She is the cat of Chaos

See the end of the world folks, one low low price

Can’t afford it? Put it on layaway

Desolation? Yeah, that bitch is here to stay

Feel her teeth? See her bite, she’s a nasty monster of pain and strife

She is the Cat of Chaos and we the meek, bent, broken, bleeding mice

Our conqueror fierce,  her plan is perfection untamed

Destiny her war charriot, wheels with blades, cutting you down

Like thunder, like roaring, like bleek cold wintery storms blowing

You’ll turn your head, and look about, hearing her commanding sound

Fear what you know, but stand in awesome horror at what you don’t

She can’t stop, she is the bitch of quiet destruction, the destroyer of hope

Will she cease, and give us peace?

She won’t

Fear her charriot and ten black horses, their names are woe, and weeping

Hear them now, and find understanding, the names upon their heads are cruel

Plague, Death, Sorrow, Hunger, War, Strife, there is Cutter, and Slasher his wife

These are but some of the names her horses go under, as they pillage and plunder

Worst of all is Hell, and Chaos, the mighty two steads, their destiny is in the lead

Together these black horses of Satanic fury rape our minds and steal our imaginations

They are together, her quiet desolation

An end of an age, the beginning of a dark night, cold winters, and lonely sight

Blindness would be better, ignorance preferred, hopes and dreams…

Defered

End of the world, beginning of the new

Seek peace, but find it not, no longer there, not for me, not for you

 

Copyright (c) 2009 by Gregory D. Welch

Bastards of Old

Bitter sweet, and nice to meet

Sink low to your filthy mind, stick out your hand and offer a treat

Sickly bastards, lean back with bulging bellies and rotting feet

Taste the apple, the peach, the pear, but don’t get up

They’re watching you now, ready to still your seat

Without thought, without remorse, and least of all without care

They are the secret workers of fallen destinies, the crushers of all that is fair

Jagged teeth for your maggot ridden corpse white rotten meat

Bastards in disguise, wolves in the pale moon light, but by day, sheeps

Listen closely and hear their plots, these weavers of knots, sick with fever heat

They’ll come on with a snake charm grin, and leave you bleeding without a peep

Move your ass, lose your seat, reach up high for destinies dream, but prepare

A fall is soon to come after pride, first you live, then you die

It’s the way of their secret plans, smashing you out, clapping their hands

Evil in plain clothes, destruction in epic throes, blood thirsty

Be warned, listen closely, hear their laughter?

They taste not, dream not, understand not, nor care any for your woe

They are the shade of shadows, and shadow of shades, penmen of dark demises

They come upon you in a million billion crafty disguises

The hidden dream stealers, the plotters of chaos, demons and devils, preachers and cons, wolves and sheep, snakes and pawns

The bastards of old

 

Copyright (c) 2009 by Gregory D. Welch

Secrets of the Night (Short Story)

