KID

by Steve Emmett

  KID

  A short story

  By

  Steve Emmett

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and

  incidents are either fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely

  coincidental.

  Copyright Notice

  eBooks are not transferable and cannot be sold, shared, or given away. Such actions are copyright infringement, which is a crime punishable by law. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and no part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s express permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without financial gain, is punishable by a prison sentence and/or fines. Please purchase only authorized editions. Anything else is theft and deprives the author of legitimate income.

  KID

  Copyright © 2011 by Steve Emmett

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank my editor Julia Kavan for her help and advice in producing this story. It may be short, but you’d be surprised what eagle eyes can find.

  Cover by Eithne Ni Anluain

  Kid watched the cart sway down the track. The driver appeared headless as he hunched over to urge the oxen along. Once the cart had slipped out of sight, Kid sat down on the fallen tree trunk and stared at his hands. The blood had dried, leaving a thin dark crust that fragmented around the knuckles and wrists like earth baked under an unrelenting sun. He flexed his joints and they worked free. Dark crystals fell from his skin and swirled in the rays of sunlight. Doom motes, he called them.

  He had long ago given up asking the driver to slake his thirst with him. The old man never stayed, always in a hurry to turn his cart around and get back to town once he’d delivered Kid to the cabin in the forest. Kid had grown used to it. No one ever stayed. If anyone did happen to pass by, they ran into the woods as soon as they caught sight of him.

  He sighed, dragged himself to his feet and stumbled into the cabin for a tankard of ale. The single room had been his home for almost as long as he could remember. He’d been about eight years old when he realized he was destined for a solitary existence. His father had fled the day he was born. His mother said the sight of Kid’s face had scared him off. So traumatized was she by the creature to which she had given birth, she never named him, and he had been known simply as Kid ever since. He was kept out of sight and, after long nights of fever left him deaf, moved in with the pigs down the yard. This cabin, albeit filthy and stinking, was paradise in comparison.

  As he headed outside with his ale, he caught sight of himself in the looking glass he kept on the back of the door. It hung there lest he forgot what others saw. Some of the townsfolk said the gargoyles on the new cathedral looked as they did because the head mason had stumbled upon Kid before he’d learned his way around the place. Kid smiled at the thought. Would his mother have been proud of him?

  The smile faded and his lips resumed their tight line across his face. For all that she had treated him worse than an animal, she still lived in his heart. What curse had been put on him to be born this way? To be rejected by his own family? He shook his head, stepped out and slammed the door.

  Kid returned to the tree trunk with his eyes fixed on the ground, raising them only when he was almost at his destination. He stopped short. His heart beat against his ribs. The light shimmered over the log and a figure appeared. Sulfur lingered in the air.

  From the back, the figure had all the semblance of a man, sitting down in Kid’s usual place. But what man, and from where?

  “Come and sit with me, Kid.”

  Kid lost control of his muscles, dropping his ale to the forest floor. His pants felt warm and wet and, as the sensation crept down his legs, he knew it was not the ale. How could this be? He hadn’t heard a voice for years. The singing of the birds, the clatter of the oxen, even the cries of pain as he went about his work had all been denied him. Yet now this voice spoke to him? He looked up into the trees, his mouth gaping as if to corral the sounds into his head.

  Silence. The same deathly silence as always.

  “What’s the matter, Kid? Pig got your tongue?” The visitor turned his head. The face of a man, framed by garlands of black hair that coiled over his head and tumbled down his back. A nobleman, judging from the rich fabrics of his clothes and his neatly trimmed beard. Maybe even a prince. Kid bowed, a reaction beaten into him over the years.

  “Come, sit with me. I have a gift.” The visitor patted a patch of bark next to him and turned his face away.

  Kid trembled as he approached. He limped bow-legged from the discomfort of his sodden crotch. The voice that he heard – heard! – made his soul seek shelter. As he drew near, his legs refused to cooperate and he came to a halt. If his work had taught him anything it was to recognize fear. Now he recognized his own. He could taste it, smell it.

  The stranger glanced back over his shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you, Kid.”

  Kid dared to look into the eyes of the visitor and at that moment he knew he was not hearing the voice. It came from within. The stranger lurked inside him, making him feel the words. And those eyes. What should be white was red, pools of blood in which floated black holes. Blood. Kid glanced down at his hands and rubbed at the blackened gore. He knew about blood.

  “Some would say it is a blessing to be deaf in your line of work.” The visitor smiled, thin red lips stretched over blackened teeth. “How many put to death today, Kid? Don’t tell me, five. Including the child.”

  How does he know? He must be an acquaintance of the sheriff.

  “She wasn’t a witch, by the way. That child was as innocent as the day she was born. And you tore out her heart, watched it beating in your bare hands.”

  The words roiled in Kid’s stomach. “Don’t say. Please. Just my job. Only job.”

  “Ah yes, the job you were given because of the way you are”.

