by Greg James
XXIII – The base horror of it all! I have been foolish. Poverty and starvation made me desperate. The thing has killed me, that blasted mandrake root. I chopped it up and I ate well that night, all those weeks ago. The hunger abated but that which awaited was so much the worse. Ever since my feast, I have suffered the most nauseating of stomach aches. Acid burning hot, night and day, in my gullet. Meals not digesting themselves. Water coming back up. Tonight, I can feel it kicking, clawing away and biting at the delicate layers of my inner self. It has put itself back together inside me somehow, the cruel monstrousity, it means to eat its way out of me. Oh, what I am to do?
Outside the caravan, evening was darkening, losing the last colours of the dying day. Ariana stepped away from the dead man and the cause of his death; her eyes never leaving the infantile weight clasped to hollowed-out breast by those crumpled arms. She could feel her skin alive, sensitive and tingling, under her clothes. Waiting for that noisome bulb to react, to espy her, come scrabbling from its victim’s embrace and chase her out into the night’s dusk and yet it did not move, it did not tremble, it did not twitch.
Ariana was standing on the grass outside, wiping away dust that had settled on her shirt and pantaloons. Rubbing the gathering cold from her arms, she turned about, walked toward the trees and knelt down. She picked up sticks to make a campfire. As much as she loathed the idea of sleeping here, she knew that trying to cross through the mountain pass in the dead of night would be a fatal mistake.
At first, she thought the crackling she heard to be the sound of her boots on bracken. Then, when she stood up and was still, she knew it was not so. There were two nocturnal eyes staring out at her from the darkness. The mean intelligence in them was scalding, burning her as a witch at the stake might burn. It was accusing her.
“No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t take it.” she cried. “I am not at fault.”
Then, branches were curling in on themselves, becoming twitching tendril fingers, reaching for her. Roots came loose, tearing the soil, and the rest of the slumbering trees slowly opened their eyes. She did not run but she did scream, and faint thereafter.
Later in the night, the fire was lit though not by Ariana’s hand. Stooped and deformed they were, the kindred of the mandrake root. Hairless heads, knotty limbs, unfinished faces and their flesh was as tough and undistinguished as the bark of old trees. Their lipless mouths moved hungrily as they gnawed upon the dripping pieces of their midnight feast, unjustly slain. Tongues of flame hissed, sizzling and spitting as the fires consumed the gristled remains vegetative fingers tossed their way. Ribs heavily dented by teeth-marks. A bloodstained finger, still wearing a birthday ring. An eye that briefly shone, bright with fear, wet with wonder, before the murderous heat split it open.
What sickening ecstasies did Ariana feel as those conjured things were cooking her, then eating her alive? What foundering fevers did she suffer through? What unbearable sights did she see by the risen moon’s light? Somewhere in the wasteland, her lost soul cries out. You there, do you hear it too?
Zombies by Moonlight
“Bloody weather,” Vera swore, “what a night.”
The rain was coming down in relentless sheets; pounding against every inch of her little Mini Cooper. Its headlights barely illuminated the road. The trees on the left were shadows and all she could see ahead was a flickering chiaroscuro of watery gloom. The clouds obscured the moon and, occasionally, the drone of the downpour was punctuated by thunder grumbling its way across the heavens. Vera leaned over the steering wheel, desperately trying to see through the unbroken skin of water flowing down the windscreen. It was no use. She couldn’t see a thing. She gently alternated between the brake and accelerator pedals; biting her lip whenever she felt the car begin to pull this way or that. It wouldn’t take much in this weather to send the car into a skid. She should slow down and take it easy but she was late enough as it was. The family would all be gathered. Everyone would be waiting. The weather would be making Mum worry. The rain and wind drove harder and harder. She could feel the weather pushing and shoving against the car, as if an embittered will was guiding the elements against her. Vera looked over at her phone on the passenger seat. Its luminous display showed 19:00 in luminous green. She should’ve been there an hour ago – this was supposed to be a shortcut.
This is what I get for listening to that old bastard at the petrol station, she thought.
