact that Ernie couldn’t imbibe his muse booze any more because of his failing health? Whatever.

  Depression was smothering Bart like a wet, warm blanket and his creativity was at an all-time low. The weather didn’t help. Even the English hated drizzly dreary London in early spring and expats like him loathed it even more. The only thing that made him feel like he was really doing something useful was fiddling around on Facebook and Twitter. At least he was “promoting” his work, at the same time gleefully observing other authors struggling with their writing, along with watching funny cat videos and helping to promote his “friends” stuff, in the feeble hope that they might return the favor.

  Oh, yes, Bart was sunk. A loser. A few novels and short stories to his name, but if he didn’t pull something out of the hat soon, the publisher was going to demand the return of his advance and Bart would have to go back to his day job of teaching. No, no, no! He’d rather go Hemingway’s route than that fucking horror. Tutoring the brats of middle class assholes “Creative Writing.” More like trying to hammer something, anything, into their concrete brainpans while the little cretins masturbated with their smartphones under their desks during his lectures. Daddy probably already had a job lined up for them after graduation, the little turds.

  The only bright spot on the calendar was the Frighteners Horror Writers and Filmmakers Festival in Brighton. It wasn’t just an excuse for scribblers and directors to have a piss-up, fans came along too and he might even make some dosh selling his books and some DVDs of the one lonely movie adaptation that he’d scripted.

  He liked Brighton and loved being by the sea with its semblance of fresh air. London had become a hellhole, stinking of vomit, urine and fast food, accompanied by a cacophony of foreign tongues that bewildered him. How many times had he said to himself: “What fucking language is THAT?” after passing by yet another bottle blonde bint in a leather miniskirt yakking away on her iPhone.

  So, after prying himself out of his sweat-stained sheets late one Friday morning on the 30th of April, he had a shower and then started to pack. A text from Ole, a successful Norwegian writer with a passing resemblance to Ralph Fiennes, assured him that he’d be at the bar at the Stourridge Hotel bang on 5 p.m., when the festivities would begin.

  He hopefully packed his suitcase with plenty of his books and DVDs. For a few days anyway, he’d feel like a bit of a star, instead of the has-been that he really was. And at least it would get him out of his tiny, grimy, one bedroom flat in Kilburn.

  Traversing the grotesquery that was London Transport’s Tube down to Victoria Station, packed uncomfortably next to drooling, smelly strangers who were just one step away from looking like extras from The Walking Dead, Bart made it just in time for his Brighton train. The one luxury that he allowed himself was to travel First Class, in spite of the blatantly unfair prices—compared to the continent that is.

  After a pleasant journey, he arrived in a wind-swept but sunny Brighton and the “Cirrhosis-by-the-Sea” that by any other name would be called Frighteners.

  Bart registered, threw his suitcase in his room and in a flash was propping up the bar next to Ole. Being Norwegian, Ole had already downed a couple of vodka martinis in celebration of being away from the worthy dreariness of his native country, whose oil millions hadn’t exactly made it the most interesting of places in the world, just the most smug.

  Bart’s poison was red wine, normally by the bucket-load, but the prices at the hotel bar were horrendous, so he contented himself with sipping a normal sized glass—already contemplating an emergency run to the nearest Tesco’s where he could buy a few bottles of their simply labeled “Spanish Red Wine” to smuggle up to his room. Ole noticed his parsimony and gallantly bought him a couple of bottles of Rioja to keep him happy.

  A few hours later, after sharing a curry at a nearby Indian Restaurant that was surprisingly good, Ole retired for the night and Bart hit the bar again. He noticed that there were a few more women hanging out and he drunkenly hoped that he might get lucky tonight. Conventions were the only time that he thought he might score with the opposite sex, especially if they were fans and liked his work.

  However, he soon realized that he was too tired and disheartened to make the running. Anyway, most of the women looked like writers—possessing a glinty hard look that some female authors attain after too many solitary years locked up in their own heads with their ideas.

  He was slurping down the last of his wine when a silky voice breathed into his ear: “Want another?” He nearly snorted the wine back out through his nose, but managed to recover his composure in time. He turned around to find a goddess sitting next to him.

  Slim figured and dressed from head to toe in black (natch), black glossy hair, a discrete tattoo of a snake eating its own tail on her finely muscled bare arm, spectacular décolletage, emerald eyes and fine features that made her look like a young Goth-styled Natalie Wood. Or maybe Winona Ryder from Beetlejuice, but a bit older. Anyway, she was hot. An intoxicating perfume gently emanated from her, not overpowering, but intriguing.

  Bart tried to act cool, a hopeless task: “Sure. That’s very kind of you.” The goddess smiled and signaled to the bartender, who amazingly responded to her request at once. Most bartenders at Conventions had perfected the “I see you, but I haven’t seen you” face and ignored you until you were veritably pounding on the bar, weeping for wine.