  It was true. That day the sheriff had been out hunting and snared him in a trap had changed Kid’s life. Such a revolting creature, and deaf, made an ideal torturer and executioner. He could terrify the prisoners with just a glance, yet have no fear of being corrupted into compassion by the sounds of their crying. In fact, Kid’s life had depended on his pitiful condition from that moment on. Had he been normal, he would have been thrown into the raging cataract that surged through the forest. The sheriff’s reputation as a blood thirsty tyrant was known - even in the silent world.

  “Come now.” The visitor patted the trunk again. “Come and sit with me, if you want the gift I bear.”

  Kid shivered. Although not yet dusk, the forest darkened as if a storm cloud had fallen from the sky. Fear dripped from the trees. He saw movement in the corner of his eye and glanced down. He sucked in a sharp breath. An adder, bigger than he had ever seen, slithered across his foot and wound its way toward the visitor. As if drawn along by the serpent, Kid followed.

  “That’s better.” The visitor gestured toward the space at his side.

  “Who are you?” asked Kid, sitting down but leaving as big a space between him and the other as he dare. The temperature dropped suddenly and he wrapped his arms around his body.

  “I am a bearer of gifts.”

  “Why? Don’t understand. Sheriff send you?”

  The visitor laughed. “The very idea.”

  “Then who?” Kid knew of no one who would send him anything.

  The visitor placed a gloved hand on Kid’s shoulder and twisted him round so that they directly faced each other. Kid’s shoulder b
urned, as if the bone had ignited. The visitor’s eyes glowed like braziers.

  “Do not concern yourself with my credentials, Kid. As I told you, I am here not to take from you but to give. A little gratitude might be in order.”

  “What? What you give?”

  The visitor chuckled. “That is up to you. Tell me, what is it that you desire most of all? To walk straight? To be handsome?”

  Kid shook his head and gazed into the forest. He’d fantasized many a time about what his wish would be if he could make one. He often used to close his eyes and picture his childhood before he lost his hearing. It was a long time ago and the memories faded, but still he could feel the faint twitter of birds, the clucking of his mother’s hens and the crow of the cock each morning. And his mother’s voice, always angry with him, always scalding. Even that he missed. No, he didn’t need to think what he wanted.

  He looked directly at the visitor. “Hear. Want to hear.”

  The visitor spluttered. “Just this? Not even riches or women?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “If I could hear—”

  “You would lose your job. The sheriff would be very displeased.” The stranger narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

  “But I find something. Something better. Least I would have chance.”

  “With your good looks?” The visitor laughed. “You think so?”

  “Out of sight. Anything better than hurting. Always hurting.” Kid shook his head slowly. “Anything.” He felt tears sting his eyes. He had no choice but to carry out the sheriff’s sentences and, although he couldn’t hear their screams, he saw the pain and the suffering in the faces of his… victims. “Peace. Kid want peace.”

  The visitor removed his hand from Kid’s shoulder and got to his feet. “I can give you your hearing, if you want it that badly.”

  “How? What you mean?”

  “You have to really want it. With all your heart and…” He glowered. “Your soul.”

  Kid’s heart fluttered in his chest, his breath quickened. He’d always said he would give his life just to hear the birdsong, the howl of the wolves, the cry of a baby, the rush of the great cataract. To hear the sound of the sparks that sprang from the fire. To hear these things even just once would be the best gift anyone could give him.

  The visitor closed his eyes, breathed deeply, then opened them again. “It is done. I shall be on my way.” He turned away and headed off without looking back, and Kid realized then that these words did not make themselves known like the others. He had heard them this time. He’d actually heard them. He heard the crunch of the stranger’s hooves on the forest floor, yet though his eyes registered that strange fact, his head was so full of sounds it meant nothing to him. He felt as if his head would explode and he clapped his hands to his ears. So much noise. Too much. He swayed from side to side, groaning.

  Kid uncovered his ears and slipped off the log on to his feet. For the first time in his adult life he heard the thud as his boot grounded, and the crunching sound as his deformed foot parted the dead leaves. He kicked the sere pile and laughed. He stopped. The sound of his own laughter! He laughed again and threw his head back, his hands in the air. The chirruping in the canopy overhead reminded him of the birds in his mother’s apple tree and he peered into the branches to try to identify the source. In the distance, a constant rushing sound beckoned him away from the clearing. He hurried as best as his twisted legs and damp pants would allow, with each turn discovering new sounds. Yet he knew from the direction in which he travelled that the sound he followed was the great cataract. Even before he rounded the final bend, he clamped his hands over his ears to stifle the deafening roar.

  Never in his wildest dreams had Kid imagined a sound like that of the cataract. He sat in his usual place, on a flat spur of rock that jutted from the crag half way up the cascade and just out of its reach. With the cool spray dampening his skin, he repeatedly covered and uncovered his ears with his hands until the sound became bearable. Then he sat motionless, absorbing his surroundings with all his senses.

  Engrossed in his new world, Kid didn’t see the sky darken. Only when the howl of the wolves greeted the night did he snap from his trance and make his way home. He went to bed that night the happiest man alive, serenaded by the sounds of the forest and his own blood coursing through his veins.