Angry, she depressed the accelerator too hard. Vera snatched her foot away but it was too late. She fumbled at the brake pedal, tried to steady herself with the steering wheel, looked up and saw a man standing, swaying, in the middle of the road.
“Shiiit!”
The car’s headlights painted a bright sodium halo around him. She felt time as something soft and silent passing over her skin. For a moment, she saw his face illuminated; what was left of it.
Vera screamed.
Everything went black.
*
Hands were shaking her violently. Vera awoke, blinking, and saw an unfamiliar face hovering above. “Who’re you?”
The face – a man with a scraggly beard – creased into a frown, “Your father, Alice. Come, we must go. They’re here. They’re at the door.”
“Who’s here?”
“Hurry. Put on your boots. There’s no time to dress.”
Vera was yanked to her feet. Her eyes adjusting to the dimness around her, she saw that she was in a hovel. Small dirty windows let in the light of the full moon, which illuminated tattered mattresses of straw and old linen. The ground underfoot was bare soil and she could smell sweat, piss and shit in the air. There was a bucket in the corner; that was where the smell of waste was coming from. The bearded man was dressed in coarse, colourless peasant clothes and she was dressed only in a thin, stained shift. She stepped into a pair of boots that smelled as bad as the hovel, and then the man was pulling her towards him. A hammering came from the hovel’s door. It shook in its frame as voices sounded from outside. “Let us in, Audric. You know the law as well as us. She has been chosen.”
Vera turned, wide-eyed, to the bearded man and said, “Father?”
“I have dug a way out. You must run for your life, child. I will not follow you.”
“Father, no. I won’t leave you.”
“You will and you shall. This fight is mine. You are all I have left.”
“You are all I have too.”
“No more talk. You must go. Now.”
He dragged her to the back of the hovel where earth was piled up and Vera could see a shallow tunnel had been made. Audric – her father – pushed her down onto her knees and shoved her in the small of her back with the heel of his hand. “Go through, Alice. I am done for. You may still escape them if you are quick.”
“Father, please … I don’t want to leave you. They’ll kill you.”
“Then I’ll die protecting you and that’s as it should be. Now, go!”
With tears in her eyes for a man she didn’t know, Vera crawled into the shallow tunnel, holding her breath as she wriggled through the tight, suffocating space. The earth was damp from the rain and made her shift cling, wet and uncomfortable, to her skin. She was weeping as she dragged herself along using her elbows and kicking with her feet. From behind, she heard the crack of wood shattering and raised voices calling out, “Find her! Bring her! The chosen one must not escape!”
The voice of Audric drowned them out with a roar, “You shall not have her! She is gone!”
“Then you will die, Audric.”
“I welcome death for I know she is safe and that I will go to the Lord’s Heaven whereas you are all destined for Hell.”
Sounds of fighting followed and faded as Vera crawled further away. Rain fell on her as she reached the end of the tunnel and the outside. She drew her knees up and pushed herself forwards – diving out of the tunnel’s mouth and sliding down the slight incline behind her home. She rolled over onto her back and lay there for a few moments, feeling light rai
n falling onto her face, as she caught her breath. She could smell something burning. Vera looked up and saw the hovel was alight; tongues of flames reaching into the night sky, billowing smoke spreading out as a grim shroud.
“Father!” she screamed, “No!”
She scrambled to her feet only to be seized by hands from behind. Kicking and struggling, she was unable to break free. Hooded figures emerged from the surrounding trees. One of them stepped forward – a jewelled amulet hung on a golden chain around his neck. He drew back his hood and Vera screamed at the sight of the leering, rotting head beneath. The figure held something up that glistened in the moonlight. It was Audric’s head; the skin hung from it in torn strips and blood oozed slowly from the ragged neck to patter like raindrops on the ground. His eyes were gone and in the gory holes left behind, twin crimson flames flickered silently. The mouth shaped itself into a smile of bloody, broken teeth. “Hail Lord Akarath,” it said, “for he is the one and you are the chosen. Your blood will open the way and the earth shall bleed beneath his feet!”
