The Cannibal Within

by Mirabello, Mark

  My aim was true—the trajectory was immaculate—and I impaled the beast on one of the stakes that protruded up from the flames. With supreme justice, the stake perforated his body through the anus.

  Suspended in midair like a butchered animal or a skewered wild pig, the monster died slowly and beautifully.

  As I watched his final moments, I compulsively touched myself. I reached down—where it is hard and pink and soft and white—and it was wet with female secretions.

  The weight of the monster’s corpse, meanwhile, caused it to slide slowly down the stake. Eventually a sharpened metallic tip—glistening with blood and feces—emerged gloriously from his face.

  Then—even as I watched—my victim slowly descended into the liquid inferno at the bottom of the ditch.

  Dissolving like soft wax—producing a smoky eruption—the body disappeared into a lake of fire.

  Fire purifies everything, I thought.

  As the red smoke, perfumed with the stench of cremated flesh, drifted up and encircled me, I felt strangely renewed. My youth and beauty were gone, but I had tasted the intoxicating sweetness of vengeance.

  Killing the beast, I thought, has restored my virginity and my dignity.

  My Flight From The Underworld Of The Monsters

  Greased with grime—slippery with blood and sperm—I started my journey for freedom.

  I could not move quickly—my right foot, infested with parasites, had long ago rotted before my eyes—but I could move deliberately.

  I knew my escape would not be easy—hunted like an animal, I had to flee down nightmare corridors—but I was resolved not to fail.

  I had no idea where I was—like the hapless victims in Plato’s allegory of the cave, I had no certain knowledge of the reality beyond my immediate surroundings—and the mystery was terrifying.

  Was I a prisoner on an alien world? Was I trapped at the Earth’s core? Was I buried alive in an unfathomed void of time and space? I did not know, but I did not give up hope.

  Somehow, I thought, my courage will take me home.

  Crawling In A Tunnel

  I found a makeshift weapon—it was the edged device dropped by the beast—and I entered a strange glass-lined tunnel adjacent to the ditch.

  I felt like a commando—a guerilla fighter—for I was at war, I was alone, and I was behind enemy lines.

  Feeling my way through the darkness, I could sense that the tunnel, which was dark, wet, and cut in a spiral, had a gradual upward slope. The further I advanced, the narrower it became.

  Crawling on my hands and knees, I moved as quickly as possible. I tried to concentrate, but random information— thoughts, images, and sounds—all chaotic and horrifying— perforated my mind and filled my head.

  When these intrusions are experienced by surface humans, we call it madness. But it is not madness—it is not a schizophrenic episode—it is real. The voices in our heads— the violations of the conscious and unconscious—these are the sounds of the monsters communicating.

  ‘The invaders will not master me,’ I muttered. ‘To crimes against my mind, I will never submit.’

  Horrors In The Suffocating Gloom

  After crawling several thousand feet, I felt a wooden door in front of me. I hesitated—I could feel the raw fear at the back of my brain—and I curled up like a fetus.

  No, I thought. Purified by years of torment, I have become strong. No longer frail and timorous, I know I can brave the horror.

  Focusing my courage, I slowly pushed against the door. Curiously, the old wood crumbled like parched clay—creating a jagged aperture about three feet across and four feet high.

  My heart palpitating, I plunged into the blackness on the other side. The stench was overwhelming—the air was heavy with a graveyard stink—but I did not retreat.

  ‘I must continue,’ I muttered. ‘I must continue.’ As I crawled on my hands and knees, I could feel the products of fungal growth and decay. Putrefaction—the gradual bacterial dissolution of the body into gases and liquids—had always repulsed me, but I did not give up. Stifling the urge to vomit, I pressed forward.

  I seemed to be inside a small shaft of some sort—a crudely chiseled passage or sub-tunnel—and I kept advancing. I encountered something softer than the soil—it was a decomposing body—a corpse swarming with centipedes— and the horror almost made me scream. Fortunately, however, I was able to muffle my shriek with my hands.

  The corpse blocked my advance—and I attempted to move the mass of corruption. This was difficult—when I pulled on the arms, they detached from the torso—so I decided to climb over the cadaver instead.