Two orange embers burned against the night as twin carbon plumes of smoke chased each other up in invisible glory. The smell was acrid, thick, and grey to its core. Not blue, never blue, despite the smoker’s claims. This was a dead thing of ashen grey and hopelessness. Eternal hopelessness, ever onward, and always upward. “Was it good for you?” she asked. “As good as always baby. You?” he answered. A heavy and soggy deep drag made one of the embers move in mesmeric little circles and blaze brilliantly bright—a challenge for the second glowing circle to do its worst. “Too bad you gotta leave,” he said. His own circle of fire moved through the solid black night, seeking his lips. The burning circle blazed a brilliant firey orange when as he took a drag. “Don’t start Jimmy. Hell, you knew what you were gettin’ into when you fucked a married woman. Jus’ be thankful for what you got goin’ for you, alright?” “I am. Jesus I am. I couldn’t find myself a better piece of ass if my life depended on it.” His grin remained invisible in the midnight black darkness they were lying in. His teasing words fell flat on his own ears, and he wondered how she’d take it. She wasn’t as much of a jokester as him, and his idea of a funny thing to say, seldom sounded funny to her. He hoped he didn’t sound like the jerk she was always saying he could be when he wanted to be. Jimmy stopped to consider how dark the night seemed as it rose up around him in elongated and accusatory shadows. Cold too, he thought. Dangerous even, his deep mind whispered. But before he could think much in the ways of what the dark night meant, he was cut off Lucinda’s not finding the humor in yet another of his teasing statements. “That all I am to you? Ass? Gee, thanks. Least I’m not just a good fuck too. Or was that what you really meant?” she said. Her bead of orange suddenly cut a sinister jag in the black dull shades that surrounded their nude bodies as she jerked herself up and out of bed. He had no way of knowing where she was—it was so dark—except for the bead of her burning cigarette smiling out at him defiant of the cold choking darkness. That burning cherry traced her every move, an extension of her hidden hands, as she went to work dressing herself. Jimmy’s fire was being crumpled in an unseen ashtray to the side of the bed as he followed her into the black madness of the room. Was it really that dark? He was breathing heavily; sucking in the air and huffing it back out. He coughed hard for a few minutes but managed to sit upright in the end, he was exhausted after spending all his energy satisfying the evil beast that sex always seemed to be for him and her. He felt he had done a week’s worth of exercise. Too many cigs, he thought, as he turned bare assed on the clammy sheets to face the object of his lust and her little dying bit of flame. He watched it as it danced and worked to the rhythms of her getting dressed, then worked its way back up to her mouth and came to a supernova of cancerous life. “I was teasing Lucinda. Just teasin baby, that’s all. You aint mad are you? Not for real or nothing, right?” She didn’t answer, not with words. Her fire shot back down to what Jimmy could only imagine was her ass. She loved it dark when they had sex, like she was ashamed of the adulterous hunger they were so desperate to fulfill. And why shouldn’t she be? She’d been married to a good man, a hard working and honest man. A preaching man. “Babe?” Jimmy got up and walked around to the side of the bed she had been sitting on. She was shaking when he found her, thin whispers of teary eyed sobs floating up on the cold night air. Her cigarette snuffed out for moments long unnoticed. “You crying Cin?” he asked. He’d never been in love with her, and he thought she understood that. But he did care for her, and he thought she had understood that too. It was never enough for her though, she felt dirty after doing what she really wanted to, and try as he did, he could never talk her into leaving the man she had married. Jimmy knew she would’ve been happier if she had done that, and in the end he wouldn’t be so upset about it either. Not really. “Don’t call me that, not right now. Don’t do it, ok?” she said, pulling away a little. Jimmy felt it and moved in closer, gripping her shoulder with his rough working hands—mechanic’s hands—in a way that let her know he was strong enough to keep her if he needed to. “Listen Lucinda, nothing we done here to be ashamed about. People fall in and out of love all the time. Not your fault. Hell, if the man spent half as much passion and concern on you as he did those damned high and mighty sermons of his, maybe you’d feel a little more strongly for him. But being as he doesn’t, he aint got no body but ‘imself to blame. If you ask me, that is,” Jimmy said. He was surprised she had let him say all that he had. He felt her body give a little under his wiry strong arm, lifting the tension just slightly. A good sign, he thought, scooting closer to her. A sudden chill darted down the spine of his back, black tendrils of cold dead electricity chased after it. Jimmy felt chilled to the core, and thought of his long deceased mother. What had she said? A goose just crossed over your grave boy. That was it. He shrugged it off and enjoyed the warmth of Lucinda’s body. “Besides, it aint like either of you have kids, is it? That might make things a little stickier, maybe, but, you don’t. So, there’s that. Right?” he said. He hoped he’d get through to her this time, but knew down deep he wouldn’t. That he couldn’t. Not until she’d let him; but in the end it would always be her decision alone to make. The warmth of her body felt colder than usual, faked if that were possible. And her skin seemed placid and almost manufactured. Not quite real, though he knew it was, it just wasn’t the same. He fought off the urge to push away, and as if in defiance of his own mind, held her tighter instead. “I gotta go Jimmy, he’ll be calling me soon, and I don’t think I could handle talking with him with you sittin’ beside me. Besides, I don’t feel so hot tonight, might be coming down with a cold or something.” “On one condition,” he said. The thought of suddenly being left alone was growing spiders legs and scurrying across his mind in black fury. He didn’t want to be alone, not tonight, not in all this thicker than normal dark madness. “What’s that?” she asked. “You give me a damn good kiss goodbye and promise me I aint got nothing to worry about when you leave.” “Oh Jimmy. You’re the one thing that keeps me sane. Down deep I mean. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to escape to,” she said. He felt her turn in the darkness and knew she was facing him now. He felt her moving and knew she was hovering near his face, looking at him maybe. The room tried to steal this kindness from him, swimming deeper down into the black abyss of night’s darkest hour. But he wouldn’t let it win, he wanted her, and wanted her to stay fiercely. What would it take, he suddenly wondered, to keep her hear with him? Their lust soaked room, stinking of sweat and passions burning fire, teased his mind one final time before she kissed him. Her lips felt wet with pulsing life and thick with desire. He enjoyed it more than he had ever enjoyed any other kiss she had given him and wondered why he felt so lonely when it ended. “He won’t be back from his big conference trip for a week. So, we got some play time if you want? Call you soon?” she asked, rising from the bed. She was leaving him, and more than ever he didn’t want her to go. But he couldn’t say that to her, he couldn’t voice such fear and loneliness could he? It was his toughness she had came to him for, his strength, not this soft side of him. He pushed it away and did the only thing he knew he could do. “You better,” he said. He followed her to the bedroom door, and intended to go further. Would have done just that, except all at once the world slowed down and everything good and normal—everything familiar—passed away. Slipped out of their hands like little children fighting a losing battle with a kite that tasted the sky. He didn’t know it then, but his world would never be the same. She stopped so suddenly in front of him, his nose and face smacked the back of her perfumed hair—hinting only slightly at the dirty sex they’d just shared. “What is it?” he asked her. She was silent; deadly silent. Silent as the grave his mind whispered in a harsh suggestive tone. He cursed that voice, demanding it to silence itself while he stood naked and still hoping for her to speak soon. For an understanding of what was going on around him? His mind felt slippery and wet, sliding further from his hopeful grip. He was just about to speak—feeling that if he didn’t he would go insane—when she suddenly cut through the thick blackness like a shark’s tooth and saved his sanity for just a little while longer. Her words were jagged and primal. “You believe in Hell Jimmy?” She was turning he felt, her hair tickling his nose as danced across his skin. She was facing him now, he felt her eyes considering him in their feline like way, but didn’t see. Sight was a distant memory in the hell of darkness that had possessed all he had known and twisted it in upon itself. There was only those eyes, those eyes he would never see so clearly, so filled with life, never again. Those eyes, the ones he couldn’t see, they were cutting him deeper and deeper; dissecting him like a pathetic green frog on a teenager’s lab table for science class. He felt them. They were burning him and whispering cruel accusations deep into his nude and defenseless soul. The darkness built to an epic storm around him, making him feel cold and caught. There was another feeling, a feeling of closing in and drowning in the tar thick void of nightmare insanity the night was beginning to take on. How was it this black all of a sudden? “Naw, not me babe, not my thing. Just a grease monkey with a year of college he still can’t afford under his belt. No theology though. Why?” She breathed on him, the smells of leftover cigarettes tainting what little air he found left in the room. She didn’t offer an answer, just stood there, stone still, breathing on him. He felt a little prickle of concern dance up his spine, and worry followed after. “Something I should know about Cin?” “All have fallen short of the Glory of God Jimmy, you ever think about that? We’re all damned…” She was really beginning to creep him out, her voice trailing with the morbid hint of dark secrets and something else. Something his balls picked up faster than his head, they were tucking in tight worried or fearful of some primal thing, some thing wicked and deep. Some thing that hid in the dark. Some thing like a troll hiding just behind the next shadow, hungry for human flesh. The room was warping around him, its thick shadows choking him, sweat popped out on his brow and bled down the crease of his forehead to burn in his eyes. “Cin?” he asked. The silence was deafening. He heard her breathing, but it seemed further away somehow. And then there was nothing except her breathing. The silence was perfect except for that. “Cin, quit it.” But she didn’t, she just stood there, as still as ice. Her breath growing calmer and calmer, as if she were dying or fading from existence. Jimmy took all he could then he spoke up in a weaker voice than he wanted. “Dammit you’re scaring me baby. And I don’t scare easy.” Not even her breath was upon him anymore, and without even having to reach out he felt her presence no longer there. Jerked away in a stale dead air, as if a crypt vault had been eased open and she were yanked in and away from him forever. Jimmy reached out and swiped the empty air anyway, his hands slid through the spot she had been occupying just moments before. He felt his guts turn into a tight knot of pain and nausea. What the hell was going on? “Ok Cin, ha ha, you got me. Come on baby, quit this shit, k?” he said. He turned to face the dark room behind him. A wave of searing and angry guilt burned through his head, but not knowing where it came from, or why, he shrugged it off and searched for any hint of Lucinda. He found none. The little bedroom was more than silent; it was unnaturally—as if haunted and waiting—still and deathly cold with decay and rot. The smell of sex was no longer fresh and pleasant in its salty undertones; it was now old and putrid. Left over sex always rotted faster than fresh lovemaking, but this, this was stale and old. Then, as if from nowhere, the shrill hint of a painful whimper and the sudden release of air came out of the night. Meaty sounding slash noises came up, one after the other with a somber splatter of some liquid upon the ground. Jimmy didn’t like that noise, it was evil to its core. It made his balls dig further up inside him, but they had reached their limit of just how far they could go. He was alone in the night and hated the darkness for its gripping hold on him. Jimmy turned toward the bed and tiptoed with a prisoner’s caution. One step before the other, he told himself. The creaking wood floor screeched up at him, driving his nerves to madness, each step a vicious bite of cold pain. His skin prickled and danced with gooseflesh as the temperature plunged deeper into the depths of a Hell even Dante in all his wild imaginings couldn’t summon. He swore once or twice his breath had to come out in plain view. Except there was no view. Open the damned windows, a voice in his mind screamed at him. He never noticed it, or even that he was obeying it. He just turned to face where the windows were and began to fumble and feel around. His big awkward hands hit the dresser and knocked a collection of Lucinda’s perfume bottles and other makeup off. Things she insisted on keeping in his apartment despite his feeble attempts at not wanting his world tainted with too strong of a woman’s touch. She had won, in the end. He had a special liking of her. But this time, it was him that had won; he had made the balance by crashing most of her fragile things to the floor in a glass shattering rain of noise. He jerked his hands back anticipating she’d give up the charade now and cuss at him for his fumbling mistake. He was wrong; she remained silent, too silent. Jimmy shivered in a mixture of cold and fear. He welcomed the growing fear with more ease than he had expected, standing nude in the cold black bedroom. His left hand brushed the cloth of red curtains—now turned an evil shade of black, as everything else had been—and with a wave of sudden excitement, he yanked the curtains back hard. So hard in fact, he heard the sickly sound of the fabric tearing loose and freeing itself entirely from the rod above. The lack of sunshine was expected. The void of glaring black desolation just beyond, was not. Jimmy blinked his eyes three times, squinting so hard the third, tears came burning up his wide open tear ducts spurting out little wet pleas for mercy. Jimmy leaned close to the frost bitten window and felt the coldness belch out at him, his breath steamed the glass as he gripped himself and fought off a shiver. He turned his head back and forth, looking for something familiar. He again found nothing, saw nothing, sensed nothing. That was worse. Sensing a void even before you could see it. “What the hell?” he said, half turning to consider the still hopelessly black room behind him. He saw no new details, and had no new reason to think he would see Lucinda anywhere. But he did hear something new, something bordering on the liquid like sounds of a drowning smoker fighting hard for their dying breath. “Cin? That you?” he called out in just above a whisper. He held one hand out against the blackness as he carved a thin path to the sound’s source. He never knew there could be so much terror in one