Vera screamed and fainted dead away.
*
She awoke on wet ground. The rain had stopped and the sky through the trees was clearing. Her head hurt. Her body ached. She stayed on the ground waiting for the pain to subside. It didn’t. She could feel the heaviness of her body and hear the slow flicker of each thought as she gingerly got to her feet.
Christ, I’m soaked through. How long’ve I been out here?
It couldn’t have been long, but it felt like forever. The car was wrapped around a tree. Fragments of glass winked at her with the light of emerging stars. The shattered radiator spoke with a thin, hissing voice.
This is what I get for hurrying, she thought. I could’ve taken the main road, gone the long way ‘round, but no, I took the shortcut and look at the state of me. How’m I gonna get home now?
Vera stood, swaying slightly; breathing in the world, remembering what happened.
The man in the road – his face, the state of it.
He must’ve been ill or something to be out in the woods like that on a night like this.
Bloody idiot must’ve escaped from a mental home or something.
She put her hand to her head and it came away wet. There was blood in her hair. Exploring with her fingertips, she found the lips of the wound. It didn’t feel that deep. The world moved in slow, sick revolutions and she had to take in several deep breaths to keep from falling to the ground. There was a lingering taste of bile in the back of her throat.
I need help.
There was the embankment she’d come down. It wasn’t too sheer a slope. She might be able to climb up it and get back onto the road. Flag someone down; if there was likely to be anyone passing along this way at this time of night.
Apart from me, she thought, the silly cow who should’ve known better.
Vera didn’t want to be alone in the woods. It was cold, wet and dark. She was hurt and bleeding as she wove towards the embankment. At the foot of the embankment, she reached out to steady herself against the bole of a tree. Her fingertips touched old cloth and cold flesh. She took her hand away. The shadows of the trees drew back as the moon shrugged off embracing clouds, revealing the man from the road; how he walked, how he breathed, as he came out from among the trees. Moonlight fell on a skinless face and a lipless mouth that hung open showing a broken nest of crumbling teeth.
Vera turned and ran. She ran for her life – and the zombie followed her.
The trees reached out to tear and scratch at her skin. The undergrowth stung her feet with nettles. Coarse leaves fluttered by, slapping at her face. Nocturnal eyes flickered and flashed, observing from their perches. She passed through the woods as a rush of shadows moving ahead of the zombie tearing its way through the obstructing foliage. On and on he came; unrelenting as a nightmare. The moon and stars were her witnesses. The light cast by them as pitiless and long-dead as her pursuer.
Feels like I’m the only thing alive out here, Vera thought.
Her legs were starting to cramp, her lungs were burning, and her vision was a blur. She stopped to catch her breath. The sounds of the zombie weren’t that far away – but she had to rest, just for a moment.
Just gimme a minute, one bloody minute.
His soft, wet hands reached out and fastened in her hair, pulling hard, making Vera yell and twist away. Hair torn out at the roots left behind pain; bright and bristling. She was running again, aching and tired, so tired, trying to get away from this thing. The trees opened out, showing the way into a clearing. Moonlight formed a path across withered grass to a small cottage. There was no light burning behind its windows. The cottage itself looked pale, cramped and sunken in on itself against the overwhelming dark of the woods.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Vera ran to the cottage and tried the door. It was locked. She looked back over her shoulder. The zombie wasn’t at the clearing yet but would be soon. The light of the moon would lead him to her. She could smell the deep rot of him already. Padding her way around the cottage, she groped along the outer walls – searching for a window. She found one. Vera hooked her fingertips under it, held her breath, and pulled. It didn’t move. Unsteady footsteps reached her ears. Every breath he made was a ragged tearing. He was through the trees. He was coming; staggering across the open ground. She tried the window again. The metal was rusted and warped by age. She yanked at it, tearing her fingernails down to the quick. Her hands bled and she was sure the zombie let out a hungry groan. He could smell blood. One last time, she pulled at the latch. The elderly metal shrieked in protest – and moved. Grinding out rust, Vera opened the window.
I think I’ll fit. I hope I do.