  As I crawled over the corpse’s head, I noticed that most of the facial features had disintegrated, but its eyes were strangely intact. Covered with blue film—the hideous blue film that covers the eyes of all decomposing humans—they burned themselves into my soul.

  When I crawled over the body itself, the cadaver suddenly collapsed. White ribs—jutting from blackened flesh—exuded a peculiar odor. To this day, I am haunted by that sickening smell.

  Finally, after some effort, I squeezed by the body and continued my journey. I was encouraged by a glint of light in the tunnel ahead of me.

  Eventually, I could feel a second wooden door, and this one I had to pry open with my steel tool. When I at length succeeded, I could hear and feel the hiss of a cold wind.

  I peered into the darkness beyond the door. To my utter dismay, the latter tunnel led to the dank cellar of a squalid farmhouse. I recognized the house—located in Parkersburg, West Virginia—it belonged to a fat, quarrelsome, and neurotic old woman who kept to herself and avoided all neighbors.

  For years I had been only a few miles from home. The world of the monsters is adjacent to our own!

  What I Found In The Old House

  I expected trouble from the old woman—she was somehow connected to the monsters—but she was no where to be found.

  Indeed, the house was devoid of life. I encountered one diseased cat—my presence in the cellar was a source of terror for him—but I saw nothing else that moved.

  With great caution, I slowly walked up some irregular stairs, through the kitchen, and toward the parlor. The house, although filthy and unkept, and littered with excrements in every corner, did not appear extraordinary. I did not observe secret passageways, hidden staircases, fake walls, concealed shafts, or trap doors.

  I did notice a cork-lined, shuttered bedroom, however. The writer named Marcel Proust lived in such a bedroom—he slept by day and composed by night—so perhaps he was a transhuman.

  The bedroom was dark, but I could discern some detail. In the center of the room—in the midst of peeling wallpaper, falling plaster, an ugly insectivorous plant—I could see occult paraphernalia.

  Especially prominent was an obscene illustration with sinister supernatural significance. It was a picture of Death— depicted as a circumcised Asiatic—and he had a colossal night crawler—a kind of repulsive ‘conqueror worm’— rising lewdly from his groin. Two kneeling women—both aroused and developed—were greedily kissing the hideous worm.

  Directly beneath the illustration, a large triangle was inscribed on an old table. The gutted remains of a neutered puppy— the animal had a plastic bag on its head and a stake through its heart—were positioned inside the triangle.

  These words of Georges Bataille were inscribed along the outer edges of the triangle: ‘SACREDNESS MISUNDERSTOOD IS READILY IDENTIFIED WITH EVIL.’

  Occult Pictures And Moldy Books

  When I reached the parlor—which was furnished like a small library—I found another bizarre illustration on the wall. This one was a crude painting of Adam and Eve—both dressed in animal skins—and they were fleeing from the Garden of Eden.

  Some overripe fruit—rotten and soft—was crushed under Eve’s foot. Identified as the forbidden food of knowledge, the fruit bore teeth marks.

  ‘I think I understand,’ I muttered. ‘Eden was a cage, and Adam and Eve
were pets.’

  To the right of the illustration—adjacent to a bell and black candle—was a cherry wood bookcase. The shelves were crowded with dozens of moldy books, but one work in particular caught my attention. Oddly bound, it was a manuscript entitled ‘The Evil Down Below.’

  I picked up the manuscript and opened it at random. Underneath a quotation from the Gospel of John—the mysterious work in which Jesus never tells a parable or performs an exorcism—were some provocative words:

  ‘Everything known about the master species—their origin, their culture, their subterranean world, and their hellish city—is written here. Handwritten in English on parchment made from human skin, on the ‘night of crystal’ in 1938. Long live Azazel!’

  Azazel—I remember reading in the Book of Enoch—was punished for revealing secrets. Intrigued, I decided to steal the book.

  A Vision Of Beauty And Ugliness

  There was also a basket of dirty clothing on the floor, and I quickly dressed myself. For nearly half my life at that point, I had lived in nakedness.

