Broken Mirrors, Fractured Minds
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Broken Mirrors
Fractured Minds
Edited by Carmilla Voiez
Copyright © 2013 by Vamptasy Publishing and the Respective Individual Artists
The right of each artist to be identified as the owner of their work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
Published by: Vamptasy Publishing
An Imprint of Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For my wonderful father, who always encouraged and respected my love of horror.
I love you, Dad.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Untitled Artwork by Deborah Blount
Broken Mirror by Carmilla Voiez
First Therapy by Nelson Mongiovi
A Communion of Blood by Robert Craven
Hall of Mirrors by Richard D. Findlay
Life and Death Trip by Stefy Janeva
Untitled Artwork by Deborah Blount
Just a Kiss Away by Jef With One F
The Evil that Children Do by Danielle Farman
Terror Bound by Jeremy Garnett
Cracked by Carmilla Voiez
Loud and Dangerous by Tom Killeen
Untitled Artwork by Deborah Blount
Wand Therapy by Fred McGavran
The 22nd Floor by J. T. Lewis
Bloody Freedom by C Stovall
The Monster’s Latest Date by John Grey
Mouse and Katt by John Tucker
Kendal’s Light by Jovan Jones
Untitled Artwork by Deborah Blount
The Changeling by Carmilla Voiez
Heaven’s Calling by Zoe Adams
Padded Cell by Sonja N. York
Rainier Dreams by Marten Hoyle
Guilt by Allison Zachary
Cold Blood by P. C. Ward
Author Biographies
Introduction
In an age where horror has become synonymous with vampires, zombies, serial killers and, even worse, paranormal romance, this collection is designed to take a journey away from supernatural monsters and back to those that lurk within our own minds.
Carmilla Voiez collates and edits stories and poems from a wide variety of contemporary indie authors, poets and artists to produce this sumptuous collection. Broken Mirrors, Fractured Minds is an international collection, and readers will find a mixture of British and American English in order to maintain the integrity of the original pieces. We hope you will enjoy the variety in the spirit in which it has been presented.
Authors’ biographies are listed at the rear of this volume. Please feel free to search out more work by your favourites. This collection could easily become a guide book to future rising stars of the literary world.
The editor, Carmilla Voiez, is a novelist. Her Gothic Horror trilogy, Starblood, is published by Vamptasy Publishing and available from Amazon and other good retailers.
WARNING – Because this is a collection which deals with psychological horror, it touches on subjects which may disturb or trigger difficult emotions in the reader. The stories deal with many subjects including sexual violence, references to sexual abuse of children, miscarriage, body dysmorphia, spousal abuse, self-harm and suicide.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the many wonderful authors and poets who contributed work towards this collection, both those whose works were accepted and are shown and those who were not included in this volume.
Thank you to John Tucker and SJ Davis for their help in editing. It was a mammoth task and one I was happy to share.
Finally, thank you to all supporters of contemporary indie writers. It is an exciting time in the publishing world, a time when there are more choices than ever for both readers and writers. We salute you for your patronage.
“Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”
HANS MARGOLIUS
Broken Mirror
by Carmilla Voiez
Mario was turned away from me. His shoulders rose and fell with every breath. I pushed myself out from under the starched covers and padded across to the bathroom.
The full length mirror, hung opposite the bathroom door, attracted my attention. I paused in front of it, flashing a smile and pinching my nipples playfully. I glanced back at my lover. He didn’t turn. He didn’t seem to notice I had left the bed.
I stretched my long, sinewy legs and twirled gracefully. I admired my ass, still high, and the pale skin of my lower back and upper thighs. I still had it. I could still knock young men out.
After using the bathroom I returned to bed. I pressed my chest against Mario’s back. He released a stifled sigh. I stroked his dark hair, still damp with sweat, but he didn’t respond. He must be deep in some dream. I hoped he was dreaming of me.
My own dreams, when I returned to them, involved running. I couldn’t tell whether I was chasing someone or being chased. It felt exhilarating though, the freedom of stretching my limbs and racing through long grass. The wind caught my hair. It caressed the strands like a gentle lover.
Sunlight, ripping through a gap in the curtains, woke me. Mario lay motionless. His body still turned from mine. I touched his shoulder. He felt cold, so I pulled the covers up before leaving the bed. I opened the window and smoked a cigarette. He didn’t stir even when the sunlight hit his face with its full force. I smiled. I must have exhausted the poor bastard.
I tossed my cigarette butt onto a flat roof, closed the window and drew the curtains. The room darkened. I paced around for a while, wondering whether I should wake Mario, deciding instead to take a shower. I wanted my body to smell fresh, ready for our next embrace.
Again the mirror attracted my attention. Shadows lurked beneath my eyes. I tried to rub them away, but their purple and black stained my skin. I dragged fingers through my hair. It used to be longer, but I thought this short cut suited me. It framed my face and brought out the bright blue of my eyes.