man’s body until he felt it in his own. The sound was grating and harsh on his ears and felt wrong to him somehow. “Cin?” The sound grew thicker, and gained a deeper and more hellish quality to it. He was nearly to its source, fighting his own terror like a madman, seeking all the reservoir of strength his body had within him. His adrenaline coursing through his veins like heroin, burning with the cold cutting edge of a razor as it ate him alive. His eyes buzzed and blurred, filling the black void of his bedroom with fire bursts of red and orange ferries. He felt his outstretched hands brush the wall hard sending pain up his arm as three fingers nearly jammed on him. He hadn’t realized he was walking so hard. The breathing sound suddenly cut off in mid breath as if disturbed by something. He jerked his hands back, and felt the thick string of cold dead phlegm that had stretched out from the wall to his hurting fingers. He thought he would be sick if he didn’t get that shit off of him and quick. But it was thick like glue and hard as hell to shake free. He won that fight in the end, but paid a price for ignoring the room behind him. A loud commanding smack hit the floor hard, sounding muffled and strangely body like. He jumped and turned to face it, momentarily forgetting how poor his vision was. He saw nothing, but heard plenty. Terror choked his mind again as the fight or flight part of his brain kicked into high gear. He bunched his shoulders up tight, drawing his twin fists forward to meet the danger. It was the perfect stance of a fighter prepared—a thing he had done plenty of through his life was fight, and he’d be damned if he would let something take him in the sanctity of his own place. “Cin?” he called to the black graveyard silence of his bedroom. He knew it wasn’t her, not that sound. No way it could be. But some part of him wondered why it shouldn’t be her, and it was this part that kept his arms ever so slightly relaxed—just in case. The soft serpentine whisper of a scratching sound came shouting its horrible presence back up to Jimmy’s ears. They were clawing the floor, those deadly fingernails, his mind whispered. They’re scratching their way to you Jimmy, don’t you hear? He did hear, he heard each horrible scratch and the sickly wet slurping sound of a body being dragged just behind those damning nails. As if it were a body with no muscles anywhere except in those vicious hands, pulling itself closer and closer with each exasperated breath Jimmy puffed out. He suddenly wished he had a cigarette when an idea struck him. A horrible idea, as it turned out. Jimmy lunged across the bed, rolled to the opposite side and jumped straight up. He was close to the wall when he felt the rush of claustrophobia he had known as a nine year old boy locked inside his bedroom closet suddenly rose up and took him. He wanted to get away from that wall badly. It was closing in, he just knew it. He heard it. Felt it. Hated it. But there was another noise he heard that he hated more. Nails scratching, digging hard, and turning that wicked corpse like body his eyes had never seen but his mind had thoroughly painted over and over as being a nightmare of George Romero’s making. Jimmy snapped his mind free from the devilish daydream and thrust his hands to the bedside table in a flying hurry that toppled an overfilled ashtray to the floor. A little lamp (that wouldn’t work after five tries) was the next victim, its crunching death cried out across the almost perfect silence as glass shot out everywhere. The table shook hard as he searched through the disheveled mess, and then he found it. Jimmy held the little lighter up against the darkness and struck it. There was nothing, not even a proper flicking sound. He nearly lost his cool, forgetting those damn child locks they had put on the lighters now, then struck it again. He got the flicking sound and only a little spray of fire but no catch. It took at least eight good attempts—and one brief panic attack—before the flame caught and rushed yellow weak light out across the void. Shadows and black darkness darted away from the fire in what he hoped must’ve been a screaming fit. His sight was thin but much more improved than it had been. He searched the floor, unsure if this was a good thing or bad. Terror seizing his heart and threatening to stop it more than once. Jimmy felt his eyes ache as they returned to their former bulging seats of terror. He was creeping to the foot of the bed now, where the scratching horror was still working its way around. He leaned his head out and over the edge, peeking cautiously, his heart pounding hard, sweat driblets trickling down his heavily creased forehead. Jimmy shrieked at what he saw and in a fit of unholy terror worse than anything he even knew had existed, dropped the hot lighter. He was immediately punished by the return of a black night so foul, even Satan would have shivered in its wake. Jimmy didn’t understand what he’d seen, didn’t want to, but he had seen it and that was maddening. It was a woman, a mess of nude flesh, yellow tinted in the flame, and cruel black splotches of copper red lifeblood dried in chaotic poetry across her fully exposed and writhing back. Her hair clung to her upturned face in more of the drying life’s gift of blood, and tickled its way across the floor below as her two elongated hands scratched their way toward him. Her eyes were twin shadows, void of sanity and overflowing with demonic laughter as blood stained her skin and oozed from where each orb should have been. She was dragging herself, he saw, with a determination both admirable and terrible at once. He had jumped backwards, hitting the bedside table hard. He yelled out in a way he would never admit to if asked about it later. The fear was tangible now, as a huge bruise worked its way up his back from his confrontation with the table. Hot vomit freed itself from his mouth. He was splattered out on the floor when he turned his head and blew out steamy chunks of a dinner he didn’t even remember eating anymore. The scraping, clawing sounds of the gash covered woman was nearly around the bed when she spoke. It was the broken winded voice of a dying nightmare. Vaguely familiar, and never more than a whisper. “Jiiiiimy.” “No…” Jimmy said, holding his ears and shaking his head. “Jiiiiimy.” “No…no…no…” Jimmy said. “Why Jimmy? Why’d you let this happen?” she called, sounding more and more familiar as she spoke. “We’ve been caught. He’s found out. He’s found us out. It hurts Jimmy, oh God it hurts…” “No… you’re not real. You’re just not real damn it!” Jimmy shouted pulling his knees in close as the scraping sounds were blazing a snail’s furious path upon him. “Wasn’t I good Jimmy? Wasn’t I your best?” she said. “That must be why, has to be why he had this done to me. He killed me Jimmy, he killed me because of you!” Jimmy felt a cold chill—a goose stepping on his grave as his mother would’ve said—as the feminine voice spoke. He knew her, recognized her, but how? How could it be her? She was just here, and very much alive, not this mess of monstrous proportions. How? “Cin?” Jimmy asked the darkness as he heard the little lighter fly across the floor, she was that close, dragging her bleeding body behind. That close and what was he doing? Sitting there and waiting. “Oh Jimmy, why? How?” she asked. “How’d he find us out?” Get up Jimmy; get the hell up and run damn you! That nagging part of his brain bitched at him. He wanted to, but found himself glued to his seat as he sat there trying to figure the voice out. It was Lucinda’s, but older, raspier. It held a mysterious depth to it, more…dead…rotten. Jimmy felt tears flowing in shameless reverie. “Jiiiiimy? I’m almost there. I can feel your warmth Jimmy. It’s so cold, being dead, it’s so cold Jimmy. And lonely. Keep me company? Hold me?” she called. “He’s stabbed me. Oh God, I’m bleeding. My back, it hurts so bad. It hurts. It hurts so bad. So many hands, so many hands stabbing me. Ripping at me. Did you stab me too Jimmy? Did you stab me in the back too?” The long mournful scratching tug of her slithering body across the cold wooden floor was all it took. That and the frigid sensation of a lifeless corpse paw upon his left foot, and Jimmy was up like a bolt of evil lightning and half way across the twin sized bed. He had time as he rolled across it to take notice of how wet the sheets had felt. Wet and sticky. He shrugged it off the first time as just the remains of their lust making. But not now, it was thicker, stickier, almost congealed. Fate had conjured at just that moment that some netherworld version of the dying bloodshot moon should burst out from behind a pregnant cloud—a thing Jimmy would have never seen had the moon never been found—and revealed it’s sickly sweet madness to him. There was almost the tainted hint of soft wicked laughter as his eyes fell upon the stained bed, and sticky sheets below. Not sweaty yellow, but bloody red. And it was everywhere, soaked through the sheets, and deep in the mattress. Jimmy felt his eyes scream “no further, no further” as they ached and throbbed with his chaotic heart’s attempt of a rhythm. That’s when he looked down upon his own hands and the backs of his arms. The hard to look upon crimson had even reached there, a thing done as he rolled for his life. “Jiiiiiimy” the soft feminine voice called through cracked harsh whispers. She sounded frustrated, lost, and exhausted as he heard her clawing around, retracing her path. Looking for him, he thought. Jimmy squinted his aching eyes through the slightly brighter darkness and saw the room for the first time. He darted his head back and forth, and realized it was his room, but not. It was bent, warped, and jagged in all the wrong ways. Painted, as it were, by the hands of a demented artist. Blood streaked in sticky strokes up and down the walls on each side. He thought of himself touching it and suddenly wanted to vomit again. His room, but not his at the same time. As if it were conceived by the hands of a warped constructor. But Jimmy had no time to consider the off balance jigs and the off centered jags of his former bedroom. He had only enough time to see the sorry excuse for a door that meant hope. That meant safety, it was the door out. Jimmy ran as fast and hard as he could for that door, the scratching doppelganger of his former object of lust scraping her serpentine way across the wooden floor behind him as he ran. A flood of off white moon beam poured down on the floor and gave up the ghost of a crooked pair of deeply embedded scratch marks. Her former trail he saw with horror, long crimson stains stretched for small eternities behind those scratch marks—where her dead and still bloodied body pulled itself behind. Jimmy felt the frostbitten burn of the doorknob in the palm of his hand when she called out behind him. It was demonically warped and completely unintelligible. The closest comparison was to that of a cat being finely chopped up in a blender. He felt the cold knob and for one bitter moment hesitated. He thought of Lucinda, and all she had meant to him. Not loved, but deeply cared for. He could’ve loved her perhaps, if given enough time. Even a jerk like he was, could see that. He wished she was whole again, and wondered why such a thing as this had happened to them. But in the end, fear of what she had become pushed him forward. He yanked the door open hard and ran through into the just slightly less dark depths of his living room. He slammed the bed room door behind him and because it opened in upon the bedroom and not out upon the living room, he cursed it. Opening in meant no chair could be propped against its doorknob and properly jam Lucinda in. He didn’t want to hurt her, no matter what she’d become. There still might be some way out of this, he reasoned. But down deep knew better than to hope in such fables. He was screwed and she frightened the hell out of him now. What had she become and how had she become such a…a monster? He looked out upon the dark space before him, glad the moon still blazed down and gave him some light. Nothing in here seemed dangerous, but was just as warped as his room had been. Thrown off in the corners mostly, and crooked where it should be straight. Like a bent in upon itself sort of creation, ready to collapse under the harsh weight of God’s judgment. He shrugged the thought of God off and ran for the couch instead. Jimmy got behind the opposite end of the dusty three cushioned couch and with three heavy breathed huffs began to scoot the large bastard of stains and dirt directly in front of his bedroom door. It wouldn’t keep the door from opening, but just maybe it would keep Lucinda busy for a while so he could straighten things out. Jimmy had his back to the room he felt sure was safe, looking favorably at what he had done and so quickly, when a new noise made itself known. Not new, he corrected himself, realizing the noise had been there all along. Just quiet, and raspy, dangerously close to the breathing sounds he had heard in his bedroom. The noise, he remembered, he had heard just before Lucinda came clawing down upon him. But this time it seemed deeper, more determined even. More filled with death and destruction. Like the lungs of a smoker, who no longer cared for a last breath, but only a last smoke. “Hello?” Jimmy called out, unsure he was even doing it until he heard his own voice. The sound of his frightened tones scared him nearly as bad as the breathing did. Jimmy was met with the roar of silence, and the hinted whisper of that cougher’s breathing, but no word from anyone within. He gazed across the living room and into the shitty excuse of a kitchen beyond. It was really all one room, only separated by the tiling difference of the floor itself. The bathroom was to his left, happily situated just next to his single bedroom. The door was shut tight, and that was, for now, exactly as Jimmy meant to keep it. Everything else was more or less fully exposed. Except for the darkness. The darkness made what should have been painfully obvious less clear and hard to see. The windows—there were two behind where the couch had just been situated—were old fashioned, thin glass with the curtains pulled back wide. All the damp pale light of the bleeding moon above came dripping in upon the room, offering oh so little hope against the darkness. “Hello?” Jimmy called out again, his feet stepping out into the shadowed blackness that covered most of the floor below. Each step taken with painful caution, his arms half reaching out, half wanting to tuck themselves into his ribs and sides deep. Each step taught Jimmy a new lesson in morbid fear, a thing he thought he had learn well enough from what Lucinda had become in his bedroom before. He found the unknowing to be so much worse than having seen the monster and knowing it’s severity. With each slow step, he felt the cold darkness grow thick around him. It was a hungry mouth, his mind whispered, hungry and chewing him up with every footfall. It would swallow him soon; swallow him down to its icy cold depths, burning him with the frigid colds of the deepest and coldest Hell. THUMP! He jumped and spun around in a half circle to face the sudden noise. His eyes worked through the shadowy realm that not long ago was familiar. He saw no source for the noise, had no hint of where it had come from. His eyes bounced around, searching and hoping. Knowledge was power—a thing his ancient fathers had learned since the early rise of fire chasing the shadowy night away. THUMP! He jerked his head and eyes to where the noise had come from. His heart beat, previously going faster than it had ever done in his life, doubled. The sweat that was old became intermingled with the sweat that was new. Jimmy started to call out, but