  As I put the clothing on my body, I experienced strange hallucinations. In my mind, I imagined I heard a little girl’s voice. The voice was pure, clear, tender.

  I turned quickly, and for a moment I thought I saw a bashful child. Dimpled and pink—charming with her faun-like face—she had a pre-pubescent body with small feet.

  The child smiled—a quiet and virginal smile—and then she seemed to disappear. In her place, I saw an anorectic teenage girl.

  Emaciated and skeletal—thin, sickly, tubercular—the teenage girl had the boyish breasts of an angel. Oddly, her expression seemed both playful and cruel.

  ‘Unlike all wild animals,’ whispered the girl, ‘human females bleed when deflowered.’

  The girl laughed—a strange, sardonic laugh—and then she also seemed to disappear. In her place, I saw the reality of my own reflection in a cracked obsidian mirror.

  I had never been a beautiful creature, but now I was forced to see what I had become. Looking back at me in the mirror was the hideous caricature of a human being.

  Although under fifty years of age, I was a bald, virtually toothless crone with the hanging dugs of an old woman. Disfigured and mutilated by technology and pregnancy, I had lost my innocence and my youth.

  ‘Did you know,’ whispered a voice, ‘that the sexual act destroys beauty? A poet said that.’

  For a moment—just a moment—I cried. What I have been, I thought, I can no longer be.

  Some Leviathan Metaphors

  I felt something hairy, damp, and dirty moving between my legs, and the sensation made me leap with terror. Fortunately, however, it was only the diseased cat of the old woman.

  Focusing my resolve, I dried my tears and continued my quest. Moving deliberately toward the front door, my path took me past a weirdly patriotic shrine.

  Decorated in red, white, and blue—in occultism, these colors symbolize war, cowardice, and death respectively—the shrine contained three plastic statues. Each statue—each political icon—depicted an individual American ‘founding father.’

  I recognized Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton, but they had blood on their hands and homicidal sneers on their faces. Dressed in powdered wigs, makeup, and satin pants, they looked like transvestite devils.

  In the service of sinister goals, I thought, the monsters must sabotage our history.

  Adjacent to the statues were two black and white photographs. In the photographs, there were thousands of slogan-shouting serfs worshipping two great beasts.

  One of the beasts—dedicated to violence and slavery—was emblazoned with a black swastika. Infected with a disease— one that poisoned and starved the mind—he was destined to die young and blind.

  The other beast—dedicated to a fat and sleek lie—was emblazoned with thirteen stripes and dozens of pentagrams. Curiously, he was squatting on a mass of clotted filth.

  Directly beneath the photographs—resting on an altar-like table covered in hemp cloth—was an antique gun. Covered with cobwebs and unclean fingerprints, it was a nineteenthcentury brass derringer.

  The weapon of a rebel—the symbols of treason and crime decorated the barrel—the gun was loaded with a diamondtipped, armor-piercing shell. Stained brownish-red, the bullet was covered with a thin layer of salt.

  Curiously, these cryptic words were inscribed on the stock of the weapon: ‘When Dirt And Scabs Are Washed Away, Sometimes This Causes Blood.’

  I took the weapon and the ammunition.

  What I Found In The Sun

  I opened the front door with some difficulty—turning the corroded brass handle required both hands—and I walked outside. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the blaze of daylight and fresh air—I felt pain in my eyes and lungs—and I was reminded of the trauma a baby must experience when she first enters the world. In spite of the pain, however, I was free.

  Never again, I thought, will I be enclosed or dominated.

  It was early morning, and the sunrise, which was blood-red, was an omen. I thought about the crimes of violence that had liberated me, and I remembered the words of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: ‘all undertakings are surrounded by evil, as fire is surrounded by smoke.’

  As I looked at the sunrise, I noticed some green shoots arising from dead and decomposing vegetation at my feet. It was then that I understood a great mystery.

  New life, I thought, emerges from death. And to increase life, we must increase death.

  I reached down and picked some wild flowers. Since flowers are the genitals of plants, they have always fascinated me. These are the symbols of love, I thought. When I was a child, my heart once opened like a flower.