I turned away and opened the bathroom door. Mirrors followed me here as well. I noticed grey amongst my brown tresses and sighed. I considered tugging them out, but worried that would only make more appear. I would visit a hairdresser and get them to dye it. I was far too young to look old.
The shower was hot and powerful. It massaged my shoulders and back and ran between my thighs. I thought again of Mario curled up on the bed. I stroked my chest and imagined my hands were his. My fingers strayed over my arms and stomach. I wrapped my arms across my chest and pushed my nails into the skin of my back then stroked the curves of my pert ass. I thought to myself how lucky Mario would be when he eventually awoke.
My hand crept between my thighs. As if struck by a lightning bolt my hand jerked away. I turned off the shower and pulled a towel from the heated rail. My skin pinked as I rubbed it dry. I glanced at the bathroom mirror and looked away.
The bathroom door swung into the room as I turned and pulled the handle. I closed my eyes at first, refusing to see what my fingers had found. Standing there, I slowly opened my eyes. Shadows from my thick lashes a
nd the darkness of the room obscured my vision. I opened my eyes wider and looked below my toned stomach. Something pink and raw hung from me. I must be dreaming. It couldn’t be real. I tried to push the stray organ back inside my body. It hurt like hell but I kept pushing and punching. I knew that this should not be hanging there. It should be inside me. Veins pulsed along its length. I didn’t understand at all. It must be an intestine. I searched for a wound, trying to understand how my insides were outside. I could find no break in my flesh.
I shook my head. The thing was still there, hanging from my abdomen, mocking my attempts to heal myself. It looked like a serpent. It twitched like a rattlesnake preparing to strike. What was it? How did it get there?
Panicked, all I could think about was how to remove this alien creature from my body before Mario awoke. I grabbed my bag from the shelf and hunted through it. Pulling out a t-shirt, underpants, my wallet, I spilled its guts just as my own had been spilled in the shower. My fingers found something hard and cold. I drew a large pair of scissors from my bag. I couldn’t remember why I packed them, perhaps to repair clothing or trim my nails? Whatever my reasons for placing them there, I was glad to find them. They could rid me of this monster.
I put my thumb and index finger through the heavy rings and opened the blades. Yes, these would be large enough. My other hand shook as I dared to touch that thing, the intestine or serpent, whatever protruded from my pelvis. It felt warm and soft. I expected it to feel slippery or scaly, but it felt like normal skin, perhaps slightly softer than my hand. I pulled it out in front of me. I placed the scissors so the blades were either side of this piece of flesh then pushed the rings together, making a fist. My scream echoed around the room. I could not believe how much pain I felt. Shaking and tired, I crawled towards the bed. I called to Mario, but he didn’t answer. Blood splattered my thighs and soaked the carpet beneath me. I left my red snail-trail from mirror to bed as a lingering proof of my presence. When I reached the edge of the divan, it took all the strength of my shuddering arms to pull myself up.
I turned Mario towards me. His eyes remained closed. His mouth looked bruised and broken. I tugged at the duvet to uncover his body. The same bruises stained his chest, ribs and stomach. Memories flooded into my mind and I tried to swim away. I was drowning in my own violence.
I had met Mario at a street corner and brought him here. He had fucked me. I remembered that. I enjoyed it. But he called me something? What was it? A John. My mind turned black, then red. I lashed out. I kept punching until his screams had been silenced. He lay there, afterwards, turned away, denying me.
Well, I was no John. I held him in my arms as the world turned black again. The bed was warm and wet. I sank into its womb-like, tomb-like caress.
First Therapy
by Nelson Mongiovi
Don’t talk to me,
mouthing numb
psychobabble—
suggestions that I build
collages—scissor out
my torture from the New
York Times and Hunting
and Fishing magazines.
Don’t talk to me
until you gag
as I have gagged
on my childhood’s end—
where sin began.
Don’t talk to me
until you are a thigh-
high boy, the perfect
size for his pleasure,
the back of your head
gripped by a greasy talon
that clutched and shoved—
your eyes wide open
to the bulge of his heaving
belly on your face.
Don’t talk to me
until you taste his release—
the milky death of me—
the spewing salt
that brings me here—
an old turtle shell— a cold,
brittle cell cloaked
with veneer. I lived long
in this—crawled naked
toward your numb voice:
your poisoned honey voice,
seducing me with words of pretend
peace—another drone for your majestic
soft humming appointment book—
your lovely meter of money—
your perfectly rehearsed and deadly
sting of what you cannot know.
Don’t talk to me!
Me, this potholed cavern
left behind in the grass
when I lumbered off to die;
unless you possess a proof
of my hell—until you produce
his corpse ravaged beneath
a transparent sheet—a tag
on his toe—and his sweet
juice of justice
on your own cheeks.