bit his lip. Silence was his greatest friend, his only chance to survive this demented version of his former safe place. His feet crept toward the bathroom door. That’s where it was, wasn’t it? THUMP! It might’ve just been Lucinda trying to dig her way out. He looked toward the bedroom door. She was silent, a lost soul swimming through the seas of black madness, all alone and with no sense of direction left to her. Choking, as it were, in the stomach of the Devil’s firm grip. THUMP! The damning noise came thundering its presence up from the silence, ripping a hole in what had been Jimmy’s private thoughts. He staggered backwards and nearly fell, the door had shook on its frame the thundering noise was so severe. And if it could summon such command from the solid built bathroom door, Jimmy was no longer sure he cared to know what it was. But he had to know, knowing meant survival and despite his own gut telling him it was a thing more than a person, he found his feet on a dead man’s trail of vicious ambition. Curse the curiosities of a mind left to wonder, he had to know, had to see, had to experience. If not to know—and knowing being the gateway of power—then to conquer. To see it, meant he could maybe grasp it and overcome it. To never see, meant to never know, and to never know meant to always be left under the devil’s grip. To hell with that, he thought. He’d face this son of a bitch square on and show it all the fury he’d ever known from life. He’d meet it square on and show this damned thing how he felt about what it had done to Lucinda—even if it hadn’t done a thing to her. He was going to unleash all the anger this night had built up in him, right smack dab on that damned thing just beyond. THUMP! Jimmy felt the cold knob of the door press into his hand when the last bright flair of self doubt came screeching up from his stomach to his head. Don’t you do it, that doubt declared. Don’t you dare. He did. He gripped the doorknob firm and with a bone scraping, gut wrenching, God cursing screech that tore through the nearly silent night of shadows and decrepit moon above, he turned the knob and pushed the door in upon the bathroom beyond. He half expected there to be a loud thump noise as there had been every other moment when the door was shut, but there was none. He had expected to be jumped upon by a monster of some biblically twisted fashion, or maybe even a long dead corpse from the imaginings of Poe, or Dante, or even the master of Horror himself, Stephen King. What he didn’t expect was the freezing cold draft of silent wind pouring over and drenching his ankles deep in the night river of black shadows and awful normality. The bathroom was still, calm, and minus the warped and just off enough to cause alarm angles, was bland. The tub sat on the opposing wall, its curtain drawn tight against him. The toilet sat in between the tub and the one piece sink unit that if he had chosen to he could’ve reached out and touched. He didn’t, he was still certain that something awful was just waiting for him to cross the unspoken line and enter its domain. The curtain, his mind screeched. He jerked his eyes to the drawn curtain and felt the buzz saw of terror crank up to a maniacal speed. As was fitting of all children and grown people alike, that one thing always forgotten and never once looked upon kindly was the grand orchestra of Hell’s musical tonight. It was drawn tight, and he—as no one ever does—didn’t remember pulling it shut. Then again, he had fewer and fewer certainties of anything as the damnable night tore on. THUMP! The noise came so suddenly and swiftly that Jimmy staggered backwards and fell over his own feet in a tight sprawl on his ass. He felt the burn of embarrassment despite the depths of terror that sudden thunder noise summoned. It had come from within, and he knew damn well from where, though he didn’t want to admit it. The curtain, that damned drawn curtain, the great symbol of horror since one was a youth. He spun around and reclaimed his standing, facing that devilish enigma the whole while. It was dirtier than he remembered, once white, it now looked dusty, dirty. Ancient, his mind whispered. He stood there for a moment not sure what to do, seal the door tight against the unknown, or confront it? He turned his head for a moment to consider the expanse of open room behind him. Those black sullen shadows seemed less threatening in the face of this certain mystery. He wasn’t looking for a threat though; he was looking for a weapon. A thing he finally found in the soon to be no longer useful TV antennae. He ripped it off with more trouble than he anticipated, and turned to face the curtain again. Jimmy looked down upon the thin piece of metal held tightly in his right hand, as if to ask it if it were ready. It had damned well better be. He wasn’t sure what might lie beyond that curtain, and after what he’d seen happen to Lucinda, he felt fairly sure it could be anything. He took a cautious step across the sacred line that divided the thumping noise’s domain from his own. He was quickly swallowed up in the too perfect silence of a room always gurgling, bubbling, or hissing one noise or another at him. It was only then that he realized just how silent the whole place had become, with its paper thin walls and nearly exposed wires running everywhere. It was maddening to hear this perfect of silence in a building this old. There were always fights to be eavesdropped upon, or the buzzing calls of electric wires and telephone lines just behind the walls. There was always that high pitched noise of monitors, TVs, Telephones, Microwaves and so much more. But not tonight, tonight there was only the rest in peace silence of the dead and damned. THUMP! The noise was so close it was damning, Jimmy just barely kept his sense about him, half turning and ready to bolt. His hand was so sickly close to the curtain when the noise came ripping out of the silence he nearly shrieked. He wanted to fall over, to get away, anything it would take to wake from this God despised nightmare. Instead, Jimmy did the most admirable, if not dumb, thing he could’ve done. He reached out and yanked the dirty curtain away. It clanked loudly in protest as each big metal ring raked the cold steel of its rod above. But Jimmy never noticed, he only saw the source of the mystery noise and felt sick revolting nausea overcome him. He turned and faced the putrid mess of a single man’s toilette and let his vomit find freedom once again. The thing he’d seen in the shower haunted his thoughts with each gag and stomach turning knot. It was another body. Dressed in a man’s suit coat and firmly pressed slacks, all black, red silk tie and a thick rope around its purpling swollen neck tied tightly around the solid looking shower head above. It was, he realized nearly instantly, the body of Pastor Theodore Peterson. The man Lucinda had been married to. Jimmy had never met the man before, and the man had never come snooping around his place either, as far as he was aware. He had, in fact, only seen the man once, in a picture Lucinda was less than happy had fallen out of her wallet one time. So why was the Pastor hanging—less than perfectly—in his tub? And how had the man so perfectly killed himself with his feet dragging the tub in a bent knee fashion? It wasn’t the drop, that was for damn sure, and there were no restraints on his hands, so he had to have died willingly. But how? Wouldn’t the body protest against something like that? Jimmy was caught in between heavy gagging and sick thin puke when he heard the noise from his side. It was no longer a thump, but a paper thin tearing hint of raspy movement. Jimmy heaved once more, turned his head cautiously to face the purpling body of the good Pastor. He knew what he’d see even before he did. But seeing, as they say, is believing. The good Pastor was wiggling, squirming and writhing from below the heavy rope. His feet kicking with less strength than that of an infant, each heavy well dressed foot came up and fell back down. Sick little thunks of sullen noise came dancing up from the echoing metal tub below. Then with more strength than he had previously shown, the writhing man of God lifted himself up on the tightly wound rope and collapsed below the strain of his endeavor. The sudden Thump of the damning fall rang an all too familiar resonance with Jimmy. Jimmy jumped to his feet, jaw swagging just slightly, antennae dropped and forgotten upon the floor. Their eyes connected for one lonely expanse of time. Dead eyes upon living eyes, stared with hatred; cursing, and something more. Jimmy stood there, hypnotized by the gurgling shadow of what had once been a man. The crimson wounds of a fierce stabbing came rippling through from the hidden surfaces below. He’d been killed first, Jimmy saw, then hung out to display upon that rope, like a wet pair of jeans on an old fashioned clothesline. And those eyes, Jimmy thought, there was something more in them, something murderous and evil; something writhing with raw cursing jealousy. The man had known, perhaps all along, Jimmy saw. Guilt washed in upon Jimmy and made his head hang low for a moment. “She was mine,” the Pastor whispered, barely audible. Jimmy wanted to say something back, but didn’t. Guilt had taken him like a puberty thick and pimple ridden virgin takes a cheap whore. “Every twisted sexual position you gave her, you cursed her to hell with,” the Pastor said. He looked tired and unable to breathe in deep enough, his arm shaking above him as he held the rope up high enough to speak. The Pastor’s body jerked and kicked feebly with the strength of the dead. His yellowing eyes, threatening decay, turned from green envy to red rage. His teeth bit down hard, the squeaking grit of their hatred was so fierce a tooth suddenly came flying out in a thick congealed spurt of blood. “He met me at the crossroads. Said you’d both would get what you deserved. Said she’d suffer first, would let you see her suffer. Said you’d both suffer something awful. It cursed me to have you cursed. It cursed me so fiercely. But it was worth it in the end. To see you punished for your sins,” The Pastor said. His hand gave out and he snapped down hard on the rope. A deep and heavy thump came bouncing up the dull metal and coughed out upon Jimmy’s ears. Jimmy couldn’t believe what he’d just heard from the former man of God. “You’re behind this?” Jimmy asked. The Pastor kicked and fought his desperate but hopeless fight, his eyes aimed soullessly upon Jimmy with acknowledgement and unhindered hatred. The choking laughter of a devil was all he gave Jimmy in the way of response. Jimmy put it together in his mind, not sure how the man had done this, or why to such a sick extent, but there was one thing Jimmy knew and understood. He was no man of God, and now instead of guilt, all he felt for this bastard hanging, choking before him, was hate. Cold, precise hate. The devil had won, be who the fuck cared? Jimmy had some words to give the thing before him before this night was over. “She told me she faked it with you, faked it every time. You were so bad. She had no choice. How she ever loved a man like you to begin with is beyond me,” Jimmy said. The Pastor’s laughter stopped immediately, his eyes bulged in a demented expression and with more fury than he had ever shown before tugged and yanked at the rope above him. Jimmy liked seeing this, but didn’t feel right torturing the man anymore than he had to. He turned to walk out of the bathroom when the Pastor pulled himself back up on his rope and spoke loudly, “I would do it all over again, would do it myself if I could. I’d show that lying bitch who owned her stinking cunt, and then I’d take care of you. That’s all I’m sorry for, that’s all I regret.” Jimmy turned, and looked upon the monster before him. He had never hated another man so thoroughly as he now hated this one. “I hope you burn in Hell you sick son of a bitch,” Jimmy said. He meant to say more, but before he could, the Pastor, in a flash of speed previously hidden, reached out and grabbed a hand Jimmy had carelessly held too close to the man’s body and yanked it in. The grip was cold and tight, the flesh of the corpse tore from the sudden swell of muscles. Jimmy was suddenly aware of his nakedness, terror was back with a bite and his heart threatened giving out on him. Horror was god in this universe, and it took it’s seat on the black Mount Olympus of the netherworld as he watched the corpse pull itself higher up on the long brown rope. Higher than it had ever done before, slowly, and calmly. The strength of that dead arm was absolutely horrific. There was a deep throaty gurgle as the Pastor prepared some awful thing to say, or worse yet, do. It was thick and liquid like. Insanity swimming in a sea of dead spit. Speech poured out of the mouth of the corpse, its yellow eyes flared up in the look of a thousand impaled Saints, the long burning anger of distant and ancient memories never forgotten. “Hell…is…hungry…” The corpse of the pastor gurgled. Jimmy yanked his hand free as the overextended strength of the pastor broke and sent Pastor’s corpse falling to the tub in a bone chilling thump. The Pastor would rise no more, not if there was a God in Heaven. He had, Jimmy saw, given up the ghost. The man’s eyes were dim, dead, dull. The soul of the man, his ghost perhaps, had vanished. Jimmy backed to the door of the bathroom and saw for the first time there were words written on the mirror in a red so dark it bordered on black. A red that could come from only one source. Blood. Cursed. Jimmy looked upon the word even as he stumbled his way out into the open space of his living room. The swishing sound of the smoky breathing was growing thicker, but he didn’t notice. Didn’t care. He saw the word even as it became obscured by the darkness that was bleeding in like a fog upon his world. He saw that single hexing word and like a glaring bare bulb against the night understood the whole awful night just a little more clearly. His memories had been locked up in a cage, perhaps it was insanity, perhaps it was delusions of grandeur, or perhaps it was spiritual justice—whose was open for debate, God or the Devil. He saw that word written in blood and understood it was speaking of him. And looking toward his former bedroom; her. Jimmy went to his front door, and seeing there was bloody words there too, turned away. These words were worse perhaps than the single word in the bathroom. He’d read it once in an ancient poem written by a man long ago. “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter in,” dripped down the back of his front door. He was doomed, he now understood, and having gripped that, he walked back to where the couch had blocked his bedroom and pushed it away. He grabbed the door and feeling only some fear at what he was doing, walked in. Lucinda was lying on the floor, waiting for him. She was a mess of ripped and bleeding flesh. But seeing her, he finally felt the one thing he vowed he’d never feel in all his life. He didn’t just care for her, especially not now when she and he needed each other the most. He loved her. Jimmy walked to the dresser where all her makeup had been before. She wasn’t moving behind him, not sure of what he was up to perhaps. He went to the third drawer down and opened it. He fished out his grandmother’s home sewn quilt and walked back to Lucinda. He, as gently as he could, placed the quilt across her tender back and took her in his arms. She moaned out in pain, but soon quit. She seemed happy, but for how much longer such a thing as that could exist in Hell, Jimmy had no idea. But he was going to face it as he should; with her in his arms. As a man accepting the things he was responsible for. “Cin?” he said, “I love you.”