Something rotten and reeking reached out for her with putrescent arms. The zombie groaned forlornly and lurched forward. She breathed in and pulled herself through the window – catching her hipbone painfully against the frame. Biting through the inside of her mouth, tasting blood, she wriggled and kicked against thin air to get through the slender space. Vera saw the zombie as a shadow close at hand. The world spun around her, jarring bones against hard angles, as smears and blurs groped across her vision. She couldn’t seem to free herself from the unforgiving grasp of the window frame.
The smell of the zombie reminded her of compost heaps on fire in autumn. She remembered when something crawled into one of the local heaps. The sound that the poor thing made when they set it alight. No-one could tell from the bones what it had been, but Vera couldn’t forget its cries as the fire found it and roasted the creature down to the bone. Someone should’ve done something. No-one did. They all stood there, friends and neighbours, listening to the thing in the compost heap as it burned alive.
The zombie grabbed her ankle, breaking her reverie, and Vera lashed out at him. Her foot caught him in the chest, unleashing a dry gasp, and his greasy fingers let go allowing her to finally scramble and kick her way through the window; scraped and bruised from head to toe. Before exhaustion washed over her, Vera got to her feet, closed the window and latched it. She sank to the ground and watched as a moist, black hand groped at the glass. He couldn’t get in. Thank god. Her legs couldn’t hold her up any longer either. The last traces of adrenaline ebbed away and she slumped into a doze, listening to the empty sounds the zombie made as it stumbled about outside.
*
Vera was underground in a rough-hewn stone tunnel lit by old-fashioned torches. The air was damp and she was being led along by two men; one on each side, with hands gripping her wrists and the crooks of her elbows. They were holding her tight enough to bruise, as if they thought she might try and get away. They were wearing loose, hooded robes so she couldn’t see their faces. She looked down and saw she was wearing a smock of thin, white muslin. It was almost see-through. The odour of mould in the air was getting stronger. It was making her eyes water and her throat close up. She wanted to speak to the men but found she couldn’t.
The tunnel opened out into a cha
mber with an altar cut from the bedrock at its centre. More hooded figures stood in watchful silence against the chamber walls. Their hands were clasped before them and their heads bowed as if in prayer. Vera’s mouth was dry and her heart was starting to beat faster. She tried to pull free from the hands of her captors, but her body would not obey. She was only an observer here – caught in the trap of her own flesh. She was led her to the altar, where there were channels carved into the stone. She remembered seeing something about that on a documentary. In medieval times, the blood of sacrifices was caught in the channels and collected to be offered up to pagan gods. How horrible.
There was nothing she could do to resist the hooded men as they laid her out, spread-eagle, on the altar. They bound her wrists and ankles with leather thongs, and then stripped off the muslin smock, leaving her naked. She wanted to shout, to scream, to kick, fight, and bite them – but she couldn’t.
The other figures came forward. One by one, they lowered the hoods. Now, Vera could see what they looked like and wished, at the same time, that she could not. Their eyes were empty holes. Their faces were crumbling masks of decay. They cast off their robes, revealing the spoilt flesh of their bodies to her. Slowly, their hands began to move down their torsos, past their abdomens, to explore the sagging lengths of their rotten cocks. Mildewed fingers sank into pubic bushes that were nests for white-headed worms. They began to masturbate their dried, dead roots until they hardened and wept thick tears composed of blood-flecked pus and maggots.
Vera shrank in on herself as their lukewarm discharges spattered her body. She felt the wet heads of each bare cock rubbing against her flesh. The dead priests came closer and closer, pressing in upon her, pushing themselves into her; fingers in her mouth, teeth gnawing her earlobes, foul tongues wetting her anus and armpits. She felt blunt fingers etching out hieroglyphs on her skin using their spilt fluids. They touched her. They tasted of her. She was the festering centre of their worn-out flesh. Then, one by one, they withdrew. One remained, standing over her, bearing a weathered cup of clay in his fleshless hands. He upended it, emptying something warm over her pubis. Vera craned her neck to see what it was – black blood.