A Communion of Blood
by Robert Craven
The tall man appeared in his dreams again, but the surrounding details were more vivid this time. His head touched the ceiling as he moved in and out of the shadows around the bedroom. No matter what angle Fr. Malachy Gyre moved his head; he couldn’t make out the man’s features, just an oval void on broad shoulders, which tapered into the darkness.
“I can make it all come true.” The voice was in his mind, calming, soothing. “Just prepare the way…” It reminded the priest of children’s choirs.
“Who are you? Answer me!” he cried out in his mind, staring intently. “I am a man of God.”
The tall man chuckled and in the oval void, rows of teeth appeared, white, jagged and uneven like a shark’s. “A man, yes, of god, no.”
Gyre looked down. On the bed sheets sat a smooth black stone, the size of his palm. It was warm to the touch. A profound unease gripped him while he turned it over in his hands. It was heavier than expected, like a rock found on a beach. It began to glow faintly, like an ember.
“Open it.”
Gyre sought a hinge, a hidden lip. As he did, the rock split along its edge. Inside was an image of Christine, not as she appeared in the children’s ward, but complete and beautiful.
“They abandoned her. Couldn’t handle the shame.”
“I know.”
“She had no one, and you know little girls, they like to flirt.” The dark man’s chuckle ran through Gyre’s nerve ends toward his bowels.
“I can guarantee she’ll be yours forever, intact as the day she was born.”
Tears began to well up as Gyre looked at the dark shadow now sitting on the edge of his bed. “How did you know?”
“I’m as old as The Fall, priest. Prepare for a new parish; prepare the way for me.”
The stone crumbled to ash in Gyre’s hands. “The bishop is the only one who has the power to do that.”
“I’ll arrange everything.”
Gyre awoke in a sweat and checked to see if he had soiled himself. He hadn’t, but the bedclothes were covered in fine ash. His mobile phone rang.
* * *
Willy Deignan stopped, removed his peaked cap and mopped his brow. His eyes squinted at the sun. The July heat clung to him along with the sweat of his exertions. He was thirsty. From the small backpack slung across the handle of the petrol mower, he removed a plastic bottle, unscrewed the cap and gulped down the warm orange soda laced generously with vodka. The headphones from his iPod hissed. The Wolf-Tones tinnily sang of tanks and guns and black-and-tans. Humming along, he reached into the bag and retrieved a packet of John Player Blue and lit one from a cheap, plastic disposable lighter. He looked back at the church grounds; the lines perfectly symmetrical and neat, shimmering in verdant hues of emerald and gold. Not too bad at all, Deignan.
His eyes took in the small church and graveyard; the older stones nearest the nave were tilted and skewed like old back molars. The most recent headstones nearest to him were clean and chamfered, the inscriptions dancing in the heat haze. Christ it’s hot, he thought as he turned back to start the next section of the grounds then he noticed the shadows. Across the grounds and lawns small black spots
flitted and darted until a larger one glided like a sudden cloud, but Willy felt no discernible drop in temperature. He removed the headphones. The beating of a thousand wings made him look up. Ravens, rooks and crows flashed past, with magpies cackling in tow with glee. They moved in a wide line toward an old tree at the far side of the cemetery. It was named the gallows oak because one hundred Spanish sailors were hung from it after the Spanish Armada had broken apart and washed the survivors onto the shore three miles from here. The Lord High Chancellor and his high-bred lady had been waiting for them with the English Crown forces and made sport of their demise; beheading eighty on the beach that afternoon, and setting dogs on three hapless cabin boys aged between eight and ten. This story had been told to him, every time he came to do the mowing, by Fr. Comerford. The man was a veritable encyclopaedia about the parish of St Berach’s in Roscallaig.
The birds swarmed and swooped in spectacular patterns into the upper branches, sending leaves skyward. Willy turned off the petrol motor and stood watching. From the tree burst several birds, tussling with something in their beaks; it fell and one crow broke free and dived, snatching it in mid-air. Once secure, it made good its escape. The upper branches were a cacophony of shrill caws, cries and beating wings. Willy felt a sudden chill. The birds, carrion feeders all, were in a frenzy. He started to walk toward the tree, each step a little more sluggish than the last, his stomach now a frozen pit. He felt his bladder loosen and, managing to drop his pants in time, urinated prodigiously onto the nettles and weeds. Peering up through the branches, Deignan tried to see what the birds were attacking. Vibrations of the assault on the upper reaches made their way down the bark and he felt a splash of fluid on his cheek. Wiping his face, he stared at the thick resinous blood slide between his finger and thumb; he dodged another droplet and watched it bloom on the ground. He felt the sticky flow of fluid along the bark, flowing over his nicotine stained fingers and down his wrist, clinging to his upper arm. It was fresh blood. The rivulets became streams.