Copyright (c) 2009 by Gregory D. Welch

Just a quick update…

Yes, I’ve been rather silent lately. You haven’t imagined it, nor have I given up on you. I would say sorry, but I see that overdone. So, I won’t.
I will say it was for a good cause though. I’ve been working my writing arse off on finalizing a novel to submit in a contest come February. Should I make it far enough and you have an account on Amazon.com, won’t you be so kind as to read my work and give me your support?
I appreciate all of you who take the time as it is, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Writers are an emotional and needy bunch. (Hey, easy now, I’m just speaking the truth here)
Anyways, the update I’m making is this, you can now find some of my work on Smashwords.com, and will likely save some money for those piece I actually put a price on. The catch—if you can call it that—is they’re ebook format, but, so far I’ve let you the public decide the fair price.
So, get your ebooks over there, and check out all the other authors who are independent and trying their damnedest for just a little respect. Trust me, we all need it.

Your Constant Writer,

Greg

Love in the Dark Romance

How is that a thing as repulsive as a Vampire, with an undead and cold heart feel the burning fires of love and passion? How then can a beast of rage, biting teeth and fury madness fall victim to a single arrow shot from Cupid’s magic bow? How  can it be that a mindless corpse of rotting flesh and gnashing teeth wonder through the heartland and still yet retain but one last memory, love gained and love lost?

Love is the undying theme of greatness it would seem. Fight it or embrace it, love touches us all. Perhaps that is the mystery of how such  a great and sometimes jovial thing as this can intertwine so wonderfully with something dark, horrific and often times revulting. Love is the great hope, the high aspiration, the thing more often than not just out of reach. Love is one of the few common strands of humanity that in one way or another ties us all together.

But Love has a dark side. Oh yes indeed. And that darkside is the very root of truly memorable if not classic Dark Fiction.

Call it what you will, the Dark Romance, the Gothic Tale, or a work of Dark Fiction plain and simple. But the story that meshes these two icons of life and all its struggles therein, is a story that often outgrows the unprepared writer. They take on an air of their own accord, and soar to brilliant new heights. Or in the case of truly Dark Fiction, they sink to the depths of Dante’s Chilling Hell.

Why is that?

Horror, the emotion, is a thing of repulsion. The thing we strive to free ourselves from, to run and flee. To escape. The Horrific monster is no less worthy of this endeavor. It is this monster bound with that one great desire of humanity—love—that both connects us to, and thoroughly revulses us from it.  Who was it that once said, “It’s better to Love and Lose than to never Lose at all”? It surely wasn’t a writer of Horror. Love is perhaps the perfect chisel for making a truly grotesque monster.

A beast of merely brute force and savage ways can be killed and put down. But a monster of same strength having tasted the sweet sensations of Love is an undying beast. Passion is the great instigator as well as the great inspiration. Passion’s fire fuels both rage and jealousy to no ends, even if love is returned. Add to that the Dark Monster and what you get is a Hellatious little tale of truly lasting value.

The Pale Horse

 

 

His face was filled with black squirming madness. Maggots, and festive flies feasting on rotting flesh. A vicious thing to behold, a horrible thing, a nightmare thing. The sort of thing, in fact, that might dance behind the dreaming eyes of the mad and fevered sick.

It was, most assuredly, not the sort of thing any man as sane as Danny Rhore should be seeing, not now, not ever. But sweet Lord, he was, and like it or not, the damn thing was walking as pretty as please, and plain to the eye, smack dab up the double yellow lines in the center of the road. Others had noticed, standing cold and still at their door, in that summer glow of dying afternoon just before twilight threatened to show its head.

More than a few jaws dropped, and swagged. More than a few eyes jagged out and bulged dangerously close to freedom. And more than a few hearts danced oh so coldly close to death’s welcoming plea.

What was this awful thing walking so boldly up their street, and heading right to town? What God in Heaven above could ever let such a foul thing exist, let alone walk out of lying fiction into truthful reality? What apotheosis of imagining could ever summon such a wicked image, let alone allow it to breathe life, and clippity clop its way through the reflected heat of an American road?

The monster of maggot squirming flesh, was otherwise completely shrouded in the Grim Reaper’s proud and loathsome dark cowl. A thing of cobwebby strength, billowing out behind from a hidden wind neither felt nor heard by any of the gazing, terror struck eyes. Tatters drenched it in gaping ruins here and there with the chaotic weavings of chance and time’s stretching memory.

Clippity clop, clippity clop.

That was a peculiar sound, Danny thought. Cowboy boots, but what self respecting devil, or reaper would ever wear such? Danny’s eyes fell to the ground where a flowing left over of the black midnight robe pulled free with each cruel step to reveal a shiny, howbeit dulled, steel toed boot. They were dried as only a thousand hot days could procure, permanently bent and peeled back, but oddly held only a thin yellow layer of dust.

Clippity clop, clippity clop.

The beast of stinking flies turned his head in a loud leathery stretch back and forth. He was taking in the view, each gaping jaw, and wincing face withdrew as the dangerously clear eyes of the thing turned to them. A worm darted from a tear duct, wiggled and squirmed then lurched its way down the side of the nose to a gaping gash revealing bones and tendons below.

Clippity clop, clippity clop.

Madness was coming to town, and surely would take with it all the innocent and pure thoughts. Surely, no such good thing could stand a stare down with a thing of such ancient flesh, and foul stinking death. Surely no sane man could stare into those squirming, worm infested eyes for long without themselves turning into a raving lunatic.

That’s when the idea occurred to Danny, had that been what had happened to him? To them—he looked across the street as his jaw gaping neighbors as he considered this. Had they all stared into the abyss and loss balance? Had they teetered too close and took a nose dive, falling ever onward into a bottomless nightmare of black confusion and absurd insanity?

Clippity clop, Clippity clop.

No, he didn’t think so. Whatever this demonic icon of death might prove to be in the end, it had proved this much. It was very very real indeed. The smell alone was enough to prove that, Danny thought, pinching his nose when he found the strength to raise hand. His stomach turned and twisted, that stench of a million murders, and a billion decaying pounds of flesh was madness in and of itself.

In truth, Danny realized, seeing such a thing as this was driving more than his mind to madness. It was taking him one cruel body part after another. Sucking the sanity from his veins, and slurping up the puddles of what had once been his carefully kept and safely guarded mind. It was a vampire of normality, biting not the neck, but the essence of the upright man or woman. And when it finished it’s deadly kissing, and midnight meal, not a dried corpse would be left (though Danny found he could imagine this quite well indeed) but rather the down casted remains of only the animal inside the man, only the savage memory of the beast abandoned in the woman.

Clippity clop, Clippity clop.