  The goddess turned around and faced him and, he couldn’t help himself, he almost gasped for air. What a stunner! What the hell was she doing here? She must be an actress, maybe even a movie star. She smiled at him, flashing shiny, pearly teeth. She opened her (perfect, cupid’s bow—sorry for the cliché—ruby-red) lips and said, “You’re Bartholomew Atkins, aren’t you? I’ve read your books. You have a delightfully perverse imagination.”

  Bart replied, a bit lamely: “Yes, I am. And thank you for your kind words.” Thrilled that he might be in the process of picking up a fan—one that was almost too gorgeous to be any fan of his, Bart cleared his throat and said with excessive formality: “What’s your name, if I might enquire?”

  The goddess opened her mouth again and before she could speak, Bart had an instant fantasy of her taking his cock between those lips and sucking it with enthusiasm, a wickedly naughty gleam in her eyes. The imagery gave him an instant woody and he prayed to all the Gods of the Unholy that she wouldn’t notice the bulge in his jeans.

  “My name is Lora Wynchester. That’s Lora spelled L-O-R-A. And Wynchester spelled W-Y-N, etc.”

  “That’s a very unusual spelling for Laura, isn’t it?”

  “In Spanish, it’s a name in its own right, meaning flo
wer. And the name Laura with L-A-U is derived from the Latin laurus, or Laurel, an evergreen shrub or tree whose leaves were woven into wreaths by the ancient Greeks to crown victors in various contests. It symbolizes honor and victory.”

  “Wow ... that’s pretty cool,” Bart replied, cursing his lack of erudition.

  “Do you know the antecedents of your own name? Bartholomew is from the Middle English Bartelmeus, a cognate of the Late Latin Bartholomaeus, which is from the Greek Bartholomaios (son of Talmai). Talmai is an Aramaic name meaning ‘hill, mound, furrows.’ The name is borne in the Bible by one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ.”

  “Gosh.” Bart was concentrating with all of his might to try and sound literary, but was only succeeding in doing a brilliant impression of a tongue-tied teen. The trouble was, this earnest beauty was obviously at the top of her game, while he was at the bottom of his.

  Lora looked intently at him. “Would you like to go to bed with me?” she asked.

  The wine nearly came out of his nose again. Wow, what a snazzy, cosmopolitan guy he was. “Ummm ... sure!” Bart said.

  Lora smiled and stood up, gently taking his wine glass out of his hand and putting it on the bar. She then led him to the elevator. Bart was in a daze. It was as if she was bewitching him.

  They went to her room. As soon the door closed behind them, Lora turned to him and in one smooth movement, whipped off her dress. Bart’s cock instantly went hard again at the sight of her perfect body, clad in just bra, knickers, suspender belt, black stockings and black patent stiletto heels. She smiled hungrily and started to undress him, with Bart clumsily helping her the best he could.

  Lora pushed him onto the bed and mounted him, leaning over and thrusting her tongue deep inside his mouth. Bart was a bit overwhelmed with her aggressiveness. It was like being serviced by a dominatrix—not that he minded.

  Lora guided his cock into her vagina and began writhing rhythmically on top of him. She placed her hands around his throat and gently squeezed, heightening his pleasure. Bart felt the strangest sensations coming from his cock, as if Lora’s pussy was almost vibrating around it. He was desperate to come, but wanted to show this goddess that he could make her achieve orgasm first.

  Lora leaned over him and whispered in his ear: “I want you to write my story.” This was the last thing that Bart wanted to hear, no matter how divine she was. He nearly lost concentration, but her tongue in his ear helped no end.

  He gasped, “I’d love to write your story, but can we talk about it later?”

  Lora stopped dead and sat up, eyes flashing: “No. Now!”

  “Okay, okay!” Bart replied, wondering how the hell he’d manage to snare the one loopy female at the convention.

  Lora smiled and started to bump and grind her pelvis again. “I’m a witch and I’m 510 years old. I think there’s a story in that, don’t you?”

  “Sure, baby. You’re looking pretty good for your age.”

  Out of the blue, Lora slapped Bart in the face. It was like a cold shower, but she didn’t care. She said, “This is no joke. This is serious. It’s time that someone knew my story and you have to write it.”

  Bart suddenly remembered Ole telling him once: “Never go to bed with fans. You never know if you’re going to get a serious nut job. You know the type: ‘I’m-your-biggest-fan-James-Caan-in-Misery kind of nightmare.” He wished the hunky Norwegian was here now, to help him get this freaking loony tunes off him, but that was out of the question. He’d have to deal with this himself.

  Lora was riding him ferociously now, her hands back around his throat. Bart groaned and decided to just go for it. She didn’t look like she was anywhere near coming and he wanted to get the hell out of her room. He was so close that it was almost killing him.

  Lora hit him in the face again: “Don’t you dare come now. You have to listen to my story first.”

  THAT WAS IT. He had to get out of there. Bart grabbed Lora by the throat and tried to wrestle her down to the bed, but she’d wrapped her thighs firmly around his waist and kept her position on top of him. She grinned as he tried to struggle and squeezed her legs tighter—making it almost impossible for him to breathe in, not a comfortable sensation.