  ***

  “No. No, please. Please don’t.”

  Kid’s eyes sprang open. Darkness gripped the cabin, so tight he felt it on his skin. He heard it again, a child’s voice filled with dread and pain.

  “No, please, please.” The girl screamed.

  He made to get up, to light a candle, but his limbs wouldn’t move. He tried again, desperate to find the stricken child. His body cracked like a dead branch, his ankles and wrists pulled against hard shackles. Chains clanked. Wheels cranked. He knew this. He heard his skeleton creak as it stretched. Pain shot through him.

  “No,” he said. His own voice startled him. Then he shouted louder, new strength derived from the pain. “No, no.”

  The dark pressed against his left eye, bony fingers dug into the socket. He heard a squelch as the eyeball came free. A wave of nausea swept over him. Even in the dark he knew his eyes now looked in different directions. He tried to shake his head but it was held tight. Then he smelled it - hot iron. An aroma he’d lived with all his working life. From the gloom it came toward him. First, an orange dot so small it was barely visible but, as it breathed its heat on his face the tip of the poker took shape. He heard the heat, the sizzle, then passed out as his eyeball melted.

  The smell of his own shit brought him round. That and the voices. Hundreds of them. Wailing, crying, screaming, pleading. All the poor souls he’d tortured over his long career releasing their suffering into his head. The roar of the cataract was no more than a whisper compared to the cacophony that now hammered in his ears.

  “Stop,” he said. “Please, please, stop.”

  He felt a tug on his toenail. Hard and determined. Cold iron on the pad of his toe. Another tug and the nail shifted with a slurp. Pain coursed through him again. A voice, female, a child, counted to ten as each nail succumbed to the torturer’s pincers.

  “One, two, three…”

  He fought in vain and screamed as the shackles cut into his wrists. He pleaded, but the only answer was a cold tongue of steel slicing through his skin, down and up, side to side, drawing a hop scotch of blood on his torso. He heard it all – the splitting of skin, the ripping of flesh and the breaking of cartilage. He burned, he stretched, he begged but nothing halted the attack.

  A sharp edge gripped his tongue and bit into the muscle. Blood filled his mouth. He felt the tension at his throat then searing pain as his tongue tore from its root.

  Choking, Kid pleaded, hearing the sloppy, frothing wordless sounds that escaped his ravaged mouth. And he heard so clearly the answer, chanted in unison by his torturers.

  “We can’t hear you. We can’t hear you. We can’t hear you.”

  ~

  About the author

  Steve Emmett is an author, writing coach, and a member of the Society of Authors. He studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and built a few houses before going off the rails. For over twenty years he ran his own real estate agency specializing in Italian country homes and, for almost ten years, lived by Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, the setting for his debut novel Diavolino. Born at the end of the 1950s, Steve grew up on Dennis Wheatley novels and Hammer Horror films, and on many occasions started to put pen to paper. Completely dissatisfied and unfulfilled with his career, Steve decided in 2009 that he wanted to write and began Diavolino. He is an occasional reviewer for the New York Journal of Books and Suspense Magazine. He currently lives with his partner and some rather large spiders in the Yorkshire Wolds, close to the ancient City of York.

  Also by Steve Emmett

  Diavolino

  A horror novel

  ISBN # 9781936751211

&
nbsp; Word Count: 84,684

  Paradise is just one step from Hell

  The chance to build a dream home on a private island in one of Italy’s most beautiful lakes offers architect Tom Lupton the fresh start he’s been yearning for. But when he arrives with his family on Diavolino, he finds the terrified locals dead set against him. The island, whose very existence has been shrouded in secrecy for half a millennium, has a dark history that no one cares to remember, and as the opposition to Tom grows, so grows a brooding evil that will lead them to the very doors of hell…

  What reviewers said about Diavolino:

  “Emmett has created such a scary story that you might not want to visit Italy after reading this novel.” Ursula K Raphael.

  “Emmett packs a lot into a relatively short novel - fires, plane crashes, volcanic eruptions, a bloody lake and demonic monks. Lots of action, lots of surprises, great writing and vivid descriptions make DIAVOLINO a must-read for any horror aficionado.” The Horror Fiction Review

  “Emmett exhibits exceptional writing in this debut novel.” Dreadful Tales

  “Diavolino has a raw grittiness to it that works well with the wonder and intrigue within the world that Steve Emmett has created.” Double Shot Reviews.

  “It is at times gritty, at times wondrous, at times horrific and at all times simply a really good yarn.” Jeffrey St. Alban.

  “Diavolino is a big budget opera of doom and damnation and a hoot to boot.” Xavier Leret.

  “I can understand why readers have given this author so many 4 & 5 stars. Diavolino is a terrific effort and an example of why Horror is such a popular genre.” Clayton Clifford Bye in thedeepening.com.

  Continued…

  Diavolino is published by Etopia Press and available both as an eBook and paperback from Amazon

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diavolino-ebook/dp/B004NIFIC0

  Steve Emmett can be found at:

  http://steve-emmett.com/

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/emmett.steve

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/chukkie58