He was almost there, Danny saw with terror choking his throat. Almost to town, and what black magic was this? Before the maggot faced bastion of hell was dying day and some reminder of reality and daytime strength. But draping behind, like the constantly growing and wind flapping cowl, was a midnight blackness. And such horrors as no man should ever wish to see dancing in those delicate darknesses.

Danny had to squint his eyes to see it clearly, but once or twice he could’ve sworn he had seen the gnarled and bent form of a midget darting in and out of shadowed pillars—a thing in and of itself that had never before been there, not in the damn road like that. Wicked looking trees darted up from where the carefully kept yards sat barren and untouched by rain. The quiet hiss hiss hiss of the sprinklers dimming and then gurgling to silence. The landscape had shifted, as if that entire part of the world had fallen into the depths of Dante’s dark imaginings. A door from reality to reality had been swung open, and was sucking them all in.

Clippity clop, clippity clop, clippity clop. Silence.

Danny snapped his head around to the figure in a blind hurry. The beast of man shapes and black robes had come to a stop at just the edge of town. Danny found his hands wringing on another in the worrisome fashion of his long since passed mother, and like her, he was whispering whatever prayers might come to mind.

“Oh Hallowed Jesus, Lord Most, High, Oh Dear Jesus on the throne, oh dear Jesus, oh Dear Jesus, oh dear Jes—”

The shriek of what hell must surely if the bible were true, sound like came screaming up from the hidden depths of some fiery sounding set of lungs buried under those heavy robes and flesh hungry blood lusting maggots.

The sound was long, piggish and painful. As if the man monster had taken root and with those roots dug down to hell. His mouth was the mouthpiece to what those unseen roots had found, screaming, screeching and shattering glass from the most agonizing sound Danny had ever heard.

Danny saw no roots and knew his imagination had thought them up, and before he could consider those lightly dusted boots again, the beast began to speak. It was earthy low, and thin with forgotten time.

“Taste death, and see the night, feel a devil’s strength, and fear that devil’s imagination in all its black morbid might…”

Danny heard the sudden whoosh even before he felt the coldness. Deeper night than he had ever known before came swooping in like a thousand black crows to feast on a cornfield, so black, his white shirt went first gray then was gone entirely. There was no sight, no sense of anything he had ever known. Reality had taken a sudden turn for the worse, like a ship lost at sea suddenly capsizing; up had become down and vice versa.

Oh how far did the rabbit’s hole go? How far, he corrected himself, did the devil’s hole go? How far did the abyss go? For eternity, for all of hateful black eternity, his mind came screeching back at him.

Danny became aware of slithering movement not far away. It was squirming and writhing like a slippery wet snake, and was steadily creeping closer and closer. The sound became more distinct and began to sound more like many slithering snakes than just one, as it gained strength and fury. It was almost to his step when the sudden bone chilling scream broke Danny’s trance.

He jumped, shook his head and slammed his door shut against the world that God had just turned the lights out on.

His stumbling drunk man steps took him back three feet before falling on his ass with a jar. There was still absolutely no light anywhere, not a glint, not a flicker, not even the pin prick promise of an end to the tunnel. The world was black beyond oblivion, and there was more.

He wasn’t sure at first, hadn’t even really noticed it. The sudden blackness had an oily feel to it, like a damp fog. Sitting there on his ass, Danny weaved his fingers in and out of that thick cold atmosphere, stretching his hands and snapping them closed in slow motion. He was teetering on the outskirts of shock when the snapping pop of a distant gun came ripping through the oily madness.

First the scream, then the gun, then nothing but blank black night.

Oh dear Jesus, he thought, what is going on?

Another scream, this one was moving. He never knew his ears could paint such distinct images as he did now. He could almost see the body of that screaming woman—that’s what it sounded like, the distinctly higher pitched screams of a woman—cutting a nightmare’s jag up the same street that devilish figure had walked not long ago. Something was dragging her, and if he strained his ears, even with the storm door shut he could faintly here the slick wetness of a thing only blood could tale of.

Like Abel’s blood crying out to God for Justice.

Danny sat there for the lonely stretches of eternity, listening to the world descend into chaos. He thought of his family, and how badly he wished he’d found a wife by now. He didn’t want to die alone, but seemed like that was exactly what was about to happen. Death, the great monster had come to their town in a nearly silent entrance and most disturbing exit.

Clippity clop, clippity clop.

His ears perked up at the most unholy pair of steel toed boots etching out a cold merciless path up the heated pavement of the road.

Clippity clop, clippity clop.

Oh dear God, there was nowhere else that thing could be but outside his little stone path, standing down by the mailbox. Get up Danny, get the fuck up! His brain shouted.

Clippity clop, clippity clop, clippity clop.

Get the fuck up Danny! And very slowly he did, his ass was tingling, his lower back was sore, and his brain was buzzing. But he was up and not sure what to do next. His head turned in dumb habit, trying to see what may never again be seen.

Clippity clop, clippity clop, clippity clop. Silence.

It was right there, at his door, standing there with only a storm door between them. Run you bastard run!

Danny took off like a bat out of hell, tripped over the lazy boy, busted his face on a wall, corrected himself before falling flat again and found his way to the familiar path he’d marked on too many lonely drunken nights. Not too far ahead was the eat in kitchen, and then after that was the backyard fourteen foot by fourteen foot, no bigger, no smaller. If he could make it there, he might just be able to make it anywhere.

“I smell ya boy…” That hideous leathery voice called from the inky depths behind.

Don’t you dare stop, just run Danny, run!

“Oh yes, I smell the fear, I smell the horror, I smell your stinking delicious flesh.” The distinctly wet smacking sound of lips came slapping through the darkness and set Danny’s heart to a new rhythm.

Almost there Danny, almost there.

“I can see you too, oh yes, I got x-ray eyes for the soul boy, I see your black heart beating a scaredy cats jag, it’s pretty as the pink flesh of your ass. Run all you want you little shit, but I won’t be outran for too long, oh no…”

The back door was double locked and firm. Three yanks to drive that simple fact in, and a painful nail scratching search for the familiar locks followed. He sensed the closing in motion of that maggot faced monster, he knew it was close, so close he could smell it overwhelming him. He could feel the sour stir in the air around him, as his neck hairs raised up on their ends. Two locks down, one lock to go, open it Danny, open by God!

“You aint scared too bad are ya boy?” The monster cried, a thick deep sounding laugh came teasing through the dark.

Danny felt the final click, yanked the door open and ran out into the netherworld of his backyard. A new fear soon found him, he knew that as he left the house and eventually the back yard, he’d be heading out into an utter black land he would sooner or later not recognize in the least.

His eyes went from black to a dim gray. He never thought he’d be so happy to see such dim obscurity in all his life, but the fact of the matter wasn’t how little he could see, it was that he could see something.

But when his eyes adjusted and beheld the changed world of what had just hours before had been his dried yellow back yard, with the broken peeling and chipped red painted chair sitting next to the crusty looking grill, he couldn’t help himself but gasp. Where all that normality had been, was now a cracked and barren looking landscape, great chasms of orange slits burned upward with black billows of tar paper smoke roaring heavenward. Screams and moans came from nearly everywhere. Leather flapping wings came from the black clouded sky. He had stepped into the backdoor of hell.

The softer sounding clickity clack of the cowboy boots were almost on him, and he knew he needed to go, no matter what he was seeing, he had to run. But where should he run? Straight back to the big fence? He wasn’t sure he could jump it, even if he had wanted to.

His head jerked right and left and then stopped thinking altogether, he ran straight for the fence at full steam just as that decay smelling hand brushed his shoulder and the foulest breath that could have ever existed in all of creation came creeping up his neck. He found he had someone leaped up just enough to reach the lip, and on pure adrenaline could even pull himself over. He ran faster and longer than he had ever before. Darting in between fiery chasms that were cracking open all around, glowing sick oranges like those places in Hawaii so close to the volcanoes. That’s what the world had become, a waking volcano, ready to consume with fire.

A sudden clap of thunder came roaring down from overhead, louder, stronger, and longer than any he had ever heard. It was so fierce it shook his bones and drove him to a standstill. He staggered a little, his balance mysteriously gone. His face turned to his old apartment building which he half expected to be burning with fire—but wasn’t—and saw the black robed figure of maggots and cowboy boots halfway over the fence. Another sound, from the direction his body had been facing pulled his head back around.

Coming this way was a sight that at first made him excited in lost religious fashion. At first the horse looked blazing white, it was such a defiant shade against all those thicker layers of black and dark grays, standing out even against the disgusting oranges. But as the horse came racing closer and closer he saw it wasn’t white, not at all, merely a pale color. Faded and tired looking, yet bursting with a crazed energy that Danny wasn’t sure he could ever understand in a thousand lifetimes.

Sitting on the unsaddled back of the pale horse was an ominous looking figure in some ways mirroring the black robed monstrosity coming from behind. But in other ways was starkly different. But what had most caught Danny’s eye wasn’t anything to do with the man, nor even the tired but persistent energy of the horse. It was a bloody scrawl of letters racing down the side of the pale horse, the trails of blood fresh from kill trailing down its sides in streaks below the very visible lettering. A name, he corrected himself, and in a flash of black agony he understood.

Written upon the horse in fresh blood was the word, DEATH.

“Oh Holy Jesus!” Danny shouted, he meant to turn, meant to run. But where could he ever go to outrun such things as these?

A shriek came up behind him, the cowboy from hell. No, he corrected himself, that monster wasn’t merely from Hell, he was Hell…

Copyright (c) 2008 by Gregory D. Welch

Dark Fiction VS. Horror

Recently, I read a most excellent book—highly recommended for the aspiring writer of darker fiction—“On Writing Horror”. There is, more than once a certain issue raised that I would like to address. That is, the issue of the Horror Genre being a true genre. Ahhh, blasphemy, I hear the whispered word now. No need for panic, I’m just as in love with horror as ever. But I do wonder about the term Horror a little more and my titling of myself as a Horror writer. That much, I must confess.