  Bart threw caution to the winds and tried to throttle her in earnest, but Lora just looked more insane as her eyes popped out slightly and her tongue stuck out of her grinning mouth. She forced herself forward down to him and pushed her tongue into his mouth again. It didn’t seem to bother her that he was strangling her, but it did bother him a lot that he couldn’t breathe.

  Bart was close to blacking out. His hands fell away from her throat and his listless arms dropped to the bed on either side of him. Lora eased her thighs apart and he gasped for air. He felt numb and angry at the same time.

  He closed his eyes for a minute and opened them to see her busily tying his wrists to the bedstead with red silk scarves. The opening scene from Basic Instinct popped into his head. He didn’t want to end up like poor old Johnny Boz: shish kebabed with an ice pick by some manic dame and the cops making jokes about his dead naked body the next day: “He got off before he got offed.”

  Lora went back to bouncing on top of him, even though his cock had retreated out of exhaustion, drunkenness and fear. It didn’t seem to bother her. She still looked extraordinary and he felt cheated that he hadn’t grabbed those glorious breasts while he had the chance. Oh, well, he was probably going to become a crime statistic, so he might as well enjoy himself.

  “Okay, tell me your goddamned story,” he managed to gasp.

  “Goddamned is right,” Lora laughed. “If you went to the Essex Online Archives and searched for my name, you would find that at the assizes held at Chelmsford on the 26th of July 1566, my indictment read: ‘Lora Wynchester of Hatfield Peverel, wife of ‘Jeromie’ (occupation not given) there, being a common witch, by the use of diabolical sorcery bewitched and killed a cow worth 20s., six sheep worth 20d. each, and four pigs worth 20d. each, belonging to William Higham. Pleads not guilty.’

  “And I was found not guilty. Do you know why?”

  “How the hell should I know why? I don’t know you. I’ve never heard of you ...” Bart replied.

  Lora looked deeply into his eyes: “But you were oh so willing to have sex with me—a total stranger—weren’t you? I could spot you a mile away. You NEED me. You need my help. You’re a mess. Your creative muse has left you and you need a jolt from the dark side to help you write again. And I can give that to you.”

  In spite of himself, Bart could feel his perverse cock hardening again. After all, Lora was saying some pretty sexy stuff.

  “Please, could we just talk about this afterwards. I really need to have an orgasm or I just might have a heart attack.”

  Lora threw her head back and laughed. “You really are pathetic, you know that? If I didn’t love your books so much, I would have cut out your heart and eaten it a half an hour ago.

  “Try to hold on just a few more minutes and understand what we are doing here. I really am a witch. The reason that I wasn’t found guilty is because I put the judge under a spell and he freed me. I moved to a different part of the country, changed my name and went back to being a sweet little housewife to whatever man cared to marry me. My marriages didn’t last long, but they were enough for me to amass considerable wealth so I could continue with my studies in the black arts.

  “Satan is my master,” Lora said, “and he taught me so many tricks: how to have everlasting beauty, how to bewitch men and women to do my biding, how to move through society without arousing too much suspicion. So, all these years later, in supreme culmination of my studies, I find myself in a third class hotel bedroom screwing a fourth rate author with writer’s block. Interesting, don’t you think?”

  Bart grunted. He was close again. Watching those glorious boobs bouncing up and down, tied up a
nd helpless, he just didn’t care anymore.

  Lora smacked him across the face again. “Stop doing that!” he shouted and she hit him again.

  “You don’t understand, Bart, you must wait. If we can keep doing this for an hour, then the ritual will be complete. If you come now, then the spell will be broken and you will never write another word.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “Exactly. Let me tell you this story, the story of when I first became a witch,” said Lora. “It was back in 1565. I was out mushroom picking. It was an early spring evening. I didn’t know that it was Beltane, the 30th of April, the night when witches and demons fly free and come together in their covens to worship the Horned One. I got lost in the forest and I thought that I’d never get home again. It became later and darker—the thorns of the bushes were tearing at my clothes and I nearly gave up in despair. Then I began to hear the sounds of a lot of people chanting rhythmically in the distance. I wasn’t afraid, just overjoyed to hear humans, instead of just owls and crows cawing in the night.

  “I followed these sounds, slowly and cautiously. I spotted firelight flickering through the woods. I walked towards the light and found myself behind a tree on the edge of a clearing where a great many people—naked and shining with pungent oils—were dancing around an enormous bonfire. I was struck dumb and terrified. Remember, this was England in 1565 and no one went around naked. Hippies were centuries in the future and most men and women hadn’t even seen their husbands and wives without clothes. It just wasn’t done.

  “Near the bonfire, I noticed that a platform had been set up like a church altar. Only instead of candles and the Bible, there was a naked woman lying on the altar. A man walked over to her and the singing became louder and more frenzied. The man was wearing a half mask of a horned goat.