  I thought about Maddalena and I was sad. Without her, I knew I would always be alone.

  Killing Innocence

  Turning on to gravel path—a path that bisected a plot of poisonous weeds—I walked over to a small pond.

  A young swan—graceful and white—was cavorting in the water. Her life, I thought, was a comedy of innocence. I seized the swan with both hands. As the animal struggled vainly in my firm embrace, I felt like a masterful lover.

  In Buddhism, I thought, to eat an animal is not a crime. The sin is with the killer.

  I smiled—my first smile in years—and I twisted off the swan’s head with my bare hands. A disciplined act of ferocity, I showed no cruelty.

  As I tasted the blood-stained meat—still warm with life—I remembered more ancient words.

  According to the Hindu Vedas, I thought, everything is food for what is higher.

  After eating my victim—I lingered over the fleshy parts—I knelt down to wash my face in the pond. As I saw my own reflection—this time in the sunlight—a horrible realization filled my mind.

  My destiny is to be a fugitive, I thought. Fantastically changed by my experiences, I can never rejoin the human race.

  ‘People would not understand,’ I whispered. ‘Doubting my story, they will put me in a madhouse or a circus.’

  Another Strange Dream: Death, Sperm, And Gods

  Exhausted by my experiences, I must have blacked out. Once again, I had the oddest of dreams. It was both beautiful and terrifying.

  In the dream, I awakened to find myself in northern Egypt. I was in a fabled city, the place where the head of the great Osiris was buried.

  ‘Hail Osiris!’ shouted a voice. ‘Thou art older, better, truer!’ The dismembered bodies of Palestinian gods—their faces frozen in the dry orgasm of death—were scattered everywhere. Obviously the victims of violence—the gods had been stabbed, strangled, burned—the remains were already beginning to decompose in the desert sun.

  Two dogs, the symbols of loyalty, were guarding the divine cadavers. Meanwhile, flesh flies were busily laying their eggs in noses, mouths, and ears of the corpses. Already, some of the eggs had produced maggots.

  I diverted my eyes from the scene of death—far from the city—and I saw the plushly female breasts of Mother Nature.
Young and fresh and beautiful beyond imagination, around her there were no plants without flowers or trees without fruit.

  Amun-Ra—the creator god of the Egyptians—was standing above the open thighs of Mother Nature. Muscular and bronzed—with beautiful tattoos on his sunburnt flesh— Amun-Ra had a great phallus which stretched across the void of space.

  With North African lewdness, Amun-Ra began to masturbate. A peevish god named Iavoth wanted to stop him—in magic, Iavoth was the demon of spurious guilt—but Iavoth failed in his efforts. Sterile and anaemic, Iavoth was too weak and too dead to prevail.

  Now I understand, I thought in the dream. In the dead soil of my soul, I understood the truth.

  Rubbing his blood-swollen organ—shamelessly seething with life—Amun-Ra ejaculated into the darkness. His vehement discharge—his eruption of white and sticky sperm—squirted against the black skin of the sky goddess.

  The origin of all things, the semen of god became the Milky Way.

  Chapter IV The Question Of Madness

  ‘Every thought, however swiftly suppressed, has its effect on the mind.’

  Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) ‘In short, the nature of the hallucinations of Jesus, as they are described in the orthodox Gospels, permits us to conclude that the founder of the Christian religion was afflicted with religious paranoia.’

  Charles Binet-Sangle (1868-1941)

  My Time In A Homeless Shelter

  When I eventually regained consciousness, I found myself in some sort of ‘Homeless Shelter.’ Thankfully, I remained in the human world.

  Dressed in cotton pajamas—sitting in a red arm-chair—I still possessed the manuscript, but my weapon was gone. If the monsters find me here, I thought, I will fight. I will use fists, feet, and teeth.

  Exhausted, I tried to fall back into sleep, but it was impossible. The smell of sickness—the stench of sweat and medicine— kept me awake.

  My Contact With Insane People

  Vagrants and human oddities—the excrements of society— were everywhere in the shelter. Judging from their inexplicable outbursts, most of them were obviously and utterly insane.