Horror, as stated in this book, is an Emotion more than a genre. However, terms aside, Horror has stood up quite well as a genre, something I think any of you would agree with me on. The thing that picks at me is this, would a writer of the dark arts be better described as a writer of Dark Fiction? The argument is this, though he or she does produce (and aim to produce) Horror, is horror the only emotion wished upon the reader? What of terror, sorrow, fear, revulsion?

Horror, then, is overly restrictive of the intent of a Dark Fiction writer. I can not and will not speak for all Horror writers, but for myself at least, Horror is only one aim of my writing. I aim to convey the truths of my characters and their worlds. Not even, necessarily (or always) the truths of MY world. I wish to inflict my readers with  a dull haunting that will rekindle the feelings they had during reading my works just as much as I wish to inflict revulsion and stark naked terror at other times.

I say all of that to say this, I as a writer am best described as a writer of Dark Fiction…

But some of you are scratching your head and wondering at the rant I am giving you. “What’s the difference between Horror and Dark Fiction anyways? Emotions aside and all?” I hear you ask. And excellent question. Dark Fiction, as I understand it, is any fiction set in the witching hours of the soul. Dark Fiction is the sort of story that takes you into the gritty truth of emotion, shocks you with revulsion, decimates you with horror, terror, and fear, and haunts you with deep dark characters. Dark Fiction puts a crimson mirror in front of you, and shows you, through strong connections with the monsters of such tales, that you are either that monster or at least share more than you’d like to realize with it. We all do. We all have the great potential of being the Hero or the Villain. That’s what makes a story worth reading.

One other thing, Dark Fiction is also the sort of fiction that never guarantees the victory of the good over the bad. A thing that is more honest and truthful than a great deal of optimistic fiction….

Apartment 16 (Short Story)

Apartment 16

 

Hard times had forced Jack Bishop to move back in with the folks a year before, so when he and Jessica had gotten together their date nights involved quirky nights in his little rat hole in the wall bedroom with a crooked television and a good scary movie, or the long lonely drives. Of the two, nothing beat the drives except maybe the occasional adventure Jessica would allow to happen in his room. These were few and far between in the year before, as she was always fearful his folks would walk in unannounced and see more than they ever would forgive (or forget).

Apartment sixteen was the first one on the right when you climbed the little stairs at Elmwood Apartments. It wasn’t a new building, but not ancient either. That was a blessing; old buildings gave them both the creeps. The building was, to put it in a single word, heaven, for the two youths caught in the rushing river of love and lust.

“So, what’ya think?” Jack asked Jessica as he opened the door and let her in. She had heard all about it, but couldn’t make it to the viewing a month before due to her own shitty excuse of a job (Kroger’s sounds like a more than excellent job for the elder population, but spelled Hell for the rising youth who were forced to work there under three to four managers at a time.)

“I don’t even care Jack.” She said, closing the door behind them with a click. Sudden darkness rushed over them both and a (nearly) mood killing fear crept in. Their hands bumped each others in the rush for the light switch which, thank God, worked.

The apartment, a small two bedroom (why he had to have two was beyond Jessica, but then again Jack was a pack rat and he insisted he could turn the other room into a bad ass office. His words not hers.) Upon walking in, the couple was met with a combination of living room and kitchen with dining room dying in obscurity somewhere between the two. The rooms were split only by the white linoleum flooring of the Kitchen and the placid grey carpet that extended to every other room except the bathroom. The bathroom mimicked the kitchen for taste.

Walking straight back was a lonely looking sliver of a hallway with two closets, one made exclusively for linen, the other much deeper. After these lonely closets they were faced with three doors to choose from. The one to their right was the deepest bathroom either of them ever saw in an apartment of such low bragging rights. Straight ahead was the smaller of two rooms, the one Jack insisted he could turn into a great office later, and then to the left was the master bedroom.

There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place yet, the electric had in fact just been turned on, and still the hormones couldn’t be restrained. Jessica grabbed Jack in a fit of passionate fury and shoved him in the room they’d make plenty of love at. That was her one, lone intent now, and the devilish grin that grew across her face as she slid his belt buckle free from its clasp and fumbled with the button, said that more clearly than anything.

“Why, whatever do you have in mind.” Jack asked as he returned the favor, helping her out of her shirt.

“Wouldn’t you like to know. Too bad we don’t have a bed yet.” She said.

“Yeah, a little bounce would go a long way right now huh?”

“What are you hinting at, you think somethin’s gonna happen here Jack?” That devil’s grin was growing a little darker with mischievous intent. Jack’s concentration was broken for a split second as he noticed the closet light was turned on. Something chilled his soul as he looked down and saw the faint hint of yellow light pouring in on their intimacy from the other side of the closet that had in fact sold him.

“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked.

“I don’t remember leaving that light on when I was in here earlier…”

“Honestly? You’re going to let that ruin the fun I was gonna give you?”

Jack turned the light off in the closet with that growing hint of a chill as it cried away down his spine. They were in each other’s arms a moment later and the fun was building for a night of lovely lust yet again.

***

                Settling into a new place was always a slow and steady process. And at first, Jessica didn’t live with Jack. He lived in the little two bedroom by himself, shuffling out in the mornings, afternoons and evenings as schedule dictated to do a job he hated for a sliver of freedom.

Jack felt the drum beat of growing dread at night whenever he had to go back by himself and knew he’d be alone in there. It was the sort of creepy feeling you feel, but never dare to hint at. The paranoia began slow enough, and wasn’t anything of substance or depth.

He swore once or twice that he had left a light on, which was threatening to become a new custom. And when he returned home sometime later, he’d find the apartment drenched in a netherworld of darkness.

It was little things, nothing of the sort to discuss with the girl of his dreams. The girl, he hoped would never see him standing in his apartment’s doorway considering whether he should step in or not. Fear had become common to him, a thing he remembered from his youth with his mother’s ghost stories and whispers of things called Tokens and all their premonition like grandeur, never giving good news, only news of death.

***

                Two weeks later, Jack and Jessie were sitting around the apartment with all their money locked away in one bill or another. They were cuddled up on the couch growing bored of the movie they were watching, Jack was secretly wishing for a night out on the town, Jessie was a little out of sorts and hard to read.

“When you think you’ll wanna move in here?” Jack asked.

“I dunno, not sure my mom will take to it so well, and you know she’s gonna take the car when I do. Don’t you Jack?”

“Yeah, I can’t afford paying for your insurance anyways.”

“we’ll figure something out, I’m sure.” Jessie said.

Jack hated her blind optimism sometimes.

“You bored of this movie yet?” Jack asked.

“Why? Are you?” she shot back in hopeful glee.

“A little I guess, but, we can’t afford to go out and do anything.”

“Yeah… Well, maybe we can do something here?”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Jack asked as a grin grew across his face.

“Not that you pervert, I was thinking of a game maybe.”

“Not another Board game, please Jessie, we never do well playing those damned things. They always lead to a fight.”

“No, hide and go seek!” She shouted as she raised herself up from the cuddled up position.

Hide and go seek, those words ran fear down Jack’s spine but then again things had been almost back to normal lately. Was mostly due to Jessie’s coming over more and more. A thing that took away Jack’s growing fear of the apartment, whatever that was all about.

“Ok… But, how do you suppose we’re going to hide in such a small place, Jess?” He asked.

“Ever hear of Murder in the Dark?”

Oh, so this does getter better.

“Yeah.”

“Well, like that, we’ll turn out all the lights, TV, everything, you go stand in the bathroom until the count of one hundred, then come and find me.”

“A hundred? Damn, you givin yourself enough time aren’t you?”

“So… We playin?”

Jack glanced across the apartment, thought of the soon to be black oblivion it was about to become and shook off a shiver. Jessie was eyeing him, waiting for an answer, her crooked smile hinting at which she hoped for.

“Ok, fine, you hidin’ first?”

“Yeah, then we’ll switch, sound fair?”

“Yeah, sure, you must have a spot already, probably—“

“Don’t you even, go to the bathroom, and no peeking.”

Most of the lights were already off, all that was left could be handled by Jessica, as they were in the living room or kitchen. Jack turned in the doorway of the bathroom and met Jessica’s eye. She smiled, and for no reason Jack felt a shiver. His mother would’ve said a goose just ran across his grave, but graves and geese were for other times, they were about to play in the dark. The dark, that was where bad things happen, Jack thought as he stood there.

Jack turned and stepped into the bathroom; he clicked on the light and shut the door. That was one room he wasn’t about to stand in with no lights. He started to count knowing full well he wouldn’t make it to one hundred, Jessica would count too, but as long as he gave her time she wouldn’t care.

One.

He heard her soft padded feet trying to be quiet as she hurried through the apartment, probably trying to distract him.

Two.

She crossed by the bathroom and headed into the bedroom, please don’t pick the closet, I can’t handle that fucking closet in the dark babe. He heard the closet door open and shut and would have lost all open except her heard her feet, even more quiet now, tiptoeing by the bathroom door, back toward the living room.

Three.

Jack’s eyes danced across the yellow lit bathroom, he walked to the toilet, unzipped his jeans and took a leak while waiting. Why not? He had to, and convenience permitted it. He found his mind wondering the damnedest things, like what gruesome event had went on in that bathroom before he or Jessie ever even knew it existed?

Four.

He shook three times, didn’t flush, went to the sink and began to wash. He heard Jessica again, a little louder than she should have been. Her feet went by the bathroom again and then he lost track of her. That same shiver crept up his spine with slow familiarity to it now.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

She should have had plenty of time by now, thirteen was a fair enough count right? He wanted to laugh, but oddly found himself also wanting to remain as still as possible. He didn’t like how still and quiet the apartment had become now, he couldn’t hear her at all, and even when she tried her hardest she was never that quiet.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

Half a minute, and still no noise. Jack was shamelessly pressed firmly against the edge of the door listening hard, straining to hear something anything. He was even tempted to throw the door open and take a peak, but if she was there she’d likely throw a hell of a fit, and make him start over. So, he listened. Nothing, not a sound, not a peep, not a silent step. Nothing, except his own heart racing with worrisome concern, and fear, perpetual fear choking at his sanity. Where the hell was that coming from.

Thirty turned to forty, and forty to fifty, and then fifty to sixty. Each in rapid hurry, she had plenty of time Jack, just shout one hundred and open the door. Go on Jack, do it, she could’ve hurt herself or something. She might need help Jack, open the door.

His hand was on the door, nearly yanked it open when his cell phone buzzed it’s noisy so called silent ring. Jack jumped, his heart jerked and he quickly let go of the door. His eyes bulged, his temples pumped with furious fear and blind terror. For one insane moment, he’d thought there was a bee in his pocket, before realizing it was the cell phone instead.

Jack reached in his right hand pocket and pulled the flip phone out, looked at the ID. It read, “SMS Message”. He flipped it open, chose the view now option and began to read.

“Hey Honey, sorry work held me over. Ready to come get me?”

Jack nearly dropped the phone, he looked at the time and date to make sure it wasn’t a technical glitch. Both, to his rising horror were accurate, to the minute no less. But that couldn’t be, right? If Jessie were texting him, then who or what was that out there he was about to play hide and seek with?

She’s just yankin your chain Jack, she’s out there texting you this trying to scare you, that’s all. Yeah, yeah that was all, that was it. Except, she didn’t seem like herself tonight, now that he thought about it. Little things, not big things. She had a different look in her eyes, and her smile was off at times. But never anything much.

He clicked reply and began to text her back.

“Very funny Jess, one hundred, here I come.”

Jack yanked the door open, and stood still. The entire apartment was black with night madness. Only the dim glow of the microwave clock could be seen, and beyond that it was deadly dark. And worse than that was the sudden stillness it had obtained. Like no one had ever lived in it, or ever would again.

Jack stepped one tender foot across the thresh hold between light and darkness, about to leave the yellow light blazing, which he found a certain peace in having behind him. Just in case his brain buzzed.

“Don’t cheat Jack, turn that light off too…” The vaguely familiar voice cried from somewhere in the apartment. It sounded like Jessica, but again it sounded just a little off. And what was worse was how it seemed to emanate from the walls and ceilings. All around, nowhere yet everywhere. He wouldn’t have been able to give an exact location on that voice if his life depended on it.

Jack reached a hand back into the bathroom, never letting his eyes off the darkness before him, his heart racing in blood squirting anger at him. Don’t you dare do it, his heart cried, don’t you dare. Jack snapped it off, hearing the rush of black silence come at him like a freight train. He was alone now, and in the utter darkness of his apartment.

Another step out into the black oblivion and he received the second greatest terror of the night. His phone buzzed again. He grabbed it, thankful for the light it would provide, flipped it open and read the message. His heart sank viciously.

“100? WTF Jack? LOL You drinking w/o me? So, you heading this way?”

The sender was marked as Jessie, the date and time were right. Jack’s eyes danced across the thick darkness, he felt blind and hopeless. Jack flipped the phone around and used the light to find the hallway switch. A crimson stain wet and sticky clung to its surface. He flipped the switch and only received the deafening dead clicks for his reward. No lights.

The bathroom Jack, get back to the bathroom for God’s sake!

Jack turned for the bathroom, ran into it, slammed and locked the door. If it was dark outside the bathroom, it was a crypt on the inside. He reached for the bathroom switch, flipped it on and gave the loudest sigh of his life when buzzing yellow light came belching back at him.

The relief was quickly swallowed by the horror of one thing out of place. The shower curtain, he obsessively kept open, always fearful of someone hiding behind, was pulled shut against him. And what was worse was the distinct slippery wet sucking sound coming from behind. Those sucking noises were chased by slobbering chomps of bone against bone, or teeth against bone. And was utterly maddening. John took three slow steps to the curtain, reached out with quivering hand, almost there, when the phone buzzed in his hand.

Frightened beyond belief, he dropped it to the floor and jumped back.

Jack composed himself, bent over with eyes glued to the curtain and picked the phone up. He looked down, new Text message. He read it quickly, feeling his horror choke him.

“Where you at Jack? You standing me up?” Jessica wrote.

“No. Smthng wrng. Some 1 N Apt. If no response, call cops.” He wrote as quick as he could without looking away from the curtain anymore than he had to.

Jack knew his chances were slim of making it to the front door, he’d have his back to that curtain and be left to whatever was on the other side’s whims when it came to the only light he knew for sure worked. So, that left Jack with only one option as he saw it. Confrontation.

His hand was stretching out for that curtain again, terror and sweat competing for attention. His feet ready to run like hell if need be, he very slowly gripped the shower curtain. Steady Jack, steady.

He yanked it open and screamed like he never knew he could.

Sitting in a hunkered position facing away from him was the wet sticky looking body of what looked like a woman, an old woman. Her back rippling with bones jutting up, and bare, green gray skin glistening in the light with a sick moisture. Her hair was the worst perhaps, a black so dark the light seemed to get lost in it, and greasy looking too. Each miserable strand stuck to the other, and dangled in long locks across her back, and down her shoulders. She was moving back and forth, never seeming to notice Jack.

The distinct sound of sucking and chomping came ripping up at his ears. As if someone were sucking the meat off of a big fat chicken leg, licking each finger it was so good. But what this hag must have been eating, Jack didn’t want to imagine, or know. He was slowly creeping backwards with his hand reaching out behind him to find the doorknob when at last she began to stop. Jack froze.

The old woman in the bathtub slowly began to turn her head back and forth in the slowest fashion, like an old satellite dish looking for a signal. The bones in her neck popped and creaked, she looked confused, or thoughtful. Her head turning, stopped, cocked sideways as if listening and then with the most insane slowness began to creep it’s way around toward Jack. Inch by nightmarish inch her face came into view, teasing Jack’s sanity with suicide.

Her skin was green gray all over, a chunk of her visible cheek sagged and flapped as if freshly filleted. Her nose wasn’t long, but had a broken hump to it, and twisted off a little to the left. But the worst thing was her eyes, which met Jack’s with a serpentine wisdom.

Two pink orbs, solid all the way through, and they were looking straight at Jack. Her smile crept across her face, and at once Jack recognized it as being that same smile he had mistakenly thought Jessica had been giving him earlier. It had been this hag all night he realized in one slow moment after the next.

“Oh Jack, you don’t want me anymore? You… You dont wanna go fuck?” Jessica’s voice said through the crimson covered lips of the old hag. Jack felt a lever sliding to an off position behind his eyes, like a switchboard operator had realized sanity would soon be lost as was shutting the systems down one slow knob after another.

“Who…” Jack said.

The hag never replied. Jack for the first time noticed what she had been eating and felt nausea boil up inside him at once. Her lips teemed with its blood, and now that he was really looking, he saw the dribbling trails flow over her chin and fall to the tub.

In the tub was a large looking rat, half eaten with all its gore displayed to the world. The hag followed his eyes to the rat, picked up part of it and held it out to him.

“You want some Jack?” Jessica’s voice spoke through the hags scabby lips. She eyed him, seeming to enjoy his terror, then laughed the most evil laugh Jack had ever heard. That’s when the lights went out.

 

Copyright (c) 2008 by Gregory D. Welch

Breaking News on “Fallen Angel Risen Demon”

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to let you know, “Fallen Angel, Risen Demon” is officially up and for sale over at the store (LuLu.com/ShadesofTruth). So swing by and check out the exclusive preview that takes you a little further than what I’ve given preview to already. Hope you Enjoy!

Your Constant Writer,

Gregory D. Welch

Chapter 3 of Fallen Angel, Risen Demon

-3-

“We have a problem sir…” The voice said over a secure line.

“Go on Arch Angel…” An older voice replied.

“The Angel of Death has fallen, I repeat, the Angel of Death has fallen…”

“Status?”

“The gates have opened, Apollyon is free, Sir.” Arch Angel spoke into the line, his breathing nearly suffocating the words out of existence.

“Radius of Impact?” The older voice went on.

“At least 20 miles. The gates are wide sir.” the heavy breathing nearly out of control, the sticky sound of lips being licked came crackling across the line, then, “One other thing…”

“Continue.” The older voice said taking in all the details and nervous tones.

“The Bloodhounds are tracking sir, I repeat, Blood Hounds are tracking.”

“Proceed to Alpha One, Commence shut down and locate the Key master. Have the gates Locked by Noon. Do you copy?”

“S-s-sir?” Arch Angel ventured.

“Where did you train at? Do you not understand a direct order when you hear one?” The ominous voice cried, shaking off any previous sound of older age.

“Sir, yes sir, I understand sir. But sir, there…” He hesitated, and then continued, “There is no Key master. I repeat, no Key master.”

“Explain.” The commanding voice boomed through its hushed forceful way.

“Key master was on board and is a no go, dead on impact… or before, either way, no Key master.” The breathing was back, loud and hard.

“And the status of the key master’s apprentices?” The superior voice asked.

Through a rapidly increasing kathump kathump of his overworked heart Arch Angel said, “None located, sir.”

The silence that followed was bottomless, and so intense that Arch Angel worried his overwhelming heart beat would be heard by the Commanding officer.

“Well then, we may have a serious situation. Reconfigure orders. Proceed to Alpha five. Shut and lock the gates immediately. Shoot the Hounds. Do you copy?” The superior asked.

“Sir, yes sir.” Arch angel chimed as he had to superior officers countless times before.

“Good. Grim Reaper out.”

“Arch Angel out.”

 

 

Copyright (c) 2008 by Gregory D. Welch

(Get your copy of the novel, “Fallen Angel, Risen Demon” soon!)